Looks like all you’re going to get from Twitler is thoughts and prayers, West Virginia (and elsewhere):
In ringing and personal terms, President Donald Trump on Thursday pledged that “we will overcome addiction in America,” declaring opioid abuse a national public health emergency and announcing new steps to combat what he described as the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.
Trump’s declaration, which will be effective for 90 days and can be renewed, will allow the government to redirect resources, including toward expanded access to medical services in rural areas.
But it won’t bring new dollars to fight a scourge that kills nearly 100 Americans a day.
“As Americans we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said in a speech at the White House, where he bemoaned an epidemic he said had spared no segment of American society, affecting rural areas and cities, rich and poor and both the elderly and newborns.
“It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction,” he said. “We can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic.”
Deaths have surged from opioids, which include some prescribed painkillers, heroin and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, often sold on the nation’s streets.
Officials said they also would urge Congress, during end-of-the year budget negotiations, to add new cash to a public health emergency fund that Congress hasn’t replenished for years. The Public Health Emergency Fund currently contains just $57,000, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, a negligible amount.
That’s the local right wing rag- the op-ed page features columns from intellectual giants like Ben Shaprio and Jonah Goldberg and the usual who’s who of douchebag wingnuts. Yet they are seeing right through Trump’s bullshit.
Eight hundred and eight people died from drug overdoses in WV last year- that’s a Hurricane Katrina every two years. And that’s not counting the non fatal overdoses, of which there are thousands upon thousands more. Yet we can’t get a dime to deal with it. Literally, so many people are dying from overdoses that the state can no longer afford to fucking bury them:
Deaths in West Virginia have overwhelmed a state program providing burial assistance for needy families for at least the fifth year in a row, causing the program to be nearly out of money four months before the end of the fiscal year, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). Funeral directors in West Virginia say the state’s drug overdose epidemic, the worst in the nation, is partly to blame.
West Virginia’s indigent burial program, which budgets about $2 million a year for funeral financial assistance, had already been under pressure from the aging of the baby-boom generation. The program offers an average of $1,250 to help cover funeral expenses for families who can’t otherwise afford them.
There are not enough treatment facilities, there is no money for the treatment facilities, idiotic laws prevent medicaid from paying for treatment at facilities https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2017/10/27/the-health-202-there-s-a-no-brainer-way-to-solve-the-opioid-crisis/59f2058830fb0468e7653dc0/”>that have more than 16 beds, there is oh to hell with it it’s a god damned disaster and all we are getting from the President who promised these gullible folks he would do something is words and the always helpful thoughts and prayers and sometimes not even that:
Conway: The best way to stop people dying from drug abuse is by "not starting in the first place" https://t.co/Pxw8AUpQlq pic.twitter.com/FUCraSXWsz
— The Hill (@thehill) October 27, 2017
A rehashed “just say no” is what they are offering. The only thing the “Just say no” program did in the 80’s that I am aware of was make a handy quip for someone to utter as they pulled a tube “JUST SAY NO COUGH COUGH COUGH GIGGLE.”
But hey- there’s money for tax cuts.
Jerry
Speaking of the Just Say No era, there was another drug epidemic sweeping the country and we responded by criminalized the shit out everything. I can’t remember, just what was the difference between the addicts of that drug versus the addicts of today’s drug?
schrodingers_cat
As long as 10year old immigrant girls are being deported straight from their hospital beds, they don’t care.
Chat Noir
God she is such an asshole.
MarkK
Tax cuts for people that do not need them in any way. We are the United States of Disgrace.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
“Just say, ‘No, thank you.'”
MarkK
And can this blog be the first to never put up a picture of that Nazi woman again?
God, she makes me want to vomit.
No Drought No More
Let me be the first to submit that Trump appoint Rush Limbaugh to head a special bipartisan commission to investigate the epidemic. Even better, make that a blue ribboned special bipartisan commission.
Corner Stone
Not sure why they just aren’t going with the tried and true Simpson’s method “Just Don’t Look, Just Don’t Look“
Corner Stone
@MarkK: What’s the matter? Don’t you want a quote? A crazy, crazy quote?
juliet
My children went through DARE in the 80’s and 90’s. At the time they thought it was dumb and as adults, have described it as a shopping manual for what to get.
