Alolan_Apples
“Assorted” Collector
Although I said before that highly controversial content deserved no room in the StarFall Press, the news had a few interesting stories in recent times. The three things that caught my attention to share views on is Comey's investigation of Donald Trump and the Russian interference of the 2016 Election, the failed repeal and replacement of the ACA, and the confirmation hearings of Trump's Supreme Court Pick, Neil Gorsuch.
So here's what we know. The 2016 Election is over. Long over, actually. Trump won the election, the Electoral College gave him more than 300 electoral votes, and Congress has confirmed the results. However, some people still wouldn't let it go as something related to the election still bothers them. Some are upset because we elected a popular reality star with no experience in public service as president instead of somebody with actual political experience. Some are upset that the Republicans have gotten control of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency as they fear that a lot of the social progresses made under Obama will be reversed. Some are not bothered by who we elected, but were about how bad society has gotten after the 2016 election. And others were bothered by how Trump got elected. The hottest topic related to the 2016 Election now is the Russian interference with the election.
On the week of the ACA replacement vote, Trump complained on Twitter that people still kept talking about Russia and their relations to the election, which got the FBI investigating Trump. Some people believe in the conspiracy that Russia has hacked the 2016 Election results or has at least got involved in some way. Whether or not this is true, George Washington has even warned us about foreign interference with domestic policy. He did not want the United States going that path. But we did. In fact, it was happening for a while now. First of all, we allowed foreign nations interfere with our freedoms (even if we never intended to do so), such as censoring South Park's 201st episode and partially banning the 2014 film The Interview. Then we had Russia get involved in the election in some way. Even if other countries cared about the presidential elections before, not once had we ever have a foreign state get involved in an election. Even I agree that it has gone that far. But there are some who actually believe James Comey, not Russia, has tilted the 2016 Election towards Donald Trump.
In my opinion, it was not the FBI or Russia that tilted the election towards the corrupt businessman. I believe Townhall said it best. Hillary lost because of a huge variety of factors, all of them being related to liberals and their behavior, the media, and the Obama Administration. Under Obama, America has gotten a lot worse. It was not just bad for conservatives, but also bad for many other groups. The federal government has overstepped their bounds (such as passing strict environment regulations and taking more control of public education), political correctness has gotten much worse, the liberal media acted like they have control over people, and people that faced less discrimination in the past (such as white people and Christians) are being bullied and discriminated over who they are. In fact, by even bullying conservatives and others for not agreeing with them by calling them names (such as "racist") and other ways and means, the radical left threw the election towards Trump. It wasn't Russia or the FBI that resulted in Trump's win. It were the irritated conservatives that were sick of this nonsense that gave Trump and the Republicans control of the federal government for the next two to four years. You see, it's not just political factors that determine who wins the election. If the media and others continue bullying one side into agreeing with them, they might not win the election. If it were the conservatives that were bullying liberals over what they believe, the liberals will take control as the conservatives will lose dominance. Granted, Hillary did win the popular vote by a large margin as Republicans lost a few seats in the House and the Senate. But the Republicans have control, and they already got some stuff done.
Even if I don't think Russia determined the winner of the election, I do believe it has been involved in the election somehow. But what's really bothersome is that the liberal media continues to focus on this, yet they want to forget that Hillary rigged the DNC to get into the presidential race. So yes, both parties are guilty for rigging the election some way.
Since the Republicans dominate the federal government in every branch now, we knew they were going to do what they wanted to do in the past seven years. That is, to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. You see, Obamacare has survived several attempts of Republicans repealing the bill, two Supreme Court cases, and the 2013 Government Shutdown. But now that the Republicans have control, they can get rid of it.
On the day after March 24th, they finally got the opportunity to repeal the bill and replace it. And the bill has...
...failed!
Yes, Paul Ryan withdrawn the bill because it couldn't get enough votes. Even if all of the Republicans in power want Obamacare to be gone, 36 of them opposed the replacement they had in mind. Because of this, Obamacare is here to stay, but Trump wouldn't even accept it. Now he wants Obamacare to implode on its own. Even if I want this socialist policy out of the way, I would rather be more interested into watching it fail. But I would prefer if they could actually take care of two things without taking it down. One of them is to scoop out the individual mandate. It can still survive without it, and it is un-American to force everyone to own something as a requirement of being a citizen. The other is to exempt all foodservice chains (such as fast foods and restaurants) and all chains with less than 100 units operating from the employer insurance mandate. Not only it created a burden on small businesses, but I also think employers should not be forced to provide anything to their employees that they can get anywhere. And if we have this in effect, some places would cut all their worker hours to part-time employees or not provide any full time jobs to get around the mandate. They don't need to be doing this because the mandate shouldn't even be there.
