Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse





On Tuesday, President Trump tweeted that “the Republican Party will become the Party of Healthcare!” There’s just one big problem: Trump has no clue how the health-care system actually works.

During a July 2017 interview with the New York Times, Trump tried to https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/20/what-was-trump-talking-about-with-12-a-year-health-insurance/?utm_term=.47f2a5307f25 (explain policy) around preexisting conditions. “Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan.”

That bizarre attempted explanation left just about everyone scratching their head and asking an incredible question: Does the president of the United States know how health insurance works? And what planet do you have to be on to believe that a year of private health insurance costs roughly the same as three cups of coffee from Starbucks?

Trump aides have, in the past, said that the president didn’t know the difference between Medicare, the program for people over 65, and Medicaid, the program for low-income and disabled people. One Republican senator who met with Trump during the 2017 push for a GOP health-care bill came away with the impression that Trump “did not have a grasp of some basic elements of the Senate plan,” according to the Times. That is terrifying: Trump is again seeking to fundamentally alter a system that provides health care to tens of millions of people — without even a basic understanding of how the system functions.

It’s not just health care either. We have plenty of evidence that the president is ignorant about basic facts even in relation to his core priorities. He https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/13/many-fact-checks-later-president-trump-is-still-botching-nato-spending/?utm_term=.7babfc0c1468 (thinks) NATO members pledged to pay 2 percent of their gross domestic product into some sort of fund — like a centralized military piggy bank — when, in fact, they pledged to spend that proportion on domestic defense spending. On multiple occasions, Trump has made statements suggesting that he believed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be the same person as his predecessors Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung. He didn’t realize the effects of the government shutdown until he shut down the government. And Trump believes that his renegotiated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement has already become law when, in fact, it has not.

Given these obvious and consequential gaps of knowledge, why haven’t journalists asked Trump a point-blank question such as “What is Medicaid?” or “Can you name the countries that border Syria?” Those are not questions that are unfair for a president. An inability to answer them would be a worrying data point that voters deserve to know.
 


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved six secret authorizations by companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The Trump administration has quietly pursued a wider deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, which aims to build at least two nuclear power plants. Several countries including the United States, South Korea and Russia are in competition for that deal, and the winners are expected to be announced later this year by Saudi Arabia.

Perry’s approvals, known as Part 810 authorizations, allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of any deal but not ship equipment that would go into a plant, a source with knowledge of the agreements said on condition of anonymity. The approvals were first reported by the Daily Beast.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in the document that the companies had requested that the Trump administration keep the approvals secret.
 
TRIPPIN’ WITH BETSY
https://claytoonz.com/2019/03/28/trippin-with-betsy/

One thing that’s been constant with the Trump administration is cruelty. From attacking a dead senator, feuding with Gold Star families, insulting women, racist slurs, shithole countries, encouraging rally participants to beat up up protesters, ripping families apart, throwing babies in jail and forcing them to go to court alone, to defending Nazis, this administration has been nothing but vicious and vengeful. Trump defender, former adviser, and another guy who was unable to get a security clearance probably because he creeps everyone the freak out said, “The era of the pajama boy is over,” shortly after Trump went into office. And so began the era of the asshole.

This week, Trump has started another initiative to repeal Obamacare without a replacement, which can leave 20 million Americans without health insurance. Trump promises to make the Republican Party the “party of healthcare,” but first, they’d have to actually care. Republicans actually campaigned during 2018 on keep coverage for pre-existing conditions, but they’re liars. Their pre-existing condition is that they’re assholes.

While meeting with Republican senators on Capitol Hill to celebrate his “exoneration,” Trump reportedly complained about how much money is being spent on Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria. According to a few witnesses, he lied about how much has been spent, citing $91 billion when in fact, only about $11 billion has been spent so far. Trump doesn’t care about the island since it’s not a state and it’s mostly made up of brown people. Trump believes the recovery was completed when he ran out of paper towels to throw at the island’s citizens. De nada, Puerto Rico.

At least there’s one thing that receives bipartisan support and that is the Special Olympics. Nobody could go after special needs kids, right? What sort of heartless, troglodyte monster could ever…oh yeah. This is the Trump administration which is well stocked with heartless, troglodyte monsters like Betsy DeVos.

DeVos is an education secretary who hates education. Now, she’s trying to eliminate the $17.6 million the federal government appropriates to the Special Olympics. Guess what. This is her third try.

The Special Olympics mostly relies on private philanthropy and it will survive without the government’s support. But, why yank away $17.6 million which is a small part of any federal budget? As it’s been pointed out elsewhere, this amount is about the same cost of four Trump golf trips to Mar-a-Lago. Maybe, if saving this money is so important, Trump could keep one campaign promise and stop spending his weekends playing golf and wanking off country club members (that’s in the brochure). We’re all inspired by the Special Olympics. Nobody gets inspiration from watching Cheeto Fatass cheat at golf.

The Special Olympics program is offered in 6,500 schools nationwide, which is a small fraction of the roughly 100,000 public schools in this nation. This cut would most likely make the number of schools participating drop. I don’t think we can afford that. If anything, we should greatly increase the budget for the Special Olympics. Maybe we can remove Social Security protection from the Trump kids. Just make them all wear fake mustaches in public. I’d like to see that.

In all, DeVos is cutting $7 billion from education, including programs for the blind. Maybe she thinks because they’re blind they won’t see it. The secretary of education should be an advocate for education, not its destroyer.

DeVos struggled to defend the cuts while testifying Tuesday before the House Appropriations subcommittee. When Representative Mark Pocan asked whether DeVos knew how many children would be affected by cutting Special Olympics funding, DeVos said she did not know. Seriously. She doesn’t know and doesn’t care enough to be bothered to look it up. Just slash and burn, baby, yeah!

You would think that if you’re going to cut a program that affects, no, hurts special needs children that you would look into how many children you’re hurting. If nothing else, you would think she’d look it up before going to Congress to testify about it. Did DeVos forget that Republicans don’t control the House anymore? Facts are used now. Serious questions are asked. Cabinet members will no longer receive the Mar-a-Lago members treatment from Congress. For the record, that number is 272,000. That’s how many kids you’re hurting, Betsy.

DeVos defends herself from criticism by stating she donates her $200,000 a year salary and the Special Olympics is a recipient of this donation. That’s great and all but in case you’re a Republican, $200,000 is less than $17 million. I double checked. Also, DeVos is worth over $5 billion. $200 grand in charitable giving? Hell, she and her family spent over $8 million in donations to Republicans to buy the job she has now.

The Trump administration isn’t just working to make this nation meaner, but also dumber. It’s bad enough our nation has a president who’s an idiot, but his cabinet selections are fierce rivals in a contest of the most stupid. Have you seen Ben Carson or Rick Perry? If you want to make this nation dumber, installing someone like Betsy DeVos as secretary of education is a great star.

Between Trump and DeVos, I don’t know which one’s dumb and which one’s dumber, and now I’m having a hard time seeing which one’s more evil.

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