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turbinetree's JournalTom Price admits that the new Trumpcare is only repeal, no replace
Source: Think Progress
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised, over and over again, that he would replace Obamacare with “something terrific,” that would “take care of everybody” and be “a lot less expensive” for consumers and the government.
But despite claims by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that his latest version of Trumpcare would provide “stability” while “improving affordability,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price made a major admission about the bill Sunday: that the legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare would simply permit insurers return to the ways they used to operate.
On ABC’s This Week, the longtime Obamacare critic was pressed by Jon Karl about a provision in the bill pushed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), which would allow insurance companies to offer sub-standard plans. Karl noted that not only do more than 10 medical groups and 32 cancer organizations oppose the Trumpcare bill, “a rare joint statement by the biggest insurance companies in the country called the Cruz amendment ‘unworkable in any form’ [as] ‘it would lead to, ‘widespread terminations of coverage.”
Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/tom-price-admits-trumpcare-returns-to-bad-old-days-24aaf7b13609
More valuable than gold': Yellowstone businesses prepare to fight mining
Bruce Gordon’s Cessna Centurion floats off the runway south of Livingston, Montana, quickly escaping the confines of Paradise Valley, walled on both sides by the Absaroka and Gallatin mountain ranges. Snaking through the alfalfa fields, cottonwood thickets and ranches below, the Yellowstone river is still surging with late spring snowmelt.
As soon as we crest the ridges, the whole of Yellowstone national park is visible to the south, with Grand Teton towering on the far horizon. Places that would take hours to drive between – because of impassable mountains and roadless wilderness – are revealed to be only a handful of miles apart. The nearly 1 million acres of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is spread out to the east, teeming with unseen elk herds, mountain lions, and grizzly bears. Gordon, who runs the nonprofit EcoFlight, based in Aspen, Colorado, pilots flights like this one to help people understand conservation issues with a view from above. “We’re coming up on Emigrant Gulch now,” Joe Josephson, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, says over the intercom as we fly over the green-roofed buildings of Chico Hot Springs resort, skirting the conical 10,915ft Emigrant Peak. Josephson, an avid mountaineer who recently summited Emigrant Peak to celebrate his 50th birthday, is the Montana Conservation Associate for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a nonprofit devoted to defending the 20 million-acre Yellowstone ecosystem from degradation.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/16/yellowstone-mining-montana-public-lands
Private Equity: The New Neighborhood Loan Sharks Veterans of the Contract Buyers League hit the door
Mike Gallagher double-checks the address on his smartphone and walks up the cement steps of the brick two-story house on Detroit’s west side. He rings the doorbell, and after waiting a minute knocks loudly on the door. A dog barks and a shirtless black man in his mid-thirties cracks open the door.
“Good afternoon. I’m Mike from the Home Savers group. We’re talking to people who have a land contract from Harbour Portfolio. Is that your situation?”
“Yes,” says the man, whom the visitor may have just woken up. He cautiously looks at Mike, who is white with unruly short white hair.
“A lot of people are finding these rent-to-buy loans may not be such a good deal. Sometimes they’re worse than being a tenant, since you have to pay for all repairs and maintenance. But you don’t build any wealth until you make the last payment. How long is your contract loan?”
“Thirty years.”
http://prospect.org/article/private-equity-new-neighborhood-loan-sharks
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Private Equity: The New Neighborhood Loan Sharks Veterans of the Contract Buyers League hit the door
Mike Gallagher double-checks the address on his smartphone and walks up the cement steps of the brick two-story house on Detroit’s west side. He rings the doorbell, and after waiting a minute knocks loudly on the door. A dog barks and a shirtless black man in his mid-thirties cracks open the door.
“Good afternoon. I’m Mike from the Home Savers group. We’re talking to people who have a land contract from Harbour Portfolio. Is that your situation?”
“Yes,” says the man, whom the visitor may have just woken up. He cautiously looks at Mike, who is white with unruly short white hair.
“A lot of people are finding these rent-to-buy loans may not be such a good deal. Sometimes they’re worse than being a tenant, since you have to pay for all repairs and maintenance. But you don’t build any wealth until you make the last payment. How long is your contract loan?”
“Thirty years.”
http://prospect.org/article/private-equity-new-neighborhood-loan-sharks
GOP Eager to Repeal Rule that Allows Consumers to Sue Conniving Banks
As Lisa Servon writes in her thorough survey for the Prospect’s summer issue of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s prospects under the Trump administration, “It took Congress 66 years to undo Glass-Steagall in 1999. It may take less than a decade to undo the reforms brought about by Dodd-Frank, including the CFPB.”
It may take the Republican-controlled Congress even less time to undo a landmark rule issued Monday by the consumer watchdog agency that will widely forbid mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts. Banks, credit-card companies, and other financial-services firms will no longer be able to force individual consumers into corporate-friendly mandatory arbitration hearings to settle disputes.
http://prospect.org/article/gop-eager-repeal-rule-allows-consumers-sue-conniving-banks
Florida sinkhole that swallowed two homes has stopped growing, officials say
Source: The Guardian
Officials said on Saturday that a huge sinkhole that swallowed a boat and destroyed two homes in Florida had stopped growing and had not had any recent significant movement.
