Health care induced bankruptcy is uniquely American

Like most liberals, I'm sick and tired of Republicans trying to take away the health care that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and so many other Democrats in Congress worked so hard to achieve.  The GOP spent years promising its rabid base and donor class that the ACA would be repealed as soon as possible. 

But they couldn't beat the clock.  The ACA became law and once Americans began to enjoy health care that was, ahem, mostly affordable, and without that clause in which you could not be denied care or insurance because of a pre-existing condition -- well, then taking that all away became a harder and harder sell for Republicans to the American people. 

Of course, they are still trying to do this anyway, and have been reduced to fighting every little piece of Obamacare in the courts--the courts that are being populated by right wing extremists thanks to Trump and Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society. 

But I digress. 

What I wanted to mention here is that we are literally the only country in the civilized world that does not have free universal health care, or even some form of single payer, Medicare for All program. 

Take a look at this map, and ask yourself why health care in our country is a for-profit entity:

Mirarkitty [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

It's us, a tiny country in South America, less than half of Africa, and a few scattered Asian countries. 

And the dirty little secret is that universal health care, the kind being pitched to America by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, does not have to cost much.  Yes, your taxes will go up incrementally.  BUT if you could balance that against having little or no insurance premiums, no copays, no hospital expenses, no prescription costs, no threat of being denied life-saving medical care, and most of all--no threat of being bankrupted by medical expenses....Well, this would ease the stress of millions of Americans who live with the very real fear of losing their homes, families and/or their lives every day.  And you'd likely have the added bonus of more money in your pocket. 

This is not hard.  What we have now is hard.  But of course, when you have a U.S. economy driven largely by industries such as health insurance and pharmaceuticals, along with a shark infested banking and loan industry, universal health care would bring with it a lot of pissed off billionaires, CEO's and stockholders--you know, the ones that almost universally support Republican candidates. I don't know how to make them all happy, but maybe they'd be happier in one of those other countries on that map above that are shaded in red. 

No low the GOP won't stoop to

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. 

Yesterday a group of GOP congressmen stormed an impeachment inquiry that was being held by the House intelligence committee.  And I mean stormed.  And I mean they stormed a SCIF, which is supposed to be a secure room free of electronics where witnesses can be called in to testify in private with members of the committee (members of BOTH parties). 

But these asshats, led by chief asshat Matt Gaetz of Florida, stomped and yelled their way into that room to try and stop the deposition of Laura Cooper from the Department of Defense regarding the Ukraine scandal that brought us--finally--some impeachment inquiries.  But not only that, they brought their cell phones in to take video of the proceedings, which is, you know, really fucking illegal.  This had the blessing of both House majority leader Kevin McCarthy and the dickhead in the White House--and probably Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo as well.

To show how much we've fallen into an alternate reality, yesterday one of Trump's attorneys argued to a federal appeals court that while in office, Trump could literally kill someone and not be arrested, charged, indicted, incarcerated, whatever.  No, seriously--check this out. 

Trump, Barr, McConnell and all of the members of yesterday's asshat brigade think they are above the law.  To think they have whined for years about Hillary's e-mails, and yet here Trump is withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for them to investigate his mot likely opponent in 2020, Joe Biden and Biden's son Hunter.  And here are the asshats bringing their phones into a SCIF. Here are subpoenas being ignored and defied, with key witnesses being told not to testify by the Trump administration.

There is so much corruption, lawlessness, and grift happening in real time, and it's impossible to keep up with it all.  That is by design.  It's the Putin playbook, and if you really wanna see this laid out perfectly, try not to read this tweet thread from attorney Uncle Blazer without having your eyes and mouth wide open. 

This shit cannot and will not stand.  We need to tighten the grip we have on democracy more than ever, and to keep it away from Trump's BFF (and handler) Vlad. 

Our president is not Trump

On paper, this guy is our president: 

But in reality, this guy is: 

There are many things that should alarm us about the fact that Donald Trump has been taking a sledgehammer to our political infrastructure and rendering much of it moot due to a non-stop spigot of lying, cheating, disgusting policies, unparalleled corruption; and just being an all around fucking asshole.  But it's the way he talks about Russia and the way in which he covers things up related to Vladimir Putin's hold on him that should be the most unsettling and, frankly, terrifying part.

