The Trumpcare chaos has made Medicare For All more popular

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 12:47pm

Probably no one is more surprised than Republicans at the popular response from their Obamacare repeal efforts.

But after weeks of debate, there is one clear winner so far: single-payer health care.
No, single-payer isn't going to happen at the end of this debate — or even the end of this year or this decade, necessarily. But the logical foundations for it are being laid in our political debate just about every single day.
...The most surprising aspect of the current health-care debate, for me, has been how Republicans have essentially given up on making the conservative case for their bills. They aren't even arguing that the free market would lead to higher-quality care, efficiency and medical advancements, as the GOP of old might have.

Bernie Sanders says the time has come for a congressional battle over universal health care.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that he will “absolutely” introduce legislation on single-payer healthcare now that the Senate GOP’s bill to repeal ObamaCare has failed.
“Of course we are, we’re tweaking the final points of the bill and we’re figuring out how we can mount a national campaign to bring people together,” Sanders told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.
Sanders promised to introduce a “Medicare for All” proposal once the debate over repealing ObamaCare ended. He is one of several progressive lawmakers who back the healthcare model that has divided Democratic lawmakers.

Obviously there is very little chance of MFA passing this year.
However, this is an excellent chance for Democrats to define themselves with an increasingly popular idea.

Note how popular a public health care system with a private option is.
This is what most nations use, and what MFA would look like.

For some reason, the polls don't mention the private option, and yet people are warming up to single-payer anyway.

The trend is clear. Just like gay marriage and legalized pot, we are going to hit a tipping point and suddenly what seemed impossible is going to be inevitable. Then people are going to ask what took so long?

Tags:

#Medicare For All

Vote

Comments

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 1:03pm

Democrats have done everything they can...

To make this seem like a moral crusade, even dragging in their usual suspects to support Obamacare against the evil of Single Payer.

See, the thing is that if we had Medicare for all or an NHS, clearly no one would get ANY health care!

I am not even going to bother trying to follow that bullshit train, because at a certain point, it's obvious when it's a freaking flim-flam job.

The Democrats depend on Obamacare because it allows them to never have to abandon their insurance contributors, and yet still CLAIM to care about people. (And call anybody who is against Romneycare racist, because our only black president was in favor of it.)

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 1:28pm

Living Standards

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 2:32pm

Was so sad to hear from a couple of teachers from the UK

@gjohnsit r say that the Tories are dismantling andprivatizing NHS. B@stards

Dear @Conservatives, why *are* you dismantling the NHS in favour of an American healthcare model? https://t.co/HNP2Ri1qNB

— Darryl Spittle (@idgi) July 15, 2017

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 2:34pm

Oops, this was meant in reply to

@divineorder @divineorder dmws above.

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 2:50pm

Yup, because every forward

@divineorder advance of the 20th century must be rolled back.

21st century seems to be the century of vanity projects at the expense of social investment. Trump and his gold plated toilets are better paragons of modern values than anyone will admit.

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 4:18pm

Austerity measures are circling the globe

@divineorder
Country after country is implementing austerity measures against the population and giving more tax breaks to the corporations and rich people.

Greece Has Been a Laboratory on a Way Out of a Capitalist Crisis

The crisis in Greece has no end in sight. While the media cheered a recent agreement between the Syriza government and creditors, there is no escaping the reality of an unsustainable debt, a completely destroyed economy in which successive austerity programs have brought immense suffering to the Greek people.

There's also the cashless society experiment in a few European countries along with negative interests rates. gjohnsit has written about this.

TPTB are taking off the gloves and they don't care if we peons live or die.
Instead of bringing other countries to US standards, they want to bring ours down to those countries.
The jobless job recovery seems like a good start.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by jim p on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 2:13pm

Add a provision that

Insurance execs get $5M a year for life and this happens pretty quickly.

—

Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 2:19pm

Not sure why 'The Hill' didn't use the exact quote,

but I'll past the entire excerpt at EB,later. What they've done is take Jake Tapper's question--which was obviously worded differently from Bernie's opening statement to Tapper about a 'public option' bill, and present it as Bernie vowing to propose a (federal, implied) single-payer system.

Bernie clearly wasn't saying that.

Here's the specific excerpt, where Bernie describes what his Bill will entail,

TAPPER: What do you make of the threats directly at members of Congress about your health insurance? Mick Mulvaney was on the show earlier trying to explain what the threat exactly meant.

SANDERS: Well, I would turn that around a little bit and say to the president of the United States that, yes, every single American in every state in this country should be able to get the health care that members of Congress have.

And that is why, if we are able to return to regular order, if we are able to have a serious debate on the health care crisis, I think there should be a public option available in every state in this country.

(The reference about returning to 'regular order' implies that Bernie is suggesting that he would offer this legislation as part of the ACA 'fix.')

If people don't like the private insurance that they're getting, if it's too expensive, they should have a 'Medicare-type' public option available in every state in this country. And that's one of the ways forward.

Pushed, so just two quick points.

1) It was after Bernie made the explicit statement, that Tapper reverted to using the term 'single-payer.' Obviously, they are not one and the same.

2) Secondly, I put Medicare-type in single bracket parentheses, because this term as used in Bernie's 2013 Bill--which I've posted numerous times--did not refer to expanding the current/original Medicare program. Indeed, the 2013 bill dismantled all federal health care programs with the exception of the VA (which has now been partially privatized, and is on its way to full privatization, with the exception of treating war-related injuries/medical conditions) and the IHS (Indian Health Service).

Of course, Chelsea Clinton did misrepresent was that Bernie would have allowed all these programs to lapse, as he implemented a single-payer system. His bill specified that the older federal programs would have expired at say 11:59 pm, and that the new single-payer system would become effective at 12:00 am (or something very close to that).

Anyhoo, the terms Medicare-For-All and Medicare-type ARE differences with a distinction.

Now, Tapper did ask Bernie a question using the term 'single-payer,' instead of 'public option.'
Here's the excerpt,

TAPPER: When you were -- when you were on the program on July 2, you told me you were going to introduce a singer-payer health care plan literally as soon as we're through with the Republican health care debate.

It seems like we're though, and the Obamacare repeal effort has collapsed. Are you going to introduce single-payer?

SANDERS: Absolutely. Of course we are.

We're just -- we're tweaking the final points of the bill. And we're figuring out how we can mount a national campaign to bring people together.

[Hard to tell if Tapper was just sloppy, or making a deliberate misrepresentation. Or, maybe he just doesn't recognize that there's a major difference. Who knows?]

Anyhoo, IMO, this is the crux of this entire discussion--a nationalized true single-payer system versus a state-based public option plan as part of the ACA Exchanges.

Thanks for posting this essay, gj. I appreciate that you keep the topic on the front burner. I'm trying to be vigilant [looking] for articles that are inaccurate in their presentation of the facts regarding the soon-to-be proposed public option. I notice that instead of linking to the actual CNN State Of The Nation transcript, they linked to another of their pieces that had the same problem.

[Edited: HTML correction.]

Mollie

“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore–to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

—

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 2:23pm

Second that gj posting this and thanks

@Unabashed Liberal to you for the clarification.

OT but very interesting link js posted the other night:

Maryland is the only state where hospitals must charge the same rate for services, regardless of insurance carrier. https://t.co/FL9TP8KSUv

— The Intercept (@theintercept) July 30, 2017

but I'll past the entire excerpt at EB,later. What they've done is take Jake Tapper's question--which was obviously worded differently from Bernie's opening statement to Tapper about a 'public option' bill, and present it as Bernie vowing to propose a (federal, implied) single-payer system.

Bernie clearly wasn't saying that.

Here's the specific excerpt, where Bernie describes what his Bill will entail,

TAPPER: What do you make of the threats directly at members of Congress about your health insurance? Mick Mulvaney was on the show earlier trying to explain what the threat exactly meant.

SANDERS: Well, I would turn that around a little bit and say to the president of the United States that, yes, every single American in every state in this country should be able to get the health care that members of Congress have.

And that is why, if we are able to return to regular order, if we are able to have a serious debate on the health care crisis, I think there should be a public option available in every state in this country.

(The reference about returning to 'regular order' implies that Bernie is suggesting that he would offer this legislation as part of the ACA 'fix.')

If people don't like the private insurance that they're getting, if it's too expensive, they should have a 'Medicare-type' public option available in every state in this country. And that's one of the ways forward.

