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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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 Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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So the latest form of leadership from the man with the fake tan and fake tears is renewal of funding for the Federal Highway Trust Fund for, yes, drum roll, ten months. The federal gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993--so the oil companies get all the run-up from higher prices.
Meanwhile, Republicans want to have it both ways. Enjoy the benefits of the ACA, yet use it to attack Obama:
a | Quote: | poll by the Commonwealth Fund, a think tank that supports "better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency" in health care, "particularly for society's most vulnerable." The poll reached 4,425 adults by telephone between April 9 and June 2, 2014.
Pollsters interviewed a sample of adults between 19 and 64 who had selected a private plan or enrolled in Medicaid due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, or who have had Medicaid for less than 1 year. One of the questions was, "Overall, how satisfied are you with this new health insurance?"
The poll found that 74 percent of the Republicans who had signed up for health coverage at least in part due to the ACA said they were satisfied -- specifically, 30 percent somewhat satisfied and 44 percent very satisfied. That satisfaction rate was rate slightly lower than it was for Democrats (85 percent) and Independents (82 percent), but still overwhelmingly high.
That’s a notable finding, suggesting, essentially, that if you try the ACA, you’ll like the ACA -- even if you’re a Republican.
But Edwards didn’t say that 74 percent of Republicans who signed up for coverage as a result of ACA said they were satisfied with the coverage they got. Instead, she said, "74 percent of Republicans support the Affordable Care Act" -- a much broader assertion, and one that’s undercut by a host of survey data. |
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jul/14/donna-edwards/democratic-rep-donna-edwards-says-74-republicans-s/
I couldn't make the Tea Party silliness up. Worst development in politics since McCarthy. Of course this doesn't count as an adult conversation because it establishes my metrics for evaluation and gives facts. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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Something you don't hear about on either mainstream media, or Fox (tongue firmly in cheek):
| Quote: | By ALEXANDER BURNS | 8/4/14 5:02 AM EDT
Since the Republican State Leadership Committee burst into national politics, it’s become one of the most influential outside players on the right: It spent tens of millions of dollars to flip state legislative chambers and redraw the congressional map in Republicans’ favor — and is poised to pump millions more this fall into locking down state capitals for the GOP.
But the group’s swift ascent has not come without controversy — or lingering legal hazard. At the height of its political emergence, the RSLC was implicated in a risky campaign finance scheme that an internal report warned could trigger “possible criminal penalties” and “ultimately threaten the organization’s continued existence,” according to a confidential document POLITICO obtained from a source.
Never disclosed until now, the document detailed an investigation into alleged misconduct by multiple RSLC officials during the crucial 2010 election cycle: It charged that national RSLC leaders conspired improperly with the leader of the Alabama Republican Party to use the RSLC as a pass-through for controversial Indian tribe donations, essentially laundering “toxic” money from the gaming industry by routing it out of state and then back into Alabama.
“If these events are made public, the resulting media frenzy will be a political disaster for Alabama Republicans, a disaster with which RSLC will forever be associated,” the report concluded of the alleged plot in Alabama.
The RSLC has faced no legal or criminal consequences in connection with its Alabama activities. But the RSLC report’s conclusions — furiously contested at the time and firmly denied to this day by three officials named in the report — inflamed an explosive internal confrontation at the organization.
The group parted ways with two senior advisers, who have denounced the RSLC probe as a calculated power grab by internal competitors. RSLC leaders approved a severance deal for the group’s former chairman, Tim Barnes, who resigned and inked a confidentiality agreement to keep the arrangement private.
The confidential report, bearing the logo of BakerHostetler, offers a rare window into the Wild West of unrestricted campaign spending. That sector of the political world has aroused widespread suspicion among campaign finance watchdogs even as powerfully funded outside groups and their leaders have become increasingly part of the political mainstream.
The RSLC is a prime example of the rise of free-spending and largely opaque groups that have taken center stage in national politics over the last few election cycles. Though more than a decade old, the state-oriented political committee broke out in a major way during the conservative wave of 2010 as it helped Republicans seize control of legislatures long held by Democrats, including Alabama’s.
