State of the Union
I was critical of what the President had agreed to with Boehner.
"Fortunately" the Insane Clown Posse in the House undercut Boehner, driving the deal back to the cliff to where it ended up in a more "balanced" place. Agreed that the "revenue" is underwhelming, but that was the concession, not throwing in the SS cuts, and he got the extension on UEC for a year, something the Rs have constantly been holding over his head.
All in all, a deal close to being commiserate with his "hand."
I think how it played out should tell people how things are going to be for the next two years.
The Republicans are absolutely butt hurt. They are doing what they do, talking all big now. But, they were mean spirited dicks to begin with, and this only serves to ensure that they WILL, not question about it, they WILL hold up the country over the debt ceiling.
President Obama is talking tough on it now. I will say, as a side note, he threw in that he wanted it extended as part of the "grand bargain" for the cliff, likely not expecting it to actually happen, but to get on the front end of letting people know the Rs were going to hold him up and to start to frame that fight.
But, whether he is talking tough or not, there is nothing he can do to avoid it.
The last time he put a bad deal on the table and these clowns walked away from it for the hairbrained sequestration concept. There is NO level deal, even a putridly bad deal, from this president they will accept. They could demand the total elimination of SS and he could agree to it, and they would renege and say that in addition to eliminating SS every American with an income under 100,000 would have to pay half of their income to the top 1 percent.
It is going to be bad, REAL bad, and after, for the first time in two decades, breaking the Hastert Rule, there is no way Boehner can put up something that the republicans are not completely in lock step for.
BO, IMO, has no choice but to draw a dead line in the sand and say no negotiations on them paying the bills they racked up, and use his constitutional options.
There also will be the sequestration fight. This is a different dog. This WILL be the great battle over SS and Medicare. BO WILL offer up SS and Medicare cuts here. It IS going to happen again. He and the key leaders in both chambers are saying big things about how there has to be revenue involved, too. But, I can't see how Rs will agree to that. They are going to fight tooth and nail to make it all about cuts. Not sure how this one plays out, but it is going to bloody as hell.
There will NOT be any firearm legislation. No way the House will have it. Again, questionable that Boehner puts it up, but even if he did, there would be a good number of Ds in the House who can't/won't vote for anything related to firearms because it would make reelection near impossible. And, not likely to get even enough Rs to make up for what the Ds don't have even if all the Ds vote for it, much less make up for what Ds won't vote it.
There MIGHT be immigration reform. The only reason being in the power crazed minds of republicans, they can't win national elections with their current positions on Hispanics. Only reason this COULD happen, but they will have a VERY hard time getting past their vindictive lunacy after the blood letting that started in November and will continue into March at least over budgetary issues.
Anything beyond immigration won't get done.
Anyone who remembers the 90s knows how big of jackasses the Rs were to Clinton. They are 10 times worse now, and again, there is simply NOTHING he can put up that the clowns in the House will sign off on.
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