For all the screaming and hoopla going on this month over the federal healthcare website, the fact remains that the website is improving. That doesn't mean it's perfect yet, as the downtime the system experienced last Sunday proved once again. The numbers of Americans finding insurance plans for themselves using the system has continued to increase though. Further, when Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius testifies before Congress Wednesday, members of Congress will have a chance to discover why the rollout fell so short of public expectations.
There's actually a far more important mechanism falling short of public expectation or even legitimate function right now - namely the current Republican Party. Thankfully, we already know why that machinery of government isn't working: The Tea Party wing of the GOP, that's dragging the party down rapidly.
As John Judis of The New Republic wrote on Monday, and as all but the most delusional right-wing fanatics have already admitted, the Tea Party is going down. Whether they last until the 2016 election is anyone's guess, but as Judis notes, after the teapeople brought the government to a dead stop and nearly blew up the world's economy earlier this month GOP leaders aren't likely to let them do the same thing again this winter.
That hasn't stopped the teabaggers - and those who continue to pander to them - from bringing out the crazy. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a master of the political pander, dragged out one of the extremist's most tattered ideological toys when he promised to block all Senate nominations over more investigation into Benghazi. Conveniently, as Kevin Drum pointed out on Monday, 60 Minutes already did that for Sen Graham last weekend, and as any sane person would expect, found absolutely nothing new.
Still, if the Congressional Republicans want to accomplish anything they can use to campaign on next year, the next nineteen legislative days are the time to do it.
Greg Sargent pointed out the perfect opportunity yesterday, bolstered by the GOP's own 2012 post-election "autopsy", when he noted one of those opportunities for Republicans is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, also known as ENDA, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to bring up for a vote.
Another opportunity, which many are pessimistic about, is the looming immigration reform bill, another key component of that 2012 Republican "autopsy." Frankly, as Fernando Espuelas repeated on Monday, immigration reform is a ticking time bomb for the GOP - one that most teapeople would rather see explode than be defused.
The last hope for the Republican Party may actually be a budget deal - which, as Jonathan Berstein notes, like many opportunities before, is available for the Republican Party to take advantage of, if only they'd untie themselves from the fanatical extremists in their Tea Party wing.
CNN's poll last week should have been a wake up call to Republicans. 75% of Americans, including members of all political designations, think Republicans in Congress don't deserve to be re-elected. Americans right now believe most Republicans should be let go like the dead weight they are.
The opportunities for them to succeed are there.
They simply have to make a decision: Does the GOP still want to be a legitimate national political party? Or are they tied too tightly to the tea-stained stone that's dragging them to their political doom?
As their choice appears right now, most Republicans are still going down, laughing like fools all they way.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
Clown Show Climate
While we're unsure of how long this respite will last, it appears that extremist right-wing stupidity on the national level experienced a bit of a lull this past weekend. Of course, there are always the exceptionally stupid and evil, and both Iowa's Rep. Steve King and Texas' Sen. Ted Cruz continued to fill those roles.
Still, most Congressional Republicans now appear to have finally joined their Democratic colleagues for once, getting serious by turning their attention to the federal budget and immigration bills. On both fronts, developments so far look promising, with some Republicans now finally acknowledging that new tax revenues must be part of any budget deal. Elected Republicans have also begun to admit publicly that immigration reform must happen soon.
This positive turn of events at the national level allowed us to turn our eyes back to our state offices, where the level of political idiocy seems to be on the rise.
Surprisingly, the level of stupid in Florida politics seems to be at the lowest of our three locations right now - even if a bit of ridiculousness did happen surrounding the funeral of U.S. Rep. Bill Young last week. Virginia's level of political stupid has been ramped up recently thanks to the ugly gubernatorial race, where Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe solidly leads current Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Since Cuccinelli also oversees the state's voting laws, this race could get far more nutty before it's all over in a little more than week.
The climate of political stupid in our home state of Nebraska, however, reached new levels recently. That fact became evident to the whole world last week, as the clown show that will certainly be the 2014 elections spilled over into action commissioned this past spring by the Nebraska legislature.
We've published quite a lot about the importance of water to Nebraska over the years, and we wrote about that climate change study earlier this year, in reference to the Keystone pipeline and the effects on water use in Nebraska. We specifically noted Nebraska state Sen. Tom Carlson's surprising but brutally honest quote, that "We will die" if Nebraska's fragile access to an amazing surplus of clean, drinkable, useable water disappears.
The overwhelming majority of the world's climate science studies - 97% of them - concur with Sen. Carlson about water. They all agree that one of the key resources affected by climate change will be safe, clean, potable water. Drought, in fact, was a major cause of the ongoing war in Syria.