Pushed, so just two quick points.

1) It was after Bernie made the explicit statement, that Tapper reverted to using the term 'single-payer.' Obviously, they are not one and the same.

2) Secondly, I put Medicare-type in single bracket parentheses, because this term as used in Bernie's 2013 Bill--which I've posted numerous times--did not refer to expanding the current/original Medicare program. Indeed, the 2013 bill dismantled all federal health care programs with the exception of the VA (which has now been partially privatized, and is on its way to full privatization, with the exception of treating war-related injuries/medical conditions) and the IHS (Indian Health Service).

Of course, Chelsea Clinton did misrepresent was that Bernie would have allowed all these programs to lapse, as he implemented a single-payer system. His bill specified that the older federal programs would have expired at say 11:59 pm, and that the new single-payer system would become effective at 12:00 am (or something very close to that).

Anyhoo, the terms Medicare-For-All and Medicare-type ARE differences with a distinction.

Now, Tapper did ask Bernie a question using the term 'single-payer,' instead of 'public option.'
Here's the excerpt,

TAPPER: When you were -- when you were on the program on July 2, you told me you were going to introduce a singer-payer health care plan literally as soon as we're through with the Republican health care debate.

It seems like we're though, and the Obamacare repeal effort has collapsed. Are you going to introduce single-payer?

SANDERS: Absolutely. Of course we are.

We're just -- we're tweaking the final points of the bill. And we're figuring out how we can mount a national campaign to bring people together.

[Hard to tell if Tapper was just sloppy, or making a deliberate misrepresentation. Or, maybe he just doesn't recognize that there's a major difference. Who knows?]

Anyhoo, IMO, this is the crux of this entire discussion--a nationalized true single-payer system versus a state-based public option plan as part of the ACA Exchanges.

Thanks for posting this essay, gj. I appreciate that you keep the topic on the front burner. I'm trying to be vigilant [looking] for articles that are inaccurate in their presentation of the facts regarding the soon-to-be proposed public option. I notice that instead of linking to the actual CNN State Of The Nation transcript, they linked to another of their pieces that had the same problem.

[Edited: HTML correction.]

Mollie

“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore–to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 3:17pm

Hi, DO--my pleasure. I think that

@divineorder @divineorder

Martin O'Malley may have brought that point up during his brief run. Hopefully, other states will adopt the policy. Thanks for spreading the word--I had almost forgotten about it.

Hope you and JB are having a good time. Safe travels!

[Edited: Added sentence.]

Mollie

—

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Submitted by Not Henry Kissinger on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 5:08pm

Either way works for me...

@Unabashed Liberal

Anyhoo, IMO, this is the crux of this entire discussion--a nationalized true single-payer system versus a state-based public option plan as part of the ACA Exchanges.

No way we get a national single payer system through this Congress, but we might just get them to lift many of the Federal restrictions (ERISA, et al.) that prevent states from offering their own universal plans. It would be a big step forward in its own right.

but I'll past the entire excerpt at EB,later. What they've done is take Jake Tapper's question--which was obviously worded differently from Bernie's opening statement to Tapper about a 'public option' bill, and present it as Bernie vowing to propose a (federal, implied) single-payer system.

Bernie clearly wasn't saying that.

Here's the specific excerpt, where Bernie describes what his Bill will entail,

TAPPER: What do you make of the threats directly at members of Congress about your health insurance? Mick Mulvaney was on the show earlier trying to explain what the threat exactly meant.

SANDERS: Well, I would turn that around a little bit and say to the president of the United States that, yes, every single American in every state in this country should be able to get the health care that members of Congress have.

And that is why, if we are able to return to regular order, if we are able to have a serious debate on the health care crisis, I think there should be a public option available in every state in this country.

(The reference about returning to 'regular order' implies that Bernie is suggesting that he would offer this legislation as part of the ACA 'fix.')

If people don't like the private insurance that they're getting, if it's too expensive, they should have a 'Medicare-type' public option available in every state in this country. And that's one of the ways forward.

Pushed, so just two quick points.

1) It was after Bernie made the explicit statement, that Tapper reverted to using the term 'single-payer.' Obviously, they are not one and the same.

2) Secondly, I put Medicare-type in single bracket parentheses, because this term as used in Bernie's 2013 Bill--which I've posted numerous times--did not refer to expanding the current/original Medicare program. Indeed, the 2013 bill dismantled all federal health care programs with the exception of the VA (which has now been partially privatized, and is on its way to full privatization, with the exception of treating war-related injuries/medical conditions) and the IHS (Indian Health Service).

Of course, Chelsea Clinton did misrepresent was that Bernie would have allowed all these programs to lapse, as he implemented a single-payer system. His bill specified that the older federal programs would have expired at say 11:59 pm, and that the new single-payer system would become effective at 12:00 am (or something very close to that).

Anyhoo, the terms Medicare-For-All and Medicare-type ARE differences with a distinction.

Now, Tapper did ask Bernie a question using the term 'single-payer,' instead of 'public option.'
Here's the excerpt,

TAPPER: When you were -- when you were on the program on July 2, you told me you were going to introduce a singer-payer health care plan literally as soon as we're through with the Republican health care debate.

It seems like we're though, and the Obamacare repeal effort has collapsed. Are you going to introduce single-payer?

SANDERS: Absolutely. Of course we are.

We're just -- we're tweaking the final points of the bill. And we're figuring out how we can mount a national campaign to bring people together.

[Hard to tell if Tapper was just sloppy, or making a deliberate misrepresentation. Or, maybe he just doesn't recognize that there's a major difference. Who knows?]

Anyhoo, IMO, this is the crux of this entire discussion--a nationalized true single-payer system versus a state-based public option plan as part of the ACA Exchanges.

Thanks for posting this essay, gj. I appreciate that you keep the topic on the front burner. I'm trying to be vigilant [looking] for articles that are inaccurate in their presentation of the facts regarding the soon-to-be proposed public option. I notice that instead of linking to the actual CNN State Of The Nation transcript, they linked to another of their pieces that had the same problem.

[Edited: HTML correction.]

Mollie

“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore–to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

—

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 9:52pm

Hey, NHK--both worked for me

@Not Henry Kissinger @Not Henry Kissinger

until I saw Dr Paris (PNHP) interviewed. I'll post the transcript at EB later this week. (Feeling puny this evening.)

In the interview with Amy Goodman, Dr. Paris pointed out that a 'public option' as part of the ACA Exchange would likely fail--due to the need for a major infusion of state funds, adverse selection, and the lack of a single risk pool.

Of course, until we see Bernie's bill, it's pretty difficult to make a wholly informed judgment. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer . . .

Mollie

—

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Submitted by Not Henry Kissinger on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 12:06am

It would work in California.

@Unabashed Liberal @Unabashed Liberal

due to the need for a major infusion of state funds, adverse selection, and the lack of a single risk pool.

Plenty big enough pool, and while initially they'll need to raise revenue, there are many smart people who argue that it's a big cost saver in the long run.

Didn't see the interview but anytime someone mentions adverse selection my antenna goes up. That's basically insurance speak for 'we can't cover sick people and make it profitable'.

The underlying assumption is that the state pool will only cover the very sick or the very poor. That's where the fallacy lies, because a good, affordable public option will attract not just the sick and the poor, but anybody that wants a better plan than the overpriced, under performing private plans currently being flogged under Obamacare.

So there is no adverse selection problem because eventually everybody will want to buy in, not because its government run, but because it's better coverage. THAT's what the insurance companies are so scared of, because they know their plans can't compete on price and still let them skim their margins.

As far as single risk pools go, we don't have one now! The whole Obamacare structure is based on dividing the risk pool among various insurers under the guise of 'competition' - when all the competition does it split up the pool and raise prices for everyone. A public option out competes any private plan, and eventually becomes are far bigger and more stable risk pool than any private insurer can hope to match.

Finally, I'm skeptical of anybody who tries to create a false choice between Federal and state strategies. ANY public option at ANY level should be welcomed, and anyone says otherwise is probably either protecting turf (most likely the case here) or an insurance shill looking to muddy the waters.

—

Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 5:54pm

Hey, NHK--points well-taken. Honestly, I really prefer

@Not Henry Kissinger

to wait before I wade into much of a discussion as to whether I will, or will not support any particular 'public option,' or single-payer bill.

