It is the silly season again. As a government shutdown looms at midnight, everyone is engaged in the blame game. So, let me add a little clarity to where the blame lies for a shutdown.
In order for a bill to become a law, it is mandatory that both the House and the Senate pass it and that the two bills are absolutely identical to each other. As things stand, the House has passed a continuing resolution to keep the government operating. The Senate could just take that bill and without changing a single word of it bring it up for a vote and pass it. If they were to do that, the problem would be solved for now. They could take those two bills and send them to the president for his signature.
However, if the Senate wants to make any changes to what the House produced, then the resulting bill, assuming it then passed the Senate, would have to go back to the House, and the House would have to approve it without changing a thing. The two chambers can ping-pong the bill like this for as long as they want, or they can form a conference committee to iron out the differences in the two bills. Either way, eventually they have to agree on one set of legislative language.
If House Republicans are serious about avoiding a government shutdown, then they need to be prepared to do some more work in case the Senate needs to makes changes to their continuing resolution in order to get the necessary votes. But the House is adjourning and leaving town.
.@GOPLeader says House will adjourn after votes this morning, NOT staying in session this weekend as shutdown looms. “We’ve done our job,” Mccarthy tells me. “It’s up to Sen. Schumer to decide if he wants a shutdown.”
— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) January 19, 2018
Now, Rep. Kevin McCarthy is suggesting that it’s up to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer whether or not there will be a government shutdown, but we should be clear that McCarthy is also saying that Schumer must accept the House language as it is, with absolutely no compromises or modifications. McCarthy is actually speaking to all 100 senators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who has already said that he isn’t supporting the House’s bill.
Let’s look a little deeper. The Republicans have a 51-49 majority but because of John McCain’s illness, they are functioning today with a 50-49 majority. Without Sen. Graham’s vote, the best they can hope to do without Democratic support is a 49-49 tie. That would be sufficient if Vice President Pence were available to cast a tie-breaking vote, but Pence is leaving town too to travel to the Middle East. What this means is that the Republicans don’t have the votes to pass the House version even if the Democrats don’t object to holding the vote. Even if the Democrats don’t filibuster, the Republicans can’t prevent a shutdown on their own.
Of course the Democrats will filibuster. Technically at least one of their members will object to a motion to proceed to a vote on the bill, and this will require Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to come up with 60 votes to overcome the objection. That means he’ll need ten Democrats and he can’t currently identify one who will help him.
This is the sense in which the Democrats can to some degree be held responsible for the shutdown. But the Senate Republicans can’t pass the House bill without modifications anyway, so if the House leaves town, the shutdown is going to be their fault. Moreover, the Democrats are under no obligation to vote for things they don’t support and if the Republicans want their votes they need to earn their votes through negotiations and compromise. But with the House leaving town, any changes to the bill will cause a shutdown.
There’s never been an example before of the government shutting down because the minority party didn’t vote to keep it open. And that’s not what’s going to happen tonight. The government is going to shut down because the House bill needs to be changed and modified to earn Republican support, let alone Democratic support, and they’re no longer allowed to change or modify it.
You can draw your own conclusions, but it seems obvious that if the Republicans were serious about avoiding a shutdown, then the House would not adjourn and leave town and Mike Pence would postpone his trip to the Middle East. The Republicans are not only going to be responsible for the shutdown, but they obviously welcome it.
Okay, so they welcome it. Why? How does this benefit them?
I presume they’re counting on the Both Sides media to ‘balance’ the stories about the Republican horrorshow with a little extra Democrat-bashing.
So that’ll shift the needle of the narrative a few degrees. What else can they hope for?
Joe Manchin will vote yes. so one
The Highly Principled(tm) Jeff Flake claiming he’s “leaning” no as well, but that we will have to see to believe…
To be fair, either Manchin’s or Flake’s vote is purely symbolic, as McConnell is 10 votes or so from passage.
Right now the blame should go on the Ryan and the House Republicans because they are the ones who have left town without completing negotiations, although some goes on Trump for nixing the CHIP/DACA compromise Congress had come up with.
The question is, how long can the other shithole dems hold out?
Sadly, based on their history, I’m guessing not long at all, and there is plenty enough of them to pass Cr’s for the rest of the year.
Of course the Democrats will filibuster. Technically at least one of their members will object to a motion to proceed to a vote on the bill, and this will require Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to come up with 60 votes to overcome the objection. That means he’ll need ten Democrats and he can’t currently identify one who will help him.
This is the sense in which the Democrats can to some degree be held responsible for the shutdown.
No, no they can’t. The GOP is in the majority in both houses, plus Trump is a GOPer. It’s all on them.
It looks like they want it to fail because of a filibuster, so they can blame the Dems. I don’t think they even hope to pass it at this point. Did Graham actually say he would abstain, rather than vote no? If he votes no, then the Republicans are at 49-50, and according to TPM, Paul, Rounds, and probably Lee are also no votes. If the Dems are sure of the numbers, they probably should not filibuster. Let it come to the floor and let it fail. There will be no way to blame the Democrats at all then. The Dems should make loud braying noises about the great sacrifice they are making to save us all from a shutdown by not filibustering, and that if we get a shutdown, it is because the Republicans chose it.
So the sense I’m getting then is that this is all about making the Dems look bad? I’m guessing to take the heat off the GOP/DT circus. Wow, they must really be desperate to change the subject from Russia and Porn actresses.
There is no reason for the Dems to look bad. The GOP has controlled to government for years and when was the last time they passed a budget? They have basically reduced America to bi weekly budget and that makes no sense.
Wow!!!
I think that they should call this a “Citizen’s Holiday.” Like the old chant when school closed for the summer:
Like dat. Only bigger. Much bigger.
Imagine a real shutdown.
Just for starters, legislators and the rest of the DC swamp wouldn’t get paid.
Neither would the members of the Armed Forces or all of the corporations that manufacture goods bought by the federal government.
The Swamp would dry up in no time!!!
But of course…they won’t actually let a real “shutdown” happen. That’d be bad for business, wouldn’t it. It will be a “shutdown” in name only…a false news shutdown with the media blaring about the hottest-thing-EVERness of the crisis while the backroom hustlers and their corporate bosses make the compromises necessary to keep their immensely lucrative con game in action.
A news cycle or two later?
Provided of course that some hostile power (And I include the entire corporate system of the (
Untied States)…err, ahhh, of course I meant the United States…in that “hostile power” rubric. Maybe Trump, too, come to think of it.)…provided that some hostile power doesn’t take advantage of the hustle to run its own hustle on the country?Another hottest-thing-ever story will be ginned up to keep the news cycle’s wheels profitably spinning and the rubes’ eyes of the wrong hand of the carny barker.
Later…I’m gonna ignore this shit.
You should too.
AG
P.S. Pence is taking a plane trip.
Oh.
How…convenient!!!
The House is taking a few days off.
NAAAAAAAHHH…
They just want YOU to worry.
They’ll be back in time to collect their paychecks and other less….reputable…payoffs.
Bet on it.
So…cheer up, folks.
Unless somebody lights off a successful EMP bomb (electromagnetic pulse) over Kansas City or somewhere else central and puts the whole country on “shutdown?”
Ain’t gonna happen.
Now back to the really big news!!!
I’m shocked!!!
Shocked, I say!!!
GTFU.
(Grow the fuck up.)
AG
He’s back — and in top form!
Every couple weeks or so, he gets chastened, or mollified, and stops posting for a while…usually after he’s been given a harsher-than-usual treatment by the rest of us.
Except I’m kidding myself; Arthur’s obliviousness is matched only by his condescension and raging ego, so it’s probably just that he had yet another computer problem and has been lurking around an Apple Store.
Bullshit!!!
I lay off posting when I have heard enough of your mindless posturing. Also when I am busier than hell making real music. You and your little friends have zero power over what I do and think, except to encourage me every time I offend your snowlflake sensibilities with some real thought.
Kneejerk on…
AG.
You’ve become a fucking right wing asshole and supremely terrible community member.
The dead giveaway is all the right-wing lingo. Snowflake? Seriously. That’s what this dude has to bring to the conversation? So-called alt-right assholes use that as their favorite insult, no matter how pathetic they end up sounding in doing so. Whatever. The regulars among us have been here so long we’re fucking bulletproof.
Gota give the devil his due. Those” alt-right assholes?” They’ve pinned it with this one. When the going gets hot, the snowflakes melt.
Gonna get hot soon, too. Where are the Schumers and Pelosis when you really need them?
Chillin’, that’s where. They aren’t going to be the ones who pay for their perfidy.
Bet on it.
Watch.
AG
I am neither right wing nor left wing. It is precisely that thoroughly media-created, two-dimensional world that has tanked this country. It’s an illusion. A fraud. It’s a way to keep people all het up and angry at one another for not being “politically correct,” no matter on which fraudulent side of that divide one might imagine one lives.
WTFU.
Calling me names is stupid and useless.
