U.S. Constitution Emoluments Clause:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Breaking news from The Post:
President Trump has awarded the G-7 Summit of world leaders to his own private company, scheduling the massive gathering for next year at his Trump Doral resort outside Miami, the White House said Thursday.
That decision will bring hundreds of diplomats, media and security personnel to Trump’s financially struggling resort — where profits fell 70 percent after Trump entered politics. These events typically fill the host resort, bringing large payments for rooms and meals, and providing global publicity.
This appears to be the first time in American history that a president has given such a massive contract to himself. Trump still owns the Doral resort, and can draw profits from it, though his company has said they will not over-charge the government.
Can this be another article of impeachment? Trump on the site selection:
“They [Trump aides] went to places all over the country, and they came back and they said, ‘This is where we’d like to be.’ It’s not about me. It’s about getting the right location.”
Uh-huh. Everyone knows how pleasant inland Miami is during the summer, which is also hurricane season.
Open thread.
Roger Moore
It had damn well better be.
SiubhanDuinne
I would love to see the list of all the places all over the country that were carefully considered and thoughtfully rejected in favour of bedbug-ridden Trump Doral Miami. In, as Betty Cracker says, south Florida in high summer at the height of hurricane season.
VOR
As I once stated in another thread, this is a horrible idea from a security standpoint. The resort is not isolated so physical security will be a challenge. It is basically in an area with office parks and warehouses. It is very close (i.e. 5-10 miles) to Miami International Airport which means it is likely a major international airport will need to be closed for the duration of the conference. And then there is the reported bed bugs…
NotMax
Surely the leaders there will append their names to anything after sampling the iceberg lettuce wedge salad!
AnotherBruce
Can’t the rest of the G7 tell him to fuck off?
Eural Joiner
He’s openly and brazenly telling Republicans to kneel and kiss the ring or defend the Constitution….but you can’t have both.
Rommie
“Everyone knows how pleasant inland Miami is during the summer, which is also hurricane season.”
I do not, so please enlighten!
TaMara (HFG)
Fuck this evil imbecile and his family. ITMFA
I know Nancy has a plan and I respect it, but with the loss of Elijah Cummings today, Kurds being slaughtered, god-knows-what still happening at the border, and fucking Facebook reminding me that three years ago today Bailey came to live with us, I have no patience for this mother-fucker today.
FelonyGovt
Wow. Part of him must realize that things look bad for him, and he needs to get his grift on before he’s booted out.
Phylllis
@VOR: This. When it was in Savannah in 2004, it wasn’t even in Savannah, but on Sea Island, which was locked down within an inch of its life.
AnotherBruce
He will invite his master Putin.
Litlebritdifrnt
As our esteemed bloghosts tweets all the time “Jimmy Carter had to sell his fucking peanut farm!”
NotMax
The implication being that overcharging is SOP.
Elizabelle
How do we stop this? Who do we contact?
The Doral Resort? Or any Trump property? This cannot happen. Further, the POS may not even be “POTUS” when the G7 rolls around.
SRW1
Understandable. If the decision absolutely had to be between Mordor and Doral!
West of the Rockies
@Eural Joiner:
Well, it is comically clear that Republicans are morally and ethically bankrupt.
Hildebrand
@AnotherBruce: I would dearly love to see this. I want all of them to tell him to bugger off – in the most colorful and explicit way possible.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Kay
The absolute contempt the Trump employees who are currently collecting a government paycheck have for the public is really something. They think we’re easy marks and maybe they’re right.
That they would roll out this latest scam while hundreds of people are investigating their various crimes is just stunning.
japa21
If I were one of the foreign leaders, I’d have my staff checking into the closest Super 8 or Motel 6. Undoubtedly, the accomodations would be an improvement over Trump’s Dump.
Betty Cracker
I can’t emphasize enough what a sun-blasted hellscape inland Miami is in June. And while the Trumpsters might keep climate change off the agenda, Mother Nature may have other ideas since the summit will be held during hurricane season. This is not only monumentally corrupt, it’s DUMB. A responsible tchotchke manufacturer wouldn’t hold a sales meeting in Miami in June.
japa21
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Isn’t the agenda decided by a consensus among the attendees. Does The US get to decide the full agenda?
Kay
I think this merits huge demonstrations. It’s not that this sleazy scam is bigger or more important then the rest- it’s that it’s a real “fuck you” to the public.
You’re not the boss of them- they’ll take what they want when they want it. That’s the message this is intended to send.
Duane
Don’t. Even. Hide. It.
mrmoshpotato
Fixed.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: David Fahrenthold of the WaPo has found no evidence that any other location has been considered, and he has worked hard on that question.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@japa21: Beats me. I’m stupefied by the brazenness of this. I fully expect an invitation to be issued to Putin too. Maybe Trump can hide him in the next room and spring him on the other attendees.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: David Fahrenthold of the WaPo has found no evidence that any other location has been considered, and he has worked hard on that question.
Kay
I’m kind of glad they announced it. It’s easy to understand this- it’s theft. It puts the past three years of this family and their sleazy co-conspirators profiting off the public dime in stark terms. The whole sorry episode of this presidency can be summed up by this last cash grab.
West of the Rockies
Haven’t seen any mention here today, but is it the early consensus that Sonland dropped a steaming turd into the Trump punch bowl today?
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Maybe climate change will want to discuss Mulvaney by washing him out to sea.
hueyplong
Trump obviously misquoted. No references to ‘Sir” or foreign leaders weeping as they express their humble appreciation for the long-sought invitation to a beautiful, great Trump property.
HeleninEire
@Duane: Seriously. He’s just trolling us now.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks. Wasn’t aware of that, although it’s clearly in Fahrenthold’s wheelhouse.
Kent
They don’t even give a shit anymore.
The only question is whether the GOP will reign him in.
And whether the Dems can make this into a campaign issue. If they can’t hammer him to death talking about this sort of blatant corruption then they don’t fucking deserve to win. People might not understand what “emoluments” are but they can identify outright corruption when they see it.
This will be happening right before the Democratic convention.
I would also be looking for foreign leaders to be throwing grade A shade on Trump in every way they can. That part will be fun to watch anyway.
SiubhanDuinne
@japa21:
I wondered exactly the same.
germy
I would be shocked if he didn’t overcharge. Isn’t that his business model?
germy
From The Onion:
https://politics.theonion.com/resistance-democrats-cheer-nancy-pelosi-after-viral-pho-1839138224
Elizabelle
He’s rolling this out as a finger in the eye to all of us, on a day when we are mourning the news that Elijah Cummings has died.
Fuck this psychopath and all the psychopaths in his administration. They are terrible, terrible people.
This self-dealing cannot be allowed to stand. Stop it.
Steeplejack
From the Post article:
They are incapable of not confessing! They just can’t keep their mouths shut.
Kay
And, another “fuck you” from the “public servants”. They “won’t” show documents. Because the rules don’t apply to them.
They want millions of dollars of your money to transfer directly into Trump’s accounts, but they “won’t” show documents.
We’re supposed to take their word on it. No one, no one on God’s green earth would accept this deal they just told us we entered into, and the public shouldn’t either. Reject it.
JPL
@Elizabelle: That was my thought as well. He doesn’t want one day where he’s not the center of attention.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Can the House withhold funding for this boondoggle?
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Don’t forget the chocolate cake!
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Onion has become a self parody run by dude bros who worship BS.
germy
They really don’t care what we think.
Roger Moore
One point about this: this is not a new idea. Trump was talking about putting the event at his resort well before the news about Ukraine broke, and he likely originally floated the idea as soon as he realized the US was going to host the G7. Formalizing this kind of decision can take a long time, so it’s not just a matter of Trump doing this right now as a way of flaunting his willingness to engage in corruption while under investigation. This is a bit of corruption that was started a long time ago and just looks especially bad now because it happened while a bunch of other corruption is in the spotlight.
