Discussion for article #233592
First rule in hostage taking:
“You don’t take a hostage you aren’t willing to shoot.”
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Totally predictable. The budget is not the place to make policy. No more policy riders in budgets, regardless of which party does it. Debate the policy and vote on it on the record. That should be enshrined into law.
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There is a Republican assumption that Democrats are weak and will cave at the first opportunity. Apparently McConnell has figured out that Democrats will stand on principle. He has to decouple or face responsibility for a shutdown and the wrath of the people if there is a terror attack during a shutdown.
Can Boehner reach the same conclusion? I don’t know, maybe his caucus wants the blame if something goes wrong.
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This is all fine and dandy (and smart), but won’t the rank and file Republicans in the House just stamp their feet for McConnell undoing what they (and Boehner) put together and then chided the Senate to do its job and deal with it? Won’t this new legislation cleanly funding the DHS require Boehner to do what a large chunk of his caucus won’t allow him to do? Won’t this new legislation require John Boehner to put his balls back in their sack?
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Hmm, while interesting, it doesn’t seem likely that any legislation has a chance of decoupling prior to Friday when funding expires. This may be a brief ray of sunshine, but ultimately, it’s going to rain.
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Boehner will pass the clean funding with mostly Democratic votes. Despite those who say if he does that, he won’t be Speaker, he has done that several times and still is. He will give the caucus a sop of voting on the separate bill, which the President will veto. Problem solved.
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Yeah, I think you’re right. I just like they throw out the Hastert Rule when it suits them, and totally rely on … when it suits them. 
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I think they’d have better standing in the voting public’s eye if they lived by that radically reasonable suggestion.
No. Boner knows that if they shut down Homeland Security and there is a terrorist attack, Fox News, Right wing media, Rush and his Hate Radio pals, Dimwit Don Lemon on CNN and Right wing Pulpit Pimps will blame Obama and it will stick.
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There doesn’t even need to be a terrorist attack or natural disaster for the American people to blame Republicans. Refusing to fund the DHS over immigration actually undercuts their arguments about ISIS, Iran, Syria, and about the president’s foreign policy. How can you on one hand claim the president doesn’t understand the threat, is a weak and feckless leader, but on the other hand you’re defunding the agency that’s supposed to keep us safe? How can you claim to be the party that wants to keep us safe yet defend Homeland Security? It’s so nakedly hypocritical that I think even the average American will get it.
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Yep, this was one they didn’t think through. OK, they never think things through. When they have done this type of thing, historically, it has blown up in their faces. Maybe some old-timer staffer finally pointed that out.
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When are these dim wit Repuks going to learn that President Obama beats them at every turn he not running again and he knows despite the talk the Repuk’s don’t have the balls to impeach him even though they have the votes in the house to do it
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requested anonymity
to criticize the party leader.
“Requested anonymity”?!?!? Subtlety from Majority Leader Cruz?!?!?
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True, problem solved, but a new one is only made worse. Each time Republicans make yet another show of opposing immigration reform, it’s another strike against the 2016 Republican nominee. The Democratic candidate and Democrats running for Congress are going to be able to continuously beat Republicans over the head with their continued opposition to immigration reform, brown people, and immigrants. Sens. Bennett and Reid must laugh their asses off every time Republicans pull these stunts.
I agree with you Plucky except the part about the average American. The Fox news and conservative radio echo chamber has made the folks who follow such things quite toxic, the cognitive dissonance there is strong. I still have hope that the average American will get it, and they will have plenty of opportunity to do so this year and next but that hope holds by a thread. For example: Check out the reader letters in today’s CJ. The one where the guy writes that Louisville is like North Korea because all the dirt on Chris Jones isn’t out there in full yet for his gloating pleasure. That is your average American. It’s going to take a lot for these folks to get it.
So Democrats are going to end up with a clean funding bill, and the Republicans voting against immigration reform. And they’ll look like incompetent fools in the process. Geniuses.
It only works if pro-immigration voters go out and vote on Nov. 8, 2016. As we all know, getting progressive voters to the polls was a problem this past November. If 1/3 of the people vote that means 2/3 implicitly voted for the regressives by not voting. Too many on the progressive side have either forgotten or ignored two important facts: 1) Elections are held every two years, not every four and 2) Representative democracy is NOT a spectator sport.
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Also: “Don’t get in the hostage taking business if you’re just going to keep shooting yourself in the foot.”
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I don’t think I could respect McConnell even if he’s rational at some point.
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