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

“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?

Norquist acknowledging what smart people know: the GOP won two years ago.

?!?

Yeah I hope Obama recognizes that negotiating with the GOP in 2011 was the biggest mistake he made in his presidency, perhaps his entire life

Biggest mistake since converting to islam

can we pause for a second on the political ramifications of the shutdown and wait until we figure out what's going on here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/us-capitol-police-capitol-in-lockdown-reports-of-gunshots-and-injured-capitol-police-officer/2013/10/03/fa65a594-2c59-11e3-b141-298f46539716_story.html?hpid=z1

US Capitol Police: Capitol in lockdown; reports of gunshots and injured Capitol police officer

hmm

"I am told shooter has been arrested. House floor activity stopped for now"

ok, back to speculating on political ramifications on the shutdown.

sorry for weird thread policing, it just kind of came out of nowhere and i can hear all the sirens outside and i got kinda freaked out

Yeah I hope Obama recognizes that negotiating with the GOP in 2011 was the biggest mistake he made in his presidency, perhaps his entire life

― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Thursday, October 3, 2013 2:32 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well tbf he was prob convinced the republicans were going to let the country default in order to crash the economy in order to make sure he wasnt reelected, it was a more difficult situation than people give it credit for

a lot of buzz going around right now that Boehner is pretty much resolved to put the clean CR up for a vote and will use the danger of debt default as his excuse

buzz going on where?

This story has been showing up in various places as a sign that Boehner has made up his mind.

Prior to the shots in the capitol, had a huge red link at the top of their page saying "Boehner Blinks" and linking to the Times article.

I don't know how definitive it all is, but it sounds like he isn't planning to hold out forever.

That article focuses on the debt, and that deadline is not till October 17th.

WASHINGTON — President Obama will not invoke a constitutional amendment to unilaterally increase the nation’s debt limit if an impasse with House Republicans causes that ceiling to be breached Oct. 17, his spokesman said.

“We do not believe that the 14th amendment provides that authority to the president,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said on Thursday. The president, he added, “completely” agrees with his advisers’ legal reasoning.

douthat tries to go deep

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/why-the-right-fights/

ie conservatives aren't stuck in 2011, they're stuck in the goldwater campaign

tbf they are stuck in the antebellum

https://twitter.com/AlexNBCNews/status/385843289049427968

RT @NBCNews Female driver tried to ram her car into White House gate, Secret Service chased to Capitol Hill - @PeteWilliamsNBC

great plan

if only real life missions had save points like GTA5

When people stop being polite and start getting real:

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=277339

:/

(lol @ "great plan")

“We do not believe that the 14th amendment provides that authority to the president”

Purse string issues are pretty clearly vested in the Congress.

But Congress legally required the government to take on all the obligations which the Congress now refuses to fund through either tax revenues or borrowing. But, of course, Congress will not vote to reduce those obligations either. Congress is throwing a tantrum in order to force issues that only it can address.

When people stop being polite and start getting real:

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=277339

― smang culture (DJP), Thursday, October 3, 2013 3:12 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heavens

Christopher Hayes ‏@chrislhayes 4m
"driver tried to ram the check point, Secret Service pursued the car and ends up at the capitol, and at 2nd and Con is when shooting happens

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/192346bgl9du3jpg/ku-bigpic.jpg

it's not clear the gunshots were anything other than capitol police firing on the driver

#Disgusting

i'm impressed that a 5-year old girl can use Twitter

Boy named Sue; girl named Tim

worst "false flag" ever:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/theyre-pulling-a-big-distraction-alex-jones-calls-washington-d-c-shooting-a-false-flag/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

please don't

it's not clear the gunshots were anything other than capitol police firing on the driver

― goole, Thursday, October 3, 2013 3:20 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding

who apparently had a baby in the car if I'm reading reports correctly?

saw one tweet about a child, but not a baby

let alone HAVING one

Bad day: being a dude having a baby in a car in DC and getting shot at.

And you can't even go to the Library of Congress to chill for a sec.

I may have badly misinterpreted a "there was a baby inside" tweet but I am clinging to my Michael Bay-esque reality

naw I heard that too

https://twitter.com/robertcostaNRO/status/385856081051664385

Cap police officer tells me: woman had gun, there was an exchange of gunfire, one officer injured. That's the word from his boss

seems like they fired on her cause she was using the car as a weapon, saw a pic of a badly damaged cop car, apparently the cop inside was injured, not sure how bad