2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

Ryan will be happy secretly if this passes, as long as some of the Freedom Caucus opposes this because it allows increased domestic spending. He can then promise them that in 2 years with a Republican Congress and a possible Republican Prez, they can then slash domestic spending and Medicaid and stuff. Passing this now decreases attention on Ryan's goals and the Tea Party Freedom caucus goals, and allows the mainstream media to ignore how far to the right the Republicans as a party have gone.

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i mean, the only reason this deal can happen is because it can be tied to boehner's departure, which takes away the freedom caucus' leverage. if/when it passes with the support of almost all the democrats and a few dozen republicans, that frees up the rest of the GOP to criticize it and tell constituents that there was nothing they could do because Boehner betrayed them yet again. given that the Freedom Caucus just ran Boehner out of town, i doubt that Ryan is going to ally himself with Benedict Arnold on his way out the door

The deal emerged as the GOP House coalesced around Ryan, so he approves privately.

in other words,

http://i.imgur.com/1Q1AXYC.jpg

Is that Speaker Syndrome?

I feel a little better. Greg Sargent:

What Democrats got:

— $40 billion in additional non-defense spending, over and above the caps imposed by the sequester, over two years

— a debt limit hike through March of 2017, meaning no more conservative-manufactured debt limit extortion through that date

— an end to conservative-manufactured government shutdown drama through the election and beyond

— a solution to a glitch in cost-of-living calculations that threatened to hike premiums for millions on Medicare Part B

— a reallocation of Social Security funds that Dems had sought to keep disability insurance solvent

What Republicans got:

— $40 billion in additional defense spending, over and above the caps imposed by the sequester, over two years, plus an additional chunk of defense spending in a side contingency fund. That is to say, an increase in defense spending overall that is higher than the increase in non-defense spending

— Medicare cuts, but (according to reports and experts) only on the provider side

— A tightening of eligibility requirements to the Social Security Disability Insurance program that experts say does not equal a benefits cut

— a debt limit hike through March of 2017, meaning no more conservative-manufactured debt limit extortion through that date

— an end to conservative-manufactured government shutdown drama through the election and beyond

— a solution to a glitch in cost-of-living calculations that threatened to hike premiums for millions on Medicare Part B

not bad

republicans got to satiate their bloodlust and desire for nihilist chaos by getting someone in government thrown out

I approve of this strategy of cannibalism over obstructionism

LA Times: Fans of the 1972 film “Deliverance” will be happy to know the weird-looking, banjo-playing, hillbilly kid from the movie has grown up and found work as chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Ha, I was wondering if I was the only one who thought this!

KARL

(i didn't make that tiny paul ryan, btw. however, i did conduct an intense google image search for "paul ryan silly face" so i deserve partial credit)

love to see a remake of Dick Tracy starring Congress

the budget agreement would designate the “small House rotunda” on the first floor of the Capitol to serve as a “Freedom Foyer.”

Finally!

freedom foyer but not for me

honor the foyer!

No freedom in the foyer!

foy-urr or foy-ay tho

Meet me in the Moyers Foyers.

http://i.imgur.com/cGvGfkG.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDyjOimInA

in a shocking development that definitely doesn't happen dozens of times per day, i was totally wrong about something:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-ryan-support-budget-deal

There's more.

Paul Ryan has signed off on a letter promising restless members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) that he won’t bring immigration-reform legislation to the House floor while President Obama remains in office.

The letter, obtained exclusively by National Review, formalizes pledges that Ryan made last week in a closed-door meeting with select members of the HFC who were skeptical of his promise to maintain an “open” and “inclusive” relationship with the caucus. Specifically, it extracts Ryan’s word that he will not bring up comprehensive immigration reform “so long as Barack Obama is president” and, as speaker, Ryan will not allow any immigration bill to reach the floor for a vote unless a “majority” of GOP members support it.

