StupidiNews!

• President Obama is expected to formally nominate current Federal Reserve vice-chair Janet Yellen today as the first woman to head the Fed.
• Actor Tom Hanks revealed this week that he has been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and is undergoing treatment.
• More than 200 people, including several Democratic members of Congress, were arrested at an immigration protest at the National Mall Tuesday afternoon.
• California health care officials say more than 28,000 have signed up for the state's health care exchanges in the first week, New York officials say they've received 40,000 applications last week.
• Russian law enforcement officials say they've busted the man behind the infamous "Blackhole" malware, the hacker known as "Paunch" is apparently now in police custody.

Last Call For The Big "L" On Your Forehead

The GOP is now distinctly losing the shutdown fight in the court of public opinion.

Disapproval of congressional Republicans’ budget wrangling after a weeklong shutdown has shot up to 70 percent, with 51 percent disapproving “strongly,” according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

At the same time, President Obama’s approval rating has ticked up due to improved marks among moderate Democrats and independents. No group, however, earns positive marks for their handling of budget negotiations overall.

President Obama is holding steady, if not doing slightly better.  But Congress is definitely doing worse, especially Republicans.  Disapproval of the GOP is now at a massive 70%.  Here's the interesting part:

The poll finds Democrats and Republicans have become convinced that the opposite party is in the wrong on budget negotiations, but are far less united in support of their own leaders. Just 52 percent of Republicans, for instance, approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling budget negotiations. Fully 89 percent of Republicans disapprove of Obama, with 74 percent disapproving strongly. An identical 89 percent of Democrats disapprove of Republicans. 

The wide unpopularity of Republicans in Congress in budget talks is in large part due to a schism within Republicans themselves. By 59 to 39 percent, conservative Republicans approve of the way their party’s members of congress have handled budget negotiations in combined interviews over two weeks. But Republicans who identify as moderate or liberal split narrowly: 44 percent approval to 49 percent disapproval. 

This ideological split within the Republican party comes into sharper focus when looking at the most conservative party members. Republicans who describe themselves as “very conservative” approve of Republicans in Congress by 68 to 32 percent. Those who are just “somewhat conservative” split 51 to 45 percent in two weeks of combined poll results. 

By contrast, Obama wins wider approval from his fellow partisans that spans Democrats’ ideological wings. Fully 77 percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s handling of budget negotiations, including 84 percent of liberals within the party. Among moderate and conservative Democrats, three quarters approve of Obama, up 11 points from last week.

Democrats are rallying around the President's refusal to give in to GOP economic terrorism.  Republicans on the other hand are coming apart.  A majority of moderate Republicans (what few are left) are revolting against the GOP tactics because they realize they're being held hostage too by the Tea Party nutjobs.

So when will these Republicans demand an end to the insanity?  The time to speak up is now, guys...or you're going to go down with the rest of the Republican losers.

We've Got Ourselves A Great Big Con(Men)voy

The latest Tea Party anarchist fantasy?  Heroic right-wing truckers will surround Washington DC and cart off all the evil Democrats or else they'll blockade the city and starve out all those people.  Or something. Because FREEDOM and EAGLES.

Earl Conlon, a Georgia trucker who is handling logistics for the protest, told U.S. News tractor-trailer drivers will circle the beltway "three lanes deep" as he rides with other participants to Congress to seek the arrest of congressmen for allegedly disregarding the Constitution. 

The truckers circling I-495 will keep the left lane open for emergency vehicles, Conlon said, but "everybody that doesn't have a supporter sticker on their window, good luck: Nobody in, nobody out." The trucks will be going the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit. 

D.C. commuters who wish to be allowed past the convoy must have "T2SDA" – an acronym for the event's original name, "Truckers to Shut Down America" – written on their vehicle, he said. 

"It's going to be real fun for anyone who is not a supporter," Conlon said, "[and] if cops decide to give us a hard time, we're going to lock the brakes up, we're going to stop right there, we're going to be a three lane roadblock."

OK Conlon, how many people are you willing to main, injure, or kill to blockade DC and its people? How many of your trucker buddies are willing to go up against the Secret Service, DC Police, Capitol Police, and even the US Army? Because I guarantee you the first time you and your redneck asshole buddies flip over a minivan with an Obama/Biden sticker on it, you're going to have hell descend upon you.

