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United States Congress of Fail (Part 2)


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"Senate Republicans likely to change custom that allows Democrats to block judicial choices"

Spoiler

Senate Republicans are threatening to change a custom that allows Democratic senators to block some judicial choices from their states, in an effort to speed along a conservative transformation of the federal judiciary.

Leaders are considering a significant change to the Senate’s “blue slip” practice, which holds that judicial nominations will not proceed unless the nominee’s home-state senators signal their consent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans say they would make the change if Democrats throw up blanket opposition to President Trump’s nominees.

Adherence to the custom has waxed and waned, depending on the views of Senate leaders. But the rule was strictly observed during the Obama administration, and GOP opposition to President Barack Obama’s nominees partly explains why Trump entered office with more than 120 judicial vacancies to fill.

Removing the blue-slip obstacle would make it much easier for Trump’s choices to be confirmed. Although Trump and Senate Republicans have clashed early in his presidency, they agree on the importance of putting conservatives on the federal bench.

Senate Republicans changed the chamber’s filibuster rule in April to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice and applauded Trump’s first round of nominations for federal circuit courts of appeals and district courts. His choices were drawn in part from the recommendations of conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.

The Senate acted Thursday on Trump’s first appeals court nomination, elevating U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar of Kentucky to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. Thapar was confirmed 52 to 44 on a party-line vote, with four Democrats not voting. Thapar’s nomination did not raise blue-slip concerns, because both of Kentucky’s senators are Republican and Thapar is a favorite of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Conservative groups have urged McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to loosen the blue-slip rules — especially on nominees to regional appellate courts — and Republicans have warned Democrats that uncompromising opposition to Trump’s nominees could trigger a change.

“Everybody agrees that blue slips on federal district judges are appropriate where the districts are contained within a state and that’s been the tradition,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the chamber’s second-ranking Republican. “My sense is that we’re going to establish a pattern where a blue slip at the circuit court level is an expression of advice, but is not determinative as to whether that judge will be confirmed or not.”

Democrats say that would be a substantial reworking of the current rules and inconsistent with Grassley’s pledge to retain the blue-slip process no matter which party captured the White House last year.

“Eliminating the blue slip is essentially a move to end cooperation between the executive and legislative branch on judicial nominees, allowing nominees to be hand-picked by right-wing groups,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, wrote in a memo this week.

She pointed out that the vacancy for which Thapar is nominated exists only because McConnell refused to return a blue slip for Obama’s nominee, Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Lisabeth Tabor Hughes. The seat has been vacant since 2013, and Tabor Hughes never received a hearing because blue slips were not returned.

Christopher Kang, who advised Obama on judicial nominations, said 17 of the president’s picks did not receive hearings for that reason, killing the nominations.

But the impact was even greater than that, because Obama gave up on trying to find nominees in some states, such as Texas, with two Republican senators. One vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, has been open for five years.

“There’s no question that the blue-slip process greatly influenced the way President Obama chose nominees and whether they received hearings,” Kang said.

Now, liberal groups that denounced Republican stalling over Obama nominees — his picks languished longer before action than did President George W. Bush’s — are urging Democratic senators to use blue slips to block Trump nominees. Conservative groups until recently defended the process as time-honored.

Because it is a custom of the Senate and not a legal requirement, the blue-slip process has been interpreted different ways over the years.

Until the 1950s, objections by home-state senators did not hang up judicial nominations, according to a Congressional Research Service report. But during the civil rights movement, Southern lawmakers demanded more say over the judges from their states and succeeded in winning more deference. This proved temporary. By the 1980s, this deference was again on the wane. Then, during Obama’s tenure, senators were yet again able to assert their power to block judicial nominees.

“The blue-slip process was always intended to ensure consultation, and Grassley fully expects senators to continue to abide by that tradition,” said Taylor Foy, a Grassley spokesman.

But Democratic aides noted that Grassley didn’t always feel this way and that he is now reneging on vows made to Democrats that he would preserve the blue-slip system no matter who was elected president in 2016. In 2015, he wrote in the Des Moines Register that “I appreciate the value of the blue-slip process and also intend to honor it.”

Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution scholar who follows judicial nominations, said allegiance is situational.

