(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.
The MSM is getting desperate, too. Jon Chait, in NYmag:
… The debt ceiling turns out to be unexploded ordnance lying around the American form of government. Only custom or moral compunction stops the opposition party from using it to nullify the president’s powers, or, for that matter, the president from using it to nullify Congress’s. (Obama could, theoretically, threaten to veto a debt ceiling hike unless Congress attaches it to the creation of single-payer health insurance.) To weaponize the debt ceiling, you must be willing to inflict harm on millions of innocent people. It is a shockingly powerful self-destruct button built into our very system of government, but only useful for the most ideologically hardened or borderline sociopathic. But it turns out to be the perfect tool for the contemporary GOP: a party large enough to control a chamber of Congress yet too small to win the presidency, and infused with a dangerous, millenarian combination of overheated Randian paranoia and fully justified fear of adverse demographic trends. The only thing that limits the debt ceiling’s potency at the moment is the widespread suspicion that Boehner is too old school, too lacking in the Leninist will to power that fires his newer co-partisans, to actually carry out his threat. (He has suggested as much to some colleagues in private.) Boehner himself is thus the one weak link in the House Republicans’ ability to carry out a kind of rolling coup against the Obama administration. Unfortunately, Boehner’s control of his chamber is tenuous enough that, like the ailing monarch of a crumbling regime, it’s impossible to strike an agreement with him in full security it will be carried out.
The standoff embroiling Washington represents far more than the specifics of the demands on the table, or even the prospect of economic calamity. It is an incipient constitutional crisis. Obama foolishly set the precedent in 2011 that he would let Congress jack him up for a debt-ceiling hike. He now has to crush the practice completely, lest it become ritualized. Obama not only must refuse to trade concessions for a debt-ceiling hike; he has to make it clear that he will endure default before he submits to ransom. To pay a ransom now, even a tiny one, would ensure an endless succession of debt-ceiling ransoms until, eventually, the two sides fail to agree on the correct size of the ransom and default follows.
This is a domestic Cuban Missile Crisis. A single blunder could have unalterable consequences: If Obama buckles his no-ransom stance, the debt-ceiling-hostage genie will be out of the bottle. If Republicans believe he is bluffing, or accept his position but obstinately refuse it, or try to lift the debt ceiling and simply botch the vote count, a second Great Recession could ensue….
The prophet Nostradumbass
Thank goodness there isn’t an embedded video from that horrible band mentioned in the title.
SectionH
I got through most of my HS and Uni years by cranking out shit like that without blinking. Wish I’d got paid that well for the BS he’s cranking out.
Toles is good though, and I wouldn’t have seen this otherwise.
I’m basically waiting for Mr S to get on his flight NRT-MSP.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
Hey, they did have a unique take on Metallica’s music. I liked it very, very much.
The Dangerman
I don’t get it; the first line on the top article on RedState is:
How delusional do you have to be to believe that shit?
ETA: I like Apocolyptica, too (as does Kirk Hammett, at the very least)
Sinnach
We really are farked. Half the even remotely literal sites I go to are expecting a last-minute cave from Democrats and the other half are painting it as partisan gridlock or whatnot instead of the shakedown it really is. I really can’t see any outcome that isn’t a massive, massive trainwreck for the country if not the D’s. We can cave, we can default, or we can rely upon Republicans to not double down on stupid when they’re already in a hole. Yeah, that third one’s really going to happen.
max
I have seen lots of good shutdown cartoons but I think XKCD wins.
max
[‘Damn lizard people.’]
The prophet Nostradumbass
@RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual: The first time I heard it I thought, “hmm, that’s interesting”. I got tired of that stuff pretty quickly. Their “original” material is crap.
I think they really “jumped the shark”, as it were (I wish there was another term for that), when I saw them appear on the Eurovision Song Contest broadcast.
Seanly
Hmm, I hope our coming cannibal overlords enjoy munching on my fatty thighs in our soon to fucked future.
nwithers
My only complaint with the comic is that they didn’t get that unique shade of orange that comes from liver failure due to alcoholism and abuse of tanning products that is Boehner’s trademark.
SectionH
@max: giggle.
