US national policy issues looming after healthcare?

The massive increase in defense spending, especially on nukes

And a president who has opposed nuclear weapons all his life has wound up asking Congress to fund a new class of ballistic missile submarine, a new stealth bomber, upgrades to the current stock of nuclear weapons, a new cruise missile and billions of dollars of other programs.

Shutting down the EPA would make me happier than repealing Obummercare.

Commentator Tomi Lahren’s time is apparently over at TheBlaze, according to a new report from the New York Post’s “Page Six.”


Glenn Beck’s network suspended the 24-year-old Lahren’s show, “Tomi,” last week after she called anti-abortion conservatives “hypocrites.”


“I’m pro-choice,” Lahren said during an interview on “The View” earlier this month, “and here’s why: I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say I’m for limited government but I think that the government should decide what women should do with their bodies.”

3) Let's face it, some of the issues facing our nation are more important than climbing.

rump's first major policy negotiation was a total failure. Trying to spin it any other way is just ..... Sad!

After five paragraphs of oozing praise, you're out of the closet

You appeal to the gov you got injured working for. When I contacted them about my case- they only wanted to know how I had found their contact info.

The Government is Not a Business and should never be run like one

Government can't create that.

Biden Backs Legislation Preventing $150 Billion of Student Loan Debt from being Discharged or Renegotiated

My opinion is that Trump doesn't give two sh*ts about health care, and the last thing he wants is to spend the rest of his first term getting tied up in knots over how to replace the ACA.

So he's willing to take a black eye (in the view of the public and the pundits) to get it out of his way.

Nut..... buy products that are certified to not contain sh#t you don't like.....

Atom-smashing scientists are unnerved by harsh Trump budget


The president wants the federal government to spend less on science and medicine, saying the cuts would encourage private-sector investment. Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, however, say the U.S. needs federal science dollars to compete with China.

So at least two things I disagree with Bernie Sanders about- raising minimum wage with our present set of global circumstances, and blocking TPP.

OK gang, here is a scary one on the crime and domestic terrorism front:

The River of Blood monument marks a fictional site of the American Civil War, on a golf course owned by Donald Trump.

An Ancient Bloodsport in Modern California
By MIKE MCPHATE


In cockfighting, roosters battle to the death. The fights, banned in California sine 1905, have occured mostly in the Central Valley and along the border with Mexico.

In cockfighting, roosters battle to the death. The fights, banned in California sine 1905, have occured mostly in the Central Valley and along the border with Mexico. Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
Good morning.

In a secluded barn just west of Fresno, the evidence of killing was everywhere — a weight scale, a blood-spattered wall, a wooden fighting ring and dozens of mutilated, dead roosters.
When sheriff’s deputies arrived a couple weeks ago, roughly 100 people scattered, driving off or running through nearby fields.
The deputies arrested four men, charging them in connection with an illegal cockfighting ring.

Cockfighting, an ancient bloodsport, pits roosters against one another in gladiatorlike combat to the death. It’s been banned in California since 1905.

Yet many locations, concentrated heavily in the Central Valley, still raise roosters for fighting, said Eric Sakach, a senior law enforcement specialist for the Humane Society.

Since late last year, news reports have provided accounts of cockfighting operations in Corcoran, East Palo Alto, Santa Maria and Fontana.

The southern border area is another hot spot, in part because of its proximity to Mexico, where cockfighting is allowed. In 2007, the authorities in San Diego’s Otay Mesa, a community along the border, seized more than 5,000 roosters in what was called the country’s largest cockfighting raid.

California has been a destination for cockfighting because it usually regards participation as a misdemeanor, unlike neighboring states that impose felony charges, said Mr. Sakach.

The secretive events are advertised by word of mouth, with codes words sometimes assigned to gain entry. The rooster owners contribute to a purse that can grow to $15,000 or more.

Spectators drink beer and place side bets as the roosters peck and claw each other to the death, aided by blades affixed to their legs. Losers are tossed into a garbage can.

Californians enjoy a number of legal ways to gamble, casinos and horse tracks for example, that don’t involve the possibility of arrest. Why cockfighting?

Mr. Sakach attended cockfights as an undercover investigator. He suggested there was an “adrenaline rush” that came with breaking the law.
But the allure also speaks to a more primal instinct, he said.
“The gambling is a huge factor,” he said. “But the bottom line is the entertainment value of watching two animals slice or stab each other to death is a driver.”

By Ezekiel Emanuel May 5 at 7:51 PM

Ezekiel Emanuel is chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Republicans’ health bill is an act of supreme hypocrisy and insensitivity to the experience of Americans. It will damage — not improve — the U.S. health system.





Obamacare was a failure because it passed with only Democratic votes — so charged Republicans. All through 2009, Democrats tried to get Republicans to engage in discussions about health-care reform. Remember the “Gang of Six” or the “Gang of Eight” that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) ran to try to craft a bipartisan bill? After Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted for the bill in committee, she reversed herself under extreme Republican pressure. Now, given their own opportunity for a bipartisan health reform bill, Republicans passed a totally partisan bill, and they never even tried reaching out to Democrats to see if there could be consensus.



Democrats are giving insurance companies bailouts — so charged Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). The Affordable Care Act contained risk corridors, which were a way to spread the risk across insurers when the exchanges just started and no one knew who would buy insurance. In 2014, Republicans voted to block funding for these risk corridors — a main reason that premiums on the exchanges went up so much in 2016 and 2017. Now, in their own bill, Republicans have included tens of billions of dollars for insurance companies. A bailout? No, Republicans re-labeled this a “stability fund.”


Republicans promised they would never allow insurance companies to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. Well, so much for that. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s (R-Wis.) bill allows states to grant companies the ability to charge exorbitant fees to people with preexisting diseases. The Republican claim that no state will pass such bills is ridiculous. Why have the option then? More important, we know states have done much worse in the past. Remember Arizona denying bone-marrow transplants to patients with curable cancer on Medicaid? Who would have thought that could happen?

And those high-risk pools Republicans claim will protect people with preexisting conditions? They don’t work. Even with Rep. Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) amendment offering an extra $8 billion to the stability fund, the pools would be totally underfunded. Just do the math. Insuring patients with serious illnesses will cost about $10,000 each (a conservative estimate), so Upton’s money covers fewer than 200,000 Americans. Not even a modest fig leaf.

Other Republican axioms: Obamacare is collapsing; the exchanges are dying; premiums are skyrocketing; and a third of counties have only one insurer. Let’s put aside that the Congressional Budget Office and Standard & Poor’s concluded that the exchanges are stable. Let’s put aside that Anthem just announced it is doing well in the exchanges. If they wobble, it is the Republicans’ doing.

A few fixes would enhance the exchanges’ functioning: 1) Enforce the mandate so more healthy Americans buy in the exchanges; 2) guarantee funding for subsidies to consumers so insurance companies can lower premiums; 3) fund the risk corridors and reinsurance payments; and 4) increase targeted advertising so more people know about the subsidies and the requirement to get insurance.

Republicans passed exactly one fix: The stability fund does provide some reinsurance help. But that’s the only thing their bill does to help fix the system. Republicans are undermining and not enforcing the mandate. Republicans decided not to appropriate money for subsidies. And Republicans have severely limited advertising.

This bill will make things worse. It will not improve the number of insured; estimates show that the bill will force tens of millions of Americans to lose coverage.

This bill will increase costs. Cutting essential benefits means people must pay for those uncovered services — whether that’s maternity care, mental-health care or dental care for children. With more uninsured people, hospitals will increase what they charge to cover the uncompensated care they give, driving up premiums. And there is no provision to reduce deductibles.

Most important, this bill has no serious cost control ideas in it. No change in how doctors and hospitals are paid to improve quality and lower costs. No measures to reduce drug prices. No attempts to lower Medicare costs through site-neutral payments — that is, paying the same price regardless of where a procedure is performed — or to prevent hospitals from buying up physician practices to increase their bargaining power and raise their costs.


