“I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT ...”
He thinks he can dictate the plain meanings of words.
People still try to say Trump is unpredictable. If you look at him and think “What would a domestic abuser say and do next?,” you’ll have him pegged every single time.
That was his line in 2016. But maga never did and apparently never will actually produce a policy that would result in that. File this one up there with Infrastructure Week. Democrats are the ones who passed healthcare and infrastructure legislation.
There never was and never is anything to the Trump movement other than "We refuse to accept that a Black guy was elected president." That's why they want to destroy everything he accomplished. And why Trump, in his obvious dementia, has begun saying more and more frequently that he's running against Obama.
It's beyond dispute at this point that he ran for president the first time because Obama made fun of him at the WH Correspondents Dinner and he just wanted to destroy everything Obama did. (Remember he had to be talked out of announcing a run against Obama himself on the spot.)
But in the words of Charlie Pierce, that's not about race because nothing is ever, ever about race.
“What would a domestic abuser say and do next?,” you’ll have him pegged every single time - possibly the greatest assessment of his MO I've heard in a long time !!!
The immunity issue stays with the DC Circuit as the final word...Supremes already have ruled against tRump's "absolute immunity" when it concerns a criminal investigation (NY grand jury subpoena of his tax records), and the Court is unlikely to revisit that 7-2 decision again, IMHO.
I tend to agree they will not grant cert, just a denial without comment, which would be beautiful to see even though I normally dislike those intensely.
I wish for once Democrats would ask Republicans why they gave up on their own market-based solution to healthcare, which was created by the notorious Heritage Foundation and eventually became Obamacare, after morphing a bit from Romneycare.
Not only did Republicans INVENT Obamacare, they actually held a formal test bed for it under Romney in Massachusetts.
You can find Heritage's original proposal here, in PDF format:
"Overall, what’s striking about the Heritage plan is that it’s not notably more conservative than what Obama actually implemented: a bit less regulation, a substantial amount of additional spending. If Obamacare is an extreme leftist measure, as so many Republicans claim, the Heritage Foundation in the 1980s was a leftist institution."
I had to really dig for the PDF, and lucked out when I saw the link is still a live link in Krugman's article..
They've worked on covering it up, because the original link on Heritage is now gone:
When you click the "Read the full report" plus sign, it expands into a series of more recent articles more in line with the concept of screwing everyone over.
Obamacare was a wet dream for insurers, which is why they supported it, and which is why it passed instead of a more substantial solution like Medicare for All.
It was a wet dream for insurers because the government gave them a FREE bourse — an exchange where they could sell their wares. Of course they loved it.
Democrats should be beating the drums about how Republicans turned against their own plan, and demand that they tell Americans why they are now against it. It really bugs me how Republicans leave so many holes in their various attacks against society, and Dems rarely expose them.
I get that this is frustrating, but remember most Trump voters think Obamacare is bad but the ACA is good. It’s difficult to get them to understand anything beyond a few sound bytes.
McConnell openly vowed to make President Obama‘s life a living hell and to obstruct everything he tried to do. He made that clear the first week that Obama took office. He’s disgusting.
The jury isn't fully out on that, yet, depending on which party think its backfired at, that is! Given the huge disconnect between every viable fact and stat showing the economy is better than it was under the previous guy, and the amount of people who think the economy is actually worse, well...
There is so much irony surrounding the ACA that the room starts to spin. The ACA was modeled in the first place on a Republican-authored state level plan in Massachusetts. Medicare itself is under threat, with privatized Medicare Advantage style money-maker plans by the insurance companies poised to take over.
I'm newly signed up with Medicare. The Medicare site already looks and acts like the Obamacare site. The basics of Medicare are so paltry that you've gotta sign up for more extensive plans. The good news is I was able to find a decent one for 0$ that surprisingly included dental. That's the part Republicans will go after first. They'll make it easier to charge more substantial premiums for the filler plans (the jargon escapes me right now, sorry)
Good choice...your plan does include Medicare Pt D, right? My wife and I declined Pt D for years, having little prescription drug needs, but years later, we're in with a monthly penalty.
