He is unconventional to be sure, but he seems to be making all the right moves to run a national campaign. Is he for real? Only time will tell. That said , it’s fun to have him in the mix.
Campaign Judo Move #1 rippers can’t debate actual issues. It’s time we made the non-issues poison for them too. The trump Wall Will Keep America Protestant ! Imagine a sea of red caps, and each one reads KAP Put repubs in a position where they have to explain why only Catholics are being kept out of the US. Why are nielssen/trump only kidnapping Catholic children ?
Maybe a guy named O’Rourke can carry that off.
Mr Flatus, We’ll see if Minnesota’s beloved Washington Senators can win another game this year. Rather, YOU’LL see. They’ll never sucker me into watching another game.
YAY, Indians, Royals, Tigers, and MN’s beloved Wash Senators ! Any & alluvem except Chicago’s beloved St Paul Saints. BOO !
G’night and sweet dreams
wapo:‘Clearly an end-run’: Federal judge rejects Trump’s health care plan to go around Obamacare
A federal judge in Washington ruled late Thursday that the Trump administration’s push to make health insurance plans available outside the Affordable Care Act that avoid the requirements of the health care law was illegal, calling the efforts “clearly an end-run around the ACA.”
The 43-page ruling, submitted by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia, blocks new rules from the Trump administration overseeing “association health plans,” which would allow small businesses to combine their forces to offer less expensive plans outside the ACA that would be both less expensive and provide fewer health protections.
“The final rule is clearly an end-run around the ACA,” Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in the Thursday ruling. “Indeed, as the president directed, and the secretary of labor confirmed, the final rule was designed to expand access to AHPs to avoid the most stringent requirements of the ACA.”
It marks the second significant legal defeat in as many days on the issue for President Trump, who not only recently revived his administration’s efforts to undo and replace former president Barack Obama’s signature achievement but also vowed to make health care a centerpiece of his reelection campaign. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, an Obama appointee of the District of Columbia, blocked the administration’s plans for some Medicaid recipients in Kentucky and Arkansas to be subject to work requirements in exchange for health benefits, The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein reported.
jace, thanks for thread topic on beto. here’s another newbie that’s making a splash according to NYTimes:
Pete Buttigieg (It’s ‘Boot-Edge-Edge’) Is Making Waves in the 2020 Race
ROCK HILL, S.C. — Somewhere between Pete Buttigieg being mistaken for a teenager making a promposal, and answering a question in Norwegian, and proclaiming that it was millennials’ turn to lead “at the highest level,” South Carolina got a crash course in a new Democratic celebrity.
Mr. Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., drew large, enthusiastic crowds in his first campaign visit to the early-voting state over the weekend. That followed a series of well-received appearances on national TV, which have helped fuel his new popularity: An Iowa poll on Monday showed him jumping to third place in the 2020 caucus race, and a Quinnipiac national poll on Thursday showed him rising to fifth and tied with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
“This was supposed to be a little meet-and-greet Q. and A.,” he told hundreds of people in a college gym in Rock Hill, after his event was bumped from the library to accommodate a wave of RSVPs.
Many Democrats have drawn impressive crowds early this presidential cycle, a reflection of Democrats’ pent-up desire to defeat President Trump. But Mr. Buttigieg, a Rhodes scholar and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was largely an afterthought in a field of much better-known hopefuls. His national TV appearances built on an online following he developed with detailed, earnest and sometimes personal answers at events in Iowa and New Hampshire this winter, and his outside-the-box progressive stands on some policies.
After a 40-minute CNN town hall on March 10, a surge of donations led him to crack the threshold of 65,000 donors to qualify for the first Democratic debates in June. The Emerson Poll in Iowa showed Mr. Buttigieg hurtling to third place, behind former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders — up from a January poll that showed him at zero. (The poll’s margin of error for the Democratic caucus was plus or minus 6.2 percentage points.)
At a check-in table in South Carolina, a sign clarified a question still hovering over the candidate: “It’s Boot-edge-edge,” it read.
Ideologically, Mr. Buttigieg is a progressive — sometimes an adventurous one, calling to expand the Supreme Court and abolish the Electoral College. But his main themes are generational change and winning back Rust Belt voters who supported Mr. Trump.
“I think there’s still an attitude in some parts of the party that what we have to do is find the final proof that Trump’s a bad guy and show it to everybody,” Mr. Buttigieg said in an interview. “What it misses is there’s a lot of people where I live who were under no illusions about his character. They already get that he’s a bad guy, but they made a decision with their eyes open to vote to burn the house down.”
Mr. Buttigieg’s prescription for winning back the white working class is hardly revolutionary: He emphasizes traditional Democratic priorities like health care and education, while assuring voters without a college degree that they can thrive in a changing economy, rather than promising a restoration of the past.
here’s the headline, an excerpt and another link from politico of the beto article jace gave us:
‘He can’t DIY things like he did in Texas’: Beto goes mainstream
The former Texas congressman’s campaign setup is a departure from form.
[…]
After eschewing strategists and pollsters in his Senate run, O’Rourke this week hired a data expert, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to manage his presidential campaign. He recruited Norm Sterzenbach, a veteran strategist with deep knowledge of Iowa’s caucus math and mechanics, to marshal his operations in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
O’Rourke has advance staffers with presidential campaign experience in place for what are expected to be frequent, road trip-style campaign appearances. And the campaign was organizing more than 1,000 watch parties around the country to coincide with a campaign kickoff event in El Paso on Saturday.