Apparently, none of that seems to matter to Nebraska Republican state Sen. Beau McCoy - a GOP candidate for governor in 2014, and a climate change denier. As Nancy Gaarder pointed out in the Omaha World Herald, McCoy slipped a provision into Nebraska's climate study bill making it impossible to do an intellectually honest investigation of the problems of climate change, which would include the role of how humans have affected the climate.
This is exactly why University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists at last week's Climate Assessment and Response Committee meeting immediately refused to do the study. That the Nebraska legislature had also demanded the study be completed next year, and only budgeted $44,000 for the full study, just adds to the clownish nature of dogmatic right-wing extremists like state Sen. McCoy.
For now, it's clear that legitimate scientists aren't going to allow themselves to be seen as political pawns in Nebraska - meaning the climate change study will likely go undone. That also means another tool to properly judge the future water needs of Nebraskans will not exist, even as Keystone's backers attempt another effort to jam the pipeline through.
Without proper data and planning, Nebraskans may not have enough water to drink in about fifty years, let alone grow crops, as Nebraska state Senator Tom Carlson made clear earlier this year.
At least Nebraskans will have another example of clownishly stupid dogmatic politics to study, courtesy of Nebraska state Sen. McCoy.
Still, most Congressional Republicans now appear to have finally joined their Democratic colleagues for once, getting serious by turning their attention to the federal budget and immigration bills. On both fronts, developments so far look promising, with some Republicans now finally acknowledging that new tax revenues must be part of any budget deal. Elected Republicans have also begun to admit publicly that immigration reform must happen soon.
This positive turn of events at the national level allowed us to turn our eyes back to our state offices, where the level of political idiocy seems to be on the rise.
Surprisingly, the level of stupid in Florida politics seems to be at the lowest of our three locations right now - even if a bit of ridiculousness did happen surrounding the funeral of U.S. Rep. Bill Young last week. Virginia's level of political stupid has been ramped up recently thanks to the ugly gubernatorial race, where Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe solidly leads current Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Since Cuccinelli also oversees the state's voting laws, this race could get far more nutty before it's all over in a little more than week.
The climate of political stupid in our home state of Nebraska, however, reached new levels recently. That fact became evident to the whole world last week, as the clown show that will certainly be the 2014 elections spilled over into action commissioned this past spring by the Nebraska legislature.
We've published quite a lot about the importance of water to Nebraska over the years, and we wrote about that climate change study earlier this year, in reference to the Keystone pipeline and the effects on water use in Nebraska. We specifically noted Nebraska state Sen. Tom Carlson's surprising but brutally honest quote, that "We will die" if Nebraska's fragile access to an amazing surplus of clean, drinkable, useable water disappears.
The overwhelming majority of the world's climate science studies - 97% of them - concur with Sen. Carlson about water. They all agree that one of the key resources affected by climate change will be safe, clean, potable water. Drought, in fact, was a major cause of the ongoing war in Syria.
Apparently, none of that seems to matter to Nebraska Republican state Sen. Beau McCoy - a GOP candidate for governor in 2014, and a climate change denier. As Nancy Gaarder pointed out in the Omaha World Herald, McCoy slipped a provision into Nebraska's climate study bill making it impossible to do an intellectually honest investigation of the problems of climate change, which would include the role of how humans have affected the climate.
This is exactly why University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists at last week's Climate Assessment and Response Committee meeting immediately refused to do the study. That the Nebraska legislature had also demanded the study be completed next year, and only budgeted $44,000 for the full study, just adds to the clownish nature of dogmatic right-wing extremists like state Sen. McCoy.
For now, it's clear that legitimate scientists aren't going to allow themselves to be seen as political pawns in Nebraska - meaning the climate change study will likely go undone. That also means another tool to properly judge the future water needs of Nebraskans will not exist, even as Keystone's backers attempt another effort to jam the pipeline through.
Without proper data and planning, Nebraskans may not have enough water to drink in about fifty years, let alone grow crops, as Nebraska state Senator Tom Carlson made clear earlier this year.
At least Nebraskans will have another example of clownishly stupid dogmatic politics to study, courtesy of Nebraska state Sen. McCoy.
Friday, October 25, 2013
No Need To Monkey Around
There are few experiences more frustrating than when some idiot purposely monkeys around and tries to sabotage something you care about at the same time you're trying to fix that item. We know that many of the people in both the White House and HHS empathize with that frustrating feeling right now, even as they continue rushing to fix the problems with the federal health insurance enrollment website, Healthcare.gov.
That frustration was also evident at Thursday's mostly pointless hearing in the House - or as Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey called it, a "monkey court." Multiple software contractors for the new federal health insurance system spent hours ducking responsibility, even while some Republican House members seemed to almost revel in the problems of the Obamacare website.
