Quotes like this don’t come along every day:
“I prefer to be in the arena voting than trying to placate a small group of phony conservative members who have no credible policy proposals and no political strategy to stop Obama’s lawlessness,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, a close ally of the speaker. “While conservative leaders are trying to move the ball up the field, these other members sit in exotic places like basements of Mexican restaurants and upper levels of House office buildings, seemingly unaware that they can’t advance conservatism by playing fantasy football with their voting cards.”
I kind of love that quote. At first glance, it has the flavor of sanity about it until you realize that he’s arguing about who are the real conservatives and declaring that the president is lawless.
Because you can be rock-ribbed or moderate, frothing mad or seemingly reasonable, but the two things you are not permitted to contradict are the Tea Party delusions about the president’s perfidy and the supremacy of conservatism.
There will be no coup against Boehner. Not a successful one, anyway. But Boehner will continue to let the rock-ribbed Tea Party conservatives run the show and steer him into shoal after shoal. So, really, what difference does it make whether Boehner is speaker or not?
Whenever he tries to do anything even modestly sane, he fails.
Cruz argued that failures like Boehner’s didn’t seem to hurt the Republican election prospects in 2014.
Democrats should stop pointing and laughing and figure out how to take the policy wheel out the hands of these lunatics. The uncle in the attic has been playing with guns and knives.
they had Harry Reid to blame then.
Do you think that matters? I don’t really think I can interpret the 2014 election results that way. It implies more sophistication on the part of the American voter than I’ve seen evidence of. The absurdly low turnout wasn’t about Harry Reid, and while “Harry Reid” may be a dirty phrase in conservative political circles, it’s nothing compared to “President Obama”.
Not Harry Reid specifically, but the idea that Congress in general was to blame, but not one party in particular. That vague sense allowed anger at government to become generalized, leading to apathy on our side and a general anti-government attitude in the overall populace.
I’ll blame this on Obama. Sure Congress thwarted him, but did voters hear that? No. They heard the TV telling them that Congress or the Federal Government was doing nothing. So Obama had to propose dramatic measures that got attention, even though, actually BECAUSE the Republicans would shoot them down. But he wasn’t on the ballot, so, as I see it, he didn’t give a damn about the election.
Why should they do this: Democrats should stop pointing and laughing and figure out how to take the policy wheel out the hands of these lunatics. The uncle in the attic has been playing with guns and knives.
When “we suck less” gave them control of the House for four years out of the past twenty-two years and control of the Senate for ten and a half years out of twenty-two years. That’s close to 50/50 using Democratic computational skills.
Devin Nunes is a real wingnut. When he’s the one in the crowd who says that it’s other members of his caucus who don’t want to govern reasonably, and it actually rings with some truth…
“So, really, what difference does it make whether Boehner is speaker or not?” I’ve been considering that since I began to believe The Orange Man’s caucus would punish him at some point for governing so poorly, or for going out and begging Pelosi for votes when he really does absolutely need to pass something. I’ve come to the conclusion that his incredibly incompetent management is much preferable to competent management of this crew. Incompetent vote counting undermines the House’s ability to effectively execute some aspects of its extremely malevolent vision for the people.
It is entertaining in a way to watch Boehner and his leadership team take vote after crucial vote to the floor only to see the votes fail, and to see NANCY SMASH roll her eyes and scold them to “get it together”. A proper House management would not suffer this regular humiliation; they would know that they don’t have the votes and they’d pull it from the floor. For some reason, no one in Boehner’s team has the skill or will to do an accurate vote count. Do they take these votes to the floor with the hope that there will be enough Dems to bail them out, even though Nancy has shown both the ability to count and to whip her Caucus very effectively?
Not incompetent. It’s theater and the show is selling out nicely.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that his incredibly incompetent management is much preferable to competent management of this crew.”
Serious question: who do you think could do it better? Do you really think ANYBODY could competently manage this crew?
I’m not defending Boner, not at all. I’m saying that his leadership or whatever you want to call it is beside the point. Boner is not the reason why the House Republicans are such a bunch of fuckups.
Could it be, simply, that they don’t to want to govern or legislate? Part of their “drown government in the bathtub” mantra. It will be interesting to see with the next President, if she or he is a Dem with a different skin color, if the GOP will behave differently. While they obviously hate all thing big “D” democratic, I don’t see them resorting to all the race whistles they’ve used for the last 6 plus years.
They don’t want to govern, and even if they did, they no longer know how to. They do want to legislate, but they don’t know how to do that either, since legislating is part of governing.
Why? Because so many of them are purists and rabble rousers, playing to their constituencies and big-bucks donors to get reelected, and hell-raisin’ is all they know how to do any more. They can’t even work with each other, let alone with the Democrats.
