If this dispute were not about the safety and security of our country and its citizens, the spectacle would make me laugh out loud.
The Senate is scheduled on Monday to hold a fourth futile vote on getting cloture for the House’s ludicrous appropriation bill for the Department of Homeland Security. When that fails, the Republicans will have no clue what to do. On Wednesday, they’ll have their little group pow-wows and try to hash out a strategy, but all they’re going to do is argue with each other.
Democrats, meanwhile, have had a much easier role in the debate. They’ve defended Obama’s executive actions [on immigration enforcement] from the start and have been only too happy to highlight the Republican infighting on a topic that has long-divided the GOP.
“They are home and getting an earful about how irresponsible it is to not to fund homeland security,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. “To defund DHS, with all that we are seeing in Europe and the Middle East, is just plain reckless.”
At this point, it’s actually beyond reckless. Being reckless is something you do without any regard for the consequences. But it still involves doing something intentionally. What we have here with the Republicans is an inability to take any coherent action at all. They don’t want to leave the DHS without funds, but they literally cannot find the will to fund them. The leadership cannot convince their caucuses to follow them, and so they are useless.
This is worse than incompetence and somewhat different than mere recklessness. It’s like the driver of a car who loses complete control of his arms and legs. They don’t want to crash, but they can no longer steer or apply the brakes, so they are definitely going to crash.
Into us.
And there’s really nothing anyone can do about this. We’re as helpless as they are.
All I want to know is “who the fuck gave these drunks the keys and what the fuck were they thinking?”
They must be thoroughly unconcerned. They know that if something goes wrong as a result of all this, they can just blame the President. It’s their highly successful fallback strategy for everything.
‘All I want to know is “who the fuck gave these drunks the keys and what the fuck were they thinking?’
Sad, hate and fear filled bigoted people who are ignorant and stupid, but at least show up to vote – the took the keys.
As for what they were thinking?
Nothing.
Nothing but sad, hate filled bigoted, ignorant, and stupid, thoughts!
It’s the nonvoters who gave them the keys, saying “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between the parties.
As Neildsmith points out in a comment below, perhaps the non-voters are the sane ones. The collective hoi polloi of the GOP base are surely the most insane faction. However, how is it sane to reject BushI for his advocacy for NAFTA and a capital gains tax reduction but applaud Clinton for getting that job done? (And the list for GOP/rightwing policies that Clinton supported is very long.) Or reject the rightwing thinktank formulation of health insurance reform and applaud Obama for getting that one done?
I could go on and on wrt to big and important stuff. (Reagan bombing Libya and Obama bombing Libya?) Democratic politicians have moved so far to the right since 1969 that today they make Nixon look like a liberal (and he wasn’t for those that were there and remember).
You leave out that in the past (Clinton is a great example) Presidents didn’t side with their Party ONLY. Clinton did a lot of damage crossing over, but he was chasing his belief in free trade and knew how to advance that and a few other issues.
The problem today is that Republicans refuse to give an inch. Every bill has to have about 90% Republican support or they will not advance the legislation. They are strictly party-before-country, no exceptions.
They can’t because they built a political base that’s rabidly nuts and they can’t win or even be competitive in a single election without them.
That’s the difference, and it’s worth quite a bit more than a dime.
So, I always told myself, but the facts over the past forty odd years are hardly confirming. Other than LGBT rights (and that’s only very recent), this country has moved in the opposite direction of what informed my first vote and enough Democrats didn’t effectively reject or either went along with or actively supported all those national policies that have left us on a permanent war footing, ecologically unsustainable, poorer diets, significant increase in income/wealth inequality, hollowed out educational system, massive expansion of the prison industrial complex, etc.
McConnell can’t beat a filibuster? Is it because he has defectors from his caucus or because there are no DINO’s crossing over? Or a little of both?
As my favorite blogger, Charles Pierce, wrote:
These are the FKN MOLE PEOPLE!
No shame being a second favorite, with Charlie as my favorite, BOOMAN, both of whom I have quoted many times
in my speeches to my Local City Council, who does the same CRAP to my city as the above MOLE PEOPLE do to America!
“”who the fuck gave these drunks the keys and what the fuck were they thinking?””
We all did!
Not really. The last presidential candidate that I can recall having felt good about voting for happened to be my first presidential election. Always felt good enough about voting for Cranston and his successor Barbara Boxer. But have cringed every time I’ve had to vote for Feinstein.
Why have i always thought you were from Jersey???
Because I did multiple diaries about “Bridgegate?” Although, iirc, I pointed out that I was handicapped in reading the Ft. Lee development project because that’s out of territory for me. The only time I’ve ever been in NJ was for a three day work seminar in Absecon.
They were great diaries. Wouldn’t it be nice if the journalists who get paid realized how much they could save on travel if they spent some time reading instead.
Thank you. Have continued to hope that updates would follow, but so far nothing has emerged from the investigations by the AGs, NJ legislature, or journalists. So, the mystery as to why those bridge toll lanes in Ft. Lee were closed remains undisclosed.
It truly drives me nuts that journalists and business men and women don’t research/read first and only travel when necessary to obtain information that cannot be gotten through other means. Then again, the travel instead of read/study folks enjoy schmoozing. Have been considering writing a diary about a non-political and unimportant story that has been reported for several weeks now without a single news source even attempting to nail down facts. They all just keep repeating whatever someone says while fully aware that all of the someones has repeatedly lied in the past.
Google’s self driving car will help with drunk drivers, not so much for power-clueless Republicans.
It has occurred to me that liberals, progressives, and pacifists like myself (and even people with BooMan’s views) make up such a small minority of the US public that I often wonder if I’m not the one who is the raving drunk.
Perhaps we ought not concern ourselves so much with the welfare of most americans. They are unworthy of our compassion and concern.
This is, I think, the major flaw in progressive thinking. We presume the vast majority of americans are nice compassionate and decent people when, in fact, they are no such thing. How else do you explain this? At best they just don’t give a hoot, but even that does not reflect well upon our society.
I disagree strongly. Americans have been badly served and grievously wronged by their politicians. That’s why they have either given up or seek alternatives.
Who gave them the keys?
The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Rupert Murdoch, and a bunch of other millionaires and billionaires, and a Supreme Court that gave George W. Bush the keys.
Not to mention a string of Vichy Democrats who didn’t hold onto the keys. Some of whom are still kissing Sheldon Adelson’s ring (without clearly recognizing it).
A dam that is finally cracking:
CBS newsmen weighing in on O’Lielly. Bill-O worse, much worse, than David Corn was able to document. Snippets:
The guy was always a jerk.
They may have keys…but they gave Obama too much time to prepare for this weak political move. I smell fear. Rudy’s continuing puking to the media exposes their fear because the guys with the keys have no idea what to do next. Me thinks next week Cheney will appear and proclaim something even more outrageous than Rudy.