American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

wait did the carcetti joke sail past all of you sheeples heads come on

http://brandynbold.com/gifs/oh%20snap/wee-bey-noo.gif

lol

From the polling article:

This is emerging as another case — along with immigration and social issues – where the very fact that individual House Republicans live in safe districts, insulated from the currents of national opinion, is actively setting back the party’s efforts to broaden its national appeal. This dynamic is reinforced by the closed conservative information feedback loop, where a great majority of the American people are imagined to have mobilized enthusiastically behind the shutdown crusade, and are clamoring for a continued commitment to more scorched earth tactics against Obamacare.

that was... entirely predictable tho

― lag∞n, 22. oktober 2013 18:13 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, spot on, and I guess the administration chose to ignore this since the alternative - admitting the site couldn't be done in time - seemed worse. The whole roll-out of ACA has been ugly on both sides (though not equal amounts of ugly, obviously), but for my money, if the result is affordable health care, then it was worth it.

How Reid and Obama didn't blink.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2013/10/healthcare_gov_problems_what_5_million_lines_of_code_really_means.html

x-post to both postings of the Huffpost thing on Reid & Obama:

Notice there's no "we will need revenues," it's "Harry and Nancy". Plus Paul Ryan being his usual obnoxious self with the offer, and Obama liking it

The next morning, nevertheless, he took the basic outline of the negotiations to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Burwell and top presidential adviser Dan Pfeiffer. The three of them briefed the president at around 11 am. Obama considered it a good faith offer but not one he could accept. After federal workers had been forced off the job, it would be particularly cruel to find a resolution to the shutdown in the form of decreasing their pensions. Moreover, he was concerned about any trade of permanent entitlement reform for temporary spending bumps. Even if he did like the offer, however, he couldn't sell a package like that to congressional Democrats unless it included a revenue increase.

"Harry and Nancy will need revenues," Obama told Boehner during a call on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 11. He added that he wouldn't send a counteroffer -- after all, his principle was not to negotiate -- but he'd look at any revamped ideas that the speaker had.

Nothing ever came.

x-post to both postings of the Huffpost thing on Reid & Obama:

you are so polite :)

even townhall (!) is starting to get what's going on

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncarroll/2013/10/22/how-much-damage-did-the-defunders-do-n1729819

lol classic Beltway twaddle:

When a recent Manhattan fund-raiser for the Virginia candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe wound down and most of the donors had left the host’s swanky meatpacking district loft, President Bill Clinton stuck around.

Only a handful of guests (“And none of the really important ones,” according to one attendee) remained, but Mr. Clinton continued to shake hands and pose for photos. He greeted the waiters and joked with stragglers that he would meet them at a nearby bar.

This spring, as guests gathered around a big table inside a grand Washington home at a fund-raising dinner for Mr. McAuliffe, Mr. Clinton noticed the hosts’ bored young son on a sofa. The former president plopped down and the two played on an iPad together.

The behavior wasn’t anything unusual for Mr. Clinton, who has always been known as a gregarious party guest. But for some Democratic donors — accustomed to what some see as the aloof indifference of President Obama — experiencing the full embrace of the Clintons in fund-raising mode comes as something of a revelation.

Mr. Obama has rewarded his top backers with coveted diplomatic posts like London and Tokyo, but he does not expend much personal energy when it comes to stroking donors: More than a dozen Obama supporters interviewed for this article described the president as an introvert who views big-dollar fund-raising as an unappealing, if necessary, chore. If the situation were a movie, one donor said, it would be titled: “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

It's really annoying me that the media is ignoring/downplaying the fact that you can sign up over the phone (or by mail? Who knows lol check out this listicle)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vndm3MjJbSo

ronan has a show?

stroking donors

ronan has a show?

― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, October 23, 2013 3:26 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just starting

i didn't know one could be so smug so young it's sort of impressive

Eugene Robinson pitches his voice at "Democratic weenie" levels.

Oh fun, right-wingers salivating over a chance to crticize salon's Joan Walsh in response to the Joan Walsh of Salon piece that criticizes Ezra Klein's health care rollout coverage (and Ezra's response)

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/23/Ezra-Klein-Responds

ignore the grammar issues there

brzezinski jr's body language before sinatra jr speaks is hmmmm

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115272/obamacare-and-republicans-relationship-gets-more-complicated

Generally, holding a hearing demanding to know why a new program isn’t functioning better implies that…you want it to function. Until now, Republicans have managed to oppose Obamacare totally, to undermine its implementation left and right while casting symbolic votes for repeal and, just recently, engaging in an immensely costly charade to press for the “defunding” of the law.