Kent
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They could theoretically write a restriction into the 2020 budget prohibiting spending of public dollars at Trump properties. But they’d have to get it through the Senate and past the president’s veto pen. I’m not sure if the 2020 fiscal year budget has already been approved or not. Once they have signed off on the budget there isn’t much they can do.
Mai naem mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: we can only hope Mick is sitting in prison by then. Hopefully in some redneck area being affected by climate change so that he has to wonder if his prison cell will fill up with H2O and he’ll drown
Another Scott
Maybe he’ll be gone before then?
Twitter (Bernstein was Biden’s economic adviser):
(Emphasis added.)
Makes sense.
And I would add that M4A isn’t Medicare. There’s a huge amount of hopes-and-dreams stuff in the M4A discussion that will not happen quickly even if a bill calling itself M4A passes fairly quickly. There is going to be a phase-in timeline, lots of arguments about what is covered and when and how and who will pay more, and all the rest. Aspiring to M4A and accepting a decades-long phasein isn’t somehow selling out…
Eyes on the prize.
Cheers,
Scott.
Duane
@HeleninEire: At any other time this would be scandal. Days of outraged headlines. With these idiots and crooks it barely lasts the day.
Martin
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m not. Whatever internal guardrails the WH had are all gone. What’s left are basically just a bunch of criminals that know they are only still there because they allow these things to happen.
What’s notable is how readily the rest of the GOP, and Republican voters have jumped on board. Building a criminal organization isn’t hard. Getting 100 million people to endorse that organization, well, that’s surprising.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
Cha ching, the Trump children are saying! Got one over on the chumps again! What did Ivanka make from us last year? 24 million?
It started to make more sense to me why Trump stuck us with his otherwise unemployable children when I saw how common nepotism is in that administration because people started looking when the Biden attacks started. They all hired their grown children. The place is littered with the grown children of Trump hires. There’s one planted in every part of the Trump Adminstration. If they object to Ivanka or The Boys the whole rotten organization is implicated.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SiubhanDuinne: Why am I reminded of Dick Cheney’s work to find W’s running mate. “I’ve looked at every Republican in the universe and concluded that the only possible VP candidate is… me.”
MattF
Why make this complicated? It was a simple test. If you said that the Trump Doral might not be the obvious best place for the G7 summit, you got fired. “Nice job you’ve got here. Too bad you don’t have it any more.”
sdhays
@Steeplejack:
Ummm…Eric? That is literally the plan. Literally. Not Joe Biden “literally”. But literally literally.
Brachiator
Trump is brazen. Trump has no shame.
Trump’s corruption is right in your face. Meanwhile, there are still pundits and bloggers pontificating about how shameful Hunter Biden’s shady connections must be and how Joe Biden needs to be wearing sackcloth.
Kay
@germy:
They don’t care because what we must understand is they don’t actually work for us. The “not caring” springs directly from that fact. Why would they care? They work for Trump. Is he happy that his failing resort will be getting a millions of dollars government bail out? Yes. Then they’re done. Mission accomplished.
cain
@germy:
He doesn’t care at this point about anything. He is moving full speed ahead and going full on dictator. One day he is going to use a nuke and it will be on an ally.
He’s also for sure planning a recall of all the troops in europe that surrounds Russia, unless they pay him money.
rikyrah
In the ORIGINAL Constitution.
No Amendment needed for this.
germy
Ohio Mom
Trump hit it perfectly when he said he could shot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. That is the metaphor for his entire presidency.
PJ
@Kay: @Kay: Trump ran for President to enhance his “brand” and divert the money from his campaign fund into his own pocket – he was angry when he found out he couldn’t do that because it was against the law. He didn’t expect to win – the whole idea was to set up his own network after the election to suck up cash from the MAGAts.
But he won, and so he set out to make as much money as possible for himself from the office – besides doing whatever Putin wants, enriching himself is really his only policy goal.
Ripping off the American people is now, more than ever, the purpose of the Republican party.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Brachiator: I appreciate The Post using active voice there. Not “Doral has been awarded.” Instead, “Trump awarded it to Doral.”
scav
So so SO amazing that the absolute unmatched perfection! of every single Trump Property has been malisciously ignored by every international meeting and the US governemment and military for all their needs Lo! these many years. Deep State Witch Conspiracy! Sad. How such perfect bigly locations are going to possibly squeeze in such meetings to their (undoubtedly) necessary overbooking is a wonder matched only by the parable of the loaves and the fishes.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT but I thought everyone could use a palate cleanser after today’s horrible news. There was a news sory on North West Tonight yesterday where a couple were at the Airport ready to go on holiday. Their luggage had already gone through check in and was going through security scans before being put on the plane. The scans picked something strange out on the screen. A Cat snuggled up asleep in the suitcase. Turns out it was the couple’s cat who had snuck into the suitcase while they were packing. I have to hold my hand up to admit that this has “almost” happened to me several times so I have no critisism for the couple. Anyhoo the security team got the cat home so the couple could go on holiday as planned.
Kent
Just for the sake of curiousity, I looked up the peak high tides for Miami for the month of June 2020. The highest king tide will be 2.42 meters on June 5 but there will still be some lingering king tides on June 9 when the conference starts when the high tide is projected to be 2.20 meters. Add to that any kind of storm event with a storm surge (doesn’t have to be a full-on hurricane) and we could see flooding in the streets of Miami during the G7 and a whole bunch of discussion of the effects of climate change and sea level rise with all the world’s cameras focused on Miami and a bunch of diplomats wading around Miami streets with rolled up pant legs taking photos of sea level rise.
germy
sigyn
@Kay: Well, we can’t be sure it’s their Last cash grab…yet.
Steeplejack
A month or two ago somebody—maybe David Fahrenthold—contacted officials in every state and found no evidence that any of them had been contacted by anybody researching potential G-7 sites.
(Can’t find a link right now.)
Amir Khalid
A music question: What’s the name for the type of notebook with staves printed on the pages? I want to look for them online but I can’t remember what they’re called.
germy
This translator is all of us (as the young folks say)
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I’m confused about why this is supposed to be funny. Was Pelosi not supposed to stand up and point at Trump?
germy
Duane
@Kay: Not many customers give a blank check and say, ” charge us what you want.” There’s a word for people like that. Suckers, and that’s exactly what they think of us.
SFAW
@hueyplong:
I thought the “tell” would be when Fuckhead told us that “a big, strong man — maybe you know him, the Chancellor of Germany — came to me, with tears in his eyes, saying ‘Sir! The Trump Doral iss ze ONLY Platz vhere ve vould vant to shtay!’ ”
And Fuckhead would of course try to say it just that way, the way he did with “Poo-AIR-to Ree-co” after the hurricane.
Fleeting Expletive
Man, the muck gets thicker by the minute. The Hoarse Whisperer’s twitter is astonishing. Did we know that the Ukraine grievance was about justifying a Manafort pardon? The theory being that if it was Ukraine and not Russia helping HRC and not helping Stable Genius, then … profit?
It’s what Rick Perry told WSJ about what Rudy wanted from him, but I didn’t read the WSJ because paywall.
I’m not the first to suggest 25th amendment should step right up and take a bow right now, but now would be good.
Kay
There is no one who needs heavy regulation and constant babysitting like a conservative. They are the reason regulations exist. There’s no inner monitor of any kind- if there isn’t a specific regulation forbidding their unethical behavior they will indulge in it.
You couldn’t write a code to address all the scams these people will come up with. It would be a million pages long. They need a cop in every kitchen or say goodbye to your lunch money! They’re grabbing it.
germy
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think the article was written about her meeting with Trump.
It was written several days before that meeting.
sdhays
@Kay:
Even if he was hosting for free (yeah, right!), it would still be deeply corrupt. He’s using the G7 Summit to advertise for his Bedbug Motel. That’s a big upgrade in stature!
sdhays
@Kay:
Kay, I wish your were on TV saying this stuff. The masses need to hear it!
