(MinnPost) The Dayton administration on Friday sent an early signal to the federal government that Minnesota will pursue a state-run health insurance exchange and apply for an additional $39 million in grant funding to develop the tool, a crucial component of the federal health care reform law.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services postponed two key Friday deadlines till mid-December, but Minnesota pushed ahead anyway, emphasizing Gov. Mark Dayton’s commitment to implementing the exchange. Federal funding for the project will top $100 million if the grant is approved.

With DFL majorities in the Legislature, what once looked like a lonely project for the executive branch has become one of the most important issues for lawmakers this session.

One of the more obvious outcomes of the 2012 election will be the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in Minnesota. Specifically the health exchange portion of the act. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that Governor Dayton has a mandate, what with both the Minnesota House and Senate returned to Democratic control. The question now is whether the Democrats in control will be hesitant due to the nature of Minnesota Nice, or if they will go ahead and take this mandate out for a test ride.

On a personal note, I struggle with Minnesota Nice. I vacillate with its application. Some days I do not wish to make waves; other days I want to do nothing but push boundaries. It gets me in trouble at work. Oh, and with my relationships. But, what the hell. In the end I will end up dead. And I have come to the conclusion that getting someone’s heart rate running might actually improve their health.

Honest to God! What are they thinking? Any move to impeach President Obama on any of the points mentioned in the robocall that hit at least 4 states will only make the Republican brand that much more worthless.

People in four states — Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington — have reported strange political robocalls from a birther group called Conservative Majority Fund, saying that they “suspect” Obama may be “guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors,” adding “there may be grounds for impeachment as is laid out in the Constitution.

Continue reading →

I have a damn headache because the weather cannot make up its damn mind. It is warm; it is cold; it is warm; it is cold. It is getting old, is what it is doing.

Please; ignorant people supporting politicians who block any legislation on global warming, would you just do something stupid that gets you killed so we can elect people into congress that will do something to combat global warming.

Wow, that was mean.

Well, that is what happens when I get a headache. I get grumpy.

I had hoped to see more developments in the whole CIA/FBI/Generals investigation. But it is getting boring already. Turns out most of the players are actually really lame.

Still, something is not right about this whole situation. The sex is getting in the way of seeing clearly.

My problem is still the fact that the FBI continued digging into the emails after determining that no law was broken or national security compromised. Their relational just does not sound plausible.

The shocking revelation threatens to fell another of the U.S. military’s biggest names and suggests that the scandal involving Petraeus – a retired four-star general who had Allen’s job in Afghanistan before moving to the CIA last year – could expand much further than previously imagined.

via Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan investigated, Petraeus scandal widens | Reuters.

Seriously. This investigation seems to have uncovered a hornets nest. And my thoughts on Kelley being an innocent bystander are drawn into question.

The U.S. official said the FBI uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communications – mostly emails and spanning from 2010 to 2012 – between Allen and Jill Kelley, who has been identified as a long-time friend of the Petraeus family and a Tampa, Florida, volunteer social liaison with military families at MacDill Air Force Base.

It was Kelley’s complaints about harassing emails from the woman with whom Petraeus had had an affair, Paula Broadwell, that prompted an FBI investigation, ultimately alerting authorities to Petraeus’ involvement with Broadwell. Petraeus resigned from his job on Friday.

And that is not the only thing that makes Kelley look less the innocent bystander.

U.S. officials had said in recent days that their investigation was largely complete and that prosecutors had determined it was unlikely they would bring charges in that case, which started when Kelley contacted an FBI agent in Tampa about harassing emails from an anonymous source.

That FBI agent, who has not been identified, has also come under scrutiny after it was discovered he had sent shirtless photographs of himself to Kelley, but “long before” this investigation, a law enforcement official told Reuters. The photographs were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The agent had never been on the Broadwell case, but had taken the information about the emails to the FBI cyber squad in Tampa, the law enforcement official said.

I do not know. This could all be way overblown. The raggedy edge of an old-fashioned culture exerting one last hurrah before finally being laid to rest like the rest of its old-fashioned values that never really existed.

Okay, so this article explains more about the start of the investigation. I can understand the rigor to which the FBI pursued the emails.

(Open Source) After Kelley alerted the FBI, agents began pursuing it as a possible case of cyber harassment or stalking. “The thought was she was being followed,” the source said.

The anonymous emails continued — sent from multiple alias accounts — and some later ones in the sequence contained references to Petraeus, though not by name, the source said.

What most alarmed Kelley and the FBI, the source said, were references to “the comings and goings” of high-level generals from the U.S. Central Command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and the U.S. Southern Command, as well as Petraeus — including events that were not on any public schedule. This raised the question as to whether somebody had access to sensitive — and classified — information.

Moreover, the sender of the emails had “covered her tracks pretty well,” the source said.

However, once it was determined that no laws were broken, why did the investigation then continue? Because to see if Petraeus was behind the emails is lame beyond all belief. And makes absolutely no sense.

Other post about this subject: In case anyone is wondering; Rove Once Again Leaking CIA Info? What Happened?

Balloon Juice:

I expect the Republican Party and the Conservative movement to fracture. Like the malevolent evil that it is, I expect that neo-Confederate ideology will find a new home in some Conservative third party (perhaps ‘Libertarians’). Wherever it finds sanctuary, it is a force of racism and white supremacy that will plague America for a few more generations. And yet, as of last Tuesday, it will never again have the power it once had.

In considering this post, and this post, the point is not that Karl Rove was attempting to discredit Petraeus, it was that he had a funnel of information flowing from Petraeus through Broadwell that he used in an effort to discredit Obama’s foreign policy.

It is a simple concept people – work with me!

Some of the information hinted at by Broadwell might have been sensitive and not within her classification of security. That would go a long way towards explaining the FBI digging so deeply before discovering that Petraeus was involved.

And yes, I know, it is all conjecture. It is my day off, let me have my fun.

 

After all the talk of the Romney campaign being caught by surprise at their loss, I just had to find this:

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

It turns out this is attributed to Karl Rove. Funny how being an actor has turned against him, as was so aptly shown on election night.

Bottom line: The world really does work the way he said it didn’t. That the Romney campaign enveloped themselves in the Karl Rove created bubble of faith-based beliefs completely explains their surprise when the truth of their loss became all too apparent.

You do not get to deny reality. God gave us our senses to use, not to ignore. All Magical thinking will do is put us in an Emperor’s new clothes. Granted, the horny, instinctual male in me would love to see certain women in an Emperor’s new clothes, but as a member of the Reality Based community I know it is never going to happen.

Damn, that makes me sad.