Gail
Gee if you are going to disparage T S Ellot by including an idea of his at the end of your column the least you could do is include the line "poring spring rain on dull roots" That at least would be inclusive of the rest of the Republican party.
I still love you though
B Walker
5
It's okay, folks. When Mulvaney screws up his three jobs by failing to grovel and cower at the right time (such as at public cabinet meetings), Jared's there to pick up the pieces and add them to his portfolio along the with the dried spider and paper clip.
12
Dear Gail homerun on this one! You have done yourself. Now could you please tell Alana Kagan that she is having entirely too much fun with us Alaskans – or is it we Alaskans?. She is a hero to the hovercraft hunters of our monster moose. However she is just having too much fun. Please tell her this from me.
Parentheses. Also please tell Dan hello from me. I have just written my second book and want to put in a story he told me about a brick going through the window of a bank. Vietnam war protests time. Maybe he was entertaining Richard and Lionel, but I need to know if he would permit me to use the story.
No rush. My first book was University of Alaska press, and I have not settled on a publisher for this second book yet.
3
It's hard to believe Americans can accept POTUS's talk on anything he lies SO much. Also, how can they accept the HUGE costs he incurs going to all his rallies to spread his LIES..
He also goes to Florida taking a few politicians with him so they write off all expenses on tax payers...crazy...society.....We have issues in Canada but not o this abusive scale....
17
"Democrats were happy to shift the conversation to health care after the release of the findings in the Mueller report."
So then the NYT is accepting the miniature little summary put forth by A-President-cannot-obstruct-Justice-Barr as the release of Mueller findings?
8
Reading Gail is, well..always a treat. And I promise i'll actually read this piece in a minute..or two, but first and just referencing the title.."Bad Times in Trumpville", i'll say this.
All of us, continually beaten down over the last 8 yrs., but the last 2+ in particular well we seem to take some solace and, well delight when we see an article that begins with any reference to Trump and/or his administration encountering rough waters as it were..and it's hard not to revel in this cretinous bunches boog-a-boos..and i'm not suggesting that we shouldn't at least indulge ourselves with a..a wry smile.
But by the time the stock market closes today for instance we will have been equally bombarded as it were..by the 'other side' in there ongoing attempts to, well make themselves feel better by further attacking everything we stand for..which will of course make Gails column seem months old. So.
Remembering the big job we have to do going forward, let's just give Gail a wink and a symbolic (by our comments) heart felt high five for giving us more fuel for the fire we will need in the days ahead. Now on to Gails published thoughts.
2
here in utah we voted for a tax increase to help fund the people in our rural parts of our state hit hardest . The coal industry. i couldn't be happier to see these nasty plants reduced to a pile of trash. 1 million dollar surplus to help our fellow citizens with health care, but or pos of a governor and the church tell us we don't need it after all. don't be a dem here, you will lose your health care
8
NOT YOU TOO. You haven't seen the Mueller Report. It's being hidden from you by political hacks and clowns. So stop saying what it does or doesn't do. What? You get expelled from the punditry class if you don't pontificate on things you no nothing about? "Like a lady-in-waiting to a virgin queen . . . she thinks about things that she's never seen." Just stop it already and demand the report. Unredacted. Now.
14
Sorry to disappoint you Gail but there are no bad times in Trumpville.
- No guns to Mexican Drug lords
- No IRS goons illegally coming after Conservatives
- No more billions going to the Iranian terrorists
- Lot less regulations
- Terrific job prospects and openings
- Lower taxes
- Jerusalem is the capital
- No running off to fundraisers when soldiers die
Need more Gail ? Didn't think so. See, good times
3
Dear Gail Collins, please live forever.
11
Call it what it really is, Gail. Mental illness.
12
Why did Trump wander off into healthcare? It's called Attention Deficit Disorder, but now it has a new meaning. When Trump feels that he's not getting enough attention (i.e. a deficit in attention paid to him), he creates disorder. He's grabbing the spotlight and blinding himself with it.
16
Since taking office Trump has been trying to burn the government down. He seems to be doing a pretty good job of it with all of his multiple distractions to camouflage is actions with the assistance if the media who cant get enough of his circus performance. Maybe his plan is to then step in as monarch.
7
The Pivot to health care along with the new justice department position to eradicate the ACA entirely suggests Trumps actual aim for health care....Medicare for all. With the ACA dead and buried there will be no other plan on the table.
Trump will claim it as his big beautiful health care and republicans will be forced to go along as they are helplessly in thrall to this maniac. Watching Lindsey Graham go on the attack in favor of Trump's Medicare for all will be mesmerizing. This will be Trump pulling the rug out from under Sanders, which he'll do if he's smart. If he does Medicare for all he will be re-elected. If he just leaves the carcass of the ACA to rot in front of the election it will go very badly for him and other republicans. So Trump's medicare for all. You heard it here first.
Stranger things have already happened.
3
Even Trump supporters are starting to finally get it through their skulls that their health care is in severe danger in the Trump administration. Republicans have no replacement plan. It is like our own Brexit non-deal where the plan stops dead and 20 million people go bankrupt or die. Mulvaney takes his place in the pantheon of evil Trump advisors along with (evict all immigrants) Steven Miller and (destroy public education) Betsy DeVos. Wilbur Ross is in a class of his own, not only wanting to destroy the economy, but to profit from his own actions. What a fine administration we have--truly MAGA-worthy.
11
The President believes he has political capital based on the statements of no-complicity by the Atty. General. He reminds me of President Bush (W) who used his 'capital' to get rid of Social Security. Both made poor political decisions on hubris.
2
For the zillionth time, the Mueller report DIDN'T LET TRUMP OFF THE HOOK! Barr's letter tried to. We don't know what the Mueller report says, for crying out loud.
15
Trump never looks happy, Gail, you know that. Even as he gloated, Trump took his own nonsense seriously enough to accuse certain unnamed former public servants and candidates of long standing on his never-ending hit-and-scapegoat list, of treason.
Raising the abolition of the Affordable Care Act would indeed have been near the top, or maybe at the top, of the list of most counter-productive and destructive "strategies" Trump could adopt for Republican focus these next couple of months if, as you have observed, he were organized enough to keep a list or even execute such a thing as a "strategy."
But let's not forget his and other Republican's similarly misguided strategies of pursuing revenge-motivated investigation as their immediate mission, which approach will certainly be another nail in the Republican party's coffin, not to mention another graceless version of a victory lap. But good manners were never one of Trump's values, except when it comes to receiving thank you notes, such as one from the late John McCain for "giving" McCain the kind of funeral that McCain more than earned.
2
"All over the country, his party members wished he had stuck to Caracas."
Everyone else wished he would take up residence there.
12
I know this is not a comedy piece, but I was laughing throughout my reading and even afterwards.
"Even while everybody from Mike Pence to the janitor was allegedly urging the president to stay away from health care at all costs, there were plenty of people to egg him on."
Mike Pence to the janitor.....I just about died!
I think looking at the state of affairs in the Washington, you got to find humor in all this ribaldry, because otherwise if the seriousness and sheer destruction of whats being done is fully realized... we would all be crying, nah, bawling would be the right word.
6
Thank you. A good commentary. I needed a good laugh today.
5
Don't let the government take away your Medicare!!!
Die hard libertarian Ayn Rand: where's my social security check?
George Washington: "These Articles of Confederation stink. We need a strong federal government."
5
You gotta love Ms Collins !
Incidentally, about health care, Scandinavian systems work very well. Only a country as deluded as the US can think that Obamacare is a highway to communism.
6
“I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook. ”
No, no, NO it didn’t! Not even the tiny snippet quoted by the Barr Report. Why is this so bloody hard to understand?
11
Two quick comments about the op ed.
Getting rid of Obamacare is the Republican healthcare plan. Anything else is optional.
Pence is a janitor. He spends his time cleaning up Trump’s messes the very definition of the job.
7
Let's throw granny on the bus! Medicare cuts anyone? Repeal existing protections for pre-existing conditions? What's not to like? When will the flyover states realize that this is working against them not in their best interest? The Fox is in the hen house now? What's next? Farm subsidies? Corporate welfare run wild.
1
Everyone, especially the media, needs to stop referring to what is in the Mueller report. We don't know. We only know what's in Barr's letter about the report. We do know the letter was carefully crafted and there is a lot of content between the lines. At some point we'll get the full Mueller report but it could be many years from now. I hope not. That would be SAD!
5
@Anon
So few people seem to get this. Really makes me wonder...
2
Best Collins column I've seen in over a year. Welcome back and thank you for the funny!
2
I'm an expat in Germany. In the past, I longed to return to live in the US, but no more, and health care is the prime reason. (Public transportation is a close second.) We pay a good premium for our care, but for about $600 a month practically everything is covered with little to no copay. We can see many specialists without a referral and any specialist with one. IT doesn't cover elective cosmetic surgery, but that's entierly reasonable. Hospital bills are never sent to us. We don't worry. What a gift is universal health care.
21
Like many of the comments about this article, Trump has again shown the world that for him leadership is being able to create chaos for no reason. Unfortunately, when we all think this will surely bring him down, his base comes to his support loving every minute of it. Seems his base his made up of those people who would love to be on 5th Avenue while Trump mows them down with an assault rifle given to him by Russia as they scream Lock Her Up and Make America Great Again.
15
Gail,
Correct there was no collusion. It would have taken organization. Are the Russians organized? Yes. This is a game between the Russians, a grand master chess champion, and a little boy named Donald who cheats at checkers to get by. At best Donald is a pawn.
17
Just like Americans who've never lived in countries with low gun ownership and low murder rates can't seem to imagine how much better things are when you pretty much don't ever have to worry about being shot, they also seem incapable of understanding how nice it is to go to a hospital, get good quality treatment, receive one bill when leaving the hospital, regardless as to how many things were done in your treatment, and to actually be able to afford that bill. We seem to have lost all sense of imagination except as it pertains to conspiracy theories and disgusting lies that help forward nefarious agendas. Well done, America. Well done.
22
Watch carefully. As he did with free trade with Canada and Mexico, Trump could abolish Obama care, make a few minor changes, slap a new name on it like Trumpcare and 40% of the country would see him as the savior of health care.
9
It would never pass
In a society with representative government and a wide franchise the market and the electorate are the same people. Thus government solutions to problems are market solutions; government being the method the market chose to make the needed correction.
Gail: Thank you, this is magnificent. Trump is cutting his own throat slowly. He gives the dems ammunition daily with his ignorance of what the regular American wants and needs. A decent wages, deceit and affordable health care, decent education for her/his children, security at work, peace of mind for the future.
His party does not seem able to stop him from his throat cut. All the dems need to now is show some guts as to who they really want to help. And I don't mean their donors.
5
Another joy to read! You did fail to mention the lawsuit against Mulvaney where he stiffed a borrower for big books by filing bankruptcy and then buying the assets under a different company--then again maybe he learned this from The Donnie
3
Trump only thinks in terms of win/ lose (sort of like the bizarre NYT coverage since the Barr Letter). He's doubling down on what he's thinks is a winning streak. He thinks he sees blood in the water and his instincts are to strike. As usual he is clueless, which doesn't matter to his 35%. This is indeed a gift to Dems. This is the sort of stuff we run on while Congress quietly keeps up its Article I oversight responsibilities.
However, one thing Michelle: the Mueller Report DID NOT let Trump OFF THE HOOK. I know the NYT is determined to report that (why, I don't understand), but the BARR SUMMARY states "the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government..." That is a very carefully worded narrow finding. I just don't understand why intelligent reporters and pundits can't seem to grasp that that is not an exoneration or that it says Trump is "off the hook".
Democrats should let go of impeachment (which I believed before the Barr Summary), but don't confuse the decision to bring no charges against anyone in the Trump campaign with conspiracy to defraud the American people with "exoneration".
10
@Christopher
Sorry! Gail! I forget sometimes who I'm lecturing!
Envious. That is what I am of Gail. She takes the most horrible acts and turns them into laughing stocks. This takes a great sense of humor and cunning.
Such a fun article.
9
Is there something in the water that is promoting amnesia? When I think back to Republican Presidents such as Reagan or even Dwight Eisenhower, I recall some degree of character and, especially, intelligence.
Stupid is the new normal. The snottiest, most entitled little kid in your seventh grade home room now is the leader everyone wants. Why should I fault Trump? It's even true that over half of white women voted for him. It's way too easy to blame Trump for this. He's meeting a demand and I'll bet Bannon is right--he'll be re-elected. What will be even more interesting is that, probably, still more women will vote for him next time.
Does anyone realize just how enormous the scope of this problem really is?
183
@Charles Coughlin Back in 2016, I'd ask people to picture the biggest braggart in their class or workplace -- the person who takes all the credit when things go well and points fingers when they go wrong -- then tell me if they wanted that person to be the US president. That's the person who occupies the White House.
I'm afraid you might be right about a 2nd term, too. It might well come down to whether a recession happens in the next year or so. I hope that's not the case. Independents and moderates might get tired of the Trump Show and vote for anybody but the POTUS.
23
Maybe all the Democrats need to do is let Trump be Trump. Don't say a word about his insanity and stupidity. Let the investigations roll on elsewhere. Let Trump dig his own grave and fall into it. And when what's his name falls into his hole, we'll help him fill in the divot.
5
My conclusion is that Putin knows Trump is amoral which makes him a useful puppet, is narcissistic which makes him easy to manipulate, and is a moron which means you don't tell him the plans.
9
Trump’s replacement health care plan will be limited to covering the bone spurs of demented treasonous septuagenarian draft dodgers - but only those in the top tax bracket:
13
Is all about sibling rivalry. Kill the Obama legacy.
4
Thank you for the entertainment. He rely is downright stupid, isn't he!
3
I think Trump is still trying to distract from the Mueller report. He wasn't completely exonerated from obstruction of justice, and lord knows what's in those 300 pages. Maybe he wants everyone to forget about it and move on. Just a theory.
4
Mick, that lazy good for nothing got only 3 jobs.
2
The Republicans tried 50 times to repeal Obamacare, but always at the last minute some of the GOP chickened out. McCain was the main fall guy, since he was not running for reelection.
Trump really believes the Rs have a solution and he wants to spite McCain, liberals, humanitarians, blacks, immigrants and socialist Democrats. He knows 90% of Rs will support him before the most conservative Democrat, no matter what he says or even does.
2
Trump has a new Republican health care plan to replace Obamacare just like the last time. I hear McConnell and McCarthy talking about it all the time, don't you? I think there should be an investigation to determine if Trump is two-timing and working for the Democrats 2020 election committee. Money is his god after all.
3
Has anyone in the WH even read the full ACA statute? Does Mick understand the main benefits? I suspect not. This is simply grandstanding and pandering to people who also have insufficient knowledge while putting millions of lives at stake. I agree the ACA is not perfect, but let's work to make it better rather than simply canceling coverage and programs for millions of Americans. And frankly, if the GOP really had a viable alternative, they would have pushed it through over the past two years when they had control of both chambers. The truth is they DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. Newsflash: healthcare and healthcare financing is COMPLICATED. Surely the director of the OMB knows that.
3
The main stream news has nothing to talk about now with Trump-collusion out of the way. How wonderful. I wonder what they will fill up their time with? How about some real serious news like Medicare for All, or Climate Disaster Upon us and Coming Stronger and STronger, or Trump Starting Wars in Venezuela and threatening Putin in the Regard, or our Growing and Growing and Wasteful Military Budget or World Nuclear Weapons in General, or The Horrid Disparity in Wealth in America, or that almost 80% of Americans live Paycheck to Paycheck or that Corruption is Growing in America or that we live in an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion.
I just saw this note on Huffington Post under "Latest News" and I'm not exaggerating in the slightest -- go Look.
"Eleven Plants For Pets You Can Get On Amazon."
2
Gail, you made my day! Your humour is delightful.
6
This could get fun you know. For the next 19 months, our real leader will be doing many raucous Monster Trump rallies. Great tailgate parties with lots of beer. They will be full of all kinds of late-night fodder.
Trump will declare many new positions. The Build the Wall thing and the Lock Her Up thing are as gone and played out as the Birther thing. He will mention the walls beauty and completion occasionally but it's not a cool new plot for the next season. It's no longer playing well in the ratings. Especially with the kids in cages thing.
I guess we have to stay tuned for next seasons drama. It will be very trite and boring at the same time as audacious and terrifying. So what will the next slogans be?
Curing America's Ills - Health Care
Be Cold Be Bold Burn Oil - Climate
Be Rich Don't Snitch - Tax Scam
Real Men Love Guns - 2nd right on the left?
3
I yearn for simpler times when all we had to do was worry about poor Seamus on top of that car.
7
Maybe the Seamus crate is available now and we can sling DJT on top of somebody’s car. How about Mr. Conway’s??
So here's the reality, folks. For all the talk of single payer (and I support the idea) -- it works in other countries because they ration healthcare -- and rationing is a necessary thing or the whole system will fail. We already ration organ transplants, by necessity because there aren't enough to go around. Should we be spending $100,000 on drugs to keep a dying person alive for 2 extra months -- or should that money be for curing someone to live a long and productive life?
When someone is dying and doctors say there is nothing more they can do, there should be a "death insurance premium" of, say $50,000, that a person or his family must pay for any care other than hospice care. So if someone says, "do the surgery" or "give the $100,000" drug, even though doctors are saying it will not lead to recovery -- the death insurance premium must be paid first, before society bears that cost. My guess is that a lot of people would rather die a peaceful death in hospice care, then go through the often painful and fruitless efforts to keep them alive -- while costing the healthcare system huge amounts of money (50% of healthcare spent on the last 6 months of life!!!).
2
Oh my gosh, Gail, that was hysterical! Thank- you for adding much needed comedy to the news . Thanks for teaching us truth through the biting humor.
11
When Trump says that the Republicans will be known as the party of healthcare, what he means is that it's the responsibility of everyone else in his party to come up with an alternative they haven't been able to find for a decade of whining, defaming and defacing the plan that exists and would be working much better if he and his party hadn't been chipping away at it instead of helping to fix the problems.
In fact, the GOP war against ACA is probably the best symbol there is of the party's intellectual and moral vacancy that has increased tenfold since the raging Id took over. Outside of Trump's narrow base, who appear to love him more for his shared disdain for the same people, groups and government entities he is destroying than for anything positive he has accomplished, a very short list that mostly involves not building, but taking things away, including from them, which ending ACA will do given their rate of preexisting conditions.
I think Trump has myriad motivations for pulling this out of his treasure chest of toxins, but one is to pretend he is fulfilling a campaign promise, never mind that he hasn't done the work to fulfill the only appealing part, coming up with an alternative. Trump and the Republicans seem incapable of taking in information that contradicts their ideological obsessions. The majority of Americans don't have the same problem. They don't want a wall and they like ACA. Rally on, Donald!!
9
Thanks for this brilliant analysis! Love the treasure chest of toxins!!!! Made my week.....
1
“We’re not talking about health care right now, but I will,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
What? Days after Dems announced they were rolling out theirs, like the previous Saturday? Doesn't FOX cover the news?
5
How does a 300 page report ‘that does exonerate the president’ and which has been shielded from the public represent a ‘win’ for the president?
7
I thought the role of the Justice Department was to defend the acts of the Congress for laws it passes? How is it that they can take the position of the state's attorneys general that a lawfully passed act -the Affordable Care Act- is unconstitutional ? They are acting at cross purposes from what their defined role is and AG Barr should be impeached by Congress for going against the Constitution.
9
Or how about Mulvaney in 2015 calling Trump's wall "absurd and almost childish?"
168
Mick Mulvaney: The man who said that Trump as a terrible human being.
Now he works three jobs for Trump. He should be suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance, but he doesn't seem to be showing any symptoms - yet.
197
I don’t think Mulvaney works for Trump.
2
You’re assuming that the first sentence was said in a negative light. Evil attracts evil.
21
The entire “freedom caucus’ which includes Mulvaney, were elected during the hysteria drummed up by fox and the republicans during the Dem push to pass the ACA. They were an inexpensive purchase by the Koch bros et al and you get what you pay for.
34
President Trump was elected because many voters in both major parties do not believe they are being effectively represented. The Republicans continue to spend most of their time representing sectoral business interests, often without regard to general national interests. The Democrats have become the progressive party, lead by self-appointed elitists, aggressively secular, supporting the goals of special interests, often without regard to general national interests. This column illustrates the problem from one point of view.
1
Well gee John ... just WHAT "general national interests" do you believe Mr. Trump is representing?
I tire of all of this speaking in tropes and dog-whistles ... spell it out.
3
This is going to backfire on Democrats, because We Cannot Get it Together on our own vision. Medicare for All? Not in a million years, however badly we may want it. This is going to upend any kind of uptick related to this issue.
1
@A
The problem with your comment and others with your attitude is that you continually neglect to take into account that poll after poll confirms that 70% of Americans(both democrats AND republicans)want some form of "universal healthcare".
You have to finally stop assuming that politicians committed to policies that you believe are impossible to implement yet, will actually significantly improve American lives is the same misguided thinking as to why Americans have been haggling about healthcare "without any real resolution" since Harry Truman was President!
1
@Deus And the problem with your comment is that the same poll indicates that once it is known that Medicare for All involves getting rid of insurance companies, support plummets below 50%. The more light shining on the issues involved, the less support there will be.
It's obvious Trump's attempting to rile up his base the same way he did with the shutdown over his wall funding. Even on a week where he gets a win, he can't not add some chaos to it. But, I think he's playing with fire here more so than on the wall money. Health care hits people's lives in a very direct way. Immigration reform is pretty abstract for most people; losing your healthcare coverage is not. Trump was always going to burn his supporters at some point. Taking something of value for himself in exchange for promises of something better that never come to fruition is a pretty classic business-world Trump move.
12
Trump WH is all about sound bites and BIG announcements . They will wobble away from health care since there is no real plan and find another landing pad for the next BIG announcement .
8
Yesterday's decision on work requirements is the only reason that many of the Republican members of the Idaho legislature aren't adding work requirements to the original ballot initiative that 61% of Idaho voters voted for.
3
I know- bring back Hilary Clinton's health care reform plan! She did all the research, interviewed MANY experts, and submitted a detailed report. It may need to be updated somewhat, but THAT more than anything would make me, her, and millions of uninsured people happy once and for all. She won the election, so let's re-examine all the hard work she did FOR US. And one more thing- the ENVIRONMENT factors heavily into the healthcare equation. Putting people into the ICU because of poison air and water is pretty stupid and prohibitively expensive. The doctors frankly don't care- Marcus Welby died a long time ago, along with house visits and personalized care. Don't wait for them to weigh in- too many of them are Republicans and don't take calls after hours. Many of them are out on their boats fishing. They want to get a new Mercedes, not read case histories or sit down with patients and give them time to ask all of the questions they were told to write down. "Get another doctor if they do that" we're told. But the "other doctor" is in the same network, or worse- they're not, and
you must pay them out of pocket. Chances are they're also too busy to spend the time. The insurance companies dictate what, when, and how, with strict time limitations on everyone involved.
So they send you home as long as your blood test says you're able too. If (way too often) everything is not resolved, you go back to the ER, and the cost of care doubles. I've been through the mill. Call HRC!!
8
America is the only country on Earth whose people have been convinced that despite cancer, heart problems, and every manner of curable or treatable disease that healthcare is for sissies.
Welcome the 2nd world America.
13
@Truthseeker
If Trump and his Republican cronies get their way, you will automatically qualify for "third world' status.
