My thoughts on ‘broken windows theory’ and state decay in the Tea Party era.
Pope Francis announces date – April 27, 2014 – when John Paul II and his (twice removed predecessor) John XXIII will be declared saints.
That’s what we’re discussing right now at The Hive (subscribers only).
It wasn’t an AR-15 or an automatic weapon. It was a common shotgun that Aaron Alexis used to carry out the Washington Navy Yard massacre earlier this month. We’ve detailed the history of that gun, the Remington 870, today. It’s a worthwhile read, especially if you want a better understanding of the tools being used to carry out these horrific crimes. Similarly, we also published a history of the AR-15 rifle in December, following the Sandy Hook massacre.
TPM Reader JB picks up the thread on cracked parties and decapitated leaderships …
About your post this evening…it goes back just a couple of years, to the last government shutdown crisis in 2011, and I don’t think that’s far enough to understand what’s happened to the Republican Party, or at least to the GOP in Congress.
Remember that up to the beginning of 2007 the Republicans had not only the White House but majorities in both houses of Congress. They’d held them for some time. They had the power to set the agenda for the country, for several years, and then they lost it.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) exasperated with House Tea Partiers “giddy” over impending shutdown.
Tea Partier Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT): “I don’t care what John McCain thinks” about shutting down the government over Obamacare. Video.
Sen. Collins denounces GOP Obamacare strategy.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on impending shutdown: “We’ve very excited. It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”
Senate rebuffs House’s anti-Obamacare temporary spending bill. The final vote was 54-46.
It can’t be reiterated often enough: If John Boehner puts a temporary spending bill on the House floor, without any anti-Obamacare stunts in it, it would pass.
He can do it today and avoid a shutdown, or he can do it in a few days or weeks and end a shutdown. It’s up to him.
Reports coming in that some House Republicans are defecting from the latest, 11th-hour anti-Obamacare temporary spending bill because it doesn’t go far enough.