Thank-you Senator Sanders! finally someone speaking the truth.

[robinlynne]

Senators: stop the partying. sign the damn bill.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Well Sanders did help drag out the process by speaking for his full time

and then asking for an additional 2 minutes.

[Scuba]

2. I'd allocate Bernie all the time he wanted. He speaks of truths that others never mention.

[sofa king]

3. There's a reason for that.

If we can delay passage of that compromise past the deadline, even by two minutes, the compromise goes off the table and the President's proposal is what gets rubber-stamped through some back-door mechanism that is never publicly discussed.

That's what happened in this exact situation in 2011. That is why Congressional Republicans are suddenly scrambling about to fashion some sort of a compromise at the eleventh hour--because this is their last, best chance to get anything at all.

Why negotiate with these chumps when we can smoke 'em out and gun 'em down as they run out the front door? That's the option that best works for us, and Bernie Sanders knows it better than most.

[robinlynne]

4. what? pls explain. That would mean none of this ever existed?

[sofa king]

6. Once it becomes a crisis, the President can end it.

As naively pointed out by a Republican Member of Congress this week, it's the President's Constitutional duty to prevent the government from defaulting.

Possessing that clear duty, and armed with the paranoid and near-dictatorial emergency powers that Republicans in Congress freely gave over to George W. Bush, President Obama has some sort of ability to compel Congress to accept his own plan, behind closed doors, once some set of emergency-defining factors are reached. One of those criteria is obviously the threat of default, because that's exactly the pretext President Obama used to crush the Republicans in 2011.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/sofa%20king/100

So now we're at the point where the Democratic Party comes out ahead--crushingly, completely, entirely ahead--so long as a decision is not reached before the deadline. So why play ball now?

There are still at least two ways that the deadline can be hit, even if a compromise is reached. The compromise bill can be anonymously killed in the Senate, by Harry Reid himself, if necessary--that would have to happen in the next hour or so. Or, the President can wait for it to hit his desk, laugh, and veto it at 11:59pm, then replace the proposal with his own plan at 12:01 am, call in Congressional leadership, and compel them to accept the President's own plan. Bernie Sanders' two minutes.

Is it a risk? No, not really. The GOP's masters on Wall Street are going to issue reports designed to tank the economy no matter what deal is reached. So why not use it as an opportunity to take away the Republican toys and advance our own agenda a year and a half in advance of the next realistic opportunity?

The risk is in allowing a bunch of shambling rednecks to have the tools needed to shut down the government in the middle of a war--and let it not escape our notice that such behavior on our part would lead to roars of "treason," death threats, and calls for arrest and execution--as they did in 2002, for example.

If we hit the deadline, the President has the opportunity to take those tools away from Republicans for the rest of this Congress, or even worse for the GOP, set the next deadline for next summer so that Republicans have to go into an election season with another self-generated crisis on their records, sure to hurt them as hard as the 3-to-1 stomping the GOP received in statewide elections last year.

[robinlynne]

7. If that is so, and I'm not doubting you, then why haven't we been touting this all along?

why even go through this if we had checkmate all along?

[sofa king]

9. I think some circumstances have to be met.

We know those circumstances were met when the government hit the default line in 2011. Those exact same circumstances will pertain here, but probably only if the deadline is reached.

Democrats have had to play the waiting game until the problem becomes a crisis. At that point, and only at that point, all bets are off.

So we had to wait them out.

[onenote]

5. Yes. Please explain what gets "rubber stamped" and how?

[sofa king]

8. That's the part nobody publicly knows.

Nobody officially knows what happened that night in 2011 when the government defaulted, Congressional leadership was called in, and they all came out endorsing the President's plan. But the most powerful man in the world is much more powerful than he was fifteen years ago--that we all know by heart thanks to Dick Cheney and George Bush.

For example, the President cannot arrest Members of Congress, but in a state of emergency he can call out the army, land a helicopter on a Congressman's front lawn, and escort that Member (at gunpoint) back to the Capitol Building. Then he can keep them there until they do their jobs--which means "forever" to a Republican Member of Congress.

The President cannot assassinate a Member of Congress, but thanks to the Congresses that served George W. Bush, the President can declare a Congressman's child to be an enemy of the state, kidnap that person, secretly hold that person under arrest without a fair trial or public notice, and, it would appear, torture that person to death if the President deems it necessary.

The President cannot raze a Member of Congress' home. But he can declare a Member's entire district to be in a state of emergency, use FEMA to draft constituents into labor brigades, and have them picking up trash along the highways by Friday morning.

Using the same statutes, he can evict a Member of Congress' family and friends, and force them all to move into the Member's own home.

The President cannot burn down a hospital, but under the All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which kicks in in just this sort of emergency being created today, he can assume direction of for profit hospitals and require them to provide free health care to all Americans until the emergency passes.

And who gets to declare when the emergency is over? Why, The President, of course. What about sunset dates and expirations? No, Dick Cheney didn't want those, so they're not written into the statutes. Some of you may recognize that it was through the exploitation of emergency powers that an annoying loon named Adolf became Fuhrer in Germany. I am not kidding one tiny bit when I say that this is alarmingly similar to the options this President will have the moment the government defaults.

So long as the President doesn't tell Republicans what he plans to do, their own fears will supply the details, and they will roll over in minutes once the hammer drops. We know this because we have seen it already happen in 2011.

[onenote]

10. Wow. I don't think I've ever seen as serious a case of tin-foil poisoning

Guess what. No one in Washington -- make that no one anywhere, except for some dwelling in their mother's basement paranoid freak believes that any of that has even a .0000000000001 percent chance of happening.

[sofa king]

11. You'll be right for another eight hours.

After that, you'll see.

(Edit: And no, you won't see any of that shit above go down because no Republican will allow it to happen--to themselves. That's who they really care about, and that's who is going to be directly threatened, somehow, at midnight.)

[onenote]

12. So what are you saying will happen after 8 hours?

That the House will refuse to approve the Senate compromise and some other bill will be passed by both houses?

[sofa king]

13. No, not quite.

At this point the House and the Senate could agree on a compromise, and the President might feel compelled to sign it due to the faithful execution clause (Article II, Section 3, Clause 5) of the Constitution. So I can still be wrong.

Even if that happens, it is important to note that it is whatever happens after that deadline that frightens Republicans and it is those consequences which are spurring them on to meet the deadline tonight. (Unless one is willing to ascribe ethical and professional standards to the Republican Party which they have never met in 40 years.)

But yes, I have a side-bet on the fact that the House probably cannot pass a compromise such as the one being crafted in the Senate. I think the Republican rank and file there are now too stupid to understand what the Republican Congressional leadership already knows by excruciatingly painful prior experience.

If they don't pass an extension of the debt ceiling, our current state of emergency is somehow elevated to actionable crisis--actionable on the part of the President. That we know because we have seen it happen under very similar circumstances in 2011. We also know that before Congress went into the tunnel that time, they had their own plan, much like the one being hammered out today. That plan was instantly trashed behind closed doors, and Republicans shortly thereafter came out endorsing a plan which President Obama had detailed in public five months previously.

I don't pretend to know what happens at midnight, but I know for sure that something happens at midnight. And you'll know I'm correct when some version of the President's own plan is passed. Some of the things he wanted were an extension of the debt ceiling until next summer, a re-opening of the government, a ten-year budgetary plan (that's how the President excised a trillion dollars from the Defense budget the last time this happened, through the bullshit charade of the "debt Committee," which of course failed and defaulted back to the President's own plan).

The President is going to get those things, one way or the other, is what I'm saying. Either the goons give it to him, or he takes it from him, depending on whether it happens tonight or tomorrow.

[onenote]

14. We can revisit this later tonight.

In the meantime, you may want to contact whomever gave you your law degree. They seem to have misinformed you as to what the President's duty to faithfully execute the laws means. Among other things, it does not mean that the president's power to veto legislation applies to some pieces of legislation, but not to others.

[onenote]

15. Care to explain what happened?

After all, this is what you "knew" would happen "for sure":

"I don't pretend to know what happens at midnight, but I know for sure that something happens at midnight. And you'll know I'm correct when some version of the President's own plan is passed. Some of the things he wanted were an extension of the debt ceiling until next summer, a re-opening of the government, a ten-year budgetary plan (that's how the President excised a trillion dollars from the Defense budget the last time this happened, through the bullshit charade of the "debt Committee," which of course failed and defaulted back to the President's own plan)."

"The President is going to get those things, one way or the other, is what I'm saying. Either the goons give it to him, or he takes it from him, depending on whether it happens tonight or tomorrow. "

[sofa king]

17. Uh, well, they caved in before midnight, is what happened!

Ha ha. I was just completely wrong, is probably the better answer.

I was pretty damned sure that the Republicans, having taken it this far, would not be able to help themselves from going all the way.

It's still a pretty good deal; the government re-opens and Republicans get jack shit except a 15 point drop in the polls. But it's not the President's plan, as best I can tell without seeing the actual text of the bill.

I'll point out again that the debt ceiling default was not reached, so we don't get to see what would have happened after that. I'll still staunchly maintain that it is the threat of what would have happened after midnight which spurred the Republicans to activity, finally, but that's not provable and clearly, you shouldn't take my word for it.

But it will be back this winter, so perhaps we won't have too long to wait.

[sofa king]

16. Well, I'm wrong!

At least, mostly wrong.

The details of the plan suggest that the government will stay open until January 15 and borrowing can continue until Feb 7 of next year, not next summer as I'm pretty sure the President said he wanted.

The bill makes no change to the ACA, which the President required, but that was a given.

I see no mention of a budget conference, which would have been a key detail for the President had he a direct hand in this.

I was also wrong when I bet the House could not pass the bill. Good for them, but I still feel the need to point out that something encouraged 85 republicans to vote in favor of it. (285-144 as per the Chicago Tribune; assuming all 200 Democrats voted for it.)

So, overall, this looks like an actual compromise, one which I am disappointed to see, quite honestly, because I saw the opportunity to take away the need for a compromise and to instead grab whatever this nation needs--which is considerably more than this.

Regarding faithful execution: It is the President's responsibility to keep the government solvent. If the President were to veto the bill now, in order to activate his emergency powers and force a different deal, the resulting insolvency (however temporary) would be the President's doing, and it would be impeachment-bait for his opposition. The only exception to that is if the bill itself somehow jeopardizes national security or is flawed in some other, very meaningful way (like by revoking the ACA, for example). Implicit in this entire discussion is the requirement of non-cooperation by Congressional Republicans--that's what this was all about. That is what would have triggered the events I wrote about above. Once the GOP rolls over and gave him most of what he wanted, it becomes his duty to accept it in order to avert the crisis. They rolled, so he's gonna sign it.