++As the ACA ramps up and people start enrolling,the GOP venom has just gotten more potent. As the Iran Deal continues on,the GOP screams "appeasement" but will not offer any alternative. With 7 days left in Congress this year, Tan Man Boehner actually says that the GOP will offer an alternative to Obamacare. Yeah, right.
++Rachel Maddow has an instructive segment last night where she compared Harry Truman's "Do Nothing" Congress with today's Congress. Then they passed 395 laws--Now this Congress is at 55.
++Jay Carney said that there had been 375,000 visitors to the Healthcare website by noon yesterday. By the Lawrence O'Donnell show it was 750,000. But by midnight it was up to 1 million.
++Dana Milbank basically said the GOP should throw in the towel since the website is working and Obamacare is here to stay.
++Bob Cesca in the Daily Blather called out Ron Fournier, the AP Washington Bureau Chief for saying that Obamacare was Obama's Iraq and Katrina both.
++The New York Times this morning printed an article that said the cost of ACA was well below expectations. In short, the ACA will save $220 billion.
++Talking Points Memo says that an additional 1.5 million Americans have signed up for Medicaid since October.
++This has not stopped the GOP. Darryl Issa is trying to say that Obama lied all along about the website and keeping your plan if you wanted. He has demanded from the insurance companies all their correspondence with the White House to prove this point.
++John Cornyn of Texas says that "Obama has taken lying to a whole new level." He was referring to Obamacare and not to W's statements on WMDs in Iraq or how waterboarding was not torture.
++You would think the GOP would step back from the brink. But no, the Mississippi Governor ordered the state website for health insurance shut down, which has led to only one provider agreeing to cover people in the state. The California GOP has started a fake healthcare website to discourage California citizens from registering on CoveredCa. Anti-ACA groups, primarily conservative Republicans have spent $9.4 million against the ACA in the deep South. The Post printed the article with an interactive map to chart where the money has been spent.
++The House GOP claims that de-funding Obamacare will not be the cause for any government shutdown. Instead,they are demanding that the Pentagon sequester cuts be rescinded for cuts in Social Security.
++Andrew Sullivan yesterday in the Dish captured the mood of the GOP and conservatives when he blasted Erick Erickson of Red State for his blog post, which said that millions would lose their insurance and that conservatives should do nothing to help fix the law but let the public see government fail and then repal it. Sullivan rightfully noted the nihilistic extremism in this statement. Further along he quoted Norm Ornstein, the usually moderate Republican at AEI, saying the conservatives are eating themselves. As evidence of this was a TPM piece yesterday about the rise of Obamacare McCarthyism, which attacks Republicans who might like elements of the healthcare law or who want to improve it.
++Jonathan Capehart last night penned," The GOP might as well be Dead". Capehart notes that after the 2012 elections, the RNC conducted an autopsy on the Party and autopsy is conducted on someone who is dead. Capehart notes that the GOP is dead to African-Americans. He notes the weird tweet on the RNC hailing Rosa Parks in her struggle that ended racism, a remark that set up howls of laughter and outrage. He notes the campaigns for voter suppression and the daily campaign of insults to the first African-American President. He highlighted the fact that during the government shutdown high-ranking Republican elected leaders and officials picketed the White House with Confederate flags waving. Capehart says the GOP is dead to Latinos also. While the Senate passed immigration reform,House Republicans have pronounced immigration reform dead. He notes that the GOP point to Chris Christie winning re-election with 51% of the Hispanic vote. But he also notes that at the time Christie backed the Dream Act. Now that he is running for President he has changed his position.
++House Republicans now claim they will get around to immigration reform late next year. So,what exactly does the GOP believe? They are willfully sabotaging the ACA. Andrew Sullivan now calls the GOP a "cult" driven by an anti-government agenda. A National Journal poll out today says the last two priorities the American people have today are the deficit and Obamacare. The debate is over.
