Things are pretty bad for John Boehner. While the nutters in wingnutopia are doing just fine, the Orange Speaker’s political career is over. It is just a matter of time until he feels the urge to “spend more time with his family”.
That Boehner is doomed is becoming conventional wisdom. The only pathway out of the Republican Party’s manufactured debt crisis is to compromise with Democrats and President Obama. If Orange John takes that route he is doom–even if the final compromise would be judge as a total wingnut Win by any sane person. OTOH, he could continue to try and appease the endless fantasies of the extreme wingnut suicide squad and own the destruction of the economy–which also kills his political future.
Dana Milbank had a solid column up Friday about the slow political death spiral of Orange John and his surrender to the nutter nihilists. This framing of his political future seems spot on:
“Get your ass in line,” Speaker John Boehner had told House Republicans who resisted his plan to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a default.
But really, it was Boehner’s butt that was on the line — and late Thursday night, he had it handed to him.
For his six-month-old speakership, it was a grievous if not mortal wound. The legislation under consideration was fairly pointless — a solution to a self-inflicted crisis that faced certain defeat in the Senate — but Boehner made it into a test of his leadership. And rank-and-file Republicans returned a vote of no confidence.
Mostly Dead seems like a generous description of the weakest Speaker of the House in the Modern Era.
Cheers
WereBear
May he be the Harbinger!
Hunter Gathers
Oh well, at least The Orange One will have more time to spend getting blitzed and burning nails while golfing.
General Stuck
McConnell and senate wingers have jumped in the same boat as Boehner and will filibuster the Reid bill, or any bill that doesn’t give them another stage in a few months to make their final offer of all the entitlements gets it, unless you hand over the one we want. The ACA. 43 senate wingers singed the letter to block cloture.
Boehner isn’t going anywhere, except for hero status of Planet Wingnut, and Mcconnell seems to be riding his coat tails for an elevated status in that snake pit.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: All for show. This way the eventual last minute deal that is presented will have the aura of “HAD TO DO IT”.
And you and Cole will lecture the rest of us on the unbearable rightness of why it is awesome.
Martin will also add some fuzzy math for the slower amongst us.
dr. bloor
I vote Zombie Dead. I’m not sure you can completely kill a man who’s embalmed himself with Scotch.
I’d also like to see him hang around long enough to preside over the inevitable impeachment hearings that follow [insert your preferred manufactured bullshit high crime or misdemeanor here]. It wouldn’t be a fair fight.
shortstop
I think it will be more fun to mock the end of his career when and if this crisis gets semiresolved. Not that he’s any less moribund either way, but right now most of my energy is focused on the large segment of Americans I want not to suffer, and he’s definitively not in that group.
JonF
Shut up! You’ll be stone dead in a week!
ET
Be careful what you wish for – you may actually get it.
hildebrand
If he wanted to go out in a blaze of Friedman-esque glory – and insure invites to the best Bloomburg related parties in perpetuity – he needs to turn around and screw the entire Teabagging horde in one final cataclysmic orgy of deal making with the President. Find 20 sane Republicans (yep – the hardest part of the whole gig) that are willing to throw away their political careers (in return for fame and fortune from the ‘Radical Centrists’ – they could hold panels at Aspen and other places for 50 large a pop whenever they wanted to speak), cut a deal with the Democrats and the President and ride off into the god-damned sunset.
He would immediately go from goat to hero. They would carve his face on Mount Rushmore. He would be heralded as the politician with the greatest amount of courage. Ever. (Doesn’t mean that it would be true, but go with the MSM that you have not the one you wish you had.)
Somebody needs to be whispering this into his ear. He has a path to glory available to him, one that would crush the spines of the Teabagging hacks forever.
Somebody needs to make this happen. Shockingly, he doesn’t seem to be warming to the idea, as I have been dropping the idea into faxes to his office all this week.
Mike M
Even if this is true – who cares? What’s getting lost in this mess is the fact that we’re cutting government spending in the midst of a double dip recession. All of this arguing over how much, which programs, who wins politically etc. is essentially just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Obama and the Dems have agreed to an insane far-right viewpoint with no advantage for America outside of further empowering the Tea Party.
And we’re going to celebrate that we’ll now have Speaker Cantor instead? Gimme a break.
JGabriel
A picture of Republicans and America. Counter-intuitively, the Republcans are at the left of the photo, with America just to the right of the GOP’s gun hand.
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Loneoak
Long live Speaker Gohmert!
General Stuck
I don’t know what is going to be the end game of this, other than if it gets rewound in 6 months, I will be tuning out the politics as much as my curiosity will let me. The only winners will be the 27 percenters, who can commence ripping the rafters out of the American Experience, like they cannot wait to do.
Corner Stone
@dr. bloor:
It’s difficult…it can be difficult…
jon
Now he can go back to dealing with those Vermicious Knids, Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers and Snozzywangers in his native Loompaland.
Corner Stone
The only other option I can personally see is a kind of limited, stagger stepped cascade default. The pressure from the “markets” gets so obvious the eventual deal we see presented is absolutely horrific for the people but it’s a MUST to get done for the “good of the nation”.
IMO, I’m still going with a last minute deal. It will also be awful.
Cermet
I think this is a good example of a “Dead man talking”
Corner Stone
@Mike M:
No need to go half cocked on that angle.
It’s inevitable. Let the moment come to you.
JWL
“Weakest Speaker”? He whittled the democratic party’s towering-redwood-of-a-president down into a toothpick.
The truth hurts. But don’t you realize that we’re all republicans now?
Montysano
Does anyone think that the GOP is trying to force Obama into a 14th Amendment solution, with impeachment to follow immediately after?
Dennis G.
General Stuck
The turtle’s letter is just for show. There is no way that the 43 hang together to filibuster a resolution to this invented crisis. Mitch knows that they will own it and he does not want that. Most likely is a change to Reed’s bill related to some fig leaf trigger mechanism that kicks this fight down the road to fill the space after the Government shutdown budget fight in September.
As for Boehner, he is gone as is whomever they choose to take his place. Being a drummer for Spinal Tap has more job security than being a Republican Speaker of the House with a large Tea Party suicide squad controlling the process.
MazeDancer
If you haven’t seen Fareed Zakaria giving horrified Anderson Cooper a civics lesson on why TParty are economic terrorists, you must: http://goo.gl/OVs9s
(From GOS.)
So, 43 no’s means Obama and Constitutional scholarship our only hope right now. Also saw at GOS a nice idea. When the President uses the 14th, he says he’s appointing a bi-partisan debt commission by executive order.
That could help smooth over the PR “King Obama” situation. Gives a “both sides” for talking heads when interviewing wingers. Appointing a bi-partisan commission isn’t exactly kingly.
JGabriel
@hildebrand:
It’ll never happen. Boehner agrees with the Tea Party on policy. He may personally think the Teahadi’s methods for getting there are a little uncompromising, but Boehner shares their goals.
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PreservedKillick
No question the tea party wants that. Doubt that the “sane” (I use the term loosely) minority wing of the GOP realizes that impeaching the guy for saving the entire country from fucking ruin would be…um…less than politically astute.
Redshift
@Mike M: I agree that it looks like whatever gets passed is going to be a disaster for America, but the one thing that makes passage less bad than default is that at least it prevents the world economy from immediately crashing, so we have some chance at recovery in the next decade.
tomvox1
All true BUT: If Boehner is the drowning man who takes Obama with him, it’s still “Mission Accomplished” for the Rabid Right–and so what if Boehner sleeps with the fishes is the cost? Just take a look at Obama’s poll #s re Gallup: All-time low of 40%, down 10 since June.
Even I, Obot optimist extraordinaire, am starting to get worried. This whole ginned up debt crisis might be radioactive for all the players but we can’t replace Obama and they have Koch whores and wingtards 50-deep on their bench.
Redshift
@Montysano: I don’t think their thinking is that complex. They already know that he should be impeached. I don’t think they have a strategy other than “keep shouting until everyone agrees with us.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Corner Stone: Well, Dead is Dead. (Couldn’t resist.)
General Stuck
I watched it all live on C span this morn, and didn’t get that impression. My impression was unless they can do this again in short order, with dems dropping their demand of a jump till 2013, they are all in with Boehner. Or, they will all hang together, or hang separately.
But I hope you are correct, and it is just a CYA for senate wingers to appear united, and will cave at the last minute for some fig leaf of a respite from the tea tard lynch mobs.
I can to some degree, usually, get a sense of what is being played out in regular order legislating. But not on this shit. I have no clue how it will end. Dems can’t fold on the part of getting this thing fixed until past the election. If they do, then we are truly fucked as a country.
Anonne
Sadly, Boehner is our best hope for any semblance of governance until 2012. The establishment has to fight back against the fringe, but it doesn’t because doing so would entail teaching the base bits of reality, and we all know reality has a liberal bias.
kansi
The longer this continues, the lower the President’s numbers fall. Why on earth would the GOP act to end this one minute before they really have to?
wrb
@PreservedKillick:
Dunno. In polls house Republicans have been gaining and Obama falling during this Republican-concocted horror show. Their control over the filters between reality and what most Americans see has reached the point of awesome.
Martin
I’m liking the idea of just having the Fed print money and give it to the US budget more and more. We’ll deal with the inflation (won’t be much 1% or so, I figure this year). There’s no new debt created (so we save that 1% in interest not needing to be paid). And the burden falls on anyone who currently has cash through devaluation, which sure as hell isn’t the middle class.
The debt limit is taken off the table as a threat from here out, but it puts Congress and the Fed at odds. Basically the Fed tells Congress: Either you borrow money and put the burden on the appropriate people, or we devalue the dollar and put it disproportionately on the rich. And we can do this without your permission, so deal with it when you want. Laters.
Not exactly stimulative, though it’ll help everyone whose underwater on their homes by inflating the value of the home relative to the mortgage.
Keith G
With respects, so the fuck what?
I figure that even given the above, I can count on three things.
1) They will plug in someone else (maybe more odious, maybe more loved by the press)
2) The Democrats, from POTUS on down will have no clue how to take advantage of this.
3) Things will be just as bad, if not worse, as the Democrats continue to not be able to connect with the former American working class.
edited
Martin
@wrb:
That’s something of an Obama cycle. His polling goes down through a crisis, we get a non-half-assed solution in the end, and his polling pops back up. I think through one mechanism or another, he’ll find a way to look good at the end of this.
