Ted Cruz seeks to be the anti-Galileo of our time

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ted Cruz is a hyper-partisan ideological extremist with deep-rooted cynicism. He's also a fucking idiot.

Because if he actually believes this, if this is more than just pandering to the ignorant Republican base, he basically disqualifies himself from reality:

Speaking to the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, Cruz said that contemporary "global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers."

"You know it used to be it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier," he said.

In Cruz's opinion, when it comes to climate change, his denier position places him alongside 17th Century scientist Galileo Galilei, who was also considered to be denying the mainstream knowledge of his day. According to Cruz's logic, he is taking the minority view that human-caused climate change is not happening, just as Galileo took the minority view that the scientific method should be trusted over the Catholic Church.

That's right, Galileo was a scientist. And, contra Cruz, what Galileo was denying was not the "accepted scientific wisdom" of the day but the prevailing religion-based ignorance of the day. Galileo was a scientist challenging anti-science. Cruz is an anti-scientist challenging science. If anything, Cruz is the anti-Galileo, exactly the opposite of his ridiculous claim.

But in related news -- and I kid you not, this is true! -- when Cruz fell out of bed the other night, having wet his shorts with the liquid poop he shits through his urethra, he floated up to the ceiling and remained there suspended in a state of trance-like hyper-sleep, his anus pulsating as it pulled sulfur out of the atmosphere to feed his enraptured body, his nose emitting oxygen waste, until sea creatures pulled the sun back from its resting place across the eternal waters of bliss and he slipped back down between the sodden sheets, finally awaking to the sound of trumpets played with Miles Davis-level intensity by a band of Norwegian sheep living in his bathtub.

It's science! Fuck you.

Peter King on a Ted Cruz presidency: "I hope that day never comes. I will jump off that bridge when we come to it."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I really dislike Peter King -- the Rep. from NY, not so much the MMQB guy. Among other things, he's an avid supporter of terrorism (of the Irish kind) and an anti-Muslim bigot. (The other guy is a Roger Goodell apologist and mouthpiece for NFL speaking points, but also a good reporter despite some shallowness.)

But when he's right, he's right, and you have to give him credit when he is. Like, for example, about Ted Cruz:

Representative Peter King went on CNN to talk with Wolf Blitzer about Senator Ted Cruz's presidential announcement yesterday. His praise for his colleague was muted. Although Cruz "may be an intelligent person," King said, " ... he oversimplifies, he exaggerates ... he doesn't provide leadership and he has no real experience." He added, "To me, he's a guy with a big mouth and no results."

When asked to consider a future in which Cruz wins the nomination, King said, "I hope that day never comes. I will jump off that bridge when we come to it."

Of course, King is basically a northeastern conservative Republican, with views and an agenda very much in line with the party establishment that Cruz is so virulently opposed to, even if Cruz shares its views. Hence why King likes Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and Jeb Bush but not Cruz and Rand Paul, another thorn in the side of the GOP.

And of course King is also thinking of running for president himself, even if that seems unlikely and he wouldn't go far. (If a warmongering type gets in the race, it'll be someone like Lindsey Graham, not King, though most of the establishment, as well as Cruz, is pro-war, any war, all the time. Paul is one of the few exceptions among Republicans in this regard.)

So it's hardly surprising that he's taking aim at Cruz, who is widely despised among establishment Republicans.

But it sure is amusing. Welcome to the 2015-16 Republican Civil War.

Why Rand Paul will never be president

By Richard K. Barry

If you are only a casual observer of Republican politics in America, or no observer at all, you may not understand what has become a truism for electoral success amongst conservatives. David Ludwig at The Atlantic explains the dynamic succinctly, using same-sex marriage as a salient case-in-point.

Threading the needle by appeasing the conservative base—which tends to supply the majority of primary voters—without coming across as too extreme for moderates is a challenge for any presidential candidate, but it has been especially difficult for Republicans since the rise of the Tea Party in 2010. With the 2016 primaries fast approaching, nowhere is this challenge clearer than on the issue of same-sex marriage, where popular opinion has shifted dramatically in its favour, while the Republican right remains overwhelmingly opposed.

