Tag Archives: Donald Trump

medical news, national news, political news

GOP turns tables on Democrats

John Boehner was a year away from becoming speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, but he stood on the floor of the House to express his intense anger at his Democratic colleagues.

They were rushing the Affordable Care Act into law, the then-House minority leader declared. Democrats were shoving this “down our throats,” he hollered. He bellowed that no one had “read the bill!”

The ACA passed with no Republican votes.

Now the GOP is in charge of Congress. Boehner became speaker in 2011 and served until 2015. Republicans sought to repeal the ACA many times during Boehner’s tenure. They failed.

Now it’s Paul Ryan’s House. Speaker Ryan is working with a Republican president to enact something called the American Health Care Act.

What is the GOP strategy being mapped out by Ryan and Donald Trump. Why, they’re trying to rush this to a vote. They’re trying to “shove this down the throats” of conservative lawmakers who oppose it. They aren’t bothering to persuade Democrats, who are lined up en masse to oppose the AHCA, just as the GOP locked arms against the ACA in 2010.

Is it good enough now for Republicans to do the very thing they accused Democrats — with good reason, candidly — of doing?

Of course it isn’t!

The president declared that repealing and replacing the ACA was his top priority. The House was supposed to vote tonight on the AHCA. Ryan backed away from the vote. It’s now scheduled for Friday.

The president says a Friday vote — up or down — will be the end of his negotiating a replacement for the ACA. He said today he’s going to “move on” to other issues. Whether he does will depend on who gets to him. Trump does have this way of changing his mind.

Has there been sufficient comment and analysis on this Republican alternative to ACA, which was trotted out less than a month ago?

Nope. Not even close.

One difference between now and 2010: You aren’t going to hear the current House minority leader, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, screaming on the House floor about not having enough time to consider this health care insurance replacement. Rep. Pelosi is actually chuckling at what she calls the president’s “rookie mistakes.”

That’s the major difference. The tactics of today’s Republicans certainly resemble those employed by yesterday’s Democrats.

medical news

Picture speaks volumes about nature of health debate

This might be the most instructive picture taken during Donald J. Trump’s still-young presidency.

It cracks me up!

The picture shows a collection of individuals gathered around a White House conference room table. The topic at hand? Women’s health issues and whether the Republican-sponsored health care overhaul — the American Health Care Act — would cover certain aspects of health issues germane to women.

Pop quiz: Who is absent from this White House meeting.

Time’s up. The answer? Women. There isn’t a single woman present in this meeting of middle-aged men who are talking about whether the AHCA should include women’s health matters.

Media reported today that the white guys stood and gave Trump an ovation as he entered the room. I guess they were offering a show of respect for the president of the United States.

The person who should have gotten an even bigger round of applause would have been any female member of Trump’s policy team.

I have to wonder: What in the world would any of the people in the picture — even those who are actually married to women — bring to any serious discussion about women’s health?

They use a word in Washington to describe how certain gatherings appear to those who see them: They call them “optics.”

The optics of this meeting were stunning.

media news, medical news, national news, political news

Everyone has a limit, right, Sean Spicer?

Every man or woman — even White House press secretaries — would have their limits on the dissembling, confusion and outright lies with which he or she must contend.

Isn’t that right, Sean Spicer.

The current White House flack came to the podium today and declared that the House of Representatives would vote tonight on the American Health Care Act.

Then word came out that, nope, ain’t gonna happen — tonight! It’s been delayed. House Republicans are still trying to gather up enough  votes to send Trump/Ryancare to the Senate, where it faces an even less friendly pool of politicians.

Chaos, anyone?

It’s fair to wonder out loud about Sean Spicer, a man for whom I’m beginning to develop a certain level of sympathy. How much more of this can he take? How much longer will he be able to defend a president’s policies and the seat-of-the-pants process that produces them?

I don’t know much about Spicer, other than he served as Republican National Committee press secretary before joining the White House flackery machine.

Still, is this guy reaching his limit?

national news, political news

Stop the tease, Rep. Schiff, about ‘circumstantial evidence’

Now it’s a leading congressional Democrat who’s teasing the public with something — still unknown — relating to whether the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign was in cahoots with the Russians to influence the 2016 election.

Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC’s Chuck Todd that the committee has “more than circumstantial evidence” that the campaign and the Russians conspired to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

Really, Rep. Schiff? But you can’t tell us anything because it’s, um, classified. Is that right?

Imagine the buzz such a statement is making. No, you don’t have to imagine it. It’s all over the media.

It’s getting a bit testy in Washington, D.C., these days.

Neil Gorsuch is going through a grueling confirmation hearing to become the next Supreme Court justice; the president is twisting arms among House Republicans to get them to approve a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act; a terrorist struck in London, killing and injuring several bystanders; Republicans are calling for a special prosecutor to examine the Russia story; and the Intelligence Committee’s Republican chairman, Devin Nunes, blabbed to the president that his office in New York might have been the object of “incidental” surveillance by someone.

In the meantime, the FBI director has shot down in flames the president’s assertion that Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower.

Now we hear from the House Intelligence panel’s top Democrat that the committee might have the goods on whether the Trump campaign committed a potentially treasonous act by colluding with Russians goons who attacked our democratic electoral process.

Rep. Schiff has now acted in a sort of Trumpian fashion by teasing us with a morsel that might evolve into a full-course political meal.

Or … it might be a lot of nothing.

Which is it?

medical news, national news, political news

Trump the ‘deal-maker’ faces grievous setback

Donald J. Trump told us — many times — during the 2016 presidential campaign that the greatest skill he would bring to the presidency would be his ability to close the deal.

He made a fortune working out the “best” deals in the history of business … he said.

Here we are. Trump is now the president of the United States. He promised to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act with something more “affordable” and that no American would be left without health insurance.

Trump and congressional Republican leaders have produced something called the American Health Care Act. But there’s this little problem with it.

The Congressional Budget Office’s “scoring” of it pegs the number of Americans who would lose health insurance at 24 million. What’s more, the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives hates the AHCA. They call it “Obamacare light.”

So do congressional Democrats. No surprise there.

Crucial vote coming up

The AHCA goes to a vote Thursday in the House. Freedom Caucus members aren’t budging. The president went to Capitol Hill to pitch the AHCA. He threatened some House members that they’d lose their seats in 2018 if they oppose the bill.

Freedom Caucus leaders say they now have enough votes to kill the AHCA. Which means that a Senate vote won’t matter.

Wasn’t this supposed to be the president’s main selling point? Is this how he closes the deal?

The Affordable Care Act, which has brought 20 million Americans into the health insurance system who previously couldn’t afford it, appears to much harder to “repeal and replace” than Donald Trump predicted it would be.

I will await the president’s response to what appears to be a stunning political setback in the making. I’m wondering if he’s going to say the House vote was “rigged.”

International news

It’s getting deeper around the president

Is it me or does it seem that the doo-doo is piling up around the president of the United States of America?

* The FBI director says Donald Trump’s allegation that Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of his offices in New York City is bogus.

* Director James Comey then says his agency is conducting an investigation into whether there is possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump presidential campaign to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

Hang with me …

* Trump has contended that former campaign chief Paul Manafort had no contact with Russian officials. Then The Associated Press reports that Manafort got paid $10 million to work for Russian interests.

* House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said today that he has information that suggests Trump campaign officials were subjects of “incidental” surveillance.

* Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff said Nunes didn’t bother to tell other committee members before going public. Then came this from Schiff: The committee has “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

* Finally, Sen. John McCain — the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee — said today there needs to be a special counsel appointed to probe this Russia matter. Why? The Senate, he said, is no longer capable of doing the job.

McCain lays it on the line.

My head is spinning. It’s about to explode!

How can it be that we’re only two months into this new president’s administration and it is being eaten alive by these matters of its own making?

In the meantime, the president remains silent about Russia. He won’t acknowledge that the Obama wiretap allegation is as phony as his years-long assertion that Barack Obama was born in Africa and wasn’t qualified to serve as president.

We have a reckless serial liar serving as president of the United States.

However, of all the messiness that has soiled the president — and the presidency — the one that frightens me the most is the possibility that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to influence our presidential election.

I believe the word for that is “treason.”

national news, political news

Intelligence panel chair channels Trump with disclosure

Well now …

What in the world is going on here? The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes says someone surveilled Donald J. Trump’s e-mail during the time between the election and when he became president of the United States, which seems at first blush to give a tiny sliver of justification for what the president has alleged about that bogus wiretap assertion.

Not so fast, according to the Intelligence panel’s top-ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, who says Nunes didn’t follow anything close to proper protocol by making that announcement.

Not surprisingly, Schiff has doubts about what Chairman Nunes has suggested.

Schiff said the information Nunes reportedly has should have been shared with other committee members before he went public with it. Schiff said the committee hasn’t seen anything.