Major Major Major Major
There was also a healthy secondary market for DARE t-shirts when I was in college.
Kay
@Chat Noir:
They all are.
We did more for helping opiate addicts in beating Trump’s health care bill than any of these people will do- by far.
Corner Stone
@No Drought No More:
If you have Rush involved along with Opoid Czar Chris Christie I am not sure you could find many venues where they could both address the audience at the same time in person.
dexwood
Conway’s inner-ugly is always showing. If I didn’t know who she is I’d think this was picture of a junkie.
Corner Stone
God but I hope the R’s pass a tax cut that eliminates the State and Local Tax deductions.
opiejeanne
Fighting our way across LA.
J/k. It wasn’t bad. We’re about an hour away from the cabin now. We’ll dump our gear, release the cat, eat lunch, and fight the spiders. We haven’t been there since March this time so we may need some weapons. They’re just brown garden spiders.
On steroids.
Wrong thread. D’oh!
Bruuuuce
Wait. Doesn’t El Jefe’s announcement allow for shifting of funds from other health-related spending for this? Can he use it to further sabotage the ACA, or to steal money from women’s healthcare spending so he can grandstand on a drugs issue?
Hungry Joe
EVERYTHING is cover for massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the shredding of social safety nets to pay for it — although the shredding of social safety nets is seen as positive on its own. Opioid addicts can say no or die; people of color can shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down or die; babies can pull themselves up by their bootie straps or die.
Frightening profile of Pence in the current New Yorker. He has helped engineer the placement of Koch cronies into all levels of the federal government, and the Kochs want nothing, nothing, nothing to go to the middle class and the poor.
ruemara
I have tremendous empathy for their problems. I have no more sympathy for the Trump voters though. The only saving grace of the this disaster is my prayer that what they wish for others should come for them first seems to be working. The mercy in my soul is channeled towards helping overthrow these criminals before they truly secure a hold on all bastions of power.
Fair Economist
AND even that’s not counting the other kinds of damage to people’s live. A large fraction of opioid addicts become dysfunctional, unable to hold a job and/or unable to maintain healthy personal relationships.
randy khan
Apropos of the dumpster fire, I’m on the board of a non-profit that’s not in Washington. At our meeting this morning we had a visit from the local Republican Congressman, who’s a member of the less-crazy-than-most-Republicans Tuesday group. These are some of the things he said:
1. He started by more or less saying what everyone in Washington thinks, which is that what’s going on now is nutso. (He did not use that word, but it’s close enough.)
2. If they don’t pass a tax bill, the 2018 elections will be “a bloodbath” – yes, his exact words – and the Republicans will lose both the House and the Senate.
3. Pruitt and Zinke are “not good,” said in a tone of voice that suggested he actually meant “terrible.”
4. He thinks there’s a decent chance for a bill that addresses DACA and some other immigration issues. There is apparently some discussion going on between the Tuesday Group people and the Dems (but specifically not Pelosi, although my personal guess is that very little happens in the Dem caucus without her knowing). He seemed to think it might be bundled with an omnibus spending bill in December.
5. Ways and Means is supposed to be coming out with a fix of some sort for the state and local tax deduction issue. If there isn’t a fix, he said the tax bill will not pass because there are too many Republicans in high-tax states who will vote against it.
6. He’s one of the Republicans who voted against the health care bill, and he specifically voted against it because of the impact on the Medicaid expansion, although he also said there were other, unnamed issues. (Remember, this is the spring House version, not any of the Senate versions.) I can say, because I called his office at the time because I had a local connection, that he came out against it pretty early.
7. He was just short of contemptuous of the Republicans who vote against raising the debt limit, which makes me wonder what he says about them in private conversations.
8. It’s going to be a tough fight to keep arts funding.
9. Finally, and this is a direct quotation: “The President isn’t helping things out.”
A lot of this isn’t news, of course, but it was interesting to hear what someone who’s been in Congress for a long time and who is in some of the deliberations had to say about it, and it was kind of surprising to hear a Republican say some of those things in a somewhat public forum.
