Dave Weigel at Slate notes that the Dems are amazingly united in their opposition to Republican extortion attempts:
They honestly expected a few of the Democrats to crack—after all, four of them are running for re-election in states that voted for Mitt Romney. “If you’re a Mark Pryor,” said Ted Cruz last week, “if you’re a Mary Landrieu, running for re-election in Arkansas and Louisiana, and you start to get 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, calls from your constituents, suddenly, it changes the calculus entirely.”
Landrieu and Pryor never buckled. They voted with the rest of the party to amend or table every House bill. So did Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan. So did West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate who’s not on the ballot again until 2018 but who’s on the record willing to delay the health insurance mandate. “This is about funding the government,” Manchin told me after one of his votes this week. “This isn’t about social issues.”
Why do they stick with Majority Leader Harry Reid—why, when three of them could cast “safe” no votes and Reid could still beat the House bills? Democratic aides say that the red-staters are “scared straight” by the House GOP. They’re not getting the calls from home to defund Obamacare. Their home-state papers aren’t dogging them, either. They’re in no fear of losing an “optics” battle to John Boehner and company…
Could I offer a simpler, structural explanation. The Red State Dems (Hagan, Begich, Landrieu and Pryor) all have one very significant vote on the record. They voted to approve ACA and the reconciliation act to create PPACA. They own the vote and they own PPACA. Anything else is Blue Dog fluffery that won’t help them generate any support from their door knockers while not gaining any votes from the Tea Baggers. Any how, it looks like Hagan, Begich and Landrieu are in decent early shape with the information that they voted for PPACA baked into the cake.
shelly
Nice NewsMax headline:
Billy Graham Hits Obama on ‘Hope and Change’
Good God, they’re still going on about a campaign slogan from 2008?
scav
Another whoops rears its head: GOP Rep Apologizes For ‘Shameful’ Remarks, Asks To Have Salary Withheld
Yatsuno
Incumbency is a helluva drug. Hell I could even see Pryor holding his seat if this shit keeps up, plus they’re putting up decent candidates in Montana and Georgia. Maybe 2014 won’t be such a disaster in the Senate.
? Martin
Meanwhile, in California:
Tommy
I was born in Lousiana and lived there later in my life. I visit the place every year. So I don’t mean this as a dig, but alas there are a lot of poor people in that state and this health care law, if people use the benefits they can get, well it will be a good thing for them. I am not a huge fan of Mary Landrieu but she have to be stupid to do anything to vote against the ACA in anyway.
? Martin
@Yatsuno: There’s a new development forming – Republicans getting primaried from the left:
I doubt this will work in the House races mentioned – it lacks the ground game that the Tea Party legitimately brings. But it suggests that alliances in 2014 might not be what everyone expects.
Cervantes
FYI: Dave’s last name is Weigel, not Weigal.
Villago Delenda Est
@shelly:
That fucking old fraud needs to die already.
You have to realize that the cretins of Newsmax were celebrating that “The Butler” had a lower boxoffice the second week of release. As if that were some sort of disastrous anomaly.
Amir Khalid
@scav:
I wonder who gave him the spanking.
rk
Basically we have reached a stage where we’re praising people for not being stupid. How much lower are our expectations going to get before this ends. Next we’ll start praising people for not chopping their own heads off.
shortstop
Fair enough, but couldn’t that be said of most of the panicked votes they make against party positions? I understand the position red-staters are in and I’m sympathetic to them having to thread the needle on lots of occasions, but some of their votes are undignified pandering to an audience that is never going to love them no matter how many times they get on their knees.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav:
Too late, shitstain Terry. You’re on the record.
You’re fucked, asshole.
jl
Get that quote down for the record:
” How bad will default be? “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets,” Yoho told the Post. ”
Get Ready. It’s Going to Happen.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/get-ready-it-s-going-to-happen
I personally think international financial markets will go wonky first. Eurodollar markets won’t have the equivalent of the Fed intervening to keep payment system stable or to provide liquidity if the Treasury decides to suspend payments on some of its securities.
And we have good evidence that the LIBOR system is not very robust, since for awhile it was a basically cooked by a cabal of banks and suborned traders.
