Shots Fired

Conservative Republicans and the NRA are always arguing that guns don't kill people. People kill people.

That's true. The guns just make people killing people much, much easier.

There's no longer any such thing as Obamacare. We know it's true because Ass Lube said so on TV.  

Even Ass Lube realizes Mike (Turd) Pence is crazier than than your typical right-wing evangelunatic.

Speaking of craziness, Ass Lube requires constant praise from his subordinates to complement the constant praise he bestows upon himself. Even a spoiled pre-schooler can cope without that. It's almost criminal to rationalize his behavior and pretend that Ass Lube is the same as the first forty-four presidents.

Scraps

To be honest, I'm not the least bit surprised to see confirmation that the Russians were financing Facebook ads to promote Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders (attacking Hillary Clinton from the left) to match their ads for Donny Johnny (attacking her from the right). I would be surprised if they didn't. 

A bipartisan bill to stabilize the ACA health insurance markets? Too good to be true? We'll see...

So Unfair

Goddamn it, Republicans make me want to puke.

There's one reason all those red state shit holes didn't get federal funding for Medicaid expansion... because they flat out refused to expand Medicaid. End of discussion.

Wave Goodbye

The 21st century version of the Republican Party never builds a goddamned thing. The party's only purpose is to demolish good things that other people built.

Add Sen. Bill Cassidy to the list of stinking Republican assholes who believe saying something on TV makes it true. The number 1 spot on the list is held by you-know-who (the rottenest asshole of them all).

Now they want to deregulate credit agencies like Equifax. Every time I think they've finally done every horrible thing they can do, the motherfuckers come up with new ways to make bad situations even worse. There was a point during Bush 43's administration when I believed I was seeing the Republicans at their worst. Compared to this shit, those were the good old days.

Frustration

Every time Donny Turnip thinks he has a great scheme going, some judge kicks the slats out from under him. When's the fat fuck ever gonna catch a break, huh?

Health Scare

If the ACA dies, it won't be from natural causes. It will be because Donald Turnip (sic) murdered it.

For some reason, Rep. Louie Gohmert is always being invited to appear on cable news shows and prove that if he isn't the worst asshole in the House, he's definitely in the top five.

Generally overlooked but still impressive, the 48 Senate Dems remained united, without a single defector. We don't always see that happen.

The House and Senate Republicans are at war with each other, and if we're lucky enough, they'll eventually start firing real bullets instead of whining like a bunch of teenage girls.

Is the Pussydent really planning to start operating the White House independently, without relying on the Republican Party? He might be ignorant enough to think that's a good idea... please, let it happen.

Vox: The House Freedom Caucus hasn't given up on repeal. The good news is that whatever those assholes produce is almost certain to flop in the Senate. Let's face it, they're the worst of the worst.

Headlines: Return of the Zombies

Washington Monthly, briefly, on why the GOP hasn't repealed Obamacare yet.

Republican voters have lost interest in wrecking the ACA as a top priority, according to Kos. If most of his voters aren't interested, then what is fucking Mitch McConnell's goddamned problem?

Donny Shitdrizzle asks his lawyers if it's okay for him to go ahead and pardon himself while he's pardoning his rotten spawn and everyone he brought with him to Washington as executive branch hired hands. This means he's stopped pretending he's the innocent victim of a witch hunt, and is now admitting that he's guilty as hell... which we already knew.

It's sickening to realize the Republican Party is made up almost entirely of people like those who enabled the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Headlines: The Flameout

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., it was announced that so-called precedent (sic) Donny Shitdrizzle can go fuck himself. The expectation is that he will stay fucked this time, but who knows?

Added 1:22 PM: Donny isn't taking the "fuck you" well at all. He thinks he can attach the blame for his failures to a few bad Republicans and every Democrat. The people aren't buying into that horse shit. Once a majority of Americans realize they have a right to a certain level of security, and government provides it, then Republicans have a hell of a problem taking it away from them.

