caulfield12

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 26, 2017 -> 11:17 AM) So it turns out that Trump handed Merkel a NATO invoice for $374 billion dollars during her visit. What a despicable conman and an embarrassment to the US. And that adjustment to 2% of GDP isn't even a rule/law...it's a "guideline," and those 23/28 countries under 2 all still have until 2024. Not to mention Merkel is dealing with the refugee crisis and immigrants that the US is largely responsible for...they're spending is over 2% already including their "soft" spending on unwinding the crisis in that region. That doesn't even include the political costs and consequences.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/angry-over-u-hea...-001902655.html Trump voters (largely) spare him blame for health care debacle

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/protesters-arr...s-during-march/ Three protesters arrested for illegally using pepper spray on Trump supporters. So basically, it's pretty much all even now between the two sides.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 25, 2017 -> 09:50 AM) There's an ongoing lawsuit right now where House Republicans were suing to have the courts rule that the ACA subsidies weren't properly funded. If Trump really is going to gleefully and openly cheer for the collapse of health care for millions of Americans, this is the easiest way. He can choose to instruct his government to simply not defend the lawsuit in court. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obam...-lawsuit-231724 FWIW the CBO has also recently said that the ACA exchanges are stable, so unless this lawsuit were to succeed, ACA won't be collapsing in on itself before exploding any time soon even with Congress and the WH trying to break and cause harm to Americans who rely on it every way they can. Trump cutting all advertising for the exchange enrollment period is believed to be the cause of lower than expected signups this year, and there's a federal investigation of that underway. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tru...fate/ar-BByIkWN http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/20...surance-status/ President Trump’s executive order restraining Obamacare is already in effect at the IRS. The IRS will (now) accept tax returns that do not declare health insurance status. https://www.yahoo.com/news/obamacare-explod...1--finance.html

So time to take a deep breath? I’d say a shallow one. I can see two possible scenarios that could follow a drawn-out Trump slump. One is the nightmare I’ve been having for more than a year now. A president hobbled domestically by his own party’s divisions and the opposition’s new energy may be tempted — Putin-like — to change the subject in a way that vaults him back to popularity. A foreign altercation from which he will not back down? A trade war? A smidge likelier, I’d say, is an over-the-top response to an inevitable jihadist terror attack in a major American city. A demagogue loses much of his power when he tries to wrestle complicated legislation through various political factions, in the way our gloriously inefficient Constitution requires. He regains it with rank fear, polarization, and a raw show of force. Heaven knows what the Constitution will look like once he’s finished. The other possibility is that Trump really does at some point realize he’s sinking fast and decides on a hard pivot. He wants to win and be loved, and if he keeps losing and becomes more widely loathed with his current strategy, it’s by no means out of character for him to recalibrate. He could use the possible failure of Trumpcare to feed Paul Ryan to the Breitbartians, and reach out to Democrats on a tweaked Obamacare and infrastructure package. He could dump Bannon the way he dumped Manafort and bulls*** his way through all the inconsistencies (the one thing he remains rather good at). He could wrest himself like Kong on Skull Island from the giant lizards and become the tribune of the forgotten men and women he wants to be, and combine nationalism and protectionism with, er, socialism, like his heroine Marine Le Pen. He could finally realize the potential he has thrown away so far, and become an American Perón. The only snag with this strategy, of course, is that he could hard-pivot only to find himself a Kong who’s alienated from the GOP and obstructed by the emboldened Dems, a rogue, bleeding president without a party, marooned on his own island of polarized irrelevance. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/...nald-trump.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the...m=.751d2e694763

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...re-trump-214947 Inside the GOP's health care debacle Donald Trump had heard enough about policy and process. It was Thursday afternoon and members of the House Freedom Caucus were peppering the president with wonkish concerns about the American Health Care Act—the language that would leave Obamacare’s “essential health benefits” in place, the community rating provision that limited what insurers could charge certain patients, and whether the next two steps of Speaker Paul Ryan’s master plan were even feasible—when Trump decided to cut them off. "Forget about the little s***," Trump said, according to multiple sources in the room. "Let's focus on the big picture here." The group of roughly 30 House conservatives, gathered around a mammoth, oval-shaped conference table in the Cabinet Room of the White House, exchanged disapproving looks. Trump wanted to emphasize the political ramifications of the bill's defeat; specifically, he said, it would derail his first-term agenda and imperil his prospects for reelection in 2020. The lawmakers nodded and said they understood. And yet they were disturbed by his dismissiveness. For many of the members, the "little s***" meant the policy details that could make or break their support for the bill—and have far-reaching implications for their constituents and the country. "We’re talking about one-fifth of our economy," a member told me afterward. Ultimately, the meeting failed to move any votes. Two Freedom Caucus members—Brian Babin and Ted Poe, both of Texas—told the president that they had switched to yes, but their decisions had already been registered with White House vote-counters prior to sitting down with Trump. (Their colleagues didn't appreciate the gesture, feeling that Babin and Poe were trying to score points with the president at their expense.) Upon returning to Capitol Hill, the Freedom Caucus gathered in a meeting room inside the Rayburn office building, discussed Trump's admonitions to them and took another vote. The tally had not changed: Of the group’s roughly three dozen members, two-thirds remained opposed, with only five or six of those saying they were "soft" in that stance.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/24/politics/don...lame/index.html Deal or no deal, Trump ready to cast blame 33-36 no votes still. Great leadership...bigly impressed. Trust me. Wonder what actually losing would feel like?