According to a May, 2014 Gallup poll, support for gay marriage doubled between 1996 and 2014, from 27 percent support to 55 percent support. Much of the shift appears to have been generational, with 78 percent of 18-29 year olds now supporting gay marriage as opposed to just 42 percent of those over the age of 65. Meanwhile, support among Independents is at 58 percent, with self-described moderates polling slightly higher at 63 percent. Republican support hovers around 30 percent.

So, when likely GOP presidential hopeful Rand Paul tells Fox News' Bret Baier that he is personally "offended" by gay marriage, that's a problem for Republicans.

It's a problem because many swing voters don't particularly expect Republicans to change long held positions on things like gay marriage, reproductive rights, and immigration reform.  What they listen for, however, is the bile Republican candidates exhibit in expressing those positions. 

As Ludwig correctly asserts, threading the needle means saying the things that need to be said to attract activist conservatives, without the spitting anger and ugliness that will turn off more mainstream Americans. 

It's a cute trick, and I've seen it work. Rand Paul didn't get the memo. Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee wouldn't understand it if they got it, which is why none of these people will ever be president of the United States. 

Republican hopefuls suck up for 2016 votes at Anti-Freedom Summit in New Hampshire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Your 2016 GOP: Over the cliff, in the name of freedom.

Yes, the 2016 campaign has already begun, and some big-name Republicans were in New Hampshire yesterday for a right-wing pissing contest:

The Republican presidential primary is up and running in New Hampshire, where conservative prospects lined up in Manchester Saturday for the first cattle call of the 2016 cycle. 

Speakers at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, which was sponsored by Citizens United and Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity, included Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, all of whom would be top tier presidential contenders should they run.

Donald Trump also spoke.

Huckabee seemed especially determined to show he could compete for conservative votes against politicians like Paul and Cruz, who have each earned a devoted following among tea party activists. While the two senators mostly stuck to their usual talking points, Huckabee offered an extra large serving of red meat.

"My gosh, I'm beginning to think that there's more freedom in North Korea sometimes than there is in the United States," he said in his remarks. "When I go to the airport, I have to get in the surrender position, people put hands all over me, and I have to provide photo ID and a couple of different forms and prove that I really am not going to terrorize the airplane – but if I want to go vote I don't need a thing."

Huckabee is apparently trying to position himself as the stupidest Republican in the field, and on the merits of his comments yesterday he's succeeding. Though of course the competition is fierce.

It's hardly worth commenting on someone who thinks North Korea is a freer place than the United States (and presumably the entire Western world), but it's awfully rich of any Republican to criticize the national security state that has arisen in the wake of 9/11 given that it was the warmongering and torture-loving Republican administration of Bush and Cheney that put those restrictions in place. And it's simply ridiculous to suggest that for some reason airport security is akin to election security given that voter fraud (according to the evidence as opposed to Republican scaremongering) amounts to a microscopic problem that hasn't even come close to impacting the outcome of any election, whereas lapses in airport security (and, more broadly, all security involving air travel) can lead to event such as, you know, 9/11. Seriously, anyone who cares at all about what happened on 9/11, including the families of the victims, should take Huckabee's comment as a gross and insensitive insult. Because that's what it was, along with being insanely stupid. Perhaps he should go to North Korea for some re-education.

Otherwise, though, it's awfully rich of any Republican to talk about freedom when pretty much that entire party is doing its utmost to deny freedom to so many Americans, like the freedom to vote, the freedom to have access to affordable health care (including birth control), the freedom to have one's reproductive rights respected, the freedom to receive equal pay for equal work, the freedom to have the same opportunities to succeed as the rich and privileged, and so on.

But, no, this is the party that only wants freedom for the rich and privileged, and for people to own whatever firearms they want without restriction, for companies to be able to do whatever they want without regulation, for people to be able to use their theocratic Christianity to discriminate against anyone they want, and so on.

In other words, they want freedom for themselves, everyone else be damned to the dystopia of their right-wing desires.

