O/U on votes to repeal the ACA set at 50.

2016 will be interesting. dems should be able to take the senate back with it being a presidential year.

rand paul and rubio have to run for re-election too, but guessing they will try their hand at the presidency. meaning both their races will have sets newbs, correct?

and i guess sestak wins the primary and faces toomey again? he should be able to win this time around.

they'll try to attack it through reconciliation and get Obama to be weak and capitulate on parts.

slugsrbad wrote:O/U on votes to repeal the ACA set at 50.

finally, the end of legislative gridlock

td11 wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:O/U on votes to repeal the ACA set at 50.

finally, the end of legislative gridlock

Your post is much better if you read it like The Rock saying it.

FINALLY. The Gridlock has ended in Washington. If you smeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllll what The Mitch is legislating.

CalvinBall wrote:rand paul and rubio have to run for re-election too, but guessing they will try their hand at the presidency. meaning both their races will have sets newbs, correct?

Not necessarily. You can be a primary candidate for both offices. An early bow out from the GOP Primaries would still leave them plenty of time to campaign and win the party nom. Happens every cycle.

got it

will Wolf actually do anything to help our schools

Houshphandzadeh wrote:will Wolf actually do anything to help our schools

he is for universal pre-k which has been proven to be a huge help the success of a student.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:rand paul and rubio have to run for re-election too, but guessing they will try their hand at the presidency. meaning both their races will have sets newbs, correct?

Not necessarily. You can be a primary candidate for both offices. An early bow out from the GOP Primaries would still leave them plenty of time to campaign and win the party nom. Happens every cycle.

Paul can't be.

this tweet sums up my feelings

Ben CasselmanVerified account
‏@bencasselman
So voters want a higher minimum wage, legal pot, abortion access and GOP representation. Ok then.

CalvinBall wrote:this tweet sums up my feelings

Ben CasselmanVerified account
‏@bencasselman
So voters want a higher minimum wage, legal pot, abortion access and GOP representation. Ok then.

Mine, too. Ridiculous.

So how likely or unlikely is it that ACA can actually get repealed?

The other aspect of all this that annoys me is the number of people that run un-opposed.

pacino wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:rand paul and rubio have to run for re-election too, but guessing they will try their hand at the presidency. meaning both their races will have sets newbs, correct?

Not necessarily. You can be a primary candidate for both offices. An early bow out from the GOP Primaries would still leave them plenty of time to campaign and win the party nom. Happens every cycle.

Paul can't be.

I stand corrected. Most states don't have that prohibition--at least not in the primaries--but apparently Kentucky and Florida both do.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/09/07/run-for-president-election-senate-rand-paul-doesn-want-choose/j48MIJbTjF1enwSVKRYutO/story.html

And Rubio has said he wouldn't do both anyway.

Phred wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:this tweet sums up my feelings

Ben CasselmanVerified account
‏@bencasselman
So voters want a higher minimum wage, legal pot, abortion access and GOP representation. Ok then.

Mine, too. Ridiculous.

So how likely or unlikely is it that ACA can actually get repealed?

The other aspect of all this that annoys me is the number of people that run un-opposed.

The unopposed races bother me far more than Republicans being elected by a disconnect with voters. it's not even true representation with money in politics warping everything to this extent. people dont even bother to run in races all across this country on local and federal levels because of gerrymandering and money. take the money out. people do not pick their legislators in most areas of the country; their legislators pick them.

Sheldon Adelson (remember him?) got his group to fund the anti-medical marijuana side in Florida. HE DOESNT EVEN LIVE THERE.

Because of Adelson’s outsized influence, only about 15 percent of the money raised by the no campaign has come from within the state. In contrast, about 91 percent of the money raised by the yes campaign was raised in-state. Nineteen out of every 20 contributors to People United for Medical Marijuana listed a Florida home address. A review of campaign finance data shows about 80 individuals or organizations have contributed to the no campaign, while roughly 5,600 have donated to the yes campaign. (Note: some may be double-counted due to typos or slight differences in how their names were entered.)

Phred wrote:So how likely or unlikely is it that ACA can actually get repealed?

impossible to repeal in full.

Possible to wring some amendments/concessions from Obama, but any insurgent pipe dreams of full repeal will quickly shred the gossamer peace between thumbtwiddlers like McConnell and bombthrowers like Cruz

The inconvenient thing for republicans is that the statute has been good for lots of voters and good for deep-pocketed insurers

jerseyhoya wrote:Wendy Davis losing by 21%!! in Texas. She lost Harris County (Houston!), Bexar County (San Antonio!), Tarrant County (Fort Worth!)

Texas turning blue is just around the corner. Bahaha.

The Battleground Texas campus organizer at Baylor had an incredible night on Twitter...

If you're a woman and you voted Republican, fall off of the face of the earth.
—
Chelsea (@chelsnatividad) November 05, 2014

If you're Hispanic and you voted Republican in this election, I strongly suggest you reevaluate your life.

— Chelsea (@chelsnatividad) November 5, 2014

too few of my fellow nutmeggers felt strongly enough about making our voting options more flexible to pass a ballot amendment to do so.

we also only recently decided that enabling local merchants to sell beer on Sundays would not provoke the rapture, so

I think you can point to two explanations for the seeming disconnect between the specific policy choices voters made and their general decisions to elect people who vehemently disagree with those choices.

The first is just anti-incumbent sentiment: almost every public official eventually wears out his/her welcome. I'm convinced the reason for the "six year itch" is that people just get fucking sick of the president… any president. His opponents just hate him more and more, while his supporters get tired of looking at him, hearing him, and bemoaning his inability to effectuate the change he promised in order to get elected. This holds to a lesser extent for incumbent governors and federal officials, or their successors, unless either 1) things are clearly great (think 1998, around the peak of the boom) or 2) everybody is in pants-crapping terror so incumbents get a halo effect (think 2002).

The second is the thru-line that some of us (TV, doc, me, Werthless in a way) occasionally invoke: individual autonomy tends to win these days. We want the right to buy and consume weed, but are damned if we're going to subsidize (through whatever convoluted path) those lazy bastards down the block for doing so. The minimum wage might be an exception because some wealthier voters don't perceive direct pain to themselves by that choice. (Research suggests they're basically right, though not for the reason they might think.)

Or maybe it was just an awful map for Democrats. Who knows.

"MacArthur out-spent Belgard by self-funding his campaign to the tune of $5 million, while raising a bit over $500,000 in outside contributions as of mid-October. Belgard raised $1.5 million, entirely from donors and political committees."

WRT the discussion of "better candidates" in the old thread, the situation will not change until this kind of thing is solved. When a candidate can write a personal check for $5m, what chance does the average Joe/Jane have at winning the seat? This is probably just one example of hundreds across the country. I am not naive; I know that money = power but it does not have to be that way. Some really bright, hard-working, true civil servants are simply locked out of the game and our towns, states and country is worse off because of it.

My Senate bets paid $1,989 on the $1,000 wagered

I'm internet rich in spite of being insufficiently bullish on the Grand Old Party