The stubborn illogic of the Congressional Freedom Caucus on replacement of Obamacare

Revised March 1, 2107
The stubborn illogical members of the Freedom Caucus types in Congress regarding repeal and replace Obamacare ignore changing public opinion. They stonewall attempts to replace it when it contains any thing smacked of "entitlements" which they define as providing any subsidies to make insurance affordable. For them, tax credits are subsidies; they oppose some GOP plans that would replace federal subsidies with tax credits to buy insurance . (This is not an endorsement of those tax credit plans, but that is another topic) ..They would rather, it appears, yank insurance from their own constituents. After all, they say they promised repeal and their constituents want it repealed. Replacements are not relevant because they claim.consumers of health care will not be worse off than they are now, they claim. The Freedom Caucus logic: the ACA (Obamacare) is going to collapse of its own weight so even if it does not cover the same number of people that Obamacare covers, so what difference does it make.

Wait a minute, There is something worse: having no insurance. There is also something worse; not trying to make the ACA succeed. What is worse is that those with pre-existing conditions cannot get coverage; that once again their insurance will a limit of the amount in a period of time they will cover; that those who are living pay check to pay check and whose budget struggles  leave no room to pay for health insurance so they  will go without; that even annual check-ups  and cancer screenings will be put off until the disease is so far along, the choice is bankruptcy or die or go into debt and lose their homes; or insurance policies are not required to allow young adults to stay on parent's policies?

It appears that Democrats are going to make Obamacare the major issue in their resistance to the GOP. Gov. Beshear's rebuttal to Trump's addresss laid out the case to those who would be impacted the most by any changes, replacements, and/or repeal...blue collar workers in the south (and with similar demographics in the midwest. 64% of the sign ups for Obamacare this year are from states Trump carried. In the speech to Congress, Trump endorsed the GOP plan to give tax credits to help subsidize insurance, instead of tax deductions as promoted by the Freedom Caucus. (in itself deceptive because it would only benefit those who pay income taxes..and most needing health care insurance subsidies are those who do not have enough income to pay any income taxes..so deductions would be useless). . However, watch the devilish details: What Paul Ryan, house majority leader and advocate of the tax credit approach, also wants is the credit based on age; and the other part of the equation is how much? Currently subsidies of health insurance are based on income. The poorer an applicant is, the larger the subsidy. The GOP wants it to be based on say 2K for young people and 4K for older, or a ratio like that. Unfortunately for older people the cost of healthcare ratio is more like 5x the younger people. This would screw the older people and leave the younger with barely enough to buy catastrophic insurance, with little incentive to subscribe for insurance, plus destroy the "pool"...which keeps costs down for all by mixing a correct ratio of those who use insurance v those who do not..an actuarial method upon which nearly all insurance is based.

If Obamacare is headed downhill, why not fix it, repair it?  For eight years any fixes to Obamacare were stonewalled by the GOP in hopes it would collapse.  However, now that the GOP controls Washington, the old china shop rule applies: If they break it, they own it.  The day after the State of the Union address, the Republic National Committee chairman, Ronna Romney McDaniel and Sen. Ted Cruz appearing on Morning Joe on MSNBC both refused to promise they would guarantee those who had their newly acquired Obamacare/ACA health insurance would keep it.  In fact, Cruz took it a step farther and said he was concerned about everyone who had been hurt by Obamacare instead. He should absolutely no concern for the rest.


The comment made by Ronna McDaniel was that Obamacare broke the health care system so the GOP will fix it.   I rarely name call statements stupid, but this one was a doozy. Adding 22 million insured was hardly breaking the system; it is an indication of its success.  Even the 80% got better benefits. Kicking off 22 million from their insurance or even a large percentage of that would truly be breaking the system. If Cruz and McDaniel get their way, they  and their party will own that one.

