Since it looks like a deal in the Senate is imminent, the question of the morning is whether Ted Cruz will filibuster it. My guess is that he won’t let it go by with at least a feint in the direction of obstruction, but he doesn’t have the guts to blow the whole thing up. What’s your guess? Remember, it’s cheating to refer to the online version of the DSM-5 when formulating your answer.
Update, via Culture of Truth in the comments:
Conservatives are revolting this morning in the House, will not accept Senate deal, decisions/calls in 6-8am range sealed fate among 50 Bloc
— Robert Costa (@robertcostaNRO) October 15, 2013
dmsilev
What about Lindsey Graham and his hissy fit over the weekend threatening to object (and hence force a cloture vote with the associated delays) if the Vitter Amendment doesn’t get a vote?
My guess is that since he’s just demanding a vote, they give him that, it fails, and his staff members draw straws to see who gets to be first in line to refill his whiskey bottle with urine.
WereBear
The answer lies in the question, “What is best for Ted Cruz?”
bjacques
Meanwhile, in the House…
Botsplainer
He may be stupid enough to try while whining about the rules of the Senate giving him a chance to run his mouth. As he’s shouting in a spit-flecked, inchoate rage, Reid gavels and tallies the voting, blowing the living fuck out of parliamentary niceties. Chuck Todd and Halperin will speak volumes about how Reid has taken a big, steaming shit on the traditions of the Senate, while the rest of voting America (minus the absolute crazified 24%) breathes a sigh of relief that shit got done.
Rand Paul will put his arm around Cruz’ shaking shoulder (shaking from all the sobs) and whisper tenderly in his ear as he quietly walks him out of the chamber.
Joey Maloney
@WereBear: Actually the question is, “What does Ted Cruz think is best for Ted Cruz?” Given his demonstrated level of strategerical planning, those two things may be very far apart.
Cermet
Since the real power – money – doesn’t want a debt ceiling crash, than I’d say its a done deal and Teddy boy falls into line as the dickhead, money hungry thug he is, and the bills gets thru the senate in time for the house to pass it; demorats will be needed.
dmsilev
I’m actually assuming that Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and a few other members of the Senate Moron Caucus will be wrapped in rope, their mouths duct-taped shut, and stashed in a broom closet in the sub-basement of the Capitol.
After the crisis is over, Reid will ask for unanimous consent to leave them there, and it will be granted enthusiastically.
Hawes
I’d worry more about Mike Lee or one of those other Great Basin whackaloons. More interesting is what Cruz told the Kompletely Krazy Kaucus last night. He’ll get them to fall on the sword.
Culture of Truth
Robert Costsa is tweeting that the House will not accept current Senate deal.
Hawes
@dmsilev: isn’t it interesting that America’s foremost closet case and a guy who pays prostitutes to diaper him are going out of their way to piss off the folks who know their darkest secrets?
raven
The days slide by
Should have done, should have done, we all sigh
Never thought I’d ever be so lonely
After such a long, long time
Time out of mind
Accidentally like a martyr
elftx
reported he was meeting w/House members in restaurant
Wag
He will try and blow it up. He won’t be able to stop himself.
Belafon
He won’t filibuster, but he will complain about the House not doing it’s job of blocking the bill after it get’s to the president’s desk.
Ash Can
Given this (h/t the alert commenters at LGF), I’d say no, he doesn’t have the guts to blow it up; he’s leaning on the House Wackos to do his dirty work for him. It’s a tough call, though, since he’s so in awe of himself and is such a grandstanding asswipe. It’s certainly possible that he was meeting with the House Teahadis to apprise them of an imminent Grand and Glorious Stand Against the Infidels and the Great Satan instead. But I think it’s more likely that he’s venal enough to be backing down from doing it himself, and is saying to the House, “Let’s you and him fight.”
Botsplainer
@Wag:
He’s on a mission from God….
John O
@Wag:
That’s how I read him. Can you say, “megalomaniac?”
So if the clowns in the House shoot down the deal, is there even time to put something back in place before we default?
Ash Can
@dmsilev:
No way in hell would Lindsay Fucking Graham have the nerve to blow this up himself.
Gopher2b
Why is everyone assuming it gets a vote in the House? Does it have to come to a vote?
JPL
@John O: My guess is they add an amendment that poisons the entire bill. Reconciliation will happen and it will remove the amendment and it will pass both the house and Senate, It will not happen in time, though.
Schlemizel
Costa got one thing right, conservatives are revolting
elftx
Costa saying House will not accept Senate deal..mentioned the word “revolt”
I am really beginning to hate these fukers
Botsplainer
@John O:
Only if Reid is willing to say “fuck it” over the parliamentary bullshit.
WereBear
@Joey Maloney: His wife works for Goldman Sachs! No way he doesn’t know the consequences.
PLH in NYC
Of course the conservatives are revolting. But you won’t see that meme in the MSM.
Keith G
Well let’s see, my junior Senator is not up for reelection til 2018. He seems to have no plans to get legislative cred. If he buckles quietly he will lose quite a bit of his street cred on the far right, yet the powerful Texas business, energy, and financial interests are not to be trifled with and they will extract a price if Cruz fucks with their quarterly numbers.
