Florida State Seminoles

[Saint]

This is why Trump is just as establishment as anyone else, probably even more so.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... rants.html

Jeb Bush had all the handlers and money in the world at his disposal to get the White House.

If you aren't motivating the people to vote, it won't matter - and I can't imagine any groomer or handler advising Trump to call illegals Rapists and Criminals starting out of the gate as a differentiator between him and the pack.

The best part is the media still thinking they can influence the people against him.

And as for politicians....
Let Graham talk shit about him, let McCain talk shit about him - they have to run for re-election one day and a Trump presidency would pretty much mean they have a future in some think tank somewhere rather than congress.

The point is that Trump gets up there and says whatever's on his mind and that gets votes. But he really hasn't put together any type of platform himself, that's being done by the folks who have managed other major GOP candidates in the past 30 years.

Trump really is the ultimate candidate for the GOP, which has managed to dust off all the uncharismatic losers that have been lurking around the nomination for the past 8 years by backchanneling a guy who seems to be an outsider but he's really just an electable frontman guided by the same ol', same ol' GOP mindset.

You might think you're voting for an individual but you're really voting for an ideology that most voters aren't even aware of, particularly Trump voters in this cycle because they're so enamored of his unorthodox approach. Sanders is probably the only guy who is out there speaking for himself but that's only to a degree and you see where that got him anyway.

So as much as this election has seemed to be a different approach, esp. for the GOP, it's really just politics as usual and Americans are getting easier and easier to fool.

[sardis]

Not surprising the White House site cherry picks Kaiser info and omits the massive increase in deductibles.

"During the past five years, employees have been hit with a double whammy since both the share of workers with deductibles and the size of those deductibles rose sharply, according to Kaiser. The combination of these two factors resulted in a 67% increase in deductibles since 2010, much faster than the rise in single premiums of 24% and about seven times the rise in workers’ wages of 10% and general inflation of 9%.

“With deductibles rising so much faster than premiums and wages, it’s no surprise that consumers have not felt the slowdown in health spending,” Kaiser's President and CEO Drew Altman said."

https://www.mainstreet.com/article/prem ... se-in-2016

[eCat]

So as much as this election has seemed to be a different approach, esp. for the GOP, it's really just politics as usual and Americans are getting easier and easier to fool.

I don't have any illusions about Trump being some great president - he's a loose cannon, he's inexperienced other than in business, he'll make a statement today and walk it back tomorrow acting as if he never said it to begin with

but to say he's politics as usual is a pretty big stretch. He's writing checks with his mouth that his presidency better try to cash.

Just think about this - Hillary will be sitting behind the desk her husband got a blowjob in from a teenage intern. The last thing we need is Clinton who is a political operative.

[eCat]

What a bunch of scared pussies.

I have prospered, too. Business has doubled, but we are the 1% and we would improve under any system. The middle class saw their net worth drop during the housing crisis, saw their healthcare costs increase then totally screwed up by Obamacare. They saw college costs increase more than their wages, make just enough to be ineligible for assistance and have to tell their senior daughter that she can't go to college with her friend, but take two years of community college instead.

Yeah, life is still pretty good for us, and a pretty easy go for the lower 30%, to be honest, but not for 60% middle of this country who are mad as hell and would just as soon burn the whole system down by either Trump or Sanders than have to be nauseated with another entitled Clinton or Bush.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/09 ... continuing
From the Kaiser Foundation: New data released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation show that premium growth in employer-sponsored coverage remained slow in 2015, extending the recent streak of unusually slow growth. Taken together with estimates of current trends in Medicare spending released this summer, these data suggest that underlying growth in per-enrollee health care costs remains low, even as the dramatic expansion in coverage since early 2014 drives a temporary uptick in the growth of aggregate health care spending. Recent years’ slow growth in health care costs—which is thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act—is already generating major benefits for workers and our fiscal outlook. Looking ahead, keeping these positive trends going will require that we continue to make good use of the tools provided by the Affordable Care Act, including: moving our health care system toward payment models that reward efficient, high-quality care; continuing to foster a transparent and competitive Health Insurance Marketplace; and implementing the law’s tax provision that encourages high-cost employer plans to become more efficient.

you're living in a world that is not connected to reality

[Owlman]

Not surprising the White House site cherry picks Kaiser info and omits the massive increase in deductibles.

"During the past five years, employees have been hit with a double whammy since both the share of workers with deductibles and the size of those deductibles rose sharply, according to Kaiser. The combination of these two factors resulted in a 67% increase in deductibles since 2010, much faster than the rise in single premiums of 24% and about seven times the rise in workers’ wages of 10% and general inflation of 9%.

