Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell talks to reporters after the Senate Republican weekly policy luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, July 8, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said repealing the Obamacare health insurance system is a “pretty high item on our agenda” for the new Congress that was elected on Tuesday, calling it the “single worst piece of legislation” from the first two years of the Obama administration.
McConnell told reporters he would like to see bipartisan comprehensive tax reform, and that border security should also be high on the to-do list. He expects president-elect Donald Trump to send the Senate a Supreme Court nominee soon, and to review environmental regulations put in place by Obama, including on coal.
All those people who could only get healthcare through ACA (affordable Care act), well, look just how fast the republican thugs want to yank that threadbare rug out from under you. Gosh, having citizens who have affordable healthcare, oh, how horrible, it’s unthinkable! Much better for people to be sick, and who gives a fuck if they die? Certainly not republicans. The only thing republicans truly excel at, besides inciting fear based on racism, is holding a spiteful grudge. They just can’t wait to destroy anything President Obama did, and if it makes people suffer, hey, all the better!
And Arkansas senator Tom Cotton just can’t wait to built that wall, and to force everyone to turn over immigrants.
Via Raw Story.
I’ve been emailing with a friend who is much more sophisticated than I. He is concerned about the possibility of the USA becoming a fascist state. I asked him how this could happen, as i couldn’t see a coup succeeding. He replied:
“Consider: There’s what appears to be an irreparable split in the American nation with no path I can see to amicable resolution. The losers from globalization are feeling robbed of their destiny/entitlements, with good reason I think. In many times and places this would make for a civil war. But it can’t happen there because the state is too powerful and wouldn’t let it. But at the moment all the power of the national government is in the hands of one faction which has already settled one presidential election on partisan lines through the Supreme Court and which had the FBI interfere in this election. So the Republicans aren’t opposed to using the government power to stay in power. They’ve gerrymandered the district lines so that the House is unwinnable by the Democrats. They’re also willing to use ‘voter suppression’ -- ID laws, difficult to vote poll times, their law against felons ever being able to vote. And a felon is somebody who possesses marijuana.
So they have a repressive agenda and a leader who seems to exult in taking extreme positions. They’ve militarized their police.
I don’t see signs of it getting better and I don’t see why it won’t get worse. I don’t think there needs to be a coup. The reactionaries already control it. If they truly do try to deport millions of Mexicans they’ll need a police state to do it. And if they start to commit violent and illegal acts, which I don’t think is beyond them they’ll need to keep power to keep themselves from being punished. In the seventeenth century, England just drifted into the Protectorate through a series of events that nobody really intended to take it there.”
Personally, I think we’ve already hit fascism, it just hasn’t fully blossomed yet, but what has happened lately is fascist. As your friend points out, no coup is needed, it’s already taken place. The only thing that might avert things somewhat is if a successful impeachment can be mounted. I don’t think that’s in the realm of possibility, but even if it happened, that would leave us with Pence, who is possibly worse than Trump, as he isn’t pretending to be an evangelical christian, he is one, for real.
One thing to relay to your friend: not all felons possess or have ever possessed weed; lots of people possess weed who are not felons, nor have ever been one. While I am in favour of allowing ex-cons and current prisoners having the right and ability to vote, it would be a mistake to think all those votes would be in a liberal direction. White supremacists thrive in prisons.
I don’t know a lot about the American system, but doesn’t impeachment have to be done by Congress? I’m not sure, but I don’t think anyone ouside of Congress can bring a motion to impeach. So impeachment would require the Repugnatcons to revolt against Trump. I guess it could happen if he gets too greedy and neglects to enrich enough of them, too.
If Pence is swept way, too, the next in line is Ryan. Who is worse?
As to the felon comment, I know my friend. He was just reminding me that the bar to becoming a felon is set low and stupidly down south. Simple possession, a misdemeanor here, can make one a felon in the USA. I’m certain, too, that he knows they aren’t all Democrats. Although perhaps the ones who got slung in jail for simple possession are. (sarcasm)
Well, I’m off to nurse another growing migraine.
Spouse and I fall into the ACA gap, where we neither qualify for Medicaid (unlike our kids, who do qualify) nor can we afford a plan that we’d actually be able to use. My hope in this election was that with Cooper in the Governor’s office and Clinton in the white house, we’d finally get either the Medicaid expansion McCrory had denied us or a successful push for single payer, or something like it that we could use.
Instead we’re sitting here staring into middle age, Spouse with knee problems and me with a skeleton of joints that just won’t stay together, wondering if we’ll ever be able to afford private insurance, and if we can someday, if we’ll be denied due to preexisting conditions. I was hoping to see a regular doctor that wasn’t on rotation at urgent care someday. Maybe get genetic breast cancer screening so I can find out if what almost killed my mom is likely to attack me, too. Maybe get an MRI and finally find out what’s wrong with my connective framework.
NOPE.
Onamission5:
Jesus. I am so sorry. That’s a different kind of terror, but terror it is. This is where I am on a complete disconnect from conservatism of any kind, all the howling and outrage over minimal healthcare for people. I’ve never understood why so many think it’s such an evil, or why one of the priorities of the thuglicans is to repeal it. It’s not the best healthcare, but at least people can get the basics done without going into debt for 5 lifetimes, why is that considered to be so damn bad?
So now they can all be proud over stripping healthcare from millions of people. Yay? I don’t get it at all. Single payer didn’t go over here, either. We’re insured through Rick’s work, but just try to even mention single payer, and there’s resounding NOs all over the damn place.
I’m just terrified. And angry. Not only for me, but what happens to people in my family, my kids’ friends, my kids, all the people who aren’t healthy or who aren’t white or who aren’t cis and straight? My oldest is trans, is looking to get out of the country and I can’t find anything reassuring to say that would make her stay. I can’t promise her and her friends they’ll be safe. I don’t want her to go, but I do want her to live. And today I had a Canadian lecturing me about my need to show empathy towards the people in my own demographic who just made the world a substantially less safe place than it already was for millions of people. Not empathy towards their bigotry, no, but towards their problems. Fuck their problems. I have the same problems they do and I didn’t just vote in a cheeto-fascist out of spite.
It’s not like I thought the good guys were definitely winning all the battles, it’s not like I wasn’t aware of or expecting more push back or had forgotten the myriad people who hate for hate’s sake, I just didn’t think we’d get set this far back after so much hard work. Again. I thought.. I thought there’d be more and more work and eking out of hard won tiny victories, with steps back and steps forward. Not a huge fall all the way back to the goddamned 1980’s. Or the 60’s.
It feels like an alternate history where we passed the civil rights act followed by the equal rights amendment and things were bad but getting better… and then George Wallace won. Fucking surreal. Fuck.
Onamission5:
Yeah, same here. It feels like it’s all the way back to the Bircher’s heyday in the ’50s.
Yeah, this too. About all I’ve been able to say is fuck. Everything is just…Fuck.
All my best to your oldest, I hope she finds a safe harbour somewhere. Better to lose her to distance than to lose her. What a fucking mess it all is.
I’m having a serious hate-on for people who say things like this. Because how the fuck can you possibly look someone in the eye, someone whose very humanity just got denied, or someone whose life is now in very real danger, or just plain someone who is a human being with empathy, how the fuck do you look those people in the eye and tell them that the well-meaning Trump-voter has legitimate grievances to counter that? For that matter, how can you look at anyone Like holy shit. I can’t even. I read something similar on a FB thread, too.
I’m sorry you’re getting hit with such major medical worries, Onamission5. Safe wishes to you and yours, as much as that helps.
As for the fascism, I think USAmerica is already there. With small pockets of non-fascism (California) that will now struggle to survive.
to Onamission @ 5
You said “And today I had a Canadian lecturing me about my need to show empathy towards the people in my own demographic who just made the world a substantially less safe place than it already was for millions of people. ”
That Canadian is confused about what empathizing entails. A person can live a terrible life and they still don’t get a free pass if they attack their neighbour’s kid or burn down their neighbour’s house.