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Tuesday Open Thread

I'm done for the day. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

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    Supreme Court: Racial Bias, No Jury Secrecy (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by vicndabx on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 02:50:34 PM EST
    The case arose from statements made during jury deliberations in a 2010 sexual assault trial. "I think he did it because he's Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want," a juror said of the defendant, according to sworn statements from other jurors submitted by defense lawyers after the trial was over.

    The juror, identified in court papers as H.C., was a former law enforcement officer. After the trial was over, two other jurors submitted sworn statements describing what he had said during deliberations.

    WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that courts must make an exception to the usual rule that jury deliberations are secret when evidence emerges that those discussions were marred by racial or ethnic bias.

    NYT Link

    Hopefully a significant step for needed criminal justice reform.

    turn on your tv (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 02:53:12 PM EST
    an amazing thing is happening.  we are plunging headlong into a deep long and searcning debate about what an American deserves as far as healthcare.  
    i heard that this GOP bill is likely to be read by more people than have read a piece of legislation in a really long time. this is good.  young people particularly are paying attention to this.
    its clear from the response of the far right, the sane right and the left that this bill, as written, is DOA.
    what is going to be really interesting is what happens now.
    if the republicans take away healthcare from 15 million of, mostly their, voters 2018 is going to be a good year for Democrats.

    Channeling Chaffetz,,, (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by kdog on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 02:59:42 PM EST
    if ya can afford a TV, ya can afford health insurance you commie free-loader!  Pawn that boob-tube and buy yourself an overpriced but essentially useless healthcare plan with your pawnshop windfall!!!

    Parent
    i just heard Trump say (none / 0) (#6)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:03:33 PM EST
    paraphrase
    we would do this and that but BECAUSE OF THE WAY YOUR SYSTEM WORKS we have to do Obamacare repeal first.....

    wait, what?
    its OUR system, right?

    Parent

    No Sir... (none / 0) (#9)
    by kdog on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:28:48 PM EST
    Blind squirrel Trump found a nut with that statement...he's 100% right.  Our healthcare system and his healthcare system are two very different systems.

    Parent
    thats actually better (none / 0) (#10)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:31:33 PM EST
    than my interpretation which was "system of government".

    Parent
    LOL... (5.00 / 4) (#11)
    by kdog on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:37:42 PM EST
    oh that system...yeah, that's not my system either, I just chip in under threat of arrest;)

    Parent
    Chaffetz,..Chaffetz...? (none / 0) (#12)
    by KeysDan on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:06:45 PM EST
    Oh, now I recall, he is the guy who said after Trump's pussy grabbing incident: "My wife, Julia, and I, we have a 15-year old daughter.  Do you think I could look her in the eye and tell her I endorsed Donald Trump for president when he acts like this and no apology.  That was not apologizing, that was an apology for getting caught."

    The answer, of course, is Yes, he could look his daughter in the eye and vote for Trump.  In fairness, Chaffetz did not endorse Trump, he just voted for him.  No record of how Julia voted, or, if she endorsed.  

     Now, about those irresponsible young people (over 26 years old or not on parents policy) who chose to blow their money on iPhones and such.... You need to join all those fellow, rural "economic anxiety" voters for Trump as you call 911 for your health care.


    Parent

    I find Chaffetz to be ... (5.00 / 1) (#13)
    by desertswine on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:21:49 PM EST
    an extremely repulsive human being. I even have trouble looking at him.

    Parent
    He does have a look about him ... (none / 0) (#17)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:41:06 PM EST
    ... that from my standpoint is indicative of someone who's in dire need of a laxative.

    Parent
    Nor do you have any proof or evidence (none / 0) (#14)
    by Peter G on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:27:04 PM EST
    that he has since looked his 15-year-old daughter in the eye, for that matter.

    Parent
    I'd offer better than even odds ... (5.00 / 2) (#15)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:38:10 PM EST
    ... that young Ms. Chaffetz likely looks at her father and rolls her eyes.

    Parent
    True, (5.00 / 1) (#16)
    by KeysDan on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:39:28 PM EST
    he may well have been studiously voiding his 16-year old daughter--or at least, her eyes.   But, it does appear that he cast his ballot and the eyes have it.  

    Parent
    Errata, (none / 0) (#18)
    by KeysDan on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:46:03 PM EST
    please make that "avoiding".  Voiding belongs in another Trump story having to do with the Moscow Ritz Carlton hotel room and the best hookers in the world, according to Vlad Putin.

    Parent
    the best line oscar nite (none / 0) (#19)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:56:19 PM EST
    was about Trump tweeting during his 5am BMs.

    especially funny because i always check in online at the same daily morning opportunity.

    Parent

    Chaffetz was channeling... (none / 0) (#41)
    by desertswine on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 01:03:26 PM EST
    Marie Antoinette.

    Parent
    No kdog. This is what he said. (none / 0) (#55)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:36:21 PM EST
    Well, we're getting rid of the individual mandate. We're getting rid of those things that people said that they don't want. ... Americans have choices, and they've got to make a choice. So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."

    Read in context he is saying you don't want to be forced to buy or be fined so....now you have a choice. If you choose to buy a new cell phone and not insurance that is your right as wrong headed as it is. The question is, will the advance tax credit keep that from happening. i.e. Will the cost be so low everyone will jump in?

    I think the answer is no. A big slice of the young population, especially on the low pay end, won't buy in no matter how low. And it is that group that is supposed to pay and not use so the old folks can pay and use.

    That's why we need a method of payment that can't be dodged. A federal sales tax does that.

    Parent

    So if someone doesn't have insurance coverage (none / 0) (#57)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:42:50 PM EST
    They should be denied admission to the ER?

    Parent
    No, I didn't say that (5.00 / 1) (#81)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 08:30:58 AM EST
    and I don't believe that.

    I just noted what the man said.

    We have a conundrum. Insurance is the sharing of risks. On one hand the state demands I purchase car insurance to protect others I might injure but it doesn't demand that I protect myself and my family by purchasing health care insurance.

    And to confound things further, if I show up at an ER I can't be turned away. Of course the cost of the treatment is included in the cost of insurance for others because the hospital just adds it to their costs and adjust everyone's prices accordingly.

    How about if I don't buy auto insurance and have an accident the garage/body shop be made to fix my car and then sue for their money?

    What's the difference?

    The difference is that one is a car and  the other is a person. Sympathy for the person says treat'em.

    Yet X percent of people will not purchase health care insurance and some, too many in my opinion, act like it is there right to force the cost of their care on the rest of us.

    To make it even more confusing, many of the poor and working poor can't afford insurance and remain a functioning unit. It's food/shelter or food/insurance or some combination.

    Yet we pay for the treatment of some of non-working poor and  and not of he working poor.

    And yes, people being people, some people will knowingly avoid purchasing healthcare insurance expecting others to pay.

    All of these reasons is why I am for a single payer program paid for by a federal sales tax.

    And yes a sales tax is harder on some than others. But it is fairer than having some folks paying for others insurance. Both car and health care.

    Parent

    What? (none / 0) (#82)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 08:58:13 AM EST
    And yes a sales tax is harder on some than others. But it is fairer than having some folks paying for others insurance. Both car and health care.

    Uhhmmm ... Even with the regressive tax that you want, some folks will be paying for others insurance.  But if you really don't like that, you can denigrate demonstrate your objections by refusing Medicare benefits that we pay for.

    Parent

    Alabama already has a 10% sales tax (none / 0) (#84)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:15:40 AM EST
    State's so freakin poor, but hates minimum wage, hates Obamacare, hanging on by a thread with a 10% sales tax. Even groceries.

    Parent
    I paid every dime that the (none / 0) (#85)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:29:27 AM EST
    contract that the government made with me for Medicare called for.

    And in case you still don't know, Medicare is not free and only covers 80% of the doctor's bill....which can easily reach $100000, or more...

    That's $20,000 out of pocket or a medicap policy to cover the difference. Between Medicare premiums, co pays and Medigap insurance premiums the cost for a elderly couple can easily reach $7,000 a year.

    And I am thrilled that you seem to grasp what I said. Insurance is sharing of risks....costs.

    You want someone else to pay. I am pragmatic. The unstated fairness issue to the middle class working family who is paying for their insurance is the fact that they fear that with a single payer system their taxes will go up.

    That is the single largest objection to single payer. Remove that and "get her done."

    And, of course, you can adjust taxable/non taxable items, say unprepared food as one example...there are others....to reduce the burden on the poor.

    Parent

    None of which (none / 0) (#87)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:55:11 AM EST
    ... changes the fact that you're complaining about the very issue you accuse others.

    You want someone else to pay
    .

    Actually, no.  I want everyone to pay, but unlike you, I don't want to do it on the backs of the poor and lower class.  But it's nice that you're fine with us working tax payers paying for your Medicare, while hypocritically complaining.  

    Parent

    Okay Jim (none / 0) (#83)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:13:35 AM EST
    This mostly Southern perspective where you take no financial responsibility for your healthcare and then show up at the ER one day with nothing but illness had the whole system on the verge of coming down. Obama saved many hospitals right out of the gate, and Obamacare stablizes the healthcare system.

    You know what's really going to help us deal with the toxicity of Trump voter strongholds?  A PLAGUE!

    Parent

    Really, MT?? (5.00 / 1) (#86)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:42:18 AM EST
    Thankfully my personal ER experience has been only twice. Once at Las Vegas and once in Des Plaines, IL.

    Both decidedly non southern locations.

    So I can personally say that your

    This mostly Southern perspective

    is uninformed, and insulting to a group that you hate only because your experience is limited to a non-southern location...a military base town. You should quit transferring your anger at TriCare's problems to all those around you.

    Obamacare is dead. The decision to not do the mandate killed it and the costs kept climbing.

    I want single payer. If we don't pay for it by a sales tax, how would you have us pay for it???

    Parent

    That's just a cheap throwaway line on your part, given your full-throated support here for those Republican politicians who otherwise desire to continue treating health care as a commodity, rather than a universal right. You want to have your cake and eat it, too.

    And you'd fund universal health coverage with a sales tax? That proposal itself is absolutely absurd on its face, and further belies your sincerity on the subject, given that health care accounts for nearly 20% of all public spending. It's a non-starter.

    Seriously, sales taxes and related general excise / value added assessments are the most regressive forms of taxation in a government's arsenal. While it's true that everybody pays them, such taxes impact the poor and lower middle classes financially much more adversely and substantively, for the simple fact that they have much less discretionary income than do the wealthy and well to do. These taxes will therefore consume a much greater proportion of the former's household budgets than they will the latter's.

    So, either get real or get lost.

    Parent

    Some people call them as they see them (5.00 / 1) (#91)
    by McBain on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 01:42:05 PM EST
    and don't base every opinion on political party affiliation.

    As for myself, I don't expect any healthcare plan/act to be perfect.  What we had before ACA wasn't great. ACA made some improvements but wasn't built to last.  Whatever comes next will have flaws.

    Rarely does the real issue get addressed... lowering the cost of healthcare services.  Before my father died he was in intensive care for a week.  I was happy with the service he was provided but it didn't seem cost effective.  I lost track of how many doctors, nurses and medical specialists treated him...sometimes more than five in his room at the same time.  

    For a few years before that, my father was on 14 different medications.... some expensive. There's no way his doctors knew what possible interactions all those pills could have but they kept prescribing more.  Something is wrong with our system and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

    Parent

    I think I missed something in your post. (none / 0) (#96)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 04:25:01 PM EST
    When someone you love is in ICU, why would you be concerned about the cost-effectiveness of the care that person receives, when you should more properly be oriented toward actual results of that care? The point of such care is to save lives, not to save money.

    If you're truly interested in controlling either the costs associated with health care or the delivery of that care itself, then you ought to be on the side of government intervention and involvement. Don't look for a market-based solution, because you're not likely to find one.

    In rural America, for example, we have a health care crisis that's rooted not in costs, but in the actual lack of providers and care options. In that regard, what's the point of having health insurance coverage, if access to care is compromised by virtue of one's remote locale?

    The only agency that can actually ensure delivery of that care in rural America is the government. There is good reason why President George W. Bush nearly quadrupled the amount of federal funding available for the establishment of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), more commonly known as community health centers.

    Whereas recent medical school graduates would likely not relocate to poor rural communities because earning a living might prove problematic, the federal government can offer the type of incentives for new physicians to do so which those communities could not on their own, such as forgiveness of student loan debt for agreeing to join an FQHC.

    And for that, I roundly applaud what Bush did. Prior to this initiative, most health care providers in rural communities were literally aging out. Over on the island of Molokai with its population of 7,200, of which nearly 60% live at or below the federal poverty line, there was no physician below the age of 68 before the community health center opened its doors in 2007, and only two dentists.

    The FQHC changed the dynamic of health care delivery on that island, providing integrated medical and social services that emphasize both preventative health care and collaboration with other health and human service agencies whenever possible. Such services include prenatal, pediatric, adult, dental, and behavioral health and nutrition and family planning services. These services are further complemented by effective outreach, translation, transportation, and case management services.

    Before the FQHC opened its door, poverty, language difficulties, geographical isolation, lack of health insurance and the high cost of travel to Honolulu ($150-200 round trip air fare per person) are the primary barriers to the access of comprehensive primary health care on Molokai. While the FQHC itself is a private community-based nonprofit agency, its existence on Molokai would be problematic without direct and indirect federal support.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    As I said... (none / 0) (#98)
    by McBain on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 04:36:51 PM EST
    ...I was happy with the service he was provided but it didn't seem cost effective...  

    It's a long, sad story but nothing was going to save my dad at that point. I was impressed with the effort of almost everyone involved but there's probably a way to provide the same level of care with half the manpower.  I certainty wasn't complaining at the time... just noticed some possible inefficiency.

    Parent

    Cost effectiveness, inefficiencies (none / 0) (#101)
    by vicndabx on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 05:06:27 PM EST
    will NOT be solved by changing how people obtain insurance - which is what the GOP aims to do.

    A serious discussion involves acknowledgement of the significant economic impact to care providers, their employees, and the communities in which they operate.

    Parent

    I'm sorry about your loss. (none / 0) (#122)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 02:31:06 AM EST
    Thank you Donald (none / 0) (#130)
    by McBain on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 10:26:26 AM EST
    It was not a good way to go but there was one bright spot.  Two weeks before he passed I got to take him to one last baseball game... a ritual we had enjoyed regularly for many years until his health significantly deteriorated.  Fortunately, I decided this was the time to do whatever it took to get in him into one more ballpark. I wasn't sure how it would go but we ended up having a great time.   As a baseball fan, I'm sure you can appreciate that.

    Parent
    Agreed. (none / 0) (#131)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 12:23:59 PM EST
    It's always a good time for a baseball game. When I was growing up in Pasadena, CA my grandfather was the easiest guy in the world to talk into an outing at Dodger Stadium, which was only 20-40 minutes away depending on the traffic. The only question he'd ask was "Who's pitching today (or tonight)?"

    And he had all sorts of stories about growing up in Malvern, PA when he and his friends would cut school to go to the ballpark instead to watch the old Philadelphia Athletics, then managed by the legendary Connie Mack.

    Those are some great memories.

    Parent

    Once again, Donald (none / 0) (#117)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 10:00:23 PM EST
    you don't run this blog and you don't have the right to tell anyone to leave. I thought Jeralyn made that clear to you.

    You may think health care as a right. I may think it is a right.

    But that and a buck fifty four will get you a cup of coffee and a sausage biscuit at MacDonald's using the old person's discount. (Tax included.)

    You, yman, jondee, et al love to throw the insults around and claim that a sales tax is regressive.... but you don't offer a solution of your own.

    Hear me.

