D.Trump the supreme con man is engaged in a rope a doping with his plan to destroy the health care for millions of Americans. If he knew what he was doing when it came to Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) that would be one thing but it was obvious early on whenever he spoke of it he had no idea what he was talking about. Now he comes out and admits it.
Well isn’t that just dandy that at this late date he’s catching on that he has been living in la-la-land. Now he says: “It’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”
If he was not so allergic to the truth he should have stated, “I, D.TRump, never knew that health care could be so complicated.” That is the truth because there were many people who knew. Hillary Clinton knew back in 1993 when she had a go at it. If he was not so allergic to reading he would have known that it was quite well-known.
Three days before he made this statement there was an article in the New York Magazine the headline of which read: “Trump’s Health-Care Nightmare Is Only Just Beginning.” In that article the author Jonathon Chait stated: “Altering the health-care system is extraordinarily difficult. Health-care reform failed under Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton because the system is almost impervious to change — people who have access to medical care are terrified of losing it, and the people who sell them that care are loath to lose their livelihoods.”
Trump’s talking point when pressed during the debates was that he was going to allow insurance companies to sell in more states. He had not taken it any further other than preying on people who had the idea that Obamacare was bad until recently when they learned they might lose it. It is well-known it added about 20 million uninsured to its roles, prevented people from being uninsured because of prior conditions, and allowed kids access to their parents plans until age 26.
Chait noted: “Obamacare was not a perfectly designed law, but it did reflect a kind of political genius. It found a way to pay for access for the uninsured with minimal disruption to the status quo. Obamacare did create some losers: The very rich pay much higher taxes, and young, healthy people have to pay higher premiums on the individual market. (The latter could one day become winners under Obamacare should they grow unhealthy or un-young.) They made a lot of noise — remember the media freak-out over the tiny number of people who lost their plans in the individual market? — but they were vastly outnumbered by the winners: millions of people who could now have access to insurance who once could not afford it.”
Having admitted he had no idea what was involved in Obamacare he is still going to change it. He will persist because he is confused and ignorant of the hardships many Americans face. He will because as is shown by this tweet, his understanding of the American health care system ranks at the level of a fifth grader. He tweeted along with a picture of himself and a group of men dressed in their best dark business suits standing behind him: “Great meeting with CEOs of leading U.S. health insurance companies who provide great healthcare to the American people.”
Really! That’s his actual tweet. He thinks healthcare is provided by the insurance companies. Who needs doctors, nurses and hospitals? We have insurance companies providing the health care. Perhaps that is why he is so fond of Putin’s tactics in Aleppo where he had his forces bomb the hospitals and White Helmets. Putin promised D.Trump he would not interfere with the Aleppo health care system and avoid bombing the insurance companies.
Sophocles wrote: “Far wandering hope, though a good fortune for many men, is for many others a deception of their flighty lusts. upon the man who knows nothing it creeps up until he burns his foot on the hot fire. Wisely from someone a word of renown has been revealed. Evil seemeth at some time a good to one whose mind the god is leading to ruin. “
Its too bad that we never get an intellectual for a president. Who was the closest in the last sixty years? Nixon might be the one.
More importantly, which president in the last sixty years would you let babysit your kids?
The only intellectual to be president was Wilson who directly and indirectly wrecked more havoc domestically and internationally than can be imagined. Men enamored of ideas are dangerous. Think communism. William F. Buckley was right – better to be governed by leaders picked randomly from the phone book than by ones culled from the faculty of Harvard.
Khalid:
Here’s the antithetical view to the situation in Mosul. Not as grim as some say!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/6/isis-defeat-in-mosul-expected-within-weeks-coaliti/
“It was supposed to be a long hard slog, but top commanders within the U.S.-backed coalition battling the Islamic State now say Mosul, the terrorist group’s last urban stronghold in Iraq, could be back under Baghdad’s control within weeks.” (Six weeks, they say.)
So, now we’ve got two things to check on in May: 1. Whether Mosul has fallen; 2. whether Trump still stands.
Let the dialectic (the free exchange of opinions) continue!
Middlebury’s students, minions of mindlessness, resort to mob violence to shut down Free Speech. Contemptible!
There is no “dialectic” when only one side speaks. It’s a monologue, a mono-lectic. Hegelian dialectics implies a thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Academia today is intolerant to antithetical views. Marxism too perverted dialectics, and Communists impaled free speech, just like today’s little Campus Commies and their narrow minded Profs.
Hail those Middlebury Professors who condemned the mindless mob and signed a Free Speech Declaration. I understand more than 25% have signed, so far.
All praise to the young cadres at Middlebury!
