Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[y66]

I tried so hard to stay awake through the debate

 

failed miserably

It helps if your favorite baseball team is also playing for their first berth in the World Series.

[Winstonm]

I understand that people at the time were worried that electing a Cathoic would allow the Pope to dictate US policy, and I agree that he didn't do that.

 

But do you really think that none of the moral lessons he learned from religious sermons influenced his decisions? Jesus taught the Golden Rule, does that mean it can't be used as a justification for government policy?

 

No, I don't mean that at all.

 

Consider this. Suppose a situation where the president and most of his cabinet along with a majority in Congress and a majority on the Supreme Court all believed that God gave white Christians moral superiority.

 

If that were the case, would you be surprised to find a predominance of minority prisoners in prisons, white police exonerated of wrongdoing, minority voting rights infringed, tax laws favorable to rich white and penalizing to poor minorities, and on and on?

 

Note, none of that happens with a government created religion. This is the problem the framers tried to address in the constitution and with the separation of powers. The framers were as concerned about unbridled democracy as they were tyranny. The secular Constitution was designed as the rule book to protect against both.

[kenberg]

No, I don't mean that at all.

 

Consider this. Suppose a situation where the president and most of his cabinet along with a majority in Congress and a majority on the Supreme Court all believed that God gave white Christians moral superiority.

 

If that were the case, would you be surprised to find a predominance of minority prisoners in prisons, white police exonerated of wrongdoing, minority voting rights infringed, tax laws favorable to rich white and penalizing to poor minorities, and on and on?

 

Note, none of that happens with a government created religion. This is the problem the framers tried to address in the constitution and with the separation of powers. The framers were as concerned about unbridled democracy as they were tyranny. The secular Constitution was designed as the rule book to protect against both.

 

Or, suppose the president and most of his cabinet along with a majority in Congress and a majority on the Supreme Court, perhaps all atheists, all believed that white people are morally superior. I suppose some people once argued that black people should sit in the back of the bus because Good said so, but others would say that they should sit in the back because, well, who cares about the because, they just should. The counter-argument was partly that the D of I said that all men were created equal, but religious ideas played a prominent role as well. in getting people to see that this was wrong.

 

Religion has often been used badly. When I was 14 I attended a church service, as i usually did. My parents had not attended, as they usually didn't. So the minister took me aside and explained that I was 14 and it was now my responsibility to get my parents to come to church more often so that they would not burn in the fires of Hell. Ok, we can probably all agree that it's a good idea to avoid that minster and I did. It would be a bad idea to judge all religion, or all religious people, by that minister.

 

People come to their values in one manner or another. I guess Kant thought that moral issues could be decided by pure reason but try reading his arguments. In college I sat down with one of his arguments and promised myself I would not get up until I understood it. Had I kept that promise I would still be sitting there. Our moral views come from experience and discussion, but probably also from some sort of faith. I think of faith as a decision to just go with a way of looking at things, acknowledging that we cannot prove we are right.

 

People of strong religious beliefs differ about same sex marriage and many other things but so do non-religious people.

 

That minister you cited as leading the discussion seemed to me to be someone I would have nothing to do with. But many of the religious people that I have known would feel the same. Way to sanctimonious and full of himself. If he offers Kool-Aid, don't drink it. But I have no problem with people getting together to discuss their religious beliefs.

[johnu]

It helps if your favorite baseball team is also playing for their first berth in the World Series.

My local team was basically eliminated from the playoffs in early May :( which was progress as they are usually entrenched in last place in their division and headed South by the end of April.

[y66]

Perhaps this explains what has happened to the trolls: Fourth defendant in Giuliani associates’ case arrested at New York airport

 

If that's not them, I hope nothing more serious has happened to the poor bastards.

[Winstonm]

Perhaps this explains what has happened to the trolls: Fourth defendant in Giuliani associates’ case arrested at New York airport

 

If that's not them, I hope nothing more serious has happened to the poor bastards.

