Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is apparently behind attempts to sabotage investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Has this ever happened before?

Burr and Warner

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter. 

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said. 

To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other. 

The messages between Mr. Warner and Adam Waldman, a Washington lawyer, show that the senator tried for weeks to arrange a meeting with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who assembled a dossier of salacious claims about connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and Russia. The Senate committee has had difficulty making contact with Mr. Steele, whom it views as a key witness. And Mr. Waldman, who knew Mr. Steele, presented himself as a willing partner.

Those texts, which were sent via a secure messaging application, were then leaked to Fox News who quickly used them in an attempt to discredit Senator Warner.

And they even called in a little help to do so.

Wow! -Senator Mark Warner got caught having extensive contact with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch. Warner did not want a “paper trail” on a “private” meeting (in London) he requested with Steele of fraudulent Dossier fame. All tied into Crooked Hillary.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2018

So to be clear, Devin Nunes revealed private correspondence between a sitting Senator and his source to a national media outlet, and then the president of the United States used that information to publicly attack a fellow Republican and attempt to discredit an investigation into his own wrongdoing.

And all of this happened only weeks after the House Republicans published that erroneous memo claiming that the FBI relied only on the dossier and some media reports in order to get a FISA warrant to put Carter Page under surveillance.

Which of course is also a lie. 

We are so far down the rabbit hole now.

FBI rattled, worried about ability to do their job, after Justice Department gives documents to Congressional Republicans.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:  

The Justice Department’s decision to give congressional Republicans access to documents about FBI investigations risks exposing sensitive sources or material and poses a critical early test for bureau Director Christopher Wray, current and former U.S. law enforcement officials say. 

Some officials view the department as capitulating to a small group of Republicans who are intent on helping President Donald Trump undermine the integrity of the FBI and, by extension, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump or any of his associates helped Russia interfere in the 2016 election. 

It’s the latest setback for a law enforcement agency that has long held itself out as doggedly independent and above partisan politics, only to be besieged over the last two years by questions about its handling of politically sensitive investigations into Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Trump. 

One agent said he’s now concerned that forms identifying FBI informants would be handed over to Congress. If that happened, he said, it would cause him to think carefully about whether to withhold sensitive information from future reports. 

Another agent said recent statements about the bureau by Trump and congressional Republicans have made it more difficult for him to get informants to open up. 

Trump has tweeted that the Federal Bureau of Investigations is “in Tatters -- worst in history” and has said a senior official committed “treason.”

The FBI knows full that is it only a matter of time after the Republicans get their hands on the documents, that the leaks and spreading of false information will begin.

Their agenda right now is to protect Donald Trump from the Mueller investigation, and they will burn down the entire American justice system to achieve that goal.

Bet on it.

Thanks to Donald Trump the number of Americans without health insurance is now on the rise.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Providing some of the clearest evidence yet about President Donald Trump’s ability to undermine Obamacare even without the GOP votes in Congress required to officially repeal it, the national uninsurance rate is now on the rise. 

According to Gallup, which has been tracking the uninsurance rate since 2008, the percentage of Americans without health care has been gradually ticking up since Trump was elected. 

The uninsured rate had been on a steady downward trajectory since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, hitting historic lows over the past several years. But Gallup’s most recent report, released Friday, found the uninsured rate has risen 1.4 percentage points since the end of 2016. That works out to be almost 3.5 million more Americans going without insurance this year. 

As the Associated Press reports, “the increase in the number of uninsured is more striking because it comes at a time of economic growth and low unemployment.”

Well of course the number of uninsured is on the rise, that is what happens when you sabotage Obamacare.

And now Trump owns this. Can't really blame Obama if you have actively been working to undermine the program that he created to increase access to health care.

Now can you?

I wonder if those low income Trump supporters are tired of winning yet? 

Former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Obama, says that Trump is purposefully attempting to bankrupt Obamacare.

Courtesy of The Hill:

Andy Slavitt, who was acting CMS administrator from 2015 to 2017, accused Trump on TwAndy Slavitt, who was acting CMS administrator from 2015 to 2017, accused Trump on Twitter of "purposely raising" health-care premiums as part of his plan to let ObamaCare "implode." 

"I ran this government agency under President Obama," Slavitt wrote. "Make no mistake. Trump is purposely raising people's premiums." Slavitt was reacting to news reports that Oklahoma's health commissioner was blaming the Trump administration for missing a deadline to approve a waiver for the state, which Oklahoma officials say will mean higher premiums for thousands of residents. 

"Three days later, beyond health plan commitment and rate filing deadlines, Oklahoma is forced to withdraw our waiver request due to the failure of departments to provide timely waiver approval," Oklahoma Health Commissioner Terry Cline wrote to administration officials earlier Friday. 

"The lack of timely waiver approval will prevent thousands of Oklahomans from realizing the benefits of significantly lower insurance premiums in 2018," the letter added, saying approving the waiver would have helped more than 130,000 Oklahomans and reduced premiums by 30 percent.

