The Write Path

Writing is like using a muscle, if you stop it atrophies. My problem as it relates to our current political environment in America is that I am not shocked by anything Trump is doing. Absent outrage over an unexpected atrocity makes it hard to crank out a regular commentary. Now, if I were being paid to produce this little plop of crap for you, I most certainly would muster the energy necessary to do so. But I'm not.

What is there to say. Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump in the popular vote by 2.7 million, proving the Electoral College needs to be abolished, but I yawn. Trump has Mike Pence by his side waiting to implement a national assault on gay people and the reproductive rights of women, a Christian Jihad if you will, is Trump going to allow it? Trump has appointed a conspiracy theory nutbag, General Michael Flynn, as National Security Advisor but fortunately is nominating General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense, yes I support the waiver because he will be the sane adult in the room. He has nominated General John Kelly to be Secretary of Homeland Security, a good selection. Both Mattis and Kelly are four star Generals who will slap the shit out of the junior General Michael Flynn.

Trump is setting up a cast of heroes and villains for his administration, he clearly intends to play people off one another and see which way his oblivious and naive supporters want him to go. At H.H.S. it's Congressman Tom Price, a multimillionaire hater of the Affordable Care Act. Billionaires at Treasury, Commerce and the Small Business Administration. A hater of the E.P.A. to lead that agency. Trump is considering Hardees and Carl Jr.s fast food tycoon to be Secretary of Labor, that man doesn't believe in the minimum wage or worker's rights of any kind. He is apparently going to nominate Ben Carson to lead H.U.D., a batshit crazy lunatic, who according to Trump himself is a psychopath and who turned down H.H.S. because he was not qualified to lead a Federal Agency even though he ran for President. But I agree with him he's not qualified to lead anything, but if he must be rewarded, make him Surgeon General, then make him go away. Trump is considering putting a guy in charge at the F.D.A. who is not a doctor and advocates skipping the test part of approving drugs and just throw them on the market and see what happens.

Back to the Affordable Care Act which is better known as Obamacare, repeal and replace has been the mantra since it passed in 2010, after all it was a job killer four years before it went into effect, funny how that worked. Now the Republicans have achieved their wet dreams but, ah yes the but, behind the scenes Congressional Republicans are already frantic and scheming. There will be a repeal but it won't take effect for three years after and it will not be replaced because they have nothing to replace it with. Because, as I and so many others have written, the A.C.A. is the Republican plan for healthcare, it is the conservative plan. It was created by the Heritage Foundation and was going to be the plan Richard Nixon was going to put into action before he was driven from office. It was the plan Newt Gingrich and the Republicans wanted in the 1990's in lieu of what the Clinton Administration was proposing. It's what the severely conservative Mitt Romney put in place in Massachusetts and what the pragmatic Barack Obama pursued using the exact same plan architects that worked for Mitt Romney. The A.C.A., Obamacare, is a CONSERVATIVE philosophy and program, do you have that firmly in your brain now? You can stomp and scream and say it isn't so, but the truth will set you free.

For the record, if you're just tuning in, I am an Independent. Republicans and Democrats both suck ass and both can lick my taint.