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[martinuzz]

So when will the vote count finally be done in the US? It's about time you guys got a president, it's been months since Obama stepped down. You've been without president for half a year now. I mean, I know we Dutch are trendy, but that doesn't mean you have to follow our every lead. We can manage without a government, you can't. Please. Get a president.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh, the vote count is technically finished, it's just that all the electronic voting machines being interacted with by humans on the same day created quantum signals like that of a brain's and turned them into a collective overmind. Not only can we not see those votes now, but their existence has been rendered moot by the overmind.

It hasn't really done anything yet besides locking out the nuke controls and playing Nine Inch Nails albums, but I'm sure it'll make some decisions soon.

[Reelya]

Come now, Neo, Trump is such a narcissist I'd be surprised if he didn't commission this.

He'll also blame Time for not having him on the cover exactly like that in the first place because it's obviously not his fault it's fake.

it's probably similar to presidential candidate Herman Cain's “A poet once said, ‘life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it’s never easy when there’s so much on the line.'” And the "poet" turned out to be 1970s disco star Donna Summer, with the "poem" being the theme song from the 2000 Pokemon movie. It's literally the first line of the song.

Herman Cain was a motivational speaker, and when that's your gig, then people don't fact-check where your "pearls of wisdom" came from. Same thing with Trump when that cover went up: he was a reality TV star.

Then ... show biz collides with politics. Funnily enough, it turns out the fact checkers at places like fivethirtyeight and politifact go into a little more depth than variety magazine and entertainment weekly.

[Bumber]

So when will the vote count finally be done in the US? It's about time you guys got a president, it's been months since Obama stepped down. You've been without president for half a year now. I mean, I know we Dutch are trendy, but that doesn't mean you have to follow our every lead. We can manage without a government, you can't. Please. Get a president.

What are you on about? Obama hasn't stepped down yet. Won't until 2017.

[EnigmaticHat]

The name of 3.0 is the "Better Care Reconciliation Act" I believe.

I wonder what the "better" is supposed to mean if fewer people have it and those that do pay more for it. Presumably, the moral victory over the obviously horrific communistic influence Obamacare had over our way of life. I'm going to go with that, actually. Hey, someone tweet it at Trump and see if we can get that ball rolling.

Its better because you will now have the freedom to be uninsured.

[Frumple]

Don't forget the freedom to pay out your ass for health insurance that won't actually do anything and probably be weaseled out of the moment the provider has to pay out. Can't forget part of this mess is the GOP fighting to give insurance companies back the near unfettered privilege of selling shit insurance that does jack all in practice but still charges premium like it does something.

... is kind of annoying, really. The underinsured et al angle doesn't really get much attention, usually. Practices even more predatory than they can still get away with largely unmentioned. Lots of talk of "Lower premiums!" while pointedly looking the other way and changing the subject when the how comes up and the person shilling the thing is pressed to cough up the fact that those lower premiums come not because of some sort of increase in efficiency or whathaveyou, but because the quality of the service is degrading as well as the charge. Easier to sell "choice" than "letting the insurance company go back to selling you snake oil" I guess.

Though... y'know. I could almost get on board with that, if an insurance company trying to drop someone or jack charges up within X (say a couple years, or before whatever the condition is is treated in full + six months or somethin') time of a payout or diagnosis was made to be automatic grounds for fraud charges and civil penalties. Basically a worker's comp of insurance malfeasance.

[Gizogin]

Come now, Neo, Trump is such a narcissist I'd be surprised if he didn't commission this.

He'll also blame Time for not having him on the cover exactly like that in the first place because it's obviously not his fault it's fake.

it's probably similar to presidential candidate Herman Cain's “A poet once said, ‘life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it’s never easy when there’s so much on the line.'” And the "poet" turned out to be 1970s disco star Donna Summer, with the "poem" being the theme song from the 2000 Pokemon movie. It's literally the first line of the song.

Herman Cain was a motivational speaker, and when that's your gig, then people don't fact-check where your "pearls of wisdom" came from. Same thing with Trump when that cover went up: he was a reality TV star.

Then ... show biz collides with politics. Funnily enough, it turns out the fact checkers at places like fivethirtyeight and politifact go into a little more depth than variety magazine and entertainment weekly.

It really is a shame. There were so many other Pokémon movie quotes to choose from.

We do have a lot in common. The same air, the same Earth, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different, well, who knows.

