John Ridley Brings It With LET IT FALL

Feeling Rebloggy

Produced in partnership with ABC News’ Lincoln Square Productions,[the documentary] “Let It Fall” delves beyond the conflicts between law enforcement and the black community to look at tensions across the city as a whole; it traces the roots of the civil unrest to a decade before the [Rodney King Shooting and The Los Angeles] Uprising.

The documentary features exclusive interviews with eyewitnesses and people directly involved in the events from diverse neighborhoods across the city, including black, white, Hispanic, Korean, and Japanese Americans.

A team of veteran ABC News journalists join John Ridley (Producer/Writer: AMERICAN CRIME (ABC); 12 YEARS A SLAVE) in the production of “Let It Fall,” led by producer Jeanmarie Condon, who has been honored for her work on documentaries and in-depth coverage of current events with multiple DuPont, Peabody, Murrow, and Emmy Awards.

Read More:  
http://shadowandact.com/2017/03/27/explosive-first-trailer-for-john-ridleys-let-it-fall-los-angeles-1982-1992-oscar-contender/

Rumor has it Ridley is hot on DuVernay's heels. This too should be an Oscar contender.
See the preview below.

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ERIC GARNER'S MURDER HAS GOTTEN A 14% PAY RAISE SINCE THE MURDER

Feeling Rebloggy 

 A REPOST

On July 17, 2014, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo choked Eric Garner to death for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. It was a hold that had been outlawed by the NYPD.

On December 3, 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo.

Before he put Garner in the chokehold, he had seven disciplinary complaints and 14 individual allegations lodged against him.

• A ThinkProgress analysis of available CCRB data found that only 1,750 current NYPD officers — or around 4.9 percent of the force — have received eight or more complaints, as Pantaleo has.

No matter the disposition of the charges, if as officer gets three complaints in a year, they are supposed to be on performance monitoring. Pantaleo received three complaints in the course of two months in 2012.”

In December 2015, the NYPD completed its internal investigation, but would not take disciplinary action until the Justice Department completes its own probe, which continues. As of September 2016, Pantaleo was on desk duty without a firearm. Awaiting his fate, he received a raise last year. His 2016 salary was $119,996 — a 14 percent increase from what he was making when he killed Garner 

.

An employee of the Civilian Complaint Review Board leaked Panaleo's records; [that] employee was forced to resign.

The head of the Justice Department is America's top cop, the Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for a reasonable outcome from the Department of Justice.

https://thinkprogress.org/daniel-pantaleo-records-75833e6168f3#.qh3eeg8b2

CHINESE UPRISING IN PARIS OVER POLICE SHOOTING

Feeling Rebloggy

ON THE DEATH OF SHAOYO LIU IN  PARIS, FRANCE

“He had scissors because he was scaling the fish, he was preparing dinner,” [Attorney Calvin] Job said. “The police opened the door and the first policeman opened fire without warning. One of his daughters said it happened within two seconds. And she says her father did not touch the police."

Source: http://nextshark.com/shaoyo-liu-shot-in-paris-home-riots-chinese-community-france/ 

The Chinese community in Paris is demanding answers. There have been protests for two days in a row, some of them reportedly growing violent

Violent clashes have broken out in Paris between riot police and protesters angry at the police killing of a Chinese man in his own home. Three police officers were injured and 35 demonstrators arrested, the French authorities said on Tuesday.

Shaoyo Liu, 56, was allegedly shot in front of his children while he was cutting up fish. Police say the officer involved in a raid on the property on Sunday fired in self-defence after Liu wounded an officer with a “bladed weapon”.

Liu’s family says it “totally disputes” this account. His daughter told French journalists her father spoke little French and had been at the door of their home holding a pair of scissors that he had been using to descale fish for the family dinner.

THE GUARDIAN

Read More

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/28/police-and-protesters-clash-in-paris-over-death-of-chinese-man

See More

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39416804

CHANEL DICKERSON MAKES SURE MISSING BLACK GIRLS MATTER

Until a few weeks ago Relisha Rudd, the little black girl who disappeared three years ago this month, was the lone black girl on a Washington D.C. Police website for the missing. Now the site has 38 people on the website, mostly black and latino girls. 

Relisha Rudd

The D.C. Police website was updated properly due to a black police commander named Chanel Dickerson deciding that all missing people should receive the same level of police service and media attention. She is the one that made sure that the D.C. police website for critical missings was updated. 

