At this point the Republicans are basically a parody of a political party. They’d be funny as a Monty Python sketch, but they’re so dysfunctional that it’s impossible to deal with them. I don’t even care that they didn’t like being compared unfavorably to the president’s daughters, who actually do their homework and pass it in on time (how about Obama letting us in on his secret?). But their foot-stomping is ridiculous. My expectations for House Republicans is set very close to zero, but the Senate is supposed to be at least tenuously tethered to reality. Our whole system is predicated on senators being the grown-ups who don’t twist and turn with every political wind. Well, you can forget about that.
The Republicans were stung by Obama’s Wednesday press conference, when he unfavorably compared GOP lawmakers to his school-age daughters, who he said get their homework done on time.
In response, Republicans blocked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) request to bring legislation authorizing U.S. military action against Libya to the floor, and walked out of a planned markup of legislation implementing a free-trade agreement with South Korea.
They also mocked and scolded the president for his leadership record and his call for them to get to work.
You read that right. The Republicans have been demanding a vote on the free trade agreements for months, threatening to block everything if they don’t get their votes. But now they’re blocking the mark-up of the goddamned South Korean one because their feelings are hurt. These are U.S. Senators.
This isn’t a political party. It’s a loony-bin, a train-wreck, a compete and utter disaster for the country. How are they going to get their shit together in the one month they have remaining before we default on our debts?
At some point, they have to realize that they’re screwed and they can’t fulfill their promises to the teabaggers. Right?
Turns out It IS a TOOMAH…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13986092
oh yeah, and the repugniks are nuts and continue to suck ass… what else is new? they’re not going to come around. let them flame out or light the country on fire trying…
Also, too…turns out A-stan is safer than most americaan houses…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13953883
They can’t handle the truth!
It’s a fucked up world.
They had relatively uncontested control on political power in this country for 40 years. They’ve gotten their wish on so many areas of policy. Corporations have never been stronger or more profitable. Labor has never been weaker. For what they’ve now lost on gay rights, they’ve recovered on oppressing women’s rights. Minority achievement and economic equality remains abysmal.
Reactionary radicalism has paid off for them. But since they can’t get 100% of everything all the time, conservatives keep losing their shit. This is what happens when a party that is 2/3 old people faces its impending mortality.
It is an illusion that the GOP is 2/3 old people. Outside the South, it tends to be folks who came of political age when Ronald Reagan was elected. So those born 1962-1969. It really still is 2/3 affluent people. Even in the South. Bankers, accountants, medical specialists, small business owners, managers, foremen, independent consultants, retired military, and farmers. And a few affluent African-Americans who keep hoping to reform it of its deep racism and benefit by being a token. It is these people who dominate local and state politics, becoming city councilmen, mayors, county councilmen, state legislators. There are a few lawyers among them, but mostly affluent people who get their legal advice on legislation from corporate lawyers and the sorts of Republican legal ideologues who become judges. And some of these folks are old because, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, they date back to the Nixon era.
Just as well. Free trade is killing the American economy, anyway.
Wall Street doesn’t think they are serious about blowing up the economy and loves the fact that they are carrying water for them on tax cuts. The Village knows this and is playing along. Their problem is that Obama is buying into this view of reality too. Which frustrates and angers the GOP and sends it further toward the cliff.
No one is asking the question (besides DFH’s) what if Wall Street is wrong and the Randian religious zealots do really intend to tank the economy if they don’t get their way.
There is no better illustration of this than the split in the warnings from the investment ratings services–Standard and Poors, and Moody’s (oooh, a legitimate place for a comma before “and”). Standard and Poors is the bad cop; failure to pass the debt ceiling drops the US rating from Aaa to D. Moody’s is the good cop; it goes from Aaa to Aa. Clearly Standard and Poors is putting pressure on the President to cave. And Moody’s is trying to reassure investors that its all kabuki so that the market doesn’t tank on expectations (and then perversely rise when it actually happens, as markets tend to do with bad news).
