memeorandum: GOP unity frays, frustration builds (Jake Sherman/Politico)

6:45 PM ET, October 9, 2013

Top Items:

Andrew Dugan / Gallup:

Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low — Falls 10 percentage points from September's 38% — This article is part of an ongoing series analyzing how the government shutdown and the debate over raising the debt ceiling are affecting Americans' views of government, government leaders …

Discussion: The Plum Line, Talking Points Memo, Little Green Footballs, Yahoo! News, Washington Monthly, The Moderate Voice, The Hill, National Review, Outside the Beltway, Taegan Goddard's …, Daily Kos, PoliticusUSA, Mediaite, Business Insider, Liberal Values, Balloon Juice and The Political Line

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
Gallup: GOP Favorability Plunges To Record Low

Discussion: National Review and Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

First Read / NBCNews:

First Thoughts: The beginning of the end? — The beginning of the end? Paul Ryan op-ed appears to be an olive branch and a way out of the budget stalemate... But can conservatives accept that potential end (which has no Obamacare changes?)... Cantor's bad cop to Ryan's good cop? …

Discussion: Hot Air, Campaign for America's Future, Politicker, CNN and Connecting.the.Dots

Erick Erickson / RedState:

This is the Strategy. Now Do It. — Conservatives need to push the debt ceiling fight off the front burner to after Christmas. — Republican Leaders are begging us to merge the continuing resolution fight and debt ceiling fight. They covet this with all their mind and heart.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, ThinkProgress, Business Insider, msnbc.com, Hot Air, Booman Tribune, National Review, Washington Monthly, Roll Call and The New Republic

Paul Ryan / Wall Street Journal:
Here's How We Can End This Stalemate

Eric Cantor / Washington Post:
Divided government requires bipartisan negotiation

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Roll Call, Daily Kos, PostPartisan, Slate, Associated Press, Real Clear Politics, msnbc.com and Post Politics

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
The Morning Plum: A clarifying moment of Washington dysfunction

Discussion: Politico, The Dish, Little Green Footballs, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, National Review, Paul Krugman, Business Insider and Guardian

Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:
The Republican Arcade Claw Machine

Discussion: National Review and Hullabaloo

Associated Press:

POLL: GOP GETS THE BLAME IN SHUTDOWN — You are here — Home » United States Congress » Poll: GOP gets the blame in shutdown — WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are holding Republicans primarily responsible for the partial government shutdown as public esteem sinks for all players …

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:

Democrats maintain edge for 2014 — PPP's newest national survey finds that Americans continue to lean toward voting Democratic for the House next year, as they pin most of the blame for the government shutdown on Republicans. — Democrats lead the generic Congressional ballot 46/41, including a 42/33 lead with independents.

Discussion: Politico, PoliticusUSA and Mediaite

John Nolte / BREITBART.COM:
MEDIA FAIL: OBAMA APPROVAL PLUMMETS TO 37%

Discussion: Power Line and The Lonely Conservative

Dana Bash / CNN:

Senior House GOP source: Debt deal may require Democratic help — Washington (CNN) - A Senior House GOP source concedes to CNN that to get the White House on board with a debt ceiling deal, House Republicans would likely have to agree to a clean short term debt ceiling increase.

Discussion: Booman Tribune and Politico

Jake Sherman / Politico:
GOP unity frays, frustration builds

Discussion: CNN, ThinkProgress, Hullabaloo, The Hill and New York Times

Justin Sink / The Hill: House GOP ‘negotiators’ to meet Obama

John Podhoretz / New York Post:

Suicide of the Right — Every piece of evidence we have so far on the government shutdown shows the public is blaming Republicans most of all for the standoff. On Monday, an ABC poll showed 71 percent fault the GOP; 61 percent fault Congressional Democrats; 51 percent fault President Obama.

Discussion: American Prospect, Prairie Weather, Ricochet Conversations Feed, The Moderate Voice, The Dish and Talking Points Memo

Michael Isikoff / NBC Politics:

Kochs to Congress: Focus on spending, not Obamacare — In a move that highlights a growing rift in conservative ranks, Koch Industries — the privately held energy conglomerate owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch — today distanced the firm from allied political groups lobbying …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Politico and msnbc.com

Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Fiscal Crisis Continuing Coverage of the Budget Debates

Discussion: Firedoglake, Talking Points Memo, Guardian, The Agonist and Death and Taxes

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:

Waterboarding Is A Big Joke At Cheney Roast — A sentimental evening at the Plaza for Cheney, Rumsfeld, Mukasey, and Lieberman. “Really tasteless,” says a guest. — The cover of the program at the Oct. 7 “Roast of Dick Cheney.” — Dick Cheney is ready to laugh about waterboarding.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Gawker, The Dish, Crooks and Liars, Mediaite and The Daily Caller

