TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* By all accounts, the streets of Tripoli are a war zone: "Libya appeared to slip further into chaos on Tuesday, as Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi vowed to 'fight until the last drop of my blood' and clashes intensified between rebels and his loyalists in the capital, Tripoli. Opposition forces claimed to have consolidated their hold over a string of cities across nearly half of Libya's 1,000 mile Mediterranean coast, leaving Colonel Qaddafi in control of just parts of the capital and some of southern and central Libya, including his hometown."

* New Zealand: "Rescue workers spent a cold, rainy night searching through rubble for survivors of a powerful earthquake that struck New Zealand's second-largest city, Christchurch, on Tuesday, killing at least 65 people."

* Markets freaked out a bit today, leading to a Saudi announcement: "Trying to calm turbulent oil markets, Saudi Arabia's oil minister said on Tuesday that the OPEC cartel was ready to pump more oil to compensate for any dropoff caused by unrest in the Middle East."

* He's usually more diplomatic: "To the shock of President Hamid Karzai's aides, Gen. David H. Petraeus suggested Sunday at the presidential palace that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties, according to two participants at the meeting."

* It's not just Wisconsin: "Protestors packed into Ohio's State Capitol building and several thousand more gathered outside on Tuesday, as its legislature planned new hearings on a bill that would effectively end collective bargaining for state workers and dramatically reduce its power for local workers, like police officers and firefighters."

* Don't forget the anti-union push in Florida, too: "The bill would bar government employers from deducting either union dues or voluntary contributions to union political accounts."

* In Madison, a left-leaning website used by union supporters to rally protesters has been inaccessible in Wisconsin's capitol. Hmm.

* On a related note, "Americans for Prosperity" are launching an ad campaign in Wisconsin. Imagine that.

* I wish I knew why Republican governors don't like their constituents, and seem to want their state economies to suffer.

* Rep. David Wu (D) of Oregon is now being treated with medication and counseling after an "intervention" staged by his staffers.

* Terrific graphic from Jamison Foser: "People likely to be hired by CNN."

* George Will sure could use an editor.

* Post of the Day: "The Relationship between Union Membership and State Budget Deficits."

* The National Institute for Civil Discourse will be housed at the University of Arizona, and its honorary co-chairmen will be former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

* And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) is ready to see his home state of Nevada end legal prostitution, which he believes may be an impediment to economic development: "Nevada needs to be known as the first place for innovation and investment -- not as the last place where prostitution is still legal." We'll see how that goes.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

DONALD RUMSFELD WAS THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR 6 YEARS.... Alexis Madrigal went poking through Donald Rumsfeld's online archive yesterday, looking for instances which the former Pentagon chief referenced Libya. He found a doozy.

This memo was sent on April 7, 2003, to then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Rumsfeld's subject line read, "Issues w/Various Countries," and it reads:

We need more coercive diplomacy with respect to Syria and Libya, and we need it fast. If they mess up Iraq, it will delay bringing our troops home.

We also need to solve the Pakistan problem.

And Korea doesn't seem to be going well.

Are you coming up with proposals for me to send around?

Thanks.

This is literally the entire memo. No, it's not a parody.

Donald Rumsfeld was, by the way, the Secretary of Defense for six years, a tenure that included overseeing two wars.

And as far as Dick Cheney is concerned, Rumsfeld was "the best Secretary of Defense the United States has ever had."

ANTI-UNION AGENDA NOT POPULAR WITH AMERICAN PUBLIC.... There have been a few polls making the rounds related to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) union-busting efforts, but I was waiting for an independent poll unaffiliated with any of the relevant players.

This one qualifies.

The public strongly opposes laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions as a way to ease state financial troubles, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

The poll found that 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to one being considered in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.

Now, this was a national poll, so it doesn't tell us how folks in Wisconsin feel about their own governor's crusade, but the results nevertheless suggest Republicans, who've rallied in large numbers behind Walker and his proposal, are not on the same page as most Americans.

The results should also send a signal to policymakers in other states who are planning Walker-like moves -- I'm looking at you, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee -- that the public isn't buying the GOP's anti-union line, at least not yet.

On a related note, the same USA Today/Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans oppose raising taxes to close budget gaps, and a plurality oppose reducing or eliminating government programs.

Yeah, that's helpful.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... As part of the opposition to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) union-busting efforts, thousands of Wisconsin school teachers called in "sick" last week, forcing several local districts to close temporarily. A handful of news outlets reported that some local physicians, sympathetic to the teachers' plight, wrote doctors' notes for educators who weren't actually sick.