Ash Can
@Dennis G.:
Something like this occurred to me just a little while ago. Even if Cantor takes over, he hasn’t exactly been ideologically pure himself, so how extensive would his support among the suicide bombers actually be? I don’t know if anyone short of Michele Bachmann would keep the horde happy, and she’s not around; she’s too busy running for president.
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
Surveys are showing truly awful UE for the AA community. Some articles talk about the destruction of the black middle class.
I wonder how long Obama can maintain the support of individuals who’ve seen generations of their families slide backward, economically.
And no, I don’t mean they would vote for Bachmann.
Anya
Corner Stone @#4 ~ Are you saying that all this wingnut craziness and hostage taking is some sort of subterfuge, so that the Manchurian President – who’s in reality a Republican in Dems clothing, can dismantle Medicare, nay, repeal the 20th century? Is that correct, Corner Stone?
wrb
I like the idea, but remember that almost all of the current Fed board members were appointed by Republicans. Combine that with their history of willingness to inflict great pain on ordinary citizens in the name of fighting inflation & I’d say the chances of them acting aren’t the greatest.
However they are probably non-crazy Republicans. If the damage to wealth looks very great they might act.
If the administration controlled the Fed, then that would be a very tempting solution.
dr. bloor
I like the idea, but remember that almost all of the current Fed board members were appointed by Republicans. Combine that with their history of willingness to inflict great pain on ordinary citizens in the name of fighting inflation & I’d say the chances of them acting aren’t the greatest.
Actually, if I’ve been following that option correctly, it would be the Treasury, and it would be coinage, not paper.
Corner Stone
@Anya: Take a look around Anya, and if you are able, answer the question for yourself.
It’s obvious it’s all subterfuge. The only debatable point is, to what end?
I guess we’ll see this next week.
WaterGirl
If Congress can’t get it together, and President Obama has to step in with a solution, his best position is if everybody is saying “why didn’t he do it sooner”. Because a “why did he wait so long” meme is not compatible with the “oh my god, he is a dictator” meme.
I don’t think he will go with the 14th amendment.
I do agree with Martin, though, Obama will find some mechanism that will be good/look good for him. i don’t know what it is, but Obama has a plan. And anyone who doubts that should find a clip of David Plouffe being interviewed after Obama’s press conference last week.
And part of that plan is for him to stand up in public many times and say, “this is up to congress… congress has to wrk this out with a compromise”. I find it boring, but then he’s not trying to reach me, he’s still trying to reach my sister, who as of last Thursday had no idea anything was going on.
wrb
@Martin:
True. However the fact that Republicans are opening their lead in generic ballot polling is disturbing.
Thirdeyeopen
Montysano: I get the feeling there are a lot of half-baked, but seemingly rational tactics running through back-rooms. Although I actually think the Prez would preside over a chaotic default rather than let them do it again in six months. If we are going to the brink, might as well focus the minds with one ratings change, rather than possibly two. I don’t think the ratings and bond-buyers would miss the opportunity to stick it to us twice in the same year.
Third Eye Open
@Montysano
I get the feeling there are a lot of half-baked, but seemingly rational tactics running through back-rooms.
Although I actually think the Prez would preside over a chaotic default rather than let them do it again in six months. If we are going to the brink, might as well focus the minds with one ratings change, rather than possibly two. I don’t think the ratings and bond-buyers would miss the opportunity to stick it to us twice in the same year.
JGabriel
@Redshift:
A particularly cynical analysis might posit a scenario in which crashing the world economy, then pumping the US economy with Keynesian stimulus afterward, would give the US an economic advantage in the global recovery, and consolidate US economic power in much the same way that the US consolidated its power after WW II.
Alternately, an even more cynical analysis, and I suppose this is more likely, might speculate that crashing the global econmomy could permit the wealthy to consolidate its own global power by reducing the costs of labor everywhere, much as the wealthy in the US have consolidated their power over the last 30 years through the stagnation of labor costs while they kept to themselves all the profits of improved productivity and technological advances.
Yes, the richest might lose money in the latter scenario — but since everyone else would be losing more, they would have a net gain in economic power and political influence. That’s how class war works.
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Dennis SGMM
I’d be applauding if it was the Democrats who’d brought Boehner to this pass. It was the Jacobins in his own party that did so. I see no reason to do the Happy Dance because an asshole may be replaced by a lunatic.
dr. bloor
@Dennis SGMM:
Asshole, lunatic, rabid dog, doesn’t matter who you prop up with a gavel right now. The caucus is ungovernable.
shortstop
One coin, two sides.
wrb
There have been three I’ve seen discussed, the two more conventional ones on the Fed side, including the one Martin described (the other one has the fed destroying or giving back the close to two bn in Treasury bonds it holds, thus making room under the cap). The “mint trillion dollar platinum coins” option I’d thought too bizarre to take seriously with the neater Fed options available, but yea, that must be it: people got that creative because the Fed can’t be depended upon.
Emerald
And the MSM will treat the lunatic with the same false equivalency as the asshole.
Anya
Corner Stone ~ Answer the question. We all know there’s always Kabuki theatre involved when it comes to politics. The issue is whether you truly believe that the President and the Wingnuts are working together to repeal the 20th century and the wingnuts are being extra wingnutty to give him cover.
Kane
I assumed that in the end, cooler heads would eventually prevail to raise the debt ceiling. But after watching a little bit of
C-SPAN today and hearing the level of bitterness and animosity coming from the members of the House, I’m convinced that we are headed towards default. There remains too much fight in their voices, and too little time.
