World comes to a halt as Republicans take to the stage in Iowa to debate future of humanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ah, yes, there was a Republican debate last night in Ames. Good times. Maybe if I weren't on vacation I would have cared. (I was too busy watching The Makioka Sisters -- a stunningly beautiful film.)

Or maybe not.



No, no, let me be serious for a moment.

Did last night's debate mean anything? Well, not as much as Saturday's straw poll -- which won't really mean anything either, though it will clarify both public and insider GOP perceptions and possibly even help separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say.

Not that we don't already know what's wheat and what's chaff.

Romney is wheat. He's the national frontrunner -- though doubts remain on the right (if not venomous opposition from conservatives and other Tea Party types, and he may have a fairly low support ceiling.

Bachmann is also wheat, or at least what passes for wheat these days in the GOP (and on the far right generally). She's a serious contender, craziness notwithstanding.

Other than that?

It's amusing to see Santorum and Gingrich try to convince us we should take them seriously. Do they take themselves seriously? Of course. Do they know they've become joke candidates without a hope of winning anything other than the political equivalent of a Razzie? Maybe -- if they're being honest with themselves, but one doubts either one is capable of such self-effacing honesty.

It's also amusing to see more of the Bachmann-Pawlenty spat. T-Paw, lagging far behind in the polls (not even doing well in Iowa, so close to his Minnesota home), is still so desperate for attention that he's taking the gloves off, as they say, hopeful of emerging as the compromise candidate (particularly liked by the Beltway punditocracy) between the establishmentarian, business-oriented Romney and whoever ends up leading the charge from the radical right, either Bachmann or Perry (or both). Yes, I suppose he still has a shot. Yes, it's a long, long one. And he doesn't stand a chance against Bachmann in their little ongoing feud.

Pawlenty death watch: He'll "reassess" matters if he does poorly in Ames. Now there's a nice, lovely euphemism for "make up some self-aggrandizing excuses and get the hell out."

Perry life watch: It looks like he'll take the leap on Saturday. Not that he's trying to upstage the Ames straw poll or anything. No, of course not.

Cain? Yes, he took time out of his busy schedule scapegoating Muslims to grace us with his presence.

Paul? Hey, did you know he really hates government and much, much prefers the Hobbesian state of nature?

Huntsman? Oh, yes, Huntsman the Formidable, as I've dubbed him. He remains to me and impressive figure, an old-school, Reagan sort of conservative who in other, saner times would have been the clear GOP pick. Now? Not so much.

Wait, you want substance? Come on, you all know how it went. Obama is the satanic incarnation of anti-American evil. And taxes are bad, so very, very bad!

(But if you want some helpful fact-checking, check here. Needless to say, there was some fastness and looseness going on last night. What else is new?)

Besides, that spat is what seems to have gotten the most attention.



And, overall, it does now seem that civility in this Republican field is a thing of the past. As Slate's John Dickerson explained:

The debate had the makings of a serious discussion about leadership,
what form it should take, whether the candidates have demonstrated it,
and how it should be applied in Washington. However, this discussion
took place in a roller derby where that underlying theme was obscured by
people trying to bruise and batter each other. Criticisms and veiled
critiques broke out into the open among candidates desperate to avoid
being eliminated from consideration. In the end, there was a lot of arm
flailing. Everyone went round and round, and the lot of them wound up
where they had stood before the debate began.

Fight, fight, fight! Isn't that what we all crave -- what really gets us going? Who cares that the global economy is imploding or that our civilization is crumbling? Or that it's this right-wing ideology, so much on display last night, that is one of the main causes of our present (and future) crises?



Politics is a bloodsport.

And now, on that note, I'm going to go sit out on the deck and read (about something that has nothing to do with American politics circa 2011).

(photo)

Debt and taxes

By Carl 



It never ceases to amaze me, the ability of the uberrighteous to shoot themselves in the foot: 

Greenspan said he expected more turmoil on Wall Street.



"Considering the momentum in which the market went down over the last week, it's very unlikely — if history is any guide — that this isn't going to take a while to bottom out. So the initial reaction, in my judgment, is going to be negative," Greenspan said of S&P’s downgrade.



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to reassure investors in a Sunday night interview but conceded he could not predict the reaction.



"It's hard to know what'll happen in this context," Geithner said on CNBC. "But, again, I think that everyone can be confident, both here and around the world, that treasuries are the most — these days — the most liquid — the strongest place to put your money at a time like this."

He said S&P "has shown really terrible judgment" and "a stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math."

Actually, Mr.
Secretary, I think the S&P has this just right. After all, it's a
temporary arrangement that will have to be revisited sooner than you
expect, since the Federal tax on gasoline expires next month and budget
projections included that in the debt ceiling agreement. It is very
likely that tax will be at least scaled back if not eliminated, thanks
to the Teabaggers. You can't say this. S&P can.

We get the government we deserve. We are officially a banana republic.

