medical news, national news, political news

CBO verdict: Not good for GOP repeal of ACA

A jury — if not the jury — has weighed in on the Republicans’ version of health care reform.

It doesn’t look good for legislation designed to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The verdict comes from the notably non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which says that under the GOP plan 23 million Americans will lose their health insurance by 2026. That’s a 1 million-person “improvement” over the bill that didn’t even get a vote in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

The latest version of Trumpcare got a vote, but it came before the CBO weighed in with its analysis of it. Hey, why wait when you’ve got a political agenda to fulfill?

Deficit reduction? It’s not as good as the initial bill. Again, House members didn’t bother to wait for the nitty-gritty before sending it to the Senate.

Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other prominent Republicans all promised — pledged, crossed their hearts and swore on a stack of Bibles — that Americans wouldn’t lose their health insurance if the GOP replaced the Affordable Care Act with something of their own making. The ACA, of course, was President Barack Obama’s signature piece of domestic legislation, which of course is why congressional Republicans want to get rid of it.

They contend it is failing. The president calls it a “disaster.” After the failed vote on the initial repeal/replacement bill, the president said he was willing to wait for the ACA to collapse, leaving Americans in the health-care lurch. I guess he wanted to say “I told you so.”

The Hill reports: “Over time, it would become more difficult for less healthy people (including people with preexisting medical conditions) in those states to purchase insurance because their premiums would continue to increase rapidly,” the report said.

The ACA repeal effort was shoved down Democratic House members’ throats, much in the manner the GOP said of the ACA’s enactment in 2010. Hey, turnabout is fair play … isn’t that the name of the game?

It still stinks.

International news

One final thought about POTUS and Yad Vashem

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I had not planned to say anything else about Donald Trump’s visit to Yad Vashem, but I cannot resist one final thought.

Here is what the president wrote in the book at one of the world’s most solemn and gripping monuments to the depths of humankind’s cruelty:

“It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends – so amazing + will never forget!”

That’s it. That was the commentary and remembrance offered by the president of the United States of America at a museum dedicated to remembering the Holocaust committed against Jews in Europe prior to and during World War II. Yad Vashem is as grim an exhibit as there is; it is just outside of Jerusalem.

To be candid, the notation from the president might as well have been doodled in a high school yearbook.

Anyone who goes there should be moved to commit something from deep within his or her gut to memorialize that visit.

I get that the president isn’t known for expressing himself in that fashion. He speaks in shallow platitudes. He attaches adjectives such as “amazing,” or “fantastic” to experiences that ought to elicit some expressions that are a bit more profound.

I came away from Yad Vashem in June 2009 barely able to control my emotions after seeing how the Israelis have remembered the unspeakable pain inflicted by the monstrous Nazi regime during the Holocaust.

Is it possible that Donald Trump will be able to grow into the job to which he was elected? I am increasingly certain that it won’t happen. Not … ever!

That is my final word on this particular matter.

International news

Brennan drops another bomb

Former CIA Director John Brennan spent some time today testifying before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

Then he said something that didn’t get a lot of attention during the 2016 presidential election. It was that the CIA knew this past summer of contacts between the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government, which Brennan said was “brazenly” acting to influence the outcome of the election.

This revelation produces a key question: Why didn’t the public know of these contacts in real time?

Brennan told committee members that he was concerned enough about the news about Trump-Russia contacts that he passed the information on to the FBI.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/contacts-between-moscow-and-trump-campaign-began-last-summer-ex-cia-chief-says/ar-BBBsOF2?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Gosh. Do you think there just might have been a different electoral outcome had we known about this as it was occurring?

And the drama continues to expand. To what conclusion remains anyone’s guess.

national news, political news

Impeachment? Not likely with this Congress

John Podesta knows a thing or two about impeachment. He served as White House chief of staff for a president who was impeached by the House of Representatives and put on trial in the Senate.

Podesta has looked at the political landscape and reports that he doesn’t see impeachment on the horizon for Donald J. Trump.

I have to agree with his assessment.

The issue is the makeup of the body that would file articles of impeachment.

Podesta seems to think, according to his comments to the Washington Post, that Trump might deserve to be impeached, but he doesn’t think the current House has the guts to do it. He allegedly sought to quash an FBI investigation into his campaign’s relationship with Russia. The Justice Department has assigned a special counsel to look at the matter.

Consider the 20th century’s two big impeachment moments.

* One of them occurred in 1974. The House was in control of Democrats. The president, Richard Nixon, was a Republican. Nixon stood accused of obstructing justice in the Watergate scandal. The House Judiciary Committee, with its Democratic majority, approved articles of impeachment and referred them to the full House.

President Nixon’s impeachment was a done deal. It took a stern lecture from the late Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater to persuade the president to give up the fight; Nixon quit the presidency the next day.

* The other occurred in 1998. Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. The special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, began his probe by looking at a real estate matter involving President Clinton and his wife, Hillary — both of whom are Democrats. He expanded it to include an extramarital dalliance the president was having with a young woman. He summoned the president to testify before a federal grand jury; the president was untruthful.

He was impeached on obstruction and perjury charges. The Senate acquitted him. Again, politics — just as it did in 1974 — played a role in moving the impeachment forward.

Would the Republicans who control Congress have the stones to impeach a fellow Republican who also happens to be president? Podesta doesn’t think so. Neither do I.

Impeachment is a political exercise in the extreme. Sure, the members of Congress talk a good game about seeking justice, to punish the president for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The reality is that it all rests on politics.

The previous century provided ample evidence of the politics associated with this serious matter. I have no reason to believe — at least not yet — that anything has changed.

International news, Uncategorized

Trump visits Yad Vashem, and then …

I cannot shake this feeling that the president of the United States cannot be moved by artifacts intended to stir the human soul.

Donald Trump has departed Israel. He made the usual stops at the Western Wall, called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then visited Yad Vashem, the Israelis’ memorial to the Holocaust.

He left a short note in the remembrance book at the museum on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/05/23/israels-holocaust-memorial-comparing-donald-trump-obama-and-bush-notes/102053636/

It was brief. He wrote of being there among “friends” and finished with “never forget.”

Yad Vashem is a stirring reminder of just how cruel human beings can be toward one another. I wrote about my own visit there in June 2009 and about the visit that the president’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, made there in 2013.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/03/yad-vashem-stands-as-testament-to-human-cruelty/

I don’t know what strikes Donald Trump’s heart, what makes it beat a little more quickly. I cannot pretend to understand this billionaire’s thinking and what moves him deeply. He once said famously that he’s never asked for God’s forgiveness. Goodness, gracious.

That is what sticks my craw today as I watch the president travel through and then exit the Holy Land en route to his next stop: a visit in the Vatican with the head of the Catholic Church.

I concluded my own blog post about President Obama’s visit to Yad Vashem this way: “Indeed, a tour of Yad Vashem ought to be required of every head of state who takes an oath to preserve the peace.”

At least Donald Trump went there. I hope — I pray — it moved him.

national news, political news

Trump budget: DOA … of course!

Donald J. Trump’s proposed budget brings to mind a couple of thoughts about the president and the campaign he ran in 2016.

First, the president really is just another politician despite what he and his supporters said to the contrary during his amazing presidential election campaign. That is, he has made promises he cannot — or will not — keep to those who supported him.

Trump promised to leave the social safety net alone. His budget does nothing of the kind. It provides deep cuts to Medicaid, Meals on Wheels and other social programs upon which millions of Americans rely.

What’s more, he hits hard at farm subsidies important to rural Americans who turned out by the millions in 2016 to cast their votes for the flashy New York business mogul/reality TV celebrity.

His populist message, which he foisted on Americans who were willing to listen to it? Forget about it!

His budget provides big tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And, oh yes. He also is proposing big spending increases in the defense budget — all while pledging to balance the budget in just 10 years.

The document sits at $4.1 trillion. Democrats hate it, quite naturally. Many congressional Republicans dislike it as well. It’s the GOP side of Congress that is more interesting to watch, given the peril they face as the 2018 mid-term election approaches.

Both sides are declaring the president’s budget to be “dead on arrival.” That’s standard operating rhetoric for members of Congress, no matter the party affiliation of the president who sends them a budget.

This much is clear: Donald Trump is going to get yet another real-time lesson on how the federal government works. As the saying goes, the president proposes, while Congress disposes of budgets.

local news

Light ’em up, just not around me

I am not too proud to acknowledge making a mistake.

Such as when I railed on the blog about smoking indoors. I once thought that Amarillo needed to enact an ordinance that banned the activity everywhere. Other cities had done so; even communities where residents are as politically conservative as this one.

Then it occurred to me: Although my wife and I don’t go out all that often, we are able to enjoy meals and each other’s company in smoke-free environments — even without a smoking ban ordinance in effect in Amarillo.

I guess, then, it’s time to acknowledge that my view on smoking bans has, um, evolved yet again.

Back when I was working for a living — specifically writing editorials and editing the Opinion page for the Amarillo Globe-News — I got to offer perspectives with which I didn’t necessarily agree. One dealt with smoking ordinances. The newspaper’s editorial board, of which I was a member, opposed citywide ordinances banning the activity. The Globe-News believed that privately held businesses had the inherent right to determine such matters.

I sucked it up and espoused the company line.

A smoking ban ordinance went to a citywide referendum twice. Both times Amarillo voters rejected the proposed ordinances.

It’s not that I oppose citywide bans as a matter of principle. I wouldn’t object to Amarillo’s City Council imposing such a ban if it chose to do so. What I’ve determined is that such a mandate from City Hall is unnecessary, given what I’ve determined has occurred in the city without such an edict.

I’m sure there are still joints in Amarillo where smoking is allowed. I won’t go to any of them. Neither will my wife. To the best of my knowledge, neither will our son. The Chamber of Commerce office in downtown Amarillo likely has data on which places are smoke-free and which still allow patrons to smoke ’em if they got ’em.

I recently made a lunch date with a friend. We’re going to a diner on Sixth Avenue that used to be notorious for its smoke-filled environment, which was the sole reason my friend stayed away from the place; frankly, so did I. I mentioned that in the past year, the diner has remodeled its interior and has gone smoke-free.