Maybe it won’t happen, and I am not too worried (yet). From what I have heard in media, the GOP has pulled a McCain/Palin and news reports I’ve heard flatly state that the GOP has been shifting its demands and rationale, and maybe don’t know what it wants. But probably people who monitor the dregs and ultra dregs of media like CNN and Fox have heard differently.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe he just said it ‘for publicity’.
Tommy
@? Martin: I live in a pretty Republican district. In our last House election we had a tea party guy run against what I’d call a Blue Dog Democrat. The Tea Party guy got his ass kicked. OK he only lost by like a few thousands vote, closer then I would like, but he did lose.
feebog
I think Weigel is exactly right. The die are cast as far as the ACA votes go. What is going to help these Dems in red states is that there is going to be an awakening that all the shit Republicans have been throwing against the wall is just that.
RP
Why doesn’t Boehner just put it up to a vote and privately tell his colleagues to vote however they want? If the house votes to adopt the clean CR, he’s off the hook to some extent. At least that approach offers him a plausible way out. Standing firm has no end game.
scav
@Amir Khalid: No doubt those aforementioned “5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, calls from your constituents,” cheering on the noble cause. Or maybe he finally took a call from his PR flunky and could interpret the incoherent screaming.
Omnes Omnibus
@RP: The majority of his caucus do not want that. If he does it, he is likely out as Speaker.
Davis X. Machina
@RP: Asking a Republican to vote his conscience is like sending a eunuch over to the sperm bank.
mericafukyea
Geezus titty fucking christ on a stick. Too much over analysis. They just want to burn everything down. They don’t give a fuck. Anything Dems/Obama want they want the opposite. That’s pretty much it. No chess. They only know checkers.
RP
I guess that’s right. What a fucking depressing situation.
nemesis
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep. Its the same people who cheer when the Chevy Volt doesnt sell, since Detroit is a commie country (unions) with lots of blah people and remember the big bad gummit bailed out auto makers (who paid back their loans).
Tommy
@feebog: I live in a blue state, but a red district. I also get my media from MO even though I live just a few miles from St. Louis in IL. The Post Dispatch is all over this healthcare thing. Writing a lot of articles I find very helpful. Front page story after front page story. Infographics. You name it. I don’t read the editorial page, but the “news” sections are all in with the ACA.
Villago Delenda Est
@RP:
The problem is, that puts him in position for a palace coup.
He’s so in love with being Speaker, even of the most dysfunctional House in history, that he can’t do that.
? Martin
I wonder at what point do the Dems go to the GOP rank-and-file and say “Put up any candidate for Speaker that can avoid these situations and we’ll support them to get rid of Boehner”?
Even if that condition never comes to pass, it would have to make Boehner wonder where the greater risk is.
mericafukyea
Oh also they are still pissed about losing the civil war over 150 years ago. You cannot reason with people like that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If you’re a Mark Pryor,” said Ted Cruz last week, “if you’re a Mary Landrieu, running for re-election in Arkansas and Louisiana, and you start to get 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, calls from your constituents, suddenly, it changes the calculus entirely.”
Shows you how inept of a politician Cruz is – he sees these people on an almost daily bases and never sounded them out.
Suffern ACE
@shelly: Yesterday the Newsmax headline was something about Graham finding a cesspool of immorality.
Wow. Clergyman looks at general society and finds immorality!
burnspbesq
The tiny fringe group of conservatives that haven’t completely lost touch with reality is remarkably pissed off at the Republican Party.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/sometimes-the-thugs-and-knuckleheads-are-one-and-the-same/
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE:
He was looking in the mirror at the time.
He’s a crook and a fraud and always has been.
burnspbesq
@? Martin:
I love that Richmond is moving forward, but I don’t think it’s in anybody’s interest to assume this is a done deal. Lots of litigators are going to be trading their 328s for 750s off the back of this thing.
MattR
Just made my call to Rep Frelinghyusen. This is one of the few times that having a “moderate” Republican as a Congressman might actually be useful. Hopefully enough calls like mine can pressure him into acting like a moderate instead of just saying he is one. OTOH, if the office can figure out that I am a registered Democrat they might think my voice can be ignored.
Villago Delenda Est
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
He doesn’t talk to “those people”, you know.