The laughable thing is the AHCA would have multiple millions more without insurance than if the ACA never even existed at all and system "as is" continued in 2010...and yet the cost savings are less than $200 billion even with 24 million theoretically losing coverage. Or the fact that premiums will actually rise the next 2-3 years despite missing essential services in "bare bones" packages.

The amount of legitimate debate at SoxTalk...might STILL be above the negligible amount of genuine engagement and civility that's being exhibited in the House of Representatives right now. And Mr. Munchin, look at all the quantitative/AIish trading programs that have already replaced human fund managers and brokers on Wall Street. Here in China, the high school students are talking about AI and virtual reality nearly every day...is America really falling so far and so fast that students have forgotten how to dream?

http://www.vox.com/2017/3/23/15044354/ahca-plan-friday-vote "The Republican Health Care plan is totally nuts" By the way, 34 against the AHCA is the whip count now

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed that the Republican plan starts out in a deep hole. Just 17 percent of Americans say they approve of the GOP bill, compared with 56 percent who say they disapprove. The remaining 26 percent say they are undecided. The lowest approval level for the Affordable Care Act in any Washington Post-ABC News poll was 39 percent, with the highest disapproval 57 percent. The worst net negative recorded in those polls was minus-18 points. The Quinnipiac survey puts the net negative for the Republican plan at more than double that number, or minus-39 points. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-p...m=.93da0dcd98ff QUOTE (G&T @ Mar 23, 2017 -> 08:27 PM) Pretty sure freedom caucus doesn't want any federal health care. They gladly would have held out to screw everyone. It's hard to imagine their (the HFC) districts are so "bulletproof" that they could basically just do whatever they want to without any repercussions in terms of re-election from their districts, but it's certainly possible (especially if the Kochs are going to subsidize them for voting no). That's one key difference between the two parties. The Democrats fell in line for the ACA, and it cost many of them politically. Meanwhile, the 35ish member HFC is willing to screw over their entire party to basically obstruct or end up with nothing at all for another 200ish members of Congress. What kind of (good) governance is that? http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trum...lth-care-236418 Trump Demands Friday Up or Down Vote from House But the Trump-Ryan gambit may pay off. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said the move by Trump and Ryan “certainly does” put enormous pressure on the Freedom Caucus to get behind the bill. And already a handful sounded like their positions were softer than they had been before. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who said he remains undecided, added that efforts by the Freedom Caucus had “improved the bill.” Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) said members will feel more pressure to vote "yes" with the bill on the floor, even if they may have felt comfortable opposing it before. Sanford said he was undecided. Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) was a "no" but is now undecided. "I've got to decide whether this is best for my district and best for the president and best for my country. And I'm not convinced it will bend the cost curve down... but it may be as good as it gets on this one," DesJarlais said. “We get elected to make votes, and this is a big vote,” added Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a Freedom Caucus member who supports the bill and called it “the right thing to do.

Not necessarily. In order to be "good" players, both Delmonico (and Hayes) would have to play a position other than 1B at above-average MLB defense. It doesn't seem that Delmonico has the ability to stick at 3rd, but he'll definitely be given time to continue his improvement because the White Sox have nothing but time and patience right now.

In hindsight, it's quite obvious what the GOP SHOULD have done. One up or down vote on repealing the ACA. THEN, you force the Tuesday and House Freedom Caucus members to actually work together on replacing ObamaCare, where all the members have skin in the game and own the disastrous result if they can't even work together within their own party. Now, you have a situation of the "blame game" where everyone simply avoids taking responsibility for the consequences of not simply improving the ACA, whereas now they can simply do everything possible to sabotage ObamaCare and then turn around and say, "gee, look, it's failing, it's the fault of the Dems (and we had no responsibility during those past 7 years to work together in a bipartisan way to fix it." Of course, the GOP will turn around and argue that the strategy of obstruction and complaining about Obama was effective and led to "victories" in almost every two year election cycle except for the 2012 Presidential. They're confusing those victories with the American people wanting the AHCA, and they're DEFINITELY not the same thing. ACA popularity was around 47% in a recent poll, with the AHCA at 30% and falling like a rock in recent days.