We should let them scrap the republican insurance middle man healthcare plan, blame republicans and actually have a government one that cuts out all insurance. Get rid of the death panel insurance companies that want you to die.
8
This president has the propensity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Given enough time, he will talk himself into a corner and white suburban Republicans, especially women, will continue to defect to the Democratic Party, which is the least worst solution. I wonder if the president realizes that the investigations by the Southern District of New York, and the Attorney General of New York, pose greater dangers to his unsullied reputation than the Mueller report.
12
I doubt anyone could
Claim that Trump’s reputation is “unsullied”
When it comes to having a political solution to our broken healthcare system, the voters are ultimately to blame. Why couldn't the Democrats run on healthcare for the 2010 midterm after ACA was just passed? Why do Kentuckians still don't know that Kynect is ACA? My son who is studying in Michigan got Medicaid coverage, but the government employee I talked to deflected when I asked if it is expanded Medicaid under ACA.
Voters are stupid, I am not afraid to say. They are too lazy to be informed of correct facts. They are easily misled. They don't think. How can the Republican voters not see what their politicians are doing?
They want ACA repealed? Let's make that a package deal of repealing Medicare as well! Maybe then the voting seniors can imagine the panic that rises up to the throats of the ACA beneficiaries.
Most importantly, there is a crucial reality nobody talks about, Left or Right -- how can healthcare insurance be affordable when the cost of healthcare itself is not affordable? Healthcare insurance companies are not charities and certainly don't grow money on trees. What are we doing about one dose of chemo drug costing 2K?
The United States is increasingly becoming a country that serves the rich only. The masses are kept at minimal subsistence level, just alive enough to meet the needs of the rich.
Tax cut for the rich, sure! Meals on Wheels, we can't afford it! All of the these, under the noses of ill informed, non-thinking voters!
23
Once again, Gail has helped us to return to a true perspective of the way things really are. And with that return, a determination to hang in until the congress, the judiciary, the senate and the pres are all on the same page....oh, maybe the same dog eared page....the one that tells about the way the inaugural got done. Thank goodness for humor, democracy and the New York Times.
5
Why is Gail Collins repeating the myth (for lack of a better word) that the Mueller report let Trump "off the hook"? No one outside of the Justice Department and the White Nationalist House has seen the report, and all we know of it's contents is a brief summary by one of his partisans--who is best known for helping to cover up and prevent indictments in the Iran Contra scandal. And even that summary says that Mueller did not exonerate Trump of possible Obstruction of Justice charges. NYT is failing it's readers and citizens. I guess we need to wait for the Washington Post to show some guts before the Times will catch up.
6
The problem we have is grounded in the drug industry followed by the medical practitioners and lastly the insurance industry.
Every politician campaigns on their determination to solve these issues as well as reducing taxes. Once elected those promises quickly vaporize and those avid voters are again duped.
One only has to look at how drug companies operate and what they spend on lobbying and self serving agendas. All politicians are beneficiaries of their largesse and privately refuse to lose the $$$$$. Talk about greed and corruption veiled as the cost of doing business!
Then there's the venerable FDA that was in a self induced coma while the country was spiraling into an opiode crusis and Medicaid fraud. Everywhere you turn, it's the money that is the root of the failed processes that abound at the highest levels of corporate and government leadership. Ifthats how America became great then I guess nothing will ever change.
2
Replacing the ACA with something better? Here we go listening to someone's wild fanny promises well in advance of any potential solution. All that knowledge of healthcare He claims to have is what has been teaspoon-fed to Him while they are figuring out how they, and He, will enjoy rolling out the new, Trumpcare program. But first, they must calculate how much better their collective bottom lines will be. Oh. The 20 million who are likely to lose their healthcare after the ACA is repealed? They're working on it.
4
It’s interesting. When you study the rise of Hitler, you find that he was initially felt, even by those who voted for him, to be a fool. But through political expediency, he rose to the powerful position that he did. Your humor is appreciated, but this is no laughing matter. Trump is following the classic dictator’s playbook.
10
You know, ... if the guy wasn't such a non-pleasant person, and didn't lie all the time. I could actually believe him on the occasion(s) when he might speak accurately and truthfully.
In my world, if I'm a jerk and lie to my customers, employees and friends. Very soon I would be lonely.
3
“I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook“
Gail, if you have a copy of the Mueller report please publish it. If you haven’t read it then please stop citing it or it’s impact.
5
Whoa! Why the cut against Duck Dynasty?
2
@David
Possibly because they are right-wing fundamentalists, anti-science, scraggly bearded spokespersons from the 19th century?
He’s a narcissist. Everything has to be all about him. No one else can have any air. If people could just get smart and turn that against him—really very easy because he’s such a simpleton—he’ll be crushed like a bug in the next election. Use his bottomless craving for attention against him. Read about narcissistic personality disorder—it’s his operator’s manual.
3
Yep! Looking forward to watching with glee as Trump shadowboxes himself into a corner!!!
2
What, where and when have there ever been any " Bad Times in Trumpland"?
The brilliant competent experienced wise Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton lost to the ignorant immoral incompetent inexperienced intemperate insecure Mr. Melania Knavs Trump.
Except on the pages of paper denial aka the New York Times/ Washington Post and the airwaves of media mythology aka MSNBC/ CNN the reality of the Trump presidency and his control of the Senate and the Supreme Court and the Republican Party and Fox News along with the support of Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman is letting their good times roll.
2
Can't even do a respectable job of crafting a plausible cover up...
A bungling buffoon who would be barely scraping by selling used cars in Hackensack if his daddy had not left him a fortune
4
I've noticed that group portraits of Traitor Trump's gang only have white men in them.
5
@george eliot
Correction: selfish, rich white men
This reminds me of that old joke. It's all very funny until someone gets hurt and then its hilarious.
Trump gets away with this phony bluster in front of his base and the sycophants he surrounds himself with, but health care is another story since MAGA hats get sick too. His promise that he understands health care is an all-talk TV promise, just like son-in-law Satan is going to achieve peace in the middle east. Politicians failed for years to come up with any kind of health care program (forget the middle-east issue), but because Obama (and Pelosi) did it of course the arrogant toddler-in-chief thinks he can too, and better. This is a gift to the Democrats and thank the lord Pelosi is smart enough to skip the victory dance and just lead.
Now maybe we can take back the presidency and the Senate and implement the Green New Deal. En sh' Allah!!
2
"The party of health care" that has had a decade to find a replacement for The ACA and still doesn't have squat.
It must be soooooo easy to be a rightist politician.
Not even your less than discerning base cares about whether or not you fulfill the myriad promises you make.
The koch-owned gop's Clinton Derangement Syndrome is so sad at this point that it borders on manic obsession.
I bet if some spunky investigative reporter did some digging, they'd find that back in the day president genital-grabber made overtures toward Hillary Clinton and she laughed in his face.
5
the NY Times is drowning with egg on its face, and keeps trying to make Trump look bad.
whatever you need to tell youself
still waiting for the mea culpa, since you were so sure Trump had conspired with Russia. yawn.
2
That’s right, keep your eyes on only one of the many many ways Trump has already proven his unethical
Philosophy along with the dozens of indictments and convictions from the “best people” he hired.
But those emails!!!
@Joe Yoh - Fascinating. How exactly does the NYT go about forcing Trump to lie every day, pay women for sex and brag about himself endlessly?
Maybe this is the next phase of Putin's plan for Trump. Now that he's cleared the collusion thing, Putin is egging him on to do the most stupid things possible.
2
I heard from good sources that Trump also wanted to rid America of Obamacare right after he left Stormy Daniel's hotel room.
2
Donald was winning! or so everybody thought. So... he had to change that. His entire shtick is victim porn. If he's on top, he's losing.
So he quickly changed the subject from total exoneration to being a victim again because success for Donald means being persecuted. Even by his own party.
Gutting health care for millions of Americans? There, now. That's much more comfortable.
5
“I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook.”
What Mueller report? Please stop writing that, even in jest.
2
Foot...meet Trump's best shot.
2
Actually, boredom may be an issue. Our Dear Leader definitely has an attention deficit/overload issue along with a laundry list of infantile narcissism, grandiosity, megalomania, oppositionalism, sociopathy, anti-social hostility, and on and on. Perhaps all subsets of a complex trauma disorder. Something nasty happened to that kid.
4
Nope he was just born with faulty wiring. Or a screw loose. Don’t make excuses for so much evil.
It amazes me that Trump has sold millions of Americans the proposition they should be more frightened of the possibility of an undocumented immigrant will cause their death than them dying from a health issue.
Billions for a Wall paid for with billions taken from healthcare.
It boggles your mind when you know 1/3 of Americans buy into this proposition.
8
Gail, this administration really tests your comedic abilities. The absurdity level is so high that real satire is nearly impossible. Instead of making me laugh, however, it only seem to make me want to cry.
1
How utterly disgusting it is that Gail Collins bemoans the realization that a duly elected President of the United States is NOT a traitor.
1
The Mueller Report is still under lock and key. The media has, like a cat with a laser pointer, gone after the Barr Dot. Please don't be distracted.....this is like Vegas, all bright shiny with no actual substance. Fun for a while but not forever.
Every Day, Headline..."Where is the Mueller Report" ?
If it cleared anyone, it would be in paperback already, or an easily downloadable pdf. Maybe it is still being audited by the IRS ?
I heard on a TV station (not Fox) "now that the Muller Report is behind us" and almost threw something at it. Don't buy that narrative. They are waiting for the next disaster to distract, which is what the ACA Repeal Part 62 is. Remember agreeing with Putin in Helsinki ? Allowing MBS to kill Journalists in plain sight in other countries ? Kicking the Israel-Palestine bee's nest (repeatedly) ?
Mueller Report, now, please. I don't give a darn what Mr. Barr's cover up documents read.
2
Good, good, good!
“Donald, nobody can defame a dead war hero like you do..." Just precious Gail.
3
Please. Enough with He Who Shall Not Be Named. Ignore him for two weeks and he’ll be gone. For good. By not doing that you are only illuminating your own hypocrisy
Gail
The only way Donald Trump can be described is as a “ total garbage.”
6
Trump is a shoot first then aim kind of dude. This time he shot himself in the head and foot at the same time. Hard but not impossible to do. Instead of prolonging his Mueller Report victory lap he decided to get combative with 20 million ACA insured citizens. It's true they may not get to keep their doctor but they desperately want to hang onto their healthcare insurance while they find another one. Dumb move. Very dumb. Trump never let's us down. He is a walking, talking disaster of unfathomable proportions.
5
Somebody HAS to repair the automatic safety shut off switch on the White House moronitron!
5
So Gail, you're suggesting Trump couldn't have been involved in collusion because he's limited to words of no more than two syllables which no doubt reflect his extremely limited imagination and IQ? Too dumb to figure out how to collude? Maybe.
2
Why isn’t the press asking the president: “Why should we believe you that you can deliver a health care plan? You haven’t delivered anything else you promised so we no longer TRUST you!” How can the public trust a man that lies? How stupid can we be to trust him to deliver anything but chaos?
4
The evil clown president says he now understands healthcare? This miscreant, inhumane, con man understands nothing but greed. No morals, no ethics, no intelligence, nothing of virtue describe this empty soul. This description also applies to his family, the Republican party in general, and the inane MAGA wearers.
3
Trump is a sideshow. His cabinet is the shop of horrors. Example number 1 is DeVoss, who is as dumb and mean as they get. But again it's the military that gets all the fruit of our labors. 62 cents out of every dollar
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/27/trump-budget-military-immoral
4
Hilarious—I love you, Gail Collins.
They don't come dumber than The Donald.
2
The best protection of the Constitution and our rights may well be the abject stupidity of Donald J Trump.
3
I have never seen a person combine malice, stupidity, and cunning so seamlessly as Donald Trump.
4
Republicans can never be "the party of health care". They have already firmly established themselves as the party of trying to DENY health care. The very idea of a major role for government in providing health care goes against their ideology.
4
Gail Collins, under the guise of humour, your column always delivers the most accurate and vivid snapshot of the current state of mind in King Ubu's Court -- quite a feat given the irreconciliable loose ends that have to be fitted in a short sketch, day after day.
7
None of us have seen the Mueller report. You cannot make claims regarding its contents.
Please identify the document correctly when referring to the Barr report.
4
Trump’s renewed attempt to destroy the ACA and it’s timing is nothing more than his striking back at Democrats and his perceived notion of all of those who tried to oust him through the Mueller investigation. It’s a typical trump childlike characteristic — vindictiveness. And cruelty.
10
Haha your wit made me laugh out loud. Thank you for that!
Donald is exuberant . . . but let's wait for the New York Stiletto to fall. Remember, Mueller was not looking for indictments - he was 'sorting the laundry' and sending the piles of dirt to the proper 'laundress . . .'
7
Make no mistake, getting rid of Obamacare is the GOP in action. This has been the dream since the last election. They have a tweeting figurehead who acts as circus master pointing to ring three, while the GOP does it's dirty dealings in rings one and two.
Their tweeting figurehead does not come up with any ideas, but agrees to anything he sees on Fox & Friends and what he is told to say by the GOP.
We need to focus on that in the next election cycle.
2
Trump is elated his fake "exoneration". He is so thrilled that in a fit of megalomania he has gone after his favorite target, Barack Obama (or is that John McCain?). Trump's solid base of low education Fox News captives, overt racists and hypocritical religious fundamentalists don't care if he throws them out onto the streets to die for lack of health care. Some even believe he was sent by God to save them! Very sad but predictable behavior for Trump lovers who would not be concerned if Trump shot someone on 5th Ave just as he himself predicted.
Furthermore, the contemptible spineless Republicans who always stand with the ignorant, incompetent and dishonest Donald Trump, may groan, but in the end they will line up behind Trump no matter how much damage he does to our country.
8
We're laughing at your "Bad Times in Trumpville" piece this morning, Gail! Our president messed up his own good news with his demented riff on the Republican Health Care bill that will sweep out Obamacare lock, stock and barrel. Trump crowed that the Republicans will be "the Party of Healthcare!" Yeah, right.
The Dems won the MidTerms on the health care issue, and Trump sees he can hitch his broken-down gold shay to the health care star, and hold on tight for 2020. Now what will president Trump tweet to distract us from his Mueller win and hawking G.O.P. health care when the courts strike down Obamacare?
Many people don't (see and haven't been allowed to see) the Special Counsel's report, but Trump's A.G. gave us carefully parsed chapter and verse -- enough so Trump could brag that there was "no collusion", "no obsruction!", "total and complete exoneration!". Instead of magnanimity in victory (sic), Trump has gone the extra lap like E.L.Thayer's 1888 poem, "Casey at the Bat": "And there is no joy in Mudville [Wash. D.C.] -- Mighty Casey has struck out".
2
I don't know Gail. Trump's attack on the ACA now that he's declared "victory" over Mueller makes perfect sense.
Clearly the failure of Republicans to repeal the ACA at the outset of his presidency weighs heavily on his mind. Hence his renewed attacks on John McCain. Like any strongman worth his salt, he values the need to appear invincible. He doesn't want to be loved by the Republicans in Congress, he wants to be feared and admired for managing to accomplish all the things they said they've been saying they wanted but didn't get. He is determined to prove that he doesn't need them to get his agenda accomplished, and if he is succeeds, Republicans will have no choice but to come around and bow down and kiss his feet, because, after all, he is making good on their agenda. And then he will dare his supporters to vote against him and help a Democrat get elected and turn the country into Venezuala. And never Trump Republicans like your colleague Bret Stephens will tsk tsk but decline to endorse the Democratic nominee, because in actuality, he didn't have a problem with the Republican agenda, only with the man who ended up executing it.
Michael Cohen said that Trump meant what he said about shooting someone on 5th avenue and getting away with it, and there are fewer sick Americans than healthy ones, and if he can deliver a healthcare system that is much cheaper for healthy people and win their loyalty, why should he care about the others? It's all about winning.
3
Gail, more, more, more! Please.
Hey, easy on the local 7-11 guy. He looked at my swollen finger and recommended turmeric. What has Trump done?
6
The stupidity of Trump is manifest in the fact that a number of his base have Obamacare which, unless there is a special dispensation given only to those who voted for him, will go away. Could be that their enthusiasm might wane a bit if their health care gets yanked. But the inexplicable thing is that he then turned around and decided to defund Special Olympics. Really? He hates disabled children too? Perhaps we need a gulag somewhere where all those with special needs can be contained out of the eyesight of normal people kind of like lepers were in biblical times? This is what Trump does when he's feeling good. He's on a revenge tour. Still, it is hard to fathom what disabled children have done to offend him.
2
The Trump Administration is never to be labelled as The Most Scandalous With New Ways to Corrupt the Body Politic without a fight - and an appointment of another ninny escapee from the likes of the Heritage Foundation. Just today, it was disclosed that the genius economist Trump wants to put on the Federal Reserve Board doesn't know how to prepare his own tax return. And, it wasn't some rule that only a super sharp green-eye-shade guy would know either.
As any divorced person in America knows, child support paid to an ex-spouse is not deductible from the payer's taxable income. Not our (maybe) new Fed member. Stephen Moore, certified by the usual right wing hacks as a tax expert, owes back taxes since 2014, according to news reports today. MAGA. MAGA.
With her sly wit, Gail Collins explores the motivations for Trump snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But I suspect she is too polite to mention the obvious: Having triumphed in the Mueller report with a semi-honorable discharge -- albeit the bar, or rather the Barr, was set low -- Trump decided, Javert-like, to go for the jugular and kill his hated rival Obama's avatar, Obamacare.
In Trump's world, it's not enough to win. Your enemy must lose -- bigly.
Unfortunately for him and the Republicans, this move plays to the Democrats' strengths. -- thegamesmenplay.com
1
Please stop stating the “Mueller report let him off the hook....”. It’s Barr’s version.
1
When a very sick narcissist wins something big, or thinks he has, he gets high, he gets a rush that’s near mania or a cocaine run. He believes himself confirmed as superhuman, and that is now an unbridled god. Trump promised to repeal (oh, and replace) Obamacare, and in his state of euphoric egomania, will go after it by decree. The only thing that reliably stops men like this is reality. Will the GOP side with reality or with Nero?
1
Donald turmp thinks he looks like a weak leader unless he is harming someone.
4
Trump must have played golf with a doctor. Totally up to speed now.
1
Republicans will come up with a faith-based health care plan.
Just pray to god you and you family don’t get sick. Ever.
3
Trump wants to get rid of Obamacare only because it's got someone else's name on it.
2
How come the average life span in “ the world’s greatest country” keep falling? Why do we have a infant mortality rate of a third world country? Why does the USA spend the largest percentage of our budget on the military as compared to the rest of the world? Why are their seemingly so many stupid, ignorant people in the USA as compared to other first world countries?
You know the answer, it’s what the Republican Party likes.
3
Hey, Duck Dynasty really wasn't that bad.
2
Barr sends Trump a gift on a silver platter just as he notices Michelle Obama has reached the 10 million level of sales of her book. Trump goes ballistic and somehow remembers Obamacare is still in effect. Ergo, attack Obama........care. There really is nothing more to it than this. Trust me.
Banning Summer vacation?? When will we eat our ice cream??
With this latest anti-Obamacare(s) crusade, it’s like the political equivalent of a Trumpian double scoop ice cream cone meeting his forehead.
1
What amazes me is the public devotion that his fellow Republicans show the ?President.? He is so obviously a fool that his own cohorts can’t seem to find the words to stop his idiocy. And Mitch McConnell’s fawning all over Trump is so overt that one would think that they are having an affair. Trump deserves nothing but contempt, and it looks like he will continue to try to strike down every pillar of our society, replacing it with a picture of himself and his comb over. He is not above the law. He is a bully, a blowhard, and a very poor example of what a responsible professional adult should be. He can tweet, he can rant, he can rave, but the whole world knows that he is really a poorly educated phony. The United States will survive his presidency, but at what cost?
1
Gail, thank you yet again for helping me to snicker instead of despair over the buffoon in chief. You are the light at the end of the tunnel. Care to run for President?
1
But his so-called good news wasn’t good news at all. Most Americans realize all we saw was an attempted white-wash job by Barr. If Tricky Dick’s AG had been as corrupt as Barr, Nixon would not have had to resign his corrupt Prrsidency. We all need to see the full error!
4
Let us see if you people can lose any more credibility....How about begging for people to listen to you at the highway bridges...
Gail you seem to wish for...
- The president to be a traitor
- The president to not announce focus and energy on a broken system whose costs continue to be too high (healthcare)
....and that if Trump is happy or wants something, others should be sad and want the opposite of him.
Is that the intellectual prowess you wish to convey in your opinion section?
Trumpville sounds like the place people without health
insurance can go to die.
4
Why the seemingly suicidal attack on Obamacare at this time? Because Trump has correctly perceived that attacking something - anything - riles up his base, infuriates his opponents, and keeps sowing the seeds of division that he and his supporters thrive on. Today, it's health care. Tomorrow, it will be military spending - or some other issue that he knows will generate acrimony between Americans. He is determined to make everything a fight, to prevent any kind of bi-partisanship, because fights are what his angry, me-first base loves. If they were interested in finding real solutions to the problems facing America, they wouldn't be supporting him in the first place.
433
@David DeSmith
I predict Trump will not gain any NEW supporters during the 2020 campaign. Now if we can only get the Stein supporters, Sanders supporters, and non-voters to support the Democratic nominee no matter who it is (like they should have done last time!) we'll win.
30
You’re right. Blood boiling outrage - in both his supporters and in those who loathe him - is the whole point, an end in itself. It’s exhausting, depressing and exciting the worst in all of us. It’s killing us as a country.
If it were only theater (amplified non-stop by cable news), we might find a way to tune it out and not bark at every whistle. But we don’t have that luxury, not while he has the power and willing accomplices to make insane policy.
26
@David DeSmith Smartest comment I've read in a long time !!!!
8
Correction: The Barr Report let Trump off the hook - for now. We need to see the full report to reach a fullsome conclusion
Having just watched the House Intelligence Committe’s hearings, it’s clear that much remains hidden and distorted by Trump’s enablers. The amoral Davin Nunes (R-CA) Rep Conway (R-Tx), Rep Turner (R-Ohio), Rep Rewart (R-Utah) to name a few. The experts testifying left no doubt that a) Putin imterfered in the elections b) continues to interfere and attack the country along to a level of impact that 9/11 had. Yet, nothing seems to have been done to remedy these attacks.
7
Will someone please throw a bucket of water on this man and melt him? Trump even makes Theresa May look smart which she is not.
9
Trump isn't very smart.
After 2 years, Dems fall flat on their face with their hyped ‘Russian Collusion story’, which was just, as we say in the Southwest, all hat and no cattle. Now, it’s “healthcare”, an incredibly fast (2-days!) narrative pivot and after 24 months of non-stop Mueller. The NYT beating the drum nonstop, but suddenly the chanting and dancing has come to a halt.
This is mostly Trump’s fault. He gave the media fodder to quickly transition away from the failure of the Mueller investigation. Now we will have to hear about his newest inane statement, but now we’re all losing our healthcare or something.
Guess, as a Trump voter, I’ll have to wait till this one falls through too and CNN/Maddow can’t figure out why when their ratings came in, they were down 20-35%.
Obama should have made sure the Affordable Care Act was called "white man's healthcare".
Then the republicans wouldn't touch it.
Bulworth for president.