I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

Disturb not the harmony of fire, ice or lightning, lest these titans wreak destruction upon the world in which they clash. Though the water's great guardian shall arise to quell the fighting, alone its song will fail, thus the earth shall turn to ash.

That last one might be hard to work into a motivational seminar, but I remain optimistic.

[Reelya]

Maybe if you're courting the Christian Right then the last one would be most fitting.

[RedKing]

So ...

Time magazine has asked the Trump organisation to remove fake covers bearing his image from his golf clubs. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that a framed Time cover featuring Trump and the headline “Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!”, seen hanging at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, was faked. ... The cover was reportedly on display at four other golf clubs owned by the US president. ... “I can confirm that this is not a real Time cover,” Kerri Chyka wrote to the Post. The paper said Time had asked the Trump organisation to remove the covers from display.

The fake Trump magazine cover is shown framed and mixed in with real ones ... so it's not just advertising spin, if you see it, you're meant to think Trump was really on that Time magazine cover.

As I stated the first time I saw this on FB: Even Trump's fake news believes in global warming (see headline on the lower right-hand portion).

[Playergamer]

which should we talk about today children?

23 million people losing their health insurance, or a novelty magazine cover?

23 million people losing their health insurance, and an almost certain mortality spike that will be completely covered up?

nah, let's talk about the magazine!

[nenjin]

Or how about both since they're both atrocities?

So Trump's wife can sue for defamation, but everyone should just shut the fuck up when he creates propaganda using another business' logo and trademarks?

[Reelya]

But what do people who support Trump think about that?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/26/cbo-report-senate-healthcare-bill-drops-number-of-insured-by-22-million/

"I couldn't care less how many deadbeats get bumped."

Conservatives don't care about the figure. Highlighting victims doesn't work because of the "just world fallacy". if you're harmed by something you are a "deadbeat" because that's how "just world fallacy" works. you were harmed, therefore you deserved it. For that reason harping on "22 million uninsured" doesn't actually work to change how a conservative feels about the issue. How psychology actually works is the #1 thing you need to take into account when trying to convince someone that some policy is good or bad. "Just world fallacy" is extremely important to understand when trying to convince people of a different political stripe to believe something, especially if you're a liberal and you're trying to convince a conservative of something.

"Just world fallacy" is not about "you reap what you sow". It kicks in specifically for incidents where some random bad thing happens and there's no rational cause and effect connection. In those cases "just world" believers devalue the person themselves to rationalize why a non-fair outcome happened. e.g. if you describe two guys and one guy gets struck by lightning, then people rationalize negatively about the human worth of the person struck by lightning. It's not a rational process, people devalue other people to explain away unfairness, because then they don't have to process the idea that it could happen to good worthwhile people like themselves.

Another major one that people especially get really wrong is what's called negative social proof. Claiming "everyone does X. X is bad. Don't do X" is shown to backfire. People end up believing that X is a normal behavior, and they do it more. They already knew "thing X" was bad, that part isn't news. Telling them that it's *widespread* makes them believe it's more socially acceptable. So they do it more. It's closely linked to the concept of "stereotype threat". e.g. saying "all men are rapists" and labeling just about everything as rape, has the nasty implication that actual rapists believe that their behavior is average. They believe "well every other guy does it, why not me?". I don't know, but I have a nasty suspicion that if there is an actual campus rape epidemic part of it is actually caused by the omnipresent "everyone's raping everyone" rhetoric normalizing the concept. e.g. ... saying that all these guys are raping girls and getting away with it, perhaps overstating the figures ... what result would you expect that to have on some impressionable horny teen boy in college? He's more likely to believe that he can do it and get away with it, not less likely, and he's more likely to see it as a social norm.

[Descan]

which should we talk about today children?

23 million people losing their health insurance, or a novelty magazine cover?

23 million people losing their health insurance, and an almost certain mortality spike that will be completely covered up?

nah, let's talk about the magazine!

People are talkin' about both, dude. It's just easier to make quips about the magazine than about the insurance, so more *effort* is going into the latter, but more *people* are talking about the former.

[Playergamer]

i would actually like to insert the point that not all of the whatever-the-fuck-the-number is million are actually "getting bumped." i don't know what the number is, but a sizable fraction of those are people who willingly choose to no longer have insurance because of the individual mandate going away.

basically we don't actually know how many of those people are getting the corporate boot in the face.

[milo christiansen]

So you want to insist that those who can't afford insurance should buy it anyway so everyone else gets a cheaper rate? Something about that seems a little screwed up.