Congress Doing Well, $ for Nothing

Six-figure salary, first-rate health insurance, pension, per diem expenses etcetera, etcetera all for doing nothing all day.

Meet the Congressional Republicans living high on the tax payers. 

Worth noting, Wisconsin Republican Congressman Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin) infamously complained he didn't get paid enough, noting he drives a "used minivan," owns only two houses and his tax payer-financed health insurance, pension and other expenses make him in debt. Sounds rough, poor guy. (Somanader, ThinkProgress)

From Political Capital:

Everyone Looks, Wondering If GOP Suicide Caucus Will Only Kill Themselves

Update II: GAME ALMOST OVER: Boehner to Let The Senate Debt Ceiling Deal Come to the Floor

Update: Markets are banking on this debt deal: 7 charts

The world knows America is pretty foolish, but disbelief is the predominant sentiment as default is hours away.

Rational Americans hold to about the same sense of disbelief and horror.

Matt Taibbi in 2011 described John Boehner as "the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich."

That's Boehner. 

And his betters may be telling him to knock it off, economic catastrophe is a very bad thing.

Tea Baggers can go back to their white homeland and pray, no matter how many rightwing nuts tell them suicide is glorious.

That's what we hope.

House Speaker's Commitment to the Party of Stupid

Updated - As the civil rights fight for marriage equity continues in the wake of Sen. Rob Portman's (R-Ohio) decision to support the right of individuals to marry, Americans were treated to a perfect example of the Republican Party's incoherency on legal discrimination.

Asked about Portman's change of heart, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), explained on ABC's This Week, "I believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman."

Asked if his position might change, Boehner explained and elaborated (not really):

 "Listen, I believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. … It’s what I grew up with. It’s what I believe. It’s what my church teaches me. And I can’t imagine that position would ever change."

Boehner's repeated assertions that he feels this way because he believes this way is not an argument any more than is: 'I feel blacks and whites should not marry; it's what I believe. I don't like them blacks.'

ABC's Martha Raddatz did not reply, 'Mr. Speaker, you are proposing denying this right to marriage to gays and lesbians, but you won't explain yourself. What is your reasoning? Repeating how you feel or what you believe is no argument, is it?'

But Raddatz like every other network pundit interviewing Republicans on this issue refuses to point out in a simple follow-up that the GOP's I-feel nonsense is not reasoning in an adult democracy. It's infantile.

Why? What is Raddatz thinking?

Here is the perfect opportunity to expose Republican Party idiocy on a major civil rights issue presently before the courts set to rule on two possibly landmark cases—United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry (formerly known as Perry v. Brown and Perry v. Schwarzenegger).

A House Speaker should have to at least explain himself, right?

Raddatz is as indictable as Boehner. And Sen. Portman is not much better.

"By Portman’s own account, in other words, he opposed gay marriage until he realized that opposition to gay marriage stands in the way of his own son’s happiness," writes Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine (March 15, 2013). "Wanting your children to be happy is the most natural human impulse. But our responsibility as political beings — and the special responsibility of those who hold political power — is to consider issues from a societal perspective."
As Chait wrote in a needed sane commentary a short three years ago in making what is an obvious point on the I-feel, I-believe mantra:

Gay-marriage opponents have made that [I-feel] formulation their mantra. It’s a really strange way for them to summarize their argument, because it’s not an argument at all. ...

In a liberal society, consenting adults are presumed to be able to do as they like, and it is incumbent upon opponents of any such freedom to demonstrate some wider harm. (Chait. The New Republic, June 19, 2009)

John Boehner's Bad Faith

Republicans will do anything to protect their political orthodoxy.

And that includes extending the depth and length of a dangerous recession.

Paul Krugman has a typically clear-eyed column on the issue this morning that is a true public service.

As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending.... So as a public service, let me try to debunk some of the major antistimulus arguments that have already surfaced. Any time you hear someone reciting one of these arguments, write him or her off as a dishonest flack.

House GOP Kills Bush Bailout Bill

The House narrowly defeated the Bailout bill 228-205; as stocks plunge and everyone is wondering how ineffectual is George W. Bush that he cannot bring along his own caucus to back his own historically high-stakes legislation.

Incredibly, the GOP leadership is taking the line that their caucus suffered from hurt feelings by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech before the speech that "poisoned" some 12 Republicans prepared to vote for the bill but changed their minds after Pelosi spoke, though Paulson and Bush continued to urge support up until the end.

Said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio): Speak Nancy Pelosi’s speech “poisoned” the Republican caucus and “caused a number of members we thought we could get to go south. ... I do believe that we could have gotten there today, had it not been for the partisan speech that the Speaker gave on the floor of the House.”

A Pelosi spokesman said, "You don't vote on a speech, you vote on a bill."

Maybe John McCain will suspend his campaign again and air-drop into the Capital to save the day.

Some 133 Republicans voted against the Bush-sponsored legislation.

From Andrew Sullivan: "Here's the Roll Call: Democrats backed the bailout by 140 - 95 votes, or roughly 60% - 40% (for). Republicans opposed it by 133 to 65, or 67% - 33% (against)."

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass: