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Monthly Archives: June 2020


Unless I am reading and seeing different information, this administration is conducting an “HUTA” operation on behalf of an uninformed leader. “HUTA” is an acronym for “Heads UP Their Asses” The recent and ongoing mishandling of government is aided and abetted by a cadre of minions whose apparent function is to do what TOTUs wants in spite of their “good” judgement or doing what they want to accomplish according to their personal and ill informed information. This administration has spent more time tweeting rather than administering for the good of ALL citizens no matter the race. There is no excusing the loss respect and the economic down turn brought on by the misfeasance of the 45the Presidency. The poor judgements and actions of this administration has affected all voters even if some cannot understand the long term effects or perhaps refuse to. It is well to remember the baser members of our Congress are enjoying the cover provided by this administration for their nefarious actions. We all strive to be informed but we fail to migrate to more than a single source for information. Please do not become a HUTA member.

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Has anyone noticed in the pursuit of freedom many groups political, non political, religious and non religious to name a few have spent and still are spending millions of dollars to push their personal agendas on everyone else. To list  them by name would take up this page and several others. Since America ( the United States) is touted as the home of the brave and the land of the free, why is it that these groups are working hard to install judges who they hope will change or install laws that fit their agenda? The end result of any law enacted or changed affects ALL Americans. Judges by the name of their position are supposed to be neutral arbiters of the law- in other words a neutral party whose politics and personal opinions are supposed to be left outside the courtroom. Currently “Bitch” McConnell is busily installing judges that he deems will follow “his idea of conservatism”. This is all occurring as TOTUS keeps spouting or touting himself as the nations savior(?). Essentially “Bitch” is using “45” as a cover for his political activities which are not in the public’s interests and will hurt us for years to came. As voters we have to become well informed and look at the “fine print” as our elected officials are selling us down the river for the sake of their parties and to hell with the voters!

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What Are the Different Types of Abortion

Abortion is a procedure in which a woman, assisted by members of the medical community or not, terminates her pregnancy, generally within the first few months, before the embryo is old enough to live outside of the womb.

Two types of abortion procedures are legally available to women in the United States to terminate a pregnancy: so-called medication abortions, which are drug-induced, and surgical abortions, which require out- or inpatient surgery.

The risk of complications from abortion is today very small. A fraction of a percentage of abortion patients have complications that require hospitalization—less than 0.3 percent have long-term risks. Abortions are also decreasing in frequency: approximately 926,000 abortions (14.6 per 1,000 women ages 15–44) were performed in 2014, down 12 percent from 2011.

  • In the U.S., there are four types of surgical abortion and one type of medication abortion that are legal for women and their doctors to use.
  • The availability of those methods is dependent on state and local regulations, as well as how long a woman has been pregnant and why the pregnancy should be terminated.
  • World regulations of abortions vary considerably, from very restrictive to very supportive.

 

Trimesters and Abortions

A woman’s (and her doctor’s) choice on how to terminate pregnancy depends on the availability of abortion services along with the length of pregnancy. Most women facing an unplanned pregnancy who opt for an abortion do so early on. Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision making abortions legal in the United States, established ground rules for the ability of individual states to regulate (surgical) abortion access to women, based on how far the pregnancy has progressed.

  • First trimester (first three months): The states cannot regulate abortions beyond requiring that the procedure is performed by a licensed doctor in medically safe conditions. In 2014, the last year that the U.S. Center for Disease Control provided statistics on abortion, 88 percent of U.S. abortions took place during the first trimester.
  • Second trimester: The states may regulate abortion if the regulations are reasonably related to the health of the pregnant woman. Ten percent of abortions occurred in the second trimester in 2014.
  • Third trimester: The state’s interest in protecting the potential human life outweighs the woman’s right to privacy, and the state may prohibit abortions unless an abortion is necessary to save her life or health. Two percent of all abortions take place during the third trimester.

 

Medication Abortions

Medication abortions do not involve surgery or other invasive methods but rely on medications to end a pregnancy.

A medication abortion involves taking the drug mifepristone; often called the “abortion pill”; its generic name is RU-486, and its brand name is Mifeprex. Mifepristone is not available over the counter and must be provided by a healthcare professional. A woman seeking a medication abortion can obtain one through a doctor’s office or clinic and should expect two or more visits to complete the process, as another drug, misoprostol, must be taken to terminate the pregnancy first. In many cases, mifepristone may be taken at home following a provider visit.