I just want to continue pointing out that Trump is doing this kind of shit on purpose.

Because you well know that the Republicans are going to try and push through yet ANOTHER version of their "health care" bill, this one I imagine will simply provide trucks that will drive around dispensing band aids for boo boos, and a bullet in the head for serious injuries or inoperable cancer, and when they are criticized they will say "Well he gotta do something, cause Obamacare is failing."

Yeah it's going to start failing, because they are actively starving it to death.

They are like a kid with a new gerbil who never feeds or waters it, and when it dies complains that his grandmother bought him a defective pet

Just because the Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare does not mean they are finished trying to screw it up.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

Republicans may have failed to overthrow Obamacare this week, but there are plenty of ways they can chip away at it. 

The Trump administration has already begun using its regulatory authority to water down less prominent aspects of the 2010 healthcare law. 

Earlier this week, newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price stalled the rollout of mandatory Medicare payment reform programs for heart attack treatment, bypass surgery and joint replacements finalized by the Obama administration in December. 

The delays offer a glimpse at how President Donald Trump can use his administrative power to undercut aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion that Republicans had sought to overturn. 

The Republicans' failure to repeal Obamacare, at least for now, means it remains federal law. Price's power resides in how to interpret that law, and which programs to emphasize and fund.

Bastards!

However Trump and the Republicans are not going to be able to do this in the shadows.

People are paying attention.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The Department of Health and Human Services inspector general has launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to pull ads encouraging people to sign up for the Affordable Care Act during the enrollment period. By shutting down such outreach, the action could be seen as a stealth way to starve the health plan without legislative authority, critics say. 

President Donald Trump’s administration said the ads were a waste of money, but Democrats have characterized the action as sabotage. 

In response to a request to investigate the actions from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the inspector general said his office is conducting a “fact-finding” review, the Hill reported. 

The office will examine exactly what was done and when by the administration, and its effect on enrollment in the health plan, according to a letter written to the senators Thursday. Dwindling numbers of consumers enrolled in any insurance undermines an affordable risk pool.

And this is what needs to be done right down the line.

Senate and House Democrats need to identify and attempt to stall the various forms of sabotage to the Affordable Care Act while the media reports on what the Republicans are doing and the effects it is having on the already insured and those seeking insurance.

Americans also should be reminded on a daily basis that virtually ALL of the problems that ACA is currently having are related to GOP sabotage from the very beginning of its implementation.

From Republican governors refusing to expand Medicaid or allow the health care exchanges in their states, to the constant flood of disinformation that comes from their mouths, the GOP has created the very problems that they now blame on Obama and the Democrats.

The facts are that the Republicans NEVER wanted to help the American people get affordable health care, and the only way Obamacare will be preserved and improved is with more Democrats in office working to make that happen.

Devin Nunes backtracks on claim that Trump and aides were incidentally monitored by US Intelligence agencies.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The chairman of the House intelligence committee has backed down from his dramatic assertion that Donald Trump and his aides were "monitored," by U.S. spies — a claim the Republicans have cited this week in emails to loyalists. 

Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters Friday he can't be sure whether conversations among Trump or his aides were captured in the surveillance that has become a source of controversy since Nunes made it public in two news conferences this week. 

"He said he'll have to get all the documents he requested from the (intelligence community) about this before he knows for sure," his spokesman, Jack Langer, said earlier.

Nunes continued to refuse to say how he had learned about the surveillance, including whether his source was in the White House.

I want to say WTF here but that doesn't even seem to cover this.

This idiot went before reporters, not once but twice, claiming that he had seen this evidence and that he was "actually alarmed by it."

And now he is not sure that he saw anything of the kind?

What's more Nunes just cancelled a major public hearing with former CIA director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper, and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

BREAKING: Chairman just cancelled open Intelligence Committee hearing with Clapper, Brennan and Yates in attempt to choke off public info.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 24, 2017

This was how Nunes explained this decision:

Panel chairman Devin Nunes said he had to cancel next Tuesday's hearing with officials from former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration in order to have a classified briefing with the directors of the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

"The committee seeks additional information ... that can only be addressed in closed session," Representative Nunes told reporters. 

But Rep. Schiff was having none of it:  

Representative Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee's top Democrat, said the cancellation was not in the public interest. 

"I think that there must have been a very strong pushback from the White House about the nature of Monday's hearing. It's hard for me to come to any other conclusion about why an agreed upon hearing would be suddenly canceled," Schiff told a separate news conference.

At this point there is literally no other conclusion that can be reached except that Nunes is attempting to sabotage this investigation.

The only question I have is who has the dirt on Nunes?

Trump or Putin?

Did Israel spy on the US/Iran negotiations and then give that information to the Republicans? Maybe.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Israel has been accused of spying on White House nuclear talks with Iran and then leaking details to Republicans in Congress in an effort to scupper the deal. 

President Obama's administration, along with Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain, have been engaged in highly confidential talks with Iran. 

