DC Deciphered

Do you like Whack-a-Mole?  I used to really like playing that game at fairs and arcades.  But I definitely do not like health care repeal Whack-a-Mole.  That’s what it  feels like we’ve been playing this year with the never-ending GOP attempts to repeal Obamacare.  Republicans pop up with an attempt to repeal Obamacare, the people knock it down by making it very clear they don’t want it, and then next thing you know, Republicans pop up a few weeks later with another (nearly identical) plan, and the people have to jump into action with another “whack.”

And now here we are again, with yet another GOP repeal plan popping up.  This time, it’s the Graham-Cassidy bill, which the bill’s sponsors are trying to present as the kinder, gentler repeal plan.  But don’t buy it – this plan is anything but.  In fact, this repeal plan is the most extreme plan the GOP has offered yet.

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One of the hardest things to do in life is to admit when you’ve made a mistake.  I can only imagine that task is exponentially harder if you’re a public figure whose admission will be heard by thousands or millions of people.  So when a public figure does come out and acknowledges that they were wrong about something, or that they made a bad decision, and they simply own it – no excuses, no blaming it on anyone or anything else – I give them a lot of credit.

The particular public figure I have in mind at the moment is one you probably haven’t even heard of – unless you happen to be from Wisconsin – but his decision-making could be immensely consequential for the entire country.  This person is Dale Schultz, a former Republican member (and one time Majority Leader) of the Wisconsin State Senate. Continue reading →

Mother Nature has grabbed the spotlight for the third week in a row, with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma occupying much of the news space this week.  Even though Irma wasn’t quite as bad as expected by the time it hit the U.S. mainland, the U.S. Virgin Islands and parts of Florida were still hit very badly. Those locations are now in the cleanup & recovery phase, but for those who were hit with the worst of the storm this difficult phase can last for weeks or even months or years. And of course, for anyone who lost more than just property to this natural disaster – think of the 8 people who died in just one nursing home in Florida – the damage from the storm is irrevocable.

The only bright side, if there can be one here, is that in most of the affected spots, neighbors are banding together.  And the country as a whole seems to be embracing the victims and trying to help in every way we can, which is a really nice change of pace after a couple of long years in which the country has seemed more divided than ever.  Aside from Irma, there was lots of other news happening this week.  So what else happened that you might have missed? Continue reading →

For the second week in a row last week, Mother Nature delivered a devastating blow to the United States in the form of a hurricane of historic proportions.  But last week also delivered man-made devastation to hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. in the form of President Trump’s order to rescind DACA.  And even with so much of last week’s news being dedicated to coverage of the impending threat of Hurricane Irma, the announcement of the DACA policy change still generated enormous announcements of substantive news coverage.

In fact, there were so many good articles written about DACA in just the last week, that it was impossible for even the biggest news junkie to read all of them.  But to try to make some sense out of all the new information, I thought I’d do a little roundup of articles that cover the range of key issues that arise out of the DACA reversal.  So this won’t come close to covering everything that’s out there, but if you don’t get a chance to read much about DACA on your own, this should be a good representative sampling . . . Continue reading →

There were several major stories filling the news this week.  The scary & unpredictable path of Hurricane Irma took up much of the news space, threatening the country before we’ve even finished dealing with the recovery from Hurricane Harvey.  The news was also filled with coverage of Trump’s cruel, confused, unpopular & and unwise decision to rescind Obama’s DACA program, which gave protections to a specific class of young undocumented immigrants.  And then, we had the very surprising & seemingly sudden deal struck between Trump and Democratic congressional leaders to raise the debt limit, provide money for Harvey recovery and fund the government for the next three months.

