Progressives Are Not Alone — 87% of Republicans Oppose Fast Track

How the Tea Party sees Fast Track (source)

by Gaius Publius

In covering the TPP battle between President Obama and the CEO class on the one side, and most of the rest of the country on the other, I've noted that the Tea Party right is as opposed as the "professional" left. (My own TPP coverage is collected here.)

Now comes more evidence of that. Let's start with The Hill (h/t Dave Johnson; my emphasis throughout):

Trade vote stirs angst on the right

Trade legislation is sowing discord among Senate Republicans that could make it tougher than expected to pass fast-track trade authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

While much of the attention in the trade fight has focused on the divide between President Obama and liberal Democrats, Republican leaders are facing dissent within their own caucus because of currency manipulation and immigration concerns.

“The polling is bad, and some people are getting nervous,” said a GOP senator who requested anonymity to talk about his conversations with colleagues.

Senate Republicans are looking for political cover to vote for trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation, which would empower Obama to negotiate the TPP — a trade pact with 11 nations — that could not be amended or filibustered in Congress.

Potential Republican “no” votes on the bill include Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Richard Burr (N.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.).

There are 54 Republican senators, one of whom (Richard Burr, listed above) is likely to vote No on the floor since he voted No in the Finance Committee. If all four Republicans listed above vote No and support the filibuster — where the threshold is 60 votes — the Democrats will need to find ten votes at least to pass Fast Track in the Senate. We already know there are 7 Democratic votes for Fast Track, based on their Yes votes in committee:

• Ron Wyden — Ranking Member and lead perp
• Michael Bennet — Former head of DSCC
• Maria Cantwell
• Ben Cardin
• Tom Carper
• Bill Nelson
• Mark Warner

The margins are close. The Hill again:

Ten to 15 Senate Democrats are expected to vote for the fast-track bill, which means Republican leaders can only afford to lose fewer than 10 caucus members.

“I think it’s going to be tight,” said Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), who is leaning in favor of voting yes because the farm community supports the legislation.

Republican senators say Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team have begun to count votes, a sign that they’re not taking passage of the measures for granted.

“It could be a problem depending on how few Democrats vote for it. The president has to step up and work it,” said another GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss his party’s whip count.

If the Republicans are down to 50 Yes votes, they'll need 10 Democrats in order to break the filibuster. If no more than 15 Democrats vote with the CEOs and the multinational corporations, Republicans can only lose another five votes:

Democratic aides say the final number of Democratic yeses is unlikely to exceed 15.

“It’s possible that more than half of the yes votes already voted for it in committee,” said a senior Democratic aide.

It's going to be tight, and pressure is building on both parties from their so-called "base":

While the trade deals are popular with the business community, they are controversial among the conservative base in states — such as Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina and South Carolina — where Republican incumbents are running for reelection next year.

“Why would any Republican give President Obama more authority?” said Ed Martin, president of Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group.

Let's look at the Republican opposition more closely.

87% of Republicans Oppose Fast Track

Dave Johnson, from the piece linked above:

Republicans in Congress can read polls and letters from their constituents as well as Democrats, and they, as most Democrats already have done, are starting to realize that it might not be wise to rubber-stamp the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the rigged fast track trade promotion authority process that will be used to pre-approve it. The tea party and the right generally are starting to ramp up their own opposition.

In support, he offers this. First, 87% of Republicans oppose Fast Track:

I noted in the recent post “A Look At The Fast Track Bill Shows It’s The Wrong Thing To Do” that polls show that many conservatives are opposed to fast track and the TPP, and that in Congress, “many ‘Constitution-based’ Tea Party Republicans are opposed to it.” Those polls show that “Republicans overwhelmingly oppose giving fast-track authority to the president (8 percent in favor, 87 percent opposed), as do independents (20 percent-66 percent).”

He notes that Pat Buchanan is strongly opposed, as are Tea Party "patriots." In fact, conservative advocacy groups are already starting to run ads. Huffington Post (h/t Johnson again):

Americans for Limited Government, a conservative group founded by wealthy activist Howard Rich, will begin radio ads in New Hampshire on Thursday, calling on Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to oppose the fast-track legislation moving through Congress. All three senators are running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

“Congress is getting ready to give Obama more power, just when we’re getting ready to choose his replacement,” the ad says. “If Congress gives Obama fast-track power, he’ll use it to write more regulations for our economy -- for the entire world. Rules that the next president won’t be able to change.”

Note that "next president" objection in the last line above. If that "next president" is Hillary Clinton, she'll have Fast Track power as well for any trade deal she wants to gin up. See what I mean by a bipartisan rejection of Fast Track? Only the money-bought want it, and I think I mean that literally.

Also, note those names listed above — Republican Sens. Cruz, Paul and Rubio. If all three decide to vote No, the Republican Yes votes fall to 47, and 13 Democratic Yes votes will be needed. Are there 13 Democratic Yes votes for Fast Track? You can help with that.

It's Going to Be Close

It's going to be close and also interesting. I personally think Ron Wyden should lose his job over his role in this, regardless of what happens. But that's for later (though you can always click here, give him a little call, and offer a little piece of your mind, especially if you vote in Oregon).

For now though, lobby your senators hard — both Democrats and Republicans. Senate phone numbers here. Call them both; you will never know until afterward who was about to fold and say No to Fast Track. This can still be won.

GP

Why Are Republicans The Way They Are?

At the height of teabagger-mania, a right-wing outfit in the L.A. area, the Patriots League, sent out an endorsement questionnaire to every single Republican running for Congress. We got our hands on some of the responses-- and they are pretty shocking. You want to know why 47 Republican senators could flirt so openly with sedition regarding Iran? The answers to the Patriots League's psychotic questions contain all you need to know about what these crackpots and paranoids have on their tiny minds. This IS today's Republican Party.

The questionnaire starts by introducing the organization to the candidates: "We are against Big Government. We demand fiscal responsibility. We believe in the Free Enterprise System. We insist on Peace through Strength. We are guided by Christian Values, and Faith in God. We want to help candidates who will taker country back! ... Please fill out the survey below, and return it to us aa soon as possible. Our endorsement will be based on your responses. Candidates whom we endorse will be eligible for the maximum amount in political contributions."

What follows is over 5 pages of questions with a "Yes" and a "No" box and a couple of lines for explanations. The first question-- remember this was 2010 when the Tea Party was primarily motivated by Obamacare-- was "Should we end all government health programs because they are unconstitutional." (Presumably the Patriots and the candidates understood that to include Medicare.) Of the dozen responses we acquired and examined, 10 of the candidates said YES. One Bernard Sansaricq, who was the GOP nominee against Alcee Hastings (FL-23), comes from Haiti's ruling elite. His response was predictable-- and similar to what most of the respondents said: "YES! Government has no business being in health care. This is for communist countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, etc..." The survey didn't get any better as it unfolded.

Lester "Les" Phillip was one of the teabaggers running against Blue Dog-turned-GOPer Parker Griffith (AL-05), a seat that was won by one of the craziest Confederates currently in Congress, Mo Brooks. Lester seems just as insane as Mo.

• Should English be the official language of the United States, and should all government activities be conducted in English only?