Pasco County assistant administrator for public safety Kevin Guthrie said the sinkhole was the largest in the county in three decades. The sinkhole is 250ft wide and 50ft deep.
Guthrie said 11 homes had been affected, including the two that were destroyed. A third home lost about 45ft of driveway and a septic tank.
On Friday, Pasco County fire chief Shawn Whited told reporters no one was home when crews responded to a call about a “depression” under a boat in the backyard of a house in Lake Padgett Estates in Land O’Lakes. Within minutes, he said, “the hole opened up” and the boat fell in.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/15/florida-sinkhole-swallowed-homes-destroyed
Leaked draft of Rick Perry grid study debunks his attack on renewable energy
Source: Think Progress
Back in April, Energy Secretary Rick Perry ordered a study to back up his claims that solar and wind power were undermining the U.S. electric grid’s reliability.
That’s why it was a surprise when Bloomberg reported Friday that a July draft leaked to them concluded essentially the opposite: “The power system is more reliable today due to better planning, market discipline, and better operating rules and standards.”
The leaked draft was completed by Department of Energy (DOE) career staff, however, and thus subject to change by Perry and his team of Trump appointees. So the big question is whether the Trump administration will erase those findings in the final draft, the way they appear to be erasing so many other inconvenient truths.
Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/leaked-rick-perry-grid-study-9bce98a50f70
I guess so..........................what else can happen, they lie here, they lie there, whats a little lying.................
Trump Calls Russia Scandal A Hoax While Touting Stock Market Numbers
Source: Talking Points Memo
President Trump chimed in on Twitter to downplay the Russia scandal that has ramped up scrutiny on the White House in the last few days, while touting stock market gains and jobs numbers.
When revelations began to trickle out that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. — along with his top advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and then campaign chair Paul Manafort – met with Kremlin-tied figures during the campaign, Trump at first was slow to weigh in on the accusations.
He finally defended Don Jr. with a statement read by a spokesperson Tuesday. The President later tweeted in support of his son’s appearance on Fox News and said in an interview with Reuters Wednesday that “many people would have held that meeting.”
Since the June 2016 meeting was first reported a week ago, the younger Trump’s son’s initial claims that he didn’t knew who was meeting with were undermined by emails about the meeting posted by Donald Trump Jr. as the New York Times was about to report them. The emails showed that Trump Jr. believed he would be receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the figures he was meeting with.
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/russia-trump-hoax-tweet-stock-market
And when your son has to go into a grand jury and explain himself, watch the stock market
White House Says Budget Deficit To Be $99B Higher This Year
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ANDREW TAYLOR Published JULY 15, 2017 10:01 AM
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says worsening tax revenues will cause the budget deficit to jump to $702 billion this year. That’s a $99 billion spike from what was predicted less than two months ago.
The report from the Office of Management and Budget comes on the heels of a rival Congressional Budget Office analysis that scuttled White House claims that its May budget, if implemented to the letter, would balance the federal ledger within 10 years. The OMB report doesn’t repeat that claim and instead provides just two years of updated projections.
The White House budget office also says the deficit for the 2018 budget year that starts on Oct. 1 will increase by $149 billion to $589 billion. But lawmakers are already working on spending bills that promise to boost that number even higher by adding to Trump’s Pentagon proposal and ignoring many of Trump’s cuts to domestic programs.
Last year’s deficit registered $585 billion.
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/white-house-budget-deficit-higher
Amazing, you have companies that are short changing then treasury, and you have individuals that are short changing the treasury, and now there is a Congress, that wants to spend, money on the military, and fund conflicts on the credit card.
Anyone remember when this country had a surplus and it lasted only 1 year?
Proposed tariffs could let Trump crush the solar industry
By Jeremy Deaton
Trade officials are weighing new tariffs on imported solar cells that, if passed, would send shockwaves through the industry. By blocking the influx of cheap panels from overseas, tariffs would stunt demand for solar, dealing a critical blow to U.S. installers. By one estimate one-third of the solar workforce could lose their jobs.
We’ve actually run this experiment before. It didn’t turn out well.
In 2002, George W. Bush imposed heavy tariffs on steel imports. For the president, who was otherwise a champion of free trade, this was a politically motivated decision, intended shore up support among steelworkers in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. It didn’t work as intended.
The European Union threatened to retaliate by imposing sanctions on imports from other swing states—including Tropicana orange juice from Florida and Harley Davidson motorcycles from Wisconsin. And the United Steelworkers of America didn’t take the bait. They endorsed Democrat Dick Gephardt for president.
https://thinkprogress.org/proposed-tariffs-could-let-trump-crush-the-solar-industry-23a946520fe4
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