Yes, they talk up FREEDOM, but Republicans are anything but the liberty-loving freedom fighters they claim to be.

When Democrats and Republicans alike prefer protecting the Pentagon to dealing with the plague of sexual assault in the military

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Yes, once again, the Senate has acted shamefully:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand came up short Thursday in her yearlong campaign to overhaul military sexual-assault policies, falling five votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

The New York Democrat's bill, which would have removed the chain of command from prosecuting sexual assaults and other major military crimes, was derailed in the Senate on a 55-45 vote, closing out one chapter in a debate that divided the Senate but not along typical partisan lines.

Ten Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and 2016 presidential hopefuls Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, backed Gillibrand's controversial chain-of-command bill. But that wasn't enough to overcome 10 Democratic votes against her, including prominent defense hawks like Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) also opposed the bill.

Things to note here:

1) This was a procedural vote, not an actual vote on the bill. But Gillibrand still got a majority of senators to support her effort, which is admirable. If the Senate were actually a functioning legislative body instead of a stage for partisan and ideological grandstanding, where all it takes is one member to shut things down with a filibuster, that is, if democracy actually mattered, the outcome would have been different.

2) Yes, this is one area where President Obama does need to show a good deal more leadership. His active involvement, as opposed to merely supporting Gillibrand in principle and hoping for the best, could have been the difference.

3) There is indeed an argument to be made for the military to be able to mange its own affairs, but it's a stupid argument that essentially holds that the military is off-limits to civilian oversight beyond the bare minimum and that the whole culture of the military is special and different and so not subject to the normal rules of society in any regard. This was basically the Republican position.

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How the Republican capitulation over the debt ceiling is good for Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Republican capitulation over the debt ceiling, finally agreeing to a clean increase instead of demanding a ransom and thereby threatening national and possibly global economic apocalypse, is indeed a very big deal. There was a great deal of Republican opposition in the House, where the increase required Democrats to join forces with John Boehner and the Republican leadership, as well as in the Senate, where enough Republicans joined Democrats to overcome a Ted Cruz-led filibuster, but at the end of the day the hostage-taking extremists who generally run the Republican Party were put in their place for the good of the country, and, yes, let's be clear about this, for the good of the Republican Party, whose corporate backers demand debt ceiling increases, which of course are good for business, and which would not have fared well in the eyes of the public, nor likely at the polls come November, in the event of yet another crisis.

Indeed, while I applaud this increase, as anyone who cares about good governance and the health of the economy must, there's no denying that it was a smart move for the Republican leadership to do what it did. Because while there will be some initial backlash from the Tea Party base, as well as from Tea Party Republicans in Congress like Cruz, and while those facing primary challenges like Mitch McConnell may have given the party's far right some ammunition, the party now avoids a protracted fight over the debt ceiling that would only have ended badly for Republicans, that would have deepened the already deep division within the party, and that would have been a significant distraction from the current Republican agenda.

And just what is that agenda? Basically, with the midterms in sight, to throw every possible lie and distortion at President Obama, to highlight the make-believe scandals (Benghazi, IRS) and to try to turn voters against Obamacare by scaring the shit out of them with sensationalistic falsehoods. That is, to assault the president with everything last smear at their disposal and thereby to try to turn the midterms into a referendum on the president and his record, as they define it and according to their own right-wing narrative, hoping with low voter turnout dominated by low-information voters they might just turn the tables on their nemesis.

That's really all this is: politics. It isn't a sign that Congress is in any way more sensible now than it was before, and it certainly isn't a sign that the Republican Party is in any way saner. As Frank Rich writes, Republicans remain "a hard-right party that will be happy to once again hold the government hostage to its demands if it gains a Senate majority to go with its House majority in November's midterms," while "yesterday's vote on the debt-limit will be remembered, if at all, as a fleeting pause in the Republican right's Obama-era surge." That sounds about right.