FlipYrWhig
Seems to me that declining poll numbers probably describe the following kind of reaction:
1. I hate politics, and it’s full of idiots and clowns.
2. Hey, I just heard that something terrible could happen if those politicians don’t get their act together.
3. Why is this taking so long? Just make a damn deal. Obama, whoever’s in Congress, just cut the shit and do something.
4. Jesus Christ, I’m tired of hearing about this, just get it done.
Followed by…
5. Finally.
I would guess that a solid 90% of the voting-age populace has no idea what is going on and even less idea about what the differences are between the sides.
Redshift
Unfortunately, that cynical scenario would require the rich not having worked so hard to discredit Keynesian stimulus. As things are, we’re not getting a significant stimulus unless the teabaggers get kicked out of control of Congress.
Also, I don’t see a financial crash as being similar to the destruction of WWII. If everyone is destroyed including us, we’re not in a position to step in as the benevolent overlords.
Sadly, your second cynical scenario is not implausible.
PreservedKillick
Congress is not going to agree, that’s clear.
Whether Obama defaults or does this using some sort of backdoor mechanism, I don’t know, but I suspect he defaults.
jwb
Corner Stone: I get your reasoning and I think it’s a plausible outcome (the filibuster is there not so much to extract a concession per se but to make it look like the Senate goopers are going to bat for the wingers in the House so that when the compromise comes enough of them have cover to vote for the thing), but I’m not convinced it’s inevitable, the terms have already been negotiated, and we’re just wanting for the right tick of the clock. I think there is still a very real possibility of this whole thing derailing, and I’m not certain that the odds aren’t higher for the whole thing derailing than for a deal being made.
jwb
Corner Stone: Deal or no deal, it will be awful. And it will turn out to be the Dems’ fault. So there’s that.
Corner Stone
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): “I know you. I know you. I knew I knew you. I knew I knew you, but you ain’t you. You can’t be you, we put you through the window. There ain’t no comin’ back. This is the really real world, there ain’t no comin’ back. We killed you dead, there ain’t no comin’ back! There ain’t no comin’ back! There ain’t no comin’ back!”
Dee Loralei
I wonder a few things about this. 1) When the hell is Obama, Biden, Daley gonna give the Ned Beatty speech from Network to the Republicans? you know the one…” You have messed with the primal forces of the Universe…..”, etc.
2) Why haven’t McConnell, Boehner or Cantor been found in a “dead girl/ live boy” scenario yet? 3) or at the very least a horse head in their beds? What the heck do we pay those black ops CIA types for, if it isn’t to control some political outcomes? Yea, I know CIA can’t operate within the US, but sheesh, just this once? 4) Why aren’t these traitorous bastards on some plane to Gitmo or a black site prison somewhere? 5) Waterboarding, why not?
And yes, I know the Constitution has a very precise, legal definition of Treason, but how are they not traitors? And fuck anyone with a rust chainsaw if they think their pledge to Grover Norquist is more important than their oaths of office!
And if the CIA doesn’t want to open the can of worms by turning US elected Representatives, can they pretty please at least get to Grover?
eta a few typos and to apologize to Momma Cole for the cussing!
Martin
The benefit to doing at the Fed level is that it’s (technically) non-partisan and out of the control of both the WH and Congress. IOW, nobody can do shit about it and everyone passes the buck to Bernacke.
Corner Stone
President Obama knows better than any of us that if the US defaults he will not be re-elected in 2012. If he uses the 14th, he will not be re-elected in 2012.
He’s got a hard enough road with U3 of 9%. He’s not going to pile on himself.
JGabriel
@FlipYrWhig:
They can hardly be blamed for that at this point, given how close the Boehner and Reid bills actually are. On the other hand that reinforces the point that the GOP won’t compromise at all — Democrats met them 100% on their terms, and the GOP moved the goalposts to add a balanced budget amendment and cut the debt limit increase to a third of what’s needed to get to 2013.
.
lamh34
@Corner Stone:
Purely antecdotally and in my own experience as an AA please make no mistake whatever you may hear from those annointed to speak for AA on tv and elsewhere, President Obama will have the support of AA in the next election and beyond even with AA UE being so high.
Why? Because as most AA will tell you when asked, AA UE has always been high under every President Dem or GOP since AA have were given the rights to vote.
I can only tell you not to believe what you hear from the Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, or whoever else about POTUS support in AA.
Now support for other members of the Dem party after the next election (specifically if POTUS does not win re-election), I can’t really tell you if the same support will be there.
mcd410x
In times like these, I find it best to turn to Hunter S. Thompson (from Sept. 18, 2001):
“We are At War now, according to President Bush, and I take him at his word. He also says this War might last for “a very long time.”
“Generals and military scholars will tell you that eight or 10 years is actually not such a long time in the span of human history — which is no doubt true — but history also tells us that 10 years of martial law and a war-time economy are going to feel like a Lifetime to people who are in their twenties today. The poor bastards of what will forever be known as Generation Z are doomed to be the first generation of Americans who will grow up with a lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed.
