Nominee Pete Hegseth for defense secretary is dangerous and evidence of his drinking problem is disqualifying

The Sound of Fear on Air:  It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said. By David Frum

David Frum Says MSNBC’s ‘Efforts to Appease’ Trump by Apologizing for His Joke About Pete Hegsesth’s Drinking Are ‘Very Ominous’

I had an unsettling experience with the hosts of Morning Joe.

I was invited onto MSNBC’s Morning Joe to talk from a studio in Washington, D.C., about an article I’d written on Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense—specifically about an NBC News report that his heavy drinking worried colleagues at Fox News and at the veterans organizations he’d headed. (A spokesman for the Trump transition told NBC, “These disgusting allegations are completely unfounded and false, and anyone peddling these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening.”)

Political commentator David Frum joined MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday to discuss allegations of heavy drinking against Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth. Frum introduced the story with a joke about Fox News, which then prompted MSNBC to issue an apology. In a written response in the Atlantic, Frum warned such an act is “a very ominous thing” ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.

NBC published a report Tuesday that revealed former colleagues of Hegseth’s at Fox News were deeply concerned about his drinking habits. Two people interviewed said they smelled alcohol on Hegseth before he went on the air, with one person noting that they noticed the smell as recently as November.

The report was a follow-up to a New Yorker magazine piece published Sunday that revealed there were similar concerns about Hegseth when he was head of Concerned Veterans for America from 2013-2016.

When Frum began the segment Wednesday, he joked, “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.” During the commercial break that followed, he wrote in the Atlantic, a producer “objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them.” The topic didn’t come back up and Frum departed the set.

“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski then read an apology for Frum’s comments. Brzezinski and her husband co-host Joe Scarborough came under fire in November after a visit the pair paid to Trump at Mar-a-Lago was made public.

“A little bit earlier in this block there was a comment made about Fox News, in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol,” Brzezinski said on “Morning Joe.”

“The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.”

In his follow-up piece, Frum agreed “there are good people at Fox News” but added that if the report from NBC is to be believed, “many of those same good people have failed to report publicly that their former colleague, appointed to lead the armed forces of the United States, was notorious in their own building for his drinking.”

Frum also expressed empathy for the fact that the popularity of “Morning Joe” has in turn “exposed the hosts and producers to extraordinary pressures and threats in the Trump era,” especially due to the President-elect’s own claims that he will retaliate against those in the media he feels have spoken badly about him.

He took responsibility for the comment (“my face was on the screen, my name was on the chyron, and anyone who took offense knows whom to blame,” Frum writes) but added a chill warning: “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”

“I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all,” Frum continued. “The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too.”

Joe Scarborouogh and Mika have consistently expressed their strong reservations and perspectives regarding Pete Hegseth’s nomination from the very beginning, and that stance remains unchanged.

We would have responded in the same manner regardless of when these comments were made or what news…

— Richard Hudock (@richardhudock) December 4, 2024

Frum was invited back to “Morning Joe” Thursday morning by NBC’s VP of communications, Richard Hudock. He wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “We would have responded in the same manner regardless of when these comments were made or what news organization was referenced.”  (Hmmmmm❓.....Maine Writer is not convinced about Hudock's point of view....too defensive.)

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's incompetent pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his Fox News colleagues while he was a host at the network, according to an NBC News report.

Oscar Host Jimmy Kimmel responded to inappropriate Trump. He was the "host with the most!"

Kimmel's comeback to Trump is worthy of an encore!

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel on Sunday called out former President Donald Trump after Trump took to social media to insult Kimmel.

"Trump just keeps walking into traps": Morning Joe buries Trump for latest humiliation. Kimmel read out Trump’s Truth Social post live from the Oscars stage just before the last award of the night was presented for best picture.

After sharing clips of "kitchen lady" Senator Katie Britt's widely mocked State of the Union response and the corresponding parody of the Alabama Republican's speech on Saturday Night Live, the hosts of "Morning Joe" focused on Donald Trump's latest humiliation when he went to war with comedian Jimmy Kimmel late Sunday night.

According to co-host Joe Scarborough, the former president's old tricks are blowing up in his face these days, after he used his Truth Social platform to attack Kimmel's hosting performance during the Oscars ceremony.

After Trump sneered at Kimmel by writing, "His opening was that of a less than average person trying to be something that he is not and never can be. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed-up but cheap ABC talent, George Slopanopoulos," Kimmel returned fire by reading the post live on-air and then adding, "Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching, I'm surprised you're still — isn't it past your jail time?"

Jimmy Kimmel to Trump, "Isn't it past your jail time?"

That in turn led to uproarious laughter from the Hollywood crowd and immediately made headlines, with Trump having no way to quickly respond with the same kind of reach.

As Joe Scarborough pointed out, the former president set himself up to fail. 😜😒😏 

"That's the thing, he just doesn't — I guess he doesn't understand," the MSNBC host explained. "He just keeps walking into traps. 

Trump acts old, he keeps — again, you know, it's like an old fighter that's past his prime. The things that may have worked, that may have been disruptive six, seven, you know, 2016, everybody knows what's coming."

"He's the butt of the joke for millions of people last night," he added.

Danger in Ukraine in a new phase of resistance

Opinion: The war in Ukraine is moving into a new phase. Biden and the West had better get ready.

In June 1940, Britain stood alone against a Nazi war machine that had swept across Europe. Winston Churchill had spent the month before, his first at 10 Downing Street, cycling through doomed military strategies designed to save France. But on June 18, the new prime minister traveled to the House of Commons to deliver his “finest hour” speech, warning Parliament that the war against Hitler would soon enter a dangerous new phase: “The Battle of France is over,” Churchill declared. “I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.”

Shortly after noon on December 25, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood before a microphone-laden Senate rostrum to address a joint meeting of Congress. Churchill had come to Washington to coordinate military strategy with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Powerful lamps lit the normally dim chamber like a Hollywood movie set. Outside the U.S. Capitol, platoons of soldiers and police provided rigid wartime security. Despite the entry of the United States into World War II on Dec. 8, the Christmas holiday had thinned the ranks of senators and representatives who were still in town. That prompted a decision by congressional leaders to move the address from the House to the Senate chamber as a way of avoiding the potential embarrassment of empty seats. In the event, lawmakers, Supreme Court justices and Cabinet officers occupied all 96 seats.

Opinion by Joe Scarborough published in The Washington Post:  

Over the past month, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden has assembled the most impressive coalition since President George H.W. Bush’s skillful diplomatic efforts preceding the Gulf War. Biden has united a fractured NATO alliance, and Europeans have responded more forcefully than Vladimir Putin could have ever imagined. Russia’s economy has been shattered by unprecedented economic sanctions, and Putin’s military has been slowed by stalwart Ukrainian fighters making deadly use of NATO-supplied weapons, which are crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border at a dizzying rate.

But Putin’s war against Ukraine is now entering a dangerous new phase. Events are moving rapidly, and it’s time for Biden and his Western allies to adjust.

The horrors of Grozny and Aleppo are being visited upon the people of Ukraine and witnessed across the free world. Russian airstrikes kill civilians and reduce cities to rubble, as Putin targets children’s hospitals, nuclear power plants, cultural landmarks and residential buildings. These attacks are not indiscriminate; they are deliberate attempts to slaughter and terrorize.

Even more ominously, Russia has started a misinformation campaign about Ukrainian biological laboratories, parroted by useful idiots in the West, suggesting Russian forces could be preparing to use chemical weapons. We must brace ourselves for horrifying images of families choked to death by Putin’s deployment of those weapons of mass destruction. If Putin crosses that moral red line, the political pressure to respond will be overwhelming. Biden and his allies need to prepare for that now, in three ways:

1. Stop playing defense: Three weeks ago, only 1 in 4 Americans supported significant U.S. involvement in the war. European allies were wary of confronting Putin on a range of issues. That made Biden’s public assurances of avoiding a hot war against Russia politically necessary and diplomatically wise.

Now, 3 in 4 Americans support a no-fly zone over Ukraine. European allies have flexed their military and economic might in a way not seen since World War II. These dramatic changes allow the U.S. president to respond more aggressively to the war crimes being committed against Ukrainians.

Biden should stop telling Putin what he will not do, stop alerting him to what weapons he will not send, stop saying what strategies he will not employ and stop declaring where U.S. troops will not deploy. It is also time for NATO to stop being reactive to Putin’s ever-changing definition of what constitutes an act of war.

First, Putin claimed that trigger would be acceptance of Ukraine into NATO. Then he added the introduction of peacekeeping troops into western Ukraine. Then the transfer of Polish jets across the border, and then the shipment of defensive weapons. And then he moved the line again, declaring to young flight attendants bearing flowers that even economic sanctions against Russia were tantamount to war.

It is as if Putin expects Americans to forget the body bags flown to Dover Air Force Base because of decades of Russian proxy wars fought against U.S. soldiers. Simply put, an alliance that caves to Putin’s nuclear blackmail today would be forced to respond to his chemical weapons attacks tomorrow. Enough.

2. Be disruptive: At the height of the Cold War, then-national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, the Soviet Union was confined to playing a disruptive role in the world “by the nature of its one-dimensional power and by the character of nuclear weapons.” Russia upended international norms, Brzezinski noted, because it feared “being locked into the role of the junior partner in effect committed to the maintenance of the global status quo.” Almost 40 years later, little has changed. Putin threatens nuclear war, levels cities, commits war crimes and raises the specter of chemical weapons because the West rationally moves with caution to preserve the international order.

Biden should change the dynamic by employing his own disruptive tactics. The United States should move expeditiously to have the U.N. General Assembly create humanitarian safe zones in Ukraine that allow civilians to escape slaughter. Putin would be assured that the zones would not be used for military purposes; however, any force targeting civilians there would immediately become a target of U.N. peacekeepers or even NATO. While such a plan would likely cause deep discomfort inside the Biden White House, policymakers in the West may not be able to avoid such decisions for long. The only question is whether they make the move at the United Nations before or after Putin deploys chemical weapons.

3. Guard your words: Just as nothing is gained by Biden’s declarations of what the United States will not do, the same is true of U.S. officials making statements suggesting Putin has no choice but to fight to the end. While cable hosts and opinion columnists are free to call the Russian tyrant a war criminal, U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations should be more prudent. If Putin believes his future is inside a cage at The Hague, he will have no incentive to end this war. The same holds true for senior U.S. senators calling for regime change. Providing Russia’s nuclear-armed president an off-ramp from the military catastrophe he created remains the best hope for the people of Ukraine and the world.

As psychiatrist Kenneth Dekleva recently told former CIA acting director Michael Morell, “Sometimes it is better to let the bear run out of the cage back into the forest.” In the meantime, Biden should do all he can to make sure that bear cannot slaughter millions trapped inside the cage that Ukraine has become.

Donald Trump's no defense "defense" - makes stuff up as they go along

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-confederacy-of-dunces/2020/01/29/6616c4fa-42e5-11ea-aa6a-083d01b3ed18_story.html

Maine Writer - So let me get this right?  Dumb tRumph's incompetent defense team is making up excuses about why Donald Trump can't be impeached for committing impeachable crimes.  Is that right?  Ohhhhh boy, the law professors at Harvard University have certainly received a stain on their  highfalutin reputation about this kind of stupid legal strategy.  

Surely I am not alone in recognizing how close the name "Bondi" is to the concept of "Blondie"

This is what Morning Joe MSNBC pundit Joe Scarborough wrote in his opinion published in The Washington Post:

Donald Trump’s confederacy of dunces

A confederacy of dunces stumbled onto the Senate floor this week to launch their bewildering defense of Donald Trump. This misfit band of lawyers brought with them arguments so stunningly stupefying, logic so fatally flawed and a cynicism so brazenly transparent that one suspects Baghdad Bob was viewing the entire spectacle with grudging respect.

On Day One of Trump’s impeachment defense, the president’s team dismissed his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani as a minor player in the Ukrainian affair. Trump lawyer Jane Raskin said he was little more than a “shiny object designed to distract you.” Never mind that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to contact Giuliani, assuring him that, “Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you".

Before Trump made the not-so-perfect call that would eventually lead to his impeachment, Giuliani ran frequent strategy sessions from the second floor of the president’s Washington hotel that were focused on getting Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. Giuliani repeatedly pressured U.S. diplomats and State Department employees to push his “drug deal” (as former national security adviser John Bolton described it). At the same time, America’s Mayor kept feeding Trump a steady diet of conspiracy theories that played into the president’s preexisting prejudices against Ukraine. Far from being a bit player and “shiny object,” Giuliani helped build the Democrats’ case for Trump’s impeachment better than anyone else in the president’s inner circle.

If the claims about Giuliani were not preposterous enough, senators were also forced to endure Kenneth Starr’s self-righteous and hypocritical warnings regarding “the culture of impeachment.” Starr had, after all, once run a four-year investigation into obscure land deals, suicide conspiracy theories and intimate sexual details involving President Bill Clinton. Starr would later claim that Clinton’s abuse of power was the “capstone” of his impeachment case, but that did not stop the former independent counsel from mournfully warning senators Monday that “the commission of a crime is by no means sufficient to warrant the removal of our duly elected president.”

If it is true that Trump killed irony years ago, Starr’s opening statement single-handedly exhumed irony’s corpse from its tomb, dragged it across the Senate floor and demolished all obstacles in its path before finally scattering the bones back into the grave, one by one. As Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes said, “Does Ken Starr know he’s Ken Starr?” That embarrassing performance seemed only to confirm Trump’s previous assessment of the former Clinton prosecutor as a “lunatic” and a “disaster.”

Such insults were never thrown in the direction of Pam Bondi, another member of the president’s legal team. Bondi had safely placed herself in Trump’s good favor by refusing to pursue claims of fraud against Trump University when she was Florida’s attorney general. In 2013, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Bondi’s office was deciding whether to join in the lawsuit against Trump. Four days after the article went to print, Bondi’s reelection efforts were boosted by a $25,000 check from Trump’s foundation. Soon after, Bondi announced she would be not suing the reality TV star.

Such shamelessness in the service of Trump carries with it certain benefits. For Bondi, it was the honor of trotting out the conspiracy theory that then-Vice President Joe Biden had a Ukrainian prosecutor fired for investigating Burisma, of whose board his son Hunter was a member. If it were possible to embarrass the former Florida attorney general, then she would certainly be distressed to learn that Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal dismissed her theory as “discredited” months ago, or that the European Union, the Obama administration and the United States’ closest allies demanded the ouster of the same investigator, in part because his investigation into Burisma had been shelved.

But neither Bondi nor Starr can be shamed. The same holds true of the other attorneys on the president’s incompetent defense team, who sullied their reputations this week defending a shameless huckster, and whom history will judge harshly as those whose dunce routines continued to enable this dangerously unbalanced man.

Secretary Clinton and 155 words about Donald Trump

Donald Trump folowers and his media apologists will have to explain this to future generations. Mrs. Clinton has already left her legacy and it's a good one (Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin alert!):

Secretary Clinton is showing excellent executive leadership!

Forget The Polls, Hillary Clinton Just Owned Donald Trump In 155 Words

By Jason Easley on Wed, May 18th, 2016 at 7:58 pm

The Clinton campaign needed just 155 words to completely own Donald Trump.

"In this week alone, Donald Trump has jeopardized relations with a close ally before setting foot overseas; talked about building a relationship with a reckless dictator; called two diverse American cities more dangerous than war zones like Iraq; and released a list of suggested Supreme Court nominees that includes no people of color, but does include a judge who upheld a law requiring doctors to use scare tactics to impede reproductive rights and another judge who equated homosexual sex to ​’​bestiality,​’​ ​’​pedophilia​’​ and ​’​necrophilia.​’​ And it’s only Wednesday. At this point, it’s hard to keep up with the myriad reasons Trump should not be president, but the divisive policies and nominees, reckless and uninformed foreign policy positions and offensive views of Americans are just a few. Any one of these things would be troubling. All of them together, in just a few days, is further proof that Donald Trump is a risk we can’t afford.​"

Donald Trump has a short list of dumb and dumber

Picking a Trump running mate? Anybody who signs on is a candidate to star in a Dumb and Dumber sequel.
It's difficult to imagine what kind of "Saturday Night Live" sagas will follow any Trumponian Vice-Presidential selection. Those who have already lined up to support the Trumposity campaign are branded as "dumb". A selection of one of the above will be labeled as "dumber".


Reports The New York Times:

Taylor Wofford
Posted with permission from Newsweek

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Ted Cruz's campaign is donezo. Now, barring some unforeseeable cataclysm, like maybe a micrometeorite smacking him directly in the forehead, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.
Thus begins the scramble for the veep nod.
As The New York Times reported over the weekend, most of the usual suspects don't want the job. For establishment Republicans, appearing on the ticket with Trump is like kissing the feet of a leper. Nobody wants his abysmal approval ratings with women, blacks and Latinos rubbing off on them, especially at a time when all three groups are a growing slice of the American electoral pie. That leaves only a motley crew of political has-beens, never-weres, crackpots, the underqualified and Chris Christie. Though the Times reported Wednesday that he won’t announce his pick until July, here's a look at the leading contenders.

The Has-Beens

Newt Gingrich: Unlike most of the Republican establishment, Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich has been unabashed in his praise for Trump, leading many to speculate that the former speaker of the House is in the market for a new job. If Trump wants a yes-man, Gingrich is a good pick. But if he wants somebody with solid political experience—and Trump supporters want him to pick somebody with solid political experience—Gingrich doesn't make much sense. True, he's been in politics since before Ivanka Trump was born, but he hasn't held elected office for the better part of two decades. And Gingrich can't help Trump where he's weakest—with blacks, Latinos and women. He may actually harm Trump with women: Gingrich, like Trump, is a serial philanderer, thrice wed and twice divorced. Gingrich began dating his third wife, Callista Bisek, then a house staffer, when he was married to his second, Marianne Ginther. And, like Trump, Gingrich seems to prefer younger women: Trump's wife, Melania, is 24 years his junior, while Gingrich's wife is 23 years younger. The attack ads practically write themselves. Odds: 50 percent. 


Rudy Giuliani: The former mayor of New York—who saw the city through 9/11 and never fails to bring it up, no matter the context—is another long-in-the-tooth GOPer whose name could use some polishing. Giuliani's career in politics reached its apex in 2001, when Time named him its "person of the year." He may have popped up on Trump's radar in 2015, when he told the crowd at a Republican fundraiser that he didn't believe Obama "loves America"—echoing Trump's racist birtherism. But, like Gingrich, Giuliani has little to offer Trump. For one, they're from the same state—conventional wisdom says to pick a running mate from a different state from the presidential nominee, especially if it's a swing state—and New York is neither. And, like Gingrich, Giuliani has been out of the game too long to count as experienced, especially given that he's never held national office. Plus, he has also been married three times. He could probably have his pick of ambassadorships, though. Odds: 40 percent.


Carly Fiorina: The former Silicon Valley CEO, who oversaw the decline of Hewlett-Packard, is on the job hunt again after Cruz, who named her his running mate last week, bowed out of the race following a blowout in Indiana. Now that the senator is out of the race, Fiorina finds herself a free agent again. So why not sign on with Trump? Granted, there's some bad blood between the two: Trump did call Fiorina ugly, and, since she endorsed Cruz, she has said plenty of unflattering things about Trump. But the wind quickly shifts in election years, and they could still make nice. Unfortunately, Fiorina has no governing experience, which is what Trump voters likely want in his running mate. But she could help soften some of Trump's hard edges, especially with women voters, who really, really don't like him. Then again, Fiorina's (debunked) claim that Planned Parenthood was chopping up and selling babies probably didn't earn her any points with women. Odds: 50 percent.

The Never-Weres

Joe Scarborough: Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough is hands-down Trump's favorite pundit. A former four-term congressman from Florida, Scarborough gave up politics for a career at MSNBC, where he misses no opportunity to lavish praise on the mogul.  So, unlike Gingrich or Fiorina, he has held elected office in the 21st century—a plus. In recent months, reports have said that Scarborough's close ties with Trump are a concern among MSNBC executives. But he's not really seen as a Washington insider, and he can better serve Trump as mouthpiece. Perhaps a gig as press secretary would make sense for Scarborough in a potential Trump administration. Odds: 40 percent.


Ben Carson: Carson's presidential campaign was a Ponzi scheme, which was something he seemed to realize only near the end of his run. He is a Tea Party favorite whose Seventh Day Adventist faith could help Trump with evangelicals and other typically right-wing religious constituencies who haven't warmed to the candidate as much as they could. And his quiet-man routine complements Trump's brash persona. But he's another who has never held elected office of any kind, and throughout his campaign seemed confused about many aspects of the American system of governance. Not to mention the fact that his buffoonish answers on foreign policy questions left many wondering if we could trust him with the nuclear codes. And, finally, Carson told the Times he doesn't think he has the necessary "government experience" that Trump needs in a running mate. Odds: 40 percent.


Sarah Palin:  Sure, she basically torpedoed John McCain's presidential bid in 2008, but the former Alaska governor is exactly the kind of pick that Trump would make: unexpected and baffling. Plus, unlike in 2008, all her dirty laundry is public by now. And, in the post-Trump era, gaffes no longer seem to matter. So Palin's hokey, off-the-cuff style probably wouldn't hurt Trump the way it hurt McCain. That said, Palin (still) doesn't have much governing experience, beyond being the mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla and a brief stint as governor of Alaska. But she might be able to help Trump with women, so there's that. Odds: 50 percent.

The Also-Rans

John Kasich: As of Wednesday morning, Kasich is reportedly no longer running for president, so he's available if Trump wants him. He would actually be a solid pick for Trump. For one, he's the only Republican who polls favorably against Hillary Clinton. And he has a lot of political experience, which Trump needs. Plus, his down-home, folksy style would complement the New York mogul. The only question is: Would Kasich say yes? He's spent the last several months telling the American people what a lousy president Trump would make. Can he now, in good faith, turn around and tell them that, actually, no, Trump would be a great president? Odds: 70 percent.


Ted Cruz: Bad pick. Not only do most people find Cruz unlikeable, but he's spent the last several months calling Trump a "pathological liar," a "narcissist," a "serial philanderer" and "utterly amoral." Trump, meanwhile, has taken to calling Cruz "Lyin' Ted" and insulted his wife. While he softened his tone somewhat when he heard Cruz was dropping out, Trump gains nothing by picking Cruz. Next. Odds: 10 percent.


Chris Christie: Probably the only good option Trump has. The New Jersey governor has plenty of political experience, and he famously jumped on the Trump train before the rest of the GOP. Before Trump came along, Christie was known as the most vicious attack dog in the GOP, so he could take some of the heat off the candidate with a few broadsides of his own. And he never explicitly called Trump's character or judgment into question. The downside is that he's from New Jersey, which doesn't help Trump much. And he doesn't do much for blacks, Latinos or women either. But he can definitely go toe-to-toe with Clinton and whomever she picks as her running mate. Odds: 80 percent.

The Wild Card

Ivanka Trump: The American presidency should not be inherited, but Donald Trump probably doesn't care. His eldest daughter is one of his closest advisors and makes her father look reasonable by proximity. She's charismatic and would certainly help Trump with the woman vote. She doesn't have any governing experience, but Trump values loyalty over résumé, if his other advisers are any indication. And who's more loyal than children?
Odds: 90 percent.                     

US Congress Has Health Insurance: Makes No Sense to Deny Coverage to Others

Republicanism and Stupidism are synergistic "isms" these days.

Although many Republicans continue to have reservations about President Obama's Health Care Reform, these politicians (who are not insurance actuaries) are obsessed with wasting time to recall the 2008 Affordable Care Act. Rather than pay attention to issues that matter to the middle class, Republicans are hell bent on acting stupidly about a recall of the law.  

Republicans like Ted Cruz of Texas are putting their zeal into repeal of one law. They're wasting millions in tax money, some of it used to pay Cruz and his family's health insurance premiums, while he and others can carry on a stupid repeal mission.

MSNBC-TV a Republican pundit and former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough says the obsession with recall is a "freak show".

Talk-show host Joe Scarborough Wednesday called out conservative members of the Republican Party (like Cruz) who want to unfund Obamacare, blaming them for continued GOP election losses. "This freak show has to end," Scarborough said on MSNBC's show "Morning Joe." (Cruz and others are even calling for closing down government to repeal Obamacare. Just doesn't get any more stupid, as Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does" and closing down government is as stupid as "does" gets.)

Scarborough went on to say:

"You're too stupid to be a member of our (Republican) party (did ya' hear that Cruz?). How much more blood do you want to take from the conservative movement, from the Republican Party? How much more damage do you want to cause?" Scarborough asked.

