The Debt Ceiling Crisis Has Been Averted

 

Breaking news: The Senate has passed a bipartisan bill to suspend the debt ceiling and curb federal spending, sending the legislation to President Biden to sign into law before Monday’s deadline to avert an unprecedented U.S. government default. https://t.co/UjfjMKELsT

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 2, 2023

I need you to know, first and foremost, I hate this shit in theory. The debt ceiling thing should not exist. We should just pay our debts the way the Constitution says we must. If we are concerned about spending, the Congress should act on this with an actual budget that reduces spending and perhaps, and this the important part--considers raising revenues by going for the people who have money. 

But I am very happy that the Democratic House Members under the leadership of Hakeem Jeffries agreed to a bitter debt ceiling deal that was not clean, and that the Democratic Senate also voted to avert a financial catastrophe. The next debt ceiling deadline is in 2025--when maybe a second Biden term will have an even better hand to work with. 

We need to give Shalanda Young from OMB her flowers, because she was a crucial negotiator in this battle. She was determined not to let this default happen. 

And let's really bask in the accomplishments of the Biden economy. Record low unemployment. And a significant lowering of inflation over last year. 

I don't understand anyone wanting to fuck up a good deal for Americans.  I don't understand rooting for failure. I think patriotism is when you want your countrymen and women to do well, right? And I think the side that doesn't do that is...problematic. Maybe they should even be unelectable. Because I don't think anyone should be rewarded for any attempt to screw up the economy upon which so many depend. It is too serious a thing for silly assholes to play games with. 

TWGB: Trump Has Some Explaining To Do

 

Now, it might seem like I'm writing a TrumpWorld Grab-Bag because I can't find a hook for the debt ceiling vote that took place, and you'd be exactly right! I hate writing about debt ceiling brinkmanship because it feels a little like "Hey let's pretend we're about to violate the Constitution and shiv the economy to let people know who the real patriots are." 

That's insane, right? Like undermining the courts or the DOJ, or defunding law enforcement or pretending our elections are rigged, all without real proof, this is kind of seditious, you know? And it doesn't really surprise me that the same MAGA Freedom Caucus who did wild stuff like support not certifying Biden's win and some of whom even asked for pardons from Trump? Are down with hijacking the cockpit and bringing our economy down, Flight 93 style. 

They are ideological terrorists. I don't think you could persuade them that fucking up the US economy is wrong because it hurts their constituents and even has ripples in the entire world economy. They have stockpiled guns and freeze-dried beanie-weinies.  They feel good. They are waiting on some kind of political rapture. Maybe that looks like the Second Coming of Trump. I'm not even a good Christian, and that feels all kinds of blasphemous to me. 

I Say Mint the Coin.

 

OMG, is it debt ceiling season so soon! I mean, no sooner than Republicans have control of the House of Representatives with a Democratic president in office, and they party like it's 2011?  Look, I hate this conversation. My first opinion is: Take the Uzi from the Babies.  Democrats should have nuked the debt ceiling thing when we had the chance because the Republicans were telegraphing that they are not by any means good faith partners in doing crazy regular things like paying the government's just debts like the Constitution says we should, and like responsible people who don't want a credit crisis would do. 

Barring that, it would have been greeeeaaat if Democrats could have been advertising "SCOREBOARD" every time asshole Republicans pretended they are the fiscally responsible people, when all Republican presidents do is pass tax cuts and run up the deficit. Trump put damn near 8 trillion on the debt. He passed tax cuts. His COVID response was a deadly stupid wasteful expensive mess. And he lost net jobs, which is amazeballs--no one else did that. 

But all Republican presidents recently have run up the debt, fail to really do wonders creating jobs and fuck up the economy. They can't help themselves. They get help from the Republicans in congress after all. 

I Doubt His Influence

 

McCarthy: But I do want to thank especially President Trump. I don’t think anybody should doubt his influence. pic.twitter.com/UJdVKQ5VRA

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 7, 2023

I'd sooner give credit for the rumored "blackmail" threats than Trump for the eventual success of Kevin McCarthy's bid for Speaker, largely because Trump supported him from the beginning, and it went 15 rounds.  If anything, McCarthy is doing the obligatory thing by thanking Trump because at least he didn't get sandbagged for being a loser and then abandoned, which could have just as easily happened. 

