Trump doing stupid things like he has in the past. Nothing new here. He should be more careful, the Dems and press are mostly liberal and view him as an enemy of their agenda to control the masses.
I have my doubts that he will succeed in getting any tax cuts passed or will screw up health care even more or raise premiums on older workers.
I suspect the Dems will hope they take over the house in 2018 elections and then try impeachment but get blocked by the senate. Meanwhile the US economy will be going downhill to the private delight of democrats who will happily blame the president and republicans for not getting anything done in 2 years.
Average Americans want affordable less expensive health care options. I'm paying less than 150 a month for my health insurance monthly premium with a high deductible plan. I looked at the government plan and see nothing like that unless your income is so low they subsidize payments. Every worker who isn't subsidized is left out with all these rising costs. Health care costs suck big time and I rarely even visit the doctor. I think government plans cost one person 500 or 700 a month without subsidies. That's ridiculous when at most I visit the doctor maybe once or twice a year. I have even skipped a few years while still paying.
Tax cuts? I keep hearing about them. I see nothing. Here's some news for Trump, either he gets stuff done along with others or we will likely be in a recession and th democrats will take back over. Time is running out and the democrats are working on it. Trump doesn't need to help. I'm hoping for big tax cuts and a boost to the economy rather than a recession starting late this year or next. I don't know if tax cuts alone will keep us out of recession.
If Trump was really successful, he could come up with a plan to cause global cooling and dump iron ore powder relatively cheaply in the oceans to absorb carbon on a massive scale. If successful, he'd probably get blamed for crop failures from freezes especially if people went starving. Ramp up the big fan projects taking carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere by offering huge tax incentives. Expand salt water to fresh water projects used to grow crops in green houses to set up desalination facilities on a bigger scale making water available cheaply in lots of places. Set up plans and make public the plans for restoration of the US grid quickly in only 30 days or less if anyone ever attacked th country with emp weapons which supposedly will kill 90% of all Americans. I say 30 days or less because people will start killing for food and water rather than just die. If they know ahead of time of a plan and see troops etc implement the plan in the scenario if it happens, then maybe the president could save over 300 million citizens. My two cents.
Sharkhunter - it seems that congress, not Trump, are the ones failing to get anything done. Voters were promised an Obamacare repeal, tax reform (lower taxes, close loopholes, cut spending), and a balanced budget. Republicans hold majorities in both houses of Congress and have the presidency. Why the hell has nothing gotten done? The Russian collusion conspiracy has been debunked - they need to get to running the country! The idiot democrats need to quit whining about being rejected by the voters and do the same, get to work!
While everyone is distracted by this ridiculous Comey circus act, Republicans are quietly moving forward with a substantial agenda. Obamacare is likely to be repealed before the July recess - the Senate has already fast tracked the repeal bill for a July vote.
In other almost completely uncovered news, the House has just passed the Financial Choice Act, which will remove a lot of the Dodd-Frank restrictions on banks and should dramatically increase their ability to lend. This is a huge win for pro-growth forces.
Congress has a litany of other things that it intends to pass after these two items, corporate tax reform high on the list.
I cannot remember the last time I felt so optimistic about the economy or our politicians. While the Dems are pounding on their high chairs about Russia and whatever other womanly squeals they can make, the GOP is moving an aggressive pro-growth agenda forward on multiple fronts. The last time we had movement like this on so many core issues was during the early Reagan years. I am seriously starting to wonder if all of this is a calculated maneuver by the Republicans.
Anytime a whitehouse feels the need to issue a statement tha President is not a liar is not a win for them. Actually "I am not a liar" channels another famous quote "I am not a crook"
^^^Don't forget there was a group of Repulicans that stayed with Nixon to the bitter end although most of his party eventually turned against him, another interesting point Nixon started out as hard line on china but he was the one that established diplomatic relations with the Chinese.
^ See what I mean? While knuckleheads are getting caught up in goofy nonsense about whether the Republican President will be impeached by a Republican Congress for non-impeachable offenses, they aren't screaming about how the crooked banks are about to be de-regulated again. Nor are they screaming about 11 new judicial nominations coming down the pipeline. Nor are they focusing on tax breaks to "rich" corporations, and they barely notice that the Senate has fast-tracked health care reform for a vote in July, and...so on and so on.
As a troll here likes to say, brilliant! I hope Trump keeps sending out goofy tweets and continues to be embroiled in no evidence circus acts. He is going to perform his way all the way to the most sweeping changes that we have seen since the Reagan era. ;)
The financial crisis, the bankruptcy of Lehman, the taxpayer bailout of AIG are all only about 8 or 9 years in our past. But I guess another taxpayer bailout to the tune of $700B is in our future. All in the name of "pro-growth," of course.
@Dugan's another TUSCLer famous for spewing the most banal platitudes without really saying anything. He should really stick to what he knows best -- coming up with a system for paying hookers for sex.