Out of curiousity, Kaiser-Permanente or Human, if you don't mind me asking?
Humana. Yeah, Part D. They really don't publicize the penalty enough. It's the only reason I did it. I almost missed it. I rarely see a doctor so I didn't really see the need, but I'm glad I found it now. I'm leery of Humana but I wasn't willing to drop a lot of money on this now. I figure if they're awful I can change in the future. Routine testing was covered by the basic, so I got myself a shingles vaccine before I added Humana, because Feinstein, lol.
I've been with Kaiser since the mid-1980s, transitioned to Kaiser Medicare Advantage when I turned 65 (15 years ago) and have been very satisfied with coverage and quick responses when my few substantial medical issues arose - DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ/breast cancer) in 2009 ($300 co-pay) and skin cancers (basal cell cancers twice and melanoma more recently which was entirely removed prior to surgery scheduled to confirm that removal by dermatologist cleared all of the margins). In 2009, after a tiny lump was id'd in my left breast, I received a call to set up an appointment for biopsy within hours of returning home.
Part D, prescription coverage, has been very reasonable although that is largely because I'm mostly healthy for my age. My most expensive prescription is an inhaler costing $80 for 3 months' supply; others are much lower or even no charge. Each invoice shows me what I pay and what Medicare pays to Kaiser for that medication.
Dental is an extra monthly fee but I found, when I paid for it years ago and kept a record of the monthly cost compared to what I would have paid out-of-pocket without the coverage (came out equal just as my dentist cousin said it would), I dropped it because I wanted to stay with my dentist who doesn't accept Delta Dental.
In 2022, I paid monthly from Social Security: $170.10. My 2023 SS payment monthly went down to $164.90. Co-pays have been low and, presently not at all for primary care or nurse visit; lab rates lower than in the past. Includes vision and hearing plus a credit toward cost of glasses and hearing aids (which latter I thankfully don't need so far). Yes, I know the difference is paid by Medicare but I paid into Medicare for over 40 years so feel I'm getting my money's worth.
In September, I went to an Urgent Care facility in the Outer Banks of NC (I'm in San Diego) to have a skin wound (paper skin!) evaluated following my sister's first aid effort, and Kaiser covered it. So, I'm quite satisfied with Kaiser Permanente.
We had been with Kaiser for ca. 40 yrs, CA, then HI, then Group Health in NW WA until Kaiser acquired them a few years ago. GH were the best, but stuck w/ Kaiser until 2024, when we will give Humana a whirl...Humana had more attractive incl. dental plan than Kaiser, but if not satisfied, it's back to K-P.
Wow, sorry for that! I really don't understand the point of the penalty. I get trying to get people to be proactive with their health, but basic Medicare seems to take care of most of that kind of stuff.
Well, on my Substack app, the three-dot options are: Share comment; Hide comment; and Delete comment...never could get the "Edit" option. Perhaps it's different on the Website version.
Still waiting to see the Obamacare replacement plan that’s cheaper and better. It’s probably in a file cabinet at Mar-a-Lago along with the compelling evidence of election fraud that Trump’s lawyers won’t let him release just yet.
One point Republicans always avoid addressing is that Obamacare would have been *far* more cost effective if the Republican governors hadn't rejected expansion, to the detriment of their own constituents.
It's rotten that messaging is so poor. I think they rely on people being too busy, broke, and distracted to understand why their living situations are more stressful than necessary.
It isn't even that. They have so demonized "liberals" and "leftists", the Democratic Party is understood to be pushing socialism/communism and in league with Satan. Starting with Reagan, they have sold a total bill of goods to people who are quite certain that they will become rich at some point - and they have been able to convince their voters to vote against their own interests ever since. The real irony is this: if they should ever realize the dream of killing "entitlements" and all forms of welfare, these will be the worst-hit victims.
Unfortunately, here in the US, we have the worst of both worlds with Medicare: An unenthusiastic attempt at socialized medicine with no check on unbridled capitalism.
It's amazing, though not surprising, the number of red states that voted for expansion via referendum, and the GOP has still tried to kill that (sorry can't get those exact states at the moment).
