Category Archives: Election

Scalia gives Congress to his rich chums

Scalia has to go.

Dana Milbank: Supreme Court poised to make a bad situation worse – The Washington Post

“It’s not that we’re stopping people from spending big money on politics,” Justice Antonin Scalia argued. “When you add all that up, I don’t think $3.5?million is a heck of a lot of money.”

Actually, Nino, $3.5 million is a lot of money. As Solicitor General Donald Verrilli tried to point out, that means a party can get everything it needs to run all congressional races around the country from just 450 people. “Less than 500 people can fund the whole shooting match,” Verrilli said, adding: “There is a very real risk both that the government will be run of, by and for those 500 people and that the public will perceive that the government is being run of, by and for those 500 people.”

Scalia wasn’t impressed.

Dana Milbank: Supreme Court poised to make a bad situation worse – The Washington Post

Who controls the GOP? Not the nutjobs but the guys with the money.

Let’s see the Mad Hatters turn against their masters and bite the hands that feed them.

Boehner Abruptly Changes Strategy Following Outcry From Koch Brothers And Heritage | ThinkProgress

By Wednesday, conservative powerhouses Heritage Foundation and Koch Industries made room for a new plan when both urged Republicans to approve a debt ceiling increase with no strings attached. In a striking change in tone, House GOP leadership have presented a clean six-week debt ceiling extension that does not include a plan to fund the government.

Boehner Abruptly Changes Strategy Following Outcry From Koch Brothers And Heritage | ThinkProgress

“entirely the Republicans’ handiwork” — Robert Reich

“[T]his direct assault on our democracy is entirely the Republicans’ handiwork. Never before has one party insisted that a law of the land be altered or repealed or it shuts the government and refuses to honor the nation’s full faith and credit. The assault is being led by an extremist faction of Republicans that hates the United States government. It is being fueled by Fox News and right-wing yell radio, exploiting the anger and economic insecurities of many Americans. And bankrolling it are a handful of billionaires, led by Charles and David Koch, who have made most of their fortune in hydrocarbons, and who will do whatever it takes to reduce the power of the federal government to tax and regulate.

“Obama and the Democrats cannot back down. We must stand up to this extremism and extortion.” — Robert Reich

[hat tip to Fred Reiner]

‘My way or the highway’ attitude is killing GOP — or maybe it’s rabies

‘My way or the highway’ attitudes are killing GOP | ABQJournal Online

Today (Tuesday, Oct. 1), my wife and I went to the Sandoval County Bureau of Elections office to change our voter registration affiliation from independent — our status since we first became eligible to vote more than a half-century ago — to Democrat.

We did so because the Republican Party has ceded all power to the most radical element within its ranks — a noisy, anarchic clique of political yahoos whose “my way or the highway” attitudes have reduced Congress to a state of impotency, as well as making considerable mischief in state and local governments. (Rio Rancho is a prime example of the latter.)

Hence, our new political affiliation. We are determined to be part of the effort to save the U.S. from feckless, irresponsible zealotry. Unless a viable alternative one day arises, we will maintain that affiliation, as we await the day when Republicans complete their party’s self-destruction.

It cannot come soon enough. It’s a sad end for a once-grand old party, but we see no hope for a turnabout.

Daniel Cobb

Rio Rancho

‘My way or the highway’ attitudes are killing GOP | ABQJournal Online

Fanatics should be checked for rabies | ABQJournal Online

Unbelievable. A small cabal has shut down the most powerful country in the world.

A handful of fanatics has forced a vote 44 times, spending about 100 million dollars to do so, to repeal a law that will save the lives of tens of thousands of Americans suffering from easily treated medical issues.

Has anyone checked these yoyos for rabies?

ADELE E. ZIMMERMANN

Embudo

Fanatics should be checked for rabies | ABQJournal Online

“It is a revealing glimpse into how the world would look if Cruz’s conservatives ran it.” — Dana Milbank

I urge you to read this article for the details of what really matters to the Radical Wrong.

Dana Milbank:No room for the sick and poor on GOP lifeboat – Editorial – Ohio

On the second day of the shutdown, House Republicans continued what might be called the lifeboat strategy: deciding which government functions are worth saving.

In: veterans, the troops and tourist attractions.

Out: poor children, pregnant women and just about every government function that regulates business or requires people to pay taxes.

The lifeboat strategy was the brainchild of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the freshman who has become the de facto leader of congressional Republicans in the shutdown.

Dana Milbank:No room for the sick and poor on GOP lifeboat – Editorial – Ohio

Political hostage tactics and vandals

Thumbnails 10/2/2013 | MZS | Roger Ebert

Senator Elizabeth Warren brings it home, as she is wont to do: “In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in congress, can’t win their fights for the presidency, and can’t win their fights in the courts. For this right wing minority, hostage taking is all they have left. A last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.”

Thumbnails 10/2/2013 | MZS | Roger Ebert

Government Shutdown – The Reign Of Morons Is Here – Esquire By Charles P. Pierce at 9:10AM

In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress — or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress — a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party’s 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.

We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show.

We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government. …

We have elected a national legislature in which the true power resides in a cabal of vandals, a nihilistic brigade that believes that its opposition to a bill directing millions of new customers to the nation’s insurance companies is the equivalent of standing up to the Nazis in 1938, to the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and to Mel Gibson’s account of the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 13th Century. We have elected a national legislature that looks into the mirror and sees itself already cast in marble.

We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.

Government Shutdown – The Reign Of Morons Is Here – Esquire

That has been my contention for a long time, that the liberlunians want to prove government is total ineffective.

Meet the Morons Who Caused This Shutdown – Esquire

There has never been a single House of the Congress with a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than this one.

Meet the Morons Who Caused This Shutdown – Esquire

It took 15 minutes to save $1000/month on NM Health Insurance Exchange

Michael Cadigan of Cadigan Law Firm PC says health exchange will save him $1,000 a month – Albuquerque Business First by Dennis Domrzalski Reporter- Albuquerque Business First

The New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange saved one Albuquerque small business owner $1,000 a month in insurance premiums Tuesday.
 

Michael Cadigan, president and owner of the Cadigan Law Firm P.C., said he signed up the firm’s four employees Tuesday for an insurance policy and got a quote that was $1,000 less a month than he’s currently paying.

“I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought it was going to be an administrative nightmare and it literally took me 15 minutes once I found everybody’s birthdates, Social Security numbers and ZIP codes,” Cadigan, a former Albuquerque city councilor, said. “They gave me a quote that would save me $1,000 over what I was paying at Pres [Presbyterian Health Plan], so I’m psyched.”

Cadigan said he chose a gold level plan, which pays 80 percent of medal expenses, for the firm.

“I selected gold and it gave me 17 choices and I signed up for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico,” Cadigan said. “I thought this was going to be an all-day thing, so I had a Diet Coke handy, was well rested and I had a good lunch, and it was almost disappointing” that it was so easy.

“I was blown away,” he said. “I hope it’s not too good to be true.”

Michael Cadigan of Cadigan Law Firm PC says health exchange will save him $1,000 a month – Albuquerque Business First

Link to New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange