Tag: Congress

It certainly been an eventful day. The two bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), were defeated Wednesday by an internet blackout of key web sites and the avalanche of petitions, street protests, e-mails and phone calls to congressional members.

When the powerful world of old media mobilized to win passage of an online antipiracy bill, it marshaled the reliable giants of K Street – the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Recording Industry Association of America and, of course, the motion picture lobby, with its new chairman, former Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and an insider’s insider.

Yet on Wednesday this formidable old guard was forced to make way for the new as Web powerhouses backed by Internet activists rallied opposition to the legislation through Internet blackouts and cascading criticism, sending an unmistakable message to lawmakers grappling with new media issues: Don’t mess with the Internet. [..]

Congress now follows Bank of America, Verizon and Netflix as the latest institution to be forced to change course by an internet led revolt.

It was especially dismaying that First Amendment stalwarts, like Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, were sponsoring this bill. It took Republicans in the House, assisted by Paul Ryan (R-WI) and, initially, six Republican senators to get both bill pulled from consideration. To his credit, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) was a one man road block to PIPA until the Republicans, pressured by their House compatriots, pulled their support.

So, besides Sen. Wyden, why weren’t there more Democrats opposed? Why were they even supporting a bill that would infringe on free speech and hurt job growth in the technology field? Follow the money. Hollywood, the music and movie industry, are a big supporters of anti-piracy and IP protection laws and Democrats.

Former Senator, Chris Dodd (D-CT), who forswore a lobbying career but is now CEO of Motion Picture Assn. of America, railed against technology companies such as Google, Mozilla and Wikipedia calling the blackout a “stunt”:

“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and who use their services,” Dodd said in a statement. “It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.”

It wasn’t until Saturday that President Obama spoke out about the most controversial portions of the House bill that would require Internet service providers to block infringing websites but said nothing about PIPA, the Senate version, and fell short of saying he would veto the bill.

Up until the last few days the media, especially television and cable have been pretty silent. Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s “Up with Chris” hosted a debate with NBC Universal’s General Counsel, Richard Cotton, Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.com, former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Since it became apparent that the traditional media was missing the boat on one of the biggest news stories of the year, they all started jumping back on the ship.

Wednesday night, Mr. Hayes was a guest on “The Rachel Maddow Show” where he and Rachel talked about the power and effectiveness of the online protest in influencing Congress who by and large didn’t understand the bills or the internet.

Will this stop these two bills? No, it won’t. As Wikipedia points out in its thank you to its visitors, “we’re not done yet”

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith stated that the House of Representatives will push the bill forward in February. Senate sponsor Patrick Leahy still plans for a PIPA vote on January 24.

Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are symptoms of a larger issue. They are misguided solutions to a misunderstood problem. In the U.S. and abroad, legislators and big media are embracing censorship and sacrificing civil liberties in their attacks on free knowledge and an open Internet.

Although support has slipped in both the Senate and the House, there is a Senate vote on PIPA scheduled for January 24, and the House will be moving forward as well. It is important to keep the pressure up on both houses. We expect changes that appear to tone down the damaging effects of the laws, without addressing their fundamental flaws.

Keep calling your representatives! Tell them you believe in a free and open Internet!

It looks like this is just start of the war to save the internet.

After having decided in December to delay raising the debt ceiling for the third time at the request of Congress until they returned from vacation in January, President Barack Obama has sent a letters to the House and Senate requesting the ceiling be raised. The debt ceiling has come within $100 billion of the current $15.194 trillion limit. The formal letters trigger a 15-day clock for Congress to consider and vote on a joint resolution disapproving of the increase. The vote a resolution of disapproval will be held in the House on January 18.

The trigger for the request actually occurred on December 30 while the President was vacationing in Hawaii and congress was “on a holiday break”. This is the third and final request to raise the ceiling that was agreed to last year when congress approved the budget. The last resolution of disapproval passed the Republican controlled House but failed in the Democratic controlled Senate. It’s expected that will again be the case, sparing President Obama the need to veto it.

