Someone please tell me that this ‘Kos diary is wrong and the tea party majority on the House Rules Committee cannot effectively block Boehner from bringing any legislation to the floor that they do not like. Because, uh, crap.
Alsotoo, we long ago crossed the Cruz line where any show of defiance at all by Texas Ted would gum up the works enough to send our entire system over the brink.
Open thread! Here is Max swimming for a stick.
Anonymous At Work
They can and they can’t. Boehner can replace them at will, but doing so will probably provoke a revolt.
NotMax
Need some levity?
The election scene from Blackadder the Third (and most especially Pitt the Even Younger’s immediate reaction when the vote totals are read) still tickles.
Linkmeister
Good on Max, although I initially expected him to leap off that platform.
JPL
@Anonymous At Work: What does that mean?
peej
It’ll be interesting to see if Cruz tries to hold up any bill coming up for a vote in the Senate, or whether he’s going to try to let the House teabaggers do his dirty work for him.
NotMax
The senator from Texas does seem on a ‘Cruzade’ to make his congressional colleagues and his party as disliked as he always has been throughout life.
jayackroyd
mcjoan talked about this on Sunday at VS. http://virtuallyspeaking.us/virtually-speaking-sundays/2013/10/10/joan-mccarter-stuart-zechman-vs-sundays
The TPM link has the details
dmsilev
@peej: I think if he tries, Reid pulls the ‘nuclear option’ trigger. Probably with McConnell’s tacit approval.
Yatsuno
MAXPUPPEH!!! You know Dobies aren’t known for their swimming prowess amirite?
And yeah, that rules change shit happened. The Repukes were girding for this months ago. They WANT this shit.
Kay (not the front-pager)
I saw that, but didn’t respond (I was on my phone & it’s hard to enter comments on it… I’m old, OK?). My understanding is that the particular rule was attached to the bill sent from the senate before the shut-down. ONLY. I don’t think the bill that will be sent to the House tomorrow (I hope) is the same bill. That is, I think they will submit a new bill, not an amended version of the old bill.
I sure hope I’m right.
Anonymous At Work
@JPL:
It means that Boehner can, as the leader of the majority party, replace members of his party on the Rules Committee at will. If he does so to push out Tea Party members voting against his compromise/betrayal, the Tea Party will revolt and remove him as Speaker.
Punchy
@Anonymous At Work: The Kos diary, taken for grains of salt, says he CANNOT replace them. Doesnt say why he cant tho.
dmsilev
@Kay (not the front-pager): I think the point of the dkos diary was that _any_ bill has to go through the Rules Committee, so a determined bloc there can cause real havoc. I’m not sure the diarist really has a point though; traditionally, Rules members are chosen first and foremost for their loyalty to leadership (exactly because of the power they hold). Now granted Boehner is hardly the sort to excite much loyalty, but I doubt any of the really hard-core tea party types have much sway on that committee.
PhoenixRising
@Anonymous At Work: Great, pop some buttered for me, but do they get to hold the bill while they indulge their rage fetish as a caucus?
JPL
@Anonymous At Work: So the choice is either a big office and a limousine service or the country’s economy.. What will he choose…
Spaghetti Lee
@dmsilev:
Here are the Republicans on the HRC:
Pete Sessions, Texas, Chairman
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Vice Chair
Rob Bishop, Utah
Tom Cole, Oklahoma
Rob Woodall, Georgia
Rich Nugent, Florida
Daniel Webster, Florida
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida
Michael C. Burgess, Texas
I could be wrong, but that doesn’t look like the biggest group of crazies you’ll ever see. A lot of those guys are from rich suburban districts and predate the class of ’10. That would suggest they won’t stab Boehner in the back, but what do I know? Maybe Ted Yoho poisons all their drinks and seizes power himself. These are interesting times, politically speaking.
peej
@JPL: He can easily get the office and limo working for the moneyed establishment.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
So glad to see Max. Nothing of use to offer on the Tantrum Caucus and its hero Rafael Cruz (R-wackobirdistan, smart and mean district). The AOS will likely need all the Merlot in the district right about now.
Redshirt
That’s the thing. If I’m Orange B, I want money. More money. And the best way to accomplish that in short order is to save the world’s economy from a gigantic crash. That I caused.
