DC Deciphered

With the constant chaos swirling around the Trump administration, each individual day feels like it lasts a week.  And most weeks feel like they like they last for a month.  Under those conditions, it’s really easy to lose track of events that happened just a day or two earlier, never mind events that happened a week or two ago.

So I just wanted to take a minute to remind you about some news that has gotten pushed to the back burner: tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, Trump’s revised travel ban will go into effect.

Continue reading →

 

In Monday’s post I talked about how the GOP is “protesting too much” in trying to convince us that they aren’t rushing their Obamacare replacement bill to passage.  Their desperate attempts to convince us just make it clear they know full well the opposite is true.

But the Party’s protestations did not stop there.  Today’s post is about another way in which the GOP doth protest too much: in advance of the “CBO score” of their health care bill they furiously tried to convince us that the CBO score doesn’t matter.

Continue reading →

There have been many, many, oh so many lies* put out by the GOP about Obamacare over the years.  In a previous post I laid out a few of them, just to give a tiny example of what’s been floating around out there for years.  But last week, with the GOP finally revealing its Obamacare replacement bill and beginning the process of passing it through Congress, one particular lie has really taken the spotlight.  Continue reading →

It’s hard to believe Trump’s new travel ban was just released this past Monday morning.  With the GOP’s “repeal & replace” plan for Obamacare sucking up all the news oxygen since then, it feels like that was a month ago.  And with those two items dominating the news this week, pretty much everything else got drowned out.  So what else happened this week? Continue reading →

In Wednesday’s post I gave you Part 1 of my thoughts on the GOP’s newly unveiled bill to “repeal & replace” Obamacare.  Here’s the continuation of that post . . .

8. The GOP bill essentially defunds Planned Parenthood by forbidding them from getting Medicaid reimbursements. Continue reading →

So, after a long, long wait the GOP’s “repeal & replace” bill for Obamacare is finally here!  Was it worth the wait? I was about to say it depends on who you ask, but it actually seems like there isn’t anybody who’s too excited about this bill.  There are already lots of good summaries out there explaining what’s in the new GOP bill, so I’m not going to go over that in detail.Instead, I’m just going to share some thoughts I’ve had while watching the roll out of the bill.  Continue reading →

No new post today  due to some technical difficulties, but just wanted to remind you that my first pop culture recommendation, The Americans, returns tonight for Season Five.  10pm on FX.  I have a funny feeling there are going to be a lot of new viewers checking it out.

 

Time for a pop culture break.  Yup, Trump’s still president, and we can’t change that. But every once in a while we need a break from hearing about President Trump and the seemingly endless flow of ridiculous news he produces.  So today, I have a tv recommendation for you.  My favorite new tv show from last season returns for its second season this week: Underground, on WGN channel, Wednesday at 10pm.

Continue reading →

Well, it looked like this was going to be a week dominated by Trump’s address to Congress.  Trump was having by far the best week he’s had since taking office, getting generally positive reviews for the speech (lots of talk about his improved “tone”), and he’d managed to mostly keep himself off Twitter, with only a few restrained Tweets here & there.  But once again, a Russia story has thrown the Trump administration off course.  First on the list though, a totally different embarrassing story broke for the Trump administration Thursday night. . .

Continue reading →

Last night, about halfway through Trump’s speech to Congress, a friend on Facebook commented that all Trump was doing was reading from his script.  I replied that sadly, since it’s so rare for Trump to even manage that, I guaranteed the pundits would all applaud him for it in the post-speech analysis.  And it didn’t take any great insight or smarts on my part to predict that.  All it took was having watched the 2016 presidential campaign.

Continue reading →