 

I think The Cowsills had a better explanation:

 

The Rain, Trolls, and Other Things

 

I saw him fumbling in the rain

umbralla drops outside the plane

I was sure he didn't care

cause his hair looked good to me

 

Then I knew (I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)

He was who I'd vote for (vote for, vote for)

Corruption in the air

Corruption everywhere

 

I love his flowing mane

the orangish of his skin, I want to follow him

I love the long red tie

I really don't know why, I guess I love his lies

 

But never mind

 

I knew I had to see his show

Hear his voice for real

Found a seat among the throng

Clapped and cheered as he came on

 

And I knew (I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)

He was who I'd vote for (vote for, vote for)

Corruption in the air

Corruption everywhere

 

I love his flowing mane

the orangish of his skin, I want to follow him

I love the long red tie

I really don't know why, I guess I love his lies

 

But never mind

 

Suddenly Ukraine came through (see Ukraine)

I turned toward the sound (what was the sound)

It was sad to hear truth

The Fake news had just left town

 

But I had thought (I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought)

He would make me happy (happy, happy)

Impeachment in the air

Impeachment everywhere

 

(This guy really sucks), (This guy really sucks)

tv was his reality

was he a dream to me?

(This guy really sucks), (This guy really sucks)

His crime taught me that day

to look another's way

(Another's way)(another's way, another's way)

[Winstonm]

 

Or, suppose the president and most of his cabinet along with a majority in Congress and a majority on the Supreme Court, perhaps all atheists, all believed that white people are morally superior. I suppose some people once argued that black people should sit in the back of the bus because Good said so, but others would say that they should sit in the back because, well, who cares about the because, they just should. The counter-argument was partly that the D of I said that all men were created equal, but religious ideas played a prominent role as well. in getting people to see that this was wrong.

 

Religion has often been used badly. When I was 14 I attended a church service, as i usually did. My parents had not attended, as they usually didn't. So the minister took me aside and explained that I was 14 and it was now my responsibility to get my parents to come to church more often so that they would not burn in the fires of Hell. Ok, we can probably all agree that it's a good idea to avoid that minster and I did. It would be a bad idea to judge all religion, or all religious people, by that minister.

 

People come to their values in one manner or another. I guess Kant thought that moral issues could be decided by pure reason but try reading his arguments. In college I sat down with one of his arguments and promised myself I would not get up until I understood it. Had I kept that promise I would still be sitting there. Our moral views come from experience and discussion, but probably also from some sort of faith. I think of faith as a decision to just go with a way of looking at things, acknowledging that we cannot prove we are right.

 

People of strong religious beliefs differ about same sex marriage and many other things but so do non-religious people.

 

That minister you cited as leading the discussion seemed to me to be someone I would have nothing to do with. But many of the religious people that I have known would feel the same. Way to sanctimonious and full of himself. If he offers Kool-Aid, don't drink it. But I have no problem with people getting together to discuss their religious beliefs.

 

Ken, like you I form my opinions (as best I can) based on my personal experience (including listening to those I presume to be wise and intelligent) and my own reading/studies/etc. So my response comes in part from your pal, Paul Krugman, but also from Bill Barr himself, from his speech just last week at Notre Dame:

 

Barr gave a fiery speech denouncing the threat to America posed by “militant secularists,” whom he accused of conspiring to destroy the “traditional moral order,” blaming them for rising mental illness, drug dependency and violence.

 

And compare that to George Lakoff's description of the conservative idea of moral hierarchy (especially Barr's "traditional moral order" where a strict father sits at the head:

 

The strict father logic extends further. The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a well-ordered world, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate. The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, America above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above nonChristians, Straights above Gays.

 

I'm sure you see the parallels between the strict father worldview and many Christian teachings, especially those of the so-termed evangelical Christians. Whether this moral code was incorporated into Christianity or grew out of Christianity is, like the chicken or the egg, irrelevant. But I do note that the U.S. Constitution is at odds with this construct.

 

Better than meeting to discuss religion, I would recommend that our leaders would be better served meeting to discuss the Federalist Papers.

