Wednesday Open Thread [3.4.15]

Like Jason330, I enjoy reading RedState during these moments of Democratic victory and Republican defeat. Their tears sustain me. From the New York Times:

The fight over funding the Department of Homeland Security that began with Republicans thundering about a lawless president abusing power to change immigration policy ended with a quiet capitulation Tuesday when the House voted to fund the agency and avert a partial shutdown.

In the end, Speaker John A. Boehner was forced to build a majority on Democratic votes to pass the bill, 257 to 167, with just 75 Republican supporters. But although the uprising among conservatives burned hot into the week, there was no suggestion that Mr. Boehner’s leadership was imperiled. Instead, many Republicans expressed a sense of resigned relief.

During every shutdown / hostage-taking episode we have endured since 2011, the outcome was always entirely predictable: Republican capitulation. Let they keep doing it. Best proof yet that they are all insane.

The US News and World Report, perhaps the last respectable conservative rag out there, aired the trial balloon of Governor Jack Markell as a potential Democratic Plan B. US News’s Jill Lawrence called Governor Jack Markell “an impressive guy.” WDEL got her on air:

“There are some fresh faces that just need to start getting on TV and making speeches in places and getting some buzz, so that there’s just not just one person who might stumble–she might have a health problem–I mean, anything could happen,” said Lawrence.

Lawrence said Markell’s commitment to controversial education reform measures shouldn’t lower his Presidential stock, and if Delaware had remained part of Pennsylvania and Markell were running that state, he’d get more national publicity.

Yes, they should. Tell me, Jill, how does he run for President when his own party and base in his own state despises him because of his controversial education measures?

The whole Netanyahu controversy seems to have benefited the President politically. From February 26-28, President Obama’s approval rating was 44% in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. The president’s disapproval rating was 51%. Once Netanyahu’s arrived in the United States, President Obama’s approval rating jumped to 49%, and his disapproval rating fell to 47%. More signs that the Republican handling of the Netanyahu invitation was not playing well with many Americans: a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday found that by a margin of 48%-30%, registered voters said that John Boehner should have talked to President Obama before inviting Netanyahu.

As the Republicans run their government-by-crisis strategy, we should remember that we have more important deadlines coming up:

“The past week’s convulsions also call into question the GOP leadership’s ability to deal with other important deadlines ahead. The deadline to fix a Medicare reimbursement rate for doctors comes at the end of this month, and funding for federal highway programs expires in May. On top of that, House and Senate Republicans must agree on a budget resolution this spring or the threat of a broader federal government shutdown will increase in the fall.”

I think there is also a debt ceiling vote in there somewhere. Oh, joy.

“A runoff that was expected to be a slam dunk for Rahm Emanuel is turning out to be uncomfortably — even dangerously — close, leading the Chicago mayor to ready a scorched-earth offensive to save his job,” Politico reports.

“Recent polling shows the race between Emanuel and his unknown and underfunded rival, Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia, has closed to within single digits. With local and national progressive groups lining up behind Garcia and promising to pour cash into the effort to deny Emanuel a second term, the mayor is suddenly scratching and clawing for his political existence.”

Go Jesus!

NORTH CAROLINA–GOVERNOR–PPP: Gov. Pat McCrory (R) 43;
Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) 41

NORTH CAROLINA–SENATOR–PPP: Sen. Richard Burr (R) 50, Fmr. Sen. Kay Hagan (D) 43; Burr (R) 44, Treasurer Janet Cowell (D) 38; Burr (R) 45, Fmr. Charlotte Mayor and Transportation Sec. Anthony Foxx (D) 36; Burr (R) 43, Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines (D) 33

The State of Alabama is being defiant. Time to reinvade. Seriously, we northern states should have never allowed the South to govern themselves again. We should have kept the south under federal military control.