I haven't seen independent confirmation of this, and I have no idea how widespread the practice may or may not have been. But as one might imagine, it has Fox News pretty worked up.

In fact, the Republican network is apparently outraged on multiple levels. Not only are they accusing the doctors involved of "fraud," Fox News personalities are incensed that CNN reported on the story this way: "We have been told that doctors are writing notes for some of those teachers so they won't be penalized by staying away from school. So, they are helping out the teachers."

Last night, Bill O'Reilly asked Juan Williams to comment, not just on the physicians' efforts, but on the two sentences CNN viewers heard.

"Well, let me just say, it's important I think Bill just to establish: what's the truth? What's the fact? The fact is that's outright fraud. Doctors are not supposed to make up an excuse for someone who is not sick. That's just fraud. I mean, what's next? You know, writing prescription drugs for people because you want to support their right to party? It's just totally wrong when doctors do that. [...]

"What it makes me think is that CNN may be reacting to Fox coverage or CNN just pandering and saying, 'You know what, we think we are going to just side with the unions here.' I don't know. It's puzzling to me. It hurts me to see a news organization get involved in politics to that level." [emphasis added]

Look, I don't know what happened with those doctors. If they wrote notes for folks who weren't sick, claiming they were, it would appear to be unprofessional, at a minimum.

But to hear a Fox News personality complain on the air about a "news organization getting involved in politics" is just remarkable.

As Juan Williams read the Sammon memos? Does he remember the Tea Party rallies Fox News helped organize and promote, only to have Fox News staffers gin up the right-wing crowds for the cameras?

Fox News exists to "get involved in politics" at "that level." That's the point of the network.

WALKER TURNS UP THE HEAT IN WISCONSIN, THREATENS LAYOFFS.... When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) demands that public workers accept less pay and fewer benefits, he can make a credible case it relates to state financing. But as is obvious by now, Walker is going much further, demanding that most unionized public employees in the state also abandon their collective bargaining rights, which is unrelated to the budget.

The point, of course, is to be punitive -- Walker doesn't like unions, so he's trying to break them.

Today, the far-right governor took the next step, threatening to take away public-sector jobs unless his unnecessary demands are met. (via Barbara Morrill)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warns that state employees could start receiving layoff notices as early as next week if a bill eliminating collective bargaining rights isn't passed soon.

Walker said Tuesday in a statement to The Associated Press that the layoffs wouldn't take effect immediately. He didn't say which workers would be targeted.

There can be no doubt as to the punitive nature of the policy here. Walker doesn't need to start laying off state employees, and the bill to gut collective bargaining rights has nothing to do with these workers' employment status.

This, in other words, is a thuggish threat -- give Walker the union-busting bill he wants, or he'll start making unemployment worse on purpose.

As far as the governor is concerned, the two are related, since the pending state legislation include benefit and wage "reforms," too. But Walker has a choice -- the unions would agree to his demands on compensation and benefits, if only he'd let them keep the collective bargaining rights state employees earned generations ago. That is, incidentally, an agreement that Wisconsin voters broadly endorse, and it could be approved quickly, making layoffs unnecessary and ending the protests.

But not only has Walker deemed this insufficient, he's now prepared to start handing out pink slips next week, just because he can.

INDIANA DEMS FOLLOW WISCONSIN'S LEAD, FLEE STATE.... Republican officials in several states are proposing awful measures for working families, but terrific proposals to boost the hotel industry in Illinois.

House Democrats are leaving the state rather than vote on anti-union legislation, The Indianapolis Star has learned.

A source said Democrats are headed to Illinois, though it was possible some also might go to Kentucky. They need to go to a state with a Democratic governor to avoid being taken into police custody and returned to Indiana.

The House came into session this morning, with only two of the 40 Democrats present. Those two were needed to make a motion, and a seconding motion, for any procedural steps Democrats would want to take to ensure Republicans don't do anything official without quorum.

With only 58 legislators present, there was no quorum present to do business. The House needs 67 of its members to be present.

The Indiana measure isn't identical to the GOP union-busting efforts in Wisconsin, but it's another attempt to limit workers' collective bargaining rights -- the proposal would "bar unions and companies from negotiating a contract that requires non-union members to kick-in fees for representation."

The response from Indiana Republicans is identical to that of Wisconsin Republicans: leaving the state to deny a quorum is inherently wrong. And at face-value, I can see why the GOP's talking points might even seem credible -- lawmakers, the argument goes, are paid to be in the chamber working, not fleeing.

