Senate GOOPs Using Trump As "Shield" To Push Through Despicable Bills

Maybe an image for the future - but not yet - the rats (GOP reps) remain ensconced on ship Trump.

Wonder why so much media oxygen is being allowed by the Reeps to be consumed by the Trump kerfuffle and his unstable administration? It's a deliberate plan adopted by the GOP to take attention off what they are doing behind the scenes, including already passing a banking deregulation  bill and eliminating the ACA.   In the first, the House voted 233 to 186 on Thursday for a sweeping rewrite of the rules governing Wall Street in "the Financial Choice Act".  According to the WSJ (June 9, p. B1) it "would unwind major parts of Dodd-Frank by relieving healthy banks of regulatory requirements". If this thing is passed by the Senate one wonders what excuses the Goops will offer if there's another financial meltdown.


And that's just the beginning. After 4 months of being paralyzed by the Trump ongoing shit storm, the Goops have decided to use it to their advantage as a shield. So while millions of Americans had their eyes glued to the tube and Comey hearing, the Repukes in the Senate Financial Committee were honing a plan to ram through - with only 50 votes - the final demise of the ACA that would leave over 20 million with no health care.

Holding 52 seats in the Senate, the GOP can afford to lose only two members of their party on a vote to undo the health care law they have assailed for seven years. They will not receive any support from Democratic senators or the Senate’s two independents (Angus King and Bernie Sanders), but they can count on support from Vice President Mike Pence to break a tie, if needed.  Well, they expect it will be needed and are in a rush to get the deal done - with no hearings or discussion - before the heat dies down on the Trump v. Comey battle and the hyped up news cycle on the ongoing probes.

To fix ideas on this so it's less abstract, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) erupted Thursday at a Senate Finance Committee hearing over how Senate Republicans are conducting negotiations over the GOP-backed American Health Care Act.  Recall this AHCA will demolish Obamacare, and eliminate all kinds of basic provisions including maternity care, visits to ERs, and mental health care. Those with pre-existing conditions will also have to pay much more. The worst aspect is how state coffers will suffer from having over 20 million tossed off Medicaid by 2020. Here in Colo. the state budget deficit is expected to skyrocket to $893m once the federal matching funds for Medicaid are gone..

Given these repercussions you can imagine Sen. McCaskill's rage at what the Repuke vermin were attempting. Finally squeezing an answer out of chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) confirming that there would not be any hearings on the bill, McCaskill erupted on the lack of transparency and bipartisanship surrounding the discussions. But we've seen this act before, especially with the scumball Hatch, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/01/democrats-locate-their-gonads-and-hatch.html


Hatch tried his sleazy best to assuage McCaskill by saying that Republicans "have invited" Democrats to share their ideas, as egregious a claim as when he bloviated back in January:

"I don’t remember us treating their nominees this way...."

referring to Den senators rightful questioning of Trump's nominees to fill his swamp.


As it should, this elicited a scoff from McCaskill:

 "When you say that you're inviting us and I heard you, Mr. Secretary, just say that you'd love our support — for what? We don't even know. We have no idea what's being proposed. There's a group of guys in a back room somewhere that are making these decisions."

But this is the GOP M.O. now, grabbing all the cheese they can while the 'Momma Rat' (Trump) tries to fend off "the cats".  They don't have the honor or integrity to come out in the open and deal with bills the normal, established way. They have to try to do it under a cloak and in secret to ensure their hateful agenda is unleashed on the American public - especially while they're mostly preoccupied by Trump's ongoing circus and the Russia investigations.

Rather than act as honorable reps and patriots, including joining the Democrats to seriously investigate their monkey in the White House, they'd rather hitch their wagons to his sorry fortunes to pass their despicable bills that will leave millions without even a pot to piss in. Indeed, as the WSJ reported two days ago, 18 Ohio counties are already going to be without health exchanges and that means - in opioid country - many will not get narcone (naxalone) when they need it to counter an opioid overdose. Will these GOP sewer rats be prepared to take responsibility for the thousands - many Trump supporters- who will now perish? I doubt it, no more than they take any responsibility to put country over party in the Trump investigations.

McCaskill  to her credit acknowledged that Democrats had "made mistakes" when crafting the Affordable Care Act, but she noted that at least there were hearings then where Republican amendments were proposed and accepted.   Hence, it was expected the GOP would do likewise now with their AHCA. But again, they are not because they are sewer rats devoid of honor - using the Trump chaos as an expedient shield to cover their actions.

