-
It's that time of year again - our ISP is asking for money. If you have some spare change, please click the Donate link... Thanks!
- About Us
- Search
- Need Help?
- Donate
- Login/Register
Latest Entries
Actions Menu
Blog Roll
- 4F Facebook Page
- Turn Up The Night with Kenny Pick
- Stephanie Miller Show
- The Tim Corrimal Show
- The Rachel Maddow Show
- Angry Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
- Thom Hartmann Program
- Turnips! Fans of Turn Up the Night Facebook Page
- Snopes.com
- Factcheck.org
- Official White House Page, if you must.
- The Brad Blog / Green News Report
- The Poorly Written Political Blog (Joe Santorsa)
Back to Work - for now
Author: BobR
Date: 2013-10-17 11:11:50
It's finally over. This national embarrasment and manufactured crisis was totally avoidable, yet avoiding it wasn't really in their plans. After all the failed bills, after all the posturing, after all the billions lost, we are right where we would have been had Speaker Boehner let a "clean" bill come to the floor back when he first had the opportunity.
The Senate passed the bi-partisan bill yesterday afternoon with a strong margin. It was truly bipartisan, thanks to several smart and level-headed women. Boehner knew his bluff had been called, so he laid down his cards and backed away from the table. The bill passed the House last night by a healthy margin.
The Republicans got none of what they wanted. The Democrats held strong in their demand that bills need to be passed, blocked, or revoked via standard means, not by budget or spending resolutions. Republicans so concerned about debt and deficits ended up costing us billions in lost productivity and tarnishing the gold standard of investing: T-bills.
It's not like this was accidental. This was the Republicans' plan all along:
What that means is that they prevented anyone else from bring a bill passed by the Senate up for a vote in an effort to avoid a shutdown. The parliamentary shenanigans worked, and the government shut down. As a result, thousands of people were suddenly without a paycheck. Republicans seemed surprised that when government shuts down, that means the stuff they like shuts down too, not just the EPA.
I think they were hoping that President Obama would try something to avert the shutdown and/or default, so they could accuse him of crimes against the Constitution and impeach him. President Obama is a little too smart to get tricked like that.
The downside of all this is that this kicks the can down the road for three months, so we can go through all this all over again. One of the requirements of this deal is that the House and Senate Dems and Reps sit down together and hash out something that's going to work by mid-December. I have my doubts as to whether that will actually happen.
In the meantime, we can finally stop talking about the shutdown and debt limit and once again focus on all the other things going in this country and world... You know - little things like a hurricane hitting the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
Hmmm - maybe I'd rather talk about Republicans and the budget.
The Senate passed the bi-partisan bill yesterday afternoon with a strong margin. It was truly bipartisan, thanks to several smart and level-headed women. Boehner knew his bluff had been called, so he laid down his cards and backed away from the table. The bill passed the House last night by a healthy margin.
The Republicans got none of what they wanted. The Democrats held strong in their demand that bills need to be passed, blocked, or revoked via standard means, not by budget or spending resolutions. Republicans so concerned about debt and deficits ended up costing us billions in lost productivity and tarnishing the gold standard of investing: T-bills.
It's not like this was accidental. This was the Republicans' plan all along:
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) recently revealed that House Republicans had changed a rule effectively allowing only Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) to end a looming government shutdown — but two weeks ago, it was Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who had the foresight to grill the Rules Committee chairman for what she called an “atrocity.”
In a clip that turned up online on Monday, Slaughter takes on Rule Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) after sensing that something didn’t smell right with the rule change.
The new rule allowed only Cantor or his designee to bring up Senate legislation for a vote if the Senate rejected a motion to work out the two chambers’ differences in conference committee.
What that means is that they prevented anyone else from bring a bill passed by the Senate up for a vote in an effort to avoid a shutdown. The parliamentary shenanigans worked, and the government shut down. As a result, thousands of people were suddenly without a paycheck. Republicans seemed surprised that when government shuts down, that means the stuff they like shuts down too, not just the EPA.
I think they were hoping that President Obama would try something to avert the shutdown and/or default, so they could accuse him of crimes against the Constitution and impeach him. President Obama is a little too smart to get tricked like that.
The downside of all this is that this kicks the can down the road for three months, so we can go through all this all over again. One of the requirements of this deal is that the House and Senate Dems and Reps sit down together and hash out something that's going to work by mid-December. I have my doubts as to whether that will actually happen.
In the meantime, we can finally stop talking about the shutdown and debt limit and once again focus on all the other things going in this country and world... You know - little things like a hurricane hitting the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
Hmmm - maybe I'd rather talk about Republicans and the budget.