But there are a couple of angles to keep in mind here. The first is that this has been a fairly common tactic for a very long time. The Wall Street Journal noted the other day, "The tactic of quorum avoidance by simply leaving dates back at least to the days when the U.S. Constitution was being debated." Alex Seitz-Wald had an item over the weekend highlighting the time Abraham Lincoln literally jumped out a window 170 years ago to deny a quorum in Illinois.

It's not, in other words, some kind of unprecedented abuse. It may not seem ideal, but it has an obvious place in the American tradition.

The second is that the tactic itself has a Washington-based parallel. Matt Yglesias explained last week that quorum avoidance is "more like a 'classic' filibuster than a modern-style routine supermajority. The Democratic caucus of the State Senate can't hold out forever, nor can they pull this every time Governor Walker proposes a bill they don't like. What they can do is slow things down and try to see if public opinion swings around to their side."

Ezra Klein added, "It's an attempt to dramatize the depth of their opposition, throw some sand in the gears of the process and see whether a couple of days of protests and media coverage can turn the tide on this one."

And as of this afternoon, the idea is spreading.

Update: The chair of Indiana Democratic Party confirmed on the record that the state lawmakers have, in fact, left the state to deny Republicans quorum.

THUNE TO SKIP 2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE.... It was tough to read the tea-leaves on this one. Insiders seemed convinced, as of a couple of weeks ago, that Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) would not run for president. All of a sudden, though, the conservative senator seemed to be working hard to get his name out -- chatting with National Review and the Christian Broadcasting Network, appearing at CPAC, offering a rationale for his candidacy to the Washington Post, etc.

So, is he or isn't he? Just a short while ago, Thune made it official: he's not running.

There is a battle to be waged over what kind of country we are going to leave our children and grandchildren and that battle is happening now in Washington, not two years from now. So at this time, I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America's future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.

Thune clearly has his champions in some GOP insider circles, but I've never been able to understand exactly why he was seen as a credible national candidate. He hasn't tackled any noteworthy policy initiatives, he's failed to distinguished himself as an expert in any area, and his most notable accomplishment appears to be an ability to impress people with his handsomeness.

More notably, it's been far from clear which Republican constituency he would appeal to. Thune, during his brief tenure, has developed a reputation for loving pork-barrel projects for South Dakota (he's twice won the "Porker of the Month" award from Citizens Against Government Waste), and championed the 2008 bailout that the GOP base considers poison.

If Thune had run, it was hard to imagine the circumstances that would have led to his nomination. Of course, as a relatively young man -- Thune turned 50 last month -- it's likely this isn't the last time we'll hear his name as a possible presidential candidate.

In the larger context, there are two other angles to keep an eye on. The first is that it now appears likely that the 2012 race will be the first cycle in nearly four decades in which no sitting senators run for president.

The second is that the 2012 Republican field is still, as of now, effectively non-existent. Rep. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana flirted with a presidential bid before bowing out, and now Thune has done the same. The GOP field is bound to materialize one of these days, but few expected to have zero announced candidates with 348 days to go before the Iowa caucuses.

RSS UPDATE.... In case folks missed this yesterday, several readers have run into trouble lately with the Political Animal RSS feed. Our apologies -- we made some adjustments the other day, but I think everything is now on track.

For those whose feed hasn't updated in a few days, please re-subscribe -- it should only take a moment or two -- and that should fix the problem.

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TUESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Republican leaders in New York chose Assemblywoman Jane Corwin yesterday to run as the GOP nominee in the special election to replace former Rep. Chris Lee (R). The GOP's Tea Party wing immediately criticized the selection, insisting that Corwin isn't right-wing enough.

* Hoping to defuse a controversy, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) announced yesterday he opposes a measure to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest on state-issued license plates.

* Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) is already facing a credible GOP primary challenger, and now his opponents have a new area for criticism: when Lugar returns to his home state, he lives in a hotel.

* Speaking of Indiana, Dems in the Hoosier State received some more discouraging news yesterday when former Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) and Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel (D) said they're skipping next year's gubernatorial race.

* Voters will head to the polls in Chicago today, the first phase is electing a new mayor. If former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel tops 50% of the vote, there will be no second phase.

* Former governor and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine still hasn't said whether he's running for the Senate next year, but at Virginia's Jefferson-Jackson dinner over the weekend, attendees were effectively treated to a pro-Kaine pep rally.

* Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was asked yesterday whether he's considering running for president in 2012. "No," he said, "I'm running for reelection to the United States Senate."

