Democrats Triumph: GOP Health Care Bill Collapses, Obamacare Remains

Things are not going well for Republicans. Last week started with a 37% favorability rating for a president who loves to win, who thinks of himself as a winner and pronounces that he has won even when he lost. 

Donald Trump has bragged forever and a day about his ability to make a deal and about the book he wrote on the subject. But as Timothy O'Brien, author of  TrumpNation: the Art of Being the Donald pointed out on CNN, Trump was never any good at complex business deals. In fact, those were the deals that failed the most spectacularly. And The Art of the Deal was written by a ghost writer, who subsequently spoke of his remorse at promulgating a lie, saying "I put lipstick on a pig".  

The Trump Administration has seen nothing but failure since January 20.  Trump began with low popularity and his ratings are now the worst in history for a new president.  

The first Muslim travel ban was blocked, and so was the second. Trump's promises to build the wall on the Mexican border, and make Mexico pay, fell flat. His relationship with Russia is going south.  Mike Flynn was forced to resign and Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from a core investigation. The Trump campaign and possibly even Donald Trump himself are under Congressional and FBI investigations for suspected collusion with Russia regarding the 2016 election. Collusion that could lead to criminal prosecution and jail time for treason.

Then Trump's ludicrous and potentially libellous wiretapping accusations were exposed as pure fiction and he was scorned internationally. Now his first piece of legislation, Trumpcare, has failed to make it out of the gate. Speaking to Dana Bash of CNN, Jake Tapper called it an "ignominious defeat". 

It's been a tension-filled two days. After a lot of posturing from Paul Ryan, threatening from Donald Trump, spinning from Sean Spicer and categorical assertions that there was no plan B because plan A would definitely pass, the vote was postponed. Thursday was spent in frantic attempts by Paul Ryan and the president to convince House Republicans to vote yes for this Republican health care bill that nobody liked. As the day  wore on, opinion that the vote was close shifted from cautious predictions of failure, to certainty of it.

The idea of the bill being pulled a second time started circulating. Within an hour CNN broke the news that Trump had told Paul Ryan to do the deed.  Later it was reported that Ryan had had to talk Trump off the ledge, so keen was he to name and shame Republicans who wanted to vote against him. He's not likely to forget their names.  

Repealing Obamacare was the major, fundamental campaign issue that won the House for Republicans in 2010 and won Congress and the Presidency in 2016. Republicans have been obsessed with it for seven years, making more than 50 repeal attempts, hankering after the power to get rid of it. In that time, nobody ever came up with anything that remotely resembled a replacement. As Politico reported, ex Speaker of the House Jim Boehner said in February that he laughed when 'Republicans started talking about moving lightning fast on repeal and then coming up with an alternative.'

"In the 25 years that I served in the United States Congress, Republicans never, ever, one time agreed on what a health care proposal should look like. Not once. And all this happy talk that went on in November and December and January about repeal, repeal, repeal—yeah, we'll do replace, replace—I started laughing, because if you pass repeal without replace, first, anything that happens is your fault. You broke it.”

They tried to break it but failed even at that. On camera, House Republicans are praising the president and Paul Ryan, and it’s a love fest between the two of them. But Trump is clearly furious, Ryan is visibly taking strain, and off camera the blame game is in full swing.

Who needs cameras these days when there are so many aides in the Trump camp willing to talk? Republicans who wanted to vote yes are pointing fingers at the Freedom Caucus, who refused to budge on their no vote position. This is the group who shut down the government in an attempt to repeal Obamacare during President Obama's second term. They thought they could blackmail the President. Their ruse failed. He played hardball and they had to back down. Rep Devin Nunes, a Jim Boehner ally, called them "lemmings with suicide vests".

The Freedom Caucus were heavily criticized by more moderate Republicans at the time. “You’re not going to repeal Obamacare while a guy named Obama is President of the United States,” said Rep Tom Cole.

It seems they're not going to repeal Obamacare while a guy named Trump is president, even though the GOP has complete control of Congress. Long ago they labeled the ACA Obamacare in derision. Then, out of pure spite, they chose the anniversary of Obama signing it into law for their original date to vote on Trumpcare. Their mean-spiritedness has succeeded only in highlighting their abysmal failure. Now for the foreseeable future Obamacare will be a constant reminder of it. The very real and powerful presence of former President Barack Obama and his tremendous success will haunt them.

Kudos to Democrats for the fight they put up and to voters who voiced their objections with their representatives and at town hall meetings, putting the fear of God into moderate Republicans.

