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Occam’s Razor Former chairman of RNC Steele told WWR at lunch that .@RealDonaldTrump will not finish his term; advises clients to bolster ties w/VP Pence
The Political Walls Are Closing In On Donald Trump
Already, Republicans are talking about getting their court nominee through and then jettisoning the president.
Joy-Ann Reid
03.31.17 9:01 PM ET
Not 100 days into the Trump presidency, one thing is abundantly clear: it is completely unsustainable as it is operating today.
There are even rumblings in the seams of Washington that Trump may not last the summer, including Republican consultant Michael Steele, the former RNC chairman, reportedly telling clients to prepare for President Pence. [
]
Indeed, something fundamental seemed to shift in the zeitgeist this week with General Michael Flynn’s Hail Mary offer to testify about Russiagate in exchange for immunity. The Senate intelligence community has already turned down Flynn’s offer, and it’s hard to imagine the House committee, led by the thoroughly compromised Devin Nunes, having the political capital to say yes. For the FBI to agree, Flynn would have to offer up someone bigger than him to make it worth the agency’s while. One wonders who that could be: Paul Manafort? He’s been around the political block much longer than Flynn and knows where more bodies are buried. Wouldn’t he be a better immunity target if you’re an elected Republican? Donald Trump? What would Flynn claim Trump personally did to advance Russia’s interference in our election, other than dutifully repeat Kremlin talking points, which we already know? Does he have some proof that Trump took a bribe? Broke a law? Made an incriminating phone call? [ lots of embedded links to review, if you are interested ]
And if he doesn’t, what would be the point of merely hearing the “story he has to tell.”
Flynn is in trouble, by his own admission. He, of the “lock her up chants,” has said in the past that seeking immunity means you probably committed a crime. And while that’s not true in a legal sense, in a moral sense it applies to him.
Here is a man who was forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 for his apparent belligerence, rashness, and fondness for crank conspiracy theories. [ http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362 ] He then sought income from Russian state-run TV and the Turkish government, where according to the former head of the CIA, Jim Woolsey, he took a meeting to discuss illegally renditioning a U.S. green-card holder who the Turkish autocrat would very much like to have sent to him. [ http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/james-woolsey-mike-flynn-cnntv/ ] [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/23/turkey-fethullah-gulen-extradition-request-joe-biden-ergodan ]
Flynn is known to have communicated with the Russian ambassador, and to have lied about it. If his name showed up unmasked in the monitored communications of foreign entities, that could well be because he was the subject of a FISA warrant, and a national security probe. Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, told the White House, including Vice President Pence, that Flynn was at risk of being blackmailed by the Russians. It was his former staffer at DIA who was among the two, [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/devin-nunes-intelligence-reports.html?_r=0 ] or perhaps three people, [ http://bit.do/dkeMh ] including a former Nunes staffer [ http://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/30/15126072/devin-nunes-source-white-house ] said to have rummaged around in the sensitive files he had access to as a top National Security Council staffer to try and find backup for Trump’s false claims about President Obama wiretapping Trump Tower.
Meanwhile, Flynn is not the administration’s only liability. Trump Tower tenant Manafort remains out there too, and is reportedly under investigation by the Treasury department and the FBI for various business dealings. [ http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manafort-nyc-real-estate-moves-raise-money-laundering-suspicion-article-1.3011506 ] And that’s just for recent stuff—not Manafort’s long history of flacking for the world’s worst despots.
Occam’s Razor is the logical principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best. And the notion that Trump’s inner circle is so laden with Russian nationals, Russian mob figures and people affiliated with Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin by accident is a hell of a stretch. Even his chief TV flak, Boris Ephstein, is a Russian émigré, who entered Trumpworld through his collegiate friendship with Trump’s son Eric. Ephstein was recently let go from the White House without explanation, and sorry but it’s hard to believe that it was because of his bullying personality in TV greenrooms, which has been Boris’ M.O. since he popped up on cable news in 2010.
Can all that we have heard thus far been a series of coincidences? Can it all be mere happenstance? Much simpler is the notion that members of Russia’s spy services saw an opportunity to recruit a useful idiot in Trump, given that his greed and lust for power matched that of the Russian oligarchs themselves.
