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Photos by: joanneleon. September, 2013.
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Chuck Schumer is on MSNBC this morning saying he thinks there is a chance that the Republicans will pass a clean bill at the last minute. The CNN polls say the blame for a government shutdown, if it happens, would be assigned to: Republicans 46%; Pres. Obama 35%, both 13%. If Boehner does this, it would mean, I guess, that this was a big show to appease the Tea Party. I find it hard to believe he'd walk away without even a promise to do tax reform or a Grand Bargain.
ThinkProgress Vote Count Finds 267* House Votes For A Clean Debt Ceiling Hike
The congressional debate over various deficit-cutting plans appears to have reached a stalemate, with the plans from both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) currently lacking the votes they need to pass the House of Representatives.
However, a special vote count conducted by ThinkProgress found that there are more than enough votes for a third option — a clean debt ceiling hike. ThinkProgress has concluded that there are 267 votes in the House for a clean hike, with almost all Democrats in support and a large number of Republicans.
Guardian is running a liveblog for the circus. If this isn't about appeasing the Tea Party, I have to wonder if the insurance companies and the companies who are having a hard time implementing Obamacare exchanges on time would actually be happy with a one-year delay. A one-year delay is an interesting thing for the crazy Republicans to demand. Ridiculous Republicans are on cable news this morning saying that they already compromised by changing their stance from completely defunding Obamacare to defunding and delaying it for one year and that they know the president is willing to cut pieces of Obamacare because he's already done it himself by executive order. I tend to think this isn't the case though.
Ultimately, I don't think they'll shut down this government or if they do, it will be for 12 hours or a day or two but I don't think they go that far. I think the Republicans end up extending the debt ceiling for some really short period of time, perhaps long enough to get to Barbara Mikulski's Grand Bargain date of mid November at which point the Obamacare enrollment will already have started, so the delay won't be an option but they'll still be able to chip away at some taxes that will make some health care related lobbyists and companies happy. Or maybe they're able to delay Obamacare enrollment for some short period of time, which might just make the people doing the implementation happy because they, reportedly, were afraid they weren't going to make their deadline to begin with. Whatever the short term deal ends up being, it gets them to a Grand Bargain before the end of the year and the Democrats are convinced that they'll be okay in 2014 (and 2016) because they will be able to say they reversed the sequester the Republicans will have destroyed themselves in the process, and the Republicans will be convinced that they will be okay in 2014 (and 2016) because the Tea Party will believe they went to extreme lengths on Obamacare and took a bite out of it, and they did a Grand Bargain to achieve decades long conservative goal of flattening the tax code and/or cutting "entitlements".
That's my guess, and it's also my guess that all of these things are being worked out in the back rooms and have been cooking in the back kitchens for months, ultimately years. We've all seen the lengths to which the powers that be have gone to make extreme changes like cutting the corporate tax rate (which folds nicely into the destructive TPP deal that should rear its head at some point soon too) and cutting the social safety net. The amount of effort that has been put into the shock doctrine set up here, media absolutely flooded with government shutdown fearmongering, Congress working nights and weekends (which we know they absolutely hate to do) to play the kabuki -- all of that was not for nothing.
Though it's interesting that they didn't realize how conditioned the people have become to all of this, and how goddamned sick of it we are. Of course the ace in the hole is when Wall Street does the usual arm twisting and the markets open and start going crazy, and I don't know if they'll bring the ratings agencies into it again, lowering the country's credit rating and all that. We've seen all of that before too. It's really disgusting and these are things that were considered to be extreme measures, even unthinkable measures in the past, with few exceptions. But now that our government is run by extremists, both the official government and the shadow government, it's becoming commonplace. The Republicans are playing the role of the "arsonists" but both wings of the Corporate party count on the shock doctrine to get extreme things done that have no benefit to the people or the country and only benefit the 1% and global capitalists.
I really wish somebody would blow the whistle on all of this and go on TV and tell the people what's really going on. I hate playing along with all of this at all, but here's the Guardian liveblog, the program for the acts of the circus clowns.
US government on verge of shutdown as House votes to delay health law
Resolution passed Sunday, makes funding government until December contingent upon one-year delay of healthcare reforms
The resolution passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in the early hours of Sunday morning makes funding the government until the middle of December contingent upon a one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act. It also strips the new healthcare law, which is due to come into force on Tuesday, of a key tax on medical devices.
Fix the Debt, Catfood Committee, have been very active. Here is their latest statement and their guide to the bad things that will happen if a shutdown happens (House Dems have been on the floor listing similar things about what happens in a shutdown, trying to rile up the public, which doesn't seem to be happening). I think the infamous "fiscal cliff" desensitized people so much that they're not getting riled up again.
No spoilers.
Peace is breaking out everywhere? A girl can dream.
Whoops... well not everywhere. And there's that "charm offensive" again.
Netanyahu plays hawk to Rouhani's dove with anti-Iran rhetoric
Israeli PM angered at thawing relations between Washington and Tehran but observers say he is out of step with allies
Officials say Netanyahu will present evidence of continued Iranian efforts to attain a nuclear weapon, and will urge the US and others not to be taken in by Rouhani's charm offensive."I will tell the truth in the face of the sweet talk and offensive of smiles," Netanyahu said on Saturday night before boarding his plane to New York. "One must talk facts and tell the truth. Telling the truth today is vital for the security and peace of the world and, of course, it is vital for the security of our country."
[...]
Israeli commentators said Netanyahu would have to work hard to offset the impression left by Rouhani in his UN speech and media appearances, where he presented himself as a peace-seeking moderate. "The Iranian president was very successful in convincing many in the US who want to be convinced that there is a new spirit in Tehran and a great willingness now for compromise. It will be an enormous challenge for Netanyahu to reverse that trend," said Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya.
