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Analyzing the Transition of Power After The U.S. Election and Beyond Into Future Global Politics

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  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    I hear you. I will need it, too.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    Just bumping this to the new page ...
    4EverBonded wrote: »
    Medicare/Medicaid ~
    This article below is about the cuts the Republicans and Trump are going to try to make happen and push this through as quickly as possible, and for us not to lose focus on Medicaid.

    Well, this is personal to me. I'm going to need this in just a few years from now. And of course I'm concerned for everybody who needs this aid, not just me. They will paint the picture so carefully (politics, politicians, sure) , but cut/cut/cut and it is extremely worrying.

    In the article below, this bit stands out for me, too. It feels accurate to me in portraying the way Trump operates:
    " ...publicly fight a few select or symbolic populist battles in order to mask an overall economic and fiscal strategy that showers benefits on the most well-off at the expense of tens of millions of Americans."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/opinion/the-quiet-war-on-medicaid.html?action=click&contentCollection=Music&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article
    In part: (bolding/underlining is mine)

    If Donald J. Trump decides to gut the basic guarantee of Medicare and revamp its structure so that it hurts older and sicker people, Democrats must and will push back hard. But if Democrats focus too much of their attention on Medicare, they may inadvertently assist the quieter war on Medicaid — one that could deny health benefits to millions of children, seniors, working families and people with disabilities.

    Of the two battles, the Republican effort to dismantle Medicaid is more certain. Neither Mr. Trump nor Senate Republicans may have the stomach to fully own the political risks of Medicare privatization. But not only have Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of health and human services, made proposals to deeply cut Medicaid through arbitrary block grants or “per capita caps,” during the campaign, Mr. Trump has also proposed block grants.

    If Mr. Trump chooses to oppose his party’s Medicare proposals while pushing unprecedented cuts to older people and working families in other vital safety-net programs, it would play into what seems to be an emerging strategy of his: to publicly fight a few select or symbolic populist battles in order to mask an overall economic and fiscal strategy that showers benefits on the most well-off at the expense of tens of millions of Americans.

    Without an intense focus by progressives on the widespread benefits of Medicaid and its efficiency, it will be too easy for Mr. Trump to market the false notion that Medicaid is a bloated, wasteful program and that such financing caps are means simply to give states more flexibility while “slowing growth.” Medicaid’s actual spending per beneficiary has, on average, grown about 3 percentage points less each year than it has for those with private health insurance, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — a long-term trend that is projected to continue. The arbitrary spending caps proposed by Mr. Price and Mr. Ryan would cut Medicaid to the bone, leaving no alternative for states but to impose harsh cuts in benefits and coverage.

    Mr. Price’s own proposal, which he presented as the chairman of the House budget committee, would cut Medicaid by about $1 trillion over the next decade. This is on top of the reduction that would result from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which both Mr. Trump and Republican leaders have championed. Together, full repeal and block granting would cut Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program funding by about $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years — a 40 percent cut.

    Even without counting the repeal of the A.C.A. coverage expansion, the Price plan would cut remaining federal Medicaid spending by $169 billion — or one-third — by the 10th year of his proposal, with the reductions growing more severe thereafter. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that a similar Medicaid block grant proposed by Mr. Ryan in 2012 would lead to 14 million to 21 million Americans’ losing their Medicaid coverage by the 10th year, and that is on top of the 13 million who would lose Medicaid or children’s insurance program coverage under an A.C.A. repeal.

    The emerging Republican plan to “repeal, delay and replace” the A.C.A. seeks to further camouflage these harmful cuts. Current Republican plans to eliminate the marketplace subsidies and A.C.A. Medicaid expansion in 2019 would create a health care cliff where all of the Medicaid funds and subsidies for the A.C.A. expansion would simply disappear and 30 million people would lose their health care.

    In the face of such a manufactured crisis, the Trump administration could cynically claim to be increasing Medicaid funding by offering governors a small fraction of the existing A.C.A. expansion back as part of a block grant. No one should be deceived. Maintaining a small fraction of the current Medicaid expansion within a tightly constrained block grant is not an increase.

    Some might whisper that these cuts would be harder to beat back because their impact would fall on those with the least political power. Sweeping cuts to Medicaid would hurt tens of millions of low-income and middle-income families who had a family member with a disability or were in need of nursing home care. About 60 percent of the costs of traditional Medicaid come from providing nursing home care and other types of care for the elderly and those with disabilities.

    While Republicans resist characterizations of their block grant or cap proposals as tearing away health benefits from children, older people in nursing homes or middle-class families heroically coping with children with serious disabilities, the tyranny of the math does not allow for any other conclusion. If one tried to cut off all 30 million poor kids now enrolled in Medicaid, it would save 19 percent of the program’s spending. Among the Medicaid programs at greatest risk would be those optional state programs that seek to help middle-income families who become “medically needy” because of the costs of having a child with a serious disability like autism or Down syndrome.
    *******
    With many Republican governors and local hospitals also likely to be victimized by the proposals of Mr. Ryan and Mr. Price, this fight can be both morally right and politically powerful. Republicans hold only a slight majority in the Senate. It would take only three Republican senators thinking twice about the wisdom of block grants and per capita caps to put a halt to the coming war on Medicaid.

  • TripAcesTripAces Universal Exports
    edited December 2016 Posts: 4,554
    The right-wing lunacy isn't confined to the U.S.:

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/berlin-truck-attack/germany-s-right-wing-afd-party-blames-merkel-s-immigration-n699271

    When a terrorist attack is perpetrated by a Muslim, it is a call for widespread panic.

    When it is perpetrated by a right-wing, neo-Nazi, as happened in the 1980 Oktoberfest bombing, well, hell, that's just a nutty guy. Perhaps Germany should have created discriminatory laws against anyone who leaned right.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    These assholes will quite literally try to control the world or destroy what's left of the pathetic GOP.... probably both. And NOW's the time for vigilance because when they see their party falling so drastically from favour we will be in the greatest danger of a military coup to make The Donald a PFL (prez for life). And NO, I'm NOT just being hyperbolic or funny; a wounded animal is the most dangerous as it's said....
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,459
    Our nuclear weaponized world ...

    What Trump said in the 80's and some of 2016 ...
    http://qz.com/871436/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-putin-and-trump-release-statements-that-hint-at-increased-nuclear-armament/
    In part:
    Trump is a vociferous defender and admirer of Putin and is suspected by multiple intelligence experts of being assisted and even co-opted by the Kremlin. Russian interference in the US election has been affirmed by multiple US intelligence agencies and has led to calls for a congressional investigation. Rather than engaging in an arms race against each other, Trump and Putin are possibly teaming up as nuclear partners against shared targets.

    Sound fantastical? It’s not: Trump has been obsessed with nuclear weapons for several decades, and has expressed his desire to coordinate with Russia on nuclear policy since the 1980s. In 1984 Trump, backed by Roy Cohn, the political operative who advised Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, proclaimed his goal of negotiating nuclear deals with the Soviets: “It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump said. “I think I know most of it anyway. You’re talking about just getting updated on a situation… You know who really wants me to do this? Roy… I’d do it in a second.”

    This rhetoric mirrors Trump’s current rejection of expert advice and conviction that his instinct is enough to guide policy. (“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” he said in March 2016 when asked whom he consults on foreign affairs.) During the 2016 US presidential campaign, Trump refused to look at intelligence briefings or collaborate with anyone outside his inner circle. This advisory team is comprised of corporate raiders, warmongers, and white supremacists, some of whom—like his nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, or national security advisor, Michael Flynn—are personally tied to Putin as well.

    In 1987, Trump made his goal of Russian collaboration on nuclear power explicit: The Soviet Union and the US should partner to form a nuclear superpower with the intention of intimidating other countries into dropping their own nuclear plans.
    “Most of those [pre-nuclear] countries are in one form or another dominated by the US and the Soviet Union,” Trump told journalist Roy Rosenbaum. “Between those two nations you have the power to dominate any of those countries. So we should use our power of economic retaliation and they use their powers of retaliation, and between the two of us we will prevent the problem from happening. It would have been better having done something five years ago. But I believe even a country such as Pakistan would have to do something now. Five years from now they’ll laugh.”

    When Rosenbaum suggested Pakistan would not respond favorably to this policy, Trump laughed:
    “Maybe we should offer them something. I’m saying you start off as nicely as possible. You apply as much pressure as necessary until you achieve the goal. You start off telling them, ‘Let’s get rid of it.’ If that doesn’t work you then start cutting off aid. And more aid and then more. You do whatever is necessary so these people will have riots in the street, so they can’t get water. So they can’t get Band-Aids, so they can’t get food. Because that’s the only thing that’s going to do it—the people, the riots.”
    Trump then suggested that the US and Russia jointly apply the same policy of brutal sanctions on US allies like France.
  • Gustav_GravesGustav_Graves
    Posts: 11,119
    Murdock wrote: »
    If that goes through people like me and my mom who rely on Medicaid will be screwed...

    Exactly. But that's no surprise if you vote for Trump. Or: that shouldn't have been a surprise.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    Did someone say "atomic"?

