A must read from
Norm Ornstein:
Trying to show that Republicans could govern responsibly, without another government shutdown or debt-ceiling showdown, he faced a nearly unprecedented motion from his own ranks to vacate the speakership, with a strong chance that he would be ousted from the post unless Democrats—at a price—bailed him out. That would have left him in a weakened and embattled state for a miserable 15 months remaining in the 114th Congress. The day after the high point of his tenure—the appearance of the Pope at his side for a joint session of Congress—he decided it was no longer worth it.
There is a bigger backstory. Since 1994, when Newt Gingrich led his party tribe from 40 years of wandering in the desert of the minority to the promised land of House majority, Republicans have become more stridently anti-government and anti-Washington. They have also, when in the majority, become less interested in trying to find policy solutions across party lines. Their desire to act like a parliamentary majority, maintaining rigid discipline and working only internally, became known as the “Hastert Rule” under Gingrich’s successor.
Perfect party discipline continued when Republicans, in the minority, faced Barack Obama in his first two years—unity that translated into reflexive opposition to everything Obama wanted to do. It was part of a broader strategy to delegitimize Obama and Democrats; to cultivate anger and unhappiness as Gingrich had done in 1994 in the midterm elections in 2010; and to seize back majority status, undo the Obama program, and cut government dramatically.
The strategy was led by a group of younger House members who called themselves the “Young Guns”—Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan.
McCarthy is likely next Speaker. And outside of
Ornstein and Mann, who has called out the GOP for the radicals that they are?
More politics and policy below the fold.
Gerald Seib:
Now Mr. Boehner. Next in the cross hairs will be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; of that there is little doubt. Mark Meckler, one of the co-founders of the tea-party movement, responded to the Boehner move by declaring: “Hopefully this serves as a strong hint to Mitch McConnell. Time for him to fade into the sunset of his career, side by side with John Boehner. The tea-party movement will continue to work to make that happen.”
The Boehner ouster—and that’s really what it was—was the immediate result of a fight about whether to shut down the government over funding for Planned Parenthood, one in which Democratic opposition and the math of votes in the Senate suggest there isn’t a path to success.
But it was about much more than Planned Parenthood. It was about a rage long building on the right over the fact that Republicans control both houses of Congress yet haven’t been able to kill Obamacare, or the Iran nuclear deal, or, now, defund Planned Parenthood.
NBC:
Donald Trump and Ben Carson are running neck and neck in the national Republican presidential horserace, while Carly Fiorina is now tied for third place with Marco Rubio, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
And on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has lost ground to Bernie Sanders — she leads him by just seven points with Joe Biden in the race, and 15 points without the vice president. That's down from Clinton's 34-point lead over Sanders in July and her whopping 60-point lead in June.
In the GOP race, Trump is the first choice of 21 percent of Republican primary voters — followed by Carson at 20 percent and Rubio and Fiorina tied at 11 percent each.
Jonathan Martin:
Donald J. Trump was never exactly a happy warrior, but with some of his Republican rivals gaining on him, he is showing clear signs of discontent.
Appearing here on Wednesday afternoon at what was billed as an African-American small business meeting, Mr. Trump used his remarks before a largely white audience to argue that his lead in the polls was not being sufficiently covered, repeatedly complained about the high temperature inside the Ronald Reagan Library at last week’s debate, and lamented that any attacks on Carly Fiorina would be depicted as sexist.
And he did so in a convention center ballroom in which about a third of the seats were unfilled.
al.com:
NASA has set the world on alert it's making a big announcement on Monday.
So far, all we know is the announcement has to do with Mars and a mystery that NASA says is now "solved."
"NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency's ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at (10:30 a.m. CST) on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website," the space agency said.
What's the big announcement? No one really knows but here are 3 predictions:
NASA will announce its found water – maybe even flowing water – on Mars:
NBC:
Carly Fiorina on Sunday stood by her disputed description of a scene from the videos targeting Planned Parenthood, but refused to say definitively that Republicans should force a government shutdown to defund the organization.
"Not at all. That scene absolutely does exist, and that voice saying what I said they were saying — "We're gonna keep it alive to harvest its brain — exists as well," Fiorina said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Fiorina's description during the last GOP debate of a scene she said she saw in the anti-Planned Parenthood videos has been widely disputed in media reports, and there is no definitive proof it existed.
Let's be clear: "there is no definitive proof it existed" is the nicest possible way of saying Fiorina is a pathological liar. And no, it is not going to win her the primary with the GOP base. Short term gain, perhaps, but long term pain.
WaPo:
While stumping this past week at packed campaign events, Fiorina has sought to reframe her role in the successful-if-thankless saving of a company from near-certain annihilation. But former employees are speaking out for fear that Fiorina will rewrite the distressing history of a company many came to love.
As Brad Whitworth, an 18-year HP veteran and former senior communications and marketing manager, put it, “Carly has never let facts get in the way of her being able to tell a story.”...
In July 1999, Fiorina was tapped to lead a company with $40 billion in revenue and sights on becoming the biggest computer maker in the world. The board gave her a $3 million signing bonus and stock worth $65 million, and agreed to pay to ship her 52-foot yacht from the East Coast to the waters near San Francisco Bay.
Another entitled 1%er who thinks the world owes her.