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

yeah the fundamental problem is we have a nonsensical system of government, checks and balances

the responsible, conservative way to oppose bills you don't like is to have the wherewithal to overturn them, not by taking the budget hostage.

occurred to me this morning: the dem house finally ended the war in vietnam by 'power of the purse', no? i'd have to dig into that tho.

yeah the fundamental problem is we have a nonsensical system of government, checks and balances

― lag∞n, Thursday, October 3, 2013 11:52 AM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am a known hater of bicamerialism etc but i don't think this goes very far. any system will break if you're trying to break it.

they have a built in incentive to break it is the thing

will be interesting if Boehner actually falls on his sword to save the republic from default. kinda hoping he does, he's been a terrible Speaker.

he prob wont have to fall on his sword, most republicans are opposed to this current strategy but are just to chicken to say anything

you don't think he'll lose the speakership over this?

others know better than me but i think boehner's speakership is perfectly safe no matter what he does -- i know the ultras he's dealing with have zero long-term thinking but even they know if they bump him off one of them has to lead, and i don't think anybody wants his job. his enemies would rather have him around to complain about.

prob not xp

cuz I assume that's the real calculus Boehner is working out right now

xp

Cantor's made it clear he wants his job. Ryan too I would imagine.

Just wondering: What are the chances of some of the stupidest right-wingest tea partiers being primaried to the left in the midterms? I mean, if the business community is really worried, they could pour money into these elections, and presumably taking the edge off the primary dynamic. I mean, a lot of these idiots will have completely nonsensical soundbytes to be used against them.

i read one thing that estimated that it was just ~a quarter of the gop caucus that supports the shutdown, the rest are being held hostage over primary threats

so not gonna happen, Frederik

forgive my ignorance on procedural stuff, but is bringing a clean CR to the House floor for an up or down vote entirely up to Boehner? and he's just afraid that doing so will enrage tea partiers who will call for his head? can't all the Repubs who WOULD vote for the clean CR and move on (which sounds like may be the majority?) put pressure on him, too?

i mean i dont think its impossible that boehner could be ousted if he brought a clean cr to the floor but id bet on him keeping his post

yes it is entirely up to Boehner, he calls bills to a vote

xp

yeah will you have it right, the thing is the republicans dont want to actually have to vote for the clean cr cause theyre afraid of someone using it against them in a primary, so what would happen is boehner would bring it to the floor then it would pass w mostly dem votes and a minimum of republicans

i think also theres an element of the leadership giving the wingnets enough rope to hang themselves

xpost
basically he's indefinitely furloughing ~800K people so he can keep his own prestigious position.

violating the "Hastert Rule"

xp

like you can have a week of this but then you have to pick up yr toys and go home

I think we've entered a phase (which we had in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century) in which speaker are non-entities, creatures of their caucuses.

Boehner's already violated the Hastert rule at least four times.

he wore a suit that fits?

lol

fwiw Washington Post disagrees with lagoon's analysis: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/john-boehner-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-on-shutdown-and-debt-limit/2013/10/02/32a27f1a-2b9f-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html?hpid=z1

did someone put this quote in here:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/03/gop_congressman_were_not_going_to_be_disrespected/

“We’re not going to be disrespected,” Stutzman said. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

What are the chances of some of the stupidest right-wingest tea partiers being primaried to the left in the midterms? I mean, if the business community is really worried, they could pour money into these elections, and presumably taking the edge off the primary dynamic.

i fantasize about this, but have like zero faith.

sure, there are 'business community' folks who know that defaulting is some seriously bad shit. unfortunately i think we've reached the point where the purse strings are held by a rarefied group folks who don't really care one way or the other about the debt ceiling. they have the luxury of profiting either way... 'oh a credit downgrade you say? nbd. i'll just scoop up government securities at fire-sale prices while all the normals in their conservative fixed-income investment vehicles are forced to dump treasuries. an yo my inverse ETFs are going to clean up!'

and then for some (Kochs eg) the ideological fight has taken on mythic/spiritual quality. which of course applies to a disturbingly large number of the rank & file as well, folks who will easily be convinced that all negative fallout is 100% the fault if Obama/ "liberals"/ etc

That Stutzman quote actually made me laugh. It sounds like the tantrum of someone who insisted on going snowboarding and then clumsily ran into a tree and sustained brain damage.