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:

Wolf Blitzer: White House Should Take GOP ‘Advice,’ Delay Obamacare For A Year — Wolf Blitzer said on CNN Wednesday that the Obama administration should have listened to Republicans and delayed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. — “If they had three years to get this ready …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Evan McMurry / Mediaite:
CNN's Blitzer: Obama Should ‘Accept GOP Advice, Delay Obamacare’ Over Glitchy Websites

Discussion: Hot Air

Brian Tashman / Right Wing Watch:

Bachmann: Obama ‘Committed Impeachable Offenses,’ Wants To Be A Dictator — Speaking with conservative talk show host Rusty Humphries on a conference call sponsored by TheTeaParty.net yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota suggested that the House hold hearings on impeaching the president.

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, Talking Points Memo, The Raw Story, Mediaite and The Hill

Kristin Roberts / NationalJournal.com:

Republicans Are Awfully Close to Violating the Constitution — Who cares if President Obama has 14th Amendment obligations? The critical sentence in that block of text should be read as instruction for lawmakers first, and last. — Have Republicans forgotten that they too must abide by the Constitution?

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Taegan Goddard's … and Prairie Weather

Venessa Wong / Businessweek:

Unpaid Intern Is Ruled Not an ‘Employee,’ Not Protected From Sexual Harassment — There's plenty for unpaid interns to complain about—mainly, the lack of money—but apparently it gets worse. Because they're not paid and don't receive remuneration such as pension and life insurance …

Discussion: The Raw Story, Gawker, ThinkProgress and Shakesville

Maggie Haberman / Politico:

Hillary Clinton to speak at Center for American Progress anniversary — Hillary Clinton will be the featured speaker at the tenth anniversary event later this month for the Center for American Progress, the influential Washington-based progressive think tank and activist group, POLITICO has learned.

Discussion: Tampa Bay Times, Los Angeles Times and The PJ Tatler

CBS News:

Obamacare website looks “like nobody tested it,” programmer says — (CBS News) Healthcare.gov launched more than a week ago, and while millions of Americans have signed into the site, not many have been able to actually sign up for insurance because of glitches with the website.

Discussion: CBS DC, Weasel Zippers, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Jammie Wearing Fools and USA Today

Paul Waldman / American Prospect:

Is the Shutdown Creating a Dystopic Political Future? — Let's cast our minds forward a few weeks, to after the shutdown/default crisis is over. At that point, the 2014 off-year elections will be only a year away. And what will the lasting effect of this episode be? Maybe not all that much.

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Princeton Election Consortium

David Auerbach / Slate:

What really went wrong with healthcare.gov? — Of all the terrible websites I've seen, healthcare.gov ranks somewhere in the middle. It has been difficult if not impossible to sign up, and customer service has been inadequate. But it's certainly better than the NYC Department of Education site …

Amanda Marcotte / Slate:

Sarah Lacy Writes Every Female-Penned Defense of Gender Inequality Ever — As reported here earlier, there is a kerfuffle over the revelation that Twitter's board, investors, and almost all of its executives are male. This is playing out by the book: The initial criticisms, the defensive retorts, the anger at the defensive retorts.

Discussion: ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, Feministing and Gawker

ThinkProgress:

How Racism Caused The Shutdown — This isn't an article about how Republicans shut down the government because they hate that the President is black. This is an article about how racism caused the government to shut down and the U.S. to teeter on the brink of an unprecedented and catastrophic default.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register:

Updated: Ihlenfeld ID's Shooter as Former Wheeling Police Officer — The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register — WHEELING — A man who reportedly fired more than 20 shots into the Wheeling Federal Building has died, authorities said. — The man has not yet been identified …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Justin Sink / The Hill:

White House: Obama orders military death benefits paid to families — President Obama has ordered officials to resume paying death benefits to the families of fallen soldiers and was “very disturbed” they had been halted due to the government shutdown, said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Discussion: Reuters, NBCNews, CNN, Taylor Marsh and Jammie Wearing Fools

David Edwards / The Raw Story:

House Republicans silence Rep. Grayson after he cites poll comparing them to ‘dog poop’ — Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) found himself on Tuesday being added to the list of things that had been shut down because of Republicans in Congress. — During a speech on the House floor to call for a vote …

Discussion: Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times, Mediaite, Gawker, Weasel Zippers, The Huffington Post and Crooks and Liars

Janet Yellen / Finance:

Rejoice: the Yellen Fed will print money forever to create jobs — We now know where we stand. Janet Yellen is to take over the US Federal Reserve, the world's monetary hegemon, the master of all our lives. — The Fed will be looser for longer. The FOMC will continue to print money until …

Discussion: Wonkblog, NewsBusters, Real Time Economics, NBCNews and Vox Popoli