Ever Hear Of The Republican Trouble Makers Caucus?

Congress has been on vacation from their "grueling" three-and-a-half day schedule for five weeks but the least competent Speaker in history, alcoholic mess John Boehner, has only scheduled seven legislative days for Congress between now and November. Seven days to pass a basketful of crucial bills, including, for example, a continuing resolution that won't allow the government to be shut down… at least not until after the election-- which is what Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan candidly admitted is what the Republicans are planning to do. Now Boehner and his lieutenants are trying to press on his unruly mob of right-wing nuts that they have to pass a continuing resolution in those seven days or Republicans will be blamed and some could be defeated at the polls. ("Besides," he confides to them, "we'll shut Obama down as soon as the elect is over.") Is that promise enough for the racists and misanthropes who have up the vast majority of the Republican conference?

Maybe not for Ted Cruz and his band of, primarily, Confederate obstructionists and anarchists. Cruz was in New Hampshire over the weekend talking to right-wing extremists and brainwashed Hate Talk Radio and Fox consumers about his 2016 presidential bid. Team Boehner is petrified that Cruz will come back to Washington and make him look like a monkey again by blocking the continuing resolution.

With the election less than two months away, leadership is eager to wrap up its 10-day session without committing any unforced errors, focusing instead on message votes on jobs and energy. Speaker John Boehner’s ability to control his caucus is tenuous, and the short time between now and election day means he doesn’t have time for a messy, drawn out fight to pass major legislation.

Aides suggested the quick turnaround on the continuing resolution is to keep the Republican Party’s “Trouble Makers Caucus,” led by Sen. Ted Cruz, from organizing any sort of rebellion and prompting another government shutdown.

President Obama’s decision to punt executive actions on deportations until after the November midterms has significantly reduced the likelihood of a conservative backlash. Whether the president actually has the authority to take executive action has become a point of contention on the right.

Still, Republicans are wary that Cruz and House conservatives could insist the spending bill include language barring the administration from implementing the changes in the future. And three weeks is more than enough time for conservatives to put enough pressure on Boehner to accept their demands for a fight.

Any law that prevented future executive actions, virtually everyone agrees, would be immediately rejected by the Senate and White House, setting the stage for a repeat of last year’s shutdown debacle.

A shutdown wouldn’t help Democrats win back the House-- Obama’s unpopularity, [the unimaginable incompetence of DCCC Chair Steve Israel], redistricting by state legislators, and strong candidates in swing districts took that possibility off the table long ago.

But a shutdown could have major implications for the Senate, where Republicans have the first chance in nearly a decade of retaking the upper chamber. Given the 2016 map, which favors Democrats, this year is Republicans’ best opportunity for a while.

“You want to limit the number of sessions at Tortilla Coast,” one GOP operative quipped, referring to Cruz’ infamous meetings with House conservatives at the Capitol Hill restaurant where they plotted shutdown strategy in 2013.

Almost a year ago, when the Ted Cruz Tortilla Coast caucus was being called a "Republican Suicide Pact" inside the Beltway, we wrote that "The only thing that can save the House Republicans now, is Steve Israel's sheer incompetence, amply demonstrated in 2012, and in gear to wreck Democratic chances again in 2014. Here a dozen seats held by powerful Republicans (not hapless backbenchers of little consequence) that polling shows the Democrats could pick up but where Israel refuses to engage:

• Buck McKeon (CA)
• Fred Upton (MI)
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)
• Dave Reichert (WA)
• Tom Petri (WI)
• Joe Pitts (PA)
• Mike Rogers (MI)
• Darrell Issa (CA)
• Ed Royce (CA)
• John Mica (FL)
• Peter Roskam (IL)
• Scott Garrett (NJ)

These are the Republican policymakers, not the foot-soldiers. All are in trouble and what stands between them and a career-ending 2014 is Steve Israel's frighteningly incompetent and corrupt DCCC. Here we are 3 months before the midterm and the DCCC has still not engaged a single one of these Republicans. Israel made sure that several would have no opponents at all and that the ones who do have opponents, like Fred Upton (R-MI) and Dave Reichert (R-WA), would have nothing to fear from his DCCC.