iPhone or Healthcare? Healthcare or iPhone? Updated.

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The long-awaited “replacement” to ACA has been revealed, and oh, it’s not good. People have been reacting, to say the least, and rethugs are desperately trying to come up with a defense.

The Republican Party’s proposed Obamacare replacement plan is already facing a storm of criticism, and Republican lawmakers are scrambling to defend it on cable news networks.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) appeared on CNN Tuesday morning to explain why obtaining health care is a matter of personal responsibility for millions of Americans, and not an area that requires government intervention.

In particular, Chaffetz said that, under the new GOP plan, poor Americans would be forced to make wise financial decisions if they really wanted to have access to health care.

“You know what, Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice,” he said. “And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Oh, there’s that peculiar notion of rethuglican choice again. “Here you are, you have no choice at all, isn’t that great? Now, make the right choice!” A couple of hundred dollars is not going to get anyone very far when it comes to healthcare. Anyone who has ended up with an out of pocket doctor visit could tell you that. Any money left over is eaten alive by prescription meds. Once again, we see a fine example of the loathsome and utterly disconnected attitude rethugs have towards people, especially those with wallets on the thin side – you uppity poor people really shouldn’t have anything except the very basics, it’s not right you have more! You only get a nifty phone or internet access once you’ve hauled yourself up by your bootstraps and made a fortune. Let’s have a dose of reality here, a subject which republicans consistently fail in:

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average premium for an individual health care plan in the United States is just over $235 per month. Buying an iPhone 7 through a wireless carrier and paying for it in installments over a two-year period costs $27 per month.

In other words, forsaking an iPhone 7 will save Americans enough money to pay for roughly 11% of what it would cost to get health insurance.

I’m not wealthy, and I don’t have a smartphone of any kind, but that’s because I don’t like phones. I still think all people should have healthcare, I don’t give the tiniest of shits what kind of gear they may or may not have, because that’s not in the least bit relevant. It is the same old ugly republican line, though: if you don’t have something, it’s your fault. Oh look, you got something. Well, it’s because of that you can’t have anything else. The basic fuck you, while avoiding any responsibility for it.

The so-called replacement plan is a travesty, and that’s an understatement. I’m sure people expected it to be, but as usual, the news is worse than what we imagined. Think Progress has a break down of 6 very important points to the new “plan”. Click on over for the full details, which are appalling.

House Republicans released on Monday a plan to undo Obamacare that will likely leave millions more Americans uninsured.

After significant internal division about the path forward on Obamacare, lawmakers unveiled two bills that, taken together, would repeal and replace President Obama’s signature health care reform law. House committees are expected to hold votes on the bills as early as this week.

Here’s what you need to know about the legislation, and what it says about the House GOP’s plan for the future of health insurance in America:

It includes massive cuts to Medicaid, the program that provides coverage for millions of low-income Americans.

It defunds Planned Parenthood and eliminates abortion coverage.

It includes a big tax break for insurance companies that pay their CEOs more than $500,000 per year.

A significant portion of the bill is devoted to ensuring lottery winners don’t have access to Medicaid.

It could trigger a “death spiral” in the individual insurance market.

It will result in a lot fewer people having health insurance.

Via Raw Story and Think Progress.

UPDATE: Oh my, looks like the Tiny Tyrant is scrambling for something, anything, in the face of the overwhelming scorn for “Trumpcare”. This hasn’t stopped the appearance of Mr. Tweet, though, who started out with this:

Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster – is imploding fast!

Jesus. How can anyone be that fucking disconnected from reality and still be on the planet?

Also see: How would repealing the Affordable Care Act affect health care and jobs in your state?

 Across the country, 29.8 million people would lose their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act were repealed—more than doubling the number of people without health insurance. And 1.2 million jobs would be lost—not just in health care but across the board.

Now It’s “Travel Review”.

Khizr Khan speaks at the Democratic National Convention accompanied by his wife Ghazala -- screenshot.

Khizr Khan speaks at the Democratic National Convention accompanied by his wife Ghazala — screenshot.

Khizr Khan, the Muslim American Gold Star father who famously railed against President Donald Trump at last year’s Democratic National Convention, has cancelled a planned speech he was scheduled to give in Toronto after being informed that the U.S. government is “reviewing” his travel privileges.

