Collapse

Last night the Republican House Caucus met under the 'leadership' of Speaker Boehner, who floated a plan to end the government shutdown and stave off a potentially catastrophic debt default.  However, the plan never made it off his desk, as the Tea Party faction suddenly reared up on their hind legs and started braying that it wasn't conservative enough to suit them.

Alas, Boehner got no support from the major conservative support groups either.  Heritage Action (the political wing of the Heritage Institute, which - by the way - had the original idea that later became the Affordable Care Act that the GOP reviles so much), FreedomWorks (the multimillionaires who actually support the "populist" Tea Party faction) and others objected.  Heritage Action went so far as to threaten to 'score' the vote - to tar every Republican member who voted for the plan so that a far more rightist candidate could be raised up to oppose them in the next election.

With the House plan dead, Boehner threw in the towel.

He called Senator Reid, and capitulated.  Basically he said, "Whatever you can put up that'll pass the Senate; I'll ask Nancy Pelosi to help get it through the House."

It was what Reid and McConnell were waiting for, and debate is going on as I write.  A vote on the Senate plan will be taken after supper, and then it goes to the House.  The plan does toss a few minor bones to the GOP, which makes it all the more humiliating.

Hopes among the Idiots that Rafael Cruz or Mike Lee might filibuster the Senate plan were cruelly dashed when both Senators said that while they may not vote for the plan, they won't filibuster.  Well, we'll see.  I hope McConnell has at least one thug nearby with a cattle prod and a can of Mace if Cruz or Lee open their gaping pieholes.

Speaking of which, I finally got a good long look at Cruz's face.  A big face, with a ridiculous weak chin and little, piggy eyes.  Very appropriate.

But wait!

There's more!

We haven't heard from the True Leader of the Republican Party, and its Chief Ideologist - the possible child sex tourist and oxycontin enthusiast Rush Limbaugh.

Well, fortunately someone over at Huffington Post listens to Rush, so I won't have to, and here's a bit of what he said:

"I was trying to think if ever in my life, I could remember any major political party being so irrelevant. I have never seen it. I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican party has been doing. There has not been any serious opposition...against what's happening in this country. The Republicans have done everything they can to try to make everyone like them and what they've ended up doing is creating one of the greatest political disasters I've ever seen in my lifetime...I was pondering if I could ever remember...a time when a political party just made a decision not to exist, for all intents and purposes."

Bwahahahahahaha!

Yummy, yummy schadenfreude.

It tastes like dark chocolate M&Ms.

Enjoy while you can!

Because, dear readers, all the Senate plan does is kick the can down the road a month or two.

But it's worth watching the GOP, humiliated and dazed, ask for mercy.