Category: Congress

Baucus?!?!?!?! Max F%$#ing Baucus?!?!?!?

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So Harry Reid has appointed his 3 Democrats to the “Super Committee”, and they are John Kerry, Patty Murray, and Max Baucus.

Here is my rundown:

  • Max Baucus is the least Democratic Democrat in the US Senate.  He is more responsible for killing the public option than anyone in the senate.
  • John Kerry is angling for the Secretary of State appointment after Hillary Clinton resigns, probably after the election, and so is in Obama’s, and Secretary of Defense Panetta’s pocket.
  • Patty Murray is the Senator from Boeing.

So Reid has appointed 3 people who will blink at the possibility of the automatic cuts to defense, and Republicans desperate to get Democrats to join in their “Kill Medicare” suicide pact.

The rule is that a majority vote passes along a non-debatable, non-filibusterable, and non amendable motion to both houses, so if just one Dem flips *cough* Baucus *cough*, we see something that cuts Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, both gutting the safety the safety net, and saving the Republicans from the Paul Ryan budget.

I honestly believe that this is intentional.

It will condemn the Democrats to minority party status for a generation, because it means that we stand for nothing.

Pelosi Got Played

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It appears that John Boehner convinced Nancy Pelosi that he could supply the required majority for the debt ceiling deal:

I also think, though, that passing something and getting it over with and moving on was necessary and compared to default it is preferable because default would really lose a lot of jobs. That is my way of saying, I don’t think this is the best path we could have taken. And especially I’m unhappy about the fact that this was developed with a premise that the Republicans would have the 218. Since they didn’t we should’ve had more influence.

I was in all the meetings, I’m not saying that isn’t the case. But if we had days, instead of backed up to hours, we could have said ‘you don’t have the votes, let’s go back in and how do we move this way in order to cut some of those cuts and have a better bill and get the votes.’ So I think we could’ve done better. I think they were successful at just prolonging it to the last minute so that we didn’t have that option and it was default or no default.

While I do think that Pelosi is the best of the Democratic leaders in Washington, it’s clear that she got played.

It was clear from early in this debate that there would have to be a significant number of Democratic votes for this to pass. The Teabaggers were saying that they would vote against this under any circumstances, and Eric Cantor doing his level best to sabotage Boehner, because he wants to displace him as speaker. (Not gonna happen. Republicans will never vote to put a Jew 3rd in line to the presidency)

Not one of her finer moments.

The House Passed the Debt Deal

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And about half the Democratic caucus voted for it.

Looking at the tally, my Congresscritter, Jon Sarbanes, voted against it, but Hoyer, Ruppersberger (no surprise there) and DCCC chair Van Hollen all voted for this sh%$ sandwich.

Any Democrat who votes for this deserves a primary challenge, and the fact that Van Hollen is running the DCCC means that you should not give to that organization, but instead choose your candidates a la carte, because the DCCC will continue to spend their money on spineless wimps with no moral compass.

As to the substance of the deal, words fail me, but they don’t fail the Rude Pundit (NSFW, but if you know the Rude One, you knew that).

Also, read Krugman, whose New York Times OP/ED, The President Surrenders, is a marginally more polite take down.

Me, I don’t think that Obama is as bad a negotiator as we would like to think.  I think that he is getting much of what he wants, and using Boehner as a useful idiot for political cover from his own base.

Just Mint the Damn Coin Already!

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I haven’t said much on the solutions on the debt ceiling debate, I’ve been more focused on the source of the problem, which is that Obama, in his eagerness to find a way to gut cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to feed his own ego by burnishing his self image as a bipartisan compromiser who brings people together because he’s just so damn awesome.

At this point, it would be good to have a plan B, and while there are a number of ways to work around this, though to my mind is the use of the Treasury’s explicit statutory authority to mint platinum proof coin of arbitrary value, which they could be deposited in the Federal Reserve account and used to keep the debt below the ceiling.

So if they mint a few trillion dollar coins, deposit them in their “checking account”, and it’s off to the races.

But it won’t happen, because Obama still wants to find a way to gut cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Teabagger Family Values

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The Teabagger Congressman who defeated Melissa Bean (no great loss, she was a horrible Dino) is being sued for $117,000 in unpaid child support.