If he wants a legit run for president, he needs the nutters to get nominated, but he needs the suits to run a national campaign.
I think that now he will face more downside for obstruction than for a temporary “go along”.
Crashman06
Now things will get interesting. If the market collapses today, maybe it’ll be enough to scare these fools into action. If not, then default here we come?
Botsplainer
@Ash Can:
He’s got hot Teatard breath on the back of his neck in a state with a higher Teatard demographic than Mississippi.
Belafon
@WereBear: I read a quote sometime in the last two weeks that Cruz’s wife’s boss said to her, “Do you and your husband…talk?”
Ash Can
@Culture of Truth:
Assuming Cruz backs down from blowing the deal up himself, this dumps the whole heap of fertilizer (back) in Boehner’s lap, now with the added kicker of a looming deadline and the MOTU undoubtedly leaning on him with threats of God-knows-what to do the right thing. That ought to brighten his day.
Cermet
@John O: All depends on when they shoot it down – isn’t a lot of time left.
Botsplainer
@Keith G:
He is nuts, however.
@WereBear:
While this could be a “create instabilities and sell short” moment for the Cruz family, not only is he a crazy, he also strikes me as kinda gay. She could be a beard.
Southern Beale
Robert Costa is wrong. Conservatives are revolting everywhere, not just in the house and not just in the morning. They’re revolting as a political movement.
Fun wiith synonyms.
aimai
@WereBear: To conquer him and drive him before us. To see his women weeping bitter tears.
JPL
@Belafon: I saw a what if joke about the wife talking to the boss but it does sound like it could happen.
Dennis G.
@Culture of Truth: Pickett’s Charge, baby, Pickett’s Charge. This time it’s gonna work!
JPL
Has Goldman Sachs been dumping treasuries? hmmm
aimai
@Culture of Truth: Given that the House passed the anti-discharge new resolution thingy that prevents any individual house member from bringing up a Senate bill for a vote without the express permission of Boehner or Cantor (or maybe even just Cantor) where do we stand with Cantor? Because there is no way they can get anything done without Dem votes and to bring in Dem votes they have to agree to hold the damned vote in the first place. If “the house is revolting” what does that mean in terms of the actual people who are needed to bring a vote to the floor?
Joey Maloney
@WereBear: Well, and apes read philosophy, too.
Cermet
@Ash Can: Someone told me Grahram is ex-JAG; then no way he would harm the Government no matter what he says. He’ll always vote in the best interest of the country, just watch: remember, he supported Obama’s choice for the inferior court even through that was against his party and base. He’s a right winger but not crazy. He just wants his chance to vote no to prove to his crazies that he supports them. He’d never stop the Bill.
WereBear
@Belafon: It was a satire piece on HuffPo.
But possibly accurate.
Kay
@WereBear:
I love how they’ve changed the meaning of “dissent” or “opposition”. Ted Cruz can vote against anything he likes. But that’s not enough! He must single-handedly block everything he disagrees with!
Can one work within a legislative body, hell, forget “legislative body”, can one work within any system that even tangentially involves other people with that attitude?
Ash Can
@Botsplainer: True, but I’m leaning toward the MOTU having more sway with him because they’re more likely to be holding the keys to his closets full of skeletons etc.
ETA @ Cermet: That’s a good point too.
Bruce K
My deep dark fear is that he’ll make a show of holding up the process, but miscalculate the economic point of no return.
Or, to put it in pop-culture terms:
“Freddo, how long does it take to power up the LEM?”
“Three hours by the checklist.”
“…we don’t have that much time.”
C.V. Danes
@Belafon:
I wonder if his wife will even have a job if he succeeds in tanking the economy.
Belafon
@JPL: You might be right. Cruz strikes me as the kind of person that would step on his wife if he thought it would do him any good.
@WereBear: Thanks. Once again, it’s hard to tell the difference with this group.
Culture of Truth
@Dennis G.: Shall we refer to House Conservatives blocking a deal to save the nation as “The Great White Pickett Fence” ?
Botsplainer
@Ash Can:
He seems crazy enough to not care, and the Kochs are just fine with that, as they picture themselves as Francisco D’Anconia, blowing up their own fortunes in order to usher in the new era in which they control all.
If his skeletons do come out, then he’s Hank Reardon, being set upon by the moochers and looters.
raven
@Dennis G.: DG, greets from Athens!
Face
I suspect Cruz is going to wake up tomorrow to a new world record for horse heads in one bed.
And Boehner is not going to let the US default; he’ll wait until literally the 11th hour on Thursday and then pass the Senate bill with Dem support. He’ll likely get bounced from his Speakership but whatevs. I don’t see him as the completely insane nihilist like many of his backbenchers.
rikyrah
Young are being recruited to help gut Obamacare
As the battle over the healthcare law grinds on — Republicans no closer to victory than when they forced the government shutdown — a different fight was rising on a recent Saturday from inside Sharkey’s, a bar near the campus of Virginia Tech, 260 miles away.
