Healthcare Repeal in Trouble.

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It would seem that one thing needs to be made very clear in any post about healthcare – the snidely nicknamed Obamacare is the same thing as the Affordable Care Act. It would appear that some Trumpoids think they are different. Now that’s all cleared up, resistance to the rethuglicans’ spite move is surfacing. This is a good thing, but whether or not it will be enough to smack some sense into the spiteful heads, that remains to be seen. This insistence on dismantling workable healthcare should be waking people up, because there is absolutely no reason to do it. None. There’s even a really great reason to leave it be, along with the little fact that it would be good thing to allow millions of people to keep their healthcare.

Republicans in Congress are hoping to make a big political statement this month by rushing to repeal Obamacare [Affordable Care Act]. Considering that Republicans are about to control the White House and two chambers of Congress, that legislative goal may seem like it’s firmly within reach. But the GOP’s repeal effort is actually in serious trouble.

Republicans’ Obamacare [Affordable Care Act] strategy — known as “repeal and delay” — is losing support from several moderate lawmakers who don’t want to move forward with repeal before the party has landed on a replacement plan. If they hold out, there’s no way Obamacare repeal can move forward.

On Monday evening, five GOP senators introduced a measure that would essentially slow down the repeal effort working its way through Congress.

[…]

GOP leaders are attempting to unite their party behind “repeal and delay” because they need more time to figure out what to do next. Republicans have yet to agree on a real health care reform plan to take Obamacare’s [Affordable Care Act] place. So they want to make a political statement now and work through the policy details later.

But there’s broad consensus that “repeal and delay” would wreak havoc on the insurance industry. Major lobbying groups like the American Medical Association, Republican governors whose states are benefiting from Obamacare, and prominent conservative think tanks have all come out against this approach, saying it’s too risky and threatens to jeopardize too many Americans’ health insurance.

President-elect Donald Trump has also come out against “repeal and delay.” During a little-noticed 60 Minutes interview in November, Trump said that repealing and replacing Obamacare needs to happen simultaneously.

So, slightly positive news, but the real problem lies in the conservatives’ idea of healthcare. Some of their replacement ideas have been truly horrible, and anything they are likely to come up with will amount to red tape nightmare of no practical use. It would be very nice if the incredibly hard of thinking republicans could grok the saying if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Via Think Progress.

All the Dress Shops.

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© Ken Kaminesky.

The Pendejo-elect is still all a-twitter over Ms. Streep’s speech. Naturally, he insists he did not watch the Globes, and did not see or hear the speech, he’s just having this massive over-reaction over nothing at all. Donny also added that that he was “not surprised” that he had come under attack from “liberal movie people.” Oooh, those nasty liberal movie people. All that said, Team Trump isn’t having much luck with the nasty liberal music people, either, but a stupid denial has been issued:

Mr. Trump said that, Ms. Streep and her allies aside, he was confident that celebrities and others would turn out in strong numbers for his inauguration.

“We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars,” Mr. Trump said. “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.”

Interesting how focused Donny is on dresses. Perhaps he has pussy grabbing on his mind. I guess there’s no suit a/o tuxedo shortage in Washington. As Trump continues, ineffectually, to appear unruffled by all those nasty liberal types, his team is still trying to gather any talent at all for the inauguration. The latest reach out was to Charlotte Church:

@realDonaldTrump Your staff have asked me to sing at your inauguration, a simple internet search would show I think you’re a tyrant. Bye [followed by 4 shit icons.]

Via NY Times and Raw Story.

The Red Wave.

Creatas Images / Getty Images.

Creatas Images / Getty Images.

Another journalist has gone running to the nazi side, in this case, the co-founder of Politico, Mike Allen, who is described as one of the most powerful journalists in D.C. Allen has apparently decided to do everything in his power to normalise the fascist state we now find ourselves in, to the point of praising Breitbart’s journalism to the skies. Why yes, made up bullshit is just great journalism, didn’t you know? Just this tiny snippet, because the whole damn things sickens me.

Describing how he approached a speaking engagement in front of a Trump-friendly audience in Wyoming shortly after the election, Allen said he decided to “shut up” so he could “listen to you about what you liked about Trump, how you came to your decision, what your inputs were.”

“A lot of it is also psychic and sociological and social. The anti-PC thing I think is a huge part of it,” he said, before going on to recount a conversation he had with a Trump-supporting friend on a train shortly after the election.

“People in America [were] just living their lives as they always have, and things were just changing too fast. ‘I’m living my life the way I always have and all of the sudden I’m the bigot, I’m a bad guy,’ and I think that was a huge part of this red wave.”

