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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) didn't seem especially thrilled with the bipartisan fiscal agreement negotiated by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but like nearly all of his colleagues, the South Carolina Republican grudgingly voted for it.
But once the fight was over, Graham quickly shifted his attention to the next looming crisis his party is eager to create, on everything from the debt ceiling to sequestration to funding the government itself.
[I]n early March would come another deadline: the $110 billion cut in spending, half from the Pentagon, delayed as part of this deal.
A month or so later -- on March 27 -- a short-term measure that funds government agencies will lapse. Without a renewal, the government will shut down, setting up another possible showdown.
"Round two's coming," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). "And we're going to have one hell of a contest about the direction and the vision of this country."
I feel like I hear this from GOP lawmakers fairly regularly: they keep creating crises, on purpose, because they're eager for an epic fight over "the direction and the vision of this country." At a certain level, that's understandable -- in a democracy, these fights over the future can be healthy and necessary.
But what Graham and too many of his allies seem to forget is that we already had "one hell of a contest about the direction and the vision of this country."
It was a little something called "the 2012 election cycle," and though Graham may not have liked the results, his side lost.
Memories can be short in DC, but for at least a year, voters were told the 2012 election would be the most spectacularly important, history-changing, life-setting election any of us have ever seen. It was quite common for Republicans to argue publicly that the 2012 cycle would be the most critical for the United States since 1860 -- the election before the Civil War.
Election Day 2012, in other words, was for all the marbles. It was the big one. The whole enchilada was on the line. The results would set the direction of the country for a generation, so it was time to pull out all the stops and fight like there's no tomorrow -- because for the losers, there probably wouldn't be one.
And then President Obama won fairly easily, Senate Democrats defied expectations and expanded their majority, and House Democrats gained seats.
Two months later, we're told what the nation really needs is "one hell of a contest about the direction and the vision of this country."
Not to put too fine a point on this, Lindsey Graham seems to be missing the point of the democratic process. In this country, we have elections in which candidates present their ideas about the direction and the vision of this country, and the American people express a preference. Then, once that's over, there's an expectation that the fight over the direction and the vision of this country would end and governing would begin.
Graham, I'm afraid, is confused.
But wait, Republicans say, didn't the electorate also elect a right-wing House majority? To a certain extent, yes, but in raw vote totals, Americans cast 1.362 million more votes for Democratic House candidates than GOP House candidates, which hardly points to a powerful Republican mandate.
We had an epic fight, and one side won. To pretend the election didn't happen, and then say it's time for another epic fight that disregards the will of American voters, is bad for the country -- and for democracy.
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How is it we're still pretending that this bunch of Authoritarians has any interest in Democracy?
The 2012 elections produced exactly what was voted. It is the same as his first term and totally expected with the re-election of this President.
Gridlock
The American people didn't vote for gridlock - they voted for Democrats, by a margin of over a million voters. Analysis after analysis has shown that gerrymandering is basically the only reason that Republicans still control the House - if the districts were drawn so that Democratic votes actually counted the same as Republican votes, we would see both houses and the Executive branch all controlled by the same party. The only remaining source of "gridlock" would have been the Republican Senate filibuster - and God knows the American people didn't vote for that.
The fact is that the majority of the American people support Obama's agenda and support giving him a legislative body that can carry it out. The only things keeping that from happening are Republican redistricting and Republican obstructionism. There's no merit whatsoever to the claim that our current policy gridlock is Obama's fault.
Today's Dixiecrat Republicans only care about the Confederacy. Couldn't bring down the Union and it's strong federal Republic the first time around with cannons, so they are working from the inside to destroy it this time. Actually, that's pretty clever.
Unfortunately, it's counterproductive because the Old South depends so much on federal funds to exist. Leave it to these anarchists to shoot themselves in the foot any way they can. Threatening to cut middle class safety nets is about as stupid as one can get.
Sexuality has been conjectured from these pristine quarters , you dismiss so brutally , as having a consciousness of sorts . Leastways if you choose to honor yourself in disregard of external stimulus you are demonstrating an admirable restraint , as long as it honors the ever shifting goal line of authorities seductive creeping amour .
