Winter Patriot Community Blog

by Scott Creighton

Israel has been illegally attacking the Syrian Arab Army on behalf of the “ISIS” destabilization team for some time now.

“Last month, it was reported that Israeli military aircraft conducted an airstrike on the Syrian government forces stationed in the western countryside of Damascus near the Lebanese border.

Prior to that, Israel bombed a military airport near Damacus. A Syrian official told Sputnik that it was done “to encourage and support terrorists”. Damascus vowed repercussions.” Sputnik

Israel is on record as saying they prefer “ISIS” to Assad. Their military leaders have stated they fear if “ISIS” is defeated then the superpowers will leave and they will be left in a tough situation and so they should do what they can to see that “doesn’t happen”

We also have reports that Israel has been providing military and medical assistance directly to the “moderates” and “ISIS” alike. This is an undeniable fact, one that some media agencies have done their best to spin.

With President Trump reportedly readying to send another 1,000 U.S. troops into Syria illegally, Israel took the opportunity to target and attack military positions deep inside Syria, which, if any other country did it, would be considered an act of war.

“The General Command of the Army and the Armed Forced announced on Friday that the Syrian air defense downed one of four Israeli warplanes that violated the Syrian airspace and targeted a military site in the eastern countryside of Homs.

According to a statement by the Command, the four Israeli aircrafts violated the Syrian airspace in al-Breij area through the Lebanese territories at 2:40 am.

The Israeli warplanes targeted a military site near Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs, said the Army’s Command, confirming that the Syria air defense forces confronted the enemy’s aircrafts and shot down one of them inside the occupied territories, hit another and forced the other two to withdraw.” SANA Mar. 17th

This time the Israelis are admitting they attacked targets in this area. They don’t usually admit it when they illegally invade and attack another country. That might be because there is an Israeli plane lying on the ground over there which will eventually be photographed by the Syrians. Of course, the Israelis are trying their best to spin it to their advantage. In other words, they’re lying already and “fake news” outlet CNN is more than willing to help them do it.

“The Israeli military has said it struck several targets inside Syria early Friday morning, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement said. Several anti-aircraft missiles were fired at the Israeli jets, the IDF said, including one missile that was shot down by an “aerial defense system.”…

Israel has reportedly struck Syria multiple times in the past, often targeting weapons shipments headed for Hezbollah. The IDF rarely acknowledges these strikes, however, making Friday’s statement very unusual.” CNN Mar. 17

If he takes the bait, this event will provide President Trump and his pack of wild Zionist advisers all the justification they need to put boots on the ground in Syria and potentially directly attack the Syrian army directly. No more need for Obama’s irregular warfare proxy army of “moderate” terrorists and “KurdISIS” mercenaries.

by Scott Creighton

They don’t call it “left cover” for nothing, do they?

These days, like the Brownshirts of days gone by, fake “alternative” gurus like Jeff Rense and Di$info Jone$ are squawking about attacking and locking up anti-Trump protesters. High on their Tangy Tangerine enemas and homosexually fortified juice boxes, these one-time pretend defenders of our constitutional rights screech endlessly about bashing the dirty commie lefty hipsters who dare oppose the wishes of King Donald the Rich.

Is it any surprise that they seem blissfully ignorant of the worrisome fact that their glorious neoliberal leader is in the process of having DHS categorize protesters as “domestic terrorists”?

“The United States government considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist until 2008. Mandela was a designated terrorist 18 years after he was released from prison, 15 years after he won the Nobel peace prize, and 14 years after he was elected president of South Africa…

Earlier this week, we learned that people in Portland organizing against police killings of Black men, white nationalist politicians, and the countless systems of racism throughout our local, state, and federal governments are now considered “domestic terrorists” by Department of Homeland Security. Why? Because the Portland Police Bureau labeled the November 10, 2016 protest a “riot.” ” ACLU March 2017

Too say this is a troubling development doesn’t go nearly far enough but remember, President Trump is only capable of doing this because of President Peace Prize and the magic of left cover.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, President Obama signed the NDAA 2012 into law complete with a little section that did away with Habeas Corpus and opened up the entire world as the battle ground between the forces of good (the CIA) and the forces of evil (anyone opposed to our “national interests” liquidating their nation and ruining their lives for “the greater good”)

The key part of that little quiet piece of legislation was the part that said the entire world was the battle field because that meant the United States as well.