3
Well, at least their not cutting aid to the Special Olympics. Oh wait they are . Yay for Republicans. Need that money to fund the weekly golf trips for Trump! Way to go.
7
Donnie was born on third base but stupidly wandered to first several times and only because the other team’s managers felt sorry for him they (the electoral college and whoever lends him money) allowed him to take home. Let’s hope we don’t lose the game of democracy because of this.
5
@Paulie - No, Trump was born on Home Plate, and has been working his way back to 3rd base.
1
@David
And anything he touches turns into a foul ball, often within a New York minute.
He's trying to distract from his administration's approval of the U.S. selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. "The U.S. Department of Energy has approved six authorizations for U.S. companies seeking to conduct nuclear related work in Saudi Arabia, according to two sources with knowledge of those approvals." @TheDailyBeast
6
Next thing you know the Trump Administration will be taking funding away from Special Olympics and autism.......opps, my bad, I’m told they already did that. Well at least they would never divert money intented to enhance military housing facilities and water safety to build THE WALL.....oops, I’m apparently wrong again. Please tell me puppies and the ASPCA are safe...please!
5
I get it. Build a wall and everyone who is inside it who is in a bottom percentile or over 55 will die from lack of coverage. Then the wages of those left ("traditional" Americans wink wink white with some high performing minorities) will be higher and the 1% can skim off even more tax money. Sweet./s
Have I got a bridge that needs repair for you.
"We'll have the best health care, the biggest health care, beautiful health care --- and Mexico will pay for it!"
Or Putin, whatever...
10
"Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move,
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns?
Don't bother, they're here."
Thank-you Judy Collins.
5
Gail--you forgot the administration's proposal to defund the Special Olympics!
What a week...
4
The pivot to healthcare makes perfect sense. Trump knows full and well that the only prayer he has of getting re-elected (and thereby avoiding prison) is to further galvanize his cult, in the hopes of scraping together another winning electoral college combo. And he further knows that there are about four or five words that he needs to continually bleat to keep the Trumpkins riled up. WALL. OBAMACARE. MUSLIMS. MEXICAN RAPISTS. Which works out beautifully, given his limited vocabulary (albeit one which consists of only the very bests words).
3
Gail, I take exception to your gratuitous smear of the good folks at 7Eleven. Most them actually have some idea of what's on the shelves in their stores.
2
Another classic Gail Collins column. It is written in prose but sounds like poetry.
3
Brava!
1
Mulvaney, like Trump and Stephen Miller, is among the sourest of people. He's never seemed to like anyone except himself. He loathes poor people, apparently, and the elderly, and I bet he sits in front of a computer trying to determine which popular programs he can cut. (He doesn't like Trump, either, but that's another story having to do with the care and feeding of useful idiots).
He's the guy, remember, who gutted the Consumer Protection agency, asserting that it wasn't needed. In doing so, he loosed the dogs of scam to prey on the general population. Which was what people clearly wanted, right?
We should keep an eye on Mick. It wouldn't surprise anyone if, in the midst of two fatal airline catastrophes, he takes out his red pen to completely end the federal budget for the FAA and other agencies responsible for transportation safety. If he can sell Trump on attacking health care, it will surely be an easy task to persuade Trump that we don't need no stinkin' oversight of airlines.
Where do we get such men?
3
The Democrats and former Clintonites keep wasting time and energy trying to shame and embarrass Mr. Trump. They keep forgetting that you can't shame a pig! Instead of reacting to his every move with criticism, which only builds his thirst for revenge, they should forge ahead with ideas Trump himself touted that they also want, such as infrastructure and demand that he live up to his words. They should have given him his stupid wall, and then asked for something in return. They keep playing the wrong game, sadly, and we all lose.
1
Picking this fight was the work of Mulvaney. Which tells me he is
1. ready for Trump not to be President any more.
This one is easy - he is no longer a useful idiot. The economy will be in recession before the 2024 elections, better for any Democrat to be President. Load him up with the one issue he can’t win on, and send him to a microphone.
or 2. he is fairly certain Trump will lose anyway, so why not try to dump Obamacare.
Also an easy call. Any Democratic President will start by shoring up Obamacare, and it will never be touchable again. If lightening strikes twice, Trump wins and Republicans can end Obamacare with no alternative, and let the bodies fall where they may. No loss to Mulvaney.
Trump just got played by the Freedom Caucus. Big surprise.
3
He leads by chaos, it’s something compketely different every day of our lives, and makes no sense! Is this impeachable?😉
2
Hello Gail,
Sorry, have to disagree with ya on a Couple of Points:
Almost every time it seems, the Press Over looks the Obvious with mr. trump.
A lot of the time, The Press seems to be “Butter” for his “Bread”, ...so to speak !
There are some Good Stories, for sure but Sharp Accuracy is Needed at All Times, ...take for example, the “Mueller Report” headlines from the weekend... the Facts Are:
This is a Deceptive report Written by a Fraudulent and Unethical Attorney, (who Should've Recused but Didn't), who is Employed by Criminals Occupying Our WH and who also has been Helped by the Criminals who Occupy Our Congress, (mitch and friends) !
Dereliction of Duty is a Crime and people will be Held Accountable for their Actions some day soon.
The Health Care topic for mr. trump, is a Hollow & Bare Bone, meant only for dogs to chew on.
Nothing Good will come from it !
It is a Mirage that a is Seen in the Hot & Dry places of the earth.
We are being Weakened, on a Daily basis” by this Constant Lie that occupies Our Present presidency and which Flows from his administration !
We have to Notice the Pressure Points that dictators use on their subjects because that is the True Mindset of the person who holds the Title of presidente in Our country Now !
“let's make america great again”, says the tin-pot dictator.
We're in some Deep DoDo and It is Serious !
1
Here's Trump's biggest problem with Obamacare. It's the first five letters.
4
Joe Smith: You got it exactly right! Anything that has the stamp of Obama gives fits to Trump.
Surely Trump recognizes in Obama all he is not. Starting with Decency, Leadership and Good Will.
2
Hard to be more cynical than Gail. Fun piece. If anything, these last two or more years have proven that really really really stupid and corrupt people can actually inhabit the White House pretending to know what they're doing - and the walls and ceilings of the place are still standing. And so are we. For now.
Gail Collins, please do write an imaginative column of the Trump administration running a 7-eleven.
1
It may seem that Trump truly enjoys acting like a Mafiosi wannabe who just beat the rap.
But the reality is he's not acting.
2
There was no exoneration in the Mueller report. No one but Barr has read it. We don’t know what’s in there, so stop reporting it.
"People are beginning to notice that the acting secretary of defense is a former top official at Boeing."
*Some people* remember when the secretary of defense was a former top official at Ford Motor Company. This was during the Vietnam War when the United States dropped more ordnance on the territory, South Vietnam, of our purported ally than we dropped on Nazi Germany in World War II.
Need I reming you, Gail, of how well that worked out? Could it be that having former corporate sector "leaders" as defense secretaries is in fact a bad idea and a "lesson of Vietnam" -- one of many -- that we still (still!) haven't learned?
Well, Gail, there is good news here.
Tomorrow, Trump will still be President of the United States, and you will be penning another biased and partisan screed full of sour grapes.
All is well.
If we get another term of Trump you may not have to worry about ever hearing from reporters like her again. Won’t that be great?
1
A bit of conspiratorial thinking perhaps, but I'm not convinced this isn't a strategy to actually distract from the Mueller report. The more we hear the more it seems things aren't quite as black and white as the Barr memo would have indicated (shocking). Despite what Trump says I don't think he wants the report released to the public and he considers himself pretty lucky to have been let off the hook.
Smollett, Obamacare, the border, Google, and so on are all attempts to avert eyes and attention away from the Mueller report and make it seem as though it's open and shut, which seems to be far from the truth.
2
Donald, it’s not over til the fat lady sings.
1
"Really, Trump could not have made them happier if he’d announced that he planned to unveil a new tax cut called Help for The Greedy Rich."
Wouldn't it have to be called "Help for The Greedy Rich 2.0"? You know, to avoid confusion with last year's tax cut for the greedy rich?
Speaking of sequels, perhaps Trump would like to keep it simple and take a chance on "Skinny Repeal 2.0".
In honor of Senator McCain, the House Democrats can each signal their No vote with a hearty Thumbs Down. Or maybe just the hand and finger gesture of their choice.
I'm sure the late Senator would approve of that too.
2
But this has been the GOP MO for decades---they do not like minorities, they do not like poor people, that do not like taxes they do not like regulation, and they do not like the New Deal---that is who they are, the party of "do not like." And when not under attack for doing stupid stuff--e.g. Iraq, gathering dirt from Russians---they return as the party of "do not like."
4
Every time he opens his mouth is more proof of his unfitness for office. His cruelty, egomania, plus ignorance continues the debasement of the Office of the Presidency.
5
Personally, I think he was empowered by William Barr's coverup of the Mueller report. Toss in Obama's insults of Trump at the Correspondents Dinner and McCain's thumb, and his head exploded.
He hates Obama so much, he's willing to remove coverage for pre-existing conditions. Your move, Pelosi.
5
trump has spent his presidency criticizing and defaming President Obama, trying to dirty his name and wipe memory of him off the history books. Can you imagine how enraged he feels about a law entitling people to healthcare with Obama's name on it?
The first thing trump does to get in front of the 4-page report of his hand-picked AG is to try to eliminate Obama's name as well as the healthcare act.
3
Gail's column was the perfect tonic for an unsavory week. On her mention of the Venezuela meeting, did anyone notice that Fabiana Rosales normally smiles ear to ear in her public photos, but sitting next to Trump she was as grim as grim could be? Maybe she was concerned she would be stained by any notion of denying people healthcare - but imagine how horrendous it would be to meet with an admitted and boastful sexual assaulter in a supposedly diplomatic meeting, when the admitted assaulter is the one protected by the secret service!
3
"I understand health care now especially very well."
-By their syntax, ye shall know them.
Shortly after the Barr bowdlerized version of the Mueller Report was made public, one of the pundits on one of the talk shows opined ('cause that's what pundits do) that if Trump could keep his mouth shut and his short thumbs still between now and November 2020, he stood a good chance of winning a second term.
This thought depressed me utterly for about twenty-four hours.
3
Trump is not particularly likable, not terribly smart, and not very sane. All democrats need to do to beat him is be more likable, smarter and saner than ...Trump. This message board seems like we are on the way to an "Epic Fail" to that.
Sorry, but I’m getting a little tired of otherwise responsible journalists, especially ones I usually admire, saying the Mueller report let Trump off the hook when so many of us —including said journalists — haven’t seen it yet.
1
Trump's mendacious attempt to eliminate Obamacare is further indication of his obsession with eliminating Barack Obama's legacy. Based on the Mid Terms results, such an obvious political error could only be explained by a pathological compulsion. When you couple that with his egregious attacks on John McCain the evidence of psychological dysfunction mounts. His personal attacks are his compensation mechanism for two existential qualities he demonstrably lacks, Barack Obama's intellect, and John McCain's courage.
1
Trump's latest attack on Obamacare IS another attack on the late war hero. Think about it.
1
Remember the “Death Panel” that Sarah Palin was ranting about years ago? Now the entire Administration is trying to eliminate the lower forty percent of the economic class of citizens as unworthy to live in Trump’s Great America!
“I understand health care now especially very well,” Trump bragged.
Dear President Trump,
Please elaborate in detail what you mean. I remember when you thought we were getting healthcare for $12 a year. I remember when you were willing to sign a law that would take healthcare away from 30 million people. You stated, "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated." Millions are depending upon ACA and you plan to destroy it.
I think you have NO idea of what good healthcare means nor do you know the cost.
Medicare for All will cover ALL people at a cost much less than private insurance companies. It is much, much more important that everyone have good health insurance than you spend money on a vanity wall.
Sincerely,
A very disgruntled voter who is on Medicare.
2
The Southern District of New York is our last hope for justice, but why there are not more revelations regarding Kushners seemingly blatant, in our face financial dealings with a whole cast of questionable Middle East characters, is astounding.
1
@Ted Don't hold your breath. Barr greased the skids to another term.
To go from Barr's summary, which could have been written by Trump and Putin together, to getting rid of Obamacare is beyond ham handed.
Gail, I hope you have time to update your worst cabinet secretary candidates soon . Tight race , but I think the Betsy has a lead right now
3
I used to call Trump a fifth grader, but after yesterdays outburst he is back in third grade. It's insulting to every American to have this man's utterances broadcast for all to see and hear. we as a nation are better than this.
@Karn Griffen . . . don't we wish. For better or worse, P45 is varnished in teflon.
The hashtag part is easy #trumpdontcare
2
Trump conveniently forgot why he lost the House in the 2018 midterms. He is the guy who plays with a poisonous snake (ACA) forgetting about his imminent death if he continues his playtime routine. He may claim above average intelligence but as usual he continues to betray the claim regularly with his poor decision making.
1
Raising the false-flag of healthcare again?
As long as the state of our health is a commodity ripe for exploitation, we will never have true universal healthcare in America.
As for the democrats, they have been talking and talking and talking about universal healthcare since 1945 - when Nancy Pelosi was five years old.
What will it take for voters to see that they are not serious?
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
What got into the president is that he felt he triumphed over the Mueller report so now he will go full throttle against Obamacare. He is on a roll and doubling down. He can do no wrong.
1
Squirrel!
How many times does Trump have to fool you before you get what he is doing? No matter what happens in reality, Trump takes a quick victory lap and changes the topic with a more outlandish agenda.
Maybe he was diverted, maybe he was bored, or maybe he knows exactly how to get you to do what he wants, change the subject. Please remain focused, you've already moved on from the current and ongoing cover-up of the Mueller Report because Trump said a thing.
1
Healthcare, it’s “ crossing the Rubicon “ for the Trump Regime, a fatal, irreversible decision. For his Collaborators, it’s also an attempt at bossing the real Con. Analogous to herding Cats, if the biggest, meanest, dumbest Cat has Rabies and a raging, insatiable Meth addiction. I have Zero sympathy for them, the Oval Office is a revolving door of unabashed swampiness. What did they expect ? Puppies, rainbows and cake ? But, NO Special Olympics. Too expensive, unlike Golf Weekends. Thanks, Betsy DeVos. The Wicked Witch Of The Beast, i.e. Donald.
2020. I’m counting down the DAYS. Seriously.
2
we can only hope the ACA gets killed by Trump.
that may be the only way for the USA to get single payer socialized medicine.
just imagine this: Trump could have been the greatest president ever as he had/has the unwavering support of 40% (!!!) of the populace. he could have pivoted and suggested single payer, green energy, intellectual and technical property protection from China, stronger alliances with Europe and our allies and human rights throughout the world and that 40% would have stuck with him and the dems would have joined in on most of the issues. there would be fights on abortion and gun rights but overall he would have been able to get it done. instead he has wasted his chance and has divided the country forever, lost our strongest allies and supported the worst human rights violators ever.
what a waste.
If there are any true healthcare experts anywhere in America, we know they are members of the Hippocratic Republican Party and their leading healthcare expert, Donald Trump, who has been promising better healthcare and lower prices ever since he first learned how to lie about healthcare and shred it to pieces a few years ago.
Donald even briefly healed his own dying Presidency by hiring William Barr to distribute Cliff Notes and a fresh coat of white paint to whitewash the entire unread Mueller report on Trump's sordid 2016 campaign staff and his world record for Presidential non-stop obstruction of justice...which in itself was yet another act of Presidential obstruction of justice, but who's counting...well maybe the Southern District of New York is counting...but everyone else has lost track.
But back to the Hippocratic Republican Party, who never saw a ventilator plug they didn't want to pull out of the socket...or a Medicare/Medicaid recipient who didn't deserve a demotion.
We all know what kind of healthcare Republicans prefer; it's the kind of personalized boutique medical care that rich people can better afford without having to pay those pesky ACA investment income 3.8% surcharge taxes that subsidize poor people who they prefer would simply expire...and quickly.
Dr. Donald and the GOP Health Clinic are now accepting new patients...with a complimentary early funeral free of charge.
"Take two tax cuts and call me from the morgue, America !"
The GOP Doctor is in !
13
The Democrats have to keep repeating over and over regarding the release of the report: What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?
Watching Trump do something with his right hand then next day, sometimes next hour, tear it all down with his left hand is fascinating. Fascinating, too, is the obvious fact he hasn't a clue about his own actions. Terrifying, though, is watching all the Republican Congress and about 30% of the population join him in his craziness.
This whole pivot to stripping health insurance from 20 million Americans while eliminating Obamacare benefits that apply to all Americans is incredibly stupid and destructive, so much so even some Congressional Republicans are panicking.
I wonder if members of the Deep State in the White House are setting Mr. Trump up for his next big fall.
Gail, may I change your title to Fun Time in Trumpville?
First, we have DeVos ending government funding to Special Olympics. This is bigger than if they cut almost a TRILLION to Medicare. Wait, they did. A new Stan Lee epic of Republicans waging nuclear war upon seniors, our most special children and medical care for our poor and middle class.
Speaking of Stan Lee and waging war, is Senator Mike Lee a nephew? His dragon montage cracked me up. Ronnie with the automatic captured a Bruce Lee or is that Bruce Willis moment for future generations to judge Republicans as saviors of democracy. Democrats are cheering as the AG's memo is thrown into the shredder and then the trash bin.
1
Is Trump secretly working for the Democratic Party? Now that would be rich!
Think about it—he has vividly exposed the worst of the Republican Party on everything from Soup to Nuts. Let’s see how they navigate through this self made disaster, there will be many more.
I know this is gallows humor, but it gets me through the day.
Honestly, my local 7-Eleven is a well oiled machine. How about the Trump Administration are only capable of running a cesspool pumping service. That is pumping waste INTO the septic tank; not out.
3
"I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook." Say what? Is the author saying she has seen the report? How does she know that the Mueller report let Trump "off the hook."... This is the first sentence in her little scribble... so I didn't bother reading the rest... I'll read some of the comments to determine if I missed something of any value... But I just can't bring myself to read something that is obviously flawed right out of the chute...
Gail, can we just remind everyone that when Mulvaney was in the House - representing South Carolina - he labeled himself a 'right-wing nutjob'.
It's the one and only time we've ever agreed with Mulvaney.
Thank you Gail for voicing, as an aside, that we all secretly doubted Trump was capable of handling an international conspiracy re Russia. From now on, we should simply assume that everything Trump says and does is a symptom of a very small man with an incredibly fragile ego - nothing more (or less).
Why did he so clearly attempt to obstruct the Mueller investigation? Not because he was guilty, but because any doubt cast on the legitimacy of his election victory must be resisted at all costs, even if it makes the situation so much worse.
The man is an idiot and a narcissist ... there is nothing else to consider.
But, in regard to the Affordable Care Act, only in America can a party consider promising to demolish the closest thing the country has to universal healthcare as a winning strategy.
Thanks for this great piece, such a achievement to make this tragic time in such an hilarious text. BTW, Is their anyway to follow new article by a specific author on the NYT app ?
1
“Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour...”
Chaucer, “Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
America is a mass of compromises between the sheep and the wolves. In such a transactions , there is always a sorry sheep.
Dear Gail: These thoughts come to you less in response to this morning's excellent column, and more as a kind of "future think" riff. I always love your "Worst Cabinet Member" contests (Betsy DeVos, consistently the runner up, hands down this time, don't you think?); in that vein I'd like to suggest the following. In light of the steady and easy-to-document diminishment in Republican presidents' ability to speak English (we've gone from the affable Ronald Reagan to the "let's have a beer" preppy cowboy W., to the completely incomprehensible current Oval Office occupant -- slight detour for the more erudite GHWB/41), how about a contest to see who we think might be next in the Race To The Linguistic Bottom when this nightmare finally ends? Since recognition of subject from predicate or the ability to conjugate a verb no longer matter, who might we think could possibly diminish our use of language and our ability to communicate even further? We know the Trumps fancy themselves a new political dynasty, so perhaps we need look no further than the mostly, mysteriously silent Eric; but DJT jr. seems to have studied at his father's knee (though the carefully cultivated soft-spoken, "cool as a cucumber" Ivanka might be planning to break loose from the family mold). Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pence seem able to speak well enough, so they won't feature in the Speaking Gibberish/Grammatical Indecencies sweepstakes. Eager to know your thoughts. Asking for many friends.
Brilliant! Your dry wit makes my day.
_sigh_ "I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook."
No. It didn't.
Trump's AG Barr claims it did, but the single sentence he quotes from the actual (400+ pages) report explicitly says "it also does not exonerate him”
And please stop staying this, because people who don't pay a lot of attention (or who are pathological liars, like Mr. Trump) will now say he's "exonerated".
Wow, impeccable timing from the best brain ever!
Why does America think it has to make up a new healthcare plan when so many exist around the world that have been working for decades. Just study those plans and choose one.
I've been treated for cancer in the US and in France and I pick France as much better.
Why doesn't Congress pay for their healthcare themselves? or only get Medicare?
I am surprised now when I visit the US, how rundown everything looks - the airports, roads, trains when this is so much spiffier in Europe. In the US it all seems chaotic and unplanned. Everyone seems to work a lot so where does all the money go? Obviously not to the communities.
972
@getGar It has to do with the fact that each state has a certain level of sovereignty. Rich (blue) states tend to fund poor (red) states via federal tax redistribution, but, as I see it, the Senate is a powerful branch of government where a senator from lower populated states like Wyoming that are more conservative have co-equal authority with states like California. For that reason, there is a disproportionate number of Republicans in the Senate to Democrats. Republicans favor states rights, lower taxes, and a small federal government despite the fact that their states take in more federal tax dollars. Healthcare, infrastructure, environment, family leave, and education take a back seat to lower taxes and defense when Republicans are in control.
227
@Diana
"..the Senate is a powerful branch of government where a senator from lower populated states like Wyoming that are more conservative have co-equal authority with states like California".
...Or even "a senator (McConnell) from a 'lower-populated' state like Kentucky", which apparently is also one of the poorest and most federally-subsided of all the states?
185
@Diana Yes we really need to focus less on the EC and more on proportional representation. Iowa can have their two Senators but California should have at least 20, NY and FL 15 each, etc. The change would be startling and we'd all be better for it.
144
Republicans cannot accept the obvious that has been proven in county after country: That there is no ‘free market’ solution to healthcare and all workable solutions are Obamacare or to its left, and that’s why they can’t come up with the ‘replace’ part.
940
@Mark Marks-Hopefully Republicans will wake up to the tens of millions who will be harmed if the ACA is ended (essentially all Americans, if the NYTimes article is accurate): 171 million Americans would no longer be protected against caps on expensive treatments; 60 million Medicare beneficiaries would face changes to medical care and possibly higher premiums; more than 12 million low-income Americans would lose Medicaid coverage; enrollment in Medicaid would drop by 15 million; medical care for the uninsured could soar to $50 billion; states would not be able to replace the full amount of federal subsidies with state funding--and on it goes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/health/obamacare-trump-health.html
Of the 23 million people who either buy health insurance through the marketplaces set up by the law (11.4 million) or receive coverage through the expansion of Medicaid (12 million), about 21 million are most at risk if Obamacare is struck down. That includes 9.2 million who receive federal subsidies....On average, the subsidies covered $525 of a $612 monthly premium for customers in the 39 states that use the federal marketplace,
44
@Mark Marks
Medicare for all actually is a free market solution. Medicare has to contract out various activities to existing insurance companies, and there are always plenty of supplemental healthcare insurance plans that are offered by private insurance companies as happens today.
Medicare is not free , Everyone has to pay into it.
20
@Mark Marks - Republicans can't come up with an alternative to ACA/Obamacare because ACA/Obamacare -IS- the Republican plan.
57
In the movie "City Slickers," one of the lead characters explains that in life you just have to figure out that one thing. And it's up to you, and to you alone, to figure out what that is. Democrats have got that in the bag. It's health care. There is no viable opposition on this topic from the opposing party. It's wide open. Like perfect fifths and open chords in an Aaron Copland symphony. Now that's America. And robust health care involves freedom. The freedom to be healthy and independent in the pursuit of happiness. What's more American than that?
Our health care system is an anachronism, a relic left over from wage controls enacted during World War II. That has left us with health insurance tied to employers. We decided to do that 80 years ago. But we don't still have to do it today. That employer-sponsored health insurance is now working against the greater good.
Democrats should run on a plan to bring health insurance back to the individual. It has been alienated from us. We should carry it with us, always. It is our defensive shield.
Democrats are not going to repeal the ACA. But they also are unlikely to implement Medicare for All in the near future. They need to work for something in between, whatever that turns out to be. But it needs to be robust ... and portable.
Then employers will have to treat workers better. Young workers (voters) will have more flexibility, as will older workers.
It's all about freedom. That is the answer.
999
Most US institutions are anachronistic. That's what you get from 300 or so years of relatively peaceful continuity. Of course, old institutions are sclerotic and resist change at all costs. It will come to open conflict between people and captured institutions and it's not clear who will win this one.
19
The problem with insurance at the personal level is that it's easier and more profitable for insurance companies to avoid insuring unhealthy people or paying for procedures than it is for them to encourage wellness or negotiate deals with hospitals for better prices.
43
@Blue Moon The best solution would be to expand the ACA, working with the original structure and repairing the glitches and unnecessary complications. But as long as it's still being called Obamacare, the Republicans will be trying to kill it. (Never mind that they're the ones who gave it that name.)
81
Also need to keep the focus on the plan by forty-five's education secretary to dump any federal contributions to the Special Olympics.
1
Trumps' behavior is not that complicated. He merely shouts "squirrel" when he feels like things aren't going his way. The real problem is everybody looks... everybody includes the MSM.
2
Speaking of Venezuela, Gail, what about the fact that Trump's good buddy, although certainly not fellow colluder...just jumped in to assist Maduro?!
Putin is taking full advantage of the chaotic world to strengthen his empire....
3
Finally driven to distraction by the fact that anyone anywhere can listen or watch Trump romping with his minions and not be nauseous, I was driven to investigate what makes some people believe in blatant lies expressed in garbage speech.
Interestingly, it appears that the same personality characteristics that predispose someone to believe in conspiracy theories also predispose them to believe in nonsense words, phrases and syntax. Not even losing their healthcare is going to change a person with a Trump-loving mindset. (We'll just ignore for the moment the hangers-on who are in it for the money or are just hateful human beings.)
If you are curious about the Trump base worldview, you may find the article Why People Think Total Nonsense is Really Deep interesting. Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/01/the-kinds-of-people-who-confuse-total-nonsense-for-something-really-deep/?utm_term=.7c8ab0887657
Critical thinkers and skeptical folk best get out the vote in 2020 and rein in the Republicans and their apparatchiks. They are not fit to lead.
3
Does the GOP know that abortion depends on the same PREEXISTING CONDITIONS they want to eliminate TOO?
Trump should be taking his victory lap. He is at the zenith of his relationship with the (still unread) Mueller Report, thanks to his Attorney General. Barr has done exactly what he was hired to do. We have seen his work. Mueller has done what he was hired to do. We have not seen his.
But instead, here is the President focusing the nation's attention on a Republican lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. And saying Puerto Rico got too much financial aid after Hurricane Maria. And supporting a Secretary of Education who says the Special Olympics should be zeroed out of the Federal Budget.
Democrats thinking about 2020 and politics may be thankful, but that misplaced glee & gratitude need to be translated into resolve and focus on Democratic plans for the country. There must be an unmistakably clear distinction between the prospects surrounding which party will be governing in Washington D.C. and in the states and in the counties & cities all over America.
Remember when we thought some things were just too crazy ever to happen? Me too (to coin a phrase).
1097
@tomreel - republicans don't participate in the
Special Olympics.
8
@tomreel I believe that translating current events into resolve and policy focus is just what our Democratic leadership is doing:
Tuesday morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California sought to quiet her own troops.
“Be calm,” Ms. Pelosi said, according to an aide in the room. “Take a deep breath. Don’t become like them. We have to handle this handle this professionally, officially, patriotically, strategically.”
23
@Margaret Stephan Yes, Ms. Pelosi has been a rock of exemplary stability and professionalism. I hope that most in the Party follow her example.
Having Donald Trump as President and running for re-election should be enough incentive to keep the mind focused. But I'm always aware of Will Rogers' timeless line, "I'm not a member of an organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
8
This is an excellent summary, but wrong on one point. No one in the White House could manage a 7Eleven. 7Eleven employees work with the public on a wide range of issues involving at least fifty different shelves of goods, in or out of refrigeration, are responsible for at least one hundred dollars in the cash or lottery drawer hourly, must correctly calculate customers' change, as well as carefully check expiration dates on food. This work is beyond the current White House staff's level of competencies, or qualifications. At 7Eleven stores, honesty is valued, hard work is required, and their positive relationships with community neighbors, of all ages, all ethnicities, and all genders, are considered very important to their success.
2667
@purpledot
I agree, but let's be careful about "White House staff." Better to say "members of Trump administration" as technically most of the White House staff are excellent and have served many administrations.
479
@purpledot,
Good analogy, however I can assure you that old DT has never been in a 7Eleven.
Nice try though, we do get it, thanks.
42
@purpledot
Well said! I would just add one more reason why the members of the Trump administration could not manage a 7Eleven:
Despite (or perhaps due to) their pro-gun stance, they would be too cowardly to work somewhere without metal detectors, bullet-proof glass and a security detail -- especially somewhere with a high probability of being robbed.
95
The problem is that those who should vote for the party that cares about them vote against their best interests.Those people are blindsided by con men, i.e., Trump, who offer shiny objects. Meanwhile, the shiny objects are really to make the wealthy richer. Let's hope they learned something--I have my doubts.
5
I was watching him honoring a fallen soldier with a medal yesterday. How dare him utter these words, after all the McCain tirades? We all know he doesn't like people who've been captured?!? This poor family looked embarrassed, they could't even look at him. Trump doesn't even try to hide how much of a hypocrite he is anymore. We all see it.
15
Really dumb.
He has AOC/The Terrible Three working for him day and night; the Mueller Report is all but perfect; the Democrats are in an absolute mess; Biden is the only one who can beat him in a general election and the Democrats want to throw him over the cliff; most of the media looks to be biased just as he suggested; the economy and the stock market are in good shape...
And what does he do? He goes after health care, while Betsy DeVos goes after The Special Olympics. It looks like he's in the process of adopting the Democrats playbook.
5
Here's what Trump's ALLIES have to say: James Capretta (American Enterprise Institute) says "The President, I don't think, really has any idea what he's really saying there. It's more of a promotional and marketing impulse on his part, It leaves Republicans open to a little bit more attacks and ridicule by the Democrats that they don't have a plan."
Duh. This should be the "What do you mean "we," General Custer?" moment for the right wing ... Trump's followers realize that he's bonkers and has gotten them into a trap .
Trump is hoping that the Supreme Court will kill the ACA, and then he can use the power of the Republican Senate and his veto to force the Democrats in the House to deliver what he likes and then take all the public blame for it.
This has ALWAYS been the Republican dream; force the Democrats to knife their own baby. They never pull it off; it always turns into a Wile E. Coyote moment for them, and it's obvious why ... nobody knifes their own baby unless you have a lot more hostages you can threaten. The Republicans don't, and the baby in question is actually their own voters ... the whole idea is a megalomaniac-sadist's dream ... so very telling that they keep trying it.
But there is one perverse argument for it -- it means they don't need any health-plan. The idea is that they just keep threatening the Democrats until the Democrats deliver something they like. "Stable Genius," right?
7
TrumpCare: Pay more get less.
9
trump and his ilk really hate America.
I am confident the feeling is mutual.
The article's subtitle starts with "Our president..."
Ms. Collins? He's not mine.
12
Plus we all get to re-remember Donald’s “Better, Cheaper Healthcare Day One” promise that never happened.
Now he’s starting over- two years in he’s back to his “A body bag and a gun” Trumpcare ideas. Groan.
9
Wait. Duck Dynasty is defunct? The horror!
4
The language Trump was using on Fox last night was downright un-American. Describing a legal investigation conducted in accordance with American laws and norms as an "attempted takeover" is not how presidents talk, it’s how tin-pot dictators talk.
I know many Trump supporters do not understand why so many people seem to be against Trump. They think maybe it's sour grapes and people just need to “get over it.”
Sadly, they don’t recognize the danger. They do not understand the history behind slogans like “America First.” They do not understand the basics about politics – like the differences between fascism, socialism and communism. They do not understand the symbology and veiled language that has made Trump the favorite of the Alt-Right and neo-Nazis. The do not know that calling the media the enemy of the people and manufacturing emergencies are classic authoritarian tactics. They do not understand the behind-the-scenes machinations of entities like the Mercer family, Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica, and Russian cyber warfare. They do not understand how Brexit was a rehearsal for the 2016 election. They do not make the connection between Vladimir Putin’s desire to destabilize western democracies and recent events.
Besides the bragging about crotch grabbing, the racism (e.g., birtherism, favored by neo-Nazis), the countless lies and his erratic, juvenile temperament, it is the parallels to other autocrats in history that make a majority of Americans anti-Trump.
18
Trump is simply seeking a fight - a battle with anybody, anything. He thrives on conflict, chaos. He is committed to nothing other than his ego and his perceived wealth. He is a sad, wannabe elitist who will never be accepted into the ranks of NY society. And, it is pathetic that such acceptance is so important to him.
10
@Granny kate
"Trump is simply seeking a fight - a battle with anybody, anything. He thrives on conflict, chaos. "
Yep. He says things like this to grab the next headline. His only calculation is getting the next headline. And it has worked since he started his campaign. Tossing out shiny objects and watching everyone scramble.
1
Most people are forgetting that Trump implored everyone on their deathbeds to make the effort to go out and vote for him in 2016. And this, of course, is the next wave of his base: hanging on for 2 dear years, expressing their animosity against the living. Thus the reason Trump to kill the ACA asap. The lemmings of Trumpsville.
4
“I understand health care now especially very well,” Trump bragged.
Remember the three geezers down at Mar-a-Lago who decided VA needed to be privatized because they had business interests that could do more profiteering?
Did those evil little elves school Donnie on health care 'especially very well'?
Sideline question: who wrote donnie's college English composition papers?
10
Not really surprised. Trump abhors anything to do with Obama.
Let's not forget that this is the administration that wants to take away $18 MILLION in funding for the Special Olympics.
The 2019 budget was $.409 TRILLION so if the 2020 budget is the same (highly unlikely) this is a Mulvaney savings of 0.00041%.
Love these fiscally-responsible Republicans.
7
"“I understand health care now especially very well,”"
"I"...always "I"
"now"...like a revelation
"especially"...he and his knowledge are special
"very well"...extra emphasis
Trump speak.
5
Vote, people. Vote like your life depends on it. Vote that horror of a president and his administration out of office in 2020. America deserves better than this.
15
The Cabinet shuffle post collusion. Act I Wilbur Ross takes the reins of the last Blockbuster store. He vows to reinvent the franchise dynasty. Rick Perry resigns as DOE head to pursue Dancin with starz career. Ms. DeVoe joins Brother Erik in learning & development venture.The bumpstock stops here target range self protection.
2
Technically, the attorney general let Donald Trump off the hook. However, even if the Mueller report had produced concrete evidence of Russo-Trumpo coordination, a couple of random assassinations and "the tape" it wouldn't have mattered to the GOP's Eunuch Caucus. And healthcare would still be under siege. The nightmare circus is the only show in town for at least two more years.
7
Been reading you, Gail, too long to admit and get hired at 7-11. (Quaint name.)
I put this in your top ten. Russell Baker is speaking through you.
3
Let him talk. he is his own woods enemy.
Drop Russiagate. Concentrate on Policy.
Let Trump talk. And talk and talk.
2
"Mick Mulvaney, the powerful head of the Office of Management and Budget, seems to have been the leader of the let’s-pile-on crowd. He’s always been an administration star. Who can forget the time he told reporters the government couldn’t afford to support Meals on Wheels?"
Assuming Mulvaney is a Catholic, as long as we're governing in religious ways (see Linda Greenhouse), he must have missed the Gospel about feeding the hungry, and helping the sick and vulnerable.
Inconsistency, thy name is Republican. Ending the ACA sounds like a dandy way to launch a re-election campaign.
"Vote Republican---if you're sick of us, we'll help you get sicker."
10
I sometimes read the other columnists, but Gail, always.
3
This is the president at his happiest! Gloating! Rubbing it in the face of Obama and John Mcain together no less. There is no miscalculation here. This is about petty revenge politics, not good meaningful policy to help the people. The people’s suffering doesn’t matter, it never did. As long as so many of them are willing to go along with this new humiliation and abusive threat of losing their healthcare by proudly wearing their red Maga hats and cheering Trump on, why would he not think, “I guess they like it.”
15
Unfortunately the Mueller report as reported by Barr, (that in itself suspect) did not charge trump with collusion.
But make no mistake, a zebra doesn’t change his stripes. The president and his family are not squeaky clean. The president himself has a long history of lining his own pockets at the expense of others.
That, along with the compulsive lying, the petty name calling and the stacking of government agencies with people determined to ruin the country give new meaning to the age old joke of “ we’re the government and we are here to help you.” Just ask the citizens of Puerto Rico about that one.
As always, follow the money and cherche les femmes.
11
We don’t know what the Mueller report said.
We know what the Barr report said.
Journalist please do no conflate the two.
Cliff notes written by someone who already volunteered a negative review of the book they’re summarizing “without prejudice” - are not the same as the book. Ask your former English teacher (or most of the citizenry). We can still, at least at this point, tell the difference.
Journalists should not write as if Barr’s summary is the Mueller report, even if it takes ink and line space to clearly differentiate the two separate documents - or eventually we all won’t be able to differentiate them. Words are important.
We are now so far down the rabbit hole, we are fast approaching breaking through on the opposite side of the planet. Journalists - please don’t dig any faster.
16
@LK Mott
Two question that need to be asked and seem to be avoided
Did Barr unilaterally stop the Mueller investigation before Mueller was done? Mueller had asked for extensions just before Barr confirmation
Why isn’t the media noticing that Mueller did exactly what Jaworski and Starr did on the question of obstruction? No AG before Barr interrupted the pass from Prosecutor to Congress.
These actions may tell us a lot about a coverup
6
Diversions. Surprised DeVos hasn't suggested Special Olympics participants help build the wall. Benghazi will be back any minute...
All to keep the conversation away from the Mueller Report.
The irony will conclude with William Barr being found guilty of collusion with guess-who.
14
If we had more than one Surgeon General would we say 'surgeons general'? Probably not. Time to edge away from that hoary 'attorneys general' syntax. We could all understand 'Attorney Generals' just fine.
2
“I understand healthcare now especially very well,” Trump bragged.
So all this time when we assumed Trump was twiddling his thumbs, watching Fox, and scarfing down cheeseburgers during his “Executive Time,” he was really “especially” poring over hundreds of healthcare documents, and turns out it wasn’t that complicated after all. Who knew?!
8
@Susan sounds like a bad translation from another language...maybe Russia
Don't forget Betsy DeVos helpfully defending the 100% cut to Special Olympics. Overreach + incompetence = the Trump administration. So much winning!
5
We know two things about Mr. Trump. First, he is impulsive and will use his power to try to implement whatever his magnificent gut tells him is right. "My gut tells me more than anybody's brain." His gut excels at producing bright, shiny objects to distract the media and everyone else. He may be jumping for joy at the Barr report but he knows there's there's plenty more dirt that may surface.
Secondly, He hates Barack Obama equally to how much he hates John McCain. This is another attempt at sticking it to Obama where it would hurt the most. How much it would hurt the citizens of the U.S. is irrelevant.
8
Offhanded denigration of those who dutifully run the local 7-11, shameful.
No end to the misadventures of the Mad Hatter in the Oval Office. How very clever of the President to effusively offer a non-alternative to the ACA — TDC, Trump Dumps Healthcare.
For all of their collective genius the Founders never anticipated the unmitigated, tangled and nefarious mess of our current political dysfunction — the idea of High Crimes and Misdemeanors fails entirely to capture the scope and intensity of the threat to our nation.
3
Thank you, Gale. A ray of comic sunshine in a vale of gloom.
4
Focus on the Mueller finding that Russia was involved in the 2016 election - something Trump has denied many times. Trump may have not colluded (the required proving an active conspiracy) but he did state in Helsinki that Russia was not involved in the 2016 election. He believed his beaming buddy Putin’s word - not our security agencies. Somehow the media has forgotten this amazing admission by the man called President. You give him a pass again! and again! And again!
6
Gail Collins this is a fantastic editorial. I love your sense of humor and the proper use of the word 'quash'. Most writers I've read lately use the word 'squash' which is wrong for the sentence.
And as a reply to John from St. Louis: you're right, nothing is really funny about this awful presidency, but , hey isn't laughter the best medicine? Maybe THAT'S what he means when he says we'll have a better health plan.
7
Bad Times?????
The Sun couldn't be brighter. The Robin's song could not be more cheerful. The blooming flowers could not smell sweeter.
Now that President Trump isn't being bothered by petty accusations, he will have a lot more free time to Make America Great Again.
Full speed ahead on the wall, healthcare and trade. Release the FISA warrants and their supporting documents. The other pallets of deforestation won't matter.
And, MSM audiences will be continue to shrink.
Hillary WILL win. Trump will lose. Trump/Russia.
MSM audiences have been lied to for more than 2 years. They feel bad. I get it. At some point, these people have to have the courage to admit they were wrong. It is the first step to recovery.921
This isn't about healthcare at all, it's about Trump's burning need to destroy Obama's legacy.
4
Here is what a Trumpian victory lap looks like. First, deny health care to 20 million people and then eliminate critical protections for 80 million more. Next, totally discombobulate the national health infrastructure without the slightest clue as to what would follow. Then, further victimize the citizens of Puerto Rico by stripping any future funding for disaster relief (hey, it worked well for those pesky Californian Democrats who stubbornly refuse to rake their forests.) Finally, eliminate the already-minuscule federal support for disabled children.
One can only imagine what comes next. Perhaps it would be fun to launch a national program to cut the ears off of all cute puppies.
6
President Obama embraced the nickname ‘Obamacare’ by saying that yes, he cared about us.
Trump and other Republicans are the party of no care about us.
4
@NM #trumpcareless
Why does the news people always fall for the Trump narrative. He tweets or announces spin and lies, the press reports them and gives it immediate gravitas. We find out later how untrue the statement is. The Muller report. Three years in to Trump presidency and your first statement is the Muller report let's him off the hook. Really, did you read the report or look at the data and facts. No. You publish the Barr memo and Trump vindication tour. When the report comes out no doubt it will be very critical, how could it not. But by then the next outrageous statement will bet he "news" of the day. Trump will have got the first word, amplified by the news and the after reports will be claimed as fake news. But, hay, you got your headline. Trump knows this and makes fools of you and laughs all the way to his next rally.
2
As long as the state of our health is a commodity ripe for exploitation, we will never have true universal healthcare in America.
As for the democrats, they have been talking and talking and talking about universal healthcare since 1945 - when Nancy Pelosi was five years old.
What will it take for voters to see that they are not serious?
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
It's my experience from prosecuting narcissistically disordered men in child abuse matters that they eventually fail because they can't control their mouth or their impulses. Trump appointed Barr to whitewash over obstruction charges, and Barr was a willing pawn doing so in obsequious and dubious fashion which left the smoking scandal smoldering even after Trump was cleared of conspiracy. Then Trump went on the attack instead of just getting down to work...or acknowledging Russian interference and telling us how his administration will prevent it from reoccurring. He exacerbated the matter by going after Obamacare...all because he is still obsessed with his predecessor. Not even Fox News can put out the 4 alarm blaze that is Trump.
4
Democrats have been talking about ending Obamacare for several years. They propose other plans but fail to give specifics. Why is comment by a Republican any different? Republicans also want to replace and improve Obamacare.
@Richard Winchester The difference is that Democrats actually have plans. So far the Republicans have given no specifics on their plan.
8
@Richard Winchester
Because the words the GOP speak are empty words. Americans don't listen anymore because they've proven with their actions hundreds of times that the only kind of healthy insurance they're interested in is unaffordable. If they wanted people to have health insurance the ACA is an example of what a Republican would put together and yet they still reject it completely. There are no in between options which is why they don't have a plan.
2
This is all just super. Those darn Republicans, hanging themselves again. Except Republican support for Trump remains virtually undimmed — among his voters and his enablers in Congress. Now what exactly were we celebrating again?
Maybe this is his madcap plan to distract us and the Dems from demanding to see the Mueller report.
Another bait and switch.
4
Can it be true, people in "red" states must not ever get sick? If they do, where do they get their "sick care" insurance? This must be the preferred route to "MAGA"?
1
Would everyone please stop saying “the Mueller report” has let the president off the hook, or anything else, until and unless they’ve actually read it?
2
Ms. Collins' premise is well understood. Trump campaigning on health care is a self-flushing move.
But as noted by other commenters, we have not seen the Mueller report and it is surely damning. Plus, Mueller handed off several prosecutorial leads to other jurisdictions.
And then there's everything that's publicly known. Manafort passes polling data to a Russian linked to Putin? C'mon. And why the serial lying about Russian by Trump and by everyone around him?
I love Ms. Collins' ability to skewer fools. But I'm not laughing. There's work to do.
1
Thanks Gail, sometimes I can't read the news anymore. Reading this helps me get some perspective on how ridiculous and dysfunctional things are. If you don't laugh, you will cry. Health care is a human right that needs to be fought for. If you look hard enough, we all have "pre-exisitng conditions". Trump's narcissistic personality disorder is one example. It would have been nice if he could have got some real (government-funded) help.
8
😂😂😂@Jplydon57
This Congress should insist on restoring the provisions that were sabotaged in the ACA.
And if the Republicans are going to insist on referringit as "Obamacare" then this Congress should insist on rmoving some of the 150 or so amendments that were addeed to the initial legislation and include the Public Option hat Obama had included in the plan.
Sick of the Republican party setting the terms.in a Congress that is not under their control. Sick of their rhetoric. Sick of their indecency and their self-serving games.
If the GOP's electorate were better informed and not being swindled by Trump's double-speak, they'd have run these con men out on a rail in both the house and senate - even with the gerrymandering and disgusting "voter id pretext they've used to further cheat this country.
Respect is earned, GOP.
To Trump's GOP Court jesters: You don't deserve any.
10
I just logged on to the Trump News Network over at the Fox News website and there is NOT ONE WORD about Trump's latest attempt to get rid of the ACA. I am so confused. You would think they would be whooping it up over there. I don't watch Fox News on my television so did I miss the celebration? Or are they scared out of their wits?
11
@Connecticut Grandmother
I think someone can only be 'scared out of their wits' if they have 'wits' to begin with. Many of Trump's supporters do not.
