Odds and Ends October 23, 2017

Hurricane Relief: Interesting developments going on in the Senate. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is taking to task administration officials and conservative movement leaders by holding up the confirmation of Russ Vought as the right hand man to Mick Mulvaney’s at the Office of Management and Budget.

Wonder why he would do this? Apparently Senator Coryn believes there should be more funding for Texas’ hurricane relief. He has made it clear that Vought will be held up until he gets more funding for Texas.

Congress has already approved two emergency supplemental appropriations without corresponding revenue/budget offsets. Did anyone hear lately, what is going on in Puerto Rico? Same here, nada. I did not hear anything either even after a couple of notes sent to my Senators Stabenow and Peters. I guess Puerto Ricans as US citizens are not white enough.

Tax Reform Budget Resolution: If the Senate gets its way and it probably will, the Tax Reform Budget Resolution just passed by the Senate will create a $1.5 Trillion deficit. The Senate and the House now have to agree upon what will go forward as a Budget Resolution so they can do their magic and prevent Democrats and the majority of the nation any voice in giving aid to the wealthiest and richest in income 1% of the taxpaying households. On the table to pay for all of this give away is a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid and a $400 billion cut in Medicare. Two of the heroes who killed the ACA repeal-and-replace, etc. bills, Senators McCain and Collins, can be seen yukking it up as they leave the Senate. I wrote on this earlier. Gotta look good for those wealthy donors in the 2018 elections.

CSR Rescue: Another surprise ACA Bill to rescue the CSR where if nothing happened, those who received the CSR and anyone up to 400% FPL might and probably would be better off. Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN)

“If they don’t, there will be chaos in this country and millions of Americans will be hurt.”

As if concern for constituents being hurt and running around confused due to all the chaos created by supposition, conjecture, and innuendo was ever a concern for Trump or Republicans? The elimination of the CSR subsidy would be included in premium subsidy increases. The only issue here is the confusion which has been created by Trump and Republicans attacking the ACA. The CBO has estimated this confusion would smooth out over a couple of years if other factors do not disrupt the market place exchanges.

Twelve Republicans and 12 Democrats initially signed on to the bill, which would continue ObamaCare’s insurer subsidies for two years and give states more flexibility to waive ObamaCare rules. The giving of states greater flexibility is a mistake as history has shown states tend to punish those who can not find jobs and the low in income by cutting their healthcare. Here again McCain and Collins are in support.

Reported today, Schumer and the rest of the Democrats have rolled in support of Alexander’s bill. We are going back to 2010 when garbage healthcare policies which covered little will be put in place.

More on this later.

Going to Bat for Trump: I am lost in this one. Trump’s personal handler John Kelly took Representative Frederica S. Wilson (D – FL) to task for publicizing the call between Mr. Trump and Myeshia Johnson, whose husband, Sgt. La David T. Johnson was killed in an ambush in Niger. I am sorry; but, this sounds to me like an excuse for DT for getting it wrong in what he said to Mrs. Johnson. Donald Trump has problms saying “good morning” in passing.

This was a mistake. “ Every morning, I wake up in my office and scroll Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend that I didn’t see later,” said Representative Paul Ryan, who is often asked what he thinks about Trump’s controversial tweets. For months, he responded by saying he didn’t respond to the president’s tweets.”

“A handful of armchair psychoanalysts — reporters for major news organizations, no less — have decided that it all began at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where Trump was the butt of jokes by President Obama and “Saturday Night Live” comedian Seth Meyers.

Trump was so humiliated by the experience, they say, that it triggered some deep, previously hidden yearning for revenge.”

We can see this in Trump’s efforts to erase Obama’s legacy whether it hurts people or not. This is not about politics, it is revenge. Paul Ryan should watch his step.

Calling out President Trump: “We’ve seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty,” former President Bush said during a 16-minute address at “The Spirit of Liberty” event. “Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone and provides permission for cruelty and bigotry. The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them.”

Bush started two wars, at least one under false pretenses, and never suffered any consequences for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the process, Bush was responsible for the lacking response to Hurricane Katrina and the suffering, deaths, and displacement that resulted from it, Bush savaged the environment by backing out of the Kyoto Protocol and weakening the Clean Water Act, Bush ginned up homophobia by pushing in 2004 for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, Debt held by the public increased from $3.5 trillion to nearly $6 trillion and gross federal debt rose from $5.6 trillion to nearly $10 trillion, the financial crisis in 2007/8.

Is this the best we can find to speak for us?