The GOP is still stuck in 2009 when people complained they had to change insurance plans and did not keep their doctor.  To them, that was a catastrophe.  There is even a commercial running about a mother of for who had to change her ob-gyn because of Obamacare.   What would really have been a catastrophe if she had no health care insurance  at all . That is what the GOP is proposing  for many when they repeal  the ACA without an adequate replacement.

 Having been married to an ob-gyn for over 50 years, being a very clost observer of his private practice. I know changing ob-gyns can be traumatic. However, even before Obamacare, that was a common occurrence when jobs were changed and the new employer offered different benefits, jobs were lost, or choices were made to  sign up with another insurer.  Now, many consumers are faced with having to go without insurance at all if the hard right of the GOP has its way.

What the challenge is for Congress is to come up with a way to make Obamacare financially sustainable, if they think Obamacare is not, and so far, what is coming out of the rumor mill is that the GOP does not have a plan to do that without reducing benefits and  increasing the cost to individual consumers while kicking many off their insurance coverage. What I see are plans to make health care insurance even less  sustainable by reducing the size or ratio of the "pools", leaving the sicker left insured and the healthy opting out of insurance.  If they do propose a plan, the issues become who and how many will be hurt, instead of helped , and the cost which will be "scored " or estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

 The arrogance of the Freedom Caucus is that they do not realize the public opinion ground is shifting under their feet. They are still functioning under the  old polls where tagging the Obama name to any health plan was considered by their base as bad, yet a significant part of their base liked their ACA and did not know that was also Obamacare.  That is an ongoing education project, but the marches and  angry attendees at townhalls are getting the message across.   CNN had an interesting approach of having those listening to the President's address to Congress on February 28. They have a pulse poll of thousands responding in real time to what the President was saying.  The part of his speech that got the most negative response was repealing Obamacare/ACA.  The self identified  independents pulse taking line  plunged below approval the most dramatically, but interestingly enough, even the Republicans/ approval line took a significant dip.

The public is waking up and getting educated to what the ACA (Obamacare) provides. That is  the same  insurance they could not afford before, and they do want not to lose it now. The polls show that its popularity is different than it was in November. Even their own party members are realizing the repercussions on their own self interests, if not the interest of their constituents.  The GOP governors fear their budgets will be blown apart if medicaid expansion is not funded; that small, rural hospitals will go under without the paying customers who had subsidized insurance.

Where Congress should focus is repair. Where they have a problem is that any of their proposals being discussed is that it would only make the costs soar because they want to shrink the "pool", removing any mandates for even the healthy and those with faith they will never get sick or have an accident to carry insurance.  They want to remove required  benefits, leaving consumers with poor, inadequate policies, that means paying more out of their pockets and not having the kind of coverage when they need it.

 Where they can begin is to aim their guns at the cost of prescription drugs, requiring competitive bidding for Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance  company participants in  any government supported insurance..They can  include in exchanges a public option that forces competition and makes sure that at least one insurer remains in the market. They can stop advocating fake panaceas that do little  to provide competition and lower costs such as cross state insurer options. They can do more to break up the insurance company monopolies that allow them to collude  to set the same benefits and cost of coverage  nationwide.. That monopoly by a few big insurers makes a mockery of a free, competitive market.

They are assuming that the collapse of Obamacare would cause consumers to embrace their minimalist, poor replacement plans, or just  go insurance naked. The Freedom Caucus should be careful what they wish.  Those  are not the only alternatives. If Obamacare does collapse,, the GOP will find that public demand for a single payer system will become the only way out and it  will gain popularity just because of the pressure from demand by desperate consumers.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/321425-gop-lawmaker-would-vote-against-leaked-obamacare-replacement-draft-report

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-turn-immigrant-counter-trump-221148394--politics.html

Also see the 2/11/17 post for a long list of resources:

Where were those Save Obamacare activists last year? Asleep ? Fooled?

Why I have refrained from calling Donald Trump a fascist.

