House Democrats formally introduce ACA 2.0 (to tide things over until M4A/MEFA)!

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday March 06, 2018 · 10:43 AM PST

2018/03/06 · 10:43

A little under a year ago, I posted a lengthy list of 20 recommendations for repairing, improving and strengthening the Affordable Care Act, entitled "If I Ran the Zoo". Here's a summary list of all 20:

1. Lock in Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) reimbursements

2. Restore Risk Corridor Funding

3. Fix the Family Glitch

4. Fix the Skinny Plan Glitch

5. Encourage remaining states to expand Medicaid

6. Encourage more states to establish BHP programs

7a. Raise or remove the 400% FPL (Federal Poverty Level) subsidy cap...

7b. ...and beef up the formula below 400%

8. Raise the cap on CSR eligibility

9: Increase the Individual Mandate Penalty (yes, I said it.)

10. Require all individual plans to be sold on-exchange only

11. Allow undocumented immigrants to enroll on-exchange (at full price)

12. Tie Medicare Advantage/MCO contracts to exchange participation

13. Reinstate a Federal Reinsurance Program

14. Institute an 80/20 Medical Loss Ratio policy for pharmaceuticals

15: Let Medicare negotiate drug prices

16. Fix the Silver Spam gaming problem

17. Merge rating areas statewide

18: Merge the individual & small group risk pools

19. Unleash the Public Option Kraken

20. Repeal the Employer Mandate (yes, that's right).

Since then, things have changed a bit. Thanks to relentless sabotage/undermining efforts by the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans, the Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments are no longer just "not locked in" (#1 on the list), they've been completely discontinued. Ironically, the net effect of discontinuing CSR reimbursements--via a long, convoluted process involving a clever workaround called "Silver Loading" and the "Silver Switcharoo"--ended up resulting in one of the other bullets (7b. "beef up the subsidy formula") effectively being taken care of by mistake.

I should also note that the last item on the list (#20, "repeal the employer mandate") would only be recommended after some of the earlier items (#3, 4 and 7a) are already implemented. In addition, one more state (Maine) has expanded Medicaid, and another (Virginia) appears to be on the verge of doing so.

In any event, yesterday, House Democrats introduced a new bill, called the "Undo Sabotage and Expand Affordability of Health Insurance Act of 2018" which includes a half-dozen of the bullet points from my "If I Ran the Zoo" list...and a whole lot more:

Top House Dems out with bill to expand ObamaCare:
--Give subsidies to everybody regardless of income, not just up to 400 percent of porverty
--Cancel out Trump admin orders to allow skimpier, cheaper plans
--Provide $100 million in sign-up outreach fundshttps://t.co/yxxv4dg0wM
— Peter Sullivan (@PeterSullivan4) March 5, 2018

Personally, I think the official title of the bill is too long and unwieldy, so I'm just gonna go ahead and refer to it as ACA 2.0...and I mean that as a compliment, because it really does both fix and substantially improve/strengthen a LOT of the ACA's weaknesses/issues.

Here's the full list of what would be included. By my count, they're basically pushing for #1, #3, #7a, 7b, #8, #13, and (sort of) #16...along with a bunch of other fixes/improvements which weren't on my own list (some of which weren't even issues until last fall, of course, due to deliberate sabotage on the part of the Trump Administration, like slashing advertising/outreach funding and the like):

TITLE I: EXPAND AFFORDABILITY

Section 101: Improve affordability and reduce premium costs for consumers.

As the 2018 open enrollment season has shown, consumers continue to want comprehensive, affordable coverage. The legislation would increase the affordability of coverage by expanding eligibility for premium tax credits beyond 400 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL), and would increase the size of the tax credit for all income brackets.

I should note that there was a Senate bill introduced by Diane Feinstein and a half-dozen of her colleagues last June which would have simply removed the 400% FPL cap altogether (although it wouldn't have changed the underlying formula).

Here's the revised APTC formula being proposed, compared against the current ACA formula and my own proposal from last year. As you can see, the House Dems are proposing to make tax credits even more generous than I had suggested at most income levels, with a maximum cut-off point of 8.5%. This would scratch both 7a and 7b off my list above.

Section 102: Lower out-of-pocket costs for consumers.

The legislation would expand eligibility for cost sharing reductions (CSRs) beyond 250 percent of the FPL, up to 400 percent, and would make CSRs more generous for those below 250 percent of the FPL.

The CSR structure would be simplified from three tiers to just two, each of which would be more generous:

People earning 100 - 150% FPL wouldn't see any change here, but those earning 150% - 250% would see significantly lower out of pocket costs, and everyone earning 250 - 400% would see their deductibles/co-pay costs drop dramatically. This scratches #8 off my list.

In addition, the bill would, simply and without any muss, fuss or sunset date, fund the unappropriated CSR reimbursement payments after all:

(b) FUNDING COST SHARING REDUCTIONS.—Section 1402 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (42 U.S.C. 18071) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘(g) FUNDING.—Out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, there is hereby appropriated to the Secretary such sums as may be necessary for payments under this section.’’.

This is why it's important that the APTC formula above was changed to not only remove the 400% FPL cap, but also made more generous below that threshold--because funding CSRs would otherwise reverse the beefed-up subsidies created by Silver Loading. This scratches #1 off my list.

Section 103: Expand affordability for working families.

Currently, an individual who has an offer of coverage through his or her employer can receive subsidized coverage in the Marketplaces if the cost of self-only coverage is unaffordable (i.e., the employee’s financial contribution exceeds 9.5 percent of the employee’s household income). However, some low-to-moderate-income families are locked out of receiving financial assistance by determining affordability based on the cost of self-only coverage, rather than family coverage (which is significantly more expensive). The legislation addresses this gap by ensuring that access to subsidized coverage turns on the affordability of family coverage, rather than self-only coverage, thereby expanding access to tax credits for coverage for working families.

This would fix the ACA's "Family Glitch", #3 on my list.

IMPORTANT: Note that none of the changes above would kick in until January 1, 2020, which is understandable since there's almost no chance of this becoming law until early 2019 at the earliest anyway, at which point 2019 rates, deductibles, etc. would already be locked in for the year.

TITLE II: UNDO SABOTAGE

Section 201: Protect comprehensive coverage for small businesses and workers.

The legislation would rescind the Trump Administration’s proposed regulation designed to destabilize and segment the individual and small group markets. The proposed regulation threatens comprehensive and affordable health coverage for small employers and individuals through Association Health Plans (AHPs)—plans that could circumvent many of the consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). AHPs would have a destabilizing effect by incentivizing healthier individuals to leave the ACA-compliant market, thereby negatively affecting the risk pool and increasing premiums.

This would cancel out the "Ass" part of Trump's "#ShortAssPlans" executive order.

Section 202: Prevent junk plans and continue protections for consumers with preexisting conditions.

The legislation would prevent a rule on short-term, limited-duration insurance plans from having devastating and discriminatory effects. The legislation would require short-term, limited duration health plans to play by the same rules as ACA-compliant plans (guaranteed issue, community rating, essential health benefits, protections for preexisting conditions), thereby preventing these junk plans from undermining the individual insurance market and raising premiums.

This would effectively cancel out the "Short" part of Trump's #ShortAssPlans order.

Note that both of these items would go into effect starting on January 1, 2019...a year earlier than the subsidy/CSR changes. I presume this is because these changes are much easier to implement retroactively back to the beginning of the calendar year.

Section 203: Ensure plans provide comprehensive benefits.

The legislation would prevent the Trump Administration from taking certain actions proposed in the 2019 Payment Notice that would undermine coverage of essential health benefits (EHBs). It would require plans to cover all EHBs, prohibit substitution of benefits across benefit categories, and ensure broad coverage of prescription drugs. The legislation would also require the Trump Administration to continue to make available standardized plans, so that consumers can make simpler comparisons of plans offered by different issuers.

This would help tighten up the rules which currently allow the Trump Administration to screw around with the strength of ACA-compliant policies at the edges. To be honest I wasn't even aware of this one, but it makes sense that they'd try to nibble away at it. This provision would also kind of/sort of scratch #16 off my list ("Fix the Silver Spamming problem")

Section 204: Undo Administration sabotage by requiring open enrollment outreach, education, and funding for navigators.

The Trump Administration cut marketing and outreach by 90 percent, and cut navigators by 60 percent for the most recent open enrollment season. Marketing and outreach is critically important to assuring a balanced risk pool. Covered California estimates that an aggressive marketing strategy could lower premiums by 2-8 percent. The legislation requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement a navigator program for the federally-facilitated Marketplace (FFM), and funds it at $100 million per year from 2019 through 2021. It further requires HHS to conduct marketing and outreach for the FFM and funds these activities at $100 million per year from 2019 through 2021.

Interesting timing for this one: Through 2021 only. Gee, why are they limiting it to 2021? What could House Democrats possibly be thinking might happen after that? Hmmm...

Section 205 Improve Marketplace stability to prevent sabotage from raising premiums.

A well-designed national reinsurance program could offset some, but not all, of the premium increases from the individual mandate repeal and the cumulative effects of the Trump Administration’s sabotage of health insurance markets. The legislation establishes a national reinsurance program with a statutorily prescribed attachment point, cap, and coinsurance rate. Funding would flow directly to insurers based on their claims, instead of based on an allocation formula that could be used to harm certain parts of the country.UPDATE: OK, here's the details on the proposed Reinsurance program:

Here’s the details on the proposed Reinsurance program, which would scratch #13 off my list:

The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall use amounts available in the Fund to establish a national reinsurance program under which the Secretary makes reinsurance payments to health insurance issuers with respect to claims for individuals enrolled under qualifying reinsurance plans offered by such issuers for plan year 2019 or a subsequent plan year that exceed, subject to paragraph (2), $50,000 in an amount equal to 75 percent of the amount of such claims, but not to exceed $1,000,000.

