The 2016 US Election (Part IV)

[The Romulan Republic]

Of course. Trump has no principles, no ideology, and no integrity. He's in it for Trump- always has been and always will be.

[K. A. Pital]

I thought "drain the swamp" referred to ending life tenure for government officials, but I could be wrong...

[AniThyng]

Even if the electoral college did that, how much can she do with a republican Congress now faced with a president with borderline legitimacy?!

[Mr Bean]

I thought "drain the swamp" referred to ending life tenure for government officials, but I could be wrong...

I believe it does, the idea that Government officials get cushy lifetime appointments to suck down public money is a very popular meme on the right. And speaking from personal experience... kinda of true in the Pentagon .

I'm not saying I knew of three different groups doing the same work as each other I'm just saying I may have know twenty people getting payed six figure salaries to show up have meetings, generate paperwork go home and change nothing.

All of which were backups to group prime who did the actual work, there exists three separate "advisory" groups each under their own manager and the big bosses only used group prime work but allowed backup groups to exist because it was empire building bullshit.

[Patroklos]

Institute high-year tenure. Problem solved, and there is a steady supply of jobs of young people bringing new blood to the bureaucracy.

[Q99]

I believe it does, the idea that Government officials get cushy lifetime appointments to suck down public money is a very popular meme on the right. And speaking from personal experience... kinda of true in the Pentagon .

I'm not saying I knew of three different groups doing the same work as each other I'm just saying I may have know twenty people getting payed six figure salaries to show up have meetings, generate paperwork go home and change nothing.

All of which were backups to group prime who did the actual work, there exists three separate "advisory" groups each under their own manager and the big bosses only used group prime work but allowed backup groups to exist because it was empire building bullshit.

Personally, I'm hesitant to accept anecdotal views like that. The country is huge and in truth requires a lot of bureaucracy, and on a gov-person-per-citizen ratio the number has been dropping for some time. What may look like redundant makework may actually be important organizational effort that allows the main group to accomplish a lot more. It's boring paperwork either way, after all.



Also the irony of 'drain the swamp' as a phrase is that ecologically, we have a problem with too many swamps being drained and re-swamping them being a major concern, because they fill a vital ecological niche.

[Lost Soal]

I thought "drain the swamp" referred to ending life tenure for government officials, but I could be wrong...

It was actually a constitutional amendment on term limits for members of congress.
He can propose it all he wants and fulfil his promise, there isn't a chance in hell of it passing

[Q99]

And it not passing is I think a good thing- Most of our worst congress members are not the old ones. It takes time to learn the skills, and the newbies are often the worst.

Part of the reason for the era of obstructionism was simply too many rookies at once who didn't realize they can't just bullrush through to get what they want, as in it literally will not work.

[Flagg]

I thought "drain the swamp" referred to ending life tenure for government officials, but I could be wrong...

It was actually a constitutional amendment on term limits for members of congress.
He can propose it all he wants and fulfil his promise, there isn't a chance in hell of it passing

Nor should it. Term limits sound great (that's why so many lie about only seeking reelection twice, then retiring only to be in the House for 30 fucking years) but what you end up with is an army of former members of congress as lobbyists. Well, a bigger one than there is.

[bilateralrope]

Donald Trump is about to face a rude awakening over Obamacare

After reiterating his promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he may keep two of the law's most popular provisions. One is straightforward enough - children up to the age of 26 being allowed to stay on their parents' plan. The other - preventing insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions - offers a perfect illustration of why Trump and most of the other Republicans critics of Obamacare don't understand the health insurance market.

Let's say that in the beautiful new world of "repeal and replace," insurers are required to sell you insurance despite the fact that your kid has a brain tumor. Insurance companies know what to do with that. Their actuaries can calculate that kids with brain tumors typically require (I'm making this number up) about $200,000 a year in medical care. So they'll offer to sell you a policy at an annual premium of $240,000.


At this point your response will probably be that such an outcome is not fair. When the law says insurance companies can't discriminate on the basis for pre-existing conditions, surely what it means is that they have to charge roughly the same price for health insurance, irrespective of your pre-existing condition. In the language of insurance, that's called "guaranteed issue at community rates."

Unfortunately, in the states that have tried guaranteed issues at community rates, the insurance markets have collapsed. That's because if you guarantee everyone the right to buy health insurance at community rates, then some consumers will game the system. The young and healthy ones won't buy any health insurance at all-they'll go without until they are diagnosed with diabetes or a brain tumor or get hit by a truck crossing the street. And when that happens, they will immediately call up Aetna or Anthem and exercise their right to buy health insurance at the low community rate, irrespective of their medical condition. It won't be long before insurance companies begin losing a ton of money and are forced either to raise premiums through the roof or stop writing policies altogether.