A lot of fingerpointing went on this weekend, but ultimately, the blame rests in two places: The Bush administration and the Teabaggers.

After all, the only significant spending the Obama administration passed was the $787 billion stimulus package, a thickly-wrongheaded attempt to shore up the banking system when that banking system was responsible for the mess we found ourselves in AND will suffer now from the debt ceiling debacle, as interest rates will ratchet up.

Better he should have spent the money here, at home, on works projects designed to get people permanent jobs. There's so much we can use idle labor for, from replacing the national grid to upgrading bridges and tunnels, to just cleaning the damned streets. Jobs = income = spending = more jobs. It's not a hard calculation to make, and given how the banks rebounded better than expected...

How the Bush administration fits into all this? Well, the national debt in 2001 was somewhere around $6 trillion. It's now $14 trillion. Obama can rightly be blamed for $1 trillion or so (let's credit -- debit? -- him with the unnecessary extension of the Bush tax cuts, too), leaving... carry the one... $7 trillion dollars that Bush spent without the income to show for it.

Republicans: they do spend big.

The Teabagger mantra with respect to the debt ceiling was basically nihilist from the get-go: burn it down, let God sort it out.

All we have ever had to do was to roll back the Bush tax cuts, restore the Clinton tax rates (proven job creator, that) and history would have been happy and marked this as a remarkable time when the US yet again ducked a bullet. The idea of minimalist government is so ludicrous, so stupid, so moronic, that I seriously believe the "libertarians" who propose this ought to be locked away in a cage and put on display in the Coney Island freak show.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

And a mess of Bam's barbecue

By Zandar 

And Fox Nation leaves this in a bag on America's doorstep, lights it on fire, rings the bell and runs (h/t Oliver Willis).

Ahh, the president's birthday celebration had black people at it and didn't create jobs! This is where we are right now, it's a brutally long campaign season, folks... and the rampant, ugly, and now massively overt racism by the GOP and their enablers is only beginning. People ask me how President Obama can put up with such drooling idiocy, and I remind them that the president is never the true audience for shock-jock racism like this.

In a sick way, you have to admire the blue-steel hatred Fox has for the man. When the dog whistles are put away and the megaphones are brought out instead, it's proof that the president's most recent maneuver has demoralized the Tea Party faithful and that it's time to throw the red meat into the pit to get some action going (which gives more "moderate" conservative pundits the chance to pretend to disavow the bomb-throwing to look "centrist and principled").

It must mean, then, that the rank-and-file Tea Party disagree with John "Orange Julius" Boehner's assessment that the GOP got 98% of what it wanted in the debt deal. Indeed, many Americans are furious at the Republicans in the wake of this week's deal and the weeks of hostage-taking that preceded it.

Time both to fire up the base and to take the higher ground at the same time while Eric Cantor blames the extension of federal unemployment benefits for causing unemployment itself, and vows to hold it hostage next.  Always onwards to the next Pyrrhic victory, our GOP friends.

Plain speaking: What President Obama should have said to the American people about the budget and the debt ceiling

By Distributorcap

This is the speech Obama should have given on Sunday night -- before he let the terrorists Republicans dance the hora all night. His polls would have gone up at least 20 points and his re-election would have been all but guaranteed. Americans may love hearing the words "tax cuts" (even when they're for 1% of the population), but they love their John Wayne character even more.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States:

Good evening.

As we all know, the U.S. government is scheduled to reach its limit for borrowing, or what has come to be known as the "debt ceiling" on Tuesday. The U.S. Congress, knowing full well the consequence of not increasing that limit would be economic chaos, has historically raised the ceiling under both Republican and Democratic administrations. This time, due to the intransigence of the opposition Republicans in the House, Congress has been unable to reach a compromise that would increase that limit. With a painful and catastrophic default staring us in the face, I am ordering the following steps to be taken:

Unless a clean bill raising the debt ceiling reaches my desk by Monday night, I will invoke the clause in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned" -- to raise the debt ceiling. As President of the United States, I cannot morally or financially let the United States default on its obligations. I cannot allow the actions of a small group of Representatives to push the entire American economy off a cliff. I cannot allow millions to suffer at the hands of a few. If you do not agree with this process or do not take well to the move I am undertaking and want to begin some sort of investigation into the legality of this procedure or even impose hearings for impeachment, let me quote our last Presiden: "Bring it on." I look forward to that fight.

After we ensure the continued flow of checks and payments, Congress and the Executive Branch will immediately begin discussion of the U.S. budget. To be blunt, these budget discussions will include spending cuts across the board, including defense, subsidies to the wildly profitable industries, and closing loopholes that exist only to enhance the re-election of specific Senators and Representatives, for example the corporate jet loophole. I cannot say what the figure will be, but every branch of government will be touched, including many of the perks enjoyed by Members of Congress.

