Uncategorized

Basic Health Care- Going, Going, Gone

by Dave

During the campaign, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was viciously attacked by Donald Trump.  He can’t repeal it without going through Congress.   There is no replacement program.

So what has he done with his January 20, 2017 Executive Order?  Some  will tell you he has reduced the economic burdens of the program on Americans.  This nice sounding language is in the executive order.

The ACA requires a lot of administration, because insurance plans must conform to certain coverage standards.  What the Executive Order does, is to allow all agencies of government the ability to make Obamacare worse, by ignoring administrative responsibilities.

Today’s headines in the NY Daily News, called the Executive Order will gut or dismantle Obamacare.  It is designed to add a new layer of confusion to the administration of the program- just make it look worse than it is.

Daily News Story 

Trumpcare doesn’t exist. What insurance companies need in order to grow, is to insure fewer people with health problems.   This is why they want the ability  to deny coverage or limit benefits to many people.  The ACA was our country’s  first real attempt to make these denials impossible.  But, there had to be penalties for Americans who refused to either obtain private insurance or through the ACA exchanges because the system would not work if only people with health problems got insurance.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Not again!

by Dave

Trump blast Rep.   John Lewis’s district in Atlanta as being run down, falling apart and crime infested   CNN reality check rates the claim as  “False.”

He seems uninterested in toning down the rhetoric.

Politifact.com has checked many of his claims and found 242 of them (60 % of them) to be mostly false, false , or pants on fire false. Pants on fire comes in at 19%.

Politifact.com  

January  11, 2017 Press Conference:   Trump Press Conference Lies

Stay tuned,

Dave

Telling it like it isn’t

by Dave

90-million

How do we get 90 million jobs back?   Labor Participation statistics were dropping during Bush Administration too- but Fox doesn’t mention this.   Labor participation is more a measure of the aging of our population and does  not  correlate with unemployment and  other common measures of our economy.   If more young people are enroll in higher education, the  Labor Participation go down.  They don’t tell you this!.

While housing starts went up during Obama term,  home ownership has declined.   The National Review is a magazine dedicated to conservative and generally conservative  Republican idealogy.   But,  one of their articles takes on Sean Hannity from Fox News on the home ownership statistics, as being meaningful measures because he comparing the situation now to yer 2008, just when the housing bubble burst causing worldwide recession:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443010/sean-hannity-barack-obamas-economic-record-what-his-criticism-gets-wrong

The author makes a real good point- the last thing we need is a return to  2008 and lower lending standards which encourages people to buy houses they can ill afford.  This may not be shared with Donald Trump, as housing busts are  terrific opportunities for people with cash to profit from foreclosures.   Way too early to know Trump’s economic program includes relaxed lending regulations.

My advice to anyone who is struggling to make car,  credit card and student loan payments is to rent.   For those who believe they have extra money, my advice if they are young to invest it in education.

I try not to watch Fox News, as there are much better sources of  solid news reporting.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Don’t you worry ’bout a thing

by Dave

Stevie Wonder,  released 1973.

I talked to someone about Trump, and he tells me we are in good hands.  He listens to Fox News and plays golf 3 times a week.   Not a bad life.

There are some real tough questioning coming up on Trump’s cabinet positions.   I guess the most troublesome is our future relations with China.  We can not have a trade war with China, and expect their help in stopping North Korea’s nuclear plans.

I would think there is nothing more urgent than a united front against North Korea.  Trump would be wise to remember that a majority of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, whose campaign slogan was “stronger together.”

There was a great discussion on Fareed Zakaria show (GPS)  with James Baker, saying that what previous republican presidents (Reagan & HW Bush) have favored was free trade agreements, and Trump’s new cabinet tends more towards protectionism.   Baker said Trump as candidate, or now president-elect is not the same as when he actually moves into the White House with the staff making recommendations.

Baker may be right.  He’s not yet our president.  However, the more Trump goes after Mexico stealing our jobs  and their citizens pouring over the border, the more I worry that it’s the same old Trump,  always playing politics with an incoherent foreign policy strategy.

