Debt Catastrophe Averted? It is still the end of the world for Republicans

Debt Catastrophe Averted? It is still the end of the world for Republicans

15 Comments
From the office of non-surprising facts...The Republican Party has been taken over by religious nutcases:
The press often talks about the Tea Party like they’re secularist movement that is interested mainly in promoting “fiscal conservatism”, a vague notion that never actually seems to make good on the promise to save taxpayer money. The reality is much different: The Tea Party is actually driven primarily by fundamentalist Christians whose penchant for magical thinking and belief that they’re being guided by divine forces makes it tough for them to see the real world as it is.
Erick Erickson Predicts GOP Split, 3rd Party Coming

Erick Erickson Predicts GOP Split, 3rd Party Coming

37 Comments
Via TPM:
Incensed that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) are reportedly abandoning the effort to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act, RedState.com editor Erick Erickson predicted Thursday that Republican leadership is providing fertile ground for the rise of a "real third party movement" that will split the GOP.
I'm torn on the idea of the Republican Party splitting in two - mainly because the Tea Party has already taken over, and deep down Republicans (95% of them) actually agree with the Tea Party agenda.  Jason wrote a post the other day, in which he said, "I don’t use “Tea Party” any more because the fact is the Republican Party is staffed and run by members of what was once called the Tea Party." Jason's correct.  Go ahead and try to put today's Republican politicians into column A (RINOs) and column B (Tea Partiers).  You won't end up with a balanced list.  Column A is pretty empty.
Let Me Count The Ways The Tea Party Loves Us

Let Me Count The Ways The Tea Party Loves Us

1 Comment
35 by my count. Maybe you can add to the list. Not satisfied that there are thousands of varieties of teas they can throw overboard, they have voiced at least 35 issues they want the President to "have a conversation" about to end the shutdown and/or the debt ceiling crisis.
I Thought They Wanted to Talk!

I Thought They Wanted to Talk!

1 Comment
For all of the theater around the GOP claim that it is time to talk to get rid of this stalemate (even though the GOP have been dragging their feet on this for 6 months), it turns out that they don't want to talk, really. President Obama invited ALL Democrats and Republicans from both the Senate and the House to meet with him at the White House this week. Only 18 of the GOP members are going. Seriously. You whine and whine about talking with the President, the President invites ALL of y'all to meet with him in the White House and you can't bother to rouse your caucus. This isn't much better than not appointment members to a budget conference, really.
Paul Ryan Has a Plan to Save the Government — You Have to Give Up Your Social Security

Paul Ryan Has a Plan to Save the Government — You Have to Give Up Your Social Security

7 Comments
After being completely invisible over the past few weeks, Paul Ryan re-appears in today's WSJ to: 1) whine that the President is not negotiating with the House, 2) lie about previous debt-ceiling negotiations, 3) offer a trade of the sequester cuts for entitlement reform, 4) demand an opening of natural areas for more fossil fuel exploration, and 5) reform taxes.
The Anti-American Republican Party

The Anti-American Republican Party

14 Comments
I don't use "Tea Party" any more because the fact is the Republican Party is staffed and run by members of what was once called the Tea Party. I also don't use "treason" very much. Perhaps because during the run up to the Iraq war it was overused, and made meaningless, by those who argued that opposition to President Bush's lamebrain adventure in Iraq was treasonous. Nevertheless, whether you use John Carney's 'Tea Party' to give your Republican friends an "out" or you use "Republican" to describe the vandals in the House of Representative, one thing is clear. Modern Republicans have changed the country for the worse. As Bloomberg points out:
These tactics have long-term costs. If the U.S. defaults on its debt because a handful of Republican legislators don’t like a law vetted by all branches of government, the damage will go beyond a much lower credit rating. Something else -- a sense that the U.S. is, for all its differences, united -- will have been lost.

Republican Shutdown and Default Apocalypse Open Thread, Day 8

6 Comments
David Frum:
Barack Obama was never likely to be popular with the Republican base. It’s not just that he’s black. He’s first president in 76 years with a foreign parent—and unlike Hulda Hoover, Barack Obama Sr. never even naturalized. While Obama is not the first president to hold two degrees from elite universities—Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did as well—his Ivy predecessors at least disguised their education with a down-home style of speech. Join this cultural inheritance to liberal politics, and of course you have a formula for conflict. But effective parties make conflict work for them. Hate leads to rage, and rage makes you stupid. Republicans have convinced themselves both that President Obama is a revolutionary radical hell-bent upon destroying America as we know it and that he’s so feckless and weak-willed that he’ll always yield to pressure. It’s that contradictory, angry assessment that has brought the GOP to a place where it must either abjectly surrender or force a national default. Calmer analysis would have achieved better results.
The Frum piece is really a must read in its entirety.