Despite all the attention we in Washington pay to the Russia scandal and the Trump administration’s immigration policies and the president’s latest antics (for perfectly good reasons), polls have repeatedly shown that when you ask voters what they care about most in considering their vote for Congress this fall, the most-commonly-mentioned issue is health care.
And Republicans have set a health-care time bomb that is going to explode in their faces just in time for the November elections.
Oral arguments are now scheduled in federal court for Sept. 10 in a lawsuit brought by a group of conservative states, led by Texas, that seeks to strike down the Affordable Care Act. You’d think that after the debacle they suffered last year when Republicans in Congress tried to repeal the ACA, they would have learned their lesson. But they’re storming ahead, and Republicans running for Congress are going to pay the price.
In the age-old question about whether wingnut politicians are really stupid and/or crazy enough believe the lies they peddle, or whether they know it’s all a scam, I think this move counts as evidence of the stupid and/or crazy theory.
The lawsuit makes a claim that could charitably be called audacious. Since Congress eliminated the ACA’s penalty for not carrying health insurance coverage, it says, the individual mandate has become invalid. (Right now the mandate is still in place, but the penalty for violating it is $0.) And if the mandate is invalid, they argue, then the entire law must be struck down, including the ability of people to stay on their parents’ insurance, the protection for people with pre-existing conditions, the expansion of Medicaid that is now providing coverage to millions, the ban on yearly and lifetime limits on coverage — everything. (If you want details, there’s an explanation here.)
Several high-profile GOP candidates for Senate are supporting this lawsuit, even though these are state lawsuits and U.S. senators could be excused for staying out of it. Burgess Everett writes in Politico,
“Sure, anything that’s going to actually get rid of it, yes,†said Indiana GOP Senate nominee Mike Braun of the GOP lawsuit to gut the law in an interview in Mishawaka. “And then be ready to come back and talk about what you’re ready to do about pre-existing conditions and no limits on coverage. That’s where you don’t hear much conservative talk.â€
The problem? Congress has shown no ability to pass new health care legislation under Republican rule or work across party lines, raising severe doubts that the GOP would be able to fulfill its promises to kill the law and yet maintain its popular provisions.
Missouri is one of those states in the lawsuit, and the Attorney General of Missouri, Josh Hawley, is Claire McCaskill’s GOP opponent for her Senate seat. She’s been bringing up the lawsuit in her television ads, but I’m not sure the ads explain it very well. However, if this gets in the news a lot in September, that could make a difference. Right now, polls say the race is a toss-up.
Back to Politico:
In interviews, several GOP senators said the party is unprepared to act if the GOP lawsuit, which is supported by the Trump administration, is successful. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, “It may be good to have an exit strategy and I’m not sure there’s one in place.â€
Of course there’s not one in place. They had years to come up with an Obamacare replacement, and they failed.
Paul Waldman:
You don’t have to be a political-consulting genius to write the ads. “This is Darcy Cutebutton. She’s 9 years old. She survived cancer, and she’s still fighting. But now Donald Trump and our congressman, Hal Heartless, want to take away her health coverage. Tell Congressman Heartless that if he wants to do that to Darcy, come election day we’re going to stop him.â€
Yeah, that’s what they’re going to do. They should blow this up into a big deal even if the lawsuit fails.
In other news, do read about the weird blowup between some vets and the so-called president over Agent Orange. This happened more than a year ago, but accounts of it are just now coming out. This is from Daily Beast:
The meeting included President Trump and the envoys of nearly a dozen major vets groups—including the American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the right-leaning Concerned Veterans for America—as well as  senior staffers such as Stephen Miller, Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, and Manigault-Newman surrounding the large table.
The president began going around the room asking the different representatives what they were working on and how his administration could help, having made veterans’ issues a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign rhetoric.
Soon, he got to Rick Weidman, co-founder of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), who was one of Vietnam vets in the room that day, having served a tour of duty in 1969 as a medic. …
… During the course of the meeting, Weidman brought up the issue of Agent Orange, an extremely notorious component of the U.S. herbicidal warfare on Vietnam. Weidman was imploring the president and his team to permit access to benefits for a broader number of vets who have said they were poisoned by Agent Orange.
Trump responded by saying, “That’s taken care of,†according to people in the room.
His reply puzzled the group.
Attendees began explaining to the president that the VA had not made enough progress on the issue at all, to which Trump responded by abruptly derailing the meeting and asking the attendees if Agent Orange was “that stuff from that movie.â€
They eventually figured out he was talking about the “napalm in the morning” scene from Apocalypse Now. The veterans tried to explain to Trump that they were talking about Agent Orange, not napalm.
Trump refused to accept that he was mistaken and proceeded to say things like, “no, I think it’s that stuff from that movie.†…
… He then went around the room polling attendees about if it was, in fact, napalm or Agent Orange in the famous scene from “that movie,†as the gathering—organized to focus on important, sometimes life-or-death issues for veterans—descended into a pointless debate over Apocalypse Now that the president simply would not concede, despite all the available evidence.
Finally, Trump made eye contact again with Weidman and asked him if it was napalm or Agent Orange. The VVA co-founder assured Trump, as did several before him, that it was in fact napalm, and said that he didn’t like the Coppola film and believed it to be a disservice to Vietnam War veterans.
According to two people in attendance, Trump then flippantly replied to the Vietnam vet, “Well, I think you just didn’t like the movie,†before finally moving on.