Lured by free beer, gift cards and the chance to win an iPad, 100 students heard a pitch from the young staffers of a group named Generation Opportunity: Obamacare is a bad deal, and you should opt out.
With enrollment in the insurance marketplaces under way, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on a public-awareness campaign, critics are aiming a provocative counter-effort at a critical population: millennials, age 18 to 29, who may not feel the need or have the money for insurance.
Because if too few young, healthy people sign up, Obamacare will be denied the financial blood to support older, more needy participants. So the race is on for the attention of 2.7 million people deemed necessary to enroll in the first year for Obamacare to be successful.
Generation Opportunity, which formed in 2011 and gets funding in part from the conservative Koch brothers, is about to embark on a tour of 20 college towns nationally, including a Nov. 9 stop at the University of Miami. The pitch is that you shouldn’t feel compelled by the government to buy insurance, and that it may be cheaper outside the marketplaces.
A blueprint for an upcoming tailgate calls for games such as beer pong and cornhole, free Taco Bell and beer. Pictures of people signing petitions to opt out would be sent over Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The group, and more recognizable conservative organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, show how the fight has shifted from Congress to the grassroots. Young people are among the law’s most ardent supporters, but at the same time many are unaware of the benefits, providing an opening for critics.
“We’re happy to watch the law crumble under its own weight by young people making good decisions,” said Evan Feinberg, Generation Opportunity’s 29-year-old president. “This is a creepy law.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/14/3689755/young-are-being-recruited-to-help.html#storylink=cpy
rikyrah
Orange Julius better man the fuck up
…………..
Ted Cruz, House Republicans Meet in Secret at Tortilla Coast
By Matt Fuller Posted at 12:06 a.m. Oct. 15
Sen. Ted Cruz met with roughly 15 to 20 House Republicans for around two hours late Monday night at the Capitol Hill watering hole Tortilla Coast.
The group appeared to be talking strategy about how they should respond to a tentative Senate deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling without addressing Obamacare in a substantive way, according to sources who witnessed the gathering. The Texas Republican senator and many of the House Republicans in attendance had insisted on including amendments aimed at dismantling Obamacare in the continuing resolution that was intended to avert the current shutdown.
Sources said the House Republicans meeting in the basement of Tortilla Coast with Cruz were some of the most conservative in the House: Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Steve King of Iowa, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, Steve Southerland II of Florida, Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Justin Amash of Michigan.
The group is a collection of members who have often given leadership headaches in recent years by opposing both compromise measures as well as packages crafted by fellow Republicans. And, it seems, leadership unwittingly became aware of the meetup.
http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/ted-cruz-house-republicans-meet-in-secret-at-tortilla-coast/
rikyrah
The default has already begun
By Felix Salmon
——————————————–
While debt default is undoubtedly the worst of all possible worlds, then, the bonkers level of Washington dysfunction on display right now is nearly as bad. Every day that goes past is a day where trust and faith in the US government is evaporating — and once it has evaporated, it will never return. The Republicans in the House have already managed to inflict significant, lasting damage to the US and the global economy — even if they were to pass a completely clean bill tomorrow morning, which they won’t. The default has already started, and is already causing real harm. The only question is how much worse it’s going to get.
———————————————
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/10/14/the-default-has-already-begun/
flukebucket
Well, I see some Dave Ramsey video is blowing up the Facebook this morning and has all of the Confederates giving out the Rebel Yell.
I just can’t bring myself to watch it and try a rebuttal.
Fuck it.
TAPX486
Calgary Cruz almost has to filibuster, if only for a day, to keep his cred with the value voter block. If he folds without at least a symbolic fight he starts to move into RINO territory. The crazy right does not abide compromise and or surrender, which to them is the same thing. If Cruz does filibuster there is a 30 clock that starts (I’m not sure exactly where whither its before/after cloture) . If they start right now 9am ET, 30 hours gets to early afternoon Wednesday. That doesn’t leave much time for the Senate to compete it’s work and get the bill back to the House.
If the Senate bill arrives at dinner time on Wed. that barely gives the House time to brew a cup of microwave coffee before with hit the limit. There is a headline on Huffington that Boehner won’t get 20 yes votes in the House. Well Nancy provides 200 then you only need 17 more. That is assuming Boehner brings it to the floor. If they ping it back to the Senate with poison pills then the process starts all over again.
I suspect somewhere in the musty rule books of the House and Senate there are ways to drive this whole process to completion in a couple of hours but that is a long shot
John O
@rikyrah:
Isn’t anyone who opts out by definition a health care moocher/taker? Or is that lost on the average GOP IQ?
Kay
@Ash Can:
It does. It should be interesting, because if Cruz doesn’t block it he’s doing more than throwing his Tea Party supporters under the bus. He’s throwing the whole House Tea Party caucus under the bus, because if it leaves the Senate and THEY block it, it’s all on them. Arguably, if it gets to the House he’s throwing the whole GOP under the bus because they changed the rules to forbid a Democrat bringing it to a vote, where it would pass. Democrats in the House will say the one and only thing blocking this is House Republicans.
It’s fitting. He decided this was the hill he was going to die on. He has no good options.
aimai
@rikyrah: Yeah, that’ll work. Those kids parents will either be keeping them on until they are 26 or forcing them to buy insurance on the exchanges. Women aged 22-30 are in their prime childbearing years so they are not good candidates for “win a free ipad and a chance at untreated syphilis and pregnancy” and ultimately their husbands aren’t either. Maybe their boyfriends are. They are going to peel off the libertarian asshole voter with this–young, dumb, healthy white guys but the truth is there are probably fewer of those people than the Koch brothers like to think, just as there are fewer actual libertarians. This is another stupid grifter level plan to grift the Koch brothers and sell it to them as an actually good idea. This is going to go over less well than New Coke.
Botsplainer
@rikyrah:
It took me a while, but I did finally manage to find some addresses for David Koch. Charles was always paranoid, it looks like. Perhaps some enterprising Occupy folks could go and start having really disorderly protests.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I’m a little confused by this. My two college students (they’re both out now) had to actively opt out of a health insurance plan “offered” by the college. In other words, if their parents didn’t have health insurance, they had to buy “a plan”. It was state law.
rikyrah
Brett LoGiurato @BrettLoGiurato44m
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.): Anyone in the “surrender caucus” who votes for the Senate deal is going to be primaried. http://nyti.ms/16dhREo
———————-
But while both Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, praised the progress that was made in the Senate, it was already clear that the most conservative members of the House were not going to go along quietly with a plan that does not accomplish their goal from the outset of this two-week-old crisis: dismantling the president’s health care law.
“We’ve got a name for it in the House: it’s called the Senate surrender caucus,” said Representative Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas. “Anybody who would vote for that in the House as Republican would virtually guarantee a primary challenger.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/us/politics/seeking-deal-to-avert-default-lawmakers-to-meet-obama.html?_r=2&
Botsplainer
@aimai:
They get all the Snowdens, in other words.
aimai
@TAPX486: I think Cruz “almost has to filibuster” but I’m not sure he will. Aside from the megalomania of it and the asshole debater side of his nature. I think there are ways to explain it to his voters–the future primary types–that he fought the good fight but now he has to bow out. He can always tell them he was threatened by Obama personally–that kind of vicitmization goes over well with his troops if its sold right. He can say that the horrors of the shut down and the debt default were being visited unfairly on those South Dakota ranchers and because other Republicans didn’t force Obama to lighten the burden of the shutdown he realized it was time to move on and back to electoral politics. Vote for Me and I’ll set you Freeeee! There are a lot of ways to skin this cat if you really want to. Maybe he can pay me something to explain it to him?
Patrick
@rikyrah:
So what is Mr Feinberg going to do when he eventually gets a pre-existing condition as most of us do? Is he going to be moocher and expect the rest of us to pay? What does he think the difference is between him and the 47% that people like him pretend to hate so much.
Maybe Mr Feinberg should try to watch a different channel than FoxNews once in a while…
eric
@aimai: no, he will say that the House is going to pass a competing bill and send THAT to the senate and then it is all on the senate to blow the deadline. the guy is a slippery weasel and way smarter than the goobers in the House.
Botsplainer
@Kay:
Yeah, our shitty plan wasn’t good enough for UC, so we were automatically billed with the tuition.
TAPX486
@rikyrah: My niece graduated from Va. Tech in 2008. As an invincible healthy young adult who doesn’t need health insurance, she blew out her ACL in 2012. In spite of her conservative parent hatred of Obama and Obamacare she was still on their health care plan thus the 40k bill was covered.
I don’t know how you sell that line of BS that you don’t need health ins, because your young and healthy. Life is uncertain, there are car accidents, torn ACL’s, appendicitis, the unexpected pregnancy, etc. By the time I was 18 I had gone thru 4 eye operation, one appendectomy and one knee operation. People buy fire insurance just in case not because they plan on burning the house down.
Botsplainer
@Patrick:
I’m thinking that he’s got a family Paid Conservative Activist connection somewhere. Always assume nepotism with these assholes, because the play is always there.
virginia
Well, one thing is for sure: They are in fact truly revolting and the vast majority of the population is entirely fed up and completely disgusted. How this sociopathic Ted Cruz got himself elected to the Senate is one for the history books. Boehner need to don his Super Hero costume and play this thing out. No doubt, it’ll be resolved at the last possible second and the massive spin will begin.
Looks like the GOP decided for sure over two weeks ago that they’ve no interest in occupying the WH, at a minimum, for the next several years. Absolutely no way in hell the GOP as a whole isn’t going to be punished repeatedly for having put the country through this and for having promoted and enabled, every step of the way, these anarchists. It would be an absolute delight to see the Republicans destroying themselves this way, after all the harm they’ve done the USA for decades on end, if it weren’t for the fact that we are being dragged to the edge of the precipice right along with them while being forced to display infinite amounts of patience and consideration for their phony self-pitying plight. Wankers!