The reason why we need single payer and a shared risk pool of all Americans and not by individual state...not to mention the GOP can simply block the stabilization subsidies and then turn around and argue ObamaCare is a failure. The only other way is mandating everyone at least have some form of catastrophic insurance, but that would still be a disaster for those needing essentially services or basically anyone sick or dying. At any rate, the AHCA isn't designed to solve the following AZ problem either, as it will only exacerbate the following problem. HHS data also indicates that average benchmark exchange premiums rose by 25 percent in 2017.3 In many areas around the country, premiums are going up by much more. For example, Arizona has seen a 116 percent increase in premiums for these plans.4 Further, more than a quarter of exchange enrollees were over age 55.5 Because of the relatively high ages and associated high health costs of these enrollees, several insurers have expressed concern that the market has become unstable and will likely worsen in coming years if these trends are not reversed. That is, as premiums increase, younger and healthier enrollees may decline to enroll, while older, less healthy enrollees stay in the system. Without enough younger, healthier enrollees to balance the risk of older, sicker enrollees, premiums could continue to increase rapidly. Fear and uncertainty around market stability has led to the exit of several major insurers from exchange markets across the country. http://www.communicatingforamerica.org/wp-...g-Rationale.pdf

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/obam...-is-next-236433 Six ways the GOP could still salvage health care vote

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 23, 2017 -> 11:58 AM) 8 weeks? They should be working the next day! EDIT: While we're at it, why isn't the infant working!?! Ivanka will fix that one...bigly. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03...p-news&_r=0 According to the latest tally by NYT, they're at least 9 votes short. The big question now is whether they allow this to linger on through Monday or simply pull it.

Range of 24-32 "no" votes across eight different media organization as of Thursday morning. GOP can only afford to lose 22 votes. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03...p-news&_r=0 Trending in the direction of more no's piling up than yes gains.

There's just no way they should even be voting without getting a CBO preliminary scoring first...the ACA deliberations took 6-7 months, whereas this has basically been a 2 week process, and less than 24 hours without a CBO reading for the 'revised' House bill. That's crazy, when you look at the potential impacts on tens of millions of Americans.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/race-america-whi...-200757784.html A white Army veteran traveled from Maryland to New York City to kill a black man to "make a statement" in the media capital of the world, New York Police Department officials said Wednesday. James Harris Jackson, 28, turned himself in at a Manhattan police station after he stabbed his victim on a sidewalk. Jackson was carrying a handful of knives in his pocket when he arrived at the police station, Reuters reported. Shortly after coming across Timothy Caughman, who was searching through garbage on the street, he stabbed him in the chest and back, police said. Jackson told police he left Baltimore Friday and traveled to New York City by bus "because it is the media capital of the world and he wanted to make a statement," Bill Aubrey, a deputy chief at the New York Police Department, told reporters. "It was revealed that the attack on Timothy Caughman was clearly racially motivated. It is believed that he was specifically intending to target male blacks." Caughman, 66, died at a local hospital where he was being treated for his injuries. On his Twitter page, he called himself a “can and bottle recycler” and “autograph collector.” He lived in transitional housing for people with HIV/AIDS, the New York Daily News reported. He went by the nickname "Hard Rock"

