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Countering many of his Republican colleagues, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday the tea party is actually a positive movement for the GOP. “It’s an uprising, in part, and the good thing is it’s taken place within the Republican Party,” he said on NBC’s “Today.” “I don’t see it as a negative. I think it’s much better to have that kind of ferment and turmoil and change in the Republican Party than it would be to have it outside.” Mr. Cheney said that if it wasn’t for the tea party, his daughter, Liz, might not be seeking to unseat...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the tea party's assault on Obamacare on Monday, calling it a "normal, healthy reaction" to President Barack Obama, whom Cheney referred to as the "most radical operator in Washington." In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Cheney said the tea party has been a positive influence on politics. "They raised issues Americans care about," Cheney said. "We have terrible track records with respect to federal spending. Nobody seems to be able to solve the problem. It's an uprising, in part, and it's taken place within the Republican Party. I don't see it as a...

Hey, he didn’t say that, you tell me. Well, those were not his words, but that’s exactly what he said. Mitch McConnell, thoroughly chastened over having reluctantly gone along with Ted Cruz and House Republicans on the recent shutdown, gives his confession and repentance to the Beltway media as personified by Bob Schieffer on CBS, and makes a promise that Republicans will not bring about any more shutdowns. The downhome Kentucky saying about the mule kick is very charming, I guess, but here is the problem: When you control one house of Congress, spending measures cannot be passed unless your...

Democrats are already benefiting politically from the government shutdown -- in their pocketbooks. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $8.4 million in September, according to an aide with the group, a significant sum more than a year before next year's election. The haul dwarfs the $5.3 million collected last month by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which was again out-raised by House Democrats despite holding the majority. To date this year, the DCCC has raised $58.2 million and has $21.6 million on hand. The NRCC has $15.7 million cash on hand. The run-up to the 16-day standoff, which began Oct....

".............Paul has signaled that if he runs for president in 2016, he won’t do it the way his father did, by mostly shunning the GOP establishment. Instead, he is expected to cultivate relationships with Republicans like McConnell, whose help making inroads with establishment donors could be very, very useful. Rubio clearly isn’t shunning the establishment, either. He worked on crafting an immigration reform bill earlier this year, something the establishment wing of the party has been clamoring for in the wake of a disappointing election in which Republicans performed poorly among Hispanics. And he didn’t hesitate to back McConnell, even...

A majority says it is a bad thing for Republicans to control the House, with an even higher percentage believing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) should lose his job, according to a new poll. A CNN-ORC poll released Monday found 54 percent oppose Republican control of the House while 38 percent say it is a good thing.... The poll, taken over the weekend, surveyed 841 adults and has a 3.5-percent margin of error.

The Democrats government shutdown is in its third week and it is beginning to look like it will continue, at least past the debt ceiling. Negotiations continue over how to reopen the government, but there is a certain amount of exasperation starting to show. The Republicans in the House of Representatives have offered plan after plan to end the government shutdown, but they have all been rejected by the Democrats. Their latest plan was threatened with a veto from President Obama, before it could even make it to the floor of the House. I can't help but wonder if Rush...

Dan Pfeiffer’s fingerprints are all over the White House’s strategy of not negotiating with congressional Republicans over the government shutdown and debt ceiling. The senior adviser to President Obama has been plotting the White House’s every move, and is described by some within the administration as the “relentless guardian” of Obama’s no-negotiations stance. “He’s been the most ferocious on that principle,” one senior administration official said. “He was quite adamant and relentless about this. And on the face of it, it’s not an easy argument to make.” Even before the shutdown began on Oct. 1, Republicans had turned their fire...

----"Plan B" and fiscal cliff vote, redux. Having hammered out a deal to shoot back to the Senate tonight -- with most Republicans reportedly on board -- House GOP leadership has been forced to delay or cancel those votes after support among conservatives collapsed in the early evening hours. The rules committee meeting, which would have formally drawn up the bill and advanced it to the full house, has been postponed indefinitely. The reason is simple. They don't have the votes: What happened? The counter-offer's broad outline, which I've been following all day, seemed to be on track. Then the...

A day of political disarray Tuesday thrust the United States to within hours of a debt default deadline, sparking fears of deep damage to a fragile US recovery and the global economy. Just 29 hours before the US government begins to run short of money to pay its bills, there was no clear way out of a stalemate that has called the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency into question.If Congress fails to raise US borrowing authority before midnight Wednesday (0400 GMT Thursday) the US Treasury would begin to run out of money to meet all US obligations and...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday after leaks circulated of a plan that House Republicans might offer to end the spending and debt stalemate.“We felt blindsided by the news from the House,” Reid said on the Senate floor in a scathing attack on Boehner and his House GOP members. The Nevada Democrat said “extremist Republicans in the House of Representatives are attempting to torpedo" the negotiations which he and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell have been conducting in the past few days. Reid’s torrent of criticism came hours after he and McConnell both said...

