Displaying 721 To 750 Of 1,008 Comments In Andrew Yang’s attempt to set himself apart form other candidates related to the trump impeachment question last night, he missed the mark. His answer was to address what he thought was the reason trump was elected, but he did not address the impeachment. The reason he suggested trump was elected in the first place was probably partially correct in that working class people were frustrated with the federal government in 2016 due to income stagnation. However, voters are not tasked by the Constitution to impeach and remove a corrupt president. Congress is. Granted, candidates need to address the needs of voters, but that is not pertinent to a question related to the impeachment of a corrupt president. » Posted By TOCB On December 20, 2019 @ 8:09 am Diversity. In the beginning of the Democratic presidential campaign season, the field of candidates was the most diverse in U.S. history, ethnically speaking. Although Booker, Castro, Gabbard and Patrick still have active campaigns, Andrew Yang was the only person of color on the debate stage last night. So technically the field is still fairly diverse. Democratic presidential candidates and political pundits constantly say how very important people of color, especially black women, are to the Democratic Party. I often hear the question raised, how do you speak to people of color when, at least at this juncture, no person of color is represented in the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates. The short answer is you can’t speak to them; you can only speak about them. Why is it important that the nominee of the Democratic Party should be able to speak to people of color? “People of color will become a majority of the American working class in 2032. This estimate, based on long-term labor force projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and trends in college completion by race and ethnicity, is 11 years sooner than the Census Bureau projection for the overall U.S. population, which becomes “majority-minority” in 2043. Why this matters: As of 2013, the working class—made up of working people without a college degree—constitutes nearly two-thirds (66.1 percent) of the U.S. civilian labor force between ages 18 and 64. Thus wage stagnation and economic inequality can’t be solved without policies aimed at raising living standards for the working class. Because the working class is increasingly people of color, raising working class living standards will require bridging racial and ethnic divides.” https://www.epi.org/publication/the-changing-demographics-of-americas-working-class/ The Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 does not have to be a person of color. However, they MUST be able to speak to people of color. How can a white person speak to people of color? They must have EXPERIENCE in interacting with and working on behalf of people of color, AND they must recognize that ALL humans are products of people of color, EVEN themselves. Joe Biden is a 77 year old white male. Bernie Sanders is a 78 year old white male. Elizabeth is a 70 year old white female (who acknowledges her Native American ancestry) and Pete Buttigieg is a 37 year old white male. These are the current frontrunners for the Democratic president nomination. ALL of these people are VERY socially liberal people who I do not believe have a racist bone in their bodies. But the question is, how can they speak to people of color, WHILE understanding that speaking to people of color DOES NOT mean not speaking to white people as well. » Posted By TOCB On December 20, 2019 @ 6:38 am Kalima, I really appreciate your contribution to the discussions in this forum. I know you are sort of an international person, being born in England and having traveled and lived in various countries. It is striking to me that you are more informed about the political and governmental affairs of the USA than MOST Americans are. THAT to me is pretty sad. I was reading this morning about a speech Giuliani delivered to some college students in Florida yesterday where he made this statement: “This coup and this impeachment is about … taking our Constitution and tearing it up.” Trump obviously doesn’t know anything about the Constitution that he, as the highest governmental official in the nation, is sworn to preserve, protect and defend, as he faithfully executes the office of president. Why would his personal attorney say that the act of the House of Representatives impeaching a president is a coup? Because that is what his client says. Maybe trump actually believes that, or maybe he doesn’t and just says it to throw red meat to his ignorant supporters. It is obvious to me that trump is actually not our problem. He is simply a symptom of our problem. Our problem are the 63 million Americans who voted for him (if they actually did) and the thousands of power-hungry minions he keeps around him to do his bidding, as he does the bidding of Putin. Trump doesn’t care any more about any of those 63 million or his minions than he cares about me. A very small number of these people are greedy and unscrupulous wealthy people who are benefiting from trump’s and the GOP’s so-called small government conservative policies. A slightly larger number of these people are wannabe greedy