US Politics: Follow the Money!

[Guy Kilmore]

Well this is a disappointing turn of events.  Medicare is ending an exception that is now redefining what is a Residential Treatment center.  This effects youth who have severe mental health issues and puts their care at risk.  I just find it to be an odd decision considering the recent events with school violence.

 

[DanteGabriel]

 

Well this is a disappointing turn of events.  Medicare is ending an exception that is now redefining what is a Residential Treatment center.  This effects youth who have severe mental health issues and puts their care at risk.  I just find it to be an odd decision considering the recent events with school violence.

 

You act as if the Republican Party is interested in solving any problems beyond "how do we keep plutocrats contributing to our slush funds?"

[Guy Kilmore]

 

You act as if the Republican Party is interested in solving any problems beyond "how do we keep plutocrats contributing to our slush funds?"

Yeah yeah, hope springs eternal and all that.

[Fragile Bird]

But but but...what about Mental Health and only Mentally Ill White People  shoot people?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

 

But but but...what about Mental Health and only Mentally Ill White People  shoot people?

Don’t you get it whip birdie? We have to do less for the mentally ill so we can continue to scapegoat them for gun violence. If we help them, then who will we blame when white kids shoot up schools?  

It’s just like with abortion. Republicans need to get mad about them, so they take away safe sex education and easy access to birth control. Because of course abstinence only education will lead to a reduction of abortions.

Think!

[Martell Spy]

 

Don’t you get it whip birdie? We have to do less for the mentally ill so we can continue to scapegoat them for gun violence. If we help them, then who will we blame when white kids shoot up schools?  

It’s just like with abortion. Republicans need to get mad about them, so they take away safe sex education and easy access to birth control. Because of course abstinence only education will lead to a reduction of abortions.

Think!

Yeah and if they become homeless you can blame that on local Democrats. That is what Washington state Republicans do.

[Martell Spy]

Trump, Kim Jong Un, set time and place for summit

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/10/breaking-news-trump-says-meeting-with-north-korean-leader-set-for-june-12-in-singapore-579909

President Donald Trump revealed on Thursday that his historic planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would take place on June 12 in Singapore, after suspensefully teasing details of the event for weeks.

[Sour Billy Tipton]

 

 

@Sour Billy Tipton

The board skews to the left, which shouldn’t be surprising giving the book/TV series, and the politics thread skews a bit to the left of that. However, that’s primarily because of two reasons. The more thoughtful conservatives, over the years, have drifted more to the center and/or the center-left, and those that aren’t so thoughtful tend to just be trolls. It’s not surprising that there aren’t many conservatives left considering there really is no way a thoughtful person can still be an across the board conservative these days.  

True.  However, after scanning through some of the comments on these threads, I would think it would be a difficult task to go against the majority without being ostracized.  

[Sour Billy Tipton]

?

I have no idea, but Jace does flood my PMs with terrible fantasy football trade proposals.  

 

Even during the off season?  Dear god, she is relentless.

There is no off-season for DYNASTY leagues!  I'm only in 1, and it's ridiculously addicting.  I somewhat mortgaged my 2018-19 draft picks in order to obtain Todd Gurley.  Hopefully it pays off.

[Stannis is the man....nis]

Sidenote there is this annoying overreaction right now that Joe Manchin is in trouble because Blankenship lost. While Morrisey is not Blankenship bad he's an carpetbagger, former DC lobbyist, and in a recent ad misspelled West Virginia. I think Joe can take him

[LongRider]

I don't remember who said this, but someone once said McCain should be kicked in the nuts every day for inflicting Palin on us. I agree. 

[DanteGabriel]

From the "all these assholes deserve each other" files:

Wingnut Fox Business guest (a retired general of course) insists that torture works, since it worked on "Songbird John" McCain.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-analyst-torture-worked-on-songbird-john-mccain

It's fractally awful! Every individual piece of this story is exactly as awful as the whole thing!

[Bonnot OG]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

I don't remember who said this, but someone once said McCain should be kicked in the nuts every day for inflicting Palin on us. I agree. 

I'll settle for the brain cancer. 

[Sour Billy Tipton]

16 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

I'll settle for the brain cancer. 

Wow, I guess you don't believe in karma.  

[Bonnot OG]

20 minutes ago, Sour Billy Tipton said:

Wow, I guess you don't believe in karma.  

IDK, McCain dying of brain cancer seems like karma given the things he supports and how he told a person dying of brain cancer that lived in AZ that lost their healtcare coverage, to move out of the state when they wrote him asking for help.

That almost makes me believe in karma. 

But in all seriousness, no I do not believe in karma. But lets not act like McCain is a good person, and him dying of cancer doesn't change that. 

Why should I be nice about a terrible person?

 

[davos]

17 hours ago, Triskele said:

Circling back to McCain from the previous thread:

I know that on the left one sees fairly frequently the suggestion that he's a Republican through and through a lot...and I get that up to a point.  Sure, he's hawkish as Hell, so if you're a dove he's not even one of the better Republicans.  But he has bucked the GOP line a lot more than most...a low bar, I suppose, but I also say credit where credit is due.  

The John McCain who lost the nomination to W back in 2000 seemed to be a moderate, sane man who would have had a real chance to at least put a break on his party's slide into insanity.  While Gringrich, the contract with America, and the Clinton impeachment had already happened, there might have been an opening to draw a different course and McCain would have been a good choice to try to find it.  That man I could respect, if not agree with.

The John McCain of the past year and a half has been bucking his party and I can respect that, even if he's been far from perfect.  He's at least been a voice of sanity.   