But now that the law is actually going into effect, seizing on its deficiencies takes on a different aspect: It means, at some basic level, accepting the goals of the law as worth achieving. Now, Republicans will say that by highlighting implementation flaws they are simply exposing its inherent unworkability, but I’m not sure that pose will hold up in their new mode of inspector general. Administration officials will come in for questioning and Republicans will demand to know: How many people are signing up for coverage? When will the site be working better? What are you doing to fix it? Unspoken in all of those questions is something that Republicans have simply shut out of their assault on Obamacare until now: That there are people out there, millions of them, who do not have coverage and will be helped by the law if it can be made to function properly.

Along similar lines: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/the_amazing_politics_of_healthcare_gov_failure/

That will help immunize it from legislative mischief. But it’ll also put legions of Republicans in the same position Ellmers found herself in on Tuesday — forced to confront the reality that the law only isn’t working for people whose states begged off the project, or undermined it intentionally. Many people living in those states will know that things would be better if only their elected leaders would just make their peace with Obamacare and make their own constituents’ lives better by implementing it.

there was a discussion about people who fell through the cracks in obamacare in the states that didnt extend medicare on npr this morning. kinda breezed through the fact that the governors of those states are intentionally fucking over these millions of people and refusing to accept basically free money for politics.

politics wise, npr is basically cnn with a world music soundtrack

The White House denied allegations Wednesday that the United States monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.

According to the Associated Press, Merkel called Obama after learning that the U.S. "may have spied on her mobile phone."

White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that the phone call took place, and said that Obama assured Merkel that the U.S. is "not monitoring" her communications.

...however, the U.S. did record the call and someone listened to it while eating popcorn. but no, they're not actively monitoring her phone at this very moment, no

just like they did not monitor the president of Brazil

I remember a story from the Little Bush years when it was reported that Rove would only discuss sensitive matters in person, because of surveillance worries, so he would meet people on street corners and the like. can't find a link now but Rove otm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-jhmkcOGAA

Rove on a foldout chair, chewing on sausage

Ted Cruz:

“Having spent the last month in Washington, it’s good to be back in America,” he told the crowd. “

http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/10/22/5269164/us-sen-ted-cruz-brings-crusade.html#storylink=cpy

He's not wrong, but not for the reasons he thinks he's not wrong.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXS6X0vCIAEWq6L.png

Philip Klein ‏@philipaklein 39m

Cruz says top1% has higher concentration of wealth than any time since 1928. Blames Obama economy.

Dem 6-point lead in generic ballot translates into GOP keeps house by the way, thank your friendly neighborhood district-drawer

Is Cruz advocating socialist wealth distribution methods or what? or will we let the totally unregulated free market settle things?

there's been this complaint of crony capitalism thrown at obama/fed govt in tea party rantings. it's never anything more than vague accusations of 'chicago way' corruption, solyndra!, etc but it resonates on some level w/ the base, that same strain of ironic populism that their anti-wall st rhetoric ties into. it would interesting to see someone, maybe even a democratic or two, tap into this and maybe advance some kind of policy objectives that due reduce the amount of influence corporations and the superwealthy do have on the fed and state govts. prediction: it will not be hillary clinton. or joe biden. or andrew cuomo. or cory booker. but maybe elizabeth warren?

alan grayson!

that 'do reduce' rather. early onset dementia right here.

phonemic paraphasic error, perfectly normal when infrequent.

Um, what about when it's not infrequent? Like when it happens on a weekly basis to where you begin to think you have some form of mild dysgraphia?

Still normal especially if you're writing a lot, busy/stressed/tired, or vaguely dyslexic in the first place. Weekly is infrequent anyway; people with progressive aphasia d/t dementia make way more mistakes than that.

Can't tell you the number of mostly very bright, introspective people who come see me for concerns of early dementia with all tests normal and excellent cognitive performance on examination. Universally good prognosis ime.

My thing is with tenses; I type the one I'm thinking of a few words down the line, rather than the correct one for that particular word

As technical failures bedevil the rollout of President Obama’s health care law, evidence is emerging that one of the program’s loftiest goals — to encourage competition among insurers in an effort to keep costs low — is falling short for many rural Americans.

While competition is intense in many populous regions, rural areas and small towns have far fewer carriers offering plans in the law’s online exchanges. Those places, many of them poor, are being asked to choose from some of the highest-priced plans in the 34 states where the federal government is running the health insurance marketplaces, a review by The New York Times has found.

don't worry Alfred this will all be fixed very soon.

After all, we've got some good tech theater coming today when that Bad Guy Contractor appears before Congress to explain wayward coding and funky ass backend servers.

xxxp gosh wonder if that's the kind of issue a strong public option might have ameliorated.

yeah but socialism!

It is truly pernicious even in Wyoming.

HealthCare.gov is in de facto shutdown

Pro tip, elect state governments that will implement their own website.