Working Class Whites Watch: Day 341

It's a good thing for Trump that the election was last year.  The razor-thin victory he claimed in Pennsylvania is not likely to come again:

Despite President Donald Trump’s promises to bring back steel manufacturing, many steel mill workers are facing layoffs.

For example, ArcelorMittal-owned mill in Conshohocken, Penn. announced in September that it would cut 150 of 207 jobs based on seniority. Many steel workers who voted for Trump because they believed he’d be a boon for the industry are feeling abandoned by the president, New York Times reported on Friday.

(Apply the usual caveats that policies which adversely affect working class whites ALSO affect ALL working-class Americans)

Making Nursing Home Great!

I can't say it any better than Kevin Drum does.

I just want to add one observation to the following quote from the New York Times:

The shift in the Medicare program’s penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry. The American Health Care Association, the industry’s main trade group, has complained that under President Barack Obama, federal inspectors focused excessively on catching wrongdoing rather than helping nursing homes improve.

The idea that we should ignore wrongdoing in the name of 'helping nursing homes improve' falls right in line with Trump's strategy of 'making America great' by openly supporting white supremacists, denying people health care, and raiding the federal treasury to give even more tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%.

Please people.  Stop voting for Republicans.

Minnesota is Suing in Support of Net Neutrality

I received the following email today from Minnesota's Attorney General, Lori Swanson:

I will be filing a lawsuit with some of my colleagues from other states asking the court to overturn the Federal Communication Commission’s repeal of the “net neutrality” rules that guarantee a free and open internet.  Net neutrality is essential for consumers and an informed electorate.

Background.  The internet is an important part of daily life.  Each day, tens of millions of Americans go online to shop, communicate, work, and stay informed.

For years, we have counted on a free and open internet—where service providers don’t get to dictate the online content that reaches our homes and workplaces.  In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reinforced these expectations with “net neutrality” regulations.

The net neutrality rules say that all internet traffic should be treated equally by internet companies.  The rules prohibited internet companies like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon from blocking or slowing down online content or creating “fast lanes” for companies that pay them money.  In 2016, the courts upheld the legality of these rules.

Earlier this month, the FCC—led by a former Verizon attorney—voted 3-2 to repeal the net neutrality rules for internet providers. Public reports indicate that as many as 2 million comments filed with the FCC ostensibly in support of net neutrality repeal may have been submitted using stolen identities, with as many as 500,000 fake comments reportedly linked to Russian addresses.  The Pew Research Center found that 94 percent of these comments were submitted multiple times and that the name of the commentator was “The Internet” 7,400 times.

Net neutrality matters.  Without net neutrality, broadband companies are free to block content they don’t want you to see, to slow it down and make it harder to access, or to prioritize content based on who pays them money.  Mega corporations can dominate the content people see online by paying money to obtain faster speeds.  This will make it more difficult and more expensive for consumers to access the content they want.  Many commentators predict that internet companies will adopt the business model of the cable companies, which charge consumers more to access popular programs.

But this isn’t just a consumer protection issue—it’s a democracy protection issue too.  Tens of millions of Americans now get at least some of their news online.  We see corporate conglomerates buy up media companies.  AT&T has announced plans to Time Warner, which operates CNN, and the Koch Brothers are bankrolling an acquisition of Time Magazine.  Without net neutrality, internet companies can control what content to make prominent or to obscure, including by promoting sites they own or favor.  This will influence the information to which voters and the public have access and will impact elections.  Think of the role the internet played in the Arab Spring.

Next Steps.  Senator Al Franken deserves enormous credit for his bulldog defense of equal access to the internet.  In the face of lawsuits like ours to stop the repeal of net neutrality, many people believe that Congress might try to pass a law next year to cement the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality.  If you share my concerns, I hope you will consider contacting your members of Congress to let them know that you support an internet that is free, fair, open, and accessible by everyone.

Working Class Whites Watch: Day 334

Many political experts believe that Trump's victory last November was due mainly to his appeal to working class white voters.  We have made numerous observations about the ways in which Trump is screwing them sideways (not just working class whites, of course; the entire working class).  This may be the most egregious example yet:

The rule doesn’t actually require that employers share those tips with untipped staff. Under the proposal, employers can pocket those tips as long as workers earn the minimum wage. In fact, the Department of Labor all but openly acknowledges that the change could lead to this scenario: “The proposed rule rescinds those portions of the 2011 regulations that restrict employer use of customer tips when the employer pays at least the full Federal minimum wage.”

Yep.  Trump wants to make it perfectly legal for employers to scoop up their employees' tips and keep them for themselves, so long as the employees earn at least the minimum wage.  So that great waitressing job you have that only pays a base wage of $6.00/hr, but you get between $50-$100 tips each shift?  Well, now it's suddenly a minimum wage job.  Doesn't that seem like it will make America great?

And it gets better.  Many states have regulations preventing this kind of wage theft, so the only people who would really be affected would be those who work in states without this kind of burdensome regulation.  And so which states would get hit the hardest?  Kevin Drum has prepared a convenient map:

It sure looks like Trump is doing his damnedest to turn absolutely every state in the union blue in 2020, doesn't it?

Update: The full text of the proposed rule is available here, and it's a long, hard slog.  But this is the key paragraph:

Much of that litigation involves the application of the Department's 2011 tip credit regulations providing that an employer's ability to utilize tips received by its employees is restricted even when it has not taken a tip credit. In several cases, employees alleged that their employers, who had paid their tipped employees a direct cash wage of at least the Federal minimum wage, improperly retained some or all of the tips received by employees or mandated that they participate in a tip pool that included non-tipped employees. The proposed rule rescinds those portions of the 2011 regulations that restrict employer use of customer tips when the employer pays at least the full Federal minimum wage and does not claim a section 3(m) tip credit, likely reducing litigation in this area.

So you see, it's not really about screwing workers out of the tips they earned; it's about eliminating workers' ability to sue their employers when they get screwed out of the tips they earned.  What a laudable goal.

Fortunately, the government is accepting comments from the public on the proposed rule change.  You can leave your comments here.

Update: Okay, this isn't an accident.  The Trump administration knows damn well what it's doing, it knows that the rule change allows owners to take tip money out of workers' pockets, and it doesn't care.  More than that, it's doing everything it can to cover up what they're doing, as Kevin Drum reports.

Mueller

Concerned that Trump plans to fire Mueller soon, MoveOn is pre-emptively planning mass protests to occur quickly after the firing happens.  Some people believe Trump will fire Mueller on Friday, December 22, in the hopes that the long Christmas weekend will mute the response.

We can't let that happen.  When Mueller is fired (if he is fired), we must response in large numbers, and in person.  Please find an event in your area, commit to attend, and pass it on.