Zeeda Andrews, a former country music singer helping promote the protest, said last week participants would present demands to congressmen – including the impeachment of President Barack Obama – and give the congressmen an opportunity to agree to the demands in exchange for canceling the ride. 

But Conlon says that's not quite right. 

"We are not going to ask for impeachment," Conlon said. "We are coming whether they like it or not. We're not asking for impeachment, we're asking for the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office."

OK, you do that.  And the people whose sworn duty it is to protect our elected men and women of office will do their sworn duty and end you.  You're coming whether thy like it or not?

They'll be ready.  Because if you think America's just going to roll over and let you clodhoppers say "Well, we didn't win the election so we're just going to destroy your country" you've got another thing coming to you.

And by "another thing" I mean most likely people with heavy ordnance.

I hope you keep on truckin', buddy.  Right to federal prison.

The Honey Badger Rises

With the House going nowhere, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats are going to try to pass a clean debt ceiling hike in order to call the GOP out, and they believe they have enough Republican votes to beat a filibuster.

Senate Democrats are planning to start the process this week for a Senate vote on a clean debt limit increase, sources tell me – a move that could call the bluff of Republicans in both chambers and force them to take a stand on whether they will allow default and economic destruction if Dems don’t accept their unilateral demands. 

The move has the backing of the White House, according to a source familiar with discussions. 

The idea is that Senate Dems will move their own clean debt limit bill, rather than wait for the House GOP to hold its own vote on either a clean CR funding the government (which Senate Dems have already passed with broad bipartisan support) or on a debt limit hike. Dems would be challenging Senate GOP moderates to vote for or against averting default and economic havoc outside of any set of conditions House Republicans insist must be attached to any measure raising the debt limit. 

Senator John Cornyn is claiming no clean debt limit hike can pass the Senate, but Dems believe there may be at least half a dozen GOP Senators who would be willing to support one. A vote would put that to the test.

So we'll soon see if indeed Harry Reid can pull this off.  He'll have to at some point for the Democrats to stop GOP extortion politics, but I'm getting more and more afraid that it's going to take a multi-trillion dollar economic catastrophe caused by a GOP default before this will all end.

StupidiNews!

• The new US $100 bill finally reaches banks starting today, with redesigned anti-counterfeit features and a larger picture of Benjamin Franklin, after a more than two-year delay.
• The American co-winners of this years Nobel Prize in Medicine warn that federal cuts to science and research are jeopardizing the country's place as a leader in biotechnology.
• The White House says it's open to a short-term debt ceiling raise in order to avoid a default, but Republicans continue to insist deep cuts to Obamacare and social spending must come first.
• French telecom manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent says it will need to cut 10,000 jobs across its global workforce in order to turn around losses.
• Korean chipmaker LG is ramping up production of its AMOLED flexible display screens that could end up in smartphones in 2014.

Last Call For Ending The Fight

President Obama lays down the law of sanity.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that lifting the debt ceiling will be non-negotiable for as long as Barack Obama is president. 

"Whether it's today, or a number of weeks from now, or a number of months from now, or a number of years from now, it will always be Congress's responsibility to raise our debt ceiling so that the United States can pay the bills that Congress has incurred," he told reporters during his daily briefing. 

"It will always be, as long as he's president, President Obama's position that that responsibility is not negotiable. That there's not a game of trading for political priorities or agenda items that Republicans have not been able to achieve through legislation or the ballot box."

 Okay then.  The GOP response from New Jersey Republican Scott Garrett:

House Republicans won't agree to a debt limit increase deal that includes anything less then a full delay or complete defunding of Obamacare, Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) said.

"They may try to throw the kitchen sink at the debt limit, but I don't think our conference will be amenable for settling for a collection of things after we've fought so hard," Garrett said, according to National Review on Monday. "If it doesn’t have a full delay or defund of Obamacare, I know I and many others will not be able to support whatever the leadership proposes. If it’s just a repeal of the medical-device tax, or chained CPI, that won’t be enough."

Well, somebody's going to be wrong here.  And the future of the country is at stake, not to mention pretty much our entire global economy.



