For years now, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has been talking in his earnest Wisconsin way about how much he cares about poverty. Republicans care about the poor, he insists, they just don't want to trap them in dependency — thus his proposals for a panopticon surveillance bureaucracy to coerce poor people into getting jobs and following bourgeois moral values.

But now that Donald Trump will become president with a Republican-controlled Congress, we're getting a vision of what that's actually going to look like in practice. It will be an all-out war on poor people's programs, without even a whisper of countervailing effort to help them get jobs or anything else.

First and probably most importantly, Republicans want to drastically roll back Medicaid. The first item on the agenda is repealing ObamaCare, which contains a large expansion of that program. If repealed in full, that would throw roughly 16 million people off the program at a stroke.

Second, they want to repeat the basic program of welfare reform on Medicaid. Welfare reform had three main prongs: block-granting the money to the states, capping spending so its size is eaten away by inflation every year, and sharp new restrictions on eligibility. This was justified in 1996 by a firestorm of vicious race-baiting about dependency, but its objective was obvious: to slowly obliterate the program. This goal has been mostly achieved. Enrollment in welfare has consistently fallen even during the Great Recession, and the block grant allows conservative states to bogart the money for things like anti-abortion agitprop. Overall, extreme poverty has increased by 150 percent as a direct result of this policy.

Now, Medicaid is already a (rather unwieldy) federal-state partnership, with substantial flexibility for defining benefits and eligibility — which, for conservative states, means "be as stingy as possible." Republicans, led by Trump's choice for secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, want to make it much easier for those states to kick people off the program, and slowly ratchet down spending just as happened with welfare reform. As Gene Sperling summarizes:

Mr. Price's own proposal, which he presented as the chairman of the House budget committee, would cut Medicaid by about $1 trillion over the next decade. This is on top of the reduction that would result from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which both Mr. Trump and Republican leaders have championed. Together, full repeal and block granting would cut Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program funding by about $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years — a 40 percent cut. [New York Times]

That's another roughly 14-21 million people kicked off Medicaid after 10 years — call it 30-35 million in total.

Second, Republicans are eyeing food stamps for more cuts. They already cut the program by $9 billion in 2014, and earlier this year mulled an additional $150 billion over 10 years — or a cut of 20 percent. This policy preference is reflected in conservative media, which is constantly fulminating against food stamps. A Fox News segment on Tuesday, for instance, railed against a supposed epidemic of fraud totaling $70 million, suggesting that therefore the program maybe should be abolished.

As Kevin Drum points out, not only did they not mention $70 million is less than 0.1 percent of the total food stamp spending (and a vanishingly minuscule fraction of the featherbedding that happens in the Defense Department), their fraud number is probably bogus anyway. And most of what is counted as "fraud" are innocent mistakes caused by difficulty navigating the program's complicated eligibility schedule — less than 1 percent of food stamp benefits go to households that are actually ineligible.

Taken together, the actual policy agenda here is reasonably clear. Republicans think rich people have too little income, and poor people too much. They will thus cut programs serving the bottom of the income ladder to make budget headroom for immense tax cuts for the rich. Paul Ryan will go on Meet the Press and smile and calmly buffalo the dim DC political reporters with a lot of wonky-sounding nonsense. But the upshot of this agenda is a great increase in desperation in America — more hungry people, more uninsured people, and more people dying of preventable illness.

http://theweek.com/articles/669758/how-republicans-wage-war-poor

gunsnewing wrote:lol Obama doing his best in his final minutes to go down as one of the worst Presidents in history

Ha..Obama is playing chess..Trump is playing checkers...Notice Trump last statement wasn't via twitter and his surrogates aren't freely speaking anymore...Time he puts on his big boy pants...

