In real estate.
I'm not an expert on this but I've seen the sausage being made a few times. Individuals with investment money, commercial businesses that might use new space, other possible tenants, maybe or maybe not some designers or builders, municipal or other government stakeholders, community stakeholders such as neighborhood associations, etc. consider a real estate deal. Perhaps there is a bit of condemned land the county wants to sell cheap if only you clean up the brownfield and develop something nice. Maybe the investors include a person who owns an underexploited business venture in a particular property, and some other investor owns the property, and they're building a subway stop down the street.
All kinds of possibilities for a bigly deal. Plans are made, temperatures checked, conversations happen, money is put down on options to buy, a partnership is formed, etc.
And then, at some point, bait has to be cut, or put on the hook. One must do number two or leave the loo. All the parties involved have to agree on the deal, so they do.
Or, they don't.
If they don't, you move on to some other deal. You have not, most of your life, committed to seeing a 7-11 market in a mixed use housing project on the corner of Main and First Ave. It was never really your your dream to build a strip mall on that old landfill by the bus station. You have not woken up every morning of the last 30 years wondering how you could achieve an office building by the new cloverleaf next to the park and ride. Any of those things might have been nice, bit it didn't work out.
Even more importantly, you are smart if you figure out sooner than later that it won't work out, and move on sooner rather than later. You may even be smart to move on even if there is a small chance of pulling off the deal.
Donald Trump, as of this writing (and things are happening very fast at this moment, so this could change) is saying, vote on Trumpcare now, if the vote is no in the House, drop it. We'll do something else unrelated to health care. That is a wise thing to do, in the real estate world. I'm actually surprised to see Trump doing something that makes sense in any context at all. Maybe he isn't a total failure as a businessperson after all!
Unfortunately, Trump is the President of the United States and the deal we are talking about is with Congress and the People, and it is not a strip mall somewhere, but the health care insurance system.
There are people who have a life-long commitment to seeing affordable healthcare. It was always their dream to build a system of insurance that would be affordable and fair for all. They woke up every morning of the last 30 years wondering how to achieve this goal.
They've tried before, failed, and got back up and dusted themselves off and tried again. Obamacare was the first real success since the old days, but even that was not enough and there are people ideologically, politically, and for humanitarian reasons committed to an even lofter goal.
The arc of justice is long but bends gently to the left, in this case to the more universal and fairer health care system. It is convenient that the path Trump has decided to take is a hard right turn followed by ... well, parking the car on the side of the road and taking a bus to some other place. Maybe go golfing or something.
We'll see what happens today (over the next two or three hours). I wonder if Trump will address all of his issues this way. I wonder if he'll address the presidency this way. I wonder if some day, soon, Trump will say to Paul Ryan, "Build the wall, and get Mexico to pay for it. I'll be at the Florida White House while you work that out."
Then, when Ryan tells Trump, "There is no way. It can't be done. There isn't a mechanism for that, and we don't have the votes anyway," that trump will respond in the same way, but more bigly.
"Call the vote," Trump tells Ryan. In my fantasy. "If it doesn't pass, I'm outa here."
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Well, the vote was a no show, as (apparently) Ryan and the great negotiator couldn't get enough of their right wing folks to go along with their plan. The words coming out indicate that the votes weren't there not because of any sense of decency or integrity on the part of the Republicans -- they haven't gone that far -- but because they were afraid of the anger of the people they represent: they had a feeling people would be royally pissed off that they were getting screwed out of the few promises Trump had made: no change to coverage for people with preexisting conditions, no kids getting tossed off parents' plans, and so on.
I'm not, however, sure that this is not what the president wanted. The chance is essentially nil that it would have been passed by the Senate, so they had to know it was dead before it started. The next move will be to lay blame everywhere but at their own feet, warn the public that the same forces will want to stop Trump's other plans, and use that to marshal support for his other (worse for the public and economy) plans.
I have no doubt that they wanted to get rid of the ACA -- you can't have anything done by a black man left in place after all, if you're a modern Republican, and poor people don't deserve care anyway -- but in the grand scheme of their plan, it was not a major foundation stone.
Trump caved and asked Ryan to pull the bill.
It is to bad the Republicans couldn't get the first of their three part plan through the House.