Also, giving it a bit of a think, the show-y-ass "opposition" of the 20 or so holdouts that dragged this thing out probably didn't get them much more than they would have gotten anyway. Weird investigations into the politization of the FBI is right in line with the "Twitter files" crap and protecting his fellow Republicans by trying to interfere in potential investigations regarding them seems like something he'd be doing anyway--just from thinking back to his actions regarding the 1/6 Committee. I don't even think giving his bomb-throwers leave to discuss blowing up the economy via a debt default was ever off the table for him. Look back at 2011, 2018, etc. Like government shut-downs, it's another way Republicans can demonstrate that they aren't here to do good government and titillate their base that they are doing something rebellious by giving them nothing, and actually taking away--defunding things.

I think what we just witnessed was a bit of theater. It doesn't miss me that McCarthy got his successful vote two years to the day that the delayed vote certification of Biden's election occurred. 

They are a sorry lot, and for all his hollow, cravenness, McCarthy earned his right to be the leader of these people. And he will wring all the joy from it the "honor" deserves.

Take the Uzi from the Babies

 

"I write to inform you that I will not provide such assistance again if your all-Democrat government drifts into another avoidable crisis," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a letter to President Biden. https://t.co/gqHCTeHiGq

— CNN (@CNN) October 9, 2021

While I don't think Democrats should need to be reminded that this is what the Republican Party is now, a shameless band of terrorists who definitely would throw the country into economic turmoil for petty political reasons, McConnell is doing just that. The entire tone is ridiculous. Of course we're going to hit the debt ceiling again and it will need to be raised again. It isn't something the Democrats did, it's the nature of paying for government to continue. McConnell is taking a page from the Trump book and acting as if the mildest criticism of his tactics is a deep and terrible breach of some imaginary comity that--

Holy fricking Jiminy Crickets, he has done as much as anyone else to erode. I don't know know what Manchin and Sinema need or what sweet nothings are being drizzled into their shell-like aural protuberances, but enough is enough. This is a threat: give up on your whole Democratic agenda or we sink the country. 

You can't negotiate with these folks. You shouldn't. There's no political upside. It leaves you nothing to run on. Take the UZI from the babies. McConnell as good as said "Don't trust us."  So don't. 

Kill the filibuster. Deliver the goods. And let McConnell know it was his own fault that it had to be this way. 

The Debt Ceiling Has to Go

 

So, did you all just see this giving birth to a prize watermelon effort that was put forward to just get a two-month extension on the debt ceiling, an artificial thing that shouldn't even exist because of course a nation who prides itself in the full faith and credit of its honorable debts pays those shits? 

Well, if you visit this blog, of course you did. And if you are a long time visitor, you know why I'm heated--we are past time to abolish  the stupid debt ceiling vote since it is absolutely a necessity and has become a political football. 

And it stays incredibly stupid after all this time: after some stupidly arbitrary legislative interval, responsible people have to once again explain that this is about paying the bills already due, like deciding whether to make your car payment or put at least the minimum on your credit card bill, like we haven't already been through this bullshit before. And the political grandstanders will act like that's not what it is, but say some dumb shit about how it's about new spending, which is nonsense, because of course there will be new spending. Like in a household, you have a mortgage payment and maybe a car loan, but that doesn't mean you don't still buy groceries or pay to fix the roof leak, right?

Quick Question for Senator Sinema--

 

Activists who helped elect Kyrsten Sinema launch CrowdPAC to fund a primary challenger https://t.co/DPEmIw8ojw

— Salon (@Salon) September 29, 2021

Exactly how much fundraising do you suppose you have to do to hold on to your seat if you somehow have, inexplicably (or at least, inexplicably thus far) done your best to alienate the people who were your base? Because you can not go and get a whole new base, and even if Republicans are looking more favorably on you--look at Arizona Republicans. Look at 'em. They like a Democrat who doesn't function like a Democrat (preferably who doesn't function at all), but they would prefer a Republican who is like them. Which lately...

