GOP Rebuffs Dem Concession On Financial Reform

This is where I'm getting a bit nervous on the Dem's stance on the issue. I think Brownstein MAY (and I hedge MAY) be right in regards to the GOP already defining the debate.

The problem is that the media focuses only on "soundbytes". Hence, McConnell's "bailout" and Scott Brown getting to say he'd fillibuster the bill (without having to say what is wrong with it).

The only way to turn this on the republicans is link for the reason why we're prosecuting these folks to the policies of the last 8 years (ex: laissez faire free market failed us) and put an indictment on the entire GOP platform.

Sadly, I don't know if the dems are unified enough to maintain such a message.

jesus christ. just send a strong fucking bill to the floor. then make the fucking republicans filibuster it.

i mean, if you really want to give the republicans what they want, then give them what they want -- and what they want is to fuck the middle and lower classes right up the yang. you give them that by making them filibuster the (any) bill.

for god's sake, stop dicking around by tweaking this or that provision -- all that is, is the republicans manipulating democrats into being the ones who fuck the middle and lower classes over.

stop letting them turn the process around. REPUBLICANS DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT TWEAKS OR CHANGES OR LEGISLATION -- THAT'S JUST THEM PLAYING YOU AS CHUMPS. THEY WANT TO FUCK THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES UP THE YANG. SO MAKE THEM DO IT.

Why does TPM portray every move by Obama as weakness? Has it ever occurred that the president may have done this to portray the GOP as dishonest and inflexible.

Is it really that complicated: Make them filibuster all day and all night forever.

I love your choice of photos for McConnell. He looks befuddled.

The Repubs will not work constructively on anything. Dodd worked extensively with Shelby on the Finance Comm bill and then McConnell pretends like they have been excluded from the process. Obama even gives them the restucturing fund and they STILL say NO NO NO. FUCK THEM ALL!!! Bring it to the floor and force a filibuster by any means necessary. FORCE THEM TO STAND AGAINST COMMON SENSE FINANCIAL REFORM!!!!!

Obama AND a cadre of his spokes people need to take their case for reform to the nation. The GOP will oppose everything and want to stall by claiming the need to begin again. Let it be clear to the nation that the WH supports vigorous reform and the GOP supports the corrupt bankers. The DEMs need to dawn their white hats and let the GOP where the black ones at their peril.

The "back to the drawing board" phrase is the most elaborate phrase that McConnell has managed to find in his Luntz Thesaurus.

The "start over, and we'll be with you" is such thin ham that the public has had its credulity broken. In this case, the big lie (that there is a "slush fund" created, that it's "TARP") has begun to fail very, very early in the talking points cycle, and so the White House's "concession" was really quite unnecessary, except that the White House might not have been very interested in a rescue fund, and so the public is not outraged at the idea of taxing banks, not outraged at the fund, and now does not understand why "go back to the drawing board" is a good idea.

If the GOP tries with banking what it did with health care, it will fail hugely. The politics of confusion become politics of fear when people barely understand their own health insurance and live in mortal dread of anything happening to the slim protections they have. In that case, it was easy to have any doubt turn into fear, fear into panic, panic into support for the party of No Theater. The regular pleb, on the other hand, does not feel endangered or fearful at the idea of the local MBNA branch having to pay a tax.

(An article in Slate argued that we must not use "Kabuki theater" to refer to a politics of pure gesture and symbolic recitation without dialog. How about, instead, we propose that the Japanese had Noe Theater, and the Republicans have invented No Theater?)

As a little kid, did you have an older brother or family member who under guise of playing would hold one of your arms and with the other hit you repeatedly all while chanting

'Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."

Only this time....go for it Mitch.

NYT Editorial: Republicans are "shilling for the banks."
The money quote, from the Times:

The White House and Democratic leaders need to push back hard against Republican posturing, making it clear to Americans that robust reform is the only way to protect the system — and taxpayers — from a repeat catastrophe. When Republicans try to block reform, they are doing nothing more than shilling for the banks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18sun1.html?hp

Obama is a slow learner and the Republicans know it. They're playing him like a cheap fiddle and he's all too eager to cooperate.

