Sunday Funnies, The Hopelessness of Unaudacity edition

Props to Ted Rall for the title of this week's edition.

Rodney Ellis wants to fill vacancy on Harris commissioners' court

But he doesn't want the interim job.

Longtime state Sen. Rodney Ellis has begun making calls to local Democratic Party leaders and plans to run for the Harris County Commissioner seat left vacant after the death of El Franco Lee, a spokesman said Thursday night. 

County Judge Ed Emmett will announce and swear in Lee's temporary replacement in Precinct 1 on Friday and Lee's name will remain on the ballot for the primary. 

But Ellis' campaign spokesman David Edmonson said late Thursday the Houston lawmaker was not pursuing Emmett's interim appointment. Ellis has researched the statute, and has asked an aide to lay out the steps a candidate like him would need to take to get his name removed from the November ballot for senator should the Democratic Party chairs choose him as the general election candidate for the commissioner's seat.

I take this at face value; Judge Emmett will appoint someone to serve for the rest of this year who is not named Rodney Ellis, and that is a little surprising.  Whatever it means, Emmett will announce his pick at ten a.m. this morning, and I'll update here (but not until this afternoon, so watch your Twitter for breaking news at that time).

Update: It's Gene Locke, former city attorney, former mayoral challenger.

Locke, 68, a senior partner at the Andrews Kurth law firm, served as city attorney under the late Mayor Bob Lanier in the 1990s and ran for mayor in 2009, losing in a runoff to Annise Parker. 

"I plan to be a hands-on, on the ground, let's get with the program commissioner, which means that I will follow in El Franco's footsteps," Locke said. 

He added: "This precinct belongs to El Franco Lee, and anything that I do over the next several months is dedicated to him." 

Asked if he intended to run for the post in November, Locke said, "My intention is to go back to the practice of law and enjoy my family."

Locke tried the old "black, brown, and red" (names you'll recognize) route to the mayor's office in 2009, made the runoff but didn't come all that close to City Hall.  In a related development, Quorum Report notes that another powerful state legislator is thinking of challenging -- in whatever fashion that happens to take, since at this point it's the Precinct One chairs who will vote to select a permanent replacement this summer -- for the seat on commissioners' court.

... Rep. Garnet Coleman tells QR he is looking at it as well: "As chair of county affairs, it’s something I’ve looked at for a very long time. I didn’t think that Rodney would pursue it, but he decided to."

Update II:

City Councilmen Jerry Davis, Dwight Boykins and Larry Green said Friday they have begun campaigning, such as it is, under these unusual circumstances. Councilman C.O. Bradford said constituents had encouraged him to run, and he's considering it. 

[...] 

A legal memo prepared for county Democratic chair Lane Lewis outlined a path by which Ellis said he could seek the (November) ballot spot. In mid-June the Democratic party chairs for Precinct 1 will vote for a candidate to replace Lee on the ballot. 

If the party chose him for commissioner, Ellis could withdraw his name from the ballot for state senator, which would trigger a second process by the Democratic leaders to pick a Democrat for state Senate.

Presumably there will be six months of schmoozing the precinct chairs with votes in the contest.  We can start the Ellis/Coleman replacement watch to ticking, and Borris Miles is allegedly the early front-runner in a potential SD-13 special election.

Medicare for All and the Hyde Amendment

What does Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for All' do about the Hyde Amendment?  This is the conversation we should be having about his healthcare initiative, and there's a cogent (though somewhat caustic) discussion happening over at Balloon Juice about it.

One of the issues that is being elided over by (Sanders') plan is the assumption that the Hyde Amendment won’t apply.  The Hyde Amendment is a long standing restriction on federal funds for abortions.  The Stupak Amendment in the House Bill and the Nelson  Amendment in the passed PPACA enshrined Hyde into PPACA. 

My company offers full coverage for elective abortion for commercial, employer sponsored coverage unless the employer specifically requests that we don’t cover it.  Most insurers offer full coverage with only normal co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles for elective abortion because it is a simple and straightforward medical procedure. 