Jace… I agree… it’s fun to have Beto in the mix. Hell.. it’s fun to have all of them in the mix. Right now I’m favoring Beto and Amy…. with Kamala and Corey as runner-ups. But that could change with the debates. First one in late June according to MSNBC. Should be fun!
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff presented all of the ways that members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle colluded with the Russians, both during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, in a public hearing Thursday.
[…]
“My colleagues may think it’s OK that the Russians offered ‘dirt’ on a Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s OK,” Schiff said to Republican lawmakers during the hearing. “My colleagues might think it’s OK that when that was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help. No, instead that son said that he would ‘love’ the help of the Russians.”
Schiff went on: “You might think it’s OK that he took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience at running campaigns, took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that the president’s son-in-law also took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that they concealed it from the public.
“You might think it’s OK that their only disappointment from that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think it’s OK that when it was discovered, a year later, they then lied about that meeting and said that it was about adoptions. You might think that it’s OK that it was reported that the president helped dictate that lie. You might think that’s OK. I don’t.
“You might think it’s OK that the campaign chairman of a presidential campaign would offer information about that campaign to a Russian oligarch in exchange for money or debt forgiveness. You might think that’s OK, I don’t,” Schiff continued, referring to reports that Manafort had offered briefings on the campaign to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
“You might think it’s OK that that campaign chairman offered polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s OK,” Schiff added, referring to court documents demonstrating that Manafort had met Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected member of Russian intelligence, in Madrid and gave him polling data on the 2016 presidential election.
“You might think it’s OK that the president himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, if they were listening. You might think it’s OK that later that day the Russians attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s OK,” Schiff said.
server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s OK,” Schiff said.
“You might think it’s OK that the president’s son-in-law attempted to establish a secret back channel of communication with the Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility. I don’t think that’s OK,” he added.
“You might think it’s OK that an associate of the president made direct contact with the GRU [Russian military intelligence], through Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks, that is considered a hostile intelligence agency,” Schiff continued, referring to Trump associate Roger Stone’s communications with a hacker of Democratic National Committee data named Guccifer, as well as WikiLeaks.” You might think it’s OK that a senior campaign official was instructed to reach that associate and find out what that hostile intelligence agency had to say in terms of dirt on his opponent.
“You might think it’s OK that the national security adviser designate secretly conferred with the Russian ambassador, undermining U.S. sanctions, and you might think it’s OK that he lied about it to the FBI,” Schiff said, referring to Michael Flynn. “You might say that’s all OK, that’s what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s OK.”
Schiff added: “Now I have always said that the question of whether this amounts to proof of conspiracy was another matter. Whether the special counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the proof of that crime would be up to the special counsel, and I would accept his decision, and I do. But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do, think that’s OK, is the day we look back and say that is the day that America lost its way.”
The hearing grew heated shortly after Schiff’s speech when the chairman refused to yield to allow Republicans to respond and shut off the microphone of one of the Republicans who was speaking. Nine Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have signed a letter calling on Schiff to resign and presented it at Thursday’s hearing.
Beto
The energizer bunny!!
So far he is poaching Bernie’s college vote and NY moderates from Gillibrand.
And ya gotta love the mini van, it is the plaid shirt for the new millennium. If you don’t follow him on twitter do so you get the video recorded as he drives down the road.
I think politicos problem is they want their plane and the privileged perks that go with it.
Can he win? I don’t know but he sure the fuck is entertaining.
BTW Jamie, if someone as qualified as HRC can’t beat Trump then neither can any of the candidates currently running. Sorry to say but as with Clinton both Democrats and Republicans will believe the lies to avoid electing a woman for president. We live in that world.
Jack
For those that don’t believe my above comment to Jamie, look at the crap the women candidates have had to take so far. I suspect most of it is either Russian or Bernie bots.
Jack
Currently of the men I really like Booker and Castro. My favorite currently is Amy Klobuchar because she reminds me most of Hillary … quiet, hard working, experienced, dedicated and from the mid west. Among the other women I think Harris.
There was a commentary this morning about how many in last night’s Trump rally were QAnon. He is really drawing out the worst of the conspiracy, racist, and Sovereign Citizen crackpots and making them feel as if they are “normal” rather than an abomination of everything the US has always represented to the world.
I think Schiff did well – in my opinion it was a masterful smack down of the republidiots calling for his resignation as chair. And he ended it perfectly – refused to recognize the accusers a second time after delivering his smack down and recognized the witness. Oh, and advice to SFB – if your head sits atop a festering bucket of puss you call a neck and is held in place by floppy “skin”, don’t criticize people whose necks don’t sway when the wind blows.
Yes, Mr Pogo, I agree that Chairman Schiff made a stunning defense. Pickett’s Charge must have been like that. One doesn’t often see an all-out legislative offensive get mowed down like hay under the summer sun.
I also still like Booker and Klobuchar, but I’ll support a yaller dog, a green cheese, or a blue tick over any republican in the sty. Let us not ever quarrel over the candidate, but be perfectly positive from now until the convention, and from the convention to election day. And, may we win by at least 2 -1, with long Velcro coattails.
Can I hear an ‘Amen’ ?
My goal is for the Gold Plated Tower Trash to “resign for the sake of his health” or go down in flames in 2020. Anyone with a real “D” after their name is fine with me.
XR, I’l give you an Amen, (but I will be surprised if I comply).