So how do you prevent that kind of gaming of the system by consumers? Well, that's easy. You require that everyone buy at least some minimal level of insurance at the beginning of every year, so they can't buy insurance only after they get sick. Let's call that an" individual mandate." But because you can't expect poor people to pay $1,000 a month, they will require subsidies to keep their out-of-pocket costs to something like 10 percent of income. To pay for the subsidies, a new tax will be required.

So let's review what just happened. To guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions can get affordable health insurance, you need to have rules requiring guaranteed issue and community rating. To keep insurance companies in business because of guaranteed issue and community rating, you need to have an individual mandate. And because poor people can't afford health insurance, you need subsidies. Combine all three, and what you have, in a nutshell, is ... Obamacare.

Yes, it's a bit more complicated than that, but not much. It's possible to allow insurance companies charge twice or three times as much, to people who are older or sicker. You can let healthy people buy somewhat more barebones "catastrophic" policies to satisfying their obligation under the individual mandate. You could even avoid community rating by sending sick people into "high risk pools" where their premiums would be subsidized by a tax on everyone else's health care premiums.

But at the end of the day, once you decide that everyone, regardless of age or medical condition, should be able to buy health insurance at an affordable price, you have essentially bought into the idea that young and healthy people have an obligation to subsidize the older and sicker people in some fashion. And once you do that, it's sort of inevitable you end up where every health reform plan has ended up since the days of Richard Nixon. You end up with some variation on Obamacare.

Of course, if you want to scrap guaranteed issue, scrap community rating, scrap the individual mandate and scrap the subsidies, as Republicans, propose, then you end up where the country was in 2008-with a market system that inevitable gives way to an insurance spiral in which steadily rising premiums cause a steadily rising percentage of Americans without health insurance.

There are no easy solutions here, no free lunches. You can't have all the good parts of an unregulated insurance market (freedom to buy what you want, when you want, with market pricing) without the bad parts (steadily rising premiums and insurance that is unaffordable for people who are old and sick).

At the same time, you can't have all the good parts of a socialized system (universal coverage at affordable prices) without freedom-reducing mandates and regulations and large doses of subsidies from some people to other people. Anyone who says otherwise - anyone promising better quality health care at lower cost with fewer regulations and lower taxes-is peddling hokum.

Trump has a few options here. I don't think there are any with outcomes he likes.

[The Romulan Republic]

So Clinton not only won the popular vote, it is possible that she won it by over two million votes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/opini ... .html?_r=0

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Hillary Clinton didn’t just win the popular vote. She won it by a substantial margin.

By the time all the ballots are counted, she seems likely to be ahead by more than 2 million votes and more than 1.5 percentage points, according to my Times colleague Nate Cohn. She will have won by a wider percentage margin than not only Al Gore in 2000 but also Richard Nixon in 1968 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.

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PRIVACY POLICY
These comparisons — and I know they’re painful for many people to hear — highlight a dilemma for the suddenly bereft Democratic Party.

The soul-searching about the Democrats’ loss of the white working class is just beginning, as it should. Presidential races aren’t won and lost on the national popular vote, nor is control of the House and Senate. None of that is going to change, and Democrats need to find ways to win in the world that exists, rather than the more small-d democratic world that many of us would prefer.

Figuring out how to win more white working-class votes, especially in the Midwest, has to be at the center of any Democratic comeback plan. That plan obviously should include policy ideas to address the stagnation afflicting many working-class communities. Maybe even more, it needs to find the right language — both respectful and visceral — in which to talk with these communities. Clinton didn’t lose to Donald Trump because he had a more serious set of policies for revitalizing working-class America.

Fuck the Electoral College.

Their is a small bit of perverse comfort, however, in knowing that Trump emphatically does not represent the choice of the American people. And the higher that number goes, the stronger the argument for reforming, or abolishing, the Electoral College. To me, at least, it makes the votes of those of us who voted against Trump feel a little less pointless, if only for symbolic purposes.

[Lone Browncoat]

Tonight's "60 Minutes [US]{November 13th}" is going to be very interesting, deserving of being moved into my permanent folder, like Iraq and Zika were last week.

[Darmalus]

Fuck the Electoral College.

Their is a small bit of perverse comfort, however, in knowing that Trump emphatically does not represent the choice of the American people. And the higher that number goes, the stronger the argument for reforming, or abolishing, the Electoral College. To me, at least, it makes the votes of those of us who voted against Trump feel a little less pointless, if only for symbolic purposes.