Even as reliable reports of repairs to the healthcare website pop up daily, more people continue to enroll, and the positive opinion of Obamacare continues to grow. That hasn't kept the right-wing media or extremist Republican politicians from acting like a bunch of crazed monkeys about the Obamacare website problems.
Unfortunately, as Ed Kilgore noted in Washington Monthly on Thursday, the insane right-wing reaction to the health insurance rollout has begun to spread like a disease. Now, some of our colleagues in the left-leaning media have even begun to get caught up in the metaphorical poo-throwing - which is actually the most dysfunctional thing anyone on the left could do.
To paraphrase Napoleon, "Never interfere with the opposition when they're in the process of destroying themselves."
That is, in fact, exactly what the GOP has been doing over the last few weeks. Greg Sargent pointed that out brilliantly on Thursday, in a chart based on polling from the Washington Post and ABC News. As Sargent noted, "unfavorable ratings [for Republicans] have jumped 19 points among seniors, to 65 percent; 17 points among independents, to 67 percent; and 10 points among women, to 63 percent. Those are all key constituencies in midterm elections."
You don't just have to take Greg's word for it, though.
Larry Sabato, a well-known political prognosticator changed his take on key races this week in both Virginia and North Carolina to significantly favor the Democratic candidates, based in large part on Republicans not only turning voters off, but actually driving them to the Democratic Party. Sabato's predictions mirror multiple polls in the Virginia governor's race which have Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe up solidly in most cases over his GOP rival, Virginia's current Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
There are even growing signs that Republicans may lose control of the House in next year's elections, as their hopes to regain the Senate have almost been snuffed out.
Of course, that's the time historically when members of the left-leaning media being throwing crap at each other, while Democratic politicians begin doing really stupid things, as Maryland Democratic Attorney General Douglas Gansler did this week.
We simply don't have either the time or the inclination to slap all of our left-leaning media colleagues and every important Democratic politician we know, while at the same time giving our best impersonation of Cher saying "Snap out of it!" So we'll simply say our piece here, and hope both groups of people are paying attention:
Stop trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Stop it. Now.
There's no need for Democrats and those of us on the left to monkey around like the idiots in the GOP are doing. Leave that kind of stupid maneuver up to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
That frustration was also evident at Thursday's mostly pointless hearing in the House - or as Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey called it, a "monkey court." Multiple software contractors for the new federal health insurance system spent hours ducking responsibility, even while some Republican House members seemed to almost revel in the problems of the Obamacare website.
Even as reliable reports of repairs to the healthcare website pop up daily, more people continue to enroll, and the positive opinion of Obamacare continues to grow. That hasn't kept the right-wing media or extremist Republican politicians from acting like a bunch of crazed monkeys about the Obamacare website problems.
Unfortunately, as Ed Kilgore noted in Washington Monthly on Thursday, the insane right-wing reaction to the health insurance rollout has begun to spread like a disease. Now, some of our colleagues in the left-leaning media have even begun to get caught up in the metaphorical poo-throwing - which is actually the most dysfunctional thing anyone on the left could do.
To paraphrase Napoleon, "Never interfere with the opposition when they're in the process of destroying themselves."
That is, in fact, exactly what the GOP has been doing over the last few weeks. Greg Sargent pointed that out brilliantly on Thursday, in a chart based on polling from the Washington Post and ABC News. As Sargent noted, "unfavorable ratings [for Republicans] have jumped 19 points among seniors, to 65 percent; 17 points among independents, to 67 percent; and 10 points among women, to 63 percent. Those are all key constituencies in midterm elections."
You don't just have to take Greg's word for it, though.
Larry Sabato, a well-known political prognosticator changed his take on key races this week in both Virginia and North Carolina to significantly favor the Democratic candidates, based in large part on Republicans not only turning voters off, but actually driving them to the Democratic Party. Sabato's predictions mirror multiple polls in the Virginia governor's race which have Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe up solidly in most cases over his GOP rival, Virginia's current Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
There are even growing signs that Republicans may lose control of the House in next year's elections, as their hopes to regain the Senate have almost been snuffed out.
Of course, that's the time historically when members of the left-leaning media being throwing crap at each other, while Democratic politicians begin doing really stupid things, as Maryland Democratic Attorney General Douglas Gansler did this week.
We simply don't have either the time or the inclination to slap all of our left-leaning media colleagues and every important Democratic politician we know, while at the same time giving our best impersonation of Cher saying "Snap out of it!" So we'll simply say our piece here, and hope both groups of people are paying attention:
Stop trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Stop it. Now.
There's no need for Democrats and those of us on the left to monkey around like the idiots in the GOP are doing. Leave that kind of stupid maneuver up to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
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