Yes, I am anti-Obamacare, as I said it many times, but these are my opinions on what they can do instead of repealing and replacing. But if you want to know what I agree with Obamacare on, it would be where nobody with pre-exisiting conditions can be denied coversge, and where people can stay on their parents' insurance plan till age 26. Even the anti-Obamacare people like those provisions.
It was time that Neil Gorsuch faces a confirmation showdown. After the hearings, the Republicans are ready to vote him in. But here's the problem. In order to confirm a justice pick, the Senate needs 60 votes. 41 of the senators (mostly Democrats) have filibustered him. The Republicans can't confirm him if they can't get 60 votes, unless if they revise the rules of confirming a Supreme Court justice. And they are already going to do it. Somehow, the Democrats do not support this decision.
If you want to know why I think the Democrats filibustered Gorsuch and don't want the Republicans to go nuclear, it has to be for these two reasons:
Although I wouldn't try to step in, I do agree that everybody has to get along with picking a SC justice. I also agree that if a justice dies or retires in a presidential election year, the president shouldn't pick a new justice for confirmation until the next term, especially if it's the president's last term. So I felt that the Republicans' filibuster was justified, but the Democrats' filibuster to be childish. What's even more insensitive is that they said it was wrong to filibuster a Supreme Court pick when the Republicans were doing it, but went against their words.
And one more thing, Gorsuch (a conservative pick) was picked to replace Scalia (a conservative justice). They are filibustering a conservative pick that was to replace a conservative. The Republicans were filibustering a moderate pick that was to replace a conservative. I really think they should get along. If it were a liberal justice that died or retired and if Trump were to replace him/her with a conservative, that's when they really need to worry.
I try to avoid reading the news, but these stories going on are very interesting. The reason why I decided to blog about politics for once is because if I were to make a thread discussing any of this or talk about it anywhere else in the forums, the thread will go out of control to where it will get locked. In recent times, Brewster's Café was filled with political threads, and most of the time, they got locked. So I had to discuss all this on my blog. I may do it again, but very rarely.
2016 Election Revisited
So here's what we know. The 2016 Election is over. Long over, actually. Trump won the election, the Electoral College gave him more than 300 electoral votes, and Congress has confirmed the results. However, some people still wouldn't let it go as something related to the election still bothers them. Some are upset because we elected a popular reality star with no experience in public service as president instead of somebody with actual political experience. Some are upset that the Republicans have gotten control of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency as they fear that a lot of the social progresses made under Obama will be reversed. Some are not bothered by who we elected, but were about how bad society has gotten after the 2016 election. And others were bothered by how Trump got elected. The hottest topic related to the 2016 Election now is the Russian interference with the election.
On the week of the ACA replacement vote, Trump complained on Twitter that people still kept talking about Russia and their relations to the election, which got the FBI investigating Trump. Some people believe in the conspiracy that Russia has hacked the 2016 Election results or has at least got involved in some way. Whether or not this is true, George Washington has even warned us about foreign interference with domestic policy. He did not want the United States going that path. But we did. In fact, it was happening for a while now. First of all, we allowed foreign nations interfere with our freedoms (even if we never intended to do so), such as censoring South Park's 201st episode and partially banning the 2014 film The Interview. Then we had Russia get involved in the election in some way. Even if other countries cared about the presidential elections before, not once had we ever have a foreign state get involved in an election. Even I agree that it has gone that far. But there are some who actually believe James Comey, not Russia, has tilted the 2016 Election towards Donald Trump.
In my opinion, it was not the FBI or Russia that tilted the election towards the corrupt businessman. I believe Townhall said it best. Hillary lost because of a huge variety of factors, all of them being related to liberals and their behavior, the media, and the Obama Administration. Under Obama, America has gotten a lot worse. It was not just bad for conservatives, but also bad for many other groups. The federal government has overstepped their bounds (such as passing strict environment regulations and taking more control of public education), political correctness has gotten much worse, the liberal media acted like they have control over people, and people that faced less discrimination in the past (such as white people and Christians) are being bullied and discriminated over who they are. In fact, by even bullying conservatives and others for not agreeing with them by calling them names (such as "racist") and other ways and means, the radical left threw the election towards Trump. It wasn't Russia or the FBI that resulted in Trump's win. It were the irritated conservatives that were sick of this nonsense that gave Trump and the Republicans control of the federal government for the next two to four years. You see, it's not just political factors that determine who wins the election. If the media and others continue bullying one side into agreeing with them, they might not win the election. If it were the conservatives that were bullying liberals over what they believe, the liberals will take control as the conservatives will lose dominance. Granted, Hillary did win the popular vote by a large margin as Republicans lost a few seats in the House and the Senate. But the Republicans have control, and they already got some stuff done.
