The Shutdown is over!

[Crossless2.0]

They won't. As I predicted earlier this year, watch for the GOP to double down on batshit crazy during the next couple of election cycles.

And if there's any justice in the world, they'll be batshitting themselves into irrelevance quickly.

One can hope, but I'm not counting on it. Thanks to Gerrymandering, most of these nut jobs will run virtually unopposed in districts with overwhelming Tea Party support.

I'm afraid batshit crazy will be the new normal for some time to come.

[Doubting Thomas]

The good thing is that if the GOP remains filled with teabaggers, then they'll continue to marginalize themselves. While the country moves to the center, they keep moving further right.

[Doubting Thomas]

Looks like the teabaggers are claiming victory. Of course they're not going to admit defeat.

In most tellings of the government shutdown and the debt default flirtation of 2013, President Obama and the Democrats got nearly everything they asked for and the Republican Party got next to nothing. Or worse than nothing: ObamaCare, despite the botched rollout of its Healthcare.gov online insurance mall, is more entrenched than ever and less unpopular, and the GOP's favorability ratings have hit historic lows in several polls.

That's not how Tea Party Republicans are telling it.

After the Wednesday morning House GOP meeting where House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) declared that his caucus had "fought the good fight" but lost, says Jonathan Strong at National Review, "most of the top conservatives who pushed the House GOP into an ObamaCare fight weren't very introspective, offering positive words about the fight and hope for victories to come."

It was "a remarkable victory to see the House engage in a profile of courage," insisted Tea Party champion Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who fielded questions from reporters even as the Senate bill was announced.