Monday, June 26, 2017

Trumpcare and North Korea: Today's News for June 26th

For all the stories about "Trumpcare", there is an important fact being lost: Trumpcare is undefined at this point. There is no bill that is ready for President Trump to sign, or that is even being voted upon yet. It would be just as useful to argue about the pros and cons of unicorn milk, because neither exists.

That said, there is a bill in the Senate being considered. What that bill is now, and what it will be when it finally comes to a vote, assuming it does, could be radically different. Even then, it will still have to go to the House for a vote. Or the House could decide they don't like the Senate bill, and then demand to have negotiations with the Senate to decide on yet another kind of compromise bill.

In other words, there is no way on Earth to decide what Trumpcare is or is not, at this point in time. But that doesn't stop the people on the Left from pulling their Chicken Little routine, or the people on the Right from defending something that doesn't exist.

Starting on the Left...

CNN:
All Ariana and Kevin Gonzalez want is birth control.

As far as health care needs go, that's pretty simple.

But the California couple says that if the Republican alternative to Obamacare becomes law, they'll be driving over the border to Mexico to get it.

It's not that the Gonzalezes don't have insurance; they have very good insurance through Ariana's job as a high school teacher.

The problem is that "Trumpcare," as Ariana calls it, would probably run her health clinic out of town. It's Planned Parenthood, which the Republican health care proposal defunds because it performs abortions.
The Gonzalezes live in the Imperial Valley, an agricultural area two hours east of San Diego, with a severe doctor shortage. On average in California, there's one primary care physician for every 1,341 people. In the Imperial Valley, there's one physician for every 4,170 people, according to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

For Ariana, that means it takes well over a month to get an appointment with her gynecologist and then four or five hours in the waiting room to see him, which means she has to take the day off work. At Planned Parenthood, she gets an appointment the next day and is in and out in about 30 minutes. 
It is amazing how Leftists can always overlook the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Hello McFly? Doctor shortage!

Even if we assume the defunding of Planned Parenthood is in the final version of Trumpcare, which is reasonable, that doesn't mean we should ignore the real problem here just so people don't get inconvenienced by their birth control choices. The real problem is an insufficient supply of primary care physicians (PCP). Is there a reason why there aren't enough PCP's in California, or even Imperial Valley specifically? Or is this a problem across the country? Could it be our medical schools aren't creating enough PCP's? These are bigger, more important questions that need to be asked, rather than knee-jerk funding a group that provides abortions.

Contrary to what CNN thinks, publicly funding a procedure that denies the right to life of an unborn human is reasonably controversial. It is one thing to allow women to get abortions, but it is quite another to publicly fund it. People have the right to be able to buy a Mercedes, but to demand public funding for it is laughable. Abortions are not a "good thing that every woman should have", which public funding presumes.

When health care gets fixed, it should fix real problems like insufficient PCP's, and not what idiots at CNN consider important.

Moving from Left to Right...

Fox News:
President Trump expressed optimism Sunday about GOP congressional leaders being close to overhauling the “dead carcass” of ObamaCare, but acknowledged more deal-making is needed to get enough votes, as Republican senators appeared to put their chamber’s legislation in further doubt.
There is a good reason why this wasn't a lede story at Fox News. "Republican president supports Republican health care legislation efforts" has all the newsworthiness of  "Sun rises in morning".

So what was Fox's lede?

Fox News:
North Korean officials, in their first remarks responding to the death of American student Otto Warmbier, are calling themselves the “biggest victim” in the tragedy and accusing the U.S of corroborating with South Korea in a “smear campaign.”

The North’s official state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a statement from an unidentified foreign ministry official in Pyongyang on Friday, defending their actions and insisting that although the country “had no reason at all to show mercy to such a criminal of the enemy state,” Warmbier was provided with “medical treatments and care with all sincerity on humanitarian basis until his return to the U.S.”

“The fact that Warmbier died suddenly in less than a week just after his return to the U.S., is a mystery to us as well," the statement continues, noting that his health indicators were “normal” at the time of release.

Warmbier died June 19, just days after being returned to the U.S. in a coma after having been detained in North Korea in early 2016 on allegations of stealing a propaganda poster. U.S. doctors noted that Warmbier had suffered extensive brain damage, but could not determine the cause. He was laid to rest on Thursday, but no autopsy was performed, due to his family’s wishes.

