Just when you thought things couldn’t get more bizarre, on Friday a man doused himself with gasoline right there on the mall and set himself on fire. Just the thought of the act brings back bad flashbacks to the Vietnam War era where Buddhist monks set themselves on fire during the Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Diem regime .  That was a rather horrifying form of protest and also where the term ‘self-immolation’ evolved.

We don’t know much about Friday’s incident.  It more or less got buried in the midst of shutdown news.  Perhaps we have just become desensitized by recent events.  We also aren’t hearing a strong debate over the fact that law enforcement in DC shot and killed an unarmed woman with a child in the car, putting passersby, tourists, and federal employees at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

When are we going to have that discussion?  When are we going to at least ask what the self-immolation man was protesting?  When are we going to have the discussion about mental illnesses?  Miriam Carey, the woman shot and killed on Thursday, was mentally ill by all accounts from her family, her former employer, and her boyfriend.  Her family indicated that she had stopped taking her meds which is a very common problem with those who are mentally ill.   Self-immolation has got to be associated with mental illness also.  Sane people don’t set themselves on fire.

When is Congress going to haz-mat up and go down to the mall and start picking up that trash and empty pizza boxes?  It’s a nasty job but someone has to do it.  Congress won’t fund the government so that puts park services refuse  pick up on hold so I guess its up to them, since some of their members want to encourage people to just come on down to the open air monuments anyway.

Simplistic answers…complex problems.   The streets of the nation’s capital being lined with trash sets a very bad precedent.  As the horrific events of Thursday and Friday illustrate  disorder in the mind, the trash is becoming emblematic of  disorder in the nation.

The House needs to fund the government without any attachments.  They have made their point.  Now its time to do the right thing.

24 Thoughts to “Self-Immolation on the Mall”

  1. Kelly_3406

    I approve of the House’s current technique to fund various items in separate bills. No matter what happens during the current imbroglio, it would benefit the budget process to consider each item separately. This would make individual legislators responsible for each budget item rather than allowing them to hide behind up or down votes for huge appropriations bills that have language surreptitiously added or removed.

    The individual funding bills from the House should be approved by the Senate. They are clean bills that can get most of the government working immediately. The items of contention can then be considered separately without disrupting most government workers.

  2. Are you ready to say what is more important? How do you do that with a continuing resolution?

  3. Scout

    It’s an interesting gambit, Kelly, but no responsible president (of any party) or Member of Congress will buy it. To go back to our kidnap/ransom analogy, we have reached the point in the crisis where the kidnappers, realizing that they’ve gotten themselves into a nasty bargaining position, try to raise the ante by selling off body parts of the government, instead of holding out for the whole thing. The House Rs who embarked on this mad trip with the People’s government are going to have to wear it for a long time. Trying to wiggle out of it by releasing hostages line item by line item isn’t anything that responsible governance officials can play along with.

  4. Emma

    I keep thinking back to 2009, when the Democratic party refrain was: “We won, you lost. Now get out of the way so we can clean up your mess.” That’s not the kind of atmosphere that makes people want to give ground to you, and it’s not responsible governance. While I’m angry at Congress, I don’t think you can reasonably give a pass to this President who declared a week ago that he saw no reason to negotiate.

    Congress and the President are the only Feds who are getting paid…and they’re not getting one of their core job responsibilities done, and haven’t done so for years now. They are all derelict.

  5. What is it that you would have the President do, Emma?

  6. Kelly_3406

    @Scout

    Your analogy is correct, but conclusions are all wrong. The House was granted the power of the purse specifically to enable it to extract ransom. You can try to white wash it all you want, but that power has been used plenty of times over the last 100 years. This is a brass knuckles fight and responsible governance has nothing to do with it. That’s just a sound bite from democrats and big-government republicans.

    1. Republicans certainly have been cordoned off into a lot of different corners. Big-government republicans, banana republicans, etc.

      I don’t recall seeing in that constitution a thing about congress not only being given the power to tax the people and fund government but also to extract ransom. I think that is wishful thinking.

      Michele Bachmann also had a rather strange view of her own powers.

  7. @Moon-howler
    Easy….kill the continuing resolution.

    There should be a budget. And I criticize WHOEVER it is that is not writing budgets, including the House.

    1. No. They should pass a continuing resolution NOW for however long …then they can work on a budget that realistically reflects the money needed to run out country.

  8. Scout

    Responsible governance has everything to do with it, Kelly. It is why there’s no way out for the House Rs on this stunt. If they don’t want to appropriate monies for Obamacare, they can give that a whirl. That’s not what happened here. They decided to shut down the entirety of the government because they thought it would cause the President to back off on one piece of legislation. It’s very clear that he can’t do that without inviting repetition of this tactic on every single controversial piece of legislation, now and forever, for him and for his successors. He has to stuff them on this or we will simply ricochet from funding crisis to funding crisis in perpetuity.

    I sense that what is happening now is that the House Rs are finally, however dimly, beginning to realize what a horrible (and completely foreseeable) mess they made and realize that the only way they can get the People not to notice the yucky gunk they’ve got all over them is to make the crisis that much worse, broaden the discussion to every dysfunction in government, and make things so bad that at the end of it all (if there is an end) most people will forget how we got into this in the first place.

    Re Cargo’s last comment, I agree that Ds and Rs in Congress are equally culpable (I can make the case that the Senate Ds even more so) in completely ignoring lawful budget processes. The President should have been kicking Reid’s butt on this issue. It is a huge problem that, if it had been handled correctly, particularly by Senate Ds, would have spared us this fiasco of the Continuing Resolution. But, although related, it’s a separate issue from this sabotage attempt on health care. The reality of the desperate nature of the House Rs bargaining position is that they’ve put the other side in a position where it can give them absolutely nothing and they’ll have to settle for disaster. If it weren’t so damaging to the Republic, it would be hilariously, Three Stooges-level funny stupid.

  9. Kelly_3406

    @Scout

    Your interpretation is at odds with history. There have been several CRs in the past which were linked to non-budgetary legislation such as civil rights, water projects, abortion, etc. (i.e. not clean funding bills) and which led to shutdowns of varying lengths. Previous shutdowns were not even viewed as crises necessarily.

    So tying a CR to other legislation does not set a precedent. However, the difference is that most other presidents respected the budget authority of Congress and agreed to negotiate in good faith.

    My guess is that this president does not want to negotiate because of his poor bargaining position. Obamacare is now opposed by a solid majority of Americans. If he negotiates, there is a good chance that it could be delayed or watered down.

  10. George S. Harris

    If the president cave in now, he might as well turn in his badge. The Republicans started this–now they have to find a way out. No quarter.

  11. Scout

    Kelly – I doubt that any R on the Hill thinks the President is in a “poor bargaining position.” They’ve handed him a huge tactical advantage here. Sure – they want him to dilute or eliminate Obamacare. But why should he do that? He won that fight in Congress, at the polls and in the courts.

  12. Kelly_3406

    I think there is a reasonable compromise that could get the nation past all this. The beginnings of it has already appeared. The idea has been floated to simplify/reorganize the tax code as part of an agreement to raise the debt limit.

    The tax code could be collapsed into fewer brackets including elimination of some tax deductions in such a way that overall revenue would be increased. As part of the compromise, maybe overall tax rates would have to increase somewhat. This increase in revenue could then be applied to pay for Obamacare in exchange for eliminating the individual mandate. The mandate could then be replaced by a hefty tax deduction for those that individuals and businesses that do purchase/provide healthcare.

    The right still would not be thrilled with government involvement in healthcare, but opposition would be greatly muted by eliminating the mandate. The left would be upset that the structure of Obamacare changed, but would be happy that it survived.

    The government could then get on with other business.

    1. I have never figured out why ‘the right’ is so opposed to government involvement in health care. I can think of few other sectors that have raped, pillaged and plundered the American public as much as the health care industry. Before the ACA went into effect, most Americans couldn’t shop around for the best policy. Those who had health care usually had what their employer decided they would have.
      Health insurance companies could literally hold your life and death in their hands. Ever challenged an insurance refusal? Horribly time consuming the patient almost never won.

      The ACA makes health care much more competitive. Will companies still have CEOs making $10 million a year? Probably. (that should tell you something right there) In the past, health care and employers really had us all over a barrel. Conservatives should be loving life rather than whining and bitching.

  13. Censored bybvbl

    @Kelly_3406

    How do you sell any tax increase to the Grover Norquist crowd of simpletons who just say “no” to taxes regardless of any concessions from the other side. They are basically the people holding the government hostage currently.

  14. Kelly_3406

    Fewer tax brackets would mean a flattening of the tax code, which the Norquist crowd wants. Elimination of the individual mandate together with a flattening of the tax code could be sold.

    1. If the mandate is removed, it can’t be funded. The problem is too many none insured people get sick and go the ER. Since we don’t throw people out on the street, someone has to pay, usually those who have assumed responsibility and have bought insurance.

      I can’t think of a single reason why I would excuse someone in to not having health coverage. Perhaps someone can convince me.

  15. Censored bybvbl

    @Kelly_3406

    What percentages would you suggest and on what incomes? Would you eliminate home mortgage deductions? Or any special deductions for children? Which business expenses? Each of these has its cheerleaders (for both keeping and eliminating the deduction). The move to flatten taxes will have as many enemies as “Obamacare” once details are discussed and openly known.

  16. Kelly_3406

    @Moon-howler

    My idea is to use a tax deduction to entice people to purchase health insurance rather than a club to beat them if they do not. It would largely accomplish the same thing as the individual mandate, but would be much more palatable for conservatives.

    An idea like this could reduce the bitterness and polarization …..

  17. Kelly_3406

    @Censored bybvbl

    I am not deluded enough to think this would be easy, but it could provide a framework for negotiation. A CR could be approved for 6 weeks while a deal was hammered out under an agreed-upon framework. The key would be to get the right people on board …. i.e the president, Ted Cruz, et al.

    1. Kelly, you nearly gave me heart failure. I misread. I thought you said Ted Cruz for president.

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