Tag Archives: Donald Trump

medical news, national news, political news

Where have you gone, Ivanka and Jared?

It turns out that the president of the United States reportedly is angry that two of his “key advisers” were absent during the run-up to the historic non-vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Donald J. Trump is none too happy about it at that!

The advisers? Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.

Where were they? They were on a ski vacation. They were absent from the negotiation that took place between Daddy POTUS and his new best friend, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and those stubborn House of Representatives conservatives who torpedoed the legislation.

Here is the Big Question: What on Earth could either of these individuals have done to persuade balky congressmen and women to change their votes? Must anyone remind the president that Ivanka and Jared are political novices, as is the president of the United States himself?

There. I just did remind him. Not that he’ll even see this gentle rhetorical jab, let alone take it to heart.

Ivanka has just acquired a West Wing office, where she’ll work as a sort of unofficial adviser with no specific job description; nor will she draw a federal salary. Kushner already is the president’s point man on U.S.-Israel relations and reportedly plans to play a key role in searching for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Are either of them skilled political operatives? Are they experts on health care, on the ACA or on the failed bill to replace it, the American Health Care Act? Do they even have any relationships with congressional naysayers? Umm. Nope.

What could they have done to affect the outcome? Maybe it’s just me, but my hunch is that it would have been not a damn thing!

So, they took a trip to the mountains to ski and enjoy each other’s company.

Dad didn’t need their “help” in scuttling this bill. He and the speaker did a fine job of it all by themselves.

Oh! And that’s a good thing.

medical news, national news, political news

Trump takes defeat … and then offers another lie

Donald Trump said repeatedly — countless times, in fact — that his Day One priority would be to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Over and over again on the stump while campaigning for president, the Republican Party nominee said it. It would be his top priority.

From … Day … One!

What, then, did the president say from his desk today in the Oval Office? He said he “never” mentioned repealing and replacing the ACA within the first 64 days of his presidency.

The Liar in Chief cannot tell the truth … about anything!

Good ever-lovin’ grief, man! It’s on the record, Mr. President. You said it. Out loud. In front of your adoring fans and in front of the “enemy of the people” media representatives who were covering your campaign.

The president lost a big fight today. House Speaker Paul Ryan — the president’s wing man in this fight — pulled the repeal-and-replace legislation. The Republican majority in Congress didn’t have the votes to enact it.

Thus, the president’s top priority became toast.

At the very least he ought to be able to recognize and acknowledge what he said while campaigning for the first political office he ever has sought.

local news, medical news, national news, political news

Who works for whom in Washington?

Donald Trump thought he could strong-arm congressional Republicans into doing his bidding.

He wanted them to enact a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. GOP lawmakers — namely the more conservative members of their caucus — weren’t budging. Why? I believe it’s because they knew something that the president doesn’t understand: They work for their constituents; they do not work for the president.

When I heard today that Trumpcare went down in flames, I flashed back to another time, in an another era, when another lawmaker decided to stick it in the ear of his congressional leadership.

I recalled former U.S. Rep. Larry Combest, a Republican from Lubbock, who once defied the speaker of the House of Representatives who wanted Combest to back some legislation that he just couldn’t support.

It occurred in the late 1990s. Combest represented a largely rural West Texas congressional district that ran from southern Amarillo all the way to the Permian Basin.

GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich was pushing something called Freedom to Farm, a dramatic overhaul of national farm policy. If memory serves, Freedom to Farm would have drastically reduced the amount of subsidies the government gave to farmers and ranchers to help them through difficult years. We get those kinds of seasons in West Texas, as you might know. Drought has this way of inhibiting dryland farmers’ ability to harvest crops; such a lack of moisture also restricts the amount of grain that ranchers use to feed their livestock.

Gingrich pushed Combest hard to back Freedom to Farm. Combest resisted. He finally voted against Freedom to Farm.

Combest was left to remind the speaker that he didn’t work for congressional leaders. He answered to the farmers and ranchers who elected him to Congress. These folks back home would suffer from Freedom to Farm and Combest wasn’t about to let them down.

I applauded Combest at the time, remarking in an editorial — and also in a couple of signed columns — that he showed guts by defying his congressional leadership and standing up for his constituents.

Congressional Republicans today don’t work for the president. They answer to their constituents at home, the folks whose votes upon which these lawmakers depend. They hate the GOP alternative to the ACA and let their congressmen and women know it in no uncertain terms. Democrats hate it, too.

That is how representative democracy works, Mr. President.

Just ask Larry Combest.

International news, national news, political news

To collude with Russians or not collude?

Let’s play out a hypothetical scenario that appears to be a bit less hypothetical than it was a month or two ago.

FBI Director James Comey says his agency is investigating whether Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign worked in cahoots with Russian goons to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

Let’s presume for the sake of discussion that the FBI finds collusion. It determines that someone in the campaign worked with Russian government officials to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

How far up the campaign chain of command might it go? Maybe such collusion occurred only at the mid-level of the Trump campaign. Perhaps it was done only by some junior hired gun who, perhaps, was feeding the Russians information they could use against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If that’s the case — that this was done without direct knowledge by the campaign’s senior management team — then it becomes fair to wonder: Does such a discovery presume an impeachable offense? Would that be grounds to impeach the president of the United States, even if he had zero direct knowledge of such collusion as it was taking place?

My sense is that it should. Why? Well, the president boasted of his business acumen. He bragged about how he had control over everything in his life.

If such collusion occurred out of his sight or his earshot, then would he be guilty of gross campaign incompetence? Does such incompetence translate to an inability to govern? And does any and/or all of it destroy whatever credibility the president needs to conduct his duties as head of state?

We don’t know the status of the FBI investigation. Nor do we know the extent of the evidence that congressional committees have gathered in their search for the truth behind this most disturbing story.

We are likely entering a frightening time as the FBI continues this complicated probe.

medical news, national news, political news

So many lessons to learn from health care failure

Where in this world does one start to sort through the wreckage created by the Republican failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with … something else?

Most of know the story by now. Donald J. Trump got elected president and promised to “repeal and replace” the ACA. Congressional Republicans, having retained control of both legislative chambers, finally had a president on their side. Repeal and replacement were slam dunks.

Or so they thought.

Then they cobbled together something that didn’t pass conservative and progressive muster. They couldn’t round up the votes to repeal the ACA, let alone approve something called the American Health Care Act.

Arm-twisting, threats and last-second negotiation resulted in the president’s first major legislative failure. House  Speaker Paul Ryan — a partner with the president on this fiasco — canceled the vote today.

Lessons learned here? Let’s take a peek at some of them.

* Trump bitched today at the White House that he had “no Democrat votes.” Really! He said that out loud to a room full of “enemy of the people” reporters. Well, irony apparently isn’t something that’s on Trump’s radar. President Obama didn’t have a single Republican vote when he got Congress to enact the ACA in 2010; but he damn sure tried to get some GOP support.

* Trump campaigned for the presidency on his record as a take-no-prisoners business mogul. He had no public service experience prior to running for president. His whole adult life had been geared toward personal enrichment. Then he discovered something about politics: It is that politicians have their own constituencies to worry about. If the voters who elect them don’t like what they’re doing, they have this annoying habit of voting them out of office.

Congressional Republicans didn’t like the AHCA because their voters back home didn’t like it. Do you get that, Mr. President? Your Republican colleagues don’t work for you; they work for the citizens in their congressional districts and in their states.

This ain’t reality TV, Mr. President. Politics is practiced by those who know what the hell they’re doing. Just because you’re the president doesn’t mean you get your way whenever you demand something of others.

* The ACA isn’t perfect. I’ll concede that along with anyone with half a brain. But as Speaker Ryan conceded today, it is “the law of the land.” Here’s a thought for the speaker and for the president: Why not try to tinker with the ACA? Fix what’s most egregiously wrong with it. If premiums are costing too much, find a method to cap them. If Americans are having trouble finding medical care within certain networks, find a way to streamline the process.

Throwing out a landmark health insurance overhaul simply because it was the creation of a president from the “other” party isn’t smart. What’s more, the ACA is patterned after a plan adopted in Massachusetts, which at the time was governed by a real Republican, Mitt Romney; you remember him, correct? The ACA in fact has Gov. Romney’s fingerprints all over it.

Ryan said today that “doing big things is hard.” No kidding, Mr. Speaker. Barack Obama learned that lesson, too. Indeed, as Vice President Joe Biden once said, “This is a big f****** deal.”

So … the Affordable Care Act remains on the books. Now the president and Congress can turn their attention to something else.

I just hope there aren’t more screw-ups on the horizon.

national news, political news

Will the ‘system’ swallow POTUS whole?

This fantasy keeps ricocheting around my noggin. Here’s how it goes.

Donald J. Trump sold himself as a no-nonsense, kick-butt business mogul who brooked no foolishness from anyone. Then he got elected president and learned that “I alone” cannot repair what he said is wrong with the country.

He set out to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act and then ran smack into the buzzsaw otherwise known as the House Freedom Caucus, whose members hate the cooked-up alternative to the ACA. Democrats hate it, too, as much as they hate the president.

If the ACA repeal fails today, does that signal the start of a string of failures for a man who told us over and over that he never seemed to fail at anything?

What, then, happens when he cannot enact tax reform, or get the wall built on our southern border, or institute an infrastructure rebuilding program?

What happens if he can’t “destroy ISIS” all by himself? What happens if he keeps getting stern resistance from those on the far right — who don’t trust him anyway — as well as those on the left who are still steamed that he got elected president in the first place?

My fantasy is that Trump might decide the fight ain’t worth it. He’ll call Vice President Pence into the Oval Office and tell the veep, “Mike, take it away. It’s all  yours, my man. I’m going to take Melania and Barron back to New York and we can vacation to our hearts’ content at Mar-a-Lago and no one will give a crap about how much it costs. Besides, this house in D.C. isn’t nearly as nice as my digs in Florida. I’m outta here.”

Yes, that’s why I call it a fantasy. However, one never knows.

national news, political news

Wiretap story damages Trump credibility? No-o-o-o!

This story made me react with a typical, “Well, duhhh!”

It concerns a new Quinnipiac poll that says — get ready this bombshell — Donald Trump’s credibility has been damaged by his bogus assertion that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump’s offices in Trump Tower.

Why, I never … No s***?

Who would’ve thunk that?

You get my drift. The president’s ridiculous and, in my view, defamatory tweets about wiretapping have revealed the kind of individual who now occupies the most revered office in the greatest nation on Earth.

Indeed, he has demonstrated even more his unfitness for public office in that astonishing interview with Time magazine in which he dismisses concerns about his honesty with this: “I can’t be doing so badly because I’m president and you’re not.”

There you have it, kids. This guy is clueless in the extreme. He has no understanding of how many Americans — except, of course, for the dedicated Trumpkins — perceive the president of the United States.

The Quinnipiac poll pegs Trump’s standing at 60 percent of voters who don’t think he is believable. Actually, the biggest surprise in that poll in my mind is that the percentage of those who disbelieve Trump isn’t actually greater.

But, hey. I am not going to question the legitimacy of the poll.

What I will continue to question, though, is how in the name of political sanity Donald John Trump got elected to this office in the first place.

International news

Get to work to ‘destroy’ ISIS, Mr. President

As if we needed any reminders …

A terrorist launched an attack in London the other day. Five people died; several others were injured. Police killed the madman (whose name I will not use, per my recently adopted policy of refusing to ID the names of these goons).

He was a British citizen of Middle East descent.

And, oh yes, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, apparently because the bastard was a member of the terrorist organization.

What does this mean? It means the president of the United States — who is mired in the muck of growing controversy and potential scandal at home — has to get cracking with one of his many top priorities.

Which is to “destroy ISIS.”

