@Builder,
His rhetorical "style", if it can be called that, is widely recognized as limited and his delivery farcical.
Quote:We could play this game with HRC's key phrasing as well.
But it wouldn't be much fun. Look at the two candidates' performance in the debates and draw your own conclusions.
Quote:Do you have some actual critiques that matter here?
Do you?
@hightor,
Considering Builder claims to be left of centre and that the election is long over you may want to ask yourself why Builder keeps banging on about Mrs Clinton.
Today's news as read by Rainbow Bright and Scurrilous PigMan
Quote:Paul Waldman @paulwaldman1 10h10 hours ago
Hannity and Gingrich currently agreeing that heroic genius Donald Trump was let down by feckless Republicans in Congress.
@Builder,
In a global world made of first impressions and quick judgment Trump is cancer for America. You don't have the vaguest idea just how much his image worldwide harms your country as a leading world power.
I am not even talking his stupid policies here, most people don't have a firm grasp of economy or politics to judge his actions but just the tacky red neck murikan style he has, his inconsistent toddler behaviour, is enough to frack your countries image for another generation.
Populism News from all over
Quote:TimKarr @TimKarr 48m48 minutes ago
WaPo: 2 Trump trips to Mar-a-Lago would pay for 1 year of funding for Interagency Council on Homelessness, which Trump's budget eliminates.
From the Annals of Finely Tuned Machines
Quote:The failure of the Republicans’ three-month blitz to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement exposed deep divisions in the Republican Party that the election of a Republican president could not mask. It cast a long shadow over the ambitious agenda that Mr. Trump and Republican leaders had promised to enact once their party assumed power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
And it was the biggest defeat of Mr. Trump’s young presidency, which has suffered many. His travel ban has been blocked by the courts. Allegations of questionable ties to the Russian government forced out his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Tensions with key allies such as Germany, Britain and Australia are high, and Mr. Trump’s approval ratings are at historic lows.
Republican leaders were willing to tolerate Mr. Trump’s foibles with the promise that he would sign into law their conservative agenda. The collective defeat of the health care effort could strain that tolerance.
NYT
OK. Trump has fallen short on keeping promises. We all understand that and most of us will be able to forgive him knowing that Mexico will pay for the wall.
The impasse over replacement of ACA in the Republican delegation in the house of Representatives, was indeed a setback for the Republicans who don't appear to be able to decide on what they want, and what its effects on themselves might be. If they now focus on bold tax reform they will have the ability to stimulate economic growth and at the same time create some more efficient subsidies for medical care for the poor, based on markets and consumer choice, through an expansion of current tax free medical savings accounts, and tax credits for basic care.
Meanwhile the ACA faces another year of fast rising rates on the government managed exchanges, and a continuing decline in the number of insurers participating in the system. In short without new, very large, government subsidies, the ill-conceived ACA is headed for collapse on its own. There is no likely prospect of the enactment of such subsidies, so the system is clearly doomed.
In addition Trump has already indicated his intention to reduce the price of pharmaceutical drugs here by requiring the makers who give large discounts to the foreign governments that operate monopolistic government buying programs to sell their products here at no more than the discounted price - that will quickly raise the price to monopolistic buyers and lower it here.
Government managed systems for the distribution of goods and services don't work very well. Invariably such systems force governments to expand their control into the production and supply of those services, further reducing efficiency and both supply and quality. The "thriving" economies of "happy" Cuba and Venezuela provide vivid, if somewhat extreme, examples of this.
I've recently read articles describing a serious and growing shortage of nurses and medical technicians in the UK, perhaps as a current or forecast consequence of Brexit. In fact it is a likely indicator that the government managed system depends on a ready supply of cheaper foreign labor that no longer may be available with or without Brexit.
Government managed distribution of anything generally reduces the incentives for quality, innovation and new investment in the production & delivery of the goods or services involved. Current events and the sad history of the 20th century provide ample evidence and confirmation of this principle. Unfortunately human history also provided numerous examples of our collective forgetfulness of such lessons.
