Breakdowns and Shutdowns

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson faced his first test, and he apparently failed.

He wanted a vote on a continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown and keep government spending at current levels for the time being, with no additional aid to Israel and Ukraine, to allow Congress to negotiate a more permanent budget deal.  But members of his own fellow Republicans - mostly from the MAGA wing - voted against it, as they want to see immediate and drastic cuts in domestic spending.  Johnson needed help from the Democrats to pass such a resolution, and Democrats, recognizing the need for a continuing resolution, helped it pass.

Johnson tried a typical Republican party trick of offering a proposal he figured the Democrats wouldn't support, thus allowing the government to shut down, but with several Republicans in the House already opposed to this strategy, he allowed the resolution to pass.  The Senate has indicated that it will pass it as well.

Government shutdowns have been part and parcel of politics in Washington since 1981, when President Reagan vetoed a continuing resolution to keep the government open while both houses of Congress were negotiating in good faith to come up wit ha budget.  That had been standard procedure before the 1980s, but Reagan wanted to use the threat of the government running out of money to force cuts he felt were necessary.  The ploy only caused chaos, and chaos eventually became a Republican tool.  For the most part, though, Republicans rarely pay a political price for causing government shutdowns.  Although the public largely blamed Republicans for the 2013 government shutdown, the party was rewarded with control of the Senate and an expanded majority in the House the following year. 

So if you think Democrats should have let the GOP allow the government to shut down so that the Democrats would have a political issue to run on in 2024, think again.  A shutdown is the last thing Democrats or the country needs right now.  

The Crash Days

It looks like the federal government is about to be shut down by shadow Speaker Donald Trump to close down federal courts in which he is being prosecuted (that's not how it works).  The House Oversight Committee, currently run by Republicans, is still going to be working to continue its sham impeachment inquiry of President Biden - which produced less than nothing in today's hearing - while Transportation Security Administration employees and air traffic controllers will be expected to work for no pay indefinitely . . .which will put pressure and anxiety on these workers . . . which may mean that a few things may go wrong, like passengers boarding airliners with items not allowed on flights will air traffic controllers get distracted and pay less attention to what they're doing . . ..

All I can say is, I hope there are no plans by Islamic extremists to hijack an airliner and take over the controls in the next few weeks.  

Because there's a new target in Lower Manhattan . . . 

. . . as well as United Flight 93's unfinished business in Washington.

I'm going to come right out and say it - the shutdown could make it easy  for another 9/11 to happen!

And if another 9/11 does happen, Republicans will find a way to successfully blame Biden for it.  Joe?  No, Hunter.

They're that sick.

Paul and Paul

Hey, Paul!

Am I referring to Mr. Paul of the Senate or Mr. Ryan, Speaker of the House?  Both, actually.  The Senate worked out a bipartisan deal to keep the government running, spending more money on the military and on vital domestic programs, but the Kentucky senator doesn't want to commit the government to more spending (and so is blocking a Senate vote on the deal), and the Speaker can't muster the votes for it in the House.  And even if he could, Democrats don't want to vote on anything that doesn't fix the DACA immigration issue.

"Yes, I want a strong national defense," Rand Paul wrote on his Twitter account.  "I believe it's actually the most important thing the federal government does. But you have to ask yourself whether a $20 trillion debt makes us a stronger country or a weaker country."

I have to ask myself whether another shutdown - which will happen less than fifteen minutes after I post this - will make us weaker.   

Oh well, at least the Democrats won't be blamed for a shutdown this time.  Not that they had any power to stop it.

Nancy Pelosi's floor stunt?  I'll get to that . . ..

I'm glad the Winter Olympics are starting.  I'll get to talk about that instead.

There Goes Your Nineteenth Nervous Shutdown

The shutdown is over, and Congress managed to come up with a deal over the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) issue without involving Donald Trump, who had no idea what he wanted to do about it.  The government will be funded for three weeks - three whole weeks! - after Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York got Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to agree to discuss it . . . later.  While Trump chief of staff John Kelly and Trump adviser Stephen Miller retard and block any real progress on immigration reform. 

And Schumer trusts McConnell (below) to keep his promise?

That's like trusting a lioness to babysit a pair of lambs.

Schumer was supposed to get a deal on replacing DACA with real legislation once and for all, and instead he gets nothing!  He loses! And so do the Democrats, who, by the way, had public support for DACA but not at the expense of letting the government shut down. Which would have been suvivable if they hadn't caved.  

