The Trump presidency

[Johnny Canuck3]

No it wasn't, it got passed without a single Republican vote. They could have passed something better, and didn't.

Read the article.

 

[CRI]

View attachment 102492

Thank you for this!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The delays engendered in large part by the extended negotiations with Republicans in the Gang of Six, meant in the end that the normal legislative process—in which separate bills passed by House and Senate would be reconciled in a conference committee—was not going to work in this case. When the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy was filled via a January 2010 special election by Republican Scott Brown, Democrats lost their 60th vote—and the McConnell strategy meant that there was no way, no matter what changes Democrats were willing to make in the final package, that there would be a single Republican vote to get them past the filibuster hurdle. Hence, the fallback to using reconciliation to bypass the filibuster in the Senate, and the inability to smooth out the rough edges and awkward language in the final bill that was enacted.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

McConnell’s hardball strategy certainly worked as a political weapon. The narrative of Obama steamrollering over Republicans and enacting an unconstitutional bill that brought America much closer to socialism worked like a charm to stimulate conservative and Republican anger. The 2010 midterm elections resulted in huge Republican gains across the country, a Republican majority in the House, and a much narrower Democratic majority in the Senate. But the strategy also prevented Republicans from having a much bigger impact on the healthcare reform bill—some level of cooperation would have meant more sweeping malpractice reform and reductions in defensive medicine, and more market-oriented approaches to many areas of health delivery. It also meant that the standard technical corrections bill that every major policy change requires was unavailable in this case, creating its own challenges for implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

At the same time, the overheated rhetoric, reinforced by conservative talk radio, cable television, blogs, and social media, has created a visceral backlash. It has kept every Republican presidential candidate calling for “root and branch” repeal of every element of Obamacare, prevented many states from expanding insurance to millions of people who need it via Medicaid, and erased any hope for the foreseeable future of bipartisan efforts to revise or tweak the law to make it more effective.

 

[J Ed]

Nothing in that article contradicts what I wrote.

Obama is a neoliberal politician who appointed neoliberals who wrote and got neoliberal legislation passed.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Thanks in part to the overheated rhetoric demonizing the plan, guerrilla efforts to undermine its implementation and disrupt the delivery of its services continue apace. Perhaps they will end as it becomes clear, in the aftermath of King v. Burwell, that the law in its fundamentals is not going away. It may help a bit if more Americans, including prominent commentators, stop repeating a false political narrative about the genesis of Obamacare.

 

[J Ed]

Number of Republicans who voted for the ACA: 0

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Nothing in that article contradicts what I wrote.

Obama is a neoliberal politician who appointed neoliberals who wrote and got neoliberal legislation passed.

The purpose of quoting the article is to explain to you, the real reason why no Republican voted for the ACA.

 

[J Ed]

The purpose of quoting the article is to explain to you, the real reason why no Republican voted for the ACA.

Why are you doing that exactly?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

What it boils down to is that, inevitably, the truth is more complex than it is made out to be in various narrow-focus media outlets and publications.

In order to gain a better understanding, it becomes necessary to read widely across a spectrum of sources.

 

[J Ed]

What it boils down to is that, inevitably, the truth is more complex than it is made out to be in various narrow-focus media outlets and publications.

In order to gain a better understanding, it becomes necessary to read widely across a spectrum of sources.

What the fuck are you going on about

 

[J Ed]

You don't even know, you are in auto-pilot

 

[J Ed]

Someone has a criticism of the ACA from the left, time to start telling them about how the Republicans are bad. That'll do it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

From a 2010 article:

The public option, of course, was public enemy No. 1 for Republicans last year. The GOP falsely blasted the healthcare reform bill as “a government takeover of the healthcare system,” claiming any public insurance plan would inexorably lead to long waits, medicine shortages, crappy care — in short, Canada, or at least Canada as portrayed in Republican propaganda. (As opposed to the real Canada, where a poll last fall found most Canadians are perfectly happy with their medical system and think it’s “far superior” to what we’re stuck with in the U.S.)

ike so much else about the healthcare debate, it comes down to math. “I would say that in the Senate, there are at most 10 votes for a single-payer plan,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described democratic socialist, who isn’t shy about his own preference for that kind of solution, told Salon this week. “In the House, I have no idea but it’s a small minority … It’s absurd to say, ‘Mr. President, go forward and make your bill single-payer,’ when you’ve got 10 percent of the Congress supporting you.”

There are any number of explanations for why there aren’t any votes for a single-payer plan; the massive campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by the insurance industry and other big healthcare players surely didn’t help the cause. But as the public option looks like it may, once and for all, be ruled out of the bill, it’s worth remembering that even the Democrats in Congress are a change-averse bunch when it comes to healthcare. (After all, it was Democrats, not Republicans, who insisted on knocking the public option out of the Senate bill.) The writing was on the wall for the public plan for a while, even though it did make it out of the House; President Obama told key progressive lawmakers last week that the votes just weren’t there, but even before that, the White House was being so blasé about the idea that it was hard to see the administration fighting for it. Sanders will introduce an amendment for the public option in the Senate, but if Durbin is going to whip Democrats to vote against it in the name of smoothing the reconciliation bill’s passage, it’s likely to be defeated.