“All of a sudden, Republicans are discovering the blue-slip process can be abused, when in fact they’ve been abusing them to get all of these vacancies for Trump to fill,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted Republicans for departing from tradition, saying in a statement that “The Constitution requires the advice and consent of the Senate, not right wing interest groups, on the president’s judicial nominees.” But there’s very little that Democrats can do to stop Trump from nominating conservative judges and the Republican-controlled Senate from confirming them. It was Democrats, when they controlled the Senate in 2013, who changed the rules barring filibusters on judicial nominees, which required 60 votes to move forward on a nomination.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general who is among the most liberal members of the Judiciary Committee, said he doubts that Grassley “would want to dismantle that long-standing Senate prerogative just to cater to the extremist impulses of this particular administration.”

Given that appellate court seats are historically connected to individual states, “they should continue to be able to make recommendations,” Whitehouse said. “I think that would be a really dumb mistake to make just to appease the far right because it would have lasting consequences that would diminish the Senate both for Republican and Democrat senators.”

Leonard Leo, who is advising the White House on judicial nominations, said the potential of changing the blue-slip process has not altered the tradition of consulting with home-state senators.

“The administration has engaged in as vigorous a consulting process as I’ve ever seen, and is doing anything they can to hear out Democratic senators,” he said.

Trump has nominated 10 judges in addition to Thapar, and two of them are from states represented in the Senate by Democrats. Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David R. Stras and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan L. Larsen were on Trump’s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court picks. Stras is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, and Larsen to the 6th Circuit.

Michigan’s Democratic senators, Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, said they were “informed” of Trump’s intention to nominate Larsen and have made no judgment about her. “I will continue to listen to public input and consult with Michigan’s legal community to ensure that our state is served by highly qualified, fair and impartial judges that put the people of Michigan first,” Stabenow said in a statement.

Minnesota’s Democratic senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, also have been noncommittal about Stras.

But they’re insisting on maintaining the deference they now receive.

“It’s customary that the blue-slip process applies equally to both district and circuit court nominees — and Republicans certainly operated that way during the Obama administration,” Franken said, adding, “The committee should continue this custom and not change it simply because there’s a new president in the White House.”

Sigh, it's okay for the Repugs to block every single thing during the Obama administration, but when they come up against the least little bit of resistance from the Dem side, well, just change the rules. We have to get a majority in at least one of the houses of congress next year.

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I don't hold a lot of faith in a random tweet but maybe this is a glimmer of hope that the town halls and phone calls are working. Keep the pressure up! (The tweet is in reference to to the ACHA)

 

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"The GOP inherits what Trump has wrought"

Spoiler

The darker forces that propelled President Trump’s rise are beginning to frame and define the rest of the Republican Party.

When GOP House candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter who had attempted to ask him a question Wednesday night in Montana, many saw not an isolated outburst by an individual, but the obvious, violent result of Trump’s charge that journalists are “the enemy of the people.” Nonetheless, Gianforte won Thursday’s special election to fill a safe Republican seat.

“Respectfully, I’d submit that the president has unearthed some demons,” Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) said. “I’ve talked to a number of people about it back home. They say, ‘Well, look, if the president can say whatever, why can’t I say whatever?’ He’s given them license.”

Trump — and specifically, his character and his conduct — now thoroughly dominate the national political conversation.

Traditional policy arguments over whether entitlement programs should be overhauled, or taxes cut, are regularly upstaged by a new burst of pyrotechnics.

The dynamic is shaping the contours of this year’s smattering of special congressional elections and contests for governor, as well as the jockeying ahead the 2018 midterm elections.

“It’s an entirely different atmosphere,” Michael Steele, a former Republican National Committee chairman, said. “The president isn’t ideological and ideology is no longer the anchor. So when reporters put microphones in candidates’ faces, they’re asking about the president, tweets, character, your moral outlook and not about a particular policy.”

Few Republicans expect party leaders to do anything to lessen the toxicity.

Charlie Sykes, a conservative former talk-show host in Wisconsin and author of the forthcoming “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” said “every time something like Montana happens, Republicans adjust their standards and put an emphasis on team loyalty. They normalize and accept previously unacceptable behavior.”

Those who still navigate by the old maps are having trouble staying on course.