The John McCain who sold his soul to get the nomination in 2008 essentially killed what little worthwhile was left in the GOP.  He then spent the next 8 years that he could have been trying to find ways to cooperate with Obama to actually lead this country instead taking part in the obstructionist his party embraced.  Unfortunately, this is the portion of John McCain's public life that has had, by far, the largest impact on the country, and it, therefore, is the one that will rightly form the preponderance of his legacy.  So fuck him 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Here's a perfect example of why I'm shocked that any qualified individual would work for Trump:

Quote

WASHINGTON — Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Trump berated her on Wednesday in front of the entire cabinet for what he said was her failure to adequately secure the nation’s borders, according to several current and former officials familiar with the episode.

Ms. Nielsen, who is a protégée of John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has drafted a resignation letter but has not submitted it, according to two of the people. As the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Ms. Nielsen is in charge of the 20,000 employees who work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Trump’s anger toward Ms. Nielsen at the meeting was part of a lengthy tirade in which the president railed at his entire cabinet about what he said was its lack of progress toward sealing the country’s borders against illegal immigrants, according to one person who was present at the meeting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/us/politics/trump-homeland-security-secretary-resign.html

Also, who needs clean air, amirite?:

Quote

You can't manage what you don't measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases, which are crucial to manage—and challenging to measure. In recent years, though, satellite and aircraft instruments have begun monitoring carbon dioxide and methane remotely, and NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10-million-a-year research line, has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon. Now, President Donald Trump's administration has quietly killed the CMS, Science has learned.

The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling the CMS "is a grave mistake," she adds.

The White House has mounted a broad attack on climate science, repeatedly proposing cuts to NASA's earth science budget, including the CMS, and cancellations of climate missions such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3). Although Congress fended off the budget and mission cuts, a spending deal signed in March made no mention of the CMS. That allowed the administration's move to take effect, says Steve Cole, a NASA spokesperson in Washington, D.C. Cole says existing grants will be allowed to finish up, but no new research will be supported.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/trump-white-house-quietly-cancels-nasa-research-verifying-greenhouse-gas-cuts

And for the last bit of news, it appears Trump has successfully conditioned the Republican base to not believe what Mueller reports:

Quote

Only 13 percent of Republicans say that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is a “legitimate investigation.” Fully three-quarters of Republicans agree with President Donald Trump that it’s a “witch hunt.”

Meanwhile, 76 percent of Democrats consider it a legitimate investigation. That’s according to a new Economist/YouGov survey of 1,500 adults between May 6 and 8 about the investigation.

What’s more, 61 percent of Republicans believe the FBI is framing Trump. Just 17 percent of Republicans say the nation’s federal law enforcement agency isn’t after the president, and about a fifth — 21 percent — weren’t sure.

Twenty-five percent of independents think Trump is being framed, with 39 percent saying he is not. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats say Trump isn’t being framed, 7 percent of Democrats think he is, and 15 percent aren’t sure.

The responses to questions about Trump in this Economist/YouGov survey are an example of the country’s political polarization and reflect recent trends of Republicans losing confidence in the FBI. It’s also another sign of the effectiveness of Trump’s messaging with the GOP that Republicans are now so deeply skeptical of federal law enforcement.

https://www.vox.com/2018/5/10/17340200/poll-republicans-trump-fbi-mueller-witch-hunt

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Here's a perfect example of why I'm shocked that any qualified individual would work for Trump:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/us/politics/trump-homeland-security-secretary-resign.html

I guess for a proud white patriot like Nielsen, the opportunity to oversee a cruel and vicious round up of nonviolent brown people and separate children from their parents was worth the professional risks.

[Martell Spy]

It Sounds Like Donald Trump Jr. Has a New Girlfriend

https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/donald-trump-jr-dating-fox-host-kimberly-guilfoyle-report.html

Quote

According to multiple sources who spoke to “Page Six,” the First Boy is dating none other than Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Victoria’s Secret model and current Fox News host who once said that young women should “go back to Tinder” instead of voting. (It’s rumored that Guilfoyle also had a thing with Anthony Scaramucci after his wife filed for divorce in late 2017.)

 

[LongRider]

44 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I guess for a proud white patriot like Nielsen, the opportunity to oversee a cruel and vicious round up of nonviolent brown people and separate children from their parents was worth the professional risks.

jfc, using harsh to describe her doesn't go far enough

Quote

Talking about the criminal arrest I do know that 70 percent of all the ICE arrests were people convicted of or charged with crimes. Syracuse University did some analysis of that, and came up with the fact that during the president's first year the largest increase in deportations was immigrants who commit traffic violations. Next largest crimes people accused of public order crimes — disorderly conduct, failure to appear in court. There was a state senator in Texas who called this the broken taillight that leads to deportation system of enforcement. Are these the priorities that you all want? These low level crimes like this?

You know first I always feel compelled to make the larger point here which is; if you have broken the law, we will prosecute you. Come through a port of entry if you have a legitimate claim. Do not break the law by coming between ports of entry. Having said that, as we discussed, we do have a privatization scheme. Running a red light is not top of the scheme, but unfortunately it was sanctuary cities and other situations when we target an illegal immigrant, if we encounter other illegal immigrants who are here illegally and have broken other laws - we will no longer exempt them from prosecution. So that's why those numbers are such. It was — previous administrations have made different calls on that. But for us we're not exempting anyone. If you break the law, you break the law. You will be referred for prosecution.

http://radio.wpsu.org/post/transcript-homeland-security-secretary-kirstjen-nielsens-full-interview-npr