Fox News hires Dennis Kucinich as a contributor

Fox News has signed former Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich as a regular contributor, the network announced on Wednesday.

The former Ohio congressman, who ran for president unsuccessfully in 2004 & 2008, will make his debut as a paid Fox News contributor on Thursday’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” Kucinich has signed a multi-year deal with the network and will make appearances on both Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, according to a press release.

“I’ve always been impressed with Rep. Kucinich’s fearlessness and thoughtfulness about important issues,” Fox News chair and CEO Roger Ailes said in a statement. “His willingness to take a stand from his point of view makes him a valuable voice in our country’s debate.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/?hp=

Congress Kills Part of the Affordable Care Act

When Congress struck a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, it also dealt a quiet blow to President Obama’s health overhaul: The new law killed a multibillion-dollar program meant to boost health insurance competition by funding nonprofit health plans.

The Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, or CO-OP, program was aimed at spending as much as $6 billion to help launch nonprofit health insurance carriers. It came into favor with Democrats when it became clear that a government-run plan, known as the public option, could not gain enough political support.

I'm going to disagree with that last paragraph a bit. Yes, this was intended to create an option that was non-profit, with 95 percent of premium dollars going toward actual health care expenses rather than padding the bottom line for profits. But this was not ever sold as or intended to create the impression that it was any sort of replacement or even consolation prize for the public option. . Despite Wendell Potter's belated endorsement of co-ops as a possible sleeper solution to the public option, there were many barriers to success to overcome.


The right wing hates the OPM option and wishes they could kill it. It appears they had to settle for de-funding the loans to CO-OPs instead. Conservatives have long looked for ways to de-fund the ACA, and the CO-OPs were one of the first and primary targets. By conflating the Solyndra loan guarantees with the loan guarantees in the ACA, they managed to create enough negative energy to kill them in exchange for raising taxes, evidently.

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/congress-quietly-kills-part-affordable-care

House GOP sends clear message with Hurricane Sandy vote: They're ready to cave on debt limit

This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen when Republicans control the house. Unlike Democrats, Republicans have a longstanding informal rule that no legislation will come up for a vote unless a majority of Republicans support it. That rule—dubbed the Hastert Rule after former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert—is supposed to prevent outcomes like the one last night, where a united Democratic Party teams up with a divided GOP to pass legislation overwhelmingly opposed by Republicans.

But last night they ignored the rule—and it was the second time they ignored it this year. The first time was on New Year's Day, when 85 Republicans joined 172 Democrats in passing the tax cliff deal despite opposition from 151 Republicans.

Until 2013, the Hastert Rule had only been broken once before under John Boehner's speakership, ...........




Now, however, Republicans have done it twice—and they've done it twice in two weeks. Not only that, but yesterday the fifth-ranking House Republican refused to rule out doing it again with the debt limit.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/16/1179401/-House-GOP-sends-clear-message-with-Hurricane-Sandy-vote-They-re-ready-to-cave-on-debt-limit#comments






This new found ability to work with the Democratic party might just help the GOP's image.

The NRA goes there ... targeting President Obama's children!

The National Rifle Association released a video Tuesday calling President Obama an "elitist hypocrite" for being skeptical of armed guards in schools when his daughters receive armed Secret Service protection every day.

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" a narrator asks. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he's just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security."




Well, except for words like disgusting, pathetic, vile, stupid ...\


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/16/1179387/-The-NRA-goes-there-targeting-President-Obama-s-children

Full $51 billion relief bill passed the House, with 179 Republicans opposed.

A measure providing $51 billion for relief and recovery from Hurricane Sandy was approved by a bipartisan majority in the House on Tuesday evening, three weeks after Northeast Republicans excoriated the chamber's GOP leaders for failing to vote on storm aid before the end of the last Congress.


The full $51 billion relief bill passed the House 241-180, with 179 Republicans opposed.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/sandy-relief-measure-passes_n_2480328.html?ref=topbar

House GOP desperately seeking agenda

House Republicans — who start their annual retreat in Williamsburg, Va., on Wednesday — are facing something of a conundrum: They have the majority but don’t know what to do with it.

When Republicans snatched back the House majority in 2010, they were armed with detailed plans to remake the federal government and stymie President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/house-gop-heads-to-retreat-seeking-elusive-agenda-86255.html#ixzz2I7fk39ah

Another GOP Senator recognizes the inevitable

Reality seems to be enjoying a sudden burst of momentum this afternoon, as more Republicans and conservatives are coming out and acknowledging the debt ceiling will have to be raised. The latest: GOP Senator Susan Collins.

Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley emails:

Senator Collins recognizes that the debt ceiling is going to have to be raised because the U.S. cannot default on its obligations to pay for spending that has already occurred.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/15/another-gop-senator-recognizes-the-inevitable/

Supreme Court gives RNC no help in its efforts to intimidate minority voters

The Supreme Court handed minority voters a small victory Monday by refusing to review the Republican National Committee's appeal in a case seeking to dump a 30-year-old consent decree aimed at preventing intimidation of minority voters. The court did not comment on why it chose not to consider lower-court decisions that leave the consent decree in place until 2017 or beyond.

The decree emerged after the Democratic National Committee sued the RNC over its hiring of off-duty sheriff's deputies and police to patrol polling places in minority precincts in the 1981 New Jersey governor's race. The RNC also sent out mailers to registered voters in minority neighborhoods. They added the name of any voter whose mailer was returned as undeliverable to a roster of those to be challenged if they appeared on election day to vote.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/15/1179174/-Supreme-Court-turns-down-RNC-s-appeal-of-consent-decree-that-hamstrings-voter-intimidation

Sandy Hook truthers claim the Newtown massacre never happened

Yes, there are now Sandy Hook truthers.

They’re people who find a government, or Jewish, conspiracy behind what did, or did not, take place on December 14, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut when 20 six and seven year olds were mass murdered by a young man using his mother’s legally-purchased weapons.




There’s also a Sandy Hook conspiracy theory about the entire shooting not having occurred at all. A sort of Sandy Hook Capricorn One version of what happened – the entire thing, you see, was a hoax:


http://americablog.com/2013/01/sandy-hook-truthers-hoax.html

Big Banks are going to fail again