American Politics 4.0 - Orangeyou Glad He’s Back?

[Locke]

Trump can't even spell 'Tariff' and I'm relatively certain he doesnt understand the economics behind them.

This seems more like regular Trumpian bluff and bluster.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Sounds like after the premiers met with Trudeau that Canada is going to put real pressure on Trump if he puts those tariffs in place. Doug Ford in Ontario has said he will shut off all exporting of hydro to the US from Ontario. That will affect 1.5M homes that will be without power. There are rumblings Quebec is going to follow suit as well. That's a very strong play and I can't see how Trump can follow through on the tariffs on Canada.

You underestimate Trump's willingness to move ahead with things that don't make sense to prove a point!

Especially now that Time Magazine has named him Person of the Year (again).

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Don't worry, Smith is already capitulating and saying we won't cut off O&G to the US. She can't even bluff well to help the cause.

In fairness what good would that do anyways?

I feel slimy defending Smitty...the US refines most of it for us as it is.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Sounds like after the premiers met with Trudeau that Canada is going to put real pressure on Trump if he puts those tariffs in place. Doug Ford in Ontario has said he will shut off all exporting of hydro to the US from Ontario. That will affect 1.5M homes that will be without power. There are rumblings Quebec is going to follow suit as well. That's a very strong play and I can't see how Trump can follow through on the tariffs on Canada.

Not to mention the effect it could have on U.S. manufacturing. It's not like the U.S. can easily or quickly replace it. We export a lot of electricity to the U.S. and consumers there actually pay less for Canadian electricity than Canadian consumers.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

I thought this was a joke, but apparently it's real? Kari Lake in charge of turning VOA into America's version of RT.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1867044228619968612

Its really hard to tell with America these days.

I feel really bad for the guys over at The Onion...'ridiculous news' is a tough gig to compete in these days.

If that had been an Onion article you wouldn't have thought twice. But no. Its real.

Idiocracy was a documentary and its happening now...

I want the film crew from 'Tiger King' to start rolling now and not stop for the next 4 years.

"We're never going to Democratically recover from this...."

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by GGG

There very own CBC

Does incredibly partisan leadership staff the CBC? This would be the equivalent of staffing high level positions with prominent Liberal party members... in fact I can't even think of someone who would be the Canadian equivalent of Kari Lake.

That being said what the everloving #### is Voice of America? Apparently, it has been around since the 40s.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

Does incredibly partisan leadership staff the CBC? This would be the equivalent of staffing high level positions with prominent Liberal party members... in fact I can't even think of someone who would be the Canadian equivalent of Kari Lake.

That being said what the everloving #### is Voice of America? Apparently, it has been around since the 40s.

At the moment all I can envision is that scene from Ace Ventura where he pretends to be talking from his ass.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Locke

At the moment all I can envision is that scene from Ace Ventura where he pretends to be talking from his ass.

Hold on, I'm going to tune into the news. Do I mean CNN, MSNBC, CBS Fox News (ugh), ABC, PBC... or the variety of crap that they put out... like Newsmax, Newsnation, One America News Network, Bloomberg Television, Fox Business News, and the rest of those... Nope. Okay, so it probably means the internet news sources of the same like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times... maybe some hotel complimentary #### like USA Today... Nope, not this... okay so a news magazine like The Atlantic or tabloid fluff like People...

No, I get my news from the Voice of America. You know the news radio? station that seems to primarily serve developing nations and failed states.

It seems absolutely ridiculous that the big push has been for government efficiency and yet this throwback to 1999 internet websites like www.voanews.com are somehow good to go. Seriously the US government doesn't need another mouthpiece, they have most the of the world's attention anyway.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by Locke

Trump can't even spell 'Tariff' and I'm relatively certain he doesnt understand the economics behind them.

This seems more like regular Trumpian bluff and bluster.

Maybe it just resembles 'Tiffany' so much that he doesn't care.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

Does incredibly partisan leadership staff the CBC? This would be the equivalent of staffing high level positions with prominent Liberal party members... in fact I can't even think of someone who would be the Canadian equivalent of Kari Lake.

That being said what the everloving #### is Voice of America? Apparently, it has been around since the 40s.

Ezra Levante?

[ResAlien]

Alright where my concern whores at?

https://apnews.com/article/biden-par...c2776fd73f3cc8

President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

No one will ever be able to trust a Democrat ever again. That's 39 Hunter Biden's pardoned in one fell swoop. May as well open the prisons after this unconscionable abuse of presidential powers

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by BigThief

Undercoverbrother had an almost unsaitable bloodblust when Russia invaded Ukraine, at an uncomfortable level and suddenly he's mister peace when it comes to a CEO whose decisions have benefited only his shareholders while leaving untold others to suffer and die.

The problem isn't the insurance company or it's ceo. It's the system of "for profit" insurance that results in higher admin costs and profits at all. In a non profit system, you can allocate maybe 0.05 per dollar to additional care rather than to profits.

