On Friday, January 2oth, 2017, America witnessed history being made. Under a darkened sky, stood a brooding, self-loathing, old man about to take oath of office as our 45th President of the United States. As he began his staccato-delivered, ominous, and at times downright spooky, inaugural address, the heavy clouds above him began to weep a soft, steady stream of tears. Standing out in front of this man were Americans who believe he is going to make this country great again. To each and every one of them, that "great" has its own unique meaning. They found his words inspiring just as they did when he was on the campaign trail. But for the rest of us, the Americans who know this one absolute truth - America is already great - we wept with the clouds, as enervated of spirit as the sky above him was of sunlight. The Women's March on Washington and in 600 sister cities took place yesterday, January 21st, 2017. With gentle breezes, the clouds dissipated and not a single raindrop fell. Instead, in the vast majority of cities all across the country (and around the world), glorious sunlight made her presence known as she blew a kiss across the blue skies above millions of marching, protesting humans, determined to unite in harmony and send a very strong message: We will fight this new regime with every fiber of our being. We will not allow them to destroy this country and all it stands for. We will not roll over, bend over, sit down or be silent. We will not - as Kellyanne Conway insists we do - give deference to Donald Trump and his new, vile administration. We will resist with every last breath we have. After yesterday, I'm now back to believing in the future again. I know this country has one, because I was out marching with the millions of them. In case anyone isn't convinced, know this...we have arrived.
Today was inauguration day, year 2017 - the day America swore in its 45th president illegitimate, pussy-grabbing con man. Mrs. Betty Bowers (whom I adore) wrote a wonderful poem, quite profound in its observation, just after the election. Today, it's worth repeating.
Indeed, America, you've jumped. You also just shot yourself in the foot.
I remember when Michelle Obama was ripped to shreds for not having her hand over her heart on Veterans Day...
A picture worth a thousand words - this presidency is a hoax, not legitimate and a travesty...
Speaking of foot shooting, I have a far darker analogy for our current election of America's first real dictator and it goes like this:
A farmer and his son are in the barn where the farmer keeps a shotgun propped against the door - in case any grizzly bears just come wandering in suddenly. His son, a petulant child, walks over to the shotgun and touches it.
"Son, don't you touch that shotgun. Next thing I know, you'll shoot your foot clear off."
The boy says nothing and instead puts one hand under the the butt and the other under the barrel and lifts the shotgun from off the hay-dusted floor.
"Did you not hear me, boy? I said not to touch that gun. Now put it down before you shoot your foot clear off."
The boy cocks the shotgun and aims it at his father.
"Put the gun down, now! This isn't some game, son. You'll get us both killed."
The boy smiles and pulls the trigger.
Too late, America. The boy has the gun cocked and aimed.
Since our new crook dictator wants everyone to think he's so yugely, bigly popular, I'll just leave this here (2009 on the left and today on the right)...
I heard Trump's inaugural address was dismal, dark, authoritarian-ish and just strange. I have no desire to ever listen to it. He's not my president and never will be. And as he and his behind-the-scenes gremlins begin their destruction of this country, it will in time be known that he's not this country's president. It's coming.
This is just the beginning of the evil fuckery in this new era of nothing matters. I believe we are in for a storm of calamity in this country unlike any of us alive have ever witnessed. I believe there will be tremendous violence and loss of life. But I'll stop short of predicting any major civil war or rapture. In fact, today, while protesting next to 20-somethings on the campus at which I work, I had a breathtaking moment in which I felt a sudden tingling in my spirit of both hope and a fierceness I've not felt since I was their age. They were bold and focused, engaged with each other, the rest of us, and the moment they were in.
This incredibly qualified woman should have been sworn in today. In an alternate reality, she was. In this parallel hell, she was again subjected to so much unwarranted hate from Trump's base. This makes me embarrassed to be American, to be honest...
This too makes me embarrassed of America. What a horrific country we've become that David Duke can be so open about the white supremacists in charge now...
Millennials are a new breed of passion. They don't just let shit roll off of their shoulders. Instead, they shovel it into compost heaps and laugh at you as they recycle it for the betterment of the environment. They are smarter than I was in my 20's, more realistic, and infinitely more compassionate. They've been labeled as PC-weakened and entitled when they are anything but. Trust me on this...I work with them, have for over seven years. They are the future. And as I marched alongside them, chanting until my voice was hoarse, I realized that it is my duty to fight for them and with them. It's the only way to ever make America great again.
Mark my words, something is brewing, something not in the best interest of this country's sovereignty, something by someones evil. The FBI is compromised and Donald Trump was not in any way elected legitimately. He will never be president. If he is sworn into office, he will be our dictator and the country is gone. I'm not keen on predictions, honestly, but given how the world has turned upside down and nothing matters anymore, my ears have opened to the words of those who are warning us.
skip to 3:24...