I mean. Look at them.

Republicans Hate Governing and Nice Things

 

If, as an entire dumb stunt to pretend government is the problem and privileged, elected assholes doing nothing is the obvious solution, I guess, whatever, Okay, GOP, you've had your fun. You're blocking the debt ceiling rise and other valuable things for reasons, and you can't help the kind of useless, signifying creatures you've become since oh, Christ, the 1990's I guess, when Newt Gingrich made government shutdowns exactly your kind of thing. But these two assholes, Louisiana Senators Cassidy and Kennedy, are blocking the measure to avoid defaulting on the debt--imperiling the good faith and credit of this nation they might even allege to love, and are also blocking funding for storm relief for their very own state. 

It really doesn't matter to them that the federal government is all that keeps Louisiana alive. So far as they are concerned, this mass of broken tourist destinations, fishers and oil workers are all some kind of doomed, so fuck you, you elected them, The whole state is sinking into the gulf anyways--and these guys are fine with it. They could do better for their constituents or even pretend the folks back home are watching and what they do isn't great.  They should know that. They are party animals and are okay with the continued suffering of their own constituents because of partisan stuff. You never saw anyone so up Trump's ass before John (no not that one) Kennedy, did you?

Republicans are assholes who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. We could replace lead pipes and make sure older folks have hearing aids and teeth and we could make sure our bridges don't even fall down around our necessary workaday commutes, but Republicans don't fucking care. 

I Wish This Woman Well, But

 

Chuck Todd put Meghan McCain on his panel this morning and said "it's good to have a McCain back on Meet the Press" because we live in a constant state of right-wing propaganda pic.twitter.com/Qs75M6T3b7

— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) September 26, 2021

I have defended Meghan McCain at certain junctures because taking potshots at her figure (voluptuous, or zaftig, so, you know, I am in her corner about that) or her youth back when she was younger is just missing the point. The thing that sucks about Meghan McCain is giving credence to someone for having opinions as if those opinions matter more because they are importance-adjacent, not because they are informed. This grown woman child is now speaking as a Republican with no elected office with two exact bona fides: Senator John McCain (deceased)'s daughter and Ben Domenech (alive, propagandist)'s wife. Her expertise in politics is being a person the media pays attention to. She hasn't the least fucks whether what she says is right, and it is not.

Look Who Shut Down the Government

The US government has shut down (again) but Congress is working overnight to reopen it. The last shutdown was 3 weeks ago https://t.co/VhjSV43Vx5

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 9, 2018

Did Rand son of Ron Paul also vote for the tax cut bill that promised to increase the almighty fuck out of the deficit (and thereby, the debt?).  He sure the hell did. Doesn't this mean he's just being self-aggrandizing right here? Yeppers.

Unless he's pretty much decided a shutdown was going to happen one way or another, so he might as well get weird and put his name on it. But this technically makes this a Republican shutdown.  After Trump went out of his way to insist he was cool with a shutdown it is really great to see his fellow Republican pitch in this way. Of course, this has nothing to do with DACA.

Nancy Pelosi had some things to say about DACA, but of course, she has no power to make a shut down happen. She just thought it would be great to talk about some fine undocumented but totally American folks for a handful of hours in her four inch heels.

Now, some kind of budget will get passed, and DACA might get shut out--but Dems stood for them and will remain there. It's Republican self-owning that keeps the CR a thing and the regular bickering over what should be easy choices alive. The GOP majority looks like "Rand Pauls" all the way down to us libs, anyway.

UPDATE: We've got six more weeks of government!

Trump Made a Good Call

You probably won't hear this from me very often, but President Trump made the right call in making a deal with Democrats on the Hill to raise the debt ceiling and ensure Hurricane Harvey relief. I won't exactly be gleeful at the disarray this puts the GOP in, but if Trump was thinking of "sending a message" to McConnell and Ryan that he only has so much patience with them--I can entirely understand. Their lack of interest in governance has had me right out of patience for some time. I also don't think it's as strategic as one might expect of a politician, because I don't view Trump as a politician (or really a long-term strategic thinker). 