Republicans promise cost control later, in future legislation. But any additional health-care legislation will require support from Democrats in the Senate. After this hyper-partisan bill, there is no chance a single Democrat will collaborate before the next election.

Desiring to do something, Republicans have only shown hypocrisy and callousness. As polls suggest, they won’t have to wait long to see the repercussions of their actions — only until 2018.

Trump Spurns Congress as He Signals Medical Marijuana Fight
Bloomberg

by Toluse Olorunnipa




President Donald Trump signaled he may ignore a congressional ban on interfering with state medical marijuana laws, arguing in a lengthy statement that he isn’t legally bound by a series of limits lawmakers imposed on him.

Trump issued the “signing statement” Friday after he signed a measure funding the government for the remainder of the federal fiscal year, reprising a controversial tactic former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama used while in office.

Trump also suggested he may ignore gender and racial preferences in some government programs as well as congressional requirements for advance notice before taking a range of foreign policy and military actions.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has vowed to crack down on marijuana and has dismissed arguments for its medical use as “desperate.”

“I reject the idea that we’re going to be better placed if we have more marijuana,” Sessions said in a speech to law-enforcement officials in March. “It’s not a healthy substance, particularly for young people.”

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico now allow for medical marijuana use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Trump argued in the statement that his constitutional prerogatives supersede the restrictions Congress placed on him as a condition for funding government operations.

Power Struggle

Steve Bell, a senior adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said Trump’s signing statement signaled a desire to usurp power from the legislative branch.

“It is the constitutional prerogative of the Congress to spend money and to put limitations on spending,” Bell, a former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee and an aide to former Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, said by phone. “This is an extremely broad assertion of executive branch power over the purse.”

In the signing statement, Trump singled out a provision in the spending bill that says funds cannot be used to block states from implementing medical marijuana laws.

“I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” he said.

Making a Statement

Obama also occasionally released signing statements objecting to congressional restrictions on his authority. The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday on whether Trump plans to abide by the congressional restrictions.

Bell said Trump’s stance on the medical marijuana provision in the bill was at odds with the 10th Amendment, which protects states from federal overreach.

Tim Shaw, a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said that the president is bound by the language in the spending bill that now bears his signature.

“Part of the argument here in this signing statement is that he has the constitutional requirement to execute the law,” Shaw said in an interview. “But this is one of those laws, and Congress has the ultimate authority over funds getting spent.’’

During a “Fox & Friends” interview this morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said it’s only natural that people who are sicker and riskier have to pay more for health insurance -- that's "pricing for what an individual's health status is."
**
Price revealed Republican thinking. In a “free market” for health care, the older and sicker would be charged higher insurance premiums** because they’re more likely to cost more, and the younger and healthier would be charged less because they’re likely to cost less.

Which is why a civilized society doesn’t rely on the free market for determining the price of health insurance.

Colorado just passed a law that would immediately convert all aspects of the industry to "Medical Marijuana" should the feds begin enforcement against recreational use.

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) came under fire Friday after he said that "nobody dies" from a lack of health care coverage at a town hall at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.

Labrador made the remarks the day after the House passed a Republican-sponsored health care bill that, if passed, would repeal and replace significant parts of Obamacare. The Congressman, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was replying to an audience member who was speaking on concerns about the bill's potential impact on Medicaid recipients.


"You are mandating people on Medicaid accept dying. You are making a mandate that will kill people," the audience member said, before Labrador interjected.

"No one wants anybody to die," Labrador said. "You know, that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care."

His comments prompted an immediate outcry from audience members, who began to audibly boo, according to clips shared on social media.

In a Beijing ballroom, Kushner’s sister flogs a $500,000 ‘investor visa’ to the wealthy Chinese

Chinese citizens were urged to invest in a New Jersey real estate project for a chance to immigrate to the United States. But President Trump’s vow to crack down on immigration, as well as criticism from members of Congress, has led to questions about the future of a program known in China as the “golden visa.”

You are soooo unobservant, Ken. Colorado held its nose and voted for HRC.

Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care

Obamacare Repeal Results In Tax Cuts For The Rich; Tax Increases And Lost Insurance For The Rest

The biggest revenue raiser in Obamacare is the net investment income tax, which levies an additional 3.8% surtax on interest, dividend, rent, royalty and passive business income of high-income taxpayers; those earning more than $250,000 (if married, $200,000 if single). Thus, once again, the tax impacts only the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

Texas adoption agencies could reject Jewish, Muslim, gay or single parents

Republican sponsors of bill set to be debated in state legislature next week say it supports the religious freedom of adoption agencies and foster care providers

Macron wins French presidency, to sighs of relief in Europe. With virtually all votes counted, Macron had topped 66 percent against just under 34 percent for Le Pen - a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had suggested

EPA dismisses half of its scientific advisers on key board, citing ‘clean break’ with Obama administration

The move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises the EPA’s key scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity.

"A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast."

35 of 37 economists said Trump was wrong. The other two misread the question.

President Trump's administration says his tax cut will pay for itself. It turns out it's really hard to find an economist who agrees.

Oh yeah, the Deplorables and their staunch comrades the Aryan Brotherhood and the KKK. Fear the Walking Dead.

Better run back to your yacht club, Commodore, and hunker down amongst your peers. Safety in numbers. Maybe you can ask HRC to speak at your annual regatta.

There have been many bad laws in U.S. history. Some bills were poorly conceived; some were cruel and unjust; some were sold on false pretenses. Some were all of the above.

But has there ever been anything like Trumpcare, the health legislation Republicans rammed through the House last week? It’s a miserably designed law, full of unintended consequences. It’s a moral disaster, snatching health care from tens of millions mainly to give the very wealthy a near-trillion-dollar tax cut.

What really stands out, however, is the Orwell-level dishonesty of the whole effort. As far as I can tell, every word Republicans, from Trump on down, have said about their bill — about why they want to replace Obamacare, about what their replacement would do, and about how it would work — is a lie, including “a,” “and” and “the.”

The really important thing, however, is not just to realize that Republicans are breaking their promises, but to realize that they are doing so with intent. This isn’t one of those cases where people try to do what they said they would, but fall short in the execution. This is an act of deliberate betrayal: Everything about Trumpcare is specifically designed to do exactly the opposite of what Trump, Paul Ryan and other Republicans said it would.

If there's one thing about the US presidential election in 2020 that seems a safe bet, it's that for the first time since 1976 (!!), neither a Bush nor a Clinton will be a candidate. (2012 doesn't count.) Thank heavens!

Boy, once again way off base, Ken. Most Deplorables strongly support law enforcement.

Why that healthcare lifetime maximums cap thing is a big deal:

SHARING ENCOURAGED — NO NEED TO ASK


(Credit: Clint Anderson)

"I worked for a large health insurance company throughout the late '90s/early '00s at a time when PPO/HMO policies were our main products; nearly every plan I encountered had some type of clause for preexisting conditions, as well as annual and lifetime maximum payouts.

Most of my employment was spent in the call center dealing with claims and coverage inquiries. It was a pretty boring job, but not without its enjoyable moments — as well as some memories that have stuck with me since then.

One slow evening, shortly before the call center closed for the night (we were located in CST so would stay open later to accommodate our west-coast customers), my headset beeped and I was connected to a customer.
I ran through the standard scripted greeting and introduced myself.
"Umm, hi," a shaky and worried-sounding voice uttered on the other end. "I had questions about this 'maximum' that I guess we met?"
The caller was a manager at some kind of chain restaurant...married, several kids, all covered on a pretty decent PPO policy provided by the company.

