New Jersey Governor Chris Christie did his best to suppress Democratic turnout by scheduling the U.S. Senate special election on a fricking Wednesday, and it seems to have worked fairly well. But Cory Booker will still be joining the U.S. Senate when they reconvene next week, and the Democratic advantage will go back to 55-45. My childhood county of Mercer gave Booker 66% of the vote, so you know how my people roll. Right now, Booker is winning 56%-43%, and that’s as close as the Republicans are likely to ever get to defeating him.
Meanwhile, 83 senators voted for cloture and 81 senators voted to pass the bill tonight that will reopen the government and permanently do away with the threat of default from the debt ceiling. The House is voting now, and they will pass it as well. The wingnuts didn’t just lose; they had their toy taken away.
Going forward, the Republicans can either agree to a budget or they can shut down the government again. The president didn’t wait for the House to vote to do a little dance in the end zone and say that he hopes that the goddamn Republicans learned their lesson. A long time ago, Senator Obama said that he will “give people the benefit of the doubt, try to hear their point of view, [but] if I perceive that they are trying to take advantage of that then I will crush them.” He also said that he is best as a counterpuncher, and if you come at him he “will knock you out.”
He’s not perfect, by any means. But, so far, he has pretty much kept his word.
This one was easy.
I tip my cap, sir.
I thought the insanity was so high, so rampant, we’d have a short term default. I agreed with almost everything you said, but I still thought we’d have a 24-48 hour breach.
Well done.
Well, Obama did say he was a counterpuncher.
Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat,
If Liston goes back an inch farther he’ll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left, Clay swings with his right,
Look at young Cassius carry the fight
Liston keeps backing, but there’s not enough room,
It’s a matter of time till Clay lowers the boom.
Now Clay lands with a right, what a beautiful swing,
And the punch raises the Bear clean out of the ring.
Liston is still rising and the ref wears a frown,
For he can’t start counting till Sonny goes down.
Now Liston is disappearing from view, the crowd is going frantic,
But radar stations have picked him up, somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought when they came to the fight?
That they’d witness the launching of a human satellite.
Yes, the crowd did not dream, when they put up the money,
That they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny.
If Cruz had been as crazy as advertised, it could have happened. But he’s just a charlatan. Not actually crazy.
Some House members are bona fide loons, however.
Goes back to what every single person said about him growing up, he was a grade A asshole even among assholes, but he was never stupid. But I never thought the opposition would come from the Seanate.
Have to admit, thought Boehner would freeze deer in the headlights style. As I said earlier, you were right.
From what a quick scan of the income requirements tells me it will hurt people since it will use last year’s tax returns to determine insurance eligibility. So everyone who just lost their jobs is kind of fucked but the penalty is still $100 right? Bearable.
Finally, let me say that when the Democrats finally did what all of us were screaming at him too, stand up to the GOP, the Democrats won.
That was revealing about Cruz. He’s not a true believer, he’s an opportunist.
Thank you. I have been concerned that my representative, Michelle Bachmann, might lose her title as Looniest Loon in the House, which is a great source of pride here in Lake Woebegon. This is really all we have going for us at this point.
ditto
Well done, indeed.
Thanks also for the Keene Sentinel interview excerpt. I can’t think of a better two minute insight into President Obama’s self-understanding as a public figure.
Republicans could have saved themselves numerous defeats over the past five years if they’d absorbed the significance of that clip.
House:
Final count: 285 Yea (198 Dem, 87 Rep), 143 Nay (all Rep).
Kudos to the 87 Republicans. May they stick together going forward.
There was a map of the GOP Suicide Caucus at the start of the shutdown.
I wonder what the map of these 87 looks like. Maybe their districts would like a real Democrat.
I’m not so sure.
Speaking from the NOVA greater DC area where some of them are located….
We largely love poor bashing, military spending, hating flyover, for the rich politics. However we are “blue” entirely off social issues and that Democrats do markets, privatization, and capitalism better than the Republicans.
