Ted Cruz has started trying to distance himself from some of the TP shenanigans around the debt limit. I find him repulsive in a visceral snakes and spiders sort of way.
5: I haven't been following it, but I thought that he was the one who fillibustered the thing so that it couldn't go forward on a majority-only vote.
6: He did, but he also is on the record as denying being a driver of the earlier debacles. He's trying to placate his loony tunes base while at the same time tacking towards the middle a bit.
I should clarify - he's not so much tacking towards the center as denying any invovlement in the unpopular stuff he did. It's typical slimy politician stuff aimed at low information voters.
From Minivet in the OP:
and so we seem to enter a new phase of more limited Tea Party impact
I wouldn't put it that way. They haven't had a limited impact here, but quite a strong one: they have forced Boehner to abandon the so-called Hastert Rule yet again, essentially passing a clean debt ceiling bill with majority Dem votes. I frankly have to hand it to Boehner for being willing to potentially sacrifice his Speakership for the good of the country, though this is faint praise.
As has been said numerous times before, though, it's not clear that anyone viable is in the market to replace him. In any event, the battle within the Republican Party is quite interesting: it's down to fundraising wars in Republican primary states. My impression is that establishment Repubs are quite, quite serious about squashing the Tea Party types like bugs.
Ultimately I think this is for the best, even though it would make the general election in contested states more difficult for Dems.
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Has McMegan come out with her new book or something? She is apparently going to be on Diane Rehm's show next week. Oh god.
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11: The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success out February 11.
It doesn't seem all that overtly political-- looks like she's going for the Malcolm Gladwell fans.
12: That's what I gather. I'm miffed that she's going to be on Diane Rehm, I must say. I can only hope she sounds like an idiot, but it's unlikely Diane would let her do that.
Diane Rehm lets people sound like idiots all the time. She asks good questions.
12: what if his fans want smart and glibly inaccurate! rather than just glibly inaccurate?
Does anyone else find Ted Cruz's voice really, really, really grating?
12: The brilliant part is that she has a built-in excuse for when no one buys her book.
Since politics thread, aargh, Tennessee VW vote. Senator Bob Corker is a mega-turd. VW denied they were linking a rejection to a new product for the plant but:
On Wednesday, Corker escalated what has been a seesaw battle between union and anti-union forces, saying he had been "assured" that if workers at the factory reject the UAW, the company would reward the plant with a new product to build.
Corker on Thursday issued a second statement, saying his information is better than that of Fischer, the top-ranked VW official at Chattanooga.
"After all these years and my involvement with Volkswagen, I would not have made the statement I made yesterday without being confident it was true and factual," said Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor who helped negotiate the VW plant deal.
So if they do get a new product there any time soon, we burn all the VWs, right?
I'm confused - I thought VW wanted the UAW vote to pass, but I don't see why VW would change where they'd manufacture a product based on unionization. Or why workers would listen to Bob Corker.
But yeah, sad the unionization didn't pass.
1) VW was officially "neutral". 2) Corker may have pulled it completely out of his ass, 3) companies like VW are not monolithic entities (nor do their public statements necessarily correspond to their actual desires) and 4) not clear that any of it had one whit of influence on the outcome of the vote.
What Corker did was totally illegal, right? I mean, in a world where the government enforced labor law.
24: Was wondering the same thing. If the company did it I think I'm pretty sure it would clearly be illegal retaliation. But I'm not sure whether there's anything stopping third parties from going around telling stories about company retaliation.
Ugh, "I think I'm pretty sure" s/b one or the other. My tendency to equivocate, let me show you it.
I find him repulsive in a visceral snakes and spiders sort of way.
God, me too. Though, while I do have the "kill it with fire!" reaction to Cruz, I don't have it to snakes and spiders.
I view people like Ted Cruz as a health test for society. (One which we are failing so far.) A healthy one would be inoculated against his like reaching any position of real power.
He was born in Canada, so I think they should take part of the blame.
Like a zombie canary in a coal mine of death.
18: The brilliant part is that she has a built-in excuse for when no one buys her book.
I vaguely recall reading some excerpt from her book, maybe some column she wrote outlining the concept, which was an obnoxious one given that it seemed to be a recounting of how she herself has come out on top due to circumstance (luck, family background, economic advantage), networking, and dogged determination (to stand by her dumb claims no matter what anyone says). So you can do it too! This formula totes works!
At least that's how I remember the column; maybe it's more nuanced than that. There's a trend these days in youngish mid-career women telling us how their achievements are/were the result of acts of will on their part, if only the rest of us would get on the stick and, in this case, fail upward.
canary in a coal mine
I used this metaphor this week at work. I was then asked to explain it. (Boy, does that slow things down.) I feel old.
I wouldn't feel old about that! It's a very useful metaphor: is there a modern replacement that suits? Not that I can think of off the top of my head. Gotta teach the children, man.
Ted Cruz has not a bloody chance in hell of winning the Presidency in 2016, am I right? Just checking. Some seem to think that's his gambit, and I'm pretty sure it's totally bananas.
Ted Cruz has a great shot at the vice presidency in 2016. The right is going to want to run to the center, and the moneybags desperately want a win but they'll need to watch their right flank. Eisenhower/Nixon, then Nixon as the heir apparent. That's his gambit, I'm betting.
But Nixon wasn't deeply annoying to his own party, or not to nearly all of it. He was already hated by liberals for his campaigns against Douglas et al, but Kennedy for one liked Nixon personally.
If anybody likes Cruz I haven't heard of it.
I have heard of people who like Cruz.
I meant and should have said fellow politicians. That he has fans because of, not in spite of how much he disgusts others is apparent to me too. I guess I don't take them too seriously.
Taking it to the opposite pole, apparently every other politician hated John Edwards, and he could have theoretically become president under some scenarios, though his appeal to voters was more a message of "I like people" than "I hate people".
Bob Woodward did his special journalistic gossip-sharing thing this morning on one of the Sunday shows to disclose that at the regular Republican lunch meeting (weekly?), nobody will sit next to Cruz unless there are no more seats available, so he usually sits by himself with empty chairs on either side, looking supercilious.
Heh. To the extent that it's true that the Repubs will need to watch their right flank by naming a conservative/Tea Partyish VP candidate, Cruz has gotta be their last choice. There are others. Scott Walker? What's his name of the sweater vests? Marco Rubio looks like a good choice. I don't see any reason to go all the way to Cruz.
So we can plan our big meetup, Moby.