Don't Pop the Corks Just Yet ...

There is not a trace of doubt that last night’s shocking defeat of the Senate Republicans’ so-called “Skinny Repeal” of Obamacare represents a major defeat for the fractured Republican Party and the rapidly unraveling Trump administration. However, it would be ignoring recent history to assume that some kind of bipartisan cooperation is nigh.

It bears remembering that this toxic piece of legislation failed only at the last second, and under some very unlikely circumstances.  Even with the consistent and principled stand of Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins against the bill, the senate vote seemed headed for a post-midnight 50-50 tie, with Vice President Pence lurking about the senate floor ready to play the role of tiebreaker.  It is almost unthinkable that 49 senators, most of them knowing full well that the legislation was unconscionably cruel, voted “aye” anyway, particularly after several of their own leaders publicly referred to it as a “joke” and a “fraud.” It took a last minute “no” vote from a career Republican politician and former Presidential candidate to foil Mitch McConnell’s underhanded plan.

Enter John McCain, a paradox of a politician and lawmaker if there ever was one. One of the strongest critics of Obamacare, he will nonetheless be remembered as a self-described “Maverick” who was not afraid to disagree with his party on principles he considered non-negotiable. He is also known as a cantankerous old curmudgeon with a mean streak and a long memory. Don’t forget, this is the man who gave you Sarah Palin, whose candidacy served as the perfect opening act for Donald Trump. The same man who dressed down one of his own supporters at a town hall meeting during the 2008 campaign. When a woman took the wireless mic and proclaimed, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not — ", McCain angrily took the mic back and replied,  "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]." But McCain is also an unrepentant warmonger who once famously sang “Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran” on mic to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann.

He is undeniably a military hero, having endured years of degradation and torture in North Vietnam. On the other hand, he was a demonstrably awful pilot who personally crashed either three or four multi-million dollar aircraft, depending on who you talk to. He also has a long history of mutual antagonism with Donald Trump, with both men making little effort to hide their personal dislike for each other. After the crucial “no” vote, McCain was asked his reasoning behind the vote, to which he simply replied, “It was the right vote.” But why was it right? Was it the final moral stand of a terminally ill but ultimately principled man, or the final, decisive “fuck you” to Mr. Trump?

Don’t start pulling corks just yet. Trump remains totally obsessed with all things Obama, and has made no secret of his preference to “Let Obamacare fail.” Except it is doing no such thing, and as Paul Krugman eloquently explains in the New York Times, “Or to put it a bit differently, when Trump threatens to “let Obamacare fail,” what he’s really threatening is to make it fail.” I wrote of the moral bankruptcy of the Republican “healthcare” initiative in my previous post entitled Heartless Bastards. I think the last few sentences bear repeating after the stunning events of the past few weeks:

I ask you, the citizen, the potential voter: Will you rise above your partisan politics and call this travesty of a health care plan what it is? Will you admit that our congressmen care only about their own monetary greed and political power, and not a whit about what is right for you and our country? Will you tolerate living in an amoral society where we allow the neediest of our fellow citizens, many of them innocent children, to die? Because that is exactly what we are talking about here, the death of our weakest. Will you look at these men and call them what they are?

They are heartless bastards.

Portland, Oregon

July 28, 2017

Heartless Bastards

The American Health Care Act, a truly awful piece of legislation by virtually any measure, passed in the House of Representatives yesterday. Following this “victory,” the House Republicans were bused over to the White House for – wait for it – a beer bash and victory celebration. Forget the fact that celebrating after a sure-to-be-rewritten bill has passed only the House is like declaring victory in an NBA playoff game when you hold a one-point lead at the end of the first quarter. What really gets to me is the naked, crass lack of empathy for the weakest members of our increasingly broken democracy: our sick, handicapped, and poor. Tack on the party’s pathological focus on rolling back all of our meager progress on women’s health issues, and we have a party in control of both houses of congress, not to mention the white house, careening down a very dark road, with the accelerator on the floor.

Unfortunately, the gear is reverse.

A week ago, getting this bill passed looked like an impossible task. It was too radical for the moderate Republicans and too moderate for the radical wing known as the House Freedom Caucus. The compromise bill was only successful after strong-arm lobbying of individual congressmen by Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Mike Pence, and two amendments, one to please the moderates and another to appease the radicals. It is the shockingly cynical MacArthur amendment that deserves the most scrutiny as well as the most scorn. It is essentially a loophole big enough to drive the buses that took these guys to the White House through. It is both deceptive and utterly cynical. It allows the individual states to opt out of many of the key guarantees of Obamacare like coverage of pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on insurance payouts.

As a veteran of advanced bladder cancer, both the pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps changes have a very real chance of affecting me personally. But don’t weep for me; I’m an old man who has had a great life. Weep for the child who is born with a serious disease, a child who may never be able to have heath insurance in her entire life due to this calculatedly cruel bill. Take ten minutes and watch Jimmy Kimmel’s tearful monologue about the heart disease and surgery that his newborn son endured. He closes with the question: Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or something else, can we not all agree that we must not let our children die because we disagree on how health care should be provided? Personally, I think Jimmy gives the Republican party too much credit. They are not disagreeing on how health care should be provided so much as whether it should be, for certain citizens at least.

My biggest fear is that the purveyors of this Faustian bargain will not be taken to task for their inhumanity, and that our apathetic and disconnected electorate will simply not care enough to get off their collective asses and send these devils packing in 2018. I feel physically ill when I view the images of their callous and tone-deaf victory beer party. Our beloved leader talks of improved care and lower costs knowing full well that his words are blatant lies. I gag at the sight of rich old white men chuckling about their supposed win, and seeing Paul Ryan’s twisted leer of a knowing smile is to look into the face of evil itself.

I ask you, the citizen, the potential voter: Will you rise above your partisan politics and call this travesty of a health care plan what it is? Will you admit that most of our Republican congressmen care only about their own monetary gain and political power, and not a whit about what is right for you and our country? Will you tolerate living in an amoral society where we allow the neediest of our fellow citizens, many of them innocent children, to die? Because that is exactly what we are talking about here, the death of our weakest. Will you look at these men and call them what they are?

They are heartless bastards.

Portland, OR
May 5th, 2017

A Timely Post From Shaun Mullen

From the award -winning journalist, author, and master blogger comes this brilliantly insightful essay on the changing role of the press and other news media in the new Trumpian era.


Portland, OR
January 25, 2017

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain ...

Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Thousands of words have been written about this tweet, most focusing on the aggressive and inappropriate referencing of Nazi Germany. It has been deeply offensive to many. There is little doubt that his final sentence is inflammatory, not to mention egregiously incorrect, but I think it's shock value has caused most to overlook what is likely the scariest single sentence he has uttered, or Tweeted. Yes, I'm taking about the penultimate sentence: "One last shot at me."

If you read my previous post entitled The Last Gasp, you can see where I'm going with this. This sentence is more than a hint that after the inauguration this kind of "shot" at Mr. Trump will not be allowed. He is tipping us off that he is preparing to decimate or even eliminate first amendment rights when it comes to criticizing or calling to task the POTUS. And this is not even nearly the first time he has intimated as much, repeatedly calling for the weakening of freedom of the press and simultaneous strengthening of our libel laws. That this is a terrible direction in which to take our country is to me self-evident, but Mr. Trump does not care, his supporters care even less, and the docile and spineless congress may care but has not the will to act.

Our cherished democratic constitutional republic has never been more at risk.



Portland, January 13, 2017