Our Response to the FOX Attacks on Mueller: Boycott

I don't watch Fox News, because I'm an adult and I have no interest in right-wing propaganda.  However, more and more of the media outlets I DO consume have recently been pointing out a concerted effort by Fox to discredit Robert Mueller and the FBI, and in so doing undermine the investigation into Donald Trump --- perhaps, even, provide a pretext for Trump to fire Mueller and end the investigation altogether.

I'm used to the idea that Fox is the propaganda arm of the Republican party, and I'm used to the idea that they actively cheer for Republicans and dissemble against Democrats.  But this is a willful and concerted effort to undermine U.S. law enforcement.  It may or may not be illegal, but it is clearly immoral and, in my mind, treason.

Unfortunately, it seems that there is precious little that average Americans can do about it.  I do have two suggestions, however:

1. Boycott Fox's Advertisers
Boycott efforts have been ongoing for some time.  There's a site set up specifically with ways you and I can take action to bring Fox to heel, mostly by telling Fox's advertisers that we plan to boycott them:

http://foxnewsboycott.com/

My plan is to write to the companies I patronize, and tell them that I'm leaving them if they continue to advertise on Fox after January 1.  Media Matters for America has a similar effort in place, specifically for Sean Hannity's show:

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/05/23/these-are-sean-hannitys-advertisers/216607

Update: Shortly after posting this, I realized that the 'Fox News Boycott' site has not been updated for some time.  Thus the sponsor list given there is likely out of date.  I have thus far been unable to find a current sponsor list.

2. Get the Facts

I'm fortunate in that I have no friends or family (that I know of) who support Trump OR watch Fox.  But sadly that's not true of everyone.  So for the Trump supporters in your life, here's the truth about the investigation into Trump, and why Fox's attacks on Mueller and the FBI are baseless.

The big 'bombshell' that Fox has which 'proves' the FBI is corrupt is a collection of personal text messages sent between agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page prior to the 2016 election.  The two made several anti-Trump statements, calling him an "idiot" among other things.  Strzok was briefly part of the investigation into Trump's collusion with Russia, and so Fox now claims that the entire investigation is tainted.

However, here are some important facts to keep in mind:

1. FBI agents, like all other Americans, have the right to their political opinions, and to express them in private (remember, these were personal text messages --- the Justice Department only knows about them because they were sent and received on government phones).
2. Sending these text messages is not illegal or unethical, but it IS unprofessional.  Which is why Robert Mueller removed Strzok from the Russia investigation as soon as he found out about them, back on July 27.
3. Fox insists that the Russian investigation is a corrupt witch hunt because ONE agent and an FBI lawyer apparently think Trump is an idiot.  But logically, this means that Fox would only accept an investigation as legitimate if 100% of the agents on the case were Trump supporters --- which is clearly absurd.
4. However, as far as that goes, the FBI is possibly the most Republican agency in the U.S. government.  Far from being a corrupt tool of the Democrats, it is about as highly slanted toward the Republicans as it can be and still be a legitimate law enforcement agency.
5. Any criticism of Robert Mueller as a partisan operative is ridiculous.  Republicans nearly uniformly applauded his appointment back in May, with even Newt Gingrich saying "His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity."  But now all of a sudden that's changed, because one FBI agent doesn't like Trump --- and Mueller took that agent off the case?

Republican propaganda can't be allowed to derail a legitimate investigation into a president's potential wrongdoing.  Call your Senators and Representatives to tell them you support Robert Mueller.  Get the facts out.  And boycott Fox.

The cost of Fox succeeding could be very high indeed.

Update: Concerned that Trump plans to fire Mueller soon, MoveOn is pre-emptively planning mass protests to occur quickly after the firing happens.  Some people believe Trump will fire Mueller on Friday, December 22, in the hopes that the long Christmas weekend will mute the response.

We can't let that happen.  When Mueller is fired (if he is fired), we must response in large numbers, and in person.  Please find an event in your area, commit to attend, and pass it on.

It's Official: GOP Stands for Grand Old Pedophiles

Two years ago, any casual observer could see that Donald Trump lied easily and frequently.  That pattern continued throughout the 2016 campaign, and unfortunately through his first year in the Oval Office.

His most tragic lie was his promise to 'Make America Great'.  For nearly 11 months now, he's been doing precisely the opposite.  And perhaps tonight marks the lowest ebb yet for this president, his party, and the country.

As everyone of a political bent knows, there's going to be an election in Alabama on December 12.  The candidates are Democrat Doug Jones, who has served as U.S. Attorney for 20 years, with a lifelong commitment to civil rights, and Roy Moore, a bible-thumping judge who was removed from office not once, but twice for putting his personal religious beliefs above the law.  He's a rabid sexist, and by any reasonable standard should be considered unfit for office.

And that was before November 9, when the Washington Post broke a story that in 1979, a 32-year old Moore sexually assaulted a 14-year old girl.  Additionally, the Post reported that when Moore was in his 30's, he pursued romantic relationships with three other girls who were between the ages of 16 and 18.

In the intervening weeks, more stories came out.  Two more women described receiving unwanted advances from Moore when they were 18 and he was in his 30's.  It turns out that it's common knowledge that Moore would cruise the mall for teenage girls nearly every weekend when he was in his 30's.

Let's be clear: there is absolutely ZERO reason to believe that any of these women lied about Moore's actions.  And while naturally Moore has denied that allegations, and declared them politically motivated, many other Republicans disagreed, and disavowed Moore.  Even Trump himself considered Moore to be toxic, as White House legislative affairs director conceded that Trump believed the allegations against Moore were credible.

That was then.

Amazingly, in the 4 weeks since the initial allegations were reported against Moore, the Republican party has gradually moved back to supporting him.  Which brings us to today.

This morning, Trump enthusiastically endorsed Moore --- and tellingly, he did so without doubting the credibility of the allegations that Moore is a child molester.  Rather, he emphasized that the Republican agenda is so important to him that (apparently), it doesn't matter whether or not Moore is a pedophile.

Take a moment and weep about how far America has fallen in such a short time.  The President of the United States is literally asking the citizens of Alabama to elect a pedophile to the Senate, because --- among other things --- Trump needs his vote on 'stopping crime'.

Just not pedophilia, apparently.  This is what is called putting 'party over principle'.

But to be fair, Trump is an amoral monster, who doesn't truly care about anything other than Donald Trump.  Yes, his position is morally repugnant, but Trump has been morally repugnant his entire life.  Surely OTHER Republicans aren't so evil, right?

Wrong.

