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.

The Commentariat -- Oct. 6, 2013

According to James Hohmann of Politico, the right's new litmus test is sabotage. Anyone who wants to "compromise" by passing a clean CR is a suspect squish, & the Tea Party plans to primary him/her. This really is extraordinary. ...

... AP: Appearing on ABC News's "This Week," "House Speaker John Boehner ... says he doesn't know when the government shutdown will end and says it's up to President Barack Obama to start negotiations. The Ohio Republican said Sunday that he will not allow his GOP-led House to vote on a bill reopening the government without serious talks about spending. He also says he will not go forward with a bill increasing the government's borrowing authority without a similar conservation." CW Translation: Woe is me. I'm the Speaker of the House and the only thing I can do is make a long series of unreasonable demands. Alternate CW Translation: Ask Ted Cruz. ...

     ... Thanks to Julie in Massachusetts. ...

... ** Nicholas Kristof on governing by blackmail. If the President did it, we would think he had gone mad. "... in that kind of situation, I would hope that we as journalists wouldn't describe the resulting furor as a 'political impasse' or 'partisan gridlock.' I hope that we wouldn't settle for quoting politicians on each side as blaming the other." ...

     ... Mark Sumner of Daily Kos: "And now, let's flip back to the front page of Kristof's own New York Times for continuing coverage of 'the budget standoff.' See? It's not an impasse, it's a standoff. Glad that got cleared up." ...

... Paul Krugman: "Ever since Reagan, the Beltway has treated Republicans as the natural party of government.... There was a general presumption of Republican competence.... I think the last two years have finally killed that presumption. It wasn't just that Romney lost -- his shock, the obvious degree to which his campaign was deluded, was an eye-opener. And now the antics of the Boehner bumblers. Suddenly the old Will Rogers line -- I'm not a member of any organized political party,I'm a Democrat -- has lost its sting; the upper hand is on the other foot. And that's going to color narratives and shape campaigns for a long time." ...

... Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made a surprise announcement on Saturday that he would recall next week almost all of the 400,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department who had been sent home when the government shut down. Mr. Hagel said the decision that 'most D.O.D. civilians' would now be exempted from furloughs came after Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers interpreted a budget law passed just before the shutdown to include a larger number of workers." ...

** Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "... interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 -- waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known.... The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law....

... CW: It should never go unsaid that the groups who form the loyal opposition are people who will never directly benefit from it: (1) the funders are rich old white guys (Koch boys, Ed Meese), (2) the politicians are legislators (retired or active) who already get government-backed health insurance, & (3) the so-called grassroots are people on Medicare. They are nasty, selfish bastards, one & all. ...

... Jeff Simon of the Washington Post: "As the fifth day of the federal government shutdown began, members of the House came together in a moment of rare bipartisanship to pass a bill, by a vote of 407 to 0, approving back pay for furloughed government workers. President Obama has expressed his support for the measure. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid supports the measure, but said Saturday that if furloughed workers are guaranteed back pay, there's no reason to keep them out of work." ...

... AFP: "US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Saturday the political standoff paralysing Washington was 'reckless' and would weaken the United States' standing abroad if it did not end soon." ...

... Teabaggers Suddenly Love Federal Programs. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "After defending such actions by saying they were taking aim at a major new government program, House Republicans set about reassembling the government they had shut down, piece by piece. Programs that conservatives had tolerated at best were suddenly lavished with praise: nutrition assistance for women and children, federal medical research, national parks, the Smithsonian Institution, even the government of the District of Columbia, which was authorized to spend money to pick up Washington's trash, maintain its needle exchange program for intravenous drug users and even implement the health care law." ...

It takes serious chutzpah for Republicans to portray themselves as the defenders of N.I.H., parks and other critical services they gutted through sequestration and proposed cutting further for 2014. -- Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y."

Are we meant to believe that today they have come to Jesus, or is this just politics? -- Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)

Dave Weigel of Slate: "The intransigence of Democrats, from Obama on down to red-state senators, has surprised the GOP.... Democratic aides say that the red-staters are 'scared straight' by the House GOP. They're not getting the calls from home to defund Obamacare. Their home-state papers aren't dogging them, either. They're in no fear of losing an 'optics' battle to John Boehner and company."

Dealing with terrorists has taught us some things. You can't deal with 'em. This mess was created by the Republicans for one purpose, and they lost. People in my district are calling in for Obamacare -- affordable health care -- in large numbers.... You can't say, OK, you get half of Obamacare -- this isn't a Solomonic decision. So we sit here until they figure out they fuckin' lost. -- Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.)

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Rep. Darrell Issa (RTP-Calif.) what-for when he petitioned to allow his suit against Attorney General Eric Holder to proceed despite the shutdown, which has furloughed DOJ litigators. Berman wrote in her denial of Issa's motion: "... while the vast majority of litigants who now must endure a delay in the progress of their matters do so due to circumstances beyond their control, that cannot be said of the House of Representatives, which has played a role in the shutdown that prompted the stay motion." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... "Mitch McConnell's Vanishing Act." Dana Milbank: Mitch McConnell's Tea Party rival for his Senate seat is keeping McConnell -- who has been the Republican to avert crises in the past -- from doing anything useful in the present debacle. ...

... Mary Reinhart of the Arizona Republic: "Policy experts say Arizona appears to be the only state in the nation so far to have withheld welfare checks because of the federal shutdown, a move key state lawmakers want Gov. Jan Brewer to reverse. The shutdown halted funding Tuesday for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, which states use to provide cash assistance and other support for low-income children and parents. Arizona officials announced this week that 5,200 eligible families would not receive payments, which average $207 a month.... States are allowed to use contingency funding or move money around to fund the cash-assistance payments, and other states have done so. In a letter to state welfare directors this week, federal officials said states would be reimbursed once the budget impasse is resolved. Arizona is one of 11 states that use only federal funding for the welfare payments, and the state uses the majority of its TANF funds for its burgeoning child-welfare programs." ...

... CW: Loved this David Kirkpatrick, et al., New York Times story (also linked in today's Ledes) on the U.S. raids in Somalia & Lybia: "With President Obama locked in a standoff with Congressional Republicans and his leadership criticized for a policy reversal in Syria, the raids could fuel accusations among his critics that the administration was eager for a showy foreign policy victory." The story, which is a long one, is all about the raids except for this graf signalling the wingnuts to attack Obama for, um, competence.

Julie Pace of the AP: "Defending the shaky rollout of his health care law, President Barack Obama said frustrated Americans 'definitely shouldn't give up' on the problem-plagued program now at the heart of his dispute with Republicans over reopening the federal government. Obama said public interest far exceeded the government's expectations, causing technology glitches that thwarted millions of Americans when trying to use government-run health care websites. 'Folks are working around the clock and have been systematically reducing the wait times,' he said. The federal gateway website was taken down for repairs over the weekend, again hindering people from signing up for insurance." ...

... AP: "President Barack Obama conducted an interview Friday with AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace that covered a wide range of topics...." Here's a text of the interview.

** Mark Sherman of the AP: "The Supreme Court is beginning a new term with controversial topics that offer the court's conservative majority the chance to move aggressively to undo limits on campaign contributions, undermine claims of discrimination in housing and mortgage lending, and allow for more government-sanctioned prayer. Assuming the government shutdown doesn't get in their way, the justices also will deal with a case that goes to the heart of the partisan impasse in Washington: whether and when the president may use recess appointments to fill key positions without Senate confirmation." ...

... David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: Ditto.

** Sorry I missed this. It's important. Leonard Downie, former WashPo executive editor, in the Washington Post, "based on his report 'The Obama Administration and the Press,' forthcoming Thursday from the Committee to Protect Journalists": "Many reporters covering national security and government policy in Washington these days are taking precautions to keep their sources from becoming casualties in the Obama administration's war on leaks.... The Obama administration has drawn a dubious distinction between whistleblowing that reveals bureaucratic waste or fraud, and leaks to the news media about unexamined secret government policies and activities; it punishes the latter as espionage."

Local News

Photo of the Nebraska Supremes via Digby.Margery Beck of the AP: "In a split decision released Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected a 16-year-old ward of the state's request to waive parental consent to get an abortion, saying the girl had not shown she is sufficiently mature and well-informed enough to decide on her own whether to have an abortion. The girl, who is not named in the opinion, was living with foster parents this year when a juvenile court terminated the parental rights of her biological parents, who had physically abused and neglected her. In a closed hearing this summer, she told Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon she was 10 weeks pregnant and asked for a court order allowing an abortion. She said she would not be able to financially support a child and feared she might lose her foster placement if her foster parents, whom she described as having strong religious beliefs, learned of her pregnancy." CW: You have to read the whole story to get the impact of how horrible this ruling is. ...

     ... Digby: "She is competent to raise a child, however.... Just the image of a group of old white men (and one woman) in black robes, sitting up on a dais, making such a personal, intimate decision like this from on high chills my blood. It's medieval.... By the way, a majority of the Nebraska Supreme Court are Democrats. And according to the article, it appears that the lone Democratic woman on the court sided with the majority in this case."

Presidential Election 2016

CW: In case you Hillary fans are still wondering whether she will run in 2016, the answer is, "She's already running." Just take a look at this AP report by Ken Thomas about Clinton's campaign speech at Hamilton College. It's 2013, & I'm already sick of the 2016 campaign.

News Ledes

Al Jazeera: Japanese "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday that Japan is open to receiving overseas help to contain widening disaster at the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima, where radioactive water leaks and other mishaps are now reported almost daily."

Guardian: "Italian divers have recovered 83 more bodies of migrants who died when a fishing boat with an estimated 500 people onboard sank within sight of the tiny island of Lampedusa."

Al Jazeera: "A day of demonstrations has left at least 51 dead and 268 injured across Egypt, according to the government's Health Ministry. The toll has risen steadily through Sunday and includes at least one dead in the province of Minya, 150 miles south of Cairo, where police are reported to have fired live rounds into a crowd protesting the military-backed government. Police have used tear gas to disperse protesters in Cairo, near Tahrir Square, and in Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city."

New York Times: "American commandos carried out raids on Saturday in two far-flung African countries in a powerful flex of military muscle aimed at capturing fugitive terrorist suspects. American troops assisted by F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents seized a suspected leader of Al Qaeda on the streets of Tripoli, Libya, while Navy SEALs raided the seaside villa of a militant leader in a predawn firefight on the coast of Somalia.... Abu Anas, the Libyan Qaeda leader, was considered a major prize, and officials said he was alive in United States custody." ...

     ... Update: "An accused operative for Al Qaeda, [Abu Anas al-Libi,] seized by United States commandos in Libya over the weekend is being interrogated while in military custody on a Navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea, officials said. He is expected eventually to be sent to New York for criminal prosecution." ...

     ... Update: "Libya's fragile interim government condemned the United States on Sunday for what it called the 'kidnapping of a Libyan citizen' from this capital city a day earlier, and Libyan lawmakers threatened to remove the prime minister if the government was involved.... The government denied an American assertion that it had played a role in the operation amid anger that the nation's sovereignty had been violated. But ... some Libyans angry at the raid expressed exasperation at their government's failures to bring any measure of security to its people."

... Here's the Washington Post story on the U.S. raid on a Somali al-Qaeda-linked leader. Wire story linked in yesterday's Ledes.

AP: "International inspectors began destroying Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons and the machinery used to create it, a United Nations official said Sunday, racing under a tight deadline aiming to eliminate President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons program within nine months."

AP: "President Barack Obama says U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran is still 'a year or more' away from producing a nuclear weapon, an assessment he acknowledged was at odds with Israel. 'Our estimate is probably more conservative than the estimates of Israeli intelligence services,' Obama said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press."