Not to steal your glory, Jay, but Jeff Tiedrich did a nice job of teeing up the utter nonsense that is flowing from Trump's mouth these days--he hasn't been really coherent for years, but his spew this week was more incoherent than usual. Tiedrich makes the valid point that the media cleans up Trumpspeak so it isn't as wholly indicative of dementia as it is.... https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/holy-shit-the-squirrels-in-donald
"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!!" Which was a real, actual thing back in the Tea Party days. That was the first time I truly understood how the American educational system had failed so many of its people. Functionally and civically illiterate.
Or they don't even know the name or source of their coverage. And that's if they're lucky enough to live in a state whose governor didn't reject the expansion.
I’m sure there are people who still continue to buy tRump’s bs about a “beautiful new healthcare system” that he had four years to propose to the US and never did. Some folks simply refuse to learn. Those are the ones I’ve given up on.
There have been some disturbing articles this past week positing that the US is "sleepwalking" towards a second Trump presidency. Some of the points that are being made include the media giving a free pass to Trump on his gaffes and pronouncements in stark contrast to Biden, the reluctance on the part of state judges to bar Trump from the ballot and just let the SCOTUS rule on it, and the Democrats inability to cope with the high vulnerability of their likely ticket - that Biden could probably win with a different VP choice but might well lose if it's Harris. Trump lawyer Steve Sadow is expanding upon the notion that trying the various indictments against Trump is "election interference," while nobody in the press claps back that Trump choosing to run a presidential campaign AFTER having been indicted on probable cause for various felonies is a de facto obstruction of justice.
Taken in total, the outcome feels balanced upon a knife's edge. That is not a perception I want to have going into the New Year.
The good news is that some of the polls are pointing back to Biden a bit. He's gonna need to reign in Netanyahu if he wants to sustain that, though. Also, the more Trump's words through video slip into the public consciousness, the more people will notice the obvious deterioration in his mental acuity, which to me (as someone who has been around his kind of disease), is quite profound. Republicans are making a mistake comparing age. Trump is no match, unless Biden has some kind of traumatic brain event in the next few months.
Check out Jeff Tiedrich on Substack this a.m., he has several tRump "rally" speeches that are all but incomprehensible...cratering cognitive ability doesn't half describe the man's condition.
On Facebook, there is a strange “reel” that continuously pops into my newsfeed and it has been nothing but video clips of Biden and trying to make him look super old and out of it. It’s not like a typical post that you can got to the web page and try to get identifying information. No matter how many times I click to hide it, it persistently shows up. I figure *ucker Zucker has now completely swallowed the dark side.
"... the reluctance on the part of state judges to bar Trump from the ballot and just let the SCOTUS rule on it..." To be fair, You will have a very hard time finding any state lower-court judge willing to make that kind of ruling on a case of this potential magnitude; keeping people OFF the ballot is generally not what they do absent bright-line black-letter law. Seriously consequential constitutional matters are literally above their pay grade, as in that's what appeals court and Supreme Court judges get paid for.
Believe me, I do understand. I am going to go with conservative master of jurisprudence, Michael Luttig, and say that that is “business as usual“ adjudication, and that the extraordinary magnitude of the possible consequences requires justices to step outside of their normal zone of comfort.
I don't disagree - it's just that that level of courage is seldom found in lower courts. Judges who are willing to take on such things usually have the word "maverick" appear early in their bios. No one has ever before been asked to keep a former President's name off a ballot, so it just isn't a surprise when they punt. And they generally don't come down either way without asking other judges whom they respect, including people who have mentored since law school, for advice. We can criticize them for a lack of cojones, but those seats are hot.
(1) Santos' departure has generated my following mental fantasy: if Trump hadn't been born into a wealthy family and inherited $several hundred million from Dad, he could have been George Santos.
(2) The two Trump court cases I think will have the most negative impact on his 2024 chances are: the NY civil case and its potential $250 million fine and divestment of all his NY properties and the 3 cases writer E. Jean Carroll has won against Trump: #1 was sexual abuse (fined $5 million), #2 was Defamation and #3 was libel. The penalty hearing for the last two has not yet taken place.