BRIGGS wrote:I don't think it's a good idea to go tit for tat with Russia. I'm sure we hack them and every other country like they do to us. Our problem was we were made fools of. And instead of going out classy Obama is kicking like a baby. Be a man say I take responsibility for our security breach and I vow to help make it better. Instead he's crying like a baby. Terrible terrible way to go out

Besides Obama is taking responsibility which is why he's kicking Putin and his people in the teeth. This is only part of what Obama is doing so stop acting like this is just some small petty action. Obama has been taking chunks out of Putin's ass for a while now. Just look at the effect on the Russian Economy!!!

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:Dreaded Putin an Endoran left Obama and US international policy in the dust again by taking over control in Syria and brokering case fire with majority of opposition without US.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38460127
US became a running joke by isolating itself.
We undermine our friends and empower our enemies.
We spend humongous money on the army which cannot assert itself because of political paralysis in White House.
Very sad times for America and lowest point in our embattled foreign policy...

Hahahaha..Meanwhile both of their countries currencies are at historic lows which means they are paying through the teeth for everything in trade and their economies are in the ****ter and the US currency and stock market are at historic highs...Way to have those blinders on...

Think about this..The US spent 5-6 trillion fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years..The Russian economy in terms of GDP is 1.3 trillion ..Obama shaved 700 mil off their economy in sanctions since Ukraine and Crimea, it was 2 trillion, look that up...Think about that for one second..Who is the fool in that picture...Russia can't afford a foreign policy...How much will his country have to pay for helping Syria..They are hurting now I bet...

Obama just announced more sanctions this morning...Let's shave another 300 mil off that economy before he leaves office..Thats POWER..Not posture like Putin and Endorin..

Russian people will suffer for sure. And Turks too.
But no Putin or Endoran. An not people in their close circle.
Russia lost GDP because of oil price collapse not because of US sanctions.
This "sanctions" are against some group of people and corporations around Putin not Russia as a country.
Obama can make sanctions against humanoids from Alfa Centaurus and they will have the same effect as on Russians.
For now he looks like a dude who never left his college campus but think he knows how world works because he read about it in the books.
Typical useless liberal leaving in imaginary world.
That why sharks like Putin and Endoran totally ignoring him and his administration on the way out. Why bother.

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:Trump is so full of crap!!! This MF said he'll meet with the Intelligence People NEXT WEEK! He's talking about Computers and the Internet being confusing and no one knows what's going on. EVERY TIME HE OPEN HIS MOUTH HE'S LYING OR SPOUTING NONSENSE!!!

“I think we ought to get on with our lives,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday outside Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Florida estate, with boxing promoter Don King standing by his side. "I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on."

WTF???

I agree with Trump on this. Too much entropy.
Too many people are posting nonsense and to many re-twitting it.
Reality is fading away in the weak minds of millions mislead people leading to chaos and confusion.
Google having an idea to start labeling search results with % of them being real not scam.
But I kind of doubt this will help.
99% of stuff in Internet is scam and distractions.
One really need to read between the lines to fined what really happening.

IMO people only get fooled if they are lazy or want to believe the lies. It's not hard to find the Truth on the internet at all.

Also it's a bit much for Trump of all people to be talking about scams on the internet since he's one of THE WORST distributors and producers of misinformation and outright lies online!!! NO ONE lies more than Trump!!! How about we Acknowledge that Trump is one of the biggest problems right now???

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:Dreaded Putin an Endoran left Obama and US international policy in the dust again by taking over control in Syria and brokering case fire with majority of opposition without US.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38460127
US became a running joke by isolating itself.
We undermine our friends and empower our enemies.
We spend humongous money on the army which cannot assert itself because of political paralysis in White House.
Very sad times for America and lowest point in our embattled foreign policy...

Hahahaha..Meanwhile both of their countries currencies are at historic lows which means they are paying through the teeth for everything in trade and their economies are in the ****ter and the US currency and stock market are at historic highs...Way to have those blinders on...

