Donald, This I Will Tell You

[MoneyMatthew]

I don't have a problem with criticizing Trump or any Republicans. I demand results, not appeals to emotion.

If Hillary were in office we would be reminded daily of how white males are evil, how we must recognize that there are 70+ Genders that each need a bathroom and that we must build bridges not walls (a.k.a. let's flood America with Islamic Refugees who have hardly been vetted and let's continue to let people come and go as they please at our southern border in an undocumented fashion.)

My personal success criteria is simple for Trump, I need to see a Wall in 4 Years or he is a failure in my book. I don't care how it is paid for, I just need to see a Wall.

Please take note, you will never see the Left on this message board criticize and demand results of their own. Have fun finding the posts where they critique Obama or their power team of surefire winners Clinton & Kaine.

Most of these Republicans fighting Trump are a bunch of do-nothings. Vote the do-nothing Republicans out and salvage those who want to get things done. That is all we can do.

The good news is that the Democrats will run the same lame, old and tired Identity-Politics Playbook again in 4-Years. The bad news is that Trump (or any Republican) can't go in-front of the nation and say "I'm going to build a wall" and expect to get the same amount of votes.

I'm going on record right here to predict that if Trump does not deliver on his major promises in his first 4-Years then a 3rd Party Candidate will Win the 2020 Presidential Election. I just hope that 3rd Party Candidate is not a Socialist.

How is this possible?:

#1. People are tired of the Social Justice Snow Flake Democrats.

#2. People will be tired of the Do-Nothing Republicans.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

The media are painting this as a big loss for Trump, and he risked that by pushing for Ryan's stupid bill. The thing the media are missing is that democrats did not defeat Trump on this. It was dropped because republicans could not agree. That makes it a defeat more for Ryan than Trump.

The republican opposition was founded on the obvious flaw that Ryan's bill retained the essence of obamacare but shifted responsibility for it to republicans. Rates were likely not coming down, there was no free market in insurance and illegals were going to be able to access it. What should have been priorities in the bill were pushed off into phases two and three, with no guarantee they ever would be enacted.

The bill illustrated the common theme of Ryan's various reforms to entitlements and taxes--republican constituencies are hurt and democrat ones are rewarded. Apparently this is based on Ryan's faith in the discredited Jack Kemp theories of appealing to minorities, etc through economic incentives. How's that working for ya?

 

[Cuddles]

It's the blind allegiance that pisses me off. Every one knows the guy can't run the show by himself but they refuse to question/vet the cabinet choices he made. I was hoping to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but knew it was all over when I saw the creatures he was surrounding himself with. The guy is too damn stubborn and full of himself and stupid enough to think he knows best.

This whole trumpcare fiasco is a prime example. How are you going to adopt the Republican's position of repeal and replace of 7 years and not have something to show for it? Shit if it was all a bluff then buy your time and present it a year from now.

 

[java]

The media are painting this as a big loss for Trump, and he risked that by pushing for Ryan's stupid bill. The thing the media are missing is that democrats did not defeat Trump on this. It was dropped because republicans could not agree. That makes it a defeat more for Ryan than Trump.

The republican opposition was founded on the obvious flaw that Ryan's bill retained the essence of obamacare but shifted responsibility for it to republicans. Rates were likely not coming down, there was no free market in insurance and illegals were going to be able to access it. What should have been priorities in the bill were pushed off into phases two and three, with no guarantee they ever would be enacted.

The bill illustrated the common theme of Ryan's various reforms to entitlements and taxes--republican constituencies are hurt and democrat ones are rewarded. Apparently this is based on Ryan's faith in the discredited Jack Kemp theories of appealing to minorities, etc through economic incentives. How's that working for ya?

CNN called it Trumps Blunder. They haven't learned one thing. Not only that they have become even more out of touch with anybody that was normal until they voted abnormally for Trump. One hour a week I give them 9 am Sunday morning and they can't even handle that.

 

[Tsing Tao]

It's the blind allegiance that pisses me off. Every one knows the guy can't run the show by himself but they refuse to question/vet the cabinet choices he made. I was hoping to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but knew it was all over when I saw the creatures he was surrounding himself with. The guy is too damn stubborn and full of himself and stupid enough to think he knows best.

This whole trumpcare fiasco is a prime example. How are you going to adopt the Republican's position of repeal and replace of 7 years and not have something to show for it? Shit if it was all a bluff then buy your time and present it a year from now.

I blame the repeal failure on the feet of the GOP, not Trump. They've had all this time to have a replacement ready, but they didn't because they have no idea what to do in order to replace it. All they know is to find a camera and talk down Obamacare, but when their bluff is called - oops.

It's the proverbial dog that chases the car, but once catching it, sits there and has no idea what to do.

 

[CaptainObvious]

I blame the repeal failure on the feet of the GOP, not Trump. They've had all this time to have a replacement ready, but they didn't because they have no idea what to do in order to replace it. All they know is to find a camera and talk down Obamacare, but when their bluff is called - oops.

It's the proverbial dog that chases the car, but once catching it, sits there and has no idea what to do.

Yeah, this healthcare stuff is hard. Who knew? First, it ain't cost of healthcare they're addressing. Never has been. It's access to insurance for healthcare and you're not going to do that and please everyone. Insurance companies won't like it because they'll have to insure high risk people and be told how much to charge for the high risk person. Many people won't like it because it's going to require a tax to subsidize the overall cost. And if they ever do try and address the actual sky high cost of healthcare that means the heavy hand of government dictating price and profit. Easy to be a critic shouting from the cheap seats. Now they're actually on the field of play and standing around with their collective thumbs up their ass. Congress...these stupid fucks are qualified to manage a hot dog stand.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Yeah, this healthcare stuff is hard. Who knew? First, it ain't cost of healthcare they're addressing. Never has been. It's access to insurance for healthcare and you're not going to do that and please everyone. Insurance companies won't like it because they'll have to insure high risk people and be told how much to charge for the high risk person. Many people won't like it because it's going to require a tax to subsidize the overall cost. And if they ever do try and address the actual sky high cost of healthcare that means the heavy hand of government dictating price and profit. Easy to be a critic shouting from the cheap seats. Now they're actually on the field of play and standing around with their collective thumbs up their ass. Congress...these stupid fucks are qualified to manage a hot dog stand.

