Last Call For Cruzing To The Poll Position

We have it again, are you going to believe Ted Cruz or your lying eyes?  Now that those pesky facts are getting in his way, he's going to take the GOP route of ignoring science and facts.

"If you seek out liberal Obama supporters and ask them their views, they're going to tell you they're liberal Obama supporters. That's not reflective of where this country is," Cruz told NBC News in an interview at the Capitol.

In the full poll, for example, 70 percent of respondents said that the GOP has put its own agenda ahead of what is good for the country. With Democrats removed, that number is still a majority of respondents at 56 percent.Even when Democrats are removed from the results of the poll, NBC/WSJ pollsters calculate that the results still show strongly negative reactions from independents and Republicans about the government shutdown and the GOP.

Where have we heard this before?  Oh yeah, when Republicans said the election polls were skewed lies that were generated to make them lose spirit.  Except they weren't.  They were mostly right on, but once the truth could be proved the lie was over.  Until now.

The article above takes out Democrats and shows the numbers are still devastating.  At this point, we should start sending thank you cards instead of criticism.  At the rate they are self-destructing, may they never listen to a us again!  Because when history settles the facts it will be clear through their own words or actions that no shady acts from the left caused this.  These morons just finally bought their own lies and spiraled out of control.  Their shame finally came home to roost, as my grandmother would say.

Can anyone seriously believe that someone so far removed from science and fact knows "where the country is" in regard government issues?  Cruz couldn't find his ass with both hands and a flashlight right now, and his poker face is wearing thin.  It's over, they know it's over, and when they get their spanking in front of a global audience, maybe we can get back to real business.

By the way, Cruz's numbers are dipping sharply, but I guess their sample was flawed yet again, so he's not concerned.  They can only make jackasses this big in Texas.

The Ultimate Sanction

Reeling from a massive defeat in the polls over the shutdown debacle that they caused, Republicans are now making open threats that if President Obama doesn't meet their demands and the GOP then fails to raise the debt ceiling, the resulting default will be an impeachable offense...for President Obama.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) isn't sure whether he'll support a debt limit deal, but he is sure of one thing: a debt default would be President Barack Obama's fault. 

A reporter for The Young Turks asked Gohmert whether he'd support a bill that would raise the debt ceiling at the Values Voter Summit on Friday. 

"The word 'deal' concerns me," he said. "If it's good for America." 

When asked whether he would allow the government to default on its debt, Gohmert projected the responsibility for such circumstances onto Obama. 

"No," he said, "that would be an impeachable offense by the president."

Moose Lady picked up on this theme last weekend as well.

President Barack Obama is risking “impeachable” offenses with the way he is handling the debt limit debate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said in a post on her Facebook page Monday. 

“Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense,” Palin wrote.

The threat is pretty explicit here:  unless the President gives in to the GOP's extortion, they will force the nation to default, blame the President, and begin impeachment proceedings.  They will also impeach if the President tries to go around Congress and raises the debt limit by executive order through the 14th Amendment, which President Obama has said multiple times he will not do.

But of course if the options are "default and be impeached" and "raise the debt limit by fiat and be impeached" the remaining option Republicans leave is a deal to raise it on their terms.  Hell, some of most rabid Tea Party Republicans say they will never raise the debt ceiling now, so you can see where this is going.

Will the debt ceiling battle become an impeachment fight?  I'm thinking there's more than a few wingers who want to see that fight play out, and are already using the threat as leverage to wreck any possible deal that comes out of the Senate.

Once again, Obama Derangement Syndrome threatens to destroy the country.

Zero Credibility

It's hard to imagine who has less credibility right now, Forbes' professional GOP Obamacare propagandist Avik Roy is in one corner...

A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.

Yes, the Obamacare website's troubles are in fact programmed in on purpose because it's a giant conspiracy folks, what are you going to do?

And yet Roy sounds calm and measured next to new king emoprog and useful idiot Ezra Klein, who takes what should be legitimate points about Obamacare's federal launch and then all but calls for mass firings in HHS and the White House.

We're now negative 14 days until the Affordable Care Act and most people still can't purchase insurance. The magnitude of this failure is stunning. Yes, the federal health-care law is a complicated project, government IT rules are a mess, and the scrutiny has been overwhelming. But the Obama administration knew all that going in. They should've been able to build an online portal that works. 

Early on, President Obama like to compare the launch of the Affordable Care Act to Apple launching a new product. Can you imagine how many people Steve Jobs would've fired by now if he'd launched a new product like this? 