Fair Economist
Did Conway even think about what she’s saying? She’s saying doctors should stop prescribing opiates to people who have never had them. That might not be a bad policy, but I’m sure she didn’t think about it.
SatanicPanic
I like to bring this up at times like these, but Hillary was talking about this early because, as part of her listening tour, she heard from a lot of people that this was important to them. Of course, this just means that Democrats are out of touch and aren’t listening to the concerns of the white working class, because EMAILS.
Droppy
The opioid crisis is some kind of perfect storm – an actual need (pain relief) met by an incorrect solution (opioids) rather than a correct solution (non-addictive pain management) because that correct solution requires more time, attention, and money be devoted to the needs on non-rich people. Then when the greediest members of the cohorts involved in profiting from the incorrect solution (doctors, drug companies, distributors) realize they can make a lot of money from the crisis, they keep making it worse so that they can maximize those profits before the whole thing blows up. The proposed fix for all of this by the Trump administration must make them all very happy.
Fair Economist
@randy khan: I not surprised the remaining less-crazy Republicans think these things, but I’m rather shocked they are willing to say them in public.
Shell
Makes as much sense as “The best way to keep from dying from cancer is not to get it in the first place.”
opiejeanne
@juliet: DARE, Red Ribbon Week, Just say no. All useless. The police in my town said DARE was useless.
I was PTA president during that and the ridiculous Red Ribbon thing and I told my board that but they were very earnest. They went ahead with it anyway, got a fabric store to give us spools of red ribbon, and they sat in my dining room cutting and tying bows to pins to hand out to the kids. Busy work for adult women. Waste of time and materials.
Rico
hmm. “Thoughts and prayers.” The R’s second fallback response to solve whatever problem. Behind “tax cuts”
Doug R
Vancouver, BC firefighters respond to more overdoses than fire calls. The opiate overdose death rate is about 10x that of automobile accidents. Somehow the BC government has found $322 million more to combat it.
cmorenc
“Just say no” is SO effective at cutting down drug use and teen pregnancy, and vastly cheaper than any other approach, with the added benefit that it helps advocates for “just say no” toast themselves with a cocktail to celebrate their own moral superiority, as well as removing one minor threat to their hopes for big tax cuts.
James Hare
If he had any compassion for drug addicts he wouldn’t have appointed Jeff Sessions as AG. You can’t solve this problem with a drug warrior at the helm of the Justice Department.
James Hare
@opiejeanne: Kids at music festivals wear DARE t-shirts ironically while using every substance known to man.
feebog
@randy khan:
They think a tax cut is going to save them. But it’s going to be a shitcan of a bill, Democrats are going to be screaming for the next year, and it’s going to be a bloodbath.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Fair Economist:
It’s a sign of how bad and dysfunctional things are getting. I read in a thread below how Tillerson’s State Department has eliminated the office that oversees enforcement of sanctions. It’s getting to the point that crazy, reactionary, paranoid style that has always been apart of politics is beginning to seriously affect our ability to function as a coherant state. Good luck to the Kochs and the Mercers when the government and system collapses from complete ineptitude and corruption. Who’s going to protect them from invasion or the current world order that has allowed them to thrive financially, then? If the US goes so does the world economy for awhile.
Fair Economist
@Droppy:
Most of the problem is that the drug companies have made enormous sums of money by selling these things. They have engineered treatment protocols to almost force opiate usage, and force it early, and force too much. This was done with at least many executives knowing they were generating addicts and in some cases even discussing it in private. It’s like the Opium Wars, but they didn’t even have to fight.
Chyron HR
@feebog:
Yeah, but half of them will be screaming at the Democratic party and demanding “[insert failed primary candidate’s name here] or [negative consequence that’s alliterative with failed primary candidate’s name]”.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Doug R:
I didn’t realize this was a problem outside the United States. Canada still has a functional government, so that’s why they found that 322 million.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Dunno if you have any interest in changing it now, but opioid is misspelled in your headline.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
There are probably worse ways to kick off Civil Wars.
Fair Economist
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Another case of “can you imagine how the media would have reacted if a Democrat had done that?” Seriously, if Hillary as President had done something like that they’d be breaking into sitcom reruns every 10 minutes with urgent bulletins. When Trump does it, it gets half a column on page 5.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack: I find myself spelling it that way too, although unlike Cole I have spellcheck in my browser.
Felonius Monk
If only all those Trump voters had “Just Said No!”
TenguPhule
@James Hare:
Depends on how you define the problem.
Corner Stone
@randy khan: Fuck that guy. Fuck him up his stupid ass.
Patricia Kayden
Because it’s so dang easy to not start in the first place, right Kellyanne Conwoman? Why don’t you stop your addiction to lying?
geg6
At this point, John, I hope all the junkies in your state and mine continue to get no help at all from their hero. A large number of them actually vote and they voted for the Dolt 45. Or their families did. I have lost any sympathy for anyone and any region that voted for him, including my own. Fuck them all. I’m saving all my sympathy for actual victims of this administration and its lackeys in Congress. People who voted for them are not victims. They are volunteers.
MuckJagger
>>
It could be worse. Both my hometown paper in Maine and the Kansas City Star now feature editorial cartoons by the execrable Glenn McCoy.
bemused
Hideous people. If it was easy to just not start in the first place, we wouldn’t have over 200,000 dead from overdoses over 10 years or so and countless others addicted, families and communities devastated. They completely ignore that people didn’t choose to become addicted or had any idea they could easily become addicted when they were prescribed opioids. Conaway and others aren’t that stupid. They deliberately choose to blame the victims. Pure evil. Trump probably does believe the just say no bullshit but he’s off his rocker and evil.
Corner Stone
Someone should let Sarah Huckabee Sanders know it’s not Halloween yet.
TenguPhule
@feebog:
If the GOP fuck up 401k’s for tax cuts, all bets are off.
Republicans will discover that taxes are not the only constant.
Mustang Bobby
Nobody chooses their addiction. It finds you, and in my personal experience, it shows up as your best friend, your lover, your comforter, and your refuge until it’s too late and the destruction has begun. No one ever “gets over it” and no one is ever fully recovered. It is a matter of delicate equilibrium, and the temptations to succumb are many and powerful.
The best you can hope for is an armed truce: peace with vigilance. Every addict knows you cannot let down your guard for a moment. So being lectured about “Just Say No” by someone who has never been there — or worse, cannot acknowledge their own faults and limitations — is more than just galling. It is deadly because it gives false hope and ersatz comfort, not unlike the addiction itself.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: It’s a very odd spelling. It’s the only word in the english language with “ioi”.
rikyrah
@randy khan:
Told you. There are 50 GOPers in these districts. This is the home of IGMFY – they WILL NOT be distracted by shiny objects.
TenguPhule
@Mustang Bobby:
Addiction or Modern Conservatism?
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
We know what they are, now they’re just dickering over the price.
Ruckus
@dexwood:
She does give off slightly more than a whiff of junkie doesn’t she?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Why not both?
How was Japan?
Doug R
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: That $322 million is just from the provincial government, with a population of about 4.5 million, about 0.9% of the population of the United States. The federal government found $65 million emergency funding last spring.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: According to my list of 500,000 words, this is not true. For instance, “ganglioid” is one I’ve seen before. Or “radioing”. “Scenarioize” is apparently a word. But “opioid” is the only one I see regularly.
Gin & Tonic
@Patricia Kayden: I hate to be lookist, but Conway looks to me like someone who very clearly knows which end of a bottle is the good end.
ruemara
@Ruckus She gives off a whiff of “Cocaine keeps my spirits up”. The whole bunch besides closet axe murderer Pence seem to on drugs.
dexwood
@Ruckus:
As a valued commentor is fond of saying –
uh huh
uh huh
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Japan was great, except for the part where the Typhoon rained on my parade for a few days. I was Trump and news free for almost three weeks.
Food was great. People were nice. Brought home a lot of gifts for family and friends.
Will upload some pics this weekend.
randy khan
@feebog:
My take on this is that he knows they’ve lost a lot of voters already, but he thinks that if they don’t pass the tax bill they’re going to lose a lot of base voters as well (not to mention that sweet Mercer and Koch money). I’m more with you than him – any tax bill the Republicans are likely to pass will be bad news for them, too.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
You know Pence is on something. Heroin or just straight poppy juice?
randy khan
@rikyrah:
I agree. There is absolutely no way the bill passes without a fix. It would be political suicide for most of them.
