The best way to reduce abortions is to help young women access LARC contraceptives (70 percent of pregnancies to young, single American women are unplanned). That’s what Planned Parenthood does, along with combatting cervical cancer, which already kills one American woman every two hours. I understand the passions that abortion raises, but this move will inadvertently increase the number of abortions, as well as cancer deaths. How is that “pro-life”?
Trump Was Right to Strike Syria
For an overstretched military, poison gas is a convenient way to terrify and subdue a population. That’s why Saddam Hussein used gas on Kurds in 1988, and why Bashar al-Assad has used gas against his own people in Syria. The best way for the world to change the calculus is to show that use of chemical weapons carries a special price
.. Critics note that Trump’s air strikes don’t have clear legal grounding. They’re right, and that was one reason Obama didn’t act. But Bill Clinton’s 1999 intervention to prevent genocide in Kosovo was also of uncertain legality, and thank God for it. Clinton has said that his greatest foreign policy mistake was not intervening in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide; any such intervention also would have been of unclear legality — and the right thing to do.
.. I was against the Iraq war, but some military interventions save lives. The no fly zone over northern Iraq in the 1990s is one example, and so are the British intervention in Sierra Leone and French intervention in Mali. It’s prudent to be suspicious of military interventions, but imprudent to reject any use of force categorically.
.. My proposed course in Syria is the same one that Hillary Clinton and many others have favored: missile strikes to ground Assad’s small air force. This should help end the barrel bombs and make Assad realize that he has no military solution, and that it’s time for negotiation.
The most plausible negotiated outcome would be a long-term ceasefire and de facto partition of Syria, putting off reintegration until Assad is no longer around.
Trump’s Triumph of Incompetence
One of President Trump’s rare strengths has been his ability to project competence.
He promised a health care plan that would be “unbelievable,” “beautiful,” “terrific,” “less expensive and much better,” “insurance for everybody.”
.. the basic truth is that he’s an effective politician who’s utterly incompetent at governing.
.. If the administration can’t repeal Obamacare — or manage friendly relations with allies like Mexico or Australia — how will it possibly accomplish something complicated like tax reform?
.. One of the underlying problems is Trump’s penchant for personnel choices that are bafflingly bad or ethically challenged or both. Mike Flynn was perhaps the best-known example.
.. As Ana Navarro, a G.O.P. strategist, tweeted: “Donald Trump attracts some of the shadiest, darkest, weirdest people around him.”
Trump Voters, Your Savior Is Betraying You
made more than 280 campaign promises as a candidate, and a few — such as infrastructure spending to create jobs — would be sensible if done right. But there still is no infrastructure plan, and The Washington Post Fact Checker is tracking 60 specific campaign promises and found only six cases so far of promises kept.
.. But while you voted for Trump because you put faith in his gauzy pledges, I bet he will do no better with campaign promises than with marriage vows.
.. Health care will be one of the greatest betrayals.
.. Trump seems poised to weaken the contraception mandate for insurance coverage and curb funding for women’s health clinics. The upshot will likely be more unintended pregnancies, more abortions, more unplanned births — and more women dying of cervical cancer.
.. The biggest Trump bait-and-switch was visible Friday when he talked about giving Americans “access” to health care. That’s a scam his administration is moving toward, with millions of Americans likely to lose health insurance: Instead of promising insurance coverage, Trump now promises “access” — and if you can’t afford it, tough luck.
This promise of “access” is an echo of Marie Antoinette. In Trump’s worldview, starving French peasants wouldn’t have needed bread because they had “access” to cake.
.. The greatest betrayal of all will come if, as some of his advisers recommend, he “reforms” and tears holes in some of the big safety net programs like Medicaid, Social Security or Medicare. Medicaid is particularly vulnerable.
.. Trump’s career has often been built on scamming people who put their faith in him, as Trump University shows. Now he’s moved the scam to a much bigger stage, and he boasts of targeting Muslims, refugees and unauthorized immigrants.