The Big Ass Second Term/Politics thread part V

[KevinNYC]

And for your analysis here

THe is supposed to be this brilliant Constitutional expert. If a decision goes 9-0... then the outcome was a slam dunk. He either is an idiot who couldn't see this drubbing coming and thought his appointments were legitimate... or if he did think they were illegitimate... he simply didn't care about making an unconstitutional power grab.

you act like this is settled territory, but the truth is the Supreme Court has never considered this before, there's simply no precendents on this.

Breyer noting that "presidents have made recess appointments since the beginning of the republic."
"Their frequency suggests that the Senate and president have recognized that recess appointments can be both necessary and appropriate in certain circumstances," he added. "We have not previously interpreted the [recess-appointments] clause, and, when doing so for the first time in more than 200 years, we must hesitate to upset the compromises and working arrangements that the elected branches of government themselves have reached."

[KevinNYC]

The Times has a good explainer of the court issue

The court rejected the validity of four appointments President Obama made in January 2012, when the question of whether the Senate was in recess was in dispute. While on the surface the ruling was a blow to executive power, on a deeper level it was also a victory for executive power because it rolled back an appeals court ruling that had gone much further in restricting such authority.

[longhornfan1234]

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/mark...report-n147346


Finally some good news for the president.

[KevinNYC]

It's understandable, especially with the shitty weather we had to deal with in the 1st quarter. There are some positive signs, such as consumer confidence, that bode well for the coming quarters. I think we'll see 3% or so growth for the year.

It does look like that first quarter is an outlier and I suspect might be revised a bit.

The latest jobs reports is the best in quite sometime and exceeded predictions by about 75K.

Job growth sped up in June as the economy created a much-higher-than expected 288,000 jobs and the jobless rate dropped to near a six-year low of 6.1 percent. The Labor Department reported Thursday that data for April and May were revised to show a total of 29,000 more jobs created than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a gain of 212,000 jobs in June. It was the first time since the technology boom in the late 1990s that employment has grown above a 200,000-jobs pace for five straight months.

Unemployment is at 6.1% where it was in September 2008.

[KevinNYC]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...620-story.html

Obama is doing little for our border control.


Our subsidies have undermined NAFTA to the point where we've created a 3rd world environment in Northern Mexico. IMO... before we start taking a hard line on immigration we need to give them a fighting chance to have economic success in their home land. Most of those people don't want to be here... they feel like they need to be either to find work or to escape the cartels. Helping them (not with money... but with more fair trade policies) economically would undermine the authority of the cartels and reduce the number of people feeling like they need to come here.

You might want to check out this story. The crisis has nothing to do with NAFTA because if the kids came from Mexico, we can simply turn them back. It has to do with the unintended consequences of sex trafficking law that Bush signed in 2008 that applies to all countries not part of NAFTA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/us...king.html?_r=2

Originally pushed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers as well as by evangelical groups to combat sex trafficking, the bill gave substantial new protections to children entering the country alone who were not from Mexico or Canada by prohibiting them from being quickly sent back to their country of origin.

The Bill was passed unanimously in the Senate without a full vote.

[KevinNYC]

New AP story on Benghazi. Military testified that the two attacks should be thought of as separate incidents and might have involved different groups.

Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American.

The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony released late Wednesday. The assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on reports of violence at the diplomatic mission the night before and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable.

Military also seems to be unaware of the CIA complex

In testimony to two House panels earlier this year, the officers said that commanders didn't have the information they needed to understand the nature of the attack, that they were unaware of the extent of the U.S. presence in Benghazi at the time and they were convinced erroneously for a time that they were facing a hostage crisis without the ability to move military assets into place that would be of any use.

[Brizzly]

Roy Nagin sentenced 10 years in prison.

[KevinNYC]

In the wake of two spies for the US being discovered, Germany just kicked the CIA's chief of station out of the country.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-...lawmaker-says/

[KevinNYC]

Medicaid costs down $50 Billion since 2010 estimates.


They are not sure why, but this article points to some of the cost saving measures in the Affordable Care Act.

Unnecessary readmissions — when someone turns up at the hospital a second time because something went wrong on the first visit — are bad for patients and for budgets.

The good news on unnecessary readmissions is they're becoming less frequent among Medicare patients, a drop that started at just about the same time as CBO began revising downward the cost of covering a Medicare patient....

Obamacare changed the way doctors get paid

The health care law included lots of changes to the way that doctors get paid within the Medicare program, all aimed at getting doctors to provide better care at lower costs. That's true, for example, with readmissions: Obamacare now penalizes hospitals when their patient shows up for a second visit that didn't need to happen, if everything had gone right the first time.

There are dozens of changes like this that could be playing a role in explaining why Medicare may cost significantly less than initially expected.

[KevinNYC]

New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 20 Million people are covered through the Affordable Care Act. Note that doesn't mean 20 million newly ensured.

[GimmeThat]

good, seems like social security is up next.

-tips on sleeping at nights-

[Shade8780]

worst. thread. ever

[KevinNYC]

The latest jobs reports is the best in quite sometime and exceeded predictions by about 75K.

Unemployment is at 6.1% where it was in September 2008.

Good news on new unemployment applications. Lowest since before the Great Recession began. Sept 2008 end was when the economy totally tanked, but it later determined that it was in recession since December 2007 and we are now seeing numbers that we have seen since August 2007.

Weekly applications for unemployment aid dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 304,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's not far from a reading of 298,000 two months ago, which was the lowest since 2007, before the Great Recession began.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dipped 3,500 to 311,500, the second-lowest level since August 2007. Applications are a proxy for layoffs, so the low readings indicate that employers are letting go of fewer workers.

The figures are the latest sign that the job market is steadily improving. Employers are adding jobs at a healthy clip and the unemployment rate is at a 5 1/2-year low.

"The ... data remain extremely encouraging," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. The four-week average is down from last year's average of 343,000, he noted.

[KevinNYC]

New AP story on Benghazi.

More testimony on Benghazi has come out showing Darrell Issa and Josh Chafetz have been lying about the "stand down order."

Among the lies.
A. They could not have gotten to Benghazi in time
B. They were given a different mission in Tripoli and ended up saving at least one life there
C. Their mission of guarded a perimeter who have done nothing to prevent against a mortar attack.

[QUOTE]The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by Republican lawmakers that a

[GimmeThat]

are the US really that incompetent in dealing with the issues at Iraq?


the UN for that matter