US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2430

On October 23 2015 12:52 Danglars wrote:

I'm glad we've reached this note of bipartisanship. I'd have preferred a forthcoming state department and quicker investigation too.

On October 23 2015 18:20 Dickbutt wrote:
hehe cummings

On October 23 2015 20:29 JinDesu wrote:


Most appropriate name to post ever.

On October 23 2015 14:45 Introvert wrote:
Of course Hillary enjoyed herself, she wanted this public because she knew how it would to her side. She also knew that idiot Cummings would be his usual self. There was a reason Hillary, and not the committee, wanted this public.

Republicans have fended off accusations for years that they'd gut Medicare for seniors and end the program "as we know it."

Not Ben Carson. The former neurosurgeon acknowledges he would abolish the program altogether.

Carson, who now leads the GOP field in Iowa according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll, would eliminate the program that provides health care to 49 million senior citizens, as well as Medicaid, and replace it with a system of cradle-to-grave savings accounts which would be funded with $2,000 a year in government contributions. While rivals have been pummeled for proposing less radical changes, Carson hasn't faced the same scrutiny -- and his continued traction in polls has left GOP strategists and conservative health care wonks scratching their heads.

"This isn’t a borderline issue. The politics of this are horrific," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum and health care adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Carson's stance on the third-rail issue of Medicare is especially risky given his strength among elderly voters. In Iowa, Carson draws a quarter of the senior vote -- more than double any other candidate except Donald Trump, with whom he’s statistically tied among seniors. Carson’s support is even higher among voters between the ages of 55 and 64, who are on the verge of Medicare eligibility. He draws 34 percent of that age group, double Trump’s level of support, according to the Quinnipiac poll.

On October 24 2015 00:43 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Stick a fork in him...



Source

The flagging GOP presidential campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is cutting staff at its Miami headquarters to save more than $1 million per month and slash payroll by 40 percent this week, according to reports on Friday.

Politico reported that staffers were informed of the changes on a conference call.

“This is about winning the race,” an anonymous campaign adviser told Bloomberg Politics. on Friday. “We’re doing it now and making the shifts with confidence. We expect to win."

From the Bloomberg report:

Bush's advisers, under pressure from their donors and from falling and stagnant poll numbers, have been discussing ways to retool the campaign in recent days, and came to the conclusion that a course correction was essential. While recent tangles with Donald Trump have energized the campaign, Bush's senior team recognized a more fundamental set of changes was required that didn't involve dealing directly with the party's surprising—and surprisingly durable—front-runner.
It's unclear if Bush was on the call. The National Journal reported Bush was headed to Virginia.

Kristy Campbell, Bush's campaign spokeswoman, said resources are being shifted into early primary and caucus states.

Maybe it's the pope. Or the freakish year in extreme climate records. It might even be explained by the United Nations climate talks and the bright lights of the presidential election cycle. Whatever the cause, U.S. views on climate change are shifting—fast.

Three-quarters of Americans now accept the scientific consensus on climate change, the highest level in four years of surveys conducted by the University of Texas at Austin. The biggest shocker is what's happening inside the GOP. In a remarkable turnabout, 59 percent of Republicans now say climate change is happening, up from 47 percent just six months ago.

When public opinion shifts this much in a single survey, a bit of skepticism is justified. (You can take a look at the methodology here.) Yet these results are precisely in line with a separate survey published this month by the University of Michigan, which found that 56 percent of Republicans believe there's solid evidence to support global warming, up from 47 percent a year ago. The Michigan poll also found bipartisan agreement with climate science at the highest level since 2008.

The changing views by Republicans could strand some of the leading presidential candidates in an increasingly unpopular position. Many in the party reject mainstream climate science, and not just at the margins. Republican leaders including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and top presidential contenders Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio all articulate views that would be considered extreme in other countries.

Republicans are still mixed in support for policies to curb climate change, according to the Texas poll. Just 26 percent of Republicans said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a tax on carbon emissions, a policy with majority support among Democrats. On the other hand, half of Republicans said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who wants to reduce the use of coal or require utilities to obtain a certain proportion of electricity from wind and solar.

On October 24 2015 01:13 Gorsameth wrote:

Every time he opens his mouth a little bit more stupid comes out.

Twenty-four states have filed lawsuits against Barack Obama’s rules for cutting carbon pollution from power plants, the first wave of a much-anticipated legal and political onslaught against his climate change plan.

The challenge filed on Friday asked a federal court in Washington DC, to strike down the power plant rules, thus gutting the heart of Obama’s climate plan.

Republicans in Congress are planning to introduce measures next week seeking to overturn the rules.

Administration officials have said repeatedly they believe they are in a strong position to beat back both sets of challenges.

But the lawsuits and the initiatives in Congress send a powerful message to the international community ahead of the Paris climate conference next month that Obama faces significant opposition to his efforts to cut America’s carbon pollution and sign on to a global deal to fight climate change.

Obama is leaning heavily on the power plant rules as evidence of his efforts to fight climate change in the US – and so help lead other countries to an international agreement. In addition to their efforts against the EPA rules, Republicans in Congress are trying to block Obama from joining an international climate agreement without first securing Senate approval.

The EPA rules under attack on Friday would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 32% by 2030 on 2005 levels, delivering the biggest single cut in America’s carbon pollution.

On October 24 2015 00:43 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Stick a fork in him...



Source

Mitt Romney is finally ready to take credit for Obamacare.

Speaking to the Boston Globe for their obituary of Staples founder Thomas G. Stemberg, who died Friday, the former Massachusetts praised Stemberg for his involvement in pushing “Romneycare,” which in turn, Romney said, led to Obamacare, giving “a lot of people” health coverage.

“Without Tom pushing it, I don’t think we would have had Romneycare,” Romney said. “Without Romneycare, I don’t think we would have Obamacare. So, without Tom a lot of people wouldn’t have health insurance.”

It’s hard to imagine Romney saying such a thing during the 2012 election cycle. Back then Romney was stumbling and bumbling his way to create some distance between the health care reform he championed as a governor and President Obama’s signature health care law.


The focus by conservatives on Obamacare as the leading example of everything that was wrong with Obama made for some extremely awkward moments for the eventual Republican nominee. The similarities between the Massachusetts and the federal laws even prompted one of Romney’s primary rivals to coin the term “Obamneycare.”

The next day Romney promised to repeal Obamacare if elected and vowed that on his first day in the White House, he would “grant a waiver to all 50 states from Obamacare."

He echoed his Obamacare repeal promises again and again. He called Obamacare a “very bad piece of legislation” and unconstitutional. He argued Romneycare only worked on the state level and that by bringing it nationwide, the Obama administration “fundamentally distrust[s] free enterprise and distrust the idea that states are where the power of government reside."

And if that wasn’t enough to convince Republicans, he turned his criticism against his own law.

"It's not even perfect for Massachusetts," he told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York in 2011. "At the time we created it, I vetoed several measures and said these, I think, are mistakes, and you in Massachusetts will find you have to correct them over time. ... But they have not made those changes, and in some cases they made things worse. So I wouldn't encourage any state to adopt it in total."

Now that Romney is suggesting that Romneycare helped bring about Obamacare, he is in line with what Obama said during one of their 2012 debates.