Despite over two years of yammering "no collusion, no obstruction," and using every lever of power and trickery and manipulation available despite the fact that there was indeed collusion and indeed obstruction and that those things are continuing right now for the 2020 election, Trump still fears Vlad more than anything.  Bill Barr, Rudy Giuliani, his family/cabinet and a slew of GOP congress minions are still trying to exonerate their hero who is a loose cannon that also happens to deliver tax cuts and judges to them.  But now that Trump and Giuliani finally said the quiet parts out loud (Ukraine), impeachment is a foregone conclusion. 

But still, Trump is ignoring advisers and continues to make rogue foreign policy decisions that would only make sense if he were trying to please his puppet master (yes Hillary, you were right about that).  Giving Turkey a green light to brutally attack and murder the Kurds in Syria and allow ISIS to regenerate and Putin to suddenly control the levers of power in the Middle East has made us look ridiculous to the rest of the world.  His own party is now turning against him.

And if you look back, you will be able to connect the dots.  Every time Trump and Putin meet, it's privately with NO Americans.  For a while there was one American, a translator, but Trump had to destroy her notes to hide what was discussed, and now he just doesn't bother to have any other Americans in the room.  He took Putin's side about election interference instead of his own FBI's intelligence.  He had two of Russia's top diplomats in the Oval Office the day after he fired James Comey, and in that meeting gave Russia classified intelligence regarding Israel. 

It's at the point where this is not funny, and it's beyond dangerous.  We are losing allies unless you think Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Turkey are good allies.  Putin has played the long game of attacking our country's online infrastructure, using propaganda and playing his puppet like a fiddle who will make decisions based on Putin and Russia's best interests, rather than the best interests of all Americans. 

It's sure gonna take a while for us to recover, if we ever do at all.

Absolute power.....

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I remember learning that in school and not knowing exactly what it meant.  But when Lord Acton made that statement in 1887, he could have been talking about our current political climate--both here and abroad.  It's the belief that once we allow money and corporate interests to flow freely into our government(s), we begin to lose control of it.

And in 2019, this means we are trying to save democracy while the levers of power are controlled by corporate interests who buy our elected officials in order to advance their agendas.  They do that by sticking money in campaign coffers and vowing to keep those politicians in power so that there can be an endless chain of one hand washing another.  But that is all at the expense of taxpayers who have their rights trampled on--voting rights, civil rights, free speech rights. 

And then to make matters worse, there are always those who become drunk with power and begin to have ambitions of taking over the world--i.e. dictators like Vladimir Putin, who quite frankly owns our president and by association, us.  He owns several elected officials like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, and Rand Paul. 

It's not just Putin, of course.  There are other dictators like Kim Jong Un and MBS and Bashar al-Assad.  These are the guys our current president looks up to and wants to emulate--because they are, in his eyes, "strong leaders." But that is a goddamn warped view of strength, when you consider what those leaders do to their own people.  Or in the case of MBS, what he did to a writer for the Washington Post who dared to speak out against the crown prince's atrocities.

Look around, but if you pay attention to nothing else, look at the way Trump acts around and when talking about Putin.  From the sharing of Israeli intelligence with two high ranking Putin officials in the oval office with NO Americans present, to changing one item on the Republican platform in 2016 thanks to Paul Manafort, to reversing course on bombing Iran a few weeks ago because that's what Vlad wanted, to trying at every turn to squash every probe into the obstruction of justice he committed so that we wouldn't find out how Putin owns him, to defending Putin over our entire country about the election meddling. 

Those are all just things off the top of my head.  And it's worse when there are moneyed interests starting wars to grab oil, controlling our courts, suppressing votes and voices, and pushing an obvious pro-corporate agenda.  Our elected leaders are on the take from these overlords and use our money to keep the cash flowing to the top--which is Corruption 101 and the words of Lord Acton playing out in 2019. 

Oh and sure, it's Republicans and Democrats--but generally speaking, Republicans are the ones ruthlessly trying to take away our rights--and lying about it every fucking day.  Dems like Chuck and Nancy are just stupidly taking corporate cash while trying to stop the ruthless bullshit from the other side.

I'm not sure how we get out of this, but it's terrifying to think about what could happen in our lifetimes and our childrens' lifetimes if we don't.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough

I'm so tired of hearing about mass shootings.

I'm tired of hearing people defend the right to have semi-automatic weapons, but not defend the right for women to make their own constitutionally protected health care decisions.

