Ticking Coup-Coup Clock

Oops: salmonella outbreak. The need to track its origins across state lines is a sudden reminder of why the CDC and FDA exist.

There are public servants who continue to work without pay.

This essential service certainly was kept open.

Much as the Heritage Foundation turned against its own plan after Obama adopted it, the right's project to shut down the government began when Obama was re-elected. Not only were some of the predictable players at work, the effort was coordinated by the undead Ed Meese.

Ho-hum: the Koch Bros. should soon be free to cut out the money-laundering middlemen, and just buy themselves elections outright.

Digby and Sam Seder, on the Republicans winning their war against the rest of us. The GOPs line about "job creators" is certainly true for one group: right-wing propagandist jobs are being created by grotesquely rich funders. Sam noted that Republicans used to be people who don't want to pay taxes; now, there is a such a huge industry making money by pushing fear narratives, and the payoffs are too great for this to stop.

As Digby added, "it's working for them": Dems accepted the sequester budget, and have already capitulated over the new continuing resolution—even as the GOP keeps pushing the goalposts. The latter has had "an unprecedented win: from control of one house of congress ... [they] now have debt ceiling as a tool to get their way." Here, Sam brought up his worry that Obama will agree to a process change to prevent the ceiling from being used this way again. It's a bargain that would be made at the cost of "reforming entitlements," something that's been Obama's goal, and would be his Establishment-endorsed "legacy winner."

Meanwhile, I have to assume there is unfurloughed federal protection for the honoree of this event.

As Pierce says, "Talk about the waste of someone else's heart." As commenters add—

Rich Jenkins
His continuing ability to walk and talk is a testament to technology and an example of its shortcomings.

Amy Danto Hundert
... It's too bad donors don't get a veto.

This (from Philip Toledano) always bears repeating:

Like Cheney and Meese: far from dead is establishment fawning over Paul Ryan. Steve M dissects the NYT's front page treatment—

We're supposed to ignore the fact that the Republicans are still shutting down the government. We're supposed to ignore the fact that they're still talking about a very brief respite from debt blackmail. A manly man, both tough and gentle, has taken the lead, and we're all supposed to swoon.

The mainstream press always does this -- always tells us that the GOP that just drove the car off the cliff two minutes ago isn't the real GOP. When the party's problem was seen as racism, Marco Rubio was declared to be the real GOP. When the problem is seen as "Washington," Chris Christie is said to be the real GOP. For now, it's Ryan. And if the current talks break down and Ryan gets some of the blame, it'll be someone else. The Republican Party is never at fault, because the Republican Party is endlessly malleable, in the mainstream press's view.

Or, as TBogg puts it, "Paul Ryan has an unused agenda he thinks you might want to reconsider"—

You may remember all of this from before when Ryan called it the Path To Prosperity or possibly you played the EA Sports videogame version: Galtscape – Ayn Rand's Survival Of The Fattest. You may also remember that America rejected Ryan's innumerate plan and the Rafalca it danced in on. But now times have changed with a faction of Ryan's own House having shifted into Bachmann-Gohmert Overdrive and are threatening to burn the whole country down in order to save it at the behest of the Tea Partiers who figure they have enough bullets, bibles, and cans of Vienna sausages to ride out the Fiscal End Times when either Jesus or Sarah Palin returns. So Paul Ryan felt the need to step into the breach and use his "moderate" K St cred to go "Whoa, whoa, whoa there folks. Sure we want to destroy the safety net, deny people medical care, allow children to go hungry in the streets, and turn our country into a crumbling riot-torn post-apocalytic hellscape that will make Somalia look like the Hamptons, but let's not take down the T-bill market in our haste. I mean, c'mon."

Because moderation to the Paul Ryans of the world means methodically burning down one house at a time. And definitely not the nicer ones...

This fantasy is laughable, but the misplaced rage isn't.

Once, working class guys might have been expected to identify with a fat guy whose life looked a lot like theirs...

Then they were offered a fat radio blowhard, who became obscenely rich by inciting their hatreds.

Too bad these guys need ridiculous fantasies of triumphing over an imaginary Evil Guvmint.

Instead of being with Ralph Kramden's pal Norton, who just kept things "rolling along."