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@Stephen
There have been several names that have been floated I think. I'm not sure if there is a determination of who it actually was.
But who the whistleblower was is completely irrelevant at this point. Imagine a guy hears his neighbor beating his wife and calls the cops. The cops show up and find the guy in the process of beating his wife. But instead of trying to argue why he wasn't actually beating his wife, or why it wasn't what is looks like, he focuses on finding out who called the cops on him. It doesn't matter who called the cops. The thing that matters is that witnesses have confirmed most of what was in the whistle blower report.
The only reason I see the whistleblower as important at this point is that the republican obsession with outing him is putting his/her life at risk. They are putting a patriot's life in jeopardy to score political points.
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@bmdrocks21
Sanders has the same base as Warren, so whichever takes the lead in the primary states will take over that radical base.
Actually, they have very different bases. Sanders' base is mostly working class and multi ethnic. Warren's base is mostly upper middle class white people. Warren and Butigieg actually have very similar bases. This is why as Pete has risen lately, Warren has been falling. Sanders and Biden also have very similar bases.
Yeah, Warren is the most likely in my opinion. Sanders' health isn't helping him.
At this particular moment, I would say the most likely is Biden if he can hold on, which is far from certain. He has been really low energy, he constantly loses his train of thought and often just says stuff that doesn't make sense. Sanders is 2nd most likely, he has actually passed warren in the polls. Her terrible healthcare plan(s) have really hurt her. Buttigieg is a seriously long shot because he has no appeal among black or latino people.
no one else has even a remote chance.
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@3RU7AL
Of course you can. And if you want actually free elections then you have to. If a billionaire can flood the airwaves with ads pushing his narrative he can drown out any other narrative he wants. That is how the same stale ideas have been sold and resold to the american people for decades. If you want new ideas, you need to be sure that people who don't want new ideas to spread can't dominate media.you can't ban indirect money. You can't ban issue ads. Remember? Zero-Censorship.
Truly free media, is media solely controlled by the rich and powerful. it isn't free at all.
You hamstring con-artists by teaching children how to use logic to distinguish FACT from OPINION.
You think you can teach every child to be smarter than people who have spent their lives specializing in lying to people? That is just guaranteed to fail.
And then you make all elected officials wear body-cameras and phones that record everything they say and their location at all times (saved to a permanent public record blockchain) as long as they serve as an elected official.
This seems wildly restrictive. I mean I am all for accountability for elected officials, but people also have a right to privacy. I mean you would be taping them going to the bathroom, making personal plans, recording personal data (pin numbers, etc) every time they looked at them. It is completely not feasible.
I mean, the NSA is already recording all internet traffic, email and phone conversations for CITIZENS already. It's only fair they record everything about PUBLIC OFFICIALS as well, except it needs to be made part of the public record.
Your argument is that the government is doing something terrible, so we should make sure they do that terrible thing to everyone. That is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. We should be making that illegal.
If you teach people to distinguish FACT from OPINION, then slander will solve itself.
This is just patently false. The line between truth and slander is often very small. There is often some level of truth in the slander to sell it. You cannot ever teach people to be able to distinguish between the 2. It takes a great deal of work to do that and 99% of people wont do it.
Hate speech will be categorized as broad-brush ad-hominems and the people advocating hate will be asked to support their statements with FACTS.
This wont ever happen. When someone says something stupid like "islam is a religion of hate and should be banned" you can find enough very specific details to sell that. It doesn't matter that it is a gross misinterpretation, some people will believe it. If you allow people to do stuff like that, then hate and violence will be the result.
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@3RU7AL
I agree with parts of what you are saying. The backroom deals, insider trading, nepotism are all things that should be fought against. But sadly, this kind of thing is also human nature. Alot of politicians say they will fight against these things, but once they get some power they find that these things are useful. I'm not certain how you get rid of that stuff. But a good start is banning all private funding of elections. No more super pacs, no more billionaires funding campaigns for shitty candidates.
The 0 censorship part I don't really agree with though. There are things that should be illegal to say. Libel laws for example are a form of censorship, but they are needed to curb slander. I would argue that hate speech should not be protected either. If you are using your free speech to call for violence or oppression of a group of people, that should not be protected either in my opinion.
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@Greyparrot
What are you smoking bud. Palestine has already walked away from the table before it has even been set up. Don't you do any research at all?
You've said that. over and over and over and over. And I have answered you. They might walk away. Peace might not happen. That is not a reason to keep fighting forever. But you just want to point the blame at Palestine and not and the consistently criminal behavior of Israel. Israel apologists, such as yourself, are one of the stumbling blocks to peace. As long as Israel feels like US is going to support it, they will never agree to peace.
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@Greyparrot
Jesus, you are just a broken record aren't you? I give up. You clearly just want to try to pin blame on Palestinians and not acknowledge that Israel is blocking the peace process.
Between Ethang's wild bigotry and you just repeating the same useless question over and over and over no matter how many times I explain it is the wrong question, this has been a very useless discussion.
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@Greyparrot
Both the Israelis and the Americans were naive in expecting that Arafat would agree to give up the idea of a literal "right of return" for all Palestinians into Israel proper no matter how many 1948 refugees or how much monetary compensation Israel offered to allow.
Agreed. this appears to have been a sticking point.