Karen Handel, a conventional Republican running in next month’s special House election in Georgia, has railed against Obamacare, and campaigned alongside House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who called her “tested and true.” But she has been scorched endlessly on television for her support of the president her Democratic opponent has claimed “embarrasses our country” and “acts recklessly.”

Other GOP candidates, emboldened by Trump’s success at shattering norms, have ventured further to test the limits of what the electorate can stomach.

Corey Stewart, a former state chairman for Trump’s presidential campaign, has embraced Confederate symbols as his gubernatorial bid has flailed in Virginia, horrifying party leaders ahead of the June 13 primary and forcing the GOP front-runner to respond.

His primary opponent, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie has seen his steady, well-funded campaign for governor all but drowned out recently by Stewart’s rage over the effort to remove Confederate statues from public spaces, which Stewart has said is proof that “ISIS has won.” Their primary clashes have been more over style and political correctness than any particular issue.

Gillespie still has the edge. “Corey has labeled himself as Trump’s Mini-Me, but the mojo ain’t there,” Shaun Kenney, the former executive director of Virginia’s Republican Party, said earlier this year. But it remains to be seen whether Stewart has damaged the GOP brand for the general election.

Other polished exemplars of the establishment have struggled to set themselves apart.

Handel, a fixture of state politics, has seen suburban voters in her district, which has been in Republican hands since 1979, grow so uneasy about Trump that her once unknown Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, has taken the lead in polls.

Ossoff has seized on Trump’s decision to fire James B. Comey as the FBI director investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race.

But for some Republican contenders, Trump has been a model — nowhere more so than in deeply red Montana. Gianforte, a wealthy businessman, touted his full-throated support for the president and pledged to “drain the swamp” in his campaign against Rob Quist, a country music artist.

Gianforte’s election-eve outburst capped weeks of frothing frustration within the ranks in Montana and elsewhere about scrutiny of Trump and Republicans in the media, with the Trump-friendly candidate reacting physically and angrily to a question from Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs.

Ryan, who has labored to swing the spotlight away from GOP missteps and toward his agenda, criticized Gianforte’s actions and said, “There is no time a physical altercation should occur.” But he did not rescind his endorsement and, along with other Republicans, plodded forward Thursday reluctant to delve into a character debate. “I’m going to let the people of Montana decide,” he said.

The Republican lurch away from running highly disciplined, by-the-book campaigns on curbing spending and stoking economic growth is, in part, the evidence of how fully Trump has upended the party. Republicans haven’t abandoned the views and positions they have cultivated since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, but instead appear unable to focus on them.

Trump’s barrage of news-making and controversy drives the GOP even at its lowest levels, with his raucous populism and blustering behavior reshaping its identity. Candidates often are either adopting aspects of his persona or finding themselves having to fitfully explain why they back him despite them. Coupled with a national conservative media complex that sears the press as much as it does Democrats, they are navigating a highly charged and volatile environment.

Fox News, the network beloved by Republicans, has also found itself dealing with the right’s disruptive fury and questions of conduct, even among its high-profile hosts. Sean Hannity has been criticized and lost advertisers for promoting a conspiratorial account of the slaying of a former Democratic National Committee staffer. Hannity has reacted by charging that “liberal fascists” were conspiring to cripple his career.

Some advocates for the press say that the culture Trump has created within his party is responsible and has had a cascading effect on the way 2017 campaigns have unfolded.

“Before the 2016 campaign, we could at least expect civility from candidates and their staffs,” Lucy A. Dalglish, the dean of Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, said. “Trump has declared open season on journalists, and politicians and members of his Cabinet have joined the hunt.”

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, added: “By casting the press as the enemy of the American people, Donald Trump has contributed to a climate of discourse consistent with assaulting a reporter for asking an inconvenient question.”

For Democrats, the GOP disarray presents perhaps the ripest opportunity for a blue political wave in over a decade, especially if the Republicans are alienating suburban professionals and independents.

In Georgia, for instance, Democrat Ossoff is running not as a vocal young progressive but a thoughtful, middle-of-the-road and careful Democrat. Republicans Gillespie and Handel are shying away from Trump-style theatrics.

Democrats, who are in the midst of their own political tug-of-war between progressives and centrists, have not yet been able to translate the Republican scandals and Trump tiffs into convincing wins.

Ossoff nearly captured the Georgia seat last month, but did not garner enough votes and the race went to a runoff.