If the Health Care Reform law had the benefit of money wasted by Republicans in Congress to repeal it, we'd have more resources available to support a successful implementation of this law.

Let's review what purchasing health insurance was like before the Affordable Care Act:

In March 2010, President Obama signed comprehensive health reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). It's now the law upheld by the US Supreme Court. The law makes preventive care—including family planning and related services—more accessible and affordable for many Americans. While some provisions of the law have already taken effect, many more provisions will be implemented in the coming years.

Although ordinary people began benefiting from Obamacare early in its implementation, the US Congress has, nevertheless, voted a wasteful 40 times since 2008 to repeal the law, all the while, every member of Congress, including their families and staffs, continue receiving excellent health insurance coverage, paid by taxpayers. 

Before the ACA, health insurance companies held all the aces when it came to who could buy their products and what services each beneficiary was entitled to receive.  

Now, the insurance companies must cover young adults up to 28 years old whose parents continue to pay the premiums. Prior to health care reform, young adults were typically dropped from their parents plans when they reached 18 years old. 

Prior to ACA, pre-existing conditions were often screened out or capped for children who were covered by their parents plans. This limiting access for children is now against the law.  All children are provided access to coverage under their parents' health insurance plans.

Today, because of the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare", those greedy health insurance companies, the ones that take your beneficiary money and pay their shareholders with it, have some 'splaining to do to their customers. Since Obamacare became the law, health insurance companies must now tell customers how much premium money is really spent on services.  Imagine being told what your premium money is buying!  This didn't happen before the Affordable Care Act became law.

Another accomplishment is how ACA pays for wellness coverage. Imagine that!  Health insurance can now pay to help keep a person well, instead of only covering sickness care.  What could be cheaper than paying for wellness coverage? It just doesn't get much better for insurance companies than to pay a person to stay well, it's like dropping auto insurance rates when drivers have a good safety record.  Makes sense?  You betcha! Yet,  this didn't happen before the ACA became the law.  

And the list of benefits goes on. Sadly, Cruz and his freak colleagues have little interest in learning anything good about the Affordable Care Act.  Republicans thrive dwelling on negatives. For purely political reasons, Republicans want to repeal the entire law so they can claim a cruel political victory, at the expense of the middle class who need access to health insurance.  

Sure, there are valid concerns about the ACA, but the issues being debated can be fixed.  Repeal will  do more harm to our nations' uninsured.  Americans badly need health reform.  Although the ACA isn't perfect, it's certainly better than the way beneficiaries were held hostage by  insurance companies before 2008.

To repeal the ACA will set back our insurance progress to the early 20th century, when President Theodore Roosevelt supported Universal Health Care for Americans.

Scarborough scolded his fellow Republicans who are obsessed with repeal of the Affordable Care Act:

"Take your stupid act somewhere else, because I, for one, am tired of losing and having stupid people like you defining my party."

Although I'd like to admit the Republicans who are fixated on repeal of the ACA are dooming future elections in favor of progressive Democrats, I doubt there's only one stupid reason why the party  might loose. In fact, many stupid Republican positions are accumulating in the pool of causes leading to their political demise. Republicans are like a person with a weak heart who eventually develops respiratory and kidney illnesses.  One stupid position lead to others. Eventually, the entire party will be pronounced too stupid to govern.  

And maybe, when they're so weak they can't govern, the Republicans might come to  regret the limited time, energy and money they've wasted into repeal health care reform.  Ceasing this freak show could improve the Republican political prospects and protect their health in the process.  

Let's get the Vaudeville girl with the hook on the floor of the House to drag Republicans like Cruz and his stupid colleagues out of their seats in the US Congress, and soon.

It's time Republicans cut the freak act and focus, instead, on helping people, rather than improving insurance company profits.

Republicans should stop being labeled by stupidism.

Twitter Voyeurs and Myth Creators Give Right Wing Lift Power

Twitterzens Alert! 

Anyone who enters into the Twittersphere social networking quickly learns to shed thin skin. Indeed, the Twitterzen barrage of name calling, labeling and fear mongering I've experienced, as a result of putting facts in the face of myth creators, makes me wonder if these voyeurs are Hades underworld demons, let loose from Dante's inferno. 