“I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT ...”
He thinks he can dictate the plain meanings of words.
People still try to say Trump is unpredictable. If you look at him and think “What would a domestic abuser say and do next?,” you’ll have him pegged every single time.
That was his line in 2016. But maga never did and apparently never will actually produce a policy that would result in that. File this one up there with Infrastructure Week. Democrats are the ones who passed healthcare and infrastructure legislation.
There never was and never is anything to the Trump movement other than "We refuse to accept that a Black guy was elected president." That's why they want to destroy everything he accomplished. And why Trump, in his obvious dementia, has begun saying more and more frequently that he's running against Obama.
You are so right. Rump is such a blatant racist ass. It's shocking how blinded by privilege white people are.
Someone needs to put together a compilation video of all the times he announced that his plan was coming soon
I can't believe it hasn't already been done!?
Yup. Donald wants to replace Obamacare with N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
But, it will be an amazing, astounding and perfect nothing...
A *beautiful* nothing, that is to say.
It's beyond dispute at this point that he ran for president the first time because Obama made fun of him at the WH Correspondents Dinner and he just wanted to destroy everything Obama did. (Remember he had to be talked out of announcing a run against Obama himself on the spot.)
But in the words of Charlie Pierce, that's not about race because nothing is ever, ever about race.
tRump just has soooo much probs with uppity "coloured people".
Taught him by his father. Over and over and over again.
“What would a domestic abuser say and do next?,” you’ll have him pegged every single time - possibly the greatest assessment of his MO I've heard in a long time !!!
The immunity issue stays with the DC Circuit as the final word...Supremes already have ruled against tRump's "absolute immunity" when it concerns a criminal investigation (NY grand jury subpoena of his tax records), and the Court is unlikely to revisit that 7-2 decision again, IMHO.
I tend to agree they will not grant cert, just a denial without comment, which would be beautiful to see even though I normally dislike those intensely.
As I posted elsewhere, SCOTUS is done with his "immunity" claims, and done with him, full stop.
I wish for once Democrats would ask Republicans why they gave up on their own market-based solution to healthcare, which was created by the notorious Heritage Foundation and eventually became Obamacare, after morphing a bit from Romneycare.
Not only did Republicans INVENT Obamacare, they actually held a formal test bed for it under Romney in Massachusetts.
You can find Heritage's original proposal here, in PDF format:
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/1989/pdf/hl218.pdf
You can read Paul Krugman's analysis here:
https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/heritage-on-health-1989/
He concludes with:
"Overall, what’s striking about the Heritage plan is that it’s not notably more conservative than what Obama actually implemented: a bit less regulation, a substantial amount of additional spending. If Obamacare is an extreme leftist measure, as so many Republicans claim, the Heritage Foundation in the 1980s was a leftist institution."
I had to really dig for the PDF, and lucked out when I saw the link is still a live link in Krugman's article..
They've worked on covering it up, because the original link on Heritage is now gone:
https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/national-health-system-america
When you click the "Read the full report" plus sign, it expands into a series of more recent articles more in line with the concept of screwing everyone over.
Obamacare was a wet dream for insurers, which is why they supported it, and which is why it passed instead of a more substantial solution like Medicare for All.
It was a wet dream for insurers because the government gave them a FREE bourse — an exchange where they could sell their wares. Of course they loved it.
Democrats should be beating the drums about how Republicans turned against their own plan, and demand that they tell Americans why they are now against it. It really bugs me how Republicans leave so many holes in their various attacks against society, and Dems rarely expose them.
I get that this is frustrating, but remember most Trump voters think Obamacare is bad but the ACA is good. It’s difficult to get them to understand anything beyond a few sound bytes.
Honestly, I am more worried about the typical casual American voter, those that don't read political blogs, than the lost souls who follow this man.
Yes, Jay, it is a constant uphill battle for those of us in what that George W. Bush advisor called "the reality-based community."
Simple: they opposed anything and everything because they wanted Obama to be seen as a failure. See: Mitch McConnell.
McConnell openly vowed to make President Obama‘s life a living hell and to obstruct everything he tried to do. He made that clear the first week that Obama took office. He’s disgusting.
Idiots even thought that referring to the ACA as Obamacare was a slur. Instead it has immortalized Obama as a man of the people. Genius!
Just came to me that they did the same thing with Bidenomics, which also backfired!
Good point!
The jury isn't fully out on that, yet, depending on which party think its backfired at, that is! Given the huge disconnect between every viable fact and stat showing the economy is better than it was under the previous guy, and the amount of people who think the economy is actually worse, well...
I know the answer. I want Dems to make Republicans provide the answer.
There is so much irony surrounding the ACA that the room starts to spin. The ACA was modeled in the first place on a Republican-authored state level plan in Massachusetts. Medicare itself is under threat, with privatized Medicare Advantage style money-maker plans by the insurance companies poised to take over.
I'm newly signed up with Medicare. The Medicare site already looks and acts like the Obamacare site. The basics of Medicare are so paltry that you've gotta sign up for more extensive plans. The good news is I was able to find a decent one for 0$ that surprisingly included dental. That's the part Republicans will go after first. They'll make it easier to charge more substantial premiums for the filler plans (the jargon escapes me right now, sorry)
Good choice...your plan does include Medicare Pt D, right? My wife and I declined Pt D for years, having little prescription drug needs, but years later, we're in with a monthly penalty.
Out of curiousity, Kaiser-Permanente or Human, if you don't mind me asking?
Humana. Yeah, Part D. They really don't publicize the penalty enough. It's the only reason I did it. I almost missed it. I rarely see a doctor so I didn't really see the need, but I'm glad I found it now. I'm leery of Humana but I wasn't willing to drop a lot of money on this now. I figure if they're awful I can change in the future. Routine testing was covered by the basic, so I got myself a shingles vaccine before I added Humana, because Feinstein, lol.
We recently found out that one can change plans up to 31 March of following year, or so our healthcare broker informs us.
I've been with Kaiser since the mid-1980s, transitioned to Kaiser Medicare Advantage when I turned 65 (15 years ago) and have been very satisfied with coverage and quick responses when my few substantial medical issues arose - DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ/breast cancer) in 2009 ($300 co-pay) and skin cancers (basal cell cancers twice and melanoma more recently which was entirely removed prior to surgery scheduled to confirm that removal by dermatologist cleared all of the margins). In 2009, after a tiny lump was id'd in my left breast, I received a call to set up an appointment for biopsy within hours of returning home.
Part D, prescription coverage, has been very reasonable although that is largely because I'm mostly healthy for my age. My most expensive prescription is an inhaler costing $80 for 3 months' supply; others are much lower or even no charge. Each invoice shows me what I pay and what Medicare pays to Kaiser for that medication.
Dental is an extra monthly fee but I found, when I paid for it years ago and kept a record of the monthly cost compared to what I would have paid out-of-pocket without the coverage (came out equal just as my dentist cousin said it would), I dropped it because I wanted to stay with my dentist who doesn't accept Delta Dental.
In 2022, I paid monthly from Social Security: $170.10. My 2023 SS payment monthly went down to $164.90. Co-pays have been low and, presently not at all for primary care or nurse visit; lab rates lower than in the past. Includes vision and hearing plus a credit toward cost of glasses and hearing aids (which latter I thankfully don't need so far). Yes, I know the difference is paid by Medicare but I paid into Medicare for over 40 years so feel I'm getting my money's worth.
In September, I went to an Urgent Care facility in the Outer Banks of NC (I'm in San Diego) to have a skin wound (paper skin!) evaluated following my sister's first aid effort, and Kaiser covered it. So, I'm quite satisfied with Kaiser Permanente.
We had been with Kaiser for ca. 40 yrs, CA, then HI, then Group Health in NW WA until Kaiser acquired them a few years ago. GH were the best, but stuck w/ Kaiser until 2024, when we will give Humana a whirl...Humana had more attractive incl. dental plan than Kaiser, but if not satisfied, it's back to K-P.