Insurance companies mostly grow profits for shareholders by growing revenues and finding administrative efficiency. You grow revenues by getting more customers which is really just providing the same coverage as a competitor at a lower price. You find administrative efficiencies, but over time this actually accrues as lower premiums to customers. So there's nothing inherently bad with trying to grow these profits within a for-profit model.

Trying to grow profits by denying claims is bad, but fruitless. The higher profits would be competed away into lower premiums. And then customers who want more coverage would pick a higher premium option, which basically leaves everyone back where they started. The denying of legit claims would get you sued and you'd lose many customers to more upstanding insurance companies that honor their coverage.

The reason a lot of claims are denied is because people lack coverage or because they want experimental treatments. If people are constantly paid out in areas where they lack coverage out of benevolence, the entire model of insurance breaks. Economists have won nobel prizes explaining this.

If people experimental treatments are approved, it reduces the money available for tried and true treatments for other policy holders. That requires either higher premiums (to cover the experimental treatments) or less coverage for someone else. Ie a lot of the delay, deny, depose - is just healthcare rationing under a different model. And again, there's nothing inherently wrong with company's doing that in a for profit model.

The majority gripes people have is with the for-profit model, not with companies acting within the for-profit framework. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

And if you want to change the system, then do that. Don't kill people doing their best within the existing system.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by blender

Just a day or two ago in this very thread I was being told the positive change was already happening!
Outdated notions from do-nothings like MLK and Gandhi
are useless today. Murder gets results dammit!

If we're going to invoke MLK, let's also acknowledge that he personally despised people like you and Cliff.

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Article...irmingham.html

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Alright where my concern whores at?

https://apnews.com/article/biden-par...c2776fd73f3cc8



No one will ever be able to trust a Democrat ever again. That's 39 Hunter Biden's pardoned in one fell swoop. May as well open the prisons after this unconscionable abuse of presidential powers

Biden spending too much time with Oprah?

"You get a pardon, and you get a pardon! Everyone gets a pardon!!!"

[Wormius]

Biden should absolutely pardon everybody that got screwed by his “3 strikes” policy in the 1994 crime bill.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

The problem isn't the insurance company or it's ceo. It's the system of "for profit" insurance that results in higher admin costs and profits at all. In a non profit system, you can allocate maybe 0.05 per dollar to additional care rather than to profits.

Insurance companies mostly grow profits for shareholders by growing revenues and finding administrative efficiency. You grow revenues by getting more customers which is really just providing the same coverage as a competitor at a lower price. You find administrative efficiencies, but over time this actually accrues as lower premiums to customers. So there's nothing inherently bad with trying to grow these profits within a for-profit model.

Trying to grow profits by denying claims is bad, but fruitless. The higher profits would be competed away into lower premiums. And then customers who want more coverage would pick a higher premium option, which basically leaves everyone back where they started. The denying of legit claims would get you sued and you'd lose many customers to more upstanding insurance companies that honor their coverage.

The reason a lot of claims are denied is because people lack coverage or because they want experimental treatments. If people are constantly paid out in areas where they lack coverage out of benevolence, the entire model of insurance breaks. Economists have won nobel prizes explaining this.

If people experimental treatments are approved, it reduces the money available for tried and true treatments for other policy holders. That requires either higher premiums (to cover the experimental treatments) or less coverage for someone else. Ie a lot of the delay, deny, depose - is just healthcare rationing under a different model. And again, there's nothing inherently wrong with company's doing that in a for profit model.

The majority gripes people have is with the for-profit model, not with companies acting within the for-profit framework. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

And if you want to change the system, then do that. Don't kill people doing their best within the existing system.

This is nonsense, and not why coverage is denied in most cases. If this were true, why does UH reject claims at twice the industry average?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/...-denial-rates/

The inherently wrong part is you take people's money and tell them you will cover stuff, and then, well, delay, deny and depose. Please tell me again how there is nothing wrong with promising a service for payment, then not doing it?

There is nothing wrong with hating the player that is profiting off of the game. And if that person inflicts enough pain and suffering on you while taking your money, well, Americans have access to guns and tend to care less about laws than most. So maybe they should consider that before ruining lives. Don't hate the player, hate the game, as you say. You don't get to pick and choose where the game starts and ends like that, nobody does.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by Locke

Biden spending too much time with Oprah?

"You get a pardon, and you get a pardon! Everyone gets a pardon!!!"

Yup, like we joked about earlier, they should just make sentences 4-8 years long now, understanding that in 4-8 years time, one of the party's Presidents will pardon you!

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Yup, like we joked about earlier, they should just make sentences 4-8 years long now, understanding that in 4-8 years time, one of the party's Presidents will pardon you!

Don’t worry there are still 1.8 million people incarcerated in the US. I don't think changing sentences is necessary yet.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Don’t worry there are still 1.8 million people incarcerated in the US. I don't think changing sentences is necessary yet.

Well thats just ridiculous, they should just round it up to a nice even 2 million.

I'm sure they can round up some street folks to make up the numbers and they'd get room and board.

[KelVarnsen]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Don’t worry there are still 1.8 million people incarcerated in the US. I don't think changing sentences is necessary yet.

Only 1.8 million?