Trump’s final push to undermine health care for tens of millions

In his 80-minute speech last night at the rally in support of Luther Strange in the Alabama US senate primary race, Donald Trump railed at those senators who were balking at supporting the Graham-Cassidy bill, the latest Republican push in their attempt to undermine health care for many Americans. There was one item that stuck out at me, though, and that was when he said:
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The North Koreans have Trump sized up

In the war of words between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, we have to declare that Kim (or at least his translator) is the clear winner when it comes to trading insults. While Trump has called Kim ‘rocket man’ and a ‘madman’, the first sounds childish and the second is unoriginal. Kim, on the other hand, called Trump a ‘dotard’ and that had people scrambling for their dictionaries. Liz Posner says that the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile”, meaning someone in his ‘dotage’ I guess.
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The health care debate heats up

There will be a town hall style debate on the new health care bill on Monday at 9:00pm on CNN. It will feature Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy on one side and Bernie Sanders and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar on the other. It should be a good debate since I doubt that any senator has studied the issue of health care more than Sanders. But unfortunately I don’t get cable TV and will have to read about it later.
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Strange doings in Alabama

There are weird goings on in the state of Alabama. When Jeff Sessions was picked by Donald Trump to be attorney general, his senate seat fell vacant. Governor Robert Bentley picked the state attorney general Luther Strange (whom Trump keeps referring to as ‘big Luther Strange’) to replace him with a special election to be held along with the 2018 elections in November. But then Bentley had to resign in April because of a tawdry sex scandal (of course) and his successor Kay Ivey brought the special election forward to December 12 of this year, with the primary to be held on August 15 and in the event that no candidate got mote than 50% of the vote, a run-off to be held next Tuesday on September 26.
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Bernie Sanders lets loose

In an interview with The Intercept, Bernie Sanders delivers some much needed perspective into the US foreign policy debates.

“I consider [Saudi Arabia] to be an undemocratic country that has supported terrorism around the world, it has funded terrorism. … They are not an ally of the United States.”

The Vermont senator accused the “incredibly anti-democratic” Saudis of “continuing to fund madrasas” and spreading “an extremely radical Wahhabi doctrine in many countries around the world.”
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Not even the health industry likes the Graham-Cassidy bill

It turns out that even the major players in the health industry don’t like the Graham-Cassidy bill.

Backers of the GOP Graham-Cassidy health-care bill — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., plus President Trump via Twitter — maintain it doesn’t touch protections for those with pre-existing conditions. And Cassidy also says the legislation will cover MORE people than current law does.
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Trump’s speech to the UN was a perfect example of projection

When US presidents get on their high horse at places like the United Nations and start moralizing and criticizing whichever nation happens to be the current enemy, it provides perfect examples of ‘psychological projection‘, the practice where people “defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.”
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