Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

I really should read my own blog.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

A consequence of cucumbers

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

We still have time to mess this up!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

You are here: Home / If You are Reading This, You Have No Government

If You are Reading This, You Have No Government

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Rand Paul and the Republicans:

Then, as an expected vote approached in the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) began to throw up roadblocks, demanding a vote on an amendment that would demonstrate how the two-year budget deal breaks past pledges to rein in federal spending.

GOP leaders refused to allow him to offer the amendment, arguing that if Paul got an amendment vote many other senators might want one, too. Paul, in turn, refused to allow the vote to go forward, making use of Senate rules that allow individual senators to slow down proceedings that require the consent of all.

“I can’t in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits,” Paul said on the Senate floor as evening pushed into night.

Paul objected after a visibly irritated McConnell tried to move to a vote. Then Paul launched into a lengthy floor speech deriding bipartisan complicity on deficit spending while the country goes “on and on and on finding new wars to fight that make no sense.” The senator direly predicted a “day of reckoning,” possibly in the form of the collapse of the stock market.

That’s not the lede of the story. It took them 9 grafs to get to Rand. “Congressional dysfunction” was in the lede.

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    “I can’t in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits,” Paul said on the Senate floor as evening pushed into night.

    Good job, dork. You just put this all on the GOP, as clear as day to the public.

  3. 3.

    Turgidson

    “NOW” complicit in deficits? NOW? Did this randroid dipshit just wake up from a 40 year coma? What fucking party does he think he’s a member of? Did he have a head injury when he voted for the deficit-sploding tax scam just a few weeks ago?

    What the fuck is he talking about?

  6. 6.

    sfinny

    Does this mean they are all staying up all night? Nice to have insomnia buddies, but Rand Paul and the senate aren’t exactly what I was hoping for.

  7. 7.

    Kraux Pas

    @Turgidson:

    “NOW” complicit in deficits? NOW? Did this randroid dipshit just wake up from a 40 year coma? What fucking party does he think he’s a member of? Did he have a head injury when he voted for the deficit-sploding tax scam just a few weeks ago?

    C’mon, we all know those will pay for themselves…and then some. I even heard they’d add $1.5 trillion to the surplus.

  8. 8.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Kraux Pas:

    C’mon, we all know those will pay for themselves…and then some. I even heard they’d add $1.5 trillion to the surplus deficit.

    Fixed that for ya, Rand.

  9. 9.

    MisterForkbeard

    “Me and the rest of the Republicans just made the deficit way, way worse. It’s all totally both sides making this worse, though.”

  10. 10.

    eric U.

    @Turgidson: I guess you mean a head injury other than the one delivered by his neighbor, right?

    I’m always impressed when a national republican obviously doesn’t understand the Republican party game. They wanted to be able to shut down the government and blame it on the democrats. Also, run up deficits to constrain spending on the kind of programs Democratic voters like. This is going to make it really difficult. I guess they think he’s too stupid to keep it to himself if they told him the truth about what they were doing.

  11. 11.

    Gretchen

    He voted for a tax cut that added $1.5 trillion to the deficit, and he’s very, very concerned about the deficit. Got it.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    Judging by the number of men on Twitter strongly blaming Nancy SMASH!!! for the shutdown, it seems as if the Republicans have realized that they’ve taken full credit for this one. I love that woman more and more every year. She’s a killer.

  13. 13.

    misterpuff

    @Gretchen: Ayuh.

    Poseur Please!

    I spoke out all year against the GOP leaders’ initial plan to make their tax reform “revenue neutral” — meaning not really a cut. I’m pleased to see my point of view has prevailed, and the current tax plan calls for a $1.5 trillion cut over the next ten years. I would have liked to see more — in fact, I offered an amendment to move it up to $2.5 trillion — but I’ve stated many times that as long as it is a real cut, I’ll vote for it, even if it isn’t as large as I would prefer.

  14. 14.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mary G: I was wondering who would be first to blame her, Republicans or the left. Osita Nwanevu (Slate) has been my go-to for unhelpful lefties lately (gotta read one!), and his take on Pelosi’s eight-hour speech was that she didn’t really mean it, and also is doomed to lose her speakership to a lefty challenger any day now. His most recent tweets:

    I wrote a piece based on fairly reasonable assumptions about how tonight would go, which did not, actually, include Rand Paul shutting the government down and Lindsey Graham yelling about Afghanistan.

    […]

    Rand Paul is just freestyling Intercept articles now. It’s very good.

  17. 17.

    MisterForkbeard

    I’m arguing with someone on NPR’s facebook posts (why do I do this to myself), and the guy says Rand Paul is a true hero, and we don’t have a money problem we’ve got a spending problem. I’m just proud of this response:

    The “we don’t have a money problem, we have a spending problem” is facetious at best. I mean, if you’re spending $10k/month and making $7k/month, you don’t… decide to work less and only make $5k/month and then say you’ll figure out what to cut spending on later. I mean, you COULD, but then you’d be kind of an idiot. Just like Rand Paul.

    Because Rand is a huge idiot. That just bears repeating.

  18. 18.

    Gemina13

    Rand Paul had absolutely no problem voting for the $1.5T giveaway to the rich that will blow a fucking crater in the deficit, but the budget gives him pause.

    Welp.