Phillip, like all the other candidates-- every one of them-- was enthusiastic and checked YES.

• Should we build a wall on the Mexican border?

Phillip checked YES, as did all the other candidates.

• Should unions be abolished?

Phillip checked Yes, although there were 4 candidates who disagreed.

• Should the liberal media be prevented from criticizing Sarah Palin unfairly?

There was disagreement here. Phillip and 7 others voted YES. 5 saw it as an impingement of the Bill of Rights and checked NO.

• Is abortion murder? Should all abortions be banned?

They all checked YES

• Can homosexuality be cured?

Most said it could, including Phillip, who added that "it is not the natural order of things."

• Should homosexuality be illegal?

This one was also the cause of a split, although Phillip and most of the candidates checked YES. • Is global warming a hoax?

Phillip checked YES; so did all the other candidates.

• Should every school day begin with a Christian prayer to God?

Phillip and all the rest with one exception checked YES.

• Should public school students be taught that the Book of Genesis explains how God created the world.

Phillip, apparently a pious man, checked YES, as did all the others but 2.

• Should homosexuals be barred from teaching our children in public schools?

Another YES box checked, although 2 of the candidates didn't want to go that far.

• Should the government privatize public education?

Phillip was YES on that too, as were most of the candidates.

• Was Saddam Hussein responsible for the 9/11 attack on America?

Phillip isn't sure and his comment was "Don't know." This was pretty typical; most of the candidates said they weren't sure.

• When the War in Iraq began, in March 2003, did Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction?

Phillip checked the YES box on that one; so did the rest of them.

• After 9/11, did the Bush Administration act swiftly and prevent any kore terrorist attacks on the United States?

Another YES box for Mr. Phillip and all the others.

• Is liberalism a form of fascism?

Phillip had no doubts about that one. He checked YES. Several of the others were unsure.

• Was Barack Hussein Obama born outside the United States?

I was surprised that Phillip was one of only 3 who said he wasn't sure. (The rest were all sure that Obama was born abroad.)

• Is Barack Hussein Obama a Muslim?

Certainty was back in Phillip's mind and he checked the YES box, as did all the other candidates!

• Is Barack Hussein Obama a Communist or a Fascist?

For this one, there were 4 choices: "Communist," "Fascist," "BOTH!" or Neither. Phillip went for BOTH! as did most of the other candidates.

• Is Barack Hussein Obama a racist?

YES checked Phillip, of course. The survey ended with 4 questions under the headline "Religion" and 2 weren't yes or no questions.

• How old is the Earth?

Phillip checked "Around 6,000 years" instead of 4.5 billion years.

• Do you believe in God's creation or evolution?

Phillip was much happier to check off God's Creation than Scott Walker was.

• Is every word of the Christian Bible true?

Phillip-- and all the other candidates-- checked the yes box.

• Does God talk to you and inspire you?

Phillip says God talks to him-- and all the other candidates say he talks with them too. I guess God spend all his time with teabaggers, every one of whom lost his election.

OK, If You Were Still Wondering, Teabaggers-- Like The Know Nothing Party They Are Descendents Of-- Hate Immigrants

Wednesday "at high noon," the Tea Party's motley true believers, Michele Bachmann, who resigned from Congress as part of a deal to avoid fraud charges, Steve King and Ted Cruz, called for a massive demonstration in Washington against King Obama's amnesty argle bargle. Bachmann on the TV channel of systemic racism, Fox News: "I'm calling on your viewers to come to DC on Wednesday, December 3, at high noon on the west steps of the Capitol. We need to have a rally, and we need to go visit our senators and visit our congressman, because nothing frightens a congressman like the whites of his constituents' eyes. ... We need the viewers to come and help us." She was backed up by one of the more virulently racist of the Tea Party groups, the Tea Party Patriots, which contacted all their members, urging them to come to Bachmann's rally. 40 people showed up, many in tricorner hats.

President Obama asked the Republicans to stop whining and bitching about his temporary executive actions and pass some legislation addressing the country's dysfunctional immigration situation. Congress' worst racists want to shut the government down instead to make a statement about how much they hate people of color. Others-- some say the less extreme House Republicanos-- want to pass deranged bill by right-wing freak Ted Yoho to deport 11 million of immigrants.

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and the House GOP were hoping that their members, angry at President Obama for stepping up and taking executive action on immigration, would be placated by a bill drafted by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) that would prevent executive action on immigration and put just about all 11 million undocumented immigrants in America at risk of deportation. This after more than a year and a half of refusing to allow a vote on a popular immigration reform overhaul package that has enough votes to pass the House. As the Washington Post explains, Speaker Boehner “would first allow a vote this week on a bill to ban Obama from changing immigration laws.  The largely symbolic legislation would be quickly discarded by the Democratic-controlled Senate, but the vote would be seen as a victory by some tea party conservatives.”

The second part of Boehner’s immigration response involved funding the federal government through next fall, with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and immigration agencies, which would only be funded through early 2015, at which point Republicans would stage yet another fight over immigration against the backdrop of a manufactured government funding crisis.

Yet the hardcore anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party-- which has been the tail wagging the GOP dog for years-- is not satisfied with the idea of a vote against the President now followed by a showdown in March. They want the showdown now, even if it means a government shutdown.

Just as Bachmann's 40 person mass rally was about to start, Politico published a piece about the Hell No caucus of racists and extremists who will settle for nothing less than mass deportations-- rounding people up, parents of American-born citizens for example, and dragging them back over the border. You almost feel sorry for Boehner... until you realize he brought all this hatred and psychosis on himself as part of a conscious electoral strategy too motivate the most primitive segments of the American public to vote for Republicans.

“I think a lot of us, in discussion, we don’t see the purpose of having a long CR. Why not do it the first day we’re in session?” said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) “I’m not sure it’s going to pass the way they are proposing it. I think it’s likely they are going to have to improve it if they want it to pass.”

These conservatives estimate the number of Republican “no” votes to be near 30 to 40-- enough to derail a vote on the government funding bill if Democrats oppose the measure.

Senate conservatives are beginning to badger House leaders over their plan to fund the government and symbolically disapprove of the president’s immigration action. GOP Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Lee of Utah all began to blast the House GOP leadership’s plan on Tuesday afternoon, arguing that the House needs to block funding for implementation of Obama’s executive action now, not later.

Lee laid out a detailed road map to taking on the executive action in a statement to Breitbart News, arguing for a short-term continuing resolution that blocks funding for the executive action-- the opposite of what Republican leaders in both chambers want.

Meanwhile, the rally was down-graded to a public press conference, which began with a sort of hate-filled prayer to whatever deity these anti-Jesus lunatics worship: "Our enemies seek to devour us," moaned their shaman. "We are rapidly becoming a lawless nation... Why should we expect an Illegal President to enforce 'Legal' Immigration??!"

Some nut dressed, incongruously, for an 18th Century confrontation with archetypical conservatives-- the British monarchy started screaming "Down with the King."

