I think Trump is doing the right thing. I have bigger problems with the Democrats having no response of their own. Criticisms are not a foreign policy.
Trump has achieved two things
The EU wants a stronger central government. That was a no go prior.
The EU wants to have a much stronger defense. That was happening prior but now it is rock solid.
The EU by its nature has too much interia. Trump has pushed them in the right directions.
The Europeans needed that anger at Trump to fuel them.
If not paying their bills makes them angry, OFW.
Now the EU can show us how they want our friendship. Oh wait can we say that? That would be a two way street for a change.
The Democrats also have no economic plans. Shameful. The party could say they want to be nice as an economic plan, I’d support even a little tiny bit of a plan over what we are getting. But zip, nada. Criticisms are not an econ plan.
You have to have a personality to get up there and make a few declarations on plans. Just throwing things at the wall to see what the public will support. Again zip nada on personality as well. Criticisms are not much of a personality.
I think this all boils down to, in many cases, is the ends do not justify the means.
I often think of this administration like a family abuser. They like to threaten and beat up on their “loved ones” to get them to do what they want. Sure, I can likely get my child to do her homework if I threaten to punch her in the face but was the ancillary and long lasting damage I caused achieving that result worth it?
Could we not have gotten to a (better) deal in Greenland without all this so-called “transition?”
Yes, and what “deal” could we have had that is not anything that we either have already (or have had in the past like our decommissioned military bases), or that we could just have asked Denmark and Greenland for?
The Executive of the USA is now showing its resplendant, even Pantagrulean, levels of greed for glory and stuff to consume, staggering ignorance about geography, maps, history, and the relations between causes and effects. This has led to this bizarre sequence of poses and speeches and (quiet, off stage) clean up and the respositioning of the furniture.
Much ado about almost nothing, except for some concern about the ever worsening flows of angry chaos from Orangetan man and enormous costs to us peons in both monetary and political credits world wide.
Why should they? The vast majority of people in the US think this whole Greenland debacle is a waste of time. They want to focus on domestic issues…like affordability.
There’s also a growing majority who don’t like the masked gestapo running around shooting people and disappearing children.
Of course, but Europe should be able to carry its own weight – which requires both capability and will. They dithered around the Balkan conflicts in the '90s (ah, the Balkans again). I remember a number of years ago when France wanted to put some troops on the ground in West Africa (Mali?) to counter Islamist forces. They couldn’t scrape up the air transport.
The US is also facing military limits (and defense spending now has to compete against increased medical costs in an aging population). Remember the “400 ship” Navy? We are currently getting down to just about 200 ships, and the floating Gaza pier operation shown the stress cracks. We currently have only one SeaBee unit.
A stronger Europe allows the US to concentrate more on the Pacific. If Japan (or the Philippines) got into a tussle with China over some little island we would help against China. I have trouble picturing France or the EU in general projecting force in the West Pacific.
This suggests we may evolve more into spheres of influence rather than “extreme global integration” as Carney put it. Part of that includes the development of a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. We live in changing times.
Welp, this is the corporate story that is shoved down our throats. There is no ‘free’, everyone pays. In fact, with our crappy systems in place now we pay multiples of what the taxes would be. Right now I am learning that to cover the sick using emergency rooms to survive, the insured are paying higher prices yearly. It is costing us more NOW.
As for education, you decrease education requirements and you allow for the multitude of fake education in America now and you get…well, America now. The idiocy of what is happening now could be directly tied to students not being taught critical thought, not being taught history, not being taught how to analyze and reach scientific conclusions. When we have TEACHTERS being fired for not supporting biblical fantasies…then you get this.
Maybe we should think about the whole ‘they get free stuff’ and see where the costs are really piling up.
Not sure if that’s just an opinion, or you’ve seen polls that support. Americans are being taxed for all kinds of thigs they don’t want.
What I have seen are polls that say, Americans want the government to ensure that all have access to healthcare and insurance coverage for that.
61% agree in the most resent gallup poll
Only 33% don’t think that the federal government is not responsible to make sure all Americans have health care coverage.
Gallup has been polling this subject for the last twenty years and the trend clearly shows that most Americans Don’t agree with your statement: “don’t want to see their neighbors getting something for ‘free’. “ when it comes to heath care coverage.
PUBLIC health provides far more effective health care for far less expenditure than crazily funneled and subsidized PRIVATE health, whether backed by insurance or not.
Like, you know, reliable provision of clean safe water. Or sewerage. Or street cleaning. Or…..
The USA has its head waaay up inside the AMA’s kazoo, and has been stuck there ever since the turn of the last century.
As I have said in the past (perhaps even on this board), it’s not how much you pay, but what you get for your money.
Taken to the absurd, I would be fine with 100% tax if I got free housing, free medical care, free travel, free food (grocery and “date night”), etc. Obviously, that is absurd, and I’m not advocating that. But I think it illustrates the point.
Presently, I’m paying for medical care through a very cumbersome system (which also covers the indigent, at least somewhat), and creates a lot of skim. But I am paying for it. Take those monies I’m paying, let me give them to the government, and in exchange I get free healthcare? Sign me up. Probably cheaper than what I’m paying private insurers now (as, I suspect, is the case with you, my fellow ACA-er).