US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7095

On March 10 2017 16:19 KwarK wrote:
IgnE, I know people who donate plasma weekly including an unemployed homeless vet who I helped rebuild his entire life. It's really not so bad. You can put vampiric in italics all you like but just because blood is involved doesn't mean vampires are involved. As for the alleged health problems, it's certainly better for your health than not having health insurance. If we return to our friend Chaffetz saying that people should make better decisions if they want health insurance, if it comes down to plasma or going uninsured, do the plasma.

As for learning a second language, I'm currently working on my Spanish on top of my multiple jobs and school. A few hours a week of Memrise and watching dubbed Futurama, it's not so bad. Literally the only skill you need to pick up a language is the wiring of the brain that happens the first time you pick up a language as an infant. Everybody has it. After that it's just exposing yourself to it. I live in a bilingual state, second language Spanish is a huge bonus, if you can't find a job in New Mexico and you're not trying to learn Spanish then you're not looking for a job.

I don't expect everyone to do as much as I do, but it baffles me that you expect so little of them. The world isn't out to fuck you, it's out to get something from you. You can complain about that as much as you like but until it changes you should look to see what it is the world wants that you can provide. You can't create the systems but you can control the choices you make within them.

When Donald Trump delivered his first address to Congress 10 days ago, sticking dutifully, for once, to the teleprompter, the media praised him for sounding statesmanlike and presidential. But one person, sitting in a front row seat just a few feet away, thought differently.

Bernie Sanders was growing more aghast with every sentence. Then, when Trump began to talk about the environment, the 75-year-old independent senator from Vermont nearly laughed out loud. Earlier that day, the president signed an executive order that gutted federal controls against the pollution of rivers and waterways. Now he was standing before US legislators pledging to “promote clean air and clear water”.

“The hypocrisy was beyond belief!” says Sanders, still scarcely able to contain himself. “To talk about protecting clean air and water on the same day that you issue an order that will increase pollution of air and water!”

Sanders’ Senate office in DC has an untouched quality, as though the rocket launcher that propelled him last year from relative obscurity to credible contender for the White House has left no trace. The office walls display quaint photographs of his home state – a field of cows labeled Spring in Vermont – and there’s a bookshelf stacked with distinctly Bernie-esque titles such as Never Give In and The Induced Ignorance of Power.

Sanders sweeps into the room wearing a casual sweater. His white hair is tussled, and he has the distracted look of someone dragged away from concentrated study. But when we start talking, he is immediately transfixing. In a flash, it is clear why so many have felt the Bern: because he feels it so intensely himself.

“These are very scary times for the people of the United States, and … for the whole world. We have a president who is a pathological liar. Trump lies all of the time.” And Sanders believes the lying is not accidental: “He lies in order to undermine the foundations of American democracy.” Take his “wild attacks against the media, that virtually everything the mainstream media says is a lie.” Or Trump’s denigration of one of George W Bush’s judicial appointees as a “so-called judge”, and his false claims that up to 5 million people voted illegally in the election. Such statements, which Sanders calls “delusional”, are meant to lead to only one conclusion, he says: “that the only person in America who stands for the American people, who is telling the truth, the only person who gets it right, is the president of the United States, Donald Trump. That is unprecedented in American history.”

He travels even deeper into dystopian territory when I ask what, in his view, Trump’s endgame might be. “What he wants is to end up as leader of a nation that has moved a significant degree towards authoritarianism; where the president of the United States has extraordinary powers, far more than our constitution has provided for.”

Sanders is well into his stride by now, conducting the interview with great waves of his arms, punching out words in that distinctive Brooklyn-Vermont growl. It’s impossible not to be drawn in by a man who comes across as this authentic.

Sanders occupies an exalted pedestal in those politics today. In 2016 he won 23 primary and caucus races to Clinton’s 34, notching up 13 million votes. Given the odds stacked against him – Clinton’s establishment firepower; the skewed weighting of the “superdelegates” that tipped the primaries in her direction by reserving 15% of the votes for the party establishment; and the cynical efforts of the party machine through the Democratic national convention to undermine Sanders’ campaign by casting aspersions on his leadership abilities and religious beliefs, as revealed in the Russian-hacked WikiLeaks emails – that was no mean achievement.

If he had won the nomination, would he have beaten Trump? I feel a blowback to the question even as I pose it. Sanders’ body language expresses displeasure as crushingly as any verbal putdown: his face crumples, his shoulders hunch, and he looks as though someone is jabbing him with needles. “I don’t think it’s a worthwhile speculation,” he says. “The answer is: who knows? Possibly yes, possibly no.”

Moving swiftly on. Did he anticipate the result on election night, or was he as shocked as many others when Trump began to sweep rust belt states such as Michigan and Wisconsin – states, incidentally, in which Sanders also defeated Clinton in the primary/caucus stage? “I wasn’t expecting it, but it wasn’t a shock. When I went to bed the night before, I thought it was two-to-one, three-to-one that Clinton would win, but it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, there’s no chance Trump could do it’. That was never my belief.”

