Michigan's Steve Gruber and Tim Walberg peddle stupid, continue to insist Obamacare passed with fewer than 60 votes in the Senate

This morning on Gruber's radio show before the eight o'clock hour.

Republicans continue to peddle this ridiculous idea that Obamacare passed without 60 votes in the Senate, for political reasons.

They're trying to build support for the current repeal effort, and give it a legitimacy with their constituencies which it will never have on its own, by elevating the possible outcome which won't pass with 60 votes in the Senate by denigrating Obamacare's legislative legitimacy.

That way they hope that the repeal bill, which won't repeal the shell provisions of the law because it can't, only the budget (reconciliation) provisions, will acquire an authority politically which Obamacare indisputably possesses because it passed with 60 votes.

But since the non-budgetary provisions of Obamacare will remain, and will not be repealed until Republicans have 60 votes in the Senate like Democrats had in 2009, Obamacare as law will continue to tower over this fiasco.

They all know that. They just don't want to remind you of that.

It's a Rube Goldberg strategy as ridiculous as Obamacare itself, except that Democrats beat Republicans with a stick in passing Obamacare and remain able to wield it.

Don't think that they won't.

Unhinged John McCain says Rand Paul is working for Vladimir Putin: The American people were right not to elect McCain

Imagine this guy in charge of the nuclear arsenal, quoted here:

“You are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin... trying to dismember this small country [Montenegro] which has already been the subject an attempted coup.

If they object, they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin and I do not say that lightly.

I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken.

That is really remarkable, that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number—perhaps 98, at least, of his colleagues—would come to the floor and object and walk away.

The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians.

So I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”

Laugh of the Day: Josh Gerstein owned over "replaced" vs. "ousted"

Hey Mark Steyn, the patriots weren't polite to the enemy!

Mao say me love you long time: China makes it illegal to insult ‘heroes and martyrs’ of its Communist Party

China makes it illegal to insult ‘heroes and martyrs’ of its Communist Party

Maybe up to 1 million lost power in Michigan, but mlive says "millions"!

The age of hyperbole rolls on.

Everything is awesome.

Here:

If Trump nuked North Korea it might at least GLOW in the dark

Judicial overreach: 3-judge panel invalidates 3 Texas congressional districts, 2 Republican, 1 Democrat

Never mind every congressional district in America is a joke.

There is no way one man or one woman can claim to represent the interests of 743,126.4 people, on average, as is the case now countrywide.

Texas has 36 men and women representing nearly 27 million in the US House, but 254 counties. Give Texas 254 seats in the House, and representation would increase to 106,299.2 Texans per member of Congress, on average. Who knows, the members of such a Congress might actually knock on your door every two years.

Do the same with the rest of the country and we could dispense with legislatures redrawing district lines every ten years after every Census, and more importantly with meddling courts trying to interfere in the politics of self-government.

The county system is ancient, venerable and stable. Black counties will have black representatives, Latino counties Latino representatives, and so on, just as it should be.

The time is long past to reform representation in the United States so that we actually get some for a change. Not coincidentally, that's the main impediment to it.

From the story here:

[T]he court ruled that the legislature drew the lines with “the intent and effect of diluting Latino voter opportunity.” ... [T]he court said the legislature used race to draw the lines, packing Democrats into the district and thereby diluting their voting power elsewhere. The court also ruled that the legislature pushed Hispanics into the district in an effort to defeat Doggett if a Hispanic candidate challenged him.

Come on, people, Speaker Paul Ryan thought Medicare was a conservative CAUSE in 2012

You expected him to think differently about Obamacare?

The Tell: The RNC fundraised me today on the Gorsuch nomination . . .

. . . not on the American Health Care Act.

Always fundraise on the winner.

Year over year additions to full-time jobs in February 2017 were not much better than in 2013

Year-over-year additions to full-time were 1.8 million in February 2017.

In February 2013 1.6 million.

Nothing like 2015's 3 million, 2016's 2.5 million, or even 2014's 2.1 million.

Save your money. You're going to need it.