However, Israel's security services have been accused of relaying information gleaned from the talks to Republicans in Congress. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence agencies discovered Israeli officials discussing information that could have only been gathered from inside the confidential talks. 

A senior U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal: 'It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy.

A White House source said: 'People feel personally sold out. That’s where the Israelis really better be careful because a lot of these people will not only be around for this administration but possibly the next one as well.'

Of course Netanyahu completely denies this whole thing and the outgoing foreign minister added this: 

'This report is not true. Obviously Israel has security interests to defend and we have our own intelligence. But we do not spy on the United States. There are enough participants in these negotiations, including Iranians.

Okay nice try but the fact that Israel has been spying on America for years is one of the best known secrets in Washington.

However the fact that they might be funneling information about the Obama administration's attempt to reach a nuclear deal with Iran to Republicans so that they can sabotage them, well that is a new, and ugly, wrinkle indeed.

For his part John Boehner  claims to be shocked, shocked I say, at reports the Israelis might be handing secrets to his Congress.

You know I believe him about as much as I believe Netanyahu.

The next letter from Congressional Republicans revealed.

Actually that is essentially the message they have been sending us for the last six years.

More fallout from that traitorous Republican letter to the Iranian government.

Boy Senator Bernie Sanders certainly did not mince words:  

Speaking with a group of reporters following his speech at the International Association of Fire Fighters presidential forum in Washington, the Vermont senator said the 47 Republican senators warning Iran of a deal on its nuclear program are trying to “sabotage” a agreement. Story Continued Below 

“[M]y Republican friends seem to be itching for that war,” said Sanders, an independent who is openly considering a presidential bid as a Democrat. “When you sabotage the effort to reach a peace agreement by the leader of the United States of America — the man who is charged with dealing with foreign policy — that, to me, is really unspeakable.” 

My sentiments exactly!

And there are a whole lot of people who feel the same. Which explains why a petition urging the federal government to file charges against the 47 senators for violating the Logan Act has already received almost 150,000 signatures.

As for the traitors themselves, well some of them have started to rethink their decision to sign that letter in the first place: 

A day after releasing a letter that potentially threatened the administration’s negotiations with Iran, some Republicans who signed on are realizing it was a bad call. 

Behind the scenes, Republicans are wondering if sending an open letter to Iran’s leaders was the best strategy to keep a bad nuclear deal from being negotiated.

Yeah well too fucking late. This is adulthood, there are to "take backs."

No these assholes made this choice and let's hope that it causes them all kinds of problem with their constituents and in their bids for reelection.

I mean at some point, enough has to be enough.

Sarah Palin prepares to honor us with her 2014 political predictions. Ooh look, goosebumps. Update!

Courtesy of Nostradumbasses Facebook page: 

“We the People” – are you ready to send our Congressional patriots their needed reinforcements? Here’s how we do it! 

As I said in my speech last week in Washington, D.C., America needs bold Constitutional conservative leaders who will fight for us with intelligence and integrity to restore our exceptional nation and preserve the blessings of liberty and prosperity. Time is short. I’m convinced it’s now or never to save our free republic. (I agree, we need to save our republic. From anybody that Sarah Palin would deem worthy of support.)

So, I’m excited to announce that big U.S. Senate and House of Representatives endorsements are on the way! We’ll tackle some state races, too. (If I were one of the candidates that Sarah Palin might endorse I would be shitting bricks about now.) Lots of vetting and research goes into these endorsements because this is for YOU. It’s to allow you to take a closer look at good men and women with servants’ hearts who are willing to get in the rough and tumble arena to help save America. Please do your own homework on candidates; never put all your hopes and unattainable expectations in anyone running for office (because humankind’s imperfections aren’t absent in politicians), but know that I’ve been diligent and pragmatic in choosing patriots whom I believe we can trust to do the right thing. (In other words sabotage the government from within.) I never want to let you down! And you know me well enough by now; you know I do my homework; I use discernment, and then I go with my gut. (Yep I have my staff provide recommendations, I think on them, and then I just do whatever the hell I want to anyway.)

These candidates put service over self and principles over politics. They’re not going to D.C. to get cozy with the permanent political class or feather their nests off the crony capitalism running rampant in the swamp. They’re going to Washington to shake things up and restore that endangered species in D.C. – common sense – in an out-of-control government that stomps on the neck of freedom and opportunity. These men and women have promised to be fighters for all that is good about America. They’ll have our back; let’s do our part and watch their backs, too, as we send these reinforcements into the battle.

 I’ll roll out endorsements in coming days; I’ll ask you to support the good guys, and we’ll all covet prayers for them and for the great awakening I’m confident our nation is experiencing as people open their eyes to the present harsh reality but also to America’s future positive possibilities as we seek our nation’s good destiny! (I'm sorry, what?)

Help spread the good news; we can send helpmates to the good guys in D.C., so keep the faith! (Yep that's what this country needs, re Ted Cruz's, more Mike Lee's, and Allen West's.)

