The Many Faces of US Politics...

[seafoid]

This thread seems to be dying a bit.

I guess there's not much left to say or debate. Doesn't look like anyone wants to defend what Trump and the GOP are foisting on the country.

There is still lots to rubberneck.
Maybe one of the most amazing things about Trump is that he makes George W Bush and Cheney look like moderates

[Declan]

Was going to put this in Brexit thread but could be here as well
https://twitter.com/flashboy/status/839828925291315200

[Declan]

WikiLeaks Has Joined the Trump Administration

The anti-American group has become the preferred intelligence service for a conspiracy-addled White House.
By Max Boot
March 8, 2017

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump declared, "I love WikiLeaks!" And he had good reason to display affection to this website run by accused rapist Julian Assange. By releasing reams of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, WikiLeaks helped tilt the 2016 election in Trump's favor.

As president, Trump hasn't come out and said anything laudatory about WikiLeaks following its massive disclosure of CIA secrets on Tuesday — a treasure trove that some experts already believe may be more damaging than Edward Snowden's revelations. But Trump hasn't condemned WikiLeaks. The recent entries on his Twitter feed — a pure reflection of his unbridled id — contain vicious attacks on, among other things, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the New York Times, and Barack Obama but not a word about WikiLeaks. Did the president not notice that the intelligence community he commands has just suffered a devastating breach of security? Or did he simply not feel compelled to comment?
 
Actually there is a third, even more discomfiting, possibility:
Perhaps Trump is staying silent because he stands to benefit from WikiLeaks' latest revelations.

On Saturday, recall, Trump was making wild-eyed accusations that Obama had ordered the U.S. intelligence community to wiretap him. "How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" The White House could not come up with one iota of evidence to support this irresponsible allegation, which was denied by FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. But Trump would not be dissuaded from pursuing this charge, which serves as a convenient distraction from the far more serious accusations of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin while Russia was interfering with the presidential campaign.

Is it just a coincidence that WikiLeaks dumped a massive database pertaining to CIA hacking and wiretapping just three days after Trump made wiretapping a major political issue? Perhaps so. But there is cause for suspicion.

In the first place, WikiLeaks has often timed its leaks for maximum political impact. It released 20,000 stolen DNC emails just three days before the Democratic National Convention on July 25, 2016. As expected, WikiLeaks generated headlines about DNC staffers disparaging Sen. Bernie Sanders, buttressing a Trump campaign effort to prevent Clinton from consolidating Sanders supporters. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as a result, and the Clinton campaign suffered significant public relations damage.

In the second place, WikiLeaks, which has often leaked American but never Russian secrets, has been identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a front for Russian intelligence. In January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified estimate that found "with high confidence that Russian military intelligence ... relayed material to WikiLeaks." This was done with a definite purpose: "Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him."

Trump has consistently resisted the intelligence agency's conclusions, insisting that some 400-pound couch potato might have committed the hacking before grudgingly accepting the findings but continuing to claim that the Russian hack had no impact on the election. (Given that 70,000 votes in three states were his margin of victory, how does he know what affected the outcome and what didn't? And if WikiLeaks was so inconsequential, why did he tout its revelations in almost every appearance during the last month of the campaign?)

The intelligence community's finding that Putin helped him win the election spurred Trump to pursue a vendetta against it. For example, he accused the spooks — with no support — of being behind BuzzFeed's publication of a damning dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer claiming that the Kremlin had compiled compromising materials on him. Trump outrageously tweeted: "Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to 'leak' into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?" His animus against the intelligence agencies has continued down to his more recent accusations that they allowed themselves to be used by Obama to wiretap him. The consistent (if hardly believable) storyline from Trump is that he has no connections to Russia, and that he is a victim of the nefarious machinations of the American "deep state."

It is significant, therefore, that one of the major storylines to emerge from the latest WikiLeaks release is that the CIA supposedly has a program to reuse computer codes from foreign hackers, thus disguising CIA fingerprints on a hacking operation. Never mind that there is no evidence that the codes used to break into the DNC were part of this CIA database. Right-wing outlets are nevertheless trumpeting these revelations with headlines such as this one on Breitbart: "WikiLeaks: CIA Uses 'Stolen' Malware to 'Attribute' Cyberattacks to Nations Like Russia." Russian-controlled Internet "bots" are also said to be playing up these claims online.

