She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.

Republicans have said repeatedly that the landmark health care reform law, upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court last week, must be repealed and replaced. But the GOP leader in the U.S. Senate gave a surprising answer on “Fox News Sunday” when asked how Republicans would provide health care coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans.

“That is not the issue,” Sen. Mitch McConnell said. “The question is how to go step by step to improve the American health care system. It is already the finest health care system in the world.”

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace interrupted, “You don’t think 30 million uninsured is an issue?”

“We’re not going to turn the American health care system into a western European system,” McConnell said. “That’s exactly what is at the heart of Obamacare. They want to … have the federal government take over all American health care. The federal government can’t handle Medicare or Medicaid.”

Wallace pressed McConnell, noting that the Affordable Care Act will prohibit insurance companies from not offering plans to individuals with pre-existing health conditions. “If you repeal Obamacare, how will you protect those people with pre-existing conditions?”

“Over the half of the states have high-risk pools that deal with that issue,” McConnell said, assuring Wallace that the state programs could cover the tens of millions of uninsured Americans who have pre-existing health conditions.

Thirty-five states now have high-risk pools, covering about 208,000 people. Those policies are open to individuals with pre-existing health issues but often come with high premiums, waiting periods and coverage exclusions for certain conditions.

That’s meeting Obama halfway: they will ‘listen politely’ to something they have already rejected.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Sunday morning that he was “very close” to recommending to his members that they sign on to a debt deal with President Obama and the Democrats.

Speaking on the CNN program “State of the Union,” Mr. McConnell said the deal included as much as $3 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, with much of that decided later this year by a joint congressional committee.

“What conservatives want to do is cut spending,” he said. “We’ve come a long way. This agreement is likely to encompass up to $3 trillion is spending cuts.”

In addition, Mr. McConnell said the agreement would allow votes in Congress on a balanced budget amendment.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a top Democrat in the Senate, cautioned on the same program that “there is no final agreement. No one has signed off on a final agreement.”

But he indicated the he and others were expressing optimism because of the ongoing discussions between the congressional leaders.

“If there is a word that would sum up the mood it would be relief,” he said. “Relief that we won’t default.”

The country defaulting would hurt the ‘Republican brand?’ …You know, in a weird way, I find McConnell’s honest dishonesty bizzarely refreshing — he’s just laying out the cynical, strategic subtext that we’re actually not supposed to be hearing about. He’s like that guy on Fox that ruined magic for everyone in the country about five years ago. ‘So here’s what it is, kids — I drug five rabbits and I stuff him in my pants. No — don’t cry, Timmy. You need to hear this.’

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, warned Wednesday that allowing a federal default could have disastrous political consequences for his party and “destroy” the Republican brand. With increasing numbers of House Republicans digging in against an increase in the debt limit and dismissing the potential economic consequences from a default, Mr. McConnell used a radio interview to defend his proposal to allow a three-stage increase and predicted that Republicans would be punished if they did not allow the debt ceiling to be raised.

Recounting how the 1995 government shutdown helped President Bill Clinton win re-election the next year, Mr. McConnell said any impasse that hurt the nation’s credit and led to government checks being delayed could have the same result for President Obama.

“He will say Republicans are making the economy worse,” Mr. McConnell, who is recognized as one of his party’s top political strategists, said in an interview with the radio host Laura Ingraham.

“It is an argument that he could have a good chance of winning and all of the sudden we have co-ownership of the economy. That is a very bad position going into the election.”

Nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling; I haven’t heard that discussed by anybody.

Incidentally, there (are) no polling data to indicate people like us.