I got some basic information to look up the specific letter we'd sent out. It was in regards to one of his children, his only daughter. She had some type of advanced cancer and had been treated for a duration of several years of her short life. I'd imagine that, even after we covered most of the charges at 80% (as long as you see one of our in-network providers!), the remaining 20% resulted in some pretty hefty bills for this working-class family.

Now we weren't paying anything, and Dad wanted to know why.

The lifetime maximum had been attained on that medical policy by that poor little girl. I informed him that we would not pay any more claims for his child due to this. He started sobbing. I fought back tears (at the time I was a new parent, my firstborn Ashlee probably only a few months old at this point).
T
hrough his own tears, he asked how we could do that to them, and how could they ever expect to take care of all the bills that would likely start piling up even more now. I desperately wanted to use my own words — "It's not f*#king fair. Your little girl doesn't deserve this. Nobody deserves this." But I followed protocol, read the policy language as he cried uncontrollably, and then offered to transfer him to a department that might have more specifics (don't you LOVE when we do that when you've already been on hold for an hour?).

He agreed to be transferred, so I put him on hold and contacted the appropriate specialist. I provided all the necessary info, and I was told, "Yeah, that maximum has been met, so we won't pay anything else, but they're not going to be able to insure her on any other policy ever again — hitting a lifetime max is also a red flag to other insurers. You can put the caller through and I'll go over this with him."

I didn't work in that industry for much longer after that day, but it was on that day that I decided I hated the health insurance industry.

I was elated when Obamacare did away with lifetime maximums.
And some of you are elated that they can now be brought back? F*#k you."

Most Deplorables strongly support law enforcement. There are liberal groups, however, like BLM, that may not be so supportive.

Our challenge is to "deconstruct" the identity of Democrat/Liberal and Republican/Conservative and focus on what most people really need and want, and why.

Should food be provided by the government?

serious Q

I am truly curious as to what extent the Government owes US stuff.

ARTICLE 1. Detention of Mentally Disordered Persons for Evaluation and Treatment [5150 - 5155] ( Heading of Article 1 amended by Stats. 1969, Ch. 1472. )

5150.
(a) When a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled, a peace officer, professional person in charge of a facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment, member of the attending staff, as defined by regulation, of a facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment, designated members of a mobile crisis team, or professional person designated by the county may, upon probable cause, take, or cause to be taken, the person into custody for a period of up to 72 hours for assessment, evaluation, and crisis intervention, or placement for evaluation and treatment in a facility designated by the county for evaluation and treatment and approved by the State Department of Health Care Services.

The more the Democrat party pulls issues into the campaign platform and touts them as Democratic ideals, the more it takes away the space for Republican folks to support those issues and makes it less likely that our society will benefit from whatever the Democrats are claiming ownership of. Democrats need to find a way to support issues without claiming ownership of the issues.

I don't think people who are registered Republicans are evil. I do think that the leadership of that party has been hijacked by extremists that peddle fear and hate and focus on the enemy's problems rather than their own solutions, and the dilemma is how people who are deeply tied to Republican identity wrestle with those things.

I am truly curious as to what extent the Government owes US stuff.

If Trump says he fired Comey because he didn't prosecute Clinton

US national policy issues looming after healthcare?

WTF does the FBI have to do with healthcare?

And I think the government, the AMA and The FDA need to start churning out way more doctors than they now do... lets face it- being a doctor is the same as being a union member....a protected class, one way to keep the wages sky-hi is to limit the amount of Doctors practicing. I know that we turn away many many qualified people who could earn the tittle. More Doctors would bring the costs down.

So we're done with healthcare now?

We are the government....but it has been taken away from us my big $$$ interest.

you people don't get it about Trump, he is not a republican.... you forget sooo quickly that they didn't want him at all... but a whole bunch of US voted for him and he got the right mix of support in the geographical places he need to win.

That's called hitting the nail on the head. was always against public financing of elections, I didn't want my tax dollars going to support the campaign of someone I wasn't going to vote for. But I've changed my mind. It's the most important issue today.