The budget discussions will also include raising taxes on individuals and on corporations, especially those persons that make over $250,000 and corporations that have generated enormous profits yet pay minimal to nothing in taxes. Many of these individuals and corporations have profited greatly from the tax breaks and government bailouts over the past decade. It is time to review just exactly what this government largesse has truly cost a majority of the American people. The Bush tax cuts, which have cost over $400 billion and have not created any jobs, will not be renewed in their current form -- period.

These budget discussions will also include an in-depth examination of the cost to the American economy of sending jobs abroad and the creation of a public works program in conjunction with the private sector to rebuild our faltering infrastructure. The U.S. cannot compete in a world where jobs are shipped out of the country to save a few dollars and the rest of the world builds while applying band aid after band aid.

In addition, I am ordering Harry Reid and John Boehner to keep their respective constituents in session all month -- yes, I know it is August -- to hammer out the framework of a budget that I can sign, a budget that will truly demonstrate shared sacrifice across the board, a sacrifice that will not be based solely on those who cannot pay for high-priced lobbyists sent to D.C. to protect specific breaks and grants.

The past three years have not been a vacation for the American people, and therefore we, the men and women who these struggling Americans elected to shepherd in a better and stronger America, are not taking a vacation until we can agree on a true compromise to get our fiscal house in order.

Thank you.

Bifurcated democracy

By Carl 

This was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:

OUR nation isn't facing just a debt crisis; it's facing a democracy crisis. For weeks, the federal government has been hurtling toward two unsavory options: a crippling default brought on by Congressional gridlock, or — as key Democrats have advocated — a unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by an unchecked president. Even if the last-minute deal announced on Sunday night holds together, it’s become clear that the balance at the heart of the Constitution is under threat.

The debate has threatened to play out as a destructive but all too familiar two-step, revealing how dysfunctional the relationship between Congress and the president has become. 

The article talks about how presidents have decided to exercise power unilaterally, like Obama's Libyan adventures (although the practice goes back decades to Reagan and even Nixon,) while the Congress has been unable to rally itself to challenge the President's usurpation of power. Either the Congress is divided (like now) or reinforces the person holding the Oval Office (as under Bush the Younger).

This is what the punditry tells us we want, over and over again: divided government. Given what we've experienced for over three decades now (absent the six years of Bush the Younger) is this really what we want? An ineffectual Congress hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority and a Presidency who usurps power like a king?

Mind you, none of this is partisan: Republicans and Democrats have been to blame in BOTH branches. Clinton was forced to legislate by executive order, much as Obama is. Both Bushes declared wars without making a firm case to the American people as to the need for them (this wasn't dominoes toppling or any such credible threat.) Reagan tossed American troops around like candy and American armaments to enemies.

In Congress, John Boehner can't even get a centerpiece of legislation passed trying to keep the party's dog-and-pony show from tearing each other up. When Pelosi was in charge, she had to placate Blue Dog Democrats, rather than muscle them into line.

Hell, about the only thing any Congress since 1990 has been able to agree upon is that Bill Clinton needed to be impeached and a bunch of Asian deserts bombed!

This has effectively emasculated an entire branch of government. Power seeks a vacuum. It's almost understandable that the president would unilaterally legislate.

Plus, members of Congress don't have to take a stand on anything controversial. Take the EPA actions earlier this year to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, long time readers of this blog know there are few people more concerned with global climate change than me. Maybe Al Gore. So while I don't have a problem with Obama taking the bull by the fumes... so to speak... I worry about the fact that Congress didn't vote on this.

Note: it wasn't voted down. The bill stalled before a vote could be taken. It's probably still in the hamper, waiting to be aired out. Look at what this saves Republicans from, say, Montana, where people believe climate change is real and a problem. The party would insist they vote against the EPA actions. Their constituencies would say "We need a better Congresscritter." No responsibility, yet they can parade around touting how angry they are that they didn't get their say.

The more a controversial issue remains undecided, and the more critical that issue becomes, the less likely it is Congress will ever actually take action. And the more likely it is they will cede that issue to the Executive branch. Fine for a liberal like me when a semi-liberal like Obama is in charge, but what happens when another Dumbya hits the Oval Office? One a little more clever?

Congress will still feel this is expedient.

But it is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for an economy, it is unhealthy for a Constitution and it is deep unhealthy for a society and its people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

"An agreement in our time"

By Distributorcap

President Obama needs to add Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People to his reading list -- because since taking office in January 2009, he has done neither very well. One way not to win at negotiating is by working ass backwards -- in other words, focusing on avoiding the worst possible outcome instead of offering up the best. When Obama went on television last night to announce a deal was finalized to raise the debt ceiling, it was like he said "That was one tough negotiation, but hey, at least they didn't kill us." For weeks, Obama and the Democratic leadership have cowered in the corner, afraid that the Teabaggers would pull the trigger and cause the financial dominoes to fall over the globe. With that defensive posture went any chance of compromise. It was a rock 'em, sock 'em boxing match fixed before the first punch was thrown.