Yet there have been flashes of opportunity: Democrats won two special state legislative elections this week in New York, with one of the pickups coming in a district that Trump won.

In early April, Republicans fended off a strong Democratic challenger in ruby-red Kansas in this year’s first special House election, following last-minute support from Trump and Vice President Pence. Republican Ron Estes won by eight percentage points; two years earlier a Republican had won the seat by 31 percentage points.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey’s gubernatorial campaign, the two leading Republicans running ahead of a June 6 primary — Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli — are dealing with the cloud not only of Trump but of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), whose tumultuous leadership and bridge-closing scandal has left the state GOP fractured and been a burden on the Republican hopefuls.

Longtime watchers of Trump do not expect him to speak out against Gianforte or to urge his party against the politics of bellicosity.

They recalled that he fiercely defended his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, when he was accused last year of grabbing a female reporter’s arm. Trump himself once said of a protester at one of his campaign rallies: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”

In the Trump era, it is far from clear what is over the line — or even if a line exists any more.

“There is a total weirdness out there,” Sanford said. “People feel like, if the president of the United States can say anything to anybody at any time, then I guess I can too. And that is a very dangerous phenomenon.”

 

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I disagree with Bonner (yes I know I spelled his name wrong).  TT is a disater on all international front as well.  However I never thought I'd agree with him on anything.  He sees TT for what he is.. a "complete disaster.”

Boehner: Trump’s term ‘disaster,’ aside from foreign affairs

Quote

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former House Speaker John Boehner says that aside from international affairs and foreign policy, President Donald Trump’s time in office has so far been a “complete disaster.”

Speaking at an energy conference Thursday in Houston, Boehner praised Trump for his approach abroad and his aggressiveness in fighting Islamic State militants, according to the energy publication Rigzone.

“Everything else he’s done (in office) has been a complete disaster,” the Ohio Republican said, according to the publication. “He’s still learning how to be president.”

Boehner said he’s been friends with Trump for 15 years, but still has a hard time envisioning him as president. He also said Trump shouldn’t be allowed to Tweet overnight.

David Schnittger, a spokesman for Boehner, confirmed the comments on Friday.

According to Rigzone, Boehner said that the Republican tax reform effort “is just a bunch of happy talk” and that the border adjustment tax — a major priority for Boehner’s successor, Speaker Paul Ryan — is “deader than a doornail.” He said he was more optimistic about tax reform earlier in the year, but “now my odds are 60/40.”

Earlier this year, Boehner said he was pessimistic about another congressional Republican priority — repealing and replacing former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Boehner said that while Republicans would fix some problems of Obama’s law, repeal and replacement is “not going to happen.”

He added, “Republicans never ever agree on health care.”

The GOP-led House narrowly passed a bill earlier this month. The Senate has struggled to produce legislation that all in the GOP can back.

On investigations into Russia, Boehner told the Texas forum that “they need to get to the bottom of this” but said Democratic talk of impeachment is the best way to rile up Trump supporters.

Boehner made it clear he’s happier now that he’s left Capitol Hill.

“I wake up every day, drink my morning coffee and say, ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,'” he said, according to Rigzone.

And unsurprisingly, Boehner said he doesn’t want to be president.

“I drink red wine. I smoke cigarettes. I golf. I cut my own grass. I iron my own clothes. And I’m not willing to give all that up to be president,” he said.

 

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1 hour ago, onekidanddone said:

I disagree with Bonner (yes I know I spelled his name wrong).  TT is a disater on all international front as well.  However I never thought I'd agree with him on anything.  He sees TT for what he is.. a "complete disaster.”

Boehner: Trump’s term ‘disaster,’ aside from foreign affairs

 

I saw that article and thought the same thing. It's a sign of how bad things are that I am nostalgic for the days of weepy Boner. (sp)

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I can't lie, I drunk tweeted him twice because I didn't realize I would miss him when this hot mess of an asshole was going to be in power.

Also I've realized with the media now that people really need to stop interviewing as well as reporters saying anything remotely positive because some reporter mentioned how Trump didn't eff up too much on foreign affairs which of course he has, but he needs to be stop being complemented for anything.

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1 hour ago, candygirl200413 said:

Also I've realized with the media now that people really need to stop interviewing as well as reporters saying anything remotely positive because some reporter mentioned how Trump didn't eff up too much on foreign affairs which of course he has, but he needs to be stop being complemented for anything.

Hold the phone..who said TT didn't screw up on the foreign trip? It feels like half the people in this country are stoned out their minds thinking this orange menace is anything but a total shit weasel. 

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RE: That  fucker who just won the seat in Montana...did you see that moron woman talking about "we forgive you" as he was apologizing for punching the reporter? WTF? Did he break her glasses? Stupid fundigelical doesn't have standing to forgive the freakin' bully! I hate this shit!

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6 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

Hold the phone..who said TT didn't screw up on the foreign trip? It feels like half the people in this country are stoned out their minds thinking this orange menace is anything but a total shit weasel. 

I saw a few reporters on MSNBC who were justifying his work. It's makes me so mad!!

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"America is about to face a major hostage situation"

Spoiler

How do you know when the country is really in trouble?

When you’re rooting for Goldman Sachs alumni to have more influence in the White House.

A debt-ceiling showdown is fast approaching, and the health of the global financial system is at stake. U.S. Treasury bonds are seen as the safest of safe assets; even the smallest insinuation that we might not make good on these IOUs could set off a chain reaction of panic and chaos throughout the world.

This is precisely why the debt ceiling so often gets taken hostage, of course. Every year or two, Congress has to raise the federal debt limit so the government can continue paying the bills it has already incurred. And every year or two, wily, attention-seeking politicians see this as an opportunity to make demands in exchange for their votes.

The hostage-taker is sometimes the minority party and sometimes rogue members of the majority party desperate to raise their profiles (looking at you, Ted Cruz). Sometimes those voting against a debt-limit increase are merely grandstanding, knowing full well that they can free-ride on the more responsible members who will vote for it.

As stressful and costly as these debt-limit showdowns have been, to date there have always been grown-ups around — a hero or two to rally the necessary votes and rescue the world from the brink of disaster.

This time, though, there are a lot of aspiring hostage-takers and precious few heroes.

Technically, we already hit the limit in mid-March, when the Treasury Department began using “extraordinary” accounting measures to allow the government to keep paying its bills a while longer. This tactic had been expected to work until October or November, when the limit would again need to be raised.

In the past few days, however, Trump administration officials have said that tax revenue has been coming in much lower than expected. This is possibly President Trump’s own fault; high earners and companies may be deferring income until next year in anticipation of a big fat tax cut, as they’ve done before.

Whatever the cause, the result is that we’re going to run out of money sooner than anticipated — possibly as soon as late summer or early fall, given recent comments from the White House.

Already members of the House Freedom Caucus have declared their intention to hold the debt-ceiling bill hostage unless their demands are met.

They “demand that any increase of the debt ceiling be paired with policy that addresses Washington’s unsustainable spending by cutting where necessary, capping where able, and working to balance in the near future,” the caucus, composed of far-right Republicans, said in a statement.

Democrats have said they would support a “clean” debt-ceiling increase, meaning they would vote for a bill that did nothing but raise the limit. When push comes to shove, though, it’s not clear they have strong incentives to save the Republican majority from its own infighting; some Democrats might believe it’s in their interest to let Republicans create a crisis.

Meanwhile, the White House, too, has given mixed signals on what it wants to do about the debt limit.

During the campaign, Trump was shockingly open to a federal debt default. After all, this “King of Debt” has long viewed his own bills as an opening bid that he can negotiate downward. He argued that he could do the same for the country’s debt and persuade creditors to accept less than what they’re legally owed.

“I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed you could make a deal,” he told CNBC last year.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney — a House Freedom Caucus alumnus, as it happens — has also been distressingly cavalier about safeguarding the country’s creditworthiness. As a congressman, he voted against raising the debt ceiling four times and publicly questioned whether it would be so terrible if we stopped being able to pay all our bills.

Other administration officials, thankfully, have taken a different approach.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn both once worked for Wall Street financial behemoth Goldman Sachs and therefore well understand what’s at stake and how perilous even a flirtation with default might be. This week Mnuchin testified that he, like the Democrats, wants a “clean” debt-ceiling bill, which he urged Congress to pass before its August recess.

Who will ultimately have the president’s ear, in the weeks or days leading up to the exhaustion of those “extraordinary” accounting measures, remains to be seen. For the sake of the global financial system, let’s hope it’s a bunch of hopelessly out-of-touch one-percenters.

This is beyond scary.

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44 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I know. We have been watching this closely. Even if the debt ceiling is raised I fear we are headed for yet another government shutdown which means we don't get paid. We are prepared and do have some savings but it still makes things very difficult for us when it happens. It really irritates me that defaulting on debt and/or shutting down the government is seen as a viable negotiation strategy.

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On 5/26/2017 at 7:01 PM, SilverBeach said:

RE: That  fucker who just won the seat in Montana...did you see that moron woman talking about "we forgive you" as he was apologizing for punching the reporter? WTF? Did he break her glasses? Stupid fundigelical doesn't have standing to forgive the freakin' bully! I hate this shit!

I share your outrage. :angry-cussingblack:

I was talking to my husband about the assault, and said that I wondered how many fans Gianforte would have picked up if the Guardian reporter had been a liberal woman. My husband shook his head no, and proceeded to try and make a case that conservative voters would be offended by a man assaulting a woman.

I reminded him that the "bus tape" was Trump's confession of sexually assaulting women, and while he did end up losing some supporters, 81% of voters who identify themselves as white evangelical Christians ended up voting for Trump. If Gianforte had "put a liberal woman in her place", Trump voters would have cheered, while people like Paul Ryan hid in the nearest corner. :pb_sad:

 

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Resistance is something for all ages:

‘I don’t want to be associated with him’: 100 eighth graders refuse to pose with Paul Ryan during DC trip

Quote

About 100 eighth grade students refused to pose with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Friday, snubbing the top Republican to protest his policies.

Though Ryan’s official Instagram features a photo of him waving to a group students from South Orange Middle School in South Orange, New Jersey, it does not show their peers sitting in a park lot across the street, in an apparent rebuff of the GOP leader.

“It’s not just a picture,” student Matthew Malespina told ABC News. “It’s being associated with a person who puts his party before his country.”

When he learned of his school’s impending photo op with Ryan, Malespina texted his mother he’s “just not going to do it.”

“The point was, ‘I don’t want to be associated with him, and his policies and what he stands for,’” Matthew’s mother Elissa Malespina said.

 

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@fraurosena this children are honestly our future. No matter how my southeastern pa self makes fun of jersey, these kids are my absolute favorite.

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@fraurosena -- I saw an article about those kids and actually shouted YES! I'm glad they are learning to stand up for what they believe in.

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"Why Republicans are so bad at health care"

Spoiler

Republicans have had seven years to figure out how they want to replace Obamacare, and this is what they've come up with: a plan that, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would lead to 23 million more people not having insurance and, in states that wanted to, sick people being burdened with much, much higher costs.

Maybe they needed eight years?

The real question here is why. Why weren't Republicans able to put a plan together that people actually, you know, like — theirs is polling in the low 20s — and why did it take so long? And the answer is pretty simple: Republicans are philosophically opposed to redistribution, but health care is all about redistribution. For a long time, they tried to wish that away, and it was only when that wasn't an option anymore that they moved on to Plan B: trying to pass the least redistributive bill they can before anyone noticed how much it doesn't redistribute.

That last part isn't working so well.

Now, if we could start from scratch, Republicans would like our health-care system to work the way Singapore's does. Everyone would have catastrophic insurance to protect against true medical emergencies and then use health savings accounts to pay for routine care out of pocket. It's not just that this would make people pay their own way as much as possible. It's also the idea that making them do so would make them shop around for the best deal.

There are two problems with this, though. First, as economist Ken Arrow pointed out long ago, picking the right medical care is a lot different from picking the right car. People don't know enough to be good comparison shoppers, and they're not going to scrimp when their health is on the line. But second — and more importantly — we don't have the low health-care costs you need to make all this work. Singapore's government, you see, has been able to keep costs down because it owns most of the country's hospitals, it employs a lot of the doctors, and it subsidizes cheaper treatments to try to get people to choose them. The result is that they spend only about 5 percent of their GDP on health care compared with the 18 percent we do. Which is really all you need to know about why their system works for them but wouldn't for us. It's a lot easier to pay for their own health care when that costs three or four times less what it does here.