Think about this..The US spent 5-6 trillion fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years..The Russian economy in terms of GDP is 1.3 trillion ..Obama shaved 700 mil off their economy in sanctions since Ukraine and Crimea, it was 2 trillion, look that up...Think about that for one second..Who is the fool in that picture...Russia can't afford a foreign policy...How much will his country have to pay for helping Syria..They are hurting now I bet...

Obama just announced more sanctions this morning...Let's shave another 300 mil off that economy before he leaves office..Thats POWER..Not posture like Putin and Endorin..

Russian people will suffer for sure. And Turks too.
But no Putin or Endoran. An not people in their close circle.
Russia lost GDP because of oil price collapse not because of US sanctions.
This "sanctions" are against some group of people and corporations around Putin not Russia as a country.
Obama can make sanctions against humanoids from Alfa Centaurus and they will have the same effect as on Russians.
For now he looks like a dude who never left his college campus but think he knows how world works because he read about it in the books.
Typical useless liberal leaving in imaginary world.
That why sharks like Putin and Endoran totally ignoring him and his administration on the way out. Why bother.

Ha..Oil prices for sure have impacted them greatly..Oil, natural gas, machinery and vodka are their lifeline...

Obama read books...haha..Well the US is doing well because of those books..I welcome an administration that read books...I tell my kids
to read books...You are right, why bother...

holfresh wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:Dreaded Putin an Endoran left Obama and US international policy in the dust again by taking over control in Syria and brokering case fire with majority of opposition without US.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38460127
US became a running joke by isolating itself.
We undermine our friends and empower our enemies.
We spend humongous money on the army which cannot assert itself because of political paralysis in White House.
Very sad times for America and lowest point in our embattled foreign policy...

Hahahaha..Meanwhile both of their countries currencies are at historic lows which means they are paying through the teeth for everything in trade and their economies are in the ****ter and the US currency and stock market are at historic highs...Way to have those blinders on...

Think about this..The US spent 5-6 trillion fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years..The Russian economy in terms of GDP is 1.3 trillion ..Obama shaved 700 mil off their economy in sanctions since Ukraine and Crimea, it was 2 trillion, look that up...Think about that for one second..Who is the fool in that picture...Russia can't afford a foreign policy...How much will his country have to pay for helping Syria..They are hurting now I bet...

Obama just announced more sanctions this morning...Let's shave another 300 mil off that economy before he leaves office..Thats POWER..Not posture like Putin and Endorin..

Russian people will suffer for sure. And Turks too.
But no Putin or Endoran. An not people in their close circle.
Russia lost GDP because of oil price collapse not because of US sanctions.
This "sanctions" are against some group of people and corporations around Putin not Russia as a country.
Obama can make sanctions against humanoids from Alfa Centaurus and they will have the same effect as on Russians.
For now he looks like a dude who never left his college campus but think he knows how world works because he read about it in the books.
Typical useless liberal leaving in imaginary world.
That why sharks like Putin and Endoran totally ignoring him and his administration on the way out. Why bother.

Ha..Oil prices for sure have impacted them greatly..Oil, natural gas, machinery and vodka are their lifeline...

Obama read books...haha..Well the US is doing well because of those books..I welcome an administration that read books...I tell my kids
to read books...You are right, why bother...

Plus arkrud is assuming that all Obama is doing is what was announced. We don't know what other things Obama will do. He has A LOT of options that people don't realize. IMO it's not a good idea to screw with a U.S. President that has nothing to lose and his hands on the FULL POWER of our Intelligence and Military organization.

He seems to like strong men macho figures in his life..Maybe Trump will do a bareback horseback riding calendar for 2017...

Putin's response says a lot about Trump and his ties to Russia.

“While we reserve the right to take reciprocal measures, we’re not going to downgrade ourselves to the level of irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy,” Mr. Putin said, using a common Russian idiom for quarrelsome and unseemly acts. “In our future steps on the way toward the restoration of Russia-United States relations, we will proceed from the policy pursued by the administration of D. Trump.”

