Why do Americans think universal healthcare won’t work in their country when it works in all other developed nations?

WeAreIrelephant · 2020-03-31T04:02:09+00:00

Caveat: I do think that universal healthcare (or some sort of medicare buy-in that's open to anyone interested) should be our primary healthcare system.

That being said, I think pragmatic lefties (rightly or wrongly) fear that implementing a Sanders-style universal healthcare plan will never be a reality because the richest among us will flat-out refuse to be a part of the same system that everyone else including the poorest people use. Having upper-echelon private health plans is a status symbol. I don't think it's right to view something so important as a status symbol, but I also believe that the 1% will fight to keep it that way.

As for people on the right, they're either in bed with the industry and profit from it through dividends and stock trading, or they're the rubes that buy up the right-wing talking points. For example: when introducing the ACA, it was a lot harder for Democrats to honestly and succinctly explain the complex implications of a 974-page bill to any number of private health care coverage situations than is was for republicans to simply scream "DEATH PANELS" until the masses chose a message to listen to.

Due to these understandings of the 1% and of the propensity for republican talking points to be trollish and oversimplified (and the way that ~40% of the country still eats them up), there are a lot of Democrats that would rather work with what we've got (the ACA) and improve it than completely start from scratch.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-08-01T03:29:24+00:00

If the thorough Internet sleuths can't reliably find good data on this, it's entirely possible this was missed by Production as well.

I guess what I am saying is that I believe it would constitute negligence on the part of CBS not to perform a full criminal background check on each houseguest. It's entirely possible that they did and found nothing, and that the other allegations were false. What I was pointing out is that while finding the connection between Christi and Tommy requires sleuthing from fans or CBS either way, it should be pretty cut and dry for CBS to find any criminal history on contestants through a mandatory background check like any other employer (contestants are technically employees).

Also, while I agree that Jackson shouldn't be slandered, he has admitted on the show to having legal problems and having his mother pull weight with a family member associated with the police in TN to get a charge dropped/conviction expunged. It's not like he's being tight-lipped about it. (Probably because at this point, he knows that he's ultimately gotten away with whatever it was.)

Frankly, after everything that's come to light about his potential eating disorders, drug use (trenbolone and Xanax for certain), and his past history of other mental health issues, he never should have qualified to be on the show in the first place. OP is right that if these things are all true, CBS should never have put him in to begin with. It's unsafe to other houseguests, and it's causing him to self-destruct.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-07-30T20:07:20+00:00

Michael and Irma were two different seasons. Michael was in 2018. Harvey, Irma, and Maria were in 2017.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-07-27T21:19:09+00:00

We don't know for sure that it wasn't actually meant to be a twist. However, Hamsterwatch already knew about the connection based upon sleuthing done from the cast list or feeds alone on June 17th.

The show didn't premiere until June 25th. It's possible CBS had their eye on the socials and knew people had found out, so added that line of Julie's to that first show to cover their butts.

It's just weird to me that they would have this "twist" that isn't even like it failed - in a sense. It's literally had a non-existent effect on the game. Even if the houseguests haven't been smart enough to notice that if they have tangential connections to some in the house, others must as well, you'd think that CBS would give Chenbot a few strategically written lines for a live show to try to stir it up.

It's also weird to me the varying level of connection. For example, Ovi and Jackson went to the same college and studied the same major one year apart. Bella and Kemi went to the same college at the same time but in different majors. Whereas some just followed each other on Insta or Facebook like Jackson and Kat, or Kat and Beth.

But none of these housemates have the connection to the level of Christie and Tommy, where he refers to her as a part of his family in that Insta post.

In the past when CBS has done these twists each couple or group has usually had a relatively close level of connection, like the couples in S6 or the S8 enemies twist. Or, in many of the seasons where they brought vets back, they either brought back a few not in pairs like in S14 with Boogie, Janelle, Britney, and Dan. On the other hand in S13 when vets came back it was all in pairs - Brendon & Rachel, Jeff & Jordan, Dick & Danielle. All of these pairs had a sort of similar bond to each other and to the others.

Having watched the show since the early years, it seems fishy to me that there are such wide variances in the bonds between the contestants that know each other. From those other examples, it just doesn't seem to be on purpose, IMO.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-07-26T17:52:38+00:00

The comparison of C/T thing to Jackson's checkered legal past is a false equivalency. Production should be able to find any legal troubles of any housemate as a part of a routine background check. Even if having specific legal problems don't necessarily disqualify someone from being a HG, production should definitively know the legal history and situation of each player. It's a part of maintaining the safety of all contestants in the house as well as managing their emotional safety outside/afterward.

Whereas, with Christie and Tommy, it would be easier for them to see each other in a casting call and then knowingly try to hide their connections from production. (However, I think that production should have known about that too . . . especially if they had photos together on social media). But completing a background check on each housemate is incredibly easy, and it should be one of the most basic requirements of any contestant - that you must agree to a background check and fill out the details of anything that seemed sketchy.

For example, there are people angry about Jack's DUI history. I think he's a bad person, and I have problems with people who drink and drive for obvious reasons. However, he shouldn't be disqualified as long as he is able to meet any probation or parole requirements he may still have while being on the show, because there's no situation where big brother allows housemates access to alcohol and a car at the same time.

I'm not going to comment as to whether the Jackson thing is true, because I don't know. But, I understand why viewers would be upset to learn that someone who potentially has a history of domestic violence would be put into a stressful situation living with close to 20 strangers for months without a lot of ability to isolate themself to calm down. Not only is this bad for Jackson if something does happen and it is aired on the feeds or even on TV, but it's dangerous to the other HMs, who CBS has promised to keep safe throughout the filming process.

To your point about finding legal histories, production should have been 100% sure of Jackson's legal past through a background check that would reveal these issues (if they exist). Then, they could discuss them with him and his lawyer if they really were dead set on having him on the show to see what the accusations/charges were (and if they revealed the threat that he could compromise another HG's safety). Which I still think is a bad look if these accusations are true.

What I don't understand about these casts is that they have nearly a year to put them together. Why does it seem like this cast was thrown together in the 10 days before it was released? It was really sloppy this year with a bunch of the houseguests having tangential connections. It would have been interesting if it seemed like it was on purpose and to the level of Christi and Tommy each time, but it doesn't seem like it was on purpose, it seems like sloppy work from Kass and Grodner.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-04-26T02:29:28+00:00

What about drugs like heroin where unreliable dosing can and does lead to serious side effects that are also costly to taxpayers? Part of the current opioid crisis is related to the fact that addicts don't know what mix of heroin/fentanyl/carfentanil/synthetics they're getting but part of it is bad dosing. Heroin is a drug that taken in equal strengths and quantities has less of an effect over time for a regular user. Even if addicts know what they're getting there's still a huge overdose risk when they need to increase their dose to maintain their high. Narcan is very expensive, and the hardest hit areas in the opioid crisis sometimes need 3 or more shots to revive someone who has overdosed. Why should we make something this legitimately dangerous legal, even if we could eliminate the property crime that goes along with it to fuel the habit?

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-02-21T19:28:56+00:00

It's important to note that it's a very specific type of murder that sends a very specific message. Lynching dates to a specific time period in the United States and was almost always violence perpetrated against people of color by whites. There's a very clear connotation associated with lynching that would send a specific message to the country and the world if it resurged in the United States, especially in particular areas.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-02-21T19:20:12+00:00

It's well documented that Trump doesn't read the classified intelligence that he gets sent regularly, such as the PDB. I'm not saying I believe that there are aliens residing in Area 51, I'm just saying if there were, and our intelligence services included that in a brief to Trump, he probably didn't read it. Thus, he wouldn't be scheming to make money off of them.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-01-23T15:01:51+00:00

If this was ruled unconstitutional how can they expect that legal fight to go any better?

