thephan wrote:

pacino wrote:

Warszawa wrote:

pacino wrote:Trump = GOP

GOP = Trump

2018 elections should be a breeze....right?

Depends who wins the primaries and how coherent of a message there is

We know the message, it the populist play today plus look at all that money in your paycheck. The only change might be that the HC market implodes.

The number of people who enrolled in the plans sold on Healthcare.gov, the federal marketplace that serves 39 states, was just about 400,000 fewer than the number that signed up during the prior enrollment season.

CMS said, however, that these figures are not final because they do not include those who signed up after midnight Friday, Eastern Time. These numbers also do not account for people who were in line to enroll and left their callback number.

halved the open enrollment period
– slashed advertising
– curtailed in-person assistance
– ended Latino outreach efforts
– constantly said #ACA was collapsing
– drove up premiums by ending CSRs

PHILADELPHIA - The longtime chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Education has resigned amid accusations that he pursued sexual relationships with teenage girls more than 35 years ago, when he was in his late 20s and early 30s and a university crew coach.
Two women told The Philadelphia Inquirer they had long-term sexual relationships with Larry Wittig beginning when they were 16 and 17. One of the women, Annette DeMichele, said her relationship with Wittig started in 1981, the summer after her high school graduation, and continued at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was her rowing coach.
She told the newspaper her relationship felt consensual at the time but, given the age difference and his role as her coach, she now believes she was coerced.

Wittig was appointed to the board, which has broad authority over Pennsylvania education policy, in 2001. He was named chairman in 2011.
A second woman, who declined to be named by The Inquirer, said Wittig began a sexual relationship with her when she was 16 and he was 29. She said the relationship lasted about two years.
DeMichele said she met Wittig during her senior year in high school, when he volunteered to train the rowing team. Other high school teammates of DeMichele's said that Wittig made sexual advances on them, too.
Sarah Dahlgren said that the day after high school graduation, Wittig accompanied her and DeMichele on a trip to San Diego for a rowing competition and took them to a nude beach. Dahlgren said Wittig stuck his hand between her legs on that trip but she pushed him away.
Wittig was charged in 1970 with raping his sister's friend, 15. He said this week the girl made up the story to try to extort money from his family. The accuser insisted to the newspaper that Wittig raped her.

Soren wrote:stopping by to say GOP is a scourge and those who would defend them are compassionless subhumans

JUburton wrote:

Soren wrote:stopping by to say GOP is a scourge and those who would defend them are compassionless subhumans

me in 2007: hm maybe they have a point about finance reform and entitlements
me in 2017: hm maybe being a republican should be a capital crime

“I hope my presence here is tangible evidence that the leadership of President Trump, our administration and the armed forces that we are here to see this through,” Pence said in the opening minutes of a meeting with Ghani and his staff.

Pence says, “Peace only comes through strength.” He urged the soldiers to be strong and courageous.

The vice president noted the sacrifice of American soldiers here since the 2001 invasion and told the troops, “I believe victory is closer than ever before.”

The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has actually done more harm than good.

JUburton wrote:Drone strikes have increased 2x in Syria and 3x in Yemen under this admin. I'm sure some of the Syria ones can be attributed to the closing stages of this phase in the war against ISIS but that Yemen number. #$!&@.

PSUsarge wrote:NYT piece on the layoffs at the ArcelorMittal plant in Conshohocken

The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has actually done more harm than good.

IMAGINE THAT, WHO WOULD HAVE PREDICTED?!(Sorry if anyone's family/friends were impacted by this)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/busi ... tw-nytimes

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement.

A congressional aide with knowledge of the meetings said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was not among the participants. ”While he does believe the FBI and DOJ have recently made decisions worth looking into, he is and will always be a defender of the FBI, DOJ and the special counsel," the aide said.

Squire wrote:The President Signed the Tax Statute today (12/22/2017)

A Dutch journalist just asked new U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra why he said there are “no go” areas in the Netherlands, where radical Muslims are setting cars and politicians on fire.

Hoekstra denied it, and called the claim “fake news.”

The reporter then showed Hoekstra a video clip of himself at a congressional hearing in 2015 saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned.”

“And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands,” he added in the clip.

Then things got extremely weird.

When the reporter pressed, Hoekstra denied using the term “fake news,” which he'd uttered moments before.

“I didn’t call that fake news,” he said. “I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

JUburton wrote:

Squire wrote:The President Signed the Tax Statute today (12/22/2017)

said the news (that he doesnt watch) was asking if hed get it done before xmas so he signed before xmas.

thephan wrote:

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement.

politico

A congressional aide with knowledge of the meetings said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was not among the participants. ”While he does believe the FBI and DOJ have recently made decisions worth looking into, he is and will always be a defender of the FBI, DOJ and the special counsel," the aide said.

How is the operating idea that your politics are bad, and my politics are good fit into America? A flat out partisan operation is beyond suspect, especially if potential same party objectors are removed to advance an agenda. It almost dances on the edge of the definition of conspiracy itself (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.) depending on harm it could create. it certainly is McCarthy like.

thephan wrote:

A Dutch journalist just asked new U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra why he said there are “no go” areas in the Netherlands, where radical Muslims are setting cars and politicians on fire.

Hoekstra denied it, and called the claim “fake news.”

The reporter then showed Hoekstra a video clip of himself at a congressional hearing in 2015 saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned.”

“And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands,” he added in the clip.

Then things got extremely weird.

When the reporter pressed, Hoekstra denied using the term “fake news,” which he'd uttered moments before.

“I didn’t call that fake news,” he said. “I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

Sounds like Pete Hoekstra got a scratch on his scratch right there.

(in 2006) two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

...

But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.

"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."