Good deal! That’s where we decided to meet.

I quit the nasty habit of smoking cold turkey more than 37 years ago. I dropped a two-pack daily habit to zero simply by tossing the weeds into the trash can. No one told me to quit. No one forced it on me. Indeed, the price of smoking has gone beyond prohibitive. I recently saw a guy drop about $150 on two cartons of cigarettes. My thought: You’ve got to be kidding me.

I figure that business owners know how to market themselves to attract paying customers whose money will keep the lights on.

That’s what has happened in Amarillo, Texas. I am grateful.

national news, political news

‘I, alone … ‘ should have been given us a clue

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Donald J. Trump’s time as president has lasted all of about 122 days — give or take — yet it seems like forever already.

As I look back on this man’s stunning political ascent, I am struck by one moment that I believe in hindsight should have given us a clue on what we might expect.

He stood before the Republican National Convention this past summer in Cleveland and declared that “I, alone” can repair all the things he said are ailing the country.

Setting aside for a moment or two the myriad problems that are bedeviling this man and his administration — and which might cost him his office — that particular statement suggested to me at that moment that this fellow really doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t understand one of the principal tenets of governing, which is that he is participating in a team sport. It’s so critical to understand that notion at the federal level, where the founders established a triple-layered governmental system where one branch holds no more power than the other two.

The presidency is but one branch; it must work in tandem with the Congress. Waiting in the wings to ensure that the executive and legislative branches don’t violate the Constitution are the federal courts, comprising actual judges, not the “so-called” types who render decisions that might go against whatever the president wants to do.

Donald Trump ignores political decorum, custom and practice. As some have noted, he does so either out of ignorance or does so willfully. I’ll take Trump at his word that he is a “smart person,” which means he is invoking a willful disregard for how the federal government is supposed to work.

The concept of governing by oneself does not work. It cannot work. The president is getting a real-time civics lesson in how the nation’s founders established this government of ours. He has vowed to run the country like his business. Yeah, good luck with that.

A business mogul can fire people at will. He can order underlings around, make them do this or that task. He can threaten, bully and coerce others.

When he takes the reins of the executive branch of the federal government, all of that prior experience gets thrown out the window.

How does the president tell Congress — comprising 535 individuals with constituencies and power bases of their own — to do his bidding? And how does the president actually defy the federal judiciary, which the founders established to be an independent check on every single thing the president and Congress enact?

Yes, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee gave it all away when he stood there in Cleveland and bellowed “I, alone” can fix it.

No, Mr. President. You cannot. Nor should you have ever tried.

Moreover, I believe his repeated efforts to trample over Congress and the federal courts are going to bite him hard in the backside as he seeks to defend himself against the other troubles that are threatening him.

legal news, national news, political news

It keeps getting deeper and darker for POTUS

The hits just keep on piling up on Donald John Trump.

The latest batch of them involves more media reporting that the president asked intelligence officials to push back on the FBI investigation into that “Russia thing.” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers said, um, “No can do.”

The FBI is looking into allegations that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians who were hacking into our electoral system, seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome — in Trump’s favor!

Trump keeps denying any collusion. Yet these reports keep piling up suggesting something quite different.

The Washington Post has reported this latest live grenade to blow up in the president’s face as he travels through the Middle East and Europe on his first overseas venture as leader of the free world.

A special counsel, Robert Mueller, already is on the job. Senate and House intelligence committees are at work as well in the hunt for the truth.

And, yes, so are the media — the scorned “enemy of the American people” and purveyors of “fake news.”

I am not going to predict with — as the late PBS talking head John McLaughlin would say — any “metaphysical certitude” that the president is heading straight for impeachment. But certain elements of the progression of events keep suggesting something such as that might occur.

Michael Flynn is going to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination as the FBI looks into the former national security adviser’s Russia involvement; former FBI director James Comey is going to talk publicly with congressional committees about memos he wrote chronicling some alleged attempts by Trump to obstruct justice; and Mueller is going to talk to a current senior White House aide who has been deemed a “person of interest” in this ongoing investigation.

Just think: Donald Trump’s time in the only political office he ever sought is just beginning.

national news

Does the president still think invoking Fifth means guilt?

Donald J. Trump was simply outraged during the 2016 presidential campaign about Hillary Clinton’s aides invoking their constitutional protection against self-incrimination.

Doing so, he said at the time, meant they likely were “guilty as hell” of committing a crime.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-campaign-staff-fifth-amendment-flynn/index.html

The issue had to do with Clinton’s e-mail controversy and other matters. Trump was running against Hillary for the presidency, which meant that such activity just made his case for him.

He is now the president. One of his former trusted aides, ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, is invoking his Fifth Amendment rights. He has refused to answer a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena. He has a lot of questions to answer about his relationship with the Russian government and whether he allegedly worked with the Russians to influence the 2016 election.

Flynn was fired 24 days into his new job.

Does the president still think Flynn’s decision to invoke the Fifth mean he is “guilty as hell” of a crime? Well, do you, Mr. President?

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