McCaskill's last words to Hatch ought to enrage every red-blooded American to pursue these GOP Senate rats into their neighborhoods and conduct aggressive protests:

"You couldn't have a more partisan exercise than what you're engaged in right now. We're not even going to have a hearing on a bill that impacts one-sixth of our economy."

See McCaskill in action here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRt7tqlD-og

The Dem Debate: Bernie Sanders Wins 'Hands Down'

Bernie Sanders was confrontational when he had to be and showed he had the better grasp of issues and solutions than Hillary

One thing that quickly distinguished the CNN Democratic debate from its Reepo predecessors is that it was emphatically not a clown cavalcade. There was no bombastic carnival barking a la "The Donna" Trump, or wicked mud slinging or insulting female questioners with nasty, personal references to intimate body processes. Nor did we behold knuckle dragger aversion to real and serious issues like climate change. One instantly could see, indeed, the average I.Q. of those on stage was at least 30, maybe 40 points higher than the Reepos demonstrated.

Of course, the Reepo clown followers wouldn't see that, why would they? Give their I.Q.s are at or near the level of their clownish heroes.  

Interestingly, the moron Neolib media punditocracy in general yucked it up and most thought Hillary "dominated" as she did in 2008 against Barack Obama (and we saw how that turned out!). But I had to wonder if those morons, as on 'Morning Joe',  saw the same debate that I did.

Taking the whole debate in context, I was happy to concur with MSNBC's Chris Matthews (in his post-debate show) that Bernie Sanders won, if it can be likened to a contest (which I believe it can) or perhaps better a boxing match in which points are awarded for each hit. In this case Sanders scored more hits in the time than his main competition - Hillary - while the other three (O'Malley, Chafee, Webb) ended up largely as bystanders. Lincoln Chafee, in fact, basically disqualified himself with the lamest response when he tried to defend one vote (to abolish Glass-Steagall) using "he only just arrived in the Senate". Sorry, doesn't wash, doesn't work.

Sen. Sanders, meanwhile, at once showed he was of presidential caliber especially by not falling into Anderson Cooper's "go to war" trap in the Middle East. Bernie wisely stipulated any American response in the Middle East would not be based on a "Pax Americana" - following JFK's ideals- and would have to be done cooperatively (with emphasis on the Arab states involved to defend their own region, e.g. against ISIS). Further, he would not have any "no fly zones" in Syria (as Hillary has advocated but which risks accidental altercation with the Russians) nor send in ground troops. "War must be a last resort!" He insisted. And he's right, given too many neocons, especially still ensconced at State, have too quickly adopted the mode of conflict (like in the Ukraine).

Sanders also scored points against "Hill" on capitalism though - granted - seeing it required viewers to  not only know their recent history but recognize pretentious BS when presented. Thus, when Hillary responded to Bernie's stout representation of Democratic Socialism, e.g. in reference to models in Denmark, Norway and Sweden by saying:

"It's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn't run amuck and cause the kind of excesses we're seeing in our economic system".

At that juncture one had to be able to pause and ask: "And what, pray tell, might that 'job' be?" She didn't say - she merely launched vacuous words into the media ether and hoped enough dummies would swallow cheap rhetoric and nod heads. Bernie meanwhile was clear that such a control of capitalist  excesses would require nothing short of a political revolution. By which he meant - not military revolution (as dumbo Jim Webb seemed to think) but rather along the lines of consciousness raising as first proposed by Charles Reich in his classic, The Greening of America,  nearly 44 years ago.

Hillary then played upon Americans' general ignorance of economic history by actually saying:

"But we would be making a grave mistake by turning our backs on a system that built the greatest middle class in the history of the world."

Seriously?  In fact, the American Middle class was built after WW II by a series of programs, including the G.I. bill which empowered affordable home ownership (enabling my dad to help buy his first place) as well as paid for college education.  THAT built the Middle Class along wikth the earlier New Deal of FDR - by which oldsters could finally attain a measure of financial independence and didn't have to move in with the "kids".   But Hillary, as she often does, played 'Muricans for dunces  - betting on their weak historical memories.

Sanders was also spot on with his consistent emphasis and application of the inequality argument, and especially the need to break up the three biggest banks which, let us recall, received their bailout money 7 years ago by claiming they were "too big to fail". When Hillary suggested a congressional route to solve the problem, including reference to Dodd-Frank (which Maul Street is already plotting to blow up) Sanders retorted with one of the quotes of the night:

"Congress does not regulate Wall Street, Wall Street regulates congress."