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
“Music notebooks” works fine on Google and Amazon.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Hell no
Kent
@Another Scott: Nice analysis. Essentially the public option folks are bargaining with themselves. Which is what Dems always do. Don’t OPEN with your compromise position. No health care proposal will escape the Senate unscathed. They will chip away at it just like last time. If you start with M4A you might end up with a robust public option as the compromise position and move forward. If you start with a public option you’ll end up with not much more than tweaks to the current system by the time they are done. The M4A folks are pushing the overton window which might actually get us to a public option.
germy
@Amir Khalid:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blank-sheet-music-just-plan-books/1126457539
trollhattan
@HeleninEire:
I agree. Trump is now in an all-time, all-ways “Fuck all y’all, I’m the KING” phase. (How that differs from Trump at any time is of course open to debate.) It’s a great look.
Kay
@Duane:
I love the imperious tone. They “won’t” be providing any documents. So fuck you. The people who cannot open their mouths without 15 lies tumbling out want you to take their word for it.
If there’s a public protest I’ll attend. I refuse to be publicly humiliated by these bottom o the barrelers that I’m paying. It’s too much. I resent paying them as it is. I shouldn’t have to contribute to the “bonuses” they grab along the way.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think it’s even simpler than that. The whole rotten administration is full of nepotism hires for the same reason the Republican party and the conservative movement are full of nepotism hires: conservatives believe in nepotism. They try to justify it as something else, but ultimately their goal is to be able to turn everything over to their kids. They want to be able to pass down the family fortune and the family business without pesky inheritance taxes, and they want to be able to turn over control of the party and the government without having to deal with annoying upstarts. They want an oligarchy, and nepotism is part of the deal.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
And it works on Lazada.com.my, too! Thanks.
PJ
@Fleeting Expletive: That the Ukraine thing was about getting a pardon for Manafort came out a few weeks ago, around the time that it came out that Rudy had consulted with Manafort in jail before going to Ukraine – I don’t know if it was any particular testimony or just people drawing lines between the dots.
trollhattan
@SFAW:
Golf (naturally) clap for the “Green Acres” ref.
Kent
@Amir Khalid: Search for “manuscript paper”
Emerald
Dare we hope for a boycott by the presumed participants?
trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Boy, would they have been surprised unpacking at the hotel.
Gravenstone
Just call in a fucking airstrike and raze it to the fucking ground. Make it just go away so he can’t use it to further enrich himself and his sprogs, as well as further humiliate the rest of us.
trollhattan
@Emerald:
Lots of hair will suddenly require lots of professional attention. And we all know leaders of nations can only get adequate haircare at home.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Yes! Of course! I think that’s been nibbling around the edges of my memory, but I hadn’t really focused in on it until you pointed it out.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
These people would have complained about FDR making deals with Boeing to build warplanes. ?
SFAW
@trollhattan:
Inadvertent/unintentional. I was thinking more of how Fuckhead would affect a “Cherman” accent.
Betty Cracker
In the same news gaggle in which Mulvaney announced the G7 is being held at the Trump Emoluments Inn, he also owned up to the quid pro quo on holding up Ukraine’s aid:
And he added, “get over it.” I am not making this up:
So, now we get to find out if Republicans are okay with a president and administration openly subverting US foreign policy for personal political gain. My prediction is that yes, they will be fine with that!
Cacti
Since it’s an open thread, I couldn’t help but notice that Warren-Juice has been strangely silent on the recently released price tag on Medicare for All:
$34 trillion over 10-years.
Hitching our wagon to Berniecare = 4 more years of Trump.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
Problem is, people on the American left have been so propagandized for M4A that if they get a public option instead, they will stay home in the midterms and allow Republicans to take back control of Congress because they didn’t get the exact thing they wanted.
The Democrats touting a public option aren’t negotiating with the right — they’re negotiating with the intransigent left.
PJ
@Roger Moore: I would qualify that to say that rich people believe in nepotism, or, as they would put it, just using your contacts and influence to give your children a fair chance. Probably some of the people caught up in the college admission scandal would identify themselves as liberals. Their big mistake was not having enough money to buy a new building in order to get junior in, or just simply having been an alum.
The impulse to use what you have to help out your children is not limited to the wealthy, either. When I graduated from college with a degree which enabled me to get a job delivering pizza, my father said he could get me a job in his line of work. It would have been an entry level job, but it would also have been the kind of thing that someone without contacts would not have been able to get easily. Air conditioning and refrigeration was not where I saw myself, so I passed (but I would probably be a lot richer for it now if I had taken that offer.)
The biggest problem with nepotism is not that more qualified people lose out on the opportunity for that position, but as Kay keeps pointing out, that these hires are not qualified at all.
catclub
@TaMara (HFG):
This is not unique to Trump.
There is a long US tradition to abandoning the Kurds when push comes to shove. Ask George Bush I.
The countries in the middle east that are implacably opposed to a Kurdish homeland (and I cna list off the top of my head) are: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. There are probably others if you asked Syria and Lebanon.
Unfortunately, slaughter of Kurds is a recurring feature.
clay
@Betty Cracker:
“I have news for everybody: Get over it,” Mulvaney said
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oT7vQVVjYbE/hqdefault.jpg
Gravenstone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: This is just begging for a major hurricane to come through and just level the property the week prior to the scheduled event.
Oh sorry, had no idea weather like this could be a thing!
germy
@Mnemosyne: The pernicious effect of corporate money on our politicians is an appropriate subject for satire. My opinion, anyway.
rikyrah
@Litlebritdifrnt:
That is adorable :)
germy
@Betty Cracker:
First they deny.
Call it fake news.
Then they admit it, and tell us to “get over it.”
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Hell, he publicly floated the idea of Doral as the site while at this year’s G7! Of course they were never going to look someplace else. Just make semi-polite mouth noises to the effect and then get their grift on.
West of the Rockies
@schrodingers_cat:
BS supporters are like Ron Paul or Lyndon Larouche supporters: passionate, arrogant and misinformed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Trump is apparently babbling about how great Erdogan is because he’s agreed to pause fighting for a couple of weeks to let the Kurds flee. He says administrations have been trying to get this deal for 15 years, but he did it. Of course Erdogan is coming to WH.
I just can’t.
catclub
@Cacti:The economy is about $20tr yearly GDP these days. Healthcare is approximately 15% of the economy,
so $3tr/year, multiply by 10 and you get $30tr with no inflation. You might also get many more people covered and better results.
The difference will be that healthcare insurance premiums would go to about zero under M4A, but taxes to supply healthcare would replace that cost.
I am a fan of gradual age reduction of medicare eligibility.
I am not a fan of big scary numbers without context.
sdhays
@Mnemosyne: People also don’t like to acknowledge that M4A isn’t that popular. A lot of “intrenched interests” are voters. We’ve allowed the system to consume a gobsmacking amount of the national economy, and you can’t expect to unwind that overnight.
I absolutely hate the current system, but ripping it out is going to justifiably scare a majority of people. We have to unwind the system; we can’t just “end it”.
germy
Amir Khalid
@germy:
Well, Trump got President Mattarella’s name mostly right. Three syllables out of four deserves some credit, right?
//
Kent
@Mnemosyne: Well, they are negotiating with themselves if they start with the compromise position.
Trust me, I understand the politics of the situation. No matter WHAT gets passed in 2021 it will have a 4-6 year phase-in period. You don’t turn a battleship on a dime. A public option can be sold as the next interim step towards M4A and if it is truly better than the private options then you’ll get there anyway.
The big trouble is that even if the Dems retake the Senate, the 60th vote is going to be someone like Mitt Romney. If they toss out the filibuster the 50th vote will be someone like Doug Jones or Joe Manchin. They will both demand MASSIVE compromises for their votes like the Lieberman bullshit in 2009.
