The Commentariat -- Oct. 9, 2013

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: " President Obama will nominate Janet L. Yellen as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, administration officials said Tuesday night...." Congratulations to every determined, annoying, liberal, feminist, egalitarian supporter & to those Democratic Senators who -- inspired by your perseverence -- just said no to the Other Guy. Sometimes the good gal wins.

     ... CW: Nonetheless, Yellen's nomination is beginning to look like a distraction designed to appease the liberal base so Obama can undercut liberal principles when he negotiates down social safety net programs during a short-term "amnesty" or grace period bestowed up us by the Sabotage Party. Contributor Tommy Bones speculated to this effect in yesterday's thread (before news of the Yellin announcement). I'd say Tommy got that right. ...

... Mark Yellin of BBC News provides a peek into Yellen's personal history.

Thanks to Kate M. for the Time cover.

Alan Fram of the AP: "Amid the tough talk [by Obama & Boehner], though, were indications that both sides might be open to a short-term extension of the $16.7 trillion borrowing limit and a temporary end to the shutdown, giving them more time to resolve their disputes.... Obama used a White House news conference to say he 'absolutely' would negotiate with Republicans on 'every item in the budget' if Congress first sent him short-term measures halting the shutdown and the extending the debt limit. 'There's a crack there,' Boehner said of the clash late Tuesday, though he cautioned against optimism." ...

     ... CW: Guess I missed that part of the presser. Let's think about how that would work. The House agrees to open the government for business by extending the status quo for a month or so & to raise the debt ceiling an itty-bitty bit --- in exchange for negotiating all the stuff they want. I can't see this as anything but an Obama capitulation & a Boehner win. Also, this would completely undercut Harry Reid's plan (see Brian Beutler's story below) to effectively eliminate the debt ceiling. ...

     ... Update: it appears Noam Scheiber of the New Republic wrote this post before Obama made his concession (or like me, he missed it), but his theory applies & jibes with mine: "... a short-term debt limit increase will at best simply defer our current drama for another six weeks. More likely, it will substantially increase the odds of disaster." ...

     ... Update 2: I read the transcript of the Q&A on this, & it's not as cut-&-dried as Fram suggests. Obama put a lot of qualifiers on that "absolutely." ...

... Lori Montgomery & Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Short-term borrowing by the Treasury Department became twice as expensive Tuesday as it had been the day before, one of the most significant signs of alarm in the bond markets since the financial crisis of 2008. The stock market, meanwhile, continued the steady slide that began in mid-September, when Boehner (R-Ohio) embraced a right-wing strategy for using the budget battles to try to dismantle Obama's signature health-care initiative. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 20.67 points to 1,655.45 on Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped nearly 160 points to 14,776.53 and has lost nearly 6 percent of its value since hitting a one-year high Sept. 18." ...

... Jackie Calmes & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: " President Obama on Tuesday intensified his pressure on Republicans with a hastily scheduled news conference, calling on them to both fund and reopen the government and to raise the nation's borrowing limit as the federal shutdown entered a second week." ...

     ... CW: President Obama really acquitted himself well. He used a lot of examples that regular people can understand, so if the news media play back any of his analogies, even dummkopfs will get it. ...

     ... Here's the full transcript, via the Washington Post. ...

... Ed O'Keefe & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Obama made the comments as House Republican leaders pressed demands for negotiations with Senate Democrats and Obama over bills to fund the government and raise the debt limit, but declined to lay out what they are seeking in the proposed talks. Speaking to reporters after his weekly meeting with House Republicans, Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) charged that 'by refusing to negotiate,' Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) 'are putting our country on a pretty dangerous path.'" ...

... John Boehner responded to President Obama with a "press conference" of his own: Jonathan Chait: "The most telling thing about Boehner’s remarks is their brevity. The Speaker spoke for about five minutes, responded briefly to one question, and bolted out the door. Obama's disquisition earlier today may have been long (over an hour) and professorial. But he was able to defend his position against questions, engage counterarguments, and marshal facts to support his position. Boehner couldn't do any of those things. So he did the only thing a man in his position could do: repeat a handful of false or crazy talking points and quickly flee the premises." ...

... Robert Costa of National Review: "Though much press has been given to a group of moderates who are feeling the heat from voters over the shutdown and pushing for a 'clean' continuing resolution (CR), Boehner has moved to quiet their concerns. Several Republicans listed in media whip counts over the past few days have recanted, and any building concerns about strategy and direction are staying private, for now." CW: You can read Costa for what the latest House demands are; I think they've changed since then. ...

... Tim Alberta of the National Journal on House Republicans' plans. His reporting seems to agree with Costa's. The House will schedule a screw-federal-employees-if-you-vote-against-it bill & a form-a-supercommittee bill. ...

... Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senior Senate Democrats on Tuesday morning accused House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican majority of executing a 'classic bait-and-switch operation' that led to a government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has for days now divulged details of a private meeting between him and Boehner in September in which Reid says Boehner promised to pass a bill funding the government at lower spending levels than preferred by Democrats on the condition that it not water down Obamacare. The Senate has sent such a bill over to the House, but Boehner has declined to put it on the floor and said if he did, it wouldn't have the votes to pass." ...

... Brian Beutler explains Harry Reid's debt limit strategy: "in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid will press ahead with an old twist on a clean debt limit bill of his own. Under his plan, which was once Minority Leader Mitch McConnells plan, Congress would hand authority for increasing the debt limit to the president, but retain the power to block new borrowing with supermajority votes in both chambers. Moving quickly, while Boehner and his lieutenants dither, is a can't-lose move for Reid. If the plan fails — that is, if Republicans successfully filibuster the bill with a week before the Treasury Department's deadline -- markets will turn, and the pressure on the GOP to cave will increase. If it passes, Boehner will be isolated."

... Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "Three Debt-Ceiling Lies You'll Hear From the GOP This Week: ... "1. A default wouldn't really be that bad.... 2. Obama is a big hypocrite because he voted against a debt-limit increase while Bush was president.... 3. The Democrats won't compromise, wah wah wah!" Tomasky elaborates on all three. ...

... Even Tom Friedman Is Smarter than John Boehner: "The reason so many mainstream Republican lawmakers want Obama to give something to Cruz & Co. is that they want to get out of this mess, but they're all afraid to stand up to the far-right fringe themselves -- with its bullying network of barking talk-show hosts and moneymen. But Obama shouldn't take them off the hook. Only Republicans can delegitimize the nihilistic madness at the base of their party." ...

... Ben White & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "... the debt limit deniers are back in force. You can spin all the scary tales of default you want and they won't believe you. They say if the $16.7 trillion borrowing limit is not raised by Oct. 17, as Treasury demands, then the U.S. government will still collect more than enough cash each month to keep paying bondholders. And if Uncle Sam can't pay Social Security recipients or anyone else while it forks over interest payments to the Chinese? 'Tough luck,' these people say. The nation spends too much as it is. Blocking a debt ceiling increase will provide the radical shock therapy the nation desperately needs to start living within its means." ...

... How to Undermine Your Own Extortion Plot. Steve Benen: "Let's say the default deniers are right. They're not, but let's just say they are for the sake of conversation, and the consequences of the United States ignoring its financial obligations would be minor. If that's true, why should President Obama and congressional Democrats pay a steep ransom to let the hostage go? ... We are, at the risk of sounding impolite, talking about a group of ignorant radicals, with an uninterrupted track record of failed predictions, who have the fate of the global economy in their hands. Good luck to us all." ...

... Josh Barro of Business Insider: "Waiting For Michele Bachmann To Stop Being Crazy Is Not A Strategy." ...

... Kevin Mahnken of the New Republic, in praise of former House speakerl Dick Gephardt: "If the Gephardt Rule were in effect today, there could be no risk of default when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling October 17, because its purpose was to obviate the debt-ceiling process entirely. Instituted in 1979, the rule empowered the House Clerk to apply the total amount of debt from the House's budget to a joint resolution that would then be sent to the Senate for approval. It combined the two steps of negotiating a budget and lifting the federal debt limit to pay for it." CW: Just one more reminder that Newt Gingrich's fingerprints are all over this crisis. Thanks again, CNN, for elevating him to stahdumb. ...

... ** AND Paul J. Kaplan, apparently a constituent of Jack Kingston (RTP-Ga.), writes a letter to his Congressman. This is a hoot, even if you're not a baseball fan.

Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "Major insurers, state health-care officials and Democratic allies repeatedly warned the Obama administration in recent months that the new federal health-insurance exchange had significant problems, according to people familiar with the conversations. Despite those warnings and intense criticism from Republicans, the White House proceeded with an Oct. 1 launch." ...

... CW: There are many things that can & will go wrong with aspects of the ACA. The massive fail of the exchange Website, however, was entirely avoidable. And just plain stupid. I have read a good deal about amateurish coding errors (which should have been caught during testing), but it sounds as if the problem began with the program specs, not with the usual bugs that would occur in a complex system. It appears the designers didn't adjust for the Supreme Court's decision to allow states not to opt in with their own exchanges. With fewer than half the states on board, any dope could see the system would require twice the capacity originally anticipated. ...

... Robert Pear & Amy Goodnough of the New York Times: "While many people have been frustrated in their efforts to obtain coverage through the federal exchange, which is used by more than 30 states, consumers have had more success signing up for health insurance through many of the state-run exchanges, federal and state officials and outside experts say."

See No Evil. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed prepared to strike down a part of federal campaign finance law left intact by its decision in Citizens United in 2010: overall limits on direct contributions from individuals to candidates. The justices seemed to divide along familiar ideological lines, and they articulated starkly different understandings of the role of money and free speech in American politics." ...

