I Am Satisfied With My Care

Let's talk movies today!

We've got a sci-fi double feature this weekend on ZVTS, and first up is Disney's Big Hero 6.





Loosely based on the 2008 Marvel comic series of the same name (and I mean loosely, the comic had Marvel's two iconic Japanese mutants, Silver Samurai and Sunfire, teaming up with these distinctly less-than-serious heroes) this film adaptation takes place in the metropolis of San FranSokyo, a very pretty mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo, which ends up being the 7th member of the team the way Gotham City is in any of Christopher Nolan's Batman films.

Right off the bat we meet Hiro Hamada, brilliant teenage robotic genius, doing what any robotics prodigy who graduated high school at a young age would do, which is hustling thugs in an underground robot fighting arena for scads of cash.  When the hustle goes bad, Hiro's bacon is pulled from the fire by his  college-age brother Tadashi, who is a robotics genius himself at nearby San FranSokyo Institute of Technology.

Tadashi promises their Aunt Cass, who has cared for them for the last ten years, to try to set young Hiro on the straight and narrow by showing off his latest invention at SFIT,  a goofily lovable heathcare robot named Baymax.  Meeting Baymax and Tadashi's college friends, extreme speed junkie and magnetics master Go Go, bubbly Latina and chemistry whiz Honey Lemon, neat freak and laser whiz Wasabi, and science fanboy and school mascot Fred, all mentored by robotics professor Dr. Robert Callaghan, is exactly what Hiro needs to put his mind towards a truly amazing invention that will change the world.

But we wouldn't have a super hero origin story without some grim tidings and heartbreaking loss, and that's exactly what happens to Hiro as he loses both his marvelous invention and his brother in a tragic accident.  It's up to Hiro, Baymax and their new friends to solve the mystery behind Tadashi's death and save San FranSokyo.

Personally, any hero team that's two-thirds people of color, with a terrifically endearing robot, and just one white guy is refreshing enough of a concept to warrant going to see this film.  Both the kids and the adults in the theater had a blast, and hopefully we'll be seeing more of these guys in the future.  It's a visually striking film and quite a lot of fun and I recommend at least a matinee ticket for the family.

Be on the lookout for a Stan Lee cameo, as always, and stick around for the post-credits scene.

Hail To The King Case, Or The Biggest Tax Hike In History

Greg Sargent doesn't sugar-coat what it means for SCOTUS to even take up King v Burwell. It means Obamacare could be in big trouble, and millions of Americans on federal exchange states could find their insurance too expensive to afford, which could wipe out the entire system.

To get caught up on the legal ins and outs of this challenge, read Jonathan Cohn’s piece. It turns on the claim that the plain wording of the law’s text shows Congress never intended subsidies to go to people in the three dozen states where governors refused to set up exchanges, requiring the feds to do so. If the subsidies are invalidated in these states, it could deprive millions of coverage, posing a dire threat to the law.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers who participated in the creation of the Affordable Care Act have explained that making subsidies available to people in all 50 states, regardless of who set up the exchanges, was always the intention. Staff members involved in the drafting of the law have said the same, and have carefully explained how the faulty language ended up as it did.

But SCOTUS could still rule against the administrative rule, anyway. Nicholas Bagley explains how the fact that SCOTUS has agreed to hear the case at all doesn’t bode well, and even increases the odds that the government will lose it.

So what if next June SCOTUS trashes the subsidies?  There's already four justices on record (Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy) who have gone on record as saying the entire law needs to be thrown out, so there's already four votes there I would think to scuttle it.   That would put pressure on Congress to fix the law, Sargent says.

So let’s say SCOTUS does strike down the subsidies. If so, it will create an interesting situation for Republican lawmakers. It will make it impossible for them to get away with the clever game they’ve been playing for some time on their true intentions toward the law.

As the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Larry Levitt explains it, a SCOTUS ruling gutting the subsidies could easily be rendered “moot” in one of two ways: Either Congress fixes the law, or governors in those states set up state exchanges to keep the subsidies flowing to their constituents. “A simple fix from either Congress or Republican governors would allow people to keep their benefits,” Levitt says.

As Brian Beutler has explained, the prospect of so many of each of these governors’ constituents losing insurance would theoretically put pressure on them to make things right. The same might be the case for GOP lawmakers in Congress. One possibility might be that the two parties use this as an occasion to enter into negotiations over the law’s future, in which Republicans try to leverage the need for the fix to get other changes to it they want — which could be dicey for the law but perhaps not too much of a threat to it.

Of course, these lawmakers would also face intense pressure from the right not to fix it. And for all I know, they might let the law’s subsidies disappear for millions.

Why wouldn't they?  Republicans aren't going to lift a finger to fix the law, they're going to say "this is your punishment for electing Democrats" and to blame Obama and company.  And judging from Tuesday's election results, that's an entirely viable plan heading into 2016.

Now, GOP governors *might* want to not be blamed for a massive premium hike on their constituents, especially those running in 2016 or considered veep prospects (Christie, Jindal, Walker, Martinez, Haley, etc)   Some of them may try to find a way to strike deals, and if they do, they will be the "heroes" that fixed what "Obama and the Democrats" messed up.  That could go a long way in 2016, but how would the national GOP base take it?

Answer: however FOX News tells them to.  Watch.

This will destroy Obamacare and Republicans know it.  If SCOTUS ulls the trigger, what will rise from the ashes?  What it will be replaced with?  Who knows? But millions of Americans will suffer as a result, and they'll all blame the black guy.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• President Obama will be sending 1,500 more soldiers to Iraq in order to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight ISIS.
• Detroit has secured approval from US Bankruptcy Court for a plan out of the mess it's in, allowing it to shed $7 billion in debt and spend $1.7 billion in city improvements.
• Iran's stockpile of nuclear material is up to 8.4 tons of non-enriched uranium, a number that is expected to be cut in any nuclear deal with the West.
• The US Supreme Court will take up a case on Obamacare subsidies in federal exchange states, but states are expected to put workarounds in place if the subsidies are deemed illegal.
• New research shows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for chimps, too, as researchers have found primates plan where to find breakfast even when food is scarce.

Last Call For Burying The Lede

Next time somebody yells LIBERAL MEDIA IS IN THE TANK FOR OBAMA let them take a look at this little bombshell that should have cost Joni Ernst the election.

Gretchen Hamel, a campaign spokeswoman for Joni Ernst's U.S. Senate campaign, was arrested on Oct. 29 for operating while intoxicated and resigned the morning after the incident.

West Des Moines police found Hamel passed out behind the wheel of her vehicle after crossing lanes and driving her car over a curb on the 6100 block of Beachtree Drive at about 10:30 p.m., according to a police report.

An Ernst campaign aide on Thursday said that Hamel resigned the morning after the incident.

"This is a personnel matter which we will not discuss in the press. We wish Gretchen nothing but the best and appreciate her efforts," said Ernst campaign manager Jon Kohan in a statement.

Hamel did not return multiple attempts to reach her Thursday.

So an Ernst campaign spokesperson gets a DWI on October 29th.  You know, before the election.  We're only hearing about it now, after the election.  Which means our "liberal media" sat on this story that could have damaged a Republican somehow for a week.

Funny how that works out.

Meet Loretta Lynch

President Obama's pick for Attorney General, replacing outgoing Eric Holder, is widely expected to be US Attorney Loretta Lynch, currently Brooklyn's federal prosecutor.

Ms. Lynch, a low-profile prosecutor, has risen to the top of the president’s short list in recent days, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the nomination publicly. Officials said that a formal White House announcement could come soon, although it is unlikely to happen before Mr. Obama returns to Washington on Nov. 16 after a trip to Asia.

A Lynch nomination might carry substantial political benefits for a White House recalibrating its strategy after Republicans took over the Senate. Indeed, Ms. Lynch is a two-time United States attorney who has twice been confirmed by the Senate by acclamation – in 2000 and again in 2010. She has no personal ties to Mr. Obama or his policies, freeing her of the political baggage that has weighed down other candidates once thought to have an edge in the process.

That means that the White House would not be nominating current Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who had a brutal fight against the GOP just to get there.  On the other hand, a lame duck nomination like this will almost certainly be held up until January and a new GOP Senate if the Republicans can find a way to do it.  My guess would be intense pressure on Democrats to delay the confirmation vote, citing "the will of the people" and whatnot, as if anything done in the lame duck session is somehow illegal.

If that happens of course, Eric Holder sticks around.  We'll see how much the GOP enjoys that.

And That's Why Benny Carson Is The First In The Clown Car

If there's anything the election turnout numbers this week prove, it's that America is pretty damn tired of 24/7/365 election mode.  Naturally this means the 2016 presidential contest starts...

...Now.

Yes, the 2016 race for the White House has already gotten started — and it looks like Dr. Ben Carson is first in the ring. 

Carson, a famous pediatric neurosurgeon and conservative political star, will air a nearly 40 minute-long ad introducing himself to the American people this weekend, an aide to Carson confirms to ABC News. 

The documentary titled “A Breath of Fresh Air: A New Prescription for America” will air in 22 states and Washington, DC. The paid video will detail some of his biography and family life, including his rise from being born to a single mother with a poor childhood in Detroit to director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins for almost 40 years, known for his work separating conjoined twins, to potential 2016 presidential candidate.

Ah yes, Ben Carson, the man who happily compared Democrats to Nazis, then threw a fit and said that anyone being angry at his comparison of millions of Americans to Nazis basically proved his point that they are Nazis.  I'm sure that'll get a whole lot of crossover voters.

This should be amusing at least.

New tags, kids. Ben "Dr Godwin" Carson, and 2016 Election.

You can thank him for those, you know.

StupidiNews!

• An Idaho National Guard helicopter crashed Thursday night south of Boise's airport during a training mission, killing both aboard.
• Home Depot now says 53 million email addresses were stolen in September along with the 56 million credit card numbers taken by hackers.
• House Speaker John Boenher says next year's Republican Congress will vote to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act, even if the bill can't pass a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.
• British PM David Cameron's latest troubles with the EU involves a $2.6 million bill that the UK owes Brussels by December 1.
• Several Colorado towns passed local measures that will allow public broadband to be offered to residents, as per a 2005 law prohibiting public broadband without a local ballot question.

Last Call For SCOTUS-Bound

In arguably the least surprising move ever, the 6th Circuit has now forced a Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage by reversing lower court rulings and finding same-sex marriage bans to be constitutional.  In fact, forcing a Supreme Court ruling is the entire basis of the ruling:

This case ultimately presents two ways to think about change. One is whether the Supreme Court will constitutionalize a new definition of marriage to meet new policy views about the issue. The other is whether the Court will begin to undertake a different form of change—change in the way we as a country optimize the handling of efforts to address requests for new civil liberties.

If the Court takes the first approach, it may resolve the issue for good and give the  plaintiffs and many others relief. But we will never know what might have been. If the Court takes the second approach, is it not possible that the traditional arbiters of change—the people— will meet today’s challenge admirably and settle the issue in a productive way? In just eleven years, nineteen States and a conspicuous District, accounting for nearly forty-five percent of the  population, have exercised their sovereign powers to expand a definition of marriage that until recently was universally followed going back to the earliest days of human history. That is a difficult timeline to criticize as unworthy of further debate and voting. When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.

For these reasons, we reverse.

I said last month that a circuit court ruling against same-sex marriage would force SCOTUS to act.  If they don't however, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee will continue to be ruled by bigotry and hatred.  We'll see how it shakes out, but right now that circuit split means that most likey this is headed for SCOTUS after all.

Post-Racial America Update, Election Edition

Remember America that racism is over, it's why we no longer need affirmative action, the Voting Rights Act, or the Civil Rights Act.  That was demonstrated today on C-SPAN.

The caller, who gave his name as Anthony from San Diego, California, identified himself as a Republican and started out talking about the direction he thinks the new GOP majority in Congress should take.

"I would just like to say, that the Republicans -- and I'm a Republican -- please do not overreach," the caller began. "I know they're going to overreach but I'm telling you, if you advocate for the repeal of Obamacare and you get too extreme, then Hillary Clinton will be elected President in 2016."

"This is about race," he added. "The Republicans hate that nigger Obama."

Host Steve Scully quickly cut off the caller after he dropped the racial slur.

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you there," Scully said. "We're not gonna use that kind of language."

"You can certainly make your point, but you cross the line when you use language like that," he added. "And so to our viewers and listeners, I want to apologize."

Oh, "Anthony from San Diego" made his point perfectly.  If you're wondering how America can vote against a president who lowered unemployment from 10% to 5.9%, got a health care plan through when the Clintons couldn't, and cleaned up Bush's mess and they still hate him enough to put a GOP Congress in place to block his every move, if you're wondering why voters "keep voting against their self-interest" the answer is that America is nowhere near as enlightened as we pretend it is, and our electorate even less so.

But go ahead and keep telling yourself that all US Presidents get asked to show their birth certificates and get photoshopped with a bone through their nose, and that nobody can possibly be like Anthony from San Diego there.

Election 2014 Winners And Losers

Time for some brutally frank words about the election, who came out on top, and who faceplanted on the stage.  Time to document the atrocities, as they say:

The Winners

Tea Party Pretenders Joni Ernst and Cory Gardner
These two snow-jobbed not only their states, but the nation as well. A pair of Teabagger fists in velvet gloves, they ran masterful campaigns against bad candidates and won easily, much like Rand Paul did four years ago. The Villagers ate them up and Colorado and Iowa, like Kentucky, are going to find out just how embarrassing Senators can be.  Six years is going to be a long, long time for the voters in these two states.

Actual Senate Majority Leader Ted Cruz
Mitch may get the shiny job title and Harry Reid's office, but the guy actually running things in the upper chamber is going to be Ted Cruz and his Tea Party Circus. Cruz's 2016 chances hinge on how much chaos he can cause by becoming a spinning tornado of red state red meat, and there's going to be a lot of it flying around over the next two years.

Obstruction And Gridlock
Republicans proved beyond a doubt that they can now get away with any sort of bad behavior that hurts the country and the middle class, and that the people that actually bother to show up to vote will never punish them for it. They'll just blame That One.  Why the hell would Republicans start compromising now?  They're winning, and that's all that matters.  If they can keep the country broken to the point of mass voter apathy, 2016 will be a cake walk for them and they know it.

FOX News
The Age of Obama has been very, very good to Roger Ailes and his propaganda squad.  Loading up for bear for 2016 with guaranteed ratings for the next two years means they'll be able to pick all the fights they want to.  You thought they hated Obama before?  You ain't seen nothin' yet, kids.

Chris Christie
Head of the Republican Governor's Association, on top of being the Villagers' sentimental favorite, and just proved he can make winners.  GOP picked up governor's mansions in Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland(!!?!?) and defended in Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin and Kansas, all races they were supposed to lose. Like it or not, "Sit down and shut up" Christie gets credit for being The Asshole Who Wins. 

The Rich
Of course.  Best couple billion ever spent to get people not to vote.

Hillary Clinton
Yes, Hillary Clinton.  All of the above winners need an enemy, after all, and Obama won't be President forever (as much as they'd love it.) No matter what she actually does, she's the one all the GOP will be running against. She will be known by the enemies she makes.

