red dog 1
red dog 1's JournalYet another Trump Limerick Contest
(My entry is one I used before,which has been slightly tweaked)
There once was a double-chinned phony
Who fed all the people baloney
But he won the election
Using lies and deception
With some help from Putin and Comey
Key Dem McCaskill to Oppose Gorsuch, Back Filibuster
The Hill
March 31, 2017
Sen. Claire McCaskill on Friday said she will vote to support a filibuster of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
The announcement makes it significantly harder for Gorsuch to muster the 60 votes he needs to overcome a filibuster and advance to a final confirmation vote.
McCaskill is the first Democrat facing reelection next year in a state Trump carried by double digits to come out against Gorsuch.
She announced her opposition in a statement posted to "Medium," faulting the nominee for
"a stunning lack of humanity."
"I cannot support Judge Gorsuch because a study of his opinions reveal a rigid ideology that always puts the little guy under the boot of corporations," she wrote.
McCaskill cited the judge's opinion in Transam Trucking v. Administrative Review Board, which sided with an employer who ordered a trucker to stay with a disabled vehicle in sub-zero weather.
More:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/326775-key-dem-mccaskill-to-oppose-gorsuch-back-filibuster
What We Are Doing to Fight Trump May Not Be Enough
Alternet.org
By Kaya Axelsson
March 30, 2017
Shortly after the election of Donald Trump, I attended a conference of organizers from across the nation where I hoped to find collective answers to the question, how did we get here and what do we do now?
What I found instead, among thousands of the most supposedly committed people in our political process, was a civic engagement conference much like any other, a bland breakdown of polling by party, a discussion of new campaign technology and tired complaints about voter apathy.
Later that night, I found myself shaking the shoulders of a friend, yelling into the din of the bar, "Why isn't anyone acting like this is a crisis!"
The United States had just elected a pathological liar to it's highest office, and the most practiced organizers in the nation were carrying on, business as usual.
I don't know exactly what I expected...Revolutionaries pouring over charts and writing manifestos?
Frantic resource mapping and coordinated protest planning?
This all would have been nice, but to be fair, it was only a few days out from the election, and most of these people were running on six months of very little sleep.
Still, it was clear that the political professionals on the left were at a loss.
Not having a plan, or a boss telling them to make a plan, they just did what they always do, networked for their next job and complained about campaign burnout and voter apathy.
How did we get here?..This is exactly how.
More:
http://www.alternet.org/activism/raising-bar-political-engagement
Senator Dianne Feinstein can help stop Gorsuch
Bold Progressives.org
March 30, 2017
The Washington Post reports: "Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, may fall short of the votes needed for smooth passage in the Senate next week, potentially dashing Republican hopes for an easy victory."
Gorsuch faces his first hurdle Monday, when the Judiciary Committee votes on whether to send his nomination to the full Senate.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein has a key vote on the Judiciary Committee, and her strength in this moment will set the tone for other Democrats as they determine how hard to fight when the nomination moves to the full Senate.
Bloomberg News reports, "With the Senate Judiciary Committee set to approve Gorsuch along party lines on Monday, attention is shifting to a handful of Democrats - most from Republican-leaning states - who are seen as being in play.
The Democrats, many up for re-election next year, are under intense pressure from groups opposing Gorsuch, including NORAL Pro-Choice America, the Alliance for Justice, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee."
Gorsuch consistently sides with giant corporations and employers against workers and labor rights.
We can defeat Gorsuch - but here's how it will work.
If every Democrat opposes Gorsuch, that's 48 votes out of 100 and we'll lose.
But if Democrats use the time-honored filibuster requiring 60 votes - which has been required for every Supreme Court nominee under the last Republican and Democratic presidents -
we can win...Republicans only have 52 votes.
That's why she needs to hear from California residents today.
Ash her to use her unique platform to lead Democrats by opposing Gorsuch, supporting a filibuster, and encouraging her colleagues to join her.
E-mail her:
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
Call her:
- Washington, D.C. office.. 202-224-3841 ...(fax) 202-228-3954
- San Francisco office...... 415-393-0707.....(fax) 415-393-0710
- Los Angeles office......... 310-914-7300.....(fax) 310-914-7318
- San Diego office............ 619-231-9712....(fax) 619-231-1108
- Fresno office................ 559-485-7430.....(fax) 559-485-9689
http://boldprogressives.org
The Real Reason Why Obamacare Premiums Have Gone Up So Much
From March 23, 2017 (Yesterday)
"How Republicans Quietly Sabotaged Obamacare Long Before Trump"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016181713
BILLIONS THAT SHOULD GO TO OBAMACARE ARE MISSING: THANKS TO REPUBLICAN SENATORS LIKE MARCO RUBIO
Let's step back to 2015 for the entire story, which is bizarre and fascinating.