The Republican National Committee is the face of the Republican party.  Their public actions speak for ALL Republicans.  And in particular, any Republican office holder who does not denounce Moore and the RNC's support of Moore is complicit is putting their political goals ahead of the welfare of children.

This is not hyperbole.  This is not partisanship.  This is objective fact.

A Brief History of Partisan Legislation in the U.S.

Some important points to keep in mind:

August 10, 1993: President Bill Clinton signs the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which literally passed by a single vote in both the House and Senate, with 0 Republican votes.  Factcheck.org describes what happened next (emphasis mine):

Republicans denounced it as the “largest tax increase in history,” though in fact it was not a record and also contained some cuts in projected spending. Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich predicted: “The tax increase will kill jobs and lead to a recession, and the recession will force people off of work and onto unemployment and will actually increase the deficit.” But just the opposite happened. Fears of inflation waned and interest rates fell, making money cheaper to borrow for homes, cars and investment. What had been a slow economic recovery turned into a roaring boom, bringing in so much unanticipated tax revenue from rising incomes and stock-market gains that the government actually was running record surpluses by the time Clinton left office.

March 23, 2010: President Barack Obama signs the Affordable Care Act, which passed the Senate by a 60-39 margin despite a Republican filibuster, and without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate.  Whatever its flaws, it did accomplish the following:

• 20 million Americans (or more) got health insurance who didn't have it previously.
• "Studies have found that fewer people struggled with medical bills or avoided medical care because of cost, and that medical debt and bills in collections have declined."
• It made health insurance more comprehensive.
• Despite what you might hear from Republicans, Obamacare actually lowered the deficit.

December 2, 2017: At about 2:00 AM on a Saturday morning, after hastily hand-writing changes to the legislation, including a long list of amendments containing giveaways to lobbyists, Senate Republicans pass the 'Cut, Cut, Cut' tax reform bill with 0 Democratic votes.  A similar bill had previously passed the House with 0 Democratic votes.

This bill is fundamentally nothing more than a giveaway to millionaires and corporations, as it's more or less a wash for families earning less than $75,000 a year.  You can read a good summary here or do your own Googling, but the key takeaway is that Republicans are blowing a $1.5 trillion hole in the budget to give even more tax breaks to the ultra-rich.  And contrary to Republican claims that this cut will supercharge the economy, the actual economic benefit will be modest-to-nonexistent.  Which all by itself is just greedy and stupid, but there's collateral damage to consider as well:

• 13 million Americans will lose health insurance, and everyone else participating in the individual market will see a 10% premium hike.  One expert predicts that the bill will lead to "ballooning premiums that will crush millions of families".
• It will decimate graduate education in the United States.
• It will open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
• Worst of all, it will trigger the sequester, which will mean $25 billion in cuts to Medicare, $20 billion in cuts to farm aid, and complete elimination of many other programs.

Now, the good news is that the stupid Republican tax plan is not yet law.  The House must either pass the same bill just approved by the Senate, or the two houses must work together to come up with a reconciliation bill, which both houses must vote on and pass.  Which means there's time to stop it!  Contact your representative and tell them to defeat the tax reform bill, or send them a letter, or both!  And act fast!  You never know when Republicans might decide to hold another vote under the cover of darkness!

(P.S. Hopefully this history lesson demonstrates the fact that Democrats and Republicans have starkly different priorities.  Not to mention the fact that this stupid tax plan would have zero chance of becoming law if a Democrat sat in the oval office.  Remember this the next time some smug idiot tells you that there's no difference between the two major parties.  And then never listen to them again.)

Save The Internet

For those who haven't heard about net neutrality, it simply refers to the internet as it currently exists in America.  As of this writing, internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner and CenturyLink cannot charge different amounts for different internet content.  You pay the provider for internet service at a certain rate of speed, and by law, the ISP must serve all content at the same speed.  So no matter whether you're looking at your kids' grades, or streaming video from YouTube or Netflix, online banking, or checking email, the content is served at the same speed.

This principle is called 'net neutrality': ISPs can't intentionally serve certain content faster or slower, or charge different rates for different content.  And I'm fairly confident that 96%+ of internet users like it this way.

Think of a comparable example: cable television.  Wouldn't it be great if you paid a single rate, and had access to all cable channels?  If you didn't have to weigh different plans and packages from different providers to get all the channels you wanted to see?  Well, the reason you can't do that is because there is no concept of 'net neutrality' which governs cable television.

So, if you're upset because you want to pay your ISP more money for worse internet service, and you hate the fact that you're able to access 100% of the content available on the internet, then the FCC's plan to eliminate net neutrality is for you.

But if you like, say, the fact that literally anyone, no matter how limited their means, can jump on the internet and post their opinion about matters profound and trivial, you should support net neutrality.

If you're a small business, and you like using the internet to promote your business, you should support it.  If you like the fact that customers can navigate to your site as easily as they can navigate to Yahoo or Facebook or Twitter, you should support it.

If you're still not convinced, maybe this explainer from Save the Internet will be more persuasive than I am.  Or maybe this description of the internet without net neutrality will be.  Or maybe, you don't want the internet in the U.S. to look like it does in Portugal:

The FCC is voting on December 14 to permanently eliminate net neutrality.  Doing so would be nothing more than a huge giveaway to big ISPs, which would be of no benefit whatsoever to average Americans or most businesses.  Fortunately, Mashable is on the case, and lists a number of steps you can take in the next 3 weeks to try to block this action.  Please read, take appropriate action, and urge others to do the same.

Draining the Swamp Watch

From Slate, via LGM:

Whitefish Energy, which at the time of the Hurricane Maria’s landfall had only two full-time employees, now has by far the largest contract of any company involved in Puerto Rico’s recovery, and, according to reporting from the Daily Beast, is primarily financed by a firm run by a major Trump donor who has connections to several members of his administration.

The contract has also raised eyebrows because the company is based in Whitefish, Montana, the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (population: 7,436). Zinke’s office told the Washington Post that Zinke knows the company’s CEO because the town is a place where “everybody knows everybody” but that Zinke had no role in the deal.

. . .

The $300 million Whitefish contract sets hourly rates at $330 for site supervisors and $227 for journeyman linemen, with rates even higher for subcontractors: $462 per hour for supervisors and $319 for linemen. It also includes $332 nightly fees for each worker and $80 a day for food.

That's . . . really good money for a lineman or a supervisor.  For comparison, The Penny Hoarder touts lineman jobs as a good way to earn a living, earning an hourly rate of $30/hr.  But to be fair, linemen working in Puerto Rico are basically working in a disaster zone, so it's reasonable that they would demand more pay.