In other words, Let's say that an insurance carrier has 100,000 enrollees with an average cost of, say, $400/month each. That's a total cost of $480 million to the carrier. However, what if just 1,000 fo those enrollees are eating up a full 25% of the claims ($120 million), at an average cost of $120,000 per year apiece? Under this reinsurance proposal, the government would reimburse the insurance carrier for about $52,500 per enrollee (75% of the $70K amount over $50K), or about $53 million. This lops about 11% off the carrier's expenses. Since the ACA requires them to spend at least 80% of premiums on actual healthcare costs, that means they'd have to drop their premium rates by about 11% the following year.

On the surface this makes it sound like the government has to shell out $53 million...but remember that if the unsubsidized premiums drop 11%, that also means the subsidies which the government has to pay would drop somewhat as well, at least partly cancelling out that $53 million. This is basically how it works in Alaska, Oregon and Minnesota already, though the details vary a bit in each state.

TITLE III: STATE INNOVATION AND TRANSPARENCY

Section 301 Fund state health insurance education programs for consumers.

The legislation provides $100 million in Consumer Assistance Program grants for states, which supports educational activities regarding health insurance, such as helping individuals file complaints and appeals, educating consumers on their rights, and assisting consumers with enrollment, as well as obtaining premium tax credits.

This reverses the "60% navigator funding cut" portion of the funding referenced above.

Section 302 Fund state innovations to expand coverage.

Recognizing states are innovators in leading the charge to get America covered, the legislation provides $200 million a year from 2019 through 2021 in funding for states to conduct feasibility studies, pilot programs, technology upgrades, and other efforts to encourage enrollment in the individual and small group markets (including implementing a state version of an individual mandate).

Again, note the 2021 cut-off date. Hmmm...

Section 303 Preserve state option to implement health care Marketplaces.

Under current law, federal funds are no longer available for states to set up state-based Marketplaces after January 1, 2015. The legislation would lift that prohibition so that states that have had a change in leadership and want to establish a state-based Marketplace can do so, and receive federal funding for planning and implementation.

This one surprised me--under the ACA, states had a limited amount of time to request funding to set up their own exchanges. Once the deadline passed, they could still do so if they wanted to, but they'd have to do so on their own. To date, only one state has actually moved off of the federal exchange onto their own (Idaho). Two others were supposed to but never got around to actually following through (Arkansas and New Mexico), and several others started out with their own but then scrapped it and moved home to the "mothership" at HealthCare.Gov (Nevada, Oregon, Hawaii and Kentucky). Ironically, Nevada recently announced that they're moving back off the federal exchange onto their own new full-blown exchange platform...on their own dime.

Section 304 Promote transparency and accountability in the Administration’s expenditures of exchange user fees.

It is unclear how the Trump Administration is spending the funds raised from a user fee levied on issuers that is intended to be spent on exchange operations and outreach and enrollment, and whether all of those uses are appropriate. For example, during 2017, the Trump Administration appears to have spent agency money filming anti-ACA propaganda videos. The legislation requires HHS to submit an annual report to Congress that includes a detailed breakdown of the Department’s spending on outreach and enrollment, navigators, maintenance of Healthcare.gov, and operation of the Healthcare.gov call centers.

THIS one relates directly to a question I posed just a couple of weeks ago, in which I pointed out that HealthCare.Gov's revenue has gone up dramatically over the past few years as premiums have increased...at the same time that their operating budget should actually have been dropping substantially, especially this past year when they lopped off ad/marketing/navigator funding by over $100 million.

Now, you'll notice what isn't included above: A full Public Option, or Medicare for All, or BernieCare, or Single Payer, or Medicare X, or Medicare Extra, etc etc.

That's perfectly OK with me FOR THE MOMENT, because there's no way in hell that any of those has any chance of being signed into law any earlier than January 2021.

This is, in effect, a short-term service pack. It's meant to stabilize, improve and strengthen the ACA for the next few years, presumably until we have a Democratic President in the White House.

"But there's no chance of this passing before 2019 either!" you say. Probably not. However, it does give the Dems a solid, reasonable package of improvements to campaign on with the understanding that this is for the short term only. This is to get the healthcare system through 2021...more realistically, 2022 - 2023, since any major Medicare For All-style overhaul signed into law in 2021 likely wouldn't start ramping up until 2022 at the earliest. That means we're very likely "stuck" (for good or for bad) with the current general healthcare framework (Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, etc) for the next 3-5 years no matter how lofty anyone's "pure Single Payer" dreams may be.

"But Donald Trump would veto this bill as well!" Well, probably...but given how erratic and clueless he is, there's at least a small chance he'd sign a bill like this. Keep in mind that he did sign the 10-year CHIP extension bill in the end. Again, I'm not saying he wouldn't veto it...but he'd likely have bigger problems on his mind starting in January 2019 anyway.

Of course, if the Dems don't retake at least one house of Congress this November, this is all moot anyway.

Again, look at the end date on several of these provisions: 2021. I think it's pretty clear that the House Dems are introducing this primarily as a package designed to guide the ACA through the rough waters of the next 4 years.After that, the reins would presumably be handed off to whatever major Universal Healthcare System they have in mind as being the Next Big Thing, whether it's Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All", CAP's "Medicare Extra" or whatever.

On the one hand, "only" 7 of my 20 proposals are included in this package. On the other hand, it also includes another half-dozen or so provisions which I didn't have on my list at all...each of which is a positive thing. Overall, I love this package of improvements (again, as a stop-gap to tide things over for the next few years, at least).

Chances of it passing this year? Zilch. Chances of it becoming law if it passes next year? Close to zilch. But this is far more than "crumbs". These are solid improvements with real teeth to them.

If you find my work at ACA Signups of value, please consider supporting it on a recurring basis via Patreon or one-time via GoFundMe, thank you!

Cults, Cons and how to talk to someone in the conservative bubble

popsday

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday December 25, 2017 · 7:23 PM PST

2017/12/25 · 19:23

We have a hard time believing things we don't want to believe

“Essentially, a short con involves taking the pigeon for all the money he has on his person, while the big con sends him home to get more.”

-Luc Sante, 1940

The list of conservatives denying reality continues to grow:

* Roy Moore wasn’t a sex predator

* The Russia scandal is made up

* Trump’s accountant says the new tax plan will hurt Trump

* Football players are kneeling because they hate the military

* Obama was born in Kenya and was responsible for Hurricane Katrina

* There were WMD’s in Iraq

The list goes on and on...

Are these people idiots? Trump even boasted that he could stand in the middle of 5th avenue, shoot someone and not lose any supporters.

The good news is that they have just been conned. It’s that simple. The bad news is that it is hard to “unconn” someone. The final good news is that some proven tools exist that can help you make progress with your conservative friends and relatives. Let’s discuss:

CULTS & CON ARTISTS GET US TO DO ALMOST ANYTHING AND THANK THEM FOR IT

David Maurer in his classic 1940 book The Big Con says:

“A mark, once hooked, is often most difficult to ‘unhook.’ If operators once get his confidence completely, he is so sure of the deal in which he is involved that he will not listen to reasonable advice even if it is given to him.”

Some examples Maurer gives:

“C.H. Hubbell of McPherson, Kansas who was tied up with the Christ Kid when the officers arrested the Kid. He was being played for $50,000 and was most indignant at the interruption. Even when he learned that he was being played on the rag, he refused to believe it and insisted on posting bond for both the Christ Kid and his insiderman”

“I thought I’d knock him good so I wrote him that he’d been trimmed and that it was no use looking for us and we were going to Europe. About a year later I bumped into him on the street. He shook my hand and said, ‘Mr. MacAllister, you can’t get away with it. You can’t let me down now...Now I have dug up ten thousand more. You can’t keep me out of the deal this time.’”

Why does this happen? Ego! Ego! Ego! Marks convince themselves that they are right and they can’t fathom the idea that they are wrong. Cons prey upon the things we really want to believe are true.

Steven Hassan in his book Combatting Cult Mind Control says that cults ask for your life savings for 2 reasons:

1. To get your money

2. To leave the cult, you first need to come to grip with the painful realization that you just gave away all your money.

It is easier for the human mind to make up excuses than confront painful reality. It’s easier to deny climate change if you get all your money from oil. It’s easier to think of yourself as a “job creator” when asking for tax cuts.

Maurer writing from 1940 tells us a lot about those in charge today:

“Most marks come from the upper strata of society, which, in America, means they have made, married or inherited money. Because of this, they acquire status which in time they come to attribute to some inherent superiority, especially as regards matters of sound judgement in finance and investment. Friends and associates themselves social climbers and sycophants, help to maintain this illusion of superiority.”

A Great Story About Life on the Moon that People Wanted to Believe

We choose to believe stories we like, whether it is the story that we are “honest”, “smart” or that people live on the moon. Maria Konnikova in The Confidence Game notes the story of the Moon Hoax of 1835 that was printed in the latest technology of the times: Newspapers. Readers were treated to fantastical stories and pictures about life on the moon (see picture here). Even after the hoax was revealed, many readers still believed it was true. Many of the pre-Alex Jones readers said that it was all a government cover-up. They did this for the same reason people believe the world is flat, etc: because they wanted to believe the story!

Researcher Stephanie Hall has this to say on the Moon Hoax

blogs.loc.gov/...

“Disclaimers and attempts to disprove legends can often spread the story further. Hoaxes sometimes work in much the same way, perpetuated as much by the interest of those who disbelieve a story as those who believe it. [emphasis added]

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CONNED? IF SO, YOU LIKELY WILL NEVER KNOW

There is only so much you can do because Konnikova notes that con artists play on who you are.

