Fast Walker 52
Fast Walker 52's Journal
Profile Information
Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Southern California
Home country: USA
Current location: Indiana
Member since: Thu May 14, 2015, 06:31 AM
Number of posts: 7,723
Hometown: Southern California
Home country: USA
Current location: Indiana
Member since: Thu May 14, 2015, 06:31 AM
Number of posts: 7,723
Journal Archives
Sobering: how the Trump presidency is succeeding
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/03/27/daily-202-how-trump-s-presidency-is-succeeding/58d88409e9b69b72b2551039/?utm_term=.6e35dca60210
Basically it boils down to 3 things that they are doing, many that aren't high profile: 1) rolling back huge number of regulations and environmental protections 2) cutting down the size of the federal bureaucracy (deconstructing the administrative state) 3) they will like succeed in getting Gorsuch on, who will be there a long time and is very anti-regulatory and pro-business |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Mon Mar 27, 2017, 03:06 PM (25 replies)
Frank Rich: No Sympathy for the Hillbilly
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/frank-rich-no-sympathy-for-the-hillbilly.html?mid=fb-share-di
Long but makes good points... This is a separate matter from the substantive question of whether the party is overdue in addressing the needs of the 21st-century middle class, or what remains of it. The answer to that is yes, as a matter of morality, policy, and politics. Americans below the top of the heap, with or without college degrees and regardless of race, have been ill served by the axis of Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, and the Davos-class donor base that during Bill Clinton’s presidency helped grease the skids for the 2008 economic collapse and allowed the culprits to escape from the wreckage unscathed during Barack Obama’s. That Hillary Clinton pocketed $21.6 million by speaking to banks and other corporate groups after leaving the State Department is just one hideous illustration of how the Democrats opened the door for Trump to posture as an anti-Establishment champion of “the forgotten men and women.” In the bargain, she gave unenthused Democrats a reason to turn to a third-party candidate or stay home. |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Sun Mar 26, 2017, 08:07 AM (18 replies)
David Frum: Republican Waterloo
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/the-republican-waterloo/520833/
Seven years and three days ago, the House of Representatives grumblingly voted to approve the Senate’s version of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats in the House were displeased by many of the changes introduced by Senate Democrats. But in the interval after Senate passage, the Republicans had gained a 41st seat in the Senate. Any further tinkering with the law could trigger a Republican filibuster. Rather than lose the whole thing, the House swallowed hard and accepted a bill that liberals regarded as a giveaway to insurance companies and other interest groups. The finished law proceeded to President Obama for signature on March 23, 2010. |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Sat Mar 25, 2017, 12:04 PM (10 replies)
Mulvaney: If Your State Doesn't Mandate Maternity Care, Change Your State
Source: Talking Points Memo Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, one of the top administration officials who had been working to pass the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, on Friday morning brushed off concerns about a new provision in the bill that repeals the Essential Health Benefits requirement. That provision would repeal a requirement that insurers cover a list of 10 essential benefits, including maternity care. Asked about this on CBS' "This Morning," Mulvaney argued that states can still require that insurance companies cover the EHBs. "If you live in a state that wants to mandate maternity coverage for everybody, including 60-year-old women, that’s fine," he said. Co-host Alex Wagner asked Mulvaney about people who do not live in a state that requires maternity coverage. "Then you can figure out a way to change the state that you live in," Mulvaney replied. Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mulvaney-states-maternity-care It's just evil. |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Fri Mar 24, 2017, 10:02 AM (52 replies)
The latest health care cut Republicans are weighing, explained
Source: Vox Politico’s Josh Dawsey and Jennifer Haberkorn report that the White House is in negotiations with the House Freedom Caucus about getting the caucus's hard-line conservative members to support the American Health Care Act, the Obamacare repeal package put forward by House Speaker Paul Ryan and backed by President Trump. Key to the deal, they report, are changes to the law that would eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s “essential health benefits,” a list of 10 categories of procedure that all insurance plans offered to individuals or small businesses must cover. The 10 are, in the words of Healthcare.gov: Outpatient care without a hospital admission, known as ambulatory patient services Emergency services Hospitalization Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care Mental health and substance use disorder services, including counseling and psychotherapy Prescription drugs Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices, which help people with injuries and disabilities to recover Laboratory services Preventive care, wellness services, and chronic disease management Pediatric services, including oral and vision care for children These provisions set a baseline, mandating that all offered plans meet a certain threshold. They can't skimp out and not cover big things like emergency room visits or pregnancy or mental health. Particularly for previously undercovered areas like mental health and addiction services, which plans didn't have to cover before the ACA, this provision was a huge deal. Read more: http://www.vox.com/2017/3/22/15030214/essential-health-benefits-freedom-caucus-cbo-byrd-rule-reconciliation these cuts are NUTS!!! I mean, WHY have insurance if they don't cover emergency services or hospitalization??? |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Thu Mar 23, 2017, 07:01 AM (7 replies)
