Without any debate, the World's Greatest Deliberative Body (heh) tabled the Boehner bill without any debate. The vote was 59-41. Several GOP Senators voted with Reid because they, well, they are PURE or afraid of a tea party primary challenge.

Reid then filed cloture (which requires a 2 day waiting period before the vote can happen) on his bill. Mitch McConnell then offered to waive the waiting period but Reid said...no. You see we are in such an emergency situation, where every minute counts, that Reid doesn't want to vote tonight. Reid also whined that it wasn't fair that the House got to have a majority vote while the Senate requires 60 votes. Of course this isn't news to Harry.

As Guy Benson points out, Harry wasn't such a fan of majority votes just a few minutes earlier when he refused to allow the Senate to hold up an up or down, majority wins vote on the House's bill.

Reid and the Democrats then immediately scheduled a press conference to charge the Republicans with filibustering the Reid bill and endanger the economy.

I seem to recall the Twitter Spammer in Chief saying the time for politics was over. I guess that doesn't apply to everyone.

Added: The House is going to introduce and hold a vote on the Reid bill tomorrow. It hasn't been voted on in the Senate but they have the text so the GOP is just going to introduce it themselves and kill it to show it's DOA.

That bill is going to be superseded by a major amendment Reid offered tonight. Not sure if the amended bill has a CBO score or not.

Reid/Durbin/Schumer are holding their presser and whining about the filibuster. Perhaps they should have reformed the filibuster in January like their base wanted them to. Oh well, sucks to be you.

Now they are saying McConnell won't negotiate with them and won't let any GOP Senators do it. One can only hope that's true.

HMMMM: I thought a lot of this was kabuki theater but Reid says they are "drawing a line in the sand" that there will be no trigger (aka 2nd vote) for more cuts without more taxes.

Reid just said Republicans should "move toward them" or vote for his bill. Heads they win, tales Republicans lose. How can anyone say no to that offer?

Posted by: DrewM at 05:05 PM | Comments (266)
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I'm thinkin it must be his "puffy week".

The only reasonable people in the room, Democrats, who are being more than fair even though he thinks they should stoppit already, keep negotiating with these stupid Republicans who are holding the nation hostage with their "demands" and "concerns" and massive wave of public support.

Damn them. (NYT link, no need to read, it's typically obtuse Krug)

The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.

The "long ways" include Presidential intransigence and petulant threats from Harry Reid about bills that are dead on arrival. This is how you go a long way toward meeting demands. By saying "hellsno" to all of them.

Incidentally, there's a buried joke in there. "concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation". He's writing about a process we've been enduring and fussin about called "legislation". As if Republicans are trying to capture these so-called "concessions" through voodoo and mind-control.

Last time I checked, it's still legislation (ugly though it may be).

If only the Nobel committee had an award for "Whining Hyperbole".

If. Only.

via Monty, the only important Doomsayer on that stage.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:43 PM | Comments (223)
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Update: It passed.

...

One of those things they like to claim they're in favor of, until it comes up for tangible proof of that -- like voting it into being -- at which point they'll start hemming and hawing.

What is the problem with the BBA? Or a BBA, since whatever BBA will become part of the final deal hasn't been written yet, meaning you can craft it as you like?

And yet many of the RINOs, who must be primaried, are considering voting for Reid's bill-- which would kill the BBA.

Here's the list of those the Democrats think they could get. Note that the Democrats may be engaging in wishful thinking on some of these; but Scott Brown has already said (through a spokesman) he's thinking about voting for Reid's no-strings bill.

Right now, Democrats are looking to about 11 gettable GOP votes: Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bob Corker (R-TN), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Scott Brown (R-MA), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Tom Coburn (R-OK). The last three were the Republican members of the Gang of Six deficit reduction group.

Without getting into the Purity/RINO thing, at some point we do in fact expect Republicans to vote Republican, such as on noncontroversial, broadly popular agenda items like cutting spending.

And we also expect them to vote with us tactically. This is all in furtherance of further negotiations, and to cut the House out of it for no reason is simply announcing you're an Independent, and should be treated as such.

Lose the seats in these cases; if you're not with us on the easy, no-brainer, lay-up votes, you're simply not with us, and it's better to go for longshot 1-in-10,000 chances of a decent replacement than to limp along with you.