My brother, who died in 2014 after multiple cancer diagnoses, believed his cancers were the result of exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Since cancer is very rare in my family (it’s usually cardiovascular disease that gets us first), I suspect he was right.
I'm sorry to hear about your brother. I can't offer any relief. But, I did have a friend who served in Vietnam. He was extremely hard to get a long with and had exhausted his possibilities. He slept on a sofa in our house for over six months. He had nocturnal seizures, which were pretty scary. After a seizure he would be exhausted and sleep for the rest of the day, which put the kibosh on his work schedule. His jaws would clench so hard that he felt like all his teeth were loose. One day we were talking about agent orange and said that someone had sprayed him in the face with the concentrate, as a joke. He thought that it led to his seizures. I can't say yes or no, but, it seems likely.
He had once been a promising journalist, but his life was in tatters. One night after a huge event (Cuban Club party in Tampa) he mentioned that he lost one of his medals. I knew that he had two Purple Hearts from Vietnam. But he lamented losing one of his Bronze Stars. He said, "I'm glad it wasn't the Silver Star."
We really need to do better, our veterans deserve it.
No doubt your brother deserved better too.
If it was knowing the difference between venereal diseases I'm sure Trump would know the difference. After all, venereal diseases were the napalm and agent orange of his own personal Vietnam. He's a draft dodging bag of shit.. and a coward to boot!
Besides he's immensely (bigly in his "English") stupid.
Friendly fire and collateral damage are terms which assault the truth. I heard them first during the Viet Nam era. One can say that America's responses to agent orange have also been a consistent assault on the truth. The truth is certainly that agent orange did and still does extensive damage to the people of Viet Nam and did extensive harm to our own troops. It is a hard truth that our country engaged in what amounted to chemical warfare in that conflict, knowing full well of at least some of agent orange's side effects at the time. Provisions for "safe handling" to prevent harm to our own troops was to lie about harmful effect. No need for that if the agent is harmless.
Admiral Zumwalt, who ordered it's use, testified before congress, of false reports of the safety of agent orange. "In 1990, he wrote a report on Agent Orange for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He also testified before a House subcommittee, strongly denouncing previous studies that described the chemical spray as harmless. “That was, of course, the conventional propaganda of the time,” he said." I would prefer the term conventional propaganda be replaced with the term lie.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/us/agent-oranges-long-legacy-for-vietnam-and-veterans.html
Its amazing that someone of Trump's age would be as completely ignorant about Agent Orange as he is. And after hearing this moron condescendingly belittle the valid concerns of fellow veterans in such a stupid, ignorant way, its just unfathomable that there was a supporter left in the room, let alone in the organizations these veterans represent, if they ever hear of this. And yet, we know that there probably are some who left that room, still supporting him, even after that.
The real shame is Trump is able to get away with what he does because of the complicity of people who have given up on their integrity to continue supporting this embarrassing ignoramus. They provide the voltage to keep this Frankenstein monster doddering about.
… just because in the Trump error/era, comic relief becomes increasingly important: spy pets rule!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnZAqmDA1VE
I'm sorry for your loss, maha. I hadn't heard…
tRUMP is like most conservatives:
They love the military to rally folks 'round the flag with, to use as props in arguments, send into battle, and to hide behind.
They just don't want to pay them when they're active, or care for them after they're done using and abusing them.
Amen! A good example is the NYC Vietnam Memorial. Trump grandstanded to suck up all the publicity of being concerned about those men who lost their lives in service of their country. He pledged 1 million dollars to fund the memorial, was appointed to the committee to to build the memorial, and than after all the fanfare and publicity was garnered he split from the scene without so much as giving a single dime. He used the sacrifice and memory of America's fallen soldiers to polish his image as somebody who really cares for those who paid the price for our freedoms.. He's a fucking bag of shit! a scumbag of the highest order. And I'm hoping and praying that America gets its act together and runs that bag of shit off the national stage.
If you go the the virtual wall (Vietnam wall) online and look at the names of the men listed from NYC ( the 5 boroughs) it is a staggering experience to see the amount men that that city gave to the cause of America. It's understandable that a man would try to avoid wartime service like Trump did, but it's unforgivable that any man would trample on the sacrifice of those who did serve like Trump does.
maha,
Your "twit-filter" is un- American!
My 1st Amendment Right to be a twit is being filtered!
I call "FOWL!" on this chickensh*t effort to silence me! 😉
Looks like, as with Sessions and his recusal, another person in the administration is smart enough to want to avoid ending up behind bars:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/us/politics/don-mcgahn-mueller-investigation.html
A little off topic…but see if you can feel the love and devotion?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LXQdz6YF3w
Nothing cements the bonds of marriage like honesty and fidelity. Is it just me or does anybody else think that the song —My Way— is a little strange to be "our song"? If it were me and my wife we would have chosen Unchained Melody. For whatever reason that song/ our song always draws us together like a magnet. I think its the affirming words in the song of I need your love. Sorta like a mutual dependency. I don't think my wife would be too responsive to My Way.
" He then went around the room polling attendees about if it was, in fact, napalm or Agent Orange"
Only someone as void of introspection as Trump would even bring up the Vietnam war. The man had four college deferments and after those dried up he got his Daddy's doctor friend to say he had bone spurs! What the fuck do you do with someone that literally has no shame?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDUwpnxP0ps
@Tom_b, could it be that McGahn is Trump's John Dean?