Of course, linemen doing the same job in Florida, in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, get a base hourly rate of $50/hr, which jumps to $75/hr for overtime and $100/hr on Sundays.  So even taking the dangerous and difficult working conditions into account, the money the Whitefish linemen are getting in Puerto Rico is --- exorbitant.

And Trump's supporters believe that he's 'draining the swamp'.

The Election is Almost Here

No, obviously not the 2020 presidential election, which will hopefully mark the end of Republicans in the White House for a very long time.

And not even the next election for Congress, which will hopefully see Democrats re-take control of the House of Representatives, both to serve as a check on The Stain's legislative priorities, but more important, to initiate meaningful investigations into his misadministration, which he cannot end simply by firing someone.

Those are certainly two elections to look forward to, but we'll have to wait for them.  No, the elections I want to talk about right now are the elections coming up on November 7 in both Virginia and Alabama.

In Virginia, Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam is running to replace term-limited Democrat Terry McAuliffe as Governor.  Democrats currently control only 15 governor's mansions, so it's important to retain all that we have.  But more importantly, every election before November 2018 is seen as a referendum on The Stain's tenure in office so far, and we don't want him to be able to claim victory, do we?  Best of all, Northam appears to be a true progressive who will actually make a better governor than his opponent, former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, who appears to have decided that his best path to victory is to run the kind of race-baiting campaign which worked so well for The Stain.

(Of course, The Stain actually lost the popular vote, and Virginia has no electoral college so --- let's HOPE this strategy works equally well for Gillespie!)

Depending on your point of view, the more important race may be the race for the Alabama senate seat Jeff Sessions vacated when he became The Stain's Attorney General.  For one thing, a victory by Democrat Doug Jones would put a 49th Democratic vote in the Senate, making it a bit more difficult for Republicans to pass any more of their radical agenda.  Of course, it would be a thumb in the eye of The Stain and Republicans everywhere, electing a Democrat from a state which hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1990.  Jones appears to be a solid progressive, even coming from Alabama.  But without question the best reason to support Jones is that his opponent, Roy Moore, is a crazy religious zealot who has twice been removed from his seat on the Alabama Supreme Court.

Both races are basically dead heats, so any financial or other support you could give either to Ralph Northam or Doug Jones would be a good investment.  You can support Northam here, and Jones here.  And don't forget that Puerto Rico still needs support in its recovery, too!

Rancid

It began, of course, with The Stain doing his usual Stain-like things:

“If you look at President Obama, and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls," Trump said Monday. "I like to call when it's appropriate, when I think I am able to do it."

It was Trump's first public statement about the Niger incident, in which an Army special forces unit was ambushed by Islamic extremists in the western African nation. And it brought an swift and strong reaction from aides to former President Barack Obama.

"That's a (expletive) lie," said Alyssa Mastromonaco, Obama's deputy chief of staff, on Twitter, calling Trump "a deranged animal."

Of course previous presidents have called the families of soldiers killed in combat or in attacks similar to the one in Niger.  But The Stain got caught by the fact that, as of last Saturday, he hadn't made any such calls.  So he made his go-to move, which is to blame someone else, in this case Obama and other past presidents.

Of course, following his well-established pattern, when he finally DID make calls to the families, they went predictably poorly:

. . . a congresswoman said Trump told the widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger that he "must have known what he signed up for."

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., tells NBC6 that she overheard the call to Myeshia Johnson on Tuesday on a car speakerphone, as the two women were heading to Miami International Airport to meet the body of Johnson's husband, Sgt. La David Johnson.

In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump denied he said that, calling Wilson's account "fabricated" and adding, "I have proof." Press secretary Sarah Sanders clarified that there was no recording of the call, but that there were several people in the room at the time, including retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff.

Yet by midday Wednesday, the soldier's mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, had backed up the congresswoman's account. Jones-Johnson said she was also in the car listening to the call and told The Washington Post, "President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband."

I never the actual phone call in question, and clearly reasonable people can differ on whether The Stain was respectful in what he said.  But --- Sgt. Johnson's family were offended by his remarks, and that's really all that matters.

A sane person --- and anyone worthy of the office of the president --- would simply have issued a public apology to Sgt. Johnson's family and moved on.  But of course, we're not talking about a sane person worthy of the presidency, we're talking about The Stain.  Since Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) corroborated the Johnson family's story of The Stain's phone call, The Stain immediately went after her.

And he wasn't alone.  For reasons which are unclear, Chief of Staff John Kelly decided to attack Wilson.  In a speech which seemed designed to deflect attention away from The Stain's behavior, Kelly talked about his own son, who was killed while deployed to Afghanistan.  He also spent a lot of time discussing sacrifice and patriotism and a lot of other things that had nothing to do with the devastating effect The Stain's actions had on the Johnson family, but he did say "Let's not let this maybe last thing that is held sacred in our society, a young man, a young woman going out and giving his or her life for our country, let's try to somehow keep that sacred" --- a message which seems more appropriately directed at his boss than at Rep. Wilson.

Unfortunately for Kelly, he took his criticism too far, veering from indignation into personal attacks on Ms. Wilson.  He spoke about an FBI field office that opened in Miami in 2015, which was dedicated to two field officers named Grogan and Duke, who had died in the line of duty.  He attended the dedication, as did Ms. Wilson:

"Three of the men that survived the fight were there and gave rendition of how brave those men were and how they gave their lives. And a congresswoman stood up and, in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building. How she took care of her constituents because she got the money and just called up President Obama and on that phone call he gave the money, the $20 million to build a building, and she sat down. And we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned."

Kelly is obviously really, really mad at Rep. Wilson.  And who knows?  Bragging about bringing the pork home to your district is a bit obnoxious, and even disrespectful if done at a dedication ceremony for slain FBI agents.  But it's hardly the same as disrespecting a soldier's death to his widow, especially when she's expecting to be comforted.

But it turns out that Rep, Wilson's behavior wasn't either disrespectful OR obnoxious, because (try to contain your surprise) --- the bad behavior Kelly described never actually happened:

A video of Rep. Frederica Wilson’s (D-FL) speech at a 2015 FBI building dedication ceremony, taken by the Sun Sentinel newspaper and resurfaced on Friday, shows that the congresswoman did not brag about securing the funding for the building as White House Chief of Staff John Kelly claimed she had.

Rep. Wilson may be an empty barrel, but we certainly can't say that about The Stain or his staff.  To summarize: The big barrel of rancid pigshit that is our sitting president behaved like rancid pigshit.  As part of the damage control, The Stain rolled out a smaller barrel of rancid pigshit to defend him AND to make baseless attacks on the woman who confirmed The Stain's awful behavior.

