After their big election win two weeks ago, GOP leaders in Washington pressed one key point again and again: No shutdowns. Certainly no impeachment. And more generally an end to the government by showdown and crisis which has been their order of the day since coming to power in early 2011. And yet here we are, not two weeks into the new era of unified GOP control on Capitol Hill (albeit in the majority-elect phase) and we’re already down to our first shutdown showdown. Indeed, shutdown is emerging as the ‘mainstream’ response to the President’s impending immigration executive order, with impeachment the preferred response of your more forward-leaning GOP electeds and Fox News whips.
Today we’re busily asking when President Obama will drop the immigration executive action hammer and whether Republicans will reply with screeching, government shutdowning or just getting it over with and finally impeaching President Obama. Indeed, this piece in Slate argues that the whole thing isn’t as big a deal as it’s cracked up to be since whatever President Obama does it’s just as easy to undo when he leaves office in January 2017.
But this, I think, misses the point. That’s exactly why this is such a big deal. Because if you think this is an explosive issue now, just wait until 2016.
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Great look at why DC Republicans, especially clear players in the Senate have decided, have decided that the November elections mean the time has finally come for government shutdowns, or in other words, refusing to fund the government unless President Obama concedes to GOP demands.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and head of the Senate GOP campaign arm says: “The president, who said his policies were under referendum — they were. And they were rejected … When the Republicans have the majority — let me say it differently, when Congress is functioning again — then I think the opportunity to use the power of the purse strings is appropriate.”
Here’s the whole story.
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Lots of my friends can’t live without Uber. But more and more evidence that it’s a wildly sleazy operation at the highest levels.
John Gruber’s name has been mentioned 779 times on Fox News in the last week.
Journalist Sarah Lacy on the Uber executive’s remarks: “Honestly, every woman using Uber should be scared.”