So @RickDugan everybody that doesn't agree with you is a knucklehead the healthcare bill is a disaster plenty of folks aren't happy about the banking bill all you listen to is the shit spews issued by tribalist commentators like Hannity and Limbaugh sad.
#ignorance is bliss
@Random, actually, the Financial Choice Act removes the "too big to fail" label from financial institutions.
Twenty: the healthcare bill is only a disaster for a small minority of people. Many of those "23 million who are going to lose their insurance" don't want it anyway because it is both expensive and useless. Of course, soon there won't be any insurers left in many markets anyway.
But keep focusing on the Comey nonsense dipshits. Meanwhile, banks will be able to start lending again and I won't have to pay a fortune to subsidize other people's healthcare (yes I am in the individual market sadly). I hope Comey comes back and tesitifies again, preferably right around the time that corporate tax reform and those new judicial nominees come before Congress. ;)
Ah Dugan your sense of selfimportance never ceases to amaze me, you never paid a small fortune to susidize other people's health insurance. What do you think paying for indigents and uninsureds is, a large fortune, wake up man you just don't get it.
#ignorance is bliss
I pay almost $20k per year just in health insurance premiums for my so that the subsidized can get lower premiums and deductibles and early retirees only have to pay double the lowest rate rather than their true share, which is closer to 5x the amount of medical care needed by the youngest. Part of that is reimbursed by the government, but a chunk of that is also priced into the premiums that us un-subsidized people pay.
By comparison, the year before the mandates and other Obamacare provisions kicked in, I paid $12k per year for a wonderful policy that covered everything, was accepted everywhere, and had very low deductibles.
So today I pay 7k more in premiums and at least another $1,000 or so in out of pocket costs (which will be a lot more if one of us gets seriously sick or injured) and get a lot less than I did right before the Obamacare shit kicked in. I also have to go through an annual research project to be sure that our doctors will take our policy, which was never the case before.
So you're talking out of your ass, which is not surprising.
Not talking out of my ass but I have never been a fan of the Affordable Care Act but you can not tell me that your high premiums are any different than anyone else's that is a direct result of allowing the insurance companies to take about 15% of every dollar spent on health care. Get rid of the insurance companies and put in Medicare across the board and hire competent administrators eventually it will get fixed.
Don't care to debate this shit ad nauseum with the usual socialism crap or the rest of it I just gave you a fact accept it or don't.
I started in NYC as Rigger working for DeMattis went into my own business based out of queens NY sold out in 1989 relocated here to S. FL , getting ready to retire but I have family in this business it's a little trickier with the exit strategy.
rickdugan --> "actually, the Financial Choice Act removes the "too big to fail" label from financial institutions. "
If true, that sounds like good news!!
The tax cuts make sense, after all people like me got tax cuts in earlier rounds of tax cuts. So it's only fair to address taxes for those up to now haven't seen fair cuts. It's not patriotic to pay high taxes, is it? If I'm at 15%, and benefited from earlier tax cuts, why should someone else have to pay 35% just because they are more successful?
Also the reports of the healthcare bill in the senate surround medicaid, which has been a huge cost burden for states.
The Comey thing seems out of proportion based the number of meetings, duration, etc. for these to be this much attention.
I do agree with Speaker Paul Ryan, that President Trump is acting like a newbie, which is quick frankly expected for an outsider. I don't like everything about him, but I like him more that some of the other choices.
Comey perjured himself today but will likely never be charged. He stated that he did not consider leaking confidential information until after Trump tweeted that he was a liar.
The problem is that the material he leaked was published several days before he claimed to have released it. That means he just lied under oath and likely his contact at NY Times published the information before he had all his faked "memos" written. He is just another DC slease-ball crook. Truth be told he probably ask Trump for a payoff.
Virtually every thing in and around DC is corrupt.
I thought Comey came across as super-smart, super-capable, an excellent lawyer. I am not a fan of him, nor of Trump, and not really of most politicians, but it was pretty clear to me that he was on-top of it, all, every bit. I thought Trump now can weasel out with the "I didn't mean it to be as bad as it sounded" excuse, along with the "I'm not a governmentally experienced dude, I came from business, you can't hang me on a few little words like 'good man' and 'hope you can see'." I disagree that this is actually a fair representation of Trump's intent. I think Trump fully intended to strong-arm the FBI into abandoning the investigation of Flynn, although now that Trump has learned (the hard way) that this kind of strong-arming can potentially be quite illegal, he would probably be smart enough (only probably) not to try it again. "Oh, we can't do that? Oh, well ... uh, why not? Well, I guess I shouldn't do it then. We used to always do that in Manhattan real estate circles. Can't do it in Washington?" Comey, very very smart man, long life of public service, thanks to him (I guess?), and I'm impressed with just how MUCH loyalty and fellow-feeling he has for his "family" the FBI. He hated, more than being fired, the fact that the Bureau was defamed. Though I don't agree with his assessment of the Bureau (remember the lab? the Olympic bombings? etc.?) I at least sympathize with his dedication.