[y66]

I heard there was a meltdown at the White House today. No doubt Ms. Pelosi knows from her experience as a mother and grandmother that when you're dealing with someone who is having a meltdown, it's impossible to reason with them. Sometimes it helps to acknowledge their feelings as in "Mr. President, I understand you're angry because the House rebuked your decision to withdraw from Syria" but that's not guaranteed to work and if it doesn't, the best thing, according to my daughter-in-law, is to say "I'm leaving the room now".

[Zelandakh]

I heard there was a meltdown at the White House today. No doubt Ms. Pelosi knows from her experience as a mother and grandmother that when you're dealing with someone who is having a meltdown, it's impossible to reason with them. Sometimes it helps to acknowledge their feelings as in "Mr. President, I understand you're angry because the House rebuked your decision to withdraw from Syria" but that's not guaranteed to work and if it doesn't, the best thing, according to my daughter-in-law, is to say "I'm leaving the room now".

Have you never watched The Nanny? You just sit him on the Naughty Step for one minute per year of age.

[y66]

From Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

Wednesday, the 1,000th day of Donald Trump’s presidency, went badly. That’s no surprise; most of the first 999 days went badly too. I have no idea if he’s going to wind up getting ousted from office, either as a result of the impeachment House Democrats are readying or the 2020 election. But things are getting worse for Trump — whether he realizes it or not.

 

Every once in a while, some event offers a clarifying reminder of the president’s poor judgment. On Wednesday, it was the release of a letter Trump wrote to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The letter itself was an embarrassment, in which Trump, soon after telling Erdogan on the phone that U.S. forces would move out of his way to enable Turkey’s invasion of Syria, tried to walk things back. Sort of. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman put it at the Monkey Cage, the president opted for “threatening rhetoric reminiscent of a Mafia boss” to “make loud threats that he may not be able to deliver on.” As soon as the letter was published, professional diplomats and historians said they had never seen something so amateurish from a U.S. president.

 

But what really underlined Trump’s problem for me wasn’t that he wrote an incompetent letter to follow up on what seems to have been an incompetent phone call. Or that his Syria policy, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Eli Lake notes, has resulted in chaos and death. Or that, on a crass political level, he’s managed to alienate his congressional allies just as he needs them most, with House Republicans voting overwhelmingly on Wednesday to condemn his decision.

 

No, what really got to me was that Trump distributed copies of this letter to congressional leaders when they showed up at the White House for a briefing. Think of it. Even if the letter had been perfectly normal, what Trump was handing them was an Oct. 9 request to Erdogan to halt his invasion — a request that Erdogan has, as we’ve seen, totally ignored. Trump was bragging about what he considered to be a sign of his own brilliance without realizing that it was instead evidence of abject failure.

 

This isn’t new, of course. Trump still brags about how the 2018 election was a glorious victory for Republicans (it wasn’t). He brags that a published summary of his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy cleared him of wrongdoing (it incriminated him). And on and on. The thing is, it’s possible for others within the political system to deal with a liar. But how do you deal with a president who can’t tell the difference between victories and losses? Someone for whom normal incentives don’t apply because he doesn’t seem to realize when things are going badly?

 

Every president has policy fiascoes at some point. Every president slumps in the polls. Every president makes hiring decisions that go wrong. But normal presidents, most of the time, recognize their errors — even if they don’t admit them publicly — and work hard to improve things. Trump, to be blunt, doesn’t. It’s destroying his presidency, and damaging the nation.

[y66]

From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

The recent decline in Delaware’s abortion rate is pretty stunning. Between 2014 and 2017 — the latest years for which data exist — the rate fell 37 percent. There is now only about one abortion for every 100 women of childbearing age each year in the state.

 

This decline was the biggest of any state in the country. It was also in keeping with a larger trend: The abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level since the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

 

The best part is that both sides of the abortion debate should welcome the decline. Abortions don’t appear to be decreasing because of reduced access (although that is a problem in some places). The rate seems to be falling because of increased use of effective birth control.

 

That’s why I want to highlight Delaware. It has been arguably the most aggressive state in expanding access to long-acting forms of birth control, like IUDs and implants. Less than a decade ago, Delaware had the nation’s highest rate of unplanned pregnancies, and its governor at the time — Jack Markell, a Democrat — came to believe it was a major cause of economic hardship for mothers and their families.