If he did sound them out, it would fry some of his synapses with the mental gymnastics needed to doublethink what they said to conform to his ideological blinders.
pseudonymous in nc
@shelly:
The idea that Billy Graham is making an active contribution to current politics, as opposed to Franklin being a ventriloquist, is the greatest absurdity.
Tommy
@burnspbesq: I say this over and over again. My parents are moderate Republicans. I don’t have to argue with them that the world isn’t flat. Heck they believe in climate change. We can often find common ground. They are totally pissed off at folks like Cruz. I mean my mom voted for Obama cause she felt her party was attacking her right to use birth control. I mean my mom might look down on me a little cause I have sex with somebody that I am not married to. But she also understands sex might be fun and she has wanted to do it and not get pregnant.
? Martin
@burnspbesq: No, I agree. This is clearly an experiment that could easily fail, but it’s an experiment that should have been undertaken in 2009. Nice to see someone with the courage to see it through. What do you figure – two years before it’s settled in the courts?
Ken Adler
I think the red state democrat senators saw what happened to McCaskill, Reid and Coons and realize their opponents will probably be some bat shit crazy lunatics.
The seats are safe.
Now we need to talk about Cory Booker. What’s going on in NJ? Is he going to pull a Coakley and lose that seat?
Amir Khalid
@RP:
If Böhner puts a continuing resolution to a free vote in the House and it passes, thus reopening the federal government, the Tea Party tendency is surely going to want his head on a pike for betraying them to Obama. Yes, they’ll have been soundly defeated; but who knows, they might still have enough pull in the House to depose him as Speaker. And we do know he persists in clinging to the post for some reason.
peach flavored shampoo
/checks date. Yup, October 7th.
Come back here late on October 16th and I’ll give you a reach-around if you can still say this honestly.
The Other Chuck
@Villago Delenda Est: Not having seen The Butler, what about it particularly set wingnuts off? Or was it just some random two minute hate?
jl
And now Tom Coburn, noted expert on disability economics, predicts not increasing the debt ceiling is no big deal. His ‘argument’ below. Note that one down too for later reference.
I been saying that if the debt limit is not raised, it will not be an immediate plunge down into the abyss, but more like a slide down an every steepening slope of unknown profile. I guess Coburn thinks a what, maybe 5 to 10 percent immediate and permanent cut in federal spending will hot have an effect?
And for people that have been yelling about the ill effects of commie Obama’s Stalinist policies on uncertainty, I guess the uncertainty in financial market of having to monitor cash flows on a daily basis to try to figure the probability a Treasurey security won’t get paid on time, or paid at all, I guess that won’t increase the dreaded uncertainty.
‘ “Look, the debt ceiling and the [continuing resolution] are the same thing,” Coburn said on “CBS This Morning.” “There is no such thing as a debt ceiling in this country because it’s never been not increased and that’s why we’re $17 trillion in debt.”
“And I would dispel the rumor that’s going around that you hear on every newscast that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’ll default on our debt. We won’t,” he continued. “We’ll continue to pay our interest, we’ll continue to redeem bonds and we’ll issue new bonds to replace those. So it’s not entirely accurate.” ‘
Tom Coburn: US Won’t Default Congress Fails To Raise Debt Ceiling
TPM
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tom-coburn-us-won-t-default-if-congress-fails-to-raise-debt-ceiling
And actually, as one might expect, Coburn is wrong, there has been an episode where the debt ceiling was not raised in time and the executive branch had to do some fancy footwork Was in Eisenhower or Truman admins, IIRC. But whatever, we got Coburn’s confident prediction, and if the debt ceiling is not raised, I hope to see him asked about his prediction on the TV talkies.
Omnes Omnibus
@peach flavored shampoo:
Benjamin Franklin’s quip is rather apropos. It really isn’t in any Dem’s self-interest to break on this.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ken Adler:
What I don’t get about Booker is I’m seeing the ads for him (I’m on the west coast) and he’s all about “Fixing the Criminal Justice system”.
Say what? What exactly does that mean?
There is a serious constitutional crisis in progress, and he’s talking about something else?
beltane
@The Other Chuck: The Butler is about blah people. Just that alone is enough to set wingnuts off.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Villago Delenda Est: yes, he just ASSumes because he’s the smartest guy in the room. You got to wonder how many Republicans are acting this crazy just to fuck with Cruz.