If there was a “real” Democrat who say advocated raising payroll taxes instead of slashing entitlements… well we can fly our daughters to Europe to get an abortion so they can finish law school, we don’t deal with Christians daily, and honestly we’d rather have the money… the money will let us still do what we want. Populism is as nasty as racism and sexism. The government is simply a weapon to use so we can extract money from flyover and fuel DC and NYCs growth.
The Tea Party problem here is their fanatical stance on social issues, and their hatred of the the government which is our pay check.
The joke is that liberals (in DC and NOVA) want to let the gays get married and then cut social security, conservatives want to cut social security and then let the gays get married, centrists want to cut social security while the gays get married but forget that senators from flyover country are inbred hicks who can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.
Move left on fiscal issues and we’ll feed people to Palin and Santorum, attack the police state and we will turn blood red and scream. Right now though it’s a blue area (what good is money if Christians are lecturing about the morality of the good life, fuck that) turning more blue. But note that all of our Democrats are fucking hard right compared to not that long ago.
A win is a win, take it as that. More DLC, Clinton, neoliberal Democrats sure thing, bring them on the more the better. Progressives, errr….. that’s as bad as the Tea Party.
I don’t entirely agree, but that’s how things work here. Though I can honestly say I’d throw all my social views out the window in a second and convert to Christianity if payroll taxes were to increase or military spending was on the chopping block instead of say social security…. and I’m really liberal for a blue part of NOVA.
And forgot to mention.
One of the reasons I love Republicans moving to our party and voting team Democrat is that it helps move the economic window away from New Deal style programs, and puts the Democratic party more towards free trade, globalization, and market economics. So I see those moves as a win not only in destroying the radical right, but permanently making the Democratic party vastly more neoliberal.
So… win win!
You’re in just as much of a bubble as the Reich Wing. We don’t even have any Suicide Caucus Members in our state. Morgan Griffith, perhaps, but his seat was occupied by a Blue Dog for more than two decades (Rick Boucher). Easily winnable, especially with the college there.
And Bernie Sanders could primary Jim Moran tomorrow and still win the 8th district.
I fully admit that I am.
However, I do live in a blueish/purple area that has some of the Republicans where the question was asked “do they want a real democrat”, and I’m answering that.
Would I vote for it, sure. Would most here, no. So Replacing moderate Republicans with moderate Democrats, or moderate Democrats with progressive Democrats is something that will not fucking work. Plus, in many cases it’s the same damn animal (or tell me the Virginia Democrats aren’t plutocrats that love defense spending?).
As with any upper class cosmopolitan area the idea is left on social issues, right on economic. The blue parts of VA are only blue because of them. When it comes to other issues, it’s a rich as fuck area and knows it.
So for here, having a “real” Democrat (by which I mean New Deal instead of Neoliberal) is a sure fire way to turn the region blood red and howling for blood.
Maybe in your circle, but I don’t believe that applies to the area writ large. It’s not like Jim Moran is a blue dog. He’s just your average Democrat who would vote with the party. If the party argued for increased FICA, he’d do it. I personally do not want to increase FICA as I think shortfalls can be paid for in other ways that aren’t as regressive (or at least will be helpful to the environment, such as a carbon tax).
Granted, the people I interact with are all professionals who bring in 6 figures with both members of the couple working, or poor well-educated activists for assorted nonprofits, but they’re all also radically left and white (like me), or leftish and POC. Lawyers aren’t going to leave the Democratic coalition anytime soon, and that’s the wealthier profession where I live and work; particularly patent lawyers who bring in excess of 200-400k.
Last, people generally don’t change political views all of the sudden in the middle of their lives. The Democratic Party is moving left and at a quick pace. As Booman likes to note, it wasn’t long ago that the Senate only had Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy as its only progressives. Now it has 10+. As the country becomes more polarized, the Democrats are going to continue down this path. And the people who established during their voting years (my age cohort) as voting Democratic will continue doing so no matter how leftward they can (possibly) move. District 8 is +16 Democratic; it won’t change to R or even lower than +8D over any issue.
