Mailbag
The president said what?
PRESIDENT TRUMP boasted of his election victory and attacked journalists at his news conference. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais Associated Press )
Studio City resident Daniel Berez wonders about Trump’s grasp on reality:
So the dirty little secret is working its way out of the box: Trump lives in his own reality. He really does believe he won the popular vote and the electoral college by a greater margin than God. He really does believe journalists are dishonest. He says he inherited a huge mess. He’s not just saying it, he truly believes it.
Trump is in way over his head. The stress of his job will further exacerbate his unfitness for the presidency. He jeopardizes the country.
The whispers have begun in Congress: This is the most dysfunctional administration ever, and there is a reason for it. The reason is the president.
Jim Krause of San Pedro criticizes the people around Trump:
For the president to stand in front of a television camera, surrounded by reporters, and tell one lie after another shows he has become dangerous to the nation and the world. Yet cabinet secretaries continue to support him, and the congressional majority does virtually nothing.
Have these people not realized that their names will one day live in infamy?
Los Alamitos resident Terry Bales finds an antecedent to Trump in cinema:
The rantings and ravings of Trump in his news conference reminded me of a paranoid Captain Queeg as played to diabolical perfection by Humphrey Bogart in “The Caine Mutiny.”
All that bombast and denial made me hungry for strawberries.
Calabasas resident Jim Thompson also refers to film:
Watching Trump at his epic news conference saying the real story is not Russia but Clinton stealing the questions at a debate brings to mind a scene from “Blazing Saddles.”
In it, the character Gabby Johnson talks in “authentic frontier gibberish,” and an observer asks, “Now who can argue with that?”
Kymberleigh Richards of Van Nuys suggests a new way for Trump to get attention:
The president blames the media for every downturn, every roadblock, every negative in his brief administration.
As more people come to see his attacks on the media as background noise, I wonder what he plans to do to get attention next. If he’s looking for suggestions, I offer “resigning his office.”

"Now who can argue with that?" LOL
Such a great analogy... Ya know, I look through the posts here and what I see is so freaking obvious... There's a bunch of right-wing morons. (Sorry guys, but you ARE morons) that simply don't care about evidence or truth all they care about is supporting the guy on their side. Gabby Johnson could walk right into any of these arguments, spew out all kinds of gibberish and as long as he's identified as being on the right side, which can be as easy as offering an insult about Hillary and they will treat his gibberish like it's the Word of God Himself. And if Einstein came along with a black board to prove the theory of right-wing bullshit, they would all be booing and hissing and calling Einstein an idiot.

It's just the way it is.

"Now who can argue with that?" LOL
Such a great analogy... Ya know, I look through the posts here and what I see is so freaking obvious... There's a bunch of right-wing morons. (Sorry guys, but you ARE morons) that simply don't care about evidence or truth all they care about is supporting the guy on their side. Gabby Johnson could walk right into any of these arguments, spew out all kinds of gibberish and as long as he's identified as being on the right side, which can be as easy as offering an insult about Hillary and they will treat his gibberish like it's the Word of God Himself. And if Einstein came along with a black board to prove the theory of right-wing bullshit, they would all be booing and hissing and calling Einstein an idiot.

It's just the way it is.

Mailbag
The president said what?
PRESIDENT TRUMP boasted of his election victory and attacked journalists at his news conference. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais Associated Press )
Studio City resident Daniel Berez wonders about Trump’s grasp on reality:
So the dirty little secret is working its way out of the box: Trump lives in his own reality. He really does believe he won the popular vote and the electoral college by a greater margin than God. He really does believe journalists are dishonest. He says he inherited a huge mess. He’s not just saying it, he truly believes it.
Trump is in way over his head. The stress of his job will further exacerbate his unfitness for the presidency. He jeopardizes the country.
The whispers have begun in Congress: This is the most dysfunctional administration ever, and there is a reason for it. The reason is the president.
Jim Krause of San Pedro criticizes the people around Trump:
For the president to stand in front of a television camera, surrounded by reporters, and tell one lie after another shows he has become dangerous to the nation and the world. Yet cabinet secretaries continue to support him, and the congressional majority does virtually nothing.
Have these people not realized that their names will one day live in infamy?
Los Alamitos resident Terry Bales finds an antecedent to Trump in cinema:
The rantings and ravings of Trump in his news conference reminded me of a paranoid Captain Queeg as played to diabolical perfection by Humphrey Bogart in “The Caine Mutiny.”
All that bombast and denial made me hungry for strawberries.
Calabasas resident Jim Thompson also refers to film:
Watching Trump at his epic news conference saying the real story is not Russia but Clinton stealing the questions at a debate brings to mind a scene from “Blazing Saddles.”
In it, the character Gabby Johnson talks in “authentic frontier gibberish,” and an observer asks, “Now who can argue with that?”
Kymberleigh Richards of Van Nuys suggests a new way for Trump to get attention:
The president blames the media for every downturn, every roadblock, every negative in his brief administration.
As more people come to see his attacks on the media as background noise, I wonder what he plans to do to get attention next. If he’s looking for suggestions, I offer “resigning his office.”

Trump Administration Moves To Block Access To Health Insurance
February 18, 2017 10:50 pm / 4 Comments / Headlines, Health, Politics, Top News, US, White House
Trump Administration Moves To Block Access To Health Insurance

The Trump administration is moving to make it harder for you to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The net effect of the proposals would be significantly greater regulatory and paperwork burdens for both consumers and health insurance exchanges, the opposite of Trump’s promise during the campaign and since taking office.

The proposed rules also would lower the percentage of expenses that insurers must cover, forcing patients to pay more for their health care.


Andy Slavitt, the former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said the Trump administration has created a “manufactured crisis” in the Affordable Care Act with talk of a repeal and not enforcing rules.


About 650,000 more people would have to submit documents to verify that they can get health insurance. Among those affected are newlyweds, people switching insurance because of a life event such as losing a job and Native Americans.

This is just some of the fine print in the 71-page proposed regulation that the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled Wednesday, just days after Tom Price was sworn in as the new Health secretary. Price, a physician, has promised to gut the Affordable Care Act.


The increased burdens on married couples are outlined at Page 28. For people applying for individual insurance under the Affordable Care Act, “at least one spouse must either demonstrate that they had minimum essential coverage or that they lived outside of the U.S. or in a U.S. territory for one or more days during the 60 days preceding the date of the marriage.”

The proposed new Trump administration rule cites no facts indicating problems with consumer fraud in Affordable Care Act health insurance applications.


The GAO tested whether people willing to commit fraud by making false applications could obtain health insurance. In nine of 12 cases, the ruses worked, but the GAO report cautioned that its findings” are not generalizable to the population of applicants or marketplaces.”

The GAO report was characterized as a waste of time by the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, which runs the Affordable Care Act market in the nation’s capital. It said “there is no evidence of systematic abuses” among its clientele.

The exchange found such a low risk of fraud that “it is neither an efficient use of resources…nor worth the burden to the consumer” to verify such details in applications

Because of the Affordable Care Act, the national uninsured rate has dropped from 16 percent in 2010 to 8.8 percent in 2016, the lowest rate ever.

Administration officials and lawmakers opposed to the Affordable Care Act have dutifully supported the Trump administration’s initiative.

“This proposal will take steps to stabilize the marketplace,” Patrick Conway, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a press release.

Republican Representative Michael Burgess of Texas and Greg Walden of Oregon said the proposed rule “helps move our country beyond the damage of Obamacare.”

Three Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives said the rule “continues Republican efforts to rip away health security from Americans” and “shift costs onto consumers.” The joint statement came from Rep. Richard Neal, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., and Rep. Bobby Scott.

Some insurers have dropped out of the Marketplace. Humana announced on Tuesday that it won’t offer insurance through the Affordable Care Act in 2018.

IMAGE: Ventzislav Vanguelov (L), an obstetrics and gynecology doctor, gives instructions to physician’s assistant Celena Pollock (C) at Nuestra Clinica de Valle women’s clinic in San Juan, Texas, September 22, 2015. REUTERS/Delcia Lopez

Obama was a super-smart non toadie. A community organizer, professor, lawyer, senator and two-time POTUS. What a resume. He is even writing scholarly articles as Barack Obama, JD outlining how repealing ObamaCare will hurt the insurance industry and individuals. That brother is way over everyone's head and not a bootlicker...you all don't like those kind of blacks. That is why I try my to work my ass off to be that same caliber of black man....a scholarly non-toadie who could never have his self-perception shaped by those with an inherent lowered view of black people. If Obama wanted to destroy America, he would have continued W's policies that would have led to a full depression and not turn things around.

Obama was a super-smart non toadie. A community organizer, professor, lawyer, senator and two-time POTUS. What a resume. He is even writing scholarly articles as Barack Obama, JD outlining how repealing ObamaCare will hurt the insurance industry and individuals. That brother is way over everyone's head and not a bootlicker...you all don't like those kind of blacks. That is why I try my to work my ass off to be that same caliber of black man....a scholarly non-toadie who could never have his self-perception shaped by those with an inherent lowered view of black people. If Obama wanted to destroy America, he would have continued W's policies that would have led to a full depression and not turn things around.

Got to love crackas like you.....I love slam dunking your asses in every facet of life I can when I get the opportunity to do so. I don't mind defeat because of a comparable or greater effort on the part of my opponent. I'm like my Spurs, we lose gracefully because we knew it took a helluva effort on the part of our opponent to defeat us. But you nasty ass racists believe in superiority as if you're supposed to always have the upper hand..by virtue of.....but when it doesn't work out like that....just call em niggers....hilarious and you still don't get trumpette...........you're getting played like a piano for a fool......because you bought into the redneck president thing.....so call me a nigger, all I say is fk you cracka..and the beat goes on....................