George Spiggott
Somehow I think this might be important news:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-tower-veselnitskaya-russia.html
trnc
Personal? OK, sure. Ringing? What the hell does that even mean when there’s no money pledged?
feebog
@TenguPhule:
They have to find some way to offset the tax cuts they want to give businesses and the .01%. All of the offsets they are proposing still leave them 1.5 Trillion over 10 years short. Fucking math, how does it work?
TenguPhule
Also, I don’t care what anyone else says, Spiderman Homecoming sucked balls and the director and writers should be beaten with frozen haddocks.
/Saw it on the flight back home
rikyrah
@Mustang Bobby:
Your words are eloquent and true.
ThresherK
At the time, the NYDN didn’t realize they were making the ultimate meme to diagnose every right-wing solution.
http://a5.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/w_652/i3a1ahv6suuboqzjimro.jpg
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
Well someone did say no. Assholes said no more money to fight an epidemic that was/is caused by as @Droppy: pointed out, the money people. They don’t care who gets hurt or even enjoy them getting hurt as long as they get more money.
They are money junkies.
They do far more damage to society as a whole than any individual opiate junkie.
Gin & Tonic
@George Spiggott: This should surprise nobody except Rip Van Winkle.
TenguPhule
@feebog: I know that’s where all the money is. But destroying the retirement dreams and savings of millions of Americans (myself among them) will not end well for those responsible.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jerry:
the 80s the coke heads were middle class and the dealers were poor blacks, today the addicts are REAL Americans (ie hicks) and the dealers drug comanies (ie REALER Americans)
rikyrah
Hatch is gonna retire?
Judge Crater
Just one more sign that the oligarchy taking over the United States will gleefully feed out of the public trough while the 90 percent sleep under bridges and beg for food in the streets. We may be at a tipping point. After stripping trillions from the safety net, “privatization” of social security and medicare will be the next goal. Weep for America…
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: All capping 401k deductions at $2600 or whatever would do is push upper-middle-class people into IRA’s and such. They’d pay more taxes up-front for short-term looting but then later, when they retire, there would be no taxes on the withdraw. It’s not even a good source of funds for long-term structural looting.
@Gin & Tonic: Even RVW could probably have guessed. This will only surprise those misled by the likes of Greenwald.
gvg
After years of budget fights and shut downs, there is NOTHING left in the budget that a lot of people don’t love. The problem is there is nothing safe to cut and they refuse to understand it’s past time to increase spending.
The GOP seems to be full of people that don’t understand your pork is someone else’s essential fight to the barricades favorite. They don’t agree among themselves what is still left to cut. they all imagine though that the other Congressmen agree with them on what needs to be cut.
TenguPhule
Trump says he will shrink Bears Ears National Monument, a sacred tribal site in Utah
Proving that there is no petty level he will not sink to in order to wipe out “that one’s” accomplishments.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
It might just be the things she says. As they are at odds with life itself, her’s may be draining from her. Of course the fact that it turns out that seemingly most conservatives seem to be actually doing in semi private whatever it is that they rail against in public……..
rikyrah
@dexwood:
No lie told.
She is a vile reptile of a human being.
eclare
@ruemara: She looks very, very brittle. I looked up her age, she’s only a year or two older than I am. Scary.
Amir Khalid
@Fair Economist:
Actually, no. There’s also “cardioid”, an adjective describing a type of microphone.
Bill Arnold
From OP:
Yes, nice to see. Also, a lot of the stenography-wing of the press is feeling a bit duped by the JFK total info dump, no redacted bigtime suckers.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: My list has 186 words like that but other than “radioing” they’re all pretty much technical/medical/biological terms.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Which is why I suspect its not just the cap, they’re going to try and make current 401k holdings subject to tax. It’s the only way they could get enough money to off-set tax cuts if they don’t loot Medicare.
Ohio Mom
@Fair Economist: Part of me does not have any use for the few sane Republicans. They give cover for the rest of ’em and they don’t seem to be able to right their party’s ship. But the other part of me thinks every little bit of sanity has to help.