This is also when a pattern emerged showing black and brown teens were prevalent among the missing, mostly girls. Shortly thereafter citizens in the D.C. area noticed a dozen black girls and latinas go missing all at once, within a few short weeks.

Black and brown residents were horrified as it became apparent that white dominated police and white dominated press were not responding to the disappearances of several black and brown girls the same way they do to missing white women. In fact, some football jersey got more coverage than the disappearance of these missing black and brown teens

Trust me. This is not how white women's disappearances are handled. In fact, the dearly missed Gwen Ifill coined the term Missing White Woman Syndrome to describe the response of white run police departments and white run news outlets to one missing white woman.

Since these missing black and brown girls have gotten media attention, the D.C. police said there has not been a spike in black and brown girls going missing. And they've gone further to say that most of the missing girls on the website have been determined to have "walked away."

I'm trying to figure out how you know somebody "walked away" if they're still missing on listed on the website. That is, how can you know somebody walked away for sure unless you've found them?

And I wonder if it matters when somebody 12 to 18 years of age walks away. The 12, 13, an 14 year old cannot take care of themselves no matter where they walked away to. Furthermore, white women who "walked away" with men at bars that weren't even in this country when they did so get a huge police presence and full court press from the media.  

This probably means that the Washington Police still have a problem with how and when they list girls among the critical missing, especially if they are black or brown. 

When white girls go missing, they are assumed to be critically missing or assumed that some foul play might be involved until they are found. I seriously doubt there's a missing persons board in any state in the nation with photos STILL UP ON missing person's boards that are assumed to have "walked away."

So, I'm wondering if skin color is the main thing used to determine that black and brown girls just "walked away" -- and therefore not worthy of an Amber Alert. 

America's 

Missing

Broadcast

Emergency
Response

Being female, while also black and brown, likely also has an effect on police not taking some of the missing seriously. White girls being considered innocent and fragile (race and gender stereotypes meet) leads to no stone being left un-turned. Black and brown girls being seen as anything but innocent and fragile while also stereotypically flighty and hot-tempered are more likely to be listed as "runaways."

The ever present twin supremacies, white supremacy and male supremacy, are probably behind the missing Amber Alerts.

The black and brown girls missing in Washington D.C. remind me of how missing black women were treated on the opposite coast. 

At the front end of THE GRIM SLEEPER case dozens of black and brown women disappeared while the police did little or nothing.  Behavior similar to that of the D.C. police department is, no doubt, what allowed relatively recently convicted serial killer, Lonnie Franklin to hunt down and kill dozens if not a couple hundred black women and black girls over a twenty year period -- all within a tiny section of Los Angeles.

Still, it could be police are right this time. It could be the girls on the D.C. Police Website "walked away" and are properly characterized as runaways. But we shouldn't take white run police departments word for it.  Ever.

If a photo stays up on their missing websites for so long, the residents in any given area should be putting police feet to the fire. 

The citizens in the area need to find a way to make sure police do not characterize black and brown girls as runaways until the girl has either been

(1) contacted,
(2) returned,
(3) or the police have a witness willing to provide a written statement that the girl ran away.

If the police have any one of those three things, then the photo should come off the website, right? This seems obvious to me.

If not, then an Amber Alert should be issued just like it is for white people, just as fast as it is for white females.

Read, See, and Hear More:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/search-underway-missing-teen-girls-washington-dc-46345200

BLACK WOMEN 

MAKE SURE 

BLACK WOMEN MATTER

Chanel Dickerson deserves our thanks.

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STOCK MARKETS TUMBLE AS TRUMPS REPEAL AND REPEAL STUMBLES

Repeal and Replace was always a joke the republicans planned to play on their constituents. The GOP wanted to Repeal and Repeal and Repeal Obamacare so they could get 600 million to 1 trillion dollars in taxes back to the one-percent or at least back to where that money would do the one percent some good.

The stock market stumbling is how you know The One Percenter's Agenda has actually taken a hit. 

Feeling Rebloggy 

Headline
Stocks tumble as doubts over Trump’s agenda build

U.S. stocks fell on Monday, extending the market’s recent weakness as investors reassessed the prospects for President Donald Trump’s ambitious economic agenda after a Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare was scrapped last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.29%  lost 104 points, or 0.5%, to 20,493. The DJIA has finished lower for seven consecutive sessions. An eighth straight loss Monday would mark the longest losing streak for the blue-chip average since August 2011.