“What are you confident in? The con artist will find those things where your belief is unshakable and will build on that foundation to subtly change the world around you. But you will be so confident in the starting point that you won’t even notice what’s happened”

In an interview Konnikova was asked if she has ever been conned. She gave a great answer: “I don’t know.” If a con artist is good, you will be conned and you will never know. You might remember that you once tried to buy tickets off Craigslist but it didn’t work out, but you think it was because of an error at the gate, not because that nice Math student conned you.

TECHNOLOGY GIVES CON ARTISTS SUPER POWERS

Konnikova writes that these same con men have a new modern friend: technology. She quotes a con artist who says:

“What I did fifty years ago as a teenage boy is four thousand times easier to do today because of technology. Technology breeds crime. It always has and always will”

It used to be that a con artist had to walk up to your house in the fields of rural South Dakota to get at your life savings. Now they can just talk to you over Skype, YouTube or Trump’s favorite: Twitter.

Steven Hassan in his book Combatting Cult Mind Control says

“Mind-control organizations routinely sponsor websites and that purport to provide help, empathy

...

Because vast amounts of personal information are now available online, cult recruiters (as well as ordinary scam artists) can now go online and develop extensive profiles about future targets”

CAN’T WE JUST USE FACTS? NO

As a liberal, part of me keeps hoping that if we can just give conservative the right information their behavior will change. If we can just prove Russian collusion or show that the tax plan benefits the 0.01% mainly , things will be better. Before being a liberal, I was a borderline 9/11 conspiracy theorist and I did the same thing. I have the truth and if people will only listen to the facts about the second tower or Iraqi oil people will change their behaviors.

But that’s not how people work. We don’t care about information — at least at first. We like people and stories we trust most of all.

As smart, information- and fact-based people (“reality has a liberal bias”) how do we communicate with our co-workers, friends and loved ones? Is it all a lost cause?

It’s not a lost cause because I experienced the change. I was a Rush Limbaugh listening Republican when I was a young man and I changed. It took a lot of love and care from people to get me to change but I did. Did anyone ever sit down and give me all the answers? No. I never said “You know, You are totally right. I see it right here in the newspaper. I am a fool.” Liberals expect that outcome, but that will never happen.

In trying to understand my own conversion and the current GOP/Trump mindset, I did a bunch of reading on cults, con artists, FBI negotiators and salesmen- anyone who changes minds. Here are some proven tools that you can use this Holiday season to make some progress:

TOOLS TO USE

1. ARGUING — EVEN WITH GOOD FACTS — MAKES THINGS WORSE. DON’T DO IT.

Hassan says this about arguing with a cult member:

“Another common error is trying to argue the person out of their involvement by using a condescending, confrontational approach. This direct approach is doomed to failure. Rational argumentation is simply not effective with someone who has been indoctrinated….Add condescension or arrogance, and you are playing right into the cult recruiter’s hands.”

When us humans get into a fight, a funny thing happens, we gear up and defend our position: arguing with a conservative only solidifies their beliefs.

Hassan notes that cultists have been preparing for you and your facts. When you come at them with facts, this is the fight they have been preparing for. They have their own facts. They want to battle you on twitter or wherever. Right wingers are the same, they have been prepping in the gym of talk radio, blogs, etc. getting their (often stupid) talking points just right. Don’t fight this battle! Its the one they have been programmed to want.

In fact, even if you are going to meditate a lot first and remove all arrogance from your tone, simply presenting facts alone is still counterproductive. Research into vaccine use shows us:

www.psychologytoday.com/...

...cognitive psychology has taught us that when we are trying to debunk a myth ...the memory networks associated with the misinformation are activated and strengthened. Because it takes more cognitive effort for people to update their beliefs in light of new information, such strategies often just end up reinforcing the myth.

In other words:

2. REALIZE YOU ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE THE MORE POWERFUL ANIMAL MIND

Daniel Kaheman in Thinking Fast and Slow makes an important distinction between (1) our animal mind which is fast, instinctive and emotional and (2) our rational mind which is slow and logical. Turns out that a vast majority of our behaviors happen because of the first mental system. Focus on changing that first. To do that, first you have to

Our animal mind if more important to what we do

3. ESTABLISH RAPPORT

How do we avoid the animal mind going into fight or flight? How can we talk to the rational mind? Loving connection is the key but I need more specifics than that because I’m not so good at those things.

I’m often bad at being nice but you know who is less touchy feely than me? Old school FBI agents. These are the people that brought us botched negotiations in Waco, TX and elsewhere. Turns out the new breed FBI negotiators have learned a few touchy feely things.

Former FBI negotiator Chris Voss in his book Never Split the Difference says that the FBI needed a new playbook beyond rational arguments because “have you ever tried to devise a mutually beneficial win-win solution with a guy who thinks he’s the messiah?” Answer: you can’t

The FBI developed tools to “calm people down, establish rapport, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of needs and persuade the other guy of our empathy.” All of these are crucial and it starts by establishing rapport with these tools.

Konnikova says that any good con artist knows that a con “requires the creation of empathy and rapport...an emotional foundation must be laid before any scheme is proposed, any game set in motion. Only then does it move to logic and persuasion”

Hassan lists building rapport with cult members as the #1 key to unlocking mind control.

So use a nice calm voice and make friends first.

A. MIRROR TO ESTBALISH TRUST

Voss says “We fear what is different and are drawn to what is similar”

Dale Carnegie and Tony Robbins self-help gurus agree and have a lot to say about mirroring.

Who else does? Con artists! They see this as essential step. Bernie Madoff and others were experts at a type of fraud called “Affinity Fraud”. The SEC defines this as

www.investor.gov/…

“The fraudsters involved in affinity scams often are – or pretend to be – members of the group...These scams exploit the trust and friendship that exists in groups of people. Because of the tight-knit structure of many groups, outsiders may not know about the affinity scam.” [emphasis added]

You can see this all the time in Trump and his other con artist friends, they wear cowboy hats or hate Mexicans or do other things to signal they are on the inside of a group. They want to convince us they are one of the right (in the case of Trump, the “white”) group. I always love the moment, Trump says he “learned” how to solve crime in Chicago

www.washingtonpost.com/…

“I went to a top police officer in Chicago who is not the police chief, and he — I could see by the way he was dealing with his people, he was a rough, tough guy, they respected him greatly. I said, how do you think you do it? He said Mr. Trump, within one week we could stop much of this horror show that’s going on.”

When talking to your Trump loving neighbor you first need to convince her that you are worth their trust. You like their group and are part of it in some important ways.

FBI agent Voss and cult deprogrammer Hassan both list “mirroring” as the place to start building rapport. Things you can do to mirror

1. Similar clothing or appearance

2 . Imitate posture and other physical ways of being . Match a weak handshake with a weak handshake. Lean forward when they lean forward.

3. Listen and repeat the last 3 words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone just said.

I understand that these can seem manipulative and in the hands of con artists, they are but we can try to use these in authentic ways. For example, listening and repeating the last few words is also a nice way to actually listen to them. Which bring us to:

B. LISTEN TO THEM BEFORE THEY CAN LISTEN TO YOU. GET THEM TO SAY “THAT’S RIGHT”

Voss: “When individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings. In addition, they become less defensive and oppositional and more willing to other points of view”

This is very simple. Most of us have things we want to say. We won’t listen to someone else’s viewpoint until we feel that we have been heard. So it is our job to listen first.

Voss has a simple system, first label any objections using non-confrontational language:

“It seems like you are very angry”

“It seems like you think taxes are too high”

The great thing about this language is that you are state someone’s objection without agreeing. “It seems like you don’t like democrats”

The idea here is to get them talking. If you can get them talking long enough, you can find places where you can connect. “So medicare is very important to you?” “So you want the VA to be fully funded”

Once you get where they are going try to restate their language. Voss says the goal is to get to a place where your conservative friend will say “That’s right” Bingo!

Only then can they listen to you.

4. ASK “HOW” AND “WHAT” QUESTIONS TO GET THEM TO ARTICULATE THEIR THINKING

The bad news is that there is no way that I know of to tell people what to think that works in the long term. Instead what you are trying to do is develop their sense of critical reasoning. Victory can simply be planting the seeds of doubt.

After the election, I would simply ask Trump supporters questions like

“How will things get great?”

“Do you think he is going to try to get medicare and social security?”

My goal wasn’t to convince them I was right, but for them to take a stand and hopefully they will see how what they want isn’t what is happening.

Hassan says this about convincing cult members:

“I give people a toolkit for helping them make their own decisions and taking back their lives. I help people detect and remove the virus of mind control on their own. This is something they ultimately need to do themselves, for themselves, not something do to them

….

[The goal is] to empower the individual to be their own person: to think critically, to evaluate, and to reality-test and exercise their own free will. The person leans to listen to their inner voice, rather than the instructions of an authority figure”

Questions do this and also have the non threatening upside of giving the other side the illusion of control. Voss recommends that all your questions start with “How” and “What”. “How can we solve this problem?” “What is the objective?” “What about this is important to you?”

“Who”, “What” and “where” questions are simply answered with facts. No good to us here. “Why” questions sound accusatory.

Voss calls these “calibrated questions.” In other words you really need to think through the questions you are going ask and calibrate them to your audience. Questions give you the ability to frame situations, so take them seriously. Ideally you can calibrate them to...

A) GET THEM TO THINK FROM OTHER PERSPECTIVES

Hassan uses questions in cult deprogramming to get cult members to look at reality from different perspectives. For example: “How should your parents feel about you being in a cult?” We can do this also by asking questions such as “How would you feel about Trump’s rhetoric if you were black?” “What should a working single Mom do if she can’t afford healthcare?”

