Stories to Watch: 10/14/13

Here's an unpleasant factoid: Republicans have dragged out this little tantrum of theirs for so long that a minor bit of foot-dragging by a deadender like Senator Ted Cruz could force a default and a global economic meltdown. Thankfully, I think Cruz is a phony playing the Tea Party for suckers. His quixotic crusade is about his ambition -- and the guy who everyone knows threw the world economy into a depression has no future.


Of course, polling shows Americans have a lousy understanding of the debt limit (Republicans worst of all, thanks to default denialists like Cruz). But if we actually defaulted, everyone would get a crash course. As silver linings go, that one really sucks though, doesn't it?


A Senate deal appears to be moving toward toward some sort of solution, but what's going on in the House? To quote any random bad war movie, "It's quiet. Maybe a little too quiet..."


Veterans are a lot less pleased at being used as political pawns than the Tea Party had anticipated.


Paul Ryan has a 2014 challenger and he's going to have to step lightly in dealing with him -- Emmy-winning director Amar Kaleka's father Satwant Singh Kaleka was killed in the Sikh Temple massacre of 2012.


Austerity kills.


Was the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat poisoned?


Finally, Anthony Hopkins watched the entire run of Breaking Bad in just two weeks and was moved to write a fan letter to Bryan Cranston praising "the best acting I have seen -- ever."


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]