All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Which --even if true-- is a damn sight better then Republican efforts to just ignore it or outright lie about it

Or worse, enabled and protected Trump which Republicans have done since he won the party's nomination.

[Malvolio]

But Fairfax is also a Democrat, so what does the GOP win if Northam resigns? The chance to publicly say "Naa! Naa! See? Democrats are bad guys too"?

Republicans in office don't get that as a benefit of Northam resigning, but FOX News and other conservative media mouthpieces certainly would.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

President Trump floats 'human wall' on southern border ahead of State of the Union

Hours before he is set to deliver a State of the Union address that aides have said will strike a note of bipartisanship, President Donald Trump floated the idea of a “human wall” on the southwest border if Democrats reject his demands for border security funding.

“Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of flooding our Southern Border,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “We have sent additional military. We will build a Human Wall if necessary. If we had a real Wall, this would be a non-event!”

Trump has ordered about 2,350 active-duty troops and an additional 2,200 National Guardsmen to the border. Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced it would send a fresh deployment of troops at the request of the Department of Homeland Security. Those deployments will extend through September.

Of course, Trump is more than likely lying out his orange ass about those "tremendous numbers of people", returning to his old playbook of using fear to stoke up his lemmings. Meanwhile, everyone, including Democrats are all for border security, but NOT Trump's stupid wall that---and let me emphasize this point---WILL. NOT. WORK.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Top General says Trump did not consult him on Syria withdrawal

The commander of US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said Tuesday he "was not consulted" prior to President Donald Trump's December announcement that the US would withdraw its troops from Syria.

"I was not aware of the specific announcement. Certainly we are aware that he had expressed a desire and intent in the past to depart Iraq, depart Syria," Gen. Joseph Votel said during a Tuesday hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"So you weren't consulted before that decision was announced?" Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, asked.

"We were not, I was not consulted," Votel responded.

Show of hands if you're surprised. I thought as much.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Republicans defy Trump on national emergency

Many Senate Republicans are deeply opposed to President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency to build his border wall, with enough resistance that the president might ultimately be forced to veto a measure intended to block him.

Interviews with a dozen GOP senators on Monday revealed broad efforts to wave Trump off from doing an end-run around Congress, part of an effort to avoid a politically perilous floor vote that could place them at odds with the president.

If the House passes a formal resolution of disapproval, the Senate would be forced to take it up with a majority threshold required for passage under procedural rules. That would mean just four GOP defections along with all Democrats would be enough to rebuke the president.

Trump could still win that vote, as no GOP senators would commit to voting against the president, deeming it too hypothetical given the ongoing bipartisan negotiations on border security. But just a handful of Republicans right now are publicly committing to standing with Trump, suggesting the president would face a brutal intraparty fight should he move forward.

“The president’s going to get sued and it won’t succeed in accomplishing his goal … [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi will introduce a resolution of disapproval that will pass the House and come over here and divide Republicans,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “It strikes me as not a great strategy.”

“While I’m in favor of what this president wants to do [on the border wall], I think it sets a dangerous precedent and I hope he doesn’t do it,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the No. 4 GOP leader.

[Jack Dracula]

Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders call for restricting corporate share buybacks

Last year, more than $1 trillion in buybacks were announced by large companies after a corporate tax cut pushed through Washington in late 2017 left companies with a lot of extra cash to spend. But instead of significantly raising worker pay or investing in equipment, companies mostly used the cash to buy their stock. And some large companies are buying back billions of dollars of shares while announcing layoffs and factory and store closings, the senators wrote.

McConell, Ryan and Trump all said companies wold reinvest in their businesses and hire more employees. Those undecided voters had better remember this in 2020.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

McConell, Ryan and Trump all said companies wold reinvest in their businesses and hire more employees. Those undecided voters had better remember this in 2020.

I'm sure most of those voters won't remember, and Republicans will move heaven and earth to prevent ANY restriction on corporate buybacks.

[PaulBullion]

And somehow, with all of Trump's accusations of sexual harassment, he's going to be elected the 46th president of the USA in 2020.

Don't underestimate the effect of chaos theory on elections. One butterfly may make a difference.