Untitled-1

KHIZR KHAN EVENT CANCELLATION

Late Sunday evening Khizr Khan, an American citizen for over 30 years, was notified that his travel privileges are being reviewed. As a consequence, Mr. Khan will not be traveling to Toronto on March 7th to speak about tolerance, understanding, unity and the rule of law. Very regretfully, Ramsay Talks must cancel its luncheon with Mr. Khan. Guests will be given full refunds.

Mr. Khan offered his sincere apologies to all those who made plans to attend on March 7th. He said: “This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad. I have not been given any reason as to why. I am grateful for your support and look forward to visiting Toronto in the near future.

This fairly SCREAMS unpresident pettiness. Full story here.

Distracted By A Photo, Again.

President Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House with his grandchildren Joseph and Arabella Kushner, before departing for Florida on March 3. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post).

President Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House with his grandchildren Joseph and Arabella Kushner, before departing for Florida on March 3. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post).

Trying to read a rather important article about the Tiny Tyrant’s latest meltdown, which also contains some serious stupidity – he’s intent on proving President Obama wiretapped him, even though it has been pointed out to him, more than once, that if a wiretap was approved, that would mean there was evidence of criminal activity on Trump’s part. The average bear would have backpedaled on this nonsense right away, saying they shouldn’t have taken Breitbart so earnestly or something, but no. In the not so quiet background, Bannon is encouraging this idiocy, with talk of deep state having it in for Trump. So naturally, he ran away to Florida (a bit more on the later). Anyroad, I’m reading, but keep scrolling back up to look at that photo. That’s tape on his tie, right? (Click photo for full size.) Three pieces of tape. I’ve never seen that one before. Anyone out there also tape up the back of their tie?

As for the Tiny Tyrant’s need to run off to Florida every weekend, which is not only costing taxpayers millions for each trip, it’s not endearing the residents of West Palm Beach to him, either.

Residents and business owners in West Palm Beach complained over the weekend that President Donald Trump’s frequent trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort are making their lives miserable.

NBC News reported that Trump’s weekend visits were not only expensive for the taxpayers, but the safety measures implemented by the Secret Service are also costing local business owners big.

“We’re basically going broke,” a spokesperson for Southern Helicopter told NBC News. “We were not expecting him to come down almost every weekend.”

Jonathan Miller, the president of Stellar Aviation Group, worried that his business would go under if Trump continued to make Mar-a-Lago his weekend destination. Miller estimated that he is losing $30,000 each weekend because of Trump.

Additionally, the taxpayers of Palm Beach County are already on the hook for $1.7 million in extra security, and the White House has so far ignored requests to reimburse the county.

“And I’m Not Judging, I’m Just Saying,”

Rep. Roger Marshall. CREDIT: (AP Photo/John Hanna.

Rep. Roger Marshall. CREDIT: (AP Photo/John Hanna.)

Yet another rethug is flapping his mouth over healthcare, this time claiming that a certain class of people doesn’t want healthcare, no, and Jesus said so.

In an interview with STAT, Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS) says he doesn’t support Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion because he believes some poor people just don’t want health care.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall, a doctor and first-term congressman, said. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.”

The author of the STAT piece, Lev Facher, writes that he “pressed” Marshall on that point. But the congressman “shrugged.”

“The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging, I’m just saying socially that’s where they are,” Marshall said. “So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [into] the ER.”

Interesting that Marshall, who is a physician, thinks that medicare equals unlimited access to health care. I guess when your whole career focus is sucking up to the rich, you can get a highly skewed view of things. Medicare is most certainly not unlimited access to health care, and it’s not remotely true that people who do have medicare/medicaid don’t bother to use it. They do. Healthcare is good, but if you want people to also eat in the healthiest and most nutritious manner, and exercise, you can’t just hand them medicare. Social systems are also needed, to provide safe ways to travel, places to exercise, and in urban areas, problems like food deserts need to be addressed as well, and there’s quite a bit more which also needs to be dealt with. Here in uStates, you get the idea that quality of life is only for those with a certain amount of money in the bank.

As for that “Hey, Jesus said the poor will always be with us”, that’s a transparent and disgusting excuse to continue to wipe your feet on the backs of all those who aren’t deemed to be monied enough.

Marshall’s personal views aside, a Harvard School of Public Health study published last summer shows that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion resulted in improved health for low-income adults — and fewer ER visits.