Ergo you choose your sexuality , so choose correctly .
Or we the people will defend Marriage , to death !
I'm trying to figure out if you need sarcasm tags.
Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is a sign of insanity.
Senator Linda Graham comes from South Carolina, the state that has been a pain in America's ass since 1715 when the Barbadian Pirates took over the place. "South Carolina, too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum" as was said of the place in 1860 following the secession vote.
The Republicans who survived the 2012 elections were in safe, gerrymandered, districts - kinda shaped like that tapeworm lying in wait in the intestines to erupt into a full fledged sickness brought on by bad diets, exposure to trickle down economics and the desire of white men like Graham to make the calls for the rest of us! -Kevo
Kevo tell the truth , do you think this is how cheese was invented ?
And give up an age old culinary secret?
Not a chance! -Kevo
He he he !
OK, let's allow Ms Lindsey and friends take us into default. They can have a hell of a fight all by themselves. The fight will result in the Republicans being blamed for the destruction of the Full, Faith and Credit of the United States. That will distroy the Republican brand for generations.
Yep, we need spending cuts. How about cutting spending to our bloated military. Do we really need a blue water Navy that is bigger than the rest of the Navies in the world combined? Really? Why?
But, Ron- what about the "Bayonet Gap"?
And horses! We need more horses!
(Maybe Ms Lindsey is having crisis of conscience, now that gay marriage is coming to a town near him. . .)
Oh Noes ! The Shoot from the lip party being eviscerated again in a deeply respectful analysis of their hypocrisy .
Guenevere
(tutted)
Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear.
(sung)
Then you may guide me to the show If you can carry out your program In fact , I'd grieve inside should you not guide me to the show
You know, I kind of like the President's approach on the debt ceiling. A negotiation takes two sides. If the President says he isn't negotiating, the Republicans will look like fools as they huff and puff without a dance partner. In the end their Wall Street pay masters will tell them to increase the debt ceiling, and so they will.
The supplemental and sequestration are where Democrats will need to engage. Frankly, there is a lot that needs to be done to reduce the size of our military and to deal with entitlements. How about a 1/2% increase in the medicare tax or upping the social security earnings cap to $250,000 or so? There are probably other ideas that need to be explored as well.
All good ideas to which the Tea Party will not agree. They want to slash and burn the security of old people and the chance for the young to have a middle class standard of living.
According to the Bible of Karl Rove, the rich must be protected at all costs from paying their debts and contributing to peace and prosperity on our shores. Democrats are being entirely too unrealistic in expecting Republicans to act like responsible, patriotic Americans when they converted to a multinational, corporate citizenship in the 1980s.
Upping SS earnings cap is about all I could support .
Hold on a sec, sandyh. Aren't the Republicans the ones who claim to live by the rules set forth in the Bible? Unlike those godless liberal Democrats, I might add? So how is it that "the meek shall inherit the earth" and "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" squares with their adoration of the wealthiest among us? Do I detect a whiff of hypocrisy?
Ron: When I said exactly what you said about the coming debt ceiling increase in the context of the fiscal cliff deal, I got flamed and insulted by angry people upset that there was a deal. The lesson to be learned is that both sides have a signficant amount of people who simply don't understand how things work in Washington DC. I expect Obama to deal with the Sequestor only after a clean debt ceiling bill reaches his desk. Thats the way forward.
It doesn't seem to matter what the republicans do they are still standing and wagging the dog. I don't think party is as important as who the corporate sponsors are, of course sponsors tend to be for a particular party, although some buy both parties. We need to dress our congress people in NASCAR type suits with corporate logos. That way we know who they work for.
That would be the kind of pie in the sky I could savor .
Want to cut $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next 20 years? Kill the F-35, the airplane that doesn't work and has no purpose if it did (other than as congressional welfare).
Most Republicans who won elections also promised not to touch Medicare and SS benefits, and to compromise. You can't call their current message a mandate when they promised something different.
It is considered unseemly and uncultured to say what the honorable elected officials uussta say . Hmmph ...
Why it is almost like using the L word about dignified folks who claiming their undead love for wimmins , add their misgivings , and deep understanding of legitimate rape .
This attitude is the main reason people hate DC. These republicans really believe that instead of one nation of 350 million people, we should be 350 million (heavily armed) nations of one. And until they accomplish this, we will stay mired in petty, small thinking and political brinkmanship that will not advance anyone's life, liberty, or happiness.
That is 350 million ducks .
Yes, Steve, yes...but what the GOP is really good at is the 'manufactured crisis'. They promise all sorts of things if they are re-elected, they promise gloom and doom if the OTHER guy is elected and THEN...POOF! What REALLY matters is ....something that isn't THERE. A few of the media 'question' this and then when the GOP doubles down they follow the 'meme' breathlessly....
He he he , yes yes y e s ...
Hi Ho Silver !
The complaint is about the dauntless "Citizen Warriors" who believe they are typing (ranting rantahgating) in an existential tug of war . The imagination fires itself up to see the yielding team being drawn into the fiery pits of histories ash heap . This all decomposes as a sad fantasy in glorious technicolor , but somewhat slow motion ee . Unfortunately the camera's were unable to stop the framing of the dreaded "Libruulzes" screaming in agonies as their philosophies were upended in a death mud match , with heet .
Just because your side won doesn't change the fantasy ...
Aren't there any consequences for dereliction of duty or sedition in Congress? One would have thought...
You mean beyond re-election and promotion?
Graham was foaming at the mouth again today for the media cameras talking about how he can't wait to cut middle class safety nets. I don't understand this strategy as the huge aging Baby Boomer voting block will be dominating election results for the next few decades. But it will certainly work well for Democrats in 2014.
I guess Lindsey is worried about a Tea Party challenge in the primaries. Or maybe he's just decided that its His Place to punish any who are not rich in this country?
I thought people told us we were "a republic" and not "a democracy"
Republicans seem completely oblivious to the very real prospect they're about to get their feelings hurt over their Christmas Day-like anticipation of the debt ceiling 'fight.' I look for them to be running around in the near future howling at the moon because they've been deprived by the Prez of what they seem to regard as their God-given right to "hurt some people" -- in this case, the whole nation.
Maybe Lindsey Graham should hold his Bushmaster AR-15 Tactical Rifle lovingly in his arms when he spouts off like this?
People like him talk way, way, way too much. So much that they become more ridiculous than otherwise.
Brahms was often heard to say how he wished he had written "The Beautiful blue Danube" his friend Johann Strauss II wrote .
I too now believe Lindsey Graham should stroke something lovingly appropriate in public so his message doesn't become confused with either facts or its distant cousin wishes .
Graham looks in the mirror and sees -- "Johnny Reb"!
Along with the rest of the traitors. If the 11 states of the old Confederacy were gone, the overwhelming majority of the 151 idiots in the House wouldn't be there. The South is The Problem.
The really nice thing is that this misunderstanding of what a majority of the voting public wants to do, is very bad for Republicans. Yeah! Couldn't have happened at a better time. Can't wait to finish off these malcontents in 2014!
Graham and the republicans are after SS and Medicare. That is what they call big spending, never mind that we are still spending billions on subsidies to big oil that already make record profits. Never mind that we waste so much money in the Defense Department. We buy weapons that don't work and don't need anyway. Never mind that we give billions for Israel to build illegal settlements. Never mind that we give contracts to corporations without bidding them. Congress passes many bills under a title and much of the bill will not be germane to it. that is one of the problems with the Sandy Relief Bill. About one third was for things not related to Sandy Relief. Congress needs to be reorganized and there should be a line item veto. A lot of wasteful spending could be stopped with a line item veto.
Not that the constitution is the last word in oligarchs and aristocracy , probably closer to the first word , for our purposes in this conversation . I do believe that the line item veto has been rightly considered an usurpation of one house by another .
The Republicans have been after the New Deal since they lost the election of 1932. Elephants never forget, as they say.
The Republican Senator (along with his fellow children of the House) should wake up to the fact that "the direction and vision of the country" was decided by the PEOPLE, who spoke loud and clear, via the election. The GOP, once again, shows that they can't handle the plain truth .... that an African-American is President of the United States !!!
While Washington is once again mired in gridlock despite the results of the election, let's not minimize the importance of the election - as horrible as having the House controlled by do nothing obstructionists that manufacture crises to suit their whims, imagine how horrible it would have been if the republicans had gained control of the White House and Senate? Their fiscal cliff deal would have been put off until the inauguration and would have included tax cuts for the wealthy and the medicare and social security cuts they salivate over. Not to mention possible upcoming Supreme Court nominations that would have been made by Romney - I shudder to think of the destruction to the middle class, our rights and yes, "entitlements." So, yes, this was "the most spectacularly important, history-changing, life-setting election any of us have ever seen" and "the most critical for the United States since 1860," although not exactly for the reasons the republicans thought it was.
When you say "imagine having them in the White House and Senate" you mean like in the State of Michigan, or Wisconsin, or Indiana or the other 24 or so Republican controlled State houses...that is the example of what is in store of us if we lose this fight at the state level...the feds can take care of themselves...we must be willing to fight back against the Kochs and Adelsons and the rest of the corrupting money people...
Sort of like claiming the Governors wife is a witch . Once you over shoot by an amount that disturbs the households at the well provisioned addresses in Washington or Boston you disenfranchise the whole witch burning hanging crushing project .
The effect being the bringing the intolerable to an opened public mind about what constitutes execution . This would stop the incessant chattering , for a while anyway , of pipe dreams of non court ordered authoritarian control over private peoples transactions , and secrecy concerning government assassinations , both literal and political .
Oh wait ...
Lindsey Graham is a political dinosaur. This country can no longer afford the type of elected official he represents, and voters would be wise to un-elect him at the first opportunity.
yes! YES! The voters would be wise to un-elect him at the VERY first opportunity! He is mean, nasty, negative, combative and a wildly unattractive personality! He should not hold any public office in this or any other country. I think his basic problem is with who he is and how he behaves!
Imagine the state of the nation if all businesses in the USA were run the same way that Republicans want to run the government: gridlock, only going from one manufactured crisis to another.
wow...
What do the Kardashians, Ms. Lohan and Lindsey Graham have in common? THEY ARE ALWAYS ON TV!
Good grief, does this beotch ever shut the hell up? Muzzle anyone? Not to mention his threats are always like some sort of bitchy drag queen spouting off during a contest.
My favorite point on today's edition of Lindsey Live was when he was trying to argue that the outgoing Congress was successful and productive. Uhm, hello?
Relevant? No. Need a really good dose of reality? Yes.
And they all silly people, more interested in themselves than anyone else!
"Graham, I'm afraid, is confused." Once again Sir Benen you have succinctly stated the bottom line.
Perhaps it is not confusion so much as it is a last gasp effort of the elderly white men who had come to think they finally had their hand on the brass ring after all. This is the pathetic effort of those who would enjoy a plutocracy and are obsessed with "palace intrigue" as Gov. Christie so eloquently put it (...did I say Gov. Christie and eloquent in the same sentence? Yes. I did...) rather than governing and finding a way to intelligently compromise.
You see, Senator Graham is also operating under the illusion that "statesmanship" has been written out of our employment contract with our elected officials. He like the rest of the right-wing extremists think that they are "entitled" to these Federal jobs vis a vis their considerable time in office, entitled to deciding for us what our "hell of a contest about the direction and the vision of this country." should really mean according to their definition. All of this causes a certain inability to deal with reality for Senator Graham and others: You lost the argument for the "direction and vision" of this country and, in fact, the people have taken the opposite direction and opinion than yours. Oops.
I sure hope President Obama keeps his corporate shirtsleeves rolled up and is very firm with his direct reports from the Senate and House. In the meantime, it is time that the HR Department (that would be all of us) should go about seeking new (and more qualified) candidates for these Senate and House positions don't you think?
Sure, Steve, we had an election. But the results weren't entirely to Republican's liking, and they clearly feel entitled to infinite do-overs will they get the results they want.
Maybe Huckleberry missed the election because there is no TV in his closet?