wealthy people. The vast majority of them are bigots, racists and misogynists who support people who make and support polices that are harmful to their own economic AND supposed moral interests. And THAT is the mother lode of our problem. THIS is why the word, “United” in United States of America is virtually silent. Congressional republicans castigate House Democrats for a purely partisan impeachment of trump, when the REASON the impeachment was purely partisan is because not a single republican had the courage to vote against the most corrupt president in U.S. history. It is impossible to be bi-partisan when you don’t have anyone to be bi-partisan with. » Posted By TOCB On December 20, 2019 @ 5:53 am If the House sends the articles of impeachment to the Senate when McConnell has publicly stated that he will not hold a fair trial and that he would quickly acquit a corrupt president, there is no reason to send the articles to the Senate. This way, trump cannot claim that he was exonerated by the Senate, AND the American people can continue to hear about WHY the articles were not sent to the Senate clear up to the election. Trump said last night the it doesn’t seem as if “we” were impeached. Well, “we” were not impeached. Trump was impeached. The rest of the GOP will be impeached at the ballot box in November 2020. » Posted By TOCB On December 19, 2019 @ 11:31 am Congressional republicans say the two articles of impeachments, (1) abuse of power and (2) obstruction of Congress do not violate any statutes. Unfortunately, this reflects a lack of understanding of the Constitution on the part of congressional republicans. First of all, impeachment was included in the Constitution before ANY statutes were passed into laws. The Constitution provides for impeachment for treason and bribery, which were based on established British law, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. What exactly are “high crimes and misdemeanors”? Some say it is whatever the majority of members of Congress agree they are at any given time. Although that definition will suffice as a political definition, it does not suffice for the survival of a republic. The President of The United States holds the highest office in our government. The office of the presidency gives a person powers that are not granted to any other one person in our government. Therefore, if the president uses those powers in a manner that betrays the trust of the American people or puts the security of the American people or our government in jeopardy, not for the benefit of the country, but for the benefit of the president personally, THIS constitutes “high crimes”, because no one in the government has the powers to commit these types of crimes EXCEPT the president. In discussing what constituted high crimes in 1787, the framers examined abuses that were familiar to the British since 1386, the one common denominator was an official who had abused their power and was therefore unfit to serve. What trump and indeed, the republican party has done by inviting a foreign government to interfere in our elections, causes harm to the very fabric of our democracy and our republic. These are the very highest of crimes. The Constitution does not provide for impeachment of members of Congress except by elections, but is does provide for the impeachment of the president, and if trump’s crimes do not warrant impeachment, nothing a president can do warrants impeachment. https://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.html The convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used “high crimes and misdemeanors” as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve. » Posted By TOCB On December 18, 2019 @ 10:19 am Republicans keep saying this is a partisan impeachment, and they keep citing Rep. Nadler’s statement in 1998 that there should never be a partisan impeachment as a reason for the impeachment not to proceed. Someone from the Democratic caucus should point out the REASON this is a partisan impeachment. The reason is not due to a lack of evidence. Indeed, the entire world has seen what trump has done, and the letter trump wrote to the Speaker of The House as recent as two days ago is Exhibit A of obstruction of Congress, which is one of the articles of impeachment. The reason this is a partisan impeachment is because congressional republicans in both chambers have decided to place more loyalty to trump than they do to the United States Constitution, the people of the United States and even to loyalty of the traditional values of the republican party. And as for Democrats’ desire to impeach trump from day one of his administration, that is probably true for many Democrats. However, NONE of those Democrats encouraged or assisted trump in doing the things he has done to deserve impeachment. In point of fact, the republican caucus are the ones who have and continue to encourage and assist trump in doing the things for which he is being impeached, and now they are attempting to cover those thing up and even excuse them. » Posted By TOCB On December 18, 2019 @ 7:53 am Trump had the Justice Department IG to investigate whether the Obama administration and the FBI illegally investigated his campaign, and he has the AG still conducting that investigation. Although trump and