About Justice For the Poor, As the Good Book Says

You know what they call someone who goes around claiming to be a Christian and yet rejects everything Jesus himself taught and stood for?

You call them AntiChrists Republicans.

Just look at this mess over here (via Shaun Mullen at Moderate Voice):

...It did not seem to be in the same league as Kim Jong-un reneging on a peace deal or Vladimir Putin ordering the poisoning of a defector spy, but for Republicans it was enough to send House Chaplain Patrick J. Conroy packing.

It seems that in Republican eyes the right reverend had sinned when, in a prayer last November as the House took up the $1.5 trillion tax “reform” bill, he prayed for the bill’s chief advocate, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and other lawmakers to “guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

Although it took awhile, Ryan has now fired Father Conroy because he prayed for the poor. And the hungry, the powerless, the jobless, the fearful, the disabled and the victims of prejudice...

You see, that Jesuit priest was preaching from the likes of Proverbs: you know, bits like "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and He will reward them for what they have done" (19:17) and "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern" (29:7).

If the priest wanted to stay on Ryan's good side, he needed to preach more from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: "...We have no laws in this valley, no rules, no formal organization of any kind...But we have certain customs, which we all observe, because they pertain to the things we need to rest from. So I'll warn you now that there is one word which is forbidden in this valley: the word give." (p.714)

Ryan likes to sell himself as a Catholic to impress the religious Evangelical base, but he's always been a fan of Rand's hatred of the undeserving masses "begging for handouts" from "the great industrialists who earned their wealth."

This is actually a serious problem for Republicans overall. They LOVE to say they walk with Jesus but when push comes to shove they shove Jesus off the cliff in order to shove all the poor and vulnerable as well. Back to Mullen:

...Despite the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state... Republicans in general and Evangelicals in particular have been trying to ram religion down our throats for years in demanding that public school prayer be legalized, faith-based political action groups be tax exempt and employers be permitted to hide behind their religion in refusing to pay for employee benefits that include reproductive health care.

But for God’s sake keep religion out of their own house . . . er, House.

The hypocrisy of their faithlessness - wrecking laws and norms that were set up to help those who needed and deserved such help - exposes Republicans as the self-serving greedheads they are.

These Republicans do not GIVE. They do not give Justice, they do not give Love, they do not give Forgiveness, they do not give Hope, they do not give Charity, they do not give Grace.

These Republicans TAKE. And they don't take anything of true value, they just take money and power and fame and everyone else's lives.

Never call them Christians. These Pharisees spit on everything Jesus represents.

Past Present Or Future, Republicans Still Doomed

If we refer to Conor Friedersdorf over at The Atlantic, he's already noting how the Republicans were screwed up long before trump took over, and that they're still going to have these problems once he's gone:

...Yes, Trump beat a big field to become president, he is more popular among GOP voters than any rival, many elected Republicans fear publicly crossing him at the moment, and he is influential in setting the tone in Washington. Still, the conclusion that he has taken over the Republican Party is overstated and premature.

Consider these counter-points:

First, Trump’s position is unusually shaky for a first-term president. His influence will take a huge hit if the GOP loses big in the 2018 midterms. And it could suffer if investigations into Trump or his associates expose a significant new scandal. Neither of those outcomes is assured. But both are very plausible.

Second, if Trump starts to seem like he’s hurting the GOP’s popularity more than he is helping it, he has no reserve of personal goodwill or substantive support for his ideas on which to fall back. Trump’s unpopularity was illustrated most colorfully by an unnamed GOP representative quoted by conservative commentator Erick Erickson. “I say a lot of shit on TV defending him,” the legislator said. “But honestly, I wish the motherfucker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, shits all over Twitter, shits all over us, shits all over his staff, then hits golf balls. Fuck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.” The unnamed congressman even declared of the president he has defended on television, “If we’re going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherfucker.”

Just to interject here: It's noteworthy that this Republican elected official is honest enough to recognize how horrifying trump is as a person and as President Loser of the Popular Vote. It's also noteworthy that this coward doesn't have the balls to go public on this and make a stand to save his own Party, not because trump has that much power to punish him but because the GOP's Wingnut Base (the rabid voters AND the dogmatic SuperPAC donors) do have that power. The Republican Party cannot change because the ones who should change it - the elected officials - are afraid of the true powers controlling the GOP now: the deep-pocket ideologues like the Mercers and the Kochs and the Far Right Noise Machine - Fox, Breitbart, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter et al. - that profits from selling their brand of fearmongering and don't want it to change.