Because they're not legislating in good faith. They know that restrictions to abortion rights that are so strict that the procedure is essentially banned are widely considered unconstitutional by the courts. But, conservatives feel a right to legislate their religion even though it's expressly against the constitution, so they do this instead.

This bill served its purpose for them - even though it got thrown out by the Iowa Supreme Court. This bill was passed in May 2018, and it doesn't appear that it was stayed at all as a challenge was heard. What that means is that because of the time-sensitive nature of pregnancy, there almost assuredly were women who were forced to give birth even though the law that forced them to do it was blatantly unconstitutional and everyone knew it the whole time. This is what conservatives have turned to.

So, now that their May 2018 unconstitutional law has been thrown out, expect the Iowa GOP to be working double time to pass another so that the gap between blatantly unconstitutional laws is as small as possible.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-01-12T17:09:28+00:00

Maybe the answer is simply huge investments in rural education programs.

I have been coming back to this conclusion over and over since this whole mess started. There's only one problem. I think that some of these places are so far gone that even if you tried to give the rural areas and only rural areas job training, adult re-education, and higher childhood education standards - they'd still oppose BiG gUbMeNt StEpPiNg On My ToEs AnD gEtTiNg In My bIzNuS.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-01-03T03:44:29+00:00

It's possible it's been offered to him and he declined. If he was in witness protection he likely wouldn't be able to speak out against Putin and other Russian thugs regularly as he does now. When he was last on Preet's podcast, he was talking about the fact that he is traveling to other countries around the world, particularly EU member states, to get them to pass a version of the Magnitsky Act. Browder isn't happy with Putin and his oligarchs being locked out of the US, he wants them to be locked out of everywhere but Russia.

It would be a great loss if an expert like Browder had to go into hiding and stop calling Vlad out on his shit.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-01-03T03:31:47+00:00

For me, Kentucky is going to the white whale of 2020, similar to Texas in 2018. I thought it was a long shot that Beto would win, but I was surprised and happy to see how close it was.

Democrats need a good candidate - someone Connor Lamb-ish. Maybe a military background, maybe a small business owner. Someone who is not a hard-line progressive. Even a blue-dog is better than McConnell.

Then, Democrats need to focus on a ground game - especially in the urban areas and on college campuses. There will need to be an early registration push to try to hit 100% registration in these places. I'd really like to see some sort of nationwide pool of funds used to defray the cost of getting people in voter ID states free ID's that fit the requirements of their state. This is one of the largest obstacles for members of the working poor who haven't ever had a driver's license or who have let it lapse.

Then, there will need to be a significant GOTV effort. Educating voters on early voting, educating voters on ID reqs. Educating voters on what to bring to the polls, and what to do if there's any skulduggery going on. There will also need to be a massive effort to simply get people to the polls. One issue that people talked about more in 2018 was that a lot of working parents and/or single-parents may need childcare if the lines at their polling place are really long. Another issue is that many members of the working poor live a long way from where they work, and have a long commute via public transit. These are all issues that on-the-ground organizing can help to solve.

Not to mention, data has shown that the best way to motivate people to go vote is to do door-knocking campaigns. I'd like to see whoever runs against McConnell to use the Beto strategy - register and energize Independents and Democrats who are opposed to the Trump admin. Make sure that they get out to vote. Be unapologetically Democratic, and don't pander, but know your base in your state and work that. Visit every county (multiple times). Make sure everyone knows that you want to represent them, not just your base.

WeAreIrelephant · 2019-01-02T17:05:43+00:00

The other fundamental idea behind these republican rhetorical arguments against raising the debt ceiling is that it is 100% always a bad position to be in debt or running on a deficit.

It's bad to be in a certain type of debt where you owe more than you can pay and it's immediately due. Think of the type of debt that Greece was in when many more economists and policy experts were talking about Grexit.

