Maybe the only interesting thing left to look for tonight is the actual roll calls of the votes in the House and Senate. Reportedly, Boehner and his leadership team encouraged the rank-and-file to support the bill so that he will look less weak and defeated. With some Republican-aligned organizations key-voting the bill, there is more safety in numbers if most lawmakers say ‘yes.’ But that doesn’t mean Boehner will succeed in getting a majority of his caucus to go along with his face-saving plan.
Senate votes will be interesting, too, with key lawmakers like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Lamar Alexander, Pat Roberts, and Thad Cochran already staring down the barrel of a Tea Party challenge, and Mike Enzi looking over his shoulder at Liz Cheney.
If you are a political junkie, you’ll be almost as interested to see these votes as the final numbers in Cory Booker’s race for the U.S. Senate.
You are getting to be very influential, BooMan. Thanks for this:
Warren Strobell and Mark Hosenball, Reuters: U.S. eavesdropping agency chief, top deputy expected to depart soon
I wonder if Alexander and his deputy know this news.
Mmmm, I wonder who the source is.
Another great piece of news.
Erick W. Erickson, RedState: Advancing, Ever Advancing
That is a great argument, if one believes in picking a losing fight that will eventually lead the GOP to losing the War too. As the Democrats are now likely to retake the House.
“Likely” is quite a bit strong.
@EWErickson 1m
House Republicans should object to unanimous consent to move the Senate plan forward. FIGHT. cc: @SteveWorksForYou
Good. Let’s get all those no votes on record.
Ah yes, that was terribly embarrassing for Democrats. They were probably embarrassed by how stupid the GOP looked trying to reopen the government one piece at a time.
Monthly County Democratic Party meeting tonight. Lots to talk about, I’m sure.
If all goes as the polls say, we will have our first voter-elected African American Senator since Barack Obama in 2004!
I’m excited about that even though some have issues about Booker.
And after a group of NJ voters overwhelmingly elects him tonight, a few weeks from now, a similar group of NJ voters will overwhelmingly reelect a Republican as governor instead.
Because never forget that politics are nonsensical.
That should be a lesson to those forecasters who think they’ve got 2014, 2016, etc. all figured out already.
yep.
gotta say it was pretty smart of Christie to split the election dates.
I have read on twitter that the turnout is higher than expected.
He was a complete schmuck for doing this. Cost the State about $21M. So much for “fiscal conservatism.”
You obviously don’t understand New Jersey politics. The Big Money Boyz don’t want Christie touched. South Jersey really is run like one of the old political machines(see: Tamany Hall). The guy that run it, George Norcross isn’t a Democrat at all, despite being registered as one. And Steve Sweeney is a fraud for a union guy. Both were cutting deals with Christie. That’s how he got his BS through the Jersey legislature. Boo can tell you. There hasn’t been one Barbara Buono commercial aired here in the Philly media market. Yet Christie has been running ads nonstop(especially between 5 & 7pm) for the past 2 months. Certain segments of Jersey “Democrats” don’t want Buono to win and are actively sabotaging her. I wish more people understood that.
BTW, Booman,
I just wanted to thank you for being at the very least a calming presence on this whole mess (I know it’ not over til the voted, but still..).
I’m not talking about any pro/anti-Obama stance by you, you just did your best to just state as much of the “facts” as you see them and gave your take with as little overt crowing as possible.
Good on you. It’s why I like to come here!
Very much seconded!This blog has been THE place to turn for really smart analysis of the whole mess.
Nate Silver watch out.
Do Cantor, Hensarling or Huelskamp want a remote chance at being Speaker?
I saw that live. Don’t ask why I watched NBC News tonight. Of course Williams let him get off scot-free from any blame in this mess.
Says the guy who egged the on:
As Atrios notes, although the supposedly moderate GOP senators have been openly bitching about Cruz they have also been reliably voting to support every freaking procedural/filibuster motion he’s put forward.
This is the problem with authoritarian followers – which defines the GOP – they mitch and boan and complain but invariably they fall into line in the end out of a deep, deep fear of being excluded from the in-group. This is why the elders feel they can keep nominating milquetoast wingnuts like McCain and Romney and still reliably get the votes of the wingnut rank-and-file.
It’s the campaign $ they are worried about.
For this reason, it was nauseating to hear Susan Collins’ self-congratulatory speech this afternoon.
Anyway, this dude is really delusional…WTF!!!
People are rising up in incredible numbers trying to log on to buy a policy, not to repeal Obamacare!
Cruz’s numbers are “incredible” in the original sense of the word.
More quotes to love:
Cruz told conservative talk show host Mark Levin that Republican senators had been “firing their cannons” at the House Republican caucus and likened the Senate GOP to an “air force bombing our own troops.”aid that the Senate is “undoubtedly” broken.
“It’s a broken institution,” he said, adding that Senate Republicans are too concerned with “getting invited to the cocktail parties.”
The Texas firebrand called the Obama White House “the emperial presidency,” and said that Obama was “dangerous” because he ”thinks he is above the law.”
Ultimately, Cruz said that his effort to defund Obamacare, which died in the Senate Wednesday night, was not a failure.
“It was an incredible victory,” Cruz said
I seem to think that Ted Cruz does the same thing as Sen. Vitter, except Ted Cruz just likes being in a diaper, no one to spank him is necessary.
The fact that Cruz was on raving right-wing freakazoid Mark Levin’s show speaks volumes for who their audience was. Levin is to Hate Radio what Walter White’s Crystal Blue was to meth: the purest poison on the market. I’m sure Levin was out of his effing mind today: good training for the s-o-b.
Now even the Administration command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us.
Anybody seen the text to the bill yet? There’s a lot of interest in the Christmas tree ornaments in it.
A right-wing site is saying that Mitch McConnell got construction on a dam project put into it.
So the Republicans got ransom money after all.
McConnell’s primary opponent is trying to build that case. I don’t know that it’s true. That’s what I’m trying to establish.
More like a bribe. But if Senator Turtle can be bought off for some of that sweet, sweet pork, I’m okay with that. Goddamn earmarks and projects for the individual states and districts congresspeople represent is an important function of how Congress is supposed to operate.
That said, I have no idea if the project actually need that extra $2 billion or not.
You are right regarding this is how it’s supposed to work and I would be OK with that. It’s like Jesse Jackson Junior and Henry Hyde working out a deal for an industrial project grant. Hyde’s people get the sweetheart loan and grant money and Jackson’s people get the union jobs. That IS how it’s supposed to work, all right.
What I object to is working out a deal with a gun pointed at a hostage’s head. They are going to do this again in February. As Arthur Gilroy says, “Bet on it.”
Please, let the GOP do it again in February. Closer to general election day in the midterms, they should really sink deeply in the voters’ minds how they are completely unhinged, radical and uninterested in governing.
What hostages will they want to take next time? Obamacare will be played out. How about full frontal attacks on Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid? Brilliant political strategizing.
They will want to reinforce their Tea Party credentials for the primaries.
Amendment to the Title of HR 2275
This, according to a Kentucky TV station, is the text of the bill.
Not being a lawyer, my eyes glazed over on the second page. It seems to be a full fiscal year. That’s good. But the debt limit has to go too or it means nothing.
In one way, I hope they continue playing with the debt limit. Maybe Wall Street will cut them off and buy some more Republicans like Rockefeller and Nixon. Even Reagan and Bush were saner than these ridge-runners.
The item is question is page 13, section 123, which refers to another law. According to WFPL: McConnell-Reid Deal Includes $2 Billion Earmark for Kentucky Project the bill kicks from $775 million to $2.9 billion the funds allocated to the project.
So Mitch got more out of it than Boehner did.
Maybe he will send him a bottle of Jack Daniels as a consolation prize.
I admire how you can thread your way through this maze. It makes debugging assembly language spaghetti code look like child’s play.
It helps when a TV station points out the key point.
According to AP, the only other special appropriation was additional funds for wildfire suppression.
The complicated part was the procedures to keep the House from gumming up the works. The bill essentially specifies a rule that the Speaker proposed in his message to Reid and McConnell last night and that became the HR 2275 of the bill.
The baffling parts are the references to existing legislation or bills that are not handy to search.
Definitely not Jack Daniels. That’s sour mash from Tennessee. Maker’s Mark from Kentucky, for sure. Bourbon.
Republicans Listen
Borowitz Report: Ted Cruz sez
“The dream of keeping poor people from seeing a doctor must never die”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_cam
paign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(183)
Grain of truth — these fruitcakes are not going anywhere and are going to continue to fight reality.
This was a colossal waste of time. Everyone who kept tabs on the utterly purposeless frenzy these last few weeks is now dumber for the experience.
I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation from political news, though.
thanks BooMan. You were calm and steady throughout it all.
Too far back to find the link, but hopefully you remember one or two weeks ago I said to go all in on the market? That GS was trying to panic the muppets into selling low? If you can, search my history for “muppet”.
Anyway, today my IRA went up $3,053.17
I knew our real Lords and Masters wouldn’t stand for ignorant yahoos destroying their wealth.
A few days ago you said “Wednesday”. You were right again on the politics. I was right on how those rich WASP bastards think.
Per Dkos the bill includes
That is the nail in the coffin of the debt ceiling. Only if the R’s can take two-thirds of BOTH houses can they pull that again.
That was worth McConnell’s thirty pieces of silver.
THAT is what I wanted to see.
Gotta love this from Harry Reid:
The “No” votes in the Senate:
Coburn
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Grassley
Heller
Johnson-WI
Lee
Paul
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Toomey
Vitter
I am so surprised!!!
We’re safe for another coupla months.
Then The Perils of Pauline bullshit control system will start all over again while y’all pat each other on the backs for having “won.”
Disgusting.
AG
C’mon AG, Mitch McConnell’s the only one who won. He got $2.9 billion of pork out of a sequestered budget.
Yes, the Perils of Pauline bullshit spreading system will start around Christmas.
But, we’ll have a farm bill and Food Stamp cuts and immigration reform to entertain us for the next two months, won’t we.
But Ted Cruz is now going to have to grift with Sarah Palin. He’s got a 2-million person mailing list of Obama(care) haters to work with after they stop considering him a loser.
What a country!
Sorry, Tarheel.
I am no longer amused.
Bet on it.
AG
Senator Toomey was one of the votes against the bill.
The President’s statement tonight
http://youtu.be/hAnRik_DTzA
I have never watched Hannity and I don’t plan to now either. But damn to be a fly on the wall for this:
This idiot is gonna burn the party down!
Pretty much already did.
Question for the Frog Pond: has a freshman Senator EVER behaved like Teddy boy? He’s in it for the full grift, OK. He’s certainly not in it to build real legislating power.
No way the Big Money Boyz let him get the GOP Presidential nomination. Dude’s f***ing with their $$$$$$.