As for the Trump angle, I'm pretty sure he's fit to be tied with congress. He can't unilaterally declare ACA defunct. It was legally written by congress, passed by congress, signed by the exec, and even gone through judicial review. So all three hands of govt have validated it. the only mechanism now for removal of ACA is either congress repealing, or SCOTUS invalidating. Frankly, with Gorsuch on the bench I would find one of the more onerous features of ACA and put it before the bench again. I would much prefer a judicial solution which wipes it out completely than a watered down republican 'solution' which retains all the junk parts of the law(mandatory enrollment), and gets rid of the smaller elements that are less glaring.

No, I'm talking about the bureaucracy inside hospitals and other private institutions. Yes, IN THEORY basic economics implies they should shrink, as @lnvflatspin has stated. I'm skeptical it will happen because I've never seen that happen, either in government or in private industry.

Execute me again, but not at all theory. In practice. Efficient markets happen constantly. Also, they happen in every industry, but to a lesser degree in markets which are heavily manipulated.

Frex; When I was in the Army in the mid-70s, and I wanted to go home from BWI to SAN it cost me $366.76 R/T. That was in 1970s dollars. FF to airline dereg and I just got a price on Cactus for $343 in 2017 dollars. Why is there no PanAm today? How can a company like Spirit exist?

BTW the 2017 cost of my flight to Sandy Eggo would be $1667.64.

Skepticism is a good thing. I'm all for it. But dereg the health care industry, get the feds out of it to a very great extent and I will guarantee you that prices will go down. Also for your example of prescription drug prices? What would happen, does one suppose if ALL the fedguv investment in drug reimbursement went away? Really, this is econ 101, second night of class kind of stuff. I would expect a graduate level matriculated person to grasp this - but, well, gee.....?

I don't have any liberals around where I am, but I have lived in many prog liberal strongholds. Sometimes I try to put myself in the mind of the liberal in the fall of 2016. We ultra-right anarchistic folk had a good laugh at things like 'basket of deplorables', because we hear it - and it doesn't process. So - since it was said by a major, significant public figure, usually our brain processes it as if were a joke, or a throw-away line. However,,, after a time some of us get to hearing, and investigating, and researching the background and come to an epiphany. She - was - not - joking! More to the point, there are millions of liberals out there with the mindset, and the programming that was just reinforced by the Head Of The Party, that anyone who is not in liberal group-think - really is a deplorable person!

In other words, this line - which is so casually dismissed by the far-right, and some moderate right folk is mainstream thought and opinion in liberal-land. Once I realized that she was serious I was gobsmacked. There is a huge voting block who not just agrees with this loon, but actually considers their opposition to be an entire population made up of mouth-breathing, Neanderthals. It was a real shock to understand that deep down, the liberals see much of fly-over country, and all of Texas as a vast waste of flesh. Enlightening.

Then on that fateful night, late into the wee hours, when the Enlightened Easterners on the tube had to call it for Trump, it also began to sink in that the left is going to be not just upset - but furious! First off, they were beaten. And, if that weren't enough of a shame and shock they were beaten by -- TRUMP?!?!?!? C'mon, this was in the bag. Lead pipe cinch. Money in the bank. Picking out cabinet members, and the WH china pattern for the libs. HOW could the nation reject them(her)? It is not possible.

Which leads us to Trump Jr debacle. There's absolutely nothing on Donald J. Trump, president of the entire US. He's in the clear, golden, clean as the proverbial whistle. The dems can shout Russia, collusion, conspiracy, Putin, etc until they are out of breath. Sadly for them, as a wise man once said 'there is no there, there'. And the tiny brains, finally reaching the further reaches of middle of the 10 stage grief program have gone from shock to anger, and resentment. They lash out. Anything is fair game. Wife, kids, hair, skin color(particularly shameful), speech patterns, lexicon, age, infirmity, mental acuity, etc. ANYTHING not related to federal public policy is open season.