For the record, that is also the provision that allowed the CIA to propagandize citizens of the United States and to operate (do their dirty little deeds) on U.S. soil.

Some journos got worried and took the thing to court where they won easily… but President Strike a Pose did away with that little speed-bump on his way to fascism.

While many “truth speaking” pundits on Youtube are talking about this stuff today, few gave a shit back then. But I did.

• NY judge blocks law permitting indefinite detention
• Court Finds Homeland Battlefield Act of NDAA to be Unconstitutional
• Section 1034 of HR 1540 – The 2012 NDAA Chairman’s Mark: Perpetual War Authorization, AnyWhere, Any Time Against Any Enemy Perceived or Real

Endless and boundless war unconstrained by constitutional protections didn’t seem like a good idea to me at the time and it seems like even less of a good idea now that a man with such little self confidence and a massive ego sits on his tiny little hands behind the desk in the Oval Office waiting for someone to tell him what he thinks.

King Donald the Rich, born with a platinum card up his ass, who just submitted a proposed budget with a 14% cut in Public Education so his billionaire Jesus-freak privatizing fan of an Education Secretary can privatize the whole kit and kabootle, can and will start talking about protesters in this country the same way Bush and Obama talked about them in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan: as terrorists.  The worse the neoliberal austerity he commits us to, the more protesters he will see and the more he will lock up, without trial and without limit.

President Trump’s Director of Homeland Security oversaw the occupation of sections of Iraq for many years before returning home. He feels the war against “the terrorists” will go on for many years and take on many new forms. That’s a promising thought for Homeland Security Director, huh?

This is troubling indeed. Here, watch Jimmy Dore chat about it for a few minutes. My leg hurts.

So does my head.

by Scott Creighton

When the story first broke via the dreaded “Saturday morning tweets” from President Trump (here’s an idea Donald: watch cartoons until your handlers wake from their alcohol induced commas) the complicit media launched into a breathless attack on the current administration because he dared to suggest his predecessor “wiretapped” Trump Tower in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Forgotten is the fact that then President Obama and First Lady Michelle were running around doing campaign events for Killary like their lives and his legacy depended on it. Her holiness didn’t show up for the events, but the seated president did, repeatedly, like he had nothing else to do other than make sure her coronation went off on schedule. It was an embarrassing segment of President Peace Prize’s reign and a historic one. Never before has a seated president spent so much of the people’s time campaigning for a candidate for his replacement. They did that because Killary was unwatchable at the time and folks simply didn’t show up for her events at all.

Is it so shocking that given that, the administration would do whatever they could to influence the outcome of the election and make sure Hillary Clinton took office? We know that the congress was illegally “wiretapped” and that millions upon millions of people in the country have been as well. We know journalists and government employees were spied on with regularity.

And we also know Clapper and Brennan lied about these things to congress and were exposed for doing so afterward.

I don’t even need to provide links to ANY of these claims I just made because it’s common knowledge in America these days. All of it is.

So after the president’s tweet, James Clapper came out and said his agency didn’t “wiretap” the Trump campaign and he was unaware if there were any programs at the time of any other agency doing so. The inference there being the FBI of course.

The media ran with that and demanded Trump stop “threatening the core of our democracy” and retract his Saturday morning tweet. That non-denial was enough for them to jump to a hasty conclusion apparently.