 

“We launched this effort several years ago because we feel so strongly about the link between unintended pregnancies and reduced economic opportunities,” Markell told me yesterday.

 

Or as PBS NewsHour has put it: “Contraceptives allow women greater control of whether and when to become mothers. As a result, they improve women’s ability to invest in their education and careers, which can have a positive impact on lifelong earnings.”

 

In a Times story last year, Margot Sanger-Katz described the program that Delaware has created:

 

When a woman of childbearing age goes to the doctor in most places, she gets standard queries about her smoking, drinking, seatbelt use and allergies. In Delaware, she is now also asked: ‘Do you want to get pregnant in the next year?’

 

If her answer is no, clinics are being trained to ensure she gets whatever form of birth control she wants that very day, whether a prescription or an implant in her arm. … Working with an organization called Upstream, Delaware has rolled out the program to nearly every medical provider in the state over the past three years. It’s having big effects on the number of women requesting and receiving contraception.

There is still a lot of room for progress, though — especially in states that have not been as ambitious about expanding access to IUDs.

[Winstonm]

The MSM keeps failing as journalists by reporting Trump's "sanctions' against Turkey. CNBC is the only article I've seen that points out that these tarriffs are basically meaningless as only 1% of US steel imports comes from Turkey. They report that the reason for any tarriff at all was to placate Congressional Republicans - a tarriff "for show", so to speak, which fits in perfectly with Trumps worldview where everything is done to create a particular image.

 

“Just 0.5% of Turkish exports were steel sales to the U.S. in 2018,” Charlie Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital, told CNBC. “Turkey won’t allow its sovereignty to be undermined by the U.S. refusing to buy the steel, which Turkey can sell elsewhere.”

 

“Trump may be exaggerating the importance to deflect criticism.”

[andrei]

Are progressives psychologically unfit to recognize hypocrisy?

 

Surely you see no problem with:

 

Now who's interfering in an election

Barack Obama’s endorsement of Justin Trudeau is an unjustifiable American intrusion

 

How about 2015 Canada?

 

Millions in foreign funds spent in 2015 federal election to defeat Harper government

 

How about 2015 Israel?

Not gonna post any links about this, you know very well how hard Obama worked against BN.

[Winstonm]

The White House will have to buy a few hundred cases of FeBreeze after reading this news: Yahoo reports:

 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a new law on Wednesday that gives the state the authority to prosecute those accused of crimes even if they have a presidential pardon.

 

The bill effectively closes a double jeopardy loophole that usually prevents individuals charged on the federal level from being prosecuted by a state for the same offense. The measure was written to specifically target former Trump administration officials who may receive a pardon, an idea the president has regularly suggested for aides who have run afoul of the law.

 

“No one is above the law and New York will not turn a blind eye to criminality, no matter who seeks to protect them,” Cuomo said in a statement Wednesday. “The closure of this egregious loophole gives prosecutors the ability to stand up against any abuse of power, and helps ensure that no politically motivated, self-serving action is sanctioned under law.

 

The law goes into effect immediately and applies to all past and future offenses. New York officials will be able to prosecute any pardoned individual who served in the executive branch, worked for a president’s election or transition team or for a for-profit or nonprofit group controlled by a president.

 

President are able to pardon only federal crimes, not those committed at the state level.

[hrothgar]

Surely you see no problem with:

 

Now who's interfering in an election

Barack Obama’s endorsement of Justin Trudeau is an unjustifiable American intrusion

 

How about 2015 Canada?

 

Millions in foreign funds spent in 2015 federal election to defeat Harper government

 

How about 2015 Israel?

Not gonna post any links about this, you know very well how hard Obama worked against BN.

 

If any of these accusations have merit, then the governments of Canada and Israel are more than welcome to raise this as an issue...

 

None of which has any bearing on the issue at hand.

That being actions taken by Trump, Giuliani, and the like to swing domestic US elections.

[andrei]

If any of these accusations have merit, then the governments of Canada and Israel are more than welcome to raise this as an issue...

 

None of which has any bearing on the issue at hand.

