JaneAusten

I think he's towing a fine line here. I'm glad he's staying involved in some capacity but I already hear the critics on the extreme left. And I know unity is what really matters, but there are just too many people who really don't want that. I find myself feeling more and more we need to fight dirty like they do.

The Supreme Court also ruled in favor of democrats in Virginia http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/1/1638995/-Major-win-Supreme-Court-reverses-ruling-that-protected-Virginia-GOP-s-legislative-gerrymander

Well economists have already said that the uptic has nothing to do with Trump because he hasn't really done anything yet. Plus the warmer Feb as happened in 2015 and 2016 led to more construction jobs.

Nothing the GOP has done has done a thing for middle class Americans or the little guy. It amazes me that none of these people hold any resentment for the corporate welfare big corporations get, the tax breaks they get, the huge salaries their CEO's get. And for what. Carly Fiorina destroyed HP(well it was on a downward spiral when she came in) but she certainly didn't help it yet walked away with a Golden parachute. These people can fail time after time and contribute to the losses of millions of jobs, tank the stock market, but somehow we are supposed to admire them? Funny is that now I don't hear any bitching about billionaires or Goldman Sachs influence or rolling back of banking regulations now that it's not Hillary. A grifter conman is to be admired for screwing thousands of middle class small business people while people look down their noses at poor people and those middle class folks who in some cases went bankrupt as a result. And small businesses by the way have been the biggest job creator in the last 15 years.

Whenever I hear how supposedly how awful and corrupt the DNC is I remember my grandfather years ago was involved in local democratic politics and if people want to hear about dirt and deal making and collusion he had a ton of stories. But they got things done. That's how it worked and still does. And to point to the RNC or GOP as some bastion of morality with the Koch Brothers who have single handedly with their puppets in place like Brownback in Kansas, Jindal in Louisiana, and Walker in Wisconsin have systematically destroyed all 3 states. Kansas is crumbling, Wisconsin went from a bastion of progressivism to a state that has slipped in education, lost revenue and business since it's been Tea partied. And their puppets in Congress have shut our government how many times, costing us billions for what? My late brother who lived in Indiana for a while, was there when Richard Lugar a conservative GOP senator who dared to reach across the aisle to work with democrats was primaried and beaten by another one of their robots in the primary who fortunately lost to the democrat due to his "rape resulting in a pregnancy were intended by God" comment.

That's the same old talking point people do pay for it. That was the only way to get the insurance companies to drop the pre-existing condition mandate. And how do they pay for it? Same as we did before. People with no insurance use the emergency rooms for healthcare don't pay and our premiums rise. I had private insurance 20 years ago when I was younger and self employed and paid $400/month for insurance in that great "free" market. The problem is the mandate is not going away. Rather than being required to keep insurance, you can drop it, but then the insurance company bumps your premiums up by 30% each time you re-enroll. SO if the idea is to only buy insurance when you need it, you're going to be penalized for it anyway. And the crap policies that cover nothing and milk people out of money are coming back which basically cover nothing. And again who pays for the treatments those people having those policies can't afford to pay for? THe rest of us.

It's interesting. I have a friend who lives in Vancouver and one who lives in the Edmonton area. They both have asked me why Americans are so satisfied with subpar healthcare service. My friend Amy just had knee replacement surgery(she had a bad injury as a teenager and the knee never really regained full function) and talked about how easy it was, no worries there. And she hears about how awful Americans talk about Canada's healthcare system but when she hears about the stories here, the costs, the fact so many people still don't have insurance, she doesn't get why there is no push for a better healthcare system. And no she wasn't singing the praises of the ACA, but that it's the insurance industry and the healthcare industry here that drives so many of the problems, issues they don't have in Canada. Why don't Americans push for reform? How do you say nicely how dumb Americans are, how they don't read, and let pundits tell them what and how to think, how we have allowed the narrative that the poor people and people who are sick are the problems and the drains on our society to drive the narrative. I had to shake my head at Ryan talking about why healthy people should pay higher premiums to pay for sick people. It's not right. Does he not understand that's how the entire insurance industry works? And the healthy people pay anyway regardless as the sick people go back to using emergency rooms for their healthcare and who on earth pays for that. ALl of us with higher premiums.

I don't know. I take these Rogue accounts with a grain of salt. But this sounds like something Trump would believe. The majority of the GOP congressional opposition is from the Koch Bros group who think the nu bill is too much like the ACA.

To me I see him running for office. If he wasn't interested in running for political office, I think he would have made himself a contender for the DNC. I don't know what he can run for in MO. Claire McCaskill is running in 2018 for her senate seat(I don't see him running for senate again). He's only 35. Maybe a VP pick come 2020. If he continues to increase his profile, if his organization grows, I can see him moving toward that. And I think his status as a veteran would compensate for his alleged lack of national government experience. He was in the house in Missouri before he became Sec of State there. It's a shame there is no competition for Hogan. That is 2 years away though. Is there no one?

Well not huge. Blunt only won by 2.5%(and less that 50% of the vote) and without the Libertarian and Green party candidates who pulled about 4.5 % who knows. And in a fairly red state. While he lost, he's still one of the most promising democrats out there. And he accomplished what he did with no money or help of any consequence from the DNC. That's actually closer than the races the democrats thought they had in Indiana and Wisconsin where there was money dumped in. This Illinoian would love another super star democrat here. We're basically stuck with the Madigan's or Rahm Emmanuel, although we do have Tammy Duckworth.

For once I can say I am jealous of Missourians. You have Jason Kander we have Mike Madigan.