 

Deep fried turkey deaths

by Dave

My local Home Depot is selling everything you need to deep fry your turkey.   This is a bad, bad idea.   Cook your turkey in the oven.  It will come out beautiful.

If you deep fry the bird, it will look like it just stepped out of a forest fire.  Some people manage to burn down their houses.  People die this way.

I’m not making this up.  Which state has the greatest number of deep fried turkey deaths?  It’s Texas.  For 7 years in the row.  This grease and cooking related deaths on Thanksgiving.  Runner ups in this really weird distinction, are Pennsylvania and Ohio.  Congratulations all around, I guess.   Thanksgiving in the emergency room, yeah, I’ve been there, but it wasn’t at all related to cooking a turkey. My research shows by entering “deep fried turkey deaths” there are 57,000 sites.

Remember, you can go out for dinner and be waited on.

Stay tuned

Dave

Immigration plans , part 2

by Dave

My guess he’ll fudge the numbers on the 3 million deportations in 2017.

400,000 equals about  3,000,000 deported immigrants.

That’s the new math, I think.   Also,  I think he will claim the millions of rapists, drug dealers, murderers and their ilk  didn’t sneak  in, because he had blood in his eyes or whatever.

But, let’s wait and see.

Stay tuned.

Dave

 

 

 

Going forward with President Trump

by Dave

Is  President Trump going to make America great again?  I have strong doubts.

It is clear that the stock market wanted Clinton to win.  The Dow futures dropped nearly 5% when it became clear around 11:00 pm that Trump had a high probability of winning.

If what kills our economy are unfair trade deals, currency manipulation and  competition from China,  then one would think the policies of Trump would be embraced by the stock market. But, this morning’s future trading  and overseas markets say otherwise.   The world markets are in shock.

World economics  is complicated. What looks to be in the US advantage short term, can end up a total disaster later.   The markets are concerned about  the potential for destabilization of our relations with other countries, and disruptive actions on trade agreements. Some economists predicted Trump would lead us back into recession, through tax cuts for the wealthy and increase government spending, particularly on the military.

I prepare a list of hot issues for 2017,  but I’m holding off posting  them,  given how wrong I was about the elections.  We now are in the transition period.  Trump takes office January 20, 2017.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

Results

by Dave

Election results will continually updated through the night.  Surprises would be anything that would cause us to adjust our projection of Clinton winning with 322 to 328 EV.   The Elections can also be followed on CNN.com.

Wins may be actual or projected wins.   The % of vote in is shown on their site

Link:  http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president

11:35 pm Trump declared projector winner of Florida (29 EV),  re-takes the lead with 216 to 196 EV.

11:30  pm Trump 171 Clinton 190

11:11 pm *** Trump projected winner in NC,  considered to lean to Clinton, with 15 EV.

11:08  pm Trump leads FL by 131696 with 96% of vote. Around 360,000 votes to go, so Clinton would have to get around 70% of them to tie.

11:03 pm Trump leads in Wisconsin (10 EV) considered a solid or likely Clinton win.

11:01 pm  Clinton wins CA,  Clinton 190 Trump 171.   CA was always considered a solid Clinton.

10:55 pm  Path to Trump victory is open, with close races in Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and PA.

10:47 pm  Clinton takes New Mexico and Virginia, both considered likely Clinton wins, tally now is Ttump 169 Clinton 109.

10:27 om Trump is the projected winner of Ohio.  Trump now 167 EV to Clinton’s  109.

10:23 pm Trump leads in Florida by 135,000 votes and there is only 5% yet to process.  I calculate that Clinton must get 65% of the remaining votes to tie Trump.

10:16  pm Trump 149 Clinton 109.  All toss-up states are very close,  and VA which was a leaning Clinton state.

9:52 Trump 136 Clinton 104

9:30 pm   FL, NC and  VA are close races.   If Trump wins these states,  Hillary may lose the election.

