President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[Nakoma]

Yep, and Americans are flooding the northern boarder to get medical care in Canada or crossing the pond to the UK, right?

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-cou...or-health-care

Healthcare delayed is healthcare denied.

[Topper]

Sh*t... just went I was thinking single payer was maybe possible if we got rid of all defense spending (and didn't build that F'n wall!).

Correction. 3.2 Trillion for 2015 according this data. It went up for 2016 but I don't have those numbers.

https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical.html

The National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) are the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States. Dating back to 1960, the NHEA measures annual U.S. expenditures for health care goods and services, public health activities, government administration, the net cost of health insurance, and investment related to health care. The data are presented by type of service, sources of funding, and type of sponsor.

U.S. health care spending grew 5.8 percent in 2015, reaching $3.2 trillion or $9,990 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.8 percent.

[Pelado]

What is the purpose of women in the work force staying home today? It has been said they are doing it to show what it would be like without women in the work force.

Really, how many people don't recognize their (women) value? All of the staff showed up to work today. I thought it would be a good idea to show appreciation to them on this day, so I am taking them to lunch.

I guess there are a lot of people who don't watch the news religiously. None of them knew they were supposed to stay home today.

As always, I followed 71's example and took the ladyfolk in the office to lunch. Neither of them were aware of the international women's day designation.

[Topper]

Healthcare delayed is healthcare denied.

But it saves costs and eases rationing decisions.

[BigPiney]

But it saves costs and eases rationing decisions.

dead people don't need healthcare. so there is that.

[Topper]

dead people don't need healthcare. so there is that.

Colorado Governor Lamm stated that "old people have a duty to die".

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/29/us...ty-to-die.html

Elderly people who are terminally ill have a ''duty to die and get out of the way'' instead of trying to prolong their lives by artificial means, Gov. Richard D. Lamm of Colorado said Tuesday.

Further:

'You've got a duty to die and get out of the way,'' said the 48-year-old Governor. ''Let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.'

By the way, Moliere, that damn CPA has refused to do his duty. At 81, he is still kicking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lamm

[Walter Sobchak]

Meet the new ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman. Dude is a Russian stooge no doubt.

[PaloAltoCougar]

It's only in the early stages, so I know I should hold fire, but I'm smh that the administration is apparently mulling over the OMB's suggestion that to raise money to build the wall (don't worry, Mexico will repay us), deep budget cuts may be made to the U.S. Coast Guard and the TSA. Better to reduce our vigilance along 22,000 miles of coastline so we can have that 2,000 mile wall. Discretionary spending in Mexico may shift from ladders to Zodiacs.

[SCcoug]

Meet the new ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman. Dude is a Russian stooge no doubt.

He sold us out to China and now he'll do the same with Russia!

Embedded Tweet

[Walter Sobchak]

It's only in the early stages, so I know I should hold fire, but I'm smh that the administration is apparently mulling over the OMB's suggestion that to raise money to build the wall (don't worry, Mexico will repay us), deep budget cuts may be made to the U.S. Coast Guard and the TSA. Better to reduce our vigilance along 22,000 miles of coastline so we can have that 2,000 mile wall. Discretionary spending in Mexico may shift from ladders to Zodiacs.

Can't have any cuts to the bloated military budget.

[frank ryan]

Meet the new ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman. Dude is a Russian stooge no doubt.

I think he is a good choice. He will do well for the 3 weeks he is on the job, before he quits to do something else.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Meet the new ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman. Dude is a Russian stooge no doubt.

Well, it should come as a surprise to no one that the Huntsman family is a bunch of commies. I mean look at all the money they've donated over the years to the University of Utah.

[Uncle Ted]

First Paul and now Cruz...

Ted Cruz: New health care bill doomed in the Senate without changes

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz gave a pessimistic prediction Wednesday for the new House Republican health care bill's chances in the Senate — though he said the bill's fate would be improved with some changes.


"The current draft in the House is a draft about which I have significant concerns," he told reporters on a conference call. "As drafted, I do not believe this bill would pass the United States Senate. But I am encouraged and optimistic that we can resolve these differences."