But wait!  It gets worse!  Now that Kelly has been caught out in his lie, The Stain and his minions are falling back on the last refuge of Republican cowards: hiding behind the flag.  In this particular case, even though The Stain and Kelly are wrong, they're still right because, you see, it's inappropriate for anyone to criticize a former general:

The White House on Friday told a journalist who asked about errors chief of staff John Kelly made Thursday that it would be “highly inappropriate” to “get into a debate with a four-star Marine general.”

The militaristic language, used to refer to the civilian position in the White House occupied by the retired Marine general, came when the reporter pointed out that Kelly had inaccurately accused a congresswoman of claiming credit for securing funding for an FBI building in Miramar, Florida in 2015.

In other words, Kelly can lie and sling his shit however much he wants, and those in the line of fire just have to take it.  How unfortunate that the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson apparently doesn't receive the same courtesy.

So now we have the barrel of rancid pigshit press secretary telling us that we can't call the barrel of rancid pigshit John Kelly a barrel of rancid pigshit.  And that's the real takeaway of the story: In the current White House, it's rancid pigshit all the way down.

But wait!  It gets worse!  Because as entertaining as this story is, it's not even the worst part of The Stain's failed attempt at behaving like a human being. That prize goes to The Stain's interaction with the father of Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, who was killed in Afghanistan in June.  In this case, The Stain promised to send the father $25,000 --- but the check was never sent until just two days ago.  Coincidentally, the check was sent out the same day the Washington Post ran a story that the check had never been sent.

Funny, isn't it?  It's almost as if The Stain wanted Cpl. Baldridge's father to think he was a great guy, but then immediately forgot about him the moment he hung up the phone.  The White House claims "There is a substantial process that can involve multiple agencies anytime the President interacts with the public, especially when transmitting personal funds. In this situation there were other agencies involved."  And that might be true.  But that excuse would be more believeable if The Stain didn't have a history of promising to give money to veterans or their families, and failing to follow through until the media shamed him into it.

Rancid pigshit, all the way down.  Remember this the next time you read or hear anything from the current White House --- and then forget whatever pigshit they sling at you.

Poison

I aim for this to be my final post about flags for a while.

To the casual observer, it would seem that Trump voters are simply insane, and are unable to see the apparent contradiction in these two views that they hold.  It would seem to be a solid reason to vote against all candidates who hold the same beliefs (pretty much all of them Republicans).

But if you look a bit closer, you see that these two views aren't so contradictory as they might appear.

Most of the NFL players protesting are black, and the reason for their protest is systemic oppression of people of color.

The confederacy was a culture which was built entirely upon a foundation of oppression of black people, including the very heart of the confederate economy.

When looked at this way, these two views are completely consistent with one another --- and completely abhorrent.  The Republican party is the face of contemporary racism in America.  And it is more and more the case that racism is the face of the contemporary Republican party.

The Republican party is poison.

Flags

I just saw a post on Facebook from a guy who's upset about NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.  Pretty mundane stuff, although as I've pointed out before, if the kneeling is the thing that upsets you the most about it, you really need to re-evaluate your priorities.

Anyway, the thing that stood about this particular post is that this guy has literally chosen the battle flag of the army of Northern Virginia as his Facebook avatar.  You know, the flag which most people mistake for the flag of the confederacy, seeing as it has become the confederate symbol of choice by white supremacists everywhere.

Since this gentleman clearly did not appreciate the irony in making that particular statement after choosing that particular avatar, I felt compelled to make up this simple illustration for his benefit:

Puerto Rico

Eleven days ago, hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico.  A massive and immediate response was required; predictably, the response was inadequate:

This made me cry. I can't say much more. #PuertoRico https://t.co/lOdoAeG0gD

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) September 30, 2017

 I'll let the Crybaby-in-Chief waste time arguing about whether he's getting proper credit for the actions he has (or hasn't) taken, and instead urge everyone reading this to take action themselves, in the form of (you guessed it) making a contribution to one or more aid organizations.

First off --- I'll just say that I'm a bit dismayed that most of the commercials and so forth I've seen on TV are encouraging people to donate to the Red Cross.  Giving money to support Puerto Rico's recovery is great, but there is significant reason to doubt that the Red Cross is a good steward for that money.  Here are several other organizations I would recommend instead:

• St. John Rescue - Based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, this volunteer organizations works with governmental entities like FEMA to assist in rescue efforts.
• The Humane Society Disaster Relief Fund - Because there are pets, service animals, and other non-human lives suffering in Puerto Rico.
• Portlight Strategies, Inc. - Focusing specifically on disaster recovery services for the disabled.
• The Puerto Rico Community Foundation (This is page is in Spanish, which is what you should expect, when you think about it).
• Oxfam America - The U.S. branch of the British charity to address poverty and homelessness.
• The United Way
• All Hands Volunteers - A volunteer organization which helps communities recover from natural disasters.
• Save the Children - Focusing specifically on disaster recovery services for children.

Please give what you can, and pass it on!

Priorities

Here are three events which have made news recently:

1. Widespread incidents of police brutality and use of excessive --- sometimes lethal --- force toward Americans of color (no less disturbing is a similar pattern of police abuse of the disabled).
2. The President publicly condemned Americans engaging in peaceful protest, saying that if an employer sees one of their employees exercises their First Amendment rights in this way, then they should fire the "son of a bitch".
3. Multiple NFL players have chosen to kneel during the playing of the national anthem before games, in protest of the aforementioned widespread incidents of police brutality.

Now, no one will fault you for being upset about any of these things.  In fact, it's fair to say we all should be upset by all of them.

But if the thing that upsets you the most is item (3), then I respectfully suggest that you step back and take some time to seriously reconsider your priorities.

Especially considering that NFL players kneeling during the national anthem is hardly our nation's most pressing priority at the moment.  Police brutality is higher priority, as is the latest Republican attempt to set the individual health care market on fire (call you Senator: 202-224-3121).  Oh yes, and then there's the small detail that more than 3 million Americans are trying to rebuild their lives in 19th-century conditions in the aftermath of hurricane Maria.

For a good discussion about what matters and what doesn't when it comes to the NFL and the national anthem, see Martin Longman.

We Need to Stop Republicans from Peeing on the Carpet

I'm a dog owner.  Your sympathy is appreciated.

Our younger dog (not that young; she's 4) pees on our downstairs carpet quite often.  We were told she was housebroken when we got her --- we were lied to --- but we crate-trained her, and eventually, over time, it seemed like she finally 'got it'.

Until, it turned out, she didn't.

So we've tried various things, and paid a dog trainer to help us out, and nevertheless, almost every night, while we're asleep upstairs, she pees on the downstairs carpet.  And it seems like no matter what we do to try to communicate her that we DON'T WANT her to pee on the carpet, she does it anyway.