    Now I wish his neighbor had run him over with a riding lawnmower.

  19. 19.

    Mary G

    @Major Major Major Major: I thought it would the lefty dudebros like Tim Ryan and your guy, whose comedy good

    fairly reasonable assumptions

    cracks me up. Republicans will try, but it won’t stick this time thanks to Rand.

  24. 24.

    JGabriel

    John Cole @ Top:

    That’s not the lede of the story. It took them 9 grafs to get to Rand. “Congressional dysfunction” was in the lede.

    Republicans In Disarray!

  28. 28.

    sukabi

    @Aleta: ok that works… Is that really a ‘thing’? What’s next? ShwrTime, the app that reminds you to shower so you might have a better chance of getting a date.

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    If a Dem had pulled the stunt that Tribblehead pulled, the vermin of the Village would feature the Dem front and center.

    My nym. Again and again.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    In an earlier post, Adam observed that John Kelly’s defense of Porter suggests he (Kelly) may have mishandled cases involving women under his command while he was serving as a general. Well:

  33. 33.

    ZyklonBeaArthur

    Now that you Balloon-Juicing jackals have clued me into the scourge of both-siderism I can’t read any mainstream media without screaming. I’m a little worried I’m going to end up in the liberal version of a FauxNews bubble.

    The Trump regime may eventually be banished but the media is here to stay and it’s grotesque.

  34. 34.

    J R in WV

    @Betty Cracker:

    Good catch by @peterbakernyt and @maggieNYT: John Kelly “appeared as a character witness in a 2016 court-martial of a Marine colonel accused of sexually harassing two female subordinates. Mr. Kelly praised the colonel as a ‘superb Marine officer.'” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/us/politics/kelly-trump.html …

    So now we know how to become a “superb Marine officer:” try to have sex with your female supordinates, not be more effective leading your Jarheads in combat. No surprise that John Kelly, harasser of Female Subordinates, is a dick, .

  35. 35.

    eemom

    @ZyklonBeaArthur:

    uh, never thought I’d have an issue with anybody’s nym, but ZyklonB? Really?

    Also, don’t think Beatrice Arthur, RIP, would find that hilariously clever.

  36. 36.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    A news alert on my watch says the shutdown has ended due to the Senate vote, the local news folk are IDIOTS because the House hasn’t approved the budget nor has Trump signed it.

    Did I mention the local NBC news folk are IDIOTS?

  38. 38.

    JGabriel

    @ZyklonBeaArthur:

    Now that you Balloon-Juicing jackals have clued me into the scourge of both-siderism I can’t read any mainstream media without screaming. I’m a little worried I’m going to end up in the liberal version of a FauxNews bubble.

    Reality has a well-known liberal bias. A liberal version of the FauxNews bubble would be one in which the news reported is: accurate, informative, and not misleading.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @eemom

    The exact same reaction has been been made here by others over the past months, myself included.

    Personally don’t use the pie filter but have stated that due to the nym I scroll right on by any of his/her comments and never give a further reply to him/her.

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    So now the House is back voting on ordering the previous question, whatever that means. The Democratic woman rep from New York did a great job of blaming the Republicans for the clusterfuck so far.

  42. 42.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mary G: None of this drama ever seems to happen when Democrats are in charge of the process. The same was true here in California, when the Republicans were in charge or had a say in the process there were endless budget delays. I never hear about that drama from Sac-town anymore.

  43. 43.

    Aleta

    Kelly and all pretend not to understand that someone can be good at Marine-type jobs and at the same time be a rapist or harasser. Besides, the military is a higher good than a woman or child. “Because Porter is deferential to me and discreet and efficient, these stories can only be a smear job.”

  44. 44.

    Aleta

    This is cool. (I appreciate lawyers a lot these days.)

    @ABAJournal
    If you’re a lawyer who came from a less than privileged background to get where you are today, use the hashtag #mypathtolaw to tell your story.

    Heather Lynn Weaver‏ 
    @HeatherWeaverDC

    The first time it occurred to me that law could be a career path, I was 16 and sitting in municipal court listening to my mom testify in support of a restraining order against my stepfather. The judge (a woman) denied the PFA. #mypathtolaw

    When we went home, things were worse than ever. We lived in public housing, and there was no way to get him off the lease without that PFA. So, a few months later, to escape the abuse we moved out while he was at work, forfeiting the public housing benefit. #mypathtolaw



    The landlord of the place we moved to could most accurately be characterized as a slumlord. Over the next few years, there were a lot of injustices associated with living there. Living with abuse and poverty, you feel quite powerless over your life. #mypathtolaw


    
I think that feeling of powerlessness is ultimately what drove me to become a lawyer–an effort to claim some power over my circumstances and help those in similar situations. #mypathtolaw




    Although I went to a great law school and am successful, that feeling of powerlessness is deeply seated. It’s often my first visceral response to difficult circumstances, until I remind myself that I’m not a powerless little girl anymore. I have a voice and skills. #mypathtolaw

  46. 46.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @NotMax: everyone running in 2020 voted no.

    Booker
    Gillibrand
    Wilmer
    Warren

    Feinstein voted no, but thats cuz she may lose reelection under Cal’s jungle primary rules.

    Baby Doc voted no cuz he’ll be grifting for the WH for the next 20 years.

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