Ash Can
I realize that I’m stating the obvious, because the Republicans have proven themselves incapable of envisioning and planning for even the events that work to their benefit, let alone the ones that don’t. But I do think that the Republicans haven’t the slightest clue of what forcing a default — or trying to, anyway — could end up doing for Obama’s stature both at home and abroad. I mean, look at the facts: Obama is a constitutional expert, he’s brilliant enough to use his knowledge of the constitution to determine effective remedies for unusual problems, and he’s already shown that he’s not afraid to take decisive action when the chips are down. I’m entirely confident that he has a contingency plan for protecting the full faith and credit of the US and won’t hesitate to put it into action if and when the time comes. And I’m just as confident that that time will come, because I think it’s pretty obvious that the GOP’s endgame is to (finally) trump up grounds to impeach Obama, and it’s now or never for them.
So what happens if all of that plays out? The GOP is left holding the bag as the ones sending the train hurtling off the cliff, and Obama is the one who dives into the scene in his blue-and-red cape and leotard, breaks the locomotive free from the cars full of passengers, and singlehandedly grinds his feet into the ground, pushing against the cars and stopping them before they can follow the engine off the wrecked trestle.
Think hard, GOP: Is this really the consequence you’re aiming for?
Botsplainer
@burnspbesq:
Its an interesting exercise of eminent domain, but one I suspect is doomed to failure.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl:
Isn’t failing to raise the debt ceiling and then not paying US obligations the fucking definition of a default?
Villago Delenda Est
@The Other Chuck:
Oh, the depiction of Ronald Reagan as disrespectful toward the black butler has them totally running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Any criticism, open, implied, or imagined, of the shitty grade Z movie star gets them worked up something fierce.
scav
@peach flavored shampoo: Oh yes, let us by not means acknowledge, credit or condone any productive cooperative activities so far. No cheering allowed during the football game, only a polite scattering of restrained applause after overtime as a suitable backdrop to the rolling credits.
Suffern ACE
@Ken Adler: I would say that if he loses, it really is going to be a disaster.
There are a lot of Chris Christie voters at my workplace – you know the Dems for Chris. They are pissed at the Republicans right now. But if that translates into voting against Booker (to get someone in there who’ll make tough decisions!), we’re screwed.
MomSense
@mericafukyea:
Reagan told them a little over 30 years ago that our government is the enemy and they are hell bent on destroying it.
raven
@The Other Chuck: I think the worst part is that a couple of the pivotal points didn’t really happen. I know people are going to jump up and down and scream at me but don’t make a fucking movie that is supposed to be based on fact and then make shit up.
Cassidy
OT- Anything can be made into an assault rifle.
Logan
Hagan’s fear in NC is turnout. She’s been an acceptable senator (since we have Burr to compare her to, she’s been #@$#$^~! fantastic) who hasn’t done anything outstandingly brain dead so most people in the state have no clue who she is.
The Republican brand in in some serious trouble here after the antics of the General Assembly and Art Pope’s Puppet on Blount St. Chances are anyone who blames Hagan for the current ^$%&^%* with the Govt. Shutdown probably was two hogs short of a barbeque and not going to vote for her anyways.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
With the way he worded that apology, it sounded like his missus was the one who called him on the carpet, especially since it included the part about setting a bad example for his kids.
burnspbesq
@? Martin:
Given the huge backlog in the Ninth Circuit, I don’t think this issue gets to the Supreme Court until 2017.
The Thin Black Duke
@The Other Chuck: The Butler‘s crime was depicting St. Ronnie as the bigoted, simple-minded fraud that he always was.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Don’t forget Hanoi Jane.
Tommy
@Suffern ACE: Can I ask a question about Christie? What is the love for him outside of like once in a blue moon he says something smart. Like his smack down of a reporter when he appointed a Muslim judge. I mean didn’t NJ lose like $260M in education dollars when they couldn’t figure out how to fill out a few forms?
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
If the pivotal points were falsified to make Reagan look GOOD, the Newsmax people would have no problem with it, at all.
