I don’t know: does it get more idiotic, insular and out of touch than this?
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday that no Senate Republicans would vote to advance a government spending/debt-limit increase bill that replaces the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, which Senate Democrats are reportedly considering.
Graham suggested that such a deal would damage House Speaker John Boehner’s position by putting pressure on him to pass a bill with significant Democratic votes.
“Here’s what I’m worried about a deal coming out of the Senate, that a majority of Republicans can’t vote for in the House, that really does compromise Speaker Boehner’s leadership,” Graham said. “And after all this mess is over, do we really want to compromise John Boehner as leader of the House? I don’t think so.”
That’s what he’s worried about. John Boehner’s position. I can see why! Boehner’s leadership has been so outstanding since 2010!
All Americans should rally ’round a single House member. The fate of the tens of millions of people who are not John Boehner hinges on whether he keeps his job. Who among us isn’t willing to sacrifice for John Boehner and the Republican Party?
The Hastert Rule? Of primary and fundamental importance to most Americans, don’t you think?
Let’s just call this what it is. Conservatives fucked up, big time, and they’re now demanding that all of us take a hit to protect their sorry, pampered asses.
Hunter Gathers
Whitey can never fail. He can only be failed.
piratedan
really Lindsay, in business, people like you and Speaker Boehner get their asses fired, lets hope that we can give you the political equivalent real soon.
chopper
All this cause a handful of dicksacks are trying to save face.
KG
COUNTRY FIRST!
Fair Economist
So, the day after filibustering a debt limit increase that didn’t include a change to the sequester, they’re threatening to filibuster one that does as well.
The Senate Republicans are apparently going to join the House Republicans in not even being able to make coherent demands.
dmsilev
“And after all this mess is over, do we really want to compromise John Boehner as leader of the House?”
Kay
@piratedan:
How bad at this does John Boehner have to be before conservatives let him go? You know what the scariest part is? He’s the best they have.
As BAD as it is, it could be WORSE, apparently. They can’t let him go because his replacement will be more inept and incompetent! They know this better than you and I do, apparently.
Emerald
@dmsilev: Brilliant.
pseudonymous in nc
There are times in politics where it makes sense to leave the opposing side with a figleaf so that they can appear to have got something out of a confrontation.
There are other times where it’s important to leave no doubt about who lost, because you don’t want to reward bad behaviour.
Guess which one this is?
Kay
@chopper:
If I hear one more idiot in media say “save face” I am going to scream. You don’t get to save face when you fuck up this bad. No saving. That isn’t how it works. The price for fucking up this bad is a loss of face. Regular people have no duty to sacrifice to “save” John Boehner. None.
John Boehner isn’t at all concerned about me. Why would I ever care whether he saves face?
MattF
@Kay: I think Boehner’s weakness was his main selling point to the Teapartiers. They figured he’d cave to their demands, and he did. What happens after-Boehner is a hard question– is any other Republican in the House weak enough to satisfy a majority?
WereBear
They built this!
aimai
@Kay: It doesn’t matter how bad Boehner is because its not Boehner they are protecting: its the idea of a Republican Speaker of the House and its the idea of the battle they just waged. “We have to protect Boehner” is basically the same thing as “we need something that enables us to save face with our voters–and I don’t even know what that even would be.” They’ve been saying it all the way along because its true: their goal has always been simply to make their spite voters happy and what their spite voters wanted was to rein in Obama and the Dems, humiliate them and show them who is boss. For that reason any negotiated settlement which does not continue to humiliate the Dems and show Obama that he’s not so great is a non starter. A negotiated settlement or a vote in the Senate which deballs Boehner and the House Republicans is blowback that their voters explicitly won’t stand for. It doesn’t matter if its Boehner or someone else. They can not permit Obama and the Dems to look like they won anything.
Regnad Kcin
@Kay: plus seppuku
Corner Stone
@Kay:
I think they’re scared that if Boehner left they would have no one who wanted the job. What not-completely-nuts Republican would take it, knowing he’d have nothing but grief?
And what TP member would take it knowing he’d become a dreaded Washington insider and his TP folks would immediately turn on him?
What kind of goat would you have to be to want that job?
dmsilev
@aimai: As evidenced by the stream of GOP Reps saying things like “I don’t know what we want, but we must be respected!”
We’ve moved from government by screechy toddlers right to government by resentful teenagers.
gene108
@piratedan:
You do realize that if Lindsay gets fired his replacement will be from the darkest depths of South Carolina’s right-wing nut farm?
Lindsay ain’t loosin’ to a Democrat unless he decides to move out of South Carolina to some non-crazy ass state.
This is a state that voted Nikki Haley into office ’cause Sarah Palin told them to.
piratedan
@Kay: I agree Kay, I think part of the problem is that any Republican that has their shit together is most likely too savvy to take the position yet when I see the crew of R reps that are put in place in front of the camera I begin to wonder if there’s anyone truly competent and skilled enough to deal with the press that doesn’t sound like they need a bib to handle the overall frothiness that they exude. Makes me think that when you go down the list, who do they have… Peter King? Hell, would any of the neo-confederate warriors even vote for him? Which of the southern or western delegations sounds less reprehensible? It would have to be a complete unknown, because anyone else that has done any national face time looks like and have proven to be duplicitous loons. Although I guess on the R side that’s now a job requirement
Cacti
Joe Manchin of all people is suggesting that Senate Dems use the nuclear option on raising the debt ceiling.
