John Boehner Woke Up and Grew Some Balls

'Are you kidding me?' 'Frankly, I just think they have lost all credibility.' Those are words that came from the mouth of Rep. John Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House, he was talking about the conservative outside groups like the Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth etc. This was in relation to the budget deal that was passed overwhelmingly by the House and that was ferociously decried by those organizations. Why, you ask is it surprising or noteworthy? Well John Boehner ever since he got the Speaker's gavel in his hands has been more of a follower than a leader in his caucus, he allowed the crazy Tea Party members of his caucus backed by those groups he slammed earlier, to have a powerful voice that overtook everyone else and made the entire House GOP look like a bunch of right wing crazies.

Washington Did Something Last Night

I should have written about the mini scandals and happenings on the budget deal, but hey, witting about government incompetence all the time gets boring and tiring, this however, is different. Last night the House of Representatives passed a 2 year budget deal that would fund the government until October 2015. The bill was a compromise crafted by Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Patty Murray (D) with Rep. Paul Ryan (R), the House's own Budget Committee chair. In a bipartisan move that has become very rare on Capitol Hill, the House passed the bill 332-94, the Senate is to follow suit and the president has promised to sign the bill into law as soon as it reaches his desk.

Marco Rubio, Hope Gone Sour

At his election in 2010 Marco Rubio looked like hope for the Republican Party. A well-spoken, Latino man, beloved by the Tea Party and supported by the Republican establishment. Whispers of a second Barack Obama were heard and even the future Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, campaigned for him. The Republicans needed a high profile Latino and the well-spoken Rubio certainly was it.

The difficult road to the White House for Christie

Today is my birthday! Speaking of cake, it's an ideal day to talk about Chris Christie, lame joke! Back in 2010 Christopher Christie entered American political consciousness when he rode the anti democratic wave of that year into the governor's mansion in New Jersey.

Deal

After their aborted attempts of throwing a wrench in the Senate deal, the House GOP leadership has declared failure. Their plan even suffered the backlash from conservative power bases like the Heritage Foundation and the Chamber of Commerce. In the morning today Speaker(?) John Boehner announced that the House will take on the Senate deal and will even vote for it first so that the process can be expedited and pass the Senate before the Midnight deadline. The hashed out dead between Senate Party leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell is one that shows the complete and utter loss that the GOP suffered in these two weeks of shutdown.

None of the Houses previsions on Obamacare will make it to the final cut on the bill. Its a clean CR that opens and funds the government until Jan. 15 and also lifts the debt ceiling until Feb. 7. The only sort of concession to the GOP is that there is income verification on those who are receiving subsidies on their insurance. Gone are the one year delay, the two year delay of the medical devices tax and the removal of subsidies from Capitol Hill staffers and administration officials. This is a total victory for democrats in the House, the Senate and the White House who remained united throughout the stand off while the republicans couldn't even figure out what their endgame was.

Hopefully this marks the end of the GOP using the default on the US obligation in their crusades to cut spending. There are far more ways to bring democrats to the table than using the entire US economy as bail. Hopefully this in January and February while we are back to this we will not be back to this mess again.

Obama and democrats - 1
GOP - 0

The craziness of the House GOP

On Thursday, at midnight the Treasury is set to reach the debt ceiling limit and economic havoc unleashed on the global economy. Signs late on Monday morning were all pointing to a deal coming close in the Senate.

The Government is still shutdown

It was unbelievable when the government shut down seven days ago and it's still unbelievable now. The government closed because the House refused to pass a clean CR bill that would have funded the government until early December while they worked on compromise for raising the debt ceiling. Unfortunately for all of us the Tea Party hijacked everything a decided to attach a de-fund of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) measure as condition for funding the government. The White House and Senate predictably refused. The House offered a delay of a year, the Senate and the administration still refused. The shutdown happened.

What is wrong with this picture?

The house republicans posted this picture in an attempt to show that they were willing to negotiate with the democrats on passing a Resolution to this government shutdown and that the democrats were unwilling as represented by the empty chairs. It's a ridiculous piece of theater, considering the fact that they democrats have asked for conference many times in the previous weeks, and were given no as answers. Now with the government shut down and the GOP realizing it was a bad strategic move (really, John Boehner was afraid to lose his speakership) they are asking for the same conferences they denied the democrats.

