Happy birthday to Lola and Jesus. Glad to hear you’re feeling better (Lola, that is. Though I don’t think Jesus is feeling any pain these days either). If you’re into the whole Christmas thing, then Merry Christmas to you. If you’re in the middle of Chanukah, then Chappy Chanukah. If you’re into something else, then happy, joyous, whatever. And if you’ve just been waiting for the start of the NBA season, lucky you, it’s finally here. Whatever you’re up to today, enjoy it and try to remember those who are the most important. You know, millionaire job creators who shouldn’t have to pay taxes.
Remember the Alamo
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: December 23, 2011
Just in time for the holidays, Congress showed us it can work in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation to pass a two-month extension of a popular tax cut. On its own! With perhaps a small amount of prodding.
The payroll tax cut bill zipped through Congress on Friday, approved by a Senate with only two members present and then passed by a near-empty House in a five-minute session. Then everybody went away. Why can’t they do this all the time?
The House Republicans, who had tried to hold up the bill out of principle, only to be pummeled by everyone from John McCain to The Wall Street Journal editorial page, hunkered down for a seriously sulky Christmas.
“In the end, House Republicans felt like they were re-enacting the Alamo, with no reinforcements and our friends shooting at us,†said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, one of the leaders of the anti-two-month-tax-cut rebellion.
Texans have strong feelings about the Alamo, which is perhaps why whenever we get a Texan president we also get a war. But this did seem to be a strange comment. Was Brady saying that the Mexican soldiers who were shooting at the Alamo were actually friends who just wanted to get home in time for a previously scheduled fund-raising party?
Or maybe Brady was expressing the hope that, like the defenders of the Alamo, the House Republicans would be remembered as valiant warriors by a nation prepared to forget that, at the time of the battle, there were quite a lot of smart people who thought that having this fight was a really terrible idea.
But I digress.
Our question today is: What lesson can we draw from all these Congressional high jinks? That creating policy in two-month increments is a good plan? The boat has already sailed on that one. Practically everything Congress does these days is in two-month increments. They can’t even get it together to do a normal budget for the Federal Aviation Administration.
No, I think the moral here is pretty clear. We have talked for nearly three years about how the Tea Party is terrorizing the Republican establishment, until the old country-club, deal-making model was verging on extinction. But it now appears that if the new populist right does something that actually endangers the well-being of the old, entitled right, the establishment will rise up and slap those little whippersnappers down faster than you can say Mitch McConnell.
That goes for the presidential nomination, too. The minute it began to look as if Newt Gingrich might actually win, Mitt Romney was flooded with money and endorsements. One Friends of Romney Super PAC has purchased about $2.8 million in Iowa TV ads. Everywhere you look in Iowa, there’s an evil, demented Newt on the screen. You would think he’d been cast as the new head zombie in “The Walking Dead.â€
Gingrich, in response, could only whine. His campaign’s highlight of the week may have been the announcement that it was creating a “Pets With Newt†Web site to highlight the candidate’s love of animals.
“Pets With Newt†may be an attempt to remind Iowans that Mitt Romney once drove to Canada with the family Irish setter strapped to the roof of the car. This is clearly a weak point in the Mitt armor, which came up this week in a Wall Street Journal interview with the candidate. “Uh — love my dog. That’s all I got for you,†Romney responded.
In the same interview, Romney continued his long-running attack on Barack Obama as an enemy of the successful, predicting that the president would wage “a campaign of envy and class warfare.†To do his part in tamping down the envy problem, Romney is resisting requests that he show us his tax returns. (“Never say never, but I don’t intend to do so.â€)
This is the song of the Republican establishment, which hateshateshates class warfare. Like when the nonrich start asking why people who make millions of dollars in annual income can’t accept a modest levy to pay for that payroll tax cut.
They won’t, and the White House and Senate Democrats long ago conceded that point in the negotiations with nonradical Republicans, who wrung their hands and said there was simply nothing they could do because any tax on the wealthy would cause the crazy Republican base to go … crazy.
They’re helpless! However, when the crazy base threatens to create a stalemate that makes the entire Republican Party look bad, or when the crazy base seems inclined to nominate an unelectable presidential candidate, thwap! It turns out that there’s life in the old dog yet.
Just keep him off the car roof.
Merriness and chappiness to y’all. :santacool: :menorah:
Thanks for what’s left of us for still being here for me, especially the Inn Keeper and the emos. Have a safe and happy day even if you don’t give a :crap: .
I just try to have some fun and appreciate friends now. It’s a lot easier.
(and try not to annoy them toooo much while they are trying to be nice).
:santacool: :turkey: :priest: :pope: :rabbi: :santacool: :sammy: :sdavid: :sheep: :menorah: :kub: :jesus: :fire: :cres: :cold: :cat: :cake: :blues: :alc: :40:
It’s been a long and kinda ok, somewhat unsatisfying holiday weekend but I want to say merry :santacool: to everyone who has stuck around and much gratitude for helping me to keep sane for many years.
:bow: pj for keeping the :rofl2: going and expressing the :fustrate: of life