Last Call For Shutdown Winners & Losers

Michele Bachmann thinks the GOP are all winners in the shutdown.

“We’re very excited,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”

Her colleagues think they won too.

“It’s wonderful,” said Rep. John Abney Culberson (R-Tex.), clapping his hands to emphasize the point. “We’re 100 percent united!”

So who are the losers?  Why, the rest of us, of course.

At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said.

Remember, this is exactly what the GOP wanted.

Keep that in mind.

There's That Number Again

The percentage of crazy people in America, given a large enough sample size, always seems to come up to be twenty-seven.

A new CNN/ORC poll shows that Americans are not happy about the prospect of a shutdown, which is happening because Congress has been unable to pass a budget for the new fiscal year that begins Tuesday. 

According to the poll, 68% of Americans think shutting down the government for even a few days is a bad idea, while 27% think it's a good idea. 

And it appears most Americans would blame congressional Republicans for a shutdown: Sixty-nine percent said they agreed with the statement that the party's elected officials were acting like "spoiled children." 

Democrats, however, weren't far behind: Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they too were acting like spoiled kids. 

A poll later showed public support for Congress at record low levels.

I wonder how long the GOP will be able to get away with their current position of  "completely destroying a law passed to offer tens of millions of Americans affordable health insurance is a totally reasonable idea". Everything the GOP has done points to their belief that the President will give in and dismantle Obamacare.

Who among our Village "liberal" media will start agreeing with them that the "responsible" thing to do is accede to the GOP's hostage demands "for the good of the country" and that President Obama really should stop being so "arrogant" as to wanting to see Obamacare survive?

We're about to find out.  Bet it's close to 27%.

The GOP Is Already Losing The Shutdown Battle

Guess who the public blames for the shutdown?  Here's a hint:  it's not the Democrats.

If the federal government shuts down starting Tuesday because of a bitter partisan battle over the new health care law, more people say congressional Republicans rather than President Barack Obama would be responsible, according to a new national survey. 

A CNN/ORC International poll released Monday morning, hours before funding for the government is scheduled to run out, also indicates that most Americans think Republicans in Congress are acting like spoiled children in this fiscal fight, with the public divided on whether the president is acting like a spoiled child or a responsible adult. 

And six in 10 questioned in the survey say they want Congress to approve a budget agreement to avoid a government shutdown, and if it happens, most people say a shutdown would be a bad thing for the country.

Some 46% of voters blame the GOP, 36% President Obama, 13% both sides, so right off the bat 59% of America blames the GOP in some way.

Please proceed, gentlemen.

StupidiNews,Happy Obamacare Day Edition!

• With Senate Democrats rejecting three House GOP attempts to delay, defund, and cripple Obamacare as demands for keeping the government running, a partial government shutdown is now in effect.
• President Obama did sign into law a bill to keep the military running and paid during the shutdown, but some 800,000 federal employees are out of work until further notice.
• Despite the shutdown, Obamacare exchanges nationwide open for enrollment today as Americans without health insurance can start signing up for coverage.
• Retailer IKEA will sell home solar panel kits in its UK stores for the first time this month, at the cost of 5,700 pounds, or about $9,200.
• Scientists say the eruption of Indonesia's Samalas volcano in 1257 may have been the event that kicked off the "Little Ice Age" for the following 600 years.

Last Call For, Well, You Know

House Republicans have now passed a bill that adds a one year delay to the individual mandate on Obamacare, something that will of course make the Affordable Care Act  not work very well at all.  The Senate is in the process tonight of telling the House to go to hell as they stand firm.

The bigger problem is that the shutdown is now all but assured, and that several hundred thousand people are going to be out of work until further notice, putting a huge crimp the economy, not to mention all the government services that will now be denied to millions of Americans.

But it looks like any shutdown may be short lived as I predicted earlier today, as House Republicans are beginning to revolt.

New York representative Peter King is leading the charge, and his fellow New Yorker Michael Grimm is close behind him. The group told leadership on Saturday they have 25 members who are willing to bring down the rule. 

That number of defections would defeat the rule, which, like all such votes, is a party-line affair. “How many of them are going to follow up today with the pressure and everything else, I don’t know,” King told me in a phone interview. 

