Dormant and Discombobulated

If you thought that I’ve been in hibernation for the last couple of weeks, well you’d be wrong.  My co-conspirator in Oregon has been keeping our little blog breathing and I’m thankful for that.  But I have been dormant for far too long for a blog to remain relevant.  And relevance is part of the problem.  I’m finding it hard to keep up with the little Trump engine that can’t.  Things change so quickly in that insane asylum, once known proudly as the White House, that it’s damn nigh impossible to write a post that’s up to date before Trump or one of his stooges changes direction.

Take healthcare for example.  I was in mid-post, writing about the turd that Ryan was certain to drop on March 23^rd.  Well, the next day Paul Ryan got constipated and the vote was delayed.  Later, on that Thursday evening Ryan was starting to feel regular and the vote was on again for the next day, Friday the 24^th.  The day wore on and Trump and Ryan were grunting and groaning trying mightily to pinch that loaf until late in the afternoon when the two of them agreed to pull the vote altogether.  So instead of dumping on the country Trump, Ryan and the GOP publically shit all over themselves.  It was a joyous day for people with a conscience, a heart and a soul.

So Trump’s narrative had to change.  Trump’s new tactic would be to just let the ACA die on its own.  As with many Trump pronouncements there had to be a lie involved.  “I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode,” said the POTUS.  Which of course was in direct contradiction to the many times he’d declared that Obamacare would be repealed on day one. 

Well this had me worried because I could see where the Republicans could easily figure out a way to sabotage the ACA, let it die and then turn the whole thing over to the insurance companies; or more properly the insurance company shareholders.  This might make a good topic.

And then the blame game began.  Juicy.  First Trump blamed the Democrats.  I guess he was pissed off that the Democrats didn’t want to take part in bending the American people over. Then it was the conservative (and soulless) Freedom Caucus for, as Trump was couching it, being traitors to the party.  And then it was Paul Ryan himself who was to blame.  Well, maybe it was Paul Ryan.  On Saturday night, the 25^th, Trump hyped the next morning’s Judge Jeanine show.  In that show the viper Jeanine Pirro sunk her fangs into Ryan, blaming him for the healthcare debacle.  But no, protested the Trump stooges; the BLOTUS wasn’t setting Ryan up.  To tell the truth I’m not sure in what order Trump spread blame. 

What I am sure of is that he omitted the one who really is to blame; himself.  A President is supposed to own important legislation.  He initiates it, in large measure writes it and then depends on and negotiates with Congress to pass it.  Trump did none of it.  He let Ryan do the lifting because Trump is either too lazy or too stupid.  Of course we know that he is too much of both. 

Well we went into the final week of March with Trump and Ryan declaring that they would set healthcare aside and move forward with a plan to destroy some other aspect of America.  That lasted all of a few days because Trump was once again resurrecting the healthcare issue, hinting on working with the very Democrats who he was rebuking just a few short days before.  Well that shivered Ryan’s timbers, who has no desire to work with the opposition on any bill because apparently the new Washington is all about smothering bi-partisanship in favor of ideology, and the American people are simply collateral damage in the scorched Earth warfare that has become American politics.

And so Ryan and the busy beavers of the GOP are huddling again about healthcare and there are rumblings that if you’re sick and need healthcare you either won’t get it or you’ll have to pay a king’s ransom for it.  Then you could conceivably go on welfare but that program is probably on the chopping block as well.  So in the new healthcare game you would be doing everyone a big favor if you would just up and die.  And while this is hyperbole I can’t imagine that Trump, Pence, Ryan and the jackals that make up the Freedom Caucus really lose any sleep about people dying for lack of care.

So there you go. I’ve been dormant because I’m discombobulated by the twist and turn dramas in this house of horrors.  This thing that’s laughingly called an administration has more twists and turns than a corkscrew.  There’s a popular theory out there that Trump is some grandmaster schemer who is creating all of this chaos just to keep the press and the public off balance.  Sorry I ain’t for a second buying the notion that Donald Trump is rubbing his hands together in glee while playing a political game of three dimensional chess.  This is bedlam by ineptitude.  But whatever the reason for all of this disorder in the court it certainly makes a part time blogger’s job dizzying.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.     

 ~ Posted by Paulie, San Francisco CA