Politics is hard. And even incremental gains like 2009 passage of Obamacare are a big fucking deal. Health care is important but it isn’t the only important priority for the next administration. There are a BUNCH of others from voting rights and social justice to climate change and the environment.
WhatsMyNym
@Cacti:
So basically they are saying it’s a wash, but everybody will be covered.
ETA: I should have read the next paragraph –
So if the $35 billion number is accurate we should be saving in 10 years.
SFAW
@germy:
Not a “bucket list”?
germy
@SFAW:
If only.
Kay
There’s no bottom, yet. Still headed straight down.
Cacti
@catclub:
I’m guessing you’re familiar with the political expression “if you’re explaining, you’re losing”.
Any Dem running on M4A will be running on the largest peacetime, across the board tax increase in US history, while hoping that the explanation of “but it actually saves money in the long run when you consider XYZ” will win the day for them.
It won’t.
sdhays
@Kay: Crackpot Dome to Bedbug Dome.
germy
@Cacti:
“Keep your government hands off my five thousand dollar deductible!”
Kay
The one remaining functioning institution in the US government responds to the latest admission of corruption by the Trump Administration. It’s a little more than half of the US House between us and the collapsed, hopelessly corrupted government Trump owns.
rikyrah
Onus of investigations on Congress, SDNY as Barr defers to Trump
Rachel Maddow looks at how Bill Barr’s abdication of his responsibility to investigate criminal referrals related to Donald Trump has caused those investigations to be taken up by others, like in the impeachment inquiry in Congress, and the Southern District of New York.
WhatsMyNym
@Cacti: My health insurance premiums for this year amount to $12,000.
M4A gets my vote.
sdhays
I hope Democrats refer to the bedbugs every time they mention this travesty. He’s, at minimum, trying to super-charge the prestige for his dump resort. The Democrats could make that fail just by getting the media to discuss bedbugs whenever the topic comes up. It’s what the Republicans would do.
Searcher
1. Other members of G-7 say they are too busy with homework to come over, later spotted hanging out together in Paris.
2. So I know Trump gets angry and ragey on the internet all the time, but I kind of assume that no one around him is actually telling him how bad everything is — in terms of “how obvious all of your crimes are”, “how serious impeachment is”, “how many of your very obvious crimes are prosecute-able by State governments” and “how bad your polling is” — and while Trump is angry at being “disrespected”, he honestly has no idea why committing more very obvious, public crimes while being impeached for his previous obvious, public crimes is a problem.
Gin & Tonic
For those of you who might need a comprehensive backgrounder on the whole Trump-Ukraine issue, The Economist comes to your rescue. A long piece, but really very good.
Kent
@Cacti:
No one is really being honest about the M4A costs. Whether your costs go up or down will depend greatly on (1) current income, (2) current coverage, and (3) current costs.
Younger, healthier, and wealthier people are likely to see SUBSTANTIAL tax increases relative to what they are paying now, especially if the bulk of their coverage is being paid by their employers because few employers are going to refund that money if they don’t have to. If you are a mid-level executive type, engineer, doctor, lawyer, or such making 6 figures with current employer paid medical coverage there is no universe in which M4A won’t represent a massive tax increase and massive increase in costs. There are a lot of people in that category and they organize and vote.
Poorer people, sicker people, and older people below medicare age will likely see lower costs under M4A than they pay under the current system.
People over 65 already on Medicare will see large tax increases on their retirement income if this M4A is paid for by income tax increases rather than payroll tax increases. The average retiree paying for retirement out of IRA or 401k savings is paying ordinary income tax and will have to absorb any across the board income tax increases to pay for M4A.
M4A will also completely disrupt the current medicare system which is a combination of public and private payer (Medicare Advantage) plans. Lots and lots of oldsters are not going to be happy with that disruption. You’ll be getting a shitload of teaparty oldster types out protesting with the “don’t touch my medicare” signs and such. It will be a fucking shit show.
Chyron HR
@Cacti:
“Since it’s an open thread, I thought I’d remind you that
ClintonWarren must DIE for denying our GODBERNIEBIDEN his GOLDEN THRONE!”Oh, we noticed, buddy. We noticed.
Calouste
@Cacti: Current US health care expenditure is 16.9% of a GDP of $21.5 Trillion. So that’s $3.63 Trillion per year. So $34 Trillion in 10 years saves at least $2.6 Trillion, not counting inflation.
Cacti
@WhatsMyNym:
59% of voters oppose the elimination of private insurance benefits, 41% support it.
Chris T.
@Steeplejack:
I would assume “we checked all over and this was the best” is an outright lie, but maybe they did check a few other sites … also all owned by Trump.
In which case, releasing actual comparables would give away the game.
Cacti
@Chyron HR:
At least Bernie’s honest that he plans to run on a massive tax hike that would get us crushed at the ballot box.
rikyrah
Trump Ukraine scandal spawns counterintelligence investigation
Rachel Maddow looks at how Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal has exposed a cast of characters with ties to Russian intelligence and organized crime that has spawned a counterintelligence component to the investigation.
Kent
@sdhays:
I want to see foreign diplomats and their staffs throwing shade on Trump by posting pictures of the bedbugs they find on twitter as well as all the other horrid tacky shit they are likely to find in any Trump branded property. There should be a competition to see who can throw the best shade.
Martin
@germy: Just more evidence that Trump is merely Caligula reincarnated.
Martin
@Cacti: Voters will oppose any workable plan simply because they’ll oppose any large change. That’s why these things need to be marketed well. Bernie is not a vehicle for successfully doing that. Warren might be. No matter what, it’ll be a tough sell.
PJ
@Martin: If only RBG would just move on, he could fulfill his dream of nominating a horse to the Supreme Court. There would be some “concern”, but the Republicans would unanimously vote to approve it.
catclub
@sdhays: as noted above: I am a fan of gradual age reduction of medicare eligibility.
piratedan
i’m beginning to think that it wouldn’t be a great use of my tax dollars to keep feeding these criminals once they’re sent to prison. Don’t we have some barren islands somewhere like the Aleutians that we can send them to? That way they can gaze longingly at Mother Russia for sustenance…perhaps even rescue…
JPL
@Cacti: I’m sure that corporations will give the share they pay for health care to employees. After all they used the tax cut to increase wages. Oh wait never mind, that argument doesn’t work.
Kent
@Calouste:
Assuming you can bend costs down that much in a M4A program. But in any realistic political universe the powerful vested interests that profit off the current system (hospitals, providers, etc.) will make sure costs don’t get bent down that far in the legislative process. Some of the outrageous shit like out of network billing will likely be nipped. But under a M4A plan we could easily see a whole lot MORE money flowing into things that are currently bleeding money like rural hospitals, inner city hospitals, clinics in poor areas, etc. Any M4A bill will produce the most epic feeding frenzy in the history of the US Congress. If you think you can wave a wand and reduce costs as much as Bernie suggests you can do on paper you are dreaming.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Trump is like a stress test. We see what crumbles into dust and what survives. Not a lot are passing this test! We’re down to the US House and SDNY. That’s not a great showing. But it’s something.
The institutions that are failing were weak – we just didn’t know it. They should have held. If we get thru it we can rebuild them, better. Because now we know they failed when they were tested.
Nicole
The G7 thing has me so mad because I feel right now like he’ll get away with it. We will never recover from this. He makes the Teapot Dome scandal look like the tiniest of peccadilloes.
Re: taxes and M4A: I remember when I was trying to work out a way to bring some part-time employees I managed on as full-time employees, that my supervisor said to calculate 15% over the wage for the cost of a part-time employee, and 33% over the salary of the full-time employee to work out what the employee cost the business. The 15% was SS/Medicare/UI taxes, and the additional 18% was the cost of employer-provided health care (and the employee still paid 20% of the cost out of their salary and that was required by the company, unless you could prove you were covered with health insurance via another source- this was before ACA).
