Do It Yourselfishness

While almost everyone complains about their jobs, from time to time, there are also days like today when the work almost does itself.

On the debt ceiling and government shutdown front, the entire world is waiting for more details. From the information we have at our initial publishing time, it appears the potential Senate deal would re-open the government at current funding levels until January 15th, while extending the debt ceiling through February 15. The deal would also require Congress to have a Conference Committee meeting on the budget in December - the same kind of committee meeting House Republicans have avoided having with Senate Democrats over twenty times this year. Sadly, it doesn't appear that the option for removing the debt ceiling as a weapon will happen this round, though as Greg Sargent suggested, it may get some discussion in the next round of talks.

Effectively, the deal is now in the hands of Senators Reid and McConnell, who will likely pass the bill on Wednesday, forcing Speaker Boehner to pass the Senate bill in the House late Wednesday or Thursday. That will force Boehner to make the decision we noted on Monday: Choose to side with the world and be a hero? Or choose to side with the Tea Party and destroy most of the economies on Earth.

Only an idiot would make the wrong choice in a situation like that. That said, House Republicans and indeed the entire GOP have seemingly been on a suicide mission this past year.

Case in point, Representative Lee Terry of Omaha, a Republican who - when the shutdown began - effectively painted a target on his own back when he insisted to Omaha World-Herald reporter Joe Morton that he needed his paycheck to pay for his nice house. Meanwhile, federal employees in Omaha - all of whom are his constituents - have been without paychecks for over two weeks now.

As Steve Benen also noted Monday afternoon, Terry's self-inflicted trauma has lead to a series of events that read like the playbook nearly every Democratic challenger will be following around the nation this next year.

Rep. Terry inevitably gave a half-hearted apology about his selfish "gimme my check" comment. Still, as a member of 'The Party of Gimme', Terry's arrogance inevitably led to long time, popular Democratic Omaha City Councilman Pete Festersen changing his mind, and deciding to challenge the Republican for the House in 2014.

The fact is, the kind of blind arrogance and sense of entitlement Rep. Terry displayed recently has become a hallmark of the modern Tea Party infused GOP. As writer David Firestone pointed out on Monday, they truly have become the 'The Party of Gimme' - one of the major reasons they never really had a chance in this current standoff with Congressional Democrats and President Obama.

When a group of legislators acts like babies and throws a tantrum, they're going to get spanked by their fellow legislators who choose to act like adults.

Similarly, when specific, backbench, do-nothing politicians paint a target on their own backs, they shouldn't be surprised at all when they end up in the political crosshairs of those obviously more qualified then they ever were.

Terminal Decision

Weekends are usually supposed to be restful. However, the last few days have been anything but.

The latest we've heard about the impending debt ceiling is that Republicans in Congress still can't seem to comprehend the meaning of the word "clean." The plan that was floated last Friday by House Republicans and Speaker Boehner had all kinds of right wing goodies attached. Naturally, the mucked up bill was rejected by President Obama, as all other similarly non-clean bills have been.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans embraced a different plan floated by GOP Senators Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell over the weekend. That plan would increase the debt limit until January and fund the government for six months. However, Senate Republicans also hung so many of their ideological tea bags from the bill that Sen. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted - fairly -  that he be allowed to hang some Democratic priorities on it too. As the Washington Post confirmed, items like higher revenues to pay our government's bills and a higher overall debt ceiling are things Sen Reid and the Democrats wanted. Tea Party Republicans, of course, insisted that offer be rejected, since they're only going to be happy if Democrats get nothing in any negotiations. So with four days left until the world's markets implode, the 'World's Greatest Deliberative Body' is without a single legislative solution.

As Greg Sargent so aptly pointed out on Sunday, and as we've said multiple times over the past few years, Speaker Boehner has only one real choice this week: Allow the Tea Party to go flying over the edge of the political cliff, and save his political party, the nation, and quite possibly the world. Or, he can let the Tea Party drag the entire world into a massive economic depression the likes of which few alive have ever seen.

That last comment may seem hyperbolic, but according to IMF chief Christine Lagarde, it isn't. According to multiple world leaders and top economists from around the globe who met over the weekend for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings in DC, characterizing what would happen if America defaulted on our nation's debt as simply a "massive economic depression" would likely be underselling a disaster.

To any sane person who's been paying attention to American politics over the past few years, that we're at this point isn't really that much of a surprise. When a small part of one of the two major American political parties forces a shutdown of the federal government, then protests the shutdown THEY created, while waving the flag of secessionists who were defeated by America 150 years ago — all while the extremists' actions are undertaken with a sincerity usually only reserved for the mentally ill - you know that a problem like that isn't going to be fixed easily.

The extremist Republicans even made the current debate a political suicide pact, sneaking in a House rules change on October 1 that now prevents any member of the House, other than Speaker Boehner, from offering a bill that would solve either the debt ceiling or the government shutdown.

For Speaker Boehner, no matter what happens, it's likely his position as Speaker is toast. However, like a set of conjoined twins who share a single vital organ, Speaker Boehner must now look at his party and decide which group continues to live politically, and who will die.

Either the sane, moderate Republican Party will prevail and the world's economies will remain whole, or Mr Boehner will allow the Tea Party extremists to leap off the edge of insanity and drag the rest of his political party - and the rest of the world - into the political and economic abyss.

For anyone sane, it really shouldn't be a question of which decision Mr. Boehner should now make.

Tea Bags? What A Drag.

Like many people working in the national political media, we've had a long and frustrating week. Admittedly though, this past week hasn't been anywhere near as long for us as we know it's been for the millions of Americans sitting at home, thanks to the shutdown. Thankfully, the last twenty-four hours have seen a bit of good news.

As Greg Sargent reported Thursday afternoon, Democrats are sensing that Republicans will give in and accept reality soon, even if they're not being specific about the details yet. The fact remains, until the President signs any agreement with Congress, all anyone has right now is promises, with no specifics.

Getting the specifics right means choosing both the right words and the right numbers - though if you look at the recent poll numbers, we're not sure some Republicans in Congress even care about anything other than their blind desire to repeal Obamacare. The latest poll, from the Wall Street Journal & NBC, had numbers similar to other polls this week, showing that Republicans in general - and Tea Party Republicans in particular, like Sen. Ted Cruz - are in a disastrous free fall in popularity and support, thanks to their dogmatic devotion to their insane tea party ideology.

Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer is a perfect example of that kind of clueless obtuse thinking. She followed Sen. Cruz like a fool this week, signing a pledge promising that she wouldn't support funding the government unless she can defund Obamacare - a promise she simply can't deliver. Fischer's fellow Senator from Nebraska, Mike Johanns, acknowledged the pointless futility by Fischer and Cruz, and stated bluntly that it's time for the Republican Party to admit they've been beaten in the fight against the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Cruz and his tea partiers also appeared in Virginia this week, dragging down gubernatorial candidate and current Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, at a fund raising event just weeks before the statewide election. With every new poll that comes out, Cuccinelli's extremist Republican credentials also seem to be dragging him down more, and lifting up Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe.

When Ezra Klein looked at the specific numbers in that NBC/WSJ poll, the highlights - or lowlights - of the poll showed that the tea baggers have become like lead weights around the feet of virtually every Republican. Current polls all say the GOP has the worst levels of support they've ever had. Nationally, Americans blame Republicans by an ever-widening margin for creating this shutdown and for risking the full faith and credit of the United States. In contrast, both the Democratic Party and President Obama are even more popular than they were even a few months ago.

Meanwhile, leading the race to the bottom, Sen. Ted Cruz's favorability has plunged, right along with the Tea Party and the GOP.

We could simply sit here, smile, and tell you that we told you this would happen to the GOP a long time ago - because we did and it has come to pass. The fact is, though, if we could give up being right in order to get our fellow Americans back to work, right now, this instant... We'd take that deal in a heartbeat.

That Speaker Boehner and the rest of the extremist Republicans in Congress still haven't taken a deal to get Americans back to work, even after being hopelessly wrong about the Affordable Care Act, should tell you loads about them - none of it good.