FBI Director James Comey's Firing Resembles The Saturday Night Massacre




May 9, 20177:22 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered


President Trump's firing of the FBI director is being compared to the Saturday Night Massacre, which was when President Richard Nixon dismissed independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

FBI Agents Association President Reacts To James Comey's Firing



NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Thomas O'Connor, president of the FBI Agents Association, about President Trump's surprise firing of FBI Director James Comey.

$5979.34

So now that the incompetent bastard has been fired he's not the Evil F*#k That Cost Hillary The Election anymore?

I'm sorry, that's laughable.

I'd of fired that sonofabitch the first day.

DMT

only level headed analysis i've seen so far is krauthammer's on fox news...

how many of you noticed that a couple hours after this story broke, that grand jury indictments in the flynn case were dropped?]

what an unadulterated piece of trash cnn.com and i'm assuming, even though i don't have a cable subscription

only level headed analysis i've seen so far is

Comey sought more money for FBI’s Russia probe days before he was fired, officials say

James B. Comey made the request in a meeting last week with Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and Senate Intelligence Committee members were briefed on the request on Monday.

Kellyanne Conway: It’s ‘inappropriate’ to question timing of firing

how many of you noticed that a couple hours after this story broke, that grand jury indictments in the flynn case were dropped?

the IRS puts white-nationalist groups in the same category as orchestras, planetariums and zoos

The 2016 election saw white nationalists openly and widely champion President Trump, raising their profile in American politics and adding overtly racist voices that were not part of the national dialogue in recent elections.

All of Trump’s campaign statements just vanished from his website. So let’s remember them.


Whatever the reasons for their disappearance, the statements are all preserved in the Internet’s unofficial archives. Here are some of the more memorable statements.

With Comey’s dismissal, the Russia investigation will soon be run by Trump allies

Claude Taylor‏ @TrueFactsStated 2h2 hours ago

There's 25 sealed indictments. Thanks to Comey and the Assistant United States Attorney. Waiting for them to be unsealed-it's when. Not if.

In 1989, she was hired as Assistant U.S. Attorney by Bob Barr for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia

She rose to First Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2002 and to Acting U.S. Attorney in 2004.

On May 13, 2015, the United States Senate voted 84–12 (4 not voting) to confirm Yates as Deputy Attorney General of the United States, the second-highest-ranking position in the Justice Department;[12][13] during her confirmation hearing, when questioned by Senator Jeff Sessions if she would disobey a president's unlawful orders, she responded that she would have an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution, and to give an independent legal advice to the president

"If dedicated government officials deem [Trump's] directives to be unlawful and unconstitutional, he will simply fire them as if government is a reality show."

The New York Times and others drew comparisons to U.S. President Richard Nixon's dismissal of special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre and "some cable networks"[34] began calling Yates's dismissal the "Monday Night Massacre".

Watergate investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, however, speaking on CNN, rejected the comparison.

"There's a big difference, because the Saturday Night Massacre was really about firing the attorney general when Nixon was the target of an investigation and was actively obstructing justice",

Gawd, I hope the sealed indictments are true. Otherwise, it is going to get bad and fast.

......... with the Russians in overturning our election. (or knowledge of it happening)

If you are drawing your conclusion from what you are getting in online versions of print media, your conclusions will be based on days old information.

James Clapper stated there are no Russian ties.
Sally Yates stated there are no Russian ties.
Maxine Waters stated there are no Russian ties.

Hillary, as SOS, made a deal with Russia on uranium.

It is also true that large donations to the foundation from the chairman of Uranium One, Ian Telfer, at around the time of the Russian purchase of the company and while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, were never disclosed to the public. The multimillion sums were channeled through a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation, CGSCI, which did not reveal its individual donors.

Such awkward collisions between Bill’s fundraising activities and Hillary’s public service have raised concerns not just among those who might be dismissed as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

I should have said they were all quoted as saying there is no "evidence" of collusion between Russia and Trump.