Well,

Some People Just Want To Watch The Country Burn

You know, like Georgia gun shop owner Jeff Epperson, a rabid Tea Party supporter.  Here's a guy who, despite seeing his business cut drastically as he's just outside the now closed Chickamauga Civil War battlefield national historic site, is ready for the park to stay closed as long as necessary and even for the country to go into a disastrous default in order to rid America of the demonic specter of affordable health care.

“If he backs off, then I would say absolutely I’d be inclined to look for someone else,” said Mr. Epperson, whose store flew a Don’t Tread on Me flag. 

The Republican insistence in the House on tying financing of the federal government to dismantling the Affordable Care Act is being driven by a deeply conservative caucus from places like Mr. Graves’s 14th Congressional District, newly created by Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature. 

Even as Republican elders warn that the party is risking a voter backlash that could cost it in future elections, interviews here indicate that hard-liners like Mr. Graves have more to fear, if they waver, from a potential challenger to their right. 

Mr. Graves, 43, won 73 percent of the vote in November in a district that is 85 percent white and has a 16.6 percent college graduation rate. A journey through the district, which stretches from the exurbs of Atlanta to the northwest mountains on the Tennessee border, found many voters who, even if they were unfamiliar with Mr. Graves’s biography, strongly supported him. 

“He represents the people,” said Tim Ferguson, a forklift operator who was waiting for a haircut at Paul’s Barber Shop in Calhoun. “He’s not going to commit political suicide by backing down.” 

Voters here viewed the Washington stalemate just as Mr. Graves and many of his party members in Congress portray it: a tale of Republicans who have repeatedly shown a willingness to compromise, while Democrats petulantly refuse to meet halfway. 

“Obama should not be so dogmatic,” said Julia Welch, 82, who runs an antiques store in Dallas, the seat of Paulding County. “He wants his way and no other.” 

Jon Tripcony, a surveyor in Dallas, recalled a photograph of Republican leaders in shirt sleeves facing empty seats across a table. The photo, which Mr. Graves posted on Twitter, was staged to dramatize Republicans’ call for Democrats to discuss a budget passed by the House. It may have been dismissed as a publicity stunt by much of the news media, which noted that House Republicans repeatedly refused to join a conference on a budget the Senate passed earlier. But in northwest Georgia it was taken at face value. 

“There was not one single Democrat,” Mr. Tripcony said. “They’re just spoiled little kids. I don’t get it.”

Deep in NOBAMA Country, the Foxification of the rural rump continues unabated.  It doesn't matter that the law passed, it doesn't matter that the law survived the Supreme Court, it doesn't matter that President Obama and the Democratic Senate were handily re-elected, it's Obama who has to give in to the Tea Party. Even at their own expense and the expense of their kids and neighbors and friends, these fanatics are willing to destroy the country and even themselves in order to prevent Democrats from having a country to govern.

Elections no longer have consequences.  It's all about which side is willing to commit political terrorism in order to win that matters in America in 2013, and among Republicans, those who aren't willing to cause trillions of dollars in damage are not ideologically pure enough to deserve to be among the faithful.

These people will never accept Obama as their President, not of their country, so everybody will have to lose.  And the warning is clear:  if you elect Democrats, these lovely people will continue to destroy America again and again until you stop.

They figure you have no choice but to surrender to them.  We'll see very soon if they are right.

No Virginia, There Is No Santa Cruz

Meanwhile in Virginia, a state with a pretty healthy share of federal employees, GOP Attorney General and candidate for governor Ken Cuccinelli can't literally run away fast enough from the Ted Cruz wing of the GOP.

In the clearest sign yet of the potent effect of the government shutdown on the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli avoided being photographed with Ted Cruz at a gala they headlined here Saturday night—even leaving before the Texas senator rose to speak. 

Backstage, a source said, Cuccinelli urged Cruz to work with Democrats to end the federal shutdown. But he did not make that point, or even acknowledge Cruz, in short public comments to some 1,100 social conservatives. 

Cruz has become the face of GOP intransigence, and the conservative attorney general’s effort to distance himself from congressional Republicans reflects how damaging Cuccinelli realizes a prolonged shutdown may be for his campaign.

The Cooch ran out of the gala before Cruz could be caught anywhere near him by the press.  That says volumes.  Maybe it's because Cruz sees hundreds of thousands of federal employees -- and Virginia voters -- as enemies of America who must be destroyed.