    Now for something completely different:

    Odd8dX6.jpg?1
    IqIg1qh.jpg
  • Gustav_GravesGustav_Graves
    edited December 2016 Posts: 11,119
    A good video from "PBS News Hour". And it should worry us:

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    Gustav_Graves wrote: »
    A good video from "PBS News Hour". And it should worry us:

    Oh, it sure does.
    "Winging it" concerning nuclear arms is fairly alarming.
  • QuantumOrganizationQuantumOrganization We have people everywhere
    edited December 2016 Posts: 1,187
    Oh it sure worries me to bits. I can hardly stand up straight without shaking in my boots.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    QuantumOrganization wrote: »
    Oh it sure worries me to bits. I can hardly stand up straight without shaking in my boots.
    Can you fu**king stay on the Trump FANfare thread if all you're gonna do is spam? :)
    When I goof at least there's a funny picture or a point of some small kind. I mean, unless you'd actually like to discuss in detail precisely WHY you actually have no fear...
    WTF AM I SAYIN"?? =))
    You're just a paid troll!!

    nevermind.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,459
    So another new pick from Trump. He has actually made a new position ("special representative for international negotiations), especially for his lawyer - who will be "... assisting on international negotiations of all types, and trade deals around the world."

    Just creating a new role, no Senate confirmation, sure. Get those deals ready ... etc.


    This may be Trump's new favorite idea: he can just make new roles, new positions, and stick his team players in them. Look at all his cabinet posts. And now he will just feel like adding whatever role he dreams up. Easy as pie.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,333
    Orwellian Express get your tickets now.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    If we could just beam him back into America now, how helpful would that be ... ;)
    Logic is desperately needed now.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    4EverBonded wrote: »
    If we could just beam him back into America now, how helpful would that be ... ;)
    Logic is desperately needed now.

  • Gustav_GravesGustav_Graves
    Posts: 11,119
    time for another funny SNL. This time with dwarf Putin and Tillerson :-P:
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    Thanks Gustav, I needed that. :))
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    The economy, the future possibilities...
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    President Obama signing this is a very good thing indeed.
    Civil rights:
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    Obama, making his last minute contributions to America's well being FWIW. :)>-
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    Exactly. And who knows what he is doing behind the scenes? I would bet he is doing all he can to protect our rights, our country.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    ...child-proofing the launch button....
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    We can only hope so, @chrisisall.

    Trump again claiming credit for things not really credited to him, when looking at facts and and whole story.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-economy-idUSKBN14H1B8
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited December 2016 Posts: 12,459
    Asked twice about sanctions against Russia, and Trump refuses to answer that at all; just goes on about other things.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    Not to get into a long discussion on Israel, the U.S., and the U.N., but this article is fairly straightforward.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/bibi-netanyahu-makes-trump-his-chump.html?_r=0
    Says, in part:

    Bibi never lays down a credible peace plan that truly puts the ball in the Palestinians’ court. And when someone like Obama exposes that — and Bibi comes under intense criticism from the liberal half of Israel, which sees the country getting more and more isolated and less and less democratic — Bibi just calls Obama an enemy of Israel and caves to the settlers. U.S. Jewish “leaders” then parrot whatever Bibi says. Sad.
    More worrisome is the fact that President-elect Donald Trump — who could be a fresh change agent — is letting himself get totally manipulated by right-wing extremists, and I mean extreme. His ambassador-designate to Israel, David Friedman, has compared Jews who favor a two-state solution to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis. I’ve never heard such a vile slur from one Jew to another.

    Trump also has no idea how much he is being manipulated into helping Iran and ISIS. What is Iran’s top goal when it comes to Israel? That Israel never leaves the West Bank and that it implants Jewish settlers everywhere there.

    That would keep Israel in permanent conflict with Palestinians and the Muslim world, as well as many Western democracies and their college campuses. It would draw all attention away from Iran’s own human rights abuses and enable Iran and ISIS to present themselves as the leading Muslim protectors of Jerusalem — and to present America’s Sunni Arab allies as lackeys of an extremist Israel. This would create all kinds of problems for these Arab regimes. A West Bank on fire would become a recruitment tool for ISIS and Iran.

    One day Trump will wake up and discover that he was manipulated into becoming the co-father, with Netanyahu, of an Israel that is either no longer Jewish or no longer democratic. He will discover that he was Bibi’s chump.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    Good points.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Except that ISIS and Iran are on opposite sides.
  • Gustav_GravesGustav_Graves
    Posts: 11,119
    Thunderfinger wrote: »
    Except that ISIS and Iran are on opposite sides.

    We should think less in terms of siding, and more in terms of what we ought to do ethically.....for us and our children.

    Then you'll find out that every country has its own wrongdoings. Iran, Palestine, USA, Russia, but Israel as well. And in this case we focus for a while on all the shit that Israel is causing.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,694
    Gustav_Graves wrote: »
    Thunderfinger wrote: »
    Except that ISIS and Iran are on opposite sides.

    We should think less in terms of siding, and more in terms of what we ought to do ethically.....for us and our children.

    Then you'll find out that every country has its own wrongdoings. Iran, Palestine, USA, Russia, but Israel as well. And in this case we focus for a while on all the shit that Israel is causing.
    And here's my problem with Humanity in general: There are people out there that HATE Israel, and in their eyes it can do no right, then there are those that LOVE Israel, and in their eyes it can do no wrong. Both groups are out of their f**king minds. You cannot have a dialogue with absolutists.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Like supporting ISIS.
This discussion has been closed.