Tag Archives: GOP

medical news, national news, political news

Why not just repair Obamacare?

All this talk about repealing the Affordable Care Act seems to ignore a possible alternative that’s been done already with other landmark legislation.

Congressional Republicans have been adamant about getting rid of the ACA. They’ve had six years to find a replacement mechanism to provide health insurance to Americans who cannot afford it otherwise. They have failed. They’ve come up with … nothing!

The alternative to flat-out repeal is to repair the ACA.

Congress enacted Medicare in 1965 to provide medical insurance to elderly Americans. It wasn’t perfect, either. Congress and President Johnson got together to tinker with it, to fine-tune it, to make it better. The same can be said of what Congress and other president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, did with Social Security when they created that program in 1935.

Reasonable minds can come together to make landmark laws better. It’s been done. Why not now?

Well, my theory is that it’s because the ACA has President Obama’s name on it. It’s been called Obamacare chiefly by those who use that term as a pejorative. They don’t like something that carries the name of a president who House and Senate Republicans have opposed since the beginning of his time in the White House.

I get that the ACA isn’t perfect. I understand that premiums have increased, that health insurance companies are bailing out, that consumers are having trouble finding doctors who will treat those covered by insurance provided by the ACA.

Aren’t there reasonable solutions to fix these problems? Can’t the ACA opponents huddle with those in Congress who support the plan to repair the law?

Oh, no! They’ve got to toss the ACA into the trash heap. They want to declare victory by calling it a “monumental failure,” a “disaster,” a “terrible idea.”

Twenty million Americans have health insurance today who didn’t have it before the ACA became law in 2010. Congressional Republicans are quite sure they can repeal the ACA. Finding a replacement is a bit more of a hurdle.

They have precedent, though, for seeking ways to repair what many folks believe is a flawed idea.

Compromise, folks! That’s how you govern effectively. You either have Americans’ interests at heart, or you are thinking only of your own political futures.

medical news, national news, political news

GOP set to repeal … but what about the ‘replace’ part?

It’s not like the Republican Party’s members of Congress haven’t had time. They’ve had six whole years to consider how they would replace the Affordable Care Act if they ever got the chance to repeal the law.

They seem set on the repeal part of the ACA. What, though, is taking them so long to come up with the replacement?

The ACA — aka Obamacare — is President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. He’s no doubt going to speak highly of it when he bids the nation farewell in just a little while.

The ACA has enabled about 20 million Americans to obtain health insurance. Has it been “affordable,” as the president pitched it? Not entirely. Premiums have gone up; medical plans have had trouble marrying up doctors and health insurance companies.

It is not, as the GOP has maintained for the past six years, a “disaster.” They seem to dislike it mainly because a Democratic president came up with the idea of providing insurance for uninsured Americans.

But hey! He got the idea from Massachusetts, which had a Republican governor — a guy named Mitt Romney — that had developed a nearly identical plan. Obama copied Romney’s plan, more or less, and adapted to the national model.

What’s more the president himself has said that he would have been willing to accept an alternative if it did a better job than the ACA. Republicans, though, aren’t ready to provide an alternative.

What in the world has taken them so long? Are they content only to bitch and moan for the sake of political expediency without giving serious thought and discussion to how they would replace the ACA?

They’ve got the repeal part down pat. How about giving us something with which to replace it? If they intend to govern, they need to flesh out the details of how their ideas on health care are better than what we have.

national news, political news

GOP claims ‘mandate’ will drive its congressional agenda

There goes the “m-word” again.

Congressional Republicans say they have a mandate to reel in government spending, to launch a true-blue conservative agenda and, presumably, to enact sweeping social legislation.

How does that comport with the president-elect’s agenda, as if one can figure it out?

Beats me, man.

Donald J. Trump wants to build a wall, keep Muslims from entering the country and plans to appoint pro-life judges to the federal bench. Oh, he’ll bring back jobs, cut taxes — and he’ll repair all the nation’s roads and bridges at a cost of about a trillion dollars.