They had an assortment of people in Trumpworld to use as potential conduits. There was Trump’s longtime crony Roger Stone, Manafort’s old lobbying partner, who pushed Trump to favor the U.S.S.R.’s point of view over Ronald Reagan’s during the 1980s, when Vlad Putin was still a KGB agent, and has bragged about his “back channel” to WikiLeaks. [ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/roger-stone-and-guccifer-913684 ]
There’s Flynn, for whom Russia had provided financial rescue and who was inexplicably brought into the inner sanctum of the White House despite the many clouds swirling over him.
There’s Donald Jr., Trump’s son and namesake who was eager to ink condo deals with Russian buyers. And of course, there’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a sort of mini-Trump whose morally promiscuous business dealings include canoodling with a sanctioned Russian bank.
We know that Russian media outlets and their cutouts fed Trump conspiracy theories and fake news about Hillary Clinton to repeat and retweet. We know that Carter Page went to Russia last July just before the first WikiLeaks oppo dumps. We know that Stone had an uncanny ability to predict the oppo dumps before they happened.
J.D. Gordon by his own admission was dispatched to Cleveland to flip the Ukraine plank at the RNC. And we know that Flynn brought his people with him to the National Security Council (for awhile, including his conspiracy theory-loving theory-loving namesake son). [ goo.gl/yJ4C6f ] And when he was forced out, he left that former DIA aide, Ezra Cohen Watnick, behind, over the objections of his successor.
Will this series of inferences ever be conclusively proved? Who knows. But the Trump presidency is permanently tainted by the implications of their clear use of Russian propaganda to batter Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Trump’s legitimacy will forever be questioned because of his personal enthusiasm for WikiLeaks’ peddling of Russia-hacked emails.
Even if he survives, Trump’s leadership in Washington is in tatters. The Freedom Caucus doesn’t fear him. What’s left of the Republican moderates don’t respect him. The Democrats will have nothing to do with him. And his fair weather friend, Paul Ryan, is a disaster as speaker of the House who is fighting harder for tax cuts for the top one percent than for anything in the Trump campaign agenda and making enemies of the Breitbartians in the process.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is showing signs of conducting a real investigation into Trumpgate, [ goo.gl/nznluw ] and there are fewer and fewer Devin Nunes’ professing [ goo.gl/UtuYbg ] a willingness to destroy themselves on Trump’s behalf. Republican partisans are openly advising the GOP-led Senate to cram through their Supreme Court nominee and then wash their hands of Donald J. Trump forever.
Barring some dramatic change—and we should seriously worry about what Trump and Bannon might cook up in that regard—this only goes in one direction, and that’s further downhill.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/31/the-political-walls-are-closing-in-on-donald-trump.html
Trump tells NBC to stop covering Russia story
By Elliot Smilowitz - 04/01/17 09:00 AM EDT
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/326830-trump-tells-nbc-to-stop-covering-russia-story
Chuck Todd responds to Trump: ‘Don’t feel sleepy at all’
By Elliot Smilowitz - 04/01/17 10:18 AM EDT
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/326833-chuck-todd-responds-to-trump-dont-feel-sleepy-at-all
03/31/2017 05:49 am ET | Updated 2 hours ago
1,000 Paid Russian Trolls Spread Fake News On Hillary Clinton, Senate Intelligence Heads Told
A former FBI agent testified that President Donald Trump helped spread fake news by embracing the stories against his opponents.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russian-trolls-fake-news_us_58dde6bae4b08194e3b8d5c4?section=politics
weren't we just saying this last year ?
I think that is what they are doing ....or I haven't heard that anyone has accepted
his offer yet? I've been here I'll go look somewhere ....;)
I would like to see the Bean plant.... one? sounds delish `~
O my G! I didn't know this, did you? ___Intel hearing bombshell: Cyber expert says “Commander-in-Chief
used Russian ‘active measures’…against his opponents”
and I don't pretend to know if it's true or not ... but ...we'll see and Oliver Willis has a spectacular reputation .. so
By Oliver Willis | March 30, 2017
In testimony at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 election, cyber expert Clint Watts testified that Trump "used Russian active measures" against his political opponents over the course of the campaign.