For his part, Cruz heaped praise on his “friend” Cuccinelli and argued passionately in a 54-minute speech that their party can still win the messaging fight over the shutdown if the people just speak out loudly enough.

Sure.  That and $20 bucks will put dinner on the table for all those federal employees who don't know when they'll see a paycheck again and have mouths to feed.  But it's all a game to Cruz and his jackass friends. Only the fact is real people are getting hurt as a result.

StupidiNews!

• The UN is confirming that as part of the deal brokered by US and Russian officials, Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons is starting to be safely destroyed and disposed of.
• Despite a growing police brutality scandal, Brazilian law enforcement "pacification" units continue to be deployed into the slums of Rio to secure the city ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
• US tobacco growers are worried about an upcoming EU parliament vote this week that would result in all but a total ban on imports of American tobacco.
• European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has secured its first order from Japan in the wake of mechanical problems with rival Boeing's 787 Dreamliner earlier this year.
• Despite the government shutdown, the space mission to study the climate of Mars is proceeding as it's cheaper to launch than delay the mission another 3 years for a second launch window.

Last Call: Podcast Vs. The Stupid

Bon and I talked about the impending disaster that is the shutdown and upcoming possible default by the GOP.

New Politics Progressive Internet Radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on BlogTalkRadio

It's all about the punishment on this episode of Podcast Vs. The Stupid:  Gotta Get Up To Shut Down.

Oh Waiter, There's One Of Those People In The Oval Office

Aimai, filling in for Steve M. over at No More Mister Nice Blog, absolutely nails the Republican hatred for federal/government employees, up to and including President Obama.

We've seen a lot of weird reactions on the right wing to the Government Shut down. These range from "it doesn't matter" to "its terrible" but one thing that really strikes me is the rage and antipathy that has been displayed towards Federal Workers themselves. It doesn't strike me as unusual, but it does strike me as significant. Yesterday's on air rant by Stuart Varney makes it pretty explicit: Federal Workers and, indeed, the entire Government are failing Stuart Varney. They cost too much and they do too little. In fact: they are so awful they don't even deserve to be paid for the work they have already done. Contracts, agreements, and labor be damned.

Varney's money quote:

No, I don't think they should get their back pay, frankly, I really don't. I'm sick and tired of a massive, bloated federal bureaucracy living on our backs, and taking money out of us, a lot more money than most of us earn in the private sector, then getting a furlough, and then getting their money back at the end of it. Sorry, I'm not for that. I want to punish these people. Sorry to say that, but that's what I want to do.

Government employees are The Help.  And The Help is supposed to be put in its place whenever it gets uppity.  Aimai again:

Let me unpack this for you as an Anthropolgist, because I think it says something about the enormous gap that lies between these people (Republicans and Punishers) and the rest of us. There are several things at issue here: the status of workers, the status of employers, and the status anxiety Republicans feel when they don't believe that they are treated as an employer should be treated by their employees. In this case everyone in the Federal Government, from the President down to the lowliest Federal Street Sweeper, is not giving Varney the satisfaction that he thinks is his due. And he is damned if they will be paid when they don't do their job to his satisfaction. In this way his attitude is like that of the angry customers, the "Punishers" described in Jay Porter's series of essays about what happened when he moved an entire restaurant from tipped wait staff to non tipped.

Basically the ability to withhold tips from restaurant employees is necessary in order to maintain power over The Help.  When waitstaff in Jay Porter's restaurant went to non-tipped, that power was lost, and his customers were upset.  They wanted to maintain the ability to punish his staff for bad service, and actively looked for other ways to do so, such as a food critic publicly shaming one of the waitresses in a review.  It was OK when Republicans had that power over those people.

But then, one of them became President.  Then it all became about putting all of those people in their place.  Aimai:

What does this have to do with the Republican Party? The Republican Party at this point in time is entirely made up of Punishers who think they are entitled to treat the government--and especially the government of Barack Obama--as waiters who need to be shown their place. This should surprise no one. At heart the entire Republican Party is made up of winners and losers and they are united in just one thing: they think that money is the only way to tell who is who. If you have money, you use that to distinguish yourself from the losers and to demonstrate your superiority by punishing them further. If you are a loser--a worker, for example, or have no health insurance (say) your job as a Republican is to take your status as a given, accept it, and turn around and get your jollies kicking someone else farther down the line.

