Open Thread

Welcome to the weekend! DD is over on Facebook predicting snow for next week. He's been predicting snow ALL WINTER, and we've had bupkis. That guy!

Who dares run against Hillary in the Dem primary, Steve Kornacki wonders:

I would say there’s a decent chance Clinton actually could clear the field and face no serious opposition for the nomination. Not a good chance, but a decent one. This has never happened for a non-incumbent in the modern era, but then again, it’s not like we’re dealing with a huge data set here. And Clinton really is approaching the ’16 race with a set of advantages we’ve never before seen for a non-incumbent. Yes, there’s plenty of time between now and Iowa – time for Clinton to stumble or take a pass on the race, time for Obama to really step in it, time for a real split to open up within the Democratic Party. I’m not calling Clinton a shoo-in for the nomination, or even predicting she’ll run. I’m just arguing that if she does, she could break the mold for non-incumbent candidates of the modern era.

The only with the stature that Hillary now possesses is Gen. Eisenhower in 1952, and even he faced a credible and significant primary or a challenge from the more conservative Senator Bob Taft. I think if Hillary does run, we will still see a candidacy from Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. Cuomo will demur to Clinton. And so does Biden, in my opinion.

James Carville told Morning Joe that Democrats have a big advantage in the debate over the coming automatic budget cuts because of the word used to describe them.

"The sequester has an advantage, and this is kind of cruel to Republicans, but it's true. The sequester, not many people know what it is, but it sounds stupid and cruel. Therefore people think it's a Republican thing."

LOL.

Former Lt. Governor Gene Bookhammer (R) has died, at the age of 94. Our sympathy to his family and friends. Lt. Governor Bookhammer served under two different Governors from 1969 until 1977. He served under Republican Gov. Russell Peterson (who, contrary to the News Journal article's revisionist history, was not a Democrat, despite his liberal policies) during his first term and Democratic Gov. Sherman Tribbitt during his second. Bookhammer and Peterson harken back to a time in the history of our state Republican Party where it was possible to be a moderate or even a liberal. It also harkens back to a time when the Governor and Lt. Governor's electoral fortunes were not necessarily tied together. In my memory, I think the 1992 election was the time I recall seeing joint Gov-Lt. Gov. signs (i.e. Carper-Minner). But I'm a relative young'n.

The best thing about this Monday is that a business trip I had scheduled got cancelled. No traveling into the blizzard!

Let's talk about the Oscars! They'll be awarding film awards tonite -- who do you think should or will win tonite? Give us your predictions in the comments or talk about the movies you saw this past year.

Let's give this thread some content, shall we?

Booman asks if Hillary can kill the modern GOP. If she wins Texas Arkansas and Kentucky (and recent polls show her leading all three states), that means she can win in North Carolina, Indiana, Montana, the Dakotas, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, and Arizona, and if she wins all of those states, and all the Obama blue states from 2012, yes, I think she can.

There was this Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that had the Enterprise caught up in a stampede of these one dimensional interstellar beings who were heading towards a Quasar or a Pulsar of some such thing that would immediately destroy them, and the Enterprise. The valiant crew of the Enterprise tried throughout the episode to make these beings realize that, if they continued on their current course, they would destroyed upon collision with the Quasar thingy. And yet, in the end, it was revealed that the Quasar is the one place in the universe that these beings wanted to go, even if it meant their destruction. Much like a moth to a flame, or a bug to a bug zapper, or lemmings to a cliff, sometimes beings have instincts to force them to take an action that will result in their death. Republicans have spent decades, generations even, ranting on and on about cutting government spending. So now matter how politically damaging the coming Sequester Cuts are going to be for these Republicans, no matter how economically damaging they are going to be for the rest of us, they don't care. It is instinctive. The Sequester Spending Cuts are the Republican's long dreamed of destination: massive spending cuts at last. Sure, they may complaint about the cuts in military spending, or that this is Obama's Sequester, but if the Republicans really really wanted to avoid the sequester it is within their power to pass legistlation today repealing it. The Senate will pass that repeal and the President would sign it. So the only reason they don't repeal it is because the Sequester is the one place in the universe where these beings we call Republicans want to be.

