Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Draining the Swamp
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November 12, 2016 at 1:12 am #57818ZooeyModerator
Just for kicks, let’s keep track of all the ways Donald “drains the swamp.”
There are the cabinet appointees. He has already surrounded himself with a bunch of Washington Insiders to help shape his term. I mean…right out of the chute, he goes for the same old, same old. So… that’s pretty nice.
And then there is this today….
http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-willing-to-keep-parts-of-health-law-1478895339
backing off repealing Obamacare.
The confetti isn’t even swept up yet, and Donald is backtracking on all those straight-talking promises.
November 12, 2016 at 1:28 am #57820— X —ParticipantAnd then there is this today….
http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-willing-to-keep-parts-of-health-law-1478895339
backing off repealing Obamacare.
The confetti isn’t even swept up yet, and Donald is backtracking on all those straight-talking promises.
Just being pragmatic. He’ll either repeal it and replace it, or amend it until there’s nothing left of it aside from the two provisions he told Obama he’d consider keeping. The prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children [up to age 26] on their insurance policies. If that’s backtracking, then okay. Of that whole law, he said he’ll consider keeping two provisions.
I will be keeping an eye on his cabinet appointees, though. I’ve feared he was gonna bring in the people who stuck with him during his campaign. I swear if Palin gets anything other than Press Secretary, I’ll flip my lid.
You have to be odd, to be number one.
-- Dr SeussNovember 12, 2016 at 8:03 am #57843Billy_TParticipantThe supposed “anti-establishment” candidate has surrounded himself with long-time Washington insiders and lobbyists.
IOKIYAAR.
With Trump’s Election, a Bonanza for Washington Lobbyists
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Trent Lott, the former Republican senator from Mississippi, had gleefully flown back from Florida, where he had been working for the campaign of Donald J. Trump. Now a powerful lobbyist, his phone had been buzzing nonstop and he was busy helping to organize a briefing Thursday morning for dozens of corporate clients.
He was not alone. The stunning surprise of the election, and the political chaos it created, is a boon for Washington’s lobbying corridor known as K Street.
Corporate America is both excited and anxious about the prospect of Mr. Trump’s presidency, seeing great opportunity to shape the agenda after an extended period of frustration over gridlock in Congress.
With Republicans poised to control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Lott said he had not seen such a chance to help clients since he left the Senate in 2007 — whether by making changes to the federal tax code for Amazon or increasing military spending on new ships for Huntington Ingalls Industries.
“Trump has pledged to change things in Washington — about draining the swamp,” said Mr. Lott, who now works at Squire Patton Boggs, a law and lobbying firm. “He is going to need some people to help guide him through the swamp — how do you get in and how you get out? We are prepared to help do that.”
Across Washington, lobbyists and trade association executives were busy reviewing their priorities, which include repealing financial regulations instituted during the Obama administration, pushing for cuts in corporate taxes, overhauling President Obama’s signature health care plan and spending billions on roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
“On these significant issues, now that you have one party controlling the executive branch and the legislature, it is more likely they will be addressed,” said Marc S. Lampkin, managing partner of the lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, whose roster of more than 135 clients includes the drug maker AbbVie and the insurance company Zurich Financial Services.
November 12, 2016 at 8:04 am #57844Billy_TParticipantNow here’s some classic Newspeak:
“Trump has pledged to change things in Washington — about draining the swamp,” said Mr. Lott, who now works at Squire Patton Boggs, a law and lobbying firm. “He is going to need some people to help guide him through the swamp — how do you get in and how you get out? We are prepared to help do that.”
November 12, 2016 at 8:12 am #57845Billy_TParticipantAs for healthcare?
People need to be far more worried about Paul Ryan at this point. He’s already said he’s going to privatize Medicare, and he’ll be able to pass this, easily, without Democratic filibusters, which McConnell may end.
Ironically, what would that privatization do to Medicare? Turn it into Obamacare for the elderly. Obamacare is just privatized, for-profit, health care insurance, subsidized with tax dollars, which instantly means far higher prices and far less coverage than we could get through Single Payer.
Medicare is Single Payer, and can provide citizens with far more coverage at a far lower cost than ANY private, for-profit company. The private sector can’t possibly compete on price and value with the public sector. Its overhead costs, endless need for profit, share-holder dividends, tax avoidance wings, ad wings, marketing wings, make that impossible.
Ryan is basically going to turn a far better system into a far worse one, by making it pretty much like Obamacare for folks over 65.
And a hell of a lot of us can’t afford that change. I’m one of them.
November 12, 2016 at 11:02 am #57892bnwBlockedHe needs people that can navigate the DC swamp. Lets see his policy initiatives in play before condemning him.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
November 12, 2016 at 11:27 am #57907Billy_TParticipantHe needs people that can navigate the DC swamp. Lets see his policy initiatives in play before condemning him.
That’s excusing and rationalizing everything he and his supporters condemned during the election. Now that he’s in, it’s apparently okay to be everything they condemned in their opponents. That’s excusing “crony capitalism” and “pay to play” now because it’s Trump and Republicans doing it.
And that’s the very definition of hypocrisy. It’s rank, slam dunk, obvious hypocrisy of the worst kind.
- This reply was modified 8 years ago by Billy_T.
November 12, 2016 at 11:30 am #57909bnwBlockedHe needs people that can navigate the DC swamp. Lets see his policy initiatives in play before condemning him.