9:26 pm  Trump 128 EV  Clinton 97 EV

8:54 pm *** This will be no easy win for Clinton with Florida and NC still too close to call.

8:46 pm Race in North Carolina is tight.  Clinton still leads with ~60,000 votes. 61% processed.   Race in NC is critical with 15 EV.

8:43 pm Trump has a projected wins of 66 EV,  Clinton 68,  but if Trump takes FL, he’ll have 95 EV.

8:40 pm Trump ahead in FL by ~ 100,000 votes.

8:31 pm *** Trump may take Florida, in which case Clinton could still win with 293 EV (assuming she wins NC and NV, loses OH).

8:31 pm In Florida,  Trump pulls ahead by 68,000 votes (0.7% lead)

8:22 pm  In Florida,  Trump pulls ahead by 4,000 votes (0.1% lead).

8:17 pm Florida remains extremely close, less than 200 votes apart!

8:13 pm  In FL, Trump and Clinton differ by less than 4000 votes,   87% est. processed.

8:07 pm  Trump and Clinton extremely close in Florida, with 77% of vote in.   Clinton slightly ahead.

11/8/16 8:00 pm (EST)  Trump  48 Clinton 68   No toss ups reporting yet, no surprises.

 

 

Which party controls the Senate?

by Dave

Prediction 11/8/2016 at 7:12 pm.

Probably shouldn’t make a prediction -but here goes:

There are 46 Democrat senators in the strong and likely categories.

There are 46 Republican senators in the strong and likely categories.

So, we have exactly 8 senators in the tossup categories of which I feel pretty good about 3 will win as Rep and 3 will win as Dem.   Democrats will  win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and  Nevada and Republicans win in Florida, North Carolina and Missouri.  Rubio is real strong in Florida.  So, that put’s the tally at 49/49.

But, Indiana and New Hampshire are tough to predict.  .But,  I think Indiana goes Republican and NH  goes Democrat,   with a 50/50 split.  So, if Hillary wins, then the Senate might be Democratic controlled.

If Indiana and New Hampshire goes  Republican, then the Republicans will retain control of the Senate.  The experts “lean” towards a Democratic  controlled senate, but I think it will be either  51 Dem to 49 Rep or 50/50.  Boy this is hard to predict!

http://www.270towin.com/content/who-controls-the-senate-in-a-tie/

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/senate-election-forecast.html

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

Trump – a nightmare for foreign policy

by Dave

Republicans who served under George W. Bush recognized that the US had to play a leadership role in the world.  I like to say, “what goes around, comes around.”

Stronger together- really does work.  Make American Great through insults to our fiends (Mexico) doesn’t work.

Enough.  Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw.  As a Republican I hope to support someone who has the dignity and stature to run to the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth.

Condoleezza Rice,  Former Secretary of State under George W. Bush.

Nicholas Burns was undersecretary of state for political affairs under Bush.  Here is what he said today on CNN:

I hope she’s  [Clinton] going to be the president.  If it’s Donald Trump, I think all bets are off given his unorthodox and I think, very weak and very dangerous views about Russia.  I think we can say with some certainty that Vladamir Putin and the Russian government would like Donald Trump to be elected president because Trump has been denegrating NATo; he’ll make NATPO weaker. He won’t be the strong American leader in Europe that Europeans are accustomed to.  It is clear by their actions and words that the Russians support a Donald Trump candidacy.  Every other European government, and I’ve talked to a lot of them, desperately want Hillary Clinton to be elected because they want stability and a traditional American leader and a leader who is sophisticated enough to know how the US can be effective in that region.

 I think for most Europeans and East Europeans,  Trump is a real danger to them.

Republicans working for President Bush have either remained quiet or turned their back on Trump.  Here’s a sampling:

“If Donald Trump wins, he will, by definition, have created a new template of success for Republicans,” said Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush’s first White House press secretary. “But if he loses, and particularly if he is crushed, it will reset the party back more in the direction of President Bush.”

Because Mr. Trump represents something far greater in the eyes of the Bush veterans than just an unfortunate party nominee, their determination to defeat him has become more intense.

