'House of Turds'

The New York Daily News for the win.

As soon as the markets start dropping, Jamie Dimon will call Boehner and tell him to cut the crap. But I don't expect that to happen before the end of the week.  In the meantime, the cost is harsh for some (and it's not a political one, either).

Federal employees who are considered essential will continue working. Those deemed non-essential -- more than 800,000 -- will be furloughed, unsure when they'll be able to work or get paid again. Most furloughed federal workers are supposed to be out of their offices within four hours of the start of business Tuesday. 

The shutdown could cost the still-struggling U.S. economy about $1 billion a week in pay lost by furloughed federal workers. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

While many agencies have reserve funds and contingency plans that would give them some short-term leeway, the economic loss would snowball as the shutdown continued.

The total economic impact is likely to be at least 10 times greater than the simple calculation of lost wages of federal workers, said Brian Kessler, economist with Moody's Analytics. His firm estimates that a three- to four-week shutdown would cost the economy about $55 billion.

Eight hundred thousand people is roughly the size of San Francisco (which by itself provides incentive in the TeaBagger mind).  Locally, NASA is all but closed today. But the troops, Medicare and Social Security recipients, and yes, members of the House and Senate still get their paychecks.

And Obamacare is gearing up right on schedule.  It's obviously more popular than Ted Cruz says.

So the next time the Democrats have the House of Representatives and a Republican is in the White House (maybe never again in my lifetime for the latter), let's see the House shut down the government over going to war.  Or rolling back the Bush tax cuts.  Hell, since this is a dream, a tax increase on the wealthiest 1%.

Makes sense in this world turned upside down, doesn't it?

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is as eager as everyone else for Thursday's announcement as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff is glad to see more people questioning the purpose of Rick Perry's job-stealing trips, which do little more than spend tax dollars promoting Rick Perry.

This week, McBlogger tells the story of a man with no plan, who'll get no pay because he caused a delay. While others worked hard, his head was filled with lard. And then he tried to hide, so now we get to chide.

Somebody is going to have to do some dirty work if Wendy Davis is going to get elected governor, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs nominates the Castro brothers.

Sophia at Texpatriate got a special sneak peak of (Houston mayoral candidate) Ben Hall's newest television ad.

Ted Cruz doesn't think waiters and maids deserve health care. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme doesn't think Ted Cruz deserves to represent Texas.

Neil at All People Have Value made more posts at his new blog. All People Have Value is part of Neil's new website, NeilAquino.com.

Lightseeker at Texas Kaos offers another in his continuing investigation of the education wars. Check out Three Telling Articles on The Education Wars. Give it a look; Rick Perry sure will.

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John Coby mocks Ted Cruz as only he can.

Jason Stanford, on the other hand, sees Ted Cruz as a great gift for Texas Democrats.

Concerned Citizens stands up for San Antonio City city council member Diego Bernal, author of their new non-discrimination ordinance and much more.

Texas Redistricting reports that True The Vote wants to get involved in the voter ID litigation.

The TSTA Blog asks what "education reform" means to Greg Abbott.

Better Texas Blog points out the mental health care benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

The Castros as attack dogs for Wendy Davis

My response to this development Friday morning is going to be somewhat more politically incorrect than my usual.  (Hard to believe, I realize...)

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said Friday that fellow Texan Sen. Ted Cruz's (R) presidential prospects were damaged by his 21-hour floor speech against Obamacare.

“I think what became clear this week is that he can’t be president and the reason is nobody will follow him, even people within his own party won’t follow him,” Castro said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And so I think in terms of his long term prospects it was fairly damaging."

The Texas Democrat noted that Cruz's speech had a polarizing effect. Some of Cruz's Republican colleagues were vocal about their disapproval: Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) on Thursday accused Cruz from the Senate floor of putting on a "show" instead of working to avoid a government shutdown.

"I think that he wanted to make a big splash and he certainly has," Castro said. "He's done something that I think is unusual, which is he's made Washington worse, he's made the polarization worse."

He had tweeted a similar sentiment during Cruz's speech.

Ted Cruz said he would go to Washington and change Washington. He has -- he's made it worse.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) September 24, 2013

This is precisely what both Castro brothers are going to need to do to provide a proper assist to Wendy Davis' gubernatorial prospects.

Harvey Kronberg has already written about the nationalizing of the statewide elections, and that if Greg Abbott is going to run against Barack Obama, Wendy should campaign against Ted.  Since Congressman Joaquin and Mayor Julian were too cautious to take the 2014 plunge themselves, they must now be at the forefront of the attack on the Poop Cruz travelers.  And there should perhaps be a racial component to it (at least as a whisper campaign).  I decried that tactic when Gilberto Hinojosa did it last year, but the only truth in this race is that Democrats who really want to win had better be strong enough to fight fire with fire.  The Barbie crap simply cannot go unanswered.

The Castros have to speak with conviction to the Eddie Lucios among Latino Democrats, and they must directly address the concerns of those whose reticence will be heightened because of the millions of dollars Abbott will pump into Spanish language media.

Without collecting another dime, Abbott's already got enough money to spend two million bucks a month between now and November 2014.  If history serves as a guide, he's going to pour it on in TV ads at the end, as he did in 2006 when he ran against David Van Os, and in 2010 against Barbara Radnofsky.

This skirmish is one of the small but numerous critical components to the success of Davis and other Texas Democrats on the ballot: the Castro brothers and all Latino electeds -- not just prospective LG candidate Leticia Van de Putte, or Sen. Sylvia Garcia, but the titular heads of that caucus -- have to reinforce and grow the Democratic Latino base in the face of these gathering headwinds, and they cannot be shy about going on the offensive when it is needed.

And if the Castros -- or anybody else -- choose to half-ass that effort, i.e. fail to fight back, there ought to be plenty of Democrats who remember that when it's their turn to run.

Let's give Joaquin credit for a good start and expect to see more like this.

Sunday Funnies