marceline

A former health insurance CEO explains why repeal and replace is doomed. http://www.businessinsider.com/obamacare-repeal-and-replace-wont-work-2016-12 Seriously. These ideologues are going to send us right back to the Great Depression which, ironically, happened the last time the GOP controlled all the branches of government.

I've been saying for years that the abortion underground needs to get up and running again. If women aren't going to be able to get safe legal abortions then we need to make sure they can get safe illegal ones.

Deleted. I need to remember...don't feed the trolls.

It's amazing to see these fools act like premiums never went up before Obamacare. I worked at my previous job for 8 years and they switched insurance providers three times because the rates kept going up. But now we get to return to the good old days of people defaulting on bills and/or declaring bankruptcy because of medical bills. But of course the people who brought us trickle down economics think that's just dandy. I can't imagine the shitstorm we're going to see when the Repubs tank the economy again. I'm in a Facebook discussion group where we talk about financial planning and people are already preparing for the next recession. The only question is how fast will it hit. Under a "normal" GOP presidency it would probably be around 2018 but Trump will probably have us there by the end of this year.

The problem is that GOP voters never hold their representatives responsible. Not for wars, not for recessions. Nothing.

I hope it's the beginning of a trend and that we'll get more people paying attention to Congress and calling them out. Especially when they go after Obamacare.

Looks like the GOP backed down and pulled the plan. Frankly I doubt they had the votes. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/politics/office-of-congressional-ethics-oversight-of-ethics-committee-amendment/index.html

She is always playing both sides. A lot of people have only recently become aware of KaC but I've been following her since the Bush administration. She used to appear on a weekly PBS talk show called "To The Contrary" and you could see then the kind of souless pathological liar she would become. People are afraid of Trump but the real danger is Conway and Bannon. There's not a single working ethic between them.

How much do you want to bet one of Trump's advisors talked them into this just so he could play them?

I think you're right about the increased conflict. I find myself increasingly interested in Evan McMullin and whether or not his "country over party" sensibility can gain a little traction. The bottom line is that decent Republicans must see by now that the GOP isn't an American political party anymore. It's a Russian one that has enacted a coup.

Yeah. The way that the Woleks were disposed of still mystifies me.

If I'm a part of that I'm sorry. I'm not sorry for my posts but I'm sorry if they contributed to you feeling this way. O/T: One of my oldest and best friends in the world is "A Swede." Allow me to raise a mug of Glogg on this New Year's Eve.

I'm not sure about that. From what I've seen any changes will grandfather in baby boomers so they'll basically say, "I got mine. Screw everyone else."

Thanks for mentioning this. As someone who lived through the 90s it's amazing to see how crack was a criminal problem while opiates and heroin is called a public health problem.

This. Trump's victory was about payback. This is why they don't care that he's not keeping any of his promises. They want to hurt and punish the people who took "their" America away and while they are celebrating that the Republicans are going to gut the social safety net so many of them depend on. Trump told them that they were the most important Americans in the country and as long as he keeps telling them that they'll accept anything he does even if it kills them.

Nothing matters to Trump's followers. They are a lost cause. But it might matter to those so-called independents and moderates who broke for him at the last minute. Although Carl has a point. Most of those people are probably as good as dead once they get home. The sad thing is, if the next president wasn't Snatchgrabber I bet one or two would ask for asylum but now there's nowhere to run.

Your opinion has been noted. I can't imagine being told that you have 72 hours to get out of the country. Of course Donald could invite them back when he takes over but that will show the world that Putin is pulling his strings.

That really is nice to see.

Please note that I specifically called out the "Bernie or bust" crew. Not all white progressives. CNN will never call Trump out on anything. This is the same network that debated whether the Malaysian Air crash might have been the result of aliens. They hired Corey Lewandowski as a commentator. If you're looking for someone to hold Trump accountable, CNN is not the place. Truthfully, broadcast media will never hold him responsible because they care about ratings first. It's no mistake that the real reporting about Trump came from print journalists like David Farenthold and Kurt Eichenwald. The Washington Post found it's spine again after he banned them from his press pool. The NY Times came around at the last minute but IMO it was too little too late.

There has always been a contingent of women who hate Hillary for not being like them. Sam Bee did a really nice piece outlining, among other things, how other women have resented her. It started all the way back when she was First Lady of Arkansas. They hated her for using her maiden name. They hated her for continuing to work in politics instead of "baking cookies." There will always be a contingent of women who attack women for making different choices. They consider it a rejection of the values they find important. You see it with self proclaimed feminists too. Plus there's the religious misogyny which might account for some of Trump's minority vote as well. There are people who belong to churches were women are expected to be subservient to men. They were never going to vote for Hillary even if they supported Obama previously.

Oh yes I know plenty of white progressives. I'm surrounded by white progressives and all I heard from Bernie's supporters was "Bernie marched with MLK!" Because apparently that alone was supposed to make me fall over in gratitude. You know who else marched with MLK? John Lewis. And they dragged him for filth when he supported Hillary. I watched Bernie's supporters heckle Elijah Cummings and John Lewis at the convention. They may not have said it was about race but when minorities didn't show up for Bernie they voted to punish us. And now you see Bernie out here shilling his book saying that the Dems should abandon "identity politics." That's because his base is white millennials so he sees nothing wrong with throwing minorities under the bus. People aren't spray painting swastikas on the side of buildings because of economic anxiety. The Klan didn't have a celebration march because of jobs. This was white supremacy pure and simple.

Seriously. This election had nothing to do with economic anxiety or national security. It was about Obama. These white people saw an increasingly black government making decisions about their lives and they began to realize what it means to be a minority. It doesn't matter that he wanted to create economic opportunity for them or that he didn't want them to go bankrupt because they got sick. They experienced for a few years what it's like to have people who don't look like you making the decisions and they lost their [!@#$%^&*] minds. This is the same thing that Bernie or busters did. All these white progressives got pissed when black and brown people didn't think he was the bestest thing ever so lot of them stayed home or voted for Trump out of revenge. Somebody on another board reminded me that when MLK Day became a holiday white racists couldn't bring themselves to honor a black man even if it got them a day off from work.

You aren't thinking like someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Even when they fail they don't admit it. Trump has a lifetime of failures both personal and professional yet he still sees himself a winner. The real reason I think he won't resign is because Putin would have him killed.

I think a lot of the party infighting will die down once Obama's out of the White House. Once he's out, he and Michelle become the face of the party. He's already said that his next big issue will be redistricting. It's not fun or sexy but it's necessary as hell and Obama has the same talent Bill Clinton has for taking nerdy policy stuff and making it accessible. While Bill Clinton will move into a more Jimmy Carter style role. Meaning he becomes the face of another former Dem president saving the world.

Obama is definitely coming back. He said so on a post election conference call with volunteers. He said basically what you did. We have a little time to lick our wounds then it's time to start organizing. He said that he's limited in what he can say or do until he's a private citizen but once he is, he and Michelle are going to take a vacation then come Feb/March they are jumping back into the ring with us. "I'm still fired up and still ready to go." No lie, I cried when I read his remarks.