This last bump will carry the government’s ability to pay its bills past the November elections when another raise will have to be discussed by the lame duck congress. Looking forward to that battle.

The pro forma congressional session that are being used to prevent President Obama from making recess appointments has been much discussed here and at other sites like FireDogLake and Talking Points Memo. It has also been argued by Constitutional scholars that they are little more “than a game of separation-of-powers chicken”. They have been used to keep the president from filling vacancies in the courts and in his administration that are vital to the operation of the government. These sessions and the president’s reluctance to challenge their constitutional legality has kept Elizabeth Warren from being appointed to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a Nobel winning economist, Richard Diamond from a seat on the Federal Reserve.

Once a the president missed an opportunity to put an end to Republican obstruction and make important appointments, like Richard Cordray to the CFPB and the vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board. President Obama has a number of options available under the Constitution to bypass congress and make these appointments, as  David Dayen at FDL News Deskpoint out:

During the recess, the President has a number of opportunities to make recess appointments. He could simply determine that the pro forma sessions being used to keep Congress active were insufficient to prevent recess appointments. He could use his Constitutional power to adjourn Congress. But both of those would fly in the face of recent precedent (Presidents have generally respected the pro forma process, and no President has actually used the adjournment power.)

The one option with Presidential precedent behind it was the “Roosevelt precedent.” Congress simply has to adjourn for a short period, a split second really, to shift from the first session of the 112th Congress to the second session. In that window, Theodore Roosevelt made hundreds of recess appointments previously.

Victor Williams, Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of America School of Law and an attorney, writing in the Huffington Post last week urged Obama to put an end to the “myth” that an official congressional recess lasts three days or more and the Republicans’ de facto “nullification” of government:

As the 112th Senate left for its break, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell unsuccessfully attempted to wrangle a recess concession from Obama. McConnell demanded that Obama promise not to sign any recess commissions during the holidays. McConnell blocked a confirmation vote for 50 officials when Obama ignored the Article II, Section 2 shake down.

Adding insult to constitutional injury, congressional Republicans again manipulated the Senate into scheduling 10 pro-forma sessions — intending to interfere with Obama’s recess appointment authority. (As I argued in recent Jurist commentary, in prior posts, and a National Law Journal opinion, the sessions do not prevent the Executive from signing recess commissions.)

Prof. Williams goes on, laying out all the president’s options urging him that the better option would be to invoke Article II, Section 2 which states, “the President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session,” after the start of the new session of the 112th Congress which began today at 12:01 PM EST:

Recess commissions signed before the end of the 112th Senate’s first session — Jan. 3, 2012 at 12 p.m. — last through 2012. However, recess commissions better-timed to be signed instantly at noon (or anytime after the second session formally begins) last through 2013. The officials could then be re-recess appointed during Obama’s second term.

In a time and place of his choosing, Barack Obama should use the Article II, Section 2 recess appointment alternative. President Obama should concurrently renounce the three day recess myth underlying Senate pro forma sessions announcing a simple test: If the Senate is not sitting as a deliberative body able to provide timely confirmation consent, the Executive may fill any vacant federal office.

But according to Brian Buetler at TPM, legal experts believe that today was the last opportunity for Obama to use the “Roosevelt precedent”:

Today was the day that legal experts and many aides in both parties thought President Obama would provide a recess appointment to Richard Cordray, his nominee to administer the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau […]

But a senior administration official who would not be quoted told reporters at a White House background briefing Tuesday that Obama will not take advantage of that opening.

The official declined to provide further explanation, but the decision implies one of three things: that Obama does not believe he’s encumbered by technical restrictions on his power to recess appoint nominees and can still act between now and late January when Senators return to town; that he will instead wait until a future recess when feels he has more running room and political capital to recess appoint Cordray and others; or that he has no intention of challenging Congressional Republicans by making further recess appointments between now and the end of this Congress.

So by not taking advantage of the ‘Roosevelt precedent”, will Obama go where no president has gone before and invoke Article II, Section 2? Or will he continue on the more predictable path of allowing the minority in the Senate to obstruct his agenda?