[ZombieHavoc]

I'm curious what those treasured principles are. Ha. What a joke.

[BeastieRunner]

I'm curious what those treasured principles are. Ha. What a joke.

Fiscal responsibility was their only real tenant post Regean.

[Tazirai]

TOP NANCY PELOSI AIDE PRIVATELY TELLS INSURANCE EXECUTIVES NOT TO WORRY ABOUT DEMOCRATS PUSHING “MEDICARE FOR ALL”

Pelosi adviser Wendell Primus detailed five objections to Medicare for All and said that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care. Primus pitched the insurers on supporting Democrats on efforts to shrink drug prices, specifically by backing a number of measures that the pharmaceutical lobby is opposing.

Primus, in a slide presentation obtained by The Intercept, criticized single payer on the basis of cost (“Monies are needed for other priorities”), opposition (“Stakeholders are against; Creates winners and losers”), and “implementation challenges.” We have recreated the slides for source protection purposes.

Is Nancy Pelosi Opposed to Medicare For All?/

his is followed by some slides about ACA, Medicare, boomer retirement, and the opioid epidemic. There are a couple of reasons that none of it bothers me too much. First, it’s a presentation that sets out Democratic priorities for the next two years. We’re obviously not getting Medicare for All while Trump is in office, so it hardly matters if Pelosi’s people are downplaying it.

Second, and more important, this just goes to show the enormous malleability of the term “Medicare for All.” It can mean:

Literally, expanding Medicare to cover everyone.
Universal coverage of any kind.
Single-payer universal coverage.

‘Medicare For All’ Is Turning Into A 2020 Litmus Test For Democrats
The party’s voters need to decide how much it really matters.

Sherrod Brown has been calling for universal health care since 1992. That’s when he first ran for a U.S. House seat in Ohio, vowing to decline the federally subsidized insurance for members of Congress until his constituents could get similar coverage. He won that race and he kept that pledge, buying policies on his own until 2011, after the Affordable Care Act became law.

He was a senator by that point, and like every other Democrat in the chamber, he voted for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. But before Brown did that, he promoted a series of proposals designed to make the program more generous and comprehensive. One of them was a last-minute amendment that would have replaced Obamacare’s intricate scheme for competing private insurers with a “Medicare for all” program, under which everybody would enroll in a government-run insurance plan.

Nobody seriously thought Democrats were about to scrap legislation they had spent nearly a year writing. By supporting the amendment, Brown was mostly trying to demonstrate his commitment to improving the Affordable Care Act, if not before it became law, then afterward. It was a symbolic act, but a conspicuous one, with only one other senator co-sponsoring it.

[worstblogever]

Seeing an early drizzle of articles reporting on Trump voters who are outraged over their 2018 tax returns. They've started filing, and are noticing that, somehow, their middle-class income is going from a $2,000 refund to still owing $2-4K instead. The money they were told would help them get a new car or remodel a kitchen by the GOP was a lie all along. They're realizing that they've been screwed.

Expect a further dip in Trump and the GOP's approval ratings between now and April. And Fox News' shock about the widespread support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's pitched 70% tax on billionaires to get more panicked as that continues to gain momentum.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Whoever planned this State of the Union for Trump was playing chess here. They might have found someone smart

[numberthirty]

Whoever planned this State of the Union for Trump was playing chess here. They might have found someone smart

Yeah.

For this outfit(which everyone has been comparing to Romper Room), this is surprisingly solid.

Edit:

Man, this dude is running a game of three card monte.

Folks walked right up with the money.

You were thinking he was going to lead with State Of Emergency? How about A.I.D.S and childhood cancer? Nationwide paid family leave?

Wait a minute, dude is about to flub it. Yep. "We would be in a war with North Korea." Dude can't even figure out how to spin potential progress. At least someone thought to follow it up with Venezuela(though he even came out of that stumbling).

Double Edit: Holocaust survivors and liberators.

[worstblogever]

Whoever planned this State of the Union for Trump was playing chess here. They might have found someone smart

He couldn't even put on his tie straight, and no one at the White House respects him enough to stop him from waddling out like that.