- Sarah Palin

Palin's predictions have been less than earth shattering as of late, which you might imagine would force her advisers to suggest that she make safer choices this go around in order to fortify her fraudulent reputation as a king maker.

But if this Facebook post is any indication, she has no intention of making smart choices and instead is going to endorse any old fruit loop who claims to know all the words to the Star Spangle banner and believes that Jesus personally wrote the Constitution with his own blood.

In other words simpletons who have no business being anywhere near Washington D.C..

Oh hell it has already started.

If I were running the campaigns of those who are being endorsed by Sarah Palin I would use quotes from her in every campaign ad I paid for, until they publicly shunned her.

She could actually be the best secret weapon the Democrats have in 2014.

Hell even musicians do not want their music associated wither her.

Update: Wow, even the gun nuts are pissed off at her.

President responds to problems with Affordable Care website. Offers temporary solution to continue allowing insurers to offer the same, pre-Affordable Care, policies for another year.

Courtesy of Swampland:

Obama, speaking at the White House, again acknowledged shortcomings with the problem-plagued Healthcare.gov insurance exchange website, but said the reform law is already showing successes, especially with the expansion of Medicaid coverage. 

“I think it’s fair to say that the roll-out has been rough so far,” he said. “There is no question that if the website were working like it’s supposed to, [early enrollment numbers] would be higher. 

“We fumbled the roll-out on this health care law,” Obama said bluntly. 

The president’s announcement partly corrects his infamous promise that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,” at least for a year. Insurers will be allowed to offer those plans, many of which do not provide comprehensive coverage, to existing customers in the individual market for a year, as long as they educate those re-enrolling about the alternatives in the health care law’s insurance marketplaces. 

“I completely get how upsetting [losing insurance] could be for many Americans, especially after they heard assurances from me,” Obama said. “We’re going to do everything we can to help Americans who are receiving these cancellation notices.” 

“There is no doubt that the way I put that forward unequivocally ended up not being accurate,” Obama added. “My working assumption was that the majority of those folks would find better policies and lower costs or the same costs in the marketplaces.” 

Before Obama spoke, a senior White House official said that “insurers can offer customers the option to renew their 2013 plan in 2014 without change, allowing these people to keep their plans.” 

According to senior White House officials, the regulatory solution would remove the need for legislative action that is being pushed by both parties on Capitol Hill. One bill, offered by Republican Rep. Fred Upton, would allow those less comprehensive plans to be sold to new customers. The officials said such a plan “would undermine the Affordable Care Act and the marketplaces.” The White House has been skeptical of any legislative solution, which would quickly become a Christmas tree for amendments to undermine the bill. 

“I will not accept proposals that are just another brazen attempt to undermine or repeal the law,” Obama said. 

I do not see this as much of a solution to the problem, and worry that Obama is simply succumbing to political pressure. 

I watched the President live this morning during the Alex Wagner show, which had Howard Dean on as a guest, and Dean could barely contain his frustration. A frustration that I share by the way,.

However I am not at all sure that the President had much of a choice, especially after Bill Clinton pulled the rug out from under him the other day.

By the way, and not to get all Alex Jones here, but I am having a very hard time not thinking that the website roll out was sabotaged from within. There has already been some good reporting on that here, but I think that might just be the tip of the iceberg.

The President also had this to say about the website glitches:

OK. On the website, I was not informed directly that the website would not be working as -- the way it was supposed to. Has I been informed, I wouldn't be going out saying, boy, this is going to be great. You know, I'm accused of a lot of things, but I don't think I'm stupid enough to go around saying, this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity, a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn't going to work. 

So, clearly, we and I did not have enough awareness about the problems in the website. Even a week into it, the thinking was that these were some glitches that would be fixed with patches, as opposed to some broader systemic problems that took much longer to fix and we're still working on them.

Okay, how is THAT possible that nobody told the President of the United States that he was essentially lying to the American people? That really does not seem accidental, and I get the feeling that he was not the only one who had a vested interest in getting this website operating who was kept in the dark.

You can read the transcript of the speech for yourself here.

Despite website glitches interest in Obamacare rises.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

Uninsured Americans are showing more interest in the coverage offered under President Barack Obama's healthcare law despite technical problems that have hindered enrollment through a government website, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. 

The glitches have crippled HealthCare.gov, the new online insurance marketplace meant to serve people in 36 states, frustrating millions of would-be applicants since it opened for enrollment on October 1. 

The poll's findings are good news for Obamacare supporters who worry the problems and bad press could dissuade people from signing up, particularly the young and healthy who are crucial to diversifying the pool of insured and keeping premiums down.

The uninsured view the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, more favorably since online marketplaces opened - 44 percent compared with 37 percent in September, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. It found that 56 percent oppose the program compared with 63 percent in September. 

A higher proportion of the uninsured also said they are interested in buying insurance on the exchanges, with 42 percent in October, saying they were likely to enroll compared with 37 percent in September. The results have a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Of course as I, and others, have documented this is in spite of a constant barrage of criticisms and  attempts to sabotage the program coming from the Right Wing since the day the law was passed.