Neither Clinton nor Trump managed to get 50% of the voters, they are both equally unworthy. I'd never support removing the electoral college unless you had to get at least 50% of the voters and beat you closest opponent by a minimum amount, say 5% for arguments sake. If they can't manage that, then fuck em, old president stays until someone can manage it.

[Borgholio]

My thought since the election is that Trump, despite all his rhetoric, would swing closer to the middle in order to get stuff done...knowing that some of his more outrageous plans would face massive resistance even from within his own party. Or alternatively, that he just told people what they wanted to hear, and now that he's elected he can just dump that facade and do whatever it was he initially planned to do.

[Thanas]

Fuck the Electoral College.

Their is a small bit of perverse comfort, however, in knowing that Trump emphatically does not represent the choice of the American people. And the higher that number goes, the stronger the argument for reforming, or abolishing, the Electoral College. To me, at least, it makes the votes of those of us who voted against Trump feel a little less pointless, if only for symbolic purposes.

Neither Clinton nor Trump managed to get 50% of the voters, they are both equally unworthy. I'd never support removing the electoral college unless you had to get at least 50% of the voters and beat you closest opponent by a minimum amount, say 5% for arguments sake. If they can't manage that, then fuck em, old president stays until someone can manage it.

That is how you end up with people running the country for 16 years, how you get Merkel and Kohl. And at least the latter was chancellor for four years longer than he should have been.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Fuck the Electoral College.

Their is a small bit of perverse comfort, however, in knowing that Trump emphatically does not represent the choice of the American people. And the higher that number goes, the stronger the argument for reforming, or abolishing, the Electoral College. To me, at least, it makes the votes of those of us who voted against Trump feel a little less pointless, if only for symbolic purposes.

Neither Clinton nor Trump managed to get 50% of the voters, they are both equally unworthy. I'd never support removing the electoral college unless you had to get at least 50% of the voters and beat you closest opponent by a minimum amount, say 5% for arguments sake. If they can't manage that, then fuck em, old president stays until someone can manage it.

So... You want to make the two party system even more firmly entrenched? Were... were you high when you wrote this? Can you tell me what the fuck it is you smoked to think this is a good idea? I really need to avoid shit like that.

[Darmalus]

Fuck the Electoral College.

Their is a small bit of perverse comfort, however, in knowing that Trump emphatically does not represent the choice of the American people. And the higher that number goes, the stronger the argument for reforming, or abolishing, the Electoral College. To me, at least, it makes the votes of those of us who voted against Trump feel a little less pointless, if only for symbolic purposes.

Neither Clinton nor Trump managed to get 50% of the voters, they are both equally unworthy. I'd never support removing the electoral college unless you had to get at least 50% of the voters and beat you closest opponent by a minimum amount, say 5% for arguments sake. If they can't manage that, then fuck em, old president stays until someone can manage it.

So... You want to make the two party system even more firmly entrenched? Were... were you high when you wrote this? Can you tell me what the fuck it is you smoked to think this is a good idea? I really need to avoid shit like that.

Listening to the losing side of this election howl like moronic banshees for half a week has left me feeling like I'm on another planet, I'll admit.

And I will stand by my words, if you can't get 50%+1 of the popular vote, you didn't win the popular vote. This isn't the winner of the popular vote being overruled by the electoral college, it's the electoral college deciding which failure was more broadly appealing.

[Ralin]

This is probably really stupid, but part of me wonders if the best thing to do at this point isn't for Muslims, Hispanics, gays, women's groups, trans people, etc to collectively fawn over Trump and constantly praise him and go on about how he proved us all wrong and he's so much better at being president than we expected to stoke his ego in hopes that he'll decide to reward them.

I mean, eventually he's going to do something to piss off the demographics that voted for him and he'll need get his adoration fix from somewhere...right?

[Vendetta]

My thought since the election is that Trump, despite all his rhetoric, would swing closer to the middle in order to get stuff done...knowing that some of his more outrageous plans would face massive resistance even from within his own party. Or alternatively, that he just told people what they wanted to hear, and now that he's elected he can just dump that facade and do whatever it was he initially planned to do.

One of the open predictions is that he bumbles around in office for a year or so and then gives the establishment republicans an excuse to impeach him so they can have President Pence who is far more of an insider.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Listening to the losing side of this election howl like moronic banshees for half a week has left me feeling like I'm on another planet, I'll admit.

How old are you, out of curiosity? Because the losing side of EVERY modern election has "howled like banshees." Certainly the Republicans did the past 2 election cycles, and the Democrats did for both Bush electoral victories.