Third, the GOP establishment has so far accomplished much more than whatever is supposed to be replacing it. Asked what Trump has achieved, his defenders typically respond that he appointed a Supreme Court justice, passed tax cuts, and got rid of unnecessary regulations. It is easy to imagine Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio doing those same things. Trump’s achievements reflect GOP priorities going back decades, not anything new to his agenda...

Conor is right about this: The Republicans have accomplished what they needed to, regardless of whichever Republican is sitting in the Oval Office. They've got their terrible tax cuts for the rich, they're getting their deregulation agenda taken care of, they've got hopes to get their anti-abortion finally to where they can ruin poor women's lives forever. Paul Ryan is eagerly retiring now because other than nuking Social Security and Medicare (which he found out he's not able to nuke) he's done what he wanted to do. Ryan's dangling his own MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner over his shrine to Ayn Rand as we speak.

Fourth, there is no heir apparent to Trumpism, or even a deep stable of future presidential aspirants like the one that the Tea Party movement provided the GOP...

This is an interesting point, in that so far during the special elections between 2017 to the midterms this year, trump has been an utter disaster as a banner-carrier for the GOP. He's made three high-profile attempts in two different states - one of them Deep Red Alabama! - and has failed all three times to get "his" guy(s) elected.

However, I think Conor is wrong about "no heir apparent." There may not be a specific protege or acolyte in the trumpian mold that stands to rise up and claim the GOP leadership for himself. trump HAS done one thing and that's show exactly how a demagogic racist sonofabitch can campaign on such behavior and win the GOP nomination.

Nothing is going to stop the next trump Wannabe to step up to the mic and drop bombs on hated libruls and in such a way the fervent wingnut base will rise up and claim that Wannabe The Next St. Ronnie who will smite all Democrats and Keep American Great Angry Aging White Male.

Which is the doom of the Republican Party, because if that's all they've got - raging racist assholes - then that's all they'll have, which is not going to win over the growing non-White population of this nation.

But this is what they as a party have been building towards, ever since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s shifted the dynamics of liberal-conservative alignments and made the Republicans more and more Conservative. Except that their pursuit of ideological purity turned into a closed dogmatic belief system - referring to Frum here - that ironically turned most of the Party - from voting base to elected leaders - into Anarchist Nihilists obsessed with destroying the existing order to build their flawed Utopia.

trump may have been the result, but they've been building towards this ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and right through Reagan's administration of deregulation and corruption, and into Newt's Contract On America (where a lot of pundits are now realizing was the Point of No Return for Republican assholery), straight through into Dubya's reign of error, right into McConnell's Damning pursuit of Obstruction Now Obstruction Forever.

Even if trump departs tomorrow, by resignation or by fleeing to a country without extradition, the GOP will simply reload for the next demagogue to come in and claim "I will do everything in my power to make liberals cry into their cappuccinos YEEHA!"

There's no Republican Party to save because this is now a group of people who DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED. They think they're already flawless perfect jewels in God's Mighty Plan. They not only will refuse to get into the lifeboats, they'll eagerly smash everything with fire axes to make sure nobody else gets on them either.

We are so very royally fucked.

The Bill Is Coming Due For Republicans, So Of Course Paul Ryan Is Fleeing Before He Has To Pay

There are a lot of reasons why Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is retiring from Congress uh um refusing to face voters for re-election ah um running for the hills like a terrified ideologue who knows his shtick ain't selling no more.

1) Ryan has actually gotten one major thing done during his brief tenure as Speaker: Pass an insanely massive giveaway to the uber-rich with a Tax Cut Bill that gave billions to the billionaires and not-to-subtly raised taxes on everybody else. While he might count that as a success, even he has to notice that the public polling on that tax cut is weak. If the big thing - maybe the only thing - you passed in a year where you held incredible control of the legislation is unpopular AND you have nothing else to campaign on, even the most die-hard pol is going to think "time to quit."

2) Ryan is stepping down while his other obsession - to kill off social aid programs like Medicare and Social Security - remained unresolved, and while there's little right now in public about why he's leaving before even making a serious strike at those programs I am guessing he's finding out few other Republicans want to touch those Third Rails. Ryan wasn't about to waste what little political capital and media goodwill he had inside the Beltway.

