US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2963

The woman inside the ambulance was miscarrying. That was clear from the foul-smelling fluid leaving her body. As the vehicle wailed toward the hospital, a doctor waiting for her arrival phoned a specialist, who was unequivocal: the baby would die. The woman might follow. Induce labor immediately.

But staff at the Mercy Health Partners hospital in Muskegon, Michigan would not induce labor for another 10 hours. Instead, they followed a set of directives written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that forbid terminating a pregnancy unless the mother is in grave condition. Doctors decided they would delay until the woman showed signs of sepsis – a life-threatening response to an advanced infection – or the fetal heart stopped on its own.

In the end, it was sepsis. When the woman delivered, at 1.41am, doctors had been watching her temperature climb for more than eight hours. Her infant lived for 65 minutes.

This story is just one example of how a single Catholic hospital risked the health of five different women in a span of 17 months, according to a new report leaked to the Guardian.

The report, by a former Muskegon County health official, Faith Groesbeck, accuses Mercy Health Partners of forcing five women between August 2009 and December 2010 to undergo dangerous miscarriages by giving them no other option.

All five women, the report says, had symptoms indicating that it would be safest for them to deliver immediately. But instead of informing the women of their options, the report says, or offering to transfer them to a different hospital, doctors – apparently out of deference to the Mercy Health Partners’ strict ban on abortion – unilaterally decided to subject the women to prolonged miscarriages.

As a result, the report claims, several of the women suffered infection or emotional trauma, or had to undergo unnecessary surgery. None of the women were pregnant beyond 24 weeks, when an infant can survive outside the womb.

The report has not previously been made public. And it offers a disturbing look at how religious restrictions may interfere with emergency care. Catholic control of US hospitals has ballooned in the last 15 years, and with it, patient advocates warn, the risk that the US Bishops’ bans on abortion, contraception and sterilization will prevent thousands of women from receiving critical healthcare. A 2013 tally found that 381 out of 3,786 of the country’s hospitals were Catholic, meaning they followed the Bishops’ rules for healthcare.

Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, sat at the head of a conference table in the New York office of Clinton donor and Wall Street investor Marc Lasry, according to accounts from people in the room. Joining them for the state-of-the-race conversation over coffee were members of the campaign’s finance steering committee, including Maureen White, the former Democratic National Committee finance chairwoman, Alan Patricof, Michael Kempner, Robert Zimmerman, Betsy Cohen, Jay Snyder and others.

Mr. Mook told the donors that the outcome in Nevada, a state he ran for Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 campaign, was hard to predict and that, depending on turnout, Mrs. Clinton could win by a lot or win or lose by a tiny margin, according to several donors who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting. But Mr. Mook stressed that the map leaned in Mrs. Clinton’s favor as the race moved to South Carolina, where he was confident she would win, and that she would do well on March 1, when more states voted.

The collected fundraisers, who for years have bundled checks for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, listened approvingly as Ms. White, who seemed especially frustrated, expressed bewilderment that the campaign’s mobilization of grassroots support had been eclipsed in the news media by Bernie Sanders’s criticism of Mrs. Clinton as the establishment candidate representing big money.

On February 19 2016 06:44 Leporello wrote:
This isn't in response to anyone, so I apologize for wanting to start my own tangent. But this is a rant I've long had and shared with people, and I'd like some perspective on it.

This shows the top tax rates in the U.S. for the past ~100 years:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=543

+ Show Spoiler +

And this, obviously, is a timeline of our National Debt.

Reagan's tax cuts were quite drastic, in that the last time the top bracket paid below 40% was... The Great Depression.

The 40's, 50's and 60's are considered America's best decades, economically speaking, in terms of how drastically we grew. We also kept tight control of our nation's budget.

The top tax bracket was paying 91% in those times. Ninety-one-fucking-percent. Granted these taxes were "provisional", meaning the 90% tax rate would only apply to income accrued within or above that bracket (similar to the style that Sander's is proposing). But... small difference. The point is anyone who made a million dollars back then was paying the vast majority of it to the Federal government.

So, by conservative logic, no one should have bothered becoming a millionaire, and our economy should've stagnated and decayed. But... the opposite happened.

Since Reagan's tax cuts, the National Debt has continually climbed. No President since Reagan, even that Commie Obama, has raised taxes over 40%. It's really all been Reaganomics, all day, every day, for the past 36 years.

Doesn't it just make fucking sense to do what we did in our nation's greatest days. I mean jumping right to 90% is a bit extreme and would be too rough on the system, I'm sure. But we should, you know, start the trend at least.

I don't know how anyone looks at our nation's tax history, and could come to any other conclusion besides "raise taxes".

I'd love to know what a conservative here thinks of our nation's tax rates in the 20th Century, and how they reflect on today. Were we "socailst/communist" throughout most of the 20th Century? And if so, well, wasn't that kind of a good thing?

On February 19 2016 06:44 Leporello wrote:
This isn't in response to anyone, so I apologize for wanting to start my own tangent. But this is a rant I've long had and shared with people, and I'd like some perspective on it.

This shows the top tax rates in the U.S. for the past ~100 years:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=543

+ Show Spoiler +

And this, obviously, is a timeline of our National Debt.

Reagan's tax cuts were quite drastic, in that the last time the top bracket paid below 40% was... The Great Depression.

The 40's, 50's and 60's are considered America's best decades, economically speaking, in terms of how drastically we grew. We also kept tight control of our nation's budget.

The top tax bracket was paying 91% in those times. Ninety-one-fucking-percent. Granted these taxes were "provisional", meaning the 90% tax rate would only apply to income accrued within or above that bracket (similar to the style that Sander's is proposing). But... small difference. The point is anyone who made a million dollars back then was paying the vast majority of it to the Federal government.

