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PsychoBabble
PsychoBabble's Journal
PsychoBabble's Journal
March 11, 2017
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republicans-loot-palace-gops-plan-govern-looks-lot-way-it-rebuilt-iraq-0
Republicans Loot the Palace ...
This week’s rollout of Paul Ryan’s “repeal and replace” Obamacare bill is an excellent reminder of what the country would look like if any Republican other than Donald Trump had won the presidency — not that different. We can now say for sure that the problem isn’t just that the party nominated an crude, unprepared conman for the top job. The problem is that the party itself is a big sloppy hot mess. How could we have forgotten?
Like the old Republican cry of “tort reform,” which nobody really understood, “Repeal Obamacare” became a slogan that would evoke lusty cheers from an audience of partisans. If you asked any of them what it meant in practice, not one could tell you. Not that it mattered. The whole issue was political kabuki once the Affordable Care Act was rolled out and tens of millions of people signed on to it, and the Republicans knew it. Their elected legislators just kept voting for repeals they knew would never be enacted and screaming their empty slogan at rallies to keep their base excited ...
... So we have yet another Republican president throwing Bush-league amateurs into jobs that are over their heads, along with a Republican Congress full of people who’ve either been getting by on an unearned reputation for seriousness or whose definition of legislating is to hold their breath until they turn blue and then declare victory.
If you liked the way the Bush administration handled running Iraq in the first years of the war, you’re going to love how the Trump administration and the GOP Congress runs America. It seems that’s the only model the Republican Party knows anymore.
Like the old Republican cry of “tort reform,” which nobody really understood, “Repeal Obamacare” became a slogan that would evoke lusty cheers from an audience of partisans. If you asked any of them what it meant in practice, not one could tell you. Not that it mattered. The whole issue was political kabuki once the Affordable Care Act was rolled out and tens of millions of people signed on to it, and the Republicans knew it. Their elected legislators just kept voting for repeals they knew would never be enacted and screaming their empty slogan at rallies to keep their base excited ...
... So we have yet another Republican president throwing Bush-league amateurs into jobs that are over their heads, along with a Republican Congress full of people who’ve either been getting by on an unearned reputation for seriousness or whose definition of legislating is to hold their breath until they turn blue and then declare victory.
If you liked the way the Bush administration handled running Iraq in the first years of the war, you’re going to love how the Trump administration and the GOP Congress runs America. It seems that’s the only model the Republican Party knows anymore.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republicans-loot-palace-gops-plan-govern-looks-lot-way-it-rebuilt-iraq-0
March 10, 2017
... and so it begins ....
Trump Abruptly Orders 46 Obama-Era Prosecutors to Resign
Source: NY Times
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday moved to sweep away the remaining vestiges of Obama administration prosecutors at the Justice Department, ordering 46 holdover United States attorneys to tender their resignations immediately — including Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.
The firings were a surprise — especially for Mr. Bharara, who has a reputation for prosecuting public corruption cases. In November, Mr. Bharara met with then President-elect Donald J. Trump at Trump Tower and told reporters afterward that Mr. Trump had asked him about staying on, which the prosecutor said he expected to do.
But on Friday, Mr. Bharara was among federal prosecutors who received a call from Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, instructing him to resign, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesman for Mr. Bharara declined to comment.
Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an email that all remaining holdover United States attorneys had been asked to resign, leaving their deputy United States attorneys, who are career officials, in place in an acting capacity.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/us/politics/us-attorney-justice-department-trump.html
... and so it begins ....
March 10, 2017
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-kelly-obama-shadow-government_us_58c2faf0e4b0d1078ca6aa0b?45&
SO -- anyone who has been a teacher, or studied learning, knows that MODELING is our primary, most natural way of learning. "Monkey See, Monkey DO." THAT is why it matters that our leaders comport themselves with dignity, and model rational behaviors -- BECAUSE PEOPLE COPY THEM!
Even if some leader is TECHNICALLY INCOMPETENT, it STILL matters that they basically BEHAVE LIKE A GOOD PERSON ... 'cause ... MODELING!