Going to single payer in a universe where Hyde/Nelson applies means the vast majority of women who don’t have $500 to $1,000 in spare cash lying around lose access to affordable abortion options.

I'm pretty sure that they need that much money, or more, now (2009 statistic) if they don't have any (or very limited) healthcare coverage now.  That's to say nothing of the expense associated with onerous restrictions within the Texas law, such as hospital admitting privileges that resulted in closed clinics across the state, necessitating 300-mile one way trips, two times, to satisfy the waiting period.  And so on.

And this is where Larry Levitt’s comment comes into play.   Our political universe has a demonstrated durable anti-female sexual autonomy majority of 240+ votes in the House during the most liberal Congress in two generations.  Any Democratic House majority on current maps will have dozens of representatives from districts that are more Republican than the nation.  Better maps in 2022 will still have a marginal House seat be a Republican leaning seat.  Even deep Blue seats are not guarantees to produce pro-female sexual autonomy votes (Lipinsky, Lynch etc). 

This is part of the larger objection Clintonites, i.e. 'pragmatists' have about electing Sanders, which is essentially culled down to "he won't be able to get anything through Congress" (as if Obama has, or Clinton would).  And that reveals another of my many objections to a second Clinton presidency (or a third Obama one, if you prefer): that one of her 'grand bargains' with Republicans in Congress whittles, privatizes, or eliminates more of the New Deal programs that first created an American middle class, dooming this nation to an austerity so severe that a shooting revolution becomes more possible than a political one.

If you still don't get that, then read this.

In related news, and apparently in response to my challenge, Ted steps up and applauds the DNC.  He just steadfastly and stubbornly refuses to comprehend that 'progressive' and 'politically correct liberal' are two very different things.

Update (1/23): Sanders calls for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes that Alan Rickman is attending a David Bowie concert in heaven as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff describes the qualities he wants in a county commissioner to succeed the late El Franco Lee.

Libby Shaw, contributing at Daily Kos, continues her series on the state’s top three leaders, their hopeless pandering, and lack of vision, in The Texas Blues: Living in a place run by the Three Stooges of Bigotry, Snake Oil and Malfeasance.

SocraticGadfly, anticipating last Sunday's Democratic debate, took a cold look at the new heat -- primarily on Hillary Clinton's side -- between her and Bernie Sanders on single-payer health care vs. gun nuttery.

Before the last GOP debate, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs sensed desperation in the air. After it, the smell of fear lingered like... well, you-know-what.

Egberto Willies shared the video of Ted Cruz being carpet-bombed with facts by none other than Fox's Chris Wallace.

CoudBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad that there are regulations to keep our food, air, water, pharmaceuticals, workers, and consumer products safe. We need more and better, not worse and less.

TXsharon at Bluedaze shares the information on the D-FW public hearing regarding the region's air quality.

McBlogger has some more advice for the Clinton campaign in going after Sanders. (Hint: McB's a banker and doesn't care for Bernie's 'tax Wall Street' plans.)

Neil at All People Have Value noted the passing of baseball Hall of Famer and Negro League star Monte Irvin. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

The TPA is greatly saddened by the loss of Florencia "Flora" Medellin, and extends its deepest sympathies to her family and many friends.

And in commemoration of the Martin Luther King holiday today, Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers posts the video and transcript of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.

=======================

And more blog posts about Texas goings-on...

Christopher Hooks, writing for Gawker, watched 13 Hours -- director Michael Bay's movie about Benghazi -- with 30,000 of his closest conservative friends at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas and lived to tell the tale write the review.

The FWST's PoliTex blog has details on Speaker Paul Ryan's swing through North Texas to help Congressional Republicans there, along with some related political quick hits.

David Saleh Rauf at the SAEN sees the San Antonio politicos buying up teevee air time well ahead of the March primary contests.

Grits for Breakfast pinpoints the underlying legislative problem that proponents of police body cameras will have to solve to achieve real transparency.

Better Texas Blog reviews the changes in penalties for not having health insurance.

Tamara Tabo laments how little we all know about our rights when we are pulled over by a police officer.