That's the way the GOP mindset works.  You take the hate and you kick the people beneath you, and government civil servants are the bottom of the food chain.  They exist to serve us, the mindset goes.

Federal workers violate those central principles because they can't be fired directly by "the employer" because the individual Republican tax payer isn't the direct employer. They also can't be humiliated and made to feel vulnerable because of civil service protections and unionization. And in the matter of interactions, one on one, the taxpayer can't command good treatment by offering money (bribes) and thus often feels vulnerable and weak because there is no way to play the "do you know who I am" card which (like tipping) is an attempt to force a generic servant to give non generic attention and service to one class of people. So Federal Employees create an extra level of status anxiety for Republicans when they come in contact with these "employees" who can't be fired or rewarded and therefore are not obligated to be extra nice to the individual Republican.

So no, the Republicans don't care about furloughed federal workers and their families, because the entire shutdown scenario is nothing more than collective punishment against all the people who voted for Obama. Shutting down the government was the plan all along, as this NY Times article points out.

To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known. 

With polls showing Americans deeply divided over the law, conservatives believe that the public is behind them. Although the law’s opponents say that shutting down the government was not their objective, the activists anticipated that a shutdown could occur — and worked with members of the Tea Party caucus in Congress who were excited about drawing a red line against a law they despise.

Make no mistake, this shutdown and the threat of default is collective punishment against those of us who dared to opposed the Way Things Ought To Be.  The shutdown is there and the price of that shutdown is the end of the Affordable Care Act.  Republicans will destroy our country at this point, and cause trillions in damage and suffering for tens of millions of us in order to get their way.

John Boehner all but made that threat today on This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

BOEHNER: My goal here is not to have the United States default on its debt. My goal is to have a serious conversation about those things that are driving the deficit and the debt up and the president’s refusal to sit down and have a conversation about this is putting our nation. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: He continues to refuse to negotiate, the country is going to default? 

BOEHNER: That’s the path we’re on. The president canceled his trip to Asia. I assume — he wants to have a conversation. I decided to stay here in Washington this weekend. He knows what my phone number is. All he has to do is call.

We're ten days out from a economic and constitutional crisis, and there's no indication that it will be averted. You, me, and the rest of The Help must be punished, and the Republicans are going to wreck the country in order to do so, then say "We will continue to destroy your family and your economy until you realize that you are beneath us."

What will your answer be then to the GOP economic terrorists willing to destroy your family?

The Breaking Point Has Been Reached

The shutdown ends when enough purple district House Republicans face enough of a threat over the shutdown clown show that the GOP is in danger of losing control of the House in 2014, regardless of the threats the Tea Party makes.

We may have now reached that point according to Public Policy Polling.

The government shutdown is already hurting the GOP in battleground congressional districts, according to new polling in two dozen districts currently controlled by Republicans. 

The surveys, commissioned by the liberal group MoveOn.org Political Action and conducted by Public Policy Polling, suggest that the government shutdown may already be having a bigger impact than most analysts realize. 

"Democrats must pick up 17 seats to win control of the House. These poll results make clear that if the election were held today, such a pickup would be well within reach," said pollster Jim Williams. "The surveys challenge the conventional wisdom that gerrymandering has put the House out of reach for Democrats." 

We're still 13 months out from next year's midterm elections and the shutdown isn't even over yet, so it's too soon to draw any conclusions, but this new survey data is supported by national polls that suggest Americans are more likely to blame Republicans for the shutdown than President Obama and other Democrats. Two polls released last week, from CBS and Fox News, each found that the public blames Republicans over Democrats by about a 10 point margin. Only about 20 percent blamed both sides evenly.

The new PPP polls were conducted on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week, with sample sizes of between 600-700 registered voters in each of the 24 districts they surveyed. Most of the districts, including several in California, New York, Ohio, and Florida, are considered competitive. 

In 17 of the districts, PPP found the Republican incumbent trailing a generic Democrat in a head-to-head contest among registered voters. Most of the incumbents' approval ratings were underwater, meaning more respondents disapproved than approved.

Dems need 17 seats to take back the House.  PPP finds 17 House Republicans are in danger of losing their seats, including locally here in the OH/KY area, Andy Barr in KY-6 (down 50-42% versus a generic Democrat, 50-33% say they are less likely to vote for Barr because of the shutdown) and David Joyce in OH-14 (down 47-44% vs Generic D and 50-34 less likely to vote for him over the shutdown).  In OH-6, Bill Johnson is up 41-35 over a generic Dem, but 41-40 voters are less likely to vote for him, so Johnson's seat is in play.

Of course, you can scream THE POLLS ARE SKEWED all you want to, Republicans.  Just like that coming Romney landslide in 2012 when you said the same thing.

How'd that work out for you, Republicans?  Cause it's about to happen again.

Last Call For One For Two In Africa

The Kenyan government response to Al-Shabaab's deadly siege of a Nairobi mall last month has long promised to be swift and deadly, according to President Uhuru Kenyatta.  Now we know why:  he brought his allies in from the United States in a daring double anti-terror operation this weekend, with a raid against Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and the capture of a terrorist suspected in the African US Embassy bombings in 1998 in Libya.

U.S. military forces were involved in two separate operations in Africa -- one of them targeting a member of the group Al-Shabaab, which was behind last month's Kenya mall attack, and the other going after an al Qaeda leader tied to the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies.

The Al-Shabaab raid took place in Somalia, where that terrorist group is based, sometime in the past 24 hours, a senior U.S. official said Saturday evening.

The team of U.S. Navy SEALs had to withdraw before it could confirm whether it killed the target because they came under fire, the official said. The SEALs made the "prudent decision" to withdraw rather than engage in further combat, according to the official.

The other mission ended in the capture of Abu Anas al Libi, who is suspected to have played a significant role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Nairobi, Kenya, U.S. officials said.

The key al Qaeda operative was captured by U.S. special operations forces in Tripoli, Libya, according to the officials. 

This U.S. operation was conducted with the knowledge of the Libyan government, said one U.S. official.

So one operation confirmed successful, the other may have been, but Navy SEALs pulled out of the other one before it could be confirmed.  We'll see what happens next as Africa remains a prime target for terrorists like this.

Standing Tall

Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington State sums up the last, oh, five years of GOP petulance.

“Dealing with terrorists has taught us some things,” said Washington Rep. Jim McDermott after voting no on one of Thursday’s GOP bills. “You can’t deal with ’em. This mess was created by the Republicans for one purpose, and they lost. People in my district are calling in for Obamacare—affordable health care—in large numbers. These guys have lost, and they can’t figure out how to admit it.” Why would House Democrats give away what the Supreme Court and the 2012 electorate didn’t? “You can’t say, OK, you get half of Obamacare—this isn’t a Solomonic decision,” McDermott said.

And he ends it with this classic quote:

“So we sit here until they figure out they fuckin’ lost.”

Republicans believe they've already won. They believe President Obama and the Democrats will cave on Obamacare, social safety net cuts, voting, the economy, everything.

They have no idea they've already lost.

They're about to find the hell out.

The Same Old Song And Dance

We've seen all of this before:  Republicans start out with the catastrophic (destroy Obamacare or plunge the country into instant depression with a debt default) and then everybody acts relived when their demands drop down to merely ruinous (the hundreds of billions in cuts that slowed down the economy in 2013, aka sequestration).

We're seeing it again now.  NRO's Robert Costa floats yet another House GOP Grand Bargain style round of austerity cuts:

But details are floating to the surface as the leadership reaches out to internal power brokers about what’s within the realm of the possible. What I’m hearing: There will be a “mechanism” for revenue-neutral tax reform, ushered by Ryan and Michigan’s Dave Camp, that will encourage deeper congressional talks in the coming year. There will be entitlement-reform proposals, most likely chained CPI and means testing Medicare; there will also be some health-care provisions, such as a repeal of the medical-device tax, which has bipartisan support in both chambers. Boehner, sources say, is expected to go as far as he can with his offer. Anything too small will earn conservative ire; anything too big will turn off Democrats. 

This in return for not blowing up the country's economy.  Sure it's extortion, but it's not a depression, right? Until the next budget shutdown/debt ceiling fight, that is.  And this will continue forever until somebody stands up to these clowns and says no more.

Will President Obama do it?  Hell, will the Tea Party just scuttle the deal anyway?

We'll see.