US Politics, April 2020 -- Where's the Vax Returns?

President Donald Trump said he is considering using federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid to cover the rising ranks of the uninsured after his administration decided it would not reopen the Obamacare insurance markets to address the coronavirus crisis.

it's a good letter Brent

I mean I know he can't read but you never know when you might bamboozle him

even in the letter they note that he only referred to "expanding Medicare and Medicaid to include uninsured Americans, including those who have lost their employer-based coverage due to COVID-19."

This is not Medicare-for-All.

idk who Brent is

could be! Why not?

because Trump (and esp McConnell) will not hand the Dems a major legislative victory

it's 2020 and we're still not ready to lie and distort and take things out of context to score rhetorical points as much as the other side is, smh

idk also who is this karen i keep hearing about?

I could see some expansion getting through, one with a lot of caveats and poison-pills attached to it that limits the expansion well short of "All"

xps

I know Brent and Karen, but I have to admit I don't get who Rhonda is?

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/theyre-good-dogs-brent

"celebrated Twitter exchange"

i hope trump signs onto this medicare expansion

it was his idea!

to the extent he is capable of "having" "ideas"

Trump's Katrina will be a deadly pandemic. https://t.co/e4rMUQOAqs

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) May 5, 2017

who could have foreseen this?

even in the letter they note that he only referred to "expanding Medicare and Medicaid to include uninsured Americans, including those who have lost their employer-based coverage due to COVID-19."

This is not Medicare-for-All.

It's what a lot of Americans who don't follow politics closely think Medicare-for-All is, though: a public option that works like Medicare and that's available to everyone alongside more expensive private competitors.

It's probably what Trump thinks Medicare-for-All is!

where does silby fall on that axis

I don't get who Rhonda is?

Help me

gonna steal it any way they can

This is good one: Trump campaign wants to send no request absentee ballots only to voters 65+. https://t.co/tF4d6SZHCb

— Richard Yeselson (@yeselson) April 3, 2020

Trump said he is considering... etc.

A few days ago he "considered" slapping a quarantine on NY, NJ and part of CT. He's just churning the news cycle again to keep himself in the center of it.

xp I'm reading that as an idea that Dems are pushing that Trump admin may be okay with?

jfc that huge closeup of fearless leader is terrifying.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/politics/trump-fires-inspector-general-michael-atkinson/index.html

this is fine. i'm sure this had nothing to do with his role in impeachment.

this isn't authoritarian or yet another instance of abuse of power.

fuck us all.

This has been Trump's M.O. since the day he took office. He fires anyone he sees as insufficiently protective of his interests, regardless of whether his 'interests' are opposed to the clear national interest or even legal, and he trusts so few people that 2/3 of the positions he fires people from are left unfilled. The whole executive branch is littered with temporary 'acting' officials or simply vacant positions.

It’s darkly hilarious that SOPDUS (Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary) is an acronym I am well acquainted with thanks to this admin. We’re in the last year of his term and it’s still popping up

“I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in in voting,” he said. “It should be, you go to a booth and you proudly display yourself.”

gross

“I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in in voting,” he said, purely based not on evidence or facts, but out his abundant ignorance.

“It should be, you go to a booth and you proudly display yourself.”

Strongly reminding me of the Longmont Potion Castle bit where he called people and asked them if they were willing to vote on stilts, thirty feet high, loud and proud.

I mean, that's the party line though, just translated into Trump talk

xp

Like 160,000 other Palm Beach County voters, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have requested vote-by-mail ballots for Florida’s presidential primary.

The ballots were picked up for Trump on Monday, and as of Wednesday had not been submitted, according to the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections website.

During his visit to Palm Beach last weekend, Trump apparently chose to forgo an opportunity to go to an early voting site to cast a ballot in the Republican primary, for which he is a huge favorite to win.

people he's really serious about these public health measures, do you not see that?

The mail-in voting cheats are mostly Republican men forcing their cowed wives to vote for Trump afaik

"I don't think I'm going to be doing it," he said, going on to suggest it was hard to envision such a thing in the Oval Office: "Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I just don't see it."

First of all, nice job setting an example for your devoted followers. Now at least 40% of Americans will refuse to wear them, even as you half-heartedly roll out your new guidance recommending them.

Second of all, I love that dictators are way up there on his list of heads of state that he greets on the regular.

"where's my favorite little dictator?"

"I don't see what's so bad about dictatorships. I mean Charlie Chaplin even made a movie about, uh, how great dictators are!"

I feel like "kings, queens" is even more telling in its unreality

He won't wear a mask because it'll smudge his makeup.

He won't wear a mask because it'll efface his grandiose self-image.

that trumo mask in full

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deadliestfiction/images/f/f4/Immortan_Joe.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20150517025325

*reads approval ratings*

MEDIOCRE!

“You’re trying to jam in your preexisting support for Medicare for All & social democracy into the covid crisis” yes correct, the crisis violently & horrifically amplifying long-existing inequities can be solved w/ ideas that seek to mitigate those inequities. genius observation!

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) April 3, 2020

every POTUS regularly greets dictators, just another example of the Potato's accidental honesty

Re masks: Trump even makes for a terrible germaphobe. May as well have elected David Puddy.

I agree with Morbius

(although the way Trump plays up his enjoyment of hanging out with authoritarian heads of state is pretty exceptional)

Feel like this belongs here instead of being dumped in the insane-cartoons thread where fewer people will see it:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUOTAOrXgAAHEjo.png

Can't wait til they inject me with that devil juice