Riding a tide of big-donor money and Beltway acclaim, RSLC leaders have gone on to positions of increasing political prominence: Gillespie, RSLC’s lead fundraiser and later its board chairman, is seeking to oust Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia in this year’s midterms. Mike Hubbard, who chaired the Alabama Republican Party in 2010, became speaker of the Alabama House.
The RSLC’s current president, Matt Walter, declined to comment on the details of the BakerHostetler report and described it as a “stolen” document. He said the RSLC has a “very detailed and thorough enforcement process” to ensure it operates on the right side of the law.
“That is an internal report that is now a couple administrations old at the RSLC and was designed to be an internal report,” Walter said. “It appears that a thorough review was done and, again, this is several administrations ago. All of the decision-makers cited in it are no longer employed by the RSLC.”
Walter said the group no longer has a relationship with Hubbard, who remains one of the most powerful Republicans in Alabama. “We have not talked to Mike Hubbard in some time,” he said.
‘The Braden memo’
According to the BakerHostetler report, the questionable campaign finance scheme went something like this: Hubbard would raise Alabama money into the national RSLC account, including from the deep-pocketed Poarch Creek Indian Tribe. In return, the national group would put every dollar Hubbard raised back into Alabama, obscuring the original source of the money.
RSLC raised some $1.1 million from Alabama between January 2009 and March 2011, according to the report. IRS records show the group took in $550,000 from the Poarch Creek tribe during that period: $350,000 during the 2010 election campaign and an additional $200,000 in January 2011.
During the same time period, RSLC’s Alabama PAC directed some $1.4 million to the Alabama GOP and several other state groups, including multiple PACs controlled by Hubbard. It also sent $100,000 to a group, Citizens for a Better Alabama, that the report describes as “the renamed ‘Citizens Against Legalized Lottery’ (‘CALL’), one of the Christian groups through which Jack Abramoff funneled Choctaw Indian-money.”
The RSLC board report, dated Sept. 14, 2011, and authored by BakerHostetler election attorney Mark Braden and two other lawyers, warned that the path of the Alabama money could trip over a state law that bans “making or accepting a contribution by one person in the name of another.” Violation of that law would be a misdemeanor.
“It is … common knowledge and wisdom in Alabama that taking a contribution directly from the tribe is political suicide for a Republican candidate or public official,” the report stated. “Here RSLC appears to have served as both a recipient of the funds in question and as a donor of the funds back to Alabama, thereby permitting Mike Hubbard to do indirectly that which he could not do directly.”
The report continued: “RSLC-AL [the group’s Alabama PAC] would mail contributions directly to Hubbard at his office, and he would personally deliver these contributions. It would appear, then, to an outside observer that Hubbard was raising money for RSLC that was either politically toxic or in excess of Alabama contribution limits, and then channeling that money through RSLC back to himself in order to get around the governing Alabama campaign finance laws.”
The document, referred to casually as the “Braden memo” by several Republicans involved with RSLC, said that one senior RSLC official — the group’s former president, Scott Ward — confirmed the existence of a “one-for-one deal, under which Hubbard would raise money for RSLC in return for which RSLC would contribute the same amount of money back into Alabama.”
Ward denies that he offered any such confirmation and called the report a “[Chris] Jankowski political document” — referring to the strategist who took over as the RSLC’s president in 2011 — “intended to smear Mike Hubbard and Tim Barnes.”
“I deny the conclusions of the report and stand behind what we did in Alabama. And the statements attributed to me in the report are false,” said Ward, who no longer has a relationship with RSLC.
According to the BakerHostetler report and several RSLC officials with direct knowledge of the internal investigation, the probe began after multiple botched donations in Alabama came to light in the spring of 2011. Running afoul of a newly enacted state law barring so-called PAC-to-PAC donations, RSLC transferred $150,000 to a pair of political entities supporting Republican candidates in the state. Both donations were returned amid a spate of negative publicity.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/republican-state-leadership-committee-memo-109680.html#ixzz39dfCxLr9 |
Of course we have been here before, with Abramoff and Ralph Reed. First Executive Director of the Christian Coalition; I guess Jesus spoke in detail about the need to launder money. |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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It's amazing how it's always the GOP that does this kind of stuff, and the dems never do, never have, never will.
All members of the GOP should all be thrown in jail.
But I guess that's not really necessary, because being the root of all evil, they will be going to hell anyway, and being in hell lasts a lot longer than being in jail.
Did I get that right mac? |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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NW--if I believed in hell, I would think that Ralph Reed should be there, taking money from good Christians and spending it on sleezy politics to help the gambling casinos.
But folks like you pay no attention to the sleeze of these guys, and assume that everyone does it. You're are wrong--but what else would we expect from the sources you read. |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
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| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Over 350 bills have been passed by the House, only to have languished, frozen, on the desk of God Himself until hell freezes over or God -- Harry Reid -- get replaced with someone interested in progress. Google it for reams of proof. The current tally of 356 isn't important, as we already know that is SOP with Reid, Pelosi, and Obama because we have all seen all three of them state with their own breath that they will not consider GOP proposals. Tip: anyone who thinks citing Obama's statements to the contrary proves otherwise is self-defeating, as that only proves he's lying, because he has said both. |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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| I love the fact that Senate Majority Leader Reid is an effective obstacle to thwart the pointed partisan efforts of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. I think that if Speaker Boehner worked across the aisle with Republicans and Democrats to create truly bi-partisan legislation coming out of the House, we would find that Reid would be more cooperative in bringing it to a vote in the Senate. As long as Republicans promote the "my way or the highway" approach to legislation coming out of the House, they're doomed to be losers, and rightfully so. Even if the Republicans are somehow successful in capturing a majority in the Senate as a result of the November mid-term elections, I think that Democrats can depend on President Obama to protect the interests of the majority of Americans through the power of the veto. |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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| swchandler wrote: | | I love the fact that Senate Majority Leader Reid is an effective obstacle to thwart the pointed partisan efforts of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. I think that if Speaker Boehner worked across the aisle with Republicans and Democrats to create truly bi-partisan legislation coming out of the House, we would find that Reid would be more cooperative in bringing it to a vote in the Senate. As long as Republicans promote the "my way or the highway" approach to legislation coming out of the House, they're doomed to be losers, and rightfully so. Even if the Republicans are somehow successful in capturing a majority in the Senate as a result of the November mid-term elections, I think that Democrats can depend on President Obama to protect the interests of the majority of Americans through the power of the veto. |
Of course you "love the fact" Reid is an obstacle, but you won't let Harry Reid share the "my way or the highway" approach to legislation.
No bias there, ha. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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NW skips neatly over the position of the GOP when their entire agenda was to make Obama fail, and when they made it clear that no changes in the ACA--none--would result in a single Republican vote for the measure. Of course, when Obama and Pelosi outmaneuvered them, they claimed that Obama couldn't lead. Reality--McConnell couldn't strategize. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc
I particularly like the turtle's smarmy little smirk. He lost.
So you invent the other party as an obstacle once people have noticed that the Congress is the worst ever. But, given his sources, critical thinking and acknowledgment of two sides to most issues is the last thing we would expect from NW. |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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NW30, I think we are all aware that the Senate passed a bi-partisan bill on immigration reform quite some time ago, but where has that gone in the Republican House? If Speaker Boehner worked with Republicans and Democrats, we would have some much needed compromise, and things would ultimately move forward in a productive way, but House Republicans refuse to cooperate.
In this important area, Senate Majority Leader Reid was able to work with both sides of the aisle to find agreement. Why can't Boehner and Republican leadership do the same? |
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pueno
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Mr. Fick-shun wrote: | | Over 350 bills have been passed by the House... |
And, um, would that by any chance include the over 70 bills to defund the ACA, Mikey?
If so, then you have your measure of the GOP horseshit that Reid tabled.
Good on his part, good try on your part.
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