My goal is to beat SFB in 2020. I’m OK with whatever policy positions might come from any of the candidates, although I do not believe the country has the political will or that the dems will have the numbers (which would require a pickup of 12 seats in the Senate) to pass a Medicare for all approach to healthcare. Right now I like Kamala, Amy and Cory, but I’m not sure whether one of them will have the support to beat SFB in the upper Midwest and PA. We’ll see how their campaigns develop. If (when) Joe gets in, until someone else shows me they carry enough support to beat SFB, I’ll probably be backing him although I certainly understand other folks’ reservations about his candidacy.
I’m still with Amy but it is not looking good when Pete Unpronounceable last name is ahead o f her
I wish I knew this woman’s name — she is a Sirius radio host and she said – when men are evaluated is it often on the potential but a woman always has to have a track record of success.
That’s the reception that greeted Beto O’Rourke in the days leading up to and following the announcement of his campaign for the presidency. All this happened despite the fact that O’Rourke is a former member of Congress without a detailed platform, whose main claim to fame is losing a long-shot Senate race.
Some of his female opponents in the Democratic primary, meanwhile, have come out with well-thought-out policy proposals bolstered by years in nationwide office. But to some observers, they haven’t gotten the same star treatment as O’Rourke.
“We have four highly qualified women senators all from incredibly different backgrounds, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re not getting the same traction and enthusiasm in the media as the male candidates,” says Amanda Hunter, research and communications director at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which works on women’s representation in politics.
It’s difficult to measure media coverage, and some research suggests that media sexism against female candidates is overstated. So I decided to investigate two questions: First, is O’Rourke actually getting more attention than his female primary opponents? And second, is gender the reason why?
The answer to the first question is yes, at least by one measure. The answer to the second is more complicated.
In her research on women running for Congress, University of Virginia political science professor Jennifer Lawless has found that female candidates actually face no systematic bias at the polls or in fundraising. But, she says, “The perception out there is that neither of those things is true.” Americans still think a woman can’t win, even if that’s not true — and four years after Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, that perception could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Who gets more attention?
It’s not easy to quantify “attention” in politics today — as Vox’s Sarah Kliff has pointed out, campaign coverage now happens on Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of digital news sites, as well as in more traditional media. But according to Lawless, coauthor of the 2016 book Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era, the best way to measure media coverage is to look at which sources people actually rely on for election news.
In the case of the 2016 presidential election, those sources were TV networks, according to a Pew survey. The top source of campaign news for all voters was Fox News, followed by CNN. For Clinton voters, who are the ones most likely to vote in the Democratic primary, the top two sources were CNN and MSNBC.
So, at least according to Lawless, the best way to study which candidate is getting the most attention would be by watching the news — specifically Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.
Luckily, FiveThirtyEight has done just that. Using the Internet Archive’s TV News Archive and the GDELT project’s Television Explorer, FiveThirtyEight reporters Dhrumil Mehta and Oliver Roeder looked at what percentage of coverage on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox mentioned each of the Democratic candidates in the days before and after they announced their candidacy.
They found that O’Rourke and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “saw dramatic, mountainous peaks in mentions immediately following their announcements, and in some cases still days after.” Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “saw more modest bumps.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), meanwhile, only got small spikes in attention after they announced.
Of course, the campaign is just beginning, and FiveThirtyEight’s comparison of announcement attention is just a snapshot of ongoing coverage. But one thing is clear — at the outset of their campaigns, O’Rourke and Sanders got more attention from Americans’ main sources of campaign news than their female counterparts did.
Is gender the reason? It’s complicated.
[…]
According to Lawless, female candidates have to battle the perception among voters that they’re more likely to lose, even though that’s not actually the case.
“It’s probably the case that women on the campaign trail have to work harder to convince voters that they should be voting for them, Lawless says, “because voters think no one else is going to be willing to elect a woman.”
In this election cycle in particular, we’ve seen “questions about women’s electability” because of Clinton’s 2016 loss, she says — even though Clinton actually won the popular vote.
“There is this narrative out there that’s speculating that a woman can’t beat Trump,” Lawless explains. “Female candidates have to address that, and the male candidates don’t.”
NYTimes: Trump Threatens to Close Mexican Border Next Week Over Immigration
and I bet the one after that will either be a war in Venezuela or a yuuge deal with Putin where he agrees to convince (aka strong arm & abscond with) Madura to step down and trump removes the sanctions on russia.
Yeah… unfortunately Jack is right about the world we live in. But maybe… just maybe all those females that won in the mid-terms means the tide is beginning to turn.
In a 2015 interview on 60 Minutes, Donald Trump declared about his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, “Everybody’s got to be covered… I am going to take care of everybody! I don’t care if it costs me votes or not- everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report detailing his investigation of President Trump and Russia’s election interference will be delivered to Congress by mid-April, Attorney General William P. Barr said Friday in a letter to lawmakers offering important new details about how the document will be edited before its public release.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own,” Barr wrote.
Barr’s new letter lays out a timeline for the next steps of the hotly-debated process by which Justice Department officials are sharing the nearly 400-page report.
In the letter, Barr said he does not plan to submit the report to the White House for review.
“Although the president would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr wrote.
Mueller delivered his conclusions to senior leaders at the department last week. After reviewing the report, the attorney general sent a four-page letter to Congress on Sunday, saying that Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
ADVERTISING
Barr’s Sunday letter also said the special counsel withheld judgment on whether Trump tried to obstruct justice during the investigation.
“The Special Counsel . . . did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” Barr wrote in his letter last week describing Mueller’s report. “The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him’.”
Since that Sunday letter, Democrats have demanded to see Mueller’s full report immediately — and they have threatened to issue a subpoena for the document if they don’t get it by Tuesday.