Sanders’ sanguine response was rooted in his familiar critique of modern capitalism – that it has left the US, alongside the UK and other major democracies, vulnerable to rightwing assault. This is how he connects Trump with Brexit, and in turn with the jitters gripping continental Europe ahead of elections in France and Germany – common manifestations all, he believes, of the ravages of globalization.

Hill conservatives were just handed the opening they’ve been waiting for: An invitation from President Donald Trump to “negotiate” on an Obamacare replacement.

There’s just one big problem: They’re all over the place on what they want.

The discord on the far-right is becoming a real problem for Republicans. Allies of GOP leadership say Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his team can’t assemble a bill that can pass the House if conservatives keep moving the goal posts on what exactly it will take to secure their votes.

In the end, they might end up getting nothing at all because of the disunity, some GOP lawmakers speculated. And several even believe conservatives will vote for the bill despite their complaints and demands for change this week.

“You only get something if you coalesce around it and pledge your vote if you get it,” said one senior Republican lawmaker close with leadership. What’s happening now, the source continued, is “why they are so unsuccessful.”

Talks of amending Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) Obamacare replacement come as Trump told conservative groups Wednesday night that he might be open to changes. On Thursday, Trump met with House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and vice chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Vice President Mike Pence has been in touch with Republican Study Committee leader Mark Walker (R-N.C.)

On Capitol Hill, discussions between conservatives and leaders about what might be changed are ongoing — but it's far from clear where those early negotiations will end up.

That's because conservatives appear to want different things. On Wednesday night, Rep. Walker told reporters that he could get to 'yes' on the bill if leadership accepted two changes: One that would phase-out the current Medicaid expansion this year or the next instead of on Dec. 31, 2019; and another that would alter the structure of health care tax credits created in the bill.

The next morning, the RSC group as a whole asked for another change: the addition of work requirements for non-disabled adults receiving Medicaid. The press release announcing the request also mentioned the group's support for phasing out the Medicaid expansion sooner, but gone was the mention of tax credits, which are still a big issue for the Freedom Caucus.

“We’re a ‘yes’ if we get both of them and we are ‘lean-yes’ if we get one of them,” Walker told reporters Thursday afternoon of the Medicaid changes. “We’ve got to remember that these programs should be measured by how many people we’re transferring off — not how many people we’re transferring on.”

Members of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus, however, said those changes don’t go far enough to win the group’s backing.

“Different members have different concerns, so I think it will be something that appeases some but not others,” said HFC member Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), another Freedom Caucus member who authored the work-requirement amendment the RSC is backing, agreed that his amendment alone wouldn’t be enough to win over the caucus.

“I think it’s a lump of sugar for a three-lump coffee drinker,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be two, three, four or one member” who votes for the bill because of his amendment, he added.

GOP leadership is in a tricky spot. Each time they offer a concession to the right, they lose some moderate Republicans in the center. They can only afford to lose 21 Republican votes and still pass the bill — given that no Democrats will support it — so each proposed change must answer one question: Does it help or hurt the count?

Meanwhile, some conservatives still aren't sure what they need to get to yes. Outside the chamber Thursday afternoon, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), the newest Freedom Caucus member, complained that the House replacement includes a backdoor version of Obamacare’s despised mandate to obtain insurance: a 30 percent premium surcharge for people who go without health insurance for two months.

“I don’t want another mandate, and there is a 30 percent penalty!” he railed.

Asked if a change to that particular measure would mean he’d vote for the bill, he balked: “No, because there are a number of things that just aren’t appropriate.”

Meeting with Trump Thursday afternoon, HFC leaders Meadows and Jordan floated another potential compromise: blowing up Senate rules. The conservatives argued that GOP leadership was being too cautious when it comes to rules governing the Senate’s fast-tracking procedure. So-called reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass bills by simple majority instead of the typical 60-vote threshold, is only allowed for provisions that produce significant cost savings.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could get around that, they told Trump, allowing leadership to load up the bill with provisions that might not score as big savers but Republicans believe grow the economy. The Senate could vote by simple majority to bypass the chamber's parliamentarian ruling against a provision deemed to have no change on spending, they noted.

Many senators have long argued against such a strategy, warning it would blow up the very foundation of their chamber, which the founders intended to be a slower, more deliberative body.

“I think everyone’s got a list of things they’d like to see in this bill,” said HFC member Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) when exiting a caucus meeting Wednesday night.

On March 10 2017 23:11 farvacola wrote:

In keeping with Artisreal's point, adjudging the relative difficulty of learning a second language is an awful lot like doing the same relative to competently fixing a car, baking a delicious souffle, or, to put my legal tinge on things, drafting a successful motion for summary judgment. How people become "good" or even "competent" at such things draws on so many variables that it's important to discount any sort of accompanying extrapolation unless one confines it to circumstances narrow enough to potentially render the entire operation futile. Give me an American man willing to go hungry and desperate enough to learn Spanish like an illegal immigrant learns English and I'll show you how easy it is to learn Spanish as an American

The long-awaited GOP health care bill finally unveiled this week strikes an immediate blow to Medicare funding, accelerating a solvency crisis that health policy experts say could open the door to even more devastating cuts down the road.

