Month: October 2013

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Political blogs lit up this afternoon with word that Democrats plan to circulate a discharge petition to discharge a clean CR bill to a vote in the House, as reported in The Hill. Dems plan discharge petition to force vote on ending shutdown. A discharge petition would require a minimum of 18 Republicans willing to sign on and to abandon their House leadership on its government shutdown hostage strategy.

Now, there are a large number of Republican congressmen who say they disagree with their House leadership strategy, and who say they want to end the government shutdown. The GOP civil war has been playing out in the media for weeks for all the world to see.

But when it comes time to actually take a stand and put their votes where their big mouths are, these mythical moderate Republicans are always gutless wonders. Their votes rarely, if ever, materialize.

Democrats' attempted a procedural move today to vote on a clean CR bill — what these mythical moderate Republicans say they are willing to vote for — they could have voted to end the government shutdown today.

But these mythical moderate Republicans voted in lockstep with their Tea Party economic terrorist captors holding the GOP hostage, in a classic case of Stockholm syndrome. Just call them "Tania" from now on. GOP thwarts Dem move to force vote on ‘clean’ spending bill:

House Republicans on Friday stood firm against a move by Democrats to call up the Senate's continuing resolution funding the government.

The vote came on the fourth day of the government shutdown, and is an indication the House GOP remains united in its effort to press ahead with smaller spending bills for the next several days.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Remember the congressional fight over the farm bill and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka food stamps appropriations last month? Thanks to the Tea-Publican manufactured crisis for governing-by-extortion taking the Continuing Resolution and federal debt ceiling hostage so the Tea Party radicals can get their ya-yas out shutting down the federal government, these friggin' geniuses let the farm bill appropriations expire, which could have severe consequences if not dealt with soon.

Congress' other failure: Farm bill expired Oct. 1 – phillyburbs.com:

Although it was largely overshadowed by the federal government
shutdown, Congress this week also failed to pass a new federal farm bill
before the law’s Oct. 1 expiration date.

What does that mean for people who don’t live or work on farms?
Not much right now, but agriculture advocates warn that if the standoff
continues into next year, there will likely be drastic consequences[.]

How drastic? How does paying $7 for a gallon of milk sound?

It may seem far-fetched, but if a new bill isn’t
signed into law by Jan. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be
forced to revert back to an antiquated 1949 law requiring the government
to compensate dairy farmers based on the production costs from that
era. If that occurs, officials expect milk and dairy prices to
skyrocket, possibly even double.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: As I pointed ou in a recent "Questions for Martha McSally," the "current threat to Davis-Monthan AFB is the GOP sequester, which Tea-Publicans insist on retaining in both the Continuing Resolution fight that has shut down the federal government, and in future budget negotiations." It is not the Base Realignment and Closure … Read more