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: Which, in a sense, protects Boehner. The only thing that can topple him from his post is a coup from his caucus, and if there’s nobody who seriously wants to replace him waiting in the wings, he’s safe.
azlib
I am happy to have the Republicans save face and take the country over the edge. My only condition is they make up the difference when my 401Ks crash and burn.
piratedan
@gene108: granted, but it will be hard to see how the GOP plays this shitburger into willful political amnesia in 2014, not saying it couldn’t be done, but with each day, each example of political lunacy, they’re digging their collective graves. Even South Carolina has to have limits.
gene108
@pseudonymous in nc:
The Republicans had their fig leaf. A CR funding government at sequestration levels. They threw it off and chose to run naked through the streets shouting for everyone to look at them.
And like most people, few of us look better naked than with something on.
Americans are not liking what they are seeing.
Villago Delenda Est
@azlib:
You’re going to be waiting a long time for that condition to be met.
After all, you’re a nobody, not the most important human being on the globe, John “I’ll have another bourbon on the rocks right now, peasant” Boner.
KG
@Corner Stone: It’d likely be Cantor or McCarthy under normal circumstances. Maybe Ryan, based on his, ahem, “experience” – but at the end of the day… I just don’t see how the GOP caucus could even pick a nominee, or if they did, if everyone would vote for him (I was originally going to say “them” but I can’t imagine the GOP nominating a woman for Speaker).
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan:
South Carolina. Too small for a republic, too large for an asylum.
Inoff non ob
Excerpt from The Past: A History Foundation Press, 2087. Translated from Anglo-Mandarin
Events in 2013 revealed—or some say accelerated—a rapid decline in the central role of the United States in global affairs. Although some loss of “hyperpower” status was inevitable given strong economic and culture growth outside of the “West”, few anticipated how rapidly the informal influence of the U.S. would wane, or the role policy decisions would play in the process.
First, the Snowden leaks revealed not just extensive U.S. spying efforts, but also unexpectedly high U.S. government power to gain the cooperation of communications and technology companies. The exposure of the legal, economic, and political means that U.S. spy agencies employed to gain access to user data and shape the security of various technology systems forced other nations and multi-national organizations to begin pulling away from what had until then been largely U.S.-centric standards and systems. Although costly in terms of efficiency, particularly from the perspective of the U.S., which had benefitted tremendously from its de facto position as the center of the internet universe, most felt they had no choice given the government’s apparent overreach.
Second, and perhaps most impactfully, the debt-ceiling crisis of October 2013 marked the first in a series of avoidable policy mistakes that undercut the country’s position at the center of global finance—a position long thought so foundational. Although close to agreement, in order to preserve the political career of a single politician, the U.S. went into a temporary default on it’s obligation. The sudden jump in interest rates following the failure kicked off a series of negative economic effects. However, at least one contemporary U.S. Senator noted that the billions in additional interest payments for the government, the tens of billions in more dispersed economic harms from a stalled recovery and higher borrowing costs, and the loss of confidence in U.S. governance that ultimately led the country to lost its place as the pole star in the world’s economic constellation, was worth it to save the then Speaker of the House of Representative’s political career.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Every one of them is Eric Cartman made flesh.
PsiFighter37
@Cacti: What a firebagger /not really
Good to see the usually-misguided junior senator from WV showing some sense.
MattF
@KG: In fact, there is a female Republican in the House leadership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_McMorris_Rodgers
Corner Stone
@dmsilev: Well, I actually don’t accept the premise that the Senate R’s are overly concerned about the mental health and future of Speaker Boehner.
Just more of the Hot Potato blathering by another running scared politician.
Graham has been overly, overtly, pandering to the right for at least 18 months now. He’s frustrated because he realizes the Senate R’s are going to “blink” and the House R’s are going to go wolfpack style all over them when they do.
TAPX486
Bickering over budget numbers and spending levels is as old as the republic. At some point the D’s come down from 100 billion and the R’s come up from 0 and they meet somewhere in the middle. There is an English word for that – compromise.
Unfortunately in the teaparty/GOP version of English compromise has become a concept worse than pedophilia. There are no grownups in the GOP anymore. Boehner could not convinced his members to get into the lifeboats on the Titanic and Turtle is facing a rightwing primary challenge. What ever degree of past reasonable behavior on his part is out the window. The same applies to the soggy Grahamcracker from South Carolina,
Now maybe all of this will blow up in the GOP’s face in the mid-terms but we have a long way to go until then. Since the expert guessers (.i.e. Nate Silver) are suggesting that the GOP will not suffer at the polls we are stuck with government by phoney crisis every 6 weeks for the forseable future As long as the GOP world view is ‘no government, no way, no time, ever’ nothing is going to change..
