Senate minority leader Mitch "Yertle" McConnell (R-The Swamp) just said the following on the Senate floor;
After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is probably unattainable.
So that establishes that McConnell is ready to give up on negotiations regarding a budget deal, and signaling this retreat with a repetition of his monotonous threat that harkens back to his stated goal of this congress; to make Obama a one-term president. He then goes on to bash the president with all the usual projection and upside down pronouncements about the will of the people.
So is this just Eric Cantor 2.0? Take the Ball And Go Home, Again?
I don't think so.
Jump the squiggle if you want the money (er, 13 trillion dollar) quote;
Yertle continues;
The president has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default. Republicans choose none of the above. I had hoped to do good, but I refuse to do harm. So Republicans will choose a path that actually reflects the will of the people, which is to do the responsible thing and ensure that the government doesn't default on its obligations,
That certainly sounds like he's admitting that the responsible thing is to increase the debt ceiling with no deal.
In other words, no strings attached.
In other other words, this is a full-on failure for the Republicans.
They created this phony crisis by suddenly demanding a radical transformation of the social welfare system in America be a prerequisite for what has always been a formality, and they are now signaling that they will not get a single thing out of this whole manufactured drama.
Which once again proves the Republicans are not interested in governing, just power.
Here's the link, which I happened across because a friend put Google news as my homepage when he updated my browser recently;
CBS News story (video).
There's plenty of steak sauce in the video that I won't bother to repeat; mostly bullshit accusations that Obama is stubborn about increasing the bloated bureaucracy of the federal government, blah, blah, blah. But the meat of it is in these two statements.
Could this be a headfake? Sure, but what would be the purpose served, except to test the vitriol of the reaction from the base? And what would the point of that be? Their reactions are always over the top, so there's not much of a basis for comparison, in my view.
What do you think?