This is another triumph of good over evil and a reminder that winning an election by colluding with a foreign power and gaining total control of government is not a free ticket in a strong democracy. Especially when that government does not have the interests of the majority of the people at heart.

Today was a victory for all Americans. pic.twitter.com/LX6lzQXtBR

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 24, 2017

Donald Trump Accuses President Obama of Wire-Tapping

On February 28, when the US president addressed Congress, in an unusual departure since the inauguration, he did not rant, insult anybody, rabble rouse, whip up fear, or blather on about himself and his vast [self alleged] achievements. Mike Pence and Paul Ryan stood behind him looking like schmaltzy proud parents.

A portion of the media world went nuts with emotional pronouncements of Trump finally behaving like a president, hailing the speech as a game-changing pivot. Even CNN lost the plot for a bit. There was a touch of hysteria to it, reminiscent of a bi-polar high. Perhaps relief. Was the end of the madness in sight? For the record, Jake Tapper distanced himself from the momentary CNN aberration.

He and the more realistic among us saw the behavior for what it was: Trump reading from the teleprompter, sticking word for word to a speech that somebody else had written and that contradicted every action he's taken as president. Words are cheap and those that come out of Donald Trump's mouth wouldn't fetch enough to buy a 2c lollipop. Trevor Noah of The Daily Show also pointed out that in a pre-election rally Trump actually boasted about how easy it was for him to behave "presidentially" (see video above).

He even gave his fans a sneak preview. The act was eerily similar to his address. Bearing that in mind, the subtext to his entire speech was "You're all a bunch of gullible idiots and I'll ride this horse as far as I can."

Despite that the predicted boost to Trump's disastrous popularity ratings didn't happen, Trump floated on a cloud, basking in the glory of what he saw as the American People's love and adulation. Until the next scandal involving his administration erupted with it did on March 2. Again over the Russian connection issue, this time around Trump's good friend and ever-loyal supporter Attorney General Jeff Sessions. After a day of bluster and denials, Sessions was pressured to recuse himself from the investigations into possible links between Russia and the Trump camp.

The next thing the world knew was that Trump had tweet-accused President Barack Obama of wire-tapping his phones at Mar-a-Lago.

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Predictably, no evidence accompanied the wild accusations. Because Trump got his "information" from those fountains of wisdom and truth Breitbart News and conservative radio host Mark Levin.

According to Breitbart, with zero evidence, Levin accused the Obama administration of "police state" tactics and getting authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign, then continuing to monitor it even when there was no evidence of wrongdoing. Then the administration relaxed the NSA rules so that evidence [which hadn't been found] could be shared widely within the government.  

Trump tweeted a few more times on the subject before losing interest and diverting his twitty attention to another pressing state matter of tremendous importance.

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

This is the president of the United States. Six weeks into the presidency, with the same kind of asinine behavior being exhibited every day and on every front, and still it's hard to believe. The president of the United States!

The reason for Donald Trump's invective against Obama is not hard to trace. It has subsequently been leaked that when Sessions recused himself, the president exploded at Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus—who were with him in Florida—for not defending Sessions enough.

In a fit of rage he refused to allow them on the plane when he flew back to Washington. He already had President Obama on the brain. With his own administration in chaos and under increasing scrutiny over Russian connections, Trump recently said Russia was not the problem in the 2016 election, darkly accusing Obama of being the one who meddled by fomenting the anti-Trump protests and being behind the leaks that Sean Spicer is frantically trying to identify, to no avail.

It's all backfired spectacularly on the president. Because while he, Levin and Breitbart News couldn't provide evidence, it can be found to prove that they're all lying through their teeth. First Mike Flynn, then Jeff Sessions, now the president's strong-man and the president himself. Is anybody surprised that at some point Trump would paint himself into a corner? 

Filmmaker Rob Reiner, a powerful opponent of Trump who is very vocal on Twitter, put it perfectly:

If DT is telling truth for first time in his life and, per FBI, he was tapped, it sure feels like the dam is about to burst #TrumpRussia

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) March 4, 2017

Unfortunately, there appears to be no truth to the accusation at all. Keven Lewis, spokesperson for the only adult in the room, issued a simple denial, saying that "neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen," and that "a cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice." He didn't, however, comment on whether or not a judicial investigation was under way.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence at the time of the US election, said that he would know if a court order had been granted for wire-tapping Donald Trump. When asked point blank, he stated categorically that none had been. There are two types of wiretaps; criminal and national security (FISA). They can only be ordered by a federal judge on application by the Justice Department. A president cannot order them.

