All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[4saken1]

You ever hear someone say "That team did not win. The other team lost."?

To a large degree, that is what happened. While I'm not going to say that Trump's version of identity politics wasn't in play, a good chunk of that win was that his opponents were too busy trying to beat him without beating him with a tire iron.

The fact that Trump won the Primary is largely a demonstration of the spoiler effect. Had there not been so many other candidates, and/or if other candidates would have dropped out sooner, most of whom mainstream Republicans would have settled for ANY of over Trump, somebody else would have likely ended up with enough delegates to beat him.

[worstblogever]

I'm noting the logic of WBE's position. I'm not claiming that anyone is obligated to criticize the most awful people before going after someone with greater power who didn't do something as awful.

Once upon a time, Republicans like George H.W. Bush would criticize white supremacists like David Duke as easily as anyone should.

As opposed to what you're doing, which is arguing why you and your fellow Republicans should be craven and not bother.

Quite inspiring, Mets.

[Kevinroc]

In Start to Unwinding the Health Law, Trump to Ease Insurance Rules
Directive is expected to expand the sale of less-expensive plans with fewer benefits

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-star...les-1507771015

President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order Thursday to initiate the unwinding of the Affordable Care Act, paving the way for sweeping changes to health-insurance regulations by instructing agencies to allow the sale of less-comprehensive health plans to expand.

...

Mr. Trump, using his authority to accomplish some of what Republicans failed to achieve with their stalled congressional health-care overhaul, will direct federal agencies to take actions aimed at providing lower-cost options and fostering competition in the individual insurance markets, according to a Wall Street Journal interview with two senior White House officials. The specific steps included in the order will represent only the first moves in his White House’s effort to strike parts of the law, the officials said.

...

Health analysts predicted that Thursday’s order could tempt critics to pursue legal challenges, opening a new front in the health-care battle. But the order is likely to leave much of the implementation details to agencies, senior White House officials said Wednesday, and they said they didn’t believe the order could be litigated.

Republicans’ effort to repeal the ACA collapsed in Congress last month, and Mr. Trump hasn’t hidden his displeasure at GOP leaders for that failure or his desire to step into the gap. The White House officials said Wednesday night that the order was specifically crafted in the context of the failure of the repeal bid.

...

“Since Congress can’t get its act together on HealthCare, I will be using the power of the pen to give great HealthCare to many people – FAST,” Mr. Trump tweeted this week in signaling his intent to issue the executive order.

...

The order will direct the Labor Department to take steps that speed the way for small businesses, and possibly individuals, to band together in arrangements called association health plans. These insurance plans would be exempt from some regulations, such as the requirement that they offer a specific set of benefits and they would likely attract those with limited health needs.

In another move, the executive order will call for expanded access to short-term health plans whose availability was curtailed by the Obama administration. These plans have more flexibility than others allowed under the ACA, such as an ability to refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Finally, the order will direct agencies to rescind an Obama-era guidance on employer-funded accounts that workers use for medical costs. Employees who have these accounts, called health reimbursement arrangements, will likely be allowed to use them to buy their own insurance plans, something that is now forbidden.

...

The Obama administration blocked the pretax dollars from being used to buy such plans because of concerns that would prompt employers to stop offering coverage of their own.

As Andy Slavitt, who ran Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA under Obama put it...

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/918304668639514624

One thing is very clear: tomorrow the ACA is officially no longer Obamacare. It's Trumpcare.

[zinderel]

My boy? I voted against him twice.

Your statements were about "racist shitbag organization"s, so by definition, that's going to be about groups that organize openly (even if their racism may not be as open.)

In that context, you brought up how the President is "slated to speak at an event which caters to several of those hate groups." I wanted a better understanding of a perspective on why the President is wrong (in this case, that he is attending an event that is racist), so my focus is exclusively on racist groups at the moment, rather than any other form of bigotry or about how many people are secretly racist but not organized. The article I linked to attacked the Value Voters Summit for ties to a hate group, but focused largely on the Family Research Council, which was labeled a hate group by the SPLC for homophobia, rather than racism.

The groups listed as racist seem to be Breitbart, the John Birch Society, and some Islamophobic groups (there is the counterpoint that any argument about Islam is about religion, although it is a faith favored by black and brown people within the United States). The organization is accused of hosting events that featured racist revisionism (albeit with conservative African-American speakers) and selling politically incorrect allegedly satirical items.

I get the venn diagram of homophobia and racism, so I was interested in the extent to which one argument bled into another.

They bleed together for me, and I lump racists and homophobes together and sometimes use one as a catchall for both, sometimes I use the other, sometimes, I use bigot. Why? Because they are the same fight: injustice perpetrated against a minority by a majority for no reason other than an inborn, immutable thing.

THEY
ARE
THE
SAME
FIGHT.

We just fight it on different fronts, is all. It really is VERY simple. You either stand against injustice, no matter who is the target, or you stand for injustice as long as it doesn't inconvenience you. Which do you want to be?

[Kevinroc]

In Start to Unwinding the Health Law, Trump to Ease Insurance Rules
Directive is expected to expand the sale of less-expensive plans with fewer benefits

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-star...les-1507771015



As Andy Slavitt, who ran Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA under Obama put it...

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/918304668639514624

Also, I'm waiting for people who said Obama overreached with his Executive Orders to come out against Trump's EO right here.

Any minute now...

[Iron Maiden]

Also, I'm waiting for people who said Obama overreached with his Executive Orders to come out against Trump's EO right here.

Any minute now...

Not that I'm saying anything in Trump's favor but he's too dumb about health care to think of doing this. I wonder who came up with the EO.....Ryan? Mulvaney? Miller? They're all SOBs

[JCAll]

They bleed together for me, and I lump racists and homophobes together and sometimes use one as a catchall for both, sometimes I use the other, sometimes, I use bigot. Why? Because they are the same fight: injustice perpetrated against a minority by a majority for no reason other than an inborn, immutable thing.

THEY
ARE
THE
SAME
FIGHT.

We just fight it on different fronts, is all. It really is VERY simple. You either stand against injustice, no matter who is the target, or you stand for injustice as long as it doesn't inconvenience you. Which do you want to be?

"Bigot", yeah, that's a good catch all term. I think I'll start using that.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

California Authorities Say Wildfires Are Only Getting Worse

“I’ve been in the fire service for over 30 years, and I’m horrified at what I’ve seen,” said Cal Fire public information officer Jerry Fernandez. Where is SCROTUS (So-Called Ruler Of The United States) on this unfolding catastrophe? Oh, yeah, he's too busy pitching a tax cut plan that will benefit the rich (big surprise, eh?) while trying to destroy NBC. Pathetic! Speaking of the Peacock Network....

**********

How Top NBC Executives Quashed The Bombshell Harvey Weinstein Story

Reporter Ronan Farrow ultimately took the piece to The New Yorker after facing months of opposition at his home network.

**********

Conservatives Call On Mitch McConnell, Other GOP Leaders To Step Down

“You were not going to ‘drain the swamp.’ You are the swamp.” OUCH! Sick burn! True, too!

**********

Trump Praises A Guy Fired For Giving A Nazi Salute As A ‘Source Of Truth’

The president gave a shoutout to Jeffrey Lord. More proof Sunkist Satan loves Neo-Nazis. Meanwhile....

**********

Khrushchev’s Granddaughter Just Compared Trump To Stalin

Nina Khrushcheva slams Trump over attacks on the media. Wow! Just....wow!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

‘He threw a fit’: Trump’s anger over Iran deal forced aides to scramble for a compromise

President Trump was livid. Why, he asked his advisers in mid-July, should he go along with what he considered the failed Obama-era policy toward Iran and prop up an international nuclear deal he saw as disastrous?

He was incensed by the arguments of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others that the landmark 2015 deal, while flawed, offered stability and other benefits. He did not want to certify to Congress that the agreement remained in the vital U.S. national security interest and that Iran was meeting its obligations. He did not think either was true.