King wants to pass a clean continuing-resolution bill. “This is going nowhere,” he says about the standoff with Senate Democrats. “If Obamacare is as bad as we say it’s going to be, then we should pick up a lot of seats in the next election and we should win the presidency in 2016,” he says. “This idea of going through the side door to take something you lost through the front door — to me, it’s wrong.”

The vote did pass to begin debate on the rule change, but then the Tea Party amended it to add the one-year delay of the individual mandate.  The Senate is going to reject it, and the shutdown will begin at midnight unless something amazing happens.

Eventually though enough Republicans will jump ship to push a clean CR.  When that happens, the shutdown will end.

Orange Hell

What'll it be, John Boehner?  Hero or goat?

Despite his backroom pleas and carefully crafted strategies, Boehner — a veteran of the shutdown battles of the mid-1990s — was unable to convince a hard-line faction of House GOP lawmakers that they should save their legislative brawls for the debt ceiling fight, where Boehner thought he could drag President Barack Obama to the negotiating table. 

Unless there is a last-minute deal, the U.S. government will shut down Monday at midnight, immediately furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The vast majority of public and private polling shows that Boehner’s House Republicans will get blamed for the stalemate. Boehner and his top aides know it — after all, it was the speaker who privately warned his leadership team that this shutdown could cost him his majority. 

It’s a pivotal moment for Boehner, perhaps the biggest crisis of his speakership, and he’s heading into it with a weak hand. The best Boehner can hope for is a draw. At worst, he could be endangering his troubled 17-seat majority as well as his own hold on the speaker’s gavel.

Once again the fate of America depends on John Boehner's ability to not be the worst House Speaker in modern US history.  

Good luck with that.

Boehner’s options, however, are dictated — and significantly limited — by his conservative flank. Hard-line Republicans, like Reps. Tom Graves of Georgia and Jim Jordan of Ohio, are keeping their powder dry, saying they will decide how to proceed when the Senate reacts to the latest House funding measure. 

In public and private, many of these conservatives are spoiling for a fight. On conference calls and in conversations on the House floor, many conservatives say they need a shock to the political system to have a chance of extracting something from Obama. This isn’t a government shutdown, they say, but rather a slowdown. They are betting the American public won’t turn on House Republicans like they did in 1996, when the GOP lost nine seats, and President Bill Clinton won a second term in the White House.

The lunatic asylum expects Obama to cave, 100%.  So what happens when enough moderate Republicans come up to Boehner and say "With the Democrats, we have enough votes to tell the Tea Party to go to hell.  We have a deal. Will you bring it up for a vote?"

What will he do?

What do you think he'll do?  That he'll have the moral conviction to do the right thing and pay the piper for his own blunders?

When do Republicans ever do that?

We'll find out.  But don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile, Obamacare Marches On

So what about the states where Republicans have all but abandoned state insurance exchanges to rot and die, and thousands of Americans along with them?  The Obama administration is expected to announce new multi-state insurance plans available in 30 states tomorrow.

The administration plans to unveil the program on Monday, the official said, even as Congress fights over the future of President Obama’s health care law, intended to provide coverage to more than 25 million people within three years. 

Federal officials said they had signed a contract with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association to offer health insurance next year in the marketplaces, or exchanges, of 30 states and the District of Columbia. In later years, the officials said, they hoped to see at least two multistate plans in every state, as Congress envisioned. 

Under its federal contract, Blue Cross and Blue Shield will offer different products in different states — a total of more than 150 products, including health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations, which give discounts for using selected health care providers. In many of the products, consumers will have access to a nationwide network of doctors and hospitals. 

The federal government negotiated the benefits and premiums for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield products, so this plan carries a federal seal of approval. 

In negotiating with insurers, the Office of Personnel Management leveraged more than 50 years of experience in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the nation’s largest employer-sponsored health insurance program, covering more than eight million federal employees, retirees and dependents. Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans are, by far, the most popular among federal employees, with more than 60 percent of the enrollment. 

Under the 2010 health care law, the federal government was supposed to sign contracts with at least two multistate plans. But the application from Blue Cross and Blue Shield was the only one approved. Five other companies expressed interest and may file applications in the future, federal officials said. By 2017, at least two multistate plans are supposed to be available in each state.

What the multistate options are is the beginning of national, single-payer public option health insurance plans for all Americans.  If you're wondering why the Republicans are threatening to destroy America to stop Obamacare, you now know why.

StupidiNews, Shutdown Eve Edition!

In non-shutdown news...

• The Justice Department will sue North Carolina over its new voter ID act due to GOP elimination of some early voting and same-day registration, among other reasons.
• Kansas Christian groups are suing the state's Board of Education to block the adoption of science standards, claiming they violate freedom of religion and create a "hostile learning environment for those of faith."
• Climate experts have come to a consensus that another 500 billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere would raise average temperatures by 3.6 degrees.
• German engineering giant Siemens will cut 15,000 jobs worldwide in order to compete globally, with at least a third of the cuts coming from the company's home turf.
• Google is bringing its Glass product on a nationwide demo tour, with the first stop demoing the wearable computing tech in Durham, NC next month.

While We're At It, War On Women Time!

Republicans have officially add more hostages to the government shutdown ransom gambit: America's women and their health.

House Republicans have added a measure aimed at limiting contraceptive coverage to the spending bill coming up for a vote Saturday night, a spokesman for Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, told CNN. 

A senior House leadership aide confirmed that development. 

The so-called “conscience clause” would allow employers and insurers to opt out of preventative care for women which they find objectionable on moral or religious grounds. That prominently includes birth control, which most insurers are required to provide for free under current Obamacare rules. 

With this move, House Republican leaders would give any employer or group health plan the ability to opt out of contraception coverage for the next year. That time frame syncs up with the larger measure in which this is included: a one-year delay of Obamacare provisions not yet in effect. 

“This is a big deal for the congressman,” Huelskamp’s spokesman, Paul Nelson, told CNN. “He has been pushing for (the conscience clause) since he entered Congress.” 

Democrats say the measure is unnecessary because the administration has granted exemptions to contraceptive coverage to religious nonprofit institutions. But advocates, such as Huelskamp, insist that all institutions should be able to opt out of any preventative coverage for women that they find objectionable.

Three observations:  

One: this is a new demand added in the last 24 hours.  Republicans are not moving towards compromise, they are adding new demands.  Let's stop pretending there's any way to avoid a shutdown, and that it's anything but 100% the GOP's fault.

Two:  Republicans continue to try to punish groups that voted for Obama.  They want women, minorities, working poor, the unemployed, the elderly on fixed incomes, and students to suffer as much as possible so that they don't vote in 2014.

Three:  Republicans are misogynist bastards.  They honestly believe women should spend their lives pregnant and subservient.  A woman who wants birth control or an abortion is madness to them.  This isn't about saving money or preventing unwanted pregnancies, or even about lowering the number of abortions. This is about putting women "in their place", period.

As Zandardad told me this morning, Republicans fully expect Obama to cave.  They are going to be very, very surprised when he doesn't.

Last Call For Iran Us Into The Ground

John Hinderaker manages to evacuate the pus-filled cavity between his ears and brings forth this discharge:

This is really too easy: President Obama is willing to negotiate with Iran, but not with the House of Representatives. Commentators have been all over it, and I don’t really have much to add. Except to note that not only has Obama refused to negotiate with the House, he has also had his spokesman describe Republicans as suicide bombers. The irony is rich: those who are concerned about $17 trillion in debt “have bombs strapped to their chests,” while the world’s biggest sponsor of actual suicide bombers–you know, the ones who blow people up, as opposed to disagreeing with Democrats–are newly-discovered moderates.

Except for the fact that the stated goal of OBL and the 9/11 attackers was to damage the US economy to the point where it could no longer interfere in the Middle East.  Republicans in the last decade have done more for that goal than AQ's leadership, and now the House GOP is in fact about to do billions in damage to our economy with a shutdown and trillions with a debt ceiling default if their political demands are not met.

That is the very definition of economic terrorism, and yes, House Republicans are economic terrorists.  Period.  What's more, yes, Iran is more moderate than the American Taliban is right now.  The analogy is 100% fitting.