Barr’s new letter seeks to assuage such concerns and get more time to finish his review of Mueller’s work. Barr has said he needs to redact any grand jury information from the document, as well as any information that could adversely impact ongoing investigations.
In the Friday letter, Barr said he will also redact any information that would “potentially compromise sources and methods” of intelligence collection, and any information that would “unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”
In the new letter, Barr also disputes the characterization that his earlier notice to Congress was a “summary” of the Mueller report.
“My March 24 letter was not, and did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel’s investigation or report,” Barr wrote. “As my letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its “principal conclusions” — that is, its bottom line. The Special Counsel’s report is nearlyl 400 pages long (exclusive of tables and appendices) and sets forth the Special Counsel’s findings, his analysis, and the reasons for his conclusions. . . . I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”
In the letter, Barr also offered to testify before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on May 1 and 2.
Mueller’s report marked the end of his 22-month investigation into Russia’s intreerference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with any Trump associates. After Barr issued his summary Sunday, the president called it a “total exoneration.”
Looks like 2 of my current 3 favorites (who have committed) are falling off a bit. Pete’s rising, Kamala and Bernie! are playing footsie, and Cory and Amy are falling a bit and Stacey’s back in the hunt. Interesting IMHO.
I think Ms Pat’s of 2:03 pm may be, as they cliché) the road map to the future. . . . the next shiny distraction to hit us. NYTimes: Trump Threatens to Close Mexican Border Next Week Over Immigration and I bet the one after that will either be a war in Venezuela or a yuuge deal with Putin where he agrees to convince (aka strong arm & abscond with) Madura to step down and trump removes the sanctions on russia.
All this has the stench of nixonism, reaganism and bushism to it*. Therefore, it could very well be the manure we’ll have to walk through and turn under this spring and next.
*to propitiate the gods and win the election, they make human sacrifices.
Kamala and Amy are still my favorites.
Happiness is finding the oysters you dumped in a bucket a couple months ago are still kicking. Even more happiness is finding the clams I forgot in the temp storage cooler were nine out of twelve still doing good. So I dumped the clams in with the oysters and need to walk over to the Bay and get a bucket of water to refresh all of them.
Rough is I lost another tooth. New statement – do not turn sixty-eight. That is now three teeth gone and three root canals in twelve months. This tooth grenaded. There was tooth everywhere when the good doctor applied the pliers. In me, down my throat, on him, on the tech and on the floor. Molars are substantial. At least now I am feeling better. I sure hope that is the last of that hell. OBTW – it was not pleasant or pleasant tasting. I do not recommend this.
Being on a soft food diet is what reminded me I had some clams and oysters laying around. Right now they need some sea water more than I need to enjoy them.
Amy’s $TR!LL!ON$ infrastructure improvement may help her.
1.Blue collar jobs. Jobs that pay well (finally). Macho-style jobs. Full time (temporary) jobs ! This proposal could pry a few union guys away from Biden. Maybe. At least it’ll make her acceptable in the event that Biden stumbles.
2.The longer Biden remains coy, the worse he looks, imo. HRC’s campaign hurt her by delaying her announcement. It wasn’t fatal, but her campaign committed a million tiny mistakes. Each one cost only one vote, but they added up. Biden could go through the same crap.
3. But, dammitalltohell every candidate ought to stay positive and avoid sniping. Sniping leads to open warfare.
4.Are there any Dems who are not following the ‘time for a change’ strategy ? The Dem’s strategy in 2018 should have been the open seat strategy of ‘I’m better.’ But some of HRC’s people were pushing for a ‘stay the course’ incumbent strategy, in order to latch on to Obama’s popularity, especially among African Americans. That muddied the Trail a little. HRC’s inning strategy, ‘I’m better’ should have been the line, every time anyone of her people spoke. First, because it was an open seat, but also because SHE WAS BETTER !
5. This I kinda inside baseball, sorry. But, it just drives me crazy when Dem campaigns stray off course. And, if I was disappointed in the 2016 election results back then, I’m a thousand times more upset about it today.
6. End of rant. Thank you for your patience.
Ms Bronc,
The explosion of an abscessed tooth leads to observations on ice cream and the feeding of infants and oldsters, in the Japanese movie Tampopo (means Dandelion). The tooth explodes and the dentist and assistant both swoon. If I remember correctly, one of the two gets sick.
I hope you have healthy happy teeth from now on.
I want to hear every Dem who gets on tv to roar, “Mr barr, WE PAID for that report !”
Campaign Judo Move #1 rippers can’t debate actual issues. It’s time we made the non-issues poison for them too. The trump Wall Will Keep America Protestant ! Imagine a sea of red caps, and each one reads KAP Put repubs in a position where they have to explain why only Catholics are being kept out of the US. Why are nielssen/trump only kidnapping Catholic children ?
Maybe a guy named O’Rourke can carry that off.
Mr Flatus, We’ll see if Minnesota’s beloved Washington Senators can win another game this year. Rather, YOU’LL see. They’ll never sucker me into watching another game.
YAY, Indians, Royals, Tigers, and MN’s beloved Wash Senators ! Any & alluvem except Chicago’s beloved St Paul Saints. BOO !
G’night and sweet dreams
OOOO00000ooooooopppss. One more thing :
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lawmakers-to-introduce-bill-granting-puerto-rico-statehood/ar-BBVjPpb?ocid=spartanntp
wapo: ‘Clearly an end-run’: Federal judge rejects Trump’s health care plan to go around Obamacare
A federal judge in Washington ruled late Thursday that the Trump administration’s push to make health insurance plans available outside the Affordable Care Act that avoid the requirements of the health care law was illegal, calling the efforts “clearly an end-run around the ACA.”
