Discussion for article #241057
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I guess the takeaway is that Rethuglicans have been deeply dysfunctional for over 100 years. Is anyone surprised?
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Newt didn’t get a mention? Oh right, he was just an average criminal.
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Both parties have long had two wings that were in conflict with each other. Republicans had the business/industrial interests and the progressives, and Democrats had the working class/immigrants and conservative southerners. The second group of each switched parties between the 1960s and 90s, but they’re still somewhat in conflict (Republicans now more so than Democrats).
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And local dynamics can be even more complicated. In Hawaii, as the plantation economy died and Democrats became ascendant, the business interests (read: developers) recognized that the best thing to advance their interests was to make common cause with the unions whose jobs are entwined with them. The result is that it’s now the most Democratic state, but a large faction of the party - heavily backed by both labor and corporations - works to minimize things like environmental regulations, even those that would help the formerly-important agricultural sector. The pro-environment side of the party, which would be most of it in most states, is smaller, while Republicans are hardly worth mentioning (some of them are actually pro-environment as well).
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I think it is quite insightful to point out that Boehner is unique in being ousted as speaker for strategic, rather than policy differences. The delight the conservatives show in light of this is revealing: much of the Republican base feels a deep rage at their perceived powerlessness.
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This fool let these bagger clowns in…smirked while they screeched their birther b/s at the POTUS, smiled ear to ear when they openly insulted the POTUS on the media, in the press and at the SOTU! Then laughed out loud each and every time the house voted 60 times against Obamacare.
Now, those same baggers have turned their sick ire towards him…not so funny now, is it boner?
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Dog catches car. Now, what? His likely replacement, Kevin McCarthy, is going to make the historically ineffectual Boehner speakership look like a well-run machine. Can we please put the gavel back in Pelosi’s hands, soon?
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Every minority party is powerless. Every Congress with a President from the opposite party is virtually powerless. The Tea Party’s problem is that they don’t know anything about how our political/government system works, let alone how to compromise where they can gain something by doing so. We may have the stupidest coalition in Congress, the Tea Party 40, in our history.
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I agree that nothing I have seen suggests that McCarthy has the slightest chance of making the House back into a functional part of the government. But, I have to doubt that there is anyone in our country, let alone in Congress, that could do so with the Republican Party now largely in the hands of the totally irrational. Ultimately it is the fault of our voters, the Republicans who are themselves totally irrational, and so enraged because of their bigotry that they can’t see beyond it.
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I think Boehner’s move is a middle finger to the repub crazies. They are forgetting he’s around for another month and now he has no f$cks to give. I think there will be some scalded asses before he heads back home to Hamilton, OH.
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Dating back to Gingrich’s gamesmanship in 1995 and continuing through…
Is there a history of the Speakership in the 1840’s and 1850’s? The period of party breakdown and the polarization leading up to the civil war. That’s the only history which is applicable now I think.
Boehner just could not babysit that many toddlers who have learned to speak, say NO, yet are not potty trained.
Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Sweet Jesus on a cracker, that’s a frightening thought.
I’m just waiting for Boehner to go on The Late Show and Stephen Colbert allows him to vent like a volcano. After seeing him unload on Sunday, he’s going to let it all out!