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On January 25 2017 13:19 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 13:14 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 25 2017 13:00 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 12:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 25 2017 11:23 Sermokala wrote:
Oh no a politician breaking a campaign promise? This almost never happens once they win and get into office. Sorry, I should have quoted xDaunt. Just think it's funny he interprets something that appears to be directly breaking a promise to me as upholding a promise because of the sheer number of promises Trump made. Let's dial back the pettiness a little bit; it's bordering on the ridiculous here. No one expects Trump to get 100% of everything that he campaigned for. It's not realistic. However, what Trump supporters do expect is that Trump will fight for the things that he campaigned on and, most importantly, make progress towards those goals. Trump is unequivocally advancing the ball on all of his largest issues, and he's doing it with surprising alacrity. His detractors are too busy wringing their hands to see how much Trump is winning right now. The rout is on. Where are you putting "drain the swamp" in this analysis? You could also answer the question on whether it would be appropriate to be surprised if Trump was lying about policy as well as petty things like crowds if you missed it. This is Trump's first week in office. Give him time. D.C. Doesn't turn on a dime.
Do you view his cabinet choices as evidence of him "draining the swamp"?
Did you notice which country isn't on that list? Hint: They are a leading sponsor of terrorists (mostly the ones we've been at war with for more than a decade and country of origin for most of the 9/11 terrorists).
Also, why not answer the other question?
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On January 25 2017 13:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 12:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 25 2017 11:23 Sermokala wrote:
Oh no a politician breaking a campaign promise? This almost never happens once they win and get into office. Sorry, I should have quoted xDaunt. Just think it's funny he interprets something that appears to be directly breaking a promise to me as upholding a promise because of the sheer number of promises Trump made. Let's dial back the pettiness a little bit; it's bordering on the ridiculous here. No one expects Trump to get 100% of everything that he campaigned for. It's not realistic. However, what Trump supporters do expect is that Trump will fight for the things that he campaigned on and, most importantly, make progress towards those goals. Trump is unequivocally advancing the ball on all of his largest issues, and he's doing it with surprising alacrity. His detractors are too busy wringing their hands to see how much Trump is winning right now. The rout is on.
Um. I just don't think you should cite an example of a politician implementing the position of an opponent in the primary after criticizing that position as evidence he's following through on campaign promises. Which you just did.
Muslim ban looks dead. Wall funded by Mexico looks dead, and his ultimate construction is almost certainly going to just be Clinton's border plan. More recently his bizarre statements about having an Obamacare replacement with full coverage is dead.
Trump's meeting his promises about as well as Obama met his single-payer promises.
Trump is doing a great job on following through on boilerplate Republican rhetoric (including that example you cited and the federal hiring freeze) and preventing HHS from issuing press releases, though, so that's good for him I guess.
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On January 25 2017 13:28 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 13:19 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 13:14 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 25 2017 13:00 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 12:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 25 2017 11:23 Sermokala wrote:
Oh no a politician breaking a campaign promise? This almost never happens once they win and get into office. Sorry, I should have quoted xDaunt. Just think it's funny he interprets something that appears to be directly breaking a promise to me as upholding a promise because of the sheer number of promises Trump made. Let's dial back the pettiness a little bit; it's bordering on the ridiculous here. No one expects Trump to get 100% of everything that he campaigned for. It's not realistic. However, what Trump supporters do expect is that Trump will fight for the things that he campaigned on and, most importantly, make progress towards those goals. Trump is unequivocally advancing the ball on all of his largest issues, and he's doing it with surprising alacrity. His detractors are too busy wringing their hands to see how much Trump is winning right now. The rout is on. Where are you putting "drain the swamp" in this analysis? You could also answer the question on whether it would be appropriate to be surprised if Trump was lying about policy as well as petty things like crowds if you missed it. This is Trump's first week in office. Give him time. D.C. Doesn't turn on a dime. Do you view his cabinet choices as evidence of him "draining the swamp"? Did you notice which country isn't on that list? Hint: They are a leading sponsor of terrorists (mostly the ones we've been at war with for more than a decade and country of origin for most of the 9/11 terrorists). Also, why not answer the other question?
I'll reserve judgment on the cabinet selections until I see what they do and how they act.