The sad thing here is that Boehner's plan is squishy and weak. And even that might be too strong a brew for Scott Brown and his soon-to-be-ex-Republican Senators from the Northeast.

Jeff Flake, by the way, has a cute way to get the BBA on the agenda even if Reid blocks it.

Posted by: Ace at 02:07 PM | Comments (375)
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I'm not sure if I think much of this column. Not that I object to name-calling Obama. I think that's fine. I just think her line of attack is wrong.

The line of attack that he's not a leader is an accurate one. Or that he is cowardly.

But a "loser"? I suppose, yes, but that's not the main problem.

And her assertion that "no one loves Obama"? Are you quite sure, Peggy?

Anyway, here are some excerpts.

The secret of Mr. Obama is that he isn't really very good at politics, and he isn't good at politics because he doesn't really get people....

Mr. Obama seemed brilliant at politics when he first emerged in 2004. He understood the nation's longing for unity. We're not divided into red states and blue, he said, we're Big Purple, we can solve our problems together. Four years later he read the lay of the land perfectly—really, perfectly....

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.

So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

If you care, Mediaite has video of Noonan talking about this column on Scarborough.

I'm amused that Tommy Christopher tut-tuts her for her childishness...

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday morning, conservative columnist Peggy Noonan channeled her inner middle-schooler, calling President Obama a “loser,” and likening White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to a “ferret with flop sweat.”

... right before attempting to make a lame joke about that idiotic "Republicans watched The Town!" scandal that liberals apparently think is a pretty damn good talking point.

Tommy, if you want to play the grown up, act the grown up.

Posted by: Ace at 01:38 PM | Comments (146)
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As VDH writes, whereas the armed forces once defended Turkey's constitutional guarantee of a secular government, they will now become the armed forces of an Islamist takeover.

Posted by: Ace at 01:14 PM | Comments (138)
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Should go viral. People need to actually understand what we're talking about.

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (84)
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Liberals almost always immediately say "But Congress' approval is even lower!"

Yes, but people tend to like their own Congressman -- they tend to reflect the district's leanings, even if those diverge from the national average political leaning -- and so "Congess" is never on the ballot.

Just one Congressman is, who usually is more or less in tune with his district.

But Obama is on the ballot it in 2012. Not an abstraction called "The Executive Branch," but the actual person Barack Hussein Obama.

So if Obama's winning this debate, how come he's losing this debate?

President Obama’s approval ratings have plummeted as the debt limit fight in Congress has dragged on. According to a Pew Research Center poll released today, Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of his job as president by a 48 – 44 margin. As recently as June 19th, Pew found that Americans actually approved of Obama’s job as president by a 46 – 45 margin.

These findings echo GallupÂ’s Weekly Job Approval numbers which showed last week tied ObamaÂ’s worst showing ever in that poll at 43 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove. As recently as June 19th Gallup found that Americans approved of ObamaÂ’s job as president by a 47 to 45 margin.

Of course those Gallup numbers are now outdated; the new numbers are worse, 40/50.

But correlation isn't necessarily causation. Is there any evidence that it is Obama's refusal to cut spending which is partly driving his fall?

There is. Today's Gallup poll reported...

Forty percent of Americans approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president in Gallup's three-day rolling average for July 26-28, a new low for him by one percentage point. His overall approval rating essentially matches his recent rating for handling the debt ceiling negotiations.

!!!

I didn't know that. Did you know that? No one seems to be reporting this. For all the claims of "Republicans being blamed," you'd think someone would report that only 40% of the country approves of Obama's handling of this issue.

Given that this is hurting Obama, Trump and Dick Morris seem right in saying the Republican Establishment types (who I sided with yesterday, but am reconsidering) have more leverage than they are crediting themselves for.

Obama is basically flacking for the liberal Democrats in Congress right now. They want to run on ever-increasing government spending; they will not countenance a cut.

But Obama's political best play is not the same as theirs. These Congressional liberals come from blue states and super-liberal districts; they're not running in a national election, in a country that prioritizes spending cuts over most other agenda items.

In these circumstances, it may be best to do as the Tea Party Brinskmanship Brigade advises and just slow play this, letting Obama bleed and bleed, until he breaks with liberal Congressmen and starts negotiating something closer to the Republican position.

Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (321)
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Dick Harpoolian is a nasty Democratic hack. He says things like calling Lindsey Graham light in the loafers, but of course the media never notices, because he's a Democrat, and he's doing it for a good reason.

He wants the world to know that Nikki Haley is lying when she says she's white. She's a dirty Indian, he needs you to know.

hat box should Gov. Nikki Haley check when it comes to her race?

The South Carolina Democratic Party tried Thursday to make Haley out as a liar for checking "white" as her race on her 2001 Lexington County voter registration application.

But the application had no specific option for "Indian." Her options were "white, black/African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Native American or other."

Dick Harpootlian, the Democratic Party chairman, said whether Haley listed her race as white or not doesn't matter to him. The point is, he said, that the governor has a pattern of twisting the truth.

"Haley has been appearing on television interviews where she calls herself a minority -- when it suits her," Harpootlian said. "When she registers to vote, she says she is white. She has developed a pattern of saying whatever is beneficial to her at the moment."

Well, let's note for the record there are several races which do not fall comfortably into the four-square White/Black/Hispanic/Asian grid, and Indians are one of them.

Indians are, as Hitler might remind him, "Aryans," an authoritative racial classification that should appeal to Dick Harpoolian, coming as it does from his role model.

Via Instapundit.

Remind me again who the Yahoo Backwards Racialists are again?

When the parties realigned, all the racists went to the Republican party, right?

Riiiiiight?

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (160)
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They seem to have the votes to do Boehner's two step plan, but now the second part of the plan involves the a Balanced Budget Amendment. It's "a" BBA because no one has agreed on the language yet.

At NRO there are arguments over whether this is tactically helpful. Some say that it's not -- this bill will be DOA, it is said, and then the Reid plan will take center stage.

Others say that this will increase the odds of a better final deal, giving Democrats the choice of either passing a BBA, or agreeing to further cuts.

White House Blinks? Heard Obama had put out word he'd accept a very short term deal to allow details to be worked out.

Here's the thing: If he can accept a weeklong deal, or an 18 month deal, um, why can he not accept a six month deal?

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (270)
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Kasich is one of the more unpopular governors in the country, with a 35% approval rate, and 50% disapproving.

But he just balanced the budget -- having inherited an $8 billion deficit, the largest in the history of Ohio -- so maybe this will help some. (Video below the fold, or at that link.)

Ohio leans Republican. It shows the magnitude of the political problem we face when even a Republican-leaning state gets all crankypants about actual cuts, which they claim they want.

But he's put fiscal discipline into practice and has only been in office since January. Assuming this creates a better condition for job creation, he just might see those numbers reversing.

Red States Clawing Way Out of Recession: This should help Kasich, too. The article is about job creation in several red states (and newly red states, like Michigan), but I'll highlight the Ohio bit.

Led by Governor John Kasich, OhioÂ’s January-June seasonally adjusted jobs pickup is the Buckeye StateÂ’s best performance since 1994. Not coincidentally, thatÂ’s about when then-Governor George Voinovich stopped being even sort of conservative. Regardless of the party in charge, Ohio was governed like a blue state until Kasich came along. Even more impressive, in terms of what has actually occurred (i.e., the not seasonally adjusted figures), the state has added just over 200,000 private-sector jobs in the past five months, the best February-June total since 1999, when the national economy, largely due to KasichÂ’s previous work on the federal budget as a congressman, was far stronger.

In March, Kasich and the General Assembly tentatively won a bitter battle with the state’s public-sector unions and passed “SB5.” As I noted several weeks ago, SB5 prohibits public employee strikes, limits the subjects of collective bargaining, requires public employees to pay 15% of their health insurance costs, and prohibits forced union “contributions” by nonunion public workers. In June, the governor signed a two-year budget which closed a projected $8 billion deficit dumped on the state by predecessor Ted Strickland without raising taxes and while keeping all-funds spending virtually flat. The Buckeye State reaped an almost immediate reward: Standard & Poor’s, which had downgraded the state’s debt rating just as Strickland departed in January, revised it to “stable” shortly after the budget’s passage.

Something to bear in mind.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:55 AM | Comments (193)
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