The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

[Rover]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Gee, he was such a "Jobs, jobs, jobs" Speaker. All those job bills he passed.

I like how people are trying to list his "accomplishments" and the one they came up with was No Child Left Behind! Its a miracle he lasted as long as he did, but again, nobody wanted the job.

PS - I see Paul Ryan isn't going to make a bid.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Frankly, I'm kind of worried by who's going to replace Boehner. He may come off as pretty far right, but I have a gut feeling that he actually held some of the derp in check behind the scenes.

The debate has been was the GOP House paralyzed because Boehner was powerless or was Boehner powerless because the GOP House was paralyzed. We're about to find out.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Oh I'm sure he did. I don't know who's leading the TP caucus with Bachmann gone, but imagine if that person had the role of Speaker.

Tim Huelskamp is the head of the TP Caucus in the House.

Here: have a taste.

Huelskamp appears in a controversial documentary, comparing gay rights to communism and saying gay marriage will bring the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Tim Huelskamp is the head of the TP Caucus in the House.

Here: have a taste.



Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

All you had to say was:
US Representative
GOP
Kansas

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

The Plan is starting to come together.

Next Monday afternoon, the Senate will vote on a "clean" stop-gap funding bill to keep government operating after October 1, a funding bill that includes Planned Parenthood money. Provided Mitch McConnell can keep presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Rand Paul bottled up, that bill should pass the Senate.

Then House Speaker John Boehner has to get to work on it, which is now complicated by his impending resignation. Thursday night, prior to his shocking announcement Friday morning, leadership cobbled together a plan—promising that they'll get a Planned Parenthood defunding bill on President Obama's desk to veto by using reconciliation, the budget tool that only requires 51 Senate votes. Now he just has to sell it, a matter that will be confused by his departure.

What happens is this: the real legislation will be the clean bill. Then there will be a separate measure saying various argle bargle about PP that allows the nutbars to save face back home, and which will make zero difference because Obama will veto it.

The True Believer hard core lunatics have been saying for weeks that they will not support this strategy because (and they are correct about this) it's just the establishment GOP throwing the movement goal (rolling back womens' reproductive rights) under the bus in exchange for weak sauce symbolism to keep the rubes mollified. Evidently those Members either don't know or don't care how democracies function, since there is no way for them to achieve their goals in a county where women and college graduates vote.

But there's also a secondary wing of Members who say all the nutbar stuff for the eejits back in the district, but who also can count and realize that stuff is just for show. They go along with The Plan, then go home and tell Ma and Pa Christianist that, heavens, they did their part by backing this strong pro-life measure and it woulda worked too if it hadn't been for that commie Muslin negro Obama.

Everybody wins. There's no shutdown, PP gets their money for non-abortion stuff, the GOP doesn't get blamed for a shutdown, and the True Believers get to do their martyr act and moan about the Second Coming.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Looks like it could come down to Kevin McCarthy (establishment) vs Jeb Hensarling (insurgency). Jim Jordan (chair of the ultra-nutbar Freedom Caucus) mostly getting mentioned in the same breath with things like "he's obnoxious and disliked".

A look at the Big Three.

Scalise is not a serious candidate, he's just included for bait. Supposedly Scalise would like to be Whip, which is ridiculous unless Jordan pulls it out, and Mark Meadows, the guy who set up the "guillotine motion" on Boehner, and who apparently Boehner tried to get primaried out, would like to be HML which is the Prince of Wales position.

[Rover]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

I think the scholarly and learned Kep has a good summary, but I'll quibble with one minor point. I don't think the Nutters are going to go away quietly at this point.

So, perhaps for this particular showdown, a clean CR will pass which I believe lasts until Dec 11th. Great, but what happens then? Or when the debt ceiling limit is hit? You can't keep putting the crazies off, especially in an election year. If McCarthy lets say follows this plan, he's going to be out on his a ss just as quick as the Boner resigned.

I don't see this ending well. Boner had a few things going for him. 1) he raised a ton of money for people, and money buys you some loyalty. 2) Nobody wanted the job as it was easier to just blast him while he was in it, but that's a moot point now that he quit. The problem the Republicans have, and the reason why the Trump + Carson combination is getting over 50% in the primary polls, is because of the perception of too much selling out by the GOP majority in Congress. I believe they're even less willing to tolerate selling out by a new leader than they were by the old one.

[walrus]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Frankly, I'm kind of worried by who's going to replace Boehner. He may come off as pretty far right, but I have a gut feeling that he actually held some of the derp in check behind the scenes.

boner was far right? tf f

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

So, perhaps for this particular showdown, a clean CR will pass which I believe lasts until Dec 11th.

The CR can last until the end of the current Congress (well, until the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2016 anyway) if they write it that way, and back in the summer there was talk of doing just that. The GOP establishment hope is that the TP was a racist reaction to the election of a black president (granted, one they helped create with their insane rhetoric) that got out of hand, and after The Unblackening it will peter out or at least recede back to the white supremacist wing who they can then carefully hide out of view while winking to, again.

Your December date might be the anticipated point at which the debt ceiling has to be raised again. There the hope is that the shenanigans last time educated enough people that raising the debt ceiling isn't spending money, it's just paying bills we've already accrued. But even with that, since this is politics the GOP establishment is divided between those who want to keep using it the create hostage crises and those who think it's so potentially destabilizing to the economy that they should just get rid of it entirely, the way the country ran for the first 200+ years. That latter split is basically social cons v corporate cons, and it will be interesting to learn whether the corporate cons still have the whip hand.

[Rover]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

The CR can last until the end of the current Congress (well, until the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2016 anyway) if they write it that way, and back in the summer there was talk of doing just that. The GOP establishment hope is that the TP was a racist reaction to the election of a black president (granted, one they helped create with their insane rhetoric) that got out of hand, and after The Unblackening it will peter out or at least recede back to the white supremacist wing who they can then carefully hide out of view while winking to, again.

I believe the Senate CR is until Dec 11th of this year which is why I brought it up. I'm not sure if the more conservative House would go along with a longer extension, but perhaps they will with Boner + Dems + other retiring Goopers pushing that over the line in order to save their party some turmoil. Problem is that will expire in the middle of election season, so it'll be real interesting to see what happens whenever this issue comes up again.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

I believe the Senate CR is until Dec 11th of this year which is why I brought it up.

That was Cochrane's amendment that was defeated. Note the language:

the legislation places a one-year prohibition on federal funding for Planned Parenthood or its affiliates unless such entities certify they will not perform or fund abortions. The bill redirects the estimated $235 million in mandatory savings to increase funding for community health centers.

That made it a dead letter.

Here's the box score -- it was formally Senate Amendment 2669 on House Joint Resolution 61, the (hold your nose) "Hire More Heroes Act of 2015," which is getting a real workout -- it was also the vehicle for the GOP posturing on the Iran deal.

It was tabled yesterday, after the 47-52 vote against.

Something cool I just learned: there's no legal or procedural difference between a joint resolution and a bill. It's just a matter of convention and history that each is used for different purposes.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

Double Post just because.

Holy ****.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/us...smtyp=cur&_r=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU

[GrinCDXX]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

All you had to say was:
US Representative
GOP
Kansas

Correction, all you had to say was US Representative, Kansas.

[Jimjamesak]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

When Don Young is a voice of reason, you have a problem...

[Slap Shot]

Re: The 114th Congress: How Low Can They Go?

I don't think Boehner stood up to the derps because their platform was part and parcel to his own. They will either wise up and go with a strong willed moderate or go full blown batchit crazy with his replacement. He will not be a replica of the Boneman.