Am betting that as soon as the situation is resolved, they will feel the brunt of the wrath they’ve brought about. It’s being contained right now because so many are trying not to tip over the applecart in order to secure the resolution of this thing. Absolutely unbelievable. Near total lack of political self-awareness. And, oh yeah, still waiting waiting waiting for the adult GOPers to fully condemn the appalling spectacle on the National Mall and in front of the White House yesterday.
shelly
I’ve kept hearing comments on cable news that Cruz’s former professors, colleagues etc., saying just how brilliant he is. Perhaps he believes it a tad too much and really thinks he is the savior of the party.
Ash Can
@Kay: I’m betting that he’s decided that this is the hill someone else is going to die on. I think he’s smart and slimy enough to have convinced all those House Teahadis last night that he had fought the good fight and exhausted all his options, that the evil Harry Reid and his Senate GOP Surrender-Monkey henchmen were going to
shut him the hell upmarch him off to Calvary today, and that it would all be up to them, his faithful disciples, to take up their own crosses and follow him. And I think the Teahadis are stupid enough to believe his crap.This is obviously all sheer speculation on my part, but I’m thinking it has a decent chance of actually being the case.
Cermet
@TAPX486: No way, no how can teddy boy filibuster; Reid would be forced to go nuclear and he would to prevent a debt default; more to the point, every other senator knows this and would force the closure without the nuclear option. Once the senate nukes a bill, the floodgates are open and the demorats will be forced to have a spine and let majority rule in the senate. All the fainting babies in the senate couldn’t bare such a fate.
rikyrah
Jon Favreau @jonfavs
Why can’t we just skip to the part where Boehner realizes he can’t pass anything and gives the floor to Pelosi?
7:44 AM – 15 Oct 2013
aimai
@TAPX486: Once you have a system in which all children are insured,either because their parents have insurance through their employers, or because they were able to buy insurance on the health exchanges for their families, or because of medicaid you simply aren’t going to have a rising crop of young people who have never been insured. You aren’t going to have people who have that experience of fantasizing that they will never need to see a doctor. These are the same people who have routinely bought auto insurance *because they have had to* in order to drive. its a right wing fake fantasy that buying health insurance was somehow different from buying car insurance. They pushed it because it was a hail mary pass that they thought would appeal to some portion of young people but those people are, like young voters, hard to corrall and hard to energize. Its going to be easier for them to stay insured than to actively refuse to be insured.
Tone in DC
@Botsplainer:
LULz.
Fixt.
I hope Ted/Rafael DOES try to grandstand. It’ll cement his rep as as a complete and utter shithead, since everyone’s watching right now.
pamelabrown53
@elftx: Yepppers, Cruz was meeting with the craziest of the crazy at a restaurant called Tortilla Flats. Think it was reported at The Hill.
Belafon
@virginia:
Ted’s first name is (R). That’s all it took here in Texas.
Belafon
@aimai:
It’s wasn’t just a right wing fantasy. If I knew how to search comments here and at Daily Kos I could find plenty of people from the left arguing that they are different.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dennis G.:
O/T, but I’ve missed your front-page posts. Hope your long absence means you’re working on a book or something interesting, and that you’ll return regularly as soon as you can.
Ash Can
@virginia:
One did!
mai naem
How come Mike Lee, Yoohoo and that idiot Steve Stockman weren’t at this secret meeting? And, jeezus, why would you have a secret meeting at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole? These people are the stoopid.
Wittle Teddy will filibuster,ofcourse, because he probably gets a boner from all the whackjob tweets he gets every time he pulls a stunt. Also, I’m surprised his wife works. Isn’t she supposed to be at home, homeskooling Biff and Muffy?
Waldo
@TAPX486: Yeah, Ted has to at least appear to take a principled stand. I’m guessing he’ll go for something symbolic yet politically futile, but I’m hoping for symbolic and politically fatal.
Matt
@Culture of Truth:
With apologies to History of the World Part 1: “Revolting? No kidding – they suck on ICE!”
The Pale Scot
@Belafon: A Fantasy: The CEO of Goldman Sachs Calls His Employee, Heidi Cruz (Yes, the Wife of Ted Cruz)
If only, I have some experience with CFOs and the one thing they hate, absolutely hate, is watching an approaching Black Swan. And this one will be too big to find a place to hide, even with derivative swaps betting on both sides.
Bill E Pilgrim
Is it cheating to refer to the Keating 5?
raven
@Bill E Pilgrim: The MC5? Up against the wall motherfuckers!
Belafon
@The Pale Scot: Thanks. I missed the title. But I just would not be surprised if Ted was willing to destroy his wife’s career to advance his.
At the same time, Goldman Sach’s could be telling him that they’re ready to short the market.