All power to the Dialectic!
in other guess who the FBI informant is news….
http://www.madcowprod.com/2017/03/06/russian-hacking-probe-linked-alt-right-stock-fraud/
← TINKLE TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Russian in hacking probe linked to alt-right stock fraud
Posted on March 6, 2017 by Daniel Hopsicker
pv1Pavel ‘Red Eye’ Vrublevsky, a Russian businessman under investigation in the FBI’s probe of Russian hacking in the 2016 Presidential election, shared a business address in John Gotti’s former stronghold of Howard Beach, Queens with a company led by a Tampa Mobster convicted in the “alt-right” stock fraud ring run by Sarasota’s own Andrew Badolato, business partner and Breitbart collaborator of Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
In 2003-2004, Pavel Vrublevsky’s RE Partners LLC listed its business address as 158-49 90th St, a single family residence in Howard Beach the Russians shared with a company involved in pornography and cyber crime, Blue Moon Group Inc..
Howard Beach
Got a ‘high sign’ to ‘back up a truck’
muzio2Blue Moon Group was owned by a Tampa Mobster named Michael J. Muzio. A decade later, Muzio will be sentenced to prison for 13 years in a stock fraud scam led by Steve Bannon partner Andy Badolato.
During the time in question Blue Moon Group was a subsidiary of Genesisintermedia, a company being used by notorious Saudi arms dealer and ‘fixer’ Adnan Khashoggi to pull off a massive $300 million stock fraud.
The resulting scandal, known as STOCKWALK, grew to become the biggest brokerage bankruptcy in American history at that time, and a sheepish German Deutsche Bank was forced to pay a record $278 million penalty to avoid criminal prosecution in the U.S.
d-trumpWhen not under indictment Saudi wheeler-dealer Khashoggi winters in Palm Beach, one of Donald Trump’s original “Palm Beach homies,” and is similarly fabulous. The men have been friends and associates for decades. When Khashoggi needed cash, he sold Trump his magnificent yacht at a bargain-basement price.
It’s a rich stew: a hacker with ties to Russian security and organized crime; an American Mobster involved with an alt-right stock fraudster business partner of Steve Bannon; a Saudi fixer and friend of The Donald with decades-long roots in American scandal.
They belong to a charmed circle of people that fiscal watchdogs seem to have given the ‘high sign’ to “back up a truck.”
Hacker, Cyberspy, & Snitch ‘Working Off a Beef’
p-rub (3)Pavel Vrublevsky’s name first hit the news when the Russian election hacking scandal took off in September of last year when the United States accused a Russian citizen named Vladimir Fomenko of committing a cyber attack on electoral systems in Arizona and Illinois. The attack was carried out from servers Fomenko rented from a Dutch company controlled by Vrublevsky.
More recently Vrublevsky found himself at the heart of the mysterious cyber-treason purge currently roiling Moscow. He is said to have fingered three top Russian cyber-security officials as disloyal to the Kremlin. The men were arrested in dramatic fashion in December; one was dragged out of a meeting with a bag over his head.
imagesHis relationships with high-ranking Russian officials were laid out in “Spam Nation,” a recent book by cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs, who places him in the dead center of the current international scandal involving the hacking of U.S. state electoral boards in Arizona and Illinois, the sacking of Russia’s top cybercrime investigators, and efforts to plug the leaks of unflattering data on Russia’s most powerful politicians.
Vrublevsky’s growing notoriety led to closer scrutiny by cyber security researchers, one of whom discovered that his RE (for Red Eye) & Partners LLC shared more than just a business address with American Mob host Mike Muzio.
Muzio was profiled in recent investigative reporting in this space, so the researcher got in touch.
“I’m seen, therefore I am.”
BLUEMOONVrublevsky and the Russians had provided hosting services and payment processing for porn sites and phishing scams, he said, for Muzio’s Blue Moon crew, which ran a number of porn websites, including an inglorious site in Tampa called VoyeurDorm.com.
fVoyeurdorm.com’s “value proposition” included rigging a so-called “dorm” with forty cameras, and filming the supposed co-eds who lived there twenty-four hours a day, for the edification of anyone with $34. a month.
It achieved a certain fame when the site’s deep-pocketed backers filed and then won a federal lawsuit preventing the city of Tampa from closing down, for being an adult business in a residential neighborhood, the girls’ “dorm.”
tamraIt was after this victory that some say the “adult” component of the web truly took flight.
Business at VoyeurDorm.com must have really been booming, because in January 2003 Muzio’s Blue Moon Group Inc., supposedly in the music industry, issued a press release touting major purchases.
