Friday Donald Trump takes the oath and becomes the Oaf of office. He now has the Republican controlled Congress stewing because of his claim that he is nearly completed a plan to replace the affordable care act. This plan will ensure everyone, decrease deductibles and be less costly . This is not what the Republican Congress has in mind and of course it is impossible. Our citizens need health insurance and that the cost issue is the total cost in percentage of GDP to the country to provide reasonable healthcare to its citizens. Now, the odds are that Donald Trump really has no plan. But, he certainly has Congress upset.
Putin continues to demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate Donald Trump. Tell Donald Trump how great he is and that those who criticize him are wrong, malicious and disreputable. Donald Trump is amazed at Putin's insight and intelligence and judgment.
One interesting thing about Donald Trump is that he substitutes adjectives for analysis on a wholesale basis. He doesn't explain or analyze his foreign policy, just says it will be huge and tremendous. The people he nominates are brilliant. Of course, Donald trumps IQ test is simply to read a bank balance. It appears that, other than Putin, Trump is making World leaders extremely nervous. He undoubtably believes this to be a strategic accomplishment. It can be a tactical advantage in the short run to confuse and confound. And the United States does have the advantage of being the most important and powerful nation on earth. But it is difficult to imagine that Donald Trump will do anything other than make a complete mess of things using these tools. He has made it impossible promises to the American public which he seems to think will be paid for by the rest of the world. Guess what, those other countries also have citizens with demands. When he takes on China, he had better remember that an authoritarian Government has a natural advantage in contesting with a messy democracy.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
The Donald Trump Selfy
I have been to Cancun recently. As in common with most tourist destinations, One sees a lot of selfies being taken. It occurred to me that the selfy is a perfect metaphor for Donald Trump. Everything is about him. He lives a truly solipsistic life. There is no independent reality out there which he needs to know or understand. Whatever pops into his picture of himself is more than adequate. He is similar to the French statesman, whose name I don't right now recall, probably Napoléon or some Louis, said. The state is me. Having accomplished what nearly everyone said could not be accomplished, and doing it in a way that everyone said would not work, Donald Trump feels no need for advice nor consent.
Apparently someone told him over the weekend that the Mercedes, Audi, And the BMW Automobiles are manufactured in Germany. He now is focusing on Germany and finds Angela Merkel no more trustworthy then Vladimir Putin. He undoubtedly believes he can require those automobiles to be manufactured in Pennsylvania Ohio Wisconsin or Michigan. Either that or prohibitive tariffs.
As we proceed towards Friday and the total eclipse of intelligence in the White House , we are getting closer to seeing what he will actually attempt to do. It will be interesting to see how the Republicans who have been railing against what they perceive it as an autocratic White House will have to say about Donald Trump. To paraphrase e e Cummings, how do you like your blue-eyed boy?
Apparently someone told him over the weekend that the Mercedes, Audi, And the BMW Automobiles are manufactured in Germany. He now is focusing on Germany and finds Angela Merkel no more trustworthy then Vladimir Putin. He undoubtedly believes he can require those automobiles to be manufactured in Pennsylvania Ohio Wisconsin or Michigan. Either that or prohibitive tariffs.
As we proceed towards Friday and the total eclipse of intelligence in the White House , we are getting closer to seeing what he will actually attempt to do. It will be interesting to see how the Republicans who have been railing against what they perceive it as an autocratic White House will have to say about Donald Trump. To paraphrase e e Cummings, how do you like your blue-eyed boy?
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Trump versus truth
Over 50 years ago George Orwell wrote a great essay entitled "politics in the English language". The essay demonstrated how politician used language to obfiscate what they were up to.Later he followed up with 1984 where lying took the place of obfiscation.
Today, at his you should excuse the expression press conference Donald Trump was engaged in step one. When it came to the intelligence report, he either refuse to answer or simply attacked the press for reporting. He also refused to let CNN ask a question. At this point, there is no question that Trump will double down on his mendacious ways and continue to attack journalists who accurately report what he says and does. Most of the heavy lifting in this effort will be done by his surrogates, spokesman, apologists and strategists. This group will neither cease nor repent.
Journalists need to see they are in a war. They need to be as blunt and direct as is Donald Trump when he attacks them. Every day they need to report every new misstatement, Falsehood and inconsistency. They need to hammer at the implausibility of his promises and what he is actually doing that is inconsistent.