Rule 1 of negotiation: don't use your end point as the starting point. You don't start with trillions in cuts! Start with trillions in both revenues and stimulus, then negotiate down to some sort of midpoint -- and it might not be the midpoint you want -- but it won't be the low end. Rule 2 of negotiation (as told by Golda Meir): do not negotiate with terrorists. When you see the other side is a bunch of ignorant sociopaths bent on burning the village to save the village, do NOT be afraid to threaten. The 14th Amendment should have been Obama's Entebbe.

Instead, this capitulation will be his Munich.

The Republicans knew exactly what they were doing and that Obama would fold even if he held four aces. It has become very obvious to everyone (except the White House) that this president lacks any vision. A man with some of the most extraordinary oratorical skills in decades cannot see the forest for the weeds. He is simply too afraid and too professorial to think boldly and brazenly. A vision cannot exist unless you are willing to fight for it. George W. Bush had a vision (be it a warped and evil one, but he had one) and he fought for it (or at least Cheney pulled the strings for it). Bush's folly in Iraq got the lifeline it needed, a surge in military power, when #43 had a 28% approval rating and a Democratic Congress.

You have to be willing to look bad to look good, you have to be willing to be wrong to end up being right, you have to be willing to fail to succeed. Time and time again, Barack Obama has shown he does not want to risk looking bad to anyone, even to an opposition dedicated to destroying his presidency.

The final chapter of the Obama presidency was likely written yesterday. Obama looks bad, veered wrong, and has disappointed his supporters. As for failing, it is America that has failed, not Obama.

On vacation, full of debt ceiling rage

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm currently on vacation and won't be blogging all that much over the next few weeks. Here and there, when the mood is right, but otherwise not. Rest, relaxation, and family are the priorities.

But, fear not, Richard and the gang will keep things rolling, and so I hope you keep checking back for new posts from my wonderful team.

Actually, though, I'm full of rage at the moment. I'm generally trying to avoid the news, and especially U.S. politics, but, well...

What has me enraged? The Deal, of course.

Yes, the new bipartisan deal to avert default by raising the debt ceiling and, to please Republicans, slash spending (of course, mostly spending that benefits the poor and downtrodden, the usual GOP targets, those no one in power seems to give a shit about).

Now, it's not yet a done deal. President Obama and the Democratic and Republican leadership have agreed to it, but not the rank and file -- and there are sure to be many on both sides who object to it.

Democrats have good reason to object. The deal is heavily Republican, a largely right-wing fix to a crisis created by Republicans. It's all about cuts, not revenue increases, and cuts that, again, will hurt those Democrats supposedly care about. Some Republicans will object as well, but only because -- let's put it kindly -- they're a bunch of petulant extremists who refuse to compromise and who are willing to let the country go into default, and face economic calamity, to get everything they want.

In fact, it has come to this largely because Republicans, from the top down (the leadership included), are bullies crazy enough to risk the country's health, so "patriotic" are they, having basically held the country hostage throughout this entire process.

Sure, I'm deeply critical of Democrats, including the president, for not fighting harder to prevent this, and for not standing up more determinedly for what they purportedly stand for, but, honestly, what were they supposed to do? Let the country go into default? Let the debt ceiling deadline pass, come what may? Sure, maybe. Maybe they could have spun that and kept the blame on the other side, and even come away with a political win, and maybe the impending crisis and public outcry would have forced Republicans back to the negotiating table with their tails somewhat between their legs, but... should they really have taken such an enormous risk?

Maybe Republicans were always going to win this, maybe it was inevitable, because all along they were willing to go further and risk more. That's the problem trying to negotiate with crazy people. They're willing to do things you're not. (Isn't that how Keyser Söze solidified his power?) In this case, Republicans were willing to sacrifice their country for their ideological demands. Democrats, being mature and rational and responsible, were not. And so they had to agree to a deal on Republican (i.e., insane) terms.

There was a brief time when Obama had the upper hand, after he had turned the tables on Republicans and back them into a corner, and with public opinion on his side, but he was only going to win this if he went all the way. And, say what you will about him, he wasn't prepared to play that game, not with so much at stake.

I suspect the deal will pass tomorrow. There will be major defections, but surely enough arms can be twisted, enough dissenters bought off, to make it happen.

And then? Crisis will have been averted, at least temporarily, but Republicans will declare victory -- for getting most of they want (loads of cuts, no new revenue).

The Democrats? They'll get nothing out of this politically.

Obama? Yes, probably. He'll be able to reinforce his credibility among independents by presenting himself as a bipartisan leader who got it done when it mattered (no matter the awful details of what got done).

But unless Democrats can gain control of the narrative and make the debate about ending the deeply unpopular Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and protecting deeply popular entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), this deal won't do them any political favors next year, with with Republicans set to hammer them, however dishonestly (as usual), for being tax-happy, spend-happy socialists.