Yes, I noticed that Saudi Arabia and some other Arab nations were not on the list.
What question?
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Estonia4504 Posts
On January 25 2017 13:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 13:00 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 12:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 25 2017 11:23 Sermokala wrote:
Oh no a politician breaking a campaign promise? This almost never happens once they win and get into office. Sorry, I should have quoted xDaunt. Just think it's funny he interprets something that appears to be directly breaking a promise to me as upholding a promise because of the sheer number of promises Trump made. Let's dial back the pettiness a little bit; it's bordering on the ridiculous here. No one expects Trump to get 100% of everything that he campaigned for. It's not realistic. However, what Trump supporters do expect is that Trump will fight for the things that he campaigned on and, most importantly, make progress towards those goals. Trump is unequivocally advancing the ball on all of his largest issues, and he's doing it with surprising alacrity. His detractors are too busy wringing their hands to see how much Trump is winning right now. The rout is on. Um. I just don't think you should cite an example of a politician implementing the position of an opponent in the primary after criticizing that position as evidence he's following through on campaign promises. Which you just did. Muslim ban looks dead. Wall funded by Mexico looks dead. More recently his bizarre statements about having an Obamacare replacement with full coverage is dead. Trump's meeting his promises about as well as Obama met his single-payer promises. Trump is doing a great job on following through on boilerplate Republican rhetoric (including that example you cited and the federal hiring freeze) and preventing HHS from issuing press releases, though, so that's good for him I guess.
For all this bluster about new greatness and power, all that has happened so far is loud, expensive destruction. And that seems to be exactly what his base wants. The opposition is the enemy. There are winners and losers, and if someone else loses, clearly they won. If he imposes free speech obstruction in his first 100 hours, how can one be sure that the next elections will be fair?
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On January 25 2017 13:58 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 13:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 25 2017 13:19 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 13:14 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 25 2017 13:00 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 12:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 25 2017 11:23 Sermokala wrote:
Oh no a politician breaking a campaign promise? This almost never happens once they win and get into office. Sorry, I should have quoted xDaunt. Just think it's funny he interprets something that appears to be directly breaking a promise to me as upholding a promise because of the sheer number of promises Trump made. Let's dial back the pettiness a little bit; it's bordering on the ridiculous here. No one expects Trump to get 100% of everything that he campaigned for. It's not realistic. However, what Trump supporters do expect is that Trump will fight for the things that he campaigned on and, most importantly, make progress towards those goals. Trump is unequivocally advancing the ball on all of his largest issues, and he's doing it with surprising alacrity. His detractors are too busy wringing their hands to see how much Trump is winning right now. The rout is on. Where are you putting "drain the swamp" in this analysis? You could also answer the question on whether it would be appropriate to be surprised if Trump was lying about policy as well as petty things like crowds if you missed it. This is Trump's first week in office. Give him time. D.C. Doesn't turn on a dime. Do you view his cabinet choices as evidence of him "draining the swamp"? Did you notice which country isn't on that list? Hint: They are a leading sponsor of terrorists (mostly the ones we've been at war with for more than a decade and country of origin for most of the 9/11 terrorists). Also, why not answer the other question? I'll reserve judgment on the cabinet selections until I see what they do and how they act. Yes, I noticed that Saudi Arabia and some other Arab nations were not on the list. What question?
The next question would be why you think SA, in particular, isn't there?
The other question was whether it would be appropriate to be surprised if Trump was lying about more significant things as well as petty things like crowds?
Sounds like you think Trump's cabinet could be exemplary swamp drainers, but "could" is so nebulous, any chance you could put some odds to whether you think Trump's cabinet will be swamp drainers vs. swamp monsters. Perhaps 40:40?
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On January 25 2017 14:42 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 13:58 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 13:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 25 2017 13:19 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 13:14 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 25 2017 13:00 xDaunt wrote:On January 25 2017 12:06 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 25 2017 11:23 Sermokala wrote:
Oh no a politician breaking a campaign promise? This almost never happens once they win and get into office. Sorry, I should have quoted xDaunt. Just think it's funny he interprets something that appears to be directly breaking a promise to me as upholding a promise because of the sheer number of promises Trump made. Let's dial back the pettiness a little bit; it's bordering on the ridiculous here. No one expects Trump to get 100% of everything that he campaigned for. It's not realistic. However, what Trump supporters do expect is that Trump will fight for the things that he campaigned on and, most importantly, make progress towards those goals. Trump is unequivocally advancing the ball on all of his largest issues, and he's doing it with surprising alacrity. His detractors are too busy wringing their hands to see how much Trump is winning right now. The rout is on. Where are you putting "drain the swamp" in this analysis? You could also answer the question on whether it would be appropriate to be surprised if Trump was lying about policy as well as petty things like crowds if you missed it. This is Trump's first week in office. Give him time. D.C. Doesn't turn on a dime. Do you view his cabinet choices as evidence of him "draining the swamp"? Did you notice which country isn't on that list? Hint: They are a leading sponsor of terrorists (mostly the ones we've been at war with for more than a decade and country of origin for most of the 9/11 terrorists). Also, why not answer the other question? I'll reserve judgment on the cabinet selections until I see what they do and how they act. Yes, I noticed that Saudi Arabia and some other Arab nations were not on the list. What question? The next question would be why you think SA, in particular, isn't there? The other question was whether it would be appropriate to be surprised if Trump was lying about more significant things as well as petty things like crowds? Sounds like you think Trump's cabinet could be exemplary swamp drainers, but "could" is so nebulous, any chance you could put some odds to whether you think Trump's cabinet will be swamp drainers vs. swamp monsters. Perhaps 40:40?
You've been here a lot GreenHorizons, do you think xDaunt is usually the kind of person who "reserves judgment"?
It seems like if the situation were reversed, he would be the first to denounce the cabinet choices based on their history and whatnot, so this witholding of a preemptive judgment is rather opportune. In any case of course their actions will eventually give us the answer. But to be fair he hardly could've picked swampier people.
We're all crossing our fingers that those individuals do turn on a dime and change dramatically, so that DC can follow. Yeeeee.
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An orange man with 3rd grade level literacy is working at quite the pace currently. Forrest Gump style.
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I think even Forrest Gump could sign papers put in front of him while somewhat dazedly asking if they exclude the military at a pretty snappy pace.
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Imho the only good appointment has been Mick Mulvaney so far. I don't expect Leviathan to change much, especially not with Trump lol.
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Public agencies scientists not allowed to communicate... Nice job retards that supported a dictator (yeah I'll get a ban for this, but sometimes the truth needs to be said).
Bonus : Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt By Umberto Eco
I'm sure even a trumpets can use google to find who is Eco, I don't expect any of you to know 
User was temp banned for this post.
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If you're a public agency, you should do you best regardless of your personal political affiliation, I thought that was fairly common knowledge for a public sector employee. Whose idea it was to post photos about Trump inauguration crowd sizes from an agency account that has absolutely nothing to do with that... That's some massive incompetence and clear conflict of interest on their part, whoever authorized that kind of stuff should be removed from the public sector forever.
Trump has been more authoritarian than I would have expected, a tad scary for sure. But let's see how it goes, it's only been a couple days.
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On January 25 2017 16:16 Wegandi wrote:
Imho the only good appointment has been Mick Mulvaney so far. I don't expect Leviathan to change much, especially not with Trump lol.
Agreed.
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Remember the discussions on Aetna?
On November 17 2016 05:02 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 04:56 farvacola wrote:
To hone in on one of many flaws in that reasoning, if the Medicare expansion had gone through without Supreme Court interference, millions of borderline eligible folks in states that refused to set up their own exchanges would have been covered (there's reason to think that problems with federal exchange implementation in states without their own exchange lies at the locus of Obamacare's price control problems). That alone throws a wrench into this "all smart people knew it was going to fail" reasoning. I don't think it would have mattered: Show nested quote +Aetna's decision to abandon its ObamaCare expansion plans and rethink its participation altogether came as a surprise to many. It shouldn't have. Everything that's happened now was predicted by the law's critics years ago.
Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said that this was supposed to be a break-even year for its ObamaCare business. Instead, the company has already lost $200 million, which it expect that to hit $320 million before the year it out. He said the company was abandoning plans to expand into five other states and is reviewing whether to stay in the 15 states where Aetna (AET) current sells ObamaCare plans.
