Last Call For Obamacare Rate Shock

2014 is the end of the Democrats!  Doom!  Total GOP domination!  Obamacare is a miserable failure!  Just look at New York, where individual premiums are being cut in half!

Wait, that's...what Obamacare is supposed to do.

State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.

Yep, that Obamacare law sure is a complete disaster, huh.
 

Supporters of the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act, credited the drop in rates to the online purchasing exchanges the law created, which they say are spurring competition among insurers that are anticipating an influx of new customers. The law requires that an exchange be started in every state.

“Health insurance has suddenly become affordable in New York,” said Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president for health initiatives with the Community Service Society of New York. “It’s not bargain-basement prices, but we’re going from Bergdorf’s to Filene’s here.”

“The extraordinary decline in New York’s insurance rates for individual consumers demonstrates the profound promise of the Affordable Care Act,” she added.

Administration officials, long confronted by Republicans and other critics of President Obama’s signature law, were quick to add New York to the list of states that appear to be successfully carrying out the law and setting up exchanges.

“We’re seeing in New York what we’ve seen in other states like California and Oregon — that competition and transparency in the marketplaces are leading to affordable and new choices for families,” said Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

And let's remember that competition in the free market has long, long been a Republican screaming point.  When President Obama actually put that into effect, they went bonkers.

The larger point here is that New York is a state that wants to make its state health insurance exchange work and doesn't have Republicans sabotaging it because Black President Is Tyrant or something.  It's amazing how, when given the opportunity to work, the program works as intended.

Once again, if Obamacare is such a failure, explain to me how New York has significantly more insurers coming into the state, wanting to offer more products, at far, far better prices.  The best part is rates for small businesses are going down too, AND people are going to get subsidies.

It's like the damn thing works when you want to make it work.

The Most Honest A Cheney's Ever Been

So in the great state of Wyoming, Liz Cheney has upset the apple cart, set it on fire, crushed the apples into flaming, dirty paste and then declared a scorched earth campaign versus all apple orchards with her decision to primary Republican Sen. Mike Enzi for no particular reason other than she really wants to be in the Senate.

If you were wondering why Liz Cheney feels the need to take out Sen. Mike Enzi (who is a remarkable senator inasmuch he's pretty much famous for just kind of being there) there's two reasons. First, Enzi is the ranking Republican on the Senate Health committee and didn't stop Obamacare or something, so that makes him MAXIMUM RINO. Second, and more importantly:  

What should GOP do in face of radical Obama agenda? Everything possible to resist/block. That's not obstructionism. That's patriotism.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) February 23, 2013

To recap, Liz Cheney is trying to take Mike Enzi out because there's not enough GOP obstruction of President Obama among Senate Republicans. She's not running to represent the interests of the people of the Cowboy State in the United States Senate, she's not running to be an agent of change in what amounts to an ossified gentlemen's club, she's not running because the GOP needs more women in the Senate (and that's actually true) and she's certainly not running to see if Wyoming can earn its other long-forgotten state moniker, Equality State (and if she does because of her sister Mary, that won't last long the second President Obama agrees with her.)

She's running to stop the last two years of Barack Obama's second term. That's really the whole thing. That is her big reason for putting Enzi out to Wyoming's green pastures, because total obstruction is all that matters. You want to talk about sense of entitlement? Cheney decides the seat should be hers because of the purity of her rancor towards the President the GOP has been unable to stop, time and time again. Look, this is a person whose sole qualification for anything is "her dad was Vice-President". Based on that, she thinks Enzi should step aside so that she can scream at the President. Where does she even get off doing this in the first place?

But this is Liz Cheney we're talking about here, who burst onto the scene in 2009 playing footsie with the Birther movement, who has a serious problem telling the truth, and of course she has her backers among the "progressive left" who see her as a strong enough woman to end up in the White House someday. You know, like Sarah Palin.

Me, I'm going to enjoy the Republicans taking sides on Cheney versus Enzi and hoping Enzi decides to pull an Angus King just big enough to open the door for a Democratic opponent to squeak through. It's a lot to hope for, but it would be awesome if it happened. After all, Cheney has already dismissed Enzi as a factor in her race and is going straight for the Oval Office (in more ways than one.) That kind of hubris tends to get attention even from the most absent of fate-directing powers.

Meanwhile, I bet President Obama is having a pretty good laugh at the news that Republicans are still willing to eat their own in order to try to stop him.

Let the battle commence.

The Return Of The Honey Badger

Dem Senate majority leader Harry Reid actually pulled his filibuster move off, and broke the GOP's back on filibustering cabinet nominations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office confirms to ThinkProgress that a deal has been reached to avert the so-called “nuclear option” on what appear to be very favorable terms to Democrats. In a nearly unconditional surrender to Senate Democrats, a core group of Senate Republicans agreed to a deal that will confirm most of the nominees currently subject to Republican filibusters, and replace two nominees to a key labor agency. While the identity of those new nominees are, as yet, unknown, two Democratic Senate sources tell ThinkProgress that the new nominees to the National Labor Relations Board can be “any two we want,” so long as it is not the two people currently serving on the NLRB via recess appointments.

In return for a virtually complete capitulation to Democratic demands, Republicans get to postpone the question of whether filibusters can still exist for executive branch nominees. Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) rejected an offer from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to confirm the pending nominees if Reid agreed to take the nuclear option off the table, so Reid retains the option of changing the Senate Rules in the future if Republicans obstruct future nominees. Senate Republicans will also get to make the rhetorical point that they prevented two NLRB nominees whose recess appointments were called into question by a pair of court decisions handed down by five Republican judges from being confirmed to their seats on that agency.

Indeed, one of those seven nominees, acting Consumer Financial Protection Board head Richard Cordray, has been cleared through cloture with 71 votes and will be the first to get an up-or-down vote from the full Senate.

This is a full fold on the part of Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP.

Welcome back, Harry "Honey Badger" Reid.  We've missed you.

StupidiNews!

• In India 22 children are dead and another 25 hospitalized after free school lunches were found to be poisoned by an agricultural chemical.
• Britain's House of Commons approved same-sex marriage legislation Tuesday, paving the way for gay marriage in Britain in 2014.
• House Republicans are expected to vote on a measure that would indefinitely delay many key parts of Obamacare, including the individual mandate.
• After two years of GOP obstruction, Richard Cordray has been confirmed by a 66-34 vote to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• Google may be the next tech giant to move into streaming live tv, video and movies with a rumored new service.

Last Call For McCrory's Honeymoon

If GOP NC Gov. Pat McCrory ever had a honeymoon, it died this month with the NC GOP.  The latest numbers from Public Policy Polling:

For the first time since taking office we find that McCrory has a negative approval rating this month. Only 40% of voters are happy with the job he's doing to 49% who disapprove. That's down a net 15 points from June when he was at a 45/39 spread. While McCrory's numbers are pretty steady with Republicans, he continues to lose ground with Democrats (down a net 17 points from -36 at 24/60 last month to now -53 at 17/70) and independents (down a net 20 points from +12 at 46/34 last month to -8 at 41/49 now). Only 68% of people who voted for McCrory last fall continue to approve of his job performance.

That's quite a drop, and it gets worse for McCrory when you throw the Republican-dominated state legislature into the mix.

Unhappiness over the abortion bill seems to be driving a lot of the increased unhappiness with the Republicans in state government this month. Only 34% of voters support the proposal to 47% who are opposed. They're even more unhappy with the process- 80% think it's inappropriate to combine abortion legislation with bills about motorcycle safety or Sharia Law.

This speaks to a greater issue voters have with the General Assembly's transparency- only 19% think the body is transparent in how it conducts its business to 51% who believe it is not. As a result North Carolinians think by a 48/33 margin that McCrory should veto the abortion law, including a 51/37 margin with independents.

The problem of course is that there are enough Republican votes in both the NC House and Senate to override a McCrory veto, meaning he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.  And the awful, draconian laws that McCrory has already signed into law are hurting him, too.

-55% of voters are unhappy with the legislation that resulted in 70,000 North Carolinians losing their unemployment benefits earlier this month to only 29% who are supportive of it. There's strong opposition to this development by both independents (32/55) and Democrats (10/78).

-76% of voters think that companies engaged in fracking in North Carolina should have to disclose all the chemicals they inject into the ground with only 13% opposed. Republicans in the State Senate have been trying to exempt them from having to do so. There's a strong bipartisan consensus (81/13 among independents, 80/9 among Democrats, 68/18 among Republicans) that disclosure should be required.

Even a majority of NC Republicans are worried about fracking chemicals, and with good reason.  And the nation's worst unemployment benefits?  Not exactly a selling point.  All of this could mean one hell of a backlash in November 2014:

All of this could come back to bite Republicans in next year's election. The GOP has an overall 35% approval rating for how it's running state government with 55% of voters disapproving. Democrats now lead the generic legislative ballot 51/42, the largest lead we've ever found for them since we started tracking this statistic.

North Carolinians have serious buyer's remorse for the GOP state they bought into.  Payback is going to be spectacular...but how much damage will the state's people take in the meantime from these GOP clowns?

We'll see.  If anything, Sen. Kay Hagan has a clear platform to run on in 2014 to keep her seat.

Seems Like A Normal Family To Me

The latest Fine Bros. video explores a number of kids reacting to the recent Cheerios commercial with the biracial family, and it will make you feel a whole lot better about America, when not one of the kids or teens can find anything "wrong" with the commercial.



Once again, as a biracial man with a biracial brother and three mixed-race nephews, that fact that these kids see nothing wrong with the notion of a white mom, black father, and a biracial daughter is pretty damn awesome.  When I was 11 or 12, growing up in relatively small town North Carolina, things were difficult sometimes.  That was a generation ago, however.  Now?  Now I see a lot more hope.

Good job, kids.  Keep being awesome.

Trial By Error

The self-serving interview of anonymous Zimmerman trial juror B37 on CNN's Anderson Cooper last night actually turned out to be informative, as the juror basically admitted that on multiple occasions the jury disregarded jury instructions in order to find Zimmerman not guilty.

In an interview on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night, an anonymous juror said the panel that found George Zimmerman not guilty considered Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in its deliberations. Earlier reports suggested the notorious law that authorizes the unfettered use of deadly force in self-defense was not applied to the case, because Zimmerman’s lawyers opted not to request a Stand Your Ground hearing. But as ThinkProgress explained in a post earlier today, the jury instructions contained the law’s key provision and instructed jurors that self-defense meant Zimmerman was entitled to “stand his ground” with “no duty to retreat.”

COOPER: Because of the two options you had, second degree murder or manslaughter, you felt neither applied?

JUROR: Right. Because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground. He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right.

So the jury did consider SYG when they shouldn't have.  Even worse,  the juror admitted that she failed to follow the judge's instructions not once, but twice.

COOPER:  Did you feel - a lot of the analysts who were watching the trial, felt that the defense attorneys - Mark O'Mara, Don West - were able to turn prosecution witnesses to their advantage - Chris Serino, for instance, the lead investigator.   Did he make an impression on you?

 JUROR:  Chris Serino did.  He - but he - to me, he just was doing his job.  He was doing his job the way he was doing his job and he was going to tell the truth regardless of who asked him the questions.

 COOPER:  So you found him to be credible?

 JUROR:  I did, very credible.

 COOPER:  So when he testified that he found George Zimmerman to be more or less and overall truthful, did that make an impression on you?

 JUROR:  It did.  It did.  It made a big impression on me.

The judge gave strict instructions that Serino's opinion on Zimmerman's truthfulness was to be disregarded.  That clearly wasn't done here, by the juror's own admission.  It happened again:

COOPER:  When the defense in their closing argument played that animation of what they believe happened, did you find that credible?

 JUROR:  I found it credible.  I did.

The judge ruled that animation as inadmissible, and yet here the juror admits she found it credible, implying that she considered it in her deliberations.  Once again, this was in direct violation of the judge's instructions.

No wonder the juror's book deal was canceled, and it got canceled by people speaking up and giving a damn about how ridiculous it is to profit off the death of a young man. We've got a juror admitting 48 hours after the verdict that she and the rest of the jury ignored the judge's instructions multiple times in order to reach that not guilty verdict.

You would think that somebody in the Department of Justice might have been paying attention to this interview, too.

StupidiNews!

• A rare meeting of all 100 US Senators failed to bring about a deal to avert Dem Senate majority leader Harry Reid's promise to change filibuster rules involving Cabinet nominations.
• A North Dakota judge has struck down the state's 2011 law banning medical abortions, citing "contrived and pretexual" reasons behind the state law.
• Mexican military forces have captured Miguel Angel Trevino near Nuevo Laredo, wanted by both US and Mexican law enforcement as kingpin of the infamous Los Zetas drug cartel.
• After shifting funds, the Air Force's Thunderbirds demonstration flight team is in the air again after being grounded by sequestration cuts to the Pentagon.
• The console that made Nintendo a worldwide phenomenon, Japan's Famicom, turns 30 this week, as the predecessor to the American NES defined gaming in the 80's.

Last Call For Cruz Control

Senate Republicans are hard at work creating jobs umm fixing inequality errm helping all Americans oh screw it they're trying to eliminate Obamacare again.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, along with 17 other Senate Republicans, has introduced the Defund Obamacare Act of 2013, which would fully defund Obamacare, in the wake of the recent string of bad news surrounding the law.

"The Administration's recent announcement to delay the onerous and unpopular employer mandate until after the 2014 election, coupled with its announcement to delay income and health status eligibility requirements in favor of an honor system for the most expensive entitlement for our generation, confirms what has been obvious from the start--this law is a colossal mistake," Cruz said in a press release.

Cruz is joined by Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., who introduced companion legislation in the House. Graves has introduced similar legislation before, in March of 2013, and also in the 111th and 112th congresses.

Because of course the legislation will pass, right?   Look, considering Sen. Ted Cruz is poking around New Hampshire these days, it's important to note that this is what passes as serious legislation to GOP hopefuls.

No wonder Congress has an approval rating somewhere around scabies.

The Kroog Vesus The 2013 Hunger Games

And the GOP makes sure that the odds will ever be in their favor, not yours.  Paul Krugman discusses the House GOP's SNAP plans:

So House Republicans voted to maintain farm subsidies — at a higher level than either the Senate or the White House proposed — while completely eliminating food stamps from the bill. 

To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It goes something like this: “You’re personally free to help the poor. But the government has no right to take people’s money” — frequently, at this point, they add the words “at the point of a gun” — “and force them to give it to the poor.” 

It is, however, apparently perfectly O.K. to take people’s money at the point of a gun and force them to give it to agribusinesses and the wealthy. 

Now, some enemies of food stamps don’t quote libertarian philosophy; they quote the Bible instead. Representative Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, for example, cited the New Testament: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” Sure enough, it turns out that Mr. Fincher has personally received millions in farm subsidies. 

Given this awesome double standard — I don’t think the word “hypocrisy” does it justice — it seems almost anti-climactic to talk about facts and figures. But I guess we must. 

I don't think people really appreciate what's going on here:  House Republicans are literally taking money from people who don't have food to eat, and giving it to rich corporate farmers and agribusiness giants because they back Republicans.   Poor people?  Not so much.

Instead, Republicans are quoting the Bible at people and deciding that what America really has too much of is people who work 40 hours a week for crap wages and can't feed their kids.

Unfortunate.  Maybe they should give a kid away or something.

Brian's Story In 2014: Not A Happy Ending

Former Montana Dem Gov. Brian Schweitzer says he will not run to succeed Dem Sen. Max Baucus, making it almost certain to be the third open seat that Democrats forfeit to red state Republicans in 2014.  Chris Cilizza, making sense for once:

Schweitzer’s candidacy was assumed in the political world following the surprise retirement announcement of Sen. Max Baucus (D) in the spring. The popular ex-governor remains voraciously ambitious in the political arena, and the Senate seemed like a decent stop on the way to what many people in and out of the state thought might be a run for president in 2016.

The field was effectively frozen as Schweitzer made up his mind. With him not running, look for Rep. Steve Daines (R) to come under heavy pressure to make the race. And while Democrats talk about state schools superintendent Denise Juneau and state auditor Monica Lindeen, neither woman has the proven electoral record (or even close to it) of Schweitzer.

It’s worth noting that Democrats have demonstrated their ability to win in Montana — even with a national wind blowing in their collective face. Sen. Jon Tester won a second term in November despite the fact that President Obama won just 42 percent of the vote in the state. But that was a race featuring a Democratic incumbent. Montana in 2014 will be an open seat.

Nationally, Montana becomes the third problematic open seat for the party. In West Virginia, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) is a clear favorite, as Democrats have yet to persuade a serious candidate to run. In South Dakota, the two leading potential Democratic candidates took a pass while popular former governor Mike Rounds dodged a serious Republican primary challenge.

If you give Republicans those three open seats — they are favored at the moment, but the election remains 16 months away — they then need three more for the majority. Those pickups would almost certainly come from four seats, all of which are held by Democratic incumbents running for reelection — in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.

In other words, the GOP now has a clear shot at seven red state Democratic seats, and would take back Congress with six.  Alaska would be a problem should Sarah Palin decide to run (and lose) to Mark Begich, but that still leaves six very likely pickups.  I wasn't terribly worried a few months ago about the Dems holding in 2014.

I am worried now.  Sen. Kay Hagen may be the key here in NC, given the massive GOP takeover in the state.  I'm hoping she can rally a backlash against the Republicans there, but it's going to be very, very close.

Time to get to work on 2014, folks.

[UPDATE]  That goes doubly true after Schweitzer bowing out finds Nate Silver putting the odds of the Dems keeping the Senate at best as a coin-toss.

StupidiNews!