Ted Cruz took the mic and claimed Obama's executive immigration action is a "constitutional crisis," although all Obama did was extend temporary status to immigrants not unlike what allowed Cruz's own fascist father to remain in the U.S. Could a future Republican president, demanded Cruz, say we are using prosecutorial discretion not to collect capital gains taxes? Several of his Texas colleagues were also eager to chime in. The crackpot congressman from Rand Paul's old district around Galveston and Beaumont, Randy Weber, tried to stimulate the crowd by asking if they could say "dictator"? No reason, he groused, we should be voting for any part of a budget that funds his illegal actions.


Cruz, titillating Hate Talk Radio zombies: "We are facing a full-fledged constitutional crisis. We fought a bloody revolution to free ourselves from the control of monarchs."

One of Boehner's lieutenants, Renee Ellmers, went on CNN to call out Cruz's deranged extremism. "Senator Cruz needs to stay in the Senate. I think Senator Cruz wants to fan the flames here, but I think everyone here has become more savvy to his ways."

Not in the crowd Wednesday: another Texan, Larry McQuilliams (pictured above in his finest teabagger regalia), who was shot by police in Austin on Friday after he went on a shooting spree. Am I saying that Ted Cruz, Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Randy Weber are the same kind of garbage as McQuilliams? Of course I am, just not as able to monetize the inner demons they all share. Just read this:

McQuilliams, who Austin Police officials called a “homegrown American extremist” with ties to a Christian identity hate group, was shot dead on Friday by a police officer outside the department’s headquarters.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo told reporters on Monday that officers who searched the gunman’s home found a map with 34 targets, including two churches. McQuilliams had fired bullets into Austin police headquarters, a federal courthouse and the Mexican consulate in downtown Austin on Friday. He also tried to set the Mexican consulate building on fire.

Previously, police said they had not yet determined the motive for the shooting, which left only the gunman dead, but speculated that the current immigration debate could have been a factor. On Monday, federal investigators said the gunman didn’t leave a note that outlined his motive, but that he had previously told friends he was upset he couldn’t find a job, even as immigrants to the United States receive assistance.

On his bed, the gunman left a note and laid out clothes, officials said. A note left behind said the outfit was for his funeral.

“Hate was in his heart,” Acevedo said.

Police believe McQuilliams associated himself with the Phineas Priesthood, an anti-Semitic, anti-multiculturalism affiliation that opposes biracial relationships, same-sex marriage, taxation and abortion. Authorities found a copy of “Vigilantes of Christendom,” a book linked to the Priesthood, in the rental van McQuilliams used during the attacks. Inside of the book was a handwritten note that “discusses his rank as a priest in his fight against anti-God people,” Acevedo said.

“If you look at what he did, he terrorized a city, he’s just an American terrorist trying to terrorize our people,” Acevedo said.

...Among other things investigators need to determine: How McQuilliams got his weapons. He had been arrested in 1998 for driving under the influence and in 1992 for aggravated robbery, Acevedo said. He also served time in prison for a bank robbery.

Phineas Priesthood affiliates were tied to a string of 1996 bank robberies and bombings in the state of Washington.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told The Post that the Phineas Priesthood is a “concept” that originated with “Vigilantes of Christendom,” which came out in 1990. The group takes its name from a story about the biblical figure of Phineas in the book of Numbers.

In the story, Phineas slays an Israelite man and a Midianite woman who were together in a tent. “To the extreme right, this [story] is a biblical injunction against race mixing,” Potok said. Phineas Priests would also use the passage to justify violent acts in the name of their beliefs. “It’s very much a self-calling,” Potok said of those who would identify as Phineas Priesthood members. “If you commit a Phineas act…you can be considered a Phineas priest.”

In a backgrounder, the Anti-defamation league wrote that “the Phineas Priesthood is not a membership organization in the traditional sense: there are no meetings, rallies or newsletters.” The ADL added that “extremists become ‘members’ when they commit ‘Phineas acts:’ any violent activity against ‘non-whites.’” Potok noted that the affiliation does not have a national structure.

There is no organization that would determine whether one is a “member” of the group or not. Its affiliates, like McQuilliams, would be self-designated.

Its members identify themseves as Christians, however, “they are really not Christians in any sense that a christian would accept,” Potok added. Most mainstream American Christians, he said, would find a Phineas Priest’s reading of scripture to be “heretical.”

I wonder if Texas will ever get sick enough of people like this to stop electing them to public office. It guarantees that none of this kind of stuff will ever be seriously addressed by the rabble Texas' Establishment so fears:

In stunning scientific news, scientists learn to tell wingnuts Jeff Sessions and Mike Enzi apart

Mike Enzi or Jeff Sessions? Oh wait, that's actually the much funnier Jeff Sessions look-alike, the late comedian and actor Henry Gibson.

by Ken

Oh sure, you could always tell them apart using seat-of-the-pants empricial techniques. Like knowing that Jeff Sessions is from the Confederacy Forever wing of the Republcian Party, you could say, "Slavery is an abomination," and wait for him to drawl, "The South will rahz again." Or knowing that Mike Enzi is from the Western Survivalist wing, you could pretend to be a revenooer and see if he goes for his shotgun.

Of course, the Teabaggers could tell them apart, because Enzi isn't quite crazy or strident enough to suit their tastes. As Washington Post political reporter Paul Kane notes in the piece below, the Senate GOP crazies are up in arms. (Kane notes that he's "no moderate. but he has worked with Democrats, including the late Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.)," and "his head-down approach has not earned him praise in the tea party era of confrontation." He reminds us that Enzi for a while faced a primary challenge from Liz Cheney in his last reelection bid.) The story, in brief is that Senate Republicans have a brouhaha brewing for the chairmanship of the Budget Kane, which as Kane notes they haven't had "since 1987, when Jesse Helms (N.C.) used seniority to trump Richard Lugar (Ind.) for the leading spot on Foreign Relations." And the Senate GOP crazies see the hand of the leadership in Enzi's challenge to the ascension of Sessions, who has been serving as ranking member, a challenge that Enzi is entitled by his party's rules to make on the ground of his razor-thin edge in seniority.

It's an awkward spot for the Senate GOP leadership, and reporter Kane seems to accept that the leadership is staying out of it. Naturally the GOP crazies aren't buying it. After all, these are people who see conspiracies under the bed when they get up in the morning. Even accepting that the leadership is staying out of it, though, almost my favorite moment in the story is when the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader-to-be "Miss Mitch" McConnnell says, apparently with a straight face, "The only members who decide the chairman are the Republican members of the committee. The leadership plays no role." And he wouldn't say it if it wasn't so.

Anyway, here's the story, which I'm going to let Paul Kane tell his way.

In chairman fight, Jeff Sessions is battling his perception on immigration debate

By Paul Kane

Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) were elected to the Senate on the same day in 1996, but Enzi holds seniority over his longtime friend through a totally random feature of party rules: They drew names out of a hat.

That quirk of history has led to a showdown over the chairmanship of the Budget Committee that has caused a backlash among conservatives, who say Enzi is unfairly laying claim to the powerful position at the behest of party leaders.

Sessions has been serving as the top Republican on the committee for the past four years and was in line to take the chairmanship after the GOP won control of the Senate this month.

But since then, Sessions has undercut party leaders with his strident opposition to President Obama’s immigration action, even raising the specter of another fiscal showdown that resembles previous confrontations with the White House. Party leaders are eager to fight back against the president, but in a more measured way in line with their desire to show that they are up to the task of governing.

That has provided an opening for Enzi, whose name-out-of-a-hat seniority gives him the standing to challenge Sessions and who is pitching himself as a less-confrontational alternative.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other members of his team have publicly stayed out of the contest, but conservative activists nevertheless say they are quietly backing Enzi because he would be a more reliable party man.

Gaston Mooney — who served as an aide to former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who often clashed with McConnell’s leadership team — wrote in an article last week in Conservative Review: “If Sessions loses the chair of the budget committee, it is only under the orders and direction of McConnell.”

Enzi’s advisers reject the idea that he’s making a run at the leadership’s bidding, instead stressing his experience on fiscal matters such as health care. McConnell’s office issued a strong denial of playing any role.

“The only members who decide the chairman are the Republican members of the committee. The leadership plays no role,” Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman, said Wednesday.

Sessions has spent his three terms in the Senate advancing a conservative agenda and has become one of the most reliable voices opposing Obama. He can be every bit as confrontational as his much-better-known colleague Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), with the key difference being that Sessions actually holds power and position within the Senate.

On immigration, Sessions has been the leading voice among Republicans who want to use the budget process to try to force Obama to back off his unilateral decision to offer protections to illegal immigrants.

Republicans who disagree with that strategy think that a better counter to Obama’s action would be to pass a border-security bill and other conservative immigration legislation and send it to the White House, rather than cutting off the budget and risking even a partial shutdown of government agencies.

Aware that critics say his approach will lead to a shutdown, Sessions has repeatedly vowed that if push came to shove, he supports funding the government. But he has been vague on how his strategy would work once the president vetoed legislation that included restrictions on implementing the immigration order.

“We should be cautious, we should be responsible. I’m going to tell you, that is exactly correct: We don’t need to shut this government down, we’re going to fund the government,” he said.

If Sessions wins the chairmanship, the implications for the GOP are more than temperamental or confined to immigration. On the policy front, Sessions is an independent thinker — a deeply ideological conservative who is very open to using the budget as a political weapon.

When House Republicans and Senate Democrats cut a bipartisan budget deal late last year, Sessions forcefully opposed the compromise, breaking with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Budget Committee chairman. Sessions argued that the agreement too easily adjusted levels of discretionary spending, and he balked at the inclusion of new federal fees.

Reluctant to criticize his old friend, Sessions is laying out his case of having done hard work over the past four years as the ranking Republican on the committee, and being ready to do the job on Day One. “Look, Enzi can do the job. He’s got sound values. I just have given a lot of thought to it and would like the opportunity to do it. We’ll keep talking, and our colleagues will ultimately get to decide,” he said.

The electorate for this race is tiny: The 10 or 12 Republicans who will be on the Budget Committee next year will vote, and whatever they decide will almost certainly be honored when the full Republican caucus weighs in.

Republicans have not had a contested battle for a top committee post since 1987, when Jesse Helms (N.C.) used seniority to trump Richard Lugar (Ind.) for the leading spot on Foreign Relations.

Short in stature and possessing a quirky, high-pitched Southern drawl, Sessions, 67, is sometimes overlooked, but he’s rarely out­hustled. He won a fourth term to the Senate three weeks ago without any opposition whatsoever, either in a primary or the general election.

The early focus for Sessions was the law, graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1973. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to be the U.S. attorney for the state’s Southern District, beginning an unusually long 12-year stint that spanned two GOP administrations.

His nomination for the U.S. District Court in Alabama became a racially charged moment in 1986 amid accusations of mishandling a voter-fraud case against civil rights activists, and his ultimate rejection for the lifetime appointment set him on a political path.

In 1996, he won the Senate seat of Howell Heflin (D), whose vote against Sessions a decade earlier was pivotal to his nomination’s defeat. His focus for years was on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he defended the George W. Bush administration’s aggressive tactics to fight terrorists.

His first battle with his own party on immigration came during the Senate’s 2006 debate on bipartisan legislation that would have led to a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants — a bill that the Bush White House backed but which Sessions labeled “fatally flawed.”

By 2009, Sessions became the ranking GOP member of the Judiciary Committee, where he played the role of leading the attack against Obama’s Supreme Court nominees. Despite Sessions’s sharp conservatism, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan won confirmation in a fairly amicable process.

Republican rules on term limits for top committee slots forced Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) out of another key post in 2011, and Grassley’s seniority trumped Sessions’s at Judiciary. Even though he wasn’t the most senior at Budget, other Republicans, including Enzi, had picked more prime committees, and the legal expert found himself serving as the top GOP senator on fiscal matters.

In the minority, Sessions did not hold nearly the same clout as his House counterpart, Ryan, the Budget chairman who became the ideological standard-bearer for this decade’s fiscal conservatives.

His biggest break from the fiscal-hawk wing has been that Sessions has shown a knack for Southern conservative populism on some issues. He recently advocated walling off Medicare and Social Security trust funds to protect their finances, rather than the ­Ryan-style voucher programs, and he often talks about “fair trade deals” that protect U.S. workers that sound ideologically similar to Northern Democrats.

Sessions was not a central negotiator in the four fiscal showdowns that Republicans had with Obama and Senate Democrats the past four years.

In fact, over the past two years, Sessions has made his biggest mark being the leading Republican opponent to immigration legislation, first on a bipartisan vote in 2013 and now on Obama’s executive action.

His confrontational style has scared some congressional Republicans, who want to avoid even talk of a possible government shutdown and argue that the 2016 GOP presidential nominee cannot alienate the Hispanic vote to have any chance at victory.

Enzi is no moderate, but he has worked with Democrats, including the late Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the former senator who is now ambassador to Beijing. His head-down approach has not earned him praise in the tea party era of confrontation, and for a brief time he drew a primary challenge from Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president.

Enzi fought back hard and eventually cruised to reelection. He has been setting up one-on-one meetings with members of the budget panel in what is the most insidery of insider races in Washington.

“Jeff and I are talking,” Enzi said late last week, unclear whether the issue would go all the way to a rare vote on who gets the gavel. “I don’t know. We’ll keep working on it. We’re good friends.”

His public selling point has been that he holds a more senior post on the committee and that two years ago, when Republicans were still in the minority, he passed on asserting his seniority and allowed Sessions to maintain his perch.

But that seniority is based entirely on the quirky GOP rules. A handful of Republicans won their first Senate term in 1996 without any prior experience as a governor or member of the House, so under party rules seniority was determined by drawing names from a hat.

Sessions was the last name drawn, and now he’s squaring off against his old friend in a race that has caused anxiety among their colleagues.

“I hope they work it out,” said Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a member of the Senate Budget Committee. “That would be best for everybody.”

#

Say good night, Eric

If you want to watch the video, you'll find it here.

by Ken

So Eric Cantor is already taking the step of stepping down as House majority leader.

I want to look again at the message in the tweet Howie reproduced in his post this morning, "Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor Loses Primary to Fairly Random Teabagger Dave Brat," from Erick Erickson: "Dear Media: You will make the Cantor loss all about immigration. You will be wrong. But it will be useful to us. So thanks."