That being actions taken by Trump, Giuliani, and the like to swing domestic US elections.

 

It is an issue when it is done against dems.

There is no issue when dems are doing it (I haven't seen you being outraged by it).

 

Isn't this the definition of hypocrisy (which you are accusing others of being)?

[hrothgar]

It is an issue when it is done against dems.

There is no issue when dems are doing it (I haven't seen you being outraged by it).

 

Isn't this the definition of hypocrisy (which you are accusing others of being)?

 

No. It is another example of an idiot Russian playing what-about-ism games...

 

1. I am not aware of any US laws that ban American citizens from interfering in foreign elections. So, even if this were tre, this wouldn't be an issue under American law

2. These types of actions may very well be an issue under Canadian / Israeli / Russian law. I agreed that said governments should feel free to investigate any such claims

3. I have not seen any such charges made by any of these governments.

4. What I do see if you dragging up random claims from the fever swamp in transparent attempt to distract from the topic being discussed

 

Trump and Giuliani are breaking US law.

Three of Giuliani's partners have already been indicted

Giuliani will probably be indicted as well

 

We're seeing a steady stream of folks testifying that Trump broke domestic regulations and laws.

These include both civil and foreign service career professionals as well as political appointees.

 

Polls are now showing that a majority of Americans favor impeachment (not an impeachment inquiry, actual impeachment)

We didn't hit this point with Nixon until a week before he resigned from office.

 

These are the issues at hand.

Not whether President Obama liked Netanyahu...

[cherdano]

Here is some help for andrei: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/30121

[hrothgar]

Here's another quote that might be of interest

 

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, broke sharply from President Donald Trump on Thursday, telling House impeachment investigators that he opposed the president’s request to run Ukraine policy through his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

 

“We were also disappointed by the president’s direction that we involve Mr. Giuliani,” Sondland told congressional investigators, according to his opening statement, which was obtained by POLITICO.

 

Sondland testified that he contacted Giuliani anyway at Trump’s direction after a May 23 meeting at the White House, and that Giuliani drew a direct link between scheduling a White House visit for Ukraine’s newly elected president and demands that Ukraine prioritize investigations targeting Trump’s political rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

“Mr. Giuliani emphasized that the president wanted a public statement from President [Volodymyr] Zelensky committing Ukraine to look into anti-corruption issues,” Sondland said.

 

“Mr. Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two anti-corruption investigatory topics of importance for the president,” he added.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/17/gordon-sondland-to-break-from-trump-in-impeachment-testimony-000288

[y66]

From Lindsay Koshgarian at NYT:

 

As Democratic presidential candidates debate the merits of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal or free college, a chorus of scolds from across the political spectrum will chime in to tell you we can’t afford it.

 

All these ambitious policies of course will come with a hefty price tag. Proposals to fund Medicare for All have focused on raising taxes. But what if we could imagine another way entirely?

 

Over nearly 20 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it. That’s far more than the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary).

 

While we can’t un-spend that $4.9 trillion, imagine if we could make different choices for the next 20 years.

 

We’ve identified more than $300 billion in annual military savings alone that we could better invest in priorities like Medicare for All, working with a national grassroots movement called Poor People’s Campaign.

 

Cutting military spending this way presents its own tremendous obstacles. Yet the exercise, however aspirational it may seem, also shows how ambitious proposals are still within reach — if we make different choices.

 

Tame the American War Machine

 

The $4.9 trillion we’ve spent on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere grows to $5.9 trillion once we add in future care for veterans of those wars. That’s more money than the G.D.P. of every country in the world other than the United States and China.

 

These are unwinnable wars. After nearly 18 years in Afghanistan, the Taliban now “controls or contests” more Afghan territory than at any time since before the invasion. One Army study of the Iraq war noted that “an emboldened and expansionist Iran appears to be the only victor” of the U.S.-launched war there.

 

Despite the obvious downsides, Pentagon officials first requested $165 billion in war funds for 2020, although even they admit that only $66 billion of that is actually related to fighting wars — the rest covers regular operations.