Now they will have to think of another approach.
Perhaps a simple repeal will pass and then it will be easier to pass the replace with the repeal already done.
Perhaps they can just repeal the mandate.
Perhaps they will just let Obamacare fail on its own (almost there already).
I guess we will see what happens next.
"Perhaps they will just let Obamacare fail on its own (almost there already)"
Another blatant piece of shit from the biggest congenital liar around.
The third part is the sucker bait.
And when are you going to acknowledge the hypocrisy of their bleating about Obamacare being a hack job because it was rushed behind closed doors with blandishments and deals struck to entice votes for it and their amping up of the same scheme TIMES TEN?
RickA stains his undies which are tied in a knot by saying:
"Perhaps a simple repeal will pass and then it will be easier to pass the replace with the repeal already done.
Perhaps they can just repeal the mandate."
Nope. They're done for this session. They've said so. And both of those would take 60, not 51, votes to get through the Senate anyway.
"Perhaps they will just let Obamacare fail on its own (almost there already)."
There you go. They're going to kick it down the stairs hoping it breaks its back. However, their re-election message in 2018 is going to sound quite lame. "We promised to repeal Obamacare with something better, but couldn't figure out how, so reward me with re-election!". That's not going to go down as well as you might think, especially since the black man is no longer available as Boogie-man In Chief.
I think that the House should write up and introduce all three phases of their Health Care Reform Bill - even if they won't pass currently.
Once Obamacare collapses, if would be nice to have had a chance to study the whole replacement package and give people time to get used to it - so we are ready to go when the democrats start begging for an Obamacare fix.
Lets put it all out there, I say.
I for one, would like to read it.
And I am sure the Senate Republicans would like to see it also.
It would be a good idea to even tweak it so the Senate is on board and it won't collapse once it gets out of the house (like the Current House bill would have when it got to the Senate).
Once again the head moron asserts the ACA is on its way to collapse. Once again, the only conclusion: what an ass he is.
"I for one, would like to read it."
It doesn't exist. That would be one major reason to avoid putting it out there.
You are right, what they say they want to push out MUST be provided if they want to claim anything about how good their bucket list is, but they do not have to and failing to do so will never stop anyone on their side believing that it's all great. So when given that putting their ideas out, when they actually have one to put out, could cause a lot of people to treat it like a dog turd sandwich, yet not putting it out there will make no dent in their support, it's pretty clear that unless their supporters insist on this and take a "If you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide, so you must have a really shit proposal to be hiding it" stance publicly, they will NEVER produce a plan. There's no upside to that, and no downside to failing to.
"Once Obamacare collapses"
How?
And surely you should have said "IF Obamacare collapses". What about once Obamacare continues to run? It's currently running, and it's been running for a long time now. Not collapsed at all. Since Obamacare hasn't collapsed, what will you and your side do?
Deliberately sabotage it? Keep waiting for it to collapse and until then (and only after it collapses, having rendered whatever doom scenario you are gleefully waiting for to punish people for not voluntarily refusing the benefits or making it collapse themselves by sabotage) keep not providing any alternative?
Once it doesn't collapse, what then? Deliberately wreck the plan?
"Deliberately sabotage it?"
They've been working on that since its introduction, despite the fact that it was originally an invention of theirs: it is essentially the plan the Heritage Foundation developed in the 90s when those evil folks the Clintons were around.
Wow: “Deliberately sabotage it?”
They've been doing that, for instance by not stepping in to fund relief for insurance companies faced with too few healthy young signing up, a major cause in the large jump in premiums for 2017.
Trump already shut down the email reminders sent to folks as the end of open enrollment approached to tell them that they had until the end of Jan 2017 to enroll.
Trump already told the IRS to back off on enforcement of the mandate, which has resulted in a change in IRS policy being announced.
Price has already stated that he wants to shrink the open enrollment period from three months to six weeks, and to make it more difficult for those who fall into the "change of life" (i.e. those who've gone through a change in marital status and the like outside of open enrollment) status to sign up outside open enrollment.
Price's response to yesterday's vote was to hint that HHS will do as little as possible to support the ACA, via twitter.
So, yes, causing it to collapse and then blaming Democrats for it is exactly their plan. The above are just some of the executive branch efforts that have taken place or are planned. The House won't be idle, either, though the Senate's a bit of a wild card here.