On your second point, the GOP will not behave differently. Have you forgotten how they behaved with Clinton? True, they couldn’t call him a Muslim or claim he was born in Kenya. But they did whatever they could, and they did it 24/7, rain or shine. For example, they couldn’t call Clinton the n-word (or equivalent dog whistles; but they did call Clinton an n-lover or equivalent dog whistles. That he ordered the death of Vince Foster. They impeached him, etc., etc. Float disinformation via Faux News, hate radio and the “echo chamber”. They will do the same with the next Democratic president.
Congressional Republicans and the right-wing movement were truly personally horrible to President Clinton, but their obstructionism during the Obama Administration is unmatched. As mentioned earlier on another comment thread, it’s provable by anecdote, data analysis, and measurements of Congressional productivity that they are obstructing much more under Obama than they did under Clinton.
This is made even worse by the fact that the American people have been faced with many more problems under Obama than the Federal government faced under Clinton, yet the Government has done much, much less. It’s been truly shameful.
It’s true that they have been much more obstructionist under Obama. But at least part of that may be attributed to the completely different situation the country is in.
Sure there’s a strong racist flavor to the obstruction, but the obstruction was, after all, a cold, calculated strategic decision by the Republicans that came into effect the moment Obama was inaugurated.
And that was out of sheer desperation. The GOP had nothing to offer, they still have nothing. There was huge public pressure for change, far more than under Clinton. Yet Clinton could not pass his health care bill, Obama passed his in spite of everything. He’s done a lot of other good stuff too. No wonder they’re scared of him.
There will be no coup against Boehner. Not a successful one, anyway.
Exactly right. Yet some corporate media idiots keep believing revolt talk. I think the GOP, and Teahadists, like it like that. Boehner looks like an ass to the rest of the world, when the corporate media reports on it. And the Teahadists control things with out having to take the hit publicly. Best of both worlds to them.
I’m more interested in the fact that Boehner apparently promised Nancy Pelosi that he would bring up the Senate bill in the next week, but now is saying he did no such thing. So, he either lied to Nancy or is lying now. For the sake of the country, he better be lying now, because it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t have a useful governing majority in the House without Nancy, and if Nancy can’t take him at his word, then what’s in it for Nancy to bail him out in the future? His teahadi pals sure aren’t going to do it, and Nancy’s a quicker study than President Obama; it won’t take her a year or two before concluding that agreements with Boehner aren’t worth the shit they’re written in.
Nancy was more effective when she didn’t have to hold back in favor of seeking impossible bi-partisanship. Under her minority leadership role, she was instrumental in gaining the majority. (Gephardt presided over a minority for eight years.) And she did kick butt 2007-2008.
When did a lack of credible policy proposals ever stop conservatives from moving the ball up the field?
There’s plenty that Republicans have not completed in their Plan To Repeal The 20th Century. They do have to credibly sell these proposals in order to gain the Presidency and strengthen their Congressional control.
Eviscerating Medicare and Social Security, passing further Federal restrictions to abortions and voting rights, and destroying the New Deal/Great Society/Warren Supreme Court/111th Congressional accomplishments remain very heavy lifts for the economic feudalist and Christian fundamentalist wings of the conservative movement.
He seems to have a situational awareness without looking in the mirror. Or, yes they’re crazy but I can still button my shirt in the morning so all is well.
Only question I see is how many one week CR can these guys get away with before the folks who call the govt inefficient think to call the Rep govt inefficient?
Well, they only needed this one ‘one week’ CR to cover Netanyahoo’s visit. Once he’s gone, it’ll be business as usual.
” until you realize that he’s arguing about who are the real conservatives and declaring that the president is lawless. “
Didn’t we argue about who were the real Democrats and declare that the President (G. W. Bush) was lawless?
It’s just politics as usual.
Yes, Voice!!!
It is indeed just politics as usual.
But…the important question remains.
Can we afford to remain in that situation?
I do not think that we can. The PermaWar state is too busy messing with Russia and Venezuela…and that’s just the tip of the PermaWar iceberg…to actually take care of business at home, so it’s all smoke and mirrors in the U.S. proper. “He said; she said.” “We said; they said.” Over and over and over and over again.
Who is trying to break this logjam? Jeb Bush? Hillary Clinton? Anybody of any national importance in Congress? Please. Elizabeth Warren? She’s playing coy. Rand Paul? He appears to be trying but the anti-Paul media hoohah grows exponentially every time it looks like he might be successfully getting his message out past the young conservative faithful.
Who’s left?
For that matter, who’s right and is there really any difference in the directions? I don’t think so, myself.
“Left?” “Right?” More like this:
Meanwhile, back at the Booman Ranch it’s the bad guys vs. the good guys all over again. What are we, 6 year-olds playing a zombies vs. humans video game?
Please!!!
WTFU, folks.
Yoiu bein’ had.
All over again.
WTFU
AG
I hear what you say and I can’t disagree. Still, somehow the eternal optimist (me) believes that somehow ‘the Sun will come out tomorrow”.
Irrational, I know, but that’s emotions for you.