Can the president-elect forge some common ground with the conservatives who control the congressional agenda?

Suffice to say he lacks any hands-on experience — at any level — with working with politicians of any party, let alone his own.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/claiming-mandate-gop-congress-lays-plans-to-propel-sweeping-conservative-agenda/ar-BBxNwZB?li=BBnb7Kz

Donald Trump is creating a government on the fly. It’s on-the-job training for the new head of state/head of government/commander in chief/leader of the free world.

Will he listen to the pros who know how this government of ours works?

One can hope. Frankly, though, my serious doubts persist.

national news, political news

Trump makes friends with dreaded Democratic leader

If we are to believe Donald J. Trump’s statement to the New York Post, then he is making at least one great friend on the other side of the political divide.

The president-elect’s new best friend appears to be incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a liberal New York Democrat.

Schumer reportedly told the Post that he gets along better with Schumer than he does with congressional Republicans.

My first reaction when I heard this was, “Well, duh?”

Two factors come immediately to mind.

One is that Schumer and Trump are home boys, hailing from the same state. Trump grew up in Queens; Schumer was born in Brooklyn and thus also is quite familiar with New York City.

The other is that Republicans in both legislative chambers worked against their party’s presidential nominee in 2016, only to see him defy the odds and be elected president.

Yep, a lot of us were surprised. I heard just this past week that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was certain that Trump would lose the election. Who knew? Certainly not the Kentucky Republican.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/report-trump-likes-schumer-more-than-gop-leaders/ar-BBxN73N?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

I am taking what I have read about Trump’s newfound friendship with Schumer with a massive dose of salt. He is quite capable of changing his mind in the next, oh, hour or so.

But if it’s true — that Trump and Schumer have become political BFFs — the GOP establishment that featured the “Never Trump” wing of the party is largely to blame.

business news, national news

Trump looks more like a RINO

True-blue Republicans are fond of calling so-called GOP imposters as RINOs … or Republicans in Name Only.

Guess what. It appears that the president-elect of the United States is one of those RINOs.

Check this out: Donald J. Trump is kicking around an idea that would result in a 5 percent tariff on all goods imported into the United States of America.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/12/22/donald-trumps-seriously-bad-idea-a-5-tax-or-tariff-on-all-imports/#4c9ff2357216

Forbes.com calls it a “seriously bad idea.” Forbes, after all, is considered to be a mainstream Republican financial organ, yes?

It doesn’t like the notion of applying what’s historically been called “protectionist economic policy.” This is the kind of policy espoused by union movement leaders who seek artificial ways to protect U.S. jobs. Union workers historically have sided with, oh, Democratic politicians.

Now we hear that the president-elect, who ran for the nation’s highest office as a Republican Party nominee, considering a tariff on imported goods.

As Forbes writes: “To put it mildly this is not a good idea. For two rather important reasons. The first being that it’s not obvious that this would not be legal. The United States has a number of trade treaties in place and many of them will state that no such universal tariff will be possible. The second is that the idea itself is just not a good one. Why do we want to tax Americans more for the things they wish to purchase?”

That’s not a very free-market philosophy.

The president-elect — an apparently hard-core RINO — is making my head spin.

medical news, political news, State news

‘War against women’ takes new turn in Texas

Let’s take a moment or two to connect a few dots.

* Democrats accuse Republicans of waging a “war against women.”

* Republicans deny such a thing.

* Republicans — many of them, at least — are adamantly opposed to Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s leading providers of health care services for women. Yes, Planned Parenthood refers women to abortion clinics.

* The Texas Legislature, which has a GOP uber-majority, has now decided to cut Planned Parenthood off from the state’s Medicaid program, which enables low-income Texans to get medical assistance at a drastically reduced cost.

* Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, another Republican, has signed on to this effort.

* Oh, and the government does not provide any money for abortions.

So, Planned Parenthood is now in the Republicans’ sights because, the GOP leadership insists, the organization allegedly treats aborted fetuses cavalierly; there also have been unspecified allegations of billing fraud. The video recording shows staffers supposedly talking about harvesting “fetal tissue” for medical research — even though there’s been zero proof provided that it’s even occurring.

Planned Parenthood denies any wrongdoing and the activists who insist that there is haven’t produced evidence to back up their assertion.

Is there a “war against women” going on in the Texas Legislature?

Planned Parenthood has become the prime bogeyman among legislators who are enraged that the organization has anything to do with abortions.

Here’s the thing: The government doesn’t pay for the procedure. Planned Parenthood, though, does provide a wide range of other health-related services to women who need them. Medicaid is a state-run assistance program aimed at helping low-income women obtain medical services they otherwise couldn’t afford.

State health officials have delivered the bad news to Planned Parenthood. In about a month, the state is going cut off millions of dollars in aid, affecting thousands of Texas women.

The women who rely on state assistance to obtain medical advice from Planned Parenthood deserve better treatment than they’re getting from Texas legislators and the governor.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/20/texas-kicks-planned-parenthood-out-medicaid/

According to the Texas Tribune: “In the final notice, Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General Stuart Bowen said the undercover videos — which depicted Planned Parenthood officials discussing the use of fetal tissue for research — showed ‘that Planned Parenthood violated state and federal law.'”

And there’s more from the Tribune: “Planned Parenthood has vehemently denied those claims, and it has criticized the videos the state is pointing to as evidence as being heavily edited to imply malfeasance. Its health centers in Texas have also said they do not currently donate fetal tissue for research. Their Houston affiliate did participate in a 2010 research study with the University of Texas Medical Branch.”

This is looking for all the world to me as though the Legislature has found a solution to an unspecified and unproven problem.

Meanwhile, thousands of Texas women will be chewed up in the political buzzsaw.

Is there a war against women being waged? Looks like it to me.

International news, national news, political news

No select panel, but let’s get to heart of hacking matter

bbhcr1a

Mitch McConnell says he won’t appoint a select Senate committee to examine the impact of alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

OK. Fair enough, Mr. Majority Leader.

But let’s not allow these questions to wither and die now that your fellow Republican, Donald J. Trump, is about to become president of the United States.

We’ve got some questions that need clear, declarative answers.

What did the Russians do? How did they do it? Did their computer hacking efforts have a tangible impact on the election outcome? How in the world does the United States prevent this kind of computer hacking in the future?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mcconnell-rejects-calls-for-select-panel-on-russian-meddling/ar-BBxmZzP

If the majority leader were to ask for my opinion, I’d suggest that we need an independent commission that doesn’t answer to Senate Republicans or Democrats. We formed one of those after the 9/11 attacks and it came out with some serious findings about what went wrong and how we can prevent future terrorist attacks.

McConnell’s decision to nix a select committee is at odds with many Republicans — such as Sen. John McCain — along with Democrats are demanding. They want a select panel that would be tasked solely with looking at this most disturbing matter.

The new Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said this, according to The Associated Press: “We don’t want this investigation to be political like the Benghazi investigation,” he said. “We don’t want it to just be finger pointing at one person or another.” Schumer added: “We want to find out what the Russians are doing to our political system and what other foreign governments might do to our political system. And then figure out a way to stop it.”

McConnell wants to hand this over to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Fine. Then allow them to clear the decks and concentrate on getting to the heart of what the Russians have done.

Seventeen intelligence agencies have concluded the same thing: The Russians intended to influence the presidential election. The president-elect has dismissed their conclusion, opening up a serious rift between his office and the intelligence community.

Trump and his team are virtually all alone in their view of this disturbing matter. Congress needs to get busy and tell us what the Russians did and when they did it.

national news

North Carolinians take political defeat quite seriously

aalejhe

There are sore losers.

And then there is North Carolina, where Republicans apparently are so upset at losing the governor’s office to a Democrat that they’re punishing the winner — by stripping him of much of his gubernatorial power.

Get a load of this: Gov.-elect Roy Cooper is taking office without much of the appointment power that the man he defeated, Gov. Pat McCrory had.