I hope that you'll read the transcript (or watch the video at Democracy Now) of Carol Paris. To my knowledge, she has no hidden agenda, other than preferring an universal (federal, as in John Conyers-type) single-payer system. She is quite open about that. (Give me until next week, and I'll search for and post the link to her interview, and post it at EB.)

Anyhoo, I'm pretty sure that she's not misrepresenting facts to make her case, since it's based on sound principles (meaning, she understands how commercial and public insurance works, and that she realizes that insurers would never allow a competing system that does not give them the edge.) That's 'why' a public option wasn't included in the ACA Exchange, in the first place.

Bottom line, if past experience is any example--if a public option plan is allowed, it will almost certainly be hobbled, and/or give an advantage to the insurance industry.

Remember, that's exactlyy what the PtB did to insurance co-ops--they made sure that they failed by defunding them during various budget negotiations [after the ACA was enacted]. I'm guessing that the purpose of allowing them was to throw the Base a bone.

During the Fiscal Cliff budget negotiations, the bipartisan PtB even took away approximately 3 billion dollars of what was negotiated for Community Health Centers in the ACA bill.

Take a gander at this blurb about 'why' the public option never made it into the ACA. Notice, it had nothing to do with Joe Lieberman (which was the story fed to the activist Base). Frankly, I 'suspect' that he was made a convenient scapegoat, since he was already despised by the Dem Party Base. IOW, better have the Base hate Lieberman, than PBO.

In his book, [Tom] Daschle reveals that after the Senate Finance Committee and the White House convinced hospitals to to accept $155 billion in payment reductions over ten years on July 8, the hospitals and Democrats operated under two “working assumptions.”

“One was that the Senate would aim for health coverage of at least 94 percent of Americans,” Daschle writes. “The other was that it would contain no public health plan,” which would have reimbursed hospitals at a lower rate than private insurers.

and,

. . . Despite being “taken off the table” as a result of the “understanding,” the White House continued to publicly deny claims that it was backing away from the provision even as it tried to focus on other aspects of the bill. “Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, then communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform in August of 2009 and many times thereafter. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”

(My re-pagination.)

One point regarding Paris' point about the risk pool in a ACA Exchange public option plan. There's no doubt that the ACA Exchange does cover only a pretty small slice of Americans. Heard the individual market is only about 7% of the population. Also, based upon statistics, a majority of ACA Exchange enrollees went relatively long periods of time without medical care, and, as a result, are a considerably sicker pool than, say, the enrollees which comprise a typical group health pool.

(This is according to so-called 'experts.' Whether it's true or not, it's their [insurers] story, and they're sticking to it. And, we can bet that lawmakers will work off this premise when they negotiate any so-called ACA 'fixes' with the insurance industry stakeholders.)

This is also supposedly why scores and scores of insurers fled the ACA 'Marketplace' last year.

For sure, I'm all for looking at, and considering, any legislation put forth, by anybody. OTOH, I have very little use for the talking points of either the Republican, or the Dem Establishment lawmakers and/or hacks who shill for them.

For me, the legislative language is all that really matters. And I'll call 'BS,' if I see it.

Hey, I'm on your side--I'd luv to see a decent health care system implemented in the US. I just don't want to be 'taken in' again.

Mollie

“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit, and therefore, to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

—

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 3:22pm

One small quibble

to build upon DMW's first reply.

I believe we have already reached the tipping point with the public regarding our health care system. Poll after poll is showing that, particularly when the question of single payer is phrased as Medicare for all. Both Medicare and Medicaid are very popular programs with the public across a very broad section of the political spectrum.

While I wish I could buy into the analogy of gay marriage and marijuana legalization, there is a massive difference with health care. With both gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana, there was no unnecessary middle man who would stand to lose a very profitable business. With the health insurance industry, there is a very a massive and very powerful middle man to whom our elected officials are beholding.

The health insurance industry is exactly what is holding us back from single payer or even a combination of public and private health care coverage. It could be done today with wide public support, but there is no will among our elected officials, most of all, the Democrats. This is why they continue to support the very flawed and failing Obamacare, because from day one, it memorialized the insurance industry as the middle man in our healthcare system.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 3:27pm

True

@gulfgal98 @gulfgal98

With the health insurance industry, there is a very a massive and very powerful middle man to whom our elected officials are beholding.

That makes the tipping point higher. Maybe a lot higher. But a tipping point still remains. Especially if Donald decides to defund Obamacare, and thus throwing our healthcare system into terminal crisis.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 7:11pm

I think there are many Republicans

@gjohnsit who secretly would like to have the excuse of the Donald defunding Obamacare to move for Medicare for all. If they did, they would have a permanent majority for a long time.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by CS in AZ on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 4:11pm

hum...

@gulfgal98

1. Same-sex marriage happened due to a Supreme Court decision. If we were waiting on congress for that, we'd still be waiting.

2. Weed is still illegal in most states and on federal land within states that have legalized. Despite a solid majority of the public now fully supporting legalization, congress couldn't care less. Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization. Money is definitely a factor in this one too. No insurance industry, true, but industries aligned against legalization include pharma, alcohol, law enforcement, and private prison profiteers.

3. Recent polls show a slim majority of very soft support for single payer/MFA now (regardless of what term is used), but the same poll also tells us that upon exposure to one negative message -- just one time hearing that single payer/MFA would mean "higher taxes" or "government control of healthcare" and the popularity/support immediately drops precipitously and a very solid majority say they would change their mind and oppose it. Poof.

Data Note: Modestly Strong but Malleable Support for Single-Payer Health Care

The poll finds the public’s attitudes on single-payer are quite malleable, and some people could be convinced to change their position after hearing typical pro and con arguments that might come up in a national debate. For example, when those who initially say they favor a single-payer or Medicare-for-all plan are asked how they would feel if they heard that such a plan would give the government too much control over health care, about four in ten (21 percent of the public overall) say they would change their mind and would now oppose the plan, pushing total opposition up to 62 percent. Similarly, when this group is told such a plan would require many Americans to pay more in taxes or that it would eliminate or replace the Affordable Care Act, total opposition increases to 60 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

It is unfortunately not true that a majority of people now solidly support single payer/MFA. They don't. People are incredibly easy to sway and sour on it with a few simple words like higher taxes and government takeover. It is wildly fantastical to imagine that democrats are going to do jack about passing it. They won't.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 4:28pm

Every advancement in history was impossible

@CS in AZ
Ending slavery? Impossible.
Ending child labor? Impossible.
Hell, it was only back in the 80's they wanted to give the death penalty to people selling dime-bags of pot.
It wasn't too much before that they wanted to throw homosexuals in asylums.

So when people tell me that a common sense advancement is impossible, my response is that if progress is truly impossible then society will soon collapse, because history moves forward no matter what the oligarchs want.

#5

1. Same-sex marriage happened due to a Supreme Court decision. If we were waiting on congress for that, we'd still be waiting.

2. Weed is still illegal in most states and on federal land within states that have legalized. Despite a solid majority of the public now fully supporting legalization, congress couldn't care less. Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization. Money is definitely a factor in this one too. No insurance industry, true, but industries aligned against legalization include pharma, alcohol, law enforcement, and private prison profiteers.

3. Recent polls show a slim majority of very soft support for single payer/MFA now (regardless of what term is used), but the same poll also tells us that upon exposure to one negative message -- just one time hearing that single payer/MFA would mean "higher taxes" or "government control of healthcare" and the popularity/support immediately drops precipitously and a very solid majority say they would change their mind and oppose it. Poof.

Data Note: Modestly Strong but Malleable Support for Single-Payer Health Care

The poll finds the public’s attitudes on single-payer are quite malleable, and some people could be convinced to change their position after hearing typical pro and con arguments that might come up in a national debate. For example, when those who initially say they favor a single-payer or Medicare-for-all plan are asked how they would feel if they heard that such a plan would give the government too much control over health care, about four in ten (21 percent of the public overall) say they would change their mind and would now oppose the plan, pushing total opposition up to 62 percent. Similarly, when this group is told such a plan would require many Americans to pay more in taxes or that it would eliminate or replace the Affordable Care Act, total opposition increases to 60 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

It is unfortunately not true that a majority of people now solidly support single payer/MFA. They don't. People are incredibly easy to sway and sour on it with a few simple words like higher taxes and government takeover. It is wildly fantastical to imagine that democrats are going to do jack about passing it. They won't.

