THE REPUBLICAN'S DRAIN THE SWAMP?

So the Republicans got back together last Monday and Paul Ryan said, "We have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, so what is the most important thing to do first?"

"O Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy, let's bury the independent ethics committee," says one member.

YAH, Yah, Yah the rest agreed.

After a lot of constituent phone calls to Representatives and a Trump tweet, the motion was withdrawn on Tuesday, but that does not take away that the Republican Representatives voted to annihilate the independent ethics committee as the most important first thing to do.

You say we have to depend on congress to keep President Trump in line?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!
We need President Trump to keep congress in line
It is hard to see how this ends well.

TRUMP BEST REPUBLICAN?

The reason I feel Donald Trump is the best Republican for president is that so many people who know him say they are surprised at the way he is behaving in the election season.  I have long felt I know he has tailored his political approach to appeal to what has become known as the Deplorables, a term they have in fact adopted.*  As I have said before, he is not leading a group of people, he is following them:**
ALL his comments are carefully crafted to appeal to this large group of people who believe Obama was born outside the U.S., that he is a secret Muslim, that all Hispanic illegals should be deported, that we should build a wall on our southern border, that Muslims should not be allowed to enter America (I suspect many would find the idea appealing that all Muslims should be deported or placed in detention camps.), etc., etc.  It isn't pretty folks but there it is.  You aren't going to solve this hate by getting rid of Trump.  It will still be out there, as Trump is followingthese people, not leading them.

Although Trump is the Flip Flopper In Chief, his overall stance seems to be in line with Republican values. He has a problem with establishment Republicans in that he says out loud what most Republicans believe but think should be only said in private because it doesn't sound good.  Trump favors a tax plan that will enrich the wealthy.  Paul Ryan favors a tax plan that favors enriching the wealthy.  Trump believes that women that have abortions should be punished some way.  Paul Ryan believe that abortion should be illegal.  And so it goes.  The Libertarian Party was established by Republicans that don't follow the Evangelicalism of the Republican Party.  It will be interesting to see how this attempt evolves.  Right now it seems to take more votes from Democrats than Republicans, most of whom seem to accept their party become a religious party.

That said, Trump has fabricated a Hillary who is a genuinely bad person.  Fortunately, that Hillary is not the Hillary running for president.  Hillary Clinton is the one who is running for president, and she has been a long-time advocate for children's upbringing (It Takes A Community To Raise A Child), children's health, etc.), women 's rights, and We Are Stronger Together.  After Barack Obama was nominated for president, Hillary worked hard on his campaign for president, was his Secretary of State, and has wrapped herself in Obama on her current candidacy for president.  That a couple of Hillary's aids in her run for president in 2008 explored the birther issue is mute. She never espoused it and certainly has not pursued it since.  It was no excuse for Trump to the promote the birther issue for five years since.  It is incredible that Republicans think it is,

We are well into the silly season in American politics, and I plan no further discussion of this election cycle.  In fact, I try to avoid all dnews of politics during the rest of this period.  We will see if I can hold onto this.

 *http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/09/im-deplorable_15.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/09/basket-of-deplorables.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/12/donald-trump-final-comments-i-hope.html

THE DO NOTHING SPEAKER GOES

Well I for one do not shed a tear for the retirement of the Speaker of the House Of Representatives John Boehner.  What he will go down in history for is presiding over the worst two years of passing bills in the post-WWII history of the House. In 2013, the House only passed 57 bills that became law for the least productive year.  My only reserve is that Boehner's replacement might be even worse.  Well, lets see what Paul Ryan actually does.  Let's be optimistic unless he proves otherwise.

I had hoped that Boehner would have given us a vote on the Senate immigration reform bill, but no luck.  It seems Republicans don't want to try to solve the problem but just use immigration as a whipping boy.  We are supposed to be happy that he avoided a government shutdown again.

This record was preceded by a number of years that set records for non-productivity at the time since 1947: 2012-61, 2011-90, and 2009-129.*  You will note that 2010 is an exception with 258 bills passed which was not a record at the time; however.  And so it was during administration of Barack Obama.  Some want to blame Obama. He entered the Presidency as a conciliator, but found that, to get 20% of he wanted, he had to give the Republicans 80% of what they wanted.  Furthermore the Republicans would then beat Obama over the head with things that he compromised on like delaying the tax increase on the wealthy.  Otherwise it was pretty much a slash and burn Congress.  For the House record see the Huffington Post article (quotes in italics):*

As 2012 comes to a close, the 112th Congress [Jan. 5 2011-Jan. 3 2012] is set to go down in American history as the most unproductive session since the 1940s.
According to a Huffington Post review of all the bills that hit President Barack Obama's desk this session, Obama has signed 219 bills passed by the 112th Congress into law [Reference two** says 284 total for the two year period]. With less than a week to go in the year, there are currently another 20 bills pending presidential action. In comparison, the last Congress passed 383 bills, while the one before it passed 460. [Note: Reference two** says 385 bills passed.]