Still, rather than taking that as a sign that the healthcare reform bill is fatally flawed, it’s possible to see the failure of single-payer or a public option as a reminder of how difficult passing any reforms was going to be. It may be obvious to progressives that a single-payer plan would be better than the bill Congress is contemplating, but the bill Congress is contemplating — with its reforms of the insurance industry and its expansion of coverage — is still better than the status quo. That might be about the best anyone can hope for at this point.

Why Obama snubbed single-payer

 

[J Ed]

Did you know.... that Republicans are strong opponents of the ACA?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Why are you doing that exactly?

Because, typically, you're attempting to lay all the blame for the compromised nature of the ACA, at Obama's feet. The true villains of the piece, were the Republicans.

 

[8den]

Thank you for this!

Twitter's gone nuts.

The Internet Made Donald Trump Jr. a Meme and It's SAVAGE

 

[J Ed]

Love to find out new information on the internet

 

[J Ed]

Because, typically, you're attempting to lay all the blame for the compromised nature of the ACA, at Obama's feet. The true villains of the piece, were the Republicans.

Republicans who voted for ACA: 0

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Republicans who voted for ACA: 0

Blow By Blow: A Comprehensive Timeline Of The GOP’s 4-Year Battle To Kill Obamacare

 

[8den]

Because, typically, you're attempting to lay all the blame for the compromised nature of the ACA, at Obama's feet. The true villains of the piece, were the Republicans.

Indeed. In most countries, it's a debate about "how we fix health care"? In America, it's "do we need health care"? When framed in a debate against an opposite so entrenched in their position it's amazing there was Obamacare in the first place.

 

[damnNAFTA]

But, you are comparing two different questions here.

The 2013 YouGov UK survey asks "Do you think the following should be nationalised and run in the public sector or privatised and run by private companies? - National Health Service" 84% said public, 7% said private, 9% said don't know.

The US Pew Research report found "5% of the public says the government should have no role in health care."

The 7% of YouGov respondents were only saying the NHS should be privatised, not that the government should have no role in health care.

I am aware of this, but I appreciate your condescending reply.

 

[J Ed]

Indeed. In most countries, it's a debate about "how we fix health care"? In America, it's "do we need health care"? When framed in a debate against an opposite so entrenched in their position it's amazing there was Obamacare in the first place.

No it isn't, the ACA was based on Nixon's healthcare reforms. The liberal imagination is a truly pathetic thing.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

No it isn't, the ACA was based on Nixon's healthcare reforms.

“We need to put health care in a historical perspective, and not go to extremes for political purposes,” says Freed. “I would hope this history will help policy makers think about what the policy is trying to accomplish for the American people, and not turn a blind eye to proposals simply because they’re proposed by one party or the other.”

Nixoncare vs. Obamacare: U-M team compares the rhetoric & reality of two health plans | Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation

Nixon's plan was considered the conservative plan, by the social climate of the era.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The person who did the most to demonize 'socialized medicine' in the US, was the Republican, Ronald Reagan.

 

[J Ed]

Nixoncare vs. Obamacare: U-M team compares the rhetoric & reality of two health plans | Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation

Nixon's plan was considered the conservative plan, by the social climate of the era.

Yes, I know. I pointed that out a few days ago.

 

[CRI]

I am aware of this, but I appreciate your condescending reply.

Well, if you were aware the 5% US and 7% UK figures weren't comparable, why did you suggest that they showed similar proportions of the US and UK populations were against government involvement in healthcare. Jesus man.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yes, I know. I pointed that out a few days ago.

But you don't explain any purported relationship between Nixon's authorship of proposed health care reforms 45 years ago, and the opposition to said health-care reform, by current-day Republicans.

 

[J Ed]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/arts/the-trump-resistance-will-be-commercialized.html

Recently I received an email inviting me to attend a private salon held at a Brooklyn restaurant. “Under this new … ahem … ‘administration’ … you gotta stay loud,” the invitation read. “We’ll gather round an ~intimate~ table of fellow disruptors to eat out + speak up.”

The invitation didn’t come from a political group or an activist friend. It came from a public relations agent for Thinx, a brand of underwear that absorbs period blood and odor.

Over sangria and gluten-free pizza with a roomful of journalists, Miki Agrawal, a co-founder of Thinx, led a conversation about activist resistance, feminism and the Thinx brand, which has expanded with Icon, a line of “pee-proof” panties for leaky bladders, and Tushy, a travel bidet attachment that screws into a toilet. Every table setting came with a sample of Thinx’s latest offering, an organic cotton tampon. The event took on the contours of an activist call to arms, but it doubled as a product preview.

Thinx are sold exclusively online, and the marketing strategy has always been tuned to the currents of internet conversation. In recent years, that has meant pushing pop feminist messaging: Thinx advertises its underwear as “patriarchy-proof.” But since the election of Donald J. Trump, the company’s branding has leveled up from vaguely political to outright partisan. Postelection, Ms. Agrawal sent an email blast to customers calling Mr. Trump a “narcissus.” The Thinx Twitter account recently posted a note of resistance.
Companies have long marketed their wares around causes; by raising awareness about some issue, they lift their brand names, too. Those campaigns have typically focused on safely nonpartisan matters, like curing cancer or “empowering women.” But lately the forces of national politics and online media have conspired to polarize the marketing landscape.