My sources tell me House Republicans have postponed tonight’s vote on their plan to end the fiscal impasse. “The votes aren’t there,” says a leadership aide. “We’ve been amending the bill all day, but we’ve been unable to get people around this strategy.” This development leaves Speaker John Boehner with few options as Thursday’s debt-ceiling deadline nears, and it throws the action back toward the Senate, which has been working on a bipartisan package.

The House bill is a blatant attack on bipartisanship.” “Extremist Republicans in the House of Representatives are attempting to torpedo the Senate’s bipartisan progress with a bill that cannot pass the Senate.” Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid spoke on the Senate floor today regarding House Republicans’ extreme proposal, which is dead on arrival in the Senate. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:The House Republican leadership’s plan to advance an extreme bill is nothing more than a blatant attack on bipartisanship.For the past several days, we have been engaged in productive, bipartisan negotiations here in the Senate. We have been working...

House Republicans are in trouble. GOP leadership pulled their bill to open the government and lift the debt ceiling because they didn’t have the votes to squeeze it through the chamber. There will be no vote Tuesday, which means Washington will have one day to lift the debt ceiling before the U.S. government reaches its borrowing limit. It’s unclear what Speaker John Boehner’s team will do next. This could, once again, sideline the House and kick action over to negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The U.S. government reaches its debt limit...

House Republican leaders are preparing legislation that would fund the government until Dec. 15, extend the debt ceiling until Feb. 7 and strike the health care subsidies that members of Congress, White House appointees and staff were set to receive under the new health care law, a GOP lawmaker said. Under the new House GOP proposal — the second one they proposed Tuesday — union workers would also remain subject to a $63 health insurance tax from which they had sought an exemption. The proposal also would give the House and Senate until mid-December negotiate a new, long-term budget. "The...

If House Republicans get their way in budget talks, White House spokesman Jay Carney may be forced to make good on his pledge to sign up for Obamacare if his private insurance plan is dropped. House GOP leaders have pressed during the government shutdown fight to significantly delay or defund the president's signature healthcare reform laws. But with those efforts failing to take hold, Republicans on Tuesday shifted fears and are seeking to extract a different health care concession: Forcing members of Congress, President Obama and top White House officials to enroll in the law's insurance exchanges without subsidies. Carney...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday he was “blindsided” by news that House Republicans were moving forward on their own debt limit bill and “disappointed” in Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, for doing so. Reid said on the floor that the new House GOP plan — which includes a number of Obamacare-related provisions and omits instructions for a budget conference — is “unproductive” and “a waste of time,” suggesting its only purpose was to cater to tea party conservatives and preserve Boehner’s speakership. “I know I speak for many of us who have been working in good faith...

House Republicans scrambled Tuesday to convince their skeptical conservative flank to support a new plan to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling. Rank-and-file GOP lawmakers pushed back on the original plan from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants, seeking more sweeteners to what was essentially a framework crafted by the Senate. The impasse sidelined the Senate, which on Monday appeared close to a tentative deal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suspended their recent talks, as the Senate GOP sought to give Boehner more maneuvering room. “I don’t know if anything...

**SNIP** When the president himself wanted to initiate discussions prior to shutdown, Harry Reid vetoed it, effectively overruling Obama. The Post report also notes that Nancy Pelosi has permitted dozens of House Democrats to vote with the GOP on a litany of common-sense piecemeal bills to restore funding to popular and essential elements of the federal government. She ran the political calculus and allowed certain members to break with the party in order to avoid being targeted with potent attack ads next year. She did so knowing that these fixes would be dead on arrival in the Senate. In short,...

The “I agree with his goals but not his tactics,” crowd has been out in force since Ted Cruz’s made his historic and courageous stand on the U.S. Senate floor against Obamacare’s destruction of the American health care system. What these Republican quislings fail to mention is what realistic tactics they would recommend. Washington, D.C. Is Crying Wolf Yet Again, But No One Is Listening Capital Flows Capital Flows Contributor So, What Do We Tell Our Kids About The Government Shutdown? Capital Flows Capital Flows Contributor Don't Like Obamacare? Here Are 3 Ways To Get Around Its Most Onerous Rules...