What I do think is that, in the wake of the devastation from Harvey and the threat of Irma, with his political agenda not nearly cleared to his satisfaction, with whatever is going on with North Korea, it would be appalling to be bogged down in a debt ceiling row right now. Anyone thinking of a government shutdown or political horseplay right now would have to be off their rocker. 

And here's the thing: Ryan and McConnell might have been "blindsided" or "shell-shocked" by Trump's decision, but they set themselves up for this because of previous debt ceiling gamesmanship. I hate, hate, hate the idea of debt ceilings having to be congressionally approved but even more so now that they've become politically-charged, so I entirely appreciate wanting a longer period between government-funding battles. I hate, hate, hate shut-down nonsense, too. But at the same time, remember how they set their agenda to tell Trump what he wanted to hear?  And he got nothing? 

He wants McConnell and Ryan to deliver him something. Here's a few months of funding the government and helping our fellow Americans out of a disaster. Now McConnell and Ryan can figure out how to make the most of the time they have until the next row. 

Hint--it might involve bipartisanship. He made it harder for them, unless they figure out how deals get made. Do I know that's what Trump is thinking? Hell no. But it makes sense that Trump is used to getting his way and will look for a way to get it. 

Grandstand for Brand Rand!

Senator Rand Paul of KY and also a presidential candidate, has expressed an intention to filibuster the bargain struck between House leadership and the White House to raise the debt ceiling, referring to the bill as "a steaming pile of legislation", which must have been the most dire words he could come up with for it. This would not be the first time he has used the filibuster--he did so at the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director over drones (John Brennan became CIA Director, we still use drones) and over the NSA surveillance program. "Stand with Rand" is a great slogan because of the rhyming.

I get it, but why filibuster this particular deal? Part of me thinks, well, he's in a tough primary and just wants to announce a filibuster before that ratbastard Ted Cruz comes up with it. But it also strikes me as a way to get back to Brand Rand. See, he's trying to take himself seriously in this presidential primary, and that might be part of the problem. If he tries to veer too middle of the road, he loses all his hipster cred. Staying weird and being anti-establishment reinforces Brand Rand.

Whoa! You might be thinking, but how does this help his actual electability?  Well, I dunno. See, he's running for Senate and President. Now, a reasonable person might ask if it shows good "optics" for a candidate for president to show that he doesn't believe in bipartisan compromise, and it might actually be terrible optics to contribute to continued Congressional dysfunction. But as a fundraising gimmick for selling "Stand with Rand" swag? Da bomb.

You know, he gets prickly when people point out that his made-up quotes or plagiarism devalue his ideological output. Deep down, I don't think he wants to be president. He wants to be a blogger and make dope money at it. Pshhh. He is dreaming. I blog 'cause I love, and money don't mean a thing.


(Update: It was 19 minutes.)

Reading Tea Leaves

There's a certain element that would rather an awful lot before they would see a Speaker Paul Ryan. They see the former VP candidate and Budget Wizard as establishment now. He was once hailed for the austerity of his budgets, but now he's being semi-pilloried because of the vague idea he might think government should work. That's his heresy. He might just try to have a functional government that pays its just debts and doesn't default.

There is the reason why Congress is ill-favored in various polls. I have no love for Paul Ryan, but he wants to do a difficult job the teafolk don't even think is worth doing. And by the way, screw teafolk.

I'd really like it if McConnell and Boehner just say "screw it" and introduce a pretty anodyne budget bill covering the next two years, but they are still so owned there would likely be unacceptable fuckery no Democrat would accept. Could they get together on a clean bill? Shit, Boehner, isn't that what you are resigning for?

I'd like to think a clean bill is in our future--but they better make it fast. Debt ceiling comes up soon.


(Or it will be just fine and I won't even have to write about this crap for another two years.)

So, Did John Boehner Push to Keep the Benghazi Cmte Alive?

