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December 20, 2024, edition of Fox News' The Five

CHARLIE HURT (CO-HOST): First of all, I'm always in the pro-government shutdown caucus. I'm fully in favor of government shutdowns, I think they're fantastic. I think it's a great first step, quite frankly. If Republicans think that they're going to get done what they need to get done without some really ugly stuff happening, it's -- they're sorely mistaken. They're -- you're going to have this either now or at some point in this fight to get done what they need to get done and what voters have asked Donald Trump to get done.

I think it's really funny watching all of this for the Democrats. Democrats are great at playing mental games. That's, like, all they do is play mental games. But the big difference I think now is, I think that -- I don't -- and the media always blames Republicans, every single time, Republicans never pay a price in an election. I think if they actually get something done as a result of this, then not only will they not pay a bad price, they might be rewarded tremendously by voters.

https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-has-been-advocating-catastrophic-debt-defaults-and-government-shutdowns

an 1 23 no lnx? vid? twt

https://www.alternet.org/jim-jordan-2659274405/

Will Republicans blow up the global economy? They’re sure going to try

Heather Digby Parton and Salon January 18, 2023

We barely had time to catch our breath from the wild spectacle of the Republicans finally electing a speaker when their next spectacle started with a bang. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen abruptly announced that the U.S. will hit the so-called debt ceiling on Jan 19, putting the issue immediately on the front burner. The government can move money around to keep paying its bills until some time next summer, but this is already shaping up to be an exhausting, months-long battle royale. It's probably a good thing that they're getting an early start since the MAGA House majority seems to need some serious remedial instruction on how the world works.

That's not to say that debt-ceiling standoffs are some core tactic of the MAGA movement. In fact, Republicans raised the debt ceiling three times during the Trump administration with no fuss at all. They never felt it necessary to try to persuade Trump to cut spending, and the Freedom Caucus didn't utter a peep as he massively increased the deficit. These hostage situations are reserved for times when the GOP holds the House and a Democrat is in the White House. Shocking, I know.

This debt ceiling vote is a ritual with no real purpose. The government made the decision during World War I, for reasons that should have been temporary, to require a vote to agree to pay the nation's bills. This makes no sense: Congress already voted to spend the money, so it's ridiculous to require another vote to pay it out. In fact, after the Civil War, the drafters of the 14th Amendment, concerned that Southern Democrats (pretty much the MAGA types of that day and age) would make good on their threat to disavow the national debt incurred during the war, explicitly wrote into the Constitution the words, "the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned."

There were some brief confrontations in earlier years, but it was really Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich who pioneered this modern right-wing terrorist strategy and it was perfected by the Tea Party members during the Obama administration. The Tea Party standoffs in 2011 and 2013 are still vivid in the minds of many in Washington who endured both the battles and the consequences, which were at once political and substantial. Those were among the ugliest fights in modern political memory and came distressingly close to crashing the world economy. This new crew, most of whom were not round for those bruising confrontations, is champing at the bit to see if they can get that done this time.

Not only are payments for necessary services, from Social Security and Medicare to food safety and even the sacred-to-Republicans border security at risk, as the Washington Post's Catherine Rampbell explains, this could tip the entire global economy, already in a fragile state, over into crisis:

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Until now, U.S. debt has been considered virtually risk-free. The riskiness of all other assets around the world is benchmarked against the relative safety of U.S. Treasury securities. If the U.S. government reveals itself to be an unreliable borrower, however, expect to see shockwaves course through every other financial market, as many question how safe (or not) those other investments might be. This is the last thing the economy needs amid fears of a global recession.

The bottom line is that this debate is ridiculous. Unfortunately, the Republican Party is even more ridiculous these days, so we are destined to play chicken with the good faith and credit of the U.S. government every time these circumstances present themselves.

It should be noted that all of this was evident when the Democrats still had the House majority, which was more than willing to raise the debt ceiling during December's lame-duck session. Unfortunately, the Diva Twins, meaning Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, refused to eliminate the filibuster or use the budget reconciliation process to get it done.

Luckily, not all Democrats fail to grasp the moment.Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii phrased things perfectly, channeling Michael Corleone in "The Godfather Part II," when asked what Democrats might be willing to offer Republicans: "In exchange for not crashing the United States economy, you get nothing." Regarding demands that Democrats sit down with their opponents at the negotiating table, he replied, "We have to tell them there is no table."

You can't negotiate with people who behave the way these Republicans are behaving. They aren't just delusional but also massively ignorant about what they're attempting to do. Take, for example, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, just named to the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees, who said this on Steve Bannon's podcast shortly after the November election:

What we have to do is, Republicans, when we're in control of the purse and we're setting these appropriation bills, and our budget is — we have to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. We have to get spending back under control and we have to do that by any means possible. And if that means a government shutdown, then I'll be calling for a government shutdown. Because this government — and you can see the people support what I'm saying, Steve – because this government shut our country down with those COVID shutdowns.

That is literally gibberish, completely incomprehensible. Rep Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., made an even dumber comment:

\u201c   We cannot raise the debt ceiling. Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency.  They've made their bed, so they must lie in it.\u201d

— Rep Andy Biggs (@Rep Andy Biggs) 1673981066

That doesn't make any sense either. Our currency is not "devalued," and that's got nothing to do with the debt ceiling in any case. He apparently doesn't even grasp that taking the debt ceiling hostage is about trying to force Democrats to agree to massive spending cuts in the future, in exchange for paying the bills today. Evidently he doesn't want to pay them at all.

Here's some more gibberish from the actual speaker of the House, when asked about Democrats' demands for a clean debt ceiling increase:

Would you just keep doing that? Or would you change the behavior? We're six months away? Why wouldn't we sit down and change this behavior so that we would put ourselves on a more fiscally strong position?

Here's another idea that's always popular on the right — which would be necessary if they really plan to eliminate the national debt completely, as McCarthy apparently promised in his backroom deals during the speakership saga:

\u201c  Holy shit. Top Republican Rick Allen (R-GA) was just recorded saying his party is going after Social Security because people want to work longer.\u201d (h/t @SSWorks)\u201d

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen) 1673900286

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Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is at least a bit more coherent, recognizing that Republicans may have stepped on the third rail with talk about cutting military spending, which one of the backroom negotiators, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, says was never on the table. Jordan said, "Military cuts could be made by eliminating 'woke policies' & re-examining aid to Ukraine, allowing the government to focus more on troops and weapons systems." There's also been talk about eliminating much of the officer corps, which would be an interesting experiment.

Hilariously, Republicans are trying to spin the impending mess this way:

Rep. Good (R-VA): I hope the President and the Senate would not risk a government shutdown or some kind of a government default by recklessly rejecting spending cuts\u201d

— Acyn (@Acyn) 1673904721

That's cute, but it's not going to fly. Republicans have already shown the whole country that they are wildly unhinged, and nobody will mistake which party is being reckless and which isn't.

It's also clear that they don't care. Donald Trump, their battered spiritual guru, explains what it's really all about:

It's about putting on a spectacle to own the libs, of course. What else would it be? Trump may have lost some of his mojo but his legacy is secure. The Republican Party is still MAGA all the way down.

an 2 22

dunno is this is gonna have legs/meme

no lnx

U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn has a hold on a stopgap continuing resolution that must pass by Friday if the federal government is to avoid a costly and dangerous shutdown. The Tennessee Republican, a peddler of conspiracy theories and far right-wing extremism, falsely insists that an HHS program includes $30 million in federal funds to buy “crack pipes” for drug abusers.

Politico co-congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett Monday afternoon reports Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “says he’s working on scheduling the continuing resolution, which must pass by Feb. 18 to avoid shutdown. He has not filed cloture on it yet, hoping to work it out with Sen. Blackburn, who wants reassurances HHS isn’t handing out crack pipes.”

The “free crack pipes” claim, which exploded across the country last week thanks to a false report from the right-wing outlet Washington Free Beacon, has been thoroughly debunked by The Washington Post and other investigative outlets, but the GOP is refusing to let the falsehoods die.

“It’s amazing to us that they continue to ignore this issue, and they continue to say they are fighting drugs when indeed they’re enabling drugs,” Blackburn told Newsmax on Monday.

Congress will have to jump through several hoops to avoid Blackburn’s shutdown, given how late in the process they are. The House, which has already passed its bill to avert the shutdown, would have to again pass another bill, the Senate’s which Blackburn is blocking.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram:

It’s clear for Blackburn the issue isn’t the crack pipes, which are not and by law cannot be included in the HHS program.Blackburn has repeatedly voted in favor of shutting the federal government down, which she did by voting against continuing resolutions in December 2021 and September 2020.

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For the past two weeks, we've examined the campaign cash behind 20 "dissident" GOP House members deemed by the New York Times to be perpetual thorns in the Republican leadership's side. New quarterly filings show that, overall, despite a reported bump in fundraising for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), this group of Republicans actually didn't do particularly well between July 1 and Sept. 30.

But several of the most outspoken Republican House members picked up significant donations from Koch Industries and Citizens United just as the crisis began.

In the first quarter of 2013, the 19 members who are running for re-election to the House (Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) is running for Senate in 2014), raised an average of $135,889. In the second quarter, that increased to $162,974, but in the third quarter, the average take was $104,868 (Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) did not appear to have filed a report yet, so the average includes just 18 members for this quarter only.) Representative Michele Bachmann reported no contributions, but even with her removed from the equation, the remaining 17 raised, on average, about $104,000.

The member who raised the least out of any of these 20 was also one of the loudest voices opposing a deal yesterday -- Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). Labrador raised just $45,470 in the third quarter, according to his campaign's filing.

That's not to say that being outspoken on the issue necessarily led to closed wallets. Rep.**Justin Amash**(R-Mich.) had the biggest haul among the dissidents in the third quarter:  $207,884. He may now need it -- business leaders in Michigan are**talking**of supporting a primary opponent to Amash in 2014.

Amash picked up nine major donations from PACs on Sept. 30, the eve of the shutdown, including $5,000 from Citizens United and $5,000 from Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian advocacy group. On that day he also reported receiving $7,1000 in donations from three fellow members of the group of 20 dissidents. In August, Amash received $1,000 from the Koch Industries corporate PAC, KochPAC.

In total, Koch Industries PAC gave at least $11,500 to six members of this dissident group, including:

The donations are particularly significant because of the company's support for this group of 20 earlier in the year. Recently Koch Industries denied advocating for the government shutdown that began 16 days ago.

Conservative group Citizens United gave at least $13,500 to four of the dissidents in the third quarter of this year -- $5,000 apiece to Amash and DeSantis on Sept. 30 and $2,400 to Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) on Sept. 24 -- the day Duncan publicly cheered Cruz's quasi-filibuster attempt to stop the Senate from considering a budget bill that didn't defund the Affordable Care Act. The group also gave $1,000 to Gohmert on July 3.

Follow Russ on Twitter: @russchoma

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