Then some “unnamed source” came out and told a “journalist” that Comey said they didn’t “wiretap” the Trump campaign and he wanted an investigation into the facts of the story. Aside from the fact that Comey himself didn’t actually go on record saying it, the complicit media was off and running with the secret source’s supposed statement (you like that?) and they again DEMANDED Trump apologize to poor little mistreated President Peace Prize who now lives 2 minutes from the White House in his 12 million dollar mansion in D.C.

“CelebrityNetWorth.com reports Barack Obama’s current net worth as $12.2 million and Michelle Obama’s net worth as $11.8 million. According to data collected by Analytics@American, the online business analytics degree from American University, the Obamas could make as much as $242 million post-presidency.” Mar 1, 2017

The Obamas were worth just over a million bucks before entering the White House. Now they are worth 24 million and bought one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in D.C. to prove it. Funny how that works, ain’t it?

Anyway, back to the story.

FBI Director Comey gave a little speech last week after avoiding the press and any discussion about the veracity of Trump’s tweet. In that speech he said Americans don’t have the right to the expectation of absolute privacy anywhere… anytime. He was absolutely wrong and I called him out on it. We do have a right to the expectation of privacy as American citizens. Our constitution gives us that right of expectation.

Comey also said he wouldn’t address any questions about the Trump tweet meaning, he wouldn’t say a single word about the possibility that the FBI ordered illegal surveillance on the Trump campaign just prior to the election.

Yesterday was the day congress gave Comey as a deadline to come before them and answer questions about whether or not there was in fact an investigation (if you want to call it that) that included any kind of surveillance of Trump Tower and the Trump campaign prior to the election in Nov.

James Comey did not show up and in fact he said he would be providing all the information that congress wants… sometime in the future… in a classified setting.

“Graham said Wednesday afternoon that Comey has offered a classified briefing some time in the future in regards to information related to Trump Tower surveillance.” Raw Story

This is a remarkable moment isn’t it? The head of the FBI refusing to answer questions about his using illegal surveillance on a political candidate’s campaign in order to aid another candidate’s campaign. This is 3rd world tin-pot dictator kind of stuff when you think about it. I guess that’s why he refuses to go on the record with an answer.

At this point the only conclusion one can reasonably draw is that James Comey broke the law in favor of Barack Obama’s candidate of choice, Hillary Clinton and now he is doing everything he can to prevent that knowledge from going public. Of course, had Hillary won, he wouldn’t have had to worry about it.

FBI director Comey has a history of Killary support. One might actually make a case that he could be charged as an accessory after the fact, in fact, to her many crimes while serving as Secretary as State.

After all, it was Comey who took the unusual step to make an announcement during her campaign that he wasn’t going to pursue charges against her for 1. using an illegal private server to conduct official State Department business so she couldn’t be exposed for many of the illegal things she did while serving as Secretary and 2. destroying thousands of emails after being required by law to turn them over to the State Department. In that announcement he also made the statement that had anyone else done what she did, they would prosecute.

And folks often misinterpret that statement Comey made right before the election when he said he was considering reopening the case against Hillary. They believe, wrongly, that Comey did that in order to harm her chances at becoming president. This is a naive interpretation of the facts of what happened.

Anthony Weiner had finally been dumped by his wife Huma Abedin for sexting under-aged girls and showing them his weener. He was in deep trouble and Huma had finally had enough of the pedophile so he was going to get raked over the coals for this one. His connection to the glorious Clinton family had protected his thus far, but this final malfeasance looked like the end of his Killary life-line.

You see, Huma was Killary’s best friend and personal assistant so what hurt Weiner hurt Huma and Hillary couldn’t let that happen.

When Anthony got busted showing another child his junk with his phone (cus he’s a soulless piece of crap like all of em) Huma dumped him and thus his skinny little coke-sniffin ass was left hanging out in the wind to twist itself right to federal prison where he would have met many big individuals who don’t like little privileged assholes who diddle with little girls.

