Friday, June 16, 2017

Well, yeah....


No, what's sad is that you think they have to.  It's still an investigation, not a trial.  Suck it up, buttercup.


No, that's not the problem....(patience, we're getting there!)

Enthusiasm for what?  Your removal from office?  As for regulations, they take years to alter or even remove.  That you think you've swept them away in your first 5 months in office is laughable!  The most effective thing you've done is issue two executive orders that courts have consistently rebuffed as beyond the scope of your powers.

Funny, you told the world you were going to fire Comey anyway.  How does this concept of causation work again?

Being a petty blogger, I can post those tweets and comment on them and chortle in my righteous joy and attract my audience of 3 or more (Hi!  Thanks for coming!).  CNN, on the other hand:

“This morning his tweets were about pushing back that there has been no proof yet on collusion with Russia,” Cuomo explained. “That was his first tweet morning.”

“Shame on us,” Camerota interjected. “I mean shame on us. We are the people who become consumed with the tweets. I know Chris likes the tweets — he thinks they are a window inside the mind of the president. But we are the people devoting our hours of this morning to that instead of something that affects a lot of people like, say, health care and what the Republican plan is and why they’re doing it behind closed doors.”

“I mean, we are the people that have to be judicious about which rabbit hole we want to go down,” she continued.

After CNN political director David Chalian attempted to defend the coverage, Camerota made a suggestion.

“There’s only 24 hours in a day. We have been doing it at the expense of health care,” Camerota remarked. “Let’s change that right now. Let me put my money with my mouth is. So we’re done with the tweets. What do you know about the health care — what do you know about what’s going on? Do we know any of the details of what the president will be presenting? Would be easier to talk about health care if we actually knew what was in the bill?”
The healthcare bill is a big deal.  But it isn't in print, and it isn't being done in front of cameras, and frankly no one knows what's in it (it's on double super secret probation!).  So how can CNN report on it when there are so many tweets from POTUS to flash on the screen and tut-tut over?

I mean, journalism is hard!  They've got 24 hours to fill, and talking about health care bills creates MEGO!  Right?  Of course, they could do this:  "We asked 8 Senate Republicans to explain what their health bill is trying to do," and report on the non-answers the way VOX did.   Or report on this story:

“I have been in contact with a lot of Democrats in Congress,” says Yale’s Jacob Hacker, who is influential in liberal health policy circles, “and I am confident that the modal policy approach has shifted pretty strongly toward a more direct, public-option strategy, if not ‘Medicare for all.’”
Which seems like a pretty big deal.  Because frankly, the problem of Trump's tweets is getting pretty boring, even for a petty blogger like me.

3 comments:

  1. As a single-payer guy since I was old enough to find out about the Canadian system, I would favor them doing that, but only if Democrats win decisively in 2018 and get through single-payer. I'm not as confident it will happen but I'm always glad to be wrong in such cases. Always.

    One of my relatives who has been a state politician for a quarter of a century told me in 2009 that if Democrats put in a single-payer system where all anyone had to do was show their insurance card at point of care it would be so popular that Republicans would never win another election, ever. I don't now if that's true but I'd certainly be willing to run the experiment.

    I'm tempted to go into the problems with Obama care but he's out of office, he will probably see his signature achievement destroyed, harming tens of millions, so that's the past, it's the future that's important, apart from what he did wrong.

    Millions have already been helped by even his half-hearted approach so it would be wrong to not count it as a major achievement, it just wasn't enough and it was too baroque to be explained and one of his worst faults was his unwillingness to communicate to people I always thought he considered too unintelligent and unsophisticated to try to talk to.

    I'd love to have him back right now, though.

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  2. Oh, and CNN wouldn't report on the actual bill under any circumstances, it would do the old point-counterpoint, 2 Republicans to one "liberal" just like it did before and the political horse race. It's all they do and all they ever wanted to do. Give or take a Jake Tapper or two.

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  3. True dat. Though I cut Obama some slack. Obamacare barely passed as it was. Nelson from Nebraska and Liebermann from CT would have killed single payer and stopped the conversation right there, again.

    At least O-Care may do something by opening the door to single-payer. At least.

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