Opioid Induced: Despite previously calling the opioid epidemic “a national emergency,” President Trump yesterday directed the Department of Health and Human service to declare it a “national health emergency,” which comes with no money to fight it. The Public Health Emergency Fund has only $57,000.

About 59,000 people died last year of opioid abuse in a crisis fed by drug companies, suppliers, and doctors willing to hand out prescriptions like candy. President Trump said the government will produce “really tough, really big, really great advertising” to fight the epidemic.

Anyone remember Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” campaign? It did nothing. Trump thinks he has a new idea. “This was an idea that I had, where if we can teach young people not to take drugs,” Trump said, “it’s really, really easy not to take them.”

The Tax Man: The House yesterday narrowly passed a budget blueprint that sets Congress on the path to attempting a $1.5 trillion tax cut in the next 10 years, adding a similar amount to the national deficit. The 216-212 vote shows how divided Congress is, even among the Republican majority.

The Republicans are trying to move the bill under rules that will allow it to pass in the Senate with just 50 votes and a vice-presidential tiebreaker.

The House is expected to reveal its full plan next week. The sketch of a tax plan unveiled in September would cut the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent, from 35, shrink individual income tax rates to 12 percent, 25, and 35. They also mentioned eliminating federal deductions for state and local taxes.

The blueprint raised alarms among high tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California where eliminating the deduction for mortgage interest and state and local taxes would be a calamity. Twenty Republicans voted against it, 11 of them from New York and New Jersey.

Passing tax reform is critical for the Republican majority and the president to deliver on their long-term promises and show they can govern through legislation rather than executive orders.

JFK: President Trump yesterday allowed the release of 2,800 pages of documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy, but kept the lock on thousands more citing “potentially irreversible harm” to national security. It would be fascinating to know what that’s all about. Reporters are poring over the documents … so far, no earth-shattering revelations.

Uranium One: House Republicans announced an investigation into the majority sale of a Canadian uranium mining company, Uranium One, to Russia’s Atomic Energy Agency approved by the Obama administration in 2010 while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Uranium One owns uranium mines totaling 20% of US reserves. Fox News is pounding away on the topic, treating it as a major Clinton/Obama scandal.

Although President Trump brought up the uranium deal during his campaign, the issue went fallow until recent news reports that Russia is trying to horn in on the American nuclear industry.

The Hill reported that Russian nuclear officials routed millions to the Clinton Foundation. The Hill does not say there’s any evidence that Clinton was influenced by this. The deal had to be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment, and Clinton was just one of nine people with a vote.

It’s been reported that $145 million was paid to the Clinton Foundation, but  $131.3 million came from Frank Giustra, who sold his  stake in the company in 2007, three years before the Russia deal and before Clinton became secretary of state.  The NY Times found that only one officer of Uranium One donated between $1-6 million to the Clinton Foundation at least a year before the 51% sale to Russian interests.

Although the payoff claims are not proven, some Republicans, including President Donald Trump, say it’s a major scandal. Trump called it “Watergate, modern age.” We’ll see.

And last, although Russians control Uranium One, they can’t just ship the uranium home without US approval.

The Weinstein Effect: Prominent political reporter Mark Halperin has been suspended from MSNBC and dropped by HBO following a report by CNN that he groped and harassed women while he was political director at ABC News.

Wow, that’s half the alphabet.

Halperin owned up to it with a statement saying,  “I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize.”

Halperin joins a growing list of men to fall in a variety of professions following the crash of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. A short list: James Toback, movie director; Roy Price, Amazon Studios executive; John Besh, celebrity chef; Chris Savino, former Nickelodeon producer; Robert Scoble, tech blogger; Terry Richardson, fashion photographer. Even the wheelchair-bound former President George HW Bush has apologized for patting the rumps of two actresses.

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