Just four years after Republican ineptitude, malfeasance and blind dedication to its failed supply-side ideology led to the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression — and just 18 months after tea party obstruction led to the United States’ first-ever credit downgrade — the GOP is ready to do it again.
From the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night:
While researching a technical problem with my office’s current internet provider, I learned that error messages are actually complex codes, that each number in an error code (such as “404” when a web page doesn’t load) represents a different message. That inspired me to write this heartwarming and ultimately life-affirming poem based on server error codes.
Error 15342
The server has accepted the command, but does not yet take action.
A confirmation message is required.
The server has encountered an error.
The server has understood the request, but requires further information to complete it.
The server has encountered a temporary failure.
If the command is repeated without any change, it might be completed.
The server has completed the task successfully.
Jon Ponder’s commentary:
Beautiful! The server encounters an obstacle but believes in its heart of hearts it is only temporary. It perseveres and soon the task is completed successfully. Its mission completed, the server is happy. An ode for our times.
Happy Holidaze!
Speaker John Boehner’s epic fail last night — his inability to deliver enough Republican votes for his own “Plan B” for avoiding the fiscal cliff — proves that he has been negotiating in bad faith all along. He has never had the votes to pass any sort of deal, because, as the tea party has shown repeatedly, conservatives want the U.S. economy to fail. Why? Apparently, their objective is to replace our century-old regulatory capitalist system (which in other advanced nations is called “democratic socialism”) with an Ayn Randian, regulation- and tax-free utopia, where the sick and old die in the streets.
David Kurtz at TPM suggests that if the United States had a modern parliamentary system like the governments of all our allies and competitors, Boehner would be history:
It is easy to overreact to these things in the moment, to overread them. But Speaker Boehner just put it all on the line. The entire nation was watching, and he was exposed. He knows it. His conference knows it. Anyone left in Washington who had doubts about this speaker’s clout now knows it, too. In a parliamentary system, he would resign and his party would elect a new leader. We don’t do it that way here … usually. But it’s hard to see how Speaker Boehner continues from here — or why he would want to.
Republican operative Craig Shirley agrees that last night’s fiasco was the equivalent of a vote of “no confidence” for Boehner:
If there’s leadership in the Republican Party, it’s difficult to see.
As the fiscal cliff approaches, they just can’t seem to agree.
As for John Boehner,
He smells like a goner —
After he couldn’t get enough votes in his House to pass his bogus “Plan B.”
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
