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Doubling Down


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The GOP’s Anti-Obamacare Dead-Enders

The American people are not happy with the GOP for inflicting a government shutdown that cost $24 BILLION on the country in a failed and mean-spirited attempt to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans. A new memo from former Obama campaign pollster Joel Benenson presents an “array of public polling from a wide variety of outlets” demonstrating that the GOP’s effort to undermine Obamacare has hurt the party “on every front”:

– A Quinnipiac poll shows that 58% oppose Congress cutting off funding for the health care law to stop its implementation.

– Kaiser’s tracking poll has consistently found strong opposition to scrapping the health care law.  In late September, 56% disapproved of cutting off funding to the ACA.

– CBS / NY Times pollsters found 56% of voters want Congress to uphold the law and make it work as well as possible, compared to just 38% who want to stop it by defunding it.

– According to NBC/WSJ, only 39% support eliminating federal funding for the law while 50% oppose.

– In Gallup’s recent polling, just 29% want the law repealed, while 64% want it kept as it is, or kept with some changes.

– Even Tea Party supporters knew the Republican strategy was doomed, with a Fox News poll showing that 54% believed that the ACA would remain the law in spite of attempts to defund it.

In view of the unpopularity of their strategy and complete and total failure of the GOP to accomplish anything with their 16-day shutdown (other than sabotaging the economy and causing pain for millions of Americans) and more than 40 Obamacare repeal votes, one would think they’d shift gears.

One would be wrong. Even after the disastrous shutdown, the most prominent Obamacare opponents are simply doubling down on their failed campaign against the law:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): The Tea Party lawmaker was the primary architect of the GOP’s shutdown strategy. But now that it’s failed, Cruz won’t admit defeat. “I would do anything, and I will continue to do anything, to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare,” he said on Thursday. He has also hinted that he hasn’t ruled out pushing for another government shutdown over Obamacare.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA): Vitter tried to use the funding negotiations to push through an Obamacare-related amendment that would ultimately force Congress members and their staff to pay more for their health plans under the law. He was unsuccessful, and the final agreement didn’t include his amendment. But Vitter isn’t fazed and promises to keep pushing to amend the law anyway. “I’m not going away, and this issue is certainly not going away,” Vitter said on Fox News this week.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL): Speaking on the Senate floor over the summer, Rubio told his colleagues that shutting down the government represented “our last chance and our last best chance” to undermine Obamacare. Now, the senator is saying that Republicans will keep fighting anyway. This week, he told Fox News that there is going to an “all-out revolt” next year, once the rest of Obamacare’s major provisions take root. “And that is, I think, the moment to absolutely act and say we are going to get rid of this law and then look for opportunities in the future to replace it,” Rubio said.

The Heritage Foundation: During the shutdown battle, Heritage’s political arm told its supporters that it needed their support because “we only have one more chance to repeal Obamacare.” The group didn’t deliver. Now, Heritage is simply assuring its supporters that it won’t stop fighting the law. The group’s president, Jim DeMint, published an op-ed this week claiming that most Americans’ lives “are not dominated by the electoral cycle,” so those people “shouldn’t have to wait three more years for Congress to give them relief from this law.”

FreedomWorks: The right-wing group recently claimed that shutting down the government “may be the last best chance to defund Obamacare before it goes into effect.” Rather than adjusting their strategy, the group is now planning rallies to discourage young Americans from signing up for health coverage. The group says that Obamacare will still be a losing issue for Democrats up for re-election in red states — although outside polling has shown that the shutdown fiasco has made more than a dozen House seats more winnable for Democrats.

BOTTOM LINE: Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The American people are sending Republicans a message loud and clear: stop the insanity on Obamacare.

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The Shutdown was a Symptom


Media Matters for America

“There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.” – journalist Walter Lippmann. As long as the conservative media machine pushes lie after lie upon its viewers, symptoms like the shutdown will keep happening.

John Whitehouse Twitter: @existentialfish

Were They Even Paying Attention?

The Republican government shutdown of 2013 has caused at least $24 billion worth of damage to the American economy. How does Fox News respond to that? By pretending the damage doesn’t exist: http://mm4a.org/1aPendT Related: On Sunday, Megyn Kelly declared that Fox News does not lean right: http://mm4a.org/1gCvLY4 By Wednesday, Kelly was openly advocating the Republican position on the debt: http://mm4a.org/1cvp6wh

It’s Never Them, Is it?

In the wake of the failure of the radical shutdown strategy, conservatives whined that the strategy they advocated for didn’t fail, — they were betrayed. http://mm4a.org/19PJ988 Related: How did we even get here? If you’re looking for one man to blame, blame Rush Limbaugh: http://mm4a.org/17kGL5h

Treating Opinions As Facts

Schoolchildren do not get to claim that their wrong answers on a math test are just their opinions. And yet, that’s the same logic the news media uses when mainstreaming climate lies. The latest outlet to fall for this is USA Today. Shauna Theel explains their error: http://mm4a.org/19LK9u1

FEATURED VIDEO

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams blasted the conservative “media bubble” causing hyper partisanship: http://youtu.be/PtLnrH8zg7s

AFTER IT’S NEWS

The second episode of Media Matters original web series After It’s News is live on Youtube! Check it out: http://youtu.be/XDC8XbZfviU

CHRONICALLY WRONG

Economist Dean Baker excoriates Niall Ferguson for being chronically wrong about the economy, from Ferguson’s inflation fearmongering to his attacks on the stimulus and more: http://huff.to/19TcAGD

IMAGE OF THE WEEK


Guests On The Sunday Shows Are Still White And Conservative

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Chuck E. Cheese


Chuck E. Cheese: Kiyonmi

Make your locations “fun for all” and comply with the American with Disabilities
  By Kiyomi Rollins
                                                Atlanta, Georgia

We are humbly asking that you will sign this petition to let Chuck E Cheese know that it is a violation of the American Disabilities Act to deny my disabled daughter and her father access to an empty women’s restroom.