his minions deny they pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, they admit that they asked Ukraine to investigate him. So the question arises if Biden was investigated illegally by the trump administration. What was the probable cause for the origin or oranges of the investigation? Was a warrant necessary to open an investigation? What is the difference between the Obama Justice Department asking the FBI to investigate the trump campaign’s connections with Russia interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and trump’s personal attorney and a back-channel State Department investigation of Biden? » Posted By TOCB On December 17, 2019 @ 6:12 pm Democrats don’t need to call any witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial. In the Nixon impeachment trial we had the audio tapes. In the Clinton trial we had the blue dress. In the trump trial we have video from Washington D.C. to Russia and back of trump, Giuliani, Pompeo and others admitting to the things they are being accused of. As recently as today, we have Giuliani admitting to forcing Ambassador Yovanovitch out because she was in the way of their investigation. We have trump’s own call notes that admits he asked Zelensky for a favor related to the Bidens, as well as video on trump standing on the White House lawn and asking Ukraine and China to open investigations of the Bidens. And they can submit as evidence of obstruction of Congress various videos, tweets and even trump’s letter today. So with the testimony of seventeen witnesses before the House Intelligence Committee and videos and tweets from trump and his minions, Senate republicans can go ahead and acquit trump, but the whole world, including the American people will see and hear overwhelming evidence of what trump did to deserve impeachment. Let republicans defend that at the ballots in 2020. » Posted By TOCB On December 17, 2019 @ 4:42 pm The four republican facts, that are not facts, but rather alternative facts: Alternative Fact 1 -President Trump and President Zelensky both say there was no pressure. The person who committed that crime and the person who the criminal still has under duress, says there was no pressure. Inadmissible. Alternative Fact 2 -The transcript shows no conditionality. There was no transcript. The call notes specifically say that it is not a transcript. Trump’s call notes says he told Zelensky that he wanted him (Zelensky) to “us” a favor “though”. Although republicans claim that “us” meant the United States government, an investigation of Joe Biden does not benefit the United States government. It only benefits trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, in which case “us” means trump’s campaign. Further, the word “though” in the context trump used it, gives a condition on some previous part of the conversation. Alternative Fact 3 -Ukraine didn’t know aid was held back at time of the call. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper testified at a hearing in the impeachment inquiry into Trump that has largely focused on the decision to withhold nearly $400 million in security aid. She said Ukrainian officials had known in July about the holdup in the security aid, which was new information she had not had when she was interviewed behind closed doors on Oct. 23. Alternative Fact 4 -Ukraine never took any of the actions they were supposedly being pressured to take. The whistleblower filed a formal complaint to Congress about the July 25, 2019 call between trump and Zelensky on August 12, 2019. The security assistance to Ukraine was released on September 11, 2019. Taylor testified that Sondland had told him on Sept. 8 that “the Ukrainians had agreed to do a CNN interview.” » Posted By TOCB On December 17, 2019 @ 1:29 pm What does it mean that senators in an impeachment trial MUST take an oath to impartial justice? Should senators saw publicly state they are not impartial be recused by the chief justice of the Supreme Court? “This is a political process,” McConnell said. “I’m not impartial about this at all.” » Posted By TOCB On December 17, 2019 @ 12:45 pm What am I missing? The press keeps reporting that Sen. Warren’s healthcare plan will cost $23 trillion, but most pundits on television don’t explain that the cost is over a ten year period. https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/politics/elizabeth-warren-medicare-for-all-financing-plan/index.html The highly anticipated plan arrives amid a weeks-long onslaught from Warren’s Democratic primary rivals, who accused the Massachusetts senator of misleading voters of hiding from the fiscal realities of financing a program that some experts have calculated could cost up to $34 trillion over a decade. Another thing the press doesn’t mention is that since 2015 (four years ago), the USA has spent $3.2 trillion a year on medical care. That amounts to $32 trillion over the same period that Warren’s plan will cost $23 trillion. If my math serves me right, Warren’s plan results in a $9 trillion savings over a ten year span. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_finance_in_the_United_States The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) reported that U.S. health care costs rose 5.8% to reach $3.2 trillion in 2015, or $9,990 per person. As measured by CMS, the share of the U.S. economy devoted to health care spending was 17.8% GDP in 2015, up from 17.4% in 2014. Additionally, in a recent Emerson poll, 66% of Democrats prefer Medicare-For-All or a public option, while 33% of republicans prefer keeping the ACA (which they are trying to have declared unconstitutional). So if most Democrats prefer Warren and Sanders plans, why is Biden leading in the polls? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries WHY is the press misrepresenting polling and the cost of the various healthcare plans? » Posted By TOCB On December 17, 2019 @ 5:58 am All senators who participate in the impeachment trial of a president MUST take an oath of affirmation to “impartial justice”. Although the Constitution does not specify any particular wording (unlike the presidential oath, which is included word-for-word), the Senate adopted rules for impeachment trials in 1986 requiring each senator to affirm or swear to do “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.” Even if a judge or juror does not publicly state before a trial how they intend to decide a case, being totally impartial is fairly difficult. However, to publicly state how you intend to decide, regardless of the evidence in a case is DFINITELY not impartial. So we know that Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell do not even pretend to be impartial. There might be one or two senate republicans who will actually honor their oath, but I suspect the majority of them will not. Of course, I could be wrong. » Posted By TOCB On December 16, 2019 @ 5:40 pm Two questions. (1) Why isn’t the press asking Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg about this? and (2) Why aren’t Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders asking their Democratic opponents about it in the debates? Twenty AGs from red states are challenging the validity of the ACA, and the trump administration has stated that if the case goes to the Supreme Court, they will not challenge it. Yes, that’s right. The federal government will not challenge Texas v. United States, which means the decision from the Fifth Circuit, and NOT the 2020 presidential election, will determine the fate of the ACA. Plan B? On December 14, 2018, a federal trial court judge ruled that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) is invalid. While the trial court’s ruling is likely not the last word on the ACA’s validity, this brief considers the complex and far-reaching impact were the entire law ultimately held to be invalid. The current make-up of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is 69% judges appointed by republican presidents and 31% appointed by Democratic presidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_appointment_history_for_United_States_federal_courts I have posed the question to this forum before and I don’t believe anyone responded. What is Plan B for Biden, Buttigieg and trump if the ACA is ruled unconstitutional? » Posted By TOCB On December 16, 2019 @ 12:59 pm A wise man once told me that the best way to beat a bad system is to use it. I know that sounds crazy, but it is often true. The problem is that sometimes it destroys the entire organization, because by the time people acknowledge the system is bad, it is too late to save the organization. I used this on my children when they were young, in order to make them realize from their own experiences that what they wanted to do was not the best thing. It is only necessary to use this exercise when the people you are attempting to advise refuse to listen to reason. However, when they experience the consequences of their choices, they will have learned at first-hand and it will be a life lesson for them. It can be difficult to watch people you love go through the consequences of bad choices, but it is part of the learning process. » Posted By TOCB On December 13, 2019 @ 5:28 am Moscow Mitch has publicly stated, at least for Fox “News” viewers, that Senate republicans will not convict trump. He said that republicans will consult with trump’s team at every step of the trial. Members of the “jury” will consult with the defendant. The House of Representatives will do their job next week and impeach this corrupt president. Republicans in the Senate will acquit him in January or February 2020, and in trump’s feeble mind, he will be exonerated. It will then be up to American voters to impeach and remove the republican party in November 2020. If not, the USA will cease to exist. PERIOD! » Posted By TOCB On December 13, 2019 @ 5:09 am In last night’s impeachment hearing many Democrats admonished republicans to vote their conscience as opposed to voting based on political expediency. It appears that they should direct the same advice to at least one of their fellow Democrats. Jeff Van Drew who represents a district in NJ that trump won by 5 points in 2016, has decided not to vote for impeachment. He said he thinks it is too divisive, I suppose politically. I think any Democrat who does not vote to impeach should be voted out of office in the Democratic primaries. If a Democrat wants to vote like a republican, they should depend on republicans to elect them. Many of the Democrats who won election in 2018 in republican districts, did NOT win because voters