Dear America

I really hate President Obama to the point of obsession, so despite this week's excellent diplomatic news involving Syria, Iran, Israel and the Palestinians, I'm going to find some unnamed diplomats from allied countries and have them complain about why Obama hasn't bombed the crap out of Syria, Iran, and the Palestinians yet.  It's so depressing, I may not finish my fourth Cosmo of the day.

--Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal

Bonus Verbatim Stupidity:

"In the past we have seen some America overreach," said the prime minister of a Western democracy, in a conversation. "Now I think we are seeing America underreach." He was referring not only to foreign policy but to economic policies, to the limits America has imposed on itself. He missed its old economic dynamism, its crazy, pioneering spirit toward wealth creation—the old belief that every American could invent something, get it to market, make a bundle, rise.

The world's Brahmans are disappointed.  They've never liked Obama as President.  I can't possibly imagine what makes his different from the other 43.

We're underreaching you know when we draw down from decade-long wars and refuse to start new ones.   We need new shiny wars, dammit.

Dinosaur Steve Evolves Into Obamacare Steve

No state has embraced Obamacare quite like Kentucky, a state that has for decades been in the bottom quintile in practically every health metric available.  You can thank Gov. Steve Beshear for that, and he's not running away from the program in any way.  Friday he took to the NY Times to explain to the country that Obamacare cannot come fast enough for those of us here in the Bluegrass State.

Sunday morning news programs identify Kentucky as the red state with two high-profile Republican senators who claim their rhetoric represents an electorate that gave President Obama only about a third of its presidential vote in 2012.

So why then is Kentucky — more quickly than almost any other state — moving to implement the Affordable Care Act?

Because there’s a huge disconnect between the rank partisanship of national politics and the outlook of governors whose job it is to help beleaguered families, strengthen work forces, attract companies and create a balanced budget. 

It’s no coincidence that numerous governors — not just Democrats like me but also Republicans like Jan Brewer of Arizona, John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan — see the Affordable Care Act not as a referendum on President Obama but as a tool for historic change.

Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul know there's nothing they can do to stop KYnect, the state's health exchange.   Where other red state Republicans have tried everything imaginable to sabotage exchanges and Medicare expansion, in a state that's almost 90% white and where the median income is nearly 20% less than the national average, not to mention where one in six lack insurance, Republicans calling Obamacare a program for those people will not work.  Kentucky state lawmakers fell into line almost immediately when they realized the federal government was tripping over itself to pay for the expansion.   Kentucky jumped at the idea and ran with it since day one.

And the man behind that push has been Steve Beshear.  His message for Mitch and Rand?  You lost.

As for naysayers, I’m offended by their partisan gamesmanship, as they continue to pour time, money and energy into overturning or defunding the Affordable Care Act. It’s shameful that these critics haven’t invested that same level of energy into trying to improve the health of our citizens. 

They insist that the Affordable Care Act will never work — when in fact a similar approach put into effect in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney, then the governor, is working. 

So, to those more worried about political power than Kentucky’s families, I say, “Get over it.” 

The Affordable Care Act was approved by Congress and sanctioned by the Supreme Court. It is the law of the land. 

Get over it ... and get out of the way so I can help my people. Here in Kentucky, we cannot afford to waste another day or another life.

Never been more proud of this state or its governor in my life.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• In a unanimous vote, the UN Security Council has approved a measure to compel Syria to turn over all chemical weapons or face consequences.
• After two centuries, George Washington has finally been honored with his own Presidential Library near his home in Mt. Vernon, Virginia.
• President Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani engaged in a nearly 15-minute phone conversation on Friday, the first talk between leaders of the two countries since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
• The contingency plans for day-to-day operations in the White House during a government shutdown finds that President Obama would send about 75% of the staff on furlough.
• Microsoft will introduce Xbox Fitness to Xbox One users this holiday season to compete with Nintendo's fitness offerings.

Last Call For Cruz Uncontrolled

Ted Cruz is about to seriously destroy the GOP, and the conservative "minds" at Weekly Standard are emitting delicious tears at waterfall levels of flow and may actually drown themselves in denial.

