National Journal: The Popularity of the Republican Party is Plunging

The National Journal article is linked below.

National Journal: Even Among Self-Described Republicans, the GOP is Becoming Less Popular

"Favorability ratings for Republicans are at historic lows.

According to the latest from Gallup, 62 percent of Americans now view the Grand Old Party unfavorably, with the numbers rising sharply in recent weeks. Dislike of Democrats has increased as well, but by a tiny degree in comparison."

---Brian Resnick, National Journal 

In a Salon Interview, Doug Henwood Argues That the Tea Party is Neo-Confederate, and is at War With the New American Demogaphics

CSA, 1861-1865

The Salon interview is linked below.

Salon: Josh Eidelson's Interview of Doug Henwood Regarding the Tea Party and the Government Shutdown

"...The roots of Tea Party are in a Confederate, almost kind of a neo-Confederate structure of people who want to preserve their class privileges — very much articulated through race — and they are a very, very sizable portion of the Republican Party. And what they see — and this is also confirmed by the focus groups that David Greenberg et al. did — the core of this is a group of people that feel like the country is being taken away from them by a new minority-majority country. And all of their familiar touchstones are being smashed. They feel like they’re fighting a heroic kind of lost cause, and they’re willing to do a  lot of damage to try to get their way."

---Doug Henwood, Interview in Salon 

Salon's Brian Beutler: Twilight of the Wacko Birds?

The Salon article by Brian Beutler is linked below.

Salon's Brian Beutler: Wacko Birds in Decline?

"Which is why — as volatile as things are, and as disconcerting as the shutdown is — it’s a mistake to interpret stories about the view from inside the conservative bubble as reflective of the party leadership’s ultimate intent. House Republicans might be an ungovernable mess. But the people who control the floor understand the real dangers of breaching the debt limit."

---Brian Beutler, Salon 

ABC News: Activists in Eleven Rural Colorado Counties Want to Secede and Form a New State

Colorado

The ABC News story is linked below.

ABC News: A 51st State to be formed out of Rural Colorado

"Eleven rural Colorado counties are threatening to secede and have put a 51st state initiative on their November 5 ballots, claiming that the government has no respect for their rural lifestyles."

---ABC News

Stephan Richter at Salon: The American Civil War Continues as the South Continues in Rebellion, This Time Shutting Down the Government

CSA, 1861-1865

Stephan Richter sees great continuity of theme and region in the current impasse over the funding of the federal government.  The unwillingness of Tea Party House Republicans to fund the government, he argues, is rooted in Southern conservative recalcitrance in the face of near-inexorable social change.

Once again, contends Richter, southern white conservatives and their compatriots nationwide see visions of the apocalypse.  Their bitter opposition regarding Obamacare and the funding of the government must be understood accordingly.

Stephan Richter's article at Salon is linked below.

The Enduring American Civil War and the Government Shutdown

"In essence, now the South is once again rebelling against modernizing shifts of American society. Today, in one of the great political realignments of modern politics, that region is the power base of Republicans.

The equivalent of politically and economically freeing the slaves back then is now granting health care access to all Americans. In either case, the old order is about to be toppled and that leads especially Southerners and white conservatives everywhere, to fear for the end of the United States, as they know it."

---Stephan Richter, Salon 

Original Stephan Richter Article in The Globalist: Kulturkampf in the USA

Salon's Michael Lind: "Local Notables," Tea Party Demographics, and the "Newest Right"

The Tea Party

Michael Lind's article at Salon is linked below.

Michael Lind: Here's the "Newest Right," the Tea Party

"But right now most conservative white local notables in the South and elsewhere in the country don’t want black and Latino support. They would rather disenfranchise blacks and Latinos than compete for their votes. And they would rather dismantle the federal government than surrender their local power and privilege.

The political strategy of the Newest Right, then, is simply a new strategy for the very old, chiefly-Southern Jefferson-Jackson right."

---Michael Lind, Salon 

National Journal: Regarding Health Insurance Coverage, an Interactive Map of the Uninsured Per Congressional Districts

The interactive map at National Journal is linked below.

National Journal: In Terms of Those Lacking Health Insurance, the Uninsured Mapped Out by Congressional Districts

National Journal Poll: The Republican Party is Losing Support Among Women

The National Journal article is linked below.

National Journal: Republicans Losing Support Among Women

"The Republican Party's effort to rebrand itself with women since losing the 2012 presidential race and seats in Congress is falling short...Only 14 percent of women said the Republican Party had moved closer to their perspective. More than twice as many women, 33 percent, said the party had drifted further from them. A plurality, 46 percent, saw no change."

---Shane Goldmacher, National Journal

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: Obamacare is Going to Succeed

Paul Krugman's column in The New York Times is linked below.

Paul Krugman: Obamacare will work

"But this confrontation did start with a real issue: Republican efforts to stop Obamacare from going into effect. It’s long been clear that the great fear of the Republican Party was not that health reform would fail, but that it would succeed. And developments since Tuesday, when the exchanges on which individuals will buy health insurance opened for business, strongly suggest that their worst fears will indeed be realized: This thing is going to work."

---Paul Krugman, The New York Times

The New Republic's John B. Judis Compares the Current Condition of American Government to That of Weimar Germany

John B. Judis' article in The New Republic is linked below.

John Judis: This governing crisis one of the biggest in American history

"What is happening in America is that this social contract is being voided, largely through the initiative of rightwing Republicans from the deep South and rural Midwest. America is not likely to become Afghanistan, but it could easily become Italy or Greece or even Weimar Germany."

---John B. Judis, The New Republic

The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky: Future Historians Will Judge October 1, 2013 as a Defining Day in Which the Democratic Party Delivered Access to Healthcare Coverage for Millions of Uninsured. The Republican Party, in Turn, Shut Down the Government in a Desperate Effort to Keep it From Happening.

Michael Tomasky's column at The Daily Beast is linked below.

Michael Tomasky: What Historians Will Say About October 1, 2013

"We sometimes don’t notice history as it’s unfolding right before us, so let’s stop and take note of what a historically momentous day Tuesday was. Twenty, 50 years from now, when historians or college professors are trying to describe to their readers and students what the difference was between the two political parties in our time, they will direct them to October 1, 2013. That one day says it all."

---Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast 

The Daily Beast's Lloyd Green: From Preston Brooks to Jim DeMint, There's a Continuity of Political Division, Most Recently Culminating in the Government Shutdown

Lloyd Green's article at The Daily Beast is linked below.

Lloyd Green: Something Resembling Civil War

"Welcome to the latest installment in America’s long-simmering, semi-civil, civil war. Just because General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House doesn’t mean that old grievances have gone away.

These days, the Republican Party is the party of the South; the party of Lincoln is now the party of Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint..."

---Lloyd Green, The Daily Beast

The American Prospect's Gabriel Arana: Hispanics are not Culturally-Oriented Toward Conservatism

The article in The American Prospect is linked below.

The American Prospect: American Hispanics are not a ready-made voting demographic for the GOP

"But a recent poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) confirms what data geeks have been saying for years: The Latinos-are-conservatives-at-heart idea is little more than Republican myth-making. Not only does this constituency strongly identify with Democrats on the key social issues that matter to movement conservatives—abortion and same-sex marriage—they are more liberal than most Americans." 

---Gabriel Arana, The American Prospect 

Salon's Joan Walsh: The Government Shutdown is Historically Rooted in a GOP-Driven White Backlash

Joan Walsh's column at Slate is linked below.

Joan Walsh: The Government Shutdown and Race

"On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be permanently broken. You’ll read lots of explanations for the dysfunction, but the simple truth is this: It’s the culmination of 50 years of evolving yet consistent Republican strategy to depict government as the enemy, an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that everything came apart under our first African-American president wasn’t an accident, it was probably inevitable."

---Joan Walsh, Slate 

New York Times Editorial Board: Republican John Boehner, Speaker of the House, Has Failed as a Leader

The New York Times editorial is linked below.

NYT: The Failure of Speaker of the House John Boehner

"By midnight on Tuesday, the leadership failure of Speaker John Boehner was complete. By encouraging the impossible quest of House Republicans to dismantle health care reform, he pushed the country into a government shutdown that will now begin to take a grievous economic toll."

---The Editorial Board of The New York Times 

The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn: John Boehner is the One at Fault for the Government Shutdown

Bill Keller of the New York Times: The American Right is Having its Own Version of the 1960s

Bill Keller's column in the New York Times is linked below.

NYT: The Right and Their Own Sixties

"The Republicans are finally having their ’60s. Half a century after the American left experienced its days of rage, its repudiation of the political establishment, conservatives are having their own political catharsis. Ted Cruz is their spotlight-seeking Abbie Hoffman. (The Texas senator’s faux filibuster last week reminded me of Hoffman’s vow to 'levitate' the Pentagon using psychic energy.) The Tea Party is their manifesto-brandishing Students for a Democratic Society. Threatening to blow up America’s credit rating is their version of civil disobedience. And Obamacare is their Vietnam."

---Bill Keller, The New York Times

Laura Helmuth of Slate : The Hows and Whys of Rising Lifespans

Laura Helmuth's article in Slate is linked below.

Slate: The Reasons Behind the Longer Lifespans

"The most important difference between the world today and 150 years ago isn’t airplane flight or nuclear weapons or the Internet. It’s lifespan. We used to live 35 or 40 years on average in the United States, but now we live almost 80. We used to get one life. Now we get two."

---Laura Helmuth, Slate 

National Journal: A Government Shutdown Quite Probable

The National Journal article is linked below.

National Journal: Likelihood of a Government Shutdown

"With just hours to go until a government shutdown, Senate Democrats are promising to torpedo the House's latest legislative volley, Republicans are formulating last-minute plans to score a victory against Obamacare, and both sides are digging political entrenchments that make shuttering the government increasingly likely."

----National Journal

Kaiser Health News: Majority of Uninsured Americans Don't Know that Obamacare Begins in October 2013

Data from the Kaiser survey is linked below.

Kaiser Health News: Most Uninsured Unaware of Obamacare Implementation

"A new poll finds a majority of the public — especially those lacking health coverage — is unaware that new insurance marketplaces created by the health law are slated to open next week. The poll also found deep skepticism of media coverage of the law, with more than half the public saying they don’t trust any media source to provide credible information."

---Kaiser Health News

The Wall Street Journal's Joanne Lipman: In Praise of Traditional Rigorous Education

Joanne Lipman's Wall Street Journal column is linked below.

Joanne Lipman: The Virtues of Educational Rigor

"All of which flies in the face of the kinder, gentler philosophy that has dominated American education over the past few decades. The conventional wisdom holds that teachers are supposed to tease knowledge out of students, rather than pound it into their heads. Projects and collaborative learning are applauded; traditional methods like lecturing and memorization—derided as "drill and kill"—are frowned upon, dismissed as a surefire way to suck young minds dry of creativity and motivation.

But the conventional wisdom is wrong. And the following eight principles—a manifesto if you will, a battle cry inspired by my old teacher and buttressed by new research—explain why."

---Joanne Lipman, The Wall Street Journal