But it's caused a firestorm. Republicans are calling for "investigations" into whether President Obama illegally gave the command to wiretap Donald Trump. On the strength of a conservative Radio Host's speculation without a sniff of evidence! The media is taking it seriously too, though, unearthing the truth. And Democrats are pushing back strongly. Charles Blow, NYT columnist, also very vocal and popular as a columnist and on Twitter for his outspoken condemnation of Trump, suggested that there might be a case for suing him for libel. 

According to the New York Times, senior American officials stated that FBI Director James Comey called on the Justice Department on Sunday to publicly acknowledge that the president's heat-of-the-moment claim is false. So far there has been no response. 

The Capitol Hill and FBI investigations into the Russian connection continue apace and Democrats are increasingly calling for an independent investigation as circumstantial evidence at least piles up. This latest outburst of the president's seems to go directly back to his rage that Jeff Sessions, Trump's most loyal supporter, had to recuse himself.  Without a friend in the Justice Department, the president is perhaps feeling quite exposed now.

Even Paul Ryan, who was interviewed by Fox News on Friday, said he didn't think the Obama Administration had been surveilling members of the Trump campaign. Mike Pence has been silent, as have Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway. They've all gone to ground, as has the president. Not Saturday Night Live, though.

Goodbye to Dignity in the White House

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President Obama & the First Lady at the 2016 CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

President Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama at CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

It's a daunting prospect, four long years without an American president and first lady who have been a joy in every way and a constant reminder of the true nature of integrity, dignity, compassion, understanding, courage, sanity, coherence, brilliance of mind.

First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to OprahWinfrey in June this year about the next generation of women. When Oprah asked what single piece of advice she could give to young women, Michelle Obama's response, and she included young men, was that "We can never be complacent... The work always continues…We have seen in recent times how quickly things get taken away from us if we aren't vigilant."

Indeed. And that was in June. From then on the nightmare has just gotten darker and darker, as every decent human value has been assaulted by Trump and his cohorts.

Do we even know how to be vigilant enough anymore? Did we ever? Conservatives are very good at vigilance because they're often driven by anger and fear, which are the most powerful motivators to action. Liberals aren't so good at the kind of vigilance that's necessary to stop sociopaths from getting into power. Too often they try to see the best in everybody, which is good as an overarching philosophy, but not if it blinds you to the reality of what people's anger and fear will drive them to. And it's not much of a motivator. Let's all try to get along. If somebody is abusing your child, do you try to get along with them?

Don't sweat the small stuff. People say it a lot, but the small stuff is the early warning signal, it's the hairline crack. Small cracks never go away, they always widen, and if you catch them early, not much damage is done. The more you ignore them, the less sensitive you become to them until you only wake up when your house has collapsed.

Throughout the lead-up to the election, every intelligent person and journalist with a conscience and the capacity to separate media-driven hysteria and fake news from reality was shouting warnings about Trump. But it was too little too late.

Where has everybody been during Obama's terms, where the GOP has done everything it could to obstruct him and not do its job? Where was the liberal media outrage at Obama's unpopularity when he was doing a sterling job despite the obstructions? Where was our outrage at the vicious racism that was directed at him and the First Lady and at the up-swelling of racism and white fear of losing status quo that led to a burgeoning of white supremacist groups?

That's not where it all started, but it's where it could have been stopped. The GOP got away with not doing its job. It got away with the gerrymandering, with targeting minority voters, making it harder for them to vote. Those were some pretty sizable cracks.

It was small step from there to a candidate who would campaign on enabling hatred and assault on human decency in every aspect and encourage Russian interference in a presidential election and was too stupid to understand how that would imperil American democracy. A small step to millions believing fake news and to the main social media platform through which it was disseminated not identifying it until it was too late. The mainstream media didn't identify it either. From there it was easy for an FBI director to 'innocently' release a statement that would sway the election and hand it to a sociopath.  

Yesterday, apropos apparently of Putin's speech to his military leadership that Russia needed to upgrade its nuclear capacity allegedly so that it could penetrate sophisticated defense systems, Trump tweeted that the US needs to increase its nuclear capacity until people come to their senses about nukes. When I saw the news last night my blood ran cold. So best buddies Putin and Trump are in stand-off already.

