Tag Archives: GOP

Does Trump Own a Veto Pen?

14 Thursday Mar 2019

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He says he’ll kill the bill after Senate GOPers cave (as usual) on national security and sovereignty.

The Senate voted Thursday to block President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration over the southern border, a sharp bipartisan rebuke of the president’s flex of executive power.

The chamber comfortably passed the measure in a 59-41 vote. Twelve Republicans who worried about executive overreach supported it in an embarrassing blow to the president.

Trump plans to reject the bill, which the Democratic-held House has already passed. In one tweet after the vote, he simply said, “VETO!” In a subsequent message, he said he looks “forward to VETOING the just passed Democrat inspired Resolution,” thanking Republicans “who voted to support Border Security and our desperately needed WALL!”

I’m serious about the pen question. Will he follow through? So far we have zero wall. Will we get zero veto?

The invasion really is an emergency. Maybe it’s time to treat it as such.

Clutching Their Pearls

07 Thursday Mar 2019

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Just when you think all Republicans are wimps, this:

A handful of male lawmakers dressed up for a hearing they presided over Tuesday in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, donning pearl necklaces as activists testified about their experiences with gun violence.

Images from the statehouse — where legislators were considering arguments over a bill that would make it easier to take guns away from potentially dangerous people — caromed across social media as critics lobbed accusations of sexism and insensitivity at the necklace-wearing men.

The implication was clear, they said: These politicians thought gun-control activists were “clutching their pearls” in overwrought and self-righteous outrage — and, specifically, female outrage.

The advocates, who were volunteers with the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said they felt mocked, as if some of the lawmakers were not interested in hearing how gun violence has affected their lives.

“It really is shameful to behave that way when your constituents are being brave enough to share their stories,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, said in an interview. “They clearly did not come to this hearing with open minds or compassion for their constituents.”

Find that spirit, keep it, and you might actually conserve something.

The Enemy is Far More Consistent

05 Tuesday Mar 2019

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The effort to eliminate cash marches on, into America’s biggest and bestest house of bread and circuses.

Arthur Blank hopes to revolutionize the stadium experience yet again. AMB Group, which owns Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, announced Monday it will become the first pro sports stadium to implement a completely cashless model.

This will apply to all sporting events and nearly every concert, effective Sunday, March 10.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium is home to the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United and was the home for Super Bowl LIII last month.

Whether fans are buying a $1.50 hot dog, purchasing merchandise or even a game ticket — cash will no longer be accepted. The goal is to dramatically speed up transactions to keep fans from spending unnecessary time waiting in lines.

Making the trade of freedom for ever-valued convenience. And, all in a stadium built for a team mathematically incapable of winning. The Falcons are the GOP of sports.

Speaking of the professional losers: the GOP just can’t find enough issues to cave on.

Last month, in a turnabout, the Illinois Republican signed onto a letter with the top Republican of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that said “prudent steps should be taken to address current and future climate risks.”

“It’s just not worth the fight anymore,” Shimkus said in an interview when asked about his changing stance on climate change. “Let’s just see what we can do to address it and not hurt the economy.”

Shimkus is among a number of Republicans who — after years of sowing doubt about climate change or ignoring it altogether — are scrambling to confront the science they once rejected. They are holding hearings on the issue, beginning with one Tuesday. And they have pledged to invest in technologies to mitigate its impact and are openly talking about the need for taking action.

The shift in posture follows the public’s growing anxiety after catastrophic hurricanes, flooding and wildfires linked to global warming. Fully 74 percent of registered voters think global warming is happening and 67 percent said they are worried it, according to polling conducted by Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Among conservative Republicans, just 42 percent think global warming is happening but that is up five percentage points since a poll taken in 2017.

Stupid is as stupid votes. And polls.

Attack of the Stupid Party

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

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Less than three weeks into 2019 and the GOP hits the Super Stupid! switch.

Let it be known that the Republican Party is opposed to white people, white nations, and Western Civilization … and Steve King:

The recent controversy was touched off when King asked in a New York Times interview published last week, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

How? Because we either live in a fallen nation or the Twilight Zone.

Contrast this insane globalist idiocy to the relative honest questioning of a Democrat:

“I’m hesitant to answer it because I really feel like it deserves its due, and I don’t want to give you a – actually, just selfishly, I don’t want a sound bite of it reported, but, yeah, I think that’s the question of the moment: Does this still work?” O’Rourke said. “Can an empire like ours with military presence in over 170 countries around the globe, with trading relationships . . . and security agreements in every continent, can it still be managed by the same principles that were set down 230-plus years ago?”