One of the good billionaires should hook him up.
Anya
America voted for these crazy fuckers. To make things even more depressing, they’ll vote for them again and again.
J.Ty
The 2010 midterms are going to go down in history as one of the worst electoral mistakes Americans ever made. Default is, like, at least three megaNixons.
Baud
@J.Ty:
This x 1000.
dmsilev
@Spaghetti Lee: Foxx is definitely nuts. I’m not really familiar with the rest of them, so can’t say for sure. I was more going off historical precedent in terms of the Rules members.
Ash Can
It ain’t over till it’s over, but I have to wonder if the fact that Boehner’s caving on bringing the Senate bill to the floor means he’s caving on other things as well — most importantly, shitcanning the Hastert/Boehner Rule and going for Dem votes.
Hill Dweller
Costa was on Maddow’s show(guest hosted by Kornacki) saying Boehner might try to just raise the debt ceiling tomorrow.
PsiFighter37
I’m surprised Orange Julius hasn’t passed out yet from what has to be incredibly high alcohol intake the past few days.
J.Ty
@Baud: three gigaNixons feels a bit high actually
Baud
@Hill Dweller:
Won’t work. Dems won’t go for it, and Boehner doesn’t enough Republicans who will vote for a clean debt limit increase. (He needs almost all of them.)
CaseyL
I thought the rule they snuck in was that only the Majority Leader (Cantor) could call a vote on a bill. Is this some other monkeywrench that someone else came up with?
PsiFighter37
@Hill Dweller: Raise it for how long? A day? Two days? A week?
This is so fucking stupid. I can’t believe some of these shitheads are in Congress.
Little Boots
I seriously wonder what the people who voted republican thought they were voting for.
raven
@efgoldman: Pentangle – Let No Man Steal Your Thyme (1968)
Baud
@Little Boots:
Hippie punchers.
dmsilev
@Ash Can: Doubt it. He probably will violate the Hastert Suggestion this time, but that’s only because his back is against the wall and the consequences of doing nothing are pretty damn dire. Under more normal circumstances, his caucus won’t tolerate any deviation from orthodoxy.
Little Boots
@Baud:
yeah, true enough, and no thought past that.
YellowJournalism
Guess it’s time to get those Canadian immigration papers ready for my family members.
fuckwit
@Spaghetti Lee: Help me out here. Which of those states were not in the Confederacy?
Roger Moore
@PsiFighter+37:
His liver has had even more practice than yours. Besides, I think he’s good enough to drink only enough to maintain his BAL rather than increase it.
Little Boots
@fuckwit:
utah, but in spirit …
PsiFighter37
Reading Politico (ugh), their latest headline says the new deal drops the removal of the reinsurance tax on health plans and keeps the stupid income check. Why the shit is Reid giving up what we need in this deal? We have the gonads of the Republicans in a fucking vise; you gotta squeeze them and make them feel the pressure. Don’t fucking give them a goddamn inch.
Hill Dweller
Halperin is blaming the President for the wingnuts’ insanity.
nominus
Pete Sessions mainly represents the wealthiest section of Dallas (Highland Park), but his Facebook page reads like he’s on board with the Tea Party. I inherited him thanks to redistricting, so I don’t know if he’s completely crazy or just trying to act like he’s hip and cool with the Nestea (instant fake tea) crowds that plague the area.
Yatsuno
@YellowJournalism: I’m very seriously considering living in Quebec for three years as part of the Quebecois repatriation program. Thank you great-grandfather who never followed proper immigration channels!
J.Ty
@Hill Dweller: to be fair, he IS black.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
I was wondering what was up also. But I’ve learned not to trust such reporting, so let’s see what the final deal is.
NotMax
@Hill Dweller
How dare he be a blah?
Spaghetti Lee
@PsiFighter37:
Politico is a trustworthy source now?
Little Boots
@Hill Dweller:
he never, and always, disappoints.
Baud
@nominus:
I’d go with the money.
Face
Any chance Boehner cuts a deal with Dems, and gives them a clean bill for the DL and CR as long as they pledge to back him if/when his Speakership is threatened?
Roger Moore
@fuckwit:
Utah and Oklahoma, neither of which was a state in time to make it an option.