In fact, as the GOP continues its march to the far, far fascist right, you’re going to be stuck where I currently am: voting for the Democrats only because the GOP is insane. Forget social and economic issues for a second and just think of basic governance. Do you think the rich are going to enjoy this brinkmanship constantly, over and over? No. The GOP cannot govern. The Democrats never have been and never will be a socialist workers party, but it’s definitely conceivable to be full of Elizabeth Warrens.
When you’ve lost Rod Dreher, you’re not going to go anywhere:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/strangelove-republicans/
.
Booman, I hope you’re doing a little victory dance as I write this. You deserve it too. Much like Nate Silver in 2012 and Al Giordano in 2008 (for those few of us who followed him).
Yup, that was the trifecta I depended upon from 2007 and on. I miss Al’s US-centered political reporting!
Yes, when Al went awol, I went into withdrawal. Thankfully, Booman came along to fill the reality-based void.
If Pierre Omidyar is looking for a good US Capitol Hill analyst, I think I have a suggestion.
Yes, BooMan, you nailed the date, the voting pattern, and the fact that Boehner would be rational.
Why didn’t you guess that McConnell would get $2 billion of pork out of it too? 🙂
I guess you are referring to that Ohio River work that was attached to the formerly clean CR? Jon Tester, on the RM Show, didn’t seem to like those little add on’s either. But I actually thought they were mostly okay and if McConnell needed something for the voters back home, a bit of infrastructure work can accomplish worthwhile ends. Plus offset some of the heat he’s bound to get from his primary opponent and the Tea Party folks for deciding to do the right thing for the country.
I did think that they (the add-ons) were a bit of payback to the House for putting the country through the last 2 1/2 weeks or so. I also didn’t mind Lautenberg’s widow getting her financial due. There was even some much needed relief for the needy tacked on.
The doofi over at Redstate are still in anger and denial mode. To paraphrase W., Is our Rethugs learning? Looks like it will take a while before they stop spinning and the true nature of this defeat settles in. Kudos for calling it all the way, Boo.
Excited to see our new hardworking Senator from NJ in action. Amid the debt ceiling hullabaloo, I hope everyone had a chance to see the remarkable interview he gave to TPM a few days ago, and the day after his father died:
It’s not longer possible to be anti-gay and be an elected Democrat at anything close to a senate level. Things are changing that fast.
Instead watch for bankster fellatio.
Come on. He. Is. From. New. Jersey. He’s never going to be a sworn populist enemy of the financial industry. No Senator from NJ ever is. That would be like asking Chuck Schumer to lie down in an Occupy tent. Ain’t ever gonna happen.
It. Doesn’t. Matter. Where. He’s. From.
The social issues war is largely won internally in the party, the economic fights must continue. Letting someone off the hook just because he comes from such a state with incredibly powerful interests like Delaware and New Jersey doesn’t mean he gets a pass to privatize things. In fact that just means you have to fight those tendencies all the more to balance things out.
I don’t expect him to be Sherrod Brown, but we WANT him to be Sherrod Brown and his constituents should push him toward Sherrod Brown any chance they get.
Being from Jersey doesn’t mean he gets to have a 100% pro-Goldman Sachs rating and get a pass from progressives. Leaving aside that isn’t going to be his record anyway…
It means, if he wants to make a difference for working people, he’s going to have to approach those issues in a more crafty and subtle way. He can’t take on financial interests directly and expect to maintain his hold on power for more than a second. He has to push forward legislation that addresses our economic imbalance in different ways. Starting with the criminal justice system, for example. Investing in infrastructure. Education. All the stuff he was already focused on as mayor. You’re not going to see him sponsoring the next iteration of Dodd-Frank – that’s just silly.
Don’t be foolish about the way power works. If you attack from the front every time it’ll be glorious, but eventually you’ll get massacred. Just ask the Tea Party.