I bring this up because Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), two theoretically 'moderate' Republican senators, have introduced yet another bill which would repeal Obamacare, take away health care from millions of underprivileged Americans, and throw the individual health care market into chaos:

The bill would usher a number of shocking cruelties into law, not least the possibility that as many as 32 million Americans could lose health coverage. That's 10 percent of the population. We don't know for sure because Republicans are trying to force the bill through the Senate before its effects can be assessed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill is full of fun surprises, like the loophole it creates allowing insurers to deny people coverage for a series of basic medical treatments, including

• Pregnancy and maternity care
• Prescription drugs
• Mental health services
• Reproductive health services, including birth control
• Substance abuse treatment 

This bill appears to have the approval only of Republicans in Congress.  Just about everyone else has announced their opposition to it, including the National Association of Medicaid Directors, more than 75 different medical groups, hospitals, doctors, and even the insurance industry:

America’s Health Insurance Plans was even more pointed. The legislation could hurt patients by “further destabilizing the individual market” and could potentially allow “government-controlled single payer health care to grow,” said Marilyn B. Tavenner, the president and chief executive of the association. Without controls, some states could simply eliminate private insurance, she warned.

Sounds pretty good, huh?  So you have to ask yourself, why are Republicans so insistent on trying to pass this awful legislation that could do so much damage?

Because they can't stop peeing on the carpet, that's why.  This is their third attempt to repeal Obamacare, each more horrendous than the last.  They failed to pass the AHCA in April, because it was a terrible bill that would have eliminated health insurance for 24 million Americans and no one outside of Congress wanted it to pass.  Then a month later, the House DID pass the AHCA and Trump brought all of the congressional Republicans to the White House to celebrate over beer (I'm not kidding).

But the AHCA bill that passed the House could never pass the Senate, so the Senate tried to pass its own Obamacare repeal bill, called 'skinny repeal', which was even worse than the AHCA.  This bill famously failed to pass when John McCain (R-AZ) interrupted his treatment for brain cancer to fly to D.C. and give it a thumbs-down.

Which leads us to today and Cassidy-Graham, the worst Republican health care bill yet.

The reason I started all of this by talking about my dog is because the Republicans remind me of her.  No one wants their dog to pee on the carpet, just like no one wants any of these horrific Republican health-care bills.  And just like my dog, Republicans cannot be taught, coming back to pee on the carpet again and again, now matter how often or how forcefully the American people tell them to knock it off.

And I think it's fair to say that we've now come to the point where the only solution is to keep the Republicans off the carpet entirely.  Which is another way of saying, we need to keep these people out of Congress and away from the levers of power until they learn to stop peeing on the carpet.

Freezing Your Credit Reports

As a followup to my previous post, I wanted to report on my experience freezing my own credit reports with all three agencies.  It was somewhat frightening.

• For Equifax, the process was quite easy.  Too easy, in fact.  The problem is, the only identifying information they asked me for was my name, birth date, address and SSN.  In other words, the exact information they lost to the hackers.  So there is a distinct possibility that a hacker could put a freeze on your Equifax report, and you would have no way of removing it.  Worse yet, the hacker will then possess the PIN necessary to temporarily lift the freeze, meaning that they could get credit in your name, but you couldn't.
• My experience at TransUnion was somewhat better, in that they asked me a series of questions that the hacker likely doesn't have the answer to.  The problem there is that I must have answered one of the questions wrong, because the web site instructed me to call a number.  I expected I would need to talk to a human to prove my identity, but no.  Instead, I simply entered by phone a bunch of the same data the hacker already has.  So, like with Equifax, the hacker could have gotten in ahead of me to freeze my account and get my PIN.  I suppose it's possible that TransUnion was able to verify my identity by recognizing my phone number, but it was still a bit unsettling.
• Finally, Experian gave me the warm fuzzies.  Like with TransUnion, they asked me a bunch of questions a hacker likely would not know the answer to, and this time, the freeze went into place without a hitch.
• Update: Apparently there is a fourth, smaller credit agency called Innovis.  As with Equifax, the only information I had to provide is information that the hackers have already stolen.  On the plus side, they didn't charge me anything.  They also did not immediately provide me with a PIN to lift/remove the freeze, but are apparently sending it to me via snail mail.
• Update: And there's another agency, called ChexSystems, which is similar to the credit agencies, but for banks.  Like Innovis, placing the security freeze was free, and my PIN will be sent to me via snail mail.

So now my credit reports are frozen with all five agencies, and only I can unfreeze them.  The three big agencies gave me a PIN I will need to provide to temporarily lift or completely remove the freeze, and PINs for the smaller two agencies are on their way.  According to the FTC, the freeze will remain in effect forever, until I temporarily lift or remove it.

As noted earlier, this is not a complete solution to potential identity theft, resulting either from Equifax's screwup or for other reasons.  But it does make me feel a bit better about things, and it only cost a total of $15 (price will vary by state).

Update: Well, hell.  Shortly after I posted this, it was pointed out to me that the PIN Equifax generates for lifting/removing a credit freeze is basically just a date stamp.  This is effectively as bad as setting your password to 'password' or --- and I'm not making this up --- setting up an account where the username and password are both 'admin'.

I happen to work in the tech industry, and doing something this stupid on a production system is definitely grounds for termination.  For a whole company to do something like this is grounds for something much stronger.

But that's not the point.  The point is if you set up a security freeze with Equifax before 9/12/2017, you may have a PIN which looks something like '0909171220' --- which corresponds to the timestamp '09/09/2017 at 12:20 PM'.  If that's the case, you need to go back to Equifax and request a new PIN to be generated and mailed to you via snail mail.  Unfortunately, it appears that this cannot be done online.  To request a replacement PIN, you must do the following:

1. Call Equifax at 1-866-349-5191.
2. Press '5' to talk to an actual human person.
3. Wait on hold for a while.
4. Answer a bunch of questions to confirm your identity, during which time you are likely to be placed on hold several more times.

Needless to say, this is a drag, but it's almost certainly worth the effort.  And it seems that Equifax has finally received the hint that they need to take this stuff seriously --- I had to answer several very specific questions which a crook is highly unlikely to be able to answer correctly.  Indeed, I recommend that you make the call sitting in front of your computer, so that you can look up things such as the credit limits and balances on various accounts that you hold.

After going through all that, you should receive your new, secure PIN from Equifax within 5-10 business days --- and hopefully THEN, your information will be at least somewhat secure.

The Equifax Hack

As a public service to those of you who have been living under a rock, yet somehow still manage to read this blog, an important update: Equifax, one of the three U.S. credit agencies, has allowed itself to be hacked.

