Zach Carter — [Jeb Bush] Slams Ted Cruz: 'Show A Little Self-Restraint'

[ABC's John] Karl asked Bush if he had a message for Cruz.

"Have a little bit of self-restraint," Bush replied. "It might actually be a politically better approach to see the massive dysfunction, but we don't even hear about that because we've stepped on that message ... show a little self-restraint and let this happen a little more organically."

Bush said the shutdown had damaged America's reputation abroad.

"When we have these political conversations that are not grounded in reality, the rest of the world looks at us as untrustworthy," Bush said.

The Huffington Post
Top Republican [Jeb Bush] Slams Ted Cruz: 'Show A Little Self-Restraint'
Zach Carter | Senior Political Economy Reporter

Gentle smackdown, but a smackdown nevertheless.

No less a GOP political figure than Richard Viguerie has called this a GOP "civil war."

New Right strategy – Take power by controlling the narrative

The only political party linked to organized ‘voter fraud’ in 2012 was the one loudly denouncing it....

As [Richard] Viguerie has explained, over the decades, and as part of its long term strategy to take power, the New Right has built a net- work of alternative media outlets, think tanks, political operatives and elected officials, the likes of which progressives cannot begin to match. And it’s why they control the national conversation.

In These Times
The New Right’s Rabid Watchdog
Joel Bleifuss | former director of the Peace Studies Program at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is the editor & publisher of In These Times

These are also some of the neoliberal forces aligned against increasing policy space and therefore MMT. And they control the narrative at present. It's not all on the right either. Pete Peterson is a New Democrat, and he has been just as active for decades, too. Now it is paying off.

Meanwhile, the left is asleep at the switch as the New Deal crumbles under the assault, lead especially by the assault on organized labor. The economic dynamic is between ownership, with management the minions of ownership, and labor. Distribution of productivity gains over the past several decades reveals graphically who is winning. This chart illustrating the productivity-compensation gap says it all.