Hillary lost primarily on several counts, not the least of which were accentuated by her almost shouting and strident monotone - which more resembled a droning harpy than a hard core, no nonsense candidate. Her attempts to knock Bernie's record on guns were also misplaced,  especially for any Sanders' supporters aware of the basis for his gun record in Vermont - and that if he had not voted against certain gun restrictions (as in the Brady Bill)  in that rural state - he'd never have become Mayor of Burlington, VT, far less a congressman then U.S. Senator and now Presidential candidate.

By those cheap shots alone, Hillary likely lost 60 percent of  potential Sanders' supporters, i.e. moving to her side if he fails to win the nomination. (Btw, Sanders' take that rural and urban citizens need to come together to effect significant gun law changes was spot on, all Martin O'Malley's inept blathering to the contrary. And O'Malley seemingly forgot how the eastern shore of MD was actually up in arms against his anti-gun actions as MD governor.)

Other Hillary misfires, not necessarily in the order they transpired:

- Trying to defend her changed TPP vote by resorting to the trope that she "had time to rethink it"

- Trying to defend her (then) vote for the Patriot Act - expecting somehow the Bushies wouldn't skew it toward loss of civil liberties as they did with Sec. 215.

- Clinton falsely claimed that Snowden could  have returned and sought whistleblower protection when she ought to know damn well (as former Secretary of State) that such protection is only for government employees, not a contractor as Snowden was. 

- Asserting she'd teach Putin a lesson, without really saying how she'd manage that trick.

Sanders, by contrast, delivered sober answers such as that (if he returned to the U.S. for trial)  Edward Snowden deserved to have taken into consideration the fact that he did expose illegal wiretapping by the NSA. (A subsequent Obama commission as well as a federal judge actually reached this conclusion). Also, he exposed the clear violation of the 1978 FISA law by the Bush bunch, which required actual signed warrants for EACH violation. Then negated under Sec. 215.

But the biggest laugher was when Hillary claimed she was a "progressive" when she is and always has been a Neoliberal centrist. It's easy, of course, to be a progressive when it suits your fancy or convenience - and is done for political expediency.  Say anything to rip off some of Bernie's left base.

However, the real badge of courage is wearing that label via your actual convictions and actions - even when the Reepos are snarling non-stop and hurling all manner of epithets at you and the clueless corporate media treats you like a pariah (as it mostly does Sanders).

The clear sign that Sanders was the winner "grown up" and Hillary the "child" that needed his protection?  When Cooper fired a question at him about Hillary's email troubles and Sanders immediately referred to the 27 million in poverty, the immense inequity of wealth distribution and then thundering in Hillary's direction: "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damned emails!"

He received a standing ovation for that, and to me, that won him the night. Hillary immediately came over to his lectern and shook his hand as if to say "Dear God! Thanks Bernie, for saving my bacon!"

The idiot 'Monday morning' quarterbacks in the media, of course, considered it a "gift" from Sanders, but it shows how stupid they are. Peeling away the superficial appearance and going to the subtext it revealed a gentleman with tons more magnanimity than his opponent and also a ferocious sense for what our political discussions should really center on: the issues that matter most to ordinary Americans - as opposed to the asshole elites, and the rich donor class  of the Repuke party.


That instant of Sanders' focal outburst, beyond any others, also encapsulated Sanders' graciousness toward his primary  competitor while projecting him as superior to that competitor.  The whole audience knew it, even the moderator, although they may not have said it. But that was the winning moment.

The last element that showed me that Sanders conquered the night was giving the only correct response to the question on the most serious security threat facing us: climate change. (see e.g. http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/climate/climate-change-security-risk-pentagon-0563675/ .  The others mentioned ISIS, Middle East war etc. - and while serious, none come close to climate change in posing the risk to extinction (other than nuclear war with the Russians, of course).

Also catapulting Bernie's stock was the post - debate news that Google searches on "Bernie Sanders" trumped all the others by a two to one ratio. People who may not have heard of him before, have now seen him on a national media stage. In that glaring venue they have also seen he can not only hold his own with the Dem front runner, but display such noblesse oblige toward her that one can only picture him in that Oval Office - with perhaps her as his Veep.

It would be the generous thing to do. We will see. But to many of us, Bernie felt the "Bern" and won tonight.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/13/this_was_bernie_sanders_night_the_candidate_of_anger_and_honesty_won_the_democratic_debate/

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/64301/the-first-democratic-presidential-debate-had-adults-on-the-stage