Cruz's comments come hours before he and his wife, Heidi Cruz, are scheduled to have dinner at the White House with President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. Cruz said the purpose of the dinner, which was arranged several weeks ago, is “social” but that he expects the health care plan to come up.
[...]

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/08/cruz-says-ryan-health-care-bill-doomed-senate/

[Sullyute]

I think he is a good choice. He will do well for the 3 weeks he is on the job, before he quits to do something else.

[Walter Sobchak]

The Rolling Stone piece on the Russia story press coverage and Democratic leadership's over-reaction is excellent.

Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-media-w471074>

the former Director of National Intelligence [James Clapper is] telling all of us that as of 12:01 a.m. on January 20th, when he left government, the intelligence agencies had no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and the government of Vladimir Putin's Russia.

There is a lot of smoke in the Russia story. The most damning item is General Michael Flynn having improper discussions with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak prior to taking office. There is the much-discussed Republican platform change with regard to American assistance to Ukranian rebels, and the unreported contacts between officials like Jeff Sessions (and even Trump himself now) with Kislyak.

Moreover, the case that the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee now appears fairly solid. Even Donald Trump thinks so. This of course makes it harder to dismiss stories like the one in which former Trump adviser Roger Stone appeared to know that Wikileaks was about to release the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta.

But the manner in which these stories are being reported is becoming a story in its own right. Russia has become an obsession, cultural shorthand for a vast range of suspicions about Donald Trump.

[...]

The notion that the president is either an agent or a useful idiot of the Russian state is so freely accepted in some quarters that Beck Bennett's shirtless representation of Putin palling with Alec Baldwin's Trump is already a no-questions-asked yuks routine for the urban smart set.

And yet, this is an extraordinarily complex tale that derives much of its power from suppositions and assumptions.

If there's any truth to the notion that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian state to disrupt the electoral process, then yes, what we're seeing now are the early outlines of a Watergate-style scandal that could topple a presidency. [Note: this is SU's position.]

But it could also be true that both the Democratic Party and many leading media outlets are making a dangerous gamble, betting their professional and political capital on the promise of future disclosures that may not come.

We have to remember that the unpopularity of the press was a key to Trump's election. Journalists helped solve the billionaire's accessibility problem by being a more hated group than the arrogant rich. Trump has people believing he shares a common enemy with them: the news media. When we do badly, he does well.

Trump calls us "enemies of the people" who purvey "fake news." Together with what vile ex-CNN turncoat Lou Dobbs calls the "global corporatists" who own the major media companies, we are said to comprise the "opposition party."

We can't afford to bolster these accusations of establishment bias and overreach by using the techniques of conspiracy theorists to push this Russia story. Unfortunately, that is happening.

[...]

Reporters should always be nervous when intelligence sources sell them stories. Spooks don't normally need the press. Their usual audiences are other agency heads, and the executive. They can bring about action just by convincing other people within the government to take it.

In the extant case, whether the investigation involved a potential Logan Act violation, or election fraud, or whatever, the CIA, FBI, and NSA had the ability to act both before and after Donald Trump was elected. But they didn't, and we know why, because James Clapper just told us – they didn't have evidence to go on.

Thus we are now witnessing the extremely unusual development of intelligence sources that normally wouldn't tell a reporter the time of day litigating a matter of supreme importance in the media. What does this mean?

Hypothesize for a moment that the "scandal" here is real, but in a limited sense: Trump's surrogates have not colluded with Russians, but have had “contacts,” and recognize their political liability, and lie about them. Investigators then leak the true details of these contacts, leaving the wild speculations to the media and the Internet. Trump is enough of a pig and a menace that it's easy to imagine doing this and not feeling terribly sorry that your leaks have been over-interpreted.

If that's the case, there are big dangers for the press. If we engage in Times-style gilding of every lily the leakers throw our way, and in doing so build up a fever of expectations for a bombshell reveal, but there turns out to be no conspiracy – Trump will be pre-inoculated against all criticism for the foreseeable future.