    Lead, Follow. Or get out of the way.

    How would you pay for it?

    Parent

    An income tax (5.00 / 1) (#119)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 10:05:42 PM EST
    That was easy.

    Next.

    Parent

    And like many things that appear so easy (none / 0) (#127)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 08:14:49 AM EST
    it won't work.

    In fact it is counter productive.

    In case you missed it you just lost an election partly because many voters feel like they are paying for too many "free" things for other people. They see people in Walmart displaying expensive tattoos while paying with EBT cards. They see people they know to be on welfare talking over a cellphone that they know to be free. They see people in line at the pharmacy using a TennCare card to get their RX drugs, free.

    And while they struggle to pay for Obamacare insurance with thousands of dollars to pay in deductibles before it becomes effective for them...... they see Medicaid patients getting care for free.

    Yeah I know they're mean and nasty and they aren't as caring about the down trodden as you...but they're living on a family of 4 income of $75K before tax and see themselves unable to save for the kids' college, haven't had a vacation in years and are another recession away from losing their home.

    You think they're gonna agree to pay a higher income tax?

    Nope. Ain't gonna do it.

    If explained properly they would go for a federal sales tax.

    Welcome to the real world.

    Parent

    That's not "the real world" (5.00 / 1) (#129)
    by Yman on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 09:34:14 AM EST
    "Not as down trodden as you"???  Where do you come up with these ridiculous claims?  When did I ever claim to be "down trodden" in the least??   You realize that, when you're reduced to making transparent, straw arguments, you sound even more ridiculous than usual, right?

    BTW - In case YOU just missed it, you just got 3 million less votes, so don't pretend you wingnuts speak for the American people.  You don't.

    Maybe you can speak for the Russians ...

    Parent

    Try reading (none / 0) (#133)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 02:49:39 PM EST
    Yeah I know they're mean and nasty and they aren't as caring about the down trodden as you..

    Been to Russia. Met some Russians. Won the election.

    Now, telling us how'd you'd pay for health care that the folks would accept.

    FIT increases won't be accepted.

    Parent

    not after the bogus (none / 0) (#135)
    by jondee on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 03:21:50 PM EST
    "single payer advocates" get done spinning it..

    Parent
    Try thinking (none / 0) (#136)
    by Yman on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 03:27:21 PM EST
    You and your fellow wingnuts don't speak for the American people.  The Orange Julius you elected can barely speak for himself, at about a 6th grade level of conversion.  Actually, that's insulting to most 6th graders.

    But it's funny you claim that FIT "won't be accepted", while willfully ignoring the fact that NONE of it (single payer) will be accepted, because of the people that YOU decided to put in office.  Now go ahead and tell more fairy tales about what a "social liberal" you are and how you care about the middle class, poor, elderly and rural voters, who will be hurt by the people you poor in charge and who's bill you're defending.  We'll just point and laugh.

    Parent

    Grow up, Jim. (none / 0) (#123)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 02:34:12 AM EST
    You're a complete waste of time.

    Parent
    Contribute something besides your anger (none / 0) (#126)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 07:43:19 AM EST
    Speak for yourself, Jim. (none / 0) (#132)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 12:36:32 PM EST
    I'm not angry. I'm bemused. You barge in here with ignorance and misinformation that's easily refutable, and then you insult people when they take issue with you. You attempt to bully others here, and then you thrown a snit when they refuse to be cowed. You demand respect without ever once making a reciprocal offer of your own. As I said, you're a waste of time, and I've used up more than enough of Jeralyn's bandwidth on you.

    Have a nice day.

    Parent

    Donald, (none / 0) (#134)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 02:51:37 PM EST
    tell us how you would pay for health care and stop trying to change the subject.

    Parent
    please (none / 0) (#138)
    by linea on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 08:24:26 PM EST
    Yeah, yeah, you want single payer. Or so you say. That's just a cheap throwaway line on your part

    jim repeatedly states over and over, that he's for single-payer. maybe his position doesnt seem consistant with your understanding of his other political views but it's his stated position.

    Parent

    linea: "jim repeatedly states over and over, that he's for single-payer. maybe his position doesnt seem consistant with your understanding of his other political views but it's his stated position."

    ... given the Republican candidates he supports and the GOP elected officials for whom he repeatedly advocates.

    You're not going to get single-payer health care by supporting Donald Trump for president. And you're certainly not going to get there by advocating for the regressive legislation currently being offered by an Ayn Rand devotee like Speaker Paul Ryan.

    Seriously, that's like saying, "I'm no racist or xenophobe, but you know, David Duke and the Klan offer some good points." Or "I love my wife and I'm all for women's equality, as long as that stupid f---ing b*tch has dinner ready by the time I get home from work." Logically and morally, it just doesn't work that way. It's disingenuous.

    And that's why I noted earlier that Jim is not at all serious about single-payer health care, and that his ostensible support for it is nothing more than a cheap political throwaway line. He support's Ryan's bill. And Ryan wants that "single payer" to be you.

    (And if you think there's opposition to the bill now, just wait until the Congressional Budget Office renders its judgment this next week on the prospective cost of Ryan's Folly. Trump sure isn't, which is why his spokesman Sean Spicer is trashing the CBO before it even issues its assessment.)

    Jim has shown repeatedly by his comments here and in an earlier thread about Speaker Ryan's bill that he doesn't understand how the health insurance model actually works, nor does he grasp government budget processes or even know the difference between a limit on deductions and a cap on earnings.

    He's far less interested in achieving a single payer system, than he is in securing yet another tax cut windfall for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, which is potentially $600 billion if Obamacare is repealed.

    So, please don't take Jim literally when he claims to be a social liberal who supports single payer. His comments and actions prove otherwise. He's all hat and no cattle.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    Here's a Very simple test, linea (5.00 / 1) (#141)
    by jondee on Sat Mar 11, 2017 at 06:16:58 PM EST
    ask him to name ONE politician by name that he supports who has ever publicly advocated for single payer.

    One name.

    That shouldn't be hard for someone who supposedly is so adamant about an issue.

    Parent

    It's also entirely inconsistent ... (none / 0) (#139)
    by Yman on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 09:19:20 PM EST
    ... with how he votes and the politicians he supports.  He votes Republican, including for Trump and Reps/Senators that have repeatedly stated they oppose single payer.  But feel free to believe him if you like.

    Parent
    I had CNN and Fox on in the car (none / 0) (#60)
    by Jeralyn on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 05:37:22 PM EST
    (haven't gotten around to canceling Sirius yet) and both agreed in numerous segments the bill is DOA -- but because conservatives think it doesn't go far enough.

    Parent
    it will likely be the (none / 0) (#63)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 06:16:06 PM EST
    "full repeal" crowd that kills it.

    whatever it takes.

    Parent

    It looks like (none / 0) (#65)
    by Ga6thDem on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 06:45:38 PM EST
    the Putin loving freedumb caucus is going to be the group that kills the replacement plan. My rep is apparently a member of this caucus.

    Parent
    Obamacare (5.00 / 1) (#21)
    by Yman on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 05:19:38 PM EST
    58 percent of Americans want to keep it and improve it or keep it as is.  

    Really, really hoping this comes back to bite Republicans in the @$$.

    In our house I don't see how it can't (5.00 / 2) (#42)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 01:27:36 PM EST
    Nobody will be happy. Not the Trump voters who were told they would get even better coverage for less, not anyone who thought the Republicans couldn't afford to touch it so just relax (I was told this by my son who wants to believe good things of his country)because they are touching it, and certainly not those who have relied on Obamacare. Not the crazy people who want Obamacare entirely gone and replaced with nothing.

    People will die because of lack of coverage, and not so quietly anymore. When Josh was a baby people were froze in shame when they became I'll and had poor or no coverage. They took it all on themselves even though employers were providing less and less coverage and firing people who had sick family members. When pre-existing conditions were no longer covered everything really began to implode. Insurance companies removed a physician's authority, it was replaced by nurses the companies employed who would tell the doctors if the procedures they were ordering were going to be covered.

    I couldn't believe then that people weren't in the streets. Now that we've had a taste of sanity, how do we back? Rand Paul says this bill is DOA? And if that's true...still nobody is happy.

    Parent

    I see where (none / 0) (#44)
    by Ga6thDem on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 01:51:36 PM EST
    people in your situation are going to get a double whammy with the military getting slammed along with preexisting conditions.

    Parent
    Where Josh ends up is simply an uncertainty (none / 0) (#46)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 02:08:59 PM EST
    Right now. He will be Tricare Prime for probably 2 more years. Then he will move onto Tricare for Life coverage with us which resembles 80/20 insurance and will get messed with constantly unless the Democrats take the federal government back. His real challenge begins when he isn't on our coverage. I was told by a Tricare bureaucrat in DC to get him to a safe state that has it's healthcare sorted out.

    Parent
    I'm sorry. (5.00 / 1) (#49)
    by Ga6thDem on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 03:13:09 PM EST
    Maybe with your move you will get into a "safe" state. I'm going to talk to my hubby about moving when youngest son is out of high school in a few years. I'm thinking NC between two families.

    Parent
    I think the ones that will ... (none / 0) (#45)
    by Yman on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 02:07:07 PM EST
    ... be happy are the Trumpers who either resented those getting subsidies and felt they were paying for it or young Trumpers who didn't want to buy insurance.  They'll either go without and probably be fine in the short term or they'll buy a cheap junk policy and think they have coverage, then be clueless when they need it and it turns out their policy isn't worth the paper it's printed on.  

    Parent
    It's an evil thing, resenting someone else (5.00 / 1) (#47)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 02:14:15 PM EST
    Having decent insurance. We all pay though going backwards. As many pointed out, being able to afford your own insurance and leave a job to start your own business  or get a better job was a lovely economic boon.

    Parent
    And we have a Republican Party which fuels their animosity by deliberately cutting programs which benefit the working poor and the middle class, and then capitalizes on it politically -- given that most beneficiaries of these programs are white -- by accusing people of color of being moochers at the expense of hardworking white people.

    It's been an effective if entirely cynical political strategy that regularly cons these white working class voters into voting time and again against their own best interests, which is further compounding by Republicans' willingness to openly traffic in misinformation that purposely targets their own voter base as a means to ratchet up the anger.

    We've reached a point in our domestic politics where an entire (and significant) voter demographic has pretty much been walled off from reality by an impermeable cocoon of someone else's making. You try to point out to them as I did in another thread, for example, that a provision of the GOP American Health Care Act contains a potential eight-figure annual tax windfall for insurance companies, and they either just act as though you're speaking Hungarian or worse still, dismiss it curtly as "fake news."

    And I really don't know how we can counter that, other than sit back at this point and allow these voters feel the blunt impact of their electoral mistakes and learn some very painful lessons therein, even though that involves our own willingness to bear witness to a potentially enormous human toll. But, as Joni Mitchell once sang, "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?"

    Aloha.

    Parent

    Carl Bernstein (5.00 / 1) (#53)
    by mm on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:24:46 PM EST
    I don't always agree with the man, but here I think he summed it up pretty neatly.

    "There is no civic consensus in this country like there was at the time of Watergate about acceptable presidential conduct," Bernstein said on "Reliable Sources."

    "Trump is out there on his own, leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy," he said. "We are into terrible authoritarian tendencies."



    Parent
    The psychological groundwork (5.00 / 5) (#58)
    by jondee on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:46:35 PM EST
    has been set up for maximum receptivity to someone like Trump by the daily onslaught of a kind of coordinated unhinged right wing media machine that didn't exist in Nixon's time.

    Who would ever in their wildest dreams have thought we could ever have as President someone who uses sources like Breitbart and talk radio as a kind of braintrust?

    He might as well be relying on men's room wall graffiti..

    Parent

    We didn't have that sort of ... (none / 0) (#70)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 09:38:09 PM EST
    jondee: "The psychological groundwork has been set up for maximum receptivity to someone like Trump by the daily onslaught of a kind of coordinated unhinged right wing media machine that didn't exist in Nixon's time."

    ... right-wing media network when I was growing into adolescence in Southern California during the Nixon administration. Back in the 1970s, California still leaned Republican on national issues, though it was slowly starting to move the needle on the dial leftward at the state and local level.

    But we did have Richard Nixon's favorite TV journalist, George Putnam, the baritone-voiced conservative who anchored local station KTTV-TV's top-rated weeknight newscast. He was in many respects a pioneer in television news when he first sat behind that anchor desk in 1951, and ten years later he was the highest paid anchorman in the country, with an annual salary of $300,000 - five times that of CBS's Walter Cronkite at the time.

    "Some people didn't like what he said; some people liked what he said. But everybody listened to George Putnam. That is why he has been one of the most influential commentators of our times."
    - Former President Richard Nixon, congratulating Putnam on 50 years in broadcasting (1984)

    Putnam received his first big break in 1934, when he was a radio announcer at NBC in New York City and the widely-read columnist Walter Winchell singled him out for praise, saying that he had a voice made for broadcasting and declaring it "the greatest in radio."

    It was Putnam who unwittingly served as actor Ted Knight's muse when bringing to life the character of Ted Baxter, WJM-TV's obtuse yet pompous anchorman on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." But unlike his often jovial fictionalized sitcom counterpart, Putnam had a seriously puritanical streak in him that was at once judgmental and mean-spirited.

    Watch just a portion of this now-campy and hilarious so-called educational film from 1965, "Perversion for Profit" (funded by Charles Keating), from 1965, and you'll see why and how he had inspired Ted Knight, who actually toned him down considerably for purposes of caricature on "The MTM Show."

    By the early 1970s, Putnam had surpassed Knight to become his own best parody, and his TV career was starting to wane. My grandfather, a longtime California Republican, used to regularly dismiss Putnam as a cranky curmudgeon, even though Grandpa himself was 13 years his senior. L.A. had recently elected Tom Bradley as its mayor, and the region's reputation as a reliable conservative GOP stronghold began to visibly weaken. TV Viewers' tastes were changing, and when Putnam walked off the job during a contract dispute with KTTV in 1975, the station management had the good sense to just let him go and not ask him back.

    But then ol' George gravitated back to his former haunts in AM radio, and at KIEV-AM in Glendale he found a stable full of ready, willing and eager young right-wing journalists who had long hung on his every word. He mentored both Christopher Ruddy (now CEO of NewsMax) and Matt Drudge, and gave them their respective starts in right-wing media. His popular syndicated show "Talk Back" long predated the arrival of Rush Limbaugh on the AM airwaves by a dozen years, and turned KIEV-AM into a ratings powerhouse.

    As far as his show's political content was concerned, George Putnam was a staunch supporter of Ronald Reagan and by the 1990s, he had become politically venomous. With sidekick Chris Ruddy, he held court in his Glendale studios from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, where they trafficked freely in every Clinton conspiracy theory to be heard at the time. Putnam was arguably the first guy who suggested on the air that Bill and Hillary Clinton had murdered their friend Vince Foster.

    Even as California's demographics changed dramatically in the '90s and '00s and the state turned heavily Democratic, Putnam's audience was still large, loyal, and totally hardcore and red-state rabid. Upon the occasion of his death in September 2008 at age 94, he was lauded by Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, Michael Savage and protégés Ruddy and Drudge as, per Nixon 24 years earlier, "one of the most influential commentators of our times."

    And also, I would add, one of the most loathed.

    Parent

    The entire (none / 0) (#71)
    by Ga6thDem on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 09:55:31 PM EST
    GOP pretty much jumped off a cliff in the early 1990's.

    Parent
    Earlier (none / 0) (#74)
    by Repack Rider on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 10:59:23 PM EST
    GOP pretty much jumped off a cliff in the early 1990's.

    In 1966 when Ronald Reagan was elected in California.  Image over substance.