An “epic day enhancing corporate value”
Elvis-Piano
Had they signed a hot new band? Opened their own recording studio? Not exactly. They announced they’d bought Elvis’ old piano. For $685,000.
“Blue Moon Group Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: BMOO) based in Howard Beach, NY. has announced they have acquired Elvis Presley’s Grand Piano, as well as other collectible mint condition musical assets including: Presley’s 1966 Gibson electric guitar, his red shirt from the movie “Spinout,” and a RCA portable tube radio given to Elvis by RCA in 1955. Blue Moon also bought both Bo Diddley’s Thunderbird guitar and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s stratocaster guitar in a deal which the release stated “was appraised at between $1.2 and $1.3 million dollars.”
m2“Mike Muzio, President of Blue Moon Group, Inc. said, “My background is on Wall Street and today, running a music company is strictly business and entertainment combined. A sound American company like BMOO has to have assets to insure its stockholders security of investment. This is an epic day for the company; the acquisition represents Blue Moon music group’s company image and enhances corporate value in a unique fashion.”
Blue Moon’s glee was short-lived. At least for investors.
Tampa Mob meets the alt-Right
Badolato’s penchant for serial stock fraud and his partnership with Steve Bannon came to light when his Sarasota pad became the hasty replacement for a vacant house in Miami where London’s Guardian newspaper revealed Bannon was registered to vote.
“That Casey Key home puts Steve Bannon on Main Street here in downtown Sarasota,” reported the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Undefeated-Palin-poster“Andy Badolato, owner of the $1.4 million home, is named “VP Marketing and Business Development of Victory Film Group as well as Associate Producer of Bannon’s ‘The Undefeated,” in a press release which quotes Glenn Bracken Evans, Victory Film Group co-founder. The other co-founder? Steve Bannon.”
Badolato’s sudden notoriety led to investigative reporting in this space documenting particulars of his partnership with Bannon in a series of dubiously-legal ventures, during his astonishing decade-long career of unpunished stock fraud.
BadoAlt-right beachcomber and serial stock fraudster Andrew Badolato’s various public companies all floundered like unwanted babies exposed to die on a cliff…
especially his partnerships with Mike Muzio.
Muzio belongs to what was once Santo Trafficante’s Tampa Mob, which author and keen local observer Scott Deitche dubbed the Cigar Store Mafia. Muzio even owned a cigar store.
Part of the proceeds from Badolato’s alt-right stock fraud ring was used to buy interests in a nightclub, as well as a cigar business, according to the indictment charging Muzio with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and money laundering.
International Business Ventures hits the rocks
bado (1)Andy Badolato and Mike Muzio were partners and joined forces to successfully steer a company they controlled called International Business Ventures Group (IBVG) onto the rocks after a brief but troubled business life.
The company was forced to face problems most new concerns never encounter. The simultaneous incarceration of company officers, for example, when Muzio and two other company officers went to prison at the same time. Abner Alabre of Miramar pled guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Brian Taglieri of Jupiter and Ronnie Bass Jr. of Miramar pled guilty to the same charge.
Federal authorities said the three, along with Mike Muzio. ran a Ponzi scheme that that promised investors up to a 100 percent return in just 90 days, defrauding Haitian-American investors of more than $6 million.
Muzio conned clients into purchasing stock in International Business Ventures Group by lying about the company’s success and manipulating the market to make it appear as if the company was actively trading.
muzio“The purpose of the scheme was for the defendants and their accomplices to unjustly enrich themselves by misappropriating money from the investors for their personal use by means of materially false and fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions.”
In August 2006 Muio had been convicted in New York State Court of grand larceny and was serving probation when arrested for the IBVG stock fraud, for which he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Curiously, Badolato, the Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, remained free. Suspicions that Badolato has a hall pass from the FBI were widespread.
“Confidential Informants” an invitation to corruption?
download (1)Pavel Vrublevsky and Andy Badolato share crucial similarities. One example: the same suspicions voiced about Badolato swirl around Vrublevsky. He, too, is said, in criminal parlance, to be “working off a beef.”
When Vrublevsky found himself convicted of unrelated charges, cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs suspected the suspicious circumstances under which he received an early release from prison involved going to work undercover for the Russian government.
Indeed, to anyone contemplating leaking information hostile to Putin’s Kremlin regarding possible Russian hacking of the U.S. Presidential election, the thought of someone putting a bag over your head and frog-marching you away in front of your co-workers to cold-as-ice Lubyanka prison seems designed to urge interested parties into—at the very least—giving the matter further thought.