Honestly, the real issue in healthcare is the pricing model (or lack of a pricing model). The fact that a minor procedure is $200 in one hospital and $900 in another is lunacy. Drugs that cost $40,000 a month? Really? On what planet is this normal?

 

[viruscore1]

With the old admin, the rich elite regardless of left or right just keep on getting richer, and the rest is fucckked . Eventually the middle class will join the bottom half, that's where the elite can keep us under their thumb.

 

[viruscore1]

Donald, This I Will Tell You

Maureen Dowd MARCH 25, 2017

WASHINGTON — Dear Donald,

We’ve known each other a long time, so I think I can be blunt.

You know how you said at campaign rallies that you did not like being identified as a politician?

Don’t worry. No one will ever mistake you for a politician.

After this past week, they won’t even mistake you for a top-notch negotiator.

I was born here. The first image in my memory bank is the Capitol, all lit up at night. And my primary observation about Washington is this: Unless you’re careful, you end up turning into what you started out scorning.

And you, Donald, are getting a reputation as a sucker. And worse, a sucker who is a tool of the D.C. establishment.

Your whole campaign was mocking your rivals and the D.C. elite, jawing about how Americans had turned into losers, with our bad deals and open borders and the Obamacare “disaster.”

And you were going to fly in on your gilded plane and fix all that in a snap.

You mused that a good role model would be Ronald Reagan. As you saw it, Reagan was a big, good-looking guy with a famous pompadour; he had also been a Democrat and an entertainer. But Reagan had one key quality that you don’t have: He knew what he didn’t know.

You both resembled Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons, floating above the nitty-gritty and focusing on a few big thoughts. But President Reagan was confident enough to accept that he needed experts below, deftly maneuvering the strings.

You’re just careering around on your own, crashing into buildings and losing altitude, growling at the cameras and spewing nasty conspiracy theories, instead of offering a sunny smile, bipartisanship, optimism and professionalism.

You promised to get the best people around you in the White House, the best of the best. In fact, “best” is one of your favorite words.

Instead, you dragged that motley skeleton crew into the White House and let them create a feuding, leaking, belligerent, conspiratorial, sycophantic atmosphere. Instead of a smooth, classy operator like James Baker, you have a Manichaean anarchist in Steve Bannon.

You knew the Republicans were full of hot air. They haven’t had to pass anything in a long time, and they have no aptitude for governing. To paraphrase an old Barney Frank line, asking the Republicans to govern is like asking Frank to judge the Miss America contest — “If your heart’s not in it, you don’t do a very good job.”

You knew that Paul Ryan’s vaunted reputation as a policy wonk was fake news. Republicans have been running on repealing and replacing Obamacare for years and they never even bothered to come up with a valid alternative.

And neither did you, despite all your promises to replace Obamacare with “something terrific” because you wanted everyone to be covered.

Instead, you sold the D.O.A. bill the Irish undertaker gave you as though it were a luxury condo, ignoring the fact that it was a cruel flimflam, a huge tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care bill. You were so concerned with the “win” that you forgot your “forgotten” Americans, the older, poorer people in rural areas who would be hurt by the bill.

As The Times’s chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse put it, the G.O.P. falls into clover with a lock on the White House and both houses of Congress, and what’s the first thing it does? Slip on a banana peel. Incompetence Inc.

“They tried to sweeten the deal at the end by offering a more expensive bill with fewer health benefits, but alas, it wasn’t enough!” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau slyly tweeted.

Despite the best efforts of Bannon to act as though the whole fiasco was a clever way to bury Ryan — a man he disdains as “the embodiment of the ‘globalist-corporatist’ Republican elite,” as Gabriel Sherman put it in New York magazine — it won’t work.

And you can jump on the phone with The Times’s Maggie Haberman and The Washington Post’s Robert Costa — ignoring that you’ve labeled them the “fake media” — and act like you’re in control. You can say that people should have waited for “Phase 2” and “Phase 3” — whatever they would have been — and that Obamacare is going to explode and that the Democrats are going to get the blame. But it doesn’t work that way. You own it now.

You’re all about flashy marketing so you didn’t notice that the bill was junk, so lame that even Republicans skittered away.

You were humiliated right out of the chute by the establishment guys who hooked you into their agenda — a massive transfer of wealth to rich people — and drew you away from your own.

You sold yourself as the businessman who could shake things up and make Washington work again. Instead, you got worked over by the Republican leadership and the business community, who set you up to do their bidding.

That’s why they’re putting up with all your craziness about Russia and wiretapping and unending lies and rattling our allies.

They’re counting on you being a delusional dupe who didn’t even know what was in the bill because you’re sitting around in a bathrobe getting your information from wackadoodles on Fox News and then, as The Post reported, peppering aides with the query, “Is this really a good bill?”

You got played.

It took W. years to smash everything. You’re way ahead of schedule.

And I can say you’re doing badly, because I’m a columnist, and you’re not. Say hello to everybody, O.K.?

Sincerely, Maureen

You know she earns about 400k annually. How is she in touch with the masses? Another elite bashing Trump to keep the status quo.

 

[Frederick Foresight]

You know she earns about 400k annually. How is she in touch with the masses?

By that metric, how is Trump in touch with them?