President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I guess the Trump version of this would be a discussion about the tweets he read that helped him survive the White House.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/books/obamas-secret-to-surviving-the-white-house-years-books.html

 

LOL, Hillary's Bandwagon Driver.

 

Secret No. 1: You can do and say anything you want with a sycophantic press.

The end.

 

Put aside our shared disdain and antipathy toward Donald Trump and the worldview he proffers for a moment. I'm aware of the CBO's estimates for savings, but I also know it is impossible to make that assessment absent a full understanding of the mechanics of a negotiation process that might be put in place. Here's a well-thought-out (IMHO) analysis:

How Would Government Negotiation of Medicare Part D Drug Prices Work?

 

I do think there is a significant portion of anti-abortion/pro-life folks who think no abortions should take place. It's murder.

There are probably zero in the pro-choice camp who think a woman should carry a rapist's baby to term.

So if you could help us better understand the pr0-lifers, that would be great.

 

No outing of Starman, dude!

 

You certainly can get away with a lot more than if you are actively hostile to the press.

Of the things that make Trump an extraordinarily poor choice to be president, being incapble of refraining from lashing out and make an enemy of anyone he perceives as a potential threat or is the slightest bit critical of him is right at the top. Because then, organizations and people tend to look for ways to get back at you.

Appears only Putin is spared from Trump's Twitter tantrums. Sad!

 

Donald Trump won’t be using the POTUS Twitter account | New York Post

 

Liberals don't want to pay for anything, but why the fuck is a state university subsidizing their costs to attend a protest:

As Inauguration Day approaches, a busload of Youngstown State University students is preparing to participate in the Women’s March on Washington on Jan. 21 – the day after Donald J. Trump is sworn in as the nation’s 45th president.

Amanda Fehlbaum, a professor with the Women and Gender Studies program, arranged a bus trip for 30 YSU students and obtained funding from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

She said the trip will help fulfill the mission of the Women and Gender Studies program, which is creating a generation of leaders who accommodate and celebrate differences.

The march was organized as a response to what the organizers term the demonization of marginalized people during the last election cycle.

“It’s about letting Trump and the new administration in general know that women’s rights are human rights and defending the most marginalized of us is defending us all,” she said.

Vindy.com - YSU Students to attend Women’s March in DC

 

Right. And Trump has no such understanding. Few do.

I know it's intuitive, and that the general understanding is that "Hey, the government is, indirectly, a huge customer, so it ought to be able to get a great deal!" But the reality, as that link points out, is that the government (through the PDPs) already gets a pretty good deal across the vast majority of drugs (because the vast majority have multiple substitutes, etc.). For those for which there's actually some room to maneuver, however, there are other factors/forces in play (e.g., excluding any drugs is verboten).

An even broader case against HHS negotiations could be made (namely, that any short-term savings might be swamped in the long-run by drugs/therapies that aren't developed as a result), but I'm not making that here. I'm simply suggesting that the HHS-as-negotiator argument is a fundamentally flawed mathematical proof: "Now here let us assume that we can divide by zero."

 

Now I have the image in my head of Mickey Rourke squinting at a screen, on a squeaky chair, hunting and pecking and mumbling and grunting, slowly putting together anti-Trump screeds. Thank you.

 

There's huge educational value for people in a "Women and Gender Studies" program in attending/sharing/witnessing what might be one of the seminal moments of the past several decades in terms of women's empowerment.