No political experience wanted

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville reminds us that the GOP hasn’t stopped its efforts to destroy the American healthcare system. Some of her thoughts:

* With Senator McCain’s dramatic no vote we get both McCain’s reputation for “saving” healthcare (what he saved is the GOP being booted in the 2018 election, assuming elections are fair) and the GOP gets credit for their relentless effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

* There are efforts towards a bill that would give grants to the states so they can fund the various pieces of the ACA. I’m pretty sure that (1) it won’t be enough money for states to cover expenses and (2) a few states (such as Texas) would seize the opportunity to cut coverage to the vulnerable.

In recent news stories I’ve noticed:
* The nasty guy is threatening Congress by saying if they don’t act he’ll not reimburse insurers for about $7 billion the gov’t now covers under the ACA.



McEwan notes that with the firing/resignation of Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff there are very few top level people in the White House with political experience. She says the place is staffed by people “w/no experience, no understanding of the law & no respect for it.” That means they don’t have “the merest intention of governing effectively or decently.” Put another way, she says, such incompetence will fail at democracy, but succeed at fascism.

One of the few remaining with political experience is the vice nasty guy. How much will he continue to be engaged with Congress to get what he and his boss want? Or, now that he is the only one with ties to the GOP apparatus, will he cut those ties so the White House can go rogue?



A tweet from Gary Kasparov, former chess champion and now human rights advocate, commenting on the nasty guy’s ban on transgender people in the military:

The autocrat always requires enemies to protect his base from. If real enemies don’t exist, they will be created. Minorities preferred.

When the vice nasty guy, Kris Kobach, and their misnamed Commission on Election Integrity started asking states for voter registration data some voters (notably in Colorado) started to cancel their registrations. They wanted to keep personal data out of the hands of the commission.

Most of those who canceled registration are Democrats. Stopping Democrats from voting is the goal of the commission. Which means, from the GOP view, mission accomplished.