Random Thoughts 2017, Volume 1

Official portrait of United States Senator (R-KY) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Republican Senate is making another attempt to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act with its own version of the health care law the House passed recently.  Despite all the secrecy majority leader Mitch McConnell surrounded the bill with, Senate Democrats complaining about the lack of their input and the haste with which this is all being put together before the July Fourth recess, not much has changed.  Medicaid will be cut way back, tax breaks for the wealthy are included, and penalties for skipping out on health care will be retained.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, however, 22 million folks will end up without any kind of health insurance if the law passes--15 million in 2018 alone.  More to the point, most everybody outside the GOP and President Donald Trump hates the Senate bill.  But there are those GOP senators who need to be convinced that this is a good idea, so the vote will be close.  Meanwhile, more and more health insurance companies are getting out of state exchanges, so something needs to be done.

UPDATE (6/27/17):  The vote now won't take place until after the July 4th recess.  Maybe that'll get some of those senators to actually read the bill.

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The Russian hacking scandal was enlivened by the testimony before Senate committees and national TV audiences of former FBI director James Comey and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions, neither of whom succeeded in nailing Trump and his cronies to the wall on whether they had anything to do with it.  Instead, the headline was that the closer special prosecutor Robert Mueller  got to the truth, the more the President is inclined to fire him.  Meanwhile, a Washington Post article seems to have put the blame on former President Barack Obama for not doing enough to stop the Russians during the 2016 campaign.  Trump, as usual, gloats over Twitter.

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Recent special elections in which Democrats keep losing to GOP candidates should have told the party to come up with a different message besides being anti-Trump.  And to start thinking beyond Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi.

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Why are there no cameras allowed at White House press briefings any more?  Does Trump and his staff hate the American people and their representatives in the media so much  that we're now on a "need to know" basis?  And why is the mainstream media putting up with this?

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The family of Philando Castile has reached a $3 million out-of-court settlement with the city of St. Anthony, Minnesota, after one of their police officers was exonerated for killing Castile during a traffic stop--with the whole world watching.  No amount of compensation will be enough to ease the pain and suffering of Castile's family.  But if it takes a bad cop off the street, it's a small comfort.