He’s claiming poverty, but he loaned his congressional campaign $35,000, so I’ll just put it down to his being a sleaze ball:

U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh of McHenry owes more than $100,000 in child support and interest to his former wife, she alleges in a Cook County Circuit Court filing.

The dispute, set out in a court filing last December, remains unsettled. Walsh’s ex-wife says he is $117,437 behind in payments.

Walsh, 49-year-old Republican, entered Congress in January, swept into office with help from tea-party activists. He often appears on television demanding the country drastically cut its spending and pay its bills.

John Kenneth Galbraith nailed it when he said, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

It Sucks to be John Boehner

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I guess we already knew this, but today, it sucked even more than usual to be John Boehner.

You see, John Boehner had to postpone the vote on his debt ceiling plan because he didn’t have the votes to get it passed:

Despite a days-long push to force their conservative members into line, and sneak Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) debt limit bill through the House of Representatives, GOP leadership has postponed a scheduled vote on the legislation — a sign that their efforts have thus far failed.
TPM SLIDESHOW: Debt Negotiations At The White House

This evening, members were alerted that Boehner and his leadership team were delaying the vote, which had been scheduled for 6 p.m.

“Members are advised that the House GOP Leadership has postponed the votes on the motion to recommit and final passage of S. 627 – Speaker Boehner’s Short Term Default Act (amending the Faster FOIA Act of 2011),” reads a notice from Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) office to his whip team.

You would think that as speaker of the house, he would be able to get his own caucus to vote for him, or at least he would be able to count votes, but this is apparrently beyond the Congress’s orange avenger.

He’s the most incompetent Speaker of the House ever.

This is a good thing, because he’s an evil son of a bitch, it’s better when evil people are incapable of doing evil well enough.

I expect the Todal to so totally Gleep his ass.*

*The Todal is, “an agent of the Devil, sent to punish evildoers for having done less evil than they should.”   It Gleeps said unfortunate souls.  Go read James Thurber’s magnificent book, The 13 Clocks.

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

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“Democratic” Congressman Mike Ross (AR-4), has announced that he will not seek reelection in 2012:

The only Democratic congressman in Arkansas, Mike Ross, said on Monday that he will not seek a seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives, saying he wants to spend more time with his family.

The announcement sent a shock through Arkansas political circles, and opened the possibility of a Republican replacement for the popular congressman. The redistricting process has left Ross’s district heavily GOP, with an uphill battle for Democrats there next cycle.

Note that he’s not only a member of the phoney Democrat “Blue Dog” Caucus, he is one of their co-chairs, and it’s these folks, who seem to value holding office above any hint of real political values, and they were the ones hardest hit by  the 2010 sweep, because people do not like voting for weasels.

Unfortunately, this means that the DCCC will doubtless find yet another phony Dem, and throw enormous sums of money at him, in the hope that he can make it to Washington, and vote against the party.

Bernie Sanders Calls for a Primary Challenge to Barack Obama

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Roll tape

Yes, he did say that, on the Thom Hartmann radio show:

SANDERS: Brian, believe me, I wish I had the answer to your question. Let me just suggest this. I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president; who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. […] So I would say to Ryan [sic] discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

Admittedly, Sanders is not technically a Democrat, he’s a Socialist (really, JFGI) but he does caucus with the Democrats, and he is a sitting US Senator, so the idea that Obama needs a primary challenge is starting to gain a bit of mainstream traction.

If someone credible announces, they go on my Act Blue page.

H/t Think Progress.

We Need to Primary Him Now!!!

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I’m beginning to think that the Republicans, the ½ sane ones anyway, may have been right in their criticisms in 2008 when they tried to portray him as a self-absorbed narcissist.

I am increasingly convinced that he obsessed with his own legacy such a degree that he just does not care about right and wrong.

He thinks that he is so damn awesome that he can somehow create a post partisan partisan paradise, with sparkle ponies!

To be fair, it could be that he’s just enamored by the idea that government should be private companies run by his Harvard buddies, but the effect is the same.

