Tag Archives: Obamacare

Political Rants

Nuclear option.

I’m undecided as to whether this is a great time to be a political writer or an abysmal one. There is so much going on every day of this new presidential administration, it’s enough to fill a months worth of posts. It’s hard not to return to the “drinking from a fire hose” cliche, frankly. Even so, I’ll take a whack at some of what happened this week in my wobbly, amateurish way and we’ll see where we end up.

Russia and Germany. Trump’s visit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel was odd and awkward. She had that kind of hostage video look, sitting there with Herr Mr. Hair, asking for a handshake and being rebuffed by the new leader of the “free” world. If she isn’t uneasy about this president, I don’t know what it would take; just listening to the press conference exchanges between Trump and the German press is enough to convince anyone that the man needs professional help. And the rebuff over the handshake will only feed the notion that he is a man who will say or do nothing to offend one V. Putin.

Mr. not-so-nice guyThat’s the stuff conspiracy theories are made of. So … why does he keep fucking doing it? If there turns out to be no serious collusion between Trump’s people and the Russian government, his administration is the most productive conspiratorial smoke machine ever constructed. Major administration advisors had conversations with Russian officials during and after the campaign, lied about it, then fessed up when the lie was exposed. If it’s above board, why don’t they just effing say so? I don’t get it.

Blind Justice. Gorsuch took the stand in his confirmation hearings this week in the U.S. Senate. Big charm offensive, though it’s obvious where he’s coming from both judicially and politically. Still, I count myself among the number who simply oppose Gorsuch because he was nominated by Trump. It they blow up the filibuster, fine … there’s no saving it for later. If when you use it you lose it, then it doesn’t really exist anyway.

It appears as though the Democrats are leaning towards this strategy, based on what Schumer and others are saying. Some of the Democratic senators, like Franken and Whitehouse, delivered some very strong criticism not only of Gorsuch but of the entire right-wing judicial and broader political agenda, so that’s all to the good.

…

The health insurance went down in flames, so I’ll return to that next week. My guess is that, AHCA or no AHCA, the GOP congress and Trump Administration will do everything in their power to crash the ACA through deregulation, funding cuts, and more. This fight will continue.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

For the people.

I live in New York’s 22nd Congressional district, a sprawling, largely rural riding that stretches from the Pennsylvania border to just a stone’s throw from Lake Ontario. On the map, it looks a bit like the silhouette of someone in a Klansman get-up standing on a soapbox with his/her arms out stretched, crucifixion style. In reality, it’s a lot less dramatic than that, though through the decades I have seen more than a small number of confederate flags stuck to bumpers (and one full-size battle flag waving at me from the back of a pickup truck just a few months back). Cook has us as an R+3 district, meaning strong lean-Republican – NY22 went for Trump 55-39% in 2016, which is pretty lopsided even for us, though it suggests a solid 6% independent vote.

Who's intimidating whom?Our current Congress member, Claudia Tenney, won a three-way race with about 47% last Fall. Since her election, she has been a little hard to pin down. It took some weeks to open a district office in the Utica area – she blamed this on the bureaucracy, of course. Up until this week, Tenney has been knocking down any suggestion of holding a town hall-style meeting in the district, having seen what’s been happening to her colleagues. Her big announcement this past Wednesday was that she would call a town hall, though no announced date. Also, she says she’s been receiving threats. Well, welcome to being famous, Claudia. Anyone who raises their head above obscurity in this culture gets threatening emails, Tweets, posts, etc.

Like her colleagues in the House, she does not want to answer directly to constituents for the policies she has supported or plans to support, particularly the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare”). When you hold one of these town halls, it’s hard to maintain the fiction that you actually care about what happens to people. And it is plainly that – a fiction. This whole “repeal and replace” line is their way of finessing a very harsh reality; namely that they are taking votes that will result in the loss of coverage for millions of Americans. I don’t just mean people who will be thrown off of their health insurance – I also mean people who will be subscribed to something that’s called “health insurance” but that, in fact, doesn’t cover anything. I had a policy like that, long before the ACA, and it was pretty awful.

Let’s face it: Tenney and her GOP colleagues only see the ACA as a political tool. Flawed as it is, it has, in fact, saved lives, and should be improved upon, not scrapped. If Tenney wants to do something for the people who sent her to Washington, she can start by concentrating on that.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

New year, old story.

Hope you’re all rested and fully recuperated from your holiday festivities. Looks like we have some heavy lifting to do, and it’s not clear to me that we’re going to get a lot of help from the institutional Democratic party. The fact is, we are going to have to push them to do the right thing at least as hard as we push the Republicans (a.k.a. our one-party state) not to do the wrong thing. Nothing new, right? Any time anything useful gets done in America, it’s because there’s an army of activists locking arms and pushing it forward. Progress doesn’t arrive in a sedan chair, eating sweetmeats; it’s dragged kicking and screaming every inch of the way. That’s what we’re looking at, once again, as we work to preserve the remnants of our social safety net, keep ourselves out of devastating overseas conflicts, and protect the most vulnerable among us.

Um ... are you ready?The challenge this time around is being able to move fast enough to make a difference. The GOP-run Congress is going to ram a stack of legislation through over the next few weeks that will disable the ACA (so called “Obamacare”), cut back or restructure (privatize) Medicare and Medicaid, cut Social Security (perhaps privatize as well), and more. We need real-time information on specific legislation that’s being proposed, voted on, etc. Sourcing that will be crucial. We also need to organize on a local, Congressional district level, to apply pressure where it will have the greatest impact.

Some of the organizing work appears to already be in motion, at least as far as setting a template for activists to follow. There’s this new group called Indivisible (http://www.indivisibleguide.com/) that has assembled a kind of activist cookbook for lobbying individual representatives. The group that grew out of the Sanders campaign – Our Revolution – is also pulling some of this together, as well as more longstanding groups like MoveOn.org. I think that part of it is taking shape, but the information component is still a little sketchy. If anyone has any insights on how to get timely, detailed information on pending legislation, let me know (use the comments field on this post).

I hope to work with some neighbors on lobbying our new tea party Congressperson (most reactionary representative we’ve had in my lifetime, I believe). I strongly suggest you do the same. Start today. Aloha.

luv u,

jp