Lying liars continue to just make sh!t up ...
45 has set SUCH a shining example of how to conduct yourself ...A Republican congressman claimed that former President Barack Obama has chosen to stay in Washington in order to run a “shadow government” aimed at undermining President Donald Trump.
The Obamas have said they would keep living in the nation’s capitol until their younger daughter, Sasha, graduated from high school.
But Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) saw more devious motives at work.
“President Obama himself said he was gonna stay in Washington until his daughter graduated. I think we oughta pitch in to let him go somewhere else because he’s only there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to run a shadow government that is gonna totally upset the new agenda,” Kelly told a gathering in his home state on Saturday.
He suggested that the former president was somehow blocking the Republican agenda, even as the GOP controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“People sit back and they say to me, ‘My gosh, why can’t you guys get this done?’ I’m saying we’ve got a new CEO, we’ve got some new heads in the different departments, but the same people are there, and they don’t believe that the new owners or the new managers should be running the ship.” the congressman said.
Thomas Qualtere, a Kelly spokesman, tried to walk back his boss’s comments on Friday ....
The Obamas have said they would keep living in the nation’s capitol until their younger daughter, Sasha, graduated from high school.
But Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) saw more devious motives at work.
“President Obama himself said he was gonna stay in Washington until his daughter graduated. I think we oughta pitch in to let him go somewhere else because he’s only there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to run a shadow government that is gonna totally upset the new agenda,” Kelly told a gathering in his home state on Saturday.
He suggested that the former president was somehow blocking the Republican agenda, even as the GOP controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“People sit back and they say to me, ‘My gosh, why can’t you guys get this done?’ I’m saying we’ve got a new CEO, we’ve got some new heads in the different departments, but the same people are there, and they don’t believe that the new owners or the new managers should be running the ship.” the congressman said.
Thomas Qualtere, a Kelly spokesman, tried to walk back his boss’s comments on Friday ....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-kelly-obama-shadow-government_us_58c2faf0e4b0d1078ca6aa0b?45&
SO -- anyone who has been a teacher, or studied learning, knows that MODELING is our primary, most natural way of learning. "Monkey See, Monkey DO." THAT is why it matters that our leaders comport themselves with dignity, and model rational behaviors -- BECAUSE PEOPLE COPY THEM!
Even if some leader is TECHNICALLY INCOMPETENT, it STILL matters that they basically BEHAVE LIKE A GOOD PERSON ... 'cause ... MODELING!
March 9, 2017
Let me introduce you to EPA Chief Scott Pruit ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide_us_58c16401e4b0d1078ca48714?u3kzjq5q3y2qvkj4i&
There is a 5% chance the monstrous asteroid will NOT strike Earth ...
So NASA publishes a startling finding from space scientists that there is a 5% chance that the humongous asteroid hurtling towards Earth will NOT strike us -- we can either:
(a) take our chances that it will miss us, or ...
(b) act immediately with a high probability of changing the asteroid's course.
Your NEIGHBOR says, "Nah, I never believed that asteroid crap. The government just makes that stuff up."
WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?
WHICH ACTION DO YOU CHOOSE?
(a) take our chances that it will miss us, or ...
(b) act immediately with a high probability of changing the asteroid's course.
Your NEIGHBOR says, "Nah, I never believed that asteroid crap. The government just makes that stuff up."
WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?
WHICH ACTION DO YOU CHOOSE?
Let me introduce you to EPA Chief Scott Pruit ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide_us_58c16401e4b0d1078ca48714?u3kzjq5q3y2qvkj4i&
March 9, 2017
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??!!??
Doctors, Nursing Homes, and Even Insurance Companies ...
... Have ALL, just this week, come out and said that the, ummm, "replacement ("defacement," as Gov. Inslee from WA calls it) does not work. It is a plane with no wings. A car with no engine.
As a normal human being, if EVERYONE you knew said, "Hey, that decision you are making, R-E-A-L-L-Y BAD IDEA!" .... and then you went ahead and did it anyway ... what could we say about you?
