could you imagine how fast the impeachment hearing would start from the GOP if Obama had written this? But he did wear a tan suit one day and he's black. So there's that.
I don't understand why any witness engages with Mace. If she asks a question, answer any other question to burn out the clock. She will get upset but that will help run out her time even faster. Or reply that you don't understand the question. Or answer it as if she said that African Americans instead of Somali. Flip it into that she's asking if non-whites should be citizens.
I'm also part of the crowd that doesn't understand the appeal of sports gambling. I've placed bets at sports books and even won a few large parlays, but I've never experienced the appeal of sports gambling. I can play craps for hours, and sports? nah. And now that you add to the obvious fact that players, coaches, and refs are aware of lines, and there are cases where they act on the lines, it's practically a fixed game now. Now the fix may be on your side. You can get lucky. I don't agree much with Texas politicians, but I'm aligned with Dan Patrick that we don't need gambling here.
Then quality of care will then drop. Doctors and hospitals will need to decrease staff to accommodate less revenue. And not just office staff but direct care. Someone above made a comment that the rest of the world has solved healthcare so why can't we. It's a bit simplistic to say that they've solved it when there is most likely 180 systems for the 180 countries. There isn't 1 solution out there, and each one of them has their deficiencies. Not to mention that the US indirectly subsidizes the rest of the world's healthcare since our model creates new drugs and treatment. And now that the US govt is out of research as of 2025, healthcare is even more dependent on the US capitalist system. I don't have the magic answer either. No one does. I've never even heard the Medicare for All side define if they mean traditional medicare or medicare advantage. They're not the same. Personally I think Medicare Advantage sucks.
Does anyone not think that Russia is funding an information campaign to convince Trump to forcibly take over Greenland? Russia wouldn't even want Greenland or Denmark to agree to it, they want a conflict in NATO.
Yes. There is no law that prevents them from banning you or limiting your bets to small amounts if they identify that you're better than average gambler. It's like how casinos can prevent you from playing blackjack if they identify that you're good at counting cards in blackjack. They can't have you arrested because you didn't break a law but they alter betting amounts, ban you from blackjack or even trespass you from the casino itself. They do accept that people win and can even win large amounts but they don't want someone who looks to naturally have an edge over them.
Medicare for All would almost certainty remove all healthcare costs for employers and there's no chance that they would have a new or increased tax placed on them. Politicians would tell you that it's up to the employer to pay their employees more now that healthcare costs are zero for the employer. And if your employer doesn't give you a corresponding raise, then that's your problem to work out.
One of the major drivers of healthcare increases are the massive increase of medicare patients over the last 10 years as the youngest baby boomers are quickly approaching 65. Doctors and more importantly hospitals at best break even with medicare patients and often perform services at below cost. The result is that younger (<65) people and their insurance have to pay more in their healthcare to cover the old people on medicare. The CMS website tells me that medicare recipients grew from 53m in 2013 to 68m in 2024. The move from traditional medicare to medicare advantage also has pros and cons for total costs as well. Moving everyone to Medicare creates some interesting efficiencies but Medicare would be much more expensive for everyone if it became the default.
My dad ultimately couldn't understand or always control his TV. This was mainly due to dementia. He didn't live with me so it was frustrating when he wanted me to drive 30 minutes to help him change the channel. And then he would promptly switch the channel to something else in the next commercial break and couldn't find his way back. I discovered that his cable service had a remote control app for your phone and it didn't require that the user physically be in the house. From across town, I could switch channels, play a recorded show, record a show, etc. The only areas that I couldn't control was turning on the TV or the volume.
Crazy how no one publicly touts any positivity of sports gambling but we keep expanding it every year. Instead of entertainment being the reason for sports, sports are now largely used to move money out of the pockets of gamblers and into the gambling companies. I'm not anti-gambling but it's not a good idea that we all have casinos and sports books in our phones and the TV channels spend as much time on lines and odds as they do other sports stories.
The Noriega invasion/arrest also benefited from an earlier time when there were limited media options. It wouldn't surprise me if we cut off Panama's communication methods during the invasion.
I'm not a fan of Maduro but grabbing him would be no different from Putin grabbing Zelenskyy or Xi deciding that he disliked Philippines' actions and taking their President. There's always the time immemorial idea that if you're powerful enough that no one will stop you, special rules apply to you. Didn't Saudi Arabia hold the Lebanon PM against his will with zero repercussions. And we know about Saudi's murder of the journalist, or Russia shooting down commercial flights. There's also the precedent of the US invading Panama in '89 to depose Noriega. I believe that was several weeks before Noriega surrendered and we had actual US casualties.
CNN had an article that Trump spoke to the GOP House and Senate members at a kick-off for 2026 initiatives and elections. He apparently called out Massie as being unreliable. What a consensus builder.
The plans are all concepts within Trump's brain which are swarming with beta-amyloid plaques. I imagine that Trump is at a mental standpoint that Stephen Miller can "remind" Trump of Trump's masterful plan even if Trump never entertained the thought. Does any Western oil major want much to do with Venezuela even with cost protections. Ultimately any cost reimbursements or long term stability is at risk depending on who the US & Venezuelan President will be. I don't think any CEO would have confidence that the US policy wouldn't drastically change quickly. If Trump makes a deal with an oil company, why should any future Dem president honor it, if not look to reverse any past reimbursements? Perhaps this wouldn't happen but a CEO has to consider it. Not to mention if future Venezuelan leadership nationalizes the industry again since this was forced on them and the US decides to let it happen.
From all indications, Greenlanders are happy with their semi-autonomous status with Denmark. Now perhaps if there were serious negotiations, which would never happen with Trump, they could require entry as a state and bypass the territory status. This would give them 2 senators and 1 rep for <60 K residents. If I were them, I wouldn’t want to be a lowly territory without power. There’s also a question of who actually owns most of Greenland. Does the Denmark or Greenland govt claim ownership? The Danish monarchy? do private individuals own it?
If possible, Newsom should mimic Abbott by at least waiting 6 months if not until November. Given that Dems will finally get some empty seats filled soon, I’m assuming that the GOP will only have a couple of seats over the Dems. Maybe they can afford 2 of them to oppose a bill. Maybe 1.
Do we even have any personnel/military in Venezuela at the moment? I don’t understand how we’re running the country if that isn’t occurring. I agree that we somewhat control their foreign trade since it looks like we control the seas.
Greenland and Denmark are taking the wrong approach. The best way to deal with Trump is to stay out of his limited attention span. If you start telling him what he can and cannot do, you will be in his crosshairs. Staying quiet doesn't mean that the will ignore you but it increases the chances.
The amount of abuse from welfare, medicaid, medicare, disability (military and non-military) is staggering. Just think about the abuse from the COVID payments as long as you said that you had employees. Not too mention the abuse that came from legitimate businesses who didn't need the money but they had no problems taking money if it was offered. the fraud, waste and abuse is not in DC. It's in America. This is the face of the average American and their attitude about taking.
I think she should have picked Shapiro, and frankly the results couldn't have been any worse with him. Who knows if he could have delivered PA and other battleground states. Or perhaps it can be viewed that Harris' campaign misused Walz.
The GOP doesn't care about the truth or morals. Biden gets blamed for letting Epstein get murdered under his watch even though Trump was President. Biden gets accused of strong arming the social media companies in the 2020 election even though he wasn't even the President and had zero power. Trump has been convicted of personal fraud and the GOP doesn't care. and he's earning billions in being President. They don't care.