    Parent

    Conrad: (none / 0) (#95)
    by Mr Natural on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 04:20:55 PM EST
    "The horror, the horror..."

    Parent
    i feel (none / 0) (#72)
    by linea on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 10:03:16 PM EST
    this is hyperbole. sorry.

    We live in an age of white rage and resentment.


    Parent
    What do you know? (5.00 / 3) (#75)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 11:10:39 PM EST
    How you "feel" is ultimately irrelevant. (5.00 / 3) (#88)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 12:36:18 PM EST
    Racism exists. Xenophobia exists. The GOP openly panders on a regular basis to white people's worst fears and instincts about "The Others." Look at the actual facts, linea, and stop discounting or disregarding them just because their underlying truths so happen to make you "feel" uncomfortable.

    As the Rev. Martin Luther King once observed, "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous that sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." In other words, learn to cope with reality as it really is, and don't pretend to deal with it as you might otherwise wish it to be.

    Otherwise, reality will eventually bite you in the a$$ particularly hard, as it so often does to the sincerely ignorant and conscientiously stupid.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    president trump (3.00 / 2) (#110)
    by linea on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:47:27 PM EST
    didnt win on a platform of "white rage and resentment" or by

    accusing people of color of being moochers at the expense of hardworking white people

    evangelicals voted for trump on religious-rights issues and abortion.  middle america, including those counties that twice voted for obama, voted for trump on jobs (anti-TPP, migrant labor driving down wages, etc.) and to a lessor extent anti-terrorism.

    your portrayal of 50% of the voters in modern america as a stereotype of 1960s hillbillies isnt based on any actualy intellectual analysis of this election. in my opinion.


    Parent

    "In my opinion" ... (5.00 / 1) (#113)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 08:47:40 PM EST
    ... it is.

    That was easy.

    Parent

    Some "intellectual analysis" (5.00 / 1) (#114)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:03:52 PM EST
    Have you seen Tom Cotton today Yman? (none / 0) (#99)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 04:42:53 PM EST
    He says no to Ryan. Keeps saying healthcare must get more affordable and be less complicated. They need to take their time and get it right. Is he having me on? This representative has been loud and proud supporting some of the most reprehensible Republican policy. Did he hear his constituency? Did he? Or is he toying with me? Is he just trying to weave some cover for himself?

    Parent
    I have no idea of his motives (none / 0) (#102)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 05:24:43 PM EST
    ... but I thought the fact that he would be so public in his admonition to his fellow Republicans was very surprising ...    and interesting.  Wonder if he's doubting their votes in the Senate.

    Parent
    I have to say (none / 0) (#105)
    by Ga6thDem on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 06:10:32 PM EST
    that the GOP is never going to pass anything if those are the standards. Insurance is complicated in its nature and unless Cotton is proposing single payer which I know he is not to me it says we've got nothing.

    Parent
    Beautifully stated (5.00 / 1) (#118)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 10:02:03 PM EST
    I thought that also. He wants simple? That's single payer.

    Parent
    there have been (none / 0) (#107)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:00:56 PM EST
    some very rowdy town meetings with Tom.  i know some attendees.  i think he is seriously concerned for his future.  lots of people here depending on Obamacare.

    Parent
    One of townhalls I got to see (none / 0) (#116)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:59:08 PM EST
    I will say at least he did not laugh at the people or dismiss them. He seemed to be having a genuine Holy Eff I never thought this would/could happen here moment. I thought the Arkansas townhall attendees I got to see address him were some of the clearest and most affective. Heartbreaking

    Parent
    A "Come to Jesus" moment, as it were. (none / 0) (#124)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 02:58:23 AM EST
    The anger and frustration I see being expressed by constituents in these town hall meeting appears to be both genuine and organic. I believe that Republicans ignore it at their own political peril.

    Parent
    "You won't understand the resistance ... (5.00 / 2) (#40)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 12:30:25 PM EST
    ... if you never stop judging it." Writer Emmett Rensin suggests that if we wish to forthrightly address the issue of political violence, we first need to ask the right questions:

    Foreign Policy | March 7, 2017
    From Mother Jones to Middlebury: The Problem and Promise of Political Violence in Trump's America - "They don't teach about it in school anymore, but in the late summer of 1921, 10,000 coal miners in the southern fields of West Virginia took up arms and waged war against their masters. The fighting lasted for five days. The miners had numbers but no other advantage, arming themselves with their own rifles and marching uphill against 2,000 entrenched strikebreakers who fired down on them with heavy guns and flew private airplanes overhead, dropping homemade bombs and poison gas on the incipient union. The two sides fired 1 million rounds between them, killing 10 strikebreakers and 100 miners. On Sept. 2, President Warren Harding ordered in the army. The union retreated. Over the following days, law enforcement arrested nearly 1,000 miners, indicting them for conspiracy, murder, and treason against the state of West Virginia. The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest and most violent political uprising the United States had seen since the Civil War. It still is.

    "Nothing in the age of Donald Trump is truly unprecedented, except this: There is no longer any such thing as American subtext. We deal exclusively in text now. Before, the mainstream of our discourse confined questions of political violence to code and circumspection. In a country that ordinarily presumes itself too civilized for such things, the routine outbreak of bloodshed and arson was regularly and necessarily transformed into a distant sociological matter, a curious pathology of black and poor people or otherwise into a purely theoretical possibility entertained by fringe political actors. Now, the New York Times strokes its chin and asks if it's OK to punch Nazis. You can hear Trump's predecessor intoning, 'That's not who we are.' It isn't yet. But after decades of superficial peace, even the mainstream wonders if it's who we are becoming once again."

    Worth a read.

    Makes excellent points, IMO (5.00 / 1) (#52)
    by vicndabx on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:21:37 PM EST
    In Ferguson, Missouri, Darren Wilson opened fire on Michael Brown, leaving his body in the street for hours. Thousands of immigrants languished in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, while in Arizona their countrymen were held in prison tents in the summer heat by a thrifty sheriff. In the name of global security, drones whistle their impersonal homicides in the skies above Pakistan. Federal marshals return runaway slaves. Strikebreakers fire down the mountain at miners.

    This, too, is political violence. How can we call it anything else? When worried pundits ask if we are in a new era of political violence, they are speaking only of the unsanctioned kind, the kind prohibited by convention and law, which tempts the dangerous and instant retribution of the state. They ask after only a small part of our subject, and they find it alien, like a great whale launching suddenly out from beneath calm water and crashing back down to disrupt our ordinary peace. But sanctioned brutality is the constant ambience of our republic and our empire. It is with us all the time. The whale disrupts the sea, but the sea is far larger and it is never calm.



    Parent
    Trump on "Terric-care." (5.00 / 2) (#90)
    by KeysDan on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 01:33:08 PM EST
    No one knew it was so complicated--a revelation  known to just about everyone but Trump and his core of the "economic anxious."

     But, the Republican's repeal and replacement of the ACA was really uncomplicated: repeal ACA and replace it with nothing. The repeal and replace did get more complicated with Trump's plan to repeal and replace with "something terrific."

    What a quandary, finding something between nothing and terrific.  Ryan/Trump have found the answer: neither nothing nor terrific--a Republican remodel job. And, a con job to sell it, right up the alley of both Ryan and Trump.

     Ryan achieved his main goal of eliminating the ACA's taxes on high income earners. The 0.9% additional Medicare tax on incomes over $250,000 (married/jointly or $200,000 single) and the 3.8% tax on income, that includes investment income over the stated limits, is eliminated.

    With income being earned income plus investment income, and investment income broadly inclusive as dividends, rents, royalties, capital gains on sales of homes over the $500,000 exclusion for couples or $250,000 singe, and insurance annuity payouts, higher income earners are likely to save no small sum in taxes.

     And, all  these taxes are just going to "those people,"  and  various stereotypic lay-a-bouts. Besides saving a lot in taxes, this help to others was resented by some.