Trump is so besotted with himself that he is convinced fulfilling his campaign promises is what will get him reelected, particularly getting rid of Obamacare and building the wall. What I find somewhat disturbing is the reaction in the press to Barr's letter.
Trump sees complete vindication whenever any one states there is not enough evidence of a crime being committed. Barr specifically stated he is not exonerated and thus Trump boasts of complete exoneration. And of course boot licking Republicans immediately go on the offensive. I am sure there is much in the full report to justify aggressive investigations by House committees. As long as the Democrats do not tear each other apart the next 18 months it will the be GOP in a panic mode as they try to weasel out of what is actually in the Mueller report, all the law suits against the Trump organization and against mean spirited executive edicts, not to mention the threat to destroy Obamacare.
7
You know how Trump said he could shoot someone and people would still vote for him? Does that still apply if he shoots himself in the foot?
7
"As Republicans try to argue against the bill, they’ll be reminded approximately every three seconds that their party’s alternative is to dump the whole (ACA) program in favor of a new plan that is yet to be named. Or written. Or discussed. Or given a hashtag.
So what got into the president?"
Either Trump's desperately trying to divert attention away from the entire nation demanding the public release of the full Mueller Report to the American people... or, Trump really is...
Just. Plain. Nuts.
8
@JM or both!
@JM I vote for both - diverting and nuts.
I suspect the Repubs' ace in the hole is Diebold (now called something else) voting machines. They know they can win no matter what they do.
Hope I'm wrong because if I'm right we'll never know.
2
“You shall know the Truth, and that Truth will set you Free!”
Unfortunately, for DJT and his Obsequious Sycophants, Truth is a foreign language. Apparently, Trump didn’t hear the starters gun fire twice when he jumped the gun at the start of the race this week. He hasn’t looked back to see he’s disqualified and his followers are slowly realizing that they’ve in fact bet on the wrong horse!
2
Trump hates Obamacare but he just loves the ACA. Maybe he should model his proposal on that?
The attorney general whom Trump appointed has taken it on himself to exonerate him. That isn't a win. It's corruption.
8
Even for those of us who voted for Trump and find Democrats terrifyingly naive, corrupt, and incompetent, I'm utterly exasperated that he could transform such a surprising victory into a cudgel for next year's prospects.
@Grunt: What scares the hell out of me is the attitude and reasoning behind your depiction of the Democrats. Name one Democratic President in history who has hired so many crooks and incompetents to high political offices? Show me one former President of either party who prefers dictators to honestly elected leaders?
8
Naïveté doesn’t get more blatant than falling for Trump.
Right on Gail.
In Trumpville they may eventually find out that "We have met the enemy and he is us."
1
A gloating President, a skill he perfected no doubt by his fifth birthday, Lindsey Graham's press conference post release of the Mueller Report, wherein Trump's exoneration of obstruction is clearly absent, the South Carolinian twanging an off-key, ill-advised whine to investigate the Clinton's - by the way, Russia, please investigate Ivanka and Jared's private email accounts used for their Dad/Dad-In-Law appointed positions - , and Mick Mulvaney's GOP backed plan to eradicate Obamacare delivered by The Lyin' King from his bully pulpit to the U.S. citizenry - the head Of OMB would have you believe that A Needless Border Wall's pharoanic cost exceeds the dire importance of healthcare. Such postures adopted, fueled by scorn and by a desperate need to appeal to a base whose core values are far removed from those expressed in our finest document, the Constitution, and whose honorable prescriptions, willfully ignored, have since 2016 failed to inform this Presidency, signify to what degree Republicans have fecklessly abandoned the noble idea of unifying our country through common cause and, most of all, through transparency. Will we ever see the MR in its entirety? And, if not, why? Had the Democrats not won the House we would now be hearing Autocracy kicking its door... in.
5
But Trump is saying that Republicans are the party of healthcare! Except that now everyone knows better that everything Trump says is a lie.
Republicans should just stick to their simple message of hate and fear.
3
“So what got into the president?” If you don’t know the answer to this, you don’t know Trump. Trump knows nothing about health care policy, and he cares less. But he does know that the Affordable Care Act exists today because of two men he cannot stand: Barack Obama, who gave it life, and John McCain, whose famous thumbs-down gesture saved it from death in the Republican Senate. Obama is, and McCain was, the type of man Trump wants to be but can’t: smart, successful, accomplished, principled, and respected for their achievements. Trump wants to slay the ACA in order to, in some measure, diminish Obama and McCain, to bring them down to his own level. Yes, this is sick, twisted, and pathetic. But it is also Donald Trump.
10
Gail, this is classic Trump. Did anyone think he would be an honorable "winner" re the Mueller report even though he was clearly not exonerated re obstruction of justice? (Shh, don't remind him of that, though.) Everything that points to his lack of character and soul and heart predicted that he would become unstoppable in his vengeance against decency, compassion, and civility. He has been unleashed, and The Sinkable Donny Trump is fully at the helm again of his gossamer ship of fools. There is no bottom to the abyss he is attempting to steer this country down into. (Again, shh, don't tell the MAGA group this.) Too many women, men, and children may soon be greeted by the fact that there will no longer be adequate and accessible health care for us Americans. And..we have watched in horror the Trump administration mistreat and psychologically abuse immigrant children. Now in magnified horror we are witnessing via Betsy De Vil a downright assault on our better souls of the blessed Special Olympics. Yet...call it my projected Catholic guilt, I can not help but feel that Trump is facing judgement day on earth, and soon. If we don't get there first in 2020, this guy is doomed to self-implode..
1
Good grief! You can’t make this stuff up. Trump is all over the map but don’t fret folks, today was about repealing the ACA, tomorrow will be the border wall, the day after tomorrow will be the Mueller report or Hillary Clinton again, so you will have to put with it. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, America will get a short break from the Trump theatrics when he goes off to Mar-a-lago to play golf this weekend and if we’re really lucky Trump may stop off at a 7Eleven for advice on how to run the country.
2
Thank you Gail, magnificent. Very annoying, that reference to cruel April, what are you talking about. With out Google, I'd just be a frustrated illiterate.
But I did find something about Thomas Stearns Elliot, who wrote The Wasteland, at PoetryFoundation.org:
The Waste Land
BY T. S. ELIOT
FOR EZRA POUND
IL MIGLIOR FABBRO
I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free."
The rest can be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land
but it's not my cup of tea. Written in 1922, Elliot was depressed, getting divorced, and shook up by WW 1.
Maybe it will be easier to read after lunch. Maybe I have a tin uneducated ear, or in my focus on mitigating climate change, its seems like depressing rubbish. I'd rather read the NYT
1
Fortunately, Trump has a penchant for self-destruction. He is an unguided missile that turns in mid-air and returns to its launch point, where gap-mouthed members of his party stand, astonished.
1
Dear Ms. Collins,
I absolutely love the humor in your columns - dry and cuspated. The #hashtag line was exquisite. Please keep up the fine work.
Thank god for Trump being his own worst enemy. I've never seen a person so effectively step on his own lines. Perhaps these are the limitations that kept Mueller from concluding there was conspiracy--how could such a bozo pull it off? Still, we'd like to see the report... And keep our health care, thank you.
5
Here’s an analogy Trump’s southern base can relate to:
If Trump were a NASCAR driver, he would run over the second place driver’s pit crew during his victory lap.
4
@Jack Sonville: No, he would force the real winner off the track so that he could take a victory lap even though he lost.
I guess the Time will not be issuing an apology for aggressively reporting a false narrative. Instead, we find out that Trump can't even handle his own vindication. Surely someone at the Times has a conscience about this.
1
@TD: What false narrative? We know the Russians worked to swing the results of the election. We know that some Trump aides had suspiciously close ties to the Russian government. And we know that some Trumpites felt it necessary -- for whatever reason -- to lie about their connections to that same Russian government. For which they are -- or soon will be -- serving time. Are you suggesting that this shouldn't have been investigated?
But don't worry. The best outcome for Trump once the full report is released is evidence that he was simply too incompetent to know what was going on behind his back. No matter. He still has to deal with violations of campaign finance laws, obstruction of justice charges in his efforts to strangle the Mueller investigation -- for whatever reason -- before it could happen, payoffs to porn stars and tax evasion. Some of which are violations of state law, which means that he can't pardon himself out of them or appoint the officials who'll be doing the investigating. He'll get his.
@curious
You are in a barrel, heading for the falls, and well past the point of no return. It is early. You are in denial. I accept that. There was no collusion.
Whatever else he may be guilty of, I hope everyone can be better about that and let the process run, rather than throw a rope over a branch before the judge even rides into town. What we have gotten the last two years is outright un-American in both its presumptions of guilt and its partisan zeal. If we can't moderate and be fair, we will get ours.
1
Trump in the White House.
The show continues.
Time to make more popcorn and settle in again.
1
This is a gift really. The news focus is no longer on the Mueller report and the fight to get to the bottom of it will continue most likely out of the public eye. Desperate Cheeto thinks he’s been vindicated so is gleefully continuing his destruction of our collective health and humanity. Democrats can now hopefully focus on his appalling and unpopular policies. It will be the only way to win in 2020
9
We keep confusing what Trump SAYS about what he is or is going to do with what he ACTUALLY does. In Trump World the former is all that matters.
He says his inaugural crowd was bigger, so it was bigger. He says we're being invaded by Central Americans, so we're being invaded. He says 3,000 people did not die in the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico, so those people are alive (surprised he didn't claim the Lazarus effect on this one). He says millions and millions of people voted illegally, so there were millions and millions of illegal votes.
Now he says the Republican party will be the party of health care, so they will be the party of health care. It will not matter an iota what form this takes --- dismantling of ObamaCare, no health care for anybody, a large box of band aids in the White House foyer (ala Andrew Jackson's big block of cheese), or anything else you can conjure up that either does or does not actually demolish or address health care in any way shape or form.
All that will matter is that he says the Republicans are now the party of health care, so now they are. It's not unlike that beautiful new set of clothes he is wearing, the one's everybody says are the most beautiful they've ever seen.
6
Thank you Gail. When I read the OPINIONS of the left, which they present as fact, I'm reminded to vote republican.
1
@Tom: OK. Let's -- for the sake of argument -- accept as fact that the Trump's campaign's co-ordination with Russian agents didn't reach the degree of being criminal. Because that's all that the Mueller report addresses. There still remains the fact that the Russians worked to swing the election in Trump's favor. The fact that Trump tried to pressure federal officials into smothering the investigation before it could happen. The fact that Trump and much of his entourage have close financial ties to the Russian government. And the fact that Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for the methods Putin uses to control the Russian state as well as a wish to emulate them.
None of that is opinion. The only thing that might be opinion is just what this says about a Republican party which is -- apparently -- just fine with all of the above?
1
@Tom
At least the left, and real journalists like Gail Collins, put their opinions in the OPINION section, and don't try to pass opinions off as factual news, the way Fox does.
The right loves to pass off opinions, and lies, as facts.
When I see right-wing propaganda, I know not to vote for right-wingers.
There is a pathological method to his madness. He is a master of sorts at manipulating his environment, and duping his enemies (everyone). There is folly in any sort of emotional reaction to his behavior. The only true strategy is to remain in an adult, reality based, focused state of mind. Don't count on DJT to show his hand. We can never be sure when he's bluffing, but can be sure he is playing to win (the $, status, attention). He cares nothing about us.
I do think Pelosi understands this.
7
Trump has one purpose to keep his base excited. it has nothing to do with the real logic of the policy. He knows that attacking Obama type health care is always a winner and he hopes that this, the wall, the "green energy"and the reminder of the dangerous radical liberals will reelect him. He does not want these things to go away, its his material for his rallies.
12
@RichardHead: You are so right. The Red State voters hate Obama Care but like the ACA which actually is the same thing.
Trump's understanding of health care is even worse than that of Republicans in general, and they're the ones who claim we can require pre-existing condition coverage but not any of Obamacare's other features, like mandatory issuance or premium caps. Pre-existing condition coverage is meaningful to consumers only if insurers are required to sell you comprehensive coverage at an affordable price, and they can do that only if everyone, healthy or sick, is in the risk pool. It's health care economics 101, which is why it's way over Trump's orange head.
17
Sometimes, what seems complicated is actually very simple or very simple-minded.
Sensing that the Democrats are not settling for William Barr’s lie about the Mueller report exonerating him and that they are going to get their hands on the actual report very soon, Donald Trump is shoring up his insanity defense to collusion by announcing that he will now destroy Obamacare entirely and come up with an as-yet-to be-figured-out better plan.
15
It is difficult to understand Gail's confusion about the Trump's grand Universal Health Care Plan.
I'm pleased to report that the ink on it was nearly dry even before the Trump was inaugurated! As published by the Washington Post on Jan 15, 2017:
>President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of “insurance for everybody,” while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid.
>Trump said he will target pharmaceutical companies over drug prices: “They’re politically protected, but not anymore.”
>“It’s very much formulated down to the final strokes. We haven’t put it in quite yet but we’re going to be doing it soon,” Trump said.
8
@Jim Remington And over two years later nothing has been proposed or even hinted at.
5
@Jim Remington
Thanks for the reminder, Jim. As usual, we're all waiting with bated breath for Trump's "better than Obamacare" proposal. I have to laugh at the name Obamacare. I live in Massachusetts, where former Gov. Mitt Romney couldn't wait to crow about the (mostly Dem) state legislature's vote in 2004 to institute a program to insure everyone. It's worked well.
But now that Obamacare, based on the Mass. model, is mostly a hit with consumers, Romney can't back away from his "crowing achievement" as governor fast enough.
3
I heard it eloped with Trump’s tax returns, and is now living happily in Costa Rica on money swiped from the Special Olympics.
1
How many more days must pass before Barr's four page summary of Mueller's report turns into Barr's Coverup of Mueller's Report? Tomorrow? Friday? Mr Barr didn't start with a full tank of credibility/goodwill with the American people before Trump hired him to keep him out of jail, and he's rapidly losing what little credibility he has left. The republican victory laps are now over, it's time for the truth. Mr Barr - it's your time in the barrel. Step up.
20
Gee, I don't know. You would think that announcing the termination of the very popular ACA, with no viable GOP plan in place, would literally give the White House and the Senate to the Democrats during the next go-round, but for that to happen, the Democrats will first have to quit shooting themselves in the foot.
5
@Jackie
We can demand the Mueller Report be made public at the same time we focus on Trump's dismantling of Healthcare.
2
Gail's insightful comments, as well as the others here, imply a question that has been answered in psychological testing via many, many experiments: "why do people refuse what's best for them?"
Because the concept of "fairness," of which even the youngest children have been shown to be very aware, means that if someone gets something that I perceive to be even the slightest bit more or better than I get, I will refuse my share just so they don't get theirs.
Add to this simplified example the fact that the blue-collar / poor's racism, anger and frustration in this country -- manifested not so much toward the wealthy (note there is little resentment toward tRUMP's "wealth"), but toward other poor people -- leads to the enormous block of those tRUMPian voters who would prefer nothing rather than to see others they consider "undeserving," e.g Reagan's "welfare queen" get something.
One study:
http://theconversation.com/how-do-children-decide-whats-fair-56121
8
If half fraud in healthcare were to be eliminated, they'd be more than enough to go around.
That includes not just crooked doctors who overbill and people who feign illness for reasons ranging from pill-collecting to work avoidance. It goes right to the top. And there sits Donald Trump, reveling in the praise of his mercenary pseudo-friends.
2
@KJ
So eliminate the insurance companies?
Ok... that's 35% or so of the cost.
Oh wait your talking about individuals committing fraud?
Yeah, that 1/2 of 1% will go far.
1
@KJ
Let's face facts:
Single payer is the only way this can work for the American people.
Eliminate filthy rich, FOR PROFIT, insurance companies who keep raising premiums and still deny coverage.
Sometimes I have a hard time finding anything related to Trump to be funny. We will never fully recover from his path of destruction. I guess the alternative to laughing is crying, so ...
3
I must give it to you, Gail. Only you can find a way to take a clear Trump victory and twist it in a way, in your mind, to see it as a loss. Well done.
3
@HozeKing
Well she is right but somehow Trump is banking on winning in 2020 by just PROMISING the best healthcare.
The disaster Trump creates during this next two years as he unravels and dismantles the current ACA will catapult millions into a healthcare crisis... but in typical fashion Trump will just blame Obama.
2
Oh. So following up a win with Mueller by announcing that you want to throw around 22 million people off their health care and cut all the funding to the Special Olympics....genius move, huh?
Man I hope they repeal it. The Dems could run R Kelly and win in 2020.
5
I get the impression that Trump has gone senile. During the past couple of weeks alone he has (1) Picked a fight with a dead hero (2) Picked another fight with an ex-President who has been retired for a couple of years (3) Resurrected a legal case that was settled several years ago, with no new arguments. (4) Tried to declare a nonexistent emergency.
Too bad senility is not a legal reason to remove a president from office.
8
@Charlesbalpha
"Keep them Off Balance by Creating Chaos"
is cleary Commander Trump's motto.
Watch how quickly the Pubs who are hiding from anything "healthcare" will succumb to Commander Trump's
wishes and be saluting his proclamations.
@Charlesbalpha Actually, senility IS and CAN BE a reason to remove a President from office....just not with this group of GOP Senators sitting in judgment.
@Charlesbalpha
"Too bad senility is not a legal reason to remove a president from office".
Maybe it ought to be. Then we would not have gotten stuck with Reagan for 2 terms when he had Alzheimer's and first lady Nancy was making decisions for him based on the advice of her astrologer.
Thanks for making me laugh and for these shards of light in what has felt like such a sad and dark week, Gail!
7
Undoubtedly, some Trump supporters live with 'tweet' paranoia; as most people have fears. For me, it's a fear that he will tweet a conversion to Catholicism. As for 'attacking McCain', Trump has made that like the 'take my wife' joke, always well received.
1
Donald Trump can not wrap his head around anything that isn’t about himself. So, he equates health needs with bone spurs, right? Donald has had no present experience with cardiac issues, oncology issues, respiratory issues, and maybe not even any neurology issues, or anything we know of, so he could not possibly understand healthcare, its cost or importance.
One thing we can count on. Trump’s hatred for Barack H. Obama will continue to kill healthcare through eliminating the Affordable Care Act. After all, the ACA was successful for millions of people, and that gnaws and eats through Donald Trump every day.
8
My, my, my...
Now that is a slice of good writing.
Strunk & White all the way: Make every word count!
Thank you, Mz. Collins. I needed that!
8
The Mueller Report has not been released. Trump and Co are celebrating an imaginary victory.
6
Whatever you need to tell yourself
“Let him off the hook”? Actually two years of intense investigation showed no evidence of conspiring with Russia. The facts let him off the hook, not someone’s indulgence.
The whole fantasy started with a dossier worked up by the Clinton machine and passed off to the swamp and to the media. The media certainly had a field day with the delusion. The dossier is the real scandal.
1
@Joe Yoh. The facts of the matter are:
*There was a widespread campaign by a hostile foreign power to meddling with our election to favor Trump. This campaign involved hacked emails, a social media disinformation campaign, and money to Republicans laundered through the NRA.
*The Trump campaign knew about this foreign effort and attempted to profit from it. If it didn't actively criminally collaborate with the Russian government, It not only failed to report it, it lied about it, over and over, often under oath (Flynn, others).
*Mueller did not exonerate Trump of charges of obstruction.)
5
@Joe Yoh
Not a fantasy nor a delusion. the fact that the russians worked very hard to support Trump's candidacy is not in dispute. at all. why would an opponent do such a thing? (and don't tell me the Russians are our friends).
5
@Joe Yoh
The dossier was originally commissioned by republicans. Who knew they´d find so much dirt in their own camp?
They just can't help themselves. That's especially true of Trump himself. It's a clinical illness. The President may have tripped up during his victory dance today but I have a feeling the music was going to come to an end anyway after the full report is released. Content unknown, but it's not likely going to warrant an encore performance. Whatever it is, it's not going to be anything you'd want your mother to read.
5
Here is the Republican plan. "If you get sick, die quickly." Why have your loved ones miss any work? It would be funny if it weren't true. Trump longs for the good old days of charity hospitals that had few supplies and even less chance of healing you.
11
I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook. Even if you secretly doubted that he was actually well-organized enough to run an international conspiracy, it made you depressed to see him looking so happy.
http://election.result.pk/
It has been reported that “Tea Party” Mick is interested in becoming the Chancellor, or whatever they call it down there, of the University of South Carolina. This could be the next position to add to his portfolio of incompetence. Like the brilliance that he has expressed in his compendium of Administration jobs, in a few years or less, Mulvaney the Mindless would no doubt convert that higher educational system into a string of trade schools. But at least the proud graduates, come graduation, will no doubt every year have the high distinction of being addressed by #45, with mortar boards optional for those bright red baseball caps.
1
I am not hopeful that the general public notices these disasters since people voted for the immoral lier and he has always been the same. Everyone who follows politics knew he would be a disaster and that has proven true. No enough people in America follow politics. Trump really could kill someone and it probably wouldn't affect him.
7
@Anthony- trump will be killing lots of people who
die because they could not get proper or affordable healthcare. And yes, he really wouldn't care.
1
It must drive Trump crazy that, despite his best efforts, 20 million people benefit from Obamacare. He must fantasize about obliterating this and replacing it with his own brand. Imagine: Trumpcare! Only problem: the words Trump and care just don’t go together, and crafting a healthcare plan can’t be done but Tweet. I wonder how many in his base, who surely benefit from the ACA, would follow him off this particular cliff.
1
@Laura
I'm sure you were being rhetorical, but I'd garner a guess that every single one of his current 37% staunch supporters will vote for him again. Flip a few ballot switches here and there and cut millions off the voter rolls in red and purple states that would vote otherwise and his victory in 2020 is assured.
1
Trump intends to do to health care what Trump University did for higher education.
14
“The original plan was a mooshed-up compromise with the insurance companies...” designed to funnel government funds to insurance companies while not actually providing any additional health care.
Forcing people to switch from plans they were happy with to “approved” plans only succeeded in drastically increasing the cost.
The Affordable care act is nothing of the sort.
@Ken. "Plans they were happy with" until they actually got sick and found they weren't covered, or ran into an annual cap, or were tossed for having a preexisting condition.
1
Just as it’s not enough for Trump to have dodged indictment, he wants bloody revenge, so too, has Trump concluded that he hasn’t already cut into enough of his predecessor’s legacy, he still wants to undo President Obama’s signature accomplishment, no matter how many people will bleed for it.
1
I don't know why there's all this bellyaching. We have a great health care system for this country; one that works perfectly if you're rich, privileged, or a elected member of Congress or the Senate. For everyone else? Oh well...
So it goes.
John~
American Net'Zen
3
Anyone who watched his staged press conference with the would be first lady of Venezuela had to come to the same conclusion I did. This man is unhinged. His artless pivot from the topic at hand to his latest obsessive whim was breathtaking. There is no filter, no judgement, no humility, no class, limited vocabulary, indefensible hubris. And much rambling. Everyone knows he has nothing, no plan, no policy, no proposal, just empty boasts.
Yet within minutes there is a petulant Lindsay Graham on CNN saying that Republicans welcome the 2020 campaign with health care as its principal issue because they have the best plan. Block grants to the states. Yep, that'll do it! Glory up, responsibility down.
