The have-not states are the Republican's base. I think I'm ok letting all the voters in those states suffer the consequences of what they voted for and letting the blue states have humane health care.
Unfortunately keeping those voters sick and dumb allows them to also win electoral colleges....
And letting the voters suffer is a viewpoint I dislike. Even in the most republican of states 30+% voted for democrats.
First, ProPublica has done an outstanding job the past year or so. Big ups to them. Second, I imagine one of the qualifications of being a Trump lawyer is being insane, petty and crass, so this guy clearly checked all the boxes. This is from Trump's lawyer on the Russia thing to a random stranger online (more in the article). These people are all totally ####ed
Well this might explain a lot: He's such a drunk he might not be able to get a security clearance.
Quote:
As the spotlight on Russia intensifies with new email disclosures that his son, son-in-law, and then-campaign manager met in June 2016 with a Russian attorney who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton, Kasowitz’s lack of a security clearance could hinder the president’s legal and political response to the scandal.
One possible explanation for Kasowitz’s decision not to pursue a clearance: He might have trouble getting one.
In recent weeks, ProPublica spoke with more than two dozen current and former employees of Kasowitz’s firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, as well as his friends and acquaintances. Past and present employees of the firm said in interviews that Kasowitz has struggled intermittently with alcohol abuse, leading to a stint in rehab in the winter of 2014-15.
Several people told ProPublica that Kasowitz has been drinking in recent months. (The vast majority of those who spoke to ProPublica for this article declined to be quoted by name, citing Kasowitz’s penchant for threatening lawsuits.)
Experts on federal security reviews told ProPublica that recent episodes of alcohol abuse are a major barrier to receiving clearance, a process that involves government agents poring over a person’s past and interviewing family, friends and colleagues. Investigators typically raise flags about behaviors that might make someone vulnerable to blackmail or suggest poor judgment.
The one rational argument against Obamacare is that it put a lot of the burden on the middle class who didn't have insurance through their jobs. It forced them to buy more health insurance than they wanted so they would balance out the risk pool. This is the group that makes too much to qualify for subsidies, but were perfectly fine having high deductible catastrophic health insurance. I don't necessarily agree 100% with that argument, but I do think it is at least a legitimate point. If you'd rather take the chances with a cheap, high deductible plan, and can afford the deductibles if you have to, then I can see people wanting that to be an option.
I don't really feel comfortable supporting a Cruz idea, but if the plan is to keep Medicaid expansion as it was, to keep the subsidized plans costing about the same as they do, and offering options on the health care exchange for less coverage, then that is not a terrible idea. I don't know that this plan will necessarily end up looking that though.
The tricky part is going to be able to figure out how to keep the subsidized plans costing the same and offering the same while taking some of the healthy people out of the risk pool. But if it means that burden is shared by the broader tax base vs the much narrower middle class/no insurance through work plan than that is probably a good thing.
I get the points you are making, but I haven't seen anything that Obamacare's stipulation for pre-existing conditions is going away. And I don't think 3) is useless if you are comfortable with a cheap, catastrophic only plan. I am sure it will be set up in a way that you can move to higher coverage at open enrollment periods if you start to think you will need greater coverage.
except for the fact that it is going away.
The reality is that they will be able to set up 2 separate pools; A) one for healty people and B) a "comprehensive" plan for those with pre-existing conditions (ie their needs simply will not be met in plan A)
the GOP can try to spin this, but the reality is its a false choice.
I am free to buy a Aston Martin DB9... the fact that I cannot doesn't make it a voluntary decision on my part.
the pre-existing condition they are really looking to exclude is being poor...
just wait for their tax cut legislation
The fact that this revised bill is still a 50/50 proposition to pass the GOP dominated Senate tells you how much they think of it... and how concerned they are of the fallout from their electorate if they do pass it
edit: the Senate Bill hasn't been released as far as I can see, so it might have changed from the things i've read from the House bill... the Senate hasn't been exactly forthcoming with details on their revised bill
,
Last edited by oldschoolcalgary; 07-14-2017 at 12:18 AM.
I saw someone on another site point out that the day of the meeting was also the first day Trump ever started tweeting about Clinton's 33,000 emails.
Worse yet, the evening before the meeting, he bragged in a campaign rally that he'd have exciting information to share about how crooked Hillary was on Monday
Edit: as pointed out above
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parallex
On the Don Jr. stuff, I can't figure out how to get the GIF of it so I'll like to the tweet where I saw it...
NBC reporting this morning that there was a former Soviet counter-intelligence official at the Trump Jr. "Russian adoption" meeting. Initially it seemed like Eric was going to be the likely Fredo, but as it turns out they're both really the Fredo's of the family.
__________________
"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
So if anyone's still doubting Trump Jr's meeting with Russian lawyer wasn't state sponsored, apparently the meeting was attended by an ex-soviet counter intelligence officer that still had ties to current Russian intelligence.
Quote:
former Soviet counter-intelligence officer was in the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer in June 2016, in which Trump Jr. was promised damaging information on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to a report from NBC News.
NBC said some U.S. officials suspect the former intelligence officer, who was identified as a Russian-American lobbyist, has ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, which he of course denies.
NBC did not name the individual, but it said he denies having any current ties to the Kremlin.
Trump is basically blaming Obama for Trump Jr's communications with the Russians. Says that all this happened because Obama let the Russian into the country. Wtf?
Quote:
President Trump offered a novel defense of his embattled son Donald Trump Jr. in Paris on Thursday. It basically boiled down to this: Trump Jr. is a “young man” who was taken advantage of by a Russian lawyer who wouldn't even have been in this country if it weren't for the Obama administration.
That's an oversimplification of what Trump said, yes, but it's certainly what he was getting at. Let's break down the quote.
“My son is a wonderful young man.”
Donald Trump Jr., it bears noting, is 39. He is the same age, in fact, as the man who was standing next to Trump at that moment and happens to be the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. But this seems to be a talking point. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), one of Trump Jr.'s top defenders, has called him “a very nice young man.” And a close Trump ally told The Washington Post this week that Trump Jr. was “an honest kid” who just wanted to hunt, fish and run the family business.
At the end of his answer, Trump again referred to Trump Jr.'s age: “So, again, I have a son who's a great young man.” The message seems to be that Trump Jr. is inexperienced and was taken advantage of.
Update: Trump just did it two more times, telling reporters aboard Air Force One, "He's a good boy. He's a good kid."
“He took a meeting with a Russian lawyer — not a government lawyer but a Russian lawyer.”
The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, does not hold an official government title, but she has ties to the Kremlin. And she was presented to Trump Jr. as a “Russian government attorney” peddling information from the Russian government in those emails that were released this week. The emails said this multiple times. Put plainly: There was no way Trump Jr. didn't think he was working with the Russian government, based on those emails.
The president then returned to some familiar comments from recent days — about the brevity of the meeting and how prevalent opposition research is — before getting to the Obama part. Here's what he said:
“Now the lawyer that went to the meeting, I see that she was in the halls of Congress also. Somebody said that her visa or her passport to come into the country was approved by Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch. Now, maybe that's wrong, because I just heard about that a little while ago, but I was a little surprised to hear that: She's here because of Lynch.”
Trump seems to be referring to a report in the Hill that says Lynch granted Veselnitskaya entry to this country despite her visa application having been turned down. The report states that Veselnitskaya was granted access “for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.”
So why is Trump bringing this up? Apparently because he wants to argue that this whole situation is, at its root, partially the fault of the Obama administration. There is really no other reason to bring that up. The implication sure seems to be that President Barack Obama and Lynch let this bad person into the country, and look what happened!
That's Veselnitskaya, on June 14, 2016, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on U.S. Policy Toward Putin’s Russia. That'd be a Republican controlled committee, I guess that means it was Republicans that let her into the country then?
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
There are few ideas more closely associated with Donald Trump than his dream of a massive wall along the U.S./Mexico border – which, he’s assured the public, will be financed by Mexico. In a lengthy chat with reporters aboard Air Force One this week, the president made clear that this remains a top priority.
In fact, as the partial transcript shows, it’s apparently a subject to which he’s given some thought.
“One of the things with the wall is you need transparency. You have to be able to see through it. In other words, if you can’t see through that wall – so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what’s on the other side of the wall.
“And I’ll give you an example. As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them – they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over. As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall. But we have some incredible designs.”
As best as I can tell, Trump was being quite serious. When the president says he wants “transparency” in this project, he’s being literal: he wants people to able to see through the border wall, in order to be able to protect themselves from 60-pound bags of drugs that Mexicans will somehow catapult over Trump’s beloved wall.
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The President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen.
Makes sense to me. Can you imagine the lawsuits from the unfortunate bystanders near the wall? IMAGINE! And then you have the whole issue with people failing drug tests because the cocaine fell on their head, happened to a friend of mine in the 80s. Also, the border guards will need good binoculars to watch the drug runners (literally) pitching their wares.