Ask McConnell for a promise?  Schumer might as well asked him for a pie crust.

You know, you silly Democrats, you could have avoided this mess.  You could have chosen as your 2016 presidential nominee the most liberal 2016 presidential candidate on immigration, one Martin Joseph O'Malley.  You had in O'Malley a potential President who was passionate on the immigration issue, who eagerly supported helping and getting legal status for DACA subjects, and who was ready and willing to get immigration reform done come hell or high water.

But instead of getting behind O'Malley (below), you laughed him out of the race, let your national committee anoint Hillary Clinton as your presidential nominee, and got a President who wants to avoid dealing with DACA and wants to stop immigration, come hell or high wall.  And you're still laughing at O'Malley?

You Democrats aren't very smart, are you?

I think I'm going to have a Pop-Tart now . . ..

Shut Down, Vol. 19

There are no winners here.

The federal government has just shut down, per a failed Senate vote on a continuing resolution passed by the House.  Although five of ten Democratic senators from states Trump won voted for the resolution, four Republicans - including South Carolina's Lindsey Graham - voted against it, Graham in particular fed up with Trump's irrationality.  

The Democrats stood their ground on a permanent solution to the children of undocumented immigrants, but they were probably playing politic at the wrong time on the wrong issue.  Republicans tried to use the Children's Health Insurance Program - unfunded since September - as a bargaining, er, chip to cow the Democrats into submission while refusing to deal with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.  And neither side seems to have a clue abut how to maintain troop readiness in the military.  No one will budge, and nothing is happening.

This is the nineteenth time the government has shut down.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole damn country can shut down.  Our representative form of government has only been in effect for 229 years, a few moments in the Big Bang scheme of things, is still brief enough to be considered an experiment.  

It just failed.

Congress can still get something worked out by Monday morning, before the shutdown has a noticeable effect on the country.  Don't bet on it.

An Immodest Proposal for Preserving Net Neutrality

I wrote last week about the end of Net neutrality as if it were inevitable, and it probably is. But maybe I'm wrong.

The only thing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai understands is power.  That's why Pai laughs off comments on the FCC's message board pleading with him to preserve Net neutrality - "Look, I'm scared, I'm scared!"  Pai's allies in the telecommunications industry and their backers in Congress only understand power, also.  So don't waste your time writing to Uncle Charlie (i.e., the FCC) to demand that Net neutrality be preserved.   Here's a better idea.

Find a U.S. Senator - any U.S. Senator - on record for supporting Net neutrality.  If he or she happens to represents your state, so much the better.   Write to that senator and urge him or her to use the power every senator has to hold up legislation to block something important . . . like, say, the continuing resolution renewal. The U.S. government is operating on a continuing resolution in the absence of a real budget, and it is set to expire on December 9 if it is not renewed.  If it expires, the government will shut down.

Tell that senator to block a vote on the continuing resolution unless and until Congress agrees to enshrining Net neutrality into law. No free Internet, no continuing resolution.  Then find another senator and repeat the process.  Write to as many senators as you can.  Call their offices if you can.  Keep track of how many senators respond to you; follow up on the ones that don't.  

Do you remember that song that was a hit back during the 1979 oil crisis, the song suggesting that the U.S. withhold shipments of agricultural products to OPEC member states if they didn't lower the price of oil - "Cheaper Crude Or No More Food"?  Well, I'm proposing the same idea here.  We the people should have our senators hold the continuing resolution hostage to preserving Net neutrality.  If there's actually a completed budget to vote on (yeah, right), they should hold that hostage to ensure that Net neutrality is preserved.  Heck, they should block a vote on raising the debt ceiling, if that's possible, to get Congress and Trump to agree to preserve a free Internet.  Yeah - "Free the Net or no more debt!" :-D 

We ought to do something.  Anything.  Well, anything that's legal.  Because unless we do something, we're all going to get hit on December 14 with a Pai in the face.

Act now before the FCC board has its Net neutrality vote on December 14.

There's a Fat Man In the Beach Chair

Republican Chris Christie, overseeing his last state budget as governor of New Jersey, triggered a shutdown on July 1 when he failed to get the New Jersey State Assembly, the lower house of the legislature, to agree to an overhaul of the state's largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, that would have required the insurance company to let the state use its surplus for treatment of opioid addiction as a condition for approving a new $34.7 billion state budget.  The state Senate approved the budget but would not approve the Horizon overhaul until and unless the Assembly passed the overhaul as well.  The Assembly would not do so, and therefore would not approve the budget.  Both houses are controlled by the Democrats; their budget has $300 million of Democratic spending priorities that Christie promised not to excise from the budget in exchange for the Horizon reform.

