Last Call

Between immigration and Obamacare, Florida is shaping up to be a different kind of "battleground" state:  the kind where Republican-on-Republican attacks are tearing the state's GOP supermajority apart.

Florida Governor Rick Scott's plan to expand Medicaid coverage to cover about 1 million more poor people suffered a setback on Monday when the proposal failed to make it out of a key state legislative committee hearing.

On the eve of convening of the 2013 session, the House Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rejected the expansion. A Senate counterpart committee postponed consideration of the issue, which is sure to be one of the biggest controversies of the session.

Scott, a Republican who bitterly fought President Barack Obama's national healthcare plan as a candidate and in his first two years as governor, stunned conservative supporters on Feb. 20 when he endorsed a three-year expansion of Medicaid, provided the federal government picks up the full cost for the first three years as promised.

"There's definitely a fight between the governor and the (state) legislature over this. The Republicans in the legislature are much more fiscally conservative than his actions have shown him to be," said Susan MacManus, a Tampa-based political scientist at the University of South Florida.

Republican legislative leaders have been openly hostile toward the plan, emphasizing that state lawmakers will make the final decision in drawing up a budget for next fiscal year.

"Openly hostile" doesn't begin to describe it.  Florida GOP lawmakers believe Scott has betrayed them, and they'll expand Medicare over their dead bodies.

Or more correctly, the dead bodies of Florida's poor, who will continue to die from lack of affordable health insurance.  This is a major feature of Republican rule at the state level.  The GOP is A-OK with millions of uninsured Americans.  They don't have a problem with that.

I'm betting the rest of Florida does, however.

Thirteen Words, Possible Fewer IQ Points

In his quixotic quest to somehow assure that President Obama goes down in history as Worse Than Bush And Worst Ever, John Hinderaker over at Power Line decides that Obama's SOTU comments on climate change are even more of a lie than Bush's SOTU comments a decade ago on Saddam Hussein's WMD.

Yep, apparently climate change is worse than the Iraq War.

Remember George W. Bush’s famous “16 words”? They came from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech, where Bush said: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” That was a true statement, but it caused immense controversy, for reasons that are now hard to remember.

Sure, hard to remember.  Like the faces of the thousands of US troops and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis that resulted from us going over there to stop those non-existent piles of phantom WMDs that never existed.  Oh well, why would that ever be considered controversial?

Fast forward to 2013, and President Obama’s State of the Union, where he said, talking about global warming: “Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense.” 

It's false, Hinderaker says, because the DUST BOWL, LIBTARDS and NYC had hurricanes in the 19th century!

No, that's his entire argument.  Convinced he's won, he plows on through the stars...

What are the chances that Obama’s false 13 words will become as controversial as Bush’s true 16 words? Slim and none, obviously. Of course, there were so many other untrue statements in Obama’s SOTU that it is understandable that the 13 words on global warming got lost in the shuffle.

What are the chances that this guy has a working soul?  Zero.

Romney With Glasses

And approximately 12 hours after flipping on immigration reform and saying there's no path to citizenship for undocumented citizens, Jeb Bush has flopped back saying there needs to be a path to citizenship for undocumented citizens.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday that he would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants “if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn’t an incentive for people to come illegally” — a position that puts him at odds with his new book, out today from Simon & Schuster.

In Immigration Wars, co-authored with immigration lawyer Clint Bolick, Bush agues that denying a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrations is “absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences.” Those who enter the country illegally, Bush contends, should “start the process to earn permanent legal residency” after pleading guilty to breaking the law and paying “applicable fines or perform community service.” But they should not have access to “the cherished fruits of citizenship”.

Not only does it contradict his book, it contradicts what he said yesterday.

“There has to be some difference between people who come here legally and illegally. It’s just a matter of common sense and a matter of the rule of law,” he said. “If we’re not going to apply the law fairly and consistently, then we’re going to have another wave of illegal immigrants coming into the country.”

But today, a path to citizenship is okay.  Yesterday, it wasn't.  Six weeks ago in an op-ed for the WSJ, it was okay.

The only alternatives to increased immigration are mounting debts or reduced social services. A practicable system of work-based immigration for both high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants—a system that will include a path to citizenship—will help us meet workforce needs, prevent exportation of jobs to foreign countries and protect against the exploitation of workers. 

At this point Jeb's 2016 run is over about 3 years before it begins.  This clown is all over the map...just like his brother.  Please tell me we're not stupid enough to elect another Bush...and please tell me the GOP will nominate his dumb ass anyway.

StupidiNews!

• Twelve former Florida A&M band students now face manslaughter charges in the November 2011 hazing death of band major Robert Champion.
• Arkansas Democrat Gov. Mike Beebe has vetoed the most restrictive abortion bill in the country, one that that would restrict all abortions after 12 weeks, but his veto may be overturned by the legislature.
• Ahead of pulling out of Afghanistan, the US military is consolidating bases and operations toward its largest outposts.
• European Union officials are loosening budget requirements after Italian and French backlashes against the Eurozone's austerity regime.
• A new game simulation helps people understand what it's like to suffer from ADHD and sensory overload.