The implication is clear. Trump was a victim of a "false flag" operation wherein CIA hackers broke into the DNC and blamed the Russians. This may be nutty, but it's eminently believable to an audience conditioned to believe that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged — favorite tropes of the radio talk-show host Alex Jones, whose work Trump has praised. Other WikiLeaks revelations — for instance, that the CIA can use Samsung smart TVs as listening devices — lend further credence to Trump's charge that he was secretly wiretapped.

Quite apart from its specifics, the WikiLeaks release changes the subject after a bad few days for Trump highlighted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions's decision to recuse himself from any Kremlingate probe after he was revealed to have lied under oath when he denied meeting any Russian representatives. Last week it was Trump on the defensive. Now it's his nemeses in the U.S. intelligence community who are answering embarrassing questions about how this leak could have occurred and the contents of the leaked information.

Again, maybe this is entirely coincidental, but WikiLeaks' history of being used by Russian intelligence to support Trump should lead to much greater scrutiny not only of who leaked this information — is there a mole in the CIA? — but why it was released now. Even if there is no active collusion between the White House and the Kremlin, the extent to which their agendas coincide is striking. Both Putin and Trump want to discredit the U.S. intelligence community because they see it as an obstacle to their power.

[whitey]

I see the President of the working man has just upped medical insurance premiums for the poor and cut them for the rich... oh and if you're old then f**k you!!

Very decent also to give those tax breaks to the poor suffering CEO's . . . #MAGA

Remind me again what Bill Clinton said about Obamacare

I think it went something along the lines of:

"You have people humping it 60 hours a week, their premiums have doubled and their coverage has been cut in half.....its  the craziest thing ever".

While I have all the empathy in the world for poor people, I have similar empathy for the aforementioned "humpers". I personally know people whose costs have skyrocketed from $15K per annum to over $30k in just 3 years.  That's a serious nut every month...it's a second mortgage for a lot of people

[J70]

I see the President of the working man has just upped medical insurance premiums for the poor and cut them for the rich... oh and if you're old then f**k you!!

Very decent also to give those tax breaks to the poor suffering CEO's . . . #MAGA

Remind me again what Bill Clinton said about Obamacare

I think it went something along the lines of:

"You have people humping it 60 hours a week, their premiums have doubled and their coverage has been cut in half.....its  the craziest thing ever".

While I have all the empathy in the world for poor people, I have similar empathy for the aforementioned "bumpers". I personally know people whose costs have skyrocket from $15K per annum to over $30k in just 3 years.  That's a serious nut every month...it's a second nor gave for a lot of people

Any opinion on Trump/Ryancare?

[whitey]

I see the President of the working man has just upped medical insurance premiums for the poor and cut them for the rich... oh and if you're old then f**k you!!

Very decent also to give those tax breaks to the poor suffering CEO's . . . #MAGA

Remind me again what Bill Clinton said about Obamacare

I think it went something along the lines of:

"You have people humping it 60 hours a week, their premiums have doubled and their coverage has been cut in half.....its  the craziest thing ever".

While I have all the empathy in the world for poor people, I have similar empathy for the aforementioned "bumpers". I personally know people whose costs have skyrocket from $15K per annum to over $30k in just 3 years.  That's a serious nut every month...it's a second nor gave for a lot of people

Any opinion on Trump/Ryancare?

Haven't had time to digest it, but if both Democrats and right wing Republicans hate it for opposite reasons, it's probably a good compromise bill

[seafoid]

Healthcare is a total mess. 18% of GDP increasing at 4% per year , way ahead of GDP. . Poor life expectancy. Most spending goes on the rich. Very USA.

[omochain]

The GOP/Ryan solution to Obamacare is primarily based on driving down prices by promoting Health Insurance Sales across State lines and it is shows the stunning lack of understanding that they have for the Healthcare system and how it works. Peter Orszag's article explains.

