GOP now has total control...or does it?

The Rat Pack...Ryan-Trump_McConnell

Donald Trump's future couldn't be shakier after the defeat of Speaker Paul Ryan's American Health Care Act, but even more insecure is Ryan's speakership. He hasn't led this Congress anywhere but in the direction of those issues he favors. But then, this Congress seems only to have the capacity for the perpetuation of hate and opposition to anything Democrat. Trump has made that ideology a priority from the beginning of his campaigning for 2016, right through the inauguration and into the Oval Office. Senate leader Mitch McConnell is absolutely overjoyed.

But what brings McConnell back to earth is Congress' inability to repeal Obamacare. Here's a look at Donald John blowing off about what he would do, which he didn't do...

“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump told the Washington Post after the election. Under Trumpcare, according to Trump, people “can expect to have great health care. It will be in much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.”

And then trump tweeted after defeat: “ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!” Always the psychopathic windbag, that would never admit he was wrong or that he has been soundly defeated...by his own Party. This is basically how it has come down over the years, according to Vox...

"This was bolder and brasher than what more establishment-minded Republicans had said over the years. But it was, fundamentally, similar to promises and insinuations made by Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and dozens of other Republicans. It’s not just that the Affordable Care Act was killing jobs and sentencing people to death panels. It’s that Republicans had some much better plan in their back pocket that would give Americans what they want — cheap, comprehensive health insurance that offers them oodles of choice."

Vox is saying that Trump and Republicans are now paying for this great line of bullshit served up by both, even though it helped Republicans win Congress and eventually the White House at the time. But what happens now, when Trump is behind the eight ball and needs to get tax legislation passed? After the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and then enactment of AHCA failed miserably, he will still be dealing with the same Republicans, needing their support even more so since the savings from Obamacare replacement will not be realized. Where will the money come from for reduced taxes?

And there's much more to be done that Donald John promised the poor souls that supported him. As recent as March 15, in Nashville, he was still talking the repeal of Obamacare and chastising judges for blocking his travel bans. And in Louisville, he delivered his populist and nationalist appeal, no doubt crafted by Steve Bannon, to clamp down on illegal immigration and bar terrorists from America. These rallies are designed to garner public support for Trump's programs, but where he should be focusing his efforts is on Congress.

Leading up to the House vote on Obamacare, both Donald Trump and Paul Ryan had promised their own healthcare bill which the Speaker delivered to a very reluctant and disillusioned Congress. The GOP has been pretty well in sync on getting rid of Barack Obama's health care program with Mitch McConnell leading the venomous attack. Here's what conservatives in general thought of the ACA...

"...it taxes rich people too much, and coddles Americans with excessively generous, excessively subsidized health insurance plans. They want a world of lower taxes on millionaires while millions of Americans put “skin in the game” in the form of higher deductibles and copayments. Exactly the opposite, in other words, of what Republican politicians have been promising."

That last sentence says it all. So much promised but nothing delivered. And with 2018 mid-terms coming, Trump's inability to deliver may well weigh heavily on those Republican districts up for grabs. All of the analysis to date is now outmoded since the healthcare fiasco has shown the weakness in the GOP armor, something that will need vast improvement before any new programs are introduced by the Trump administration. And here are more items on the White House agenda...

"...a $1 trillion investment in roads and other infrastructure and proposed crackdowns on both legal and illegal immigration, will require the support of Democrats, many of whom have been alienated by the highly partisan start to Trump’s tenure."

The one high point Trump had was the nomination of Neil Gorsuch for Scalia's Supreme Court seat which looked to be pretty safe until last Friday...

"Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, may fall short of the votes needed for smooth passage in the Senate next week, potentially dashing Republican hopes for an easy victory after the stinging defeat of the American Health Care Act last week."

The above comment from the Washington Post reflects the turmoil created by Paul Ryan's damaging loss with his healthcare program. But even if Gorsuch misses the 60 votes needed, there's still the "nuclear" option available to Republicans; although a right which would get Gorsuch approved, it hasn't even been tried since 1917. That year, instead, it resulted in reform of the Senate's filibuster rules. Bernie Sanders warned against its use, advice that the GOP should consider since a day will come when Democrats will again control Congress and the White House.

Trump's "The Art of the Deal" shattered by Paul Ryan

In November of 1987, Donald Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, was published and received well by the public. Today on Amazon it is 2,662 overall in books, #2 in biographies and memoirs, #13 in business and money and #22 in biographies and memoirs. That is good, considering the number of books published these days and the reviews are mostly positive. But in the book, he warns his readers "Never seen desperate." Well, he blew that theory during the recent blowout of Ryan’s American Health Care Act proposal. It went down in flames in spite of Donald John's disparaging begging.

The Progressive reports that although Trump pledged not to cut Medicare, Ryan's bill cut it $880 billion from the program, and the Freedom Caucus members wanted to cut much more. Ryan's bill which favors the wealthy and large corporations would...

 "...devastate care for the most vulnerable ACA beneficiaries like the poor, disabled, and elderly. The Ryan plan would produce more deaths by swelling the ranks of the uninsured whose untreated conditions prove fatal."

From as far back as his tax-cutting proposals, to his American Health Care Act, Paul Ryan has been one of the most callous politicians toward the poor and needy of anyone I can remember. I can see why the man gets reelected by looking at the demographics of his 1st District in Wisconsin. Median income over $50,000; 91.1% white; 4.7% black; 5% Hispanic; and 57.7% white collar. Although his last election was close, and the next, well, we'll just see. Here's a stark statistic from the health care industry itself, published in the American Journal of Public Health...

"The Republican plan to replace the ACA would leave 52 million people uninsured in 2026. We know that will lead to many deaths—at least 41,969 and perhaps many times that number."

That isn't just callous. That is cold-blooded greed by Republicans to line the pockets of their constituents. And although the Freedom Caucus had a big hand in defeating the AHCA, Bernie Sanders says "Democrats should take credit for killing a really, really bad piece of legislation." Commenting further "Poll after poll showed that's exactly what the American people did not want." On the other hand, Donald Trump said...

"The best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode. It is exploding right now," Trump said, adding that the 'losers' in the health care battle were Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer."

And Trump continues to blame the Democrats for the GOP bill's failure, which, of course, is fully agreeable to the Bern. Trump, who refused to blame Ryan for the failure of the American Health Care Act The Guardian said this...

"Speaking afterward in the Oval Office, Trump blamed Democrats for the failure of a bill to repeal the signature achievement of Barack Obama. 'If [Democrats] got together with us, and got us a real healthcare bill, I’d be totally OK with that. The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare. They 100% own it,” he said.'"

And then, after the melee was over, Paul Ryan proceeded to blame everything on the fact that the Republicans are now the governing Party, and that "...comes with growing pains and, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today. I will not sugarcoat this: this is a disappointing day for us.” What Ryan isn't saying is what is wrong with the entire U.S. government right at this moment, is the fact that Republicans are the governing Party. It was also what was wrong with the U.S. government in Geo. W. Bush's tenure from 2001 to 2009. A disaster that almost brought the country down.

So apparently Obamacare is okay for the time being but isn't it interesting just how volatile this piece of legislation is and the effect it has on a certain percentage of the public. Just a week after the 2016 election, the Kaiser family Poll came up with these findings...

"One-fourth, or 26 percent, of Americans favor a full repeal of the health care law, while 17 percent say scale it back, according to the Kaiser poll. On the other hand, 30 percent favor expanding the law and another 19 percent want lawmakers to move forward with the law as it is."

The Kaiser report also found that there was a decline in the percentage of Republicans who want the Act repealed, something that must have had an effect on Paul Ryan's withdrawal of his bill. And here's another insight from Vox into how some Republicans really view the Affordable Care Act...

"Republican leaders and conservative intellectuals, for the most part, didn’t really believe nonsense about death panels or that Obama was personally responsible for high-deductible insurance plans. What they fundamentally did not like is that the basic framework of the law is to redistribute money by taxing high-income families and giving insurance subsidies to needy ones. The details matter enormously to everyday people, but the broad principle is enough to make conservatives reject it."

Wasn't aware there were that many intellectuals in the GOP ranks, but this is a real crowd stopper. Anything republican always comes down to just two factors: 1) How it affects the wealthy; 2) How it affects large corporate business. There is no in between for the average American and until average Americans understand this, voting accordingly, this country will continue to be mired in mediocrity. 

Trump's new budget exposes lies-Here's big one

Well, it's common knowledge what Donald trump thinks about women from the statements he made during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Remarks like...

"You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything.
Grab them by the p***y, you can do anything."

"About Rosie O'Donnell he said that she was 'disgusting, both inside and out' and that if he were running her show he'd 'look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, 'Rosie, you're fired.'"

He said about Carly Fiorina, "Look at that face. Would anybody vote for that?"

There's more you can see here but the above shows clearly Donald Trump's disdain for women.

Fast forward to Donald John's first address to a joint session of Congress when he "...promised the American people that he was going to spend his term granting wishes..." then added. "...that he’d invest in women’s health." But along came the emperor's new budget which made his promises look like Pinocchio with a two-foot nose. Lower income and older women are hit very hard with womens' advocates contending...

"...that if the AHCA were to be enacted as-is, Trump’s promised investment in women’s health would be a comical falsehood."

You might say that this statement ["comical falsehood"] pretty much reflects the total of the Donald Trump experience so far. The Daily Beast has been condemning the monarch's budget through the interpretation of the Congressional Budget Office analysis released this past Monday. For starters...

"...24 million kicked off insurance and an additional $880 billion gouged from Medicaid, all in the name of a measly 1 percent reduction in the deficit."

DB says the numbers are really not representative because of the different math between Obamacare and the American Health Care Act. What it comes down to is the fact that this large number will lose their health insurance and older Americans will see increases they simply will not be able to afford. Daily Beast says...

"Allowing premiums for older people to shoot skyward means that a 64-year-old making $24,000 per year will see half of their income go toward the cost of covering medical insurance."

The outset is a family on the cusp of retirement that all of a sudden is bankrupted by their health care costs, and the Republican health care plan leaves them nowhere to turn. Here's another opinion...

“'[Republicans] are doing nothing to invest in women’s health,' Jamila Taylor, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, tells The Daily Beast.
Taylor is particularly concerned with the one-two punch the AHCA gives low-income women and women of color."

 And on the same subject, the GOP is hell-bent on defunding Planned Parenthood, the main entryway for low income women to get the health care they need. The Senate's biggest idiot, Joni Ernst from Iowa, has a bill to redirect their funds. Here's one reaction...

"'If passed, these bills will cause a national health care crisis, leaving millions with nowhere to go for basic care,' said Dana Singiser, vice president of public policy and government affairs for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement."

As you can see, the "comical falsehood" has now turned into a serious tragedy, and it will all be on the head of Donald Trump.