Some observations on items in the news.
THE VOTES FOR THE NEW HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN weren’t there. What we saw was a party with differing ideas on health insurance, unlike the Democrats, who, like sheep, voted for ObamaCare without having read the bill in 2010. I’m disappointed. The GOP had seven years to fashion a bill that would appeal to all factions, and failed. Pulling the bill was the smart thing to do. So now what happens? Talk is that the focus will now change to tax reform, where more is riding – jobs and growth.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, JOE? – The Media Research Center noted that CNBC’s Joe Kernen voiced frustration with the lack of progress on Trump’s agenda and suggested that getting substantial change passed is “impossible. I think maybe you need term limits.” Welcome aboard the Trump-train, Joe. All during President Trump’s campaign, he voiced concern for “action” and demeaned those for “all talk.” And he has repeatedly stated the need to “drain the swamp.”
When the campaigning Trump proposed term limits on Oct. 18, 2016, CNBC and NBC showed just passing interest. CNBC, instead, chose to criticize Trump for having four-term Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as his top campaign advisor, failing to understand the need for “outsider” Trump to need guidance by some “old heads.” Even under Trump’s proposed six-year limits for the House and a 12-year cap for the Senate, terms of current office holders would be grandfathered. And I wonder if Kernen realizes that a Constitutional amendment would be required to impose limits.
Term limits, proposed in 1994 in the “Contract with America,” failed to gain the two thirds of both the House and Senate required for passage, and much has been written pro and con on the issue.
Kernen’s apparent view of a “lack of progress” on Trump’s agenda speaks of the so-called mainstream media’s focus on resistance and obstruction efforts without recognition of what the Trump administration has already accomplished. An exhaustive list is readily available online. Trump’s license go-ahead for the Keystone XL Pipeline was today’s latest addition.
I am frustrated how CNBC and Fox Business both choose to express business’s concern over their perception of “congressional inaction” beginning to mount over health insurance and tax reform legislation, without reminding viewers that much is being done behind the scenes, and that we are just 60-days into the new administration.
ANOTHER CLIMATE CHANGE MYTH – CNN’s Meera Senthilingam used the recent snow storm that hit the east coast to push the network’s obsession with climate change, to charge that it is causing “depression, anxiety and PTSD.” She described devastating stories of natural disasters and how they affected the mental health of the victims and connected their suffering to climate change. She cited that even the slower effects of increasing temperatures would cause aggression and violent behavior. Oh, my.