The credit reporting agency announced Thursday that the personal information of as many as 143 million people was compromised in a data breach between May and July. The stolen data includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver's license numbers.

Most of the media I've seen about this incident is not nearly as alarmist as it ought to be.  The exact data stolen --- names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver's license numbers --- are everything a criminal needs to commit identity theft.  And since you've been living under a rock, I'll explain that the main issue with identity theft is that the thief can open credit cards and so forth under your name, running up huge debts that you then become responsible for.

And this article from USA Today goes on to point out that the potential problem extends beyond simple identity theft:

Some examples of non-credit related illegal uses of victims' personal data, Bearak says, include:

*Medical ID theft. With the cost of health care rising, a new trend is for identity thieves to go into hospital emergency rooms with IDs created from stolen data to pay for surgeries and other procedures. This creates all sorts of problems for the identity theft victim, who can get stuck with the balance of the bill, see their insurance deductible used up as well as be stuck with flawed medical records.

*Tax fraud. Fraudsters armed with names, addresses and Social Security numbers are increasingly filing fraudulent tax returns in an effort to profit illegally from refunds. This creates a major headache for the victimized taxpayer, who must resolve the theft with the IRS, wait for a delayed tax return they might desperately need and often pay an accountant to help resolve the issue.

*Synthetic ID theft. In this scam, the fraudster takes different pieces of personal data from numerous victims and blends them all together to "create a new ID," says Bearak. For example, the hacker may use one victim's name, another's Social Security number, another's address, and another's birth date to create a fake identity.

Fun!

What's more, these articles contain precious little in the way of helpful advice we can use to protect ourselves from being victimized in this manner because, well, there's precious little we can do.  The data is out there, and unlike cancelling a stolen credit card, we can't just cancel our Social Security number (The Social Security administration does issue new numbers to people, but only under extraordinary circumstances.  For example, it will issue a new number to a victim of identity theft, and thanks to Equifax, it just became much more likely that we'll meet this qualification!).

You can't change your birthdate or your address history, and in most states you probably can't change your drivers' license ID.  You can change your name, obviously, but that probably causes more problems than it solves, since you would need to do the work to get all institutions to recognize your new name, but your old name would still be on your credit record.

I suppose we could all just go into the federal witness protection program, and start rebuilding our credit histories from scratch.

HOWEVER, while I can't offer bulletproof recommendations to protect yourself, there's one very easy course of action we all can take right away, and that's to put a security freeze on our credit reports.  Since there are three credit agencies in the U.S. (Experian, TransUnion, and the one who ruined it for everybody, Equifax), you need to place the freeze with all three of them.

What is a security freeze?  TransUnion describes it this way:

Placing a freeze on your credit report will prevent lenders and others from accessing your TransUnion credit report in response to a new credit application. With a security freeze in place, even you will need to take special steps when you wish to apply for any type of credit.

You will need to place a security freeze separately with each of the three major credit reporting companies if you want the freeze on all of your credit files. There may be a fee for this service based on state law; see our chart below for further details. A security freeze remains on your credit file until you remove it or choose to lift it temporarily when applying for credit or credit-dependent services.

You can place these freezes with each of the credit agencies online:

1. At Experian
2. At TransUnion
3. And the bastard Equifax
4. New! Now there's a fourth, Innovis
5. New! And another, just for bank accounts, ChexSystems

There will likely be a nominal fee for placing these freezes --- around $5 or so.  The amount varies from state to state.  But this is money well spent if it heads off identity theft (though, sadly, it will not eliminate other threats, like the ones referenced in the USA Today article).  And in most states, once a freeze goes into effect, it stays in effect permanently, unless you choose to remove it or temporarily lift it.  So there's a one-time fee to start the freeze, and then there will likely be an additional small fee each time you need it lifted so you can open a new bank account or credit card for yourself.

Another option is to pay for credit monitoring.  In this scenario, crooks can still obtain credit in your name, but you'll be alerted to it when they do.  Personally, I would rather lock the door than have an alarm go off after the crook is in the house.

You should also know that in the tradition of true corporate sleazebags, Equifax was briefly offering free credit monitoring to affected customers, but the fine print stated that by accepting the credit monitoring, you gave up your right to sue Equifax and agreed to settle any dispute via arbitration.  Apparently Equifax has been shamed off of this, but in any case, I think it's worth the $5 to protect myself without giving up the right to sue.

Finally, most places are recommending that you check your credit report on a regular basis to catch any fraudulent activity early.  This is good advice, but it may be costly.  I believe that by law U.S. consumers are only entitled to one free credit report per year, so checking monthly (say) will start to add up.  And the worst part is, the money we pay for these credit checks will go straight into the pockets of Equifax or the other two, all because Equifax screwed us in the first place.

Nice work if you can get it.

Update: I have now bought credit freezes for myself from all three credit agencies.  The process was quick and inexpensive, though perhaps unsettlingly easy.

Update (2/6/2018): Despite this being the largest data breach in U.S. history, exposing roughly half of the population to the risk of identity theft, Donald Trump's director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has decided there's no reason to investigate Equifax over this tiny little mistake.

Making America great!

Statues

One problem with joining a cult of personality is that fealty to that personality replaces everything else.  Like, for example, common sense.  This is why the die-hard Trump-worshippers claim not to understand why some people want to remove statues of confederate leaders from public places.

Since the animating purpose of this site is to explain Things Everyone Knows, but that some inexplicably don't understand, let me lay it out here.

First, this is not about history.  None of the statues targeted for removal were erected to memorialize the history of the Civil War, which is fairly plainly evident since they were placed in public parks and not museums.  Yes, it's true that there are some historical sites --- like Colonial Williamsburg, or Cowpens National Park --- which have lots of monuments presented with historical context.  There are probably similar historical places commemorating the Civil War, and I doubt anyone has any objection to statues of Robert E. Lee, Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, or any other confederate leader in those places.

That's not what we're talking about.  Typically, our society erects statues of people in public parks, squares and the like to honor a person.  So one question we need to address is whether Robert E. Lee is really someone we want to honor.

As it turns out, there are other reasons these statues were erected, but we'll get to those later.

Second --- I really shouldn't need to say this, but apparently I do.  Lee was a traitor.  He was worse than a traitor, in fact: He literally led a rebellion against the United States of America.

Doesn't that really end the argument right there?  If not, consider: Where is the statue of Lee Harvey Oswald?  Of Squeaky Fromme?  Of John Hinkley?  Where is the statue of Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, killing 168 people, 19 of them children?

