About 72 hours from the sequestration order, we’re approaching the “well, now what?” chapter in this particular fight where the big Obama cave conservatives are hoping for doesn’t happen. After that, it’s my suspicion that reality will begin to set in and pressure will build on Republicans to compromise.
I’ll get to my theory of a GOP cave in a minute, but I want to emphasize, contra Matt Yglesias, that its mechanics don’t really depend on the superiority of the Democrats’ message per se. Read More
We can argue over who is responsible for the sequester — though between two co-equal branches of government, who passed and signed the legislation, the point of that seems limited. But that doesn’t take away from the clarifying moment we’re witnessing, the scale of which we likely haven’t seen since the government shutdowns of the mid-90s. Republicans have run on big across-the-board spending cuts for literally decades. Read More
World Wrestling Entertainment is in a public feud with Glenn Beck. (Remember him?)
TPM Reader JO remembers Archibald Cox’s recollection of Robert Bork’s role in the Saturday Night Massacre, one of fabled moments of the Watergate drama …
The Bork story reminds me of a story Archibald Cox told an undergraduate class on Constitutional Law that I was lucky enough to take about 30 years ago. In the unit on executive privilege, Cox told us about the Saturday Night Massacre from his unique perspective — not only as the Special Prosecutor Bork fired, but as the law school professor whose former students refused to fire him. Here’s how I recall the way he told the story (not verbatim, but it captures the essence of it):
It hasn’t gotten a lot of play. But when President Obama appears this afternoon at the Newport News shipbuilding yard he’ll be there with Republican Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA). Under ordinary circumstances, it’s not uncommon to appear with a President of the opposite party when he appears in your district. But it strikes me as a pretty big deal in the midst of such a charged partisan standoff.
British Cardinal who resigned over ‘inappropriate acts’ with priests was harsh foe of gay rights, marriage equality.
As you know, there’s nothing more important than your right to carry a firearm.
But what if you were charged with a crime and pled guilty by reason of insanity? Now you can’t legally own a gun a firearm. But what if after your period of criminal insanity, you stop being insane and you need to go around armed again? Is there no recourse for people in this situation? Read More
I’ll believe it when I see it. Lindsey Graham was on CNN a bit earlier talking to Wolf Blitzer and says that he’s willing to raise $600 billion in new taxes as part of a so-called ‘grand bargain’.
Here’s a rush transcript …
Graham: We’re the party of fiscal conservatism. Have we put together a plan to cut $20 billion between March and October? No, the house passed a plan, the senate republicans have yet to offer a plan. But the house would have to pass it again. But the House used savings outside of the 2013 window. If you think this is that easy, I challenge any member of Congress to come up with a proposal to cut $85 billion out of the federal budget between March 1st and October 1st.
In a postumous memoir Robert Bork says President Nixon promised him an appointment to the Supreme Court after complying with Nixon’s demand to fire Archibald Cox.