An energized group of evil Twitterzens have escaped Hades. Like cockroaches, they've found fresh nests to inhabit on Twitter.

Every day brings a renewed infestation of these social demons. Under the guise of electronic anonymity, they craftily use the 140 character message limit to spread lies too fast to create an informed response. Even worse, they gleefully demonize those who rebut their venom with truth.

Recent, media hyped scandals, coming out of Washington DC, have an incendiary impact on these Hades escapees. Their cauldron bubbles with opportunities for them to spew too many lies for any mentally healthy persons to respond to. I've tried to exterminate the myths they declare, as evidence of their world gone wrong. Not one shred of "evidence" these myth creators spew would be admissible in any court. Even a Kangaroo Court would reject them. Nevertheless, these relentless predators of free speech create lies, because they can, and execute an electronic extermination on anybody who exercises our Constitutional rights to push back on their lies. So, here are the current hot lies those Hades escapees are perpetrating as I write this blog:

Hot Lie #1: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is controlling Obamacare (lie). This leap of reasoning is preposterous, but without push back, the myth morphs and becomes too big to fix. Let's try to simplify this ridiculously large leap from IRS to DHHS. First of all, Obamacare, aka "Health Care Reform", set to be implemented in 2014, is the responsibility of an executive cabinet official, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebilius. The IRS is not responsible for the control of Health Care Reform. Rather, the IRS is involved because a number of corporations formed, as a result of the law. Many new corporations are requesting tax exempt, or 501(C), status, which is a request the IRS must review and, either, accept or reject. Republicans are furious about the connection between the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services oversight of the Health Care Reform, because, government money is attached to the contracts being awarded under "Obamacare". Republicans want their rich friends to reap the benefit of these contracts and they don't want IRS interference with the flow of these contracts. Therefore, Republicans are feeding the hungry media with myths about how the Internal Revenue Service is controlling Obamacare. I'm frustrated because there's nobody pushing back on this myth. My futile Twitter education efforts are treated like fresh meat, cast in front of a pack of rats. I'm the victim of truth.
Hot Lie #2: Talking points on the Benghazi consulate attack of September 11, 2012, and the complicated ripple of lies resulting from the incident. Republicans claim the talking points, developed between the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department, were changed to describe the attack on the Benghazi consulate as something less than a terror attack. This point of view ignores the facts that four people were killed during this violent incident. There's no way the Obama administration can change this deadly fact. Among the four people who died was Ambassador Stevens, who died, despite rescue efforts, as a result of a fire that erupted during an attack on the consulate. Republicans don't really want any facts about Benghazi, unless their myths about their opinions are substantiated. A big fact we should know regarding the fatal attack is for somebody, with authority, to reveal the reason why Ambassador Stevens left the security of the embassy in Tripoli to travel to Benghazi, on September 11, 2012. Why don't we know this? Nevertheless, the absolute fact is that all officials, managers and bureaucratic people (anybody who writes statements for the press) engage in making changes to talking points. The issue is the intention of the changes. Did the Obama administration deliberately change the taking points to favor the 2012 election? Or, were changes recommended (or required) because communications officials wanted to keep information about the incident from falling into the hands of those who perpetrated the attack? Instead of finding truthful information about what happened in Benghazi, the Republican myth makers are feeding the media, including Morning Joe on MSNBC, with a misinformation campaign, led Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Coburn deliberately claimed that Benghazi email messages were either missing or lies. Later, it was revealed that Republicans perpetrated the lies about Benghazi, but there's been no apology by Senator Coburn, or by Joe Scarborough, who let this lie go by on Morning Joe, without challenging the misleading statement.

Although lies, spun from scandals of the week, usually die a humiliating death, this demise hardly ever occurs with the fanfare of the original incident that started the spiraling misinformation.

Meanwhile, until political lies are debunked, they provide air lift to Right Wing extremist groups that thrive on spinning misinformation.

Obviously, the best way to prevent the twitter voyeurs, myth creators and air lift to Right Wing extremists is to completely eliminate political scandals. Hmmmm. Oh well! I'll just keep pushing back on those Twitter demons. At least, these Hades escapees are teaching me to grow very thickly resilient political skin, in defense of the boiling social media oil they're pouring in my direction.