“That is extremely heavy news, and it will take a while for it to sink in. The 22 babies born in New York City while the World Trade Center burned will never know what they missed. The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what’s coming now. The party’s over, folks. The time has come for loyal Americans to Sacrifice. … Sacrifice. … Sacrifice. That is the new buzz-word in Washington. But what it means is not entirely clear. …”
Now we know.
Roger Moore
@dr. bloor:
I’d think he’d be nice and flammable. All it would take is a misplaced match when he’s lighting up a cigarette and boom.
Corner Stone
@lamh34: Thanks. I was not making any presumptions, and haven’t listened to any anointed spokespeople.
Just asking the question based on reported data.
As I said, obviously no one considers Bachmann as a “better” solution to the UE issue for AA’s.
But anecdotally from another perspective, I’m aware of some perspectives that have changed in this really tough economy.
Blame Obama, or shield Obama or anything in between. The president is a figurehead for the economy.
And high UE under all presidents is one issue, going backwards under President Obama is a different one, IMO.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: Well, I haven’t spontaneously combusted yet, and I’m 4 parts vodka by volume.
Tonal Crow
Hoist by his own teatards.
BTW, please stop calling it a “balanced budget amendment”. It’s the End Medicare and Social Security Amendment, ‘cuz that’s what it’ll do.
Cain
@68 cornerstone
How many parts nachos?
lamh34
@Corner Stone: Here’s the thing Ask anyone who is not “dialed in” as you and I are, and I don’t want to get bogged down into who has more “AA” anecdotes but as a rule, what I have heard, is “do you see what THEY are doing to OUR President?”. The people I speak to are highly aware of not just aware of what the Republicans are doing but they are also paying attention to ANYTHING said about this President that can be deemed negative be it spoken by a Repub or Dem.
Also, I would really like to find a random AA who is not “dialed-in” who would say that AA UE has gone backwards under Obama.
As to reported data, I take any and mostly all reported data on the AA community with a grain of salt. I’ve found that my own experience and anecdotal evidence as it pertains to my community tends to pan out a lot more than the reported data does.
All I’m saying is please don’t take it as gospel that AA feel the same way about UE under Obama as some white people do. It is one of the reasons that I think Repubs like Bachmann and her ilk or any liberal Dems are barking up the wrong tree if they think they can split this President from his AA base based solely on UE. It ain’t gonna happen short of Barack being shown to have cheated on Michelle O.
Corner Stone
@Cain: Had burritos last night.
And just to help my fellow BJ’ers, I’ll share my rice conundrum.
I made white rice, then combined it with black beans, sauteed diced white onions, fresh cilantro, fresh lime juice, a little olive oil, salt and some different ground peppers.
And it was really good, but not excellent.
This morning I woke up and realized where I went wrong. No cumin!
I added some cumin to the leftovers and it was absolutely awesome. Just over the top delicious.
Lime juice/cilantro/cumin/black bean/rice.
Awesome.
wrb
Since under the 14th amendment vested debts, including pensions, must be paid first and according to the treasury they can’t legally prioritize among the rest, we might not have much of an air traffic control system after the 2nd.
General Stuck
Fitting for a country flying blind
cleek
@FlipYrWhig:
and how could they? there’s almost nobody’s telling them.
karen marie
@dr. bloor: OMG! I have a reply button! w00t!
But on topic, this is why I was, and still am, pissed that Dems didn’t move to impeach Bush for the lying and torture.
Corner Stone
@lamh34: “caught balls-deep in a goat” ?
Gotcha.
WereBear
You gotta see Nancy Pelosi’s speech:
Speaker Boehner Chose To Go To The Dark Side
She is on fire in this video, calling them OUT.
Davis X. Machina
@karen marie: Impeachment was turned into a joke by the GOP’s impeachment of Clinton — and I don’t think that was an accidental byproduct of the process, I think it was its goal.
Now, when that particular sword needs to be drawn, everyone gets to roll their eyes and make wry comments about ‘partisan payback’ — because in ’98, it was.
James E. Powell
When your party has branded the president as a foreign, soshulist, anti-American antichrist, and when you have promoted and inflamed those kinds of beliefs to hold your base together, you don’t have much room to move when it comes to making policy decisions.
General Stuck
@WereBear:
A lot of people of the center left have been on fire describing the completely seditious behavior of the republicans and their sworn oath to destroy very popular social programs. That were hard fought for decades to put in place that most people in this country take for granted, until they need them, and none so more than the right wing republican average voter. Obama has been on teevee telling them the truth about what these people want, the tea party.
And yet the polls are moving toward the GOP and away from Obama and dems.
There comes a point when stubbornness turns to mindless hostility, and we are at that point with the GOP toward democrats and liberals. And this is how the wingers bring down a dem politician and current president of the US. He has given them no other device to use against him from personal failings to be exploited, or anything else/
So we have arrived at the lowest denominator yet, a doomsday like device to be triggered, or else, Obama must submit. What kind of choice is that for even slightly honorable persons to put up?
I would like to see Obama call their bluff and go extra constitutional and tell the wingers to stuff it. But that is a perilous path, especially for the first black POTUS, and still would put the country and world at peril and open up all sorts of legal pits to fall into, and will in any case lead to less certainty that we are still a governable democracy.
So we are back to giving the wingers what they want. A pathway to destroy the ACA, and maybe even coopt SS and medicare and put those programs into the clutches of insatiable greed merchants on Wall Street. Or, take the risk of going it alone and circumventing a standing law, but putting off what the wingers want will not keep trying to accomplish. And that is to Destroy that which they hate, or destroy it all.
This sounds like civil war to me. If the right wing persists with such craven acts of sedition. It sounds like this is what they want, or a complete and unconditional surrender to the cold war between the parties of recent history.
Jc
Just tuning back in – is what I’m hearing correct?
The republican Senate is filibustering?
If so, then to me it seems likely that the republicans are not waiting for something so pedestrian as an election.
The only aim is to kill Obama’s reelection chances by whatever means necessary.
Doug’s more cynical posts look to be correct.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
FIFY
Anya
@Corner Stone:
Whenever I see crocodile tears shed by people who never cared about the well-being of AA, except when a black man was elected president, it makes me really mad. Many people (left and right) use the high unemployment rate in the AA community, as a weapon to pledging President Obama with. It’s distasteful and disingenuous. What these charlatans are claiming is that African Americans are worse off under the first Black President, than they were under his predecessors, without considering the economic calamity that President Obama inherited.
In December 2008, the overall African-American unemployment was 11.9% and today it’s at 15%. These are horrible numbers, but it’s not connected to any policy implemented by President Obama. Instead there’s a huge correlation between cuts in local government jobs, which traditionally employed African-Americans, specially men and the high EU rates among AA. Of course you should blame the Black President, when you start with an 11.9 UE and face a worsening recession, coupled with state wide wingnut cut and slash, and an insanely obstructionist congress.
Judas Escargot
@General Stuck:
Josh Marshall’s “bitchslap theory” of politics in action: At a distance, the GOP looks tougher.
If Obama folds, his Presidency is over. And the US becomes Wisconsin/Ohio writ large.
Those with gods might consider praying to them.
WereBear
If the President wanted to fold, he would have and he could have. I do not see hum picking fights lightly; his tendency is to not pick fights at all. But for him, and Pelosi, and even Reid, are making a great show of digging in and fighting.
Unlike the Republicans, I believe they mean it.
stinkdaddy
I’m sure all the folks whose families end up getting hurt by the latest round of austerity cuts, supercongress, etc. will be greatly comforted to hear that Boehner was a shitty speaker.
pete
@mcd410x: This. People tend to think of HST as a clown or self-destructive loon, and he was, but he was also one of the most perceptive of political analysts.
And the Reply button works exactly like magic — it appears only when needed!
lamh34
@Anya:
AMEN!
Keith G
@WereBear: I am one of souls (deluded, I guess) who feels that this is the speech that Obama should be making – everyday and twice on Sunday if that’s what it takes. Obama needs to stop hiding behind the skirts of this great old lady and get out and act as if he cares about the former working class of America.
Great link.
Brachiator
@Anya:
What you said.
Also, too, it is interesting to note so many posters here celebrating the possible defeat of Boehner without fully acknowledging the degree to which this would be a victory for the Tea Party People. It seems like yesterday when there was thread after thread and post after post assuring everyone that the Tea Party was just a fly by night assemblage of wingnuts, kept aloft by Fox News and the Koch Brothers, with no significant political influence.
And now, these ignorant, obstructionist fools are coming close to solidifying their hold on the GOP and threatening to take down the entire US economy.
Corner Stone
@Anya: Wevs.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@WereBear: This. Unless there’s a last second moment of conscience from the GOP House, Obama’s shooting the hostage.
Anya
@Corner Stone: You sound like a a frustrated 14-year old boy.
Corner Stone
@Anya: How many do you know? You fucking pervert.
Corner Stone
It’s awesome how data doesn’t seem to actually be data on this blog if it doesn’t help some people’s view.
Sorry for bringing up 40% UE for black teens, I didn’t mean to upset anyone.
I mean, I don’t know any. I’ve never worked with any. They might as well be named Marklar for all I care.
Anya
We are in a very scary period. Maybe this is what Chris Rock talked about in his interview with Scott Raab and they’re in their last hurrah.
Anya
@Anya: Unlike you, it wasn’t that long ago when I was 14.
dww44
@JGabriel:
.
Sadly, I’ve come to the same conclusion. I’m truly curious if Obama has arrived at the same conclusion. Or, is he still pushing the phoney bipartisanship crap?
There really aren’t any Republicans left who will choose country over party when push comes to shove. Oh, they will get up and make these little overtures to common sense and reason, but in the end they always come back home and vote with the rest of the crazies in their party.
o/t Newly minted Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga) sent around an email to his constituents late last evening just after the Boehner vote justifying why he voted FOR the bill. If all of this weren’t so tragically bad for our country in all ways, I’d laugh at the “black” humor of it all.
aisce
@ anya
over 16%, actually. and trending upwards again faster than the rest of the population.
but your point still stands. it is disingenuous as shit. but that’s the way racial politics go. if hillary won the nomination and the presidency, she would be under constant attack for “not understanding the unique hardships faced by the black and latino communities and not working hard enough to address them.” obama, though, will never and should never be accused of any such thing. and on the other hand, while obama has permanent and lasting credibility with minorities, no matter what economic disasters persist, he will get no such love from white people. which is deeply unfair. this country is so fucked up on race. it’s all a mess always.
look at the people’s view calling john conyers-john conyers!-a bitter old race traitor: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/07/john-conyers-owes-president-apology.html
there is no post-racial america.
Corner Stone
I’ll have you know that after Hurricane Katrina I did all kinds of volunteer work with people who’d had a rough time of it.
Almost everyone I talked to said, ‘We’re going to move to Houston.’ What I heard, which is sort of scary, is they all wanted to stay in Texas. Everyone was so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
And so many of the people in the arena there, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so that, that was working very well for them.
It’s like we’re all fucking Barbara Bush or something. Fuck you.
Corner Stone
@Anya:
I completely believe you.
Brachiator
lamh34:
Nobody, except a few cranks and the lefty fringe of public radio, takes either of these two seriously.
When Obama was elected, even Jesse Jackson had the wisdom to retire from the scene. West and Smiley, like Ralph Nader and some others, don’t realize that their time has passed, and that they are largely impotent relics of an earlier age.
West, who has stooped so low as to insult the president in terms that would have caused howls of outrage if it came from the GOP or the Tea Party, is lucky that he still has perpetual Obama haters to provide cover for him.
aisce
i mean, shit, if you want to threaten primarying john conyers, you could certainly start by asking why his wife is in prison on corruption charges. but to do so simply because he criticized the president publicly?
please.
kay
Well, stop fretting you guys. Hear that? The bankers are coming!
Riding to the rescue.
You’ll notice they only appear when their bonuses are at grave risk.
General Stuck
Like being rescued by Lex Luthor
replicnt6
He’s dead no matter what at this point, I think. So Obama should offer him a choice ambassadorship to bring a clean debt bill up for a vote. Then he can retire from the House and spend more time with his golf clubs and scotch.
agrippa
Sauve qui peut!
Nous sommes trahis!
Fold up your tents, Balloon juice, and go home. Nothing to see or do here!
Chris T.
@WaterGirl: Precisely.
The low-information voters have to see that Congress is getting nothing done, even when it is critical.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@kay:
Tea Party Field Marshal von Moltke will take the bankers’ concens in stride, but he assures them that everything is still going according to plan and the Kaiserarmee will be home before the leaves fall.
Brachiator
@kay:
Damn! This is a bit of a surprise.
Of course, this will only inspire the Obama haters who see him as a Wall Street stealth sellout. Especially this:
How dare Geithner talk to Wall St execs, unless to give them a scolding…
Still, I wonder if this is “too little too late” or window dressing preceding a bad compromise. During the December tax standoff, the IRS commissioner wrote a letter to Congress warning of dire outcomes if an agreement was not reached. Congress largely ignored him and kept pushing things to the last minute to make sure that the crappiest possible “compromise” could be achieved.
And remember that we must have complete political Kabuki, the appearance of all the posturing players on the Sunday pundit shows. Then, look for a deal.
Keith G
@kay: I have a comment that vanished and now there may be a duplicate. Is it in moderation?
I did not get an advisory. Would you check, please?
Chris T.
@wrb:
The “oops, my dog ate the Treasuries” option? :-)
(presumably you mean $T not $B)
kay
You. You’re good at congressional process. I can’t believe you gave up. I’m not watching C-Span for you, Stuck, so forget it :)
That’s YOUR JOB.
FWIW, I think they’ll 1. make a deal and 2. the Tea Party has no intention of cutting Medicare. None. That’s why they’re doing all this bullshit with cut cap ‘n balance and the constitutional amendment. Have you read cut cap and balance? There’s no identified cuts in there. It’s bullshit. They want the benefit of being “serious on the budget” w/out the risk of actual identified cuts.
They’ll get it, too, because no one is going to read either of those bills, and even if they do read them, no one is going to have any idea what they didn’t actually cut, because it’s all percentages.
You saw the single cut they identified, right? Pell grants. Poor young people. NOT their elderly voter base. No sir!
Kay
@General Stuck:
Here stuck, read this:
Bingo. “Send it to the states….eventually! Just get it away from us!”
Tea Partiers got elected on lying about Democrats cutting Medicare, and they know it. They got burned with the Ryan Plan, and they’re not going to do that again.
ruemara
How motherfucking stupid are these polling samples that Republicans are gaining as they destroy the country? How fucking simple minded is the average voter that anyone is blaming the President for Congress being full of morons, sociopaths and idiots? God, this country needs some kind of intellect raising drug in the water supply–immediately. Fucking stupid shit.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Kay:
They’ve been looking for a replacement to the gay marriage amendment craze of the last decade. What better than the rallying cry of ‘Those People are gonna take all your Social Security moneys!’
Throw in fights over the debt ceiling every six months and boom goes the dynamite!
Keith G
@Brachiator:
Definitely not an Obama hater here, but I am a bit disappointed in what I see as some quite intense “either/or” argumentation in this and similar threads. As I typed in an earlier comment, the banks and Wall Street were made whole (plus more) and middle class home owners (especially AA home owners) have been left waiting for a cavalry that has never even blown the bugle let alone shown up.
I believe that I can feel that Obama has made serious mistakes without being a hater or disingenuous .
General Stuck
Not really giving up, as I don’t think Obama will fold on letting the wingers do this again in 6 months. But I am dejected and very pissed at republicans for using this venue to conduct a political power play. I think it portends a glum future for the republic, regardless how this particular episode comes down. Let them shut down the government funding if they want, and take their chances, but they put the worlds ass on the line as well as ours. I truly hate these people right now, in a cold manner.