3) Ryan is refusing to run again even though as an incumbent to his Wisconsin district he has every reason to expect an easy re-election. He's more than likely to face again the guy he beat in 2016 by a 60-to-35 percent blowout. The only thing regarding his district is if his own internal polling - the parties run more detailed and exacting polling data that the public polling services don't delve into - is showing a serious 2018 primary challenge that the rest of us haven't seen yet.

Republicans only retire from their incumbencies for two reasons: A) they've got a cushy no-show job at a think tank finally lined up or B) they're facing defeat and don't want to go away looking like a loser. (Ryan's predecessor John Boehner quit for something along those lines: facing a party schism over the Debt Ceiling and spending bills, he used his retirement for a parliamentary trick to get those matters resolved long enough for him to flee).

3a) What Ryan is facing this 2018 is a clear Blue Wave Election. Special election after special election over the past year have pointed to serious gains by Democrats. Even when they don't win the seat, the voter shift plus to Blue has been striking. That 538 article I linked to showed a +14 shift in 2017, and the recent 2018 special elections have shown a greater shift. Even if there's a +10 shift Democratic in this year's midterms this November, take every close Republican win that was under 10 percent and flip them Blue (while every close Dem win becomes a rout).

Democratic voters are pissed. There's 65 million Hillary voters angry that the Republicans - with help from Russia, their voter suppression efforts, and an antiquated / broken Electoral College that disfavors the majority of voters - stole the White House in 2016, and they're going to take it out on the GOP this year.

Independent voters are flipping Democrat right now. There's little reason this year to vote Republican since the vaunted Tax Cut Bill isn't helping (and is actually hurting middle-class voters this year, anecdotally I've heard from three different people that they didn't get refunds this time), the GOP keeps threatening to hurt their healthcare (now that people have it, they like it), and the Republicans are going further Right on issues that most Indy voters don't want to go.

Speaking of why Democrats are so motivated to head to the polls this cycle...

4) donald fucking trump.

While Ryan has to carry the blame for making the modern Republican Party what it is today - a party obsessed with winning over governing, a party fully willing to lie about its agenda, a party that panders to their wingnut base's darkest impulses against immigration, minorities, women, and now kids - there's every sign that having trump lead the GOP is a broken bridge too far.

In terms of what trump brings to the table for the midterms, let's be honest trump is... actually not that toxic in the deep Red districts. When he's shown up at certain special elections, he doesn't hurt the GOP candidate there. It's that trump doesn't help either: Worse, trump shows up and makes the rally more about himself than about the special election, and that doesn't give the boost the local candidate needs.

Where trump is toxic are the more moderate, less "safe" Districts where the odd dynamics of any special election - quixotic (slightly insane) candidates, single-issue voters, wild campaign spending - won't be in play. In those places, Democratic turnout is bound to go high. Being unable to campaign on the issues, people will vote on their emotions.

And right now, far too many people... far too many voters hate trump. His Approval/Disapproval spread is around 12 points this point of the year according to RealClearPolitics, and their polling on "Right Track/Wrong Track" shows too many Americans think we're on the Wrong Track, never a good sign for the party controlling all three branches of the Federal Government.

There's something else to note regarding what he's running away from. In this era of political chaos, there is a distinct opportunity for the 25th Amendment to kick in: for trump to be removed from the Presidency somehow, and for Pence to be removed as well (related to certain allegations surrounding Mike Flynn, Russians, and other campaign matters), leaving the Speaker as Third in Line to the White House.

For Ryan to walk away from THAT possibility - and in the current climate, you can't discount it - means he either knows it's not happening (that trump could well survive the Russian - and now other - scandals)... or that he's facing similar legal woes due to his involvement in the transition and overall party campaign efforts that got compromised by Russia and trump.

It's also important to note Ryan is not the only Republican rat fleeing the HBS trumpanic. In my own Florida backyard, Congresscritter Dennis Ross won't run for re-election either. We are seeing this midterm a sizable number of "retirements" to where I'm thinking this may be a record. It's rare for a majority party to see so many of their own drop out: It only happens during a clear Wave election (Dems retired like mad in 1994, GOP retired like mad in 2006).

All of this shouldn't distract from what needs to be done, of course. Just because the Republicans are fleeing doesn't mean they're automatically losing their elections this November.

