monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

You evidently have a good deal more faith in the effectiveness of government programs, the power seekers who design them and the bureaucrats who administer them than do I.

Corn based ethanol has raised the price of both gasoline and food products; made no contribution to the reduction of net carbon emissions; and created a producer lobby that stoutly resists any reduction in the subsidy.

Government subsidized student loans have yielded rapidly increasing tuition costs(...)

Corn based ethanol is just another example of a boondoggle, in this case a bipartisan one specifically crafted to appeal to a reliable block of farm state voters. A rational energy policy would subject legislation to a cost/benefit analysis and consider choices using a scientific rather than a political calculus.

I think you are helping to make george's point.

White House Addresses Trump’s Unorthodox Call to Preet Bharara



WASHINGTON — The White House offered an explanation on Sunday for a mysterious phone call that President Trump placed to Preet Bharara a day before abruptly dismissing him and 45 other United States attorneys, saying the president was merely trying to extend his good wishes.

But Mr. Bharara indicated on Sunday evening in a statement to The New York Times that he was skeptical of the White House account, although he did not offer an alternative explanation for the president’s call.

The call, placed on Thursday to the office of Mr. Bharara, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, by a personal assistant to the president, concerned Mr. Bharara because it seemed to be at odds with ethics protocols restricting communications between the White House and prosecutors. Mr. Bharara declined to return the call. But the White House said there was nothing untoward about it.

“The president reached out to Preet Bharara on Thursday to thank him for his service and to wish him good luck,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said in an email.

That account left many questions about the firing of Mr. Bharara, who was told by Mr. Trump during the transition period that he would be retained. Some Democrats accused Mr. Trump on Sunday of seeking to deter aggressive federal investigations on Wall Street and elsewhere.

Despite being asked repeatedly on Saturday about the nature of the call, the White House was silent until Sunday. Ms. Sanders declined to answer other questions, such as why Mr. Trump had changed his mind on Mr. Bharara, whether the president had made similar calls to other United States attorneys before demanding their resignations, and why the president did not try to convey his good wishes through an aide or by some other means.

In the call on Thursday, a woman who said she was from the president’s office left a voice mail message asking Mr. Bharara to call back, according to a person to whom Mr. Bharara described the call. The person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter, spoke on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Bharara conferred with his deputy about whether it would be appropriate to return the call, the person said.

Mr. Bharara called the chief of staff to the attorney general, Joseph H. Hunt. “Mr. Hunt was direct and clear in our conversation that, given written White House contacts policy, my position as a sitting U.S. attorney, and my office’s jurisdiction, it would be improper for me to speak directly to the sitting president without knowing the subject matter,” Mr. Bharara said in his statement.

“Some might find that inconsistent with what is for the first time, three days later being described as a well-wishes call,” he added.

I think that is their point, to destroy it, quickly; so they can throw it away while blaming the destruction on the affordable act itself. That way when they have to face voters in re-elections, they have a fall guy (Obama's health care) and get to go back to dog eat dog world of no help at all with health insurance.

I think you are helping to make George's point.

[Kellyanne Conway] says the “surveillance” may be broader than even Trump suggested.

In a wide-ranging interview Sunday at her home in Alpine, where she lives with her husband — a possible nominee for U.S. solicitor general — and their four children, Conway, who managed Trump’s presidential campaign before taking the job as one of the president's closest advisers, suggested that the alleged monitoring of activities at Trump’s campaign headquarters at Trump Tower in Manhattan may have involved far more than wiretapping.

“What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other,” Conway said as the Trump presidency marked its 50th day in office during the weekend. “You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways.”
Conway went on to say that the monitoring could be done with “microwaves that turn into cameras,” adding: “We know this is a fact of modern life.”

Conway did not offer any evidence to back up her claim

In President Donald Trump’s word, according to CNN, Republicans would face a “bloodbath,” [if the healthcare bill doesn't go through] a description Ryan agreed with Sunday.

“I do believe that if we don't keep our word to the people who sent us here, yeah,” he said, there will be a bloodbath in 2018 for Republicans.

Ryan added: "The most important thing for a person like myself who runs for office and tells the people we're asking to hire us, 'This is what I'll do if I get elected.' And then if you don't do that, you're breaking your word."

"We're going to have insurance for everybody" 1/15/17

"Everybody's got to bee covered... I am going to take care of everybody" 9/27/15

"we're gonna come up with a new plan that's going to be better health care for more people at a lesser cost." 1/25/17

"The new plan is good. It's going to be inexpensive. It's going to be much better for the people at the bottom, people that don't have any money." 2/18/16

"You're going to end up with great healthcare for a fractions of the price. And that's going to take place immediately" 2/19/16