Forum Overview :: Balance of Power
 
Re: I'm back to being pissed at Bernie or Busters. by blackwater 01/09/2017, 11:35am PST
Mischief Maker wrote:

Not only are they repealing the ACA with no plan to replace it (hello again, pre-existing conditions), they also passed legislation to not publicly reveal how much the ACA repeal will explode the national debt. And they created sanctions for people streaming the discussions on the House floor to the public on smartphones when Paul Ryan wants the CSPAN cameras off.


The Republicans have basically never shut up about how much they hate Obamacare. In the Obama years, they failed to prevent it from taking effect or to put it into the much-discussed "death spiral." Now they have a dilemma. They have an incoming Republican president and a Republican-controlled legislature, so they have no excuse for delaying any longer. But the health care system is a huge mess. Anyone who touches it ends up stained by the huge failure that is US healthcare. Health care costs continue to explode, so even if you put in place the same system that was around in 2000 (say), it would still look like a huge failure.

My sense of things is that Trump is a pragmatist, and doesn't want to die on this particular hill. If it were up to him, there would be some kind of face-saving fudge where they change some minor thing and declare it "fixed." People like Paul Ryan are more ideological about this and might actually want to get rid of things like the univeral mandate. The Republicans are probably pretty divided right now, which is why they want to keep this stuff off television. I don't think anyone knows what will happen next.

Mischief Maker wrote:


Then they're also doing a massive sell-off of public land, restriction of state's rights (fuck your pot decriminalization),


It's funny how people on both the left and the right discover that they're big fans of states' rights when it advances some particular agenda they have in mind. Honestly, all these cannabis entrepreneurs turn my stomach. Do we really need to turn pot into big business? We've been gradually winning against one particular group of lung cancer merchants, but now it looks like another one is starting to rise up. Pot dispensories and vape shops are a blight on the land, if you ask me. And someone ought to go after all these pharma companies that have created the opiate epidemic. In the rest of the world, you only get morphene if you're about to die and they don't want your last moments to be too bad.

Mischief Maker wrote:


and defunding planned parenthood, despite the fact that abortion services get zero federal funding already.


How can you defund something that isn't funded?

Mischief Maker wrote:


Why are Republicans so evil? Probably because their philosophical guiding light comes from Ayn Rand, whose ideal man was a corpse-mutilating sociopath.


I think you have the Republican Party confused with the Libertarian Party. It's OK, it's a common mistake. Here's a handy guideline: anything Trump says is probably the opposite of what a Libertarian would say (for better or worse). Except when he's talking about foreign policy, where they both would agree that we should mind our own business and not play world policeman.

Mischief Maker wrote:


We are so fucked.


We are only fucked if China decides it wants to stop buying T-Bills and funding our huge debt, or Russia decides to push the button and make the world uninhabitable. Otherwise it's all pretty normal stuff that's been happening for decades. In a decade or two, you'll barely remember the Trump years, just like you don't remember the Clintons' "tough on crime" and "three strikes" initiatives. Just let it go, man.

Bernie is a tired old man, and his ideas are old and tired too. They're only new to you because you are an American. His whole agenda was put in place in France in the postwar years, and that place didn't become a utopia. People put too much faith in politicians... just like they did with Obama and Bush. The reality is that politicians and the government have a lot more ability to create problems than solve them.
PREVIOUS NEXT REPLY QUOTE
 
I'm back to being pissed at Bernie or Busters. by Mischief Maker 01/09/2017, 5:39am PST NEW
    Such a fucking one of these people by Vested Id 01/09/2017, 6:15am PST NEW
        You replied. NT by MM 01/09/2017, 6:28am PST NEW
        Maybe I'm being a partisan. Please tell me the upsides of this R. legislation. NT by Mischief Maker 01/09/2017, 6:35am PST NEW
            You think I agree? by Vested Id 01/09/2017, 8:00am PST NEW
                I apoligize for the tone. I'd just read the morning headlines and had to WAGE! NT by Mischief Maker 01/09/2017, 4:24pm PST NEW
    I probably had more impact than bitter Stein voters NT by Gary Johnson 2016 01/09/2017, 11:32am PST NEW
        Busters anger me more because I identify with them. by Mischief Maker 01/09/2017, 6:16pm PST NEW
    Re: I'm back to being pissed at Bernie or Busters. by blackwater 01/09/2017, 11:35am PST NEW
        China cannot fuck us. NT by Mysterio 01/09/2017, 1:49pm PST NEW
        Re: I'm back to being pissed at Bernie or Busters. by Mischief Maker 01/09/2017, 6:35pm PST NEW
            Re: I'm back to being pissed at Bernie or Busters. by blackwater 01/10/2017, 4:32pm PST NEW
        Clinton was just as bad as Bush and future Trump NT by really? 01/09/2017, 8:00pm PST NEW
            Now he nominates a vaccine=autism disease enabler by to be in charge of vaccine safety 01/10/2017, 2:14pm PST NEW
                They say Trump voters who aren't klansmen wanted to thow a brick at the system. NT by MM 01/10/2017, 3:51pm PST NEW
                    Enough with the Klansmen shit by Vested Id 01/10/2017, 4:59pm PST NEW
                        Enough with the Godwin's law shit. by MM 01/10/2017, 5:08pm PST NEW
                            Who is Godwinning whom by Vested Id 01/10/2017, 6:37pm PST NEW
                                Speak of the dribble NT by Vested Id 01/11/2017, 12:42am PST NEW
                            How many alt right do you think there are in America? by Worm 01/10/2017, 9:47pm PST NEW
                                Steve Bannon is Trump's chief strategist. They're relevant. NT by Mischief Maker 01/11/2017, 5:39am PST NEW
                                    Maybe but it's a super small group. by Worm 01/11/2017, 2:13pm PST NEW
                Calm down, Markos Moulitsas NT by Mysterio 01/10/2017, 5:55pm PST NEW
                    Yeah take a chill pill, Michu Meszaros NT by Mysterio 01/11/2017, 4:46am PST NEW
            I didn't say Bill Clinton was just as bad as Trump, just that you forgot things by blackwater 01/10/2017, 4:42pm PST NEW
                Hitler isn't that bad. He's just Kaiser 2.0 by really? 01/11/2017, 4:28pm PST NEW
 
powered by pointy