Mifepristone is prescribed in the first trimester and is FDA-approved for use up to 70 days (10 weeks) after a woman’s last period. In 2014, medication abortions made up 31 percent of all nonhospital abortions, and 45 percent of abortions before nine weeks of gestation.

 

Surgical Abortion: First Trimester

All surgical abortions are medical procedures that must be done in a health care provider’s office or clinic. Two surgical abortion options are available to women during the first trimester.

D&A (dilation and aspiration): Dilation and aspiration abortions, also known as vacuum aspirations, involve using gentle suction to remove fetal tissue and empty the woman’s uterus. This procedure can be performed on a woman on an outpatient basis for up to 16 weeks after her last period.

D&C (dilation and curettage): D&C abortions combine suction with the use of a spoon-shaped instrument called a curette to scrape the uterine lining to remove any remaining tissue. This procedure can be performed again on an outpatient basis during the first trimester.

 

Second-Trimester Abortions

Second-trimester abortions must take place in a hospital setting, and they generally require a hospital stay and are far more frequently regulated by the states.

D&E (dilation and evacuation)D&E abortions are typically performed during the second trimester (between the 13th and 24th weeks of pregnancy). Similar to a D&C, a D&E involves other instruments (such as forceps) along with suction to empty the uterus. In later-second-trimester abortions, a shot administered through the abdomen may be necessary to ensure fetal demise before the D&E begins.

As of June 2018, D&E abortions have been banned in two U.S. states (Mississippi and Texas); both states allow exceptions in the case of life or severe physical health threats to the woman. Legislation to ban the procedure is currently temporarily or permanently enjoined in six others.

D&X (dilation and extraction): About 0.2 percent of the abortions performed per year occur during later-term pregnancies, and are called dilation and extraction (D&Xprocedures, or partial birth abortions. Used mainly for medical reasons when the health or life of the mother is at risk as a result of the pregnancy, the fetus is dismembered and removed from the womb.

D&X abortions are banned in 20 states; enforcement of the state laws is permanently or temporarily enjoined by court order in most other states. Exceptions are made for life endangerment or health reasons in three of the 20 states banning the process; 10 states allow D&X only if the woman’s life is endangered.

 

A Bit of Historical Background

Prior to the 19th century, abortion was not legally regulated, but by the 1890s, abortion was legally restricted in almost every country in the world. Those laws were first established in the imperial countries of Europe—Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy—and quickly spread to their colonies or former colonies. The laws were instituted for three stated or unstated reasons:

  • Abortion was dangerous and abortionists were killing a lot of people.
  • Abortion was considered a sin or a form of transgression.
  • Abortion was restricted to preserve fetal life in some or all circumstances.

In the United States, abortion was criminalized in the 1880s, but that didn’t stop abortions. A wide range of dangerous and ineffective abortifacients such as pennyroyal pills, ergot, and slippery elm was available everywhere from barbershops to gas stations to shoeshine parlors. By the 1960s, women had an underground referral service known as “Jane,” and a political action group known as the Redstockings. Eventually, that activism led to Roe v. Wade.

 

Availability of Abortions World Wide

Today, abortions are regulated in different ways in different countries and cultures. National constitutions include abortion rules in at least 20 countries, and other regulations are set in high court decisions, customary or religious laws, confidentiality among health professionals, medical ethics codes, and clinical and other regulatory guidelines.

But laws and policies can be sabotaged, and access to abortion can be restricted by public shaming and demonstrations at clinics, bureaucratic obstacles such as unnecessary medical tests, required counseling even if women feel no need for it, having to wait to make an appointment, or having to obtain consent from a partner, parent, or guardian.

By the end of the 20th century, abortion was legally permitted to save the life of the woman in 98 percent of the world’s countries. In 2002, globally, abortions were legal under the following circumstances:

  • 63 percent of countries allow abortions to preserve the woman’s physical health.
  • 62 percent to preserve the woman’s mental health.
  • 43 percent in the case of rape, sexual abuse, or incest.
  • 39 percent for fetal anomaly or impairment.
  • 33 percent for economic or social reasons.
  • 27 percent on request.

Some countries permit additional grounds for abortion, such as if the woman has HIV, is under the age of 16 or over the age of 40, is not married, or has many children. A few also allow it to protect existing children or because of contraceptive failure.

 

Global Rules and Restrictions

The right to abortion is commonly used as a political football for politicians, a hot button for and against women, and as a result, countries change their laws with administrations, swinging from very permissive to very restrictive in the space of a few months.