* And Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) said yesterday he'd "probably" accept an invitation to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, if it were offered.

SMALL BUSINESSES SPEAK OUT.... Last week, Jeffrey Leonard, CEO of the Global Environmental Fund, talked to Stephen Colbert about his article in the latest issue of the Washington Monthly. The appearance generated some interesting responses.

If you missed the interview (and the article), Leonard is shining a light on a serious problem small businesses face, but which hasn't generated much in the way of attention: "Many small firms are handicapped by a new twist on an old parasitic business practice that large corporations are using in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis, one that has significantly reduced the cash available to small businesses to invest and hire new employees."

Leonard has several proposed changes, but the most straightforward is also the most effective: require companies with federal contracts pay their suppliers within 30 days of invoice. The shift would not only improve small business cash-flow, but would also help expand hiring.

After the interview, we heard from more than a few small businesses that could directly relate to what Leonard described. We're going to publish some of their responses this week, starting today.

Here, for example, is a note we received from someone who ran a small airline in New England.

One of our biggest customers was New England Telephone. Their people traveled all over our system on a daily basis. They paid on a "direct bill" basis.

Our phone bill was considerable. $800-$900 or more a month. We built up a couple of months' of payables, and they threatened to cut us off. We couldn't pay our bills because they (and others) owed us money.

They owed us $27,000. We owed them something like $2,200. They shut us off.

Of course, this was devastating to our business, and, as the chief, I had to figure something out. I called the president of NET (from my business neighbor's phone). Managed to get through to his secretary. She told me "Oh, you have to understand. We bill on 30 days, but pay on 90 days."

Thank you again for bringing this matter to light.

We also heard from Becker Multimedia.

As a small business owner whose clients are larger corporations, I applaud Jeffrey Leonard for his article and appearance on Colbert Report. He tells the truth.

Larger corporations are throttling small businesses with procurement and supply chain management practices that are profoundly dishonest, manipulative, unfair and ultimately destructive. I have noticed too that some larger banks (e.g. American Express, Capital One) are marketing credit products specifically tailored to alleviate the pressure caused by these practices - at even more cost to small businesses.

And this note from Pennsylvania also rang true:

Saw Jeffrey Leonard on the Colbert Report last night, and love that he's making a big deal of this. I'm a freelance medical writer, working primarily as a subcontractor to medical communications and advertising companies. All of my clients (most of which are small businesses of <100 employees) are really being squeezed by the increasing delay in invoice payment.

The big pharma companies are the villains here. Considering that most are clearing 15-20% profit margins after taxes, it's certainly questionable for them to be unilaterally extending payment terms to 90 and even 120 days. I hope you continue to make this an issue; let me know how it can get placed on the radar screen of Congress and executive branch. The last 10 years have featured a dramatic push to keep big corporations happy, much of it at the expense of smaller companies that are the real job, innovation, and creativity generators in the economy; and it's way past time to level the playing field.

REPUBLICANS AND THE 'BEYOND REDEMPTION' THRESHOLD.... A couple of months ago, former senator and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth (R) expressed some concern about the direction of his party.

"If Dick Lugar," Danforth said, "having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption."

Keep that quote in mind today.

Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock will launch his primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Tuesday with the support of a majority of both the state's 92 Republican county chairmen and its state party executive committee, he told the Fix in a recent interview.

"I feel bad that he's going to be humiliated by this list," Mourdock said. [...]

"The headline isn't going to be, 'Tea party candidate to take on Dick Lugar;' it's going to be, 'GOP grassroots dumps Lugar,'" Mourdock said. "There is tremendous unrest and tremendous dissatisfaction, and that's what got me in this race."

Danforth said it would be awful if Lugar faced a credible primary opponent at all. As of today, Lugar not only has a challenger, but has also been abandoned by much of the GOP establishment in his own state.

Is it safe to conclude, then, that the Republican Party has gone so far overboard that it's beyond redemption?

Postscript: Yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein pondered whether Lugar would be better off simply switching parties now and running as a Democrat, in large part because Lugar's version of the Republican Party "is close to extinct."

I agree that there's no meaningful place in the contemporary GOP for a thoughtful, conservative statesman, but I find it very hard to believe Lugar would even consider a party switch. His voting record is far to the right of the Democratic mainstream, and despite Lugar's sanity/credibility on national security issues, the senator has very little in common with the larger Democratic agenda.

