News Nuggets 1314

DAYLEE PICTURE: The Holi Festival performance in Vrindavan, India.  

From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT PUNDIT NUGGETS!!
The Day the Mad Dogs Took Over the Republican Party (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
A long excerpt is in order here!
"It was a head-spinning day in Washington, yesterday was, as the story seemed to change from hour to hour in terms of who was proposing or accepting or refusing what and who seemed up and who seemed down. But through it all, one constant did not change and doesn’t seem likely to change: The Republicans are wrecking themselves.  Indeed, historically so. This is one of those turning points in American political history, the kind you’ll tell your grandkids you were around to see: a once-respectable party that finally was eaten alive by the cultural rage it had so long used to its advantage but held in check in order to win elections. It was a long time coming and it’s a grand thing to watch, provided they don’t wreck the country along with themselves."
Tomasky is really the first pundit I've seen who has captured PRECISELY the view I have had of this shutdown/debt ceiling for many weeks now!!

Others are close behind!
The Last Days of the GOP (John Judis) from the New Republic
"I once wrote about lobbying, and this week I called some Republicans I used to talk to (and some that they recommended I talk to) about the effect the shutdown is having on the Republican Party in Washington. The response I got was fear of Republican decline and loathing of the Tea Party: One lobbyist and former Hill staffer lamented the “fall of the national party,” another the rise of “suburban revolutionaries,” and another of “people alienated from business, from everything.” There is a growing fear among Washington Republicans that the party, which has lost two national elections in a row, is headed for history’s dustbin. And I believe that they are right to worry. ... Under pressure from grassroots radicals and the new outsider groups, the old Republican coalition is beginning to shatter."

Polls Show the GOP Is Now Losing Their Faithful (Kirsten Powers) from the Daily Beast
WHO CALLED IT!!
"Ted Cruz may be trying to spin it otherwise, but the numbers show the GOP is even losing the support of Republican voters. ... Jim Kessler, one of the founders of the centrist think tank Third Way, put it this way to me: “It’s like the two campers in the woods. A bear shows up and one guy is putting on sneakers and the other says, ‘You aren’t going to outrun the bear’ and the other says, ‘I just have to outrun you.’ Right now, Republicans are the barefoot camper."
I knew that there were several possible outcomes from this shutdown/debt ceiling battle -- but the one I was betting on (and I didn't hear anyone seconding my view on this) was that the anti-establishment Tea Party folks will feel so steamed with their own leadership and their more sane members of Congress that they will actually spend this next year directing as much fire at them as at the Dems and, in the process, induce a major party schism.  Without knowing the outcome of the current crisis, there are already signs of this happening (if you heard second hand about the attacks Ted Cruz had to face in his own closed-door caucus meeting earlier this week).

Republicans are Even More Screwed Than You Thought from Daily Kos
"In case you're wondering just how epic the GOP's failures are, head below the fold as we take a closer look at at that NBC/WSJ poll yesterday that shattered GOP talking points and the political conventional wisdom."

Default Doubters Repudiated by Republican Economists (Rich Miller) from Roll Call
"Republican lawmakers have played down the significance of hitting the debt limit, saying the U.S. can avoid default by putting aside funds to pay bond holders. Economists affiliated with the party aren’t so
sanguine."

House Republicans’ Ransom Demands Falling (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"The single most implausible element of the House leadership’s "let’s negotiate" gambit is the premise that a bipartisan budget deal would satisfy the Republican base. Any bipartisan deal, even one heavily slanted to the Republican side, would enrage conservatives. Even the tiniest concession — easing sequestration, closing a couple of token tax loopholes — would be received on the right as a betrayal."

Anger Can Be Power (Thomas Edsall) from the New York Times
"One of the key factors pushing Republicans to extremes, according to Greenberg’s report, is the intensity of animosity toward Obama. ... Take the findings of a Pew Research Center survey released four weeks ago. They show that discontent with Republican House and Senate leaders runs deep among Republican primary voters: two-thirds of them disapprove of their party’s Congressional leadership."

Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low (Andrew Dugan) from Gallup
"With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September. This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992."

Fed Up with House, Senators Grab at Reins of Fiscal Debate from The Hill 
"Senate Republicans have become fed up with fellow Republicans in the House and are meeting with Democrats to find a way out of the current fiscal impasse."

Christian Delusions are Driving the GOP Insane (Amanda Marcotte) from Salon
"Why aren't Republicans more frightened of a shutdown and a default? Part of the reason is magical thinking."

Why John Boehner Might Have No Choice but ‘Unconditional Surrender’ (Sean Sullivan) from the Washington Post
" “What the president said today was, if there is unconditional surrender by Republicans, he’ll sit down and talk to us,” said Boehner. The thing is, it might be Boehner’s best and only option for ending the standoff that has seized Washington. Let’s take a closer look at why."

GOP Splinters Over Hostage Strategy As Default Looms from Talking Points Memo
"The GOP is splintering over its strategy to force conservative reforms by sustaining the government shutdown and threatening default. Republican leaders don't know what they want, other than for Democrats to accede to some sort of policy concessions in order to avert the crises. And they're divided on which of the two must-pass bills is the better one to hold hostage."

The Shutdown Prophet (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"In our Founders’ defense, it’s hard to design any political system strong enough to withstand a party as ideologically radical and epistemically closed as the contemporary GOP. (Its proximate casus belli—forestalling the onset of universal health insurance—is alien to every other major conservative party in the industrialized world.) The tea-party insurgents turn out to be right that the Obama era has seen a fundamental challenge to the constitutional order of American government. They were wrong about who was waging it."

Republican Rebranding? What Republican Rebranding? (Beth Reinhard) from National Journal
"The GOP says it wants to broaden its appeal and reach more Americans, but Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to unwind those efforts."