Because this is a tweet from Erick Erickson (if your taste runs to wacko bullshit, you can also read his Red State post, "Why Eric Cantor Lost"), you know it's bound to be the essence of imbecilic lying scumbaggery, so it's not surprising to think for a second and a half, two seconds tops, to remind oneself that it ignores that loudest and most pervasive message that was drummed into the stone heads of voters in that primary race:

"A vote for Eric Cantor is a vote for open borders. A vote for Eric Cantor is a vote for amnesty."

The first thing to say here is that it's a lie (as John Cassidy points out in his newyorker.com post, "in Washington, the House Majority Leader was sometimes portrayed as a barrier to such a reform"), and the second thing is that it apparently doesn't matter, because -- surprise, surprise! -- a significant sector of the American public is as usual not just hungry but desperate for bigger and bolder lies.

That said, Erick Erickson isn't entirely wrong. This obviously wasn't a race that was "decided" by people's reasoned stances on issues, not even the immigration issue. Howie cited the view of a DC insider that our Eric "is just an unlikable prick." And sure, that has something to do with why there was hardly anybody watching his back.

I haven't had much to say about the dramatic "split" in the GOP, because it is, after all, between "shitty" and "shittier," and it's not always clear which is which. Still, i kind of like this paragraph in Esther Yu-Hsi Lee's ThinkProgress post (links onsite):

What’s more likely was party politics unseated Cantor. The Huffington Post noted that “Cantor was often the necessary link that bridged leadership and rank-and-file tea party members. ‘He’s the one guy everyone relies on to get things done for them,’ said one Cantor ally. Each time he twisted tea party arms, though, it cost him politically, raising suspicions among grassroots activists that Cantor was an impure conservative.” That sentiment was shared by the conservative-leaning Red State, which reported that Cantor “repeatedly antagonized conservatives.” And according to the Washington Post, Cantor was booed “at a May meeting of Republican activists in the district.”

I'm reluctant to mention Eric C's religion (a constant source of shame to many of us American Jews). But is it beyond the realm of possibliity, especially considering the minuscule slice of the population involved in yesterday's primary, that a certain number of primary voters awakened to the realization that they have been voting, and were asked to vote again, for a person of Eric C's religious persuasion -- you know, the man who was going to open our borders?

Already we're hearing about the "seismic consequences" of Eric C's primary defeat. Well, I guess.

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Corrupt Republican Establishment Crushing Their Tea Party Foes, Nationally And Locally

Authentic Miss McConnell

Tom Beaumont penned a widely distributed story for the A.P. today about the increasing challenges facing those who are trying to reform the Republican Party from within. "Four years after the tea party rocked the political world by ousting several prominent Republicans in Congress," he posits, "the ultra-conservative movement finds itself with slimmer prospects as it moves into the new election season." But what everybody's talking about is the Carl Hulse story in today's NY Times about how the GOP Establishment is moving to stamp out the teabaggers. Well, not really "everybody," but you know what I mean. "The escalating tension between party leaders and Tea Party-aligned activists in groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Madison Project and FreedomWorks arises from the activists’ view that some top elected Republicans are major obstacles to enacting conservative policies and need to be replaced." Former far right Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun, now the head of the noisy but ineffectual Madison Project, summed up the civil war wracking the GOP-- a civil war his side is losing-- by telling Hulse that "Mitch McConnell is, to me, the essence of the problem in D.C."

Both writers were keenly aware that in the Texas primaries last week, teabaggers had to settled "for having an impact on key races rather than actually winning them [and] that may become a pattern in other states as primaries continue into the fall… Only one Republican tea party candidate is seen as having a real shot at a GOP Senate nomination this year: Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who is challenging six-term Sen. Thad Cochran. No tea party challengers are expected to win in this year's House races." This is terrible news for Steve Israel, who has based his entire excuse for a strategy on pitting his own mediocre, "mystery meat" conservative candidates against neo-fascist teabaggers, who apparently won't be there playing the piñata role for him. Hulse:

As conservative activist groups stirred up trouble for establishment Republican Senate candidates in 2010 and 2012, party leaders in Washington first tried to ignore the insurgents, then tried to reason with them, and ultimately left it to primary voters to settle the matter.

But after several of those conservatives-- in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware in 2010 and in Indiana and Missouri in 2012-- managed to win their primaries but lose in the general election, party leaders felt stung by what they saw as avoidable defeats.

This election season, Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are taking a much harder line as they sense the majority within reach. Top congressional Republicans and their allies are challenging the advocacy groups head on in an aggressive effort to undermine their credibility. The goal is to deny them any Senate primary victories, cut into their fund-raising and diminish them as a future force in Republican politics.

“I think we are going to crush them everywhere,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said in an interview, referring to the network of activist organizations working against him and two Republican incumbents in Kansas and Mississippi while engaging in a handful of other contests. “I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country.”

Elevating the nasty intramural brawl to a new level, Mr. McConnell on Friday began airing a radio ad in Kentucky that attacked both Matt Bevin, the businessman challenging him in the Republican primary, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, one of the groups trying to oust Mr. McConnell and a political action committee that has been a particular thorn in his side.

Mr. McConnell’s ad, his first singling out the Senate Conservatives Fund, raises a criticism that Speaker John A. Boehner and other Republicans have leveled at the activists-- that they are fund-raising and business enterprises more than political operations. The ad refers to unnamed news media reports that assert that the PAC “solicits money under the guise of advocating for conservative principles but then spends it on a $1.4 million luxury townhouse with a wine cellar and hot tub in Washington, D.C.”

…Even if they are shut out in attempts to oust incumbents, leaders of these organizations do not show signs of quitting. They say they are in the early stages of a long-term effort to build a movement, no matter what their scorecard looks like after the primaries and the general election. And they have not given up on this year yet.

“It is game on,” said Matt Kibbe, the head of FreedomWorks. “I think we are going to win one of these races.”

Meanwhile, the Des Moines Register was reporting a big setback for the teabaggers. The right-wing loon they had managed to elect Iowa Party chair, A.J. Spiker, has been forced out of his position by the Establishment forces. He's stepping down at the end of the month and a new state chair will be elected. Governor Branstad led the Establishment push to crush the tea party reformers. He won. The video below, shot a year ago, shows how the Libertarians and teabaggers were pushed out of power by the Establishment. There's something very Stalinist and very fascinating about it. Take a look.

The news comes on the same day that the influence on the Iowa GOP from the "liberty" faction, of which Spiker was a part, was significantly diminished as mainstream Republicans turned out in force to reclaim dominance.

The majority of GOP state convention delegates elected today are pro-Branstad Republicans, who showed up in large numbers to at-times tedious and lengthy county conventions typically frequented by only the most diehard activists.

…Spiker has faced criticism from fellow Republicans from various factions for several reasons, including lackluster fundraising, clashes with Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, a controversy over the state convention scheduling that some critics thought gave Democratic candidates an advantage, and other problems.Some worried that certain 2016 presidential candidates might not feel welcome in Iowa if the liberty Republicans continued to control party headquarters.