“Two years after Medicaid coverage was expanded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in their states, low-income adults in Kentucky and Arkansas received more primary and preventive care, made fewer emergency departments visits, and reported higher quality care and improved health compared with low-income adults in Texas, which did not expand Medicaid, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health,” a summary of the study says. “The findings provide new evidence for states that are debating whether to expand or how to expand coverage to low-income adults.”

Other studies examining the effects of providing Medicaid coverage to more impoverished people have found similar results.

Oooh, look, studies! Perhaps Rep. Marshall should stick his nose in those, and do a bit of learning. He won’t though, because if there’s one thing rethugs don’t like, it’s having their views challenged in any way.

But Marshall, citing the hospital he helped run in Kansas, suggested he’s primarily concerned with quality of care on the other end of the economic spectrum.

“Our vision was that we would look more like a hotel with customer service that delivered five-star health care,” he said. “So our cafeteria looks more like a coffee shop than it does a sterile hospital dining room. We have bright windows everywhere, and outside of every window there’s a garden. Thinking that healing is more than just a knife and a needle.”

Ah. Well, no wonder you’re not terribly interested in everyday people. They can’t fund your 5 star health hotel. I’d be willing to bet most people would feel better in that kind of environment when ill. Pity all you care about are the rich.

The purpose of the STAT interview was to highlight Marshall’s role as part of the GOP Doctors Caucus, described in the piece as “a group of 16 lawmakers with health care backgrounds who have put themselves at the center of the effort to unwind the Affordable Care Act.”

There’s a bit of terrifying news. One that makes it rather clear the direction ‘healthcare’ is going to take under the rethuglicans. Full story at Think Progress.

White Minority Rule…

USA-black-and-white

A checklist of how maintaining white minority rule can be achieved.

Well, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the Trump Administration and the GOP are engaging in a plan that Karl Rove and his billionaire patrons, as well as the GOP have had in the mill for a few decades. What is the plan?

TO CONTINUE WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THE WHITE SUPREMACY HOLD ON ALL BRANCHES OF FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID OF LOSING POWER DUE TO THE ON-GOING SHIFT IN POPULATION TO MORE PEOPLE OF COLOR AND FOREIGN BORN THAN WHITES. THEY WANT TO ESTABLISH AND/OR MAINTAIN WHITE MINORITY RULE IN AMERICA UNDER THE GUISE OF NATIONALISM AND PATIOTISM.

How are they going to do it? As follows:

  • They will create and carry out a Civil War, if necessary, in order to achieve their aims.
  • They will engage in massive violations of the United States Constitution and Laws to achieve their goals.
  • They will scapegoat certain segments of the population, mainly people of color, immigrants and “liberals”, but also the middle class.
  • They will engage in passing discriminatory and unconstitutional legislation that the populace will accept as long as it is not aimed at their particular segment and when it is eventually aimed at them, they will be too fearful to do anything about it, and no one will be left to defend them.
  • They will engage in policy efforts, law enforcement efforts, military efforts and judicial efforts to reduce the influx on “non-white” immigrants and reduce the present population of non-whites, and this will include efforts to control the growth of non-white populations.
  • They will continue to “militarize” local, state and national law enforcement agencies and use them to protect corporate interests domestically and abroad and they will utilize the “domestic military” for these same purposes.
  • They will privatize public lands and interests in land, such as minerals and fuels, and continue to privatize (Corporate Control) the safe drinking water supply while allowing Corporate interests to pillage the “public trust” without regard to environmental impacts and the impacts to safe drinking water and agricultural water.
  • They will engage administrative policy enforcement through “Executive Orders” and other mechanisms, even if some are ultimately struck down by courts, and will utilize the same to divide the populace into warring segments.
  • They will engage or attack the Judiciary Branch in order to achieve their aims or eventually destroy it.
  • They will depend upon their followers, and those unaffected by initial discriminatory laws and policy, to eventually accept surrender of their Constitutional rights in order to establish white people as the “ruling class”.
  • They will use the catchwords of “nationalism and patriotism” as euphemisms or “code words” for “white rule” and “white supremacy” and will make it clear to poor and uneducated whites and eventually all of the white population, that their aim is to maintain white rule and white privilege, for the good of America.
  • They will attack the Free Press and attempt to silence any “Corporate Owned” media by convincing their followers, and others who eventually understand and accept their aims (either out of self-interest or fear), and will engage in Policy efforts and Congressional efforts to restrict the Free Press and Free Expression that is the lynchpin of the Constitutional Republic.
  • They will incrementally replace the Free Press with media sources that spew only manufactured “alternative” facts or function as the propaganda arm for the achievement of their aims.
  • They will create false facts which their followers will accept as Gospel in order to destroy the Free Press and attack and destroy the credibility of the Judicial and Congressional branches of government, which the GOP will go along with in order to achieve “one-party” domination.