The vast majority of the approximately three dozen veterans of Mr. Bush’s administration contacted for this article indicated that they would not cast a ballot for Mr. Trump.

“I can count on one hand the number of people I worked with who are supporting Trump,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former Bush State Department official who has been calling his onetime colleagues to solicit support for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

R. Nicholas Burns :

Nicholas Burns (born January 28, 1956) is a university professor, columnist, lecturer and former American diplomat. He is currently Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a member of the Board of Directors of the school’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. At the Harvard Kennedy School, he is Director of The Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Chair for the programs on the Middle East and India and South Asia. He is Director of the Aspen Strategy Group, Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group and serves on the Board of Directors of Entegris, Inc. He writes a biweekly column on foreign affairs for the Boston Globe and is a senior foreign affairs columnist for GlobalPost.

This I promise you will be my very last post until after the election.   I also will post all comments on these issues.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

Trump and the economy

by Dave

If someone has lost their job, Trump gives them hope.  Usually,  large layoffs occur when profits go down.  I worked for Texaco, and the oil price went down for a prolong period, and I was scared.  I didn’t take vacation that year.

The hope Trump is giving them is false.  And his program is dumb.   Globalization is here, for all the blessings and warts it brings.   The Chinese, Mexicans, and Europeans all have a pretty good idea of what Americans will buy, and how to make it cheaper than US manufacturers.   But, if you raise tariffs with these countries, you set off a trade war.  The US companies will not be able to sell their products abroad, because our trading partners will reciprocate.

So, many economists are suggesting investors who believe Trump will win, to be prepared for another recession and tough times ahead.  Citibank warned their clients that the stock market could fall 10% following a Trump win. Some are predicting recession.

When Clinton’s and Trump’s plans were analyzed by non-partisan financial analyst group, as stated in the last debate (Chris Wallace moderating)  it was revealed that Trump’s plan would add more to the national debt more than Clinton’s plan. Amazing!   Combination of no tax cuts on the rich, and increased military spending (an idea from the Reagan era),  will increase our debt, and may cause interest rates to increase.   This is where Trump breaks away from the traditional conservative base of balancing the budget.

Where US companies succeed is filling niches that nobody else can do as well.  Netflix, Microsoft and Apple are huge success stories.   Clinton will continue to assist small businesses get loans to keep innovators going.

On the issue of health care,  don’t believe anything Trump says, please.   It is real hard to separate the noise from the fact.   The basic reality before Obamacare, was people had no insurance, and would show up at emergency rooms, unable to pay for their services.  Hospitals were losing money, and only two solutions existed- bailouts from the government or passing on the cost of all services to their insured customers. Clinton has vowed to fix the problems with Obamacare.  Trump vows to repeal it, and replace it.  Replace it with what???? The number of uninsured will once again be very high, and the health care costs will continue to soar under Trump.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

Trump Lies on the Benghazi

by Dave

Republicans prepared a report  in June 2016 which none of the Democrats supported.  They issued their separate report.   But both Democratic and Republican reports and prior investigations state that the embassy in Benghazi was inadequately protected.  Hillary Clinton agrees with this assessment and as Secretary of State accepted all recommendations made at the time to improve security.  Of course, you are not going to hear this from Trump.

The big lie is that Secretary Clinton did nothing while 4 Americans were killed in Benghazi. Not even the Republican version of the Benghazi has any conclusion remotely similar to this.  The Republican report states it was impossible to save the two lives in the embassy.  The discussion is on the two lives while guarding the CIA annex.    This is all about an attack that lasted a total of 11 minutes.

Here’s the reporting from the New York Times, June 28, 2016:

“The Republican-led committee found no evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state.”

What the Republican version did, was to suggest, just possibly, more could have been done militarily to save the two lives and  suggest Leon Panetta and the Department of Defense.   acted too slow.  NYT reports:

 Senior Pentagon officials have consistently said that they were constrained by the “tyranny of time and distance” — that is, that the military could not have sent troops or planes in time to have made a difference.

