Category: Politics As Usual

Corbett’s gotta go

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

TomCorbett

So the replacement for Medicaid is some jerryrigged system that will almost certainly benefit political cronies somewhere along the line, with the added benefit of making you work in order to get coverage? It’s way past time for this asshole to go. No wonder his numbers are in the toilet:

HARRISBURG The Corbett administration said Thursday it will submit a waiver to the federal government sometime after mid-January seeking to use billions of dollars in Medicaid funds to provide health insurance for hundreds of thousands of uninsured Pennsylvanians.

The details of the 100-page proposal are to be made public Friday when the plan is posted online.

In a briefing with reporters, state officials said they would submit the proposal following a series of hearings across the state but gave no projected timetable for its implementation.

“It is the next step to provide increased access to health care for the uninsured,” said Todd Shamash, Gov. Corbett’s deputy chief of staff. “We said we were going to do it, and now we are delivering on it.”

The news comes almost three months after Corbett, an opponent of the Affordable Care Act, announced his plan to make sweeping changes to the state’s Medicaid program and ensure coverage for about 500,000 people.

His proposal, similar to the one submitted by Arkansas that received federal approval, would use federal funds to cover costs through the private insurance exchange system created under the Affordable Care Act, instead of expanding Medicaid rolls.

Corbett’s “Healthy PA” plan has elements that could pose obstacles with the Obama administration: requirements that recipients pay a “modest” monthly premium and that working-age recipients be engaged in a job search in order to qualify.

Pennsylvania would be the first state to require able-bodied adults to participate in a job search or training program to receive Medicaid coverage.

Smells like an ALEC idea to me…

Not-so-smart ALEC

~ susie

I haven’t been writing about this here, but we have a couple of stories over at C&L here and here:

Concord, NH – New leaked documents show that corporate special interest lobbying group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) asked state chairs, including New Hampshire State Representatives Gary Daniels (R-Milford) and Jordan Ulery (R-Hudson), to sign a pledge stating,: “I will act with loyalty and put the interests of the organization first.”

The pledge for elected officials to put their affiliation with ALEC over their oath of office was revealed in documents released about ALEC in an investigative report by The Guardian newspaper this week.

ALEC allows corporations to draft legislation that directly benefits their bottom line, then sit side by side with ALEC legislators to vote on which ones to introduce in State Houses across the country. The Guardian expose highlights the extent of this relationship; it also details ALEC’s internal concerns about lobbying while pretending to be a charitable organization and its plans to win back corporate members who left the organization in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting where the ALEC-supported Stand Your Ground law came into wide recognition.

ALEC’s legislative agenda for 2014 includes plans to harass navigators who help uninsured Americans sign up for affordable health coverage and to continue to push for a repeal of the minimum wage. These policies and others will be discussed at ALEC’s annual “State and Nation Policy Summit” in DC today, which several New Hampshire ALEC legislators are anticipated to be participating in – including Daniels, Ulery, Lenette Peterson (R-Merrimack), JR Hoell (R-Bow) and Pam Tucker (R-Greenland).

Why Pennsylvanians should support Daylin Leach

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Just one more reason to give this guy a contribution:

Believe it or not, yesterday I heard the following from E. Christopher Abruzzo, Tom Corbett’s Nominee for Department of Environmental Protection Secretary:

“I have not read any scientific studies that would lead me to conclude that there are adverse impacts to human beings or to animals or to plant life at this small level of climate change.”

While it is absolutely galling that Corbett would have the audacity to nominate someone for the post of protecting our environment who hasn’t read anything, ANYTHING, about the human impact on climate change, it’s not unexpected.

However, I was the only member of the State Senate yesterday to hold Corbett’s nominee accountable, to ask hard questions, and to vote against his nomination.

Bachmann staffer’s house raided by FBI

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Hmmm. I sure this has nothing to do with her decision not to run for reelection:

The Federal Bureau of Investigations confiscated materials belonging to a former aide to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) presidential campaign who left under acrimonious circumstances to help one of her GOP primary opponents.

The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday that agents spent hours at the home of former Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorensen (R) in November 2012.

“We were not notified that he was the target of any investigation,” Sorenson’s attorney, Ted Sporer, was quoted as saying. “They took computers and things that would be used to verify or validate communications with presidential entities.”

Documents uncovered in August 2013 stated that a spokesperson for Sorenson asked for an $8,000 salary and a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee for leaving Bachmann’s campaign to endorse then-Sen. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) candidacy during the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Sorenson, who joined the Paul campaign two months later, denied any financial promises at the time, though Bachmann accused him of taking payments from the Texas senator’s camp.

“I wasn’t part of this conversation,” Sorenson was quoted as saying. “I’m not even sure if the discussion happened, but if it did happen, I wasn’t part of it.”

Predictable

~ susie

Now see, when you appoint a former lobbyist (remember when Obama promised there would be no lobbyists in his administration?), you tend to get this kind of industry ass-kissing!

Newly anointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said this week that it would be OK for Internet service providers to charge Netflix and other companies for a faster lane to consumers.

Wheeler’s stance is surprising given that it appears to contradict the FCC’s Open Internet Order, passed under his predecessor in 2010. That order, which sets out the country’s network neutrality rules, says that fixed broadband providers may not “unreasonably discriminate” against any type of traffic. The order specifically calls out pay-for-play arrangements as being potential violations.

“[B]roadband providers that sought to offer pay-for-priority services would have an incentive to limit the quality of service provided to non-prioritized traffic,” the rules state. “For a number of reasons… a commercial arrangement between a broadband provider and a third party to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic in the broadband Internet access service connection to a subscriber of the broadband provider (i.e. ‘pay for priority’) would raise significant cause for concern. … [A]s a general matter, it is unlikely that pay for priority would satisfy the ‘no unreasonable discrimination’ standard.”

The Open Internet Order is being challenged in court by Verizon. A Verizon win would let ISPs block content or charge providers for a faster lane to customers. But the rule is still in place, at least until the US Court of Appeals makes a decision.

Wheeler (a former lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries) spoke positively about the order but said he wouldn’t mind if Netflix has to pay for a faster lane to consumers while answering questions Monday after a policy speech at Ohio State University.

We must not be speaking the same English language as he is.

Oh Allyson

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

John Hanger is calling for Allyson Schwartz to resign her board membership with Third Way:

A commentary in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal caught my attention. Written by the leadership of the centrist think-tank Third Way, the article attacks progressive Democrats such as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York City Mayor-elect Bill DeBlasio.

I found these attacks on leading progressive Democrats and progressive policies we believe in to be misguided and unacceptable. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, whom I am running against in the Democratic primary for Governor, is Honorary Co-Chair of Third Way. I think she should resign from the organization’s leadership and disavow her support for their policies.

Today I released the following formal statement on the issue:

Third Way’s attack in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on Elizabeth Warren, Bill DeBlasio, and other Democrats who are fighting for working people was misguided and unacceptable. Sen. Warren has captured Americans’ imagination and Bill DeBlasio won the mayoralty of New York City because they effectively and unapologetically challenge the political elites and the big money interests just as we are doing in our People’s Campaign for Governor in Pennsylvania. Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz can undermine Third Way’s unacceptable attack on good Democrats and important ideas by resigning as Third Way’s Honorary Co-chair. I hope Congresswoman Schwartz joins my call to strongly disavow and rebuke this right wing attack on Senator Warren, Mayor-elect DeBlasio, and progressive policies.

Because freedom!

~ susie

It’s really bizarre, isn’t it?

Actress Evan Rachel Wood recently took to Twitter to air her frustrations over the MPAA forcing a cunnilingus scene out of her upcoming movie “Charlie Countryman.” She found it a bit odd that a consensual scene of sexual pleasure was considered inappropriate while extreme, murderous violence was not: “The scene where the two main characters make ‘love’ was altered because someone felt that seeing a man give a woman oral sex made people ‘uncomfortable’ but the scenes in which people are murdered by having their heads blown off remained intact and unaltered.” Wood also speculated that the scene would not have been cut if it had shown a woman going down on a man.

The platinum coin

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

It turns out the Obama administration took it more seriously than they let on:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration was serious enough about manufacturing a high-value platinum coin to avert a congressional fight over the debt ceiling that it had its top lawyers draw up a memo laying out the legal case for such a move, The Huffington Post learned last week.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which functions as a sort of law firm for the president and provides him and executive branch agencies with authoritative legal advice, formally weighed in on the platinum coin option sometime since Obama took office, according to OLC’s recent response to HuffPost’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. While the letter acknowledged the existence of memos on the platinum coin option, OLC officials determined they were “not appropriate for discretionary release.”