American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

*fires six shooter in the air*

die poors, die

Senator Ted Cruz’s verbal assault on the health care law ended on Wednesday when the Senate voted 100-0 to end debate

wait... so even Cruz didn't vote against ending debate? this fucking clown

hahahahahahaha

they actually voted to open debate

that's not what the NY Times says but whatever

cruz is trying to rally the GOP faithful to filibuster the closing of debate (friday or saturday)

nytimes is confused, cloture is scheduled for later this week, cruzes whole epic speech happened totally outside of the procedure for this bill

is ted cruz still president I am confused

they get it right here:

Wednesday’s vote is the first in a series that will culminate in a final vote on Sunday. Later this week, Mr. Reid will formally introduce a new version of the House stopgap-spending bill stripped of the health care language and shortened to keep the government operating from Oct. 1 to Nov. 15 rather than Dec. 15, as the House wanted. The biggest vote will most likely come this weekend, when Democrats must win over 60 senators to cut off debate on their leader’s bill.

unfortunately they confused matters by including this bit earlier in the article:

The vote ended debate and the Senate will formally take up a bill the House passed that keeps the government open through Dec. 15 while gutting the president’s Affordable Care Act.

Ted Cruz and the Power of Conviction
by David French

As I type this post, Senator Ted Cruz’s filibuster is winding down, and while the leftist outlets (and, sadly, some Republicans) spew forth their vitriol, I can’t help but think that moments like this and Senator Rand Paul’s “Stand with Rand” filibuster represent key turning points for the conservative movement. I’m far less interested in the Washington inside baseball of who’s mad at whom and far more interested in the effect of passionately demonstrated conservative conviction on our culture.

The Left has long understood the raw cultural power of conviction. How many of our key institutions have been transformed through the sheer force of will expressed by a passionate minority? People with conviction dictate the terms of debate, transform the decision-making paradigm of even the largest entities, and lay the groundwork for larger cultural transformation. This work is rarely, if ever, done with majority support but instead at the urging of the most committed, most dedicated, and most vocal. Thus, our great institutions often change without any public referendum, merely passive acquiescence. Indeed, one reason why people like Senator Cruz can be all-too-successfully labeled as “extremist” in the wider culture has been the power of leftist conviction at work in key cultural institutions.

I always find references to the conservative "movement" funny. I mean, aren't they against movement in principle

i love how both liberals and conservatives consider the other side to be these stone cold killer strategic geniuses who their own side gives into all the time

when the Koch bros wishlist gets regurgitated consistently & reflexively by every nitwit ever-so-slightly to the right of Clinton i think you can say that the modern conservative 'movement' def has legs and that there's some pretty canny strategy at play.

(re nitwits- i'm not talkin about just pols, either)

(though i certainly concede that long game demographics are not their friend)

lol http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/senate-gop-s-constituents-are-confused-about-obamacare-vote

Meanwhile in Texas (away from teh Cruzer) Wendy Davis will make a "big announcement" on October 3rd.

<cough>gubernatorial run

It has to be that, because she can't win her own district anymore thanks to gerrymandering.

http://storify.com/froomkin/green-eggs-and-c-span

DOJ still going to sue over Texas gerrymandering. Texas Repubs haven't learned to be subtle about fucking over minorities.

Dunno about Wendy 4 Guv. I'll vote for her, but she's going to lose and then what does she do, mayor of Fort Worth?

Schreiber points out the obvious: it's "better" for Boehner to shut down the government than default on the debt.

Unlike in the past, Obama has shown no indication of folding on this point.

In 2011 Obama gave in to debt limit negotiating, I hope Schreiber is right that it will be different this time

lol at obama nearly prank calling boehner last friday night

things are looking a little ominous again...

The Senate is now expected to approve a stripped-down government-funding bill Friday and send it back to the House, where its fate is unclear. GOP leaders insisted Thursday that the House would not approve a simple funding bill without conservative sweeteners. “I do not see that happening,” Boehner said.

Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi (R-Ohio), a close Boehner ally, predicted that the speaker would amend the government-funding bill to add a one-year delay of the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to have health-insurance next year.

Another Boehner ally, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), predicted that Boehner would instead seek to add a measure that would eliminate subsidies for members of Congress to buy health insurance — although some Republicans complained at the morning meeting that such a move would create an economic hardship for their families, GOP aides said.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats — appearing at a news conference with a countdown clock ticking away the hours, minutes and seconds to a shutdown — said they would not approve a funding measure that required any concessions related to the health-care law.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/republican-hard-liners-block-strategy-to-avoid-federal-government-shutdown/2013/09/26/ae905f9e-26e4-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story_1.html

Darth Vader? well yeah, that's why Dem pajamas-wearing nerds love him

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/26/sorry_obama_america_imperialism_is_alive_and_well_partner/

so even boehner indicates that the GOP house is going to add some bullshit to the bill. democrats say they won't vote for any bill with health-care related bullshit in it. and regardless, if the house amends the bill, it'll have to go back to the senate again (and then probably back to the house again after the senate rejects the amended bill), which would just eat up a bunch of time.

