The Trump presidency

[teqniq]

 

[coley]

On The Hill Social media users poke fun at #boycottHawaii over travel ban ruling

Darn, first that fake birth certificate now this.

"He says temporary ban will hurt tourism, wait till he sees what crossing our president does" #boycottHawaiihttps://twitter.com/ten_gop/status/842152071847534592 …
Aye, knocked tourism to the US by 10% and that's just the figures for Dec 16,
"Crossing our president"
Lol, doesn't he realise nearly every bugger is taking the piss out of TTT bigly?

 

[CrabbedOne]

Obama explicitly did promise universal healthcare, which isn't necessarily the same thing as single payer. You are right about Clinton attacking Obama from the left on healthcare, I had forgotten about that, funny.

He broke his promise on far more than the individual mandate, one of the main and earliest broken promises was on the transparency of the negotiations to set up the healthcare bill.

There's a really big difference between a distant inspirational goal and what Obama actually proposed in detail. And it was in detail unlike Trump's popular but worthless promises.

It was terribly compromised by the reality of a Republican Congress and industry lobbyists.

Trump in contrast just folded on all his Big State promises and backed Ryan's neoliberal nonsense of a plan. Trump's not even smart enough to be cagey about it.

He does this, slapping his name on any scam his gut tells him might turn a profit like Trump university or some dodgy deal with IRGC connected central Asian mafiosi.

 

[coley]

Cycling while Black in Chicago

and worse

Rundle Won't Charge Prison Guards Who Allegedly Boiled Schizophrenic Black Man to Death

But in an unconscionable decision, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's office announced Friday that the four guards who oversaw what amounted to a medieval-era boiling will not be charged with a crime.

“The shower was itself neither dangerous nor unsafe,’’ the report says. “The evidence does not show that Rainey’s well-being was grossly disregarded by the correctional staff.’’

WTF?

'Liked for all the wrong reasons'
Unbelievable! is something I would have said a few months ago, but nowt coming out of the US surprises me any more.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Nothing in that article contradicts what I wrote.

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

There are degrees in these things. Trump is a rampant old style capitalist currently backing a far more neoliberal healthcare plan than Obama enacted. He appears set on gutting the American state for profit in a very consistent manner while diligently working on enriching the elite.

In terms of domestic US policy it seems a little strange to keep on insisting he's "the resistance".

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Obama explicitly did promise universal healthcare, which isn't necessarily the same thing as single payer. You are right about Clinton attacking Obama from the left on healthcare, I had forgotten about that, funny.

He broke his promise on far more than the individual mandate, one of the main and earliest broken promises was on the transparency of the negotiations to set up the healthcare bill.

I have no desire to defend Obama generally, but on this, he set reforming healthcare as an aim and worked towards it. The number of people in the US with no insurance went down a fair bit under Obama. He didn't achieve universal health care, but he also didn't achieve nothing. And you may remember that he was fought tooth and nail by various powerful groups even to get what he did get.

Knowing the opposition he faced even for his modest plan, I'm not sure this is a thing to judge him too harshly on. He might have achieved nothing. Clinton basically achieved nothing, despite genuinely wanting to achieve something. It's not like a president just snaps his fingers and suddenly there's universal health care. To achieve that would require broad support, which doesn't exist.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Trump dreams of being treated like this:

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

And you may remember that he was fought tooth and nail by various powerful groups even to get what he did get.

.

Anyone with even passing familiarity with the genesis of the ACA knows this to be the case.

 

[NoXion]

There are degrees in these things. Trump is a rampant old style capitalist currently backing a far more neoliberal healthcare plan than Obama enacted. He appears set on gutting the American state for profit in a very consistent manner while diligently working on enriching the elite.

In terms of domestic US policy it seems a little strange to keep on insisting he's "the resistance".

Who the fuck on this forum is saying that's what Trump is? Fucking hell.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Anyone with even passing familiarity with the genesis of the ACA knows this to be the case.

I also don't doubt that the number of uninsured people in the US will go up in the next four years, probably back to the pre-Obama levels. \

What is needed, clearly, is for the private insurance system to be dismantled. Obama didn't even attempt to do that - and he would have got nowhere if he had tried. So that 38% figure of people saying they don't think it is the govt's job to make sure everyone has insurance is really important. That's way too many people who don't even believe in universal healthcare. Given that the number doubles among republican-voters, and republicans hold all the cards now, that's a bleak situation, one that the insurance companies are no doubt extremely happy about. Obamacare could have been a first step towards it, but depressingly, I doubt the US will have anything near universal healthcare in the foreseeable future. Millions will continue to be fucked.