RickA thinks that the result will be that Dems will "start begging for an Obamacare fix". Ha ha.
The reality is this: Republicans own the ACA for until 2018 at least, due to their failure to kill it this past week. Their efforts to cause it to fail, even if successful, will lie on their shoulders. People are tuned into health care as an issue and the moves the Republicans are going to make aren't going to be the least bit stealth-like.
Hey Republicans. Trump only has a short amount of time before his franchise runs out. His Russian mission planners undoubtedly would like him to do as much damage to Murka as he can before he gets impeached or otherwise removed. He has already done a great job of dinging our national institutions, and dinging our relationships with our western allies, and he has helped whip up divisive racial attitudes within the country since shortly after he first opened his mouth. It is doubtful that the old codger even has a clear idea of what is going on around him, especially the fact that he is unwittingly doing the work of his slavic puppet master..... As is his boy wonder Paul Ryan, who literally worships the philosofecal ( see what I did there? ) works of Russian Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum ( Ein Rand), (but that is a whole other conspiracy theory, to be saved for another day.). Trump loves the Slavs, lets admit it.Two of his three wives were foreign born slavic ladies if I am not mistaken. Heck. I love slavic ladies too. Trump's warm-up act, soviet born Orly Taitz, helped stir the pot of corruption that became birtherism. Trump's former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had to leave because he was way too cozy with the Ruskies. His former campaign manager Paul Manafort had to quit because he was way too cozy with the Ruskies.... to the tune of ten million dollahs a year at one point.... ten million dollahs per year that he received from one of Putin's closest buddies. Trump's attorney general lied about having had contact with Russians before his confirmation. WTF! WTF Republicans! WTF! Shit , Republicans, can't you get your heads out of your asses long enough to see that your man Donald is being propped up by a bunch of Russia lovers like Steve Bannon, who openly admire our global opponent, the murderous Russian Putin? Can't you see that Trump has been manipulated ( easy to do with a narcissist!!!) by a bevy of people who have all been close enough to the Russians to have acquired Inductively Coupled Ruskie Cootie Disease? You can't see that? Oh.
Well, then don't forget to bite Putin's polyps while you are up there then, you fucking idiots.
And have a nice day :>)
Dhogaza, that is two sets of policies working against each other. Changing the open enrollment period, is something that would lower premiums, and or reduce insurance company losses, because it makes it harder for people to wait until they get sick to sign up for insurance. This is not sabotage, and is something considered by Obama except that he wanted to show high number of signups for political reasons. Eliminating the individual mandate would raise premiums and is sabotage..
MikeN:
"Changing the open enrollment period, is something that would lower premiums, and or reduce insurance company losses, because it makes it harder for people to wait until they get sic"
In other words, the open enrollment period should be reduced to zero days.
Thank you for playing.
Because cutting in half, from a quarter of the year to an eighth, is the same as cutting to zero?
No, because the logical endpoint is zero.
Anything that makes it harder for people to obtain ccess to health care is good (from the point of view of the right). It keeps all those icky non whites out of the way dontya know.
The real message from the current administration and its low life backers is simple: if you don't get sick you won't need health care. If you plan on getting sick make sure you're rich before you do it.
If you can sign up year round, then it's a better deal to wait until you are sick to sign up.
If you can sign up zero days a year, then no one will sign up.
But it's not zero signups when you have some number of says when people can sign up.
The goal is to not have people wait until they are sick to sign up for insurance. So they shorten the signup period, and I believe made some other changes as well.
The goal is to reduce the number of people who sign up, and they're not even trying to hide that fact.
If that were the goal, then instead of reducing the essential health benefits package, they would increase it to make premiums rise even more. Cover acupuncture, dental, glasses, etc.
No, because they'd be blamed for increasing the premiums, dumbass.
Wow:
Sure, but when has the logical endpoint of any argument ever become law?
Greg's reference to sausage in the OP (please correct me if I'm wrong, Greg) is an allusion to: “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made" (incorrectly attributed to Bismarck). With few exceptions, every bill that goes to the President is the point of compromise among multiple contending interests, all of whom had to abandon some of their goals (to say nothing of their principles) to achieve others. It's not the logical endpoint for any of them.
