(Weekend) News Burst: March 25, 2017 (Patreon)

Hey Guys and Gals,

I hope you’re doing well! I meant to get this post up yesterday (and intend on doing the Weekend News Blasts on Friday afternoons/evenings moving forward when/where possible), but my plane back to San Francisco from LA was slightly delayed, I got home, and I was just exhausted. Turns out an intensive dinner conversation with Dave Rubin followed by three hours on the air with Joe Rogan takes so much out of your mind that you want to sleep for a long time. And that’s what I did. I’d rather do these posts right than rush them, which is the entire motto of Colin’s Last Stand. Less is more, doing nothing is sometimes better than doing something poorly, and your time is important. Expect to hear all of that often in the months and years ahead.

Anyway, the cadence of the Weekend News Blasts will be a little different. I want to squeeze some otherwise interesting things in here, too -- science and space news, for instance -- as well as some long-form stuff to watch, in addition to your normal news items.

As always, keep the conversations raging in the comments (and elsewhere). I’ll see y’all back here on Monday; in the meantime, enjoy your weekend. -Colin

Trumpcare Unceremoniously Dies: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_AMERICA_REACTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-24-17-56-36

This is kinda what I saw happening. This bill made no real sense. Indeed, a hidden level of after-the-fact genius was shown with Obamacare and how it was forced through, even at great political cost. Trumpcare didn’t seem to solve any problems, and actually made them worse. Politically, it wasn’t prudent. The aforementioned genius comes into play when you realize the old rule about government programs: Once they’re rammed through, even if doing so costs you everything, it’s going to be next to impossible to get that thing off the books. This is also the experience of Social Security with FDR and Medicare with LBJ.

“Repeal and Replace” has become a vacant war chant. In reality, Obamacare is probably never going anywhere. Instead of repealing and replacing, they need to heavily amend. Open up interstate commerce, play around with the individual mandate, and do what they can to stem the death spiral’s tide. I don’t think Obamacare should have ever existed, but now that it does, smart politics says you fix it and not destroy it. Ideology has to be separated from reality, here, if the Republicans want to get other things that are so necessary and pertinent through, like tax reform, which is at the very, very top of my personal agenda.

To wit: Was it worth the Democrats losing a generation’s worth of support to get Obamacare through? It’s still hard to know for sure, but I’d say no. Still, it’s a proximity bomb that will be going off over and over again in Trump’s face. The not-so-small victory for the GOP here is that they absolutely dominate federal, state, and local governments because of Obamacare. Seems like a small price to pay to get the rest of their agenda through, but that’s just the overly-pragmatic side of me talking.

Washington Tames Trump: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-obamacare-future-236490

This pretty much feeds directly into the above story, so there’s not much more to say here, other than that, in fairness to Trump, this happens to every President. I have no idea why he was in such a rush for such a heavy lift when he could have easily focused on other, easier tasks first, and gotten his feet wet. Word is that Steve Bannon is the man behind the scenes this time around that read the tea leaves all wrong, and they might not be able to regain all of that expended political capital, especially with how wounded this now leaves Paul Ryan, their most important ally or adversary.

The outsider approach is novel in Washington, but this also feeds the old adage that Washington is unchangeable. What happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force? We may find out over and over again in the years to come.

Trump’s Failure Hurts Tax Reform: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d6b3f963391a4b9486bc847a7f286a55/failure-health-bill-hurts-prospects-tax-overhaul

This one really hurts, because this is where I’m totally behind Trump. The tax code is a fucking disaster. Trust me: This isn’t a talking point for me. I owned a business, and I had employees. Taxation at the federal level, with all of the red tape and hoops and bullshit, is anti-business and utterly out of control, to its very core. We easily have some of the most onerous taxation laws and rules in the modern world, as anyone who was in my position could attest.

Tax reform must happen, and I think could happen, and I’d even say it will happen. I know a lot of the focus now is where the $1T in tax cuts that Trumpcare would have rolled in will now go or come from, but that’s less important. What they need to focus on is cutting spending significantly, and then cutting taxes commensurate to spending cuts, with enough left over to service and pay down the debt. Everyone should be paying less, across the board, including businesses.

I think they have this one in the bag, even if they don’t have momentum. This is why they should have started here. When push comes to shove, there are few people in the United States who want to pay as much in taxes as they pay now. I sure as hell could use a break.

Joe Biden Regrets Not Running: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-biden-gop-health-care_us_58d58b51e4b03692bea610cc?wm8ega4hwlgmhd7vi&

This isn’t exactly a new story, but it reiterates an old line of thinking: Joe Biden would have easily beaten Clinton and Sanders in the primary, and probably steamrolled Trump. Given the options as they fell, I may have even voted for him, simply because I didn’t want to vote for Trump, and Johnson kinda fell off the cliff there near the end. I find him a reasonable and well-meaning man -- largely a moderate -- who I’d trust to do the right thing, even if I don’t agree with him politically. Principle and integrity, with a dash of decorum and decency, is what I look for in a president, right next to ideology. It’s why I couldn’t vote for Trump, even if I agree with a lot of his platform. He’s simply unfit for the office. Biden is the opposite.

If you guys want really interesting insight into Biden’s regret, watch one of the last episodes of The Circus’ first season, where they sit and talk to him for a while. You can see in his eyes and hear in his voice how much regret he had not running. But you have to feel for him as a man, and as a person. He’s experienced such devastating loss in his life. I dunno. I’ve kinda always liked Joe Biden, even if he is a gaffe machine.

Staunch Anarcho-Capitalist Goes to The Rubin Report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPoBGQ02JTI&ab_channel=TheRubinReport

I have to finish watching this video, but it’s a fascinating one. This dude, Bryan Caplan, is a Professor of Economics at a good university, and is extremely right-wing. I don’t believe in anarcho-capitalism -- privatizing the court system, as an example, is complete lunacy in my mind -- but this is why dialogue and listening to other ideas is important. Many of you might not agree with him (though some of you may!), but either way, it’s interesting to hear him speak about such interesting and out-there ideas with such confidence and conviction. Give it a watch/listen if/when you can. See where you fall.

Americans Like Science, Want to Pay For It: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/most-americans-science-and-are-willing-pay-it?tgt=nr

This isn’t a huge surprise to me, though I wonder, when it comes to brass tacks and when you figure out exactly what you’re paying for, if the answers would remain the same.

Still, even if I believe in small government and low spending and taxation -- and I do -- I think there is absolutely a place for science, technology, and all of the rest at the federal level. Going to the moon was something we did as a people, as a nation, as a society. There’s no shame in spending money on big projects that bring us pride, bind is together, and make us American.

Plus, this shit is relatively cheap and super fascinating! Perhaps we could, say, drop fewer bombs, occupy fewer countries, spy on fewer Americans, and maybe hire a couple of scientists to discover some cool shit, and bank the hundreds of billions in savings at the same time? Just some food for thought. =)

The Rogue Supermassive Black Hole: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravitational-waves-send-supermassive-black-hole-flying/

Yikes.