Now that Boehner has survived several days of the shutdown, his friends say there is no point in moving a clean funding resolution.

That's from the W. Post article Shakey posted. If only we could have gotten a full shutdown-no retirement checks mailed; no payments to the military. Then we might have some movement.

Regarding the debt, my fear is Obama goes back to his grand bargain cutting Social Security strategy and pressures Dems in Congress to go along.

He has little leverage and no coat tails

fwiw Washington Post disagrees with lagoon's analysis

― Hip Hop Hamlet (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 3, 2013 1:10 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i must be right then B-)

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/03/gops_grim_shutdown_history_how_the_1995_debacle_turned_states_blue/

dem senators brought some props to their press time today

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVqgc29IEAA5Cge.jpg

haha

that's good proppin'

oh man

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/03/denny-hastert-disses-the-hastert-rule-it-never-really-existed.html

Denny Hastert says the rule was never meant to be official, and then spends a few words on how incompetent Boehner is.

Denny Hastert will rue the day he prema-tricked his caucus into thinking we have a parliamentary system

The "Hastert Rule of Thumb" just doesn't have the same flavor.

“You know how Clinton was,” Hastert recalled, slipping into a pretty good imitation of Clinton’s easygoing chatter. There was plenty of time to banter before getting down to business. Hastert congratulated the president on his successful trip to Africa. Finally, Clinton asked, “What can I do for you?” “A haircut across the board,” Hastert replied. “I would suggest a 1 percent cut.” Can’t take that, Clinton said, offering all the reasons why that wouldn’t work. “What do you suggest?” Hastert asked him. A quarter of 1 percent, Clinton replied. “We dickered back and forth and settled on .86 percent, not because it was a magic number,” said Hastert. “But the moral of the story is Clinton would come to the table. I’m not going to go into the science of negotiating, but you can put one thing on the table and end up with something entirely different, but you’ve got to talk.”

Hastert said he doesn’t like to engage in Monday-morning quarterbacking and added: “I don’t want to overmanage John Boehner. I’m not in his shoes. But when we had things that were tough to do, I was constantly engaged—sitting at the table, bringing in conservatives, moderates. You can’t be in Congress and shut down government and get anything done. It’s an oxymoron.”

good piece http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/03/the-morning-plum-republicans-and-their-voters-are-stuck-in-2011

Ezra Klein & Grover Norquist:

EK: One aspect of this that you mention quite a bit, but that’s been somewhat lost in the debate, is that Republicans have really managed to hold the spending levels in the CR down. They’re below the original Ryan budget, for instance, and well below what President Obama and the Senate Democrats wanted. Yet Republicans feel like they’re failing because they’re focused on Obamacare. Do you think Republicans are winning on spending?

GN: Yes, absolutely. We won in 2011 and then again with the president making 85 percent of the Bush tax cuts permanent. We really did get caps and sequestration that limits government spending. If we just went home and put the government on autopilot it would be a win. This Republican Congress has made a fundamental shift in the size of government equation.

Sequester is the big win. It defines the decade. You still have to fix long-term entitlements, but the other team isn’t willing to do that. So you either wait for a Republican president and the Ryan plan or you get people so concerned about sequestration that they’re willing to come to the table and fix entitlements long-term.

I guess this is from yesterday, but good zing.

http://i.imgur.com/5q1RU9U.png

hastert is talking some self-aggrandizing shit there

lol

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcconnell-rand-paul-recorded-while-talking-shutdown-strategy-video

ok wtf just checked twitter -- shots fired at capitol, house in lockdown

o good

http://i.imgur.com/KypBE3U.png

grover norquist, voice of reason (sorta)

does Abraham Lincoln still have his own secret service unit?