A local writer posted about stopping with the no-citations copy and paste stuff on Facebook. “Opinions, OK. Assertions of fact passed along without some source are rumors…Don’t play.”
I replied: “I suppose you’re right, although sometimes I think the info is SO obvious. e.g. someone was complaining about the proposed federal budget cutting EPA, et al, and someone else popped, “Citation, please.” Really? OK, here’s CBS, oh, and here’s WSJ and Common Dreams and… Are there no agreed upon facts anymore?”
Someone else chimed in: “It’s pathetic when Facebook friends have to demand higher standards for reposting than the President of the United States.”
And THAT, I suddenly realized, is one of the reasons it’s been such a tough winter. I wonder if it’s made me literally sick.
My friend Dan Van Riper has been saying for a while now what will bring a country down is “looting by the elites.” The draconian budget that will, among other things, cut medical research 20%, and the awful health plan are going to destroy our country if passed anywhere near their present forms. Why offer such an orgy of unnecessary cruelty?
Yale historian Timothy Snyder warns If We Don’t Act Now, Fascism Will Be on Our Doorstep; comments about fascism always seem to irritate people, but if the regime fits… And who IS running the show?
Most people who have been POTUS have stayed within a fairly wide swath of what one could call “American values.” Not so with this regime, measured by the fact that both GWB and BHO have, uncharacteristically, criticized him. His words before and after the election have inspired a pattern of ugly American behavior.
I won’t even get into his embarrassing behavior with Germany chancellor Angela Merkel or his idiot tweets that required a rare “sort of” apology to the UK’s Theresa May. Some are amused by his behavior, but I’m just horrified.
Last year, I was a believer in the “useful idiot theory”, that they’d dump him as soon as they wreaked the havoc to every agency and gotten their murderous health insurance allocation to the rich passed. But now he’s SO embarrassing on the world stage, and with the “health care” bill in trouble, maybe they need to dump him sooner or later, over some emoluments thing, likely.
(Serious questions that I do not know the answer to: are the tweets on the POTUS accounts buffeted somewhat from libels laws? And is Clarabelle, posting on realClarabelle, more susceptible to libel law?)
In fact, the only thing that makes sense – not “sense” in “that’s a good idea” but some sort of keep himself in power salvo is the Secretary of State’s threat to North Korea. Hey, everybody loves another war, right? Clarabelle will expect the country to rally around their “leader,” and Kim Jung Un is possibly the one head of state even more unhinged.
I don’t believe for a second that Trump is mentally one bit healthier or more stable than Kim Jung Un. The reason he needs so many sycophants around him, up to and including a clothing designer daughter having security clearance and an office in the White House, is to cover up or deflect from his worst offenses. The leader of North Korea should be so lucky.
I also bet Kim would have shaken Angela Merkel’s goddamned hand.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, urged House Republicans not to vote Thursday on their proposed Obamacare replacement plan as conservatives said the American Health Care Act likely does not have enough votes to pass.
President Donald Trump Tuesday headed to Capitol Hill for an arm-twisting session, warning the congressmen failure to adopt the AHCA will not only blow his legislative agenda but threaten their political careers.
More than two dozen GOP lawmakers remain opposed to the measure, derisively dubbed “Obamacare-lite,” meaning there are not enough votes to pass it in the face of unanimous Democratic opposition, the Washington Post reported.
Opponents of the bill include conservatives who wanted it to go further in dismantling the Affordable Care Act and moderates who fear it goes too far, endangering the health of their constituents.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan have said the AHCA is just the first step in a three-step process for reforming the U.S. healthcare system. Trump has pledged to provide health insurance for everyone at lower cost than currently available. Conservatives are opposed to a three-step plan and want the entire package offered at once.
“I am strongly, strongly persuaded that it is not going to pass. I think they should cancel the vote because they don’t have the votes,” Lee said on Fox News.
“The fact remains, they don’t have the votes to pass this. They need to bring people and who have concerns, bring in conservatives, let them express what their concerns are. We can still fix this.”
Lee, describing the bill as containing “false promise of providing Americans with meaningful healthcare cost relief,” said Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare has bee “hijacked by people who don’t share his values, by people who don’t share his desire to repeal Obamacare.”
Lee is one of six Republican senators who have said they would not vote for the AHCA, making Senate passage impossible.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., head of the House Freedom Caucus, said conservatives are not convinced they could lose their seats if they oppose the measure.
“We are standing firm as the only group of conservatives left in the United States Congress,” said Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., told the Hill.
(Booklet printing, printing in China).