Redshirt
@Face: That’s what will happen. Take it to the still solvent bank.
fuckwit
@Yatsuno: They have their own seccessionist problems there. Its kind of like the Texas or South Carolina of Canada.
fuckwit
@Little Boots: My point is, I look at those states, and if it were not more clear that the Retthugs are still fighting the Civil War, that makes it fucking crystal right there.
Little Boots
@fuckwit:
oh I agree.
just being pedantic.
but I agree. it’s the same damn split. pathetic.
TAPX486
Just in case anyone had plans for Christmas
dmsilev
@PsiFighter37: No mention of the Vitter amendment that I could see in the story. Re: the income check, that depends a lot on the details. Remember, the existing law already has such a check, so it’s entirely possible that that is just a fig lead (“The Obama administration agrees that an existing chunk of the law will remain”) with no substantive effect.
fuckwit
@PsiFighter37: the point of income means testing is to keep the poor down. Because, as soon as you climb out from under poverty, means testing takes away your benefits and smashes you down back IN YOUR MOTHERFUCKING PLACE, SCUM, WHERE YOU BELONG. That’s the whole point of means testing, to make it impossible to climb into th emiddle class. It’s a feature!
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: Meh. He’s originally from Colorado anyway. Hence his lurve for the Donkeys.
dmsilev
@TAPX486: Genius. “We just spent two weeks being blamed by 80% of Americans for shutting down the government, and our approval rating is five points below that of syphilis. Let’s do it all over again right before Christmas!”
Little Boots
@fuckwit:
plus the second anything becomes about the poors, it becomes about the blacks, and then it becomes about the takers and the makers and the rest of that horseshit.
means testing is the first step to get rid of.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Kay (not the front-pager): I spoke without looking at the diary you linked. I was talking about another, less scary diary. I don’t know if I agree with the diarist’s categorization of who is tea party or fellow traveler. That’s what I’m hanging my hat on, anyway.
Thanks for the puppy pics. I’m about as stressed out as I can stand by now.
Anya
@YellowJournalism: Have you met Toronto’s insane mayor? They can get close to our craziness. Also, the country has been moving conservative and intolerant lately. Of course nothing can be as crazy or as bigoted as the American right.
@Yatsuno:Have you met the xenophobic Quebec Premier Pauline Marois? Her government proposed a Charter of Quebec Values which would restrict the right of public employees to wear religious items like turbans, yarmulkes, hijabs and visible crosses. She thinks a doctor or a teacher cannot wear hijab.
fuckwit
@Roger Moore: Actually Oklahoma wasn’t a state but Utah was. The governor of Utah sent the first telegraph message to California over the new link, to the governor of California, expressing his solidarity for the Union, when the link came live in 1860. But, my point is, look at those states, a vast majority from the Confederacy. That’s what’s driving the crazy.
Ash Can
@dmsilev: The thing is, though, if he ditches the Hastert Rule this time, there may not be any more next times. That’s what really needs to give here — his fear of losing his speakership. If caving on the Senate bill means he’s caving on other aspects of this clusterfuck — namely this fear — then the hefty gal’s aria may really be imminent.
Yatsuno
@fuckwit:
It became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896
EDIT: it was a territory, but there were several issues that needed ironed out before they’d let the Mormons in.
TAPX486
@dmsilev: And as a follow up – Norm Ornstein on Maddow thinks the debt limit might be in play also next year. He doesn’t think tine crazies have learned anything. In addition the real head of the Goop, limpdick, is already screaming that the gop elites have sold out and the true conservative just have to hang tough.
The only way this ends is the Nov. 2014 midterms. If the Dems can flip the house and the pick up enough Senate seats to break the filibuster (or change the rules) then maybe we can get past government by temper tantrum.
Little Boots
@Ash Can:
it would take someone who gives a shit about his country.
we shall see.
RaflW
I’m sure you’re wrong, the House is just bumbling and will do what’s right in the end, because Dan Balz has, this very evening, penned yet another totally useless column in which he pinches this gleaming loaf of both sides do it-ism:
“It’s about one side determined to claim total victory and the other, which blundered into the fight, looking to find a way to save face.”
