Grayson Offers The GOP Terrorists A Face-Saving Way To Walk Back Off Their Cliff

Over the weekend, Barbara Lee (D-CA), an icon for peace, sent out an appeal to her supporters to back Alan Grayson. In 2001 Rep. Lee was the only Member of Congress to just say no to the Bush-Cheney request for authorization to attack Afghanistan. "In Alan Grayson," she wrote, "I see another Member of Congress who shares my love for peace."

As I explained to the National Journal last month, Barbara and Alan were the two strongest figures rallying the House to reject Military-Industrial Complex plans to bomb Syria and, perhaps, draw the U.S. into a war with Iran. She's not writing these kinds of endorsements for any garden variety Democrats, just for Grayson.

"We have worked hand-in-hand to try to prevent another U.S. military intervention in the Middle East," she explained in the video above. "We have labored arm-in-arm to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have fought side-by-side to take control of American foreign policy away from the military-industrial complex, and return it to 'We, the People.' Alan Grayson is an articulate, plain-spoken and eloquent champion for peace.

"From the time that Alan Grayson entered Congress, he and I have worked together to realize John Lennon's dream, imagining all the people of the world, living life in peace. Please join us in that dream, and contribute to Alan Grayson's campaign right now-- a campaign for justice, equality and peace." Good idea... and you can do it here.

And Grayson wants peace so much, he even wants peace with terrorists-- the terrorists who are holding America hostage and threatening to shut down the government and stop paying the debt for bills they've run up. [Think of all that $9 million Farmer Fincher (R-TN) has forced the government to borrow so they could subsidize his family farming operation. Now he doesn't want the government to pay back the folks who lent them the money so he could get his subsidies.] But, still Grayson is leading an effort to compromise with the Republicans-- not compromise the way Marc Warner has urged, giving in to their demands to curtain Social Security and Medicare benefits to working families and seniors-- but to offer a clean CR with no strings attached by anyone on either side of the aisle. Just after midnight (Sunday morning), he introduced a two-page bill that would fund the government through 2014, and end the debt ceiling brinksmanship in two-pages.

“The Fiscal Sanity Act of 2013 is a clean, even-handed, nonpartisan solution to the appropriations and debt ceiling issues,” said Grayson. “A vote for this bill is a vote for America’s well-being. We’re all in this together, and it’s time that we acted like it.”

His bill, H.R. 3213 would fund all federal agencies at the prescribed Budget Act levels through the end of the coming fiscal year, eliminating the need for continuing resolutions and stop-gap funding measures for the next twelve months. Grayson’s bill would also eliminate the need to raise the debt ceiling, through December 2014.

Grayson said he introduced the bill because he’s tired of the constant political brinksmanship by the Republican House Leadership. “Look, it doesn’t need to be so difficult,” he said. “Let’s stop with the theatrics, and return to the job of legislating. Speaker Boehner and the Republican House Leadership have lurched from one manufactured crisis to the next for years now, and the American people are sick of it. The American People don’t want the federal government to shut down merely because the Tea Party can’t repeal Obamacare. The American People don’t want to see the nation’s credit rating plummet-- or worse-- just to satisfy Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other Tea Party false idols. The American People want Congress to get back to work helping America get back to work, and that means that House Republicans have to stop acting like crisis junkies. They have to start creating solutions, not more problems.”

Grayson said his bill would give all Members of Congress the opportunity to put party politics aside, and show the American Public that Congress is capable of coming together for the good of the entire country. And it isn't just Grayson feeling the need to get beyond the frustration and move on as Americans not as partisans. Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins sounds like she felt the same way about her party giving in to teabagger extremists and Hate Talk Radio hosts that Grayson does. She says she opposed the Affordable Care Act but said that she wouldn't support forcing a government shutdown with poison pill ObamaCare provisions. "I disagree with the strategy of linking Obamacare with the continuing functioning of government-a strategy that cannot possibly work," Collins said in a statement released Sunday afternoon. Perhaps Devin Nunes will back him?

[He]had choice words for fellow House Republicans who are willing to see the government shut down over their opposition to Obamacare: “Lemmings with suicide vests,” he called them.

“They have to be more than just a lemming. Because jumping to your death is not enough,” he said.

No, Nunes jumped over the cliff with the rest of the suicide vest-clad lemmings just hours after he made that statement! Cruz was proud!