Senate The US Politics discussion

Drones over U.S. soil

 

Maybe I'm naive, but I was actually hoping the Supreme Court would repeal ACA because that would have been the one thing that would have maybe opened the door for single-payer healthcare. At the very least, it would have at least allowed it to become part of the discourse, whereas before it was simply dismissed out of hand and now will be for the forseeable future. The status quo was unacceptable; if government mandates to lower costs and provide access to care for everyone was unconstitutional, what would have been left to consider?

"You come out of these hearings," says Behan, the aide to Sen. Sanders, "and the number of interconnected, moving pieces going in and out of these bills is insane — the case for single-payer health insurance makes itself."

 

Maybe they're still trying to find Superman's hideout? He must be getting really pissed.

 

No it wouldn't have. Not in the highly charged partisan atmosphere we have today in Washington.

 

What does the partisan atmosphere have to do with it? As Guy noted, the ACA passed without a single Republican vote. Do you think Democratic constituents would have suddenly stopped agitating for reform of our manifestly insane health care system if the ACA had been struck down? Bereft of the possibility by preserving the private-insurer system but controlling costs via mandates and the government funded high-risk pool, what would have been left on the table?

 

Doing nothing at all, which is what the Republicans would have chosen. And what the Blue Dogs would have let them do.

 

But you forget, by the time the ACA was finally before the Court the GOP had control of the House (which voted to repeal the ACA some 20 times before the Supreme Court ruling came down) and the Democrats had only a slim majority in the Senate. If the ACA had been struck down, there's no way the Republican controlled House would have let any kind health - care measure pass, let alone come for a vote. Especially not during that highly contentious election year and certainly not if Romney had won the White House.

 

I submit all the ACA did was entrench Big Pharma and the private insurance rackets by entangling them in a massive bureaucracy. Took us further away from single-payer.

 

Good point. I did indeed forget that. But still, my larger point was that single payer would at least become part of the larger discourse even if implementing it immediately obviously wasn't a slam dunk. Whereas before it was dismissed entirely out of hand by just about everybody.

 

And I don't see the GOP base nominating a guy who says that, when most of them voted for and defended Bush.

 

I don't think it will be enough to score him the nomination, but Rand Paul's very sensible and principled views on the injustice of the drug war and drones will probably make him first GOP candidate to make any kind of significant inroads whatsoever into the youth demographic the GOP has so rapidly hemorrhaged in the last decade. Even if a Democrat emerges who espouses similar views and siphons away most of that support, I think it will be good that national candidates bring those issues to the table.

 

Rand Paul's principle is that he wants to be a GOP power player. He will not maintain anti-drug war ideas in the Republican primaries (the Social conservatives would flay him) and he would lay down and beg if a Republican president were using the drone strikes.

 

The Governor of the state with the harshest anti - immigration laws endorses Congress' immigration bill.

 

She's taken herself out of a lot of Christmas card lists in the past month.

 

Congress spends about $2 million in Taxpayer money on coffee, pastries.

 

Gotta have them krispy kremes.

Brewer was always sensible about the whole thing. It was the petards on the left and right that got so upset because she wasn't open doors or build a moat. She just wanted more security on the border. The bill has it. She supports it. That's it.

 

I hate "facts" like this. Do you all realize that Congressional staff is somewhere around 24,000 employees? That's about 23 cents per person per day. Do you know of any place you can get coffee and donuts more cheaply? It's not a scandal to have a lot of employees.

She based her campaign on outright fabrications of openly racist content, including points about Hispanic people doing "beheadings" in the desert. She then proceeded to be a vocal champion of a bill which has had multiple provisions struck down, and which constitute racial profiling. She was an ally of Joe Arpaio, who has been found to actively engage in racial profiling in violation of federal law.

There's nothing "sensible" about her record on this issue.

 

I like em both.

 

Anyone else following the SB5 debacle?

 

Yes. More Republican authoritarianism. It's like they're trying to alienate as many people as possible, and damage the party as much as they can.

 

IT'S DEAD, IT'S DEAD, PRAISE ZEUS, IT'S ****ING DEAD!

 

Not many years ago, it would have passed. Social media helped back up Wendy Davis and it all came together to kill the bill.

 

I guess I should savor the small victories.

 

Ed Markey won John Kerry's vacant Senate seat.

 

excuse me i believe you mean biz markie