    Trump finds data and facts all too complicated, but his political instincts for his base are uncomplicated--he wants something, and something fast.  This legislation is his definition of "something terrific". A check off of his campaign promise.  The original demonizing of ACA as "Obamacare" (that boomeranged) will now become Trumpcare. That is also terrific.

    The rest of the "replacement" needs to take its place behind these primary goals of Ryan and Trump. There is a lot of winning going on with this legislative proposal, but more losing.  Losers are the poor, the elderly and the sick. And, we need to add those sick of winning to the risk pool.


    Trump(don't)Care (5.00 / 2) (#92)
    by ding7777 on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 02:23:47 PM EST
     


    Wealthcare? (none / 0) (#125)
    by Nemi on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 06:28:20 AM EST
    Not mine. Saw it among other both precise and sardonic renaming suggestions.

    Parent
    From our 'Rainy Day Women #12 & 35' file: (5.00 / 2) (#106)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 06:59:26 PM EST
    Providing a prime example why California Republicans are becoming a threatened species in elective office, Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher took it upon himself earlier today to defend Russia's aggressive posture toward the Baltic Republic of Estonia, by lecturing that country's former President Toomas Hendrick about Vladimir Putin's intentions, going so far as to compare the Russian strongman's actions favorably to those employed by our own country during the Cold War:

    "Do you remember the Phoenix Program in Vietnam? I remember the Phoenix Program. I supported the Phoenix Program. We murdered hundreds of local officials. How about Allende? How about Diem? How about any number of people during the Cold War that we assassinated? That's wrong, it's wrong to do that, but please do not say that Russia is the only country that commits these kinds of crimes."

    But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned.

    i like your post !! (none / 0) (#115)
    by linea on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 09:14:43 PM EST
    but to be fair; few americans, of any political party, would be able to find estonia on a map and would care less if russa invaded estonia to rescue oppressed russian prostitutes and drug-dealers.

    The Washington Post
    The less Americans know about Ukraine's location, the more they want U.S. to intervene

    Parent

    Thanks linea, (5.00 / 1) (#120)
    by NYShooter on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 11:19:48 PM EST
    very interesting and informative article. Unfortunately, the results are not surprising at all. The tragedy is that knowledge and critical thinking are traits too often scoffed at by many, even here at TL. Reading the comments in the Wash. Post article simply illustrate how much better informed most foreigners are than many Americans. We seem to think coming up with idiotic, adolescent pejoratives is a perfectly proper response to anyone who simply won't clap loud enough at whatever that day's groupthink meme is.

    Anyway, keep on truck'n, and don't get discouraged.

    Parent

    Another difference (5.00 / 3) (#128)
    by Repack Rider on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 09:24:07 AM EST
    Reading the comments in the Wash. Post article simply illustrate how much better informed most foreigners are than many Americans.

    Not only that, they get better health care.

    Parent

    Maybe the two go together (none / 0) (#137)
    by jondee on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 07:49:55 PM EST
    more than people think..

    When you're worrying yourself sick about medical bills and the state of your health, there's not a lot of energy left over to think about things like history, science, and geopolitics.

    Parent

    thread cleaned of comments (5.00 / 1) (#142)
    by Jeralyn on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 03:06:04 AM EST
    directed to one commenter. No one is interested in reading spats between commenters. Take it elsewhere.

    Complicit (5.00 / 3) (#143)
    by CaptHowdy on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 08:04:22 AM EST
    but of course... (5.00 / 1) (#144)
    by fishcamp on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 05:18:33 PM EST
    It's the Viagra single PAC, at the beginning, that gets pithy.

    Parent
    Donald thinks pithy (none / 0) (#145)
    by CaptHowdy on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 05:39:01 PM EST
    is how a person with a lisp describes Nancy Pelosi.

    Parent
    Or (5.00 / 2) (#146)
    by FlJoe on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 05:52:22 PM EST
    adventures in a Moscow hotel room.

    Parent
    i assume (none / 0) (#147)
    by linea on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 06:52:09 PM EST
    this is a response to:

    Ivanka Trump's perfume is a big winner on Amazon
    CNN.com

    Ivanka Trump's perfume, Eau de Parfum Spray, dominates on Amazon
    Washington Times

    Ivanka Trump's signature perfume soars to No. 1 on Amazon
    MarketWatch

    Parent

    you know what they say (5.00 / 2) (#148)
    by CaptHowdy on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 07:00:36 PM EST
    about what happens when you assume.

    Parent
    what? (none / 0) (#149)
    by linea on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 08:44:51 PM EST
    snl's funny video about ivanka perfume is unrelated to the news reports of her perfume sales? a hapenstance? i suspect the comedy writers at snl follow the news more closely than you.

    Parent
    what was i thinking (5.00 / 1) (#150)
    by CaptHowdy on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 08:50:13 PM EST
    clearly it was all about how well her perfume is selling.

    Parent
    no (none / 0) (#151)
    by linea on Sun Mar 12, 2017 at 09:04:27 PM EST
    the video isnt about how well ivanka's perfume is selling.

    it's a video satirizing ivanka on her years of claiming to champion "women who work" yet she is now complicit in the anti-feminist republican agenda. what makes this lampooning of her and her perfume TIMELY is the recent surge in sales of ivanka's perfume.

    Parent

    Casey Anthony breaks silence (none / 0) (#1)
    by McBain on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 02:31:00 PM EST
    Speaks to media outlet for first time since trial. She claims to not know what happened to her daughter Caylee...
    Everyone has their theories, I don't know. As I stand here today I can't tell you one way or another.  The last time I saw my daughter I believed she was alive and was going to be OK, and that's what was told to me.

    What a bizarre case that was.  The state of Florida was seeking the death penalty with a chloroform and duck tape murder theory. Fortunately, the jury was sequestered, didn't listen to all the haters in the media and reached the correct verdict.
    Anthony speaks defiantly of her pariah status.

    "I don't give a s--- about what anyone thinks about me, I never will," she said.  "I'm OK with myself, I sleep pretty good at night."




    Who cares? (5.00 / 2) (#43)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 01:29:18 PM EST
    I don't care about this evil woman period.

    Parent
    Not every post in here needs to be about Trump (none / 0) (#48)
    by McBain on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 02:33:40 PM EST
    you guys are obsessed with the man.  We can discuss other topics.

    As for Casey Anthony, you don't know if she's evil.  You're making a guess based on terrible media coverage.

    Parent

    yes you can (5.00 / 1) (#59)
    by Jeralyn on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 05:36:12 PM EST
    discuss this and you shouldn't be criticized for it. If a commenter isn't interested in a topic, he or she should just scroll on by. It is rude to do otherwise. I'm letting the comment stay for now so others will see that it is inappropriate.

    Parent
    As soon as Trump isn't my President (none / 0) (#54)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:35:54 PM EST
    I won't give a $hit about him either. Pretty funny though how you've placed those two in the same convo thread. Maybe not...that subconcious association thing :)

    Parent
    And you are wrong (none / 0) (#56)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 04:41:10 PM EST
    Every mother on this board would never hire Casey Anthony for a babysitter...they wouldn't even hire her for dog walker. We wouldn't leave our children alone in the same room with her. We would change playgrounds if she showed up. She remains responseless to her child's death and the part she played. It was a litany of lies. It was horrifying.

    Parent
    I wouldn't hire her for a babysitter/dog walker (5.00 / 1) (#69)
    by McBain on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 07:49:10 PM EST
    either.  But I don't know that she's "evil" or what part she played in her daughter's death.  Neither do  you.

    What I find evil is how people were hoping she would be executed.  

    Parent

    Threads like this give you perspective on what (none / 0) (#94)
    by Mr Natural on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 04:16:19 PM EST
    defense attorneys are up against.

    Give people a plausible enemy and they're all in.  They eat it up.

    Parent

    Ever since I read Henry Miller's essay (none / 0) (#121)
    by jondee on Fri Mar 10, 2017 at 12:11:33 AM EST
    about the city park in Jacksonville, and how it filled him with horror and "reeked of ennui, onanism, and occultism", Florida was out for me.