OUR STORY: My 9 year old, Marley Eschoe, was attending another child’s birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese location in Georgia this May when her father, Mark Eschoe, who brought Marley to the party, was not allowed to take her into an empty women’s restroom, when the men’s restroom was occupied.

Marley, who suffers from lupus, had been recently released from a 3 month stay in the hospital after suffering her 2nd stroke in 8 months. She was using a wheelchair and needed assistance walking and going to the restroom. This was one of Marley’s first time out for an event after her hospital stay and our family was so excited for a fun day as we were still adjusting to our “new normal.”

Marley’s father, Mark Eschoe, was denied access to an empty female restroom and told he would have to take his then 8yr old daughter to the men’s restroom regardless of it being overcrowded. Knowing that Marley needed to use the bathroom urgently, my husband even requested that a female Chuck E. Cheese employee who was exiting the restroom stand by the door while he took his daughter into the empty female restroom. That request was also denied by Chuck E. Cheese management. Mark informed Chuck E. Cheese management about Marley’s medical condition and asked for assistance. The manager’s response was, “I don’t care if she has special needs, I’m not going to treat her any differently from my other patron. I’m done with you.” Then, she abruptly walked away after threatening to call the police to have him removed.

Our family was shocked. We informed the national management of Chuck E. Cheese about our experience and the company said it would conduct an internal investigation. After months of “investigating” (which did not include reaching out to us), Chuck E. Cheese informed us that they stood by the local manager who they feel did nothing wrong.

But what Chuck E. Cheese hasn’t said is that not only was the way their employee handled this situation offensive and hurtful to a vulnerable child and her family, it was also illegal. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires access to bathrooms for people with disabilities. We’re concerned that Chuck E. Cheese did not comply with the ADA — and that other families will be affected by this attitude as well.

We don’t want any other family to have to go through what we went through. We’re asking Chuck E. Cheese to ensure that its locations across the country comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and that staff are appropriately trained to handle these situations. Chuck E. Cheese says its a place for “fun for all” — we’re hoping your company will make this motto a reality.

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The GOP’s Default Caucus


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162 Republicans Vote for Default

Republicans’ first act in their latest manufactured crisis was shutting down the government in a failed and mean-spirited bid to deny affordable health insurance to millions.

We know that the shutdown resulted in some 800,000 federal employees being thrown out of work, hundreds of national parks and other federal lands closed, cancer treatments denied, food assistance cut off to low-income women and children, and countless other painful consequences for people across the country.

It also cost the economy at least $24 BILLION. Just to give you an idea, here are just a few examples of what else you could get for $24 BILLION:

The $24 BILLION sucked out of the economy thanks to the government shutdown comes on top of an estimated $700 BILLION cumulative hit to the economy thanks to the GOP’s years-long effort to govern by crisis.

Despite admitting that they got “nothing” as a result of the painful and damaging shutdown, Tea Party Republicans say it was somehow still “worth it” for them.

In fact, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) won’t rule out another shutdown, adding that he will still “do anything” to stop Obamacare. Another House Republican, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), said, “we’re going to start this all over again.”

It gets worse.

After inflicting this painful and unnecessary shutdown on the country for 16 days, during which time they sometimes seemed to forget why they even shut the government down in the first place, Republicans voted en masse last night in favor of a catastrophic default and continued government shutdown.

The GOP’s Default Caucus — 18 Republican Senators and 144 House Republicans — apparently preferred a default that threatened to collapse the entire global economy to allowing millions to get affordable health insurance and re-opening the government at spending levels Republicans themselves proposed.

Supporting a government shutdown is bad enough, but supporting an economic shutdown by refusing to pay the nation’s bills is a stunningly extreme position. Unfortunately, it’s a position that a majority of Congressional Republicans apparently support. Even GOP budget guru Paul Ryan voted for a reckless economic shutdown on top of the government shutdown.

As National Journal noted today, “several of those who might be considered serious GOP 2016 contenders for the presidency also voted in favor of the first default in American history in order to stay in the tea party’s good graces.”

BOTTOM LINE: It’s time for the GOP’s brinksmanship and manufactured crises to end. Instead of shutting down the government, voting to default on our obligations, and proclaiming their pride in job-killing austerity spending cuts, Republicans should sit down with Democrats and agree to a budget that protects important programs and makes the investments we need to grow the economy and create jobs.

The Center for American Progress has a balanced budget plan that will replace the damaging sequester cuts for the next three years and make badly needed investments in job creation. You can check it out HERE.

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