Penalty for first 2-3yrs is only a couple of bucks a month...I worked mine up to $84/mo....ouch!
Wow, sorry for that! I really don't understand the point of the penalty. I get trying to get people to be proactive with their health, but basic Medicare seems to take care of most of that kind of stuff.
That's *Humana", btw! No editing on Substack!
Three dots to the right under the comment, you'll see an "Edit" option. :-) But I knew what you meant!
Well, on my Substack app, the three-dot options are: Share comment; Hide comment; and Delete comment...never could get the "Edit" option. Perhaps it's different on the Website version.
Still waiting to see the Obamacare replacement plan that’s cheaper and better. It’s probably in a file cabinet at Mar-a-Lago along with the compelling evidence of election fraud that Trump’s lawyers won’t let him release just yet.
Nothing but crayon doodles.
And ketchup splatters.
And soiled Depends.
One point Republicans always avoid addressing is that Obamacare would have been *far* more cost effective if the Republican governors hadn't rejected expansion, to the detriment of their own constituents.
And they continue to do so, and very few of said constituents have a clue about how much harder their lives are as a result.
It's rotten that messaging is so poor. I think they rely on people being too busy, broke, and distracted to understand why their living situations are more stressful than necessary.
It isn't even that. They have so demonized "liberals" and "leftists", the Democratic Party is understood to be pushing socialism/communism and in league with Satan. Starting with Reagan, they have sold a total bill of goods to people who are quite certain that they will become rich at some point - and they have been able to convince their voters to vote against their own interests ever since. The real irony is this: if they should ever realize the dream of killing "entitlements" and all forms of welfare, these will be the worst-hit victims.
Nailed it!
Unfortunately, here in the US, we have the worst of both worlds with Medicare: An unenthusiastic attempt at socialized medicine with no check on unbridled capitalism.
It's amazing, though not surprising, the number of red states that voted for expansion via referendum, and the GOP has still tried to kill that (sorry can't get those exact states at the moment).
Time is the greatest enemy of justice indeed. Appreciate the clear explanation here, though it all is still very unsettling! Thanks Jay. ✌️💙
I can’t wait for Trump’s plan to be announced “in two weeks.” 😂
And his "definitive mountain of evidence" exculpating him on the Jan 6 charges...coming next week.
😂
Oops, he'd arranged for Rep. Santos to present the "evidence." Gonna have to wait for a bit.
I’m still waiting on my commemorative “gold” coins from tRump’s “summit” with N Korea’ Kim Jong Un, cerca 2018. 😂
😂
Not to steal your glory, Jay, but Jeff Tiedrich did a nice job of teeing up the utter nonsense that is flowing from Trump's mouth these days--he hasn't been really coherent for years, but his spew this week was more incoherent than usual. Tiedrich makes the valid point that the media cleans up Trumpspeak so it isn't as wholly indicative of dementia as it is.... https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/holy-shit-the-squirrels-in-donald
he’s doing God’s work here.
Or the nation's. As are you.
And what the mainstream media is doing is criminal.
I just read Jeff’s piece. Thanks for calling it out.
So infuriating! It's like the last 2 minutes of a basketball game that take 40 minutes to play.
Thnks Jay - I needed that this morning - I think we all did.
Back to the days when the cult cries "I don't need Obamacare. I've got the ACA."
"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!!" Which was a real, actual thing back in the Tea Party days. That was the first time I truly understood how the American educational system had failed so many of its people. Functionally and civically illiterate.
Or they don't even know the name or source of their coverage. And that's if they're lucky enough to live in a state whose governor didn't reject the expansion.
I’m sure there are people who still continue to buy tRump’s bs about a “beautiful new healthcare system” that he had four years to propose to the US and never did. Some folks simply refuse to learn. Those are the ones I’ve given up on.
In his Iowa "rally", tRump promised his mob "a beautiful new house" and a "beautiful new car" when he returns to power...rubes ate it up.
And a beautiful new wife, in the grand tradition of Trump himself and the much more entertaining Talking Heads?