That’s a sizable chunk for health insurance that didn’t go towards salary. I get why Warren is wary of saying taxes will go up- that will get trimmed and blasted everywhere in every opposition spot, because the media, and most of America, has bought into TAXES BAD, but it seems to me they could go up QUITE A BIT and still not equal what we currently pay for health insurance via our jobs.
It’s bullshit to say Americans “like” their health insurance company. No one likes their insurance company; they like access to the doctors they want to see and not having to pay for a medical bill. Seems to me that that’s the kind of thing that can be provided without an insurance company gatekeeper. But try getting all of that out in a 7 second CNN soundbite.
waratah
@catclub: Beto changes his policy’s at times because he listens to Americans . One of those was for Medicare for all to Medicare for America.
When he found out people were dyeing because they could not afford medicine, a teacher that had the flue and could not pay the sixty dollars, he thought that this would be able to pass quicker in congress. Then the Unions said they did not want to lose the good insurance they negotiated instead of wages. This way people can opt in or out.
germy
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Chyron HR: Come on. The politics of M4A are absolutely fair game. I generally support Warren, but this is a legit issue. IMHO, Harris’ version of M4A is more politically palatable, since it doesn’t raise taxes on households under $100K, and allows for supplemental private insurance. But a very vocal contingent of Democrats won’t settle for anything less than single-payer. I hope Warren make an adjustment – might be wise to stop pursuing the Bernie vote and start making some moves to appeal to Biden’s constituency.
Aleta
“This appears to be the first time in American history that a president has given such a massive contract to himself. … ”
“… though his company has said they will not over-charge the government,”
which would be another historic first with respect to the history of the Trump campaign and administration. It is, however, so unlikely to be true that the sound of scoffing has been detected by microphones suspended from helium balloons in the stratosphere. This represents another first-ever event.
“These are clearly wins for the American people. You’re welcome,” said an administration official speaking from a secure undisclosed closet.
The Moar You Know
@Rommie: Like hell, but hotter and wetter. I was in Orlando last August for a conference; walking the half-mile from the hotel to the conference in the early morning, and the heat was the second-worst I’ve ever felt (the coast of the Gulf of Aden will always win that title hands down). Gotta be honest, have no idea why anyone would live in Florida.
jl
So Mulvaney made some news today? Trump MO has changed from ‘spill the beans’ to ‘spill your guts’?
From news blurb I heard, not only was there a quid pro quo, but the quo was about the craziest most obviously fraudulent QAnon nonsense?
So Trump destroyed himself over nonsense no one would believe anyway? And maybe WH wanted to hide the details because it not only revealed criminality, but fact that Trump is a true believer unhinged QAnon conspiracy nutcase?
I’ll have to catch up later.
sdhays
@Kent: I don’t want it to get to that. I want the discussion of bedbugs to get so bad NOW that they scrap the plan just to get it out of the news. If we’re relying on foreign diplomats doing it, we, as tax payers, have already lost.
Marcopolo
Just dropping in to say hi y’all. Anyone else want to join me in pledging to be outside Trump’s resort protesting if the G7 actually does take place there (if he is still the Prez then)? I figure it’s as good (bad) a place as anywhere for a few million folks to show up and let him know how we feel about him.
And if you want to call your Congress critter to bitch it 202-224-3121 for the switchboard.
Dev Null
@West of the Rockies:
Haven’t seen anyone come out and say that; the flavor I’m getting is that Sondland is doing what he can to avoid a future criminal indictment with as little daylight between him and Trump as he / Sondland can manage without getting nailed.
But “pundits disagree about shape of earth.”
Emptywheel, OTOH, thinks that Sondland is protecting Trump. source
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
The magazine that killed Hillarycare with fake numbers is now claiming that Warrencare will cost a comically large amount?
I think you’re the only person here who didn’t see that coming.
Kent
@The Moar You Know: Hurricane season peaks in mid-September and there is very little chance of a June hurricane: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/10/31/hurricane-season-usually-winds-down-in-november-but-this-hasnt-been-a-normal-season/ Hurricanes are driven by sea water temperature which lags the air temperature by two months or so. It takes a long time during the summer to really warm up the Gulf and Mid-Atlantic and then takes a long time for it to cool back down which is why we get more October hurricanes (like Katrina) than we do June hurricanes.
But even a nice big rainstorm during a king tide which will occur June 9th 2020 could produce substantial storm surge and close much of Miami due to flooding.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kay:
Institutions are only as good as the people that belong to them
Kay
We have gotten faster, though. The lies are exposed about 15 minutes after they tell them now. It’s just hard to keep up because they set up another podium somewhere else and tell another one.
Lying like this would ruin your credibility if you were the manager of a couple of Subway franchises. No one would believe a word you said. You couldn’t really function in your daily management duties. Yet it’s just the regular order of business now, at the highest levels of the US government. Set up a podium, assemble the media and lie your ass off.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Mnemosyne: Regardless of the specific numbers – we know they will be big, and we need to be up front with voters about that.
Obfuscation isn’t helping us get to universal health coverage faster. Instead, it’s putting 2020 at risk.
If we’re going to run on a policy, we need to have a believable sales pitch. Do we really want to run on single-payer or bust in 2020?
Just One More Canuck
@Betty Cracker: A friend of mine once described the aroma coming from Toronto’s subway vents in June as that “dead body smell”, and that was being kind. I can only imagine the stench that a big city built near a swamp can have at that time of year. I can imagine it, but I’d rather not
rikyrah
Investigators’ questions show counterintel interest in Giuliani
Kenneth McCallion, attorney for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, talks with Rachel Maddow about his interactions with investigators looking into Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal and what made it clear to him that the investigation includes a counterintelligence component.
Kay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Agreed! I feel like that got lost. They don’t just cruise along on reputation forever. You really can just piss it away until there’s nothing left.
cain
@sdhays:
Even better? Congressional hearings on it. It’s petty, but fun. Call in the folks who got called to get at the bed bugs. It would be hilarious if Trump tried to use executive privilege. :-)
scav
How much spit will a lick spittle lick as a lickspittle lives to lick spit?
For answers, check out your national GOP!
rikyrah
We need the transcripts to those phone calls.
Reports suggest greater reach by Turkey into Trump administration
Rachel Maddow looks at new reports on Turkey’s interests being given a high priority by the Donald Trump administration, suggesting a greater influence by Turkey on Trump than was previously realized.
The Moar You Know
@Amir Khalid: Music Manuscript book.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
The numbers aren’t from The Atlantic. They’re from the Commonwealth Fund and Urban Institute.
Mnemosyne
@Searcher:
It’s even simpler than that: as soon as you tell a toxic narcissist that what they did was wrong, they will immediately double down and do the exact thing you told them was wrong, because they cannot handle criticism in any form whatsoever. It’s so threatening to their self-image that they are compelled to do the very thing they were criticized for to “prove” that they’re right and their critic is wrong.
And all of Trump’s enablers are helping him do it.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Evidence? This seems like just an assertion
Anyway, I don’t care if it’s a public option or M4A. Plenty of other nations have hybrid systems with a government-provided health service and private health insurance as an option. It doesn’t have to be one or the other
sdhays
@cain: I like the way you think!
Kent
@Nicole:
No, not bullshit. We have Kaiser Permanente out here in the Northwest which is an HMO so it’s hard to draw the line between the insurance company and provider. They are one in the same. But it works pretty damn good and a lot of people really like it. Their customer service is extraordinarly good. Not everyone is on AETNA and has to fight with the insurance company about every bill.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I asked you this before.
Do you think that they are weak because they are weak.
Or, are they weak because of White Supremacy.
I’m sorry Kay, I have a very hard time believing that if 44 had done 2% of what Dolt45 has done, that the institutions wouldn’t have held?
A lot of this for me, is the repeated excuses and lowering of the bar for this White man that NO Non-White person would have ever received.
The Moar You Know
@Mnemosyne: Funny thing is, they did.
Martin
@Kent: You underestimate how much money is spent just dealing with billing and delinquency. Add in difficult billing cases like workmans comp which requires constant follow-up, etc. and you’re looking at something approaching one billing staff per physician. And that’s just on the provider side. There’s another staff on the insurer side.
Effectively, a good single payer system will eliminate the staff on the insurer side – that’s about half a million workers, and a similar number on the provider side. The workmans comp system gets significantly simplified. Overlaps/interactions between medicare, medicaid, the various state systems, the exchanges, all of that get simplified reducing staff. And all of these interactions is where fraud happens – which costs about $80B/yr.
The overhead and losses due to friction in this system is massive. Granted, it’ll take a long time for govt to actually deliver on that, and that assumes the GOP isn’t working root and branch to destroy it. So, there’s potential for a LOT of savings under a single payer plan, but it also means a LOT of people losing jobs which won’t be well received (overall it should create jobs, but those will be in other areas that these people may not be qualified to take), and the risk of the GOP just wrecking it out of spite.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Sure, if you want to let Republicans and fake leftists insist that both sides are the same, so voters may as well vote Republican.
If you actually want to get rid of Republicans, it perhaps is not the best move at this specific time. YMMV.
Gravenstone
@jl: Maybe they’ve decided to dump everything into the open hoping that the House quickly pulls the trigger on impeachment so the Senate can just as quickly bury it by refusing to convict? Nah, would require far too much planning and coordination from Trump and his sycophants.
Marcopolo
@Kent: People tend to get fixated on costs when discussing M4A. Don’t forget the other part of this which is everyone will be covered. I don’t have the exact current figure at hand but that’s about 30-35M people. And they won’t just be getting insurance, they will be getting the vast majority (or all depending on the scheme) of their healthcare costs covered.
I have as many questions as many about how M4A winds up working (and when it might finally come to pass) but it is where we need to wind up. The potential benefits are enormous & People & companies should not be making profits off of something we’d all die w/out.
Villago Delenda Est
Baldfaced pathological liar.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I’ll wiggle into the space between you and Kay and say that nobody noticed how weak the institutions had become because of white supremacy.
They’ve been getting hollowed out for years, but white supremacy was propping them up because conservatives were using those institutions to try and prop up white supremacy.
Once we wanted to use those institutions to defend the rest of us, we discovered how badly the rot had weakened them. They were basically being propped up by white supremacy, and now there’s nothing left.
PPCLI
So our allies the Kurds have been officially sold out, without ever being consulted on their own fate. This is worse than Chamberlain at Munich selling out the Czechs. At least Chamberlain didn’t have a hotel in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, Trump is touting his “deal” by saying of the Turks, referring to the land on which the Kurds have been living: “they [the Turks] had to have it cleaned out.”
“had to”? “cleaned out”??????
And: “What Turkey is getting now is they are not going to have to kill millions of people.”
Are we to infer that Trump believes that without his “deal”, Turkey would have “had to kill millions of people”
Genocide would have been necessary?
Dev Null
@jl: I think Mulvaney repeated a claim that others have made: There was a quid pro quo, but it was OK, because it wasn’t a corrupt quid pro quo.
You know, like steering G-7 hosting to Doral-Miami because really, we looked and Doral-Miami is the only place that is suitable.
Because we say so, natch.
source
See, the quid pro quo was about an insane DNC server conspiracy theory debunked by the USIC, not an insane conspiracy theory about dirt on the Bidens (debunked by facts in the public record)!
Also Mulvaney compared corruption in Ukraine to corruption in Puerto Rico, because, you know, Ukraine is a US commonwealth like Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth.
Oh, wait, I got that mixed up. The correct statement is that Puerto Rico is a FSU* country menaced by Russia in the same way that Ukraine is a FSU country menaced by Russia.
Hmm, that still doesn’t seem quite right.
[throws hands up in the air]
I give up … for whatever reason Ukraine and Puerto Rico are directly comparable.
Deal with it (as Mulvaney might say, had he not said “get over it”).
* “Former Soviet Union”, for those under the age of 30, or those who have forgotten.
rikyrah
Trump ‘doesn’t know what he’s doing or talking about’: McGurk
Brett McGurk, former special presidential envoy to The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, talks with Rachel Maddow about the disturbing gap between what Donald Trump says about the situation in Syria and the actual consequences of Trump’s foolhardy decision to abruptly abandon Kurdish allies.
TomatoQueen
There is a Brexit deal apparently. BoJo was seen shaking hands and playing kissy face with whoever would let him at the big round table in Brussels. He was also seen to mouth platitudes. DUP isn’t having it and neither is Labo(u)r. Tony Jay?
rikyrah
Trump wings Syria policy heedless of US personnel in harm’s way
Brett McGurk, former special presidential envoy to The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump’s apparent lack of consideration for US service members and other personnel when he decided to abandon Kurdish allies to Turkish aggression.
Doug R
@Martin:
It was officially 62 million, I’ll give you 60 million before shenanigans.
Dmbeaster
@West of the Rockies: His testimony is bad for Trump. Here is his prepared statement.
NBC’s summary of its impact.
Politico’s take
One of the money quotes from Sondland: “My understanding was that the President directed Mr. Giuliani’s participation, that Mr. Giuliani was expressing the concerns of the President.” And then Giuliani is directing the no aid till investigation deal, and the server investigation.
Martin
@rikyrah: I’d split the difference there:
That takes all kinds of forms – white supremacy, anti LGBTQ positions, anti-immigrant positions, communist witch hunts, even rage against liberals. But the best defense we have against this is government, so conservatism demands a weak government in order to achieve its aims. So they go hand in hand – institutions are weak because conservatives have worked for decades to make them weak, and they have worked to make them weak to allow efforts like white supremacy to work. They go hand-in-hand.
Martin
@Doug R: Fair enough. Any number higher than about 100 is pretty damn troubling.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kent:
A nitpick: Katrina was an August hurricane, not October. But your larger point is probably accurate. One thing that can make Miami a bit hellish is the aroma and smoke from when the Everglades are burning. Not. Pleasant. That could easily happen in June.
Cacti
@rikyrah:
The second one. Seeing a black man in the White House for 8-years made white people fly off the rails to an extent I never would have thought possible.
I think the worst of Dotard can be reined in because he’s not very bright, and most of his accomplices aren’t willing to face the gallows for him.
On the other hand, even if he’s voted out, he’s basically laid out the blueprint for how a fascist takeover of the United States could be carried out by someone else with actual intelligence and guile. That will be the most dangerous part of his legacy.
Madeleine
A tweak of Kent’s suggestion: “music manuscript paper.” If you google it, you can find just about any staff configuration you would like. Here, I hope is a link (I haven’t tried this before):
Kent
@Martin: I don’t disagree that there aren’t billions of dollars of inefficiencies to be wrung out of the system. Trillions probably. I’m just not optimistic that the political process will be able to actually wring them out, even with a M4A. We are creating a giant new medical industrial complex and the vested interests will get their cut. I don’t think a M4A will necessarily be more expensive than the current system. I’m just pessimistic that our political process will be able to bend costs as much as are theoretically possible on paper. It doesn’t do that for defense spending or any other kind of government spending. I see no evidence that healthcare will be the exception. And it is wishful thinking to think otherwise. If we were building up a new system from nothing it might be different.