Don't assign any noble intentions to these guys. Heritage Action, Prosperity for America(Koch Brothers) have come out against it. And as we see, Mike Lee and Rand Paul don't like it because it's too much like the ACA http://time.com/4693759/republican-party-obamacare-replacement-club-for-growth-heritage-action/ And from John Kasich

Same here. I could care less what most of these people have to say or think with the exception of maybe one or two. Blow is one, Krugman at times is. The rest frankly could care less. Off topic, whenever I hear people now talking about how light the democratic bench is, I think of this guy, Jason Kander. His Let America Vote organization is raising money like crazy based on small donations and he's almost everywhere now. Here is a video of he with Jake Tapper(meh) but Kander is great talking about voter fraud. Frankly I think the democrats could have a much deeper bench than I originally thought with Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and there are several others. Georgia actually has an election for governor in 2018 and there is talk that the Democratic party is trying to get Sally Yates, fired AG to run. And I have to laugh at the attack ads by the GOP in that GA-06 race for the house that young Jon Ossoff is competing in. Their ad showed him in college having fun at a party dressed as Hans Solo. That may not reach older voters, but younger folks should actually get a kick out of it.

Yeah he's getting more and more unhinged. But another deflection? It takes the heat off Sessions. And in other news In Red-State Utah, a Surge Toward Obamacare It amazes me how people even in this article now regret for voting Trump because he's doing exactly what he said, repealing the ACA. Seriously do people even pay attention or is this just another "Well I never thought he would really do that".

Pence would have gotten booted out of Indiana as Governor had he run again. The prior governor there was a GOP governor Mitch Daniels was popular but Daniels left all the social issues alone. A friend of mine who is also republican liked Daniels because of his pro business stance, lower taxes, and he did draw business to the state. Pence did none of that in fact cost Indiana business due to his idiocy with that stupid religious freedom bill nonsense. My friend hated Clinton but chose her over Trump because partially due to Pence. But he did vote for the GOP governor who ran who had Daniel's support. And speaking as someone from Illinois, I have family living in the Indianapolis area and I can tell folks that driving to Indy through many of the rural communities from Chicago to Indy, there were a ton of dump Pence signs last spring.

Yep. And even with Nixon it was drip drip and it was 2 years before he was out after the breakin. And that wasn't as widespanning as this may be. I'm honestly wondering if they have dirt on Paul Ryan, Nunes, and Burr. If the RNC was hacked also who knows what information they may have on these people.

The pundits are really vomit inducing. It's why I can't take any of them seriously. I absolutely loathe CNN and Vann Jones and many others on that network, But at least I guess Jake Tapper kept it real This has zero to do with minimum wage. Places like McDonalds and Panera and Chipotle have been doing this all over the country. In Illinois and not just in Chicago where outside of the city, there is no raised minimum wage, it's being done. You realize the point you think you are making is contradicted in this article, that a raised minimum wage is the reason for this, when this was happening before this. Same reason supermarkets have been trying to transition to the self checkout machines and will likely be using the new phone technology to allow customers to bypass a manual check out line. Technology has replaced 75% of the manufacturing jobs here, those jobs that allegedly are coming back. Those jobs are never coming back to livable wages and no company is going to reverse technological advances that are successful to give "Mericans" those jobs back at $50/hour. But enjoy the $15 pound you are going to pay for tomatoes at the supermarket for all those migrant jobs undocumented folks are taking from "real mericans". I know I shouldn't feed the troll but the point I believe you are trying to make regarding minimum wage - what's being done has zero to do with that and the article you highlighted basically reinforces that.

They don't want to make it easy. See what's happening in Montana for evidence on that.

According to Trump we were only deporting the bad dudes right?

Regretful (some) Trump voters not happy that he's doing what he claimed he would do. Well other than creating jobs http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53491/regretful-trump-voters/

And just who didn't see this coming http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ag-sessions-says-trump-administration-pull-back-police-department-civil-n726826 Here's a summation http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/new-trump-orders-waters-rule-black-colleges/ar-AAnDN0n?ocid=spartanntp Betsy DeVos is clearly the most clueless woman I have ever heard. So now Black Colleges are a great example of school choice? I just can't with this ignorant woman.

I have a lot of respect for Ari Berman. He's basically the only one who covered a lot of the voter suppression tactics (new voter ID laws) that went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned major parts of the VRA. Good article on how Texas's law has disenfranchised many and why picture ID's are not feasible for many(see the example noted in this story). Being able to vote should not cost one person a penny. And the DOJ not a surprise will no longer support the effort in this particular case. https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-justice-department-is-no-longer-opposing-texas-discriminatory-voter-id-law/

I think they are both decent people. Perez is much more liberal than many give him credit for. Yes he was for the TPP but only because it was allegedly an improvement over Nafta which he actually opposed I believe. Ideologically I think Perez is closer to Ellison than Obama. But I have to stop reading the Intercept and Greenwald because as soon as I feel optimistic it's the sky is falling. But the one point that resonates is that the democrats have to be for something not just anti Trump. I think that's been pointed out already. The party has a platform, it' progressive, so they should be able to shift that into something concise that people can relate to. I think Elizabeth Warren is probably close to what the party should represent. At least I think so.

So democrats are inviting immigrants to the address tomorrow night http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/politics/democrats-immigrants-trump-speech/ And in a show of unity, Keith Ellison has invited Tom Perez to be his guest at the address tomorrow. It may not mean much but symbolically it's a positive step.

My apologies. Sometimes I come across sanctimonious and it was not my intention.