Thank you Jay!
Thank you once again for your insights.
There have been some disturbing articles this past week positing that the US is "sleepwalking" towards a second Trump presidency. Some of the points that are being made include the media giving a free pass to Trump on his gaffes and pronouncements in stark contrast to Biden, the reluctance on the part of state judges to bar Trump from the ballot and just let the SCOTUS rule on it, and the Democrats inability to cope with the high vulnerability of their likely ticket - that Biden could probably win with a different VP choice but might well lose if it's Harris. Trump lawyer Steve Sadow is expanding upon the notion that trying the various indictments against Trump is "election interference," while nobody in the press claps back that Trump choosing to run a presidential campaign AFTER having been indicted on probable cause for various felonies is a de facto obstruction of justice.
Taken in total, the outcome feels balanced upon a knife's edge. That is not a perception I want to have going into the New Year.
The good news is that some of the polls are pointing back to Biden a bit. He's gonna need to reign in Netanyahu if he wants to sustain that, though. Also, the more Trump's words through video slip into the public consciousness, the more people will notice the obvious deterioration in his mental acuity, which to me (as someone who has been around his kind of disease), is quite profound. Republicans are making a mistake comparing age. Trump is no match, unless Biden has some kind of traumatic brain event in the next few months.
Check out Jeff Tiedrich on Substack this a.m., he has several tRump "rally" speeches that are all but incomprehensible...cratering cognitive ability doesn't half describe the man's condition.
Tffg has been giving word salad speeches since 2016
Thanks. And agreed.
Kagan’s article scared the shit out of me. I’ve been depressed ever since.
I think he is off-base in his OpEd, personally. I understand the need to ring all the alarm bells, but he overlooks a lot of positive news.
Thank you, Jay. I will now go back to enjoying our vacation.
Neocon throwing-shade-on-Dems screed disguised as a Never tRump warning.
On Facebook, there is a strange “reel” that continuously pops into my newsfeed and it has been nothing but video clips of Biden and trying to make him look super old and out of it. It’s not like a typical post that you can got to the web page and try to get identifying information. No matter how many times I click to hide it, it persistently shows up. I figure *ucker Zucker has now completely swallowed the dark side.
"... the reluctance on the part of state judges to bar Trump from the ballot and just let the SCOTUS rule on it..." To be fair, You will have a very hard time finding any state lower-court judge willing to make that kind of ruling on a case of this potential magnitude; keeping people OFF the ballot is generally not what they do absent bright-line black-letter law. Seriously consequential constitutional matters are literally above their pay grade, as in that's what appeals court and Supreme Court judges get paid for.
The 14th Amendment is about as bright as it can be. Aid insurrection = ineligible.
Believe me, I do understand. I am going to go with conservative master of jurisprudence, Michael Luttig, and say that that is “business as usual“ adjudication, and that the extraordinary magnitude of the possible consequences requires justices to step outside of their normal zone of comfort.
I don't disagree - it's just that that level of courage is seldom found in lower courts. Judges who are willing to take on such things usually have the word "maverick" appear early in their bios. No one has ever before been asked to keep a former President's name off a ballot, so it just isn't a surprise when they punt. And they generally don't come down either way without asking other judges whom they respect, including people who have mentored since law school, for advice. We can criticize them for a lack of cojones, but those seats are hot.
(1) Santos' departure has generated my following mental fantasy: if Trump hadn't been born into a wealthy family and inherited $several hundred million from Dad, he could have been George Santos.
(2) The two Trump court cases I think will have the most negative impact on his 2024 chances are: the NY civil case and its potential $250 million fine and divestment of all his NY properties and the 3 cases writer E. Jean Carroll has won against Trump: #1 was sexual abuse (fined $5 million), #2 was Defamation and #3 was libel. The penalty hearing for the last two has not yet taken place.
Asking the GOP candidates about ACA is a great idea, but my sister and I would like the news media to ask them if they approve of Project 2025 too.
Of course they do! What Nazi Fascist Republican wouldn't have wet dreams of possessing that kind of power?