Blog For Arizona

Putting party politics before country in the era of GOP post-policy nihilism

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It is well documented that the current 113th Congress is by far and away the "less-than-do-nothing Congress," surpassing its previous low-water mark in the 112th Congress for lack of legislative achievements in addressing the pressing needs of the American people. The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, has cemented his status in American history as the "Worst. Speaker. Ever."

The lack of response to the pressing needs of the American people by this Tea-Publican controlled Congress is not a bug but a feature. As Greg Sargent said last year, "a number of us on the left have been arguing that the GOP seems to be in the grip of a kind of “post-policy nihilism,” in which Republicans are no longer being guided by any real policy “asks,” and instead are chronically positioning themselves only in opposition to the president."

“[W]hat you’re seeing clearly demonstrated here is a kind of policy nihilism on the part of the GOP that helps explain why addressing the country’s problems has become all but impossible.”

Dave Weigel at Slate said "Call it Nihilist Populism: connecting with voters on the belief that government can't really do anything well, and that their mistrust is well-earned, and then prioritizing bills that make this statement over bills that can pass."

FAUX News military contributor would 'lead a coup against the U.S. government'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Tea Party leader, retired Army general and former Fox News contributor Paul Vallely, in a recently published video told the Surprise Tea Party Patriots that, if given the troops, he would lead a coup against the U.S. government. Retired Army General To Tea Party Group: I Would Lead A Coup Against The U.S. Government:

Vallely made his comments in a discussion with the Arizona-based [Surprise Tea Party Patriots] last December, a recording of which the website Right Wing Watch recently acquired. “I had a call this afternoon from Idaho, the gentleman said, ‘If I give you 250,000 Marines to go to Washington, will you lead them?’” Vallely, who was Fox News’ senior military analyst during the Iraq War, told the group. “I said, ‘Yes, I will, I’ll surround the White House and I’ll surround the Capitol building, but it’s going to take physical presence to do things.”

Video below the fold.

Iran and a host of intertwined problems

By Karl Reiner

On January 12, the P5+1 (the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany) and Iran reached agreement on a joint plan to freeze Iran's nuclear program for six months. The next more difficult step will be to negotiate a long-term agreement. Given the differences remaining between the positions of the parties, many skeptics don't think a final deal can be reached. Other analysts think the effort will

falter because Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not willing to give up the option to acquire nuclear weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't like any of it. He sees the talks as a major blunder, an Iranian stall to gain extra time.

There is growing support in Congress for placing additional sanctions on Iran. There are serious doubts about what Iranian President Rouhani can actually deliver. Not everyone believes he has a real mandate for change. There is a suspicion that he is the friendly face sent to shield the stall tactics of Iran's supreme leader. The move in the Senate to impose new sanctions does make President Obama look feeble. With Congress smugly failing to acknowledge the agreements that have been reached so far, President Obama is seen by Iran's hardliners as not being in control of his foreign policy. In this tension filled environment, Iran's policy of non-recognition and hostility toward Israel doesn't help matters.

Government Watchdog: NSA spy program is illegal and should be shut down

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The big story today is that the independent federal privacy watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. No shit!

I said that back in 2005 when the New York Times first revealed the secret spy program of the Bush-Cheney regime. Congress, rather than impeach the Bush-Cheney regime for the most extensive violations of the U.S. Constitution ever, passed laws ex post facto to make the existing illegal spy program "legal" and to give it the imprimatur of congressional approval. The telecommunications companies that cooperated with the illegal spy program were given immunity from civil liability. "Nothing to see here, move along."

The New York Times reports today, Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End:

The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.

The report is likely to inject a significant new voice into the debate over surveillance, underscoring that the issue was not settled by a high-profile speech President Obama gave last week. Mr. Obama consulted with the board, along with a separate review group that last month delivered its own report about surveillance policies. But while he said in his speech that he was tightening access to the data and declared his intention to find a way to end government collection of the bulk records, he said the program’s capabilities should be preserved.

The Obama administration has portrayed the bulk collection program as useful and lawful while at the same time acknowledging concerns about privacy and potential abuse. But in its report, the board lays out what may be the most detailed critique of the government’s once-secret legal theory behind the program: that a law known as Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the F.B.I. to obtain business records deemed “relevant” to an investigation, can be legitimately interpreted as authorizing the N.S.A. to collect all calling records in the country.

The program “lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value,” the report said. “As a result, the board recommends that the government end the program.”

CAP's latest assault on the constitutional right of privacy in health care decisions of Arizona women

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On the opening day of the Arizona Legislature this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Arizona's appeal from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the legislature's 20-week abortion ban as unconstitutional. The source of this anti-choice bill, Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), vowed to retaliate against Arizona women. Arizona cannot enforce abortion ban, Supreme Court rules:

Herrod signaled that her organization, which has been at the forefront of pushing lawmakers here to enact more restrictions on abortion, is not done yet.

"We are already taking the next steps to protect women and their pre-born children from the dangerous and deadly practices of the abortion industry," she said, promising details in the coming days.

One of CAP's foot soldiers in the Arizona Legislature, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Peoria), is the sponsor of HB 2284 (.pdf) which would, among other provisions, allow for the Christian Taliban to make unannounced "inspections" of abortion clinics to harass and intimidate abortion service providers and their patients. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Anti-abortion bill would permit unannounced inspections of clinics:

A Peoria lawmaker has introduced an anti-abortion bill that would allow health inspectors to examine clinics unannounced. The bill also would make it a crime to circumvent the state’s parental consent law.

The bill, HB 2284, introduced Thursday by Rep. Debbie Lesko, also requires abortion clinics to report whether an infant survived a procedure and what steps doctors took to save it.

The legislature's attempt to defund Planned Parenthood before the U.S. Supreme Court

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last November the state of Arizona petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down the Arizona legislature's attempt to defund Planned Parenthood of Arizona as a family planning service under Medicaid (AHCCCS) on the specious argument that it also separately provides for abortion services. Providing funding to the family planning services side of Planned Parenthood allegedly "indirectly" subsidizes the separately maintained and accounted for abortion services of Planned Parenthood.

State and federal law have long prohibited public funding of abortions, hence the separation of services and separate accounting by Planned Parenthood. Should the state of Arizona succeed on its specious claim, many areas of the state would lose family planning services because Planned Parenthood is the only provider in those areas. Planned Parenthood also provides wellness services for such things as cancer screening for cervical and breast cancers, and a host of other services. In effect, the Arizona legislature, at the behest of Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), would deny low income Arizona women access to basic health care and family planning services.

The case is Tom Betlach, Director, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, et al., v. Planned Parenthood Arizona, Inc., et al. (Docket 13-621). A responsive brief was due on January 21, 2014.

The troubling trend in Afghanistan

By Karl Reiner

Since 2002, the U.S. has spent $100 billion on nonmilitary aid in Afghanistan, a country considered by many analysts to be the most corrupt nation on earth. Despite the massive amount of aid, Afghan state institutions remain fragile and ineffectual, they do not provide good governance, deliver basic services or provide security. The country ranks near the bottom for GDP per capita income, life expectancy and electricity usage. Although more roads and schools have been built, the Taliban destroys around 100 schools per year. With a population of approximately 30 million, Afghanistan has an unemployment rate of 35%, it is the world's largest producer of opium.

Because Afghan government services are mostly imperceptible in the countryside, Afghanistan is becoming a defining study on how not to give aid. A sizeable part of the aid appears to have been wasted or siphoned off. Planning is said to be poor. The dangerous security situation makes contract oversight difficult allowing cunning contractors and their benefactors to take advantage of the chancy situation. Although the U.S. has spent an additional $51 billion to train the Afghan military since 2002, the local military and police forces are still having difficulty operating on their own. The literacy rate in the Afghan military is around 14%. This impediment makes it tough to perform tasks such as maintaining equipment, reading maps, providing logistics, communications, medical and intelligence support.