I’m opting for the latter. Fool me, Barry.

While he is on vacation in Hawaii, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling for the third and last time under the agreement that was negotiated last August. The increase, which is expected to be made by December 30, can only be stopped by passage of a “resolution of disapproval” which the President can veto. That isn’t likely since the last resolution was blocked by the Democrats in the Senate and since Congress in recess until the end of January, well past the 15 days Congress has to vote in the resolution of disapproval.

Pres. Obama is expected to ask for authority to increase the borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion which is within $100 billion of the current cap of $15.194 trillion. The motivation to request this raise now is mostly political and tied to the election next November, as noted by David Dayen at FDL:

In numbers that came out earlier this month, the deficit under current law for Fiscal Year 2012, ending September 30, is set to be right around $1 trillion. That doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for the White House to get to the next election without having to deal with the debt limit again, especially if new measures like the payroll tax go unfunded. [..]

That seems to be the motivating factor here. The White House simply does not want to go through another bruising debt limit fight again before the election. That places a limit on borrowing in the next fiscal year. It explains why the “fight” over the American Jobs Act wasn’t that major a fight, because passing all of the measures without paying for them immediately would require raising the debt limit again. And paying for them immediately would make the stimulative effect irrelevant. A couple of the measures, like the payroll tax and unemployment benefits, could conceivably pass while allowing the Treasury to squeeze past the elections under the debt limit. But the numbers are pretty close.

David Weigel at Slate points out, with some amusement, another reason to make the request now:

Both parties like to vote against debt limit hikes, when they can — makes for good TV ads. The problem this time is that they may never get a chance. The Washington Post‘s sharp congressional reporter Felicia Sonmez points out that Congress is actually out of town until January 17. [..]

Congress is still playing the unconstitutional game of pro forma sessions to prevent the president form making recess appointments. Technically, the resolution could be passed but it would have to be by unanimous consent and that is just not going to happen. So as Weigel notes unless some renegade congress critter demands a vote, even Congress keep from getting near the “burning wreckage” of this fight.

Despite the clear evidence that austerity budgets will hurt the stagnating economy, that tax cuts and focusing on the debt and deficit do not create jobs, President Barack Obama will present a $300 billion program that will propose more of the same. The Democrats on the bipartisan Congressional Super Committee that was created to solve the problem of the deficit, taxes and job stimulus, has taken a lead from Obama, more cuts, please:

The key dilemma facing President Obama and Congressional Democrats is that Republicans are wholly unwilling to support any new job-creating spending projects — even projects with bipartisan support — unless they’re offset with spending cuts or savings elsewhere in the budget.

Thus, Democrats on the new joint deficit Super Committee will seek more than the $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction they’ve been tasked with finding, in order to help offset some of those costs.

Guess where those cuts will come from? Social Security (which does NOT contribute to the deficit), Medicare and Medicaid with President Obama leading the way:

In the speech Thursday, Obama will challenge the 12-member congressional supercommittee to exceed its $1.5 trillion goal for budget savings – setting a higher target that would allow the additional money to fund tax breaks and other stimulus spending. But the “very specific” deficit recommendations that Obama promised last month won’t come until after the speech, although the exact timing is unclear, White House officials said.

snip

The deficit plan will be more specific than the framework the White House released in April. It is likely to include some unpopular measures that, until now, Obama backed only behind closed doors during the July talks with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), according to Democratic officials familiar with proposal.

Before the “grand bargain” fell apart over tax revenues, Obama and Boehner agreed on about $250 billion in proposed cuts to Medicare, including gradually raising the eligibility age to 67 and hiking co-pays and premiums for wealthier beneficiaries. They also agreed to change the inflation calculator for Social Security and other federal programs . . . .

Most polls indicate Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and that the president is doing a poor job handling the economy and yet all that is being put forward are the same ideas that put this country into this hole. Contrary to what Obama seems to think, his plan will not attract moderate and independent voters he so desperately needs in next year’s elections.

While the world will not miss Mommar Gadaffi, there are some very serious questions about how this was achieved, particularly for Americans who were opposed to Pres. George W. Bush military intervention policies while excusing Obama’s violation of the law.