We Americans need to show up. Voter turnout has to be higher than any previous midterms in ages. Every Democrat has to show, every Indy voter horrified by the bad leadership of the GOP has to show, every disillusioned Republican (and yes, they are out there) has to show.

And everyone single one of us NEEDS TO VOTE for the Democrats to ensure we toss the GOP crooks out of power.

For the LOVE OF GOD, America, DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

They sure as hell are proving they are not willing to run for you. They are running AWAY from you.

Make them keep running for their lives.

I Gots Me More Government Shutdown Blues 2018 Edition

How can you tell there's a federal government shutdown pending?

The Republicans are already trying to blame Democrats for not surrendering to them over it.

It's not as though Republicans control both houses of Congress, which should simplify the GOP's ability to get shit done.

It's not as though Democrats have any influence over the Far Right factions of Congress that are refusing to give their own party some wriggle room with Continuing Resolutions. THAT'S entirely Paul Ryan's fault for not getting his own to agree to vote on another CR to extend their budgeting deadlines a little further down the road.

The budget fight this time is over DREAMers - a way to grant citizenship to those who were brought here as children by illegal immigrants, who grew up as Americans and many of whom are honest hard-working citizens in heart if not by law - and over trump's insistence for massive taxpayer funding for his Godawful Wall (guess what, trumpshirts: Mexico's not ever paying for your shit, YOU ARE).

Democrats are not going to budge on getting DREAMers their citizenship. Whatever compromises the Dems are willing to make to keep government open they're thinking long-term on the matter, and even then it's gonna be a hard sell to the whole party.

This means this is all on the Republicans: A Party that hasn't held itself accountable since Watergate. And yet blaming Democrats for their own failures to govern is all the Republicans can do at this point.

There are a lot of reasons why we've been suffering through one of the Worst Congresses Ever in American history. The failure of genuine bipartisanship out of the McConnell/Boehner/Ryan leadership - if not outright obstruction of Obama's Presidency - since 2010. The failure to rein in the worst racist impulses of their current banner-carrier trump. The failure to recognize their party are governing in the minority, ignoring the polls that show the GOP tax-cut, budget-slashing agendas are woefully unpopular with most Americans.

It all comes down to this: Republicans simply can't govern. Oh, they can win elections, but winning elections doesn't mean you can make hard decisions that elected officials are expected to make. Elections are won based on emotional drives, on bias and impulse: Republicans can sell themselves to their base on fear and anger, but those impulses are useless when it comes time to make Honest-to-God decisions that actually benefits people.

So this is why we're facing the third - or fourth? I lost track - Government Shutdown in modern memory since the 1990s. A trend of Government Shutdowns that happen ONLY when Republicans are in control of Congress, and this is the first time it's happening when they also control the White House (to get past the presidential veto power).

This is how bad it's gotten for us, America. Even when they're in charge of EVERYTHING, the Republicans screw up.

And we're the ones who have to pay for it.

Again.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, AMERICA, STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN.

This Will Cut Deep

So what exactly just happened?

Republicans had campaigned for 8 years on obstructing Obama's Presidency as best they could, and spent 7 years campaigning against Obama's signature Healthcare reform package Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare).

Republicans finally had full control of the federal government. They controlled the House under Speaker Paul "Ayn Rand Is My Goddess" Ryan. They controlled the Senate - slightly - under Majority Leader Mitch "Burn In Hell For Your Obstruction" McConnell. They pulled off getting trump into the Presidency due to Russian involvement voter suppression and a broken Electoral College. Anything they passed in Congress, trump would happily sign off on. No more vetoes from Obama.

Republicans simply had to draft up a Health Care Replacement plan that could give them their desired Tax Cuts, give them their desired deregulation of industry, and still provide some semblance of coverage to make it look effective in comparison to a "flawed and broken" Obamacare they warned was going to make things bad.

Republicans came out with a Replacement bill - the AHCA - that actually kicked millions of Americans off health care coverage, reduced Medicaid AND Medicare funding, forced millions more Americans to pay more costs out-of-pocket, threatened to close hospitals and nursing homes, ruined health care protections for women, and did nothing to fix the dreaded deficits.

Republicans suddenly got an earful from millions of Americans protesting at town halls against their Replacement plan. They found no allies among their valued business buddies, many of whom were facing uncertainty and possible financial collapse with AHCA. They couldn't come up with sufficient excuses about why 24 million - at least - would lose health care.

