The House is girding itself for a highway bill debate, which might explain all those “sexy onramp” costumes we saw this weekend. Republican presidential candidates have a list of debate demands, including that the auditorium be kept at 67 degrees and that the debate foods not be touching. And Jeb Bush’s new 615-page ebook, comprised entirely of emails with constituents, is titled “Reply All.” We would've gone with a dial-up themed title, “weeeee errrrrr weeeeee errrrrr unzzzzzzzzzz BEEUHHBEEEUHHH ZERRRERRRJRRRRRR: A Governor’s Story.” This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, November 2nd, 2015:
SCHUMER WARNS OF MID-DECEMBER SHUTDOWN - Sam Stein and Laura Barron-Lopez: "[O]n Capitol Hill, there was already talk about the possibility of a government shutdown in mid-December. 'There may be a shutdown. The hard right, it depends on their interaction with [House Speaker Paul] Ryan, they may demand a shutdown,' Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told The Huffington Post in an interview on Friday. 'It won’t be over the numbers... It would be over the riders.' In the scenario Schumer envisions, House and/or Senate Republicans could refuse to pass an omnibus spending bill that included funding for Planned Parenthood, or they might insist on repealing parts or all of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation passed in 2010. Democrats would balk at either maneuver. Newly elected House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wouldn't want to overrun the conservatives in his conference in his first major showdown and, presto, the current spending agreement expires and the government shuts down." [HuffPost]
President Obama signed that budget deal today, saying that "by locking in two years of funding, it should finally free us from the cycle of shutdown threats and last-minute fixes. It allows us to, therefore, plan for the future." We'll see!
BUSH TRIES TO REBOOT CAMPAIGN WITH HORRIBLY DATED EBOOK - Reply All, along with having the name of a nonexistent 2002 romcom, also sports graphics that might otherwise be reserved for a corporation's internal guide on "netiquette." One wonders if Bush's campaign conducts internal polling or just large scale a/s/l checks. Jordan Frasier and Leigh Ann Caldwell: "[Bush] went back home to Florida to deliver a speech to a hometown crowd attempting to be inspirational, visionary and principled where he unveiled subtle jabs against former mentee Sen. Marco Rubio and the leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Also Monday he released a long-planned e-book that publishes his emails with constituents...The Monday morning speech...will be followed by a 'Jeb Can Fix It' tour with stops in Florida, South Carolina and three days in New Hampshire." [NBC News]
Eliot is back from book leave. He will assault you with pre-order links for his book as soon as humanly possible.
DEBATE: GOP VOTERS GIVE RUBIO, CRUZ HIGH MARKS; JEB :-( - Is the campaign on high enough alert for someone on Team Jeb suggest a second exclamation point? Ariel Edwards-Levy: 'Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) notched his third strong Republican debate performance last week, largely at the expense of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, while Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) outshone the race's outsider candidates, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds. In the survey -- which includes Republican and Republican-leaning voters who watched at least clips of the presidential debate ("GOP voters," for the sake of brevity) -- a plurality name Rubio the winner. Forty-nine percent of GOP voters say the debate improved their opinion of Rubio, while just 4 percent say it worsened their view of him. Cruz, who made relatively little of an impression in past debates, was the second-most likely to be named as the winner, and also saw the second-highest improvement in voters' eyes." [HuffPost]
Interesting tidbit: Paul Ryan and President Obama had a friendly exchange over the My Brother's Keeper initiative last year.
HIGHWAY BILL RYAN'S FIRST TEST - Unfortunately for the avowed Randian, the invisible hand of the market can't push cars and trucks along America's highways and byways, like a toddler tapping diecast trucks around one of those road mats. Keith Laing: "The problem is the highway bill falls under the jurisdiction of multiple panel, including the House Ways and Means Committee Ryan vacated to assumed the speakership...Lawmakers on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have approved a bill to spend up to $325 billion over the next years on infrastructure projects, but the measure only includes guaranteed funding for the first three years. Lawmakers on the infrastructure committee have said they waiting on Ryan's former Ways and Means panel to come up with a way to pay for the rest of the transportation spending, a process which was held up by the unexpected speaker election. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to take up the measure, titled the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015, on Monday and Tuesday, clearing the way for potential floor vote as early as Wednesday or Thursday. The measure calls for spending $261 billion on highways, $55 billion on transit and approximately $9 billion on safety programs -- but only if Congress can come up with a way to pay for the final three years." [The Hill]
Speaker Paul Ryan announced John Boehner's resignation on the floor today. We wish him all the best in his future corporate adviserships.