And about the bloodbath if they don’t pass tax reform: if they do pass their version of tax reform, the bloodbath will only be postponed. Eventually people will figure out that they have been had.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Anyone who has an interest in audio is familiar with cardioid microphones.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
What do you have against reptiles?
Bill Arnold
@TenguPhule:
What things were we unhappy that Obama accomplished, or failed to accomplish?
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Damn you, Amir Khalid. The only reason you beat me is that it’s already Saturday for you, and still Friday here.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: I’ll bet real money* they don’t try that.
*bitcoin
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
Why won’t they loot Medicare?
They don’t give two shits about it, they don’t plan to ever use it, it doesn’t concern them. The vast majority of conservatives don’t care about anyone other than themselves. And if they believe their own fairy dust stories about everything why would they ever care?
FlyingToaster
Oh, Christ on a pogo stick, not DARE again‽
Once a year, the local PD and FD do call-homeowners to fundraise for their kids outreach programs. For the FD, this is Boys-n-Girl’s club basketball, and visits to all the local public & private schools for fire safety. They get my money every year.
For the PD, it’s DARE, cops-n-kids, and school-safety training for the public schools (our private school pays for the same training). I told them fifteen years ago that so long as they included any DARE-type program, to stop calling my house. After 3 years, they got the message and haven’t called since.
What sucks is that their other programs (school safety, cops-n-kids) are excellent programs.
TenguPhule
@Ruckus:
They already tried. They failed.
For now at least, that appears to be off the table.
So as far as big piles of money to tap for tax cuts, there aren’t a lot of other options.
catclub
@Fair Economist: cardioid?
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: enough of their voters even started liking Obamacare once it was threatened.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
Hatch retiring is the rumor. Mitt Romney is set to run to replace him. Majority of Utahns want Hatch to retire, and they’re afraid he’d get picked off by a whack job in the primaries.
Learned this from McKay Coppins in the Atlantic, and he floated the same rumor about 6 months ago.
ruemara
@TenguPhule: white knuckle christianity and suppression.
Seanly
My wife is still taking morphine 2 years after her blood stem cell transplant & subsequent near-death lung event. She tries to limit her usage but nothing else reduces her almost ever constant pain. Yes, she sees a pain spec1alist. She also has Gabapentin (sp?) but that barely takes the edge off.
This opoid epicemic isn’t just illicit drug use as the administration seems to think but also people in chronic pain with little choices other than opiods.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: I saw this morning that huge Medicaid cuts are part of the house budget but I don’t remember if Medicare was in there too.
seaninclt
Her human mask is looking a bit ragged around the edges. Life ain’t easy for Lizard People…
catclub
@Major Major Major Major:
so – like a technical word for chemicals derived from biological substances and used in medicine?
TenguPhule
@Seanly:
And the problem is that people start developing resistance to the drugs, which requires more drugs to be effective and hey presto, you’re in trouble.
rikyrah
PLEASE FRONTPAGE
Unsealed Documents Show That Kris Kobach Is Dead Set on Suppressing the Right to Vote
By Orion Danjuma, Staff Attorney, ACLU Racial Justice Program
OCTOBER 26, 2017 | 6:00 PM
For almost a year, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has struggled to hide the truth about his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to make it much harder for Americans to vote. Part of that struggle ended today when a federal court ordered excerpts of Kris Kobach’s testimony disclosed along with other documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in our challenge to his restrictive voter registration regime.
The unsealed materials confirm what many have suspected: Kobach has a ready-made plan to gut core voting rights protections enshrined in federal law. And he has been covertly lobbying Trump’s team and other officials from day one to sell them the falsehood that noncitizens are swinging elections.
………………..
Play 1: Disenfranchise new voters with severe registration restrictions
Play 2: If the law doesn’t let you suppress the vote, pull some strings to get rid of the law
Play 3: Cover your tracks
When the ACLU demanded that he produce his draft NVRA amendments in the Kansas litigation, Kobach did the natural thing a vote suppressor caught red-handed would do: He lied.