TaMara (BHF)
Kay, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you use such strong language before. Not that it isn’t warranted, because it definitely is…
geg6
FUCK! Senator Pittypat and the Orange Man want us to respect their Authoritah! but they so obviously have no authority. Other than with the Sunday bobble heads, that is. Fuck all of them.
Linda1961
“ ‘Here’s what I’m worried about a deal coming out of the Senate, that a majority of Republicans can’t vote for in the House, that really does compromise Speaker Boehner’s leadership,’ Graham said. ‘And after all this mess is over, do we really want to compromise John Boehner as leader of the House? I don’t think so.’ ”
Boehner’s leadership was already compromised when he allowed Ted Cruz to tell the teabaggers in the House what to do. A bit late to be concerned about Boehner’s leadership, but the gopers are grasping at anything that will give them what they think is cover. They are all so pathetic, even “reasonable” ones like Lindsey Graham.
An no, he won’t lose next year. I live in SC, and Graham isn’t well-liked, but not hated. He is going to be primaried, but will win the nomination, as there are several challengers, all of them wingnuts. One might have had a chance, but this way, the wingnut vote will be spread among the challengers. I doubt that the Democrats will come up with a viable candidate, so Graham will win again.
MomSense
@Kay:
This! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I hear them say this. The Republicans love to talk about personal responsibility but when people screw up in the real world, they get fired or their business fails or they have to figure out how to repair the damage. They don’t wait for someone else to rescue their pride.
PreservedKillick
This.
Ultimately, and I’m sure the republicans are aware of this, there are essentially two ways out of this: either Obama caves or they do, their party either actually splinters or is so non-functional that it will not function. All those members promising impeachment, defunding, and so on teed this up – as did Fox news and a whole crap load of “pundits”.
They are still hoping Obama will cave. The problem is, it’s completely in Obama’s advantage to wait, up to *and including* default. This is all on the R’s, and you can make a very solid case that getting some reality into the R party is necessary right now.
Meanwhile, and this likely happens even if we do not default, but it is game over if we do default, you can see what the dems will do next. There are going to be some *very* interesting funding calls over the next few months. The dems are going to run right down the R donor list, call each one and say “Look, we know you think we’re the pary of taxes and regulation. We’re better now…AND, we’re the party of sanity and stability. We don’t blow up the government. And if you are worried about taxes, what is the effective tax you’ve created for yourself by electing a republican? What does all that instability cost *you*? Do you really give a crap about all the social baggage they are forcing you to swallow, or do you just want to be open for business?”
I wouldn’t want to be in the republican’s shoes right now. On the one hand, your party either actually or effectively splinters. On the other, you are going to get split away from your money supply. On either hand, you are bleeding independent voters. Let things go too far and you will go down in infamy.
Really, it’s time for them to apply the first rule of holes. It’s been well past that time for at least a week now, but you can see they are starting to realize it. Finally.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Cantor’s too young to have Dolchstosslegende be (historically) applicable, but it would be a good meme to hang on him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
Not to mention the rabid animals that are the rank-and-file teatards that Huckleberry has been trying to appease for the last year and a half, in order to protect his phony-baloney job.
He can’t kiss ass to get out of this situation. The pack wants red meat, and they don’t care if it’s long pig.
Corner Stone
@KG: It would not be Cantor, as IMO he doesn’t want it as badly as some people speculate he does.
And Paul Ryan? Go from VP candidate to Speaker? I doubt sad puppy eyes would want it, either.
McCarthy, I don’t know. I actually wouldn’t doubt them trying to put McMorris-Rodgers up in a very cynical move.
gene108
@piratedan:
But I don’t think South Carolina has a strong enough Democratic party to take advantage of Republican screw ups.
This is the state that re-elected Mark Sanford to the U.S. House and which has a significant number of folks who considers Lindsay Graham a panty-waisted-liberal-fag, who should get primaried out of his seat.
Utah, South Carolina and a few other states are so solidly Republican now that there are not going to be electing Democrats in the near future.
Botsplainer
Snark aside, I sort of understand Huckleberry’s point – that Boehner, weak that he is, still has vestiges of a trace of a soul remaining. Miss Lindsay may be concerned about the caliber of a replacement and worried that we might not even get post offices named.
SiubhanDuinne
@piratedan:
Thanks for the guffaw!
Pogonip
I am curious as to why the Department of Defense appropriation has not been passed. I thought even Teabaggers liked DOD? Congresscritters certainly like having defense contractors and bases in their districts. (These days DOD is more a giant middle-class jobs program than it is actual defense.)
I am also curious as to why Apple thinks “Teabaggers” should be capitalized.
Thor Heyerdahl
@dmsilev: When I saw “Mr. Praline”, I thought you were going to riff on the ‘Crunchy Frog’ skit.
BruceFromOhio
I thought this is a feature of the modern GOP, not a bug.
@pseudonymous in nc: This. I want to see the burning wreckage of the House GOP arcing into the air in slow motion. If we all have to suffer, I want John Boehner and his wretched band of soulless two bit ratfuck criminals to writhe in exquisite anguish for all eternity.
