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#2831 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

PaSnow wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:

  How many congressman have called Trump a fake president or question the legitimacy of his election, knowing full well our election systems were never compromised and Trump was fairly elected under the rules setforth in our Constitution. 

This is an environment both sides have equally created and played in for the better part of 20 years, and it's progressively gotten meaner and more extreme.

Questioning the legitimacy of the election outcome isn't anywhere near as personal an attack as mocking someone for a facejob.  Secondly, Trump haggled Obama for YEARS over his birth certificate and legitimacy.  Also, wasn't it Newt Gingrich who called Chelsea ugly?


I'm not excusing the actions of anyone. I think it's all embarrassment. This kind of insult may be accepted in Europe, but until recently it wasn't here. The Senate used to be the bastion of polite, gentlemanly behavior. But we had Booker looking for his 15 minutes calling Sessions a racist, despite years of cordial behavior as colleagues.  It's become a joke.

And let's not pretend people didn't know who Trump was when they elected him. This is who he is and who he's always been.  This isn't new behavior.

To me this is nothing more in the latest media hype of "gotcha!" journalism. No one cares when their side does it, and acts like they've never heard a profanity when the other side does.

Trump's a brash asshole. But the people elected him fully aware of this. So I'm not going to pretend his behavior or anyone else's is a shock. It's par for the course. But I don't buy into the narrative the President can't respond to blatant ad hominems from his detractors. I wouldn't do it. But I also wouldn't be on TV calling him a psychopath or commenting on the appearance or infidelities of someone unless it was directly related to the story. If Kim Kardashian came out against plastic surgery, I think it's fair to ask her to reconcile that with her own history.

#2832 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

misterID wrote:

Holy shit, Trump is such a pussy. I'd like to see a fight between he and Scarborough.


I just can't get behind the outrage.  Mara insults him, attacks his appearance, calls him a psychopath, states he's destroying America and everyone is fine that a so called "journalist" conducts herself in this manner.  Trump responds that she had a horrible face job and wanted to cozy up to him at a New Years party, and somehow he's the one in the wrong here. 

Don't get me wrong.  I don't want my president on twitter acting like an asshole either.  But I also don't want a media that is full of vitriol, hate and lies, then plays a victim when someone in any official capacity doesn't kiss their ass and tell them it smells of unicorns and rainbows.  People found it hysterical when Obama traded jabs at the Correspondents dinner or went on Jimmy Kimmel and read mean tweets.  It was perfectly acceptable for candidate Clinton to call half the country a basket of deplorables.  How many congressman have called Trump a fake president or question the legitimacy of his election, knowing full well our election systems were never compromised and Trump was fairly elected under the rules setforth in our Constitution. 

This is an environment both sides have equally created and played in for the better part of 20 years, and it's progressively gotten meaner and more extreme. 

So I'm not going to feign outrage when Trump fires back at a public personality who uses her platform to lob insults and attacks at him.  It's not the ideal situation I'd want, but I don't have the expectation of Trump or any elected official remaining silent while a grown adult throws insults at him.  Perfectly ok for her to suggest he has a small dick by saying he hid his hands in his fake Time cover.  But Trump crosses a line by calling out she's had plastic surgery.  I'm not buying the outrage.

#2833 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

Neemo wrote:

Not everyone can afford the gold plan tho...and critical patients get priority


Not everyone can afford a USDA Prime Ribeye or a Mercedes Benz.  Not everyone gets to fuck Jennifer Lawrence.  Not everyone gets to win the Super Bowl. 

Until Obamacare, around 30 million Americans, or 10%, lacked health insurance.  Most of that figure was by choice, meaning they were young and foregoing the cost of insurance, or they already qualified for a pre-existing program and didn't enroll.  Our system was far from perfect, but all Obama and the Democrats did was force more Americans to accept poorer quality care for more money out of their pocket.  That's the indisputable reality.  Approx 25 million Americans had to change their plan after the ACA passed.  Why didn't the judges rule that because Obama campaigned on "If you like your plan you can keep it" or "This isn't a tax" that it somehow invalidated the law like they did with Trump's talk of a Muslim Ban?  So when you hear a figure like "22 million will lose insurance", you have to question the accuracy of that figure and ask the obvious question of "why?"

I don't think the current GOP plan is a good bill.  I think medicaid should be expanded and funded in part by a scaling income tax.  People that have private insurance can use that monthly contribution as a tax write-off, but no one should be exempt from contributing to their care.  Poor life choices don't exempt you from "paying your fair share" as our progressive friends like to opine on taxes.  But the healthcare of the majority shouldn't be lowered because a small portion of people fall into a very narrow category of folks unable to get healthcare. 

