President Obama’s top pick for Secretary of State was Susan Rice. Many Republicans have been throwing a hissy fit about what she said on a Sunday talk show and now Rice has withdrawn her name from consideration. It is possible these two things are unrelated, but it definitely appears to many that Obama again folded [...]

It is conventional wisdom never to negotiate for hostages, because such bargaining only makes hostage taking worthwhile. If there were no value available from hostage taking, people would have little reason to try taking hostages. If you do pay for a hostage, it signals to your adversaries that hostage taking is a great idea and [...]

The Republican’s have been so successful in their hostage taking tactics not because the GOP are amazing negotiators but due to the fact Obama wants them to have a hostages. The Obama administration is told the Republicans they are negotiating with that they don’t believe the 14th amendment grants it the authority to ignore the [...]

When you give in to hostage-taking, you set a pattern that just encourages people to take more hostages, and ask for bigger ransoms every time. This is exactly what is happening thanks to President Obama previously declaring that he must give in to Republican hostage taking tactics. From the Hill: House Republicans are considering a [...]

There are two negatives that stop a hostage taker from shooting a hostage. One is that once the hostage is dead, they lose the leverage to make demands; the other is that without the hostage, the police will come at them without restraint and with the intent to punish them even more severely. Thanks to [...]

It’s official: at least one Republican senator is now committed to filibustering the raising of the debt limit unless Democrats give in to his demands. From The Hill: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has told supporters in Utah that he will filibuster the legislation to authorize Treasury Department officials to add to the nation’s multitrillion-dollar debt. [...]

Much of the political debate in Washington over the next year is going to be dominated by two potential pending crises: a government shutdown and a failure to raise the debt ceiling. If Congress fails to actively and regularly avert them, these crises could significantly disrupt our society, cost money and hamper the economy. Yet [...]

Calling the behavior of Republicans “hostage taking” has become the new buzz phrase used by both President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders. It is a decent analogy for how the Senate Republicans have exploited the Senate’s rules. The 41 Senate Republicans have used the filibuster and the other horribly broken rules of the chamber to [...]