By ann summers
Ted Cruz as creepy Uncle ‘Bagger – the victory of Tea Party forces seeking to unseat House Speaker John Boehner got what they wished for and the guy behind the curtain has now forced all the Klinghoffers to flee the Carnival Cruz of Fools. In the GOP House’s case the ‘baggers got what they wanted, but now they cannot stomach the Pyrrhic victory of getting Boehner to sacrifice himself for the good of a party that lives for false consciousness. Cruz’s shop stewardship of House members may be as close as he ever gets to an executive relationship with legislative branch authority in 2016.
Another school argues that the incest prohibition is a cultural construct which arises as a side effect of a general human preference for group exogamy, which arises because intermarriage between groups construct valuable alliances that improve the ability for both groups to thrive.
The House ‘baggers more accurately may resemble Strasserism rather than “right-wing Marxists” (sic)
And House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who is part of Boehner’s close-knit circle, attempted to turn the tables on members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, denouncing them as “right-wing Marxists” who have empowered House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) by undermining Boehner.
“The right-wing Marxists have teamed up with Pelosi. They’re the ones who always team up with Pelosi. They are the Pelosi Republicans,” an infuriated Nunes said in an interview. “The Freedom Caucus is an arm of Pelosi.”
That Congress represents some morality rearmament play seems more consistently incestuous than any conference or cloakroom as GOP sibling revelry now seeks the dysfunctional in the oncoming election season.
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/martin-bashir/53149546
(2013) Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., joins Martin Bashir to discuss his new piece online for The New Yorker which satirizes the GOP’s position on the debt ceiling fight – and then explains how Ted Cruz, and not John Boehner, has become the de facto Speaker of the House.
(2014) But there’s one big exception: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who doesn’t seem to get along with other senators, but who spends an inordinate amount of time huddling with House Republicans.
Last September, for example, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) presented a plan to avoid a government shutdown. Cruz met directly with House Republicans, urged them to ignore their own leader’s plan, and GOP House members followed his advice. A month later, Cruz held another meeting with House Republicans, this time in a private room at a Capitol Hill restaurant.
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Looks as if the civil war has started. Except civil wars are anything but civil.
Agree or disagree with Boehner, he is a smart man who knows when to bail out of a burning plane before he gets any more singed than he already is.
Just to be clear, I loathe Boehner. Normally I would say good riddance. However, when the choice is him or an outright lunatic like Cruz, I’d keep John of Orange any day. My hope is that Cruz now has enough rope to hang himself. His higher profile should/could expose the serious madness behind his
methodmadness.Gene,
Interesting that Cruz is meddling in House affairs. He is not a member of the House…..but oh yeah…most of the other Senators cannot stand him. There are more crazies in the House than the Senate, just by dint of it being a larger body. He goes where there is a better chance of finding somebody who will talk to him.
Make that listen to him.
The only question now is who will Speaker Boehner’s new employer be, the pharmaceutical industry? Arms manufactures? the Chinese government? spray on bronzing and crocodile tear conglomerates?
I’m betting on the liquor industry, he’s not just a member, he’s a client.
Chuck,
The Senate doesn’t have as many outright loons as the House, true, but sometimes it isn’t quantity that matters so much as quality.
There are many republican Marxists, they are called neocons.
As far as I know Cruz is for limited government, property rights, individual rights and capitalism.
Fidel thinks he is Crazy too. Who wouldn’t want to farm with oxen and who needs a car newer than a 1959 model year?
Crazy is thinking that people do well when they act in others self interest.
That’s snark, right?
No snark. Boehner is gone, not because his compatriots differ, but because herding cats is a thankless task. When Republicans actually act on something I’ll be impressed, until then…color me bored. Whether it’s Boehner or someone else, show me the results! Let’s see who is next elected Speaker?
Nope, that’s the truth.
When we each do what is best for us, society benefits. It is funny how that works out, it also leads to happier people.
Do a job you love, marry a person you love and live your life based on your own set of values (assuming of course you don’t harm others) and if those values/ethics/morality are good, well you will lead a good life. Castro and people like him prevent the majority of people from living their life as they see fit. And so I think people who think that it is ok to trample individual rights and property rights are indeed crazy batshit to be exact.
So let’s get this straight. Everyone does what’s best for them, and as Robert Burns wrote, “De’il tak the hindmost…”
I suppose by that logic, we are all better off when Martin Shkreli and his company bought the exclusive rights to a 65 year old drug that is selling for $13.50 each, then jacked the price up to $750.00. That’s just great. That is, unless you need Daraprim in order to stay alive. Shkreli is doing well for himself, thank you. As for the rest, they are better off too, because Martin is doing well. Um….never mind, they died. Maybe they are in a “better place.”
Yeah. That’s the ticket. Better place.
ADDNOTE: Incidentally that pill costs less than a dollar to make. Markup of 75,000% is OK? After all, that is what the free market does, and besides, Martin Shkreli is happy, so we are all happy. Right?
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/28/when-big-business-and-healthcare-collide-behind-the-daraprim-controversy/
“The other reason pharma companies charge whatever they want is that they can. Medicare and other payers don’t negotiate prices down, instead they pay whatever the company charges, even if the prices seem unreasonable. Other medical costs such as office visits and surgeries are all paid based on the Medicare fee schedule with some, but not much negotiation of prices. But not pharmaceuticals.
Medicare Part D was voted into law in 2003. A 1000 page bill, voted on with few members of Congress reading it, has a dirty little secret. As a aside, Obamacare wasn’t the first 1000 plus page bill voted on but unread. Seems to be a pattern in Congress. “Medicare is forbidden in the law that created Medicare Part D to negotiate lower prices.” Thank you big pharma lobbyists, who are thought to have written the bill.