I thought McCain was out to lunch. Or nap. Senior moment? I thought he was trying to mislead the American people into the false notion that an investigation of one candidate should not stop unless the investigation of the other candidate stopped. The sensible rejoinder would have been "Uh, not if the evidence leads directly to the other candidate, sir." But because McCain weaseled (or, simply mis-stated?) the questions so oddly, Comey didn't come up with that rejoinder (or anything similarly interceptive of the seeming agenda of McCain's, to create that false notion mentioned). Then, however, I read that McCain claimed in a public statement that he was sorry for acting woozy and that he would ask his question on the record in written form, and that his question was NOT the false-notioned one I thought he was pushing, so now I don't know what to think about McCain.
And this from me, not a Comey fan, vaguely not a McCain fan, totally not a Trump fan, usually a Republican-hater. I'm generally a typical left-winger. Aside from the fact that I don't like Political Correctness, especially of the feminist or "you can't use that word" sort, I usually vote mostly Democrat, and certainly felt that D. Trump was a MUCH worse choice than H. Clinton. But I feel ya, if you thought she was corrupt or too much of a persnickety up-East elite snob. She did, for example, call most of you "deplorables," thereby clearly demonstrating a disdain for the very people whom she ostensibly had wished would vote for her.
Although I'm sympathetic that rickdugan's healthcare insurance premiums went UPWARDS and A LOT due to the Obamacare mandate, I think that was the point, wasn't it? I don't think the liberals said, "We're going to make sure everyone's rates go down," but rather, they said some kind of code for, "We're going to take money from the rich and give it to the poor." In their theory, if your rates have skyrocketed, that would be because you've been exploiting people and should have to pay more of their share as extracted from your previously too-cheap premiums.
I only kind-of agree with that motivation. I also kind-of think it's rather evil theft. I don't know which side I'm on. On the one hand, I like poor people to be healthier, since the tuberculin spirochete doesn't know whether it is entering the lungs of a rich or a poor person when it is coughed across the airy breezes by moron A to infect genius B. On the other hand, I don't like redistribution of wealth, especially not under false guises such as the fraudulent "mandate" (it's a tax. but not one single person ever said it was. but it is. wtf?) which is designed to create non-market conditions (though we call it the "marketplace" because that has the letters M, A, R, K, E, and T at the beginning of it) to enforce a type of pricing structure that puts insurance companies out of business. Neither side seems to make much sense to me.
@BookGuy you are forgetting that Obama Care was originally a Republican program named Romney Care and it sucks but our health care system is the worst in the western world based on cost and outcomes.
^^^^^^ Twentyfive +10
Comey is a good guy. Donald Trump is just a stupid bully. Sooner we can get rid of him and get rid of Republican control of congress, the better.
SJG
One takeaway from the Comey hearing and the response the fix was in Trump never would have followed through with the election if it wasn't
One thing I know about these NY operators they screw themselves the same way, every time, by assuming that they can control the shitstorm that they create and it always gets away from their ability to control. That is what is happening now instead of ducking down Trump assumes he is smarter than everybody, it happened to Clinton, it happened to Nixon, that is always their downfall.
25, our man in the know!
Are you counting Nixon as a New Yorker? He certainly was a candidate of Wall Street. And who else do you consider to be a "NY Operator"? Are you talking about Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani?
SJG
King Crimson, live Hyde Park 1969
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Trump is his own worse enemy. He could have fired Comey for no reason and simply stated he wanted to make a change -- period. Being POTUS requires "chess game" skills. Trump has trouble thinking multiple moves ahead.
Well you can use G Bush the son as a benchmark he was smart enough to know how to keep his head down and his mouth shut. I cite him because he is a recent example everyone can remember, not because he is the only one.
@25 Yeah, Trump is smart, unfortunately his backup plan and gap filler is lying. The lies he stood in the Rose Garden and told today will come back to bite him. With all the credibility Comey has, the world got a clear view of Trump's true character today watching him lie with a straight face.
He's smart enough to keep the attention on him while the legislature quietly passes the things that he wants in almost record time. Keep tweeting Donnie-boy! ;)
One thing I did find to be the stupidest thing any president has ever said, is Trumps statement to put him under oath he is willing to testify under oath, that is the sound of how a guy who thinks he is smarter than anybody else. Clinton did something similar with saying "it depends on what your definition of "is" is" instead of just saying it's none of your fucking business, when questioned about having sex with Monica Lewinsky, Gary Hart fucked up telling the press to follow him then he got caught with a bimbo on the boat "Monkey Business".
I think Trump just set himself up like I said he thinks he is smarter than anyone.
Well the market certainly made quite the vote on the testimony yesterday:
Like it or not... The Donald is Back!
(And I'm guessing that dice saw it coming, given the question he asked earlier in the week re: infrastructure.)
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