The Republican Clown Show Proceeds Apace

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Politico has the latest on the clown show that is the modern Republican Party:

House Republicans on Wednesday morning were calling for the firing of the Republican Study Committee top staffer after he was caught sending e-mails to conservative groups urging them to pressure GOP lawmakers to vote against a debt proposal from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Infuriated by the e-mails from Paul Teller, the executive director of the RSC, members started chanting “Fire him, fire him!” while Teller stood silently at a closed-door meetings of House Republicans.

“It was an unbelievable moment,” said one GOP insider. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”….A steady stream of Republicans stood up at the meeting to heap abuse on Teller and the RSC. House Republicans were particularly peeved that that the RSC was targeting some of its own dues-paying members.

I don’t really see the case for downgrading U.S. treasury debt, but is it possible for S&P to downgrade the Republican Party? Maybe from Deranged+ to Infantile–? That seems like it would be pretty justifiable.

BY THE WAY: Someone has just got to have video of this, don’t they? They just have to. This is late-night gold.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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