Eating up a bunch of time is logical to Boehner if it allows his Tea Party wing to feel like they have been heard

yep. plus the house republicans have every incentive to shut the government down over the demands. they're in gerrymandered districts anyway, they're safe. plus, only 25% of the country is following the issue closely anyway. there's this article in the WP today about john boehner's district in ohio that's not even really necessary to read because it's so predictable. "there's a shutdown happening? i didn't know about that", "well, boehner will take care of it, he always does", "oh, i just care about hot dogs and comic book movies at this time, no further comment", "if they would just stop their goldurn arguing over there then perhaps we would be free", etc

"oh, i just care about hot dogs and comic book movies at this time, no further comment"

ILE

btw that '25% of the country doesn't care' figure comes from a recent pew research poll, just in case someone thought i was being like my dad and just making up poll numbers.

speaking of pew research, just saw this on their website:

http://i.imgur.com/k2QYqDP.png

it's kind of being taken for granted that the public will blame republicans for a shutdown to a greater degree than democrats, but i'm not sure how true that is anymore. back in 1995, sure. but nowadays people can just tune into their preferred echobox and hear whatever they want to hear. perhaps, in the event of an actual shutdown, the press coverage would actually tighten up a little bit and public opinion would quickly turn against the republicans.

public opinion would quickly turn against the republicans.

i think those days are long gone

Even if it did, who's to say it wouldn't swing back a week, or a day, later.

this will become an annual event until that long-rumored Death of the GOP, wake me when it's over unless I'm dead.

i mean that the tide would shift against the republicans in a more limited sense, on the shutdown issue. instead of the media treating it like a legitimate debate, maybe they'd just cover it like the hostage situation that it is

Who cares who gets the blame when the debt ceiling is around the corner?

Greg Sargent in the W. Post re the debt limit battle and Republicans tacking on not just defund Obamacare but also start up Keystone; repeal Dodd-Frank, etc:

Here’s my worry: By laying out a truly insane list of demands, Republicans could perversely succeed in reframing this battle — at least in the eyes of some in the Beltway press — as a standard Washington confrontation in which both sides are making demands and the impasse is the result of each side’s refusal to meet somewhere in the middle. You could easily see a scenario in which Republicans “agree” to drop some of their demands and argue they are trying to compromise, with some commentators then wondering aloud why the White House is refusing to negotiate in kind.

So let’s say it again: This is not a standard Washington negotiation, in which each side is demanding concessions from the other. Democrats are not asking Republicans to make any concessions. They are asking Republicans to join them in not destroying the U.S. economy. House Republican leaders — who have themselves conceded not raising the debt limit would jeopardize the full faith and credit of the U.S. government — are asking Democrats to make a series of concessions in exchange for not unleashing widespread economic havoc that will hurt all of us. But agreeing not to destroy the economy doesn’t count as a concession on the part of Republicans, and no one should expect it to be rewarded with anything in return. Just because Republicans are trying to frame this as a conventional negotiation doesn’t mean folks have to play along with it.

To be sure, there’s been some legitimate debate over whether lawmakers have ever tried to attach extraneous items to debt limit hikes. Glenn Kessler did a deep dive into the history and found a few examples of this. But they are rare, and in any case, as Kessler himself notes, that is separate from the question of whether lawmakers have ever explicitly threatened default in order to extract a long list of concessions, which is even more rare and may be unprecedented, particularly the way Republicans are doing so here.

and yglesias, on the same topic:

Things like this do happen. The British system of government used to feature a ruling monarch who was checked in limited ways by two houses of parliament. Over time, those houses of parliament leveraged their control over tax hikes into overall control of the government. On a somewhat slower time frame, the elected House of Commons nudged the House of Lords out of almost all of its de facto political power. And that's the House's proposal here. The president should become an elected figurehead (not dissimilar to the elected presidents of Germany, Israel, or Italy) whose role is simply to assent to the policy preferences of the legislative majority.

That's the logic of bargaining over the debt ceiling, because this isn't really a bargain at all. A bargain is when Obama wants something the GOP doesn't want (universal preschool, say) and then the GOP says "look we'll do it, but only if you do X, Y, and Z for us." Increasing the debt ceiling isn't like that. It isn't a pet policy priority of Obama's and it isn't something House Republicans oppose. It's something both sides agree is necessary to avert a legal and financial disaster.

The absolute worst mistake Obama has made as president came back in 2011 when Republicans first pulled this stunt. At that time, Obama desperately wanted a bargain over long-term fiscal policy. So he tried a bit of too-clever-by-half political jujitsu in which GOP debt ceiling hostage taking became a pretext to start negotiations over long-term budgeting. All manner of evils have fallen forth from that fateful decisions, including an economic weak patch in 2011 the ongoing mess of sequestration, and worst of all the setting of a precedent for future crises. The good news is that the White House recognizes they made a mistake, and the last time Republicans tried to pull this they didn't give in. And they can't give in now. Not even a little bit. A terrible monster was let out of the box in 2011 and the best thing Obama can possibly do for the country at this point is to stuff it back in and hopefully kill it.

I thought Romney lost the election...?

no you don't understand, he wasn't conservative enough! he doesn't represent true americans.

Charles Pierce on the consequences:

If he's talking about the economy and we, somehow, we come out out of this with a bogus "bipartisan" solution along the lines of the bogus Simpson-Bowles extravaganza, the Republicans will have won more than the Democrats have, because feeding Vaal on entitlements is their policy, not that of the Democrats. If he's talking about the Republicans coming to their senses, he's just wrong. I know I can get boring on this point but, to reconfigure the party the way Purdum and others seem to believe the party will be reconfigured in the wake of the fiscal apocalypse the Republicans have brought upon us, you would need a party establishment powerful enough to force the issue, and there...is...no...Republican...establishment. There are independent centers of power, none of whom are particularly indebted to the party, and all of which have the money to pursue their own interests and their own imperatives regardless of what may happen to Reince Priebus and Mitch McConnell, and, frankly, regardless of whether or not the party ever elects another president. These independent centers of power already are working their wills out in the state legistatures, which is where the next generation of Republican congresscritters will be produced. Those people are deeper into the izonkosphere than Ted Cruz is. When will this great reconfiguration show itself? Two decades from now? Three?

If he's talking about the economy and we, somehow, we come out out of this with a bogus "bipartisan" solution along the lines of the bogus Simpson-Bowles extravaganza, the Republicans will have won more than the Democrats have, because feeding Vaal on entitlements is their policy, not that of the Democrats.

the republicans already have won on this, because they've managed to make the fact that the CR continues funding at sequestration levels a very minor part of the story that no one cares about. they've succeeded in cutting govt spending in the midst of a weak economy and a continually expanding population.

and in the end, the Dems don't care enough to fight w/ strong "messaging."

i fear this sort of thing will be pretty much standard for a good while since it's created an opportunity to get something that's increasingly valuable to politicians: prolonged attention from the media. at least until it blows up in someone's face.

they claim that no one should worry, they'll fight the sequestration levels of funding during the NEXT CR fight (which would be in December, if the current timetable holds). i can see how they're fucked this time around though, at this point. after all the garbage with boehner and crew adding health-care amendments to the bill, sending it back to the senate where they'll be removed, and then back to the house for a last minute session before the fiscal year deadline, there's no opportunity for the democrats to raise the funding levels.

but it's ok because in December everyone will have learned their lesson and the republicans will discuss funding levels in a very reasonable manner.

There are indications that Obama has realized that negotiation over this issue will only lead to the Republicans to make huge demands in return for CRs and debt limit extensions every few months, so he may as well put a stop to that now, before it goes any further. Hence, the coming debt default.

Both sides are ready to take it that far. so it will happen. The real political battle will be over who is at fault for the resulting catastrophe, not over whether the catastrophe will happen. That's already been decided.

“Today the Republican Party has been infected by a small destructive faction,” Reid said. “These extremists are more interested in putting on a show, as one Republican colleague put it, than legislating.” He urged Republicans to “defy the anarchists” and pass a clean spending bill that would avert a shutdown.

All 54 members of the Democratic caucus voted to end debate on the bill. They were joined by 23 Republicans. The 19 Republican senators who voted no were Mike Crapo (Idaho), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Dean Heller (Nev.), James M. Inhofe (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Rob Portman (Ohio), James E. Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and David Vitter (La.). Two GOP senators — Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah) — did not vote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-vote-on-spending-measure-that-house-republicans-vow-to-reject/2013/09/27/5e5bc59c-2778-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html

morbs is gonna love this poll, but:

The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling released Friday found Cruz as the top choice for 2016 among Republicans nationwide. With 20 percent support, Cruz narrowly edged Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who claimed the support of 17 percent of GOP primary voters. New Jersery Gov. Chris Christie (R) trailed the two junior senators with 14 percent, followed by 11 percent for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R). Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) each picked up 10 percent.

question on the senate version of the bill:

The Senate legislation keeps the government funded at the current austerity level of $986.3 billion. It makes three changes to the House-passed bill: it includes funding for Obamacare; it strips out a provision to prioritize debt payments in the event of default; and it keeps the government funded until Nov. 15, rather than Dec. 15.

why did the democrats want to change the CR to expire in 11/15 rather than 12/15?