Jennifer
Boehner needs to wake up with a horse’s head in his bed sometime in the next week or this shit’s going down. The Teahadists aren’t really even part of this equation – Boehner can bring a clean bill to lift the debt ceiling to the floor at any moment without their approval and it will easily pass. I can’t imagine why he would think clinging to his post – which clearly at this point is merely a ceremonial one, it being obvious that he has no real power – for a few more months would be worth going down in history not as just the weakest House Speaker in history, but as the weakest House Speaker in history who also caused the first worldwide depression of the new millenium. How long does he think he’ll remain in the speaker’s post after that happens, anyway?
New Dem talking point: just as the driver who had “the last clear chance” to avoid the accident is the one who gets the ticket, Boehner is the sole individual with the power to not only get the government open again but to avoid the possibility of government default. If he fails to do either, the ticket’s going to have his name on it when the history books are written.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Seanly: “In all the universe, there is no food as well-marbled as the American human!” – Kang.
nwithers
@max: Pure win
Hill Dweller
@Sinnach: Many on the left were shitting their pants when Obama met with Boehner last week.
Obama caved in 2011 because he feared another economic collapse, and with it the end of any hope for a second term. He isn’t facing another election, and this will set a precedent for the remainder of his time in office. If Obama caves this time, he might as well resign, because they’ll ignore him anyway.
Anyone who thinks this is run of the mill gridlock is ignorant.
Tommy
@Sinnach: You just said it. “The other half are painting it as partisan gridlock or whatnot instead of the shakedown it really is.” I am a huge liberal, but often times I can find a way to compromise. I do it over and over again. At this time I have come to the point where if you want to fuck shit up I say, lets fuck shit up. You want to drive that car head on at me, well I will just put the peddle to the metal and go at you. Cause I feel if I give in to you, well you will put a gun to my head for the rest of my life. You will not negotiate in good faith with me.
The Dangerman
@Jennifer:
This will go down to the very last second before the DL gets resolved; buckle up, it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
BruinKid
Anne, you saw the NSFWCORP article about Charles Koch’s ties to the Holocaust denial movement? And look who appears, Gary North, who now runs Ron Paul’s online “school” curriculum.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@BruinKid: Why am I not surprised by that?
Redshirt
I used to think the End of the World would be cool. But now, with so many younglings running about…. It’s all changed, alas! And alack, also too.
Feudalism Now!
Boehner thinks this is his last hurrah. The Teahadis want the country to go boom and so the country will go boom. There is nothing Boehner feels he can do. He won’t put a clean CR to a vote, because it will show how minimal his ‘leadership’ is and how he lost to Obama again. We will default because the Tea Party will primary him from the right and he doesn’t want to have to actually campaign on his failure. He is an orange Eeyore, resigned to the flushing of the USA down the drain.
piratedan
well considering he’s apparently shown the right moves with Iraq, OBL, Libya, Afghanistan, LGBT rights,and Syria; I think I’ll just try and have a bit of faith
piratedan
@Feudalism Now!: well there is the discharge petition that Rep Van Hollen is distributing and if he gets enough signatures, he’ll procedurally force Boehner’s hand unless the GOP House decides to break additional rules (like that’s bothered them so far).
My preference is for those folks and the behind the scenes masterminds (Meese and the Koch Brothers) simply get arrested, I’m sure that if we “follow the money” we can find some link from the Teahadies and the Money Men that violates some law, some where because I just don’t give too many of those folks much credit for being smart unless the evil sinister movers and shakers behind the scenes have planted good henchpeople on their staffs to handle the niceties, but then again, these guys are notoriously tight with a buck on human resources and prefer to do their close in knife work over the public airwaves and use some less ethically inclined advert agencies to do their wet work.
Tommy
@BruinKid: That was hard to read. My grandfather came across a concentration camp in Poland during WWII. He never talked about his service, but often said hate was a bad thing.