By the standards of the Clinton and Bush eras, Lugar is what one might call a "conservative Republican." The party has gotten hysterically right-wing in recent years, but (a) that's not Lugar's fault; and (b) it doesn't point to any interest in joining the other party.

OMB CHIEF: 'SOCIAL SECURITY ISN'T THE PROBLEM'.... For all the talk about "entitlements" and the need to "reform" the various programs in the context of long-term fiscal challenges, the White House seems acutely aware of the fact that not all entitlements are created equal. Given that much of the political establishment has forgotten this, I'm glad the Obama team gets it.

Jacob Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has a worthwhile piece in USA Today, for example, separating Social Security from the larger budget mess. Indeed, Lew, after noting the importance of understanding "the causes of the pressing fiscal problems," reminds readers that Social Security "does not cause our deficits."

Social Security benefits are entirely self-financing. They are paid for with payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers throughout their careers. These taxes are placed in a trust fund dedicated to paying benefits owed to current and future beneficiaries. [...] Blaming Social Security for our fiscal woes is like blaming you for not saving enough in your checking account because the bank lost all depositors' money. The problem is not Social Security; the problem is the mismatch between outlays and revenues in the rest of the budget. Closing that gap and paying down our debt will take tough choices, and the president's budget makes them. Strengthening Social Security is an important, but parallel, issue that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. But let's not confuse it as either the cause of or a solution to our short-term fiscal problems.

I have no idea if arguments like these are connecting, but I'm glad officials are making them. Last week, at a White House press conference, the AP's Ben Feller noted in his question "the the long-term crushing costs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- the real drivers of long-term debt." President Obama took the time to emphasize the distinctions between them: "The truth is Social Security is not the huge contributor to the deficit that the other two entitlements are... Medicare and Medicaid are huge problems because health care costs are rising even as the population is getting older."

I suspect we're seeing this push because the White House realizes congressional Republicans want to cut Social Security, and the administration is laying the groundwork for the larger argument: Social Security just isn't in the same category as Medicare and Medicaid, so it's a mistake to treat them all as equivalent "entitlements."

Social Security is in pretty good shape. Its long-term finances could be improved even more with some minor tweaks that most folks probably wouldn't even notice, but there's no crisis, the system isn't going bankrupt, and if policymakers decided not to do anything for a while, that'd be fine, too. The more the White House reminds folks about this, the better.

LIBYA ON THE BRINK.... The Libyan government has largely shutdown Internet access in its country, restricted journalists, and made telephone service limited. But reports from inside Libya nevertheless make it clear that the Qaddafi regime is responding viciously to the ongoing uprising and may not survive.

Libya appeared to slip further from the grip of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Tuesday, as clashes intensified in Tripoli and opposition forces in eastern Libya moved to consolidate control of the region.

Witnesses described the streets of Tripoli, the capital, as a war zone. In several neighborhoods of the city, including one called Fashloum, protesters tried to seal off the streets with makeshift barricades of scrap steel and other debris. Forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi so far failed to surmount the barricades and young protesters appeared to be gathering rocks to throw in their defense in anticipation of a renewed attack.

Outside the barricades, militiamen and Bedouin tribesmen defending the strongman and his 40-year rule were stationed at intersections around the city. Many carried Kalashnikov assault rifles and an anti-aircraft gun was deployed in front of the state television headquarters.

Protests intensified after the government massacred hundreds of protestors, and Libyan embassies have begun distancing themselves from their own government. By late yesterday, the members of Libya's mission to the United Nations publicly repudiated Qaddafi, accusing him of war crimes.

For his part, Qaddafi responded to rumors that he'd fled the country by appearing briefly -- about 20 seconds -- on Libyan television overnight, with an umbrella.

This morning, Libya's ambassador to the United States, Ali Suleiman Aujalisaid, who resigned from Qaddafi's government but not from his diplomatic post, told ABC News, "Tripoli is burning. The people are being killed in a brutal way. The people are armless."

HAVE HOUSE REPUBLICANS GIVEN UP ON BORDER SECURITY?.... Fox News' Steve Doocy told viewers yesterday he feels sorry for Arizona, because as he sees it, federal officials aren't "doing their job" when it comes to immigration and border security.

This is a common complaint among Republicans. As the GOP sees it, policymakers can't even begin to discuss comprehensive immigration reform because the federal government isn't doing enough to "protect the border."

I tend to think most of this rhetoric is absurd, but this week, it took a more interesting turn. If the Republican emphasis is on border security, why did Republicans vote to reduce funding for their own priority?

