Hillary Clinton is in the hospital with a blood clot in her brain after sustaining a fall and concussion a couple of weeks ago. I await serious conservative Charles Krauthammer’s explanation of how blood clots are a symptom of “acute Benghazi allergy which causes lightheadedness when she hears the word ‘Benghazi.'”
Crazification Factor
Noodling Through the Bismarck Option
Over at TPM, Josh Marshall has been stressing about the possibility of the “Mother of all Government Shutdowns.” His view is, essentially, that since the GOP will have to fold over taxes and the fiscal cliff — given that doing nothing at all raises taxes even more — they will come back with a vengeance over the debt ceiling fight in February. This strikes me as a plausible concern, but isn’t really even close to the “Mother of all Government Shutdowns.”
The debt ceiling is a complete artifact, and if push really comes to shove, there are all sorts of creative option for waging a debt ceiling fight, including platinum coins, declaring it unconstitutional, and of course, the ability to target the shutdown in ways to that generate maximum political pressure on the GOP. What infuriates most of us about the debt ceiling issue is that while the GOP likes to pitch it as preventing Obama from unilaterally borrowing and spending, it is really about funding already authorized government spending and operations. But there is the rub.
“Already authorized government spending and operations.” That’s where the real power lies, the classic power of the purse. And I wonder if we’re not heading for a situation where having exhausted other forms of hostage taking, we may not rapidly get to the point where the GOP simply refuses to pass appropriations. Indeed, I can’t quite understand why this isn’t actually the where the fight occurs since (a) it is unquestionably a Constitutional approach, and (b) is a chance to actually shape, on GOP terms, the outlines of a shutdown. In a debt ceiling fight, the President gets to prioritize spending with available cash. In a budget fight, the GOP can pass or hold certain parts of the appropriations process and essentially choose which parts of the government it wants to shut down. So, my suspicion is that, ultimately, regardless of the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling, the crisis will ultimately revolve around the appropriations bills at some point down the road.
Anyway, all of this is a long intro for my real thought, which is that at some point the GOP is going to graduate from hostage taking to premeditated murder. Grover Norquist has famously claimed he would like to shrink the government down to the size where he could “drown it in a bathtub.” Well, the GOP can largely already do that, if that wanted. By simply refusing to fund government operations, they can, essentially, kill the federal government. Now, they’ve never wanted to do that in the past. They’ve just wanted to tinker at the margins. But the GOP is increasingly becoming a rump party — not in the sense of being a bunch of asses, though that is also true — but in terms of a shrinking electoral base.
They are only going to get more desperate, more extreme. And sooner or later, they are going to shutdown the federal government not as part of a negotiation, but as an end in itself. It isn’t as dramatic as shooting up Fort Sumter, but the effect would be the same.
Personally, I like the Bismarck option. Facing a budget crisis in Prussia, “He contended that, since the Constitution did not provide for cases in which legislators failed to approve a budget, he could merely apply the previous year’s budget. Thus, on the basis of the budget of 1861, tax collection continued for four years.”
Basically, the argument is that the American Constitution was not meant to allow for 50 percent + 1 of a single chamber of Congress to effectively dissolve the union by simply refusing to appropriate funds.
I don’t actually know that we’ll get to a crisis this severe, but then again, it never occurred to me that we’d face periodic crises over the authority to borrow money for already approved spending. We’re in uncharted territory here already, so I, at least, refuse to allow myself to be surprised by even the most outlandish scenarios.
Also, too… This is a good place to note the importance of filibuster reform, since the filibuster makes this an option for 40 percent +1 of the Senate to attempt.
What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
David Gergen et al. may blame Obama but the voters will blame Republicans:
If no deal is reached, 53% say congressional Republicans are to blame while just 27% think Obama is at fault.
There’s that 27% figure again.
What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?Post + Comments (108)
Ceasefire?
Goldy at The Stranger is excited for this year’s installment of The War on Christmas, but is that even a thing anymore? I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the right wing, but my sense is that losing a few battles in the War on Gays might have the warriors in retreat on all fronts. There’s not a single mention of it on Fox News’ front page or on Memeorandum. A Google News search shows that a lot of the top hits are liberal sites anticipating the revival of the War on Christmas, or arguing that there is no war.
And while I’m on this topic, where’s the Fox defense of Wal-Mart? Shouldn’t it be the next Chick-fil-A?