Recent gavel-renunciator John Boehner is quite possibly the guy who turned the Benghazi Select Committee on to Clinton-emails-all-the-time. I personally always thought there was a partisan quality to the Select Committee, but I didn't see out to how it would get to be about trapping Hillary Clinton out loud until pretty recently. But in light of the sort of information that had been out there, I think it was becoming increasingly clear that there wasn't new information about what happened then that even was being looked for.

But why would Boehner push to have a committee about the deaths of four US persons in Libya be about Hillary Clinton's emails? Because of the Infinite Football-Pull. Politically, Hillary Clinton was the most likely candidate for the Democratic nomination, so by wrecking her, he could break out of the "always-losing" scenario by having someone in the Oval Office--a Republican--who would give the House GOP militants at least some of what they wanted some of the time--and really do him a favor by not being a Dem at all.

The idea that Boehner threatened to walk off the Speaker position knowing full well no one in their right mind would want it while still pumping for the Committee's validity, kind of suggests he wanted to stay on but with a stronger hand? It makes some sense.  But since the game is more or less given away--does this mean he really leaves--or is he further caught in a hell of his own making? (Enquiring minds might like to know with the CR up and the debt ceiling also.)

If so, Trey Gowdy isn't alone in being under fire for the Benghazi Committee becoming (even more) overtly partisan. Boehner assisted.  Does this mean he also should be looking at an ethics issue? Probably not--we are far removed from the day when Newt Gingrich stepped down from his speakership partly for ethics reasons by a GOP committee. But he still might just like to, you know. Go away.

(All this backstory is, in part, why I found the idea of Newt Gingrich in the running for a shot at Speaker so amusing when it got floated. The partisan witch hunt that Gingrich lived and politically died by--the current GOP learned it by watching him!)

Are they Listening to Him, Now?

I know, coming just a couple days after dragging Carson for his comments on what he would do if faced with a gunman, it might seem like I'm enjoying one of my OCD phases--but the story told on, by, and about Ben Carson about what really (maybe) happened when he was confronted with a gunman is pretty fascinating. In the legend, when a stickup artist put a gun in Carson's ribs, he directed the felon's attention to the person behind the register. Har har har. Not exactly the tale of derring-do of an attempt at physical force to compel a potential shooter to comply, but still a thing one would have to have a certain presence of mind to say. The Daily Beast article is skeptical. I'm skeptical. One might point out that deflecting the assailant's attention from his (valuable) self to the (perceived-less-valuable) fast food cashier's self is sheer classism.

That kind of thinking, that there is a quality of some citizens being lesser-than, is pretty much a trend. He states that some "lifestyles are more valuable than others". Lifestyles, schmifestyles, I come from a country that made the point that all men are created equal (except for the slavery business, and that "men" at the time sort of excluded women). One exceptionally curious bit of reasoning along those lines comes from his assertion that "gay marriage" (we call it marriage equality around here) is like child seats for conjoined twins.

Wow. There is a kind of ableism about that, isn't there? People who grasp the idea that marriage is a state that human beings enjoy and means the same thing for straight or gay couples see marriage as an individual right that confers certain securities to the persons involved in that state of matrimony. It's the same thing because the same needs exist. But take what he's saying--marriage, like car seats, is an accommodation. We can accommodate "normal" people, but if you "don't fit" our definition of "normal", you don't deserve any accommodation because of your differences. A car seat is intended for the purposes of safety for an infant. What this grotesque analogy is saying is that no accommodation should be made to protect the life of infants who are conjoined by arranging some kind of safety mechanism because the accommodation itself is commodified. I realize one of his major achievements was separating conjoined twins, but there are cases where this is not possible, or where some other congenital issue might make accommodating physical differences such that standard measures don't really apply--but the children would still need to be safe if their life is valued right?  Aren't they still people, even if they are different? I'm past objecting to the dismissal of LGBT people's basic enjoyment of equal rights, but the assumption that we shouldn't or wouldn't take extraordinary measures for the "different" among us.