The latest episode in this is that he is trying to cut a deal with Republicans on the debt ceiling which is all cuts, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid:

President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner rushed Thursday to strike agreement on a far-reaching plan to reduce the national debt but faced a revolt from Democrats furious that the accord appeared to include no immediate provision to raise taxes.

With 12 days left until the Treasury begins to run short of cash, Obama and Boehner (R-Ohio) were still pursuing the most ambitious plan to restrain the national debt in at least 20 years. Talks focused on sharp cuts in agency spending and politically painful changes to cherished health and retirement programs aimed at saving roughly $3 trillion over the next decade.

More savings would be generated through an overhaul of the tax code that would lower personal and corporate income tax rates while eliminating or reducing an array of popular tax breaks, such as the deduction for home mortgage interest. But the talks envisioned no specific tax increases as part of legislation to lift the debt limit, and the tax rewrite would be postponed until next year.

Democrats reacted with outrage as word filtered to Capitol Hill, saying the emerging agreement appeared to violate their pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as Obama’s promise not to make deep cuts in programs for the poor without extracting some tax concessions from the rich.

………

After a lunchtime meeting between Lew and Senate Democrats, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) made no attempt to hide his anger, telling reporters that his caucus would oppose the “potential agreement” because it appeared to include no clear guarantee of increased revenue.

“The president always talked about balance, that there had to be some fairness in this, that this can’t be all cuts. There has to be a balance. There has to be some revenue and cuts. My caucus agrees with that,” Reid said. “I hope that the president sticks with that. I’m confident that he will.”

Congressional and administration officials said the White House informed Democratic leaders about the talks after Obama met privately with Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) late Wednesday. Congressional aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail private discussions, said the White House acknowledged that the emerging agreement is “to the right of the Gang of Six” — a bipartisan Senate debt-reduction framework unveiled this week — and far removed from what Democrats have said would be acceptable.

Obama summoned top Democratic leaders in both the House and the Senate back to the White House later Thursday for further discussions.

Barack Obama is the Manchurian Democrat.

To be fair, sources within the Obama administration are denying this, but as John Aravosis notes, in terms identical to when they killed the public option in secret:

Obama White House’s Dan Pfeiffer on rumors that they sold out the public option:

A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option. Those rumors are absolutely false.

In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President’s position.

We all know how that went.

Obama White House on the rumors that the President has sold out on the budget deal:

A White House spokesman called the claims from aides “not credible” — the result of having a “3rd hand version of the facts.”

And here’s more on the record from – wait for it – Dan Pfeiffer:

pfeiffer44 Dan Pfeiffer
Anyone reporting a $3 trillion deal without revenues is incorrect. POTUS believes we need a balanced approach that includes revenues.

Barack Obama is going to f%$# the American people, and he’s going to f%$# the Democratic party, and while he does not understand it, he’s going to make Sarah Palin President, because the American people hate the idea of cutting entitlements, and like taxing the rich, and he’s decided that we are all idiots, so he’s setting it up so that Republicans will be completely insulated from the consequences of gutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

I’m Going Long On Republican Crazy

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First, we have Allen West, who just unleashed a truly unhinged tirade against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

A Republican congressman from Florida turned to email on Tuesday to call a Democratic colleague from the state “vile, despicable and cowardly” after she called into question his stance on Medicare during the debate over a spending cap and balanced budget bill before the House.

Rep. Allen West, a first-term Republican from south Florida, wasn’t shy about his online outburst. He sent his peppery email to numerous lawmakers as well as his target, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

The subject line of the email: “Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman Schultz.”

The e-mail said: “Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up.”

Is it me, or did he just challenge her to a fight?

It certainly sounds like Zell Miller challenging someone to a duel. The only difference is that it was email, which means that it’s less likely to end up on Stewart.

And then there is Michelle Bachmann’s staff, who in response to a reporter asking about the reports that she is taking a veritable pharmacy of drugs for her stress related migraines, which regularly incapacitate her for days at a time, roughed up the reporter, and not just any reporter, but ABC’s Brian Ross:

Bachmann said 30 million Americans suffer from migraines and that “nearly 1 in 4 American households” have a migraine sufferer. “While I appreciate the concern for myself and for my health,” she added, looking to climb back down to safer ground, “the greater concern should be the debate that is occurring today in Washington, D.C., over whether or not we will increase our debt spending and taxes.” Bachmann reiterated that she would not vote to raise the debt ceiling. And with that, she departed without taking questions.