By repealing a payroll tax on high earners that provided a critical additional revenue stream for the Medicare trust fund, the GOP's proposed American Health Care Act would speed up the fund’s exhaustion by as many as three to four years, according to estimates from health care policy experts.

“It’s clear, simple and undeniable that this bill would aversely affect the solvency of Medicare,” Paul Van De Water, a Medicare expert at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told TPM.

Critics say this provision is a prime example of the GOP bill granting tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the country’s neediest citizens, and that it paves the way for Medicare privatization. One former Obama administration official argued that by endangering the program’s funding, so-called “entitlement hawks” like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) will have cover to argue that Medicare as we know it is financially unsustainable—then realize their long-held dream of turning it into a voucher program.

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services during the last two years of the Obama administration, has been ringing this bell loudly since the AHCA was made public Monday night.

“I think it’s a smarter play for them to move Medicare closer to a crisis, try to get this bill done, and then build a case about why this crisis needs to be addressed,” he told TPM in a Thursday phone interview.

Ryan's office and the Energy and Commerce Committee referred questions to the Ways and Means Committee.

A spokesperson at Ways and Means did not immediately respond Thursday to TPM's request for comment.

Shoring up Medicare solvency was a key focus of the Affordable Care Act, and experts including Paul Ginsburg, director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Health Policy, told TPM that those efforts were an unqualified success. Before Obamacare's enactment, the Medicare trust fund, which is used to reimburse hospitals for treatment provided to seniors, was expected not to have enough funds to fully cover benefits beginning around 2016. The ACA’s 0.9 percent tax on individuals earning more than $200,000 (or more than $250,000 for those filing jointly), as well as reduced payments to hospitals and private insurers under Medicaid Advantage, are credited with significantly extending the solvency deadline. In the ensuing years the insolvency deadline was pushed back as late as 2030, due to a variety of factors, and by 2016 it had settled in at 2028, according to the most recent Medicare trustee report.

The AHCA repeals that 0.9 percent tax, resulting in a predicted loss of $117 billion in revenue over the next 10 years and accelerating when the Medicare trust fund would not be able to pay out full benefits. A Brookings Institution report from December that assessed the repeal of the payroll tax concluded that Medicare would begin falling short of funds at the end of 2024, nearly four years sooner than if the tax remained in place. The Brookings report was based on the Medicare trustee's expected insolvency date.

A separate January analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget also found the repeal of the Obamacare payroll tax would accelerate Medicare insolvency. That CRFB report was based on a CBO estimated date for Medicare insolvency that is different from the Medicare trustee's projection.

The hit to Medicare has been buried among coverage of the bill’s effect on Medicaid, which bears the brunt of spending cuts, but some senior groups and Democratic lawmakers have drawn attention to it.

In a Wednesday letter to House GOP leaders, AARP senior vice president for governmental affairs Joyce Rogers voiced “serious concerns” about the payroll tax repeal, cautioning that it could “diminish Medicare’s ability to pay for services in the future.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, released a letter he received from Slavitt highlighting the accelerated insolvency deadline, and accused President Donald Trump of violating his pledge to protect Medicare benefits.

“This bill breaks a clear Trump promise not to harm Medicare,” Wyden said in a statement. “In addition to the bill’s many other harmful provisions, it gives a tax break to the wealthy and steals directly from Medicare’s coffers. Raiding Medicare like this will create an unnecessary crisis that threatens the health care of tens of millions of seniors who count on the program."

The tax repeal also compounds a looming demographic crisis posed by the millions of baby boomers approaching retirement age. Those Americans aged 55-64 who are not yet Medicare eligible were already expected to put a huge strain on health care costs as they aged.

Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center, told TPM that addressing this demographic issue will require either raising taxes and dramatically increasing efficiency in care, or having the government “play a smaller and smaller role in Medicare and providing health care for the elderly and the poor.”

“None of those are particularly attractive scenarios,” Joyce added.

Given that this age group makes up a significant portion of the GOP base, as well as the spiraling effect the tax cut could have, opponents of the AHCA say Medicare’s fiscal sustainability should be central to public criticism.

“I think it needs to be a focus,” Slavitt said. “This is a big issue for Medicare beneficiaries and particularly anyone who is not a Medicare beneficiary today but plans to be one sometime in the future.”

On March 10 2017 23:11 farvacola wrote:

In keeping with Artisreal's point, adjudging the relative difficulty of learning a second language is an awful lot like doing the same relative to competently fixing a car, baking a delicious souffle, or, to put my legal tinge on things, drafting a successful motion for summary judgment. How people become "good" or even "competent" at such things draws on so many variables that it's important to discount any sort of accompanying extrapolation unless one confines it to circumstances narrow enough to potentially render the entire operation futile. Give me an American man willing to go hungry and desperate enough to learn Spanish like an illegal immigrant learns English and I'll show you how easy it is to learn Spanish as an American

On March 11 2017 01:14 chocorush wrote:
Reliant on some sort of welfare and are faced with choices like working more and losing benefits.
.