Republicans could not rally around one coherent plan. When Ryan offered to make changes to the existing bill, the Far Right Freedom Caucus made harsher demands that actually made more Moderate members of The Tuesday Group (really? there's Moderate Republicans still around?!) reject those changes. And the Freedom Caucus wouldn't commit to the new changes either. It got ugly, fast.

Republicans just had to cancel in the House of Representatives their floor vote on their flawed, destructive Replacement plan, meaning they can't go through with their Repeal plan, basically meaning Obamacare remains intact (albeit vulnerable to Executive branch sabotage down the road).

In short:

MEEP motherfucking MEEP.

As I noted often before:

...The other thing Obama leaves behind is a broken Republican Party. Sure, they won the 2016 elections: but they lost every last shred of integrity, honesty, maturity, intelligence, wisdom, and long-term survival in the process. They ran on a platform of destruction: massive tax cuts for the rich a majority of Americans don't support, nuking health care that a majority of Americans are beginning to realize is gonna hurt them if it's taken away, rolling back civil rights gains, and discrediting every foreign policy success of the last 70 years (!) just to appease their new best friend Putin.

And having made this fantasy world of lies - where OBAMA was a FAILURE - the Republicans are going to try to reshape the real world to that fantasy. And they're going to find the real world doesn't work that way (and that Obama was more successful than they feared)...

...We're already watching the Republicans stumble on their attempt to purge Obamacare/ACA, but while they're setting up the first stage of launch they're finding out that "Repealing" is harder than they thought: Obamacare isn't just a layer added onto our existing Health Care laws, it BECAME our Health Care laws meaning any removal is going to leave a gaping hole in our economy that Congress HAS to Replace. Oh they'll still repeal Obamacare because they've made their Narrative and dare not deviate from script, but they're finding out NOW there's a huge price to pay and the Democratic Party is NOT going to be there to cover their asses...

I wasn't exaggerating. All they did was lie about Obama and Obamacare for seven years plus, and when it came time to deal with the Truth - that Obamacare was actually good for most Americans, that any repeal or cutbacks would cause damage to millions of lives - they had nothing.

The Republicans will still lie about this, of course. They'll point fingers, blame the Democrats for being so obstructionist - GEE, WHO TAUGHT THEM THAT, BOYS? - and they'll do everything to try and keep their base angry at the usual suspects. But it's out there, it's public and it's on the record: The Republicans themselves had Majority Control of the House of Representatives and they COULD NOT FULFILL THEIR BIGGEST CAMPAIGN PLEDGE OF KILLING OBAMACARE. This is on them. This is on a dying dysfunctional Party so obsessed with staying On Message for their Fox Not-News appearances - do read Frum's Waterloo follow-up he posted today - that they've forgotten how to do anything else.

This is what's called an unforced error: The Republicans had control of both wings of Congress, control of the Presidency, technically control of the Supreme Court, they had all the pieces in place to pass ANY bills they want... and they couldn't even agree on the biggest target they were aiming at, all because they fractured over the reality that their solutions were more disastrous than the "disaster" they were claiming to replace. For all the reputation Republicans have for being organized and On Message with their Narrative, this is a public display of ineptitude and incompetence that is rarely seen in our nation's history.

All those complaints about Democrats being too moderate, too calculating, too passive at times? It's called competence. They might screw up here and there, and act like cowards when they shouldn't, but the Democrats genuinely want to govern and make things work. When they passed ACA/Obamacare, it was with an eye towards making it work with the right organizations. Obama made sure to include the Health Care Industry as partners on the legislation: It may have pissed off the liberals who wanted socialized universal care, but it paid off long-term because those businesses recoiled from the Republican AHCA plan that created industry-wide chaos.

Like I noted before: Obama had to have known taking on a conservative model like ACA would wreck any future Republican sabotage because it took away any viable alternative the GOP could offer.

MEEP Motherfucking MEEP.

Tomorrow we keep fighting. The Republicans still have an agenda to dismantle every last bit of functioning government they can. Ryan may be wounded by this fight - can he still govern as Speaker if he can't even get his own Party aligned to vote his way? - but he still wants his precious precious TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH.

Tomorrow is another battle.

TONIGHT WE DANCE.