This really isn’t “process” as we have known it. It is a congressional coup, or attempted one by the wingers. And especially in the Senate, that was created to be more deliberative and keepers of some sense of tradition and restraint. Watching this morning on Cspan, just floored me, cause I love the Senate more than any other governing institution in this country. Even as the GOP has abused it’s rules for giving the minority a voice and input.
Comrade Kevin
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
More like “boom goes the country”.
Brachiator
@kay:
I think your conclusions are right on the money here. But all this is little more than a diversion. The other shoe has yet to be dropped.
The diversion relates to concern over spending. The other shoe is a tax plan. So far, except for Obama’s outline of a tax plan, every tax alternative consistently rolls back middle class deductions, preserves tax cuts for the wealthy, and massively reduces corporate taxes.
Every plan.
And this includes bipartisan plans endorsed by leading Congressional Democrats.
The most extreme Republican plans would of course also kill health care reform. But apart from this, leading Democrats and Republicans all appear to agree that the middle class in America has outlived its usefulness.
Any of you with access to a CPA or tax attorney, ask them to get you a copy of the most recent CCH analysis of the debt ceiling issue, with a background on tax plans. It’s a very short document, but very illuminating.
ruemara
aisce
I don’t want to surprise you, but the anger is not about Conyers criticizing the President. Nor did anyone call him a “race traitor”. It was about his simplification, if not lie, that Social Security benefit cuts were put on the table by the President. Mind you, if all you want to get from that post is that an AA site is calling John Conyers a race traitor for insufficient loyalty to the AA President and icon, then by all means, go ahead. But factually, that is not what is happening.
aisce
@ ruemara
it’s pretty simply, really. the house (and therefore republicans) have looked active to the public, passing stuff over and over again, and the senate and the president have looked awol. it doesn’t matter that the house has been active in completely unproductive and antagonistic fashion, democratic leadership’s insistence on doing so much of everything in the backroom in silence up until the last minute has never yet paid off with the public.
it’s tough to sell the public on compromise when they don’t understand what it is you want to compromise on.
General Stuck
I agree this has never been about “cutting medicare” per se, though I think all the republicans would love to get a Wall Street foot in that money door, if at all possible.
It is about the ACA, and working up a phony crisis, to maybe get the opportunity to kill it dead, by dealing the mandate in return for leaving medicare and SS be and the economy safe from their destroying it. For now.
Davis X. Machina
@aisce: Strong and wrong. The Big Dog was right — usually was on tactics.
aisce
@ ruemara
let’s not go pretending that this is even remotely about social security, ok?
Brachiator
@Keith G:
RE: Of course, this will only inspire the Obama haters
The financial system was made whole, not just in the US but worldwide. And I grant that the banks have responded by pocketing bonuses and looking for more favor from conservatives. I would love to have seen most of these bastards go to jail.
But seriously, what would you have wanted the federal government do for homeowners? Give them their homes free and clear?
As it is, the Mortgage Relief Act allows people whose homes have been foreclosed to escape what otherwise would be a crushing cancellation of debt burden. This is similar to the banker bailout. It lets people walk away from their home related debts.
A sweeter deal would be a “consumer favorable” overhaul of mortgage and bankruptcy laws, but I haven’t seen a coherent proposal in this regard. I think that Elizabeth Warren and some others might have been helpful in this area, but conservatives were never going to let that happen.
Fair point, but this is a separate issue from those who reflexively hate Obama because they believe that he should be a totally progressive president with only 100 percent vetted progressives in his cabinet and will howl with rage when they read about how Treasury talked to the bankers.
Keith G
@Brachiator:
Again with the either/or….
Brachiator
@Keith G:
RE: But seriously, what would you have wanted the federal government do for homeowners? Give them their homes free and clear?
Seems to me that I simply posed a question.
I am curious as to why you don’t offer an answer.
I am also curious as to why you either were unaware of the Mortgage Relief Act, or have no opinion as to whether it helps consumers, harms them, is neutral or irrelevant. Note that there is no either/or here, except for your initial, false one that Obama policy either helps bankers or helps homeowners.
wrb
@Chris T.:
yea, T, not B, sorry
Keith G
@Brachiator: I am aware that the Mortgage Relief Act of which you type was passed by Congress in 2007, a bit early for Obama, but that is not my focus.
The Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, is Obama’s assistance effort. IIRC about 3 million have applied to have their payments reduced and only 25 % have received help. Certainly we can do better. Until we do, our economy will stay at risk.
priscianusjr
@kansi
Brachiator
@Keith G:
Obama had to fight to get the Relief Act extended through 2012. You should give him credit for that. He is also going to have to fight to get it extended beyond 2012, since the underlying weakness in the housing market still looks to go on for some time.
Hmmm. At least you acknowledge this as Obama’s plan. So how do we get better application of this program? The Republicans fight any strengthening of regulatory agencies. Neither Obama nor the Democrats in Congress seem to be able to find a way to get any leverage over banks on this.
Currently, the banks are abusing the shit out of this program. Many of the modifications are only adjusting accrued interest, which is worthless. And the larger problem is that too many borrowers cannot even afford reduced payments. They got houses that they cannot afford. And some banks have promised modifications, only to turn around and foreclose on homeowners anyway. This is going to create problems for years to come.
But I agree with you that something more needs to be done here.