Recently it was discovered that there have even been attempts to overload the website in order to keep people from signing up for ACA.

Yet despite all of that Americans continue to demonstrate that ultimately the program will likely be a success, which of course is the fear that continues to drive the Right Wing to extreme attempts to undermine it, derail it, or sabotage it.

Especially out of fear it will be a success before the 2014 election cycle. 

Sunday's Washington Post article makes it quite clear how the Republican party created the "train wreck" of an Affordable Care rollout that they could use in talking points to discredit the entire program.

Much of this article focuses on mistakes the administration made by being too insular for fear of being sabotaged by the Republicans who made no secret of the fact they would do just about anything to keep it from being successful:

Based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials and outsiders who worked alongside them, the project was hampered by the White House’s political sensitivity to Republican hatred of the law — sensitivity so intense that the president’s aides ordered that some work be slowed down or remain secret for fear of feeding the opposition. Inside the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the main agency responsible for the exchanges, there was no single administrator whose full-time job was to manage the project. Republicans also made clear they would block funding, while some outside IT companies that were hired to build the Web site, HealthCare.gov, performed poorly. 

However their vigilance did little to stop the political IED's from being placed along it's path:

Although the statute provided plenty of money to help states build their own insurance exchanges, it included no money for the development of a federal exchange — and Republicans would block any funding attempts. According to one former administration official, Sebelius simply could not scrounge together enough money to keep a group of people developing the exchanges working directly under her. 

Bureaucratic as this move may sound, it was fateful, according to current and former administration officials. It meant that the work of designing the federal health exchange — and of helping states that wanted to build their own — became fragmented.

This allowed the Republicans to point the finger at the Obama administration for their ineptitude when it fact they had dammed off the flow of money needed to fully develop the federal exchanges.

I think we all know what their next step was:

A larger number of states than expected were signaling that, under Republican pressure, they would refuse to build their own online insurance marketplaces and would rely on the federal one. The more states in the federal exchange, the more complex the task of building it. Yet, according to several former officials, White House staff would not let this fact be included in the specifications. Their concern, one former official said, was that Republicans would seize on it as evidence of a feared federal takeover of the health-care system.

And there you have it.  Strike fear in the administration's heart concerning possible sabotage, block funding for the federal exchanges to cripple them and make them less effective, and then keep Republican run states from developing local exchanges to relieve the pressure and smooth the way for progress.

Instant train wreck.

And the only casualties are the millions of Americans who still cannot get access to affordable health insurance, the millions more who are now being victimized by greedy insurance companies who have kicked them off their health plans only to offer them more expensive ones, and of course the trust of the voting public who naively believed that the politicians they elected would work for them, and NOT simply engage in partisan battles to the detriment of the government and of its people.

(H/T to Jonathon Capehart)

The Republican plan to sabotage Obamacare. No seriously, there is one.

Courtesy of Politico:  

The opposition was strategic from the start: Derail President Barack Obama’s biggest ambition, and derail Obama himself. Party leaders enforced discipline, withholding any support for the new law — which passed with only Democratic votes, thus undermining its acceptance. Partisan divisions also meant that Democrats could not pass legislation smoothing out some rough language in the draft bill that passed the Senate. That left the administration forced to fill far more gaps through regulation than it otherwise would have had to do, because attempts — usually routine — to re-open the bill for small changes could have led to wholesale debate in the Senate all over again. 

But the bitter fight over passage was only the beginning of the war to stop Obamacare. Most Republican governors declined to create their own state insurance exchanges — an option inserted in the bill in the Senate to appeal to the classic conservative preference for local control — forcing the federal government to take at least partial responsibility for creating marketplaces serving 36 states — far more than ever intended. 

Then congressional Republicans refused repeatedly to appropriate dedicated funds to do all that extra work, leaving the Health and Human Services Department and other agencies to cobble together HealthCare.gov by redirecting funds from existing programs. On top of that, nearly half of the states declined to expand their Medicaid programs using federal funds, as the law envisioned. 

Then, in the months leading up to the program’s debut, some states refused to do anything at all to educate the public about the law. And congressional Republicans sent so many burdensome queries to local hospitals and nonprofits gearing up to help consumers navigate the new system face-to-face that at least two such groups returned their federal grants and gave up the effort. When the White House let it be known last summer that it was in talks with the National Football League to enlist star athletes to help promote the law, the Senate’s top two Republicans sent the league an ominous letter wondering why it would “risk damaging its inclusive and apolitical brand.” The NFL backed off. 

The drama culminated on the eve of the open enrollment date of Oct. 1. Congressional Republicans shut down the government, disrupting last-minute planning and limiting the administration’s political ability to prepare the public for the likelihood of potential problems, because it was in a last-ditch fight to defend the president’s biggest legislative accomplishment. 

The Republicans have clearly known since the beginning that if the implementation of this law were successful that it would spell doom for their party. How else to explain the extremes to which they have good to stop it?