Kobach told the ACLU and a federal magistrate that “no such documents exist” in an attempt to keep his lobbying efforts under wraps:
After Kobach was ordered to produce his papers for review, the magistrate fined him for making “patently misleading representations to the court about the documents.” When Kobach appealed that decision, the presiding judge agreed that Kobach should be sanctioned because of a “pattern” of misrepresentation “that call[s] his credibility into question.”
Kobach’s lobbying to gut the NVRA was always meant to occur behind closed doors. So he has been struggling for months to keep these documents out of public view, while secretly asking his ally, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), to introduce his proposed NVRA amendment to Congress in the future.
Why is Kobach trying so hard to hide what he’s been up to? Because the unsealed documents reveal that his true aim and that of the election commission is suppressing the right to vote.
Peale
@Jerry: If you haven’t noticed, they are blaming Mexicans for this problem wherever they can. First for stealing their jobs and making them feel all empty inside, then for, i don’t know, investing in shares in Pharma companies to get people hooked enough on Oxycontin that they’ll try heroin. Who knows. But I’m going to guess that the state of emergency funds if they ever come about will be directed towards ICE and wall building long before we see one new addiction clinic funded.
CaseyL
This systematic raiding of assets to feed the already-fat will bankrupt everyone else, utterly and absolutely. No one will be able to afford healthcare, or be able to retire, or do anything but live paycheck to paycheck – if they’re lucky.
The only hope for this country, and I mean this very sincerely, is for the Democrats to take both houses of Congress in 2018 and immediately dismantle Trump’s Administration. By 2020, it will be too late: assets will have been stripped, SCOTUS will have been packed, and the economy will be in the shit.
If the Dems don’t prevail in 2018, we’re done.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Oh God, you’re joking. I thought we were done with that fucking prick.
The Moar You Know
@Seanly: Burn victims. Osteosarcoma patients. Car crash victims. There are a LOT of people out there in suicide-level amounts of pain, and they are not being managed adequately because their doctors are terrified of having their licenses pulled by the DEA and for good reason.
Opioids are not a good solution but they’re the only ones we have. The pharma companies are too busy making lifestyle drugs to even research the two biggest medical needs in our society: better antibiotics and better pain medication. Not enough money there. Plus, as regards chronic, incurable pain, they figure that’s a problem the patient will eventually “fix” on their own, and sadly they are almost always eventually proven right.
You I’m sure have noticed that this is something no one participating in this “debate” is willing to acknowledge. Yes, opioids are a problem, but lack of adequate opioids is a huge problem too…and nothin’ getting done about that. Blaming addicts or “big pharma” is much more fun and much less fraught with moral grey zones.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Mitt?
Whatever.
Wish that Evan McMullin would run instead.
LeonS
@Shell: I was thinking you could fill up an entire thread with “The best way to _____” variations. Maybe some Twitter user should get this going (if it hasn’t already happened)
The best way to avoid automobile crashes is to never drive.
The best way to avoid alzheimer’s disease is to die young.
…
Mike in NC
If nothing else, the Trump Administration — an appalling collection of ghouls and freaks — will inspire a lot of good Halloween costumes this year.
Barbara
@Seanly: I am sorry for your wife’s pain. It sounds like she had a life threatening illness that made an existential difference in her life. Research shows that opioids are not that effective for chronic pain management and that they actually sensitize people to a lower pain threshold. Either way, many people who stop taking them feel increased levels of pain so it is hard to know what to do.
I don’t actually see anything improving. It’s true that we desperately need more treatment, but even with treatment the relapse rate for opioid addiction is really high. Becoming an addict means that you are likely to remain an addict, because opioids change your brain, and even though “just say no” is a maddening response to the situation as it is, honestly, people really should say no to opioids if they can. If you watch the show Intervention, you will notice over time that people who use opioids and heroin seem to have the hardest time recovering, and either leave treatment or go right back to using once they leave. People should especially say no to doctors who prescribe opioids like candy for outpatient surgical and dental procedures and at least try non-opioid pain relief. The direct cause of overprescribing is the pharmaceutical industry, but the reason why people in the U.S. are uniquely vulnerable is that many of us have been looking for magical bullets in the form of drugs for a long time for a whole host of problems, including obesity and mental illness.
louc
@Major Major Major Major: Except aren’t there caps on how much you can put into a Roth IRA and it remain tax free at the end? My understanding is it’s also something like $2,500, unless you’re rolling over your 401K into an IRA and then you have to pay all the taxes up front. But it’s been a while since I looked into it.