[Emphasis added]
Netanyahu to speak at UN on Tuesday || Hours before departing for U.S., Netanyahu instructs Israeli officials not to publicly discuss Iran
Prime Minister wishes to avoid gaffes criticizing Obama or U.S. foreign policy, ahead of his meeting with the President; 'Netanyahu is going to spoil the party and he has no problem with that,' an official said.
"The goal of the prime minister's trip is to expose the Iranian lie at the United Nations," said a senior diplomatic source in Jerusalem. "Netanyahu fears they're heading toward a bad agreement with Iran, and if this is the situation, he prefers there be no agreement whatsoever."
The source added, "Netanyahu is going to spoil the party and he has no problem with that. He doesn't care if he's the only one saying it in public even if there are others in the world who think like him."
[...]
On Monday, Netanyahu will fly to Washington, where he will meet with Obama at the White House. [...] On Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu will arrive at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to give a speech before the General Assembly. Netanyahu will be the last state representative to address the UNGA.
And finally, I think we know where the "charm offensive" talking point originated. These tweets are from the day of Obama's and Rouhani's speeches. Netanyahu had a lot to say on Twitter that day, I realized last night while looking at his timeline and that of the Israeli embassy.
There has been a lot of speculation about what Netanyahu's presentation at the UN will be this year, after the infamous cartoon bomb last year.
From Haaretz:
And others predicting what this year's props might be.
This is perhaps the least humorous and most critical one that is going around:
Colin Powell's Former Chief of Staff: "This Is How Empires Collapse"
"We've created a national security state, and now it's giving us what its main product, which is war."
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But, in a candid conversation with NSFWCORP, the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell says that too much knowledge may be even more dangerous, and more costly. If Col. Lawrence Wilkerson had his way, he would cut the intelligence community in half and save tens of millions in the process.
In 1989, Col. Wilkerson became the assistant to Colin Powell, then National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Thirteen years later, Powell, as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, tasked Wilkerson with reviewing classified information from the CIA in the lead-up to a presentation on Iraq to the United Nations Security Council. Wilkerson was given just one week to prepare.
He would later tell PBS, "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council."
A feud between Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare and Glenn Greenwald.
Damning With the Faintest of Praise
I had an interesting exchange on Twitter this morning with Glenn Greenwald about his description of me as a “virulent NSA defender.” He has now posted the following update to the post in question, which I’m sure will amuse some Lawfare readers, as it did me
This is causing a big stir.
Zegart joins scholars at NSA for rare briefing on spy agency's woes
CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart and nine other national security and intelligence scholars were recently invited to the headquarters of the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Md., for unprecedented talks with high-ranking officials. They discussed cybersecurity, the plummeting public trust in the agency, its relationship with Congress and how to rebuild the agency’s reputation and rethink its program operations.
The academics were first taken to the black granite wall carved with the names of 171 military and civilian cryptologists who have died in service. “I think they wanted us to know that this is an organization of people, not some robots trolling through your emails,” said Zegart, author of the book, “Spying Blind,” which examines why U.S. intelligence agencies failed to adapt to the terrorist threat before the 9/11 attacks.
The scholars were then taken to a windowless conference room for several hours of what Zegart called remarkably frank and free-ranging talks about the agency and its tactics.
America's Nuke Plants Are in Trouble
America's fleet of nuclear power plants might be on the cusp of an industry crisis, according to an investigation by Inside Climate News and a recent report from Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment. The industry has been plagued by a streak of plant closures, which come as regulations, expensive upgrades, and newly cheap natural gas have made nuclear increasingly uncompetitive in the energy market. Plants in Vermont, Wisconsin, California, and Florida—the first plants to close in 15 years—have announced this year that they're shutting down. And more are on the chopping block. According to the report, the industry might shrink in the coming decades, sinking hopes of America being at the start of "nuclear renaissance."
Six years ago, amidst tax credits and nuclear-friendly regulation, a flood of proposed nuclear projects appeared to be the end of the drought that followed the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant, when a partial meltdown stoked fears of a nuclear disaster and halted all new uranium power plant construction. But today, plans for more than half of the 28 new reactors that were proposed have been put on hold or canceled, and those that have gone ahead have suffered from delays and heaping budget overruns. Sixty-two percent of US plants have been operating for more than 30 years—and 20 percent for more than 40 years (the limit of their projected lifespan when they were built). And utility companies are becoming more reticent to pay for their expensive upgrades now that the natural gas boom has created a glut of cheap power.
As Shutdown, Default Loom What Might Obama Give Away?
With the focus on the GOP's internal fracturing, could 'Grand Bargain' slip through the cracks?
These dual and competing threats by the Republican lawmakers, however—and the legislative processes and machinations of Washington, DC politics that many in the media are focused on—tend to miss out on asking one of the key questions at the center of this latest episode in what has become the "new normal" of lawmaking during the his presidency: Will Obama cave?
Though the president has repeatedly said he will "not negotiate" under these circumstances, it's clear from GOP lawmakers that their reading of history shows that if they push enough, take hostages, and make belligerent demands for the sun, that the president might at least give them the moon.
As The Hill reports:
President Obama on Friday said negotiating with Republicans on the government funding bill would only give them incentive to use the debt-ceiling and any future expiration of government funding as bargaining chips.
“The bill that's designed to avert a government shutdown basically just funds the government for another couple months, so we could be doing this all over again,” he said. “I'm sure the American people are thrilled about that. And that's why we've got to break this cycle.”
Action
Stop Watching Us.
The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.
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