Republicans' Titanic sinks; Democrats offer rowboat for survivors

First off, I would like to thank my inspiration for this article or essay or rant, whatever to the following:

1. CS in AZ whose post about Ryancare (AKA Trumpcare, AKA Death panels for the sick) provided the primary inspiration.

2. gjohnsit's always fine analysis of implications for Ryan/Trump non-care's failure (AKA explosion on launchpad).

3. MsGrin's reference to the healthcare struggle in Colorado single-payer.

Please do not criticize the above authors for my humbug humble effort.

First off was the reposting of an old fact about Hopey-Changey's hocus-pocus thinly veiled motivation for putting Romneycare as the ACA: money. $20,000,000 in 2008 campaign contributions from the healthcare industries. With such a disincentive to produce long-term meaningful health coverage, as opposed to healthcare insurance, is it any wonder that BHO didn't do any better. His mouthpiece for that legislation was none other than Zeke Emmanuel, Rahm's older brother. So we should have suspected that this was a screw-you job from the get go, as many progressives early on did.

Now that the ACA is imploding (or more properly exploding) due to rapidly rising costs to the healthcare consumer (which = rapidly increasing Pharma and Ins. Co. profitability) has been shown to be a growing menace to our third rate healthcare, proffered at first rate prices.

As almost all CongressCritters receive a stipend from the regulated industries, euphemistically called
"campaign contributions" (or more accurately as bribes), is it any wonder that the duopolistic effort to remedy the situation has been, shall we say, sabotaged by various political interests, more commonly known as MONEY.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, so it is said, plus it is tiring for an Alligator to type long essays, a few illustrative drawings will be adduced (another legalistic term I love).

So here is the pictorial summary of a CongressCritter (D or R, doesn't matter) racing to help with healthcare provisions:

As learned and well-written an essayist as gjohnsit has written and essay own troubles brewing for the Trumposaurus, should also be generalized to all RepubliCRATs, he really did not cast a wide enough net to catch all the people in jeopardy due this immense healthcare fiasco. It won't just be Repugnants who face the ire of the people, but also most DumbocRATS.

A recent article in the Intercept reveals how establishment Democrats are doing their best to sabotage ColoradoCare, which is a proposed uniform health COVERAGE for all its citizens. Can't have that, can we now Dems? Does anyone smell David Brock's fingers on this deal? And I am sure Medusa is there on the sidelines, urging them onward to continue the work in continuing HER planned decimation of ACA. Oh, the irony of the witch to blame Bernie from bringing this unstable mess down. "He'll destroy it" she opined.

What do Democrats stand for? When confronted at press conferences, such luminaries as two Democratic representatives from San Diego mumbled something about giving everybody opportunity.
Opportunity to do what--be a wage slave? See their incomes plummet? Have a decent living wage? Have tuition-free public higher education? Protect us from Corporatist plunder? etc.

At least Nancy we-don't need-no-stinkin'-changes Pelosi (alias early stage Alzheimer's victim) has the exceptional bit of honesty to reveal that Democrats are all Capitalists. That's because her prefrontal lobes are failing their duty as social monitoring.

In the end of this, my prediction (based on my Ouija board consultation) is that the few Progressive CongressCritters will NOT seize this opportunity to rectify the the mess of daily healthcare systems (particularly ACA) by pushing legislation for BernieCare. They might make Cory Booker-style resolutions but real change ain't gonna happen.

Carpe diem? No! Carpe aureum!

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

mimi's picture

ok, who wouldn't be for that, alligator? See you ater .../s /seriously /seriamente /aserio /σοβαρά /seriös /sérieusement

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@mimi Das Gold!

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@Alligator Ed
Zum Golde draengt, am Golde haengt doch alles. One of the few quotes of Goethe's Faust I have not forgotten. Wink

up
0 users have voted.

He let them work out whatever they could, and then he campaigned vigorously in support of it. They failed to even agree on any bill.

They failed. They had everything they needed, and they failed. Failed.

That gives him license to act on his own, with some radical (?) alternative. Dropping the Medicare eligibility to 0? He made campaign promises to cover everyone, more cheaply, and he makes a big point of keeping his promises.

The timing will be interesting - I imagine he'll wait for the ACA to get even worse before he acts, and of course it will be before he runs for re-election.

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@Sunspots @Sunspots I hope the Trumpster follows your advice.

up
0 users have voted.

@Alligator Ed

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed

Trump has already said they are "moving on" from healthcare as an issue. He lost interest in working on it after about five minutes. People who met with him during the past week have said he didn't know or care about any of the details in the law, and talked only about himself. (Big surprise.) He didn't make any effort to keep his big promises, and he's not going to do a thing on healthcare in the future. It was a campaign slogan for him, nothing more.