Yasir Arafat apparently was indeed unwilling, no matter what the Israeli concessions, to sign an agreement that declared itself final and forswore any further Palestinian claims.
There is no actual evidence of this. One guy claimed this was true after the conference had fallen apart and people had started trying to pin the blame on the Palestinians.
What Arafat really wanted was "a one-state solution. Not independent, adjacent Israeli and Palestinian states, but a single Arab state encompassing all of Historic Palestine (Elimination of the Nation of Israel)
Again. 1 guy after the conference said that. there is no evidence of that. In fact they had already agreed to the lines of the 2 states (for the most part). So saying they didn't want the thing they had already agreed to is obviously bullshit.
And all of this is just rehashing into what happened 20 years ago. We have no idea what their position is now because israel has no intention of finding out.
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@Greyparrot
It's totally not a useless question because if the status quo is for Palestine to reject and walk away from any peace offering that does not include eliminating Israel, then there can be no peace.
Their demands in the very negotiation you linked (the 2000 camp david summit) very clearly did not call for the the elimination of Israel. so your right wing talking point is bullshit. Do bombastic politicians say stuff like that, probably. Have they seriously tried to negotiate with the starting point that Israel should cease to exist? no.
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@Greyparrot
This is so insane. You're still answering a question I have not asked. I never asked if Palestine would or would not walk away.This is surreal. How can you not comprehend a simple question? What whacky dysfunction is going on here?
Your exact question was "What do you think has happened in Palestine recently to make you believe they won't walk away AGAIN?"
I have repeatedly said I don't know that they won't. Maybe they will. that isn't the point. That is a completely useless question. Why do you keep insisting on it?
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@Greyparrot
What do you think has happened in Palestine recently to make you believe they won't walk away AGAIN?
How many times can i repeat this for you. I don't know if they will or not. They might. But since Israel has all the power at the moment and they are continuing to illegally expand their settlements, the onus needs to be on them to negotiate. If they don't feel like they have to, peace is impossible.
So I repeat. Your question is an irrelevant distraction to point blame away from where it should be.
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@Greyparrot
Don't use that as an excuse. On the microscopic chance that the question is a valid and important question to answer, what is your response?
My response is that the question is stupid. You want me to prove that the Palestinians would be open to negotiations as a precondition to the Israeli's (the ones who hold all the cards) actually trying to talk to them.
You are actively trying to shift the conversation to blame the Palestinians when they don't actually have much power at the moment. It's a little bit like when you hear a girl got raped you ask "well what was she wearing". There is no value in answering the question. It is only intended to distract people.
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Fun twist today. Sondland, a close trump ally and supporter (he donated millions to trump), testified that trump directly ordered the quid pro quo with Ukraine. This eliminates pretty much all of the pathetic defenses trump's team have been making.
1) There was no quid pro quo - several people involved have now testified that there was
2) It's all just hearsay - they now have multiple witnesses with 1st hand knowledge
3) they're just "never trumpers" - there is now multiple trump appointees including a major contributor testifying trump is guilty
I'm not sure what defense trump has left. But i'm sure whatever lies and/or spin he comes up with will be parroted by fox news.
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@Greyparrot
Still not addressing the 2nd question. I know you can read post 26 and not do a Cathy "so what you are saying is" bullshit.
Your question is wrong though. it is a distraction intended to push responsibility onto the side that currently has no power. There is no way to know if the palestinians would be willing to negotiate in good faith until you try. The Israeli's have no intention of trying. The ball is in Israel's court and you want to try to shift it to somehow being on the Palestinians.
If Israel tries and it goes nowhere, then fine it is on the Palestinians. But refusing to negotiate while still setting up more and more illegal settlements makes it Isreal's fault right now.
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@Greyparrot
Still not addressing the 2nd question. You can spin that wheel for another 70 years I guess.
Your question is why do I think the palestinians would agree to peace. But that is a stupid question. The much better question is why the hell aren't we pushing them to continue to process.
Israel feels like it has nothing to gain from peace. It gets everything it wants from the status quo. There will be no new talks until they feel they need to. So peace is literally impossible until Israel feels like it has to negotiate. Will the palestinians refuse to talk? will they insist on impossible demands? that is entirely possible. But until Israel is willing to negotiate we can't possibly know.
And continuously framing it as the palestinians are the problem does not, in any way, help the situation.
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@Greyparrot
That's not the point. You failed to address the 2nd question.
So your point is that unless success is 100% guaranteed, no attempts should be made at all to seek peace? That is a very weird point that seems like it is intended to keep wars going forever.
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@Greyparrot
Yeah, I guess Bill Clinton's opinion means nothing.
I didn't say it means nothing. I said it was 1 person's opinion. Other people who were there had other opinions. And without documentation backing up either interpretation, there is no way to be certain who is correct.
But ultimately whose fault it was 20 years ago is irrelevant. The issue is how do you solve the problem today, not why it failed a generation ago.
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@Greyparrot
Did you read the Newsweek article? What do you think has happened in Palestine recently to make you believe they won't walk away again?
I did. But that is 1 person's interpretation. There was no written documentation of who was proposing what. There is no way to be certain what the demands of each side were because no one totally agrees on what they were.
And even if we accept that it was Arrafat's fault, that was almost 20 years ago and he isn't in charge any more.