My favorite question is “What is a time you acted to stop racism?” This question has the upside of working within the frame of racism exists and is a problem. It allows the friend to see themselves as a hero fighting for justice. The downside of this question is if they start talking about “racism” against white people. Find a way out of that!

B) HELP THEM TO DISCOVER THEIR ACTUAL VALUES RATHER THAN RIGHT WING PROPOGANDA

The conservative answer to these questions will obviously be brutal and naïve because much of their thinking has been captured by right wing propaganda. The goal isn’t to debunk the lies but rather to let your friend come to the conclusion that these lies are as gross as they are. They know the answer, they just need help accessing their true values.

The goal is to actually have them to say out loud “The single mom should go bankrupt and die if she doesn’t have healthcare” or whatever crap has been fed to them in a non-confrontation setting. Remember that the conservative “cult” identity is talking and not your friend. It is important to try to ask them questions that would access their true thinking: “How would you have answered this question before you starting reading infowars?”

There are some great resources on how Fox News acts like a cult and creates a new identity for its “victim.” One is the movie below in which the daughter succeeded in getting her old day back by changing his news sources (amongst other things):

YouTube Video

5. KEEP BEING A SOURCE OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. KEEP THE LINES OF COMMUNICTION OPEN.

In cult rescues Hassan looks for the family member who maintained unconditional loving ties with the cult member. This is the person who decided to love their family member even if they join a wacky cult. This is the person who can still communicate and get the person to listen to other points of view. Don’t cut off communication.

“I found that people who were able to walk away without intervention were those who had maintained contract with people outside the destructive cult. When people could maintain communication with outsiders, valuable information that could change their life could penetrate cult-constructed mental walls”

Maybe it’s best if you cut off ties with your Nazi friend. I know I would have a hard time maintaining ties but if you cut them off, then you can’t help them anymore. Keep loving the person you knew, not the right-wing identity.

A) GIVE CRITICAL INFORMATION IN AN INDIRECT WAY

Hassan has learned not to ever give negative information about a cult member’s own cult. Instead talk about other similar groups. Hassan notes that cults install “thought-stopping” ideas into members so that when someone attacks their cult, they are triggered. In addition, they are told that their cult a) is not a cult and b) is superior to all other groups.

So mention other con men if you want to talk about Trump’s activities. Talk about ISIS to discuss religious fanaticism. Talk about how other countries can afford universal healthcare.

B) ASK BEFORE GIVING CRITICAL INFORMATION

If you are going to give a bunch of zingers on Russian collusion, don’t ambush them. Allow it to betheir choice to listen to your facts. You could be playing with fire here so be careful and try to use sources that are trusted by your friend. If WorldNetDaily has some good articles on prison reform, use it. Hassan:

“My preference is always to have someone ask the cult member if they would be willing to hear a little of the other side of the story and see what reaction this elicits. However, such a request needs to come from a sibling or a friend, rather than from a parent, so that it seems much less threatening.”

6. “CRAZY” IS JUST A SIGN POST FOR WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE THING THAT CAN HELP

Voss defines “black swans” as critical pieces of information that are unknown until you talk further and keys to negotiation. For example, maybe someone is really looking for recognition or maybe they are worried about their health care costs.

Voss sees these things most in the places we think someone is “crazy.”

“But the moment we’re most ready to throw our hands up and declare ‘They’re crazy!’ is often the best moment for discovering Black Swans that transform a negotiation. It is when we hear or see something that doesn’t make sense — something ‘crazy’ — that a crucial fork in the road is presented: push forward, even more forcefully.”

I imagine the Black Swan in many cases of conservatives is more of the White Swam of racism. This is going to be hard to listen to but it is important to get your friends to talk about their underlying assumptions and it is your job to help them see if they agree with these views.

As a former conservative guy who is white and straight, I feel like my motivation stemmed from fear, racism, sexism etc along with some legitimate grievances with how my white working class community was let down by liberals. “White guilt” is a real thing and it stinks. It is also true that it stinks to be a working person whether you are black or white. Some PC people are jerks, especially privileged rich white people. There are real truths that need to be acknowledged before a conversation can move on. Hopefully you will learn and grow as well.

My 10 year old daughter has a best friend who is anti-Muslim and homophobic because of her family. She simply asks her friend questions about why she believes this or that. While it’s important that we don’t agree with our conservative friends its also important we don’t walk away. We talk about the questions to ask her friend. It’s a process!

There is a saying in negotiations that “He who talks most loses”. Keep them talking!

7. BE THERE IN CASE THEIR IDENTIY CRASHES AND DIES

The death of a belief core to one’s identity seems to be similar to the feeling of death. (My pet theory is that a lot of the opioid crisis is a white identity death crisis)

Sports stars are great case studies in identity deaths:

theweek.com/...

“There's an oft-repeated phrase in sports, its recurrence having washed away its origin, but the premise is this: Athletes die twice, and the first death comes in retirement

….

This is an unkind and inescapable truth for athletes. The identity, the celebrity, the adoration, the money, everything they've attained is ultimately diminished, if not lost completely.” [emphasis added]

The 5 stages of grief mirror the journey one has to take to come to a new belief about the world. First we deny and along the way we may break down in tears before we can move to acceptance.

On the face of things Rhonda Rousey should be happy. Sure she just lost a big fight but she is healthy, rich, gorgeous and has nothing material to worry about.

Yet, losing her recent big fight almost destroyed her:

YouTube Video

“Honestly, my thought was like .. in the medical room and I was down in the corner and I was like ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?’ and I was literally sitting there like thinking about killing myself and the exact second I’m like ‘I’m nothing. What do I do anymore? and no one gives a shit about me anymore without this.”’

Con men know this about our minds and stand ready to exploit our beliefs. Maurer notes that old time con men used to literally put advertisements in newspapers looking for “honest” men.

“The mark’s ego is flattered at the start, while at the same time he feels a sense of security in the deal because he is convinced that the men he deals with trust and admire him for his honesty...Often his rationalization mechanisms are so perfectly developed that he never admits, even to himself, that he is fundamentally dishonest.”

THE DEATH OF THE CONSERVATIVE IDENTITY WILL INVOLVE TEARS

Fox News is a living embodiment of the 5 stages of grief about white racism (well maybe 4 of the 5). It goes from Tucker Carlson’s denialism to more honest moments when Melissa Francis broke down in tears after being confronted with her own racism. The co-host’s response is actually pretty good. It is as loving an embrace as could be reasonably be expected.

YouTube Video

Crying Fox News host Melissa Francis after defending Charlottesville Nazi types

“I know what’s in my heart and I don’t think anyone is different better or worse based on the color of their skin but I feel like there is nothing any of us can say right now without being judged”

Cohost good response that doesn’t demonize but rather provides a loving embrace:

“You know Melissa there have been a lot of tears on this network and across the country….It’s a difficult place where we are but it’s not where we’ve been. It’s where we are. This is not 1950. We can do this.”

8. DO OTHER STUFF THAT WORKS

This is really as far as I’ve figured out. It’s enough to get you through the holidays without causing any problems and sew some seeds of doubt. If you have ideas on what to at this point, please let me know.

Here are some suggestions from my readings and experiences

1. Fact check one story together. I had a conservative co-worker go on about uranium one so we did research together rather than debate each other. He got to see that HRC had little power to approve the deal at all. I don’t know if we solved anything but at least it wasn’t a fight. I could tell he wanted to debate “facts” not have a reasonable discussion about sources of information. He knew that infowars was garbage when we actually starting looking together.

2. Humanize the pain. Give human stories showing the real impact of terrible conservative policies have also been shown to be effective. If you can talk about the real life stories of sexism, racism, etc. Better yet introduce them to people targeted by Trump’s policies so they can hear real human stories.

3. Mental health is at the core of a lot of this. Just having your father go see a therapist and working on his anger issues will likely yield results in the long term as he learns to deal with his anger instead of channeling it at the Fox News targets. Personally I had to work through a lot fear and anger before I could even think about politics. My political change was a happy result of my personal growth.

4. Encourage news from printed sources. Turn off the TV. Lots of studies have shown that TV sends scary images that trigger the fear parts of our brains and overrides rational thinking. I was an anti-war Iraq activist back in the day. What saved me was not watching TV. Whenever I would watch TV, I would find myself thinking “maybe this was is OK after all.”

5. Both sides don’t do it. Lots of great thinking at DailyKos and elsewhere has occurred on how the press creates a false “both sides are bad” narrative.

6. Organize! Vote and fight! Don’t spend all your time helping Right Wingers feel better. We need to get our voters out there so don’t get too caught up in all this.

CASE STUDY: HOW A MORMON CONVERTED

Here is a story that reflects a lot of the principals discussed and my own story of conversion. From rapport to labelling to questioning it shows how the power of helping others see rather than arguing. This is a former Mormon caller into the (very funny) Majority Report. Here are some good quotes starting 5:35 into the video

“My recommendation would be to build relationships, I know that our instincts right now are to like run away from the crazy uncle and some of those people are not going to be saved so to speak, I think people should build interpersonal relationships offline.”

“If you can get them to articulate their most crazy positions and then sort of calmly place little seeds of doubt that’s the best way to do it.”

