Comrade Trump considers himself to be a great prognosticator.  “Obamacare repeal will be easy!”  “The Mexicans will pay for the wall!”  With that track record, one might think His Orangeness would consult a more talented soothsayer before making future predictions.  And fortunately, for Trump and his GOP compatriots, there is one.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s time to let Sarah Palin out of the closet.  Take health care for example.  On August 7, 2009, the Queen of Wasilla posted the following on her Facebook page.

Seniors and the disabled “will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

And damned if she wasn’t correct except that the death panels she envisioned are comprised of elected Republican officials (and one member of unknown origins) rather than civil servants.  In the case of the failed American Health Care Act, the death panel consisted of the following.

Donald J. Trump, Occasional White House Occupant
Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Paul D. Ryan, Jr. (WI), Speaker of the House
Dave Reichart (WA), Chair, House Ways & Means Committee
Bob Latta (OH), Chair, House Energy & Commerce Committee
Steve Bannon, Assistant to Comrade Trump

There’s one other major difference in Palin’s original forecast.  This death panel chose a much broader target than just seniors and the disabled.  Based on data available on Medicaid recipients, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found one life was saved for every additional 455 people with insurance coverage (Source: NEJM, September 13, 2012).  Therefore, if the GOP death panel deprived 24,000,000 individuals of health care coverage over the next five years, one could expect approximately 52,750 resulting deaths.  I guess we owe Sarah a debt of gratitude for warning us about this star chamber of grim reapers.

Palin made one other prediction to which we should also pay attention.  In a September 11, 2008 interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson,  Ms. CPAC-MAN touted her foreign relations bona fide based on Russia’s proximity to her home state.  “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”  This line became a parody when Tina Fey, portraying the then vice-presidential nominee on Saturday Night Live, claimed, “I can see Russia from my house.”

As the pieces of the Trump/Russia puzzle start to fall in place, we now realize we don’t need to go to an Aleutian Island or even Sarah Palin’s home to see Russia.  There is an unbelievably clear view from the oval office.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP