House Republicans Will Never Learn

No, America, the latest House Republican scheme to take the country hostage will fail just as miserably as it did last time.

Even as their hardliners refuse to let up, senior Republicans have all but conceded that they won’t end up defunding Obamacare in a continuing resolution to keep the federal government open after the money runs out on Sept. 30. And even if they do shut down the government, top Republicans observe, it won’t actually stop Obamacare. The strategy makes little sense.

But House Republican leaders are taking so much fire from conservative advocates that they’re weighing a more dangerous gambit: taking the United States’ ability to pay its bills hostage to advance the party’s goal of disrupting and dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The country’s borrowing authority is set to expire later this fall and senior Republicans made a series of promises to their members in January that appear likely to culminate in a showdown.

GOP leaders don’t see a way to persuade their members to lift the debt ceiling without extracting ideological concessions. So a strategy they’re considering, first reported in the conservative news outlets National Review and Washington Examiner, is to pass a two-month continuing resolution to keep government funded at existing levels until, roughly, the debt limit is reached. Then they would offer a sequester replacement in exchange for delaying or defunding Obamacare in order to avoid economic disaster.

A House Republican leadership aide described this plan as an option, but cautioned TPM that no decisions have been made yet. “I do, however, expect that the President’s health care law will certainly come up — in some form or fashion — in the debt limit debate,” said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.

Let me repeat this for those of you who don't remember the last time:  Republicans will fold on the debt ceiling.  They will fold because the hedge fund titans and the Sheldon Adelsons and the other big money GOP donors will not allow the debt ceiling to collapse and the US to default.

These people have money, and they have access.  They will call up the Republicans and they will say "If you default on the debt and crash our economy again, I'll use what money I have left to fund your opponent."  The Republicans will listen very, very closely when that happens.

And just like last year, they will fold.

...on the other hand, Steve Benen has a point:  Orange Julius is the most incompetent House Speaker in modern American history, and Republicans are 100% sure any economic damage cause by messing with the debt ceiling will be perceived as wholly Obama's fault.

So they will fold...the question is after how long, and how much damage will it cause in the meantime?

Unskewed All The Way To Disaster

So we know that in 2012, conservative polling groups had a, shall we say, tenuous relationship with reality.  The question now becomes if Republicans are willing to buy the results of another poll, this time from GOP SuperPAC Heritage Action for America, and its advice that conservatives should shut down the government.

Heritage Action for America – one of the conservative groups leading the charge to pressure Republican lawmakers against voting to continue government spending unless they can defund President Barack Obama’s health care law – said its new poll of likely voters in 10 relatively competitive congressional districts showed that forcing such a shutdown would not be fatal for the GOP in 2014.

The fight over whether to shut down the government in this fall's battle over spending for the next fiscal year and relent somewhat on the implementation of Obamacare reflects the internal strife between the party's conservatives and more pragmatic party establishment.

The poll, which was conducted by Basswood Research from Aug. 7-8, also found that 28 percent of respondents in the 10 districts would blame Republicans for a shutdown over Obamacare, while 22 percent would blame Obama himself, and 19 percent would blame Democrats in Congress. Seventeen percent of respondents would spread blame among all three groups.

The poll also found that almost 60 percent of respondents would support a “temporary slowdown in non-essential federal government operations, which still left all essential government services running" in order to extract an agreement from the president to at least slow health care reform’s implementation.

Heritage Action's pitch is simple:  shutting down the government will hurt Obama as much as it will hurt the GOP, plus it'll force the President and Democrats to abandon Obamacare.

"Americans – including 57 percent of independents in ten critical congressional districts – favor defunding Obamacare," said Michael Needham, the CEO of Heritage Action. "House Republicans should be much more concerned with the fallout of failing to defund Obamacare than with the imaginary fallout of doing so."

Heritage Action's pollster, Jon Lerner, added: "There is no present evidence that a move to defund Obamacare, and the potential of a partial government shutdown, would harm Republican prospects of holding the House majority.  In fact, the very same voters who are critical to keeping the majority – independents in potential competitive districts – hold highly negative views on Obamacare and strongly favor slowdown in implementation or outright repeal of the law."

So, if you believe that  3 out of 5 Americans want the Republicans to actually shut down the government in order to blackmail the President, then by all means guys, force that shutdown.  I'm sure that the Romney landslide in 2012 proves how reliable GOP pollsters and pundits are at testing the mood of the people...

StupidiNews!