So is anybody going to be held accountable? Is anybody going to be fired? Will anyone new be brought in to run the cleanup effort? Does the Obama administration know what went wrong, and are there real plans to find out?

It's really difficult to tell the difference between Roy and Klein right now, and that should pretty much tell you everything you need to know.  Because, gosh, Republicans sure are calling this a bigger scandal than BenghaziIRSDebtGate, and Ezra is happily playing along with the GOP calling for heads when maybe he should pull his own head out of his ass and realize that A) Republicans and SCOTUS happily made an overwhelmed federal exchange system the default in 36 states, and B) these same assclowns are about to do far, far more damage to our country in about 48 hours than a glitchy website.

Yes, it's bad that the websites are having problems.  You know what's worse?  Not having an economy due to a default cascade ripping the global economy into shreds.  You're exactly the distraction the GOP is counting on right now.

Get some goddamn perspective, Ezra.

StupidiNews!

• A magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked central Philippines early Tuesday, killing at least 28 and injuring dozens, with the epicenter on the island province of Bojol. 
• In Wisconsin, former GOP vice-presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan will face Democratic challenger Amar Kaleka, the son of the slain Sikh temple leader killed in Ryan's House district last year.
• Some of the nation's airport chiefs are tired of uncertain federal funding for improvements and are demanding a straight per-ticket fee to pay for billions in needed infrastructure repairs and expansion.
• US spending on clean energy dropped more than 40% in the third quarter as the fracking boom in the Midwest and stretched state budgets combined for less green investment in energy.
• Brazil plans to take on the NSA under order of President Dilma Rouseff as the country will introduce a national secure e-mail outlet.

Last Call For A Deal Maybe?

Looks like Harry and Mitch have banged out the terms of the GOP surrender.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have finally hammered out what seems to be a viable deal both to fund the government and raise the nation’s debt limit, opening up the potential to end the government shutdown and pull the country back from the brink of default. 

The plan will only work if House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) agrees to take it to the House floor for a vote; there, an estimated 30-50 Republicans would surely vote against it, but it would garner enough bipartisan support to pass.

Details of the plan are still emerging, but Politico reports that it will likely include funding the government through January 15, and raising the debt limit through February 7th. It would keep in place the the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, but would give government agencies flexibility in how they cut funding. 

January 15, 2014 is also the date when sequestration will bring more austerity to government programs in the form of an additional $21 billion in cuts. 

The deal also apparently sets up further budget negotiations (which in all likelihood would mean more cuts), to be figured out by a bipartisan group made up of both Senators and Representatives. Their proposal would need to be completed by December 13th.

So, the question then becomes "Can Orange Julius sell this in the House?" which is a very viable and unknown concern due to his near zero influence in the GOP right now, and given the fact that the Tea Party will certainly make some sort of move to oust him again if he does try to sell it.

It's still possible of course that Ted Cruz or another Republican senator or three could simply use the byzantine rules of the Senate and try to kill the deal there, too.  What Harry Reid would do in response to that is also unknown, but we're down to 48 hours and some change now left.

Running Out Of Patience

China isn't the only country sick of American governance by hostage situation. The rest of the world believes the situation we're in to be a global embarrassment (yet again) only this time around they're facing a US debt default brought on by Republican petulance, which would hurt the entire world economy.  Our neighbors want us to resolve this nonsense permanently.

Leaders at World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings on Sunday pleaded, warned and cajoled: the United States must raise its debt ceiling and reopen its government or risk “massive disruption the world over,” as Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, put it.

The fiscal problems of the United States overshadowed the official agendas for the meetings, with representatives from dozens of countries — including two of Washington’s most important economic partners, Saudi Arabia and China — publicly expressing worries about what was happening on Capitol Hill and in the White House. 

The leaders came to Washington to talk about the international recovery, Ms. Lagarde said in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.” “Then they found out that the debt ceiling was the issue,” she added. “They found out that the government had shut down and that there was no remedy in sight.” 

“So it really completely transformed the meeting in the last few days,” Ms. Lagarde said. 

And something better happen sooner rather than later, because even the chance of a US default is likely to damage the global economy.

Many leaders at the World Bank and I.M.F. meetings said they believed the impasse would be resolved before Thursday, when the government would be at severe risk of not having enough money to pay all its bills on any given day going forward. 

But they pressed Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke — who were both at the I.M.F. meeting — on the issue, predicting that even a near-default would lead to higher borrowing costs and a slowdown of the global economy. 