    Parent
    I remember (none / 0) (#5)
    by MKS on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:01:55 PM EST
    only becoming interested in the case just after Closing Arguments.  I heard most of the pundits saying it was a slam dunk.  

    But then I heard one contrarian saying the Prosecution did not know how Caylee died.  Huh?  Uh-oh. How could you convict someone of murder if you do not know how the victim died?

    And, the Closing Argument that they replayed portions of by Casey's lawyer was quite good.  And the Prosecution with their mugging and disdainful gestures knew better.

    And the Death Penalty for an attractive young woman? Tough sell.  

    Parent

    The proscecution claimed Casey Anthony (none / 0) (#8)
    by McBain on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:28:24 PM EST
    used chloroform to sedate Caylee and then put duck tape over her mouth and nose to smother her. Possible?... sure but how often has that actually happened? No witnesses, not much physical evidence and they sought the death penalty?

    Casey was overcharged for political gain.  Even though lead prosecutor Jeff Ashton lost the case, and acted like jerk, he was elected as a state attorney after the trial. He also published a book blaming the jury.

    High profile case means a money and power grab for some.

    Parent

    About that "widespread voter fraud" (none / 0) (#7)
    by Yman on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 03:16:40 PM EST
    Even Republicans have limits when it comes to wasting time investigating Trump's tinfoil conspiracy theories.

    Although apparently not when it comes to his delusional wiretapping claims.

    Meanwhile (none / 0) (#20)
    by FlJoe on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 04:57:17 PM EST
    from the make America safe again files.
    The Trump administration wants to gut the Coast Guard and make deep cuts in airport and rail security to help pay for its crackdown on illegal immigration, according to internal budget documents reviewed by POLITICO -- a move that lawmakers and security experts say defies logic if the White House is serious about defending against terrorism and keeping out undocumented foreigners.

    More like beating logic to death if you ask me.
    Overall, DHS would get a 6 percent boost to its budget, to $43.8 billion. But to help pay for that, the administration would slice the budget of the Coast Guard and cut 11 percent in spending from the TSA -- reductions that critics say would weaken safeguards against threats arriving by sea or air.

    It's not like terrorists come in by sea or air.

    But not to worry the wall and border agents will surely protect us from natural disasters

    OMB also wants to cut 11 percent from the budget of FEMA, which oversees the national response to disasters such as floods and hurricanes.


    Art of the Deal time... (none / 0) (#22)
    by kdog on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 05:44:03 PM EST
    Cancel the Clampdown, and ya can cut the TSA 32%...whaddya say, whaddya say. My neighbors don't gotta sweat a siren, and we can expect a 32% drop in airport buggery. Winning!

    Parent
    NYU re enacts the debates (none / 0) (#23)
    by TrevorBolder on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 06:13:44 PM EST
    http://tinyurl.com/h679u73

    With a gender bender twist.

    Very interesting

    Together, they developed Her Opponent, a production featuring actors performing excerpts from each of the three debates exactly as they happened--but with the genders switched. Salvatore cast fellow educational theatre faculty Rachel Whorton to play "Brenda King," a female version of Trump, and Daryl Embry to play "Jonathan Gordon," a male version of Hillary Clinton, and coached them as they learned the candidates' words and gestures. A third actor, Andy Wagner, would play the moderator in all three debates, with the performances livestreamed. Andrew Freiband, a professor in the Department of Film/Animation/Video at the Rhode Island School of Design, provided the video design. (Watch footage from a Her Opponent rehearsal below.)


    I had the real debates fairly even (none / 0) (#24)
    by McBain on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 06:16:36 PM EST
    Clinton won one, Trump won one, the other with a slight edge to Trump.  I'm curious how these turned out.

    Parent
    Srsly? (5.00 / 4) (#26)
    by Repack Rider on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 06:53:09 PM EST
    I had the real debates fairly even Clinton won one, Trump won one, the other with a slight edge to Trump.

    Joke, right?  At what point did Mr. Trump display actual knowledge of any subject?  Ms. Clinton was the epitome of dignity, while Mr. Trump went out of his way to look like a sexist fool.

    Is there any subject, other than himself, that Mr. Trump is actually conversant on?

    Everything that has happened since he took office has verified the negative impression he made in the debates.  Events have shown that those of us who pegged him as an incompetent fool, a liar, and a phony were right.

    Did the debates actually leave you with an impression that he was competent?  Events have shown that he is not.  Has the reality of his failure affected your debate take-away?

    Parent

    It's in the article (none / 0) (#25)
    by TrevorBolder on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 06:22:19 PM EST
    The two sold-out performances of Her Opponent took place on the night of Saturday, January 28, just a week after President Trump's inauguration and the ensuing Women's March on Washington. "The atmosphere among the standing-room-only crowd, which appeared mostly drawn from academic circles, was convivial, but also a little anxious," Alexis Soloski, a New York Times reporter who attended the first performance, observed. "Most of the people there had watched the debates assuming that Ms. Clinton couldn't lose. This time they watched trying to figure out how Mr. Trump could have won."
    Inside the evening's program were two surveys for each audience member to fill out--one for before the show, with questions about their impressions of the real-life Trump-Clinton debates, and another for afterward, asking about their reactions to the King-Gordon restaging. Each performance was also followed by a discussion, with Salvatore bringing a microphone around to those eager to comment on what they had seen.


    Parent
    i believe (none / 0) (#31)
    by linea on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 09:41:06 PM EST
    With a gender bender twist.

    the article stated that they had the opposite sex person mimic the gestures of the candidates and the article commented on the issue of the male-clinton being viewed as an effeminate.

    it may be, that all this debate proved was that there is a high bias against males percieved as effeminate.

    Parent

    I believe (none / 0) (#34)
    by TrevorBolder on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 05:33:13 AM EST
    there was a extensive questionnaire, and a Q&A after the performance,
    Based on the conversations after the performances, it sounded like audience members had their beliefs rattled in a similar way. What were some themes that emerged from their responses?
    We heard a lot of "now I understand how this happened"--meaning how Trump won the election. People got upset. There was a guy two rows in front of me who was literally holding his head in his hands, and the person with him was rubbing his back. The simplicity of Trump's message became easier for people to hear when it was coming from a woman--that was a theme. One person said, "I'm just so struck by how precise Trump's technique is." Another--a musical theater composer, actually--said that Trump created "hummable lyrics," while Clinton talked a lot, and everything she was was true and factual, but there was no "hook" to it


    Parent
    Interesting but not surprising (none / 0) (#27)
    by McBain on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 07:02:27 PM EST
    From your link...
    The simplicity of Trump's message became easier for people to hear when it was coming from a woman--that was a theme. One person said, "I'm just so struck by how precise Trump's technique is."


    Parent
    that's because he has the (5.00 / 8) (#61)
    by Jeralyn on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 05:42:34 PM EST
    vocabulary of a fifth grader (Washington Post)

    Parent
    Is Trump concerned (none / 0) (#28)
    by MKS on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 09:21:02 PM EST
    that he was recorded colluding with the Russians? That would explain his tweets expressing concern.

    Was he just trying to smoke out the evidence against him, or was it perhaps just general worrying and automatic attack mode?

    Magic Donald (5.00 / 2) (#36)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 07:24:50 AM EST
    has plenty to be concerned about

    The sitting president has accused his predecessor of an act that could have gotten the past president impeached. That's not your ordinary exercise of free speech. If the accusation were true, and President Barack Obama ordered a warrantless wiretap of Donald Trump during the campaign, the scandal would be of Watergate-level proportions.

    But if the allegation is not true and is unsupported by evidence, that too should be a scandal on a major scale. This is the kind of accusation that, taken as part of a broader course of conduct, could get the current president impeached. We shouldn't care that the allegation was made early on a Saturday morning on Twitter.