Weiner couldn’t let that happen so he produced something he thought the FBI would jump at. It was his “get out of ass-raping free” card.

What he gave the NYPD investigators was a laptop. Now everyone ties too say it was a laptop he was sexting on but that’s BS. This laptop contained emails from Hillary Clinton from way back when she was Secretary of State. It had THOUSANDS of emails on it and Comey said in his statement they had to commit dozens of agents to pour over all the emails to see what they were.

Do you really think Weiner would be using the same laptop Killary had while running around “humanitarian interventioning” the world? Do you think Huma would just hand over her personal laptop to Weiner after Anthony had ALREADY been caught sending dick pics to bimbos in the past? Don’t be stupid.

As I discovered a while ago, Hillary Clinton and Huma got their tech company that set up her illegal private server to burn a copy of ALL of her emails onto a device just after she left the State Department. The reason they gave was that Hillary wanted a record of her work so she could eventually write a book about her time as Secretary.

That device was a laptop which Huma took possession of before the shit hit the fan.

And that laptop is what pervert Weiner gave the investigators to keep his cowardly ass out of prison.

When Comey made his statement just prior to the election he said he might reopen the investigation because new evidence had presented itself.

Comey HAD to make that statement. He had no choice. He was looking at all the missing emails Hillary Clinton had deleted from her illegal server. He saw the big picture of her criminality. God knows what he saw but whatever it was, the story which should have been the biggest story since … ever… was pushed to the back burner and everyone focused instead on him undermining glorious Killary’s campaign.

In the end, James Comey turned out to be exactly what we already knew he was: an accessory after the fact.

He buried the case and probably the laptop as well. Somewhere in a deep hole in the sands outside of Vegas like all the other victims whacked out by the mob that runs our country these days.

Given this history is it really so surprising that FBI director Comey is ducking any questions about him using his access to surveillance apparatus to aid the Clinton campaign before the election? He had done everything he could, including tarnish his image and the image of the FBI, for Killary at that point. And in the end, he even covered up for her after looking himself directly at the holy grail of erased State Department emails… a crime, by the way.

Had Clinton’s people or Clinton herself come to him to ask him to do this looking for an October Surprise, maybe a phone call from a Russian someplace they could use to derail Trump’s candidacy, do you actually think Comey wouldn’t comply? Had the request come from Obama’s administration off the record, do you really think someone that far in the tank for Clinton’s continuation of Obama’s administration wouldn’t do it?

Don’t be absurd. Of course he did it. That’s why he wont comment publicly about the charge.

If James Comey didn’t “wiretap” the Trump campaign prior to the election, he would come right out and say it. The fact that he wont, that he ignored calls from congress to testify on the record about this subject, the fact that he promises to provide answers “sometime in the future” and “in a classified setting” tells you everything you need to know about James Comey.

Not only is he an accessory after the fact to Hillary’s crimes, not only did he violate his charge as Director of the FBI, but he also “Watergated” Trump Tower. At this point a refusal to answer the question has become a confession and there is no other way to look at it.

The media’s overblown reaction to this story has an explanation as well.

What Trump did was a violation of an unspoken rule for all new occupants of the Oval Office. You aren’t supposed to prosecute or even accuse previous presidents of criminal activity.

When Obama the sellout neoliberal fake “progressive” took office, with relation to the Bush/Cheney war crimes and crimes against humanity, Obama declared “we are looking forward not back” which would be great for any other criminal in history because all prosecutions look back and not forward.

This is the expected behavior of new presidents because they are expected to respect the golden rule so that it will be respected by whomever follows them to the White House four years later.

And you have to understand… immunity is a vital part of the presidency. The masters of the universe fully expect their American puppets to commit crimes at their bidding just like their puppets in other countries. If a president takes office and immediately starts tweeting about the previous administrations crimes it either means he isn’t bright enough to understand the nuance  of the golden rule… or… more troubling.. he doesn’t anticipate following orders and committing the crimes the masters of the universe expect him to.

