The Senate Majority Leader appears rather irked over Republican block maneuvers of His Greatness, so once again he's threatening to change the rules and go nuclear, requiring a simple majority to get judicial nominees (excluding the Supreme Court) confirmed.

With just under a year to go until election day:

But now, Dems have already agreed not to change the rules once, and the filibustering continues, even though Republicans admitted when the last deal was reached that they were wrong to block Obama from staffing the government. And now, the GOP position is not grounded in an objection to ObamaÂ’s nominees or to the function of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; itÂ’s grounded in the argument that Obama should not have the power to make these appointments to the court at all. As Jonathan Chait argues, Republicans may not have even thought through the full implications of the position theyÂ’ve adopted. But Dems have, and taking it to its logical conclusion, they believe Republicans have presented them with a simple choice: Either they change the rules, or they accept those limits on ObamaÂ’s power. And that really leaves only one option.

Funny, because the rest of us have an option too. Let me guide your hand, Harry. more...

Posted by: CAC at 12:49 PM | Comments (222)
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Call me a cynic, but I'm starting to think that this law might have been passed by an assembly of unscrupulous and duplicitous politicians with the help of an incurious and sympathetic media on a bed of outright misrepresentations and deceit.

UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N) dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Posted by: JohnE. at 10:42 AM | Comments (216)
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Texas is experiencing an incredible boom in oil and gas production, because of technology and as bank robber Willie Sutton said "because that's where the money is."

In this case, the money is oil. And it's in Texas. Two shale fields in Texas together are producing more oil than any other field in the world.

Shale production is more expensive than pulling it out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, but at current market prices it's more than profitable to pump it out of these oil-trapped-in-rock formations. Some of these fields, like Eagle Ford have multiple layers. Right now Texas is producing 32% of all domestic oil. A half million jobs. And the economic upheaval it stressing the infrastructure in places where ten years ago there were rusting pumps and empty lines since the 80s.

So the Saudis have a cost advantage of production from the ground, but a disadvantage on shipment and refining. We're more than happy to take advantage of it.

The job opportunities are crazy insane.

Edgar Hernandez, 32, left Dallas for Midland two years ago when he couldnÂ’t find work. He says heÂ’s earning $2,000 a week working as a diesel engine mechanic for an oil field services company, but the lack of housing means he and his wife have had to live in a trailer home on the side of Interstate 20.

“I came here, and right away I had a job,” he said. “Everyone is looking for people.”

Saudi Arabia's answer to this surge is to build refineries they never bothered to build, because they never needed them. But to stay competitive they need em now.

So if you have a high school diploma and would like to make $80,000 a year handing out bottled water to roughnecks, buy yourself a camper home and head to Midland.

Hotels and apartments are just too damned expensive right now.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:33 PM | Comments (241)
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College Football Thread Below. I'm only stomping because there hasn't been news content since Purp's post at 9:30am.

...

Obama did consult the insurers after he made his announcement, which is the smart way to do it.

Obama has lived his political life by the principle that it's easier to beg forgiveness than to secure permission.

The day after they were caught off guard by President ObamaÂ’s proposal to prevent cancellation of insurance policies for millions of Americans, top executives of some of the biggest insurance companies emerged from a meeting at the White House on Friday, expressing mixed feelings about whether the idea could work in every state.

The hastily called meeting was an attempt by the White House to address the growing frustration of the nationÂ’s insurers over the administrationÂ’s fumbling of the health care law.

I think he didn't give them a heads-up because they would have told the media it was entirely unworkable before he announced it, thus denying him his bullshit photo-op announcement of a "fix" designed to fail.

...

The insurers, many of whom expressed anger that the president had not consulted them before ThursdayÂ’s announcement, said they had come away from the meeting willing to work with the White House...

Victims are often willing to "work with" their tormentors.

Lisa Meyers continues to be the only reporter at NBC. She's the only one who will write stories like this.

Insurers, state officials say cancellation of health care policies just as they predicted

Several insurance industry officials and state insurance commissioners expressed frustration Friday, saying they were “baffled” by President Barack Obama’s assertion that the cancellation of millions of insurance policies occurred because a key provision of the Affordable Care Act didn’t work as expected. The administration was warned three years ago that regulations would have exactly that effect, they said.