Moscow.jpgVrublevsky’s accusations have apparently had a chilling effect in Moscow. Today he exhibits the confidence of a man assured of political protection, and guaranteed freedom from local law enforcement. He vehemently denies knowledge or association with Russian hacking, in any form, of the U.S. presidential election.
Then where do rumors of his involvement originate? Vrublevsky maintained he made enemies of people in high places in Russia. That explanation, observers note, hardly squares with being let out of prison early.
No “I” in TEAM
elite-devianceMike Muzio, Andy Badolato, and Pavel Vrublevsky each belong to an intentionally-unnamed network, in whose (anonymous) name they beavered away, at least until their names came to light once too often, cogs in the gears of transnational organized crime.
Mike Muzio, for example, ran porn sites and ripped off investors on behalf of the Tampa Mob. Although he’s incorporated dozens and dozens of companies in Florida, it seems unlikely— certainly not from his mug shot—that he’s just an over-enthusiastic entrepreneur. A partial list of companies he’s incorporated includes:
D3 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING LLC; BUSINESS CENTERS INTERNATIONAL, BLUE MOON RECORDS GROUP, INC, BODY LIFE SCIENCES, INC., ELS INTERNATIONAL GROUND TRANSPORTATION, INC., E-VIEW THIS.COM, INC.I.C.S.A. MANAGEMENT CORPORATION, K & M MARKETING ENTERPRISES INC.; MUZIO’S COLLECTION AGENCY, INC., MIAMI FASHION CONNECTION; BMOO ACQUISITIONS; FLORIDA PAIN AND INJURY, CASA HAVANA, MLA HOLDINGS, FINE ART & CIGARS, WORLD BOXING NETWORK, NO-SWEAT SPORTSWEAR, CIGARS GONE WILD INC., WALL STREET DAILY PRESS
BUSY-MIKE (1)He’s not an amateur, but a professional fraudster. He’s been involved in 26 civil cases. He’s filed for bankruptcy numerous times: in 1993, 1998, and 2002. And he’s appealed civil judgments and criminal convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals on four separate occasions.
These networks richly merit being tagged “a continuing criminal conspiracy;” a phrase used often by Federal prosecutors, except in cases when—seemingly inexplicably—they are not.
COKELUGGAGE_SIMPLE1Among the criminal enterprises these unnamed networks engage in most often—the bread-and-butter plays for when they really need a two-point conversion—are financial fraud—already described here—and drug trafficking.
Example: Three of Andy Badolato’s business partners— Jonathan Curshen & Michael Muzio, today in federal prison for their roles in organized crime, as well as the recently-deceased Frank Musolino, were involved in the adnandrug trafficking organization (or DTO, in the DEA’s ever-changing terminology) based in St. Petersburg, Florida that owned a DC-9 busted in the Yucatan in the biggest drug seizure on an airplane in Mexican history. Authorities discovered 5.5 tons of cocaine.
The drug trafficking organization was being run
This is too much, msfreeh. I love it, but it is too much to take in at one time.
Wasn’t Adnan Khashoggi related to the famous Dodi of Lady Di fame? Maybe a cousin or godfather?
That name made it into a lot of negative press at one time or another.
And then there is Pavel Vrublevsky. Maybe the phrase “Oh, what a tangled web we weave………” should be stitched into all Russian millionaires family crests.
Good post and interesting information.
Not to change the subject, but I’m really eager to see what Matt will have to say about John Connolly’s chances of being paroled. I’ll never be a member of the Connolly fan club, but I’ve come around to the idea that he should be freed from prison as soon as possible. With blood-drenched creatures like Kevin Weeks, John Martorano and Steve Flemmi (???) walking the streets, I see no reason why Connolly should’t be able to do the same. Two things about Connolly’s prosecution have always angered me. One was the preposterous claim that Connolly was some kind of rogue agent , when in fact he was doing exactly what the Bureau wanted. The other is John Morris. A crooked supervisor is given a sweetheart deal in exchange for taking down one of his subordinates? Please! It’s supposed be the other way around, no?
Most of this rant is silly. To suggest that a statement about insurance companies is evidence that Trump thinks that the health system operates without doctors, nurses or hospitals could not fool a preschooler. That level of rhetoric is the equivalent of throwing a rattle out of a playpen.
Trump’s admission that he did not realize that the health care issue was complex clearly shows that he wants to get it right. It is a businessman grappling with a problem. It is not a sly, conniving slickster selling a snake oil solution law that you have to pass, by changing the Senate rules, before you see what is in the plan.
Trump is being honest. Yes, that contrasts with the liars who passed Obamacare. That is a good thing. What you decry is transparency and good faith with the voters. It must stun you. While always advocated it has been so long since it has been practiced in Washington that is is unrecognizable to MSM and their ever faithful sheeple.
The nation has a grown up in the White House, the very opposite of a con man. Yes, he has dug a hole for himself. So did Obama. Obama kept digging. Trump’s first step is to stop digging. That is not the sign of a fool. It is an adult approach. It is hope for a sensible, workable system. Those not filled with refusenik hatred see a glimmer of sunshine, the pussymarchers will continue to wander in the darkness.
Trump has brought many impressive projects to successful completion. This is not his first – Oh, Shit! – moment. He knows how to call a halt, rethink, re-engineer, adapt and move forward. He is undaunted by a challenge.
Obamacare came about from a lazy pilot flying in a clouded, starless, moonless sky. Trump is going over the blueprints, calling in experts, revamping in the sunlight. He might get it done because he is not hellbent on turning out something, anything, however slapdash it is. Trumps thinks you ought to know what is in a law before you pass it. A grown up in Washington, imagine that.
ACA was an end run on universal health care. Obama’s objective was to get as many people, as, possible, on to the Medicaid rolls. Good things happen when a President has brains, and, heart.
Bombing atrocities? You haven’t seen anything, yet. It’s beginning to look like the only way to take the Mosul kasbah will be to completely flatten it. House-to-house street-fighting is costing too many casualties. The replacement problem is crucial. As the Iraqis lose their experienced people, and, start putting less well-trained, and, well-led, levies in their stead, morale declines, and, forward motion, slows, or, halts. Difficult to replace training cadres begin to be sent forward to restart offensive momentum. Once they are used up, American troops will have to be thrown into the fight. Is Glorious Leader up to being the Commander-in Chief?
Matt, just for levity, I add this non-sequitor, from Jeffrey Lord, today, in the “The American Spectator”
The New York Times, January 20, 2017, Headline:
“WIRETAPPED DATA USED IN INQUIRY OF TRUMP AIDES”
Inside, the Times reported: “wiretapped communications had been provided to the (Obama) White House.”
Barely a month later NYT Headline:
“TRUMP, OFFERING NO EVIDENCE, SAYS OBAMA TAPPED HIS PHONES”
Lord writes: “And the kicker here? Times reporter Michael Schmidt co-wrote both stories.”
Matt: I really hope Trump gets this one right. Health care for millions of people is on the line .
Health insurance should only cover hospital or catastrophic care. Insurance should be sold over state lines. All doctors should be paid directly by the patient. All fees and services prices should be posted on line. All labs and MRI, Cat Scan prices should be posted. All out of pocket medical bills should be tax deductible. Competition will lower prices. 2. Change immigration policy to bring in 100 thousand foreign doctors and nurses a year. They have to work in poverty areas for five years to earn their citizenship. The immigrant doctors will provide reduced fee services for the poor. America had a great health care system before Obamacare. Everyone has access to health care. Some didn’t have insurance but they could still go to the doctor or the emergency room. No one died in the streets The more government involvement the costlier it becomes. Inefficiencies abound. Minimize the government role. Could the government provide free health care to everyone? Yes. We could be like Cuba . Free health care. Impoverished nation. Sixty year old automobiles would be the norm.3. Either Trump is right about his campaign being spied on by the Intel guys or the Times, Post, BBC and the Guardian are guilty of open and gross Fake News.
Yes, health care is complicated. And experts disagree. From what I’ve read, Obamacare was a disaster.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441662/obamacare-disaster-higher-premiums-less-coverage-and-no-end-sight
What infuriated me was when the Supreme Court saved Obamacare by calling the “forced” purchase of insurance and penalties “a tax”. Tax bills must originate in the House under our Constitution. If Obamacare was a tax bill, the Courts should have struck it down since it originated wholly in the Senate.
2. You continue to crucify Trump, parsing each innocuous phrase as if his every utterance must be infallibly precise. We, the hoi polloi, get his drift.
3. Gratuitously mentioning the bombing (on Obama’s watch) of hospital personnel in Aleppo, you omit America’s bombing of Doctors Without Borders facilities in Afghanistan. Now, I know you say the former was intentional and the latter accidental, but like the US/Saudi cluster bombs in Yemen killing hundreds of innocent civilians, the victims don’t know the difference. And anyhow: Why is bombing relevant to Obamacare! In the next discussion of Health Care, be sure to mention Andersonville! Wasn’t the Prison Commander Henry Wirz a phsycian’s assistant and then a practicing physician (even though he had no degree)?
Mad King Donald… I am beginning to understand why people revoked against the feudal system.
From an economic perspective, modern fascism is a contemporary regression to feudalism.