That’s just part of Harold A. Monteau’s checklist and column. I highly recommend clicking over and reading the whole thing. Also recommended: West Wing World: The Amusement Park That Is the White House.

Healthcare: Republican Hide and Don’t Seek.

CREDIT: Screencap via Twitter.

CREDIT: Screencap via Twitter.

Hide & Don’t Seek, the new rethuglican game with healthcare. They have literally hidden their ACA replacement bill. That makes it clear just how lousy it is, and that it basically only has to do with healthcare in the sense of removing it.

Democratic lawmakers spent much of Thursday wandering around the Capitol in an attempt to find House Republicans’ health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. They couldn’t find it.

On Wednesday, House Republicans said they would release their much anticipated plan the next day, but that only House Republicans would be able to see it. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) said it would be available in a “basement of an office building that adjoins the Capitol.”

“No one is getting a copy … We can go and read it,” Rep. Collins told the Washington Examiner.

Democratic lawmakers, such as Rep. Steny Hoyer, (D-MD) Rep. Jan Schakowski (D-IL), and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) went on an “egg hunt” for the document.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted that the bill was “under lock and key,” but that he would demand a copy so the American people could see it. Sen. Paul added that it was “unacceptable” that one of the biggest issues before Congress and the American people would be kept secret.

Paul then reportedly wheeled over a copy machine to make copies of the bill, but was barred from entering the room where it was reportedly being kept. The bill had also been moved from the room before Paul got there, Politico reported.

You can follow all the tweets and the idiotic Republican hiding of healthcare at Think Progress. I think everyone is going to find that when they get to the bill, there is no there there.

A “Normal” Moment.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

It seems that a good deal of media and regular folks are falling all over themselves about how reasonable Trump’s speech was, it was all so gosh darn normal, oh my yes! Except it wasn’t. It was the same old shit, wrapped up in the flag and exceptional Americanism, with a white nationalist filling. Raw Story has a brief article about this, noting the White House surprise at how media pundits were won over by this speech.

President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night got glowing reviews from some pundits on cable news — and it turns out even the White House is surprised by how easily they were won over.

Washington Post reporter Robert Costa tweeted on Wednesday morning that some sources he’s talked with in the White House are “frankly surprised at how pundits are warming to the speech.”

This is particularly surprising to them, Costa writes, because “Trump has not changed” and there is “no big shift in policy coming.”

Think Progress has a longer piece about this piece of bullshit which too many people are swallowing whole. Interestingly, the white supremacist scum are thrilled about it, because instead of paying attention to the bits of trapping, they focused on actual content, which is a gift to Nazis everywhere.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump portrayed the United States as an island of civilization under siege from immigrant cartels and terrorists posing as refugees.

Trump touted a new Department of Homeland Security office that will target “criminal aliens.” He lied about immigration’s effect on the U.S. economy, boasted about sharp rollbacks to the regulatory state, renewed his call for eradicating the Affordable Care Act, hinted at further efforts to privatize the American education system, and offered a strident defense of his administration’s Muslim ban. At no point did he deviate from the “nationalist-populist” ideology his administration has adopted under top strategist Steve Bannon, former chairman of the white-nationalist website Breitbart.

On the other hand, Trump also read off a teleprompter, tossed off a cursory denunciation of “hate,” and wrapped up the speech with some pablum about how Americans should believe in themselves.

Those minor grace points were enough to earn Trump rapturous applause from the usual pundit gaggle, which is evidently willing to embrace a white-nationalist policy agenda if the presentation includes a few Hallmark aphorisms and leaves out any overt racial slurs.

CNN’s Van Jones said Trump “became President of the United States” when he acknowledged the widow of a fallen Navy SEAL, who was sitting in the audience.