Updated 2 25 2017
 I have refrained from calling the Trump administration fascist. It is not there yet.  It is too early to tell and the constraints of law and the Constitution may keep President Trump from putting some of his innate tendencies into practice. However, every day it seems Trump's actions resemble even more the examples of fascism as practiced in the 20th century.

The definition of fascism as a philosophy is complex, but actions can be the the definer, too.     Calling someone fascist brings to mind Hitler, the gas chambers, the hyper nationalism, the rallies and parades, and a goal of economic recovery based on ramping up the military/industrial complex,  blaming and scapegoating minorities, and feeding on the emotions of those who hate "others".   Hitler seems to personify it in many minds, though the 20th-century ideological roots are actually in Italy and Mussolini and not all authoritarian governments are fascist.

 While President Trump certainly does not fit the extreme Hitler mold, there are some similar elements to the rise of fascism in Europe found in Trump's tweets and orders and techniques,  such as holding rallies to whip up supporters' enthusiasm and hyper-nationalism, exaggerating potential external security threats and the weakness of our military,  and the failure of an economy,. He is ignoring the fact that the economy has the lowest unemployment rate since 2009 and had a pre-election robust Wall Street. True, the blue-collar middle class has been left behind. Whatever Trump advocates, the US in 2017 is nowhere like Germany in the early '30s that was decimated by reparations and the Depression.

With crowd-pleasing rhetoric and tweets, Trump claims the only facts that are not fake are those considered true by the Trump administration. He verbally delegitimizes other centers of power,  courts, and their judges,   and media.  Stephen Bannon is the president's most trusted and closest adviser and is also an example of the hatred factor found in fascism. Bannon had been CEO  of Breitbart, the media public platform for white supremacists and ultra-nationalists.  Leading to Trump's own rise on the political scene was "Obama was born in Kenya" birtherism crusade, considered by many to be dog whistles to racists. Whether or not Bannon and he are racists and bigots themselves is the lesser issue.  Like Bannon  Trump tolerates and exploits racism for political gain, even being reluctant to condemn bigotry until forced to. His Muslim ban obviously appeals to religious bigots. Pressed for weeks to condemn Jewish cemetery vandalism and threats against religious centers, he finally made a statement last week condemning anti-Semitism.

These last couple of weeks of his media relations were particularly disturbing and brought him a step closer to qualifying as at least a wannabe fascist.  Looking at how the fascist movement got into power in the last century, we can see some similarities.  One is an attempt to bully and control the press and to take over the messaging. Trump is beginning the process by excluding "opposition" outlets.  CNN and the New York Times were kept from the press "gaggle"at a non-televised briefing at the White House and Trump and his spokespeople have refused to call on reporters who represented media promoting stories critical of him. These were obvious attempts at "punishing" CNN and the Times. Their sin: reporting on Trump's possible even closer relationship with Russians during the campaign.

The most serious media-related event raised the question of whether his administration had tried to influence the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's colluding with the Russians. One version reported by the media was that Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff, had approached the FBI director asking him to tamp down a report being leaked from the agency as flawed because there was no evidence any Russian contact involved Russian agents. The Trump administration did not deny the contact had been made with Russians, but said it was not their agents, and counterclaimed that the FBI director had approached Priebus. If the latter is true, then the FBI's impartiality and credibility in their Russian related investigations into Russian hacking and meddling in the 2016 elections are jeopardized. If the administration initiated the contact with the FBI, then they are verging on a Nixon-like cover-up and look guilty that there is a fire in the smoke. Adding to suspicions that there is something there there,  as many have noted, Trump has never flatly denied that contact with  Russians and his campaign staff occurred but instead has tried to deflect attention to "illegal leaks",  as a way to direct public attention and media focus elsewhere and a way to scotch deeper probes.

 Either way, the exchange with the FBI flap is not good news for the Trump administration. In that dust-up, what has been clear is that the Trump administration is fearful that the FBI or the other investigations being conducted by intelligence agencies will find the smoking gun of collusion with  Russian agents. If that collusion turns out to be sanctioned or conducted by Donald Trump himself or others in his campaign acting under his direction, that could lead to impeachment at worse or destroying the credibility, legitimacy,  and effectiveness of the administration at best.  The stakes are very high.