In the U.S., attitudes toward abortion in the various states range from extremely hostile—10 states have between six and 10 different regulations affecting women’s access—to supportive, with 12 states having no more than one regulation. The number of states supportive of abortion rights fell from 17 to 12 between 2000 and 2017. In Australia, each state and the Capital Territory has a different law, ranging from very liberal to very restrictive. In Canada, abortions have not been restricted since 1988 and are available on request with no stipulations throughout the country.

In Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, and Peru, abortion is severely legally restricted. In Africa, the Maputo Protocol is legally binding in 49 signatory countries, which calls for safe abortions “in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother and fetus.”

 

Sources

The Abortion Pill.” Mifepristone.com. 2010. Web.

The Abortion Pill.” Planned Parenthood n.d. Web.

“Bans on Specific Abortion Methods Used After the First Trimester.” Guttmacher Institute. June 2018. Web.

“Fact Sheet: Induced Abortion in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute. January 2018. Web.

Armitage, Hannah. “Political Language, Uses and Abuses: How the Term ‘Partial Birth’ Changed the Abortion Debate in the United States.” Australasian Journal of American Studies 29.1 (2010): 15–35. Print.

Berer, Marge. “Abortion Law and Policy Around the World in Search of Decriminalization.” Health and Human Rights 19.1 (2017): 13–27. Print.

Daniel, H., et al. “Women’s Health Policy in the United States: An American College of Physicians Position Paper.” Annals of Internal Medicine 168.12 (2018): 874–75. Print.

Gillette, Meg. “Modern American Abortion Narratives and the Century of Silence.” Twentieth-Century Literature 58.4 (2012): 66387. Print.

Hayler, Barbara. “Abortion.” Signs 5.2 (1979): 30723. Print.

Kumar, Anuradha. “Disgust, Stigma, and the Politics of Abortion.” Feminism & Psychology. (In press 2018). Print.

White, Katharine O., et al. “Second-Trimester Surgical Abortion Practices in the United States.” Contraception 98.2 (2018): 95–99. Print.

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The Guardian

Robert Reich
<span>Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters</span>
Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Donald Trump will do anything to be re-elected. His opponents are limited because they believe in democracy. Trump has no limits because he doesn’t.

Related: Trump bruised as polls favour Biden – but experts warn of risk of dirty tricks

Here’s Trump’s re-election playbook, in 25 simple steps:

1) Declare yourself above the law.

2) Use racist fearmongering. Demand “law and order” and describe protesters as “thugs”, “lowlife” and “rioters and looters”. Describe Covid-19 as “kung-flu”. Retweet posts from white supremacists. In your campaign ads, use a symbol associated with Nazis.

3) Appoint an attorney general more loyal to you than to America, and politicize the Department of Justice so it’s lenient on your loyalists and comes down hard on your enemies. Have it lighten the sentence of a crony convicted of lying under oath. Order investigations of industries you dislike.

4) Fire US attorneys who are investigating you.

5) Fire independent inspectors general who are looking into what you’ve done. Crush any whistleblowers you find.

6) Demean and ignore the intelligence community. Appoint a director of national intelligence more loyal to you than to America. Demand that the head of the FBI pledge loyalty to you.

7) Pack the federal courts with judges and justices more loyal to you than to the constitution.

8) Politicize the Department of Defense so generals will back whatever you order. Refer to them as “my generals”. Have them help clear out protesters. Order the military to surveil protesters. Tell governors you’ll bring in the military to stop protesters.

9) Purge your party of anyone disloyal to you and turn it into a mindless, brainless, spineless cult.

10) Get rid of accumulated experience and expertise in government. Demean career public servants. Hollow out the state department, the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and public health.

11) Reward donors and cronies with bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, government contracts, regulatory rollbacks and plum jobs. Put their lobbyists in charge of your agencies. Distribute $500bn in pandemic assistance to corporations in secret, without any oversight.

12) Coddle dictators. Don’t criticize their human rights abuses. Refuse to work with the leaders of other democracies. Withdraw from international treaties.

13) Create scapegoats. Demonize migrants and lock up asylum seekers at the border, even if they’re children. Put a white nationalist in charge of immigration policy. Blame Muslims, Mexicans and Chinese.

14) Denigrate and ridicule all critics. Describe opponents as “human scum”. Attack the mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people”.