wanted to protect the ACA or other issues they seem to think they won on. They won because voters wanted to hold trump accountable for his actions. PERIOD! Almost NONE of the over 400 bills passed by House Democrats have even been taken up in the republican controlled Senate, so how does having a Democratic House and a republican Senate and White House get anything done in Washington? IT DOESN’T! If Americans want sensible gun safety legislation, they MUST elect a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. And that goes for any other legislation that MOST Americans want. » Posted By TOCB On December 12, 2019 @ 5:33 am I think constitutional monarchies are fake governments, regardless of how much power the sovereign has. Even our representative democracy is fake in a very important respect. In fact, the last two times a republican occupied the White House, the president did not receive the majority of the votes. Additionally, by hook or crook, when republicans are the majority in Congress, it is not because the majority of Americans voted for them. I am not sure what kind of government we actually have in the USA, but it is not a democracy. From my understanding Brexit is something that MAY have been initiated by Putin, in an effort to dismantle the EU. It makes sense to me that the UK’s monetary system is controlled by the government and not the European Central Bank. I don’t quite understand why sovereign nations don’t control their own currencies. However, it also makes sense to me that the UK would want to be a part of a market partnership with the EU in order to leverage the marketing power of other European nations. I don’t see what the UK gains from being a separate market than the rest of Europe. » Posted By TOCB On December 12, 2019 @ 5:16 am So far, I am persuaded that Senator Graham is a country lawyer with a South Carolina accent, who has an impressive ability to distract. I think he and the IG established that the FISA warrants to surveil Carter Page involved FBI neglecting to note that Page had been an agent for the CIA, and Graham implied that the omission of that information rendered the beginning of the investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election biased against trump. However, what I heard the IG say about the opening of the investigation is that it had nothing to do with Carter Page, and that it was completely legitimate. Further, the date of January 2017 was mentioned several times related to the time the FBI discovered that there was a problem with the FISA warrants related to Page. I recall that the 2016 presidential election was completed in November 2016, AND by that time Carter Page was no longer a member of trump’s campaign, and indeed trump had stated he did not even know Carter Page. So if the issues with FISA warrants related to Carter Page occurred in January 2017, when Page was no longer affiliated with trump’s campaign and indeed trump was by then POTUS, who did not even know Carter Page, HOW could FISA issues related to Carter Page be viewed as a bias against candidate trump and result in an illegal counter intelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election??? » Posted By TOCB On December 11, 2019 @ 9:01 am Lindsey Graham just opened a Senate session to question the Justice Department OIG about the report he issued about whether the FBI was politically motivated in opening an investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Graham’s initial statement is VERY puzzling. He said that, “the FBI took the law into their own hands.” I was always under the impression that the FBI, as part of the Justice Department, is charged with law enforcement. If the FBI cannot investigate violations of laws, exactly who does Graham think should, “take the law into their own hands”? » Posted By TOCB On December 11, 2019 @ 7:26 am I am NOT the typical “older black voter”. Although I do not dislike Joe Biden, he is not my first or second choice for president. I think Senator Warren is the person who is best prepared to lead the USA into the twenty-first century, twenty years after it began. However, Senator Warren is a woman. Republicans, the press and “moderate Democrats” have managed to label her as unelectable because she is a woman, AND she supports universal single payer health insurance. These are the two primary reasons Senator Warren won’t win the Democratic nomination. Americans preferring a man as president over a woman as president, is what it is. I have nothing for that. However, as a practical matter, Americans REALLY need to know how health insurance works in the USA, and how our fellow Americans are dying everyday due to the lack of adequate affordable healthcare. Here is a teaser from a site that gives an overview about the history of healthcare in the USA, and how it works today. I encourage people to read the entire article at this link: https://www.interexchange.org/articles/visit-the-usa/understanding-us-healthcare-system/ American Health Insurance System Although there are several different types of coverage and states often have their own health insurance regulations, there are some aspects of the system that are similar throughout the U.S. Hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and other health care facilities are owned by