Month: October 2013

Shutdown Hits Republican Base: KKK Konclave at Gettysburg National Park Is Canceled

Jon Ponder

NBC10 Philadelphia:

A planned Ku Klux Klan rally at a historic landmark of American history won’t happen due to the federal government shutdown.

The KKK event at Gettysburg National Military Park was canceled due to the government stalemate.

Park officials said they rescinded all permits for special events because of the shutdown that began Tuesday.

The permit had been approved for a Maryland-based KKK group, the Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, for a Saturday gathering.

5 Million People Accessed California’s Health Insurance Exchange Website on ACA’s Opening Day

Jon Ponder

5 Million

Number of visits to the website for Covered California, the state-run health-insurance exchange, on Oct. 1, 2013, the day Affordable Care Act exchanges opened nationwide. An estimated 7 million Californians are uninsured, in a state where just 52% of residents get their insurance through their employers.

The Collapse of Institutional Republican Power

Jon Ponder

What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power. It’s not so much about Boehner. It’s things like the end of earmarks. They move away from Tom DeLay and they think they’re improving the House, but now they have nothing to offer their members. The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members. And so many of these members now live in the conservative world of talk radio and tea party conventions and Fox News invitations. And so the conservative strategy of the moment, no matter how unrealistic it might be, catches fire. The members begin to believe they can achieve things in divided government that most objective observers would believe is impossible. Leaders are dealing with these expectations that wouldn’t exist in a normal environment.

— Robert Costa, reporter for the right-wing National Review, in an interview with the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein

Cumulative Polling on Congresional Approval Ratings Reveals GOP Vulnerability

Jon Ponder

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

I put together this image charting the results from a new national Quinnipiac poll, which shows Democrats taking a nine-point lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot — an advantage that’s steadily grown in recent months.

There is simply no good news for the GOP in the Quinnipiac results. Significant majorities oppose Republicans using a shutdown to go after the Affordable Care Act, trust President Obama over the GOP on most national issues, and blame Republicans for gridlock. In all, 74% of Americans disapprove of congressional Republican lawmakers — their lowest score ever in a Quinnipiac poll.

Attention American Media: Both Sides are NOT to Blame

Trish

This treatment by ABC News shows the problem

 Perhaps as inevitable as the government shutdown for which the Republicans and tea party are solely responsible is the press’s telling of it. In their version, it’s a 50/50 deal between Republicans and Democrats. But then, isn’t everything, even the stuff that’s clearly not?

For those of you playing along at home, take a shot today every time you hear these words or phrases:

  • stalemate in Congress
  • seek a compromise
  • a game of political chicken…when neither side blinked
  • each has refused to budge
  • amid the finger-wagging

If you’re still sober enough to read, please note those quotes came from a single CNN story.

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters is not only pushing back on the old “Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame” journalistic cop-out, he’s actually holding reporters who use it responsible for what’s happening.

[…]

Caught on Tape – Republicans Have Been Planning This Government Shutdown Since 2009

Jon Ponder

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As the federal government was shutting down last night, Rep. Michele Bachmann, the tea party leader, captured the moment for her cohorts, “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”

On her MSNBC show last night, As Rachel Maddow demonstrated with archival recordings of comments by tea party politicians going back to 2009 that shutting down the government has been their objective from the outset.

Rough Transcript:

[…]

Tea Baggers Claim to Love the Constitution – So How Can They Ignore It When It Gets in the Way of Their Anti-Obama Obsession?

Jon Ponder

I thought tea partyists were supposed to revere the Constitution. The Constitution lays out two ways to undo a law — repeal it through legislation or challenge it in court. Republicans have tried both routes — 42 repeals and lawsuits all the way up to SCOTUS — and it has all failed. What they’re doing now, threatening to shut down the govt and/or ruin the full faith and credit of the United States if the president refuses to submit to their demands, is not only a thuggish act of desperation, it is an affront to the constitution.

What’s worse, of course, is that they have been plotting the government shutdown since 2009, as Rachel Maddow reported last night. Not unlike their obsession with invading Iraq in 2003, they were determined to do it at any cost, all they needed was a pretext. Then it was 9/11; now it’s opening day for the Affordable Care Act.