Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
It has been widely reported there are a large number of Republican congressmen and senators who say they disagree with their House leadership strategy, and who say they want to end the government shutdown.
But when it comes time to actually take a stand and put their votes
where their big mouths are, these mythical moderate Republicans are
always gutless wonders. Their votes rarely, if ever, materialize.
Democrats put forward a clean CR bill in the Senate on Saturday -- what these mythical moderate Republicans all say they are willing to vote for -- they could have voted to end the government shutdown today.
But these mythical moderate Republicans voted in lockstep with their Tea Party economic terrorist captors holding the GOP hostage, and in a classic case of Stockholm syndrome filibustered the Democratic clean CR bill. Just call them "Tania" from now on.
This was a critical lost opportunity. Voting to proceed to debate would have started the Senate's 30 hour rule for debate running so that the government could reopen early in the week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was open to amendments to fashion a compromise during debate. Instead, the clock is running down on the default bomb on October 17, and these gutless wonders are playing to run out the clock. Reid, McConnell begin bipartisan shutdown talks:
[T]he Senate, as expected, on Saturday rejected debate on a Democratic plan to raise the federal debt ceiling for more than a year with no strings attached. The party-line vote failed to meet the 60 vote threshold needed to hold a vote on the proposal. [i.e., a GOP filibuster]
* * *
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have launched discussions over a proposal to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown, after talks between House Republicans and President Obama reached an impasse.
Reid and McConnell met Saturday morning with Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a meeting that came at McConnell’s request, according to a source familiar with the talks.
The launching point for the discussions is a proposal by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling into early next year. The plan might also include minor modifications to the Affordable Care Act and budget changes that could appeal to members of both parties.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said Democrats want a longer increase in the debt limit than in the Collins plan — which authorizes borrowing until Jan. 31 — because her bill would “cast a pall over the holiday shopping season.”
Durbin said Democrats are also unhappy with the adjustments proposed to the new health-care law — which include a delay in a tax on medical devices and new auditing of federal subsidies for individuals who purchase health insurance through the program — but that talks continue to find some options that both parties can accept.
Still, no deal seemed imminent. Asked if lawmakers could reach agreement Saturday, Reid said, “I doubt it.”
Why are the Tea-Publican economic terrorists playing to run out the clock? Because when the timer on the default bomb runs down to zero and is set to detonate, President Obama loses his leverage because he is the only responsible adult in the room. Obama knows that the American public, rightly or wrongly, will blame the president if he allows this insurgency of Tea-Publican economic terrorists to kill the hostage, the U.S. and world economy.
The insurgency of Tea-Publican economic terrorists are genuinely willing to kill the hostage to get what they want. President Obama, on the other hand, cannot allow these economic terrorists to kill the hostage because detonation of the default bomb will be a catastrophic event for the U.S. and world economy. A U.S. Default Seen as a Catastrophe Dwarfing Lehman’s Fall. So the GOP believes Obama will "cave" to their extortionary hostage demands.
Should it comes down to this, it will mark the end of our democratic constitutional form of government in the United States. It will institute a regime of tyranny by the minority engaged in governing-by extortion and hostage taking as the new "norm" of American governance. The insurgency of Tea-Publican economic terrorists will have accomplished something that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda could only imagine in their wildest dreams -- destroying the American government.
"Boehner's Bumblers" have demonstrated that they are The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight in the House. There is no good reason to have any confidence that Boehner's Bumblers can deliver the necessary votes in the House. And the mythical moderate GOP senators in the Senate have yet to stand up and be counted.
Mistakes can happen. Things go wrong. The insurgency of Tea-Publican economic terrorists may run out of time to stop the default bomb from running down to zero and detonating, assuming they do not want to default, which is doubtful. Should that happen -- "your fault, my fault, nobody's fault" as John Wayne once said -- the American people are coming for you. You threatened America. You blew up the U.S. economy -- for the second time in five years. There is a price to be paid for your insurrection and rebellion, and your wanton destruction of the U.S. economy.
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