O’Rourke doesn’t yet know the answer, but he’s ready to discuss it.

The answer, Mr. O’Rourke, is “no, it can’t, it isn’t now, it hasn’t been for a long time.” The answer to the GOP is, “go f-ck yourselves.”

Attention conservatives, boomers, and other binary thinkers: there may actually be a dime’s worth of difference between the two wings of the Uniparty – the Democrats, by their relentless dedication, might be the slightly better of the two.

Laments of the Stupid Party

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

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Another “woulda, shoulda, coulda” train of thought, from Lawrence Vance, on the uselessness of the Republican Party.

Here are twenty reasonable things that the Republicans could have done:

Repeal Obamacare in its entirety
Abolish the National Endowment for the Arts
Abolish the National Endowment for the Humanities
Eliminate refundable tax credits
Eliminate the Department of Education
Stop cash welfare payments
Cease funding any scientific research on climate change
Means test all welfare programs
Abolish the TSA and returned airport security to the private sector
Eliminate CAFE standards
Allow people to sell their bodily organs upon their death
Defund Planned Parenthood
End the federal war on marijuana and leave the issue up to the states
End the embargo against Cuba and allow Americans to freely travel there
Eliminate all foreign aid
End all restrictions on the production of hemp
Eliminate all funding for manned and unmanned missions to Mars
Privatize the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)
Abolish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
End all farm subsidies
And Republicans certainly could have eliminated Daylight Saving Time.

Not only could Republicans have done these things, they could have done them the first month that they had absolute control of the government. But they, as usual, did nothing.

It’s not even a penny’s worth of difference.

Modern elections are nothing except different groups of deluded fools fighting over a rotting corpse.

GOP Whine-Line: Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

10 Saturday Nov 2018

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I have a lot of nicknames for the Republicans – wimps, idiots, jellyfish, CONservatives, etc. – all well earned. Jim Jordan, who coulda, woulda, shoulda been Speaker, laments the lost opportunity.

Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan, who is running for minority leader, has a tough message for his colleagues: If House Republicans had done more to change Washington and deliver on their campaign promises, they would still be in the majority.

“This might be a tough pill to swallow, but I believe that if we’d handled the past two years differently, we would still be the majority party in the House of Representatives,” the Ohio Republican wrote in a dear colleague letter first obtained by Roll Call.

No sh!t, genius. Past two years, past 20, past 50… Maybe if they had had Trump’s back more. Tax cuts could have been deeper. Debt ceiling could have held or, imagine this, been lowered. Obamacare could have been repealed completely. The budget could have been cut or, at least, paused. The Fed could have been brought to bay. The Empire could have shrunk. The border could have been enforced. FOPA, NFA, GCA, etc. could have been weakened or repealed. Premium cigars could have been left alone.

Ah well. A minority position means bow tie preaching, invisible lines in the sand, and good-nature caving. Looks like more of the same. Maybe it was destined to be.

The GOP Senate majority suddenly seems jeopardized too. Hopefully, Trump understands the concept of the veto. It appears, now, that he’s uncomfortable with the enemy combatant approach to dealing with traitors.

The good news! We’re almost another year closer to 2033! Tick, tick, tick, tick.

Political Tea Leaves in the Culture War

28 Saturday Apr 2018

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Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama claims a horde of GOP House members are quitting over assassination fears. He may only make an excuse for the swinging of the old pendulum. Or he may be on to something.

He also said the “socialist Bernie Sanders wing of society” was pushing for a revolution that would lead to Maoist level of violence.

“There are a growing number of leftists who believe the way to resolve this is not at the ballot box but through threats and sometimes through violence and assassinations,” he said.

If true, this is the result of a turning point Pat Buchanan says happened 50 years ago.

They’re certainly interesting times, these.

The Return of Everyone’s Favorite Political Game – Whack-a-Bill!

30 Monday Oct 2017

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Where’s the Bill? Who got the Bill? Anyone seen it? There it is! Nope. Too late. You gotta be quick with the mallet.

This time it’s the GOP’s super secret tax legislation.

Rank-and-file House Republicans are increasingly alarmed by the secrecy shrouding the massive tax bill their party leaders plan to ram through Congress next month.