At least for now, there is reason for cautious, extremely cautious optimism. The deal would allow the president to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion (with $900 billion in spending cuts):

That will be paired with the formation of a Congressional committee tasked with reducing deficits by a minimum of $1.2 trillion. That reduction can come from spending cuts, tax increases or a mixture thereof.

If the committee fails to reach $1.2 trillion, it will trigger an automatic across the board spending cut, half from domestic spending, half from defense spending, of $1.2 trillion. The domestic cuts come from Medicare providers, but Medicaid and Social Security would be exempted. The enforcement mechanism carves out programs that help the poor and veterans as well.

If the committee finds $1.5 trillion or more in savings, the enforcement mechanism would not be triggered. That's because Republicans are insisting on a dollar-for-dollar match between deficit reduction and new borrowing authority, and $900 billion plus $1.5 trillion add up to $2.4 trillion.

However, if the committee finds somewhere between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion in savings, the balance will be made up by the corresponding percentage of the enforcement mechanism's cuts, still in a one-to-one ratio.

Democrats say they're confident that the enforcement mechanism is robust enough to convince Democrats and Republicans to deal fairly on the committee -- to come up with a somewhat balanced package of entitlement reforms and tax increases. However, the White House assures them that if the committee fails to produce "tax reform" he will veto any attempt to extend the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of next year.

Again, the focus is on spending cuts, not revenue increases, but at least cuts to defence spending are on the table and at least it's possible that revenue increases will be part of any future deal.

Actually, scratch that. I'm still highly enraged. And there's really no good reason for optimism at all, even cautious optimism. Obama may want to use the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in his re-election campaign, as a winning issue (assuming public opinion stays roughly where it is), but he has shown little to no willingness to stand up for progressive principles -- indeed, for principles that are simply not Republican, so much of a moderate Republican does he appear to be -- and, what's more, neither have most Democrats on Capitol Hill, it seems.

All of which is to say, if Obama and the Democrats have been willing to cave so much already, what should make us think anything will change?

iUSA

By J. Thomas Duffy 

Well, if we see President Obama sporting a black turtleneck over the weekend, perhaps that will signal that Apple has purchased the U.S. Government.

 

U.S. balance now less than Apple cash 

Steve Jobs is now more liquid than Uncle Sam...

As Republicans and Democrats continue to work towards a compromise to the country’s debt ceiling crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday that Washington now has a total operating balance of only US$73.768-billion.

Meanwhile, Apple currently boasts a cash reserve of US$75.876-billion, as of its most recent quarterly earnings report at the end of June.

 

If that happens, I suppose, we'll all be mandated to purchase iPhones (which will help streamline the iLocater program), and changes will include download apps for things like Social Security and Food Stamps.

And Jobs can scratch the plans for building his new spaceship office, as, no doubt, he'll move straight into the White House, incorporating the Apple logo into the presidential seal. 

Welcome, to the good ol' iUSA!

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Made in the GOP

Republicans Seek Credit for a Debt Ceiling Solution

By Nicholas Wilbur

It's pretty clear at this point that the debt ceiling debacle isn't about spending cuts and tax increases and entitlement reform and balanced budget amendments.

It's about 2012.

That is the only logical explanation for the Republican Party's blanket opposition to every attempt by Democrats to solve this impasse over an otherwise routine debt limit increase. Republicans need something they can campaign on in 2012.

After three years of saying no to everything – health care reform, Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal, the Dream Act, a nuclear treaty with Russia, the Libya intervention, unemployment benefits, and most recently the debt ceiling increase itself – Republicans need a legislative victory they can show off to the voting public.

They fared well in the midterm election by campaigning against policies that were already on the books, but they've failed to achieve any of the repeals and nullifications they placed at the center of their 2010 campaign: "Obamacare" is still in place, the stimulus bill was not reversed, and the debt continues to grow.

They also failed to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR, to gut the regulatory oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency, and to turn Medicare into a voucher program. As for the far-right Tea Party conservatives out there who thought the 2010 election would mark a turning point for the morality of the United States, every day is another reminder that Republicans have also failed to make abortion illegal, to replace biology with Intelligent Design in our nation's schools, to abolish the IRS and the Department of Education, to return to the gold standard, and to protect our government against Sharia law with a constitutional amendment.

They cannot win another election simply by campaigning against everything, especially not when they've fallen short of achieving any of the goals they sought. Republicans need a legislative victory. This debt ceiling fight may be the last opportunity to campaign for something in 2012. (God knows they can't point to the 2011 budget negotiations and boast about how they slashed the deficit; according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill they agreed to eventually ended up costing $3.2 billion, not saving the $78 billion they claimed.)

And that is why Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor stormed out of negotiations last month. It's why Speaker John Boehner abandoned negotiations with President Obama last week. Every deal Democrats have offered, whether to slash government spending by $4 trillion or to cut entitlements, may have been a capitulation to Republican demands; it may have been snatched up without pause by any other Republican Party; but it was still offered by Democrats.