Even if I don't think Russia determined the winner of the election, I do believe it has been involved in the election somehow. But what's really bothersome is that the liberal media continues to focus on this, yet they want to forget that Hillary rigged the DNC to get into the presidential race. So yes, both parties are guilty for rigging the election some way.
Health Care Bill Repeal Blues
Since the Republicans dominate the federal government in every branch now, we knew they were going to do what they wanted to do in the past seven years. That is, to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. You see, Obamacare has survived several attempts of Republicans repealing the bill, two Supreme Court cases, and the 2013 Government Shutdown. But now that the Republicans have control, they can get rid of it.
On the day after March 24th, they finally got the opportunity to repeal the bill and replace it. And the bill has...
...failed!
Yes, Paul Ryan withdrawn the bill because it couldn't get enough votes. Even if all of the Republicans in power want Obamacare to be gone, 36 of them opposed the replacement they had in mind. Because of this, Obamacare is here to stay, but Trump wouldn't even accept it. Now he wants Obamacare to implode on its own. Even if I want this socialist policy out of the way, I would rather be more interested into watching it fail. But I would prefer if they could actually take care of two things without taking it down. One of them is to scoop out the individual mandate. It can still survive without it, and it is un-American to force everyone to own something as a requirement of being a citizen. The other is to exempt all foodservice chains (such as fast foods and restaurants) and all chains with less than 100 units operating from the employer insurance mandate. Not only it created a burden on small businesses, but I also think employers should not be forced to provide anything to their employees that they can get anywhere. And if we have this in effect, some places would cut all their worker hours to part-time employees or not provide any full time jobs to get around the mandate. They don't need to be doing this because the mandate shouldn't even be there.
Yes, I am anti-Obamacare, as I said it many times, but these are my opinions on what they can do instead of repealing and replacing. But if you want to know what I agree with Obamacare on, it would be where nobody with pre-exisiting conditions can be denied coversge, and where people can stay on their parents' insurance plan till age 26. Even the anti-Obamacare people like those provisions.
SCOTUS Confirmation Drama
It was time that Neil Gorsuch faces a confirmation showdown. After the hearings, the Republicans are ready to vote him in. But here's the problem. In order to confirm a justice pick, the Senate needs 60 votes. 41 of the senators (mostly Democrats) have filibustered him. The Republicans can't confirm him if they can't get 60 votes, unless if they revise the rules of confirming a Supreme Court justice. And they are already going to do it. Somehow, the Democrats do not support this decision.
If you want to know why I think the Democrats filibustered Gorsuch and don't want the Republicans to go nuclear, it has to be for these two reasons:
- The Democrats were very unhappy with the Republicans' fillbuster of Merrick Garland in 2016. In my opinion, I don't think the Republicans hated him, but they hated Obama, which is why they would not accept anyone he picks.
- Neil Gorsuch has a record of opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, environmental regulations, and other things like that. If he becomes a justice, chances are, Roe v Wade and Obergefell v Hodges will be overturned as future cases won't side with the Democrats.
Although I wouldn't try to step in, I do agree that everybody has to get along with picking a SC justice. I also agree that if a justice dies or retires in a presidential election year, the president shouldn't pick a new justice for confirmation until the next term, especially if it's the president's last term. So I felt that the Republicans' filibuster was justified, but the Democrats' filibuster to be childish. What's even more insensitive is that they said it was wrong to filibuster a Supreme Court pick when the Republicans were doing it, but went against their words.
And one more thing, Gorsuch (a conservative pick) was picked to replace Scalia (a conservative justice). They are filibustering a conservative pick that was to replace a conservative. The Republicans were filibustering a moderate pick that was to replace a conservative. I really think they should get along. If it were a liberal justice that died or retired and if Trump were to replace him/her with a conservative, that's when they really need to worry.
Conclusion
I try to avoid reading the news, but these stories going on are very interesting. The reason why I decided to blog about politics for once is because if I were to make a thread discussing any of this or talk about it anywhere else in the forums, the thread will go out of control to where it will get locked. In recent times, Brewster's Café was filled with political threads, and most of the time, they got locked. So I had to discuss all this on my blog. I may do it again, but very rarely.
