digby Is Right, As She So Often Is

While all of the Trad (and Untraditional) Media are all a-buzzin' 'bout Tailgunner Rafael Edward Cruz's latest 2016 Presidential Campaign Event, otherwise known as Defund Obamacare or We Shut Down the Government, the real deal-making is going on behind closed doors between the White House and the ever so slightly less unhinged (than Cruz and Lee and Paul) GOP Senate "big boys".  (i.e. McCain, McConnell, and Coburn.)

Mike Lee and Rafael Cruz, taking the government hostage for freedom! (or something.)

Cruz's errand is the definition of a fool's.  Cruz insisted yesterday that Harry Reid should raise the threshold to sixty votes in the Senate to take the defund Obamacare amendment off the CR to fund the government.  It is, natch, something Reid would never do.  And, even if Reid, for whatever insane inexplicable reason, did decide to raise the threshold to sixty votes, this particular rule change would have to be approved by the full Senate one-hundred votes to zero.

Ain't never gonna happen.

That puts Cruz and Lee in the very awkward position of having to filibuster the GOP House approved CR that currently has the Defund Obamacare provision in it.  Cruz will be filibustering against his own party's legislation.

I know.  It is so flipping confusing, and annoying.  And, much of this crap would never occur if we only returned to the real honest to gosh old Talking Filibuster rules that the Senate had in the first place.

Anyhoo, Obamacare will not be defunded, and whether the government shuts down on October 1 is anybody's guess.  But, I can guarantee that some deal between the GOP Senate "big boys" and the White House will happen, and it will not be pretty for liberals (or for the country.)

And, then we get to do this again with the debt ceiling.  And, the next time we need to fund the government, and then again, and again, etc, ...

This is what happens when you do not vote in local and state elections, or "off-year" elections, like 2010.  Flipping vote in every election, people.









Michael D Spitler