Though I hesitate to put it this way, maybe we can take a page form Mitch McConnell's playbook. Let's resist until 2020 when we can make Trump a one term president and elect some Democrats to the Senate and move finally forward into the future.
8
Donald Trump: the only president ever to try reliving the glory days of his WWE appearances via press conference and tweet.
I am just wondering when he will announce his new Kick All The Puppies policy and how many of his followers, including dog owners, will start kicking dogs wherever they go.
Gail - be careful. You start your column saying the Mueller report let Trump off the hook. We don’t know any such thing. These kinds of framing are spectacularly important.
2
Ever since he became President, Trump has been a sore winner. It’s unbecoming and he needs to change and the voters can help by turning him into a sore loser in 2020.
2
Raise your hand if you believe Mr. Barr’s “interpretation” of the Mueller report, and therefore, agree the public does not need to see the full report.
Call me suspicious, but Mr. Trump pivoted away from gloating too quickly to change the subject to summarily yanking away people’s ACA coverage (not incidentally that they had paid into). I believe Mr. Trump is over-estimating his power to get done what the big donor GOP elites have been demanding since the ACA was passed, which is to make America cruel and unhealthy Again!!
Our not so dear President is flying much too close to the sun. But since Trump does not like to read, he probably doesn’t know that story or it’s message.
1
Gail, great column! I was chuckling out loud. The humor of Steven Colbert, Trevor Noah, you, and others keeps my spirits up in these terrible Trump times. Thanks!
3
Donald Trump says we'll have the greatest health care plan after Obamacare is dismantled and 20 million people lose their coverage. And you know what? He must be right...just like he promised that
Mexico would pay for the Wall
He would pass a $1 Trillion infrastructure plan
He would pass price controls on prescription drugs
We would get the oil from Iraq.
He would release his tax returns.
He would break up our largest banks.
He didn't pay Stormy Daniels any money.
He had the greatest electoral victory in history.
He had the largest crowd at his inauguration.
South Korea has agreed to denuclearisation.
Hmmm. With so many excellent accomplishments, why shouldn't we let trust him to pass a better alternative to Obamacare after Obamacare is totally repealed?
7
The mere existence of this opinion piece shows that Gail knows that Trump won and is winning big.
I love watching Gail being overwhelmingly distraught over this fact.
Appealing Obamacare IS the Republicans healthcare plan. They are the Party of certainty - they are the Party of Death and (lower) Taxes (for the wealthy).
Trump is now on a scorched earth policy roll. Money is being snatched from the military to build his wall, and he is pumped about taking away healthcare insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. His Secretary of Education is stealing money from the Special Olympics. Talk about the Party of compassion......they are not that Party. That would be the Democrats.
5
This is rather extraordinary, isn't it? Just as Republicans start taking victory laps over the Mueller report, there's Trump going on and on about how his party just loves health care (their own, not anyone else's). Yes, this is the same president who has been trying to kill Obamacare for the longest time. So what gives? This president just loves to kick himself when things are finally going his way. No, not a genius, stable or otherwise.
It does seem as if far too many are perfectly satisfied with incompetents running our government including at the top but would refuse a tip to a waiter they didn't like. SAD! I see from the vacancies that Trump is having a hard time finding enough incompetents. Maybe that is a good thing.
2
Why are people so eager to take their eye off the ball and reward our Real Estate Developer in Chief with a 56% approval rating?
trump is the front man for the GOP. Whenever anyone blames him for bad ideas and/or actions, they really are blaming trump/GOP. They are one. trump/GOP. Bad actors all.
1
Nicely written! Trump & Co. has given the Dems a gift horse in the mouth, and perhaps more to come. If they can get their act together they can demolish Trump but they so often do not seem to have the sharpness and edge to do it. Just wait, I bet the Trump & Co. in their desire to take the country back to 1900 - no protections or social programs - will try to reduce Medicare and Medicaid payments and SS. They do and it's the end for them!! AND GOOD RIDDANCE!!
1
Why was his victory lap so short? He has a very short attention span. And truthfully, he is on automaticat pilot to throw distractions at every thing that comes up. Now it's healthcare. Soon he will return to the size of his crowds or how the arrival of spring flowers is proof that there is no climate change.
A job at 7-11 would be a bit too complicated for him.
2
Trump knows very little about health care, foreign policy,, economics and history. He appears to have a very short attention span. He simply wants to undo Obama's policies from the Affordable Health Care law to the Iran Nuclear Accord. He has rolled back Obama environmental regulations. Trump's hatred of Obama is evident.
His appointments are terrible. His latest selection to the Federal Reserve is another example of appointing an incompetent to a high position.
His budget is an attack the neediest s in our society. The GOP has become a rractionary, not a conservative party.
2
Not to beat a dead horse, because I do not think that horse is dead. Collusion has been hung out there like a red flag. But, collusion has many synonyms -- Secret understanding, conspiracy, connivance, intrigue, complicity, deceit. Take your pick. Most of these synonyms have been clearly demonstrated by Cadet Bone Spurs. So, I see the end of the beginning. Not the beginning of the end. The Mueller report may well lead to other avenues to be further investigated by our House of Representatives. Some of those are already getting plenty of scrutiny. Ultimately, voters will make the decision about the potential re-election of Cadet Bone Spurs. I think he is toast. Vile to the core, and long tied to the Russian mafia. So, clearly a tainted election, and thus a tainted "President". Dump Trump, Ditch Mitch, flip the Senate, take our country back. Return our Republic to the correct course. Register, contribute, vote - no apathy.
1
Yeah, ok.
Obamacare was just declared unconstitutional in the TX circuit. The Trump Administration’s Justice Dept. just agreed.
Buh bye Obamacare. Hello free market healthcare with innovative and less government-centered interference.
1
One caveat--many people in the legendary base love their health insurance from the Affordable Health Care Act and hate Obamacare, not having the slightest idea that they are the same thing.
5
Leftist Democrats would find something negative to say about Trump, no matter what. Had he kept silent the response would be that he is not longer interested in leading. If he praised the Democrats for pursuing the Mueller investigation for allowing him to clear his name, they would have screamed "lies and collusion".
So, by moving on to one of his campaign promises, they call him out for poor sportsmanship. Clearly, they have nothing interesting to offer, so they fall back on hatred of Trump.
It would be interesting if Ms. Collins tried to write an editorial that said something positive. However, I understand that this approach is easier to get published in NYT.
@Bill
I'm an independent voter, so I can say something positive about Trump -- he is positively the worst president ever.
Also, I recall Trump repeatedly calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt and a hoax. Has he eaten those words now that his hand-picked AG Barr has said the report clears him? How do we know that? Barr's the only one who has (reputedly) read it and issued his opinion. I'd like to see it, After all, the Starr report was foisted on us all, remember?
16
@CFnative While I agree that he is not the shining example of a countries' leader, what with his boorish personal vendettas and narcissistic personality, he has stuck with his campaign promises much better than most in the past years. Yes, he is "in your face", but he gets things done for the betterment of America, more so, I believe, than Clinton or Obama. I will take his personal foibles.
18
And what exactly has he done for Americans, unless you’re in the favorable tax bracket? Please... I need to know!
Gail...You must have missed the Memo from the GOP that in effect has banned summer vacations for working class Americans since the Reagan era. If you even get any PTO it typically must all be used to stay home with sick kids or with Grandma or Great Grandma when they've used-up their couple of sick days as cashiers at Walmart, Target, etc.
This latest Trump(et) proves that Democrats don't have to go on the offensive. They simply have to sit back and let the POTUS destroy himself and take the Republican party down with him. Sweet!
If you want this insanity to end, vote. Nothing else will work.
1
Gee, maybe the Republicans should ask the Heritage Society to come up with a health insurance program. Oh, wait they did. Romney implemented it in Mass. It's now called Obamacare. Have to laugh otherwise would be crying.
3
Mr. Trump is proof that untreated ADHD can be problematic at best, disastrous at worst.
Ineptitude or cunning? The 1000page+ Mueller Report has yet to be, even partially, visible and several court cases and congressional investigations have yet to reveal what had been going on (or going 'down'). Those involved know more will come out and chickens will come to roast! Hence the cunning of announcing, now, a boisterous claim of being 'totally exonerated' - while, also, deflecting the mainstream media and firing up the opposition on ... some other issue: ACA! That may backfire on Republicans, but it also opens the contribution flows to Presidential campaigns (and hotel bookings) from rich donors who deeply detest the 'nanny state'. Does Trump even care for other Republicans? Or even another term for himself? Maybe one term will lead to loss and retrospective validations of earlier witch-hunts claims; more claims of rigged elections; and more denouncements of local elites? He can then start another vanity venture in some other mode of media or property presence, and perhaps - even elsewhere: Maybe Moscow, via RT, or Israel? Each may, for their own (or leaders') reasons, offer new and fantastical, frontiers of fame that an old man may find compelling? Maybe all this needs less political science and more insights from Shakespeare to fathom the enormity of the tragedy befalling a (once?) fine nation? Can we not imagine an old man - bearing the deranged demeanour of King Lear - yelling: "a pox on all of you" and delighting in the resulting civil unrest?
Rumor has it that the Trump family is planning to sell shares in a proposed chain of high end gold plated hospitals and clinics that will employe only the best in the medical industry. All the employees will of course be graduates of the now defunct Trump U. So many rubes and so little time. Luckily for the rubes Trump will leave behind a not particularly bright family well trained in the art of the grift.
1
This is Trumps idea of "piling on". He wants a full frontal assault on the Democrats and he thinks this is the best follow-up. He's so blinded by his own mean-spiritedness, he's fumbled the ball back to the Dems.
Oh, goodie! Another opportunity for the fanatical radical Right to destroy the lives of their base (and others) while wrapped in an American, er Confederate Battle, flag invoking some absurd image of a Jesus who apparently prefers the company of immodest bankers, insurance company CEOs, and Manhattan "developers" and wears a toga bought at Neiman Marcus sporting a $200 haircut. They don't have to worry about going bankrupt from medical bills and can afford to send their loved ones to any facility in world that might save their lives. There is indeed a special place for them...it's all set, and quite warm.
2
"I understand health care now especially very well,” Trump bragged."
Well, let's check out another time he said that (hint--Trump doesn't know what a pre-existing condition was in July of 2017):
Feb 27, 2017, in the WH speech to governors, Trump said: “Now, I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”
On May 11, 2017, Trump said: “But in a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care. And we did the right negotiating, and actually it’s a very interesting subject,”
In his July 19, 2017 NYT interview, Trump said: “So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of.”
Aaahh, the brilliance of the stable genius!
How can you say the Mueller report let Trump off the hook?
All you have is a four page memo from a Trump appointee.
Wouldn't logic lead you to say that you dont know what the Mueller report says?
Ever hear that story about a fire? A fire that broke out one evening in a crowded theater. Panic was setting in. People shoving aside other people, trampling other people in their mad rush to the exits.
Suddenly a commanding voice was heard. A well-dressed man, composed--masterful--had climbed onto the stage.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he announced. "There is no need for panic. The fire is under control. Will people please take their seats?"
They did. They watched--spellbound--as this well-dressed, composed gentleman walked over to the nearest exit and disappeared.
There WAS a fire. All those people perished.
Do we not see this in American politics, Ms. Collins? Our President--scowling, red-faced (and the hair is, of course, instantly recognizable) standing up. Lifting a placating hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I DO have a health plan That plan is SUPERB--even a leftist liberal or a Democrat could not improve it. And guess what?
"I'm gonna make America GREAT again. I'm doing it right NOW. See? See?"
And people believe it. Millions of people. They swallow it wholesale. Like the tax cut Mr. Trump (obviously on a roll) trotted out last fall before the election.
WHAT tax cut?
WHAT health plan?
This is making America GREAT again?
HUH?
Deep down--in the hearts of millions of Americans, Ms. Collins--is a never-ending desire--
--to be snookered.
Mr. Trump is gratifying that desire--
--in spades.
1
Why did Trump resume his attack on the ACA? I believe it has to do with John McCain. Trump, who is mentally unstable, recently reignited his feud with the deceased war hero, and it reminded him how McCain dramatically stuck it to him with his last minute thumb's down rejection of the Senate's repeal of the ACA. Trump will never get over that until the ACA is undone. Much of Trump's, spur of the moment, irrational behavior is due to his pathological need for revenge
5
I live for Gail. But it's just not funny any more. We have a president who literally terrorizes his own people. I guess he thinks eliminating Obamacare is a way to punish his adversaries. Half the country is going to have PTSD when this thing is over.
1
April USED to be the cruelest month. But that changed when Trump was elected. Now, every month features some new cruelty devised by Mr. Trump. Every day is April's Fool day for real now.
1
Perhaps Trump coulod start by taking away the healthcare of congressmen and senators, as well as everyone in his administration.
1
My, my didn't Mr Barr have a busy weekend. He summarized a 1,000 page report of a 2 year investigation into 4 pages, and he joined in a law suite to dismantle healthcare for 20 million Americans. Give that guy a raise! Or as reported in the press, hire his son-in-law as a Trump adviser.
3
Let's hope that this is indeed good news.
It sill amazes me that 40% are still with him. Just shows this country needs a better education system, starting with getting rid of Betty DeVas.
1
Trying to determine if it's better that Trump is a stooge and not an agent. Let's replay Helsinki highlights... Nope. Not better!
Is it acceptable for such a rich and powerful country as yours to have people dying because they can't afford the price of drugs?What kind of man is one who use every means to keep situation the way it is? GOP and TRUMP
Great for Rs to run on. We are going to take away
health care from millions, cut Social Security
and Medicare and wage war on the Special Olympics
the Dems should never apologize for anything. Trump
never does. It is clear he is a terrible person.
Coincidentally, I just finished watching Democracy Now's interview with Vicki Ward on her Kushner book. At the very end of the extended conversation segment, she talks about how Kushner's brother owns a healthcare company worth over $2B and is heavily dependent on Obamacare for it's profits. Kushner and his brother have a deal where they share the profits of each other's companies 50/50. Hence Kushner was pushing in the last rounds of trying to get rid of Obamacare not to do it. He wasn't thinking of the poor saps on it, he was thinking of the money he would be missing out on. I think somebody saw that or read the book and told Trump and Trump, thinking Kushner's been getting a bit too much attention lately or whatever punitive reason came to his *mind*, thought he'd show him who's boss and decided to take out his brother's company.
5
Gail, your comments have the more power when mentioning all these republican 'stiffs', especially Mulvaney and Trump, when they are unable to laugh about their own stupidity. As to how these thugs can be called 'our representatives' is beyond anybody's guess, as they continue to want to screw us to benefit their own narrow interests. And 'cruello' Trump, so lazy to concoct a true stratagem to help anybody but himself, remains an emotionally charged brutus ignoramus, and a consummate liar cheating on his 'base'. So, here we are, with a president's despicable behavior for all to see. But could he be so obtuse not to realize the joke is on him...when big-mouthing his 'total exoneration' from insulting reason and common sense?
13
Neither Trump nor the republicans have any interest in creating a healthcare plan for all. Trump just wants to destroy anything Obama did without regard to the damage done. The republicans, well, honestly, I just don't know what motivates them beyond "I've got mine, screw you"
55
Thanks for the laugh this morning, Gail. I know many of us need one after the past week (month, two years).
19
He has it both ways. stoking the base, which still hates "Obamacare," in the full knowledge that it won't happen, and a great distraction.
8
@Robert
Trump continues to 'live' on distraction. It's his only way to keep his ugly mug on pages of newspapers and on TV. When will we get back and focus on the REAL issue - "Russian interference in the Presidential Election"?
@Robert They hate Obamacare but the love their ACA coverage.
And let's not forget the slicing and dicing of the Special Olympics budget which last year was 17.6M.
While Trump is willing to cut the budget for special needs persons, Trump has no issue having the tax payers dole out around $92M for his 163 rounds of golf, most likely the only exercise he gets, at about a cost to all of us at over 1/2 million dollars a round.
Imagine, if he could cut out some golf, maybe special needs budgets wouldn't need to be cut.
50
The problem the Republicans have is that Obamacare IS the Right wing plan for a health care payment system. Any less and it is not a system; it is the pre Obamacare mess. Of course they cannot find a 'replacement.' Health care payment must be freed from employment
21
I am convinced this is disinformation: more than anything else, Trump wants the Barr letter not to be closely examined, the Mueller Report to be drownerd out in noise, and the conversation to move on.
This is not an unforced error. It is a masterstroke of propaganda, delivered over the protests of both his AG and his Health Secretary by someone who knows exactly what he has covered up. Mulvaney is a true believer, and can be counted on to portray this as penny-pinching. It is not. It is changing the subject from deadly to difficult.
51
@Howard Eddy I am not distracted. I can hear every subject our president brings up and remember its depravity and the lies he tells to support it. Trump underestimates us. I refuse to be distracted. I will not look away
3
My concern is that somehow, the Republicans are able to repeal "Obamacare", and this takes effect after the 2020 election. SO, any Trump supporters who got Medicaid through an expansion in their state, don't realize they're losing it.
If they even realize that's how they got covered in the first place...
34
We have already seen this movie, just with a few different characters in the cast, mostly Democrats. Trump and the GOP cannot simply dictate the terms of new health legislation as they attempted to do in 2017. It has to go through the House and it won't get the necessary stamp of approval.
What is scary is Trump. He thinks he has been exonerated and now possesses the power normally reserved for dictators. His declaration of emergency powers to build his wall, his urging of the justice department to terminate the ACA, and demanding an investigation into the FBI because they investigated a dossier with Russian involvement.
And the list goes on.
41
I'm fairly certain the views of authors such as Ms. Collins here or Ms. Goldberg over at the Washington Post make essentially no difference to Trump supporters. But these opinion pieces, both in substance and in style, are such a tonic for me to cope with the dreary days of having, I guess I must say it, a Trump in the White House.
69
So, wait, let me get this straight. Because “she lost”, Trump can do no wrong? Because Barr says Mueller said Trump’s actions didn’t rise, in his estimation, to a prosecutable crime, he’s therefore innocent and infallible?
Mueller had a narrow charter and high bar. His investigation nevertheless revealed myriad crimes, lies, and suspicious activities. He did nothing to allay concerns about Trump’s financial ties to Russia, or to explain his wont to meet Putin alone and in secret.
If Trump wanted to lead the country instead of enriching himself, if he wanted to prove he’s not Putin’s pawn, the path is clear and always was. By not taking that path, he invited suspicion, and suspicion invites investigation.
He didn’t win the election, by the way. It’s not as though he has a popular mandate. But no matter. As we see daily, he can’t lead. That matters.
2
@James K. Lowden
If you run into Susan Collins at the Bagel Cafe, remind her that she's on the way out.
The hashtag on the podium is laughable. Until both parties return campaign donations to big Pharma and actually tackle head on the exorbitant prescription and medical device costs there will never be "affordable" healthcare in our nation. For too long politicians have spoken about fixing the problems as they relish in campaign donations, speaker fees, and remain chummy with the industries that reap windfall profits off the backs of tax payers.
32
@Nature Voter, I agree overall, but "both parties do it" rings a little hollow when we all see how far out in wacko-land the GOP is on health care. The Dems need to clean up their act, yes, but the other guys are throwing grenades.
2
Ms. Collins, while our president is not well and missing a few buttons, we can still travel with him on this bumpy national road, while remembering Mr. Romney once who pulled a 'Chevy Chase' vacation with his pup atop the car roof. Ever since he had a pressed dinner with our president, and ordered on the bill of fare some frog legs, this voter has been revisiting bits of Moliere.
On an aside, credit goes to a great photo by Erin Schaff of America portrayed and looking at its best. While the Republicans are busy trampling on Obamacare this early Spring, the Democrats, finer gardeners in the caring of their buds, are able to see that the roots of The Affordable Care Act are embedded.
The Nation skimmed through the Ides of March with a rolling of drums on the presentation of The Mueller Report, where an honorable Special Counsel and his team showed that one can remain detached while reacting.
Unemployed and past fifty, I was paying $1500 a month for health care coverage and tempted to chuck it for loss of tresses on receiving the invoice, our Last President came to the rescue.
The above is known as 'babbling', which I picked up from our happy leader, who looks beyond stressed. It is all in the timing, and how our population of dormice who voted to elect president 'Houdini' are going to react when they find out we do not have a safety net, is a tale for our hawks, and visionaries like you.
Thanking Ms. Pelosi. She is a bit of the right stuff and an American for All.
42
Yes, Chaucer forever declared that cruelest month to be April. We can only sit tight for the upcoming April episodes of our nation's current REALITY TV reality! Still, we kinda know how we got stuck here with Trump and Friends: we must admit that overweening mistake. But whither we go henceforth with this Circus is anybody's guess frankly. Might be really darkish.
6
TS Elliot, actually.
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”
1
@JPD
"April is the cruelest month" is not Chaucer. It's Eliot's parody of Chaucer from the WASTE LAND.
@JPD
It was T. S. Eliot who wrote "April is the cruelest month." Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" opens with a description of how balmy and beautiful April is: "Whan that Aprille with his shoores soote/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote/ And bathed euery veyne in swich liqueur/ Of which vertu engendred is the fleur." Please pardon my middling Middle English.
I'm convinced Trump is deranged. Besides his personality disorder and narcissism, I had concluded that he also had dementia, but it's more than even that. I predict that once he gets ejected in 2020, and starts facing prosecution in NYS for past illegal actions, his children are going to get him off on mental health grounds. Hopefully, NYS will still be able to get the millions in taxes owed.
45
Trump has shown repeatedly the true power behind repeating untruths and half truths.Last night he gave a lengthy interview by phone on Fox which was like one of his rallies. After all his divisive and bulling behavior for all this time since the primaries,he still finds support. The Republican Party and Fox and other outlets supporting him have enabled the worst President and Administration in our history to not only be elected but to survive every blunder and drama he's been involved with. From the Access Hollywood tape...to the criticism of the handicapped, the Khan's, John McCain etc. and his endorsements of Putin...and Kim Jong un etc. The meetings in the Whitehouse with the Russians as well as his meetings privately with Putin and Kim should concern us all. The indictments of so many around him should be of grave concern to us all. In his mind these are wonderful people who have been given a bad rap by his critics. The Republicans have no Health Plan...nothing.The Mexicans are not paying for the Wall.There is no MAGA!! No better infrastructure,no manufacturing jobs pouring in.The farmers have struggled as have those involved in the Gov't shutdown. With all the hirings firings resignations and indictments surrounding this inept administration and it's Republican enablers..who among us in our right minds would trust them with accomplishing anything.. much less better Health Care? If he's reelected will he and the GOP then be considered our Pre Existing Condition ?
58
@Dave, Fox should not be allowed to call itself "news". It is total propaganda, like a state run network.
1
We haven't seen the Mueller Report. We've been distracted (at least some of us, on MSM no less) by the bright shiny book report by Barr.
We have NOT seen the Mueller Report. Please, don't lose sight of this. We haven't seen any Tax Returns either.
We have NOT SEEN ANY MUELLER REPORT. PERIOD.
62
It's too bad these people are running (ruining?) the country. I hope more people wake up before 2020!
23
He just has to have everything negative in his life. If anything goes well it's got to be mucked up. Simple. More necessary than air is to be mad and have everybody mad at him so he can be mad.
21
Trump deals in hyperbole! Evidently now that Trump has been cleared of collusion,he thinks he can walk on water-as in a great health care plan.His chance of developing a health care plan has the same odds of happening as the Mexico paying for the wall.