I’m not saying it’s one or the other. You can judge for yourself.

What I am saying is this major faux pas from Trump has set the world of ladder-climbing Mockingbirds ablaze. They are demanding a mia culpa from the Trumpster and a promise that he will play nice (and dirty?) for the rest of his time in office. They are demanding this still today in spite of the fact that Comey just basically confessed to Watergating the Trump campaign.

And I’m the one on the “fake news” list.

nifty visual aid

I have no idea what we are going to talk about but chances are, it will be some fantastic “fake news” shit. so LISTEN LIVE HERE Call in to speak on the air live at 512 646-1984! Show starts at 7pm Eastern, I’ll be joining Tom at 7:30. Lots to talk about so tune in if you can

by Scott Creighton

(notice the “all caps” in the headline and the “clickbaity” title? That PROVES (there I go again) I’m “fake news”)

I’m so happy. I’m… just… soooo… happy. You like me. You really like me (weep weep weep)

Over at Harvard, they suggest if you wish to figure out what is real and what is fake, you should use “fact checking” services like the ones produced by Snopes and… the Washington Post.

hahahahahahahahaha

Fact checking at the Washington Post? Where they run with stories about various topics and in the last two paragraphs of the articles their lawyers make them disclose the fact that their conclusions are based on nothing. That Washington Post. That should by your source for “fact checking”

bwahahahahahahahahahaha

The same Washington Post owned by the guy who has a 600 million dollar contract from the CIA? The guys that said da ebil Roooskies hacked a power plant!?!? That Washington Post?!?

hahahahahahahahahahahaha (gasp) hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha

The Harvard website provides it’s readers with a handy link to a couple apps that will point out (and filter out?) “fake news” websites for you and they also provide a nifty link to a BIG LIST of “fake news” websites created by Melissa Zimdars of Merrimack College.

I covered Ms. Zimdars back in Nov. when she first published her contribution to the end of the 1st amendment.

Melissa Zimdars Creates a Handy List of “Fake News” Websites for When You Want to Avoid Thoughtcrime

At the time I wrote:

Newthinkers bellyfeel Ingsoc and that is all they need to know

I also pointed out that I had been left off the BIG LIST of Wrongthink Websites and that saddened me.

She’s becoming unhinged. I love it. Because unhinged is exactly what we need.

(An outstanding review of US and NATO destabilization campaigns in Turkey both past and present. Penny agrees with my position that we have no business interfering in the internal politics of another nation. But that is not the nature of neoliberal globalization, is it? The current obsession with the Turkish referendum is nothing short of international terrorism. Understand, terrorism is the “use of force or the threat of force” to alter a nation’s political, economic or social structure and that is exactly what all this international pressure is doing. They are implying that holding the referendum (or if the Turkish people “vote the wrong way”) will cause NATO to expel Turkey and begin a regime change program in their country. By definition what is happening is terrorism. As Penny points out in the article, like Crimea, Turkey must be left alone to find their own way. It’s the right of self determination and that is EXACTLY what the Deep State cannot allow ANYWHERE.)

from Penny for Your Thoughts blog

Unhinged : Deranged, Unbalanced

It’s seems the time has come for one of those all encompassing posts- the ones that attempt to make sense of the non-sense.  It’s as if there is presently a whirl wind of activity around Turkey seemingly unrelated but in actuality-  all very related. 

Target Turkey:

This is becoming  ever more obvious and heavy handed. Yet, many still don’t or can’t see it. Not sure which it is? I’ve long stated here that the propaganda employed to target Turkey is necessarily devious and liberally applied- Pun intended. While it may be true that Turkey is a NATO nation it is one that has been barely tolerated by the Atlantacist crowd. The crowd that truly runs NATO…

[read more here]

from Hurriyet Daily

Moscow is unlikely to ever give up its Kurdish card despite Turkey’s requests that Russian President Vladimir Putin end cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a former soldier and political analyst has said.

