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BTW, I have heard Trump, multiple times over the past couple days, say that 'the Democrats are obstructionists, they have no ideas'. This really, really galls me considering what the Republicans did for eight years under Obama. Pot, kettle, kettle, pot.
 
You've gotta admit, it takes some brass to accuse Democrats of unwilling to cooperate after the GOP willingly went out of their way to exclude them from any input into their healthcare bill.
 
namkcuR said:
I know what you're saying, but how much could Pence really change the fate of their legislative agenda? I mean, take healthcare. They don't have the votes. Some senators, if you can believe it, think the bill doesn't cut enough. One or two others, at least, correctly think it goes too far. They don't have the votes. And if you try to go all the way and please the 'doesn't cut enough' people, you lose more moderates. And if you try to make the bill better for the moderates or even, gasp, try to work with Democrats, you lose more conservatives. They don't have the votes because they cannot agree on what should be done and because some senators are afraid for their own political futures. What does Pence change?
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I just wonder if a more skilled politician gets either the moderates or the tea party people to compromise. Not saying Pence is it, as he doesn't strike me as skilled at anything.

I would guess making a deal with the tea party folk would be easier as they seem more secure in their quest for reelection. Moderates seem to have more to lose in this GOP
 
I'm thinking Pence has a better chance of possiblyconvincing enough Senators to pass some kind of RHC bill.

I highlighted possibly because I'm hoping and praying there's enough differences between the more moderate(ish) Republicans, and the Right-wingers & Conservatives to keep from being able to reach a successful vote.

BEAL I'm still partly terrified that drumph could start (the beginning of) some kind of deadly confrontation with a tweet, or some ignorant, spiteful or (insert many other scary possibilities here) comments.l

I don't think that would happen w Pence. Looked up - he's had at least 8 years in The House of Representatives before he became Governor.

Having just checked a bit- Pence while a conservative Evangelical Christian may not be a Dominist which could means he's not the kind to hope for, or (Life forbid( instigate :crack: a Holy War for the Rapture to happen.
 
BEAL said:
So I'm torn on the current mess in DC.

With Trump at the helm, I don't think anything will get done. You have the GOP who are fucking idiots. Seven years they have shouted REPEAL AND REPLACE. They've fucking voted on it how many times?? And when they are in charge they can't do it. And you have a President who has no experience in politics, in law, in policy, fuck it just no experience. He makes deals, excuse me, the BEST deals.

He's been in office for just over six months and has accomplished very little. Give him his partial muslim ban, and a supreme court justice. If you want to count dismantling Obama's legacy and America's standing in the world, I'll give you that.

But maybe it's best we keep this moron in office for the full term? The reason being is if any other GOP candidate was in the office, or let's say Trump is gone and it's Pence, that would bode well for their policies becoming law right? Pence knows how to play the game. He understands Washington, and I think with Trump being so disliked by his own party (behind closed doors, off record) that they don't worry about bucking the administration. If it was an experienced politician we may have lost the ACA by now, and tax cuts would be next.

It's not looking good for tax cuts, infrastructure, the WALL, or any other promise Trump made. Granted, plenty of damage has been done and I still worry with Trump in office we are so likely to blow up another country or start another war over a tweet.

I do believe that Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia. I will also accept the investigation if it finds they did not. It just seems so likely at this point, but unless there are criminal charges against him the GOP isn't going to remove him (which still makes no sense, get your boy Pence in there)

I don't know. Just a rant and random thought to share to get my mind off all the haiku in the new album thread
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The oppositions best bet; back off slightly for awhile, then start bringing out more evidence right around midterms and weaken the GOPs chance of making any gains, then bring out real concise evidence and make it impossible for republicans to not support his impeachment, and then Pence has a year and a half, but with a powerless party so nothing major can be implemented.

And then put forward a strong YOUNG candidate with a message and ignore using the word Trump.
 
Interesting strategy, BVS .


Elizabeth Warren has announced support for a Single Payer healthcare system.


Irving- i read the piece. Interesting. Going to read the piece Vlad recommended. I don't think I know of either writer.