... Dana Milbank: "There’s a certain irony in the Supreme Court remaining open while much of the federal government is shut, for the high court created much of the dysfunction that cripples Washington today. The court has failed to undo the partisan redistricting that has left the House hopelessly polarized. It has furthered Americans' cynicism toward politics with nakedly political rulings such as Bush v. Gore. And, above all, it has created a campaign-finance system that is directly responsible for the rise of uncompromising leaders on both sides of the Capitol.... Now [the conservatives justices] are prepared to expand on their 2010 decision that caused an explosion of independent spending by allowing the wealthy to give about $3.5 million apiece to candidates and parties in each election cycle. Their rationale: They've already allowed the system to become so flooded with money that more won't hurt." ...

Less than 500 people can fund the whole shooting match. There is a very real risk both that the government will be run of, by and for those 500 people and that the public will perceive that the government is being run of, by and for those 500 people. -- Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli, arguing before the Court Tuesday ...

... Charles Pierce provides helpful commentary in a post titled "The Last Floodgate Opens." ...

...  This, BTW, appears to be the intro to Charles Pierce's cover on Esquire Weekly. I haven't figured out how to access the whole essay, which is firewalled. But the intro is wordsmithery (a word this smithy thought she made up, but didn't) to behold.

There Are Still Heroes in Washington. Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Eight Democratic lawmakers were arrested Tuesday while advocating for immigration reform at a sit-in on the National Mall in Washington. Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), Keith Ellision (D-Minn.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Al Green (D-Texas) were among the estimated 200 people arrested by U.S. Capitol Police for protesting in the streets."

Living in Washington, D.C., in the midst of the greatest political crisis since Watergate four decades ago (a crisis for which -- unlike this one -- there was a Constitutional solution), Maureen Dowd devotes her column to the importance of changing the Washington Redskins' name to something less offensive.

Congressional Races 2013

Sam Wang of Princeton U.: "If the election were held today, Democrats would pick up around 30 seats, giving them control of the chamber. I do not expect this to happen. Many things will happen in the coming 12 months, and the current crisis might be a distant memory. But at this point I do expect Democrats to pick up seats next year, an exception to the midterm rule." Thanks to Ken. W. -- and his son -- for the link.

Gubernatorial Race

Alexander Burns of Politico: "Democrat Terry McAuliffe has opened up a significant lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race amid broad public disapproval of the federal government shutdown, according to a Politico poll of the 2013 gubernatorial election. McAuliffe, the former national Democratic Party chairman, is now 9 points ahead of Cuccinelli, the current state attorney general, in a race that also includes Libertarian nominee Robert Sarvis. In the survey, McAuliffe drew support from 44 percent of Virginians versus 35 percent for Cuccinelli and 12 percent for Sarvis." ...

... CW: I think contributor James S. is right about this: "The problem with that Terry Mac-Cooch poll is Sarvis's 12 points. Third party candidate always seem to poll better than they score, and I'll bet those 12-pointers are on the kook end of the political rainbow."

News Ledes

New York Times: "This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three researchers for computer simulations that enable the closer study of complex reactions like photosynthesis and combustion, and the design of new drugs. Martin Karplus of the University of Strasbourg in France and Harvard University, Michael Levitt of Stanford University, and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California share the honor...."

     ... Update: this AP story is more extensive.

New York Times: "The Libyan government in recent weeks tacitly approved two American commando operations in its country, according to senior American officials, one to capture a senior militant from Al Qaeda and another to seize a militia leader suspected of carrying out the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi."

New York Times: "The Obama administration plans to suspend a substantial portion of American military aid to Egypt, several administration officials said Tuesday, after last summer's deadly crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the recent surge in violence there."

CW: Not sure why the Los Angeles Times is just now getting around to publishing an obituary for Herman Wallace, but it is worth a read. The South is still the South; it's medieval culture persists. Who needs living history museums when you can time-travel to Dixie whenever you like?

The Commentariat -- Oct. 8, 2013

Steve Erlanger of the New York Times: "Five years after the financial crisis in the United States helped spread a deep global recession, policy makers around the world again fear collateral damage, this time with their nations becoming victims not of Wall Street's excesses but of a political system in Washington that to many foreign eyes no longer seems to be able to function efficiently." ...

... David Lauter of the Los Angeles Times: "The standoff over the government shutdown continues to damage the public's opinion of congressional Republicans, two new surveys indicate, a finding likely to deepen concern among GOP leaders about the impact the stalemate is having on their party.... Disapproval of the way congressional Republicans are 'handling negotiations over the federal budget' has jumped to 70%, a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows. The poll, taken Wednesday through Sunday, found 24% approving of the congressional GOP. The ratings have worsened significantly over the last week. A Post-ABC poll taken just before the shutdown began showed 63% of Americans disapproving of the GOP position. The reverse is true for President Obama. While approval of his handling of the budget negotiations remains tepid, it has improved since last week, the poll showed." ...

... Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama and Senate Democrats on Monday decided to try to break a political logjam that threatens the U.S. economy by advancing legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling as soon as possible.... While the White House and Senate Democrats said they would push a $1 trillion bill that would authorize borrowing for a year or longer, they suggested they would accept a short-term bill, perhaps lasting only weeks, if necessary to avoid a default.... In a separate development on the seventh day of the shutdown, a bill to retroactively pay furloughed federal employees once it ends hit a snag in the Senate, where some Republicans may seek to amend the legislation with other proposals thus far ignored by the Democratic majority." ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "A clean debt ceiling hike by the Senate ... would be a critical 'put up or shut up' moment for Senate Republicans. Would they really filibuster a debt ceiling hike? Sen. John Cornyn [R-Texas] is suggesting they might by saying a clean hike would never get through the Senate. That's after he said, back in January, 'You sometimes try to inject a little doubt in your negotiating partner about where you're going to go, but I would tell you unequivocally that we're not going to default.' That's pretty unequivocally showing your cards." ...

... "Dem Cracks Open in Debt Limit Fight." Manu Raju of Politico: "Just as top Senate Democrats began to lay the groundwork to raise the U.S. government's borrowing limit through 2014, senior White House officials refused to rule out a short-term increase. The divergent messages caused major heartburn for top Senate Democrats and gave Republicans fresh hope that they could defeat a yearlong debt ceiling hike and win concessions from President Barack Obama in this fall's fiscal battles." MAG & I discussed this briefly in yesterday's thread. ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that lifting the debt ceiling will be non-negotiable for as long as Barack Obama is president":

Whether it's today, or a number of weeks from now, or a number of months from now, or a number of years from now, it will always be Congress's responsibility to raise our debt ceiling so that the United States can pay the bills that Congress has incurred. It will always be, as long as he's president, President Obama's position that that responsibility is not negotiable. That there's not a game of trading for political priorities or agenda items that Republicans have not been able to achieve through legislation or the ballot box. -- Jay Carney

      ... Paul Waldman of American Prospect: "So far all the demanding has been done on the GOP side. Carney's assertion is "a good start, but how about this. As part of the resolution to the crisis, Obama should demand that whatever agreement they come to include eliminating the debt ceiling. Not raise it, blast it to oblivion." CW: The President can't possibly do this until after the GOP ends the shutdown & raises the debt ceiling. For the President to make any demands would be hypocritical. The President's whole point is that keeping the government open is non-negotiable. Waldman ignores that fundamental principle. ...

... Bob Cusack of the Hill: "House Republicans who have said they are open to supporting a 'clean' government funding bill are not interested in forcing a vote on such a measure.... House GOP leaders strongly discourage their members to sign discharge petitions, which is seen as undercutting their authority. CW: So Boehner is not giving Republicans a wink & a nod, tacitly okaying their signing the Democratic discharge petition, as I thought he very well might. He's dumber than I thought. Krugman is right about the Incompetent Party. ...

... "'House of Indecision.'" Jonathan Strong & Robert Costa of the National Review: "House Republican leaders met today at the Capitol, but they made little progress toward solving the fiscal crisis, or calming the GOP's growing tensions. They remain undecided on the contours of a potential deal, and on how to sell one, especially to the conference's bloc of skeptical conservatives. 'It's the House of indecision,' says a weary Republican aide.... 'We don't have the votes for a big deal, small deal, or short-term deal.'" ...

... AND. Robert Costa: "Speaker John Boehner may be trying to finalize a plan to raise the debt limit, but House conservatives are already skeptical of his efforts. In interviews, several of them tell me they're unlikely to support any deal that may emerge." ...

... John Stanton of BuzzFeed has one of the plans House Republicans are considering -- they will tie non-furloughed federal employee paychecks to a demand for negotiations with Democrats. CW: That's right; they are holding hostage the paychecks of federal employees who are working during the shutdown -- a shutdown the GOP caused. "Dear FEMA Worker: Thanks for your heroic service during the floods & fires & all. Unless you can get President Obama to do everything we want -- including cutting your future benefits -- we're holding your paycheck. Love, John & Eric & the Other Guy." In-fucking-credible. ...

... Digby: "The lunatics are running the asylum now, the revanchist movement is in full swing, and the Lost Cause is the name of the game.... Nothing less than a full-on attack on Fort Sumpter will do." ...

I think we need to have that moment where we realize [we're] going broke. I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets. -- Ted Yoho (RTP-Fla.)

Ted Yoho of Florida ... is quickly replacing Steve King and Louie Gohmert as the congressman to whom reporters flock for the jaw-dropping quotes so beloved by Twitter. -- David Firestone of the New York Times

** David Firestone: "That the very people who are causing the crisis are dismissing it shows the double game that's being played here. Republicans don't want the country to understand how big a threat they are posing to its well-being.... If people truly understood how bad a default would be -- if they understood credit markets and interest rates, and how they would be affected by the global loss of faith in Treasury bonds -- the anger would be much greater, and Republican control of the House would be threatened. In the cynical game of spin and messaging that this crisis has become, the goal is to scare Washington Democrats while keeping ordinary people calm." ...