SIA
@piratedan: I have heaps of faith in PBO, in Boehner & Co, none. Today’s the first time I thought the US might actually default. Over nothing.
magurakurin
@Tommy: I’m with you, fuck it. Obama should take no quarter. Let them blow it up. Doing this over and over again forever will bring more instability to the world than this explosion. And I think Obama is thinking the same thing. The Repukes are crazy if they think he is going to fold. And from now and forever I will refer to the Repukes only as Repukes. Also, anyone who votes for them will be dead to me. Fuck em all.
piratedan
@SIA: and while I understand that Obama has to hold firm on this issue throughout the CR and Debt Limit, I am appalled at the number of people that the R’s are willing to risk in their legislative hostage taking to simply prevent Americans from having a more responsive and affordable health care system. Not just in our country, but all over the world if they cause the US to default (unless Obama simply brushes that aside with his own political maneuvering) thereby leading to a worldwide panic. Granted, most GOP adherents may also appear to be survivalist preppers and as such hope to thrive in the new bunker economy, but I really don’t want to see him cave to these craven assholes who disdain equal rights, science, tolerance and empathy. I know that violence isn’t the answer, but they sure get my blood pressure rising as I wish misfortune befall them all.
hitchhiker
@Hill Dweller:
And aren’t we all still pissed off that he had no other choice? And aren’t we all still glad that he forced them to give him enough stimulus $$ in that deal to keep the recovery afloat?
We’ve had a painful & slow recovery, but it’s much better than what’s going on in Europe. We don’t have Rs in the White house, thank FSM. If anybody can tell me another way Obama could have pulled this off after the 2010 elections, I’d love to hear it.
I trust that Obama means what he’s been plainly saying for the last two years: the debt ceiling is not a hostage, and he’s not going to act as if it is. Period.
The Rs are going to start feeling the pressure next week from their friends in business, who are really the only people they care about. The TP is going to be exposed as a boatload of losers & fools, but they will still have done enough damage to the brand to prevent the Rs from taking the Senate for the third straight cycle. It will be a thing to behold.
And then we’re going to talk immigration reform.
Tommy
@magurakurin: What is the phrase, fuck with the bull you get the horns. Look I am laid back. I don’t want to fight. But I feel those on the right will bend me over and not even have the common courtesy to give me a reach around. I’ve tried to work with them. You want to fuck with me, well I can be a mean, mean person. I bet I am not alone here.
piratedan
@hitchhiker: and perhaps a jobs bill to fix what is falling apart and replace what is needed.
LesGS
@piratedan: While the discharge petition does seem like a long shot, it does give me some hope to know that some of our representatives are still fighting the good fight trying to get us out of this mess.
(Funny thing about Van Hollen; when I first saw his name come up connected with the petition, I thought, ‘Hm, there can’t be that many Chris Van Hollens in the world, so I looked him up on Wiki, and sure enough, we’d lived next door to one another when we were 9 in Ankara, Turkey when our dads were stationed at the embassy there.)
jl
@Hill Dweller:
If I understand you correctly (IIUYC), then the following is wrong, and people should stop typing
” Obama foolishly set the precedent in 2011 that he would let Congress jack him up for a debt-ceiling hike. ”
Some one please correct me if I misremember, but I do not remember Obama setting the precedent ‘let Congress jack him up for a debt-ceiling hike’.
Congress did jack Obama up and he had to respond as best he could. And I don’t see the exact precedent, since in 2011 the issue was about negotiating a policy of long run debt reduction, which is related to the debt limit. There was also a figleaf of bipartisanship to it.
This time the House GOP, which at this point cannot pass a fart, demanded the repeal or delay of the ACA, funding of which right now does not have anything to do with the debt, and demanded that the 2012 GOP candidate’s policies be enacted.
That was then, this is now. And Obama has nothing to lose and everything to win by handling the matter a different way.
The GOP jackasses may have belatedly noticed this when they decided to go on TV and try to change the subject to the debt, rather than what they had been yelling about for weeks:destroying the ACA and using the CR and debt ceiling to pass a President Romney legislative agenda.
What the hell Boehner is doing, I don’t know. I read he went on TV and lied over and over again how clean bills for both could never ever get approved by the House.
Edited to clean up and correct what O has to win and lose this time.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@jl:
For some reason, Boehner is putting keeping his current job, Speaker of the House, at which he is terrible, over everything else.
billgerat
@The Dangerman: Where do they get the delusion that they are winning? The comments there prove that the wingnuts really believe that causing a default will only aid their cause.