They said the widespread cancellations in the individual health insurance market — roughly 5 million and counting -- are in line with what was projected under regulations drawn up by the administration in 2010, requirements that both insurers and businesses objected to at the time.

...

“We have been saying for years that the requirements in the law were going to mean that people couldn't keep their current plans and they were going to have to purchase coverage that was more expensive,” said one high-level heath industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We said these changes would disrupt coverage and increase premiums for consumers. And now everything we said is coming true and people are acting surprised."

@verumserum pointed out that the left claims it's a "lie" that Obama has subjected the health care industry to a "government takeover." All the various lefty fact-checking sites have called this "FALSE" or "PANTS ON FIRE" multiple times.

And yet here's Obama summoning health care executives to order them to take actions which actually are illegal under last week's law.

Sure seems to be a government takeover to me.

Thanks to @johnekdahl for both.

Update [JohnE.]: Turns out Ace and I were simultaneously writing the same post.

On the NYT reporting insurers were unaware of Obama's "fix": Most of us have become pretty used to expecting bumbling incompetence from this administration. But I have to admit I'm surprised that they are so insular and arrogant as to not even check with industry leaders and state insurance commissioners about the feasibly of this unilateral law-ignoring executive gambit before announcing it to the public.

And on the NBC report: The administration was well aware that cancellations were coming. Again, I can understand this administration spinning a web of lies and feigning ignorance about the consequences of this debacle of a law. What I can't understand is their complete internal shock and apparent lack of any gameplan to address a scenario that they knew was coming three years in advance. Did they just think people wouldn't notice? This, to me, shows the real incompetence of this administration. That they never even bothered to have a plan of attack to address a predicable (by their own estimates) and inevitable outcome is just incredible.

We know it's not Obama's fault, though. It was most likely a coordinated right-wing sabotage campaign, which is why there's a helpful petition set up on WhiteHouse.gov to investigate. Godspeed, morons.

Below the fold, @freddoso dug up a great timeline of Obamacare quotes and promises. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:48 AM | Comments (221)
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We Politely Request That All Off-Topic or Political Comments Be Directed to the Thread Directly Below This One, Which Will Serve Officially as the Current "Active Conversation" Thread for All Discussions Not Related To This Topic.

-- Sincerely, the Fascist MGMT

The modern conceit among a certain type of food enthusiast is that the quality of the chef's cooking is in direct proportion to the number of piercings and tattoos, and the oddness of hair style. This is demonstrated best in New York and San Francisco, where the newest and hottest chef is invariably a tatted freak who looks as though he (or she) just wandered in from the alley in back after sleeping off an eight-ball and a bottle of Mad Dog. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:33 AM | Comments (340)
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Afternoon morons. Here is your top ten action schedule for today, all times EST:

(3) Ohio State at Illinois, noon
(25) Georgia at (7) Auburn, 3:30pm
Utah at (6) Oregon, 4:00pm
Texas Tech at (5) Baylor (technically at Jerryworld), 7pm
Florida at (10) South Carolina, 7pm
(1) Alabama at Mississippi State, 7:45pm
(4) Stanford at USC, 8pm

And this past Thursday ( Clemson beat Georgia Tech by a lot.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Non-football open thread just below the elbow.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:20 AM | Comments (77)
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For all else. Just for you.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:19 AM | Comments (50)
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At some point in 2007, as documented in this old Corrente post, McClatchy changed their branding and incorporated the left's "Truth to Power" phrase.

It doesn't show now on the old McClatchy stories because they've slipstreamed a change in such a manner that the new branding phraseology of "Watching Washington and the World" renders even on old stories.

I have no idea when this branding change phased in, but its not hard to imagine why it was done given events of the past 6 months. /sarc

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:47 AM | Comments (373)
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Mornin', all. Let's do this thing.

Posted by: andy at 03:08 AM | Comments (278)
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Fantastic round-up at Hot Air as people grope with the likely consequences of Obamacare's unbelievable failure.

It could mean a lot more than the repeal of one bad law. It could mean the end of progressivism for a generation.

Note, in the last quote, the Chicago Tribune calls, implicitly, for the full repeal of Obamacare.

Posted by: Ace at 04:55 PM | Comments (374)
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