 

[coley]

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

Why are you bothering?
The GOP were successful in presenting the ACA as a massive move towards a socialist/UN takeover of the US, this has further resulted in a grand takeover of the US govt by those who promised they would defend the US from such a fate.
That a large chunk of US voters would fall for this Shyte, and the subsequent rollout of events and the lack of any real opposition by the media leads me to believe the US is largely fucked?
Would be more than happy to be corrected?
One slim line of hope is that many American comedians and some commentators still give the TTT and his cronies 'six nowt'
Watching their rise or disappearance will be a good barometer on which way the the US is heading.

 

[CRI]

'Liked for all the wrong reasons'
Unbelievable! is something I would have said a few months ago, but nowt coming out of the US surprises me any more.

Yup. Racism in the US criminal justice system is hardly a new thing. It's just now you get the sense that the authorities can't even be arsed to care that it's the case. And perhaps worse, in the torrent of hate and greed-filled tweets, orders, speeches and other displays from Trump and the GOP, I wonder if even people who fight against such shit risk becoming numbed by it.

 

[coley]

Twitter's gone nuts.

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

Savage would have been, "hey junior, yer coming over a bigger twat than yer Da"

 

[coley]

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.

Bloke did his best.

 

[coley]

Yup. Racism in the US criminal justice system is hardly a new thing. It's just now you get the sense that the authorities can't even be arsed to care that it's the case. And perhaps worse, in the torrent of hate and greed-filled tweets, orders, speeches and other displays from Trump and the GOP, I wonder if even people who fight against such shit risk becoming numbed by it.

Obama didn't deliver, not by a long chalk, but he tried, the success of the Alt right in, not only in capturing the Govt of the US, but making its priority in destroying the small gains he made, with little meaningful opposition, shows there are clearly two Americas, sadly, we can only expect the bought and paid for America, the corporations, the 1%rs etc to succeed in the future.
Go South young man (or even East) the Wests just about screwed

 

[damnNAFTA]

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.

They are compatible. As I pointed out, even a majority of Republicans in the U.S. support existing programs (Medicare, Medicaid), much like how the vast majority of people in the UK support the NHS. These are programs that have already existed over generations, people have used them or know people who have first hand and seen the impact the programs have on their lives. However, there is still a small minority who support doing away with or privatizing these programs in both countries (yes, this is similar. Why do you think they would want to privatize something they are very much in support of? It is obvious they see privatization as the first step toward dismantling the NHS.) It is a very different question than asking people about a hypothetical system that does not yet exist in their country.

As I've already showed (and no one has refuted), polls consistently show a solid majority of Americans support some form of single payer healthcare. The reason we do not have it has little to do with public sentiment (as people here seem unnecessarily fixated on). Although I do not always agree with Chomsky, I think his analysis here is largely correct:

The same is true on national healthcare. The U.S., as you may know, has a health system which is an international scandal, it has twice the per capita costs of other OECD countries and relatively poor outcomes. The only privatized, pretty much unregulated system. The public doesn’t like it. They’ve been calling for national healthcare, public options, for years, but the financial institutions think it’s fine, so it stays: stasis. In fact, if the United States had a healthcare system like comparable countries there wouldn’t be any deficit. The famous deficit would be erased, which doesn’t matter that much anyway.
...
In the United States, one of the main topics of academic political science is the study of attitudes and policy and their correlation. The study of attitudes is reasonably easy in the United States: heavily-polled society, pretty serious and accurate polls, and policy you can see, and you can compare them. And the results are interesting. In the work that’s essentially the gold standard in the field, it’s concluded that for roughly 70% of the population – the lower 70% on the wealth/income scale – they have no influence on policy whatsoever. They’re effectively disenfranchised. As you move up the wealth/income ladder, you get a little bit more influence on policy. When you get to the top, which is maybe a tenth of one percent, people essentially get what they want, i.e. they determine the policy.

Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy

And here is a link to the academic study he is discussing: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens | Perspectives on Politics | Cambridge Core

Since we're discussing this in the Trump thread, there's even evidence at least some Trump supporters were hoping he'd push for Single Payer (which he had supported in the past and Hillary was very much against).

 

[teqniq]

White House installs political aides at Cabinet agencies to be Trump’s eyes and ears

The political appointee charged with keeping watch over Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and his aides has offered unsolicited advice so often that after just four weeks on the job, Pruitt has shut him out of many staff meetings, according to two senior administration officials.

At the Pentagon, they’re privately calling the former Marine officer and fighter pilot who’s supposed to keep his eye on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis “the commissar,” according to a high-ranking defense official with knowledge of the situation. It’s a reference to Soviet-era Communist Party officials who were assigned to military units to ensure their commanders remained loyal....

 

[CrabbedOne]

I also don't doubt that the number of uninsured people in the US will go up in the next four years, probably back to the pre-Obama levels. \

What is needed, clearly, is for the private insurance system to be dismantled. Obama didn't even attempt to do that - and he would have got nowhere if he had tried. So that 38% figure of people saying they don't think it is the govt's job to make sure everyone has insurance is really important. That's way too many people who don't even believe in universal healthcare. Given that the number doubles among republican-voters, and republicans hold all the cards now, that's a bleak situation, one that the insurance companies are no doubt extremely happy about. Obamacare could have been a first step towards it, but depressingly, I doubt the US will have anything near universal healthcare in the foreseeable future. Millions will continue to be fucked.

Healthcare systems grow organically and are really difficult to reengineer without something like WWII as a background. Governments have to work with what exists and patients/voters are often scared of change. The slow dismantling of the NHS is an example. Obamacare was a fairly large tweak facing a lot of practical and political constraints not a revolution. You had to ignore much of the detail of the debate in 08 to get that impression.

It's complicated but it's quite possible to have universal healthcare based on a competitive insurance system. The Swiss manage it for instance at high but far lower costs than exist in the US. But the Swiss have a rather different idea of how a small government interlocks with a big private sector to ensure the common good is protected. The issue in the US is the level of state intervention that's needed to keep that privatised system running without price gouging is an anathema to many Septics. The GOP position is it's just not the Federal government's business to interfere in a for profit industry and dictate consumer choices and that's actually popular politically.

An expensive healthcare system that excludes a large part of the population is actually what a lot of voters appear to want. It works fine for employed folk with a decent healthcare plan provided they don't get a protracted illness. They don't want to pool risks with poor folk who are often of a different complexion. And that's part of what Obamacare did so they want it gone. Of course now that it's established it also becomes politically difficult to repeal. Some people who hate it on the above principles have come to benefit from it and a lot of people fear what innovation comes next.

At back of this is a lot of Americans have huge trust issues with the Federal Government and are pretty gullible about the profit driven machinations of the private sector. Which ironically led them to put a twit like Trump in charge of DC.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The New Yorker THE RECLUSIVE HEDGE-FUND TYCOON BEHIND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

...
Magerman told the Wall Street Journal that Mercer’s political opinions “show contempt for the social safety net that he doesn’t need, but many Americans do.” He also said that Mercer wants the U.S. government to be “shrunk down to the size of a pinhead.” Several former colleagues of Mercer’s said that his views are akin to Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Magerman told me, “Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make. A cat has value, he’s said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.” Magerman added, “He thinks society is upside down—that government helps the weak people get strong, and makes the strong people weak by taking their money away, through taxes.” He said that this mind-set was typical of “instant billionaires” in finance, who “have no stake in society,” unlike the industrialists of the past, who “built real things.”

Another former high-level Renaissance employee said, “Bob thinks the less government the better. He’s happy if people don’t trust the government. And if the President’s a bozo? He’s fine with that. He wants it to all fall down.”
...

And that's who bought his similarly wacky servants key seats in Trump's cabinet.

 

[CRI]

They are compatible. As I pointed out, even a majority of Republicans in the U.S. support existing programs (Medicare, Medicaid), much like how the vast majority of people in the UK support the NHS. These are programs that have already existed over generations, people have used them or know people who have first hand and seen the impact the programs have on their lives. However, there is still a small minority who support doing away with or privatizing these programs in both countries (yes, this is similar. Why do you think they would want to privatize something they are very much in support of? It is obvious they see privatization as the first step toward dismantling the NHS.) It is a very different question than asking people about a hypothetical system that does not yet exist in their country.

As I've already showed (and no one has refuted), polls consistently show a solid majority of Americans support some form of single payer healthcare. The reason we do not have it has little to do with public sentiment (as people here seem unnecessarily fixated on). Although I do not always agree with Chomsky, I think his analysis here is largely correct:


Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy

And here is a link to the academic study he is discussing: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens | Perspectives on Politics | Cambridge Core

Since we're discussing this in the Trump thread, there's even evidence at least some Trump supporters were hoping he'd push for Single Payer (which he had supported in the past and Hillary was very much against).

Healthcare systems grow organically and are really difficult to reengineer without something like WWII as a background. Governments have to work with what exists and patients/voters are often scared of change. The slow dismantling of the NHS is an example. Obamacare was a fairly large tweak facing a lot of practical and political constraints not a revolution. You had to ignore much of the detail of the debate in 08 to get that impression.