Just how difficult is it to do what Donald Trump has pledged to do? We’ve just borne witness to the difficulty. The London attacker was a “lone wolf.” He took his vengeance out on innocent bystanders.

Just how does one stop this kind of attack? How does a government eradicate from the face of the planet every single individual who is capable and willing to commit these acts?

This is precisely the kind of act with which the world has lived since the beginning of time. The 9/11 attack on our country launched an new kind of “world war” that many observers said likely never would end. It becomes a war of attrition, except that with a planet full of 7 billion individuals, it becomes problematic in the extreme to eliminate every single person who is committed to some hideous cause disguised as a religion.

The London attack has revealed — as if we needed reminding — the difficulty that stands before those in power.

That includes the head of state of the world’s most powerful nation. Trump has blustered and bellowed since entering the political world about how he knows “more about ISIS than the generals … believe me.” He has vowed to destroy the terrorist organization that grew out of that terrible day on 9/11. Two previous presidents — one Republican and one Democrat — have overseen the deaths of thousands of terrorists around the world.

Have we gotten them all? Of course not. Are we able to get them all? Probably not.

Thus, the fight goes on.

national news, political news

Trump now must get ready to attack other ‘top priorities’

If the Republican plan to overhaul health care fails, the president of the United States will have to face a serious quandary.

Which issue will become his top priority item?

Donald Trump said his first order of business was to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. His effort is now gasping for air. A vote on Friday stands as a now-or-never effort. If it fails, which it appears will occur, he will move on to other matters.

What’s next? Let’s see. Building the wall along our southern border? Renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement? Bringing back all those jobs that have moved offshore to China?

He won’t deal with Russian aggression in Ukraine, Syria or its meddling with the U.S. presidential election. That’s pretty much a given.

Trump, though, will have to pivot rapidly from health care overhaul.

Heaven knows he’s got a full plate of top-drawer issues to handle.

He did refer to the U.S. economy as a “disaster.” Oh, wait! Then he got that great jobs report for February in which non-farm payrolls grew by 235,000 individuals; joblessness fell to 4.7 percent.

And, no-o-o-o, the numbers weren’t cooked.

I am watching all this flailing right along with the rest of the country. The president cannot get his footing. He has been unable to fill many top administrative posts. He must appoint more than 140 federal judges, which is a consequence of Republicans blocking Barack Obama’s efforts to fill those vacancies when he was president.

And then …

We’ve got all those questions about Russian connections with the Trump campaign, the president’s bogus assertion of wiretapping and whether Donald Trump has any idea of just how he intends to actually govern.

Think of it: We’re only at Day 63. My head is spinning.

medical news

Trump tries to stampede GOP into replacing the ACA

I think I understand what Donald J. Trump is trying to do to persuade his Republican colleagues in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The president said a vote on Friday is the drop-dead event. If House of Representatives Republicans do not have the votes to enact the GOP alternative, then that’s it.

The Affordable Care Act will stand. President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative will remain. The president will move on. He’s done negotiating.

Don’t you get it?

Trump is now trying to persuade balky Freedom Caucus Republicans to vote for the American Health Care Act, or else face the prospect of failing to deliver on the president’s top-drawer campaign promise.

Will he do it? I have no clue. Whether he goes through with his threat likely depends on whether someone gets his attention long enough to persuade him to keep up the fight.

The AHCA is not an improvement over the ACA. The Congressional Budget Office says the AHCA will throw 24 million Americans off their health care plans. GOP lawmakers have been hearing from their constituents for weeks now about how much they hate the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

Trump throws down the gauntlet

Now it has come down to whether House Republicans actually care enough about health care “reform” to enact an alternative to what’s already on the books. It’s also an open question about whether the president actually cares about health care — at all!

Does he want to enact an actual improvement over the ACA or does he simply want to replace a health care plan promoted and pushed forward by his immediate predecessor? Does he really care about what the alternative contains?

Trump said he is done negotiating with his fellow Republicans. Either pass what’s on the table, he is saying, or we’ll just forget the whole thing.

What a way to lead.