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@Greyparrot
There were lots of mistakes made on both sides. i am not trying to say there wasn't. But at this moment, Isreal holds all the cards and is actively blocking any progress on peace. America has huge influence because of all the foreign aid. If american used that leverage they could potentially get peace. But Israel will need to compromise to make that happen.
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@TheRealNihilist
What do people want?
People want healthcare. they don't want to go bankrupt trying to pay for it. I think they are open to different ways of getting there. Pollsters don't usually poll on nitty gritty details of healthcare reform. But Biden's plan or Buttigieg's plan doesn't address the underlying problems in healthcare. they deal with some of the symptoms in a way that is doomed to fail. So ultimately, it will only increase demands for radical change, as we saw when trump got elected. If there isn't a fundamental reform of the system, things will continue to get worse.
His plan has actually already been proven to be effectiveWhose plan?What plan (populist plan)?
Did you not read the previous paragraph. I meant bernie's plan, as described in that paragraph. "Bernie's plan is to use his populist support and the bully pulpit to force corporate dems to do what the people want or be primaried and removed."
Are you saying Biden is less popular than Bernie?
I am saying that people want the fundamental problems in the system to be fixed. They want their lives to get better. At the moment, many just want to beat trump and they think Biden is best to do that. But since he won't actually fix the problems that got trump elected, it would be a disaster if he won.
Policy proposal please.
Well his healthcare plan is to essentially let private companies take all the profit from providing healthcare. That is economically right wing policy. Just like Obama care was a right wing plan created by a right wing think tank.
Is it unfair to lie about a candidate. I guarantee at least 1 black person supports Pete so why are you lying about this?
Here is a recent south carolina poll. He got less than 1% support from black people in a state where like 65% of the electorate are black. An average might put him 1% or 2% higher. But this guy has no attraction to black people. He can't win the primary and he likely couldn't beat trump either.
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@Greyparrot
The fact that you would see this, or assume other nations see this as a good vs evil issue for decades is also concerning.
To be clear, i don't think either side is evil. Ethang very much does though. His argument is that one side is corrupt murderers and the other is completely blameless. That is a stupid bigoted view.
The palestinians have done some terrible things the Israeli's. The Israeli's have done lots of terrible things to the palestinians. I don't pretend that either side is blameless. But the Israeli's are holding all the power. they occupy the land. they have the billions in foreign aid. They have the super power backing them. If there is ever going to be peace then they are going to need to compromise. Every time they build another settlement on occupied palestinian land they make it harder and harder to ever achieve peace. And that is exactly why they are doing it. They know that if they build these a few at a time and keep the conflict going for decades, at some point it will be impossible to ever give the land back.
They are getting everything they want from the status quo. They have no reason at all to compromise. Which is exactly why outside forces need to force them to the table. Because otherwise they will keep abusing the Palestinians for decades and there will never be peace.
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@TheRealNihilist
Does Bernie?This is relevant.
That is a fair question. Bernie's plan is to use his populist support and the bully pulpit to force corporate dems to do what the people want or be primaried and removed.
His plan has actually already been proven to be effective. Trump was an outsider candidate who took over the republican party. Now trump took that and used it for corrupt or stupid purposes. But he proved it can be done. Especially in the current atmosphere. That doesn't mean it will necessarily work for Bernie, but it is a plan that has been proven to be viable.
How about Biden?
I would say Biden is a mixed bag. He is very much the political insider. He knows how to wheel and deal in the halls of power. But he doesn't understand the time he lives in. Trump and sanders' popularity has proven that the people don't want to "return to normal". If they wanted that then Hilary would have won. i think Biden could get his corportist policies passed. But that they won't fix any of the problems people are having. And in 4 or 8 years an even crazier right wing populist will crush the dems.
I didn't know how much I liked him before reading the article.
Pete is super slimy. I'm not sure he really stands for anything. He has praised the Tea Party, flip flops on what he believes. He is the exact thing that is wrong with the modern democratic party. Socially left but economically right. Just say the right thing about gay rights but don't actually do the reforms needed to help people. But he polls at like 0% among black people so he has no chance of winning.
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@Greyparrot
You don't know enough about Palestinians to understand why their Arabian neighbors hate them so much.
I read your article. Basically what it boils down to is that the palestinians are desperate. The israelis are actively crushing them. They therefore leap at any opportunity they see that might help them alleviate this. This causes them to not have long term strategic alliances. To the Saudi's or Kuwaiti's who plan their foreign policy years or decades in advance, this it betrayal.
The bottom line is that the other arab states have tried and failed to help the Palestinians so they no longer really care. The Palestinians therefore keep having to jump between allies to try to get help as one ally after another loses interest in helping them.
But this doesn't mean the Palestinians are evil. It means that Israel has been very successful in committing crimes and getting away with it and forcing an entire group of people to become increasingly desperate generation after generation.
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@ethang5
Total nonsense. The country is Israel, it belongs to Israelis. Always has. Always will.
Ok so if a native person shows up on your doorstep and says that your house is theirs now you would be totally ok with that? I mean they haven't owned the land for centuries, but now they have a gun and they want it.
Yet the home bears their name? When did they lose it?
They lost it hundreds of years ago when they left. The palestinians then lived there for centuries. The jews then came back and tried to force out the people living there. And the land doesn't bear their name. You just only know the jewish name.
