This guy. Again. Because his other stunts have won so much for both him and his party. It's just. . .I can't even. . .
[Excerpt]
Ted Cruz Threatens To Filibuster Clean Debt Limit Hike
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will push a 60-vote threshold, meaning he's threatening to filibuster, on a clean debt ceiling increase extension. Cruz's office confirmed the Texas senator's plans to TPM on Tuesday afternoon.
Cruz's move means lawmakers will need to rally 60 votes in the chamber to pass the bill, and Democrats only control 55 votes. . .
Is it "spiking the football" to lay out the facts? Even if it contains a measure of schadenboehner schadenfreude? I mean, this pointless, dangerous hostage taking by the GOP put the whole world economy in danger, and it has now been avoided (or at least postponed). Why wouldn't the perceived "winning" side feel a little energized by that? Screw the butt-hurt tea baggers. I couldn't care less if they're peeved at the reaction.
I love Ezra Klein, and have enjoyed his writing and his appearances on various programs. And I think this piece is a good one too (though I think he oversells the "disaster" that the ObamaCare rollout has been), except I can't imagine that a Democrat could invent a Ted Cruz. As with other right-wing heroes like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Joe the freakin' Plumber, there is nothing appealing about Cruz to a Democrat. We can't fathom his popularity, even when imagining ourselves on the other side of the aisle. He's smarmy. He's creepy looking. He's a show-boater. He has no respect for the government, the President, the Senate or--apparently--much of anything beyond his own narrow views. As hard as Democrats try, I don't believe we could think up someone like Cruz, and that the ruse would be successful.
Part of the difficulty in thinking something like Cruz and his tactics, is that none of it makes a lick of sense. There was no end game. There was no logical connection between the Affordable Care Act law and the budget bill or the debt ceiling. It started as rather blatant extortion, and became. . .a muddled mess. Only a really bad writer or a drug-addled one could have come up with this storyline thinking it would go anywhere.
[Excerpt]
If Ted Cruz didn’t exist, Democrats would have to invent him
A true cynic about American politics would, at this point, be forced to one conclusion: Sen. Ted Cruz is a Democratic sleeper agent. . .
"We had to do this" was a refrain often uttered in response to why this ridiculous, self-inflicted dual crisis has overtaken everything in the last three weeks. It's a shitty answer. Because, beyond the desire to shut down the government, and the desire to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, I've yet to hear a coherent envisioned end-game to all of this from the GOP.
We know that a) they despise the President, in a white-hot, irrational way; b) Democrats are a proxy for the President, and thus compromise with them is tantamount to making a deal with the Devil; and c) because of a and b, they despise "ObamaCare." That's just a taste of their motivations of course, and already there are multiple problems with their so-called reasoning. Chief among them was the fact that the Affordable Care Act is already law, passed by Congress, affirmed by the Supreme Court and vindicated by Obama's re-election. It doesn't have a blessed thing to do with the continuing budget resolution or the debt ceiling. It was also a non-starter, non-negotiable to both the President and the Senate.
So, the reasoning for why the government was shut down, and the debt ceiling default imminent, kept shifting. The demands kept changing, and like Bette Midler in Ruthless People the ransom kept going down. All along, the votes have been there in the House for a clean budget bill and debt ceiling raise. John Boner Boehner was just unwilling to do so. I have to wonder what he's worried about. Who would want to lead these people?
[Excerpt]
ALL ABOARD: CONGRESS PASSES
BILL TO REOPEN GOVERNMENT
After weeks of stalemate that shuttered the government for 16 days
and brought the nation within hours of a key deadline to renew its
borrowing authority, the standoff is finally over. The House
passed a bill 285-144 late Wednesday night to re-open the government and
extend the debt ceiling until Feb. 7. That vote came hours after the
Senate approved the measure 81-18. . .
The face of a Republican hero. Mindboggling. Image from DailyKos
This is just so idiotic. Of course, if Louie Gohmert is involved it is--by definition--idiotic. But I mean, come on.
[Excerpt]
Louie Gohmert: A Debt Default Is 'An Impeachable Offense By The President'
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) isn't sure whether he'll support a debt limit deal, but he is sure of one thing: a debt default would be President Barack Obama's fault. A reporter for The Young Turks asked Gohmert whether he'd support a bill that would raise the debt ceiling at the Values Voter Summit on Friday. "The word 'deal' concerns me," he said. "If it's good for America. . ."
Here's the entire strange, ominous, and enraging place we find ourselves in our politics right now, boiled down to a simple conversation, a playlet, if you will:
Sane Person: We need food. Can I use your car to go to the store? Crazy Person: We do need food. However, you can use my car only if you punch yourself in the balls until you vomit. Sane Person: That's ridiculous. One thing has nothing to do with the other. How would that accomplish anything? Crazy Person: It's what I want. Sane Person: Well, I guess we'll just starve. Crazy Person: Yes, but remember that if we starve, it will be your fault because you didn't punch yourself in the balls until you vomit.
Is anybody really inspired by these guys? Really? Image from source, TPM.
