Last Call For Assurance Insurance

Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin takes to a FOX News opinion column to lead the charge of the Trump-era response to kicking tens of millions off health insurance: five weeks in, Trump is the best POTUS ever and you can just shut up.

On a larger scale, President Trump shares the desire of most Americans to see the failed ObamaCare law repealed and replaced.

Voters took note that ObamaCare was a massive and highly complex law with many layers of bureaucracy. It should be no surprise that replacing it will result in some vigorous debate and, at times, disagreement.

The president made a brilliant choice when appointing Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary. As a former physician and congressman, Secretary Price brings much experience and knowledge to the health care issue. Now that he has been confirmed, we can begin to build consensus on how best to accomplish replacement of this disastrous law. 

Finally, President Trump can elaborate on his economic agenda and the positive response by investors to his pro-business vision. 

In Kentucky, we are meeting regularly with business leaders who are encouraged about our state’s recent passage of pro-business legislation and who are now considering our state as a possible location for expansion. Likewise, President Trump’s commitments to tax reform and deregulation have encouraged investors to propel the stock market to new heights. 

The president’s address to Congress can provide investors with more specifics of his economic agenda and, in so doing, confirm the optimism investors have expressed.
The Trump administration can be proud of these accomplishments and the impressive array of additional cabinet appointments, including Kentuckian Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation.

The American people are not fooled by the media's non-stop negative narrative which is intended to overshadow the president's positive vision and his remarkable pace of significant achievements.

I mean, I thought Bevin was a small-scale grifter and basically in a protracted fight to fleece Kentuckians out of as much money as possible before he ends up getting investigated for fraud.  But he's hitched himself to the Trump Train and he's fully prepared to take the state careening into the canyon when the bridge to reality ahead is out.

Trump's "remarkable pace of significant achievements" is the most unerringly stupid thing I've seen written about the man so far.  Leave it to my idiot governor to be the one saying it.

Of course, it's Bevin who will take the guillotine when he gets done kicking a tenth of the state off Medicaid, but I'm sure he'll end up getting a nice job with either the Trump regime or with FOX News after his failed re-election bis in 2019.

Just Don't Deport The Good Ones, Donny

When Trump voters were more than happy to cast their ballot for the guy who promised to "get rid of the Mexicans" and all that?  They didn't mean get rid of the "good Mexicans", just the "bad hombres". Or something.

West Frankfort, Illinois, overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump last fall, but now some residents are upset after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained a beloved local Mexican restaurant owner. 

The New York Times reports that ICE last week detained Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco, the owner of the La Fiesta restaurant in the town of 8,000 people located in southern Illinois. 

While residents in the town said that they were still supportive of the president’s moves to deport undocumented immigrants, they told the Times that the president should make more exceptions for people like Pacheco, who have not only been exemplary local businessmen, but also pillars of the community who take part in local charity events. 

“I think people need to do things the right way, follow the rules and obey the laws, and I firmly believe in that,” local resident Lori Barron told the paper. “But in the case of Carlos, I think he may have done more for the people here than this place has ever given him. I think it’s absolutely terrible that he could be taken away.” 

West Frankfort Mayor Tom Jordan similarly praised Pacheco as a “great asset” to the community who “doesn’t ask for anything in return.” 

And Richard Glodich, the athletic director at a local high school, wrote a letter in support of Pacheco in which he slammed ICE for arresting “a GOOD MAN that should be used as a role model for other immigrants.” 

The specific reason that ICE decided to target Pacheco for arrest is still unknown. ICE wouldn’t comment on the specificity of Pacheco’s case, and would only say that “every day, as part of routine operations, ICE officers target and arrest criminal aliens and other individuals who are in violation of our nation’s immigration laws.”

Hey, Carlos made pretty good enchiladas and besides, it was the only Mexican restaurant worth a damn in town, right guys?

Look, Trump voters.  This is exactly what you voted for.  This is what you said you wanted, you wanted the wall, you wanted them rounded up, you wanted to stop them from "taking your jobs". Well now there's possibly some prime commercial restaurant space available in West Frankfort, so who's going to step up?

I have all kinds of sympathy for Carlos and his employees.  He clearly and obviously contributed to the community.  But guess what?  You voted to wreck that arrangement because you wanted "jobs" and you wanted "America first".  This is what you get.  We warned you guys over here on this side that this was what was coming for years if you put the GOP back in charge, and you said "Well, at least he's not that Clinton bitch."

Now all of a sudden there's so much buyer's remorse across America.  Reap that whirlwind, guys. There's a lot more of that crop coming to you, and soon.

Orange You Glad You Have A Budget Plan

The Trump regime's proposed budget is mostly useless, like all White House budget plans (since Congress actually writes the numbers) but it at least lets us know what the top priorities are for this White House.  Apparently that top priority is preparing for war, and a hell of a lot of it.

President Donald Trump is proposing major defense spending increases and big cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, State Department and other federal agencies in a proposed budget to be presented soon to Congress, said a person familiar with the plan.

The outline of the budget will be made public as early as Monday, according to two White House officials. They declined to comment further on what the budget may entail. Trump is scheduled to make an address to Congress on Tuesday night.

Congress ultimately determines how the federal government’s money is spent, and the White House budget is mostly an opening bid in what could be a protracted process to set a federal spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump’s first budget won’t touch entitlement programs such as Social Security or Medicare. It will instead focus on ways to produce long-term economic growth by slashing taxes, he said in an interview taped Friday and broadcast Sunday on Fox News Channel.

The New York Times reported Sunday evening that the budget will assume economic growth of 2.4 percent, below the 3 percent growth Trump has pledged. Mnuchin said that the administration thinks a combination of tax cuts and regulatory relief will lead to economic growth of 3 percent or higher. “We’re going to make sure this works,” he said in the Fox interview. “This is all about creating growth.”

The proposed cuts to the State Department are substantial, maybe as much as 30% (and even more draconian to the EPA.)  Meanwhile, the Pentagon will get a significant increase in funding at the direct expense of domestic programs.  Social Security and Medicare still have "third-rail" status, but other domestic safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP benefits, child care subsidies, federal education programs like free and reduced-price school lunches?  They are expected to be gutted.

In other words, the very programs that Trump voters depend on the most will be the first to go in order to pay for more F-35s and nukes, and most of all, tax cuts for the rich.  Now, the Trump regime will say this will create millions of new jobs that will eliminate the need for social programs, but we all know that coal jobs and manufacturing jobs aren't coming back, so the reality is Trump is going to screw over his base and continue to blame that on those people for four years.

I'm betting the Ryan Austerity Budget isn't too far off from this, if anything it will have more domestic program cuts and less defense spending to allow for even larger tax cuts for the 1%.

But stay tuned folks.  The Age of GOP Austerity Cuts are coming.

StupidiNews!

• A "historic blunder" found "La La Land" announced as Best Picture when the actual winner was "Moonlight" in last night's Oscars.
• Donald Trump says he will reveal details of the GOP plan to replace Obamacare at his joint address to Congress on Tuesday.
• Trump's pick for Secretary of the Navy, Philip Bilden, has withdrawn due to financial conflict of interest requirements, the second Trump armed forces nominee to do so this month.
• Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is warning the nation's governors that they will have to get behind a national Trump plan to pay for infrastructure.
• A new medical study finds rates of reported suicide attempts among teenagers decreased in states that allowed same-sex marriage earlier.