Crackpot cons make their own reality

Apparently they believe their own crackpottery. In the world according to the vandals of the Crackpot Caucus in John Boehner's House of Dysfunction, you can shut down the federal government for the sole purpose of abolishing a duly enacted law of the land outside the normal process of governance and simply pin the blame on President Obama.

They are urging Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to gamble that Obama and Senate Democrats will take the blame if they reject legislation that keeps the government running but stops ObamaCare.

At least 43 conservatives want the GOP leadership to go for broke, asserting that Obama has been damaged by stumbles over Syria and by several delays in implementing the Affordable Care Act.

They're convinced Obama won't let them do it. To which Obama responds, please proceed crazy Congresspersons. Meanwhile, establishment Republicans are freaking out and somewhere in an undisclosed location, John Boehner is quietly weeping into his cocktail.

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Washed out in Colorado

I know everybody has been preoccupied with Syria and then the Navy Yard shooting today, but I'm genuinely surprised at how little internet chatter there's been about this. This is huge. The devastation from the floods in Colorado is stunning.



Twitter tells me the GOP fought against funding dam maintenance there. Many dams failed in the epic rain. Yeah for deficit reduction... [More photos at the link.]

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Not just Fox

This could be said of most of our teevee media. [photo via Kennett Area Dems]

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Your moment of Zen

Hand raised Monarch in Maeve's magic garden.

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Republicans in disarray

I'll probably rot in hell for taking such untoward pleasure in watching the meltdown of Boehner's House of Dysfunction. The establishment GOPers empowered the crackpots in order to gain a majority. Clearly it didn't go quite the way they expected.There's a raging civil war going on within the party. Rank and file Republicans are looking for some leadership to chill down the Tea Party caucus and they aren't finding any. Both Johnny and Cantor are in hiding.

I think it's going to get ugly but the way forward is clear.

There will be voices of caution about how the Democrats have to be the grown-ups in the room because the country needs to be govern. But here's the thing -- the country's not being governed now. One half of the political system is under the effective control of people who believe their primary obligation as elected officials is to make sure the government doesn't work. The Democratic party must make no compromises with the insane. There is no legitimate middle-ground to be found in that tangle of bizarre tactics and political Tourette's. The only responsible thing to do is to make John Boehner either own the nutball caucus or stand up against it. The country demands this. Us or them, John. Time to choose. Whip's coming down.

I don't think Boehner can stand up to them so it's going to be up to the Democrats to make him own it. It would be great if for once, they rose up to the task.

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Lazy crazy days of Summers

Well. On top of having averted an air strike by the US and another chemical weapons strike by Assad inside of Syria this week, here's more good news from inside the Beltway.

Former White House economic adviser and Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers has withdrawn his name as a candidate for Federal Reserve chairman...

I couldn't be happier. He would have been a disaster in that spot. Of course, I don't suppose we'll get Janet Yellen either. Certainly not if President Obama really believes the banking industry is just fine. It's not. It's still very much broken.

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Living in hope, waiting for change

Posting has been light because, fully engaged in real life at the moment. Forgot how time consuming that can be. So outsourcing your Sunday reading to Betty Cracker's briliant post Your HOPE T-Shirt Won’t Get You Into Heaven Either. Seriously, read it all, it's not long but this is the really important part.

Part of the deal used to be that we could share the crumbs from their table. But now that the plutocrats have realized that their vast wealth can serve as its own sovereign state, they can cut the rest of us loose, buy governments in bulk and carry out enforcement actions using contract armies without relying on the US military as their muscle. [...]

President Obama is a smart guy who surely recognizes this, but he operates within this system and is a creature of it, just as all of us are. He rearranges the deck chairs on our sinking empire and even bails out some water sometimes, which is about the best we can expect given the geopolitical and economic realities. But trust him 100%? Only a fool would.

Yes, it is important to elect and support Democrats instead of Republicans. In fact, it’s our only hope, since putting our faith in fake President Dr. Jill Stein will only hasten the implosion by empowering the party that is 100% owned by the plutocrats instead of 80% co-opted.

President Obama is just a guy with a ridiculously stressful job working within an entirely corrupt system. We could have done much worse. He can't singlehandedly change the way the world works. People should probably stop expecting him to do so.

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