a variety of private and public entities. Health insurance providers are generally separate companies from these and deal with a wide range of different healthcare providers. The Affordable Care Act The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare,” was voted into law in 2010. Since insurance companies are private, for-profit companies, many Americans had been left uninsured because they could not afford or did not want insurance, or because they were rejected because of pre-existing conditions. The Obama administration attempted to address some of these issues with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. These are some of the major provisions of the law: » Posted By TOCB On December 11, 2019 @ 6:59 am Again, I do not disagree. HOWEVER, (you know I am a contrarian) trump and republicans will attempt to make a mockery of anything Democrats, the press and those who respect the rule of law do. So not doing something based on principle because trump will attempt to distort it, is playing into trump’s hand, IMHO. I would include the full Mueller Report, both volumes, as evidence to support an obstruction of justice article. There would be no debate on it in the hearing in the Judiciary Committee. As Mueller said, the report speaks for itself, and it outlined ten cases of obstruction of justice. I would also submit as evidence NUMEROUS reports from government agencies and videos of trump himself that support violations of the Emoluments Clause. Nadler could allow limited debate on that issue. Nothing would require any court action because Congress has the SOLE authority for impeachment, and at this stage the court has no jurisdiction. The MAIN focus could remain on Ukraine. When the case gets to the Senate, I suspect republicans will take the position that trump has done nothing wrong, and they will end the trial in short order. We will then have an impeached president in the Oval Office for a year. A president who in his mind, has been exonerated by the Senate, and who is a clear and present danger to the national security of the USA. A president who on the day the House announced articles of impeachment, had a private meeting, with no U.S. press present, in the Oval Office with Russia’s foreign minister and who called the women and men who work at the FBI, SCUM. There is literally no telling what trump likely will think he can get away within a year. After all, what will the U.S. government do about it? Impeach him??? » Posted By TOCB On December 11, 2019 @ 6:22 am Although I have not given completely up on Gabbard, I think she has a lot of growing to do. I am very impressed with Williamson because of her commitment to and expression of love. As UN Ambassador she could spread the concept of love all over the world. How cool would that be? » Posted By TOCB On December 10, 2019 @ 3:51 pm I don’t disagree with anything you said, and you said it very well. However, your justification for a narrowly focused impeachment, like House Democrats, is a political justification. I understand the pragmatism of that decision. However, as an American citizen who is concerned about our institutions and the rule of law, I am very disappointed in congressional republicans because they are forcing congressional Democrats to be political. They (republicans) complain that this is a partisan impeachment, and they are 100% correct. The REASON it is a partisan impeachment is because congressional republicans refuse to accept their responsibility to hold THIS president accountable. Of course, if it were a Democratic president, they would be leading the way to impeaching him or her. As you are well aware, it is not the responsibility of the American voters to impeach a president. Voters only get to make their choices for government at election time. Impeachment was included in the Constitution as a remedy outside of an election. The Constitution made it SOLEY the responsibility of the House to impeach and the Senate to acquit or convict and remove. The saddest thing in this is that ANY member of Congress would not rise to place country over party and politics when it is for the common good to do so. » Posted By TOCB On December 10, 2019 @ 3:46 pm I am NOT a politician, and I don’t play one of tv. I AM an American citizen. From my perspective as an American citizen, I would prefer the Articles of Impeachment include all of the crimes we are aware of trump violating. We know he encouraged and welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election. We know he attempted to obstruct justice in the investigation of his conspiracy to encourage and welcome Russian interference in the 2016 election. Of course the legal wording would be different that “encouraging” and “welcoming”. The point is that these actions are a betrayal and an abuse of the office of the presidency. We also know that trump attempted to extort and bribe the Ukrainian government to persuade them to interfere in the 2020 election, and he attempted to obstruct justice and to obstruct Congress in investigating those crimes. And we know that trump has violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution in various and sundry ways. We know these things because trump has done MANY of these thing is plain sight for the entire world to see. Regardless of what