Read: These 5 charts show how Trump’s health-care flop is hitting markets

Read More:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-slide-more-than-150-points-as-doubts-over-trumps-agenda-build-2017-03-27

The stock market may recover shortly. But if Trump's agenda takes repeated hits, it'll stay down for a while.  If the democrats have any sense, and that's doubtful most days, there should be some corresponding benefits for the middle class and especially the poor. 

The first thing the democrats need to do is fix Obamacare while showing DJ the Chump for the unAmerican coward that he is. His hoping that Obamacare implodes leaving millions without healthcare is unacceptable.

Male MARINES UNITED To Protect Themselves And Only Themselves

A repost
MARINES UNITED was the name of a facebook page that male marines used to prove they have no honor and that they only only respect and protect other male marines, leaving female marines to fend for themselves.

"Marines United" was the name of a now-defunct men only facebook page where United States Marines shared nude photos of women without the women's consent. Apparently the photos were hacked from various places the individual women owned or boyfriends own.There were also nude and suggestive photos of the men's ex-girlfriends that were shared in a revenge porn sort of way. 

I am not surprised, not with judges so worried about a rapist's future that he sends him to six months in jail even after he shoved a foreign object into his victim which left dirt behind.

This latest military sexual harassment scandal is just the top of a very large iceberg

Last week I was listening to a public radio broadcast where a woman said that a tag that male marines used to identify female marines is "WM" which stands for "walking mattresses." That doesn't sound like much to the average man. But it says volumes about the men in marines and how women are seen in general.

Furthermore, it's not like the military hasn't had problems over and over again with sexual harassment and sexual assault -- and not doing much about it.

PFC LaVena Johnson was in the army when she died at the hands of assailant(s) unknown but their reputation isn't much better than the Marines. Some believe the army's story that she committed suicide. But her body was so damaged, critical pieces of it missing, that it seems unlikey.

Johnson's body was sent home in 2005 after she reportedly committed suicide with a very long rifle considering the small frame she had to go along with her 5 foot 1 inch height. Suspicious, her father examined her body when it returned home only to find that his daughter's body had gloves glued on to cover severe burns-- that nobody could explain at the time. 

It took a FOIA request and a lot of time to Army to come up with a story that explained the burns -- but never the abuses her body seemed to have suffered.  A number of reporters who saw the second autopsy thought it was possible that Johnson was raped and murdered.

"Johnson's death was officially ruled a suicide by the Department of Defense.^[3] However, her father became suspicious when he saw her body in the funeral home and decided to investigate. The Army initially refused to release information, but did so under the Freedom of Information Act after Representative William Lacy Clay, Jr. raised questions about it at the congressional hearings over Pat Tillman's death.^[4]

The autopsy report and photographs revealed Johnson had a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, burns from a corrosive chemical on her genitals, and a gunshot wound that seemed inconsistent with suicide. Several reporters have suspected that the chemical burns were to destroy DNA evidence of a rape.^[2][4][5][6]

...Christopher Grey, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Criminal Investigative Command for the Army has said that the case remains closed as far as they are concerned.^[7] "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_LaVena_Johnson

http://thesource.com/2014/01/21/justice-for-lavena-johnson-raped-murdered-or-suicide-the-evidence-says-one-thing-u-s-military-says-another/

Not so long ago, during the last years of the Iraq War, a friend of mine told me that she came across a man who worked at a nearby Veteran's Hospital. They got to chatting and he told her that the news covered the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan but barely mentioned those physically maimed, mentally scarred for life, and dozens and dozens of female rape victims  -- not raped by the enemy but raped by their fellow United States Servicemen. 

So no, this latest sexual harassment accusation against thousands of male marines that were members of that MARINES UNITED facebook page is not a surprise to me

Last weekend, news broke that the Marines were investigating a stomach-churning violation of trust in the ranks: personnel were found to have shared [nude and suggestive] photos and personal information of female Marines and veterans, without their consent ― in a Facebook group with over 30,000 members. 

The photos have garnered 2,500 comments and ratings in what amounts to a breathtaking demonstration of entitlement, exercised in this case via technology. For a month, hundreds and possibly thousands of pictures of female service women have been posted and commented on. The comments are specific and contain details about residence, rank, and contact information. Some comments included encouragement of specific acts of violence against specific women. The private Facebook group is limited to male Marines, Navy Corpsman and British Royal Marines, according to Thomas Brennan, a Marine veteran and journalist who first reported on the photo-sharing scandal.