.Populism has also been an element in the rise of fascism.  Candidate Trump's appeal to the blue-collar working demographic was more populist than corporate.  Ironically, a  corporatist element has been added to  Trump's presidential administration with the appointment of the team of billionaires to the various cabinet posts. These cabinet officers have been charged to de-construct their departments, eliminating consumer and environmental protections that were designed to protect the middle class from corporate excesses.

The populist rationale Trump has pitched to the public is that this pro-business, anti-environment/consumer approach will lead to high paying job creation in the rust belt and national economic growth. Those most affected by economic struggles are without a college education and robotics have replaced many of those jobs once held by human beings. Some blame unions, too, for holding back efficiencies. Trump has not provided any plan to fix those problems but instead has blamed bad trade policies.  Whether protectionism will result in high paying jobs with a workforce ill-equipped to fill them or reduce robotics is doubtful. If proof of Russian collusion does not lead to his defeat in 2020, his failure to provide promised economic growth and high paying job creation will. As counties who voted for Obama in the past then went for  Trump in 2016 showed,  populism is a fickle beast.

Another parallel with the practice of German fascism is Trump's reliance on militarism to promote US leadership in the world. The current world order he is de-constructing is one based on mutual defense treaties  (NATO) and multinational economic and trade arrangements. Instead, Trump's vision of leadership is relying on military muscle power as a threat to deter attacks and as a "might makes right" bully power over the rest of the world.  Where it does differ from Hitler's rise is that Hitler used military buildup in manufacturing as an argument to the public, promoting it as a way to pull Germany out of the depression.

Donald Trump had wanted to display military weapons and missile launchers in his inauguration parade, but the US military declined that opportunity. Red Square type parades are not far from his mind. Whatever the reason for militarism, if diplomacy and treaties are not tried first, we can imagine where a crisis might lead. For some in history promoting military conflict was a way to make the  "pledge to the leader" a patriotic duty. To increase an autocrat's power, the exaggeration of threats to national interests and persecution of ethnic groups are familiar modus operandi.even in our current memories, from Milosevic's Balkan Wars in the 1990s to Russia's stealth invasions of the Crimea, Georgia, and Ukraine. It is no wonder a recent poll showed the majority of Americans fear involvement in another major war.  The danger is that we are living in a nuclear age where miscalculations and political ambitions could lead to disasters far greater than the world wars of the 1900s

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There is a very comprehensive discussion of this : https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/fascism-populism-presidential-election/510668/

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/320574-poll-majority-of-americans-fear-us-will-become-involved-in-another-major-war

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-inauguration-parade-tanks-missile-launchers-2017-1

http://www3.nd.edu/~salder/RB.pdf puts blame on the Rust Belt decline on unions
MIT looks at the impact of robotics and the need for greater worker education  https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602869/manufacturing-jobs-arent-coming-back/


Footnote:  while I usually do not use Wikipedia as a source, I did tap into their definition of fascism and its history.  It seemed comprehensive and well documented.  I did not rely on it alone, though, drawing on my undergraduate background in history and political science and first-hand encounter with the results of fascism in an academic year spent in post-war Berlin in 1957. It was a  grassroots attempt to find out how and why it happened there. My intellectual curiosity has not dimmed over the years.  I number among many life long friends and relatives by marriage the recounting of their personal experiences and memories of the rise of fascism and communism in their native countries.

A White House in chaos is right now a danger to our security

Originally posted 2/16/17; updated 2/21/17; published in www.skyhidailynews.com 2/21-22/17
A White House in chaos is a danger to our national security. This is a period when those who want to do us harm see a softness in our ability to respond with a unified voice and is at risk. They see no clear chain of command needed to respond effectively in case of a  national security crisis.  For our own sakes, let us hope that the Trump administration corrects the situation as quickly as possible.