Cyber expert Clint Watts, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee as it investigates Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, told the panel that Donald Trump “used Russian active measures against his opponents” during the campaign. [ https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/bio-cwatts-033017.pdf ]
Watts is currently a Robert Fox Fellow for the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. He served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, and as a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division and National Security Branch.
Active measures, or aktivniye meropriyatiya, is a Russian technique [ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war ] dating back to the days of the KGB and the Cold War of dispensing disinformation and propaganda in order to influence events within another country, particularly the United States.
Go Here to see and listen to Senator Lankford and Clinton Watts on Russian Hacking of 2016 Elections Senator Lankford and Clinton Watts exchange on how Russia was successful in its influence of the 2016 elections. [ https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4664400/senator-lankford-clinton-watts-russian-hacking-2016-elections ] Also at this link that I am posting from [ http://shareblue.com/intel-hearing-bombshell-cyber-expert-says-commander-in-chief-used-russian-active-measuresagainst-his-opponents/ ]
amazing isn' t it? how these freaks find one another
... ... flynn & trumpee swinging in a tree .............;)
did you see this? .. where trumpees boy flynn has offered himself up .. IF WE PROMISE not to PROSECUTE HIM? ...
Michael Flynn has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI in exchange for immunity
...... ratfacter
http://www.businessinsider.com/mike-flynn-investigation-russia-immunity-2017-3
the entire white house needs to be escorted out ... I'm looking forward to it ...
they've been so embarrassing, all around and over the world
he is a jealous loser! ... he's never getting over it .. he's too old and how could he recover?
.. he can't.. .......YES, I know ... Melania? .....She told me so ...
and his beautiful self is all around .. everywhere ... tall and handsome .. .tanned and da check da daaaaaaaaaaaa...
the guy from Impanema goes walking ... on beaches ....................everywhere .. and
trumpee bleeds.........helpless tears of jealousy andddddd Jeff Bezos is now the number two rich man on Forbes
... poor poor little boy trumpee ....
No. It doesn't reveal anything but filthy gossip, you gossiping old woman! ...
There's a reason Paul Ryan kept falsely saying ACA is collapsing.
Years of lies have left them trapped: [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/03/28/trumps-rage-over-his-health-care-fiasco-could-hurt-his-own-voters-heres-how/?utm_term=.924c38ac07d5 ] If you are able to read . .go read the entire fact filled article, thank You
The rub of the matter, as the Times story reports, is that GOP strategists fear that Republicans cannot be seen helping the law succeed. It’s not hard to see why. Shoring up the exchanges would amount to helping the law remain in place, after seven years in which one of the party’s touchstones was absolute rhetorical devotion to the law’s total and immediate destruction. It would also amount to a tacit admission that the law is not inherently or inevitably destined to implode. It would be a concession that the law can be made to work if Republican officials want to participate in making that happen.
Many Republicans are politically locked in a place where such a concession is unthinkable. This is why Trump continues to rage at the law as an ongoing disaster. It’s why he and other Republicans continue robotically repeating that its extinction is imminent, despite the fact that the catastrophic failure of their replacement effort has revealed them to have no alternative to it.
This ideological prison of sorts requires unwavering fealty to a future in which the ACA has collapsed and vanished from American life. Which means that, absent a revived repeal push, there could be more pressure on Trump and Republicans to refrain from participating in fixes to the law or, worse, more pressure on them to sabotage it. As Michael Hiltzik explains, the Trump administration has sent mixed signals as to what it will do on this front, but sabotage is clearly an option, and there are many tools it has to destabilize the individual markets.
But here yet another problem intrudes: Such a course of action could end up hurting a lot of Republican and Trump voters. By encouraging insurers to exit the marketplaces, it could leave many of the 12 million people who have obtained coverage on the individual markets with no remaining options — no way to get coverage or to access subsidies to cover that coverage. And Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, tells me that this would hurt marketplaces in all regions of the country, which means deep red Trump territory, too, particularly because some of that includes rural areas where there are fewer insurers.