That’s when things got interesting. Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she continued to ignore him.

Afterward, I asked Ross — a hard-nosed pro who nevertheless seemed slightly shaken — whether he had ever been treated so roughly. “A few times,” he told me. “Mostly by Mafia people.”

(emphasis mine)

Does anyone know if someone out there has a futures market where I can invest in Republican crazy?

Something like the Iowa Electronic Markets, only one that would allow bigger bets.

I’d make out like a raped ape.

Lucy Will Hold The Football This Time … Really

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The “Gang of Six” in the Senate, it’s back:

The once moribund Senate “Gang of Six” gained new life Tuesday after Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn unexpectedly rejoined the group and President Barack Obama praised a new effort to cut the debt by as much as $3.7 trillion over the next decade.

Speaking at the White House Tuesday afternoon, Obama gave the Gang of Six a big boost, saying its proposals were “roughly” in line with his negotiations during the stalled debt-ceiling talks. But he said there would need to be broader buy-in to the proposal and he said Congress needed to have “fail-safe” plan, being drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to avert a default.

“I think we’re now seeing a potential for a bipartisan consensus,” Obama told reporters.

And Obama is not just positive about this development, he is a “ferocious advocate” of capitulation masquerading as bipartisanship:

President Obama heaped praise on a deficit-reduction proposal produced by bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Six,” calling it a “significant step” and arguing that members on both side of the aisle are beginning to coalesce around a balanced approach involving cuts to entitlements and tax increases.

“We’re in the same playing field and my hope is that we start gathering everybody in the next couple of days” on an agreement, Obama told reporters in a brief appearance in the White House briefing room Tuesday.

This is just pathetic.

In response to Republicans taking “a shellacking” because of their attempts to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid, Obama has signed on to a plan that calls for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Yesterday’s quote of the day shines a bit more light on this problem.

Barack Obama’s fetish regarding “Responsibility without conviction,” is more than “weak”.  It is in fact profoundly irresponsible.

Speaking as a parent, and someone who plays an adult on the internet, sometimes adults actually have to deal with children, and, “I’ll give you another ice cream if you stop ……… Well OK, you did not stop, but here is your ice cream anyway,” is not responsible anything.

I think the idea that Barack Obama is the responsible adult in the room is a delusion, and one that is most firmly held by one one Barack Hussein Obama.

Can We Please Primary the Bastard Now?

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So it appears that Barack Obama is removing Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:

President Barack Obama has chosen a candidate other than Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The president’s choice is a person who already works at the consumer agency, the person said yesterday. Obama may make the nomination as soon as next week, another person briefed on the administration’s plans said.

The people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process isn’t public, didn’t name Obama’s choice.

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor, was appointed last fall by Obama to set up the consumer bureau until a director was named. Warren previously was head of the congressional watchdog panel overseeing the bank bailout.

And here is the kicker:

Raj Date, a top deputy to Warren at the consumer bureau, was on a short list of candidates to become director ………

………He was senior vice president for corporate strategy and development at Capital One and a managing director in the financial institutions group at Deutsche Bank. During the debate over Dodd-Frank, Date headed the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, a research group he founded.

So he’s replacing Elizabeth Warren with a f%$#ing banker.

But in classic fashion, he’s floating out a payoff for her to keep her mouth shut until after the 2012 election, the Democratic nomination for Senate, where she would run against Scott Brown:

Elizabeth Warren’s calendar sure looks like the schedule of a woman considering a Senate bid, or at least someone being courted by power players in Massachusetts and the Senate Democrats’ campaign operation in Washington.

In recent weeks, Warren has met in person or spoke on the phone with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, David Axelrod, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch and John Tierney. The phone call with Murray took place in early June, Roll Call has learned. Warren attended a community banking event with Tierney in the Bay State and dined with Schumer, a former DSCC chairman and an aggressive recruiter who remains involved in DSCC activities.