Offhand I'd probably be way more a mixed economy social democracy than something proposed by the ?"Second International " mentioned.

Heavy-handed Socialism and Communism have seem to have skewed too much into authoritarian modes that have also hurt and killed people.

I do not deny <sp> that Lazefaire, Crony, or Uber Coporate Capitalism have also hurt and killed people.

It seems to me a better form (mixed system) of Capitalism or Democratic Socialism is the best of imperfect options.

I remember hearing on public radio some years back about certain Americans in the 1800's warning about Corporatism running amok. Must research.

Oh, yes, and screw you drumph, McConnell & ryan :fist: (among others) - greedy, cruel scumtards!
 
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Literally every bill the GOP proposes is worse than the last. If they repeal ACA, and not replace it 32 million will be without insurance and premiums would double.

Bye bye argument that premiums are bad under obamacare.....

Just fucking find a solution. Public option. Give people the choice to have private or government backed insurance. It shouldn't be this hard? And no solution will be perfect, but the GOP only care about a "win" and removing Obama's name from this country.

This is what you get when both sides don't want to compromise. It's tribalism and each side only cares about a scoring the victory over the other
 
BEAL said:
Literally every bill the GOP proposes is worse than the last. If they repeal ACA, and not replace it 32 million will be without insurance and premiums would double.

Bye bye argument that premiums are bad under obamacare.....

Just fucking find a solution. Public option. Give people the choice to have private or government backed insurance. It shouldn't be this hard? And no solution will be perfect, but the GOP only care about a "win" and removing Obama's name from this country.
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That's what Trump cares about, but the GOP congress ultimately cares most about cutting any government program they can and giving the savings back to the 1% so it can 'trickle down' and then 'grow the economy'.

But what you said applies perfectly to Trump himself. He literally doesn't give a shit about anything, he just wants a win so he can go on tv and give an idiotic speech about how he 'won' and what a 'tremendous' bill it is and all that. That's why he's going from repeal only yesterday back to repeal and replace today. He's just desperately looking for any path to a place where he can go on tv and use the words 'healthcare', 'tremendous', and 'win' in the same sentence.

This is what you get when both sides don't want to compromise. It's tribalism and each side only cares about a scoring the victory over the other
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I have a problem with trying to say that both sides are the same. One side is trying to do something monstrous. How is the other supposed to compromise with that?
 
The Republican party has one structural issue which you cannot change except with a generational and attitude shift which is that they are by design not meant to govern, at least nationally.

This is a bit unusual because it tends to happen in parliamentary democracies which operate on a multi-party basis. So you can have fringe or just-out-of-the-mainstream parties successfully hang around for decades, even winning a lot of seats but never actually being in a position to govern. This in turn allows them to adopt often very popular and populist ideas that sound fantastic but don't necessarily work in practice. They are able to maintain these unrealistic party platforms exactly because they know they'll never have to enact them.

The Republicans have adopted a completely obstructionist opposition party mentality which is incompatible with governance. They are very good at hysterically shrieking from the rooftops about things that will rile up a certain segment of the population but putting that into practice? Forget about it. Kill Obamacare! Great, what's your replacement idea? Crickets. Get rid of immigrants? How? What to do about ones here? How about families? Crickets.
 
McCain went to have a blood clot removed over his left eye. In doing so, the doctors found a brain tumor on the frontal lobe. The area that controls speech. That would explain why he was so incoherent during the Comey hearings. The brain cancer he has is the same type that killed Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden's son.
 
very sad news for McCain and his family. the average life expectancy for someone diagnosed with glioblastoma is about 14 months.

i often disagreed with him, and his foisting of Sarah Palin on the American people was unconscionable, but he also spoke up in defense of Obama when confronted with racist comments from his supporters, which stands in such strong contrast to the present administration and many times, and as he swung from integrity to expediency, he often seemed the only decent Republican in the Senate (or at least decent male Republican). and he was subjected to an incredibly nasty Rove whisper campaign in South Carolina in 2000 when he was running against W.

i sat one row over from him once on a flight from DC to Phoenix -- he sat in coach. he was affable and pleasant to everyone who spoke to him, from someone who let him know that he got his hair cut by the same person who cut's his mother's hair, to the man sitting next to him who kept saying with dutiful sincerity "if there's anything you need, Senator, you just let us know." he also graciously took photos with people who seemed to be tourists, before whipping out his cell phone and pretended to talk to someone so he'd be left alone.

his life story is incredible. i hope he ends it with the dignity and patriotism he showed when he refused to leave his fellow POWs behind at the Hanoi Hilton.
 