Alabama representative Mo Brooks wrote the letter and will enter it into the Congressional Record on Tuesday morning. He says his intention was to record the pledges Ryan made in the meeting and earn Ryan’s confirmation that the record was accurate, so he could vote for the Wisconsin Republican in good conscience come the congressional-floor election that will determine the next speaker.

i'll scratch your back by agreeing not to send the country into default if you scratch mine by pledging not to help millions of people

classic politics

now that hastert has plead guilty to corruption, i'm gonna hold my breath till the GOP discards the hastert rule

gonna be renamed the felon rule iirc

dang it goole i always forget what your wackadoo thread is called

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/margins-mainstream

search for "kontinuing"

i guess it makes sense that they would get their own spelling

Looks like no speaker will surpass Mr. Sam's length of service:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/john-boehner-resigns-house-speaker/

w/ mccormack third! what a stranglehold

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/29/us-warns-britain-it-could-face-trade-barriers-if-it-leaves-eu

Call casting, we have the perfect dude for fat-head Ryan:
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMzc5OTQ5NDk1OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjE5ODgzNw@@._V1_UY317_CR12,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

Paul Ryan elected speaker of the House

Paul Ryan elected speaker of the House paints target on back

I saw a pic of the press conference; dude looked like he heard he had rectal cancer.

http://media3.vindy.com/img/photos/2012/08/17/08172012----ryan-aa-.1.jpg

heeeey i just came across a far-right hate meme i hadn't seen before about john boehner

can you guess what it's about

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324023/The-moment-proud-father-John-Boehner-watched-daughter-say-I-Do-dreadlocked-Jamaican-born-love.html

So the budget deal doesn't guarantee there won't be problems shortly I see--

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/us/politics/paul-ryan-set-to-take-over-as-speaker-hoping-to-manage-the-chaos.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The budget deal creates room for the House and Senate appropriations committees to draft a huge spending bill for the current fiscal year that can increase spending on defense as well as politically popular programs like medical research, federal law enforcement and wildfire suppression.

The spending bills already drafted are replete with conservative policy prescriptions, from crippling Mr. Obama’s signature health care law to blocking his climate change and financial regulations. Mr. Ryan will have to decide how far to push that clash with the president, knowing a government shutdown just before Christmas could be at stake.

dear lord, goole

how the hell do you go through these things without going insane?

good diet, exercise, stress management, adequate sleep, and time spent with friends and loved ones are key to maintaining happiness

shit i had a more thoughtful answer written out but my browser ate it :(

the more time I spend going through this stuff, the angrier I become until I'm pretty much a walking rage monster; particularly at the height of black murders that have been happening over the past year, it was pretty easy to goad me into flipping the fuck out (particularly after talking about my great-grandfather's lynching and how not much seems to have changed in the past 70 years).

yeah that's more than understandable. it's become clear to me after a long while that my willingness to ingest this crap is a function of privilege.

the base motivation is just the pure thrill of weirdness and disgust (though i'm not into horror movies...). in a high-minded way i could say it's the will to see what other people think, and i do learn something occasionally. but all it really does is reconfirm my root assumption that these people are morally stunted and basically dangerous, and that democracy & civil society are a fragile superstructure sitting on top of a deep well of animal rage. which is why i'm a liberal, after all!

Reading NRO is especially useful as inoculation during the holiday season, when I start seeing repulsive relatives again.

haha i think i managed to kill any holiday politics talk after a very heated/dumb argument over the war in iraq one year (it was just like born on the fourth of july or the wonder years or lee daniel's the butler or something!) and (almost definitely) xmas after 08 election when after several lame obama jokes i told the old 'what's the difference between sarah palin's mouth and her vagina?' classic.

http://www.screeninsults.com/images/all-in-the-family-meathead-archie.jpg

Chose not to engage when a childhood friend on Facebook posted tedious debt limit stuff about how it should be like managing your own home. Of course, he doesn't mention mortgages, car payments, school loans and a various other things that might make the analogy not work. Since I see this all the time, I am tempted to engage, though.

It's inane. Governments with the power to mint sovereign currency, not to mention take on the cheapest debt in the world, are nothing like a household. I know basically nothing about macroeconomics and yet this just seems obvious to me. idk.

Never underestimate the power of shitty analogies to shape how people think I guess

Reagan popularized that shit btw ("Pay as you go")

My dad and I spent 1980-88 shouting about Reagan. If it was Sunday morning, my mom would dash into the living room and shout off This Week with David Brinkley[ like she was swatting a fly. (At Home with the Morbiuses)