News Nuggets 1350

DAYLEE PICTURE: A beetle in a flower in San Roque, Spain.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

UP-FRONT COLUMNIST NUGGET!!
How George W. Bush failed the GOP (Rachel Maddow) from the Washington Post 
I rarely watch Maddow on her MSNBC program but kudos to her for her first regular column for the Post!  It's a good one.
"I Unlike the Reagan administration, the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration, the George W. Bush presidency elevated precisely no one to the ranks of national leadership who wasn’t there before. The 2008 Republican presidential primaries were like some odd eight-year cicada hatch in which the candidates went underground in 2000 and then birthed themselves after Bush and Cheney were gone, as if the intervening years had never happened."

Congress Cooperates, Obama Pushes Hard, and Closing Gitmo Has a Chance (Daniel Klaidman) from the Daily Beast
"Persistent hard work on Capitol Hill and a new push from the White House are moving the shuttering of Guantanamo a lot closer to reality."

The General Who Opened Gitmo Says It Should Be Shut Down from the Huffington Post
"The U.S. general who opened the Guantanamo detention camp said Thursday it was a mistake and should be shut down because "it validates every negative perception of the United States." "In retrospect, the entire detention and interrogation strategy was wrong," Marine Major General Michael Lehnert wrote in a column published in the Detroit Free Press."

Raul Castro Reaches Out to Obama, but Don’t Call It a Thaw (Eli Lake) from the Daily Beast
"Tuesday’s handshake between Obama and Castro comes after six months of quiet diplomacy between the United States and Cuba—and Castro signaling he’s ready for bigger talks."

The Shale Rebellion (Barry Yeoman) from the American Prospect
"In Pennsylvania, a band of unlikely activists fights the fracking boom."

Tea Party Loses Again: NYU Grad Students Defy Obstruction in Precedent-Setting 98 Percent Union Vote from Salon
"After right-wing antics and liberal union-busting denied them their union, NYU grad students just won it back."

Unprecedented Austerity (Paul Krugman) from the New York Time
"... amid the punditizing over the latest budget deal, it’s worth considering just how unprecedented US austerity has been. Look at total government spending — federal, state, and local — and correct it for inflation... You can see that there was a brief, modest spurt in spending associated with the Obama stimulus — but it has long since been outweighed and swamped by a collapse in spending without precedent in the past half century."

Washington Basks in Extremely Tiny Bipartisan Accomplishment (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
""The parties have reached a deal because the cuts to next year's budget run so deep that Republicans themselves cannt tolerate them. The budget process in the House simply collapsed because even conservatives couldn't implement the slated levels of spending. The impasse threatened to require more temporary votes to keep the government open, and possibly another shutdown, which is the GOP's worst nightmare."

Tom Coburn (R): Obamacare Exchanges 'Will Work And Work Well' from the Huffington Post
"Coburn attributed the early failures of HealthCare.gov -- the online portal where individuals can shop for coverage under the Affordable Care Act -- to an "incompetency of management." But the exchanges would ultimately be successful, Coburn said. "It will eventually work and work well," he said."

Pete Rouse Plans To Leave White House At End Of The Month from Reuters 
"One of President Barack Obama's longest-serving advisers plans to leave the White House at the end of the month, the New York Times confirmed late on Wednesday, part of a staff shake-up in the West Wing after a botched rollout of the administration's signature health care reforms."
Ah!  Another shoe drops!  I'm very glad that Obama is doing this shake up -- and I am not actually sure if this really represents a part of that shake up or not because Rouse had announced in August (well before the website problems) that he would be leaving soon.  Rouse has been a central advisor to Obama since his senatorial days.  But does his departure have anything REALLY to do with the Obamacare website meltdown -- or is it just designed to look like it?  I suspect the latter.  Real heads who were really responsible need to role I think.

Someone who agrees with me:
Obama Needs to Fire Some People (Ezra Klein) from the Washington Post 
"Somewhere in this chain of colossal, consequential screwups, there are surely a few people who deserve to be fired. The White House tends to dismiss such criticism. Indeed, Obama aides pride themselves on rising above it, viewing it as politically motivated or, when proffered by administration allies, derived from a crude desire for retribution. There might, at times, be truth to that. But firing and replacing underperforming staff is also a key element of effective management."

That Unskewed Feeling (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"... it’s feeling to me a lot like the later months of the 2012 campaign, when the polls clearly pointed to an Obama win but Republicans lived in a closed information loop where such information was excluded — the only polls they heard about were “unskewed” to remove the unwelcome
information."
I have the same sense of things -- that, come April or May, the GOP may find itself with NOTHING to run on for the 2014 elections.  This would be appropriate since they have accomplished ... nothing.

What Republican Rebound? New Battleground Survey Finds GOP Vulnerable from Democracy Corps via National Memo
The survey "belies the conventional wisdom that Republicans have enjoyed a major rebound over the last few months. On the contrary, our survey of the 50 most competitive Republican House seats and the 30 most competitive Democratic seats shows that there has been no movement. Furthermore, the second tier of less vulnerable Republican target districts has actually destabilized -- meaning that there may be more Republican seats up for grabs than many believe right now."

Tea Party Favorability Falls to Lowest Yet from Gallup 
"Fifty-one percent view it unfavorably."

John Boehner Slams Conservative Groups: ‘This Is Ridiculous’ (Patricia Murphy) from the Daily Beast
Ah, now that the Obamacare website is largely fixed ...  back to our regularly-scheduled civil war.
"His influence on the wane, the speaker hit back Wednesday at four powerful groups’ aggressive push against the budget deal, saying publicly what GOPers have rumbled about for a year."

GOP's Private War Goes Public from Politico
"The simmering feud between House Republicans and movement conservatives is finally an all-out war. ...  The frenzied activity — just days before the House is scheduled to recess until 2014 — represents the ultimate culmination of a power struggle between institutional Republicans in Congress and outside groups, which are funded by well-heeled conservative donors and can pay for primary challenges."

Republicans and Tea Party Activists in 'Full Scale Civil War' from ABC News
"Years of growing friction between the Republican Party leaders and its Tea Party faction has erupted into what one conservative said today was "full-scale civil war." ...  Boehner's frustration is perhaps matched by the fury among tea party conservatives who believe they have been betrayed by conservative leaders in Washington."

Obama’s Shutdown Critics Look Like Morons After Budget Deal (Brian Buetler) from Salon
"Guess what, tired Beltway pundits: Obama's successful leadership from October brought an end to GOP hostage-taking."

"DUMBEST THING TO ARGUE ABOUT" NUGGET!!
Megyn Kelly: Jesus and Santa were White from Politico
"Kelly said. "Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical figure that's a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?""