... ** Jonathan Bernstein: "... Republicans are essentially charging admission -- that is, policy concessions -- as a price for beginning negotiations on the budget. Democrats are right to refuse." CW: Think about that. House Republicans are saying, "We won't negotiate until you give us everything we want." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "What have House Republicans managed to accomplish in a week of government shutdown? Damage the livelihood of millions of Americans? Check.... Waste billions of taxpayer dollars? Check.... Interfere with key government operations? Check.... Rattle the markets, slow an economy in recovery, interrupt potentially lifesaving research at the National Institutes of Health? Check, check and check. Derail the hated Obamacare? Ch... -- oh, no, wait a minute.... At some point, Mr. Obama and the Democrats will have to throw the speaker a lifeline.... But throwing a lifeline is pointless until the victim realizes he may be drowning." ...

     ... CW: The WashPo is still the WashPo, even when the editors are better than half-right. Since when did etiquette demand that hostages toss little gifts to kidnappers as they are making their escape? House Democrats already did send Republicans two lifelines: they agreed to a Republican-drawn CR & they are now floating a discharge petition. Republicans prefer to drown unless the lifeline is made of golden braid. ...

... Ezra Klein: "The 13 reasons Washington Is Failing." CW: Quite a good list, with explanations. (I don't agree with Klein's premise that Democrats have moved left -- I think he'd have a hard time supporting it.) Maybe you'd like to add to it. ...

... CW: This Politico story by Eric Isenstadt is interesting because it shows how a slick winger can get away with talking out of two sides of his mouth. It seems Appalachian Trail Guy -- who is among the Tea Party hardliners who precipitated the shutdown -- also represents a district that is heavily dependent upon federal funds. So at a Saturday townhall, the natives were restless. Sanford "tried to assuage constituents' concerns, saying that no one liked the idea of shutting down the government. And criticized his own party, saying that he thought House Republicans had overplayed their hand when it came to their push to defund Obamacare.... But Sanford also held firm on his opposition to a 'clean' budget measure that does not try to defund or weaken the Affordable Care Act. [Emphasis added.] He argued that the budget debate gave Republicans a forum to express concerns about the implementation of Obamacare.... And, more importantly, he said it gave them an opportunity to raise broader questions about government spending. Passing a short-term continuing resolution, he said, wouldn't address the country's long-term fiscal problems." ...

... Jane Perlez & Joe Cochrane of the New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry replaced President Obama at the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting on Monday, leaving China's president, Xi Jinping, as the dominant leader at a gathering devoted to achieving greater economic integration." ... The absence of Mr. Obama, who canceled to try to resolve the government shutdown in Washington, was repeatedly noted at the conference.... 'In 2004, obviously, I worked very, very hard to replace a president,' Mr. Kerry told his audience, referring to his unsuccessful campaign against President George W. Bush. 'This is not what I had in mind.' ... Mr. Obama had planned to use personal persuasion to push forward negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade bloc that is led by the United States and that excludes China." ...

... Eric Wemple of the Washington Post: "Fox & Friends" "journalist" Anna Kooiman repeats as true a satirical story that President Obama was paying out of his own pocket to keep a Muslim museum open. CW: This obviously was a spoof on Prince Rebus, who held up a big RNC check which was to cover keeping the WWII Memorial open. If you work for Fox "News," you don't see anything ridiculous about the RNC's publicity stunt, so it doesn't occur to you that anyone would make fun of it. Also, you might be too fucking stoopid to grasp the concept of satire. On that same note, see P. D. Pepe's comment late in yesterday's thread on Ted Cruz's supposed come-to-Jesus moment. Lefties like Chris Hedges can be stoopid, too. One of the many downsides of extremism is that it causes you to lose your sense of humor.

Michael Shear & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The technical problems that have hampered enrollment in the online health insurance exchanges resulted from the failure of a major software component, designed by private contractors, that crashed under the weight of millions of users last week, federal officials said Monday." CW: See also SNL Weekend Update in the October 6 Commentariat. ...

... Jon Stewart challenges HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the ObamaCare rollout:

Max Rivlin-Nadler of Gawker: "... while our congress is busy shutting itself down because it's run by soulless opportunists, the Swiss people have gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on whether they should guarantee $2800 in monthly income for all adults." Thanks to Kate M. for the lead.

Nina Totenberg of NPR: "The U.S. Supreme Court returns to the campaign finance fray on Tuesday, hearing arguments in a case that could undercut most of the remaining rules that limit big money in politics." ...

