Midnight maneuvers:
DEBT CEILING. SCHUMER on Senate floor minutes ago: We have made progress, we are not there yet. Hopefully in the morning.
— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) October 7, 2021
This would be (slightly) more entertaining if our whole economy, and the world’s, weren’t being held hostage by the GOP Death Cultists and their plutocrat enablers…
BREAKING: Jen Psaki just slammed Mitch McConnell's proposal to postpone the debt ceiling fight to December: "Why kick the can down the road another couple of weeks? Why create an additional layer of uncertainty? Why not just get it done now?"
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) October 6, 2021
“McConnell caved,” @SenWarren says, declaring victory over @LeaderMcConnell and GOP on raising debt limit. https://t.co/AdK9xIeF0j
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 6, 2021
Democrats are ready to be the grownups in the room on the debt ceiling. We just need the Republicans to get out of our way, stop filibustering this, and stop pushing our economy to the edge of a cliff.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 6, 2021
It sucks that McConnell only agreed to extend the debt ceiling until December, but we said all along that Republicans wouldn’t drive the economy over the cliff. Also, a short ten deal, though deeply imperfect, gives us the space to finish Build Back Better negotiations.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 6, 2021
Republican obstruction on the debt limit is putting the savings and pocketbooks of Americans on the line. Senate Republicans need to get out of the way.
Read more from my advisors: https://t.co/1b1A398wxJ
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 6, 2021
Another way to end this would be to nullify the debt ceiling by just tying it directly to the debt, as @ThePlumLineGS lays out here. https://t.co/zOITyUmWXE
The point is to take the bullets out of the gun, by whatever means are available.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 6, 2021
McConnell told his colleagues he’s concerned about pressure on Manchin and Sinema to gut filibuster in order to raise debt ceiling, I’m told. He pointed to this as reason why he is floating short-term increase in order to ease pressure on and push Democrats to use reconcilation
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 6, 2021
Is it possible the GOP creates a nihilism loop, where they make things so bad that Democrats do the one thing they could do that would bring about profound policy & political change by restoring majority rule?
I’m not a “heighten the contradictions” person, but I’m wondering…
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 5, 2021
A particularly blunt NYT reported piece on McConnell and the debt ceiling, making the case that what he wants is simply chaos https://t.co/k1dwhlV6Jy
— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 5, 2021
#MoscowMitch begins to suspect the leopards might be willing to eat his face…
… Mr. McConnell has another powerful political incentive for his stance. He cannot control his members, and is reluctant to risk the ire of Republican base voters by leaning on senators to smooth the way for a debt-limit increase. Even if Mr. McConnell wanted to allow one to come to a majority vote, a single senator could stop it. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has made no secret of his presidential ambitions, said on Tuesday that he would block any such agreement — even one to expedite the process that Mr. McConnell is demanding…
How will it end? One option that Mr. Van Hollen said Democrats might have to pursue — and that Mr. Biden on Tuesday called “a real possibility” — is changing the filibuster rules so the borrowing limit increase, and any in the future, could pass with 50 votes.
Mr. King, who has been unenthusiastic about changing the rules, said he had to agree.
“I have been very reluctant for nine years about modifying the filibuster rule, especially when it comes to policy, but this has nothing to do with policy,” he said. “This is about keeping the United States and world out of what could be a severe recession.”
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
With regard to Psaki, good for her. Mitch needs to be dragged until his turtle shell is completely gone.
HumboldtBlue
So, in other words, we’re still fucked and hostage to the worst of us.
Great.
HumboldtBlue
Elsewhere, the Dodgers beat the Cardinals.
HumboldtBlue
Sweet Jesus dragging a leper through molasses this site can take a minute to load.
Also, don’t buy this bullshit narrative this is the first time the Dodgers and Giants have faced off in the playoffs.
Keith Olbermann corrects this rapidly spreading nonsense.
Steeplejack
New York Times—“Federal Judge Pauses Strict Texas Law Banning Most Abortions”:
Adam L Silverman
To answer Jen Psaki’s rhetorical question, the reason McConnell is willing to kick this to December is that it actually gives him more leverage. He’s counting on the following three things:
That’s McConnell’s strategy here. That’s McConnell’s play.