Democrats are the opponents, and accepting a deal crafted by the enemy is sacrilege in Washington, D.C., today – even if doing so provides a means to achieving the ends you campaigned on in the last election.

Republicans need to draft their own bill. They need to prove that they are capable of governing, of leading. They must be able to demonstrate to their constituents that the Grand Old Party represents more than obstruction. They need to pass a law that has a "MADE in the GOP" label on it.

And so they did. Or tried.

It was titled the "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill, and it did everything Republicans wanted. It cut spending, capped total outlays based on average GDP growth, and called for an amendment to the Constitution requiring balanced annual budgets. (See "The Balanced Budget Amendment that Wasn't")

Despite being heralded by Speaker John Boehner as a "bipartisan bill," CC&B passed along party lines in the House, receiving only five Democratic votes to 229 from Republicans. Not a single Democrat voted for it in the Senate.

In a speech following the president's national address on the debt ceiling crisis, Boehner claimed, "there's no stalemate here in Congress." It wasn't his only false claim.

  

"I want you to know," he said, "I made sincere effort to work with the president, to identify a path forward that would implement the principles of 'Cut, Cap and Balance' in a manner that could secure bipartisan support and be signed into law."

The bill "could" secure bipartisan support if it were a bipartisan bill, but it didn't because it isn't – and neither was the proposal Boehner came up with after Democrats rejected the CC&B bill in the Senate.

CBS News poll

In attempting to solve one problem, Republicans have created another. Like everything Republicans have proposed this year – repealing health care reform, eviscerating the EPA, defunding public radio – Boehner's proposal is slated for failure because it makes no concessions to Democrats.

What's more, not only will the new proposal fail to garner bipartisan support in the upper chamber, it is also failing to unite Republicans in the House.

Rep. Jim Jordan, standing alongside Boehner at a press conference, thanked the speaker "for fighting for Republican principles," but said "I cannot support the plan that was presented to House Republicans this afternoon."

Instead, Jordan is urging Republicans to stick with the CC&B proposal, even though it couldn't garner a simple majority in the Senate; even though it requires a supermajority to pass.

Republicans have found their footing with a bill that the majority of Republicans support, but they have isolated their opposition such that voting on their bill represents nothing more than a symbolic gesture aimed at creating the perception of party unity.

Boehner's speakership is on the line. The Republican Party's majority hold over the House may be in jeopardy, as well. A strong majority of the American people have shunned the GOP for holding up a deal to avert default. A strong majority supports tax increases. A strong majority supports compromise.

Any debt ceiling deal that cuts federal spending, reduces the national deficit, and averts disaster by preventing U.S. default will be seen by voters of both sides as a policy victory for the ages.

Republicans appear incapable of taking the steps that are necessary to allow them to claim even partial credit in that historic deal. They cannot accept anything they themselves didn't create, and they cannot make concessions that will allow Democrats to accept anything they did create.

Congress is no closer to a debt ceiling agreement today than it was six months ago, and the Republican Party's goal of having a legislative record on which they can base their 2012 campaign is still out of reach.

At this point, Plan B is likely a repeat of the 2010 "blame Obama" strategy.

Unfortunately for Republicans, public opinion polls consistently show a "blame Republicans" mentality.

According to the latest CBS News poll, 71 percent of the American public holds Republicans responsible for the impasse.

If the United States defaults, Democrats would be wise to take a page from the Republican Party's 2010 campaign playbook. A "repeal the GOP" platform could prove effective in 2102.

Then again, if Republicans let the nation default, Democrats might not have to campaign at all.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Encoded bigotry: Sarah Palin slams Obama's "background" as anti-American

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Honestly, dealing with Republican stupidity is exhausting. If you care to pay attention, Sarah Palin alone seems to suck every last joule of energy out of you.

And yet -- well, to those of who write about politics, she's just the gift that keeps on giving.

Here's her latest gem, via Think Progress:

Adding her heft to the GOP's debt ceiling debacle, the "undefeated" Sarah Palin graced Fox News Business last night to slam President Obama for suggesting that the wealthy should return to a higher tax rate. Blasting the White House and liberals for being "so addicted to that OPM, other people's money," Palin declared that Obama "is not capable of giving the right message" to the American people. Though a majority of Americans side with Obama's position, Fox asked Palin why he seems so disconnected from the public. Palin harped on the all-too-familiar right-wing refrain that American ideals "seem to be foreign to our President" because of "his background." She added, "His ideas are the antithesis of those things that created the prosperity in America."

His background. Ah, right. That's right-wing code for "being black, having an African father, being born in un-American Hawaii (or not born in America at all), living in dangerous foreign places like Indonesia, and probably being Muslim." In short, not being "one of us," that is, a white Christian xenophobic bigot.

Charming, as always.

Actually, though, isn't Obama in a way the personification of the American Dream? Born in America to modest beginnings, he made it all the way to the top.

Or is it that only white Christians can really ever live that dream? Sorry, I forgot.

