The Commentariat -- Sept. 28, 2013
Another Entry into the No-Fly Zone. John Brenahan & Jake Sherman of Politico: "With a government shutdown less than three days away, the House is charging toward delaying Obamacare for one year and repealing the medical device tax in exchange for funding the government, several sources tell Politico." CW: were this ploy to succeed -- which it won't -- people will die because of it. ...
... "In this week's address, President Obama says that on October 1, a big part of the Affordable Care Act will go live and give uninsured Americans the chance to buy the same quality, affordable health care as everyone else. It is also the day when some Republicans in Congress might shut down the government just because they don't like the law. The President urged Congress to both pass a budget by Monday and raise the nation's debt ceiling so that we can keep growing the economy." -- White House
... Paul Kane, et al., of the Washington Post: "With Washington barreling toward a government shutdown, a deadlocked Congress entered the final weekend of the fiscal year with no clear ideas of how to avoid furloughs for more than 800,000 federal workers. Millions more could be left without paychecks. The Senate on Friday approved a stopgap government funding bill and promptly departed, leaving all of the pressure to find a solution on House Republican leaders. [CW: as if it's not their fault.] Boehner's [CW: so-called] leadership team offered no public comment and remained out of sight most of Friday, hunkering down for another weekend on the brink. For Boehner, this is the latest in a series of unstable moments that have become the hallmark of his three-year run as speaker." ...
... Ed O'Keefe, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Obama, in remarks at the White House, accused Republicans of 'political grandstanding' and said the GOP-controlled House now has the fate of a potential government shutdown in its hands. In the remarks, Obama addressed House Republicans directly. 'I encourage you to think about who you're hurting,' Obama said, noting that their own staff would be without paychecks in a shutdown.'" Obama also said he spoke to Iranian President Rouhani Friday (AP news story linked below):
... Jonathan Weisman, et al., of the New York Times: "The Senate on Friday overwhelmingly approved stopgap spending legislation to keep the federal government open without gutting President Obama's health care law, setting up a weekend showdown with the House that will decide whether much of the government shuts down at midnight Monday. The 54-to-44 vote for final passage followed a more critical moment when the Senate, in a bipartisan rebuke to Republican hard-liners, cut off debate on the legislation. The 79-to-19 vote included the top Republican leadership and easily exceeded the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster." ...
... Seung Min Kim of Politico: "The split vote on cloture within the Senate Republican Conference ... laid bare the GOP divide that has persisted in recent weeks in the battle over government funding and against the president's health care law.... The nineteen Republican senators who opposed cutting off debate included [Ted] Cruz, Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo; Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi; Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer; Iowa's Chuck Grassley; Nevada's Dean Heller; Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe; Utah's Mike Lee; Kansas's Jerry Moran; Kentucky's Rand Paul; Ohio's Rob Portman; Idaho's Jim Risch; Kansas's Pat Roberts; Florida's Marco Rubio; South Carolina's Tim Scott; Alabama's Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby; Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey; and Louisiana's David Vitter." ...
... Rat Tiptoes off Sinking Ship. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act, is encouraging his uninsured constituents to take advantage of the law and sign-up for health care coverage when the new marketplaces open next Tuesday, putting himself at odds with lawmakers in his own party.... State Republican lawmakers in Missouri are actively trying to undermine reform and have explicitly refused to oversee Obamacare's most basic and popular protections, such as barring insurers from denying coverage to Americans with pre-existing medical conditions and discriminating against women on the basis of gender. Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder has even actively discouraged Missourians from signing up for insurance. Fourteen percent of Missourians are currently uninsured." Thanks to James S. for the lead. ...
... Aaron Blake & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Former Vice President Al Gore on Friday called the GOP's strategy to defund Obamacare 'political terrorism.' Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Gore called it a 'despicable and dishonorable threat to the United States of America' for Republicans to risk shutting down the government if they don't get what they want." ...
... Robert Costa of the National Review: "On a Thursday conference call, a group of House conservatives consulted with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas about how to respond to the leadership's fiscal strategy. Sources who were on the call say Cruz strongly advised them to oppose it, and hours later, Speaker John Boehner's plan fizzled. It's the latest example of Cruz leading the House's right flank." ...
... Tailgunner Ted. Ed Kilgore: "This is some genuine intrigue involving a massive breach of congressional etiquette by Cruz. And it's also just weird: House and Senate members rarely deal with each other directly. They inhabit different realms that do not usually intersect. But any way you slice it, it looks bad for the House leadership.... Such intraparty outlaw behavior is yet another thing he has in common with his look-alike bullyboy predecessor from back in the day, Joe McCarthy." ...
... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "... what you don't see too much of is real cloak-and-dagger, House of Cards-style plotting, with clandestine meetings, vicious backstabbing, and high-risk conspiracies." This is it. "The rest of us look at this situation and see a bunch of maniacs hurtling the country toward disaster. But they're having a blast!" as a series of tweets from Costa reveals. Here's one: "Anti-Boehner gang in House absolutely loving this fight, tho. Secret mtgs with Cruz, plotting with each other, CR as a chess game" ...
... CW: There is not much that's more annoying than someone who not only purposely puts you in a bind, but also smirks about it. Add to that, these teabaggers are ready to put the nation -- nay, the world -- in a helluva bind -- because it's fun. So for Boehner, this is not just personal. These teabaggers have given him every reason to neuter them. I think he will. If he was wavering, those tweets from Costa could cement his resolve. ...
... Gail Collins: "... on Friday the House members did show they could pass legislation in a purposeful, bipartisan fashion. They approved a bill naming a building in Virginia after a deceased federal worker." ...
... Their Fearless Leader. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's newest national poll finds Ted Cruz is now the top choice of Republican primary voters to be their candidate for President in 2016. He leads the way with 20% to 17% for Rand Paul, 14% for Chris Christie, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% each for Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, 4% for Bobby Jindal, and 3% each for Rick Santorum and Scott Walker." ...
... Digby: " The problem isn't that the Tea party is crazy. It's that Republicans are crazy. Only 18% of them can be described a moderate." ...
... Even Obama's Twitter Account Is Suspect. Tom Kludt of TPM: "Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer backed off on his suggestion earlier this week that Twitter allows President Barack Obama to [link fixed] use more than 140 characters in his tweets, but some Republican primary voters evidently still have doubts." ...
... CW: I guess this means there isn't much chance they'll believe this. Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "A panel of the world’s leading climate scientists strongly asserted Friday that 'it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause' of global warming since 1950 and warned of more rapid ice melt and rising seas if governments do not aggressively act to reduce the pace of greenhouse gas emissions. At a meeting in Stockholm, where the panel released its latest assessment of climate change, the scientists for the first time established a budget for the amount of carbon that can be released into the atmosphere. Even if that target is reached, carbon emissions will have harmful impact on the environment well into the future." Personally, I think global warming is god's plan to boost Canadian tourism.
AP: "President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke by telephone Friday, the first conversation between American and Iranian presidents in more than 30 years. The exchange could reflect a major step in resolving global concerns over Iran's nuclear program. Obama told reporters at the White House that he had a constructive conversation with the Iranian leader." ...
... Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "In Iran, many had been disappointed when Mr. Rouhani failed to show up Tuesday at a United Nations luncheon, where he had been expected to shake hands with Mr. Obama. But the Friday call as Mr. Rouhani was heading to the airport to fly home to Iran, after four days of frenetic diplomacy in the United States, was, [to Iranians,] almost as good as a handshake."
Political scientist David Karol, writing in the Monkey Cage, explains why it's "Democratic Care," not ObamaCare. If Obama wanted to be the Democratic presidential nominee, he had no choice but to embrace healthcare reform: "While not every twist and turn in the ACA's tortured path was fated, Obama's embrace of health care reform can be explained simply; it is the longstanding policy of the Democratic Party he sought to lead. Democratic constituencies have long wanted health care reform and Democratic presidents have fought for it, with varying degrees of commitment and success, since the time of Harry Truman." CW: Karol doesn't refute the Politico article I linked a few days ago (tho he calls the Politico piece "misleading"), but he adds dimension.
Dina Elboghdady of the Washington Post: "The Federal Housing Administration plans to tap $1.7 billion in taxpayer money at the end of the month to cover its losses -- a first for an agency that has been self-sustaining since its creation in 1934. The FHA has played a pivotal role in propping up the housing market by backing low-down-payment loans for borrowers after the mortgage market unraveled and other lending sources dried up. It accounts for nearly 20 percent of all home-purchase mortgages. The agency does not make loans; it insures lenders against losses should loans go bad. It has always used the fees it charges borrowers to cover losses."
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Kate Zernike & Mark Santora of the New York Times: "A New Jersey judge ruled Friday that the state must allow same-sex couples to marry, since failing to do so would deprive them of rights that are now guaranteed by the federal government. The decision will most likely be challenged by Gov. Chris Christie, who has publicly opposed gay marriage. The judge, Mary C. Jacobson of State Superior Court, ruled that under its Constitution, New Jersey must allow marriage in light of the United States Supreme Court's decision in June striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act." The ruling is here. The Star-Ledger story, by Salvador Rizzo, is here.
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Reader Comments (7)
David Ignatius has an opinion piece in WAPO that sounds just about right in discussing President Rouhani's motivations and timetable. I have been unsuccessful in backtracking the individual's name, but an Iranian American expert spoke on both NPR and Al Jazeera in much the same vein as Ignatius on 9/25. The speaker suggested that Rouhani had been given a 2 month timeline by the Mullahs until Iran would swing back to hardline positions. He also discussed Rouhani's consistent history of being a moderate and in particular, his position against nuclear armament. I think that dilly dallying is not in our interests on this issue. Hopefully, Obama can seal the deal before the pond scum can tear themselves away from their evil clowning over the ACA and the debt limit. Unlike Obama, they can only hold one thought at a time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-iranian-president-seeks-a-speedy-nuclear-deal/2013/09/25/c62aff32-261d-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html
How is it that Tail-gunner Ted can be President if he was born in Canada of an American mother and a Canadian citizen (at the time) and Barack born in Kenya (supposedly) of an American mother and a Kenyan father can't? Of course, Cokie Roberts did say that Hawaii was kind of foreign. And John McCain born in Panama?
A few weeks ago, Indian author Sushmita Banerjee was dragged from her home in Afghanistan and murdered by the Taliban. Her crime was publishing a three-volume memoir, the last of which was “A Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife.” The trilogy became the basis for the Bollywood movie, “Escape from the Taliban.” She was 49. I can’t imagine why she was living in Afghanistan after all the shit she had to go through to get out of there the first time, but c’est le vie.
Bollywood movies, in case you’ve never seen one, all seem to have Busby Berkley moments when, no matter how dire the circumstance or situation, all principle actors and untold millions of extras break out in song and dance. For no apparent reason. Otherwise many of these films, such as “Lagaan” (2001), would be at the top of most “must see” lists.
Anyway, I watched “Escape from the Taliban” last night.
I do not think I ever realized—truly, honestly realized—how brutal fundamentalism can be and often is, and how well meaning people so readily cave to it.
Ohhhh Nooo!!!! You compared Ted Cruz to my home state (Wisconsin) Senator--Joe McCarthy--several days after I received from my brother (yes, the right-winger) a photograph of me (age 3), sitting on Senator McCarthy's lap. I was not smiling!
Yes, my father was a "friend of Joe's" and a mega-conservative Republican (former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice)--who signed a loyalty oath to that destructive and crazy alcoholic idiot "back in the days!" My former husband attended a private school (as did my older brother), and his parents (yea!) refused to sign the loyalty oath. Therefore, my FH could not play sports or join extra-curricular activities at this school. Crazy, huh? I wish I had asked my former in-laws (his parents), who I liked and respected, why they allowed him to stay in that school! Too late now.
I have to wonder what the children of Teddy Cruz think (or will think) of their nutty father and the unnecessary damage he is doing? Especially when they are older and have some perspective. It is painful to have a prominent father who has elite and bigoted values!
I really hate this replay!
@Kate Madison: "I have to wonder what the children of Teddy Cruz think (or will think) of their nutty father and the unnecessary damage he is doing? Especially when they are older and have some perspective."
Think Liz Cheney.
Marie
THE CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION
Obama, eating a snicker's bar while signing a document of great weight, is told to pick up the phone––the President of Iran is on the line. (Jimmy Webb's Wichita Line Man comes to mind sung by Glenn C.)
O: Mr. President! What a surprise and honor to hear from you. What's up?
R: Is this Barack Obama that I hear speaking? You sound not like you.
O: Oh, sorry, just finishing a Snicker's bar, my mouth full of nuts and chocolate. Say, you speak pretty good English––we don't need a translator for this conversation?
R: Oh, Mr. President, like many foreign heads of state we pretend not to understand or speak English so that we can overhear all the nitty-gritty plus our translators sometimes puff up our position.
O: Puff up?
R: Another word for fooling you.
O: So, Hassan, what's with that bomb building of yours. Can we make a deal? That trust and verify thing?
R: We can make a deal if you promise me one thing.
O: And that would be?
R: Send me a Virginia Ham once a month for a year. Had a taste of this delicious meat in New York and I am absolutely nuts about it. but it has to be disguised as the Mulahs would frown on such a thing.
O: Happy to do it, Mr. President, happy to do it. Is that it? A deal for Ham?
R: Yes sirree, Sam I am––I love Green Eggs and Ham!
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/27/cruz-s-anti-obamacareposterchildturnsouttolikethelaw.html
Teddy should research before opening his mouth.