There is just too much going on behind the scenes and unless there is divine intervention by aliens or some very brave men and women in this country, the evil will win. Pay attention.
History is happening right in front of us, America. And if you don't believe me (or Rachel or that blind lady), then perhaps you'll believe the sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. His predictions are based on science and past events. He also has no skin in the game, just making observations. He actually sees the fall of the American empire as a positive. I'm not so sure I agree with him.
Another day closer to the inauguration, another round of
unicorns farting fairy dust. Before I
begin my renewed vomit-fest over all that is happening in this dumpster-set-on-fire country, I have a little story to
tell.
Before the election, like literally three weeks prior, I had a
loved one, my aunt, a white woman in her 70s, well-to-do and very educated (smart
as smart can be), tell me definitively that she was voting for Trump (our
relationship, which was finally back to being close and amicable after a few
years of estrangement, has since gone to shit all over again – yay,
MAGA!). Not only did she announce that
she was willingly voting for a sexual predator and a con man, but she went so
far as to warn me, “Obamacare premiums are going up! Aren’t you worried about your Obamacare
premiums?!!”
Did I mention that she’s
very smart? Yet, she knew (and likely
still doesn’t know) diddly squat about what Obamacare actually is. I’ve already written about the Affordable Care Act and linked to its website on this blog, so I’m not going to further provide Obamacare 101 facts. Really,
what my point is for telling this story - if my loved one, in all of her smarty-smartness, is too
lazy to actually research and try to understand all about the ACA (coined
Obamacare by the Republicans with a very specific and effective end goal in mind),
then you can imagine how much the actual stupids in this country really don’t
know shit from pudding about it.
Which leads me to a hardy round of evil, maniacal laughter,
and hand rubbing a la Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republicans in Congress. They are absolutely thrilled that my aunt was as ignorant about the ACA as the rest of the stupids.
This just means, they got her vote in their direction. Now, they’re in
power and their number one most cherished, urgent priority is to demolish the
law and all that it does for the American people – a majority of whom don't realize how it benefits them and their families.
So, here comes the farting unicorns parade part! Paul Ryan stood on stage at his Town Hall
last night and claimed that the ACA is DOA - put a nail in its coffin!
He repeated his harsh criticisms of the law (which no doubt needs repair)
and then promised everyone that the Republicans are going to “rescue” all of us from it by
repealing it and replacing it with...spit, fairy dust, and a pack of rainbow-colored
stickers intended entirely for those Americans with life-threatening illnesses who won’t be able to
afford nor be eligible for health insurance/healthcare in the future to stick on their
foreheads for shits-and-giggles. (Actually,
psst…with rainbow stickers on their foreheads, they'll be more easily identified by ER staff and can be sent straight to the one area in hospitals best suited for their care
– the morgue.) Why, Paul Ryan is just a good ol’ super-hero-next-door,
isn’t he?
Only, there is this one teeny tiny problem here. The ACA is
not the super villain the GOP paints it to be. The ACA was, in fact, originally designed to benefit millions of Americans, which in fact it has. Some will argue it was designed entirely to fail, which should lead to a larger conversation about universal healthcare, but I'm not interested in that debate at this moment. Obamacare does serve millions and has improved the lives of millions. The parts of the ACA that are indeed failing
involve other players, ones I’d argue are the real villains in all of this –
insurance companies. They’re businesses
in the business of making shitloads of money for their executives. They are not in the business of providing you healthcare. Didn't know that, did you? Well, let me explain.
Healthcare providers are not really insurers. Healthcare providers are doctors, nurses and such. Insurers, who call themselves healthcare providers, sell you policies with insurance that should you get sick, you won't be stuck with medical bills in their entirety. These policies then stipulate how much of a percentage of your medical bills the insurer will cover (ever compared your medical bill to your insurer's EOB? - confusing as fuck, right?). Insurers really don’t want to pay for your medical care costs. Instead, they are banking on you not getting sick, at least not to the tune of thousands of dollars. This was part of what was supposed to work about the ACA. It mandated that everyone, even the youngins who rarely need medical care or the insurance "in case they do" (except for catastrophic coverage), must buy healthcare insurance. By mandating that healthy folks must pay into the system, it was supposed to fill the pool with the funds necessary to pay for the folks needing expensive healthcare. (Yes, I know that the ACA wasn't entirely successful in getting healthy folks to sign up since the mandate fine was too low, but that is something that can and should be fixed.)