... Lee Fang of the Nation of the right's more far-reaching goal in the campaign finance case -- to dismantle "a whole host of anti-bribery

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "On the first day of its new term, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case arising from one of the most brazen frauds in recent history, the $7 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated by R. Allen Stanford.... The question for the justices was whether ... state suits were proper in light of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act, a 1998 federal law that was meant to stop end runs around the protections offered to defendants under federal law. The 1998 law bars many state-law class actions based on asserted fraud 'in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security.'" ...

... Here's Robert Barnes' explanation of the issue, which is perhaps a little clearer. Also this from Barnes's WashPo story: "Among the cases the justices declined to hear was a request from Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) that it revive the commonwealth's anti-sodomy law, which was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit." The AP has more. CW: The case involved an adult male soliticing oral sex from a 17-year-old girl, not -- as I presumed before reading the AP report -- gay sex.

U.S. News: "Tractor-trailer drivers will intentionally clog the inner loop of the Washington, D.C., beltway beginning on the morning of Oct. 11, according to a coordinator of the upcoming "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" rally. Organizers of the three-day ride want to call attention to a litany of trucker frustrations and express their disapproval of national political leaders." CW: No, these truckers aren't upset about the government shutdown & looming debt crisis; they're more into arresting President Obama & Leader Pelosi & Sen. Feinstein for "treason." It sounds as if they have plans to take MOCs by force. ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "Nothing screams conservatism quite like trying to cripple various parts of America in order to make an incoherent point you heard from some delusional radio shitstain...." ...

... Charles Pierce: "I was just saying the other day that the one thing that American politics needs these days is a bunch of nutballs in really big vehicles." AND Pierce calls our attention to this blogpost from one of the mothertruckers' chief organizers:

Reply by Earl Conlon yesterday: i've always believed Obama to be the Anti Christ from the day i first laid eyes one him.. not to mention the dreams i have had for the past 15 years showing me a man in office who i've never heard of before. then comes 2008 and the dreams get more detailed and intense... you figure it out..maybe i am crazy?

Local News

Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "Breaking with Democrats in the State Legislature, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill on Monday that would have made California the first state to allow immigrants who are not citizens to serve on juries, saying that the responsibility should come only with citizenship."

The Commentariat -- Oct. 7, 2013

Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama dared Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday to prove there aren't enough votes in the House to pass a 'clean' bill to reopen the government. 'The House should hold that vote today,' Obama said during a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday. 'If Republicans and Speaker Boehner are saying there are not enough votes, they should prove it.'" Thanks to James S. for the link:

Speaker Boehner has a credibility problem. From refusing to let the House vote on a bill that was his idea in the first place, to decrying health care subsidies for members of Congress and staff that he worked for months to preserve, to stating that the House doesn't have the votes to pass a clean C.R. at current spending levels, there is now a consistent pattern of Speaker Boehner saying things that fly in the face of the facts or stand at odds with his past actions. -- Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Harry Reid

     ... The above is from the New York Times, which is liveblogging developments. ...

... NEW. Ken Cirilli of Politico: "The Obama administration would be open to a bill that boosts the debt ceiling for a few weeks, a top White House official said on Monday... National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling said that how much to raise the debt ceiling is up to Congress and that the administration would prefer a longer term solution." ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said the nation would default on its debt later this month if President Obama does not agree to GOP's demands to cut spending and change parts of the Affordable Care Act. Appearing on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Boehner agreed that the risks of failing to raise the debt ceiling would be 'catastrophic,' leading credit markets to freeze, the dollar to lose its value, and interest rates to skyrocket." For those of you who can stomach it, here's the full interview. Stephanopoulos, for once, did a fairly good job (within the limits of his capabilities -- he let Boehner get away with claiming several times that often in the past, "debt limits have been used to force big policy changes," an assertion that is untrue). It's quite a spectacle:

     ... The transcript of the interview is here. ...

     ... Greg Sargent: "A lot of folks have been willing to accept Boehner's demand for 'negotiations' at face value. But let's be clear on what he is really asking for here. Boehner is actually ruling out any negotiations in which Republicans don’t enjoy the leverage that the threat of a massive economic meltdown confers upon them. And he's also saying Republicans will make no concessions of their own in them." CW: This concept is very, very hard for the Village People, not to mention ordinary people, to understand. Boehner is counting on that; indeed, he may not understand it himself. After years of using this tactic, he may think extortion & negotiation are synonymous. ...

... Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House on Sunday challenged  Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to prove his assertion in an ABC News interview that "there are not the votes in the House" to pass a "clean" continuing resolution. 'If he's right, why not prove it?" White House press secretary Jay Carney asked on Twitter."

... CW: Twitter? C'mon. President Obama must address the nation from the Oval Office about this Constitutional crisis. Treating Congressional sabotage like a political game played out on TV talk shows & Twitter trivializes the seriousness of the situation & demeans the President's efforts to preserve Constitutional norms. ...