Why, oh why can’t we have a better press corpse?
fuckwit
@Yatsuno: Good catch ,thanks. I guess they had a governor before they were a state? Weird. The telegraph message thing definitely happened .
Little Boots
@Yatsuno:
shhh. don’t mention the polygamy.
fuckwit
@RaflW: For-profit “news” entertainment, is why. Like for-profit medical care, for-profit “news” is impossibly broken and needs to be massively overhauled or replaced.
PhoenixRising
@fuckwit: Yup. Territorial Governors weren’t elected, but they were called Governor. And not just by London cabbies in the 1880s.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Baud: Speaker (to be (again)) Pelosi has said virtually 100% of Dems will vote for it. Issa, Dent, Peter King, at least 17 more Repubs will vote for it. That’s all it takes.
Yes, Darrell Issa has said he’ll vote for a clean bill.
Munira
@Yatsuno: It’s crazy times here in Quebec, too, with the Quebec charter of values nonsense and the PQ trying to do everything possible to fire up the language wars again. One good thing though, the PQ only wants to destroy Canada whereas the Repubs want to destroy the world.
ericblair
@Anya:
Yep. Apparently it’s being interpreted as the bullshit nativist political stunt that it is. It’s the same sort of rural/urban thing as down here; a bunch of pasty-white homogeneous rural types who are in favor of it, and the multi-ethnic urban areas which are not. There’s a heaping helping of culture and language preservation horseshit, but down at the core it’s racist. “Francophone” doesn’t mean somebody who speaks French, because you just have to look at how the local “de souche” (of the stump) Quebeckers treat a fluent native French speaker from Mali. See, he’s not really francophone, because um yeah.
Anyways, Montreal is hopping, and the Gatineau is very nice, and just across the river from Ottawa. Pity about the government, but hey, you’re used to that.
Redshirt
@Munira: If you had the ability to destroy the world, wouldn’t you get tempted, eventually? Try it out a bit, see what happens?
Little Boots
@Redshirt:
suddenly, i understand ted cruz.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@raven:
Pentangle! John Renbourn still knocks me out.
Comrade Mary
@Yatsuno: Don’t bring your hijab, I’m just sayin’ …
SatanicPanic
It’s wrong. The answer for why it is wrong is hiding in plain sight.
Face
@TAPX486: No offense, but there’s zero percent chance they shut it all down again in less than 2 months. Even our cockblocked MsM would come out of Bothsidesville and excoriate the GOP. Of course, by then, they will have tired of covering Obama’s impeachment hearings.
Little Boots
@RaflW:
someone just punched their meet the press ticket.
good job.
fuckwit
@PhoenixRising: Ah, I looked it up. The Governor of Utah who sent that first telegraph message to the Governor of California, expressing his ardour for the Union on the eve of the Civil War, was none other than… Brigham Young. And I guess it was still a territory at that time. Huh.
Aaaany way. The Rules Commitee Sociopaths are almost all from Confederate states. That’s not a coincidence.
John O
@Face:
I think you’re dreaming, that there’s a far greater than 0 chance of going through this all again in X months, AND about the MSM.
Bothsidesville is where the MSM bread is buttered and the Teaparty geniuses apparently can’t count. Toxic combo.
Roger Moore
@fuckwit:
Means testing is also a political poison pill. It ensures that we aren’t all in the same boat, so people who are above the means testing line have a vaguely justifiable beef about paying to subsidize the people below it. This is why I hate the idea of means testing Medicare and Social Security; it’s one more divide and conquer tactic that’s designed to undermine support for successful programs. I’d much rather raise taxes so everyone gets the same benefits than reduce overall benefits in a way that ensures there are winners and losers.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: Quebec = Catholic. There are some End Timers but they don’t dominate the scene.
@Comrade Mary: Dammit! I have some really nice Iranian ones I’ve been dying to wear too!
Little Boots
@fuckwit:
that is actually pretty interesting.
did his wives cosign? cause that would be awesome.
opiejeanne
@Yatsuno: I have A Canadian great grandfather too. He came in 1862, always claimed he was born near the New York/Canada border but was t sure which side. He told a lot of tall tales, though and I think he was born in Canada just outside Toronto.
