So, last week we had John Oliver on Last Week Tonight break down the Trumpcare health plan -- it wasn't good. This week, he takes at look at the Trump "skinny" budget. That's not the full budget proposal, but more of a blueprint wishlist that gives an overview of what the administration wants. And now, let's say it all together -- It isn't good.
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Yesterday, I posted a sketch from James Corden's show about "Donald: The Musical," in which they did a parody of the song "When I Grow Up" from the Tony-winning musical, Matilda, that has a score by Australian comedian Tim Minchin who played young Donald Trump in the sketch. Here is Minchin as a guest on Conan from two years ago. performing the real version of the song. It comes in about the 3:30 mark, so you can jump to it -- but the interview is quite entertaining. He talks about his edgy comedy and making the transition to writing a musical about children -- as well as upcoming projects that includes a stage musical version of the movie, Groundhog Day. Since this interview is two years ago, Groundhog Day opened on London's West End and did very well, with solid reviews and is scheduled to open on Broadway. When he performs "When I Grow Up" song from Matilda, he's helped out by three of the touring Matilda's from the Los Angeles touring production. So, you may remember during the primary there was a story known as "Pizzagate." It was a right-wing lunatic fringe fake-conspiracy tale which was built into a hysterical cause by the right-wing Alex Jones of InfoWars, by fake-reporting about a non-existent human trafficking site of children supposedly run by high-level Democrats in a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor. Soon after, a right wing vigilante got so riled by the false stories that he broke into the place with an assault rifle. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But the man was arrested, and his trial has now started.
Well...gee, it turns out that manic-conspiratorialist Alex Jones (who, among his other causes, claims the government controls the weather, vaccines are a secret program to cause cancer, and that the tragic Sandy Hook massacre was fake and staged) has just "apologized" for his part in propagating the fake Pizzagate story.and making it even bigger. But the best part is that he blamed others for spreading the fake story even further. (There's something whimsical about the "Party of Personal Responsibility" seems to love passing the buck to others. Even Trump is blaming everyone but himself for the failure of the TrumpCare bill.) Of course, that overlooks a bigger problem for Jones with this, because the gunman says that he was actually a listener to Jones' show, InfoWars. Needless-to-say, this is the weakest, emptiest, most pathetic sort of "apology" one can imagine, when you blame others for spreading your own lie further. But then, rather than really trying to be an apology, what it more likely seems (since Alex Jones doesn't admit he was wrong and apologize about anything, including demeaning the tragedy of Sandy Hook) is that this is an a Hail Mary last-minute effort pushed by Jones's lawyers as a way to cover himself out of fear of being held legally culpable in the attack. All that aside (and, yes, that's a massive amount to put aside), there are two other even-more important things to address about this event. The first is how many people riding the far-right bus to Crazy Town still don't believe that the tales about Pizzagate are false, and still defend it online, despite Alex Jones himself admitting it was false and even apologizing for it. (And again, the toxic Alex Jones does not admit he was wrong and apologize about anything.) That speaks massively loud volumes about the people at that manic edge, for whom reality has ceased to exist and "fact" is a four-letter word. As reporter David Corn notes, "You can't debate crazy." But there's something that's even a far more important take-away from all this. Alex Jones -- who has now publicly admitted to pushing this "fake news" story on his InfoWars show (and apologized) -- is one of the favorite sources for material that Donald Trump uses in his Tweets and public yammerings. Someone who Trump adviser Roger Stone (a craven piece of work himself) has called a "valuable asset." So, the next time Trump tries to point his finger at "fake news," I trust it will at least be while looking in a mirror. Here's a sketch from The Late, Late Show with James Corden -- their vision of a new stage show, "Donald: The Musical." The song they perform is "When I Grow Up," which is a parody of the same-titled song from the Broadway show, Matilda, which won five Tony Awards.. Though most of the performers will be unknown to most viewers, it's actually a fairly auspicious group. As young Donald, the performer is Tim Minchin, who's an Australian comedian -- however, he also wrote the Tony-nominated music and lyrics to Matilda (which, as I noted, this song parodies). Also here is Ben Platt, who originated the starring role in the current, acclaimed musical hit, Dear Evan Hansen, which opened on Broadway in December. (He flew across country for this broadcast, since it was done on a Monday, the only day his show has off.) And there's Abigail Spencer, who you may know from the Sundance Channel's series, Rectify, or the NBC series, Timeless, as well as the All My Children soap opera. And of course, James Corden is around, as well. It is with somewhat bewildered pleasure that Elisberg Industries reports that the oft-mentioned around these parts and inveterate Chris Dunn is once again Emmy-nominated for his work on daytime drama. But that doesn't do it justice, since it turns out that the fellow actually received two nominations for writing on two separate shows. Yes, really, two! See. I ain't lying.
