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[Mongrel]

Stocks are soaring on the promise of, uh, a massive devaluation of mutual funds.

Economics

[François]

Salon: So when we hit midnight Thursday night what is going to have happened?

[Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson]: I don’t know. But I do know that this will prove once and for all, beyond any doubt, that the Tea Party and the Republican Party are agents of chaos. And they are completely unsuited to participating in government.

S: Are you suggesting the voters will prevent it from happening again?

AG: The voters will prevent this from happening again. Even a dog knows when it’s being kicked.

S: How will they do that?

AG: By voting the Republicans out of power and relegating the Republican Party to the ash heap of history.

dang i like this guy

and he's from florida too! how'd that even happen

[Pacobird]

I'm always annoyed when that fucker makes me want to like him.

it's okay to think people who want to do monstrous stuff have positive qualities

[Pacobird]

Stocks are soaring on the promise of, uh, a massive devaluation of mutual funds.

Economics

it's not so much economics as it is finance

people are just trying to get out of T-bills, so stocks are the place to be; they'll go right back in a week

[Thad]

Yeah, it's pretty easy not to like him when he's more pissed that this is ruining future Republican plans than being pissed that this is, you know, hurting people.

I don't say a lot of nice things about McCain, but I don't think that's fair.  Prior to getting his ass whomped by a rightwing nutjob in 2000 and deciding if he couldn't beat 'em he should join 'em, he was pretty reliable as a guy who was willing to cross the aisle and make deals -- he was never really the RINO/moderate/maverick that people tended to make him out to be, but he was at least ready to disagree with his party now and again or make compromises in order to get shit done.

I think he probably IS pretty frustrated that his party has become completely intractable, and not just because it's bad strategy.

And I gotta figure he's spent many a sleepless night wishing he'd picked a different running-mate.


...Anyway.  As far as today's news, looks like it's over.  Sorta.  Sequester's still on and I'm not convinced the Tea Party's learned its lesson and won't pull this shit again the next time there's a budget vote, but still, this beats the fuck out of defaulting, or taking money out of essential programs to avoid defaulting.

[Mongrel]

I've probably mentioned this before, but the day the GOP chose Bush Jr. over McCain was the day I stopped... well, I can't say that I lost all faith in it, but it was certainly the day I stopped giving the US political system the benefit of the doubt.

A lot of people have forgotten that throughout the primaries, McCain consistently polled way higher on his chances in a general election than Bush Jr. did.

[Mazian]

Sequester's still on and I'm not convinced the Tea Party's learned its lesson and won't pull this shit again the next time there's a budget vote

Sadly, that part isn't even in doubt:

“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.”

Fleming's one of the loudest and most uncooperative members of the TP contingent, admittedly, but it's not a promising sign.

[Mongrel]

Anyway. Are you kidding me? Get a load of this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/if-ted-cruz-didnt-exist-democrats-would-have-to-invent-him/

Like, is the WaPo trying to get down to the level of the NyPo here?

[Brentai]

If you read the whole article it's more clear that the guy's kind of joking.  It's really more about the extent to which Cruz and his people ran the ball backwards (spoilers: they completely fucking own-goaled, giving the Dems leverage they could never dare to ask for nor dream of obtaining otherwise).

[Joxam]

If you read the whole article it's more clear that the guy's kind of joking.  It's really more about the extent to which Cruz and his people ran the ball backwards (spoilers: they completely fucking own-goaled, giving the Dems leverage they could never dare to ask for nor dream of obtaining otherwise).

Also Ted Cruz is basically single handedly the reason the national dialog hasn't been the shitty obamacare roll out for the last two weeks.

EDIT: I have a theory that the bad roll out wasn't a bigger deal because there is an entire generation of voters who had to suffer through WoW's launch and content updates.

[Thad]

Sequester's still on and I'm not convinced the Tea Party's learned its lesson and won't pull this shit again the next time there's a budget vote

Sadly, that part isn't even in doubt:

“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.”

Fleming's one of the loudest and most uncooperative members of the TP contingent, admittedly, but it's not a promising sign.

But it's straight up Bad Guy Wrestler talk.  He may as well be sending the Democrats a fucking gift basket -- he's got the "gift" part covered pretty well as it is.

He's either very very stupid, or knows he can get campaign contributions with talk like that.

Course, inasmuch as he's gone and pissed off all the Republican donors who actually have lots of money, he might see the latter dry up too.

Hell, I think that statement's going to make more money in contributions for Harry Reid than it is for John Fleming.

If you read the whole article it's more clear that the guy's kind of joking.  It's really more about the extent to which Cruz and his people ran the ball backwards (spoilers: they completely fucking own-goaled, giving the Dems leverage they could never dare to ask for nor dream of obtaining otherwise).

So let's check in with Thad and Brent from Three Years Ago:

I think we really ARE looking at a replay of the Class of '94 Let's Shut Down the Government Because We Have a Mandate foolishness.  The two major questions are, are the Republicans dumb enough to do it AGAIN, and are the Democrats smart enough to let them?

Yes, No.

Well, the Democrats let them, anyway.  Which I guess shows at least a modicum of spine and savvy, for a change.

And a certain amount of luck, but really the Republicans were fucked on this one even without Ted Cruz's 21-Hour Speech About the Importance of Ted Cruz.  We knew this was going to be a debacle for the Tea Party before we ever heard that clown's name.

[Royal☭]

The system is so rigged at this point I can't see this not happening again. In the end, this was a win-win situation for Tea Party members. They may have demanded a defund of Obamacare, but they also really wanted that government shutdown in and of itself. So this entire thing was exactly what they wanted.

And as for repercussions, well, we all saw how the Republicans lost control over the house because of the last two times they pulled this shit. The problem is entirely systemic. Everyone may hate the Republicans for this debacle, but everyone is not responsible for electing them. We may see turnover of a few of the Tea Party caucus, but there's a good chance they'll be primarying the capitulating Republicans in several other districts. They support a Hydra method of gaining power.

In a way, though, I really admire these Tea Party guys. The shutdown is an absolute debacle that hurt a lot of people and every single one of them is a shitstain, but man, the system lets them do that shit. Every single time this shit has happened since 2009, Harry Reid and Obama have had plenty of options to just shut this shit down so they can get back to the task of governing. And there's no reason to keep it, either, because it's not like there's a power left-wing opposition that will end up trying to get its demands.

If only I could figure out why the Democrats don't do anything to correct this shit. Oh well, here's another MoveOn.org newsletter about how we need to beat the Republicans in 2014...

[R^2]

There's the report/jokespawn going around about the bewildering 5% of Americans who still give Congress a thumbs-up. I just assume it's Tea Party-slash-Libertarians who honestly believe no gubmint is better than any gubmint.

(What the hell, autocorrect doesn't give me any shit for "gubmint"? Who programmed this dictionary?)

[MarsDragon]

And as for repercussions, well, we all saw how the Republicans lost control over the house because of the last two times they pulled this shit. The problem is entirely systemic. Everyone may hate the Republicans for this debacle, but everyone is not responsible for electing them. We may see turnover of a few of the Tea Party caucus, but there's a good chance they'll be primarying the capitulating Republicans in several other districts. They support a Hydra method of gaining power.

Didn't the Republicans keep control of the House in '96? They lost some seats, but remained the majority.

If this does effect the election, I expect the Democrats to pick up a few moderate Republican districts, but the Tea Party will be strengthened by grabbing some heavily Republican districts. Midterm elections tend to swing right anyway, since the only people that care are old white people. Net result is that gridlock gets worse.

[Mongrel]

I thought Constantine was being sarcastic about the GOP losing the house.

[Royal☭]

Yeah, it'd probably be a lot clearer if I specified that "The last two times they pulled this shit" was like over the last 4 years. The GOP has been playing reckless obstructionist in the House since they took over. Their popularity has been on a steep decline since, but the result of gerrymandering and primary challenges ends up with the more fanatical right-wing members gaining power, while the moderates are pushed out.

Ironically, the system that's allowing them to choke the House is preventing them from taking over the Senate. But for their purposes, a slow destruction of the government is fine.

[Brentai]

The moderates in the GOP are the ones who will disproportionately be affected. The fringe Republicans would never have been put in power in the first place if their position was not secure.

If you assume that the fringe faction's goal is not to oppose the Democratic Party but rather to stage a hostile takeover of the GOP and its prized economic resources, the whole debacle goes from looking like pure insanity to looking like a terrifyingly effective briar patch gambit. Ted Cruz is not going to lose his seat, but the guy to his left trying desperately to make him shut up will.

Is this a violation of Hanlon's Razor? Sure, but at the same time, we've had that prediction about the GOP's fate as a topic title for years. We keep waiting for the autocannibalization to happen but it's become much clearer now, with bullshit like the Hastert Rule being put into place with the sole purpose of making the GOP machine gag its own people, that it has not only already started but is actually pretty close to complete. At this point any moderate Republican who is paying attention  needs to start choosing between moving right, leaving the organization, or being pushed out of office by his or her own faction.

[Classic]

Is it wrong that I am taking some small amount of (Pyrrhic?) vindictive glee in this turn of events?

[Thad]

Cynical as I am, I think at some point the not-Tea-Party Republicans are going to get sick of this shit.  Boehner's a battered wife and he's not going to suspend the Hastert Rule on his own, but he's looking at pressure from all sides and it's only going to get worse.  (The Hastert Rule is not actually a rule.  It's more of a tradition.  And it's not much of one; Hastert only became Speaker in '99.)

The flipside of the "most of the Tea Party is safe" coin is that most of the not-Tea Party is safe, too.  I've pointed it out before but it bears repeating: 2010 was considered a bloodbath, and 80% of the House kept their seats.  There are some districts where "moderate" Republicans (this being a relative term of course) have a good reason to fear a primary challenge, but they're vastly outnumbered by districts where they don't.

And the other thing that bears repeating is, the deep-pocketed donors are pretty pissed off about this whole turn of events, and they're going to start twisting arms.