We should bear in mind that the ACA that emerged from the sorry spectacle of its passing was itself a point of exhausted compromise. It started out as Romneycare FFS!
Well, since President Trump says he never claimed that the ACA (sorry, for you racists who defend Trump, Obamacare) would be repealed quickly, this isn't really a setback.
Oh, wait:
From November 1:
January 10:
Same crap numerous other times. You have to wonder
* How the losers who support him can reconcile his past statements with these events and what he said afterwards
* Why people would still defend him on this
But, given people still repeat the lie that the ACA was going to implode on its own, we can't bet against the ingrained stupidity (dishonest? combination of the two?) in his supporters.
Probably the only time something spewed forth from his brain that wasn't a falsehood. He knows his mojo works best on those with the attention span of a gnat--and they are Legion. The irony is it shows how much contempt he has for his own base... OTOH, I guess they've earned it.
There's one born every minute.
A number years ago, (in the state I worked) health departments were told to not inform eligible families about the CHIPS program because to many were signing up for the benefits.
I obtained the application forms and sent them to newspaper editor that I knew. He wrote a long editorial about this issue and said his paper would supply application forms to anybody requesting them. Other papers in the state picked up on this and ran similar editorials. The state quickly backed off and made the applications available to everyone.
We need more support like what the newspapers this case provide to protect healthcare in the US.
"There’s one born every minute."
Sometimes from inbreeding, it would seem. We just had some local Republican spokesman interviewed on the radio.
Him: "Look, we know the American people wanted President Trump to make these changes. If they hadn't he wouldn't have had a majority of the votes cast in the last election go to him. "
Interviewer: "He lost the popular vote."
Him: "Not after you account for all the fraud her people pulled at the polls. Do your research."
Nothing more was said to him on that. With people that dishonest being willing to advertise it on the air it is no wonder others are willing to advertise their stupidity and support President Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by President Obama in spite of a complete lack of evidence.
After Nixon and Reagan I never though I would live to see a third president who was so completely lacking in his own integrity with such a strong following of people who are themselves lacking in so many important ways. It isn't good to be proven wrong.
It's a trend. Each one opens the door a little wider for the next advancement in crazyevilstupid:
http://www.jokelibrary.net/xOtherNtoZ/polit/polit-supp3-Darcy.gif
Sure can't wait to see what the Republicans come up with next. Boy-oh-boy, won't that be something?
Right now, Democrats are arguing they'd love to have President Romney, and were praising W as a model of intellect. Only a matter of time before liberals are complaining that the current nominee is not a good guy or reasonable or intelligent or competent like President Donald J Trump.
Romney? It is ironic that Republicans rejected a Republican plan just for the sake of being a bunch of jerks to Obama.
NOBODY is praising W for his intellect. They are laughing at Republicans for coming up with somebody even more ridiculous.
Crazy Don Trumpetpants and his Republican House of Horrors will go down in history for their astounding incompetence and for swamping the drain if they don't wise up soon.
Dreaming, irony challenged M@29 presents as incisive commentary the kind of lame fantasy you hear on wingnut radio.
MikeN, I don't know anyone referring to W the way you imply. Nor do I know anyone who is arguing they want Romney as president .
Bush wrecked the economy and destroyed what stability there was in the middle East. President Obama set the path to restoring much of the economy - that's been setback now.
Romney would have sent things further over the cliff.
What color is the sky in your mind?
I can remember all our presidents back to Eisenhower (although not well for him) and I can say that everyone them was out to try better America; except one. I may not have agreed with their methods and policies but they were putting America first.
To this day JFK's, Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for country means a lot to me. With our current LOTUS (Loon of the US) the quote would now be Ask not what Trump can do for you but what you can do for your Trump.
"Sure, but when has the logical endpoint of any argument ever become law? "
Since when has something never have happened before meant it cannot happen?
Moreover, look at orangina loofa-faced. Nobody ever thought it would be necessary to make the pres show their tax returns, or empty positions on the day they make office and not have anyone to fill those vacant post. Nor thatthey'd have to write the law without assuming that the POTUS would not bother following the laws of every other government employee regarding bribes.
"Him: “Not after you account for all the fraud her people pulled at the polls. Do your research.”"