PsiFighter37
@gene108: Well, there’s an outside shot we can take out Nikki Haley. Vince Shaheen is going for a rematch this year, and he only lost by 4 points in a huge GOP wave year (2010). Plus, she’s pretty much pissed off most of the GOP establishment in the state.
It’d be a first step back towards something…after we lost Fritz Hollings and John Spratt, we basically have no senior Democrats outside of Clyburn, who has a safely gerrymandered seat.
Kay
@MomSense:
The time for face-saving is over. I just don’t get any sense that doors close.
In real life, one choice often makes another choice impossible. Boehner had the face-saving period where he could have acted. It passed. Not making a choice at some point IS choosing.
Ash Can
@Corner Stone: I dunno — given the Teahadis’ often-demonstrated inability to think things through, I’d bet any number of them would love to get their hands on the gavel, because then they’d really lead the “conservative” cause on to victory, because God is on their side and they’re just so special. And I’d bet that even now the lure of power is strong enough to him that Eric Cantor would still want the job. These are people who have shown themselves to be thoroughly deluded in other ways, so although there is a chance that they’ve woken up here and gamed the scenario out for themselves, I don’t really expect them to have done this.
TAPX486
@gene108: In 1918 the war was ended by an armistice (and then later the Treaty of Versailles). Hitler rode the ‘stabbed in the back’ meme all the way to the disaster of WWII. One of the reasons for the Allied demand for unconditional surrender was to make sure current and future generations of Germans really really knew who lost the war.
As to the ‘fig leaf’ how about a pot of poison ivy!
Davis X. Machina
Look at it form their point of view….
Boehner is, as Speaker, the head of the House of Representatives. He got there by the majority votes of that body — all Republican votes. But he’s far more than Speaker.
Since an American government can by definition only be formed by Americans, i.e. Republicans, and the Senate and White House are in the hands of the other party, i.e. of not-Americans, he is the head of the presently-existing legitimate government of the United States.
As such, any effort to save his seat, and his job, is an effort to save legitimate government.
Extremism in the defense of extremism is no vice. And no mere institutional norms can stand in the way of a struggle against an occupying power.
Tell me we’re not having a cold civil war.
Oh, and WOLVERINES!
Scott S.
Do the Republicans not realize that if they’re not careful, they’ll have a lot more to worry about than Boehner’s and Graham’s sensitive fee-fees? They’ve spent the last year evangelizing that everyone should have guns, and now they’re about to go piss off three-quarters of the country by nuking the economy.
KG
@Corner Stone: The only reason I’d see Ryan taking it would be because it’d put him on the teevees most everyday, and he seems like the type that would believe that to be a good thing if he’s running for president in 2016. I don’t know enough about McMorris Rodgers to say one way or the other.
Corner Stone
I’m not much of a PC Police warrior, but I don’t enjoy when Maureen Dowd feminizes male D politicians and even though I have my own thoughts on Sen Graham, I don’t agree that orientation of any variety belies some kind of less-maleness.
PeakVT
And after all this mess is over, do we really want to compromise John Boehner as leader of the House?
What does this even mean?
Wait, hold on. Let me put on my Republican Thinking Cap.
Ah, okay. Lindsay is worried that Boehner’s wee-wee will shrivel.
FSM, that’s a fucked up way to look at the world.
ETA: It’s not even being done to protect Boehner’s seat. It’s being done to protect his speakership.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
Boner had already cut a deal with Obama and Reid, and then he could not deliver.
He’s closed the door to any negotiations by his failure to honor the last agreement he made.
Obama will soon be in the position of dictating terms. Boner had better pray to Mammon that Obama is merciful. Obama has no reason to be.
gene108
@TAPX486:
90% of Americans maybe in support of something but 90% of Americans are not going to vote in lock step on that issue.
Most people do not vote.
The ones that do vote are the ones politicians need to appease.
Republicans understand this.
Democrats still try to appeal to everyone, even those who do not vote.
SiubhanDuinne
@KG:
IANALNACS, and of course I know it’s a very strong, nearly inviolable, tradition to have the Speaker be from the majority party in the House — but is it actually a Constitutional requirement? I’m not suggesting that this House (especially this House!) would elect, oh, say, Nancy SMASH!! (although a girl can dream), but practicalities aside, is there any reason in theory why that couldn’t happen?
piratedan
@gene108: well hey, I can’t solve everything from these here blog posts, somebody local is going to have to do some of the lifting too y’know…… All I am saying is the R’s have done a nice job fertilizing, it’s up to us to plant some seeds and nurture them. No guarantees naturally, but the opportunity exists.
IowaOldLady
Mr IOL watches the Sunday shows and this morning they were still treating this as a deal making situation where both sides should give, whereas it seems to me Obama and most folks here see it as a process issue. The CR and debt limit are not occasions for deal making.
dogwood
@TAPX486:
The problem for Republicans is that a “a phony crisis every six weeks” will damage them electorally. Does anyone really think that a compromise budget coming out of conference is even possible? Or that if it did emerge the crazies would sign on?