New Jersey's top newspaper backs away from Chris Christie

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Star-Ledger is now regretting its endorsement of the scandal-ridden bullying blowhard of a governor:

During the fall campaign, the liberal TV hero Rachel Maddow ran a stinging segment ridiculing The Star-Ledger’s endorsement of Gov. Chris Christie. How could we endorse him, she asked, when we criticized him so harshly in the same piece? Had we lost our minds?

Not quite. An endorsement is not a love embrace. It is a choice between two flawed human beings. And the winner is often the less bad option.

But yes, we blew this one...

Yes, we knew Christie was a bully. But we didn’t know his crew was crazy enough to put people’s lives at risk in Fort Lee as a means to pressure the mayor. We didn’t know he would use Hurricane Sandy aid as a political slush fund. And we certainly didn’t know that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer was sitting on a credible charge of extortion by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.

Even before this scandal train got rolling, this endorsement was a close call and a split vote among the editorial board. We regard Christie as the most overrated politician in the country, at least until now, a man who is better at talking than governing. We criticized him for trashing the working poor, for his tea party approach to the environment, for his opposition to gay marriage and a livable minimum wage. And so on.

Yes, and so on. Basically, despite "hesitations" and "deep reservations," the Star-Ledger endorsed Christie because he'd done some good things (and obviously wasn't/isn't a right-wing Republican fanatic) and because his opponent, Democrat Barbara Buono, was a weak alternative. So much for all that.

But, as editor Tom Moran writes, despite everything that's happened, all the new revelations and all that we now know about the governor, Christie is still preferable to the rest of his party, and in 2016 would be better than, say, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, or Ted Cruz.

Yes, as terrible as Christie is, he's just not as terrible as the rest of the Republican Party.

That tells you a lot about the current state of the GOP.

There's no "liberal media" on the Republican-friendly Sunday talk-show circuit

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Our friend Steve Benen performs yet another valuable service in identifying who made the most appearances on the major Sunday talk shows in 2013:

You'll note the obvious, and if you've been paying attention you'll see confirmed what you saw this past year:

The general impression is rooted in fact: the Sunday shows love Republicans. "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," "State of the Union," and "Fox News Sunday," hoping to reflect and help shape the conventional wisdom for the political world, collectively favor GOP guests over Democratic guests every year, but who were the big winners in 2013?

The above chart shows every political figure who made 10 or more Sunday show appearances this year, with red columns representing Republicans and blue columns representing Democrats. For 2013, the race wasn't especially close – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) easily came out on top, making 27 appearances this year.

*****

In all, 10 of the top 13 are Republicans, as are six of the top seven.

I actually had no idea that Rogers had made that many appearances (though it makes sense that the media would favor him, given his intelligence role, just like McCaul with his homeland security role), but otherwise it's the usual suspects, the right-wing darlings who command the media attention in Washington, notably McCain, Gingrich (who of course doesn't even hold office), Graham, Paul, and King.

Sure, there are a few Democrats on the list, but they're of the establishment variety (Durbin, Schumer) or otherwise on the right wing of the party (Manchin, likely there in large measure for his bipartisan efforts to enact pro-gun gun control after Newtown). And while there are a number of far-right Republicans on the list (Cruz, Corker, Paul), there are no genuine progressives at all.

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The Duck Dynasty bigots and the conservatives who love them

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Bible-thumping bigot.

Hey, here's a thought, A&E, if you don't want to be associated with bigotry, stop giving reality shows to, you know, fucking redneck bigots like the Duck Dynasty clan. I mean, what the fuck did you think was going to happen?

And, really, all these bigots are doing is doubling down on their bigotry:

The family has spent much time in prayer since learning of A&E's decision. We want you to know that first and foremost we are a family rooted in our faith in God and our belief that the Bible is His word. While some of Phil's unfiltered comments to the reporter were coarse, his beliefs are grounded in the teachings of the Bible. Phil is a Godly man who follows what the Bible says are the greatest commandments: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Phil would never incite or encourage hate.We are disappointed that Phil has been placed on hiatus for expressing his faith, which is his constitutionally protected right.

It is, yes, but it's not a constitutional right to have a TV show, and A&E is under no constitutional obligation to keep these bigots on the air.

