Sunday, April 30, 2017

The Only Detail You Need To Know About ANY Republican Tax Plan

For all the chatter about trump's tax plan proposal, for any chatter about Ryan's tax plans, just remember one thing:

Republican tax plans are NOT reforms: Republican tax plans are attempts to enrich the greedy, cause massive deficits, and kill government effectiveness all in one single blow.

Republican tax cuts do only one thing well: destroy. The rest are merely details.

They won't admit it, but they're close to realizing how dangerous it is for themselves. It's why they've begun punting the fiscal spending deadlines down the road for a week to avoid shutdowns they know they'll get blamed for.

Welcome back to the Era of Oh God We're Going Over a Cliff.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Having Gone Radio Silent

I know I haven't been blogging much.

There's only so many times I can write "Jesus Fucking Christ, America, What the HELL DID YOU VOTE FOR?"

Any attempt to focus on just one thing trump is doing wrong is next to impossible. I'd be writing five to twelve different articles every day.

There's a chance once I get some of my fiction writing projects completed I'll be back to full blogging outrage. But one thing at a time.

Good luck, and don't let the bastards get you down.

Friday, April 07, 2017

Everything Is Broken. Burn In Hell, Mitch McConnell

(Update: Good morning, everybody from Crooks & Liars! Thank you again Batacchio for the link to Mike's Blog Round-Up! Just a note to visitors, I'm currently distracted from blogging due to a severe case of "I GOT TO FINISH MY NOVEL" project, so please don't worry about the lack of new content here. And if there's any of you from Albany GA, I hope to see you in August at Epicon)

So let's list the various sins of Mitch McConnell:


  • He plotted from Day One of Barack Obama's Presidential administration to hinder, delay, and obstruct any agenda Obama had. McConnell did this while as Minority Leader using Senate rules of Cloture and Filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on almost everything that came to the floor. You wanna know how Congress stopped working? This is one major part of the problem (the other part is goddamn Far Right Wingnuts)


Look at how it DOUBLED when McConnell became Minority Leader (chart provided by The Week)



  • There have been reports - more of them coming out now as investigations into trump's dealings with Russian businessmen and trump handlers' dealings with Russian AGENTS get serious - that the Intelligence agencies informed Republican leaders in Congress as far back as October (maybe even in August) that trump's campaign was actively engaged with Russian hackers and other forces to manipulate the 2016 Elections. Word is, McConnell refused to do anything about it, accusing Obama of playing politics with the intel. As it becomes clearer that trump DID deal with the Russians to mess with the elections, it becomes likely that McConnell allowed treasonous acts to occur just so he could stay in power.


The deepest pit in Hell is not enough for McConnell.

And worse, every evil act he committed was rewarded by an American electorate who bought into McConnell's kabuki theater. Every time the Republicans obstructed and blocked Obama and the Democrats, they won more elections. Any attempt at accountability got flushed down the nation's toilet.

All that's left us is an America under the control of a wingnut-driven party that can't even compromise with itself.

All that's left us is an America under the control of a Congress that can't even unify under one party to get anything done (even the stuff that could make things worse).

All that's left us is an America under the thumb of a goddamn bankrupt con artist bully breaking constitutional rules and executive office ethics - and likely committing TREASON working with a foreign power against our country - all in the glory of his goddamn brand name.

Let me repeat: The deepest pit in Hell is not enough for Mitch McConnell.

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

They Can't Quit Hating Obamacare, Baby

Jeez. Just when you thought the Republicans learned their lesson not to fuck with Obama's legacy, they're right back on the "Repeal" bandwagon trying to nuke Obamacre from orbit for, what, the 97th time?

To reference David Anderson (previously Richard Mayhew when he needed a pseudonym as he worked in the HC industry) on Balloon-Juice:

In simple terms, a carrier can’t deny a hemophiliac coverage but they can charge an actuarial fair premium of $90,000 per year. A carrier can’t deny a young woman who either is or intends to become pregnant. They just don’t have to cover the prenatal or labor and delivery costs.
It is effectively a slightly modified option 3 of Cassidy-Collins where states can return to the 2009 status quo if they so actively elect to do so. If we combine a single state choosing this route and sell across state lines, it would lead the entire country’s individual market back to 2009...

From what I can tell: The Republicans in Congress are basically going to kill any coverage in health care, and they're going to try and shift the blame onto the states to get away with it.

The way David Anderson describes it, the Replacement-to-the-Replacement Bill (AHCA 2.0) is worse than the original AHCA.

Why are the Republicans even bothering?

Because somewhere in that shared reptilian brain of the party is the evil desire to wreck ANYTHING with Obama's name on it, and they want to prove they can actually do this without the party falling apart like it did two weeks ago.

Frances Langum at Crooks and Liars is in agreement:

And here's the background: the current Congress (and especially the Freedumb Caucus) is chock full of Class of 2010 and later numbnuts who have NO congressional experience when Obama wasn't president, and NO platform other than "repeal and replace" that Obamacare.
They don't know what else to do.
And this latest incarnation is just. terrible.
They are getting rid of preexisting conditions, people. Because who wants to cover sick people?
By the way, it's always been about getting rid of preexisting conditions and yielding a big tax cut for the rich...

