Tuesday Open Thread [12.10.13]

Filed in Open Thread by on December 10, 2013

Colin Powell recently ina speech talked about the health problems of his wife Alma and a friend:

I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life. And I don’t see why we can’t do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing.

After these two events, of Alma and Anne, I’ve been thinking, why is it like this? Every country I’ve visited, every developed country, they have universal health care. They don’t understand why the United States of America, which uses more health care than just about anybody else, still (has) 40 million people not properly insured.

I think universal health care is one of the things we should really be focused on, and I hope that will happen. Whether it’s Obamacare, or son of Obamacare, I don’t care. As long as we get it done.

The lawyer representing Mark Obenshain (R) in the pending statewide recount in the Virginia attorney general race “for the first time openly raised the issue of contesting the election in the General Assembly if the tally does not sway the result in the Republican’s favor,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.

“If he loses the recount, Obenshain could ask a joint session of the General Assembly — which is dominated by Republicans — to reverse the results. Under state law, grounds for a contest include objections to ‘the conduct or results of the election accompanied by specific allegations which, if proven true, would have a probable impact on the outcome of the election.'”

Rachel Maddow has been focusing on this issue lately. For Republicans, their grounds are the fact that they lost the election.

Alex Seitz-Wald says the Newtown school shootings last year derailed President Obama’s second term agenda.

“Suddenly, priority No. 1 wasn’t immigration reform but gun control. The base that had just elected Obama was clamoring for background checks and magazine-clip restrictions, threatening to desert the president before his second inauguration… That meant immigration would have to wait. The clock was ticking on both gun control and immigration, but Democrats moved ahead with gun control first, recognizing that as the memory of the tragedy at Sandy Hook faded, so too would the impetus for new laws. The Senate spent months on a bill, which eventually got whittled down to a universal background-check provision, before it finally died at the hands of a Republican filibuster in mid-April.”

“In the process, the administration fatally, and irrevocably, antagonized the populist libertarian Right, the same people whom mainstream Republicans and Democrats needed to stay on the sidelines for immigration reform to succeed. By engaging in such an emotional, polarizing issue so early on, Obama poisoned the (admittedly shallow) well of goodwill and the willingness to compromise by Republicans before his term even began in earnest.”

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  1. liberalgeek says:

    Eagles game on 12/22 has been flexed to the Sunday Night Football game. Adjust your tailgating accordingly.

  2. cassandra_m says:

    Can I just say that Adam Seitz-Wald is full of it? That somehow immigration reform was on a glide path to some victory until the liberals showed up is the kind of bullshit that one might see from Ron Fournier, who also currently writes for the National Journal. He also forgets that after the shootings in Newtown, the American people in solid majorities wanted some common sense controls put into place. This wasn’t about Obama, it was about a bought and paid for NRA Congress who killed gun control. Immigration was always about whether or not the GOP idiots in the House could let go their dog whistles.

  3. Jason330 says:

    Prediction: The Eagles will lose to the Vikings then beat the Bears. I’d prefer that anyway. It will be nice going to Dallas having beaten a team that they so recently got CRUSHED by.

  4. Geezer says:

    I second Cassandra’s call of BS. The notion that the anti-immigration and gun nut factions of the GOP would get upset at the latter but not the former — or even that they are different people — is pure Beltway bullshit.

  5. Geezer says:

    On an unrelated matter, what’s with the astroturfing of the Carney grades? There are not 40 people who read this site who think he deserves an A. I strongly suspect they are either in the employ of John “Tits on a Bull Hog” Carney or are Democratic Party apparatchiks.

  6. Jason330 says:

    Someone REALLY doesn’t want “A” to not be the top response. The poll is obviously unscientific, but the results are interesting nevertheless.

  7. AQC says:

    Another young man killed in Wilmington last night. At least we are making sure the homeless don’t congregate in Rodney Square though.

  8. Devol says:

    In other news, while our biggest city breaks its homicide records, our small town and university police departments are becoming militarized, free of charge.

    The town of Delmar, hardly a crime hotspot, recently obtained a free Humvee from the military. http://pro.wgmd-fm.tritonflex.com/common/more.php?m=49&r=51&post_id=82041.

    Ohio State just also received a mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle for use in “natural disasters.” Perhaps like, when the students decide to protest? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/18/ohio-state-university-armored-truck_n_3949750.html

    Every day, we hear of reports of ill-doings by the cops. I can’t imagine a scenario where these types of vehicles and other military toys don’t embolden them against citizens.