So Fox News will now only broadcast briefings if the subject is Benghazi. Watch.
A few days ago I was talking to one of our DC reporters about how to find the narrative thread in the politics of this moment. We basically knew there would be no legislation in 2013, though there was enough possibility to pretend. But this year we don’t have to pretend. Nothing is happening on Capitol Hill besides possible investigations. But that’s not the main thing that makes it hard to grasp the thread of the political moment.
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As you know, Cliven Bundy ended his role in the mainstream of American politics with his running disquisitions on “the Negro.” But the greater folly of Bundy-ism and its more mainstream penumbra is that these avatars of anti-government self-sufficiency are living in the part of America that lives in what can best be called a bubble of big-government socialism. Bundy’s ranch and, truth be told, huge swaths of the American far-west could never have been settled or kept running without massive on-going federal subsidy since the mid-19th century until today. Who do you think cleared the Indians? Built the dams and roads? Who do we think ran the phone lines for handfulls of people whose business could never merit the investment in true market terms? It’s almost funny when you look at the big picture. Jonathan Earle explains in this must read piece.
Since late last year there’s been a precipitous drop in the nation’s number of uninsured citizens, now the last since before the financial crisis of 2008. The number now stands at 13.4%. And that national number masks huge disparities between states which either embraced or tried to sabotage the ACA in their states. See the chart.
GOP plan for 2016: Vince Foster, Travel-Gate, Monica. Should work wonders.
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After their bogus numbers debacle Thursday, House Republicans have gone back to insurance companies for more complete Obamacare enrollment data in order to, as they put it, “accurately capture” the number of enrollees who have paid their premiums. Dylan Scott reports.
State lawmaker says he’s “a little sore” over the negative backlash to his oped denouncing anal sex.
The Bundy bunch has vowed to head to the local sheriff’s office in Nevada this weekend to file a “criminal report” against the Bureau of Land Management.