Trump and the GOP: Creating a Monster

The World According to Sesame Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now that the Affordable Care Act has proven harder to kill than driving a stake through Dracula's heart, President Donald Trump and the Republican party are moving on to other ways they can inflict lasting damage on the country that they haven't already thought of.

First up is tax reform.  In the century since the government started requiring folks to report their incomes by a certain date every year, the road to reform has been lined with the ruined reputations of those who tried and failed to change the tax code.  It seems too many people have too much invested in not losing the tax advantages they're getting under the present system.  And you're never going to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, no matter how hard you try, so what you have is another futile attempt at windmill-tilting.

The President often whines that America doesn't win any more, despite evidence to the contrary.  That's why he's more than willing to back out of trade deals such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific partnership, or gutting environmental laws just so American (or the well-meaning folks who voted for him) can find employment in the smokestack industries that became obsolete long ago.

Trump is also proposing a so-called "skinny budget" which fattens the coffers of the military, and that wall along the Mexican border he keeps wanting to build while slashing spending on the arts and other social programs.

The military buildup is another sign that Trump wants to win, even though we are now living in the age of terrorism, where you don't need a whole army to hold back the murderous intentions of a jihadist or two.  Instead, Trump just wants an excuse to win a nice, easy war in a small country and claim credit for it.

The President also wants to cut back on public broadcasting.  As much as everyone wants to save good old Big Bird (who's now the property of HBO, the pay cable service that bought the rights to the long-running "Sesame Street"), Trump's apparent agenda is to do away with PBS' and NPR's news programming and anything else on those networks that's been critical of his administration.  On this he could do more than yell "fake news" at them, then switch the remote to Fox News Channel.

The Republican-controlled Congress has the final word on the President's budget.  But after the health care disaster, do you really think they have the will to oppose him when they've been exposed as a laughingstock to the rest of America?

Oh, there's always another chance that President Trump and the GOP will try again to "repeal and replace" Obamacare once it ultimately crashes and burns (or so they hope).  But the more they alienate people with their policies, the more likely they're going to see the streets of Washington filled with angry people carrying flaming torches and pitchforks coming after them.

Chuck Berry (1926-2017): Rock Pioneer

Français : Le chanteur américain Chuck Berry en concert à Deauville (Normandie, France) en 1987. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is said that rock and roll was created as a musical hybrid of country and rhythm & blues.  Many were present at rock's birth, but only one has been acknowledged as its father and architect:  Chuck Berry.  From the moment "Maybelline" was recorded and hit the radio, anyone who's ever picked up an electric guitar has learned a thing or two from Berry.  The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and many others have cited Berry as an influence.  His stage presence was also legendary, having created the duck walk to augment his guitar playing.

Most of Berry's hits came between 1955 and 1965:  "Roll Over, Beethoven", "Johnny B. Goode", "Sweet Little Sixteen", "School Days", "Nadine", "No Particular Place to Go" and so many others were written and performed by him (which was unusual at the time).  The only Number One hit Berry ever had came late in his career, in 1972.  It was "My Ding-a-Ling", a childish ode to penises that somehow got on the radio.

Berry also dispelled the notion that one had to be a model citizen to make it in show business.  He spent his teenage years in a reformatory, having been convicted of armed robbery.  At the height of his career, he was sent to prison for violating a federal law regarding the alleged trafficking of a minor.  He also did time for tax evasion.  He was sued for allegedly putting a video camera in his restaurant's ladies room, which resulted in an out of court settlement for the victims.

Berry spent his remaining years performing on the oldies circuit with whatever band the local promoters could come up with, always asking for cash up front--a practice that eventually got him in trouble with the IRS.  He became one of the first to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984, and a Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.

Chuck Berry died Saturday at his home in Missouri.  He was 90.

It isn't enough that Berry influenced generations of rockers by teaching them how to play the guitar.  He can also be heard in outer space.  "Johnny B. Goode" was included on a Voyager space ship that contains artifacts of popular culture on Earth that might be of interest to other life forms.   Just like Beethoven's music will live forever, so will Chuck Berry's.

And you can tell Tchaikovsky the news.

RepubliCare: On Life Support?

English: Paul Ryan, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now that the Republican Party controls the three legislative branches of government, they are presently trying to jam through a new health care law through Congress to replace the one that already exists, which they say they couldn't wait to get rid of since the law's founder was in the White House.