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 22, 2017 -> 06:25 PM) Freedom Caucus demanding that funding for mental health and maternal Care be cut in exchange for their votes. https://twitter.com/JoanAlker1/status/844697870074871809 Remember, their eternal deflection whenever someone kills a bunch of people with a gun is "mental health!" We're run by a death cult. Removing the provision could also greatly weaken the law's protection of those with pre-existing conditions. Without the requirement to cover comprehensive policies, insurers could opt exclude some of the priciest services that sick Americans need. Carriers would also no longer have to cover annual exams and preventative tests free of charge. House leadership did not originally include it because doing so would likely run afoul of Senate rules governing budget reconciliation, the procedure being used to avoid a Democratic filibuster that Republicans won't be able to break. (Not to mention the whole Planned Parenthood gutting probably won't make it past the Senate parliamentarian, either). http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/ess...ucus/index.html It's quite obvious they want a "political win" to get the bill to the Senate and not completely cripple Trump's presidency...they've only succeeded in giving themselves SOME degree of political cover by going on record as voting to repeal ObamaCare, even if, in the process of doing so, they've guaranteed failure of the ultimate bill. So you simply have a repeat of 2010, except this time with zero Democrats voting for the legislation. And, if you set out to intentionally create a system that would end up DEMONSTRABLY WORSENING the health outcomes of a majority of Americans, this is probably close to what you'd come up with as a result.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 22, 2017 -> 07:51 PM) The latest health care cut Republicans are weighing, explained http://www.vox.com/2017/3/22/15030214/esse...-reconciliation Isn't the change where they're not cutting, but providing (for example) people over 50 an opportunity to buy cheaper insurance that doesn't provide maternity/pediatric care? One of the issues with the ACA was the fact that everyone had to buy the same package, whether they needed those various coverages or not (like the seniors not needing maternity/pediatric care)... Of course, the argument against this is an obvious one. If you're allowed to pick and choose whatever you need specifically and throw everything else out, it raises the premiums for everyone else because the costs of providing services in those areas can't be borne only by those affected by having a baby or getting sick. That's pretty much the whole purpose of insurance, nobody actually WANTS to buy it, whether it's for their car or house or whatever, and we don't expect to get all the money we pay into the system back in the form of benefits, because no private insurance market can survive paying out more benefits than it receives in premiums. Because that 55-64 age group was going to be totally screwed under the AHCA, in the last 24-48 hours they're apparently looking to provide more subsidies to counterbalance the huge rate increases and/or obscuring the argument by attempting to get rid of a lot of the medical services covered under ACA to make it seem like seniors theoretically might be getting at least a semi "decent" (probably not better, though) deal under the new Ryan health care plan. Trump asked King why he couldn’t vote for the bill. King responded he didn’t think it would lower insurance premiums enough. But King then floated a potential deal to Trump: If the president would publicly back amending the bill to deregulate the health care industry, King would change his vote. Trump agreed, and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) picked up a desperately needed vote. With one day to go until the biggest vote of his brief presidency, Trump is using all the trappings of his office to try to clinch the needed 215 votes. It’s unclear whether it will be enough to save the legislation. But late Wednesday, the White House floated a major change to the bill in a bid to win over roughly three dozen House conservatives. It was over the same issue King had raised in the White House meeting earlier in the day. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trum...-debacle-236380 Yeah, like Trump's actually going to deregulate the health care industry...I can't believe Steve King is a real person.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-...ians/index.html The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN. One law enforcement official said the information in hand suggests "people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared they were giving the thumbs up to release information when it was ready." But other U.S. officials who spoke to CNN say it's premature to draw that inference from the information gathered so far since it's largely circumstantial. The FBI cannot yet prove that collusion took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now a large focus of the investigation, the officials said. On the plus side, there are 50-100 Scion Hotels (representing Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka) planned in the US over the next 3-4 years. First one will apparently be in Dallas. Many cities like Seattle are basically saying "over my dead body" will a Trump/Scion branded hotel be coming to their community. Suggested prices will be a much more "reasonable" $200-300 USD per night, about half the normal Trump-branded rate.

WSJ Editorial: Most Americans May Conclude Trump "Fake" President http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/don...rust/index.html https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-presidents-c...lity-1490138920 http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/matt...ns-obama-236329 GOP frustrated with Mattis for not wanting all Repub staffers and not pushing for even higher DOD budget increases

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Mar 21, 2017 -> 10:32 PM) I guess the same could be said about the World Cup. Except you can't name more than a few non-injured international stars who have ever skipped a World Cup. This isn't even the second or third best team the US could potentially send out there, particularly on the pitching side.

Manafort and his associates remain in Trump's orbit. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone. Manafort's former business partner in eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions. Gates has since helped plan Trump's inauguration and now runs a nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda. Gates, whose name does not appear in the documents, told the AP that he joined Manafort's firm in 2006 and was aware Manafort had a relationship with Deripaska, but he was not aware of the work described in the memos. Gates said his work was focused on domestic U.S. lobbying and political consulting in Ukraine at the time. He said he stopped working for Manafort's firm in March 2016 when he joined Trump's presidential campaign. Manafort told Deripaska in 2005 that he was pushing policies as part of his work in Ukraine "at the highest levels of the U.S. government — the White House, Capitol Hill and the State Department," according to the documents. He also said he had hired a "leading international law firm with close ties to President Bush to support our client's interests," but he did not identify the firm. Manafort also said he was employing unidentified legal experts for the effort at leading universities and think tanks, including Duke University, New York University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Manafort did not disclose details about the lobbying work to the Justice Department during the period the contract was in place. Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the department. Willfully failing to register is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, though the government rarely files criminal charges. Deripaska owns Basic Element Co., which employs 200,000 people worldwide in the agriculture, aviation, construction, energy, financial services, insurance and manufacturing industries, and he runs one of the world's largest aluminum companies. Forbes estimated his net worth at $5.2 billion. How much Deripaska paid Manafort in total is not clear, but people familiar with the relationship said money transfers to Manafort amounted to tens of millions of dollars and continued through at least 2009. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the secret payments publicly. In strategy memos, Manafort proposed that Deripaska and Putin would benefit from lobbying Western governments, especially the U.S., to allow oligarchs to keep possession of formerly state-owned assets in Ukraine. He proposed building "long term relationships" with Western journalists and a variety of measures to improve recruitment, communications and financial planning by pro-Russian parties in the region.