Extremely Lazy Saturday Reads: International Incidents Galore

Good Afternoon!!

Once again, I’ve hit an mental and emotion wall after another depressing, exhausting week of tRump assaults on poor and elderly people, on science and the arts, and on our closest international allies.

Yesterday tRump managed to make an abject fool of himself in public by calling Fox News conspiracy theorist Andrew Napolitano a “very talented legal mind,” in trying to shift the blame for his shameful claim that former President Barack Obama “tapped my wires” in Trump Tower during the transition period.

Napolitano had been quoted by Sean Spicer on Wednesday as claiming that British intelligence had helped Obama wiretap Trump Tower. Napolitano is also a 9/11 truther who has appeared on Alex Jones’ radio show, but tRump thinks he’s brilliant.

The attack on British intelligence was the first international incident of the day. The second was when tRump refused to shake hands with Angela Merkel. tRump also publicly chastised Merkel and other European leaders during their press conference for not spending enough on their own defense.

All of this helped to demonstrate that Angela Merkel is the new leader of the free world and the U.S. “president” is a clear and present danger to America and the rest of the world.

How this brilliant woman could stand to be in the same room, much less try to communicate with this ignorant, repulsive misogynist, I’ll never understand, but she managed to remain dignified while the President of the United State {shudder} humiliated us before the world.

Shortly after the press conference ended, Fox News’ Shep Smith stated on air that “the network does not have any evidence that President Donald Trump was ever placed under surveillance, despite the his repeated insistence that former President Barack Obama’s intelligence agencies wiretapped his phones,” according to Politico.

BTW, Ivanka was seated next to Merkel in the Oval Office meeting!

https://twitter.com/linaloraprosser/status/842862151974969345

Last night Chris Matthew said it reminded him of something the Saudi royal family would do–including family members in high level meetings. Not bad, Chris!

tRump has gone all in for the disastrous GOP health care bill, which looks to be on it’s last legs–especially after Speaker Paul Ryan made his most revealing remarks yet about his personal motivations in writing and pushing Trump/Ryancare.

Slate: Paul Ryan: I’ve Been Dreaming About Kicking Poors Off Medicaid Since I Was a Drunk Frat Boy.

At the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit on Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan had an interesting exchange with National Review editor Rich Lowry about the AHCA’s changes to Medicaid:

Lowry: You have been very clear for years—and we’ve seen compelling PowerPoint presentations—about how the entitlements and entitlements growing out of control is driving the country into a ditch on the debt. And we have a president of the United States who basically seems pledged not to touch entitlements. Where does that leave us?

Ryan: So, the health care entitlements are the big, big, big drivers of our debt. There are three. Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare. Two out of three are going through Congress right now. So, Medicaid—sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate. We’ve been dreaming of this since you and I were drinking out of a keg.

Lowry: I was thinking about something else, he was thinking about reforming Medicaid.

Ryan: I was, I was! I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. We are on the cusp of doing something we’ve long believed in.

As I wrote the other day, Ryan is either a blithering idiot or a terrible politician. Apparently no one ever explained to him that you’re supposed to at least pretend to be at least a tiny bit compassionate, not blurt out heartless statements that clearly demonstrate your pure enjoyment in causing the poor, elderly, and disabled to sicken and die.

Do you suppose tRump even knows what this bill will do to his own biggest supporters? I doubt it. Ezra Klein thinks he may not be aware.

“I want everyone to know I’m 100 percent behind [the American Health Care Act],” President Trump said today. “The press has not been speaking properly about how great this is going to be. I watch, I say, ‘That’s not the bill we’re passing.’

But does Trump really know what’s in the bill he’s passing, or trying to pass?

With the help of Vox’s Jacob Gardenswartz, I collected and read absolutely everything Donald Trump has said publicly about the AHCA. The transcripts cover speeches, rallies, meetings with congressional leaders, interviews with friendly news outlets, and, of course, tweets.

I learned a few things from the exercise. First, Trump has a very limited set of talking points on health care, and he repeats the same words and sentences constantly — his comfort zone on both the issue and the legislation is very narrow.

Second, Trump seems confused about what the GOP bill does. It is possible, of course, that he knows more than he is saying, and has decided to simply say things that aren’t true. But it’s also possible he’s being spun by more ideologically motivated advisers (that’s certainly the narrative pro-Trump outlets like Breitbart are pushing).

Third, Trump has bought into a caricature of Obamacare’s condition that heavily informs his thinking on both the politics and the policy of the AHCA. This could prove more consequential than people realize.

The AHCA does literally none of the things Trump says it does.

On March 8, Trump laid out his case for the American Health Care Act. Here’s what he said:

It follows the guidelines I laid out in my congressional address: a plan that will lower costs, expand choices, increase competition, and ensure health care access for all Americans. This will be a plan where you can choose your doctor. This will be a plan where you can choose your plan.

These talking points are familiar enough that it’s easy to let them fade into the background. But it’s worth taking them seriously. This is Trump’s case for the bill he’s backing. Does he know that literally every single one of these points is wrong?

I’m sure tRump would never bother to read the bill, and there’s a good chance Paul Ryan has sold him a bill of goods, but I also doubt that tRump cares that his policies will literally kill people. The only thing he cares about his his own personal gratification.

Here’s a new horror from the tRump crowd via The Washington Post: Trump administration rolls back protections for people in default on student loans.

Days after a report on federal student loans revealed a double-digit rise in defaults, President Trump’s administration revoked federal guidance Thursday that barred student debt collectors from charging high fees on past-due loans.

The Education Department is ordering guarantee agencies that collect on defaulted debt to disregard a memo former President Barack Obama’s administration issued on the old bank-based federal lending program, known as the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program. That memo forbid the agencies from charging fees for up to 16 percent of the principal and accrued interest owed on the loans, if the borrower entered the government’s loan rehabilitation program within 60 days of default….

The two-page “Dear colleague” letter from the Trump administration walks back the department’s previous stance on the grounds that there should have been public input on the issue.

“The department will not require compliance with the interpretations set forth” in the previous memo “without providing prior notice and an opportunity for public comment on the issues,” the letter said.

The action does not affect any borrowers whose loans are held by the Education Department, according to the department. It could, however, impact nearly 7 million people with $162 billion in FFEL loans held by guarantee agencies.

Who cares if millions of people go bankrupt because of this tRump decision? Not tRump and his billionaire buddies.

Fortunately, many Americans do care about other people. The Washington Post: Meals on Wheels sees donation surge after Trump proposes funding cuts.

Senior citizens in one suburb could see Meals on Wheels deliveries cut in half if President Trump’s budget cuts become reality, a spokeswoman for the network told CNN, as it anticipated “deep cuts” to a nonprofit that serves 2.4 million Americans.

Donations surged to 50 times their daily rate Thursday, the spokeswoman said, after the White House proposed eliminating the Community Development Block Grant program.

While the block grants fund only a small portion of Meals on Wheels’ operations nationwide, spokeswoman Jenny Bertolette told CNN that some of the group’s 5,000 local branches rely on the money to bring food to people.

A Meals on Wheels branch outside Detroit, she said, would lose one-third of its budget without the grants. The branch in San Jose, Calif., would lose $100,000.

And the organization has speculated that Trump’s vague budget outline could also slash the Older Americans Act, which it says funds more than one-third of its operations across the United States.

A North Korean soldier had more access to Rex Tillerson than the U.S. media.

Another big story yesterday was the announcement by tRump’s secretary of state that he might (not completely clear) be considering the possibility of first strike on North Korea. Since SOS Rex Tillerson is basically refusing to answer questions from the media, we can’t be sure; but what he said sounded scary. The LA Times:

“Certainly we do not want things to get to a military conflict,” Tillerson told reporters in Seoul. But he added that “if North Korea takes actions that threaten the South Korean forces or our own forces, then that will be met with an appropriate response. If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action, that

There’s nothing new about the idea that the U.S. would defend South Korea against an attack from the North. But Tillerson seemed to be raising the possibility of a preemptive strike. If that was his meaning, the threat was premature, because the U.S. has other ways to deter North Korea. But the ambiguity of his words was itself a problem. Its vagueness recalled former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s warning earlier this year that he was putting Iran “on notice.”

Tillerson finally agreed to an interview with the Independent Journal Review, a right wing website. Business Insider provides a summary.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in his first sit-down interview since assuming his role as the nation’s top diplomat, addressed a number of pressing issues regarding the US’ role in the global order, the Korean peninsula, the precarious situation with North Korea, the US-China alliance, and his relationship with the press.

Tillerson said the US’ main objective with regard to the east is a denuclearized Korean peninsula.
He also believes that based on recent actions taken by North Korea, the nation is “an imminent threat” that China needs to work with the US to combat.

The secretary of state articulated a the need for a “higher level of dialogue” between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Tillerson said that his relationship with the press would be “trip dependent” and that he is not a “big media press access person.”

Regarding the revelation that he allegedly used an email alias to communicate with Exxon officials about the risks of climate change, Tillerson said he could not comment on it and that questions should be directed at Exxon Mobil.

That’s all I have for you today. Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great weekend.