While Gorusch was testifying, the Supreme Court unanimously said he was wrong
Source: Think Progress About 40 minutes after Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch began his second day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, all eight of the justices he hopes to join said a major disability decision Gorsuch wrote in 2008 was wrong. Both the Supreme Court’s decision and Gorsuch’s 2008 opinion involved the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires that public school systems which take certain federal funds provide a “free appropriate public education” to certain students with disabilities. Applying this law to individual students, the Supreme Court acknowledged in its Wednesday opinion in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, is not an exact science. “A focus on the particular child is at the core of the IDEA,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the unanimous Supreme Court. “The instruction offered must be ‘specially designed’ to meet a child’s ‘unique needs’ through an ‘ndividualized education program.’” But while this process can be difficult, it must provide meaningful educational benefits to disabled students — which brings us to Judge Gorsuch’s error in a 2008 opinion. In Thompson R2-J School District v. Luke P., a case brought by an autistic student whose parents sought reimbursement for tuition at a specialized school for children with autism, Gorsuch read IDEA extraordinarily narrowly. Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/while-gorusch-was-testifying-the-supreme-court-unanimously-said-he-was-wrong-33b9ff7eca77#.cgzbsr1n9 Whoopsie... |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Wed Mar 22, 2017, 10:54 AM (32 replies)
New Russian dirty trick on the DNC revealed, and recalling Seth Rich
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-comey-russia-stranger-things-571349
“After my sister visited Paul Manafort's hometown as part of her investigation: attempted home break-in, her phone/comp. Hacked, car trashed 2x.” So if they were willing to do this back then in 2015, you wonder what else they might have done? Remember the strange death of Seth Rich? http://www.newsweek.com/seth-rich-murder-dnc-hack-julian-assange-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-492084 Of course there was a dumb conspiracy theory that he was murdered by the Dems because he exposed Hillary stealing the primary. But more recently there was a suggestion that the Russians may have gotten him. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028731656 I think that theory makes more sense now. A lot more sense. |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Tue Mar 21, 2017, 12:25 PM (6 replies)
A Positive Review of the Bill Clinton Presidency
http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchaprilmay-2017/a-consequential-presidency/#.WM_xjuSvzhY.twitter
At this moment in early 2017, Bill and Hillary are taking a no doubt much-needed hiatus from the political limelight. But as the 2016 campaign showed, Bill Clinton’s legacy as president still shapes our politics. Along with Barack Obama’s presidency—which was, in domestic policy, essentially an extension of Clinton’s—it will be a reference point in the Democrats’ debates about how to regroup and go forward. Michael Tomasky’s Bill Clinton, the latest volume in the American Presidents Series of Times Books biographies, deserves to be widely read, for its insights about the recent past—and the near future. The whole piece is worth a read. I do think Bill gets bashed more than he should around here and by a lot of Dems. I know I've complained about his policies too. But we have to put him in perspective. |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Mon Mar 20, 2017, 01:18 PM (0 replies)
"I Investigated Fox News' Poverty Claims (On My Mom)"
http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-poor-are-really-doing-with-our-taxes/
A brilliant, hilarious but ultimately sad piece. Last week, after Representative Jason Chaffetz got into hot water for saying that poor people need to choose health care instead of iPhones, Dan Hopper posted the following four screenshots on Twitter, saying, "Forget iPhones, this is the level of animosity Fox News has towards poor people": |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Sun Mar 19, 2017, 10:07 AM (8 replies)
Trump's billionaire backer Mercer is racist and cray-cray
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
He's quite a bit like Trump, in fact. Patterson also recalled Mercer arguing that, during the Gulf War, the U.S. should simply have taken Iraq’s oil, “since it was there.” Trump, too, has said that the U.S. should have “kept the oil.” Expropriating another country’s natural resources is a violation of international law. Another onetime senior employee at Renaissance recalls hearing Mercer downplay the dangers posed by nuclear war. Mercer, speaking of the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, argued that, outside of the immediate blast zones, the radiation actually made Japanese citizens healthier. The National Academy of Sciences has found no evidence to support this notion. Nevertheless, according to the onetime employee, Mercer, who is a proponent of nuclear power, “was very excited about the idea, and felt that it meant nuclear accidents weren’t such a big deal.” |
Posted by Fast Walker 52 | Sun Mar 19, 2017, 09:34 AM (15 replies)