15) Conjure up conspiracies supposedly led by your predecessor and your opponent in the last election. Without any evidence, accuse your predecessor of “treason”. Fabricate a “deep state” out to get you.

16) Downplay real threats to the nation, such as a rapidly spreading pandemicLie about your utter failure to contain it. Muzzle public health experts. Urge people to go back to work even as the pandemic worsens in parts of the country.

17) Encourage armed supporters to “liberate” states from elected officials who disagree with you.

18) Bribe other nations to investigate your electoral opponent and flood social media with lies about him.

19) Use rightwing propaganda machines like Fox News and conspiracy-theory-peddling One America News to inundate the country with your lies. Ensure that the morally bankrupt chief executive of Facebook allows you to spread your lies on the biggest media machine in the world.

20) Suppress the votes of people likely to vote against youIntimidate voters of color. Encourage Republican governors to purge voter rolls, demand voter ID and close polling places.

21) Seek to prevent mail-in ballots during the pandemic. Claim they will cause voter fraud, without evidence. Threaten to close the US postal service.

Related: Covid-19 survivors could lose health insurance if Trump wins bid to repeal Obamacare

22) Get Vladimir Putin to hack into US election machinesas he did in 2016 but can now do with more experience and deftness. Promise him that in return you’ll further destabilize America as well as Nato. Let him even place a bounty on killing US troops in Afghanistan.

23) If it still looks like you’ll be voted out, try to postpone the election.

24) If you’re voted out of office notwithstanding all this, refuse to leave. Contest the election, claim massive fraud, say it’s a conspiracy, get your cult of a political party to support your lies, get your propaganda machine to repeat them, get your justice department to back you, get your judges and justices to affirm you, get your generals to suppress any subsequent rebellion.

25) Declare victory.

Memo to America: beware Trump’s playbook. Spread the truth. Stay vigilant. Fight for our democracy.


 

06-27-2020

Tré Goins-Phillips,  Faithwire

I have to wonder: What would Frederick Douglass think of us?

On Tuesday, a group of angry protesters gathered around a statue the great abolitionist — himself a formerly enslaved man — dedicated on April 14, 1876, 11 years after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all enslaved peoples.

Standing in the D.C. plaza surrounded by prestigious members of the U.S. Congress, members of the U.S. Supreme Court, and President Ulysses S. Grant, Douglass delivered a stirring address in celebration of the what later became known as the Emancipation Memorial.

Douglass, more than the memorial itself, was moved by the peacefulness of the celebration in the nation’s capital. He was overcome to see people with white and brown skin coming together to celebrate not only the unveiling of the statue but the freedom it represented.

Here’s a particularly poignant portion of Douglass’ dedication:

I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here 20 years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace today is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future.

I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice; but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow citizens and ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then; the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races — white and black. In view, then, of the past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.

It would certainly grieve Douglass today to see the group of progressive protesters vowing to destroy and tear down that very memorial, which was paid for by freed slaves, as well as its replica in Boston.

To Douglass, the Emancipation Memorial’s placement in the heart of Washington, D.C., was itself a form of peaceful protest — a beacon of freedom and a reminder of the equal place black Americans ought to have in the country:

We are here in the District of Columbia, here in the city of Washington, the most luminous point of American territory; a city recently transformed and made beautiful in its body and in its spirit; we are here in the place where the ablest and best men of the country are sent to devise the policy, enact the laws, and shape the destiny of the Republic; we are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome of the Capitol of the nation looking down upon us.

We are here, with the broad earth freshly adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring for our church, and all races, colors, and conditions of men for our congregation — in a word, we are here to express, as best we may, by appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high, and pre-eminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln.

If you’re still not sure how Douglass might feel about the effort now to tear down the Emancipation Memorial, look no further than this chilling and powerful portion of his dedication in 1876:

Let it be known everywhere … [that] we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which the men of this generation may read, and those of after-coming generations may read, something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.

Douglass knew then at the end of the 19th century that memorial wasn’t a beacon just for his day, but one for generations to come — a beacon for the United States in 2020 when we are bursting at the seams with division and vitriol.

The famed abolitionist knew Lincoln wasn’t perfect. In fact, Douglass referred to him as “pre-eminently the white man’s president,” but added: “While Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from bondage, according to [Thomas] Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.”

And to those who are so confused to believe the statue — which depicts Lincoln standing with his arm outstretched as a freed slave on one knee lifts his head up — depicts servitude, look again.