It's called the American Health Care Act (AHCA), a repudiation of the current Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.  The AHCA has gotten lousy reviews from not just Democrats, medical associations, AARP and other progressive groups, but also from conservative Republicans who don't think the proposed law goes far enough.  But President Donald Trump, who once promised the greatest health care bill in the history of mankind with everyone covered, is on board with it.  So is Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, who as Speaker of the House has the unenviable task of trying to sell this thing.

This is part of what the AHCA (also known as Trumpcare, RepubliCare and other unflattering names) is all about:

• It keeps the ACA provisions of folks with pre-existing conditions from getting their insurance dropped, and dependents continuing to stay on their parents' plans until age 26.  It does not continue the mandate that everyone needs to be insured or else pay a stiff fine, which was a sticking point with Obamacare.
• It makes major cuts to Medicaid, the federal program that offers health insurance to low-income people, resulting in the number of enrolees being capped after 2020.  When that happens, it becomes the states' problem.
• It includes age-based tax credits on premiums for those who make $73,000 or less ($150,000 for joint tax filers).  Not to mention substantial breaks for what could be called "favored individuals" in the health care industry.

The Congressional Budget Office had its own conclusions of the bill.  They said that, among other things, 14 million would lose their coverage in 2018, 21 million by 2020, and 24 million by 2026.  The AHCA would reduce the deficit  by $337 billion over a decade.  Insurance premiums would rise initially, then start to go down.  The money spent on Social Security would go down due to people who die early.  And there would be reduced access to birth control, resulting in more money spent on Medicaid.

Naturally, the Trump White House disputes those figures.  The CBO is supposed to be non-partisan in its findings.  But these days, if your numbers don't match the administration's world view, don't be surprised if your budget's cut.

No wonder everyone's up in arms.  The Republicans had seven years to come up with a better plan than Obamacare, and they came up with this?  It's further evidence that the ACA needs tweaking, and is not to be thrown out with the bathwater.  This "repeal and replace" stuff is making the GOP look like Snidely Whiplash to the millions of Americans who would not have had health care if it weren't for the Affordable Care Act.

The American Health Care Act faces an uncertain future in Congress.  It'll have trouble passing the House, let alone the Senate, with all the reported opposition to the bill.  Unless the Republicans and President Trump do something quick to make the AHCA more palatable to the lawmakers, it's time to go back to the drawing board.

UPDATE 3/24/17:  Obamacare lives, at least for now.  Rep. Ryan pulled the AHCA bill from a certain defeat in the House Friday, having failed to secure enough votes to pass it.  President Trump, whose reputation was riding on this, is blaming everyone but the Republicans and himself and is going to wash his hands of the whole thing.  He says he's going to let Obamacare go down in flames, THEN put together a new law.  Time to move on.

From Russia With Distractions

Vladimir Putin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever since it was learned that Russia tried to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, which led to Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton in the White House, suspicions and doubt have been growing all over Washington as there are calls to find out who's zooming whom (as Aretha Franklin would put it).

Trump, who has expressed a fondness for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the way he does business since before the election, has watched as some of his staffers have been accused of cozying up to Russian officials when they're not supposed to.  And that his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was found to have fraternized with a Kremlinist or two when he was a U.S. Senator, is recusing himself from an investigation into all this.

There is talk of a special prosecutor being appointed to look into all aspects of this case, which might finally include a peek inside Trump's tax returns.  But how "independent" would the investigation actually be, if Trump had the power to fire the prosecutor if he doesn't like where things are headed?  Think Archibald Cox (who was let go by President Richard Nixon during Watergate) or Kenneth Starr (who looked into the Clinton scandals).

Trump's reaction to this alleged sabotage is what you'd expect any President to do when confronted with bad news, which is to create distractions.  He went into Mad Twitter mode over the weekend, accusing former President Barack Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower.  He has yet to provide any proof of this, but it really doesn't matter.  As long as Trump is President, people will take seriously anything he says no matter how ridiculous or paranoid it is.

Meanwhile, the President issued a new 90-day travel ban to replace the one that created a lot of protests and court challenges.  This time, the number of Muslim-majority countries in the "Do Not Enter" list is down to six, now that Iraq has proved they're serious about defeating ISIL.  Green cards and visas will be more welcome, as well as the citizens in good standing who are already here.  But families will be separated at the Mexican border so the parents can be grilled by customs agents and the kids would be "well taken care of".  There will still be protests and court challenges, but at least the ban will not be implemented for another week or so.

The Republicans in Congress created their own distraction by finally issuing a proposal which they hope would replace the Affordable Care Act, which they had talked about getting rid of for years.  The GOP version isn't much different from Obamacare except for the tax credits, the return of health savings accounts and the essential defunding of Planned Parenthood, among other things.  It will not be an easy sell, given that most Democrats and some conservatives don't think the health care system is all that broken.