Bill E Pilgrim
The great granddaddy of the joke everyone is making here. Not that it makes it not funny, just respecting history
hoodie
@Ash Can: Naw, he’s too caught up in the moment, the dumbass let himself be caught at a rally with Larry Klayman and the Stars and Bars. Just because he’s clever doesn’t mean he’s not a lunatic with delusions of grandeur. Look at his old man, crazier than a bedbug and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Reid/McConnell probably have an ace in the hole parliamentary maneuver to get the deal through any filibuster in the Senate and Boehner will let the vote happen in the House. Last night will go down in history as the Tortilla Coast Putsch.
fidelio
Charles Pierce on Ed Henry of Fox News.
It’s choice invective, and probably raised welts on Henry’s hide as it was being written.
boatboy_srq
@John O: No, because that’s what we have ERs – and bankruptcy court – for. Gambling with the entire rest of your life that you won’t get sick or have an accident or a baby (or did I repeat myself there?) is a time-honored Ahmurrcan game of chance. And besides, it guarantees that the 1% never becomes so much as the 2%.
If you want a clearer understanding of just how whacked healthcare in the US is, take a look at this gem from the NYT on how dental finance shenanigans are putting folks – with good ordinary health insurance – in the poorhouse. This is the model Kochistan favors: stay healthy or go broke, because needing healthcare means you’re somehow unWorthy and treatment has somehow become an entitlement. And since staying healthy forever is as likely as winning the Powerball jackpot, the wealth just keeps getting funneled upward. Wankers.
eric
99% of these folks read martyr pron where the martyr always wins in the end….righteousness is a guarantee of ultimate victory. As i am fond of pointing out, they believe that the ends justify the means because the end is always God sanctifying and making holy their actions.
Ash Can
@mai naem:
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Cruz actually wanted the meeting to be seen, albeit not heard, just to rub it in to any GOP Congressional onlookers (and, through the grapevine, to other GOP non-attendees) that, nyah nyah, they weren’t invited.
Botsplainer
@Tone in DC:
Data shows a dip down to 24% approval – beneath the crazification Keyes metric.
This translates to shutdown/default being too nuts to over 10% of right wingers nutty enough to vote for Keyes.
hueyplong
We’re here because of what happened last time.
If the lunatics get something real this time, there will be no such thing as a “bridge too far for them” on any subject, ever. And they’ll be correct to think that way.
They are so emboldened now that Boehner needs to understand they’re going to gut him no matter what he does. Why be “led” by Boehner when any number of “right thinkers” can do his job of taking and killing hostages without the unnecessary hand-wringing?
So he might as well do the right thing now, as in today.
Bill E Pilgrim
@raven: The Dave Clark Five?
Glad (it’s) All Over
Not cheating, but premature perhaps. That’s for later today when they’ve caved.
Ash Can
@hoodie:
LOL
Belafon
@Ash Can: If McConnell and Boehner weren’t such cowards, they would use this as an opportunity to crush him. They could get their respective leadership to bring a hammer down on him and the House members for going around them. Let it be known that Cruz is not in charge of the House, and all interactions between the groups must go through the leadership.
raven
@Bill E Pilgrim: Bit’s and Pieces.
Ash Can
@Belafon:
Heaven knows they’ve had the way paved for that — and striped, and curbed, and planted with palm trees and azaleas on either side. I do agree that Boehner probably wouldn’t have the nerve to do it himself, but I’d bet he’d cheer McConnell on — and McConnell just might.
Patrick
@Belafon:
It’s kind of funny; on one of the Sunday morning talk shows they went on and on about how “if Obama would just lead” this could all have been avoided. Well, why wasn’t there a single word about the lack of leadership from Boehner (how the hell can he be speaker???) and McConnell?
How dumb do they think their viewers are?
bjacques
You know, between Charlie Pierce mentioning screeds taped to lampposts, the Tortilla Coast Putsch and the reason for the Tea Party’s continued existence, I’m convinced Senator Ted Cruz should forever after be known as the Frankenstein Tortilla God.
hoodie
@Belafon: I’ve always suspected that they might be doing just that. Why else are guys like McCain and Rigell conspicuously going around saying what a crappy idea this whole thing is? I imagine a good bit of the GOP establishment is desperately wanting to pull out of this death spiral they’ve gone into by feeding the teabagger monster, and one way to do that is have a ritual execution of some prominent teabaggers. Reid and Obama actually have an interest in seeing the teabaggers get shivved by the establishment types because, either way, they win; odds are the internal GOP fight intensifies as the teabaggers will be hungry for revenge but, if the GOP establishment manages to regain control and kill off some of their crazier brethren, they can start making deals and things return to a more normal condition.
Patrick
@Belafon:
+1. I recall that as well. At the time (2009/2010) there was seemingly no difference between people on the right and the left when it came to car/health insurance.
catclub
@rikyrah: Keeping powder dry, i.e. a threat you do not have to follow through on, is a stronger position than having to carry out the threat.
In this case, all the guys who get primaried and win, will be FAR less beholden to the ultra right than they are now. The threat of the right wing primary is best when un-used.