The real problem with out of control costs is the way the providers of healthcare are incentivize. They are paid based on what procedures they perform for you so the more they do the more they get paid. That is the prime driver of escalating healthcare costs. There is no cap on what the healthcare providers can do for you if you or your insurance can afford it and who is the brave person who is going to grasp that nettle. Anyway read on Whitey,  you may have something on which to base your opinion for a change.



Why Allowing Health Insurance Sales Across State Lines Won't Help
By Peter Orszag | March 7, 2017


http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/03/07/443794.htm

The effort to replace Obamacare faces increasing challenges, the more it is subjected to the harsh light of scrutiny. A good example is the proposal, apparently central to the Republican replacement plans, to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines.
This idea has been put forward as an elixir to all sorts of health sector problems. In his joint address to Congress, President Donald Trump argued that allowing people to buy health insurance in other states would "create a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring costs way down and provide far better care.

The American Academy of Actuaries is less optimistic: "The ability to lower premiums by allowing cross-state sales of insurance is limited," the organization says, "because a key driver of health insurance premiums is local costs of health care." When the idea was floated last year at an industry conference, the "audience literally laughed," one health care consultant noted.
Why do careful students of health care view cross-state sales of insurance skeptically?
One reason is that it is already allowed –- and yet basically doesn't happen. States possess the authority to sanction sales across their borders, and to define the conditions for such sales. In addition to this generic state authority, Section 1333 of Obamacare authorizes "health care choice compacts" across states. As of last month, five states had passed legislation allowing insurance plans that cross state lines: Rhode Island, Wyoming, Georgia, Kentucky and Maine. Georgia's law has been in effect since 2011, yet no insurer has yet offered an out-of-state policy there — or in any of the other four states. If this is the key to bringing costs down, why doesn't anyone want to do it?
Proponents of cross-state sales argue that the Obamacare provision is too limited, and that other authorities aren't broad enough for the idea to succeed.
As things stand, the federal government does not force state A to allow sales of insurance products from an insurer in state B, even if the consumer protection laws and health insurance regulations in state B are much different. State regulations govern items as varied as the generosity of coverage to appeal processes for denied services. A federal law that forced state A to accept state B's less restrictive regulations could engender a race to the bottom in such standards across states, and also create an adverse selection problem for insurers in state A — which presumably would still have to meet A's regulations, and therefore would attract mainly the less healthy beneficiaries in that state.
If an insurer from state B would instead have to meet state A's regulations, then it's not clear what the federal law would accomplish.
Local Matters
The bigger challenge for this idea, though, is that almost all health care is delivered locally. To succeed, insurance companies need a significant toe-hold with hospitals and other providers in their local market; an out-of-state insurer would lack that and thus struggle in its negotiations to form a delivery network. This is why many new entrants to the health insurance market haven't succeeded.
As the American Academy of Actuaries emphasizes, "For insurers to sell across state lines, they must develop provider networks by establishing reimbursement agreements with hospitals and physicians, or by purchasing access to an existing network. Any cost savings resulting from differences in benefit coverage requirements among states can be small compared to cost savings that can be accomplished through negotiating strong provider contracts."
That view is not limited to actuaries. A scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, which is devoted to promoting free markets and limited government, agreed that "it is a big problem": "Just because a good affordable policy is available in another state doesn't mean that I would be able to get the network of physicians and the good prices that are available in that other state."
For similar reasons, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation has argued that "No one should be under the illusion you can dramatically lower the cost of insurance in Los Angeles if you buy an Arkansas policy."
And therein is the core problem for the effort to replace Obamacare. Campaigns succeed by generating easy-to-understand solutions to problems, but there are no easy answers on improving health care quality and reducing its cost.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Orszag is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is a vice chairman of investment banking at Lazard. He was President Barack Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2009 to 2010 and the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2007 to 2008.

Copyright 2017 Bloomberg.
Interested in Insurance Tech?

[J70]

I see the President of the working man has just upped medical insurance premiums for the poor and cut them for the rich... oh and if you're old then f**k you!!

