As I posted last night, the House voted to fund Hurricane Sandy relief with only 49 Republicans. The Fiscal Cliff deal passed the House with only 85 Republicans. Both of these votes violated the “Hastert Rule,” which says that the Speaker of the House should only bring a vote to the floor if a majority of his caucus is in favor. That should mean that for a vote to come to the floor, there should be at least 122 Republican votes. But twice in one month, this has not been the case.

This is good news, and it makes me kind of hopeful about the Debt Ceiling crisis. It suggests that the Republican leadership is not going to allow its extremist caucus to destroy the United States and thereby the Republican Party. Hopefully. But there really is cause to be hopeful. It isn’t just this recent abandonment of the “let the crazies block all legislation” rule.

The whole Republican Party seems to be splitting in half over the issue. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have said that the Debt Ceiling must be raised. Admittedly, both of these Senators are of the “not quite so crazy” variety of Republican, but it is always the weakest joists in the ceiling that crack first.

The Hill reports that at the Republican retreat that starts today, they will be focusing on how to deal with the Debt Ceiling going forward. They claim they are considering proposals that would raise the Debt Ceiling anywhere from a couple of months to the end of Obama’s presidency. But we’ve seen this kind of thing before. All that’s going to happen is the leadership trying to convince the crazies that crashing the economy will be bad for the party. Regardless, there is no talk about actually crashing the economy and recently, the Republicans have managed to silence the idiots in their caucus who have been going around saying that maybe crashing the economy just a little bit would totally rock.

In addition to the more restrained Republicans, there is a growing chorus of conservative infrastructure calling for a clean bill. Talking Points Memo goes through the main players: the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity; the National Review; the Wall Street Journal; and even Newt Gingrich.

Even down low, it looks very bad. The people really don’t like the idea of crashing the economy. Greg Sargent provides a good analysis of a Washington Post poll that shows that only 36 percent of Republicans are in favor of a government default. (That’s still pretty high; so Republicans can continue to take pride in being a truly crazy party.)

We will see what the next week brings. I suppose it is fanciful to think that this will not come down to the deadline, but it really does look like the rats are abandoning the ship. And you know what I think: rats are very smart.

When it came to the Fiscal Cliff, 85 House Republicans voted for the deal. (Understandably, given that it was a much better deal than they could have reasonably expected.) Today, the House voted on the remaining Hurricane Sandy relief: $50.5 billion. And only 49 Republicans voted for it. Note that in the Fiscal Cliff vote, most of the Republicans weren’t even willing to save $600 billion by taxing the rich. So you see: priorities! There is something really wrong with these people.

That means 179 assholes voted against it. And one Democrat.

Brad Plumer at Wonk Blog tells us, High-School Graduation Rates Are Rising—But No One Knows Why. He is reporting on a paper by Richard Murnane of Harvard who looked at graduation rates from 1970 to the present. In general, graduation rates declined until 2000 and since then, they’ve be going up—fast. But here’s the thing: no one knows why it went down before. And no one knows why it is going up now. But I have a couple of ideas.

Here is the critical graph:

They can’t explain this graph. But they have some ideas, of course. One is that it is lead. At this point, I’m not going to dismiss any speculation that the removal of lead has made us infinitely healthier, smarter, and less violent. But most of the lead was gone by the 1970s, and I would think we would have seen an effect earlier than 2000. Another idea is students are now being better prepared for tests, so they feel more confident that they can graduate. I don’t know about that: they weren’t testing kids for graduation back in 1980. Or maybe it is just that the moon is in the seventh house or some such.

I would love to dive into the raw data, because I have a few ideas of my own. Starting in 1980, there really is no trend: kids are graduating at the same rate that they always were. But then, in the mid-1990s, graduation levels drop. I remember that time: jobs were for the asking. So it is not surprising that a lot of marginal students would decide they were better off just getting a job. Then the economy goes into recession and thanks to the stewardship of George W. Bush, we pretty much stay that way until the economy implodes. Jobs are harder to find so why not stay in school. (This second part comes from the original paper.)

The data conform very well to this narrative. But the question remains: what happened in the period 1975 to 1980? This is a weird period with low unemployment then high then low then high. Given this volatility, it is hard to imagine students being able to make a rational employment/school decision based upon the economy. I tend to think that something else must have been going on. It was, after all, a fairly gloomy period. Just the same, “morning in America” didn’t cause a further decrease in graduation rates. But that may be because those inclined to despair were already despairing.

Regardless, it is kind of nice to see this improvement. Still, it is hard for me to believe that even now almost 20% of boys drop out of high school.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is cutting back production of the new iPhone due to lower than expected sales. Apple stock prices plummeted. And then all the Apple people went crazy. Impossible! Stock manipulation!

