mtutiger

Is 1/6/21, in your estimation, a day to be celebrated?

Go touch grass, my man...

I have no idea what this means...

https://m.jpost.com/international/article-835554 I seem to recall someone saying that the AfD "had a point" or something to that effect recently

Correct, and in the context of both New Orleans and Las Vegas, they manifested themselves as the opposite sides of the same coin (one flying an ISIS flag, one spouting wild right wing / pro-Trump rhetoric). Making this a pissing match about ISIS (not to mention blaming illegals when they were both born in the USA) doesn't solve anything

https://nevadacurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/PO-003a-01-03-25-Livelsbergers-Letters.pdf Excerpts from the "wild manifesto".... I have another theory on why some folks think this isn't worth talking about (hint: it's inconvenient)

Posting polling data which conflicts with your views on the VA and challenging you to answer basic questions is "aggression"?

Pew nailed the 2024 election in terms of the popular vote nationally... and in their 2023 polling (shown below), they have the VA with a 56-28 favorable-unfavorable rating nationally. So, I ask again... Why change anything if the users like the end product? What's the benefit?

As has been mentioned before (and as you have ignored), vets seem fine with the VA as is per per polling. Why change anything if the users like the end product? What's the benefit?

Honestly do believe that if the Adam Schefters and Jeff Passans of the world moved over, Twitter would lose a ton of it's utility. People who are on these platforms for mostly political reasons underestimate how much casual sports and other non-political interest prop them up (or keep them from growing)

No judgment, I get it.

Uhh, it's permanent for some of us. Enjoy that cesspool boss 👌

@Tigeraholic1also elides the point (as has brought up multiple times now) that VA practitioners deal with medical conditions and issues that aren't always easy to obtain geographically or in a cost effective manner for vets among private practitioners. I'm gonna hazard a wild guess in saying that Donald Trump and Elon Musk probably haven't given any of this a second of thought

Even setting aside the politics of privatizing the VA, as the Speaker vote demonstrated yesterday, the margins for the GOP are *tight*.... zero room for error. I'm sure the strategy will be to carry a massive bill with every single Trump priority through reconciliation, and I'm sure he'll use all his political capital to get it across, but as a standalone item, a privatization of the VA wouldn't stand a chance in the House (and would probably have significant issues in the Senate tbh). The same probably holds for most of the things that "DOGE" wishes to cut. When you have a 220-215 majority in the House, just on math, you don't have a "mandate"

https://news.va.gov/press-room/trust-in-va-among-veteran-patients-rises-to-91-8/ Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that Veteran trust in VA outpatient care has increased to 91.8% — up from 85.4% in 2017(the first year since VA began conducting this survey). Veteran trust has increased during each of the past seven years. This finding is based on a survey of more than 480,000 Veteran patients who received VA health care in the past 90 days. Within one week of using VA services, these Veterans were asked whether they trusted VA for their health care needs across a variety of categories — including scheduling an appointment, health care visits, in-person pharmacy, mail-order pharmacy, labs/imaging, and Veteran safety. This survey mirrors the findings of recent independent studies. According to Medicare’s latest nationwide survey of patients, VA hospitals outperformed non-VA hospitals on all 10 core patient satisfaction metrics — including overall hospital rating, communication with doctors, communication about medication, willingness to recommend the hospital, and more. VA health care has also consistently outperformed non-VA care in peer-reviewed studies, overall quality ratings, and affordability for Veterans. The survey is internal, but independent pollsters like Pew Research also have vets with a positive view of the VA. Privatizing the VA, particularly when it provides specialized care that may not be easy to find in private practice (or more expensive) seems like really bad politics, to put it mildly.

Missed the point entirely... Not surprising at all

Since Fife brought it back up, anything here?

It's not even particularly new... I remember Rush Bimbo deploying that one from time to time when called out on his BS

Oh, he probably knows it isn't attributable to Thomas Jefferson... The guy just lies as he breathes

What's wild is that he undoubtedly made this statement without a single thought about Jimmy Carter... Only how it affects him personally. Classic NPD behavior

The fact that the Las Vegas incident isn't a focus anymore for some folks kinda gives the game away regardless

Problems require solutions.... and if the last nine years have taught us anything, these guys don't have any of those. Ergo blaming Jabbar on ISIS, or blaming illegal immigrants for crimes being committed by American citizens, etc.

Also more generally, it's really unclear why the American public should trust Elon Musk (who, incidentally, is also definitely not the power behind the throne we've been reliably told) with the power to *checks notes* prioritize what should and shouldn't be cut from government. What makes his input so special?

Generally speaking, privatizing health care services is usually a pretty big loser with the American public in political terms.