All of a sudden you’re the bigot, the bad guy. Well, if you are a bigot, yes, that makes you a bad guy. Right here in the open is why people voted for Trump – they want to be able to stay on top of the people pile, being bigoted assholes with the ability to make other people miserable. It’s disgusting. Repulsive. Sickening. Bad guy isn’t enough. Evil asshole, perhaps.

Full story at Think Progress.

Nuclear Safety? What’s That?

Credit: Getty.

Credit: Getty.

According to an official within the Department of Energy, this past Friday, the President-elect’s team instructed the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration and his deputy to clean out their desks when Trump takes office on January 20th.

The NNSA is the $12 billion-a-year agency that “maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.” It’s unclear when the two officials will be replaced.

[…]

Trump, however, appears determined to immediately push out everyone who was appointed by Obama, regardless of whether or not he has anyone in line for the job. Or, as our source put it: “It’s a shocking disregard for process and continuity of government.”

Just as with Obama’s soon-to-be-removed international envoys, Trump has ordered Under Secretary for Nuclear Security Frank Klotz and his deputy, Madelyn Creedon—both Obama appointees—to leave their posts, even if it means no one is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons. According to our Energy Department source, Trump’s team has yet to nominate anyone to succeed them. Since both positions require Senate confirmation, if could be months before their chairs are filled. And the vacancies may extend beyond the leadership roles.

“There are scores more appointees within the department,” our source told us. “Secretarial and administration appointments that don’t require Senate confirmation, mostly performing policy, liaison, and strategic advisory capacities in support of the agency they’re at. They serve at the will of the head of their agency. Those people are, theoretically, also out on inauguration day unless otherwise directed, which hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge.”

The source later added, “I’m more and more coming around to the idea that we’re so very very fucked.”

Yes, we certainly are fucked. Probably much more than we know. A government run on spite. That ought to work out just great. Fuck.

Gizmodo has the full story.

Trump: $5 Million Owed to Workers.

In the months after Trump and his family cut the ribbon at Trump’s D.C. hotel in October, three subcontractors filed liens seeking more than $5 million in bills they claim have not been paid. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post).

In the months after Trump and his family cut the ribbon at Trump’s D.C. hotel in October, three subcontractors filed liens seeking more than $5 million in bills they claim have not been paid. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post).

In an all too standard move, Trump has been bragging and boasting about handing over a historic hotel to daughter Ivana for redecoration and all that, and has refused to pay all the people who worked their arses off to get it up and running.

In the frenzied final six weeks of work at the hotel, while Trump touted the project on the campaign trail, AES of Laurel, Md., claims it assigned 45 members of its staff to work 12-hour shifts for nearly 50 consecutive days to get the lights, electrical and fire systems prepared on time.

“We had people there well over 12 hours a day for weeks because they had a hard opening of Sept. 12 and you can’t open if the lights don’t work and the fire alarms don’t work and the fire marshal can’t inspect it,” said Tim Miller, executive vice president of AES. “There is a lot of work that went into that hotel, and it didn’t happen by accident.”

Trump got his wish: The hotel was ready enough that on Sept. 16 he held a campaign event there honoring veterans, which was carried live on national television. He touted the hotel as having been completed “under budget and ahead of schedule” and said that when it opened officially the following month it would be “one of the great hotels anywhere in the world.”

But around the same time, Miller said, the Trump Organization and its construction manager, Lendlease, stopped paying AES. Three days before Christmas, AES filed a mechanic’s lien with the D.C. government alleging that it was out almost $2.1 million. “Merry Christmas and a happy new year to us,” Miller said.

The AES filing brings the total of allegedly unpaid bills on the hotel to more than $5 million. Washington-area plumbing firm Joseph J. Magnolia Inc. and Northern Virginia construction company, A&D Construction, are seeking $2.98 million and $79,700 respectively.

This is the Trump organization response:

“In developments of this scale and complexity the filing of nominal liens at the conclusion of construction is not uncommon as part of the close out process,” a representative for the company wrote.

Now, I’m not a businessman, but I’m going to call a big ol’ bullshit on this one. Why force companies to file at all, a costly and I’m sure, unwanted procedure? Why not just pay them? Oh of course, this is Trump, a man renowned for reneging, stiffing, and not paying anyone, at least not until it’s time to settle yet another court case. There’s the “smart” businessman Trumpoids have put their trust in.

