Nancy Pelosi’s Letter To Speaker Ryan…

Following is a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan from Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.  Questions she raises are reasonable and demand answers. With the GOP intent on railroading their replacement through the Congress and Senate calling your representatives and senators to express your concern might be something you want to consider.

March 7, 2017

The Honorable Paul Ryan

Speaker of the House

H-232, United States Capitol

Washington, D.C.  20515

Dear Speaker Ryan,

This week, the Committees on Energy & Commerce and Ways & Means will be marking up Republicans’ long-feared bill to dismantle affordable health care.  The GOP legislation will have life or death consequences for tens of millions of families across America, and extraordinary impacts on state and federal budgets long into the future.

The American people and Members have a right to know the full impact of this legislation before any vote in Committee or by the whole House.

Members must not be asked to vote on this legislation before the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation have answered the following questions about your legislation in 2018 and 2019, over the 10-year budget window, and in the decade after: How will this bill measure up to the Affordable Care Act and current Medicaid law on coverage, quality, and cost?  And how will it impact Medicare solvency?

  • Coverage – How many fewer Americans will have health insurance coverage compared to current law in Medicaid and the Marketplace?  Also what happens to coverage among Americans with pre-existing conditions?
  • Quality – What happens to the premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket costs, and average value of insurance plans for those with coverage in the Marketplace and those Americans with pre-existing conditions as a result of letting states define essential benefits and change ACA protections?
  • Cost – How will the bill impact the federal deficit and the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund?  What happens to state budgets after the loss of federal dollars from both the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA and from the GOP’s Medicaid per capita cap?  What is the impact on hospitals and other providers due to the increase in uncompensated care?  Given the loss of insurance coverage and change in taxes, how many dollars are transferred from low and middle-income families to high-income families as a result of the bill?

Mr. Speaker, as a former Chair of both the Committee on Ways and Means and the Budget, you understand the importance of having the numbers as well as anyone.  These are critical questions and I hope that Republicans will honor their responsibility to the American people both before the Committees vote and before the final bill goes to the House floor.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

best regards,

 

NANCY PELOSI

Democratic Leader

Via: MEDIAite

Ya Just Can’t Make This S**t Up…

This folks is representative of many GOP’ers. Apparently some that are responsible for running OUR government.

AP – A Pennsylvania congressman has accused former President Barack Obama of staying in Washington solely to run a “shadow government” to undermine the GOP agenda.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly made the claim to fellow Republicans at an event Saturday north of Pittsburgh.

A video clip posted to YouTube shows Kelly saying that Obama remained in Washington for “one purpose only … to run the shadow government that is going to totally upset the new agenda.”

The Obamas have said they would remain in the nation’s capital until their youngest daughter, Sasha, completes high school.

Kelly’s spokesman said Friday the congressman was just “sharing the frustration of everyone in the room over how they believe certain Obama administration holdovers” are trying to upset President Donald Trump’s agenda.

2018 and 2020 must be the year of removal of these cretins.

Trump Is Not Responsible For Strong Job Numbers, Yet…

Bloomberg – President Donald Trump used the first federal jobs report of his presidency to promote a narrative of an invigorated economy that may strengthen his political position as begins the drive to win passage of legislative priorities including an Obamacare replacement and a tax overhaul.

“GREAT AGAIN: +235,000,” Trump posted on his Twitter account in a retweet of a Drudge Report headline on Friday minutes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released payrolls data for February showing the U.S. added a net 235,000 jobs during the month.

Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president who’s now director of the National Economic Council, used the report as validation of Trump’s approach to bolstering the economy, which has included bringing in corporate executives to the White House to press them for hiring commitments and publicly scolding companies over plans to move production abroad.

Sounds GREAT! Certainly will have all the Trumpians ecstatic and singing The Bullshitter In Chief’s praises.  But wait a minute. Lets put on the thinking cap and examine this just a bit.

FiveThirtyEight – Hiring was strong and wage growth accelerated in President Trump’s first full month in office. But don’t give Trump credit, at least not yet.

The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. That topped economists’ expectations and marked the second consecutive month of strong hiring. The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 4.7 percent, reversing its January uptick. Average earnings rose six cents an hour and were up 2.8 percent from a year earlier.

Trump will probably point to the report as proof that his economic policies are working. (On Friday, he retweeted a Drudge Report tweet hailing the jobs number as “great again.”) That isn’t supported by the evidence. Hiring was essentially the same in February as it was in January, when President Obama was still in office, and represented a continuation of an existing pattern of steady job growth. The jump in wages was widely anticipated by economists following an unexpected slowdown in January, and the unemployment rate has been stuck in a narrow band just below 5 percent for most of the past year.

Even if the economy does start to change direction in coming months, it’s unlikely Trump or his policies will be the primary cause. Presidents in any case have little control over the economy, especially in the short-term. The government can (probably) help ease the impact of a recession, and bad policies can (definitely) slow down growth. And presidential policies on things like education, infrastructure and tax policy can have long-term effects, for good or ill. But presidents have little influence over the month-to-month ups and downs of hiring or inflation.

What Friday’s report does show is that the economy continues to hold in the steady-but-not-spectacular pattern that it’s been in for most of the seven and a half years since the recession ended. U.S. employers have now added jobs for 77 consecutive months, a record, and the improving job market has begun to draw more Americans into the workforce. Recent hiring has been relatively broad-based, with good-paying industries such as construction and professional services adding jobs alongside lower paying sectors such as retail and hospitality. (Retailers actually cut jobs in February, although that was probably a one-month blip.)

So, basically what we’re really seeing is the long term effects of the economic policies of the prior administration at work. Seven and a half years of policy and history is certainly more indicative the present than the one month Trump has played president. But as we all know, Trump is incapable of doing anything other than tooting his own horn and telling everyone HE is responsible for making things Great Again.  Even when he has NOTHING to do with it.

Much more relevant, interesting, and truthful data BELOW THE FOLD.

 

Marine Corps’ Nude Photo Sharing Scandal…

Proving once again that some males are simply pigs and have no respect for the privacy of others.

The flipside of this is why in the hell would women in the military consent to being photographed naked?

Maybe they didn’t know they were being photographed?

Whatever the case we refer you back to ur first observation.

The scandal that prompted an investigation into hundreds of Marines who are accused of sharing naked photographs of their colleagues in a private Facebook group is much larger than has been reported, Business Insider has learned.

The practice of sharing such photos goes beyond the Marine Corps and one Facebook group. Hundreds of nude photos of female service members from every military branch have been posted to an image-sharing message board that dates back to at least May. A source informed Business Insider of the site’s existence on Tuesday.

The site, called AnonIB, has a dedicated board for military personnel that features dozens of threaded conversations among men, many of whom ask for “wins” — naked photographs — of specific female service members, often identifying the women by name or where they are stationed.

The revelation comes on the heels of an explosive story published earlier this week by the journalist Thomas Brennan. He reported on a Facebook group called Marines United, which was home to approximately 30,000 members who were sharing nude photos of colleagues along with personal information and even encouragement of sexual assault.

The report led the Marine Corps to open an investigation, spurred widespread outrage in the media and in Congress, and prompted sharp condemnation from the Corps’ top leaders. According to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, investigators are considering felony charges that could carry a maximum penalty of up to seven years in prison.

An official familiar with the matter told Business Insider that the Marine commandant, Gen. Robert Neller, would brief members of the House Armed Services Committee next week on the scandal.

“We’re examining some of our policies to see if we can make them punitive in nature,” the official said, adding that the Corps was taking the issue very seriously.

Read more HERE.