Administration officials confirmed in interviews that the skinny plans, in concept, would be sufficient to avoid the across-the-workforce penalty. Several expressed surprise that employers would consider the approach.

Ha, idiots.

Kinds of unfair to John Ashcroft. He only delegated power to his Deputy AG when he was in the hospital and very ill.

“Within minutes,” Gonzales and Card came barreling in, carrying an envelope. Inside was the reauthorization for the surveillance program, which they wanted Ashcroft to sign. Ashcroft raised his wan head from the pillow and clearly said he wouldn’t, adding, “I am not the attorney general. That’s the attorney general.” He pointed to Comey.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/05/pulling_the_plug.html

The Republicans should go back to the well on the drone issue (I think it took everyone by surprise how much Rand Paul’s filibuster resonated both inside and out of the Republican party). Condition debt ceiling hike on a law banning drone strikes against US citizens.

1. The base will love it.
2. The Republicans the base hates (McCain and Graham) will denounce it.
3. It will split Democrats between Obamabots and, well, Democrats.
4. Puts the monkey on the President’s back, is HE willing to crash world economy just so he can keep his power to extrajudicially execute Americans?
5. It’d actually be good government policy.

ts because of the fifth point that it’ll probably never happen. :o)

The odd thing is, I’m not sure its even a legal appointment. The CIA Director is no longer the head of an independent agency in that he now reports to the Director of National Intelligence. This reminded me of something I once read.. Oh yes.

The Constitution’s Appointments Clause requires that inferior officers (say, the Director of the National Clandestine Service) must be appointed by either the President himself or by a Department Head (reporting directly to POTUS). When the CIA was an independent agency, its Director counted as a Department Head. However, since the CIA director reports to the Director of National Intelligence, Brennan shouldn’t be appointing the the D/NCS, either the President or the DNI should be. Presumably Congress has waived the requirement for Senate confirmation (“The Senate will now take up the nomination of Anonymous”) but this is rather similar to the sticky wicket USPTO got tripped up by a few years ago.

“From 1999 to 2008, a change in the statute governing the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) permitted a number of judges of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to be appointed by the USPTO Director. This arrangement was challenged as unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause because the appointing party was not the Heads of the Department.[8] In order to avoid the crisis that would result from new challenges to many BPAI and TTAB decisions made in that period, Congress passed a 2008 amendment to the statute which specifies that the Secretary of Commerce is responsible for such appointments, and permitting the Secretary to retroactively appoint those persons named by the USPTO Director.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointments_Clause

This legal wrinkle is only there because Congress unwisely created a new Office of the Director of National Intelligence instead of simply clarifying the duties of Director of Central Intelligence. Carter’s DCI Stansfield Turner was the voice of reason here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29450-2004Jul31.html

It would be kind of awesome if Gomez ran against chained CPI. :o)

Why on Earth does the Administration keep throwing itself against the Senate’s 60 vote brick wall instead of just attaching proposals to a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill? Just reframe the proposal as a revenue measure.

Pay Moynihan had the right idea when he was Senate Finance Committee chair 20 years ago– he proposed a 10,000% excise tax on hollow point bullets (sales to govt agencies exempted). You could put a 10,000% excise on all gun sales and then give a tax exemption to seller if he did an instant background check. Likewise Congress could levy a stiff excise on magazines larger than 10 rounds or assault weapons or whatever else they want less of. Why would anyone fight for 60 votes (and come up a few short) when they could instead fight for 50 votes (and have a few to spare)?

It’s an effort to fix a drafting error that prevents the federal government from paying into insurance exchanges on behalf of congressional staffers who got caught up in a political controversy.

“A drafting error”, that’s a wonderful euphemism. Looks like the Hill Dems are running for the tall grass on this one.

Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson flatly denied a report that the majority leader had sought an exemption for lawmakers and their staffers.
“There are not now, have never been, nor will there ever be any discussions about exempting members of Congress or Congressional staff from Affordable Care Act provisions that apply to any employees of any other public or private employer offering health care,” Jentleson said.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/296333-dem-leaders-wont-seek-exemption

As Obamacare’s start date approaches, you’re going to see those guys on the Hill freaking out like a cult sweating an approaching comet.