action the republican controlled Senate takes related to their constitutional responsibility to preserve and protect the Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. Republicans in the Senate should be forced to defend their inactions to the American people. We know some Americans will support and indeed cheer the inactions of the Senate related to convicting trump and removing him from office. That is their prerogative. But then, there are the rest of us. » Posted By TOCB On December 10, 2019 @ 8:09 am Durham, with his previously stellar reputation, SEEMS to have been infected with the trump virus. Everything trump touches becomes rotten to the core. » Posted By TOCB On December 10, 2019 @ 5:14 am I think the Democratic primary field for president provides Elizabeth Warren with EXCELLENT choices for her cabinet. Senator Harris would be a great AG. Julian Castro would be a great VP. Marianne Williamson would be a great Ambassador to the UN., and so on and so on. » Posted By TOCB On December 10, 2019 @ 5:12 am Although I support the press reporting things that inform the public, I realize that the press has an agenda, be it the conservative press or the liberal press. Since the Washington Post observes “truth” in their reporting, I expect them to point out that Senator Warren was a registered Republican until 1996. She said she was a Republican because she thought that party was more favorable to businesses and the market. She said she switched her political allegiance when she was persuaded that the Republican Party put the interest of large corporations and financial concerns ahead of the interest of the people. The Post DID point out that the corporations that hired Warren as a consultant were seeking her expertise in bankruptcy, which was her specialty. Another company sought her help after the court ordered them to clean up a waste site. The Post might consider making it clear that Warren did not defend the company in their polluting, but rather she assisted them in becoming compliant with the court order, IF that was indeed the case. I understand that politics is a contact sport and that politicians and their supporters often play fast and loose with the truth. All voters SHOULD beware of this. What I see with the press related to Warren is similar to what I know they did to Clinton. They are helping Republicans to demonize her. They are promoting the notion that she is a hypocrite. That she is not PERFECT, despite her claims that she is (she actually does not claim perfection). Warren might address these attacks by confessing that she is NOT perfect. However, she IS as PERFECT as any other candidate. » Posted By TOCB On December 10, 2019 @ 5:06 am So now it is wrong for an attorney to accept a gig as a legal consultant for a corporation? Alrighty then. » Posted By TOCB On December 9, 2019 @ 5:20 am I think trump’s supporters have demonstrated that they DO NOT practice the love of God. Some people know of God. So does Satan. However, many of these people do not KNOW God. » Posted By TOCB On December 9, 2019 @ 4:52 am Trump and republicans are quick to say that trump has done more to help Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression than Obama did. However, trump said he held up military assistance to Ukraine because he was uncomfortable about general corruption in Ukraine. Not about the Bidens, but corruption in general. Zelensky was elected president of Ukranie on April 21, 2019. Obama left office on January 20, 2017. By May of 2019, the United State Congress, on a bi-partisan basis, had allocated military assistance to Ukraine and the Department of Defense had certified that anti-corruption policies in Ukraine were moving in the right direction. So as on July 25, 2019 trump was the ONLY person in the United States government who was worried about general corruption in Ukraine to the point that he felt that military assistance should be withheld. The truth is the Obama administration as well as Western Europe decided against providing lethal weapons to Ukraine because they feared it would escalate the conflict with Russia. The Obama administration provided Ukraine with everything the republican led Congress approved, which did not include Javelins. In point of fact, until this day Ukraine has not received any Javelins, even under the trump administration, even though Javelins have been appropriated by Congress. So if trump believed in July 2019 that Ukraine was too corrupt to receive security assistance, why does he keep bringing up Obama’s reluctance to provide lethal weapons before Zelensky was elected? Wasn’t Ukraine more corrupt during the Obama administration than it is now? AND why did he suddenly believe it was ok to release the security assistance in September 2019. What changed between July 2019 and September 2019? A whistleblower, perhaps? From 2014 through 2016, the U.S. provided Ukraine with $600 million in security assistance. From 2016 through 2019 Congress has appropriated $850 million in security assistance. » Posted By TOCB On December 8, 2019 @ 4:19 pmComments Posted By TOCB
Cooper said her staff received an email on July 25 from the State Department saying that Ukraine’s embassy and the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee were asking about security assistance.
