'What...me worry? It's just a hot oven!'
At this stage, Boehner and his top lieutenants, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), are refusing to entertain the prospect of seeking out Democratic votes to keep the government open, according to advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.
The rare Saturday session followed the Senate’s passage Friday of a stopgap government funding bill and promptly departed, leaving all of the pressure to find a solution on House Republican leaders.
Now that the Republicans have
decided to shut down the government, the question before Democrats is how to exploit this for maximum political advantage. Again, nobody on our side wants to see people hurt. But we can't be weak in the face of the damage Republicans are doing to the nation and its people. There is only one way to deal with Republicans and it isn't through negotiation. It is through beatings. Beatings that lead to submission. All House Democrats should oppose this legislation uniformly.
First thing is to follow President Obama's lead by highlighting the fact that folks will still be able to sign up for ObamaCare. Nothing would better point out the impotentence and pointlessness of the GOP Government Shutdown over ObamaCare than the fact that it didn't actually work. I suspect this would provide extensive opportunity for Democrats to land heavy blows. Over and over again, I'd be repeating the phrase 'GOP shuts down Government, ObamaCare lives anyway.'
Second thing is for the Senate to wait until the day before the debt ceiling is due to rise, and then send the House a fuck-you bill that not only restored money for the government to re-open, but also raises the debt ceiling. It is important to let the damage from shutting down the government really sink in and brand the Republican Party. I think words like arsonist, domestic terrorist, insurrection, and enemy combatant should be bandied about liberally.
This whole thing is a gift to Democrats, provided we are willing to take as much political advantage of it as possible. This could be just the thing to bring down Speaker Boehner and give us a good shot at the House.
12:57 PM PT: Harry Reid just announced the House bill dead and that Dems are standing fast behind the President:
"Today’s vote by House Republicans is pointless," Reid said in a statement on Saturday. "As I have said repeatedly, the Senate will reject any Republican attempt to force changes to the Affordable Care Act through a mandatory government funding bill or the debt ceiling. Furthermore, President Obama has stated that he would veto such measures if they ever reached his desk.
"To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax. After weeks of futile political games from Republicans, we are still at square one: Republicans must decide whether to pass the Senate’s clean CR, or force a Republican government shutdown.