US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1601

On January 29 2015 14:41 TheTenthDoc wrote:


I don't think any of the Republican candidates will be able to bundle non-Benghazi foreign policy failures into either commercial soundbites or two minute debate answers which are the only things that matter.

Their campaign managers are just too crappy and/or drink way too much of the party Kool-Aid.

Edit: This doesn't speak to the new candidates, though. Just the stable that couldn't beat McCain or Romney.

On January 29 2015 14:16 Sub40APM wrote:

Yes, I hope the GOP runs on a 'we should have fought 4 more middle eastern wars!' platform.

On January 29 2015 14:53 oneofthem wrote:
lol how is russia running amok. they getting rekt

On January 29 2015 14:54 xDaunt wrote:

That doesn't matter. All that matters is showing Russia invading Ukraine in conjunction with the reset button photo op.

On January 29 2015 15:12 Mohdoo wrote:


I really feel like we're simply past those types of utterly dishonest attacks being effective anymore. 2008 proved it and then 2012 proved it again. The republican party simply needs more than that to get the job done. People wise up a bit more each time and I think it would be even less effective in 2016.

On January 29 2015 15:18 xDaunt wrote:

What is there to wise up about? Obama's foreign policy was a disaster the entire time that Hillary was secretary of state. The reset button is so ridiculous in hindsight that I am sure that Hillary would love for nothing more than for the world to forget about it. There is an ample foreign policy record to attack her on. The knives will come out soon enough.

On January 29 2015 22:12 farvacola wrote:
If Republicans focus on foreign policy as their campaign rallying cry, they will lose the election before the polls even open. Cheers!

On January 29 2015 22:12 farvacola wrote:
If Republicans focus on foreign policy as their campaign rallying cry, they will lose the election before the polls even open. Cheers!

Many Republicans would view it as a dream come true if the Supreme Court were to slash a centerpiece of Obamacare by the end of June. But that dream could fade into a nightmare as the spotlight turns to the Republican Congress to fix the mayhem that could ensue.

"It's an opportunity that we've failed at for two decades. We've not been particularly close to being on the same page on this subject for two decades," said a congressional Republican health policy aide who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. "So this idea — we're ready to go? Actually no, we're not."

Republican leaders recognize the dilemma. In King v. Burwell, they roundly claim the court ought to invalidate insurance subsidies in some three-dozen states, and that Congress must be ready with a response once they do. But conversations with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers and aides indicate that the party is nowhere close to a solution. Outside health policy experts consulted by the Republicans are also at odds on how the party should respond.

The party that has failed to unify behind an alternative to Obamacare for many years now has five months to reach an agreement. It's an unenviable predicament, especially for the congressional Republicans leading the effort to devise a response — all of whom hail from states that could lose their subsidies.

"There are a lot of ideas," Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch (UT) told TPM on Tuesday. "If the case goes the way I think it should go ... then we've gotta come up with a way of resolving the problems we're in. We're quietly looking at all that and trying to do that."

For now, the GOP's goal is to "make the world safe for [Chief Justice John] Roberts to overturn" the Obamacare subsidies, said one prominent outside conservative close to Republican lawmakers and the case, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. "What I worry about is — the goal is to not let our guys look like they're going crazy and letting the world spin into chaos." In other words, Republicans must show they're willing and able to deal with the issue.

House Republicans held a strategy meeting on Jan. 15 at a retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about contingency plans for the King v. Burwell ruling, led by House Ways & Means Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Energy & Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-MI).

Senate Republicans have set up a working group to hash out a plan, led by Hatch, Health Committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Policy Committee Chair John Barrasso (R-WY), a doctor. TPM spoke to the three senators about what the party's plan should be, but none of them offered any details.

On January 30 2015 01:31 xDaunt wrote:
I love how you guys keep saying Benghazi when I explicitly omit Benghazi. Gotta keep that strawman propped up.

And I don't see Hillary cruising on domestic issues. There are already significant Obama/democrat-fatigue headwinds that she's going to have to deal with. That's only going to worsen if the economy takes a shit in the next 20 months (unfortunately, this is fairly likely).

Up to 1,000 people, including almost 200 children, may have been exposed to measles after a woman — who caught the disease from a family that traveled to California's Disneyland amusement park where an outbreak originated last month — walked into a Phoenix children’s hospital.

The Arizona woman, whose case was confirmed Tuesday in Maricopa County, came into contact with a Pinal County family that traveled to Disneyland, but did not have telltale signs of measles when she visited Phoenix Children's East Valley Center last week. There are currently seven confirmed cases of measles in Arizona.

“Unfortunately, she came down with the disease and by the time it was recognized had already exposed a large number of children at the facility,” said Maricopa County health director Bob England.

Those who haven't been vaccinated are being asked to stay home for 21 days, a standard health practice, or wear masks if they have to go out in public. Health officials will check in with the families of at-risk children following the incubation period, which ends Feb. 11-12.

Most parents understand the importance of keeping their children home, England said.

Local father Tim Jacks was livid when he received a call from the hospital shortly after taking his three-year-old daughter Maggie there for lab work after her last chemotherapy session, local news website CBS 5 reported.

"There's the father in me that's just pissed off and angry and wanting to protect my family," Jacks said. It was not possible to have Maggie vaccinated because of her battle with leukemia, and her weak immune system puts her at risk to many diseases. Jack's 10-month-old son, who was too young to be vaccinated, was also possibly exposed to measles at the hospital. Jacks said both of his children would be kept at home for the next three weeks.

"The last thing I want to do as a father and as a pediatrician is to spread something like this to anyone else," Jacks told CBS 5.

Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90 percent of the people close to that person who are not vaccinated will also become infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

State Health Services director Will Humble said it’s possible but unlikely that the number of cases in Arizona will be contained at seven.

“To stay in your house for 21 days is hard,” he said. “But we need people to follow those recommendations, because all it takes is a quick trip to the Costco before you’re ill and, ‘bam,’ you’ve just exposed a few hundred people. We’re at a real critical juncture with the outbreak.”

Health officials don’t yet know how many of the children at the hospital were vaccinated or their age ranges. Children under a year old cannot receive the vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella but can get an immunity booster. While the measles vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective in stemming the spread of the disease, it does lower the likelihood of transmission.

Health officials were working to notify the families of children who visited the Phoenix Children’s East Valley Center from Jan. 20-21.