Donald Trump just received the best government-financed medical care in the country. He left the hospital while still infectious, still needs monitoring for abruptly deteriorating and possible side-effects of the medication he's on, has given no indication that he'll modify his longstanding flouting of rules for protecting himself and others, and without his doctors having …
Donald Trump would like the world to think that the Democrats are so committed to impeaching him that the important work of the country is not being touched. But there are elected officials, including officials in high places, who are staying focused on work. At least on the House side. Hundreds of bills have passed …
Continue reading It doesn’t have to be all about impeachment
The thought of impeaching Donald J. Trump is enticing, especially because my preferred approach, drawing and quartering, became illegal in the mid 19th century. Despite the allure of impeachment and despite its having been a pledge on which some new members ran for Congress in 2018, Nancy Pelosi was right to say she is against …
Continue reading On impeachment: should pragmatism Trump principle?
Newly elected Massachusetts 3rd district Congresswoman Lori Trahan has a warm smile and comes across as intelligent, charming, and poised. As a former chief of staff to Congressman Marty Meehan, Trahan also brings a dimension of Capitol Hill experience not typical of your usual breathless freshman Congressperson. She spoke yesterday for the first time to …
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is a lightning rod for antipathy to the Democratic Party. And she's a great fundraising opportunity for Republicans, who are using her possible restoration as Speaker to rally the GOP to keep the House, just as they used Ted Kennedy as a fundraising bogeyman years ago. But Republicans aren't the …
"I'm a capitalist to my bones," Senator Elizabeth Warren this week told a New England Council audience of business leaders, adding, "We have to make markets strong so everyone can do better." Addressing an arcane and often dry subject, she made an impassioned pitch that good bankruptcy laws are essential to well-functioning markets. She was …
Continue reading Elizabeth Warren: tribune for the downtrodden or capitalist to the bones?
President Trump hints he wants the death penalty for drug traffickers. (He's an unabashed admirer of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.) Is the President calling for the death penalty for doctors prescribing Oxycontin, Percocet, morphine, and other pain killers? After all, an estimated 80 percent of people using heroin first got hooked by misusing opioids. On combating …
Every day, as I either skirt around or clunk into and out of potholes, I’m reminded of our crumbling infrastructure and of the lame political promises of the Trump administration to fix our roads, bridges, airports, water and sewer pipes and more. Just before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland Florida, Donald …
Continue reading Trump infrastructure proposal another administration fraud
It's hard not to feel good about last Tuesday's election results. Winning beats losing. Trying to tout losing by special congressional elections by ever-narrower margins doesn't cut it. Never mind that Virginia trends blue anyway and voted Democratic the last three Presidential elections and four of the last five gubernatorial races. Tuesday's special election victory …
U.S. Sen. Angus King (Ind.) says the House-passed health care bill, "the most ill-conceived, damaging and downright cruel piece of legislation that I have ever seen," will cost Maine people their health insurance. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is concerned about its impact on older and rural Americans, of which Maine has a disproportionate share. …
Continue reading Who is Bruce Poliquin, and why we should care
Marjorie Arons-Barron 