Aetna's announcement follows UnitedHealth Group's (UNH) decision to leave most ObamaCare markets, Humana's (HUM) decision to drop out of some, Blue Cross Blue Shield's announcement that it was quitting the individual market in Minnesota, and the failure of most of the 23 government-created insurance co-ops. And it follows news that insurance companies are putting in for double-digit rate hikes that in some cases top 60%, and news that the Congressional Budget Office has sharply downgraded its long-term enrollment forecast for the exchanges.
Who could have envisioned such problems? Not ObamaCare backers. They were endlessly promising that the law would create vibrant, highly competitive markets that would lower the cost of insurance.
Critics, however, were spot on. They said that, despite the individual mandate, ObamaCare wouldn't attract enough young and healthy people to keep premiums down.
The Heritage Foundation, for example, said that under ObamaCare, "many under age 35 will opt out of buying insurance altogether, choosing to pay the penalty instead." That's just what has happened.
Critics predicted sharp hikes in premiums and big increases in medical claims. That's what's happened.
Critics said people would game the system, waiting until they got sick to buy insurance, then canceling it once the bills were paid, because of the law's "guaranteed issue" mandate. That's happening, too. In fact, administration officials are trying to tighten the rules to mitigate this problem.
Critics said insurers would abandon ObamaCare amid substantial losses. Anyone want to dispute that this is happening?
These dire predictions weren't pulled out of thin air. Several states had already tried ObamaCare-style market reforms in the 1990s, only to see their individual insurance markets collapse. A 2007 report by Milliman Inc. looked at eight states that had adopted the "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" reforms at the heart of ObamaCare.
Like Obama, these states wanted to create insurance markets where no one could be denied coverage, or charged more, just because they were sick. But Milliman found that these regulations resulted in fast-rising premiums, a drop in enrollment in the individual market, and an exodus of health insurers.
Sound familiar?
By the time ObamaCare came around, most of those states either abandoned or overhauled this regulatory scheme, only to have it reimposed on them.
ObamaCare architects figured they could avoid the fate of those state experiments by including the individual mandate and subsidies for lower income families.
However, consulting firm Oliver Wyman correctly predicted in 2009 that these wouldn't work, either. "The subsidies and mandates," it concluded, "are not sufficient to drive high participation of younger, healthier members."
Aetna's Bertolini says that what's needed now to keep ObamaCare functioning are bigger and more generous taxpayer financed insurance subsidies — i.e., bailouts. Democrats say what's needed is a "public option" so that consumers in states abandoned by private insurers will be able to get coverage.
How about instead policymakers listen to the original ObamaCare critics? For decades, they've been calling for reforms that lift myriad anti-competitive government regulations, as well as fixes to the tax code so that it no longer massively distorts the insurance market.
The resulting free market competition in health care would do what it does everywhere it's allowed to function — improve quality while improving affordability. In other words, it would achieve the things ObamaCare promised but miserably failed to deliver. Source. Edit: And to take things further, my recollection is that the Obamacare skeptics predicted that the financial collapse of Obamacare would happen right about now. On August 18 2016 11:18 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2016 11:06 xDaunt wrote:On August 18 2016 11:01 Plansix wrote:On August 18 2016 10:58 xDaunt wrote:On August 18 2016 10:35 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:The big health care news this week came from Aetna, which announced on Monday it was dramatically scaling back participation in the Affordable Care Act ― thereby reducing insurer competition and forcing customers scattered across 11 states to find different sources of coverage next year.
Aetna officials said the pullout was necessary because of Obamacare’s problems ― specifically, deep losses the insurer was incurring in the law’s health insurance exchanges.
But the move also was directly related to a Department of Justice decision to block the insurer’s potentially lucrative merger with Humana, according to a letter from Aetna’s CEO obtained by The Huffington Post.
Paired with some looming rate increases for next year’s health plans, the abrupt departure of Aetna has triggered new worries that Obamacare ― a subsidized public-private system of health insurance plans competing for beneficiaries ― is in serious trouble and may even be unsustainable.
That’s despite millions who have obtained coverage through these marketplaces, contributing to a historically low uninsured rate. It’s also despite optimism about Obamacare from at least some insurers and experts ― optimism that Aetna’s own leaders had expressed just a few months ago.