While some people might look at this as impressive, I prefer to consider it further evidence of my theory that he's sort of an unlikable guy who others simply don't seem to want to be around, specifically because he is a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. And so he is forced to switch shows. Mind you, I have no empirical evidence to prove this, it's just based on personal experience. Still, it's worth noting that The Young and the Restless received the most Emmy nominations this year of any daytime program, 25, and I like to think that's all because of Mr. Dunn's writing. Sure, there were other writers on the show, but it's not for nothing that the two programs he wrote for both got nominated. Coincidence? Oh, no, I think not. Of course, it's also possible that - despite being nominated in two of the four slots and having a 50% chance of winning -- he could still lose. Perhaps he will split the all-important Dunn Vote. Maybe some will find him being too greedy. Possibly the "Making Daytime Drama Great Again" crowd will be able to amass enough voters to unexpected win. Or perhaps professional jealousy will simply rear its ugly head. But in the end, the cliche is true -- it's an honor to just be nominated. And nominated. If he does manage to win, though, I wouldn't be surprised if over six million people show up outside his house to celebrate. It is also my expectation that Mr. Dunn is mortified by this attention. That's okay. After all, if he didn't want the acclaim he should never have written that tsunami sequence where Miranda can't find Jake after their big argument about whether Crystal should keep her baby or let Bryce know after he comes out of his coma that he's the father. And yes, he used this storyline on both shows. P.S. I should update this with a note that the household has an additional chance of Emmy gold on awards night, as Chris's wife, the even-more talented and far-more decent Cathy Sedwick, is nominated, as well, in her case for directing as part of the Bold and the Beautiful team, which is perfectly appropriate since she is both. Not to mention that the Lady Sedwick is deserving on general principal for being married to Chris Dunn and sticking with him. While the pleasure for Democrats over the TrumpCare bill getting dropped is understandable, this should not be taken to mean that the Affordable Care Act has been saved and is now comfortably home free and warmly safe. That's not even remotely close to the truth.
The reality is that there are many individual features of the ACA that can be adjusted -- and negatively so -- by the Department of Health and Human Services, and I think it's safe to assume that Secretary Tom Price will attempt to do that. Even further, it must be remembered that there is currently a lawsuit filed by the Republican Congress against the government subsidies which are paid to those most in need who sign up for the program. Though that suit would have been aggressively defended by the Justice Department if the case had came to court when the Obama Administration was still in office, that has changed, and the so question is now whether Trump will defend the lawsuit, not only just as aggressively -- but at all? I think if you are someone who likes to bet, putting your money on "not at all" might be the safe money. The point being that the Affordable Care Act is still under serous bombardment from Republicans and the Trump administration. That said, it's important that Republicans realize there is a real risk for them to push ahead with their plans to dismantle ObamaCare. For starters, as we've seen, the public actually likes the program and even loves many of the existing provisions a great deal. So, trying to rid of those provisions yet again will again bring about the exact same outrage. To think otherwise is a fool's errand. But beyond that, the risks are even greater -- It's one thing, after all, to "repeal and replace," to just get rid of a law in its entirety as one general entity and quickly replace it with other provisions. Although doing that didn't go well for the GOP last week, it's at least an understandable concept. And the main reason it didn't work because the replacements offered were so awful, starting with 24 million people losing their health coverage. But it's another thing for a political party and an administration to piece-by-piece dismantle a program one provision at a time with the fullness of attention on what they're specifically doing, and have your own name branded to a specific action that directly hurts people. If you do that, then it's not only All On You -- but it's on you with a bright klieg light intensely shining on it, highlighting what you're doing with each cut and with your name emblazoned across it all. To put it simply: it's one thing to take a good, popular program and fix flaws to make it better. It's another thing entirely to dismantle it, and make it crash and burn. That's on you. And your actions can't be hidden inside a 15,000 page document. Your actions will each be front and center. So, though Republicans and Trump will likely still attempt to tear down the Affordable Care Act, it will still be difficult, and if they succeed -- which is very possible -- they can pay a disastrous Price. (Pun unintended, but recognized.) Regardless what happens to the Affordable Care Act on a piece-by-piece basis, however, it's worth noting that there is one specific benefit from the failure of the TrumpCare bill. And it's that in Trump's first Really Big Bill brought before Congress -- it crashed and burned. And that generally has long-term, devastating effect on an administration. Among many things, above all it tells its party's representatives how little that administration will have (or be able to have) members' backs in the future. Moreover, the bill failed because Republicans themselves -- holding the House, Senate and White House -- fought among one another and showed contradictory interests. And this was highlighted even more afterwards as Trump began pointing fingers throughout in his party -- including at the conservative "Freedom" Caucus and even Speaker Paul Ryan -- indeed at everyone but himself. In fact, Trump even promoted a "Fox News" show that opened with a scathing attack on Speaker Ryan, calling for his removal. How huge a rift is that?? (Interestingly, the White House later insisted that that was purely coincidental and that Trump was merely promoting the show to help a friend. The awful thing is, even if we accept the word of the White House on this -- a deeply risky venture, to be sure -- that then means Trump was promoting a product, which as we've seen recently is actually an ethics violation, the sort of thing that got Kellyanne Conway, Ivanka Trump, and others in the hot seat.) The point being -- ObamaCare might be saved for the moment, but...health care is so complicated. And contrary to Trump, everyone knew that. And are still seeing it now. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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