Digby: Clarification that the GOP majorities in Congress are not ideological monoliths, and be glad they aren't. Is it possible that some GOP Senators are ready to revolt against Mitch (Chinless Wonder) McConnell?

Shit outta luck again

His Make-Believe World

Here's what Donald Dick Drip had to say about Trump Care, courtesy of Politicus USA:

“I think we’re going to get at least very close, and I think we’re going to get it over the line. There was a great great feeling in that room yesterday, and what also came out is the fact that this health care would be so good, would be far better than Obamacare, and would be much less expensive for the people, and actually much less expensive for the country, so those are a lot of good factors, so we’ll see what happens. We’re working very hard. We’ve given ourselves a little bit more time to make it perfect. That’s what we want to do. I think this has a chance to be a great healthcare at a reasonable cost. People can save a lot of money. We get rid of the mandates. We get rid of so much. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be. This will be great for everybody.”

The so-called precedent (sic) is a reality TV game show host pretending to be the President of the United States, and it's sickening. Fortunately, most people are refusing to buy what the huckster's trying to sell.

Blabbing

When Donald Dick Drip starts talking on TV programs, the things he says prove he lives in some alternate universe that only exists in what's left of his mind.

Making us all proud to be Americans

Screw Jobs

The super-secret Trump Care legislation that Chinless Wonder plans to unleash in the Senate is apparently being structured to rip blue states a new asshole. Those are states that took advantage of ACA provisions like Medicaid expansion to serve their residents. The net result of the Senate bill will be to drag blue states down to the level of red state shit-holes like Mississippi and Wyoming.

Republicans need to be thankful I'm not the God of the Old Testament.

Partners in crime, equally rotten

Lip Motion

The Senate is still working on its Trump Care abomination, and more likely than not, when it passes, it'll be comparable to finding a turd the size of a boxcar on your living room floor. We know this because every Republican who's asked to explain it either can't or won't, and shits out cliches, platitudes about freedom, and packaged talking points like explosive diarrhea instead.

Worst Republican Senator

Must Repeal Obamacare? Why?

Republicans in Congress will not be punished by voters for failing to repeal the ACA. If Washington Monthly can explain why that's true, it's fair to say that GOP politicians also understand why. It's more probable that punishment would accompany a successful repeal. But the dog-and-pony show will continue because Fox News needs something to talk about that will sell commercial minutes.

Lying Bastards

From The Atlantic: How Right-Wing Media Saved Obamacare

Huffington Post: Presidency Delegated to Son-in-Law 

Eventually, America should just be forced to say, "We've had enough of this cheap shit. Get lost, fatso, and take your rotten kids with you."

And sometimes it seems like Fatso really wants to get his blubbery ass fired. We've turned the federal government over to a lying bastard who can't do anything the right way. Please name one time you can honestly say he made the correct call.

Medicare

Will the GOP try to privatize or eliminate the Medicare program? Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

Sob Stories

The best thing that could happen for the future of America is millions of people who voted for the MAGAT or Jill Stein realizing they're already fucked or soon will be.

You know, it's not like the facts weren't staring them right in the face last November.

Added 3:15 PM on Wednesday:

From driftglass: Dear Republicans-Help Is Not On The Way (recommended reading)

And just so we'll know, any health care plan Republicans are willing to vote for will be the system we had in 2007, but even worse -- what the status quo of a decade ago would've been like AFTER Republicans worked overtime to fuck it up.

Daily Kos discusses the negative impact of Trump Care on the so-called precedent's (sic) largest constituency: older, less-educated white people.

Proceed cautiously

Another azzwhole Congressman from Alabama says that some of his colleagues may be starting to wimp out on the tea party's plan to repeal Obamacare after all those nasty scenes at town hall meetings, etc.

A recent Pew Reasearch poll finds that public support for the ACA is increasing. This may reflect the fact that voters are finally learning that there's really no such thing as Obamacare, just the Affordable Care Act. For years, many voters didn't realize the new health insurance protection they liked pretty well was that horrible, catastrophic liberal disaster the tea party azzwholes were constantly bitching about and trying to abolish. The Pew poll reports that even among those who don't like Obamacare, only 17 percent want it abolished entirely. There will always be 15-20 percent who are totally fucked up beyond any hope of recovery.

As of January, Mo Brooks was one of 30 known members of the so-called House Freedom Caucus, a group of tea party shit asses from a few solid red districts. In the House, seven percent of the 435 members have been pushing around the other 93 percent for too long. That needs to change.

Meanwhile, the so-called secretary of the treasury is rolling out the same old verse of the same old song for the 100,000th time since Reagan was elected in 1980. The goddamned Republicans ran out of fresh new ideas 35 years ago. More tax cuts for billionaires and massive deregulation, and everyone be rich! Hooray! 

Whew

From a USA TODAY editorial on the Obamacare ruling by the USSC:

If the Court had ruled for the plaintiffs...

"Republicans then would have been under enormous pressure to figure out how to let people keep their insurance. But the party is deeply divided over how to remake the law along conservative lines, and now it doesn't have to. Instead, critics are free to continue to snipe and attack, with no responsibility for doing the hard work it would take to write a Republican alternative and build a majority for it. You could almost hear the sigh of relief from Capitol Hill."

Burwell, Blue Islands and Brain Power

Expecting the Gang of Five, led by mob boss Fat Tony Scalia, will rule in favor of the plaintiffs, the assumption has generally been that it would mean the end of the ACA. According to this article, things may not be so cut-and-dried. Theoretically, blue states that established their own exchanges can carry on as they have been, with about 15 million people receiving assistance through subsidies or expanded Medicaid. The 6 million people who get screwed would be red state residents who signed up through the federal exchange.

All factors considered, this might not be the worst thing in the world.

Added 4:48 PM on Monday 22 June:

In a recent email exchange, my bro wrote that he believed the Republicans will repeal most, if not all, of the ACA at the first opportunity, especially the parts pertaining to the individual mandate and denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

From what I've read, there are sections of the ACA that are extremely popular, and the pre-existing conditions rule is one of them. Reverting to the old rules will go over with voters like the proverbial lead balloon. Of course, covering people with pre-existing conditions is only feasible when things like the individual mandate expand the population of premium payers.

There are probably a lot of Republicans in Congress who are relatively sensible and would be willing to work on compromises to remodel the ACA. Unfortunately, sensible Republicans are pussies who let the lunatic fringe dominate the party agenda rather than face primary challenges. A minority of crazy tea party fuckwads are allowed to set the direction because they show up in force to vote in low turnout elections (like primaries and run-offs).

There have been some examples of this in Texas recently. In 2012, relatively sensible Republican David Dewhurst ran for an open U.S. Senate seat, and was opposed in a run-off by Rafael Cruz, one of the greasiest tea party bottom-feeders on earth. Cruz based his whole campaign on an accusation that Dewhurst was willing to compromise with Democrats. In a red state like Texas, winning the GOP primary is equivalent to winning the general election.

In the 2012 GOP run-off, the total vote was 1,111,938 and Cruz got 631,812 votes (56.82 percent). In 2012, there were 13.646 million registered voters in Texas, and 7.994 million of them voted for Mitt Romney in the presidential election later that year.

The votes Cruz received in the run-off amounted to roughly 4.63 percent of the registered voters in Texas, and roughly 7.9 percent of the 2012 Republican voters. Approximately 86 percent of potential Republican voters ignored the run-off altogether.

In my opinion, too many Republican politicians witnessed the Dewhurst defeat and decided it was easier to capitulate to the tea party crazies than risk losing their safe seats to primary challengers. There's not a lack of brains among Republicans, just a lack of intestinal fortitude.

Health Notes

The odds are good the Scalia Gang of Five will deal a painful blow to the Affordable Care Act. Republicans don't have a goddamned clue what to do if Fat Tony's mob strikes down federal insurance premium subsidies for enrollees in states without insurance exchanges.

Did anyone seriously expect that anything in America could possibly be improved by turning Congress over to a Republican majority? Their speciality is destroying stuff, not building it.