There are these cases:
1. Get primaried, beat wing nut, get re-elected.
2. Get Primaried, beat wing nut, lose general.
3. Get primaried, lose, wing nut wins general.
4. Get primaried, lose, wing nut loses general.
Only one of those cases is good for the wing nuts.
virginia
@Ash Can: Thanks, Ash Can. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard, right? I guess they are just too, I dunno, busy with other matters at this stage of the game. But, again, thanks — good for him. Would have been much better if he’d been able to say that statements made are disguting not just “because of the office” but because of the individual in office but one can’t hope for the moon with this crowd. Virginia has a weird rep but, fact is, enough of us living in the realm of the sane find this kind of psycho talk unacceptable. And don’t wish to see our children — cause it’s always about the fraking CHILDREN, right? — pushed into this kind of mentality.
The Pale Scot
@Belafon:
A traditional play would be to take positions on both sides and make a side bet if you thought you really had an idea of what would happen. Thing is, a true T-bill default is uncharted waters. There will be repercussions of the repercussions.
For example, corporations around the world park 100s of billions in short term T-bills, not to get interest, just to keep it safe. They form the backbone of trillions of dollars in transactions, they serve as collateral for millions of transactions in markets around the world. The monthly flow is in the trillions.
What’s happening in the Treasury bill market today should terrify you
If this system shuts down, so does international banking. Few people appreciate how being the global currency benchmark benefits the USA. It’s like English is the international language of pilots, without it air traffic control would be chaos.
Personally I’ve always felt that having this safe refuge is a moral hazard that assists fraud and crime. Without it there’d be pressure to regulate the entire international system, and Moody’s etc would have to do their job instead of being part of the fraud. But this is the devil we know.
Poopyman
@Face: I wonder if anyone’s making book on whether Cruz will be found face down in the Anacostia before Monday, and whether it’ll have been the Russian mob, the Chinese mob, or a contractor from Wall Street.
Cacti
Robert Costa was right about one thing.
Conservatives are revolting.
Bill E Pilgrim
@hoodie: Ted Cruz and the Tortilla Coasters.
From the restaurant site:
And on the menu, I swear to God this a straight cut and paste:
The Pale Scot
@Waldo: That mouse pic is a keeper.
Robin G.
If I were McConnell I’d have my hands around Boehner’s throat. Here he’s almost found a way out of this that at least saves a little GOP face, and the House is going to kill it. Again. I almost feel sorry for the bastard.
The Pale Scot
@Bill E Pilgrim: Sugary garlic toast with acidic berries?
YUK!
dmsilev
According to some reports, House maniacs making one last attempt to neuter Obamacare (by tying removal of insurance subsidies to their debt-ceiling bill).
catclub
@The Pale Scot: Of course, that
‘Today’ in your link is from last week.
PaulW
Are there enough Republicans willing to give up the Hastert rule and let the Democrats vote with them on a clean CR and clean debt ceiling? That’s all we need to know.
The Teabagger faction of the GOP House can go jump into the Potomac for all we care.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet:
People keep saying this.
I don’t think we can assume that The Powers That Be are rationally self-interested. I think a sufficient number of the money people are simply deranged, and would happily destroy themselves if they can take out what America is becoming in the process.
celticdragonchick
@Cermet: Teddy doesn’t have to filibuster…he merely has to force 30 hours of debate by not yielding unanimous consent to pass the mandated debate time…and he has TWO opportunities to do that. If he takes both of them…we are already past the deadline.
PaulW
@Robin G.:
If I were McConnell I’d have my hands around Boehner’s throat. Here he’s almost found a way out of this that at least saves a little GOP face, and the House is going to kill it. Again. I almost feel sorry for the bastard.
The key word being “almost”. The GOP leadership made this monster, I have no sympathy for their unwillingness to rein in the fear-mongers and con artists.
Bill E Pilgrim
@The Pale Scot: Made in authentic Tex Mex tradition using Captain Crunch cereal.
PaulW
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree. We’re past the point of dealing with sane people. The Far Right are convinced that government is bad and that hurting it in any way would be a liberating experience not a destructive one. Either way for the Teabagger crowd – either make Obama cave to their agenda, or else screw the federal gov’t as much as possible – this is win-win.
virginia
@Belafon: Re: the need to crush this sick SOB and why McConnell and Boehner, don’t–It really is a puzzlement to me too. You’d think it would be the default position in dealing with this individual, politics included and politics aside. You gotta ask –if the GOP elders don’t have what it takes to defend themselves in face of this kind of assault, how in hell can we expect them to look after us?
Already the line is out there about how “brilliant” Cruz is like he’s some kind of 007 master mind evil villain that it takes super brain and brawn power to vanquish. So brilliant that no one can figure out how to kick his ass to the curb and give the smarmy weenie a right proper stomping.
Then again, think of family parties or weddings you’ve gone to where all it takes is one out of control megalomaniac and super diva to alter the entire scene. The hysteric sucks so much air out of the room with the grand theater that the civilians begin to collapse around them, unable to seize the reins and take control. “Time to go, honey.”
What we need here is an old school, Mafia-style BOUNCER. You can bet this JERK has been practicing his big moment about to come in front of the mirror, picking out his wardrobe, making certain his hair and skin look just right because we’re all about to be treated to his close-up. And, either way, he will be allowed to spin spin spin it because the press just loves a good soap-opera star.