“Trump country tends to be areas where there’s less competition,” Levitt says.
This humanitarian impact would give Democrats an opening to propose their own fixes or even more ambitious long-term reforms. As Brian Beutler points out, Democrats can not only attack Republicans for “abdicating their obligation to faithfully execute the law” in the interests of the American people; they can also “point to solutions Republicans are intentionally shunning.” We don’t know how much the prospective human toll of inaction or outright sabotage will weigh on Trump and Republicans. But you’d think it would matter, at least to some degree.
I can see both yours and mine .... .. ;) Thanks Borealis !!!
I always want to do what trumpee says ... !
look at this one .. .. omg... he's moving everything around all over the table ... sad . .he really does need treatment..
Click it up so it's big !
This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/EF6Hk3Y3ai
— ali segel (@OnlineAlison) March 27, 2017
oh so fat white ugly guy has made you a big man now? given
you the .. uh ... you know, ..........courage/juice in your posts? ...
you and s s ....big big men now cause fwuguy makes you feel tuff?
go go trumpee ..
ohhhhhhhhh nos!!!!!!! ... ..and I soooooooooooooo trust every little ting that russia belches out it's ass!
what would make that so? that he's white and fat? .. I don't get why that would be great..
I see overweight ugly.. hasn't done shit ... just a big nothingburger ..
so far anyway .. killings have gone up .. violence has gone up ? ..
I mean where's the great part?
ohhhhhhhhh nos!!!!!!! ... ..and I soooooooooooooo trust every little ting that russia belches out it's ass!
BREAKING: Donald Trump Played Golf This Weekend
Kevin Drum Mar. 26, 2017 8:26 PM
The sad thing about this tweet is that it really would be news if Donald Trump was at the White House working this weekend:
and YES! it's all repeats! .. day after day .. actually year after year .. ;)
YES! ..
Florida officials to Trump: Your luxury vacations are making us go broke, pay us back or stay away
By Oliver Willis | March 27, 2017
Public officials from Palm Beach County in Florida have revealed the enormous costs of Donald Trump's vacations to Mar-a-Lago, and they are demanding that he do something about it.
http://shareblue.com/florida-officials-to-trump-your-luxury-vacations-are-making-us-go-broke-pay-us-back-or-stay-away/
Trump collapses to 36 percent approval, now lower than Bush during Katrina
By Oliver Willis | March 27, 2017
Donald Trump continues to crash in approval polling. He is now less popular than George W.
Bush was at the height of Hurricane Katrina — and he is way behind President Obama.
http://shareblue.com/trump-collapses-to-36-approval-now-lower-than-bush-during-katrina/
Gallup: Trump's approval rating hits another low
The Gallup poll found that as of Sunday, 36% of Americans approve of how the president is doing his job, while 57% disapprove.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/03/27/trump-approval-rating-gallup/99706264/
nothing ever changes does it? .. from one 'wing nut to another
........always stays the same - still STUPID! from bush to
this ugly one .. .
How Paul Ryan played Donald Trump
Sometimes the swamp drains you.
Updated by Ezra Klein Mar 24, 2017, 8:10am EDT
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
all embedded links are found here [ http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/24/15039664/paul-ryan-donald-trump-ahca ]
Donald Trump promised to be a different kind of president. He was a populist fighting on behalf of the “forgotten man,” taking on the GOP establishment, draining the Washington swamp, protecting Medicaid from cuts, vowing to cover everyone with health care and make the government pay for it. He was a pragmatic businessman who was going to make Washington work for you, the little guy, not the ideologues and special interests.
Instead, Trump has become a pitchman for Paul Ryan and his agenda. He’s spent the past week fighting for a health care bill he didn’t campaign on, didn’t draft, doesn’t understand, doesn’t like to talk about, and can’t defend. Rather than forcing the Republican establishment to come around to his principles, he’s come around to theirs — with disastrous results.