I don't like that I have to worry about my kid going to school with the threat of being involved in a mass shooting, or about my wife and kid going to our synagogue with a rise in Trump loving anti- semites shooting up these places of worship.

And I should not have to look for exit signs when attending a concert or movie in case some nut brings an AR-15 in.

Yes, wingnuts, I really do believe we should be able to buy and own guns...for protection, hunting or for recreational use. But no average civilian needs a semi-automatic weapon or infinite rounds of ammunition.  And no average citizen should be able to buy a gun without an extensive background check, much less those citizens who happen to be on the terrorist watch list or have unstable mental health.

But the sensible gun control measures those on the left favor are a bridge too far for just about every elected republican and some elected democrats.  They are also a bridge too far for probably 99.9% of Trump supporters.  The gun manufacturers and their lobbyists like the NRA (while having their own issues lately), have way more control over Congress than they should.

We don't have to accept this.  It's getting near impossible to impact change in our country when the wealthy and corporations own our elected officials.  But we should not ever give up.  And we definitely should not be afraid to speak out--like I'm doing right now.

Owning the libs is not policy

It's not often these days that I get into social media debates with right wingers--whether they are actual people I know, or don't know.

For one, they might be a Russian troll working at the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, Russia.  A dead giveaway is typically a handle like @alabamamom74937023, where they may have joined twitter in 2017 only to annoy all things liberal on social media.

Secondly, people I know that are Trump supporters, after two-plus years of what amounts to an extended crime spree and undermining of our democracy right under our noses, STILL stand behind him.  I'm not confident about turning someone like that into understanding my side, because for whatever reason they don't want to admit that liberals might be right.

Which brings me to my third point.  Much of the right wing wants to "own the libs" at all costs, but they often have no idea what they are arguing against.  Of course, Trump being a complete fucking moron in the true sense (don't take my word for that, ask Rex Tillerson) doesn't help.  Add to that the fact that his Fox News washed brain probably has him believing he really is above the law, and him calling legitimate outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN "fake news" is dangerously clouding the waters.

But more importantly, ask Trump or any of his mouthpieces or most congressional Republicans what their ideas for policy are.  The usual response is saying things like "strong borders, low taxes, and the return to being a 'law and order' country."  And much of what they say about Democrats is that they are "weak on borders and weak on crime."  That is absolute fucking bullshit, and they literally say that undocumented immigrants are streaming over the border and raping our women and killing our children.  It's all ginned up fear and it's really fucking dangerous.  Meanwhile, drugs are streaming over the border on cucumber trucks while border patrol is cut because of a manufactured government shutdown.

They also use hot button issues like abortion and guns in order to stoke fear.  No party that is reportedly tough on crime would ever allow people that are ON THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST to have easy access to guns, or allow mentally unstable people that same access.  And you're not "pro life" if you threaten, harm or kill doctors who provide safe and CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED abortions.  You're also not for religious freedom if it's only freedom for Christians.

Meanwhile, some of the best liberals in congress are promoting things as policy that most people want.  The right to affordable health care, addressing climate change, a living wage, election integrity, free college, fighting corruption in DC (i.e. ACTUALLY draining the swamp), a path to citizenship, marriage and gender equality, better background checks for purchasers of guns, increased marginal tax rates to the top 1% and especially top .1%.

I could go on and on, but ask a conservative you know what they like about what Trump is doing for our country, but especially for them personally.  They will either hit you back with right wing propaganda talking points, call you names (like socialist), or say "you lost the election and still haven't gotten over it."  But they often don't debate you on the merits, because they can't.  They just know they oppose anything liberals propose and don't have any actual policy in mind to improve the lives of most Americans.  It's all just wanting to take things away.

And yeah, I haven't gotten over the election, not because my "team" lost, but because norms are being destroyed and rights to most Americans--especially the poor, non-white and otherwise vulnerable--are being stripped away on a daily basis.  So go ahead and tell me you like to "own the libs" because what you are owning are the views that are systematically eroding democracy.  You just don't fucking see it yet, and most likely never will.