A 20 minute meeting by the son and ex-campaign manager with some offshoot Russian who lured the son of the candidate in with some offer of sleaze becomes their beacon of hope! A ray of light, a potential crack in the armor. As if this 20 minute meeting, which was right in the office of one of the staff, not in some dark alley, where no money and very little info changed hands, by an unregistered lobbyist is now the holy grail of the liberals. They have a cause! They have purpose! they have RIGHT on their side! All the digging, all the hours, all the effort and finally; We - Have - Our - Watergate!

But wait. Hold on. Watergate was a criminal case. Laws were broken. Evidence(I mean real evidence) was gathered. People committed crimes, for which they were punished, and it led right to the top. Some day, but not soon a few liberals are going to realize that the meeting with Natalia and the other ex-GRU guy with some of the campaign staff is not Watergate. It's not even any-kind-of-gate. But not all of them will realize it. Much of the nation will have been inculcated that Trump Jr and Manafort got away with criminal conspiracy to commit a fraud, or obstruct justice, or some other matter. A lot of the nation, and much of the world will be under the delusion that Trump Jr is some kind of crook, and he got away with 'it'(whatever the 'it' can be).

I'm signing off of this thread. A few pages back I realized that I was falling into the trap of all the rest of the public discourse. I'm actually advancing the media presence of the cause of liberals to cast doubt, and shadow on a good man, with a good reputation, trying to do good work for his father. I will continue to rail at the exposure of the LIES from the left, such as "evidence shows" but I'm done keeping the awareness of this nothing burger in the public discourse. Y'all can go on without me from here, because this is the most egregious case of mountains from molehill I've ever seen.

fini

It is factual that he has no political experience. The world stage is a tough place to cut your teeth, and Putin is a cunning and formidable geopolitical opponent. I'm not sure why it's far-fetched to think that Putin may see that as an advantage for him.

Whether that was enough to want to him to win over Hillary, who knows. They were both terrible candidates, so I think Putin jumps for joy either way.

As you may be unaware, the framers of this nation absolutely wanted to avoid a political 'class'. They worked during a time when the British monarchy was in full bloom(even though there was a parliament of course), and the French aristocracy was also in ascendancy. A careful reading of the constitution will show that the actual power and  duties of the president are shamefully small. Which is why so many of our execs rely on 'executive orders' to manipulate the population.

A careful reading of the Federalist papers outline the struggle that nearly all of the framers had with grandiose presidential powers, and how to limit or even eliminate most of them. There was even a faction that postulated a govt without a head of state. Everything would be done by several committees and they would haggle like fish-wives over legislation. That did not advance too far.

Not widely commented on but the framers didn't even give the president a standing army. Yes, we have a duly constituted navy, but the power of a standing army was too great to entrust to a president who could turn it on his own nation should things get dicey. Which of course led to - the 2nd amendment(which BTW guarantees all the other amendments). So we have an army now, but we also have one of the strongest, and most widely respected posse-comatatus laws in the world. Added to that, the states were not stopped from raising the National Guard(mis-labelled as they are actually the states military) under the authority of the various governors.

So, isn't it interesting that Trump - a landed, well educated, and 'man of the people' represent us as prez? He is the prototypical match for what the framers had in mind. BO? Never had a job outside of govt. Bush? Father was a pol, brothers are pols, family got rich in cattle and some oil spec. Bill Clinton, prefessional pol, Hilary Clinton, private lawyer for a while, then wife of a pol, then pol, then shrew, toss in crook, liar, cheater, and thief along the way.

I'll take my amateur who's main interest is in MAGA, rather than a professional leach who's primary goal is to increase the power, and wealth of the political class. Drain the swamp.

The death of our ambassador was caused by an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.
The only emails on there were personal, like for yoga class, and Chelsea's birthday party.
I deplained under enemy gunfire.
My 10,000% profit on commodities market was due to studying the WSJ.
I turned over all my work related emails(under oath)
My attorney and I went over every email, there was no classified marked material there(under oath)

McCain is the worst scum. I am ashamed that he's a veteran, and a republican. Nothing McCain has ever done for the US in uniform is worth all the damage he's caused. Nothing.

I want to go on record saying - I am ok with that. ^^^

More than ok, I heartily approve.