TransGriot reminds Caitlyn Jenner that changing hearts and minds in the GOP about LGBT issues is a waste of time.

The Great God Pan Is Dead selects his favorite art books from 2015.

Paradise in Hell ponders Greg Abbott's constitutional tantrum.

And Juanita Jean revels in the latest Ken Paxton revelations.

Tonight's #DemDebate

Lot of chances to watch the fur fly.  Let's read Vox's executive advance summary:

The next Democratic debate is on Sunday, January 17, at (8 pm Central). The debate will take place in Charleston, South Carolina, and air on NBC. A free online live stream will be available to all on NBC's YouTube channel. 

Like the last debate, this one will feature all three of the remaining Democratic candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley. It will be the fourth of just six debates that Democrats are planning. And, like the last two debates, it will take place on the weekend (a three-day weekend, in this case) — when fewer people are expected to watch.

No DWS response to her many critics about this, and it's too late for her to provide one that addresses it.  I have seen no defense of this ridiculous and somewhat dictatorial action by the DNC chair from Clinton supporters.  If someone else has, please point me to it.

For much of 2015, it appeared Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination without too much trouble. 

Not any more: Bernie Sanders has been surging in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote. He's been leading in the Granite State for most of the past few months, but his Iowa momentum is more recent — and the unique dynamics of the caucuses could give him an advantage over Clinton.

Reverb Press reveals Bernie's hurdle in Iowa: university is under way, and college students, one of the most critical vertebra in his campaign's backbone, may not be able to fully participate.

So Clinton is now faced with the possibility that she could lose both of the first two states to vote — something that would be hugely embarrassing for the supposedly inevitable Democratic nominee. It's unclear whether Sanders' success in Iowa and New Hampshire will translate to other states, but it's obvious Clinton has gotten nervous: this week her campaign started lashing out at Sanders's support for a single-payer health care system — using attacks that many commentators dubbed misleading. Expect a great deal of discussion on the candidates' health care positions at the debate. 

Another topic that will surely be discussed is electability. With the Republican nomination contest lurching so far to the right, many Democrats are anxious to nominate a candidate that will ensure their party keeps the White House this November. And some believe that Sanders — a "democratic socialist" who holds far-left views on several issues — wouldn't be able to win.

Clinton's campaign has been running ads suggesting she's the only candidate who can stop the GOP, while Sanders has responded by saying early polls show him doing better than she would. So it's likely that electability will be hotly debated on Sunday.

Robert Reich has Bernie's rebuttals to these. And here's the twelve most effective TV ads so far in the campaign, as judged by Business Insider (take note of who dominates).

Finally, there's the core issue motivating Sanders's campaign and indeed his entire political career — his desire to check the power of the super-wealthy and corporations. Sanders has been laser-focused on this for decades, while Clinton has been much more of an ordinary mainstream Democrat — willing to push for policies that improve people's lives, but also eager to win the business community to her side. 

In a recent ad, Sanders said there are "two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street," and that "one says it's okay to take millions from big banks and then tell him what to do." So expect a serious debate around whether Clinton is too close to the wealthy. 

As for the other candidate in the race — Martin O'Malley, who's way far back in last place — this may be the last time we see him in a debate. If polls of Iowa are anywhere close to accurate, he'll perform so poorly there that it's difficult to imagine him continuing his campaign. Vox's Matthew Yglesias has argued that O'Malley should be taken more seriously — so this may be the last chance for that to happen.

There will also be some sparring over gun safety and Sanders has already revised his position on gun manufacturer immunity in response to his critics on that.  Take an afternoon nap in order to stay up late and watch the whole thing, despite what Wasserman Schultz would prefer.

Here's more debate prep if you like.

-- GOP chair Reince Priebus would rather his party's nominee square off with Hillary than with Bernie.  His reasoning is faulty -- he predictably believes the Republican could win against either one -- but his conclusion is sound.

-- Clinton's questionable assault on Sanders' still-to-be-announced national health care revisions (even Ted thought it unseemly) gets called 'rotten'.  Actually it was Clinton herself labeled a 'rotten candidate'.  It's the WaPo's RWNJ Jennifer Rubin, but still ...