And is he really the antithesis of America? Yeah, I guess someone who bails out American capitalism from its own implosive instincts, who proposes market solutions to America's catastrophic problems (health care, climate change, etc.), and who proposes budget deals that emphasize massive spending cuts while keeping taxes at historically low rates must, must, must be anti-American.

Palin is the gift that keeps on giving because she's a bottomless well of stupidity.

Paging Bob Hoskins

By J. Thomas Duffy

Boy, if the PartyofNoicans think this is their idea of a tough guy, no wonder they are so clueless. 

House Republicans Psyche Themselves Up By Watching Ben Affleck Prepare To Beat Some Guys Up 

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party’s vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, “The Town”, trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.

One character asks his friend: “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later.”

“Whose car are we gonna take,” the character says.

After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides.

“I’m ready to drive the car,” West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full -throated support for the plan.

The actual line from the scene is “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. We’re gonna hurt some people.”

I mean, he's an okay actor, and they're referring to his role in The Town, but he's probably more defined by Jersey Girl than being a tough guy.

If you want a real tough guy, someone to put the fear of Jesus into you, then you gotta go with Bob Hoskins in the very underrated 1979 gem The Long Good Friday (whose cast also included the great, and gorgeous, Helen Mirren). 

"The mafia? I've shit 'em!" - Long Good Friday final scene


Note, at the very end, the unknown rookie Pierce Brosnan playing a heavy. 

Actually, it might do us all better if Obama effected a little Hoskins: 

"I'll tell you something... I'm glad I found out in time just what a partnership with a pair of wankers like you would have been... A sleeping partner is one thing, but you're in a fucking coma..." 

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Little green apples

By Distributorcap

It took 30 years and 204 days, but on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 the fruits of the Reagan Tree of Life will finally have reached its peak when the over-ripened, low-hanging, worm-filled Reagapples will begin to pound the ground, not with sweetened blossoms, but with a dead thud. Thirty years and 204 days of belittling and ignoring the American education system, calling ketchup a vegetable, telling us trees cause pollution, cutting taxes to create trickled-down imaginary jobs (okay, there are a few more maids and gardeners), and teaching Americans that they could have everything they want and it will cost nothing -- the Teadras-educated Republican Party is willing to take the ultimate bet and tell the piper (or croupier) this time to shove it.

The U.S. Congress has spent the better part of the past month arguing over whether the credit limit on the Visa card should be raised in order to pay their bills -- bills they have committed and signed to pay. If this game of cold-war brinkmanship weren't so dangerous on so many levels, it would actually be comical to watch. Watching the children of the right storm out of a meeting (Eric Cantor, who probably has the distinction of having had the most spit balls thrown at him during 7th-grade lunch) and then say no, no, no as the opposition capitulates to nearly every one of their demands is nothing short of having Macbeth playing in a Kabuki theater.

The 80 or so Teabaggers who sandbagged their way into Congress last November promising to stop those eternal welfare queens from driving Cadillacs and finally ridding the country of the leeches who live off their hard-earned (over)taxed dollars, are about to allow the real grand experiment to go forward -- let the U.S. default on its payments for the first time in history, and default by choice. You know the world's strongest economy is going to look like it is managed even worse than Greece.

I used to think the only item on the Republican platform (aka Our American Mein Kampf) was the personal destruction of Barack Obama (or any Democratic president), but now I realize there is actually a second principle enshrined in the GOP's manifesto. Not only do the Teabaggers and their enablers want to see Obama fail, they also want to prove that the ripened fruit of the Reagan revolution ("something for nothing") is actually a sweet treat, that the U.S. defaulting on its bills will have absolutely no consequences.

After all, American exceptionalism is American exceptionalism. Chicken Little is really just Donkey Little, a completely made-up scenario just to allow those pesky liberals to abscond with more money from hedge-fund billionaires and private jet owners to pay for BMWs for those food-stamp queens and unemployed kings. Unlike Bill Clinton, Barack Obama has not given the goose-stepping lunatics in the GOP any stained dresses to use as evidence of a grand socialist conspiracy. Short of the 21st-century version of Fanne Foxe showing up in next few days, the Teabaggers will have to resort to their only other weapon, actually pushing the nuclear trigger. In other words, in order to save the country, they have to vaporize the country. Three hundred million Americans will just have to hope the dice on 8/2/11 are boxcars or snake eyes and not a craps. Good luck with that when one die is all threes and the other is all fours. 

Obama has made this so easy for the Republicans. He has caved so many times to the right on so many issues even the more "reasonable" Republicans (an oxymoron if there ever was one) realize they can play the blinking game knowing their odds of winning are about as good as Secretariat's was at the 1973 Belmont. His obvious weakness as a leader and his hesitancy to confront a group of people bent on his destruction has made the Republican work of making a mountain out of a molehill as easy as selling worthless credit default swaps to a bunch of insurance companies. Compromise requires compromise, not rolling over time after time. Obama has rolled over so many times John Boehner finally figured out that those 80 or so Teabaggers in Congress must really be onto something.

