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Post by doordie50 on Mar 8, 2017 12:45:18 GMT
We are a group of like-minded people that gather to discuss a host of topics from weight loss, to current events. Our thread celebrates liberal diversity, welcomes new friends, and respects all opinions. We count everything from calories to points but, we never count our chickens before they've hatched!
*International Women's Day*
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Post by NatureLover on Mar 8, 2017 14:58:30 GMT
Good morning Pam and everyone. Well, does anyone else here live in a coastal area? In this morning's bag of horrors, we learn the dumpster plans to deflate the Coast Guard's budget to apply those funds to other branches of the military. Dear Mr. Dump: Apparently you are in need of an education. Our coastlines are essentially BORDERS. You may not understand this because you cannot BUILD A WALL, a big beautiful wall or otherwise, on water. (Your VP thinks he can WALK on water, but that is a different cause of concern.) Consider this: - Drug smugglers infiltrate our society with drugs smuggled in by boat.
- Those damn aliens and refugees seek asylum on our shores, and often seek to land on our coastlines in boats.
- People have accidents. Rich people, one percenters no less, in yachts get blown out to sea in storms. Who saves them? I will give you a clue, they wear uniforms and operate boats.
- Enemies lurk off our shores. The Navy and Coast Guard often work together to protect our country from these foes. Those enemies are in various vessels.
- You are a moron and a buffoon.
Sincerely, just sign me You Suck as a President
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 15:50:15 GMT
Hi...
I live in landlocked ND, but totally agree about the Coast Guard & "You Suck As President"...actually, I like to think of him as a Fake President! Since he was a draft dodger 5 times, I think he wants to go to war somewhere to inflate his ego, therefore, is trying to build up the military so he can " play" war. He's dangerous & mentally unstable to put it politely ...he scares the bejesus out of me!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 15:55:40 GMT
Republicans don’t want to talk about their health plan’s tax cuts 03/08/17 09:23 AM—UPDATED 03/08/17 09:31 AM By Steve Benen In the White House briefing room yesterday, a reporter asked HHS Secretary Tom Price why the Republican health care plan “includes a tax break for insurance executives that make more than $500,000. You said this is about patients. Why is that tax break important for this legislation?”
The Republican cabinet secretary was incredulous. “I’m not aware of that,” Price responded.
The bill really isn’t that long. How the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who presumably read the bill, could be unaware of the provision is difficult to understand.
Around the same time, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was asked why his reform blueprint includes “a big, fat tax break.” The Republican leader responded, simply, “Read the bill.”
We did read the bill. BuzzFeed reported: The Republican plan to replace Obamacare includes a tax break for insurance company executives making over $500,000 per year.
Companies can generally deduct employee salaries as a business expense but in 2013 the Affordable Care Act capped the deductions on health insurance executive salaries at $500,000.
The average compensation for top health insurance executives is in the millions. In 2014 the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies found that this cap generated $72 million in additional tax revenue. But that cap is being eliminated in the new American Healthcare Act unveiled Monday by Republicans. That means the more health insurance companies pay their executives the less they will pay in taxes. If you voted for Trump because you wanted to see insurance-company executives get a big tax break, this is, of course, great news. For everyone else, however, it’s not quite as impressive.
And while this is a striking provision, in the GOP proposal, it’s really just the start of the tax breaks in the new reform legislation. Vox explained: It’s reasonable … to ask what there is to like about the proposal. The main answer, for Republicans is Congress, is that it also contains $600 billion in tax cuts — tax cuts that would save the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans nearly $200,000 each in a single year, according to a batch of analyses released by the Joint Committee on Taxation on Tuesday. […]
The single biggest tax cut included in the bill is the repeal of the 3.8 percent tax the Affordable Care Act applied to capital gains, dividend, and interest income for families with $250,000 or more in income ($125,000 for singles).
Repealing that tax is a change that, by definition, only helps the rich, or at least the affluent. At a certain level, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. When Democrats crafted the Affordable Care Act, they intended to distribute benefits and resources in a progressive direction: those at the top would pay more in taxes, while those in the middle and on the bottom would receive more in the form of health security.
Republicans intend to undo the economics of “Obamacare,” which necessarily means going in a regressive direction: giving people at the top big tax breaks, while taking benefits away from everyone else.
It’s a reality, however, that Republicans aren’t exactly eager to acknowledge out loud – Ryan and Price dodged questions yesterday because they know the politics of their plan are awful – but the legislative text is unambiguous.
The larger point, however, is coming to terms with the significance of this aspect of the GOP reform push. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes noted yesterday that the only way to make sense of the Republicans’ health care plan is to see it as “a bill primarily intended to cut rich people’s taxes.”
That’s both true and underappreciated. Why in the world would GOP officials champion a health care proposal that would take away coverage from millions, increase deductibles and premiums, and leave much of the country worse off? It’s probably because Republicans really like cutting taxes for rich people.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 16:00:21 GMT
Dan Rather............ So it turns out drafting major health care legislation is difficult, who knew? For seven years we've been hearing from Republicans about how horrible Obamacare was, and this was the best they could come up with? A rush job that doesn't seem to have any new ideas or fix the core problems? It seems to prove the point that this was always about rhetoric and not about actually trying to make health insurance either cover more people or lower costs. The ball is firmly in the court of the GOP. They control the government, and President Trump made promises on the campaign trail about lower premiums, keeping your doctor, everyone staying insured, etc. Basically a version of healthcare that would be better told by Hans Christian Andersen - a fairy tale. And everyone with any sense on this issue knew it. Legislation isn't a campaign speech. It actually has to be made up of words that lead to law. And those words have to actually tell you something about who will win and who will lose. Who will be covered and how much it might cost. And now that we have a GOP plan, it is getting picked apart by politicians and interest groups on all sides. It is starting to look about as popular as ants at a picnic. You had to guess that with Paul Ryan running the show, progressives would not end up liking the result. Millions more likely uninsured? Check. Massive tax cuts for the rich? Looks that way. Also, some powerful outside voices are lining up in opposition. The AARP said " this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable." You can also add a major hospital group and others in the healthcare industry to the critics. But perhaps most threatening to the long term prospects for the bill is the push and pull within the Republican Party. Moderate Senators are complaining about how rushed the process is and what will likely happen to lower income Americans. Meanwhile, the hardline conservatives see this effort as some sort of Obamacare light. And they are being propelled by outside groups on the right. There is a lot of wonderful analysis in the press about what the GOP approach means in terms of policy. But ultimately, sadly, this will be decided on political grounds. When Ryan said “Doing big things is never easy, but we have made a promise, and we’re going to keep that promise,” he was talking of political promises made on campaign trails and fanned by conservative media. He was not talking of making promises to insure more Americans. So here we stand. And President Trump is swinging the full weight of his Administration behind the Ryan plan. Maybe that will be enough to arm twist skeptical Republicans. Or maybe this effort will fall apart in spectacular failure. Mr. Trump promised to replace and repeal Obamacare on day one. But the Affordable Care Act (yes to some out there, that is the same as Obamacare) is still the law of the land. And who knows how long that may last. It likely will be dramatic political theater. It's just a horrible shame that the stakes being toyed with are millions of Americans and their health insurance.
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Post by yogamama007 on Mar 8, 2017 22:10:02 GMT
I was wished happy International Women's Day by a nice young man.....I love intelligent men. Pity the Goddess did not make them all that bright. This is really great........I know the reason was “likely due to work related to an ongoing project to activate a new emergency backup generator that is part of our last remaining Hurricane Sandy recovery projects.”, but the timing was perfect. "The Statue of Liberty went dark on Tuesday night causing mass confusion on social media.
Only Lady Liberty’s torch and crown were visible in the night sky as the statue stood in darkness in New York Harbor for a few hours.
Several on Twitter suggested the power outage was in solidarity with A Day Without A Woman, the women’s strike planned for Wednesday across the United States."
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Post by yogamama007 on Mar 8, 2017 22:13:30 GMT
You and me both kid....remember all the lives lost when the last fool in the White House had to go to War to prove something to mommy.
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Post by doordie50 on Mar 9, 2017 0:51:17 GMT
Azzhat!
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