The 43-page ruling, submitted by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia, blocks new rules from the Trump administration overseeing “association health plans,” which would allow small businesses to combine their forces to offer less expensive plans outside the ACA that would be both less expensive and provide fewer health protections.
“The final rule is clearly an end-run around the ACA,” Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in the Thursday ruling. “Indeed, as the president directed, and the secretary of labor confirmed, the final rule was designed to expand access to AHPs to avoid the most stringent requirements of the ACA.”
It marks the second significant legal defeat in as many days on the issue for President Trump, who not only recently revived his administration’s efforts to undo and replace former president Barack Obama’s signature achievement but also vowed to make health care a centerpiece of his reelection campaign. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, an Obama appointee of the District of Columbia, blocked the administration’s plans for some Medicaid recipients in Kentucky and Arkansas to be subject to work requirements in exchange for health benefits, The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein reported.
[continues]
jace, thanks for thread topic on beto. here’s another newbie that’s making a splash according to NYTimes:
Pete Buttigieg (It’s ‘Boot-Edge-Edge’) Is Making Waves in the 2020 Race
ROCK HILL, S.C. — Somewhere between Pete Buttigieg being mistaken for a teenager making a promposal, and answering a question in Norwegian, and proclaiming that it was millennials’ turn to lead “at the highest level,” South Carolina got a crash course in a new Democratic celebrity.
Mr. Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., drew large, enthusiastic crowds in his first campaign visit to the early-voting state over the weekend. That followed a series of well-received appearances on national TV, which have helped fuel his new popularity: An Iowa poll on Monday showed him jumping to third place in the 2020 caucus race, and a Quinnipiac national poll on Thursday showed him rising to fifth and tied with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
“This was supposed to be a little meet-and-greet Q. and A.,” he told hundreds of people in a college gym in Rock Hill, after his event was bumped from the library to accommodate a wave of RSVPs.
Many Democrats have drawn impressive crowds early this presidential cycle, a reflection of Democrats’ pent-up desire to defeat President Trump. But Mr. Buttigieg, a Rhodes scholar and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was largely an afterthought in a field of much better-known hopefuls. His national TV appearances built on an online following he developed with detailed, earnest and sometimes personal answers at events in Iowa and New Hampshire this winter, and his outside-the-box progressive stands on some policies.
After a 40-minute CNN town hall on March 10, a surge of donations led him to crack the threshold of 65,000 donors to qualify for the first Democratic debates in June. The Emerson Poll in Iowa showed Mr. Buttigieg hurtling to third place, behind former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders — up from a January poll that showed him at zero. (The poll’s margin of error for the Democratic caucus was plus or minus 6.2 percentage points.)
At a check-in table in South Carolina, a sign clarified a question still hovering over the candidate: “It’s Boot-edge-edge,” it read.
Ideologically, Mr. Buttigieg is a progressive — sometimes an adventurous one, calling to expand the Supreme Court and abolish the Electoral College. But his main themes are generational change and winning back Rust Belt voters who supported Mr. Trump.
“I think there’s still an attitude in some parts of the party that what we have to do is find the final proof that Trump’s a bad guy and show it to everybody,” Mr. Buttigieg said in an interview. “What it misses is there’s a lot of people where I live who were under no illusions about his character. They already get that he’s a bad guy, but they made a decision with their eyes open to vote to burn the house down.”
Mr. Buttigieg’s prescription for winning back the white working class is hardly revolutionary: He emphasizes traditional Democratic priorities like health care and education, while assuring voters without a college degree that they can thrive in a changing economy, rather than promising a restoration of the past.
[continues]
here’s the headline, an excerpt and another link from politico of the beto article jace gave us:
‘He can’t DIY things like he did in Texas’: Beto goes mainstream
The former Texas congressman’s campaign setup is a departure from form.
[…]
After eschewing strategists and pollsters in his Senate run, O’Rourke this week hired a data expert, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to manage his presidential campaign. He recruited Norm Sterzenbach, a veteran strategist with deep knowledge of Iowa’s caucus math and mechanics, to marshal his operations in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
O’Rourke has advance staffers with presidential campaign experience in place for what are expected to be frequent, road trip-style campaign appearances. And the campaign was organizing more than 1,000 watch parties around the country to coincide with a campaign kickoff event in El Paso on Saturday.
[continues]
Just what the party needs: Two more inexperienced white males to save the women and POC from themselves.
XR I’m stealing the Catholic meme. That one should cut in to even the most conservative of the GOP
Jace… I agree… it’s fun to have Beto in the mix. Hell.. it’s fun to have all of them in the mix. Right now I’m favoring Beto and Amy…. with Kamala and Corey as runner-ups. But that could change with the debates. First one in late June according to MSNBC. Should be fun!
Newsweek:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff presented all of the ways that members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle colluded with the Russians, both during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, in a public hearing Thursday.
[…]
“My colleagues may think it’s OK that the Russians offered ‘dirt’ on a Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s OK,” Schiff said to Republican lawmakers during the hearing. “My colleagues might think it’s OK that when that was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help. No, instead that son said that he would ‘love’ the help of the Russians.”
Schiff went on: “You might think it’s OK that he took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience at running campaigns, took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that the president’s son-in-law also took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that they concealed it from the public.
“You might think it’s OK that their only disappointment from that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think it’s OK that when it was discovered, a year later, they then lied about that meeting and said that it was about adoptions. You might think that it’s OK that it was reported that the president helped dictate that lie. You might think that’s OK. I don’t.
“You might think it’s OK that the campaign chairman of a presidential campaign would offer information about that campaign to a Russian oligarch in exchange for money or debt forgiveness. You might think that’s OK, I don’t,” Schiff continued, referring to reports that Manafort had offered briefings on the campaign to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
“You might think it’s OK that that campaign chairman offered polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s OK,” Schiff added, referring to court documents demonstrating that Manafort had met Konstantin Kilimnik, a suspected member of Russian intelligence, in Madrid and gave him polling data on the 2016 presidential election.
“You might think it’s OK that the president himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, if they were listening. You might think it’s OK that later that day the Russians attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s OK,” Schiff said.
server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s OK,” Schiff said.
“You might think it’s OK that the president’s son-in-law attempted to establish a secret back channel of communication with the Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility. I don’t think that’s OK,” he added.
“You might think it’s OK that an associate of the president made direct contact with the GRU [Russian military intelligence], through Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks, that is considered a hostile intelligence agency,” Schiff continued, referring to Trump associate Roger Stone’s communications with a hacker of Democratic National Committee data named Guccifer, as well as WikiLeaks.” You might think it’s OK that a senior campaign official was instructed to reach that associate and find out what that hostile intelligence agency had to say in terms of dirt on his opponent.
“You might think it’s OK that the national security adviser designate secretly conferred with the Russian ambassador, undermining U.S. sanctions, and you might think it’s OK that he lied about it to the FBI,” Schiff said, referring to Michael Flynn. “You might say that’s all OK, that’s what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s OK.”
Schiff added: “Now I have always said that the question of whether this amounts to proof of conspiracy was another matter. Whether the special counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the proof of that crime would be up to the special counsel, and I would accept his decision, and I do. But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do, think that’s OK, is the day we look back and say that is the day that America lost its way.”
The hearing grew heated shortly after Schiff’s speech when the chairman refused to yield to allow Republicans to respond and shut off the microphone of one of the Republicans who was speaking. Nine Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have signed a letter calling on Schiff to resign and presented it at Thursday’s hearing.
Beto
The energizer bunny!!
So far he is poaching Bernie’s college vote and NY moderates from Gillibrand.
And ya gotta love the mini van, it is the plaid shirt for the new millennium. If you don’t follow him on twitter do so you get the video recorded as he drives down the road.
I think politicos problem is they want their plane and the privileged perks that go with it.
Can he win? I don’t know but he sure the fuck is entertaining.
BTW Jamie, if someone as qualified as HRC can’t beat Trump then neither can any of the candidates currently running. Sorry to say but as with Clinton both Democrats and Republicans will believe the lies to avoid electing a woman for president. We live in that world.
Jack
I really like Kamala Harris but I don’t think she has a chance especially if dumb ass Biden gets in the race.
Jack
For those that don’t believe my above comment to Jamie, look at the crap the women candidates have had to take so far. I suspect most of it is either Russian or Bernie bots.
Jack
Jack
Currently of the men I really like Booker and Castro. My favorite currently is Amy Klobuchar because she reminds me most of Hillary … quiet, hard working, experienced, dedicated and from the mid west. Among the other women I think Harris.
I’m with Kamala.
The rest of them can just fight it out.
There was a commentary this morning about how many in last night’s Trump rally were QAnon. He is really drawing out the worst of the conspiracy, racist, and Sovereign Citizen crackpots and making them feel as if they are “normal” rather than an abomination of everything the US has always represented to the world.
I favor Mayor Pete over O’R. If a significant plurality of women support Kamala, I’ll support her as well. Otherwise, it’ll be Pete and Klobuchar.
A person purporting to be a progressive is much more qualified to don that mantle if the individual has gone to war in Service for Our Country.
I think Schiff did well – in my opinion it was a masterful smack down of the republidiots calling for his resignation as chair. And he ended it perfectly – refused to recognize the accusers a second time after delivering his smack down and recognized the witness. Oh, and advice to SFB – if your head sits atop a festering bucket of puss you call a neck and is held in place by floppy “skin”, don’t criticize people whose necks don’t sway when the wind blows.
Ms Jamie,
Please, take the Catholic story, and carry all before you !
May your harvest of hearts and minds be bountiful, yea even legendary !
Sorry the link did not work. Thanks for the fix Pat.
Yes, Mr Pogo, I agree that Chairman Schiff made a stunning defense. Pickett’s Charge must have been like that. One doesn’t often see an all-out legislative offensive get mowed down like hay under the summer sun.
Right now Kamala has my money, but nobody has my heart.
I also still like Booker and Klobuchar, but I’ll support a yaller dog, a green cheese, or a blue tick over any republican in the sty. Let us not ever quarrel over the candidate, but be perfectly positive from now until the convention, and from the convention to election day. And, may we win by at least 2 -1, with long Velcro coattails.
Can I hear an ‘Amen’ ?
Amen
My goal is for the Gold Plated Tower Trash to “resign for the sake of his health” or go down in flames in 2020. Anyone with a real “D” after their name is fine with me.
XR, I’l give you an Amen, (but I will be surprised if I comply).
My goal is to beat SFB in 2020. I’m OK with whatever policy positions might come from any of the candidates, although I do not believe the country has the political will or that the dems will have the numbers (which would require a pickup of 12 seats in the Senate) to pass a Medicare for all approach to healthcare. Right now I like Kamala, Amy and Cory, but I’m not sure whether one of them will have the support to beat SFB in the upper Midwest and PA. We’ll see how their campaigns develop. If (when) Joe gets in, until someone else shows me they carry enough support to beat SFB, I’ll probably be backing him although I certainly understand other folks’ reservations about his candidacy.
Jane Goodall says Trump’s behavior similar to chimpanzee. She’s the expert, but I doubt he is that smart.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-chimpanzee-behavior_n_57ddb84fe4b04a1497b4e512
I’m still with Amy but it is not looking good when Pete Unpronounceable last name is ahead o f her
I wish I knew this woman’s name — she is a Sirius radio host and she said – when men are evaluated is it often on the potential but a woman always has to have a track record of success.
I’m also with Klobuchar,
kgc, it’s pronounced “boot-edge-edge”
here’s an interesting article…
Do male candidates get more coverage than women? It’s complicated.
vox:
Do male candidates get more coverage than women? It’s complicated.
A Vanity Fair cover. Reporters mobbing campaign stops. Multiple references to “stardom.”
That’s the reception that greeted Beto O’Rourke in the days leading up to and following the announcement of his campaign for the presidency. All this happened despite the fact that O’Rourke is a former member of Congress without a detailed platform, whose main claim to fame is losing a long-shot Senate race.
Some of his female opponents in the Democratic primary, meanwhile, have come out with well-thought-out policy proposals bolstered by years in nationwide office. But to some observers, they haven’t gotten the same star treatment as O’Rourke.
“We have four highly qualified women senators all from incredibly different backgrounds, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re not getting the same traction and enthusiasm in the media as the male candidates,” says Amanda Hunter, research and communications director at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which works on women’s representation in politics.
It’s difficult to measure media coverage, and some research suggests that media sexism against female candidates is overstated. So I decided to investigate two questions: First, is O’Rourke actually getting more attention than his female primary opponents? And second, is gender the reason why?
The answer to the first question is yes, at least by one measure. The answer to the second is more complicated.
In her research on women running for Congress, University of Virginia political science professor Jennifer Lawless has found that female candidates actually face no systematic bias at the polls or in fundraising. But, she says, “The perception out there is that neither of those things is true.” Americans still think a woman can’t win, even if that’s not true — and four years after Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, that perception could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Who gets more attention?
It’s not easy to quantify “attention” in politics today — as Vox’s Sarah Kliff has pointed out, campaign coverage now happens on Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of digital news sites, as well as in more traditional media. But according to Lawless, coauthor of the 2016 book Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era, the best way to measure media coverage is to look at which sources people actually rely on for election news.
In the case of the 2016 presidential election, those sources were TV networks, according to a Pew survey. The top source of campaign news for all voters was Fox News, followed by CNN. For Clinton voters, who are the ones most likely to vote in the Democratic primary, the top two sources were CNN and MSNBC.
So, at least according to Lawless, the best way to study which candidate is getting the most attention would be by watching the news — specifically Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.
Luckily, FiveThirtyEight has done just that. Using the Internet Archive’s TV News Archive and the GDELT project’s Television Explorer, FiveThirtyEight reporters Dhrumil Mehta and Oliver Roeder looked at what percentage of coverage on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox mentioned each of the Democratic candidates in the days before and after they announced their candidacy.
They found that O’Rourke and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “saw dramatic, mountainous peaks in mentions immediately following their announcements, and in some cases still days after.” Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “saw more modest bumps.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), meanwhile, only got small spikes in attention after they announced.
Of course, the campaign is just beginning, and FiveThirtyEight’s comparison of announcement attention is just a snapshot of ongoing coverage. But one thing is clear — at the outset of their campaigns, O’Rourke and Sanders got more attention from Americans’ main sources of campaign news than their female counterparts did.
Is gender the reason? It’s complicated.
[…]
According to Lawless, female candidates have to battle the perception among voters that they’re more likely to lose, even though that’s not actually the case.
“It’s probably the case that women on the campaign trail have to work harder to convince voters that they should be voting for them, Lawless says, “because voters think no one else is going to be willing to elect a woman.”
In this election cycle in particular, we’ve seen “questions about women’s electability” because of Clinton’s 2016 loss, she says — even though Clinton actually won the popular vote.
“There is this narrative out there that’s speculating that a woman can’t beat Trump,” Lawless explains. “Female candidates have to address that, and the male candidates don’t.”
LOL, renee, great minds think alike 🙂
the next shiny distraction to hit us.
NYTimes: Trump Threatens to Close Mexican Border Next Week Over Immigration
and I bet the one after that will either be a war in Venezuela or a yuuge deal with Putin where he agrees to convince (aka strong arm & abscond with) Madura to step down and trump removes the sanctions on russia.
patd…. now that’s funnnnny!
Yeah… unfortunately Jack is right about the world we live in. But maybe… just maybe all those females that won in the mid-terms means the tide is beginning to turn.
also waiting in the wings will be a repeat of this “promise”
https://youtu.be/y8mcN0zweQE
In a 2015 interview on 60 Minutes, Donald Trump declared about his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, “Everybody’s got to be covered… I am going to take care of everybody! I don’t care if it costs me votes or not- everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”
https://youtu.be/ZGW9hRNgKWA
Jamie…. LOVE IT!
I just shared it on my facebook page. I have friends that must see this!
wapo:
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report detailing his investigation of President Trump and Russia’s election interference will be delivered to Congress by mid-April, Attorney General William P. Barr said Friday in a letter to lawmakers offering important new details about how the document will be edited before its public release.
“Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own,” Barr wrote.
Barr’s new letter lays out a timeline for the next steps of the hotly-debated process by which Justice Department officials are sharing the nearly 400-page report.
