National

Senator Chris Coons, through a press release:

[This] is as embarrassing as it is frustrating. There is no reality where the Senate and President Obama agree to repeal the Affordable Care Act — which was passed by Congress, upheld by the Supreme Court, and sustained in the last presidential election — but the House of Representatives has been unrelenting in its drive to tear it down. They know that shutting down the government won’t stop the new health insurance marketplace from opening tomorrow, but are determined to make their point, no matter the cost to our nation. Delawareans deserve better than this.

Congressman John Carney:

Carney lays the blame [for the shutdown] at the feet of a small group of House Republicans who he says are intentionally trying to use the shutdown as leverage to gut the Affordable Care Act. He adds that he believes that most House Republicans don’t want a shutdown. “But they’ve allowed some of the tea party elements in their conference to control the agenda here and I’m looking towards those members to try to find a way out that addresses the real problems that we face as a country, a fiscal plan that seeks to improve the Affordable Care Act, not defund it,” said Carney.

For the record, I'm not at all swayed by the "if this had been a Republican Governor" appeal below. The fact is I don't know much about this issue, but trust the DL community to bring the pertinent facts to light.

This is not so much of a tip as it is as a request for DL to air the issues of The Data Centers, LLC. that is proposing to build a 248MW power plant at the old Chrysler site in Newark. I feel that if this had been Ruth Ann Minner or a Republican governor, the governor's support for this project at this early stage would have been addressed on this site. Plus, Markell is supporting something with such a specious premise: TDC can't make enough money running a data center so they also want to be a power plant? Huh? And without PSC review (and public process) because its a cogen facility. Nice. What I think needs to be aired are the real issues behind why TDC is building the power plant. Its not because they need the power (there are 3 high voltage transmission lines that serve the site), but because they are depending on revenue from power sales. Yet Markell tries to sell the proposal as "necessary" for the data center. All in the name of jobs. Same arguments he trotted out to reopen the Delaware City Refinery Corp (PBF). Unsurprising considering that TDC is being represented by Markell's former Deputy Chief of Staff who was point person on PBF. Its a bad plan for Newark and its hard to understand why there doesn't seem to be much on this site about it. Thanks for considering.

A collection of centrist House Republicans are threatening to torpedo Boehner's plan to send the Senate a third continuing resolution that attacks Obamacare, National Review reports. Peter King, a leader of the group:

"If Obamacare is as bad as we say it's going to be, then we should pick up a lot of seats in the next election and we should win the presidency in 2016," King said Monday. "This idea of going through the side door to take something you lost through the front door—to me, it's wrong."

No fucking shit. But the reason why Speaker Joe McCarthy, er ah, I mean Calgary, no I mean Texas Senator Ted Cruz and all his teabag radicals have been freaking out this past year since they lost the 2012 election in a relative landslide is because they know Obamacare is going to work, and they know once it works, it will never be repealed, just like Medicare, just like Social Security. And that is the way our democracy is supposed to work. A party proposes something, wins a national election, enacts their policies that they were elected to enact through the proper constitutional process, and then faces the people gain for their verdict. Guess what? That election was held. Guess what the verdict was. A reelected President with over 330 electoral votes, with over 51% of the vote. Democrats in the Senate gained two seats. Democrats in the House gained 10 seats, and won the popular vote in all House Districts by 2 million votes. So, Obamacare will go into affect tomorrow and nothing will stop it. Nothing. If it fails, then Peter King is right. The Republicans will have their issue to run on in 2014 and 2016. And they might win those elections. And that is the way this is supposed to work.

That's going to be the headline on Politico in two hours if things continue on the track that they are on now.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans will soon present a third proposal to keep the federal government funded, but it seems all but certain to be rejected by the Senate, just like the two that came before it. With just hours to go before the government shuts down, the office of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) confirmed that it will put together a new continuing resolution with amendments attached to it that will delay Obamacare's individual mandate for one year and end the employer healthcare contribution for members of Congress and their staff.

Whatever happens in congress over the next 24-48 hours, it is clear that we've entered a new phase of American democracy. In this phase, the notion that we can have rational debates and honest policy disagreements that are settled reasonably has flown out the window. Instead we have one party that is determined to fuck shit up in order to cleanse the country by fire. That means they should lose elections, but they have billions on their side, a willingness to flat out lie, and a committed core of ovine followers, so they are competitive in every election in spite of themselves. All that raises the question, What next? Think 123 does a great job imagining what life will be like before it gets any better:

In a way, New Age Conservative extremism is no different than the Old Age Communist extremism. It’s based on absolute self-certitude centered around a manifesto. It took the USSR seventy years to finally prove that manifestos and theories are not a fit way to govern. A few years of Ayn Rand manifesto based government, dismantling the safety nets, destroying Federal agencies, America will see the folly of trying to govern by ideology. Communism died by it’s own hand. Aynrandism might have to find that way to the ash heap of history too.

When Walt confessed to Skylar that he wasn't doing it for his family, but for himself he was confessing for all of us middle aged guys with daily secret Walter Mitty fantasies of wealth, power and a life free of the bourgeoisie clutter that comes along with a life lived according to expectations. Many marriages end because someone in the relationship can't continue to suck it up looking at that ceramic crying clown on the sideboard, and not flake out. Walt flaked out on a grand scale and in doing so brought guys like myself along to glimpse the "what if" possibilities of just saying "fuck it" and letting our Id take the wheel. In the end Walt paid dearly for his folly and most of us know that the price for letting go is far too high. But that doesn't stop us from imagining what different choices would mean to us on a daily basis. Science says that the difference between humans and animals is that we are tool users. If that is true the tool that defines us is our imagination. Animals are locked into a practical day to day existence that never dwells on the past or imagines a different future. We, as humans, do both. Was the misery and death Walt left in his wake worth his few moments of "feeling alive" and being on top? By any objective measure it was not. And yet, he seemed to die with a gleam in his eye. He had lived a horribly, destructive, selfish life. But in the end he killed Nazis and freed Jesse. Not bad for a chemistry teacher.