How have Republicans dealt with this? Well, for the most part, they haven't. They still want people to use HSAs, to pay higher deductibles, to have more “skin in the game” that will supposedly turn them from patients into consumers — never mind that that would just price a lot of people out of the market altogether. That's actually a feature, not a bug. Health care is only a major priority for Republicans insofar as they can make it redistribute less money. So while conservative wonks might be focused on trying to make the health-care system more of a free market, conservative politicians are more interested in what that means for their tax cuts.

Just look at Trumpcare. It's only a health-care bill to the extent that it takes health care away from the poor and middle class to pay for a tax cut for the rich. Indeed, over the next decade, it would cut Medicaid by $834 billion and health-care subsidies by $276 billion, all to finance a trillion dollars' worth of tax cuts mostly benefiting wealthy investors.

But that was still too redistributive for the far-right House Freedom Caucus. They didn't just want to stop the rich from having to pay for the poor. They also wanted to stop the healthy from having to pay for the sick. So they added an amendment that would allow states to opt out of Obamacare's basic rules. Insurance companies wouldn't have to charge people with preexisting conditions the same as people without them, and could sell plans that didn't include “essential benefits” such as hospitalizations, mental health and maternity care. That would allow young, healthy people to save money by buying bare-bones plans, while older, sicker people would have to pay more for theirs since they'd be the only ones buying those types of comprehensive plans. The insurance market, in other words, would bifurcate. Healthy people would buy affordable plans that didn't cover a lot, and sick people would try to buy unaffordable ones that did — until they couldn't. Republican Mark Meadows, who more than anyone else pushed for these changes, was reportedly reduced to tears when he found out that they'd mean a lot of people with preexisting conditions would lose their coverage, which makes you wonder what he thought they were doing.

The rest of the GOP sure knew.

This sentence says it all: "And the answer is pretty simple: Republicans are philosophically opposed to redistribution, but health care is all about redistribution"

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12 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Remember that show "Are You Smarter than a Sixth Grader"?  Well a bunch of eighth graders are smarter than Paul Ryan.

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15 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Why Republicans are so bad at health care"

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This sentence says it all: "And the answer is pretty simple: Republicans are philosophically opposed to redistribution, but health care is all about redistribution"

I suspect that, fundamentally, there is a very scary portion of the population that does not or cannot think to the point of understanding. "Insurance" (regardless of the type) = spreading the risk. it never meant/means that whatever problem will, or is more likely to, skip the people paying for the insurance. This is the case whether it is "life" insurance, automobile insurance, homeowner's insurance, or - you guessed it - HEALTH insurance.

I have paid for automobile insurance for as long as I have owned cars. Only 2 times in four-plus decades has my insurance had to pay out. In a simplified, explanation, those 2 times, my personal $$ were limited to my relatively low deductible instead of thousands of dollars - that I wouldn't have easily been able to access in short order.

Same deal with health insurance: It is spreading the risk. Hopefully, this year, I won't have some horrible illness that costs more money than I make in a year (or, in a lifetime of working). I (and in my case, my employer) pay our $$ and the insurance pays out for those who do have catastrophic illness, plus it pays for me for less severe needs once I have paid my deductible/copays. Aside: A major difference between car insurance and health insurance is that I may go decades without needing to use some of my car insurance, but I never go a year without needing to use some of my health insurance. So health insurance costs - somewhere, somehow - more dollars.

Spreading the risk ("redistribution"). The basic definition of insurance.

Somewhere along the way - many of the politicians, and a significant part of the population, have forgotten the basic definition.

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16 hours ago, apple1 said:

I suspect that, fundamentally, there is a very scary portion of the population that does not or cannot think to the point of understanding. "Insurance" (regardless of the type) = spreading the risk. it never meant/means that whatever problem will, or is more likely to, skip the people paying for the insurance. This is the case whether it is "life" insurance, automobile insurance, homeowner's insurance, or - you guessed it - HEALTH insurance.

I have paid for automobile insurance for as long as I have owned cars. Only 2 times in four-plus decades has my insurance had to pay out. In a simplified, explanation, those 2 times, my personal $$ were limited to my relatively low deductible instead of thousands of dollars - that I wouldn't have easily been able to access in short order.

