Republican Shutdown and Debt Apocalypse Open Thread, Day 7

Filed in National by on October 8, 2013

A Republican congressman gives his a history lesson:

The congressman began with an anecdote from the Civil War. “I would liken this a little bit to Gettysburg, where a Confederate unit went looking for shoes and stumbled into Union cavalry, and all of a sudden found itself embroiled in battle on a battlefield it didn’t intend to be on, and everybody just kept feeding troops into it,” the congressman said. “That’s basically what’s happening now in a political sense. This isn’t exactly the fight I think Republicans wanted to have, certainly that the leadership wanted to have, but it’s the fight that’s here.”

So the GOP is the Confederacy, about to be slaughtered in battle.

National Review: “House Republican leaders met today at the Capitol, but they made little progress toward solving the fiscal crisis, or calming the GOP’s growing tensions. They remain undecided on the contours of a potential deal, and on how to sell one, especially to the conference’s bloc of skeptical conservatives.”

Said one GOP aide: “It’s the House of indecision. We don’t have the votes for a big deal, small deal, or short-term deal.”

About the Author ()

Comments (17)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. cassandra_m says:

    So now the new plan from the teajhadis is a Zombie Supercommittee. Reanimating the last budget Supercommittee that the GOP killed dead, because they couldn’t get everything they wanted.

    According to a draft of the new bill, the GOP’s “Bicameral Working Group on Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth” would be charged with recommending to the full House and Senate: overall levels of discretionary spending for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2014; changes in the statutory limit on the public debt; and reforms to direct spending programs.

    The committee’s roster would be comprised of 10 House members, including six Republicans and four to be chosen by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Boehner would designate a House co-chair. Of the 10 Senate members, six would be Democrats and four will be chosen by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. A Senate co-chair will be selected by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

    The group would first meet no later than the day after its members are appointed. It could not make any recommendation to the full House and Senate unless it receives the support of a majority of the members appointed by both the Speaker and the majority leader of the Senate. It would then have to report those recommendations within three days.

    Anyone else thinking that the House GOP teajhadis don’t know how their government works?

  2. Jason330 says:

    What a clusterf*ck.

  3. cassandra_m says:

    The Chinese weigh in on the debt limit fiasco:

    “We ask that the United States earnestly takes steps to resolve in a timely way the political issues around the debt ceiling and prevent a US debt default to ensure the safety of Chinese investments in the United States,” Mr Zhu told reporters in Beijing. “This is the United States’ responsibility,” he added.

  4. Jason330 says:

    Great. Now the assholes in Congress are going to have to show off about how they “aint taking no orders from no Chinese.”

  5. bamboozer says:

    “Super committee” or not Americans seem to have had enough of Republican games at this point. Perhaps because no matter how they phrase it the end result boils down to repeal Obamacare or we’ll destroy the economy. Wall St. seems to be playing it cool but expect them to erupt as the 18th draws nigh. As for me I’m still enjoying the show and still expect the Republicans to have damaged themselves badly.

  6. cassandra_m says:

    Sam Wang takes PPPs last poll and details the electoral risks to the GOP:

    Since the election is over a year away, it is hard to predict how this will translate to future seat gain/loss. If the election were held today, Democrats would pick up around 30 seats, giving them control of the chamber. I do not expect this to happen. Many things will happen in the coming 12 months, and the current crisis might be a distant memory. But at this point I do expect Democrats to pick up seats next year, an exception to the midterm rule.

  7. Jason330 says:

    Fox News’ Erick Erickson looks at the same numbers and says…

    October 8th, 2013 at 04:30 AM | 93

    Polling shows more Americans blame the GOP than Barack Obama. I think this means the GOP is winning.

    …because the GOP’s numbers aren’t as bad as expected.

  8. Jason330 says:

    Two things about Wang’s analysis:

    1) “Many things will happen in the coming 12 months,” Republicans going more insane has the highest probability.

    2) “PPP then told respondents that their representative voted for the shutdown. At that point, the average swing moved a further 3.1% toward Democrats, and 22 out of 24 points were in the gray zone. That would be more like a 50-seat gain for Democrats – equivalent to a wave election. An analyst would have to be crazy to predict that!”

    Awesome!

  9. cassandra_m says:

    @Jason — Erikson is still under the delusion that the polls are skewed. He is waiting for the unskewed ones.

  10. luke says:

    It’s astonishing how people are stupid enough to think that by simply passing a “clean” Bill and the fed simply deciding “hey, we can afford to spend more money” will make everything better, and avoid default….like the trillions in spending, doubling of the debt, he turbo printing of money isnt a problem?

    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!

  11. pandora says:

    Nope, but you’re still really stupid because you have absolutely no idea what the debt ceiling is.

  12. Liberal Elite says:

    Use the Farce, Luke.

    oh… sorry… I can see that you already are.

    The debt ceiling is to pay for thing we ALREADY bought… Like paying your credit card bills. You do know what a credit card is, right? And you do know what happens if you refuse to pay your credit card bills? Right?

    That’s what’s about to happen to the US.

  13. Rusty Dils says:

    I think President Obama may be smarter than any of us realize. His plan is starting to come to fruition. He creates obama care, with an individual mandate, tax/fine if you don’t sign up, then he builds a website so horrifically bad that hardly anyone can sign up. End result, everyone has to pay the new fines and taxes. What a brilliant way to back door raise taxes. This guy is a genius. This guy is approaching “Hitler” level of manipulation. And he has all the liberals (friends of the Reich) still supporting. What a plan.

    Here is what CBS thinks about it.
    http://freedomslighthouse.net/2013/10/09/cbs-news-report-on-obamacare-rollout-nothing-short-of-disastrous-video-10913/

  14. Geezer says:

    Hey, Luke, Elkton called. They’re missing their village idiot and said you’d be perfect for the job.

  15. Rusty Dils says:

    Here is a little video highlighting democrats against raising the debt ceiling before they were for raising the debt ceiling

    As usual, liberals do not acknowledge the word “contradiction”

    http://freedomslighthouse.net/2013/10/09/new-rnc-ad-highlights-democrats-who-were-against-raising-the-debt-limit-before-they-were-for-it-video-10913/

  16. Jason330 says:

    Dils – One question. And I’d like a direct answer. Fox News & the GOP are now saying that a default would be “no big deal.” Do you agree with that?

    Yes or no?

  17. Geezer says:

    “As usual, liberals do not acknowledge the word “contradiction”

    Yet they don’t deny it nearly so often as conservatives, who have no principles beyond winning at all costs.