The simple answer is that no such statues exist, because the idea of creating a statue for these people --- each of whom committed treason against the United States --- is literally insane.  But for some reason, we're supposed to overlook the much more serious and damaging treason of Robert E. Lee, who led the rebellion which ended in almost as many fatalities as all other American wars put together.

The question isn't "Why should we take down the confederate statues?", but rather, why would anyone want to keep them around?

Third, Lee was not fighting for any noble cause.  Not that it would have changed the fact of his treason, even if he had.  But fundamentally, he was fighting to preserve the institution of slavery --- the institution of buying and selling human beings as if they were animals, tearing families apart, and beating and raping them.

So here again, I have to stop and ask: If you think we should have statues honoring Robert E. Lee, then why not John Wayne Gacy?

Some have correctly pointed out that many of our Founding Fathers were slave owners.  This is an unfortunate fact of our nation's history.  Thomas Jefferson is almost certainly guilty of raping Sally Hemmings many times.  Isn't this a slippery slope?  If we take down Lee's statue (and those of other confederate leaders), don't we have to take down the statues to Washington, Jefferson, et al as well?

Maybe!  But for people like Washington and Jefferson, it's no so clear cut.  There are statues of George Washington because of his achievements as a military leader, and as the 'father of our country'.  There are statues of Thomas Jefferson as a founding father and author of the Declaration of Independence.  No one decided to erect these statues because they were slave owners.  These statues celebrate their accomplishments as leaders, not as slave owners.

The statues of confederate leaders, on the other hand, celebrate their treason in defense of slavery.

Finally, if all of that wasn't enough, it turns out that the real reason for erecting confederate statues is even worse than celebrating treason in defense of slavery.  The vast majority of monuments to the confederacy were built either as Jim Crow was taking over the South, or in response to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.  So while there is little doubt that the people who erected these statues wanted to honor Lee and Forrest and others, their primary purpose was to erect a prominent symbol of white supremacy in a public place, to intimidate those fighting for civil rights.

(The whole Southern Poverty Law Center report is worth a read.  And if you like what you read, you should also consider making a donation!).

In short, they are monuments of white supremacists, built by white supremacists to enforce white supremacy.  The idea of removing them should be wholly uncontroversial.  It should be akin to northern municipalities sending out snowplows during a winter storm: "The forecast calls for a blizzard, better get the snowplows ready".  We should all be saying "These monuments to white supremacy are all really awful; we should get rid of them."

And if you still doubt that's what these statutes are all about, then you need to ask yourself why white supremacists are so determined to keep them standing.

Profiles in Cowardice

I'm not a Republican (obviously).  One of the many things I don't understand about Republicans is how they're not embarrassed when their Senators do things like this:

A quartet of crucial Senate Republicans said they won’t back Senate leadership’s “skinny repeal” of Obamacare on Thursday unless they get a guarantee the House won’t just pass it into law, enough to kill the effort to repeal the law.

“There’s increasing concern on my part and others that what the house will do is take whatever we pass… go directly to the house floor, vote on it and that goes to the president’s desk,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), flanked by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

These four giants of moral fortitude are perfectly willing to vote for a bill which none of them actually want, and which Graham calls a "disaster" and a "fraud" --- but only if the House promises that it will never become law.

I've never served in elected office, but here's a pretty good rule of thumb.  If there's a particular bill you DON'T want passed into law, then vote 'no' on it.  Don't play games, especially when those games might result in a 25% increase in health care premiums for those who need it, a loss of coverage for an estimated 16 million people, and a possible death spiral for the individual health insurance market.

The Republicans don't have a good replacement for Obamacare; if they did, they would easily have passed it by now.  Since they don't, they have to play these legislative games to try to placate their tea party base.  But it makes them look like morons and it puts people lives and livelihoods at risk.

So please, Senators.  Shut the hell up, let Obamacare do its job, and focus on fixing the country's other problems.

Let's Put A Stake Through This, Once and For All

This is disturbing:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Monday said Republican senators have no idea what Obamacare repeal bill they’ll be voting on Tuesday at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) request.

You can always tell that the party in charge has a clear vision of what's best for the country when leadership demands that they vote on something without telling anyone what it is.  Yes, indeed, America needs this bill, and it will make America great again, just as soon as we figure out what it is.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be cause for much concern, because as the story points out, neither of the Senate bills to replace Obamacare has received the necessary support to pass --- at least not publicly.  In addition, the bills which have been made public can't even be passed under reconciliation rules, and would thus need 60 votes to pass.

But then there's this ominous and late-breaking detail:

Sen. John McCain, recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, will make a dramatic return to the Senate Tuesday to cast a critical vote on health care legislation.

McCain's office announced Monday night that he would return Tuesday -- a surprise to most in Washington who expected him to miss the crucial vote and return to Washington at a later date.

Now, given the fact that McCain is literally returning from his hospital bed where he just received life-saving treatment for brain cancer, any reasonable person would assume that he is naturally going to vote against this abomination of a bill, which no matter how you slice it is estimated to cause several million Americans (22 million?  32 million?) to lose their health insurance, most of those people who are on Medicaid and who can't obtain health care in any other way.  After all, it would be the highest form of cruelty for McCain to go to heroic lengths and put his own health at risk for the sole purpose of guaranteeing that millions of Americans will be deprived of exactly the same life-saving treatment he just received.

So I hope McCain is returning to Washington for the sole purpose of standing up in front of the Senate and the nation to tell his Republican party that they should be ashamed of themselves not only for contemplating such a horrific bill, but for wasting 6 precious months of the legislative calendar screwing around with it.  I hope he tells them that he not only intends to vote against this bill or any other like it, but that he will fight tooth and nail to put a stake through the heart of such legislation, and make sure that the coverage provided by Obamacare is not only preserved, but expanded.  If McCain did this, it would certainly cement his reputation as one of the great mavericks and statesmen of our time.

But I'm not getting my hopes up.

One thing that gives me some hope is that someone with a lot more influence than I have organized this:

Every major patients' rights group in the country took out a full-page ad in today's New York Times to urge a No vote on Obamacare repeal. pic.twitter.com/qnijHJnqJk

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) July 24, 2017

It's a good start, but every little bit helps.  It's time to end this fiasco once and for all.  Please call your Senator, especially if your Senator happens to be Jeff Flake (AZ), Dean Heller (NV), Ted Cruz (TX), Luther Strange (AL), Roger Wicker (MS), Deb Fischer (NE), Bob Corker (TN), Orrin Hatch (UT) or John Barasso (WY), as they all happen to be Republicans up for election next year.  Flake, Heller and Cruz are considered especially vulnerable.  Tell them you want them to oppose this legislation, and that if they don't, you'll make sure to remind everyone of their vote next year.

It also seems like a good time to repost this.