@blatham,
I am not sure it is the health care repeal which would affect conservatives so much as his big business friendly budget/deregulations and tax cuts and confirmation of Gorsuch. If any of those fail to pass, he might very well run into trouble with those conservatives. I imagine, all will pass even if republicans have to use the nuclear option on Gorsuch.
@revelette1,
Quote:I am not sure it is the health care repeal which would affect conservatives so much as his big business friendly budget/deregulations and tax cuts and confirmation of Gorsuch. If any of those fail to pass, he might very well run into trouble with those conservatives. I imagine, all will pass even if republicans have to use the nuclear option on Gorsuch.
We'll have to see. The people I read tend to think that a tax bill will be no more easy than Ryan's healthcare bill. Gorsuch looks certain. But yes, much damage can still be done.
@blatham,
blatham wrote:
OK. Trump has fallen short on keeping promises. We all understand that and most of us will be able to forgive him knowing that Mexico will pay for the wall.
But can we forgive "silly" people who still can't admit they've been taken for a ride by a con man?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-donald-trump-conman_us_58d61ce7e4b03787d358ea4e?
@georgeob1,
If they now focus on bold tax reform they will have the ability to stimulate economic growth and at the same time create some more efficient subsidies for medical care for the poor
Heh heh heh. Good one, George.
@blatham,
Gorsuch being confirmed will be the worst out of all the other bad events because he will be on the Supreme Court for a long, long time. He is fairly young and as right wing as Scalia, if not more so.
@georgeob1,
I have to hand it to you george. You voice the party line consistently and one gets the sense that you actually believe these things.
Quote:Government managed systems for the distribution of goods and services don't work very well.
Quote:For this year's survey on overall health care, The Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. dead last .
1. United Kingdom
2. Switzerland
3. Sweden
4. Australia
5. Germany & Netherlands (tied)
7. New Zealand & Norway (tied)
9. France
10. Canada
11. United States
It's fairly well accepted that the U.S. is the most expensive healthcare system in the world, but many continue to falsely assume that we pay more for healthcare because we get better health (or better health outcomes). The evidence, however, clearly doesn't support that view.
...Efficiency: On indicators of efficiency, the U.S. ranks last among the 11 countries, with the U.K. and Sweden ranking first and second, respectively. The U.S. has poor performance on measures of national health expenditures and administrative costs as well as on measures of administrative hassles, avoidable emergency room use, and duplicative medical testing.
Forbes
[url]I've recently read articles describing a serious and growing shortage of nurses and medical technicians in the UK[/url]
And you don't link such articles here why?
@Debra Law,
I can forgive those who got conned more easily than the people running the con. Most of the first group can change their minds even if with difficulty. The second group are something more akin to parasites.
@revelette1,
I know, rev. But nothing Dems can do about that appointment so other compensatory strategies will have to be developed. The most important being activism.
This really is worth thinking about.
Quote:Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) admitted as much as he left the meeting Friday. Reporters asked why, after Republicans held dozens of nearly-unanimous votes to repeal Obamacare under President Obama, they were getting cold feet now that they control the levers of power.
“Sometimes you’re playing Fantasy Football and sometimes you’re in the real game,” he said. “We knew [President Obama], if we could get a repeal bill to his desk, would almost certainly veto it. This time we knew if it got to the president’s desk it would be signed.”
TPM
"We screamed, complained, lied for seven years about Obamacare and always we said Republicans could do it way better and so we worked up a replacement that Trump was eager to sign but it was such a piece of **** in comparison to Obamacare that it would have just killed us as a party electorally. We are experts at complaining. But as a governing entity, we don't know the difference between our ass end and a flower pot"
Quote:Alec LuhnVerified account
@ASLuhn
"It's now the world of Putin, the world of Donald Trump," Le Pen says after meeting with Russian president
The teams are established. So drink up, comrades.
@blatham,
Dah. Mein fuhrer, I can nearly walk.