What the Teabaggers and their enablers (actually, they are all a bunch of Teabaggers) fail to realize is that if the sky does fall on August 2nd (and it will), it will be more than repossessed Cadillacs. While those teabagging Congressmen will barely suffer the loss of a nickel in salary, benefits, and pensions (and plenty of them have more than enough money to cushion the potential blow), I would think they have relatives who will suffer, and suffer badly, from a default. And what about the millions who actually voted for the Teabaggers thinking these really smart guys would save them from the leeches on society, only to see now that a government that cannot pay its bills means no Social Security checks mailed, no medicare payments, soaring interest rates on their variable mortgages, a collapsed housing market, more bridges and roads crumbling, weakened airport security, soldiers in Afghanistan watching their checks bounce, and finally a lot of very angry Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Brazilians, Australians, Saudis, and Swiss, people who help fund the elite of Wall Street?

And what about those private companies the Teabaggers just love so much? You know, the ones that actually employ thousands of teabagging voters, the ones that receive a big chunk of their revenue from government contracts? Do you think Boeing and Lockheed Martin are going to keep pay a lot of private employees sitting around the lunchroom while they wait for Tim Geithner to sign the checks? What about the diners, dry cleaners, auto mechanics, waiters, coffee trucks, baby sitters, and hundreds of thousands of other private businesses that exist because of companies employing thousands of workers based on government contracts? And those free parks the Teabaggers love to take their kids to on vacation -- gonna get awfully expensive at $50 a head to get into Yellowstone. This is the real trickle-down economy, people who really do earn a living because other people are getting a paycheck, no matter where that paycheck originates, not from so-called job creators who just take their tax breaks and buy more Prada or stash the money in the Cayman Islands.

So old people, government contractors, ancillary businesses, soldiers, medical professionals that help the elderly -- it is time for you to sacrifice in the name of proving the Teabag Gambit. The road to Teabag nirvana is filled with collateral damage. We may suffer, we may default, we may see rising interest rates, we may start opening Hoovervilles, but those fine Republicans in the House, the ones that were sent to ensure an orderly country -- well, they will just be right.

Maybe we can form a new union of people to pick up those little green Reagapples.

Taking the 14th

By Capt. Fogg

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

14th Amendment, U.S. Constitution
____________

Now, I'm no lawyer, which means that I generally take such statements at face value and have no knowledge of what pretzels they've been twisted into by various courts in various cases, but it seems to me that if congress can't question the validity of our public debt, then congress can't refuse to pay it or more importantly say it's only valid under a certain amount authorized by Congress after they've already deemed it legal. What do you think?

I hate to bring up the Constitution at a time when the Tea Bag Patriots are pretending to worship it while claiming that those who would like to actually conform to it are "shredding it," but the situation is getting serious.

Of course, this whole controversy is about "taking down" the president we elected by a good margin and replacing him with a Tea Party Republican of their choice hell bent not on reducing the debt, but killing Social Security, Medicare, all forms of welfare, and any protection for the public against the health insurance cartel -- and all to make sure people like me can put an extra tank of fuel into the yacht every now and then thus creating jobs in the Bahamas and Taiwan.

After all, they raised the debt ceiling every year a Republican was in office since the beginning of the Reagan administration and authorized Bush's massive debt explosion like a well-disciplined private army. Remember when "debt doesn't matter" was the slogan? No? Well I do.

Obama would be impeached if he blocked debt payments,

says Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and he'd also be impeached if he invalidated the debt ceiling based on the 14th Amendment, says Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Talk about a poker player with a "tell." Might as well lay the cards on the table.

It's all about impeachment and all about finding some flimsy excuse for forcing the president into a position where they will impeach him if he does and impeach him if he doesn't. No more revolting, I guess, than impeaching one for asking his secretary not to tell his wife he was having an affair. Talk about insurrection and rebellion! No sooner did we lose the Cold War gravy train then we embarked on the Cold Secession.

President Clinton told us recently he wouldn't hesitate to use the 14th to raise the debt ceiling and "force the courts to stop me." You'll remember the attempts to impeach him on any pretext and how the talk of the "failure of the Clinton presidency" preceded the Clinton presidency and how he would certainly be a one-term president and how his tax policies would bankrupt the economy. They hope you won't remember, of course, because we're hearing the same damned bullshit again.

I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy,

said Bill Clinton to The National Memo last week. No wonder slimy things like the Newt are challenging the Constitutional basis for even having a Supreme Court.

Meanwhile that extra 3% tax cut I get on anything I earn over $250,000 is going to prompt me to create jobs for those struggling people now paying for the longest, most expensive wars in American history while losing their houses, jobs, and medical insurance, waiting for the voodoo to kick in and save us all -- and all will be fine just in time for a Tea Party president. I can feel it in my bones.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)