“This cannot happen, and this shall not happen,” Baudouin Prot, chairman of the French bank BNP Paribas, said at a meeting of the Institute of International Finance also being held in Washington. “The consequences of this would be absolutely disastrous.” 

Mr. Lew acknowledged the threat. “Our work begins at home,” he said. “We recognize that the United States is the anchor of the international financial system. With the deepest and most liquid financial markets, when risk rises, the flight to safety and to quality brings investors to U.S. markets. But the United States cannot take this hard-earned reputation for granted.” 

Participants at the meetings remained on edge, given the gravity of the threat. Ms. Lagarde said “that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature” would disrupt the world economy. 

Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, issued his own urgent appeal. “The fiscal standoff has to be resolved without delay,” he said in a statement released by the I.M.F. 

In other words, we don't have until Thursday.  We could see damage even as early as today if it becomes clear idiot Republicans will let the country burn just to hurt President Obama.

And that should be painfully clear to all of us by now.  the entire world could pay for the Tea Party's Obama Derangement Syndrome, and they're going to come calling to collect.

No Roses, Very Little Sunshine

Just a gentle reminder, dear readers, of the global economic scenario should we reach Friday with no debt ceiling deal.

Three of the world's most powerful bankers warned of terrible consequences if the United States defaults on its debt, with Deutsche Bank chief executive Anshu Jain claiming default would be "utterly catastrophic." 

"This would be a very rapidly spreading, fatal disease," Jain said on Saturday at a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington. 

"I have no recommendations for this audience...about putting band aids on a gaping wound," he said.

Jain, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Baudouin Prot, chairman of BNP Paribas, said a default would have dramatic consequences on the value of U.S. debt and the dollar, and likely would plunge the world into another recession.

Wall Street is scared, people.  The Masters of the Universe are now in panic preparation mode.  If the rest of the world has decided that America is an insane ungovernable mess due to the GOP, they will take action to save themselves, and leave us holding the anvil in the middle of the deep end.

Here's my current theory:  the GOP is going to default at this point and is waiting for President Obama to use the 14th Amendment to suspend the debt ceiling on executive order, setting up what the GOP hopes is a Constitutional crisis and grounds for impeachment, or a SCOTUS slapdown of the President, or both. Suddenly you'll have Republican after Republican warning of "tyrant Obama" and things will rapidly devolve, and they may very well get violent, if not deadly.  Suddenly the GOP shutdown is no longer the issue, but a "lawless President who must be removed from office."

This is what the GOP is hoping for.  President Obama is smarter than this, and we'll see how he handles these clowns.

StupidiNews!

• With New York State lawmakers voting to pick up the tab to keep it open, the Statue of Liberty is back in business for now as the partial government shutdown heads into week three.
• A stampede by 20,000 on a bridge outside a Hindu temple in India has turned tragic as more than 90 people are confirmed dead, with dozens leaping into the water below.
• As shutdown and debt ceiling talks now move to the Senate, Republicans say demands by Democrats to increase spending above sequestration levels are unacceptable.
• Prices for country manors outside London are reaching record levels as the British elite seek "Downton Abbey" style.
• Government IT workers aren't sure exactly how long it will take to iron out glitches in the federal health care exchange web sites.

Last Call For The Stars And Bars

So the protest over the WWII Memorial at the national Mall, closed by the GOP shutdown, turned into the small crowd moving to the White House to protest.  That produced this image:



The message a Confederate flag at a White House protest where the first African-American president resides is unmistakable if you grew up even moderately familiar with the civil rights movement.

Right-wing bloggers of course believe the man in the red shirt there must be a "liberal plant".  If that's the case, why is nobody trying to stop this guy?

Think really long and hard about that as we head into this week with a debt default only about 100 hours away or so, and what kind of true, lasting damage such a default would cause to America, our economy, and our standing in the world, damage which the GOP would lay at Obama's feet after dousing the place in gasoline and throwing a lit match over their shoulder.

China Is Officially Sick Of The GOP

Right now the Chinese government looks like a Swiss watch compared to the time bomb that is our dysfunctional mess, and until we jettison the GOP, the rest of the planet is simply going to go around us.

China's official news agency has called for the creation of a "de-Americanised world", saying the destinies of people should not be left in the hands of a hypocritical nation with a dysfunctional government. 

Heaping criticism and caustic ridicule on Washington, the Xinhua news agency called the US a civilian slayer, prisoner torturer and meddler in others' affairs, and said the 'Pax Americana' was a failure on all fronts. 