Guessing The Republican Repeal Gameplan

There's been a leak or three of various Republican plans to follow through on their "Repeal And Replace Pray Nobody Notices There's No Sane Replacement" of Obamacare, and there's now reports of the GOP House leadership just deciding on a kamikaze do-or-die bill to see if it passes (per the Talking Points Memo):

The movement to repeal the Affordable Care Act appears to be approaching a do-or-die moment for Republicans, as the clock ticks on dismantling Obamacare in time to also tackle tax reform before Congress's summer recess. Many of the differences that dogged Republicans about repealing and replacing the law remain. But GOP lawmakers, particularly in the House, seem intent on moving forward, if a leaked a draft of legislation is of any judge...

Republicans have had seven years to coalesce around an Obamacare replacement, during which GOP lawmakers took dozens of vote to repeal the ACA, but in the months since Donald Trump’s surprise election, have only inched a little closer to settling on a plan moving forward. GOP lawmakers were able to pass an Obamacare repeal bill that then-President Obama vetoed in 2016. But now that they have a President Trump in the White House who will sign it, they’ve raised concerns about the timing, funding and general shape of an ACA replacement. According to the Wall Street Journal report, leadership is ready to move forward right away with a replacement strategy that resembles the previous proposals put forward by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) rather than fully litigate all of the differences within the House GOP conference. The risk of such a strategy is that it takes only a few defections -- about two dozen members in the House and three Republicans in the Senate -- to torpedo the repeal bill...

Already House conservatives -- including the leaders of the influential groups the House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee -- are objecting to some of the ideas being floated, and particularly the proposal to offer refundable tax credits for individual insurance...

The usual practice in the House is to Whip - organize - your votes on a bill by getting your party members in line and on-message. Funny thing is, they've had months six years to rally around a planned "Repeal and Replace" package, and yet they STILL can't rally around one because the party's factions - The Freedom Caucus that wants to watch it all burn vs. the Establishment incumbents that like to keep their cushy seats until more lobbyists need to fill no-show jobs - remain divided on how sharp they want their knives to be when they gut Obamacare like a fish.

So the new plan is to play what David Anderson at Balloon Juice calls a game of chicken: Ryan and his leadership team are daring their Republican foot soldiers to either go big or go home.

Given how the Republicans tend to fall into line when it gets to be do-or-die time, this is likely a done deal: Few House Republicans have the nerve or strength of character to test their "safe" gerrymandered districts (because those gerrymandered districts are ONLY safe for those who whimper before their wingnut voter base). The Senate may be a different matter - they have to win statewide voters and thus in practice can appeal to more moderate sensibilities - but the House is IMHO 95 percent (Okay, I'm not THAT absolutist about this) ready to vote Ryan's Repeal deal. They have to before they move on to what they want to pass, their "cut taxes for the rich and kill the federal budget forever" plan.

So what does this mean? What will we see as the results of this Repeal (and no real Replace) bill?

The universe will dance down one of these four paths:

1) The Republicans pass their Repeal plan, and somehow their Replace plan isn't as devastating as the budget offices predict it will be. Thousands may lose their health care plans but there's no noticeable uptick in health-related deaths (and a possibility the states in dire straits pass their own state-level programs). Job losses to the health care industry and health provider industry are minimal. This frees up the Republicans to pass their massive tax-cut / slash-and-burn federal budget... which actually works after TWO PREVIOUS FAILED ATTEMPTS at tax cuts, and with Congress holding down on any excessive spending like they did in 2001-2006.

This is known as the "Monkeys-Fly-Out-Of-My-Ass" timeline. Every Republican budget plan since 1980 that revolved around tax cuts created massive deficits and economic hardships. Because Republicans don't care about deficits at all: they just want tax cuts ALWAYS, and to hell with the consequences.

In short: This will never happen. The Repeal plan kills one part of the economy while the follow-up Ryan Budget kills the rest. And the Republicans will do their damnedest to pin the blame on Obama, Immigrants, and the Librul Poor. But people are gonna remember who passed all this crap, who campaigned on these lies about taxes and bad economies... and still vote Republican because they're f-cking hard-wired that way.

2) The House Republicans pass their Repeal plan, but the Senate Republicans balk at the poor Replace elements and it stalls out. The bill goes back to the House for fine-tuning, but the factions still can't agree on what stays and what goes. This stymies the entire budget process for the year and the government staggers on up to the point where the Freedom Caucus, wanting to burn it all down anyway, forces a budget shutdown that creates a constitutional crisis and economic meltdown.

