By Sid Schwab
This is hard. Try winnowing topics, when every day brings another outrage against truth, justice and the American way. So much to say, so little space and time. Today’s column is catch-up and other condiments.
Brazenly gifting the wealthy while leaving the needy behind, the health plan coughed up by our Republican Houseguests is as hypocritical and heartless as predicted. (New Yorker: tinyurl.com/ryan-flop) (Definitely not a bribe, health insurance execs get the greatest tax breaks of all. Not lottery winners, though, to whom nearly 10 percent of its pages are devoted.)
Assembled in secret, pieced from decades of desiccated Republican health care ideas, it’s been pitchforked from all sides. Viable or not, it demonstrates to whom that party is beholden, for whom they have the least concern, and over whose eyes they’ve pulled the wool. Ryan wants a fast vote, before it’s scored by the CBO. Years in the making, still hiding from the light.
Yet again, Ben Carson proved cognition isn’t required to separate brains, and not just by referring to slaves as immigrants. There’s his frontal-lobe-slapping claim about brain stimulation and memory. He definitely didn’t learn it in med school. Breitbart, maybe. He’ll be a fabulous leader at HUD.
Trump was furious that J. Beauregard Sessions, straight-up liar to Congress about meeting with Russians, recused himself from hypothetical Justice Department investigations of the Trump/Russia nexus. No doubt he’d been counting on J-Bo to steer snoopage away from the crux.
Were his tweets about Obama wiretaps manifestations of his paranoid and increasingly worrisome dissociative disorder, or a ploy to keep the media off the Sessions/perjury Trump/Russia scent? Either way, demanding an investigation seems capricious at best, especially if Congressional Republicans were to allow (unlikely) a deep dive by independent investigators. If they do, it might 1) discover there were indeed wiretaps of people near to Trump, b) confirm they were legally authorized by a FISA judge, not Obama, based on compelling evidence of illegal activities, and iii) help us understand Trump’s connections and deference to Putin. Bring it!
Why so little concern among Trumpophiles over the network enmeshing Trump, his family, his henchmob and Russians within or near to their government? Is it statistical happenstance that the number of Russian functionaries found dead since Election Day, including several directly connected to Gang Trump, is up to eight? (Daily Caller: tinyurl.com/7-dead-russ) Among them is a person involved in the allegation of a micturative video involving Donald in Russia. Nothing, Trump defenders? No worry that the Gold House has been sublet to the Kremlin? How would you be treating this if Obama were president? Ben Carson is wrong about the brain’s memory functions, but it sure has the power to rationalize.
Reversing an Obama order, Republicans made it easier for companies to cheat and endanger employees. (Demos: tinyurl.com/cheat-allow)
Do Trumpists still think Obama golfed too much?
Trump lies with abandon. How do we know when he’s not? (Charlotte Observer: tinyurl.com/know-lie)
For Trump’s infrastructure plan, we’ll pay tolls. (Resistance Report: tinyurl.com/infra-tolls)
To finance its immigration crackdown, Chez Bannon is considering cutting FEMA, the Coast Guard, and airport and rail security. Only in Trumpworld is that rational. (Politico: tinyurl.com/cut-secure)
Trump deceived us about requiring American steel for pipelines, and Russia wins the gold. Rubles to a Putin pal. (Desmog: tinyurl.com/steel-pal)
Speaking of corruption, here’s a fascinating exploration of Trump’s connection to Azerbaijani deplorables and Iranian terrorists: (New Yorker: tinyurl.com/azer-crime).
Are local Trump apologists OK with defunding Puget Sound cleanup? Great Lakes, too? Waste of money, was it? What’s more important, clean waters to support marine life (and, therefore, us) and to drink, or another aircraft carrier for Trump to strut around on, flight-jacketed? Might national security be better maintained by attending to our own neighborhood, especially since we already have the most powerful and sophisticated military in the solar system? It’s not enough, spending more than the next fourteen nations combined? They’re also cutting NOAA’s and NASA’s ability to study our home planet. That’s even worse for security. Madness is what it is.
Squeezing those agencies, of course, and others, fits with Trump’s and Congress’ fear of inconvenient research that produces facts they’d rather ignore. Expect more suppression.
And now, leaving the surface nearly unscratched, I’ve used up my space. This is impossible. (Sorry for the URL dump, Jeanne. Today, they’re almost imperative.)
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