Sayne
What a graceful swimmer Max is…
fuckwit
@Roger Moore: It’s also a transvaginal ultrasound (or mandatory drug test for the boys!) for anyone wanting to get the benefits. It’s not enough to be poor, and needy, but you MUST be humiliated for that, and subject yourself to humiliation in order to get help, just to make sure you know your place.
LeftCoastTom
@Anonymous At Work: …and replace Boehner with whom, exactly?
This is what I’ve never understood about the ‘Boehner fears for his speakership’ argument. The teabaggers can, of course, trivially get rid of Boehner. What they cannot do is replace him with anyone.
Eric U.
I don’t know why it isn’t noted more often that ‘both sides do it ” is not only a way for a journalist to save his job, but it’s also pro-republican propaganda
Little Boots
@LeftCoastTom:
eric, “bitchface” cantor. but it would be the same thing all over again.
fuckwit
@LeftCoastTom: My fantasy scenario is… Speaker Pelosi. There’s no rule saying representatives need to vote for a Speaker of their own party. If there was a Speaker election today, how many sane R’s would be willing to cross the aisle and vote with Dems to elect Speaker Pelosi?
If there is a FSM, for reals, I’ll wake up one day this week and this exact scenario will have happened.
LeftCoastTom
@TAPX486: The GOP wants to shut down the government a second time over contraception? They may yet manage to drop below the 27% crazifaction floor.
Cassidy
I predict AR prices skyrocket by the end of the week.
Roger Moore
@fuckwit:
No, it wasn’t. Utah was a territory during the Civil War and didn’t become a state until 1896. Look it up.
SatanicPanic
@LeftCoastTom: Exactly. I don’t see a real rush to put some Tea Party dunce in the speaker chair.
LeftCoastTom
@Little Boots: But [edit]bitchface needs 218 votes, it’s not enough for him to get a majority of the GOP caucus, he has to get Louie Gohmert, et. al., behind him as well. Or, Pelosi pulls a “Willie Brown”, finds some disaffected GOoPer with 17 friends, and offers him/her the speakership in exchange for equal representation on committees.
I mean, so far the national GOP has repeated every idiotic move the CA GOP made back in the day, so I guess it’s possible they don’t get this, but…yeesh.
NotMax
@TAPX486
Also too, mid-December because the second round of sequestration kicks in mid-January, and the Rs are salivating for that take no prisoners showdown as a standalone.
fuckwit
@LeftCoastTom: NO. They want to shut down the goverment TO SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. Please everyone, realize this. The shutdown is not a negotiation tactic. The shutdown IS THE GOAL. To shut down the government at any time and for any reason, for as long as possible. To eliminate it. To drown it in a motherfucking bathtub. To force all the employees to quit. To punish them all for the War of Northern Aggression, and the Civil Rights Act, and Roe v. Wade, and Griswold, and the BATF, and public schools, and the speed limit, and the income tax, and just for existing.
The goal of the teabaggers is to shut down the government for any reason at any time and for as long as possible, until it is completely destroyed. Because they love that shit. They hate the federal goverment and are hell-bent on destroying it.
That is who you are dealing with.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@fuckwit: The income verification in the Senate proposal was to tighten up verification of an applicant’s income to determine how much subsidy s/he gets. It isn’t/wasn’t about means-testing.
My son tells me both income verification and reinsurance tax were out of the new Senate bill. I think he said he got that from an Ezra Klein tweet.
@TAPX486: That may be what the House wants (gives them 1 last chance to screw with ACA before it goes live Jan. 1), but the Senate bill says January 15. The reason for 1/15 is because that’s the day the second round of sequester cuts go into effect. Teh Dems want a new budget deal before those cuts become the new normal.
Reid has been doing a pretty good job on this, and Democrats are as united as I’ve ever seen them. I’m pretty proud to be a Democrat these days, actually.
Roger Moore
@Kay (not the front-pager):
The apocalypse is nigh.
NotMax
@fuckwit
There’s also no requirement that the Speaker be a member of the House.
Conceivably, DeMint or even Gingrich could be voted in.
Little Boots
@LeftCoastTom:
okay, under this weird new “rule” does eric cantor get to decide if a senate bill can be brought to the floor of the House.
something weird is going on there.
LeftCoastTom
@fuckwit: Fine. Then I guess we’ll get to see reality shows of repo people reposessing hoverrounds.
