US Politics: Culture Club

[Ser Hedge]

7 hours ago, Zorral said:

haven't read the testimonies in the UK and and here too.  They did swing the Brexit and the 2016 election -- and were so shocked when it worked --

I haven't watched this one, but the one about the Brexit referendum staring Benedict Cumberbatch highlighted how Aggregate IQ identified FB users who hadn't voted in years, even decades - folks who had basically 'been left behind' - and were no longer being targeted by mainstream parties for campaigning as they didn't exist in most databases. These FB users were targeted with ads for 'free prizes' that involved getting them to provide their responses to various issues which helped the Leave campaign fine-tune their message to reach this segment, besides obviously continuing to target them with ads to get them to register to vote and later obviously come out and actually vote. This documentary did not deal with fake news getting streamed down to these FB accounts, if that happened in the Brexit referendum, but I guess it's not hard to see that that would be (would have been) the next step.

 

[DMC]

House GOP fears retirement wave will lead to tsunami

Quote

Republican strategists say they are bracing for a new wave of exits after members check in with their families over the August recess. Two dozen Republicans won their reelection bids in 2018 by fewer than five percentage points; another 25 won by fewer than ten points.

“There are going to be a lot more [retirements] to come,” said one consultant who works for House Republicans. “Between people finding themselves having to actually work hard for the first time in their long, lazy careers and members who came in in the majority and now hate life in the minority, it's just getting started.”

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, DMC said:

Not just them but also all the "don't knows."  There's a lot out there, who knows, maybe someone can muster all of that and get into the top tier.  Booker seems to be getting some run right now, we'll see.

I think Booker is like fetch. It’s just not going to happen. What I find oddest though is Sanders looks like he’s collapsing. I saw a handful of polls last night, and he was under 15% in all of them.

[Fragile Bird]

I don't understand how Trump can get away with saying Cummings has stolen billions of dollars meant for Baltimore. Surely either Congress should subpoena Trump to provide evidence of the thefts and Cummings should sue his ass for libel.

[Frog Eater]

31 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I don't understand how Trump can get away with saying Cummings has stolen billions of dollars meant for Baltimore. Surely either Congress should subpoena Trump to provide evidence of the thefts and Cummings should sue his ass for libel.

He didnt really say that Cummings had stolen it. He said:

"Billions of dollars have been pumped in over the years, but to no avail,” Trump tweeted. “The money was stolen or wasted. Ask Elijah E. Cummings where it went. He should investigate himself with his Oversight Committee!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/30/he-should-investigate-himself-trump-echoes-fox-news-again-lash-out-elijah-cummings/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f2c3065dc7fe

 

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Frog Eater said:

He didnt really say that Cummings had stolen it. He said:

"Billions of dollars have been pumped in over the years, but to no avail,” Trump tweeted. “The money was stolen or wasted. Ask Elijah E. Cummings where it went. He should investigate himself with his Oversight Committee!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/30/he-should-investigate-himself-trump-echoes-fox-news-again-lash-out-elijah-cummings/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f2c3065dc7fe

 

The clear implication in that statement is that Cummings was involved in the theft or misuse of billions of dollars. What else does ‘ask Elijah Cummings where it went’ mean?

[Ice Queen]

13 hours ago, Triskele said:

To some extent this is more of a pre-Obamacare argument.  Not to say that these things ceased to be true, but it's not as bad as before.  Not because the industry became nice on their own but because the law forced them into better behavior.  

Now if this lawsuit wins and OCare gets entirely thrown out you're going to see a huge increase in both people with zero coverage and people whose coverage is all of the sudden worse.  

As something of an aside, and here not sure that it matters messaging-wise, the insurance sector gets  bad rap insofar as it's really the overall system that has all kinds of problems with big health systems / hospitals being a huge part of the problem and pharma being another huge part of the problem but with the insurance company often being position as the pain point for people's interaction with the system.  Those other two entities are arguably the bigger problem today with the insurance sector being more tightly regulated than it used to be.  But messaging-wise I can see why insurance is easier to blame.  Start blaming "hospitals" and some people will be like "but I love my nurse" who is not the reason the hospital is a problem overall.  

What if the hospital system owns its own insurance company? Then the two entities are one and the same.

See: UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) and their fight with Highmark BCBS. 

[DMC]

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think Booker is like fetch. It’s just not going to happen. What I find oddest though is Sanders looks like he’s collapsing. I saw a handful of polls last night, and he was under 15% in all of them.

Yeah I don't think Booker has a shot but just throwing him out there as he's been getting some increased attention of late.  Also, enjoyed the fetch reference:

As for Sanders, yeah I definitely think he needs to start making waves real soon or he's gonna start fading away for good.

1 hour ago, Ice Queen said:

What if the hospital system owns its own insurance company? Then the two entities are one and the same.

See: UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) and their fight with Highmark BCBS. 

Gotta say, I know dozens of people, of a wide variety of ages and health, on a UPMC plan - as well as quite a few people that work(ed) there - and I don't think I've ever heard a complaint, whereas I definitely have for Allegheny/Highmark.  (I've also been on a UPMC plan myself the past four years but never have used it because I'm terrified what the doctor will tell me.)

[Frog Eater]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

The clear implication in that statement is that Cummings was involved in the theft or misuse of billions of dollars. What else does ‘ask Elijah Cummings where it went’ mean?

I disagree that there is a clear implication that Cummings was responsible for the theft. "Ask Cummings where it went" is a direct jab at Cummings as part of the oversight committee to investigate where all of that federal aid money goes. 

[Fragile Bird]

11 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

I disagree that there is a clear implication that Cummings was responsible for the theft. "Ask Cummings where it went" is a direct jab at Cummings as part of the oversight committee to investigate where all of that federal aid money goes. 