Against a backdrop of persistently high rates of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military, these postings indicate that the policies of zero tolerance have failed to be applied or enforced. There are no current consequences sufficient to deter harassment and misconduct within the armed forces.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/military-must-impose-significant-consequences-against_us_58c3e8f1e4b070e55af9ef53

These accusations are just the latest proof that military men in power have found a myriad ways to protect rapists and men that violate women by refusing to impose consequences on those that commit "boys will be boys" type offenses. Every time a woman complains, the men in charge must think that it is just natural behavior she's experiencing, that she just learn to put up with it. Later, when a woman is raped, those same men in charge consider the act an aberration instead of a natural consequence of behavior that the military refuses to stop normalizing.

Inside the military and out, we need to come up with a new criminal charge for revenge porn and sneaking nude pictures to post online. Something like "non-physical sexual assault" associated with a 5 year jail sentence ought to do it. 

MOVING FROM OBAMACARE 1.0 to OBAMACARE 2.0

"President Donald Trump suffered a stunning political setback on Friday in a Congress controlled by his own party when Republican leaders pulled legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, a major 2016 election campaign promise of the president and his allies."

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-idUSKBN16V149

That's the good news. The bad news is that this man that's supposed to be the president isn't going to make any attempt to transition Obamacare 1.0 to Obamacare 2.0

If D J Chump cared as much about the ordinary, non-rich citizens of this countries as he does the one percent who want the 600 to 900 billion dollars worth of taxes back in their pockets (including the CEOs of health insurance corporations) he wouldn't announce his plans to sit around and watch Obamacare self-destruct

"Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened today, because we'll end up with a truly great healthcare bill in the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes," Trump said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-idUSKBN16V149

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-idUSKBN16V149

I think a three pronged approach is needed. 

The first thing that's needed is competition for the Health Insurance Companies. If not "The Public Option" (Federal Government run insurance) then something else. People have to have someplace to go for health insurance when the health insurance companies get too greedy and raise prices. 

If more young people are needed to offset the old and the sick with pre-existing conditions that took a running leap into Obamacare, then reduce the age that parents can add kids to their insurance. 

• A person that is 4 years from 30 is not a child and shouldn't be treated as such, not even when it comes to insurance. 

• Let Mommy and Daddy help Johnny buy his own insurance. Give Mommy and Daddy some sort of small tax deduction. But get 26 year old Johnny with the health body into our health insurance system and make him pay the full premium. He'll have government subsidies and he can go to Mommy and Daddy bank to get money to pay his own premium. 

• Maybe there could be some sort of income limit (50K?) for parents financially assisting grown children in getting insurance. Maybe those making less than 50K, could keep their children on their insurance. 

• But for the most part, I'd lower the age that people can keep their adult children on their insurance. I'd drop it to 24 tops.

Maybe some sort of CHEAP and limited emergency care could be put together for a piece of the public option. For single people below the age of 26 with no children since they are mostly a pretty healthy group. There could be a cheap emergency type healthcare plan. Accidents, Ambulance, Cancer... 

Some of the solutions are simple. 1) We need to suck more young people who won't use that much health services into the system and 2) Stop health insurance companies from raising prices whenever they want to.

The other thing I haven't been able to evaluate is allowing insurance companies to sell insurance in whatever state they want. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named might be right about this.

To me, allowing this competition seems like it would be a good thing. 

I don't just know if it's a bad thing is smaller insurance companies are driven out of business. Insurance companies (of all sizes) are moving together as if they are one already. They are out to gouge us all for fun and profit. Since it's already like there's a monopoly in place, I don't see the danger of letting competition run wild and see who's left standing after a year or two--- for so long as there's something like the public option to keep the winner(s) humble.

Yesterday, Mean Tangerine said he was not going to work on Obamacare anymore. I thought he was trying to force the republicans to go his way. I thought he'd pull back if his bluff wasn't working. And I still do. The man lies. But if in this one instance Mean Tangerine is telling the truth, then we need to start thinking about how to rescue Obamacare.

One one of the things that irked me today was seeing that some hospitals announced postponing expansion plans based on Obamacare possibly going under. I wound up thinking, "Why don't you use that Obamacare money to reduces prices of services instead of expansion?" Anything that's not about getting the hospital's technology up to date, any upgrade that's not about saving more lives should wait.

