Republican negotiation strategy: government shutdown or default

How did the Republican Party come to hate most Americans?

Under the Mountain Bunker

Jamelle Bouie’s take on the hostage situation (emphasis below is mine):

“[..] in the House, Republicans are pressing Speaker John Boehner to take a stand on the debt ceiling. Here’s Politico: In a marked shift, Boehner allies are urging him — publicly and privately — to do something he never has before: be willing to shut down the government or default on the nation’s debt to extract compromises from the White House.

To reiterate a point from last week, it’s worth clarifying what Republicans mean when they commit to refusing to raise the debt ceiling: The United States would be unable to pay its full obligations as mandated by Congress, and would have to forgo payments to bondholders, employees, contractors, and anyone else who receives money from the federal government. Refusing to raise the limit is an act of astounding irresponsibility, and Republicans are threatening it unless President Obama implements…

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But it’s NOT climate change – ‘Australia’s weather is so hot, new colors added to weather map’

We have added 6 Billion people to the planet in the last 110 years.

The forests we have cut down, the water we have polluted, the air we have fouled by the huge increase in burning fossil fuels is how we humans are affecting climate.

It would be alright for those who don’t believe we are affecting climate….IF we had another planet to go to.

But we don’t.

Mother Nature can cause horrific damage with just one little low pressure system.

Imagine what she can do when we increase the Global temperature by 6 degrees……

‘The forecast in Australia: Hot, hot, hot—and getting hotter’.

‘As a record-breaking heatwave hovers over many regions and territories (which are in their summer months now), the continent’s Bureau of Meteorology has added two new colors to the weather map to reflect the rising mercury’.

‘The map currently shows the weather in orange tones at the top, which indicate temperatures 40 to 48 degrees Celsius. But forecasts are predicting off-the-charts weather. As a result, pink and purple will now cover temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius—should it climb that high’.

‘For those rusty on the temperature conversion, that is a sweat-inducing 122 degrees Fahrenheit’.

“The forecast coming from the bureau’s model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees,” said David Jones, head of the bureau’s climate monitoring and prediction unit’.

‘According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a “dome of heat”(sound familar?) over Australia is contributing to the record-breaking weather, which has gone on for six straight days with average maximum temps above 39 degrees Celcius (102 Fahrenheit). The trend seems likely to continue’.

‘Adding to the misery, the searing heat is also fueling wildfires that continue to rage in southeastern Australia’.

“You don’t get conditions worse than this,” Shane Fitzsimmons, New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner, told the Associated Press’.

‘Australia isn’t the only place battling record high temperatures. Last year, the United States had its warmest year on record’.
From : http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/australia-weather-heats-colors-added-weather-map-195717230.html

See : ‘NOAA: 2012 Warmest Year On Record For U.S., Second Most Extreme Weather’
‘The average temperature for the entire year was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, a full degree warmer than the previous record warmest year, 1998, and 3.2 degrees above the entire 20th century average’.
@ : http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/2012-warmest-year-on-record-second-most-extreme-weather.php

 

Hope and Change – ‘Moderate Republican group to remove ‘Republican’ from name, welcome Democrats’

With all the money corrupting our politics I’m not going to jump all in but it is a start……maybe.

The Main Street Partnership : http://www.republicanmainstreet.org/

‘The Republican Main Street Partnership, a Washington-based group that has promoted moderate GOP lawmakers and policies, will remove the word “Republican” from its title and welcome center-right Democrats in 2013, Yahoo News has learned’.

‘The organization’s board of directors voted Tuesday morning to scrap party identification from its title and be known simply as “The Main Street Partnership.” The group’s new president, former Ohio Republican Rep. Steven LaTourette, told Yahoo News that he plans to begin conversations with Blue Dog Democrats and centrist groups in the coming months’.

“The goal is to try and fill the void that is the middle,” LaTourette, who resigned from Congress this year, said. “The American political system is like a doughnut: You’ve got sides, but you don’t have anything in the middle, and it would be my goal to work with Republicans and Democrats who want to find the path forward to getting things done and compromise.”

‘In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, LaTourette added: “While we have changed our name, we have not changed our values or our mission. We will continue to be a right of center organization and continue to represent the governing wing of the Republican Party.”

‘The Main Street Partnership will also expand its super PAC, Defending Main Street, to aid center-right members of both parties, LaTourette said, adding, “It’s not going to be focused so much on party as it is on protecting people from the right and left extremes if they choose to do the right things.”

‘In Congress, LaTourette was known to vote against party leadership: He opposed a measure that would strip federal funding of National Public Radio in 2011, and he was one of just two Republicans who did not support censuring Attorney General Eric Holder’.
From : http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/moderate-republican-group-remove-republican-name-welcome-democrats-191019543–politics.html

 

Stories from the fringe – ‘Glenn Beck Relaunching The Blaze As Global Libertarian News Network’

One very rich ‘rodeo clown’.

‘Glenn Beck announced plans Tuesday during his online television program to expand the news operation in his media company, The Blaze, and refocus it as a libertarian network, opening three foreign bureaus, debuting a nightly newsmagazine show, and relocating his New York staff to showy new offices’.

‘Beck introduced his ambitious plans by standing in front of a split screen with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on one side and Fox News’s Sean Hannity on the other, and bemoaning the fact that cable news has devolved into the “far left [and] far right… yelling at each other.”

“And I want people to notice me and make a a whole bunch of money off of the simpeltons so what better way then to have my own network.”

‘Beck also showed a teaser for a new nightly 30-minute newsmagazine show called For the Record’.

“Our Nightline will be a nightly half hour broadcast to update you on a topic that no one else quite frankly has the balls to do. I will,” he said’.

‘The trailer for the show — which he said will be “the most expensive show on the network, including mine” — featured future episodes exposing the NSA for turning America into a “surveillance state,” and warning that the UN “want[s] your guns,” both big issues in libertarian circles’.
From : http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/glenn-beck-relaunching-the-blaze-as-global-liberta

 

Blog Running – ‘Club For Growth’ – ‘The ‘hell no’ caucus’

Politico is having some internal problems but Vandehie and Allen are great investigative reporters.

And Club for Growth really, really needs to be investigated.

They are reshaping ‘We the People’ into “we the Influenced People’.

This is the face of Republican Obstructionism. Control enough districts and you can stop legislation.

We stop being a Republic where we elect those to represent us.

Instead organizations like Club For Growth pour money into races to infulence people that simply don’t even attempt to inform themselves.

This is the future of Citizens United. Money is free speech.

Money in politics.

And why America is failing.
‘Freshman Rep. Tom Cotton, a veteran of two wars and with a pair of Harvard degrees, got a pleasant surprise last year that helped him win a very competitive Republican primary — and then a very easy general election’.

‘It was a FedEx envelope full of checks that he didn’t ask for, from a group he hardly knew — the Club for Growth’.

‘Tucked inside that envelope and several to come were $300,000 in checks from Club members, enough to help lift the 35-year-old former Army captain from obscurity — and 47 percentage points down in his first internal poll — to the fourth floor of the Cannon House Office Building’.

‘You need to understand how Cotton won in November to appreciate how the modern Republican Congress works’.

‘The guy is a smart Harvard Law grad and former McKinsey & Co. consultant who likes to quote Socrates and The Federalist Papers. He is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who hired a fellow Iraq vet to mount an insurgent campaign for the Republican nomination in a vast rural district the size of West Virginia’.

‘He is neither a hick, nor a blowhard. But he was virtually invisible until he won an audience with the Club for Growth’.

‘The Club has pioneered a technique that has helped make Congress an even more polarized mess’.

‘Instead of wasting time on high-profile races, the group intervenes in contested Republican primaries, often putting its money on the most conservative of a conservative bunch, like Cotton’.

‘Republican leaders generally sit out primaries, so the Club’s aggressive, free-spending intervention has helped create a new generation of lawmakers who owe their success more to the Club than to Boehner and the GOP establishment’.

‘Add this to the list of reasons Boehner often seems impotent these days’.

‘So when it comes to Plan Bs, or tax-hike compromises, or the upcoming debt limit fight, lawmakers like Cotton have little incentive to take one for the Boehner team. So they don’t — and won’t’.

‘You also need to understand how Cotton and most House Republicans see the politics of the moment — and the incentives they respond to’.

‘Many are young and have seen victory only in vowing to fight for massive reductions in government, both in spending and intrusion into gun ownership and other matters’.

‘They think the mainstream media are full of it when they talk up compromise and balanced approaches that include more taxes or government. “We went from deep in the wilderness in 2009 to the biggest election in 80 years for Republicans by focusing on debt and on Obamacare,” Cotton said’.

‘This is bad news for Obama and anyone else dreaming of compromises on entitlement reform, guns and immigration in the year ahead’.

‘It is also bad news for those Republicans who want to reposition the party before the 2016 election’.

‘The vast majority of House Republicans are opposed to any new spending, willing to risk default to force spending cuts, dismissive of new gun laws and deeply skeptical about immigration reform’.

‘And even though nearly 1.4 million more people voted for a Democrat for the House in November than voted for a Republican, the GOP won 33 more seats than the Democrats’.

‘Many in the media — us included — often underestimate just how conservative and how impervious to criticism and leadership browbeating these members are when appraising the chances for change in the next two years’.

“I think that is the right ground for us to be on,” Cotton said. “And to the extent that the Beltway, Manhattan media thinks it is not, they’re mistaken about that. And they were mistaken for a long time in 2009 and 2010, as well.”
From : http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/behind-the-curtain-the-hell-no-caucus-85872.html

 

Austerity thy name is ‘High Unemployment – ‘Eurozone unemployment reaches new high’

Come on America! Republicans want to cut spending so let’s cut spending.

Cut spending…..you cut growth.

You cut growth…..you put people out of work.

Demand side economics.

People working spend money which creates more jobs because employers need more products and people to provide services.

Cut spending and you cut jobs because fewer people have money.

You have to understand that even before you can get into an economics class.

‘The unemployment rate across the eurozone hit a new all-time high of 11.8% in November, official figures have shown’.

‘Spain, which is mired in deep recession, again recorded the highest unemployment rate, coming in at 26.6%’.

‘More than 26 million people are now unemployed across the EU’.

‘Greece had the second-highest unemployment rate in November, at 20%’.

‘The youth unemployment rate was 24.4% in the eurozone, and 23.7% in the wider European Union. Youth unemployment – among people under 25 – was highest in Greece (57.6%), followed by Spain (56.5%)’.

‘The eurozone and wider European Union economies are struggling with recession as government measures to reduce sovereign debt levels have impacted on economic growth’.

“The headline figures spell bad news, but that is compounded by the political and human impact of terrifying levels of youth unemployment in Spain, Greece and Italy.
From : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20943292#

 

 

 

Blog Running – ‘How Obama should open debt-ceiling negotiations’

‘The best idea remains one that Post columnist Matt Miller proposed last month’:

‘Raise the debt ceiling “just by the amount it would take to accommodate the debt Republicans voted for in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget last year — $6 trillion over the next decade.”

‘As Miller wrote during the “fiscal cliff” standoff, the idea that Republicans actually care about the deficit is “demonstrably, laughably, even shockingly false.”

‘The party showed absolutely no interest in controlling deficits during its six years in control of Congress and the White House’.

‘Several GOP moves since then have only confirmed that Republicans are interested only in using the national debt to try and scare people into adopting their unpopular policies’.

‘After all, the failure of John Boehner’s “Plan B” tax proposal showed House Republicans’ determination to vote down debt solutions that didn’t conform to their tax ideology’.

‘The GOP has clung to pushing “chained CPI” as its favorite Social Security reform in this round of negotiations, since it cuts benefits without the politically dangerous headlines of “GOP cuts benefits,” but the Congressional Budget Office has found it’s actually one of the least effective policy options for extending Social Security’s solvency’.

‘And on Medicare, Republicans’ (and, unfortunately, some Democrats’) idea of raising the eligibility age would only lead to minimal savings, while hurting minorities hardest’.

‘Given that Republicans’ priorities are their policies first, the debt a distant second and the health of our economy an even more distant third, Miller’s idea should be at the center of the White House’s strategy on the debt ceiling’.

‘Remember, the GOP caucus has repeatedly backed Ryan’s budgets, the latest of which, to repeat, adds $6 trillion in debt over 10 years’.

‘By continuously highlighting Republican duplicity and hypocrisy, the White House can give itself the most room to make the best deal for the American people’.
From : http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/01/08/debt-ceiling-negotiations-obama/

 

Spokane Washington – ‘City wants downtown homeless camps out this week’

Tell me again about American Exceptionalism.

Tell me again how we are the ‘greatest Nation on Earth’.

The measure of a Nation…….the measure of a people is not how the the rich live…….but how the poor suffer.

With the recession – does YOUR city have an empty building?….Or 2?…..or 15?

Cost/Reward.

The cost of renting/leasing a building, hiring security, providing 2 meals a day.
SHC can get their information AND start the process of providing ID’s.

The reward of knowing we have helped homeless from suffering indignities, cold and possible harm and actually improved their lives.

Have a problem?

Solve a problem.

Not subscribe to the ‘out of sight – out of mind’ solution.

SPOKANE — ‘The City of Spokane is getting tougher on homeless camps popping up under I-90. Officials plan to break up the camps later this week,but several homeless people said whatever is implemented will not last’.

‘The City said it will provide a 24-hour notice before it takes any action. Officials also want to connect the homeless with services’.

‘The Spokane Homeless Coalition said its representatives are collecting information from people who are camping to better understand their needs and what is prevent them from seeking housing’.

‘ A spokesperson for the SHC said shelters get full during the winter, and some require identification which some homeless people do not have’.
From : http://www.krem.com/news/local/City-wants-downtown-homeless-camps-out-this-week-186103891.html

Crazy Fear and Loathing on the Republican Right – ‘Alex Jones’s Insane Post-Piers Morgan Selfie Videos’

Come on Republicans! You wanted to ‘expand’ your base and so you invited these nut cases in.

So live with the facts that you believe this too or kick them out.

It’s called having the courage of your convictions.

Well I guess you have to have convictions first.

‘After Alex Jones went on Piers Morgan Tonight on Monday, he retreated to his New York hotel room and made some videos for his YouTube channel accusing Mayor Michael Bloomberg of “stalking” him and sending crackheads after him’.

“If something happens to us, or we’re killed by crackheads, it was the NYPD or mafia [Bloomberg] hired,” Jones said during the 12-minute monologue’.

‘Jones made a separate video in the hotel bathroom, titled “We Are in NYC: Pray For Us.”

“Bloomberg’s stalking us outside,” Jones said. “I’m trying to get back to Austin, Texas; pray for us, ladies and gentleman.”

‘Jones wrapped up the series with a quick message on the plane before his flight back to Austin took off’.

“We came to New York to confront Piers Morgan,” Jones said. “We did the job we wanted, we put the globalists on notice.”

‘On his radio show on Tuesday, Jones addressed the Morgan incident, giving himself an “A” for his performance’.

‘He claimed that CNN “looks like Hitler’s bunker….torn-up carpet, feces all over the wall and on the floor in the bathroom. It’s rotting.”
From : http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/alex-jones-insane-post-piers-morgan-selfie-videos

 

Fear and Loathing on the Republican Right – “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms”!

“I’m an American which means I’m right and you’re wrong”.

I’m sure everyone has seen this but it is a great example of why we can’t have a rational, intelligent conversation on gun control.

“1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms! It doesn’t matter how many lemmings (mindless followers) you get out on the street begging for them to have their guns taken! We will not relinquish them! Do you understand?”