Untrue. Israel is mentioned at least 8 thousand years ago. Palestinians have lived there only about 2 of those 8 thousand years. And Israel didn't lose their land because some of them were away.
They were gone for hundreds if not thousands of years. The jewish population in palestine was almost nothing until the 20th century when european jews started moving there and displacing the people who lived there.
Jews have always lived in Israel. There was never a time when there were not Jews there. Nothing gives the Palestinians a right to the land of Israel.
The population of jews was almost nothing for hundreds of years. By that logic japan shouldn't exist (the japanese only took it in the last few hundred years), the US shouldn't exist, Canada shouldn't exist, the list goes on and on. But you only want to apply that logic when it is muslims being displaced.
Israel is the only democracy in the region. It is peaceful and runs on the rule of law.
For israeli's sure. For palestinians, no. They regularly steal their land, blockade them so they can't get supplies, bomb them etc.
The Palestinians are violent and corrupt, they enslave their own people and buy bombs rather than baby food.
And here is the core of your problem. You are calling an entire group of people evil. That is just blatant racism. You aren't basing your arguments on logic, just on hate and discrimination.
The land is Israel and is occupied by its rightful owners, Israelis.
Virtually the entire world, including the US government until this week, disagrees. But based on your phrasing i'm guessing you don't know the difference between the country of israel and the illegal settlements on palestinian land.
Peace is not possible because of Islam. No Arab country is free or fair. Until Palestinians give up the doctrine of Islam, there will never be peace.
Holy shit this is nuts. You are saying that you want to engage in perpetual warfare until 1/4 of the worlds population submits to your will. That is insane genocidal shit. Given how blatantly racist and nuts you are, I don't think I will be engaging any further in this conversation with you. You appear to be incapable of seeing past your intense bias.
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@Greyparrot
Maybe if The Palestines didn't try to wipe out Israel during this.
I have never said the palestinians were blameless. they are not. But that doesn't excuse Israel stealing their land and locking them all in an open air prison.
Funfact: The only people Arabs hate as much as Jews are the Palestinians. Not a single Arab nation welcomed that backward culture into their borders, and are still considered persona non grata.
This makes no sense. Palestinians are arabs. That's like saying the only people white's hate more than (insert other race) is whites. It's just silly. The other arab countries just didn't want to take in millions of refugees. It had nothing to do with culture.
America's fascination with supporting them highlights the historical international ignorance and moral vapidness of America.
America has literally never supported them. They back Israel every time no matter how many crimes Israel commits. American citizens support them because they can see all the terrible shit Israel does.
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@Greyparrot
Everything you just said has literally nothing to do with the topic...
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@Greyparrot
Are you arguing that every single person in America is being paid to make sure rules never change?Just enough to preserve the status quo.
This still doesn't make any sense.
1) the government doesn't pay the vast majority of americans.
2) procedural rules in government have nothing to do with average americans.
This issue is about partisan hack politicians bending or breaking rules and norms in order to score political points. I honestly have no idea what point you are trying to make.
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@Greyparrot
That's because the people are paid by the government to keep the status quo.
I honestly have no idea what you are trying to argue. Are you trying to say the government shouldn't have rules? Are you trying to argue that the rules for behavior and decorum should be determined by average citizens? Are you arguing that every single person in america is being paid to make sure rules never change?
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@Greyparrot
Either the people are in charge of setting the rules or they are not.
They're not. The elected officials are in charge of setting the rules. If the people are upset about a rule or a law they can pressure their elected member of government to change the rules. But that rarely happens. And norms aren't even rules. They are more of a code of conduct that the government follows. When politicians trash those norms to score cheap points they are just ensuring that there is even less chance of anything getting done in the long term.
Do you think democrats are going to try to cooperate or allow republicans to do things after the republicans spent 8 years under obama sabotaging and obstructing everything they could? All they have done is ensure that democrats are super motivated to do the same thing. it is self defeating and only undermines the ability of the government to function.
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@Greyparrot
If there was anything "normal" about government, then there would be no need of elections.Either the people are in charge of deciding what is normal or they are not.
You seem to be misunderstanding me. I don't mean normal as in specific policies, which of course will change with election cycles. I mean normal as in the rules and conduct that the government adheres to. Like the senate voting to confirm or reject a supreme court nominee. There is no law saying they have to do so, but the normal conduct is that they will. When McConnell refused to do so for reasons that made no sense and were later proven to be a lie, he broke that norm for a short term gain.
These kinds of norms are usually adhered to regardless of the changing priorities of voters. The fact that they are no longer being followed just makes the partisanship all the worse because there simply aren't any rules to the game any more. It's now anything goes which just makes the deadlock even worse.
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@Greyparrot
There's clearly nothing normal about government in general, in any nation.
That statement is semantically null. Whatever is the normal way things work, is normal. The US government has a long history. There is a "normal". It has been eroded and destroyed over the last decade or 2 as both sides, but in my opinion especially the republicans, try to score cheap points at any cost.
For example impeaching a president over a blow job. Then arguing that it doesn't matter that the president extorted a foreign country to try to help himself in a political campaign and that this is somehow not impeachable. The complete 180 done by people like Lindsay graham shows that the republican leadership have no ethics at all.
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@Greyparrot
What a silly view. Rinos have no intention of allowing the people to dictate policy over government employees.