According to Langum, the current follow-up on this is that the Freedom Caucus is stepping back from any deal on AHCA 2.0. Still, this is worrisome. The Republicans are not learning from their mistakes. They never had to before. Every time they caused damage to the nation since 2009, they've been rewarded with election wins (sans 2012). But now they don't have the excuses and scapegoats to point at anymore: they can't rely on the Democrats - Obama in the White House - to stop themselves from driving over that cliff.

Keep calling, America. Keep resisting. Make damn sure the Republican Congresscritters realize this time there are consequences for their bullshit.

And start getting worried about that fiscal cliff too. That Debt Ceiling problem is coming back and this lineup of Jokers to the Right are not focusing on a solution for that at all...

Monday, April 03, 2017

You Got What You Voted For, America. Con Artists Among the Conservatives...

Part of my frustration over the current national crisis of incompetence, cronyism, and treason is how the media keeps treating the "trump Voter" with any sympathy or value.

No. No they shouldn't.

They keep covering the 62 million who voted for a well-documented bankrupt con artist all the while ignoring the 65 million who voted for a vetted US Senator and Secretary of State who had the misfortune of being an oversized bullseye target for a slime campaign that's lasted 25 years.

I'm getting sick of the skewed media coverage here.

And I'm not the only one (per Charles P. Pierce at Esquire):

A while back, I ran out of patience with the endless provision of cookies to the people who looked at the United States of America and decided that just what we needed was to have it run for a while by a Manhattan real-estate grifter and career public nuisance because he was going to bring jobs and money back to a bunch of states he very likely couldn't find on a map. But, in a continuing act of self-criticism that would do the Cultural Revolution proud, ever since the results rolled in last November, America's elite newspapers and news divisions have offered up linespace and airtime as a kind of penance to the "overlooked" and "forgotten" real Americans.
After the first several of these, I was on the verge of recommending that the people running the newspapers and news divisions simply stand themselves up in the town square of Bug Tussle and flog themselves for being educated as well as they are. The sub rosa tone of apology in most of these exercises was revolting.
Holy mother of god, I'm tired of reading quotes from people who live in places where the local economy went to hell or Mexico in 1979, and who have spent the intervening years swallowing whatever Jesus Juice was offered up by theocratic bunco artists of the Christocentric Right, and gulping down great flagons of barely disguised hatemongering against the targets of the day, all the while voting against their own best interests, now claiming that empowering Donald Trump as the man who will "shake things up" on their behalf was the only choice they had left. You had plenty of choices left.
In Kansas, you could have declined to re-elect Sam Brownback, who'd already turned your state into a dismal Randian basket case. In Wisconsin, you had three chances to turn out Scott Walker, and several chances to get the state legislature out of his clammy hands. And, now that the teeth of this new administration are becoming plain to see, it's a good time to remind all of you that you didn't have to hand the entire federal government over to Republican vandalism, and the presidency over to an abject loon on whom Russia may well hold the paper.
You all had the same choices we all had. You saddled the rest of us with misrule and disaster. Own it...

Every person who voted trump crossed a line. You had every warning, you had every clue there. He even bragged to your faces that he could and would abuse your trust the second you gave it to him, and you treated that like trustworthy leadership. You failed in your primary duty as citizens of the United States: to take an honest look at what you were voting for. You put your votes to a man whose only skill has been to shout at people on a fake "reality" show, and now you're wondering why that skill-set doesn't work in politics. And why a guy who claimed he'd "drain the swamp" of DC politics instead filled it up with Wall Street greedheads like himself.

You don't deserve one lick of sympathy.

The only ones who DO deserve the sympathy are the majority of Americans who DIDN'T vote for trump, because they did their damnedest to stop him and couldn't because of a broken Electoral College system.

I have sympathy for the millions of teachers and students whose schools are about to get turned into hamburger franchises disguised as unregulated charter academies.

I have sympathy for the millions of families - legally here in the US as citizens and immigrants - now all of a sudden targets of a bullying immigration police force pushing a "papers please" roundup that's arresting community leaders and not the "bad hombres" the Far Right keeps fearmongering about.

I have sympathy for the millions of Americans who are going to see worsening wages and job security under a wave of deregulation of protections and rights that won't bring back jobs but will boost the profit margins of short-sighted CEOs.

I have no sympathy for the fools who voted for all of this to happen, out of whatever blind ideology or sadistic glee that compels you.

You're gonna get screwed just like the rest of us. I just hope it hurts more for you.

Saturday, April 01, 2017

Obligitory trump April Fools Article 2017 Edition

President trump just walked out of an executive order signing without actually signing the executive order. trump was poised to sign a pair of executive orders Friday targeting trade abuses, but a reporter's question distracted him from signing at least one of them.
As trump thanked the press, a reporter jumped in with a question about ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was recently denied his request for immunity in exchange for testifying before Congress about ties between trump's campaign and Russia's presidential election meddling. trump, looking visibly flustered upon being asked about Flynn, responded by walking out the door.
Before trump could get too far, Vice President Mike Pence stopped the president and consulted with him in the doorway. Pence then picked the unsigned order off of the desk and followed trump out of the door.

That's it. How can we have April Fools gags when the biggest gag is REALLY HAPPENING TO US AND ISN'T GODDAMN FUNNY...?