President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Start with this: Russia is never, ever, ever, ever going to roll over and allow Sevastopol to be part of a Western-allied Ukraine.

 

I think Booker is formidable, and in many ways, tempting. I've voted for him. Underestimate him at your own risk. Still, this is also symptomatic of the lack of vision in the American public, assuming that history will repeat itself in the same way (young, under-experienced charismatic black liberal senator). This is the thinking that has us taking off our shoes at airports.

 

If the Democrats are looking for another Barack Obama, they will be looking for a long time.

It's likely they'll make the same mistake the Republicans did for 30 years after Reagan, too — keep bringing him up as their beau ideal and making their current candidates pale in that comparison.

 

Don't be shy, Mickey:


Mickey Rourke to Trump: ‘Kiss my motherfuckin’ ass, you bitch punk cocksucker’

 

I don't think Democrats need to find their next Barack Obama as much as they need to avoid their next Hillary Clinton.

 

As much as Booker can sometimes talk pretty, he lost me a long time ago. He's borderline corrupt and too easily bought.

So maybe say what you mean? Do you believe it will prove too difficult to overcome the Big Pharma-bought coalition that has so far prevented it?

 

You have to grade on a scale. He's from New Jersey.

 

It's the lost alternative ending to Willie Wonka where Veruca Salt wins the chocolate factory.

 

The band?

 

Levon Helm's chocolate factory would've been incredible.

 

Trump's wrong in two ways. One, he's got it in his head there's tons of money being left on the table by the federal government. There's not. The CBO has routinely estimated that the budgetary effect of HHS negotiating would be nil (because the bargaining's already been done by private insurers and pharmacy benefit managers).

Two, Trump's got it in his head he (or his ilk) can be better bargainers. They can't. To be a better bargainer, you have to be prepared to say, "No, we just won't pay for that drug." They do that in other countries because there are fewer end-arounds. Here, however, any negotiating would take place amid the reality that there are, as Megan McArdle put it, 300 million auditors who have the ears of a 535-member board of directors.