ETA: There’s one other component here, which is McConnell continuing to work the political journalists and pundits to further drive Biden’s negatives up. The goal here is to depress Democratic turnout in the off year state elections this November, as well as turn as many Independents towards the Republicans as possible because they believe things are going in the wrong direction. Virginia’s state elections will be an early indicator as to whether this will work.
Adam L Silverman
@HumboldtBlue: It’s the embedded tweets. If you use a browser like Brave and load this page it will actually give the diagnostics for how many various operations each embedded tweet is trying to run as the page loads. Every time Twitter tweaks their coding it gets worse and worse. And while I have no idea about the company Cole is using as web developers, I do know that this causes significant issues for a number of sites and the developers that work on them.
Adam L Silverman
And with that I’m to bed!
lgerard
Let’s not ignore the fact that given the number of government workers in VA any shutdown would bury republicans in the November election. Better to put it off till right after
James E Powell
That’s also what every news organization in America wants. They thrive on this shit.
Ruckus
Well it’s about time the FTFNYT actually said something true. He’s not about governing, he’s not about anything good, he’s about power and/or chaos. Now if only a couple of others in the senate supposedly on our side understood that as much as he does, we might be able to make some headway towards an actual country, instead of all the play acting and bullshit.
Sloane Ranger
From what I see and hear from this side of the pond, a certain percentage of Republican voters would actually welcome a global financial meltdown. To their mind this would lead to governmental failure, societal breakdown and Mad Max territory of survival of the fittest. Which, to their minds is them. They’ve got the guns, the militia/survivalist training and the superior genes after all!
Ruckus
@Sloane Ranger:
One out of three isn’t a great start.
If they had the militia/survivalist training they would be wanting/demanding to be vaccinated so they could survive.
If they had the superior genes they wouldn’t be acting like 5 yr olds that just lost their lunch money
Hope you don’t mind that I got in on the snark….
Tony Jay
@Sloane Ranger:
The Cosplay Conans would be in for a very short, very sharp shock of they ever caught that particular bus.
“Those aren’t nubile wenches in strategically torn bikinis hanging off your scrawny, hairless legs, genius, those are your soiled camo-flag undies and this, well, this is a rolled up copy of God, Guns and Good Gals. Free postage.”
oatler
@Tony Jay:
Let’s hear it for the blonde spokesmodel who ends her spiel chanting “to the dump,to the dump to the dump dump dump.”
oatler
@Ruckus:
Remember that when the terrorists were holed up in Oregon one of their demands was fruit roll-ups.
lowtechcyclist
@Adam L Silverman:
The Dems will just include raising the debt ceiling as part of the reconciliation bill they’re currently negotiating. The parliamentarian has already OK’d that. So as long as they can get an intraparty deal on reconciliation within the next four or five weeks (leaving time before December for all the procedural shit the GQP can throw into the gears), it’s clear sailing from there wrt the debt ceiling as well.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Sloane Ranger: I just saw that Fury Road was back on Netflix here in Europe and couldn’t help but remember how the Mad Max power struggle ended for Immortan Joe.
Central Planning
Kudos to @MattGertz for spelling googolplex correctly.
Geminid
@HumboldtBlue:
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: There’s a new Mad Max in town: Dodger Max Scherzer. I never saw Cardinal Bob Gibson* pitch, but Scherzer is the most intensely competitive pitcher I have seen.
*Hank Aaron’s advice to rookie Dusty Baker: “Don’t dig in on [Gibson]. He’d knock his own grandmother down if she dug in on him.”
WayneL140
Democrats should be saying, “Republicans are refusing to pay for their tax cuts.”
Geminid
@lgerard: Republicans have high hopes for a Youngkin win in this November’s election for Virginia Governor.Youngkin has been running a reletively bland, thematic campaign, trying to put Virginia Democrats to sleep. But trump went on local radio a week ago and called for Youngkin to go “full MAGA.” Now Youngkin has dipped his toes in the MAGA cesspool by calling for another audit of last year’s Virginia election.
Edmund Dantes
Oh shut up King. The budget is all about fucking policy. The political class has just decided to lie about it and make it special so it isn’t part of the “policy” filibuster rules.
Then self define it out of the policy realm. When a lot of fucking policy is in there.
How can you spot the lie? 3 words.
The Hyde Amendment.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
He’s facing more competence now.