Glenn Greenwald makes two salient points in his critique of an article by Michael Tomasky in the Daily Beast that argues “the war in Libya highlights how “one can see how he (Obama) might become not just a good but a great foreign-policy president” and how some intellectual progressives conceive of the Obama presidency”.

First, this is not “mission accomplished” by any means:

No matter how moved you are by joyous Libyans (just as one was presumably moved by joyous Iraqis); no matter how heinous you believe Gadaffi was (he certainly wasn’t worse than Saddam); no matter how vast you believe the differences are between Libya and Iraq (and there are significant differences), this specific Iraq lesson cannot be evaded.  When foreign powers use military force to help remove a tyrannical regime that has ruled for decades, all sorts of chaos, violence, instability, and suffering — along with a slew of unpredictable outcomes — are inevitable.

Greenwald’s second point is the illegality:

The Atlantic‘s Conor Freidersdorf argues that no matter how great the outcome proves to be, Libya must be considered a “Phyrrhic victory for America” because:

   Obama has violated the Constitution; he willfully broke a law that he believes to be constitutional; he undermined his own professed beliefs about executive power, and made it more likely that future presidents will undermine convictions that he purports to hold; in all this, he undermined the rule of law and the balance of powers as set forth by the framers.

snip

The New Yorker‘s Amy Davidson warns of the serious precedential dangers not only from Obama’s law-breaking but from our collective willingness to overlook it.  Honestly: can anyone claim that if George Bush had waged an optional war without Congressional approval — and continued to wage it even after a Democratic Congress voted against its authorization — that progressives would be lightly and parenthetically calling it “ridiculous” on their way to praising the war?  No, they’d be screaming — rightfully so — about lawlessness and the shredding of the Constitution; that this identical contempt for the law by Obama has become nothing more than a cursory progressive caveat (at most) on the way to hailing the glorious war is astounding.

(emphasis mine)

The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe discussing Libya setting Gov. Howard Dean and Newsweek‘s Tina Brown straight. He says what’s happening in the country is essentially “a NATO enforced regime change” and that President Obama is “implementing the Bush domino agenda in the Middle East”. Scahill also expresses concern that the US is making future enemies across the Middle East.

This article was a tough call for me to write because like so many I would rejoice to see Gadaffi in shackles at The Hague and that this revolution was initiated by the Libyan people. That said and as Glenn also points out in his article:

Does anyone know how many civilians have died in the NATO bombing of Tripoli and the ensuing battle?  Does anyone know who will dominate the subsequent regime? Does it matter?

But my, how soon some have forgotten the Bush regime’s policies.

Yes, it an old video but it deserves resurrection from time to time. This is one of those times. When you’re failing and looking to blame someone blame the left, it’s all our fault. This is the fall back that the White House has consistently used since Barack Obama took office. I chuckled at Jon Walker’s article at FDL Action using the Scoobie Doo analogy of the White house tactic of laying the blame on the left for their failed policies from the pathetic health care bill to the Dodd-Frank reform bill and now the economically disastrous debt ceiling deal.

It would seem the White House is basically taking the perspective of a Scooby Doo villain in concluding why their brilliant plans fail. Hanging upside down in a comically oversize net with their rubber monster mask removed they yell, “we would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling progressive bloggers!”

A meeting that took place recently with White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling and progressive advocacy groups was described as “tense” by Politico‘s Ben Smith:

Sperling faced a series of questions about the White House’s concessions on the debt ceiling fight and its inability to move in the direction of new taxes or revenues. Progressive consultant Mike Lux, the sources said, summed up the liberal concern, producing what a participant described as an “extremely defensive” response from Sperling.

Sperling, a person involved said, pointed his finger at liberal groups, which he said hadn’t done enough to highlight what he saw as the positive side of the debt package — a message that didn’t go over well with participants.

(emphasis mine)

If this has a familiar ring of “Groundhog’s Day”,, you’d be very correct. John Aravosis of AMERICAblog recalls attending one of those meetings in 2010 with Jared Bernstein, who was Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to VP Biden:

I guess what struck me as most interesting about the meeting were two things. First, when Bernstein noted that, in trying to solve the country’s economic problems, the administration faces “budget constraints and political constraints.” By that, I took Bernstein to mean that the stimulus could only be so large last time, and we can only spend so much more money this time, because we’re facing a huge deficit, so there’s not much money to spend, and because the Hill and public opinion won’t let us spend more.

That struck me as GOP talking points winning the day, and I said so (Professor Kyle wrote about this very notion the other day on the blog). The only reason we’re facing a budget constraint is because we gave in on the political constraint. We permitted Republicans to spin the first stimulus as an abysmal failure, when in fact it created or saved up to 2m jobs. Since Democrats didn’t adequately defend the stimulus, and didn’t sufficiently paint the deficit as the Republicans’ doing, we now are not “politically” permitted to have a larger stimulus because the fiscal constraint has become more important than economic recovery.

And whose fault is that?

Apparently ours.

Bernstein said that the progressive blogs (perhaps he said progressive media in general) haven’t done enough over the past year to tell the positive side of the stimulus.

Jon Walker summed up this blame the left game that the White House is playing as another failure that faults everyone but themselves and their Republican allies:

If people see the the positive tangible effect that a policy has on their lives, they won’t care what anyone has to say about it.  Likewise, if a handful of writers sign on to the White House Happy Talk PR campaign, bad policy will never become broadly popular.  The administration’s failure to convince either bloggers or the public about the benefits of a particular action is most likely a signal that it is insufficient, ineffective, destructive or incompetent.

Personally, I am more that tired of being told by Obama supporters that we on the left are tea partying, Republicans and racist for criticizing President Obama’s right wing appeasement policies and his failure to follow up on his campaign promises. I’m tired of being told that by criticizing Obama I am emboldening the tea party, so I should STFU and go away. The truth be told they are the tea party Republican allies who are promulgating the right wing policies that will be the destruction of everything that has been gained since Franklin Roosevelt, all because of a well spoken bright shiny object has dazzled them and still does.  

Congress has left town until after the Labor Day weekend leaving the Federal Aviation Agency unfunded. Because the Republican controlled house hates unions and workers, they are holding the FAA hostage on behalf of Delta Airlines. This effects 4,000 FAA employees who have been furloughed, 70,000 contracted construction workers laid off and the loss of $1 billion in tax revenue that will not be collected on ticket sales. While air traffic controllers will continue on the job with pay, safety inspectors are expected to work unpaid. All this because Delta Airlines is in a dispute with workers who want to unionize. Even worse is that most of these workers will be not have health care insurance to take care of themselves or their families.

David Dayen at FDL News gives the details in a nutshell:

Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have passed an FAA authorization bill. The particulars are in the range of 90% the same. While they work something out on the last 10%, they could pass an extension of the old authorization, the way they have 20 times since 2007. But House Republicans want to make it harder for Delta’s workers to unionize. They want to mandate that any absent voter in a union election is a vote against the union. They haven’t yet applied this to their own elections, but that’s how they want unions to operate. The NLRB passed regulations that would ban this practice, and Delta simply won’t allow votes for its workers under the new rules. And Republicans have hijacked the FAA on behalf of Delta.

That’s the real battle behind the FAA authorization, and the main reason that agency is partially shut down right now. The House passed an extension that basically punished rural airports in the states of the main Senate negotiators on the bill. But Harry Reid was actually willing to accept them yesterday and pass the extension. Senate Republicans blocked it by denying unanimous consent.

From Rachel Maddow:

Congress demonstrates a bankruptcy of principles with FAA neglect

Rachel outlines the damage being done in term of jobs and wated public money while the FAA awaits authorization from Congress.

The tea partying Republicans don’t give a rat’s butt about the over 74,000 workers who will add to the unemployment figures this month. Their only concern is the interests of a high flying CEO that contributes heavily to their campaign chests.

The tea partying republicans hate America and are worse than any terrorist group that uses explosives to take lives and destroy this country.