• Peaceful protests over the Zimmerman trial verdict sprang up Sunday from LA to NYC yesterday as thousands protested nationwide.
• Calls for the resignation of Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy intensified after text messages between Rajoy and former treasurer Luis Barcenas involving a massive slush fund were revealed.
• Some 25 Gitmo detainees have ended their hunger strike as US officials have agreed to house them in communal detention rather than solitary confinement.
• Microsoft has drastically cut the prices of its Surface RT tablets after dismal sales in the first half of 2013 compared to Google and Apple tablets.
• A Canadian team has finally claimed the 33-year old Sikorsky prize for the first working human-powered helicopter flight of at least one minute.

Last Call For Passing The Torch

Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry is passing control of the state to his Attorney General partner in crime for the last 3 terms, Greg Abbott.

Longtime Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a political conservative, announced his candidacy for governor on Sunday.

Abbott’s move came less than a week after Gov. Rick Perry said he would not seek another term in Austin, clearing a potential path, some say, for him to run for president.

Abbott made the announcement in San Antonio, a decision that many expected as he has already raised tens of millions for the race.

“When it comes to our freedom and our future, I will never - I will never stop fighting," he said.

First elected attorney general in 2002, Abbott has defended socially conservative causes during his tenure. These include pushing for the display of a Ten Commandments monument of the grounds of the Texas Capitol in 2005.

He also has sued the Obama administration more than 25 times, including case that led to the landmark Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, last year.

So if anything, Texas will become even more reactionary, more theocratic, more fringe, and more hateful under Abbott.  Awesome.  Also, it's funny how the federal government wasn't worth suing until January 20, 2009.  Odd how that works out.

Dear America:

Roger L. Simon at PJ Media:  "Dear America:  The Zimmerman trial? It's Obama's fault.  It's always Obama's fault."

Bonus Verbatim Stupid: 

"This is the work of a reactionary, someone who consciously/unconsciously wants to push our nation back to the 1950s.

It is also the work of a narcissist who thinks of himself first, of his image, not of black, white or any other kind of people. It’s no accident that race relations in our country have gone backwards during his stewardship."

Because to the right, it's always Obama's fault.

Last Call For "Justice"

And George Zimmerman is a free man tonight, exonerated in the death of Trayvon Martin.

George Zimmerman is not guilty of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, a Florida jury decided late Saturday.

The fact that Zimmerman fired the bullet that killed Martin was never in question, but the verdict means the six-person jury had reasonable doubt that the shooting amounted to a criminal act.

The verdict caps a case that has inflamed passions for well over a year, much of it focused on race and gun rights.

The jury -- made up of all women -- had three choices: to find Zimmerman guilty of second-degree murder; to find him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter; or to find him not guilty.

The jurors deliberated for 16½ hours total, including 13 on Saturday alone, before delivering their verdict.

In the end the jury decided that Florida's stand your ground law meant that the killing of Martin was justified.  Regardless of the verdict tonight, Trayvon Martin is dead.  MoJo's Lauren Williams:

But it’s not over. Now that the verdict is in, here’s what could happen next.

Federal charges: The Department of Justice launched an investigation last March to investigate whether Martin’s shooting amounted to a federal hate crime—that is, if Zimmerman followed and killed Martin because he was black. In July 2012, the FBI released a statement saying that investigators had found no evidence that Zimmerman was motivated by racism. The July statement indicates that federal charges are highly unlikely, but the DOJ has not announced that the case is closed. It’s still being brought up as a post-trial possibility. NAACP president Benjamin Jealous, for instance, said Saturday on MSNBC that "there are still additional legal avenues. He could still be charged with federal civil rights charges."

Civil lawsuit: Martin’s family reached a settlement in April with the homeowners’ association of the subdivision where the killing occurred. The details of the settlement were not made public, but the Orlando Sentinel reported that the family was "said to" have been awarded at least $1 million. The suit did not include Zimmerman, but the family’s attorney Benjamin Crump has said that the family intends to sue their son’s killer at some point in the future. It’s not uncommon for families to seek a form of justice through civil courts, even when a the defendant is acquitted in criminal court. And the standards for judgments are different in such civil cases.

The public’s reaction: In the week leading to the verdict, speculation that people—specifically black people—would riot if Zimmerman were acquitted spread through the mainstream media, after taking off in the conservative press and cable news. What’s more likely, based on how Martin supporters have reacted initially—after the verdict was read, the crowd outside of the courthouse dispersed peacefully—is that protests (of the non-violent variety) against racial profiling will continue.

All important things to remember.