Oh FFS, really? Trump acts like a normal person for 10 fucking seconds, and people are tripping over their tongues at how great he is? Jesus Fucking Christ, it’s not enough, it’s just not enough to say we are in trouble here. We are past trouble. There aren’t even words. We’re up to our neck in fascism, but it’s okay, because someone managed to get Trump to read some nice words from a teleprompter. Why didn’t anyone bother to note that Ms. Owens wouldn’t have been a grieving widow if it weren’t for Trump’s ego and need to play war? That Trump doesn’t want to go along with the investigation requested by Owen’s father? No, he’s so very presidential because he addressed a widow.

The vile Nazi scum were elated, but for reasons grounded in reality:

David Duke @DrDavidDuke

Hail to the Chief – No change on policy to deport illegals and on track to CUT major legal immigration necessary to take our country back!

Richard ? Spencer ✔ @RichardBSpencer

After the PC bullshit is out of the way, Trump is making a Trump speech.#trumpaddress

So, what’s it going to take for all the non-Nazi scum to see what’s actually being said and what’s actually going on?

Via Think Progress.

Also see:

Trump lied. Right-wing extremists — not foreigners — commit more terror attacks in the U.S.

Trump’s address to Congress was riddled with falsehoods about the energy industry.

Trump was so busy attacking immigrants he barely acknowledged hate crimes.

Trump draws a fake conclusion from a study that actually finds immigration is good for the economy.

Free People! God Given Liberty! No Healthcare!

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to ensure that no part of Obamacare is “left behind.” CREDIT: CNN.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to ensure that no part of Obamacare is “left behind.” CREDIT: CNN.

The shameful, craven republicans aren’t even attempting to hid behind their various cowardly excuses anymore. They simply want to repeal ACA, they don’t want to replace it at all. Of course, this is hardly news to people who have been paying attention.

Last week, CNN obtained a draft Congressional Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act with a plan that would replace subsidies with smaller tax credits, allow insurance to charge senior citizens more, decimate Medicaid, and cause millions of Americans to lose their coverage altogether.

On Monday and Tuesday, however, a trio of prominent House Republicans made it clear that even this bill was not conservative enough for them. While the bill would mean the loss of health insurance for millions of Americans, they object to provisions in the bill that would help some people remain covered.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who chairs the House Freedom Caucus (a group of a few dozen of the most conservative Republicans in Congress), announced on Monday that he could not support that proposal because included refundable tax credits to help people pay for health insurance and some tax increases. “A new Republican president signs a new entitlement and a new tax increase as his first major piece of legislation? I don’t know how you support that — do you?” he asked, adding that many members of his caucus would be willing to vote against the leaked draft.

Rep. Mark Walker, another North Carolina Republican and chair of the Republican Study Committee (a group that calls itself the “conservative caucus of House Republicans” and includes more than 170 of the 238-member GOP majority), followed suit soon after.

“The draft legislation, which was leaked last week, risks continuing major Obamacare entitlement expansions and delays any reforms,” Walker said, adding that the proposal “kicks the can down the road in the hope that a future Congress will have the political will and fiscal discipline to reduce spending that this Congress apparently lacks.” He said he would urge colleagues to oppose the proposal.

On Tuesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), joined the pile-on. He told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that he presumed the leaked plan did not include entirely “hard facts,” but said the he wants to see only “a full, 100% repeal of Obamacare.” “I don’t want any of it left behind,” he explained, because “a free people that are the recipients of God-given liberty… have had our health taken over by the federal government.”

Think Progress has the full story, and video, if you can stand to watch the smug and stupid King.

We Must Win Wars Again!

Reflections, Lee Teeter, 1988.

Reflections, Lee Teter, 1988.

War. We need more war. We must win those wars! Fuck people, fuck the environment, fuck the economy, fuck healthcare, all we want is cannon fodder – get your young asses over here so we can kill you for no reason! Jesus Fuck.

In a speech to American governors, President Donald Trump attacked the military, saying “We never win wars anymore. We never fight to win. We have to start winning wars again.’

The message was a preface to Trump’s budget announcement that he plans to increase military spending. The United States already spends more in defense than any other country in the industrial world by multitudes. Trump explained that when he was in high school they won wars with major tank battles. In the past he’s spoken out on the lack of battleships that the U.S. military has.

Trump received four draft deferments during the Vietnam War for bone spurs.

That useless, craven caitiff found a convenient, and monied way to get out of the draft. He’s all for other people dying though. I still remember the name of the Lieutenant on my POW MIA bracelet. No word of him was ever heard, or at least no information was ever released. All the government cared about was covering up the travesty of that so called war. I remember handing out those bracelets, a call to action, a mass remonstrance to our government for their shameful actions. Looks like it’s shameful action time again. Trump will start a war so he can feel like a big man. Any takers on whether or not this asshole will try to reinstate the draft?

Fuck. Fuck you, Trump, fuck every single goddamn person who brought us here.

Full story here.

Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one…

A one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills is displayed Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. CREDIT: AP /Rich Pedroncelli.

A one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills is displayed Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. CREDIT: AP /Rich Pedroncelli.

The Trump administration may weaken or eliminate the provision for full coverage of contraception in the Affordable Care Act, experts say, and it may not require any action from Republican allies in Congress.

The provision that allows women to receive full coverage for birth control — including insertion and removal of an IUD — could be eliminated or at least weakened through regulations, guidance, or law. Reproductive rights advocates are also waiting to see whether the Trump administration will continue to defend the mandate in the courts on Tuesday.

Newly minted Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price has a record of dismissing women’s need for full coverage of birth control. In an interview with Think Progress in 2012, Price said, “Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one … The fact of the matter is this is a trampling on religious freedom and religious liberty in this country.”

During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) asked Price about his 2012 statement on birth control because her constituents say birth control without a co-pay is essential to their health care. Price refused to commit to full coverage of birth control.

“There are avenues in the heath care system that doctors and hospitals take to make sure people can get the health care they need,” Price answered.

Price seems to think contraception is like having a doctor fill up a bag with pharmaceutical samples of something or other, to help out patients who can’t afford prescriptions. That sort of thing is usually done for a one time treatment. Contraception doesn’t work like that. As a former physician, I’m sure Mr. Price is aware of that, but that’s not as important as preventing people from having healthcare, especially those awful women. The way Price and his fellow travelers feel about it, contraception is a lifestyle choice, not a health issue.

Planned Parenthood clinics told NPR that, since the election of President Donald Trump, they have received more calls than usual from women interested in booking appointments for IUDs. An IUD is one of the most effective methods of birth control, since it is more than 99 percent effective. Without coverage provided by the mandate, a woman who works full time at minimum wage may have to pay a month’s salary for the cost of getting an IUD, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Women who use contraceptives consistently and correctly only account for 5 percent of all unintended pregnancies. But with financial barriers to access — especially access to effective but costly methods such as IUDs — women’s ability to prevent unintended pregnancies is significantly hampered.

41 years ago, I got an IUD through planned parenthood. At that time, I was a paid member, so it didn’t cost me a thing. I don’t remember the membership cost, but it was around 25 or 35 dollars. Way back then, people in general were favorable towards accessible, inexpensive birth control. There was still a very heavy stigma attached to single parenthood, and it was still considered to be shameful to be pregnant out of wedlock. The stigma was starting to fade in 1975, but it was still strong enough that the reasoning was contraception and pregnancy prevention was better than a bunch of single mothers. It was also easy  and hassle free to obtain an abortion back then. How things have changed.

In addition to what is happening in the courts, it is possible that an executive order could greatly expand exemptions for companies with religious or moral objections. A leaked draft of an executive order, first obtained by The Nation and Reveal earlier this month, would significantly weaken the contraception guarantee.

The order would appear to exempt any “closely held for-profit corporations” with moral or religious objections to meeting the requirements of the provision and lets them exclude coverage for contraception. Under the Obama administration’s religious accommodation, insurance companies have to provide separate coverage to women at no additional cost. Kinsey Hasstedt, senior policy manager for the Guttmacher Institute, said the draft is cause for concern, even though an official order has not been released.

“The leaked draft executive order would expand accommodations so it would be simpler for employers to reject some or all birth control options,” Hasstedt said. “It would be a dramatic expansion of exemptions.”

This draft uses broad terms to define religious freedom and requires the Department of Justice to defend “religious freedom.” It does specifically mention objections to abortion, contraception, and premarital sex, however.

The Religious Reich Republicans have been salivating for ages over the chance to kill off accessible, affordable contraception, and it looks like that chance has arrived. Think Progress has the in-depth coverage on this issue.

Back to the 1970s.

Burning Discarded Automobile Batteries, 07/1972.

Burning Discarded Automobile Batteries, 07/1972.

Trash and Old Tires Litter the Shore at the Middle Branch of Baltimore Harbor, 01/1973.

Trash and Old Tires Litter the Shore at the Middle Branch of Baltimore Harbor, 01/1973.

Clark Avenue and Clark Avenue Bridge. Looking East from West 13th Street, Are Obscured by Smoke from Heavy Industry, 07/1973.

Clark Avenue and Clark Avenue Bridge. Looking East from West 13th Street, Are Obscured by Smoke from Heavy Industry, 07/1973.

Something else people had to protest about, and fight tooth and nail to implement change – the utter disregard and damage being done, not only to our environments, but to all life. People fought like hell for change, and it took time, but change was effected. The photos? Life pre-EPA. It was wasn’t pretty. It was a choking stink. It was piles of garbage everywhere. Now the EPA has been gutted, and the Tiny Tyrant has been busy rolling back every single bit of fucking progress made in this area. A lot of people reading this weren’t born yet in the early ’70s. Unfortunately, you’re going to get a right taste of what it was like, and not in a good way.

More photos? See here. Feel like a bit of reading? See here.

The Police State of America.

Area

Back in 2014, this was one sentence in a long comment written to an oblivious ass about events in Ferguson, Missouri:

A lot of us recognize the dire nature of this situation, and that sooner or later, that rumble will mow down our towns.

The rumble is here. It’s been here for a while, those at the No DAPL camp got to see it up close and personal, more than once. That noise you hear is the boot stomp of a police state, soon to be wherever you live in the States. Legislators have been busy for a while, coming up with various ways to strip people of their rights, and to punish them severely for attempting to exercise those rights. We’re not only back to the bad old days of COINTELPRO (don’t need that anymore, they have Palantir), it’s much worse now. Lately, I’ve been posting a bit of music every day, from the bad old days, which reflected the protests and fights we were in, music which helped to mobilize people. Turns out, we need that more than ever now. Young people, unlike old farts like myself, don’t have the experience of just how far our government is willing to go to shut down dissent. While past experience informs my current alarm, what’s happening now is worse. Much, much worse. Don’t be thinking it’s okay because you aren’t the protesting kind of person – your rights have been shredded and tossed to the wind too. Once open dissent is shut down, it’s never long before it isn’t safe to criticise or be thought unloyal. The loyalist business has already infected the white house, and that’s gotten worse too, with people being fired for having been critical of Trump.

Flint Taylor, a founding partner of the Chicago-based People’s Law Office, told AlterNet that he believes that Trump’s three executive orders on crime and policing have emboldened these state-level initiatives. One decree, titled “Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers,” is premised on the false claim that there is a war on cops. The order instructs the executive branch to “develop strategies, in a process led by the Department of Justice (Department) and within the boundaries of the Constitution and existing Federal laws, to further enhance the protection and safety of Federal, State, tribal, and local law enforcement officers.”

Sessions, who heads the DOJ, has said that he does not believe systemic police brutality is a problem worth addressing.

“The language of this executive order is focused on ‘preventing violence,’ which was the exact language of the memoranda that former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote justifying the neutralization—i.e. destruction—of everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to the Black Panthers,” said Taylor. “One of the key aspects of COINTELPRO was to ‘prevent violence.’ That was the cover for destroying movements.”

“Together with all the other preliminary indications from the Trump administration, this executive order bodes extremely ill, particularly for communities of color, in terms of unleashing the already awesome and racist power of police departments in cities across the country.”

Meanwhile, right-wing Republicans in Congress, with apparent backing from the Trump administration, are advancing efforts to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The initiative, which emanates from far-right conspiracy theories that the Sunni Islamist group is infiltrating the U.S. government, is aimed at crushing Muslim civil society organizations at the core of resistance to Trump.

Amidst a climate of authoritarianism, anti-protest laws are advancing alongside so-called Blue Lives Matter bills that protect police officers under hate crime laws meant to safeguard historically oppressed communities. These initiatives are spreading across the country, with Republicans now in control of roughly two-thirds of the partisan legislative chambers in the United States.

