Some Good Obamacare News

New Health and Human Services guidelines on drugs covered under the Affordable Care Act means that certain breast cancer prevention drugs will now be covered as part of preventative care.

Women at increased risk of breast cancer can receive so-called chemoprevention drugs, including tamoxifen and raloxifene, without a co-pay or other out-of-pocket expense.
Under Obamacare, most health insurance companies and employer plans must offer certain preventive services at no cost to patients. 

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network praised the announcement in a statement Thursday. 

"This policy means millions of women at high risk for breast cancer will know they can access proven risk-reducing medications at no cost to them," said spokesman Steve Weiss. "Studies show that even modest cost sharing can keep patients from taking advantage of proven preventive tests and therapies. By making prevention more accessible and affordable, the health care law is helping people stay healthy and avoid the high costs of treatment after diagnosis.”

So yes, preventative care is a good thing, especially when it comes to something as devastating as cancer.   It's certainly less expensive than treating the disease when it's full-blown in the latter stages.  The downside is that many of these chemoprevention drugs have some serious side effects.  Hopefully we'll be able to come up with better ones as well.

Mr. Gruden Goes To Washington

Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden is a smart guy.  He's not waiting around to see if he gets the axe after yet another first-round playoff choke for Cincinnati over the weekend, instead he's taking the head coach job for Washington.

Jay Gruden will be introduced as the new coach of the Washington Redskins on Thursday afternoon, becoming the team’s eighth head coach since Daniel Snyder purchased the franchise in 1999. 

Gruden, most recently the offensive coordinator of the Cincinnati Bengals, succeeds Mike Shanahan, who was fired by the Redskins after a 3-13 season in which the team finished last in the NFC East. 

Gruden, the brother of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders coach Jon Gruden, never has been an NFL head coach. He has been a head coach in the Arena Football League and the United Football League. He oversaw the NFL’s 10th-ranked offense this season with the Bengals. He inherits a Redskins team that lost 40 games in four years under Shanahan. 

“I’m really happy for my brother,” Jon Gruden, now an analyst for ESPN, said. “He’s worked extremely hard to get this opportunity. The Redskins are one of the great NFL franchises and I expect him to make the most of this opportunity.”

I'm sure he will.  The franchise deserves Gruden, and I'm sure he'll make a bigger mess in Washington than he did in here in Cincinnati.

That Bridge Too Far Again

Things are getting distinctly worse for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as yesterday's story directly tying his office to a series of lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in order to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, NJ as revenge for the mayor refusing to endorse Christie apparently had far more serious consequences:

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department. 

The woman later died, borough records show. 

In at least two of those instances, response time doubled, noted EMS coordinator Paul Favia, who documented those cases in a Sept. 10 letter to Mayor Mark Sokolich, which The Record obtained.

And it gets worse.

"There was a missing child that day. The police had trouble conducting that search because they were tied up directing traffic," says Jan Goldberg, a Fort Lee councilman who works with local emergency personnel. Police found the missing child, a four-year-old. "But with the streets in the condition they were, I would venture to say that the search took longer," Goldberg says. 

Ila Kasofsky, a Fort Lee councilwoman, tells Mother Jones that ambulances and other emergency vehicles could not get through the gridlock. In the aftermath of the lane closures, Kasofsky says she spoke with a Fort Lee resident who couldn't get over the bridge to support her husband through major surgery. Another Fort Lee woman was unable to pick up her son after his dialysis session.

Steve M argues that Christie has been too moderate for the Tea Party lunatics to try to save him.

In Christie's, um, glory days, Fox Nation would have been dominated by items intended to spin this story his way. The most damaging information available would be dug up about the mayor of Fort Lee. We'd be told that the first responders there do a lousy job on ordinary days, so any ambulance delays must be the result of something other than the lane closure on the bridge. There'd be smears against reporters working the story, and against Jersey Democrats denouncing the lane closure. You know the drill. 

But none of that pushback is being generated by the conservative noise machine because Christie hasn't been tickling right-wing pleasure centers the way he once did. When was the last time he yelled at a teacher and posted the video online anyway? Seems as if it's been a while. I guess he wanted to seem like America's new bipartisan dreamboat, going into his reelection campaign and into 2016. 

He should have kept up the on-camera partisan nastiness, because he needs backup now, and he's not getting it. The right has abandoned him.

Indeed.  The right is more annoyed that Christie is distracting the media from BENGHAZI(tm)! than they are worried about saving his national image.  They could care less about him.  They don't want Christie as the nominee anyway, not after McCain and Romney.  They want someone who will make being a woman, a minority, LGBTQ, or a Democrat all but illegal, and Christie's not that guy.

We'll see how the Sunday shows handle Christie's situation.  If the regular Village Pundits there turn on him, he's done.

[UPDATE]  Christie is holding an 11 AM presser, and the NY Post is reporting he's fired Kelly (the aide in the emails from his office) and his campaign manager, who was in charge of "damage control".

StupidiNews!

• In the wake of this week's Supreme Court decision to stay same-sex marriages in Utah, the state is voiding any current same-sex marriages and will not recognize them.
• President Obama has invited German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House to discuss revelations over the last several months involving the NSA.
• Alaska marijuana advocates say they've collected enough signatures to put legalizing pot in the state on the ballot in August.
• With flights expected to increase 50% over the next decade, Singapore officials say the goal is to double the size of Changi International Airport.
• The Obama administration says it will commit another four years of funding to the International Space Station, extending funding through 2024.

Last Call For The Laughed-At Curve

Art Laffer, "conservatism's foremost economist", explains the minimum wage to FOX News viewers.

 

"Honestly the minimum wage makes no sense to me, it's just the teenage -- black teenage unemployment act..."

Because in FOXland, only those people make minimum wage.  So why raise it?  Laffer goes on to say we should abolish the minimum wage for black teenagers so they don't have to actually be paid or anything while learning "the skills they need to become productive members of society."  After all, if we could pay those people less, we could hire a lot more of them.  Heck, if we made them work for no money, we could hire infinite black teenagers. Voila!  Job creation!

I understand we tried that 400 years ago, too.

Snark aside, convincing FOX News viewers that the minimum wage only helps minorities makes it a lot easier to sell abolishing it as a political plank for the GOP, yes?

Chris Christie In 2016? Fah-Bridgegate-aboudit

New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie officially has a scandal and cover-up on his hands as new evidence from a NJ newspaper directly links his office to an effort to use the state's port authority to cause massive traffic headaches for an entire town in order to punish a mayor who wouldn't back Christie's re-election bid last year.

A cache of private messages between Governor’s Christie’s deputy chief of staff and his two top executives at the Port Authority reveal a vindictive effort to create “traffic problems in Fort Lee,” apparent pleasure at the resulting gridlock, and insults used to refer to the borough’s mayor, who had failed to endorse Christie for re-election. 

The documents obtained by The Record also raise serious doubts about months of claims by the Christie administration that the September closures of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were part of a traffic study initiated solely by the Port Authority. Instead, they show that one of the governor’s top aides was deeply involved in the decision to choke off the borough’s access to the bridge, and they provide the strongest indication yet that it was part of a politically-motivated vendetta – a notion that Christie has publicly denied.

He can't deny it any more.

In mid-August, just a few weeks before the lane closures, Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, emailed David Wildstein, the top Christie executive at the Port Authority who ordered the closures. 

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she told him. “Got it,” he replied. 

Though the governor publicly ridiculed the very idea that his office was involved, we now know with certainty that what Christie said wasn’t true. Christie’s deputy chief of staff was directly involved in planning the incident and even received updates from Wildstein before their plan was set in motion.

For all the projection by screaming wingnuts involving President Obama and the "victimization" of Republicans, when Republicans actually get the power of government, they use it to exact revenge on people who didn't vote for them.  That's par for the course, but Christie lied to New Jersey voters and the country about not being involved in this mess when he clearly was.

Christie just got caught.  Now the George Washington Bridge is tied around his neck.  Going to make it hard for him in 2016, and it should have made it hard for him to get re-elected n 2013 as Governor.

The same article highlights text messages between Wildstein and an unnamed official in which they mocked the traffic paralysis they imposed on Fort Lee and ridiculed the local mayor, Mark Sokolich. In reference to school buses that couldn’t help children get to school on time, Wildstein specifically wrote, “They are the children of [Christie's 2013 opponent for Governor Barbara] Buono voters.”

So no, Christie wasn't above screwing with the kids of people in heavily Democratic areas of the state and would have been more likely to vote for his political opponent.  What say you, Barbara Buono?

“When I heard about it when it initially surfaced in September, I knew it was an act of political retribution,” Buono told the Daily Beast. “And to suggest that Christie wasn’t aware and didn’t direct it, I thought was ludicrous at the time.” 

“This is a guy who runs a paramilitary operation,” she added. “His people don’t sneeze without checking with him first. But I think what really was the most damning [revelation] was the cavalier attitude that these folks had about subjecting children and the public to public safety hazards. These are terrible people, and the ringleader is Chris Christie.”

Your move, Chris.

Kingmaker Of Wishful Thinking

If you thought FOX News chairman Roger Ailes's job was to run a news channel, well, somebody forgot to tell Roger Ailes as a new biography by Gabriel Sherman tells all:

Roger Ailes was so eager to influence national politics that in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, he told fellow Fox News executives point-blank: “I want to elect the next president.”

Imagine the endless winger uproar, multiple GOP House hearings, and constant screaming about "biased liberal media" if anyone at MSNBC, CNN, or the other three news networks said the same.  FOX News is the propaganda arm of the GOP.  Period.

The book describes in detail Mr. Ailes’s professional ambition, his desire to influence American politics through a conservative prism, and his status as a visionary who possessed an intuitive understanding of the power of television to shape public opinion. Before entering the corporate world, Mr. Ailes was a political consultant, and Mr. Sherman’s book credits him with being a pioneer in using television during election campaigns.

Again, FOX News is not a news agency.  It is a propaganda mill for the Republican Party, and that is Ailes's stated goal, to use the network to promote Republicans and trash Democrats.

So why is it treated as a serious news outlet and not a political entity?

Despite being unsatisfied with many of the Republican candidates for president in 2012, Mr. Ailes endeavored to promote Mitt Romney on Fox News programs, the book says. Before the Wisconsin congressman Paul D. Ryan was chosen as Mr. Romney’s running mate, Mr. Ailes advised Mr. Ryan that his television skills needed work and recommended a speech coach.

You can thank Roger Ailes for Mitt Romney.  Ailes thought his network could make him your President and tried to do so.  Nobody should be surprised by this, but now that the biggest non-secret in political journalism has been broken wide open, what now?

Maybe somebody in Congress should be asking Roger Ailes why he's working for the GOP, yes?

StupidiNews!

• Spain's Princess Cristinia faces a second round of corruption charges as a judge investigates her husband over possible diversion of public funds.
• A new biography of FOX News chief Roger Ailes claims, among other things, that Ailes offered an employee an extra $100 a week for sexual favors.
• With a bill extending federal jobless benefits passing the Senate 60-27, President Obama is putting pressure on the GOP-led House for a vote.
• US Olympic skiing champion Lindsay Vonn is out of next month's Sochi Winter Games due to an injury, leaving Olympic broadcast network NBC without a flagship athlete to promote the games.
• California state lawmakers are after the NSA's collection of metadata, introducing a bill that would mandate companies doing business with the state to not cooperate with the agency in any way.

Last Call For GOP Latino Outreach In Georgia

GOP Congressman Paul Broun continues the Republican tradition of outreach to Latinos in America.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) has a warning for the GOP: Democrats' only path to victory in the 2014 elections is through legalizing immigrants living in the country illegally. 

"It only helps the Democrats if we legalize all these illegal aliens in this country who the Democrats want to put on federal welfare programs – and actually, they are on federal welfare programs today," Broun said in an interview with Georgia Public Radio. "The Democrats want to make them all basically dependent on the federal government so they can continue their radical, big government agenda…." 

Democrats are hoping that Michelle Nunn, who is running for Senate, and state Sen. Jason Carter (D-GA), running for governor, will act as a vanguard to help shift the state from a Republican stronghold to a friendlier state for Democrats. Indeed, there's a case to be made that that's a possibility (albeit hardly a sure thing) that Democrats could shift the political makeup of the state. Broun went on to say though that Democrats only chance of wrenching the state from GOP hands is in legalizing immigrants living in the state illegally. 

"The only way Georgia is going to change is if we have all these illegal aliens in here in Georgia, [and] give them the right to vote," Broun continued. "It would be morally wrong, it would be illegal to do so, under our current law. Actually, all these illegal aliens are getting federal largesse and taking taxpayer’s dollars."

The notion that "all these illegal aliens" might actually be employed, working for often less than minimum wage and exploited as cheap labor without benefits or rights to redress grievances apparently hasn't occurred to Rep. Broun.  Like everyone else who doesn't look like him, to Paul Broun, they're just more inhuman parasites to be pushed aside.  And he's running for Senator to represent the people, you know.

"The only way that a Democrat has any possibility of winning this race—and frankly, I think it is very minor at that—is if we nominate a mamby-pamby, big-spender, big-government, big-earmarking Republican who is nothing but somebody who wants to build a bigger government, just like we’ve seen both parties build in Washington," Broun said. "That may give a Democrat the chance to win. But otherwise, when I’m nominated, I’ll be the most-electable candidate out of the whole Republican field that’s out there now in this race."

Well, white conservative people, anyway.  The rest of Georgia can apparently go to hell.

All Dried Up And No Place To Go

The once mighty Colorado River is nothing more than a muddy stream these days as millions of folks in southwestern states depend on it for drinking water.  But climate change and population growth have put a critical strain on the river, and water rights are turning into the next great battleground between the states.

The once broad and blue river has in many places dwindled to a murky brown trickle. Reservoirs have shrunk to less than half their capacities, the canyon walls around them ringed with white mineral deposits where water once lapped. Seeking to stretch their allotments of the river, regional water agencies are recycling sewage effluent, offering rebates to tear up grass lawns and subsidizing less thirsty appliances from dishwashers to shower heads. 

But many experts believe the current drought is only the harbinger of a new, drier era in which the Colorado’s flow will be substantially and permanently diminished. 

Faced with the shortage, federal authorities this year will for the first time decrease the amount of water that flows into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, from Lake Powell 180 miles upstream. That will reduce even more the level of Lake Mead, a crucial source of water for cities from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and for millions of acres of farmland.

Permanent water rationing by the end of the decade in states like California, Nevada, and Arizona seems inevitable.  That would affect tens of millions of Americans, and require millions, if not billions in new water infrastructure.  Think climate change might be expensive?

Reclamation officials say there is a 50-50 chance that by 2015, Lake Mead’s water will be rationed to states downstream. That, too, has never happened before.

“If Lake Mead goes below elevation 1,000” — 1,000 feet above sea level — “we lose any capacity to pump water to serve the municipal needs of seven in 10 people in the state of Nevada,” said John Entsminger, the senior deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

That seems like a problem, don't you think?  Water rights fights will be the interstate commerce of the future:

The labyrinthine rules by which the seven Colorado states share the river’s water are rife with potential points of conflict. And while some states have made huge strides in conserving water — and even reducing the amount they consume — they have yet to chart a united path through shortages that could last years or even decades.

“There is no planning for a continuation of the drought we’ve had,” said one expert on the Colorado’s woes, who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with state officials. “There’s always been within the current planning an embedded hope that somehow, things would return to something more like normal.”

Massive drought fueled by climate change is the new "normal".  Maybe when enough red states in the Mountain West and Midwest are suffering from crippling drought, the GOP legislatures that run them will do something, especially when food prices shoot up across the country as farmland bakes in the sun with no irrigation.

Of course by then, it will probably be far too late.

Should We Stay Or Should We Go

SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston explains yesterday's Supreme Court decision to stop same-sex marriages in Utah pending the state's appeal in federal court.

The Supreme Court on Monday morning put on hold a federal judge’s decision striking down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, thus stopping a wave of such marriages across the state. The Court’s order reinstates the state ban and will keep it intact until after a federal appeals court has ruled on it.

The order appeared to have the support of the full Court, since there were no noted dissents. The ruling can be interpreted as an indication that the Court wants to have further exploration in lower courts of the basic constitutional question of state power to limit marriage to a man and a woman. Had it refused the state’s request for delay, that would have left at least the impression that the Court was comfortable allowing same-sex marriages to go forward in the thirty-three states where they are still not permitted by state law.

The order, however, cannot be interpreted as a dependable indication of how the Court will rule on the issue when it finally decides to do so directly.

Several stays and holds were present in California, all the way up until the SCOTUS decision clearing the way for same-sex marriages in the state.  In other words, given the decision last June only pertaining to California, and then the DOMA decision,  the question of a right to same-sex marriage at the federal level covering all states still has to be answered.

As a result of the new order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, based in Denver, will go forward with an expedited review of Judge Shelby’s decision. The appeals court has ordered briefing to begin on January 27 and to be completed by February 25. It has indicated it is not likely to grant any extensions of time to file those documents. It has not yet set a hearing date. 

With the Justices’ order in the case, it now appears almost certain that the question of state power to bar same-sex marriages will not be before the Justices during the current Term. A case on that issue would have to be granted this month to be reviewed before the Court is expected to finish this Term in late June. 

With the postponement in Utah, the total of states where gays and lesbians are now allowed to marry stands at seventeen. A variety of lawsuits are proceeding across the country, attempting to advance that cause in other states. There will also be efforts in some state legislatures to clear the way for such marriages.

In other words, it will be at least 2015 before we get an answer from SCOTUS.

StupidiNews!

• With several Senators away from the Capitol due to winter weather, Janet Yellen was confirmed by the Senate in a 56-26 vote as the first female Fed chief.
• Toyota plans to release a hydrogen fuel cell-powered "zero-emissions" vehicle in 2015, making the car available in California initially.
• Al Qaeda in Iraq forces abandoned a base in Syria's Hama province, leaving behind evidence of at least a dozen bodies buried in a mass grave.
• Florida State engineered a second-half comeback as the Seminoles beat the Auburn Tigers 34-31 in the college football national championship game.
• World of Warcraft players have been hit by a powerful trojan that can defeat two-factor identification and steal accounts.

Last Call For Burning Down The House

Ladies and gentlemen, Obama Derangement Syndrome example case #186948.

A Minnesota man is in custody on charges of arson after police say that he set fire to his house and then blamed President Barack Obama and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

Patch reported that fire was reported coming from the Minnetonka home of 49-year-old Ronald Gary Bailey after 9 p.m. on Dec. 1. 

According to court records, Bailey asked firefighters responding to the call when they would be finished putting out the blaze so that he could “start the rest of my house on fire.” 

But by the time that firefighters had extinguished the fire, the home had been destroyed. 

Standing at the end of his driveway, Bailey explained to them: “You should know, you did this, the CIA implanted a computer in my brain and body.” 

“What do I have to do, how big of a bomb do I have to build before the police respect me?” Bailey said, according to court documents. 

Officers who were transporting Bailey to Hennepin County Medical Center’s behavioral Crisis Intervention Center discovered that he had a loaded .380 caliber pistol concealed in his pocket. 

At some point, Bailey told officers that he was the “first half-man/half-robot created by the government.” He said that the CIA and FBI had bugged his house, and blamed “Obama” and the “CIA” for causing the fire that burned down his home.

Emphasis on the Derangement part.  Here's hoping that Mr. Bailey here gets the mental health assistance he clearly needs.

Through provisions in the Affordable Care Act.

Getting Something Out Of The Koch Machine

A new Washington Post analysis finds the network of GOP-backed campaign groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers has now surpassed the entire Democratic fundraising machine, and all of it is 100% anonymous, unlimited donations to the tune of $400 million.

The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations. 

Key players in the Koch-backed network have already begun engaging in the 2014 midterm elections, hiring new staff members to expand operations and strafing House and Senate Democrats with hard-hitting ads over their support for the Affordable Care Act. 

Its funders remain largely unknown; the coalition was carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors. 

But they have substantial firepower. Together, the 17 conservative groups that made up the network raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign, according to the analysis of tax returns by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. 

A labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies helps mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats, according to tax filings and campaign finance reports. 

The coalition’s revenue surpassed that of the Crossroads organizations, a super PAC and non­profit group co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove that together brought in$325 million in the last cycle. 

The left has its own financial muscle, of course; unions plowed roughly $400 million into national, state and local elections in 2012. A network of wealthy liberal donors organized by the group Democracy Alliance mustered about $100 million for progressive groups and super PACs in the last election cycle, according to a source familiar with the totals.

But that means the Right outspent the Left by several hundred million in 2012, and will do so again during the midterms.  What was a solid victory for President Obama resulted in only a few pickups for the Democrats in Congress, and the goal now is to finish what they started in 2010:  buying out the rest of the competitive state-level races that will give the GOP unprecedented power in state legislatures and Governor's mansions.

Should they gain control of the Senate as well as expand their power in states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, President Obama would be the only person standing between them and complete control of the country.  The reality is they are trying to relegate the Democrats to a West Coast + New England regional party.

2014 is the battleground.  If they take control after November, 2016 will merely be postponing the inevitable.

And they have the billions to do it.

Better vote.

Don't Care How, I Want It Now!

Liz Cheney is apparently not going to get that Senate seat in Wyoming after all.

Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday.

Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.

Cheney's surprising decision to jump into the race, an announcement made in a YouTube video last summer, roiled Republican politics in the Wyoming, a state Dick Cheney represented in Congress for five terms before moving up the Republican food chain in Washington.

Enzi was a low-key presence in Washington who was elected in 1996 and, with few blemishes, amassed a conservative voting record in the Senate. He expressed public annoyance at Cheney's decision to mount a primary challenge. A number of his Senate colleagues quickly rallied to his side and pledged support for his re-election bid.

There was little public polling of the race, but two partisan polls released last year showed Enzi with a wide lead, an assessment mostly shared by GOP insiders watching the race.

Pretty sure this call has nothing to do with the Tea Party vs. GOP leadership scuffle, and everything to do with Liz Cheney being a horrible person, even by Republican standards.  She's so bad in fact that all indications are she would have lost her primary by something like 50 points.  She stomped in and demanded Daddy buy her a Senate seat, and this is what happened:

She was a bad egg, as the man says.  And not even Daddy is going to throw good money after bad rubbish.

Bye-bye, Liz!