Right wing domestic terror

It's getting scarier and scarier to live in our country every day, especially if you are a liberal talking head, politician or outspoken person.  The truth is that for all of the conservative talk of Muslims coming to behead us, and illegal immigrants streaming over the southern border to rape and murder our women and children, there are far more threats within our own borders from right wing extremists.  We're talking neo-Nazi, fascist, white nationalists -- the kind of right wing white terrorist that luckily was caught last week before he could carry out the murders he was planning--of prominent liberal media figures like Chris Hayes and Ari Melber; or elected leaders like Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But not only was this dude, an active member of the U.S. military, stockpiling weapons.  He was also stockpiling performance enhancing drugs that would make him 10 times stronger and--get this--would cause him to not have any remorse about killing innocent American people.  Let that sink in.  He was searching Google for things like "Trump impeachment civil war" and "do Supreme Court justices have security detail" and "where do members of Congress live?" 

You couple that with other terrorist attacks like the killing of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue last fall, or of the mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina or a shooter gunning down five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper offices.  Or a white nationalists running over a liberal protester with his car in Charlottesville, or the Trump rally-goer who sent pipe bombs to Maxine Waters, George Soros and other prominent liberals.  There has been so much more of this in recent years in our country that it's impossible to list each incident.  Yes, there was the Bernie supporter who shot at a bunch of GOP lawmakers, critically injuring congressman Steve Scalise, but that was an exception to the rule, even though it was just as heinous as the other crimes we mentioned.

While it's true that our country is more divided and partisan than ever, conservatives will have you believe that there is more violence being perpetrated by left wing extremists and illegal immigrants than by right wing extremists.  But that could not be further from the truth.  This article in The Independent from last month maps it out: 

Every terrorist murder in the US last year was linked to right-wing extremism, according to a new report.  

At least 50 people were killed by an attacker connected to right-wing extremism in 2018, an increase of 35 per cent from the previous year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found. 

The rise means nearly three-quarters of extremist murders in America in the past decade can be linked to right-wing domestic terrorism, more than three times as many as those committed by Islamists.

Our current president has been stoking the fires of right wing nationalism, as have members of Congress like Steve King and Matt Gaetz, and as have right wing media types like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson.

And the worst part of all of this?  Nothing is being done about it.  Trump does not give a happy monkey fuck about it.  Most of these extremists are Trump loyalists, and the more he heaps inflammatory rhetoric about gang murders and the press being the enemy of the people, the more of a license he gives these right wing nuts to act out on his behalf. 

So when Trump talks about making America great again, he means "make America into a right wing utopia where there is a cleansing of or locking up of non-white, non-Christian, non-straight liberals, and where only conservatives can break the law and get away with it."

For the rest of us, we have to live in fear because of them.  And that's as anti-American as it gets.

Stop with the 2020 coverage already

hey everyone.  It's been an while since I posted here and actually just renamed my blog from Loud and Proud Liberal to G-man Politics.  I did this in part because I hadn't posted since May 2017 and because I realized I am not a loud person.  Like not even a little.  I also realized that the posts I did were stream of consciousness about my thoughts on Trump and the state of our country, and with those thoughts already out of the way I'm going to re-focus on topics one by one. 

Which brings me to the 2020 horse race that is going on already.  I get it.  This is how it's usually done, and most of our country is looking forward to getting Orange Julius out of the White House.  Also, no one has to get out of Hillary's way this time. 

I'm not even complaining about the candidates who are announcing their ambitions, because most are very qualified and bring a lot to the table.

What pisses me off is that an election that is almost two years away is taking news coverage away from the fact that the country is burning down around us.  I don't want Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, or Cory Booker doing anything besides the job they currently hold, which is, you know, kind of important right now. 

I'm not naive, I realize these candidates spend half or more of their days asking people for money.  That's the way the game is played now, but it fucking sucks.  It's why we have money wearing a name tag that says "Free Speech."  It's also counterproductive and stupid because these (in this case) senators should be concentrating on governing, and saving our country from the right wing inferno that is engulfing our lives. 

Just once I want to turn on MSNBC without a little pop-up ad that says "TONIGHT: Rachel Maddow one-on-one interview with (insert democratic presidential candidate)."   There are real crises right now--like climate change, lack of affordable health care, income inequality, crumbling roads and bridges, child refugee camps in Texas, and did I mention our president and two-thirds of republicans in Congress are quite literally doing the bidding of Russia? 

I just don't want to hear about 2020 until 2020.  Living in a constant election cycle is dangerous to democracy when there are real world problems happening around us.  Enough already.