On a disarming meeting over coffee with a liberal: “You are trained to have an automated response in Mormonism and also everything is you know oh Libtards or fake news or whatever and it becomes reflexive and he stopped me and he said ‘No I want to hear what you think about this not what you’ve been told like what you should say or what you are supposed to think’ and that was like a defining moment in my personal life cause I had to stop and look inward and say ‘Oh OK I need to do some work on this and um and so …. I think very few people are convinced online or in flame wars that sort of thing but if you can meet with these people are try to start personal relationships and dialogues I think that helps.” [emphasis added]

YouTube Video

Other cool stuff if you care to look further

There is a lot of stuff out there. I like old school George Lakoff and Drew Weston for the psychology of our politics. Check out Derrin Brown the hypnotists to get scared by how easily our mind can influenced.youtube.com/… Cognitive Dissonance is a well researched area that is worth looking into further. A good TED talk by Cortney Warren is here

YouTube Video

Good luck! It’s not easy but progress can be achieved. It’s just going to take patience time and caring!

If This Be Civil Disobedience … Make The Most Of It.

Im a frayed knot

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 19, 2017 · 7:53 PM PST

2017/12/19 · 19:53

The concern that Robert Mueller will be fired is growing, and with that is a commitment by thousands to hit the streets. (If you agree with the protest and want to join in, be sure to check out this link ). Even if he doesn't get fired, we might want to protest the passing of the fraud they are calling a tax bill. That got me to thinking - we must be thoughtful about how we conduct our protests. These protests have to count. They have to be worth the time and energy we put into them.

I read an article some time ago, in which someone had researched protests. The findings were fascinating. The research showed that a government can't withstand the sustained protest of 3.5% of a nation's population. By my calculations, that is roughly 14 million Americans. But the key word is sustained. If we are going to have a successful protest, we have to stay in the streets until the menace is gone. It is also imperative that our protest be peaceful. Many municipalities will call on police to disrupt the protests. It is not inconceivable that some will call out the National Guard. We must not react with violence. We can be loud, but we cannot be violent. Sit down, stand up, walk, whatever, but do not react with violence. (I plan to take my rosary, and say the rosary if the police get rough.) If they set up lines and try to move us away, we must go around behind them and continue the protest. If they use tear gas, we must put on masks and stay. We must show that we are more determined in our cause than they are in theirs.

Police have been taking protesters in to the station even when protesting peacefully. If they do that, be sure to have evidence that you were being peaceful, that the police were violating your right to assembly. Especially if you get arrested. Once you are arrested, they may try to get you to plead guilty to a lesser charge so you can be let go. DO NOT ACCEPT LESSER CHARGES! This is important for three reasons. First, it becomes an acknowledgment that what you were doing is unlawful. What you are doing is not unlawful. It is lawful and right and proper. It is what citizens are called upon to do when the government is acting badly. Second, it allows them to avoid accounting for their violation of your right to protest. Force them to make their case in court (and make sure it gets wide news coverage). Make them hear your case. Third, when you plead guilty to a lesser charge, many jurisdictions will use that guilty plea to make you ineligible to vote. This plays into their hands. Don't give away your right to vote for convenience.

Several years ago, I got to thinking about Civil Disobedience more deeply, and I realized I needed to establish for myself and my family a set of rules to govern the right to disapprove of what our government was doing loudly, in a way the government could not ignore. This is what I came up with. If you have thoughts about these rules, please comment.

Rule 1: To perform effective Civil Disobedience, you have to live an otherwise normal life. You must be a reasonably productive, law-abiding and basically good citizen. You cannot let the authorities dilute your protest by calling you a rabble rouser, a vagrant, a miscreant or anything of that nature. Your disobedience must be a clear break from your normal behavior. You also cannot be a person who, when you bring forth a moral cause, has tables turned on you because of your own questionable character. However, in this case, I think this requirement can be waived. In the current situation, citizens of all stripes can contribute to the protest. All citizens are affected by what is going on, all need to cry out now.

Rule 2: You must pick your battles wisely. You must be sure that the object of your disobedience is contrary to the very fiber of your moral being. You cannot engage in honorable Civil Disobedience against, for example, a traffic ticket, a silly homeowner's association rule, or a loaf of moldy bread. You must feel so strongly about your issue that you are prepared to accept any consequences of your action to make a major statement about it. This is part of not becoming known as a trouble maker. It is not effective when your arrest is simply another eye roll to wit, "there he goes again." I think these issues are wise selections of battles.

Rule 3: You must be prepared to take full consequence for your behavior (see above). You must not allow it to be plea-bargained down, trivialized, or watered down. You must make it glaringly clear that what you are protesting is meaningful to you to the point that you are prepared to sacrifice to get it changed.

Rule 4: You must be very clear about what it is you are protesting, what you want changed and how you want it to wind up. During the Viet Nam war, the most effective conscientious objectors actually did time in jail rather than fight in an immoral war. They did not allow their legal representatives to water down the charges. They stood firm in what they did, repeated what they did in strong voices and faced the full extent of the law about it. The same with the Civil Rights marches. They took blows to their bodies, were locked up, and some died. But they were committed.

Rule 5: You must ensure that word of your actions gets to the world at large. You must be sure your voice, your own voice, is heard by a wide audience. You must be very clear, when you are heard, of what you believe and why you believe obeying whatever law you are protesting is immoral and you cannot support it.

Rule 6: You must have a dog in the fight. You cannot let the courts find your objections moot because you are not affected by whatever it is you are protesting. When we had a draft, women could not be considered conscientious objectors because they could not be drafted. However, they could be objectors when it was a family member who was being sent to war. (To be sure, women could and did protest, but the official recognition of conscientious objector status was not conferred on women. I know. I tried.) You must decide how it is that you have a dog in the fight and that that dog is precious to you. When it comes to war, I think it is enough to say that your government is fighting in your name and you condemn the reason for it. But you must feel it is immoral enough to sacrifice for.

When we feel strongly enough to engage in Civil Disobedience, it is not just a right, but it is an obligation. We, as Americans, are the foundation of our government. It is up to us to make our government behave morally and democratically. Our government is us. What it does is done in our names. All of us. We cannot turn away.

Back in the 60s Civil Disobedience took the form of sit-ins and marches. While that did cause the establishment to look at the protestors as trouble makers, eventually the protesters won. Same with Ghandi. And Martin Luther King and John Lewis. Effective Civil Disobedience. We must win too. We must stay out there and protest until things are made right. Our lives, our futures, the futures of our children depend on it.

CrossPosted at My Gedanken Experiments

Former AG Sally Yates Pens a Warning Today: "[S]tand Up. Speak Out."

CanyonWren

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 19, 2017 · 7:42 PM PST

2017/12/19 · 19:42

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates speaks during a press conference to announce environmental and consumer relief in the Volkswagen litigation at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, June 28, 2016..Volkswagen has agreed to pay out $14.7 billion in a settlement with US authorities and car owners over its emissions-cheating diesel-powered cars, court documents showed June 28, 2016..The settlement filed in federal court calls for the German auto giant to either buy back or fix the cars that tricked pollution tests, and to pay each owner up to $10,000 in cash.. / AFP / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) — Sally Yates--true patriot--with ovaries of steel.

Sally Yates is a hero…… Just days after Trump was sworn in to the Presidency on January 20, 2017, he signed an Executive Order that banned anyone from seven countries from entering the United States. Sally Yates was the acting U.S. Attorney General, and on Jan. 30, 2017, despite knowing she would likely be fired, she notified the Trump administration and the American people that she would not defend the order because it was unlawful. Trump fired her the same evening, and issued this statement: “Yates has betrayed the Department of Justice.” (Trump issued a New Order in September which varies from the original Order, but limits entry from these countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, N.Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. The Supreme Court upheld extreme vetting travel ban in December.)

Yates penned an OpEd today in USA Today, which has one of the widest circulations of all newspapers in the US with a daily reach of seven million readers. She obviously wants to make maximum impact with her warning, which is to all Americans, and not just to those in Washington:

If we want to save the ideals we have worked so hard to achieve, we must not be passive. We must act. Now.

A few clips (I’ve underlined and bolded pertinent points, and hopefully stayed within Fair Use boundaries):

Over the course of our nation’s history, we have faced inflection points — times when we had to decide who we are as a country and what we stand for. Now is such a time. Beyond policy disagreements and partisan gamesmanship, there is something much more fundamental hanging in the balance. Will we remain faithful to our country’s core values?

Our founding documents set forth the values that make us who we are, or at least who we aspire to be. I say aspire to be because we haven’t always lived up to our founding ideals — even at the time of our founding. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were being enslaved by their fellow Americans.

Not so long ago, all across the Jim Crow South, our country’s definition was defiled by lynchings, the systematic disenfranchisement of African-American voters, and the burning of freedom riders’ buses. And still today, we have yet to realize fully our nation’s promise of equal justice....

What are the values that unite us? You don’t have to look much further than the Preamble to our Constitution, just 52 words, to find them:

“We the people of the United States” (we are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship) “in order to form a more perfect union” (we are a work in progress dedicated to a noble pursuit) “establish justice” (we revere justice as the cornerstone of our democracy) “insure domestic tranquility” (we prize unity and peace, not divisiveness and discord), “provide for the common defense” (we should never give any foreign adversary reason to question our solidarity) “promote the general welfare” (we care about one another; compassion and decency matter) “and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” (we have a responsibility to protect not just our own generation, but future ones as well)….

...So stand up. Speak out. Our country needs all of us to raise our collective voices in support of our democratic ideals and institutions. That is what we stand for. That is who we are. And with a shared commitment to our founding principles, that is who we will remain.

We here at Daily Kos are active in many ways—we write letters, we sign petitions, and we are active voters and campaigners. But, do most of us actually get out and do the hard work of talking to people? Do we organize a small group to weekly protest Trump’s quest for a dictatorship in front of our Representative or Senator’s office? Do we encourage others to do the same? Do we raise the issue of Trump’s Neo-Nazi affiliations at dinner parties, even when it might be uncomfortable for some? Do we host political pot-lucks where people are allowed to speak freely about what is happening? (Our country has lapsed into a “don’t talk politics” sensibility that has paved the way for Trump, imo.)