The memorial is rich with meaning and shouts the message of freedom.

As one woman explained to WJLA-TV: “That man is not kneeling with two knees with his head bowed. He is in the act of getting up. And his head is up — not bowed — because he’s looking forward to a future of freedom. People have said, ‘Well, he’s chained to Mr. Lincoln.’ With a closer look, you’ll see that, while there’s a shackle on his right hand, he’s holding the end of a broken chain, which means he has taken to his freedom. He now realizes that he’s free.”

“So I say leave it,” she continued. “Let it stand.”

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CONGRESS NBC News

Senate Democrats block GOP policing bill, calling it ‘irrevocably flawed’ and ‘partisan’

Democrats want the bill to include bans on chokeholds and “no-knock” search warrants and to address qualified immunity, which shields police officers from lawsuits. 

 

Booker, Harris on Republican police reform plan: It would ‘lead us into a dead end’

JUNE 24, 202002:53

June 24, 2020, 11:51 AM CDT / Updated June 24, 2020, 3:28 PM CDT

By Rebecca Shabad

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked Republicans from taking up a bill to overhaul policing, calling the legislation flawed and a nonstarter.

A motion to open debate on the measure, which needed 60 votes, failed 55-45.

Ahead of the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Republicans for what he called a “partisan” and “irrevocably flawed” approach to fixing the problem of police brutality, which has come into sharp focus in the weeks after the deaths of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers.

“I want to ask the American people, I want to ask Republican senators, who is a better guardian of the civil rights of African Americans when it comes to police reform, the NAACP or Mitch McConnell?” Schumer said. “So don’t get on your sanctimonious horse, leader McConnell. You have none of the civil rights community behind you.”

Schumer predicted the bill would “likely fail” and said McConnell should allow bipartisan negotiations when it does.

Trump: Democrats ‘want to weaken our police’ after blocking Republican reform plan

JUNE 24, 202001:35

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and other Senate Republicans unveiled their policing legislation last week after weeks of nationwide protests over the treatment of Black Americans by law enforcement.

After the vote, Scott, the Senate’s only Black GOP member, accused Democrats of taking Black voters for granted and biding time until after the November election, when they could be in the majority and could try to push through their version of reforms.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake up our entire nation about the importance of a duopoly and not a monopoly,” Scott said. “Because look at your results. Look at the results we are getting.”

Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications, tweeted that it was “a shame” that Democrats were “playing politics” with the legislation.

At a news conference later Wednesday, President Donald Trump said Republicans have “total cooperation with many different communities, including the police community,” on the legislation.

Recommended

CONGRESSFinger-pointing begins over stalemate on police reform legislation

CONGRESSSenate Democrats will oppose GOP police reform bill, setting up stalemate in Congress

The president accused Democrats of blocking the Republican bill because “they want to take away a lot of the strength from our police and from law enforcement generally,” including police “immunity,” and said his administration would not do anything to hurt police. Trump again pointed to what he said were high crime levels in cities run by Democrats to back his point and referred specifically to the recent unrest in Seattle.

Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced their own legislation to address police brutality. Unlike the measures recently introduced by House and Senate Democrats, the Republican bill would not include outright bans on chokeholds or “no-knock” search warrants and does not touch on qualified immunity, which shields police officers from lawsuits.

The GOP bill would try to incentivize police departments to largely do away with chokeholds by conditioning Justice Department money on restricting the practice. In addition, the legislation would collect data on the use of no-knock warrants, which allow police to enter a property without first knocking and announcing their presence.

While the Democratic bill would create a national registry for complaints and disciplinary records of officers and also require reporting on use-of-force incidents, the GOP measure would collect data only when police officers use force that results in serious injury or death.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday that Republicans “have some suggestions that are worthy of consideration. But so far, they were trying to get away with murder, actually — the murder of George Floyd” — prompting Senate Republicans to demand an apology.

The House plans to vote Thursday on the Democratic proposal, which is expected to pass the chamber.

CORRECTION (June 24, 2020, 6:24 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated Tim Scott’s distinction in the Senate. He is the only Black Republican senator, not the only Black senator.

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The Senate and the House have both put forth bills on Policing and aside from some sticking points, the bills are almost the same. The sticking points are below:

The GOP bill would try to incentivize police departments to largely do away with chokeholds by conditioning Justice Department money on restricting the practice. In addition, the legislation would collect data on the use of no-knock warrants, which allow police to enter a property without first knocking and announcing their presence.