    Parent
    forgot the link (none / 0) (#37)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 07:25:26 AM EST
    Reading (none / 0) (#35)
    by Ga6thDem on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 07:24:43 AM EST
    some ex-NSA guys on twitter and it seems that Russians were being legally taped and Trump's campaign talked to the Russians. Trump talking directly to the Russians, well, I believe he did at Trump tower. Carter Page says that Trump is the one that initiated the change in the GOP platform to make it more Putin friendly.

    Parent
    Imposters is fun new show (none / 0) (#29)
    by MKS on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 09:30:51 PM EST
    Uma Thurman as the cleaner/enforcer is camp at its best.

    And the three millennials who were all jilted by the same women and who have banded together to find her, are hilarious.  Two guys and a woman all serially married to the same con-artist woman.  The camaraderie between the three is fetching:  Not fair, you are playing the lesbian card.

    jilted by the same "woman" (none / 0) (#30)
    by MKS on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 09:31:25 PM EST


    Uma Turman is an underrated actress (none / 0) (#39)
    by jondee on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 12:16:43 PM EST
    her father Robert Thurman, who she looks quite a bit like, is a very interesting guy as well. He's a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia. Just read a book by him.

    Parent
    &#65533;I wanted to change things.&#65533; (none / 0) (#32)
    by desertswine on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 11:50:12 PM EST
    I am glad she was able to get out (5.00 / 1) (#38)
    by Peter G on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 09:57:18 AM EST
    from her excessive prison sentence early, based on "compassionate release" -- all too rarely granted -- and that she then outlived her cancer-based 18-month life expectancy by almost another two years.

    Parent
    I don't know why... (none / 0) (#33)
    by desertswine on Tue Mar 07, 2017 at 11:52:17 PM EST
    the quotation marks translated into those figures.

    Parent
    I was just googling her (none / 0) (#62)
    by Jeralyn on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 05:45:31 PM EST
    last week to see if she was still alive. There was no news. Tthanks for letting us know.

    Parent
    i am not afraid (none / 0) (#50)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 03:30:50 PM EST
    as of today wed mar 8.  i am not afraid.  i am alert and engaged but i am not afraid.  i am encouraged by the response of the people.  no one is fooled.  no one is in danger of being fleeced.  except the poor fools who voted for Magic Donald.  woe be unto them. otoh fu@kum.  this can not be sustained.
    watching it unravel is going to be gripping.

    Some Donald voters sure are pissed right now (none / 0) (#100)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 04:47:49 PM EST
    I never had it out with anyone here face to face, but most who know me know I silently despised him while they cheered. Some of his supporters act weird around me now, sort of angry, like I did this.

    Parent
    im finding two versions of Trumpers (none / 0) (#108)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:05:41 PM EST
    the damn the torpedos full speed ahead group an the i dont want to talk about it group.

    the later seems to be growing.

    Parent

    The ones around here have ... (none / 0) (#109)
    by Yman on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:24:40 PM EST
    ... gotten pretty quiet.  I live in a red area of a blue state (New Jersey) and all of the other leaders in my sons troop are Trumpers.  They were very vocal before the election.  Not so much, now.

    Parent
    Ignore the tweets (none / 0) (#64)
    by TrevorBolder on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 06:20:20 PM EST
    Follow the executive actions and legislation.
    That was easy to figure it, but the press loves the tweets.

    http://tinyurl.com/z3zq4km

    Watch his actions, but treat his tweets like messages from your local DMV. Take Trump "seriously but not literally." That's a piece of wisdom coined by reporter Salena Zito, and it's used by Trump's defenders to brush off whatever bout of rhetorical diarrhea has plagued his Twitter account lately. There's truth to it: It's not worth paying attention to every conspiracy theory and wild musing Trump fires off in the wee hours after watching Fox & Friends. Yet the media continue to turn the volume up to eleven over such tweets.

    In fact, that's happening on a practical level. Most Americans don't care about Trump's rhetoric any more. He and the media have been shouting at each other so long that it all sounds like white noise now. Instead, many Americans have been treating Trump as a guy to ignore except when he bothers them, an approach that seems pretty reasonable at this point. Trump and the media have been shouting at each other so long that it all sounds like white noise now. Americans are almost instinctively tuning Trump out. His domination of the modern media landscape is making people treat him as background noise. Effectively, that means that his rhetoric makes about as much difference as James Monroe's.



    Of course (5.00 / 4) (#66)
    by Ga6thDem on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 06:49:50 PM EST
    conservatives would like for us to ignore those tweets. They are embarrassing to conservatives and they expose how bankrupt the GOP and the conservative "movement" is. However they are very enlightening as to where conservatives get their information (alt-right news) and their conspiratorial views on many things.

    Parent
    wow (5.00 / 5) (#67)
    by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 06:51:04 PM EST
    thanks for linking to the editor at large of Brietbart.

    jezus.

    you knoe trev, one almost suspects your enduring inability to make an actual link has undercurrents.
    its true if it was clear it was the EAL of  Brietbart writing in the National Review you might get fewer clicks.

    hate to break it to ya but your clicks are already pretty maxed out.

    Parent

    I have never clicked on one of TB's (5.00 / 5) (#68)
    by Peter G on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 07:04:33 PM EST
    "tinyurls." The very fact that Trevor consistently seeks to conceal the source of his information, when Jeralyn makes it so easy to link directly to the source with a hotlink, is and has been enough to tell me not to waste my time -- or contribute to the click-count -- with any of those links.

    Parent
    Your (5.00 / 1) (#76)
    by TrevorBolder on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 05:51:43 AM EST
    Wise and judicious declarations upon the content of the article is duly noted

    Parent
    dear trevor (5.00 / 4) (#78)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:29:52 AM EST
    what you seem incapable of understanding is that i, and i suspect most here, dont give a smelly rats a$$ about the "content" of an "article" by Editor At Large of Brietbart.

    or for that matter what you "duely note".  or unduely.

    Parent

    Ignore the tweets.. (5.00 / 1) (#73)
    by jondee on Wed Mar 08, 2017 at 10:07:39 PM EST
    and pay no attention to the man behind the curtin.

    Given that the author allows that Fox and Friends inspires conspiracy theories and wild musings, why should anyone lend an ear to a writer from the National Review?

    As if the NR were some font of disinterested, rational analysis far far removed from anything you'll hear on Fox.

    Parent

    Not ALL the tweets :) (5.00 / 2) (#77)
    by Nemi on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:26:52 AM EST
    E.g. a few days ago this short 'conversation' made the rounds on Twitter:

    Charles C. W. Cooke‏ @charlescwcooke
    I've yet to read a single positive analysis of the House's Obamacare bill.

    CB @MAcatholicmom
    @charlescwcooke try going 2 a conservative source? Open up your reading habits 2 include those w/ whom u would naturally dismiss

    Charles C. W. Cooke‏ @charlescwcooke
    I'm the editor of National Review Online.

    Boom! Shade! ;-)


    Parent

    my favorite is (none / 0) (#79)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:32:52 AM EST
    "come on, you cant take him literally".

    Parent
    Nothing tops (5.00 / 1) (#80)
    by FlJoe on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 08:13:01 AM EST
    KAC's
    "You can't give him the benefit of the doubt on this, and he's telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what's come out of his mouth rather than look at what's in his heart."


    Parent
    Well, if this (none / 0) (#104)
    by Ga6thDem on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 06:07:02 PM EST
    doesn't take the cake. Trump is threatening to have Americans have all their insurance taken away and die if his miserable Trumpcare plan that nobody wants doesn't pass.

    Well, if you would (5.00 / 1) (#111)
    by MKS on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 07:54:52 PM EST
    stop paying attention to what he says and only focus on his heart, you would feel better and be better able to see the alternate facts.

    Parent
    Oh, that's right. (none / 0) (#112)
    by Ga6thDem on Thu Mar 09, 2017 at 08:03:50 PM EST
    Now we're not supposed to pay any attention to the man. I forget from day to day what the "rules" are.

    Parent