And if Phil Robertson was just "expressing his faith," then his faith teaches bigotry, which apparently his version of fundamentalist Christianity does. And if really loves his neighbor as himself, why would he then compare homosexuality to bestiality and say that gays and others who supposedly sin "won't inherit the Kingdom of God." It seems Phil likes the hateful parts of the Bible, of which there are many, not to mention of his "faith" generally, and filters the rest of it through an ideology of bigotry and hate. His family can spin it however it wants, but that spin is bullshit.

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You want a Republican civil war? Here's your Republican civil war.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A liberal? Really?

It didn't just start. It was in the making for a long time, and it got underway a while ago, at least in formal terms. Actually, it just sort of started happening, but it was also pretty much inevitable. And now, well, the word "war" has come to the fore:

Tea Party Patriots said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has "declared war on the Tea Party" with his "smug and pretentious rant" against certain right-wing organizations.

The group made the charge in a fundraising email to supporters, seeking to win donations over the public feuding.

In the past two days, Boehner has repeatedly attacked the conservative groups that championed the October effort to defund ObamaCare and are now opposed to the recent budget deal negotiated by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

He has criticized the groups for being more interested in raising money than actually solving problems.

The letter quotes Boehner's statement that "outside groups" were "using our members and... the American people for their own goals."

"The last time we checked, we are the American people," the letter said.

The letter goes on to refer to Boehner as a "ruling class politician" who only pretends to be conservative while remaining a "tax-and-spend liberal" at heart.

Of course, that's all complete nonsense. Boehner has been critical of right-wing Republican groups that threaten the party's position in Congress, if not also nationally, but that's about it. If anyone or anything has declared war, it's the Tea Party itself, which is obstinate in its ideological extremism, dismissive of the realities of politics, and confrontational regarding the rest of the GOP, throwing primary challenges even at hardcore conservatives.

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The Republican Party is destroying America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's pretty much as simple as that:

With the federal government on the brink of a default, a House Republican effort to end the shutdown and extend the Treasury's borrowing authority collapsed Tuesday night as a major credit agency warned that the United States was on the verge of a costly ratings downgrade.

After the failure of the House Republican leadership to find enough support for its latest proposal to end the fiscal crisis, the Senate's Democratic and Republican leaders immediately restarted negotiations to find a bipartisan path forward. A spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said Mr. Reid was "optimistic that an agreement is within reach" with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

With so little time left, chances rose that a resolution would not be approved by Congress and sent to President Obama before Thursday, when the government is left with only its cash on hand to pay the nation’s bills.

"It's very, very serious," warned Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. "Republicans have to understand we have lost this battle, as I predicted weeks ago, that we would not be able to win because we were demanding something that was not achievable."

A day that was supposed to bring Washington to the edge of resolving the fiscal showdown instead seemed to bring chaos and retrenching.

McCain, pragmatism renewed, is right. But the problem runs deeper than he imagines. His party has embraced an extremist, anti-American right-wing ideology and policy agenda that is simultaneously nihilistic and absolutist. The pragmatists are recoiling, but they've been playing along for years now, and now it's coming back to bite them. (Consider how McConnell is one of the key players trying to get a deal done. This is a guy who made it his mission, and his party's mission, to obstruct Obama at every turn, to paralyze the government with its disloyal opposition.)

And it's so bad that the relatively sensible House leadership can't even control its own caucus, to the point that John Boehner's speakership is simply a joke.

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Fucking idiots converge on Washington to protest government shutdown

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A group of mostly Tea Party protesters waving the Confederate flag, saying stupid bigoted things, and otherwise pushing their extremist right-wing agenda were in the nation's capital today, forcing open the World War II memorial and taking their loud-mouthed ignorance to the White House to blame President Obama, who also happens to be a black man, for the government shutdown, as if they have any fucking clue what's really going on.

Don't get me wrong, not everyone involved in this "Million Vet March" is a right-wing wacko. It's just that the whole thing was grossly misguided and then taken over by the same old Republican interests that so often hide behind patriotism and use veterans and active-duty personnel alike as pawns in their political game:

Members of the Million Vet March planned on gathering at the World War II Memorial on Sunday despite the memorial being closed due to the government shutdown.