Roger Moore
And they’ll do better if there are voters who are happy about being able to afford insurance balancing out the ones who are pissed about Obamacare. They’re already guaranteed to pay the price of voting for Obamacare, they might as well make sure it stays in place so they can at least reap the benefits.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Well, yes, but I attribute that to their idea that casting must conform to ideology…the actors portraying their heroes must be politically correct in real life.
They have problems, just as the shitty grade Z movie star did, with separating what’s on the screen from what is reality.
Punchy
@burnspbesq: Rubin’s not happy either
piratedan
@Punchy: when you’ve lost Jen Rubin it speaks to the tether being pretty much being lost and we’re seeing government by Id outta the GOP
burnspbesq
@Punchy:
Rubin making sense is a rare and strange thing, akin to Oregon showing up for a football game in tasteful unis.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: I report you decide. I just know I was really moved about his son being killed. . .
MomSense
@jl:
Doesn’t Coburn also think that high school promiscuity caused the tornadoes that hit OK?
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: One possibility is that since we’re shut down, we’re saving enough money on salaries and such that we’re actually running a surplus while in this mode. And that may well prove true – as if chasing the debt ceiling wasn’t hard enough, Lew now needs to navigate all of the uncertainty contained in keeping track of what revenues we stopped collecting and what payments we stop making due to the shutdown. It may be so utterly complex (and having to do it with reduced workforce) that he blows through the ceiling without realizing.
But that also should tell federal workers that so long as there’s no debt ceiling raise, that the Feds can’t provide back pay, and it may force Obama’s hand to shut down additional parts of the government to keep us under the limit. I don’t think this is what Coburn is on about. I think he’s talking about some American Exceptionalism economic unicorn that says that no matter what the US does, the world will keep holding US dollars and buying Treasuries because we’re just that awesome.
The GOP is doing a bang-up job of making the Euro and the Yuan look like the future of global currency.
Goblue72
@Yatsuno: having already absorbed the body blow of voting for the ACA in a red state, these Blue Dogs are best served by sticking to their guns and not abandoning their base. They can’t afford stay-at-home Dems. They need fired up Dems to keep their seats.
And given how insane the GOP is being, standing up to the looney tunes looks good to their Dem base voters.
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan:
Someone shut down that Krell supercomputer! Fast!
Belafon
@mericafukyea: True, but this post is talking about why the usual Democrats didn’t cave.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
As long as Uncle Phil is paying the bills, that will never happen.
Go Fighting Fashion Nightmares!
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: I am not so sure the euro is the currency of the future if we fuck up the dollar. It has its own issues.
Suffern ACE
@Tommy: Stuff appears to be rebuilt after Sandy, which is unusual for the state. If you take it for granted that you live in a state where emergency funds would be used to rebuild after a storm, that hasn’t actually been the case here.
Also, no sex scandal. And he’s not Jon Corzine. For the democratic leaning men who will cross over for him, its the tough guy schtik. I mean, he’s running on “reaching across the aisle” which of course he’s had to do since the legislature is controlled by the democrats.
Per above – why is Corey Booker running on the criminal justice reform? Well, because he can’t really run on “I’m going to Washington to add to the gridlock”. Which is how folks might be interpreting the shutdown at the moment.
? Martin
@MomSense:
Yes, it’s the rampant lesbianism in the OK high schools.
Shakezula
More proof that Cruz Missile’s cunning plan was based on wishful thinking and hot swampy air. If those calls had come through, he might have a point. If he knew anything about Landrieu’s constituents, he might have some idea about whether those calls were likely.
But if a man can think Landrieu is running for re-election in two states, I shouldn’t be surprised that he lives in a world of pure imagination.
feebog
@Ken Adler:
Yeah, Real Clear Politics shows an average spread of 41 points in the last four polls. Get real.
aimai
@Amir Khalid: If the tea party loses the CR vote and the debt ceiling vote they will be pissed but they won’t have enough pull to remove Boehner as speaker. Hell, Cantor couldn’t do it previously. None of the tea party guys has any pull or any friends–they are all as clueless as Cruz about what makes their fellow congressmen tick.