All they have to do to get more free concessions from Obama is say no and by the time the process is over, his eagerness to please his enemies will have prevailed over his duty to serve the people and just as with healthcare we'll get a Republican financial reform bill which means it won't be worth the paper it's written on.

No matter what " fixes " or concessions the dems. make to the financial reform bill, it will not get the rethuglicans to come on board to vote for the bill to come to the senate floor for debate. So, Harry the ball is in your court . Go to the senate floor with the bill and make that meally mouth , wall street enabler Mitch McConnell show the public who he represents, the crooked wall street hedge fund managers, who screwed them out of their 401K pension funds, and homes, or the honest hard working middle class tax payer.

What? we are playing this idiotic game again? Fool me once Mr. President

When Texans choose the school books you guaranteed a nation of retards*

*retards used only as satire in this comment

This "story" is poorly written. It takes you four paragraphs to explain what the fuck you're talking about. Try again, TPM, try again.

I'd tell the GOP to go to hell. Challenge them to filibuster the entire package and shame them into action.

Imagine what would have happened if a Democrat was president during the 9/11 attacks. Those people would filibuster any action of a Democratic President to deal with the attacks.

Fuck 'em. Don't give one goddamned inch. Take back all concessions. Concessions are blood-in-the-water to a shark--just whets their apetite. Make them filibuster. Make them justify their defense of the robber barons. Call them out as LIARS!. Hang it around their necks like a rotten albatross.

It's a waste of time and taxpayer dollars to go back to the drawing board when Republicans only bring erasers.

I am just wondering what happened inside the Republican Party recenly.

Last year they pulled out all the stops to kill HCR. They were surprisingly unified in their votes and in their messages in both the House and the Senate. They almost stopped HCR the way the Republicans did during the Clinton era. One of the major messages they were unified on early this year was that the HCR was badly flawed and should be scrapped. Everyone should just abandon the effort and start over in an effort to "get it right the next time." They lost on HCR and have been acting confused and disorganized ever since.

Since the final passage of HCR, the Republicans have been all over the map in their messages, especially on Obama'S next legislative push, Financial Reform. Even McConnell and Boehner were at a loss for a coherent, organized message. There was no party line.

No party line, that is, until two weeks ago when McConnell, Boehner and others met with the Wall Street bankers who oppose Financial Reform. Immediately after they left that meeting the Republican message changed radically. All of a sudden the only message has been the one Boehner and McConnell are currently singing in chorus, and no one else is breaking ranks. It's like someone turned on the lights in the kitchen and suddenly all the cockroaches stopped randomly scampering around and lined up in neat files behind the leadership.

Someone is in control of the Republican Party and they reached out and applied party discipline again, overnight. Prior to two roughly weeks ago there was no unified Republican position on Financial Reform, but then the leader(s) flipped the switch. The messages and behavior are no longer in the control of individual legislators.

That leads to two clear questions. Exactly who is the leadership in the Republican Party who has the ability to take control almost literally overnight as we have just seen happen? And how have those leaders done it?

Frankly I don't see either Boehner or McConnell as being powerful enough to apply this kind of discipline, at least not by themselves. Though if they can do this kind of manipulation of the party behind the scenes, you'd think they'd get a more believable message to unify behind.

The sole reason why this article exists is because the Dems 1) have no spine and 2) are utterly incapable of framing issues correctly.

If the Dems would ever - EVER!! - learn how to frame issues precisely, and stick to those frames, never wavering from them and ignoring the Republican framing, they might actually get something done without all this obstructionism.

BTW, if anyone things Scott Brown is a Teatard they're high. He was a Republican the day he was sworn into office. His masters are corporations and the RNC.

Since the average American is an idiot with no reading comprehension, the Dems need to explain in plain English what the Repubs are doing. The bill would have required that the banks provide their own bailout, not the taxpayer. The Repubs object to that, which infers they'd rather have the taxpayers bail out the banks again--a sure spark to start a revolution.

However, I don't know why the Dems would offer to remove one of the most important items because, if the Repubs agreed, we'd be screwed by both parties. Is that playing chicken? Maybe, but I don't know if the Dems are smart enough or courageous enough.

What a shock. I'm waiting for the headline " Republicans hold gun to baby, blame Democrats, threaten to shoot." Hell, it's where they're headed.