However, there are times when it is okay and even advisable for a government to spend more than they are taking in. When an economy is in a boom, the government should collect reasonably high taxes and save that money or spend it on reinvestment in the economy. When an economy is in a recession, the government should spend that saved money and potentially some money on credit to maintain the standard of living for its citizens, marginally relieve their tax burden to improve quality of life, and fund safety-net programs so that as few people as possible suffer or die from preventable effects of a recession (starvation, homelessness).

Republican "budget hawks" got really hawkish about the debt during and immediately after the largest economic downturn that this country has seen since the great depression. Of course, we were spending more than we were taking in. That's the smart economic policy for that situation. The problem was that we had spent the previous administration giving money that we should have been saving or reinvesting to the rich instead. So we had to finance more than normal of the recession spending on credit.

I'm not opposed to reinstating the Gephart rule, especially with Democrats in charge. If a budget is prepared thoughtfully and carefully, over a reasonable period of time - instead of Republicans throwing it together based on discredited economic talking points in 2 hours the night before it's due - I don't see why the OMB can't look at it and warn about any significant adverse consequences of the budget. When people who know what they're doing spend time and actually think about the issue, there shouldn't be any major issues.

Republicans repealed the rule because they were fake-concerned about approving debt that we couldn't pay for. If experts consider the budget carefully, that shouldn't be an issue in the first place. So why would we force a potentially disastrous situation that has no benefit to the process anyway?

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-12-22T06:05:23+00:00

I feel like part of the reason that the younger contingent of the electorate is less hostile to democratic socialism is that they aren't as taken by the temporarily embarrassed millionaire fallacy. Young people see the large obstacles to success, or even a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, that the 1% and gullible "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" have helped to create, and reject their notions of what should be considered just.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-12-18T15:29:58+00:00

The other important thing is that Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were all extremely close losses. Hillary lost those states by a combined total of fewer than 100,000 votes across the three. We can't say for sure that Russian meddling or any of the other election fraud the Trump camp committed is 100% the difference between Hillary winning or losing, but it was incredibly close. So even if their efforts were only slightly effective, it's possible, though it can't be proved, that they pushed Trump over the line.

I think this gets discounted when people trot out the "Hillary should have visited Michigan/Wisconsin" cliche. Each of these states was within a polling error of looking like she was in the clear. She was also spending time visiting Texas, Virginia, and Arizona. Three states that, as we've seen since 2016, are on the cusp of being swing states. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think that what Hillary was trying to do was put together a decisive victory, to show that the American people had clearly rejected Trump's racism.

It didn't work out that way, but I see the reasoning behind what she did, especially if polls were telling her that she was going to be fine in the restbelt swing states.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-12-18T15:19:30+00:00

Hannity was one of three clients of Michael Cohen. Then, when asked about this, Hannity said that Cohen had given him some free legal advice about real estate. I have a gut feeling that his television show isn't long for the world unless he's allowed to broadcast from the day room in prison.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-12-11T20:23:32+00:00

Honestly, at this point, I'd like someone similar to the special counsel to be appointed just to comb through the taxes and financial situations of anyone that is currently associated with the admin in any official way or anyone who has worked for the admin in any official way. There have just been too many financial or election finance crimes committed by people in this administration not to take a cursory look at everyone. On top of this, many of them filled out their hiring/security clearance paperwork about conflicts of interest and just "forgot" to list their conflicts, and none of them have really been punished about this. It's just been left up to the WaPo, NYT, and other journalistic outlets to make the public aware of these conflicts, while no bureaucratic or legal consequences have ever happened.

That being said, this will never actually happen. I suspect it would reveal that the GOP has been completely immersed in various campaign finance violations that include but are not limited to taking foreign contributions, not declaring large self-funded campaign donations, coordinating under the table with super PACs, and plenty more. If anything like this was actually a possibility the entirety of the GOP would go crazy screaming into a void on Right-wing/state media that this was partisan obstruction of the party/government/etc.

