Today's Democrats have grown up in the Saul Alinsky tradition, and on Thursday they proved it with a partisan vote to break the Senate filibuster rule for confirming judges and executive-branch nominees. The new rules will empower the party's liberals for as long as they control the White House and Senate, but they will also set a precedent for conservatives to exploit in the future.RTWT.
Majority Leader Harry Reid broke a GOP filibuster of a judicial nominee on a 52-48 vote. He was prodded by the Democratic Senate classes of 2006-2012, younger liberals in a hurry like Al Franken (Minnesota), Jeff Merkley (Oregon) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire). These are the same liberals who enjoyed a rare 60-vote supermajority in 2009-2010 when they rammed through ObamaCare without a single Republican vote. They view the minority as an inconvenience to be rolled.
It's true that Senators of both parties have misused the advice and consent power to make it harder for the executive branch to govern. But the great irony is that Democrats voted to end the practice of judicial filibusters that they pioneered when George W. Bush was President. As the minority from 2003-2005, Democrats demanded 60 votes to confirm executive-branch nominees like John Bolton for U.N. Ambassador.
The campaign manager for Rep. Bill Cassidy's (R-LA) Senate campaign tweeted out a link to a photo of Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) face superimposed on the body of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini an hour after a conservative Louisiana blog posted the image.Screw 'em. As if I'm supposed to be upset by a Photoshop.
AN AMERICAN president’s most important power is not the veto pen or the ability to launch missiles. It is the bully pulpit. When a president speaks, the world listens. That is why Barack Obama’s credibility matters. If people do not believe what he says, his power to shape events withers. And recent events have seriously shaken people’s belief in Mr Obama. At home, the chaos of his health reform has made it harder for him to get anything else done. Abroad, he is seen as weak and disengaged, to the frustration of America’s allies.Continue reading.
Barb Junkkarinen emerges from the bedroom with the gift her husband and son gave her one Christmas.Well, I'm a "lone-nutter."
It's a 1940 Italian-made rifle, like the one Lee Harvey Oswald fired from a sixth-floor window at the Texas School Book Depository, killing President Kennedy on an autumn afternoon in Dallas. He'd spirited the weapon into the building by disguising it as a curtain rod.
"This is how Oswald carried his package," she says, holding the butt of the rifle low, the way witnesses described. "He had it cupped in his hand, like this."
Junkkarinen's husband, Juha, and son, Jason, nod at the demonstration they've seen again and again. They help adjust the unloaded weapon just so. They point out there's also a scope and ammunition.
Over more than half her lifetime, Barb Junkkarinen has made a hobby of delving into rumors, theories and contradictory facts that swirl around a killing that continues to titillate — and divide — Americans on the 50th anniversary of the events of Nov. 22, 1963.
In the world of online Kennedy discussion groups, she learned "lurkers" tune in but never post; "fringies" attribute a political motive to every turn; false witnesses claim to have been places they haven't. Those who believe Oswald acted alone are "lone-nutters."
And people like Junkkarinen are CTs, for conspiracy theorists.
She has amassed a trove of artifacts: autopsy reports, investigation documents, shelves of books and photos, and a model of the Lincoln Continental limousine Kennedy rode in when he was shot in Dealey Plaza. There's also a life-sized plastic model of a human skull she uses to make detailed arguments about bullet entry and exit.
Inside her Portland-area home office, she avidly dissects the latest theories of the paranoid and the emotionally unstable.
They include those who believe Kennedy was first hit in the throat with a bullet made of ice; that a man in Dealey Plaza fatally wounded the president with a dart fired from an umbrella; and that J. Edgar Hoover attended a party the night before the assassination celebrating JFK's imminent demise.
Junkkarinen rejects those theories. She blames gangsters and spies.
WASHINGTON — Democrats made a historic change to Senate rules Thursday, ending the minority party's ability to use filibusters to block most presidential nominations and, in the process, virtually guaranteeing that the rest of President Obama's term will be dominated by executive actions and court battles rather than legislation.Continue reading. The rest of the piece explains how the rule-chang passed and how the Obama White House expects to govern by executive fiat over the remainder of the term.
In changing the long-standing rules with a near party-line vote in the middle of the session, Democrats brushed aside a century of congressional tradition and further embittered relations between the parties on an already deadlocked Capitol Hill.
The Senate Republican minority, which will see its power dramatically curtailed, threatened reprisals and characterized the rule change as a political power grab, comparing it to Obama's push to pass the landmark Affordable Health Care act in 2010 without bipartisan support.
The decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to deploy the so-called nuclear option means Senate confirmations of presidential appointments — except for Supreme Court justices — will proceed by a simple majority vote. Previously, a 60-vote threshold had become the norm to avoid a filibuster by the minority party. The change does not affect filibusters on legislation.
Over the years, Democrats and Republican have used filibusters to block nominations, but the practice became much more common in recent years.
"I realize that neither party has been blameless for these tactics," Obama said Thursday in supporting the rule change. "They've developed over years, and it seems as if they've continually escalated. But today's pattern of obstruction — it just isn't normal. A majority of senators believe, as I believe, that enough is enough."