There’s no doubt Cruz made mistakes. On tactics, he and his allies chose the wrong objective (defunding, rather than delaying key parts) and perhaps the wrong vehicle (the continuing resolution rather than the debt ceiling). And more than once, he put House Republicans in an exceedingly difficult spot. Cruz misled his followers at times by creating the impression that stopping Obamacare was a matter of willpower rather than arithmetic (Republicans alone don’t have the votes). As John McCormack has noted, Cruz alienated many would-be allies with phony purity tests​—​claiming that conservatives who disagreed with his tactics were part of a “surrender caucus” and even likening them to appeasers of the Nazis. Many conservatives​—​both inside the Congress and out​—​have dedicated the better part of the last four years working first to fend off and then to derail Obamacare. Because they disagree with Cruz on a tactical issue, they’re now the surrender caucus? Nonsense. 

But Cruz and his allies have succeeded in one crucial respect: The debate is now focused on Obamacare and at precisely the moment when many Americans are beginning to understand just how flawed the law is. Despite the many missteps​—​sometimes by passive Republican leaders and sometimes by dogmatic defund enthusiasts​—​Republicans today are in a strong position to capitalize on what Cruz and his allies have done.

And then that "strong position" exploded Thursday as the Tea Party decided it will wreck the country and blame Obama, Boehner, McConnell, Cantor, everyone but themselves.

There's now an excellent possibility now that our economy will suffer massive damage over the next few weeks.  Keep in mind that the GOP is to blame.

Like A House Afire

With all indications that the GOP will shut down the government on Monday, House Republicans are moving forward to the bigger debt ceiling battle.  They don't want much in order to spare the country from a second recession and possibly a major economic depression, just pretty much everything Republicans have tried to pass since the Obama administration started.

As the nation moves dangerously close to a government shutdown on Oct. 1, House leaders are shifting their focus to the next big fiscal fight: raising the nation’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit by one year before Oct. 17. On Wednesday night, Republicanscirculated an outline of demands, threatening to push the nation into default unless President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate agree to enact a wish list of Republican priorities. 

Though Obama has repeatedly insisted that he would not negotiate over the must-pass legislation, leadership is hoping to satisfy conservative members by including every “major piece of the Republican agenda” save a “ban on late-term abortions — and some lawmakers who oppose abortion were arguing to add that,” the Washington Post reports.

It gets better.  They want:

• The Keystone XL pipeline.
• A neutered Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• $120 billion in Medicare cuts and premium hikes.
• To open up the entire US coast to offshore drilling.
• Eliminate EPA greenhouse gas regulations.
• Subject nearly all executive branch actions to a vote in Congress,
• and a one year delay on Obamacare.

This is their starting position.  See, it's reasonable because it's not a repeal of Obamacare, and there's no federal ban on abortion.  They came down from those demands.

Only one problem:  they don't have the votes to pass this.

In a closed-door meeting, the leaders outlined to their members a proposal that would demand a laundry list of Republican priorities in exchange for a yearlong suspension of the nation’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit. The centerpiece of the plan is a one-year delay of President Obama’s signature healthcare law. 

But hours after the meeting, the party had yet to release the legislation formally, and conservatives complained that it lacked specific spending cuts and failed to tackle entitlement reform. 

“We still have some challenges,” said Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), an ally of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and member of the GOP whip team. “We’ve got an awful lot of support, but clearly at this point we don’t have a final product that’s attracting the number that we need. Hopefully that’ll change, and I think it could.” 

Cole said leaders were still tinkering with the plan, which senior Republicans earlier had said would go to the House Rules Committee on Thursday.

The Tea Party apparently wants even more cuts, and they're not happy about the year delay at all.  They're not going to vote for anything short of full repeal.

So now, odds are not only good that the government will shut down on Monday night and stay shut down for the foreseeable future, the debt ceiling bomb will kick in on top of that, and the American economy will pretty much collapse overnight.

I predicted that the Titans of Wall Street would never allow this to happen.  It may very well be that they can't prevent this from happening either.  The GOP will destroy the country in order to hurt Obama.  That's all that matters to them now.  They will leave a country of ashes and millions suffering in their wake.  If they can't run the country as a Christian fundamentalist Dominionist theocracy, they will raze America to the ground.

Sobering, but becoming more and more true daily.