Last Call To Reach Out And Touch Someone

Thank you, MIT. This almost makes up for graduating Tom Massie.

Apologies and Apoplexies

So yesterday, President Obama spent about an hour at a press conference apologizing and taking reponsibility for the healthcare.gov website problems.  He also offered states the ability to keep health insurance plans that don't meet ACA minimums on the books for another year.  Again, this is a customer service 101 response here:  "It's not my fault, but as president, it is my problem to fix."

Response from the Village was of course, calm and rational.

President Obama is now threatened by a similar toxic mix. The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency. 

Pundits were equally rational.

As the health law teeters, the stakes are so great because the struggle encapsulates each party’s core argument. It embodies the Democratic belief that society works better when risk is shared—between young and old, healthy and sick—and government intervenes in private markets to try to expand both security and opportunity. The fury of the Republican resistance reflects the party’s insistence that markets work best unfettered, that centralized government programs cannot achieve their goals, and that Democrats are unduly burdening the “makers” to support (and politically mobilize) the “takers.”

If most Americans conclude Republicans are right about the health care law, that judgment would inevitably deepen doubts about other government initiatives. In this world, Democrats could still hold the White House in 2016 around cultural affinity, but they would likely struggle to achieve much if they do. If the president can’t extinguish the flames surrounding Obamacare, this runway explosion could reverberate for years.

And columnists?  Totally, completely rational.

We are two Democrats, one of us a baby boomer and the other a millennial. Not only are we of different ages, but we also have vastly different perspectives. Despite this, we hold similar core values. For different reasons, we feel that the Democratic Party has left us. What we are concerned with here is addressing challenges to our core values as a society and redefining what being a Democrat means in today’s circumstances.

To recap, Katrina, explosion, end of the Democratic party, worst hit for government as a solution in the history of government, yadda yadda.

Bush?  We don't recall.  Things were pretty good then, you know.   Iraq?  Afghanistan?  Medicare Part D?  Alberto Gonzales?  Trillions in damage to the global economy?  All those clearly pale in comparison to a web site not working, you know.

The Juice Is Loose

While we keep hearing how Democrats are in disarray and falling apart, keep in mind that the number one target for at least one Tea Party PAC, the Tea Party Leadership Fund, is squeezing Orange Julius right out of office.

A tea party group has launched a campaign to support primary challenges against all 87 Republicans who voted for the deal in late October to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. 

The Tea Party Leadership Fund, a PAC affiliated with the group TheTeaParty.net, began a fundraising push — dubbed the “Primaries for Traitors Fund” — shortly after the shutdown deal passed in the House, and they are now ramping up efforts to find “credible candidates” in each of the districts, said the fund’s treasurer, Dan Backer. 

“From our perspective, we see this as a signature vote. You can’t be a conservative and vote to raise the debt ceiling,” Backer said. “I recognize there are some places where voters may actually think that was the right vote. And there may be places where you have an incumbent who wins with 90% of the vote every time and there’s not a credible challenger. I recognize that, but we’re certainly going to do our best.” 

Backer says the group has honed in on a few specific members to start: Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, New York Rep. Peter King, North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger, Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany, and most importantly, Backer said, House Speaker John Boehner in Ohio. 

“Our goal is to keep going one after another after another as our resources allow. To get our feet wet, we’re starting out with a few, but nobody is going to get a pass,” he said.

So with these guys actively looking to bring down any Republican who votes to raise the debt ceiling through primary challenges for them, who wants to take the bet that Republicans won't shut down the government or breach the debt ceiling in the next two months?

Remember, these guys are spending money to elect people who will choose to destroy America's economy and throw us back into a recession, if not depression.  They will certainly target anyone who votes in January to raise the debt ceiling and they're using the only weapon that matters to Republicans, money, to do it.

So yes, this is about to be a massive problem for the GOP in about a month.  And you expect Orange Julius to handle it?

Oh, and you don't see Democrats trying to primary Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, do you.  There's a reason for that.  Mitch McConnell and Orange Julius?  In real trouble.

Now, which party is disintegrating again?

StupidiNews!

• President Obama is offering insurance companies the ability to renew inadequate health insurance policies for another year as a fix to the problems with Obamacare.
• LGBTQ activists have cited an Indiana hospital as breaking federal law by denying visitation rights to a patient's same-sex partner.
• Native American tribal leaders are calling on Washington to ban the NFL's Redskins trademark, saying the team name is offensive.
• Financial ratings agency Moody's has cut the ratings of four major US investment banks on concerns that in another crisis situation, the banks would be unable to pay back lenders and taxpayers.
• IBM is bringing its Watson supercomputer to the cloud to sell its services to developers as the ultimate customer question-answering machine.