Yes. If he and his cronies and voters hadn't committed all that fraud or pulled people out of voting, he'd have lost the electoral college too.
"Right now, Democrats are arguing they’d love to have President Romney"
Proof plz. Because I could just as well claim that Repubicans are arguing they'd love to have President Sanders (look at his approval rating).
Dean, Bill Maher said it about Romney.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-makes-me-miss-geor…
Aziz Ansari laughed at himself on SNL for praising George Bush, "16 years ago...Now I'm saying, He guided us with his eloquence!"
Dana Milbank's article: dated February 16, 2016, over a year ago, on the campaign trail, with the subject the difference between the demeanor with which W carried himself and the way the Republican suite of candidates (in 2016) were behaving. Hardly a current wish for a return of him as president.
Ansari's quote was in reference to Bush's speech after September 11 - where Bush did shine. (He then proceeded to fuck up everything that followed and destroy the goodwill from other countries, if you remember). It wasn't about his entire presidency.
And Maher's "anyone but Trump" choice of Romney -- selecting someone who was marginally the least heinous of the recent Republican candidates? That's a major endorsement?
I'm amazed at the distances people on the right go in these attempts to distort reality.
"Dean, Bill Maher said it about Romney. "
And he's a comedian.
Kinda weird that you picked a comedian as the universal "democrats" (especially since you're a loon), and never actually quoted him.
"Aziz Ansari laughed at himself on SNL for praising George Bush"
Yeah. Right. You clearly do not understand language,"mike".
Meh.
Bill Maher describes himself as a Libertarian and would-be Republican:
http://www.politico.com/story/2012/03/10-little-known-facts-about-bill-…
Dana Milbank is a contrarian who votes for Republicans not on the ballot.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Milbank
Aziz Ansari is a comedian. Take what he says in context and understand why he says it. He also said:
"If you’re excited about Trump, great. He’s President. Let’s hope he does a great job. If you’re scared about Trump and you’re very worried, you’re going to be O.K. too."
http://time.com/4642747/aziz-ansari-snl-monologue-transcript/
But hey, if you want to say that any given handful of people represent liberals, whatever vato.
"But hey, if you want to say that any given handful of people represent liberals, whatever vato."
Well, all three of those people do make a living off of their abilities with written and spoken words -- that has to be enough to qualify them as liberal, right? It's not like using words is something a real 'Merican would be doing, right?
Of course W is not their first choice as president, or Romney. With the electoral college vote looming, there were a number of liberals asking for votes for Romney, and ended up with some Democrats voting for Colin Powell(and Bernie).
When Bush was there, people said, Reagan actually thought things through, unlike W. Now, it's W's turn as the new 'He was actually not that bad'. It started when they contrasted with Sarah Palin.
It's just a matter of time, some of the people talking about Trump will eventually be praising him to attack the new guy.
"Reagan actually thought things through,"
People who are willing to overlook the reality of what a shitstorm Reagan was in favor of the myth he's been built into, maybe.
People with common sense and a memory of those 8 years: nope.
Reagan got shot in the head IIRC, and also had some brain surgery to remove some brain (cancer). Yet was still smarter than Bush Jr (though that is a very low bar).
Still Shrub was smarter than trumpistan.
Both he and Maggie both benefitted from the inertia of a economy that bourne on the backs of the massive middle class, had a good 15-20 years of growth built in before their idiotic economic policies started to cut back on the middle class.
The middle class is what government makes money off. The poor have no money to tax, and the rich either avoid or withhold tax successfully.
And the growth of the middle class through the late 50's to the early to mid 70s meant a buffer of untapped wealth to mine for the benefit of the wealthy.
Libertarians are, of course, all wealthy, or potentially so if it were not for the "commie policies" of government making them unsuccessful....
Reagan was not shot in the head.
Ah, shoulder or something? I remember the scene, though it wasn't the only time he got shot, I remember that too. It might, at the report of it on the news, have been wondered if he'd been shotin the head (not dead)
Reagan => Alzheimer's not bullet.
He was shot/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan
And so fairly sure he wasn't universally popular.
So if "democrats" liked him, it musta been republicans. Or libertarians...
And it may merely have been not the first attempt, rather than the first actual wounding.