Should Mr. Putin have chosen to retaliate harshly against the United States, he would most likely have deepened the rift between the two countries and left President-elect Donald J. Trump with a nettlesome diplomatic standoff from the moment he arrived in the Oval Office. But by choosing to essentially disregard Mr. Obama’s punitive measures, Mr. Putin can try to disarm his American critics, including members of Congress who consider him an aggressive foe of the United States. That could give Mr. Trump more room to pursue the closer cooperation with Russia that he has advocated.

Mr. Putin has a flair for smart, unexpected tactics, and his announcement on Friday appeared to be in keeping with that. Despite all the statements from senior officials, including one from Mr. Lavrov, about the need to respect “reciprocity,” Mr. Putin essentially warned Washington that he was waiting for the Trump administration — a tactic not unlike that adopted by Israel in its recent rejection of a peace plan laid out by Secretary of State John Kerry.

“This is a perfect step because it makes Obama’s administration look very weak and it opens a new page in relations with Trump,” said Vladimir Frolov, an international affairs analyst and a columnist. “Moscow wanted Trump to have a room to maneuver; this decision is a clear gesture of good will toward him.”

arkrud wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:Dreaded Putin an Endoran left Obama and US international policy in the dust again by taking over control in Syria and brokering case fire with majority of opposition without US.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38460127
US became a running joke by isolating itself.
We undermine our friends and empower our enemies.
We spend humongous money on the army which cannot assert itself because of political paralysis in White House.
Very sad times for America and lowest point in our embattled foreign policy...

Hahahaha..Meanwhile both of their countries currencies are at historic lows which means they are paying through the teeth for everything in trade and their economies are in the ****ter and the US currency and stock market are at historic highs...Way to have those blinders on...

Think about this..The US spent 5-6 trillion fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years..The Russian economy in terms of GDP is 1.3 trillion ..Obama shaved 700 mil off their economy in sanctions since Ukraine and Crimea, it was 2 trillion, look that up...Think about that for one second..Who is the fool in that picture...Russia can't afford a foreign policy...How much will his country have to pay for helping Syria..They are hurting now I bet...

Obama just announced more sanctions this morning...Let's shave another 300 mil off that economy before he leaves office..Thats POWER..Not posture like Putin and Endorin..

Russian people will suffer for sure. And Turks too.
But no Putin or Endoran. An not people in their close circle.
Russia lost GDP because of oil price collapse not because of US sanctions.
This "sanctions" are against some group of people and corporations around Putin not Russia as a country.
Obama can make sanctions against humanoids from Alfa Centaurus and they will have the same effect as on Russians.
For now he looks like a dude who never left his college campus but think he knows how world works because he read about it in the books.
Typical useless liberal leaving in imaginary world.
That why sharks like Putin and Endoran totally ignoring him and his administration on the way out. Why bother.

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:lol Obama doing his best in his final minutes to go down as one of the worst Presidents in history

I'm tired of DUMB ASS posts like this!!! You know I don't think it's possible for someone to be as clueless as you are about the Obama Presidency. He's going to go down as one of the BEST Presidents in History!!! Trump will be taking over a country that's ready to take off and that is largely due to Obama's work.

Instead of making stupid ass comments go look up Obama's actual record in terms of saving this country from ruin after Bush and how things have improved DESPITE the fact that the Republicans did everything in their power to try and stop Obama from being successful. How UnAmerican is that??? Bastards actually kept throwing wrenches in the gears of this Economy the whole time. GTFOH with your nonsense!!!

You wanna get into this argument then let's go!!! I'm looking forward to stomping your ass on this subject.

woah lol

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:Dreaded Putin an Endoran left Obama and US international policy in the dust again by taking over control in Syria and brokering case fire with majority of opposition without US.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38460127
US became a running joke by isolating itself.
We undermine our friends and empower our enemies.
We spend humongous money on the army which cannot assert itself because of political paralysis in White House.
Very sad times for America and lowest point in our embattled foreign policy...

