Beyond the talking points @2017

* I hope that I can continue "Beyond the Talking Points" as a frequent themed-post looking beyond the media's analysis and politicians' spin of important cultural issues. These posts won't be fashioned as pre-cursors to white papers or the like, but as succinct thought-provokers.



1. RECENT WHITE HOUSE AND GOP CITATIONS OF SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING MAKES FOR $20b BORDER WALL IRRESPONSIBLE
Trump White House administration and loyal GOP'ers have recently published statements that "illegal border crossings" are down well over 60% since January 20th (the day that Trump took office). They present this statistic in support of Trump's promise to build a $20B+ "border wall", when it is more likely to present the strongest argument against it: $20Billion now seems like a fiscally irresponsible policy to achieve the remaining goals intended by the border wall, and perhaps is even just a "gratuitous" real estate deal by a bloviating real estate mogul.

2. GOP LEADERS FACILITATED COMEY FIRING TO DELAY CURRENT WHITE HOUSE ADMINSTRATION COLLAPSE
Trump's firing of FBI director Comey may have caught the DNC, media, and public (and Comey) by surprise, but was more likely planned with the assistance of certain GOP leadership. This act will, in fact, delay the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 elections and the investigation into Trump campaign's ties to Russian intermediaries. And, where either investigation is likely to have progressed to critical knowledge/acquisition of evidence points, a party in control of Washington D.C. is likely to strategize delays to the implosion that are long enough to allow them to achieve some partisan advantage. The GOP certainly has a reputation for this kind of selfish myopic strategizing, and would certainly desire to at least like to retain a majority through the next election cycle.

3. WHEN TRUMP SAYS THE WHITE HOUSE IS THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE, HE DOESN'T MEAN THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR HIM.

He means the people who paid for him.

4 MEDIA, PUNDITS, AND POLITICIANS HAVE ALL FORGOTTEN THAT REPUBLICANS FUNDAMENTAL POSITION IS AGAINST ANY TYPE OF HEALTH CARE PROGRAM, MAKING ANY GOP "REPLACE" EFFORTS A COMPLETE-YET UNSPOKEN, FLIP FLOP
Remember when Obama and the Dems were trying to get the ACA passed? Remember those Republicans that argued to vote "no" because there really won't be an opportunity to make changes once the American public gets used to having the ACA in the version that was passed? Remember that the GOP, rather than crossing the aisle and telling the American people that it, too, wanted all citizens to have access to affordable health care, adopted a partisan divisive demonizing approach in order to ensure the loyalty of its conservative voters?  What the media and pundits are not analyzing is that the current efforts by the GOP and WH to repeal and replace the ACA requires a fundamental policy position that is the exact the same position for which the GOP demonized the Dems and the Obama WH when the latter struggled to pass the ACA. Why aren't the Dems harping on that, especially to leverage that criticism into bi-partisan-ism on the issue of access to health care FOR ALL.

On that last note, I want to point out again, as I did during the ACA fight, that the real issue is that the ACA is an insurance bill. Its not a health care bill. In that fact, there was/is no reason to think that any bill that is really an insurance bill will ever be sufficient or successful as a health care bill.

@ 2017