Jerk

Yes, I know that card-carrying homophobe Orson Scott Card won’t make a ton of money off his movie, and I know that Enders Game didn’t have a spectacular opening… but I’m still giving Card and his movie a BOOOOOOOO! because of this from Variety: Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said Friday during a conference call with […]

Sarah Posner at Mother Jones explains: Next week, former President George W. Bush is scheduled to keynote a fundraiser in Irving, Texas, for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, a group that trains people in the United States, Israel, and around the world to convince Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The organization’s goal: to […]

Remember Republican outrage queen Randy Neugebauer’s insane rant at a park ranger during the shutdown? Two days after voting for the shutdown, Texas congressman Randy Neugebauer tried to lead a group of teabaggy veterans into the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, but it was closed, because the WWII Memorial is a federal park. […]

The only thing that could sink Congressional Republican approval ratings even lower would be if they moved to impeach President Obama. So, naturally: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Tuesday that President Obama has “committed impeachable offenses” and that the House could hold a hearing to impeach. “We can have an impeachment hearing in the House, […]

ThinkProgress says that Republican Arizona State Representative Brenda Barton stuck her foot in it on a Facebook post complaining about parks being closed during the shutdown: Barton minced no words, calling Obama “De Fuhrer [sic]” and urging local sheriffs to arrest park rangers who enforce rules keeping people out of National Parks that are closed […]

Politico is saying that in addition to lifting the debt ceiling for six weeks, John Boehner might be trying to delay the shutdown for six weeks, too: If Thursday night’s meeting with Obama goes well, senior Republican sources say that Boehner could have enough internal political capital to move a bill next week to reopen […]

October 3, 2013: Speaker John A. Boehner has privately told Republican lawmakers anxious about fallout from the government shutdown that he would not allow a potentially more crippling federal default as the atmosphere on Capitol Hill turned increasingly tense on Thursday. October 6, 2013: Speaker John A. Boehner stood his ground on Sunday alongside the […]

The federal government officially shut down at midnight Eastern time, you know, just because. Previous government shutdowns have tended to be expensive and painful, but brief. This time though, I’m not so sure about the brief part. A couple weeks ago somebody asked me if I thought House Republicans would follow through on their threat […]

Bad things at first, and then worse things down the road: A prolonged government shutdown — followed by a potential default on the federal debt — would have economic ripple effects far beyond Washington, upending financial markets, sending the unemployment rate higher and slowing already tepid growth, according to a wide range of economists. A […]