Sally Yates is calling upon us to use our voices to peacefully protest Trump and his enablers’ efforts to turn the United States into an autocracy/dictatorship. It may result in arrest, pepper spray, verbal abuse, or other non-pleasantries even though it is Constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. Our country was founded on much more pain and adversity—this is a critical time in our history that will again require us to find our courage and act on it.

Yates has inspired me to make a weekly commitment to speak out and make my voice heard. Will you?

What I learned from the Ohio newspaper editor who endorsed Donald Trump should scare all liberals

hammerinhank

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday December 18, 2017 · 10:48 AM PST

2017/12/18 · 10:48

Hillsboro, Ohio - the heart of Trump Country

The vast cultural schism, not economics, has driven white rural voters away from the Democratic Party – perhaps forever.

I recently visited Hillsboro, Ohio, a small town of 6,600 in southern Ohio. Hillsboro is the county seat of Highland County (population 46,000), which voted 76% for Donald Trump in 2016. What I learned was frightening for those who believe in the liberal policies and underlying morality represented by the Democratic Party.

My visit helped confirm my fear that rural white Americans - in areas far beyond the south - have permanently abandoned the Democrats in staggering numbers. It’s not because of policy; if these citizens really looked, they’d find the Democrats’ economic and healthcare agendas and “families before corporations” values would be to their liking. Instead, huge numbers of white rural America believe Democrats stand for an America which they don’t recognize, which they fear, and which they resent.

In the mainstream media, Hillsboro has become synonymous with Gary Abernathy, the savvy publisher-editor of the local newspaper, the Times-Gazette.

Gary Abernathy — Publisher/Editor of the Hillsboro, Ohio Times-Gazette

Abernathy combines first class journalistic credentials with old school conservative politics. (He is a former Executive Director of the West Virginia Republican GOP.)

Most importantly, Abernathy possesses uncanny insight about what makes white rural Americans tick. In January 2016, he published a prescient editorial which predicted a Trump victory, and nailed the reasons for his popularity.

“This year, Republican voters care about the economy, terrorism and immigration. Many conservative voters have also reached the point of being extremely annoyed with political correctness . . . Trump’s open contempt for all things politically correct are a big draw to millions of voters.”

Gary Abernathy — January 25, 2016

Abernathy also gained widespread attention in October 2016, when the Times-Gazette became one of just six newspapers in America to endorse the man later referred to by his own Secretary of State as a “f***ing moron”. Here are the 58 infamous words from the Times-Gazette that day:

“Despite his obvious flaws . . . Donald Trump best represents the drastic shakeup that Washington needs, and best reflects the conservative fiscal and social issue values that are important to the people of southern Ohio. His focus on securing America’s borders and defeating radical Islamic terrorism is the kind of decisive attitude needed in the White House.”

Gary Abernathy — October 21, 2016

Since the election, Abernathy has – to his own astonishment – become something of a media personality. Abernathy is so gracious, genuine and articulate that he is a curiosity for the media (much like J.D. Vance of Hillbilly Elegy fame – another native southern Ohio ‘splainer of things liberals can’t understand).

Abernathy now writes a twice-monthly opinion column for the Washington Post, which is widely syndicated. He has spoken at Columbia School of Journalism and is a frequent contributor on cable news shows. Reporters from the BBC and Japanese media have made pilgrimages to Hillsboro to meet with Abernathy.

I stopped by in Hillsboro at the (published) suggestion of Abernathy. In one of his recent WaPo columns he challenged:

“Please, Big Media, come visit us in Trump country . . . discover a landscape that is breathtaking in its physical beauty, and residents who are welcoming, industrious, smart, interesting and, yes, opinionated.”

Gary Abernathy (in the Washington Post) — November 9, 2017

I emailed Abernathy that I was a liberal blogger and wanted to take him up on his suggestion. I made clear my bias and my disdain for both Trump and his supporters. Abernathy replied immediately, and we then engaged in an interesting dialog.

To my surprise, I found that while we disagree on virtually every aspect of policy, Abernathy is wise enough to realize that the tide of history is in liberals’ favor. He has written that conservatism is a philosophy designed to slow down change, but unable to halt it entirely.

“Liberalism is the natural progression of the world; conservatism is the ‘hey, not so fast’ drag on the inevitable outcome. Conservatism delays, never vanquishes . . .”

Gary Abernathy

In Hillsboro, Abernathy and I chatted in his office. We agreed that it was the cultural divide, not economics, which primarily created the Trump phenomenon. It’s not that people in Highland County are actually affected by immigration, or terrorism (when was the last attack on U.S. soil in a small town?), or even political correctness run amok. But they voted for Trump largely because of those subjects, and the fears and resentments they engendered.

I believe that a large swath of the white population in Hillsboro (and thousands of places like it around the country) simply believe that America is no longer a place they recognize. And they don’t like it.

Many of these people are filled with an underlying fear and resentment of how America has changed, and will continue to evolve in the future. Or perhaps they have nostalgia for the days when America was whiter and straighter, where women knew their place, and where football players didn’t celebrate touchdowns by pounding their chests.

In either case, a huge number of rural whites see the Democratic Party as the embodiment of this “different” country. Democrats represent the city-oriented segment of America that treasures the value of immigrants, celebrates diversity, believes that terrorism is an infinitesimal daily threat (especially compared to gun violence or even traffic accidents), and recognizes that America’s leadership role in the world includes diplomacy and alliances. Democrats are elites who control the media and universities. They know evolution is a fact and ridicule those who believe otherwise. The elites accept scientific proof that Global Warming is a dire threat to the planet. The elites speak with proper grammar, and use big words. These are the Democrats.

ORLANDO, FL - MARCH 5: Supporters cheer as republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the CFE Federal Credit Union Arena in Orlando, FL on Saturday March 05, 2016. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images) — Angry, white Trump voters who don’t like the America they see today

Most people in rural America also share disdain about some other subjects that even many liberals agree with:

They despise our political process. They believe our system creates monotonous, cowardly drones for candidates, who say nothing and do even less. They believe the political and economic system unfairly rewards people with money, influence and access to power.

They believe political correctness has created an environment where no one can take a joke, and everyone must walk on eggshells less they offend with a “micro-aggression”. A movie like Blazing Saddles – which hilariously satirizes virtually every ethnicity - could never be made today. And no one ever defiantly says to a verbal tormentor anymore: “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

Donald Trump tapped into this fear and resentment in a way no other politician ever did. In my view, millions of white Americans voted against their own self-interest in 2016, simply to make a point of sticking it to the “elites”. I equate it to the black Washingtonians who once re-elected Marion Barry, even after his videotaped drug arrest, seemingly just to give the finger to “whitey”.

My visit to Hillsboro reinforces that this cultural chasm is so deep that I don’t see a way across. To his credit, Gary Abernathy encourages dialogue, but I don’t see white rural fear and resentment changing, even as evolving demographics make our prosperous population centers ever more blue.

And don’t expect the Russia investigation, no matter how egregious its findings or numerous its indictments, to make a difference either. Short of another Great Recession or multiple American troops in body bags, white rural Americans will stick with Trump no matter how he debases his office and vaporizes the norms of common decency.

The daunting electoral map facing Democrats — a sea of rural red

The concentration of Democratic voters in coastal states and big cities forebodes an Electoral map requiring national popular vote margins for Democratic Presidential candidates of 4-5% just to reach 270 electoral votes. It also means that – due to the skewed makeup of the House and Senate (favoring rural areas and smaller states), Republican representatives will continue to control policy agendas far out of line with a sizeable majority of Americans, be it gun safety, abortion rights, or the role of government in protecting the environment, ensuring affordable healthcare, empowering common citizens, promoting economic fairness and opportunity and enabling social justice.

A very scary thought indeed.

How white evangelicals are okay with voting for sexual predators like Moore and Trump

Wagatwe Wanjuki

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 12, 2017 · 11:59 PM PST

2017/12/12 · 23:59

MIDLAND CITY, AL - DECEMBER 11: People wait for the arrival of Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore to speak during a campaign event at Jordan's Activity Barn on December 11, 2017 in Midland City, Alabama. Mr. Moore is facing off against Democrat Doug Jones in tomorrow's special election for the U.S. Senate. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In a normal world, multiple women coming forward to expose a man for sexually assaulting and preying on girls would destroy his career. In Trump’s America 2017, it means that the man’s supporters further dig in their heels to defend and vehemently support him.

Of course, I am talking about Alabama’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Roy Moore. In the weeks leading up to the election, I’ve seen many pleas to the basic humanity and dignity of potential voters to please not vote for Moore and put a pedophile in the U.S. Senate. I totally understand these pleas because I’d make them, too—if I thought they’d make a difference.

I’ve seen the widespread shock and horror over the unwavering support for Moore in spite of the allegations. Folks are even more stunned to see that white evangelicals have overwhelmingly stood behind this deplorable man even as reports about his history of sexually abusing piled on. At first glance, it looks like this would go against the Christian values that white evangelical voters claimed guides their decisions.

Now we know better. Check out this data via The Atlantic :

As recently as 2011, a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that only 30 percent of white evangelicals believed “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” But by the time Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, that number had risen sharply to 72 percent. White evangelicals are now more tolerant of immoral behavior by elected officials than the average American. “This is really a sea change in evangelical ethics,” Robert P. Jones, the head of the institute and the author of The End of White Christian America, recently told me.

The white evangelicals who support sexual predators like Moore and President Trump don’t care about the morality of the politicians representing him. They just want to win so they can exert disproportionate control over the country and force everyone to live under their oppressive policies. Codifying their intolerant views like making safe abortion illegal and ending marriage equality is the goal—and it doesn’t matter if electing an abuser is the key to making it happen.

Moore found the perfect community to let him hide in plain sight. By galvanizing a racist, homophobic, and Islamophobic base, Moore has found supporters who more readily believe rape victims are liars—and there’s research about it. A 2006 University of New England study found that participants who were more accepting of rape myths also were more racist, classist, sexist, ageist, homophobic and religiously intolerant. Consider Moore’s political history as summarized by ThinkProgress:

His victory in the Alabama Republican primary was widely considered a victory for Christian nationalism — unsurprising given Moore’s history as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. While in the position, Moore erected a 5,200-pound monument of the Ten Commandments in the lobby of the state judicial building; he later refused to remove it despite public outcry. As a Senate candidate, Moore has doubled down on his extremist stance, actively pushing for Christian education, implying that Muslims should not serve in government, and failing to clarify his stance on the rights of LGBTQ people.

Moore fits the aforementioned qualities perfectly. His supporters cheer him on because they believe he’s doing the right thing—laws or equality be damned. Is it really a surprise that most of his core base continued to support him?

As we try to minimize the damage done by power-hungry, lying conservatives, we need to know what we’re up against. White evangelicals overwhelmingly voted Trump. To better understand these “Roypublicans,” we can’t just obsess over the details; we have to look at the whole (racist) picture. As Charles Blow wrote in the New York Times:

The Trump agenda is the Republican agenda: hostility to women and minorities, white supremacy and white nationalism, xenophobia, protectionist trade policies, tax policies that punish the poor and working class and people living in blue states.

Trump is a white man on a white stallion fighting to preserve white culture and white power. People who support this point of view and cheer the Trump charade forgave his failings because they believed so deeply in his mission.

Dismissing rape victims as liars isn’t a singular trait; it’s one part of a larger values system. Rape culture and white supremacy go hand in hand. These folks don’t care about doing what’s right; it’s all about what’s right for them—child molestation or pussy grabbing be damned.

Another #RoyMoore supporter just called my office posing as an @AP reporter.

Once their cover was blown they started screaming & called me & my staff the n-word & other racial slurs.

I won't be intimidated.

I won't stop speaking out.

You will not shut me down.

Believe it.
Ã¢ÂÂ Rep. Gwen Moore (@RepGwenMoore) December 12, 2017

GOP turns to decades-old lies to sell new tax scam

Jon Perr for Daily Kos

Community

Sunday December 10, 2017 · 12:50 PM PST

2017/12/10 · 12:50

no image description available — Remember when the Bush tax cuts paid for themselves? Neither do I.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and that’s our target market.” That perversion of Abraham Lincoln’s timeless adage might as well be the slogan of the modern Republican Party, especially when the topic is taxes. After all, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Joint Committee on Taxation, (JCT), the Wharton School, the Tax Policy Center and a host of think tanks have concluded that the GOP tax bill will produce between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion in additional debt over the next decade. But if “tax cut pay for themselves” is a cynical myth designed to force deep spending cuts in the future, so too is the notion that the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA) produces either tax relief or jobs for lower- to middle-income Americans. It’s no wonder that Republicans from Maine Sen. Susan Collins to House Speaker Paul Ryan have been struggling to manufacture lists of conservative economists to vouch for their voodoo.

But more appalling than the grotesque GOP disinformation campaign itself is the Republican regurgitation of decades-old lies to sell it. The GOP’s best and brightest have been peddling the same fiscal fantasies since supply-side snake oil salesman Arthur Laffer first sketched his magical Curve on a cocktail napkin for Team Reagan in the 1970s. The passage of time has not made the GOP falsehoods any more true.

Consider, for example, Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, McConnell declared himself “totally confident” that the TCJA passed by the Senate will not add to the deficit, adding:

“I think it's going to be a revenue producer.”

Now, there’s no need to stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before; you have. That’s because back in 2010, then-Minority Leader McConnell used the same talking point to defend the extension of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 for the richest Americans. Defending that windfall for the wealthy that would drain $70 billion annually from the United States Treasury, the No.2 Senate Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona proclaimed, “You should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." McConnell rushed to Kyl’s defense, announcing that his fiscal fraud was in fact now Republican orthodoxy:

"There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject."

But then as now, Republican agreement on that view doesn’t make it a fact. History tells us so. And that history starts, it turns out, with Ronald Reagan’s arrival in the White House in 1981.

Jen Hayden

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday December 07, 2017 · 12:42 PM PST

2017/12/07 · 12:42

Mark Takano grades Mitch McConnell's tax scam pitch to voters

In 2012 Rep. Mark Takano was elected to represent the California’s 41st District. Prior to that he served the community for 20 years as a teacher. He took one look at Mitch McConnell’s tax scam pitch to voters and he got out the dreaded red pen, slicing and dicing the entire charade of a tax proposal.

Civics 101—Republicons applauded like they did something, but this is NOT OVER: NEXT STEPS HERE

TrueBlueMajority

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday December 02, 2017 · 11:40 AM PST

2017/12/02 · 11:40

OK. Republicons passed their “tax bill” 51-49 and then stood and applauded to create a photo op for FakesNewsChannel to claim that “Republicons Passed Tax Reform”

But they didn’t.

This has as much validity as when they celebrated in the Rose Garden claiming they had “repealed Obamacare” after the House vote.

I repeat. The Tax Reform Bill is NOT a law yet.

It is NOT ready to be signed by DJT yet. (He is so clueless he may not even know this...)

This bill still has TWO very important hurdles to jump.

If we up our resistance game we still have a chance to stop it.

And, if the Blue Team plays our cards right, we can stop this bill AND make the Republicon party look VERY bad in the process.

I wasn’t going to start my Civics 101 series until next month but this night is kind of a big deal so I am launching early and on a topic that I did not plan to address first. But sometimes you just have to go where the breath of the spirit takes you.

Right now a lot of people who don’t know any better are saying: DAMN, the bill passed the House and it passed the Senate and now there is nothing we can do to stop DJT from signing it. All is lost.

This is not true. All is not lost.

The more I think about it, the more persuaded I am that we may get more political mileage out of stopping the bill in the next stage than if we had managed to win or prevent the vote tonight.

We only have a few days but if we stay focused we can stop this bill, and power-slap a few key Republicons at the same time.

Our saving grace is this: The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill. That is not allowed. Before a bill can go to the White House to be signed, the EXACT SAME VERSION must pass the House and the Senate.

Since the House originated this one, and passed their version first, the Senate now has to send their version back to the House who will then call a CONFERENCE COMMITTEE. This is where the differences between the House and Senate versions are theoretically ironed out until there is one bill with language the House and Senate can agree on.

So the version that comes out of Conference Committee must be voted on AGAIN!

There is a small possibility (very small, as small as DJT’s tiny hands) that Speaker ZEGS will try to strong arm his caucus into voting on the Senate Bill as is, without going to conference committ—BWA HA HA HO HO HO HEE HEE HEH heh heh urp okay. Sorry. I lost my train of thought there just imagining the impossibility of the weakest Speaker in history managing to strong arm anybody to do anything.

I’m sure Ryan will try, and he will get laughed off the stage, in part by the House Rs who think the Senate Bill is NOT CRUEL ENOUGH.

So it is 99 44/100% certain that, before POTUS can sign it, BOTH THE HOUSE AND SENATE HAVE TO VOTE ON THE BILL AGAIN.

That’s our chance.

The House almost certainly will not be able to vote again on Monday, unless we see the unlikely scenario above of Ryan getting the House to just accept the Senate bill without question. They are more likely to just create the Conference Committee and kick the can down the road a bit.

At a minimum we have until Tuesday before the House votes voting on the conference committee compromise version.

But it may take longer than that because, in case you hadn’t noticed, the Republicon party is having a bit of internal strife. They are having trouble playing in the sandbox with one another. They’ve been taught for decades that compromise is a dirty word, so it will be hard for them to compromise.

Last but not least, EVERY SEAT in the House of Representatives is up for re-election in 2018. So any R voting for this knows s/he may face *very* angry voters in less than a year.

If they get public push-back, they may start to get nervous. They may start to worry that some no-name who has never run for office before will decide to primary them over their vote on the tax bill. Or some no-name Democrat who has never run for office before will keep them from running unopposed and make them fight for a seat they expected to be a cakewalk.

So step one is to put the pressure on House members.

Democrats tried to postpone the Senate vote until Monday, so they would have a chance to read what was in the bill. The postponement was voted down, but that may work in our favor, because now every horrible thing we find in the bill as we read it over the weekend can be laid right at the feet of Republicons.

We spend the weekend letting redvoters and purplevoters know: “there are things in the bill that will HURT you and people you care about.”

Know your audience. Some people will respond better to the news of Medicare cuts, others will react to the cuts to rural hospitals. Some will be upset that students can no longer deduct the interest payments on their student loans. Others will wonder why they can no longer deduct the cost of tax preparation.

Most of all tell them--they aren’t getting a tax cut. The bottom tax bracket is going UP. The bulk of the financial benefit goes to just a few thousand people who will benefit from the end of the estate tax, and to corporations. And their tax benefits disappear slowly over ten years, but the corporate tax breaks don’t disappear over ten years.

Tell them corporations are making record profits and have not created jobs. Giving them more money will not make them create jobs. Tell them DEMAND CREATES JOBS—money coming in at the bottom always gets spent and floats up—money at the top does not always trickle down.

Tell them: “Your Senator voted for this.”

Then tell them, “Your House Member can stop this bill. Make a phone call first thing Monday morning and ask your rep to vote NO.”

We have to be creative in using social media and subversive communication of all kinds, since we can’t depend on a focused message getting out in the MSM.

If it gets through the squabbling House, we reapply the same pressure to the Senate re-vote.

Bottom line: this bill is NOT a law yet and is NOT a sure thing.

They will gloat and celebrate a “big step forward” when in fact they have done NOTHING and still have a LONG fight ahead of them within their own party.

We should make it even more difficult for them.

When your enemy is drowning, throw him an anvil.

Republican support for assaulting teenage girls goes mainstream

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday November 30, 2017 · 2:08 PM PST

2017/11/30 · 14:08

GALLANT, AL - SEPTEMBER 26: Alabama Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore on Sassy rides to the Gallant Fire Hall to vote in today's GOP runoff election September 26, 2017 in Gallant, Alabama. Moore is running against Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) to fill Jeff Session's seat. (Photo by Hal Yeager/Getty Images) — Giddy'up. I'm riding this party all the way to the sewers!

How would you define a party that has absolutely no sense of morality? You don’t have to. Tully Borland at The Federalist has already done it for you.

Here is one thing we know and should admit from the start: in his early thirties, Moore had a penchant for dating teenagers. Apparently, this was not an uncommon occurrence during this time. In fact, this practice has a long history and is not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.

Don’t make a mistake here: Borland isn’t arguing that it’s okay for people to marry young. What he’s saying is that if you want to raise a Big Biblical family, it takes a man with some experience to plow those inviting teenage fields.

To have a large family, the wife must start having kids when she is young. The husband needs to be well-established and able to support the family, in which case he will typically need to marry when older.

Not that he would approve of Moore screwing his teenage daughter.

I have a 14-year-old daughter. If I caught Roy Moore doing what was alleged, for starters I would kick him where it counts. That said, I don’t think it’s wrong to vote for Moore.

But your teenage daughter? He’s okay with that.

teacherken

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 26, 2017 · 9:39 AM PST

2017/11/26 · 09:39

It has been said that Newt Gingrich is “a dumb person’s idea of a smart person.” Who coined that phrase is a matter of scholarly dispute, but there is broad agreement that the sentiment is applicable. I will go further and say this characteristic of Newt’s is not just a personal foible; it establishes a model for Republican politicians and operatives since his time in Congress.

That is the opening paragraph of Republican Experts, a piece at Moyers & company by Mike Lofgren, a retired, long-time Congressional Republican staffer.

This is a piece well worth reading. I missed it when it first went up on November 18, and encountered yesterday as the result of a tweet.

Lofgren not only takes apart Gingrich, he does so as well with the likes of Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, as well as a number of key “experts” who have been a part of Trump’s team, such at former Deputy National Security Adviser K. T. McFarland (now ambassador to Singapore) and supposed terrorism expert “Dr.” Sebastian Gorka. The details he gives about all these folks are delicious.

He is especially harsh on former Marine General John Kelly, now the White House Chief of Staff, taking us through not only some of his weirder remarks in his current position, and his failings that should now be obvious after Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands during his tenure at Homeland Security, but even during his military service when he was the head of Southern Command:

Lying and bullying are not necessarily signs of professional incompetence, but what about Kelly’s own expertise? When he was commander of the US Southern Command, he publicly stated that the border area where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet is a training ground for Hezbollah, a wacky belief out of the right-wing paranoia factories. With the existence of very real national security threats and the need to prioritize them, do we really need government officials who fall for such stuff?

Lofgren is especially harsh on the Republican approach to science. This section is rich, and should be unsurprising to anyone who regularly reads this site. He takes us through some of the denials offered by a Republican staffer on the effects of Agent Orange, and before he transitions to details about some of the “science” appointees of Trump (like Sam Clovis) he offers this paragraph:

A decade later, Republican science policy has progressed to the point where, as a matter of routine, studies are quashed, scientists purged, and policies resembling a voodoo spell promulgated. To justify ridding its boards of scientists who ever received a grant from the EPA and replacing them with industry-friendly shills, administrator Scott Pruitt referenced the Book of Joshua for support.

The last section of his piece is Lofgren’s attempt to explain how this happened. He reminds us that there was a history of Republican Presidents from Lincoln through TR to Ike who supported education including science and technology endeavors (unlike the current Senate Republicans who seem in their proposed tax legislation to destroy wealthier universities and undercut graduate education). Heck, he could even have included Nixon as a Republican President more supportive of science and knowledge than either the current Congressional Republicans or the Trump administration.

It is the final three paragraphs of the piece that most caught my attention. The first of these reads as follows:

That said, the GOP did not conjure the current national receptivity to alternative facts out of thin air. They are taking advantage of one of the periodic waves of anti-intellectualism that have swept the popular mind since the days of the Salem witch trials. The present wave began with the rise of politicized Christian fundamentalism in the 1970s. Some reckoned that the tide was ebbing with the election of Barack Obama, but that was clearly a false dawn.

I can remember in the 1950s attacks on Adlai Stevenson for being an intellectual. In recent years we have seen attempts to ban the teaching of evolution, drop evolution from state standards for biology, require teaching of Creation Science or of its substitute “Intelligent Design” (the last of these failing in a case in Pennsylvania where George W. Bush appointed Federal District Judge John Jones totally destroyed the argument in his opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover Independent School District.

The penultimate paragraph reminds us that what we get in places like Congress are the results of votes by the American people, whose attitudes on science are often less than intelligent:

It is all very well to wax indignant over Republican politicians who routinely lie about the most elementary facts and denounce scientific consensus as a hoax. But they are routinely re-elected by an American population whose attitudes on evolutionary biology are closer to those in Turkey than in developed Western democracies, and who also believe in the paranormal, and in angels and the demonic.

Finally, Lofgren closes by reminding us that the issue was one of which the Founders were aware, at least in part, as one can see by whom he quotes in this final paragraph:

e implications of mass ignorance were well known to the framers of the Constitution. In 1822, James Madison wrote, “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Public schools that well educate the population accurately on science — and economics, and politics, and history — represent a real threat to the way too many in the party of the Elephant seek to obtain and hold power.

But let’s not kid ourselves. We have a substantial portion of our population that is willing to reject learning of any kind if it threatens the views on which their approach to life is based, that they hear regularly from their pulpits, from people who claim to be Christian and yet whose knowledge of either the Hebrew or Christian Scripture is often highly selective and based on less than completely accurate translations.

The piece is worth reading, hence this post to call your attention to it.

Congresswoman delivers powerful blow to Republicans—forcing them to expose their GOP Tax ‘Scam’

Leslie Salzillo

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 10, 2017 · 6:49 PM PST

2017/11/10 · 18:49

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (D-Wash) remarkably exposes the GOP Tax “Scam” this week while triumphantly leaving Republicans no choice but to admit their self-serving agenda. Here is Delbene’s most recent facebook lede above the video.

Does the #GOPTaxPlan treat corporations and individuals the same in terms of who gets to keep deductions and who doesn’t? Nope, not even close.

And here is a lede, more in depth, from an earlier post.

The #GOPTaxScam eliminates deductions used by students, families and seniors, yet maintains the same deductions for corporations. What’s worse, while the wealthiest receive most of the tax cuts in this plan, some #middleclass families could see their taxes increase. Sadly, my Republican colleagues chose not to listen to the hardworking Americans who are just looking for a little fairness and relief in our #taxcode. Instead, they voted for tax cuts for corporations, adding trillions to the deficit, paid for on the backs of future generations.

Below is the CSPAN short video, which is just over two minutes.

Facebook Content

Below is one excerpt from the video.

DelBene: A few questions: Will a teacher in my district who buys pens, pencils, paper for his students be able to deduct these costs from his tax returns under this plan?

GOP: Uh, HR 1 would repeal the above the line deduction for teacher expenses.

DelBene: Will a corporation that buys pens, pencils and papers for its workers be able to deduct those costs from its tax returns under this plan?

GOP: Uh, the general deduction for ordinary and necessary business expenses by any business entity is not changed. So, it need not be…

DelBene: So they would.

Yes, they would. Simply put, under the new GOP plan, corporations would be able to deduct business expenses, yet teachers who continue to be underpaid and who are sometimes the biggest influence in a child’s life—will simply have to eat the expenses he/she incurs in order to help educate our children.

Delbene delivers the same type of inquiry as it would pertain to firefighters and homeowners and she gets the same type of response.

The GOP can spin their deal however they wish, but the Republican tax plan will once again benefit the rich and take away from those most in need.

Thank you to Congresswoman Suzan Delbene. And thank you to all Democrats who continue to push for the people and expose the GOP, knowing Republicans have the majority and continue to kick the less advantaged in order to quench their unquenchable greed. And this will change.

You can visit Suzan Delbene on Facebook or email the Congresswoman via her website.

And we march on...

Newer
Older

RSS

House Democrats formally introduce ACA 2.0 (to tide things over until M4A/MEFA)!

Cults, Cons and how to talk to someone in the conservative bubble

If This Be Civil Disobedience … Make The Most Of It.

Former AG Sally Yates Pens a Warning Today: "[S]tand Up. Speak Out."

What I learned from the Ohio newspaper editor who endorsed Donald Trump should scare all liberals

How white evangelicals are okay with voting for sexual predators like Moore and Trump

GOP turns to decades-old lies to sell new tax scam

Teacher-turned-congressman hilariously grades Mitch McConnell's tax scam pitch to voters: FAIL

Civics 101—Republicons applauded like they did something, but this is NOT OVER: NEXT STEPS HERE

Republican support for assaulting teenage girls goes mainstream

A Republican on "Republican Experts"

Congresswoman delivers powerful blow to Republicans—forcing them to expose their GOP Tax ‘Scam’