AG
Ryan: Make no mistake about it: Senate Democrats are the only ones standing in the way of a fully funded government and a reauthorized health insurance program for children. This is no time to play politics and force a shutdown. The House has done its job.
Yes, indeed, its “job” is passing critical legislation in a “take-it -or-leave-it” fashion and then scramming for (another) vacation. Quite a job description!
While the smiling corporate media performs its stenographer role….”We got that quote right! What more can we do?”
Says the guy who adjourned the House with neither a budget nor an agreement.
This could be the first real test for the Resistance’s resolve and messaging power. It’s technical, wonky, and it will effect “undecided” voters.
As we’ve seen so far, even when polls show majorities blame Republicans, major media outlets will, at best, blame BothSides and, at worst, blame Democrats for not rolling over yet again.
Republicans know at this level of news, deeper reporting simply never happens and average news consumers don’t go looking for it. So average voters will believe one of the two above lies if repeated enough and may start pressing Democrats to cut a deal.
Well as you demonstrate the (thoroughly unnecessary) adjournment makes clear that Ryan’s Reprobates haven’t the slightest interest in compromise or keeping the government “open”, whatever weak tea that turns out to be. Oh for the days of say, 1778, when Congressional failure to appropriate funds meant General Washington’s troops starving and freezing! Today I’d settle for DOD paychecks bouncing or airports closing. But of course the only thing on the line is the bathrooms of wildlife sanctuaries and the consumer protection board…
The problem is that your irrefutable explanation is way beyond the useless corporate media’s willingness to explain, the incompetent electorate’s ability to understand if explained, and our Demz’ determination to counter Repub spin.
If we are going to take the blame for this shutdown, then at least Dems should be clear about why they are filibustering: because our incompetent, irresponsible Stable Genius(tm) unnecessarily and without the slightest concern spitefully revoked Obama’s Dreamer program (supposedly supported by a wide majority of the citizenry) because he and the “conservative” braintrust couldn’t abide an immigrant policy based on executive order. That meant the braindead Repub Congress had to act, and fast, Repubs categorically refused to do so, and Dems are now forcing them to do so–so the lives of 800,000 young people aren’t turned to total shit after believing the promises of the federal gub’mint.
Then let the chips fall where they may in FailedNation, Inc.
The problem is that your irrefutable explanation is way beyond the useless corporate media’s willingness to explain, the incompetent electorate’s ability to understand if explained, …
When the corporate media is shit, what do you expect from the electorate? Most people don’t have the time, or thought, to read places like this. Most people aren’t political junkies.
I expect the American electorate to be better than supporting Trump and his brand of Republicans.
Yes, I absolutely expect that from voters. I’m willing to help do the things necessary to get voters in as many States as possible to be better than this.
Political education in this country is horrible. Union halls aren’t what they once were, if they exist anymore. The state Democratic parties are in shambles in many places, or were. And don’t get me started on things like the demise of ACORN. I bet schools don’t teach about our government and the like either.
I don’t disagree with most of this. We just have to find ways to win anyway. We’ve got to keep our spirits up.
Union halls still exist, but there’s not as many of them and the Labor movement has been systematically stripped of funds by the Republican Party. Most of our Labor laws and regulations are reprehensibly bad.
There’s an old Dutch saying, if I recall: “It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere.” I find some comfort in that – keep fighting anyway, even if things seem hopeless. That said, a bit of hope doesn’t hurt, and in spite of how bleak the political landscape has been (and in some fundamental ways will continue to be long we’ve got our Congressional majorities, most of our statehouses, and the White House back) things do get better, at least for a while. History tends to rhyme that way.
. . . of the political landscape were our most pressing problem, rather than the bleakness of the ecological landscape (though the former is a major causal factor of the latter and prevents meaningfully addressing the latter).
Tipping points/points-of-no-return (in this case, to any ecological status quo ante) are real things. My estimation is that if we haven’t already passed the most critical, existential one, we’re teetering right on the brink.
Still, the Dutch are onto something. May as well soldier on to the bitter end. What else is there to do?
I am far less hopeful about the long emergency that is climate change. As an individual I can do what I am able to reduce my carbon footprint. Our household is generally doing nearly all the right things – economy cars, recycling, energy saving lightbulbs, extra home insulation, etc. The problem is that individual efforts barely make a dent. The problem is very much structural and requires unprecedented international trust and cooperation to merely limit the damage. Of course I am stating the obvious, I suspect, as far as you are concerned – and perhaps many here. Still bears repeating.
individual virtue will never be adequate to prevent the looming catastrophe(s) that threaten us existentially. It will take robust action and international cooperation that, to my knowledge, is unprecedented in the history of our world-dominant Taker Culture*. Which is the reason for my general despair that we might act meaningfully in time.