It’s a shame that the American Civil Service is prohibited from organizing a massive class-action lawsuit against this gang as a way of saying, don’t EVER think of screwing around with us and the rest of the country like this again, bitches!
hoodie
@Bill E Pilgrim: I have this image of a bunch of car salesman, mortgage brokers and former dentists soaked to the gills with house margaritas and ties splotched with queso standing and singing Die Fahne Hoch (more appropriately, God Bless the USA or an appropriate Toby Keith anthem) as Ted Cruz stands before them, with his arms crossed, a raised chin and a far off gaze.
Tone in DC
@Botsplainer:
24? Heh, indeed.
This shit is worse than I thought. I’d want popcorn if this situation weren’t so truly and deeply fucked (for the US economy and others).
aimai
@Belafon: Yes but it started on the right. I admit that it spread to the left but some people are just fucking deranged.
virginia
I gonna shut up and go away because I start to get manic in face of this kind of thing but just to say, yeah, the default has already started and we are already beginning to pay the price but it’s not too late for us to seize that limb on the way down the cliff and try with all our might to save ourselves. Once this is done there need to be massive protests on the Mall in Washington with people coming from all over the country to say NO MORE! Lithium time for me. I hate these mfers so much.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@TAPX486:
As someone who’s gone without insurance simply because I haven’t been able to afford it, my take on health insurance: You never need it until you suddenly do. It’s the kind of short-sightedness that leads to so many catastrophic emergencies to begin with, leaving out the accidents and such as your niece experienced. It’s just…I hate that myopia combined with selfishness. I may not have had insurance for a while, but that’s due to means, not misguided “principle” such as “I’m too young to have to worry about that”.
catclub
@celticdragonchick: That works IF there is no emergency change in Senate rules. I can imagine just such a change in rules. And it takes 2/3’s to change the rules at any time, correct?
ruemara
@Botsplainer: Oh good. Natural selection will come into play on an open field.
The Pale Scot
@catclub: I choose that article because it’s a quick overview of how short term T-bills are the lingua franca of international commerce. I shouldn’t have used the title in the link, it’s NY Postie, talk to my editor :) My point is that the rise in USA borrowing costs will be small potatoes compared to the freezing of global monetary flows.
rikyrah
Do You Know Who Launched the Shutdown? Hint: He’s Southern, a Birther, White and an Ardent Evangelical Who Serves as an Elder in His Fundamentalist Church
October 13, 2013 By Frank Schaeffer 6 Comments
Do you know who launched the shutdown? Hint: He’s Southern, white and an ardent evangelical who serves as an elder in his fundamentalist church. His name is Mark Meadows. Watch this news clip about him. It explains all you need to know about why it’s a bad idea to have ardent evangelicals run for national office. They just don’t live in a fact-based world.
Of course America is on the brink because of religiously deluded conviction. Here’s my friend Rachel Maddow giving a great explanation of the inexplicable actions of the Meadows and his Republican dupes. What Rachel didn’t say is that the root of the magical thinking on the right is delusional evangelical theology. Find out where the idiot goes to church before you cast that vote! I guess I’m pretty tuned in to the price we pay for electing myth-based leaders and their recent congressional folly because of writing my new book and thereby unpacking the insanity of the fundamentalist American subculture– And God Said, “Billy!”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2013/10/do-you-know-who-launched-the-shutdown-hint-hes-southern-a-birther-white-and-an-ardent-evangelical-who-serves-as-an-elder-in-his-fundamentalist-church/
Mike E
Fuck Choad is on msnbc quantifying the “divided” electorate using The Simpsons characters, Madea, and Turtle from Entourage. Awesome. Not.
catclub
Robert Kuttner on the Idiocy of Eugene Fama – who claimed markets are so smart, there cannot BE bubbles, and gets a ‘Nobel’ Prize for it. Along with Schiller, who was pointing out the real estate bubble as it happened.
http://prospect.org/article/ignoble-prize
The Pale Scot
@catclub: If you can’t cover a mortgage by renting it, it’s overpriced. Some exceptions for vacation type properties, but it’s that simple.
Gex
@Face: I think there’s a fair amount of good publicity he could get by defying the TP caucus, putting it to a vote, and getting things running again. He might lose his speakership, but maybe the MOTU who are shitting bricks about their runaway monster will have bonus sacks of cash for him on the other side of this.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
To the 1% (or the 0.1%), money is a status good: their incomes and wealth are too high for them to spend it rationally. So for some, a hit to their portfolios may be perfectly acceptable if it teachers the 99%
to accept their serfdomstand on their own two feet.PurpleGirl
@rikyrah: Young man needs an acute medical problem… like maybe a herniated disk at L5-S1. I was extremely lucky that mine didn’t become active pain-wise until after I was in the then-job because there was no way as a unemployed person I could have paid for either the treatment or surgery I needed. And there was no way I could have found a job and begun working with that herniation.
People are stupid, it should burn them.