Trumps Tweets

Trumps Tweets could be grounds for impeachment.

From Balkinization: "I Don't Care About My Dignity":

".. one of the articles of impeachment against President Johnson alleged that comments such as these were a high crime and misdemeanor. Article Ten stated:  "Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, unmindful of the high duties of his high office and the dignity and proprieties thereof" did "make and declare, with a loud voice, certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues, and therein utter loud threats and bitter menaces . . . amid the cries, jeers, and laughter of the multitudes then assembled in hearing." [I love the touch about "with a loud voice."] Article Ten concluded with the following:

Which said utterances, declarations, threats and harangues, highly censurable in any, are peculiarly indecent and unbecoming in the Chief Magistrate of the United States, by means whereof the said Andrew Johnson has brought the high office of the President of the United States into contempt, ridicule and disgrace, to the great scandal of all good citizens, whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did commit, and was then and there guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.

Hail to the Chief."

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Trump the R

Trump as he campaigned would be better for the average American voter than Trump the Republican.

Still, Pence is scarier. Trump's erratic behavior and basic ignorance of how our government functions is sand in the gears of the R agenda. A president Pence would make the implementing the R agenda a much smoother process.

This Is Normal:

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R's Health Care

Wow. If only there were some mechanism to get this out to the general public.

It turns out the liberal caricature of conservatism is correct - Vox:

Though Republicans had long promised the country a repeal-and-replace plan that offered better coverage at lower cost, the House GOP’s health care bill cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It was widely criticized and polled terribly.

Senate Republicans responded by releasing a revised health care bill that also cut hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes for the rich and paid for it by gutting health care spending on the poor. It has also been widely criticized, and it also is polling terribly.

Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of covering everyone with better health insurance than they get now, has endorsed both bills.

Republicans, in other words, have repeatedly broken their promises and defied public opinion in order to release health care bills that cut spending on the poorest Americans to fund massive tax cuts for the richest Americans. (The Tax Policy Center estimates that 44.6 percent of the Senate bill’s tax cuts go to households making more than $875,000.)

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Heatlh Care Tax Cuts

The wealthy do pretty well in the Senate's bill.

Reduce the health of those on the left so we can give money to those on the right.

.Distribution of Proposed Tax Cuts under BCRA | Econbrowser:

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What people need

From : A New Economic Vision, in 27 Words | The Baseline Scenario:

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Trump on Health Care

The man is a normal Fox News watcher, uninformed as hell. Still Pence would be worse.

Does Trump Know the First Thing About Health Care? Aide: ‘He Understands Winning.’:

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Health Care

They'll have more after the R's gut what little health care we have.

From The richest US families own a startling proportion of America's wealth - Business Insider:

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Petrified Forest | Lapham’s Quarterly

Have just skimmed this Petrified Forest | Lapham’s Quarterly: but liked this paragraph.

"The war on terror brought up to combat strength the nation’s ample reserves of xenophobic paranoia, the American people told to live in fear—suspect your neighbor and watch the sky; buy duct tape, avoid the Washington Monument, hide the children. Given enough time and trouble over the last sixteen years, their collective fear and loathing collected into the cesspool from which Donald J. Trump emerged, in January of 2017, to become the president of the United States."

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About The Swamp - Christian Non-profit edition

60 million funneled through a non-profit to family. A good swampy gig.

Trump lawyer's firm steered millions in donations to family members, files show | US news | The Guardian:



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The Black Book of Capitalism

A good one here from Ian Welsh:

The Black Book Of Capitalism | Ian Welsh:

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War Drums

US aircraft carrier sails under the International Peace bridge ??

U.S. amassing spy planes off Syria, aircraft carrier to arrive in Israel - U.S. News - Haaretz.com:

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Health Care

Keep them working....... Republicans hate 60 year old folks. Hullabaloo:

Republicans are the Problem?

Republicans and, well, .. Democrats too.

California Scheming: Democrats Betray Single-Payer Again:

If California can't do single-payer then there is no hope for the US.

Medicare for all !!

Fuck the R's. Fuck the D's. Vote Bernie.

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War

Syria Will ‘Pay a Heavy Price’ for Another Chemical Attack, White House Says - NYTimes.com:

Trump accuses Syria of Planning Gas attack as Haley attacks Russia, Iran

It sounds like we'll be seeing another "Syrian" gas attack. This administration seems to want a war and a line in the sand and questionable gas attack seem to be an easy way in.

Sean Spicer Issues Statement On Syria No One Should Believe

I'm not so sure we shouldn't believe.

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Health Care

It's our choice. Which would you choose?

The Senate Health Care Bill (the BCRA) and Its Appeal to Voters | naked capitalism:

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President Blow-Hard

A good post here on the Qatar problem that touches on why it's not really a good idea to have a US president with business interests around the world. It also touches on how inexperience and inability to control his mouth can cause problems around the world.

What is the Qatar-GCC showdown really about? | GCC | Al Jazeera:

a few pieces...

"One grudge Trump might have against Qatar lies in the fact that, unlike the Emiratis and the Saudis, who invested in his properties and gave him generous concessions, it didn't give Trump business incentives that would allow him to expand his brand in the country.  

But such banality couldn't really be the reason why the US president was so prone to ride the anti-Qatar bandwagon, could it? Alas, and for the record, during his campaign, Trump did boast about liking the Saudis for buying $40 million apartments in his towers. "

and

But Trump might've also had an agenda of his own that correlated with that of the Saudis and Emiratis. Trump made a strategic decision to reverse Obama's policy towards the Middle East and has committed his administration to support Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and the UAE against Sunni extremism and Iranian clerics.

This meant creating the right conditions for rapprochement between Israel, the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; the so-called "outside-in" approach to resolving - or rather dissolving - the Palestinian issue. The fact that this effort is headed by Trump's inexperienced, radically Zionist son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who maintains close relations with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, speaks volumes. We are witnessing an "unholy trinity" that's bound to destroy any hope for regional stability.

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Health Care

Fox News doesn't want to talk about it.

The Teabaggers will never know about the healthcare bill.

Senate Health Bill

More on fucking the old people by forcing them to hand over large portions of their retirement savings to health insurance companies.

Senate Health Bill Reels as C.B.O. Predicts 22 Million More Uninsured - The New York Times:

"Moreover, the report said, premiums for older people would be much higher under the Senate bill than under current law. As an example, it said, for a typical 64-year-old with an annual income of $26,500, the net premium in 2026 for a midlevel silver plan, after subsidies, would average $6,500, compared with $1,700 under the Affordable Care Act. And the insurance would cover less of the consumer’s medical costs. 

Likewise, the report said, for a 64-year-old with an annual income of $56,800, the premium in 2026 would average $20,500 a year, or three times the amount expected under the Affordable Care Act."

Medicare for All !!

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Health Care bill

Taking  $1,180 billion from people who buy or can't afford to buy insurance and heath care.

Moving $700 billion to people who can afford it.

That's a priceless fucking healthcare bill.

Medicare for all !!


Mitch McConnell Isn’t Playing 13-Dimensional Chess | FiveThirtyEight:

".. the BCRA “will transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from poor and middle-class people, in the form of health care, to rich people in the form of tax cuts.” To be more specific, the bill would cut Medicare spending by $772 billion over 10 years, according to the CBO, and reduce health care tax credits by about $408 billion. It would also reduce taxes and penalties by more than $700 billion, mostly in the form of “repealing or modifying tax provisions in the ACA that are not directly related to health insurance coverage, including repealing a surtax on net investment income and repealing annual fees imposed on health insurers.”

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Lobotomizing of Conservative Intellectualism.

A Reagan Republican speaks out.

‘Trump Is What Happens When a Political Party Abandons Ideas’ - POLITICO Magazine: "

".. Republican policy analysis and research have virtually disappeared altogether, replaced with sound bites and talking points. The Heritage Foundation morphed into Heritage Action for America, ceasing to do any real research and losing all its best policy experts as it transformed from an august center whose focus was the study and development of public policy into one devoted mainly to amplifying political campaign slogans. Talk radio and Fox News, where no idea too complicated for a mind with a sixth-grade education is ever heard, became the tail wagging the conservative dog. "

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The Healthcare Debate.

A good post here. (some cuts below but read it)

Lee Camp: Here's Why There Is No Legitimate Healthcare Debate In This Country | naked capitalism:

"The debate SHOULD be “Is our country wealthy enough to cover the healthcare of every man, woman, and child without causing extraordinary harm to other citizens?” If the answer is yes, then the answer is do it. (And the answer is yes.) The other side of the debate should be, “Let ‘em die.”"