It's complicated but it's quite possible to have universal healthcare based on a competitive insurance system. The Swiss manage it for instance at high but far lower costs than exist in the US. But the Swiss have a rather different idea of how a small government interlocks with a big private sector to ensure the common good is protected. The issue in the US is the level of state intervention that's needed to keep that privatised system running without price gouging is an anathema to many Septics. The GOP position is it's just not the Federal government's business to interfere in a for profit industry and dictate consumer choices and that's actually popular politically.

An expensive healthcare system that excludes a large part of the population is actually what a lot of voters appear to want. It works fine for employed folk with a decent healthcare plan provided they don't get a protracted illness. They don't want to pool risks with poor folk who are often of a different complexion. And that's part of what Obamacare did so they want it gone. Of course now that it's established it also becomes politically difficult to repeal. Some people who hate it on the above principles have come to benefit from it and a lot of people fear what innovation comes next.

At back of this is a lot of Americans have huge trust issues with the Federal Government and are pretty gullible about the profit driven machinations of the private sector. Which ironically led them to put a twit like Trump in charge of DC.

Crabb's post responds to many of the flaw in Damned's one, so responding to both together.

- Majority of GOP legislators support existing health programmes like Medicaid and Medicare? Really? Well, House Speaker Ryan recently said he's been dreaming of cutting Medicaid spending since his college days. Since the Reagan days, Republicans have made many attempts to cut these programmes - now with wide support for "block granting" them to states. Like the UK government stopping national programmes and giving funds to LAs here (remember Sure Start?) both the money and the programmes begin to wither and die. Plenty GOP voters support and benefit from both of these, but that doesn't stop them voting for legislators bent on exterminating them.

- As Crabb's says, there are universal health care systems that involve public private partnerships elsewhere in the world. Plenty people in the UK still have the notion that the answer to public sector problems is being more "business like," and support things like public/private partnerships. Privatising of the NHS started in the late 80's, so isn't a new thing. Although I don't share the view, I also don't accept that the 5% of people who responded in that one poll that they favoured privitisation of the NHS means they want no government involvement in healthcare.

If you speak to Americans (of all political stripes) and British people about health care, the contrast is striking. Crabbed notes a number of reasons why. I don't think anything I or anyone else here, including those who have first hand of living in the US, will be able to convince you that you're very mistaken in thinking British and American people have such similar views on universal healthcare as you insist.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I also don't doubt that the number of uninsured people in the US will go up in the next four years, probably back to the pre-Obama levels.

What is needed, clearly, is for the private insurance system to be dismantled. Obama didn't even attempt to do that - and he would have got nowhere if he had tried. So that 38% figure of people saying they don't think it is the govt's job to make sure everyone has insurance is really important. That's way too many people who don't even believe in universal healthcare. Given that the number doubles among republican-voters, and republicans hold all the cards now, that's a bleak situation, one that the insurance companies are no doubt extremely happy about. Obamacare could have been a first step towards it, but depressingly, I doubt the US will have anything near universal healthcare in the foreseeable future. Millions will continue to be fucked.

The other thing that is needed is to get lifestyle factors in the US under better control. Some of the reason that healthcare in the US is in such a mess is because the population is just plain sicker than it was just a generation ago. A lot of this is due to lifestyle factors such as obesity and lack of exercise. You have to decrease the rate of chronic illness in the US, while expanding care to everyone to make the system work. We are doing neither at the moment:

For reasons that may not be entirely related to the health-care system, the number of people with multiple chronic conditions (including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint pain or arthritis, or asthma or lung disease) was higher in the United States than in any other country. This was true among both low-income adults and people with higher incomes, which suggests that it can’t be blamed entirely on the higher poverty rate seen in the United States.

So we end up with a system where people skip care because they can't afford it:

But as an NBC News article on the study notes, the United States comes in last compared with the 10 other countries in many important measures — including emotional distress related to the health-care system, having trouble paying for care, and skipping doctor visits. What’s more, Americans pay much more for health care than residents of the other countries.

One disturbing finding is that 43% of Americans skipped medical care because of costs, more than in any other country. The lowest rate of skipping was in the United Kingdom at 8%, and the second-highest was in Switzerland at 31%. Notably, the United Kingdom has a fully public health-care system — not only does the government directly insure everyone, but most doctors are government employees — while Switzerland has a system of private insurers and providers.