Two out-of-control narcissists, hungry for control and desperate for affirmation, and both with the power to set off another world war. The alarming thing is that Putin is a terrible man but he's intelligent. The same can't be said of Trump, who is frighteningly gullible and manipulable. 

This is what happens when an over-enabled cheat, obsessive liar, a racist, a sexist and a bigot with an over-sized ego is elected with the help of a partisan FBI director and Russian intervention.

From the Obama Administration to this. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Vigilance; we need to upgrade our idea of what it entails. I've seen a huge outpouring of frustration on Twitter and Facebook from people who were vigilant, and who did speak their mind, over and over. Who turned out for the vote. But it was too little too late. Even as a non US citizen, I could have done more. A whole lot more.

Because this isn't just America's problem. It affects all of us. The racist bigot who is about to take over the White House has enabled white supremacy in the US, which has a ripple effect around the world. He will happily screw up international trade agreements and relationships and create massive uncertainty in the global economy. It would thrill him to increase nuclear capacity and give the order to bomb the shit out of a country at three in the morning because somebody in that country told the truth about him, or because he read something on a fake news site, or because he realized that the hair he has left is thin and straggly.

Before the election, I went to a lecture given in Cape Town by a visiting US professor, a passionate Democrat, unequivocally damning of the GOP and Trump. He said that up until recently his only involvement in politics has been to vote, but it's not enough anymore. It's not enough for any of us.

How did America go from the best to the worst? While we were sleeping. We thought we were awake but we were dreaming. Now we've woken up to a nightmare. What's left to do?

#goodtrouble

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 11, 2016

The Republican Party Presidential Candidate Circus

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It's been interesting (kind of) to watch popularity polls for the Republican Presidential candidates. First Donald Trump the rude, crude, unavowed materialist rose into the limelight. He lied about his wealth. Then he took a bit of a dive as Ben Carson the spiritual guy rose up into the light. He lied about his story. He's fallen away now. Or fallen asleep. Who knows.

Then Marco Rubio had a few minutes in the spotlight. He doesn’t know how to manage his personal finances. He’s not so high on the charts any more. DT started climbing again.

Now Ted Cruz is rising in popularity. One story that he tells is how he proposed to his loving wife Heidi that they liquidate everything to fund his Senate campaign. He says she said yes in 60 seconds [because she believed in him so much—how romantic]. She says she said let’s be sensible about this [perhaps she didn’t believe in him quite so much]. The picture he paints of her as the adoring, totally supportive wife who will risk everything for him is a little off. Her suggestion won the day. 

And he who says he’ll rid America of the scourge of big banks actually got loans from big banks that allowed him to liquidate without risk. One of the loans—low interest—came from Goldman Sachs who Cruz publicly criticized for getting special treatment from the government. I wonder what Goldman Sachs thinks of all this.

The penury picture Cruz paints is a little off too; the couple had interest-bearing assets worth millions that earned them around $400,000 that year. Ah well, what’s another tall story from another GOP candidate. 

While the spotlight shifts about on the stage, lighting up one after another of these wannabes  the Republican party scrabbles about for a real candidate to support. Because Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio (let’s face it, the others don’t have a shot in hell) aren’t real Presidential material, they’re 3rd rate actors starring in 3rd rate soap opera dramas they’ve written for themselves that they’re all convinced are documentaries. 

The GOP doesn’t want the Trumpeter who is uncontrollable; or Ben Carson who’s in a perpetual fall asleep state and knows nothing about politics and who the hell wants another black guy in the White House; or Ted Cruz who hates government; or Marco Rubio who can’t control his finances. 

What about Jeb! Poor old Jeb! They wanted him. They gave him money. But he just can’t get a foothold anywhere. And he does rather drag around a ball and chain. He should have changed his name. Oh, but then they wouldn’t have given him money.

Humor aside, the chickens have come home to roost for the GOP. When Obama won in 2008 there were a few sane voices in the Party saying that it needed to change because its voter base (very conservative, wealthier older whites) was a dying breed and the Party needed the support of minorities and women, and the middle class in general to survive.

To go more conservative was to go in the same self-destructive direction, right? Wrong. The voice of reason did not have its day then or even in 2012.

Instead the Republican party got the Tea Party crazies with Ted Cruz at the helm. They didn’t muzzle him, they enabled him. Remember John Boehner, the man with the orange face who never went near a tanning studio no? He couldn’t stand up to the crazies. You’d see him on talk shows saying how difficult his job was, and that the House was an unruly bunch. But when they pushed to shut the government down he let them. When Obama drew his line in the sand Boehner said “we fought the good fight”.

