Trump to meet with two key House GOPers opposed to Trumpcare.
Trump lashes out at Clinton and Comey in late night Twitter outburst.
It seems Sebastian Gorka isn’t quite fired after all. And it’s Trump himself who’s protecting him.
EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Gorka tells @JakeTurx that he personally met with @POTUS on Monday and got assurances that he’s not being asked to step down. pic.twitter.com/2gVFtRZ8fF
— Ami Magazine (@Ami_Magazine) May 2, 2017
Here’s how ridiculous the Trumpcare 3.0 situation has gotten. A few minutes ago, Rep. Rodney Davis was on MSNBC telling plain falsehoods, lying about Obamacare and also – in a weird mix of plaintiveness and disingenuousness – complaining that the Democrats in the House weren’t coming forward to help them repeal Obamacare.
Beyond the disingenuousness, he actually seemed slightly sad because their situation is so hapless and helpless.
Here’s the video … Read More
I wanted to share some thoughts on the role of bigness and monopolies in our lives today. I want to preface this by noting that what you’ll read here are things that many of you have almost certainly experienced yourselves. They are most definitely what we call ‘first world problems.’ My point in sharing them is not to say ‘woe is me’ but to describe some basic and recurring experiences which illustrate a larger point.
Let’s talk about buying cable and Internet service, shall we? Read More
The fun thing for Republicans about this morning’s push to pass Trumpcare 3.0 in the House is that it’s so close that basically each of the remaining undecided Republicans will reasonably be the “deciding” vote that lost health care for 20+ million people and got rid of protections for people with pre-existing conditions. So not, “House Republicans passed” it. But you, Rep. X cast the deciding vote that lost these 20+ million people lost their health care. You did it. It was you.
Fun times. Read More
I post this not tied to any immediate issue but because I found it as interesting as TPM Reader JL did. I will say that it ties pretty clearly to an issue that I’m thinking a lot about and plan to write more about: monopolies and their role in today’s economy.
The following is not especially relevant to any of the topics I see on TPM but thought you’d be interested.
So … something I’ve been increasingly aware of and which strikes me as hugely important is the influence of the Megatech Gang of Five: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft. I think the MTG5 will increasingly dominate huge parts of the technology world because of their vast scale. They have immense resources to invest in the future of AI, virtual reality, etc., etc. And because they all touch so many aspects of our digital lives (“our” including businesses as well as individuals) they have the incentive to continue to do so.
Take a look at this article in Politico. There’s not really much I can add to it. It simply goes through the run of interviews President Trump did yesterday, replete with random statements, predictions that deeply unsettled either world markets or foreign states and generally seemed to be the work of a man simply tossing off ideas, rambling or simply drifting in and out of consciousness. Perhaps he was experiencing some sort of collapse of cognition.
I want to return this afternoon to the fate of Zombie Trumpcare. But before anymore time goes by I wanted to flag something pretty significant: For all the talk about Trump shutting down the government to get Wall money, holding Obamacare subsidies hostage or generally bending history or at least Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to his will, Trump got close to nothing in the funding bill meant to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. He ended up crying uncle or “no mas” on virtually all his demands.
Let’s go down the list. Read More
I see this morning President Trump isn’t sure why the Civil War happened. In line with your standard Trumpian militant ignorance, he assumes that since he isn’t sure what happened that “people” aren’t sure either. In fact, they haven’t even asked the question. “People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” As I’ve noted, President Trump is not only wildly ignorant. But, utterly unaware of the scope of his ignorance, he assumes everyone else is as ignorant as he is and frequently preens with new learnings that either everyone knew or in other cases are just completely wrong.
But I want to zero in on Trump’s comments about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War. Under Steve Bannon’s tutelage, Trump has embraced Jackson as the “nationalist” progenitor of his presidency. But here he shows he doesn’t know the first thing about Jackson. And the ignorance is of more than historians’ concern. Read More