The dumbest thing he said about it was how this complete failure of the republicans to keep their promises was a good thing, because "now democrats own Obamacare." What? Evidently he doesn't grasp that the democrats have owned the ACA since day one. What the republican failure actually means is now, at long last, they co-own it. They've said for years they would repeal it. They now have all three branches of government, nothing is stopping them, and yet they let it stand. Ryan said Obamacare is the law of the land and will remain so. Republicans' empty promises are now fully exposed.

The democrats ... arg. Their open hostility to single payer makes my blood boil. I got an email a day or two ago from Jeff Weaver at Our Revolution. I didn't know I was still on their mailing list. Anyway, they want a donation to help push Medicare for All in the wake of this recent fiasco. Right. Then I saw Bernie saying he's going to introduce legislation for it. Let's see how that goes. Heh.

If and when it ever happens, it will be because of massive popular demand for it, such that both parties will be backed into a corner and have no way out. Short of that, neither of them will do a damn thing. While I'm glad Bernie is still pushing it, it's not enough unless he breaks with the duplicitous democrats and starts an independent party that gets big enough to force the issue. I'm losing hope he has the fire in him to go there, unfortunately.

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@CS in AZ Between non-Obama-like golfing vacation (/s) the Drumpf probably only took 5 minutes to consider the ramifications of Replace and Repeal (or is it the other way around?).

Having successfully joined the "Loser" club with luminaries such as Paul Ryan and Hillary Klingon, Mr. Drumpf is going to let the whole, smelly mess ride on the Republican's backs (as is correctly the case). However, he, too, is some sort of Republican and this weight is laying on his shoulders also. Now that the Republicans have completely, totally, finally alienated their electoral base by failing to perform their long-promised healthcare reform, their elected "representatives" will see themselves as heavily primaries in many areas. The concept of "safe seats" in 2018 will have disappeared as public outrage mounts as the ACA goes nuclear (Boom, people--don't get sick. You're on your own)

So the Repubs better practice cold war exercises of duck and cover. But people will also not be so forgiving of the lame Democrats, i.e. nearly all of them. Expect lots of so-called safe seats of the Blue Party to be at issue in 2018 primaries.

This COULD be a turning point in our political system IF Bernie left the Party, gathered real Progressives around him (and I do not include Jeff Weaver's sham Our Revolution taking corporate funding) and pushed all-out for a viable third party in 2018. Sorry, Greens, but you've never been and never will be viable in America.

The last cartoon of my essay was precisely pointed at the expected lack of response to this governmental collapse. At present, only Bernie could pull this off with credibility--he still has enormous political capital (61% approval rating) despite his shilling for the Clinton Monster.

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@Alligator Ed

Here's a brilliant four minute video on exactly how well that's going to work. Ha.

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@CS in AZ I was a kid in the 50's and the Cold War was in full swing. This video will take its place in the pantheon of laughable propaganda films such as Reefer Madness. Problem is, our government is still spewing propaganda but in a much more sophisticated way. Hence the push for the Evil Queen and hot war with Russia.

We will survive because our nukes are better than theirs!

ROFL

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@Alligator Ed

Sure. Sounds like a plan, pops.

Of course, the original version didn't include the spliced in footage of those real nuclear explosions, which kind of, um, blow away the idea that ducking under a desk or covering your head with your jacket is going to save you. More like duck and kiss your ass goodbye.

That's why I love this clip, which is from the fantastic documentary about that era, Atomic Cafe. It's available free on YouTube now, and the full 1.5 hours is well worth watching.

up
0 users have voted.

@Alligator Ed

Or has that been killed yet? I think that one promise that Trump better keep if he doesn't want to deal with mass feelings of betrayal among his supporters, is to bring back all those higher paying jobs that became extremely low paying jobs in other countries. Ain't gonna happen in our current, corporate hegemony.

up
0 users have voted.

Beware the bullshit factories.

Alligator Ed's picture

@Timmethy2.0 These will be Mexicans who crossed the border to get in on this wonderful economic opportunity.

up
0 users have voted.

@Alligator Ed

Lol, whoever Trump pays bigly to do it will probably ship them in. And - not so lol - grossly underpay them...

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North thanks I was just reading this, it sounded like an Irish slur to me Patsy is short for Patricia. Anyway, California Wall pushback here, for laughs or whatever. Go Jerry.
Jerry Brown rips Trump’s wall: ‘We’re not going to sit around and just play patsy’

Gov. Jerry Brown won’t allow President Donald Trump to deport millions of people and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, he said in an interview that aired Sunday.

“We’re not going to sit around and just play patsy and say, ‘Hey, go ahead. Lock us in. Do whatever the hell you want … deport … 2 million people,’ ” Brown told NBC’s “Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.”

“No, we’re going to fight, and we’re going to fight very hard.”

"That's the system." pew pew pew! lol

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@eyo But we will poison our water and implement a technology that results in disease among citizens and workers falling into natural gas and boiling alive

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal , in case people don't know. They should I think.