“[The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party] PKK/PYD cooperates with both the Americans and the Russians; they have become an actor in the field,” said Professor Mesut Hakkı Caşın of Özyeğin University, noting that Washington is also unlikely to abandon the group…

[read more here]

(What does the highlighted part remind me of? Oh yeah:)

“We have now have momentum in this fight and clear results on the ground… We must ensure that our partners on the ground (freedom fighter Kurds) have what they need to win the fight and then hold, rebuild, and govern their territory (“Rojava”),” Sec. of Defense Ash Carter

 

from Sputnik International

Kurdish fighters have been America’s go-to ground force when it comes to tackling Daesh in the Middle East, but Washington’s support for and reliance on the ethnic group which has long tried to achieve greater autonomy, if not independence, has fueled concerns over the true motives of the United States in Syria.

“The United States has efficiently played the Kurdish card,” Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Andrei Klimov told Izvestiya. “Washington has actively increased its presence [in Syria]. Under these circumstances, there are risks that the issue of dividing Syria into several so-called sovereign states will return to the agenda since the support of a single ethnic group could lead to negative implications.”

The fact that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a multi-ethnic alliance primarily made up of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, has become the key force tasked with liberating the city of Raqqa, Daesh’s key stronghold in the Middle East, has prompted some to suggest that Washington had promised the Kurds that the US will back them during post-conflict reconstruction of the war-torn country.

An unnamed source in the Russian Foreign Ministry appears to have confirmed this, telling the newspaper that political and security interests of the Kurds are mainly limited to Rojava, an area comprising the cantons of Afrin, Jazira and Kobani.

“There is no military need for the Kurds to capture [Raqqa],” the source said. “The sheer fact that they have advanced [towards the city] shows that they received guarantees that they will have an opportunity to assert their rights” during the peace process. These guarantees were ostensibly provided by external forces, apparently meaning the United States…

[read more here]

(Any guesses as to where they intend to grab the next chunk of Greater Kurdistan? Any?)

from RT

Amid a row with Turkey over its presidential powers referendum, some German MPs are calling for the withdrawal of troops deployed at Incirlik airbase. Germany is flying reconnaissance sorties from the Turkish base as part of the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition.

Concerns over the presence of German airmen at the base, which is located in southern Turkey close to Syria, came from lawmakers of both the ruling coalition and the opposition. Florian Hahn, spokesman for security and foreign policy of the Christian Social Union (CSU), said the Germans soldiers and officers may become pawns in Turkish power games…

[read more here]

from Rudaw

A group of high-level US officials including Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, came to Erbil to meet with President Masoud Barzani on Monday.

Joining McGurk were Douglas Silliman, the US Ambassador to Iraq,  and Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of the US-led international coalition against the ISIS group in Iraq and Syria.

Falah Mustafa, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Minister of Foreign Relations, announced the visit via tweet.

He wrote the two sides discusssed KRG-US relations, Erbil-Baghdad ties and a way forward.

(Anymore questions?)

from Rudaw

Representatives from the four parts of greater Kurdistan came together to take part in a Kurdish conference in Moscow, discussing the future of the nation in the new Middle East in light of the war against ISIS both in Iraq and Syria, where Kurdish forces have made significant gains against the extremist militants. Izzat Sabir, from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and Sherko Hama Amin, from the Gorran Movement, both members of the Kurdistan Region parliament, attended the conference. Asya Abdullah, co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the ruling party in Rojava (a.k.a. “Syria”), and Osman Baydemir and Dilek Ocalan, two MPs from the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey also attended the conference titled “The war and new structure of the Middle East.” Sabir told Rudaw that the conference is a message to world powers about the future of Kurdish lands, emphasizing the unity of Kurds in the face of the fast changing map of the Middle East… He explained that it is permissible for Kurdish parties to work with what he called the occupation countries, namely Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, so long as it does not mean that they do so against their fellow Kurds… [read more here]

(CNN? War-mongering propaganda? nah. They wouldn’t do that, would they?)

from TASS News Agency

Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday he expected a new CNN documentary on the Russian leader to be biased but was thankful to the documentary’s author for a possibility to make the Kremlin’s position clear.

