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

They did

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) worked with top congressional Democrats behind the scenes to preserve employer contributions for congressional staff's health care plans even as he decried those subsidies in public, Politico reported Tuesday.

Emails and documents obtained by Politico show Boehner and his aides worked with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), among others, to find a way to maintain the long-standing employer contributions. Those documents also show that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was aware of the behind-the-scenes talks.

politics ain't beanbag

Its not quite Vitters level trolling but I like it

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2878/10032989935_133ddf04f6_b.jpg

Reagan would have approved!

they're gonna shut down Chris Matthews i hope

HA!

Rob Dreher:

That’s it, I think. When I think of the Republican Party, I don’t think of principled conservative legislators who are men and women of vision strategy. I think of ideologues who are prepared to wreck things to get their way. They have confused prudence — the queen of virtues, and the cardinal virtue of conservative politics — with weakness. I know I’m very much a minority among conservatives in this, but the behavior of Congressional Republicans pushed me out of the party two years ago, even though I almost always vote Republican, or withhold my vote. I am not a liberal, and do not want to vote for liberals, especially on social policy. But I told a Louisiana conservative friend the other day that the Congressional Republicans are making me consider the previously unthinkable: throwing my vote away by voting for a Democrat in the special election next month to replace my GOP congressman, who just resigned to take another job. The GOP candidates in this local race are hot and heavy to overthrow Obamacare. I think about how poor this district is — 26 percent of the district lives in poverty, making it one of the poorest Congressional districts in America — and how badly we need jobs and economic growth, and I think: What kind of world do these people live in?

I liked this, too:

They are a barking-mad pack of ideologues, is what they are. I haven’t written much about the Obamacare thing because I don’t follow policy closely. As far as I know, Obamacare is a bad idea. But here’s the thing: it’s the law. It was passed, signed by the president, and upheld in the Supreme Court. There is no way the House Republicans, or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, is going to overturn it. The best they can do is to delay it. And then what? Guess what: the 2012 elections were their last, best chance to overturn Obamacare, and the country didn’t go for it.

This is not the first time they have done this. This is, what, the third or fourth time they have used the debt ceiling or budget to fuck things up? It didn't hurt them noticeably before and I don't know if it will hurt them now. Won't be surprised if the American people after a week of this blame the proverbial Both Sides.

It could happen, but there could be a noticeable change at the margins. With the country so divided, the margins are not inconsequential.

polling suggests americans by a wide margin blame the republicans for the shutdown and general obstructiveness

important

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/82020215.html

residue of americans praise the republicans for the shutdown and general obstructiveness xp

Michelle Malkin ✔ @michellemalkin
I'm singing Bye Bye Bye to my health plan, while @NSYNC pimps Obamacare ==> https://twitter.com/NSYNC/status/384768026928623616 …

love how these poll respondents seem to be regarded by y'all as careful deliberative policy wonks; they won't remember their opinion 6 months from now, because they are TRYING TO EAT.

The Dems share the blame; they are the GOP's enablers. The Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but the duopoly now is.

Pretty sure this one is entirely the Repubs fault

Pretty much anyone with a brain can see that

The Dems share the blame; they are the GOP's enablers.

this is as addled as Mark Halperin-Chris Matthews types pining for Tip 'n' Ronnie bipartisanship. Surrendering on the sequester and actually treating the Ryan plan seriously in '10 were gruesome things, but contempt for constitutional norms re legislation is the GOP's fault alone, Morbs.

(and because you want to be a contrarian you'll probably go "HO HO constitutional norms – what about the NSA and Snowden" as if you were unable separate one from the other)

morbs it's ok to forget about the near enemy for 36 hours, nobody doubts you

what shutdown. FOX told me it's just a "slimdown", nbd.

fuck "addled." be a fucking populist party with guts and you'd have your contempt-for-norms-proof majority.

maybe being "Corner lovers" is the addling thing

i understood the word fucking but nothing else

how long till the house votes to impeach obama (for whatever)?

Idiocracy coverage of an Idiocracy story

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/524ab3df6bb3f7295152dcff-630-/new-york-daily-news-house-of-turds-cover-boehner.jpg

I think this kinda is their de facto impeachment.

note his shit-stained hands

i think they're gonna go beyond de facto and go for it for real. i could see them nailing him on the 14th amendment, even if they're the ones who provoke a default

if Dems had the will to push for fair-election laws to bar joke-gerrymandering when they had a chance, no hostage-taking now. (see Nichols' finish)

http://www.thenation.com/blog/176428/america-gets-primaried

we did Shitboehner this morning

have not made my way through this yet but yuval levin pens one of the funniest opening paragraphs i've seen today:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360092/ongoing-health-care-debate-yuval-levin

A small group of House Republicans, but one sufficiently large to deny the party a voting majority in the House, believed that the budget brinksmanship of the past few weeks would allow them to keep the government open but prevent Obamacare’s exchanges from starting up. Now that the opposite has happened, it would be worth their time to reconsider their options.

oh, word?

anyone catch the ny daily news cover today? haven't seen it posted anywhere, so here it is

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/524ab3df6bb3f7295152dcff-630-/new-york-daily-news-house-of-turds-cover-boehner.jpg

so this is a picture (tweeted by cantor) of the republicans, ready to negotiate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVgP3jPCUAEyWf_.jpg

but the democrats won't even join them at the table! why do they hate this country so much?! they're probably too busy forcing underage women to have sex and then to have abortions and then telling people to keep on the trails in national parks!

oh wait the natl parks are closed

Shutdown pickup lines, as gathered by NPR

http://i.imgur.com/ikrF5lq.png

Ted Cruz, looking perplexed about how his brilliant plan didn't work

http://www.trbimg.com/img-524b65fd/turbine/la-hp-cruz-photospot-20131001/600

I haven't learned how to post screenshots on this 'ere thing but here's an excerpt from Reagan's diaries regarding the debt ceiling.

You kind of can't blame the GOP for expecting obama to cave

Which is part of the resulting fun here.

obamacave

a dark place

that's racist

Home again today.

adding insult to injury, you can't even plan a trip, because you might be recalled any day, so you're stuck on a short leash.

think you can bank on the govt being closed till at least the 16th

You kind of can't blame the GOP for expecting obama to cave

Just wait. Reid has already said he's willing to negotiate once the ACA is out of the bill. So eventually the Republicans will take it out of the bill, and as a pointless show of good faith Reid et al., with Obama's blessing, will negotiate out that medical equipment tax. Which the GOP will call a victory, because ... it will be a victory.

but the medical equipment tax... is part of the aca

Team Bam -- we change parts!

(like the def of "enemy combatant")

but the medical equipment tax... is part of the aca

Yeah, but just a little part. No one will miss it, right? Of course not. And then the GOP will have until the next debt ceiling/budget debate to find some other "part" to attack. Because why wouldn't they? Especially once Reid/Obama/et al capitulate. And on that front, why would we believe this to be the one time, like, ever that Obama doesn't cave to some degree? He'll have made his point, gain the upper rhetorical hand, and then deal it away as usual. And the takeaway of the proverbial "American People" will be that both parties are equally bad, and Obama will take the blame for - or at least not get credit for countering - the effects of the cuts/machinations of the GOP. None of which matters much, anyway, because the gerrymandering guarantees the loony wing of the GOP is pretty secure for the time being, and the not quite as loony wing will stay silent or acquiesce, because they are not nearly as secure, and the loons would work to get them replaced by more malleable partners.

curious to see the business communities reaction to the approaching debt limit default, one would think theyre gonna start to get real nervous and call their dudes on the hill

seems like the administration has learned its lesson from 2011 and has no intention of bargaining w the gop, which is good and smart, one exception is i do think itd be worth bargaining to do away with the debt limit permanently once and for all

the other thing is that boehner can end this any time he wants and a lot of people think hes letting the nutjobs shut down the government to get it out of their system in hopes theyll relent before the debt limit has to be raised so that he doesnt have to rely on democrat votes to save the day and imperil his speakership

on the other hand a lot of people think his speakership isnt actually in peril either way

who know, this shit is so dumb, light the constitution on fire then take shit on it what a stupid form of government