Senate President Steve Sweeney was willing to go along with Christie's overhaul bill but Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto would not, resulting in a grudge match between Christie and Prieto that produced a government shutdown.  The shutdown closed New Jersey motor vehicle offices and other state services, and it also closed state parks - just in time for the Independence Day holiday period.  As this was the first time Independence Day fell on a Tuesday since 2006 (which is precisely when the state government was last shut down), many New Jerseyans made plans in anticipation of a four-day weekend climaxing with the Fourth that involved going to state beaches.  State beaches, bear in mind, are cheaper than going to municipal beaches and more relaxing.  I can attest to this; I've been to Ocean City, New Jersey in Cape May County, which is situated on a barrier island, and Corson's Inlet State Park in Ocean City, at the southern tip of the island, is far more serene and less hectic than the municipal beaches along the boardwalk and the amusement piers in the northern end of town.

And the state beaches are less costly than the municipal-beach permits.

Be that as it may, New Jerseyans planing to go to the state beaches had their plans upended for much of the holiday weekend.  Christie held firm, but on Monday, July 3, Christie and the legislature reached a compromise that has Horizon return budget surpluses above a capped amount to policyholders in the form of discounts, not spend it on opioid addiction treatment.  Both the budget and the Horizon overhaul bill were quickly passed, re-opening the government.  

So what caused Christie to give in?

Maybe it was this picture of him from Sunday, July 2 at Island Beach State Park with his family and some friends during the shutdown.  

Island Beach State Park, which is on a peninsula despite its name, is the location of the official retreat for the governor - sort of like New Jersey's Camp David.  Christie took advantage of his perks as governor and used the beach at a time when the public was not allowed to.  He flouted his power and his privilege in the faces of the powerless masses who'd been denied their right to use public space.

The optics must have spurred him to cut a deal.  But while the budget crisis is over, the ridicule Christie has had to endure, thankfully, is not.  It's become manna from heaven for Christie's detractors - and there are many, honey! - who know how to use Photoshop.

And here are some of the images these mischievous Photoshoppers have produced.

It was only supposed to be a three-hour shutdown. A three-hour shutdown.

You finally blew it up, eh, Christie?

We seem to be made to suffer.  It's our lot in life.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water . . . the legend continues.

You certainly chose a lovely spot for our meeting.

 Whale on the beach!  He's in the beach chair!

Just hanging out with the crew!

And of course . . .

Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.

Christie's arrogance should send his poll numbers down, though it's hard for him to go any lower than his current 15 percent approval rating.  His final term as governor ends in six months.  He's done the impossible; he's actually made me look forward to January!

Christie is set to become the first New Jersey governor to serve two full terms since Tom Kean left office in 1990.  But a lot of New Jerseyans would prefer he leave sooner.

Train Wreck

President Obama and congressional Democrats have acquiesced to all sorts of demands from House Republicans to cut spending, but Speaker John Boehner has kept moving the line in an attempt to placate the Tea Party. And the Tea Party's demands have gone beyond just cutting short-term spending on a few programs. Some zealots, like the horrible Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) has vowed to allow the government if there is no rider on the budget bill zeroing out Planned Parenthood funding to stop government funding of abortion - even though Planned Parenthood funding does not go to abortion procedures because Planned Parenthood deliberately keeps those services separate from birth control and gynecological exams.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan continues to promote his Medicare "reform" plan and his budget proposals in general, insisting that the debt will be paid off by 2050, with government spending as 14 percent of the gross domestic spending by then and corporate tax rates reduced to 25 percent - all with 2.8 percent unemployment as early as 2017! No one believes any of this, least of all Ryan's employment projections, and what Ryan wants to accomplish is based on cuts affecting programs that benefit the middle and lower classes.

Oh yeah, that $4.4 trillion figure refers not to cuts over ten years - that number is $5.8 trillion - but to the tax cuts Ryan would preserve for the wealthy.

You know, I'm dizzy from following all of these numbers . . ..

Also: Senate Republicans successfully blocked efforts by the previous, Democratic-controlled Congress to pass a budget by refusing to go along with a budget that didn't have the spending cuts they wanted. When Harry Reid tried to compromise with them, they moved the line and forced the budget to be brought up by a new Republican House and a Senate with a larger Republican minority. That doesn't sound fair, but Republicans were never about fairness. :-0