TheMightyTrowel
In SF for the week being a tourist with my mom. Just spent two days in glorious Palm Springs at the best wedding I’ve ever attended. It was my first trip to Southern California… I’m off the opinion that LA is a special kind of help and I hope all the tea party loons end up trapped there.
Suffern ACE
@billgerat: because if the government defaults, the democrats can’t buy voters.
Liquid
Something like “letting the world burn if you can be king of the ashes.”
Fair Economist
The scary thing about Boehner waiting until the last minute to release America from his debt limit gun to its head is: nobody will know what the last minute is until after the gun goes off. If he dawdles around hoping for a miracle to save him by the time he acts it may be too late.
piratedan
@billgerat: if all you listen to is Faux News and a weekly fellating by Wolf over at CNN and Chickles Todd @ MSNBC it’s pretty easy to believe. Besides, they don’t have to win the hearts and mind of the nation, they could screw 80 year old nuns on live TV and tell the public that those sisters of the church were harboring the secret of Obama’s secret birth and had to do it to get to the TRUTH. Besides, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that their end game is indeed the destruction of the nation and in the outrage and carnage of a financial meltdown, they pull a legislative putsch of dubious proportions. After all, they have the beltway press and a national propaganda network on 24/7 and the vast majority of AM radio in their pockets. What scares me is that they think it could succeed.
fuckwit
Yep, Chait is a fucking tool.
In 2011, Obama was angling for a Grand Bargain to reduce the debt forever, so that concern about it will no longger be a drag on the economy, the MOTU’s in NYC and Brussels will STFU about it forever, and the Rethugs can’t keep using it as an excuse to not govern, or to cut aid to the poor, or whatever they have been using it as an excuse for whenever there’s a Democrat in the White House. He had some good– if not at all lefty– ideas about how to really come to the table and hash something out and be done with this fucking issue forever.
Instead the Rethugs held him hostage. I remember the press conference in 2011 when Obama came out and said basically Orange Man is a sham and a boy sent to do a man’s job, and can’t keep a fucking promise or to make a deal and then keep it, and claims to have power he doesn’t actually have, and his word isn’t worth shit. Obama was pissed, probably the most angry I’d ever seen him.
That was 2011. Now the Rethugs are trying to hold the debt limt hostage TO SABOTAGE A LAW THAT HAS BEEN IN PLACE FOR YEARS NOW. It’s not the same thing, ain’t no ballpark neither, not even the same damn game.
Peaceful government operates because people are willing to follow the rules. THAT IS HOW VIOLENCE IS PREVENTED. Do you people even fucking understand how important following the rules is? You have agreements, and rules, and conventions, and act in good faith, and respect for those, and then you get to have government without having to fucking shoot at each other to resolve conflicts. True at the national level, true in the UN as well. Talk is the alternative to violence. Rules are the alternative to people actually fucking dying. You have to treat the rules with respect… if you don’t, all hell quite literally breaks loose.
The Rethugs are not respecting the rules. You can’t just nullify a law by taking hostages and demanding ransom. That’s not a peaceful government. That’s not an orderly government. That’s a breakdown in the order, and if you breakdown the order, and there is no peaceful way to resolve disputes, this leads directly enough to people shooting and bombing and all kinds of evil. Well not directly– in this case it’s economic violence that will come first, and SERIOUS economic violence, and that will lead quickly enough to the real people-bleeding kind.
This really is fucked up. I have never been so frightened. I’m kind of in shock though, taken a bit by surprise, because I thought we we’d been through the worst of it and were on the way back to healing, when Democrats took the Congress in 2006 and Obama won in 2008. Now I feel like the backsliding is way, way more dangerous… because it’s disordery and chaotic. At least Cheney acted rationally and predictably. There was order, it was just an order I didn’t like, one that was corrupt and leading dangerously towards dictatorship. There was at least someone in control.
This is different. Nobody is in control, at least not on the R side. This is the edge of total fucking chaos, it’s leading towards anarchy. That is scarier to me.
Mary G
Dow futures are down 77 after the market was up 76 on Friday. That makes me think the money guys aren’t that worried yet.