It may be that the uncertainty caused by the inexperience and peculiarity of President's personality traits might give pause  to a wannabe attacker Any reaction, say to a 9/11 size event, might make an attack a gamble knowing  Trump is so impulsive. On the other hand, taking advantage of a situation when the chains of command, the boundaries of power, or its policies have not been clearly established, might be seen by an attacker as an  opportunity. The danger is that to understand us better, they will test us to see how we react such as parking a spy ship near our coast or firing off a missile test, which has already happened.

Donald Trump has denied disarray in the West Wing, asserting his administration was running like a "fine tuned machine".  Views that there was chaos came from  Leon Panetta, former Secretary of Defense  and past CIA Director and Senator John McCain.

With the firing of  General Michael Flynn, his controversial National Security adviser, Trump's first choice to fill the post, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward,  bowed out for family reasons, though some close to him said Harward was also worried about access to the president and the ability to choose his own staff. He announced his new pick Monday, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, which is a step toward more order. With McMaster's appointment, I am feeling much better about our security and a tougher stance on Russia. The question is if he will get the same access to the President as did Flynn or if there will be friction.

Who possibly could stand in the way of a national security  adviser's  access to the President? The closest to President Trump  is Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart Media , an ideologue of the farthest right with a stated goal to disrupt the Establishment.. He maneuvered  to be appointed the the National Security Council where such coordination of the flow of information from State Department, intelligence agencies, and the Pentagon takes place.

Even with a well coordinated and competent leadership of the West Wing, we have had a history with national security fumbles early in an administration. The George W. Bush administration was  staffed at higher levels with experienced men from the outset before 9/11, but were so focused in other matters, such as filling lower vacancies and legislation, they had not devoted enough attention to the warning signs noted by the FBI of some Saudi individuals taking pilot training, even in the face of  well known attempts  abroad by  terrorists to turn a commercial plane into a weapon. The new security team is headed for a rocky shake down cruise.

Confusing those abroad, friends and foe, have been mixed messages delivered by VP Mike Pence in his recent tours of Europe and NATO  and Nikki Haley, the new US ambassador to the UN regarding policies toward Russia . They seem to  contradict Trump's coziness with Russia , speaking with a harder line toward Russia.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/16/trumps-pick-to-replace-michael-flynn-as-national-security-adviser-turns-down-offer-people-familiar-with-decision-say-2/?utm_term=.fd2ac9ee367c

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-harward-turns-down-national-security-adviser-job/

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-security-adviser-trump-robert-harward-declined-after-press-conference-2017-2

https://www.ft.com/content/485046b8-f3a5-11e6-8758-6876151821a6

http://time.com/4672974/donald-trump-white-house-chaos/

http://www.businessinsider.com/leon-panetta-nervous-about-the-trump-administration-turmoil-russia-2017-2?r=UK&IR=T

http://fox2now.com/2017/02/18/pence-us-will-hold-russia-accountable/

http://kdvr.com/2017/02/03/nikki-haley-takes-tough-stance-on-russia-at-u-n-debut-tmwsp/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-bannon-ideas-that-inform-world-view-trump-counselor/

Time magaznie, February 13, 2017

Also see my blog posting: Tensions between Vice President Pence and Michael Flynn pre-exist the "lie" flap 2/14/17

Footnote: This story was "officially leaked" by the Kremlin. Some believe they think Trump may not last full term. Whatever the motivation, the irony does not escape me. Often the comment about the chaos in the White House is that Trump was the dog that caught the bus they chased, the US Presidency, and now that he caught it, he does not know what to do with it. Perhaps the Kremlin is the dog that caught the bus, President Trump. Now that they did it, they are wondering what to do about him.

Russia preps a psychological profile of Trump. Here's what it says.

