GOP’s Long-Predicted Comeuppance Has Arrived

[babylonsister]

GOP’s Long-Predicted Comeuppance Has Arrived


Republicans have dealt with some embarrassing moments on the House floor over the past year, but none so revealing or damning as today’s snafu, when they yanked a bill to fund the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Even the recent farm bill fiasco wasn’t as significant an indictment of the GOP’s governing potential.

It might look like a minor hiccup, or a symbolic error. But it spells doom for the party’s near-term budget strategy and underscores just how bogus the party’s broader agenda really is and has been for the last four years.

snip//

But many close Congress watchers — and indeed many Congressional Democrats — have long suspected that their votes for Ryan’s budgets were a form of cheap talk. That Republicans would chicken out if it ever came time to fill in the blanks. Particularly the calls for deep but unspecified domestic discretionary spending cuts.

Today’s Transportation/HUD failure confirms that suspicion. Republicans don’t control government. But ahead of the deadline for funding it, their plan was to proceed as if the Ryan budget was binding, and pass spending bills to actualize it — to stake out a bargaining position with the Senate at the right-most end of the possible.

But they can’t do it. It turns out that when you draft bills enumerating all the specific cuts required to comply with the budget’s parameters, they don’t come anywhere close to having enough political support to pass. Even in the GOP House. Slash community development block grants by 50 percent, and you don’t just lose the Democrats, you lose a lot of Republicans who care about their districts. Combine that with nihilist defectors who won’t vote for any appropriations unless they force the President to sign an Obamacare repeal bill at a bonfire ceremony on the House floor, and suddenly you’re nowhere near 218.

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http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/gops_long-predicted_comeuppance_has_arrived.php

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Oh, GOOD.

Revenge (or whatever you call it) is sweet.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

21. Schadenfreude n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

22. Thank you! I could not remember how to spell it! n/t

[mick063]

2. If the deficit is truly the problem

You don't emulate Adolf Hitler's fiscal policy.

We have enough fucking tanks. We have so many tanks, your local policeman gets to drive one.

[trumad]

4. The deficit is the problem?

Please proceed.

[mick063]

16. Their talking point, not mine

Defeat their nonsense on their terms then introduce your terms.

[matthews]

19. Next up - drones...

The new list reveals 81 entities that have applied for permission to fly drones in U.S. airspace, including a number of government agencies and universities. Seventeen police departments and sheriff's offices across the country have also filed, among them are stations in Little Rock, Ark., Gadsden, Ala., Miami, Fla., Ogden, Utah, and Seattle, Wash.

https://www.eff.org/document/2012-faa-list-drone-applicants

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

26. This is so true.

It sums up the policy (façade) quite well.

[obxhead]

3. Really?

I follow the news etc and this is the first I've read/heard of it.

While I agree this is bs, I doubt this is the death nail.

[LongTomH]

5. The Republican party is taking longer to die than a character in opera!

[madville]

11. They've been done for since Nixon I guess

One election with bad turnout on our side and they're easily back in power.

[riqster]

17. Bingo. nt

[IrishAyes]

28. And I hope it ends as well for them!

Good point there.

[Rozlee]

30. Please don't use that analogy.

Characters that die in soap operas tend to return. Usually as a much evil twin.

[Cheviteau]

8. Nail...

knell? Whatever Nell it is, The GOP is incapable of guiding our republic.

[obxhead]

10. Yeah, no shit.

I doubt this is the turning point in the 2014 vote, much less the 2016 vote.

[riqster]

18. We must save Nell!

[Ford_Prefect]

6. This goes under the heading of "give them enough rope..."

but perhaps they are only stretching a point...where their gasp exceeds their breach.

[alfredo]

7. The only endearing trait of the GOP is their anti social behavior.

[Scurrilous]

9. K & R

[Cha]

12. mahalo babsis!

[arely staircase]

13. recommended nt

[Blue Owl]

14. Flush the fucks and never look back

n/t

[DallasNE]

15. Of Course Ryan's Budget Is Not Binding

For a budget to be binding it must be sent to the President. There are separate House and Senate budgets and protocol calls for a joint committee to be set up to iron out differences and send that budget to the President. The House has refused to name conferees for the joint committee, leaving the country without a budget, because they fear that budget will contain language to extend the debt ceiling. In other words, House Republicans don't trust the people Boehner would name to this joint committee. Now if that isn't the definition of dysfunctional, I don't know what is. And with 2014 elections coming up rapidly a lot of Republicans are not wanting to walk this plank. The real problem is that the face of the Republican Party today is Steve King, Louis Gohmert and Ted Cruz and that doesn't sell across a wide swath of America.

[calimary]

24. And thank Heavens for that!

May that swath only grow wider.

I feel like ronald reagan's little "Kitchen Cabinet" tycoon pal justin dart did about preserving the forests from the logging, drilling, mining, developing, and marketing interests: he thought it'd be just fine merely to "save 100 acres - for the kids." Well, let's save 100 republi-CONs. "For the kids." Keep 'em in a zoo somewhere. I wouldn't mind seeing them all locked up in stocks and pillories in the town square. Then we can throw rotten eggs and tomatoes, and goopy sticky cream pies at them all day!

[Jackpine Radical]

29. I think I recall Limbaugh proposing something similar

for Democrats.

[calimary]

35. Yeah, well, fuck him. He's no longer negotiating from a position of strength.

EVEN IF the whole Cumulus/ClearChannel thing with his show negotiations fails and they keep him, he's damaged goods. His mouth has finally made him a little too much trouble. And he's on the way DOWN. NOT back up. Times, and demographics, are trending AWAY from him, steadily and more rapidly. His core audience is mainly angry old white guys and they're dying off. Most of those coming up behind them don't think the way limbaugh does, don't agree with him, don't share his worldview, and aren't even that interested in the rest of talk radio. And they sure as hell don't vote the way he endorses. He's still got some time to fool some people, including radio syndicators, but the pool of targets is shrinking, and drying up. He's on his way out. Finally picked on someone smaller than him, who wound up FAR bigger than he could ever be - Sandra Fluke and everything she represents (and that majorities of Americans get behind). His glory days are behind him. His time has passed. And he will soon be OVER. Because that boycott grew and started getting loser-stench on him after it ballooned past two THOUSAND sponsors and created unnecessary grief and drama for the media sales people. limbaugh never lost money - until that point. And then he started hemorrhaging. Unfortunately for him, once that trend took hold, he was finished. It'll take awhile for the rest of the blood to drain out, but it's a done deal. He's done.

He won't be able to recover. The trends and demographics are a rising tide against him at this point. It's just a matter of time, now.

And THANK GOD for that!!!

[Stuart G]

20. K and R thanks for posting...also...

thanks for your service to DU..much appreciated..

[spanone]

23. k&r...

[DonCoquixote]

25. folks, depends on which GOP

If you mean the Tea Party/hard right, no they are not doing well, but are nto dead, as they still have the House and manage to pose a threat.

If you mean the whole GOP, yes, they have tarnished, BUT, sadly, they have pulled so many Democrats into their orbit that withing the party, we have a de facto wing of the GOP. The Faux "Centrists" are doing just fine thank you, especially as the Obama/Clinton side of the party seems to be more concerned about trying to win their minds over than to champion those of us who, well, WON THE ELECTION. It's one thing to try and mend the country; but , as every house with an addict knows, there are time to need to break the bottles, flush the pills, and say "It's either jail or Rehab!"

People can debate about whether Obama is just being cynical, or genuinely thinks that this time, he can knock some sense into these fools, but in the end, it does not matter much. An addict that keeps getting a supply has no reason to change, at all, and, at the risk of making the worst pun ever on DU, the Koch brothers are willing to keep shoveling Coke to the even the biggest, smelliest, ugliest, loudest crackheads in the House and the Media.

I do not excuse Spitzer, Edwards, Weiner, Bill Clinton, or any of the other idiots on our side that somehow thought they could screw around and NOT have someone get evidence. If you live in a fishbowl, chances are people will see you when you do not want them to. However, to show how much the GOP is "losing" note how much GOP types get caught, and have ZERO hindrance to their political career. That is because the GOP get rewarded for bad behavior, and until that changes, we have no right to shoot fireworks and go "ding dong the witch is dead."

[IrishAyes]

27. Made my day, thanks!

[boomerbust]

31. I heard they were done

After 2006 election and the Tom Delay fiasco. Not.

[Chakab]

32. Comeuppance?

They have a majority in the House that will exist for at least another decade because of gerrymandering and voter suppression. Their base doesn't give a shit about any of these shenanigans, and the media refuses to do anything but claim that both sides equal responsible for Congress's ineptitude.

[blkmusclmachine]

33. F/ck the GOPee

[Scurrilous]

34. Boink.