And I will stand by my words, if you can't get 50%+1 of the popular vote, you didn't win the popular vote. This isn't the winner of the popular vote being overruled by the electoral college, it's the electoral college deciding which failure was more broadly appealing.

[/quote]

How do you calculate 50%+1? Is it 50% of the entire voting eligible population, or 50% of the people who actually voted? How do you take into account margins of error?

[Flagg]

Fuck the Electoral College.

Their is a small bit of perverse comfort, however, in knowing that Trump emphatically does not represent the choice of the American people. And the higher that number goes, the stronger the argument for reforming, or abolishing, the Electoral College. To me, at least, it makes the votes of those of us who voted against Trump feel a little less pointless, if only for symbolic purposes.

Neither Clinton nor Trump managed to get 50% of the voters, they are both equally unworthy. I'd never support removing the electoral college unless you had to get at least 50% of the voters and beat you closest opponent by a minimum amount, say 5% for arguments sake. If they can't manage that, then fuck em, old president stays until someone can manage it.

Yeah, that's incredibly stupid. If you want to live in what is effectively an Autocracy I hear Saudi Arabia is terrible this (and every other) time of year.

[Flagg]

Neither Clinton nor Trump managed to get 50% of the voters, they are both equally unworthy. I'd never support removing the electoral college unless you had to get at least 50% of the voters and beat you closest opponent by a minimum amount, say 5% for arguments sake. If they can't manage that, then fuck em, old president stays until someone can manage it.

So... You want to make the two party system even more firmly entrenched? Were... were you high when you wrote this? Can you tell me what the fuck it is you smoked to think this is a good idea? I really need to avoid shit like that.

Listening to the losing side of this election howl like moronic banshees for half a week has left me feeling like I'm on another planet, I'll admit.

And I will stand by my words, if you can't get 50%+1 of the popular vote, you didn't win the popular vote. This isn't the winner of the popular vote being overruled by the electoral college, it's the electoral college deciding which failure was more broadly appealing.

When you pass the 6th grade you'll understand the world more. I just hope it happens before you get your drivers license.

[Darmalus]

How old are you, out of curiosity? Because the losing side of EVERY modern election has "howled like banshees." Certainly the Republicans did the past 2 election cycles, and the Democrats did for both Bush electoral victories.

True. It probably just feels louder because I'm on the losing side this time, so I'm more closely tired to those wailing morons.

How do you calculate 50%+1? Is it 50% of the entire voting eligible population, or 50% of the people who actually voted? How do you take into account margins of error?

I only ever consider those who choose to vote, even if it's just a write-in for their pet cat for president. If we had compulsory voting or one of various other systems I'd change my stance due to how radically that changes the math of potential outcomes. As far as margins of error, in practical matters it'd probably work out to 50.5% of the voters to prevent margin of error dickery.

[Flagg]

How old are you, out of curiosity? Because the losing side of EVERY modern election has "howled like banshees." Certainly the Republicans did the past 2 election cycles, and the Democrats did for both Bush electoral victories.

True. It probably just feels louder because I'm on the losing side this time, so I'm more closely tired to those wailing morons.

How do you calculate 50%+1? Is it 50% of the entire voting eligible population, or 50% of the people who actually voted? How do you take into account margins of error?

I only ever consider those who choose to vote, even if it's just a write-in for their pet cat for president. If we had compulsory voting or one of various other systems I'd change my stance due to how radically that changes the math of potential outcomes. As far as margins of error, in practical matters it'd probably work out to 50.5% of the voters to prevent margin of error dickery.

I agree that voting should be compulsory. But your other ideas are repugnant. I literally had my vote stolen in FL in 2000, and was physically ill for weeks after Dubya was elected for the first time in 2004. But I didn't sit in my shitty underwear and cry about it, I took it as a confirmation that the electoral college was a goddamned joke and a holdover from the days before the telegraph.

Unfortunately the chances of doing away with it are zip, zero, and zilch. All because the people that benefit from losing the popular vote but win in the electoral college and their party in the legislature will not destroy the system that got them into power.

[Borgholio]

Looks like Trump is now backing away from his vision of a full-fledged wall on the border. He is now saying certain areas will be a fence instead. Dollars to doughnuts he'll downsize it more later on.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-e ... e=facebook

Oh and he is also considering living in the white house only part of the time. Some are already saying he didn't expect to win and only wants to be a part-time president.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11 ... ite-house/


In addition to his comments on possibly keeping parts of Obamacare, right-wing rumblings of concern have begun.