The attempt to get inside the U.S. president's mind is aimed at helping Vladimir Putin plan for their first meeting. Among the dossier's preliminary conclusions is that Trump…

NBCNEWS.COM|BY NBC NEWS

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Blind eyes of Donald Trump and the GOP. The eye opening challenge: "prove it"

Originally posted 2/15/17/ Updated 2/22/17

President Trump, his supporters, and apologists are turning blind eyes to bad news that is in our faces and in plain sight.    The role Democrats and " the resistance" can play when they hear such delusions is to respond with "prove it" .   An administration that loses credibility is an administration that will likely fail in future elections.

Trump has continued to blast media as "dishonest", (most recently defined coincidentally when they criticize him) and "fake news' when it is negative about his administrations. He railed against the tone of reporters he called hate filled. He urged the public to view only Fox and Friends and some other ideologically right wing web casts instead of CNN and MSNBC  Hurling such  name calling   without proving how their reports are dishonest  eventually will become part of a credibility problem that will come back to haunt him. In the  meantime, he is  trying to damage the credibility and trust of all news sources.  https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-the-leaks-are-absolutely-real-the-news-is-fake-195441027.html

If political strategy and policy are based on delusions, there is great possibility they will make strategic errors that will work against the GOP and Trump sooner or later. It will give their opposition media fodder and could lead to the the public losing trust in both the Trump administration and GOP Congressional members who are trying to bury the issues they prefer not to give exposure. It will also dominate the news cycles and tie Congress in knots. The diversion will stop the Trump legislative agenda in its tracks for months, from job creation, tax reform, health care, and much more. But far more harmful to the public interest and the security of the US will be shaping of domestic and foreign policy based on false premises. Garbage in, garbage out , and that garbage could  be toxic to the well being of its citizens and national security.

 Here is the bad news :the GOP and the Trump administration either denies or seek to divert attention from the public eyes:

The Russian connection:  The Flynn debacle and the highly likely connection the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton is not only a problem of Russian meddling and hacking the 2016 elections, it is also the possibility it was to some extent coordinated with the Trump campaign.  The GOP and Trump instead of going full bore to find the truth are, trying to get public attention focused on "leaks" as the real criminal act instead of shedding light on the substance. That is a self-defeating strategy. The GOP dominated Congress has taken the route that would keep findings from the public eye by burying it in intelligence committees that mostly work in secret.  That is an outrage. The public needs to know, not just one secretive  committee in Congress and the way that can be accomplished is a Select Committee investigation, setting up an independent commission,  or the appointment of a special prosecutor.  The best proof: release the transcripts the FBI has of those conversations between the Trump operatives and Russian intelligence and officials. The text is going to be leaked sooner or later, anyway. Those in Congress who stonewall shedding public light on whether there was indeed collusion so harmful to our democracy deserve to be the target of the 'resistance".  The danger to national security is that foreign policy would be shaped  to enhance the power of Russia and would not to the national interests of both the US and its allies, especially our NATO allies, and  diminish US ability to shape policy in its national interests.

The delusion that the public demonstrations, in particular the women's march in revolt against Trump policies, were made up of paid flunkies, all 1.1 million, is so easily disproved,  it is truly laughable. I was one of those marchers; I know who organized this in my area and who communicated with me. I saw who stood next to me in that enormous crowd and who joined me at my encouragement.  The ultimate challenge to those who want to put blinders on their dedicated followers is to prove it.  In the meantime, 1.1 million paid minimum wage for 4 hours of their time and to be compensated for out of pocket transportation expenses (my bus ride to the event cost over $40) would be at minimum $23 million dollars. Where did that money come from? That  size of a money trail should be easy to uncover if it is true. Find it and prove it.

Donald Trump's more recent  attack of fooling himself is to claim all of those angry citizens turning up at GOP members of Congress' town halls are "fake".  They may be organized to turn out and paint signs, but there would not be such angry turnout if there were not a large body of voters who would be willing to do it...week after week. Think they are paid? Prove it.

