Kentucky to add Medicaid work requirement; first state to follow Trump plan

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin announces federal approval of Kentucky's Medicaid waiver in the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort, Ky., Friday, Jan. 12, 2018.  (Alex Slitz/Lexington Herald-Leader via AP)

Kentucky received the green light Friday to require many of its Medicaid recipients to work in order to receive coverage.

The Bluegrass State thus becomes the first state to act on the Trump administration’s unprecedented change that could affect millions of low-income people receiving benefits.

Under the new rule, adults age 19 to 64 must complete 80 hours of "community engagement" per month to keep their care. That includes working a job, going to school, taking a job-training course or volunteering.
"There is dignity associated with earning the value of something that you receive," Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said. "The vast majority of men and women, able-bodied men and women ... they want the dignity associated with being able to earn and have engagement."

"There is dignity associated with earning the value of something that you receive. The vast majority of men and women, able-bodied men and women ... they want the dignity associated with being able to earn and have engagement."

- Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin

Kentuckians also will be required to pay up to $15 a month for their insurance, with basic dental and vision being eliminated entirely. However, those benefits can be earned back through a rewards program, such as getting an annual physical, completing a diabetes or weight management course or participating in an anti-smoking program.
The change was approved Friday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The Trump administration announced Thursday it would allow for states to impose work requirements for people receiving Medicaid.
Bevin, a Republican, said the decision stemmed from concern about public health. Despite the fact that more Kentuckians have insurance, they’re not becoming any healthier, he said.
The state, along with the rest of Appalachia, falls behind the rest of the U.S. in 33 out of 41 population health indicators, according to a recent study. Bevin believes the new work requirement will help change the statistic.
Bevin’s office also stated in its proposal to Washington that the move will save taxpayers more than $300 million over the next five years, and estimated that up to 95,000 people could lose their benefits because they either didn’t comply with the new rule or they obtained jobs that pay too much money and push them out of the low-income bracket.
However, there are some exemptions to the work requirements that will be enforced starting in July and remain in effect for five years. Pregnant women, full-time students, former foster care youth, primary caregivers of children and the elderly and full-time students will not be affected.
People deemed “medically frail,” a broad term that encompasses people who are battling drug and alcohol addiction, will also be exempt.
Critics of the new plan said the changes could lead to many low-income families being denied needed coverage because of technicalities and challenging new paperwork.
Democratic U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, who represents Louisville, calling it a “dangerous and irresponsible” decision that will lead to the “financial ruin” or thousands of families that reside in Kentucky.
Medicaid covers more than 70 million people, or about one in five Americans. Currently, the largest government health insurance program does not required people to have a job or be employed to receive the benefits.

Obama rips Fox News viewers: ‘You are living on a different planet’

The Real World For Him.

Former President Barack Obama resurfaced on Friday and took a shot at Fox News viewers, saying they’re “living on a different planet” than people who consume mainstream media.

Obama made the remarks on the premiere of the new monthly Netflix series “My next guest needs no introduction with David Letterman,” which hit the streaming service on Friday morning. Early in the episode, Obama asked Letterman about his retirement but the veteran talk show host quickly let the former president know who was boss.

“Now here’s how this is gonna work. I’m gonna ask you stuff, and then you respond to stuff,” Letterman joked.
Letterman then asked Obama what he considers the more dangerous threat to a democracy, the president demeaning the press or a foreign power sabotaging the voting process. Both options are clearly jabs at President Trump and Obama answered without mentioning the current president’s name.
“One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don’t share a common baseline of facts,” Obama said. "If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR.”

"If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR.”

The response got a big round of applause from the presumably liberal crowd at the City College of New York. Obama has a long history of taking shots at Fox News but the recent comment marks his first public attack on the network and its viewers since leaving the White House.
While Trump is often criticized for attacking the media and labeling CNN as “fake news,” Obama’s comment is a reminder that the White House and the press have sparred for decades. Obama once even accused Fox News of “attacking” his administration during an interview with CNBC.
Letterman said goodbye to his long-running talk show two years ago and has launched a six-episode series on Netflix. In each hour-long episode, Letterman conducts a long-form conversation with a single guest, and explores topics of his own outside the studio.
George Clooney, Malala Yousafzai, Jay-Z, Tina Fey, and Howard Stern are scheduled to be guests on Letterman’s show over the next five months.
Brian Flood covers the media for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @briansflood.

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Trump: London visit canceled over Obama administration decision

Jan. 27, 2017: U.S. President Donald Trump greets British Prime MinisterTheresa May as she arrives at the White House in Washington.  (Reuters)

President Trump has cancelled plans to visit the United Kingdom next month, according to reports out of London on Thursday.
Trump will instead send Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in his place to christen America’s new embassy in the British capital, The Daily Mail first reported.
He later blamed a move by former president Obama for the decision to cancel.
“Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!” Trump tweeted.
Despite the Feb. 26-27 cancellation, Trump is still expected to visit England later this year, with a Downing Street rep saying: “An invitation for a state visit has been extended and accepted.”
Mass protests would have likely greeted Trump, with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn telling followers they should send the US president a “clear message” by demonstrating again him.
Even Prime Minister Theresa May has clashed with Trump after he re-tweeted anti-Muslim propaganda from a far right British party.

Trump says FBI's Strzok's text constitutes 'treasonous act': report

Congressional lawmakers are reportedly looking into whether Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were behind some leaks to the media on the Russia investigation; reaction and analysis from cybersecurity analyst Morgan Wright.

President Donald Trump said in an interview Thursday that the FBI agent who was removed from the Russian-interference probe and once referred to the president as a “loathsome human being” committed an act of “treason.”

Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the text message from Agent Peter Strzok, where he mentioned an "insurance policy" if Trump was elected, was tantamount to treason.

Strzok was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe in July.
The agent had been deeply involved in the Clinton email inquiry and was in the room when she was interviewed by the FBI. He later helped investigate whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
Strzok wrote a text message on Aug. 15, 2016, to Lisa Page, with whom he was romantically involved, saying, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office -- that there’s no way he gets elected -- but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40."
"Andy" is believed to be a reference to FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
“A man is tweeting to his lover that if [Democrat Hillary Clinton ] loses, we’ll essentially do the insurance policy. We’ll go to phase two and we’ll get this guy out of office,” Trump told the Journal. “This is the FBI we’re talking about — that is treason. That is a treasonous act. What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act.”
Aitan Goelman, Strzok’s attorney, told the paper that it was “beyond reckless” for the president to accuse a man who “devoted his entire adult life to defending this country, of treason.”
“It should surprise no one that the president has both the facts and law wrong,” Goelman said.

Are #NeverTrumpers being consumed by their own fiery denunciations?

Time magazine's new cover, showing Donald Trump's yellowish hair on fire in a cartoonish blaze, symbolizes how the media view the president as a hot mess.

But some of the president's fiercest critics on the right are starting to recognize how their side’s animosity is burning out of control.

The relentless negativity of the #NeverTrumpers actually helps him by making his detractors seem obsessed and unwilling to credit him for just about anything. They give the president a big target, one that is widely distrusted by his base. And they can seem incredibly condescending toward the man in the White House.
This is not just an extension of liberal bias. Many in the #NeverTrump movement are on the right, having tried to block him from winning the Republican nomination and now convinced that he is damaging their movement.
David Brooks, the moderately conservative New York Times columnist, has been extremely harsh toward the president, likening him to a small child and generally rendering him as unfit for office. But in a bit of a reassessment, Brooks now says the critics have gone too far.
People who meet with the president, he says, are often surprised to find "that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweetstorms or the media coverage. They generally say that he is affable, if repetitive. He runs a normal, good meeting and seems well-informed enough to get by ...
"The White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn't tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we'd see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our ISIS policy, the nomination for judgeships and the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade."
In other words, for all the sound and fury, the president is doing a reasonably good job.
But the anti-Trump movement—of which Brooks is a "proud member"—"seems to be getting dumber. It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information" and views Trump as "a semiliterate madman surrounded by sycophants who are morally, intellectually and psychologically inferior to people like us."
In perhaps the unkindest cut, Brooks says "the anti-Trump movement suffers from insularity. Most of the people who detest Trump don't know anybody who works with him or supports him."

That last point buttresses something I've been saying for a long time, that some of the opposition to the 45th president is not just ideological, not just stylistic, but cultural in nature. And those who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, just like those who suffered from Obama Derangement Syndrome, may be deluded into thinking the whole world agrees with them.
Another #NeverTrumper, Bret Stephens, who joined the Times from the Wall Street Journal, hasn't softened his view of the president. But he does allow that "if the anti-Trump movement has a crippling defect, it’s smugness ... We're the moral scolds who struggle to acknowledge the skeletons in our own closet, the smart people whose forecasts keep proving wrong. We said Trump couldn't win. That the stock market would never recover from his election. That he would blow up NATO. That the Middle East would erupt in violence when Jerusalem was recognized as Israel's capital.
"The catastrophes haven't happened, and maybe that's just a matter of luck. But by constantly predicting doom and painting the White House in the darkest colors, anti-Trumpers have only helped the president. We have set an almost impossibly high bar for Trumpian failure."
It may well be that the Trump-bashing crowd lowers expectations to the point where the president can look good simply by presiding over, say, a substantive negotiating session on immigration.
But if some of the movement's own commentators are seeing its members as smug and insular, it suggests that the fire over the Trump presidency may be consuming them instead.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

Trump MAGA slogan 'code for Make America White Again,' black caucus leader says

The leader of the Congressional Black Caucus said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s comments on immigrants from Haiti and Africa are “proof” that his Make America Great Again slogan is code for “Make America White Again.”

U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., responded to Trump lamenting about "s---hole" countries during immigration negotiations with lawmakers in the Oval Office, Fox News confirmed. The Washington Post first reported the comments.

“President Trump’s comments are yet another confirmation of his racially insensitive and ignorant views. It also reinforces the concerns that we hear every day, that the President’s slogan Make America Great Again is really code for Make America White Again,” Richmond said in a statement.
Richmond also accused Trump of being more concerned with stemming the flow of African immigrants than helping Dreamers.
“Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that we can negotiate in good faith with a person who holds such vile and reprehensible beliefs,” Richmond said.

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., blasted President Trump after his comments on Haitian and African immigrants.  (Facebook)

The congressman's comments echoed remarks made by others in Congress.
“As an American, I am ashamed of the president,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., said. “His comments are disappointing, unbelievable, but not surprising. We always knew that President Trump doesn’t like people from certain countries or people or certain colors.”
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said, “Language like that shouldn't be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn't be heard in the White House.”
Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, whose parents were Haitian immigrants, urged Trump to apologize, saying his comments were “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation's values.”
About a dozen people, both Republicans and Democrats, were in the room at the time Trump made the comments, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Trump made the comments as Durbin was reading a list of temporary protected-status countries.
The president also suggested the United States should admit more people from countries like Norway instead, the Post reported. Trump had met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and held a news conference with her Wednesday.
In a statement, the White House did not deny Trump made the comments.
“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” said Raj Shah, principal deputy White House press secretary.

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