The Caucus Room Conspiracy, 2014 Edition

Congressional Rethuglicans and their enablers have tried almost everything in the last 5 plus years to undermine and destroy the Obama Administration, and with it the nation's first African-American President.  They've tried filibusters in the Senate, shutting down the Federal Government,  and voting "no" on every major piece of legislation that Obama's proposed.  Obama followed eight years of Rethuglican mismanagement and corruption:  the 9-11 attack predicted a month earlier and briefed to Dumbya, a war launched on false premises known at the time to be false, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the greatest financial and economic free-fall since the Great Depression, etc.

In January 2009, the Rethuglican / Stupid Party was in free-fall along with the economy. Their "solution" to avoiding political oblivion was to make President Obama fail as his Rethug predecessor had failed.  Thus, on the evening of Obama's inauguration, Rethuglican Congressional leaders gathered at an expensive DC restaurant, The Caucus Room, to plan Obama's political demise:

"On January 20, 2009, a night when most Americans were out celebrating the end of the Bush years and the beginning of a new era, a group of powerful Republicans was planning the end of Obama presidency before it even really began.

At the Caucus Room restaurant right here in Washington, DC, GOP leaders drew up a plan to intentionally sabotage Obama at every point possible.

On the guest list for the 'invitation only' meeting were Republican Congressmen Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Pete Sessions, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra and Dan Lungren. Republican Senators Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, John Ensign and Bob Corker were also in attendance. The whole thing was orchestrated by Republican propaganda mastermind Frank Luntz.

Over the course of four hours, this group of the most powerful conservative lawmakers in the country committed to a plan of action. They promised each other that they would filibuster and obstruct any and all legislation supported by the new President Obama." (emphasis added)

So the Caucus Room Conspiracy continues, with talk of suing the President and even impeachment by the flakier elements of the right.  Anyone expecting a change with the election of a Democratic President in 2016 would be mistaken:  this is about the corruption of power, dirty money and political nihilism practiced by the Rethuglican Party, period.

Quote of the Day

"The idea that the President can necessarily bend Congress to his will is indeed a “dream.” It doesn’t reckon with the most fundamental question at the heart of all of this: What if there is nothing whatsoever that can be done by the president or anyone else to break the GOP out of its no-compromising stance? This isn’t an unreasonable reading of the situation; it’s what Republicans themselves have confirmed, publicly and on the record — they will not concede a penny in new revenues, no matter what. And if this is the case — if the fundamental problem is that Republicans really do prefer the sequester to any compromise — isn’t it incumbent on commentators to explain this clearly and forthrightly to their readers?" -- Greg Sargent in the formerly great Washington Post Kaplan Daily today. A number of progressive commentators have pushed back on the Woodwards/Fourniers/Brookses of the commentariat who persist in seeing Rethuglican obstruction as susceptible to the President's leadership, when in fact nothing -- nothing -- he could do short of giving them 100% of their demands would succeed.

Reach Out Cartoons of the Day

(click to enlarge)

It seems the notion that the Rethuglicans aren't wired for accepting Obama's outreach is catching.

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Ben Sargent, Austin American-Statesman)

Ah Say, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III Will Have None of Those Black Fellow's Nominees!

Racist cornpone and New Confederate Party/ Rethuglican political template Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (NCP-AL) is outraged, ah say, outraged at that black fellow's nominee for Secretary of the Treasury:

Jack Lew must never be secretary of Treasury...At this time of unprecedented slow growth, high unemployment, and huge deficits, we need a Secretary of Treasury that the American people, the Congress, and the world will know is up to the task of getting America on the path to prosperity not the path to decline. Jack Lew is not that man.

Sessions, like fellow cornpone Sen. Lindsey "Huckleberry Closetcase" Graham (Closet-SC), is determined to piss on every major nominee President Obama sends up to the Senate. Why? Maybe Sessions still has hurt fee-fees from when he was nominated for a federal judgeship but was rejected because of racist positions (just Google "Sen. Jeff Sessions racist" for the motherlode). Or maybe he's just playing to his inbred, angry white man base.

We suspect that this kind of in-your-face obstructionism has worn out any welcome it may have had with all but the most Obama-derangement-syndrome-suffering Americans. People like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III aren't interested in governing; they're interested in blowing things up.

(Photo: Ah say, that's Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III standing in the schoolhouse door at the podium.)

Today's Read: Rethuglicans Sabotaging Economy

From Dick Polman in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"The Republicans' 2012 election strategy is perversely brilliant: Sabotage President Barack Obama's job-creation efforts, then blame him for the wreckage. This strategy was in action the other day, when Mitt Romney assailed Mr. Obama on the stump. Mr. Romney said that 'with America in crisis, with 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work, he hasn't put forth a plan to get us working again.'

"Mr. Romney conveniently omitted the fact that Mr. Obama put forth such a jobs plan last autumn. The American Jobs Act would have put as many as 2 million construction workers, cops, teachers and firefighters back to work -- so said economic forecasters -- if only congressional Republicans hadn't dynamited it.

"Yes, sabotage was required. Republicans knew their prospects for beating Mr. Obama would be damaged if they signed on to a plan that got more Americans working again. They're far too invested in economic misery to let that happen. As Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell candidly remarked in 2010, 'The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.'"

Attention all low-information voters! Attention all low-information voters!

Plurality Thinks Rethuglicans Sabotaging Economy

From Public Policy Polling:

Q: Do you think the Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to ensure that Barack Obama is not reelected or not?

Yes: 49 (47)
No: 40 (41)
Unsure: 11 (12)


It's good to know you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Time for the Democrats to come out and say what nearly a majority is thinking anyway: the Rethugs are sabotaging the recovery for political gain.

Rocks for Brains Quote of the Day

“For heaven’s sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he’ll defeat you,” he added. “He can’t murder you. He can’t burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection. And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we’re in extremity, you shouldn’t even be in Congress...If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountaintop and praise the East or something. But if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise. And you learn to compromise on the issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains.” (my emphasis) Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) today on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," referring to his teatard Rethuglican Party's no compromise, no prisoners approach to government (see also "Sunday Reading," below).

"Sad, Appalling But Not Terribly Surprising"

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill gives us a nugget on Rethuglican obstructionism from Robert Draper's new book (if more proof is needed, see also this and this):

"During a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he
not be re-elected.

"The disclosures – described as 'appalling and sad' by Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod – undermine Republican claims that the president alone is to blame for the partisan deadlock in Washington.

"A detailed account of who was present at the dinner on that January 20 night and the plan they worked out to bring down Obama is provided by Robert Draper in 'Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives', published this week. [snip]

"Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organised the dinner and sent out the invitations.

"The dinner table was set in a square at Luntz's request so everyone could see one another and talk freely. The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.

"'If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," said Keven McCarthy, quoted by Draper. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.'"

"The Republicans have done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during Obama's first term over debt and other issues. [snip]

"Axelrod, who is based at Obama's re-election campaign headquarters in Chicago, condemned the revelation as 'sad, appalling but not terribly surprising.'"

Now we await the onslaught of a predictably mendacious campaign in which the Rethugs will try to attain their goals of taking back the Senate and White House by any means necessary. That's an outcome that should chill the soul of every sentient American.

Both Sides Don't Do It

Political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann have studied the American political scene for many years, and they're debunking the lazy, cynical, Village media-promoted theme that, in politics, both Democrats and Rethuglicans are equally to blame for gridlock, rancor, and the corruption of money in politics. Some choice excerpts:

"The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition...'Both sides do it' or 'There is plenty of blame to go around' are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias...Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the window in Washington. In the first two years of the Obama administration, nearly every presidential initiative met with vehement, rancorous and unanimous Republican opposition in the House and the Senate, followed by efforts to delegitimize the results and repeal the policies."

As the title of the article says, "let's just say it: the Republicans are the problem."

BONUS: Along the same lines, read David Atkins' piece, which expands on the Ornstein/Mann analysis. Here's a taste:

"It would seem that the last three years should be all the political evidence one needs that the forbearance approach of the center-left doesn't work. Forget whether the policies are good or not for a moment: politically speaking, if forbearance and reasonableness were virtues in politics, President Obama would be a saint. He's bent farther over backwards to compromise with these people than Gumbi. The result was an even more extremist right wing, an historic devastation for his party in the 2010 midterms, an intransigently conservative Supreme Court, and an apoplectic 2012 campaign. Forbearance hasn't worked--and that's just the politics of it."

Rethugs Fought the Law - And the Law Won?

Two items today that bring hope that Rethuglican efforts to derail health care reform and the economic recovery may fail legal tests:

-- The Sixth Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, saying it was within Congress' power under the Commerce Clause to regulate health care, including the individual mandate. Once again, we fully expect the "mainstream media" to give this all the play it always reserves for right-wing legal victories...

-- Some Democratic senators are questioning whether a debt ceiling limit is even constitutional under the 14th Amendment. This could effectively take the gun out of the hands of the Rethuglican hostage-takers who are desperate to sabotage the Obama administration and the economic recovery.

Quote & Cartoon of the Day

"[Rethug Senate Minority Leader] McConnell’s first brush with radical truth-telling came in October 2010, when he told National Journal that 'the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.' McConnell quickly qualified his remarks, although he never quite apologized for them. Nor should he have. McConnell wasn’t articulating a radical new theory of politics. He was telling us how he and his party were already voting. Consider the dozens of elected Republicans who, at one time or another, supported an individual mandate for health-care reform, cap-and-trade for carbon emissions and tax cuts for stimulative purposes. Over the past three years, almost all of them have renounced their former views. Unless you understand McConnell’s argument, you can’t understand their actions." Ezra Klein, reaffirming the fact that the Rethugs will wreck the economy so that Obama gets the blame. Tom Toles' editorial cartoon in the Kaplan Daily strikes a similar note:



(BONUS: Check out Steve Benen's piece on how Rethugs define "compromise." Benen's description of Rethugs: "reckless thugs pretending to be a political party.")

Time To Call Them Out

From the moment President Obama took office, Rethuglicans in Congress vowed to bring President Obama's economic recovery agenda down, starting with health insurance reform, and damn the national interest. As Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint (Confederate-SC) phrased it, they wanted to make health insurance reform the President's "Waterloo." With the economic stimulus package, as radio hate-meister Limpballs phrased it, they wanted the President "to fail." Every time Obama sought compromise, and incorporated Rethug suggestions in his economic recovery legislation, they voted against him. The latest evidence is their rejection of extending unemployment benefits legislation.

Now, Theda Skocpol, writing in Talking Points Memo, states what Dems should be doing: calling the Rethugs out for sabotaging needed measures in order to play the savior if they get back in power (shudder):

"The President, Congressional leaders, and Democrats of all stripes should be yelling day in, day out, that REPUBLICANS ARE SABOTAGING NATIONAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY. AND PREVENTING JOB GROWTH, JUST FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. That should be the message all the time, led by the President. Stop the murky compromises and the whining about "helping the unemployed." Stop pretending this is about the deficit -- nothing will hurt the deficit more than delayed economic growth. Say what it happening in terms of the national interest."

Well said, and worth heeding.

BONUS READING: Driftglass gives us an historical overview of the right-wing descent into nihilism and political chicanery (known as "ratf**king") of which the recent Tucker "F**ker" Carlson/ Dave Wiegel episode is just the latest example.

The Screwball

Rethuglican Sen. Jim "Jim Beaned" Bunning, a former pro baseball pitcher, is gaining more and more attention for holding up a bill that would extend unemployment benefits to some 400,000 laid-off Americans, and fund Federal highway projects. His latest outburst was caught on camera by ABC News, when he flipped the bird to a producer for the network.

We haven't determined whether Jim Beaned was beaned by a pitch during his baseball career, but he's had a history of odd behavior. Even some equally rabid winger Rethugs are getting impatient with the erratic Senator from Kentucky. Last year, fellow Kentuckian and Rethug leader Mitch "Missy" McConnell was doing everything in his power to discourage Jim Beaned from running for another term this year. After many months of pouting and strange behavior, Beaned finally gave in and decided to retire after this year. But not before he throws some public tantrums to get the attention he never got during his sub-par tenure in the Senate.

(image: Years ago, Jim Beaned was known for, not known as, a screwball)