“He threw a fit,” said one person familiar with the meeting. “. . .He was furious. Really furious. It’s clear he felt jammed.”

So White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other senior advisers came up with a plan — one aimed at accommodating Trump’s loathing of the Iran deal as “an embarrassment” without killing it outright.

To get Trump, in other words, to compromise.

“McMaster realized we just cannot come back here next time with a binary option — certify or decertify,” an exercise Congress requires every 90 days, said a person familiar with the July discussion. “He put his team to work on a range of other options, including a decertification option that would involve Congress” and would not immediately break the deal.

That effort — described by seven people familiar with the debate, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the confidential discussions — led to a revamping of the U.S. approach to Iran and the nuclear pact that Trump is set to announce this week and which congressional leaders were briefed about on Wednesday. Under the expected announcement, Trump will declare that the deal is not in the U.S. national interest while stopping short of recommending renewed nuclear sanctions.

The deliberations show the extent to which Trump’s national security team in recent months has been occupied with navigating the future of the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump repeatedly vowed to throw out as a “disaster” during the campaign. The sometimes angry internal debate also provides another illustration of the way in which Trump’s gut impulses and desire for dramatic action have often collided with the subtlety of international diplomacy.

Thank God for Tillerson, Mathis and McMaster, the only adults in the Abominable Administration. Without them doing yeoman work keeping Pissy POTUS in check, no telling where the country would be today.

[InformationGeek]

And this morning Trump is blaming Puerto Rico for its situation, promoting mega conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, and saying he can't keep the military and FEMA in Puerto Rico forever. Prick.

Also, FEMA head said, in regard to Puerto Rico, is that it is not their job to distribute food and water. Bet I know why they said that.

[JCAll]

The fact that Trump won the Primary is largely a demonstration of the spoiler effect. Had there not been so many other candidates, and/or if other candidates would have dropped out sooner, most of whom mainstream Republicans would have settled for ANY of over Trump, somebody else would have likely ended up with enough delegates to beat him.

I'm not sure that's true. We just can't deny that Trump's brand of childish name calling and "telling it like it is"* struck a cord.
*"Lies people want to believe"

[JCAll]

And this morning Trump is blaming Puerto Rico for its situation, promoting mega conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, and saying he can't keep the military and FEMA in Puerto Rico forever. Prick.

Also, FEMA head said, in regard to Puerto Rico, is that it is not their job to distribute food and water. Bet I know why they said that.

So there's basically no chance that Puerto Rico would ever want full statehood after this mess.

[The Darknight Detective]

I'm not sure that's true. We just can't deny that Trump's brand of childish name calling and "telling it like it is"* struck a cord.
*"Lies people want to believe"

Trump was the most well known candidate on the GOP stage by far and, arguably (only in Hillary's case), when compared to the Democrats. Coupling that with his image (not necessarily reality, mind you) as a legendary businessman, deal maker, and shoot-from-the-hip guy and it was silly for anybody not to think he didn't have a chance. 4saken1 is right in this way, however: if the primaries had used the Condorcet method of voting, Trump could possibly have not won.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And this morning Trump is blaming Puerto Rico for its situation, promoting mega conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, and saying he can't keep the military and FEMA in Puerto Rico forever. Prick.

Also, FEMA head said, in regard to Puerto Rico, is that it is not their job to distribute food and water. Bet I know why they said that.

And this mess is happening because Trump pitched a fit over San Juan's mayor having dared complain about the speed (or rather, the lack of same) of the relief efforts and put the screws to Puerto Rico in retaliation. Meanwhile, the higher ups in the Republican Party continue looking the other way, perhaps even condoning the President of the United States letting citizens suffer because of a petty and senseless vendetta he insists on nursing. Disgusting!

[JBatmanFan05]

I'm not sure that's true. We just can't deny that Trump's brand of childish name calling and "telling it like it is" struck a cord.

I think you're right. The enthusiasm for Trump was not just a result of other primary candidates staying in or dropping out.