* To use Daniel Quinn’s terminology from his Ishmael trilogy, which I cannot recommend too highly. Note that I deliberately avoided attributing the problem to our species. This reflects that I find very compelling Ishmael/Quinn’s thesis that humans existed a couple million years or so on this planet without managing to threaten ourselves with extinction. This only became an exponentially increasing (in lockstep with our population) existential threat with the rise of and eventual domination by our now globally dominant culture, beginning 10,000-12,000 years ago. (Intriguingly, Ishmael/Quinn’s thesis includes that these events are captured mythologically in the Genesis stories of The Fall and Cain and Abel. A re-interpretation that made those stories make sense to me, as they do to the characters in the novels, for the first time ever.)
I’ll have to see if our local library system has that trilogy. Looks intriguing, and given our conversation, quite relevant. Thanks for the suggestion.
. . . is the order of publication, iirc. I’d definitely recommend beginning with Ishmael, as it’s sort of the foundation for the other two. They can be read profitably in either order, though, imo.
I sometimes think they should come with a warning, though: something like “Be prepared to have your worldview upended, ye who enter here.” Jus’ sayin’.
Bonne lecture!
It was to use DACA fix as a bargaining chip/hostage ransom to get concessions like a big beautiful border wall. The Congressional GOP is also on board with hostage ransom but would settle for immigration deterrents short of the wall.
Also, Stable Genius(tm) believes a government shutdown makes him look good, so he wants it.
Trump to cave?
https://twitter.com/AP/status/954407829754007552
Shumner heading to whitehouse
The House adjourned. It’s too late for Stable Genius to cave. More malfeasance.
GOP won’t let Shithole cave on this. Not gunna happen.
Just like how the GOP wouldn’t let Shithole cave on DACA.
Blaming it all on Democraps is a totally winning formula. They LOVE this now.
If Congress had passed the CHIP/DACA compromise of course Trump would have caved. He always caves under pressure, and shutting down the government to stop a budget approved by both Congress and the public is too much pressure for someone much tougher than he. That’s why it was so important for Cotton and Kelly to take advantage of his failing mental faculties to get him to switch before it was actually passed.
Nope that changed they are still there
. . . through the thick skulls of the Worse-Than-Useless Corporate Media?
(I know, I know . . . you don’t do miracles.)
Oh the (truely) Fake Nooz, including National Propaganda Radio, is simply all a-buzz with how the Gubmint shut down is solely and only the fault of de debil Democrats.
And so it shall be emblazened on the shriveled brain pans of every GOPer, whether a true Nazi Fanboy or a Never Trumper.
Remember: anything that doesn’t work out the way the 1% wants is ALWAYS the fault of the d*mn Democraps. Always.
As for Dolt 45? He could care less, as long as this shithole doesn’t stick to his shithole. Like, Whatevs. Fore!
I haven’t seen a compelling argument for the Dems refusing to agree to a 30-day CR if they get 6 years of fully funded CHIP in return.
If it is true that DT tends to agree with the last person he spoke to, then this invitation to Schumer could work in our favor. I’ve seen it reported that DT actually likes Schumer…the brash New Yorker thing they have in common.
The hard part is believing DT will follow through with any agreement he makes.
messed up my blockquote tag, sorry.
Wouldn’t a 30 day CR expire in February? Doesn’t that put us in the same place as today, but with a better shot at getting a deal on DACA?
There is at least one poll showing that people blame the GOP by 20 points over the Dems. And it makes no sense anyway. Killing government is the GOP brand. Why would Dems not want the government to run?
More detail here.
Sigh: NRCC begins targeting Dems who voted against CR/children’s health bill last night. NRCC says it “will be a major campaign issue.” Targeting O’Halleran Bera Ruiz Loebsack Keating Kildee Nolan SeanPatrickMaloney Cartwright & PetersCA
Guess that’s part of their strategy. Seems lame to me.
This is a hard one for even the infrequent voter to buy into. Dems don’t want to spend money on a program? Yeah, right. If you are the GOP, you’re pushing against your own messaging here. It’s a waste of dollars. NO Dem-leaning person will buy it. Hell, we should probably encourage the GOP to spend as much on those ads as possible.
The New York Times, two minutes ago:
Senate Democrats Block Bill to Keep Government Open Past Midnight; Shutdown Looms No blame at all for Republicans. MSM loves the corporate and 1% tax cuts.