The official news agency of China, which is seen as the pretender to the world's superpower crown, then rubbed in more salt, calling American economic pre-eminence just a seeming dominance. 

"As US politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world," the editorial said. 

It asks why the self-declared protector of the world is sowing mayhem in the financial markets by failing to resolve political differences over key economic policy. 

"... the cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations' tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonised," the agency said.

After all, it's not just our economy that will be sunk if the GOP suicide bombers detonate a debt default.

According to US Treasury Department data, China is the biggest foreign owner of US Treasuries at $1.28 trillion as of July. Besides, China also holds close to $3.5 trillion of dollar-denominated assets. 

A US debt default and consequent credit downgrade would significantly erode the value of China's holdings.

So yes, China stands to lose billions, if not more, on a default situation.  The GOP plans to pull the trigger, and now China is telling us to get our act together pronto.

On To The Next Hostage Situation

You would think our "moderate" GOP friends would take the hint and stop making hostage demands after the massive beatdown this week, but Very Serious Paul Ryan simply can't help himself, and the fanatical Republican crusade to punish the people who supported this President continues.  This week it's the return of the War on Women!

Since negotiations to avert a national default on the debt have shifted from the House to the Senate, Republicans in the lower chamber are still hoping to use the talks as “leverage” to limit women’s access to contraception. 

According to the Washington Post, in a private meeting with House Republicans Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — who earlier this weak floated a compromise that would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for cuts to entitlement programs — railed against emerging Senate proposals and argued that the “House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year”: 

According to two Republicans familiar with the exchange, Ryan argued that the House would need those deadlines as “leverage” for delaying the health-care law’s individual mandate and adding a “conscience clause” — allowing employers and insurers to opt out of birth-control coverage if they find it objectionable on moral or religious grounds — and mentioned tax and entitlement goals Ryan had focused on in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. 

Ryan’s speech appeared only to further rile up the conservative wing of the GOP conference, which has been agitating the shutdown strategy to try to tear apart the health-care law.

That's right folks, it's the return of the "conscience clause" (not to mention delaying the mandate that pays for Obamacare) and the GOP will never, ever, ever stop with the hostage taking until they are broken completely.

President Obama remains strong.

Last Call For The Young GOP Fanatics' Club

Meet the "brains" behind the GOP's disastrous shutdown/defunding plan, who, as with all Republican "strategists", will only fail upwards:  Heritage Foundation head Michael Needham.

'I really believe we are in a great position right now," says Michael Needham, the 31-year-old president of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the nation's largest conservative think tank. By "we" he means the Republican Party and the conservative movement; their "great position" refers to the potential to win the political battle over the government shutdown. 

Though Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the public face of the high-risk strategy to "defund" ObamaCare, the masterminds behind it are a new generation of young conservatives, chief among them Mr. Needham. From a tactical view, the strategy has been deployed with precision. In August, only Mr. Cruz and a band of renegade tea-party Republicans in the House favored this approach, and the media collectively scoffed. But by September, House Republicans couldn't pass a budget without attaching the defunding rider that has grounded much of government. 

"We rallied the conservative grass roots across the country," Mr. Needham says, and ran ads in more than 100 districts on the health law. It worked. During the August recess, these activists demanded that their members of Congress stop ObamaCare. 

To most observers, who think the GOP is losing this fight, Mr. Needham's optimism that Republicans will carry the day may seem astonishing. But Mr. Needham says the second-guessers are wrong.

Of course he says that.  In a sense he's partially right, the GOP will most likely keep the House in 2014 because America (and our "liberal" media) will conveniently forget all this nonsense come this time next year. So many folks will happily vote for the same Congresscritter who hung them out to dry in 2013, or at least 50% plus one will.

These young guns are convinced they can succeed where their elders failed simply by being willing to destroy the country in order to "win".

Mr. Needham thinks, by the way, that the stalemate may drag on well beyond Oct. 17, the day the U.S. Treasury may reach the federal borrowing limit. He has little problem with the latest strategy to pass a temporary debt-ceiling extension, viewing the debt-default debate as a distraction from the battle over the future of ObamaCare funding. 

President Obama is the one in an "untenable position," Mr. Needham says. It is "totally unfair to say, 'We're going to give a delay of the employer mandate, but we will not give that same delay to the individual mandate, and we're going to exempt members of Congress.' A united conservative party making the case, day in and day out, about the fundamental unfairness of the way the president is implementing this law is a winning argument," he says. And it "inspires people and gets them on our side."