Publicly, Aetna representatives this week framed their about-face as a reaction to losses the company was taking on Obamacare customers, and in particular figures from the second quarter of 2016 that the company had just analyzed, showing them to be sicker and costlier than predicted.
When reporters on Monday asked whether Aetna was also reacting to the administration’s attempt to thwart its merger with Humana, company officials brushed off the questions, according to accounts in the Hartford Courant, Politico and USA Today. Source If I recall correctly, opponents, prior to Obamacare's passing, were predicting massive rate hikes and the demise of Obamacare as a consequence of fiscal unsustainability in 2017. As just one example, Colorado is getting fucked hard, and the exchanges are going to fail next year. Except the company that is threatening to pull out said the exact opposite of what they claimed during an investor call. Then they are free to be sued by shareholders. Doesn't change the fact that Obamacare is going down in flames as predicted. Or they are lying about pulling out because they are mad about being denied a merger and they want to use that as leverage. On August 18 2016 11:11 farvacola wrote:
"Here's this thing that Aetna did, it's a clear signal that Obamacare is failing."
"Actually, Aetna has leveraged market pullouts before and there's reason to believe that that is what is happening here."
"Yeah well clearly Obamacare is failing anyhow!"
Looks like farva and Plansix were spot-on:
U.S. judge finds that Aetna deceived the public about its reasons for quitting Obamacare
Aetna claimed this summer that it was pulling out of all but four of the 15 states where it was providing Obamacare individual insurance because of a business decision — it was simply losing too much money on the Obamacare exchanges.
Now a federal judge has ruled that that was a rank falsehood. In fact, says Judge John D. Bates, Aetna made its decision at least partially in response to a federal antitrust lawsuit blocking its proposed $37-billion merger with Humana. Aetna threatened federal officials with the pullout before the lawsuit was filed, and followed through on its threat once it was filed. Bates made the observations in the course of a ruling he issued Monday blocking the merger.
Aetna executives had moved heaven and earth to conceal their decision-making process from the court, in part by discussing the matter on the phone rather than in emails, and by shielding what did get put in writing with the cloak of attorney-client privilege, a practice Bates found came close to “malfeasance.”
The judge’s conclusions about Aetna’s real reasons for pulling out of Obamacare — as opposed to the rationalization the company made in public — are crucial for the debate over the fate of the Affordable Care Act. That’s because the company’s withdrawal has been exploited by Republicans to justify repealing the act. Just last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) cited Aetna’s action on the “Charlie Rose” show, saying that it proved how shaky the exchanges were.
Source
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are we really going to get 4 years of the media scrutinizing everything trump says and does? that surely will help them with their credibility,which already is at an all time high
/sarcasm
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So long as that /s applies to the whole of your post, it makes sense; otherwise, we're left wondering whether you actually think its odd that media would scrutinize the arguably most important politician in the world.
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Tbh,i think the media don't even know how to do better anymore. They have forgotten what it means to be journalist. They feel they are the king of public opinion,the know it alls who know best what is going on in the word. but they are only trying to advance the agenda of their owners. And the public they see through this all slowly yet the media won't change,just continue with the same old biased crap that they have done for the like the last 20 years. They are happily continuing digging their own grave.
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The moment you stop pretending that "media" is some agglomerated mass that you can point at meaningfully is the moment things will start to make more sense. Some mainstream news platforms are very clearly focusing on sensationalist reporting, but others are not, and to fail to differentiate between the two groups is to badly misunderstand today's political mediascape.
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Yeah, gee, the media scrutinizing politicians and trying to keep them honest for their entire time in office. That has no place in a functioning democracy.
/s
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On January 25 2017 22:18 pmh wrote:
are we really going to get 4 years of the media scrutinizing everything trump says and does? that surely will help them with their credibility,which already is at an all time high
/sarcasm
One of the major points of the media is to scrutinize the government and report when they screw up.
Democracy requires informed voters. The media plays an important part in that.
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On January 25 2017 22:30 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2017 22:18 pmh wrote:
are we really going to get 4 years of the media scrutinizing everything trump says and does? that surely will help them with their credibility,which already is at an all time high
/sarcasm One of the major points of the media is to scrutinize the government and report when they screw up. Democracy requires informed voters. The media plays an important part in that.
Which in the US they do not do.
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EPT