Submitted by CS in AZ on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 5:01pm

Um, sorry to have to inform you, but

@gjohnsit

Slavery and child labor haven't been eradicated; both are still quite common and virulent in this world. Gay people are still being jailed and murdered across the globe. Yes, some progress has been made, and I didn't say impossible anyway.

The point is: the statistics you and others continually quote about how single payer is so popular with US voters now don't tell an accurate story of public opinion. It's a false narrative, and repeating it doesn't help to get us any closer to it being true.

Expecting democrats to do it, or even try, makes no sense. They have shown repeatedly they won't, and don't want to go anywhere near it. There is zero evidence to support any other view at this point.

If there is any hope to achieve this nearly impossible goal in the US, it will have to begin with massive educational efforts to create real, solid public pressure on the system. We are not close right now. I wish it were, but it isn't.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 5:33pm

Accuracy

@CS in AZ

Slavery and child labor haven't been eradicated; both are still quite common and virulent in this world. Gay people are still being jailed and murdered across the globe.

I was speaking of the United States. Let's not confuse the topics.
If you are going to mix America with KSA and Uganda then I'll stop here.

The point is: the statistics you and others continually quote about how single payer is so popular with US voters now don't tell an accurate story of public opinion.

Let's look at your example:

...such a plan would give the government too much control over health care

WTF does that even mean? It looks like an extremely loaded question to me.
Like the last poll I listed, you reference KFF, and I have an issue with the wording of even my poll (i.e. "all American would get their insurance from a single government plan.")
That isn't what Medicare for all is. KFF appears to be putting their thumb on the scale.

Submitted by CS in AZ on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 6:04pm

Of course it's the wording of the question

@gjohnsit

The entire point of that portion of the poll is to test the strength of the initial stated position. It shows just how easily and rapidly public opinion is swayed to solid majority opposition based on simply hearing a few basic words.

If and when we ever got to a real effort to pass it, those kinds of words will be used to sway the public against. And it works. That's what this polling demonstrates clearly. Public "support" is currently about as solid as a cloud, and it evaporates with very little effort. The herd runs this way and that at the drop of a few words. Until the support numbers are solid enough that they hold up despite such negative messaging from the opposition, we are not close.

And even if it were solid public support, it wouldn't mean congress would act. Again the marijuana situation is instructive. A solid majority of the public do support legalization now, 8 states have legalized for recreational use, 28 have legal medical use, and yet at the federal level it remains classified as a schedule I drug, and the Feds continue to thwart the will of the people and interfere with and threaten both consumers and businesses in those states. It's a very long ways from public opinion to congress making even truly popular changes.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 12:26pm

@gjohnsit

@gjohnsit @gjohnsit

Just to mention:

(This needs to be read in full at source, if at all possible!)

http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_how_corporat...

World
21st-Century Slaves: How Corporations Exploit Prison Labor
In the eyes of the corporation, inmate labor is a brilliant strategy in the eternal quest to maximize profit.
By Rania Khalek / AlterNet
July 21, 2011, 8:00 PM GMT

This article has been updated.

There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing, violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to no wages. This marginalization renders them practically invisible, as they are kept hidden from society with no available recourse to improve their circumstances or change their plight.

They are the 2.3 million American prisoners locked behind bars where we cannot see or hear them. And they are modern-day slaves of the 21st century.

Incarceration Nation

It’s no secret that America imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation in history. With just 5 percent of the world’s population, the US currently holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners. "In 2008, over 2.3 million Americans were in prison or jail, with one of every 48 working-age men behind bars," according to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research(CEPR). That doesn’t include the tens of thousands of detained undocumented immigrants facing deportation, prisoners awaiting sentencing, or juveniles caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline. Perhaps it’s reassuring to some that the US still holds the number one title in at least one arena, but needless to say the hyper-incarceration plaguing America has had a damaging effect on society at large.

The CEPR study observes that US prison rates are not just excessive in comparison to the rest of the world, they are also "substantially higher than our own longstanding history." The study finds that incarceration rates between 1880 and 1970 ranged from about "100 to 200 prisoners per 100,000 people." After 1980, the inmate population "began to grow much more rapidly than the overall population and the rate climbed from "about 220 in 1980 to 458 in 1990, 683 in 2000, and 753 in 2008."

The costs of this incarceration industry are far from evenly distributed, with the impact of excessive incarceration falling predominantly on African-American communities. Although black people make up just 13 percent of the overall population, they account for 40 percent of US prisoners. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), black males are incarcerated at a rate "more than 6.5 times that of white males and 2.5 that of Hispanic males and "black females are incarcerated at approximately three times the rate of white females and twice that of Hispanic females."

Michelle Alexander points out in her book The New Jim Crow that more black men "are in prison or jail, on probation or on parole than were enslaved in 1850." Higher rates of black drug arrests do not reflect higher rates of black drug offenses. In fact, whites and blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales at roughly comparable rates. ...

... The Reinvention of Slavery

The exploitation of prison labor is by no means a new phenomenon. Jaron Browne, an organizer with People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), maps out how the exploitation of prison labor in America is rooted in slavery. The abolition of slavery dealt a devastating economic blow to the South following the loss of free labor after the Civil War. So in the late 19th century, "an extensive prison system was created in the South in order to maintain the racial and economic relationship of slavery," a mechanism responsible for re-enslaving black workers. Browne describes Louisiana’s famous Angola Prison to illustrate the intentional transformation from slave to inmate: ...

... Today’s corporations can lease factories in prisons, as well as lease prisoners out to their factories. In many cases, private corporations are running prisons-for-profit, further incentivizing their stake in locking people up. The government is profiting as well, by running prison factories that operate as "multibillion-dollar industries in every state, and throughout the federal prison system," where prisoners are contracted out to major corporations by the state.

In the most extreme cases, we are even witnessing the reemergence of the chain gang. In Arizona, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” Joe Arpaio, requires his Maricopa County inmates to enroll in chain gangs to perform various community services or face lockdown with three other inmates in an 8-by-12-foot cell, for 23 hours a day. In June of this year, Arpaio started a female-only chain gang made up of women convicted of driving under the influence. In a press release he boasted that the inmates would be wearing pink T-shirts emblazoned with messages about drinking and driving. ...

... There has also been a disturbing reemergence of the debtors’ prison, which should serve as an ominous sign of our dangerous reliance on prisons to manage any and all of society’s problems. According to the Wall Street Journal, "more than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can't or won't pay to be jailed." They found that judges "signed off on more than 5,000 such warrants since the start of 2010 in nine counties." It appears that any act that can be criminalized in the era of private prisons and inmate labor will certainly end in jail time, further increasing the ranks of the captive workforce.

Who Profits?

Prior to the 1970s, private corporations were prohibited from using prison labor as a result of the chain gang and convict leasing scandals. But in 1979, the US Department of Justice admits that congress began a process of deregulation to "restore private sector involvement in prison industries to its former status, provided certain conditions of the labor market were met.” Over the last 30 years, at least 37 states have enacted laws permitting the use of convict labor by private enterprise, with an average pay of $0.93 to $4.73 per day.

Federal prisoners receive more generous wages that range from $0.23 to $1.25 per hour, and are employed by Unicor, a wholly owned government corporation established by Congress in 1934. Its principal customer is the Department of Defense, from which Unicor derives approximately 53 percent of its sales. Some 21,836 inmates work in Unicor programs. Subsequently, the nation's prison industry – prison labor programs producing goods or services sold to other government agencies or to the private sector -- now employs more people than any Fortune 500 company (besides General Motors), and generates about $2.4 billion in revenue annually. ...

... Some of the largest and most powerful corporations have a stake in the expansion of the prison labor market, including but not limited to IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. Between 1980 and 1994 alone, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Since the prison labor force has likely grown since then, it is safe to assume that the profits accrued from the use of prison labor have reached even higher levels.

In an article for Mother Jones, Caroline Winter details a number of mega-corporations that have profited off of inmates:

“In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria's Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace 'Made in Honduras' labels on garments with 'Made in the USA.'"