When you say this…
“Our concern should be for the immigrants who are already here – some of them for 20 or more years.”

I think about this…
“a brother or sister of a U.S. citizen from the Philippines applying for a family-sponsored visas may have been waiting 24 years, as those visas have been oversubscribed, according to the State Department’s latest figures.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/31/how-long-is-the-immigration-line-as-long-as-24-years/

Putting illegal immigrants ahead of line those on that waiting list tells them and us that in America, if you play by the rules, obey the law and wait your turn… you’re a sucker.

OT Jon but this headline is 100% win.
“Baucus warns of ‘huge train wreck’ enacting ObamaCare provisions”
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/294501-baucus-warns-of-huge-train-wreck-in-obamacare-implementation

It can’t be design flaw because that would make it his fault, his defense is blaming “pilot error” (i.e. implementation).

Allowing these same people to be covered by Medicare would be much more costly to the government than allowing them to purchase their own health insurance.

Statistical illusion. Mandatory insurance premiums have the same economic impact as mandatory tax payments. The difference is the cost of providing coverage is off-budget (for the govt) in the first case but on-budget in the second.

Needless to say, Obama hired the wrong Harvard economist.

“Last year, Harvard School of Public Health economist William Hsiao was commissioned by the Vermont state legislature to design three options for reforming the state health care system. Hsiao, who helped design a single-payer system for Taiwan and has advised eight other nations in their health system reforms, presented his findings before the legislature on January 19, 2011.”
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/health-reform-news-hsph-prof-recommends-single-payer-health-care-system-for-vermont/

Thing is, the utilities don’t want it as it would be too expensive to modernize to comply with EPA standards.

They don’t want the coal plants (wouldn’t be surprised if they let Uncle Sam keep those), the money in the TVA is the water rights. It controls a LOT of water.

Unbelievable. So a Democratic president wants to privatize the TVA while Republican Senator (and former TN governor) Lamar Alexander wants to protect it?

Considering that the TVA doesn’t add a penny to the deficit (its been self-funding since the 1950s), letting the GOP get to the left on this issue is as stupid as letting the GOP getting to his left on Social Security, which doesn’t add to the deficit either. Oh yeah, he’s working on that too.

The huge tax for transfers to non-family members may spur lots of quickie marriages and adoptions

That’s kind of funny to think about. Hunting buddies could gay marry each other to avoid paying an excise tax or filing an instant background check on gun transactions.

Its not designed to raise revenue. Its how Congress can ban something without resorting to Commerce Power and without requiring 60 votes in the Senate. Sure there’d be a black market, just like there’d be a black market if the transaction was out and out banned. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Excise taxes are how Congress regulated interstate commerce before the New Deal.

An agreement, the Berne Convention, was reached at Bern, Switzerland, in September 1906, which banned the use of white phosphorus in matches. This required each country to pass laws prohibiting the use of white phosphorus in matches…. The United States did not pass a law, but instead placed a “punitive tax” on white phosphorus-based matches, one so high as to render their manufacture financially impractical, in 1913…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match#The_replacement_of_white_phosphorus

Or Congress can go back to the well and use its Taxing Power. Congress can levy a 10,000% (or any other rate) excise tax on anything. A 30 round magazine that retails now for $20 would have a $2000 excise tax on top of it.
As for background checks, same thing. Put an excise tax on all firearm transfers to non-family members (with a 10,000% excise, a $300 pistol sale would have $30,000 excise tax) but then make tax exempt any transfer that is preceded by an instant background check. Since its the seller who’s responsible for paying excises, that’s a hell of a motivator.

The advantage of this approach (besides the legal precedent of existing excise taxes already used to regulate firearms, alcohol and healthcare, among other things) is that the Senate can always include tax provisions in a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill. Déjà vu, Reid could have avoided healthcare reform and climate change filibusters the same way.