Quote:

---

“There’s a lot of support for a team effort. It’s not like it’s a sharp division of people opposing each other. People may not agree with the components,” says Representative Steve King, an Iowa Tea Partyer who said he wasn’t sure if he would back the plan. “They’re not unified on a direction, but they’re unified on the idea of getting unified.”

---

Quote:

---

Conservative radio host Mark Levin and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson butted heads Wednesday evening during an intense battle over the Ted Cruz-led effort to defund Obamacare.

Initially, Johnson confronted Levin over the radio host’s recent streak of critical comments about conservative thought leaders — namely Charles Krauthammer. “I’m not questioning whether your conservative enough because you don’t agree with a different strategy,” Johnson said.

The radio host fired back that Johnson and his cohorts have no strategy to defund Obamacare, as promised in his 2010 re-election campaign. “Did you not campaign, sir? Did you not say that Obamacare is the greatest assault of our lifetime?” Levin questioned. “And what have you done?”

Johnson, on the other hand, insisted it was “not helpful” for Levin and others to go around labeling politicians and writers “not conservative enough” because they don’t follow the same strategy as Cruz’s. “I wasn’t expecting to come on here with an inquisition,” he lamented at one point.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/you-guys-surrendered-mark-levin-and-gop-sen
ator-shout-at-each-other-over-defunding-obamacare/]

---

Quote:

---

Limbaugh Hits Boehner for ‘Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory’

Rush Limbaugh is trying his best to fight “pessimism” today after watching House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announce a short-term debt deal that would help the U.S. avoid default at least until late November. “I fear we are getting ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” Limbaugh told his listeners.

Limbaugh explained that the House Republican leaders are pushing a six-week increase in the debt limit “without any conservative strings attached” in order to “supposedly calm the jittery financial markets.” He accused Democrats of “throwing every scare tactic card out there” and hit Republicans for “acting as predictable.”

The anger got ratcheted up a notch when Limbaugh started going after Fox and the rest of the conservative commentariate” for “claiming that the Mike Lee and Ted Cruz defund strategy was delusional.” Mocking the point of view heard on Fox from pundits like Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer, Limbaugh said, “It was pointless and it was dangerous, risky, and unnecessary. It was rank amateurish. It was not mature.” http://www.mediaite.com/online/limbaugh-hits-boehner-for-snatching-def
eat-from-the-jaws-of-victory/]

---

Quote:

---

Glenn Beck has been growing more and more frustrated with the “establishment GOP hacks,” and on Thursday he unloaded on them for trying to destroy the tea party by sharing a personal anecdote about a literal coup that happened at the conservative group FreedomWorks that he helped bring to an end.

Beck did not refer by name to the person who ran the coup (who later called him hoping for support), but based on the context and the scant details that had already been reported, he was clearly referring to how Dick Armey attempted an actual coup at FreedomWorks in order to clear out the more libertarian-minded people like the group’s president Matt Kibbe.

This happened over a year ago, but Beck brought it up now because he believes the GOP is doing the same thing to the tea party.

Beck charged that any Republican member of Congress who allies with tea party groups like FreedomWorks “is being targeted by the same class of establishment Republican progressives” like Karl Rove who lost big-time in 2012 with their hand-picked candidates.

He warned that so long as establishment-types continue to run the show, “conservatives and America will keep losing,” and predicted that in the future, people like Ted Cruz will “be the most beloved members of the new Republican party or whatever it’s called, because the old one is going to go the way of the dinosaur.” http://www.mediaite.com/online/glenn-beck-rips-establishment-gop-hacks
-tea-party-a-threat-to-their-power-and-existence/

---

Quote:

---

Fractured GOP Scrambles To Save Face Amid Brutal Shutdown Polls

Awe-struck by brutal new poll numbers and divided amongst themselves, Republicans are scrambling to bring the government shutdown and looming default crises to an end, but can't quite figure out a way to walk back their lofty demands.

House and Senate Republicans are at odds over Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) proposed six-week debt limit hike. The House GOP, dominated by conservatives, supports the extension and wants to sustain the shutdown to keep fighting Obamacare. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are feeling the pinch from the unpopular shutdown and want to re-open the government as part of any proposal to avert a default on the country's debt.

"There are Republican senators who are interested in seeing a [government funding] provision incorporated in any debt limit proposal," said one Senate Republican aide. "Whether that means they won't support a proposal that only addresses the debt limit remains to be seen."

A Thursday meeting with House Republicans at the White House failed to yield an agreement as the president resisted their plan to extend the debt ceiling until Nov. 22 with the promise of budget negotiations before then.

"Staff talks last night, no decisions made, will pick back up today," emailed a House Republican leadership aide.

Republicans were taken aback by an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll Thursday evening that showed their favorable ratings plummeting to an all-time low. More distressingly, the poll found a "boomerang effect" where the GOP's shutdown goal of targeting Obamacare had backfired as the law's approval rose despite a woeful rollout last week.

"Cooler heads have prevailed, and Republicans have admitted a clean bill to avoid default should be the standard," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Friday. "However, Democrats believe a six-week delay of a catastrophic default is not enough to give the economy the confidence it needs to continue growing and recovering. ... The federal government is still closed for business, causing hardship and heartbreak for millions of American families."

GOP leaders have but abandoned their Obamacare demands and now simply want Obama to negotiate -- over something, although it's not clear what. But the government still has to be re-opened and the debt limit still has to be extended. What the end result will be remains unclear. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/fractured-gop-scrambles-to-save-face-a
mid-brutal-shutdown-polls]

---