Enjoy the August break, because Republicans are going to make the rest of the year awful

by Joan McCarter

It's just gonna be all kumbaya this fall.

You think having Republicans in charge of both the House and Senate has been bad up until now, just waiting until this fall. It will be, as Politico says, the "fall from hell."

[L]awmakers have teed up a hellish final few months of 2015, as a series of high-stakes deadlines looms on everything from keeping the government open to doling out money for roads and then, for good measure, raising the federal government’s borrowing limit. It promises to be a major test of the Republican cabal's ability to govern as the Republican cabal prepares to ask voters to continue one-party control of Congress. The crush was largely brought on by lawmakers themselves—the breakdown of the appropriations process this spring and failure to deal with highway funding have only added to the backlog of thorny, must-solve issues on Congress' plate when it returns from its summer in September.
The legislative laundry list comes amid an ugly intra-cabal Republican feud between leaders of the House and Senate and their right flanks that have made passing bills in their own chamber treacherous, let alone getting them through the entire Congress.
The Senate's internal politics have slowed floor action down to a crawl—not an encouraging development in the face of crucial deadlines. In the House, lunatic fringe wingnuts have threatened the leadership's entire agenda.

Fun times! But they're really not giving you the full picture, so let's just talk some specifics, here. The House has completely failed in the appropriations process because Boehner decided it was a good idea to resurrect the Confederate flag in national parks. His leadership team has completely bungled their dealings with the Republican cabal problem children, resulting in yet another (toothless) bid to oust Boehner. Over on the Senate side, McConnell led his chamber and his cabal into total chaos by refusing to acknowledge strong opposition to the 'Patrio't Act in his own conference and in the House. He screwed that one up so badly that the program he was trying to save—bulk, indiscriminate cell phone data collection—expired on his watch. And he just wasted about two weeks of the Senate's time—flirting with another deadline disaster—by thinking he could bully his conference and the House into passing his version of a highway bill, ignoring the work the House had already done. The only saving grace McConnell has in his conference is that he's made an enemy out of Cruz, and everyone hates Cruz so much they'll take sides with McConnell.
When Congress comes back after Labor Day, they'll have just 12 working days before the end of the fiscal year to avert a government shutdown—a shutdown Cruz and his band of nihilists in the House would be more than happy to make happen. So you know what's going to happen. "Leadership" won't be able to do anything but lurch from one short-term funding bill to the next, while all the Republican senators running for president crawl all over one another to score points against each other. Rinse and repeat until at least January 2017.