US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8205

On July 27 2017 09:42 crms wrote:
What is the consensus on this Scaramucci guy? From what I saw earlier he was a very, very vocal anti-Trump guy and is very successful in his own right. Why is he now shilling for Trump and sacrificing most (if not all) of his own personal integrity?

What's the deal?

On July 27 2017 09:02 mozoku wrote:
There's no two year delay on the skinny repeal? I assumed there was still, and they were going to make into a real bill before it went into action.

Are they really going to put forward a "plan" that has no cohesive framework? That sounds like electoral suicide. There's now way that'll pass.

That said, I'm still trying to figure out why the media assessments of these focus on the change in the number of uninsured patients. Obamacare is literally mandatory insurance; of course the new plan is going to have the number of uninsured rise. The point is to make give patients them the choice of whether they want to purchase health insurance and to make the system more efficient.

I'm not at all claiming that the GOP bill does that or that's necessarily the correct way to go (my relatively uninformed opinion is that the ACA seems preferable), but comparing the bills by number of uninsured is still a totally slanted way for the media to cover the healthcare bills.

On July 27 2017 09:42 crms wrote:
What is the consensus on this Scaramucci guy? From what I saw earlier he was a very, very vocal anti-Trump guy and is very successful in his own right. Why is he now shilling for Trump and sacrificing most (if not all) of his own personal integrity?

What's the deal?

If anything has been predictable in the chaos of the early Trump presidency, it’s the unstinting support he has received from Breitbart News.

Until now.

In recent days, Trump has attacked the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on Twitter and in an interview with the New York Times over his recusal from oversight of the investigation into Trump’s possible Russian connections. As a result, there has been widespread speculation that Trump might fire his attorney general, or that, faced with an untenable position, Sessions might resign.

Trump’s public attacks on Sessions seem to be alienating the website that gave him his chief strategist Steve Bannon, and helped him into the White House.

And on Tuesday, Breitbart bit back.

Adam Shaw skewered Trump’s “hypocrisy” in calling Sessions “weak” on legal moves against Hillary Clinton, reminding readers that Sessions was “one of the vital pillars of Trump’s immigration agenda”. He argued that Sessions has been responsible for “some of the most significant achievements of Trump’s young administration”, such as pushing the “Muslim travel ban” forward, and coming down hard on sanctuary cities.

Another article went into more detail about Sessions’ alleged achievements in office, promoting his prosecutorial crackdown on illegal immigration as well as his winding back of Obama-era restraints on local law enforcement.

So why is Sessions such an untouchable figure in the eyes of Breitbart?

Dan Cassino, a political scientist and expert on conservative media, says Breitbart is protecting Sessions because “he is a trusted broker for people on the far right on immigration”. On top of Trump’s failure to address totemic election promises, such as a border wall, Trump’s shots across Sessions’ bow are seen as “an indication that the nationalist wing – including Bannon – is losing influence in the White House to new players like [White House communications director] Anthony Scaramucci”.

Joseph Lowndes, a political scientist at the University of Oregon and the author of a book about modern conservatism, says Breitbart’s latest take reflects the fact that while Trump’s early presidency has been hemmed in by Congress, the courts, federal agencies and its own incompetence, the attorney general’s office is one of the few areas where the administration has been able to “step on the gas” and deliver “the red meat of Trumpism”.

But he notes that Breitbart’s affection for Sessions goes deeper, and speaks to shared values.

In the half-decade following founder Andrew Breitbart’s death – mostly under Steve Bannon’s tutelage – the website has adopted a harder line on immigration. Lowndes says they “saw [Sessions] very early on as their kind of politician”, an unbending Washington outsider with a “distinct whiff of white nationalism”.

Sessions first came to national prominence when his prospective appointment as a federal judge was blocked after former colleagues said he had made racially charged remarks while working as a prosecutor. He arrived in Washington in 1997 as only the second Republican Alabama senator since Reconstruction.

Politically active from the late 1960s, Sessions was, according to Lowndes, a member of the “first generation of southerners who moved into the GOP instead of the Democrats”, and is representative of the moment the modern right took “a sharp racial turn”.

Since the election of George W Bush, however – when the GOP sought to soften its image as the party of white America – Sessions’ politics saw him relegated to the margins of Senate politics.

“There’s a certain rectitude in his commitments – from racially inflected law-and-order policies, to harsh restrictionism on immigration,” Lowndes said.

This inflexibility made him a minor player until the rise of Trump, who he supported early and to whom he gifted a staffer, Stephen Miller, who helped hone Trump’s project and message. Now, Lowndes says, “alt-right people embrace him. They see him as a principled nativist.”