Personally I didn’t think he looked particularly proud of himself as he said it. He looked cornered. Blackmailed. Do what we say or we’ll get rid of you. Eventually they broke him anyway. And took the Republican party so far right that it fell off the planet.

In that process though, the voters did something strange. They knew they were dissatisfied with the Republican party. They wanted something new.

They settled for GOP candidates who are so much further to the right that they don’t even seem connected to the old Republican Party. Why have voters who had the good sense to be unhappy with the Republican Party been seduced by blusterers, liars, cheats and egomaniacs? That’s pretty much the definition of snake oil salesmen, not potential Presidents.

Everybody has their theory and this is mine: Snake oil salesmen will always have some kind of audience, not because people are generally stupid but because they’re generally vulnerable and it’s hard to penetrate the con. It’s impossible to do it if you live off misinformation and you’re prey to the kinds of fears that give rise to prejudices that make you inflexible and shut down your capacity to reason—and if your world is in disarray.

The Republican party turned its back on the middle class and left the lives of the majority of Americans in disarray. That created a fertile breeding ground for snake oil salesmen.

It’s an old dynamic. When people are in need, swoop in and give them a message that relieves them of the burden of thinking too much and of taking responsibility in their own lives. And give them a hero to project onto. Christian missionaries use it, fundamentalists use it. The needy are miraculously transformed into inflexible worshippers. It’s a mistake to think that everybody understands the complexities of why our lives end up in discomfort, as individuals, communities and society as a whole. A lot of people just want a quick fix. And they want to be entertained by whoever’s offering it.

In an era where “reality” shows predominate, where special effects that pound the senses are off the charts, where everything is big and distracting, where truth is a small word and barely has a voice, and where people are truly suffering, it’s easy for snake oil salesmen to get an audience.

Now the original Republican Party, which is almost looking sane in comparison to this crop of candidates who are utterly dissociated from reality, is lost. Where can it turn? Who can it support?

We tend to ignore hairline cracks in a wall or small frustrations in a relationship. We very rarely look at them and say “If I don’t fix the crack it will widen, if I don’t address my frustrations they’ll get worse until we fall apart.” Years later our house has fallen down and we’re locked in acrimonious or not but still very painful divorce. And we look back and say “why didn’t I do something when I could?”

Another Police Brutality: The Wild West

A social worker in Paris once spoke about how Islamic fundamentalists recruit from the poorest areas in the city. They provide food and shelter and understanding and create huge gratitude and loyalty. It’s an easy step to convincing those they’ve rescued that their ills stem from the animal West, that purity of soul and heart rests only in Islam which needs to be defended even at the cost of life and limb.

It’s called grooming. It has nothing to do with Islam. Pedophiles do it. Christians have been doing it for a long time and they still do. I’ve seen it happen in Cape Town, where there are a lot of people living on the street. Christians take them in and brainwash them. If they refuse to do what they’re told and accept the tenets of whatever brand of Christianity is being foisted on them they’re thrown out and harshly judged—not by people, you understand. By God, or Jesus. Of course. We all understand the truth and wisdom of that.

The French social worker said that if societies don’t deal with poverty and inequality of opportunity realistically and humanely poverty will deal with those societies.

That was over ten years ago. Some leaders and many social workers, international organizations, celebrities and citizens of different countries have worked hard and still do to try and stem the rising tide of everything that’s unjust and inhumane in societies.

But it’s kind of like dealing with global warming; too many people just don’t want to face reality and deal with it. They don’t like change and their comfort zone is denial that there are consequences to their actions—including to their denial. So the right in politics gains ground everywhere and laws that should be secular and independent of religious bias are poisoned by zealots with huge financial backing. Right wing media brainwashes millions every second of the day and the line between Good and Evil, so often portrayed as easily identifiable Black and White, is unutterably blurred.

Now ISIS is an international problem, inequality in western societies is beyond the pale, too many poor people live right alongside too many people with so much money they can’t possibly use it.

There’s too much demoralization, too much exploitation, too much crime and too much of a violent backlash against criminals, too much rage all over the place, directed towards even perceived criminals, immigrants, people of color. Too many guns, oh my God, so many guns and weapons of destruction. Too much entitlement in law enforcement to beat suspects up, shoot to kill for no reason. Many of us think of the Wild West in America with fondness, as a romantic thing of the past, thanks mostly to Hollywood. But actually, the Wild West is on the rebound and not in cinematic form. In real life. Maybe it never was overridden by civilization but just took on different a different medium.