Just days ahead of the legislation’s release, GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee are still in the dark on numerous details being ironed out by the powerful tax-writing committee’s chairman, Kevin Brady (R-Texas), and his staff. And they’re blaming the panel’s top-down approach for the uncertainty.

“There are a lot of open issues,” said Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), echoing comments made by several of his colleagues on the committee.

Heading into the weekend, question marks remained on at least two high-profile proposals to offset the cost of slashing individual and business tax rates: curbing federal deductions for state and local taxes and business interest as well as potential changes to taxing retirement savings.

The uneasy feeling among members extends to their tax aides, who’ve been excluded from a recent series of hours-long member meetings with Brady and his tax counsels.

Alarm? Exclusion? Ha!

An unnamed source tells me the Bill is currently held up in a vault in the Congressional basement, next to the Shrine to Baphomet.

Really, who needs details. These arch-conservative geniuses played Whack-a-Bill with the ObamaCare thing earlier in the year and that worked out just as planned. Nothing to worry about.

Whack-a-Bill™ is like the old Whack-a-Mole game at the county fair – except it’s legislation, your money and rights, instead of a fake plastic rodent.

140309-tomasky-whack-a-mole-tease_xawuvk

Older version seen here. The Daily Beast.

Whack-a-Bill™ reminds you that your vote counts…

If You Like Your Money, the Insurance Companies can Keep Your Money

09 Monday Oct 2017

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Courtesy of ObamaCare, here come a new round of double-digit premium increases:

Obamacare plan premiums may increase an average of 45 percent in Florida next year due to health care insurers rate hike requests, according to Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation.

There are six insurers in Florida selling plans on and off the exchanges in 2018 including Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Celtic Insurance Company, Florida Health Care Plan, Health First Commercial Plans, Health Options, and Molina Healthcare of Florida.

Molina Healthcare requested the highest rate increase of 71.2 percent. Individuals with this coverage can expect their monthly premium to increase from $402 to $688.

….

“Consumers enrolled in a silver on-exchange plan that do not receive a premium subsidy will have the option of purchasing a similar off-exchange silver plan without this extra cost,” the office said. “Plans other than the on-exchange silver plans will increase an average of 18 percent.”

“In 2013, an unsubsidized plan comparable to an existing silver plan would cost a family of four an average of $7,200,” the report states. “In 2018, the average unsubsidized cost for the same family totals $17,000.”

healthcare-costs

Dave Granlund.

Thank God the GOP is on the case. Give them another eight years. Or 80. Never.

Taxing Details?

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

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Here’s the current rumor about the great tax reforms:

Top White House and GOP leaders have agreed to raise the lowest individual tax rate from 10 to 12 percent, paired with doubling the standard deduction, 5 senior Republicans tell us.

Why this matters: Trump intends to sell the proposal tomorrow as a populist “tax cut.” But as recently as yesterday top Republicans on Capitol Hill were nervous as they got word that Trump wasn’t entirely thrilled with the product that had been hashed out in immense secrecy for weeks (with two members of his administration, Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin, working with GOP leaders.)

Late last night Republicans close to the process felt more confident that Trump had come around to supporting the framework — despite his misgivings about the corporate rate not being low enough and about the political risks of raising the lowest rate (even though many more people will now pay no tax because of the increased deduction, meaning they can accurately call it a tax cut for the middle class as well as for the wealthy.)

Big picture details: Republicans plan to collapse the number of brackets from seven to three. The standard deduction would almost double to $12,000 for a single filer and $24,000 for married couples, meaning Trump can accurately argue that many more low income earners would pay no tax under his plan. As we previously reported, the top tax bracket would fall from 39.6% to 35%.

Yes, but: Trump won’t go into great detail when he talks about the tax plan tomorrow in Indiana, leaving plenty of negotiating room for the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate. As of yesterday morning Trump hadn’t signed off on the final product, and as with all policy announcements involving Trump, Republican Hill leaders will be holding their breaths to some extent until the president actually utters the words. Speaking with conservative groups at the White House yesterday Trump, reassured them of his commitment when he gushed about the “tax cut” he was planning to unveil.

Technically, rate-wise, this is an increase for the poor and a cut for the wealthy. In reality, if any of this is true, it will mean less of an actual burden for all. That might make sense – more sense than the GOP Obama-Trump-Ryan-GrahamCare repeal replace amendment meddling whatever, which has once again failed.

We’ll know more tomorrow or next year or, certainly, by the mid-terms. Then, suddenly, all the failure will be touted as smashing success. This is why many other countries have more than two parties.