SFAW
@geg6:
As one of my frat brothers used to say: “I wouldn’t fuck them with YOUR dick.”
Disclaimer: yes, I realize that the above is not “anatomically correct” re: you.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can: Just like they say that every morning the Senate has 100 people who look in the mirror and see the next POTUS, I can’t really disagree that the nutters may all fantasize about imagined power.
But there’s a limited pool, IMO, of crazy ass nuts who could actually be put forth. And most of those, IMO, see the bear trap hiding behind the podium.
MomSense
@Kay:
It seems like their insane ideology is catching up with the reality of what happens when you destroy government. People don’t like it. People like their paychecks, contracts paid, national parks, social security checks, VA services, food inspection, etc.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
I think it’s too late to admit that. It’s no one’s fault but theirs that John Boehner is the Gold Standard of Leadership on the Right. They all sat on their hands and were Good Conservatives for years. Now they smugly announce, “well, as bad as he sucks, let me tell you, the rest of them are WORSE”
It’s just another form of hostage taking. Bush did this constantly. Former President Bush always presented two narrow options: bad and WORSE. It’s a threat.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
No. You or I could be Speaker, if we could get enough votes.
Corner Stone
@KG:
She’s pure evil. And being groomed for more visibility, obviously. Not as stupid as Marsha Blackburn, but just as talking point-ish.
TAPX486
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s not a constitutional requirement, other than the house shall decide its own rules. I say one post that said a non-member of the House (no not Calagry Cruz) could be elected speaker. It’s just tradition and majority rule.
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne: No, there’s no legal requirement. In fact, I don’t think the Speaker is legally required to be a Representative (in which case, they would preside over the House but wouldn’t have a vote). Historically, I’m not sure the Speaker has ever been anyone except a Rep from the majority party though.
Cermet
a href=”#comment-4662103″>gene108: Agreed – for all Graham’s rightwing views, the man can be reasonable and will vote in Inferior Court Justices and Cabinet members for the sitting President. Not sure anyone else that the Crazy’s in SC would elect would do even that.@<
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
Words can not express my relief on finding that Boehner has in no way compromised himself as Speaker. For a minute there I thought that his speakership had been compromised by his drunken lurching from one policy position to another and his soiling himself whenever the TP says “Boo!”
Now to decide which of his faces we’re going to save.
chopper
@pseudonymous in nc:
I would love it if, at his next press conference, some reporter asked the president “what is best in life?”
Kay
@MomSense:
Do they have any idea how difficult the financial crash and aftermath was for people? Now that people are finally off the floor and on their knees, conservatives come barreling in to knock them flat again?
At some point, they won’t get back up.
How dare they infuse all this unnecessary risk into peoples’ lives? People haven’t been thru enough? They can’t have 6 damn months of peace so they can put their lives in order without this constant manufactured drama and chaos? I wouldn’t do this to my worst enemy. They’re on television crowing about it.
Dead Ernest
@aimai:
Aimai, yup.
Exactly, precisely, this.
That is some exquisite ‘gettin’ to the heart of the whole damn deal’ right there.
/with admiration.
SFAW
@chopper:
That would be awesome, if the proper response were given. But would Obama give it in an Austrian accent?
PeakVT
Potentially, all of the officers of the House and Senate (except the Veep) could be non-members. You’d have to have a really fucked up caucus for that to actually happen, I think.
dogwood
@Corner Stone:
I’m pretty sure McMorris Rogers is pregnant so I doubt she would be interested. She’s from my neck of the woods. Very stupid woman.
Baud
Is Obamacare the GOP’s Waterloo?
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@aimai:
Well said. They want to save their own faces. They’d shitcan Boehner in a hot second if anyone else volunteered to drive the clown car.
ETA: Speaker Gohmert?
piratedan
@Baud: is that the ABBA version or the Stonewall Jackson one?
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Baud:
It may be their Gallipoli.
celticdragonchick
Something I noticed while watching the first half hour of Fareed Zakharia at 10 this morning on CBS…
The ghost of David Broder was occupied somewhere else, because the entire panel was tearing into Republicans, and phrases like “extremist ideology”, “no compromise allowed” and “watches Fox News 5 to 6 hours a day, and getting only a narrow view of the world” were used abundantly.
CNN was starting to sound like the Rachel Maddow show.
Kay
@aimai:
Bottom line, it’s selfish. They can spin it any way they want but this whole thing is about them.
I hope they keep it up. I hope they keep talking about intra-Party battles in the GOP and insular process that no one outside of 1500 media and political people give a shit about.
From where I’m sitting, conservatives and media destroyed impeachment anyway, as a process. It means nothing. They threaten it every 6 weeks. Obama’s the President. I think he has a clear duty to protect the hundreds of millions of us from these clueless idiots. I don’t care how he does it, and I don’t care if they initiate a process they have completely discredited in prior years of recklessness and self-regard and ego, in response. Everyone outside their base will be disgusted and exhausted.
TAPX486
Paul Ryan is ralling the lemmings and trolls
It never strays very far from Obamacare.