Pres. O has said he won’t budge, and I think he will stand fast.
dogwood
What I don’t understand is this idea that Obama caused this by negotiating the last time. Perhaps I give the President too much credit, but I’ve never thought he was stupid or weak. In 2011 POTUS and the party were in a much weaker position than they are now. They had lost the midterms decisively. Obviously he hoped the Republicans wouldn’t pull this again, but i doubt he is even remotely suprized that they did. I always assumed he wanted to face the ultimate showdown at the time and place of his choosing. You also have to factor in the fact that House and Senate Dems were shell-shocked after the midterms. Do you think they would have held firm with the President? I don’t. So I guess I’m asking someone here who agrees with Chait to explain why default in 2011 instead of 2013 would have been the better route.
billgerat
@Suffern ACE: The Democrats won’t need to buy votes in the event of default. A lot of voters will switch sides to the Democrats in disgust with the GOP in 2014. Whether it will be enough to change control of the House remains to be seen.
Hill Dweller
@jl:
What I tried to say, apparently unsuccessfully, was the dynamic was different in 2011 than it is now. PO feared the effects on a default on his reelection chances back in 2011, which would have also been the end of Obamacare. Now, he isn’t facing reelection, and this current showdown will set a precedent for the remainder of his time in office. He can’t give an inch this time around.
jl
Obama response can be much bolder now.
Is the Treasury’s gold in Fort Knox still there? It was as of August 2013. There are about 245 million ounces of bullion.
Status Report of U.S. Treasury-Owned Gold
http://www.fms.treas.gov/gold/current.html
Can do something with that. Might extend things a couple or weeks. And it would be wonderful to hear the roars of outrage from the goldbugs.
The Paul’s would roar and weep, smear themselves in ashes and rend their garments. That would be fun to watch.
fuckwit
@Fair Economist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t33HXyN6WM “Is this what you want? Is this what you want?”
piratedan
@jl: perhaps the Big O needs to take us off the Gold Standard and put us on the Bullshit Standard instead, because it seems like there’s an endless upply in the country and we have our own seemingly perpetual engine in place in the House GP, all we have to do is keep electing Democrats and that puppy might be able to allow us the electrify the world!
Yatsuno
@Liquid: Varys’ warning to the Queen of Thorns is appropriate here indeed. That would make Rafael Cruz Littlefinger. Lord help us all.
Suffern ACE
@Hill Dweller: frankly, I still think he got a better deal than I expected. He got the republicans to give up tax increases prior to “super committee” negotiations. The failure was thinking that the super committee would compromise. Instead the republicans brought the Ryan plan and aren’t going to budge.
jl
@Hill Dweller: Maybe I wasn’t clear. I agree with you on the politics.
In 2011 Obama was trying to negotiate a grand debt bargain (which I thought was a bad idea). I do not recall Obama suggesting that the budget or debt ceiling should be held hostage to those negotiations.
The House GOP caucus, emboldened by gains in 2010, decided to hold the debt as ransom. Obama’s ill advised grand bargain on the debt was just an excuse. If that hadn’t been there, something else would have. I think what we see now is evidence for that.
So, I think we agree.
This is politics. That was then, this is now, and there are even good reasons for that. Obama has more freedom of action, and time for lazy pundits to quit prattling about precedents so much.
John Revolta
The Rs are going to start feeling the pressure next week from their friends in business,
The Chamber of Commerce is saying they’ll back up any Congressmen who break with the idiots and vote for the CR. The Party is just about over.
dogwood
If my post at #40 sounds like it comes from someone who hasn’t read any of the other comments,you would be right. Sorry about that. I typed it when there were only two comments. Got a phone call, came back and hit the send button.
jl
Some of these pundits remind me of the good citizens who came out to watch what they expected to the the picturesque and amusing First Battle of Bull Run (aka First Manassas, lest I disrespect certain elements of our leg, and they increase their demands!), . They will watch and congratulate themselves on their savvy about what is going on and how it will all turn out.
I can hardly wait, except, actually, I can.
Hill Dweller
@Suffern ACE: PO and the Dems thought tying the military cuts to the other cuts would force the wingnuts to replace at least part of the sequester, but that didn’t happen. If they can change or eliminate the sequester without giving away too much, the 2011 deal will look a lot better.
First and foremost, PO can’t give an inch to Republicans during the current crisis.
Jay S
@Mary G: The MOTU’s aren’t believers yet. Hopefully they are not wrong.