In order for healthcare to work in this country, the hospitals, doctors, and health insurance companies are going to have to get out of this maximum profit mindset.

If healthcare is right and not a privilege, we have to reign everybody's greed in. Contrary to what the repugnicans think, letting capitalism run free is not the solution to everything

 

OBAMACARE IS SAFE FOR NOW

FROM VANITY FAIR 

" It is increasingly clear, if ever it was in doubt, that Donald Trump does not care about policy minutiae, especially on an issue as complicated as health care.

On the campaign trail, he never explained his plan to “take care of everybody,” nor his post-election promise to provide “insurance for everybody.” Instead, he outsourced the work to Paul Ryan, who eagerly devised legislation contrary to nearly every commitment Trump made to voters.

Instead of protecting Medicaid, he would gut it.

Instead of making insurance coverage affordable, he would slash the federal subsidies that helped millions of people pay for their care.

Trump himself seemed to enjoy the deal-making aspect of it all, whether or not he understood the details. When the House Freedom Caucus rebelled, arguing that the plan was too generous, Trump endorsed cutting Medicaid faster and deeper. When conservatives still balked at the plan, Trump offered to eliminate rules requiring insurance companies to provide essential health benefits like hospitalization and emergency services. Still no deal." "

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/donald-trump-obamacare-repeal 

DJ the Chump even tried to threaten his minions into falling in line.  He told them they wouldn't be relected if they didn't vote for his Ryan's ailing healthcare plan.

Cajoling all week didn't work. The threat didn't work either. Paul Ryan couldn't get Trumpcare 1.0 past his fellow republicans so Trump and Ryan pulled the legislation because they couldn't get the votes. 
They failed to REPEAL AND REPLACE per Chump's campaign promise.

• Republican controlled House. 
• Republican controlled Senate. 
• Republican controlled White House. 

And the republicans failed to work together to create an improvement on Obamacare -- not that they were trying to improve healthcare for Americans who can't afford healthcare premiums. 

The GOP voting in dismantling Obamacare close to 60 times before Chump was president was about getting 600 billion tax dollars back into the pockets one-percent.   

Ironically, it may be the super-demons within the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus within the republican party--who just want to just undo Obamacare, no replacement necessary, let the sick American bodies fall where they may-- who are the most responsible for Trump's failure to close on this deal. They wanted Trump's version of Obamacare to be gutted. Even removing basic health services like ambulance, maternal care, pediatric care wasn't enough for them. One those Heartless House Freedom dudes said characterized Obamacare and it's Trumpcare replacement as "welfare."

And you know how most repugnanticans hate the poor, especially if they have the audacity to need help in the form of welfare. 


Yesterday, Mean Tangerine said he was not going to work on Obamacare anymore.  He said, he'd leave Obamacare in place if republicans didn't vote for Trumpcare. I thought he was trying to force the republicans to go his way, of course. I thought he'd pull back if his bluff wasn't working. And I still do. The man lies. He may start work on destroying Obamacare again on Monday. 

But if in this one instance Mean Tangerine is telling the truth, then we need to start thinking about how to rescue Obamacare.
more tomorrow


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TO ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE WITHOUT TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS IS TO RISK DEPRESSION

"Optimism over uncontrollable negative events 

is more useful than 

optimism over controllable negative events."

Let that sink in for a moment before you read on.

FEELING REBLOGGY

Dr. Markman writes:

• The authors of the paper first review evidence on uncontrollable events, and suggest that there is good reason to think that having a positive attitude toward uncontrollable events in the past is a good thing. Classic research by Shelley Taylor, for example, suggests that a patient with breast cancer will adjust better and suffer fewer symptoms of depression by being optimistic rather than by being pessimistic about her disease ...

• People who thought positively about (controllable) severe negative events, though, actually showed an increase in symptoms of depression over time. The reason for this increase is that these negative events were controllable. By minimizing the importance of a (negative event), people opened themselves up to experience more of it in the future ... You cannot find ways to eliminate the negative in life if you always accentuate the positive.

Optimism over uncontrollable negative events is more useful than optimism over controllable negative events.  

