Not The Chelsea You Thought Would Run

I don't have any problem with Democrats running for Senate in 2018, the more the merrier.  But trying to primary a sitting Democrat in a safe blue state is going after your own party, and Chelsea Manning damn well knows it.

Chelsea Manning, the transgender former Army private who was convicted of passing sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, has filed to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, according to federal election filings.

Manning, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, would be challenging Democrat Ben Cardin, who has served two terms in the Senate and is up for re-election in November. Cardin is Maryland’s senior senator and is considered an overwhelming favorite to win a third term.

Manning, 30, who is formerly known as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 of the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Last year, then President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to time served and she was released from a military prison in Kansas.

The news of Manning’s filing caught Maryland’s political class by surprise on Saturday afternoon.

Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has an extensive fundraising base within Maryland and is not considered particularly vulnerable to a challenge from within the state. However, an outside candidate with national name recognition, such as Manning, could tap a network of donors interested in elevating a progressive agenda.

Cardin’s spokeswoman did not return two messages seeking comment.

Manning moved to Maryland after her release and friends and family raised more than $175,000 to support her through an online campaign. Since then, she has written for The Guardian and Medium on issues of transparency, free speech and civil liberties, according to her web site.

Manning’s statement of candidacy was filed with the Federal Elections Commission on Thursday. She is running as a Democrat and refers to Maryland as her “home state” on her web site.

Manning’s first column for The Guardian said Obama’s election in 2008 was a political awakening for her. Manning wrote Obama left behind “hints of a progressive legacy,” but very few permanent accomplisments.

“This vulnerable legacy should remind us that what we really need is a strong and unapologetic progressive to lead us,” Manning wrote. “What we need as well is a relentless grassroots movement to hold that leadership accountable.”

If you're wondering why Ben Cardin in particular is Manning's target as opposed to well, going after a Republican in order to give the Dems the seat they'd need to take control of the Senate, according to Wikipedia, Cardin's on the following Senate committees:

• Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
• Committee on Foreign Relations (Ranking Member)
• Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy and Environmental Policy (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues (Ex Officio)

 and one caucus of note for our purposes:

• Senate Ukraine Caucus[9]

Just a theory, but if I was Manning, and I wanted to cause trouble for say, I dunno, a safe-seat Senate Democrat who might be a problem for a specific large European/Asian country who has a "special" relationship with the current orange occupant of the Oval Office, Cardin would be the guy I'd want to remove from the game.

Putting that out there.

Hawaii Five Uh-Oh

We really are all going to die in pitiless nuclear fire, aren't we?

The authorities confirmed on Saturday that there was no ballistic missile headed toward Hawaii, minutes after an emergency alert was sent to cellphones there urging people to seek immediate shelter, leading to chaos and confusion.

“BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII,” the alert said. “SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

A corrected alert was sent out 38 minutes later. “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii,” it read. “Repeat. False Alarm.”

Gov. David Y. Ige later told CNN that someone had “pressed the wrong button” during a shift change at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

The episode came at a time of heightened tensions with North Korea, which has said that it has successfully tested ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat of Hawaii, tweeted shortly after the first alert was sent that she had confirmed that there was no missile.

Well cool, so the system works, mostly.  I bet it's computer-based.  I bet we totally don't have to worry about anyone hacking that particular system and using it to maybe, I don't know, do something stupid when we have a guy in the Oval Office with no self-control and a short fuse.

I'm sure it's okay.

View image on Twitter

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

GOP Gov. Matt Bevin makes good on his threat to start kicking Kentuckians off Medicaid as new Trump regime rules to saddle Medicaid recipients with work requirements and premiums means at least 100,000 will lose their health coverage.

Kentucky on Friday became the first state to win approval from the Trump administration to impose strict work requirements on its Medicaid beneficiaries. 

The state will require able-bodied adults without dependents to work at least 80 hours a month to qualify for coverage. 

The state will also require people who gain coverage through the Medicaid expansion to pay monthly premiums, based on income levels.

Kentucky is one of ten states seeking waivers to require certain Medicaid beneficiaries to work in order to be eligible for the program. 

The approval comes just one day after the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced new guidance intended to encourage states to apply for such waivers, something that has never before happened in the 50-year history of the Medicaid program. 

“CMS has long supported policies that recognize meaningful work as essential to the economic self-sufficiency, self-esteem, well-being, and improved health of people with disabilities,” the agency wrote in its approval letter to the state. 

“Given the potential benefits of work and community engagement, we believe that Medicaid programs should be able to support these activities and test incentives that are appropriate for this population and lead to improved health outcomes,” the agency wrote. 

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), a fierce opponent of ObamaCare, was elected in 2016 partly on a promise to change the state’s expansion of Medicaid that came as part of the law. 

Bevin has said the program is not fiscally sustainable, but the state’s uninsured rate has fallen from about 20 percent in 2013 to less than 8 percent by 2016 -- among the largest coverage gains in the country. 

The waiver also would impose a six-month coverage lockout if Medicaid beneficiaries get a new job or a new salary and don’t tell the state.

I fully expect Kentucky's uninsured rate to skyrocket back into double digits, along with the state's mortality rate.  This is going to start killing people, full stop.  People aren't going to be able to afford Medicaid premiums, they aren't going to be able to keep and hold jobs because of illness in a right-to-work state where one missed shift means you lose your job. 

What if you get laid off?  What if you're, say, one of the Sam's Club workers living in Kentucky on Medicaid and you show up to work only to find your store permanently closed with no warning?

Oh well, there goes your Medicaid.  Sorry.  There goes your health care.  There goes your livelihood, because now you're out of the program and too sick to go around hunting for a new job.

The issue with work requirements for Medicaid isn't to help "transition people to better outcomes" it's to punish people until they drop out of the program so the state spends less money on them (and if they die, bonus!)

The vast majority of able-bodied, adult Medicaid recipients are in families where at least one adult is working and qualify for the program because they have low-paying jobs that may not even offer health benefits, let alone insurance these workers can afford.

And never mind that there are a lot of good, sometimes unavoidable reasons why even a part-time job isn’t an option for people who, say, have chronic illnesses not severe enough to constitute a disability; or who are caring for an ill or elderly relative; or who are full-time parents; or who are enrolled in school.

And the next time the unemployment rate spikes and people find themselves out of work and uninsured, these work requirements are going to make it even harder for them to keep their lives together.

The policy the Trump administration is enacting are based not on data but on an ugly stereotype many Americans hold about people who rely on Medicaid and other programs to get by. Accordingly, 70 percent of Americans said they supported work requirements in Medicaid in a survey the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation conducted in June.

Imagine Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen,” only this time she has diabetes and can’t be on her feet all day. The Trump administration’s solution to this woman’s problems is to make it harder for her to see a doctor and fill her prescriptions, so she gets sicker and is less likely to find steady work.

That's exactly who's going to lose health coverage and won't be able to afford insulin shots.  And there are going to be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of cases like this in Kentucky.

“With the approval of the Medicaid waiver, the historic progress Kentucky has achieved in health care in recent years comes to a halt,” said Dustin Pugel, a policy analyst with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. “New barriers to getting covered and new ways of getting kicked off coverage will hurt working Kentuckians, health care providers and our economy. Rather than saving monies, the waiver creates new costs in expensive bureaucratic systems and reductions in the health of our workforce. These radical and counterproductive changes will result in nearly 100,000 Kentuckians losing coverage."

So now it's not Matt Bevin kicking tens of thousands off Medicaid, it's those lazy people who are kicking themselves off.

Because basic health care isn't "sustainable" for Kentucky.  And apparently neither are good schools, working roads and bridges, clean water, reliable sanitation and power and internet access.  Bevin has trashed all that in the two years he's been in office.

And now he's wrecked Medicaid expansion, just as he promised he would.  And we voted for him anyway.  Congrats, Kentuckians.  You just signed your own death warrants because you hate Obama that much.

Bloody idiots.