Republican Senators* at (844) 241-1141 Reps are again thus time they have a dandy trick that speaks volumes about their lack of fair play or democratic values,they wont wait for the OMB to calculate how many people will loose coverage this time before the vote. So by the time we know how bad the damage,it;'s already law, This is an outrage whats worse this one has a good chance of passing! We are all tired of Trump but we can't let down now.
It’s “Groundhog Day” for congressional Republicans: Rush out a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, see it fail, rush out a bill again, see it fail, rush out a third bill, see it fail — following the same basic playbook over and over in the hope that somehow the end result will change.
The latest proposal — by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) — suffers from the same fundamental problems as all of its predecessors. Aiming to lower insurance costs for the healthy, it would allow states to herd people with preexisting conditions or potentially expensive risks — say, women who might want maternity coverage — into insurance gulags with egregiously high premiums.
Not content just to roll back the expansion of Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act, it would cap funding in a way that would threaten services for Medicaid’s core beneficiaries, including impoverished disabled people and families. Pandering to social conservatives, it would cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood and deny low-income Americans subsidies for private insurance policies that cover abortion (a ban that would rule out aid to Californians, given that state law mandates such coverage in every policy).
Although it would overhaul the way millions of Americans pay for health insurance and treatment, the measure has undergone no formal public scrutiny and only limited expert analysis. And if it nevertheless managed to become law, Graham-Cassidy would produce many of the same unwelcome results as its failed forebears: more uninsured Americans, and millions of others facing higher premiums and deductibles for the coverage they have today.[READ More]
One White House official stressed that leaning on Graham wasn't a bad thing, adding: "I wouldn't say that's all we're relying on. Lindsey has good relationships that we can leverage."By and large, however, many Republicans seem to be shrugging "yes" to Graham-Cassidy, a health care bill that was released a week ago and would repeal the individual and employer mandates and turn the federal funding for Medicaid expansion and the subsidies into a block grant program.
And in large part, it's because time is running out. According to the chamber's parliamentarian, senators only have until the end of the month to pass a bill with just 51 votes under the procedure known as reconciliation, and the Senate's last-ditch exercise isn't all that different than the one that ultimately resulted in a health care bill being passed in the House.
"You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn't be considered," Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told local reporters, according to The Des Moines Register. "But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That's pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill."[More]
Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday excoriated Senator Bill Cassidy and his health care proposal for the second night in a row.CreditABC
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. What do you think of it? What elseare you interested in? Let us know: thearts@nytimes.com.
‘A Kanye-and-Taylor-Swift-Type Situation’
After Jimmy Kimmel excoriated Senator Bill Cassidy on Tuesday for proposing a health care bill that would leave many children with caps on their insurance coverage, he was met with a strong backlash from conservative politicians and pundits. Mr. Kimmel didn’t back down on Wednesday, leading “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with a fierce response.
“I don’t want to turn this into a Kanye-and-Taylor-Swift-type situation, but when Senator Cassidy was on my show in May, he told me that he believed that every American family regardless of income should be able to get quality health care. And I believed he was sincere. Sadly, the bill he unveiled last week with Senator Lindsey Graham indicates that he was not sincere. It is, by many accounts, the worst health care bill yet.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. What do you think of it? What elseare you interested in? Let us know: thearts@nytimes.com.
‘A Kanye-and-Taylor-Swift-Type Situation’
After Jimmy Kimmel excoriated Senator Bill Cassidy on Tuesday for proposing a health care bill that would leave many children with caps on their insurance coverage, he was met with a strong backlash from conservative politicians and pundits. Mr. Kimmel didn’t back down on Wednesday, leading “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with a fierce response.