Only three Democrats — Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Carl Levin of Michigan — joined Republicans in the 48-52 vote...
If the Asia Pacific region ever needed a reminder of the difference between a U.S.-led order and one shaped by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the respective reactions of the two to Typhoon Haiyan is a stark one. One nation sends its navy and Marines and pledges $20 million in assistance. The other sends $100,000 in government assistance until it folds to the hectoring of the international community and increases its contribution to a still-miserly $1.6 million.Continue reading.
American friends and allies in the region should seriously consider the implication of this comparison. It is not an aberration.
The U.S. has made mistakes over the years. Alliances with undemocratic regimes—whether Marcos in the Philippines or Suharto in Indonesia—were often necessary in winning the Cold War. In some cases, as in Taiwan or South Korea, our embrace was a critical factor in their eventual democratization. But certainly, there were occasions when we embraced autocrats longer and more fully than necessary.
It all seems so clear now. At the time, it was not. And operating in real time, we got the details wrong on occasion. The U.S., however, has always sought to exercise a basic decency in the conduct of its foreign policy. Its electorate demands it. And in the absence of a dominant, overarching strategic context like the Cold War, the judgment calls have only gotten easier...
24 Grooms Blown Away By Their Beautiful Brides http://t.co/9kW8uyP5b7 pic.twitter.com/BpG9p8SoMB
— BuzzFeed Classics (@BuzzFeedClassic) November 21, 2013Let's understand: The stumbling block to fixing Mr. Obama's broken promise is Democrats clinging to the central redistributive scheme embedded in ObamaCare. There is no reconciling the two.Continue reading.
Americans are beginning to understand that the essence of the Affordable Care Act is that millions of people are being conscripted to buy overpriced insurance they would never choose for themselves in order to afford Mr. Obama monies to spend on the poor and those who are medically uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions. Both Mr. Obama and Republicans are blowing smoke in claiming that the damage done to the individual market by the forced cancellation of "substandard" plans (i.e., those that don't meet the purposes of ObamaCare) can somehow be reversed at this point. It can't be.
What can be done is Congress creating a new option in the form of a national health insurance charter under which insurers could design new low-cost policies free of mandated benefits imposed by ObamaCare and the 50 states that many of those losing their individual policies today surely would find attractive.
What's the first thing the new nationally chartered insurers would do? Rush out cheap, high-deductible policies, allaying some of the resentment that the ObamaCare mandate provokes among the young, healthy and footloose affluent.
These folks could buy the minimalist coverage that (for various reasons) makes sense for them. They wouldn't be forced to buy excessive coverage they don't need to subsidize the old and sick.
If this idea sounds familiar, it was proposed right here three years ago, after the 2010 elections in which Democrats lost the House due to public disquiet over ObamaCare.
President Obama’s relationship with congressional Democrats has worsened to an unprecedented low, Democratic aides say.It's so bad House Dems won't be seen with Obama on the campaign trail. Talk about toxic, man.
They are letting it be known that House and Senate Democrats are increasingly frustrated, bitter and angry with the White House over ObamaCare’s botched rollout, and that the president’s mea culpa in a news conference last week failed to soothe any ill will.
Sources who attended a meeting of House chiefs of staff on Monday say the room was seething with anger over the immense damage being done to the Democratic Party and talk was of scrapping rollout events for the Affordable Care Act.
“Here we are, we’re supposed to be selling this to people, and it’s all screwed up,” one chief of staff ranted. “This either gets fixed or this could be the demise of the Democratic Party.
“It’s probably the worst I’ve ever seen it,” the aide said of the recent mood on Capitol Hill. “It’s bad. It’s really bad.”
Meanwhile, at a recent caucus meeting with Senate Democrats and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, one senator stood up and asked for a political point of contact at the White House.
“There’s been an increase in frustration because people feel like they are continuing to be blindsided,” said one Democrat who attended the caucus meeting, adding that there’s a “check-the-box” mentality at the White House in dealing with lawmakers.
Democrats around Capitol Hill say there are lots of people to blame for the debacle that has engulfed them. But increasingly the anger is directed at one person only: Obama.
“Is he even more unpopular than George W. Bush? I think that’s already happened,” said one Democratic chief of staff.
Senior administration officials say they understand the frustration and anger on the opposite side of Pennsylvania Avenue and they realize Democrats are the ones who continue to take a hit.
But the senior officials say the most important thing the White House can do right now is to get the implementation of the healthcare law right. The feeling in the West Wing corridors lately is that once the rollout is fixed, the public will see all the positives behind ObamaCare.
“The policy will take care of the politics,” one senior administration official said.
But not everyone agrees with that sentiment — particularly those Democrats in both chambers who are up for reelection in 2014.
“They’re freaking out, as they should be,” said one senior Senate Democratic aide, adding that the rollout continues to be “a lasting mess.”
WASHINGTON — Members of Congress like to boast that they will have the same health care enrollment experience as constituents struggling with the balky federal website, because the law they wrote forced lawmakers to get coverage from the new insurance exchanges.Yeah, it must be rough.
