Summations Only

I've been planning on making this point for a while, but it seems that Katrina vanden Heuvel has already written what I planned to do in the latest issue of The Nation.A stopped clock being right twice a day, Trump did have a point. Russia's current aggressive policies are partly the result of the failure of past US administrations' dealing with the former Soviet Union.The column mentions the mistake of expanding NATO right up to Russia's borders, which most people understood would be a provocation. I would also add the expansion of the US wars in the Middle East, especially into Syria, without taking into consideration that other countries, like Russia, also have interests in the region. And I've felt that the current Russia taking advantage of our dimwitted president isn't too different than the way the US took advantage of the dimwitted Yeltsin.Putin and his regime is partly a creation of the short sighted US policies.Nonetheless, it is also true that Putin is in power and he is a threat and that needs to be dealt with. But I hope that when we finally get a sensible President, that administration's response isn't to restart a Cold War, but more of a detente: an acknowledgment that, threat or no, our two nations (and the world) does have an interest in reducing tensions and some common areas of concern we could be working together on.

Without reading the book, I'm going to guess that it's part of the conspiracy theory that the Democrats encourage lots of illegal immigrants to illegally vote because that's the only way they'd ever be able to win any election.

I sure wish that Republicans would spend as much effort to protect our elections from foreign interference as they have looking for nonexistent voting fraud.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration declassified a memo written by the Republican majority of the House Intelligence Committee claiming that the FBI's investigation of people associated with Trump's presidential campaign was an abuse of its authority and attempting to bolster Trump's claims that the FBI was "spying" on his campaign out of political bias.However, according to an article in The New York Times this morning, The Republicans' memo claims that the FBI's application for a warrant for their surveillance relied heavily on information from a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without telling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Steele was being paid by the Democratic Party for his research and therefore was unreliable; this is also supposed to imply that the FBI itself is motivated by political bias.As it turns out, the FBI did point out to the Court about Steele's possible bias. Furthermore, the applications for surveillance included more information than Steele's dossier: Added by edit:
I should point out that the surveillance was on someone involved with Trump's campaign after he had left it. But it's being portrayed as part of a "witch hunt" against Trump and those associated with him.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

Are the Trumpesheviks misusing the word "conspiracy"? Or do the really believe that the editors of the major newspapers and networks get together in secret meetings with leaders of factions in the Justice Dept and intelligence agencies and the leaders of the ACLU, NAACP, Al Qaeda, and so forth to discuss how they're going to get Trump?

In the environmentalist news, it's been a pretty good bet that the first cracks in the Republicans anti-climate change wall would be in Florida, the state that has the most to lose from climate change. (What does Florida have to lose? Florida!)

Trump Administration, in Reversal, Will Resume Risk Payments to Health InsurersRemember how Trump promised to kill "Obamacare"? Well, it turns out that it's a lot harder than it seemed.In response to a lawsuit a few weeks ago, the Trump administration suspended "risk adjustment payments", payments that are given to plans that enroll high risk people and funded from plans that mainly enroll healthier people. The purpose of these payments is to encourage health insurers to include higher risk people onto their plans.As it turns out, Obamacare, like Social Security and Medicare, is wildly popular -- it seems that people actually like to not die from treatable illnesses. So popular, that Republicans in Congress are worried about repercussion in the upcoming elections if they allow too many people to become uninsured. And so yesterday the Trump administration announced that they will resume the risk adjustment payments.

Oh, I'm under no illusions that they have come to their senses. If the Republicans retain control of the House after the next elections, then they'll see this as their mandate to complete their destruction of the Republic.But I find it interesting seeing the individual representatives continue to make their electoral calculations: "Do I still have a chance of winning the election? Then maybe I shouldn't piss off the voters too much. But maybe I'm going to lose anyway; this may be our last chance to break things."

From this morning's New York Times;To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Republicans' tax cut is leading to greater budget deficits. This caught my eye: Yeah, the tax cuts are working: the intent, as was obvious to absolutely everyone, is to make sure that rich people get richer.'Course that wasn't how the Republicans tried to sell it to the American people.

Lol. Yeah, I saw this in the NYT this morning.Good news, indeed, for the working class! They won't have to pay as much taxes on their capital gains!Edited by Chiroptera, : Fixed tags.

It appears that Charles Koch and Donald Trump don't like each other.I'm reminded of the tag line from the movie Aliens vs Predator: No matter who wins, we all lose.

Another case that is proceeding against the President is the one alleging that he's in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.This and any trial involving Cohen will directly involve Trump's finances, which means that his records may be subpoenaed. And although Manafort's trial doesn't bear directly on Trump, it will expose the seedy underbelly of the types of financial shenanigans that Trump's circle engages in. Time Magazine suggests that it's the potential exposure of his finances that has Trump all worked up over this "witch hunt".

Just to make sure that it's clear, as everyone has pointed out, federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections; it does not forbid non-citizens from voting in local or state elections. I suspect an attempt to do so would raise Constitutional issues.Through the history of the Republic, many localities have allowed non-citizens to vote off and on in local elections. What's happening in San Francisco is nothing new in the US - although not common, either. It's mostly the current political climate that makes it note worthy.Edited by Chiroptera, : Hit submit before I was done.

Which is really the point of the documentation requirements. Whatever the paranoid fears they're stoking in the base, Republican bigwigs don't actually care that much about illegal Mexicans voting; the purpose is to put obstacles in the way of black people voting.

I wanted to respond to this part in a separate comment since it may be off topic. Also, I don't intend to debate it: I just want to point out that there are differences of opinion.- Me, I feel that all legal residents should be allowed to vote. You have to obey the laws where you live, so you should have a say on what those laws are.