**Written by Doug Powers

Sunday open thread time — the floor is open! And with Memorial Day tomorrow let’s keep those who have made the ultimate sacrifice (and their families) foremost in our thoughts and prayers.

Just a couple things to get the ball rolling…

A Trump-NATO blew through Brussels last week, and the looks on some leaders faces when the U.S. president told them to pay their fair share for their own nations’ defense was pretty priceless:

I don’t think some of them appreciated the message that was sent:

Awwwkward.

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The mainstream media will again mock another Trump accusation of “fabricated lies” while refusing to recognize their role(s) in making those claims totally believable.

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The New York Times has a motive to get to the bottom of:

Let me guess… climate change?

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Because it worked so well in Vermont, California’s Senate sent a bill to the full legislature that would create a single payer health care system in the state. They left out one little detail: How it would be paid for. Gee, I wonder why they’d rather avoid that particular elephant in the room:

The price tag is in: It would cost $400 billion to remake California’s health insurance marketplace and create a publicly funded universal health care system, according to a state financial analysis released Monday.

California would have to find an additional $200 billion per year, including in new tax revenues, to create a so-called “single-payer” system, the analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee found. The estimate assumes the state would retain the existing $200 billion in local, state and federal funding it currently receives to offset the total $400 billion price tag.

The cost analysis is seen as the biggest hurdle to creating a universal system, proposed by Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

Calling that a “hurdle” is like referring to an earth mover parked in the middle of the street as a “speed bump.”

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Have a good Memorial Day weekend all:

America owes an unpayable debt to our fallen heroes & their families.

God bless them this #MemorialDayWeekend. pic.twitter.com/IisoAgIwyi

— Justice Don Willett (@JusticeWillett) May 27, 2017

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe