Presumptuous Politics : Aug 30, 2016

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Anthony Weiner & Huma Abedin Cartoons

Huma Abedin separates from Anthony Weiner after latest sexting report

Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin announced Monday she is separating from husband and former Congressman Anthony Weiner, after a new report that he had sent explicit photos to a woman multiple times over the last 19 months.
"After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband," Abedin said in a statement. “Anthony and I remain devoted to doing what is best for our son, who is the light of our life. During this difficult time, I ask for respect for our privacy."
A New York Post report published late Sunday claimed Weiner sent pictures to the unidentified woman, and described his sexual fantasies and masturbation in messages to her, calling her "literally a fantasy chick."
One of the photos Weiner sent the woman showed his underwear-clad crotch as his son Jordan slept next to him in bed.
Weiner, 51, took his Twitter account down Monday after admitting to the Post that he and the woman "have been friends for some time." He added that their conversations were "private ... and were always appropriate."
Weiner's latest correspondent, who described herself to the Post as a supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, has two adult children and lives with a boyfriend who routinely travels for work.
Weiner spent 12 years in the House of Representatives before resigning in June 2011 after posting an explicit image of himself on his Twitter account. At the time, he admitted that he had "exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women" over the previous three years.
With Abedin's public support, Weiner entered the New York City mayoral race in 2013. However, his campaign collapsed when a second woman, Sydney Leathers, came forward to claim Weiner had sent her more explicit photos while using the alias "Carlos Danger." Weiner finished fifth in the Democratic primary with just five percent of the vote.
In a recent interview with Vogue, Abedin talked about how her Muslim faith, and a network of friends and colleagues, helped her through the scandals.
Weiner, meanwhile, recently sidestepped a reporter's question when asked by The New York Times Magazine whether he was still engaging in sexting.
"I'm not going to go down the path of talking about any of that," Weiner reportedly said.
After Abedin announced her separation, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on the drama Monday afternoon.
"Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him," Trump said.
"I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this,” he said.

ObamaCare coverage options disappearing across country, report finds

Next president may face ObamaCare meltdown

Nearly a third of U.S. counties will be left with just one insurance option next year on the ObamaCare exchanges, according to a new analysis fueling warnings about the impact of the insurance company exodus from markets across the country.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study found residents in Pinal County, Ariz., are even at risk of having no insurance options on the exchanges, which provide subsidized plans.
Republicans seized on the report Monday to claim that the health care overhaul is not providing the choices promised by President Obama and others.
"The president repeatedly promised that his health care law would provide more choices, ‘bend the cost curve,’ and allow Americans to keep the plans they liked and could afford. He failed to live up to those promises, and families are paying the price," Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement, noting the majority of counties in Missouri could be left with just one insurance option on the exchanges.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study found that overall, 31 percent of counties will have just a single insurance option within the Affordable Care Act exchanges. That's up from 7 percent this year -- and underscores a problem many analysts have been warning about for years.
Further, about six in 10 counties could have two or fewer marketplace insurers in 2017, with the “bulk of the increase in single-insurer counties” the result of UnitedHealth Group’s exit, the study, released Sunday, reveals.
Indeed, six years after ObamaCare was signed into law, America’s major medical insurers, concerned about their own bottom line, have started to pull the plug on a variety of services and options available to consumers. Citing major losses, the top five insurers – Humana, Anthem, Aetna, UnitedHealth Group, and Blue Cross Blue Shield – have threatened to pull out of the exchanges and have selectively started to do so in many counties.
Near Phoenix, in Pinal County, Ariz., 400,000 residents are likely to have no insurer options on the marketplace next year. Both UnitedHealth and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona plan to exit the area.
“As a rural area of our state in which 18 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, the impact will be felt particularly hard,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote in an opinion piece for FoxNews.com.
“My office has received countless other letters and phone calls from concerned Arizonans who have been left with fewer options, less access and decreased quality of care under ObamaCare,” McCain wrote. He added, “But this frustration is not unique to Arizona.”
Arizona had eight insurers operating in various parts of the state this year, but four are leaving entirely — Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Humana and Health Choice. Two more, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Health Net, are scaling back their participation.
“Clearly this is a big concern for consumers,” Allen Gjersvig, director of navigator and enrollment services for the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers, told Kaiser.
He isn’t holding out much hope another insurer will step in, adding, “Things could change, but it’s not probable.”
When ObamaCare was first pitched to the public, the administration pushed the narrative that marketplaces would thrive and Americans who had been unable to afford medical coverage in the past would finally be able to do so.
While some aspects have been a success – 20.3 million Americans signed up for ObamaCare as of March 2016 – the unbalanced model of getting healthy younger people to foot the bill for older or sicker people who often require more coverage has presented a problem for ObamaCare and threatens its very existence.
The new report found that as insurers pull out, several states are now likely to have just a single insurance option across all counties.
“Given what is known at this time of entrants and exists, four additional states are likely to have a single marketplace insurer in all counties: Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma and South Carolina, for a total of five states (including Wyoming, which already had one insurer in the states),” the Kaiser report said.
States with “significantly more single-insurer counties in 2017,” include Mississippi, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee.
An analysis from the consulting firm Avalere found a similar problem, with the number of states with one marketplace insurer growing.
The health and sustainability of ObamaCare has also been a hot topic on the campaign trail. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has praised the ACA and said she hopes to improve on it.
Donald Trump has slammed the ACA’s instability. Stephen Miller, Trump’s national policy adviser, said ObamaCare is an example of Clinton’s “disastrously poor judgment.”
“Every policy she touches only produces more calamity,” Miller said in a written statement. “In this case, it means higher prices, fewer choices and less control over one’s most private medical decisions.”