An earlier comment was there are two options – Obama caves or the GOP caves. The third option of course is at the last minute Obama goes the trillion dollar coin or the 14th amendment route. I understand his reluctance, using the clouded title to a house analogy, but a clouded title would still be better than being homeless in the middle of a blizzard at -30 degrees
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Boehner keeps fucking up the way he has, this could happen.
Thanks. That’s pretty much what I thought. I believe the same is true of being on the Supreme Court. So what’s your pleasure? You wanna be Speaker Href and I’ll be Associate Justice Duinne, or vice versa?
Anoniminous
@TAPX486:
We’re too far away from November 2014 and we don’t have enough data (polling) to make a reasoned, justifiable, prediction.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
@SFAW:
I have absolutely no clue why I called you href.
Oh wait (just looked at code string), yes I do.
Sorry!!
piratedan
@Kay: and all of these fucking histrionics that the GOP is putting themselves (and by extension, the rest of the country) thru are wholly manufactured out of pixie dust. There is a clean CR bill to be voted on, bring it up and vote. If you violate a self imposed Hastert Rule, then so be it, do what needs doing.
It’s not that fucking hard, you made a mistake, a political miscalculation, you lost, now do what needs to be done. Do these guys really believe the bullshit that they’re peddling that they can never be wrong, that they always win? If that’s the case, then get the fuck outta politics boys and start writing fanfic for a living.
TAPX486
@Anoniminous: That was Nate Silvers point. One can always hope and use it as a club to get the democratic turn out up.
Ruckus
Kay
Right to the meat of the issue. These pampered assholes want everything, all the money, all the power and none of the responsibility. They have no idea how societies work… or don’t. They live in a tiny little world of pomposity and bluster that keeps reenforcing itself with the village and their own bullshit. In other words they are snotty, pampered 7 yr olds who demand their way or they are going to throw a tantrum forever. Their prospective is that the world turns around that stick up their ass. It really doesn’t but snotty 7 yr olds don’t have the ability to see that. At some point these children with power will have to be made to see this. It has and will cost us all. A lot.
We are going to have to pay enormously for having snotty 7yr olds in charge, there is no way around that. I just hope we can live through it. It varies moment by moment that I think we can or that I think we won’t.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
Graham has revealed an important truth about Republicans; “Leadership” now means drunkenly lurching from one position to another and evacuating your bowels when the Tea Party makes a demand.
dmsilev
@TAPX486:
It’s like watching Captain Ahab pursuing the Great White Whale. Or a cat chasing the dot from a laser pointer.
Yatsuno
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
The one where he cries and the fake orange starts melting off his face. I’ve always been partial to that one.
gbear
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
Win.
Botsplainer
@SFAW:
Ronald Reagan’s desiccated corpse. They could prop it up at the lectern like one of those Chinese dried animations of plasticized bodies. It would put no bills forward and accomplish nothing, so it would be the perfect teabagger Speaker.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’d be Speaker, but only if I get to hire and fire whom I choose. No major changes of course. Just like in “Putney Swope.”
Plus, I’m sure you would look better than I, nicely decked out in your judicial robes. And if Fat “I believes in the Debbil!” Nino is the one you replace, so much the better.
See, and I just thought it was a typo of “H.Rep.” or similar. Either way, no problem.
Anoniminous
@TAPX486:
You’re right. I should have made that plain in my comment.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t know either one of you but I’d bet good money that you’d both do a better job than what we have now.
Ruckus
@Botsplainer:
Sort of like the one now?
Kay
@piratedan:
John Boehner can fix this any time he wants.
So I guess we all have to wait until they admit that every single other door is closed, and then John Boehner will make a “choice”? Seven year olds understand consequences better than that. Why should anyone at all outside of John Boehner suffer for his incompetence and cowardice?
He’s been in government his entire adult life. He knew they were never “repealing” Obamacare. Yet he’s allowed this thing to continue day after day. The Senate had to take it away from the House. He’s failing at this. Failed. Pull the plug.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Nicely done.
Although if it were a white whale, they wouldn’t be pursuing it, I’m a-thinking.
Baud
@Kay:
Those crazy Ohioans. ;-)
SFAW
@Ruckus:
She’d be fine.
I, on the other hand, would probably waste a little time, trying to get the Teahadi members and their enablers brought up on treason or sedition charges (as appropriate). Would that REALLY be a good use of my time as Speaker?
marv
Pretty nervy to stick your head that far up your ass and then ask a Democrat to help you save face.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Boehner has refused to confront his members [and] is paying the price. He’s let the crazies out there, who have convinced themselves that Obama is a liar, drive the car and it’s now stuck on the train tracks with an Acela Express on its way… (That linky was discussed in AL’s piece a few days ago.)
They convinced themselves that Obama was lying when he said he wouldn’t negotiate on a CR and the debt ceiling this time. They convinced themselves that Obama was lying when he said that default would be a disaster. They convinced themselves that they held all the cards when they actually just holding aces and eights…
No matter how this turns out, Boehner and the Republicans are going to pay a big price. The Senate isn’t going to be immune from the damage, either. Obama and Reid have to stay strong on the principle that they’re not going to reward this behavior.
