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

[numberthirty]

That said, there may be a more specific breakdown of what exactly was causing the bankruptcies during those years. Totally possible.

If there is, I don't ever recall coming across it.

[Tendrin]

That said, there may be a more specific breakdown of what exactly was causing the bankruptcies during those years. Totally possible.

If there is, I don't ever recall coming across it.

I think you can draw the fairly obvious conclusion that the drop being that steep is as a result of not as many people filing for bankruptcy protection due to medical debt, given that's where the majority of bankruptcies stemmed from. We could probably evaluate this better if we had bankruptcy by st ate and could see if the drops were steepest in Medicaid expansion states... which I imagine they would be, once you control for population.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This Former GOP Congressman Loathed Obamacare — Until He Lost His Own Coverage

Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) said being unemployed with a preexisting condition made him appreciate the Affordable Care Act. Republicans won't like hearing this. Meanwhile....

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New CBO Score Confirms: Trumpcare Kills For Profit

The bill would raid billions of dollars from Medicare — just to provide a massive tax giveaway to millionaires and billionaires. Big shock, eh?

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Rep. Chaffetz Wants To Give Lawmakers A $2,500 Monthly Housing Handout

Most House and Senate members make $174,000 a year. The average American will NEVER see a salary that high and struggles to keep a roof over their heads. More proof of how Washington politicians are WOEFULLY out of touch with the people they're supposed to serve.

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Reporter Challenges Sarah Huckabee Sanders After She Rants About ‘Constant Barrage Of Fake News’

The deputy press secretary chided reporters for covering “this Russia/Trump hoax.” Sarah Shuck 'n' Jive needs to take a chill pill.

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EPA Chief’s Refusal To Ban Pesticide ‘Puts All Children At Risk,’ Pediatricians Warn

The American Academy of Pediatrics says the agency “has no basis” to continue allowing brain-damaging chlorpyrifos on crops.

[numberthirty]

I think you can draw the fairly obvious conclusion that the drop being that steep is as a result of not as many people filing for bankruptcy protection due to medical debt, given that's where the majority of bankruptcies stemmed from. We could probably evaluate this better if we had bankruptcy by st ate and could see if the drops were steepest in Medicaid expansion states... which I imagine they would be, once you control for population.

I can't really agree.

Are you really saying you think the, something like, thirty percent jump in bankruptcy from 2008 into 2009 was not effected by the number of folks losing jobs and was mostly the same sorts of numbers based on medical debt as in prior years?

[mojotastic]

Hey guys, revolution is happening in Venezuela, just today a group stormed the supreme court with an helicopter and a tank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYcePs0M1o&t=60s

this is their message, their are asking for Maduro to resign and for Venezuelans to protest in front of the military bases.

[worstblogever]

I can't really agree.

Are you really saying you think the, something like, thirty percent jump in bankruptcy from 2008 into 2009 was not effected by the number of folks losing jobs and was mostly the same sorts of numbers based on medical debt as in prior years?

So let me get this straight... you're arguing against a obvious correlation between affordable medical insurance and insurance companies being able to cover pre-existing conditions so it doesn't drive people with them into extreme debt that directly correlates to a drop in bankruptcies... with 24 hours that you started arguing against the minimum wage being raised to $15 in Seattle is showing positive effects...

And you claim to be a Bernie Sanders supporter.

...

It's like you're completely disingenuous about your political leanings, or something.

[mojotastic]

This is the speech from the video I posted.

Venezuelans

Dear Brothers,

We speak to you as representatives of the state. We are a coalition of military, police and civil personnel looking for balance and against this criminal government. We do not belong to any political party. We are nationalist, patriots and institutionalists.

This battle is not with the armed forces that are in disagreement, it is, without impunity, against this government. Against tyranny, against the death of innocents who fight for their rights, who fight against hunger, and who fight against the lack of medical supplies and who fight against fanaticism.

This fight is for our lives. It is a fight for the hope we build. This is not revenge, it is justice and our conscience which drivers us towards change. We are using our uniforms in truth and with Jesus Christ who walks with us. It is why we make a call to all Venezuelans from coast to coast and north to south to unite with us and come out to the streets. In Caracas towards Fort Tiuna and in the interior of the country to every military base so that we can find ourselves with our armed forces and together we can recover our loved Venezuela.

Today we are realizing an aerial attack with the goal to return the power to the democratic people and so that we can make our laws work and to re-establish the constitutional order. That is why we adhere to the articles 333 and 350 of our Constitution. We renounce the paramilitaries and return the peace to our Bolivarian people

We urge you to immediately, President Maduro Moros, renounce your presidency along with your entire group and to call General Elections. We have 2 options: Be judged tomorrow by our conscience and our people, to free ourselves from this corrupt government today

We are warriors of god and our mission is to serve the people. Long live Venezuela!