“Naturally, it would be too optimistic to believe that some media outlet would be able to break through the framework of the hysterical emotional background that unfortunately prevails in America towards our country,” Peskov said, sharing his opinion about what the new CNN documentary about Russian President Vladimir Putin titled: “The Most Powerful Man in the World” would be.

[read more here]

from FARS

The Arabic language al-Arabi al-Jadid news website reported that at least 17 civilians, including children and women, were killed and 15 others were injured in the US-led coalition air raids in Kasarat village South of Raqqa city.

The website added that the warplanes’ combat flights over two villages in Eastern Aleppo left five civilians dead and 11 more wounded…

[read more here]

from SANA

The US-led international alliance aircraft carried out a new massacre against Syrians, killing 19 civilians in al-Kasrat area in Raqqa’s southern countryside.

Local and media sources said that airplanes from the US-led alliance, under the pretext of fighting ISIS, carried out on Saturday night a series of airstrikes on areas in the southern countryside of Raqqa province, which resulted in killing 19 civilians in al-Kastrat area (Kasret al-Sheikh Juma’a and Kasret al-Faraj) and the agricultural research center on the southern bank of the Euphrates River…

[read more here]

by Kate Randall, WSWS

Top Trump administration officials appeared on the political talk shows Sunday morning to promote the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the House Republican bill for the repeal and replacement of Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.

The Republican proposal builds on the core features of Obamacare, designed to boost the profits of the private insurers and slash health care costs for the government and big business.

The ACHA seeks to strengthen the grip of the for-profit health care delivery system in America while making sweeping cuts to Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor jointly funded by the federal government and the states. It also slashes financial assistance to low-income people seeking to purchase health coverage and cuts taxes for the wealthy and big business by an estimated $600 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is expected to release its numbers on the Republican plan today. The Brookings Institution on Thursday predicted that the CBO’s analysis will likely find that at least 15 million people stand to lose coverage under the AHCA by the end of the 10-year scoring window.

In a prerecorded interview aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price attempted to evade moderator Chuck Todd’s question: “Can you say for certain that once this bill is passed nobody, nobody will be worse off financially when it comes to paying for health care?”

Price answered by pointing to the high premiums under Obamacare and the fact that patients are forgoing health care as a result of high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. The HHS secretary, a rabid opponent of Medicaid, Medicare and government “intrusion” into health care, knows full well the Republican plan will make the situation for millions of working people, as bad as it is under Obamacare, even worse.

Todd pointed to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) estimate that the $4,000 tax credit that a 60-year-old in Fayette County, West Virginia would get under the AHCA “is almost $8,000 less than they would get under Obamacare.” Price brushed this off, defending the Republican plan’s tax credits, which would provide from $2,000 to $4,000 to those making up to $75,000, based purely on age and not income, with older people receiving the most.

A KFF analysis has found that for virtually every age group of individuals with incomes of $20,000-$40,000 and families making $40,000-$75,000, tax credits would be substantially lower under the ACHA than the subsidies provided under Obamacare.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney appeared on ABC’s “This Week” program. Host George Stephanopoulos raised that independent analysts had projected that there will be about “$370 billion less in federal funding for Medicaid over the next 10 years” under the AHCA. He asked how this squared with Trump’s promises during his presidential bid that there would be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

The OMB director defended the Medicaid funding cuts, saying, “The Medicaid system as it exists today is a one-size fits-all system. We fixed that. You can provide better services for less if we get the federal government out of the way.”…

[read more here]