But is there even more that we don't know about?

Take a look at this from Buzzfeed:

Republicans’ new Obamacare attack line hinges on allegations that the contractor in charge of building the disastrous healthcare.gov website landed the gig through sweetheart deals from the Obama administration. 

But according to Federal Election Commission records, that company’s PAC gave more to House Republicans than House Democrats during the 2012 cycle — including a $2,000 check for the GOP’s chief scandal investigator, Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa. What’s more, executives of CGI Federal personally gave more than twice as much to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney than to President Obama. The contractor has also feasted on more than $2.4 billion worth of IT work dating back to the early Bush Administration. 

So far, none of that has stopped the Republican National Congressional Committee from suggesting CGI netted hundreds of millions of dollars to create the dysfunctional website because of its ties to the White House. 

Yet FEC records indicate executives for CGI gave $5,550 to GOP Romney and just $2,000 to Obama — not quite the behavior of a company indebted to the president for its contacting jackpots. 

Also, the company’s PAC, CGI-AMS, gave $48,000 to 28 GOP members of the House including $5,000 to Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), $6,000 to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), and $2,000 each to Issa, Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), now-Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.). Yoder, Wolf, and Cole also sit on the Appropriations Committee. Issa, Wolf and Cole also received contributions from the PAC during the 2010 cycle. 

Attempts to reach Issa, Yoder, and Wolf were unsuccessful Thursday. 

The PAC gave $32,000 to 13 Democratic House members. They also gave $29,500 to Democrats running for Senate and $19,000 to Republican Senate candidates, reflecting a savvy record of giving more to members of the parties in power in each chamber. 

The bipartisan giving makes sense given that CGI’s first federal contract for IT work started in 2001 and, as a multibillion-dollar firm, has many lobbying interests in congress. 

In fact, USASpending.gov, the federal site tracking government contracts, shows CGI has been the contractor of choice for a wide range of computer systems work throughout the Bush Administration, including hundreds of multimillion-dollar contracts for the Departments of Defense, Agriculture and Health and Human Services. 

The contract under which CGI did the Obamacare website work, in fact, began in 2007 as a contract with HHS to handle Medicare and Medicaid IT. 

When the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 with all of its tentacles intersecting with those programs, there was almost no way CGI wasn’t going to get to expand the scope of their existing contract, contracting experts say. Federal contracting rules are strict — so as to avoid political meddling — and they favor entrenched, large companies with track records. And if the case of CGI’s shoddy work doesn’t appear to represent partisan favoritism, it does appear to underscore broader problems with the system. 

You know there was once a time that I believed in coincidences in politics.

Those days are no more. 

If you think there is a low to which the Republican would not go, then you don't know today's Republican party.

Koch brother funded group uses free beer, Taco Bell, and gift cards to lure young people away from Obamacare.

Courtesy of the Miami Herald:  

As the battle over the healthcare law grinds on — Republicans no closer to victory than when they forced the government shutdown — a different fight was rising on a recent Saturday from inside Sharkey’s, a bar near the campus of Virginia Tech, 260 miles away. 

Lured by free beer, gift cards and the chance to win an iPad, 100 students heard a pitch from the young staffers of a group named Generation Opportunity: Obamacare is a bad deal, and you should opt out. 

With enrollment in the insurance marketplaces under way, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on a public-awareness campaign, critics are aiming a provocative counter-effort at a critical population: millennials, age 18 to 29, who may not feel the need or have the money for insurance. 

Because if too few young, healthy people sign up, Obamacare will be denied the financial blood to support older, more needy participants. So the race is on for the attention of 2.7 million people deemed necessary to enroll in the first year for Obamacare to be successful. 

Generation Opportunity, which formed in 2011 and gets funding in part from the conservative Koch brothers, is about to embark on a tour of 20 college towns nationally, including a Nov. 9 stop at the University of Miami. The pitch is that you shouldn’t feel compelled by the government to buy insurance, and that it may be cheaper outside the marketplaces. 

A blueprint for an upcoming tailgate calls for games such as beer pong and cornhole, free Taco Bell and beer. Pictures of people signing petitions to opt out would be sent over Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

The group, and more recognizable conservative organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, show how the fight has shifted from Congress to the grassroots. Young people are among the law’s most ardent supporters, but at the same time many are unaware of the benefits, providing an opening for critics. 

I knew this was coming.

The next best chance that the Republicans have to cripple the Affordable Care Act is to keep younger, healthier, participants from signing up. And with the deep pockets of some of these groups they could afford a hell of a lot of beer and Crunchwrap Supremes.

The Obama administration is going to have to really do some serious advertising, and possibly introduce some incentives of their own, to attract young participants.

Ultimately, much like very other desperate attempt, this petition thing will not do them much good. (After all what stops these kids from signing a petition, drinking their fill of beer, and then signing up for health insurance the next day?)

However I think it behooves all of us to keep a close watch on this kind of sneaky bullshit.