• Recently declassified CIA documents admit for the first time that Nevada's famous Area 51 exists, but that it's mainly a boring military aerial reconnaissance testing facility.
• A leaked internal audit of the NSA has found thousands of accidental violations of agency privacy policy rules over the last five years.
• HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced recipients of grants for promoting the Affordable Care Act through the agency's Navigators program.
• Samsung will get the jump on Apple by introducing the Galaxy Gear wristwatch on Sept. 4, which will allow Android smartphone users to surf the web, get emails, and make calls.
• The White House is confirming that rooftop solar panels will be reinstalled this week, making good on President Obama's 2010 promise to do so.

Last Call For Hyped Error Loop

The cursory math on Elon Musk's overhyped Hyperloop project doesn't even begin to add up. Whatever Nathan Stark fantasies the guy is entertaining, he needs to go back to the drawing board.

Musk's proposal won't actually get riders to the downtowns of Los Angeles or San Francisco. It can only carry around 10% of the capacity of the California High-Speed Rail. Additionally, it will bypass other population centers, like Bakersfield, Fresno, and San Jose.

Building a truly workable Hyperloop, if it's feasible at all, will be significantly more expensive than Musk claims. It might even be more expensive than the California HSR project. And Musk's proposal leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

How did he come to his construction cost estimate in the first place? Musk argues that the Hyperloop is cheaper than HSR because it's elevated, saving on the cost of building at grade and reducing local opposition. But bridges are far more expensive than building tracks at grade. And just because the footprint is limited to a big pylon every 100 feet doesn't mean that the environmental impact analysis process will be any easier or that the public will be any more receptive.

Other issues, like seismic stability, are simply glossed over. He claims that by elevating the Hyperloop tracks, they will be more stable than ground-running HSR. Clearly he's unfamiliar with the Cypress Street Viaduct. That's one reason that the California High-Speed Rail Authority insists on crossing all faults at grade.

Musk also claims that his giant steel tube will be okay with the only expansion joints at the Los Angeles and San Francisco ends. They'll just be really big. That's a significant engineering issue that cannot simply be ignored, at least not if Musk is in any way serious about this proposal.

He's not. If he was, he would have immediately thought of the most obvious cost overrun source: the cost of the land to build the tube pylons on.

Consider some of the major factors for why California’s $68 billion high-speed rail system has gone over budget. In many cases, local communities have demanded extra viaducts and tunnels added to the project that weren’t strictly necessary. Other towns, meanwhile, have insisted they not be bypassed even in cases where it would be cheaper to do so. Would the Hyperloop be immune from these sorts of political pressures and tweaks?

What’s more, California’s high-speed rail project has had to grapple with the high costs of acquiring more than 1,100 parcels of land, often from farmers resistant to sell. The Hyperloop would try to minimize this problem by propping the whole system up on pylons, shrinking its footprint, but it can’t escape the land problem entirely. As Alexis Madrigal points out, Musk’s proposal seems to assume it’s possible to buy up tens of thousands of acres in California for a mere $1 billion. That’s awfully optimistic.

I hear Hyperloop, I think "Springfield monorail".

Huckleberry Hounded From The Right

Mitch The Turtle isn't the only Republican senator facing a primary challenge from the Tea Party.  In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham officially has a third challenger, State Sen. Lee Bright of Spartanburg, breathing down his neck, and Bright opened up with a nasty broadside to enter the race Tuesday.

The Johnny Volcano and Huckleberry Hound show went on the road to Egypt earlier this month (and that really didn't go very well) to assess the situation on the ground, and that's gotten Bright up in arms:

“During the (congressional) recess, when I would hope that he would be around folks in South Carolina, getting their feelings on so many issues that affect their lives, he has instead chosen to take his time to be a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood and that concerns me,” Bright told supporters in a conference call. “He needs to spend more time listening to what the brothers in South Carolina have to say.”

Ouch.  A hint delivered by squeaky toy mallet to the back of the head, no less.  Graham has his hands full anyway with two other challengers in his clown car, Talibangelical and perennial also-ran Richard Cash and Nancy Mace, the first female graduate of the Citadel, both of whom make Graham look like Al Franken by comparison.  Sadly, Lee Bright may be the real threat to Graham and an even worse Senator than any of the others involved in this mess.

Lindsey may be South Carolina's huckleberry, but for how long?

Turtling Up On Obamacare

Mitch McConnell is in an ugly spot.  On the right is fire-breathing Tea Party businessman Matt Bevin, who's apparently running for Mitch's Senate seat on a platform of "Well I would have shut down the government by now."  On the left, Alison Lundergan Grimes is waxing the turtle and happily taking over as the pragmatic, dynamic young centrist.

And Mitch?  Well, this turtle is stuck in the middle of the highway.

A government shutdown would not prevent the Affordable Care Act from being funded, Kentucky's senior senator said Tuesday.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to publicly take a side as some members of his party lobby for shutting down the federal government.

"The problem is the bill that would shut down the government wouldn't shut down Obamacare," McConnell said. "Most of it is permanent law and not affected by that. It also wouldn't stop the taxes. Taxes that are going in on medical devices, taxes that are going in on health insurance premiums."

McConnell, who is also the GOP leader in the Senate, spoke to a group of healthcare workers Tuesday at Baptist Health Corbin, a hospital in southern Kentucky.

During the meeting, McConnell told audience members, "I'm for stopping Obamacare, but shutting down the government will not stop Obamacare."

Oh, but it gets worse for Mitch.

But McConnell admitted there are parts of the ACA he supports.

"There are a handful of things in the 2,700-page bill that probably are okay," McConnell said. "But that doesn't warrant a 2,700-page takeover of all American healthcare."

I'm betting Team Bevin will have a field day with that one.  Again, the school of thought is that Tea Party pressure from Bevin will make a shutdown significantly more likely, as Bevin's main criticism is that in the end, McConnell always folds to the hated Kenyan anti-colonial baby-eating Obama.

Mitch didn't do himself any favors against Bevin Tuesday. Bevin's reaction:  Mitch doesn't have the balls to defund Obamacare.



Bevin's right.

Or is he?

StupidiNews!

• More than 400 people have been killed and another 3,500 injured as the Egyptian military's bloody crackdown against supporters of ousted President Morsi continues into its second day.
• California's Supreme Court unanimously refused to stop same-sex marriages in the state as opponents demanded narrowing the ruling allowing marriages only to the original plaintiffs.
• Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that June's DOMA ruling allows for full military benefits for same-sex couples as long as they are married.
• A federal judge in Oklahoma has cleared the way for a Republican legal challenge to Obamacare's tax laws for businesses.
• Google has confirmed an Android OS vulnerability that was used in a recent $5,700 Bitcoin heist.

Last Call For Clowning Around: The Follow-Up

When this story broke, and the flow immediately turned to the clown I wondered why nobody seemed to pay any attention to the guy talking throughout the video.  The Laverne to his Shirley, as it were.  Turned out nobody said anything because they were trying to figure out how to handle the fact that it was local superintendent, Mark Ficken.

First, a story broke in which Ficken said he feared for his job.  Then an update was released saying he had been fired and an investigation had been launched regarding his behavior.  Ficken says he was unfairly blamed, and his lawyer says it was merely a matter of words of caution.

Of course, you can watch the video here.  As a whole, the incident is disgusting.  It's in poor taste, and it was completely unnecessary.  It was just plain dumb.  But another hidden lesson here is don't just play along, or you may pay the consequences.  Ficken didn't do much besides keep it going, so I don't see why he is crying about how unfair his experience has been.

Just another drop in the bucket, but a shame nonetheless.

[Zandar here.  Seems our Missouri rodeo act has a standing invitation to perform in Texas thanks to professional birther nutjob racist asshole Rep. Steve Stockman. Keep up the minority outreach, fellas!]

Doing O-Kay For Herself, Thanks

North Carolina's GOP led Visigoth sacking of state abortion and voting rights laws have produced some minor silver lining-type material in the fact that NC Dem Sen. Kay Hagan is looking significantly stronger heading into her 2014 reelection campaign.

The biggest winner coming out of the North Carolina legislative session might be Kay Hagan. She leads her two most likely Republican opponents, Thom Tillis and Phil Berger, by 8 points each at 47/39.

Beyond that though it's clear that the actions of the General Assembly this year make voters hesitant to give either of their legislative leaders a promotion. 49% of voters say they're less likely to support the Speaker of the House for the Senate because of what happened during this session to only 19% who are more likely to. And 41% are less likely to support the President Pro Tem of the State Senate for the US Senate, to 18% who are more likely to.

Tillis and Berger still have low name recognition- 44% and 38% respectively- but voters know they're unhappy with what the people in their offices did regardless of whether they know their names at this point, and that will give Hagan a lot to work with in her campaign. Overall the General Assembly has a 24% approval rating with 54% of voters disapproving of it.