Remember, these are the same rating services that couldn’t tell that mortgage credit default swaps were a risk that could richochet through the economy because third parties (so-called “naked default swaps”) were placing bets on transactions in which they had no stake.
And there are default swaps being sold today based on the risk of the US defaulting on its debt. No one could have anticipated…..eh. I don’t think the GOP knows about these sorts of transactions; they so much live in the rosy fields of AynRandGreensanLand.
Something about the phrase “Randian religious zealots” blows my mind, not least because it’s accurate. Yet Rand herself was a committed atheist, as an intrinsic part of her objectivist philosophy. That’s how untethered these people are.
They idolize an unhinged philosophy from a third-rate writer of the mid-20th Century, and then can’t even get the basics of it right. Rand and Christianity (at least as practiced in the New Testament, by, you know, Christ) should be mutually exclusive.
They idolize her because of her anti-communism and her personal story of the effects of the Bolshevik Revolution on her family.
It is the anti-communism, anti-socialism that bridges evangelical religious right Christianity (born again, no social gospel that might undo Jim Crow or encourage labor unions) and the Ayn Rand libertarian zealots. And also suits the interests of business owners large and small.
In the 1960s, the movement conservatives argued against more traditional GOP conservatives that conservatives had to become like the communist party in strategy and tactics in order to defeat communism. And the infrastructure of the GOP operates very much like the communist party–an official party “line”, political watchdogs monitoring the actions civil servants for political correctness, Orwellian distortion of language (including “political correctness” btw), politicization of the media, the judiciary and any other likely countervailing power, corruption of advocates of popular causes (like AARP). And anti-socialism (the ideology formerly known as anti-communism) as an act of faith instead of a consideration of principles. And an all-or-nothing fundamentalism. St. Ayn Rand was the anti-Lenin.
If the US defaults, there will be creditors who are privileged above others. Banks will be privileged. Folks who have contributed to Social Security over a lifetime will not. Just look at the logic every time a private pension fund has been stolen by management. The amount that can be gained by totally writing off all of Social Security is something a little less that $4.6 trillion.
“Sorry, folks we just destroyed Social Security by defaulting” is no longer a scenario that is impossible to the Ryans and Bachmanns of the Congress.
The kabuki is jockeying for who takes the last move before default. The GOP is trying to make that their last offer of a deal so that Obama can blamed either with the default of caving in to their demands for cuts.
To a great degree this craziness is self-inflicted by Democrats like Kent Conrad and Max Baucus. And of course, independents like Holy Joe. But they are quite willing for the President to take the rap.
BTW, a Crossroads GPS ad just came up. I hope you’re getting a little money from their folly. Otherwise, it is just cluttering up the real estate.
they ARE nuts: how can they be angry when he’s putting their choices on the bench in Texas?
Obama just wants to be loved, is that so wroooooong?
At this point, Obama seems to want somebody anybody that can be confirmed. The judicial backlog is that great.
It is interesting that the House members are complaining when it is the Senate that must confirm, and the Senate privileges the home state Senators on matters like this. So any candidate would have to pass Kay Bailey’s an Big John’s litmus tests.
I think Obama’s wants are much simpler than just wanting to be loved. They amount to not wanting to be killed. Don’t underestimate the power of the anger that the GOP has been whipping up (and its effects on folks even wingnuttier than the GOP in Congress). And he wants to win in the long run. He plays his cards so close to the vest that no one knows what policies he actually wants to win, and that creates no end of controversy in addition to driving the GOP nuts.
Crazy people deserve representation, too, you know.
Boehner’s lemma to the Hrushka principle.
Represented, mind you — not over-represented. I figure they get six senators.
Assume 1 in 100 of is is barking mad. A complete knee-biter. That’s 3,000,000 frank psychotics.
That’s just about the population of VT, NH, and ME put together.
So six senators, and five reps.
More than that, we’re just encouraging them.