In a letter sent on Monday to House appropriations leaders, Senator Charles Schumer of New York and two other Democrats said the House bill would shrink the Border Patrol by 870 agents and cut $272 million in funds for surveillance systems to monitor the border with Mexico. They said those cuts would cancel gains from a bill adopted last August, with virtually unanimous bipartisan support, that increased border funding by $600 million, adding 1,000 new agents to the Border Patrol.

"This magnitude of reduction is simply dangerous," wrote Mr. Schumer, who is chairman of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on immigration. Also signing were Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Jon Tester of Montana. [...]

Republicans have accused the Obama administration of slowing border enforcement, allowing illegal immigration and drug violence to run out of control. Support for their criticism came in testimony last week before a House Homeland Security subcommittee by Richard M. Stana of the Government Accountability Office. He reported that by the Border Patrol's own standards, its agents had "operational control" over only 873 miles of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico in 2010, or about 44 percent.

On Tuesday, House Republicans said this wasn't good enough. Three days later, those same House Republicans voted to make the security they consider insufficient considerably worse -- a smaller Border Patrol with fewer agents and less surveillance would mean a step backwards from the GOP's own goals.

The next question, then, is why in the world Republicans would demand improved border security and then vote to do the opposite. The answer, I suspect, is that House GOP officials don't really know what they're doing -- they looked at the budget for the fiscal year like a pinata, and just started swinging wildly while blindfolded. It seems quite likely to me that Republicans slashed funding for the Border Patrol without even realizing it.

Indeed, I imagine this happened quite a bit. The same measure included drastic cuts to national security priorities, slashing funds for the National Nuclear Security Administration's counter-proliferation programs, and even eliminating funds to maintain the nation's nuclear stockpile. Why would Republicans who claim to care about national security do this? Perhaps because they didn't understand what they were voting for.

TALKS BEGIN TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN.... In any scenario, the first step in bipartisan talks to avoid a government shutdown is actually initiating the talks themselves. Last week, this prerequisite was ignored -- instead of working with the Senate on a spending bill that would keep the government running, House Republicans approved their measure knowing full well it would be rejected.

This week, however, though Congress is in recess, it appears policymakers have begun preliminary discussions.

With funding for the federal government set to expire in less than two weeks, Senate Democrats and House Republicans are in discussions to avoid a government shutdown, a Senate Democratic leadership source told CNN.

News of the negotiations comes a day after several Republican lawmakers indicated they might accept a short-term spending bill as long as it included at least some spending reductions and not necessarily the deeper cuts the House approved last weekend.

Senate Democratic leaders reacted positively to those comments Monday, said the source, and hope it will lead to an agreement before March 4, when a government shutdown would begin if the House and Senate fail to reach an agreement.

As things currently stand, Senate Democrats want to simply maintain the status quo for a couple of weeks, while continuing to work on a larger measure to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year. House Republicans have said that's not good enough -- they'll agree to a temporary extension to avoid a shutdown, but only if it includes "some" of the drastic cuts they approved over the weekend.

If you're wondering what "some" means, you're appreciating the nature of the dispute.

Publicly, House Speaker John Boehner has said Senate Democrats should accept the entire $60 billion in cuts Republicans pushed through the House early Saturday morning, many of which chip away at the priorities of congressional Democrats and President Obama. However, privately House Republican leaders are acknowledging the need for a stopgap measure to continue funding the government while they negotiate spending levels for the bill a longer-term bill to fund the government through Oct. 1.

"Everyone knows that, no matter what the truth, we would be blamed [for a government shutdown], so it would be a dumb political move," one House Republican leadership aide told CNN.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he does not want to agree to additional spending cuts this budget year but privately Senate Democratic leaders are bending on the issue.

"If they send something over with cuts we could probably accept it," said one Senate Democratic leadership aide.

The debate then comes down to the size and breadth of the short-term cuts (which would leave room for more talks about more cuts).

As this continues, one angle to keep an eye on is the tolerance and pragmatism of the House Republican rank-and-file. Caucus members have already demonstrated a willingness to ignore their own leaders, and it's certainly plausible that House GOP leaders and Senate Democratic leaders could strike a deal, only to see the House defeat it for being insufficiently right-wing.

Indeed, Politico noted this morning that "Boehner and Co." are "hostage to the will of their caucus," and as far as the right-wing rank-and-file are concerned, avoiding a shutdown isn't really a priority.

Part of me wonders if we'll reach a point in this Congress at which Democrats stop negotiating with Boehner and start asking for someone who actually leads House Republicans.