They want the parts of the government that subsidize them, and the most tea-infused parts of the country are among the most subsidized.
fuckwit
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I know, someone pointed that out. It had a governor though (Brigham Young, in fact), so I assumed it was a state. Twas only a territory back then, right.
NotMax
@NotMax
Or, FSM forbid, Palin.
srv
Tim,
You are like the only owner/youtuber in the universe that doesn’t say “good doggie!” when Max accomplishes these goals.
Are you a mute, or WTF does he have to do for affirmation?
fuckwit
@LeftCoastTom: Right, but they seem ideologically/religiously blind to that fact. That’s been the case for a long time (i.e. red states being the takers and blue states being the makers when it comes to taxes).
SatanicPanic
@NotMax: You’re going to cause some of our more excitable commentors to lose their minds. Let’s not get all Kossy here.
the Conster
We’re in the peak wingnut event horizon when logic and physics break down. Wheeeeee!!
LeftCoastTom
@Little Boots: True, that’s really bizarre (though I think that was less of a surprise to Dems than they’ve said, the resolution was really pretty short and the point couldn’t have been missed, I think it’s coming up now because Dems (rightly) felt it didn’t get the attention it deserved). But we’re talking about a GOP caucus that can’t even agree on some bullshit that they all know won’t become law – bullshit that, apparently, the Senate agreed to allow them to try to pass just so they could feel good about themselves. What are the odds that they’ll find 218 votes in favor of any GoOPer?
NotMax
@SatanicPanic
Heh.
Gotta admit, though, it would bring a whole new dimension to the term ‘train wreck.’
Little Boots
@LeftCoastTom:
but what does it say about eric cantor? and the caucus in regards to eric cantor? it almost seems like a repudiation of boehner already. or something.
Regnad Kcin
@Cassidy: where can i buy me some of this Alternate Reality?
Bobby Thomson
Dude, it doesn’t matter. Boehner never would bring it for a vote, anyway. We’re all screwed, so stock up on dry goods while you can.
SatanicPanic
@NotMax: Ok fine, I suggest Donald Trump.
LeftCoastTom
@Little Boots: I agree Boehner has been repudiated – I thought he had been repudiated when he couldn’t even pass a basic farm bill, with half his committee chairs voting against him. I doubt Boehner gets any more respect in his own caucus than he gets from us. Thing is…they only need 19 GOP votes to get rid of him because Democrats will provide the rest (OK, they may want a few extra just in case that idiot in Utah has an especially stupid day), but they need 219 GOP votes to replace Boehner with a teabagger because Democrats won’t provide any. The teabaggers really can’t afford many defections. What are the odds that they haven’t already hopelessly pissed off at least 19 GoOPers?
NotMax
@efgoldman
Or Uriah Heep, pre-comeuppance.
Dexter's new approach
Is there a back door way to funnel income to the (democrat’s) staff to make up the effective pay cut, or is that illegal? Or can’t they just take the deal, give the staff a small raise (most of these people are young and therefore cheaply insured) and exploit this nonsense after it’s done?
karen
I’m confused, why did the House have the right to change the rules to begin with?
Roxy
From Talking Points Memo
Here’s the rule in question:
When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.
In other words, if the House and Senate are gridlocked as they were on the eve of the shutdown, any motion from any member to end that gridlock should be allowed to proceed. Like, for example, a motion to vote on the Senate bill. That’s how House Democrats read it.
But the House Rules Committee voted the night of Sept. 30 to change that rule for this specific bill. They added language dictating that any motion “may be offered only by the majority Leader or his designee.”
So unless House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) wanted the Senate spending bill to come to the floor, it wasn’t going to happen. And it didn’t.
Little Boots
@LeftCoastTom:
they are probably too stupid to get this, but they really need a front man. they don’t need ted cruz or louie gomert or michelle bachman or any other teabagger. they need a servant who doesn’t look like them.
but they are probably too stupid to get that.
it’s like when the rich decided to drop all pretense and run one of their own, mitt romney, with pathetic consequences.
Yatsuno
@karen: Constitution says they can change the rules any time. So yeah, setting this all up to provoke the shutdown was Plan A.
karen
@Yatsuno:
Is it only the House that can do that? Can the Senate?