Warren’s May calendar, the most recently available public schedule, shows the Schumer dinner along with the other meetings and discussions.

Given that Warren is leading the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB business could, of course, have been the lone agenda item during these meetings. But for a woman some national Democrats and liberal activists are hoping will take on Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) — a prime target in 2012 — her calendar alludes that she has at least been examining the possibility of a run.

So he’s putting her up to run against Scott Brown, which is a win-win for Obama.

Basically, she’s about the only person who appears to have a possibility to beat him right now, though it’s a tough row to hoe, because Brown is the consummate politician, and she isn’t.

If she wins, it’s easier to hold onto the Senate, and she gets buried as a low seniority Senator, where the old boys’ network keeps her far away from any meaningful banking regulation

If she loses, then no one could have won, and he keeps her inconvenient truths out of the press until his reelection.

Oh, Right, There Were Elections Last Night

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And the real Democrats won the primaries in the recall election against the ‘Phant’s false candidates:

Six fake Democratic candidates put up by the Republican Party to buy time for Republican state senators subject to recalls accomplished that job Tuesday, but none of them did the unexpected and knocked off a real Democrat.

Candidates backed by the Democratic Party won all six Senate primary elections, all but one of them by substantial amounts. They’ll all go on to face the Republican incumbents on Aug. 9, in an attempt by Democrats to regain control of the state Senate and put the brakes on Gov. Scott Walker’s agenda.

The full up recall vote should be interesting.

Also, Janice Hahn defeated a teabagger in the special election for the special election in California’s 36th Congressional District:

In a hard-fought special congressional election marked by sharp divisions in ideology and even sharper personal attacks, Democrat Janice Hahn defeated underdog Republican Craig Huey on Tuesday.

Unofficial election night returns showed Hahn won 54.6% to 45.4%.

Hahn opened with an early lead and held on to it throughout the night. Before even half the ballots were tallied, congratulatory messages began pouring into Hahn’s election night party at a San Pedro waterfront restaurant, and one of the would-be successors to her Los Angeles City Council seat declared himself a candidate.

Turnout was just more than 23% but still higher than in the May 17 primary, when less than 13.8% of voters cast ballots to put Hahn and Huey in first and second place, respectively, in a 16-candidate field.

Democrats hold an 18-point registration edge in California’s largely coastal 36th Congressional District, based in the South Bay. Jane Harman, a Venice Democrat, gave up the seat in February to run a Washington think tank.

I would note here that though Hahn won, it was a pretty piss poor showing in this district. 

I think it might have something to do with the fact that Americans are sick and tired of the idea of electing the “scion of a political family”. 

George W. Bush might have something to do with that.

Obama says debt impass could stop social security checks

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Talk about a Shot Across the Bow

I really don’t think that he had it in him, but Obama just fired one f%$# of a shot across the Republicans bow on the debt ceiling:

It was a striking thing today to see the President of the United States say that he cannot guarantee the 27 million Social Security checks that are due to be mailed on August 3rd.

August 3rd is the day after the U.S. government will default on its debts if Democrats and Republicans do not agree to increase the nation’s borrowing limit. Both sides say they won’t raise the limit without a deal to massively cut the federal deficit. A U.S. default could shake the world economy. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Time is growing short.

CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley met the president this morning at the White House on another day of deadlock. The question is whether a deal to cut the federal deficit will include tax increases as Democrats insist or rely only on budget cuts as Republicans demand. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner started the day with a vow that the house will not raise taxes – period.

You know, I really did not expect him to pull out that one.

His normal course of action is to negotiate with himself, and bring a knife to a gun fight, but he just pulled out an AN602 Tsar Bomba.

I really did not think that he had it in him.

What’s more it appears between this threat, and the fact that raising taxes by a penny will enrage the base, has Senate minority leader coming up with a Blackadderesque* cunning plan to obscure the fact that he feels compelled to capitulate:

Desperate to get out of the political box they helped to create, Senate Republicans are actively pursuing a new plan under which the debt ceiling would grow in three increments over the remainder of this Congress unless lawmakers approve a veto-proof resolution of disapproval.