But neither Muslim Travel Ban Part Deux nor health care reform that favors the insurance companies should blind us to the possibility that American democracy is being compromised by a strongman from another continent, in the guise of better relations between the U.S. and Russia.

In 1987, ABC broadcast a made-for-TV miniseries called "Amerika", which was a fictional account of how the Soviet Union conquered the United States without a shot being fired or a bomb being dropped.  The movie was not a rousing success with critics and viewers and, after the U.S.S.R. collapsed, was never heard from again.  In 2017, are we watching life imitating art?

Acting Presidential In Plain Sight

English: Seal of the President of the United States Español: Escudo del Presidente de los Estados Unidos Македонски: Печат на Претседателот на Соединетите Американски Држави. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's pure happenstance that President Donald Trump's address to Congress Tuesday wasn't billed as the State of the Union.  Because Trump took office only a few weeks ago, he wasn't Constitutionally required to make his speech in the House chambers in the first year of his term, but did so anyway.  If this actually were a State of the Union address, he might have called it a chance to unify the country.  Which is a stretch because he's part of the reason this is a divided nation in the first place.

This time, Trump was neither the Mad Tweeter nor the Cassandra in a business suit who spoke of gloom and doom during his Inaugural address.  Instead, he sounded like a mature adult who calmly explained himself and his policies in front of members of Congress and a national TV audience.  And he didn't pick fights with the media or restrict himself to 140 characters to achieve this.

Given all that, the President did manage to sneak in some superlatives, favorite phrases such as "radical Islamic terrorism" and "make America great again", and some exaggerations that didn't hold up under fact-checking scrutiny from the media he considers his enemy.

The President began his speech by denouncing the attacks on Jewish community centers across the country as anti-Semitism, which is something he never quite brought up on World Holocaust Day.  He also acknowledged the existence of Black History Month.  As for the contributions of immigrants (legal or not) to this country, all he'll say is that the wall on the Mexican border should be going up soon.

Trump went on to explain how he would redo the Affordable Care Act.  It ended up sounding much like what's already in it, with a couple of tweaks for bringing down prescription costs and being able to shop for out of state medical insurance.  "Repeal and replace"?  Really?

There was nothing in the speech about Russia or U.S. foreign policy.  But the President did boast about getting NATO members to pay their fair share to defend themselves against Vladimir Putin's expansionist fantasies.  Trump also asked for a boost in military spending while fawning over a woman whose Navy SEAL husband died in action.  This comes from a man who did not serve in the military, yet employs retired generals to serve in his Cabinet.

The President tried to extend an olive branch to both political parties to come together for the good of the nation, which is in stark contrast to his trashing them during the campaign and in his Inaugural Address.  While the Republicans repeatedly stood up and applauded like trained seals whenever Trump scored a point, Democrats were having none of it.  Some of the party's women wore white, in honor of the suffragettes who fought for the right to vote a century ago, and to protest Trump's lack of empathy for just about everything.  Other Democrats brought an immigrant with them as guests, and mostly sat on their hands.

President Trump did his best to act the part on Tuesday night, and got some good reviews for his performance even from Democrats.  But what about tomorrow?  We can't expect him to be Mr. Nice Guy all the time, but he can't always be Mr. Nasty either.  Whether Trump's policies get through Congress or not, whether he'd rather talk to Fox News instead of the "failing" New York Times, or whether he really wants a better relationship with Russia or not, Americans shouldn't have to wonder if the President they elected is taking his position seriously.

Oscars' "Moonlight" Madness

Warren Beatty at the Academy Awards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 89th Academy Awards were the typical three-hours-plus snoozefest testing the patience and detractors alike  In fact, according to ABC, nearly 33 million folks (the lowest total since 2008) had bothered to watch the proceedings.  Then came the surprise ending.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who were co-stars in Bonnie and Clyde half a century ago, were tasked with announcing who won for Best Picture.  At first they said it was La La Land.  Then, as the group associated with the film gathered to accept their award, they were told there's been a terrible mistake.  Beatty was handed the wrong envelope, and that the Oscar actually went to Moonlight.  So the Moonlight crowd came to the stage to accept their award.

Sounds like the election, doesn't it?  La La Land  led the popular vote, but Moonlight won it in the Electoral College.