U.S. Health Care: America's Sick Health System - Diabetes Self-Management

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I also don't doubt that the number of uninsured people in the US will go up in the next four years, probably back to the pre-Obama levels. \

What is needed, clearly, is for the private insurance system to be dismantled. Obama didn't even attempt to do that - and he would have got nowhere if he had tried. So that 38% figure of people saying they don't think it is the govt's job to make sure everyone has insurance is really important. That's way too many people who don't even believe in universal healthcare. Given that the number doubles among republican-voters, and republicans hold all the cards now, that's a bleak situation, one that the insurance companies are no doubt extremely happy about. Obamacare could have been a first step towards it, but depressingly, I doubt the US will have anything near universal healthcare in the foreseeable future. Millions will continue to be fucked.

Bottom line: Obama's healthcare reforms, however flawed, still allowed 10s of millions of previously uninsured American's to get health coverage. On some estimates the Republicans' plans to repeal it will mean some 24 million Americans losing it.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Bottom line: Obama's healthcare reforms, however flawed, still allowed 10s of millions of previously uninsured American's to get health coverage. On some estimates the Republicans' plans to repeal it will mean some 24 million Americans losing it.

The other thing it did was to keep hospitals in rural areas open. The loss of hospitals and doctors in rural areas is pretty dire. It's not just lower population density that's causing them to close, its the fact that a lot of their patients don't have insurance. Obamacare provided them with insurance coverage that made it easier for rural providers to get paid.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

The other thing it did was to keep hospitals in rural areas open. The loss of hospitals and doctors in rural areas is pretty dire. It's not just lower population density that's causing them to close, its the fact that a lot of their patients don't have insurance. Obamacare provided them with insurance coverage that made it easier for rural providers to get paid.

The irony of that being that those rural areas were generally the ones that voted for the oligarch rapist and the Republicans. :/

 

[Jeff Robinson]

'He hits a new low: 37 percent, the worst in 72 years of polling for a young presidency.'

Donald Trump's Approval Rating Is In The Toilet | The Huffington Post

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Lawfare What the Trump Presidency Means for China

...
Since his inauguration, however, Trump has been just about everything Beijing could have hoped for: he has delivered in spades on the soft power side of the equation, picking seemingly needless fights with traditional allies and pushing several of them into seeking closer ties with China, but has withdrawn—with the significant exception of continuing the deployment of THAAD systems in South Korea—in fairly dramatic fashion from confrontation over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and currency manipulation. The latter is not quite as unusual as it may seem—American presidents, going back to Reagan, have a long history of talking tough on China prior to inauguration and then backing down once sworn-in—but the former is an unprecedented development. The enthusiastic response to Xi Jinping’s defense of globalization at Davos suggests that Beijing’s soft power has risen to a point last seen in the 18th Century. For the first time in at least two centuries, China is in a strong position to claim a major share of the global leadership mantle.
...

Donald Trump, Making China Great Again!

After the US getting enormously rich off globalisation as US capital surged abroad and sensing a long anticipated decline Trump's America is sulkily slouching away from its primacy in search of a differently great America of the 40s that's dead and gone. Not just tired of experts but tired of empire. It seems this may be leaving a big space for 21st century China.

Bilateral Trumpian grabbing the world by the pussy one country at a time may prove to be pretty useless compared with the complex bondage games of the multilateral globalist agenda as a multiplier of soft power. If you are the world's largest economy being interlocked with others economically is a fine idea. And an awful lot of Chinese have benefitted in their long boom which is part of Trump's problem with it. It's not like Communist China is going to start bleating about globalisation infringing on democracy. The issue in China is more that it may clash with expansionist nationalist ideas and anti-Western sentiment.

 

[1%er]

Live stream here now

In a highly anticipated hearing on Capitol Hill, two high-ranking officials will testify before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20. FBI Director James “Jim” Comey and National Security Agency Director and Adm. Mike Rogers are testifying in front of the group about the involvement of Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

In addition, Comey will be questioned after Trump claimed on Twitter that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower during the election. According to a Politico, members of Congress are expected to ask Comey many questions about the claim in an attempt to clear the air.

 

[ohmyliver]

... aaand the FBI are investigating collusion between Team Trump and a foreign power in last year's election. And I'm wondering if Farrage's recent meeting with Assange where he had instant amnesia as soon as he left the embassy means that Farrage is somehow tied up in this.

Distinct whiff of Watergate 2.0 now

 

[camouflage]

 

[ohmyliver]

Hmmm, a video from GOP War Room. The question was fairly narrow, and about changing vote tallies. I think the thing that they're looking into is more things like the links between the DNC hack, the forced reopening of the Hillary email case which turned out to be non news, Wikileaks (maybe) and the Trump Team.

of course if the Democrats had been a better party, it wouldn't have mattered, and if they had run a better candidate than Hillary, it also wouldn't have mattered, given the low percentage of potential voters who voted for Trump.