[mojotastic]

Maduro moves agaisnt dissidents.

https://worldview.stratfor.com/artic...mpaign=article

As questions abound in the wake of the June 27 helicopter attack on Venezuela's Supreme Court and Interior Ministry, it is clear that the government is blaming a dissident faction of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The Venezuelan Supreme Court removed dissident Attorney General Luisa Ortega from her post, naming ombudsman Tarek William Saab in her place. Ortega was one of the figures at the head of a broad coalition within the party opposing the continued rule of President Nicolas Maduro.

Plausibly, the day's events were an attempt to trigger a broader military insurrection in the country. The move serves as a show of dissent by rogue members of the security services, who may be seeking to force a choice by the armed forces to choose on loyalty to the government. Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez has so far walked a fine line between the government and the dissident faction, and the incident will likely place additional pressure on him. Elements of the Scientific, Criminal, and Penal Investigative Body, (CICPC), the largest national police agency — alleged to have staged the helicopter attack — supported Ortega's attempt at halting the Maduro government's drive to rewrite the constitution.

These circumstances make it believable that her faction had something to do with the incident as the government claims. According to a Stratfor source, the helicopter used in the attack was abandoned in Higuerote, a city about 65 miles (117 kilometers) from the capital, Caracas. The helicopter took off from La Carlota air base in Caracas. The government apparently is investigating whether the crew had the assistance of personnel at the air base in carrying out their attack, and military authorities have arrested the commander of the base as well as air traffic control personnel there.


Here we can see Maduro saying "what we didnt do with votes, we will do it with weapons" from i speech early today.

https://twitter.com/AlbertoRT51/stat...82628911611904

There he is talking about removing the opposition.

[worstblogever]

It was two years ago we shared our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of David Schultheis, a former Colorado State Senator who over the course of a decade, continuously proved himself to be an example of the GOP’s most cruel and heartless elected officials. In 2006, he responded to news of a fatal car accident that killed three Hispanic citizens by demanding that their citizenship should be checked (which, y’know, would have shown a lack of empathy even if they had survived). In 2009, during debate on a bill that would have provided HIV testing for all pregnant women, he cast the lone vote against it, arguing that “HIV stems from promiscuity” and he didn’t feel the legislature should “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior”. As if an issue position of hoping babies get AIDS to punish their mothers wasn’t revolting enough, later on in 2009 he compared President Obama’s economic policies to the terrorists who hijacked Flight 93 on 9/11, and declared “Let’s Roll” the last message of the people on board who stormed the cockpit rather than be aimed at another government building. Since leaving office in 2010, Schultheis remerged once in 2013 to say that the openly gay Speaker of the Colorado House adopting a child amounted to “deliberate child abuse”, so he’s a homophobic ***hole as well. Schultheis has been silent now going on six years consecutitvely, and it the time of this posting, is 76, so a political comeback seems unlikely.

[mojotastic]

What the helicopter was doing, it was throwing grenades at the supreme court.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuT7qYzk5Y

Here is the video about it.

[worstblogever]

It was one year ago today that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented our first profile of the sitting U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 36th Congressional District, Brian Babin, a dentist by trade who made his first run for Congress two decades ago, failing to be elected in 1996, and making news for being caught in a campaign finance scandal, where he was found to have tried circumventing the rules for maximum donations from one donor by having intermediaries deliver the large sums in smaller pieces. He was caught, and fined $20,000 by the normally toothless FEC. Two years later, in 1998, that scandal may not have been what stood in the way of a Babin victory, as much as the story of his campaign manager simultaneously coming out of the closet, and resigning, saying that Babin had said numerous disparaging things about homosexuals in private meetings. Babin denied this, but the tabloid-like nature of the story, combined with his earlier scandal was enough to sink his chances again.

Well, Texas' 36th District has never been shy about taking on controversial candidates, considering they elected Rep. Steve Stockman back in 2012, nearly two decades after he crazied his way out of office. By 2014, Rep. Stockman had shown he hadn't changed much, so the district elected Babin, another embarrassing throwback to two decades earlier. During the 2014 election season, Brian Babin revealed a variety of mind-numbingly stupid ideas, like his belief that the Affordable Care Act would bankrupt America, his desire to do away with the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, and of course, his desire to build a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border (beating Donald Trump to the punch on this stupid, stupid idea).

Since hitting Washington, D.C. in his late sixties, he has followed up on his campaign platform, showing outrage whenever possible. Perhaps the best example is his response to the Supreme Court's King vs. Burwell ruling, where he introduced legislation that would force all nine of the Supreme Court Justices to enroll in healthcare through the Affordable Care Act (rather than the insurance plans they already have) to show them what they were relegating the American people to. Seriously, this was his patronizing quote:

"As the Supreme Court continues to ignore the letter of the law, it’s important that these nine individuals understand the full impact of their decisions on the American people. By eliminating their exemption from Obamacare, they will see firsthand what the American people are forced to live with!”

A few months later, his xenophobia hit a fever pitch. While most Republicans freaked out about the Syrian refugee program AFTER the terror attacks in Paris by ISIS sympathizers from France and Belgium (i.e. not carried out by any Syrian refugees), On September 17th, 2015, Brian Babin went on Facebook to call for a complete suspension of the entire Refugee Resettlement Program, writing:

”We are crazy to be inviting the problems of the Middle East into the United States. It's time to suspend the refugee resettlement program until we are able to obtain factual information, assess the federal, state and local costs and determine the national security risks. It’s been on auto-pilot for far too long.”

Two months later in November of 2015, Babin took to Breitbart Radio to be interviewed by Steve Bannon himself, and talk about legislation he filed to defund the Refugee resettlement program. While Babin acknowledged that Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus were refugee, this was different because, “Jesus and Mary didn’t have suicide bomb vests strapped on them.”

Babin also has tried squaring his overall Islamophobic stance because he believes that "No-Go Zones" set up by Muslim communities are actually a thing happening in Michigan and Tennessee, and we should stop bringing in Muslims before more of them pop up. Hint for sane people: These “no-go zones” are not happening. ll the way up into the last weeks of the Obama administration, Babin was fear-mongering about the refugee resettlement program, claiming it was a “Trojan Horse” to allow terrorists into the country. Once Donald Trump took office and instituted his unconstitutional Muslim ban, it was Rep. Babin who sent out an e-mail to his constituents, with a survey asking if they supported the measure or not, and within it, claimed several Muslim countries as “terrorism hot spots” that have not produced a terrorist attacker in Europe or the United States within this century.

Now, as you might expect with his hate of Muslim refugees, and a desire to build a border wall, Brian Babin ended up firmly in the corner of Donald Trump in the fall of 2016. So much so, in fact, that he defended Trump for calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” during one of the presidential debates as she handed Trump his ass. Babin’s logic? “I think sometimes a lady needs to be told when she's being nasty. I do.”

And now, in his second term in office as a legislator, Brian Babin’s stupidity continues:

• February 16th, 2017: Babin votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: Brian Babin votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order. We feel safer already.
• March 28th, 2017: Rep. Babin votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers' internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
• May 4th, 2017: Babin votes for the House GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partUm depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the Brian would make sure that Babin would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Brian Babin votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Brian financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.

We’re not sure how long Brian Babin is going to stay in office for Texas’ 36th District, but outside of getting booted in a GOP Primary, with as conservative as it is drawn, he’s not going to be taken down by a Democrat anytime in the near future that we could see, barring a drastic scandal taking him down in October of an even-numbered year. And that… is a little depressing.

[Tami]

Trump lawyer targets poor for donations to fight Obamacare via charity that pays his family millions

That's how it's done, you force poor people to pay for your lawyer to help you take away health insurance from poor people. --- jeeze

Jay Sekulow this month again directed fundraisers for Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (Case) to push people for contributions if they said they could not afford to give money to the group, according to a contract obtained by the Guardian.

A script agreed in the contract, which was signed by Sekulow, instructed the fundraisers to tell people their money was needed for Case’s “massive campaign to repeal and replace Obamacare” if they initially declined to donate a suggested sum.

“Many people are helping with smaller amounts,” fundraisers were told to say. “Can Jay count on you for a smaller, but just as important gift?” People should be urged a third time to donate if they continued to resist, the script said.

Fundraisers were told that if asked for information on Sekulow, they should say: “He never charges for his services”. Since 2000, the not-for-profit group and an affiliate have steered more than $60m to Sekulow, members of his family and businesses where they hold senior roles.

Sekulow and Case brought several legal challenges against Barack Obama’s administration over the former president’s signature healthcare law but currently lead no active federal cases focused on fighting it, according to a review of district court dockets. They have more recently filed briefs supporting Trump’s travel ban. Sekulow did not respond to questions about how new donations would be spent.

The 2017 script for Case’s telemarketers detailed only the latest in a series of forceful requests for money the group has made over recent years. Scripts for several years were obtained by the Guardian. The not-for-profit group raises more than $40m per year, most from small contributions made by Christians across the US who receive alarmist political messages by telephone or in the mail.

At the height of last year’s presidential election, Sekulow instructed his telephone fundraisers to “listen, empathize, [and] relate” to people who said they could not afford to donate to Case, before pushing these people twice more for an “urgently needed gift”. A script signed by Sekulow told the marketers to “overcome [the] objection” to donating, and to tell the person on the line that “many people are finding ways to help with smaller amounts as well”.

[4saken1]

That's a bad graph - it starts too close to the point where the ACA was signed.

Here's one that shows more.

Attachment 51013

I think we can still draw the same conclusions.

[Kirby101]

Here's one that shows more.

Attachment 51013

I think we can still draw the same conclusions.

Yes, it is obvious the ACA was a big help with medical bankruptcies. i would say the dip after 2005 was due to the housing bubble and people being able to borrow so much more on their homes. Of course by 2008...

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump lawyer targets poor for donations to fight Obamacare via charity that pays his family millions

That's how it's done, you force poor people to pay for your lawyer to help you take away health insurance from poor people. --- jeeze

Talk about first class grifters, but then, Sekulow and his henchmen learned from the best, namely Trump. And the really sad part of the equation is that those poor, deluded rubes will fall for the pressure and give the GOP the knife they need to cut their throats.