The down side of the 2012 election was that the House remained in Republican control due to gerrymandering. Meaning that the already obstructionist John Boner Boehner-lead Congress is probably not going to change for at least the next two years. So, the previously non-controversial debt ceiling issue will keep being an issue until somehow, some way, it is finally squelched. I'm hoping that the American public will become so tired of the issue that all of the political oomph is taken out of it.
[Excerpt] House Republicans Increase Debt Limit Without Spending Cuts
House Republican leaders headed off another rebuke from their conservative members and with near unanimity passed legislation to raise the debt limit through May 18, without locking in any cuts to federal spending. . .
Rep. Gabby Giffords returned to the House for the vote.
Image from source, MSNBC
Good. I mean bad. I mean good? How about meh? It still has to pass the Senate and then President Obama has to sign it. But after that--at least after this weekend's Sunday shows--maybe we can stop talking about this. I'm very glad I'm going home to Ohio for the better part of a week. Hopefully, when I return there will be other things to talk about.
[Excerpt]
House passes bill to prevent US default
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed bitterly fought, compromise debt-limit legislation Monday night that would prevent a U.S. default on its obligations but at a cost of deep cuts in government spending. . .
Thank goodness. Now there will be several days of post-mortem on this thing (assuming something doesn't derail it), and then we can hopefully drop the whole issue for a while. I'm sick of it, you're sick of it, let's just be done with it.
[Excerpt]
Obama, Congress Reach a Debt Deal
Racing the clock to avoid a government default, President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders reached historic agreement Sunday night on a compromise to permit vital U.S. borrowing by the Treasury in exchange for more than $2 trillion in long-term spending cuts. . .
Heh. Boehner Bill. Anyway, this thing would be a disaster if it passed the Senate. But Harry Reid and President Obama both promise it will not pass. Which, even though the debt ceiling deadline looms, is actually a good thing. Next (after the Senate votes this one down) will be Harry Reid's bill, which will require a super majority (and that might be tricky). Stupid Senate and their stupid filibuster that they could have neutered but didn't. But isn't this fun?
By the way, the addition of a "balanced budget amendment" is epically stupid, not to mention impossible. Constitutional amendments aren't crammed through in 11th-hour bills, they take years. Stupid.
[Excerpt]
House Passes Boehner Debt Bill
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner brought a revised bill to raise the debt ceiling, cut spending and call for a balanced-budget amendment to House floor for a vote Friday evening. . .
I've been saying for some time that the whole tea bagger phenomenon was waning. Like the supposedly forceful "PUMAs" that were going to elect John McCain in 2010, the Tea Party is over. Well, not over exactly. There are stragglers, and every once in a while it seems to get rolling again. But is this really a group that should be capable of holding the nation--the world's--economy for ransom?
This is a group that sprang up immediately after President Obama's inauguration, claiming that they were overtaxed, and that they were only responding to Obama's bad policies. Riiiight. Considering that he didn't really have any policies yet, the claim is rather dubious. The tea party started out loud and boisterous, not very organized, and kind of. . .Wal-Mart-ey? Quickly, political operatives got their tentacles into this amorphous group, and began to direct things from behind the scenes. The party split into factions, some more astro-turfy than others. And no matter what they did, the news media--the allegedly liberal mainstream media--gave them copious attention.
Liberal bloggers like me did it too, of course. The imagery was just to hilarious, the speeches too clueless, the whole spectacle too grody to ignore. Like a train crash or a Sarah Palin word salad speech, it was like catnip. Meanwhile other protests and gatherings, often much bigger, much less vague than the tea baggers, got scant attention from any quarter.
So, the tea party was magnified in importance, because it was camera ready. And now that all the pizazz has gone out of the party, they're still given too much attention. They always were, but now it's just getting stupid.
Ah, Boner Boehner. So charisma free. So talking-pointy. So fact challenged. At least he didn't seem soused, and his mouth twitch wasn't going bananas as it usually is. Boehner tries to come off as a tough guy, and isn't very convincing. He also acts as though he speaks for "the American people," when in reality he speaks for hardcore conservatives (ie., tea baggers). Boehner is still pushing "Cut, Cap and Balance," a hastily thrown-together plan that was all but abandoned last week. Boehner falsely called it "bipartisan." And he finished by using Karl Rove's odd "Obama's blank check" meme, from the Crossroads GPS attack ads.
The biggest joke in this reply is the allegation that President Obama created this crisis. He didn't. And Boehner's (for once euphemistic) tears for people seeking jobs is also darkly funny, since there has been no attention to jobs out of Boehner's House.
I thought the speech was pretty good, though like pundit Melissa Harris-Perry, I at first thought that Obama was giving us the Republican plan first. Which goes to show you how far to the right the Democrats have moved in this fight. The President did a good job of explaining the situation to a nation that doesn't always pay attention to such things. But I think the main point--the fact that the debt ceiling can be raised right this second with a one-sentence bill--could have been clearer. All the tax cuts, spending cuts, possible revenue enhancements, slashing Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. . .all the posturing, all of the "deals". . .have nothing to do with raising the debt ceiling. It's a manufactured, phony crisis that is becoming a real one.
