The after-action reports are rolling in, and the general consensus seems to be that Congress spent the latest debt-ceiling “crisis” either jacking off, letting its mouth write checks that its ass can’t cash, or some combination of the two.
Performative government at its finest. Hollywood dreams of getting a script like this. Alas, the writers are on strike.
At The New Republic, editor Michael Tomasky says the mouths that roar over at the FreeDumb CuckUs basically brought a spork to a gunfight. At The Atlantic, staff writer Russell Berman suggests that the GOP really doesn’t want to cut spending in any significant way because — hey, guess what? — their leadership recognizes “that what the federal government funds is more popular than they like to claim.”
And at Esquire, Charlie Pierce dismisses the whole magilla as a matter of the money power flexing a pinkie:
“In other words, politics as usual, a basic Washington transaction conducted in the most basic of Washington ways, a Swamp Thing from start to finish. And all in service to the money power, to the corporate elite, woke and otherwise. [Jim] Jordan, [Marjorie Taylor Greene], et. al. are about as much a threat to the real established political order as a water pistol would be to the Nimitz. ”
That’s the bad news. The good news is that cracker-barrel regular Pat O’B turns 74 today. Happy happy joy joy to him and his. Dog willin’, we won’t be singing “The Parting Glass” to the oul’ fella anytime soon.
Mad Blog Media 
I see Melanie Stansbury joined The Squad and voted against it. Leger-Fernandez voted no in committee but voted yes on the floor. I guess Mel figured it had enough votes to pass so didn’t have to hold her nose and vote yes.
The far right voted no as it didn’t starve enough homeless, widows, and orphans, and the far left because it cut social programs and said you had to work for your dole. Or something like that. Looks like the center held, to sorta not quote Yeats.
But as you say, until our Fearless Leaders in Washington figure out a way to “make sure its mouth writes checks that its ass CAN cash”, this whole charade is just kicking the incendiary debt limit can down the road. I fail to be impressed.
Yeah, when I checked the tally right after the vote she looked like a late “No,” so I expect she got the go-ahead from Management once the deal was done. The Journal has a few salient quotes from her. Lowrent Bozobert didn’t even vote. What a prize she is.
Happy Birthday POB !
First, thanks for the birthday wishes to Patrick and all of the folks who hang around this most sociable of sites. If transporters really existed, I would beam you all to the Tombstone Brewing brewpub this afternoon for a round or two on me!
Congress has failed in their basic responsibilities to manage the budget and debt for the last 29 years. All the FY 2024 appropriation bills are still in committee when they should have been passed and sent to the senate by now. So hold on to your hats when they have the next manufactured crisis, a government shut down, in September. And through all this, Biden kept his cool. I think?
Happy Birthday, Pat O’B!!! And many more to come there, buddy!
Not 100F yet in the Tombstone Brewing Pub area yet? When we lived in Tucson in the 80’s it would hit 100 sometime in mid-May and then we’d count the consecutive days until the monsoon rolled in and the temp dropped into the 90s. With climate change this is truly an exceptional year down your way, eh?
PS: How many bikes and how many guitars do you own? 🙂
Man, I remember Tucson in 1980. I’d get off work at The Arizona Daily Star after midnight, truck on over to the Shanty on Fourth for a couple of barley pops, then head back to the shack off Orange Grove and Oracle around 1:30 or 2 and it would still be in the 90s.
It goes without saying that as an impoverished copy editor I didn’t have air conditioning in the truck or the shack. Woe, etc.
Thanks JD! No 100 degree day here yet. Been a little cool this year. Today was 83 tomorrow 90. It has been cooler this year than last. We are usually 5 to 10 degrees cooler than Tucson year round due to the higher elevation.
No bikes anymore, and only 4 guitars. It is enough, more than enough. I can only afford one hobby at a time. I don’t think I will start riding again, but if I did it would be another 105 equipped SOMA.
Joe the Biden knows better than to spike his pulse rate lest he suffers a stroke or such. That is why despite all the age-noise about him doing a second term I say him and his staff have a far steadier hand on the tiller than any Rethuglican I’ve seen yammering for the job. Liz Cheney was in Michigan of all places and made a comment when asked if she was running that at least right now, her goal is to see that tRump doesn’t get within a 100 miles of the Oval Office again. And she won’t back Florida Dork Boy either. She might be the only one left affiliated with the party with any sense. That is, if she stays with the Rethugs. Some wonder if she’d run as an Indy.
Wait….I hear my bike crying….it’s going for a ride without me!! I better get off my ass and catch up
Speaking as a Junior Geezer, I feel there is something to be said for experience. Time on the job. A little white in the beard. Sleepy Joe’s been around long enough to know when a fella is reaching in his pocket for a pistol or just fiddling with his pecker ’cause it feels so good.
This being said, his fellow Old White Guy®, my man Bernie Sanders, thinks the deal stinks like a flounder left in a safe deposit box in a Miami bank for six months. He wants José to go full 14th Amendment on the GOP, see if they can pull anything out of that pocket that ain’t got tangled white hair and a shriveled nutsack attached to it.
Well POG that is one helluva descriptive synopsis and I think I can actually smell the rotted fish. I do hope to avoid seeing any shriveled peckers but if that’s what it takes I’ll abide like the Dude. What we won’t ever see out of any deal is the 1% or corporations paying anywhere near their fair share of taxes. No sir, that will be foisted on we commoners for I think about forever.
It is the best shitty deal they could get short of the nuclear option, i.e., nuking the national debt and possibly the national or international economy. I rarely agree with either party including my own on much of anything, but will buy Old Joe a beer on this one. And a hat tip to the GOP members who finally put nation above nutsack.
Sure would be nice to go back to those days of 90% taxes on the ultra rich and a more progressive tax system. In my dreams, sure.
Junior geezer? That would be like junior dude. Nah, either you is or you ain’t. Since I currently reside in geezerville, I speak with some authority.