Some Stuff About ObamaCare and the Shut Down

I don't know why President Genius has such a hard time explaining 404Care. It's all so simple.

Ezra Klein recounts all the previous shutdown gambits. It's actually useful reading, apart from his belief that he's cute and/or funny. Shutdowns are not especially uncommon, certainly not "unprecedented," and are always resolved via compromise.

What's unprecedented about this shutdown is that Reid and his Second Banana Obama refuse to compromise. Which is, again, how these things have always ended in the past.

Matt Yglesias is paid to say stupid things:

If you're an adult man and the public tone you're going for is "Bratty," you need to sit down and reevaluate your Life Choices.

Bratty is only cute in children. And hot chicks who are DTF. And no one else.

This Bratty tone favored by the "Young Guns" of the online left was always repellent, but it's especially such as the "Young Guns" deteriorate further into Middle Age.

Patterico suggests that we don't call it a shutdown, as it isn't one. Eh, call it a Partial Furlough.

Democrats consider releasing Boehner's emails, in a sort of blackmail attempt.

Senate Democrats are considering leaking a series of emails between the chiefs of staff of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker John A. Boehner regarding employer contributions to congressional staff health care plans, multiple top-level sources said late Monday…

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., described the emails to lobbyists at a dinner on Capitol Hill on Monday night, telling those present that they would be leaked within a day, according to someone who attended the event. When asked if he talked about leaking the emails at dinner, Durbin did not deny the conversation: “I have heard about [the emails] but I have not seen any. … All I’ll say is that I’ve heard there are emails but I have not seen them.”

Gerrymandering and other factors suggest that the GOP won't pay a price for the shutdown like they did in 95-96.

This suggests that even if a public backlash develops against a shutdown or potential government default, Republican members may be far more insulated against those gales than their counterparts were during the two shutdowns in the winter of 1995 and 1996. Today's GOP legislators, for the same reason, also may be less sensitive to shifts in public attitudes that could threaten their party's national image or standing in more closely contested parts of the country.

Comparing today's 232-seat Republican majority with the 236 seats Republicans ultimately held after special elections and party switches from 1995-96 underscores the extent to which GOP legislators have succeeded in fortifying themselves into homogeneously conservative districts. On every measure, Republicans today represent constituencies that lean more lopsidedly toward their party.

And Gallup suggests that the GOP really didn't even pay much of a political price in 95-96 in the first place.

Update: Just in June, The Atlantic reported how Awesome the 404Care software was going to be.

"It's fast, built in static HTML, completely scalable and secure," said Bryan Sivak, chief technology officer of HHS, in an interview. "It's basically setting up a web server. That's the beauty of it."

Nailed it, dude.

posted by Ace at 01:49 PM

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