Age, knowledge , and guile beat youth, inexperience, and a bad haircut every time PJ O’Rourke
The more things change, the more they stay the same Snake Plissken Escape From LA
Here we go again. Just think of this little treatise as A Hitchhikers Guide To The Debt Ceiling. because if you’ve been paying attention, you’re about to see the same damn movie again, just with a different cast, but with the same outcome.
In the reign of Emperor Numbus Nuttus, early in, the country was facing a government shutdown as a likely prerequisite to a debt ceiling crisis. And sure of his stable genius, superior intellect, and business excellence, The Emperor With No Clothes stepped in and took personal control.
The government shutdown crisis took place right as we headed into the Christmas holidays. And Traitor Tot smelled an advantage in using his guile to tie the Democrats to the government shutdown, crippling them in the 2020 election campaign.
And so The Cheeto Prophet called for an Oval Office summit with Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to the Oval Office for a summit to discuss the situation.
And got his *ss handed to him in a sling. Schumer and Pelosi tag teamed him beautifully,. And rather than getting the Democrats to shoulder the blame, atone point Schumer suckered Trump into taking full responsibility for the shutdown, which the Democrats used richly in 2020.
The reason for the debacle was simple. Schumer and Pelosi went into the Oval Office meeting, and all future negotiations with firm goals, and refused to budge from those goals. The GOP had no clear agenda to gain from the shutdown, and couldn’t find one, so after 35 days Trump folded with nothing to show for it.
And now here we go again, only on a grander stage. The entire US economy, as well as the majority of workers 401k programs are on the line in the upcoming debt crisis. But this time it’s Squeaker Cavein McCarthy instead of Trump who is in charge, and he has a headwind to face that Trump didn’t.
McCarthy has no actual plan, program, or agenda, and like with Trump, President Joe Biden knows it. He has spent weeks challenging McCarthy’s political manhood with taunts of You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. But McCarthy has literally nothing to show. Even the comprehensive framework he revealed yesterday has more holes in it than a wheel of Swiss cheese.
In childish outrage McCarthy keeps challenging Biden to sit down and negotiate! And like an owner playing with a cat with a laser pointer, Biden keeps daring him to bring something concrete to the table to negotiate with, and they’ll talk. He’s playing the idiot McCarthy for the perfect moment to suck him into a losing situation.
Because Biden already knows something that McCarthy is so far blissfully ignorant of. And that is the fact that McCarthy is a man on a raft in the middle of the ocean. senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is looking at the 2024 Senate map, and he sees a narrow path to victory. And the last thing McConnell needs is a financial meltdown being blamed on his candidates.
And it’s not like McConnell has been playing coy. Months ago he came right out and said that the Senate GOP supports a clean long term extension of the debt ceiling. And when McCarthy started making moo-moo noises about massive spending cuts, McConnell was blunt, That kind of a bill would be DOA in the Senate, but I wish him well in his quest. It doesn’t get much more direct than that.
Sooner or later Biden will meet with McCarthy, and when he does, McCarthy will wish he stayed home under the bed. Biden not only holds all of the cards, he has all of the chips in front of him as well. McCarthy already knows that there’s nothing he could negotiate that could pass the House MAGA caucus. And McConnell has made it crystal clear that the Senate GOP will join in on a clean debt ceiling resolution, leaving McCarthy to either fold and call it to the floor for guaranteed passage, of shelve it and wait for a discharge petition to clear the floor, and show how many of his caucus have abandoned him in his moment of need.
And if McCarthy is humiliated in the debt ceiling fight, then there’s no real reason for the Freedom caucus to keep him around, is there? After all, they can elect almost anybody as Speaker to let them run amuck. After all, it’s not like they actually want to accomplish anything but feeding the base. The brass ring was the debt ceiling was the brass ring, and if McCarthy fumbles it, what good is he? This is going to be fun.
I wish Schumer could get McTurtle to agree to simply killng the debt ceiling. It’s left over from WW1, FFS, and that ended a hundred fifteen years ago.
Just to correct your math, but WW1 ended a hundred five years ago. A “hundred fifteen years ago” was 1908, a full six years before “the Great War” would begin.
But, you are right in the stupidity in retaining the debt ceiling.
President Biden could’ve made this debt ceiling mess disappear in TYOOL 2022, taking this weapon from the GOP once and for all. Uncle Joe has all the advantages of this this time, but what about the future of a possible MAGA Congress/Senate? God forbid, but it could happen.
Cave-in kevin must really like that sledgehammer to the jiggly bits feeling.
In the line of my belief that we should make more noise than the fascists, Biden should declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it now. Let them sue. They are going to sue anyway.
Then he should declare all the antiabortion laws and the other sex laws as unconstitutional according to the first amendment as the government shall have no laws promoting a religion. Then he should declare all the many voter suppression laws in violation of the Voters Right Act and issue an order stating what sort of laws are not in violation. Roberts has been proven wrong many times over that racism is dead. Then enforce these executive decisions post haste. Lock up any official or citizen that violates his orders in the DC jail with no bail as they are insurrectionist that have been plotting against the US Government for the last hundred years. If he needs a catalog of their treasonous acts I am sure there are many that could provide an extensive list. Oh, as to impeachment, the Republicans have already shown they are lying traitors by refusing to hold other Republicans accountable. Naked power over the rule of law.
FDR had nothing like the challenges we face today. The entire Republican Party has attempted an insurrection. That is a fact. It is not a matter of free speech. They are filthy traitors and their fascist judges appointed by illegitimate Presidents such as Bush and Trump should be disqualified and thrown out. Let them call Biden a tyrant. They do anyway. Look what they did in Michigan (and the rest of the nation) over public health policy.
The entire party should be charged with conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate US government. I had almost decided not to post this comment till I sat down in the den to take my medicine and started watching Dead Line White House. We are in the worst trouble as a democracy in our history. I live in the heart of the most fascist state in the country, Mississippi. As soon as the bogus Shelby decision came they jumped right on it. We have the worst laws in the country. Our voter participation has continually gone down. We make GA and TX look liberal. Yet the MSM including MSNBC ignore us because we are not considered a swing state even though we have the largest black population in the country.
The DOJ was formed to fight the treasonous KKK. They should go back to their roots.
Well here’s my take. Two or three days ago. Not sure when. Biden was out somewhere and McCarthy had been out running his mouth. Got some brain fog issues but I know McCarthy thought he was getting the better of Biden. Going on like Murphy said about let’s negotiate and all that crap. I’m pretty sure they weren’t in the same room. Anyway long story short. And this is why I keep telling these morons about Joes mind and all but he turns looks directly at a camera that’s off to the side looks like it’s in a palm tree or something. And Biden says, negotiates, negotiate what? And turns around and walks away. I know I wouldn’t want to go up against him. Been having some issues lately. Headaches from an old injury among other things.