According to Winter, the defense industry is a large part of the equation as well:

“Unicor, says that in addition to soldiers' uniforms, bedding, shoes, helmets, and flak vests, inmates have 'produced missile cables (including those used on the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War)' and 'wiring harnesses for jets and tanks.' In 1997, according to Prison Legal News, Boeing subcontractorMicroJet had prisoners cutting airplane components, paying $7 an hour for work that paid union wages of $30 on the outside.”

Oil companies have been known to exploit prison labor as well. Following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and irreparably damaged the Gulf of Mexico for generations to come, BP elected to hire Louisiana prison inmates to clean up its mess. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of any state in the nation, 70 percent of which are African-American men. Coastal residents desperate for work, whose livelihoods had been destroyed by BP’s negligence, were outraged at BP’s use of free prison labor.

In the Nation article that exposed BP’s hiring of inmates, Abe Louise Young details how BP tried to cover up its use of prisoners by changing the inmates' clothing to give the illusion of civilian workers. But nine out of 10 residents of Grand Isle, Louisiana are white, while the cleanup workers were almost exclusively black, so BP’s ruse fooled very few people.

Private companies have long understood that prison labor can be as profitable as sweatshop workers in third-world countries with the added benefit of staying closer to home. Take Escod Industries, which in in the 1990s abandoned plans to open operations in Mexico and instead "moved to South Carolina, because the wages of American prisoners undercut those of de-unionized Mexican sweatshop workers," reports Josh Levine in a 1999 article that appeared in Perpective Magazine. The move was fueled by the state, which gave a $250,000 "equipment subsidy" to Escod along with industrial space at below-market rent. Other examples listed by Gordon Lafer in the American Prospect include Ohio's Honda supplier, which "pays its prison workers $2 an hour for the same work for which the UAW has fought for decades to be paid $20 to $30 an hour. Konica, which has hired prisoners to repair its copiers for less than 50 cents an hour. And in Oregon, where private companies can “lease” prisoners at a bargain price of $3 a day."

Even politicians have been known to tap into prison labor for their own personal use. In 1994, a contractor for GOP congressional candidate Jack Metcalf hired Washington state prisoners to call and remind voters he was pro-death penalty. After winning his campaign, he claimed to have no knowledge of the scandal. Perhaps this is why Senator John Ensign (R-NV) introduced a bill earlier this year to "require all low-security prisoners to work 50 hours a week." After all, The New York Times reminds us that "creating a national prison labor force has been a goal of his since he went to Congress in 1995."

In an unsettling turn of events lawmakers have begun ditching public employees in favor of free prison labor. The New York Times recently reported that states are "enlisting prison labor to close budget gaps" to offset cuts in "federal financing and dwindling tax revenue." At a time of record unemployment, inmates are being hired to "paint vehicles, clean courthouses, sweep campsites and perform many other services done before the recession by private contractors or government employees." In Wisconsin, prisoners are now taking up jobs that were once held by unionized workers, as a result of Governor Scott Walker’s contentious anti-union law. ...

...As unemployment on the outside increases, so too will crime and incarceration rates, and our 21st-century version of corporate slavery will continue to expand unless we do something about it.

Edited, now that I'm back, to add:

http://jezebel.com/5877025/another-wise-republican-suggests-a-return-to-...

Another Wise Republican Suggests a Return to Child Labor
Erin Gloria Ryan
1/18/12

In Monday's Republican Presidential debate, Newt Gingrich doubled down on his fabulous idea that the best way to wean families off of government assistance is to let poor kids work as janitors. At a recent town hall meeting, a Republican Senator suggested that letting kids handle pesticides and operate farm equipment just might be the key to solving the country's obesity epidemic. What's with this mini-trend of Republican politicians publicly pushing for kids to get jobs?

ThinkProgress reports that the latest rationale for getting America's children threshing again comes from Iowa's Chuck Grassley. During a public event he held recently, a constituant lamented a proposed change to the Department of Labor's guidelines for children who work on farms. The new guidelines would make it illegal for kids under 16 to handle pesticides, work in timber removal, drive power equipment, or work on the harvesting of tobacco. Mr. Grassley noted that it's "interesting" that First Lady Michelle Obama's been traveling around the country promoting exercise and healthy eating, and yet her husband's administration is limiting the hardness of work that kids can do. That's some Alanis Morisette-level Ironic shit right there. Like rain on your wedding day. ...

... First, let's say we finally come to our senses and make our freeloading kids get off their Cheeto-fed asses and earn their keep. Wouldn't an influx of tiny, sticker-covered resumes on the job market make things more difficult for everyone else? Depending on who you ask, there are 4 or 5 job seekers for every job opening, with little relief in sight. If kids are competing with adults for jobs, then how much more competitive is the job market about to become?

The only way that the labor market could possibly support all the children Newt Gingrich and Chuck Grassley wish to inject into it would be to remove the people who currently do low-skill, low-education jobs for very little pay from their current posts. Are hard laboring kids supposed to replace the Mexicans that we're going to kick out once everything goes back to how it was in the 1950's? A pol can dream.

https://thinkprogress.org/the-war-on-child-labor-laws-maine-republicans-...

Ian Millhiser
Justice Editor, ThinkProgress. Author of Injustices: SCOTUS’ History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted imillhiser@thinkprogress.org
Mar 31, 2011
The War On Child Labor Laws: Maine Republicans Want Longer Hours, Lower Pay For Kids

Maine State Rep. David Burns is the latest of many Republican lawmakers concerned that employers aren’t allowed to do enough to exploit child workers:

LD 1346 suggests several significant changes to Maine’s child labor law, most notably a 180-day period during which workers under age 20 would earn $5.25 an hour.

The state’s current minimum wage is $7.50 an hour.

Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, is sponsoring the bill, which also would eliminate the maximum number of hours a minor over 16 can work during school days.

Burns’ bill is particularly insidious, because it directly encourages employers to hire children or teenagers instead of adult workers. Because workers under 20 could be paid less than adults under this GOP proposal, minimum wage workers throughout Maine would likely receive a pink slip as their twentieth birthday present so that their boss could replace them with someone younger and cheaper.

And Burns is just one of many prominent Republicans who believe that America’s robust protections against the exploitation of children are wrongheaded: ...

(list follows, at source)

...Republicans’ contempt for workers is hardly news. GOP governors throughout the country have declared war on collective bargaining, and the national minimum wage remained stagnant for nearly a decade the last time Republicans controlled Congress. Nevertheless, the GOP’s increasingly widespread assaults on child labor laws is a significant escalation from their longstanding war on adult workers.
Update:

The Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel has more.

The only education that the sub-human and financially worthless children of the Poors need is only that of manual labour being required for any hope of food... Why pay janitors when the kids of the pointless poor can miss classes to do the job? If they were worth anything, they'd be worth real money, the only value worth having!

http://aattp.org/republican-rep-suggests-poor-kids-sweep-school-cafeteri...

Republican Rep. Suggests Poor Kids Sweep School Cafeteria to Earn Their Food (Video)

December 18th, 2013

Shared donors ensures that both sides do it to the American people - and if Dem leadership has no problem killing kids for maximized industry profiteering, I doubt that child labour would be a problem for any but 1% kids.

https://theintercept.com/2016/06/27/private-prison-trump-clinton/

Private Prison CEO Unconcerned About Hillary Clinton’s Pledge to End His Industry
Lee Fang

June 27 2016

The chief executive of the largest private prison company in America reassured investors earlier this month that with either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the White House, his firm will be “just fine.” Damon Hininger, the chief executive of Corrections Corporation of America, was speaking at the REITWeek investor forum.

Private prisons have received a great deal of criticism this election cycle, first with Bernie Sanders campaigning to end for-profit incarceration, followed by Clinton taking up a similar pledge.

After The Intercept revealed that the Clinton campaign had received campaign donations from private prison lobbyists, a number of activist groups confronted Clinton, leading her to announce that she would no longer accept the money and later declaring that “we should end private prisons and private detention centers.”

But Corrections Corporation is apparently not concerned. Asked about prospects under Trump or Clinton, Hininger argued that his company has prospered through political turnover by taking advantage of the government’s quest for lower costs.

“I would say that being around 30 years and being in operation in many, many states, and also doing work with the federal government going back to the 1980s, where you had Clinton White House, you had a Bush White House, you had Obama White House, we’ve done very, very well,” Hininger said.

“If we continue to do a good job on the quality, and with that, we can demonstrate savings both on capital voids, but also cost savings in our services, then I think we’ll be just fine,” he said. ...

...Corrections Corporation was founded in 1983 by the former chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, who leveraged his political ties to win a number of government contracts to operate prison and immigrant detention facilities. The company has used its political influence to shape its rapid growth. Corrections Corporation used a third party advocacy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, to lobby for “three strikes” and “truth-in-sentencing” laws that fueled the growth of prison populations, as well as for privatization laws that handed control of federal and state prison facilities to private operators. In recent years, the company’s lobbyists played a role in promoting state laws that encourage local police to arrest undocumented immigrants.

The firm, which brought in $1.7 billion in revenue for the last fiscal year, has succeeded financially through aggressive cost-cutting measures. But critics say Corrections Corporation has endangered both prison guards and inmates by under staffing and failing to train employees, leading to multiple incidents of rape and killings at CCA-run prisons.

Corrections Corporation is receiving renewed attention this week as Mother Jones publishes a 35,000-word investigation of a CCA-operated prison in Louisiana. Reporter Shane Bauer spent four months working as a prison guard at the facility, documenting systematic neglect of medical care and rampant violence. Robert Scott, an inmate in the prison, lost fingers and limbs to gangrene after the prison largely ignored his requests for serious treatment. Bauer, who worked at $9 an hour with little formal training, found that the company failed to report multiple stabbings to the state government, despite laws that require documentation of such incidents.

This corporate/billionaire/military disaster-in-process-'governing' for profits at everyone/everything else's cost has to stop. Now. While there's still anything left to salvage.

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by Wink on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 12:27am

Exactly. All advances have

@gjohnsit
happened whether "government" wanted it or not.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 4:42pm

Spot on comment

@CS in AZ

Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization.

Nothing is going to change until we get money out of politics. But in order to get that done will take an act of congress and there is no way in hell that they are going to be giving up their gravey train.
There is too much money involved with keeping marijuana illegal.
From the cops being able to take people's money even if they weren't charged with a crime. Imagine if anyone else tried to do that. Of course they would be charged with theft and most assuredly be found guilty.
Then there's every other industry that profits off of keeping it illegal and ending with the prison industry and all of its tentacles to the organizations that run probations and its fees that are charged to the parole.

IMO, this goes against this quote from Thomas Jefferson: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But as QMS wrote in his essay this morning, our Declaration of Independence has been changed without anyone noticing it.

#5

1. Same-sex marriage happened due to a Supreme Court decision. If we were waiting on congress for that, we'd still be waiting.

2. Weed is still illegal in most states and on federal land within states that have legalized. Despite a solid majority of the public now fully supporting legalization, congress couldn't care less. Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization. Money is definitely a factor in this one too. No insurance industry, true, but industries aligned against legalization include pharma, alcohol, law enforcement, and private prison profiteers.

3. Recent polls show a slim majority of very soft support for single payer/MFA now (regardless of what term is used), but the same poll also tells us that upon exposure to one negative message -- just one time hearing that single payer/MFA would mean "higher taxes" or "government control of healthcare" and the popularity/support immediately drops precipitously and a very solid majority say they would change their mind and oppose it. Poof.

Data Note: Modestly Strong but Malleable Support for Single-Payer Health Care

The poll finds the public’s attitudes on single-payer are quite malleable, and some people could be convinced to change their position after hearing typical pro and con arguments that might come up in a national debate. For example, when those who initially say they favor a single-payer or Medicare-for-all plan are asked how they would feel if they heard that such a plan would give the government too much control over health care, about four in ten (21 percent of the public overall) say they would change their mind and would now oppose the plan, pushing total opposition up to 62 percent. Similarly, when this group is told such a plan would require many Americans to pay more in taxes or that it would eliminate or replace the Affordable Care Act, total opposition increases to 60 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

It is unfortunately not true that a majority of people now solidly support single payer/MFA. They don't. People are incredibly easy to sway and sour on it with a few simple words like higher taxes and government takeover. It is wildly fantastical to imagine that democrats are going to do jack about passing it. They won't.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 4:59pm

You guys are behind the curve

@snoopydawg

There is too much money involved with keeping marijuana illegal.

10 years ago I would probably agree with you.
Now 8 states +DC have full legalization, not to mention several nations.

To say legalization will never happen is like someone predicting the other team will never score after they've already celebrated in the end zone.

This is already happening. It's just not complete yet.

Submitted by CS in AZ on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 6:26pm

Behind the curve?

@gjohnsit

Actually I follow this issue very closely. My "brilliant" state was the only one who had the chance last election to pass it, and voted down full legalization, thanks to strong opposition from alcohol, prison and law enforcement industry efforts.

You seem to have a rather Pollyanna view of how easily this domino is going to fall. Take a look at life in one of those states that has "full legalization" now.

Even though marijuana is legal, here are 9 ways federal law affects California pot users, businesses

Just a few highlights; the article has much more detail.

Federal law still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I narcotic, a category reserved for drugs such as heroin that are said to be highly addictive and have no medical value. There’s been no movement to ease that stance even though polls show a record number of Americans believe marijuana should be legal, 28 states permit medical marijuana and eight more allow recreational use.

Federal employees can’t consume marijuana, even in their off-hours. And neither can many categories of workers who are in federally regulated fields, such as people who work in the transportation or health care industries.

No one who is in Section 8 or other federally subsidized housing is allowed to use marijuana.

While some local banks and credit unions are quietly taking on marijuana businesses, major banks and credit card companies still won’t service the industry out of fear they’ll be penalized for money laundering.

Though the federal government says marijuana is illegal, businesses still have to pay taxes to the IRS. But under a tax rule imposed during the Reagan administration’s 1980s anti-drug war, businesses dealing in Schedule I or II substances are prohibited from writing off common expenses such as rent or utilities.

Harborside Health Center, a large Oakland dispensary, has been battling the IRS over the rule for five years, after being assessed $2.4 million for illegal deductions. A decision in that case is expected midyear.

Congress could take action to reverse tax rule 280E. But Armentano pointed out no marijuana-related bill has even made it to a vote at the subcommittee level.

So, while he thinks the banking and tax policy issues are likely to be the first addressed by federal legislators, he’s not holding his breath.

That last quote is from Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.

I think he's pretty well aware of the curve, and just how far we still have to go.

Submitted by Ellen North on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 9:41pm

@CS in AZ

@CS in AZ

... But under a tax rule imposed during the Reagan administration’s 1980s anti-drug war, businesses dealing in Schedule I or II substances are prohibited from writing off common expenses such as rent or utilities. ...

Just out of curiosity, does this apply to Big Pharma?

#5.2.2.1

Actually I follow this issue very closely. My "brilliant" state was the only one who had the chance last election to pass it, and voted down full legalization, thanks to strong opposition from alcohol, prison and law enforcement industry efforts.

You seem to have a rather Pollyanna view of how easily this domino is going to fall. Take a look at life in one of those states that has "full legalization" now.

Even though marijuana is legal, here are 9 ways federal law affects California pot users, businesses

Just a few highlights; the article has much more detail.

Federal law still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I narcotic, a category reserved for drugs such as heroin that are said to be highly addictive and have no medical value. There’s been no movement to ease that stance even though polls show a record number of Americans believe marijuana should be legal, 28 states permit medical marijuana and eight more allow recreational use.

Federal employees can’t consume marijuana, even in their off-hours. And neither can many categories of workers who are in federally regulated fields, such as people who work in the transportation or health care industries.

No one who is in Section 8 or other federally subsidized housing is allowed to use marijuana.

While some local banks and credit unions are quietly taking on marijuana businesses, major banks and credit card companies still won’t service the industry out of fear they’ll be penalized for money laundering.

Though the federal government says marijuana is illegal, businesses still have to pay taxes to the IRS. But under a tax rule imposed during the Reagan administration’s 1980s anti-drug war, businesses dealing in Schedule I or II substances are prohibited from writing off common expenses such as rent or utilities.

Harborside Health Center, a large Oakland dispensary, has been battling the IRS over the rule for five years, after being assessed $2.4 million for illegal deductions. A decision in that case is expected midyear.

Congress could take action to reverse tax rule 280E. But Armentano pointed out no marijuana-related bill has even made it to a vote at the subcommittee level.

So, while he thinks the banking and tax policy issues are likely to be the first addressed by federal legislators, he’s not holding his breath.

That last quote is from Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.