“I definitely think there are a lot of Republicans who feel that Trump is a dog whistle to start writing bills that infringe on people’s rights, because we’re seeing that on a federal level,” said Grimm. “They are taking advantage of this time to make sure that people who don’t agree with them don’t have the right to express that. This is how you move toward fascism and nationalism, by getting rid of dissent.”

That’s just a bit of the full article running down all the current legislation looking to strip rights and quash dissent.

There’s also this:

Upon entering Spicer’s second floor office, staffers were told to dump their phones on a table for a “phone check,” to prove they had nothing to hide.

Spicer, who consulted with White House counsel Don McGahn before calling the meeting, was accompanied by White House lawyers in the room, according to multiple sources. There, he explicitly warned staffers that using texting apps like Confide — an encrypted and screenshot-protected messaging app that automatically deletes texts after they are sent — and Signal, another encrypted messaging system, was a violation of the Federal Records Act, according to multiple sources in the room.

The phone checks included whatever electronics staffers were carrying when they were summoned to the unexpected follow-up meeting, including government-issued and personal cell phones.

Spicer also warned the group of more problems if news of the phone checks and the meeting about leaks was leaked to the media. It’s not the first time that warnings about leaks have promptly leaked. The State Department’s legal office issued a four-page memo warning of the dangers of leaks — that memo was immediately posted by the Washington Post.

But with mounting tension inside the West Wing over stories portraying an administration lurching between crises and simmering in dysfunction, aides are increasingly frustrated by the pressure-cooker environment and worried about their futures there.

Full story at Politico. It should not need to be said that open, transparent governments don’t need to fear leaks. Authoritarian regimes, however…

Behind Breitbart.

POLITICO screen shot.

POLITICO screen shot.

Back in November, Breitbart began the process to secure official Capitol Hill credentials. On Friday, the site’s CEO, Larry Solov, appeared before the Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery and revealed, for what is believed to be the first time, who owns the right-wing nationalist site that has grown exponentially in influence over the past few years.

According to BuzzFeed’s Steve Perlberg, who live-tweeted the meeting, Solov revealed that the owners are himself, founder Andrew Breitbart’s widow, Susie Breitbart, and the Republican megadonor family the Mercers. Breitbart’s family owns the largest stake.

Within the rules of admission to the gallery, there is a clause that states the person and organization holding the pass “must not be engaged in any lobbying or paid advocacy, advertising, publicity or promotion work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the U.S. government.” In order to prove that they are not engaged in any of the above and are an editorially independent institution, the Standing Committee can ask for information or proof on how the business is structured.

Solov said during the meeting that he wants “to disclose as little as possible about financial and ownership structure.” But the Standing Committee had questions, per Perlberg, about Steve Bannon’s involvement. Bannon was Breitbart’s chairman until he joined the Trump campaign last August, and is now chief strategist at the White House.

In the meeting, the committee asked for proof of Bannon’s disassociation from the site. Solov said Bannon resigned to him “via phone,” but the committee said it wanted a letter stating the date of his resignation, that it’s a termination and not a leave, and for the letter to address any editorial and financial interest.

“If I could get Bannon to write it down, I would,” Solov said, according to Perlberg.

[…]

In the meantime, Breitbart reporters have been able to report from the Capitol using a temporary pass, until a decision has been reached on permanent credentials.

Other publications, such as the well-regarded SCOTUSblog, have been denied credentials by the gallery. In the case of SCOTUSblog, it was because of the dual role of the publisher, who was also the proprietor of a law firm that argues before the court.

Unfortunately, this is what now comprises business as usual. Open corruption, a convenient double standard for Nazis, fascists, and religious fanatics (xian only, natch), while a pretended adherence to law when it comes to anyone who might actually report the truth. From what I’ve seen, this news has sunk before it got so much as three strokes in, quietly disappearing beneath the roiling waves of the Trump regime. I have no doubt that suits Bannon, who doesn’t seem any more disposed to cut off business ties than Trump. Bannon also prefers to work in the shadows, quietly, so he can’t have been pleased about this making any news at all, but as it seems all but buried now, I’m sure he’s breathing easier. Bannon’s ability to slink away from focus is a problem, because I expect we’ll all pay dearly if we forget about his fine hand behind the unpresidency.

Via Politico.