I really think we can’t know what Boehner will do–he seems indifferent to reality. He ought to know he can’t get anywhere with this intransigence, and he could end it tomorrow. So either he just doesn’t feel like bucking the most noisy members of his caucus and he doesn’t care if he crashes the world economy or he figures that at the last minute his strategy will be the same whatever. Either Obama and the Dems will capitulate (a great miracle happened there!) or they won’t and he goes through with an open vote figuring the CR and debt limit pass at hte same time on a voice vote so no one is embarrassed. I just think the part that is so weird is that he simply doesn’t give a fuck about the people being harmed by the shutdown, or the country’s reputation. That might be the alcohol pickling.
Betty Cracker
@jl: Yoho is deeply idiotic. I was visiting relatives in his district this weekend, and it’s clear at least some of his constituents (not necessarily my relatives) are every bit as moronic. They’re lapping this shutdown thing up with a spoon. They’ll be puzzled when their subsidy checks don’t come.
Chris
A big part of the “Southern Strategy” was for the Republicans to walk into historic ConservaDem districts that agreed with Republicans at the national level but still elected Democrats because the local party was conservative enough, boot out the ConservaDems and turn them into solid Republican seats. (The white South being the big prize).
Problem is that the Southern Strategy has been going on for fifty years and at this point, all the fruit that can be harvested has been harvested. After the conservative waves in 1994 and 2010, there aren’t a hell of a lot of Democrats left in unsafe seats with big, potentially troublesome conservative voter blocs to worry about.
Punchy
@burnspbesq: Y’all better be careful with all these football references, lest Cassidy jump in and accuse each of you of being in favor of child r*pe.
I agree that Oregon’s in it for the shock value at this point. Also, to sell a metric fuckton of jerseys for Nike, too.
NonyNony
@RP:
I suspect that there is a lot going on here that we’re not getting informed about. For starters – I still want to know exactly what Boehner is afraid of. From the sound of how fragmented the GOP caucus in the House is, it seems like it would be unlikely for any one candidate to get enough support to be able to take over for him. If Cantor actually had enough support he’d have the job now, so who exactly is Boehner afraid of?
Second – I think Boehner is to some degree playing the Tea Party folks at this point. He doesn’t want to blink on the government shutdown because it’s so close to debt ceiling time. He tried to push it all off onto the debt ceiling so he only had one thing to deal with, but that didn’t work. So now I think he’s stalling to see if maybe, just maybe, the Dems will crack. But if they don’t, if he can stall long enough he can roll the debt ceiling and the budget into one vote so that he doesn’t have to deal with his caucus losing their shit twice in a matter of weeks – they can just lose it in one long tantrum instead.
Best case for him is that his caucus holds out on the debt ceiling and Obama steps in and just unilaterally tells them to pound sand and issues debt using the 14th amendment/platinum coin/whatever. Then he can turn his caucus loose on Obama for impeachment as a distraction and he can offer up a CR to keep the government going while his Tea Party nutters are off in a corner salivating over articles of impeachment.
Tommy
@Suffern ACE: Interesting. I live in an area where the Mississippi is a moving force. Where we often have floods. I mean epic floods. We often get Federal funds and I ponder where those dollars went. So if he helped to rebuild, well I’d think that is a powerful thing.
I was just curious what a person that might live there thinks/knows.
Belafon
@Ash Can:
Here’s your choice:
1. Protect the full faith and credit of the US
or
2. Protect our representative system of government.
The president should not do the job of the House and Senate. It is their job to pass a bill that will be signed by the president that will fund government and allow it to pay its bills. It’s just as important that he does not take action on his own as it is for him not to give in to Republican demands to allow the House Republicans to effectively run the country.
Chris
@? Martin:
This is in line with what I’ve started thinking since the 2012 victory – the emerging map of American politics isn’t “left/right” or “liberal/conservative.” It’s “teabaggers/everyone else.”
If it becomes an actual trend rather than just something that lasts a couple elections, the end result will look like what we had in the middle of the nineteenth century. One party (Democrats then, Republicans today) made up entirely of bigoted, tribalist psychos, anchored in the South. The other party will be the “big tent,” with room for both a pro-business wing anchored in the Northeast (Liberal Republicans back then, Blue Dogs today) and a liberal wing (Radical Republicans back then – I don’t know, Progressive Caucus today?)
