Better Late Than Never -- June 22, 2017 -- The Political Page, T+153

New Democratic theme song (hat tip to a reader) in light of recent elections, particularly the Georgia election, the most expensive US House election in history, with huge attempt by California to interfere with the outcome, and yet the GOP won with an incredibly weak, twice-loser nominee:

Georgia's Democratic Leadership

Better late than never. My editor tells me I was remiss not getting this posted yesterday:

In The Summertime, Mungo Jerry
ObamaCare: watching CNBC this morning, one gets the feeling that some people think something is happening with ObamaCare. Unless I'm missing something, ObamaCare has not been repealed, replaced, or even re-formed. I'm starting to get the feeling that US senators have as much interest in addressing national health care (other than giving interviews) as Illinois pols have in submitting a state budget. By the way, I bet there is huge correlation between full employment which we now have and health insurer fleeing the individual insurers' market. The only way 99% of Americans can afford health insurance these days is through their employer. But on an individual basis, impossible to find or afford health care. Hey, maybe that's not bad. Maybe we've found a way to move folks back into the workplace.

ObamaCare: worth re-posting -- from the Washington, DC, ObamaCare website exchange --

Great article on the DC ObamaCare exchange --  

But it’s not all bad. What I like is that I can access the D.C. exchange in twenty different languages, including Apache, Navajo, and Irish. Which is great because I see so many Irish here who have a heck of a time assimilating, what with the fact that they only speak Irish and not the King's English. (You can also receive notices in American Sign Language—l'd make a joke here but I might offend the deaf. But I guess since they can't read and need American Sign Language I might as well let one rip. But I'll refrain nevertheless.)

Maybe we should blame the federal government for this, but last time I looked (and at one point it was my job to do so) a government entity was only responsible for providing assistance in a foreign language if there was a significant number of people who spoke that language and had no facility with English. Of course, we can all quibble about what "significant" means in this context, but does anyone believe that it is at all conceivable that there are even ten people in the District who speak only Apache and need to buy their own health insurance? I would bet my entire net wealth that the number is, in fact, lower than that, if not zero. Ditto for Navajo and Irish. If there's anyone in D.C. shopping for health insurance who speaks only German or French and no English I'd be shocked as well. 

But while the exchange doesn't work, at least we can get our messages telling us our application has been "disposed of" in the language of our choice, although to be honest I do not know at all what this message means and English is my mother tongue. Does it mean that I have insurance? I doubt that since I never got to select a plan. Or that I've been approved to buy a plan? if so why won't it let me do so.

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Twitter

Due to the 140-character limit, President Trump had to use two tweets for the following:

"With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea...whether there are "tapes" or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings." -- @realDonaldTrump. 

After the tweet was tweeted, CNBC had an on-air interview with its White House reporter who then spent an interminable amount of time trying to explain what that meant. Seriously. And that's the problem: 

• reporters seem incredibly dense; and, 
• reporters are bending over backwards to spin a presidential tweet

For the record, I understood exactly what Trump was saying. But again, I benefit from white privilege.