Topics created by pppucci

Lol Bill Clinton will forever be one of my favorite successful presidents. He's always had a great sense of humor.

You can try to dismiss it, but at the very, very least it exposes the Trumps and their circle as a bunch of liars. Their defense in 6 weeks has gone from "no obstruction, no collusion, Comey is a leaker" to "Any one would have taken that meeting, and anyway, collusion is not illegal." They can no longer claim it was a hoax to make excuses for an "election that they should have won."  While Trump still insists on calling it the "biggest witch hunt in history,"  it clearly is not.
You can try to tell yourself that this meeting is the sum-total of what may have gone on, but remember it was in June.  There are 5 months of possible misdeeds to investigate.  It is a very big deal.
Your Monty Python analogy is off. Trump's critics have not been incapacitated. In fact, with each passing day he or someone close to him puts another weapon in our hands.  Like Richard Nixon said, "I gave them the sword and they rammed it through me."
If you close your eyes and click your heels three time, saying "It can't be true, It cant be true, It can't be true."  when you open them you will realize you have been duped by the biggest con-man in America today.

99.9999999% of rich people are that way because they are thieving twats.

@aadam101:

The problem isn't so much that the cost is too high.  It's really that all of the prices are just made up.  If you go to the ER right now with no insurance you will be getting multiples bills in the mail for months to come with just totally make up prices.  Nobody pays those prices.  Insurers don't pay those prices.  Medicare and Medicaid don't pay those prices.  Even the uninsured don't pay those prices.  It's a crazy system where nobody knows what anything costs.  I work in healthcare finance and have for most of my career.  I have no idea what anything truly costs.

Healthcare providers know very well what healthcare costs.  They enter into contracts with and negotiate fees with insurance providers all the time based on those costs.
But what you say is very true.  The inflated fees that people without insurance are charged dates back to a time, now over 25 years ago, when some insurance companies paid bills without question, except with some very high limits.  Providers set their fees so that they were never lower than what the most generous insurance provider was willing to pay.  Now things are very different.  Insurers, especially Medicare, which sets the standard, determine fees.  Most private insurance companies ay about 85% of Medicare, some less.  Medicaid pays bout 30% of Medicare.
This part of healthcare costs has essentially been controlled.  Any further savings will need to affect utilization, especially of high-priced technology and new drugs.  The anticancer drug Keytruda (which you may have seen advertised on TV) costs each patient $200,000 a year. As long asa drug has a patent, they can charge whatever they like with no competition. Any talk of rationing care is met with great resistance from across the political spectrum. Yes, heakthcare is cimplicated.

@Frederick:

@aadam101:

If Obama (or any Democrat) did this why would they wait until now to reveal it?  This would have been something to reveal last summer before the election.  This would have cost him the election.

Obama and the democraps do things like that and FAR worse all the time, but the media choose to ignore it.

What was ignored?

Pence actually released a statement distancing himself from the scandal.  Quite different from his usual sycophancy:

"The Vice President is working every day to advance the president's agenda, which is what the American people sent us here to do," press secretary Marc Lotter (Pence's spokesman) said in a statement.

"The Vice President was not aware of the meeting. He is not focused on stories about the campaign, particularly stories about the time before he joined the ticket."

None of Hillary's emails, by that I mean emails from her private server,  I challenge you to provide a link to or a copy of any of them. It was the emails of the DNC and of John Podesta that were hacked by the Russians.  By what twist of logic can you shift the blame to the victim. As for Bernie, if you are talking about the controversy surrounding his wife, we will have to see, but it has nothing to do withRussia.  You assume liberals are like cells in a single organism so tht if you hurt one, you will hurt us all.  Not true.  As for Comey, as it turns out wrote 7 memos, some of which may have contained classified information (perhaps classified retrospectively) at the confidential or secret level ( not top secret) The one memo that was leaked did not contain any classified material. Do you really think that Comey, who is lawyer and former deputy attorney general would leak classified information and then admit it freely under to Congress?
Trump supporters are now grasping at straws. Loretta Lynch did not ask Comey to drop the investigation, as Trump did to Comey.  She just asked him to refer to it as a matter.  It was perhaps a politically motivated decision, but ver very far from illegal. 
You need to broaden your consumption of news. You don't have to believe everything you read, but you should stay informed.

@sutieday:

I just wanna debate politics! Watch tomorrow or in a few days the voting/rep features get removed due to conservative/rightwing/troll complaints…

It's common knowledge that moonbat Sutieday is by far the biggest offender of trolling people to down vote them, lying, complaining, and reporting.

Why don't you go boycott yourself?

I don't think Trump has actually ran his company in a very long time.  He is a failed businessman several times over.  I believe the actual running of the company was taken away from him a long time ago and he is merely the spokesman.  He claims to have a "real estate" empire but he doesn't actually own much.  He just lends his name to the buildings because people are fooled into thinking his name is synonymous with luxury.

That being said, your point remains.  He is in a position to enrich himself although it's not that different from what Congress does.  They routinely engage in insider trading which isn't illegal in Congress.  They all leave Congress as millionaires.

@raphjd:

@sutieday:

Less Twitter trolling and I will be happy.

Less CNN.

Hey guys, I was trying to be bipartisan. Let's not ruin the thread by rehashing issues that have already been discussed ad infinitum elsewhere.

@Frederick:

@aadam101:

Why hasn't Trump locked her up?

I guess he was just saying all that stuff to get gullible people to vote for him.  It worked.

He might still.  He's being a nice guy right now.  A moonbat would never let anybody off the hook for anything.  Trump is being an extremely good sport.

As Mae West used to say, "Goodness had nothing to do with it." It just is not politically advantageous to do so right now.  I agree with you, Frederick that he may in the future, especially if he needs to shore up his base.  There is such deep-seated hatred of her in some groups that goes back 30 years.  Trump knows he can pump that well whenever he wants.
P.S.  I am impressed with your cooler tone, and I thank you for that. But at the risk of asking too much, how hard would it be to call us liberals or leftists instead of "moonbats?"  We all know of your disdain.  You don't need to use a deprecative noun in every post.

It's only going downhill TO YOU, because you don't like Trump. You can't stand to hear someone defend him.

@Frederick:

@pppucci:

I assume you are talking about Time-Warner, which owns CNN.  Its stock, however have been climbing slowly, and are more affected by the possible merger with AT&T

That is actually true.. that's the 3rd mistake I've made this year!

However..  my message is still valid in that when the stock DOES start to slide, investors will blame CNN and heads will roll.

I'm glad to see you admit your mistakes.  I'll promise to admit mine too.  I think the discussion is cleaner and more enlightening when we stack to the facts.  As for Time-Warner, if it does merge with AT&T, the conglomerate will be so big that CNN could go bankrupt without it affecting the stock price.  Also, they probably would sell it off before it got to that point.
But I still would like an answer to my original question.  Your silence implies assent.

@sutieday:

I agree with Jones, Republicans don't have the balls to impeach Trump, even if he breaks the law.

Should anyone be surprised?!

You have a blind hatred for anyone to the right of Stalin and Mouldylocks.

@mhorndisk:

Here's an idea. I will declare that the President was unpresidential in his tweet, if you admit that CNN lied, instead of conveniently ignoring that and pointing the finger at him. Admit they lied. I doubt you can do it. I doubt you can actually say CNN lied, when they did, and admitted it, and fired three reporters over it.

Did I ever deny that CNN retracted a story that was poorly sourced, did not meet its own standards and fired the reporters.  Ok they lied.  How does that give the president the right to virtually punch them out?  They retracted the story, and fired the employees.  What do you want? A firing squad?
And no matter what you think of me, I have never been resistant  to accepting known facts, or as Carl Bernstein puts it, "The best obtainable version of the truth." I don't need to accept that Obama is the devil's whore just because you believe it.  Even if you had something back that up with, that characterization is your opinion.  As far as I know, there is no National Devil's Whore Registry.

@jazuko:

@pppucci:

Trump needs a foil and enjoys portraying himself as a victim.  The more time we spend talking about Russia, the less time we will pay attention to how little he has been able to accomplish.  Outside of the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, his only accomplishments have been the abandonment of TTP and withdrawing from the Paris accords.  Even his travel ban was delayed 5 months and the Supreme Court only allowed it to be partially enforced.  That is why, whenever the story simmers down. he stirs up the pot with a tweet.

pointing out that youre being accused of something with no proof by people that would be happy with your death doesnt make you a victim. perhaps if people spent less time with their tin foil hat conspiracies they could talk more about his accomplishments. i dont recall previous presidents being talked about or regarded in such a way that many would happily wish them death. Trump is smart enough not to put himself in a position for another crazy liberal to assassinate him especially when republicans just got attacked.

You guys are tone-deaf.  It was Trump who said no president was treated worse.  We are just pointing out how ridiculous that is compared to the presidents who were assassinated.  No one is wishing that on him. And I guess you think  FBI agents line their hats with foil.  Trump, by trash-talking all the time prompts a lot of his enemies to respond in kind.