The 42 members of the GOP caucus issued a letter that reads, “with little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities.”

“While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate’s attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job killing tax hike.”

And with that we’re back in the full arena of the over-riding purpose of the Republican Party and the clientele that the “Tea Party Nation” comment shows that they follow. We heard it recently with Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who before the Chamber of Commerce dismissed the “fluff” getting in the way of this tax cut extension. Funny thing with him and his state, the last successful state wide Republican politician before Brown urged the electorate that he was more friendly to gay issues than Ted Kennedy — though, that was several
political incarnations ago for Mitt Romney. Strip this social and cultural arena away and apparently we just cut to the one core issue. See too the new Senator from Illinois, who called the Maine Senators about joining the “Mod Squad”. Seeing that he doesn’t deviate from fiscal matters, and apparently not from social matters I have to wonder what this means.

Yesterday, the Senate filibustered against extending unemployment benefits. The Filibusterers suggested that they would be willing to go for them, if only they were paid for. I’d say that seeing that the willingness for the upper income tax cut extension shows a new deficit level, we can gnab the money from there.

One more guy who has fallen from the sight line of “Serious People”, at least from his own criteria — Richard Lugar. START. “Do your duty”, he says, and then rescinds his duty.

Maybe I shouldn’t really care about DADT or START. As is being framed by Robert Gates, DADT is falling aside one way or another — either by the Courts or more orderly with Congressional legislation. Meantime, the failure of passing the START treaty really only serves to decrease American power abroad, which I gather is just as well — the carping about supposed sleights against “American Exceptionalism” notwithstanding.

The Obama campaign urges his supporters to write letters to the editor praising the government workers pay freeze. I take this to be a show of the current functional crisis of his administration. Sure to be applauded by  Judd Gregg, who was almost in his administration and is approving of the Debt Commission package.