According to a statement on the group's website, they feel military personnel and veterans are "being used a political pawns in the ongoing government shutdown and budget crisis." Organizers say they are not a political leaning group, but call the shutting down of memorials "a despicable act of cowardice."

However, conservative political commentator Sarah Palin and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) arrived and spoke to the people gathered at the memorial.

"This is the people's memorial," Palin said. "Our veterans should be above politics."

Yeah, sure. When Palin and Cruz emerge as the leading voices of your protest, you know you're way out of touch with the rest of America and that you're no longer non-partisan. And if veterans should really be above politics, then Palin, one of the most shameless partisan self-promoters around, should just get the fuck out of the way.

Oh, and if these people are serious about protesting the shutdown, they should have taken their march over to Capitol Hill, where Tea Party-dominated Republicans who have taken the country hostage are the ones responsible for the whole damn mess.

GOP craziness may end crisis

By Frank Moraes 

Jonathan Chait wrote what I think is a very insightful article today, even if the title is a bit deceptive, "House Republicans' Ransom Demands Falling." What I would say is that their demands are changing, not falling. He provides some important history about the current standoff. The House Republican leadership (John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan) have been planning this blackmail scheme, most likely since Romney lost the last election. The idea was to use the Debt Ceiling to force Obama to accept the usual Republican budget policies. You know: cut tax rates (supposedly without cutting overall taxes, but you know how that goes), cut entitlements, and so on.

Unfortunately, Ted Cruz ruined their plan by getting all the Republicans to support a government shutdown threat to somehow end Obamacare. This was the real reason that Boehner was promising his caucus a fight on the Debt Ceiling and why he tried to get the continuing resolution (CR) out of the way. Most observers (including me!) thought it was just Boehner's usual short term planning: get the CR out of the way and then deal with the Debt Limit. But that doesn't seem to be the case. I was right about one thing, though: all the supposed reasonable Republicans don't exist. Boehner is just as extreme as all the rest; he may just be a little more tactical.

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The marching morons

By Carl 

Apocryphal or not, the image of lemmings committing mass suicide is ingrained in our culture, so much so that we may borrow it to describe the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives:

As the shutdown lingers, some Republican moderates are openly frustrated that tea party darling Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas appears to be calling the shots on what House Republicans do next. Cruz was one of the first to suggest passing narrow bills that fund those government agencies or functions that generate any public backlash.

"I think the leadership is committed to play the Cruz strategy all the way out," California Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters, before adding "if you can call it a strategy."

For two days, GOP leaders have pushed through a series of piecemeal spending bills for floor votes that would fund things like veterans affairs, national parks and medical research. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Wednesday they plan to continue doing this.

"We've got ways to ease the pain on people," Cantor said. "We agree on a lot around here. We ought to fund that, and then we ought to sit down and talk about that which we don't.

Apparently, lemmings aren't blind. They're just wimps.

Congressman Cantor, you brought this upon yourself. No point in getting weak-kneed now that your own supporters, Teabaggers and fiscal conservatives, are feeling the pain. Hunting season is upon us, yet hunters out west can't go into national parks legally. Poor children with cancer, many of them who live near toxic waste sites and other highly carcinogenic locales in red states where environmental regulations are "lax" to be polite, are without last hope now that the NIH is closed.

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Start of the government shutdown

By Frank Moraes 

I haven't had much to say about the government shutdown, because, hey, there isn't a lot to say. But after the first day, there are a few things. I have to admit to being a bit concerned about how the shutdown is playing in the press. Ed Kilgore provided a number of headlines that, intentional or not, feed the Republican narrative. The most obvious partisanship came from Fox News, of course: "Partial Shutdown Begins: Can Congress, White House Compromise?" That one's fun because it pushes the Fox News idea that is everywhere in their coverage this isn't a real shutdown but only a "slimdown." If only Newt had had the help of Fox News in 1995!