... Bob Scheiffer practices journalism, & Ted Cruz's fellow Texas Senator, John Cornyn (R), can't respond with anything but his assigned talking points. Via Jack Beauchamp of Think Progress:

... Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: "[Saturday], 200 Members of the House Democratic Caucus, led by Congressmen Timothy H. Bishop and Patrick Murphy, sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner demanding a vote on behalf of the American people on the Senate-passed continuing resolution, which would reopen government and end the detrimental, five day long Republican Government Shutdown. The letter, which is signed by 195 voting Members and 5 non-voting delegates, makes clear that there is a bipartisan majority to pass this bill and reopen government now." ...

     ... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Combine those 195 Democrats with the 22 House Republicans who have signaled support for a clean resolution, and you get 217 members, which is a bare majority of the chamber's 432 members." ...

... AND/BUT. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the leading critic of the Ted Cruz Plan, told Chris Wallace of Fox "News" Sunday that "he would not join Democrats to bring up a clean continuing resolution on the House floor for a vote." Too bad. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

     ... CW: I didn't realize how bare the bare majority is. Remove Peter King & Co. & it isn't a majority at all. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I think much of Boehner's belligerent interview was a coded cry for help from the Not-So-Crazies. He wants that discharge petition. ...

... AP: "Maryland's Rep. Steny Hoyer, [the House Minority Whip,] says he believes 140 to 160 of the 232 House Republicans 'think what's being done right now is irrational.' Hoyer tells MSNBC Monday these lawmakers are 'looking over their shoulders' at potential tea party challenges." ...

It is a concession, I acknowledge that. -- Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), speaking of the continuing resolution Democrats have agreed to pass

... Vicki Needham of the Hill: Shadow House Speaker "Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Sunday said changes to President Obama's signature healthcare law should be tied to a debt ceiling increase." ...

... Tom Hamburger & Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "The growing unhappiness among longtime GOP check-writers and party elders underscores the deepening divisions over the ascendant tea party wing, which fueled this past week's shutdown and is demanding Democratic concessions in exchange for reopening the government and raising the nation's debt limit.... The frustration was evident this past week not just at [an American] Crossroads conference but also throughout the party's high-end donor class. While grass-roots activists cheer the unyielding positions of conservative House Republicans, some of the GOP’s top fundraisers are watching the situation with growing dismay.... It is too early to tell whether the discontent will seriously hamper fundraising for party committees and independent groups such as Crossroads. Some top GOP fundraisers said they think donors upset with the strategy will still write checks in the end." ...

... ** MAG & others recommend this excellent piece by Jonathan Chait, published Friday: "To weaponize the debt ceiling, you must be willing to inflict harm on millions of innocent people. It is a shockingly powerful self-destruct button built into our very system of government, but only useful for the most ideologically hardened or borderline sociopathic. But it turns out to be the perfect tool for the contemporary GOP: a party large enough to control a chamber of Congress yet too small to win the presidency, and infused with a dangerous, millenarian combination of overheated Randian paranoia and fully justified fear of adverse demographic trends." Read the whole thing; he has a lot more to say about the inherent flaw in our Constitutional form of government. ...

     ... Paul Campos, in Lawyers, Guns & Money, likes Chait's parenthetical observation, "Obama could, theoretically, threaten to veto a debt ceiling hike unless Congress attaches it to the creation of single-payer health insurance." ...

     ... CW: What Chait fails to mention is the third branch of government -- the courts. Would that we had a responsible, pragmatic Supreme Court instead of one that springs from & enables the radical fringe, the President, I believe, could declare a Constitutional crisis & open up the government for business again under a fiscally conservative resolution as well as raise the debt ceiling. ...

... OR, as James S. suggests, the FBI could just cuff the Congressional teabaggers. As the Greek government has done to its far-right party, the DOJ could charge the RTPs with being part of a criminal organization. And, please, could we see Ted Cruz doing the perp walk? (Not serious here, of course, but it's a lovely thought.) ...

... ** Paul Krugman: "Conservative leaders are indeed ideologically extreme, but they're also deeply incompetent. So much so, in fact, that the Dunning-Kruger effect -- the truly incompetent can’t even recognize their own incompetence -- reigns supreme.... Sooner or later, the party’s attitude toward policy -- we listen only to people who tell us what we want to hear, and attack the bearers of uncomfortable news -- was bound to infect political strategy, too." CW: this is an expansion of a Krugman blogpost I linked the other day. Today's column is well-worth a read even if you read the post. ...

... Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post provides a perfect example of the kind of "balanced" reporting. Krugman derides. ...

... AND an unnamed House Republican backs up Krugman's assertion that House leaders have no idea what they're doing. Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports: "What became clear after an hour of discussion was that the House Republican leadership's position at the moment is the result of happenstance, blundering, and a continuing inability to understand the priorities of both GOP and Democratic colleagues." ...

