Lies and Big Lies

Best President, Best Cabinet: Yesterday, during his morning cabinet meeting and his later surprise Rose Garden press conference with the embattled Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump was in full bombastic form.  Despite reports that at least one of them thinks he’s a moron, his cabinet is the best ever, of course, because it’s his cabinet.  He was thrilled to report that “Obamacare is finished.  It’s dead. It’s gone. It’s no longer, you shouldn’t even mention it,” but then went on to say that his decision to cut the cost sharing reduction payments also known as the insurance subsidies for low income participants was a strategy to force the Democrats to come to the table to renegotiate more “Republican” terms.  To that end he implied that he would sign Senators Alexander and Murray’s bipartisan plan to reinstate the payments, the payments that he insists are nothing more than a subsidy for the insurance industry, to the extent they can agree on a plan.  He then said he only wants a temporary solution because he wants to pass more comprehensive health legislation in the Spring, in other words, if he makes it to the Spring he wants to do another round of the ever popular Obamacare repeal/replace dance.  He insists that he will have the votes for a repeal in the Spring, which may be his way of saying that he hopes that Senator McCain, the thorn in his side, will be “gone” by then.  

The Biggest Lie:  Trump both supported and distanced himself from his good buddy Steve Bannon, first saying “I can understand where Steve Bannon is coming from,” he’s frustrated at the failure of Congress to get big things done, like repealing Obamacare.  After his lunch with McConnell he tempered his remarks saying “Steve is doing what Steve thinks is the right thing.” Then in a reference to the cast of scary characters that Bannon plans to run against mainstream Republicans in the primaries, he said  “some of the people that he may be looking at, I’m going to see if we can talk him out of that.”  That comment was probably made after McConnell, with whom his relationship is “better than ever” reminded him that if history is any guide crazy, extreme right wing candidates tend to lose to the other party in the general election.  Trump also threatened the Iran nuclear agreement again, saying that he still may “terminate” the whole thing.  As per usual, Trump lauded his still unwritten tax plan by citing made up statistics about tax rates in other countries, but saved his most outrageous lie for an answer to a question about whether or not he had contacted the families of the four US soldiers who’d been killed in Niger almost two weeks ago.  Trump responded by saying that he’d written some letters to their families, but hadn’t mailed them yet because it wasn’t the right time and besides it’s hard to mail letters that haven’t been written.  He then doubled down on his lie about the letters by saying that he was better than previous presidents, especially Obama who he claimed never personally called the families of fallen soldiers.  He was caught off guard when NBC’s Peter Alexander told him that wasn’t true, that Obama and other Presidents always personally contacted families.  Trump then tried to cover his lie, mumbling that his “generals” had told him otherwise.  He was really off base with regard to his Obama comment, apparently not only did Obama contact families but he frequently went to Dover Air Force base in Delaware to be present when the bodies of fallen soldiers arrived back in the US.  Trump who has spent much precious presidential time dissing football players for disrespecting soldiers and the American flag, who insulted a gold star father during the campaign, who routinely insults John McCain, the war hero, and who is considering launching a war against North Korea couldn’t find time to pay respects to the families of American soldiers? Last night, after he was honored with the Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center, John McCain, warned against unpatriotic leaders who  “fear” the world the US has led for the better part of a century, who “abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe” and “refuse the obligations of international leadership…. For the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems.”  No indication if Trump was listening or if he understood that McCain was questioning his patriotism.

Oh Opioids:  Though he may have missed McCain’s speech, Trump saw or heard about the 60 Minutes piece and Washington Post article on the Opioid crisis and the pharmaceutical industry and definitely caught the part about his Drug Czar nominee and his support for the bill that loosened restrictions on drug distribution.  After several attempts and some language tweaking, Representative Tom Marino, the man who now will probably never be the drug Czar, shepherded his bill through Congress during the Obama administration, something that should make no one, Democrat or Republican, very proud.  Democratic Senator Manchin from West Virginia, one of the states most affected by the opioid epidemic, says “he’s horrified that a bill everyone approved made the epidemic worse…they made it and camouflaged it so well all of us were fooled.  All of us. Nobody knew! There’s no oversight now… that bill has to be retracted…has to be repealed.”  Missouri’s Democratic  Senator McCaskill, who is up for reelection in 2018 in what will be a hotly contested election, quickly introduced legislation to do just that.  However, proving that the swamp remains intact, Utah’s Senator Hatch defended the bill and the $177,000 he got from the drug industry while pushing the bill through, instead attacking CBS and the Washington Post for trying to get Marino’s nomination derailed. Trump says that he will finally sign the papers officially declaring the Opioid epidemic an emergency next week and that he is reconsidering that “fine man” Marino’s nomination.

Positively Pence:  The New Yorker ran a frightening piece on VP Pence that could easily have been titled “be careful what you wish for.”  It’s a not so gentle reminder that though he’s not crazy and would probably be less inclined to lob a few nukes in a fit of pique than the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Pence may be equally awful in different ways.  In many respects we are already suffering the impact of a Pence presidency.  Lacking interest in details Trump has delegated many management decisions to Pence who has in turn staffed departments with likeminded religious fanatics and right wing ideologues.  As a result Health and Human Services has family planning experts who don’t believe in contraception and the EPA and Interior Department are run by ultra-right wing Koch Industries acolytes who don’t believe in climate science and oppose anything that will hurt Koch’s carbon emitting energy business.  Trump who is onto Pence’s religious fundamentalism, has been known to make fun of his gay bashing ways and his drive to outlaw abortion.  He doesn’t agree with Pence, but doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.  Besides, he loves the Koch Industry money and agrees with their philosophy on tax reform because all good billionaires hate taxes, especially the estate tax.  It’s not clear that Special Counsel Mueller is spending much time focusing on Pence’s complicity in the obstruction of justice and Russian meddling, but he might be because Pence, who now has his own high priced lawyer, certainly helped former security advisor Flynn get his job by ignoring warnings from NJ Governor Christie, who preceded him as the transition manager.  He spends a lot of time by Trump’s side, smiling, being obsequious and witnessing bad acts.  One other interesting article tidbit details how Ivanka, the golden daughter, invited Mike Flynn to pick whatever job he wanted most and we know how that turned out.