Tweet Of The Day -- "No, It Won't"

From historian Kevin Kruse:

"No, it won't."
-- Historianshttps://t.co/faqLjm2R0b

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 30, 2018

Assaults

The Trump Republican Party's assault on the health of our planet continues unabated:

Four Republican senators this week demanded an investigation of the National Science Foundation’s grants, accusing the federal agency of “propagandizing” by supporting a program to encourage TV meteorologists to report on climate change.  

In a letter sent to the agency’s inspector general Wednesday, the senators ― Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.) and James Lankford (Okla.) and Jim Inhofe (Okla.) ― said the $4 million Climate Matters program, which sponsors classes and webinars for meteorologists and provides real-time data and graphics with TV stations, went beyond the scope of the National Science Foundation’s mission of funding “basic research.” They urged the inspector general to probe whether the grants violated the 1939 Hatch Act, which bars government agencies from engaging in partisan activity. 

They couldn't possibly be operating out of any corrupt motive, could they?

The senators who authored the letter are among the biggest recipients of fossil fuel donations. In a ranking of all U.S. senators over the last three decades, Cruz came in third for the all-time largest total of direct contributions from oil and gas companies, receiving over $2.7 million since he took office, including during his presidential campaign, according to data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Inhofe ― who infamously brought a snowball to the Senate floor as proof of climate scientists’ supposed folly ― ranked seventh, with nearly $1.9 million. Lankford ranked 16th, with $1.1 million. Paul fell well below the others at $284,328. 

Cruz is running scared this year against Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O'Rourke. Let's see if we can help Beto (and our planet) win in November, and rid us of one of these four malevolent creatures of the fossil fuel industry.

Meanwhile, Sneaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan and his merry band of Republican sociopaths and nihilists are doing what only they can do:  after cratering the deficit by passing a trillion dollar tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, they now see the need to address that deficit by sticking it to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security recipients:

House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare, that President Trump vowed not to touch. 

The House Budget Committee is aiming to pass the blueprint this week, but that may be as far as it goes this midterm election year. It is not clear that GOP leaders will put the document on the House floor for a vote, and even if it were to pass the House, the budget would have little impact on actual spending levels. 

Nonetheless the budget serves as an expression of Republicans’ priorities at a time of rapidly rising deficits and debt. Although the nation’s growing indebtedness has been exacerbated by the GOP’s own policy decisions — including the new tax law, which most analyses say will add at least $1 trillion to the debt — Republicans on the Budget Committee said they felt a responsibility to put the nation on a sounder fiscal trajectory.

Wow. No one could've seen this coming from this bunch of assholes! (Are we being uncivil?)

Comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted is all Republicans ever have done, are doing and will do.

Good Riddance To Paul Ryan

With the retirement of the Koch brothers' spineless, coin- operated Ayn Rand acolyte Squeaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan come next January, most thoughtful opinion is rightly focused on the shams ("fiscal conservative policy wonk") and the shame (the last 18 months in particular) that will define his cruel, threadbare "legacy."

Jonathan Cohn and Andrew Delaney discuss Ryan "[t]ethering his party to an extreme, deeply conservative agenda that the public rejects," as well as his unwarranted media image as a serious and principled policy wonk:

... Ryan turned out to be as committed to fiscal responsibility as his Republican predecessors were ― which is to say, he wasn’t very committed at all, as a handful of critics had long warned. (One of them was New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who in 2010 called Ryan a “flimflam man.”) Although he didn’t like to advertise it, he too had voted for those deficit-busting proposals of the Bush era.  

And once Ryan was in charge of writing GOP budgets, starting in 2011, he relied heavily on generous assumptions about economic growth and unspecified spending cuts that nobody seriously believed Congress would make. 

E.J. Dionne, Jr., on the deal with the orange devil Ryan made in order to advance his Republican Social Darwinism:

...[H]is policies suggested he never abandoned his core faith: If the wealthy did best when given positive incentives in the form of more money, the less fortunate needed to be prodded by less generous social policies into taking responsibility for their own fate. 

Given where Ryan’s passions lie, it is unsurprising that he would prop Trump up as long as the president was willing to embrace a modern-day social Darwinism that married efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act with reductions in government’s impositions on the managers and owners of capital. The retiring speaker really does believe that this is the path to the good society. To pursue it, he’ll take help wherever he can get it.

Dana Milbank on Ryan as an unreconstructed Trump enabler:

... The free-market, limited-government conservatism he championed has been destroyed. And yet he still binds himself to the man who destroyed it all. 

Fox News’s Mike Emanuel asked whether Ryan was “sending a signal that the House is lost for Republicans.” 

Ryan, incredibly, answered by praising Trump. “I’m grateful for the president to give us this chance to actually get this stuff done,” he said. 

Was his retirement influenced by the way Trump changed the party? 

“Not at all,” Ryan maintained. “. . . I’m grateful to the president for giving us this opportunity to do big things to get this country on the right track.” 

The right track.

NARAL puts it bluntly:

This is the first positive thing for women Paul Ryan has done in his 19 years in office. https://t.co/mMYwnb5nrN

— NARAL (@NARAL) April 11, 2018

As does Nate Silver, who points out the media's shallow, lazy glorification of Ryan:

Paul Ryan's a bit like John Kelly in that the media started out with a caricature of him—in Ryan's case, as a wonkish, reasonable, deficit hawk and fiscal conservative—that was pretty impervious to contrary evidence.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 11, 2018

Not to worry;  the media will still refer to him as a "policy wonk," rather than the partisan phony that he is.

For more choice reactions, check out the smart Paul's -- that would be Paul Krugman's -- twitter feed; he was on to Ryan long, long ago.

Finally, Jimmy Kimmel last night on where Ryan will be missed:

BONUS:  Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice has more on the "heavyweight fake."

BONUS II:  Nemesis Paul Krugman ("the smart Paul") bids a long- form good riddance as well.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the link for the full article.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

After President Trump signed the Republican tax cut into law, companies put out cheery announcements that they were giving workers bonuses because of their expected windfalls from the tax reductions. The president and Republican lawmakers quickly held up these news releases as vindication for their argument that cutting the top federal corporate tax rate to 21 percent, from 35 percent, would boost workers’ incomes even as it added $1.5 trillion to the debt that future generations would have to pay off. 

Now corporate announcements and analyst reports confirm what honest observers always said — this claim is pure fantasy. As executives tell investors what they intend to do with their tax savings and their spending plans are tabulated into neat charts and graphs, the reports jibe with what most experts said would happen: Companies are rewarding their stockholders. (our emphasis)

Brian Beutler writes about Putin pawn Donald "Rump" Trump's other conspirators in allowing Russians to meddle in the 2016 election:

For more than a year now, people who take things like criminal conspiracies to subvert American elections seriously actually have kicked around whether Obama should have done more before November 2016 to alert the public to the still-unfolding plot. There are fair arguments on both sides of the question, but each has to contend with the fact that Obama knew the Republican congressional leadership—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell most vociferously—would dispute his administration, call the intelligence into question, and accuse Obama of using the country’s vast spying powers to help select his own successor. Obama, rather than Vladimir Putin, would be the meddler in this telling, colluding with Hillary Clinton, against poor Donald Trump. 

This naked subordination by the Republican leadership of every national interest—of fair elections, and protecting the country against the risk of a major party presidential candidate having a corrupt relationship with a hostile power—should have been the source of unending shame since it was first reported in December 2016. But the indictments and the Schiff memo fill out the context in which McConnell and the others intervened to let Russia’s illegal efforts on behalf of Trump continue, and it is even more horrible than we knew. (our emphasis)

Lock them up!  Lock them up!

Of course, the Republican conspiracy continues:

Top Republicans on Capitol Hill have made a concerted decision in their Russia inquiries: They are staying away from digging into the finances of President Donald Trump and his family. 

Six Republican leaders of key committees told CNN they see little reason to pursue those lines of inquiry or made no commitments to do so -- even as Democrats say determining whether there was a financial link between Trump, his family, his business and Russians is essential to understanding whether there was any collusion in the 2016 elections.  (our emphasis)

Don't worry.  Special Counsel Mueller has no qualms about following the money.

In "only the best people" news:

The president’s personal pilot is on the administration's short list to head the Federal Aviation Administration. Trump has told a host of administration officials and associates that he wants John Dunkin — his longtime personal pilot, who flew him around the country on Trump Force One during the campaign — to helm the agency, which has a budget in the billions and which oversees all civil aviation in the United States. 

What I'm hearing: One industry insider equated this to the Seinfeld episode when Cosmo Kramer used his golf caddy as a jury consultant...  (our emphasis)

Apologies to Kramer for any comparison to Rump!

Lastly, for an enjoyable collection of information running the full gamut, we again recommend the link round-up at Infidel 753.

Tweet Of The Day (UPDATED)

"The tax cuts are working!"

Charles, a Koch brother in Wichita, said he was pleasantly surprised that his pay went up $26,923,076 a week... he said [that] will more than cover the cost of buying several more Paul Ryans. pic.twitter.com/pyNYDtTUGw

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) February 3, 2018

UPDATE:  The cowardly weasel that he is, Lyin' Ryan has now deleted his much- mocked tweet after a furious backlash.

Quote Of The Day - "We're With Trump"

“We already made that choice. We’re with Trump. We already made that choice. That’s a choice we made at the beginning of the year. That’s a choice we made during the campaign, which is we merged our agendas. We ran on a joint agenda with Donald Trump. We got together with Donald Trump when he was President-elect Trump and walked through what is it we want to accomplish in the next two years. We all agreed on that agenda. We’re processing that agenda.” --  Speaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan when asked (following Tuesday's election results) if Republicans had to choose between Trump and the policies of George "Dumbya" Bush. (our emphasis)

As a reminder, this is the Democrat running against that Republican shitheel:



So there you have it: Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump (we know, it sounded better in the original German).

We've seen from the results on Tuesday that we have the energy, the policies, the people and the candidates to win elections.  We can send a big signal a year from now if we can retire as many Republicans as possible from Congress, starting with sending Ryan to the warmth of a corporate boardroom =cough= Koch Industries =cough=. To contribute to Randy Bryce's campaign, please go here, or volunteer if possible.  Thanks.

Tweets Of The Day - More Thoughts And Prayers (UPDATED)

Another week, another mass murder in America -- this time as many as 27 killed in a church in Sutherland Springs, TX. Another week, another opportunity for Republicans to offer... their thoughts and prayers:

Reports out of Texas are devastating. The people of Sutherland Springs need our prayers right now.

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) November 5, 2017

We believe this speaks for all of us:

There were plenty of prayers in the church where 27 people were gunned down today. What we need is gun control, you spineless sack of shit. https://t.co/b07LXwjk0h

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) November 5, 2017

UPDATE:  The killer has been identified as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, a "firearms enthusiast." He's listed as one of the deceased.

"A Closer Look" At Lying Hypocrites

Seth Meyers takes "A Closer Look" at the Republican health care tax cut for the wealthy bill (starting at around 2:53), nailing Sneaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch) in the process:

Quotes Of The Day: Isn't Self-Government Great?!

-- Squeaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch), when asked if he would work with Democrats on health care reform, replied:

“I don’t want that to happen... [I]f this Republican Congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I worry we’ll push the president into, um, working with the Democrats; he’s suggested as much."

Of course, TrumpCare/ RyanCare was neither perfect nor good (except if you're talking about turd sandwiches). And never fear: Democrats aren't about to do any dirty work for you or the shitgibbon to deprive millions of Americans of affordable health care. Still, it once again reveals Ryan for the ideological radical that he is.

-- Tea bagger and Constitutional know- nothing Rep. Ted "Yahoo" Yoho (Weasel- FL), while discussing the travails of House Intelligence Committee villain Rep. Devin "Clouseau" Nunes (Weasel- CA) and his late night romps to the White (Supremacist) House, revealed a hitherto unknown Constitutional relationship:

“You have to keep in mind who he works for,” Yoho told MSNBC. “He works for the president and answers to the president.” 

Well, most of us already knew that, but thanks for putting it on the record, Yahoo.

By the way, Yahoo is by profession a "large animal veterinarian," which makes him particularly suited to be in the zoo that's the House Republican Caucus.

Trump Uses Sock Puppet Pirro To Call For Ryan's Ouster

Neo- fascist nitwit Donald "Rump" Trump doesn't have a subtle bone in his bulbous body.

After saying "I don't blame Paul" (Speaker Sneaker of the House Ryan) for the TrumpCare debacle, his little fingers went to work issuing instructions to his dense following:

Watch @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews tonight at 9:00 P.M.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017

Why would the shitgibbon make a special point of promoting this spittle- flecked ranter's Fox "News" show? Obviously, he knew what was coming. Here's part of Judge Dredd Jeanine's opening statement:

"Ryan needs to step down as Speaker of the House. The reason, he failed to deliver the votes on his healthcare bill, the one trumpeted to repeal and replace ObamaCare," Pirro said in her opening statement. 

"You come in with all your swagger and experience and sell them a bill of goods which ends up a complete and total failure and you allow our president, in his first 100 days, to come out of the box like that, based on what?" Pirro said.

You can watch her deliver Rump's her remarks here.

Of course, she said she hadn't talked with Rump about the nature of his her remarks, which means in addition to his mad skillz as a negotiator and closer, Rump is also both clairvoyant and especially ham- fisted when it comes to making his moves.

Speaking of moves, it's your turn, Ryan.

BONUS:  The unfit, unstable Giant Toddler could only contain his instinct to lash out for so long:

Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2017

Who Can We Thank For Paul Ryan?

As CNN is reporting that Speaker Sneaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch) is on his way to give neo- fascist dimwit Donald "Rump" Trump the sad! news that TrumpCare will go down to defeat this afternoon (and what do I do now, Mr. Dealmaker?), we would like to quote from Paul Krugman's column today on those responsible for this unmitigated disaster:

So how did Mr. Ryan reach a position where his actions may reshape the lives of so many of his fellow citizens, in most cases very much for the worse? The answer lies in the impenetrable gullibility of his base. No, not his constituents: the news media, who made him what he is. 

You see, until very recently both news coverage and political punditry were dominated by the convention of “balance.” This meant, in particular, that when it came to policy debates one was always supposed to present both sides as having equally well-founded arguments. And this in turn meant that it was necessary to point to serious, honest, knowledgeable proponents of conservative positions. 

Enter Mr. Ryan, who isn’t actually a serious, honest policy expert, but plays one on TV. He rolls up his sleeves! He uses PowerPoint! He must be the real deal! So that became the media’s narrative. And media adulation, more than anything else, propelled him to his current position.

To see that this gullibility is still rampant in the Beltway media, one need only look at David Broder impersonator Dan "No" Balz's characterization of Ryan's "reputation" in light of the TrumpCare debacle:

The greater damage has been to the reputation of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) as the savvy intellectual godfather of a new conservative agenda around which his party could rally.

"Savvy intellectual godfather," indeed. You really haven't been paying attention for the past 8 years, have you, "No" Balz?!

Tweet Of The Day - Turn On

Somewhere right now, Paul Ryan is more turned on than he's ever been in his life. https://t.co/3e8F5Hh9qx pic.twitter.com/9bbJ8ZvPEJ

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 14, 2017

Morning Reading - More On RepubliCare/ TrumpCare

Several interesting reads this morning on the House Republicans' "health care" bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). As always, please go to the link for the full articles (our emphasis throughout).

Catherine Rampell illuminates the real purpose of the bill:

Let’s abandon the pretense. 

Republicans’ “health care” bill is not really about health care. It’s not about improving access to health insurance, or reducing premiums, or making sure you get to keep your doctor if you like your doctor. And it’s certainly not about preventing people from dying in the streets. 

Instead, it’s about hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts — tax cuts that will quietly pave the way for more, and far larger, tax cuts.

She points to the strategy behind this nothing- about- health- care monstrosity:

The presence of expensive tax cuts in a bill purportedly about health-care reform is not a side effect; it’s the entire point. They make it easier for Republicans’ (much bigger) individual and corporate tax cuts to sail through the Senate with minimal Democratic obstruction in a few months’ time. 

Why? Under normal circumstances, Democrats would almost certainly filibuster the coming tax overhaul, preventing it from ever getting to a vote. But Republicans can take the filibuster option away by using the “reconciliation” process, which is an option if, and only if, the tax bill doesn’t increase government deficits in the long term, relative to existing law. 

How do you keep tax cuts from increasing deficits relative to existing law? One useful tool is to change existing law — that is, to move the goalposts. Cutting taxes in the Obamacare repeal bill today lowers the revenue baseline against which a tax overhaul plan will be judged tomorrow. 

With these Republicans and their weaselly Speaker Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch), it's always about tax cuts for the well- to- do and to hell with everyone else.

Eugene Robinson picks up on the other Republican myth exposed here:

It’s time to put an end to the myth that Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility. Saving taxpayer dollars takes a back seat to the ideological imperative of blaming and shaming the poor. 

Witness the GOP’s long-awaited plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. House committees are moving forward on the legislation before the Congressional Budget Office has even had a chance to estimate how much the measure will cost. Why the rush? Because if the plan doesn’t snatch away health insurance coverage from millions of people — and both President Trump and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) swear it won’t — then it’s surely going to cost a ton. 

The Republican plan would take away the ACA’s subsidies and replace them with refundable tax credits based on age for incomes up to $75,000 for an individual and $150,000 for a married couple. This means a windfall for those who are older and well-to-do. In essence, the plan would expand government assistance to encompass many who don’t really need it — in order to avoid targeting help toward those who do. 

The GOP plan would also eliminate the ACA’s penalty fee for not having health insurance, which goes into the public till — and replace it with a different penalty fee that goes to the insurance companies. Apparently Republicans have no problem committing what they once called “extortion” if the benefit goes to private companies, not the common good. 

Keep in mind that Trump and GOP leaders in Congress promise that after dealing with health care they will seek huge tax cuts, including for the wealthy. As fiscal policy, how does this make sense? 

It doesn’t. It only makes sense as ideology. In today’s Republican Party, policies have to satisfy the belief that the less fortunate are poor by choice. 

Will any of this transparent hypocrisy and sociopathy ever become apparent to the Republican or Republican- leaning voter, and would it matter if it did?  Some polling shows these voters are split on the issue of tax cuts for the wealthy, but the reality is that the historical tribal urge to vote Republican regardless ensures that policymakers like Ryan continue to try to enact their dystopian, plutocratic vision to their detriment and to the detriment of the most vulnerable among us.

Hack Of The Week - Chris Cillizza

Politics- as- amoral- horse- race stenographer Chris "Lizard" Cillizza ventured an opinion on his Twitter machine about the truth- challenged performance of would- be Obamacare slayer Rep. Paul "Lyin" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch) in a CNN Town Hall last night. The reactions were overwhelming and not kind:

You should watch this Paul Ryan town hall on CNN. The guy is extremely impressive.

— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) January 13, 2017

@TheFix so people who know actual policy are tweeting that Ryan is getting facts wrong, even lying. Does that matter? or too impressive?

— Joe Sudbay (@JoeSudbay) January 13, 2017

@TheFix You value style a lot more than substance don't you?

— Chris Bump (@thefixsux) January 13, 2017

@TheFix please don't be nice to the guy trying to kill my friends

— turbodog & adderall (@makeitsnowondem) January 13, 2017

@TheFix Great. You know who else is impressive? Families paying for sick children, seniors affording prescriptions, people NOT DYING.— Kim (@mimimama516) January 13, 2017

@TheFix Ohhh. I thought you were joking. Wow-he's impressive at being a know-nothing asshole with no policy and no heart.

— Ellen Datlow (@EllenDatlow) January 13, 2017

@TheFix He is possibly the smoothest liar I have ever seen.

— Kevin Stevens (@kevdog) January 13, 2017

And, finally,

@TheFix pic.twitter.com/rQDkv6BBJH

— Dennis 🏍 (@TheBurghMenace) January 13, 2017

Fakes, Fakers and Fakery

Drowning our politics and culture in a "firehose of falsehood" has been the modus operandi of the reactionary Republican right for decades, and it knows no end. The pollution is unrelenting, a daily toxic shower of lies, misdirection and slander. Here's a brief roundup of some recent examples, with some of the usual suspects =cough= GOP-TV =cough= Lyin' Ryan =cough= :

The Sprint/ Softbank gambit

... Trump announced that Sprint was bringing 5,000 jobs back to America. "I just spoke with the head person," Trump told Bloomberg. "He said because of me they're doing 5,000 jobs in this country."  

... Trump did indeed desperately try to take credit for this, and you will be unsurprised to learn that he was lying. First of all, Sprint announced these jobs back in April. Here's the Kansas City Star: "Sprint Corp. is launching a nationwide service to hand-deliver new phones to customers in their homes. The Direct 2 You service, which first rolled out in a Kansas City pilot, will lead to the hiring of about 5,000 mostly full-time employees as it spreads nationwide." 

Second, the Japanese owner of Sprint, Softbank, announced in October that it was creating a huge tech investment fund. 

Third, in December, Softbank's CEO announced the fund again after a meeting with Trump, and said that one part of the whole package was the creation of 50,000 new jobs. Today, Sprint reluctantly conceded that its 5,000 jobs were part of the previously announced 50,000 jobs. 

And finally, these jobs were announced yet again today. 

That makes four times these jobs have been announced. Donald Trump was responsible for none of them.  (our emphasis)

Are you wondering if our trusted media will blow the whistle on the fakery?  Surely you jest.

The Food Stamp "fraud" fakery

It’s widely assumed that congressional Republicans, working with a Republican White House, will go after social-insurance programs with a vengeance next year, and the most economically vulnerable Americans are likely to face new hardships. GOP allies know that the public might be more tolerant of drastic cuts if the public distrusts the public programs themselves. 

And with that in mind, Fox News ran a curious report this week.

Food stamp fraud is at an all-time high, with cases this year including a state lawmaker and even a millionaire. 

According to the USDA, $70 million of taxpayer money was wasted in 2016 due to food stamp fraud. [snip]

Taking the report at face value, the question is bizarre. The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, generally known as food stamps, is a nearly $71 billion program. If $70 million helps provide food for people who shouldn’t receive assistance, that’s 0.09% of the overall budget. In other words, according to Fox’s report, 99.91% of the money Washington spends on food stamps is spent appropriately. That’s an amazingly successful program. 

What’s more, if we continue to take Fox’s report at face value, since when do we “end” public programs in reaction to tiny amounts of fraud? If someone found 0.09% of misspent money in the Pentagon budget, wouldn’t it be silly to say we should scrap the Defense Department? 

But here’s the best part: there’s no reason at all to take Fox’s report at face value. 

As Ari Melber noted on last night’s show, Fox sourced the Agriculture Department, but the Agriculture Department hasn’t put out any new information about fraud. When we called the agency yesterday, department officials said they didn’t know where Fox came up with the figure. (our emphasis) 

We're guessing it came right out of this fella's ↓ ass --

Obamacare's "damage"

House Speaker Paul Ryan has vowed a quick repeal of Obamacare in order to “stop the damage” and because “things are only getting worse.”   

Meanwhile, here is a selection of news reports from the past two weeks: 

The Obama administration announced that the number of people signing up for insurance through HealthCare.gov, the federal website that 39 states use to administer Obamacare plans, is even higher than last year. State-run sites such as Covered California are reporting similar surges. 

An independent think tank, The Commonwealth Fund, published a study showing that fewer people are skipping medical care because of cost ― most likely because, thanks to the health care law, so many more people have health insurance. 

Standard and Poor’s Global Ratings reported that insurers selling Obamacare plans are seeing better financial results this year, suggesting that premiums are finally coming into line with the actual medical expenses of their customers ― and that this year’s big rate hikes may be a “one-time pricing correction.” 

It’s possible that Ryan thinks these and similarly positive news items are irrelevant ― that the Wisconsin Republican has deluded himself into thinking Obamacare really is an unmitigated policy disaster, rather than a fairly typical government program full of pluses and minuses and the inevitable implementation complications that large reform efforts usually overcome. 

It’s also possible that Ryan’s crusade to pass repeal in January has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with politics ― that he wants Congress to vote before the rest of the country, and maybe even the president-elect, wakes up to the real-life changes such a vote would unleash.  (our emphasis)

Russians hacking the election

Trump was asked about possible economic sanctions against Russia in general. He replied:

“I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole, you know, age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind the security that we need.”

Um, what? 

There’s evidence that a foreign adversary attacked an American election, stole American materials, and launched an espionage operation to help elect their preferred, allied candidate. The beneficiary of foreign intervention has a new position: “I think we ought to get on with our lives” because computers “have complicated lives.”

Translation of Trump's traitorous weaselspeak: "Homina homina."

We will, in less than a month, have a government of, by and for the deplorable.  Sic transit gloria, America.

BONUS:  Tom Sullivan tells Democrats what they need to do to get on track.

Privatizing Ryan, Liar First Class

Seems we have someone in Washington ready to take on the pathological- Liar- in- Chief for his title: Squeaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan.  Here's Jon Chait's piece (in full) from yesterday (our emphasis) on Ryan's plans for Medicare:

During the campaign, coverage of the issues was blotted out by coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Donald Trump’s broad suite of sociopathic tendencies. And of the issues that did receive any attention, a conspicuously missing one was Paul Ryan’s plan to push Medicare beneficiaries into private health insurance. Reporters just assumed that, since Trump never talked about it, it won’t happen. But Paul Ryan still wants it to happen. And in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Ryan said Medicare privatization is on. 

“Your solution has always been to put things together, including entitlement reform,” says Baier, using Republican code for privatizing Medicare. Ryan replies, “If you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. … Medicare has got some serious issues because of Obamacare. So those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.” 

Ryan tells Baier, “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” This is false. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of the truth. The Medicare trust fund has been extended 11 years as a result of the passage of Obamacare, whose cost reforms have helped bring health care inflation to historic lows. It is also untrue that repealing Obamacare requires changing traditional Medicare. But Ryan clearly believes he needs to make this claim in order to sell his plan, or probably even to convince fellow Republicans to support it.

As is obvious to anyone not enthralled by the faux aura of "policy seriousness" over Lyin' Ryan's head that was placed there by the dimwitted Beltway media and punditocracy, the plan is to falsely blame that blah President's signature accomplishment for turning over Medicare recipients to the tender mercies of the health care industry.  This nasty Ayn Rand disciple is a liar and a fraud, and he needs to be called on this attempt to destroy the social safety net (cutting and block granting Medicaid and privatizing Social Security are on the horizon as well). We need to stop wallowing in the election results (which, contrary to Lyin' Ryan, weren't a Trump "mandate") and raise some noise.

(Photo: Lyin' Ryan practicing his Trump Gang sign.)

Today's Cartoon And Comment - Paul Ryan's Waffle House And "Dark Fantasy"

(click on image to enlarge)


(David Horsey, Los Angeles Times)

When he's not waffling along with his fellow spineless weasel Republicans about supporting that toxic waste dump also known as Donald "Rump" Trump, media charmer Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan is busy trying to divert attention from his and his party's embrace of Rump in order to salvage his power base in the House (while collaterally electing Rump, of course). To do this, he's been sharing a dark fantasy of a dystopian progressive America under a President Hillary Clinton to any credulous meathead that will listen. Here's Paul Krugman's analysis:

According to him, it’s very grim. There will, he said, be “a gloom and grayness to things,” ruled by a “cold and unfeeling bureaucracy.” We will become a place “where passion — the very stuff of life itself — is extinguished.” And this is the kind of America Mrs. Clinton “will stop at nothing to have.” 

Does today’s America look anything like that? No. We have many problems, but we’re hardly living in a miasma of despair. Leave government statistics (which almost half of Trump supporters completely distrust) on one side; Gallup finds that 80 percent of Americans are satisfied with their standard of living, up from 73 percent in 2008, and that 55 percent consider themselves to be “thriving,” up from 49 percent in 2008. And there are good reasons for those good feelings: recovery from the financial crisis was slower than it should have been, but unemployment is low, incomes surged last year, and thanks to Obamacare more Americans have health insurance than ever before. 

So Mr. Ryan’s vision of America looks nothing like reality. It is, however, completely familiar to anyone who read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” as a teenager. Nowadays the speaker denies being a Rand devotee, but while you can at least pretend to take the boy out of the cult, you can’t take the cult out of the boy. Like Ms. Rand — who was basically writing about America in the Eisenhower years! — he sees the horrible world progressive policies were supposed to produce, not the flawed but hopeful nation we actually live in.

More "Midnight in America." He and Rump aren't far apart at all.

Paul Ryan: Still A Soulless Shill

Sleazer of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R- Galt's Gulch) took to the pages of the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle this morning to offer what has to be one of the most egregious deflection maneuvers in recent American politics. This is from someone who supports the election of neo- fascist loose bullshit- cannon Donald "Rump" Trump, a man whose own lack of "discretion and judgment" in both his public and private life is utterly disqualifying:

"...[G]iven Clinton's record of extraordinary lack of discretion and judgment, the risk [of receiving classified intelligence briefings] is just too great."

Meanwhile, this moral midget was confronted by a young Republican student at a town hall yesterday and asked how he could justify supporting Rump. Here's what "Lyin'" Ryan said:

“You’re going to help elect Hillary Clinton,” he said. “And I don’t think Hillary Clinton is support any of the things you stand for if you’re a Republican,” calling a potential Clinton presidency “a third Obama term.” 

The Republican leader told CNN host Jake Tapper that he justifies his support for Trump because “it is a binary choice.” 

“It is either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. You don’t get a third option.”

This is yet another stain (tattoo?) that will and should remain on "Lyin'" Ryan, the corporate media's idea of a Republican "intellect," who is in fact a charlatan of the first order.  His career- long willingness to put party over country, now manifested in working to elect an unfit, unstable authoritarian demagogue, should never be forgotten -- by the voters or by history.

(Photo:  You know where you can stick those thumbs, right?)

Today's Cartoon Twofer: Republicans' Un-Civil Rights

Never has a political party been so deserving of extinction.

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(Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)


(Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle)

Today's Cartoon -- Supporting, Not Endorsing!

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(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

The distinction without a difference.