Stolen is stolen.

eta: we’re not talking about a few million bucks disappearing, Trump is saying billions. Billions don’t vanish without serious complicity.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

I disagree that there is a clear implication that Cummings was responsible for the theft. "Ask Cummings where it went" is a direct jab at Cummings as part of the oversight committee to investigate where all of that federal aid money goes. 

There’s been a clear and consistent narrative with Trump’s attacks on minority members of Congress: Where they come from is lesser than filled with crime and corruption. Splitting hairs with regards to Trump’s comments is a useless exercise that misses the bigger picture.

[argonak]

12 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Stolen is stolen.

eta: we’re not talking about a few million bucks disappearing, Trump is saying billions. Billions don’t vanish without serious complicity.

Where-as the DoD is completly innocent of its missing billions and absolutely doesn't need to be audited.   Really, they swear.

[Fragile Bird]

I just saw that on tv again and Frog Eater leaves out Trump going on to say, ‘the money is stolen, billions and billions have been stolen’.

[Zorral]

All that wall money, all that incarceration money -- in whose pocketses is that sitting, hmmmmmm?

Not to mention tvillain campaign donations, where are so many of them sitting right now, hmmmmm?  And the Trump Foundation money? and and and and on unto infinity, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

[Kalbear]

58 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

I disagree that there is a clear implication that Cummings was responsible for the theft. "Ask Cummings where it went" is a direct jab at Cummings as part of the oversight committee to investigate where all of that federal aid money goes. 

He also says 'he should investigate himself'. Are you thinking that this means that he, himself, should investigate? Because that's not the common way that parses.

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

There’s been a clear and consistent narrative with Trump’s attacks on minority members of Congress: Where they come from is lesser than filled with crime and corruption. Splitting hairs with regards to Trump’s comments is a useless exercise that misses the bigger picture.

Trump thinks black people live in shitholes. The proof you need is from the town hall debate in 2016. I know I've used this example before. There was an elegantly dressed middle-aged black man who asked how he could be sure that Trump would represent all Americans -- a gracious and polite way of asking, "are you a racist?" Trump's response was to launch into a tirade about miserable ghetto life. He literally can't help but associate black people with ghettoes. Probably because that's how he and his monster of a dad ran their business.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Trump thinks black people live in shitholes. The proof you need is from the town hall debate in 2016. I know I've used this example before. There was an elegantly dressed middle-aged black man who asked how he could be sure that Trump would represent all Americans -- a gracious and polite way of asking, "are you a racist?" Trump's response was to launch into a tirade about miserable ghetto life. He literally can't help but associate black people with ghettoes. Probably because that's how he and his monster of a dad ran their business.

It's worth noting that the first time Donald's name appeared in the press was when he and his Klansman father were sued for housing discrimination. It boggles the mind to see people still arguing that he's not an open racist.

[Frog Eater]

36 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Stolen is stolen.

eta: we’re not talking about a few million bucks disappearing, Trump is saying billions. Billions don’t vanish without serious complicity.

Part of that "billions" is the 1.8 Billion Baltimore spent under ARRA stimulus funds. 

https://www.freedomworks.org/content/did-18-billion-stimulus-funds-help-baltimore

https://freebeacon.com/issues/baltimore-received-1-8-billion-from-obamas-stimulus-law/

I think we can all agree that when you spend 1.8 Billion dollars, you ought to have something to show for it. 

$467.1 million went to education; $206.1 million to the environment; $24 million to "family"; $16.1 million to infrastructure; $15.2 million to transportation; $11.9 million to housing; and $3.1 million to job training.

And the audits found those funds were misused, although the findings were not the bulk of the monies spent

https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/05/23/federal-audit-finds-baltimore-city-schools-missused-federal-stimulus-title-i-funds/

note that misused is not stolen. 

Trump is bringing to light the mismanagement of Baltimore. The people who are hurt here are the residents who have high crime, terrible schools, rats, and drugs. Trump is making the Democrats defend the running of Baltimore this week. Trump making the people who run Baltimore and account for "where does all of this money go?" is fair enough. Saying its "stolen" isnt fair. And the City Schools are clearly mismanaged. 13 schools in the city have ZERO proficient students in math. Zero. 

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/13-baltimore-city-high-schools-zero-students-proficient-in-math

The City spent 467.1 million of the 1.8 Billion in taxpayer funds on education and thats what they have to show for it, And Baltimore is a city with worse murder statistics than Guatemala, whose residents are flooding our southern border. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/25/baltimore-homicide-murder-rate-fbi-statistics-death-crime-killings/1426739002/

I'm not going to carry any water for Trump's tweets, most of which are incoherent at best, but bringing attention to the conditions in Cumming's district while Cummings complains about the conditions in the Federal facilities on the border is fair enough.  He who lives in Glass Houses and all that. 

[Fez]

Party of Reagan indeed...

 

[Kalbear]

29 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

I'm not going to carry any water for Trump's tweets, most of which are incoherent at best, but bringing attention to the conditions in Cumming's district while Cummings complains about the conditions in the Federal facilities on the border is fair enough.  He who lives in Glass Houses and all that. 

Err...you are aware that Cummings - as awesome as he might be - is not responsible in any way for the use of funds in his district, the education system in his district, the transportation system in his district, etc? In fact, the only thing he is responsible for is bringing in federal funds to his district. (also good to note that Cumming's district is not all of Baltimore, nor does he represent only Baltimore).

As always, the issue is significantly more complex than presented. I don't see Mulvaney getting shouted at for his district sucking, though. 

I am curious - what is your expectation of action that Cummings can take to improve his district as a congressman? Besides getting his district money, what precisely is his responsibility? 

Whereas Trump is literally the head person responsible for the conditions in the federal facilities on the border. Like, that's his actual job and stuff.