“We’re not in this for any sort of political reasons,” Miller said. “We have no ax to grind, political or otherwise. We’re a business. We have 700 employees that we pay every week. We have bills. We are effectively financing this work, and we don’t think it’s right. That’s really it.”

Oh, but Donny is so gosh darned concerned for workers, right?

The Washington Post has the full story.

“You Always Want to Go With What He Says!”

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ABC News.

Meryl Streep delivered one hell of a takedown on Trump without ever mentioning him. Naturally, the thin-skinned narcissist hasn’t been able to cope, blurting out nastiness all over twitter while his henchperson tells people to “look in his heart”. I don’t want to look at Donny’s heart, it’s 70 years old and no doubt not terribly pretty. Oh wait…yeah, I don’t want to look at that heart either. It’s a chaotic, malice filled nest of narcissism.

Receiving a lifetime achievement award Sunday night at the Golden Globes, actress Meryl Streep expressed her concern about President-elect Donald Trump, focusing in on the moment during the campaign in which he mocked a reporter’s disability. Doing damage control Monday morning, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway pleaded that people ignore Trump’s words and the video of Trump obviously mocking the reporter, and instead look at “his heart.”

“You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart?” Conway asked CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

Generally speaking, Ms. Conway, going by what people say is the standard by which we judge. Perhaps you should work a bit harder on shutting Donny up, because so far, all his words, they reflect what’s in his “heart”, and it’s an ugly landscape.

Just an hour earlier, Conway had been on Fox and Friends, attacking Meryl Streep for “inciting people’s worst instincts.” Streep gave an eloquent speech about rejecting bullying and encouraged everyone to feel empathy for others.

That sounds about right. Every single person who has compassion, we’re operating on our worst instincts. That definitely fits in with Donny’s reality. (There’s video of this at the link.)

…Conway’s argument is that no matter what Trump might do or say that is actually wrong or objectionable, it doesn’t matter so long as people believe he meant well. Streep, on the other hand, must be held accountable for promoting division by not standing by the President-elect.

Ah, intentions. I don’t believe Trump meant well, I don’t think he ever means well. What’s that old saying about good intentions?

Full story at Think Progress.

Ethics & Team Trump: Never the Twain Shall Meet.

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The Office of Government Ethics has been attempting to chase down Team Trump, who are doing everything in their power to evade, so far, successfully. Is “people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear” still a thing? If so, it would appear that Team Trump has everything to fear.

New emails reveal that the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) reportedly “lost contact” with President-elect Donald Trump’s team during the ongoing transition to power, despite efforts to warn officials about ethical issues posed by nominees and “blind trusts.”

According to emails uncovered by MSNBC, OGE director Director Walter Shaub contacted Trump aides in November expressing deep frustration with the lack of cooperation between his organization and the president-elect’s team. Shaub reportedly cautioned Trump against creating a blind trust of his business holdings without speaking to the OGE first, noting that the ethics office only considers something a blind trust if its assets have “been sold off”—a very different standard that the “half-blind” trust floated by Trump’s own team. (To date, Trump has not suggested that he will sell off his assets.)

MSNBC noted that the emails, which it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, included few details regarding any efforts by the president-elect to divest from assets that could result in potential conflicts of interest during his presidency.

[…]

Shaub also argued that Trump’s staff was risking “embarrassment” by refusing to allow the ethics office to review the financial records of potential cabinet selections before they were announced, saying some could potentially violate federal law.

“They run the risk of having inadvertently violated the criminal conflicts of interest restriction at 18 USC 208,” Shaub wrote. “If we don’t get involved early to prevent problems, we won’t be able to help them after the fact.”

The tension may explain the OGE’s effort to troll Trump on Twitter in late November.

Look, a bonus Sunday Facepalm! The only way to maybe get the Pendejo-elect’s attention is to troll him on Twitter. For fuck’s sake. Even some conservatives are appalled:

Yes. And not only that, but McConnell’s deep hypocrisy is on show as well:

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate plans to rush forward this week with confirmation hearings for many of Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet and other key executive positions. Though many of the picks have not yet completed the customarily required ethics clearances and background checks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has shown no willingness to delay.

[…]

But back in 2009, McConnell took the exact opposite view. A letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), posted on Twitter by Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington co-founder and former Obama administration ethics adviser Norm Eisen on Sunday, shows he demanded that “financial disclosures must be complete” before any confirmation hearings be scheduled.

How things change, eh?

Think Progress has the full stories: Government Ethics and McConnell.

ALEC: We Can Do Whatever We Want.

Scott Walker, ALEC marionette. Credit: Donkey

Scott Walker, ALEC marionette. Credit: DonkeyHotey.

The American Legislative Exchange Council — a nonprofit better known as ALEC — briefed its members and allied groups on the bright future for its agenda now that Republicans will effectively control 68 of the nation’s 99 state legislative bodies, as well as 33 governor’s mansions. Among other things, group members said they would push bills to reduce corporate taxes, weaken unions, privatize schooling and influence the ideological debate on college campuses.

“We can pretty much do whatever we want to right now,” said Rep. Jim DeCesare, a Republican state legislator in Kentucky, where the party gained the state House for the first time in nearly a century.

DeCesare, who had been minority whip, described plans for “a pretty intense agenda” including a so-called right-to-work law allowing employees who are covered by collective bargaining agreements to opt out of joining labor unions. Another, he said, would be repealing rules that require government contractors to pay employees more than the minimum wage. Neighboring states competing for new businesses, he said, had already gutted such regulations.

“We’ve got some catching up to do, but we plan to make up a lot of ground in a very short time,” DeCesare said. “This is our time to shine.”

[…]

Inez Feltscher, director of ALEC’s education task force, outlined plans to advocate for legislation giving money to parents who take their children out of public schools — stipends they could use for private schooling or other educational expenses. Critics of these “education savings accounts” say they’re a drain on public-school funding, while proponents argue they give parents a chance to pick the best situation for their kids.

Feltscher acknowledged another motivation: “To break the monopoly on one of the most important institutions in America.” Conservatives have long been at odds with teachers unions over the structure and curriculum of public schools. “We’ve let the left take over almost all of the cultural institutions of this country,” she said.

Another ALEC target, Feltscher said, would be the state of “free debate on American universities,” which conservatives say are largely dominated by left-leaning faculty, courses and speakers. For example, she said, lawmakers could use a range of tactics to press administrators to include multiple ideologies during on-campus public policy talks, such as demanding an annual count of campus events that included more than one perspective. Simply requiring measurement and public reporting would apply pressure, she said, but legislators could also take it to “the nuclear level” and threaten to pull funding from schools that are perceived to be limiting discourse.

“There’s going to be a lot more aggression on this,” Feltscher said.

Corporate rule. Oh, joy. They’ll get all the money and cozy breaks, friendly legislation, and all the people working? Screwed. And no more education, we prefer ignorant dumbfucks!  Oh, we are beyond fucked.

ProPublica has the full story.

A Week of Trump Failures and Lies.

Just the highlights here, head over to Alternet for all the gory details.

1. Calling for an investigation of NBC instead of the Russian hacks.

2. Making personal calls instead of doing his friggin’ job.

3. Accepting Julian Assange’s word over 17 intelligence agencies.

4. Admitting he duped his no-nothing voter base on the border wall, then lying again.

5. Lying about having a hand in every job-saving deal.

6. But refusing to take credit for job losses.

7. Calling Democratic senator Chuck Shumer a ‘clown,’ then saying we need to unite 9 minutes later.

8. Throwing Obama’s political ambassadors and their families out on short notice.

9. Scheduling a news conference to distract from his appointee hearings.

10. Still publicly smarting about being dissed by all the cool-kid pop stars for his little inauguration thing.

Pretty sure that’s barely the top layer of lies, it’s harder and harder to keep up, what with all the lies, obfuscation, and never ending tantrums.

Repealing ACA Will Cost $350 Billion.

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As most people should be aware by now, the scum-sucking assholes who will be in charge just can’t wait to kill off “Obamacare” for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Oh, except for spite. Pretty soon, a whole lot of people are going to find themselves without healthcare, and they’ll be looking at dying much sooner than they planned, because that’s what happens when you don’t have healthcare. The republican thugs want you to believe it’s about saving money, but that really couldn’t be further from the truth. They have no replacement plan, and dismantling the ACA will be costly.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget reveals that repealing the Affordable Care Act will likely cost the federal government at least $350 billion, and that doesn’t include the cost of replacing it.

“Repealing the entire ACA would leave no funds available for ‘replace’ legislation, and in fact would require further deficit reduction to avoid adding to the debt,” the report notes.

The analysis also focuses only on the net cost to the federal government and doesn’t consider the economic burden (which CNBC calls “the far bigger economic impact”) that will face insurers, hospitals, doctors, drug companies, and others in the existing health system. And of course, it doesn’t include an estimate of the financial impact on the 23 million Americans who will lose their health coverage if the ACA is repealed and not replaced.