There’s so much good happening in the US right now, with President Obama working tirelessly to build up the middle class and diminish inequality in his own country, and to forge democratic, peaceful solutions in foreign policy and particularly in the Middle East. As always he constantly faces a powerful and vocal Conservative Right, but it doesn’t stop him. It’s inspiring to watch him and members of his Administration, like John Kerry in the Middle East and Eric Holder, dealing with corrupted police culture.

Now that’s a big job. We’re living in an era where in the US police can do whatever they want, shoot to kill an unarmed 12 year old or a man for no reason, chase and beat up a suspect.

The latest brutality to hit the news comes from San Bernadino. Yesterday sheriff’s deputies tried to serve a search warrant on Francis Pusok who lives in Apple Valley on the edge of the Mojave Desert, north of LA. He ran and they gave chase. Pusok passed Deep Creek Hot Springs, grabbed a horse and rode off into the desert. He was followed by a helicopter and 11 deputies. One of them Tasered him and he fell off the horse. He lay unarmed, face down, with his arms outstretched. But the deputies descended on him and beat and kicked him senseless in the head and groin, for minutes. Then they stood up and looked down on him as if he was a piece of dead meat.

And they were captured on video by a NewsChopper4. It’s a 6 minute video; hard to watch for the inhumanity it shows. Interestingly, the video starts with audio, until the deputies start kicking the life out Mr. Pusok.

The whole murderous incident is being internally investigated, but of course the police haven’t released the truth of Mr. Pusok’s state; they’ve simply said he’s in hospital with unknown injuries. What a load of rubbish. I wonder if he survived. I hope somebody gets to the truth of that pretty soon and that there are huge consequences to the criminals.

Good versus Evil; somehow it’s always David against Goliath. This is nothing new; it’s how humanity does itself. When I first learned about the Dark Ages I presumed that everybody knew it was a Dark Age. But now I reckon it was no different to how things are now, except that there are so many more people. And millions can record their lives and those of others and spread the word around the world. Maybe social media is the modern version of David’s sling.

What’s kind of miraculous about it all is that even when the Dark is very dark and depressing and seems overwhelming, the light part of humanity finds a way to fight. That’s the human spirit for you.  

GOP Senate Win – The Fools Controlling the Blind

Benjamin Franklin's scepticism when he said he'd given Americans a republic, if they could keep it, has again proved to be well founded. I guess he understood the general populace's addiction to illusion and dislike of thinking for themselves and taking serious responsibility for their choices.

The truth about President Obama, that he's a brilliant man who has turned the country around in ways that no other leader in the world has been able to do for their country, is available to everyone but too many have chosen to see an illusion created by fools whose only talent is in conning the multitudes, the kind of fools who distribute pamphlets telling people the election has been postponed or the polling stations have been moved. Who organize robocalls to election officials the night before voting telling them they're not qualified and mustn't show up on election day. That's who will govern the US for the next two years. 

It doesn't say a thing about President Obama or what he’s achieved in reality but it speaks volumes to a level of mental degradation in the majority of those who chose to vote. Dumbed-down doesn't even begin to describe it. Well, you can blind yourself to reality but your blindness doesn't save you and everybody else from the consequences of your choices.

Equality for women, rights for all minorities, LGBT equality, decent working wages for all, health care for all, affordable education, a soaring Dow Jones, a middle class and economy on the path to recovery, policies protecting the environment and promoting clean energy - kiss it all good-bye.  

And welcome back increased racism, paranoia, prejudice, poverty, promotion of environmental destruction, more guns, a country split even more disastrously into first world and third world with an ever widening gap between the two, increasingly disintegrated infrastructure, wasted spending, international wars and more power to the military industrial complex, banks doing what they want, an even more biased justice system… 

Welcome back to everything that set America plummeting down on a course towards economic destruction and social disintegration.

  

This brings to mind the words of a Faith Hill song I’ve Got My Baby; “Those were dark days, dark days indeed.” Further on, the words are “But everyone knows that that’s how it goes, it’s usually bound to get better.” It will, eventually, but not for the next two years and that’s a lot of time for the rot to set in again.  

What a wasted opportunity. My heart goes out to President Obama, the First Lady and their daughters. This must be unimaginably and inexpressibly painful for them. Being ahead of your time  brings grand respect after your job is done or you're dead but it doesn't bring much to you when you're alive.