While the Democratic bill would create a national registry for complaints and disciplinary records of officers and also require reporting on use-of-force incidents, the GOP measure would collect data only when police officers use force that results in serious injury or death.

It is not surprising since “Bitch”McConnell  has had a  tight rein on the Senate and advancing “his “agenda. His agenda is to line his pockets and those of his upper income donors and pals. If the Congress were to be true to the “American People” they so often cite then why  is TOTUS issuing executive orders at random that have no reason to exist and go unchallenged by the people we (the American People) have elected to protect us against “frivolous laws  and actions” that go against our (the American People) interests. It is clear that as voters we need to abandon our reliance on political parties and vote for people then be willing to oust them when needed. We the “American People” are the “term Limits” on who serves. We have now an opportunity in November to make major changes in government. Learn and vote intelligently and we stand a chance.

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Oh, rich, white men.  You unfathomable idiots.  You could have had it all!

There you were back in 2008, freshly bailed out after almost totaling the economy with your criminal greed, with not a single one of you headed to prison for it.   While working class incomes stagnated, health costs soared, and the young staggered under the weight of student loans, you and your fellow plutocrats sat smugly atop a mountain of accumulated wealth, courtesy of an economy structured for your benefit by legislators beholden to your largesse.

Yes, you were sitting pretty.   And all you had to do to keep it that way was to not wage a racist, scorched-earth war against the first Black President of the United States.  That’s all!  That is the only thing you dumb, stupid idiots had to do:  swallow your pride, smile, shake hands, and play nice with one of the most charismatic, inspiring, intelligent and genuinely moral politicians in American history.

Barack Obama didn’t want to ruin you, you dumbasses!  He wasn’t out to confiscate your estates, kill your grandmas, and force you into re-education camps!   All he wanted was a more humane, less cruel, less racist version of the system that made you rich.  You should have wanted that too!  Not because you care about other people — for your own good!   But you were too stupid.

What would it have cost you?  A moderate tax hike?  More oversight from nosy bureaucrats?  Some limits on your environmental depredations and exploitation of workers?  Maybe a few more women and people of color showing up at the Executive Retreat?   And in return, millions of your fellow citizens would have health coverage, a living wage, affordable education and child care, clean air and water, some disposable income and free time – in short, a stake in the system.

You should have seen how providing these things served your interests, you imbeciles!  How a more economically secure working and middle class would be less likely to question the legitimacy of the system!  How living in a society where people are happier because they aren’t beset on all sides by financial and physical insecurity would be more pleasant for you, too!   But most of all, how unbelievably, brain-meltingly stupid it would be to actually burn down a system constructed by rich white guys for rich white guys – just because you can’t stand being told what’s good for you by a confident, competent, superior Black man.

But you couldn’t see that, because you were too greedy, too racist, and – most of all – too stupid.  So instead, you declared open war.  You obstructed.  You “investigated.” You lied – about his policies, about your intentions, about his religion and national origin.  You vilified the man who came to save you from yourselves, thwarted his reasonable agenda, blocked his qualified judicial picks, mocked and slandered him for actualizing the very promise of America: that anyone can rise to the top based on talent, initiative, and the content of their character.  Then, just to drive the point home, you replaced him with the most grotesque caricature of rich white entitled male supremacy imaginable, a man you knew to be an idiot, an incompetent, a degenerate, a xenophobe, a racist, a con man and a criminal.  That’s who you made Barack Obama shake hands with as he departed the White House — and he still managed to do it with dignity.

You elevated this grotesquery to the Presidency, cynically stoking the racist, sexist, xenophobic resentments of the white working as you proceeded to loot the treasury, stack the courts, disenfranchise voters and eviscerate the civil service.  Nothing was off limits to your idiotic greed.  You even looted the pandemic relief fund!    Money that was supposed to go to struggling people and small businesses!   You dolts!   You seriously didn’t think people were ever gonna get sick of your bullshit?  Denying systemic racism!   Denying economic inequality!  Denying police brutality!   Denying climate change, for fuck’s sake?!  You know your mansions, your companies, your real estate holdings are located on planet Earth, right?   You dumb fucking morons!

And now, the people are in the streets demanding fundamental, systemic change.   And, like a bunch of mental defectives, instead of being terrified, you are indignant!   You’re shocked at their behavior.   Castigating hard-working police officers!  Pulling down perfectly good statues!  Demanding the resignation of New York Times editors for the “crime” of publishing the words of a sitting U.S. Senator!   Where can fascism get a fair hearing, if not the pages of the Newspaper of Record?!   You idiots still have absolutely no idea what’s going on – do you?