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: No one wants to replace Boehner; riding herd over the GOP caucus is not the road to a political future. Boehner is staying in the job through default.
catclub
@Omnes Omnibus: “Boehner is staying in the job through default.”
Pun intended? Fact intended?
Matt McIrvin
@? Martin:
Whoo hoo! Time to cut taxes!!!
MomSense
@? Martin:
OMG we are soooo screwed.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: Caught that, huh?
NCSteve
Nothing in Hagan’s record since she came to the Senate justified either party in expecting her to act like a Blue Dog. She’s only cast a tiny handful of votes that were annoying to me, about as many as any other deep blue senator. And, like Gillibrand, she’s been, if anything, more reliably center-left than she was as a state legislator.
Kay
The craziest part of the whole thing to me is they’re telling the base that the PPACA remaining in place means Democrats will have a built-in majority voting base, that it’s “the end” of Republicans.
I wish.
The level of fear is just crazy. I support the law and I don’t think it will be nearly that politically potent. Why do they even believe this? It’s contradicted in their own ranks. The Tea Party is composed of people who receive entitlements but hate entitlements and vote for Republicans.
If a government health care program alone could really create a permanent political majority we wouldn’t be in this mess, because Democrats already put in Medicare. We should be a permanent majority right now.
Linda Featheringill
@Belafon:
What the President should do:
I am confident that several people are working on options right now, thinking about them, clarifying them, and running them on on simulations to see what the consequences would be.
Obama is not going into this with no options in his pocket.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@peach flavored shampoo:
Dude, do you even know what “reach around” means?
Ted & Helen might be interested.
MikeJ
@jl: (quoting Cobag)
Actually the biggest reason we have $17T debt is because Reagan doubled the Roosevelt Security tax. Republicans keep warning us of the apocalypse that will come when it is paying out more than it takes in, but that is the moment when that $17T starts to shrink.
The Republicans always try to frame it as “we have to pay out all this Social Security AND we have all this debt. We have to cut SS because of the debt.” In fact, they’re the same thing.
Cassidy
@Punchy: Only if you lament your tailgating being messed because those pesky kids had the audacity to get raped.
Suffern ACE
@MikeJ: But if we pretended that that specific debt didn’t exist, we wouldn’t need to pay it back…
NonyNony
Grod the whole twitter thread there is just priceless. Steveadvil probably needs an advil after being such a goober.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to Tweet a thrown off bit of idiocy and confirm it.” That’s how the saying goes, right?
Violet
@MomSense: Sorry to go OT, but saw your post below about going vegan or vegetarian to control your cholesterol. Wanted to be sure you knew that soy is a problem if you have thyroid problems. It’s estrogenic and estrogen stresses the thyroid, making it work harder to produce the proper amount of thyroid hormone. If it turns out you’ve got a thyroid issue, limit your soy intake and it’s best to keep it to more natural or traditional forms–miso and tempeh because they’re fermented and that mitigates the estrogenic qualities, and a bit of edamame. Soy milk, soy, oil, etc. are not advised. Tofu is okay, but in small quantities. Vegans and vegetarians often use a lot of soy, so I wanted to mention it.
MikeJ
@? Martin:
Except that in dollar terms, we’re barely saving anything by having the gov’t shutdown. Social Security still goes out, military spending continues unabated. Those are the two biggest parts of the budget. Nothing else can function. The worst of both worlds. Nothing functioning, yet we save almost no money.
The Republicans are arguing that this shutdown doesn’t actually matter, since most of the money is being spent anyway, skipping over the fact that the job of the government isn’t being done.
MomSense
@Violet:
Thanks, Violet. Yes, I am avoiding soy. I do a small amount of tofu but mostly tempeh, beans, etc. I’m going to ask my doctor about my thyroid because of your post.
catclub
@MikeJ: “military spending continues unabated.”
Well, the workers are in their offices. But It is not clear that the contracting officers have any spending authority when there is no DOD appropriation in place.
Violet
@MomSense: Great! I am always glad when I can help someone learn about their thyroid. It was such a life changer for me and I don’t think doctors take it seriously enough.