What kind of thinking is that, where you just blindly ignore ALL EVIDENCE that doesn't fit? And then look at people who tell you that you are borderline INSANE ... as if they are out of THEIR minds?
I am just talking as a basic human being here, not even about politics. If you encountered that kind of thinking in your daily life, you would AVOID/FIRE/BANISH them from your general surroundings. You wouldn't let them be around people you loved.
What kind of thinking is that, where you just blindly ignore ALL EVIDENCE that doesn't fit? And then look at people who tell you that you are borderline INSANE ... as if they are out of THEIR minds?
I am just talking as a basic human being here, not even about politics. If you encountered that kind of thinking in your daily life, you would AVOID/FIRE/BANISH them from your general surroundings. You wouldn't let them be around people you loved.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??!!??
March 8, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/opinion/how-republicans-plan-to-ration-health-care.html
We need to KEEP TELLING STORIES ABOUT CONSEQUENCES.
Republicans love emotional arguments, let's give 'em some ...
They LOVE TO (MIS)USE LANGUAGE ...
Let's re-lable and re-frame EVERY WORD OF THEIR NONSENSE INTO REAL-LIFE CONSEQUENCES.
People intuitively understand "RATIONING" ...
How Republicans Plan to RATION Health Care
It looks as if Republicans want to bring back health care rationing.
In 2010, Mark Price, a 37-year-old resident of Goodyear, Ariz., was struggling to pay the bills for his leukemia treatment. His house was under foreclosure. He had insurance through Medicaid, and yet he died after the state said it would not pay for a potentially lifesaving bone marrow transplant.
Facing a $2.6 billion budget deficit, Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona Republicans had opted to ration care, eliminating state payments for bone marrow, liver, heart, lung and other transplants ...
If the Republicans replace the Affordable Care Act with the plan released on Monday, we should expect more stories like those.
In 2010, Mark Price, a 37-year-old resident of Goodyear, Ariz., was struggling to pay the bills for his leukemia treatment. His house was under foreclosure. He had insurance through Medicaid, and yet he died after the state said it would not pay for a potentially lifesaving bone marrow transplant.
Facing a $2.6 billion budget deficit, Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona Republicans had opted to ration care, eliminating state payments for bone marrow, liver, heart, lung and other transplants ...
If the Republicans replace the Affordable Care Act with the plan released on Monday, we should expect more stories like those.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/opinion/how-republicans-plan-to-ration-health-care.html
We need to KEEP TELLING STORIES ABOUT CONSEQUENCES.
Republicans love emotional arguments, let's give 'em some ...
They LOVE TO (MIS)USE LANGUAGE ...
Let's re-lable and re-frame EVERY WORD OF THEIR NONSENSE INTO REAL-LIFE CONSEQUENCES.
People intuitively understand "RATIONING" ...
March 8, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/opinion/no-wonder-the-republicans-hid-the-health-bill.html
No wonder they hid health bill ...
Republican House leaders have spent months dodging questions about how they would replace the Affordable Care Act with a better law, and went so far as to hide the draft of their plan from other lawmakers. No wonder. The bill they released on Monday would kick millions of people off the coverage they currently have. So much for President Trump’s big campaign promise: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody” — with coverage that would be “much less expensive and much better.”
More than 20 million Americans gained health care coverage under the A.C.A., or Obamacare. Health experts say most would lose that coverage under the proposal.
More than 20 million Americans gained health care coverage under the A.C.A., or Obamacare. Health experts say most would lose that coverage under the proposal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/opinion/no-wonder-the-republicans-hid-the-health-bill.html
March 8, 2017
Conclusion?
So the American Medical Association, plus a host of other Medical/Insurance Industry, have stated that the new Republican plan is simply NOT OK.
Interesting to see if Republicans keep whistling past the graveyard as if nothing is wrong ...