Speaker John Boehner is doing everything he can to portray the Sequester as Obama's idea and sole responsibility, I suppose because he knows that the affects of the massive draconian spending cuts will be felt immediately and everywhere, but that they will cost a million jobs and send the country into a recession, and thus the cuts will ultimately be politically unpopular to the point that if a candidate voted for the Budget Control Act of 2011, that candidate will be defeated in 2014, which will mean that the Democrats will retake the House (since contrary to Boehner's revisionist history, it was mostly Republicans who voted for the BCA, including Boehner himself). Tomasky agrees:

[I]t sure isn’t going to be looking very responsible to people, as the March 1 sequestration deadline approaches, for Republicans to be going before the cameras and saying that the cuts are unfortunate but necessary medicine, or whatever formulation they come up with. They’ve wanted these spending reductions for two years. It hardly matters much who invented the mechanism for the cuts. What matters, as the Republicans will find out, is that the people don’t want them.

So Boehner is panicking, since he knows he can do nothing to prevent the Sequester because his crazy ass party won't let him do anything. In fact his crazy ass party loves, and I mean LOVES, the cuts that are coming. Don't believe me, listen to the crazy ass Republicans themselves:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “It’s pretty clear to me that the sequester is going to go into effect…Read my lips: I’m not interested in an 11th-hour negotiation.” [Washington Post, 2/12/13] Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS): “It’s going to be a homerun…I am very optimistic that on March 2nd, we’ll all wake up and America will have tremendous respect for what its House of Representatives led and what it’s federal government was able to accomplish.” [Politico, 2/13/13] Republican Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis (R-WY): “Sequestration will take place…I am excited. It will be the first time since I’ve been in Congress that we really have significant cuts.” [Billings Gazette, 2/11/13] Republican Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA): “I want to see it go into place.” [Cherokee Tribune, 2/9/13] Republican Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL): “He [President Obama] can announce all he wants. Sequestration is coming.” [Politico, 2/5/13] Republican Congressman Scott DesJarlais (R-TN): “Sequestration needs to happen…Bottom line, it needs to happen and that’s the deal we struck to raise the debt limit.” [Cleveland Daily Banner, 2/1/13] Republican Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA): “The consensus is we want the sequester numbers to come in and to finally see spending reduced in Washington.” [Dow Jones Business News, 2/8/13] Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC): “We want to keep the sequester in place and take the cuts we can get.” [Dow Jones Business News, 2/8/13] Republican Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS): “The majority of the caucus agrees that at the minimum, the spending cuts we have already agreed on, must happen.” [U.S. News, 2/6/13] Republican Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK): “We would rather see those cuts happen…I can assure you that there will not be a political blink on this. These cuts will occur.” [U.S. News, 2/6/13] Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA): "We’re willing to let it go through till they (Democrats) respond to us.” [McClatchy, 2/6/13] Republican Congressman Jim Lankford (R-OK): “We’d rather do it another way. But if the only way it can be done is sequestration, then it has to be done.” [Politico, 2/5/13] Republican Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH): “The only thing that’s worse than cutting national defense is not having any scheduled cuts at all.” [Roll Call, 10/12/12] Republican Senator John Barrasso (R-WY): “Let me be very clear – and I’d say this to the president as I say it to you – these spending cuts are going to go through on March 1.” [CNN, 2/17/13] Republican Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK): “I think sequester’s going to happen…I think people want it to happen.” [NYT, 1/31/13]

Three major labor unions in Delaware, the AFL-CIO, the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Counsel and the Delaware Public Employees Council 81-AFSCME, have endorsed marriage equality and are lobbying the General Assembly to pass the bill this session. Kavips gets all "Day After Tomorrow" on us. So the chief achievement of Senator Tom Carper's entire lengthy career in politics, the establishment of a National Park in Delaware, is nigh. That this is his chief achievement, and that I am still confused as to what will constitute this so-called "National Park" speaks volumes.

Although the federal government "currently puts hemp in the same category of illegal drug as heroin, LSD and ecstasy," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) "wants to change that," NBC News reports. McConnell "joined forces Thursday with a pair of West Coast Democrats -- Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley -- to cosponsor a bill that would allow American farmers to grow hemp without fear of punishment." How the hell is Mitch F*cking McConnell to the left of Barack Obama on this issue? On medical marijuana and the legalization of marijuana, the President has been very disappointing.