... E. J. Dionne: "We now know that the tea party is primarily about postures aimed at undercutting sensible governance and premised on the delusion that Obama's election victories were meaningless. Its leaders abandon these postures as soon as their adversaries stand strong and the poll-testers report their approach is failing. This will give pause to anyone ever again tempted to follow them into a cul-de-sac." CW: I think Dionne's report of the death of the Tea Party is premature, & I don't see how the Tea Party's destructive agenda is the breaking news Dionne suggests it is, but his column is worth a read, if only for his evisceration of Li'l Randy. ...

... Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: "If Obama refuses to back down, this could be a moment that will define his legacy -- a fight for democracy as much as for Democrats." ...

... ** Apocalypse Soon. Yalman Onaran of Bloomberg, in a straight news report: "A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen. Failure by the world's largest borrower to pay its debt -- unprecedented in modern history -- will devastate stock markets from Brazil to Zurich, halt a $5 trillion lending mechanism for investors who rely on Treasuries, blow up borrowing costs for billions of people and companies, ravage the dollar and throw the U.S. and world economies into a recession that probably would become a depression. Among the dozens of money managers, economists, bankers, traders and former government officials interviewed for this story, few view a U.S. default as anything but a financial apocalypse." ...

... This Apocalypse Brought to You Live! by Fox "News." Jonathan Bernstein in Salon: "What all these [disparate Republican] talking points had in common ... is that they were eagerly snarfed up by the folks at Fox News and other parts of the Republican-aligned press. The truth is that Republicans can pretty much say whatever they want, no matter what the bizarre logic and no matter what connection it has to what they were saying five minutes ago, and Fox News will totally accept it and blast it for hours or days. The result? Republicans have become incredibly lazy. After all, why bother constructing a coherent argument if you don't need one.... It's easy for Republican politicians to fall deep within an information feedback loop, not even realizing that what everyone within that loop is excited about is unpopular, or perhaps just irrelevant, to the other 80 percent or so of the nation. Or to put it another way: Benghazi!" Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... Brian Beutler of Salon highlights the incoherence of the GOP "strategy": "The GOP’s current position ... boils down to to the laughable idea that nothing's more important than reopening federal monuments, funding clinical trials, and spending money on veterans services for two weeks, until we breach the debt limit and they have to be shut down again." CW: Beutler seems gobsmacked that Republicans don't know what they're doing, but Bernstein (above) provides a pretty good explanation of why they're so "clueless," as Beutler writes. Also thanks to Jeanne B.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times weighs in on the Supreme Court's consequential new term, which begins today. ...

... Justice Antonin Scalia weighs in on everything. Don't have time to read it, but I'm sure the interview, by Jennifer Senior for New York magazine, is full of stuff to make you want to rend your garments or something. ...

     ... NEW. The HuffPost factchecks Scalia. ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post begins & ends his magazine piece on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a discussion of her fondness for opera (and how a good production of a sad operatic story makes her cry). CW: Well, she's a girl; what do you expect? No mention of her "mean beef stroganoff" of course because, as Barnes points out, Ginsburg can't cook. We hear from Scalia here, too. Nice touch.

Dr. Feelgood Runs FDA Painkiller Safety Tests. Peter Whorisky of the Washington Post: "A scientific panel that shaped the federal government's policy for testing the safety and effectiveness of painkillers was funded by major pharmaceutical companies that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to affect the thinking of the Food and Drug Administration. E-mails show that the companies paid as much as $25,000 to attend any given meeting of the panel, which had been set up by two academics to provide advice to the FDA on how to weigh the evidence from clinical trials.... FDA officials who regulate painkillers sat on the steering committee of the panel, which met in private, and co-wrote papers with employees of pharmaceutical companies." CW: Reminds me of self-certified opthamologist Dr. Randy.

Senatorial Race

CW: You thought Scott Brown was a disaster? Ha! Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: Cory "Booker's bumpy campaign [for New Jersey's open U.S. Senate seat] and shrinking lead in the polls are all the more unsettling to Democratic Party officials because [GOP nominee Steve] Lonegan is a political anomaly in the blue-hued state: a Tea Party conservative who describes himself as a 'radical,' opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, cheers the current shutdown of the federal government and has relied on polarizing right-wing figures like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry as campaign surrogates." Voters who are skeptical of Booker have every reason to be, IMHO, but no reason to vote for Lonegan. The election is next week.

News Ledes

AP: "Americans James Rothman and Randy Schekman and German-born researcher Thomas Suedhof won the 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries on how hormones, enzymes and other key substances are transported within cells."

AFP: "Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday insisted the capture of an alleged Al-Qaeda operative in Libya in a US raid was legal, after Tripoli demanded answers about the 'kidnap'. Abu Anas al-Libi, who was indicted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and has a $5 million FBI bounty on his head, was captured on Saturday."

Danbury, Conn., News Times: " Voters turned out Saturday to accept a $49.25 million state appropriation to demolish Sandy Hook Elementary School and design and construct a new school on the Dickinson Drive site. The state money will also fund buying two parcels of adjacent land for a new entrance to the school. The vote was 4,504 yes to 558 no." Via New York.