Hasta La Gadget!

In a speech this week given at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, President Trump said that his upcoming infrastructure plan will include expanded broadband internet access in rural areas. “I will be including a provision in our infras…

Back in his natural element, President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening gave a freewheeling, 70-minute speech at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that had all the signatures of his presidential campaign.

Appealing to his core supporters, Trump exaggerated his accomplishments, railed against journalists (the “fake news”) and Democratic lawmakers (the “obstructionists”), and derided as a “witch hunt” the ongoing investigations into whether his campaign colluded with Russian officials and whether he obstructed justice by trying to stem the probes. 

But most of all, it was a classic Trump speech because it contained a cornucopia of muddled and unsupported claims — some flat-out false, many questionable at best.

Trump even noted as much, saying: “I have to be a little careful, because they’ll say, ‘He lied!’” 

Trump falsely claimed that the Paris climate accord is a binding agreement.

The president blasted the United Nations’ landmark climate change agreement, praising his decision to join only two other nations that are not part of the deal, which creates non-binding targets for countries to reduce their carbon emissions.

“They all say it’s non-binding. Like hell it’s non-binding!” he said Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Trump himself said it was non-binding. 

“As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord,” he said during his June 1 Rose Garden speech, announcing the U.S. withdrawal.

He proposed a law to ban welfare for new immigrants ― which already exists.

He hailed his plan to end the estate tax, even though it would only help millionaires.

Trump received more applause when he suggested that his proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which conservatives call “the death tax,” would help ordinary Americans, citing Iowa farmers.

“We’re also working very, very hard to get rid of the death tax so that you can pass your farms onto your children and onto your grandchildren,” he said. “This way you can pass your motorcycle on, OK. Forget about the farm.”

“You should have a right to pass your farm onto your children and onto your grandchildren. You should have that right,” he added, to more applause. “Without having them going out and borrowing a fortune, not being able to make payments, losing it to the banks. It’s not fair. So, we’re working hard. Let’s see if we pull it off. We’re going to try very hard, I can tell you.”

But the estate tax only applies to millionaire heirs and heiresses. To qualify, the amount of the inheritance must be at least $5.49 million for individuals, or $11 million for couples. So most motorcyclists don’t have to fret about including their prized vehicle in their wills.

Trump also repeated one of his most frequent false claims: that the United States is “the highest tax nation in the world,” or at least “one of the highest taxed nations in the world.”

While there are different ways to compare countries’ tax rates, the U.S. is near the middle or bottom in all of them.

Trump bragged about passing 39 pieces of legislation through Congress.

The full quote from Wednesday’s speech:

We signed 39 pieces of legislation. That means going through Congress, folks. Because you know they tell you, these guys, the fake news. They tell you, it’s fake news, fake.

Not all of it. Some of it’s good. And some of the people are great, actually. But some are real bad and they’re really fake.

But if you listen to them, we didn’t pass any ― we passed 39 ― I’m not talking about executive orders, which we’ve signed a lot. I mean, we have really signed a lot. And we’ve gotten rid of a lot of really bad pieces that were signed by President Obama, believe me.

But, if you listen to the fake news, they say like, he didn’t pass any legislation. Everything’s ― that’s wrong. Thirty-nine pieces as of today, some of them very important.

Trump has in fact signed 39 pieces of legislation, according to the White House. But this is not as monumental as it seems, as most of those bills were not particularly impactful.

Some of his “very important” bills have rolled back regulations put on the books by Obama administration achievements. But the process did not involve much heavy-lifting in a GOP-dominated Congress. Republicans used the arcane Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to undo regulations within 60 legislative days of being finalized.

But Trump, who had promised that major health care and tax reform legislation would reach his desk in his first 100 days in office, assured his supporters to remain hopeful for big-league bills in the future.

“Now, my biggest pieces are yet to come. Hopefully taxes. Hopefully health care. Hopefully infrastructure,” he said.

Trump falsely claimed Wednesday’s event was not a campaign rally.

“We’re not even campaigning, and look at this crowd!” Trump exclaimed.

Wednesday’s event, advertised as a “Make America Great Again” rally, was clearly part of his 2020 re-election effort and was funded by campaign contributions, despite Trump being only five months into his first term.

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One airport in Italy is giving travelers the green light to carry pesto on board.

The Genoa airport’s “Il pesto è buono” — pesto is good — initiative waives the 100 milliliter restriction on liquids for visitors hoping to bring home a jar or two of the local delicacy.

In exchange for looking the other way on your international pesto smuggling operation, airport officials ask that travelers make a small donation to the Flying Angels, an organization that arranges travel abroad for sick children to receive treatment.

The airport’s verified Twitter account shared news of the program, complete with a basil-winged pesto jar ready for takeoff.

The idea was sparked thanks to the headache of confiscating hundreds of jars of pesto at airport security checks.

The BBC noted that passengers can take either one 500-gram jar or two 250-gram jars, and the pesto can only be Genovese.

Pesto is considered a local specialty of Genoa. The sauce is most typically made with olive oil, basil, cheese and pine nuts.

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Americans are finally getting a look the much-anticipated, heretofore-secret Senate Republican health care bill. As expected, the bill released Thursday amounts to a massive rollback of the federal commitment to promote health care access and would instead pay for hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

The Congressional Budget Office isn’t expected to weigh in on the Senate bill, dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act, until next week. That means there’s no official accounting of what the legislation would do to the health care system, how many people stand to lose their coverage and how much the federal government would spend on health care programs. And the 142-page bill consists of complex legislative language that will require days for other analysts to fully digest.