PsiFighter37
What I am really worried about is that Republicans do not understand the old Confucius saying: “Debt ceiling is like virginity – one prick, all gone.”
If these fuckers decide to shoot the hostage, there is no turning back. And not even that – I would argue that if we go over the edge, the Tea Party will buckle down even harder and refuse to pass anything at all. Until I see evidence that there are enough sane Republicans who won’t shit themselves at the mere whisper of a primary challenge (outside of Peter King, who’s probably too dumb to know any better), I am getting very worried.
If we default, we are in a terrifying new world, and not one that I have much interest in seeing what it’s like. Kind of like how I don’t want to see what’s past the event horizon of a black hole.
LeftCoastTom
@Little Boots: That makes sense, and they probably are too stupid to get it, which would make the “Hastert Rule” bleating especially absurd, since Hastert was never anything but a front man.
Sly
@CaseyL:
What you’re referring to is H.R. 368, which changed the standing rules of the House; specifically, Rule 22, Clause 4, which handles disagreements between the Senate and House over amendments to a bill passed in the House: it makes calling a vote on a version of that bill stripped of any amendments “privileged,” meaning any House member do it.
This is about the Rules Committee, which decides what rule under which a specific piece of legislation can be called to the floor, and it has to do purely with the internal politics of the House Republican Conference.
Basically, the Senate GOP leadership wants the House to pass the Senate version with a few added demands, because they think this will give them a stronger hand in negotiating with Reid. The version Boehner drafted, however, wasn’t good enough for the Republicans on the Rules Committee (because Heritage Action said it wasn’t), so they’re refusing to vote on it.
@LeftCoastTom:
The crazy thing is that the election of Speaker is done in the full House so, technically, the Speaker can be from the minority party. If enough House Republicans vote for someone else besides the official nominee of their caucus out of spite, Nancy Pelosi would be the first in U.S. history to accomplish this.
That would be… interesting.
SatanicPanic
@PsiFighter37: Don’t give in to despair man. If it were that bad Obama would have just said “fine, delay the ACA”
LeftCoastTom
@Sly:
When I mentioned GoOPers repeating virtually every screw-up the CA GOP did back in the day…I wrote off this possibility because it would require flipping 19 votes (thus went straight to a mostly-Dem-backed-GOP-speaker), but in 1995 Willie Brown (D) twice got himself elected Assembly speaker on a one-GOP-vote margin because he knew where the GOP bodies were buried and the GOP didn’t. The “Dem-elected-GOP-speaker” was the third step.
SatanicPanic
@LeftCoastTom: It happened in the US Senate
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Dexter’s new approach:
Maybe, maybe not. But if Democrats let them get away with this shit there will be no end to it. Republicans must be broken of this hostage-taking tactic. It is an attempted non-violent coup d’etat and it must be stopped for good.
karen
All I have to say is, payback is a bitch. Yet if Dems even talk about doing something similar, somehow the media will say that the Dems are being uncivil and unfair.
burnspbesq
Irony is not dead.
Mexico was two minutes away from missing next year’s World Cup. Two late goals by the US saved their tocino.
Jack the Second
@Anonymous At Work: Boehner isn’t the leader of the majority party; Cantor is.
Beatrice
I have been so sure, all along, that they would never actually let it come to default. I am no longer sure.
The doggie paddle made me laugh. When our Lab swam, all you could see was his head slicing through the water like a snake.
Little Boots
@karen:
which is exactly what the Dems have to stop giving a shit about.
José Arcadío Buendía
@LeftCoastTom: I’m fairly sure the number is 17 because of empty seats.
LeftCoastTom
@José Arcadío Buendía: You’re probably right.
Ecks
@Yatsuno: Quebec = ex-catholic. They were very dominated by the Catholic church and the Anglos till the 60’s, then threw both of them off in a “quiet revolution”. Since then its been leading Canada in suck “suck it Rome” categories as common-law marriage (i.e., people just living together and not getting hitched).
Quebec is also politically more liberal than the rest of Canada (which, unlike in America, is saying something). And considerably more corrupt.
The recent depressing infestation of the Canadian body politic with US style right-wing nastiness notwithstanding.