The 104th Congress (1995-1996) currently holds the ignominious distinction of being the least productive session of Congress, according to the U.S. House Clerk's Office, which has records going back to 1947. Just 333 bills became law during that two-year period, [Reference two** says 337] *** meaning the 112th Congress needs to send nearly 100 more bills to Obama's desk in the next few days if it wants to avoid going down in history -- an unlikely prospect, considering that both chambers are squarely focused on averting the "fiscal cliff" before the new year.
The 112th Congress has done far less than the 80th Congress (1947-1948), which President Harry Truman infamously dubbed the "Do-Nothing Congress." Those lawmakers passed 906 bills that became law.

The 213th congress (Jan. 3, 2013 to Jan. 02, 2015) was only slightly better  than the 212th with 296 bills enacted. They did spend a lot of time passing bills to repeal the so-called Obamacare (the ACA)- 37 times to be exact in an exercise of futility.  And most things past were things like naming new post offices and naming special days.  I agree that Obamacare could be much improved - single payer for one example rather than the personal mandate, but they didn't even try this.**  But the House did not just vote against Obamacare, they didn't vote to replace it with anything.  They don't want government sponsored health insurance at all.

And in 2014, the House initiated the fewest bills since at least 1984.  Lest you think that President Obama has been vetoing a lot of bills, there were no vetoes in any of these 4 years.

* http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-08-14/unproductive-congress-not-passing-bills/57060096/1
**http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/congress-unproductive_n_2371387.html
*** It should be pointed out that even the 385 bills passed by the 111th Congress is probably also a record low up to then because the only two worst numbers were for Congresses in effect for less than two years: the 107 Congress (Jan. 3, 2001-Nov. 22, 2002) and the even shorter 104th Congress (Jan. 4, 1995 - Oct. 4, 1996).

DEATH PANELS & $716 BILLION FROM MEDICARE

I've never heard it discussed, but I think that Democrats are well concerned about making proposals to cut Medicare.  After all the Democrats had proposed in Section 123 of bill HR 3200 that would have paid physicians for counseling patients about living will, advances directives, and end-of -life care options.  Sarah Palin coined the phrase "death panels" to describe this and said that these panels would judge just how much health care you deserved.  Of those that knew about the claim, 30% said they thought it was true (about 255 of Americans).*  The provision about physicians counseling was removed from the final bill though end-of-life provisions, in particular, are a major expense in Medicare, but political hysteria had set in.  You should read the entire Wikipedia report but just to quote one claim "Rep Virginia Foxx (R-NC) charged that the proposal would 'put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.'"

There is an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) that will force cuts in Medicare if inflation in Medicare costs exceeds a certain number.**  These cuts specifically cannot reduce benefits or ration health care (Section 3403 of the health care law), but deal with things like Medicare Advantage costs, physician's reimbursement, hospital reimbursements.  Congress can rescind these cuts, but then must find the savings elsewhere.  This Board has been demagogued too.  Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed that, "In order to bring health care costs down, we don't need to have `15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have."  But Romney's falsehood is relatively mild compared to that by others

 IPAB is a change from where a previous panel called MedPac advised the congress on cuts to medical costs, which congress duly ignored.  The panel consists of 15 members appointed by the President subject to Senate confirmation.  It is specified that the president must consult with the leaders of the Senate and House majorities and minorities for the appointment of 3 members each or 12 members total.  The other three members are the Head of HHS, and two health Administrators as non-voting members.  Though these members are not elected (thank heavens for that), they have more scrutiny than Department Secretaries, it seems to me.

Then there is the demogoging the $716 billion in cuts from Medicare, a sum identical to the cuts Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).  These cuts are expected to extend the life of Medicare for 8 years.  Now in Obamacare, these cuts are used elsewhere to do things like close the "donut hole" in Medicare D, and one might want to use the cuts for other purposes like reducing the Federal deficit, but that was not what was claimed.  It was claimed by various Republicans that the cuts were to reduce benefits to Medicare beneficiaries.  In fact, 30.2% of the cuts involve Medicare Advantage (Medicare-C) that cost 17% more than Medicare-B (and I feel Advantage should be eliminated entirely), 34.8% were to reduce hospital costs (and hospitals agreed to this because of an expected increase in patients under Obamacare), and 35 % for everything else (e.g. insurance cuts, home care provider cuts, uninsured patient cuts to hospitals, etc., about a dozen in all).***  Republicans implied or claimed that this sum would be taken from Medicare benefits, though such was not the case.  Republican candidate for President even claimed he would restore the cuts.