-- Howard Dean's blinding hypocrisy on single-payer further trashes her reputation with progressives in the Democratic Party on the topic of healthcare.  Clinton's various surrogates, from Chelsea to Dean to Joel Benenson are serving her poorly, and that includes the odious David Brock, who was Tweeted to "chill out" by none other than Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.  So one thing we should expect not to be debated this evening is the candidates' medical records.

-- Eight reasons for worry in the Clinton camp, all of them barely within or completely outside her ability to control or even influence.

-- In what could have been its own post, my personal outrage of the week against Clinton is this 2007 video of her blaming the victims for the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.  To be clear: there's plenty enough responsibility lacking in those folks who were just not credit-worthy enough to buy a home, and who simply never held the old-school value of high personal reputation (that's why they had bad credit to begin with).  Caveat emptor and all that.  But let's not dodge placing the fault for global financial apocalypse where it properly lies: with the unscrupulous mortgage lenders, the incompetent or malfeasant securitization of subprime loans rated AAA by the industry's so-called watchdogs, and the government handouts extended to the likes of Jamie Dimon (who then declined to stimulate the country's moribund economy by lending the money out) when their stinking chickens eventually came home to roost.

If you still don't get it, go watch The Big Short again, or read this.

Sunday Funnies

They really do think it's pronounced "suck-seed"...

Troubles deepen for Ted Cruz, Ken Paxton

Your Friday afternoon Texas two-fer.

-- Birther problems warming up for the Cuban Canuck.

A new lawsuit claims Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is ineligible to run for president, citing his Canadian birth. 

The case, lodged Thursday by Texas attorney Newton B. Schwartz Sr., says Cruz is ineligible to run as he isn't a "natural born citizen," Bloomberg reported. Cruz was born in Canada to an American citizen. 

“This 229-year question has never been pled, presented to or finally decided by or resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Schwartz says in his complaint. 

Schwartz has requested the U.S. Supreme Court expedite the case ahead of the Iowa caucuses and told Bloomberg he was surprised Cruz didn't file a case himself to avoid any complications.

The issue became heated during this week's GOP debate after a moderator asked Cruz about Donald Trump's accusations that the senator may be constitutionally prohibited from presidential office.

Oh dear.  Look at this from the Chronic:

A Reuters poll, reported Friday, found that a quarter of Republicans think Cruz's birthplace disqualifies him from the presidency.

Probably just a speed bump, causing a headache and maybe a little acid indigestion for our junior senator.  I suspect.  Except there's also a chance that he faces federal prosecution on that unreported Goldman Sachs loan.  From there, Martin Armstrong at The Burning Platform.

You do not forget to report a loan from Goldman Sachs when your wife is a managing director. Come on. How stupid do we have to be to entertain this excuse?

Update: The Hill is reporting that Cruz failed to disclose a second loan to his 2012 campaign, of $500,000 from Citibank.

-- Hotter water for our illustrious attorney general.  "Probe to look into more criminal misconduct allegations by Paxton":

Two additional special prosecutors have been appointed to look into other allegations of criminal misconduct involving Attorney General Ken Paxton, News 8 has learned.

The two Fort Worth attorneys – Miles Brissette and former state district Judge Bob Gill – were appointed Nov. 13 to investigate “criminal allegations” involving Paxton and others, according to filings obtained by News 8. The filings do not state who the “others” are.

News 8 has learned that the two men are looking into a 2004 land deal involving Paxton and other investors including Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis. That land would later become the site of the Collin Central Appraisal District.

And the Chronic again.

Ty Clevenger, a local blogger and former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, wrote extensively about the land deal last year and sent a letter on the issue to the grand jury that indicted Paxton. Speaking from New York City, where he recently moved, Clevenger told the Chronicle he was glad the land deal was being investigated.

"The reason I kept pushing so hard on that issue is because I believe it went well beyond Ken Paxton," he said. "Greg Willis is involved in this and I believe a lot of other political players in Collin County probably had their hand in the cookie jar."

Crooked DAs in league with a crooked attorney general?  Let me clutch my pearls while you guide me to the fainting couch.