 

The government doesn’t just shell out for our own military — we pay significant sums for foreign militaries, too. The $14 billion provided to foreign militaries in 2017 is more than five times the budget of the United Nations.

 

Bring the Troops Home

 

With more than 800 bases and installations in more than 90 countries, our military is ready to step into any conflict at any time, and often that’s just what it does. Our bases in Germany, established after World War II, serve as a launchpad for missions in the Middle East and Africa, where the U.S. has quietly been escalating its presence for years.

 

That’s a terrible model. Just imagine if the U.S. still had thousands of troops in Afghanistan in 2076.

 

Our overseas bases come with all sorts of costs. Just shipping private vehicles overseas for military personnel costs around $200 million each year. In the context of the $716 billion military budget, that doesn’t sound like much, but it’s 50 percent more than the U.S. spent on international disaster prevention and preparedness in 2017.

 

Closing half or more of our foreign bases could actually enhance our national security by defusing unnecessary tensions and discouraging ill-thought-out interventions. And it would raise about $90 billion for things like Medicare for All. What are we doing with that base in Aruba, anyway?

 

Banish Nuclear Weapons (or at Least Scrap the Trillion-Dollar Upgrade)

 

The United Nations has called for nuclear disarmament and the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and at least 70 countries have signed on to a total nuclear weapons ban. The U.S. agreed to negotiate nuclear disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it has failed to follow through on that commitment.

 

The U.S. now has 4,000 deployed or stockpiled nuclear weapons, plus 2,500 more retired weapons awaiting dismantling. Our nuclear stockpile amounts to almost half the world total of 15,000.

 

A total nuclear weapons ban would mean new treaties and would take years to negotiate. But if we could get there, we could save roughly $43 billion each year on weapons, delivery systems and upgrades, according to calculations based on data from the Department of Defense, the Congressional Budget Office and the Department of Energy. That’s roughly the same amount we’ve allocated in federal hurricane aid for Puerto Rico. Even canceling current plans for nuclear modernization and simply continuing on our current path could save about $20 billion per year.

 

Next: Cut the Bloat and the Pork

 

Private contractors consumed fully half the Pentagon budget in 2018, raking in more than $364 billion.

 

The F-35 jet fighter is a prime example. Over its lifetime, the F-35 is estimated to cost $1.5 trillion — more than the G.D.P. of Australia.

 

This is a plane with more than 900 performance deficiencies, according to a recent government report. Among the problems is a dangerous night vision defect in the plane’s high-tech pilot’s helmet, which costs $400,000, four times more than a typical helmet for other fighters, like the F-16.

 

Like so many weapons programs, the F-35 program is a congressional darling, but not because of military necessity. A group of more than 100 members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter calling for the purchase of 24 more F-35s than the 79 that President Trump has already called for. With parts of the F-35 manufactured or assembled in 350 congressional districts, it’s no mystery what is driving the enthusiasm for the plane.

 

Our proposed cuts to production and operation of the F-35 total $14.7 billion — more than the military budget of Iran.

 

Vanity Boondoggles: The Space Force and the Wall

 

President Trump’s border wall has been estimated to cost as much as $25 billion. The sum budgeted for this year alone, at $9 billion, is more than the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency. Rather than using this money to build a wall for a nonexistent emergency, why not put it toward Medicare for All?

 

Likewise, the planned Space Force is a novelty that the administration first promoted with a logo bearing the phrase “Mars Awaits.” While military spending related to Mars is currently unknown, the $400 million that the administration has requested for its Space Force is a down payment for a project that would quickly reach many billions of dollars.

 

Things That Would Run Better Outside the Military

 

Under Medicare for All, we would no longer need a separate Pentagon system to provide health care for troops and their families. This now costs $33 billion a year. This item takes us well past our goal of saving $300 billion.

 

Hundreds of thousands of active-duty military members are also assigned administrative jobs that could be done by civilians at lower cost. Transferring just one-quarter of those jobs to civilians could conservatively save $3 billion, enough to cover the current value of Affordable Care Act tax credits for health premiums in 46 states (but not Florida, California, Texas and North Carolina).

