If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin
Saturday, September 14, 2013
What's The Big Deal On Syria? This Deal!
Well now, will you look at that.
And remember, President Obama just got a big win. Clearly it's going to be time to trash the deal as meaningless, and then shut down the government to put "that one" in his place. And we move on.
Russia and the United States announced Saturday that they have reached a groundbreaking deal on a framework to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, after talks in Switzerland.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stood side-by-side as they set out a series of steps the Syria government must follow.Syria must submit within one week a comprehensive list of its chemical weapons stockpile, Kerry said, and international inspectors must be on the ground no later than November.Senior U.S. State Department officials said the timeline for action is to finalize initial inspections of declared chemical weapons sites by November; the complete destruction of production and mixing and filling equipment by November; and the complete elimination of all chemical weapons material in first half of 2014.
Well, that was pretty cool. I'm sure the Village and the newly anti-war GOP is thril...OH WAIT.
Congressional leaders in both parties made clear there is no clear path forward in avoiding a government shutdown in just over 18 days.
Lawmakers appear as far apart as ever on reaching an agreement to fund the government past the end of September, after which all but the most essential government services would cease for lack of money. Though Congress has been aware for months of the need to reach an agreement to sustain funding past Sept. 30, consensus has been as elusive as ever.
“Shutting down the government, obviously, is what a majority of the Republican caucus wants to do in the House,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday.
That comment came after House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, admitted Thursday that he wasn’t sure how the GOP would proceed after the Republican leadership shelved legislation to continue government spending after facing defections in their own ranks.
And remember, President Obama just got a big win. Clearly it's going to be time to trash the deal as meaningless, and then shut down the government to put "that one" in his place. And we move on.
Zandar's Thought Of The Day
It doesn't matter how awful of a human being you are, it doesn't matter what despicable acts you do, Republicans will publicly back you as long as you say you don't like Barack Obama. Steve M on Nooners, El Rushbo, and Vlad The Dudesplainer:
Republicans in 2013 exist to oppose Barack Obama. That's that they have, that's all they care about, and that's all they need.
But even if Limbaugh and Noonan think that the disdain for the notion of U.S. exceptionalism is shared equally by Putin and Obama, they've decided the two are identical in this and yet have essentially chosen to side with the Russian authoritarian rather than the head of our own country. (Noonan: "Still, in general, Mr. Putin made a better case in the piece against a U.S. military strike than the American president has for it." Limbaugh: "My God, we have the communist leader of Russia more proudly quoting the Declaration of Independence than our own president does!") And, well, that's no surprise, because hating Obama, all other Democrats, and all liberals is what conservatism means now. It's all that conservatism is about now.
Republicans in 2013 exist to oppose Barack Obama. That's that they have, that's all they care about, and that's all they need.