If this isn’t kabuki they may not have as much influence as they believe. I’m not sure a TARP failure level stock market decline will happen soon enough to shock politicians into sobriety, or even penetrate their alternate reality before things fall apart.
Suffern ACE
@John Revolta: I read somewhere that the chamber spent $60 million in the last election cycle. Koch spent 200 million e on this defund Obama campaign alone. I don’t think the chamber is real threatening.
Hill Dweller
@jl: Fournier and Todd are sociopaths.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The way these T-tard congressmen are talking about how defaulting will be great for the economy makes me wonder if they are some some kind of ant-depressant. People have compared their self delusion to Hitler in 1945 and it’s worth noting Hitler was drugged to the gills then.
Keith P.
What tends to get my blood pressure up is that the MSM never gets to the problem with the whole shutdown-Obamacare delay situation – the GOP wants a one year delay in exchange for funding the government for a year. I mean, it’s so obvious what would happen if Obama accepted it that it’s idiocy for the MSM not to mention it, while it’s messaging malpractice for the Obama administration not to harp on it endlessly – if Obama were to agree to this, we’d be going through the exact same thing every September for the rest of Obama’s presidency, effectively delaying Obamacare into oblivion.
Suffern ACE
@Jay S: my fear is that outside of New York, no one likes the motus. Besides, as the last vestiges of Rockefeller Rrpublicans, wouldn’t the kochs want to take them out since they are rivals?
Jay S
@Suffern ACE: I don’t think anyone particularly liked the MOTUs but they respected them because they needed their funding. It’s less clear that enough of them feel that need today.
jl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Krugman had a recent post saying that interest rates are already behaving as they would with increasing probability of default. Just that interest rates are so low, and movements so small (edit: so far), that no one has noticed.
Wonder if the good Congressmen will say the same thing if those increases get larger and they are noticed?
Mencken was an optimist. The country can operate, at least for two terms, when the president is an idiot. Did he ever write about idiots capturing a branch of Congress.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jl: So in other words their hostage is already dead? That will really make the Democrats cave,..
I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me; Iraq proved the Republicans were both evil and inept.
Darkrose
@The Dangerman: I love them. I mean, a Finnish cello Metallica cover band? What’s not to like?
Mary G
Social Security checks come out on Wednesdays, so my bet is the Rs let the ceiling go unraised on the 17th, but cave in on the 22nd, a Tuesday, to save their constituents from the evil blah President.
cckids
@fuckwit: I’m terrified too, we are just starting to get our financial life back to a decent place after Bush took the economy swan diving into the empty pool. I’m not sure how we come back from another global meltdown. And, more & more, when you listen to these . . . . feckin’ MORONS in the TeaParty, they seem to truly not believe that defaulting will cause much of a problem. That is what scares me most of all, that not only are these fools ready to blow things up, they don’t seem to realize that they are holding dynamite in one hand & a lit torch in the other.
Alison
@Mary G: From your lips to God’s and the fucking GOP’s ears. I’m on SSDI and if I don’t get my check, I swear I’m gonna hire a courier to deliver bags of flaming dog shit to Boehner’s house.
dogwood
@jl:
No news to anyone here, but we don’t have a very democratic form of government. And that’s by design. The minority elites who wrote the Constitution were careful to limit the possibility of tyranny of the majority. Of course they wanted to protect their privilege and property, but they had legitimate concerns about the rabble. I suspect Madison would be surprised to find out that the rabble are now the minority and they are tyrannizing the majority.
cckids
@Yatsuno: I find myself thinking again & again of Gen. Sherman’s quote about his march to the sea:
“War is the remedy our opponents have chosen to resolve our differences, and I mean to give them all they want of it.”
President Obama just cannot let these nihilists take us down.
Nellie in NZ
Tonight’s news here in NZ: NZ Prime Minister John Key will replace Obama in chairing negotiations on economic trade talks at APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) and China is eager to capitalize on being the stable government on the Pacific, as opposed to the unstable and unreliable United States.
Bruuuuce
@Jennifer: I thought he already had received one, from Paul “Magical Budget Dust” Ryan and the Tea Party, which would explain why his pants are brown.
I’m with Atrios: if the GOP can’t get its act together, mint the trillion-dollar coin. Then prosecute Boehner and whomever else can be hit with charges, including anything up to and including felony extortion and failure to fulfill their oaths of office.
xenos
@Bruuuuce: Atrios is not a lawyer. Treason and sedition do not cover political activity, no matter how reckless and destructive.
I has to be more blunt. Explain to the public that Boehner is acting to destroy the the functioning of the government, and that compromising with him will lead to the steady and inexorable decline and collapse of the country. Then tell Boehner to quit playing around – pass a clean debt limit or convene a constitutional convention already. No middle ground.
Bruuuuce
@xenos: Sorry, IIRC the Atrios part was only the trillion dollar coin. The criminal charges (neither of which you mention that I did, please note) was me talking. Sorry I wasn’t clear on that.
Interrobang
I was going to send that NSFWCorp link to a friend in private, but I got on Facebook and the first thing that I saw was a couple of my Israeli friends swapping a picture with a quote from Ayn Rand more or less about how if a corporation puts you over a barrel (for healthcare, by implication) that’s a good thing, but if the government offers you healthcare, that’s the end of the world, so I said fuck it, and posted the article on my timeline. I want the one of them in particular, who hates anything that even vaguely could be construed antisemitism as with a passion, to see just exactly who she’s in bed with.
Snarki, child of Loki
@nwithers: Anyone else notice that The Boner is wearing a coal-scuttle (aka Nazi) helmet?
Oh wait, that’s the official “leader of the GOP caucus” hat. Never mind.
SFAW
@xenos:
At some level, it’s not Boehner that needs to have the fear of FSM put in him, it’s the Teahadis. Of course, the Drinker of the House could try to work with the Dems, fuck the “Hastert Rule,” lose his Drinkership, but “save” the world economy.
The alternative is to have some well-meaning soul research the US Code for any of the permutations of terrorism, treason, and sedition, and see if there’s anything applicable for luminaries such as Rafa T. “Viva Fidel!” Cruz, Ted Yoohoo, and a few others.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Snarki, child of Loki:
In case you haven’t noticed, the entire U.S. military has been wearing that same style of helmet for years now.
Cervantes
@jl: This time the House GOP, which at this point cannot pass a fart, demanded the repeal or delay of the ACA, funding of which right now does not have anything to do with the debt.
Slight correction: Funding and implementing the ACA would probably reduce the deficit (and debt).
RP
The “Obama created this by caving in 2011” meme makes no sense. If he had refused to negotiate then we’d have had this same crisis a couple years ago, so what’s the difference?
gogol's wife
@piratedan:
I can’t believe he doesn’t have a plan. But why should he have to worry about the people in his own government?
The damage these traitors are doing is unfathomable.
LAC
@hitchhiker: amen. I liked krugman’s piece better. It managed to avoid the overused simpleton nattering about “caving” in 2011. Given our pouty baby antics in 2010, we handed him a bullshiit House. He is trying to govern, not win a dick wagging contest. Unlike the changing story of “why we shit on the American people” from that overgrown drunk oompaloompa, the president has been consistent and clear with his message.
Liberty60
@cckids: I’m coming to the conclusion that if the Teahadists want a shutdown, if they want a default, then we should give it to them, good and hard.
I’m tired of the threats, tired of the rightwing commenters bravely claiming that government is the problem.
Fuck em. If they think they can live without government, then lets let it fall and see whose Hoverround gets hurt the most.
Jay B.
@LAC:
People said he can’t negotiate in 2011. He did. It was predictable and predicted that if he did make the deal then, the GOP will do it again the next time. This is the next time. Will you please, please, please understand now, at long last, this is what some of us “firebaggers” were warning about?
SFAW
@gogol’s wife:
Traitors? I think they’re trying to delay the execution of any law. Or maybe they’re just “advocating.”
LAC
@Jay B.: was that your concern when you sat on you hands in 2010? That’s why democrats lost the House? So it wasn’t the”sparkle pony we want our single payer plan even though it is not politically feasible and how dare Obama not listen to us and well show him and ARRRGHH!!?” Well that makes more sense…yeeeeaaah
TenguPhule
Just arrest the GOP house and have them shot trying to escape.