This makes me wonder: Is the chairman channeling Donald Trump, suggesting something out loud without any proof of what he’s saying?

Nunes isn’t saying, to be fair, that what he has discovered gives any credence to the bogus notion that former President Obama ordered a wiretap on Trump’s campaign offices in Trump Tower. Schiff, though, is angry with the chairman for blithely introducing this information without briefing other committee members.

He calls it a “profound irregularity.”

I just hope it doesn’t become a profound cover-up.

International news

How’s Trump playing abroad? Not well, apparently

1 Comment

I have to share this e-mail, which landed in my inbox overnight from a friend who lives in Australia.

He’s a former journalist and is an astute observer of U.S. politics.

Here is part of what he wrote:

“To describe today’s events in the House Committee hearing as ‘riveting’ wouldn’t even begin to capture the breadth, depth, scope and implications of what is unfolding your way. 

“How long can Trump continue in this bubble, immune to the consequences of his words and deeds? By the looks of things, indefinitely… while his enablers continue catching his flak and dissembling incessantly.

“Surely after (FBI Director James) Comey’s testimony and its likely implications, half the bloody administration is likely to be marched out of the White House in handcuffs sometime soon to the nearest penitentiary to await trial for treason!!! For the life of me, I do not know how the country is still functioning in the midst of this. This must sit somewhere between Watergate and the Civil War in terms of crisis to the union.”

To my friend, and I’m sure he knows this, the country is “functioning” because the presidency is just one element of our government. Thank goodness for that.

Should we care what citizens of other countries think of what’s happening with Donald Trump and all this Russia business?

Uh, yeah! The president is managing to wreck the credibility of the high office he occupies.

That credibility involves our geopolitical relationships with other countries all over the planet … and that includes Australia, one of this nation’s staunchest allies and whose head of government received a tongue-lashing from the president, who hung up on him.

national news, political news

GOP rising against Trump’s bogus wiretap claim

1 Comment

Donald Trump needs to take it back. He didn’t mean what he said about Barack Obama allegedly wiretapping his successor as president of the United States.

That’s the word coming from a growing number of Republican members of Congress, both senators and House members. They are feeling shamed by the president’s recklessness, his utter disregard for propriety and his misunderstanding of due process.

Will the president do as his fellow Republicans are demanding? I am not holding my breath. I am not at all confident that the president will issue anything resembling a sincere mea culpa for what he has done.

GOP piles on

What is that? He has essentially defamed his predecessor. He has accused the former president of committing a felony.

He said President Obama ordered a wiretap, which he cannot do under U.S. law. Who’s the authority on that? Oh, let’s see … the director of the FBI, James Comey, who on Monday shattered the president’s assertion about a wiretap that never occurred.

How does this president take it back? It would have to involve an actual apology, something Trump says he’s never done.

The wiretap allegation follows the pattern of lies, deceit and innuendo that Trump has demonstrated repeatedly since the moment he declared his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015.

Many of us expressed concern from the outset about Trump’s fitness for the presidency. I will submit yet again that the president is not fit for the office he occupies.

Even a retraction of the Twitter tantrum that ignited this firestorm will do little to assuage concerns about his moral fitness to be president.

If it comes — and if the president follows the advice of his fellow Republicans — he damn sure better do a better job of it than when he declared at the end of a lengthy statement about some hotel he had opened that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States.

Would a retraction end this discussion? It might end talk of the specific allegation Trump has made against Obama. As for the president’s continual use of Twitter to make ridiculous statements that articulate some form of U.S. policy, well … that’s another matter altogether.

legal news, media news

So long, Judge Napolitano

Readers of this blog know that I am not likely to offer many compliments to the Fox News Channel.

I am about to break tradition and declare that Fox has done the right thing by taking a loudmouth “legal analyst” off the air for blabbing something utterly irresponsible.

Andrew Napolitano has been yanked off the air indefinitely by Fox for declaring on the air that a British intelligence agency was complicit in wiretapping Donald J. Trump’s campaign office in New York City. The agency, according to the former judge, was working at the behest of former President Obama; Napolitano, therefore, was giving credence to the scurrilous charge leveled by Trump that Obama had ordered the wiretap at Trump Tower.

FBI Director James Comey debunked Trump’s tweet today in a congressional hearing.

Fox gives judge the boot.

Meanwhile, we have this (so-called) judge keeping this lie alive by suggesting that the Brits played a role in an event that — according to Comey — did not occur.

I hope Fox boots this clown off the air for keeps, even though he most likely would end up somewhere else spouting such reckless right-wing bile.