Mlive: 800,000 lost power in Michigan on Wednesday, two days later more than 615,000 still in the dark

Of those still without power, 515,000 are served by DTE Energy, 100,000 by Consumers Energy.

The story is here.

If the surveillance of Trump was about "financial transactions" (NYT) and "money from the Kremlin" (McClatchy) maybe the Treasury Dept. spearheaded it

I still haven't read anyone saying this.

Instead of obsessing on the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and the DNI, and on the process, maybe journalists ought to be focusing their efforts on the last named agency instead, and the substance.

If it's about the money, the Treasury Dept. might very well have led the investigation for the government of Barack Obama, and the spying.

McClatchy, January 19th, 2017:

The FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the November election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.

The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence, the sources said.

The New York Times, January 19th, 2017:

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said. ...

The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit.

Justin Raimondo is so close and yet so far:

So the FISA issue is, I believe, a false trail . . ..

Jack Lew has been awfully quiet.

Looks like Obama was a natural born citizen of Kenya after all, according to his half brother

Here and here.

Does this mean that the last eight years are invalidated?

Or did Obama just use this to get cheap tuition as a "foreign" student?

Remember, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your healthcare plan, the ocean levels have begun to recede, our planet is beginning to heal and we are the ones we have been waiting for!

And, to quote Howard Dean, "Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Hm . . . CIA hacks the Democrats, leaving Russian fingerprints?

Rush Limbaugh is wrong, as usual, about Obamacare passing the Senate without 60 votes

Obamacare passed the Senate 60-39 on December 24, 2009 with 58 Democrat and 2 Independent votes (one Republican did not vote, Jim Bunning).

The House passed this bill unchanged March 21, 2010, thus avoiding having to go through the House-Senate conference process and another vote again in each chamber. The bill's elements, if changed, were subject to filibuster back in the Senate because Scott Brown's election to the Senate in the interim on January 19, 2010 foreclosed the possibility of Democrats being able to overcome the 59-41 barrier.  60 votes are required to overcome the filibuster.

Reconciliation was used instead to change only budgetary elements in the bill, which were wanted by the Democrats in the House. For reconciliation purposes, simple majorities only are necessary.

Without a filibuster proof Senate majority, Republicans will be unable to repeal Obamacare.

Their only option is to gut the budgetary elements using their majorities in the House and Senate.

Obamacare will not go away in form until the stars align and Republicans capture 60 seats in the Senate.

It can only go away in practice in the interim by defunding it.

Republicans should re-pass the 2015 repeal legislation, which Obama vetoed, and send it to Trump for his signature as a downpayment.

Update:

Here is the Big Boob on the Right, getting it wrong today:

CALLER: Did the Democrats have 60 when they passed all this? I mean, what the hell?
RUSH: No, the Democrats did not. That’s why they used what’s known as budget reconciliation for many aspects of Obamacare, which was trickery. They didn’t have 60 votes. The Republicans, however, did not have the votes to stop anything at the time.  

Now we're talkin': Jim Jordan of Ohio says send Trump the same and only Obamacare repeal bill Obama vetoed in 2016

Here.

Detroit News: Almost 700,000 without power in Michigan according to just two power companies

The story is here.

Here's the Consumers Energy outage map, accounting for only about 194,000 customers who lost power today in the wind storm which gusted as high as 64mph here in Grand Rapids (our power never went out, oddly enough, even though our phone and internet did):

Damn you Congress, repeal Obamacare outright and dare the president to veto it

William Binney says NSA fingerprints are all over release of Trump phone transcripts with Australia and Mexico

Here:

But Binney did say events such as publication of details of private calls between President Trump and the Australian prime minister, as well as with the Mexican president, are evidence the intelligence community is playing hardball with the White House.

"I think that's what happened here," Binney told Fox. "The evidence of the conversation of the president of the U.S., President Trump, and the [prime minister] of Australia and the president of Mexico. Releasing those conversations. Those are conversations that are picked up by the FAIRVIEW program, primarily, by NSA."