Same deal with health insurance: It is spreading the risk. Hopefully, this year, I won't have some horrible illness that costs more money than I make in a year (or, in a lifetime of working). I (and in my case, my employer) pay our $$ and the insurance pays out for those who do have catastrophic illness, plus it pays for me for less severe needs once I have paid my deductible/copays. Aside: A major difference between car insurance and health insurance is that I may go decades without needing to use some of my car insurance, but I never go a year without needing to use some of my health insurance. So health insurance costs - somewhere, somehow - more dollars.

Spreading the risk ("redistribution"). The basic definition of insurance.

Somewhere along the way - many of the politicians, and a significant part of the population, have forgotten the basic definition.

I don't think they have forgotten.

I don't know if it's the same in the US but here if you crash your car and it's your fault, in the following years insurance premiums will increase for you. To have lower premiums you need to demonstrate that you are a low risk driver and not a liability on wheels. On the other hand if you are simply an unlucky driver who is the victim of someone else's recklessness your insurance premiums won't see any rise.

They want to apply this model to healthcare and, being the sanctimonious bible thumpers they are, they are convinced that when something bad happens to your health it's your fault because you did or didn't do something right, didn't pray enough etc. According to the model above then you are wrong and a greater risk and a liability you need to pay more or do without insurance. 

The difference is that without a car you can walk, cycle or take public transportation (till when they'll cut that too), but if you are without healthcare you can die.

They can't distinguish between a person's worthiness as a driver and a person's intrinsic worthiness as a human being. They can't understand the ethical nature of the necessity of affordable healthcare. Their ethics say that human intrinsic worthiness is not enough to make healthcare necessary regardless of wealth and personal moral standings.

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@laPapessaGiovanna

Of course, the analogy only goes so far. And (depending on the state; some states use a different model called "no fault"), yes, car insurance rates do rise if you have recurring claims (most insurers, not from just one) or traffic tickets, etc.

BTW Where I live, public transportation is pretty much nonexistent. No car, you are left with walking (BTW no sidewalks...)

It's still helpful to look at the issue as spreading the risk, IMO. Part of the issue, IMO, is that they don't want to see the need to spread the risk. Again, JMO.

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I agree with you @apple1 that they have a problem with the concept of spreading the risk. I just think that their problem isn't that they forgot how the model works but that they want the possibility to choose with whom to spread the risk. They want to classify lives on the basis of worthiness and risk. But this is ethically unacceptable, for me and for you and for anyone with a bit of conscience and compassion.

Theirs is an ethical fault not a logical one, imho. This is the reason for their approach appeals to simpler people, black and white thinkers and religious dogmatists. Because it's easier for them to follow the logic of it than to follow the nuanced complication of an ethical approach.

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Something I find very surprising is that the US didn't introduce even a minimal national insurance scheme for healthcare at any point. In the UK, the precursor of the NHS (established in 1948) was the National Insurance Act of 1911, which provided primary care for workers by an employer and employee contribution.  New Zealand was the first country to have a fully comprehensive system, by 1941. Most of Europe followed, and today there are countries with universal healthcare at some degree on all continents.

So it's not a new idea - it's been around for over one hundred years. And in all cases, the percentage of GNP spent on healthcare is dwarfed by that spent in the private market of the US, but reaches all the population. Some countries, such as the UK and Australia, offer the chance to buy extra insurance on the private market, to allow for avoiding waiting for appointments with specialists, scheduling surgery at your own convenience, private rooms etc - but the cost is minimal compared to the US.

It seems that there is almost a fear that if there is universal care, your personal care will be detrimentally affected. I really don't believe that to be true, but I do believe it to be an argument put forward by those who oppose universal health care.

Quite honestly, the only honest argument against universal health care is that it will decrease insurance and pharmaceutical companies' profits. There is no ethical argument against it.

OT @laPapessaGiovanna Your command of English continues to amaze me!

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I just read in the WaPo comments that buried in

Quote

the CBO scoring of trumpcare is a special $3 bn in savings. It comes from people dying at an earlier age under that bill.  

WTF? Is that true? I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.

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4 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

I just read in the WaPo comments that buried in

WTF? Is that true? I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.

My son said the other day: the Republicans are trying to eliminate poverty by exterminating the poor. If your quote is true, then it's a prime example of that theory. :pb_sad:

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