Author: clearandpresentdanger

This is an ACTUAL tweet released today by the Republican National Committee.

One problem:  The flag pictured is the flag of the nation of Liberia, not the US.  Why am I not surprised?

MSNBC host Joy Reid couldn’t help but notice that there is a strange obsession on the right with the children of Democrats. Even after Hunter Biden pleaded guilty, “That doesn’t satisfy Republicans. Maybe in part because they actually seem to enjoy attacking the family members of Democratic presidents.” She went on to recall Rush Limbaugh’s obsession with 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton. The younger Clinton went on to comment on just how “creepy” she felt about someone that old who couldn’t stop talking about her.

“Rush Limbaugh and others, but notably Rush Limbaugh — and I think this is now somewhat well-known like — was quite vicious to me,” she recalled recently. “Said terrible things about my appearance and called me ‘The White House Dog’ repeatedly. I was 12, 13. And I remember thinking, like, this is just so, at best odd, and at worst just wrong. Like why is this old man obsessed with me? Like this is so weird and creepy and inappropriate.” Sasha and Malia Obama were even younger, Reid noted. Still, Republicans attacked their facial expressions, their clothing, and more. Malia was 10 when she entered the White House. Sasha was seven. But their young age didn’t spare them from GOP criticism.

At the same time, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, were appointed to top jobs in the White House, despite anti-nepotism laws that were put in place after John F. Kennedy appointed his brother to be the attorney general. The Trumps got around the law by saying they weren’t accepting any federal funds for their positions.

“They were handed powerful positions in the Trump White House with broad portfolios with not a peep from the Republicans and their friends in right-wing media,” said Reid. “During the White House years, they reported between $172 million and $640 million in outside income. They should have never been allowed to work at the White House. Frankly, Jared couldn’t even get a security clearance until Trump intervened. The Department of Justice reversed decades of precedent to grant Trump’s wish that his children be allowed to work in the White House and profit from it. If the Republicans are so outraged about financial wrongdoing, you’d think they might want to investigate how Jared skated out of the White House to a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

Today, we look at a big, fat map of credit scores reproduced from a recent economics paper. And while the map suggests any number of tantalizing questions, we are most intrigued by that big band of credit-score calamity that stretches across the American South.
…
“The reason why credit scores are so low in the South has gotta be connected to medical debt, because that’s the most common type of unpaid bill that people have,” Braga said. And the South, he said, easily has the highest levels of medical debt in the country.

Of the 100 counties with the highest share of adults struggling to pay their medical debt, 92 are in the South, and the other eight are in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, according to credit data from the Urban Institute. (On the other side, 82 of the 100 counties with the least pervasive medical-debt problems are in the Midwest, with 45 in Minnesota alone.)
…
But health alone does not solve the puzzle: Several Northeastern states struggle with chronic health conditions and have good credit.

A clue to the broader answer comes from a recent analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that medical debt “became more concentrated in lower-income communities in states that did not expand Medicaid” after key provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/02/17/bad-southern-credit-scores/

Republican-controlled states — and Southern states are controlled by Republicans — did not opt into the Affordable Care Act.  That means their citizens have less access to health care, it’s more expensive, and far more likely to be done in the emergency department, the costliest section of any hospital. Republicans fought hard to strip Medicaid expansion out of the Affordable Care Act, and leave their poorest and most vulnerable citizens without coverage or access to treatment. The ostensible reason was unfunded mandates and states’ rights, but the reality was poorer health care and sicker citizens. By having the federal government backstop health care costs up front, states would have been able to extend coverage to more citizens, making their ongoing treatment more effective (by catching problems earlier, when they’re more treatable and for less money) and less costly. Yes, states had to come up with 10% of the cost initially, but the savings over time would be beneficial and cheaper for everyone. It also meant that states had a little of their own skin in the game, something Republicans really like to make sure poor people do, rich people less so.

This has repercussions for individual health (slot this in the category of No Duh), but it also means that people have worse credit scores, are forced to pay more for credit, and are less able to afford to pay for expensive credit because their health is compromised.

 

With all the bad decisions coming out of the Supreme Court last week, there is one decision that flew under the radar, and it is about to impact Jim Jordan in a major way.  On Monday, June 26 , 2023, SCOTUS ruled that the lawsuit brought against Ohio State University by hundreds of athletes who claim sexual abuse by trainer Richard Strauss can go forward.  Part of the lawsuit directly implicates Jordan, as it states that he not only turned a blind eye to this abuse, but also states that Jordan obstructed justice by tampering with witnesses.  Jim Jordan’s days in Congress are numbered.  It is just a matter of time, as the trial against Ohio State moves forward.  

A very good analysis of this major scandal by David Feldman has been posted to Youtube.

. . . because Trump is not loyal to anyone except Donald J. Trump.

Walt Natua is having serious problems finding an attorney to represent him against charges that he assisted Trump in stealing and hiding classified documents.  Turns out, Trump’s  PAC is footing the bill and wants to control whatever attorney takes Natua on as a client. No attorney who knows what s/he is doing will take a client under those restrictions.  The real problem is that representing anyone in Trump’s immediate circle is bad for business.

Perhaps we should remind Natua that Jack Smith’s tip hotline is open to anyone who wants to flip on Trump and be granted immunity.

Make the call and save yourself, Walt, and do it now.

 

Donald:  In case you have not noticed,  the people lined-up outside Jack Smith’s office — who are looking for a deal in exchange for their testimony against you — is close to being a bigger crowd than showed up at your last rally.

If you had a functioning brain, you would have realized long ago that given a choice between loyalty to you and a stretch in the slammer, loyalty loses.

Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman –there are 0nly three of the people visiting Jack Smith and spilling their guts about you to Smith