Tag: shutdown

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Heading into weekend, no end in sight for government shutdown

As the President says “No one is winning.”

Yesterday, speaking on “hot mics” between interviews GOP Senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell spoke in whispered voices saying “we’re going to win this:”

“I’m all wired up here,” McConnell replies. Paul continues anyway.

“I just did CNN, and I just go over and over again, ‘We’re willing to compromise; we’re willing to negotiate,'” he says in the video. “I don’t think they poll-tested ‘We won’t negotiate.’ I think it’s awful for them to say that over and over again.”

McConnell responds: “Yeah, I do too, and I just came back from the two-hour meeting with them, and that was basically the same view privately as it was publicly.”

“I think if we keep saying, ‘We wanted to defund it. We fought for that, but now we’re willing to compromise on this,’ I think they can’t – we’re going to win,” Paul says. “I know we don’t want to be here, but we’re going to win this, I think.”

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Parks & Recreation, VEEP and West Wing show how a shutdown works

From The Daily Beast: Now this is how you shut it down.

While Washington politicians keep saying that the current fiscal crisis is uncharted territory, there’s actually plenty of precedent (albeit fictional).

Let Leslie Knope, Selina Meyer, and Jed Bartlet show you how to deal with a government shutdown, and how to laugh a little along the way.

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House Speaker Boehner refuses to negotiate after getting half his demands

Rep. Nancy Pelosi told reporters that the two items the Republicans demanded were “delaying” Obamacare for a year and an agreed upon budget at a figure of $986 billion.  Pelosi and 100 colleagues assembled today to say they would agree to the budget number – meeting the Republicans on one of their two demands – and John Boehner said “no.”

Kids, that’s called “negotiating.”  And the Republicans said “no.”  

The stories you keep hearing being filtered out by the Republican party saying Democrats won’t “negotiate” are untrue.  Even though House Democrats don’t like the budget number put forward by the House GOP, they agreed to it if Speaker Boehner would reopen the government.  According to reports, Boehner needed an “all or nothing” answer.

President Obama and congressional Republican leaders did not resolve the government shutdown during a 70-minute meeting at the White House on Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said his chamber will negotiate with House Republicans on health care and other issues as soon as they vote to re-open the government.

Boehner “cannot take yes for an answer,” Reid told reporters after the White House meeting with Obama.

And there you have it folks.  “Negotiation” at it’s worse.

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Speaker Boehner has the votes to end the government shutdown

Via PoliticalWire.com:

“In the hours since the government shut down, House Republicans have slowly but steadily been coming forward to say they’re ready to pass a bill to fund the government with no strings attached,” Huffington Post reports.

“As of Wednesday afternoon, the number of those Republicans hit 18 — surpassing the magic 17 votes needed to pass a clean funding bill if all 200 Democrats stick together and team up with them.

“Of course, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) would have to be willing to put that bill on the floor in the first place. But if he did, the votes appear to be there for passage, at which point the bill would sail through the Senate and be signed by President Barack Obama, ending the shutdown.”

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Nancy Pelosi answers Eric Cantor’s tweet with a tweak

I love when “snide” gets backhanded with ease.

Earlier today, Rep. Eric Cantor tweeted a pic of himself and GOP House colleagues “ready” to negotiate (p.s. ain’t gonna happen…) and waiting on one side of a bargaining table.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, with snap and style answered back “Only took you 192 days and a #GOPshutdown. By the way, #WhereAreTheWomen?”

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New poll: Americans oppose GOP-led governent shutdown 72% -22%

GOP led government shut down brings in low approval numbers - 72% oppose strategy to shut down government over healthcare

The Republican strategy of shutting down the federal government in order to block health care reform’s implementation is not paying off for the GOP-led House: Americans oppose the plan by an overwhelming 72 to 22 percent.

According to a new poll by Quinnipiac poll, here is how Americans see the federal government shutdown:

• Republicans narrowly support the shutdown 49 to 44 percent
• Democrats oppose the shutdown 90 to 6 percent
• Independents oppose it 74 to 19 percent (that’s the number that really counts come next fall)

“Americans are certainly not in love with Obamacare, but they reject decisively the claim by congressional Republicans that it is so bad that it’s worth closing down the government to stop it,” Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a release.

If gets even worse for Republicans on “job approval.”

The poll finds President Obama’s approval rating at 45 percent, with 49 percent disapproving. Not the greatest number, BUT the Republicans find only 17 percent approve of the job they are doing.  74 percent disapprove.

The GOP Tea Party in free fall.

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Jon Stewart rips GOP on government shutdown

Jon Stewart tore apart Republicans over threatening to shut the government down over Obamacare, using it to claim the GOP doesn’t really care about the Constitution that much to begin with, mocking their concern that Obamacare is “the end of America as we know it for reasons no one is able to clearly explain!

Stewart walked through how Obamacare was already upheld as constitutional, and offered a simple analogy: when football teams lose, they don’t say “If you don’t give us 25 points on Monday, we will shut down the fucking NFL!” He decried this “utter insanity” and berated the media for thinking both sides are equally at blame here, likening Republicans to an “asshole causing a head-on collision” on the highway.”

Stewart ended by calling out the GOP for the talking point that Obama negotiates with Iran but not them.

“You’re not helping yourself if it turns out that President Barack Obama can made a deal with the most intransigent, hardline, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world, but not with Republicans, maybe he’s not the problem!”