North Korea officials claimed the 22-year-old, who is believed to have been in a comatose state for more than a year, contracted botulism and fell into a coma after being given a sleeping bill. However, doctors have rejected such an explanation and his parents also have refuted those claims – instead vowing that their son was “brutalized and terrorized” while imprisoned.
First, the Warmbier family doesn't get to have a say in speculation over what happened. They chose not to have an autopsy done, which could have definitively said what happened, and left the North Koreans with no excuses. While the Warmbier family deserves sympathy for their loss, any sympathy for them should end there.

Mind you, that doesn't mean they were wrong. Considering the nature of the North Korean regime, even traveling there is risky. It is unknown whether Warmbier actually stole the propaganda poster, but that isn't necessarily relevant. Just going to North Korea was stupid enough. Going into the lion's den just because you can, doesn't mean you should. For this, Warmbier gets a Darwin Award:


Speaking of Warmbier:

USA Today:
People from all over the country are calling for a University of Delaware adjunct professor to be fired after she wrote on Facebook that Otto Warmbier "got exactly what he deserved" after being taken into custody by North Korea, falling into a coma and dying.

On her personal Facebook page, Kathy Dettwyler, an anthropology professor, wrote Tuesday that Warmbier was "typical of a mindset of a lot of the young, white, rich, clueless males who come into my classes."

"These are the same kids who cry about their grades because they didn't think they'd really have to read and study the material to get a good grade. ... His parents ultimately are to blame for his growing up thinking he could get away with whatever he wanted. Maybe in the US, where young, white, rich, clueless white males routinely get away with raping women. Not so much in North Korea. And of course, it's Ottos' parents who will pay the price for the rest of their lives."
Dettwyler is 100% correct. Sorry if this offends anyone, but the TRUTH is ugly sometimes. For this, Dettwyler is getting the first TRUTH award:
(hat tip to Fake Posters for the pic) 

In other political news...
 
New York Post;
A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections to the Democratic Party.

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS, after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal now engulfing the White House. 
What is the company hiding? Fusion GPS describes itself as a “research and strategic intelligence firm” founded by “three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters.” But congressional sources say it’s actually an opposition-research group for Democrats, and the founders, who are more political activists than journalists, have a pro-Hillary, anti-Trump agenda.

“These weren’t mercenaries or hired guns,” a congressional source familiar with the dossier probe said. “These guys had a vested personal and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary’s chances of winning the White House.”

Fusion GPS was on the payroll of an unidentified Democratic ally of Clinton when it hired a long-retired British spy to dig up dirt on Trump. In 2012, Democrats hired Fusion GPS to uncover dirt on GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And in 2015, Democrat ally Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to investigate pro-life activists protesting the abortion group.

More, federal records show a key co-founder and partner in the firm was a Hillary Clinton donor and supporter of her presidential campaign. 
While Donald Trump is not an innocent by any stretch of the imagination, it is also clear the Democrats have been working hard to sling mud at him, some of it made up by them. The problem here is that anything he does wrong gets hidden by the mud, which people begin to ignore because they know what the Democrats are doing. If the Democrats would just sit back and let Trump make his own mistakes, their lives would be so much easier.

Finally...

People:
A college professor who recently appeared on Fox News to defend a Black Lives Matter event in which only black people were invited has been fired.

It was announced Friday that Lisa Durden, a former adjunct professor at Essex County College in New Jersey, would be let go from her job following a heated argument on the June 6 episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight. While speaking about an “all-black Memorial Day celebration” hosted by a Black Lives Matter group, Durden, who is black, told the host “you white people are angry because you couldn’t use your white privilege card” to attend the event.

The former professor, who taught communications and pop culture classes as an adjunct according to the Newark Star-Ledger, also called America a “racist society.”
Clearly, Durden is representative of the racism inherent in American society. Mind you, this is not a denial of the existence of racism against blacks. But that racism doesn't justify turning the tables against all whites, many of whom are not racist. This is the inherent problem with racism: The generalities based on nothing more than silly qualities like skin color.

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