You should be grateful they’re only coming for the statues.   Maybe you should have thought a little more about how the system protected you before you started hacking away the foundations:  denying the possibility of an impartial judiciary, a fair press, an unrigged election, a well-intentioned law, an unbiased civil servant, a non-partisan scientist, an honest meteorologist, for God’s sake!   Maybe, just maybe, before you noodleheads decided on all-out, us-versus-them, Game of Thrones style partisan warfare, you should have considered that there are more of “them” than there are of you.   A lot more!   And that you liked it that way!

But you were just too stupid.

So here you are.   Your last, dumb stand.  Your castle gates defended by a rabble of red-hatted brownshirts, maskless mouth-breathers, and their Dear Leader, Ramp Boy.  And across the moat, hundreds of millions of angry Americans with torches and pitchforks demanding justice, civil rights, economic fairness, environmental sanity.  If you weren’t so colossally ignorant, you’d see that this is the end of the line for your dumb dream of perpetual white supremacy and dynastic wealth.

Because this movement will not be stopped – not by Donald Trump, not by MAGA nation, not even by Joe Biden should he fail to rise to the occasion, until it returns America to the people who truly make it great.   You should hope to God that will happen peacefully, through the miraculously durable and adaptable/amendable structures of American democracy that our Founding Fathers put in place all those years ago to protect the rights and privileges of white guys like you — and that you’ve done so much to undermine.

If it happens like that, you might even come out OK.  Not as rich, and not in charge, but OK.  And if not – well, good luck to you, dumbasses.  You had a good run, and you probably could have kept it going – but you were too impossibly, unbelievably, unfathomably stupid.

 

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

One of the primary underlying and under reported parts of the ACA repeal is the 2017Tax bill which eliminated the individual mandate, all of this to seemingly hide the financial boon to Corporations and the higher income individuals. see highlighted section below. MA

Tomorrow, the Trump administration and 18 Republican governors and attorneys general will file their opening briefs with the Supreme Court in California v. Texas—the health care repeal lawsuit. The lawsuit, criticized across the political spectrum as a “badly flawed” case, threatens to upend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and strip 23.3 million Americans of their health coverage, according to new CAP analysis—about 3 million (15 percent) more than was forecast before the coronavirus pandemic. The anti-ACA agitators who initiated the health care repeal lawsuit, backed by the Trump administration, continue their attempts to dismantle the ACA, including its coverage expansions and consumer protections, amid the pandemic, during which comprehensive health coverage has never been more important. Millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and job-based insurance due to the current economic crisis are relying on the insurance options made possible by the ACA to keep themselves and their families covered.

Background on the health care repeal lawsuit

From the beginning, the Trump administration and allied leaders in Congress and state governments have been committed to dismantling the ACA and the consumer protections it confers by any means possible. The Trump administration has repeatedly sabotaged key provisions of the landmark law by executive actions and other more covert tactics, including removing essential consumer information from federal websites and defunding outreach and enrollment programs intended to expand coverage. After several failed attempts by President Donald Trump’s legislative allies to “repeal and replace” the ACA, Congress passed a tax bill in late 2017 that zeroed out the individual mandate penalty.

After the tax bill became law, Texas and other states filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that because the mandate had no financial penalty, it made the rest of the law unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor accepted this reasoning and held that the entire law must be struck down in what one legal expert called a “partisan, activist ruling.” On appeal, a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled in December that, following the tax bill’s change to the law, the individual mandate is unconstitutional. The panel then remanded the case back to Judge O’Connor to determine which parts of the ACA, if any, can remain given their decision. Since that ruling, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case during its upcoming term, and, for now, the ACA remains the law of the land.

ACA repeal would have disastrous consequences for the American people. In addition to the roughly 23 million people who would lose coverage, repeal would eliminate essential consumer protections, including those for people with preexisting conditions; requirements for insurers to spend premium dollars on patient care; and mandates that insurers cover prescription drugs, mental health care, and other essential health benefits.

Impact of the coronavirus pandemic on coverage

As the Trump administration and 18 Republican state leaders double down on their push to strip millions of their health coverage and encourage predatory insurance practices, a pandemic that has killed nearly 120,000 Americans and infected over 2.2 million continues to sweep the nation.

