With Sahil Kapur’s piece today on Republican fears that Obamacare might actually succeed, I wanted to focus everyone’s attention on the seminal ‘Kristol Memo‘ from 1993, a document that shaped the successful effort to block health care reform in 1994 and, I believe, played a largely unheralded and pivotal role shaping the DC GOP in the last 20 years. You can read the actual memo here; and I strongly recommend that you do. The gist of Kristol’s prescription was massive resistance: no haggling or negotiating, as might have been the Bob Dole approach. Just no. No negotiation, no bill, no acceptance that there was such a thing as a crisis in care.
Sheila Bapat writes that a Mets player getting slammed for taking just two days paternity leave demonstrates just how much we value fathers: “Eighty-five percent of U.S. firms and 94 percent of states do not offer any paid leave for men. By contrast, 50 percent of businesses offer paid maternity leave.”
Good lord. I don’t think the NTSB would approve. But if we could get big government off our backs we could perhaps get roads like this one in the Himalaya mountains. Not for the faint of heart video after the jump …
People worry about the NSA but members of Congress just need to remember where their Radio Shack-bought surveillance cameras are located before they start making out with a staffer. It looks like newly elected Rep. McAllister (R-LA), who came to office on the wave of Duck Dynasty-mania may have a problem.
Vance McAllister (R-LA) is the freshman Rep caught in that grainy surveillance camera video smooching a member of his staff. According to an interview in the local paper, McAllister says he plans to run for reelection this November “unless there is an outcry for me not to serve, and so far there has been an outpouring of support, not for my actions, but for me to continue to represent the people.”
But this part caught my attention …
The video, which came from a surveillance camera at the congressman’s Monroe district office, shows McAllister in an embrace and passionate kiss with one of his staff.
The former staffer who McAllister is with in the video is Melissa Anne Hixon Peacock, 33, of Sterlington.
Adam Terry, McAllister’s chief of staff, said Peacock was taken off of the payroll during the past 24 hours.
There have to be 500 jokes possible about this deal. About 350 of them really bad. About 75 wildly Anti-Semitic. But let’s just put it out there. Bain Capital is buying up all the Matzo. WTF, right?
Okay, not all the matzoh. But pretty much all the matzo. If you’re a member of the Hebrew tribe living in America you know that Manischewitz (nice Polish name) pretty much makes all the matzo. And most of the gefilte fish (rare treat) and even manages to make some seriously unfortunate wine. And now it’s all owned by the private equity spawn of Mitt Romney. (Unhelpful disclaimer: Mitt no longer runs Bain.)
Amazingly candid quote from a GOP aide on the Hill who works the health care portfolio on why it’s so hard for Republicans to craft an alternative to Obamacare, via TPM’s Sahil Kapur:
Former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, a Republican Senate candidate in Michigan, said in 2010 that women are “more interested in flexibility in a job than pay.” As if women have the luxury to choose.
Eeesh. Not sure I’ve ever seen anyone react this badly at a roast. But then it’s Chris Christie. Watch.