John Boehner, Don't Look Back in Anger or Tears

There are metaphors that can be used for Speaker of the House John Boehner ("The Only Adult in the House" and the "Designated Driver" come to mind for me) but I think my impression of Boehner's tenure as Speaker of the House is summed up by the three-part series of blog posts I did called "Speaker of Nothing" regarding the summer of 2011 debt ceiling fight. Here he is, Speaker of the House, a powerful position--provided you have a caucus behind you interested in governing. But his Speakership was dependent upon a Tea Party wave in 2010, resulting in many people new to politics who 1) weren't necessarily "House-trained" and 2) were instinctively anti-government.

It's damn hard to come to a consensus with people who actually think "lowering the debt ceiling" is a thing, or who believe that a government shut-down is a perfectly cromulent stunt to put on one's political resume. This is a person who has had to sit across from Michele Bachmann, Steve King, and Louie Gohmert, and accept these were the people on his own team--and no damn help. He's had to deal with occasional votes that weren't against him per se--but are hard not to take a little personally. And sometimes he was put in places he probably had no "win".

I can't blame the man for wanting out, because getting pressure over trying to keep the government running over defunding Planned Parenthood has got to be a vicious kick in the gut for a devout pro-life Catholic. But the problem is, he's standing in the gap between a functional government and the crazies in his own party, for who nothing will ever be enough. He could probably promise them ponies upon ponies--but they would still want flying unicorns, even if those things don't exist. If he came to this decision in the wake of the Pope's visit, with an understanding that he could no longer reconcile his job with his heart--it makes sense.

The problem for the aftermath though is--does this change anything? Will there still be a gap to stand in, or will the Tea Party nihilists just go all smash-happy? Rep. Pete King said, ruefully, this is a "victory for the crazies."  I don't think he's wrong. There are folks who denied Superstorm Sandy emergency funding and don't understand that your national defense and infrastructure are only as good as you actually pay for.

Rep. Boehner might have taken more of an aggressive role in trying to educate and convince his team in how not to be awful, and it does him no credit to have been the Speaker of such dysfunctional Congressional terms. But I think he tried--oh, he tried. And we did survive, after all. We might have busted his balls a  lot. But we could have had worse.

I Guess I'm Happy About the Cromnibus?

Usually, some deep, conservative, procedural-correctness malaise comes over me when talking about budget measures, continuing resolutions, looming government shut-downs, and all that. That our chambers of Congress have gotten so polarized that "shut-downs" and, my personal favorite, threatening to default on the national debt, seem like plausible moves over working together is the kind of reality that makes me want to hang up the old blogging-gear and think about going back to writing pornographic fanfic.  There are worse hobbies.

But this is the dawning of the age of the cromnibus--a portmanteau of "continuing resolution" and "omnibus spending bill", which possibly signals an end to the shenanigans (for now) on one hand, but which on the other hand makes me think helplessly of "cronuts".

This vote wasn't entirely shenanigan-free, apparently. Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee were looking to hold the whole thing up for an up or down vote on "Obama and his amnesty--shamnesty, amirite!" but apparently, there was an overwhelming vote for "Jesus, Ted, not everything has to be about you." This bit of maneuvering seems to have allowed for some votes on Obama Administration appointees for different cabinet positions through some kind of procedural magic I do not understand. So--yay?

Well, not strictly "Yay!", no. The bill also loosens bank regulations (like they were so tight to begin with, ahem, 2008).  Warren, Sanders and Whitehouse voted it against it, so I have reason to believe the loosening of bank regulations part is not a good thing.

But hey--no government shut-down! (This is exactly like being glad the puppy did not pee on the rug, tonight.) So I will put this in the "win" column for congress functioning almost like a functional thing. Cronuts for everyone, you guys.

Former Senator Scott Brown--He Never Fails, Except When He Does.

I'll admit, I have a lazy-political blogger tendency to follow the paths of politicians I think are naturally going to give me good material. That was why I was actually pretty happy to see former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown hop on back into the ring with a run against Jeanne Shaheen--not because I have a thing against Shaheen, who is probably walking away with this win, but because I am a lazy political blogger, and Scott Brown always gives me something to work with.  Always. He just brings it.

