a slip and fall

Polling released Sunday confirmed how far President Trump has slipped.

The Washington Post/ABC News survey found that 58% of American voters disapprove of Trump's performance in office. (Oh my!)

That's the worst grade of any president at this point in his tenure since modern polling began in the 1940s.

63% of American voters thought “the meeting with Russians” was "inappropriate."

The poll showed further slide in Trump's standing since last poll in April. Many other polls in the intervening weeks have also documented that drop.

Most of the decline appeared in May – when Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey and the House passed the Republican healthcare bill, which is extremely unpopular.

Trump tried to brush aside the new poll, saying in a tweet that the Post/ABC poll had been inaccurate during the 2016 election.

That's a lie. The Post/ABC was off by about 2 percentage points from the actual election results. Even if it's currently wrong by the same amount, Trump would remain -- by far -- the most unpopular president.

But the poll also shows the president has largely kept support within his own party.

While Democrats and independents disapprove of Trump's performance by YUGE margins, those who supported Trump during the election continue to approve, 82%-15%.

Trump's position somewhat resembles that of Clinton’s second term -- the only other modern president who suffered from a large disapproval from a majority of voters.

Trump's poor standing threatens Republican control of the House in 2018.

Trump took office with the economy seven years into a slow recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s. So far this year, economic growth has been lagging a bit.

A new NBC/Wall St. Journal survey looked at counties Trump carried in 2016. Only 50% of adults in those areas still approve of Trump. That is far below Trump's support in those counties during the election, which averaged around 60%. The figure shows a real slide in Trump's backing in the places crucial to GOP treading water in 2018. It could become a water fall!

sunday - starts with church

and god

Donald Trump may been WRONG when he said, “You know, I’m like a smart person.”

The evidence continues to mount that Trump is far from smart — so far, in fact, that he may not be capable of being president.

For example, Trump met with the pastors of two major Presbyterian churches in New York. “I did very, very well with evangelicals in the polls,” he bragged.

When the pastors told Trump they weren’t evangelicals, he asked, “What are you then?”

They told him they were mainline Presbyterians.

“But you’re all Christians?” he asked.

Yes, they had to assure him, Presbyterians are Christians.

The kicker: Trump himself is Presbyterian.

STUPID (and ignorant).

Christians in general know very little about the timeline of Christianity.

"Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions."

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the oldest Christian church. Is it found in Egypt, Northeast Africa and the Middle East. The head of the Church is the "Patriarch of Alexandria" or "the Holy See of Saint Mark," who carries the title of Coptic Pope.

Roman Christianity in the 4th century was dominated by Constantine the Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325 (which Rome did not attend).

Remember, The Edict of Toleration was issued in 311 in Serdica (today Sofia, Bulgaria) by the Roman emperor Galerius. It officially ended the persecution of Christianity. (e.g. WHAT Roman church existed before 311? NONE!)

I would not expect Trump or his ilk to take an A.P. Comparative Religions class - they most obviously do not qualify.

RussiaGate keeps revealing bigger lies!

Let's Face it...

This is stupid:

Frustrations at the White House are boiling over after another week that was consumed by the RussiaGate controversy.

The mishandling of the crisis centered on Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer.

Members of Team Trump acknowledge that the story is bad for the administration — and several blamed a White House communications staff that improvised responses on short notices.

Others complain that the failure has exacerbated the political damage. There is no consensus over who is to blame, with fingers being pointed in every direction.

Rinat Akhmetshin had not been named for several days after details of the encounter between Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya emerged. President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting.

Akhmetshin told the Associated Press that the meeting was less significant than reports suggest.

“I never thought this would be such a big deal, to be honest,” he told the news agency which first named him.

But to Trump allies, the news about Akhmetshin’s presence in the meeting was yet another epic fail of the administrations incomplete disclosure (hiding the details). “Obviously there are strategies that could have prevented this (epic fail of disclosure) from becoming a 10-day story,” said Barry Bennett.

But Bennett also argued that it has proven politically troublesome. “This is a meeting that they shouldn’t have had,” he said.

The disclosure of the meeting — and in particular an email chain between Trump Jr. and a music publicist — has attracted the attention of investigators working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller who is probing the Russian controversy.

One Republican with close ties to the White House lamented that the exchange “opens other doors” in the ongoing RussiaGate investigation. “It threatens the ability of an already dysfunctional White House to function because so many of them wonder if they need to get lawyers,” the source said.

The Trump campaign committee filing today (Saturday) showed that the committee paid $538,265 between early May and late June in legal fees to Jones Day.

The campaign committee did not respond to requests for comment about listed payments to the Trump Organization.

