The Open Thread for Monday, August 5, 2013
Now this is funny:
“Let’s tell it like it is. If the doctors told Sen. McConnell he had a kidney stone, he wouldn’t pass it.” – Kentucky Secretary of State and 2014 Senate Candidate Alison Lundergran Grimes (D).
Meanwhile, a new poll shows that Governor Chris Christie is the only Republican candidate that has any chance against Hillary Clinton.
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Monmouth University: Fmr. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (D) 43, Gov. Chris Christie (R) 39; Clinton 47, Fmr. Gov. Jeb Bush (R) 37; Clinton 47, Sen. Marco Rubio (R) 36; Clinton 48, Sen. Ted Cruz 32.
Cruz, in my opinion, is the most likely nominee. Cruz is hawkish like Christie, a bully like Christie, but 100% conservative and beloved by the teabaggers, which Christie is not. Electoral statistician Harry J. Enten at The Guardian, however, thinks Jeb Bush would be a strong 2016 presidential contender:
His true ideology looks like what one would expect for a winner for the nomination and general. After losing two presidential races in a row, parties tend to nominate candidates who are more moderate than prior nominees. Jimmy Carter was more moderate than McGovern, Clinton was more moderate than Dukakis, and Bush was more moderate than Dole.
Jeb Bush is actually to the left of every possible nominee per ideological scoring except for New Jersey’s Chris Christie and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. Noticeably, Bush isn’t too far to the left.
Enten is wrong here. Ask any conservative why they lost in 2008 and 2012, and the answer is because they nominated moderate compromisers and flip floppers named John McCain and Mitt Romney. Yes, Bush is a great candidate for the GOP in the general, but first he has to be nominated by a primary electorate that will think Bush is just another McCain or another Romney. Yeah, not going to happen. This is the same reason why I think Chris Christie is doomed in the primary. In fact, Christie and Bush’s only hope is that the other (Bush or Christie) doesn’t run, and that the angry conservative teabag vote is split between Cruz, Santorum and Paul.
And now to the wonderful congressional GOP and the looming Budget crisis of their own making. First, Paul Krugman:
How did the G.O.P. get to this point? On budget issues, the proximate source of the party’s troubles lies in the decision to turn the formulation of fiscal policy over to a con man. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has always been a magic-asterisk kind of guy — someone who makes big claims about having a plan to slash deficits but refuses to spell out any of the all-important details. Back in 2011 the Congressional Budget Office, in evaluating one of Mr. Ryan’s plans, came close to open sarcasm; it described the extreme spending cuts Mr. Ryan was assuming, then remarked, tersely, “No proposals were specified that would generate that path.”
What’s happening now is that the G.O.P. is trying to convert Mr. Ryan’s big talk into actual legislation — and is finding, unsurprisingly, that it can’t be done. Yet Republicans aren’t willing to face up to that reality. Instead, they’re just running away.
Republicans in the House may or may not suffer electorally from their obstruction. But if they shut down the government, their state level counterparts, their GOP Governors who are up for reelection in 2014, will.
“Worried about the potential impact on the fragile economies in their states, Republican governors this weekend warned their counterparts in Congress not to shut down the federal government as part of an effort to block financing for President Obama’s health care law.”
“A range of Republican governors, including some who have refused to implement elements of the health initiative in their states, said in interviews that a standoff in Washington before the new fiscal year this fall could backfire on the party if it is seen as being responsible for bringing the government to a halt.”
Anyone else see what our idiot senator proposed today? I’ve called his office to let him know that he’s finally pushed me over the edge-I’ll never vote for him again.
Start calling his office (202-224-2441) and let him know he WILL pay a price for this stupid proposal.
Senator Carper introduces legislation to virtually end the USPS
Source: NH Labor News
By Bill Brickley
Democratic Senator Tom Carper has moved the Postal Service one big step closer to extinction this weekend by introducing his new Postal Reform Act S 1486. Mr Carper a long time ally of wealthy corporate interests intends to drive the stake into the heart of the worlds best Postal Service. His bill on many levels closely resembles Congressman Issa’s HR 2748 which passed out of a House committee 10 days ago on a party line vote, with only GOP support.
Carper’s S 1486 will allow the elimination of Saturday delivery in just one year. That itself will put the USPS in a death spiral. Cutting service is clearly not the way to compete in a 21st economy. Cutting 16% of the USPS services to save at most 3% of the budget doesn’t seem to be a rational strategy. Saving any money itself is in question as studies have shown that losing Saturday delivery would reduce mail volume by 7.7% that itself would result in a revenue loss of $5.3 Billion far exceeding the money projected to be saved by cutting a day of delivery.
Other aspects of this bill that would harm the American public is that this bill requires the Postal Service to change your mode of delivery to the deivery mode “that is most cost – effective and in the best long-term interest of the Postal Service” This may save the Postal Service some delivery time but to force elderly people into a situation where it will be difficult for them to retrieve their mail in the harsh winter or sweltering summer is not a matter that a civilized society should put a price on.
This Senate bill also removes safeguards for rural customers that have been in place to guarantee them reasonable access to a post office. There will be no limit on how far you must travel to get to your “local” post office. I guess for Mr Carper being a Senator from Delaware that issue does not resonate with him.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://nhlabornews.com/2013/08/senator-carper-introduces-legislation-to-virtually-end-the-usps/
Christie has around him some incredibly smart people who learned a lot from their early involvement in the Rudy ’04 mess. They will be better able to pilot a moderate through a field full of people running to the right.
The ultimate con man is Obama and the ultimate liar is Hillary Clinton. Obama has achieved nothing that he ran on in 2008 or 2012-NOTHING. Post racial? Post partisan? Yea right.
Hillary is old, tired and useless.
Any poll this far out is a joke just like all liberals.
They are minor league liars and con men compared to Bush-Chaney. You must have forgotten how they lied and conned Congress to approve a war that cost the U.S. lives and money. Although Halliburton and and its subsidies did quite well.
“Any poll this far out is a joke just like all liberals.”
Wow, what a compelling argument! I have totally changed my mind because of your overwhelming intellectual skillz!
” Saving any money itself is in question as studies have shown that losing Saturday delivery would reduce mail volume by 7.7%”
Any idea where I can find any of those studies? I would have thought that there would be the same volume spread over 5 days rather than 6 days. It seems to me that the only way there could be a decrease in volume is if senders chose not to send something because it won’t arrive on a Saturday, rather than just mailing it to arrive on a Friday.
Also, “cutting service is clearly not the way to compete in a 21st economy” might be true if you were cutting 21st century services. But when you are cutting 17th century services in the 21st century, that’s another story. USPS is also moving towards cluster delivery, followed by curbside delivery in many areas. Finally, one of the reasons that services are being looked at is that first class mail has declined in the 21st century as technology created new forms of communication. USPS must be allowed to innovate if it is to continue to exist. Of course, Congress should also rescind the act that forced USPS to prepay pensions, unlike other companies. Level the playing field so to speak.