After going through my wife’s chemotherapy and trials, I can’t even imagine how people can afford healthcare. While my wife’s story did not end well, we were fortunate that her treatments bought her a few years. My heart sinks thinking of the pain and desperation of others.
It’s easy to not care until you suffer.
I genuinely don’t know if he could do more damage to his mini-me Poilievre if he was trying.
You mean the more Trump acts like a prick to Trudeau the more likely the Canadian people are to reflexively get behind him? Or they are seeing how stupid a Poillievre government would be?
A bit of both, plus it taps into the current of anti-Americanism that is always in Canadian political culture. There would not be a Canada if we did not have some basic dislike and distrust of Americans. We are basically jealous of the Aussies for coining the brilliant term ‘seppos’ for our neighbours. It is not at all like European anti-American sentiment except in our intellectual left, and it certainly isn’t normally hatred or contempt. But Trump is the Ugly American Chickenhawk who confirms all the negative stereotypes, right down to being a Vietnam draft dodger.
Poilievre is being increasingly questioned regarding his ability and willingness to manage the relationship without being subservient. If he is seen as subservient, politically he will be in freefall. Unfortunately, that prospect is the one thing that is leading Trudeau not to resign.
edit: I am no fan of Doug Ford either, but this made me laugh out loud:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday he wasn’t troubled by Trump’s late-night tweet about Trudeau.
“I’m sure not thinking of Justin Trudeau at midnight. So if he’s thinking of Justin at midnight, it’s probably a good relationship,” Ford told reporters.
Story by Carl Gibson
Dr. Mehmet Oz — who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) — may have plans to personally reap millions of dollars from privatizing Medicare, according to a group of senators.
NBC News reported Tuesday that several Senate Democrats recently published a letter to Dr. Oz asking him to clarify his past position on advocating for Medicare plans to be phased out in favor of Medicare Advantage plans, in which private health insurance companies replace the federal government in administering health insurance to the elderly. If Oz is confirmed to lead CMMS, he would have vast influence over both health insurance for both low-income Americans and retirees as well as vast oversight over prescription drug prices.
In a 2020 Forbes op-ed co-authored by the former CEO of health insurance giant Kaiser Permanente, Oz called for employer-provided health insurance to be eliminated and for all Americans to be put in “Medicare Advantage for All” plans funded by a 20% payroll tax evenly split between employers and employees. In their letter, senators pointed out that Dr. Oz would personally profit if Medicare was privatized due to his investment portfolio.
“Your advocacy for eliminating the Traditional Medicare program and replacing it with Medicare Advantage also raises questions about your own financial conflicts of interest,” read the letter signed by six Senate Democrats. “In your financial disclosures from your 2022 Senate run, you reported owning over $550,000 of stock in UnitedHealth, the largest private insurer in Medicare Advantage and largest employer of physicians in the nation.”
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both sit on the Senate Finance Committee, where Dr. Oz will appear for his confirmation hearing next month. They wrote that Dr. Oz owes it to Americans to explain his “advocacy for the elimination of Traditional Medicare,” pointing out his “deep financial ties to private health insurers.”
“Indeed, private insurers that run the Medicare Advantage program drastically overcharge for care,” they added.
Senators reminded. Dr. Oz that UnitedHealth is “currently under a sprawling antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice — including for its role in aggressively upcoding Medicare Advantage enrollees to secure higher payments from CMS — and has been sued on multiple occasions for Medicare fraud.” They further noted that “UnitedHealth’s revenue from Medicare Advantage would roughly double to $274 billion annually” if his plan to privatize Medicare came to fruition.
No where on the campaign did the incoherence of Trump’s politics show through more than over Lina Khan at the FTC. She has been aggressively pro consumer and pro worker in her role there as described in the clip below, and so some credulously pretended to believe Trump would keep her on and support her, because he’s a populist.
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1866661158100324398
Of course, now reality is hitting and this it the guy who Trump announced as her replacement
In the US state department, there are two types of ambassadors - political appointees who get rewarded for giving money during the campaign with a cushy job at some politically unimportant or stable country where you just get paid to go to swanky parties, or career foreign service professionals whose expertise is required to manage important delicate relationships. Turkey is very much the latter. Yet…
Barrack was prosecuted, although acquitted (controversially, due to difficulty in actually prosecuting FARA crimes) , for working for the UAE and funneling money to Trump from them in the 2016 campaign
Drain the swamp! Into the federal government, that is…
Well, hey, at least he has experience in the region!
Poor bastard may not even know he will be living in Ankara, not Istanbul.
Can’t trump just move the embassy if he wants to😔
Poor Greece.
That’s another one of those tricky countries. Most Greeks love Americans, and don’t like America much at all. The only qualification she would appear to have is the ear of the President.
I think it’s more giving her a cushy gig to get her agree to get out of the way and not publicly embarrass Don Jr as he parades his new girlfriend around DC
Wray has succumbed to pressure and resigned. Backbone a of a slug.
I get that in a sense it is not very dignified to dig his heels in and fight - make Trump fire you and then challenge the “cause”. But anyone who claims to have respect for the office owes it to the bureau and the people who will come after them to protect the statutory independence of the office.
Find out his uncle owns the country club that my father in law was a long time member of, and my first wife was in the swim team there. Played there many times, and certain I’ve met the uncle before. It’s just outside of Baltimore, MD.
So if Oz gets the gig and does quite nicely, that would be a certainty, given Trump’s predilection for $$$ can we safely assume a nice little spin off for the enabler?
He has form for that!
He’s assembling all the pieces to kick back up to him. It is the ultimate mob boss display unfolding in front of our eyes.
I am not sure what really happened, but… The reaction of everyone around is telling.
I’ve seen a longer video, But I can’t find it any more.
https://x.com/marlene4719/status/1866896876290650408