But the plain truth already is clear: This legislation would result in millions of people losing their health benefits and would shrink the safety net over time. Wealthy people and health care companies would see their taxes go down. And although some consumers may pay less for insurance, an untold number of people wouldn’t have access to the coverage and medical services they have under the existing health care law. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hasn’t locked down the 50 votes he needs to pass this bill. But GOP lawmakers have been promising Obamacare repeal for more than seven years, President Donald Trump is eager to fulfill his campaign promise to undo the law (if not his vow to replace it with ”something terrific”) and the House has already advanced its own bill.

McConnell wants the Senate to vote on this bill next week, capping off a remarkably secretive and rapid process that has outraged Senate Democrats.

Although Trump, McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other GOP leaders always refer to their plans as a mission to repeal and “replace” the Affordable Care Act, the legislation unveiled Thursday is actually a fundamental, drastic overhaul of the Medicaid program that serves children, people living near or below the poverty level, pregnant women, people with disabilities and elderly nursing home residents.

The bill would also eradicate central components of the Affordable Care Act, such as its expansion to Medicaid to cover more poor, working-age adults, its requirement that most people either obtain health coverage or face a tax penalty and its rule that large employers must offer health benefits to workers.

What The Bill Means For Medicaid

Like the House, the Senate seeks to go far beyond unraveling President Barack Obama’s landmark 2010 health care reform initiative by making draconian cuts to Medicaid.

The CBO determined that the House-passed American Health Care Act would mean 23 million fewer Americans having health coverage over the coming decade, while a small but very wealthy group of Americans would get a substantial tax cut.

Broadly speaking, the Senate bill looks a lot like the legislation that the House approved in May. It calls for rolling back the Medicaid expansion and fundamentally changing the program going forward ― specifically, by ending the federal government’s open-ended commitment to funding the program at whatever levels it takes to cover everybody who becomes eligible. Instead, states would receive a lump sum per year or a lump sum per enrollee.

Projections have shown that the federal government would spend far less on Medicaid spending over time. This would almost certainly force states ― which jointly fund and operate Medicaid ― to make deep cuts to the program by taking actions like eliminating coverage and benefits and reducing already-low fees to doctors and other medical providers.

Republicans have said their reforms would protect the most vulnerable people in Medicaid, such as the elderly and disabled, because the formula for the new spending caps assume greater spending on these people. But experts who have analyzed the proposals have said states would still have a relatively free hand on how to spend that money once they get it from Washington. Because the elderly and disabled account for half of program spending, coverage for them would be ripe targets for cuts.

The CBO projected 14 million fewer people would receive Medicaid over the next 10 years under the House bill, and the Senate’s deeper cuts to the program could mean an even higher number losing this coverage.

What The Bill Means For Private Insurance

The Senate bill would also rejigger the Affordable Care Act’s reforms of the private insurance market for people who buy coverage on their own.

People would still be eligible for financial assistance, in order to help offset the costs of premiums. But fewer middle-income people would get assistance. The assistance that people get would also be smaller, which means people would have to pay more to get the same kind of coverage they have now — or put up with policies that leave them exposed to higher out-of-pocket costs.

This is because the Senate bill redefines the “benchmark” plan that the federal government would use as its basis for calculating financial assistance. Instead of a plan that covers 70 percent of the average person’s medical expenses, the Senate bill would reduce that level to 58 percent of the average person’s medical expenses. Larry Levitt, an analyst with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, likened that change to a 15 percent, across-the-board reduction in subsidies for people buying coverage on their own.

The Senate bill makes a few other changes to the funding formula. As a result, some younger people would end up paying less for their coverage than they do today. But older consumers would just as surely pay more. In addition, low-income consumers would also face substantially higher copayments and deductibles, because the Senate bill would eliminate special subsidies that presently reduce out-of-pocket costs for people with incomes below 250 percent of the poverty line, or about $30,000 per year for an individual 

Health insurance companies would be permitted to sell skimpier policies that cover a smaller share of patients’ medical bills, which likely would mean even higher deductibles and other costs than the plans available under the Affordable Care Act. They would also have more leeway to vary premiums by age. Under current law, insurers can only charge older consumers three times as much.

The Senate bill, like the House bill, would effectively eliminate the controversial individual mandate, under which people who decline to get health insurance pay a tax penalty. In addition, states would have the ability to waive some regulations on insurance, including requirements that all plans cover an “essential” set of benefits. 

The bill retains the Affordable Care Act’s rule that insurers can’t reject applicants because of pre-existing conditions or charge them more than healthier people, but that promise could prove empty under the Senate bill.

Because states could revoke the current set of guaranteed benefits ― which includes things like hospitalizations, prescription drugs and maternity care ― insurers would be able to design policies that would leave out important treatments. For example, insurers couldn’t refuse to cover a patient with HIV/AIDS, diabetes or a history of cancer, but they could offer plans that don’t cover the treatments for those things.

At the same time, the Senate bill would eventually eliminate most of the Affordable Care Act’s taxes that fall on health care companies ― including health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers ― and wealthy individuals.

The Senate bill sheds some of the harshest aspects of the House measure, such as letting states entirely cast aside the guarantee of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and would offer relatively more generous tax credits for private insurance. But the appropriate comparison is to what currently exists, not the House bill, and the Senate legislation offers far less help than that.

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Capitol Police forcibly removed protesters gathered outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on Thursday, with at least one photo showing drops of blood on the hallway floor.

The crowd was protesting the health care bill that Senate Republicans had written in secret at McConnell’s direction. Judging by photos and video from reporters, the senator’s staffers didn’t appreciate their presence.

A draft of the health care bill, released this morning, shows Republicans intend to dramatically cut back on Medicaid and other safety nets, then funnel that money to the richest Americans.

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