In November 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that Gov. Brown fired Derek Chernow, then head of the Department of Conservation, as well as Chernow's deputy, Elena Miller, after they generated a memo highly critical of "unconventional" oil extraction methods, primarily steam injection but also encompassing fracking.

The process was put under a microscope in 2011 after an oil company worker died in Kern county from falling into a boiling cesspool of fracking discharge. Brown pushed Chernow to relax the regulations in 2011, but instead Chernow generated the memo concluding that relaxing regulations would violate federal laws. Shortly thereafter, Brown fired Chernow and his deputy, and installed Mark Nechodom, who sided with Brown and reduced the heightened scrutiny that had been placed on underground injection.

In January 2012, The Times reported that Occidental Petroleum made a $250,00 contribution to Brown. Shortly after, the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources said it did not plan to monitor or manage use of the technology unless the legislature requires it or the agency is handed “evidence of manifest damage and harm.”

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/California_and_fracking
"That's the system." "Green" means something different here, don't ya know? Not much Jesuit training left it seems, although it makes for great platitudes and resistance bullshit. "We're Capitalists." Corrupt to the core, rotten.

Thanks

up
0 users have voted.

@eyo

Thanks for posting this, and you are so right that people need to know these things!

Not that this isn't all predictable and entirely typical, but so many con-brainwashed people somehow don't seem to realize that those already inadequate 'burdensome regulations' of which psychopathic self-interests and their lackeys complain were all that was standing between them - personally - and the most blatant and obvious all-encompassing population/life support system murders, these entirely unavoidable once everything they ingest or encounter is being produced in as 'cost-effective' a manner as possible...

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Alligator Ed's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal How long do you boil them?

up
0 users have voted.

@Alligator Ed

How well do 'gator's do with a main course boiled in hazardous waste? You might want to move to a different cooking medium...

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Alligator Ed's picture

@Ellen North I am not fussy in my dietary choices. By the way, boiled Democrats taste exactly like boiled Republicans. But I am fond of eating Greens, too. One must have a healthy diet. Now about how long does one boil them critters?

up
0 users have voted.

@Alligator Ed

I'd think a good long time, to cook some of the poison out of them. But I really can't think of the representatives of either corporate party as being a healthy choice. Aren't we supposed to eat the rich political donors first? I understand they're supposed to be very fat-headed and tender in their feelings.

Edit: and evidently you won't have (edit: to) worry about spitting out the rocks in their heads either! Bonus!

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@CS in AZ comment on being ready to work with the dems on it. I just can't recall the source of this.

up
0 users have voted.

dfarrah

@Sunspots

Watch the stampede led by Pelosi.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Alligator Ed's picture

@dkmich and/or Antabuse to lead anything except a disjointed TV interview. (Antabuse is used for Alcoholics to control their urge to imbibe booze. If Nancy isn't on the sauce, then watch out Dems, the goose is on the loose.

up
0 users have voted.

@Alligator Ed

Lol, thought I'd read that Antabuse just made people feel sick when they drank? Considering the crap she regurgitates in interviews anyway... damn, think I need a drink now... It having been Whiskey Day today, if anyone's kind enough to have one for me, I'd feel a lot better, even by proxy, lol.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MrWebster that's OUR metaphor (c99)

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

k9disc's picture

who actually supported the ACA without the public option, were saying that it was a trojan horse with plague. Designed to kill market based medicine while keeping people covered. There were a few authors I remember working that angle in 2010. Wish I could remember who...

up
0 users have voted.

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Creosote.'s picture

lays out the basic strategy, graphically detailing how much money Dem interests, many linked with the DNC's Klingon candidate, was actively solicited and contributed to stop Initiative 69 and single-payer for all there. Remember the names -- every one of them and plenty more would of course be called on again if the public option were even proposed. Textbook case of insiders conspiring for profit.

up
0 users have voted.
Strife Delivery's picture

@Creosote. I heard some folks saying that single payer is something people don't want, case in point of Colorado.

Well, when you have a massive campaign against it, from insurance industries to even establishment Dems, and use that as a barometer of success... seems disingenuous.

So yeah, saying people don't want it when your politicians not only didn't support, but actively campaigned against it...

Tell me again why I should vote for them?

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@Strife Delivery When you hear a Democrat screaming, it's usually because the money stream is being interrupted or curtailed. If Big Pharma and Insurance Companies and Brock etc. are lobbying against it, then you know that ColoradoCare MUST be the correct way to go.

up
0 users have voted.
Creosote.'s picture

@Strife Delivery
voted for the Klingon without ever investigating the opposition to Colorado care. Not everyone in the Republic of Boulder is awake.

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@Creosote.

up
0 users have voted.
Creosote.'s picture

@Alligator Ed
More a dismaying case of "I can't do anything about it, so I don't need to know more about that."

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

@Creosote. to almost anything in the body politic. Screw it, let's go watch some more sitcoms. Except WE are the sitcom, without a laugh track, and only the oligarchs are laughing.

up
0 users have voted.