The first thing is that New Jersey people are about 85% liberal on social issues. That’s especially true in the north of the state.
So, even die-hard Republican horse-farmers are totally alienated from Ted Cruz.
If Christie Todd Whitman thinks you are a troglodyte them so does almost every Manhattan commuter.
Cory Booker appeals to the Manhattan commuter, which is what a Democrat needs to do in that state.
I’m not talking about a frontal attack. Basically I mean don’t make things worse. Is that a low enough bar for you?
Also, his statement isn’t just about gay kids. It’s about anyone who feels bullied by people with more cultural power with them. And it speaks well of the guy that on the day after his father died, when some jerk working for his opponent referred to him in an ugly way, his thoughts went first to the people he wants to serve and are looking to him for leadership. Booker had every right to trash that jerk, but instead he spoke about how we all need to work on how to “elevate in our love.”
That’s a remarkable person and politician right there.
As a matter of fact I read what you quoted several days ago, in fact I thought it was a great response. But I’m not about to let it blind me to important issues.
I don’t think you have any concept of Newark, NJ and what Cory Booker is/ was up against trying to turn it around. He worked to get financing for his programs. NJ doesn’t even have a major city, just look at any weather map – there’s NY for the north and Philadelphia for the south. Some ppl are working to change that. Cory Booker is larger than life, that’s the best term I can come up with for him. [and just to give a concept think about NJ’s other cities – Trenton, Camden. in such a wealthy state this shouldn’t be the case. there’s a problem of the dynamic
Incidentally I think BooMan is mistaken about Christie’s plan: the turnout he really wanted to depress is in the gubernatorial in November. To refresh yourself on the timing of the whole thing see Wikipedia. Christie is afraid of Booker, even of competing indirectly.
No wait, BooMan is not wrong, just making a different (and more relevant) point. Will we ever get ability to edit our stupidities here? Or are you holding out for smarter commenters instead?
It seems he was afraid a Booker vote on the same day as governor vote work work to GOT dem Vote.
That was my point. Boo knows it better than we do; his point was that Christie also made the Senatorial vote on a Wednesday, not so much out of fear as pure spite.
Can someone verify (with a link) a change to the debt limit rules so that it is no longer a viable threat? The only thing I’ve found is a link to Brietbart, and I trust the scribblings on toilet stalls more than that waste of pixels.
Looking at you Booman.
The bill had procedural language in it that specified that the debt limit vote be conducted according to certain rules. The thinking is that those rules applied only to the vote tonight and only because the House Rules committee is controlled by the Tea Party and Boehner wanted to ensure a smooth vote tonight.
If the folks at Breitbart want to spin that as removing the debt limit as a viable threat, that might represent someone wanting to walk back extreme tactics that backfire. Who’s buying Breitbart’s presence these days?
you obviously have not read the law. Scroll down to page 25.
Thanks. That’s a different version from the one that the Kentucky TV station had up earlier.
If I’m reading that correctly, that is probably the most important thing accomplished. It at least disarms the automatic freezing of US payments under the debt limit. Which is a form of deweaponizing it.
Their toy was taken away.
It reads like it only applies to that date and not to future debt ceiling votes beyond Feb 8th.
I don’t see that but in any case it seems to say the President can suspend the debt limit. Once it’s suspended, it’s just going to stay suspended. Don’t see any time limit. It seems to be written to be even harder to read than most laws (and that’s saying something).
Looking again it does NOT, repeat, NOT, effectively end the debt limit. The “suspension” is the mechanism to raise the debt limit until Feb 7, 2014, and it expires then:
So come Feb 8, we’re back to where we were in May.
Sorry Boo, they still have their toy.
Read the next page.