Another Iowa GOP state central committee member, David Chung, in September called for Spiker's resignation or removal because of "a general leadership style that is absolutely tone-deaf to any input from outside his inner circle."

Roll Call last summer named Iowa GOP one of "the seven most dysfunctional state parties."

Pro-Branstad forces at the county conventions today rejected liberty Republicans who sought to be elected to party roles, including Adil Khan, Matt DeVries and Joel Kurtinitis. Spiker didn't try to be elected today as a state delegate; he pulled his name off the Story County nominating committee's slate earlier this week, organizers said. Liberty Republicans didn't include Spiker on their slate or nominate him from the floor today.

The delegates who were elected today will be the big decision makers in the party on a number of fronts. At district conventions, each of the four districts will pick four GOP state central committee members. Those 16 people elect the next Iowa GOP chairman. Then at the state convention, they'll pick the lieutenant governor nominee (Branstad wants it to be Kim Reynolds again) and decide who the GOP nominee is for the U.S. Senate race if none of the six candidates wins outright on June 3.

The fear was that Spiker's faction would select an unelectable extremist as the party's Senate nominee-- perhaps even Spiker himself. The Establishment faction wants to nominate state Senator Joni Ernst, who's been endorsed by Mitt Romney, but her polling numbers have been lackluster, both for the primary and up against Democrat Bruce Braley, who trounces her in every single match-up by every single polling firm, including GOP firms.

Is There Such A Thing As Too Extreme On The Right-- Or Does It Always Have To End In An Orgy Of Blood?

If you want to find out which Senate Republicans have the most reactionary and extreme right voting records, you can access that information at ProgressivePunch. You just scroll down past the most conservative Democrats-- like Joe Donnelly, Joe Manchin, Mark Warner and Mark Pryor-- and past then garden variety conservative Republicans who are getting primaries by teabaggers, like Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, Thad Cochran and Lindsey Graham, and you get to a land of make-believe. Past right-wing sociopaths like Ron Johnson, Richard Burr, Marco Rubio, Richard Shelby, you find the 17 GOP Senators with "perfect" scores for 2013-- zero. None of the 17 extremists voted for anything that could be viewed as progressive. The gerbil caucus or lemming caucus or whatever you call it. Isn't just Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Tim Scott (R-SC), Deb Fischer (R-NE), John Boozman (R-AR) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Oh, no. Joining them in the ranks of zeroes are radical right lunatics who would rather see America suffer than go against their narrow ideological and partisan predispositions. Just what the Tea Party is looking for, right? I mean, you can't get more radical than a zero voting record… like Ted Cruz, right? Well, aside from zero voting records, what do these 4 Republicans all have in common?

• John Cornyn (R-TX)
• Mike Enzi (R-WY)
• Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Pat Roberts (R-KS)

Of course, they are all being viciously challenging for reelection this cycle… from the right. How you get to the right of zero without committing crimes against humanity is something we may learn over the next few months. The twitter attacks against that notorious "liberal," John Cornyn by a former speed freak and street person who has been implicated in the Oklahoma City domestic terror bombing, Steve Stockman, is the most aggressive assault on a sitting senator I have ever seen. People constantly ask if his verified official twitter feed is a hoax or a parody by some liberal jokester.

A few days ago, one of the most radical right iof the crackpot Republican front groups, the Madison Project, led by a neo-fascist ex-Congressman from Kansas, Jim Ryun, endorsed a teabagger running against another zero-- Pat Roberts. They're joining Jim DeMint's old PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, in a jihad against Roberts. This is Pat Robert's voting record broken down by issue. How do you get more deranged and out of touch with reality than that? Ryun thinks they found the fringe loon who can do it-- a distant cousin of President Obama, presumably not from the Kenyan side of the family. Milton Wolf's complaint about Roberts is that he's a career politician and that Roberts is against Obamacare but not loudly enough.

A far right blogger from Georgia also endorsed Wolf against Roberts. He explained it in a post on Wednesday. Is his world, everything is divided between the allies and enemies of Ted Cruz, who American neo-Nazis worship as some kind of reincarnation of their fuehrer.

In the past six months, Senator Pat Roberts has been a rock ribbed, small government conservative. He has stood with Ted Cruz. He has fought the fight. He’s done in the sixth year of his term everything conservatives have wanted. And that’s pretty unusual because in the last five years Pat Roberts has stood with his leadership even against conservatives.

We have seen this before. Orrin Hatch, bless his heart, went through 2012 pounding his chest and throwing red meat to the crowd. To heck with plans for amnesty, said Hatch. Shut down the government if that’s what it takes to stop Obamacare, campaigned Hatch. No more debt increases, no more spending, no more big government-- Hatch was a reformed and repentant Senator.

Conservatives decided they could forgive him the prior five years of his record and his kissy face with Ted Kennedy. They re-elected him.

He immediately went back to amnesty. He gave up fighting Obamacare. He’s cool with raising taxes in the Murray-Ryan budget plan. He’s okay with growing government. Secure with another six year term unaccountable to voters, Hatch went back to his old ways.

Conservatives need to stop being played the fool by incumbent Senators who find religion in their election year. We can do better in Kansas. We can support Dr. Milton Wolf.

Dr. Wolf, a cousin to Barack Obama, has consistently been a conservative. I don’t worry that he will somehow turn wobbly in office. Dr. Wolf understands that an ‘R’ is not enough and, as he wrote yesterday, “The letter “R” did not save America.” It takes more than that. It takes principle and it takes conviction.

We can move Kansas to the right of Pat Roberts and we can do so with Dr. Milton Wolf in the United States Senate. I’m proud to support him and look forward to sending Ted Cruz reinforcements.

It was this kind of thinking that got another zero-- Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss-- to decide to call it quits after his term ends next year. There's some chance that that will lead to the election of a moderate Democrat, Michelle Nunn, is a dependably red state. The far right's skewering of McConnell will help exactly one candidate-- and it's not Matt Bevin-- Alison Lundergan Grimes. It's a shame the DSCC is so badly led that they didn't both recruiting a plausible candidate just in case Republican primary voters decide to go over the cliff with Steve Stockman.

"Big Chris" Christie is all but elected president; can someone explain how he's going to get nominated?

[Click to enlarge.]

by Ken

Now that the nomination of Chris Christie as the 2016 Republican candidate for president is all but official, even as the sure-to-be-virulent "hell no" of the party's farthest-right wing is acknowledged, a spell of craziness. So, for example, we have the normally cool-headed Froma Harrop imagining arguing the Large One coming to ground in the White House and arguing, "A President Christie Would Spell Tea Party's Doom."

Can you hear the smashing of tea party china? Christie is everything the right-wingers can't stand. If he becomes the face of the Republican Party, it's all over for them. To the right, Christie is an existential threat.

Huh? I think this rests on the assumption that Big Chris's huge popularity in New Jersey has been based on accomplishing something other than making large numbers of Jerseyites feel better for no especially good reason, except in the case of his Superstorm Sandy response, when his visibility sounded just the note that people under that kind of stress like to see in a leader.

