According to Jonathan Strong at National Review, Republicans are beefing up security at their district offices because federal workers are going to miss their paychecks today. He also says that Republican lawmakers are spooked by the polls.
A new poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal is putting a new sense of fear into the hearts of House Republicans. The poll showed Republicans’ favorability had dropped to its lowest rating ever for that poll while Obama’s ratings remained stable.
Nonetheless, they are still engaged in delusional thinking.
Still, Boehner allies fear a CR without something in it related to Obamacare would face the wrath of the right flank of the conference. However, Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise suggested on CNBC last night he would be fine with some concessions unrelated to the health-care law.
The options on the table for a small Obamacare win are the same that have been talked about for some time: delaying the individual mandate, repealing the Independent Payment Advisory Board, repealing the medical-device tax, and eliminating the Obamacare subsidy for congressional staffers.
They are not going to get any ObamaCare win. They aren’t delaying the mandate. They aren’t eliminating the “Death Panels.” They aren’t going to get to screw their staffers out of their employer subsidy. And, if the medical-device tax is going to be eliminated, it will only happen after the Republicans capitulate, and only if the revenue is completely replaced.
But, whatever. Let them keep their delusions a little while longer. At least they’ve smartened up enough to be afraid.
What does Sen. John Thune think about no Farm Bill and a government shutdown?
Ranchers got what they voted for.
Republicans have no use for government until they need something and then they’re immediately there to angrily demand their services and relief. Thune tantrum in 3, 2, 1 . . .
They’re worried about the right flank of the conference. Bwahahahahahaha.
And posting security at their district offices. Talk about massive admission of guilt. Are there threats to their offices at all? Even protests?
Only threat I heard about was the phony truckers who were going to come impeach the President today. Where were they? Just another PR flack looking for a grift was what it turned out to be.
But….the rich Republicans in North Carolina have the Pisgah Inn open (NPS caved), the only National Park Service vendor not currrently shut down. If you’ve seen the prices at the Pisgah Inn, you know why I said “rich Republicans”. The Department of Interior didn’t want the old coots to injure themselves protesting at the closed gates.
I heard this morning on TV news (abc?) that Obama is letting the States open the parks if they agree to pay for it. Apparently they (the States) are screaming about lost tourism revenue.
As usual with conservatives, they are incapable of empathy so simply imagine that the other side thinks like they do.
Thus, they imagine that federal workers will show up at their offices armed to the teeth with assault weapons because that is what they would fantasize about doing if the situation were reversed (in fact, it’s what a lot of them fantasize about doing all of the time anyway).
It’s similar to the way that they accuse atheists of worshiping the religion of evolution … because that’s how they operate they assume everyone else does.
It would be sad if there weren’t so many of them (~27% of the population) and so many others who vote for them.
Since the teaboys have no reason to fear losing their seats, any pressure on Boehner to cut a deal will have to come from moderates. That’s where it is, in fact, coming from. They’re the ones who fear electoral consequences. Already, ads are going up against ten of ’em.
Since Democrats are winning, there’s no reason to cave unless one believes there’s a legitimate chance Boehner will drive the truck into the ditch. But as many have pointed out, even allowing that to happen is a lesser price than rewarding the politics of extortion. Reid and Obama know this.
I would not assume that the Tea Party crowd are invulnerable in a wave election based on fundamental issues.
Rep. Mark Meadows, a freshman and “architect of the shutdown” just screwed over his district’s “fall color” tourist season. And the folks in Asheville are hopping mad with the state GOP for taking away their watershed.
And then there’s Rep. Renee Ellmers’s concern about her own paycheck when 8000 Fort Bragg civilian workers were being furloughed.
Of course, the Democratic Party is well equipped in Steve Israel to yank defeat from the jaws of inevitable victory. So you might be right. But there are seats out there for the taking if the Democrats ever learn about offense instead of continually hunkering down in the fetal position. I’m seeing some signs of life but the election is still a year away–more than enough time to squander an advantage.
In blood red districts it would take great Democratic candidates to give us any realistic shot. It would be great if we could find a bunch of excellent candidates but it’s hard to do. Good people have to believe they stand a reasonable chance. The longer this drags on, the better our chances become — and this is one of the reasons it makes sense to stand back and watch as the Republicans implode. It’s also why moderate Rs are so angry at the TPers.
Not really. CNBC has seemingly joined the ranks of debt-default-is-no-biggie.
It’s been interesting to see CNBC marginalizing themselves. Deluded Wall Street apologists to the general public, preposterous debt ceiling denialists to the CEO set. You think CEO’s want the government reopened and the debt limit raised?
Is that a rhetorical question? I heard that there is a CEO petition being prepared for the Speaker basically telling them to cut the crazy crap before business goes into the toilet. And that several Defense Contractor CEO’s have written letters to that effect on their own. Although contractors are being paid there are no new contracts being let. Those CEO’s need to book those contracts for their year end bonus.