Hagan has leads of 7-11 points against her other potential opponents as well. Jim Cain comes closest with a 7 point deficit at 46/39, followed by Greg Brannon (47/38), Virginia Foxx (48/39), and Mark Harris (46/37) with 9 point deficits, Heather Grant with a 10 point gap at 47/37, and Lynn Wheeler with an 11 point one at 47/36.

Virginia Foxx remains the top choice of North Carolina Republicans to be their candidate next year amidst renewed speculation that she might be interested in a bid. 

So Thom Tillis has an anvil around his neck as NC House Speaker, and Phil Berger has an equally heavy burden around his as leader of the State Senate.  And the Tea Party loonies want Virginia Foxx as a candidate?  Oh please let that happen: Hagan'll win by, well, close to double digits.  It'll be more the moment Foxx opens her mouth.  And there's this:

One thing that's quite clear is that GOP voters will be doing what they can to pull their candidates far to the right- 57% support shutting down the government unless Obamacare is defunded to only 25% who oppose that concept.

That's not going to help Foxx in the general, and it means Tillis and Berger are going to have to stake out an extremist opinion from the get-go.

Let's start this Carolina Clown Car up, shall we?

Orange (Julius) Is The New Black (Ops)

It seems House Speaker John Boehner doesn't have enough BENGHAZI!11! in his Benghazi, so he's getting a not-so-subtle reminder up in his district from some real nutjobs who he really works for.

The advocacy group Special Operations Speaks (SOS) recently announced that it is circulating a petition and would be placing billboards in Boehner’s congressional district calling out the Speaker for turning his back on the cause. “ONE MAN stands between the American people and the Watergate-style Select Committee needed to get to the truth and deliver justice. It’s not Barack Obama. It’s not Eric Holder. It’s not John Kerry either,” the email announces, “House Speaker John Boehner is the ONE MAN blocking a real investigation of Benghazi.”

“Boehner’s stonewalling is helping Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and the rest of Obama’s corrupt administration get away with the deadliest scandal in American history,” the email goes on to read, referencing the various debunked theories about the supposed cover-up. According to SOS, by not taking action on forming a special committee, Boehner “continues to help hide the truth by denying a vote to form a Select Committee.”

Orange Julius is about to get his smoothie drank, yo.  And there's more trouble in Washington waiting for him when he gets back from his summer tanning.

Boehner is also receiving push back from rank-and-file members on his unwillingness to treat Benghazi as a Watergate-level scandal. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), the leading advocate for the creation of a special committee, filed a bill to do just that, signing up 163 co-sponsors onto H.Res. 36. Boehner has refused to allow that bill to hit the floor, however, leaving it for now in the House Rules Committee. In response, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) in late July filed what’s known as a discharge petition to help get the bill out of committee and up for a vote, which SOS’s billboard urges Boehner’s constituents to call him in support of.
Stockton, Wolf, and Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) all took part in an unveiling of a 60-foot long petition — at a press conference sponsored by SOS — calling on Boehner to act swiftly on the discharge petition, an event that Fox News heavily promoted. Fox News contributor and former Congressman Allen West (R-FL) has also weighed in on the matter, accusing Boehner and other Republicans of complicity in the alleged “cover-up” for not supporting the special committee. The Speaker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discharge petition and the billboards going up in Ohio.

The most comically inept "House leader" in decades continues his tangerine-tinged tumble from the heights of power.  If his own party is openly coming after him at this point over not being rabid enough on Benghazi, things are going to get real interesting later on.

StupidiNews!

• Egyptian military forces have made good on their threat to move in and break up camps of pro-Morsi demonstrators using force, with protesters claiming hundreds dead.
• California state lawmakers have taken the next steps towards approving legislation that would revoke the tax-exempt status of the Boy Scouts of America over discrimination against gay scoutmasters.
• New analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds the average person buying individual health insurance on state exchanges will receive $2,700 in tax credit towards the purchase.
• Out of all the top-paid corporate executives at S&P 500 companies last year only 8% were women, and they earned 18% less than their average male counterparts.
• The answer to the age-old tech question of "It's the future, where's my jetpack" appears to be "In New Zealand."

Last Call For The I-Word

Republicans really need to stop assuming nobody's paying attention to their town hall meetings.  Take Rep. Brent Farenthold of Texas, for example.

Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold said that Republicans could secure the votes to impeach Barack Obama in the House of Representatives. Farenthold was speaking at an open house held at a Civic Center in Luling, Texas, Saturday according to a YouTube video description and the Congressman’s online schedule. His answer came from a constituent’s question about conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate.

“I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue,” Farenthold said. “The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into it and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.”

“You tie into a question I get a lot: ‘If everyone’s so unhappy with the president’s done, why don’t you impeach him?’” Farenthold continued. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that: If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.” 

On what grounds, Congressman?  You actually have to have a legal, Constutional reason to impeach.  Nice to know then that Republicans in the House would be willing to apparently make a few reasons up to impeach the President, knowing full well they'd never get the 67 votes necessary in the Senate to convict and remove.

But sure, Republicans.  Keep talking about impeachment and government shutdowns like the clowns you are.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Donald Trump:  still a racist, birther moron.

Correspondent Jonathan Karl asked the former presidential candidate about his pursuit of Obama's birth certificate, suggesting it made him look not serious.

“Why does that make me not serious? I think that resonated with a lot of people,” Trump said.

Karl pressed if Trump still believes Obama was not born in the United States.

“I have no idea," Trump said. "I don’t know, was there a birth certificate? You tell me. You know, some people say that was not his birth certificate. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows. And you don’t know either.”

“I'm pretty convinced he was born in the United States,” Karl replied, which prompted Trump to jump in and seize on "pretty convinced."

Karl then said he believed Obama was born in the U.S. "without question.".

“Jonathan, you said you’re pretty convinced, OK? So let’s just see what happens,” Trump said.

Also still inexplicably employed by the "liberal" NBC, still taken seriously as a political candidate for higher office, still the best example of who Republicans really are, and still has a dead weasel on his head.

Steve King Of The Melonheads

Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King refuses to let go of his hatred towards undocumented Latinos, and won't until he's forced to by voters.

In what became a heated argument, Rep. Steve King on Sunday once again defended his controversial remarks about drug smugglers among immigrants who could be legalized under the DREAM Act, setting off a tense exchange with Republican strategist Ana Navarro.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," the Iowa Republican was asked to a respond to a his remarks that “for everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

King said his statements were accurate and have been misconstrued.

"My numbers have not been debunked. I said valedictorians compared to people who would be legalized under the act that are drug smugglers coming across the border. My characterization was exclusively to drug smugglers," King said.

Host David Gregory said the remark had been debunked in that it was impossible to know how many valedictorians or drug smugglers would be involved in the DREAM Act.

“Then, what's their number? How many valedictorians do they suggest? And I’ll tell you, I've seen the drug smugglers," King said. "For this to be characterized by Dick Durbin as valedictorians, I'm telling the American people that I recognize that. … But this proposes to legalize a lot of people that will include the people who are drug smugglers up to the age of 35.”

It was at this point on MTP that GOP strategist Ana Navarro tore King a new one.

“I think Congressman King should go get some therapy for his melon fixation. I think there might be medication for that. I think he's a mediocre congressman with no legislative record and the only time he makes national press is when he comes out and says something offensive about the undocumented or Hispanics,” Navarro said, saying he’s been “helpful” to the debate by getting other Republicans to denounce his remarks.

Gregory brought King back to allow him to respond.

“First of all, I spoke only of drug smugglers. And if Ana understands the language, she should know that. I didn't insult her or other Republicans,” King said.

“I’m not undocumented, congressman, I vote,” Navarro interjected.

This is a Republican politico saying this to King on a Sunday show, no less.  Not that he didn't deserve every ounce of Navarro's scorn, of course.  But the larger message is that any sort of Latino outreach by Republicans like Navarro is 100% worthless as long as the GOP remains the party of Steve King and the dozens of assholes like him.

Navarro knows this full well, and she's rightfully furious.  Steve King makes her job impossible.

I have no sympathy for Navarro, however.  You chose to align yourself with racists like King, now you're learning the hard way why King is irredeemable.  Good luck with your Sisyphean efforts, and don't let the boulder roll you down on the way to 2016.

StupidiNews!

• The jury in the trial of reputed Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger has returned a guilty verdict on 31 of 32 counts, including involvement in 11 murders.
• Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk unveiled a new "open source" transportation project named "Hyperloop" which could theoretically transport riders from LA to SF in 30 minutes.
• A McClatchy study shows that in nearly 40 years of existence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has never tried to declassify documents itself, even though it can try.
• Newark Mayor Cory Booker heads into today's New Jersey Senate special primary election with a massive lead and is expected to easily win the October 16th general election.
• BlackBerry says it's exploring putting itself up for sale as sales of the BlackBerry X10 phone have not met expectations.