Now this much I can buy:

The tea party's ruling emotion is a desire to smite those who won't bow to its high-def vision of righteousness. So Christie's promise to work with others -- including the radicals' designated enemies -- would amount to playing with the devil, would it not?

But does it really mean that he can preempt the Teabaggers by working with more moderate Republicans and even Democrats? From my Christie-watching, I see his mode of "working with others" as the now-traditional Republican one: He's happy to accept the support of anyone who agrees with him. For cripes' sake, so was Ronald Reagan.

Does anyone really believe that a President Christie could maintain 65 percent approval ratings if he accomplished nothing more as president than he has as governor of New Jersey? And I don't see much reason to think the would accomplish even that much.

I admit it's intriguing to imagine how far-right Republicans would react to a Big Chris presidency. But are we anywhere near seeing such a thing happening? Can a Republican really be nominated over the veto of the Far Right? The party's extreme wing went along, grumbling mightily, with the Young Johnny McCranky and Willard Romney nominations -- and look how well that worked out. And that was with McCranky and Willard doing everything they could think of to win the hearts and minds of the loonies.

Teabagging, it should be remembered, thrives rather than wilting under adversity; victimhood is these people's native state. It's governing that's the real challenge for them, as witness the mess they've made with their share of control of the House of Representatives, where all they've achieved is not governing. Which probably doesn't torment them, seeing as how they really don't believe in government to begin with.

In case anyone needs to be reminded of how improbable it is that Big Chris can thread his way through the nominating process, let's pretend for a moment that it's not enough that the Teabaggers hate Big Chris. As Ryan Cooper pointed out in a washingtonpost.com "Plum Line" blogpost, "Chris Christie and the Tea Party bind," there's somebody else the Teabaggers hate.

Christie may face the same challenge that has dogged the Republican Party since 2009: The GOP base’s fear and loathing of President Obama.

Christie is in a Tea Party bind. This country has elected Obama twice now. But the GOP base may well remain unremittingly hostile to Obama's entire agenda and legacy. Republican primary voters may continue to insist on total repeal of Obamacare and possibly total resistance to the implementation immigration reform (which has a real shot at passing by 2016). If the GOP nominee is going to have a chance of winning the 2016 election, he or she may have to make peace with significant parts of Obama's legacy. But can someone who does that win a GOP primary? . . .

The irony is that Christie's major strength as a Republican who has won in a blue state is also his biggest weakness among the base. If one's political movement is predicated on hatred of the president and his policies, anyone who gets liberal or moderate votes is automatically an ideological traitor. And this will hold for any plausible Republican candidate by definition.

Not quite the way I would couch it, but we wind up in pretty much the same place.

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

I say that the presumed "losers" in the Shutdown Follies may really be winners, because they didn't lose anywhere near bad enough

Okay, fair's fair. This came as an e-mail from "My Democrats," and I've chopped off a button labeled "CHIP IN," out of sheer cussedness at all these e-mails whose purpose turns out to be to shake money out of us. Still, if you want to "chip in," here's the link.

by Ken

There's a lot of tut-tutting, gloating, and outright taunting in the wake of what The New Yorker's John Cassidy is calling "the Great G.O.P. Cave-in." A note of caution, friends: Not so fast, buckos. (And this includes you, Cassidy, with your "Obama to G.O.P.: Do You Want Another Beating?"

For the record, here are Cassidy's "Ten Takeaways from the Great G.O.P. Cave-in" (lots a links onsite):

1. President Obama won. For once, he held firm, and it worked.

2. The G.O.P. lost, and so did the Tea Party. Both saw their approval ratings fall to record lows.

3. It was a big waste of time.

4. The United States
was also a loser. Its reputation in the eyes of the world was further damaged. U.S. “soft power” took another blow.

5. Republicans need remedial lessons in game theory. If you aren’t willing to go over the cliff, and your opponent knows that, there’s no point in engaging in brinkmanship.

6. Ted Cruz is a charlatan. He pushed for a government shutdown and then joined a protest by veterans and Tea Party members against the closure of national monuments.

7. If anyone has a justification for smoking, it’s John Boehner. Really, wouldn’t you want a Camel Ultra Light if you had his job?

8. The two-and-a-half-week government shutdown probably reduced quarterly G.D.P. growth by about 0.3 per cent. But much of that loss will be made up when the government re-opens.

9. Warren Buffett came up with the best quote of the crisis: “Creditworthiness is like virginity. It can be preserved but not restored very easily.”

10. We get to do it all again in January and February. But next time, we’ll all be aware in advance that the G.O.P.’s threats to force a debt default are empty.

But anyone who thinks these folks, the Coalition of the Stoopids and the Krazys, are going away anytime soon. And because they're stoopid and krazy, they have their own vision of reality, in which I'm thinking they believe that yes, they suffered a cruel beating at the hands of the demonic forces they see themselves struggling against, but to them this is only a temporary setback that causes them to redouble their anger and their determination.

From their shamans they learn how their ancient ancestors, who fought under the banner of Barry Goldwater, rallied from their squooshing and eventually entered the Promised Morning led by St. Ronald of Reagan, who freed them from the tiresome bonds of reality. Later, under the yoke of the murdering socialist Clintonz, they regrouped again, and this time they learned their most valuable lesson: how to hate with a purity of venom that, with any luck, can kill on contact. And they were rewarded with the golden years of Chimpy the Prez. Okay, they turned kind of un-golden there, but that could be dealt with simply, by means of a quick clean-wipe of history. George. W. who?

If you believe those polls of disapproval of Republicans and Teabaggers are any protection against these folks with their messianic vision of "freedom's last stand," you're a lot more optimistic than I am.

The one sign of hope I see -- and you'll see what a pathetic and hopeless sign of hope it is -- is that this particular burst of Stoopidity and Kraziness has likely thrown a scare into their crucial collaborators, or rather manipulators: the Economic Predators. To be accurate, the Teabaggers weren't entirely created by the EPs, but as a movement they would still be bands of isolated kooks with the cash poured in by their predatory overlords. But those overlords are beginning to discover for themselves what others have tried to warn them for some time: Their control is far from assured. And, alas, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's not so easy to get it back in.

Yes, for the time being we can breathe a sigh of relief over what could have come out of the reinforcing crises of the budget patch and the debt-ceiling limit. But even as we discover that the losers don't come away with quite nothing, as I'm sure we will, we should remember that the Crisis Do-over is just over the hill ahead. And no appeal to reality is going to make the fight any easier, because the troops rooting for crisis are officially off the reality standard.

It looks to me like an even bumpier ride ahead.

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"The problem with modern Republicans is not fanaticism in the few but cowardice in the many" (Garry Wills)

Why isn't this man crying?

"Republicans say, 'Remember one thing. We are standing up for an important principle. And as soon as we figure out what it is, you will be the first to know.' "

-- Bill Maher

"John Boehner holds the nation hostage because the Tea Party holds him hostage. The problem with modern Republicans is not fanaticism in the few but cowardice in the many, who let their fellows live in virtual secession from laws they disagree with."