~Huff Post

Read More: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-bishop/would-you-rather-live-in-_b_948449.html

ALL 8 SUPREME COURT JUDGES STRIKE DOWN GORSUCH RULING WHILE HE'S APPLYING FOR THE JOB OF SUPREME COURT JUSTICE

BWAAAAAAA HA HA HA

"—While he was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about why he should have the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch got himself smacked around by…the Supreme Court, which was meeting only about a block away from the hearing room. This is the kind of thing that would seem weird, if this were not a time in history when every damn thing seems weird."

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54054/gorsuch-autistic-education-supreme-court/

I have to be petty and enjoy the little victories. I have to decide to enjoy them because the questions congressman have been asking over the last couple of days should have ended the minute conservative and liberal judges both, all 8 supreme court judges decided Gorsuch's decision in a lower court was wrong.

It's like a person taking a test for employment and getting 0 percent instead of the 70 percent required to pass the test and get the job.

This man, Gorsuch, is smooth when being questioned. But it's become clear that he has no compassion or empathy for anybody -- same as his buddy Scalia.

If and when Gorsuch gets to be a supreme court justice ANYWAY, you'll know just how dedicated the forces of white supremacy are to maintaining white supremacy.

* * * * *

Here is a statement from an old "frozen trucker" case. This is the story of a trucker that was fired by TransAm Trucking because he saved his own life instead of a broken down truck when the temperature was 14 degrees below zero on an interstate highway. Gorsuch, as the judge on the case, sided with the employer that fired the trucker for not staying and dying inside the truck cab --even after the trucker did go back and get the truck the next day. Trucker's Statement: https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/1494561160575369/

Winners & losers if Obamacare subsidies become GOP tax credits in a single graphic

From the Kaiser Family Foundation

KEY 

ORANGE = WORSE OFF UNDER TRUMPCARE

PURPLE = BETTER OFF UNDER TRUMPCARE

Top right corner image of the U.S shows the old and poor are screwed

Bottom left middle image shows the 40 year old making the most money are the best off

Read More

https://www.axios.com/comparing-the-gop-tax-credit-with-obamacares-premium-subsidy-2305136456.html

But you remember who has it the best-est in the west-est under Trumpcare right?

The one-percenters and the rest of the wealthy.

They will be getting billions of dollars worth of taxes back that Obama took for healthcare. If REPEAL AND REPLACE goes through, no matter what changes they make to Trumpcare over the next few days,  the wealthy will will be the only real winners.

What we need is for Obamacare to be repaired. If Sarah Palin and her demons hadn't made THE PUBLIC OPTION sound like it was full of "death panels," the health insurance companies wouldn't have been able to jack up their premiums the way they did. But it

was a democrat named Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, who wasn't even meeting with the democratic caucus, that damaged Obamacare. He single-handedly removed competition with the insurance companies, which was critical to making it work.

We don't need Trumpcare 1.0. We need Obamacare 2.0.

The republicans are trying to make sure nothing the government offers competes with the insurance companies. And it is competition that will drive prices down. That's EXACTLY what we need. Insurance companies are walking lock step and they have all of us over a barrel. 

Insurance companies were afraid of public option making into Obamacare like people are afraid of botulism poisoning. They are not afraid of Trumpcare. They love Trumpcare. That should be telling you that health insurance companies are trying to move us back to that place that Michael Moore described in his documentary SICKO: You pay insurance and they pay for treatment if they feel it's profitable to do so.  The uninsured can go to hell under the old system of patching people up in emergency rooms.

This is the one place that Bernie Sanders and 84% of Americans agree. Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.  Nothing the republican leadership comes up with is heading in that direction because they do not believe that. 

Do not believe these republican white nationalists are Christians. They aren't. They aren't even bad Christians. They aren't Christians period. Going to church every week don't make you a Christian anymore than my deciding to live in a garage makes me a car.

The republican leadership believes in a social darwinism that justifies itself by demonizing the poor.  That's why they added that 30% penalty to the rate if people cancel then restart up their insurance. Compassionate people understand that poor people only do that because they're poor -- not in a deliberate effort to cheat the insurance company out of something.