Good post, Irvine. I like your story about him on that flight, too. Very cool.

Sad to hear this news, indeed. He and his family have quite the tough road ahead, so I'm sending good wishes and thoughts to them, and hope that they'll be able to handle it all as best they possibly can.
 
Our entire employee benefits team just rolled our eyes en masse when the head of our department came over with his iPad to tell us about Trump's ideas about how health coverage works.

“From the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan,” Trump told the Times.

What a fucking jackass.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/20/16002764/trump-health-costs
 
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I'm just glad we have our top people working on this issue! They clearly understand it inside and out
 
namkcuR said:
I have a problem with trying to say that both sides are the same. One side is trying to do something monstrous. How is the other supposed to compromise with that?
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This.

And tah-daaaah the newly proposed Republican budget will make deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps.
They say the churches and local help will caring for the poor, sick, disabled etc. There aren't enough churches (and other local institutions) to care of that many people!

Waaaay to go :angel: oh-so-virtuous Republicans! :applaud:
:| :crack::crack::crack:
 
Cancer is undeniably awful but it is difficult to have much sympathy for a man like John McCain, given his warmongering ways and propensity to support right-wing extremists. It is fascinating to see how he's been 'rehabilitated' in light of Trump existing, not in a dissimilar way to Dubya.
 
cori ah, another thing that we can feel great about our great President. (What an ignorant man!)

anitram In general on the federal level as far as the Presidency goes - Republicans do not have the national numbers to win an election easily. The majority of people at least lean center-left. This is why, for instance, they took gerrymandering to a hyper level.

Paul Weyrich cofounder of the very conservative Heritage Foundation, and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and The Moral Majority (very rightwing Christian organization) said -

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down"

Thus we now have the latest attack on voting with this Voter Fraud Commission bullshit, along the previous launch of restrictive voter ID laws in the past several years.

The demographics are against them as white people will no longer be the overall majority in this country, and each white generation in general (vs certain pockets geographically or in extremely racist families etc) now is less and less personally racist, and is more aware of systemic racism. Same for though started later so more work to do- LGBTQI issues. Women's equality probably as difficult as above two groups. Also nore people now identify as Spiritual vs Religious- which continues to page the way for serious erosion of very strict religious groups, and increased serious ecumenical outreach amongst progressive Protestant, and Baptist Churches, Reformed Judaism Temples etc I know that because I've been to both a Baptist and Protestant church of those types! :heart:

Sorry, atheists I-landers, I am a spiritual person who also loves science. I'm comfortable with easy-going atheists, not a those who try to shove down my throat how stupid, or superstitious I am . ( this is in general no one has been nasty like that on i-land, oh a little jokey jab is OK from a few folk.


As far as McCain goes... yikes! Scary enough to have had that blood clot above his eye but now this. I may have not liked him a lot of the time, but occasionally he did some good things (good story irvine, and the reminder of him speaking out against his campaign followers is President Obama). Of course his service, horrific imprisonment (and a-- hat trump demeaning him).
Just awful news. (a cousin of mine died from some form of brain cancer around 8 months after diagnosis in 2015)
 
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Vlad n U 2 said:
Cancer is undeniably awful but it is difficult to have much sympathy for a man like John McCain, given his warmongering ways and propensity to support right-wing extremists. It is fascinating to see how he's been 'rehabilitated' in light of Trump existing, not in a dissimilar way to Dubya.
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Oh, come on Vlad, most folks here still say how awful W was as President. But drumph is in certain ways off the charts
 
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[emoji102]
 
What is that a screen shot of Headache?

With Mueller looking into finances of Trump I think thats going to be what pushes him over to fire everyone involved with the investigation.
 
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