In effect lawmakers would be surrendering the very power of approval that the GOP has used to force the debt crisis now. But by taking the disapproval route, Republicans can shift the onus more onto the White House and Democrats since a two-thirds majority would be needed to stop any increase that President Barack Obama requests.

“It gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility for increasing the debt limit if he chooses not to have any spending reductions,” Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican Conference chairman, told reporters Tuesday.

This is the about the lamest example of “declaring victory and beating a retreat” that I have heard in a long time ………… OK, it’s the lamest example by a Republican. I think that we get this sort of sh%$ from Democrats, and in particularly the Obama administration, on an almost weekly basis.

And then we have John Boehner doing his best 13 year old throwing a tantrum:

Burned by the fact that their prescription for reducing the deficit and increasing the national borrowing limit either can’t pass in Congress or doesn’t cut spending enough to warrant, in their minds, a significant debt ceiling hike, House Republicans returned to the Capitol Tuesday to ratchet up their demands, and shirk responsibility for avoiding default.

“Where’s the President’s plan?” asked House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) at a press stakeout after a GOP caucus meeting. “When’s he going to lay his cards on the table? This debt limit increase is his problem.”

This is a massive departure for Boehner and the GOP, who before the debt limit brinksmanship became central to U.S. politics, regularly acknowledged that raising the debt limit was his, and Congress’, imperative. Today, he and other caucus leaders answered President Obama’s demand that the GOP figure out a way to raise the debt limit through 2012 by offering to toss non-starter Republican wish-list items back into the negotiating mix.

This is certainly a welcome event.

If we see more of this, then I will see it as evidence of a learning curve, but for right now, absent any sort of a pattern, I will put it down to dumb luck.

Still, it’s better to be lucky than it is to be smart in the short term.

*Only his writing is a lot worse than the show, and Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder) has a lot more personal appeal.†
†Hell, Tony Robinson (Blackadder’s dogsbody, Baldrick) has more personal appeal than Mitch McConnell.

They Should Worry

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It appears that senior Senate Democrats are worried that Obama’s eagerness to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is threatening to squander their advantage on those issues:

Top Democrats in charge of keeping the Senate in Dem hands and maintaining the political health of the party — DSCC chair Patty Murray and messaging chief Chuck Schumer — have privately expressed frustration that deep Medicare cuts risk squandering the major political advantage Democrats have built up on the issue, people familiar with internal discussions say.

Senators Murray and Schumer, along with other Dems like Debbie Stabenow and Mark Begich, have warned against deep cuts in recent leadership meetings, a source familiar with the meetings says, another sign of the unrest that the possibility of serious entitlements cuts is creating among Congressional Democrats.

“We shouldn’t be giving away our advantage on Medicare,” said a source familiar with Murray’s thinking, in characterizing her objections in private meetings. “We should be very careful about giving away the biggest advantage we’ve had as Democrats in some time.”

This, by the way, is why the Democrats won’t retake the house, and will lose the Senate, in 2012.

Because it’s increasingly Obama finds the concept doing anything that might benefit the party as distasteful and gauche.

The Incredible Shrinking Speaker

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John Boehner has decided to drop any attempt at a grand bargain with Obama, because he could get no one, not even the Majority Whip or Majority Leader, his closest lieutenants in the house, to agree to close a few tax loopholes in order to have Obama cut the Democrats throats with Social Security and Medicare cuts:

House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal, telling President Obama that a more modest package offers the only politically realistic path to avoiding a default on the mounting national debt.

On the eve of a critical White House summit on the debt issue, Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama that their plan to “go big,” in the speaker’s words, and forge a compromise that would save more than $4 trillion over the next decade, was crumbling under Obama’s insistence on significant new tax revenue.

“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes,” Boehner said in a statement released less than 24 hours before the White House meeting was scheduled to begin. “I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”

Boehner’s decision leaves negotiators reexamining a less-ambitious framework — aimed at saving roughly $2.4 trillion over the next decade — that had been under discussion between Vice President Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. But that framework is hardly complete; the group broke up last month when Republicans walked out over the tax issue.