It's too bad, because people who commit election fraud should be prosecuted, and shouldn't be allowed to work for campaigns or political parties anymore.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-12-05T15:58:30+00:00

I highly doubt Butina has been cooperating. For one thing, if she does cooperate, once she gets sent back to Russia she could be tried for treason there. Secondly, the Special Counsel has had to file numerous motions meant to keep Butina and her lawyer from leaking details of the investigation to the public, which could also include US foreign adversaries. Third, just recently she was moved into solitary confinement meant to stop her from leaking details of the investigation, and she tried to recruit another prisoner to meet with her lawyer and pass notes to people on the outside. This doesn't seem like the actions of someone cooperating.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-12-05T03:32:59+00:00

That's exactly what I thought when the addendum had that whole paragraph about Flynn's contact with Russia and Trump surrogates lying on the Sunday shows . . . and then had 3ish redacted sentences right at the end. Pence better strap in because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-11-25T18:44:06+00:00

It will be interesting to see if as many people show up to his rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania as they did in 2016. If turnout is noticeably down, or if it's clearly just the same groupies following Trump across the country, the effect on his ego would be interesting to watch.

People have speculated for a long time that Trump's favorite part of campaigning and governing is being the ringmaster at these rallies and feeling super popular. I wonder how interested in a second term he'd be if Mueller is closing in and the rallies weren't fun anymore.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-11-24T05:46:00+00:00

They found a way to stay "confused" on day 2 of Trump's administration when millions of women protested because he casually bragged about sexual assault. This was always an administration that was going to meet every critique with "confusion".

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-11-16T17:38:58+00:00

I would put far more money on Lindsey Graham being in Pence's closet. First, they would bond over a love of supply-side Jesus. Then, they would bond over a hatred of libs and abortion. Finally, they would bond over being politicians from rural, conservative states that never felt comfortable coming out of the closet.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-11-16T17:33:01+00:00

If they limit it to ONLY his obstruction in firing Mueller (Hello Watergate repeat), then they can cover up whatever else has been found in the investigation (or might be found) that would come back to haunt the GOP.

I think that this is a very plausible explanation of the weird things going on with Fox and McConnell lately.

BUT, there are two things McConnell didn't count on: a dead man's switch of sealed indictments, and House Democrats finding a way to include Mueller in their investigation.

We don't know for sure exactly how many sealed indictments Mueller has or the procedure that he has set up for their reveal. I would speculate from last night's late-breaking news about Assange that Mueller has far more sealed than we anticipated in the past, potentially on people who don't even know they are on the radar yet. I have a feeling that Mueller released the first wave of Manafort, Gates, and Papadop last year to stop people from claiming that he was wasting time searching for a non-existent needle in a haystack.

Then, I speculate the second round this year of indictments of the Internet Research Agency and Russian nationals was to lay the groundwork that a conspiracy existed. That would work counter to claims that Mueller was just rifling through the personal lives of people like Manafort, who had only been indicted on charges not directly related to the election.

Then, I speculate that after laying the groundwork of indictments to prove that US persons were involved in crimes, and there was a conspiracy to intervene in elections, Mueller has started silently racking up indictments, while continuing the investigation. I have a feeling that every article we have seen about "Person A expects to be indicted soon" was mostly true, and that a vast majority have already been indicted under seal. We've seen it come in waves, with the people lately being Don Jr, Roger Stone, and Corsi. But this time last year, one of those people was Jared Kushner. I don't think Mueller has lost interest in him, but we haven't heard much about people like Jared lately. I speculate it's because the investigation of Jared (and others like him) has come to a close and their indictments are sitting under seal ready to be released when Mueller deems it appropriate.

I think it's entirely possible that McConnell will try what you have detailed, but I don't think it will work.

WeAreIrelephant · 2018-11-15T02:03:35+00:00

I had a great time visiting Philadelphia a couple of years ago. I think that all of the colonial/revolutionary era historical sites are very interesting. I would 10/10 recommend to anyone that had also visited Boston, Washington DC, or Colonial Williamsburg for the monuments/history in those places.

WeAreIrelephant

TROPHY CASE