...

"Point being, in the “healthcare-vs-let-em-die” debate, there would be two legitimate sides. But in our current healthcare debate, we first have Obamacare: a pro-corporate system designed to  enrich an industry made of slimy parasites who spend their days trying to figure out how to make sure people either owe them lots of money or die quickly. Then we have Trumpcare: a pro-corporate system designed to  enrich an industry made of slimy parasites who spend their days trying to figure out how to make sure people either owe them lots of money or die quickly. …BUT with one of those options there are no pre-existing conditions. "

... 

"We are debating between two horrific, criminal versions of healthcare designed to make people rich off of the pain and suffering of every American. Yes, Obamacare is better. Yes, Trumpcare is worse. Yes, I don’t care. By acting like this is a legitimate debate, we are subconsciously solidifying cultural hegemony for the idea that healthcare should be something exploited for profit. It should not. Stop dignifying that thought process."

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Senate Heath Bill

Fucks the older, about-to-retire class.

Senate Health Bill Reels as C.B.O. Predicts 22 Million More Uninsured - The New York Times:

Likewise, the report said, for a 64-year-old with an annual income of $56,800, the premium in 2026 would average $20,500 a year, or three times the amount expected under the Affordable Care Act.

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Health care

It looks like the Senate's health care bill will hit me for around $8,000, if I can work out a retirement at 60. The bastards.....

Medicare for all !!!!

See how it will affect you, here. Kaiser Family Foundation. 

Government

You can't run a government like a business.

A CASE AGAINST AUSTERITY

American Capitalism

The Wrong Kind of Entrepreneurs Flourish in America - Bloomberg:

..many American entrepreneurs are no longer looking for ways to produce more useful stuff, and are instead looking for new techniques for extracting money from each other and from the government. In other words, crony capitalism may be slowly cannibalizing productive capitalism.

I'd have to agree.

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Mike Pence..

.. is a dick. He would be worse than Tump.

Hullabaloo: The reasonable grown-up on Father's Day:

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Cherry-Picking Polls

Rasmussen poles are always,... always... slanted to the R side.

From FiveThirtyEight   The Art Of Cherry-Picking Polls | FiveThirtyEight:

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The American Conservative

Conservatives...whining about R elites being better than the D's elite in the age of Trump where both ruling tribes lost.

Removing Trump Won’t Solve America’s Crisis | The American Conservative:

...These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn’t the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own.

When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation’s elites, it’s a strong signal that the elites are the problem. 

and....

"At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some even attacked him vociferously. But, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended up with the nomination. The Republican elites had to give way. Why? Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar, ill-mannered, tawdry politicians? No, because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it."

Republican elites accepted Trump ... "because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it."

Like the R elite realized the masses wanted Trump so they just gave in to the rabble.

That's some bullshit.

The R's accepted Trump because they had no choice, the R voters chose him. Exactly the same reason the D's accepted Trump, the American voters chose him.

Of course the elite of both parties don't like him and are working to neuter him but they both accepted the outcome of the elections because, you know, the person with the most votes wins.  (well sort of but that's another story.)


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Trump vs Elite

I feel The Atlantic is usually pretty in-tune with what our elite think. Not that it's right or that it applies to most of the country, just that it's a good barometer of American elitism.

Donald Trump Has No Plan for Making America Great Again - The Atlantic:

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American Capitalism

On the rise of unproductive entrepreneurs like Travis Kalanick | FT Alphaville:

In short, entrepreneurs stop focusing on growing the pie and start focusing on stealing other people’s bit of the pie for themselves, or launching ICOs in get rich quick schemes.

Sounds like American Capitalism to me.  


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Cutting Taxes..

.. isn't good for you economy.  Political Irony › A Closer Look at Kansas:

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Health Bill

It'll be hard to design a heath care bill that helps people when you're paid and advised by corporations or groups that really just want to make money from it.

Vox interviewed 8 GOP senators about the health bill, and their answers are real head scratchers / Boing Boing:


TRUMP OFFICIALS OVERSEEING HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL PREVIOUSLY LOBBIED FOR HEALTH INSURANCE FIRMS

The Silence of the Hacks


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The Real Death Tax

In your last few years the Medical establish takes everything you own.