I didn't mean the people. I meant they are breaking down the norms of government because it benefits them in the moment. For example when McConnell refused to even debate Obama's supreme court pick for an obviously made up reason. There was no law that said he had to, but the norms said that he should. He tossed those aside because it provided a short term win.
The republican party has proven they don't care about what should or shouldn't be executive authority. They don't care about the norms of government or the checks and balances. They only care about the partisan game of winning points against the other team. If that tears down the political system, it clearly means nothing to them. They only cry about it when the other side does it to them.
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@Swagnarok
I'm not sure how true this is in practice, but yeah, it was a rather partisan speech, I'll admit.
Yeah, given that it is a political appointee position there is always some level of partisanship. But they are at least supposed to try to be non-partisan. Bar has made it clear, almost from the day he was appointed, that he has no intention of even putting on a veneer of non partisanship. He is just going to go full partisan all the time. This speech was just 1 long partisan ramble.
This isn't as true as you might think, actually. To quote Barr in his address:
I didn't say that the democrats haven't also done some obstructing. But barr singles out the left as the problem and conservatives as blameless patriots. it is insane. Republicans are very proud of all the obstructing and norm breaking they have been doing.
You should also keep in mind that trump has been nominating people who are wildly unqualified for jobs. Many of the objections raised by democrats were quite justified. but i do recognize that some were not.
Nope. He argues that there are certain areas that belong solely to the executive, as there are areas that belong solely to the legislature or to the judiciary.
And in a presidency where the president sticks to the norms of politics that might be the case. Trump regularly appoints people who are completely unqualified and takes actions that are blatantly illegal and/or unconstitutional with no regard at all for the fact that what he is doing is wrong. The barriers between the separation of powers only works when each uses those powers in a responsible way. Trump is absolutely not doing that. The republicans in the senate on congress are only slightly better (not committing crimes per se, but breaking the system to try to get their side more power).
I am not saying that the democrats are innocent in this either, they're not. But to pretend that conservatives haven't been pushing for the break down of the old political structure for their benefit is either incredibly naive or just blatantly a lie.
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@ethang5
Who's the police? The US? The US said that the homeowner was correct to take ownership of the 3 rooms.
The police in this case would the world community, including the US. The US is now saying they don't have any opinion on the fact that Isreal has, and is continuing to, steal land that doesn't belong to them.
Untrue. That is the argument you're making.
The israeli's are occupying land that doesn't belong to them. The US, contrary to most of the world, is saying that they no longer think this is illegal. IE they are denying reality. This is exactly the argument they are making. You just don't like it when I frame it in different terms.
So the homeowner is stealing his own house? Liberals are amazingly immune to reality.
The israeli's aren't the homeowners. They are the guy breaking in. The Palestinians own the land. The Israeli's are illegally building settlements on it.
There is a country called Israel. It has existed for more than 6,000 years.
That's funny. Because it hadn't existed for thousands of years until Europeans decided it did.
Has there ever been a country called Palestine?
Palestine has been the name of the region for thousands of years. The people who live there are therefore Palestinians.
We have 10,000 years of Israeli history. Old coins and artifacts. Old buildings and monuments. History of ancient kings and customs.
So? For most of that history the majority of the Jewish people didn't live in modern day Israel. Most of the jews left and were gone for centuries. That doesn't give them the right to come back and displace the people who have lived there for centuries.
But for the liberal, all that is imaginary. The land is owned by a nomad group from Jordan that has never had a country.
No, I understand the history. But the land should belong to the people who have lived there for centuries, IE the Palestinians, not people who until a few decades ago lived in other countries.
If the Palestinians lay down their weapons, peace would break out in the middle east.
If the Palestinians laid down their weapons they will never get any of their land back. You are essentially asking the victims of a crime to stop seeking justice so that other people can benefit. It is stupid on the face of it. There will never be peace until Israel stops blocking the peace process. They will never stop blocking the peace process until they give back the occupied land.
If Israel laid down their weapons, a slaughter would break out in the middle east.
No one is asking Israel to lay down their weapons. They have the right to defend themselves. They do not have the right to occupy land that doesn't belong to them.
What Trump should do is pressure Israel to actually negotiate in good faith. Threaten to pull all financial and military assistance if they don't actually offer something the Palestinians. As it stands Israel will never agree to anything because they don't have to. They already have everything they want. They get all the land. They get to suppress the Palestinians without having to compensate them or give them any rights. To the leaders of Israel, continuing this conflict forever is exactly what they want. Trump is playing right into their hands and ensuring peace continues to be impossible.
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I took another look at what he was saying. there is some disturbing stuff in there.
I mean the attorney general is supposed to be non partisan. They are not supposed to be an advocate for a political party or any particular person, including the president. But he just goes off on a deranged rant about how it is "the left" that is obstructing and shredding norms. But the Mitch McConnell had been laughing and announcing that he was going to block everything under Obama and making it part of his election campaign that he would do it again if the Democrats won in 2020. He loves being called the "Grim Reaper" for gods sake. The republicans have been destroying norms and rules for years to try to block the executive branch when it wasn't controlled by them. But Bar is such a partisan hack that he solely blames "the left" and says that "conservatives tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means." Is he watching the same political process the rest of the country is because he seems to have this backwards.
In his opinion, the executive branch should have very little oversight at all. He thinks that the president should be a quasi dictator.
