At this point it’s hard to tell what is the stronger motivation for the republican senators, the so-called “cooling saucer of democracy”, to get a fix on their reasons for promulgating such an extreme platform of propaganda mirroring the BIG LIE (Joy-Ann Reid | Thom Hartmann).
Is it part of the ongoing cover-up of the Trump regime’s collusion with Russian election interference/hacking, or is it part of securing almost a $ trillion dollars in tax cuts for the top 2% income earners?
Probably both
This morning I read this article By Joan Walsh:
— May 9th, 2017
We’ve got a party on the run from the reality of a bill it just passed. But Democrats shouldn’t rest easy.
While It isn’t clear to me that the republican are, as Joan Walsh posits, “a party on the run from reality of a Bill it just passed”, she does nail it here:
I have no doubt the Resistance can beat this bill back, too, but not if we all assume the GOP is more afraid of us than of their farthest-right supporters—and of course, their donors. We slept a little on the House bill; let’s wake up as we look at the Senate’s.
I too hope that we can beat this Bill back, but over the years have come to realize the enormous power and damage that immense wealth in the hands of a few can do to society
Joan Walsh’s article lists many of the numerous lies told by republicans. The most common lie is the — “Obamacare is in a Death Spiral” - Lie, which in its latest version is: “You’ll be left with no health insurance if we don’t act now because Obamacare is failing.” — lie. That particular lie appears to be geared solely as a retort to republican constituents that aren’t stupid enough to swallow the more blatant lies like this one told by Representative Raul Labrador of Idaho, who told a town-hall gathering (to jeers), “Nobody has died because they didn’t have access to health care.”
There are many more lies on top of that pile
.
But what got me searching this morning was Daily Kos Healthcare expert Joan McCarter.
This one sentence:
“ Now just toss in a Freedom Caucus maniac, and you've got a repeal.”
… a sentence that was the caption to this photograph:
...from this Diary:
..which Joan McCarter followed up with this:
and this:
then this:
And this last warning by Joan McCarter as the GOP lies become more threatening:
There are a few republican senators mouthing words of concern over that fact that tens of thousands of people will die (Bernie Sanders video) every year as a direct result of this cruel agenda. I’d name them, but they don’t deserve mention.
Joan McCarter has been sounding the alarm. Senate republicans led by Mitch McConnell, despite many voices claiming otherwise, are now poised to join with the House Teabaggers to do the previously unthinkable; pass Trumpcare Massive tax cuts for those most wealthy 1%ers and corporate “interests” — iow’s their donor base — the only real GOP constituency that matters at all to them.
.
That is what Joan McCarter has been working very hard to to bring to the attention of the people — imo — the Senate may indeed, in lock-step with Trump and his alt-right/Teabag caucus of white supremacists, go down this road
.
It really is not an exaggeration with Healthcare gone for millions of people and the EPA being gutted by the republican party. MB posted this story today as but one study out of many areas of research:
...in counties with poor environmental quality, the researchers found a 10 percent higher incidence of cancer cases—or an average of 39 more cases per 100,000 people. The higher numbers were seen in both males and females, especially prostate and breast cancer.
.
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Here’s a little allegorical tale posted by Casey Coates Dansen | May 8th, 2017:
In 1970, a writer named Richard Matheson wrote a short story about a married couple who receive a mysterious box with a button on it. They’re told that they’ll receive a large sum of money if one of them presses the button – and somebody they don’t know will die.
That’s pretty much the story of the so-called “health bill” the Republicans passed yesterday. It’s not really a health bill; it’s a wealth bill. It transfers even more of our national wealth to the already prosperous. In return, it will cause the death of people that Donald Trump and the well-heeled Republicans in Congress probably don’t know.
What economist Gene Sperling wrote about its predecessor bill, which failed to pass in March, is true of this version as well. It’s “about rationing care to fund tax cuts for the U.S.’s highest earners.”
Sperling summarized the tax implications of this bill in March: the bill’s two main tax cuts only apply to people making more than $200,000 a year, and 80 percent of those savings will go to people making more than $1 million.
Each of the top 400 earners in the country—who receive an average of $300 million per year in income—would get an average tax cut of $7 million per year.
— emphasis added
This:
Pressing the Button
Everyone who would get a big tax break under this bill could soon be faced with a utilitarian moral decision: should they pocket this money or use it to help defeat the politicians who caused these needless deaths? If they keep the money, they’re sanctioning the cynical calculus that says others must die for their further enrichment.
If they want to avoid this blood money’s moral taint, however, there are some excellent political groups out there who could use the money.
Republicans have yet to pass this bill in the Senate, and they seem understandably wary. Maybe the GOP’s millionaire senators sense, with a cool prickling down their necks, that spectral strangers could soon come knocking at their doors. But it’s more likely that that prickling sensation comes from the thought of losing their next election.
Trump and the other Republicans who support this bill share something in common: their personal tastes may be expensive but, for them, the lives of most Americans are insignificant and cheap.