StrangeSox

Taking preventative measures to stop future interference in our elections seems like a pretty important thing to do if you want to ensure the integrity of our electoral process. Completely ignoring foreign interference in our elections seems negligent at best, and I'm not sure how the situation with Russia is comparable to engagement with Cuba, Iran or North Korea. The issue at hand isn't Russia domestic policy but what they are doing to the United States. Whether the US has clean hands isn't at issue, either. We certainly don't, and have interfered in foreign elections and even gone as far as to overthrow foreign governments plenty of times. That's awful, and it should stop, but I still want electoral integrity to be ensured here. There are reports that they tried to hack in at the voter database level and were successful in at least one case--that's a huge deal. Voting machines themselves are notoriously prone to infiltration, and some voting software places were also targeted. I don't believe it got to the level of actual vote tampering, but it very easily could and is more likely to happen if the President is ignoring the issue entirely because it upsets him. I mean, if you want to try to play the hypocrisy card, it'd be pretty easy to point out that the same people insisting that foreign interference in our electoral process is nbd are also the ones constantly shouting for Voter ID and other forms of domestic disenfrachisement to address problems that don't even actually exist. Which I guess is sort of relevant because while Turmp is completely ignoring the Russia issue that the entire intelligence community insists is very real, he's still going forward with his "Voter Integrity Committee" that's focused on finding those 3M illegal votes.

So something I realized this morning while talking to someone is that I don't know what the functional difference between a "Medicaid for all" and a "Medicare for all" system would be. edit: what brought it up was that Nevada's governor vetoed that state's Medicaid buy-in option.

In 2014, Obama was accused of demeaning the Presidency for going on Between Two Ferns to tout healthcare.

It's too bad that a policy with 12-17% popular support has a pretty good chance of becoming law while a policy with 60% popular support has none because leadership in both parties reject it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2017 -> 08:52 AM) Trump lawyer's firm steered millions in donations to family members, files show He's under investigation for this scam charity by two AG's now (NY and NC), and there are also questions surrounding a $296m deal he did with Kushner https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/ju...hner?CMP=twt_gu

Philippine police use hospitals to hide drug war killings The Philippines' House also just passed a law making it a crime punishable by large fines and lengthy jail sentences to not forcefully and joyously sing the national anthem whenever it's played.

Capital-P Presidential

New Muslim ban guidelines are going out Seems like it's healing right back to court for not exactly following what scotus said https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/880...src=twsrc%5Etfw

Don't get me wrong a shooting war with Russia would be extremely bad, but if they are undermining our democracy it seems like we should take that seriously and at least implement defensive measures. The president is either ignoring it or calling it a hoax.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 28, 2017 -> 05:21 PM) It is bizarre to see the left wanting conflict with Russia to be a thing. I don't want conflict with Russia, but I don't see how what I want determines whether they actively interfered in the election last year and will continue to try to do so in the future. I guess I'm not really sure what you mean by your post

In Michigan, Medicaid expansion helped low income workers get back to work https://twitter.com/umichmedicine/status/880120366957568003

Senate GOP Health Bill Would Raise Out-of-Pocket Costs in Every State

Paul Manafort, Trump's one-time campaign manager, retroactively registered as a foreign agent represent Ukraine (the pro-Russia version pre-2014).

Officials struggle to convince Trump that Russia remains a threat Russia is going to meddle in the 2018 and 2020 elections because the federal government isn't going to do anything to stop it.

Senate Intel to get Comey memos http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/28/r...s-russia-240053

https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/6/13...-everybody-lies

Isn't he the one (of many) who railed against lobbyists and then immediately took a high-paying lobbyist job when he left Congress?

yes, but only if it ends in a cage match

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 28, 2017 -> 08:38 AM) He's very angry about WaPo exposing the fact that he has FAKE NEWS Time magazine covers at at least 5 of his properties yesterday, and now Time has asked him to remove these photoshopped covers. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist David Farenthold is on the case! He spent months and months last year digging through Trump's alleged charitable donations, contacting hundreds of organizations and finding essentially nothing.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 28, 2017 -> 10:42 AM) Just like the olden days... The rest of working america is ok with commuting, some even flying every monday and then home every thursday. Why cant they? The public transportation system is pretty great in DC as well. IIRC Biden took Acela (Amtrak) to commute every day when he was in Congress

Did I say 17% approval? I meant 12%. Poll: Only 12% of Americans support the Senate health care plan Storm clouds: Independents turn away from Trump while his base turns inward essentially, everyone hates this bill except his dedicated base who's choosing to just ignore it.

Tom Ricketts and Ted Cruz are clones

ProPublica got their hands on internal facebook documents detailing how they censor posts. Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Children A trove of internal documents sheds light on the algorithms that Facebook’s censors use to differentiate between hate speech and legitimate political expression.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 28, 2017 -> 08:44 AM) We're just delaying the inevitable. Every day that goes by, the ACA is weakened in the eyes of insurers. Trump is writing the narrative. Still ascribing to Trump's Razor: the dumbest explanation is most likely the correct one. He's blindly stumbling around and by some accounts his PAC is responsible for pissing off enough Senators to get the vote pushed past this week by attacking Heller. I do think this was will pass eventually, though, much like the House bill. I just think it'll be due to more aggressive arm-twisting than due to any grand, competent strategy from the GOP at this point.