By the way the group responsible for this, "Generation Opportunity," are also the ones who brought us this ultra creep advertisement.

If ALL of their ideas are that bad perhaps the Obama administration won't have to try that hard to combat them after all.

Not happy with simply attacking liberals, a recently unmuzzled Sarah Palin is also cannibalizing her own.

Courtesy of Breitbart: 

“Conservatives are getting ready for the 2014 and 2016 primaries. We have long memories, and there will be consequences for those who break campaign promises and vote for this amnesty bill," Palin told Breitbart News. "Competition makes everyone work harder, be better, and be held accountable. This applies to politics, too. No one is ‘entitled’ to anything." 

She continued, "Rigorous debate in competitive primaries allows candidates the opportunity to explain their flip-flops. So think of contested primaries as a win-win for politicians and their voters." 

Palin responded to Breitbart News's request for comment about an interview she did earlier on Tuesday with John Gibson on Fox News radio in which she said Rubio and Ayotte "turned their back" on voters and should be primaried to be held accountable. Rubio and Ayotte will be up for reelection in 2016. 

"Every politician should be held accountable for breaking their campaign promises," Palin said during an interview on the "John Gibson Radio Show" on Fox News radio. "They turned their back on the American public, so why should they not be held accountable?" 

Palin said Rubio had promised that "border security would come first," and he would not support "legalization of illegal immigrants" and "amnesty" before border security while running in the Florida Republican Senate primary against Charlie Crist in 2010. She said Ayotte, whom she endorsed, had on her campaign website in 2010 that there were "no excuses" not to secure the border and also said she would not support amnesty. 

"I think that they should be challenged. I don't have a problem with heated debates and contested primaries where they have to answer to constituents regarding their flip-flopping on such a fundamental position as amnesty for illegal immigrants," she told Gibson. "I don't have a problem at all with contested primaries. In fact, competition makes us all better and makes us be held accountable and I'd like to see them held accountable and answer as to why it is that they flip-flopped." 

"Marco Rubio has blatantly flip-flopped on his position on immigration, on amnesty, and border security," Palin said to Gibson, before noting the Senate's Gang of Eight bill he orchestrated would reward law breakers and give President Barack Obama "a victory in his mission to fundamentally transform America economically."

You know it is at times like this that I almost wonder if Palin is not a liberal plant. However being a liberal from Alaska you would think SOMEBODY would have put me in the loop.

I rarely agree with Palin, as is well documented, but I am in 100% support of her idea to primary the popular Rubio and Ayotte, and possibly replace them with even more outrageous Right Wing knuckle draggers. Because in my opinion that could do nothing but help the Democratic candidates in those races.

Here is the thing about Sarah Palin. MOST adults make a mistake and learn a little something from it. But not Palin.

She is that kid running around with a safety helmet on in the house, Bouncing off of walls, sticking metal items into the outlets, and having to have her bathwater prepared for her so that she does not scald herself.

Where as most people have come to realize that this constant primarying of sitting Republican politicians is doing damage to their ability to do their jobs by reaching compromises, Palin is essentially willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the hopes of electing such stubborn and rigidly partisan politicians that essentially NOTHING ever gets done.

Like I said, keep up the good work oh Grizzled One. The Democrats could not ask for a better conservative spokesperson. And the more ignorant, simple minded Right Wingers that take her advice as divinely inspired the easier it will be for the Democrats to get and maintain a majority for many years to come.

(P.S. If you want to hear the entire Palin interview with Gibson, just click here.)

Joe Biden chastises the Republican party for allowing themselves to be bullied by freshmen Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.

"What part of doing their job do these idiots not understand?"

While campaigning for Ed Markey's Senate campaign in Massachusetts, Biden said this:  

"This is not your father’s Republican Party. It really is a fundamentally different party. There’s never been as much distance, at least since I’ve been alive, distance between where the mainstream of the Republican congressional party is and the Democratic Party is. It’s a chasm. It’s a gigantic chasm.” 

Biden said the "last thing" the country needs is a new senator who will back Cruz and Paul. 

“Think about this,” he said. “Have you ever seen a time when two freshman senators are able to cower the bulk of the Republican Party in the Senate? That is not hyperbole.” 

The vice president pointed specifically to the Senate's rejection of expanded background checks earlier this year. Biden said he reached out to 17 senators, including nine Republicans, ahead of the vote to urge them to support the measure. 

"Not one of offered an explanation on the merits of why they couldn’t vote for the background check," Biden said. "But almost to a person, they said, ‘I don’t want to take on Ted Cruz. I don’t want to take on Rand Paul. They’ll be in my district.’" 

Biden continued: “I actually said, ‘Are you kidding? These are two freshmen.'"

Yeah essentially the Republican party is not longer a viable political party due to the fact they are  unable to compromise or make deals on ANYTHING due to the fact that the wingnuts have so vilified this President, and his party, that working with them is now considered political death for a Republican.

