Luckiest object in space

Snort

Trump Comics..in his own words....

Trump Now Buying Facebook Ads Begging People To Come Watch Him Be President

BY REBECCA FISHBEIN

Donald Trump is having a little trouble getting people to come to his Softly Sensual Doomsday Hellmouth Inauguration Spectacular on Friday. Though one might assume folks would turn out in droves to watch 3 Doors Down serenade us into our new post-facts utopia, it appears Team Trump is expecting a much smaller turnout than Obama got in 2009, and now the President-elect is using targeted advertising on Facebook to PERSONALLY INVITE all of you to watch the Earth burn.

Marina Cockenberg of The Tonight Show first spotted Trump's despy inauguration ad last night, and did the hard work of clicking that little "Why Am I Seeing This Ad" button to find out why Team Trump had its eyes on her...

more
http://gothamist.com/2017/01/17/trump_despy_softly_sensual.php

The Humiliation continues.....

On Health Care, Well Have What Congress Is Having

By Jeffrey Frank

snip:
If it’s sometimes hard to understand what makes Republican legislators so angry, here is a theory: their fury may not stem from some ungraspable principle, or hatred of President Obama’s historic victory (or of Obama himself), but, rather, from something personal, and selfish. Under the A.C.A., members of Congress, and congressional staff, among other Capitol Hill employees, were no longer eligible for the F.E.H.B.P. In the chilly language of government directives, the Office of Personnel Management Web site said that “Section 1312 of the Affordable Care Act requires that Members of Congress and their official staff obtain coverage by health plans created under the Affordable Care Act or coverage offered via an Affordable Insurance Exchange.”

Ouch! In other words, the comfortable choices that were available for more than fifty years were suddenly transferred to the slightly murky passageways of Obamacare. And it follows that, if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, members of Congress would be able to return to the federal plan that they, like millions of federal employees, were so fond of. Twenty million other Americans won’t.

A better idea, though, might be to find a path (it won’t be easy, but it’s certainly easier than anything else that might be effective and that hundreds of legislators could ever agree upon) to finally offer the beloved, and by most accounts well-administered, federal plan to the rest of the uninsured nation. We can almost hear America demanding, “We want what they’re having.” If Congress is serious about repealing, and replacing, the act, then that’s the sort of replacement that almost anyone could live with.

the rest
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/on-health-care-well-have-what-congress-is-having

Hmmmm....

'We will turn on him so quick': Rust Belt voters who put faith in Trump expect results

CBC News visits Pennsylvania, where voters decided to give Donald Trump a chance to bring back jobs
By Terence McKenna,

Donald Trump won the U.S. election by breaking down Hillary Clinton's "blue wall," the handful of Rust Belt states that were considered reliably Democratic but switched over to the Republicans this time.

In the days leading up to his inauguration, many of the folks in the region who spoke with CBC News were eyeing Trump suspiciously. Just because they voted for him doesn't mean they trust him.

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of northeastern Pennsylvania is a great example.

For many years, 95 per cent of the hard coal burned in the Western Hemisphere came from here. At its peak, 175,000 people worked in the Pennsylvania coal industry. Now there are only a few thousand coal jobs.

more
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-voters-rust-belt-1.3937862

Bookies offer even odds for Donald Trump being impeached while US President

After Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring for the White House, now speculators and pundits alike can participate in the national guessing game that is: How long will the President-elect last?

Mr Trump has frequently talked about the "next eight years", suggesting he will be re-elected in 2020, but the odds are literally stacked against him.

Ladbrokes said that odds he will be impeached or resign before his first term ends are 50-50.

Paddy Power is offering a more conservative 20 per cent chance that Mr Trump will be impeached in the first six months of his Presidency.

more
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-impeached-us-president-bookies-offer-even-odds-us-congress-inauguration-a7531536.html

The G.O.P.s Health Care Death Spiral

By J. B. SILVERS

Last week, President-elect Donald J. Trump called Obamacare “a complete and total disaster,” and pushed for a swift repeal of the Affordable Care Act and a replacement within weeks. But at the moment, there is no workable replacement. So what happens to the individual insurance market — whose problems did not start with the Affordable Care Act and will not be easily solved — when it is destabilized so dramatically?

From my point of view as a former health insurance company chief executive, “total disaster” would also describe any Republican repeal-and-delay plan. Although my former colleagues in the insurance industry are too cowed by the president-elect to say so, Republican insistence on repeal without having a meaningful replacement at the same time will drive most insurers out of the individual market and leave the 10 percent of Americans now covered by some aspect of the A.C.A. without coverage — especially if Medicaid expansion is rolled back as well.

The proportion of uninsured Americans, which has dropped to less than 9 percent, the lowest on record, will at least double. By April, when filings from insurance company plans and premiums for 2018 are due, there will be a sizable exit — of insurers running away from the greatly increased and unpredictable risk and of individuals not able to afford insurance without the subsidies.

Of course, the A.C.A. has a number of flaws, and repair is critical. But delay is not an option if the replacers really want to use private insurers to meet society’s goals of access, affordability and quality in health care. All known Republican alternatives envision heavy reliance on the same insurers that are now ready to bolt and leave a total mess rather than a defective but repairable market.

more
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/opinion/the-gops-health-care-death-spiral.html?_r=0

Tuesday Toon Roundup 2: The Rest

GOP


Cabinet


Circus




NC



MLK



Inauguration











Beginning, or end?

Tuesday Toon Roundup 1: Small man, Small hands, Small heart