I'm celebrating the poor fortunes of two of our state's very worst Republicans with some champagne and caviar later this evening.  How about you?

The smell of fear

It's a stench, with this crowd.

With two weeks to go until the first contest of the 2016 presidential race, Republicans who fear their party has been hijacked by the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz found little to comfort them in the latest debate. 

Both candidates, one a billionaire developer with no political experience and the other a U.S. Senator from Texas with a reputation for clashing with his Washington D.C. colleagues, stood center stage Thursday night and, for the most part, dominated the proceedings. 

More mainstream hopefuls such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio from Florida were left nipping at their heels and squabbling among themselves.

Cut to the chase; third place and the 'moderate' mantle is between Rubio and Christie.

All of it left some Republicans worried that time to stop Trump, or Cruz from seizing the inside track on the nomination was evaporating and that the establishment candidates were doing little to slow either man’s momentum. 

“They are digging themselves a bit of a hole,” said Fergus Cullen, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. “It’s entirely possible the final two candidates will be Trump and Cruz, and people like me will be despondent.” 

New Hampshire holds its primary about a week after Iowa’s and perhaps offers the best chance for a more moderate option to surface as a prime challenger. Iowa Republicans historically tend to favor more conservative candidates.

Yeah, what I said yesterday.

But in New Hampshire right now, “the mainstream Republicans are as splintered and scattered as ever,” Cullen said, leaving open the possibility that Trump could win that state as well. 

Indeed, there seemed to be some acknowledgement during the debate that only one more serious contender might emerge from the rest of the field. It had Christie and Rubio, both of whom hope to win New Hampshire, repeatedly locking horns. 

“They know what lane they’re in and who their (sic) fighting,” said Chip Felkel, a Republican strategist in South Carolina, which also holds primary next month. “It’s Trump and Cruz, and the other four jockeying for some momentum.”

Cruz projects the confidence of a used car salesman reeling in a rube with a dollar bill on the end of a fishing line (yes, a Kurt Russell reference.  He's a hardcore Libertarian, doncha know).

“More and more, this is coming down to a two-man race. The polling, the support, it is more and more looking like it is Donald Trump and me,” Cruz said in an interview on the Fox Business Network after the debate. 

“We have the resources to go the distance. And one of the things we’re seeing, more and more people are coming behind us saying, listen, you guys are the only campaign that can beat Donald Trump,” he added.

I'm going to leave the play-by-play to others and just link to the fact-checking.  This Tweet speaks for me.

All the recently deceased people are reminding me that life is too short to watch the #GOPDebate.

— CatherinePrendergast (@cjprender) January 15, 2016

Wish I had listened to them.

Desperation time for the Republican debaters tonight

With Rand Paul eliminated, it's going to be "bomb them all, all the time" this evening.

Fox Business Networks’ decision to drop Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul from the main stage at Thursday night’s Republican debate, as well as Paul’s decision not to participate in the undercard event, has eliminated the sole dissenting voice from what could be called the “bomb the shit of them” consensus in the Republican field.

Yeah, too bad about that whole non-aggressionist thing.  It doesn't even play all that well in the Democratic primary.

On to the main event, where Ted Cruz may have some tight-collar moments over the high-dollar loans he forgot to report from 2012.

It's the home stretch in the presidential campaign before people actually start voting in less than three weeks — and that raises the stakes for Thursday night's Republican presidential debate in Charleston, S.C. (After this debate, there will be just one more before the Iowa caucuses.) 

[...] 

In the past, Trump and Cruz have pulled their punches in these debates. After questioning Cruz's temperament last month, Trump famously said, "He's just fine. Don't worry about it," at a debate in Las Vegas. That was enough for Cruz, who has cleverly, if not transparently, waited for Trump to implode while not offending him, aiming to inherit Trump's supporters. The detente may be over. Or, who knows, maybe the alliance continues.

Politico lights some fuses.

... Republicans are bracing themselves for a circular firing squad as the 2016 GOP candidates gather (in Charleston, SC) for Thursday's debate. 

