Since the need for anti-Nazi resistance disappeared 70 years ago, that’s hardly surprising, surely?
They are both fringe candidates, but Carson is a likeable fringe candidate and Trump is an obnoxious fringe candidate. Likeability counts a lot with voters (plus it’s easier to unfringe yourself than to change your personality).
No it’s not very surprising at all. But the claim was that “the DPP is actually descended from the Danish anti-Nazi resistance in World War 2.” Which isn’t quite right, seeing how neither its current leadership, its former leadership, its “founding fathers” nor its most immediate predecessor (Fremskridtspartiet) can claim any but the most tenuous connection to the anti-Nazi resistance during WWII.
So in other words, the things people don’t like about the ACA are either things that aren’t happening at all, things that are happening but don’t have anything to do with the ACA, or the single most popular part of the ACA.
Not likely with a Young Earth Creationist.
http://americablog.com/2015/09/ca-governor-jerry-brown-owns-ben-carson-on-climate-change.html
And one of the main lines of evidence about what CO2 does to the atmosphere of the earth comes from paleo climate, a science that people like Carson does dismiss before hand because it deals with thousands or millions of years into the past conditions of the earth.
Like Trump I see Carson as a target rich environment for many lines of criticism against him that will come out full blast if Trump or Carson does become the Republican candidate.
I know for a fact that my personal employer sponsored health plan has been modified causing me to pay more in direct response to the ACA. Here is a quote from our latest open enrollment message:
Those “enhancements” are all increases in out of pocket costs.
This IMHO points to the next war that it should had taken place already: controlling prices and I do think the solution should include a mix of regulation and competition.
Good luck as on this The Republicans showed who they represent as with Medicare part D big pharma got the perk of not being subject to price regulations or to discourage the government from negotiating better prices.
And so it goes with many other medical industry and providers, and I know that while many Democrats are also in the pockets of the industry they can be counted on making more baby steps though.
How much of the increases have to do with “managing costs” versus “limiting our tax liability”? In fact, how much of that enrollment message actually reflects the world outside the company versus the world inside (such as the company’s desire to have a higher profit by reducing spending on health benefits by making you pay more)?
I have no idea though “managing costs” is functionally equivalent to “limiting our tax liability”. Essentially the plan that was previously offered would incur higher tax liability because the benefits were too good. So they reduced them, through a combination of reduced services and increased costs.
I am paying more, and getting less.
Oh goodie, price controls.
Yes, but not in a draconian sense as many on the right give it by knee jerking. Once again I’m talking about the really dumb moves to not cost cuts made by Republicans already, the lack of any control or regulation with prices has not given us cheaper drugs, on the contrary, abuses in pricing are becoming common.
I agree things of this sort hurt Carson, but not nearly as much as Trump’s shtick. People don’t care all that much about things like YEC, which don’t affect them that much, as much as they care about not voting for jerks.
[FWIW, my wife likes the fact that Trump is in the race. She feels that most politicians are more Trump-like than they care to share so they only show their carefully crafted facades, and a guy like Trump who lets it all hang out is a breath of fresh air. For my part I’d rather get my entertainment in a form which is not damaging the Republican brand.]
Obama’s name on it.
You know a better way to put down rent-seeking behavior? Which is pretty much the whole business model nowadays for the health-insurance and big-pharma sectors.
You’ll have to explain what you are characterizing as rent seeking behavior more specifically, and why you think that should be put down if you desire any kind of response.
This is, and why should be obvious.
It’s not obvious - why do you think it should be? That seems like a case of FDA regulations having an unintended consequences allowing a company to extract monopolistic profits. And the answer is…price controls? Brilliant! Next, let’s invade Iraq!
Here are a couple different illuminating ways to view the 2012 vote: by equal-population-area cartogram of state-level results, and by county-level bar graphs, color-coded by proportion of vote.
I am probably voting for Sanders. But I think the GOP have some halfway decent chances to win the White House.
The problems with the Democrats, honestly?
[ul]
[li]The Democratic Party seems to hate the very idea of being ideological. The GOP get more strident, more ideological, more fanatical, and keep winning. The Dems want to assure us they’re not like that. Well, what are they like? Losers?[/li][li]The Democrats are overly focused on the Presidency, and so lose most other races. This goes along with the above. A religion can fill every nomination for a contest with someone to recite its catechism, no matter how stupid the candidate as a person. And the GOP have believers enough. The Democrats are trying to vote in one hero to lead us all (but not really, because he’ll have to suck up to the Ben Nelsons in Congress). If this were an elected dictatorship, the Democrats might be dominant![/li][li]Somewhere along the way, the Dems became conservative. They’re mostly not talking about Medicare for all; they’re talking about preserving the compromise that keeps Medicare for the most expensive patients and employer-provided health insurance for other people (and then nothing for yet other people). Why? Well, maybe because a lot of the Democratic base are insurance salesmen. :eek: So they’re a party allergic to real criticism of the status quo and thus anti-reform. The GOP are actually able to look like reformers.[/li][/ul]
[quote=“foolsguinea, post:78, topic:736725”]
[li]The Democratic Party seems to hate the very idea of being ideological. The GOP get more strident, more ideological, more fanatical, and keep winning. The Dems want to assure us they’re not like that. Well, what are they like? Losers?[/li][/QUOTE]
The Democrats’ thinking is that if the Republicans want to cede the middle, the Democrats can just take it. And all things being equal, it would work. The problem is that while a President is in office, elections tend to be about him, and Democrats have been unwilling to fully back Obama on the campaign trail, so no one really has a reason to vote for them. There’s smart ways to be nonideological and centrist, and there are dumb ways.
For my part, I view the Republicans’ increasing ideological extremism to be a serious problem. A level-headed, responsible GOP would clean the Democrats’ clocks easily in 2016. We don’t have that.
But I do think the Democrats are getting dumb in other ways that they had cured during their period of relative success: they are getting soft on crime again, soft on national security, soft on illegal immigration. Those issues were murder on Democrats in the 80s, which is why this election could be 1980 all over again, with a sensible, but not particularly well liked Democrat(almost an incumbent if not technically) running against an extremist buffoon who Democrats are sure the electorate will never vote for, but who did a great job of persuading people that they didn’t need to hold their nose.
Now isn’t 1980. The Southern strategy won’t work anymore. And “soft” on national security makes a much stronger America than the supposed “strength” from the Republicans.
And there’s no Reagan in the Republican field.