Cheers,
Scott.
TAPX486
Oh the humanity!!! Ed Henry’s fee fees have been bruised –
Was probably more productive without him any way.
SFAW
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
If only that were so.
MomSense
@Kay:
The first problem is that the crash demonstrated perfectly that the financial prescriptions they had been promoting for 30 years were bullshit. Their economic theories were devastatingly false but they had far too much invested in them to turn away. So they denied everything and then with the media assist, they transferred all the anger and anxiety about the financial crisis into legislative victory in 2010.
I think they knew how devastating it was because they certainly talked a good game about jobs but they do not care at allabout the actual human beings who were harmed. When you consider the consequences of the policies they advocate, and you listen to the way they characterize people who receive food and housing assistance you realize that they are not concerned with the well being of human beings. The economy, the financial system and policies they want are ruthless and brutal.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I keep wondering if he really wants to fix it.
He must know that it is possible, he can’t possibly have remained this clueless at this point.
That’s why I think he really wants to both keep being speaker and have the TP win their tantrum.
I keep having this vision of the house building being TPed by a bunch of old farts. Of course they’d be using kochsucker tp to do the deed.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I wish NYT would hire Kay. Can we dissolve congress for not upholding the constitution (full faith and credit…)? New elections?
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Yes, Yes it would.
Kay
@Baud:
I understand that all of these people have personal relationships with this person, but for God’s sake. Enough already. None of US have a relationship with him. I don’t give a shit about his career, or his “leadership role”.
He’s a terrible leader. I think he probably relied on “relationships” his whole career, but that has CLEARLY broken down, because he has no relationship AT ALL with 1/2 of his members. He doesn’t know them. His single talent is useless. I honestly think it gets back to that. They’d have to admit that the thing they trade on, membership in the club, has (obviously) been rendered meaningless.
Does the whole country have to go along on their silly, sentimental nostalgia ride? Tip O’Neill isn’t rising from the dead. That’s over.
Ruckus
@marv:
Nice.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
But, see, if any of them were convicted of treason, they would never be allowed to hold office again. And that would hurt Lindsey Graham’s fee-fees. Or something like that. (Convicted of seditious conspiracy allows them to hold office again, I think.)
Besides, what kind of message would execution by firing squad send to the impressionable children in the Tea Bagger caucus?
BBA
If we had a nonpartisan Speaker, as in Britain, the CR and debt authorization would have passed before October 1. Then again, in Britain that could force the House to dissolve itself and call early elections. Which also wouldn’t be too bad.
hoodie
@aimai: Maybe, but that may be ancillary with respect to an internal GOP power dynamic. Boehner preserves the fiction that guys like Graham still control the GOP. It’s becoming obvious that they don’t. Here in NC, the News and Observer political column today was talking about how Renee Ellmers, a former Teatard darling, is facing a primary challenge from a leader of the GOP in her district; even McConnell is being primaried. Graham knows that if Boehner bites the dust, the battle to be his replacement will lay bare the insanity that has gripped the GOP and how powerless he and other “moderate” Republicans really are. Money will leave those guys overnight and will flow to Dems, because the latter will be the only game in town and this episode is telling a chunk of the business community you can’t deal with the teabaggers because they’re nucking futz/toxic stupid. If Boehner falls, the perception of the party will fully match the reality, and guys like Lindsay and Grampa Walnuts will be extinct.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Watching Fox News with my mom this morning was interesting — message of the day seems to be “both sides do it!”
Ash Can
@TAPX486: LOL! That’s great.
Botsplainer
@Ruckus:
Not really. Unlike the current Speaker, Reagan’s dessicated corpse would be charming and somewhat amusing.
billgerat
You know, this whole thing reminds me of Dog Day Afternoon.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Maybe a positive message? One can hope, but considering they don’t understand anything else, probably not.
Ruckus
@Botsplainer:
Touche.
And LOL.
Snarla
“I furloughed 800,000 American workers and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” <– the only thing the president should give the Republicans.
Dee Loralei
I’m waiting for Obama or someone to go all Ned Beaty on their asses, “You have messed with the primal forces of nature……” speech from Network.
SFAW
@Snarla:
I don’t know, maybe a 2×4 – figurative or literal – upside their collective head might be appropriate, too.
Ruckus
@Snarla:
I like the idea, I just don’t want to pay anymore for those assholes.
Besides throwing T shirts at them won’t do enough damage. Maybe we could use large engraved stone tablets. They like those don’t they?
Kay
@hoodie:
Completely agree.
It’s ALL self-interest and selfishness, ALL the way down. We can look at it from 50 different perspectives; some of them are busy fleecing their base (again), some of them are protecting their fading institutional power, some of the are running for President, but the thing they have in common is they are ALL happy to screw us to benefit themselves.
NickM
Maybe when the stock market drops so fast over the next couple days the circuit breakers go off, even the teatard loons will start to worry about their investment accounts. They couldn’t all be 100% invested in gold, bullets and seeds.
Elizabelle
OT: Delighted to see Sarah Palin is campaigning for the NJ teapartyin’ governor-wanna be this weekend.