That’s excusing and rationalizing everything he and his supporters condemned during the election. Now that he’s in, it’s apparently okay to be everything they condemned in their opponents. That’s excusing “crony capitalism” and “pay to play” now because it’s Trump and Republicans doing it.
And that’s the very definition of hypocrisy. It’s rank, slam dunk, obvious hypocrisy of the worst kind.
No it isn’t and you are jumping the gun.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
November 12, 2016 at 11:40 am #57912Billy_TParticipantHe needs people that can navigate the DC swamp. Lets see his policy initiatives in play before condemning him.
That’s excusing and rationalizing everything he and his supporters condemned during the election. Now that he’s in, it’s apparently okay to be everything they condemned in their opponents. That’s excusing “crony capitalism” and “pay to play” now because it’s Trump and Republicans doing it.
And that’s the very definition of hypocrisy. It’s rank, slam dunk, obvious hypocrisy of the worst kind.
No it isn’t and you are jumping the gun.
bnw, this one is soooo obvious, I thought surely you’d see it too. It’s not debatable. There is no way to spin this. Just look at the people Trump has around him. They’re all long-time, crony-capitalist, DC insiders. And he’s already tapping Wall Streeters for key economic posts, and K-Street is psyched. Jamie Dimon for Treasury is a real possibility, for example.
He conned his voters, bnw. He conned them, and we saw that long ago, but his voters didn’t. They refused to see the snake right under their noses and he’s biting them now.
November 12, 2016 at 12:04 pm #57919ZooeyModeratorHe needs people that can navigate the DC swamp. Lets see his policy initiatives in play before condemning him.
I think, in politics, you ARE the company you keep. If you think he is going to surround himself with Washington Insiders, seek their advice, and then pursue policies counter to what they advise, you are out of your mind. And you only have to look at these people’s history to know what advice they are giving him.
Same thing with Obama. Remember? He said, “Change. Change. Change,” and then appointed cabinet members from entrenched interests, and we got “Same. Same. Same.”
November 12, 2016 at 12:06 pm #57920ZooeyModeratorJust being pragmatic. He’ll either repeal it and replace it, or amend it until there’s nothing left of it aside from the two provisions he told Obama he’d consider keeping. The prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children [up to age 26] on their insurance policies. If that’s backtracking, then okay. Of that whole law, he said he’ll consider keeping two provisions.
I will be keeping an eye on his cabinet appointees, though. I’ve feared he was gonna bring in the people who stuck with him during his campaign. I swear if Palin gets anything other than Press Secretary, I’ll flip my lid.
I think I’d like to see Palin as press secretary.
November 12, 2016 at 12:10 pm #57922PA RamParticipantI find myself reading this with a smile as I think back to Bernie.
Like him or hate him, does anyone believe that he would have had someone like Jamie Dimon on his short list for Treasury Secretary?
He was the most genuine candidate in my lifetime. I appreciate him more every day.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
November 12, 2016 at 12:11 pm #57924znModeratorAnd that’s the very definition of hypocrisy. It’s rank, slam dunk, obvious hypocrisy of the worst kind.
You mean Trump’s hypocrisy, right? IE meaning as you see it.
.
November 12, 2016 at 12:14 pm #57925Billy_TParticipantHe needs people that can navigate the DC swamp. Lets see his policy initiatives in play before condemning him.
I think, in politics, you ARE the company you keep. If you think he is going to surround himself with Washington Insiders, seek their advice, and then pursue policies counter to what they advise, you are out of your mind. And you only have to look at these people’s history to know what advice they are giving him.
Same thing with Obama. Remember? He said, “Change. Change. Change,” and then appointed cabinet members from entrenched interests, and we got “Same. Same. Same.”
Agreed, Zooey. When Obama named his economic team, especially. All from the Rubin tree. Brought in all kinds of Clintonistas — neoliberals up the ying yang. And basically that was that. Went about as far away from his campaign rhetoric as one could go. Which is all the more reason why the right’s endless screaming about him being a Maoist, Stalinist, “far left radical” was all the more absurd.
He governed as an actual conservative, if we’re talking about that word historically. A few culture war issues being the exception, and maybe an environmental rule or two. But even there, he never, ever, not once, did anything “far left.” No American president ever has.
November 12, 2016 at 12:14 pm #57926Billy_TParticipantAnd that’s the very definition of hypocrisy. It’s rank, slam dunk, obvious hypocrisy of the worst kind.
You mean Trump’s hypocrisy, right?
Yes. Absolutely.
November 12, 2016 at 12:15 pm #57927NewMexicoRamParticipantJust for kicks, let’s keep track of all the ways Donald “drains the swamp.”
There are the cabinet appointees. He has already surrounded himself with a bunch of Washington Insiders to help shape his term.
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“Washington insiders”? Like who? Carson? Pence? Christy?
I’m stumped at that.
November 12, 2016 at 12:16 pm #57928Billy_TParticipantI find myself reading this with a smile as I think back to Bernie.
Like him or hate him, does anyone believe that he would have had someone like Jamie Dimon on his short list for Treasury Secretary?
He was the most genuine candidate in my lifetime. I appreciate him more every day.
Agreed. And I still think he didn’t want to go far enough. But relative to everyone else in the duopoly? Yeah. Head and shoulders better. Definitely genuine and I think he would have crushed Trump.
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