The Losers

Steve Israel, Michael Bennet, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz
The head of the Dems' House re-election committee, Senate re-election committee, and DNC chair, respectively.  All need to be removed from those positions by the end of the week.  Israel in fact has already tendered his resignation as his Blue Dog candidates for House were destroyed in the election. But Bennet's head needs to roll too for his epic Senate foul up and Wasserman Schultz cannot be replaced quickly enough.  Bennet especially needs to get tossed out on his ass, as he was the "genius" behind the Bannock Street Project, the Dems' turnout engine in 2014.  Guess what?  Worst turnout in nearly a century, Mike.  Your ass needs to be gone in a heartbeat. That's the real house cleaning the Dems need to do.

Martin O'Malley
The Maryland governor and prospective 2016 White House candidate ended his Presidential run Tuesday when his hand-picked successor and Lieutentant Governor went down in flames to a Republican.  Instead of being on the road testing the waters for 2016, he should have been taking care of business in his own damn state.  The complete opposite of Chris Christie, which makes him a truly awesome human being, but a loser of a political maestro.

John Boehner
Congrats, Orange Julius!  You win two more years of riding herd on a pile of writhing hate-filled rabid beasts who all want to destroy you!  Good luck with that.

Mitch McConnell
Congrats, Old-Age Mutant Nimrod Turtle!  You win two more years of riding herd on a pile of writhing hate-filled rabid beasts who all want to destroy you!  Good luck with that.  Also, do you know that Ted Cruz has your job?

Rand Paul
You're not Ted Cruz, and Ted Cruz has Mitch's job.  Also, good luck with your crazy dad.  Also, since Ketucky Democrats kept the state House, you're going to have to decide whether or not you really want to run for President or Senate in 2016, because you can't do both.  Please do the former, so I can be rid of you for good.

Jury's Still Out On...

President Obama
Depends on what he does on immigration executive action, how the war against ISIS goes, and how many veto pens he has ready to go.  The lesson here however is betting against Obama usually ends in tragedy, something both Republicans and Democrats will re-learn in the next two years.

MSNBC
I've basically stopped watching them, but they are a necessary counter to FOX News.  They are terrible at being that counter, but they're still necessary.

Voter Suppression Laws
Near record low turnout for a midterm sure shows how effective they are in the South, but that happened too in blue states like California, Oregon and Colorado where voting is super easy.  The best voter suppression is voter depression.

Make your thoughts known in the comments, I want to hear from you guys.

StupidiNews!

• Preliminary evidence in last week's unmanned rocket launchpad explosion points to an engine pump failure, prompting the rocket to self-destruct rather than be allowed to fall on nearby residents.
• Hikers in California has stumbled upon the body of missing 20th Century Fox film executive Gavin Smith, who has been missing since May 2012, with the cause of death yet to be determined.
• Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong say they are looking for a "middleman" to help them negotiate with the larger Chinese government, rather than just with local officials.
• President Obama say that while he would like to see the new GOP Congress pass immigration legislation, he will take executive action "before the end of the year" if necessary.
• Your smartphone is broadcasting the names of networks you've connected to when it's looking for Wi-Fi, according to security experts, leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs for others.

Last Call For Angus Flipper King

I swore that Maine Independent Sen. Angus King was going to ditch the Dems for the GOP back in April after the midterms should the Republicans win the Senate.  Hell, Angus King said as much.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, will decide after the midterm elections whether to switch sides and join the Republicans.

He is leaving open the possibility of aligning himself with the GOP if control of the upper chamber changes hands.“I’ll make my decision at the time based on what I think is best for Maine,” King told The Hill Wednesday after voting with Republicans to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure at the center for the 2014 Democratic campaign agenda.

But apparently not only was I wrong, so was Angus King.

Angus King: "I have decided to remain with the Democratic caucus."
— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) November 5, 2014

.@SenAngusKing: "I think it's In Maine's interests to have a senator in each camp." Sen. Collins will be in GOP majority
— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) November 5, 2014

So for now, Flipper hasn't jumped.

Whether or not he'll vote with the Dems, well.  That's a whole 'nother thing.

In One Graph, As They Say

Welp.



Perhaps now would be a good time to ask why politicians aren't interested in fixing student loans, the environment,civil liberties, or any other issue that matters to Millennials*.

(* And by Millennials, I mean "White voters under 30 who stayed the hell home yesterday."  Congratulations on your ongoing political irrelevance.)

The Ugly Morning After

A brutal, brutal night for the Democrats last night.  The polls badly underestimated what was effectively a GOP wave.

While Brown didn't get swept up in the wave, virtually every other close race is being won by Republicans. Consider:

• Republicans are winning the vast majority of toss-ups in the races for governor and for Senate — including Cory Gardner in Colorado, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, David Perdue in Georgia and Pat Roberts in Kansas. In fact, New Hampshire is basically the one toss-up the GOPhasn't won.
• Former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, who virtually nobody gave a chance to come anywhere close in the Virginia Senate race, is currently within half a point of Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).
• Republican Larry Hogan is currently leading the Maryland governor's race — a race he wasn't supposed to — by nine points with just more than half of precincts reporting.
• Another Democrat who was supposed to win easily, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, currently leads by less than two points against a completely unheralded opponent whose name not even The Fix knew before tonight.
• Longtime Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), whose race was rated as safe by virtually all handicappers, is tied at 50 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
• Another incumbent in a supposedly safe district in Maryland, freshman Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), currently trails Republican Dan Bongino by two points with 57 percent of precincts reporting.
• Targets the GOP has long targeted, like Reps. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) and John Barrow (D-Ga.), have finally lost.

Final tally:  GOP needed 6 seats to retake the Senate and got 8, plus likely two more when Alaska finally comes in and Louisiana's runoff is settled, for what will probably be a ten-seat pickup.

The reason?  Turnout failed miserably, according to the exit polls.  Dems won women 53-46%, but lost men 55-42%.  The electorate for 2014 was a whopping 75% white, and Dems lost white voters by 20 points.

Two-thirds of voters in 2014 over 45, 75% were 40 or older.  Millennials stayed home.

Black voters showed up, they made up 12% of the electorate, and went 89% for Dems.  But Latino voters stayed home.  They made up only 8% total of the electorate, and a third of them voted for the GOP.

Dems lost white women by 12 points.  They lost white men by 30 points.

That's your ballgame.  Turnout nationally was lower than 2010.  

The demographic mix of young, minority and women voters that twice helped elect Obama to the White House never was going to be as robust in a midterm election Yet the fall-off from the level of support the president enjoyed just two years ago was a major factor in the Democratic loss of the Senate.

Even when compared to the last midterm election in 2010, the American electorate Tuesday was older, exit polls show.

Those 65 and older represented a quarter of the national electorate, up from 21 percent four years earlier. Democrats sought to turn out younger voters, but that didn't happen nationally. The share of those 29 and younger was identical to 2010. The proportion of the electorate represented by Hispanics–8 percent–was identical to 2010. Turnout among black voters increased by a percentage point to 12 percent this year, and Asian voters increased by a single point as well, to 3 percent.

Republicans did even better than they did four years ago.  We stayed home like chumps.  That's your answer.

StupidiNews, Non-Election News Edition!

• Israeli police and Arab youth clashed at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, leaving 15 injured as police cleared Muslim protestors to make way for a rally for a Rabbi shot last week.
• NFL player Adrian Peterson will avoid jail time after taking a plea bargain on charges of child abuse and endangerment after admitting to disciplining his four-year-old son with a wooden branch.
• Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu has accused Syria of atrocities around the city of Aleppo, warning that Istanbul would face a massive refugee crisis if the city fell.
• A new Pentagon report dings the US Army for allowing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military equipment to go missing in Afghanistan.
• In large US cities, 30-40% of Americans have no internet access whatsoever, with five Ohio cities making the list of top 25 cities with higher percentage without access.