“With deductibles rising so much faster than premiums and wages, it’s no surprise that consumers have not felt the slowdown in health spending,” Kaiser's President and CEO Drew Altman said."

https://www.mainstreet.com/article/prem ... se-in-2016

Actually, I get updates all the time, not from the White House, but from Health Law Journals. Health care costs have increased, as expected. But they have increased at a decreased amount over what was expected. I told you guys 10 years ago, that because of baby boomers hitting their 60's and 70's (this year) that health care costs were going to balloon. They still are. But right now, they are increasing at a slower rate than predicted. Whether due to the Affordable Care Act or something else, the fact is health care inflation has slowed.

[Owlman]

What a bunch of scared pussies.

I have prospered, too. Business has doubled, but we are the 1% and we would improve under any system. The middle class saw their net worth drop during the housing crisis, saw their healthcare costs increase then totally screwed up by Obamacare. They saw college costs increase more than their wages, make just enough to be ineligible for assistance and have to tell their senior daughter that she can't go to college with her friend, but take two years of community college instead.

Yeah, life is still pretty good for us, and a pretty easy go for the lower 30%, to be honest, but not for 60% middle of this country who are mad as hell and would just as soon burn the whole system down by either Trump or Sanders than have to be nauseated with another entitled Clinton or Bush.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/09 ... continuing
From the Kaiser Foundation: New data released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation show that premium growth in employer-sponsored coverage remained slow in 2015, extending the recent streak of unusually slow growth. Taken together with estimates of current trends in Medicare spending released this summer, these data suggest that underlying growth in per-enrollee health care costs remains low, even as the dramatic expansion in coverage since early 2014 drives a temporary uptick in the growth of aggregate health care spending. Recent years’ slow growth in health care costs—which is thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act—is already generating major benefits for workers and our fiscal outlook. Looking ahead, keeping these positive trends going will require that we continue to make good use of the tools provided by the Affordable Care Act, including: moving our health care system toward payment models that reward efficient, high-quality care; continuing to foster a transparent and competitive Health Insurance Marketplace; and implementing the law’s tax provision that encourages high-cost employer plans to become more efficient.

you're living in a world that is not connected to reality

Those pesky facts. Many people believe that the more money a couple has the more likely they'll get divorced. Also not true.

[Saint]

So as much as this election has seemed to be a different approach, esp. for the GOP, it's really just politics as usual and Americans are getting easier and easier to fool.

I don't have any illusions about Trump being some great president - he's a loose cannon, he's inexperienced other than in business, he'll make a statement today and walk it back tomorrow acting as if he never said it to begin with

but to say he's politics as usual is a pretty big stretch. He's writing checks with his mouth that his presidency better try to cash.

Just think about this - Hillary will be sitting behind the desk her husband got a blowjob in from a teenage intern. The last thing we need is Clinton who is a political operative.

Hillary is a Republican and Trump is a Dem that is a national security threat. At best, nothing will get better for most Americans, although plenty of people seem to think Trump will "make America great again." Granted, most of those people are morons but there are a lot of them. America is a fucking long way from being great again and global warming and Islamic terrorists won't even be near the top of the list that will make our kids' lives miserable, if they live long enough. At the rate we're going more than half this country will struggle to feed themselves much less afford housing or healthcare within 30 years

[Owlman]

Kinda Agree with Newt on this: 'They Expected Us to Support Them': Gingrich Reacts to Presidents Bush, Romney Not Supporting Trump http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/05/07/n ... romney-not

which is why I think this is nuts: Anti-Trump Forces Hope to Draft Mitt Romney https://www.yahoo.com/news/anti-trump-f ... 39666.html

[Jungle Rat]

Stu seems confused

[Saint]

Stu seems confused

No, I just see things more clearly than most. There really won't be much difference for most of us no matter who is elected president. People tend to forget that the biggest impact a president will have is on foreign policy, not their taxes or who uses what bathroom. Trump certainly has the potential to create problems with regard to national security, although I doubt he will.

Ultimately, a Trump presidency will look a lot like a Clinton presidency and that's bad news for most of us.

[eCat]

Stu seems confused

No, I just see things more clearly than most. There really won't be much difference for most of us no matter who is elected president. People tend to forget that the biggest impact a president will have is on foreign policy, not their taxes or who uses what bathroom. Trump certainly has the potential to create problems with regard to national security, although I doubt he will.

Ultimately, a Trump presidency will look a lot like a Clinton presidency and that's bad news for most of us.

but you also have expectations that the government will do something for you - that's why your cynical about a Hillary or Trump presidency.