Actually, Moonlight checks off all the boxes for a Motion Picture Academy that had been taking heat for its lack of diversity.  It was a critically-acclaimed, independently-made film about a young and black gay male, with its cast populated mostly by African-Americans.  It also won two additional Oscars, including Maharshala Ali as Best Supporting Actor.

La La Land, an update on the classic Hollywood musical of yore, was about a good-looking young couple who fall in love and fight to save a jazz club.  Anachronistic, yes.  But that's what passes for escapist entertainment in President Trump's America.  The film won six Oscars out of 14 nominations, including Best Director for Damienne Chezelle and Best Actress for co-star Emma Stone.  So, despite having been screwed out of Best Picture, it wasn't a total loss.

Among the other major winners, Casey Affleck won Best Actor for the drama Manchester By The Sea.  Viola Davis gave another passionate speech as she accepted her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Fences, written by August Wilson.

Since this was the first Oscars to be held since Trump took office, you might have expected the ceremony to focus a little on politics.  And you'd be right.  Host Jimmy Kimmel skewered the new President every chance he got.  Director Asghar Ferhadi accepted his Oscar for "The Salesman" as Best Foreign Film through a surrogate, who explained that he couldn't pick it up in person because he was boycotting the ceremony due to Trump's travel ban on countries like his native Iran.  But the expected tsunami of Trump-bashing never really materialized.

Kimmel, who had already hosted the Emmy Awards a few months ago, is part of a trend of TV networks' handing off hosting duties of the award shows they televise to its late-night talk show hosts:  Jimmy Fallon (Golden Globes), James Corden (Grammys) and Stephen Colbert (2017 Emmys).  This time around, the Oscars looked like a greatest-hits package from Jimmy Kimmel Live:  the 'feud' with Matt Damon, "Hate Tweets", and stunts such as dropping munchies on the audience and a tour bus full of unsuspecting folks who walked in on an awards show.  Otherwise, Kimmel did a heck of a job.

Yes, this year's Academy Awards will be forever remembered for the Best Picture mixup, which will certainly lead to rules changes and possibly a new accounting firm (PriceWaterhouseCoopers having tabulated the ballots for as long as anyone can remember).  Now we can all go back to caring about the latest blockbuster featuring some kind of apocalypse or comic-book superhero, which will be shown on a streaming service near you in a few months.

So Who's The Real "Enemy of the People"?

Portrait of a younger Henrik Ibsen, one of the first playwrights to adapt domestic drama into his works. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in 1882, Norwegian author Henrik Ibsen wrote the play An Enemy of the People, which was about what happened when a local doctor raised questions about the possible contamination of the town baths.  According to Wikipedia, he did it in response to his previous work Ghosts, which was deemed indecent for its references to syphillis and other sexually transmitted diseases.

One hundred and thirty-five years later, President Donald Trump used the name of Ibsen's play on Twitter to describe what he thinks of the mainstream news media.  Conservatives like him have complained for years about the alleged liberal bias coming from the likes of CNN, the "failing" New York Times and the major broadcast TV networks, only not in the strong language the President uses.

Granted, the media's relationship with past Presidents haven't always gone smoothly.  But this President has in his one month of office gone out of his way to stiff-arm their questions about the release of his tax returns, the difficulty in implementing his refugee travel ban and--most seriously--his administration's apparent chumminess with the government of Russia's Vladimir Putin.

So Trump likes to stick it to what he calls "fake news" purveyors every chance he gets.  His news conferences, either by himself or with world leaders, become such contentious free-for-alls that everybody looks bad.  He puts out a list of all the places that have had terrorist attacks in the past few years, then starts wondering why the "lamestream media" didn't cover them as adequately as he'd like.

Trump and his minions aren't above spreading a little "fake news" themselves.  Remember the terrorist attacks on Sweden and Bowling Green, Kentucky?  Neither did we, because they never happened.  But that hasn't stopped the administration from providing more of what we now call "alternative facts".

Most Presidents get their daily dose of information through the classified briefing they get every morning.  Not Trump, whose relations with the intelligence community has soured to the point where the Fox News Channel (which is where he got that idea about Sweden) serves as his window on the world.  Also, his assistant Steve Bannon used to run the Breitbart news site.

President Trump, through his words and deeds, is hell bent on making a mockery of the First Amendment through his takedown of the news media.  With all that baggage he carries and what's at stake, it's imperative that the media uncover as many real (not "alternative") facts about him as possible before he decides that he alone can fix this.

Henrik Ibsen could not have imagined that, more than a century after An Enemy of the People was first written and performed, that a President of the United States would use his work to denigrate his profession.  Or is it really just Trump describing himself?