Both Lowndes and Cassino agree there isn’t much Breitbart can do if Trump decides to fire their man. Cassino says “if – or when – Trump fires Sessions, there will be some hand-wringing, but when push comes to shove I can’t imagine them abandoning Trump”.

Lowndes compares their position to the evangelical right during the Reagan years, who complained constantly about the raw deal they were getting but who really had nowhere else to go. He says that if Sessions is sacked, “Breitbart will hammer away at him for it, but while he’s in office, their power to discredit Trump is diminished”.

Beyond Breitbart, other erstwhile loyalists are seriously questioning Trump – some for the first time.

Primetime Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted Trump on Tuesday night, saying the attorney general had been “humiliated” by his boss. He argued that Trump dumping Sessions would only please the left.

Influential talkshow host Mark Levin, formerly a Ted Cruz guy who has warmed to the president, also called on Trump to back off. On Facebook, he praised Sessions effusively: “He was the first senator to endorse you. He campaigned for you. He left the Senate to serve you.”

Whether or not Trump fires Sessions, at least a few of his media supporters haven’t strayed. Alex Jones remains loyal as a puppy, and his Infowars outlet is preparing the ground for Sessions to go by calling him “ineffective”.

How long can he keep dividing his most ardent supporters and failing to address their concerns? We may find out sooner than we expected.

On July 27 2017 09:44 Gorsameth wrote:

Are they going to put forward a plan with no framework?
Have you been paying attention to what they have been doing for the last 7 years?
They do not have a plan. Its a shocker I know but we have known they do not have a plan for years now. Healthcare in the US has come close to a total collapse several times during recent years where a Supreme Court decision in the other direction would have left the country with nothing.

And the focus on number of uninsured makes a lot of sense. People need healthcare, with or without insurance because we as a society no longer accept that people should be left to die in the gutter because they can't afford emergency care.
So the ER saves them for free. Which is totaly not free but many times more expensive then timely medical care and everyone ends up picking up the tab because the hospitals raise their prices to cover ER costs.

Plus health insurance works by having the largest possible risk pool. So that healthy young people end up paying more then they use so that sick old people can get the aid they need. And then when those youngsters inevitably get old the next generation is there ect.
If you only have sick people on health insurance the premiums skyrocket. Thats why every plan that scraps the mandate shows a MASSIVE premium increase. often up to higher then peoples actual income.

Every other western nation, all of which have better and cheaper healthcare for the average Joe then the US, have mandatory health insurance for a reason.

On July 27 2017 10:22 KwarK wrote:
It's possible that the Democrats aren't trying as hard to come up with ideas for how to repeal and replace Obamacare deliberately.

On July 27 2017 10:22 KwarK wrote:
It's possible that the Democrats aren't trying as hard to come up with ideas for how to repeal and replace Obamacare deliberately.

On July 27 2017 10:23 Plansix wrote:
The democrats have plans. This process is specifically designed to exclude them and the public. You don't get to blame them this time around. Obamas gone. The democrats are not in power. The GOP straight up pitched you something they couldn't deliver. You only have yourself to blame for believing they had a plan beyond cutting 32 million people's healthcare.

On July 27 2017 10:17 mozoku wrote:

How many policy plans have the Democrats come up with since November? I can tell you. Zero. Because that's what opposition parties do. They oppose. It makes no political sense to outline policies while you're an opposition party. Attacking the other party is sufficient to win elections. Putting out your own policies is only a vulnerability. This isn't unique to Republicans, no matter how much your partisan slant wants you to believe it is.

On July 27 2017 10:22 KwarK wrote:
It's possible that the Democrats aren't trying as hard to come up with ideas for how to repeal and replace Obamacare deliberately.

On July 27 2017 10:27 mozoku wrote:

Last time I checked, the general consensus on the Left is that Obamacare needs work. I don't recall hearing them putting any specific proposals forth though. Weird, huh? I wonder why an opposition party would not dedicate a significant share of its resources to policy research when they're sitting on the legislative sidelines and there's an election next year.

Nah, only Republicans focus on politics. Democrats are out there for the warm feelies obviously, so we can rest assured they're hard at work coming up with ways to save the world. /s

On July 27 2017 10:34 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
Ben Cardin tried to propose his own health care bill and literally nobody cares.

On July 27 2017 10:32 Plansix wrote:

Do you have even the slightest understanding how legislation is created in Congress? The democrats cannot add amendments to this bill. They don't have the votes....

Edit: I will lump you in with whatever groups of poorly informed political whiners I please. Your claim that the democrats have no ideas is either idiotic or you just don't pay attention.