Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the House of Representatives on Monday, receiving a standing ovation and enthusiastically greeting her colleagues after casting her vote (her first since being shot in January) for the debt ceiling bill, which passed 269-161.
Some TV camera people caught Speaker John Boehner fleeing to his escape elevator in Capitol Hill last night, after everyone finally reached a debt ceiling deal that no one understands but should pass Congress today anyway. Think he wasn't tired? This guy, Boehner, not tired? Get out of here. Just listen to this noise he makes. A pure sigh of relief, or the desperate wail of an aging farter? You decide, America. For now it is merely John Boehner's "sound."
The House has just passed Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling bill — the third version, of course, after Boehner had to throw in a modest constitutional amendment today to get a few more Tea Party members on board. It doesn't really matter, because the Senate will still instantly kill it, and then... well, something will get through by the Tuesday deadline. Right? Ha ha, probably not.
When Rep. John Boehner assumed the speakership, he said he didn't want to be an arm-twister for votes, and that he wanted the people's voice to be heard clearly. A nice sentiment! But now he that needs votes for his debt ceiling plan today, that's all over. How will he screw over dissidents? Let's look at the case of fellow Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.
Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is cautiously optimistic that enough GOP members had fallen in line over the last 48 hours to pass his debt bill. The plan would cut nearly $917 billion in spending over the next ten years, raise the debt-ceiling by $900 billion and avoid sending the nation into default.
The stalemate between congressional Republicans and Democrats over raising the nation's debt ceiling has gotten so bad that President Obama addressed the nation tonight in an attempt to publicly shame them into reaching a deal. And on tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart angrily piled on Obama's message with an anti-Congress rant of his own. Video of the segment is above.
Word has been trickling in from a variety of sources all day about the basic outline of a deficit-reduction deal that President Obama and Speaker John Boehner are nearing. While both sides are denying it in their preferred arenas — the White House through its spokesperson at a press conference, John Boehner with a telephone call to Rush Limbaugh — it still seems like we've got our hands on the latest trial balloon! Summary: It sucks for Democrats.
President Obama, who deservedly hates his life right now, extended congressional leaders an invitation to his swanky mountain retreat at Camp David as a way to finish debt ceiling negotiations in private. But maybe also as a way to get drunk and party in the mountains? We're just trying to figure out a compelling reason to allow so many assholes into your vacation home. But no one wants to go, anyway. Ouch!
Like everyone else, we miss The West Wing. But it's okay! Democrats and Republicans are trying to put on their own community-theater version of the television program in Washington right now: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor interrupts the president! President Obama storms out of the meeting! And Donna is the victim of a hilarious misunderstanding!
Jon Stewart opened the Daily Show tonight by observing that President Obama once again had to come out yesterday and hold a press conference to shame Congress into agreeing on a solution to the dispute over the U.S. budget. In the process, Stewart realized that Republicans—and House Speaker John Boehner in particular—are trying to get away with having their cake and eating it, too. Video of the segment is above.
Today is an exciting day, because we've discovered that there is a silver lining to these excruciating debt ceiling negotiations that can serve as a palliative for our fatalist misery and depression.
Barack Obama performed the latest scene in his ongoing "last reasonable man in Washington" reelection act today, during an impromptu White House press conference following the latest semi-failure of a debt ceiling meeting. Democrats need to untwist their panties about cutting entitlements. Republicans need to stop being monsters. John Boehner, though, is a great guy. C'mon, people: let's stop the nonsense and eat some goddamn peas.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, one of the GOP's hot little pieces known as the "Young Guns," moonlights as a weiner who's incapable of negotiating to prevent America from defaulting on its public debt. He's just "pulled out" of his role as the House Republicans' leading negotiator in the ongoing talks with Joe Biden, and has demanded John Boehner settle the remaining "tax issues" so he doesn't have to.
For reasons of vital national importance, President Obama and Speaker of House Rep. John Boehner had a foursome today with Vice President Biden and Ohio Governor John Kasich. A golf foursome. What did you think we meant?
Right-wingers have long been fascinated by Ayn Rand, the mid-century pop philosopher who defined moral behavior as doing whatever will make you, the individual, happy, and opposed any government intervention in the economy or charitable giving. Based on her economic beliefs, you can understand why, for example, Rep. Paul Ryan makes each of his staff members read her most famous novel Atlas Shrugged. But shouldn't it bother some of these right-wingers that she was, to use their own language, a "radical atheist," too?