The government is shut down

It happened, It actually happened, for the first time since 1996 the United States Government is shut down. Up until the final hours of Monday I held on to the hope that there would be a stop gap resolution passed, the Mitch McConnel idea, but that was shut down by his own caucus members. Nancy Pelosi offered the support of the democratic caucus to John Boehner, that coupled with true GOP moderate could have had a clean CR bill passed, but Boehner as spineless as he is bowed to the pressure of his more conservative caucus members (ahem, the Tea Party). So what have here is, the government has shut down, 800,000 federal workers, are going without pay, and Obamacare, the reason of this whole shutdown is still being implemented. I don't get why the republicans are still pushing this, polls have shown that they will take the blunt of the blame (Quinninipac, CNN/ORC) so the democrats are being bold and letting this happen. It's a game of political interest that has very real causalities and consequences, but the bubble of  DC is preventing those lawmakers from seeing. It will be really interesting to see how the GOP will operate after they capitulate to the democrats and pass a clean CR, it's only a matter of time before it inevitably happens as no one can afford a long shutdown. However, real people are suffering the consequences of this foolishness and my heart is with them.

The shut down is looming.

So on Monday if there is no spending bill passed by the Congress the government will shutdown. What does the shut down mean? It means that millions of government workers will go without pay, public parks and buildings will be closed, and the marketS will fall down. Of course those government workers who will be struggling to pay their bills will not include the members of Congress who are really at the origin of this mess.

The State of the Republican Party

This is one of my favorite subjects right now and it is fitting to post it as my first post. After the 2012 election in which Barack Obama won, the consensus was that it was all about demographics. After all, Obama lost the independents but nonetheless he won the election. It was as clear as water that the GOP had a demographic problem and that needed to be dealt with before the 2014 midterms. Here we are in less than a year away and has the GOP made inroads to solve their problems?

Immigration was supposed to be the biggest deal. After all that was a deciding issue in swaying the Latino vote. Romney’s draconian positions on Immigration in the primary (see self-deportation) and the party whole immigration platform, made him lose the vote 27% to 71%. As the fastest growing minority in the country, those were devastating numbers and surely the GOP would try to change something after the election? The initial chatter immediately was that yes, the GOP needed to change its platform, support the DREAM act and some way of giving proper documentation to those who were already in the country illegally. Most people, me included were thinking that immigration would be among the first things that would be tackled by the new congress. How wrong were we all proven! After initial attempts, the senate could not come close to a deal and everything looked dead in the house. The bill that was passed in early July was unsatisfactory to both sides. But the Senate republicans, to their credits (Mostly McCain, Corker, Rubio and Co.) understood that it would be very hard to win national elections without a hefty slice of the Latino vote. Their counterparts in the house however, do not seem to have that foresight. As most of them are backed by strong majority of whites in their conservative districts, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by endorsing immigration, being primaried being their chief fear, so they all cling to the old platform. John Boehner (R), Speaker of the House, however can see that it will be difficult to ever win a national election again without an immigration bill, but his own internal problems are stopping his action. Were he to immediately bring the senate bill to the floor, I am sure it would pass with the vote of all democrats and republicans in moderate districts. But due to his fear of his own caucus, the speaker will not bring up the bill until it has a majority of republicans (his own words), which is pretty much impossible. So essentially, the GOP is trapped between a rock and a hard place. Marco Rubio and his failure to lead on that issue deserves his own essay.

Women’s issues were also a big deal in the election. In 2010 as in 2012 the majority of Governor’s mansion and state legislatures are held by the Republican Party. In 2011 and early 2012 despite being voted in on the basis of jobs, jobs,jobs, they passed bills with limits and restrictions on abortion, the de-funding of planned parenthood, because that is what the base of the party was clamoring for. While the very base of the party will turn out more than casual voters or supporters in the mid-terms, the general public tends to only focus on the presidential elections. The base that skyrocketed the republicans in the Governors’ mansions, state legislatures and the House was very pleased with those policies; however the General public being always on the moderate side was generally spooked by such measures. That coupled with the Democrats already strong record on women’s issues increased the margins with which Obama won (55% to 44%). So of course you would expect that the stance of the party would soften as to be able to level the field so the GOP could compete with those women vote with the Democrats. But no after such disasters like Todd Akin and Richard Murdock costing the GOP a Senate majority, republican led states are still passing basically the same laws restricting birth control access and abortions! That might keep them in power in the states and in the House of Representative but what about the national election of 2016? Will those women who voted solely democratic on the basis of their rights and health issues suddenly switch to a party that hasn’t changed its platform and ideals? With the independent voters’ hold on deciding victory dwindling is that something that the GOP can afford to do? I don’t think so.