Faced with an obstructionist faction of 40-plus wingnuts, the remaining House Republicans are forced to deal with the Democrats to pass any kind of budget at all to save the nation, but at the cost of their own electoral safety because the wingnuts will stir up a primary shitstorm in 2018 against the Establishment GOP. I doubt the Republicans can come up with anything for a budget that would satisfy the wingnuts AND the Senate at the same time... and any budget plan HAS to do something with Obamacare anyway, which makes this still a huge mess to figure out.

In short: This could happen. The Senate has already voiced enough opposition to the House's Repeal plan to make this likely. The random factor to all this is how the House reacts to that rejection: Implosion - the party splintering and eating itself - or Explosion - pursuing an agenda that makes things worse.

3) The proposed Repeal plan can't even pass through the House because the Freedom Caucus opposes it to where the Republicans don't have enough votes to make it through. Ryan could then pursue just his tax-cut budget plan without dealing with the ACA at all - ignore it and just let it suffer through the massive spending cuts his budget already doles out - and hope that the party faithful decide to let it slide as well.

The Freedom Caucus will make noises about it in the wingnut media, but will adjust their anger towards libruls and immigrants anyway. The Republicans stumble on as a united but backstabbing party, complaining about how Obama rigged the health care system against the American people and trying to keep the Repeal rallying cry fresh for their 2018 midterms.

In short: The actual compromise situation for everyone on the Far Right to accept. It won't be pretty, and it will still cause severe harm to the nation's economic well-being, but it would be a best-case scenario for the health care system to at least on paper chug along until someone with political will fixes it.

4) Aliens appear in orbit around the Earth and beam up every sane person to transport us to one of the habitable planets orbiting Trappist-1. Also, every needed fruit and grain plant as well as enough livestock to ensure a proper food supply. And soap. We'll need toothpaste too. Access to fibers for clothing. Also our pets and companion animals. Everything we need to make good chili or the best pizza. We might need several colony ships for this.

In short: I've got to focus on finishing up my sci-fi short stories. I'm facing a shit-ton of deadlines.

I don't see many other variables here. If anyone else figures out how the GOP Repeal gameplan works out, leave a comment. Danke.

Just How Bad Is 2017 Going To Get?

I gotta admit, this is the first day where I am waking up to the dread of a new year.

I'm no optimist, but every other January 1st I've lived through has been a "hey, okay, this is the year all the good things come my way." I had hopes, I had good intentions, we all had the promise that things were turning up.

And then 62 million morans went and voted for Trump last November.

We're entering into a new Presidential administration led by the most ill-informed, proudly ignorant, vulgar, corrupt, bankrupt, dishonest, untrained and unqualified human being this nation could ever produce.

I'm not the only one thinking this. Even the audience for the Far Right Noise Machine thinks so:

And this is a month after his Electoral College "win". The "One of the Worst" category at 31 percent beats out "Above Average". You'd think the Fox audience would have biased themselves to AT LEAST give Trump an "Average" support (after all, 25 percent forced themselves to support "Above Average").

How bad is this year going to get?

Trump's very existence could well become an impeachable offense the moment he swears the oath of office. Via the Washington Post:

Until now, we have never had one for whom it was legitimate to question at the onset of his presidency whether he could fulfill his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

As things stand now, President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he will not divest himself of a myriad of businesses around the globe that pose serious conflicts of interest, nor will he liquidate even foreign holdings, the proceeds of which would put him in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

Jennifer Rubin cites a Brookings Review of the Emoluments Clause and what it found:

While much has changed since 1789, certain premises of politics and human nature have held steady.  One of those truths is that private financial interests can subtly sway even the most virtuous leaders.  As careful students of history, the Framers were painfully aware that entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious risk to the Republic.  The Emoluments Clause was forged of their hard-won wisdom.  It is no relic of a bygone era, but rather an expression of insight into the nature of the human condition and the preconditions of self-governance.

Now in 2016, when there is overwhelming evidence that a foreign power has indeed meddled in our political system, adherence to the strict prohibition on foreign government presents and emoluments “of any kind whatever” is even more important for our national security and independence.