When the ACA was rolled out, telling insurance companies that they had to insure anybody who signed up regardless of previous conditions or sickness, everybody realized that the insurance companies would probably lose money in the first decade or so, until previously uninsured but sick people got into the system, got better, and things evened out.
To get the insurance companies to go along with this risk of losing money, the ACA promised to make them whole for any loses in the first decade..At the end of each fiscal year, the insurance companies merely had to document their loses and the government would reimburse them out of ACA funds provided for by the law.
The possibility of their losing money was referred to as the "risk corridor," and the ACA explicitly filled those risk corridors with a guarantee of making the insurance companies, at the very least, whole.
Then something happened. .As the New York Times noted on Dec. 9, 2015,
"A little-noticed health care provision slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama's signature health law."
Marco Rubio and a number of other Republicans had succeeded in gutting the risk corridors.
The result was in that just in 2015, end-of-fiscal-year corridor payments to insurance companies that were supposed to total around $2.9 billion were only reimbursed, according to Rubio himself in the Times, to the tune of around $400 million.
Rubio bragged that he'd "saved taxpayers $2.5 billion."
And indeed he had. But the insurance companies were thrown into a crisis. And with Republicans in Congress absolutely refusing to refund the risk corridors, that crisis would get worse as time went on, at least over a few years.
So the insurance companies did the only thing they could..In (mostly red) states with lower incomes and thus poorer health, they simply pulled out of the marketplace altogether.
This has left some states with only a single insurer left.
In other states, they jacked up their prices to make up their loses.
As Robert Pear in the New York Times noted, Rubio's "plan limiting how much the government can spend to protect insurance companies against financial losses has shown the effectiveness of quiet legislative sabotage."
More:
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/thom-hartmann-how-republicans-quietly-sabotaged-obamacare-long-trump-came-office
Jane Mayer on Robert Mercer & the Dark Money Behind Trump and Bannon
Democracy Now
March 23, 2017
Today we look at Robert Mercer, the man who is said to have out-Koched the Koch brothers in the 2016 election.
The secretive billionaire hedge-fund tycoon, along with his daughter Rebekah, is credited by many with playing an instrumental role in Donald Trump's election.
"The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution," Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon said.
"Irrefutably, when you look at donors during the past four years, they have had the single biggest impact of anybody, including the Kochs."
Before Bannon and Kellyanne Conway joined the Trump campaign, both worked closely with the Mercers.
The Mercers bankrolled Bannon's Breitbart News, as well as some of Bannon's film projects.
Conway ran a super PAC created by the Mercers to initially back the candidacy of Ted Cruz.
While the Mercers have helped reshape the American political landscape, their work has all been done from the shadows.
To talk more about the Mercers, we speak with Jane Mayer, staff writer at The New Yorker.
Her latest piece is headlined "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America's Populist Insurgency"
She is also author of "Dark Money:The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right," which just came out in paperback.
Read transcript of interview:
http://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/23/jane_mayer_on_robert_mercer_the
"The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind The Trump Presidency"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028820349
What's your favorite Donald Trump joke?
Q - How does Donald Trump plan on deporting 12 million illegal immigrants?
A - Juan by Juan.
What's your favorite "What's the difference" joke?
Q - What's the difference between a guitar and a fish?
A - You can't tuna fish.
Q - What's the difference between a cat and a frog?
A - A cat has nine lives but a frog croaks every night.
Q - What's the difference between a tornado and a redneck divorce?
A - Either way someone's going to lose a trailer.
Q - What's the difference between Donald Trump and Donald Duck?
A - One is a cartoon character with a hot temper and the other is a duck.
(List as many as you want to)
Tell Congress: Hands off Medicare and Medicaid!
Credo Action
March 23, 2017
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Trumpcare today - and the vote is expected to be close.
Regardless of the outcome, the fight is far from over and we'll continue fighting to stop the Republican attack on Medicare i& Medicaid if and when it moves to the U.S. Senate.
The truth is, Congress must expand these programs to cover more people, not to cut to give millionaires and billionaires huge tax breaks,
Stopping this attack is a matter of life and death for millions of Americans.
Our petition to Congress reads:
"Reject any legislation that cuts, weakens or privatizes Medicare or Medicaid.
Tens of millions of Americans rely on these critical programs.
Congress must expand these programs to cover more people, not cut them to give millionaires and billionaires huge tax breaks."
Please Sign the Petition:
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/save_safety_net
Do you have a favorite episode of The Honeymooners?
Mine is the episode where Ralph & Norton produce their own late night TV commercial.
("I'm da' chef of the future"
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Gender: MaleHometown: San Francisco, Ca.
Home country: U.S.A.
Member since: Tue Sep 14, 2010, 03:05 PM
Number of posts: 27,889