In the letter, Barr said he does not plan to submit the report to the White House for review.
“Although the president would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr wrote.
Mueller delivered his conclusions to senior leaders at the department last week. After reviewing the report, the attorney general sent a four-page letter to Congress on Sunday, saying that Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Barr’s Sunday letter also said the special counsel withheld judgment on whether Trump tried to obstruct justice during the investigation.
“The Special Counsel . . . did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” Barr wrote in his letter last week describing Mueller’s report. “The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him’.”
Since that Sunday letter, Democrats have demanded to see Mueller’s full report immediately — and they have threatened to issue a subpoena for the document if they don’t get it by Tuesday.
Barr’s new letter seeks to assuage such concerns and get more time to finish his review of Mueller’s work. Barr has said he needs to redact any grand jury information from the document, as well as any information that could adversely impact ongoing investigations.
In the Friday letter, Barr said he will also redact any information that would “potentially compromise sources and methods” of intelligence collection, and any information that would “unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”
In the new letter, Barr also disputes the characterization that his earlier notice to Congress was a “summary” of the Mueller report.
“My March 24 letter was not, and did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel’s investigation or report,” Barr wrote. “As my letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its “principal conclusions” — that is, its bottom line. The Special Counsel’s report is nearlyl 400 pages long (exclusive of tables and appendices) and sets forth the Special Counsel’s findings, his analysis, and the reasons for his conclusions. . . . I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.”
In the letter, Barr also offered to testify before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on May 1 and 2.
Mueller’s report marked the end of his 22-month investigation into Russia’s intreerference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with any Trump associates. After Barr issued his summary Sunday, the president called it a “total exoneration.”
Looks like 2 of my current 3 favorites (who have committed) are falling off a bit. Pete’s rising, Kamala and Bernie! are playing footsie, and Cory and Amy are falling a bit and Stacey’s back in the hunt. Interesting IMHO.
I think Ms Pat’s of 2:03 pm may be, as they cliché) the road map to the future.
. . . the next shiny distraction to hit us.
NYTimes: Trump Threatens to Close Mexican Border Next Week Over Immigration
and I bet the one after that will either be a war in Venezuela or a yuuge deal with Putin where he agrees to convince (aka strong arm & abscond with) Madura to step down and trump removes the sanctions on russia.
All this has the stench of nixonism, reaganism and bushism to it*. Therefore, it could very well be the manure we’ll have to walk through and turn under this spring and next.
*to propitiate the gods and win the election, they make human sacrifices.
Where’s Mr Bink ? I think we need his caustic opinion to dissolve the murk off our goggles.
Kamala and Amy are still my favorites.
Happiness is finding the oysters you dumped in a bucket a couple months ago are still kicking. Even more happiness is finding the clams I forgot in the temp storage cooler were nine out of twelve still doing good. So I dumped the clams in with the oysters and need to walk over to the Bay and get a bucket of water to refresh all of them.
Rough is I lost another tooth. New statement – do not turn sixty-eight. That is now three teeth gone and three root canals in twelve months. This tooth grenaded. There was tooth everywhere when the good doctor applied the pliers. In me, down my throat, on him, on the tech and on the floor. Molars are substantial. At least now I am feeling better. I sure hope that is the last of that hell. OBTW – it was not pleasant or pleasant tasting. I do not recommend this.
Being on a soft food diet is what reminded me I had some clams and oysters laying around. Right now they need some sea water more than I need to enjoy them.
Sturgeon,
Will you have a post for tomorrow? If you see this let me know.
Thanks
jace
Amy’s $TR!LL!ON$ infrastructure improvement may help her.
1.Blue collar jobs. Jobs that pay well (finally). Macho-style jobs. Full time (temporary) jobs ! This proposal could pry a few union guys away from Biden. Maybe. At least it’ll make her acceptable in the event that Biden stumbles.
2.The longer Biden remains coy, the worse he looks, imo. HRC’s campaign hurt her by delaying her announcement. It wasn’t fatal, but her campaign committed a million tiny mistakes. Each one cost only one vote, but they added up. Biden could go through the same crap.
3. But, dammitalltohell every candidate ought to stay positive and avoid sniping. Sniping leads to open warfare.
4.Are there any Dems who are not following the ‘time for a change’ strategy ? The Dem’s strategy in 2018 should have been the open seat strategy of ‘I’m better.’ But some of HRC’s people were pushing for a ‘stay the course’ incumbent strategy, in order to latch on to Obama’s popularity, especially among African Americans. That muddied the Trail a little. HRC’s inning strategy, ‘I’m better’ should have been the line, every time anyone of her people spoke. First, because it was an open seat, but also because SHE WAS BETTER !
5. This I kinda inside baseball, sorry. But, it just drives me crazy when Dem campaigns stray off course. And, if I was disappointed in the 2016 election results back then, I’m a thousand times more upset about it today.
6. End of rant. Thank you for your patience.
Ms Bronc,
The explosion of an abscessed tooth leads to observations on ice cream and the feeding of infants and oldsters, in the Japanese movie Tampopo (means Dandelion). The tooth explodes and the dentist and assistant both swoon. If I remember correctly, one of the two gets sick.
I hope you have healthy happy teeth from now on.
Jacemeister…….yes.
But a sturgeone without a camera is like a blacklisted stormcrow without a Mr. Microphone……
I don’t generally care for losing perfectly good senators, but ya can’t stand in the way of progress.
Only the longest arms can catch the brass ring.
Sturgeon,
Good deal. Thanks?
Yo……..