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It’s Nov. 16, 2013, and the partial government shutdown ended one month ago today. In those four weeks, and the two prior, everything conservatives said would happen has happened. What’s more, the Democrats’ united stand against them has turned into a retreat — and is primed to become a rout — as they amend Obamacare’s disastrous rollout, President Barack Obama apologizes for his failures, and electorally vulnerable Democrats break ranks and flee. Hell, even the polls that D.C.’s Republican pundits shrieked, wept and clawed over show the Grand Old Party has bounced back while the Democrats have fallen behind. Because,...

(CNN) - Sen. Ted Cruz argued Thursday that people are starting to understand why he and other conservative activists embraced a strategy that tried to derail Obamacare this year but instead resulted in last month's government shutdown. Speaking at the Aspen Institute's Washington Ideas Forum in Washington, the Texas Republican said the troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov and revelations of people losing their health care insurance have led to changed feelings about his strategy. "A few weeks ago there were lots of people - particularly in Washington - that were saying, 'Why are you guys fighting so hard on this?' And...

Going by age demographics, the October 2013 Employment Situation Report released last Friday revealed the following numbers. 578,000 fewer adults (Age 25 and above) were counted as having jobs in the household survey portion of the report.22,000 fewer young adults (Age 20-24) were counted as being employed in October 2013.135,000 fewer teens (Age 16-19) were working in October 2013. The big story, of course, was the partial federal government shut down that saw 815,932 government workers be furloughed at the beginning of October 2013. Here though, that number was quickly cut nearly in half as the Defense department recalled most...

John McCain is apparently fielding a “spate of e-mails and letters and phone calls” from people who want him to run for president again. But, the Republican senator from Arizona told the Arizona Republic that he’s not really considering another run for the White House: “‘Particularly since the shutdown, I’ve had a spate of e-mails and letters and phone calls saying, ‘Run for president again,” McCain told The Arizona Republic. ‘As you know, I’m seriously thinking about running for re-election to the Senate. But I think, in the words of the late Morris K. Udall, as far as my presidential...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/10/will-sarah-palin-have-a-second-act/3489845/

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who rallied members of the Tea Party in their failed effort to defund Obamacare, lashed out on Saturday against members of the Republican Party who agreed to end the government shutdown. The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee's comments during a speech in Des Moines come at a time of division within the party over the strategy conservative members of Congress adopted in forcing a 16-day shutdown of the federal government last month. (snip) Palin told the Christian conservatives in attendance it was time to "stiffen our spines" for the 2014 elections. "I want to encourage...

If Texas Sen. Ted Cruz were in California, we would start a recall on him. Cruz is wasting hard-working Americans' money in our Senate. It was immoral for Cruz and the other Republicans to shut down government to keep Americans from getting affordable health care. America is tired of the Republicans' hating President Barack Obama so much that they want to keep 50 million Americans from being able to afford health care. When the health care reform law becomes fully operational it will bring the cost of America's health care down. In time, we can make changes and put into...

President Barack Obama is marking Veterans Day by making it his mission to ensure America has the back of its veterans. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says now that more veterans are coming home from wars, the U.S. must serve them as well. He’s promoting programs to hire and educate veterans. …

The threat of default and 16-day government shutdown that ended Wednesday night left the American people -- and President Obama -- frustrated. "You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election," Obama said. "Push to change it.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his Republican colleagues won the shutdown drama in October. However, the effects are still gradually rippling through the electorate. And the full results will depend upon Republicans understanding the strategy (they don't) and continuing to implement conservatives' obvious plan consistently for maximum impact (unlikely). Approval has dropped five percent for President Barack Obama since the October government shutdown, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal opinion survey. Obama's disapproval rating has reached a toxic 51 percent -- as even Obama-worshiping NBC News admits. Over 50 percent of voters disapproving is considered fatal for an...

If you followed the recent goings-on in Washington this past month, you are aggravated. I understand. This has been a frustrating time for me, and for anybody who wants to see our country on a sustainable fiscal path. After almost three weeks in shutdown mode, Congress extended government funding and raised the debt ceiling by several hundred billion dollars with nothing to show for it - no reforms that rein in our country's deficits and debt, no spending constraints, no changes whatsoever. While this result is disappointing, I hope we will see a more fruitful outcome in December as members...