The other thing about Roth IRAs is you’re getting taxed at your maximum earning power, where as when you withdraw money, you’re more likely to have a more limited income.
I think this will piss off even traditionally R middle class types. So will the state income tax deduction. Quite a few R states have hefty state income taxes.
Re: the opioid crisis. This might actually end up being a great wedge issue for Dems. A conservative Texan I’m facebook friends with for professional reasons, who has been a loyal defender of Trump, Tillerson and Sessions, was actually bitching about Trump’s declaration, asking what it accomplishes.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mike in NC:
I thought about buying a Trump mask and wearing an orange jumpsuit
Downpuppy
@Fair Economist: She’s clearly talking about kids, (as though people get hooked on opiates by peer pressure) not prescriptions:
“The president echoed the message that many health-care providers and elected officials say, which is, the best way to stop people from dying from overdoses and drug abuse is by not starting in the first place,” Conway said in an appearance on Fox News after Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.
“That’s a big core message for our youth that the first lady is continuing to push with prevention education,” Conway continued.
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
@Major Major Major Major:
Most of their voters don’t pay them.
Their benefactors do. Some are paid quite substantially for anyone with their talent levels. They will find a way, even if they can’t loot the entire program, they will find a way.
Nothing, not one program that helps people in any way is safe from the money junkies. They want what they want and they can pay idiots to do their bidding. Bidding probably being an appropriate word to use in this context.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Does it really matter? There are enough fucking assholes on the take that how do you choose the least worst?
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Chronic pain is so much fun. It doesn’t have to be level ten to be debilitating. It’s when it never stops. Chronic pain that is intense and yet momentary is fun as well but unless you take something that deadens all pain all the time no pain killer works because by the time it’s in your system the attack is gone.
The point is there are all kinds of pain, most of them are there for a good reason, something is wrong. However if that wrong can not be fixed you are going to have pain. And there are issues that can not be fixed, even as modern medicine has made huge strides. There are still a lot of mysteries inside the body.
Kathleen
@ruemara: I call her “Malibu Meth Barbie”.
randy khan
@louc:
Under current law, there are caps on Roth IRAs, although it’s a combined cap with a traditional IRA. That cap was $5,500 annually, with an extra $1,000 if you’re over 50. There also are income limits for contributions to Roth IRAs. There’s a phase down starting at $117,000 and ending at $132,000 for single people (higher for married couples).
The caps for 401(k)s are much higher – on the order of $35,000. I assume that if they futz with 401(k)s that they will increase the limits on IRAs and Roth IRAs, but that’s only an assumption and these folks are crazy enough to do anything.
BTW, somebody speculated that the 401(k) thing may be a non-starter under reconciliation rules because it would cause a tax impact beyond the ten-year window. That makes sense to me, although I’m far from an expert on the reconciliation rules.
Peale
@LeonS: Very few smokers get alzheimers. Just sayin..
TriassicSands
Trump did promise some really, really, really, really sensational advertisements aimed at young people. That should fix the problem.
Sample: “You can’t vote for Donald Trump to keep making America great again if you’re dead! Don’t OD. It’s sad like the failing New York Times.”
Ruckus
@Peale:
Don’t they usually die of something else first? Say lung cancer, COPD…..
dr. luba
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think John was referring to the crack epidemic, which disproportionately affected the AA community. The government response was to hypercriminalize crack. From the HuffPost:
The crack epidemic almost exclusively impacted people of color living in poor neighborhoods—it was a problem of another world. This made it far easier to implement draconian policies that actively dehumanized those afflicted.
Prior to the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, the sentencing ratio of crack vs. cocaine was 100:1. That means that, as the New York Times pointed out, an individual caught with 50 grams of crack would be sentenced to 10 years in prison, while the cocaine equivalent would be possession of 5,000 grams.
They are the same drug. But one (cocaine) was associated with upper-class Caucasians and the other (crack) was associated with lower-class people of color.