“I don’t want to turn this into a Kanye-and-Taylor-Swift-type situation, but when Senator Cassidy was on my show in May, he told me that he believed that every American family regardless of income should be able to get quality health care. And I believed he was sincere. Sadly, the bill he unveiled last week with Senator Lindsey Graham indicates that he was not sincere. It is, by many accounts, the worst health care bill yet.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
Call your Senator immediately we have no time to wait, Republican Senators* at (844) 241-1141
A core concern of the political right is “otherness” and the GOP’s base is easily manipulated, at the slightest suggestion, that some group is benefiting in some way, at their expense. It is becoming increasingly clear that liberals have a similar weakness about the idea of “legitimacy.” Hillary was said to be too close to Wall Street, Bernie was said not to be a party member. And yet, Hillary or Bernie on their worst day would be better by orders of magnitude than what we have today.
I posted earlier about the possibility of counterfeit liberal groups trying to poison the political dialog and using the notion of legitimacy is apparently so easy that I don’t doubt that the Russians and others sinister groups are already responsible for some of the venal Hillary and Bernie bashing underway. It’s beginning to appear to me that we liberals are every bit as easy to incite into a divisive meltdown mode as are conservatives.
For some perspective, remember how Hillary’s connection with Goldman Sachs was such a big concern, but look at what we’ve got now? Bernie was said not to be a real Democrat, but in my view, it’s been decades since the Democratic Party was run by real Democrats and Bernie has been more aligned with the politics of FDR, a true Democrat, in my view, than anyone who has come along in years. With Donald Trump in the White House I have no trouble, whatsoever, defending Hillary, or Bernie.
If you were an adult in the mid-1970s you might recall the cultural surprise David Carradine brought to television in the Kung Fu series, the Eastern shocking cultural dynamics of which, were to redirect the force brought against you, so that it works against your opponent.
Too many liberals are engaged in doing the opposite. We should meet each charge from the GOP with a simple, but crystal-clear declaration of what we are striving for, because this highlights what they aren’t doing, can’t do, or won’t do, and it resonates with everyone who knows what should be done. We should do the same, when members of our party double-down on their own post-election angst, needing someone to blame, while driving their ideological differences with those whom they have slight policy disagreements deeper and deeper.
We need to redirect past negative mistakes toward a positive future, or we will wind up with another malaise election, when too many citizens don’t bother to vote.
Does anyone really believe that those who are barricading themselves in a Hillary or Bernie camp are going to respond positively to criticism that just keeps getting more strident and hostile, or that constant bashing is going to suddenly produce converts?
So, here is the thing, if we can’t get past the hopeless infighting, we are going to blow a once in a lifetime opportunity. The over the top incompetence in the White House and the Congress today, is unprecedented, and to lose again to this group of dysfunctional bumblers would be cataclysmically irresponsible.
We are always generous to a fault in questioning the intelligence of Trump supporters, but if we blow 2018 and 2020 in what should be slam dunk elections because of internal backbiting, then, it is our side who is not so bright.
Please stop taking the bait, if bashing Hillary or Bernie persists, we are going to wind up with an ideological split, so severe that our opposition (and the Russians) will be celebrating, because a significant percentage of our party will have become fanatical about a Jill Stein, or a Ralph Nader type candidate (who has no chance of winning) but whose appeal will ensure another wingnut in the White House.
Surely, a George W. Bush and a Donald Trump winning elections is enough for us to figure out how this works. Sad, grasshopper, sad.