The delusion is a making of Trump's own fantasy, that the nearly three million gap in favor of Clinton in the popular vote were illegal voters.  No one is challenging Trump's win  in the electoral college or his right to serve as President,  but it is a wound to Trump's  delicate ego and  it diminishes his claim to have a  popular mandate for  his policies . The challenge to Trump: prove it. An independent panel in Congress should conduct an investigation.  Of course, they won't, because only Trump  and his most dedicate followers believe it and he has already been sworn in.

 The consequence is that his supporters who believe it too will make bad political calculations  in their overconfidence and  result in such overreaches in policy that such action will create a reaction that will swing the pendulum to the left in future elections. The danger is that policies on health care access and quality of benefits will be so shrunk, that many will be left in far worse condition than they now have with Obamacare, losing insurance and important benefits. Expect  a reaction  from Congress and the public to any replacement, finding the deficit or their out of pocket expenses will soar, as will the number of bankruptcies and poorer health of many. That pain would be felt immediately and the backlash will be equally quick.

Taking longer to feel the pain are removing  consumer protections from financial services practices provided in Dodd-Frank and weakening environmental regulations. Voter suppression moves will be felt in future elections.  Turning back Dodd-Frank  will lead to more fraud, anti consumer policies that will cost their pocket books, and  dangers of repeating the 2008 crash.  More bad air and polluted water will be what citizens will suffer , but not realize it for a while since those impacts are more accumulative and anecdotcal. Worse, the unproved delusions will be used as a political motivation by legislatures to restrict voters' rights and suppress the votes of the most vulnerable, the minorities, and seniors. That is great for the GOP, bad for democracy and citizen participation.

More delusions: 2017 polls are here as well...and except for one poll, the rest reveal Donald Trump is living in an alternate world. In his rambling press conference of 2/16 he cited the Rasmussen poll as proof he was doing well and popular...claiming 55% approval.  

RealClearPolitics - 2016 Latest Polls

2016 Latest Polls

REALCLEARPOLITICS.COM

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Footnote on fake news: I have spent some long noon hours lately listening to Denver  Radio Station KOA's line up of right leaning talk shows.  If attitude toward the "other side" is a hateful tone Trump defines as "fake news" , then what I heard  is "fake news" to me. During the campaign I  tuned into FOX, and theirs meet Trump's fake news definition in tone, emphasis to my ears.   In fact, if someone in the household switched to FOX, I could recognize a certain tone in the next room and recognize it as FOX without listening to the content, but  just on the basis of a unique plaintive, accusatory tone.  That is a hallmark of our fragmented media, especially cable, that caters to a divided audience and contributes to making a divided nation even more deeply divided as listeners/viewers accept the slanted report as factual and accurate news.   The problem is searching out straight news and I have some postings and statements regarding that.

While I write opinions, and I do not consider my columns  news, but my take on it.  I also footnote my sources upon what my opinion was based in each blog. Blogs are the wild west of opinion writing.  Facebook and twitter postings are likewise more opinion than fact.I  do not pretend to be a straight reporter; I give my opinions. That is why what I write is labeled as  "opinion", separate from the news reports in the other print pages.  In talk shows, opinion and facts get merged into something bordering on entertainment  bent on seeking ratings. I know that. I was one of Denver's first radio talk show hosts in the very early '80's and when the tone of the genre got nasty and hateful and got the big ratings, I  bowed out of that media form forever which required a tone and slant that was just not me.

What also listeners and viewers and readers also must realize, since Watergate  investigative reporting , once called muckraking in the early 1900's , is in vogue again.  Some of the reasons investigative reporting gets front page, serious news designation, is that it drives readership and it can have a real impact in uncovering facts and take the role of  whistle blowing. It is a valuable part of current journalism, but it takes critical thinking to sort out its credibility and its importance. Critical thinking depends on getting information and opinions and news  from many, sources not just from the media that synchs with our own opinions, guts, and knee jerks.