Trump Wants His Wall, and Will Shutdown the Government to Get It
Plus, Democrats Fight to Restore Decency, Why Trump’s Tax Cuts Lead to Massive Stock Buybacks, Russian bombers in Venezuela, and a PSA about the ACA.
1. President Trump had a meeting with Democratic leaders, the first part of which was live, and it went about as well as expected. Trump expressed pride in the notion of shutting down the government if he doesn’t get funding for his border wall. Pelosi and Schumer assured the President he does not have support for the wall, not even from his own party. Democrats have preliminary agreements with Republicans to extend government funding, but Trump’s intransigence makes a shutdown via his vetoing of a bill that much more likely.
Many will remember that Trump had promised that Mexico will pay for his wall. Democrats could do worse than ask him to put his money where his mouth is.
2. As the dust settled after the midterms, Democrats are looking at their biggest electoral victory since Watergate, and even though they were unable to take control of the Senate, the map with which they were dealing made it a task bordering on the Sisyphean. But before we can celebrate a victory over Trumpism, we have to acknowledge a very important fact. A third of Americans who live in just the right places to have political power wildly disproportionate to their demographic and economic contributions are seething with hatred towards their fellow citizens, and obsessing over dark conspiracy theories in which they’re the victims of evil traitors and globalists. And if we don’t combat their culture of bigotry, indecency, and authoritarianism, we won’t be able to fix the problems that currently plague us. For more, read Greg Fish’s piece here.
3. Trump’s tax cuts were supposed to provide more cash for firms to use on job creation in the US. Instead, firms initiated a slew of stock buybacks, whereby they gave up the cash they got from the tax breaks to their shareholders, who are overwhelmingly ultra-rich and also include their own company executives. Rantt’s business expert Jan Weir details why Trump’s tax plan was designed to purposely exacerbate an already unequal system whereby the average CEO makes 271 times the wages of an average worker.
4. Two Russian bombers have landed in Venezuela, as part of joint military exercises there. This caused a stir and rebuke by American diplomats, most prominently by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This was at least partly due to the fact that the Tu-160 bombers landing in a country hostile to the US have the ability to deploy nuclear missiles. The provocation is the latest in a spate of stunts by the Russian military aimed at testing the response and reactions of the US and its allies. Other incidents have included forays into NATO territory by land and sea, and a recent seizure of ships from Ukraine.
5. This is a public service announcement: open enrollment for Obamacare ends December 15th! So far, enrollments are down. This is due to a number of reasons. Some of it is due to Republicans’ success in tearing apart parts of the ACA (the scrapping of the individual mandate, providing alternative plans with little protection.) Another, more positive, factor is Medicaid expansion in some states, notably Virginia.
Yet another, far more nefarious, reason is the Trump administration’s efforts to make enrollment harder for citizens. One way they have done is buy slashing funding for outreach and advertising efforts to make people aware of the enrollment process, as well as personal assistance programs to guide them through it.
When an administration is purposely failing in its responsibilities to provide its citizens with information about a fundamental right such as healthcare, it falls upon the media to do so. That is why we are urging anyone who is eligible for Obamacare to head to healthcare.gov to learn more about the enrollment process and ensure they have coverage for 2019 and let your friends know too! If you do it purely to piss off Trump, we won’t tell ;)