(2) SPECIAL RULE RELATING TO OBLIGATIONS
2 ISSUED DURING SUSPENSION PERIOD.–Effective
3 February 8, 2014, the limitation in section 3101(b)
4 of title 31, United States Code, as increased by sec-
5 tion 3101A of such title and section 2 of the No
6 Budget, No Pay Act of 2013 (31 U.S.C. 3101 note),
7 is increased to the extent that–
8 (A) the face amount of obligations issued
9 under chapter 31 of such title and the face
10 amount of obligations whose principal and in-
11 terest are guaranteed by the United States Gov-
12 ernment (except guaranteed obligations held by
13 the Secretary of the Treasury) outstanding on
14 February 8, 2014, exceeds
15 (B) the face amount of such obligations
16 outstanding on the date of enactment of this
17 Act.
If I’m reading this correctly (?) it says that, yes, the suspension of the debt limit ends on Feb. 7th, but at that point the debt limit is also automatically raised to cover everything spent between today and that date.
……at first I thought this was a win, then I thought some more and, yep, we’re still back at square one. Although the intricacies of Congressional budgeting are such that maybe there’s more to this than what it seems?
According to the Wall Street Journal:
If the president retains the ability to suspend the debt ceiling unless congress passes a veto-proof bill stripping him of that privilege, the default bomb has been disarmed. Or am I missing something?
Apparently I was missing something. Ezra Klein says that the bill did not make the “McConnell Mechanism” permanent.
That is interesting. There’s a whole section on default prevention (pg24 – . Lotta lawyerese, but looks like the President can suspend the debt limit, and it takes a joint resolution to stop him. Did I read that right?
Why wasn’t this reported on? I saw several discussions of the override process, but they all were based on the idea that Congress’ override would to stop the use of “extraordinary measures”. Instead it seems to be an override of a new Presidential power to ignore the debt limit (as Boo said). Did the Senate drafters put in a submarine rider that significant and sneak it past the Tea Party? Pretty bold – and there’s going to be quite a ruckus when people realize what Congress voted through.
And none of the Tea Partiers noticed and chirped up?
Still unclear to me for how long this suspension authority lasts — not a lawyer. Even so, this is interesting.
OK, thanks, I’ve read it. Now could you please translate that into English for us?
Booman, I have to say you are hands down the best political analyst I’ve ever read. You’ve nailed it time after time and this fiasco was just the icing on the cake. Thanks.
Great job seeing the inner dynamics of this play out. Your mastery of the Congressional processes cuts out so much extraneous nonsense from the media and political spinners.
Quick OT question. I’ve tried to embed that very video (I’ve always loved it), but couldn’t find the right html trick. Embed, Object or Iframe, what’s the secret?
One more thing. So everyone said the crazies were 60-80 members at best.
Well it looks like even at the moment of defeat when the business interests were openly pitted against the crazies at the nadir of their polls, 60-80 members were STILL to scared to cross them.
That is considerably more power than we thought they had.
We knew that they were the majority of the caucus because of Boehner’s obedience to the “Hastert rule” indicated who was moving things. But that is more than the crazies. The Paul Ryan caucus is in there too and no doubt a lot of the Conservative Citizens Council Southern caucus that’s been around for awhile (like Paul Broun, who also is in the crazies).
I was surprised by how many more than necessary crossed over to vote with Democrats. Still curious to see a map of the districts voting with the Dems.
One of my very favorite parts of this deal: Little Paulie Ryan has to go to conference committee. We’re about to strip the bark off of that fraud.
He’s talking a good game tonight…
“The ranking member on the House Budget Committee also said he was looking forward to working with Democrats as the two parties conference on the budget.
“I look forward to convening the first conference on a budget resolution since 2009,” he added. “And though a budget resolution by itself can’t resolve our spending problem, I’m committed to making a bipartisan budget conference a success.””
…but the Dems should run the horrid details of his budget for all to see. It’s quite the sociopathic document.
Still, I’ve been waiting five years to hear this:
“The reality is there’s a much larger population within our caucus that recognizes reality for what it is,” said Schock, who represents the iconic middle-America town of Peoria. “At the end of the day, whatever we pass will have to be a bipartisan bill. The sooner that our conference recognizes that we’re going to have to negotiate with the other side, the more we can get done.”