DELANEY DOWNER - Bernie Sanders is not very good at helping people feel better and being touchy-feely. Patrick Healy: "After speaking last month at a house party on friendly liberal territory in Iowa City, Mr. Sanders ignored a dozen outstretched hands as he barreled down the driveway to a waiting car, pausing only when he came face to face with a woman who was in tears. She wanted to talk about mental health services for children like her daughter, whose needs, she said, required the family to pay for private school. Mr. Sanders listened for 30 seconds, embraced her with his right arm and walked away.
'He told me to 'hang in there,' nothing else,' the woman, Julie Casella, said afterward. 'He seemed in a rush.'" Joe Biden also once text recommended people "Hang in there." Great advice! [NYT]
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GOP CAMPAIGN MANAGERS ATTEND DEBATE MEETING - Wonder if someone tried to awkwardly make a Don Corleone five families joke. Dave Weigel: "The campaign managers were meeting to try to gain more control over the crucial primary debates, which have become a source of anger and frustration for the GOP presidential candidates...Of the candidates who participated in all three debates, only one -- former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina -- did not send representatives to the Alexandria summit...Even Ben Ginsberg, the unaffiliated super-lawyer invited to moderate the meeting, began by criticizing the RNC. 'In previous years, the debates were much better run,' Ginsberg said, according to attendees...Representatives of Trump and Carson effectively shut down the people who had needed the meeting most, the managers of candidates forced into the little-watched 'undercard' debates...everyone agreed that the debates needed opening and closing statements -- 30 seconds would be fine…Everyone wanted equal speaking time, untethered to moderator prerogatives or candidates' polling positions. And everyone wanted the candidates to choose the moderators, reducing the role of the Republican National Committee to logistics and ticketing." [WaPo]
Free and open exchange of ideas: "Included in their demands: 30-second opening and closing statements, pre-approval of graphics and biographies, no lightning rounds, and a commitment to 'parity in distribution and quality of questions and time.' The 15 presidential campaigns drafted a letter on Monday that asks the media sponsors make these commitments and answer logistical questions that 'will be used by each campaign to determine whether its candidate will participate in your debate.'" [CNN]
PENTAGON SPENDS $43 MILLION ON AFGHAN GAS STATION - It would be much preferable if Ash Carter had instead gone into the station's mini mart and went on history's most epic buying binge of Mountain Dew, pork rinds and disgusting heat lamp chicken tenders. Akbar Ahmed: "The Department of Defense spent almost $43 million to build a compressed natural gas station in Afghanistan that would have cost up to $500,000 anywhere else and which may no longer even be operational, a congressional watchdog said on Monday. 'Even considering security costs associated with construction and operation in Afghanistan, this level of expenditure appears gratuitous and extreme,' wrote John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, in SIGAR's just-released report on the Pentagon-funded station. Sopko cited figures from the International Energy Association and the Pakistani government to say it should have cost between $200,000 and $500,000 to build a compressed natural gas station, even in an underdeveloped and relatively dangerous country." [HuffPost]
LAWRENCE LESSIG, WE HARDLY KNEW YE (TRULY) - He says he wants to spend more time with his family, which he surely can't actually see with those stupid goddamn glasses. Kim Bellware: "Lessig announced the end of his campaign in a video statement Monday. The statement cited his lack of visibility in the race, which was in part due to Lessig's inability to secure a spot in the Democratic primary debates. 'From the start it was clear that getting into the Democratic debates was the essential step in this campaign,' Lessig said." [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's a dog battling a spoon.
WHICH CAMPAIGNS LOVE UBER THE MOST? The real question is, which candidates conspicuously put in headphones when the driver starts trying to talk to them? That said, the campaigns of Bobby Jindal, Martin O'Malley, Rick Perry, Bernie Sanders and Scott Walker exclusively used the ride sharing app for taxi expenses. Libby Isenstein: "Of the 17 candidates with available data, five didn’t even report a single traditional taxi charge -- that is, nothing with 'taxi' or 'cab' in its name or description. And only two candidates -- Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee -- spent more on traditional taxis than they did on Uber or Lyft. Lindsey Graham’s campaign is, in fact, the only one to have used Lyft, a popular competitor of Uber. Lyft rides accounted for 31 percent of Graham’s taxi spending." [National Journal]
Lindsey Graham would definitely chat up the driver.
COMFORT FOOD
- "Hotline Bling" without the music.
- Draw ASCII art.
- Skydiver sets fire to her parachute. What have you done today.
TWITTERAMA
@mtredden: oh man Jeb Bush at this campaign rally
"They used to call me the 'e-governor.'"
[sits backwards on chair and turns his hat around.]
@maragrunbaum: Most days now I leave the house with a bag of lunch for work and an identical bag of cat poop to throw away. It's only a matter of time
@daveweigel: IDEA: Apply the Laffer curve to debates. Cut overall time to 90 minutes, and all 14 candidates will get 15 minutes to talk.
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