High School reverses American flag ban at football stadium

Students at Travelers Rest High School in South Carolina will once again be able to wave American flags at football games.
Principal Lou Lavely reversed his ban on Old Glory just a few hours after we posted a column about the controversial decision.
Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives!
The high school's stadium is named after my great uncle -- Chico Bolin, a decorated World War II Marine veteran.
Uncle Chico restarted the football program at Travelers Rest in 1949 - and named the team the Devildogs in honor of the Marines.
Following is the school district's complete statement:
"Today, after meeting with Travelers Rest student and faculty leadership, and with the benefit of time to reflect, Mr. Lavely has reached a different decision. He based this decision on current students’ request that he judge them on their own merits and not based on the actions of past students. As a result, effective immediately, students are allowed to bring the American Flag to any and all Travelers Rest High School events. Instead of restricting possession of the flag, the TRHS administration will, if needed, address the misuse of the Flag, or any other inappropriate behavior, on an individual basis.
“I fully support Mr. Lavely’s thoughtful reconsideration, and his willingness to respond to advice and input from his community,” said Superintendent Burke Royster. “I am appreciative of the Travelers Rest High School community for sharing its concerns and opinions on this matter in a respectful, civil manner. I also appreciate and applaud their desire to promote patriotism and service as a part of the culture of their school and am in agreement that students’ desire to carry and display the American flag should be encouraged and supported throughout the District.”
Uncle Chico, who passed away in 2007, lived long enough to see the school name its new football stadium in his honor – a decorated war hero who loved America.
So you can understand why our family was disturbed to learn that students and fans were initially blocked from entering the stadium with American flags.
This item appeared in the Greenville News:
“Several people posted about the incident on social media Saturday, claiming the student wasn’t allowed to carry the flag into Friday night’s Travelers Rest – Berea game because it might offend Berea’s large Hispanic community.”
Beth Brotherton, a spokesperson for Greenville County Schools, confirmed to me that several students who wanted to bring American flags were blocked from entering the stadium.
“The principal, in an effort to prevent any potential issue in this rivalry game, decided not to allow students to bring in full-sized American flags,” she told me. “They were turned away at the gate with the flag and told they were welcome to come in but they could not bring their flags with them.”
So here’s the back story: during last year’s game, some students allegedly flew Old Glory and hollered out, “Go home, go home.”
“The principal made a decision in terms of what he thought was best for student safety,” Ms. Brotherton said. “Because of prior incidents, that was not something he felt like was in the best interest of maintaining a good relationship between the two school communities.”
Travelers Rest Police Chief Lance Crowe disagreed with the principal’s decision and fired off a statement letting the locals know that the police department loves America and Old Glory.
“To my knowledge, every TRPD officer, except one, believes that barring the American flag from a football game is not a correct policy,” Chief Crowe wrote.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

Trump calls Kaepernick's refusal to stand for national anthem 'terrible'

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick Monday, calling Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the national anthem "a terrible thing."
"I think it’s personally not a good thing," Trump told Seattle radio station KIRO when asked about the controversy. "I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it’s not gonna happen."
Kaepernick became the subject of national controversy over the weekend when he remained seated on the San Francisco bench during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" prior to Friday night's preseason game against the Green Bay Packers.
While explaning his stance to reporters Sunday, Kaepernick criticized both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
"You have Hillary who has called black teens or black kids super predators, you have Donald Trump who’s openly racist," Kaepernick said. "We have a presidential candidate who has deleted emails and done things illegally ... That doesn’t make sense to me because if that was any other person you’d be in prison. So, what is this country really standing for?"
The Clinton campaign has not commented on Kaepernick's statements.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday he was confident President Barack Obama is aware of Kaepernick's actions, but hadn't spoken directly with the president about it.
"In general, what I can say is that I certainly don't share the views that Mr. Kaepernick expressed after the game in explaining his reasoning for his actions, but we surely would all acknowledge and even defend his right to express those views in the settings that he chooses," Earnest said. "That's what he's done, and even as objectionable as we find his perspective, he certainly is entitled to express it."
Kaepernick has characterized his actions as a protest at the state of race relations in America, not as a slight against men and women in the military.
"There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality," said Kaepernick, who is biracial and whose adoptive parents are white. "There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right. That's not right by anyone's standards."
In a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and 49ers CEO Jed York, Martin Halloran, the president of San Francisco's police union, said Kaepernick's statements showed "naiveté" and "total lack of sensitivity" toward police, along with an "incredible lack of knowledge" about officer-involved shootings.
"I only wish Mr. Kaepernick could see the emotional and psychological challenges that our officers face following a fatal encounter," Halloran wrote.
"Some are so affected they never return to the streets. In short, Mr. Kaepernick has embarrassed himself, the 49er organization, and the NFL based on a false narrative and misinformation that lacks any factual basis."