The two-week partial shutdown of the U.S. government, affecting 800,000 federal employees, has experts uncertain about how automotive sales will be affected. Ford, GM and Ram all seem to be expecting strong sales numbers for October, especially in the booming pickup truck segment, but none seem certain how the shutdown could impact consumers' future big-ticket spending decisions. That's because the shutdown increased consumer anxiety about the overall U.S. economy, according to a story by Consumer Affairs Editor Kelsey Mays at Cars.com, and consumer confidence has not increased much since the shutdown ceased. Apparently there's no shortage of opinions about how...

Dingy Harry Lays Groundwork for Next Shutdown October 30, 2013 by Rush Limbaugh RUSH: The Democrats are already planning the next government shutdown. I have it right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers."President Barack Obama’s top ally on Capitol Hill sayshe won’t support any attempt this year to ease across-the-board spending cuts hitting the Pentagon and domestic agenciesif it fails to include new revenues." Translated: Dingy Harry says,"We're not doing anything with the next budget showdownunless we get a tax increase." "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the declaration on the eve of the first official meeting of a...

The current conventional wisdom floating around the media, seemingly extrapolated largely from quotes to the press from businessmen and their surrogates, is that "Big Business [is] trying to unseat the Tea Party." However, there's no evidence that this is happening. Remember the first time Tea Party House Republicans held a gun to the U.S. economy, refusing to pay America's debts unless Democrats accepted a wide-ranging set of demands, and as a result, business leaders promised to spend big to defeat hostage-taking radicals? "We'll get rid of you," said Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Tea...

Sarah is selling Sarah. The former vice presidential candidate and half-term governor of Alaska is a commodity of one and a marketing machine. She has created a new politics of profit. Palin's reanimation on the tea party stage probably means no more than the other intentions she has floated but never executed. She spent almost a year of the last presidential election cycle teasing the far right that she was going to run for president. She never did, but lots of network TV interviews and speculative articles drove up her name recognition and brand identification. And she's not running again....

Lots of people, including NBC, are leading with the fact that his job approval is also at a new low (42/51), but that’s less interesting to me than his favorable rating. Of course his job approval’s in the tank. How could it not be? He’s tangled up in the NSA dragnet again, he’s still smarting (as is the GOP) from public bitterness about the shutdown, and he’s got a five-alarm political fire on his hands from the dual failures of Healthcare.gov and the “if you like your plan” fiasco. This isn’t even the worst approval rating he’s had in polling...

“Democrat Terry McAuliffe has opened a double-digit lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli II in the race for Virginia governor, in a new poll capturing increasing dissatisfaction among voters with Cuccinelli’s party and his conservative views.” Cuccinelli trails by 12 points overall and is behind among women by 24 points (in 2009, Gov. Bob McDonnell won the women’s vote). Cuccinelli trails in voter-rich Northern Virginia by 18 points (McDonnell won in the D.C. suburbs). Without the Libertarian Robert Sarvis in the race, Cuccinelli still trails by 11 points. Cuccinelli is too conservative, according to 54 percent of the voters.This surprises no...

Pundits and journalists across the country have suggested that Ted Cruz and friends accomplished nothing with the government shutdown. I’d beg to differ. Indeed, I’d suggest just the opposite. The best parallel I can draw is with Ronald Reagan in 1976 when he angered the GOP establishment by challenging Gerald Ford for the party’s nomination before he went down to defeat at the hands of a peanut farmer from Georgia. Reagan however had made his mark. He was for smaller government and everyone knew it. As a consequence, four years later he won a resounding victory on the strength of...

Food stamp recipients face a massive benefit cut set to kick in when stimulus funds expire Friday. The nationwide cut “is equivalent to about 16 meals a month for a family of three,” according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis using the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan.” CBPP called the roughly $5 billion annual cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “unprecedented” in “depth and breadth.” “If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food,” Margarette Purvis, the president and CEO of the Food Bank..

It took a tea party insurrection that disabled the federal government and wrecked the Republican brand, but after months of handwringing, establishment Republicans are preparing to attack ultra-conservative ideologues across red America. From Alabama to Alaska, the center-right, business-oriented wing of the Republican Party is gearing up for a series of skirmishes that it hopes can prevent the 2014 mid-term election from turning into another missed opportunity. But this will not be a coordinated operation. It will be messy, ugly, and prone to backfiring. And if the comeback succeeds, it will be in fits and starts, most likely culminating in...