It cannot be stressed enough that the only hope for progress is to get rid of as many Republicans in the Senate and Congress as possible until the obstructionists on the Right have been removed or rendered impotent.

Just remember who worked to get Ted Cruz elected in the first place.

"Good job Ted, you are proving how broken Washington is every day that you are there!"

The Right Wing has decided that since repealing Obamacare is not working it is time to sabotage it instead.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

Opponents of President Barack Obama’s health-care law are gearing up for a new round of attacks, this time targeting the legislation’s insurance exchanges that would expand coverage to millions of Americans. 

Heritage Action for America, the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, and the Tea Party-aligned group FreedomWorks will push Congress to cut off funding for the exchanges in the debate later this year over raising the debt ceiling, the Washington-based groups said. The chairman of the advocacy group Restore America’s Voice, Ken Hoagland, said he plans to warn people through advertising about the “dysfunctional” exchanges. 

While opposition to the health-care program is nothing new, the tactics are changing. Rather than focusing on repealing the law in Congress and the courts, two avenues that have failed so far, the groups are aiming to prevent the cornerstone of the legislation, the insurance exchanges, from succeeding. Their goal is to limit enrollments, drive up costs, and make it easier to roll back all or part of the law later. 

“If you’re committed to making sure Obamacare doesn’t go into effect, you have to focus on the expansion and on the exchanges,” said Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action. “Once you have people under a program, it’s really hard to change that system no matter how badly it needs change.” 

Democratic supporters of the health-care law said critics are afraid that the measure will be a success and therefore are out to prevent it.

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm a bit slow, but can somebody please tell em again what the difference is between the Right Wing in this country and the terrorists who try to frighten us into undermining our values? 

And yes the Right Wing is well aware that the Affordable Care Act will be a huge success and also realize that once it does they are fucked!

Ashley Judd adviser claims that her candidacy was sabotaged by Kentucky Democratic insiders, and that this may all work to the benefit of Mitch McConnell.

In this Daily Beast article Jonathon Miller, one of Ashley Judd's political advisers, makes the case that her candidacy was scuttled from within the Kentucky Democratic elite who worked together to send out false information, and red herrings, to an eager press who were salivating over every morsel that was fed to them, even if it was coming from places OTHER than the Judd campaign.

He goes on to explain that many of the things attributed to Judd were out and out false, and that there is no evidence that Bill Clinton wanted Judd out of the way so that another candidate, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, could run against McConnell instead.

Here is how Miller sums up his article.  

Now, I don’t pretend that Ashley Judd was a perfect candidate, or that there weren’t a significant number of Democratic insiders who opposed her candidacy. But in her early calls, she was winning over many skeptics, including the incumbent Governor and the House Speaker, the latter being the most prominent politician from Appalachia, the region purportedly most hostile to the actress because of her public opposition toward a controversial coal mining technique. 

Nor do I believe that the negative press was the primary force behind Judd’s decision not to run: The actress religiously avoided reading news coverage as she engaged in her studious, deliberate decision-making process. 

But pity Alison Lundergan Grimes, the primary beneficiary of the anti-Ashley putsch. Like most Judd supporters, I hope Grimes runs, defeats McConnell and enjoys a long and successful career in Washington. But there are two other equally plausible—if not more probable—scenarios: One, Grimes gets drubbed by McConnell, whose ruthless, take-no-prisoners campaigns have ended the political careers of four of his last five opponents. Or two, Grimes opts out of the race for another campaign, leaving McConnell with no serious opponent. 

All the while, I imagine McConnell sitting back, watching the antics with his sly, tight grin, enjoying how a small group of Democrats duped the so-called liberal media into creating the false narrative of a Democratic civil war. Only a master politician could get so damn lucky.

Interesting don't you think?

Now I had been accused by some as having my eyes clouded by Ashley Judd's fame and beauty, and that I was choosing sizzle over substance, just like many Palin supporters had.

But that is untrue.

What I had been seduced by instead, was the idea of a candidate who was TOO well known for McConnell's team of political character assassins to define in a negative manner, and who had the tenacity and support to withstand the withering barrage of attacks that were surely coming her way.

I like pretty people as much as the next guy, but the real attraction for me was the idea of seeing the much reviled Senator attempting to debate the poised, intelligent actress while carefully avoiding using the tactics that had served him so well in the past.

If he had attacked her character he would have been eviscerated by the press, and undoubtedly lost the majority of the female vote, while also driving millions of dollars into her campaign fund. Ultimately I think Judd would have walked all over him, done so while maintaining a gracious attitude, and would have easily defined him as a bully and as a politician more interested in serving big business than the needs of his constituents.

I mean let's face it, he really did not have much to work with. (As evidenced by the fact that the Right Wing media outlets had already resorted to using Judd's nude scenes in movies to attack her.)

Look I wish Grimes all the best in her race against the slimy Mitch McConnell. But as of right now my prediction is that he will retain his seat for yet another term.

On the other hand I truly believe that running against Ashley Judd would have been what defined his final days in office.

Who needs China?

It's less funny because it's true.