Category Archives: Politics
Medicaid Addiction Crisis
Here’s a nifty graphic from Axios AM. It’s based on data gathered by The Kaiser Family Foundation. The data show that most people are covered by group health insurance. But Medicaid comes in second.
The Affordable Care Act encouraged states to expand Medicaid to the able bodied poor. The deal was that the feds would pay 100% of the costs until 2020 and 90% from then on.
Addiction to Medicaid
The Medicaid expansion created a new entitlement. And Governors like John Kasich got hooked on it. And, as with most addictions, the price skyrocketed.
Daniel Henninger in the WSJ finds it ironic that Republicans are using the opioid addiction crises as a reason not to cut back on soaring Medicaid expenses.
What an irony it is that one of the Republican arguments made now for preserving ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion is the opioid crisis. Even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Medicaid’s expansion was optional, some Republican governors got hooked on the promise of federal cash flow to the horizon.
Trump Putin Collusion
President Trump met with Russian President Putin for over two hours at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg. Secretary of State Tillerson says they had a “robust exchange“, and that Trump pushed Putin about interference in our election.
Collusion
Maybe. Who knows what really goes on behind closed doors?
But I think they pounded shots of vodka and colluded about collusion.
Trump Body Slams CNN Logo
No doubt you’ve seen the clip where President Trump body slams a CNN logo. Naturally, Trump retweeted it. The NYT has a good video back story to the tweet here.
The tweet was beneath the dignity of the presidency. But what else is new?
Media Condemns Trump Body Slam
I thought the clip was amusing. But others saw it as an incitement to violence against members of the media. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press issued a statement reflecting that view.
As it happens, I’m a member of the steering committee for RCFP. It’s an organization with a proud history defending unpopular speech. This is a case where we should have defended unpopular satire, not condemn it.
Here’s the RCFP statement:
On Sunday, President Donald Trump made a public statement on Twitter that glorified physical violence against members of the press.
Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, made the following statement:
“We condemn the president’s threat of physical violence against journalists. This tweet is beneath the office of the presidency. Sadly, it is not beneath this president.
“No one should be threatened with physical harm for doing their jobs. Journalists are your neighbors, they’re your friends. Journalists perform a critical function in our society, one the Founding Fathers felt was so necessary that they enshrined it first in the Bill of Rights.
“They wrote that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’
“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy. The press are the people’s window into the halls of power, and most importantly, they are the people’s check on that power. When the president attacks the press, he attacks the people.”
Nauseous Queasy Comey
Nauseous
Former FBI Director Comey said it made him mildly nauseous to think he might have influenced the 2016 election by publicly opining on the Hillary investigation.
Queasy
Not only that, he felt queasy about following his boss Loretta Lynch’s order to refer to the investigation as a “matter”.
Which I found mildly amusing.
Morning Trump Tweets Morning Joe
fiance’s 
Trump tweeted that Mika Brzezinski bled badly from a facelift. Mika mocked Trump’s small hands. And said it was only a chin tuck.
Morning Joe
Morning Joe spent the better part of his show defending the honor of his feminist fiance. Mika said Trump picks on women. Joe’s coat holder, Donnie Duetche, offered to go mano a mano with the president in the schoolyard. Like in the old days.
In the old days Trump’s hero, Andrew Jackson, took it outside with his enemies. He fought duels, and killed people.
Democrats say Trump’s already working on that.