Gin & Tonic
@Dmbeaster: From the Politico piece:
This is false. Burisma as a company has faced neither Ukrainian nor international investigations. Its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, an erstwhile colleague of Viktor Yanukovych, was investigated for money laundering at a time prior to Hunter Biden’s taking a seat on the board. The investigations came to naught because the Prosecutor General at the time, Viktor Shokin, did not pursue them vigorously (he didn’t pursue any investigations vigorously, which is why European and US governemnts wanted him removed)
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I had to work an event in downtown Miami in July in 1995. It was “unpleasant” to say the fucking least. This asshole getting paid one dime for this bullshit just makes it worse.
oldgold
I hope Mulvaney was Mirandized before the press conference.
Aleta
If it goes forward, not only will they charge us for the facility and services. There’ll be months of preparation expenses (that’ll coincidentally replace rot and roofs and repair foundations). New communication and computer systems will require improved cooling systems and rewiring throughout…after which walls and floors will be replaced. The latest technology for entry, perimeter and key systems. Helicopter pads and hangers, redesigned roadways, all new multilingual signage (Russian, Italian, Japanese… ). Bigger, secure kitchen and catering facilities. Sally ports … bombproof the delivery areas… Sky’s the limit!
Gravenstone
@PPCLI: Barely subtext, Trump sees the Kurds as sub-human. An infestation that Turkey has expressed the “need” to root out and eliminate, by whatever means they deem necessary.
Kent
@SiubhanDuinne: Right. I was going from memory and got it wrong. Hurricanes Michael, Mathew and Superstorm Sandy were all October storms.
Sasha
You People Made Me Give Up My Peanut Farm Before I Got To Be President
Ruckus
@germy:
The words over charging are doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. Especially if the shithead utters the words.
Kent
@Martin:
Actually the overwhelming thread of conservative thought is that property should be protected above all, which is how we get to the proposition that corporations (i.e. property) have rights. And it is how we get to the idea that the rich have more rights than the rest of us.
The Moar You Know
@TomatoQueen: Obvs not Tony but this deal is the same deal as last time with the “backstop” removed and identical provisions to the backstop put in – just not called such. The DUP, of course, is stroking out about that because they really just want to be England and not Ireland. They don’t matter. Johnson doesn’t have a majority right now anyway.
Labour is smoking pissed because Boris will get the credit for “delivering Brexit on time” – it’s important to note here that a LOT of Labour was in favor of Brexit as well. My prediction is that this passes Parliament. Barely.
Huge win for Boris, and better than the worst-case scenario for the UK. Johnson will probably get to stay in office for a while now, presiding over the collapse of the UK’s economy.
New Breed Leader
@TaMara (HFG):
Word.
cain
@Kent:
I am on Kaiser and I love them. It’s been better than even my employee healthcare. Their customer service and reaching out is the best I’ve ever had. I get humans calling me about my healthcare. It’s amazing!
Dev Null
@Kay: in re “what Turkey got from the US”:
Curiously, Turkey’s Foreign Minister contradicted Pence almost immediately:
source
Further, Cavusoglu says that Turkey “got everything we wanted” from the US, apparently including a US affirmation of Turkey’s NATO membership and affirmation of US-Turkey ties.
So the US gave away Kurdish ancestral homes, and the US got …
… not entirely credible talking points.
I am sure I speak for everyone here when I say: “Great deal, guys!”
uh, /sarcasm
I feel confident that whatever Erdogan paid Trump for greenlighting the Turkish invasion, Trump will now happily collect.
Kent
@Gravenstone:
And for which they have a long history of doing. Not just the Armenian genocide, but also the lesser known Assyrian genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide and Pontic Genocide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide
cain
@rikyrah:
Truth. But I think though to a lesser degree, we also know that it would be faster for a PoC, but to a certain degree to a woman, and always if they are a Democrat. All of washington since Reagan is wired for Republicans. You can imagine that if Hillary did this it would have gone super nova.
Dev Null
@Gravenstone:
TBF, I am reasonably sure that the only people Trump regards as fully human are melanin-challenged individuals whose ancestors hailed from Western Europe.
And not all of those.
Although he might overlook your subhuman-ness should you pay him to do so.
prostratedragon
@Mnemosyne: Maybe this is a display of someone’s cognitive filters at work.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Exactly!
It’s all about power, them having all of it, and maintaining it indefinitely, through family first and people they own next.
And they have to take it, because only the stupid would think they earned it.
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon: Or what sdhays said. Does work as TFG’s cleanup of what actually happened, though.
Betty Cracker
@cain: My understanding is that Kaiser is a nonprofit that owns its hospital facilities and employs its own medical staff. Is that correct? If so, that explains why its insureds don’t despise it; in that set up, patients don’t have to fight the insurance company to get access to care.
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole:
I think it’s specifically the memory of Walter Mondale. Mondale said some blunt statement like “I will raise your taxes; the other guy will too but I’m honest about it.” Mondale got crucified for this and was crushed in a 49-state landslide. He was correct, incidentally.
Now, tax increases on people richer than you are actually very popular today. But a lot of people are still allergic to their own taxes being raised even if they’re told they’ll come out ahead, partly because they don’t believe it, partly because some have a sheer ideological opposition to taxes and would gladly pay more if it wasn’t taxes.
Dev Null
@Dmbeaster: Here’s a critical passage from the Politico article:
Either Emptywheel (or perhaps Mark Sumner at dKos) argues – plausibly – that Sondland’s claim is not credible for reasons.
Dev Null
@Dev Null: Ah, Adam is already on it.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: It’s a weird fusion of for-profit and non-profit elements. The insurer is non-profit, but the individual medical partnerships can be for-profit.
Kaiser sounds in some ways almost like a private National Health Service to me.
sdhays
@The Moar You Know:
Where do you get that idea? If Boris had spent the last two months making nice with…anybody…, maybe he’d be able to cobble something together. But, as you said, this is a warmed over version of the May deal, just not calling the backstop a “backstop”. That failed to pass Parliament several times, and May was more popular and well-liked than Boris. At this point, some people who voted for the May deal are probably inclined to vote against this just to flip the bird to Boris.
So what makes you think this will pass Parliament?
scav
@Dev Null: But they’re still not people. There are roles for Trump, not necessarily individuals as people. There are basically opponents, audience, clients, staff, and maybe family members (may be indistinguishable from staff, honestly) These are ranked in basic order of increasing importance – defined as who gets stiffed first. In terms of how often he thinks of and reacts to them, the ranking is probably in order of decreasing importance. Specific instances of roles (aka individuals to us) may temporarily appear to change classes for the immediate needs of Trump. As a heuristic, he probably tosses all members of a more usual grouping (based on nationality, ethnicity, party, religion, etc.) into one of his role-classes but it’s not like he bothers with any characteristic of theirs beyond how they relate to his needs.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: My wife works for Kaiser. It is actually 3 interdependent components. the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan is the insurance component; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals operate the facilities; and the regional Permanente Medical Groups are the employee-owned doctors groups.
But it works really well. You walk into any Kaiser facility, swipe your card and then everything is basically free. Zero hassles about billing. If you are traveling or have emergencies outside of the Kaiser coverage area it works just like regular insurance. Their web site is top notch. I can make all my appointments online without waiting on the phone. I can just pull up my doctor and see his open appointment spots 6 months out and just click on the one I want. Basically the insurance-side of the whole experience just disappears.
My wife is a doctor with Kaiser and she has large numbers of patients who are super loyal. Too much, they want to see her too much, especially elderly patients for whom going to Kaiser is like their social outing of the month. They have espresso stands, deli, and all kinds of amenities in the clinics. They are really quite nice. They also have extensive telemedicine so you can get to a doctor and do a virtual visit without leaving your home. My wife does this 2 afternoons a week. She sits at home and just does patient calls and teleconferences.
Dev Null
@scav:
That’s kinda-sorta what I meant by:
The only real “people” in Trump’s worldview are his family members … possibly only Trump himself and Ivanka.
That’s what I take statements like “highest IQ” and “best genes” to be about: we know that he’s a eugenicist, with himself at the top of the heap.
