The following article by Michelle Ye Hee Lee was posted on the Washington Post website March 16, 2017:
European Pressphoto Agency/Michael Reynolds
“I look at the 20,000 jobs that have left America because of the irresponsible medical-device tax, I look at the health-insurance taxes and others that drove up health-care costs on Americans, especially those who could least afford it.” — Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), quoted in a news article, March 7, 2017Continue reading “The claim that the medical-device tax led to the loss of 20,000 U.S. jobs”
The following article by Calvin Woodward and Jim Drinkard of the Associated Press was posted on the Boston Globe website March 11, 2017:
MELISSA PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS The new Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, disputes scientific evidence on climate change.
Some of Donald Trump’s boasts from the first weeks of his presidency were dashed by developments in recent days. For example, builders of the Keystone XL pipeline were let off the hook from a buy-American requirement that Trump had promised.
On another front, though, a robust jobs report shows there’s now some substance behind his contention that jobs are growing under his watch.
Over the past week, Trump took credit when it was not always due and assigned blame that was misplaced. Two of his Cabinet members went rogue on science and history: One dismissed the consensus on the leading cause of global warming, and the other lumped slaves together with immigrants.
The following article by Sharon LaFraniere, Nicholas Confessore and Jesse Drucker was posted on the New York Times website March 14, 2017:
Omarosa Manigault, the former reality-TV star who is now assistant to the president, speaking with Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Trump’s point man on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is a longtime Trump Organization lawyer with no government or diplomatic experience. His liaison to African-American leaders is a former reality-TV villain with a penchant for résumé inflation. And his Oval Office gatekeeper is a bullet-headed former New York City cop best known for smacking a protester on the head.
Every president sweeps into office with a coterie of friends and hangers-on who sometimes have minimal experience in the arcana of the federal government. But few have arrived with a contingent more colorful and controversial than that of Mr. Trump, whose White House is peppered with assistants and advisers whose principal qualification is their long friendship with Mr. Trump and his family. Continue reading “Prerequisite for Key White House Posts: Loyalty, Not Experience”
The following article by Juliet Ellperin and Brady Dennis was posted on the Washington Post website March 14, 2017:
For more than a decade, Sen. James M. Inhofe has raged against the scientific consensus that humans are fueling climate change, calling it “the greatest hoax” ever perpetrated on Americans. The Oklahoma Republican has blasted the Environmental Protection Agency as an “activist organization” that has unfairly burdened everyone from farmers to fossil-fuel companies.
The following article by Harry Stein and Scott Nathan was posted on the Center for American Progress website March 14, 2017:
AP/Evan Vucci Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on the federal budget on February 22, 2017, in the White House.
President Donald Trump is preparing to release the first budget proposal of his administration. While this budget likely will only provide limited details on President Trump’s plans—thus why it is nicknamed the “skinny budget”—it will still give the American people a clear look at Trump’s policy agenda and the priorities of his new administration.
The skinny budget will not address taxes, and it will only address discretionary spending, the programs that Congress funds in annual appropriation bills. Discretionary spending comprises about one-third of federal spending, and it does not include major programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Continue reading “5 Things to Watch in President Trump’s Skinny Budget”
The following article by Noam N. Levey was posted on the L.A. Times website March 12, 2017:
Americans who swept President Trump to victory — lower-income, older voters in conservative, rural parts of the country — stand to lose the most in federal healthcare aid under a Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to a Times analysis of county voting and tax credit data.
Among those hit the hardest under the current House bill are 60-year-olds with annual incomes of $30,000, particularly in rural areas where healthcare costs are higher and Obamacare subsidies are greater.
The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website March 13, 2017:
Dear Joe,
Sorry, if your name isn’t actually Joe, Joe. But that’s what we call anyone who isn’t in the top 1 percent. “Joe the Plumber” liked it so much that he still lets us call him that, even though his first name is Samuel. “Samuel the Plumber” sounds like a character from kids’ book about a precocious yet handy mouse. Joe got that. He’s a good Joe and so are you, Joe.
Anyway, we just wanted to say a quick thanks for voting for Donald Trump without paying nearly any attention to what his actual policies would be. It’s the least we can do, given that you’ve already done so much for us.
The following opinion written by E. J. Dionne was posted on the Washington Post website March 12, 2017:
Demonstrators gather near the White House to protest President Trump’s travel ban on March 11. (Tasos Katopodis/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
For opponents of President Trump, his first seven weeks in office went about as badly for the country as they expected. The pleasant surprise is their own capacity for resistance and political resilience. What some feared might be a Trump Juggernaut is instead the Trump Jalopy, a wheezing, unsightly contraption with grinding gears and missing parts.
Why is Russia becoming so important since the inauguration? Is it a witch hunt as many in the Republican party maintain? Is it a smoking gun leading to revelations about money-laundering and illicit business interests in Russia as many Democrats suggest?
The answer simply is that no one really knows for sure – and that’s reason enough for a robust investigation at a minimum or, even better, a special prosecutor. There are some encouraging signs that, despite public rhetoric to the contrary, the House Intelligence Committee is forging the foundation for a strong investigation A Politico piece published this morning indicates that the outside rhetoric may be creating cover for Republicans who will ultimately need to convince the Democratic leadership that they are playing fair when it comes to witness lists, subpoenas, and procedures. If Republicans fail to deal fairly with the Democrats and address their concerns then the likelihood of a special prosecutor or joint commission increases. Continue reading “It’s Still About Russia”
The following article by Ben Norton was posted on the AlterNet website March 8, 2017:
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmor
Steve Bannon just can’t help himself. The president’s chief strategist, and former executive chair of Breitbart News, has repeatedly cited fascists and white supremacists without compunction or even discretion.
A recent investigation by the Huffington Post exposed how Bannon’s fondness for The Camp of the Saints, an obscure French novel that portrays a race war between the “civilized” white West and the evil brown hordes of the so-called East. The Huffington Post highlighted several interviews in 2015 and 2016 in which Bannon compared global politics and the refugee crisis to the plot of the book, which has been likened to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
