I can’t stop laughing in John Boehner’s face:
With a budget deal still elusive and a deadline approaching on raising the debt ceiling, Speaker John A. Boehner has told colleagues that he is determined to prevent a federal default and is willing to pass a measure through a combination of Republican and Democratic votes, according to one House Republican.
The lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of not being named, said Mr. Boehner indicated he would be willing to violate the so-called Hastert rule if necessary to pass a debt limit increase. The informal rule refers to a policy of not bringing to the floor any measure that does not have a majority of Republican votes.
So, that’s pretty much it, folks. Game over.
Ah, so think we’ll have a tea bagger speaker in January?
Don’t think a tea party candidate can get enough Republican votes at this point. Even if Prime Minister Cruz comes around for the whipping.
Nobody who could win wants the job. That’s how Boehner has lasted this long.
Hence why a Tea Bagger who DOES want is, is crazy enough to go for it and will win by default.
It would be hard. First, they’d have to get enough votes to remove Boehner as speaker. Then they’d have to get 218 votes to be elected speaker.
The first seems difficult to accomplish, but even if they did, isn’t there a better chance that Democrats cut a deal with a non-extremist Republican to elect him/her speaker in exchange for ending these forced crises?
Hmm, well considering how bad this whole thing is going for them you might get the votes to remove him. There might be people who want to remove Boehner since he’s a joke but don’t have a candidate in place. You’re right, would be difficult as opposed to a new session.
But I think a coalition with the Dems to choose a speaker is even less likely to happen than an overthrow of Boehner. Even if the moderates want it, I have yet to see any of them have any guts at all in this matter and they have to know this would launch a massive bloodbath that they would be most likely to lose.
Oh, man, my sides are splitting:
Ha ha ha.
I did not think I would live to see the Democratic Party this united and this aggressive.
I heard suggestions that Stutzman should be compensated in Facebook Likes. Unfortunately seemed clear that nobody liked him.
The seams are breaking all over the place. Obama was great this morning mocking the “disrespected” congressman. Many R’s are floundering, and the pressure will only increase from here. Seems like reporters are sensing the disarray and are pushing buttons. This is gonna be a big embarrassment for them.
Just see what happens when we get a clean CR and clean debt ceiling with no Dem concessions. It is hard to comprehend just how angry and demoralized they will be.
I’m still not clear on what exactly this “disrespect” is that Stutzman imagines he’s endured. Granted, I myself say grossly disrespectful things about Republican Congress members all the time, but I’m not an elected official. The main way I’ve seen Obama and the Democrats “disrespecting” people like Stutzman is by not giving them everything they demand without expecting anything in return.
So here’s some respect. Rep. Stutzman, please go fuck yourself. (See? I said “please.”)
It’s some kind of group delusion. the suicide group is reinforcing each other’s delusions. reality has no role in it.
Reinforcing each other’s delusions:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3774533
Stutzman led the charge to separate SNAP from the farm bill. The mockery is richly deserved.
I’d wondered if that was the subtext for some of the reporting (I don’t remember if it was Bob Costa or Bryan York) that said that Boehner felt he needed to shut the government down in preparation for the debt limit fight. If it’s true, he’s even more of a pitiful scam artist than I thought.
I don’t see how the Republicans get out of this until someone with stature, an “anti-Cruz” steps forward to lead the would-be moderate GOP house members. Could that person be anybody but Christie? And yet, wouldn’t that end Christie’s 2016 nomination prospects?
I think you’re right. Christie has won the respect of many Dems in NJ, but the issues are vastly different on the national stage. Would he reject, as they all did last year, $1 of increased revenue for $10 in cuts? If the economy is only mediocre in ’16, he may get traction. His suggestion he would “get in a room and butt heads” for results quickly falls apart when you start talking details. It will be interesting to see, after the tea party humiliation, whether more moderate voices will have appeal or the rallying cry becomes more desparate.
I suppose the next obvious question for Boner is if you’re determined to preserve the Gub’mint’s full faith and credit, then why not keep its doors open, too? They kinda go hand in hand…
Can’t wait to see the Repub column on the now-promised clean debt ceiling vote. I’m sure there will only be 35-50 “extremists” and “idiots” in the nays.
Game over? Game OVER?
I think you’re underestimating the tan man’s willingness to bend to the will of the nuts in his caucus. It’s a mistake to think he’ll follow through on any pledge he made at any time, ever.
True, but if there really are enough Republicans who would vote for a clean CR, it’s going to be out of his hands eventually. All you need is at least 16 Republicans who have as much to fear from a general election as a primary and eventually you get your discharge petition.
OK, a discharge petition would be Game Over. Tan Man’s promise? Not so much.
Not one single GOP rep out there is focused on anything but the primary fights. They’ve gerrymandered themselves into cages with all the rats.
To paraphrase what Rorschach told the prison kingpin in ‘The Watchmen’ “We teabaggers are not locked in here with you, Mistah Congressman. You are all locked in here with us.”
It will be good news for the Dems, if they are smart enough to go all YEAAARGHHH and run a Howard Dean-style 50-state, 435-district race in 2014. This is the time to toss ’em all an anchor.
False. For instance, if you consider three big blue states that are not gerrymandered in the GOP’s favor–California, Illinois, and New York–you get a total of 27 Republican representatives. And I know that in California, for instance, there are representatives in majority Latino districts who are absolutely terrified about what’s going to happen if the House doesn’t even have a vote on immigration reform.
Twitter is telling me there have been shots fired outside the Capitol.
The mythical ‘Moderate Republicans’ who would vote for this deal have yet to manifest themselves in actual votes. So I’m going with ‘they’re gonna burn this fucker down because some Teabaggers just want to watch the world burn’.
My understanding of the Hastert Rule is that Speaker Boehner won’t put something up for a vote unless it’s supported by the majority of his party’s caucus (we can debate the utter stupidity of this Rule another time).
From the reports I’ve seen, it’s a small minority (less than 20%) of the House Republican caucus that’s driving this train. Has the Speaker put this question to his caucus? How do we know the Hastert Rule would be violated if the Speaker actually brings this to one of those sacrosanct “up or down votes” Republicans loved yammering about not so very long ago? And wouldn’t a majority vote in the House, no matter the party designation of the individual members of that majority, represent the will of the people, another point the Republicans love to yammer about, but that they don’t dare test?