This has always been the guise of capitalistic healthcare. Only in the past, the youngins often opted out of purchasing health insurance and instead winged it, meaning that costs of insurance premiums were quite high. If you were lucky enough to be eligible for employer-provided health plans, then you could afford the premiums a little better than others. But if you were unemployed, ineligible for healthcare plans through an employer, or you had a pre-existing condition, you were shit out of luck. The ACA fixed this for lots - as in millions - of S.O.L. Americans. Many of them were finally able to afford health insurance. Plus, if they were poor enough, they received subsidies to help them pay for their policy premiums.
Something else that isn't being discussed and what most people don’t
know is that insurance nowadays isn’t even paid from a pool of insured healthy
Americans like it used to be. Most medical costs are covered by large employers. Take me for example. When I go to the doctor, I pay a mere copay while my company pays the majority of the bill with some of the costs covered by the insurer whose plan I chose. I also pay a monthly premium. Although, my premiums went down in the last five years, medical costs have consistently increased. Contrary to what the Republicans want us to believe, costs
of healthcare is rising regardless of, not because of, Obamacare. You, Americans, have been swindled and soon will be just as screwed - especially, specifically, those of you who voted for Trump out of anger over Obamacare. Bend over.
Lastly, something that got lost in the shit show shuffle of late is that Obamacare is more successful in blue states. It’s within red states, lead by the Republicans with their all-farts and no-action plans, that ACA is failing the most. Exchanges were never created in some of these states and parts of the law were stuck in a never-ending loop of court
challenges. I don’t pretend to
understand it all and I do believe it needs fixing. But there are millions of Americans who
bought health insurance plans through the ACA exchanges now heavily relying on
it for continuing, future care for themselves and their families. And a pretty sizable chunk of them are children. Repealing and replacing the ACA isn’t something anyone should do with the kind of cavalier swiftness Paul Ryan
champions.
The GOP has had over six
years to come up with a replacement.
They didn’t lift a finger. Now,
in the 11th hour, Americans should just trust them to magically devise an
improved healthcare system? Oh, my
friends, you are in for a real shock. And
that means ALL of us, not just those whose lives depend on the health insurance plans they
acquired through the ACA. Like these folks, ones who bought into Trump’s biggest lie,
that he’d bring jobs back to coal country.
As furious as I am at these people for voting against their own best interests and for reasons that boggle the mind, my heart just isn’t hardened and black enough to
feel any joy over their impending demise.People will die because of what the Republicans and Trump are about to
do to this country.And yet, these very same people marched themselves and their loved ones to the cliff's edge.
Among those she found was Trump voter Debbie Mills, a store
owner whose husband awaits a lifesaving liver transplant; they got insurance
through Obamacare, and Mills is hoping the law won’t be repealed.
"I don’t know what we’ll
do if it does go away,” Mills said. “I guess I thought that, you know, [Trump]
would not do this. That they would not do this, would not take the insurance
away. Knowing that it’s affecting so many people’s lives. I mean, what are you
to do then if you cannot ... purchase, cannot pay for the
insurance?”
Mills, who supported Trump for other
reasons, figured Obamacare repeal was just talk. “I guess we really didn’t
think about that, that he was going to cancel that or change that or take it
away,” she said. “I guess I always just thought that it would be there. I was
thinking that once it was made into a law that it could not be changed.”
Others who didn’t take Trump
literally may soon face the same dilemma.The
Urban Instituteestimated
this month that under the partial repeal plan previously passed by Republicans
in Congress, 30million
people would lose insurance, 82 percent of them would be in working families
and 56 percent would be white. Among adults who would lose insurance, 80
percent don’t have college degrees.
“The people hit the hardest are a
lot of the demographics that went heavily for Trump,” observes Bob Greenstein,
who runs the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal
number-crunching group.
I still love my aunt, but I will never be able to discuss this with her again. I know that I would
say some very hateful but honest words to her and it isn’t worth it. The damage is done. She and others voted for this crisis no matter their
denial. The worry and misunderstanding
(utter ignorance) about Obamacare and those rising premiums was exactly what
the Republicans had hoped would help get Trump elected and them back in power, complete power. It
did, spectacularly in fact. The future death of Americans denied medical care will always be the Trump voters’ cross to bear.
Yesterday, Pussy-grabbing Despot Elect held a press
conference in his New York Towers’ lobby.
His staff, who also attended and cheered for their master (a very unprecedented first), squeezed in very few reliable, legitimate news reporters and, instead, gave preferential treatment to as many right-wing outlet reps as possible, with
Breitbart News being seated center, front row.
I’ve read comments by the stupids all over social media, claiming that
this is merely payback to Obama for all of the years he froze Fox News out during his press conferences. Given Fox News’ proclivity for peddling truly misleading information (gasp! - the real, for reals fake news), who could blame Obama? But now that nothing matters anymore, the
revenge of the right-wing-fucknuts begins with a narcissistic, man-baby, one who could
not only get this country bombed off the face of the earth, but who spent thelast eight years spreading fake rumors that Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim, among other conspiracy theories. So, of
course, Trump is going to surround himself with employees of right-wing
propaganda organizations that also spread fake news, misinformation, and
outrageous claims – it’s what dictators do.