Showing posts with label John Cornyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Cornyn. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Snow Blind
Washington is crippled by snow today. Ok, anytime it snows in Washington we're crippled.
It is the UN Holocaust Remembrance Day. The German government finally acknowledged the extermination of the Roma or Gypsies today. American Rabbis of all parts of Judaism took today to blast Fox News through an ad in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal for Glenn Beck and Roger Ailes constant reference to people as Nazis and their attacks on individuals misusing the Nazi analogy. Previously, Roger Ailes had joked that only liberal or left-wing rabbis were concerned with this. Today, he got the reaction of the entire spectrum. Whether anything will come of it, I'm doubtful. But it might be worth it to take the time to contemplate the real Holocaust.
For this I recommend Saul Friedlander's two volume history--"Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-39" and "Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945: the Years of Extermination." Even today in 2011, we are still finding out more details about the Holocaust and the worlds' reaction to it.
But apparently, the person who threatened California State Senator Leeland Lee, who had criticized Rush Limbaugh's mocking of Chinese, hasn't learned much about the Holocaust or hate language. He mailed to Mr. Lee a flyer that called the Senator a "Jobama Rectum-Sniffing Moron", "Fish Head Leland Lee", and said that "Rush Limbaugh will kick your chink ass". The flyer had a pickup truck with the American flag on the door pulling a noose. "Achtung". "Death to all Marxists--Foreign and Domestic". State police, who are still investigating threats against Jerry brown, now get a chance to look into this.
The police did arrest the man who threatened Washington Governor Gregoire by the internet. The man said the governor should be burned at the stake.
For bipartisan balance, Dallas police detonated a suspicious package mailed to John Cornyn's office.
Think of all the threats to politicians in the last two years. Do any of them pop right out as flagrantly obvious targets?
Having changed the political narrative in his direction,President Obama was out in Wisconsin yesterday hyping American innovation at a clean energy plant. The irony is that the new Republican governor has already shut down the high-speed rail plant, which now has moved to Illinois, and passed a law that will keep wind energy installations far away from any residences--like luxury vacation homes on the Lake.
Sarah Palin finally broke her tweeter silence by attacking President Obama's state of the Union address by saying that the Soviet Union collapsed because it invested so much in its space program. Do you put a laugh track over these remarks, ignore them or treat them as surrealism?
Mark Kirk says that Congress is in "shock" over the $1.5 trillion budget this year. He says he never knew that tax cuts actually led to an increase in the deficit.
John Boehner actually said something correct,"We're broke."
The CBO has released a study that shows that unemployment will remain around 9% for the next two years and that it will not return to "normal" until 2016. Which brings me to my old point that unless we structurally change our economy we will face about 8% unemployment for the foreseeable future.
Peter Orzag fears that we will do nothing about the national debt unless there is a fiscal crisis. John McCain's 2008 financial adviser said that our annual deficit is not worrisome it's that even if unemployment was 4.5% we would be facing a tremendous national debt. The four causes of the debt,in his opinion, are military spending, the entitlement programs and the interest on that debt, which will balloon once there is a recovery and interest rates rise.
While Republicans, including John Boehner, are backing off their attacks on Social Security, there is an insidious movement by people like Newt Gingrich to promote the idea that states should be able to go bankrupt. The idea behind this is to wipe out state obligations on pensions. So the government employed baby-boomers would be left with social security only.
One of the wackiest ideas circulating in the House is a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. In my lifetime, that has only been done three times-once by Eisenhower, once by LBJ and once by Clinton. Before that I think Calvin Coolidge did it. James Galbraith wrote a piece recently on why it physically can not be done given our interrelationship with the global economy. You might also want to consider that the states who want to declare bankruptcy also have balanced budget requirements.
The House cut the budget again today by eliminating public financing of campaigns, something that has been around since Richard Nixon. This is probably related to the House Ethics Committee dropping their investigations of about 12 members who suspiciously raised money from the finance industry before the last election.