Then there’s extended family, then there are whites (with a range of classications), then there are The Others.
If you’re someone who can grant favors – in this case Erdogan – then you’re moved up in the hierarchy. Hence Turkey is civilisation, whereas Kurds are, hmm, “not angels”. Not that it matters, but I suspect that Trump doesn’t regard Erdogan and Turks as being in the “whites” category; more likely they’re in a parallel category (as for example he talks about Jews as being appropriate as accountants but nonetheless tweets out anti-semitic memes).
Early in this comment thread or the previous one someone fingered Trump’s comment that the Kurds have “lots of sand to play with”. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that Trump almost said “sand-{N-word}”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: Most folk that I’ve known that have Kaiser either absolutely love it or hate it, there’s no middle ground.
Dev Null
@Dev Null: Incidentally, by “Trump is a eugenicist” I mean “Trump believes in the pseudo-scientific racism that was more-or-less accepted wisdom in the US in the first quarter of the 20th century.”
scav
@Dev Null: I’m still not convinced those people you name are fully “people” to him in that he recognizes them as independent individuals with autonomy. He has to have a wife, it’s a recognized role, accessory, and status marker so you find the instance with the most value and replace as needed. Ivanka may be closer to being recognized as a distinct full person with internal emotions and value — but then children are still extensions to the ego (“Look what I accomplished!”) and accessories (“my kid went to Harvard”) — hence the concern about what if the Trump mark2.0 was dumb or if an offspring was observed in the incorrect coat at a sporting event. I’m not sure anyone you mention couldn’t be replaced by robots, cardboard cutouts or corporations and he’d notice the difference — so long as his needs are served and the status markers he craves are still awarded. They’re cogs: infinitely replaceable.
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA: In my experience, Kaiser is great for ordinary preventative type care and management of common stuff like diabetes. The whole system is designed to be seamless and work together. Where it becomes more difficult is for dealing with really rare and acute type stuff that might require elevation to specialists. Kaiser kind of works you through your primary care physician first and then you slowly elevate through the system up to the specialists so if there is something really acutely rare or strange wrong with you it may take longer to get to the right specialist than if you just had a blue cross card and made your own referral appointment with a specialist. So it is great if your kid is just ordinary. Maybe more difficult if there is some specialist across the country at the Mayo Clinic you need to see and have to get through the whole Kaiser hierarchy first until they decide they need outside help.
rikyrah
@Kent:
Really?
Kent
@rikyrah: Yes. At least here in the Pacific Northwest: https://thrive.kaiserpermanente.org/care-near-oregon-washington/overview/community/telehealth-video-phone-visit
J R in WV
@Kay:
While I am in favor of demonstrations, perhaps stopping traffic all over the greater Miami area, I personally, as an old person, cannot commit to participating in such an effort during the height of Hurricane season in mid summer, in southern Florida.
OMG what a cluster-fuck. I would hope that all the members of the G-7 contact the NY Times and the Department of State to let them know that no one from their government will be attending any meeting whatsoever held at any property operated by or for Trump.
It can be a meeting between Trump and Pence, to decide where they plan to go to avoid prosecution after they leave office.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I once said here that Kaiser and the VA work under the same concept, they provide everything under one payment plan. To pay for the VA you served in the military for a minimum time, for Kaiser you pay once a month.
And Kaiser is building a medical school in Pasadena-that’s the chain, end to end.
Tony Jay
@TomatoQueen:
Been a hell of a day, and it’s super late, so I’ll get to this in a proper way tomorrow, but for now I’ll just drop this short version I posted to the Guardian live-blog during the worst of the crazy panicked frenzy.
“This bloody place. Between the swarming trolls who exist only to blame Corbyn for every single thing the Tories do and the hair on fire brigade it’s like spending all day on a mental ward when the football’s on and the strong drugs have been dished out.
Johnson has taken the only route left to him. No Deal was closed off, the Courts have spoken, so getting ‘an’ agreement was his only hope. To get it he’s had to capitulate utterly and accept a framework 100% at odds with the No Surrender bilge he’s been promising his base since May walked.
But he’s not doing to admit that, and the EU isn’t going to shit all over him when it’s getting an even better hedge against Brexit disaster than May signed up for. Barnier can’t and didn’t rule out an extension. He just said that if this agreement led to a deal there’d be no need for one.
If the People’s Vote reps are saying Saturday isn’t the day because of ex-Tories, maybe they mean just that. Concentrate on slamming down this rubbish deal, forcing Johnson to adhere to the Benn Act or break the law, and let’s see what’s occurring after all of Flobalob’s grand schemes come tumbling down – again.
Or panic and squeal. It’s up to you.”
J R in WV
@Kent:
Hey, thanks for the Republican perspective on health care costs, idiot.
Currently we pay tons of profits to “insurance” companies, pharma, and hospital owners, etc, etc. Excess profits to the extreme.
If we cut those parasites off cold, we save billions of $$ instantly. How does that compute out to paying huge amounts of taxes we aren’t already paying to the parasites?
All the money employers are paying out to health care will also continue to go to health care. Senator Professor Warren is correct that total costs will go Down, not up. If people are too stupid to grasp total cost as a concept, well, perhaps we need a teacher to tell them, over and over, that total cost is what counts here.
Kent
@J R in WV: Sure, OK. Do it your way. Hold your breath until your face turns blue and it will all happen exactly how you want. You are absolutely right. The math is the math. Can’t argue with that.
While you are at it you can cut $500 billion out of the defense budget by cutting the “parasite defense contractors” off cold as well. That’s just simple math too, so should be easy as pie. Let me know how that goes for those of us who are too stupid to grasp math.
Kent
@J R in WV:
This is where you are wrong. Mostly all those hundreds of billions of dollars employers are currently paying in healthcare will, instead, go into the employer’s pockets. And will have to be replaced by NEW tax dollars from whatever new source is getting taxed. That has not been made clear. Income taxes? business taxes? payroll taxes? corporate taxes? wealth taxes?
The total nationwide amount spent on healthcare may be less. But the total amount spent by any individual person will not necessarily be less. Upper middle class folks who currently have employee subsidized healthcare will almost certainly be paying a lot more under M4A than they are today if income taxes will be used. People are not stupid. They will figure this out. What Warren and Sanders are proposing is a highly progressive redistribution of healthcare costs in this country. Would it result in a better system? Perhaps. Certainly a simpler and more fair system. But any time you implement a massive redistribution of wealth (or in this case, costs) you will have winners and losers. No way to avoid that. And no way to hide it either.
Dev Null
@scav: Sorry to be responding late to this; my laptop’s net connection died for reasons that weren’t clear to me until 10 minutes ago (to wit: the outboard powerline ether widget went from flaky to dead over the course of a couple of days).
uh, so you wrote …
I’m in violent agreement with everything here. We’re both saying – AFAICT – that Trump is an extreme narcissist. (Perhaps a malignant narcissist, perhaps a sociopathic narcissist, but as a STEM person with no psych training, I’m more comfortable using the non-clinical adjective “extreme”.)
In particular, your point that “children are still extensions to the ego” is one that I haven’t seen stated before (I’ve read up on NPD, but mostly pop psych … I don’t get the jargon in clinical NPD lit) but I’ve had exactly that impression listening to NPD parents talk about their children, especially when their children reached adolescence and needed to break free. It didn’t go well, sadly.
Agree that almost all of “those people” could be replaced by sufficiently capable robots without Trump knowing. (“Dominance games” I would file under “sufficiently capable”.)
All that being said, what did I say that doesn’t sit well with you? Specifically, I mean, because I think we’re talking at cross-purposes.
Trying to figure out what I’m missing …
Is the problem “hierarchies”? Because one wouldn’t necessarily think that “robot hierarchies” could exist … but why not? e.g. why not “robots from sh*th0l3 robot countries”?