I have mixed feelings on "lifestyle" taxes, because I don't know where the cutoff should be.  Smoking? ok.  Obesity? I guess.  But what about people who drink every day?  People who have sex with many partners?  People who choose to live in high crime areas or work in areas with a higher injury rate?  What if you have a genetic deformity and decide to have children and pass that deformity on to them?  I'm not saying yes or no to any of these, but that's the kind of questions elected officials will have to decide.  I don't know where that line is.

I don't think anyone, specifically children, should lack for medical care.  But there has to be a deterrent in the law to negate the risk of people abusing the system.

#2834 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

Neemo wrote:

Cosmetic procedures are not covered by govt up here...only essential...checkups, general health care and life threatening stuff


That's good, but since America doesn't have a universal healthcare, the Canadian system is viewed poorly because of exceptional wait times Americans don't have, we're not going to make a clone of any other countries system.  Whatever the end game is, private insurance and hospitals will still exist because the majority of Americans already have private care and aren't interested in going to the "free clinic" and receiving substandard care and extraordinary wait times due to mismanagement, bureaucracy and lack of staff to patient ratio.  In Canada, you need to see a Nurse just to get scheduled to see a doctor, and the wait time could be months.  Versus in the US on my gold plan through Aetna, I only need to call the doctor/specialist I wish to see and go at the earliest open appointment.

#2835 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

Neemo wrote:

Well u aren't really the go to to say who lives or dies...just saying

But in canada just cuz more people need care doesn't mean that individual taxes go up each year...its bot an insurance policy...part of our income tax goes to health care and your tax amount is based on ur income...its a fixed rate


Of course I'm not.  Hence why I put the caveat "If I were emperor".  The overwhelming majority of medical care goes to the elderly, because obviously, their bodies are breaking down as they come closer to the end of life.  My point is we can't have a medical system that pays for any procedure, regardless of cost, just to keep human beings alive in a state that may not be a quality of life anyone would desire.  Maybe you want to live to be 120 with dementia in a nursing home and receive weekly blood transfusions costing the tax payer $150k a pop.  But if you've now made health care a public commodity, and are solely relying on the public to provide your medical care, the public has a say in terms of what kind of care you can receive. 

That's why college in America is a problem.  There's no cap on how much they can continually raise tuition and no one to tell them that they don't need a 5th diversity coordinator for gendered flexible students.  It'll be the same thing with universal healthcare, with far left wackos arguing that lip injections need to be covered in order to raise the self esteem of some teenage girl.

#2836 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

misterID wrote:

We're going to end up with some kind of single payer system, most likely based on income, at some point.

I understated how much the med industry got off my father. I forgot to mention he had dialysis treatments which cost 30 grand a month for 5 years. Don't get me started on how crooked the dialysis industry is. John Oliver had a great segment on it.


I'd be ok with universal healthcare if people had to comply under law.  You can't have a system that allows people to behave and procreate without impunity and expect others to cover it.  There always has to be a co-pay, even if it's $10 to discourage people from abusing the system.  Federalize all medical records and have them accessible and shared across all institutions.  No more doctor shopping to get more pain meds or adderall. 

If people want health care to be an obligation from the government, then the government has an obligation to police the health related activity of its citizens.  If I were emperor, that'd also mean babies with retardation or extreme disabilities/deformities would never come to term and you 90 year old nana wouldn't be getting chemo to treat her breast cancer.  But i have a feeling anyone who tried to apply that approach to health care would be lynched.  When Palin tried to scare people with "death panels", I always thought "good, we should decide if we want to spend millions so some 90 year old gets 15 more months of life in hospice care."

#2837 Re: The Sunset Strip » HBO's A Game of Thrones » 463 weeks ago

If you're talking the show, I don't recall. In the books she sees daggers coming out of the dark at him. He dismisses it because Mel earlier told him His sister was on horseback coming to the wall, and it turned out to be Alys Karstark trying to get out of marrying her uncle. Like I said, in the books prophecy is much harder to grasp because it's coded. It's not as straightforward as the show makes it out to be.

#2838 Re: The Sunset Strip » HBO's A Game of Thrones » 463 weeks ago

Yea, it's so different at this point. Stannis sent Davos on a mission to find Rickon, so he can rally the north behind him.  Davos is no where near Castle Black.

What irritated me most is that Davos asked Melisandre to bring Jon back in the show. Why?  They had no relationship or connection. Had they even said a word to each other?  And Davos hates both magic and Melisandre. All of season 2 he warned Stannis she was evil and did all he could to stop her from using blood magic from Gendry.  After the shadow baby he swore he'd never help her again.

Then all of that's forgotten and he ask Melisandre to use the same magic he's despised the entire series to bring back someone he didn't know or give two shits about.

Queen Selyse and Princess Shireen are still alive and never left Castle Black in the books, so if someone would ask Melisandre to bring Jon back (she never left the wall either in the books), it seems likely it'd be Selyse. But she doesn't like Jon in the books, so I have no idea why Melisandre would all of a sudden give a shit about Jon other than she saw his death in her flames and warned him.

#2839 Re: The Sunset Strip » HBO's A Game of Thrones » 463 weeks ago

misterID wrote:

I am interested to see how Martin resurrects Jon Snow in the books and how different it is from the show. I get the feeling the Jon in the books, and Arya, can Warg. So, more than likely he slipped into ghost. I just think it could have been bad ass had they put him on a funeral pyre and he walked out of that shit alive and unscathed. I'm also interested in how Stannis works out in the books. I can't see him surviving very long.


You hit the nail on the head.  Jon has been told he's a warg by other wildling wargs, but is ashamed of it.  Arya uses her warg abilities to overcome her blindness.  She wargs into cats while the waif and kindly man (Jaqen is off on a mission in the books, so he's never in Bravos) beat her to see who is hitting her and avoid their attacks.  Arya also has "dreams" she's Nymeria and leading a 1000 wolf pack, though she doesn't really grasp what a warg is.  Rob never had a POV chapter, so can't say for certain, but all the text points to him subconsciously warging Greywind while in battle.  And Bran comments that Rickon (keep in mind he's 4 in the books) is losing his humanity as Shaggy Dog's personality is more powerful than his own.  Sansa's wolf died too early, but presumably she's a warg too.

Jon's last words as it goes dark is "Ghost" and Jon knows through a warg he killed, that wargs can live a 2nd life in their animal after death.  The eagle that attacked him in the book and show was the wildling warg he killed moments earlier. 

Beric Dondarion was brought back 8 or 9 times so far in the books before he gave up his life so Catelyn could come back.  Each time he died, he said he lost a piece of himself and came back a different person.  Compared with Catelyn who is completely homicidal and murdering Lannisters and Freys by the dozen, you can see a huge change from being brought back.  I believe Jon will overcome this change by living in Ghost until such a time as Melisandre brings him back.  Though some have commented how cool it would be if "Jon" is brought back and we go the entire book thinking it's him only to get a final chapter of Jon living inside of Ghost.

Stannis is in a much better position in the books.  The whole Ramsay and 20 men fucking up his army, is well, fucking stupid and an example of show abandoning Martin's writing to go Hollywood.  Stannis has united all the Northern Houses save a coupl and the mountain tribes, and has a few working inside Winterfell.  He has the Iron Bank backing him fully.  Furthermore, Mance Rayder is alive in the books, and was sent on a mission by Jon to infiltrate Winterfell (Mance has done this many times and was there when Robert visited Ned in book/season 1).  Book 6 is going to start with the battle of Winterfell, so who knows how it will go, but it certainly won't be the one sided affair it was on the show, and Brienne won't be anywhere near there as the book wasn't retarded and put Sansa in the Bolton's control.  They have Sansa's best friend, Jeyne Poole, who's posing as a fake Arya to unite the North around the Boltons.

#2840 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 463 weeks ago

buzzsaw wrote:
Smoking Guns wrote:

Typically Insurance is somewhat a scam. My post above are things I want to see. People need a reward to be healthy not just taxed more to cover the unhealthy. People that live an unhealthy lifestyle need to pay more. Our society is very unhealthy.


Some in the industry are actually headed this way.  Premiums are what they are (though tobacco users do pay more in some cases) and deductibles are what they are, but they then provide incentives to people through payroll payments for healthy lifestyle decisions, smoking secession, weight loss, etc.  So in essence, healthy people end up spending less on their healthcare than unhealthy people do. 

Mark my words: Outcome based payment to physicians is the next plan.  Get paid for results, not extra tests and office visits.  That is the scam.  That is why you can't get into see a doctor for months.  They ask to see you way too many times so they can hit their bottom line.

But this does nothing to address the real issue.  Costs are out of control.  They overcharge for everything because they know the insurance company will mark it down.  It's a never ending game of cat and mouse and the only people really losing are the consumers.


This is something I can get behind. The fraud and abuse in the medical industry is frightening. Prescription companies and loose doctors are to blame for the opioid epidemic. There should never be a market incentive for medication. I don't want to stifle innovation as most new drugs are made in the US. But something needs to be done to regulate run away costs. I feel the same about college education.

I believe however this will be a self correcting solution shortly. Genetic engineering and our understanding of the genome will allow us to edit disease and proclivity out of our DNA, reducing medical upkeep. Imagine a world where cancer, diabetes and mental illness don't exist. Sure you'll get some pushback from the folks who think mental illness is a personality trait, but most people won't want their son to be depressed or think he's really a woman.

Compounded with AI and smart machines able to to detect ailments with better precision than any human, and the cost of care also dramatically declines.

Now if we could only stop the poor and stupid from outbreeding the successful and intelligent, we'd have a hell of a society capable of working collectively for the advancement of science and research rather than a full belly and reality tv playing in front of them.

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