Monday Open Thread [3.2.15]
Pew Research shows that the GOP has a huge millennial voter problem. The young people, yeah, they no likely the Republicans.
Now this is what I call Karma, from Talking Points Memo:
Former Arizona county sheriff Richard Mack, a fierce opponent of Obamacare and a leader in the “constitutional sheriff” movement, is struggling to pay his medical bills after he and his wife each faced serious illnesses. The former sheriff and his wife do not have health insurance and started a GoFundMe campaign to solicit donations from family and friends to cover the costs of their medical care.
“Because they are self-employed, they have no medical insurance and are in desperate need of our assistance,” reads a note on Mack’s personal website.
Mack, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, suffered a heart attack in January and is in recovery. His wife fell ill late last year. Mack is on the board of Oath Keepers, a right-wing fringe group made up of police and military veterans, and is known for supporting Cliven Bundy in his standoff against the federal government. He is also an ardent opponent of Obamacare.
Pssst… buddy… come here… hey, I got a secret for ya…. there is this new government program that can help you out…
“Hillary Clinton and her close advisers are telling Democratic donors that she will enter the presidential race sooner than expected, likely in April, a move that would allay uncertainties within her party and allow her to rev up fundraising. Clinton aides have spoken of the earlier timetable in private meetings, according to people engaged in recent discussions about the presumed Democratic front-runner’s emerging 2016 campaign. Many within her camp have advocated her staying out of the fray until the summer.”
Oh my God! First, the original plan was to announce in the spring. Then there was some discussion that it might not be necessary and she could wait until the summer. Then some annoying Democratic consultants and nervous donors started complaining about that summer launch prospect, so now that the launch is back to the Spring (which is when April is), it is now “earlier than expected.”
God I hate the media.
The Washington Post is reporting that House Republican leaders “will face a familiar dilemma this week when they try again to approve funding to keep the Department of Homeland Security functioning through the end of September: They know their party is too divided to resolve the crisis on its own but fear the political fallout if they rely on Democrats to get them out of the jam.”
The Democrats shouldn’t help them, especially if there is no clean bill for a full year as was promised by Speaker Boehner late Friday night in exchange for Democratic votes then. No clean full year bill, then no Democratic votes. So no Democratic votes on a three week or two week or one week extensions.
Finally a Republican is saying no to a presidential bid in 2016. Tom LoBianco: “It will be at least two months until he announces it, but Gov. Mike Pence appears to have his sights set on a 2016 re-election bid [for Govenro], not a run at the White House.”
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds 48% of American voters think that Republican lawmakers should not have invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress without first notifying President Barack Obama.
The Hill reports that “Republican fears are mounting over a Supreme Court case that the party has long hailed as its best chance to undo Obamacare.”
“The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on a GOP-backed case that threatens to erase healthcare subsidies for 8 million people. The vast stakes are raising alarm among Republicans, particularly in the Senate, who increasingly fear a backlash at the polls if their party can’t find a fix.”
They should worry.
“They should worry.”
Except they will be running against Democrats. So there is that.
So ironic how these folk call themselves Christians then do the exact opposite of the teachings of Jesus and thrive on visceral hate, fear and racial resentment. Animals
A suggestion for the platform of the next mayor of Wilmington
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121188/fcc-community-broadband-ruling-could-transform-internet-access
Because if your opponent is Comcast or Verizon, life is so much easier.
Uh-oh. Hillary has an email problem. Apparently she has been exclusively using her own private non-governmental email address for ALL her communications, at a time when elected officials should know better.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html
It is a truly Clintonian mistake rooted in hubris and entitlement, not to mention a failure of her appointed advisors. And it is illegal. The potential impact on national security alone means she does not have the judgment to be Secretary of State, let alone President. And I say this as someone who was happy to support Hillary for 2016.
This is serious – it will give new energy to GOP opponents and open the door to primary challengers. But her defense so far is looking pretty ugly, reiterating how many documents she has turned over to State. That’s not the point – the point is you don’t get to choose what you turn over. It should already be on State servers.
It’s not illegal for her to use a personal email address. It is illegal for the agency not to have preserved the emails. In fact, regulations require that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records. I believe her aides reviewed her emails and turned over the official ones to the agency. So in fact they were preserved. Was it done in a timely fashion? We don’t know that yet. Was it all the relevant emails? Clinton and her aides say so. Do we really need to go down a rabbit hole?
I recognize that in the twitter and sound bite universe, everything gets distilled down to 140 characters or a brief blurb on the news. But really, I think we should still value full thoughts, using actual facts.
I liberally used my personal email when it was convenient. In fact sometimes it was necessary because you can’t send emails from a black system to a white system. Whenever policy and procedure was the subject it came from my official email but otherwise convenience and efficiency was the rule. Of course I wasn’t the head of an agency whose every word is parsed for intent, tone, and things like what did she know and when did she know it.
It is illegal to use private email for official communications. Of course officials may have private email but they may not use it for official business. And that’s what Hillary did. She didn’t even have a state.gov address. We laid into Sarah Palin and Karl Rove for doing the same thing, remember?
Regardless of what Hillary did or did not turn over, she sent State dept. communications over a system of unknown security, potentially exposing it to foreign or domestic hackers. That is a serious lack of judgment.
She’s a flawed person for sure but compared to anyone in the GOP, she’s George Washington. The angry white uneducated macho insecure bigots in the GOP got beat twice by a black man and now it’s going to be a women. Nah ha
It’s not illegal for her to use a personal email address for official business. It is illegal for the agency not to have preserved the emails. In fact, regulations require that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records. I believe her aides reviewed her emails and turned over the official ones to the agency. So in fact they were preserved. Was it done in a timely fashion? We don’t know that yet. Was it all the relevant emails? Clinton and her aides say so. Do we really need to go down a rabbit hole?
I recognize that in the twitter and sound bite universe, everything gets distilled down to 140 characters or a brief blurb on the news. But really, I think we should still value full thoughts, using actual facts.
I liberally used my personal email when it was convenient. In fact sometimes it was necessary because you can’t send emails from a black system to a white system. Whenever policy and procedure was the subject it came from my official email but otherwise convenience and efficiency was the rule. Of course I wasn’t the head of an agency whose every word is parsed for intent, tone, and things like what did she know and when did she know it.
Also, she killed Vince Foster. So there is that.