NYT reports:

Even the report acknowledges the challenges facing the so-called FAST teams: These troops did not have their own planes, which meant delays waiting for flights; did not travel with their own vehicles (they would need to find some in Benghazi when they landed); and were designed to deploy before a crisis hit, not during hostilities.

Essentially, the hypothetical rescue mission would have been sent to save the lives of two servicemen guarding the CIA Annex.  More lives could have been lost in this mission.  And then the Pentagon, Obama, or even Secretary Clinton would have come under serious attack.

Full NYT article

The best summary I’ve seen on Benghazi is from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

More lies about the Clinton Foundation

by Dave

When Hillary was asked about the Clinton Foundation scandals, she avoided  the claims by Trump and simply named many of the accomplishments of the Clinton Foundation.

There been so many false claims, it’s tough to know where to begin. On Wednesday,  on Fox News, on the 6:00 and 7:00 pm broadcasts, they said indictments against the Clinton Foundation were near according to their sources.   It’s always safe to say the FBI or the Justice Department is investigating some organization because they are prohibited from commenting on their investigations.   But soon the other networks, like ABC and CNN were saying this was nonsense,  and by yesterday,  Fox News was backing down from this “breaking story.”

False Indictment Story

The uranium deal story has a few bits of fact, but no real evidence of corruption and none of them related to Hillary Clinton.

Uranium Story and  False Claims

One of the worst lies was that Clinton’s used the money just travel and make themselves more famous, which thanks to factcheck.org has been completely discredited:

Where does the Clinton Foundation money go? 

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

by Dave

Comey sent a letter to 8 chairmen of committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives on new information which could possibly affect the email investigation.

Newsweek filled in a lot of the details:

Newsweek story

As the Newsweek story explains,  the movement of emails to various accounts by Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin,  was done simply to make it easier to print them, as Clinton preferred paper copies.  She had been previously interviewed by the FBI.

It gets really messy, really quick.  Some  of the emails are on a laptop shared by Anthony Weiner, who was being investigated for sending sexual text messages to a 15 year old girl.    Adelin and Weiner have separated.   The FBI confiscated this laptop.

Now,  Newsweek states that Comey’s statement was not partisan, but a horribly mishandled one.   I agree with the first part and disagree with the latter.

Hillary’s mis-characterized the situation as she  stated that Comey had sent this letter to the republicans in the House and Senate.  Comey’s letter addressed the chairmen of 8 committees, all of whom are republicans.   It was also forwarded to 8 ranking members, all of whom are democrat. It was sent to these eight committees because they had sought information from the FBI in the past.

Director Comey had no good options, but he picked the best one from the choices he had.   He had testified to Congress that he would investigate any new evidence that emerged.  Congress of course wanted to be kept informed. The details of the investigation could not be included in Comey’s statement, because Anthony Weiner has not been charged with committing any crime.  It would be extremely premature.   Comey issued the statement because he had to.  He knew the possibility for leaks was real strong, and then any statement would look like he had been hiding something to help Hillary’s election.  If he had included any information in the email, this would have been immediate cause for eight committees to investigate.

I suspect that Comey will not release anything more, until a final concluding letter to Congress.    So,  Hillary’s campaign is likely to be under a cloud of suspicion.

Before Friday’s announcement,  Comey was touted by Republicans  as Hillary’s friend, who  ignored the facts of the case, and  swept the whole thing under the rug.   One day later,  he’s their hero.   Of, course, both are completely false,  and the reputation of the FBI as being apolitical, is intact.  Anyone who can earn such disdain from both Republicans and Democrats must be apolitical, in my opinion.   Comey is not concerned with the election but the integrity of the investigation. Good for him.

Will anything of significance come of this?   I think Newsweek got it right,  if  classified emails were where they never should be, on an aide’s laptop,  and could have been easily shared with her husband at the time,  still there was no intent to disclose confidential information.   So,  without intent, it is all political fodder.

Read the Newsweek article- it’s well done.

Stay tuned,

Dave