Hell did freeze over in Washington yesterday. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO came out with a joint statement in defense of infrastructure spending. Now the Chamber, which owns the House Republicans, will have to see whether their Congress really was the best they could buy.
Government Watchdog groups are raising the issue of whether criminal charges should be brought against Chuckles Thomas. They claim that the Supreme Court Justice by not filing information about his wife's income for the last 20 years is in criminal violation of the law. The bad news for Clarence is that they cite case after case of federal officials being fined and given prison terms for the same offense. Is a Supreme Court justice above the law?
I'm relieved to hear that Sharron Angle has not ruled out a run for the presidency in 2012. We're already going to be treated to Randall Terry of Operation Rescue running as a Democrat against President Obama. Terry promises to run ads of dead babies to show Obama is a baby-killer. This should be as appealing as the anti-Muslim DVD and brown-colored flier on Bill Ayers that was sent around against President Obama here in Virginia in 2008.
If you liked the Big F...ing Deal t-shirt from OFA. You can now get "We Do Big Things" t-shirt.
I happen to believe David Axelrod's comments at a meeting with bloggers yesterday that the White House has held "no grand repositioning" meetings about tacking to the right. Actually Rachel Maddow captured this accurately when she said that Obama had defined a political middle which is based on principles. Now for some reason--unrelated--Don Imus claimed Rachel was "a gutless coward". Por que?
The army sent Lt. Choi a bill for $2,500 for his discharge on DADT. President Obama said that the military will not longer enforce DADT and Secretary of Defense Gates says DADT ends this year. lt. Choi says he is not paying the bill.
Ohio Governor John Kasich who campaigned on transparency and accountability declared that his JobsOhio program would not have to obey these principles.
The author of "O", the anonymous novel about Obama's 2012 president run that imitates without the sex the novbel about Bill Clinton, apparently was written by long-time McCain aide , Mark Salter. This we are told by good novelist turned political hack Mark Halperin. I suggest that the two Marks change vocations.
It is the UN Holocaust Remembrance Day. The German government finally acknowledged the extermination of the Roma or Gypsies today. American Rabbis of all parts of Judaism took today to blast Fox News through an ad in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal for Glenn Beck and Roger Ailes constant reference to people as Nazis and their attacks on individuals misusing the Nazi analogy. Previously, Roger Ailes had joked that only liberal or left-wing rabbis were concerned with this. Today, he got the reaction of the entire spectrum. Whether anything will come of it, I'm doubtful. But it might be worth it to take the time to contemplate the real Holocaust.
For this I recommend Saul Friedlander's two volume history--"Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-39" and "Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945: the Years of Extermination." Even today in 2011, we are still finding out more details about the Holocaust and the worlds' reaction to it.
But apparently, the person who threatened California State Senator Leeland Lee, who had criticized Rush Limbaugh's mocking of Chinese, hasn't learned much about the Holocaust or hate language. He mailed to Mr. Lee a flyer that called the Senator a "Jobama Rectum-Sniffing Moron", "Fish Head Leland Lee", and said that "Rush Limbaugh will kick your chink ass". The flyer had a pickup truck with the American flag on the door pulling a noose. "Achtung". "Death to all Marxists--Foreign and Domestic". State police, who are still investigating threats against Jerry brown, now get a chance to look into this.
The police did arrest the man who threatened Washington Governor Gregoire by the internet. The man said the governor should be burned at the stake.
For bipartisan balance, Dallas police detonated a suspicious package mailed to John Cornyn's office.
Think of all the threats to politicians in the last two years. Do any of them pop right out as flagrantly obvious targets?
Having changed the political narrative in his direction,President Obama was out in Wisconsin yesterday hyping American innovation at a clean energy plant. The irony is that the new Republican governor has already shut down the high-speed rail plant, which now has moved to Illinois, and passed a law that will keep wind energy installations far away from any residences--like luxury vacation homes on the Lake.