The deal of course included Republican congressional leaders as well – necessarily, since they control both chambers of Congress.  But Trump struck the deal against their wishes, and apparently, against their expectations.  Ryan, McConnell and most of the rest of the party were not happy, and it showed.  But Trump appears to be as happy as a kid eating two scoops of ice cream.  The press coverage of the deal – he feels – has been great.  And for Trump, that’s the ballgame.   So it’s been a busy week for big news stories.  But there was other news this week.  So what else happened that you might have missed? Continue reading →

One aspect of Harvey – and other major storms like it – that gets lost in all the coverage of so much devastation is the outsized impact these storms can have on people with health conditions.  I’m not talking here about the new health problems that can arise as a result of the storms (though that’s a significant concern as well).  What I’m talking about are people who already have health issues before the hurricane ever appears – particularly people with chronic health problems – and the toll a storm like Harvey can take on them & their ability to get needed treatment. Continue reading →

We’ve made it through another week of the Trump presidency.  And while quite a few eye-popping stories relating to the Russia investigation broke this week, this is the actually third or fourth week in a row where the Russia story did not dominate the headlines.  Unfortunately this week it was for the worst of reasons: Hurricane Harvey overwhelmed all other news.

There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said about Harvey, but I hope the people in & around Houston get a break soon.  The only bright spot is that as awful and heartbreaking as it is the watch the suffering, it’s equally hopeful & uplifting to watch the acts of bravery and kindness as thousands of people pitch in to help with rescues and donations and anything else they can think to do.  Along with the devastating damage, those will be the enduring images of this week.  But there was also other news this week, so what else happened this week that you might have missed? Continue reading →

We all know by now that Trump holds himself in very high regard.  One quality he particularly likes to imbue himself with is strategic unpredictability.  He claims to be unpredictable, and he claims that this is an essential quality for keeping adversaries on their toes. And the conventional wisdom often buys into this portrayal of Trump. The truth, however, is that Donald Trump is quite a predictable character.  No one is ever entirely predictable, of course, but as humans go, Trump’s day-to-day behavior tends to be fairly easy to anticipate.

And to go along with this, there are, unfortunately, certain behaviors of the Trump-covering media that are entirely predictable as well.  At the top of this list is the fact that any & every time Trump has even the briefest moment of behaving like a somber, serious adult, the media will rush to ask whether this is the moment that Trump is turning everything around and finally becoming Presidential.  Is this – they’ll ponder – the big Trump pivot?? Continue reading →

Hillary Clinton was back in the news briefly last week when an excerpt from her upcoming book What Happened was released.  I have mostly avoided talking about Clinton since the election, not just here on the blog, but in real life as well, because I find that almost any conversation about her quickly devolves into unproductive blame & fingerpointing about why she lost the election.  Of course Democrats need to do some introspection and figure out what they weren’t better able to connect with voters, but most of the conversations that result when Hillary’s name is invoked don’t seem to me to be useful exercises for running better elections in the future.

In any case, I’m deviating from my usual rule and bringing her up now because the new excerpt from her book reminded me about something that had caught my eye many months ago, which I’d set  on the back burner at the time and then never came back to. And yes, like everything else these days, it all ultimately comes back around to Trump. Continue reading →

Well, it wasn’t the best of times or the worst of times.  But this week was a tale of two Trumps, and that’s where all the news coverage was focused throughout the week.  On one hand we had the buttoned up, reined in teleprompter Trump who appeared Monday night and Wednesday afternoon, speaking in front of military audiences.  On the other hand, we had the free-wheeling, let-it-rip Trump who appeared Tuesday night at his Phoenix campaign rally.

But those of us who’ve been paying attention & are willing to acknowledge reality know that there truly is only one Trump – and that’s the one who showed up Tuesday night at the rally, the one who’s all raging grievances and uncontrolled impulses.  No matter how many times members of his party and certain pundits try to convince themselves we’re seeing the pivot to a new more sober Trump, there is no other Trump.  And for every time Trump is forced into the straight jacket of “teleprompter Trump” you can be sure that an explosion of “let-it-rip Trump” will follow soon behind to make up for it. Because that’s who Trump truly is, and he just can’t help himself.  But lots of other news actually happened this week, while Trump was putting on his Jekyll & Hyde act. So what else happened that you might have missed?

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