Moreover, the Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature — meeting in special session — enacted a law that reduces drastically the number of appointments the governor can make. McCrory, also a Republican, signed the bill into law this week. Another bill requires the governor to gain Senate approval of appointments made to the University of North Carolina System.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/amid-outcry-nc-gop-passes-law-to-curb-democratic-governor%e2%80%99s-power/ar-AAlEekE?li=BBnbcA1

McCrory only recently conceded defeat to Cooper. It was an intensely fought campaign. Cooper won by a whisker. McCrory conceded and did not seek a recount of the ballots cast in the contest. I was proud of McCrory for conceding the contest.

Then he signs these ridiculous, petulant pieces of crap into law.

The reaction to these bills, quite naturally, have broken along partisan lines. Democrats are incensed. Republicans are not. But then a neutral group weighed in. According to the Washington Post: “Nonpartisan watchdogs, like Bob Hall with Democracy North Carolina, said the changes go ‘far beyond the normal partisan wrangling and change of power.'”

So much for a collegial transition in North Carolina.

national news, political news

Bipartisanship emerges … in opposition to Trump picks

aalr3ki

What do you know about that?

Donald J. Trump might be learning that he doesn’t have as many friends on Capitol Hill as he thought he did.

It appears that some of the president-elect’s Cabinet picks aren’t going down well … with some Republican lawmakers. Never mind the Democrats. You know they’ll detest almost any pick the GOP president-elect is going to make.

I was struck this morning when I heard Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky declare himself to be almost an automatic “no” vote against probable secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson. Why the intense opposition? That would be the selection of John Bolton to be Tillerson’s deputy secretary, according to Paul. Bolton believes in “regime change” and has all but advocated going to war with Iran, both views that Paul opposes strongly.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-opposition-to-potential-trump-cabinet-nominees-grows/ar-AAlqKVs?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Others among Trump’s Republican base of support are bristling at some of the picks. Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s pick to be treasury secretary, represents the “status quo,” according to Erick Erickson, the longtime TEA party activist. Labor Department nominee Andrew Puzder is said to be in favor of “open borders.”

Now we have Tillerson at State. U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, said he has “concerns” about Tillerson’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tillerson is CEO of ExxonMobil, which is exploring for oil throughout Russia; Tillerson has brokered numerous business deals involving Russian government officials, including Putin.

Where do we go from here?

Trump will need a lot of friends on Capitol Hill to rally to his side as he sends his Cabinet picks to the Senate for confirmation.

Here’s the deal, though: He ran against many of them within his own Republican Party on his highly improbable victorious campaign for the presidency.

Good luck, Mr. President-elect.

national news, political news

Trump, Obama now have become BFFs?

obama-and-trump

Donald J. Trump is making my head spin.

The man who demonized President Barack Obama as someone who wasn’t elected legitimately because he was born somewhere other than the United States now is seeking his immediate predecessor’s advice on Cabinet picks?

Is that what I’m hearing?

Trump told “Today Show” host Matt Lauer this morning that he and the president are getting along famously these days. He’s consulting with him. He considers the president to be a “terrific guy.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-obama-consultation-cabinet-232304

Wow, man! I get that politics often is a contact sport. I also get that political foes can put past hostilities aside. The president-elect, though, is having to do so on many fronts.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump’s statements about Muslims “racist.” Now he and Trump are speaking daily, Ryan said. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Trump is a “fraud,” a “phony,” a “con man.” Now he is considered a frontrunner to become secretary of state in the Trump administration.

The president-elect’s relationship with the president?

Trump was one of the leaders of the “birther” movement. He sought to turn Obama into some kind of pretend president. Then he said in a single sentence that the president was “born in the United States. Period.”

That makes it all better?

I am having trouble believing it. Just as I am having trouble believing Mitt now no longer considers Trump to be a fraud, phony and a con man.

Suppose it’s all true, however. I guess it only demonstrates what we think of politicians, which is that they rarely tell us what’s truly in their heart, that it’s all just so much baloney.