24
As usual a sensible, funny and altogether necessary article from the most reliable and enjoyable commentator.
36
The Republicans will announce their health care plan that will cover everything for everyone at no cost on April 1st!
30
Well, one fact sneaked through AG Barr's puff piece: no exoneration of Trump. But really, no conspiracy? To most sane observers, that much smoke must mean there's fire. But AG Barr is Trump's hand-picked appointee, whose resume includes a 19-page treatise essentially outlining why he was going to spin the findings exactly as he did, says there's no "fire"; so who are we going to believe - a compromised bureaucrat or our own eyes?
We American citizens paid for the real Mueller report, not the filtered Barr Cliff's Notes version, which to me has more propaganda content than a 1950s junior high school American history text book. I'll believe what's in the report when I see the actual entity our tax money paid for: complete, unfiltered, unspun, and revealed very quickly. Till then, thanks for messing up your sorta win, Emperor Donald; we Democrats owe you one. How about your payoff being a nice early retirement, preferably where a lot of the residents wear orange?
27
"The Republicans have no health care plan or even a plan about how to get one."
Gail, that is their Healthcare Plan.
37
@mlb4ever
I wonder how many of his faithful followers will stick around when they find out they have no health coverage.
1
Health Care for the republicans is a lose - lose proposition. They would rather dump Obamacare completely (because they hated that Obama won 2 terms as president) and don't much like Democrats. If Obamacare does go away, they have absolutely nothing to replace it with, and 20 million Americans lose their healthcare. Most of those votes should go to the Democrats in 2020, even in red states.
11
Trump has what economists call a supremely high discount rate: cheers from some of his base now (until they remember they need the Medicaid expansion and stop clapping) and jail in two years .Or less clapping now and jail in six years. I'm prepared to clap whenever he dons the suit that matches his skin.
9
Hate and cruelty are core virtues for this President. I cannot recall one compassionate statement from Trump during his campaign or presidency. He actually believes he could shoot someone in broad daylight and get away with it. Studies have shown revocation of the ACA would results in thousands of lives lost. I guess he has just increased his goals.
19
“I know some of you were very sad about the way the Mueller report let Donald Trump off the hook.”
——
Did it? I didn’t know the report had been released to the public so that we could make our own judgment. William Barr let Trump off the hook. We don’t know yet if Mueller did.
As far as the ACA’s complete demise, it won’t happen. Mitch McConnell knows it will kill Republican chances to gain back the House and possibly lose the Senate in 2020. I’m not worried about that. What I AM worried about is that, as they have done with abortion, they will find ways to pick around the edges and destroy it bit by bit until it has been reduced to something worthless.
25
@Frau Greta-- the loss of the presidency in 2016 together with McConnell's refusal to obey the plain meaning of the Constitution in Garland's nomination clearly creates the possibility that the supreme court will overturn Roe v. Wade with some sort of Heller-like invention.
This trajectory would have happened with any Republican president -- it's not an outcome peculiar to Trumpismo.
If this happens however the nation will go back to states where abortion is legal, and states where it is not, and all the "right to lifer" people will have accomplished is to deny safe abortions to those too poor to travel.
Is it too cynical to assume that is their exact intent? I think not.
7
"Hey, Acting Chief of Staff, how shall we distract the country from insisting on reading the Mueller report?"
18
Here is how America quickly and efficiently invents its very own universal higher quality and far less costly health care system, one that actually works. Someone with the highest level compartmentalized secret security clearance, in a secure secret location quietly copies and translates into American English one of the two or three best healthcare systems in the world ... all single payer taxpayer-supported universal health care systems ... that have been keeping its citizens, in fact all of its residents, living longer and far far healthier lives for many decades already, over half a century in some cases, at far far less cost ... say, for example, either the Italian or French system. Then after doing that word-for-word translation into All-American English, you slap American Flags all over it, name it The Great All-American Stars and Stripes Best-Ever-in-the-Whole-Wide-World Health Care System, or more simply ... MEDICARE FOR ALL, do a roll-out with a Souza marching band playing God Bless America and, bingo, it's DONE. MEDICARE FOR ALL.
13
This is getting to be tiresome. I almost wish that the Republicans would repeal Obamacare and replace it with their plan, the Crickets Chirping Plan, which Trump will claim is the greatest since sliced bread.
8
This talk about Trump now "getting" what he not so long ago referred to as the very complicated health care issue prompts me to recall something oft said about George W. Bush. Amidst frequent chatter that Bush was not the brightest bulb on the tree, some suggested that it was all an act to drive people, in Bush's own words, to "misunderestimate" him.
The reality was that Bush was apparently capable of tossing around five syllable words, even if, as was the case with the aforementioned ear-splitting mangling of the English language, he invented them, which was part of what caused the misunderestimation.
Trump, on the other hand, is prone to use monosyllables, and often the very same ones over and over again in the same sentence. It will take a whole lot of persuasion to convince a whole lot of Americans that Trump's reliance on a first grade vocabulary and sentence structure is a sign of hidden, even third-grade intellect. After all, the only polysyllabic word he is capable of uttering is "Obamacare."
Perhaps, were Trump and his family to lose all of their hard-inherited money, he would change his mind about Obamacare, but then again, more likely that is a misoverestimation.
In the meantime, don't hold your breath. When you turn blue, you won't be able to afford the bill when the paramedics come to save you. For that, you can thank Donald Trump, but as you take your last dying breath, take comfort that you won't have to put up with his underbrilliance any more.
16
@Quoth The Raven
"After all, the only polysyllabic word he is capable of uttering is "Obamacare."
"
No, he used "treasonable" this week, but he thinks it means "disagreeing with the President".
1
Only Gail can make me laugh while simultaneously reminding me of what a dangerous disaster occupies the Oval Office. Well, Gail and Stephen Colbert. I'd probably be hiding in a bomb shelter if it weren't for them.
20
When President Trump is worried, he behaves almost (perhaps a stretch) normally. When he is happy and feeling more secure, he unleashes his most natural instincts, which any normal person would describe as reckless and heartless or both.
He is now secure, which means he is back to undoing anything President Obama ever did, and especialy a health care plan than insured millions of Americans who never previously had the security of health coverage. Trump despises Obama as much or more than Hillary. Obama's intelligence, maturity, wisdom, and heart, to say nothing of athletic ability and comedic timing, can never be approached by the current Oval Office occupant. Trump wants to wipe out Obama's legacy, and undo McCain's "treachery" in a single coup. It will be up to Mitch to come up with a new plan as the Donald has no original ideas or creativity whatsoever. And he will rail against Mitch and the GOP oligarchic gang when they fail to do so.
Ir's okay; the Democrats can handle it when they get a chance. Please 2020, come soon and successfully.
12
Is there any truth to the rumor he plans to transform the GOP into the "party of environmental sustainability?" That would not only be more welcome news, but the President renowned for "knowing a lot of words" (did Cohen tell Congress behind closed doors what Dirty Don got on his Verbal SAT?) could fit the announcement into a tweet. It would be a win-win-win situation?
4
Why is Trump proposing to kill the popular ACA now?
First, he doesn’t want to be re-elected and the election is only a year and a half away. (He didn’t want to be elected in the first place.) His body language speaks volumes; being president has him scared, flummoxed, and out of control. The man is barely hanging on to whatever sanity he still retains. And it seems that there isn’t too much left.
Second, throughout his adult life he has shown himself to be a wrecker, that is to say that he destroys things because he knows it brings him attention. Throwing a monkey wrench into the health insurance system would cause wreckage on a national scale and garner more attention than he could ever hope to get by building instead of tearing down. The side benefit is that it will cause deep despair among those of modest financial means dealing with with life threatening or otherwise expensive medical conditions. His “let them eat cake” attitude is a defining hallmark of his persona.
Third, should he bring down Republican control of the Senate, he will he treating those most loyal to him as he has treated everyone else in his orbit, with the back of his hand and a denial of ever having met. And he’ll get to blame them for being losers.
29
@Billy Baynew
Trump has to try to stay in place to avoid prosecution for the many crimes he has committed outside of the purview of the US government. And prosecuted he will be. He’s hoping to run out the clock on the laws covering these crimes, but I doubt he can run fast enough. His children even at this time cannot avoid investigation and prosecution. I wonder what is holding this up!
2
@Billy Baynew I want to agree with you but his enormous ego negates most of your points for me.
Love you, Gail! Thank you for your wit and humor! Between you and the Bret Stephens editorial, I feel I can go forward with a less glum view of the future! Peter Sellers would be proud!
9
This is a huge gift to Democrats for 2020. And I’m really looking forward to another Trump/Mulvaney/Justice dept humiliation when this gets body slammed by the courts or the afraid-to-lose-their-jobs GOP congresspeople.
7
On the contrary, I would argue that the President's renewed attack on the ACA is just another attack on the late Sen. McCain. Mr Trump doesn't let losses go. He also seems to be challenging speaker Pelosi again, like he did during the government shutdown, to legislate with his foot on her throat. I place my bets with Pelosi and McCain.
11
@Paul Jannuzzi Agreed. Don't forget Senator McCain's very famous NO vote that saved ACA (for now).
“I understand health care now especially very well.” Donald Trump did tell us he has a "very, very large brain."
So on his mission to make America great again, Trump's smoking large brain divined that healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions is holding America back. Again.
And while they don't like to be reminded, Republicans in Congress agree with Trump that healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions is an impediment to make America great again. They tried repeatedly to get rid of Obamacare and failed. They didn't want their two years of efforts and humiliating failure brought up. Again.
But with Trump understanding healthcare now "especially very well," he's heralding a new effort to rid the nation of Obamacare. It's back in the courts to see if a few new Republican justices can rid the nation of the scourge of protecting people with pre-existing conditions...which keeps Trump from making America great. Again.
Will Republican justices succeed where Republicans in Congress failed? Can Gorsuch and Kavanaugh deliver on Trump's promise to make America great again?
Soon it will be time to find out if MAGA-its also have very, very large brains. Do they want protection from pre-existing conditions? Or side with Trump and Republicans who keep trying to rid the nation of Obamacare? Again.
The 2020 election will provide their answer.
6
Every so often we need to stop and recall that Obamacare is an expanded version of Romneycare, our Massachusetts healthcare plan that the governor took almost whole cloth from the Heritage Foundation. The reasons the Republicans, and especially Trump, are so determined to kill Obamacare are three: 1) It’s the only healthcare plan ever devised and actually implemented by conservative Republicans. 2) They stupidly decided to attack their own plan and labeled it Obamacare thereby making it impossible to ever claim it or anything like it as their own. 3) They desperately believed they could defeat the plan by blaming it on an African American President whom Trump claimed wasn’t even born in the U.S., and now because of the Republican attack on their own program, the public is showing serious interest in universal coverage through a public option. It’s difficult to believe that a major political party could have worked so hard for so long to seize the political low ground. On second thought it’s the GOP.
19
While the Democrats are cheering at this talking point for the upcoming election Donald Trump is tossing out firebombs like a magician to divert attention from the real action.
It's likely someone has told him - could I mean the AG? - what's in the Mueller Report that will sooner or later be made public. And it's not the total exoneration Sarah Sanders has been bleating. It will likely be along the lines of criminal intent could not be proven but what was done was not in the interest of American democracy.
Donald Trump is now throwing out the chum to the grateful media to rant and rave over. He has again owned the talking points. Better he be accused of taking money from disadvantaged kids and shifting to courts removing protections from families than talk about committing treason. We are no longer talking about the Mueller Report. The worse his new "policies" are, the better to keep hidden the real danger.
Whatever Donald Trump says, look in the opposite direction. That's where his fears lay.
11
"And there is no evidence that, even in red states, average people want to see it go away. In the last election, voters in Utah, Idaho and Nebraska supported expanding their states’ programs."
Yes Gale, so true. Idaho worked hard to get expanded Health benefits on our 2018 ballots. And I'm sure when I call my Idahoan Sen. Jim Risch's office tomorrow to have him explain Trump's wonderful new health plan that's to replace ACA--- it will be great.
I'll let you know what he says.
9
People HATE Obamacare...but don't you dare try to take it away from them.
Does this make sense? Does anything make sense any more?
When the tea party started up just after Obama began his first term, people were marching in DC with signs saying, "Keep your government hands off my Social Security and Medicare!". Apparently, the word hadn't leaked out to many around the country that these were, in fact, government programs.
Trump promised in the campaign that he would provide health care for all Americans and it would be less expensive, too. I would have more likely believed him if he'd said the homeless would be invited to move into his 10 million dollar co-op apartments in New York.
Somebody please call a psychologist! We need an explanation for why believing what you want to believe takes all precedence over those pesky things called facts. Belief removed from any contact with contradictory information is the strongest force in the world aside from the specific needs of the body.
One reason the Republicans and their far right hangers-on opposed Obamacare so vociferously is they were afraid it would work, people's lives would actually be improved and, in so doing, it would be impossible to kill off. The first two years of Trump and the Republican Congress should have driven that lesson home, but, no, apparently no lessons are capable of reaching the tweeter-in-chief. For that, his fan base loves him. Belief is much more powerful than information.
9
@Doug Terry
On the subject of the Tea Party:
I noticed that one of their proposals was to abolish Senatorial elections and replace it with politicians in back rooms choosing Senators, presumably after a lot of secret horse-trading about what they would do for their benefactors once they were in office. But the Tea-Partiers didn't talk about it very much.
1
@Charlesbalpha
The former gov. of Texas Rick Perry was supporting the idea of removing the full democratic election of US Senators, taking a huge backward step toward giving more power to those in power over the people.
@Doug Terry "People HATE Obamacare". Sounds like a quote from fox news.
When President Obama met with the freshmen members of the Democratic House yesterday, he told them the one piece of advice he'd give them so they wouldn't be corrupted by the political system was to focus on the one thing they would do even if they knew it might cost them reelection and work towards that, always. For Barack Obama, it was expanding health care coverage.
Wise words and he got some good press for it. That would be enough to set Trump off. He hates all things Obama and what he has focused on throughout his presidency is to destroy President Obama's legacy. It's sick.
19
We have not seen the Mueller report. All we have seen are 62 words cherry picked from the document by Trump's latest Justice Department flunky.
And the thing WILL come out some day.
Maybe that prospect has Trump rattled?
12
“I understand health care now especially very well,” Trump bragged.
Of course he does. He is, remember, a very stable genius. To illustrate the state of his illustrious mind:
A plane is crashing, with three people on board: Trump, a Vicar and a young man. Only two parachutes between them.
Trump grabs a parachute saying he is the "smartest man in the world" and must be saved. He exits the plane.
Vicar to the young man: "Son, take the last parachute. I have lived a long life and yours is just beginning."
Young man to the Vicar: "Don't worry, sir. We still have two parachutes. The smartest man in the world just took my backpack."
23
@Antigone Brilliant, I love it! Makes me laugh as I read all the terrible news about the worst President and his administration’s next moves to hurt our citizen’s and enrich themselves.
1
Thanks Gail.
The circus in the WH led by Individual-1 is reaping the rewards(?) and consequences of their preference for recruiting staff from the left side of the IQ bell curve. These under-qualified and over self-inflated sadsacks turn out to be much more compliant drones compared to those people who can actually think for themselves.
Their (lack of) winning continues to increase.
5
One can only understand our President only by understanding the depth of his self-loathing.
“One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others," Sartre Jean-Paul observed, "One could never get directly at oneself.”
When confronted with an apparent victory, an ordinary person would bask in the warm glow.
Yet, this man, tortured by self-loathing, pulls from the depth of his soul the elimination of health insurance for 20 million Americans, the elimination of Medicaid coverage for millions more, and not one federal dime for the Special Olympics.
"If I'm hurting inside," he says to himself, "You will hurt so much more."
This simple thing explains much of this man's behavior, which is both sad and infuriating at once.
11
As I mentioned after the Mueller report came out, we're still only a third of the way through Season Three of the Trump White House Reality TV show. Lots of time for lots of baloney.
3
Why does the Republican party hate anything that helps the common person?
Whether its education, environment, health care, taxation, social security, climate change etc. they can be counted on to be on the wrong side. It is easy to blame Trump but it is the entire leadership that has this blind spot. Why they even hate Special Olympics! If it doesn't mean more for the rich, they will find a way to call it Socialism.
605
@tom
The interesting thing is that many wealthy people support the Special Olympics. When it looked like the winter ones would not happen several years back a young couple with a big trust fund stepped up to the plate as did the Sun Valley Resort and many of the locals (including my family volunteered and contributed financially. On the final night with fireworks and an ice skating show at the Sun Valley Lodge there were obviously well-to-do parents of children from all over the world there to celebrate their young persons medals. And some of those young people were even as old as 40+, but they had physical and mental disabilities. Even so, their joy was amazing including one man in a wheel chair who was in tears over the fact that he had just gotten to "ice-skate" with Scott Hamilton. At the same time children had come from as far away as Afghanistan two play broom hockey with no proper clothing or equipment which was provided for them by people all over Idaho. It is amazingly inspirational to see someone who can barely walk struggle and complete a snow boarding or cross country ski course, being encourage by a crowd of supporters to get up from every fall and push on! Only someone as unfeeling for the ordinary people of the world could propose to eliminate funding for these events. After all it would only cost as much as four or five of Trump's golf weekends!
41
@tom And why do so many common persons love the Republican Party?
20
@tom They have made common sense radical. An amzing PR job but whats the endgame; a hollowed out country.
8
Gail Collins keeps referring to the "Mueller report." What Mueller report? Has she seen it? The rest of us have seen only the Barr memo. You and other reporters and columnists are promoting the administration's gaslighting on this: until we see the actual report, we can't make any conclusions on the actions of Trump and others during the campaign.
9
Gail FYI the player was Kendrys Morales who by coincidence today was traded by the Blue Jays to Oakland.
1
Unfortunately the man who was illegitimately put in power by a defunct electoral college and the GOP two years ago is clueless and says anything that comes to his mind to distract, deflect and disturb and we are all suffering for it. This nightmare needs to end very soon. Has anyone noticed how he is using the healthcare issue to distract us from the outcry about the Mueller report? When people resume their town halls, calls to their MoCs or even take to the streets to protest what this administration wants to do to healthcare, he will use another topic to distract again. That is just the way this narcissist inept and corrupt President functions to the detriment of the American people. Shame on him and his party of fools.
9
Clearly there WAS NO COLLUSION with Russia!
How could there be. I’m sorry but this guy appears incapable of even colluding with his own White House.
6
Once again Donald Trump steps on his meat. Do the Democrats have the wherewithal to serve it to him?
6
@Hector. HA HA! Get out the buns and the ketchup!
"Trump sits proudly at the head of an administration that includes very few people who could be trusted running your local 7Eleven."
Now you've gone too far, Gail. "Very few people"? Name one.
7
Why does Trump dislike Obamacare so much? It’s because it has the word “Obama” in it, and he thinks if it is repealed, he will have succeeded in disrespecting Obama.
I wish I were joking.
17
"What got into Trump?" Gail asks.
Well, first, killing healthcare really sticks it to the liberals and to Obama, and Trump is all about revenge. Apparently only liberals get sick and can't afford to see a doctor.
Second of all, the President, who is not at all interested in governance, or policy, or consequences, or international policy, or pesky details and facts, or anything unrelated to Trump, does really like winning elections which are, I guess, even more satisfying than TV ratings.
So Trump is pumping all his effort into rallies, which he also loves, and giving his base anything they desire, including the right to die destitute, preferably of illness contracted from drinking mine tailings from their wells.
I have started having Wile E Coyote Looney Tunes fantasies about this White House. Acme products, anvils, sawn-through floors, deep canyons and tall cliffs, and a Bugs Bunny nemesis stalking our Fuddian officials. It keeps me sane. To get through the next few years, try this. Imagine Sarah H-S up at the podium, lying through her teeth and Bugs, climbing up next to her, asking "What's up Doc?" before he begins his mischief.
11
Of course, the problem with the GOP ditching the PPACA was its diversity.
While every Democrat remaining in Congress is apparently a devoted progressive-socialist ranging to solidly Marxist, the GOP on the Hill ranges from what was the Democratic Blue Dog middle to extreme libertarians.
ALSO the GOP basically got suckered into believing what the coastal progressive media like the NYT was saying about President Trump. After all, he beat THEIR fave candidates in 2016 before he outworked Hillary.
So, nothing happened until the GOPers realized the 90% progressive media reporters were flat-out liars trying to stage a coup d'etat against a sitting president just before Christmas 2017.
Donald Trump knows the workers are struggling with affording their health care, but like most intact adults, he knows there is no way that the country can afford running the healthcare system through the federal bureaucracy.
Remember, the British NHS intentionall gives up on over ten thousand people a month and allows them a drugged, starvation death because -
- the budget can't handle them;
- there are less than half the number of nurses required; and,
- withno profit motive, only the most self-sacrificing even consider going into medial school there.
@The Observer
" Remember, the British NHS intentionall gives up on over ten thousand people a month and allows them a drugged, starvation death because - ... "
Can you please indicate the source of that statement.
Trump, his Veep, and his Cabinet, all donning expensive suits to blend in with respectable beings are Duck Dynasty Redux.
2
If a mafia Don's lieutenants are convicted of crimes but don't rat him out, does that make him totally exonerated?
3
You just can’t make this stuff up. Like a old B movie. Their victory dance lasted all of about 48-72 hours before POTUS shot himself in the foot. He envisions greatness like the time he mistakenly thought Democrats would praise him for firing former FBI Director Comey. Got him investigated for possible obstruction of justice. God forbid if there is a true national emergency, no one will trust or believe him. (his made up national emergency to build his wall that Mexico failed to pay for) Cancel this made for television reality circus ASAP!
6
Trump is just sure that through the power of his personality and and his skills at salesmanship he can sell us the Brooklyn Bridge
3
Here's a thought. The story about the McCain aid giving a copy of the 'dossier' to the F.B.I. has so angered Trump that he is attacking the thing that McCain is most known for: Thumbs Down. He's getting secret revenge on McCain by trashing the thing McCain is most hated for, voting to support Obamacare.
3
April is the cruelest month, unless you're Trump and it's November 2020.
1
Sorry, but this isn't what is happening. What is happening is the radical billionaires running the GOP are using Trump - who is apolitical and uninterested in everything other than himself - to get their radically unpopular agenda rammed through in exchange for keeping him out of jail.
They said to him "you will finish dismantling the ACA and we will bring in Barr to keep you out of jail. And we all will pretend it was your bad idea for cover."
This and other policies that the voting public overwhelming reject are being executed under a kleptocratic, right-wing coup that can only be accomplished via a crooked, train-wreck of a con artist that the public and the media cannot stop gawking at.
4
I look beyond.
I America the struggle between the rich and the poor has politically crystallised. There no CIA sponsored military coup here. It is dealt at the ballot box and in the free press.
Voltaire:
" I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."
4
The real master in all this is Putin. Putin knows that DJT's primary goal is to get a building permit, or at least his name on some giant building in Moscow, trying I think ,to emulate the old British Empire where the sun never set on the empire. Although I doubt DJT is aware of this part of history.
So Putin played DJT and Putin is playing us. He knew he could never count on DJT to be a master spy or agent because he could never not tell the world how great a spy he is/was.
What Putin has managed to do is to get us fighting with each other. Split us from within, which, regretfully, I must say seems to be working very well.
Cudos Mr. Putin, you are a hellava chess player. I would imagine the vodka is flowing freely in the Kremlin. America how does if feel to be pawns?
6
Mulvaney busy demolishing long consumer protection programs put in place due to the worst financial crisis of modern times now continues to act as a bulldozer for Trump. The guy is clearly an appealing grifter to Don the Con. This will be another Trumpist fiasco. No plan with America”s Reality Show President. Smoke and a Mirrors. All he citizens genuflect as Donald J Trump deflects. He is a masterful illusionist. Backed by a bunch of sub human acolytes. Good work Mitch. Always spineless and thin lipped. 2020 let’s bring thoughtful human governance, dignity and lover to this great country. Time for DJT to be outed even though his base abetted by Hannity and Fox drink the kool aid. Time for a Channel
Change.
4
look no further than the petty mind of djt. Obama poked fun at him, McCain turned thumbs down, so ACA must be destroyed. This isnt about politics or policy, this is all about petty revenge. Millions of americans will suffer but it is not about them, it is about djt's mantra "hit back harder".
5
You can always count on Mr. Foot-in-Mouth to rain on his own parade. He's so busy patting himself on the back for his genius in "understanding health care" he doesn't realize that taking it away from millions of Americans will torpedo his re-election campaign and that of Senate Republicans.
5
While we are thanking President Trump for his move this week to abolish the only health care available to 20 million Americans , let us also say good on him and Mrs. Devos for their move to defund the Special Olympics.
Now if every handicapped and disabled person in the country and every member of their families and every friend and supporter they have registers to vote and shows up at the polls on Tuesday, November 3, 2020 -- and the results are counted fairly without Russian interference, the Special Olympics will be O.K.
14
If only a reporter would ask Mick Mulvaney whether bone spurs are a pre-existing condition.
7
And just in case taking away people's health care wasn't enough, Trump surrogate and truly evil person Betsy DeVos has proposed defunding the Special Olympics. I've been trying to think of what wonderful ideas they'll come up with next. How long do you think it will be before Trump or one of his minions decide that children have been free loading for too long and we should repeal all child labor laws. Can't you just see the crowds at a Trump rally cheering when Trump says "make those little brats earn their keep".
7
Yes, Trump hasn’t a clue. He didn’t crash his University and his Casino ‘cause he was clever. And yes, Mulvaney can’t focus upon what people want done because his attention is on Mulvaney.
So the carnival is off the track again, and Kellyanne will think up an “alternative health plan”, alternative to health, that is. And Sarah will try to translate Trump-speech into some kind of idea.
Just hope the bunch of them hang on until 2020 so the Dems can clean house even if they’ve no idea what for.
4
Trump always makes decisions for his base. Always. And then he hangs the failures of his decisions on the GOP, the Democrats, Mexico, Obama, Hillary, etc. he is the winner...no one else. When you have been given everything, why would you want to work for everyone. Much more fun to cause fights, lie, brag, play golf, play golf, play golf. Trump is bored...now on to round 6,843.
6
Bless his tiny little heart. May it burst forth forthwith.
6
Excellent Ms. Collins. Thank you.
1
When I heard of this effort to deep-six the ACA earlier this week, my immediate reaction was: what an absolutely boneheaded move - even doltish, tone-deaf Trump can't be so stupid to squander his ersatz weekend vindication and an opportunity to appear to be statesmanlike. Alas, after hearing some of the details -tens of millions off the rolls - I think a better explanation is that pure evil is at work here, not just stupidity. Beelzebub is visiting us in the guise of Trump, Mulvaney, McConnell, McCarthy and a supporting cast of thousands. Woe is us and bon chance, Schumer, Pelosi, all reasonable, humane citizens - the numbers are in our favor, I hope.
5
Perhaps Trump feels his batteries are recharged by his Mueller "win" and wants to re-litigate every issue he lost on during the last two years. We know he can't let go of any perceived insult. His thirst for revenge against those who have made him feel small is never slaked. Whenever he loses, he can't stop whining and ranting. Seems there isn't a rational synapse in his brain. I guess he thinks tearing everything down around him makes his grandeur and glory shine that much brighter. How lovely for us.
4
"the head of an administration that includes very few people who could be trusted running your local 7Eleven"
That's a really good line !!!! I'll have to remember that!
3
But we have to remember -- our lout-in-chief by his own measure doesn't have to know all that much about something to be the best there is at understanding it.
5
Well done, well said. The mans a fool. Does one really expect him to suddenly become a disciplined well conditioned leader? He will continue to flail away, throwing food across the table or at any crowd that doesn't cheer his dumb ideas. This will end badly. Just don't expect Donnie Dumpster and crew to be the ones hurt and carried out on the stretcher. It will be we the people who suffer the damage. Even more than we have so far.
4
So. We have a president that goes to his private resort on the weekend, for which we paid for a helicopter landing pad, parties with friends and shady characters and then bills us. Lindsay Graham is thrilled to be invited. Then back in Washington, he comes up with a budget that gives his daughter 100 million dollars so sadly, those handicapped kids can't have their Special Olympics. But that's ok . She only made 82 million last year posing as a public servant. He wants 8.6 billion now for the wall. Why the heck not. Might as well get as much as he can. Of course the wall won't be built. Can you imagine a bunch of white guys in blazing sun carrying steel and stone? I can't. The Mexicans and South Americans are amazing masons as shown by all the walls all over the country built by contractors who don't want to pay a legal wage. As our Democracy takes her final bow and the Oligarchy sets firm, lots of folks think trump is just the best as he is devoid of class, much like themselves. Oh well. They got hats. At least they got hats.
7
Donald Trump should win the "sore winner" award.
1
Polls and the 2018 midterms show that meaningful access to health care, and which party's bent on taking it away, will be 2020's dominant issues.
It's going to take a great deal of Trumpian race baiting to make voters forget THIS screwup. But Trump will give it his best shot. Judge Curiel, Khizr Khan, Maxine Waters, LeBron James, Don Lemon, and Africa, cover your ears.
2
"[Mulvaney] could have several more jobs by the time we get to Easter."
So, Gail, you're telling us that Mulvaney is the next Jared Kushner? Or is it vice-versa?
1
Imagine this: The Mob is able to protect a Don from prosecution...The Kremlin is too incompetent to do the same; sure, tell me more.
1
Gail, among other speculations about Trump's return to overturning Obamacare, you speculate that "somebody was trying to divert him from another attack on John McCain." In my view it's more likely that there is no diversion; he's still on topic. Widely criticized for his ongoing attacks on the dead war hero--the polar opposite of himself--whose thumbs-down vote prevented the prior overturning attempt, in classic Trump fashion he doubles down, still trying to undo McCain's vote, to extract revenge.
7
I just want to thank you for getting my morning off to a great start. I read the news to see what horrors might have happened over night. I make my coffee. I start to cheer up. I read your column and my eyes light up. I grin. I giggle. I shake my head and feel that I have my world back in perspective, again.
10
Brilliant. The observation and reminder by Trump that not only do the Republicans not have a health care plan to replace the ACA, but the Republicans do not even have a plan to come up with a plan. It just puts up the fact that when it comes to health care, plight of the the middle class and even Special Olympics children you cannot find a more insincere group of people than the Republican Party. No plan for even coming up with a plan is practically the definition of insincerity.
"No Plan For Ever Coming Up With A Plan - GOP 2020"
12
"secretly doubted that he was actually well-organized enough to run an international conspiracy"
Kinda late to get around to that point.
There has been a huge opportunity cost.
All of the attention poured into that conspiracy theory could have been spent for the last two years hammering Republicans on health care.
Where would Republicans be now if health care had been the unrelenting focus of the last two years?
If Rachel Maddow had done all that about our people dying, and unable to get what everyone else gets in every other developed country?
Trump would be lower than now, with no way up. He's doing self harm now, but it could have been done to him, and he had no way out.
7
@Mark Thomason
Dare I say hindsight is 20/20?
April is coming alright. April Fools. That's how America looks for putting this lying, bigoted, compromised con artist bully in the White House.
8
Barr is a corrupt criminal. He is a disgrace to Horace Mann.
9
Collusion, Dishonest Donald colluded indirectly. He did not have to go to the Russian politicians and say " I will make things easy for you," he already had. He owes Ole Deripaska the aluminum oligarch for the multi million dollar loan from the Bank of Cypress, that kept his Chicago hotel out of foreclosure. Wilbur Ross was also involved. His people also talked to the Russians about building a hotel in Moscow, they could see a good reason to interfere, Hillary was not their friend, although their propaganda machine tried to make it look like she was. many trumpanistas still believe that along with the discredited Uranium One lie. This ruling does not absolve him of obstruction of justice, it only says he did not make a deal with them. But he has a core of loyalists and disciples, his lies give him an aura of walking on water, and they believe them, facts be damned. He follows in the footsteps of previous liars and history revisionists, creating distrust in our legal system and justice, and the news programs and papers. We all were rooting for a verdict of collusion, it is a disappointment. Now he wants revenge, he will not apologize for his own egregious behavior, his is the typical psychopathic behavior of all self delusional low life's, he will still be attacked and vilified by honest, decent people, world over, his grandiose vanity projects will be defeated, despite the efforts of a few GOP sycophants.
The new editbot keeps my comments from being published.
5
@David Underwood
Civility rules.
People like the ACA despite its flaws. SCOTUS hates the ACA because it is called Obamacare. My modest proposal is that SCOTUS renames the program Trumpcare! The best healthcare ever, bigly!
7
@beth reese -- Maybe then Democrats would work more to get health care for everyone.
2
@Mark Thomason Dems have been alone in working to improve heathcare , The GOP has been AWOL on this issue for decades.
@beth reese I think you have something there!
The FBI made a big mess announcing they had confiscated Weiner's laptop with porn. Sandbagging Hillary's campaign so publicly, so outside of FBI rules of discretion few a tornado of bad decisions after worse. All that happened in the Mueller investigation was cleaning that up for themselves. The FBI figured into politics way to far by going back and forth with Weiner and then all of a sudden, Russians hacking and leaking in order to swamp Hillary. The FBI cleaned up a bit of spilled milk to crawl back into their holes. Again.
5
I have never known of a person who really exemplified the expression "bull in a china shop" until now.
1
Gail - Mulvaney was out of his depth in kindergarten.
Chief of Stiff
4
Gail forgot to mention Stephen Moore, quite possibly the world's worst economist, whom POTUS is planning to place on the Fed, depriving the Heritage Foundation of its very own village idiot.
10
You've got to love how 45 manages to be his own worse enemy. Of course, this is what happens when you're a bumbling idiot with no desire to learn. Merry Early Christmas, Dems! Take this health care issue & run with it until the 2020 elections. DON'T LET UP!!!
9
One of my daughters broke her clavicle (nasty break). 3 days in the hospital = $50K, not including surgeon. No insurance.
Now she has insurance because of the ACA. With the ACA gone she will be at risk again. The GOP says "If you get sick, it's your own damn fault". This may, indeed, be a gift to the D's. My personal favorite POTUS candidate is Warren. Policies with intelligence, including how to pay for them.
Now the GOP is also attacking Medicare and Medicaid with severe budget cuts, along with SS. Just a reminder: Mulvaney, Haley, Gowdy, and Graham are all from South Carolina. Nothing good coming out of that state.
Two time cancer survivor here. None of us are safe with the GOP in charge.
12
Bad times in trumpville?
This week?
Ha , what planet are you living on Gail?
4
Trump and his Merry Band of Republicans will come up with a Health Care plan that pleases everyone.
And set it to expire on Jan. 1, 2021.
3
Why would you insult our local 7 Eleven? What is wrong with Help for the Greedy Rich? Kind of catchy.
It's the possibility that the alleged Supreme Court could move so far to the right of John Roberts (can that phrase make ANY sense?) that it strikes down our teetering health care system that scares me.
Is it good news that I can still feel fear?
5
Obama care was actually the conservative brainchild that the Dems co-opted from Republicans (remember Romney care?) because the Dems knew that Republicans would not vote for universal health care that didn’t include for-profit insurance companies. After making demands that made Obama care less effective in order to get their support, Republicans still didn’t vote for it. Now the Republicans have no alternative but to go back to the bad old days of allowing insurance companies free reign over health care with exorbitant premiums and denying health care to people with pre-existing conditions. And those pre-existing conditions can be something as ordinary as once being treated for acne.
The Republicans and Trump will probably now just rebrand Obama care as Trump care to satisfy Trump’s ego. That’s what this is all about. Trump’s sole goal as president is to obliterate all of Obama’s great achievements and to stuff Trump’s pockets with taxpayers money and that of his family and of course all of his rich friends.
16
As bad as it would be for 100M or more Americans if Trump got rid of the ACA, if it would cause Trump and the Republicans to be run out of Washington it might be worth it. Then Democrats could come up with universal health care.
10
It's times like this that one starts to think again that Trump is trying to destroy the Republican party and lose the 2020 election. He took what appeared to be a propaganda victory with the Barr absolution and turned it into a vindictive attack on everything progressive this country has achieved in recent history. Good. Let him overreach, it will just lose him votes with centrists. Could Trump be that fearful that he's losing his base or is he just an immature, petulant child that needed to strike back against his political enemies to get even for the Mueller investigation?
It was never realistic to think that Trump could be impeached with a Republican controlled Senate. After all, even if it happened we wold be left with Pence whose regressive politics are no better. The Democrats would be wise to play the long game; play chess against Trump. Let him take the low road and defeat him with policies that are geared to improve the lives of Americans without favoring one group at the expense of another. The great strength of America is in our unity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That is the message that Democrats need to run behind. It's not a zero sum game in which some cannot prosper unless others suffer. Let Trump take that road. It will lead him to defeat.
36
@USS Johnston’s long as Trump doesn’t suspend 2020 presidential election.
1
Thanks for this uplifting column in what should be springtime. I still want to know what's in Mueller's report, all distractions aside. Steve Bannon said on Anderson Cooper last night that no Democrat could beat Trump and it's all about personality and spinning the news. I'm hoping that most Americans want health care they can afford, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, because they won't have any of those things if "Agent Orange" gets elected again in 2020.
22
Sure, most Americans don't want Obamacare repealed...but then Trump wasn't elected by most Americans, was he?
38
This is what happens when all you aim for is cementing power.
7
Nice article Gail. But you made one slight mistake. It’s the Barr Report, not the Mueller Report. Nobody - except Barr, of course - has seen the Mueller Report. Trump’s victory dance is actually all about the happy result of the appointment of his willful stooge as attorney general...
41
@JHS It's remarkable to me that so many in the media and journalism don't get your obvious and well taken point.
And Gail didn’t mention the tidbit about the Mueller grand jury still beavering away at : let’s see - Junior lying to Congress, ivanka and Jarod e-mail sins or may. The S&G song “April come she will, May she will stay” may describe the Trump legsl problems far better than the Barr Interjection
12
A ray of sunshine as always. True, it's shining on a toxic waste dump, but you can't have everything.
25
Trump is in full mobbed up retaliation/ war mode. His jujitsu of leaning in hard will work unless we step aside and let own momentum force a tumble. At least that’s how it should work but for Russia’s network of money influence peddlers in our own halls of power.
Jujitsu works best when it’s intentions are good. “Oh lord!Don’t let this be misunderstood”.
( partial attribution to Eric Burdon)
8
Let's just all be sure of just one thing: It should never be called
Trumpcare, because he doesn't. Never has, never will, unless it only covers himself.
16
We have not seen the Mueller report. We have instead heard the Barr report.
Those are two (potentially) very different things, given that Barr was inserted by IQ45 and his party.
The truth is still buried. Where is this generation’s “Deep Throat”?
20
Trump does two things well. He brags and he lies. Sometimes he does both simultaneously as he did when he said, “I understand health care now especially very well.”
19
Yet he keeps winning.
Don't count your hatched chickens with Trump.
Nominate a smart, decent tough Democrat centrist to focus on actual bread and butter issues, stay out of diversity signaling, talk about his trillion $ deficits, and slap him around about his divisive angry attitude and his deceit/fear in not releasing the Mueller report as unAmerican.
Then pray he loses.
20
@AG -- "decent tough Democrat centrist"
We already have a Republican. Democrat, or bust.
1. Show us the tax returns.
2. Release the Mueller report.
3. Release your " plan "
Repeat.
36
He thinks he is unbeatable. A botched 4-page whitewash lead him to believe he can win anything, that he is the best, the smartest, the ..est ...est, ...est.
But all he is, is the best example ever of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
12
Once again, Gail Collins provides in her writing the universal antidote to Trump-Induced Anxiety (the other TIA). That's what seems to be afflicting the members of the group in the photo.
On another note (and previously included in a post to another column), it bears repeating and reminding folks about what the Republican Health Care Plan really amounts to. Former Rep. Grayson (D-FL) had it right ten years ago, and it is true today. The paper in their hands has nothing on it!
Recall former Rep. Grayson (D-FL) who in 2009 addressed the Senate Finance Committee and detailed their plan?
Republican Health Care Plan:
1. Don't get sick...
2. If you do get sick...
3. Die quickly
He went on to outline the Democratic Health Care Plan:
1. If you have health insurance, we’ll make it better
2. If you can’t afford health insurance we’ll help you get it
3. If you don’t have health insurance we will provide it to you.
In a brief 2:26 video, former Rep. Grayson sums it up...prescient!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usmvYOPfco
11
your initial comment that Mueller let the President off the hook ignores the fact that there was no hook to be let off of. Mueller found no collusion. It demonstrates the deep seated bias of Ms Collins and the publication for which she opines
3
@carl completely ignores two things:
* What we've seen is the Barr report, not the Mueller report.
* That little thing called 'obstruction of justice,' which if the direct quote in Barr's statement is correct, doesn't let Trump off a very real hook.
7
Trump is going to push for the destruction of the healthcare system, threaten and then hold the Democrats responsible is they don’t agree to whatever nonsensical proposal pushed by the Republicans.
This is his modus operandi, stomp all over something and strong arm everyone to agree.
6
@CJ, Bernie’s Medicare for all is the solution. No more Big Physician Big Pharma Big Health Insurance, holding us all hostage with the most expensive health care paid to private hospitals physicians and drug companies...,
2
Peter, sorry for any confusion. I had a typo. To clarify, Trump would lay blame with the Democrats if they failed to agree with whatever was pushed by the Republicans. I am all for Bernie’s plan if the money can be sorted out.
Trump continues to be a head-scratcher. That is why we can't keep our eyes off him. What will this lunatic do next?
He seems a cauldron of seething, uncontrollable and contradictory impulses that pop to the surface in almost random fashion. He makes no consistent attempt to direct the flow, letting the river of his psyche wander as it pleases. He trusts the wisdom of his impulses implicitly. Doubt born of introspection never rears its ugly head.
The Trump Show works best when he can play off a live, emotionally aroused audience. Then he can surf the waves of energy, riffing off its ebbs and flows. At his rallies his dictatorial impulses are most clearly expressed. "Only I can save you," he intones. The crowd loves it.
Yet, as Collins notes, there is also an ambivalence to Trump that leads him to inexplicably undercut his moments of success. In part, it seems to derive from his
rage. Every win comes on the heels of a battle. The rush of adrenaline overflows and he enjoys the release that immoderate anger provides.
Beyond that, Trump craves the power and adulation of the presidency but rebels at its strictures and limitations. He cynically uses toadies like Pence and Graham but has no affection for them. By their submission they prove themselves weaklings. The minor joys of the office include torturing unctuous political sycophants with outrageous behavior and watching them squirm in agony. Trump's recent escalation of the health care wars likely falls into this category.
7
It's often pointed out that at least some people hoped [especially Republicans holding their breath], maybe even prayed, that the inexperienced hornswoggling neophyte who by hook or by crook became President of the United States would "grow into the job."
Oops. Always ready to rise to a challenge, the Bumbler-in-Chief has managed to move farther away, day by miserable day, from being up to the job. He does seem to be skilled at being pals with some of the creepiest people on earth, and at making sure other people do enough of his dirty work to get in trouble themselves but protect him from getting caught.
He prides himself on resisting expectations--such as being a decent human being, doing his homework, leading by example, exemplifying what is best and not worst about this imperfect country. If God loves those who love themselves, Trump must be amongst the most beloved of the select crew.
He has turned on its head a piece of advice from someone else who spent time in the White House -- for his main principle is: When other people hope for basic goodness from you, be as nasty and petulant and dangerous as you can.
Well, good job, little boy, standing by your deepest commitments!
5
Healthcare is a total loser for Republicans. We all know that trump want's to kill Grandma by taking away her healthcare, but that does not stop trump from trying to own the subject. Oh and by the way, thanks for changing the subject from the Mueller Report.
But here is the rub. The 3 people outside a gas station in Bug Tussle, Arkansas don't care. They will honestly think trump will fix it. As Mark Twain suggested: It is a lot easier to fool a person, than to convince that person has been fooled.
11
Maybe trump keeps shooting himself in the foot in a futile attempt to get rid of his bone spurs which prove particularly aggravating when he is denigrating American heroes.
12
Every 16 years, the republicans steal a presidential election. 300 votes in Fla. gave the 2000 election to Bush 43 despite Al Gore's popular vote win. In 1016, Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes but won the electoral college vote by narrow wins in Pa., Mich., Wisc. and Minn. We should express our gratitude that it doesn't happen every presidential election, just half of them, or so. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation......". Oops! My apologies to Abraham Lincoln for comparing our present situation to the Civil War." We need to reform elections so that this doesn't happen in the future. In the 18th century, it can be explained away that travel reality and the impossibility a timely spreading of news made national elections impossible. Those conditions no longer exist. Do away with the electoral college. And while were at it repeal the 2nd amendment. A more perfect union would be created. War? I hope not.
6
Great line about the founding fathers and pre-existing conditions. Sadly after all these years the Republican plan is to go back to health care pre-ACA. McCain threw shade on other members of his party that knew that such a move would not only be immoral, it would be political suicide. Who among them would want to tell the rural residents of WV and KT that they now must go back to the ER for their cancer treatments.
And Gail from the beginning I believe the Trump campaign would have gladly colluded with the Russians but they just did not know how. But there is no doubt in my mind Trump obstructed justice. I think Mueller knew the Senate would never convict him and the DOJ prohibits a regular indictment of him. We need to see that report.
11
So, one is to conclude from the latest, zaniest, cockamamie idea to pop out of that head that Trump's re-election strategy is to get Republicans as well as the Democrats to oppose him?
One can also imagine him saying to himself "Who knew the presidency was so complicated?" Maybe he just figured out that if he can't be impeached, his only way out is to convince his own Cabinet that it's time to talk 25th amendment.
Geez. But it was a fun read, Ms. Collins.
2
There is something dark and sinister here. I am a raving partisan, but I read a lot. Not the fake news, but the NYTimes and Washington Post, etc. I cannot square what has been written in Barr’s report and what I have seen for over two years. Trump and the GOP, it is asymmetric warfare. Everyone else is trying to play by the rules of symmetry. I have two viewpoint. One the report is extremely damming to Trump, to expose him would bring down the GOP. It would make the Supreme Court illegitimate and the federal judiciary illegitimate. That is catastrophic to the GOP, they cannot l it happen. The oligarchs of the party and Fox News will not drive the wooden stake into their own heart. Also I suspect the Democrats could sue Trump and the GOP. So put a price tag on that — make all Democratic donors whole plus damages —could easily be 10-20 billion—conservatively. Second viewpoint, Mueller actually is an American first (doubtful here), and he is teeing trump up for the big fall. Mueller will hoist off on the democrats to take the heat. It is all bad.