As Matt Yglesias notes: maybe! Who knows? And frankly, who cares? I’ve been very critical of Apple over the years. But this is not due to their products; it is due to their business practices. They are exhibit A in the case against software patents and look-and-feel lawsuits.

But there is another side of this. Apple products are good, but they aren’t really any better than any of their competitors. Certainly it is the case that Microsoft kept the PC in the dark ages for a good decade. But I’ve long been a huge critic of Bill Gates. The fact that PCs really sucked 20 years ago is no reason to claim that Apple has a better smart phone than Samsung. So yeah, I am a little more inclined to joined the chorus against Apple. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own Mac at home (I use it in the kitchen and it is a wonderful machine, even though it is a few years old.)

I should put my cards on the table, though. I just bought my first e-book reader: a bottom of the barrel Kindle. And I am learning to love it. For one thing, I always have my Shakespeare and various Don Quixote translations with me. And still only five ounces! Plus, it is a hell of lot more convenient to book mark than to use Book Darts, even though I do still love them. Bottom line: I’m a Luddite. And I’m happy that way.

But I’m not surprised that people are tending to go more Android than Apple. And if I were to start writing code again, I would do it for the Android. And if I had Apple stock, I would already have sold it. Regardless of what happened today.

In 2014: my first smart phone! Maybe.

You see, this is where America is really lagging:

Betsy McCaughey is one of the most evil people in America. She is a big part of why healthcare reform died under the Clinton administration. She is also a big part of why we didn’t get a public option in Obamacare. Can you say, “Death panels”? Yeah, that was her.

I remember seeing her on The Daily Show with the whole ACA in a binder. The entire interview was just double talk. Jon Stewart kept asking her where these “death panels” were and she would take him to one page. He would respond, “I don’t see any death panel there.” So she would say, “You have to go over to this other page.” And the cycle would continue.

Here she is trying to kill the public option on The Dylan Ratigan Show. She is destroyed:

What I find most interesting about Betsy McCaughey is her political associations. She was a Republican until 1997 (up through the time when she destroyed the Clinton healthcare plan). And then, after Dole lost big in 1996, she became a Democrat. She stayed a Democrat until—Can you see it coming?—2010! With the rise of the Tea Party, she became a Republican again! Is there any chance she’ll become a Democrat again? After all, Romney lost pretty bad. I do hope not; there is enough to be ashamed of in the Democratic Party.

Oh: who was she working with while destroying the Clinton healthcare bill? Philip Morris. Of course!

Afterword

I don’t care about tweeting his weenie, I miss Anthony Weiner.

H/T: Mark Ames

Colin Powell is getting all kinds of plaudits in the liberal world today. He was on NBC, being interviewed by David Gregory. And he is oh, so disappointed in his party.

If I had one thing to say to the general, it would be this: fuck you!

I’m sorry, but I am sick to death of this man and the many more like him. There are all kinds of people who claim to be Republicans but complain that the party is somehow not living up to its history. And generally, these people have been good soldiers for a movement that lost all credibility about 35 years ago. In his case, we might well never have gone into Iraq had Colin Powell been the honorable man that he pretends to be.

And this Sunday he was yet again claiming that his party is—Contain your shock!—misbehaving:

He’s completely right, of course. But what is the Republican Party if not a racist group? What party did he think he was a member of? Did he not notice the Willie Horton add that got Bush Sr elected? No. I don’t accept this. Sure, the Republican Party is crazier than ever. But they haven’t reached some new quantum level. John Sununu has been a major player in the Republican Party for a long time. This is nothing new. And I simply do not accept that Colin Powell is only noticing this now. But I will allow that he is finally embarrassed by it.

Look: I get it. I’m a Democrat and I am very unhappy with my party. But I know that my problems with the Democratic Party are mostly on the edges. My party isn’t just a major bait and switch con. But the Republican Party is. They get people to vote for them because they hate and fear gays and blacks and Muslims and just about anyone else you can name. And then they govern as an oligarchy. In 2004, the Republican supporters were surprised that they voted to “get the fags” but got a government intent to “get your Social Security.” I don’t understand how these people can continue to vote for the Republican Party, but that’s another issue.

Does Colin Powell really believe that we accept that he’s as naive as the ignorant idiots who keep the Republican Party in power? He is part of that power structure. He was Secretary of State because of the continuing use of the Southern Strategy by the Republican Party. He is one of them and he is wrong to think that I will be fooled into thinking that he is anything other than part of the problem.

So really, Colin? You just noticed you’re a member of a racist group? Really, Colin Powell?