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

xps just from an outsider's pov, Grimes looks like a formidable candidate. Blobfish gets primaried, she get an opponent that's even more of a loon, and she could squeak out a victory.

and then who would be minority leader?

Looking at the minority hierarchy right now, if Mitch loses, it seems Cornyn is next in line.

from what little i've read via a lol huffpo piece from a while back McConnel's challenger doesn't appear to be total whackjob (relatively speaking, of course). he seemed to be positioning himself more as a 'new blood' alternative rather than a rabid tea party revolutionary. this may not actually reflect reality though

cornyn didn't sign on to the lee scheme, base would have a fit if he got majority leader though tbf 2015 is so far off that they may not mind by then. lot of tea party heroes have betrayed the party/america (rubio, toomey, christie) and eventually been welcomed back. there was talk cornyn would get primaried even.

fun fact: both Rand Paul & Grimes did undergrad at Rhodes College, a couple of blocks over from my crib

Still talk of Cormyn being primaried by ... Louie Gohmert!

lol was just reminded of this when I looked at his wiki page:

"On January 3, 2013, Gohmert broke ranks with the House leadership to nominate outspoken Florida Representative Allen West for Speaker of the House, even though West lost his bid for re-election in November 2012 and was no longer a member of Congress.

lol lol

Whoa, how did I miss Gohmert's "aspersions on my asparagus" line?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/holder-seeks-to-avert-mandatory-minimum-sentences-for-some-low-level-drug-offenders/2013/08/11/343850c2-012c-11e3-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html

^just came to post that. great start

OTM

First good thing this Holder man has done in years.

and we finally (fingers crossed) got rid of the soft aparthied of "stop and frisk" in nyc....a good day

The attorney general can make some changes to drug policy on his own. He is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences. Under certain statutes, inflexible sentences for drug crimes are mandated regardless of the facts or conduct in the case, reducing the discretion of prosecutors, judges and juries.

as the times writes this, holder is instructing prosecutors to omit the drug amount. which is the kind of executive-centric act that drives me a little nuts tbh.

there's no chance of getting rid of those federal mandatory minimums, is there

Between this story and the story on civil forfeitures that ran in this week's New Yorker I'm ready to become a Steely Dan character and hide blinds drawn in my condo.

Civil forfeitures are crazy. I did some stories on drug seizure stuff years ago that really opened my eyes on that. Cops just telling people, "Tell you what, give us your truck, you walk away, no harm no foul," that kind of thing. I interviewed a lawyer who represented a Mexican scrap metal dealer who had $10,000 cash just taken from him during a traffic stop. They didn't charge him with anything, just took the money. He had to sue to get it back.

oh dear:

In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care.

The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014.

The grace period has been outlined on the Labor Department’s Web site since February, but was obscured in a maze of legal and bureaucratic language that went largely unnoticed. When asked in recent days about the language — which appeared as an answer to one of 137 “frequently asked questions about Affordable Care Act implementation” — department officials confirmed the policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/us/a-limit-on-consumer-costs-is-delayed-in-health-care-law.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=0&pagewanted=all

ugh, sneaking that in a FAQ is awful. the maze of legal and bureaucratic language...well. that can't really be helped. every piece of language published by the federal govt must be reviewed at least 300 times in order to ensure that it's completely incomprehensible to normal human beings.

x-post to Goole re Holder and sentencing

http://www.samefacts.com/2013/08/drug-policy/eric-holder-does-the-right-think-on-drug-sentencing/

It doesn’t go as far as I might have gone, by requiring that a prosecutor who wants to ask for more than five years in a case not involving violence specifically justify that decision and have it approved in Washington. But in principle it’s the right thing to do, and the fact that Holder now thinks he can do it safely (unlike the situation with five-year crack mandatory, a problem that also could have been fixed administratively without waiting for legislation) suggests that some aspects of drug policy, and criminal-justice policy more generally, are – slowly and belatedly – recovering from their forty years of agitated delerium.

If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it. Except when you probably can't.

there's nothing there that wasn't widely known 2 years ago. people who are avoiding paying into the system are going to be the ones adjusting

shit, 4 years ago. how old am i?

FYI, I have paid into the private insurance system for myself and family for the last six years on my own for a plan similarly described in that article. That plan did not face likely elimination two years ago.

is there any evidence to support the idea that people with skimpy high deductible plans increase costs in the long run, by deferring care or preventive medicine routines?

Are you insinuating that I defer care or preventive medicine routines because I have high deductible plans?