But Paul Ryan and his ilk? They don't understand that because they don't want to understand that. They want to rob from the poor and give to the rich, the wealthy tax payer and the wealthy owners of insurance companies. These @$$ backward Peter Pans  will count the cost of 14 million people without health insurance as so much nothing. Since they hate poor people they might even consider that icing on the cake, because people will actually die without health insurance. They'll die with health insurance if Trump cuts regulations back 

You should really watch SICKO and find out what happens when the business men taking care of your health aren't forced by your government to care about something other than their profits.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER ABOUT SUPREME COURT NOMINEE GORSUCH IS SCALIA

Gorsuch called Scalia somebody his respected, a mentor too if I recall correctly.  So here are a few things his mentor said. You should look up what kind of abuses Scalia said white people in general and white cops specifically could lay upon black backs without violating anybody's Civil Rights -- especially back in the 1990s.



The republicans need 8 democratic votes to get Gorsuch on the bench. He shouldn't get any democratic votes after the crap the GOP pulled on President Obama's Supreme Court Nominee. They refused to give President Obama's nominee a hearing for a year. And GOP stopped seating President Obama's judicial appointments in lower courts for a year as well -- nothing about the law or America is sacred to these jackals. Don't you ever believe they care about anything except whiteness and especially the very white one-percent

Tell the weak-willed democrats to stop Gorsuch. This soft-spoken, peaceful-looking nominee is a wolf hiding his teeth if he revered Anton Scalia. For white folks, there was just rudeness and insensitivity and differences of opinion from Scalia. For black and brown folk? Scalia made decisions that made it easier for white folks to deny the right to vote and just keep on breathing.

If Gorsuch admired that THING, he's got to be stopped.

Besides, nothing Trump touched should be nominated to anything while he's being investigated. What if the lies Trump has told are big enough to warrant impeachment?

Before you start looking up more Scalia's decisions, here are a few things that should give you an idea of Gorsuch's idea of a good judge.

ANTON SCALIA'S GREATEST HITS

ON GAY RIGHTS, QUOTES 

While speaking at Princeton in 2012, Scalia was asked by a student why he would compare laws banning homosexuality with laws against murder.

"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the 'reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia answered. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"

ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, QUOTES

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well," Scalia said

The comments were called "racist," "disgusting" and "insulting."

ON IMMIGRATION, QUOTES

In 2012, the Supreme Court struck down some provisions of a controversial Arizona immigration law.

Scalia argued in his dissent that states, in the 18th century, were able to decide what to do with "unwanted immigrants," including freed slaves.

"In the first 100 years of the Republic, the States enacted numerous laws restricting the immigration of certain classes of aliens, including convicted criminals, indigents, persons with contagious diseases, and (in Southern States) freed blacks," Scalia wrote.

ON GENDER DISCRIMINATION, QUOTE
While speaking at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in 2010, Scalia said the Constitution didn't specifically prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation.

"If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, you have legislatures," he said.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-s-most-controversial-remarks-opinions-n518246


ANTI-LGBT DECISIONS
In his dissent in Lawrence, Scalia argued that moral objections to homosexuality were sufficient justification for criminalizing gay sex. "Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home," he wrote. "They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive."


In Romer v Evans Scalia wrote -- "Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings," Scalia wrote, in the classic prebuttal phrasing of someone about to say something ludicrous. "But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible—murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals—and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct[.]"

 http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/scalia-worst-things-said-written-about-homosexuality-court


ANTI-CIVIL RIGHTS/ ANTI-AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DECISIONS

The list is long and damaging, reflecting a view of jurisprudence that is, to put it mildly, racially insensitive to black and other historically disadvantaged Americans. For example, in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder opinion, he voted with the conservative majority, agreeing against the evidence and logic that the Voting Rights Act was a “perpetuation of racial entitlement” for black and other racial minority voters.

In a series of affirmative action cases, Justice Scalia showed his true colors, vehemently opposing any use of racial consideration in college admissions. His concurring opinion in the 2014 Shuette v. Bamn decision not only rejected the programs to level imbalances in American society that the men who wrote the Constitution created but also decried previous Court decisions supporting affirmative action as a “sorry line of race based admissions decisions.”

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2016/02/24/131690/the-racially-insensitive-legacy-of-justice-antonin-scalia/

Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch was nominated by a nationalistic white supremacist. And Neil Gorsuch idolized a homophobic, nationalistic white supremacist. Water seeks its own level. I don't care how smoothly he's answering questions or how charmed most of the white democrats seem by him. The company he kept, the company he currently keeps (his nominator) is foul because he like foul, doesn't mind foul, or can't identify foul.

That's not somebody you want on the Supreme Court until he dies. Contact your congressman and tell them, "HELL NO!" on Gorsuch.