That is true. As long as their constituents have access to “in-person support sessions” like the ones being conducted at the Capitol and congressional office buildings by the local exchange and four major insurers. Or can log on to a special Blue Cross and Blue Shield website for members of Congress and use a special toll-free telephone number — a “dedicated congressional health insurance plan assistance line.”
And then there is the fact that lawmakers have a larger menu of “gold plan” insurance choices than most of their constituents have back home.
While millions of Americans have been left to fend for themselves and go through the frustrating experience of trying to navigate the federal exchange, members of Congress and their aides have all sorts of assistance to help them sort through their options and enroll.
Lawmakers and the employees who work in their “official offices” will receive coverage next year through the small-business marketplace of the local insurance exchange, known as D.C. Health Link, which has staff members close at hand for guidance.
“D.C. Health Link set up shop right here in Congress,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate to the House from the nation’s capital.
Insurers routinely offer “member services” to enrollees. But on Capitol Hill, the phrase has special meaning, indicating concierge-type services for members of Congress.
If lawmakers have questions about Aetna plan benefits and provider networks, they can call a special phone number that provides “member services for members of Congress and staff.”
On the website run by the Obama administration for 36 states, it is notoriously difficult to see the prices, deductibles and other details of health plans.
It is much easier for members of Congress and their aides to see and compare their options on websites run by the Senate, the House and the local exchange.
Lawmakers can select from 112 options offered in the “gold tier” of the District of Columbia exchange, far more than are available to most of their constituents.
Aetna is offering eight plan options to members of Congress, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield is offering 16. Eight are available from Kaiser Permanente, and 80 are on sale from the UnitedHealth Group.
Lawmakers and their aides are not eligible for tax credit subsidies, but the government pays up to 75 percent of their premiums, contributing a maximum of $5,114 a year for individual coverage and $11,378 for family coverage. The government contribution is based on the same formula used for most other federal employees...
My mother is not one to seek attention by complaining, so her recent woeful Facebook post caught my eye: "The poor get poorer." It diverged from the more customary stream of inspirational quotes, recipes and snapshots from her tiny cottage in Pierce County, Wash.Continue reading.
The post continued: "I just received a notice: 'In order to comply with the new healthcare law, your current health plan will be discontinued on December 31, 2013.' Currently my premium is $276 and it is a stretch for me to cover. The new plan . . . are you ready . . . projected new rate $415.20. Now I can't afford health insurance."
The unaffordable ObamaCare-compliant plan that her insurer offered in a Sept. 26 letter is not what makes my mother's story noteworthy. Countless individually insured Americans have received such letters; many are seeing more radical increases in premiums and deductibles.
But most of these people are still being offered the chance to choose what health-care insurance they will receive, or to opt out before they are automatically enrolled in a state program. Not so my mother, Charlene Hopkins, as I soon discovered when I called after seeing her Facebook post.
Since she couldn't afford the new plan offered by her insurer, she told me she was eager to explore her new choices under the Affordable Care Act. Washington Healthplanfinder is one of the better health-exchange sites, and she was actually able to log on. She entered her personal and financial data. With efficiency uncommon to the ObamaCare process, the site quickly presented her with a health-care option.
That is not a typo: There was just one option—at the very affordable monthly rate of zero. The exchange had determined that my mother was not eligible to choose to pay for a plan, and so she was slated immediately for Medicaid. She couldn't believe it was true and held off completing the application.
"How has it come to this?" she asked in one of our several talks over the past few weeks about what was happening. When she was a working mother and I was young, she easily carried health insurance for our whole family. "How have I fallen this far?"
In 2011, she had to give up her real-estate license; as a newer agent, she did not stand to earn enough in the tough market to justify the fees to renew. She has since managed to eke out a living as a substitute para-educator in the Central Kitsap School District. "I'm not on the couch, watching TV," she said. "I'm out trying to find more work every day."
Unable to secure employer-sponsored health care, she had, until this fall, chosen to pay $276 a month for bare-bones catastrophic coverage. "I think that we should be able to take care of ourselves and to earn enough money to pay for basics, and health insurance is one of them," she told me. For two years she had paid out of pocket for that plan, but now she is being told that the plan isn't good enough for her.
The Sept. 26 letter from my mother's insurer promised that the more expensive plan "conforms with the new health care law"—by covering maternity needs, newborn wellness and pediatric dental care. My mother asked: "Do I need maternity care at 52?" In addition to requiring her to pay an extra $1,677 annually, the plan would have increased her deductible by $1,500.
But she had at least been presented with an option that she could turn down, unlike on the state exchange...
The Obamacare story is as much a political story, and a media story, as it is a policy story. If people think that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act won’t work, then it probably won’t; the politicians will start passing “fixes” that undermine the functionality of its interlocking parts, and companies and consumers will abandon the fledgling markets. If people think that Obamacare will work -- well, it might not work anyway, because the real world does not always deliver rhetorically pleasing symmetry. But it certainly has a much better shot.Lots more at the link.
Of note, then, is one development you saw over the weekend: People are starting to talk about repeal. In early October, most people -- including me -- would have ranked this as wishful Republican thinking, along the lines of “repeal the Fed.” But the weekend brought us the National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar suggesting that Democrats might begin calling for repeal if things don’t get better soon...
