Congress should have allowed competition across state lines a long time ago. That is the way to drive down the cost of deductibles and premiums for everyone. Car insurance rates went down due to competition. It can be as effective in the healthcare industry.
''Fix your own problems before you try to fix ours'' said the Chinese guy. ‘American secret police’? Trump deployment of unidentified law enforcement officials across DC sparks alarm Journalists covering the demonstrations on the ground in D.C. have in recent days documented numerous instances of armed law enforcement officers without any identifiable markings or badges refusing to say who they are or what agency they’re from. Refusal by law enforcement officials to identify themselves to the public is “ordinarily associated with the security forces of rights-abusing regimes,” the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University wrote in a letter (pdf) to Attorney General William Barr on Friday. The group said the spread of unidentifiable law enforcement officials around Washington, D.C. raises “grave constitutional concerns” because it has a chilling affect on free expression. “They intimidate and instill fear in members of the public, and discourage the exercise of expressive and associational rights,” the letter continued. “They undermine the legitimacy of whatever demands these armed personnel make of the citizens with whom they interact. They frustrate accountability, because protesters and members of the public cannot know whom to hold responsible when these personnel engage in conduct that is abusive or unlawful. And by guaranteeing impunity, these practices enable discrimination, gratuitous violence, and other lawless behavior.” “The United States would normally condemn this tactic if used by dictators of other countries, and its use here directly threatens our democracy,” Murphy said in a statement. “Americans have a right to know who is patrolling their streets, and to have recourse if their massive power is misused.”
Republican officials better beware , when push comes to shove those beady eyes say only one thing . . . . . . revenge , GOP lawmakers plotting escape from Trump over possibility he’ll lose election in a ‘landslide’: conservative In a column for the Daily Beast, conservative commentator Matt Lewis said there are indications that more than a few GOP lawmakers will turn their backs on Donald Trump as it becomes clearer that he will go down in a major defeat in November. According to Lewis, who abandoned the Republican Party specifically because it became the party of Trump, the president is stumbling into the November election and running scared. “Donald Trump is scared,” he began. “He has beaten, dominated, and bludgeoned the Republican Party into positions that would make a drunken riot cop blush with shame. But now that Trump may lose in a landslide, his captives and quislings are plotting their escape.” As Lewis notes, the tipping point for conservatives and Republicans to seriously consider turning on the president was brought about by comments made by retired General James Mattis in the past week. “Mattis, one of the few adults to serve in Trump’s administration, resigned on principle, and his criticisms were strong and pointed—so I don’t include him in what I’m about to say next, which instead applies to the many elected Republicans who acted like pantywaists before they started to smell Trumpian blood in the electoral waters: When it looks like a ship is sinking, the rats begin scurrying off,” he wrote. “Take Sen. Ben Sasse, for example; he wrote a book about the ‘vanishing adult’ before becoming one himself. After taking a proverbial knee for the last couple of years, Sasse has reemerged recently as a Trump critic. He (coincidentally) rediscovered his courage after winning his primary election—at the very moment that Trump was (and still is) losing by double digits to Joe Biden.” “The danger for Trump is that Sasse isn’t the only one putting down markers for potential political support,” Lewis suggested before noting that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also took shots at the president –which the Trump returned — meaning Trump’s aura of invincibility within the GOP is fast fading. ‘”It’s better late than never,” Lewis explained. “The future of the country is at stake. Republicans are facing a profoundly moral choice—the moral choice of their careers. They’ve already failed, repeatedly, and fed me column fodder for years now. But fate is handing them one last chance to get on the right side of history.” “It’s finally hitting Republicans that there will be life after Trump. And if they want to hang on to their careers and reputations, they better paddle faster, ” he wrote before adding, “This raises questions about the vulnerable Republicans who are on the ballot in November. Do any of them begin distancing from Trump?” “Trump, the man, will not go quietly into that good night. But a landslide loss would cast this one-term president in the role of a ‘loser,’ more akin to Jimmy Carter than Richard Nixon,” he added before concluding, “Trumpism. One day, it’s a miracle, it will disappear.”
Prominent Republicans serving notice they won’t support Trump’s re-election: report According to a report from the New York Times, prominent Republicans are making it clear to Donald Trump that he won’t be receiving their votes or support as he runs for re-election — and they may endorse his presumptive opponent Joe Biden. With one conservative commentator writing that some GOP lawmakers see the writing on the wall that the president won’t be re-elected and may soon start distancing themselves from the embattled president, the Times reports that a few have already making their intentions clear that they won’t back the 2020 Republican presidential nominee. Noting that many of the top Republicans stayed away from Trump in 2016, figuring incorrectly that he couldn’t win, the power of incumbency and having a Republican in the White House is still not enough to make them chnage their mind in 2020. “It was one thing in 2016 for top Republicans to take a stand against Donald J. Trump for president: He wasn’t likely to win anyway, the thinking went, and there was no ongoing conservative governing agenda that would be endangered,” the Times’ Jonathan Martin wrote. “The 2020 campaign is different: Opposing the sitting president of your own party means putting policy priorities at risk, in this case appointing conservative judges, sustaining business-friendly regulations and cutting taxes — as well as incurring the volcanic wrath of Mr. Trump.”
Full Stalin and there would be several thousand dead protesters in the streets. Actually there would be tens of thousands dead.