Very decent also to give those tax breaks to the poor suffering CEO's . . . #MAGA

Remind me again what Bill Clinton said about Obamacare

I think it went something along the lines of:

"You have people humping it 60 hours a week, their premiums have doubled and their coverage has been cut in half.....its  the craziest thing ever".

While I have all the empathy in the world for poor people, I have similar empathy for the aforementioned "bumpers". I personally know people whose costs have skyrocket from $15K per annum to over $30k in just 3 years.  That's a serious nut every month...it's a second nor gave for a lot of people

Any opinion on Trump/Ryancare?

Haven't had time to digest it, but if both Democrats and right wing Republicans hate it for opposite reasons, it's probably a good compromise bill

If only...

What good is a couple of grand tax credit going to do for some schlub earning 30K but needs a 20K policy for his family?

[whitey]

Healthcare is a total mess. 18% of GDP increasing at 4% per year , way ahead of GDP. . Poor life expectancy. Most spending goes on the rich. Very USA.

It's a clusterfvck..... there is the best care in the world if you live in the right part of the country and have the right insurance.  Outside of that it's probably on a par with Ireland

[Eamonnca1]

Health Care

• This morning the American Medical Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the Children's Hospital Association and AARP came out against the ACA replacement bill.

• AARP estimates premiums for people age 50-64 will go up as much as $8,500 for less coverage under AHCA.

• The President met tonight with leaders of Tea Party groups who had come out strongly against the repeal-and-replace plan introduced yesterday and reportedly told them that if the legislation doesn't get through Congress, he's willing to let the ACA fail and let the Democrats take the fall for it.

• The President is confident the AHCA will pass House but for Senate he plans "football stadium rallies" in red states to prod vulnerable Dems.

• The White House also indicated openness to moving up changing Medicaid to a block grant model and ending the coverage expansion to Jan 1, 2018 instead of 2020 to entice conservatives.

This would break the President's campaign promise to not cut Medicaid.

• Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) was asked if it matters that 10 million people could lose their health insurance as a result of passing the AHCA. His response: "What matters is we're lowering the costs."

• Office of Budget & Management chief Mick Mulvaney was asked how many fewer people will have health insurance. His response: "Insurance is not really the end goal here"

• When asked how we should colloquially refer to the AHCA, Kellyanne Conway said "I'll call it Trumpcare if you want to, but I didn't hear President Trump say to any of us, 'Hey I want my name on that."

Sure. We've found the first thing in history that Donald J. Trump didn't want to put his name on. Good sign.

Never Ask Me About My Kleptocracy

• Six and a half weeks after the inauguration and the General Services Administration still has yet to rule on whether or not the Trump Organization is violating the terms of the lease on the hotel at the Old Post Office Pavilion. The lease bars any "elected official of the Government of the United States" from deriving "any benefit" from it. Though he has removed himself from management of the company that holds the lease, the President still owns the company. Now it's debatable if it will ever reach a conclusion as Norman Dong, head of public buildings at the GSA, is leaving the agency and his position could well be filled by a political appointee.

Housing & Urban Development

• The White House's draft budget cuts $6 billion/14% from the agency's budget. The plan would squeeze public housing support and end most federally funded community development grants, which provide services such as meal assistance and cleaning up abandoned properties in low-income neighborhoods.

• Repair funds for public housing: −32%

• Community planning and development grants: −$4b/100%

• Grants for local communities to build affordable housing: −100%

• Low-income communities redevelopment investment: −100%

• Section 8 Housing and housing vouchers for homeless veterans: −$300mm

• Housing for the elderly: −$42mm/10%

• Housing for people with disabilities: −$29mm/20%

• Native American housing block grants: −$150mm/20%

"Our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity."

Tweet Beat

• Today was International Women's Day. The President tweeted: "I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy."

In 1994 the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief said:

"I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. I really think it's a bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana. A softness disappeared. There was a great softness to Ivana, and she still has that softness, but during this period of time she became an executive not a wife."

