Don's Tuesday Column

           THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   10/17/2017

           Trump’s mantle: erasing Obama-ism

It doesn’t take long to see how any given segment of nightly network news misuses its resources and airtime to engage in partisan ideological propaganda and disinformation operations slanted against President Trump. Refuting their biased bilge would take considerably more time and space than the original pieces themselves but some impressions jump out. Their message, in both the particulars and general tone, is one of lopsided opinion, bordering on advocacy, undifferentiated from the talking points and messaging of the Democrats’ spin operations like Media Matters, leftist think tanks and DNC twitter/email blurbs.

Two major initiatives—Trump’s unraveling of unconstitutional Obamacare funding schemes and the unconstitutional non-treaty with Iran—were both padded with analysis from critics, Democrat talking points and hysterical predictions of catastrophe. The broadcast coverage relegated arguments, in support of Trump’s overdue corrections to leftist overreach by Democrats and Obama, to snippets from Republicans or, in one network piece on the Iran nuclear “deal,” one single comment from Israeli’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lost to any consumers of the media’s slanted coverage would be, for instance, the simple, irrefutable facts surrounding Obamacare’s funding manipulation of the budget process specified in the Constitution, wherein no money can be spent on or dedicated to federal projects without authorization by Congress. The payments to insurance companies—not, as they would have you believe, to poor, resource-less purchasers of life-sustaining health insurance policies—are an unprecedented subsidy of a previously demonized but federally regulated industry.

Health insurance companies were tasked with and induced, by the promise of said subsidies, into acting as the administrators for the government takeover of our nation’s health care system. The scheme involved making an end run around the single major impediment to socialized health care: the health insurance companies that proved formidable opponents to the last attempt to take over health care, Hillary Clinton’s health care fiasco in the 1990s as first lady and erstwhile health care guru.

This time Obama/Pelosi/Reid et al were assured of insurance industry complicity, in their power grab of America’s remaining free market health insurance, by mandating the purchase of insurance by all citizens—a hitherto unthinkable intrusion into our economic system. The mandated insurance cost, whose expense would be vastly inflated by requiring one-size-fits-all coverage requirements concocted by policy wonks (not consumers), was to be subsidized from general tax revenues.

As the courts decided, there was no explicit permission within the Affordable Care Act for general funds to be given to insurance companies, making the billions of dollars of subsidies illegal. Obamacare’s Gordian Knot of mandates effectively removed the option for insurance companies to formulate policies tailored for Americans’ individual and family needs. Trump’s additional executive decisions will also allow such flexibility to return to the market.

This is what truly rankles the progressive left: 1) That Americans would engage in the free market health care system by acquiring insurance and heath care arrangements like health savings accounts, medical concierge contracts, and major medical policies that allow the payment of routine health care out-of-pocket. 2) That we might form associations (as in “freedom of…”) with other citizens, other businesses and other like-minded groups. Insurance companies are capable, absent federal micromanagement, of assessing risks and paying for covered expenses that would range from maintenance and out-patient care to life-threatening events and diseases.

The New York Post’s F.H. Buckley explains: “Obama kept the Affordable Care Act looking healthy via an extra-constitutional grant of $1 trillion to health-insurance companies. That required congressional approval, and Obama’s decision to bypass Congress was held unconstitutional by a federal court. President Trump’s decision Thursday to halt the bailout makes the litigation moot and represents a return to constitutional government.

“The same can be said of Trump’s Friday decision to throw the Iran deal back to Congress, by refusing to certify that Iran is in compliance with the deal. Recall that this was a treaty that should never have been adopted without two-thirds approval in the Senate, as required by the Constitution. That didn’t happen — because a compliant Republican Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which provided that the president certify to Congress every 90 days that the suspension of sanctions against the regime is ‘appropriate and proportionate’ with respect to its illicit nuclear program.

“And that’s what Trump didn’t do. He didn’t tear up the treaty, or even decertify anything. Rather, he failed to certify, and simply told the truth. Iran isn’t permitting the nuclear inspections the treaty contemplates, and the Revolutionary Guard, which controls much of the government, is a terrorist organization. The regime is building missiles that threaten us and our allies, and its infractions don’t justify our continued suspension of sanctions.”

Following in President Reagan’s footsteps, President Trump rightly decided to withdraw America from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in protest of its blatant, long-standing anti-Israel bias, corruption and Palestinian influence.

I will take Mr. Minch’s admission of “clumsy” and “easily misunderstood” writing as a retraction of erroneous statements. I’ll continue refuting Ken Burns’ “Vietnam War” next week.