-- Garry Wills (see below)

by Ken

By the time you read this, it's possible that somehow the deal agreed to by Senate Majority and Minority Leaders Harry Reid and "Miss Mitch" McConnell will somehow have slithered through the Republican-"controlled" House, thereby triumphantly punting the CR and debt-limit crises down the field all the way to . . . February! When we can pencil in a crisis do-over, to play out in the new Congress. [No, of course not! As a commenter pointed out, I've jumped the gun a year here.]

Or then again, maybe not.

Amid all the chatter about what House Speaker "Sunny John" Boehner should or shouldn't have done in the present crisis, and what he can and can't do, and whether his speakership can survive his party conference's current woes, it's well to remember that it's not as if he ever had any credentials for the job, or any larger ambitions for it, beyond his political lifetime of doggedly loyal service to his party and the moneyed interests it represents.

I had to laugh -- what are you going to do, laugh or cry? -- when I read the Washington Post's political Mr. Fix-It, Chris Cillizza, in a post called "How John Boehner couldn't win," purporting to challenge the conventional wisdom about Sunny John: which is to say that he "gambled and lost," that he "picked a strategy and he picked wrong." The challenge to the CW came in the form of an e-mail from an unidentified "Republican consultant loyal to Boehner," who wrote him:

Had Boehner not pursued his course of action the past two weeks, the conference would have fractured and the entire leadership would have faced some sort of challenge. Even some of the more rational members of the conference needed this confrontation over the debt and Obamacare. He did what he had to do to keep his conference intact.

The only thing is, in the end our Chris doesn't buy it, arguing: "Boehner’s error was in realizing far too late that consensus [among House Republicans] was a pipe dream." He thinks Sunny John should have "force[d] people to pick sides way back when," to choose between being "either on the team or off the team," though he realizes that quite possibly "saying something like that would have meant that Boehner would never have become Speaker in the first place."

Well, I think it's hard to disagree that the idea of a "mission as speaker as, well, speaking for the entirety of the Republican conference" was an error. But it passes over what seems to me a more glaring error, maybe even "the" error -- the one expressed in the highlighted sentence.

It shows up in harshly spotlighted form in a post filed last night by the Post's Rosalind S. Helderman and Jackie Kucinich, "Boehner sees his control of House Republicans slip away." Therein, Helderman and Kucinich note that "as evening fell over the Capitol, it was increasingly clear who had control over the House GOP: no one." They go on (boldface emphasis added):

Boehner struggled to accommodate his most vocal and hard-line members, adjusting his plan to address their concerns only hours after laying it out in a morning meeting with his caucus.

But even after the rewrite, even after cajoling lawmakers in small groups -- attempting to convince them that passing a Republican plan in the House would give the party more power to win concessions from Democrats than if they allowed the Senate to take the lead -- there were still not enough votes to pass it.

Before the defeat, some of Boehner's friends, particularly former House members now in the Senate, fretted about the impact of another failure.

"Of all the damage to be done politically here, one of the greatest concerns I have is that, somehow, John Boehner gets compromised," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who entered the House in 1995 and was involved in several coup attempts at the time against Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). "You know, I was involved in taking one speaker down; I'd like to be involved in keeping this speaker, because, quite frankly, I think he deserves it."

I've let the quote run on to include the business about Lindsey Graham and Newt Gingrich mostly 'cause I think it's hilarious. By the time we're reduced to talking about whether Sunny John is more worthy of keeping his job than Newt was, with Lindsey Graham as arbiter, we've entered the realm of pure farce. No, what I really wanted to quote is that first sentence, and in particular the first part: "Boehner struggled to accommodate his most vocal and hard-line members, adjusting his plan to address their concerns . . . ."

Probably this hit me so forcefully because I was coming off a new New York Review of Books blogpost by Garry Wills, "Back Door Secession," in which Wills writes: "It is not much noticed that parts of the country act as if they had already seceded from the union."

They do not recognize laws and Supreme Court decisions, or constitutional guarantees of free speech. For instance seventeen states have violated the First Amendment by preventing or hindering the work of "navigators" -- organizations and businesses funded by the federal government to educate people on ways to follow the rules of the Affordable Care Act. Some groups routinely attempt to block health centers from advising women on the legal right to contraception. Eight state legislatures this year have passed voter restrictions that may violate the Fourteenth Amendment, and similar measures are pending in other states.

"The people behind these efforts," Wills argues, "are imitating what the Confederate States did even before they formally seceded in 1861. Already they ran a parallel government, in which the laws of the national government were blatantly disregarded."

Just as the Old South compelled the national party to shelter its extremism, today’s Tea Party leaders make Republicans toe their line. Most Republicans do not think laws invalid because the president is a foreign-born Muslim with a socialist agenda. But they do not renounce, or even criticize, their partners who think that. The rare Republican who dares criticize a Rush Limbaugh is quickly made to repent and apologize. John Boehner holds the nation hostage because the Tea Party holds him hostage. The problem with modern Republicans is not fanaticism in the few but cowardice in the many, who let their fellows live in virtual secession from laws they disagree with.

Republican leaders in Congress are too cowardly to say that the voting restrictions being enacted by Republican-controlled state legislatures are racially motivated. They accept the blatant lie that they are aimed only at non-existent "fraud." They will not crack the open code by which their partners claim to object to Obama because he is a "foreign-born Muslim" when they really mean "a black man." They will not admit that the many procedural laws adopted to prevent abortion are in violation of the law as defined by the Supreme Court. They go along with the pretence that all the new rules are "for women’s health." De facto acts of secession are given a pseudo-legal cover.

Thus we get people who say they do not want the government in control of women’s health under Obamacare -- just after they order doctors to give women vaginal probes the doctors do not consider medically necessary. Or that they do not want the government telling Americans what they should do about their health -- just before they prohibit "navigators" from even discussing choices about their health. The same people who oppose background checks for gun purchases now want background checks for anyone the government authorizes to explain the law to people. This is a gag rule to rank with antebellum bans on the discussion of slavery.

Wills argues that we already have two basic conditions that "resemble the pre-Civil War virtual secessionism: "the holding of a whole party hostage to its most extreme members," and "the disproportionate representation of the extreme faction" -- "thanks to carefully planned gerrymandering of districts by Republican state legislatures," an advantage that "will be set in stone if all the voter restriction laws now being advanced block voters who might upset the disproportion."

"The presiding spirit of this neo-secessionism," Wills says, "is a resistance to majority rule."

The Old South went from virtual to actual secession only when the addition of non-slave Western states threatened their disproportionate hold on the Congress and the Court (which had been Southern in makeup when ruling on Dred Scott). It is difficult to conjecture what will happen if the modern virtual seceders do not get their way. Their anti-government rhetoric is reaching new intensity. Some would clearly rather ruin than be ruled by a "foreign-born Muslim." What will the Republicans who are not fanatics, only cowards, do in that case?

Viewed from this angle, Sunny John's "error" set in when he "struggled to accommodate his most vocal and hard-line members." And "the Republicans who are not fanatics, only cowards," sat by and watched. I mean, it's not as if the non-crackpot members of Sunny John's caucus are reasonable or even necessarily sane people, except by comparison with the Total Loon Faction. So perhaps it's not so surprising that they can't or won't see the line that has been crossed.

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."