[eCat]

Spacer, you cherry pick facts to drive home an agenda. Lets just do a poll here of people and ask who has benefitted from the ACA.

anyone? anyone who posts here as an individual has seen a net positive from the ACA? and I'm not talking about your health care place of work see double digit profit increases.

I don't want to hear about a brother-n-law or cousin - lets hear from people we know and interact with on a daily basis

[hedge]

The libertarian party is pretty much the only choice if you really want to see things change, but anybody who votes libertarian knows it's a wasted vote and I can easily see how frustration over that is leading people of that mindset to jump on a candidate who actually has a chance to win. But Trump isn't a libertarian and he isn't really going to change anything. Even if he gets elected it'll be a one time phenomenon. He probably won't do anything to fuck anything up too bad or do anything really great. Just like anybody else in national politics. Same old, same old...

One guy isn't going to change the system, which has been formed over centuries and is completely in bed with big business and the interests of the very wealthy. Half of the country has pretty much nothing and are just going to be happy to collect their monthly dole, in whatever form it takes. And most of the people in the top 30% of so identify (or want to identify) with the truly wealthy, even though they're really not. But they're doing OK and certainly they can look around and see that they're doing way better than a lot of folks, so they just soldier on.

Welfare and Obamacare, etc., are good investments for the truly wealthy, the last thing they want is some kind of revolution that has destroyed their way of life time and time again throughout history when the poor truly don't have anything and finally can't take it anymore and get out the pitchforks. Just make sure those people have food, shelter, cable and a cell phone and they're never going to get but so pissed. Government's job is to keep the very wealthy and the very poor reasonably happy and to try and keep the rest upwardly mobile. Trump isn't going to change that dynamic, nor is anyone else...

[Saint]

Stu seems confused

No, I just see things more clearly than most. There really won't be much difference for most of us no matter who is elected president. People tend to forget that the biggest impact a president will have is on foreign policy, not their taxes or who uses what bathroom. Trump certainly has the potential to create problems with regard to national security, although I doubt he will.

Ultimately, a Trump presidency will look a lot like a Clinton presidency and that's bad news for most of us.

but you also have expectations that the government will do something for you - that's why your cynical about a Hillary or Trump presidency.

The govt exists do to something for everyone and it does. Surely you don't think otherwise. The problem now is that govt does more for the super rich and corporations and that's killing capitalism. Those who are still comfortable are either blinded to or don't care ("Don't know, don't show or don't care about the hood.") but that thinking won't sustain this country as an economic power.

[Owlman]

Spacer, you cherry pick facts to drive home an agenda. Lets just do a poll here of people and ask who has benefitted from the ACA.

anyone? anyone who posts here as an individual has seen a net positive from the ACA? and I'm not talking about your health care place of work see double digit profit increases.

I don't want to hear about a brother-n-law or cousin - lets hear from people we know and interact with on a daily basis

A poll? Most people don't know facts about their own income. That's like a friend of mine making an argument, "everyone I know believes" [a particular point]. Polls have shown that a high percentage of Republicans believe that Obama is muslim, or that he was not born in American. Polls are about belief, not about reality. The facts are that health cost inflation has decreased in the past 5 years.

[Owlman]

By the way, health care inflation will increase. Baby boomers are still aging and still will cost a lot. So get prepared.

[Jungle Rat]

That's like saying the world is gonna end sometime. Be ready.

[Owlman]

That's like saying the world is gonna end sometime. Be ready.

True.

[Owlman]

The New York Times thinks it knows what makes Texas Texas. Did it get it right?

so true for Texans

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2016 ... ight.html/

"About a month after I moved here, a 41-year-old man named Mark Stroman told Texas that he loved Texas, just before Texas killed him. As he lay on the gurney in the state’s execution chamber, Stroman, a convicted murderer who had an eighth-grade education and was a native Texan, uttered as part of his last statement, “Texas loud, Texas proud.” It was a jaw-dropping moment that set a theme for me. After nearly five years in Texas, the theme has only intensified: the metamorphosis of Texas, the country’s second-most-populous state, into ultra-Texas, of a singular state into a singular superstate."

[crashcourse]

guess Obama decided schools now will have to comply with gender identity --go in whatever bathroom/locker room you like high school kids

Kansas is fighting with the fed over transgenders wanting to change their birth certificates to the sex of their choosing

elsewhere bruce caitlen Jenner is leading the fight to try to force scientists to allow interchangeable X and Y chromosone or ban their use entirely.

they ywca has now changed their name to the ywca plus the occasional penis

girlscouts of America now are brownies with the occasional pole

the WNBA will have to change to the WTNBA

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/us/te ... .html?_r=0