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@ethang5
lol. So a guy breaks into your house and says that three of the rooms now belong to him. The police arrive and say, well we don't want to prejudge, ownership of those three rooms should be left up to the home owner and the guy who broke in.
That is the argument that the trump administration is making. That the group who is illegally stealing land shouldn't be called out for doing so. Basically what they are doing is refusing to call reality what it is to strengthen the hand of Israel when they decide they are never giving the Palestinians their land back.
What a terrible president Trump is.
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yeah, arguing that the trump administration has done nothing wrong when like 6 of trump's associates have been found guilty of crimes is a bit sad. How could someone who used to be a respected lawyer lower himself so much as to argue that criminal actions are fine because the president did them? I mean he was live tweeting threats to witnesses in his impeachment inquiry. Any lawyer can tell you that threatening a witness is a crime.
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@bmdrocks21
They are most certainly not making absurd profits. Health insurance companies get a 3.3% profit margin, which is pitiful. Banking and real estate companies make over 20% profit margins. Tell me, how is that modest 3.3% unreasonable?
Banking and real estate are also full of terrible business practices that desperately need to be regulated. But that is a separate issue.
I came across some interesting reading while researching your point. Below is an article describing how insurance companies are actively complicit in medical prices being high. They don't actually actually care that hospitals over bill. The primary purpose they are supposed to provide (being an advocate for keeping costs down) they aren't even doing. I honestly can't see that the insurance industry serves any purpose at all other than to milk money out of people.
We do not get rid of the middleman by getting rid of private insurance. We replace the insurance companies with government bureaucracy.
But you are removing a middle man. You are removing a for profit company that is trying to make money off of the system and replacing it with a government agency that is not trying to milk more money out of sick people. An insurance company doesn't have any interest in helping you or making sure you get the care you need. Their goal is to make money. So if they can prevent you claiming insurance, they will. And if they can't, they will just raise your rates the next year so they get all that (and more) back. A government agency isn't going to deny you service and they aren't going to raise your rates on you when you get sick. They will also actually advocate to lower prices where insurance companies won't.
I keep hearing that this will raise worker productivity, but by how much?
It's hard to be certain. Here is a link to an article looking at the effects universal healthcare had in Jamaica. It lowered sick day usage by 28%-34%. That is approximately 2.15 additional hours of labor per week. That is alot of worker productivity. One of the main reasons is that people with no insurance (or have a large deductible) don't get frequent health screenings and are likely not to seek medical attention for something if it isn't urgent. this lets minor medical issues that could be fixed turn into big medical issues that cost way more time and money to fix. You save alot of time and money if everyone can afford to get regular medical treatment.
And why couldn't raising competition and lowering regulation help drive down costs instead to prevent said bankruptcies?
How would you raise competition? They don't want to compete. They know that if everyone doubles their prices over what it actually costs, they will all make more than if they compete for prices. How would you force them to do that?
Lowering regulation is literally the worst idea. You are essentially saying that if you just cut rules the greedy, for profit companies have to follow then somehow that will result in them providing lower prices. There is absolutely no reason to think that cutting regulation would cause them to charge people less. They will charge as much as they can possibly get away with. Which the current system incentivizes them to do.
I don't believe that it will be better coverage unless it costs tons more, unless you price fix.
I'm guessing you mean price fix in the sense that the government decides what the price is. When the better way to look at it is fixing the price (as in repairing something that is broken). Hospitals regularly charge way, way more for services than it costs. Insurance companies have no incentive to fight them because they can always just squeeze that money out of people anyway. It is more profitable for them to be friendly with the hospitals than to advocate for cheaper care. If America had a single payer system, then the insurer (the government) would actually have a reason to push back when hospitals charge double or triple the amount they should.
They also would save huge amounts on administration costs. Some estimates put the current cost of administrative costs at over 1 trillion per year. The convoluted mess that is the current system is a huge part of that. If all claims were going to 1 place and that process was always the same, this could be streamlines and reduced. You could save hundreds of billions of dollars by simplifying this with a single payer system.
Then, that is how you get absurd wait times,
I agree it would increase wait times. But it is easy to keep wait times low when a large percentage of the population can't afford care. Essentially america keeps wait times low by pushing poor people out of the line. If you think you should get care faster by letting poor people die, then I guess you can go on believing that.
shortages of products,
If companies can earn a profit on a product they will produce it. They don't need a 50%-20,000% markup on it in order to produce it. The idea that controlling costs would lead to shortages is just ridiculous.
and stifled innovation.
Here is an article discussing that. The large majority of new drugs are funded by the government. Then a private company snatches them up, does a little bit of tweaking to them and sells them at a massive markup. The for profit companies take all the profit while government labs do much of the work. So no, you are not going to stifle innovation because much of that is government funded anyway.
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Elizabeth warren has provided more details about her healthcare plan, and it is a little baffling that she and her team thought this would go over well. Here is a link to her plan. And just as a heads up, yes this is likely to be heavy on opinion as the topic is speculative on events years in advance. If you think my opinions are incorrect, please let me know what you think.
Passing any kind of healthcare reform, whether it is Biden's plan, Buttigieg's or medicare for all, is going to be a brutal fight. Every republican will fight it. Some of the democrats, like Joe Manchin, are likely to fight it too.