Yesterday Carl Bernstein, a real journalist, called Kellyanne the Minister of propaganda. David Brooks last week remarked that Trump continued to be distracted by bright or shiny objects. It is necessary to belittle and make fun of Donald Trump because it is all that he understands. He also is so thin-skinned that he cannot stand it and will it expose himself increasingly as the fool he is.
This is a sad state of affairs but it calls for realism. Absent some epiphany, the Trump we have seen and are seeing is what we are going to get.
Today, at his you should excuse the expression press conference Donald Trump was engaged in step one. When it came to the intelligence report, he either refuse to answer or simply attacked the press for reporting. He also refused to let CNN ask a question. At this point, there is no question that Trump will double down on his mendacious ways and continue to attack journalists who accurately report what he says and does. Most of the heavy lifting in this effort will be done by his surrogates, spokesman, apologists and strategists. This group will neither cease nor repent.
Journalists need to see they are in a war. They need to be as blunt and direct as is Donald Trump when he attacks them. Every day they need to report every new misstatement, Falsehood and inconsistency. They need to hammer at the implausibility of his promises and what he is actually doing that is inconsistent.
Yesterday Carl Bernstein, a real journalist, called Kellyanne the Minister of propaganda. David Brooks last week remarked that Trump continued to be distracted by bright or shiny objects. It is necessary to belittle and make fun of Donald Trump because it is all that he understands. He also is so thin-skinned that he cannot stand it and will it expose himself increasingly as the fool he is.
This is a sad state of affairs but it calls for realism. Absent some epiphany, the Trump we have seen and are seeing is what we are going to get.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
It's about Donald Trump
Donald Trump's reaction to his briefing by the intelligence committee yesterday was both remarkable and predictable. He was and is obsessed with the notion that it was entirely his brilliance that caused him to win the election and no other forces were involved. To that end, he cannot accept but he was told because it suggests that the Russians intentionally attempted to affect the election in his favor, whether they actually did so or not. This is unbearable to trump because it suggests that maybe the election was affected by the Russians and maybe they wanted him to win.
This is still the same Putin that invaded Georgia during the Bush administration, attacked and annexed the Crimea, invaded the Ukraine, bombed the anti-Asad forces in Syria and is now rattling his swords in the Balkans. He does not wish to the US well. Given that, why would he wish Trump to win the election? If we choose the most obvious answer, it is because he believes Trump to be susceptible to manipulation. In fact, egomaniacs tend to be the easiest to manipulate. Trump is revealing himself to be a breathtaking combination of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence.
We now await kellyanne or one of his other apologists to appear in the next day or so attempting to deflect from what we have just seeing. They will wish to discuss only some version of blaming whatever Russia did on the Obama administration and perhaps its predecessors. They will not wish to discuss what Russia actually did and why. Further, they will state that Mr. Trump has strategies to deal with Russia, Syria, North Korea, Etc. That will be revealed at a later date.
It becomes more and more clear that Mr. Trump is a potential disaster. If he is unwilling to listen to the intelligence Community, given his ignorance he will be totally adrift. One of the great dangerous about this man is he will seek to prove that he is smarter and more clever then anyone else in government. We can expect bold stupid moves. In the area of foreign-policy, the president has a great deal of authority and discretion. In the wrong hands, that is more than troublesome.
This is still the same Putin that invaded Georgia during the Bush administration, attacked and annexed the Crimea, invaded the Ukraine, bombed the anti-Asad forces in Syria and is now rattling his swords in the Balkans. He does not wish to the US well. Given that, why would he wish Trump to win the election? If we choose the most obvious answer, it is because he believes Trump to be susceptible to manipulation. In fact, egomaniacs tend to be the easiest to manipulate. Trump is revealing himself to be a breathtaking combination of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence.
We now await kellyanne or one of his other apologists to appear in the next day or so attempting to deflect from what we have just seeing. They will wish to discuss only some version of blaming whatever Russia did on the Obama administration and perhaps its predecessors. They will not wish to discuss what Russia actually did and why. Further, they will state that Mr. Trump has strategies to deal with Russia, Syria, North Korea, Etc. That will be revealed at a later date.
It becomes more and more clear that Mr. Trump is a potential disaster. If he is unwilling to listen to the intelligence Community, given his ignorance he will be totally adrift. One of the great dangerous about this man is he will seek to prove that he is smarter and more clever then anyone else in government. We can expect bold stupid moves. In the area of foreign-policy, the president has a great deal of authority and discretion. In the wrong hands, that is more than troublesome.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Who lies?
The media is engaging in a sophomoric self-indulgent and tedious discussion of whether when Donald Trump lies they should so report it. Donald Trump is basically a creation of the electronic media. First it was the apprentice which gave him national prominence. Then it was all the" earned media" during the republican primaries that constantly had him before the public. Now the media seems unable to do its job. It obviously takes itself very seriously but not doing its job very seriously .
Today in the Wall Street Journal Donald Trump was quoted as saying that the media lies. Those lies appeared to be based upon the practice of accurately quoting his inconsistent statements. Hello pundits, when he lies say so. And while you are at it, how about relentlessly posing questions to tromp, by printing or stating them as he is not going to make himself available for questioning, such as what is your job creation plan? How are you going to bring back more coal mining jobs? How are you going to bring back good manufacturing jobs to the rust belt? Do you have any real plans other than tax cuts for corporations and the individually wealthy?
Donald Trump should be relentlessly questioned. It is becoming increasingly clear that, to paraphrase Flip Wilson what we saw is what we get. While the media is having its endless and tedious introspective dialogs, remember that Trump himself, and his republican colleagues, relentlessly called Hillary Clinton is a liar. Trump also used promiscuously the phrase lying Ted Cruz.
It is just possible that blunt language is highly effective with the voting public.
Media, do your job and quit giving us endless streams of Kellyanne Conway explaining why day is actually night.
Today in the Wall Street Journal Donald Trump was quoted as saying that the media lies. Those lies appeared to be based upon the practice of accurately quoting his inconsistent statements. Hello pundits, when he lies say so. And while you are at it, how about relentlessly posing questions to tromp, by printing or stating them as he is not going to make himself available for questioning, such as what is your job creation plan? How are you going to bring back more coal mining jobs? How are you going to bring back good manufacturing jobs to the rust belt? Do you have any real plans other than tax cuts for corporations and the individually wealthy?
Donald Trump should be relentlessly questioned. It is becoming increasingly clear that, to paraphrase Flip Wilson what we saw is what we get. While the media is having its endless and tedious introspective dialogs, remember that Trump himself, and his republican colleagues, relentlessly called Hillary Clinton is a liar. Trump also used promiscuously the phrase lying Ted Cruz.
It is just possible that blunt language is highly effective with the voting public.
Media, do your job and quit giving us endless streams of Kellyanne Conway explaining why day is actually night.
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Our new fearless leaders flounder on
It should come as no surprise that any group or concept containing the word intelligence would be anathema to Donald Trump. He doesn't need any pointy headed professionals explaining things to him. He knows things that other people don't. It would be wonderful if someone could surreptitiously film and distribute his meeting tomorrow with the heads of the intelligence agencies. It could be some of the most entertaining political satire, even if inadvertent on the part of Donald Trump, since Groucho Marx was the prime minister of Fredonia.
On the economic front, during the the campaigns it was, One thought, Clear is that perhaps the only Area of agreement twixt the R's and the D's was the need for infrastructure development and the con -comitent creation of jobs. Now the Republican Congress is going to delay any consideration of infrastructure development for at least 100 days. They seem to have no concept that there is a lag time between authorization and the start of construction. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Republicans cling to their fantasy that unleashed market forces will cure all. They seem obsessed with their economic models, particularly those favored by Paul Ryan, even though nonpartisan economists have consistently called them implausible. It is of course difficult to predict the future but these guys can't even look backward with clarity. I had thought that Kenneth Arrow, who received a Nobel prize for the economic model he created, long ago concluded that the conditions for those models to work are never met.
We are going to see if a sexually obsessed big businessman will be a successful leader of the country. It certainly worked for Italy with Berlusconi.
On the economic front, during the the campaigns it was, One thought, Clear is that perhaps the only Area of agreement twixt the R's and the D's was the need for infrastructure development and the con -comitent creation of jobs. Now the Republican Congress is going to delay any consideration of infrastructure development for at least 100 days. They seem to have no concept that there is a lag time between authorization and the start of construction. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Republicans cling to their fantasy that unleashed market forces will cure all. They seem obsessed with their economic models, particularly those favored by Paul Ryan, even though nonpartisan economists have consistently called them implausible. It is of course difficult to predict the future but these guys can't even look backward with clarity. I had thought that Kenneth Arrow, who received a Nobel prize for the economic model he created, long ago concluded that the conditions for those models to work are never met.
