June 18-23, 2017: Everybody Hates Congress - Trumpcare Going Nowhere

 

6/18/17: A poll shows that Congress has an approval rating of 12%. In other words, Trump isn’t the least popular denizen of the swamp. In no poll during the two-and-a-half years since the GOP took control of both houses of Congress has that esteemed body had an approval rating above 23%.

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6/19/17: Trump enjoys tweeting so much he decides to tweet the same message twice. He’s excited about the special election in Georgia for Tom Price’s old seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. At 3:29 p.m. he gets his thumbs limbered up with: “Karen Handle’s opponent in #GA06 can’t even vote in the district he wants to represent....” and “On Tuesday, #VoteKarenHandel.” 

God, what fun! At 3:34 he goes with “Karen Handle’s opponent in #GA06 can’t even vote in the district he wants to represent....” again. 

At 3:35 Trump clinches the deal: “....because he doesn’t live there! He wants to raise taxes & kill healthcare. On Tuesday, #VoteKarenHandel.” 

Handel does win the special election by a margin of 52% to 48%. Handel issues a special thanks to President Trump. 

Trump then brags about his great victory – ignoring the fact that the same district went for Price in November 2016 by a margin of 62% to 38%. Still, for Democrats, a loss is a loss.

 

BLOBBER’S NOTE: When Handel runs for reelection in 2018, she goes down in a narrow defeat with 49.5% of the vote to her opponent’s 50.5%. 

Trump decides to brag about something else.

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6/20/17: Trump hogs credit for bringing Otto Warmbier home from North Korea. He says Obama failed for eighteen months. The young man “should have been brought home that same day” he was arrested. 

Trump works his magic and brings Warmbier back, whereupon the unfortunate young man dies. No one on the right notices that North Korea still holds three other Americans – and Trump can’t pry them loose. Normally, we would give a president a pass regarding complex foreign policy. 

Trump, however, never misses a chance to attack Obama or simplify daunting challenges. (See: 6/3/18.)

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6/21/17: Ford Motors announces plans to build its popular Focus model in China, not Michigan.  

 

Cheap labor = more money for CEO’s. 

Meanwhile, the top five executives at Ford pull down $50 million combined in just one year. 

The New York Times also notes that “veteran union workers in the United States” earn $28 per hour building cars for Ford. Most Chinese workers earn around $270 a month. 

Cheap labor = more money for CEO’s. 

In related news, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner continue to profit from their far-flung business empire. This includes shoe factories in China where Ivanka-brand shoes are made. Ivanka and Jared’s income for 2016: $195 million.

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6/22/17: Clearly, the man in the Oval Office is cogitating. On the first day of summer, the president realizes he can build the Great Wall of Trump and turn a profit! This is the kind of brilliance that made him such a success in the casino business. 

Fox News reports on his plan to include solar panels. “Think of it,” Trump tells amazed fans at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “The higher it goes, the more valuable it is. Pretty good imagination, right? This way, Mexico will have to pay much less money, and that’s good. A solar wall. Makes sense.” 

(No telling why Sean Hannity doesn’t accuse the president of turning traitor and joining the “War on Coal.”)

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6/23/17: The latest iteration of the GOP Senate healthcare plan allows insurance companies to offer plans that drop coverage for maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment. 

The Association of Medical Colleges warns that the plan “will leave millions of people without health coverage, and others with only bare-bones plans that will be insufficient to properly address their needs.” 

Senator Rand Paul still believes the plan is too generous. If he had his way, he’d cut coverage for bandages, splints, and blood transfusions. Who needs nurses? Give yourself your own damn shots!

July 4 -6, 2017: Ford, GM and "Bloated Payrolls," and a North Korean Missile that Can Strike Alaska

 

7/4/17: Carmakers announce that June sales dropped for the sixth month in a row. Last year, American auto plants employed 211,000 workers, up 55% from a 2009 low, during the Great Recession. Ford announced in June it would move production of its Focus model to China. As The New York Times notes, “The company had previously planned to move the car to a new plant in Mexico, but canceled the project after meeting stiff opposition from Mr. Trump.” 

“Ford’s China move will not cost any American jobs,” reporters add, “because Focus production in Michigan will be replaced by trucks and S.U.V.’s.” But it won’t add any, either. Scaling back jobs is supposedly part of automakers’ efforts to “avoid bloated payrolls.” Detroit has also hired large numbers of low-wage entry-level workers to reduce expenses. 

Also: to reduce the American middle class. 

“These decisions are always tough, says Alan Batey, GM’s president of North American operations. “But at the end of the day we have to be disciplined about our production plans.” 

Making tough decisions is hard work and for that reason Batey earns $6,282,013 for the year.

Batey and others get paid to make the "tough decisions."

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7/5/17: President Trump insisted (in a January tweet) that a North Korean test of an ICBM capable of hitting the USA “won’t happen!” Note the exclamation point! That meant the man was serious!!!! 

On July 4, however, the North Koreans launch a missile that crosses that line, if just barely. They now have the capability to hit Alaska. 

Secretary of State Tillerson calls for global action, including stronger measures to be enacted by the U.N. Security Council. (The Trump administration hates the U.N. except when it needs U.N. assistance.) The missile fired on July 4 traveled 580 miles before splashing down in the Pacific but followed a 1,700-mile arc into space and back to earth. Trump’s advisers say the administration has laid down no red lines because “they would rather keep the North guessing.” 

Secretary of Defense Mattis says on Face the Nation that war with North Korea “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in people’s lifetimes.”

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7/6/17: Volvo, the Swedish carmaker, bows to the realities of climate change and announces all new models, starting in 2019, will be battery-powered electrics or hybrids. 

The American company, Tesla, which promises to build nothing but electric cars, surpasses Ford and General Motors in stock valuation. Change is coming even if Trump is too dense to see it.