The Advocate has the full, in-depth story.

Missing Out On $50 Trillion and Millions of High Wage Jobs.

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CREDIT: Department of Energy (DOE).

Clean energy. It’s the only possible way to go right now, and there’s more promise in clean energy than anything else, but Pendejo-elect Trump is making sure that America will not only miss out on all the money clean energy can bring, but the millions of jobs which go with it. No, much better to commit to filthy energy, which can stuff a few select, already overflowing pockets with more money, making sure that the environment gets destroyed, and to keep on denying climate change. Oh yes, that’s just so much better, by golly, that will make America great again, you betcha. :insert near-fatal eyeroll here.:

A few days ago, Joe Romm at Think Progress had an article up about the clean energy, and how it will be a $50 trillion industry, and how Trump has determined that the U.S. will not be a part of it.

The best charts of 2016 reveal the clean energy revolution is unstoppable. At least, it is unstoppable globally.

But if the United States makes a historic blunder and shifts its focus back toward dirty energy just when the rest of the world has made a $50 trillion (or higher) commitment to a carbon-free future, then it won’t reap the vast job-creating benefits of the remarkable ongoing cost reductions shown in chart above.

That article is here.

Today, there’s an article about all the jobs created by clean energy.

Renewable energy jobs in select countries (excluding large hydropower). CREDIT: IRENA.

Renewable energy jobs in select countries (excluding large hydropower). CREDIT: IRENA.

China is preparing to go big on the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades.

Beijing’s newest 5-year energy development plan invests a stunning 2.5 trillion yuan ($360 billion) in renewable generation by 2020. Of that, $144 billion will go to solar, about $100 billion to wind, $70 billion to hydropower, and the rest to sources like tidal and geothermal power.

The Chinese National Energy Administration said in a statement Thursday the resulting “employment will be more than 13 million people.”

China is already doing way better than the U.S. in this regard, and President-elect Trump’s commitment to opposing clean energy will not make things any better. As the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported last year, China already has over 40 percent of all jobs in renewables, globally, while the U.S. has under 10 percent (see chart above).

We know clean energy jobs are the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades for several reasons.

If you’re one of those Americans who fell for Trump’s “jobs!” bullshit, perhaps you should look into moving to China, I hear they are hiring. The full article is at Think Progress.

The Trump Wall: Taxpayer Funded.

© Richard Misrach. Border Cantos.

© Richard Misrach. Border Cantos.

It seems that Trump is still determined to waste an insane amount of money on a wall, but as Mexico has rightly refused the offer to foot the bill, eyes are looking elsewhere, to the American taxpayer, specifically. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I do not want one cent of my earnings to go for this gargantuan stupidity. This whole idea is bad, all the way around, and on top of all the bad, makes me feel very claustrophobic, like I might not be able to get out.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is working on making his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, the cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign, a reality. However, there is a slight change in plans.

The team told GOP officials the real estate mogul had signaled that the building of the wall be funded by American tax dollars and not by Mexico, as he had previously claimed, CNN reported Thursday citing House Republicans. Officials are looking to fund the construction using the appropriations process as early as April.

[…]

The 2006 law allowed the construction of a “physical barrier” running for 700 miles on the country’s southern border, Politico reported earlier Thursday. The law was never fully implemented and did not include a sunset provision allowing Trump to continue where Bush left off using the funds Congress would allocate for the project.

“It was not done in the Obama administration, so by funding the authorization that’s already happened a decade ago, we could start the process of meeting Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge to secure the border,” Indiana Rep. Luke Messer told CNN on Thursday.

[…]

Republicans would have to add millions to the spending bill — which needs to pass by the end of April — to keep the government open, should Mexico refuse to pay for the wall. But the move could irk House Democrats who might threaten the GOP with a government shutdown.

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, a senior GOP leader in the House, did not say if Congress will pay for the construction of the wall.

“We want President Trump to have all the tools he needs to build the wall,” Scalise reportedly said. “We’re in talks with him on the details of it as they’re still putting together their team. We still got a few months before there’s another funding bill that’s going to move. We’re going to work with him to make sure we can get it done. We want to build a wall. He wants to build a wall.”

The GOP lawmaker said the project would involve “big dollars, but it’s a question of priorities,” citing Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul’s $10 billion border security bill that he proposed last year.

“Democrats may well find themselves in the position to shut down all of government to stop the buildout of a wall, or of a barrier, or of a fence,” Messer added.

America: excels in stupid, like building a gigantic wall; never builds bridges.

Via Raw Story.