Exactly. The CEO class will have a harder time accepting CNBC’s programming after this month’s nonsense. That’s the base of the paltry CNBC audience, right?
Is that what it’s going to take? Fear for their personal safety? This might be one case where right-wing projection produces a better outcome.
Like many people who post here I’ve interacted with American wingnuts for years and have concluded that the fundamental issue is race … period. Everything derives from that.
A detailed study of Republicans basically confirms that.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/the-war-on-the-poor-is-a-war-on-you-know-who/#postCommen
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I doubt that it’s really the federal workers that they’re worried about. They’re worried — or should be — about what the teahadists will do if they don’t get all of their demands met.
But they can’t admit that, of course, so they pretend it’s the federal workers who are the threat.
Amanda Marcotte hit this nail squarely on its head.
“Christian delusions are driving the GOP insane”
I think the “Fundamentalist Christian” element of today’s Repub party is much, much larger than just the “handful of wide-eyed fanatic” Teaturds, even if many Teaturds are also Fundamentalist. It’s like she’s shocked, shocked, to find Fundamentalists(!) in control of today’s Repub party!
The accepted Repub story has become that it’s just a “small band” of “idiots” who are responsible for the DC impasse and crisis. If so, then are the (implied) “great majority” of Repubs simply cowards? Do Repub talking heads explain exactly how a tiny minority of extremists have somehow “taken control” of their noble party of moderate moderation?
I feel the reality is that the totality of the Repub party is overwhelmingly “conservative”, they were absolutely willing to crawl out on this shitdown limb, and did so, knowingly and approvingly. No one “forced” the Repubs to unanimously act to shut down the gub’mint. They did it willingly, as a united party, as an intentional strategy. And now they are looking for ways to deny it and rationalize it to the usual suspects.
Why the “handful” of Teaturds are letting themselves be thrown under the bus as “extremist idiots” is the mystery.
I agree it’s larger than the fundies who I mostly associate with the FRC-types. There are the various shades of Dominionists (Palin) and the C Street Family theocrats (Coburn) and Opus Dei (Santorum) types all banded together to undermine modernity and destroy our democratic government.
What I found most pertinent about Marcotte’s piece is her clear focus on their faith-based magical thinking about policy. Many of them have repeatedly stated very publicly that God talks to them about politics, the nation, and the End Times but the media and most voters shrug, thinking they’re pandering. Marcotte tells us that we haven’t taken those claims as seriously as we should.
If the radical GOTP representatives think they are their Lord’s crusaders it explains a lot including why they refuse to listen to economists (or any other experts) about things of which they obviously have little or no knowledge. It also tells us more clearly what we have to expose and marginalize them as religious zealots masquerading as politicians.
Marcotte is not talking about Tea Party. She is talking about Republicans. There is not difference after 2010. Tea Party is Republican in both the House and Senate. Tea Party is Kochs, Dick Armey, even Grover Norquist. Tea Party is US Chamber of Commerce. Pete Peterson. Mitt Romney ran as a Tea Party candidate in 2012.
There is no division in the party on the basis of philosophy and strategy. If there were, by now there would be at least one Republican signature on the discharge petition for a clean continuing resolution.
The whole kit-and-kaboodle has to be forced to capitulate–and Ted Cruz is not there yet based on his Values Voter Summit speech today.
And the propaganda machine is going gangbusters on the “default ain’t no big deal” line. Even CNBC seems to be playing around with that one.
The only reason the Tea Party exists was to divert attention from the term Republican. Without the magical misdirection that was constantly being sold during 2009, the 2010 disaster wouldn’t have happened. The media in particular bought into the whole TP is not Rethug. There never was a distinction. It has always been a rebranding episode that worked. Nothing else changed.
Perzactly
Ah, yes, those feather-bedding (armed and dangerous!) gub’mint wastels, the long fought enemy of “conservatism”.
Your posts on all this Repub-generated insanity have been simply great.
Looking back, no competent leader of a party would have let himself or his party go out so far on a limb. When the Drunken Boner let his Repubs shut down the gub’mint under the theory that they could take it hostage and force negotiations over unfair and politically illegitimate demands, he placed the entire situation beyond his control and made future resolution a hundred times more difficult.
As a result of Boner haplessly (and thoughtlessly) going out on the Teaturd limb, someone now HAS to cave, and suffer massive defeat in the eyes of their supporters. I frankly have no idea who is going to cave, on either debt ceiling or shutdown. Good government requires that Dems not cave, on anything other than naming a new Fairbanks airport self-cleaning restroom after Pinhead Palin.
But “good government” is not something that prevails in our failing nation very often anymore—in fact, almost never in the “conservative” era…
One question.
How are they paying for their beefed up security?
Congress didn’t shut down its own expenses.