Posted on 10/17/2013 9:49:56 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
I wasnt aware that Maverick, whose pronouncements now carry roughly the same weight with tea partiers as Obamas, is in a position to be guaranteeing anything about how House Republicans might behave. In fact, heres what one GOP congressman said last night after the final conference huddle:
As Republican lawmakers left the closed meeting Wednesday, some were already thinking of the next fight.
Ill vote against it, said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. But that will get us into Round 2. See, were going to start this all over again.
If by guarantee McCain means that Boehner would rather chew glass than go through this again, fair enough. But as weve just seen, Boehner doesnt always set the menu within his caucus. Per Tim Huelskamp, there may be another bowl of tasty glass for him on the way:
Others view the calendar as a way to embolden conservatives before those elections. I hope we eventually have a battle and I hope its directed long-term about what the answers are. By then we will have a lot of primary challenges already filed, said Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp. There are some folks that might change their opinion if they have a primary challenger. A number of those states will have already been through those primary deadlines that will encourage some folks to have some more backbone.
Theres lots of reasons most House Republicans would want to avoid another shutdown bad polling, caucus rifts, diminishing credibility when the leadership cant win anything major but that was true of this shutdown too and none of those factors stopped it. The point of the shutdown, I always thought, wasnt to exert real leverage at the bargaining table with Obama, who was never, ever going to cave on O-Care, but to show grassroots tea partiers that House Republicans werent afraid to cross this line in the name of fighting the good fight. It was a litmus test for Boehner and the leadership, essentially, to show that they hated ObamaCare enough that theyd close down the government for awhile to protest it. They did, which is why House conservatives arent talking about ousting him even though the negotiations were a total debacle for the GOP. Point being, you never know when a new litmus test might arise and if, per Huelskamp, one arises (or is engineered) in the midst of a hot primary campaign, Boehner might decide that chewing glass is the least painful option available to him.
I can imagine cases too where a shutdown would be fully justified on the merits, whatever the polling might look like. Imagine if Obama, flush from his big win, announces around New Years that he needs another $300 million from Congress to make Healthcare.gov run as smoothly as it should. The new government funding bill expires on January 15th so wed be looking at another shutdown to start 2014 if the two sides cant agree. Should the House pony up that $300 million and double down on Obamas and HHSs gross incompetence in building the exchanges? Of course not. They had three years to plan for this; at the barest minimum, any new funding would have to be conditioned upon delaying the law for a year. Obama would resist that, of course, on the assumption that he could and would win a new battle with Republicans over appropriating the money in the court of public opinion. And so wed end up with Shutdown II. So much for Mavericks guarantee?
Exit question: Am I hallucinating or does John Wacko Birds McCain, who accused a Republican colleague in the House of being a moron on national television less than 24 hours ago, actually warn the GOP at the end here to observe the 11th Commandment?
Wow, with that much liquid you could make a...no, uh you could make...never mind.
Which is exactly what he will do if the senate is 50-50 after 2014
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I second THAT!
The national debt was $3.655 Trillion when McCain first went to Washington. After 30 years of McCain it is now $17 Trillion. We should listen to him because?
Can someone pull the plug on Juan?
He is special because he was a Presidential candidate and a POW in the Vietnam War.
that traitorous drunken pos SecDef referred to a “manufactured crisis”, to our MILITARY, using terms straight out of the Valerie Jarrett playbook?
oh man
our country is so SCREWED
Now obvious that EVERY agency is politicized and partisan
McSlime and his comrades must live in an airtight bubble to not know how much they are despised, hated, and held in utter contempt by conservatives.
Resign or switch parties.
He can say that because he knows that tucked away in the bill is an amendment that deceases the power of Congress.
The Establishment has too well established itself...
Looks too much like this
We voters will do whatever the hell we want, and we won't go back to the GOPe.
God Bless the memory of Bud Day, but I think he was wrong about McCain’s good conduct as a POW. I believe he is The Hanoian Candidate. Everything he’s done since reflects it.
Not that they didn’t want to get rid of him.
It is unfortuante but I suppose was inevitable, now wherever I see a GOP-e candidate I treat that candidate like a democrat. Actually, I treat them worse than the democrat. At least the democrat is being honest about who they are.
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