Just checking.

lol, no.

also, i have an hdhp myself, tho it is subsidized via employer hsa contributions. the whole thing is annoying and time consuming but i'm glad the administrative burdens have been shifted where they belong, the consumer. this causes me to call various "help" lines full of vitriolic anger make rational market based decisions in my rational self-interest.

totally rational, that's me apparently

The whole thing is indeed totally annoying, especially if you want to pretend to "shop around" and "find the best rates" like a good little consumer.

I'm unhappy that my healthcare costs will continue to rise but that's just sort of reality and I fully expected that. I just didn't expect the president to be so disingenuous when he was lying saying things like, "If you like your plan, you get to keep it."

Califorrnia, as an early joiner to the exchanges, will see rates go down. Fight the real enemy.

Also, as a voluntarist, I'd like to see jury duty disappear along with military service. If God and our national will won't protect us, I don't see why we shouldn't do away with the innovations of the 12th Century.

u sure you're coming from a voluntarist position or do you just really hate having to do jury duty? I mean, it totally sucks I agree, but like -- the only people who would volunteer for juries would be self-employed libertarian dads and grandmas who watch Nancy Grace.

lol I had no idea about this shit

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/08/cory_booker_waywire.php

I wonder if this is the first Senate race where both nominees have documentaries about them running for mayor

The url for Pareene's story says it all: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/13/dont_vote_for_cory_booker/

what Booker has going for him: he's not Lonegan (who combines the worst traits of Chris Christie, Rand Paul and ... well, stereotypical Jersey assholishness).

i voted for Pallone.

got standard fundraising spam "from" Sen Gillibrand with the subject line "Cory." Count the annoying buzzwords!

Cory will be a great partner who will work with me to bolster New York and New Jersey families so that we can overcome the challenges our states face. Our values are Cory’s values....

As mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory has reduced crime, created jobs and revitalized the city’s downtown. He has a track record of getting results.

want to destroy the Democratic Party so so much

so Booker is as disgusting as Schumer and Harold Ford, Jr, right

Ed Kilgore in Washington Monthly:

To detractors, he’s an unholy combination of Harold Ford, Jr. and Joe Lieberman, beholden to Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

In a financial disclosure filed last month, Booker revealed that his stake in Waywire was worth between $1 million and $5 million, making it his biggest asset.

“Cory is the inspiration architect,” Ross told the Times. “He really is the thought-leader soul part of the business.”

corporate governance by way of oprah and the secret

Oprah, thought-leader of the millennium.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_08/first_glimpse_of_the_struggle046379.php

I’d guess that before the day is out it’s going to occur to some news-starved Gotham-centric scribbler to do a piece contrasting de Blasio and Cory Booker as the twin poles of debate in this upcoming Struggle for the Soul of the Democratic Party. Or maybe it won’t be written until such time as de Blasio actually wins. Or maybe another New York figure named Hillary Clinton will manage to put off the Struggle for the Soul once again. It’s hard to say right now. But at some point internal differences, real and symbolic, sharp and focused or vague yet pervasive, will boil over into public. After all, conservatives can’t have all the factional fun.

I have no caveats about voting for de Blasio as the "most liberal" of the mayoral options here, given that his rivals are some combo of corporatists, phonies, and crooks, but since BdB was HRC's campaign manager in her Senate election in 2000 I'm not exactly counting on him being some left-wing savior.

personally, i don't know why either Holt or Pallone couldn't have dropped out and endorsed the other since they essentially split the liberal vote. maybe there's some rivalry b/w them to which i'm not privy -- and it might not have mattered anyway, given Booker's Wall Street- and Silicon Valley-funded war chest large campaign funds and media-whoring name recognition.

still, better him than a bona fide Teabagger/asshole like Lonegan.

Bryan Fischer, Earth-God liaison, on the events leading up to the photoshopping of obama into the photo of the situation room on the night of the bin laden raid:

"Frankly I think that got photoshopped in after deal. I think Obama's approach was, 'Hey, if this thing goes south, I don't want to be in the room. I don't want to be anywhere near this thing if it blows up. If it succeeds, if it's an outstanding success, then photoshop me in there.'"

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/bryan-fischer-obama-was-photo-shopped-into-bin?ref=fpb

i love the idea of obama actually saying that

I am puzzled as to who he would trust with such a photoshopping mission. It would be like handing that person a key to your presidency.

now we know why Sean C hasn't been around lately

http://www.progressive.org/alec-nation
http://billmoyers.com/2013/08/15/a-dem-adrift-in-alec-land/

haven't read these yet, but, awesome