Donald Trump Is the Worlds Most Inept Hostage-Taker

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services told the New York Times it intended to continue making “cost-sharing reduction” payments, which compensate insurance companies that cover low-income customers in the exchanges established by Obamacare. Eliminating the payments — which cost the government about $7 billion a year — would make premiums spike by about one-fifth, or cause insurers to get out altogether. House Republicans sued to stop the payments during Obama’s presidency, as part of their totalistic campaign to destroy the law. Now, faced with the prospect that such a destruction would unfold on the GOP’s watch, the Trump administration was indicating it would let the payments continue. “The precedent is that while the lawsuit is being litigated, the cost-sharing subsidies will be funded. It would be fair for you to report that there has been no policy change in the current administration,” Health and Human Services wrote the Times.

The next day, however, HHS rescinded its statement. In its place, it issued a communiqué which differed from the old one not only in substance, but in style: The updated HHS position rejected the payments and expressed its reasoning using the crass, zero-sum logic and pidgin-English, populist diction favored by the president himself. “We have not been contacted by Democrats to help save Obamacare, perhaps because they consider Obamacare to be a losing cause. Democrats need to help solve this failed Obamacare plan,” explained an HHS spokesperson. It read as if the bureaucracy of a modern, industrialized government had been captured by hackers communicating via Google Translate.

And indeed, it soon emerged that Trump had personally dictated the new statement in a fit of anger. As he subsequently revealed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he plans to use the payments as ransom to compel the Democrats to agree to his terms. “Obamacare is dead next month if it doesn’t get that money,” Trump told the Journal. “I haven’t made my viewpoint clear yet. I don’t want people to get hurt … What I think should happen and will happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.”

So, now — assuming that Trump understands what he is saying and will stick to it, which can never be assured about any stance he takes — Washington has settled in for a hostage standoff. Such episodes have become familiar in American politics. In a normal political negotiation, the two sides disagree about what policies are helpful or harmful. In a hostage-style negotiation, on the other hand, the two sides agree that a particular policy is harmful, and one side threatens to allow it, out of the belief that it can exploit the other side’s greater concern for the public welfare, in order to extort unilateral concessions. In recent years, as the Republican Party has radicalized, it has grown increasingly prone to hostage-style bargaining. Trump’s own obsession with dominance makes him especially attracted to hostage-taking. (Recall his refusal during the primary to commit to endorsing the party nominee, explaining that he needed to use the threat of hurting the party as “leverage.”)

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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/donald-trump-is-the-worlds-most-inept-hostage-taker.html

CNN Commentator Shuts Down Analyst Who Called Trump the Martin Luther King of Health Care

As the country becomes more polarized, so too do political debates on CNN. Last month commentator Angela Rye – she of eye-rolling fame – called conservative radio host Joe Walsh a “bigot” for his comments on Barack Obama, and on Thursday morning, CNN commentator Symone Sanders had a similar reaction when Jeffrey Lord, a veteran of the Reagan administration, compared Donald Trump to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In a segment discussing the President’s plans for Obamacare, Lord called Trump “the Martin Luther King of health care.” Sanders interjected with an “Oh Jeffery,” but Lord went on, “When I was a kid, President Kennedy did not want to introduce the Civil Rights bill because he said it wasn’t popular, he didn’t have the votes for it. Dr. King kept putting people in the streets in harm’s way to put the pressure on.”

That’s when Sanders stepped in to quash his metaphor:

Okay Jeffrey. You do understand that Dr. King was marching for Civil Rights because people that looked like me were being beaten? Dogs were being sicced on them? Basic human rights were being withheld from these people merely because of the color of their skin? So let’s not equate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — a humanitarian, a Nobel Peace Prize winner — to the vagina-grabbing President Donald Trump.

British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.

Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said.


The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance, which also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said.

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia?CMP=share_btn_tw

North Miami cop charged in shooting of autistic mans unarmed therapist

A North Miami police officer who shot an autistic man's caretaker was charged Wednesday with attempted manslaughter, authorities said.

Officer Jonathan Aledda was also charged with misdemeanor culpable negligence, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said in a news release. Aledda had been on administrative leave since last summer's shooting.

The Miami Herald (https://goo.gl/TKp8Qh ) reports that this is the first time prosecutors under Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle have charged a police officer for an on-duty shooting.

North Miami's police union continued to defend Aledda on Wednesday.

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http://www.latimes.com/nation/sfl-north-miami-cop-charged-20170412-story.html

Good. I hope he is convicted, although I suspect he won't be. This was completely unprovoked and vicious.

Thursday TOON Roundup 4- The Rest

Bannon






Syria





N. Korea


Hackers


Cars


Taxes


The Issue


Haters


Jeebus

Thursday TOON Roundup 3- Yep, Trump's still there like a bad case of the flu

Thursday TOON Roundup 2 - Redefining Customer Service in the Airline Industry

Thursday Toon Roundup 1- Nazi Spice

Someone needs to leave a copy of this on Brian Williams' Desk

Gay marriage ban filed in NC House

By Laura Leslie

RALEIGH, N.C. — A bill filed Tuesday in the state House would outlaw same-sex marriage in North Carolina and refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

According to House Bill 780, the state would declare that the federal government is not legally authorized to regulate marriage. Therefore, the state's 2012 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage would remain in effect.

The proposal presumes that the state could simply refuse to recognize the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. According to the bill, that ruling "exceeds the authority of the Court relative to the decree of Almighty God that 'a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24, ESV) and abrogates the clear meaning and understanding of marriage in all societies throughout prior history." 25

The bill's primary sponsor, Rep. Larry Pittman, R-Cabarrus, is a Christian minister. He refused to comment on the legislation he filed.

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http://www.wral.com/gay-marriage-ban-filed-in-nc-house-/16639157/