Warren's plan is to have that brutal fight, but not to pass medicare for all (as she claims she supports) but to essentially do Pete's plan instead. Then 3 years later (before the end of the 1st term but likely after the midterm election) have the fight again to try to implement Medicare for all. This might be a good plan from a wonky, technocratic point of view. But from a political point of view it is insane.
The way it will play it out is like this. Democrats will fight for pete's plan and maybe get it passed. Then 3 years later, assuming warren pushes for Medicare for all at all, she will find that very few elected democrats have any interest in passing it. They already passed a healthcare reform. Most of them don't support medicare for all anyway. They will be happy with Pete's plan and not want to implement medicare for all. By putting pete's plan in 1st, she will temporarily alleviate some of the worst symptoms of the broken healthcare system and remove some of the pressure that could help pass medicare for all. This will make it even less likely she can get the democratic establishment to implement medicare for all. Even worse, it assumes that she wins the midterms. Historically the midterms swing support away from the president's party. It is entirely possible that after the midterm she loses enough support to actually pass it anyway.
In my opinion, this shows us 1 of 3 things. Potentially there could be elements of more than 1.
1) she doesn't have a solid enough understanding of politics to implement her plans. - If she thinks that splitting the healthcare reform into 2 separate political fights spaced a few years apart is a good political plan, that seems like she doesn't. It might be she is good at designing policy, but doesn't understand politics well enough to actually be in charge of implementing it.
2) This is her attempt at a cop out to try to win over the democratic establishment - The establishment of the democratic party don't want medicare for all. The progressive wing of the party insist on it. She wants to be seen as a progressive (she largely is one, i'm not saying she isn't) but also wants to be palatable to people like pelosi or clinton. So she is pushing for an implementation that is unlikely to work in an attempt to appeal to both sides.
3) This is her attempt to run as a progressive, but not actually pass medicare for all - It's possible she knows this won't work. That she knows perfectly well that the outcome will be Pete's plan and medicare for all won't get passed. It's possible this is an attempt to run as a progressive but not actually pass the main progressive policy and she is building in a way to deflect blame when it fails to pass.
Given that she is already being attacked from the right by Pete and Biden, it seems really odd that she has basically just opened up a huge target to be attacked from the left. In order to maintain support from progressives she needs to be crystal clear that she wants and will fight for medicare for all. This plan just creates more doubt.
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@bmdrocks21
The reason that private insurance is so expensive is because government programs underpay doctors. Will that problem be solved? If so, how much will it cost?
This doesn't even make sense. If the issue were that their costs were high so their rates had to be high, then their profit margins wouldn't be so massive. The fact that they are raking in 10's of billions of dollars in profit shows that their costs are not high because they need to be. The costs are high because they can get away with it. If you eliminated the middle man (the insurance company) you are saving massive amounts of money.
How does someone else having healthcare benefit me?
Both directly and indirectly. Directly because it guarantees that you, your family and your friends will all have healthcare.
Indirectly in the sense that it helps society, the same way schools do. Large amounts of productivity are lost because people are too sick or injured to work. Access to proper medical care will significantly reduce this. It will prevent 100's of thousands of bankruptcies per year. This will both protect people and therefore benefit society, but will also save a great deal of money because there isn't large amounts of money being written off when people default. The list keeps going but I don't want to make this super long.
how is it fair that I have to pay exponentially more money because other people make terrible life choices? Will shifting their costs to me deter their bad behavior?
There are 2 main problems here. 1) you will not pay exponentially more. The average family will pay the same or less. So your premise is flawed.
2) The costs are not being shifted to you. They are being shifted to society at large. You are benefiting from it directly in the same way they are. You will be paying less to get better coverage. You are essentially complaining about getting better coverage because other people will get it too.
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@bmdrocks21
Where have I heard this before....? You get to keep your doctor.... Not sure I care for your false promises
The bill, as written by Bernie sanders, would give all Americans total healthcare coverage that would cover every doctor. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it.
But, having the government decide what is and is not covered sounds like control to me.
Everything. Everything is covered and you can go to any doctor, any hospital. In the current system there is miles of red tape controlling which doctors you can see, which things are covered etc. Medicare for all provides much more freedom.
Should the family choose what plan best suits their needs or should the government do it? Should I have to pay for people who are unhealthy sloths while I work out, eat healthy, and don't strain the system? Probably not.
Should you have to pay for primary school for kids that aren't yours? Should your tax dollars go to funding a road you don't drive on? Should you have to pay for police or fire fighters you don't call? As a society we need these things to function. Everyone needs medical care just like everyone needs schools and fire fighters. If everyone has access to healthcare, then all of society benefits. Just like with roads, schools or fire fighters.
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@ResurgetExFavilla
You ascribed then (and ascribe now) a level of sentience to markets which just don't exist. A market cannot decide to go against demand or supply, no matter what the people which it comprises believe.
You are either misunderstanding me or human nature, i'm not certain which. You seem to be assuming that the market is neutral when that is very much not the case. The market is made up of humans, and those humans are in no way neutral. If the people who make up the upper levels of the market, for example, hated black people then the market would discriminate against black people. If enough people in the market believe the same thing then the market will reflect that belief. If enough people who control major companies create a culture where labor is undervalued, then it is undervalued in the market.
But the things you are proposing still don't make sense; the ruling class (capital) not wanting to pay more for labor does NOTHING to change the supply of labor, it changes the demand.
