Discussion: Everything Is Pointing To A Nearly Done Deal To Avert A Government Shutdown

“We don’t want to create brinkmanship that doesn’t do anyone any good.”

Who is “we”, Mr. Speaker? And please explain how kicking this can down the road to December has any meaningful impact beyond election optics.

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brinksmanship has been a tried and true tactic for these assholes since Obama’s first term. but they are correct, it does no one any good, least of all their constituents.

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What really has Teabaggers frightened is the specter of ‘uselessness’ that is following them around like stink on a skunk.

They have been blamed for every single government shutdown they’ve tried. Then Huelskamp got his ass primaried by a MODERATE in Kansas and Brownback has resorted to trying to hide the latest report showing his economic plan has worked about as well as a North Korean missile launch.

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Why do they do this? Funding Flint is a no brainer. Why did they have to be dragged, kicking and screaming all the while, to do the right thing?

It’s like the chicken and the egg situation. Repubs don’t get AA votes because of stunts like this, AAs vote against them, so they come back with even more onerous policies against AAs. Rinse and repeat.

Is there no one smart enough on the other side of the aisle to break this cycle? Or is racism just so ingrained that there’s no desire to do what’s right?

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They do it because they don’t care about “the people” that elected them or that they represent, they care about their own fears and small lizard brain selves. Strip them down and they’re just tiny little creatures hoping for Daddy’s approval, and hoping they get laid by a Playboy Bunny.

There was an old Star Trek episode, where Kirk and Friends were trapped in a castle on some planet, with a couple of humanoid aliens and a giant White cat threatening them on a regular basis. But when they destroyed the aliens Projection Machine, turns out they were just a couple of squirmy lizard like creatures and the White cat was a front for the aliens to impress Kirk with their bigly hugeness.

They’re just a bunch of losers, and they always have been, and always will.

This is good news, and I suspect that Paul Ryan is as relieved (if he can really get it out of the House) as anyone.

But the deeper problem is that Democrats in Congress have learned that even when the Speaker makes a promise, he often can’t keep it (viz: John Boehner). Under those circumstances, they are left with the polarizing option of using the filibuster in the Senate to create pressure. In a functional legislature, Democrats wouldn’t need to do this, because they’d know that the Speaker’s self-interest in being a person good in his word would ensure that the Flint money would indeed be appropriated soon. But first of all, the Republicans couldn’t resist putting the Louisiana money in while stonewalling the Flint and the zika money until they hit the filibuster wall; and second, Ryan (whatever his personal position) faces a far-right crazy squad that prevents him from being reliable in his promises.

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Republicans and Promises, that’s like Coors Light and a pint of Guinness in Dublin. No relation to each other.

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