Krugman's article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/opinion/a-party-not-ready-to-govern.html
Been faking it for years
"But the broader Republican quagmire — the party’s failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises — isn’t just about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders’ rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they’ve never bothered to understand how anything important works.
Take the two lead items in the congressional G.O.P.’s agenda: undoing the Affordable Care Act and reforming corporate taxes. In each case Republicans seem utterly shocked to find themselves facing reality."
Take the two lead items in the congressional G.O.P.’s agenda: undoing the Affordable Care Act and reforming corporate taxes. In each case Republicans seem utterly shocked to find themselves facing reality."
Conclusion?
But whatever the eventual outcome, what we’re witnessing is what happens when a party that gave up hard thinking in favor of empty sloganeering ends up in charge of actual policy. And it’s not a pretty sight.
So the American Medical Association, plus a host of other Medical/Insurance Industry, have stated that the new Republican plan is simply NOT OK.
Interesting to see if Republicans keep whistling past the graveyard as if nothing is wrong ...
Krugman's article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/opinion/a-party-not-ready-to-govern.html
March 8, 2017
POLITICAL INBREEDING has created POLITICAL IDIOTS, basically.
Handed the sceptre of power, and unaware they could use it for transformational GOOD ... Republicans/Conservatives are just going to start beating people to death with it.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/why-repeal-and-replace-is-going-so-badly
"Nonsense Debt" concept ...
In his stunningly concise article, "Why Repeal and Replace Is Going So Badly," Josh Marshall introduces the concept of "Nonsense Debt" -- not monetary debt, per se, but the cultural debt that comes due when you spout increasingly ungrounded levels of nonsense to true believers, with the inevitable requirement to "up the ante" in order to remain relevant.
Eventually, as they say, "Sh!t hits the fan...."
This nonsense debt also altered the composition of Congress and especially the House Republican caucus. In each successive election of the Obama era, Republicans have bred for more and more extreme Representatives, more and more fed on nonsense debt. To put it more concretely, they have been reared not only on nonsense debt but never exposed to the realities of governing. As one of my colleagues put it, "if you think of it in evolutionary terms, the GOP has self-selected for hair on fire, apocalyptic conservatives for the last 10 years (maybe longer) -- actual policy knowledge is not a priority. Nor is legislative acumen." That reality is now colliding head on with the need to fulfill a campaign promise in a way that doesn't upend tens of millions of people's lives or lose Republicans their majority in 2018.
POLITICAL INBREEDING has created POLITICAL IDIOTS, basically.
Handed the sceptre of power, and unaware they could use it for transformational GOOD ... Republicans/Conservatives are just going to start beating people to death with it.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/why-repeal-and-replace-is-going-so-badly
March 7, 2017
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-obamacare-replacement_us_58bb414be4b0b99894180a54?
Time To Stop Calling The GOP Obamacare Plan A Replacement
None of this should be surprising, because the whole point of repeal is to scale back the federal government’s commitment to providing health care, not just financially but conceptually as well.
The ultimate purpose of both the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid is to make sure all Americans have access to medical care without fear of financial ruin. Neither program has accomplished the goal fully, and the Affordable Care Act in particular remains a wobbly enterprise. But the result of the two programs has been better access and less financial distress. The legislation from Republicans would not even attempt to offer a similar guarantee. And unless it evolves in a radically different direction, it would ultimately offer a lot less help to people who need it.
Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders can call that a “replacement.” To the millions of people who could be forced to choose between crippling debt and health care, it would probably seem like something else.
The ultimate purpose of both the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid is to make sure all Americans have access to medical care without fear of financial ruin. Neither program has accomplished the goal fully, and the Affordable Care Act in particular remains a wobbly enterprise. But the result of the two programs has been better access and less financial distress. The legislation from Republicans would not even attempt to offer a similar guarantee. And unless it evolves in a radically different direction, it would ultimately offer a lot less help to people who need it.
Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders can call that a “replacement.” To the millions of people who could be forced to choose between crippling debt and health care, it would probably seem like something else.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-obamacare-replacement_us_58bb414be4b0b99894180a54?
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