I think he's pretty well aware of the curve, and just how far we still have to go.

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by CS in AZ on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 10:57pm

Ha! Good question, but no

@Ellen North

Because of course it doesn't. I'm no CPA, but a google search provides the following:

26 U.S. Code § 280E - Expenditures in connection with the illegal sale of drugs

No deduction or credit shall be allowed for any amount paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business if such trade or business (or the activities which comprise such trade or business) consists of trafficking in controlled substances (within the meaning of schedule I and II of the Controlled Substances Act) which is prohibited by Federal law or the law of any State in which such trade or business is conducted.

Emphasis added. This law was written specifically to target businesses in states that legalize weed (or any other drug prohibited under federal law).

Just one of the many ways congress and the federal government continue prohibition efforts, in spite of state laws and public opinion.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 7:14pm

I agree with you

@gjohnsit on legalization of marijuana. Even in Florida, the public is way ahead of the legislators on this issue.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Wink on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 12:32am

And will happen quickly.

@gjohnsit
Same ten year plan as gay marriage. NY State will get it done in 5 years or less. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when, and who will be last.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by orlbucfan on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 6:32pm

This country didn't push making profits off healthcare

until 1973 when HMO policy took off under Trick the Dick. A lot of Americans are still alive who remember those days. How about making this simple fact a major issue next year? Rec'd!! @CS in AZ

#5

1. Same-sex marriage happened due to a Supreme Court decision. If we were waiting on congress for that, we'd still be waiting.

2. Weed is still illegal in most states and on federal land within states that have legalized. Despite a solid majority of the public now fully supporting legalization, congress couldn't care less. Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization. Money is definitely a factor in this one too. No insurance industry, true, but industries aligned against legalization include pharma, alcohol, law enforcement, and private prison profiteers.

3. Recent polls show a slim majority of very soft support for single payer/MFA now (regardless of what term is used), but the same poll also tells us that upon exposure to one negative message -- just one time hearing that single payer/MFA would mean "higher taxes" or "government control of healthcare" and the popularity/support immediately drops precipitously and a very solid majority say they would change their mind and oppose it. Poof.

Data Note: Modestly Strong but Malleable Support for Single-Payer Health Care

The poll finds the public’s attitudes on single-payer are quite malleable, and some people could be convinced to change their position after hearing typical pro and con arguments that might come up in a national debate. For example, when those who initially say they favor a single-payer or Medicare-for-all plan are asked how they would feel if they heard that such a plan would give the government too much control over health care, about four in ten (21 percent of the public overall) say they would change their mind and would now oppose the plan, pushing total opposition up to 62 percent. Similarly, when this group is told such a plan would require many Americans to pay more in taxes or that it would eliminate or replace the Affordable Care Act, total opposition increases to 60 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

It is unfortunately not true that a majority of people now solidly support single payer/MFA. They don't. People are incredibly easy to sway and sour on it with a few simple words like higher taxes and government takeover. It is wildly fantastical to imagine that democrats are going to do jack about passing it. They won't.

—

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Submitted by FuturePassed on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 8:33pm

You cherry pick your facts.

@CS in AZ
If people are told that their taxes will go up, but the increase will be less than the current cost of health insurance premiums and co pays that will go away, I don't think they'll find that a bad deal. When they find out the level of government involvement will be on the same order as the government's activities in Medicare, I don't think they'll find it horrifying. Support for Medicare is overwhelming.

Financial interests are the impediment, not the American people.

#5

1. Same-sex marriage happened due to a Supreme Court decision. If we were waiting on congress for that, we'd still be waiting.

2. Weed is still illegal in most states and on federal land within states that have legalized. Despite a solid majority of the public now fully supporting legalization, congress couldn't care less. Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization. Money is definitely a factor in this one too. No insurance industry, true, but industries aligned against legalization include pharma, alcohol, law enforcement, and private prison profiteers.

3. Recent polls show a slim majority of very soft support for single payer/MFA now (regardless of what term is used), but the same poll also tells us that upon exposure to one negative message -- just one time hearing that single payer/MFA would mean "higher taxes" or "government control of healthcare" and the popularity/support immediately drops precipitously and a very solid majority say they would change their mind and oppose it. Poof.

Data Note: Modestly Strong but Malleable Support for Single-Payer Health Care

The poll finds the public’s attitudes on single-payer are quite malleable, and some people could be convinced to change their position after hearing typical pro and con arguments that might come up in a national debate. For example, when those who initially say they favor a single-payer or Medicare-for-all plan are asked how they would feel if they heard that such a plan would give the government too much control over health care, about four in ten (21 percent of the public overall) say they would change their mind and would now oppose the plan, pushing total opposition up to 62 percent. Similarly, when this group is told such a plan would require many Americans to pay more in taxes or that it would eliminate or replace the Affordable Care Act, total opposition increases to 60 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

It is unfortunately not true that a majority of people now solidly support single payer/MFA. They don't. People are incredibly easy to sway and sour on it with a few simple words like higher taxes and government takeover. It is wildly fantastical to imagine that democrats are going to do jack about passing it. They won't.

Submitted by CS in AZ on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 8:51pm

If you believe the American people are immune to propaganda

@FuturePassed

I can only say I wish that were true, but honestly we all know better, don't we? The poll shows those negative messages are effective. Therefore, public support is soft and not by any means a done deal.

I'm not saying that such conversations and education are hopeless, in fact I said that is what will be necessary.

If there is any hope to achieve this nearly impossible goal in the US, it will have to begin with massive educational efforts to create real, solid public pressure on the system. We are not close right now. I wish it were, but it isn't.

The conversations you suggest are exactly what I'm saying we will have to do to get there. The public is not there now. There will need to be a lot of explaining of things like that. Repeatedly.

I've had these conversations with people! Lots of them. You can get to agreement, then in a minute they are suddenly back to "but I don't want the government in control of healthcare. It's inefficient bureaucracy. It's too expensive. And I don't want my tax dollars paying for welfare babies. ... " On and on.

As I said above, if there is any hope to achieve this nearly impossible goal in the US, it will have to begin with massive educational efforts to create real, solid public pressure on the system. We are not close right now. I wish it were, but it isn't.

Anyone who believes the American public is strongly clamoring for single payer right now is, unfortunately, very misinformed. They can be persuaded to say yes, and then just as quickly persuaded to say no. We have a very long ways to go to overcome that.

Submitted by FuturePassed on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 3:39pm

I believe the Democrats can be

@CS in AZ
as adept at producing propaganda as Republicans. Look at Russiagate. Medical bills remain the leading cause of bankruptcy 7 years into Obamacare, and the Cadillac tax that will weaken employer sponsored plans hasn't even kicked in. People are watching co-pays go through the roof. Medical costs are taking a larger percentage of people's incomes. We have their attention.

I don't think people are clamoring for single payer. I think they are more open to the idea than they've been in decades in spite of propaganda produced in an attempt to discredit the idea. We have an opportunity. Even if pressing for Medicare for all only results in the availability of a public option and some restraints on drug prices it will be an improvement.

If we've learned anything from Obama it should be the folly of making your initial negotiating position the place you'd like to wind up.

Submitted by CS in AZ on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 5:33pm

The Democrats don't support single payer

@FuturePassed

and they aren't even trying to push back on the negative propaganda; they use the exact same negative talking points! So I'm not really sure who you mean by "we" here, but if you mean democrats, they could have an opening -- but they don't want one.

Maybe you remember the dem party primary wars during 2015/16? There was this guy named Bernie Sanders, who worked very hard, and quite successfully, to bring single payer to the forefront of the agenda, and he generated enormous enthusiasm for it. It was incredible! His efforts created this "opening" you refer to (which is one of the main reasons I supported him).

And the democrats promptly pissed all over the idea, ran it over with a truck, and set it on fire.

The Democratic nominee assured the nation (and the insurance industry) that it would "never, ever happen" and Her minions used every negative talking point in the playbook to kill it. Which is one of the big reasons why I don't support them. They were forced by Bernie to drop the mask and stop pretending they want universal healthcare. Has this been forgotten already?

Now some people would have us believe that ~~Lucy~~ the dem party has seen the light and will ~~hold the football in place~~ push for single payer this time. Right. "Keep those votes and donations coming! It's right around the corner, for sure!" Con artists, plain and simple.