We are going to see if a sexually obsessed big businessman will be a successful leader of the country. It certainly worked for Italy with Berlusconi.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
It is healthcare, not a health insurance that is needed
In common with many, I was disappointed with the affordable care act. The Democrats had a great opportunity but lacked resolve. They did not pass the public option aspect of paying for healthcare. Undoubtedly, many were scared off by the effective insurance industry charge of 1992 the 1993. So, the Democrats adopted what was essentially the Republican counterproposal in 1993 one of the great missed opportunities of all-time.
Now, republicans are up to bat. They tend to talk mostly about better health insurance as opposed to healthcare. They are perhaps the most mendacious group of politicians in our history from day one they call the affordable care act a job killer which it clearly was not. They seized upon Obama's statement that if you like your Health insurance you can keep it. Why none of his handlers inserted the simple statement" for the vast majority of Americans" in front of that phrase I'll never know.
The Republicans led by Paul Ryan and Mike Pence are claiming the affordable care act was an unmitigated disaster. The response of the Democrats should be simple. If it is a total disaster as you say, why not just repeal it? Return to the status quo ante of the Bush administration. Nobody should be unhappy. The Republican answer will be some sort of nonsense about driving down the cost of health insurance by market forces and competition. They apparently have never looked at the demand curve nor the fact that in many states market share is our highly concentrated. They also seem to ignore the fact that the cost of healthcare is at the provider level. At this juncture, all health insurance does is provide an administrative cost approximately 15% more than Medicare. The insurance payment scheme is a dinosaur. Health insurance is not really an insurance product anyway. One ensures against costs which may arise. Other than those who have a swift and sudden death, everyone will have health costs and they will largely occur later in life. Paying for healthcare needs to be similar to social security. Everyone should pay over a lifetime including while they are healthy.
In Mike Pense/s state of Indiana, With the blessing of the administration they were allowed to adopt a Medicaid expansion plan but call it Indiana care. It has worked well and incorporates many of the methodologies built into the affordable care act to lower provider costs and make healthcare providers responsible for results instead of the number of procedures. Oddly enough, Pence. doesn't mention this.
I repeat. The Democrats should simply say if it is as bad as you say repeal it, obviously nobody would care and would be happy to return to the wonderful days I'll healthcare under the Bush administration.
Now, republicans are up to bat. They tend to talk mostly about better health insurance as opposed to healthcare. They are perhaps the most mendacious group of politicians in our history from day one they call the affordable care act a job killer which it clearly was not. They seized upon Obama's statement that if you like your Health insurance you can keep it. Why none of his handlers inserted the simple statement" for the vast majority of Americans" in front of that phrase I'll never know.
The Republicans led by Paul Ryan and Mike Pence are claiming the affordable care act was an unmitigated disaster. The response of the Democrats should be simple. If it is a total disaster as you say, why not just repeal it? Return to the status quo ante of the Bush administration. Nobody should be unhappy. The Republican answer will be some sort of nonsense about driving down the cost of health insurance by market forces and competition. They apparently have never looked at the demand curve nor the fact that in many states market share is our highly concentrated. They also seem to ignore the fact that the cost of healthcare is at the provider level. At this juncture, all health insurance does is provide an administrative cost approximately 15% more than Medicare. The insurance payment scheme is a dinosaur. Health insurance is not really an insurance product anyway. One ensures against costs which may arise. Other than those who have a swift and sudden death, everyone will have health costs and they will largely occur later in life. Paying for healthcare needs to be similar to social security. Everyone should pay over a lifetime including while they are healthy.
In Mike Pense/s state of Indiana, With the blessing of the administration they were allowed to adopt a Medicaid expansion plan but call it Indiana care. It has worked well and incorporates many of the methodologies built into the affordable care act to lower provider costs and make healthcare providers responsible for results instead of the number of procedures. Oddly enough, Pence. doesn't mention this.
I repeat. The Democrats should simply say if it is as bad as you say repeal it, obviously nobody would care and would be happy to return to the wonderful days I'll healthcare under the Bush administration.
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