Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Senate readies for ‘nuclear’ attack on rules

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All this hubbub over whether to deploy the “nuclear option” to get a Supreme Court justice confirmed has my head spinning.

My emotions are terribly mixed.

Here is where we stand:

* The U.S. Senate Committee has recommended that Neil Gorsuch be confirmed to the Supreme Court; the panel voted along partisan lines. Republicans voted “yes,” Democrats voted “no.”

* Democrats are set to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination as payback to their Republican “friends” for blocking an earlier appointment, again on partisan grounds.

* Senate rules require Supreme Court nominees to garner at least 60 votes. Republicans at this moment don’t have enough votes to reach the 60-vote threshold — and break a Democratic filibuster.

* Republicans, thus, are pondering whether to “go nuclear” and change the rules to allow only a simple majority to approve a high court nominee.

Ohhhh, what to do?

We’ve already stipulated that Democratic senators don’t want Gorsuch seated if only because of the steamroll job GOP senators did on Merrick Garland, whom Barack Obama nominated to the court to succeed the late Antonin Scalia.

Why the emotional conflict?

I happen to believe in presidential prerogative. I believe the president’s selection deserves greater consideration than the Senate’s constitutional right to reject an appointment, particularly if the appointee is “well qualified,” as the American Bar Association has determined about Gorsuch.

But my belief in presidential prerogative is tempered a good bit by the outrage I share with Democratic senators over the way Republican senators stonewalled Garland’s nomination, how they played politics by saying the next appointment belonged to “the next president.”

They were as wrong as they could be in denying President Obama the right to select someone, who I feel compelled to add is every bit as qualified to serve on the high court as Neil Gorsuch.

Should the Republican majority throw its weight around once again by engaging in that so-called “nuclear option” and change the rules to suit their own agenda?

Let me think for a moment about that one.

No. They shouldn’t!

media news, national news, political news

No one saw this ‘trainwreck’? Not … exactly

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Donald J. Trump’s administration has demonstrated with amazing clarity what many of us believed all along: The president does not know how to govern.

The Los Angeles Times has just published the first of a series of editorials in which the newspaper proclaims that no one saw the trainwreck that would occur.

I beg to differ.

Dishonesty reigns in the White House

Here is part of what the Times wrote: “What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.”

The myriad problems that are plaguing the president — and the presidency — appear to be so much a result of self-inflicted ignorance and hubris.

At some levels, Trump is governing the way he said he would. He boasted that “I alone” can repair what he said was broken.

That is not how the founders structured this government of ours. Then again, the president doesn’t know about that, because he appears to demonstrate no interest in learning about what those great men envisioned for the government they created.

How will the president view the criticism that the LA Times has leveled at him? Oh, he’ll no doubt tweet something about how the paper is “failing,” or how it relies on “fake news,” apparently with no self-awareness that he became the king of fake news when he continued to promote the lie that Barack Obama was born overseas and wasn’t qualified constitutionally to serve as president.

The LA Times — if you’ll allow me to borrow a phrase — is “telling it like it is.”

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Trump wants more coal jobs … but at what cost?

The president of the United States must be unable to contain himself.

That’s what I believe is happening as Donald J. Trump seeks to undo some valuable environmental regulations designed to do those silly things … such as provide for cleaner air to breathe.

Trump continues to p*** me off. And a lot of other Americans, too.

As Reuters reported: “Flanked by coal miners, Trump enacted his ‘Energy Independence’ executive order at the Environmental Protection Agency. A coalition of 23 states and local governments vowed to fight the order in court.”

What does this mean? Here’s what I believe it does: It rolls back many of the regulations enacted during the Obama administration that are aimed to promote alternative energy production.

You know … things like wind, solar, hydropower. The clean stuff. The sources that regenerate immediately and are far more environmentally responsible than digging and drilling for fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

Trump will have none of that, by golly. He said he’s keeping a campaign promise to bring jobs back to the coal industry. He also pledged to make America totally “energy independent.”

Interesting. The United States already has become the world’s largest producer of fossil-fuel energy. Are we still importing some of the crude? Yes, but our imported-oil-to-domestic-production ratio has been declining steadily over the past decade or so.

I recall during the 2016 presidential campaign how Republicans and other foes of Hillary Rodham Clinton skewered her over remarks she made about supposedly “putting the coal industry out of business.” They never mentioned, of course, the rest of Clinton’s statements in that regard, which dealt with job-retraining for those former coal-mine workers.

Trump seized on Clinton’s statements and beat her senseless with the half-truths about what she had said.

Now he’s signed an executive order to bring all those coal jobs back. At what cost? Are we going to pollute our air with carbon emissions? Are we going to keep contributing — as scientists around the world have affirmed is occurring — to the gradual warming of Planet Earth?

Yes, human activity is contributing to that potential worldwide disaster.

One more point needs to be made.

We have done much to clean our air and water while at the same time producing more energy from more alternative sources than ever before.

The president is just flat wrong on this one.

legal news, national news

What gives with Chairman Nunes?

What is it with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes?

He is up to his armpits with information pertaining to Donald Trump’s possible involvement with Russian hackers and their effort to swing the election in his favor. Nunes also is privy to the circumstances surrounding the president’s phony allegation that Barack Obama “ordered” a wiretap of Trump’s offices in New York City.

He then meets with the president — in the White House! — to tell him about “incidental” intelligence that might have been gathered.

Now we hear that he had a meeting prior to going to the White House with someone, supposedly the source of that “incidental” intelligence.

According to NBC News: “‘Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source,’ said his spokesman, Jack Langer.”

What did they discuss?

Hmmm. I presume you’ll recall the time former President Clinton boarded an airplane in Phoenix to talk to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, whose department was investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mail matter. Republicans raised all kinds of hell about the appearance of impropriety. They just didn’t know for certain what the ex-president and the AG discussed and they all but accused President Clinton of trying to get Lynch to back off her department’s probe.

Lynch and Clinton said they talked about all manner of things — except that issue.

So, I believe it’s reasonable to ask: What did Chairman Nunes discuss at the White House — and with whom did he discuss it?

I am now believing that Devin Nunes should not be chairing the House committee that’s assigned to investigate these increasingly frightening matters involving the president of the United States.

medical news

They want to let ACA ‘explode’ before stepping in?

Donald J. Trump couldn’t have been clearer immediately after the Republican “alternative” to the Affordable Care Act went down in flames.

The president said he intends to let the ACA “explode” before doing anything else. That’s it. The president is ready to watch millions of Americans lose their health insurance the instant the existing health insurance plan disintegrates.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney echoed the president’s view this morning in an appearance on “Meet the Press.” Let it blow apart, he said. Then we’ll get busy with an alternative.

What a crock!

First of all, many of us doubt the Trump team’s belief that the ACA is doomed to fail. Millions of Americans keep signing up for health insurance covered by former President Obama’s signature domestic initiative. They’re continuing to purchase insurance they couldn’t afford until the ACA was enacted.

Yet we keep hearing assertions about the ACA suffering from a “death spiral.” That it’s doomed to croak.

I believe it’s good to remind congressional Republicans that they had nearly eight years to come up with an alternative to the ACA. They didn’t. They threw something together after their guy Trump took office.

Is it going to blow apart? The Trumpkins believe it will. I guess they’re entitled to their belief. However, if they’re so damn certain that the ACA will fail, why in the world are they waiting for the worst outcome before coming up with a way to improve it?

That isn’t leadership. It’s petulance.

national news, political news

Trump is no Obama as a negotiator

Donald J. Trump’s reputation as a first-class “dealmaker” is now in shambles. It’s been trampled by his own ego and his own petulance.

The deal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act became a victim of the president’s inability and unwillingness to even talk to Democrats. Let’s forget for a moment that the replacement bill couldn’t get enough Republican votes in the House to approve it. It was cobbled together virtually overnight, in secret, by Republican congressional leaders who handed it to a president who didn’t know — or care — about the details it contained.

How did the ACA come into being?

Its author, President Barack Obama, sought out congressional Republican leaders. One of them happened to be now-Speaker Paul Ryan, who at the time was chairman of the House Budget Committee. He sought out Sen. Mitch McConnell, who would become majority leader in the upper chamber. He talked to Republicans and implored them to come up with a better plan than the one he and his administration had assembled.

The GOP didn’t budge. The president then was left to rely on his Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate to approve the ACA. They did. Republicans howled about having the bill “shoved down our throats.”

What happened this past week bears little resemblance to what happened in 2010. What the current president and the current speaker sought to do was foist a bill on the public that didn’t have the support of most members within their own political party.

There. That’s my take on it.

Do not believe the baloney that Donald Trump is a master “dealmaker.” He’s nothing of the kind. The president has been schooled by politicians who don’t like being bullied.

Trump told us that “I, alone” can repair the things he said need to be fixed. No sir. You alone cannot.

***

I want to share with you a hilariously astute column by one of the best columnists in America. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd has peeled the bark off the president, someone she says she knows quite well.

Dowd speaks a blunt, brutal truth in her “letter” to the president of the United States.

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

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.

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.