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The Pope, in an obvious veiled swipe at Donald J. Trump warned that populism is evil.
INDEPENDENT – Pope Francis has warned in an interview with a German newspaper of the dangers of rising populism in western democracies.
The pope told Die Zeit on Thursday “populism is evil and ends badly as the past century showed.”
On this find ourselves in complete agreement with the Pope.
On this Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is just another libertarian dunderhead. Repeal without a replacement first makes about as much sense as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Not that the republican establishment’s replacement plan is a good one mind you.
Rand Paul is not backing down.
Hours after President Donald Trump exhorted the Kentucky senator to get behind his Obamacare replacement plan, Paul reiterated his opposition in an interview with POLITICO.
“Republicans across the country are unified on repeal, not on replace,” Paul said Wednesday morning, after Trump singled him out in a tweet. The libertarian-leaning lawmaker insisted that Republicans should vote on stand-alone legislation to repeal the Democratic health care law and figure out later what would replace it. He said he told the president as much in a telephone conversation Monday.
“The compromise that I … have represented to him is to separate the bill into two separate bills,” Paul said.
Trump’s targeting of Paul was a gift for Republican leaders trying to shepherd their health care legislation through Congress… (MORE HERE)
POLITICO – Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has been offered the job of U.S. ambassador to Russia and is in the process of submitting paperwork to accept the position, two administration sources have confirmed.
Huntsman, who served as ambassador to Singapore under President George H.W. Bush and then to China under President Barack Obama, was an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump during last year’s campaign.
He was officially offered the Russia post earlier this week.
Huntsman did not respond to a POLITICO request for comment. Sources say he plans to accept the job, one of the most sensitive and high profile ambassadorships, especially given the FBI and congressional investigations into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent efforts to tip last year’s election in his favor and contacts between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.
Should Huntsman accept and be confirmed as ambassador, it could come as a relief to Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, 82, who is up for reelection next year. Huntsman has been seen as a potential challenger.
Last October, Huntsman—who ran for president as a Republican in 2012—called on Trump to withdraw after a 2005 Access Hollywood video surfaced in which he bragged about his ability to sexually assault beautiful women.
But Huntsman has since warmed to the president and the two have maintained a cordial relationship, according to a source with knowledge of their recent conversations.
Mar 07 2017
WASHINGTON – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement Tuesday in response to the release of the American Health Care Act:
“This is not the Obamacare repeal bill we’ve been waiting for. It is a missed opportunity and a step in the wrong direction,” Sen. Lee said.
“We promised the American people we would drain the swamp and end business as usual in Washington. This bill does not do that. We don’t know how many people would use this new tax credit, we don’t know how much it will cost, and we don’t know if this bill will make health care more affordable for Americans.”
“This is exactly the type of back-room dealing and rushed process that we criticized Democrats for and it is not what we promised the American people.”
“Let’s fulfill our Obamacare repeal promise immediately and then take our time and do reform right. Let’s pass the 2015 repeal bill that Republicans in both houses of Congress voted for and sent to the White House just 15 months ago. Once Obamacare has been properly sent to the dustbin of history then we can begin a deliberative, open, and honest process to reform our nation’s health care system.”
Contradicting repeated denials from Donald Trump and his team, Newsmax reported on May 14, 2016 that Trump met Russian Ambassador Kislyak at a VIP reception in Washington on April 27.
And while meeting the Russian ambassador is fine, why lie about it?
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal of May 13, 2016 confirms Trump met with Kislyak. The Journal goes even farther and says Trump “warmly” greeted the Russian ambassador:
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Trump and his aides have repeatedly denied that anyone on Trump’s team, including Trump himself, had any contacts with Russian officials during the presidential campaign. Yet we continue to find out, drip by drip, that those denials were wrong.
But according to Newsmax, in an article titled “Putin ‘Pleased’ With Trump,” Kislyak didn’t simply attend Trump’s big foreign policy speech, the Russian ambassador also attended a VIP reception that day at which he met Trump.
And then there’s this:
On Tuesday, Exxon announced that it will spend $20 billion over the course of a decade at 11 proposed and existing refining and chemical manufacturing sites. In the process, the company anticipates adding more than 45,000 jobs.
President Trump wasted no time in taking credit, even releasing a statement the same hour that copied many of Exxon’s own sentences and an entire paragraph word for word.
“President Trump made a promise to bring back jobs to America,” the White House statement said. “The spirit of optimism sweeping the country is already boosting job growth, and it is only the beginning.”
In a Facebook video, Trump went further to take credit for the announcement. “This is something that was done to a large extent because of our policies and the policies of this new administration,” he said. “I said we’re bringing back jobs, this is one big example of that.”
But Exxon itself said in its release that this isn’t really new. The investments it announced on Tuesday were begun in 2013 and will continue through at least 2022, beginning before and extending past Trump’s current term in office. Many of them were announced and even in process before the election: one in 2012, two in 2014, and one last year; the most recent one in Corpus Christi, TX, was announced in July.
At least one of them, a lubricant plant in Baton Rouge, LA, is already completed.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Donald J. Trump is a pathological liar. A liar that 43% of our country believe in. What kind of disaster will it take before these people realize the truth?