Since the impact of the coronavirus pandemic began to unfold in mid-March, more than 44 million joblessness claims have been filed as of June 11. Millions of people have lost their employer-sponsored insurance (ESI)—millions of whom will be unable to replace it and will become uninsured. Thanks to the ACA, many of these newly unemployed Americans who previously were covered by employer-sponsored insurance are able to get health coverage, either through the ACA marketplaces, possibly with financial assistance to make their coverage more affordable, or via Medicaid expansion. The Urban Institute and the Kaiser Family Foundation have estimated that tens of millions of people could lose job-based coverage due to the economic crisis sparked by the pandemic and indicate that millions of people in this situation are eligible for the ACA coverage that is threatened by the health care repeal lawsuit.

National and state level coverage losses

Because the economic crisis stemming from the pandemic is driving millions of people onto coverage programs supported by the ACA, CAP estimates that approximately 3 million more people stand to lose coverage from the health care repeal lawsuit than the 20 million previously estimated. According to a March 2019 analysis by the Urban Institute, full repeal of the ACA would cause enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to fall by 22.4 percent and enrollment in individual market coverage, including for the ACA marketplaces and other insurance people purchase on their own, to drop by 35.4 percent.

The economic stress of the pandemic has pushed the United States into a recession. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the unemployment rate in the second and third quarters of this year will average 15 percent — higher than it was during the Great Recession. At an unemployment rate of 15 percent, 17.7 million people would lose employment-based health insurance coverage, according to a recent report by the Urban Institute. With access to ACA coverage options, most of these people would find new forms of insurance. Urban estimates that 8.2 million would end up with Medicaid/CHIP coverage, and 4.3million would gain coverage through the ACA marketplaces or other private coverage. About 5.1 million would remain uninsured.

If the ACA is repealed, however, many more people who lose job-based coverage will be without insurance. CAP estimates that because of the pandemic, about 3.4 million additional people are at risk of losing coverage because of the lawsuit. Combining two previous projections by the Urban Institute, CAP’s estimate assumes that 35.4 percent of the 4.3 million people who gain individual market insurance and 22.4 percent of the 8.2 million people who gain Medicaid/CHIP coverage would become uninsured under repeal.

In total, 23.3 million people stand to lose coverage and become uninsured if the ACA is repealed during the pandemic. In Texas alone, the number of people without health coverage would rise by about 2 million. (see Table 1)

Table 1

If the ACA is repealed, the actual number will depend on the extent of job loss during the recession as well as the geographic and demographic distribution of those who lose job-based coverage. CAP’s estimate assumes that the proportion of those newly enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP and nongroup insurance who lose coverage is similar across states, and it is based on a scenario in which the unemployment rate rises above what it is today. It also assumes that the degree of coverage loss among those who newly enroll in Medicaid/CHIP and the individual market during the pandemic is similar to that of those who were previously enrolled in those types of insurance.

Conclusion

The Trump administration and its allied state leaders are attempting to undermine health care in the midst of one of the worst public health disasters in U.S. history. The ACA is crucial to helping families regain coverage and maintain some financial security against health care costs. A Supreme Court ruling against the ACA would take away health coverage from millions of Americans whose lives are already being disrupted by the economic distress and concerns about their health and well-being.

Nicole Rapfogel is a research assistant for Health Policy at the Center for American Progress. Emily Gee is the health economist of Health Policy at the Center.

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Senator Bitch McConnell has stated that the House bill on policing is dead on arrival (as he stated on “Obamacare”. If Senator McConnell is truly interested in serving the people (which his record shows he is not), there would be no statements like this coming from him. The GOP has put the one Black American (that is almost an oxymoron) Republican as lead on the Senates bill and that bill is stalled. So “Bitch” rather than truly lead  has done his due diligence in being a racist leader much like the persons illustrated in the Confederate statues and names of military bases. The GOP is politicking against the interests of the American people that they so readily cite with no basis in fact. We are in an era (and have been) where the politicians  “give” the people their opinion instead of the people giving the elected politicians theirs (and those opinions have value). It should be clear to anyone of voting age or having the ability to read that our current system of government needs to be free of party politics period! I would suggest we as people move to an apolitical system where the opinions of a particular group does not hold sway over our own opinions. Currently the politicians we elect are not on our side and probably never will be if we as voters do not exercise the vote to remove them when they fail. The onus has always been on the voters and we abdicate responsibility that out of laziness and lack of information (real information).

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