Hahahaha..Meanwhile both of their countries currencies are at historic lows which means they are paying through the teeth for everything in trade and their economies are in the ****ter and the US currency and stock market are at historic highs...Way to have those blinders on...

Think about this..The US spent 5-6 trillion fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years..The Russian economy in terms of GDP is 1.3 trillion ..Obama shaved 700 mil off their economy in sanctions since Ukraine and Crimea, it was 2 trillion, look that up...Think about that for one second..Who is the fool in that picture...Russia can't afford a foreign policy...How much will his country have to pay for helping Syria..They are hurting now I bet...

Obama just announced more sanctions this morning...Let's shave another 300 mil off that economy before he leaves office..Thats POWER..Not posture like Putin and Endorin..

Russian people will suffer for sure. And Turks too.
But no Putin or Endoran. An not people in their close circle.
Russia lost GDP because of oil price collapse not because of US sanctions.
This "sanctions" are against some group of people and corporations around Putin not Russia as a country.
Obama can make sanctions against humanoids from Alfa Centaurus and they will have the same effect as on Russians.
For now he looks like a dude who never left his college campus but think he knows how world works because he read about it in the books.
Typical useless liberal leaving in imaginary world.
That why sharks like Putin and Endoran totally ignoring him and his administration on the way out. Why bother.

Ha..Oil prices for sure have impacted them greatly..Oil, natural gas, machinery and vodka are their lifeline...

Obama read books...haha..Well the US is doing well because of those books..I welcome an administration that read books...I tell my kids
to read books...You are right, why bother...

Plus arkrud is assuming that all Obama is doing is what was announced. We don't know what other things Obama will do. He has A LOT of options that people don't realize. IMO it's not a good idea to screw with a U.S. President that has nothing to lose and his hands on the FULL POWER of our Intelligence and Military organization.

He seems to like strong men macho figures in his life..Maybe Trump will do a bareback horseback riding calendar for 2017...

Putin's response says a lot about Trump and his ties to Russia.

“While we reserve the right to take reciprocal measures, we’re not going to downgrade ourselves to the level of irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy,” Mr. Putin said, using a common Russian idiom for quarrelsome and unseemly acts. “In our future steps on the way toward the restoration of Russia-United States relations, we will proceed from the policy pursued by the administration of D. Trump.”

Should Mr. Putin have chosen to retaliate harshly against the United States, he would most likely have deepened the rift between the two countries and left President-elect Donald J. Trump with a nettlesome diplomatic standoff from the moment he arrived in the Oval Office. But by choosing to essentially disregard Mr. Obama’s punitive measures, Mr. Putin can try to disarm his American critics, including members of Congress who consider him an aggressive foe of the United States. That could give Mr. Trump more room to pursue the closer cooperation with Russia that he has advocated.

Mr. Putin has a flair for smart, unexpected tactics, and his announcement on Friday appeared to be in keeping with that. Despite all the statements from senior officials, including one from Mr. Lavrov, about the need to respect “reciprocity,” Mr. Putin essentially warned Washington that he was waiting for the Trump administration — a tactic not unlike that adopted by Israel in its recent rejection of a peace plan laid out by Secretary of State John Kerry.

“This is a perfect step because it makes Obama’s administration look very weak and it opens a new page in relations with Trump,” said Vladimir Frolov, an international affairs analyst and a columnist. “Moscow wanted Trump to have a room to maneuver; this decision is a clear gesture of good will toward him.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/world/europe/russia-diplomats-us-hacking.html

To have Putin and other strongman emerged in the current political climate of dissolution of old world order and borders America need strong power and strongman President of our own. We need to mind our own interests and interests of the countries who will go to war together with us unconditionally to preserver their own existence.
Time of soft politics to apiece everybody is over. US will need to make unpopular and hardcore decisions in the near future.
The whole existence of human civilization and everything we achieved is at stake.
Putin will only obey to pure power and will only talk with leaders who he consider worthy a fight.
The rest will be ignored.