Never in American history has a president-elect presented more conflict of interest questions and foreign entanglements than Donald Trump. Given the vast and global scope of Trump’s business interests, many of which remain shrouded in secrecy, we cannot predict the full gamut of legal and constitutional challenges that lie ahead.  But one violation, of constitutional magnitude, will run from the instant that Mr. Trump swears he will “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” While holding office, Mr. Trump will receive—by virtue of his continued interest in the Trump Organization and his stake in hundreds of other entities—a steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers and their agents.

In the attached brief, we examine the Emoluments Clause in detail and conclude that Donald Trump’s diverse dealings violate both the spirit and the letter of this critical piece of the U.S. Constitution...

By some arguments, Trump can't even place his holdings into a Blind Trust because he'll still be in a position to know what profits him (and having his children run that "Trust" still violates ethics). Thing is, Trump will not even do that: he keeps "promising" he'll provide a solution but never does.

Trump is a walking Impeachment, but this Republican-controlled Congress will never go for it: not enough of their own wingnuts will turn against Trump, meaning a serious Impeachment effort requires support from Democrats... and the Democrats are not going to be charitable out of the kindness of their hearts, they are going to want concessions on key issues - Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, voting rights, Medicare and Social Security protections - that Paul Ryan and the Budget Slashers could never accept.

And in the time that Trump will be in office, disasters will abound. If Trump and the Congressional wingnuts have their say, we'll be in the middle of a tariff trade war by April, rising costs on commodities by June, and double-digit unemployment by November.

Think I'm exaggerating? We're facing nearly the same economic conditions as 1929.

It's not going to help that Paul Ryan is hell-bent to implement his Randian Utopian budget of social safety nets and massive tax cuts for the uber-rich. This is going to do nothing to solve the income inequality problem that truly threatens a majority of Americans.

And it's really not helping that Trump is playing into Putin's hands, leading the Republicans into a foreign policy crisis where they're placing Party Loyalty over the national security needs of the United States.

And it's really really not helping that Trump is convinced he can restart a nuclear arms race and that he can use nuclear arms at a whim.

It's kind of nice that 2016 is finally over and that our celebrities may be safe for now... but 2017 is already an Excedrin Headache in dire need of trepanning relief.

There's Something Happening Here

...What it is involves the Democratic Party stepping up in a public way to call for votes on gun safety.

Earlier this week, the Senate Democrats forced a filibuster to get the Republicans in that side of Congress to hold floor votes on bills to restrict gun sales at least to those who were on DHS "watch lists". Granted, the votes all failed as the Republicans - and a handful of Democrats in pro-NRA states - denied any semblance of sanity over publicly-supported gun laws. And we're not talking about things like universal background checks getting a vote, even though that has an 86 percent approval from a majority of Americans (including enough gun owners to make a dent in the NRA arguments).

Tonight, when the Republican-controlled House tried to finish up their session before the extra-long summer recess - having failed to consider a ton of much-needed action on, well, EVERYTHING - the Democrats stood up and challenged the Republicans to at least hold up-or-down votes on two gun regulation bills in their wing of Congress.

Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of his buddies pretty much closed up the session and walked away.

The Democratic Congresspersons stayed.

Led by John Lewis, one of the civil rights giants of our era, over 100 make that 189 Democrats are staging a sit-in to call attention to the need to vote on the matter. It doesn't matter if they'll lose - and they would lose the vote as the Republicans are firmly pro-gun-worship - what the Dems want is an official record of it.

What the Democrats are doing are making a public display of who is on which side of the gun debate. And that the Democrats are the ones who are on the side of a majority of Americans who want sensible gun control laws.

Of course, the Republicans are dismissing the sit-in. They dare not engage otherwise, lest they point up how their Congress is unresponsive to the very American people they're supposed to serve.

Rather than vote, Ryan would rather call the sit-in a "publicity stunt" as though unworthy of our attention. But Cole over at Balloon Juice is right: it IS exactly a publicity stunt because THAT'S HOW YOU DRAW ATTENTION TO THE ISSUES THAT NEED SOLUTIONS.

Ryan ordered the cameras turned off for the House floor to avoid the bad optics that could get loose on cable channels - CSPAN! - but he failed to take away smartphones that the Democratic Congresspersons are using to share snaps and video feed to social media sites. (I'm not sure how to embed into the blog at the moment, but the Internet should provide)

Follow the Twitter hashtag #NoBillNoBreak

This is something that's been long overdue: pushing back against the political indifference of the Republicans when it comes to gun violence and public safety.

This is something happening in Congress. At long fucking last.