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#821 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
#822 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
Friday News Dump: Reince Preibus is out
Not surprised there....but Christ what a mess.
At least the Mooch is providing A+ entertainment. That New Yorker piece
I've seen a few people publicly request Joe Pesci to read it out loud.
#823 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
Scaramucci seems to be as crazy as Trump. Anybody read the New Yorker piece?
#824 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
I'd just like to point out that the fuckery the GOP is going through with healthcare, is the exact problem Democrats went through in 2009, albeit with less publicity.
Not even remotely the same.
#825 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
There go those fiscal conservatives again...guess we'll send the bill to Mexico huh?
House approves spending bill with $1.6 billion for the border wall
The House voted Thursday to approve a spending bill with $1.6 billion to put toward a border wall along the US-Mexico border, part of a high-profile campaign pledge from President Donald Trump.
Despite Trump's pledge to make Mexico pay for the wall, the bill earmarks taxpayer money to construct a carrier along the southwest border. To avoid having those Republicans who oppose the measure vote on it directly House Republican leaders tucked it into a procedural measure that set the debate plan for the so-called "minibus" funding bill for several federal agencies.
The bill passed 235-192 mostly along party lines.
The wall funding was added to a measure that combined funding bills for the Pentagon, energy and water, legislative branch, military construction and Veterans Affairs.
The $658 billion defense spending legislation was $27 billion more than Trump's budget request, and would provide the military additional fighter jets, ships, helicopters and troops that the Pentagon had requested.
While the wall funding was the most contentious piece of the appropriations bill, it was just a small sliver of the spending package the House approved.
The defense spending bill also conforms to the House's budget outline, but it violates the Budget Control Act spending caps commonly known as sequestration. The Senate is not planning to give the military the same level of funding unless the caps are lifted, which would require congressional action.
Senate Democrats are demanding equal increases to domestic and military spending in any funding agreement, a debate that will heat up closer to the October 1 deadline for Congress to fund the government.
CNN
#826 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
Trump is a grade A moron...a complete and total moron. There is no way this is strategy.
He's a fuckin disgrace...what a bitch.
#827 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
Trump is so bad he's gotten me to like Jeff Session & Rex Tillerson. Scaramucci had a bizarre interview on CNN where I now feel I'm siding with Priebus. This whole thing is nuts.
He is definitely trying to get rid of Sessions and Priebus.
#828 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
Cliven bundy sentenced to 68 years...damn
Wasn't Bundy, but one of his buddies. Unfortunately.
#829 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
I also know the VA spends millions on boner pills for their vets as well. Let's not say this is about costs...
It's red meat for the evangelicals, a feather in the cap for Trump and another distraction method.
#830 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 459 weeks ago
heh heh...
Annual military spending on
Viagra: 41.6 million
Cialis: 22.8 million
Trans medical care estimated: 2.4-8.4 million
The military spends five times as much on Viagra as it would on transgender troops’ medical care
On Twitter this morning, President Trump announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military, citing “medical costs” as the primary driver of the decision.
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” the president wrote.
While Trump didn't offer any numbers to support this claim, a Defense Department-commissioned study published last year by the Rand Corp. provides exhaustive estimates of transgender servicemembers' potential medical costs.
Considering the prevalence of transgender servicemembers among the active duty military and the typical health-care costs for gender-transition-related medical treatment, the Rand study estimated that these treatments would cost the military between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually.
The study didn't include estimates of these costs for reservists, because of their “highly limited military health care eligibility.” It also didn't include estimates for retirees or military family members, because many of those individuals may also have “limited eligibility” for care via military treatment facilities.
“The implication is that even in the most extreme scenario that we were able to identify … we expect only a 0.13-percent ($8.4 million out of $6.2 billion) increase in health care spending,” Rand's authors concluded.
By contrast, total military spending on erectile dysfunction medicines amounts to $84 million annually, according to an analysis by the Military Times — 10 times the cost of annual transition-related medical care for active duty transgender servicemembers.
The military spends $41.6 million annually on Viagra alone, according to the Military Times analysis — roughly five times the estimated spending on transition-related medical care for transgender troops.
Looked at another way, the upper estimate for annual transgender medical costs in the military amounts to less than a tenth of the price of a new F-35 fighter jet. Or a thousandth of 1 percent of the Defense Department's annual budget.
The cost of providing medical care to transgender servicemembers, in other words, is negligible, and hardly “tremendous,” as the president put it.