That same day, Taylor threatened to resign, texting Sondland and U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker that “The nightmare is they give the interview and don’t get the security assistance. The Russians love it. (And I quit.)”
“My fear at the time was that, since Ambassador Sondland had told me President Zelensky had already agreed to do a CNN interview, President Zelensky would make a statement regarding investigations that would have played into domestic U.S. politics,” Taylor testified to the House impeachment inquiry.
The White House ultimately released the military aid on Sept. 11, but only after bipartisan outcry and two days after the House began an investigation into Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine. By then, Congress was already working to uncover the whistleblower’s complaint, but hadn’t seen its actual contents.
On September 13, two days after the aid was released, Zelensky was scheduled to appear on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, according to the New York Times, in which he was expected to make an announcement. Zakaria said Sunday that Zelensky had “agreed in principle” to an interview in mid-September and that the two sides were working out logistics, but Ukraine “pulled the plug on the planning” after the whistleblower’s complaint surfaced.
Warren’s campaign, with the aid of prominent economists and health policy experts, produced its own, lower-end estimate: $20.5 trillion.
The case – brought by a number of Republican state attorneys general (AGs) and other plaintiffs – centers on the argument that the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional after Congress zeroed out the penalty associated with it in the tax bill in late 2017. The plaintiffs argue that the rest of the ACA is not severable from the mandate and should therefore be invalidated. The Trump administration now agrees that the entire law should be overturned, but previously argued that only the ACA’s pre-existing condition protections are inseparable from the mandate and should be overturned, while the rest of the law should stand. A number of Democratic state AGs are defending the ACA as interveners in the case, arguing in part that Congress intended to keep the ACA in place when it set the individual mandate penalty to zero while leaving the rest of the law intact. An appeal of the December 2018 lower court decision is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Pending a final decision on appeal, the Trump administration has continued to enforce the ACA.
Patients pay monthly health insurance fees to ensure that they will be covered when they need to go to the doctor, clinic or hospital. Insurance providers cover thousands of patients, so they are able to negotiate with health care providers for reduced fees and then pay for services. The Medicare or Medicaid insurance works the same way but on a bigger scale. Because they need to be able to negotiate, insurance providers generally have a network of doctors that they have agreements with, and patients are covered for visits to doctors within that network but may not be covered, or fully covered, for visits to doctors out of their network. Insurance providers will usually cover services considered necessary by doctors, but often will not cover services which are considered “elective.” Insurance companies aim to keep their costs down while still covering necessary health care.
Insurers are not allowed to refuse coverage because of pre-existing conditions
Minimum standards for health insurance policies were established
Medicaid eligibility expanded
Medicare underwent reforms aimed at greater efficiency
Individuals without employer-provided insurance are required to purchase health insurance
Health Exchanges were set up to offer consumers a good way to find suitable health insurance and to provide subsidies for those who need it
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 11 million more Americans are insured than previously. But this legislation has come under fire from Republicans despite the fact that it was passed by both houses of Congress. Repeated attempts to stop the legislation through the courts have mostly failed, though there have been a few rulings partially in their favor. The debate over health care is likely to continue as it has for the last hundred years.
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