Sarah Palin finally broke her tweeter silence by attacking President Obama's state of the Union address by saying that the Soviet Union collapsed because it invested so much in its space program. Do you put a laugh track over these remarks, ignore them or treat them as surrealism?
Mark Kirk says that Congress is in "shock" over the $1.5 trillion budget this year. He says he never knew that tax cuts actually led to an increase in the deficit.
John Boehner actually said something correct,"We're broke."
The CBO has released a study that shows that unemployment will remain around 9% for the next two years and that it will not return to "normal" until 2016. Which brings me to my old point that unless we structurally change our economy we will face about 8% unemployment for the foreseeable future.
Peter Orzag fears that we will do nothing about the national debt unless there is a fiscal crisis. John McCain's 2008 financial adviser said that our annual deficit is not worrisome it's that even if unemployment was 4.5% we would be facing a tremendous national debt. The four causes of the debt,in his opinion, are military spending, the entitlement programs and the interest on that debt, which will balloon once there is a recovery and interest rates rise.
While Republicans, including John Boehner, are backing off their attacks on Social Security, there is an insidious movement by people like Newt Gingrich to promote the idea that states should be able to go bankrupt. The idea behind this is to wipe out state obligations on pensions. So the government employed baby-boomers would be left with social security only.
One of the wackiest ideas circulating in the House is a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. In my lifetime, that has only been done three times-once by Eisenhower, once by LBJ and once by Clinton. Before that I think Calvin Coolidge did it. James Galbraith wrote a piece recently on why it physically can not be done given our interrelationship with the global economy. You might also want to consider that the states who want to declare bankruptcy also have balanced budget requirements.
The House cut the budget again today by eliminating public financing of campaigns, something that has been around since Richard Nixon. This is probably related to the House Ethics Committee dropping their investigations of about 12 members who suspiciously raised money from the finance industry before the last election.
Hell did freeze over in Washington yesterday. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO came out with a joint statement in defense of infrastructure spending. Now the Chamber, which owns the House Republicans, will have to see whether their Congress really was the best they could buy.
Government Watchdog groups are raising the issue of whether criminal charges should be brought against Chuckles Thomas. They claim that the Supreme Court Justice by not filing information about his wife's income for the last 20 years is in criminal violation of the law. The bad news for Clarence is that they cite case after case of federal officials being fined and given prison terms for the same offense. Is a Supreme Court justice above the law?
I'm relieved to hear that Sharron Angle has not ruled out a run for the presidency in 2012. We're already going to be treated to Randall Terry of Operation Rescue running as a Democrat against President Obama. Terry promises to run ads of dead babies to show Obama is a baby-killer. This should be as appealing as the anti-Muslim DVD and brown-colored flier on Bill Ayers that was sent around against President Obama here in Virginia in 2008.
If you liked the Big F...ing Deal t-shirt from OFA. You can now get "We Do Big Things" t-shirt.
I happen to believe David Axelrod's comments at a meeting with bloggers yesterday that the White House has held "no grand repositioning" meetings about tacking to the right. Actually Rachel Maddow captured this accurately when she said that Obama had defined a political middle which is based on principles. Now for some reason--unrelated--Don Imus claimed Rachel was "a gutless coward". Por que?
The army sent Lt. Choi a bill for $2,500 for his discharge on DADT. President Obama said that the military will not longer enforce DADT and Secretary of Defense Gates says DADT ends this year. lt. Choi says he is not paying the bill.
Ohio Governor John Kasich who campaigned on transparency and accountability declared that his JobsOhio program would not have to obey these principles.
The author of "O", the anonymous novel about Obama's 2012 president run that imitates without the sex the novbel about Bill Clinton, apparently was written by long-time McCain aide , Mark Salter. This we are told by good novelist turned political hack Mark Halperin. I suggest that the two Marks change vocations.
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