 

Putting Titanic Savings to Good Use

 

Many military experts are likely to disagree with some or even all of these options. And no doubt there are other equally sensible options for cutting military spending. (Our cuts total $2,807 for every American household.)

 

Remaking our military as a truly defense-based institution, rather than a war machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes. It’s a project that can’t happen overnight, and it will need serious planning and wiser uses of some of our $50 billion surplus to ensure both U.S. security and that people leaving military service find new jobs in our economy. That’s no excuse for continuing to spend hundreds of billions in ways that make our world more dangerous and deny us the ability to seriously invest in things like jobs, health care, education and all that makes our lives better.

GW hospital just billed my insurance company $11,000 for an MRI. I hate to think what a bill like that would do to the finances of someone who doesn't have health insurance.

[Cyberyeti]

From Lindsay Koshgarian at NYT:

 

 

GW hospital just billed my insurance company $11,000 for an MRI. I hate to think what a bill like that would do to the finances of someone who doesn't have health insurance.

 

Wonder if it doesn't cost that if you don't have insurance ...

 

https://www.vista-health.co.uk/services/mri-scan?gclid=Cj0KCQjwoqDtBRD-ARIsAL4pviCuoVU6b8rH9STdflwy5Fd1dXyVVQP_fBwwSodHP-sjEJmSz7pCDvQaArnKEALw_wcB

 

Hell for that you could fly to the UK and get a private MRI done here.

[cherdano]

Wonder if it doesn't cost that if you don't have insurance ...

 

https://www.vista-health.co.uk/services/mri-scan?gclid=Cj0KCQjwoqDtBRD-ARIsAL4pviCuoVU6b8rH9STdflwy5Fd1dXyVVQP_fBwwSodHP-sjEJmSz7pCDvQaArnKEALw_wcB

 

Hell for that you could fly to the UK and get a private MRI done here.

Generally, rates without insurance in the US are considerably higher.

[hrothgar]

In today's testimony from Mick Mulvaney

 

https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/10/17/mick-mulvaney-confesses-omb-and-dod-are-withholding-evidence-of-a-crime-from-congress/

 

Amid all the other batshit admissions in today's press conference, Mulvaney's admission that 1) the White House didn't have a very very good reason to withhold appropriated funds and 2) they knew doing so w/o notice to Congress was a crime may be the most important.

[johnu]

Surely you see no problem with:

 

Now who's interfering in an election

Barack Obama’s endorsement of Justin Trudeau is an unjustifiable American intrusion

 

How about 2015 Canada?

 

Millions in foreign funds spent in 2015 federal election to defeat Harper government

 

How about 2015 Israel?

Not gonna post any links about this, you know very well how hard Obama worked against BN.

Moderator - I am begging you to please give andrei a participation award for this forum topic. He is trying the best he can to try to post some relevant information with his obviously limited abilities.

 

It would be very bad if President Obama endorsed Trudeau in the latest elections. But, oh wait a minute. Obama isn't the POTUS and hasn't been since January 2017. As POTUS, it would be inappropriate to take sides in a foreign election. andrei - Do you have any understanding that Obama is not currently POTUS? To jog your memory, the current POTUS is a man whose name rhymes with "the Manchurian President". In fact, Obama is a private US citizen, and Mr. Obama is entirely free to endorse anybody in any country as he sees fit, just like any other private US citizen.

 

andrei - Do you have any comprehension of the difference between an action of a private citizen and an official representative of the USA, specifically POTUS? From what you've written so far, apparently not. You can take my word that there is a unbelievably large difference, or you can look it up someplace that has better sourcing than the places you are currently using.

 

You might want to compare this to the Grifter in Chief directly interfering in the Isreali elections at a time when he is President.

 

Trump Takes to Instagram to Endorse Netanyahu Campaign Billboard – Featuring Himself

 

As for your other so called relevant links, private citizens and organizations are not instruments of the government. Besides some wild conspiracy theories that don't pass any kind of smell test, post something where Obama directly interfered in a foreign election while he was serving as POTUS or stop posting.

[y66]

You hate to see Mulvaney undercutting his boss's repeated denials that there was a quid pro quo.