For years I would see strange opinons popping up on message boards, evangelicals are forgetting the gospel, I was not the first to post one of those messages. I first regarded it as New Atheist slander,.I soon joined the ranks of such prophets, however, yet no one listened because we were just cranks on a message board, After what we have seen over the last seven months it seems absurd for anyone to question it, People keep asking how can it be that Evangelicals would forget to be Evangelical?" The answer is provided by historian Wayne Flynt of Auburn University, and the answer is obvious, they are changeling. Flyant his devoted his life to studying his fellow southerners:
Flynt’s answer is that his people are changing. The words of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, are less central to their thinking and behaviour, he says. Church is less compelling. Marriage is less important. Reading from a severely abridged Bible, their political concerns have narrowed down to abortion and issues involving homosexuality. Their faith, he says, has been put in a president who embodies an unholy trinity of materialism, hedonism and narcissism. Trump’s victory, in this sense, is less an expression of the old-time religion than evidence of a move away from it....[Flynt says]
'Arguably, what has constituted white evangelical Christian morality for 200 years no longer matters, which is to say we’re now a lot like Germany, a lot like France, a lot like England, a lot like the Netherlands, and what we have is a sort of late-stage Christian afterglow.'[1]
How could people so committed to a value system and way of life, a world view, the Bible,Jesus,change? Everyone I know still talks about how unbelievable it all is,Not just Evangelicals going for and becoming completely sold out to a a man who embodies the antithesis of all that they stand for, not only the election to the Presidency of a totally unqualified clown, not only that he fundies vest this man with an anointing that makes him seem almost divine in their minds, but also the decline of Western civilization, the resurgence of racism and the seeming collapse of ordinary civilizing norms. But we need not be puzzled. it's all explained by going back to my old sociology days.There is a sociological theory, which I will discuss, that accounts for this change, That is explained by a theory in sociology of religion, the theory of "the Mazeways" by Anthony F.C. Wallace.
An Anthropologist, Wallace was born In 1923 in Toronto he died in 2015 in Pennsylvania, where he went to school (University of Penn 1950).Wallace began working on his general theory, the Theory of "Revitalization Movements" (RM) in the late 40s as a student with a paper on the Delaware tribe of native Americans. By the earlly 90s his theory was well developed and largely accepted, having it's major period of development in the 60s. [2]
A RM is a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture. Politico-religious movements arise in periods of great social stress promising deliverance from deprivation, foreign domination, social exploitation,or conflicts over colonialism, economic exploitation and racial conflict; these movements employ new transformations of spirit based upon reshuffling of old cultural vales, which seem to have failed. The classic example is the native American ghost dance, which Wallace studied. Wallace also studied the Delaware in early fomentation of his theory,[3] [4]
Wallace's theory began as a theory about native American culture and religious movements. It deal with visionary leaders with ecstatic experiences. But he was not just applying hunter gatherer culture to post industrial society. He also studied Christianity and Islam and used modern examples of American Society. Wallace has developed a full array of methodologies from field work to participant observer,to laboratory experiment, to archival etnohisotry.[5] The result is that he has become of the most commonly sited social scientists, accepted by every major social science field and considered one of the true greats of anthropology. [6] After re-mainspring his theory after all these years I think he is the only one who really explains what is going on in terms of the sense that everything is falling apart. Moreoer in the 60s Luthar Gaqrloch and Virginia Hines applied Wallace's theory favorably to the study of Pentecostalism and Black Power movements, He took a paradigmatic approach from Thomas Kuhn and studied the effects of technology on modern society.[7]
The Theory in thumbnail
RMs start in times of stress, they occur during times of disillusionment or disappointment.It is a process in which the people involved see their culture as a system that has let them down and is no longer working for them.The classic processes of cultural change are evolution, drift, diffusion, historical change, acculturation and all these produce changes in cultures as systems; however, these changes may not be the result of deliberate intention of the member of that society, but rather a gradual chain-reaction effect. The process cascades effecting multiple other changes and spurring more reaction.
Stages in the movement
There are several stages in the movement I wont bother to go into but I will highlight the crucial stages that I think really speak to our time. There is a steady state (that's a stage in the theory) where people become depressed, crumble under the new situations and it becomes the new normal. They go through increased individual stress then hit the stage of cultural distortion. The state of cultural distortion is significant, In that period people are trying to find new solutions and old elements such as values and traditions that were once comforting are abandoned or compete with each other or changed in ways previously thought unimaginable,[8]
Mazeways (yes, one word) are crucial here because it is mazeway change that creates much of the stress and it is mazeway change that people try playing with and manipulating to understand the new situation.For example sex, drugs, rock and roll. But mazeway shift creates more stress.[9] Mazeways are the links that enable the individual to connect with the larger culture through her understanding of daily life. They include things as innocent as table manners to things as serious as the moral code, For example the idea of being a law abiding citizen, having a social time table and career plan, playing by the rules, seeking conventional rewrds of good behvior. These are marked by things like style and career path all of these are mnazeways,
Mazeway Reformation is crucial and it applies to either secular movements or religiosity. The individual's understanding no longer correlates with that of the culture, appropriate example, someone who believes one goes to hell for being gay suddenly sees gay marriages around her.