Medicaid and Veterans Affairs can negotiate lower prices, but not Medicare, the primary insurance for the over age 65 group of Americans. That’s why drugs to treat macular degeneration cost $2000 per month, consuming one-sixth of the Medicare Part B budget. For the patient with macular degeneration in both eyes, drug cost could reach $24,000 per year. Medicare happily pays the price set by big pharma. And in turn, big pharma then pays former Congressmen turned lobbyists, like former Rep. Billy Tauzin, a 7 figure salary to keep Medicare paying whatever the pharmaceutical companies charge.
While these drugs are expensive, they are dwarfed by a hepatitis C drug costing $1000 per day, or liver cirrhosis treatment costing $189,000. Then there is a cystic fibrosis drug priced at $259,000 per year. How many people actually need treatment with these drugs? How much did they cost to develop? Is the pharmaceutical company allowed to make a profit for its founders and shareholders who put their money at risk to start the company? How much is enough and how much is too much?”
I would add that the additional cost of the drugs might generate interest in new research for a better drug.
People see what they want to see, it’s the unseen that really matters in many cases.
Basically government allows this increase by its drug policies.
Among the reasons Boehner resigned, I suspect, is the folly of “conservatives” insisting on removing Planned Parenthood from the FY 2016 budget…a first real budget in 7 years….the result, given the time left, will be another fat CR…the worst fiscal mechanism there is a federal finance. I’m not guessing, I had to deal with it now and then as a DOD/DA “Fed” and saw the manipulation CR’s allow. You want a say, real legislative input on your behalf, limitations on foolish spending, pass a real budget. Period.
Good Lord, leave it in there for this budget, this next FY, but 3 days away, and deal with it next year during FY 2016,…as I said, a mere 3 days away in the federal calender. I want PP debated and federal funds removed, absolutely…but I’d suggest winning a small victory before trying for a major battle….e.g., make Obama sign a real budget for once in his career. This did not just come up just yesterday, nor will it be resolved by tomorrow. It can be in FY 2016 if the “conservatives” will use strategy not pig headedness. I doubt they will without coercion. More is the pity since they seem to want to fail on principle rather than win with strategy.
I am a fiscal conservative and find this issue repugnant due its lack of coherence….even if I am a right leaning social conservative as well. You do NOT win a battle by a headlong uninformed charge in to the opposition…just ask Lt Col (General) Custer…a man whom my great grand father served under when he was a brevet General in the Civil War…the source of his red scarf was from the 15th NY Volunteer Cavalry….it was their symbol that he apparently adopted as his own. The object is to win the war, not merely a battle. It is time we all figured that out.
Chuck Stanley I’d wish Shkreli as serious butt kicking, or worse. He is a scab on society and the pharmacy industry. A vulgar opportunist that has no regard for humanity, just his bank account…my fervent wish is that down the road he goes bankrupt and has to live in a homeless shelter….where most others would pound the snot out of him daily. He’s a pox on humanity simple as that. A venal man who distorts the whole purpose of a free economy…he just doesn’t care.
Earlier today, humorist and homespun philosopher, jbou, wrote this on the Daily Kos blog:
I don’t think there is anything I can add to that.
Well another fine mess the patriot act has caused, now we have E-Verify. Are’nt sure of the bona fides of an employee submit their name to E-Verify. Have a beef against the local 711 owner? And want to make life miserable for him, submit his name the E-Verify and see if he’s a legal worker. If not submit his name to homeland security and let them send him back to India or Pakistan.
So innocent sounding, so innocuous, what was that organization in Nazi Germany called, it starts with a G or something?
And you guys think that government is such a wonderful benevolent and beneficent entity. What kind of shit are you smoking? I want some of that, I am tired of reality I want to join you.
Chuck Stanley … sure there is something to add…didn’t Nixon actually do that for the “palace guard?”
Cruz doesn’t bother me nearly as much as Republicans who now have majorities in both houses…and still can’t do anything? Cruz won’t be the nominee, even on issues he’s correct on (depending on one’s viewpoint), but the real question is who will be that nominee? Will that man or woman actually effect any change? If not, why are we excited about all this? Trump has grandiose ideas and touts them loudly…but he has yet to run up against Congress…it’s not like negotiating with financiers over a building. Hillary is no different…a slug that can’t get out of her own way. Yee Gawd, if we are left with nothing but Trump and Hillary…Heaven help us. I’ll hold my nose tightly and vote, and not for Hillary. It will feel like I wasted 20 minutes I could have spent watching grass grow.
I can have a sneaky suspicion that Hillary is not going to be the nominee.
bron98 … me too, but who would take her place? Another geriatric establishment person? For the life of me I cannot figure out how the Democrats have no younger candidates who haven’t been in DC for the best part of their lives. Of course they have them, but why aren’t they able to step up? Because they tried Obama and it scares them now? I’m an old dude, but I’m ready for someone new and fresh, with some ideas and accomplishments, not the same old same old.
ARI D.O. G.:
I’m certainly not ready for Bush or Clinton. I don’t really care much for Trump but I would vote for him with the understanding that the Democrat would be worse, most likely anyway.
Democrats are not what they used to be, think Truman and Kennedy. Roosevelt was terrible by any rational metric. He was nothing more than a spoiled child.
In fact one might even be able to say that Obama is his political reincarnation. Hopefully we don’t end up in a shooting war with the Russians and Iranians and Syrians in the Middle East. Good Christ what a fucking mess that would be.
From my vantage point it certainly looks like that is the direction we are headed. If I was a Jew in Israel, I would be packing my bags for an extended stay with relatives in the USA.