Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

T R E 4 5 O N

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: The Tantrum Caucus Holds Another Public Recital

Late Night Open Thread: The Tantrum Caucus Holds Another Public Recital

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Like toddlers on a sugar bender, torturing musical instruments and clutching at their overpriced tutus. Stunts only of interest to a very small circle of followers, but hey, those few are all they care about.

… The hard-line House Freedom Caucus’ latest revolt against McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) is over the National Defense Authorization Act, the law that authorizes the annual budget for the U.S. military.

That bill has historically passed with bipartisan support, and Republicans and Democrats had reached broad consensus on this year’s version, with plans to pass it by the end of the week. But Freedom Caucus members demanded a slew of controversial last-minute amendments, including measures that would ban the military from reimbursing service members who travel for abortions and prohibit the armed forces from paying for gender-affirming care. If Republicans approve these amendments, Democrats have promised to pull their support from the defense spending bill, forcing Republicans to pass it by themselves…

On Monday, 21 of their members sent McCarthy a letter with a list of demands for the government funding bill — and a threat to vote against the defense bill if they don’t get what they want. The letter, organized by Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Policy Chairman Chip Roy (R-Texas), demanded that McCarthy abandon the agreement he struck with Biden to avoid a debt default earlier this summer and authorize spending at lower levels.

Roy shrugged when asked about concerns that the Freedom Caucus might lead to a government shutdown…

Even if House conservatives succeed in making their favored changes to the spending bill, though, the current fight is unlikely to end in their victory. The Senate is still in Democrats’ hands, as is the White House, and Democratic negotiators will insist on stripping out the most controversial measures before allowing the bill to become law.

McCarthy’s most important allies recognize that reality. “The final NDAA bill, it will be bipartisan,” House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “No matter what we come out of here with, we’re going to sit down and negotiate with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. So the bill is going to move.”

“We’re working hard, harder in my opinion than we should have to work, but everything’s hard in this Congress,” Cole added ruefully a minute earlier…

Freedom Caucus members aren’t particularly worried about political blowback from a government shutdown. In fact, many of them believe that triggering shutdowns has worked for them in the past. In 2013, Roy was Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) chief of staff and helped convince House Republicans to force a 17-day shutdown in an attempt to repeal Obamacare.

At the time, House GOP leaders hoped that rank-and-file Republicans would feel the pain and never want to shut down the government again. But the stunt had no obvious political ramifications — Republicans did extremely well in the next midterm elections — and hard-line Republicans internalized the opposite lesson.

“When we went into that shutdown, we referred to it as a ‘touch the stove’ moment,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who worked for GOP House leadership at the time. “And the reality is they didn’t get burned. It’s not that they didn’t learn their lesson — they learned the wrong lesson.”

The Freedom Caucus helped drive then-Speaker John Boehner into retirement in 2015, then blocked McCarthy from becoming speaker not long afterward because they didn’t trust his conservative bona fides. They even caused havoc for then-President Trump at times, demanding his Obamacare repeal plan move hard to the right to earn their support.

But their power to cause chaos has grown this year because of the House GOP’s razor-thin majority. Republican leaders can afford to lose just four of their members on any House vote, allowing the dozen or so lawmakers on the far right of their caucus to disrupt the chamber at any time…

Charlie Pierce liveblogged the hearing for Esquire. A selection:

Good point from Josh Marshall:

Developing…

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    Maxim

    Maybe they’ll do us a favor and drive their Krazy Klown Kar off a cliff.

    Frist, also too.

  9. 9.

    patrick II

    including measures that would ban the military from reimbursing service members who travel for abortions and prohibit the armed forces from paying for gender-affirming care.

    Despite what Alito told us, his abortion decision was never going to be a states-rights only issue and the extermination of the right of privacy was never going to be just about abortion.

  11. 11.

    J R in WV

    Hi, guys! I’m done with the 8 hour chemo infusions and have an appointment next week with an oncologist…

    I think there’s some preoperative stuff, originally surgery was scheduled in early September to take out the tumor and everything where it might reoccur.

    I’m feeling OK, reading a lot, spending time with puppies, lurking the comment threads. Keying a comment with my little tablet kinda sucks.

    But I’m hanging in there,  great view of ferns and humming birbs in the ravine behind the house.

  12. 12.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    Just wondering how striking down Obergerfell would  actually practically work is making my head hurt. A gay couple gets married while it was legal and has kids. Now they want a divorce. Are they getting a divorce or not getting a divorce since its not legal. What about a widow/widower? SS survivors benefits? Are they legal in one state and not another. So many more issues. These people are ridiculous.

  14. 14.

    Geminid

    A government shutdown this fall would certainly cause a lot of problems. I can see one potential silver lining to that cloud, though. Government shutdowns impact Virginia more than most states, and it’s an election year here. Voters will have a great opportunity to take their frustrations out on Republicans running for the House of Delegates and Senate.

  15. 15.

    Martin

    I know ‘colored people’ feels like a step back, but it really isn’t. It’s desperate. They’re desperate. They’re losing and they know it. Sure, it’d be nice if they’d stop digging, but digging is what their electorate sent them to do.

  19. 19.

    Martin

    @Mai Naem mobileI: Unsurprisingly, some judge is using the 303 decision to refuse to marry gay couples.

    The hair salon that announced they wouldn’t serve trans customers lost their supplier.

    So, if the court thinks they washed their hands of this, they have done anything but.

  22. 22.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @Martin:

    It seems that way, doesn’t it, from the way he backed down immediately when confronted, and proposed amending it to “people of color”. I fully expected him to double-down on his racist language, but there was no fight in him. I suspect you’re right.

  24. 24.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @J R in WV:

    It’s good to hear from you–you’ve been missed.

    I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying the ravines and the ferns and the birbs, and I’ll hope for steady improvement as you recover from the chemo.

  26. 26.

    Martin

    LOL. Temecula school board was taken over by Moms for Liberty weirdos and banned a social studies textbook that mentioned Harvey Milk. Now, understand that it is CA state law and has been since 2012 that schools must teach the contributions of LGBTQ Californians, and Harvey Milk is kind of the entry point for that. So Gavin Newsom responds that since the district won’t have textbooks for students in the fall, the state will buy new textbooks and bill the district for the books and fine them for breaking the law.

    See Democrats, that’s not so hard. Just fucking do the right thing, and nobody is going to notice the court decisions that come down later about whether you overreached or not. Biden has the right idea on college debt. Do that shit elsewhere too.

  31. 31.

    patrick II

    @J R in WV:

    Both of my sisters have been through what you are going through.  It was hard, but they kept up their good spirits as it seems you are now and that seemed to help it work out.  I am trying some clever way to work in a birb joke, but it was already done pretty well by frosty, so I won’t. Have a good night.

  34. 34.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    @J R in WV: i am glad things appear to be going as well as expected. Good luck with the surgery. Can you use a stylus for the tablet? It might make it easier.

  38. 38.

    BellyCat

    @TS: THAT’S how you do it! Awesome news!!! :-)

    Women can now obtain birth control without a doctor’s involvement or, if young, their parent’s permission?!?! Break out the Right Wing fainting couches and unleash their phalanx of rabid former Supreme Court interns attorneys. 😂

  40. 40.

    Chris T.

    House Freedom Caucus

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…

  41. 41.

    scribbler

    @J R in WV:  Sending strength and positivity your way.  Thanks for checking in-you have been missed (even by us semi-lurkers!).

  42. 42.

    satby

    @J R in WV: Glad to hear from you J R! Wishing all the best luck on the surgery and rest of your treatments. And keep on enjoying your peaceful surroundings, that also sounds healing.

  43. 43.

    Geminid

    The Freedom Caucus is fixing to mess up the big Farm Bill too. They insist on cuts to nutritional assistance programs.

    These bills get passed every five years. The last one was delayed by those dumbasses for 7 months. When Paul Ryan’s House majority finally passed it in mid-2018, the Republican Senate stripped out the Freedom Caucus’s provisions anyway.

  44. 44.

    AM in NC

    @Alison Rose: EXACTLY.  From the language he uses, you know how he thinks. Chip Roy is a disgusting creeper. If not in his personal life, certainly in his political actions.

  49. 49.

    Denali5

    @JR IN WV:

    Great to hear from you!  We have missed you and are so glad to hear the the chemo is done! Nothing like puppies, flowers, and birds to bring love in the your life!

  51. 51.

    StringOnAStick

    @J R in WV: Sounds like maybe the surgery is sooner because the chemo has worked better than expected?  That’s excellent. Hang on there, we all miss you!

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