The GOP wrecking crew is sabotaging the economy out of partisanship

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You likely have heard by now that the Senate GOP filibustered extended unemployment insurance benefits for the long-term unemployment on a straight party-line vote, 55-45. You should note than in an actual democracy, this bill passed with 55 votes. Negotiations to extend jobless benefits deadlock in Senate. Brad Plumer explains 7 reasons why Congress’s failure to extend unemployment insurance matters.

This is part of a broader partisan strategy by the GOP wrecking crew to sabotage the economy out of partisanship. They believe that if the economy is still struggling in November -- due largely to GOP austerity economic measures and their failure to pass a single jobs bill since taking over in 2011 -- low information voters will blame the president and his party rather than the Tea-Publican economic terrorists who have been sabotaging the economy at every turn.

That's right, the same assholes who blew up our financial system and economy in 2008 with their faith based supply-side "trickle down" economics and then engaged in unprecedented obstruction, and held the country hostage time and again to their extortionary economic terrorist demands ever since, expect to be rewarded by low information voters for their insurrection against the federal government and economic terrorism against the American people. A classic Stockholm syndrome.

Points to ponder as we glide into the New Year

By Karl Reiner

August 2014 will mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. The war to end all wars did not end war, it was the starting point for the turmoil that led to World War II. The year 1914 began with a sense of self-assuredness and hope in a Europe where colonialism was an accepted fact of life. Peace had reigned for 40 years, communications were improving and trade was on the increase. Advances in medicine and sanitation were having an effect, living standards were on the rise. Economic ties were thought to deter conflict, Germany and the United Kingdom were each other's largest trading partners. Some observers  saw a problem, they believed the European powers were spending too much on armaments.

The European nations were also facing surges of socialism, nationalism and labor unrest intermingled with hefty doses of communism and anarchism. Although there had been limited conflicts in the Balkans, the people of Europe believed their leaders would be able to keep things under control. Germany and England were in race to build more warships. Russia, bruised from setbacks in the Balkans and the loss of the 1904-05 war with Japan, was stoking nationalism. France remained bitter and vengeful for the drubbing it had received from the Germans in 1871. Germany, unified by Bismarck, was no longer bound by his restraint. It sought empire and world respect.

Senate war mongers want to get their war on with Iran

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

After all the blood and treasure this country has expended in America's longest war in Afghanistan, and the unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq, there is still a bipartisan coalition of U.S. senators who dream of the next war with Iran.

They won't fight this war of course; and neither will their children. They will send your sons and daughters to die in a war that will drag on at least as long, if not longer, than Afghanistan. And when the inevitable retaliatory terrorist attacks occur, well, that will just serve as a rallying cry for more war. Because there is big money to be made in war, damnit! These senate war mongers want to get their war on with Iran. The fact that this includes Democrats is enraging.

These senators are actively seeking to sabotage the current P5+1 negotiations currently under way with Iran. This is how the Washington Post reported it, Senators defy White House, threaten new Iran sanctions:

A bipartisan group of 26 senators introduced legislation Thursday that threatened new sanctions against Iran, dismissing warnings from the White House that such a move could scuttle efforts to peacefully resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.

The bill, called the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, drew a rebuke from the Obama administration and highlighted deep divisions among Senate Democrats on whether to heap new pressures on Tehran’s government while sensitive diplomacy is underway.

Hours after the bill’s introduction, a separate group of senior Democrats revealed in a letter that U.S. intelligence agencies had cautioned lawmakers in private briefings about the consequences of new sanctions. A Dec. 10 intelligence assessment had concluded that new punitive measures would “undermine the prospects for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran,” according to the letter, signed by 10 Democrats.

The 'less-than-less-than-do-nothing' 113th Congress

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The 112th Tea-Publican controlled Congress (2011-2012) was worse than the "do nothing" Republican 80th Congress, securing the title of the "less-than-do-nothing" Congress. So what did voters do? They rewarded these do-nothing slackers by sending them back to Congress.

And what do you get when you reward do-nothing slackers? The 113th Tea-Publican controlled Congress (2013-2014) is historically the "Worst, Congress. Ever." -- it is now the "less-than-less-than-do-nothing" Congress. Why are we paying these people? Steve Benen reports, Giving new meaning to 'Do-Nothing' Congress:

[T]he grand total of bills signed into law in the 113th Congress [is] … 58. As Billy House noted this morning, that’s not an especially impressive number.

If you thought Congress hit rock-bottom in terms of how many laws they enacted last session, check out the current House and Senate.

Congress will close the year with 58 public bills (the congressional term for measures with broad impact) enacted into law, assuming that President Obama signs the budget deal as promised. They may add a few to that in the last few days of the year. But it won’t change substantially.

That’s the lowest one-year output since at least 1947, and only the tiniest fraction of the 6,366 bills introduced by lawmakers, according to House and Senate records.

The historic metrics are rather striking: 2013 was the least productive for any Congress since clerks on the Hill started keeping track, and this Congress is on track to pass fewer laws than any modern Congress.

The Tea-Publican economic terrorist are already plotting the next debt ceiling hostage taking

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Beltway media villagers were tripping all over themselves on Sunday to lavish praise on the GOP's alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan (R-WI), for his "pragmatic" budget compromise with Democrats. You would think it was the dawn of a new bipartisan era of cooperation where long-delayed legislation like a jobs bill and a comprehensive immigration reform bill were suddenly possible.

I can't believe how stone-cold stupid the Beltway media villagers are. First of all, the Senate still has to pass the House budget this week, which is not at all a certaintly. And then comes the appropriations committee process where Democrats and Tea-Publicans will square off over farm bill subsidies, food stamps and an extension of long-term unemployment insurance benefits, just to name a few.

Secondly, there is no "dawn of a new bipartisian era" -- this is the GOP 2014 election strategy to become the "Anti-ObamaCare" single issue party. Ryan on Sunday defended his budget deal to avert a government shutdown, saying that it would allow the Republican Party to "focus" on destroying President Barack Obama's health care reform law. Paul Ryan: Averting shutdown with budget deal allows GOP to 'focus' on killing Obamacare . That sounds like the same old bunch of dead-enders to me.

Tea-Publican Tyranny in Michigan: Women need to buy separate 'rape insurance' from their healthcare plan

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The beta testing lab for Tea-Publican tyranny in America is Michigan. Tea-Publicans have used a financial emergency manager law to dissolve democratically elected city governments and school districts, and impose a dictator financial manager appointed by and answerable only to the governor. Democracy exists in name only in Michigan.

Tea-Publicans have starved the city of Detroit of state revenue sharing and forced into a Chapter 9 bankruptcy liquidation as a means of "legally" breaching a constitutionally mandated guarantee to public employee pensioners and looting their retirement security.

And this actually happened last week: the Michigan state legislature passed a bill that requires women to buy separate coverage for abortion if they want to have coverage for it at all, dubbed "rape insurance" by opponents. In Michigan, the meaning of 'rape insurance':

Michigan, State. Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, was not backing down.

For those you who want to act aghast that I’d use a term like “rape insurance” to describe the proposal here in front of us, you should be even more offended that it’s an absolutely accurate description of what this proposal requires. This tells women that were raped and became pregnant that they should have bought special insurance for it. By moving forward on this initiative, Senate Republicans want to essentially require Michigan women to plan ahead and financially invest in healthcare coverage for potentially having their bodies violated and assaulted. Even worse, it would force parents to have similar and unthinkably terrible discussions about planning the same for their daughters. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: This is by far one of the most misogynistic proposals I’ve ever seen in the Michigan legislature.

The hopeful and problematic negotiations with Iran

By Karl Reiner

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany reached a preliminary agreement on November 23 in Geneva. Iran will curb its nuclear program for six months in exchange for the dropping of some sanctions. Secretary of State Kerry and Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif have worked to put things on a new course, attempting to end 34 years of mutual hostility. Events have been helped along by Iran's President Rouhani, a regime insider experienced in security and diplomacy. A pragmatic conservative, he considers engagement important to the survival of the Islamic Republic. Rouhani has gained the support of the reformists who want to break Iran's isolation. With the people in charge in Washington and Tehran interested in moving forward, the talks have a chance of succeeding.

It will not be easy because Iran is an Islamic theocracy, dominated by clerics who watch over the functions of the state. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, does not necessarily agree with the reformists, but has been forced by sanctions to negotiate. Ayatollah Khamenei comes from the hardline right, all aspects of the country's ideological and political life ultimately come under his control. Rouhani, a trusted member of his inner circle, has his backing. Because Khamenei supports the negotiation effort, the response from the Revolutionary Guards and other hardline groups has been muted. The official line being coordinated by the supreme leader's office says that sanctions didn't force the talks. Iran has seen signs that the U.S. is changing its hostile policies and Iran is responding.

The military-industrial complex and the establishment media reject diplomacy with Iran

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisienhower warned Americans against in Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation, needs an enemy -- real or imagined -- to justify the trillions of dollars spent on national security and defense.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) prepares an annual series of reports on international defense spending, The Military Balance 2013 (subscriber-only). In its press release, Military Balance 2013 Press Statement | IISS, the IISS notes that while "the Pentagon was already implementing cuts of $487 billion over ten years, and as a result of sequestration will now need to make additional reductions of $600bn over ten years," . . . "It needs to be remembered, however, that the defense budget of the United States still equals that of the next 14 nations combined (Bar Chart) and the United States still intends to remain engaged globally."

Then there is the establishment media, led by the Washington Post, which is home to Neocons who believe in a Pax Americana empire through military superiority and global domination. The establishment media serves to create the narratives for crises and conflicts and enemies of the United States to maintain taxpayer funding to the military-industrial complex, as well as U.S. interventions abroad. War and the threats of war are big business, and has made a lot of people extremely wealthy.

The military-industrial complex and the establishment media have a vested financial interest in maintaining wars and the threats of wars. If peace were to break out, they could no longer justify the trillions of dollars spent on national security and defense ans marketing war.

Which brings me to the breakthrough deal brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry and our allies with Iran late Saturday. After 34 years of a "cold war" between the U.S. and Iran, this rapprochement of diplomatic relations was long overdue. Iran, six world powers reach historic deal on nuclear program.

Fact Check: AFP's 'Pants on Fire' ad about 'ObamaCare'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The "Kochtopus" organization Americans For Prosperity is running ads in Southern Arizona against Rep. Ron Barber that begins with some innocuous blonde speaking in a concerned voice about how Americans don't like political ads (it is a political ad!) and saying "health care isn't about politics, it's about people." Ahhh, isn't that special.

Remember, this is from the "Kochtopus" organization Americans For Prosperity -- far-right radical politics is all they do, and the "Kochtopus" doesn't give a damn about you or your health care.

In fact, AFP wants to repeal "ObamaCare" which would kick millions of Americans off of health insurance that they did not have before "ObamaCare," and millions of seniors would lose new benefits they received under Medicare. Millions more working poor would be kicked off expanded Medicaid in states like Arizona without the federal funds.

The ad makes three specific claims:

>> "Millions of people have lost their health insurance": This is objectively FALSE. The ad is conflating the recent cancellation notices for substandard insurance policies with "losing insurance," but these policy holders are being offered other plans, or can purchase a plan from the Marketplace health insurance exchange. The key provision of "ObamaCare" is that individuals cannot be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or hitting an annual cap or lifetime cap on benefits.

The GOP Playbook - 'Whine Fest 2014'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

For the third election cycle in a row, the GOP has decided that it will run against "ObamaCare." It is now a single-issue party fixated on denying millions of needy Americans access to affordable health care. In fact, the GOP would kick millions of Americans off of health insurance who now have it as a result of "ObamaCare" and return to the status quo of the old broken health care system. The only health care alternative offered by the GOP is "perhaps you should die, and decrease the surplus population."

The modern-day Tea-Publican Party has become a sociopathic political party that lacks empathy, compassion and humanity for their fellow human beings, and rejects The Social Contract embodied in the Constitution ("to promote the general welfare") on which this country has collectively advanced for over 200 years. It has devolved into “post-policy nihilism,” in which Tea-Publicans are no longer guided by any real policy, but instead are chronically positioning themselves only in opposition to President Obama.

The New York Times reported on Thursday, G.O.P. Maps Out Waves of Attacks Over Health Law:

The memo distributed to House Republicans this week was concise and blunt, listing talking points and marching orders: “Because of Obamacare, I Lost My Insurance.” “Obamacare Increases Health Care Costs.” “The Exchanges May Not Be Secure, Putting Personal Information at Risk.” “Continue Collecting Constituent Stories.”

The document, the product of a series of closed-door strategy sessions that began in mid-October, is part of an increasingly organized Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Republican strategists say that over the next several months, they intend to keep Democrats on their heels through a multilayered, sequenced assault.

The idea is to gather stories of people affected by the health care law — through social media, letters from constituents, or meetings during visits back home — and use them to open a line of attack, keep it going until it enters the public discourse and forces a response, then quickly pivot to the next topic.

Harry Reid invokes the 'constitutional option' to end the filibuster and to restore principles of constitutional democracy

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. 

The Founding Fathers thoroughly considered super-majority voting and rejected it in favor of a simple majority vote. So for all those so-called Constitutional conservatives who claim to believe in "originalism" out there, the Senate cloture rule, i.e. the filibuster, is not provided for in the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers identifed limited circumstances where a super-majority vote is required in the Constitution: conviction for impeachment in the Senate (Article 1, Section 3); expulsion of a member of a house of Congress (Article 1, Section 5); overriding a presidential veto (Article 1, Section 7); ratification of a treaty by the Senate (Article 2, Section 2); passing a constitutional amendment by Congress (Article 5); calling a constitutional convention by state legislatures (Article 5); ratifying a constitutional amendment by the states (Article 5).

Later amendments included restoring the ability of certain Confederate rebels to serve in the government (14th Amendment); approval of the removal of the president from his position after the vice president and cabinet approve removal and the president contests removal (25th Amendment).

The Senate cloture rule, i.e., the filibuster, was "inadvertently" created by the Senate in 1806. Political scientist Sarah Binder testified before the Senate in 2010 about the origin of the filibuster, with its Founding Father as the outgoing Vice President, Aaron Burr.

Binder said Burr told the Senate in 1805 that it should eliminate a rule that automatically cut off floor debate, called the previous question motion, because he thought it wasn’t needed.

“So when Aaron Burr said ‘get rid of the previous question motion,’ the Senate didn’t think twice. When they met in 1806, they dropped the motion from the Senate rule book,” she said.

The first Senate filibuster took place in 1837, so it took the Senate about 31 years to refine the procedure. But the name “filibuster” wasn’t used to describe the tactic until 1863 in the Senate.

The filibuster had been used sparingly over the years, until recent years when the anti-government insurrectionist Tea-Publican Party made the filibuster a "weapon of mass destruction" to destroy the federal government, requiring the 60 vote threshold for even the most routine and mundane business of the Senate. The Senate has been rendered entirely dysfunctional by paralysis from the insurrectionist Tea-Publican abuse of the Senate filibuster -- directly undermining the principles of constitutional democracy.

(Update) Hey, hysterical media villagers! 'ObamaCare' is working where the GOP is not sabotaging it

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In all the media hysteria over the rollout of "ObamaCare," the feckless media villagers always leave out three predicate facts: Chief Justice John Roberts created the Medicaid opt-out with his poorly considered legal opinion upholding the constitutionality of "ObamaCare," opening the door to partisan mischief; second, said partisan mischief did occur with Red State Tea-Publicans refusing to expand Medicaid and denying more than 5 million desperate Americans access to health care; and third, Red State Tea-Publicans refused to set up their own state-run Marketplace insurance exchanges, creating the need for a complex federal system not contemplated. GOP sabotage should be included in every report.

As for all the unhinged media hysteria, Paul Begala at CNN writes Chill: Obamacare snafus are fixable:

[D]espite the bed-wetting from Beltway Chicken Littles, the President's problems are eminently fixable. The Affordable Care Act isn't collapsing. The Obama presidency isn't imploding.

Similarly, Ed Kilgore at the Democratic Strategist looks at the polling that media villagers are so enamored with, and writes in Polling Panic:

What does it all mean? Probably that most people aren't breathlessly following events in Washington other than to register their heat and noise.

Democrats didn't win the 2014 elections in October and they aren't losing them in November. It's time to chill a bit.

So chill out, media villagers. The sky is not falling despite your best efforts to recklessly and irresponsibly panic the public.

A constitutional crisis: time for 'nuclear winter' in the U.S. Senate

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In blocking Judge Robert L. Wilkins’s nomination on Monday, Senate Tea-Publicans denied President Obama his third pick in recent weeks to fill one of the vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, second in importance to the U.S. Supreme Court. Another Obama Court Nominee Blocked by G.O.P.:

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked President Obama’s third consecutive nominee to the country’s most powerful and prestigious appeals court and insisted they would not back down, inflaming a bitter debate over a president’s right to shape the judiciary.

By a vote of 53 to 38, the Senate failed to break a filibuster of Robert L. Wilkins, a federal judge who was nominated to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, falling seven votes short of the 60 needed. Two Republicans — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted with the Democrats.

The impasse over Mr. Wilkins followed Republican blockades of two other candidates for the court since Oct. 31. Unlike previous fights over judicial nominees, the dispute is not as much about the judges’ individual political leanings as it is about the overall ideological makeup of the court. Republicans have raised few objections to the three candidates’ qualifications or legal positions.

Rather, Republicans are seeking to prevent Mr. Obama from filling any of the three existing vacancies on the 11-seat court, fearing that he will alter its conservative tilt. The court has immense political importance because it often rules on questions involving White House and federal agency policy.

Democrats accused Republicans of exercising a nakedly political double standard for confirming presidential nominees.

“Appointing judges to fill vacant judicial seats is not court-packing,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said Monday. “It’s a president’s right as well as his duty.”

Once again, Barber and Sinema fail a gut check vote

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The recent media hysteria over "if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it" is all about ignoring sound public policy for "gotcha" political gamesmanship. That's all the Beltway media villagers and pundits care about. It's always a political game of meaningless polls and election speculation for these effin' idiots, they are too damned ignorant to comprehend complex public policy. The corporate media is complicit in the failure of effective government, and aids and abets those who seek to undermine government.

Let's be clear: the elimination of substandard health insurance policies that provide no real coverage and leave the insured vulnerable to medical costs in the event of a serious injury or illness that can leave them bankrupt is not a bug but a feature of the ACA. The policy was designed to eliminate these fraudulent insurance policies from predator insurers. The "grandfather" clause for these substandard policies gave these predator insurers until 2015 to sell their fraudulent product, but many of them used the ACA as a ready excuse to cancel these fraudulent policies now, blame it on "ObamaCare," and upsell their policy holders into more expensive policies without advising them that a less expensive policy may be available from that insurer, or available on the Marketplace insurance exchange. Predators do not inform their marks, or send them to their competitors.

All the media hysteria in favor of predatory insurers and the broken health care system status quo that existed prior to the ACA has created so much background noise that it encouraged Tea-Publicans to engage in further sabotage of the ACA, and made Democratic squishes go soft on sound public policy.

Dean Baker on the media hysteria over 'If you like your insurance, you can keep it'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Dean Baker has a must-read post at the Huffington Post for all those panicky Democrats in Congress -- and also Bill Clinton -- who care more about the politics of elections than getting public policy right on health care. The media focus should be on the regulation of predatory insurers engaged in consumer fraud, not on a campaign pledge President Obama made. The media is giving these predatory insurers a pass. The Obama Pledge on Keeping Your Insurance:

President Obama has been getting a lot of grief in the last few weeks over his pledge that with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place, people would be able to keep their insurance if they like it. The media have been filled with stories about people across the country who are having their insurance policies terminated, ostensibly because they did not meet the requirements of the ACA. While this has led many to say that Obama was lying, there is much less here than meets the eye.

First, it is important to note that the ACA grand-fathered all the individual policies that were in place at the time the law was enacted. This means that the plans in effect at the time that President Obama was pushing the bill could still be offered even if they did not meet all the standards laid out in the ACA.

The plans being terminated because they don't meet the minimal standards were all plans that insurers introduced after the passage of the ACA. Insurers introduced these plans knowing that they would not meet the standards that would come into effect in 2014. Insurers may not have informed their clients at the time they sold these plans that they would not be available after 2014 because they had designed a plan that did not comply with the ACA. [i.e., consumer fraud]

However if the insurers didn't tell their clients that the new plans would only be available for a short period of time, the blame would seem to rest with the insurance companies, not the ACA. After all, President Obama did not promise people that he would keep insurers from developing new plans that will not comply with the provisions of the ACA.

Little Lindsey Graham throws a hissy fit over Benghazi!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Senator John McCain's puppet boy, Little Lindsey Graham, is threatening to hold up all executive branch nominees until he gets yet another hearing on Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! (Psst! Lindsey -- the White House already agreed to it.)

This smarmy little shit is facing a primary challenge from a pair of teabaggers for his Senate seat, so he is using the U.S. Senate as his personal playground for his reelection campaign to appeal to the GOP crazy base. The needs of the country be damned.

If anyone deserves to lose his seat in 2014, it is this smarmy little shit. (Bonus: with his puppet boy gone, John McCain will have lost his last BFF, and has no reason to hang around any longer.)

So now that the Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! conspiracy theory has blown up in the face of CBS News and 60 Minutes today, Little Lindsey Graham is suddenly silent. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo reports, Graham Goes Silent:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was hogwild about the now-discredited 60 Minutes blockbuster in which fabricator-security contractor Dylan Davies recounted his nonexistent exploits the night of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi more than a year ago. But after CBS finally retracted the story this morning (after dragging its collective heels for a week), Graham is now declining to discuss the story or the retraction.

The Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! conspiracy theory falls apart

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have been following this story for the past couple of weeks, and today the Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! conspiracy theory fell apart. CBS News, which has gone to hell in a handbasket ever since Scott Pelley took over the anchor desk, in my opinion, will have Lara Logan apologize on 60 Minutes for the sensationalist Benghazi report that had the conservative media entertainment complex all in a lather.

Steve Benen reports, CBS backs off unraveling Benghazi tale:

It’s been nearly two weeks since CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a report that caused considerable excitement from Benghazi conspiracy theorists. Though much of the report, a full year in the making, covered familiar ground, the segment also highlighted an alleged witness to the attack, who said he scaled a 12-foot wall, beat an al Qaeda fighter with the butt of his rifle, and personally saw Ambassador Chris Stevens’ body.

The man’s name is Dylan Davies – he used a pseudonym on “60 Minutes” for no apparent reason – and he has a book coming out about his Benghazi experience, published by a CBS-owned company that releases far-right books from conservative personalities.

Almost immediately, Davies’ story started to unravel – he’d previously told his employers he was nowhere near the U.S. consulate during the attack. Making matters worse, Davies told the FBI the opposite of what he’d told “60 Minutes.” By earlier this week, the defense was that Davies lied before, but the public should neverthless believe his dramatic tale that makes him look like a hero.

The CBS reporters involved with the story continued to defend it anyway, brushing off broad criticism as politically motivated, and insisting that their segment was accurate. On last week’s edition of “60 Minutes,” the show featured feedback from viewers who cheered the segment, but made no mention of the burgeoning controversy.

That posture collapsed last night. The CBS program said about 12 hours ago that it had “learned of new information that undercuts the account” from their alleged witness. Soon after, “60 Minutes” pulled the segment from its website.

October Jobs report better than expected after GOP shutdown

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The GOP government Shutdown cost $2 billion in lost productivity, report finds. Send the bill to the RNC and every Tea-Publican in Congress.

The GOP government Shutdown furloughs will warp jobs report and economic picture for the month of October:

[T]he 16-day government shutdown last month will skew that picture when October’s numbers are released Friday.

The shutdown forced hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors out of work while Congress and the White House worked on a deal to fund federal operations, which means temporary impacts that could create a mirage of worsening conditions.

New Report: The GOP war on the working class

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Red State lawmakers have been systematically stripping away labor and wage standards, according to a new research report. Report: There’s a movement to unwind state wage and labor standards:

Rules have been enacted to prevent minimum wage hikes and mandated paid sick leave, while others have made it harder to recover unpaid wages or collect unemployment benefits.

“This is coordinated and national,” the report’s author, University of Oregon professor Gordon Lafer, said during a Thursday morning panel unveiling the report. It was produced for the Economic Policy Institute, which focused on the needs of low- and middle-income workers, and where Lafer is a research associate.

The paper explores a series of free-market policies pursued or enacted in 2011 and 2012. Four states limited the minimum wage or at least to whom it applied, another four made it easier for children to work and 16 imposed new limits on unemployment benefits.

Some states pursued legislation that would make it harder for employees to collect overtime or recover wages that hadn’t been paid. And others also passed or pursued laws that restricted the rights of local governments to set their own standards. In Florida, for example, an Orange County movement to require paid sick leave was quashed when the state passed a law prohibiting counties and cities from enacting such measures.

The report represents a shift from EPI’s typically wonky fare. It ascribes a narrative, supported by research, to a recent policy trend: wage and labor deregulation, driven by the agenda of a set of national pro-business groups.

“The most powerful corporate lobbies in the country are working across the country in every state legislature and on almost every dimension of the labor market to lower wages and benefits,” Lafer said on Thursday.

The mythical moderate Republicans repudiate themselves

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Remember how the Beltway media villagers told us that the so-called "moderate Republicans" had stepped up to be the adults in the room and repudiate the Tea Party economic terrorists holding the country hostage by passing a CR budget and raising the federal debt ceiling? The media villagers all told us that we should praise these so-called "moderate Republicans" for standing up and doing the right thing for the country (at the last possible moment).

Well, this week the mythical moderate Republicans decided to repudiate themselves for having been the adults in the room. They took it all back in a resolution (which has no force of law). Insanity.

Charles Pierce at Esquire mocks the mythical moderate Republicans in The Reign Of Morons: Absurdity In The Senate:

There was an act of absurdity in the U.S. Senate yesterday -- There were 27 Republican senators who voted "symbolically" to repudiate their own actual votes a couple of weeks ago to raise the debt ceiling. This is every single Republican who voted to raise the debt ceiling. It is important to know this because the ranks of the repudiators include notable "moderates" like Kelly Ayotte and our reasonable friend from South Carolina, Huckleberry J. Butchmeup. This is important to know because of the simple fact that, for pure, sweaty, bowel-whitening fear, there is no such thing as a Republican "moderate" any more. They are all terrified, at one level or another, of empowered and weaponized insanity.

You may recall that John Kerry once was lampooned from hell to breakfast for having voted for something before he was against it. Haw, haw. These clowns, because they live in terror of billionaires who write checks, and angry shut-ins who buy gold from Glenn Beck, and costumed clowns in tricornered hats, just did something far beyond anything Kerry ever did. They voted to apologize to those very forces for having been responsible enough to keep the United States from defaulting on its fiscal obligations. This may well have been the silliest vote ever taken in the history of the United States Senate, and that is saying something, indeed.

'Phil A. Buster' must die

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The other day, Ryan Cooper wrote at the Washington Post's Wonkblog, The filibuster must die. He is absolutely right.

The Septegenarian Ninja Turtle, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has once again reneged on his agreement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from earlier this year that tweaked the Senate filibuster rules for executive department nominees, and led to a brief respite from GOP abuse of the filibuster rules for these nominees.

After the Tea-Publicans suffered a humiliating defeat and surrender of their hostage taking strategy on the CR budget and full faith annd credit of the United States, the Septegenarian Ninja Turtle has returned to his old ways of rendering the U.S. Senate a dysfuntional institution incapable of basic governing.

Steve Benen writes, GOP pushes Senate to breaking point:

In July, with Senate Democrats prepared to execute the “nuclear option,” the chamber reached an agreement that calmed the waters. Indeed, at the time, it seemed like quite a breakthrough for routine governance – the Senate was allowed to hold confirmation votes, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was allowed to function, the EPA was allowed to get a new chief, and the National Labor Relations Board was allowed to go back to work.

It was nice while it lasted.

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) calls out GOP hypocrisy at 'ObamaCare' oversight hearing

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Brian Beutler at Salon explains how Conservatives -- with no concern for making healthcare better -- have made arguing about Obamacare a waste of time:

As always, though, the point of the complaints isn’t to address and rectify problems, but rather to deploy them as subterfuge to wreck the entire reform edifice.

* * *

Conservatives only care about these problems insofar as they can be used to trash or undermine the law in its entirety. That’s why they never, ever mention any of the millions of people who will or are already benefiting from the law. If they did, they’d have to entertain solutions to these problems that don’t essentially kick a tent pole out from underneath the system.

The disruption we’re seeing in the individual insurance market is mostly by design. And it’s mostly a good thing. Until October, the individual market existed to sell insurance to people who needed it least. Rates were low for healthy people precisely because their old, sick neighbors were priced or locked out of the system. They were also low because many of the policies on the market didn’t actually fulfill the function of insurance, which is to hedge against financial catastrophe.

Obamacare eliminates each of these enormous flaws by 1) regulating insurance so that it covers lots of stuff and genuinely protects people from medical bankruptcy, 2) making plans available and affordable to the ill and elderly by banning price discrimination against sick people, and only allowing insurers to charge the elderly three times as much as the young for equivalent coverage, 3) providing subsidies to the poor and middle class to make coverage affordable.

* * *

[Conservatives'] tremendous outpouring of grief for young, middle-class people now comes couched in the false premise that the only available solution is complete repeal. You could counter that by any moral standard the system the Affordable Care Act creates is preferable to the one we had before[.]

Immigration reform held hostage by Tea-Publican egotists who want to be president

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Remember this bit of sacriligious pretentiousness from earlier this year?

Things have been on a downhill slide for Senator Marco "Big Gulp" Rubio ever since he lent his name to the Senate "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill. He was AWOL during the recent Tea-Publican economic terrorist hostage taking of the federal debt ceiling and GOP government shutdown, which allowed Senator Joe McCarthy Ted "Calgary" Cruz to position himself as the latest darlin' of the foaming at the mouth radical Tea Party extremists whom once worshiped Rubio as their "savior."

"Big Gulp" has previously said that he no longer supports his own immigration reform bill, but now he says that he will also not support any conference committee markup of an immigration reform bill, because he needs to pander to the foaming at the mouth radical Tea Party extremists whom he needs for his narcissistic quest for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Rubio Throws In The Towel On Immigration:

The most prominent conservative supporter of sweeping immigration reform is calling on Congress to dial back the effort and instead focus on making incremental changes, delivering a significant blow to the prospects of reform.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) now opposes a bicameral conference committee to reach a final resolution to the Senate-passed bill, his spokesman said, arguing that the support is not there for a comprehensive overhaul and that Congress should act where there is consensus.

"The point is that at this time, the only approach that has a realistic chance of success is to focus on those aspects of reform on which there is consensus through a series of individual bills," Alex Conant, a top spokesman for Rubio, told TPM in an email. "Otherwise, this latest effort to make progress on immigration will meet the same fate as previous efforts: failure."

Tea-Publican sabotage, rooting for failure

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Because nothing says sober, serious, responsible government like someone rooting for it to fail . . .

There is something deeply disturbing about Tea-Publicans. GOP hopes Obama heath care woes have staying power. What kind of patriotic American roots for their country to fail? Whatever happened to "American exceptionalism" and our can-do spirit? Who are these people?

Remember back when the GOP pushed through its Medicare Part D government subsidy to Big Pharma and tried to set up its program? The Tea-Publicans are all pretending to have amnesia about this disaster now. Jon Perr remembers How Democrats Saved Bush's Medicare Drug Program:

President [Obama] declared, "It's time for folks to stop rooting for its failure because hard working middle class families are rooting for its success."

["I’m willing to work with anyone, on any idea, who’s actually willing to make this law perform better.  But it’s well past the time for folks to stop rooting for its failure.  Because hardworking, middle-class families are rooting for its success." Transcript of Weekly Address: Enrolling in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace (10/26/2013).]

Which is exactly right. After all, when President Bush's Medicare prescription drug program nearly crashed and burned in late 2005 and early 2006, Democrats in Washington and in the states stepped in to save it.

Why you cannot appease economic terrorists

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona congress critters Ron Barber and Kyrsten Sinema are targeted by the RNCC in 2014, and this has led them to accept some really bad advice from Democratic pols and consultants on how they need to position themselves on votes in the House.

This led Congressman Ron Barber to twice vote with the Republicans for a delay in the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare," and to vote for a series of "mini-CR" funding bills for government agencies that the Tea-Publican economic terrorists did as political theater (it was never going to become law). Congressman Barber in his press releases explained that he did this to "keep the government open." Congresswoman Sinema did the same.

If they thought that voting with the Tea-Publican economic terrorists on these political theater bills would somehow insulate them from political attacks or give them political cover, they were naively mistaken. The billionaire bastard Koch brothers were always going to attack them anyway. Tea Party Group Begins Anti-Health Care Law Blitz in Four House Districts:

Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party group that has made rolling back the health care law one of its priorities, is starting a $2 million campaign of television, radio and Internet advertisements aimed at lawmakers facing tough re-election battles in four House swing districts.

The group, backed by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, is focusing on two Democrats — Representatives Ron Barber of Arizona and Scott Peters of California — about the problem-plagued rollout of the program’s online health insurance exchanges.

And it is using the ads to thank two vulnerable Republicans — Representatives Mike Coffman of Colorado and Steve Southerland of Florida — for ‘’fighting back’’ and voting to repeal the law.

Hermey, er, Paul Gosar has lost his freakin' mind

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Hermey the Misfit Elf Paul Gosar, the dentist who plays a congressman on TV, is a "Debt Denier." He has lost his freakin' mind. He told the Arizona Republic:

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said he was frustrated many Republicans caved to Democrats by voting for the bipartisan deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.

“All we’ve done is taught a spoiled child they’re going to get their way,” he said.

Despite the outcome, it was worth the effort, Gosar said. He vowed that he and other Republicans will continue to try to block the 3-year-old health-care law for the remainder of Obama’s presidency.

“I don’t know how Republicans lost at all,” he said. “We had a conversation with the American people on a program that is destined to fail.”

A Taft Republican on the Tea Party

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan aka "Our Lady Of The Magic Dolphins" as Charles Pierce at Esquire mocks her, wrote a column recently in which she imagines herself interviewing the late Robert Taft, often referred to as "Mr. Republican," about his advice to the modern-day GOP. The Wisdom of 'Mr. Republican'. I would call this creepy, but a number of pundits over the years have used this interview of dead people shtick, so it must be an acceptable form of literary device.

But if you want the the straight dope from a Taft Republican and not the hallucinatory tripping of Our Lady of The Magic Dolphins, the New York Times today has a guest opinion from John G. Taft. The Cry of the True Republican:

Five generations of Tafts have served our nation as unwaveringly stalwart Republicans, from Alphonso Taft, who served as attorney general in the late 19th century, through William Howard Taft, who not only was the only person to be both president of the United States and chief justice of the United States but also served as the chief civil administrator of the Philippines and secretary of war, to my cousin, Robert Taft, a two-term governor of Ohio.

As I write, a photograph of my grandfather, Senator Robert Alphonso Taft, looks across at me from the wall of my office. He led the Republican Party in the United States Senate in the 1940s and early 1950s, ran for the Republican nomination for president three times and was known as “Mr. Republican.” If he were alive today, I can assure you he wouldn’t even recognize the modern Republican Party, which has repeatedly brought the United States of America to the edge of a fiscal cliff — seemingly with every intention of pushing us off the edge.

It's not me baby, it's you

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A must-read post from Jon Favreau at The Daily Beast. The Tea Party, Not Democrats or Republicans, Is the Problem:

So now that our government is open and able to pay its bills, what soon-to-be-forgotten lessons have we learned from this sorry fiasco?

Perhaps most important is the reminder that political temper tantrums in Washington exact a toll that goes far beyond unfavorable headlines and worse-than-dog-poo poll numbers. This decision hurt people.

* * *

Which brings me to the second shutdown lesson. As a country, we may never get a more revealing, disturbing look at the true source of Washington’s dysfunction than we did over the last few weeks.

* * *

The Tea Party is the problem.

Reaping the whirlwind: GOP pays the price for its governing-by-extortion strategy

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Two new polls out this week demonstrate that the Tea-Publican governing-by-extortion strategy of taking the country hostage and shutting down the federal government, coupled with threatening to default on the full faith and credit of the United States has been devastating to the GOP. Will they learn their lesson? Nah.

This new poll from CNN is devastating to the GOP.

While President Obama is under water on his approval rating at 44 percent to 52 percent disapprove, the approval of Congress remains in the ocean depths at 12 percent.

The CNN poll finds that Americans have more confidence in President Obama than the Republicans to deal with the major issues facing the country by 44-31. Among moderates, those numbers are 51-24; among indys they are 34-30; even 21 percent of Conservatives approve. Obama leads across all demographics by age, race, sex, education, income and region. Obama's lead among white (40-33) seniors (47-30), critical to the GOP in the midterm electorate, portends real trouble for the GOP.

Critically, the CNN poll finds that 54 percent of Americans think continued GOP control of the House is bad for the country, including 59 percent of moderates and 53 percent of independents; even 32 percent of Conservatives say it is bad for the country. This negative view of the GOP holds across all demographics by age, race, sex, education, income and region. This negative view of the GOP among white (49-43) seniors (56-39) portends real trouble for the GOP. (Only the 65+ age group is evenly divided).

The CNN poll asked some granular questions about the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare" that most polls do not. 41 percent approve and another 12 percent say ObamaCare is not liberal enough. Only 38 percent oppose ObamaCare as too liberal. By asking the granular questions rather than the error-prone approve or diapprove dichotomy that distorts results, the poll produced a more accurate result.

The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, finds no love in this poll. 63 percent of poll respondents want to see him replaced as Speaker.

The GOP Civil War Is On

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The so-called Tea Party far-right radical fringe is preparing to devour conservative Republican candidates in GOP primaries -- whom they call RINOs -- because they are not sufficiently radical or extreme enough.

The GOP civil war is on. See Bloomberg News, Republican Civil War Erupts: Business Groups v. Tea Party, POLITICO Tiger Beat on The Potomac, Donors' frustration with GOP mounts, and today's New York Times, Fiscal Crisis Sounds the Charge in G.O.P.’s ‘Civil War’.

I would argue that it is in the best interest of the country for the unsustainable GOP coalition to end its failed marriage of convenience and to go their separate ways. This uncompatible coalition of diverse groups should form their own political parties and platforms which accurately reflect their diverse political ideologies.

This would give voters a true choice in November, not a faux choice decided by partisan activists in low turnout GOP primaries. If the so-called Tea Party truly believes that it enjoys popular support, then it should prove it by running under its own party label and platform, rather than hijacking the traditional Republican Party label and deceiving voters by running under a false flag.

The traditional Republican Party is a center-right business oriented political party, and should retain its historic party label.

The so-called Tea Party is a collection of far-right radical extremists from the Neo-Confederate Birthers-Birchers-Secessionists, nativist anti-immigrant "Know Nothings," and the theocratic Christian Reconstructionists and Dominionists. They are ideological purists and religious fanatics who view legislative defeats as a test of their faith -- "we can win if only our faith is strong." These are the kind of fanatics who do not respond to facts, logic or reason. It is a question of faith for them. They believe they are waging a Holy Crusade. See Ed Kilgore at the Political Animal blog, Constitutional Conservatism As a Religion.

(Update) Old guard GOP establishment to declare war on Tea Party radicals?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Former G. W. Bush flak and Washington Post pundit Michael Gerson describes the lay of the battlefield accurately in A House divided cannot govern:

It is now clear that there is no functional majority in the House of Representatives.

* * *

Will the tea party be chastened by recent defeat? Not likely, or not for long. Because tea party leaders inhabit an alternative political reality — sheltered in safe districts or states, applauded by conservative media, incited (or threatened) by advocacy groups, carried along by a deep current of anger and frustration among activists — they have no incentive to view defeat as defeat. In fact, turning against tactical radicalism would involve serious political risk. So every setback is interpreted as a need for greater purity and commitment.

This conflict is certain to bleed over into the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. The influence of a highly committed minority is exaggerated in small electorates. All the conditions for volatility will be present: voters embittered by recent defeats, a growing infrastructure of tea party institutions, a campaign finance system easily influenced by ideologically eccentric billionaires.

So what is the old guard GOP establishment to do? Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post writes, Business groups want to take back the GOP. That won’t be easy.

The country’s biggest business groups are making noises about taking on tea party candidates in primary races. But reclaiming a more reliably pro-business Republican Party -- one that stops railing against “corporate welfare” and threatening to default on the nation's debt obligations --isn’t going to be easy.

For one, the trade groups are talking about only a handful of races so far: four primaries, only two of which would involve taking on Republican incumbents. The group of House Republicans who led the charge to shut down the government numbered in the dozens. And on Wednesday night, 18 Republican senators and 144 GOP House members opposed the bill to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.

Old guard GOP establishment to declare war on Tea Party radicals?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Yet another fascinating headline in the Washington Post today, from Karen Tumulty. GOP sees chance to regain control from tea party:

The GOP establishment has embarked, once again, on a round of soul-searching. But this time, the question is: What will it take to save the Republicans from the self-destructive impulses of the tea party movement?

That the government shutdown was a political disaster for the party that engineered it is widely acknowledged, except by the most ardent tea partyers.

And that near-unanimity presents an opportunity for the establishment to strike back — and maybe regain some control from the insurgent wing.

“You roll them,” advised former Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). “I do think we need stronger leadership, and there’s got to be some pushback on these guys who think they came here with all the solutions.”

Only then, he said, can the party begin to push an agenda and “get things done,” rather than obstruct.

Wow. So the old guard GOP establishment wants to declare war on the Tea Party radicals. Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

Some men just want to watch the world burn

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Dave Johnson at crooksandliars.com makes an important point, Misunderestimating Who They Are: They Like To Destroy Things:

There is a miscalculation at the core of Democratic strategies for ending the shutdown and avoiding default. Democrats keep saying, "They wouldn’t really do that." But this calculation doesn't "get it" about who and what the country is dealing with.

Here is the miscalculation: If you listen to right-wing radio, watch FOX News and read their online media and take it seriously (because they do) then you would know that many on the right don’t want to live in a country that has Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, the minimum wage, Food Stamps, immigration, public schools, infant nutrition programs and the rest of the things government does to make our lives better. And they don't want anyone else to live in a country that has those things, either.

They are willing to destroy the village to keep the village from having those things. If you don't "get that" before entering into negotiations, you're at risk of making a terrible mistake -- like the sequester.

This reminds me of the anecdote that Alfred tells Bruce Wayne in the Dark Knight movie, and concludes:

Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Video below the fold.

Traditional Republicans to primary Tea Party radicals?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A fascinating headline in the Washington Post today: Business groups stand by Boehner, plot against tea party:

[I]nfluential organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are standing behind Boehner. More importantly, Boehner’s friends in the business community are getting ready to take sides in a few Republican primary races against tea party candidates in Michigan, Idaho and Alabama who could cause the House speaker more trouble.

* * *

Now that the shutdown and debt-ceiling fight have exposed a rift in the Republican Party, lines are being drawn in the battle for control: On one side, there is Boehner and his circle of powerful business allies. On the other, tea party lawmakers and activist groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth.

“I don’t know of anybody in the business community who takes the side of the Taliban minority,” said Dirk Van Dongen, longtime chief lobbyist for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors who has known Boehner since the lawmaker’s first election.

In the hallways of the country’s leading trade associations, there is talk about taking on tea party Republicans in at least three states.

Just three? Fight them everywhere they are!

The Deal: 'You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ezra Klein has a couple of good reports today on the bipartisan Senate deal to end the government shutdown and to raise the federal debt ceiling in his Wonkbook post, and this: If Ted Cruz didn’t exist, Democrats would have to invent him:

The culmination of the [Cruz] strategy, today, is that Republicans are reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling in return for...nothing.

There are no policy concessions from the Democrats (income verification is already part of Obamacare). There are no procedural concessions from the Democrats. Just the opposite, in fact.

Democrats managed to get the budget conference they've been pursuing for six months. They got a CR of the length they wanted and ending before the next sequestration cuts rather than six-month CR that Sen. Susan Collins proposed. They got a debt-ceiling increase all the way into February. This is far beyond what Democrats thought possible on Sept. 30.

But the strategy Ted Cruz managed to force on the GOP was so suicidal that Democrats felt comfortable forcing Republicans to cave completely.

Laura Conaway prepared a different chart for the Rachel Maddow Show on Wednesday night. The GOP's epic defeat in one chart:

Tea-Publicans capitulate and surrender on the CR and debt ceiling (but will still vote no)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Senator Ted "Calgary" Cruz and his 'Tortilla Coast Tea-Publicans', with an assist from the "Demented" Jim DeMint at the Heritage Fund (Heritage Action) and his Leadership PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, neutered the House GOP leadership last night and prevented any bill from coming to the floor.

The headlines this morning were deservedly unkind to the "Worst. Speaker. Ever.", the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner:

New York Times: With G.O.P. Badly Divided, Boehner Is Left ‘Herding Cats’

Washington Post: Who controls the House GOP? No one.

Washington Post: The Republican Party: A collection of tribes with no leader

Washington Post: Where does John Boehner go from here?

There are lots more headlines like this elsewhere in the media today. It reminds me of that Charles Krauthammer opinion at the end of 2011 regarding The GOP's payroll tax debacle - Washington Post:

The GOP’s performance nicely reprises that scene in “Animal House” where the marching band turns into a blind alley and row after row of plumed morons plows into a brick wall, crumbling to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

It's déjà vu all over again. "Boehner's Bunglers" led the Tea Party Animal House into the blind alley of complete failure.

The TanMan is 'Tania' - Tea-Publican economic terrorists to reject Senate plan

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In an earlier post, I posed the question:

Will the TanMan waive the so-called "Hastert Rule" and allow a vote on the Senate bill in the House to fund the government and to raise the federal debt ceiling to prevent an economic disaster and to do "what's in the best interest of our country"?

Or will the TanMan continue to side with the Tea Party economic terrorists holding him hostage in a classic case of Stockholm syndrome? Will "Tania" give the Tea Party economic terrorists what they want -- the destruction of the federal government and the U.S. and world economy?

The question has now been answered by "Tania," who is siding with the radical Tea Party economic terrorists. Ed Kilgore reports at the Political Animal blog, House Wants More Obamacare Concessions:

Early reports on what House Republicans might offer as a “new volley” of demands as the debt limit breach approaches centered on a reiteration of the very short-term debt limit and appropriations extensions that were sent to the White House over the weekend only to be rejected. But now it seems clear that a determination to obtain more Obamacare concessions is the main difference between House and Senate GOP conferences, according to WaPo’s Montgomery and Helderman:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif,) said the new House plan was designed to be attractive to Democrats, because it would follow key timelines that have been established in the Senate negotiations — funding government agencies until Jan. 15, for example, and raising the debt ceiling until Feb. 7.

Will the TanMan do 'what's in the best interest of our country' today?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The reporting this morning is that Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell on Tuesday will present their colleagues with a plan that could resolve the standoff, end the shutdown and lift the threat of a default.

What happens in the radical Tea-Publican House led by the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, remains much in doubt. Senate Leaders Push Debt Deal With House Still in Doubt. With a deal in sight, the question is whether House Republicans are ready to accept it. Will House Republicans allow a retreat?

I am afraid there is what Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan once referred to as "irrational exuberance" among the Beltway media villagers and the banksters of Wall Street that this is a done deal.

Remember this at the height of the financial system meltdown on September 29, 2008? House Rejects Bailout Package, 228-205; Stocks Plunge - NYTimes:

In a moment of historic import in the Capitol and on Wall Street, the House of Representatives voted on Monday to reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry. The vote came in stunning defiance of President Bush and Congressional leaders of both parties, who said the bailout was needed to prevent a widespread financial collapse.

The Tea-Publican economic terrorists 'rigged the rules' to shut down the government

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Here is an "inside baseball" analysis of the current Tea Party government shutdown and hostage taking over the federal debt ceiling that most political reporters have failed to report, probably because procedural rules are not as sexy as provocative soundbites from politicians. As Democrats seethe over GOP tactics, video over rules change goes viral:

In a sign of how angry Democrats are over the government shutdown, a video Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has posted of an obscure rules debate has gone viral.

The video — which has already attracted more than 702,000 views since being posted to YouTube on Saturday — shows Van Hollen engaging in a parliamentary inquiry with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who was in the speaker’s chair at the time. The two men discussed why Democrats could not bring up a Senate amendment that would provide funding to return the government to normal operations. 

Normally an individual lawmaker would be able to force a vote on a bill where there is a dispute between the House and Senate, but on Oct. 1, House Republicans passed a resolution, H. Res. 368, altering the rules to make that impossible.

“The Rules Committee under the rules of the House changed the standing rules of the House of the to take away the right of any member to move to vote to open the government and gave that right exclusively to the Rep leader, is that right?” asked Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

“The House adopted that resolution,” Chaffetz replied.

World Bank and the IMF to the U.S.: 'Stop the insanity!'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Shorter version of the G-20, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the U.S.: "Stop the insanity!"

The rest of the world cannot believe that America has a dysfunctional government that is actually threatening the security and stability of the U.S. financial system, and thereby threatening the global financial system and economy as well. World Leaders Urge U.S. to Resolve Debt Limit Crisis:

Leaders at World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings on Sunday pleaded, warned and cajoled: the United States must raise its debt ceiling and reopen its government or risk “massive disruption the world over,” as Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, put it.

* * *

Many leaders at the World Bank and I.M.F. meetings said they believed the impasse would be resolved before Thursday, when the government would be at severe risk of not having enough money to pay all its bills on any given day going forward.

But they pressed Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke — who were both at the I.M.F. meeting — on the issue, predicting that even a near-default would lead to higher borrowing costs and a slowdown of the global economy.

“This cannot happen, and this shall not happen,” Baudouin Prot, chairman of the French bank BNP Paribas, said at a meeting of the Institute of International Finance also being held in Washington. “The consequences of this would be absolutely disastrous.”

Mr. Lew acknowledged the threat. “Our work begins at home,” he said. “We recognize that the United States is the anchor of the international financial system. With the deepest and most liquid financial markets, when risk rises, the flight to safety and to quality brings investors to U.S. markets. But the United States cannot take this hard-earned reputation for granted.”

Participants at the meetings remained on edge, given the gravity of the threat. Ms. Lagarde said “that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature” would disrupt the world economy.

Not 'The Party of Lincoln' - the GOP is the 'New Confederacy'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted about Republicans on the modern GOP: An anti-government, Neo-Confederate insurrectionist party of radicals, and the Washington Post's Colbert King penned an excoriating opinion, The rise of the New Confederacy.

The Tea Party Queen, the Quitta from Wasilla, Sarah Palin, and Senator General Ted "Custer" Cruz, led a  protest (CNN Poliitcal Ticker) in Washington, D.C. today at which the Birthers-Birchers-Secessionists of the Tea Party broke out their Confederate battle flags, flying their true colors.

John Aravosis at Americablog.com writes Sarah Palin joins Ted Cruz, confederate flag, as new face of shutdown:

Sarah Palin joined GOP Tea Party Senator, and shutdown leader, Cruz and other Tea Party supporters of the GOP’s shutdown of the federal government in a “million vet march” to protest the fact that the government has actually been shut down.

Point of fact: Neither Palin nor Cruz have actually served in the military, and both support the GOP government shutdown which closed the WWII memorial.  But don’t let that get in the way of a good visual.

Palin on the shutdown not two weeks ago:

“Let government chill for a little bit.”

Palin said Republicans should not “fear some kind of government shutdown.” She then emphasized that Republicans must “stand firm,” “not blink,” and not “allow the media to drive this whole narrative” that a shutdown would be bad for Republicans.

Palin said that a shutdown would allow the American people to realize “how irrelevant the federal government could and should be in our lives.”

And now she’s leading a protest of the shutdown she supported.

Adorable.

“Veterans” – basically Tea Partyers – led by Palin and Cruz, marched today on the World War II memorial in Washington, DC, stole the National Park Service’s protective barriers, and then threw them at the White House.

Here is the CNN video:

Yes, that is a Confederate battle flag prominently displayed in the video.

(Update) Time to build the Grand Alliance

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post reported on Saturday, White House finds unlikely alliance in business community:

President Obama, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett spoke to nearly 150 business executives on a conference call Friday with an update on their efforts to avoid a default, according to a White House summary of the call.

When the call ended, Jarrett entered the Roosevelt Room of the White House to meet with lobbyists for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Financial Services Roundtable and other business groups representing aerospace and technology companies. During the meeting, Jarrett and Brian Deese, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, asked the business groups to encourage their member companies to communicate with lawmakers on the urgency of finding a negotiated solution[.]

* * *

[T]he U.S. Chamber is doing research on key states where it can battle back against tea party candidates willing to use the country’s debt repayments as a bargaining chip.

“I do think we need to act. We need to combine and concentrate our efforts to succeed,” said Bruce Josten, the U.S. Chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, noting the interest he and others have in exploring primary challenges of tea party candidates. “But the equation is complicated and requires very good information.”

The mythical moderate Republicans fail to materialize

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.