What's more generally worrisome about these headlines is that the Republican position is simply that they want compromise. But the issue here is not one of negotiation. This is extortion. It is wrong to say, "The parents don't want to pay any money and the kidnappers want two million dollars; why can't they just compromise?!" That's what's going on. None of the other headlines use the word "compromise," but they are all have similar "both sides now" coverage. For example, the Washington Post headline was: "In Shutdown Blame Game, Democrats and Republicans United: It's the Other Side's Fault." Because each side says that they are right, the good "objective" reports can't look at the actual facts and determine who is right. Our mainstream press is fully in the grip of postmodern analysis, "Who can say which side is right? It's just a matter of opinion!"

Meanwhile, in the trenches, we have Ted Cruz pushing the idea that we should just break up the Federal budget and fund the things we really like. You know, it's really sad that Yosemite is closed on its birthday, so let's open that. Of course, as Matt Yglesias correctly points out, the whole purpose (on both sides) is that a government shutdown is supposed to be painful. I'll go further: Cruz's idea is a typical conservative gambit. The idea is to restart programs that might hurt the rich and middle classes (e.g. the national parks) to take off the pressure to ever start back up programs that help the poor. He is an evil little man.

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Shutdown showdown: The Republicans' "doomed spasms"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So here we are. On the verge of a government shutdown. Which is to say, a shutdown of the U.S. federal government.

Yes, the federal government of the most powerful country in the world, a country that prides itself, delusionally, on its grandiose historic exceptionalism, a country that rants and raves about how it's supposedly the greatest country in the world, a bastion of liberty and democracy, is about to be shut down because its federal legislative branch, Congress, is apparently incapable of contributing to the governing of the country, and essentially of fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities.

But let's be more precise. It's about to be shut down not just because the system reduces the country to governmental paralysis but specifically because the opposition party is allowing it to happen, and indeed wants it to happen, or at least enough of its members to matter do -- an opposition party with enough clout, given its majority status in the House of Representatives, to make it happen.

And right now it's all because of Obamacare. (I wrote about this the other day.) Yes, Republicans so hate the new health-care law that they're willing to do whatever it takes to block its implementation, whether it's shut down the government or force the country to default on its debts, in the latter case perhaps triggering global economic armageddon.

The rational calculation, given the popularity of the law (and of the president and party behind it) as well as the unpopularity of government shutdowns, is realize that they don't have any real leverage and to concede defeat. But these are Republicans we're talking about. Thinking rationally just isn't what they're about these days. (A separate rational calculation is that the new system will become so popular, and that Democrat will forever be credited for it at the polls, that it's best to try to stop it, or at least delay it, now. But it's still hard to see how they can win this standoff in any meaningful way. Ultimately, they'll be blamed for the shutdown and in any event Obamacare will be implemented.) And so they plow ahead with their far-right ideological agenda, Ted Cruz leading the way, doomed.

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Ted Cruz and the new face of the Republican Party

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Le Parti Républicain, c'est moi.

If you've been following the Obamacare-debt ceiling-government shutdown drama playing out in Washington, you'll know, unless you've got your head up your ass like most Republicans, that it's pretty much a lose-lose-lose situation for the GOP.

Republicans will apparently do anything and everything to try to stop Obamacare -- they object to it on radical-right ideological grounds but also, less explicitly, because they know, or at least the smart ones do, that it will be a boon to Democrats at the polls for years to come -- and that means working aggressively to defund it by threatening a) to shut down the government or b) to block an increase to the debt ceiling. (Yes, they will risk immense hardship and even global economic armageddon to get what they want.)

The problem, for them, is that shutting down the government would be extremely unpopular (they would be hit with the blame for it, as they were in the '90s), while the markets and their own business base would react negatively, to say the least, were the country to find itself unable to pay off its debts. Republican establishmentarians like John Boehner know this and would like to rein in the extremists, but the extremists aren't that easily pacified, not least because the establishmentarians are responsible to a great extent for empowering them -- it's called reaping what you've sown. The establishment was more than happy to align itself with the teabaggers and others on the far right when it meant getting votes, but now it's stuck with a hugely powerful and, within the party, hugely popular base to which it must continue to pay its respects.