A cluster of contenders in a fierce competition to command the mainstream GOP lane are almost certain to collide, campaign aides and strategists say. Most of the heat is expected to be directed at Marco Rubio, who, with time running out until the first votes are cast, is anxious to position himself as the establishment front-runner. 

They break it down man y mano, but let's just look at the also-rans err, "mainstream" (sic) candidate four-car pileup.

Establishment candidates have so far been stymied in their efforts to slow down the Trump-Cruz train — in no small part because they’ve been busy fighting amongst themselves. 

That dynamic is almost certain to play out again on Thursday night. With Bush, Christie, Rubio, and John Kasich all competing aggressively in New Hampshire — and all within striking distance of one another — there’s simply little incentive for them to play nice.

“That group of people that are bunched up need to separate themselves,” Wiley said.

That's what I will be watching and Tweeting, because IMO the early stage has already been set: Cruz wins Iowa, Trump wins New Hampshire, and whoever comes in third behind them in each state becomes the story.  South Carolina is the proving ground for Trump and Cruz, with two others left standing out of Rubio and someone else.

The Nevada caucuses are the wild card; the Dems go before the Rs and a week before SC, while the Rs meet three days after the Palmetto State votes.  Historically the Silver State lines up with the favorite (in 2012, Romney and Clinton) and latest polling reveals Clinton and Trump with big leads (although Cruz and Rubio are surging).  Nevada, in short, may not tell us much.

March 1 -- Super Tuesday -- hosts Alabama, Alaska (caucus, R), American Samoa (caucus, D), Arkansas, Colorado (caucus, both parties), Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota (caucus, both), North Dakota (caucus, R), Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming (caucus, R).

We should know who each party's standard-bearers for November are by that evening.

Powerball scattershooting

-- In the wake of Chelsea and Hillary Clinton's lying and fear-mongering about Bernie Sanders' as-yet-unannounced healthcare plan, Bernie's campaign raised a quick $1.4 million.  That's just slightly less than one-tenth (one-thousandth; math is hard) of the annuity-option Powerball amount, split last night by tickets sold in California, Tennessee, and Florida.  A poll released last month by Kaiser indicates that 81% of Democrats -- and 60% of independents -- support a Medicare-for-all, single-payer national health care plan.

It feels like the earth moved, and not just for the lottery winners.

-- Speaking of money problems... Ted Cruz.

-- One-third of the members of Congress just forced Speaker Paul Ryan to back down from one of his signature rule-making decisions.  From the nauseatingly conservative Fiscal Times:

On Wednesday, Ryan took one of his first high-profile steps toward instilling a little discipline in the chamber, before promptly backing down in the face of anger from members. 

A defining characteristic of the John Boehner era was that while floor votes almost always had ostensible time limits attached to them, they were almost utterly without meaning. A vote would be held open as long as House leadership felt like it, leading to 15-minute votes taking two and three times as long. 

It was a practice that, by all accounts, annoyed Ryan. And he recently warned the members of the House that he would no longer abet members being late to votes by holding them open. On Wednesday, he made good on his threat. 

The House was scheduled to vote on a bill that would toughen oversight on the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration, along with other world powers, struck over the summer. The bill was brought to the floor and a 15-minute vote was declared. And when the 15 minutes was up, the vote was closed. 

The problem was that 137 members of the House, from both parties, hadn’t made it to the floor on time. The bill had the votes to pass, 191-106, but that wasn’t the point. The Iran deal is highly charged politically, all the more so because of the detention and return of 10 U.S. sailors by the Iranian Navy overnight Tuesday. Members were anxious to be on the record voting on the bill, and weren’t at all happy when they sauntered onto the floor after the 15 minutes had expired and were informed that the voting had concluded. 

As members began complaining, Ryan quickly conferred with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Democratic leaders. Not long afterward, McCarthy requested unanimous consent to “vacate” the results of the vote, with a promise that the vote would be rescheduled for later this month, in order to give all members a chance to go on the record.

The reign of the new poker-faced Speaker isn't going to end well, unless of course he emerges as the Republican presidential nominee -- A team or B team -- in a brokered party convention this summer.