So can I talk about this NH campaign just a little?

One of the things I will give him credit for is to not ever not be punching--even if it's his own face:

Speaking to the Nashua Republican City Committee Thursday night, Brown accused Shaheen of voting for “every debt ceiling increase,” according to Friday's edition of theNashua Telegraph. He also pledged he would get the debt and deficit “under control,” the paper reported. 

But there was something he left out of his remarks to the Republicans: He also voted for raising the debt limit every time it came up. To be sure, Brown spoke out a lot about the need to cut spending and deficits during his three years in the Senate. But in 2011, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was trying to cut a deal to raise the limit, unlike other Republicans, Brown was the only one to cross the aisle and support Reid. He also slammed the greater intransigence of Republicans in the House, calling it "kind of pathetic."

Now, you know me, and you know the special place I have in my heart for the damn dumb foolishness of political fuckery over the debt ceiling--the full faith and credit of the United States, people--even being up for debate. So you know I was okay with the "blasphemy" of his aisle-crossing, being right on this, and really question the hell out of why he'd be using  the same issue now against his opponent--unless he thinks the "R" that shows up after his name means "Re-Do".

Welp--Shit Just Got Real for Sen. McConnell. I Guess.

So, let's pretend you leaned conservative but weren't up on current events and did not know how today's vote on the debt limit went--and then you saw this ad:

Pretty harsh right? It's like the Matt Bevin campaign* is calling Sen. Mitch McConnell a big government liberal bully based on his previous votes and his (understandable?) attempts to hold on to his Senate seat. But if you combine it with a vote today in favor of raising the debt limit, which he might not have had to do, but was maneuvered into by Sen. Ted Cruz' filibuster, it really is fascinating. 

It's like Bevin saw this coming, or something.

There probably is a way to combat this type of ad by explaining why raising the debt ceiling is a necessary evil, but McConnell's having played this game before with the debt ceiling himself, that explanation might be difficult. Also, there is an adage that runs "If you are explaining, you are losing."

I'm not that much in favor of seeing Bevin going up against Grimes since his poll numbers are stronger than McConnell's, but there is a just a little schadenfreude in this I can't help but express.

(Actually, the Senate Conservatives' Fund. Which is more, um. You know.)

Showdown Over? Or Just Begun?

It wasn't very long ago that I was bemoaning the likelihood of a debt ceiling crisis and replay of the handwringing and handwringing and speculation (Boehner's last stand as Speaker? trillion-dollar coin, anyone?) that comes with it, so I am pleasantly surprised that Boehner brought up a clean debt limit raise and it passed. Like, in a day. Would that the kindly spirits that look after the sanity of grouchy polibloggers always gave such speedy service!

But of course, that can't be all there is to it. For one thing, the reason the clean bill was put on the floor is because, after some spit balling about what addenda might make passing it worthwhile to his legion--Boehner determined that he could not guarantee 217 votes from his side and went for the option where he only needed about 18. He got 28.  Think about those numbers a minute. The time he's been having of it, he was glad to get 28, you think?

Which is why the Tea Party folks who now want Boehner's head on a platter puzzle me. It's similar to the "Green Lantern" theory of the presidency, where some on the left think Obama can make things work by magic.   Let's call it the "Orange Lantern" (why orange? oh, no reason) theory of the Speakership, where it might be thought that more can be accomplished by Boehner if he just--believed more? (Some of these people have a tenuous grip on How Things Are Done.)

Anyway, now it's off to the Senate, where the poor debt ceiling raise is at the mercy of Sen. Ted Cruz, who hints at a filibuster.  (Might I recommend Where the Wild Things Are if he means to talk at us again? That is a nice read.)

You know, if John Boehner considered stepping down from the House Speakership, given that the speaker need not be a member of the House of Representatives, perhaps he should nominate his former lawyer Ted Cruz. I think several of the Tea Party caucus could get behind that idea. Then it could be his fat in fryer when the time came to make a necessary, if unpopular, vote.