(Republican Aaron Schock, 32 years old, representing Illinois’s 18th congressional district since 2009.)
I haven’t found a map yet, but maybe you can make something of this:
http://voteview.com/blog/?p=960
(scroll down for graphics)
Re the 60 to 80 “crazies”, I’ve watched MSNBC for most of the evening and wonder if others saw former Conn. Republican Rep Chris Shays on the Lawrence O’Donnell show really carrying water for the GOP. By saying stuff like “how can you negotiate with people you call crazy”. He went on to say,and I’m paraphrasing, “They aren’t crazy;they just believe that defaulting on the debt would not be dangerous.”
Another gem: LOD called on Luke Russert (who’s appearing on the MSNBC shows with regularity these days and is a guest on more than just one of them per evening. Wonder what’s going on there?) and asked him how this affected Boehner’s speakership. Russert then admits to having a personal relationship with the speaker which allowed him to state unequivocally that this strengthened Boehner’s position with the more conservative members of his caucus and Russert then goes on to speak with great authority what Boehner wants to achieve with his speakership. To be written up in the LOC for having achieved the GRAND Bargain and achieved entitlement reform. When he got thru, Chris Shays remarks about Russert’s comments, “That’s the real John Boehner” there.”
Richard Wolfe was sitting next to Shays, Sam Stein (whom I really like) was on, Howard Dean had just been on, and Eugene Robertson was brought on and called them the GOP crazies, which again Shays contradicted. At the end of that piece he was not a happy camper. Sam Stein was able to ask why it was necessary for the American people and the American economy to suffer for over 2 weeks just so Boehner could solidify his Speakership? Per Stein, that was not something that Boehner should be given credit for.
I, too, am no good at embedding video, because that whole segment (actually 2 of them) are well worth watching.
I’ve got to say I called this correctly — that Boehner would survive intact. It seems like everybody took it for granted he would be pulverized and reviled from both the right and the left. But even so, I’m amazed at just how well this has ended up for him.
I think it tells us something very significant about the Republican Party, but I’m not sure what. The nearest I can get to coherence is: Republicans admire the exercise of authority, at least among their own. They love to kiss the boot, and the tea party ran away with the party only because the establishment let them. Sure it got out of hand, but the minute the establishment puts its foot down, they remember who’s the boss. True, most Rs in the House voted against this — but was that, in most cases, not just to make their constituents happy?
So perhaps the GOP will recover from this debacle faster than I would have expected. Of course they are concerned about 2014. Time will tell.
Any thoughts on this?
Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog is pessimistic (although, when is he not?):
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-losers-take-victory-lap-even-before.html#links
No, everything he’s saying is true. But this is also true:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/john-boehner-conservatives_n_4111021.html?utm_hp_ref=politi
cs
I think probably the real answer is that we underestimate John Boehner’s genuine political skills.
Crazies do love them some John Boehner!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/john-boehner-conservatives_n_4111021.html
Bank it.
Ouch:
.
But Douthat’s a RINO, anyway. I mean, c’mon. He writes for the New York Times! Which is in New York!!!!!!11!!
Y’all gather up into a circle, now. Y’all gonna make for one muthafukkin heavily armed circular firing squad…
sits back with popcorn…
Yup. The real tea party doesn’t quit.
John Cole’s got this down perfect.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/10/17/republican-horror-story-clowns/
Douthat partly addresses the question I just asked. The “serious” conservatives want to distance themselves and the party from the crazies, when as long as they were winning elections they seemed to be just fine.
But of course, there are other interpretations:
http://www.redstate.com/2013/10/16/methinks-the-tea-party-just-went-back-on-the-warpath/
http://www.redstate.com/2013/10/16/advancing-ever-advancing/
Congratulations, Senator Booker.
Congrats Booman, you called this one quite a while ago. Maybe the Sunday AM talk shows need a new guest to let the country in on what is really going on?