Trump sought to influence Bill Maher and he's now going to complain that he didn't get as much favorable press/comedy as he thinks — or pretends to think — he deserves.

"Sometimes in life you waste time! T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed," said Trump (at Truth Social).

He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be. He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a "Vodka Tonic." He said to me, "I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared." In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!"

Trump seems to enjoy diminishing Maher, but I suspect Maher adopted this "little me" pose to disarm Trump. Obviously, Maher was bullshitting. There's no one who has never been scared. It's a joke. He's a comedian. And so is Trump.

Trump continues:

"I think the books I read as a child made me want to write..."

E.L. Doctorow says, giving a quick list of things makes me feel this is exactly what a kid should read... for starters:

Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped”; C. S. Lewis’s “Out of the Silent Planet” and “Perelandra”; Mark Twain’s boy books, and his “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”; Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”; Dickens’s “David Copperfield,”  “Great Expectations” and “A Tale of Two Cities”; Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories; Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Les Misérables.” Poe’s detective and horror stories; the Horatio Hornblower sea novels of C. S. Forester; all the “Oz” books; and in middle school, “Mario and the Magician,” by Thomas Mann, and Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” For starters.

Could they package these all in one nice ebook anthology?

Under the individual mandate, will people buy the insurance or just pay the penalty... or just not buy the insurance and not pay the penalty?

Because the penalty is not going to be enforced. (Via Instapundit.) Although they've made proof of insurance or payment of a penalty something you put on your income tax return, the usual enforcement mechanisms the IRS employs to collect taxes are not going to be available. So, no liens, no civil or criminal sanctions.

Sheer, shocking incompetence by Congress? Could be. Or it could be the key to the plan to ruin insurance companies by forcing them to take any new customers who are currently inclined to pay, i.e., customers who now have conditions requiring treatment. [AND: Once the insurance companies are ruined, there will be nothing left but the long dreamed-of, single-payer government program.]

What I don't understand, then, is why insurance companies didn't campaign against the reform. They must have understood what was in the offing. (Right?) There must be some explanation for how this thing is supposed to work, otherwise, we'd have been swamped in "Harry and Louise" ads, like last time. Or is there sheer incompetence in private business too? ... in which case, what does it matter if the government takes over everything?

All I can think is that the penalties were there, the insurance companies were lulled, and then the enforcement was yanked out at the last minute, blindsiding them. And yet, even with enforcement of the penalties, the insurance companies faced the obvious risk that people would opt for the penalty — which was comparatively cheap — instead of buying insurance, until they needed treatments that were more expensive than the insurance policy (minus the penalty). The silence of the insurance companies was already a mystery.

***

A reading for the day: "Silver Blaze," by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

"FLEE AT ONCE — ALL IS DISCOVERED."

"Both Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle supposedly sent similar telegrams to a dozen prominent men, all of whom packed up and left town immediately."

From a nice piece about telegrams, which have been discontinued.