The sweeping deal Obama and Boehner had been discussing would have required both parties to take a bold leap into the political abyss. Democrats were demanding more than $800 billion in new tax revenue, causing heartburn among the hard-line fiscal conservatives who dominate the House Republican caucus. Republicans, meanwhile, were demanding sharp cuts to Medicare and Social Security, popular safety net programs that congressional Democrats have vowed to protect.

There is only one way that I can see this debt limit thing, which is an artifact of what Obama wanted in December, turning out well, and that is by generating an export led recovery, and no small amount of inflation, if the dollar drops by 30+%.

That being said, while there House Speakers who have been profoundly weak, Tom Foley comes to mind, as does Tip O’Neill from 1981-83, I have never seen such a profoundly impotent speaker as Boehner. 

It’s stunning.

When I Called Him the Manchurian Democrat, I Had No Idea…

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Nancy Pelosi heard that Barack Obama was looking at gutting cutting social security, and it sounds like her response was to call him out:

After a contentious White House meeting with President Obama and other Congressional leaders, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) returned to the Capitol and drew an important red line: Members of her caucus won’t vote for a grand bargain to raise the debt limit and reduce future deficits if the final deal includes cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits — and that means it probably won’t pass.

“You [asked], ‘could the changes compromise the vote?'” Pelosi said at a Thursday afternoon briefing near the House chamber. “I said yes.”

It’s widely believed that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will need Democratic votes to raise the debt limit. Democratic leaders, including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have offered to help him out — but not on Boehner’s terms alone. Pelosi has her own terms.

“We have been very clear Democrats are not supporting — House Democrats are not supporting any cuts in benefits for Social Security or Medicare,” she said.

I think that her calling him a bitch, which is what she did, might have something to do with the fact that he gave no advanced warning of his decision to Congressional Democrats:

Multiple senior House Democratic aides tell TPM that caucus members were caught off guard by news stories about President Obama’s push for deeper deficit and spending reductions — and particularly about the White House’s willingness to cut Social Security as part of a grand bargain to raise the debt limit.

At a private caucus meeting Thursday morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told her members that if Obama’s serious about putting Social Security on the chopping block, he’d left her in the dark about it. And after an at-times-contentious meeting about how open Dems should be to significant entitlement cuts, leaders departed to the White House to read Obama the riot act.

And just to ensure that the day is a complete mess for Barry, his proposal to kill the New Deal and give it to the bankers was just enthusiastically endorsed by the craziest motherf%$#er in Congress, Allen West:

Reports that President Obama could discuss with Republicans the idea of cuts to Social Security and Medicare is picking up praise from a source that doesn’t usually have anything good to say about the President: Rep. Allen West (R-FL).

In fact, this is coming from a man whose military career ended after a torture-related incident, who has called Obama a “low-level socialist agitator”, and who has said that Medicare will destroy America: “I gotta tell you something: if you support Medicare the way it is now, you can kiss the United States of America goodbye.”

Seriously, when you look at how this is handled has me wondering if the production staff who created Gigli are running the White House staff.

It’s not only bad policy, it’s criminally stupid politics.

At some point, you have to start wondering if this crap is just stupid, or it’s what he really wants.

Steny Hoyer tells Boehner to Go Cheney Himself

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Hoyer just said that Boehner won’t get the votes for raising the debt limit from his teabagger freshman, so he needs Democratic votes, and he won’t get any without a tax increase:

“I’ve told Mr. Boehner that I will help,” Hoyer said. “Now I’m not going to help on some draconian do it my way or the highway vote, but we Democrats are prepared to co-operate in order to assure that the creditworthiness of the United States is not put at risk and to move towards a fiscally responsible path…everything needs to be on the table, and when I say everything I mean everything…. Revenues need to be a significant part of it.”

…………

The Democrats’ vote-counter in the House of Representatives says the GOP will need his help to raise the national debt limit — but they won’t get it if they don’t put everything on the table, including tax revenues.

“Speaker Boehner needed Democratic votes to pass keeping government running, even at minimal levels,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters at his weekly Capitol briefing, in response to a question from TPM. “So my presumption is [Senator] Schumer is right.”

That’s more balls than I expected from Hoyer, who seems to spend most of his time sabotaging the efforts of real Democrats.