On second wife Marla Maples' modeling commitments: "I have days where I think it's great. And I have days where, if I come home -- and I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist -- but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof."

POTUS

• Had dinner with Sen. Ted Cruz & his family. During the campaign the President frequently called Cruz a liar, threatened to "spill the beans" on his wife, and asserted that Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of JFK.

• Received 38 more trademarks in China, opening the way to developing a host of branded businesses from hotels and golf clubs to bodyguard and concierge services. Dan Plane, a director at Simone IP Services, a Hong Kong intellectual property consultancy, said, "For all these marks to sail through so quickly and cleanly, with no similar marks, no identical marks, no issues with specifications — boy, it's weird."

Secret Service

• Secret Service director Joseph Clancy departed over the weekend. The Secret Service declined to say who the new acting director is.
EPA

• Administrator Scott Pruitt has drawn heavily on the staff of Sen. James "Snowballs Prove There's No Global Warming" Inhofe (R-OK) to fill positions in the upper ranks of the Environmental Protection Agency.

• The Office of Science and Technology had the word "science" removed from its mission statement today. It described that work as "science-based", meaning that it would make recommendations based on peer-reviewed, solid scientific work. Now it has been replaced by a message saying only that clean water will be recommended where it can conform to "economically and technologically achievable standards".

People Are Going To Die

• Draft budget eliminates the Prevention and Public Health Fund from the budget for the Centers for Disease Control. It comprises 12% of the CDC budget and was created as part of the Affordable Care Act. It was designed to lower health care costs by prevent diseases – avian flu, Zika, yellow fever, MRSA, cancer, hypertension, diabetes and more – before they start.

The Hill

• House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) took exception to Spicey's statement on Wednesday that "every member" of Congress would be able to amend the health care bill "on the floor." Pressed by Democrats on the committee as to whether or not this was true (Sessions said it had not been discussed) and if Spicey was wrong to make that claim, Sessions grew testy: "You know what, I will just point blank say that I would encourage Mr. Spicer if he thinks he's going to start talking about my business to just give me a darn call." This was followed by five full seconds of complete silence.

• Senate Joint Resolution 34 would overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule that requires internet service providers to get customers' permission before they sell sensitive consumer data, such as browsing history. Passage of the resolution by Congress would prevent the FCC from issuing similar rules in the future. The sponsor, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), said that the resolution "empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared," but he did not explain how it will achieve that.

Syria

• The 75th Ranger Regiment is on the ground, holding the city of Manbij, and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's howitzers deployed a week ago to establish an artillery base to support the assault on the Daesh "capital" of Raqqa. The forces of the MEU are the first regular U.S. ground troops to enter the conflict.

Foreign Relations

• John Huntsman, 2012 GOP presidential candidate and former ambassador to both China and Singapore, has reportedly been offered and accepted the position of ambassador to Russia.

State Department

• NBC's Andrea Mitchell was forcibly ejected from the room when she attempted to ask Secretary of State Rex Tillerson questions at a photo op with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.

This has been Day 48 in Trumpistan. Good night!

[seafoid]

http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/march/trump-clinton-debates-gender-reversal.html

[seafoid]

Bannon and the lies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_Asvpa1-k

[omochain]

Healthcare is a total mess. 18% of GDP increasing at 4% per year , way ahead of GDP. . Poor life expectancy. Most spending goes on the rich. Very USA.

It's a clusterfvck..... there is the best care in the world if you live in the right part of the country and have the right insurance.  Outside of that it's probably on a par with Ireland

Actually Ireland is better

World Health Organization Ranking; The World's Health Systems
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 USA
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland

[foxcommander]

Is there any possibility of the choice being made on a county-by-county basis?  Might have to rule out any enclave-type scenario I presume, but what counties currently would have strong majorities one way or the other?

No.

The Good Friday Agreement says it in black and white. It's all or nothing when it comes to a border poll. No more carving up of little enclaves to appease people who can't accept a democratic result.

With these long-winded daily reports we are now getting the above nugget in the United Ireland thread from Eamon is too good not to share.

How are you doing accepting the democratic result in the US election old pal ?? not so good??