I’m not sure, and am too lazy to research it, but I’m willing to bet
National Enquirer was also in attendance and in a prime, front row seat at this press conference. Welp!
There goes the country!
There have been so many interesting developments since
December, I’ve not been able to keep up with them all. But the one theme I keep watching with bated
breath is that of Trump being the Manchurian Candidate. If I were truly a betting woman (I’m not
except for my weekly lotto ticket purchase), I’d bet my life savings that when
all the dust settles, and assuming there is a country as we know it even left standing in four years from now,
it will be revealed that in fact Trump is exactly that. There are opinion pieces aplenty speaking to
this notion, many of which refer to his being “groomed” by Putin for
years. Yesterday, Trump tried yet again
to deflect, deny and denounce all of this.
But the walking-talking-colon doesn’t seem to realize that the internet
never forgets!
Here is our POSIC on video back in 2013 talking all about
Pootie (skip to 4:10):
Which, um...speaking of
pivoting to Hillary (yet the fuck again), Anderson Cooper caught Kellyanne Conway doing her signature pivot and fan-the-fart move just yesterday evening during an interview. KellyA was all bent out of shape over CNN’s recent reporting on Russia’s kompromat over Trump, which he categorically
denies, denies, denies. And we’re just
supposed to believe him, y'all, because KellyA demands that we do. It’s all fake news! she and Herr Shitbag
insist. Although her lying, pivoting,
deflecting and fang-baring at Anderson in that interview are breathtaking to behold, it’s
Anderson who steals the show. Only he
does so with those stubborn facts, ones that just keep getting in the way of
the new regime’s agenda.
Here's the thing, you
make an enemy of our intel community, you get exactly what you deserve. My deepest wish is that not only is Anderson and CNN fully vindicated, but that the
Buzzfeed 35-page document leak (in all its golden glory) is also found to be
true. Again, betting my life savings
here…this is nowhere near over. Nor
should it be, given that it’s our country and its sovereignty at stake, no
matter what our dictator-to-be is trying to make us believe. I don’t know about you, but I trust our
CIA/FBI more than I ever would a man who lies more than any candidate has been proven to do in modern history.
Below is the
showdown it its glorious entirety with a follow-up panel discussion to
boot. Pure gold.
A couple
of things Kellyanne said from the transcript that are just jaw-dropping, even
by today’s nothing matters standards.First:
This is why Trump
won? It was a rejection of everybody
thinks they know better than people?
What the actual fuck? Isn’t "everybody" people? Or are the "people" to speak for
everybody? I think what she is saying is that
“people” means her, Trump, and the gang of evil-nastiness, extreme right-wingers
who now have control of the White House.
This is Dictator-101 speak, folks.
Kellyanne, in one televised interview alone, revealed in the most dumbed-down way (not even sure she planned
to do so) that we are all to shut our mouths if we don't have anything nice to say, let Trump be the con man he is (after all, the stupids in the swing states voted him into office!), and let the flying monkeys do their
thing -which would be, destroy all institutions in America for the greater good
of the Oligarchs and the white, right-wing extremists in this world (ISIS has got nothing on these folks!).
Kleptocracy and
Plutocracy are words we should all familiarize ourselves with, along with
Authoritarianism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism.
Democracy is no longer our country’s theme and no one should pretend it
is. Of course, the unicorns are bucking
in their stables ready to fight this incoming regime, as are millions of us,
but for now, let’s just call the reign of this country exactly what it is about to become.
Another sure sign:
Corrective
measures? Since when does the incoming
administration tell individual news conglomerates that they must take
“corrective measures” (earlier in the interview, she asked, “Will heads roll…?”) I believe this is number one on the list of how Trump plans to “control” media.
Next up? Control American
citizens.
Trump isn’t legitimate already and for real reasons, not conspiracy, based on facts and intelligence gathered by some of the most experienced CIA agents in the world.
The fact that we’ve not had a single major terrorist attack on American
soil by foreign terrorists in the likes of 9/11/2001 during the Obama
administration is enough validation that those who currently make up our CIA forces are unbelievably loyal to this country and completely competent at intelligence gathering and briefing.
What does the despot and his side-kick demon, Bannon, plan to
do once in office? Why, replace those agents with “agents
of our own.” (wink, wink) Expect a spectacular loss of
life soon here on our shores. It’s
forthcoming, because the people being put in charge are incompetent and dead set
on destruction. What possibly could go
wrong?
Yesterday and today, Trump
tweeted his usual lying spew of fuckery, including a tweet claiming that the head of the US Intel
supports KellyA’s lies from last night.