The legal outlays by Trump's campaign committee came as it has been repeatedly tapping Trump's small donor base for contributions, exhorting them in emails and text messages to give money to help the president fight the political establishment and “fake news.” (How many ways can you spell bullshit?)

Trump supporters poured $13.4 million into Trump’s three committees between April 1 and June 30. During the same period, that committee spent $4.37 million, including $677,000 on legal expenses.

RED HANDED

Donald Trump Jr. was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign. The emails with publicist Rob Goldstone show that Trump Jr. was told that the Russian government had information that could “incriminate” Clinton and her dealings with Russia.

Goldstone wrote to Trump Jr. that the information “would be very useful to your father.” Goldstone was working to connect Trump Jr. to Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who later met with Trump Jr. in New York at Trump Tower.

“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone in one of a series of email exchanges the younger Trump posted to Twitter. The emails are dated early June.

The email release followed days of evolving accounts from Trump Jr. about the nature of the meeting and its purpose. The president’s son posted the emails only after they were obtained by The New York Times.

On Saturday, Trump Jr. described the encounter as being a “short introductory meeting” focused on the disbanded program that had allowed American adoptions of Russian children. Moscow ended the adoptions in response to Magnitsky Act sanctions created in response to alleged human rights violations in Russia.

A day later, Trump Jr. changed his account, acknowledging that he was told beforehand that Veselnitskaya might have information “helpful” to the Trump campaign, and was told by her during the meeting that she had something about Clinton.

In his third description of what occurred, on Tuesday, Trump Jr. said he had believed the information he would hear about Clinton would be political opposition research. He said that he first wanted to speak by phone, but that when that didn’t work out, he was told that the attorney would be in New York “and I decided to take the meeting.”

“The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official,” Trump Jr. said in the Tuesday statement. “And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act.”

Trump Jr. has acknowledged that he met shortly after that email exchange with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, during the presidential campaign with the understanding that the attorney would provide damaging information on Clinton.

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Single Payer "Medicare for all."

It costs almost 25¢ to “administer the other 75¢ (or 33%) with corporate insurance.

It cost 1% to administer Social Security in 2008!

Now I am all for the $10 Million bonus structure that allows Insurance CEOs to make mighty profits from the suffering of others! (NOT!)

And I am all for co-pays at the drug store helping the poor.

We all have to chip in to support the very rich.

Private Health Insurance Revenues for just one company: Just one company’s total revenue were $61,579.2 million ($61.5 Billion) in 2008.

Additional Revenue From the “Float”: About 1 percent (or $616 million) of that total revenue came from interest earned on the “float.” An insurer’s “float” is money from premium payments that came in earlier than the billing date.

In times when interest rates are high, an insurer’s float can be another source of revenue. This is why sometimes health insurers deliberately drag out claim processing, strictly to increase the size of the float.

Marketing and Administrative Expenses (M&A): The firm’s total advertising for 2008 were $1,778.4 million ($1.8 Billion). Administrative expenses were $7,242.1 million ($7 Billion) or 11%. Both of these expenses are subtracted from total revenue FIRST. In this case, these expenses were 14.7 percent of total revenue in 2008.

The Health Benefit Ratio: Payments for health claims in 2008 were $47,742.4 million ($47.7 Billion) and the “cost of drugs” ($468.5 million). As a fraction of remaining “revenue” – (subtracting M&A or $57,101.0 million) in 2008, total health benefits amounted to 84.4 percent. Of the $61.5 Billion from all revinue, claims amounted to only 78.3%.

The Profit Margin: Net profits after all expenses, claims, and taxes in 2008, was 4.07 percent. Half of that was returned to investors as a dividend. “Profits” subjected to taxation in 2008 amounted to just 5.14 percent.

As a percentage of the equity shareholders had, profits were 11.62 percent in 2008.

Relative to brick-and-morter industries, these are particularly high numbers.

It costs almost 25¢ to “administer the other 75¢ (or 33%).

In a single-payer system, 25% MORE PEOPLE could be covered for the same overall cost!

It cost 1% to administer Social Security in 2008! https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/admin.html

Of course Single Payer is evil – it prevents rich folks (stock holders, banks, and executives) from profiting on the pain and suffering of others!

That might also reduce the revenue at Trump Golf!

The Senate GOP’s ship approaches the iceberg, like the Titanic. Republicans slowed the engines by postponing a vote until after the July 4 recess, but they are still set to collide with the consequences of breaking a core promise to the right wingnut voters who sent them to Washington. If the GOP does not from Obamacare, we may be headed for single-payer.

The GOP is saying: "Thank god for Charlie Gard!"

What can I say?

These GOP folks are assholes!

Single payer insures EVERYONE.

Even the profoundly retarded.

Perhaps an austerity program would help.