I'm not interested in negotiations or bandaids to prop up the insurance industry. My position is direct and nonnegotiable: as a country we need real, universal healthcare for everyone. I know the democrats don't support my position, so I don't support them. They are NOT on our side in this. (Our side being anyone who actually wants single payer/universal healthcare for all.) democrats want to play games with our lives and steal our money. Don't get fooled again. A good motto.

Independent groups like the nurses union, Physicians for a National Health Program, and others are doing the work of trying to change minds, beat back the negative propaganda coming from both parties, and ultimately win on this issue. If and when it happens, they are the reason.

They are serious about it, and they know that it's not already a done deal, it's not in the bag, it's not a slam dunk or a given. It's frankly insulting to those people who put so much work into this issue to say it's on autopilot now -- inevitable -- and we just need to sit back and wait for the problem to fix itself, or think Dems are gonna handle it. That's why my donations and support go to them now.

Submitted by FuturePassed on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 6:31pm

We have communicated.

@CS in AZ
You're talking about what the Democrats WILL do. I'm talking about what they COULD do. I just get tired of hearing them say they can't do it because the people aren't ready.

I think they are as likely to do it as you do.

Thanks for taking the time.

#5.2.4.1.1

and they aren't even trying to push back on the negative propaganda; they use the exact same negative talking points! So I'm not really sure who you mean by "we" here, but if you mean democrats, they could have an opening -- but they don't want one.

Maybe you remember the dem party primary wars during 2015/16? There was this guy named Bernie Sanders, who worked very hard, and quite successfully, to bring single payer to the forefront of the agenda, and he generated enormous enthusiasm for it. It was incredible! His efforts created this "opening" you refer to (which is one of the main reasons I supported him).

And the democrats promptly pissed all over the idea, ran it over with a truck, and set it on fire.

The Democratic nominee assured the nation (and the insurance industry) that it would "never, ever happen" and Her minions used every negative talking point in the playbook to kill it. Which is one of the big reasons why I don't support them. They were forced by Bernie to drop the mask and stop pretending they want universal healthcare. Has this been forgotten already?

Now some people would have us believe that ~~Lucy~~ the dem party has seen the light and will ~~hold the football in place~~ push for single payer this time. Right. "Keep those votes and donations coming! It's right around the corner, for sure!" Con artists, plain and simple.

I'm not interested in negotiations or bandaids to prop up the insurance industry. My position is direct and nonnegotiable: as a country we need real, universal healthcare for everyone. I know the democrats don't support my position, so I don't support them. They are NOT on our side in this. (Our side being anyone who actually wants single payer/universal healthcare for all.) democrats want to play games with our lives and steal our money. Don't get fooled again. A good motto.

Independent groups like the nurses union, Physicians for a National Health Program, and others are doing the work of trying to change minds, beat back the negative propaganda coming from both parties, and ultimately win on this issue. If and when it happens, they are the reason.

They are serious about it, and they know that it's not already a done deal, it's not in the bag, it's not a slam dunk or a given. It's frankly insulting to those people who put so much work into this issue to say it's on autopilot now -- inevitable -- and we just need to sit back and wait for the problem to fix itself, or think Dems are gonna handle it. That's why my donations and support go to them now.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 6:48pm

@FuturePassed

@FuturePassed

I believe the Democrats can be

as adept at producing propaganda as Republicans. ...

Lol, those are corporate tactics, so that's effectively 'a word from their sponsors'. Or paymasters, if you, like I, prefer something which I, at least, feel to be more accurate.

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by Wink on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 12:23am

It's going to happen.

@CS in AZ
And sooner rather than later. Just like gay marriage, MFA won't take more than ten years. Tops. Gay marriage only happened becuz enough gay activists stirred that pot. Didn't have anything to do with government, had everything to do with persistence. Persistence, and the fact that every Dem family had a gay member. That got tired of going to Canada, or a long distance, to get married. Repub families apparently not so much.
MFA will happen the same way. When enough people get tired of d!cking around with the current lame system they will demand to start it whether politicians are on board or not. It's a matter of when, not if, and it will happen sooner rather than later.

#5

1. Same-sex marriage happened due to a Supreme Court decision. If we were waiting on congress for that, we'd still be waiting.

2. Weed is still illegal in most states and on federal land within states that have legalized. Despite a solid majority of the public now fully supporting legalization, congress couldn't care less. Federal laws are not changing, the DEA is not changing, they are still actively undermining legalization. Money is definitely a factor in this one too. No insurance industry, true, but industries aligned against legalization include pharma, alcohol, law enforcement, and private prison profiteers.

3. Recent polls show a slim majority of very soft support for single payer/MFA now (regardless of what term is used), but the same poll also tells us that upon exposure to one negative message -- just one time hearing that single payer/MFA would mean "higher taxes" or "government control of healthcare" and the popularity/support immediately drops precipitously and a very solid majority say they would change their mind and oppose it. Poof.

Data Note: Modestly Strong but Malleable Support for Single-Payer Health Care

The poll finds the public’s attitudes on single-payer are quite malleable, and some people could be convinced to change their position after hearing typical pro and con arguments that might come up in a national debate. For example, when those who initially say they favor a single-payer or Medicare-for-all plan are asked how they would feel if they heard that such a plan would give the government too much control over health care, about four in ten (21 percent of the public overall) say they would change their mind and would now oppose the plan, pushing total opposition up to 62 percent. Similarly, when this group is told such a plan would require many Americans to pay more in taxes or that it would eliminate or replace the Affordable Care Act, total opposition increases to 60 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

It is unfortunately not true that a majority of people now solidly support single payer/MFA. They don't. People are incredibly easy to sway and sour on it with a few simple words like higher taxes and government takeover. It is wildly fantastical to imagine that democrats are going to do jack about passing it. They won't.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 4:33pm

marijuana middlemen

@gulfgal98

While I wish I could buy into the analogy of gay marriage and marijuana legalization, there is a massive difference with health care. With both gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana, there was no unnecessary middle man who would stand to lose a very profitable business.

Actually, with marijuana legalization, there was an unnecessary middle man who would stand to lose a very profitable business. But legalization advocates had the advantage that they could point out that the marijuana middlemen are serious criminals. And they were, as any survivor of the Waldo Canyon Fire like myself can attest; the current theory of the startup of that Fire was one such criminal burning a competitor's grow near Pyramid Mountain.

Perhaps what we need is to start a narrative depicting "health insurance" for corporate profits as the criminal enterprise that it really is.....

—

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 7:19pm

When I wrote that about the middle man

@thanatokephaloides in marijuana, I realized that probably someone would call me out on that. However, I doubt that dealers of illegal drugs have a lobby like the pharmaceutical/health insurance industry. And that was my point of reference.

What you write is a great analogy:

Perhaps what we need is to start a narrative depicting "health insurance" for corporate profits as the criminal enterprise that it really is.....

And yes, it is because it preys upon the weakest and neediest in order to maximize their profits.

Great comment.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 8:25pm

thank you!

@gulfgal98

Great comment.

Thank you!!

—

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Submitted by Wink on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 12:45am

The criminal enterprise here,

@thanatokephaloides
of course, being the federal government. And their war on drugs. The ONLY reason the federal gov't sticks its nose in States' business re. legalized marahootch is they are the "middle man" making a fortune by keeping it illegal. Period.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by ggersh on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 6:44pm

With total irony it's the D's being the party

@gulfgal98 protecting the Heritage Foundation health plan. Their is no
left, liberal or progressives left in either party of the oligarchy.

My question besides the obvious, is why are our leaders so against
the people in all regards, why is austerity being pushed on the plebes
at the pace it is.

Hubris in action.

—

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Submitted by FuturePassed on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 8:35pm

Answer:

@ggersh
Would you prefer Barney Frank's pension plan or yours?

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 3:37pm

clearly, this was obama's strategy all along.

—

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 7:21pm

When Obama pre-emptively

@UntimelyRippd took regulation of drug prices and single payer off the table, I knew he was a snake.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Tue, 08/01/2017 - 4:43pm

Dems will vote for it now

when it doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell. Then, when they have a majority they will run away from it. see Employee Free Choice Act.

A weasel never changes.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by Ellen North on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 9:46pm

@The Voice In the Wilderness

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Dunno about that - remember Clinton and her 'never happen' comments? Pelosi and her 'we're capitalists'? And so forth, or rather, backward?

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.