So, by conservative logic, no one should have bothered becoming a millionaire, and our economy should've stagnated and decayed. But... the opposite happened.

Since Reagan's tax cuts, the National Debt has continually climbed. No President since Reagan, even that Commie Obama, has raised taxes over 40%. It's really all been Reaganomics, all day, every day, for the past 36 years.

Doesn't it just make fucking sense to do what we did in our nation's greatest days. I mean jumping right to 90% is a bit extreme and would be too rough on the system, I'm sure. But we should, you know, start the trend at least.

I don't know how anyone looks at our nation's tax history, and could come to any other conclusion besides "raise taxes".

I'd love to know what a conservative here thinks of our nation's tax rates in the 20th Century, and how they reflect on today. Were we "socailst/communist" throughout most of the 20th Century? And if so, well, wasn't that kind of a good thing?

On February 19 2016 07:00 Simberto wrote:
If you are looking for places to cut spending, i would suggest not going out to invade or bomb other countries for random reasons that don't make any sense at all, just to destabilize a whole area of the world.

On February 19 2016 07:02 GreenHorizons wrote:


Then the military industrial complex gets cranky and our snickers budget goes through the roof...

On February 19 2016 07:02 GreenHorizons wrote:


Then the military industrial complex gets cranky and our snickers budget goes through the roof...

So who’s the big winner? Dare I say everyone, and here’s why: MSNBC may have finished third both in the demo and total viewers, but here’s some context: That 341k in the demo is 50 percent higher than MSNBC’s numbers the night before (All In with Chris Hayes, 223k) and about 45 percent higher than the night before that.

If MSNBC sat idly by and didn’t put the Trump event together at the last minute, it’s likely a 4-to-1 audience ratio victory for CNN. But Trump gave the network a relatively significant boost and undoubtedly ate into CNN’s audience. Because remember: CNN averaged over 900k in the demo for its previous two political Town Hall specials. And while 629K is still quite impressive and wins the night, it is noticeably down if using that 900K as a gauge… and likely because MSNBC created the GOP counter-programming it did. Again, context.

This is pretty remarkable. Sources close to the Bush campaign are beginning to leak about a call last night. I’m told the Bush team is out of money. Pay for campaign staff will end on Saturday. The campaign is all but over.

Additionally, after having hundreds of millions of dollars on hand, the Bush Super PAC has less than $15 million from what I am being told.

What a waste.

Ironically, if Bush really wants to have an impact on the race, given that his campaign is broke, he should publicly get out of the race today. This would be like Rich Perry in 2012, who got out, cast his support to Gingrich at the last minute, and saw Gingrich storm into first place in South Carolina.

Bush could be the king maker if he gets out today.

His campaign is broke, staff is being told they will not be paid after Saturday, and Bush could shake things up significantly if he gets out now.

The first thing you should know about Gerald Friedman, the economist suddenly at the center of a wonk-storm over Bernie Sanders’ policy proposals, is that he does not actually support Bernie Sanders for president.

He likes Sanders. And he has written, in consultation with the Sanders campaign, an analysis that projects Sanders’ ambitious domestic agenda would raise economic growth to as high as 5.3 percent per year, yielding sustained income gains for the middle class.

But Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says he’ll vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.

“I support Clinton,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “I donate $10 a month to Clinton. I remember the woman who said, women’s rights are human rights. I think she did a great job as secretary of state. I agree with Bernie on economic issues, but there are other issues.”

On February 19 2016 06:44 Leporello wrote:
This isn't in response to anyone, so I apologize for wanting to start my own tangent. But this is a rant I've long had and shared with people, and I'd like some perspective on it.

This shows the top tax rates in the U.S. for the past ~100 years:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=543

+ Show Spoiler +

And this, obviously, is a timeline of our National Debt.

Reagan's tax cuts were quite drastic, in that the last time the top bracket paid below 40% was... The Great Depression.

The 40's, 50's and 60's are considered America's best decades, economically speaking, in terms of how drastically we grew. We also kept tight control of our nation's budget.

The top tax bracket was paying 91% in those times. Ninety-one-fucking-percent. Granted these taxes were "provisional", meaning the 90% tax rate would only apply to income accrued within or above that bracket (similar to the style that Sander's is proposing). But... small difference. The point is anyone who made a million dollars back then was paying the vast majority of it to the Federal government.

So, by conservative logic, no one should have bothered becoming a millionaire, and our economy should've stagnated and decayed. But... the opposite happened.

Since Reagan's tax cuts, the National Debt has continually climbed. No President since Reagan, even that Commie Obama, has raised taxes over 40%. It's really all been Reaganomics, all day, every day, for the past 36 years.

Doesn't it just make fucking sense to do what we did in our nation's greatest days. I mean jumping right to 90% is a bit extreme and would be too rough on the system, I'm sure. But we should, you know, start the trend at least.

I don't know how anyone looks at our nation's tax history, and could come to any other conclusion besides "raise taxes".

I'd love to know what a conservative here thinks of our nation's tax rates in the 20th Century, and how they reflect on today. Were we "socailst/communist" throughout most of the 20th Century? And if so, well, wasn't that kind of a good thing?

On February 19 2016 06:50 Gorsameth wrote:
The world is a vastly different place. It is a LOT easier to move somewhere else now then it was 40 years ago. The rich already make extensive use of tax havens and loopholes. No one country can raise taxes that high, the rich will simply move somewhere else.
The trick is to find the high point where the rich pay a lot but low enough that it is not worth leaving.

On February 19 2016 07:42 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
HUGE if true.



Source

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/700314216188768256