Why are you under the impression that you need to control both the supply and the demand of labor to control the price? If I and a small group of others control most of the jobs in a town and we decided that we would not pay more than X amount. Then it doesn't matter what workers want. They will either make the amount we decided, or their families go hungry. If the culture of the people making up the market is to under value labor so they can maximize profit, it doesn't matter what the supply is. They have nowhere else to go. There is nothing they can do if everyone (or the majority of companies) are all under valuing them. So by creating a culture where you pay as little as humanly possible to employees, while simultaneously undermining any sort of unionization, companies can get away with paying as little as they can.
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@bmdrocks21
He can't readCite your source
He can read. I mean he spends most of his day on twitter so he kind of has to be able to. He just won't read anything useful.
Please, do tell how he, not the Democrats, have authoritarian leanings. I would think the people vying to control the entire medical insurance market would be the authoritarians. You know, the ones who want to manipulate markets through central planning to have even more control over our lives?
Lol so providing care for every american and giving them the freedom to see any doctor any time they need to is authoritarian to you? I'm pretty sure giving people more freedom to choose their doctor is the exact opposite of that.
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@Vader
If I understood that article correctly, there really isn't any new funding. It looked like they just extended a previously existing policy that was about to expire.
Also, from what I can tell, they waited till pretty much the last possible minute to agree to this. Trump signed it September 30th. From what I can tell the bill he was extending was expiring on september 30th. If he had waited even 12 hours more to sign this, that bill would have already expired.
This is an objectively good thing that was done. But saying "trump is good" because he agreed to renew a policy is a bit much. From what I can tell he didn't actually improve anything, he just kept things from getting worse.
His tax plans have still made alot of other people's lives worse.
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@bmdrocks21
But the thing is that you shouldn't need to bribe companies like that. Companies should just pay their taxes. When states and cities compete like this to try to attract a company, they are essentially just giving up billions and billions of dollars of public money to a private company. It is the exact thing that republicans pretend like they are against. It is the government picking winners and loser in the economy. And they are doing it by helping billionaires put more billions in their pockets while the government is still struggling to pay for schools and roads.Getting tax revenue by giving people jobs mixed with not giving them welfare would be good for the state budget as well.
If all states and cities decided that they would stop with the special deals for companies, everyone (except for billionaires) would be better off. Companies are still going to expand and try to make more money. You don't need to bribe them to convince them to do what they are going to do anyway.
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@bmdrocks21
But don't you want people to have good-paying jobs? Is it better if they just live off the taxpayer rather than bolstering their resume and making a living? They were giving Amazon a tax credit. That means they were forgoing some future tax revenue, not offering them money.
Amazon would be using public resources, roads, water, policing etc. This will have huge public costs. If they aren't paying taxes to offset those costs then that is a huge financial loss.
You are also missing the bigger picture. If every big company gets treated like this, and to some extent they do, then they all get away without paying taxes properly. Cities, states and the US government still need tax revenue to pay for things, so that tax burden now has to fall on someone else. It isn't going to be the rich, who have these politicians on speed dial. So when companies get away with this sort of stuff, it is increasing tax burdens on the middle and lower class.
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@Greyparrot
It's impossible to get people to voluntarily rehabilitate when there are no consequences for taking a shit in the middle of the street in California
It's easy to say that when drug use is still very much criminalized and it is very difficult to actually help these people.
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@Dr.Franklin
Old people have always been republicansBoomers started out liberal as the anti-Vietnam gen but now are consverative
You really need to support your wild assertions with some facts. People don't magically become republicans as they get older.
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I would also support Romney. I might also toss in Pelosi. She isn't as bad as McConnell in my opinion. But she is a similar back room dealer sort of politician who is far more concerned with political power than actually doing good. She has now taken to spouting right wing talking points in an attempt to protect her power from the progressive wing of her own party.
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@bmdrocks21
How can anyone except a pure ideologue think that forcing Amazon jobs out of your district is a good idea?
Not all jobs are good for the community. Especially if you need to bend over backwards and do all sorts of favors for that company to get those jobs in the 1st place. That can be extremely damaging and expensive.
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@TheRealNihilist
I assume that anyone would say that about themselves. But do you seriously think that someone like Mitch McConnell is deeply concerned about the people of Kentucky, or is he just concerned about republicans and himself getting more power?Anyone would also say this. Your opinion doesn't change that. Doesn't matter that the results were bad but that person would've wanted what was best for the people they represent. Unless we are talking about fringe cases.
No matter what you say you would need some kind of non-existence brain technology to make him out to be someone like the joker.
I'm not claiming that he is some evil mastermind out to poison Gotham's water supply. But he doesn't seem to really care about his constituents. He has been in politics a long time. He is in it for the money and the power. If that comes at the expense of his constituents I doubt it would trouble him.
His party represents half more or less of the US population. If he didn't he wouldn't be as powerful.
But does he use that power to just to gain and maintain his power, or does he use it in a way that he believes would help people. I think AOC tries to use her power and influence to help people. I think McConnell just wants the power and influence.
Even if he might be a crony (by your standard) Mitch can easily say I am doing this to make a better place.
I'm sure he would say that. But he said, with a straight face, that Obama shouldn't have the right to appoint a judge in his last year, then laughed about it and said he would definitely let trump do that. He is a liar.
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