So yes, the tactical genius here believes that by destroying America's credit, jacking up interest rates and costing the country possibly millions of jobs that it will "inspire people and get them on his side."  And yet, he'll continue to give the GOP advice, and the "moderate" GOP will listen to and go along with every word of it, just like they are now.

The Conserva-Schism Is Not The "End Of The GOP"

I'm with Steve M. on this one:  the only people who believe that this shutdown debacle is the "end of the GOP" and the beginning of a libertarian-ish third party in this country are libertarians who don't seem to understand that the volcanic rancor various factions of the GOP have for a black Democrat in the White House (or any Democrat, but especially that one) will always exceed their own differences.  They are forever united by hatred, and always will be, as Steve points out:

Trust me, these folks are going to work this out. First of all, crazy-base disappointment with the GOP is not exactly new. Crazy-base voters thought John McCain was a pathetic RINO. Did they bolt for a third party? No. They felt the same way in 2012 about Mitt Romney. Did they bolt then? No. They never bolt, because they hate liberals, Democrats, and the Democratic voter base as they perceive it (i.e., non-white moochers) far more than they hate one another.

And they've been disappointed for years anyway -- abortion is still legal, government is still (in their eyes) big and socialist, America is still (in their eyes) perpetually under assault by gays, Christian-bashers, gun-grabbers, etc., etc.

And unlike Democrats in 2010, the notion of Republicans sitting at home in fits of pique while the other party gets elected will motivate the GOP to go to the polls in 2014, mainly because of that "united by hatred" thing.  The only question is whether or not there will be enough Democrats who turn out to counter them.  That's really the only question in voting politics these days.  When Democrats show up, they win.  When they don't, America hands the keys back to the drunk drivers in the GOP.

Look at the last 20 years.  The 95-96 shutdown cost Newt Gingrich his speakership and then impeached Clinton over a blowjob, but the GOP held on to the House for another decade and got the White House back four years later.  Show me the part where the shutdown back then was a loss for the GOP, because when the smoke cleared from the 2000 elections, America had given them total control of the country, and then they brought around two ridiculous wars and a financial catastrophe, and ten years after Bush was appointed POTUS by the Supremes, we sat on our asses and gave the GOP not only the House but a majority of state governments to boot.

Where's the point where the GOP is "losing" here?  Suddenly, NOW is the end of the GOP?

Now if we throw the GOP out of the House in 2014, that will be the start of something, but will we do that given all this horrific history of GOP "rule"?

Since we keep putting ourselves back into this situation, I'm going to say "probably not."

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Hundreds of thousands have been evacuated from coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha states in India ahead of today's expected landfall of massive Tropical Cyclone Phailin.
• Missouri Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has suspended execution by lethal injection in the state due to the German manufacturer of the drug refusing to release it for that purpose.
• More and more Syrian rebel groups are leaving the US-backed Free Syrian Army, putting the ability of a moderate group to counter hard-line Islamist rebels at risk.
• House Republicans are gathering today for a meeting to hammer out terms of a deal to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling, but it will be a tough sell to Tea Party faithful.
• After losing multiple battles in lower courts, TV networks are going to the US Supreme Court in order to block online startup Aereo from broadcasting their shows over the internet.

Last Call For Getting The Shaftan

Just in case anyone still thought Republican Steve Lonegan had any realistic shot at upsetting Democrat and Newark Mayor Cory Booker for New Jersey Senate next week, the answer to that question is "Lonegan just fired his senior staffer over a massive gaffe".

Republican New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan said Friday he planned to fire his senior staffer Rick Shaftan after Shaftan made several several profanity-filled remarks about Lonegan's opponent, Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker, earlier in the week.

"Mr. Shaftan's comments are not reflective of my views or that of my campaign," Lonegan said in a statement through his campaign spokesman. "His comments are distasteful and offensive, and his contract as a vendor for my campaign will be terminated immediately."

Shaftan gave an interview to TPM on Thursday in which he described Twitter messages Booker sent to an Oregon stripper as "weird" and "like what a gay guy would say." A spokeswoman for Booker's campaign described Shaftan's remarks as "disgraceful and demeaning."

Republicans can't run away from the Pretty Hate Machine they've constructed, and America is sick of it. The federal shutdown is going to hand Cory Booker a huge win (Terry McAuliffe too in VA for Gov) and the goal now is to remind everyone that this is the GOP and will be until the Tea Party is expunged.