The funny thing is that all these were cuts were made by people that actually want to destroy Medicare.  Paul Ryan wanted to eliminate Medicare in favor of vouchers to people to seek medical insurance.  Besides he still wants to eliminate $716 billion from Medicare.****  But is it any wonder that Democrats are wary of mentioning specific cuts to Medicare?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel
** http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/04/mitt-romney/romney-says-ipab-board-can-tell-people-ultimately-/
*** http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/14/romneys-right-obamacare-cuts-medicare-by-716-billion-heres-how/
**** http://reason.com/blog/2012/12/03/republicans-likely-to-stick-with-medicar

A DANGEROUS TREND

I hadn't intended to write this item and thought we were beyond such things, but apparently the Roman Catholic Church wants to get involved in the American electoral process even to the point of publishing a dark, dreadful anti-Obama advertisement (although they do not mention him by name).  I am reluctant to cite the advertisement, but I guess I must for credibility  (http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=D9vQt6IXXaM&hd).  I address several concerns below.

It has long been my observation that aggressive minorities rule a nation.  This is true of Iraq where the minority Sunni's control the Shiites. Yes, both are Muslims, but they hate each other.  It is true of Syria where the Alawite Muslim minority control a country where 79% of the people are Sunni Muslims.

In the United State, the Roman Catholic Church is increasingly getting involved in U.S. Politics and trying to impose their religious restrictions on all of the U.S. citizens.  It looks like the Roman Catholic Church is trying to do the same in the U.S. as we see in Muslim nations and with only 22% of the population.  Note that 6 members of the Supreme Court are Roman Catholics, two are Jews, and one is Protestant.  Fortunately these justices do not vote as a block.  The Republican Party had a candidate running for the Republican nomination that seemed to be taking orders directly from the Pope - Rick Santorum.  Fortunately, he did not get the nomination, however, he did surprisingly well in the process.  Though U.S. Protestant  Evangelicals were formerly against Roman Catholicism, the Catholics managed to get their cooperation for Santorum.

The Republican Vice-Presidential  candidate Paul Ryan is Roman Catholic, however,  and has proposed bills that would restrict the American public from certain freedoms such as abortion which Ryan would criminalize even in cases of rape and incest and cosponsored the Sanctity of Life Act where a fertilized egg should have all the rights of "personhood!"  This act also would criminalize the right to in vitro fertilization* and some forms of birth control like the intrauterine device.  It used to be that life started at birth when the baby took a breath.

Not surprisingly he also opposes "Don't Ask-Don't Tell", same sex marriage and the right of gays to adopt.  He voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.  Perhaps some solace can be taken in that Ryan as vice-President may be able to do less social harm than he could in Congress.

Although church's are exempt from requiring birth control items in health insurance for their employees, the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes giving them to employees at non-sectarian organizations like hospitals and schools that they may own.  You might even get the impression from them that Catholic employees are required to take birth control methods, though such is definitely not the case.  It is said, however, that 98% of Catholic women have taken birth control measures at some point in their lives.  The Catholic church would take this right away by law for all of us.  Some like the Catholic church surrogates manage to warp this around to saying they are giving us more freedom not less!

The Catholic Church likes to say that their first amendment rights are being taken away; although religious rights of churches are not guaranteed by the First Amendment.  I have covered this elsewhere in an item called Church and State (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/#uds-search-results), but to mention just a few, polygamy is against the law though the first amendment right was appealed to by the Mormon Church and the pacifist Quakers have to pay their full tax and not subtract something for funding our military.  They too claimed a First Amendment right.  Of course they are small denominations and perhaps with 22% of the population Roman Catholics can change the meaning of the law from its historical precedence.

If you aren't worried, you should be!

* According the Mother Jones, a least three of Ryan's sons have used IVF to have children.

Note added August 19, 2012: It seems that some of Ryan's stands are even too much for some Roman Catholic officials:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/dowd-beware-a-beautiful-calm.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120819

Note added August 21, 2012:  Republican nominee Todd Aiken for the Senate in Missouri against Claire McCaskill came out with a gaff, "Legitimate rape rarely causes pregnancy" that have generated calls within the Republican Party to replace him.  He has also called for an end to the Ntional School Lunch Program, repeated his earlier claim that student loans are like stage 3 cancer, and that Civil rights should be re-litigated (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/08/21/could-todd-akins-gaffe-actually-help-the-gop-in-missouri/)