This only applies to working class people though. The rich can protect their assets with the legal system. The poor don't really have anything to lose. The working class well, they pay the real death tax.

You’re Probably Going to Need Medicaid - The New York Times:

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Microsoft Updates

7:12 am  - click the update windows button.
8:05 am - Updates complete. computer is ready to use.

53 god-damn minutes out of my work day waiting for a fucking Microsoft update to finish.

You would think the company behind the largest operating system in the world could find a way to update its product without taking an hour out of my day. I mean they've only been doing these updates for what 25 years?

Fuck you Microsoft! 

Trump retweets 'Fox and Friends'

Trump retweets 'Fox and Friends' on ISIS link to Australia terror attack - U.S. News - Haaretz.com:

"The tweet comes a day after the Associated Press fact-checked President Trump’s weekend tweets and subsequently warned readers not to trust the president for accurate information during a terrorist attack."

It's pretty scary that Trump gets so much from Fox but he seems to get an amazing amount from "Fox and Friends", the most dumbed-down version of the Fox Propaganda line.

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About that Swamp - Middle East edition

Qatar crisis: Why are the Gulf states turning on Qatar? - Haaretz:

"It stems from disputes between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. The battle of leaks and hacking produced an interesting drama, after a series of emails allegedly exchanged between the U.A.E. ambassador in Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research institute that was founded and is funded by, among others, Sheldon Adelson and Edgar Bronfman, as well as other Jewish millionaires.

This is a neoconservative institute that was established after 9/11 and which enjoys excellent relations with Netanyahu and senior officials in the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli government.

According to the leaked emails the United Arab Emirates and the Foundation exchanged ideas and opinion regarding ways of handling Qatar due to its support of Hamas and Iran. Ambassador al-Otaiba, who is considered one of the most influential and well-respected figures in Washington is fostering strong links with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. He reportedly also had connections with Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer."

Seems like a lot of backroom slimy stuff going on here. It happened right after Trumps visit. Israel, Adelson, Jared, Dermer, and a US Think-Tank/lobby all involved. Interesting.

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Roger Ailes and Fox News

Now that Ailes is gone we're starting to see real stories about the Propaganda Network. 

FEAR & UNbalanced: Confessions of a 14-Year Fox News Hitman
How Roger Ailes & Fox News Got Rich Scamming America’s La Z Boy Cowboys and Selling Out America’s Soul

Some cuts but read the whole thing

To sell Fox New’s “Big Lie”, Fox manipulates and stages everything it does in opinion programming to create/facilitate actual addiction. The master Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be impressed at the lengths Fox goes to in staging their partisan performance art aka propaganda-like programming.
..
The designated liberals job was simple: make the viewer so enraged from their recitation of hated liberal/progressive ideology (theology that the Fox viewer of course had been taught to hate from listening to thousands of hours of conservative talk radio for decades) that the viewer literally felt like “throwing a brick through my TV screen.”
..
What continues to blow me away to this day is . . most Fox News fans STILL don’t seem to get that the Fox opinion programming they are addicted to is just as fixed and fake as pro wrestling.

Shouting

A good post from Noah Smith, though somehow he manages to completely ignore how the shouting of talk-radio and Fox news have driven the public conversation the last few decades.

The Shouting Class

MIsc

No.  Could artificial intelligence lead to world peace? | Science:


Why They hate us. US to “Annihilate” Islamic State Caliphate, Civilian Casualties a “Fact of Life”



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About that Swamp - Jared Kushner edition

How Jared Kushner built a luxury skyscraper using loans meant for job-starved areas - The Washington Post:

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Trump and Climate

A good look at Trumps Paris climate speech.

The 5 biggest deceptions in Trump’s Paris climate speech
It wasn’t easy narrowing these down.

It sounds like Fox News or Right-Wing radio talking points to me. Fuck reality, tell me what I want to hear.

About that Swamp - Tom Price edition

Tom Price Bought Drug Stocks. Then He Pushed Pharma’s Agenda In Australia. | Crooks and Liars:

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About that Swamp

Trump grants ethics waivers to Conway, Bannon, ex-lobbyists - Business Insider: "the Trump administration had granted five times as many ethics waivers to employees during its first four months than President Barack Obama's White House did over the same timeframe."

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