-- Still flogged on right-wing sites for the most part, the Clinton Foundation's pay-to-play business slowly being disclosed via Hillary's e-mail investigation lurks as a nomination time bomb.  It's at least worth throwing back in the face of any Shillarian who claims 'electability' now that they can't cling to 'inevitability' so much (at least until Iowa and New Hampshire returns come in).

For my part, I'll wait for the FBI to finish up.  If I keep hearing about it on any of the recently-engaged Rupert Murdoch's media outlets, I'll ignore it.

In other 'sky-is-falling' news, McBlogger has some ground-game complaining.

Chelsea and Hillary Clinton's ill-advised comments about healthcare

This is shameful.

“I never thought that I would be arguing about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare in the Democratic primary,” (Chelsea) Clinton said at an event in Manchester (NH). “Senator Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare and private insurance.”

She then went on to say that she believes her mother has a “more robust" record on health care than anyone else in the race.  

That's two of the biggest lies told during the campaign so far (and getting to the lead past Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is quite a despicable accomplishment).  Chelsea's just doing what her mother asked her to do, though.

"His plan would take Medicare and Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program [CHIP] and the Affordable Care Act health-care insurance and private employer health insurance and he would take that all together and send health insurance to the states, turning over your and my health insurance to governors," Hillary Clinton said Monday. "I don't believe number one we should be starting over. We had enough of a fight to get to the Affordable Care Act. So I don’t want to rip it up and start over."

She echoed the argument on Tuesday, the same day a Quinnapiac poll showed Sanders overtaking her in Iowa, 49 percent to 44 percent. Reiterating her claim that Sanders' plan would jeopardize the Affordable Care Act and effectively turn over health coverage programs to the states, many of them led by Republican governors, she said: "If that’s the kind of 'revolution' he's talking about, I'm worried, folks."

"I'm worried" at least is probably true.  The rest is BS.

In a statement on Monday, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs hit back: "Secretary Clinton is inaccurate in suggesting that Republican governors would be able to circumvent the law and deny implementation in their states." Referring to a single-payer proposal he put forth in 2013, Briggs added: "The bill Sen. Sanders introduced was very clear. It is national legislation for all states."

National Nurses United added its voice to those defending Sanders' proposal, accusing Clinton of deliberately distorting the facts.

"Surely Hillary Clinton knows that Medicare and Medicaid are national programs, and that they would be funded as national programs," said NNU co-president Jean Ross. "To claim that expanding Medicare to all would hand it over to state governors is a crude, inflammatory distortion, and shows an indifference to all those people who continue to be harmed by a broken system."

Perhaps this foreshadows a line of attack Clinton will use in Sunday evening's debate.  The Nil Admirari's satire doesn't fall far from the truth, does it?

'Medicare for all' is not dismantling Medicare.  More truth: there is no place for for-profit health insurance companies in a single-payer world.

“So to answer your question: What I believe, is in comprehensive, universal health care for all people with a Medicare for all, single payer program. And when you do that, by the way, because you take private insurance companies out of the system, whose only function in life is to try and make as much profit as they can, when you control the costs of prescription drugs, you end up providing healthcare to all — comprehensive — and saving middle class families thousands of dollars a year. That’s why I believe in a Medicare-for-all system.”

Single-payer was too much for Obama to manage in 2009, so I feel certain Clinton isn't going to even give it a try.  She got spanked once about it back in 1993, after all.  That was millions and millions of dollars ago.

This is quite obviously the political revolution she should be worried about.

Update: Mediaite...

...(O)n CNN this afternoon, Jake Tapper confronted Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon over an angry statement Clinton made in 2008 when Barack Obama‘s campaign criticized her for her health care plan. She called it false and made these (interesting in hindsight) remarks: 

“It is destructive, particularly for a Democrat, to be discrediting universal health care by waging a false campaign against my plan… It is undermining core Democratic principles. Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?” 

It appears 2016 Hillary Clinton has now answered her own question.

Bowie Toons

"Time may change me,
But I can't trace time."

"We could be heroes,
just for one day."