Assholes on Parade
Ladies and Gentlemen, your Republican Party (from TPM):
DOSWELL, VA — The crowd at Mitt Romney’s rally here Thursday lacked the partisan fire of the people who showed up to celebrate Paul Ryan’s addition to the ticket or the over-the-moon optimism of the ones who appeared in the wake of his first debate victory. Instead the prevailing mood was one of exhausted, hard-earned hope. Romney was still in the game and that was enough for now.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Errol Hoffler, 72, told TPM, citing Obama’s struggles to win over independent voters in the polls. But he still had his concerns over what he acknowledged was a tight race.
“He’s ignoring the Constitution, trying to become a dictator and make us dependent on the government,” he said. “I don’t think a good portion of America realizes what he’s doing — if they did he’d lose in a landslide.”
Yes, a dictator. Making us dependent on the government, by, you know helping make health care a little more affordable. Oh, the horror. Sadly, Mr. Hoffler is the least of the douchebags.
Consider Kurt Johnson:
Kurt Johnson, 62, a who works in the chemical business in the Richmond area, said he was “enthusiastic” about the election but worried too many people see Obama as “hip, cool, and sympathetic.”
“Michael Jordan could be president on that basis,” he said. “I don’t mean to sound glib, but are we electing someone to know the top hip hop songs — or to get the job done?”
Get it folks? The President is a Negro! He probably plays rap music in the Oval Office. And everyone know the Founding Fathers would only have approved of country music. Don’t worry Mr. Johnson. You don’t sound glib. You just sound like an ignorant, raging racist asshole.
Lisa Beazley, 51, said she was “praying very hard and hoping people have common sense” ahead of election day. The stakes felt especially high for her, having lost her job as a medical assistant earlier in the year.
“I wasn’t looking for a miracle, it’s a tough job,” she said of the president. “But [the recovery] is just not here.”
Beazley hoped Romney would make “big changes” in health care and economic policy, but she was afraid Obama’s message might have too big a following to put a Republican in office.
“I still worry Obama has a shot,” she said. “There’s a lot of people out there that do depend on the welfare system and it worries me. I’m not saying I’m against the system — we all need it from time to time — but you also have to help yourself. You can’t be on it forever.”
See, when Ms. Beazley collects unemployment — as she presumably did upon losing her job — that is something you need from time to time. But, Those People just stay are welfare forever, driving around in Cadillacs while their sons eat T-Bone steaks.
Ugh. But God forbid we point out that these people are ignorant and racist lest we make David Broder’s corpse have a sad.
Black Helicopters
Krugman on Romney’s FEMA gaffe:
So let me just take a moment to flag an issue others have been writing about: the weird Republican obsession with killing FEMA. Kevin Drum has the goods: they just keep doing it. George Bush the elder turned the agency into a dumping ground for hacks, with bad results; Clinton revived the agency; Bush the younger ruined it again; Obama revived it again; and Romney — with everyone still remembering Brownie and Katrina! — said that he wants to block-grant and privatize it. (And as far as I can tell, even TV news isn’t letting him Etch-A-Sketch the comment away).
There’s something pathological here. It’s really hard to think of a public service less likely to be suitable for privatization, and given the massive inequality of impacts by state, it really really isn’t block-grantable. Does the right somehow imagine that only Those People need disaster relief? Is the whole idea of helping people as opposed to hurting them just anathema?
It’s a bit of a mystery, calling more for psychological inquiry than policy analysis. But something is going on here.
Really, is the idea of killing FEMA any weirder than clamoring for the gold standard? I mean, the whole GOP platform is basically pathological.
Krugman is certainly right that part of it is the idea that somehow disasters only strike “Those People” — you just have to look at how the GOP talks about New Orleans — but the FEMA obsession is also part of the Black Helicopter/UN paranoia among rightwingers. In their minds, FEMA is part of the jackbooted thug mafia that is only, just barely being kept in check because Real Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights to prevent tyranny.
When Romney talked about killing FEMA it wasn’t because he really thought the states could or should do it, nor did he think the private sector could or should. When Romney went after FEMA in the primary debates, it was all about letting GOP voters know that he sees the Black Helicopters too.
Georgia Congressman (R-Obvs) believes that evolution is a lie and that Jesus rode a dinosaur.
Republican wackaloon Rep. Paul Broun thinks that evolution and the big bang theory are lies told by librul soshulists to keep righteous dudes from allowing God to go traipsing through the tulips of their hearts.
He is a doctor — a medical one! — and he serve on the Congressional science and technology committee because that’s clearly where he belongs, mirite?!
[read full post at ABLC]