In any event, there's really no way out of this mess. Republicans have resorted to hostage-taking in the hopes that President Obama would cave, as he has before, but he stresses that he won't play that game this time around. And, really, he has all the leverage -- he just needs to remain firm. Whether it's a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government running or an increase to the debt ceiling, he'll get what he wants because ultimately Republicans will have to give in to avoid the wrath of the voters at the polls next year. In other words, it's give up the effort to defund Obamacare or commit electoral suicide. (Actually, though, there's no guarantee they'll act rationally and give in. Many of them seem prepared to fight to the bitter end.)

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Republicans are a cult more than a party

By Frank Moraes

Jonathan Chait wonders if any positive information about Obamacare can get through the conservative media blackout, Someone Tell Ted Cruz the Obamacare War Is Over. He isn't alone; a lot of people wonder how it can be that in conservativeworld, all the news is bad. But this is just more of liberal commentators thinking that the conservative movement is just like any other political movement. It is best to think of modern conservatism as cult.

Regardless of what kind of healthcare reform had been implemented, liberals would have been hopefully optimistic that it would work. Most liberals are not that keen on Obamacare, but even if they had gotten the single payer system that they wanted, they would have watched closely to see how it was doing. They would have been pretty sure that it was going to work well, but they would have been ultimately constrained by the facts on the ground.

Conservatives are quite different. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that conservative opinion leaders are quite different. They don't think that conservative policies are the best; they know. So when it comes to Obamacare, they are sure it is going to be bad. They don't need the random bit of positive data to confuse the issue. Anyway, what makes a policy the best is not what works the best as most people would define it. The attack on Obamacare is not even about the ridiculous notion that it will deprive people of "freedom" by making them change their healthcare. (It doesn't do that, anyway, not that it matters.) They aren't even against it because of their generalized hatred of poor people who the program helps. They are against the program because it raises taxes a small amount on the wealthy.

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Base camp

By Mustang Bobby

For all the crap that the Very Serious People and mainstream Republicans are dumping on Ted Cruz, it’s not like it’s going to have any impact on the people he’s trying to reach: the hard-core wingnuts that comprise the GOP base who vote in primaries and who think that pissing off people like Karl Rove and the Sunday soldiers like Ross Douthat and David Brooks is a badge of honor.

And as long as Sarah Palin is on his side, they’ll never waver. It’s always 2008 as they head into 2016.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Cruzin' along

By Mustang Bobby

Now that the House has been goaded by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) into threatening to shut down the government over Obamacare, he’s telling them that, well, when it gets to the Senate, it’s not going to happen. And now the Tea Partiers in the House who were left holding the bag arepissed.

“(Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution, and right now he likely has the votes to do so,” Cruz said in the statement.

“At that point, House Republicans must stand firm, hold their ground, and continue to listen to the American people. President Obama has already granted Obamacare exemptions to big corporations and Members of Congress; he should not threaten to shut down the government just to deny those same exemptions to hard-working American families.”

[...]

The reaction from House Republicans and senior GOP leadership aides to Cruz’s latest statement on the matter was swift and angry, both about Cruz’s lack of confidence in a vote and his urging of the House to “stand firm.”

“They said nothing is impossible if you fight hard enough, and the minute the House announces the vote, they give up the fight? It’s crazy,” one senior GOP leadership aide told CNN.

“They should walk the walk,” the aide said, predicting it would backfire on the conservative senators.

Another senior GOP leadership aide took a shot at Cruz declining to say whether he would filibuster the bill, telling CNN, “It is disappointing to see that Wendy Davis has more balls than Ted Cruz,” in reference to the state senate Democrat who filibustered an abortion bill in the Texas legislature over the summer.

So he basically got everyone all riled up to do what he told them, so they did it, and now he’s all “see ya later!” No wonder they feel like they got punk’d.

And yes, Wendy Davis does have more balls, metaphorically speaking.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)