Democrats don’t like this bill. Independents don’t like this bill. Conservatives don’t like this bill. Moderates don’t like this bill. All the energy behind the American Health Care Act is coming from inside the GOP congressional establishment — and now from Trump himself. In a sense, this Matt Drudge tweet says it all:
Come ON people all over everywhere! .. Don't pay money for this death!
come ON! ... YOU know better than this! damnit'
And you're worried about Muslims, and Mexicans? Man! are you ever
naive/dumb/blind...sheesh WAKE UP! this is what is killing YOU!
A "Tidal Wave" of Overdoses is Filling Up This Morgue
And contrary to popular belief, it's not just white people who are dying.
Julia Lurie Mar. 24, 2017 6:00 AM
This week I'm spending time in Northeast Ohio, a corner of the country that has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic. I'm talking to people here about what the drugs have done to their communities. I'll be tweeting about what I'm seeing.
On a tree-lined street just blocks from the Cleveland Museum of Art sits an office building holding dozens of corpses. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, home to the morgue, has never been this full. The spike in deaths comes from a swell in overdoses: With more than 600 overdose deaths last year, Cleveland and the surrounding suburbs have one of the highest overdose rates in the nation.
Sitting in an office full of sunlight, Dr. Thomas Gilson, the county medical examiner, looks disgusted. The year 2016, he tells me, "was just this tidal wave."
Fake OxyContin pills found by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office to be fentanyl. CCMEO
"It was just a few years ago when we started seeing very small amounts of fentanyl in with the heroin," said Eric Lavins, the lab supervisor. "Now we have cases where there’s fentanyl and no heroin whatsoever."
More and more, CCMEO forensic scientists are finding fentanyl analogs—slight molecular variations of fentanyl that can be even more potent but, because they are constantly changing, are not well regulated [ https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Press%20Release_Staff%20Reprot%20on%20Fentanyl.pdf ] in the United States or in China, where they are often manufactured. "It's a game of cat and mouse," explains Shannon.
Another trend: Increasingly, fentanyl is mixed with cocaine, which is particularly troubling because cocaine and opioids are traditionally used by different demographics. White Americans make up the bulk of heroin and painkiller users, while cocaine kills more African Americans. Many see this as a deliberate strategy to broaden the demand for opiates among the black population. "It's a business model," says Gilson. "It's another market."
Ultimately, the goal of the countless interviews and tests and data-wrangling is not only to trace the drugs back to their sources, but to prevent people from dying from them to begin with, explains Gilson. First responders, for example, need to know the prevalence of fentanyl in order to determine whether to administer multiple doses of the overdose reversal drug naloxone. As he puts it, "One of the core missions of a place like this is to take information from the people who died and try to apply it to people who are at risk."
Go read this .. . JUST a little bit more! .. We've got to KEEP our friends and whoever we come into contact with away from this kind of American drug killing Americans and whoever else comes to visit us!
If you can't think of anything worth living here for then you need ..god I don't know what you need ! .. probably a good spanking! and a week at the beach! Jesus people! let's see how many people we can keep from taking this shit in their beautiful bodies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. this so sucks!!!!
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/cleveland-medical-examiner-opioid-fentanyl-overdose
LoL ... Que Bonita... !
only 68 times eh? ............so beautiful!
Loser!
by digby
"We're gonna win with health care...We're gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning." -
Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/IYPk0SD6tE
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) March 24, 2017
He lost. Big time. Trump tweeted and called and according to Sean Spicer, he "left everything on the field."
He tried his hardest. Let's give him a participation trophy.
Sean Spicer said this morning that they demanded the bill get a vote. Then they switched gears and said the President demanded that the bill be pulled. Whatever.
The upshot is that the great negotiator couldn't even get his own party to agree to a bill they all ran on. He made the ultimate miscalculation by backing the Freedom Caucus, notorious nihilist back-stabbers whose seats are entirely safe instead of the moderates who would be primaried from the right for voting against the bill and opening up the seat to a Democrat. They were the ones who needed his protection but he's too dumb to know that.
The White House finally realized that a vote on this bill was worse than no vote at all and they defaulted to Trump's preferred strategy which is to just keep ragging on the hated black guy which he knows his voters love more than anything.
I can hardly wait to see what he does in his unilateral trade negotiations. Get ready to pay 20 bucks a pound for tomatoes, folks.
This is what Republicans get for voting for a cheap huckster who went bankrupt four times. Too bad for the majority that didn't vote for him.
digby 3/24/2017 01:30:00 PM
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/loser.html
PLEASE MAKE HIM SHUT UP! he is blind to the fact that he is repulsive and his voice is too! Shut UP!
and you don't know anything .. you showcase how dumb you are ,.. my god! .. is there no one smart around you to guide you? .. No ... the white nationalist is failing you .. and the other one Preibus ... well, your daughter has moved in and I think your son has insulted someone ... oh yes, the mayor of London .. god
there is no hope for you .. ! not a brain or a person with class in sight .. just clowns! shut UP! go to Mar a lago! for christs sake!
stuff your mouth with a wedge ... and undo the ketchup bottle ...oh god
why us?
this is good? ... no? .........
no good can come out of trump/ryan
on peoples health? ...no oh NO!
Well that's good to know! WE NEED ALL the help we can get!
we also have a great blue state attorney in the senate .. actually she is wasting her time up there ...I want her to come home .....
.................we don't have all the intrigue in California as they do in DC ... and
She took care of much stuff when she was living here in her home with her delightful husband .. another attorney .. . ;) I want Kamala BACK!
I hope she decides that for herself too ..IF she loves it .. fine .. IF NOT .. she can always come home to a most welcoming state!
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, facing a revolt among conservative and moderate Republicans,
rushed to the White House to confer with President Trump on whether to pull the bill.
well are there more republicans than conserts & the moderates?
what others are there? because if there isn't any that means
ALL republicans are against this health bill ..of course maybe
just maybe they are taking trump to school! .. he needs it!
don't come in here and give up 'this or that' alternatives you dope!
As Republicans Mutiny, Ryan Warns He Can’t Pass Health Bill
By ROBERT PEAR, JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and JENNIFER STEINHAUER 37 minutes ago
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, facing a revolt among conservative and moderate Republicans, rushed to the White House to confer with President Trump on whether to pull the bill.
Mr. Trump had demanded the vote scheduled for Friday, but House leaders were leaning against such a public loss.
LOL ..;) check out front page top left!
https://www.nytimes.com/?action=click&contentCollection=Politics®ion=TopBar&module=HomePage-Button&pgtype=article
Paul Ryan Rushes to White House to Tell Trump Votes Are Lacking to Repeal Obamacare
By ROBERT PEAR, JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and JENNIFER STEINHAUERMARCH 24, 2017
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, facing a revolt among conservative and moderate Republicans, rushed to the White House Friday afternoon to inform President Trump he did not have the votes to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to decide whether to pull the bill from consideration.
The president and the speaker faced the humiliating prospect of a major defeat on legislation promised for seven years, since the landmark health legislation was signed into law.
President Trump had demanded a vote regardless, which has been scheduled for Friday afternoon. But House leaders were leaning against such a public loss.
The House opened debate Friday on what would have been one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in years, a bill that would have rolled back a major, established social welfare program, a feat that is almost unheard of.
much more ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/us/politics/health-care-affordable-care-act.html
it may very well pass in 45 mins .. ;)
Paul Ryan Rushes to White House to Tell Trump Votes Are Lacking to Repeal Obamacare
By ROBERT PEAR, JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and JENNIFER STEINHAUERMARCH 24, 2017
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, facing a revolt among conservative and moderate Republicans, rushed to the White House Friday afternoon to inform President Trump he did not have the votes to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to decide whether to pull the bill from consideration.
The president and the speaker faced the humiliating prospect of a major defeat on legislation promised for seven years, since the landmark health legislation was signed into law.
President Trump had demanded a vote regardless, which has been scheduled for Friday afternoon. But House leaders were leaning against such a public loss.
The House opened debate Friday on what would have been one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in years, a bill that would have rolled back a major, established social welfare program, a feat that is almost unheard of.
much more ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/us/politics/health-care-affordable-care-act.html
it may very well pass in 45 mins .. ;)
Why Big Insurance Adores the American Health Care Act
This plan gives health insurance companies a chance to profit even more
than they did from the Affordable Care Act — and with fewer restrictions.
By Wendell Potter |
March 23, 2017
President Donald Trump speaks before a meeting with health insurance executives. Clockwise from bottom: Patrick Geraghty, CEO of Florida Blue; Vice President Mike Pence; Stephen Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group; David Cordani, CEO of Cigna; Scott P. Serota, president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association; Andrew Bremberg, director of the Domestic Policy Council; Joseph R. Swedish, CEO of Anthem; Bernard Tyson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente; and Daniel J. Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross, Feb. 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
There’s been a lot of talk about just who was hurt and helped by Obamacare and who will profit or be imperiled by the next phase of health care legislation. Yet health insurance executives have been curiously silent about the House GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. While the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, among many others, have come out against it, insurers have clearly made a strategic decision not to show their hand.
But know this: They love it. Their fingerprints are all over what the Republicans are calling the American Health Care Act. Arguably the only thing they don’t like about House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Ayn Randish creation is the way the plan would slash funding for the Medicaid program. That’s not because insurance executives are more compassionate for the poor than they’ve been in the past; it’s because a growing percentage of their profits now comes from Medicaid. In fact, more than half of the big insurers’ revenues is now coming from the government, not the private sector. And they’re fine with that.
Make no mistake, health insurance lobbyists also helped shape the Affordable Care Act. Most notably, they were able to get a provision stripped from the bill that would have created a government-run insurance plan (the “public option”) to compete with private insurers. But they didn’t get everything they wanted.
It gets rid of those pesky new rules on consumer protection
to get an idea of what that means .. is scary ..... going back to the badder old days as happens with every republican who governs
http://billmoyers.com/story/why-big-insurance-adores-the-american-health-care-act/
I like her too ... however, as far as explaining anything ... that's not going to happen, republicans are governing and they have gotten worse .............
I give her credit for whatever she says and for whatever she does .. the dirty basturds want to get rid of the consumer protection agency .... maybe they already have .. can't keep up with it all ... that would be horrible too . they have helped people and protected us so much already in the short time they have been in operation .. . about maybe seven years .. or so ... so of course .. if it helps the people It MUST be SHUT DOWN! .. republican rule ,,,,
Is it time to invest bigger in 'Big Insurance'?
Why Big Insurance Adores the American Health Care Act
This plan gives health insurance companies a chance to profit even more than they did from the Affordable Care Act — and with fewer restrictions.
By Wendell Potter | March 23, 2017
President Donald Trump speaks before a meeting with health insurance executives. Clockwise from bottom: Patrick Geraghty, CEO of Florida Blue; Vice President Mike Pence; Stephen Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group; David Cordani, CEO of Cigna; Scott P. Serota, president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association; Andrew Bremberg, director of the Domestic Policy Council; Joseph R. Swedish, CEO of Anthem; Bernard Tyson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente; and Daniel J. Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross, Feb. 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
There’s been a lot of talk about just who was hurt and helped by Obamacare and who will profit or be imperiled by the next phase of health care legislation. Yet health insurance executives have been curiously silent about the House GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. While the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, among many others, have come out against it, insurers have clearly made a strategic decision not to show their hand.
But know this: They love it. Their fingerprints are all over what the Republicans are calling the American Health Care Act. Arguably the only thing they don’t like about House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Ayn Randish creation is the way the plan would slash funding for the Medicaid program. That’s not because insurance executives are more compassionate for the poor than they’ve been in the past; it’s because a growing percentage of their profits now comes from Medicaid. In fact, more than half of the big insurers’ revenues is now coming from the government, not the private sector. And they’re fine with that.
Make no mistake, health insurance lobbyists also helped shape the Affordable Care Act. Most notably, they were able to get a provision stripped from the bill that would have created a government-run insurance plan (the “public option”) to compete with private insurers. But they didn’t get everything they wanted.
It gets rid of those pesky new rules on consumer protection
to get an idea of what that means .. is scary ..... going back to the badder old days as happens with every republican who governs
http://billmoyers.com/story/why-big-insurance-adores-the-american-health-care-act/