Innovation my ass

As usual, it's we the people who get screwed

As part of their efforts to show how pro life they are in letting thousands of Americans die from lack of healthcare, republicans are claiming that the block grants feature of the disastrous Graham Cassidy healthcare "bill" would be to allow for more innovation in how health insurance is provided.

After thirty-five years in Corporate America, let me tell you what passes for innovation in the business world:

1) Pay CEOs more
2) Slash employees
3) Slash expenses
4) Lobby for corporate welfare
5) Blame underlings when "innovation" doesn't make the company successful/more successful

You can keep your fucking innovation--I'd much rather have my Obamacare.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Big mistake...huge!

War hero this, mother fucker:  NO!

Of all the colossal mistakes in U.S. political history, I'm pretty sure that when all is said and done this one will rank in the top ten--Donald Trump speaking of John McCain, July 2015:

"He's not a war hero.  He was a war hero because he was captured.  I like people who weren't captured."

You have to wonder if those words were echoing through John McCain's thoughts as he cast the decisive no vote on Skinny repeal ending Donald Trump's last best chance (for now) to destroy Obamacare.

It had to feel awfully sweet--I'm sure Sen. McCain didn't spend five years fighting for his life while being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton to have his character questioned by an orange clown whose idea of torture is his not being able to cheat at golf.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

A special kind of stupid

You're the one with the headache--the "free" market is the ball and chain

One of the reasons Trumpcare has failed thus far, is that radical right-wingers like Rand Paul don't believe it goes far enough in screwing over your average American.  Paul wants to turn it all over to the marketplace (Exact quote:  "You have to believe that leaving people alone, that the marketplace will bring prices down." Seriously? Who the fuck believes that other than rich folks?) and let it decide what prices to charge folks like us who aren't millionaires.

And while this piece from Think Progress does an excellent job of debunking Paul's bullshit, it doesn't make the simple argument:  the marketplace doesn't care if you live or die, but the government (at least when it's run by Democrats) does.  Frankly, if the poor, the working class, and the middle class want affordable healthcare that will actually protect them when they're sick, the government must be involved.

Otherwise,  you can guarantee that business will start booming for funeral homes--which, come to think of it, may be the republican plan after all.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The revolution will be live

And perhaps sooner than they think...

The anger is palpable.

And one has to wonder how much more of it working class folks will take before the shit hits the fan.  To wit (and this is just the tip of the iceberg):

• The Trumpcare bill was released today, and here's a surprise:  Turns out that virtually all of us are going to pay more for healthcare (yes, even us lucky folks who have employer provided healthcare), have much higher deductibles, and it will result in millions of Americans either losing or being priced out of their healthcare...all so we can give tax breaks to the super rich.
• The Trump family is basically using the Presidency to immensely enrich itself further, and is showing no signs that it's willing to so much as lift a finger to help all those poor saps who voted for the rich white guy in hopes that he'd keep their families from starving.  Turns out there's a lot more than just one sucker born every minute.
• In a speech in Iowa this week, Trump said he doesn't want poor people making economic decisions.  Of fucking course he doesn't--if they learned how much the fat orange bastard was fucking them, they'd put his balls in a vise and keep turning the handle until his testes were as flat as their paychecks.
• And how about filling the swamp with rich people who gave millions to his campaign who are using their positions not to help the American people, but to make themselves and their families even wealthier.  Betsy DeVos?  Solely in it to make more money for her family.  Rex Tillerson?  Ditto.  Scott Pruitt?  Ditto--well that and blowing the fossil fuel industry which he seems to enjoy tremendously.  And what's even more pathetic?  For all the talk about running the country like a business, can you imagine a corporation in America who would put so many completely unqualified people in positions of authority?  I mean seriously--it would be like Bank of America taking someone who's a regional head of HR and making that person their CFO.  Even Corporate America isn't that fucking stupid.

I've felt for a long time that eventually income inequality and the continued lowering of the standard of living for the poor, the working class, and the middle class would result in some serious ugliness toward the wealthy, but I never thought I'd live long enough to see it.

Not so sure anymore that I won't be here to enjoy it.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The demoralization of the story

Cloudy with a chance of meatheads...

Though some nice obituaries (one here, another here, and also here) have been written trying to mitigate the disaster that was Jon Ossoff's loss to Karen Handel in GA-06, it's really hard to see much good coming out of it.  Whether you're a glass half-full (Ossoff outperformed the last Dem in this race by 19+ points) or half-empty (underperformed Hillary Clinton by 3+ points) person a loss is a loss is a loss.  Even worse, this was probably the best chance we had of all the special elections thus far and the race really wasn't even that close.

And that's not even noting that Donald Trump has historical disapproval ratings, which didn't seem to hurt Handel one bit.

It all comes down to God, gays, and guns and republicans are just better at rallying their troops around those talking points.  Realistically, I see very little chance that Dems will take back the House in 2018--with the exception of 2012, we've lost the close races in virtually every competitive race since 2010 and it's not usually even as close as the closing polls show (we might also want to work on the accuracy of our polling).

I see very little chance that Trumpcare won't pass now (and Lord I hope I'm wrong).  We really needed this one to put a little fear in vulnerable republicans and that isn't happening after another stinging defeat for the Democrats.  They're going to push hard to enact the rest of their agenda (more for rich people, more for rich people, and more for rich people) so that short attention span voters will have forgotten how much republicans have fucked them over by the 2018 mid-terms.

Still, as I noted after the election of Donald Trump, we have to keep fighting.  Eventually the worm will turn, and when it does, let's hope Democrats have finally learned to go for the jugular.

'Cause God knows republicans sure have.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Fuck the filibuster

Say goodbye to the filibuster...

For some reason that I can't quite comprehend, there seems to be some angst on the left over whether or not republicans are going to nuke the legislative filibuster as well.  I mean, I understand the desire to stop bad legislation, but let's face it:  the Senate is broken (as witnessed by the obstructionism of republicans all through President Obama's two terms) and if we intend to pass any legislation of substance again, the filibuster needs to go.  It's bad enough that that Wyoming, with all of a half million people, still gets the same two votes as California and its forty million--there's no need for letting a minority of Americans kill good legislation as well.

My guess is republicans will eventually kill it (and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if TrumpShitcare is the legislation that they do it over).  Mitch McConnell has proven himself over and over to be little more than a waterboy for the wealthy and if it means more money for them, he'll bend over backwards to give the rich even more than they already have.

And in four years--if Trump continues his historically bad approval ratings there's a good chance we'll control all three branches again--we can move forward without a bullshit sixty vote threshold on such legislation as single payer healthcare, a $15 minimum wage, a significant and job creating infrastructure plan, among many others, and only need fifty-one votes to pass all of them.  The best part?  When republicans complain, we can tell them to look in the mirror--they'll be the ones who created the Democratic monster.

The filibuster?  Goodbye and good riddance.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee