Brad Plumer:
Here's the Wall Street Journal:
At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said.
Here's some broader context: Individuals typically enroll in inpatient and outpatient programs at the NIH Clinical Center "only when standard medical treatments have failed, and other treatment options are not available. As a result, they have no other alternatives."
While congressmen grouse about national parks and other visible symbols of government being closed, the impact to individual lives will be far greater. The new House Republican plan to selectively refund symbolic portions of government while ignoring substantive, measurable, and unambiguously cruel damage being done elsewhere should be considered immoral. Contemptible. Vicious.
Somewhere in America there are roughly 200 families who had been grasping for one final straw, one final chance at a miracle, and who had already bought the plane tickets to deliver their loved one to that point of last hope. To have them turned away at the door by non-act of Congress should be a point of national revulsion. To have two million of a nation's workers work with only the promise that they might be later be paid—though none of their own creditors are under any obligation to delay the bills that are due—is a vicious act. It is not a negotiating tactic. It is not a game. It is the act of a failed state.
We have reached the point where Republican hostility towards governance has reached its logical conclusion: not governing at all. Crashing the whole state, lest any contrary ideology be granted a foothold. Stopping the food rations and the clinical trials and all the rest of it because the other parts of government have the audacity to be for something else.
This is no longer a political party. It is a coup d'etat in cheap suits. It is a movement of arsonists, of ideological addicts leaping from issue to issue and crisis to crisis in their search for the next momentary high. In its tea party origins, it is a specifically and obsessively anti-Obama movement formed as direct response to the first black American president, a movement animated by racial notions of the president's supposed non-citizenry, secret apparent Muslim-ness, obvious otherness, stoked and coddled and celebrated until there is nothing left but the underlying id remaining. It is a movement that can treat a truth and a lie as equivalent. It is a movement that punishes offensive truths by remanufacturing them into something else.
It is no longer a political party. It is a bald celebration of malevolence. It is a movement that insists on doing harm because only in doing harm can its proponents prove their unwavering loyalty to the now long-forgotten cause.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—The morning after [the debate]:
Drudge last night floated one spin attempt -- that Bush was emotionally drained because he had spent the day meeting with hurricane victims. So in other words, Bush can't handle his job.
But it wasn't just the eye rolling, nor the petulance, nor the fact he clearly hadn't prepped for the debate. It was also the content, and Bush gave our side plenty of material.
At one point, Kerry's asserted that 90 percent of cargo in Florida ports wasn't inspected, nor was cargo loaded in commercial flights, and that he would do better. Bush gave this amazing answer:
I don't think we want to get to how he's going to pay for all these promises.
In other words, your safety takes a back seat to Bush's tax cuts and his unecessary war in Iraq.
|
Tweet of the Day:
In House GOP meeting, Gohmert pushed for military pay bill in conf. committee; Boehner replied: 'Louie, that bill has already been signed'
— @russellberman
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, OK, shutdown it is, then!
Greg Dworkin rounded up the headlines, the polls, the Gop civil war stories, and how the ACA exchanges are marching forward regardless. Of course, we also had a generous helping of "both sides are equally to blame" thinking to deal with. Hungry for a detailed explanation of the House's 11th hour appeal for a conference & why it was ridiculous from the get-go? We've got you covered! Key point: Ted Cruz objects to conferences on "principle." And by the way, his dad is nuts. "The House GOP's Legislative Strike." GA's ALEC front man gets himself indicted. "CR Blues: Constant Brinkmanship Brings Fatigue."
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.