The leader
Within the context of organization of the movement, Wallace evokes sociologist Max Weber's notion of the "charismatic leader." The prophet is a chrism tic leader endued with special status and abilities, He relates his vision to concerts and they accept him absolutely. "As God is to the Prophet so the Prophet is (almost) the follopwrs"[10] Don't forget Wallace's primary data applies to native American culture so he says the prophet and many of his followers will have ecstatic experiences. But the theory has also been applied to modern secular society. The leader "is regarded as an uncanny person of unquestionable authority in one or more spheres of leadership sanctioned by the supernatural...followers defer to the charismatic leader not because of his status in an existing authority structure but because of a facilitating personal power."[11]
In Wallace's theory a society is like an organism,Its a living entity meaning it's dynamic,is compassed of various members and parts which fomentation together and work in certain ways. That dynamic includes tensions and conflicts and times of stress occur there are cascades of effect that lead to social breakdown, When the system is seen not to function the movement begins,
What Wallace calls internal incongruities of the Mazeways it leads to anxiety and loss of meaningful way of life disillusionment with the Mazeways sets in. "This process of deterioration can, if not checked,lead to the death of society."[12] Society is an organism with parlous parts,when when society is seen as dysfunctional organism and has let people down,they fail to accomplish their preconditioned traditional expectations. I interprit the theory to mean that a given subset of the society can have a revitalization movement or can off, or the same principles could be applied to a whole nation.
Applying the theory to the current situation
RMs promise deliverance from deprivation, foreign domination, social exploitation,or conflicts over "colonialism, economic exploitation and racial conflict;" these are reflected and named in the literature (fn3-4) These were issues in the last presidential election. America as the colonial power not as the colony figures into the conflict with illegal aliens and the boarder wall, especially the idea of Mexico to pay for the wall. Fear of foreign domination certainly figured into the campaign.
Certainly the bit about the Charismatic leader applies, supernatural aid. Even though Trump has not had ecstatic experiences he has been vested with sanctifying Grace by his followers and is practically worshiped in some quarters. Televangelists have declared that anyone trying to thwart Trump will dealt with by God and Trump is Gods man. The uncanny acceptance of Trump's unchristian manner are explained by the e shuffle of the mazeways, the rules are suspended for the leader, he's too important because his mission is so vital, to make the culture work again for the deprived. The talk of make America great again and take America back are indicative of the shift of mnazeways the culture is broken they can/t find their way.
We can explaimn why old people are racist and why they are reacting for Trump, They lived for years in silent defeat by civil rights moment, But why are young people dedicated to alt right and racism? A minority of young people are alienated, and racist. Trump's vocabulary was a statistical fluke spread over a few states.[13]Yet, that minority of disaffected rackets could be virulent, They may have been raised on the reshuffled mazeways of the Reagan era then we never got a chance to change the educational system,which Trump is understudying all the more.
The issue is not as simple as racism vs democrats. There are lots of overstates who are not racist, I think the revitalization movement theory exclaims the evangelical's change. a lot of middle age to older people who were raised on the model of abide by the law, follow the rules be a church goer and you will get rich, the American dream. That mazeway as been changed shuffled distorted. collapsed and otherwise mutilated. There has been a persist amt substitute growing on talk radio,
In The U.S. We have had a succession of revitalize movements starting with the 60s counter culture,then the Reagan counter revolution then the Obama answer to economic collapse, now the Trump vacation from sanity, That's a lot of Maseway shifting and it has bred anew generation of antisocial people who never knew the old maszeways and there are still a lot of hold overs who are alienated American dream types.
[2] Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 8; Vol. 12 (15 ed.) Encyclopedia Britannica ISBN 0852296339
[3] Anthony F.C. Wallace and ed. Robert S. Grumet, Revitalization and Mazeways: Essays on Cultural Change Vol 1 Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press 2003, 9-12..
In 1956 Wallace published a seminal paper "Revitalization Movements that really began his theory as a coherent whole, which was at that time a theory about Native American culture.
[4] Encyclopedia.com. "The Revitalization Movmeent" The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.Copyright The Columbia University Press, no date given, (acess 8/13/17) URL
Today's Daily Action is to call your Representative - again - and urge them to pass bipartisan legislation to protect the Dreamers ASAP. The number is (844) 241-1141. Much has changed since we first made this call on Tuesday.
Here's what happened yesterday: The major development is that Trump agreed with Pelosi and Schumer to move for a three-month debt limit increase - this includes the Harvey / Irma disaster relief funds that are needed before the end of this week - but importantly, this deal preserves the Democrats' leverage. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell wanted an 18-month deal which would of course prevent Democrats from being able to use the debt limit increase or the continuing resolution (the budget framework) in negotiations. In addition, during the White House meeting, Schumer and Pelosi stressed that they wanted to see legislation to protect the Dreamers passed quickly and after the meeting Trump stated his support to reporters in rather blunt terms: "Chuck and Nancy would like to see something happen, and so do I."
Here's what you need to do now if your Representative is a REPUBLICAN: When Donald Trump said that he wanted a healthcare bill that showed more "heart," we then pressed Republican Senators to show more heart. Yesterday, Donald Trump said that he wants to see Congress pass legislation to protect the Dreamers. TODAY is the day to push your Republican representative - regardless of their previous positions and regardless of how conservative they are to (1) Fall in line behind Donald Trump and pass DACA as legislation ASAP. (2) When you call their offices, ask them why they're unable to show this level of flexibility if Trump can. (3) Remind them that it's already September and we haven't really seen the Congress do anything all year and tell them that you agree with Trump's argument that it would be nice to see Republicans and Democrats actually do something substantive in a bipartisan way. (4) Warn them that this issue is only going to get worse - key provisions of the memo rescinding DACA have already gone into effect and more provisions go into effect the first week of October -- they will make a bad situation worse if they can't get this done by the end of September.
Here's what you need to do now if your Representative is a DEMOCRAT: Pelosi and Schumer have preserved their leverage into mid-December but even though it would be extremely difficult to pass Dreamer legislation this week (to prevent delaying needed funds for Harvey / Irma), there's no reason why Congress can't pass this legislation before the end of September. Essentially all of the House Democrats are in favor of this legislation but not all of them have a sense of urgency. We need to make them feel the urgency. The key arguments are: (1) to remind them that as of early October, current DACA recipients will be unable to renew their authorizations to work, study and live in this country without fear of deportation. We need this legislation passed before we reach that deadline. (2) Tell them to openly and explicitly tie protecting the Dreamers now in September to the must-pass legislation in December. (3) Tell them to publicly pressure their Republican colleagues - if a Republican is in favor of protecting the Dreamers but is casual about when the vote takes place or claims that this smaller measure should be part of a massive immigration reform bill - call them out for being fake. (4) And above all, tell them we're going to keep on bothering them until they've bothered the Republicans enough that Paul Ryan sets a date for a floor vote on this legislation. To be blunt, there are far more hot heads in the House vs the Senate, so we need to see this legislation start moving through the House first, in order to believe that it will get done.
There are many important issues right now but there are a few things that are unique about DACA: the massive number of people directly impacted, the all-or-nothing stakes, the truly urgent time element, and the sinister and racist motivations behind (not all but) so many of the attacks on the Dreamers. Directly engaging our elected officials is the most effective thing we can do, but we're putting together a list of other actions that are also effective and will share this shortly.