The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution:

Section 4:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Republican economist Bruce Bartlett, who believes that the Republicans are playing with “the financial equivalent of nuclear weapons”, argues that Section 4 renders the debt ceiling unconstitutional, and obligates the President to consider the debt ceiling null and void.

. . . .I believe that the president would be justified in taking extreme actions to protect against a debt default. In the event that congressional irresponsibility makes default impossible to avoid, I think he should order the secretary of the Treasury to simply disregard the debt limit and sell whatever securities are necessary to raise cash to pay the nation’s debts. They are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States and preventing default is no less justified than using American military power to protect against an armed invasion without a congressional declaration of war.

Furthermore, it’s worth remembering that the debt limit is statutory law, which is trumped by the Constitution and there is a little known provision that relates to this issue. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.” This could easily justify the sort of extraordinary presidential action to avoid default that I am suggesting.

snip

Constitutional history is replete with examples where presidents justified extraordinary actions by extraordinary circumstances. During the George W. Bush administration many Republicans defended the most expansive possible reading of the president’s powers, especially concerning national security. Since default on the debt would clearly have dire consequences for our relations with China, Japan and other large holders of Treasury securities, it’s hard to see how defenders of Bush’s policies would now say the president must stand by and do nothing when a debt default poses an imminent national security threat.

Mr. Bartlett is not alone, Garret Epps, journalist and professor of law at Baltimore University, agrees and proposes the President should give a speech declaring, ‘The Constitution Forbids Default’.

Democratic members of the Senate, too, have begun exploring the possibility of declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional:

“This is an issue that’s been raised in some private debate between senators as to whether in fact we can default, or whether that provision of the Constitution can be held up as preventing default,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), an attorney, told The Huffington Post Tuesday. “I don’t think, as of a couple weeks ago, when this was first raised, it was seen as a pressing option. But I’ll tell you that it’s going to get a pretty strong second look as a way of saying, ‘Is there some way to save us from ourselves?'”

By declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional, the White House could continue to meet its financial obligations, leaving Tea Party-backed Republicans in the difficult position of arguing against the plain wording of the Constitution. Bipartisan negotiators are debating the size of the cuts, now in the trillions, that will come along with raising the debt ceiling.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that the constitutional solution puts the question in its proper context — that the debate is over paying past debts, not over future spending.

“The way everybody talks about this is that we need to raise the debt ceiling. What we’re really saying is, ‘We have to pay our bills,'” Murray said. The 14th Amendment approach is “fascinating,” she added.

Let the games continue.

Up dates below the fold.

Jon Walker at Firedoglake says that the negotiations on the debt ceiling keep moving right:

In the beginning, the idea that any political party would actively hold the debt ceiling hostage to reduce the deficit was considered absurd. Mainly because all the top politicians have admitted they don’t want the country to default and that actually forcing a default would have the exact opposite affect of sending Treasury bond rates up, making the deficit problem dramatically worse. Only a year ago, the idea the debt ceiling must be raised was not just the broad centrist position, and it has been the common sense position for decades.

Instead of holding a firm line and pointing out that Republicans were flirting with incoherent madness related to the debt ceiling, Democrats ,lead by President Obama, choose to feed the Republican deficit hysteria by actively refusing to take a stand. This moved the debate radically to the right. It made it acceptable to hold America credit worthiness hostage to demand deficit reductions despite massive unemployment.

John Amato at Crooks and Liars gives a tutorial in Negotiating for Dummies:

Every “cut” is on the table, but not revenue increasers. This is all kabuki and the debt ceiling isn’t the same type of game they played with as shutting down our own government was. But if Democrats use meaningless military cuts to justify massive cuts in education, food safety, health research and criminal justice as some kumbaya moment, then this will be not a deal, but a ritual sacrifice.

Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, Washington Editor of The Nation magazine, discussed the lengths to which the Republicans have gone to undermine President Obama, calling it “craven shameless, unprincipled partisan hackery”

At this point, I call it insanity on the part of the President and the Democratic leadership.