I know someone mentioned getting the entire panel done. I’d also ask for the two anti-thyroid antibody tests to be done. If they are positive–or one is–then you’ve got Hashimoto’s, which is autoimmune disease of the thyroid. The treatment is pretty much the same–take thyroid medication–but Hashimoto’s can cause your thyroid to fluctuate so the hormone it releases isn’t the same over time. And one autoimmune disease can mean you have a tendency toward them so it’s good to keep an eye out for that.
I’d also say that more up-to-date doctors like to see TSH under 2.0, even when the range from the lab goes up to 5.5. Talk to your doctor about it if your TSH returns and is near or above 2.0. DO NOT let them just tell you your TSH is “normal.” GET THE VALUES and follow up. Being told my TSH was “normal” was what cost me over a year of feeling crappy. Who knows what it did to my body in the meantime.
Feel free to ask me questions if you get your results back. I am not a doctor, but having been through the fires, I’m an educated layperson and can point you in the direction of info if you need it. Best of luck.
Ash Can
@Belafon: And I think there are ways of getting around the appearances (what kids nowadays call “optics”) of unilateral action, beginning with the fact that he’ll have all of American business and the nation’s trading partners and creditors on his side. If the situation progresses to that point, I don’t think very many people will give a flying fuck what’s in Congress’s bailiwick and what isn’t. They’ll just want someone to put the damned fire out. If Obama’s in a situation where landslide consensus favors something that’s technically unilateral action, not too many negative consequences are going to arise.
jl
@? Martin:
” The GOP is doing a bang-up job of making the Euro and the Yuan look like the future of global currency. ”
The Eurodollar market was originally facilitated by the Fed and easy movement away from international capital controls. The Fed had the vision and skill and technical ability to manage the domestic U.S. bank deposits that from the ‘outside’ base money of the Eurodollar.
Maybe someday… but right now the ECB is in over its head and stuck in wrong-way thinking. Not sure about Yuan. China’s Yuan exchange rate policy is guided by the dollar.
Iran has been tried to set up a non-dollar international payment system, maybe they will step in and save the day.
I think international financial system will be first to freak out if failure to raise the debt limit touches US Treasury security safety, or destabilizes US dollar deposits.
Would be nice if there were another currency that is even halfway feasible. Maybe a multiple reserve currency system. Put the UK pound Swiss frank Yen and Yuan together (forget the Euro for now),
jefft452
@Ken Adler: “Now we need to talk about Cory Booker. What’s going on in NJ? Is he going to pull a Coakley and lose that seat?”
Lonagan is polling at 40%
He got at least 40% in each of the many races that he has lost
40% is what those political giants, Alf Landon, AuH2O, Geo McGovern, and Walter Mondale got
Did you really believe the early polls that predicted an 80-20 race? Any major party candidate will get at least 40%
The famous 27% “crazy factor” that Alan Keys got is an anomaly, no other major party candidate has ever done that poorly on election day
Chris
@jefft452:
That’s the point, made clearly by the author who coined the term.
27% isn’t supposed to be the Republican electorate. It’s the absolute rock bottom below which no Republican candidate can fall. It means the demographic of people who no matter how many reasons blatant reasons stack up to not vote Republican, will still vote Republican; who even if their own god came down to Earth and ordered them not to vote Republican, would still vote Republican; who even if you showed them footage of the Republican candidate burning their house down with a flame thrower, would still vote for him.
The fact that Keyes’ election was an anomaly is precisely the point. Obviously most Republicans don’t do that badly and will never do that badly; even FDR’s worst opponents usually hovered around 40%.
gelfling545
@shelly: Is Billy Graham still functioning well enough to “hit” anything or is his name being used by his organization? I thought he was in rough shape.
cckids
@The Other Chuck: Their main issue was that Jane Fonda (traitorcommie) was cast as the sainted Nancy.
Seriously.
joel hanes
@NonyNony:
I still want to know exactly what Boehner is afraid of.
Public humiliation in the eyes of Republican voters.
Losing face.
Losing the speakership.
Primary from the right.
jefft452
@Chris: “The fact that Keyes’ election was an anomaly is precisely the point. Obviously most Republicans don’t do that badly and will never do that badly; even FDR’s worst opponents usually hovered around 40%”
Yes, I don’t disagree
My point is that is why we should not freak out with the gloom and doom nonsense when Bookers opponent went up from 23% to 40%