Sarah will remind Booker’s voters what is at stake.
Fear the moose!!
(And tomorrow the Duggars — at 19 kids and counting — start their bus-athon on behalf of Cuccinelli in Virginia. Women: watch out!)
JGabriel
No, Lindsey, you’re right, it’s better that we should compromise the President of the United States over the most ineffective Speaker of the House since the Civil War.
Jackass.
SFAW
Reading this string, and over the last few days in general, I am reminded that Boehner is the opposite, political-courage-wise, of the Senator in “Melancholy Elephants.”
TopClimber
I have thoroughly enjoyed all the humorous putdowns of Graham and Boehner here, but I think many have missed the slick way South Carolina’s finest has left himself wriggle room. Granted, I have only read accounts of his interview and not endured it in all its original splendor, but he seems to be saying no CR passes that includes changes to total spending levels.
Well, since the CR will most likely be of short duration (say, thru the end of 2013), that is about where the Dems in the Senate will wind up. As long as the debt ceiling threat is then off the table, it brings us back to budget negotiations for the whole year (thru 9/30/14). In other words, we have the same deal Reid thought he had with JB a few scant weeks ago– with the better outcome that Teahadist overreach pissed away whatever “leverage” Boehner thought he was going to have in the debt fight.
You have to admire the way Lindsey whines like a TPer but acts like a weasel.
gene108
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Pretty Shocking!
Fox’s usual message is “it is all the Democrats fault”.
Kay
@TopClimber:
I don’t think we can say that. I know that’s how it was reported, that they “accepted” sequester levels, but there’s two parts to that deal. There’s the number and then there’s the duration of how long the “acceptance” lasts. They’re negotiating duration. I can’t find anything that says they “accepted” a date-certain as to duration. If the duration expires, then they start budget negotiations at a higher number. That’s what they’re trying to EITHER preserve or achieve. Whether it’s “preserve” or “achieve” I don’t know.
AxelFoley
@chopper:
This! Dammit, this needs to happen, LOL
pluege
Dennis Haqstart himself said there is no Hastart rule – it was a preference. All it is is a House version of the filibuster – letting a minority of miscreants in the House deny Americans what they want and need.
Gex
Oh, and from now on, I’m going back to calling them Teabaggers. That’s what they called themselves at first until they noticed everyone else snickering. It so perfectly highlights their inability to have a clue and their impulse to get angry at others for their own actions.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
If ever there was a bus plunge I’d root for to happen, that’s the one.
greenprowler
This entire mess is about a power grab over spilled milk (losing the presidential election).
fuckwit
What upsets me most is that all this outrageous bullshit– like Graham’s hostage-taking to protect Boehner’s hostage-taking– happen in the shadows where no Americans can see it unless they’re political junkies like us.
That is what’s most dangerous about all this. All this wrangling is inside baseball. Sure, it’s “public”, but if something happens in public and the public didn’t actually see it, did it really happen?
We’ve already seen this with some shitbag Senator or another filibustering the bill to guarantee back pay to furloughed employees!! It passed the House unanimously– probably via a back-room deal made with same Senator who promised to filibuster it, to give the House Rethugs cover to vote for it. And now it’s shut down in the Senate. Genius move. And who knows that actually happened? Anyone?
A democracy only works if the public is 1) informed, 2) educated, 3) has time to pay attention, and 4) gives a shit. We have none of the above at the moment.
JGabriel
chopper:
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We can start gloating once the GOP caves, the shutdown is ended, and the debt ceiling is lifted. Until then, remember, we’re Democrats — we could still fuck this up.
In the meantime, let’s just enjoy, while it lasts, the schadenfreude of watching the GOP crack up.
.
shortstop
And it’s even more than all Americans. Apparently the world economy rests on our not being insufficiently respectful to Mr. John Boehner. BLOWS. MY. MIND.
Fort Geek
@Snarla: …and they have to PAY for the shirts.
gvg
I don’t think Linsey is aware enough to have this meaning, but their actually is a problem with JB losing the speakership-who would replace him? last week one of the news networks was running reminder clips of the speakers almost not election in the house. Various factions tried to get someone else but apparently couldn’t agree on an alternative and the election was held with lots of republicans voting random other speakers. He only won by a few votes. this was given as the reason he was so weak and has been from the get go. He doesn’t actually have much loyalty from his caucus.
So the problem isn’t just what if it’s a worse nut replacing him, it’s a problem of what happens if nobody can get enough votes? I think we still have to be able to pass a few things now and then. How does the government operate with no actual speaker?
I have actually wondered how many reps would have to defect for Nancy to become majority leader. If the chaos lasts long enough, it might be possible but really I’m just worried about how can government work with no speaker? I don’t know of any past example?
Cthulhu
@KG:
And “Jobs Jobs Jobs!”
Cthulhu
@pseudonymous in nc:
Problem being, this is a moment for the Democrats to re-enact Sherman’s march through Georgia on the Repukes, and they can’t seem to get going.
E.A. Blair
“Boehner” + “leadership” = oxymoran.