Category Archives: Health care

America’s Mein Kampf.

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For as long as I can remember, Republicans have talked about freedom. The words liberty and freedom are splattered all over their websites and on their paraphernalia – from hats and t-shirts to flags and bumper stickers. They talk about making America great again as if it isn’t already great – the world’s economic and military leader and the leader for human rights.

Yet The Heritage Foundation and many former Trump officials have created a plan to strip away many of our freedoms should Trump be returned to office this November. Under Project 2025, the operating manual for a second Trump administration, they would politicize almost the entirety of the federal government by replacing up to 50,000 government workers with Trump loyalists.

And that’s only the beginning. Under Project 2025, Trump and his sycophants plan to burn the Constitution and limit or eliminate many of the freedoms you take for granted. Here are some of the freedoms at risk:

1 – Freedom to control your body. Trump’s Supreme Court appointees have already overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result, women’s reproductive rights are banned in numerous states. A new Trump administration plans to make the ban nationwide. They would also invoke the Comstock Act to prevent access to mifepristone through the mail. It’s also highly likely that Republicans would block IVF.

2 – Freedom of privacy. Project 2025 calls for increased surveillance of pregnant women to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method. It should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion.”

3 – Freedom of movement. In several states, Republicans have already tried to criminalize interstate movement by pregnant women seeking abortions in states where they remain legal. Under a nationwide ban by a Trump administration, it’s likely they would prosecute the women and anyone who aids them in their travel.

4 – Freedom to contraception. In a further attempt to relegate women to baby factories, Project 2025 argues against contraception and falsely claims that birth control is detrimental to fertility. It would allow employers and insurance companies to deny coverage of birth control pills based on religious grounds.

5 – Freedom to healthcare access. Trump and his allies tried to eliminate the Affordable Care Act in his previous administration. They will undoubtedly try to do it again.

6 – Freedom to clean air and water. In its decision to overturn the 40-year-old precedent of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, SCOTUS has already undermined the power of federal agencies, such as the EPA. Project 2025 intends to take it further by freeing business from many regulations so they can pollute at will. It would also strip all federal funds intended to mitigate climate change.

7 – Freedom to an education. Project 2025 calls for reducing funding for low-income students, the privatization of schools and the elimination of the Department of Education. It will also block federal financial aid for American college students if their state permits certain immigrant groups, including Dreamers with legal status, to access in-state tuition.

8 – Freedom to eat. Project 2025 calls for reducing the number of recipients of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and reimpose work requirements, which have proven to be ineffective.

9 – Freedom to love who you want. Project 2025 would roll back anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ population, prioritize straight marriages over gay marriages, and promote conversion therapy.

10 – Freedom of the press. A second Trump administration would not only escalate attacks on news media. According to Project 2025, NPR and PBS would be defunded, thus limiting access to reliable unbiased news. In addition, it would further destroy the journalistic independence of Voice of America.

11 – Freedom to live in the U.S. Trump has long wanted to deport undocumented immigrants. If given a second term in office, he would terminate the legal status of some 500,000 Dreamers. He has also outlined plans to use the military to round up 15 to 20 million immigrants, place them in internment camps and deport them to their countries of origin.

12 – Freedom to fair pay and benefits. Project 2025 calls for an end to overtime pay, the gutting of labor union protections, and cutting unemployment insurance. At the same time, it would increase child labor.

13 – Freedom to vote. For decades, Republicans have tried to restrict the voting rights of those who are least likely to vote for them. To that end, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act. Republicans have used intimidation and a variety of voter suppression tactics against people of color. They have leveled death threats against election officials. And Project 2025 would further fuel the assault on election officials by withholding federal support for their work and threatening to use the DOJ and other agencies to further politicize the administration of elections.

14 – Freedom of religion. Much of Trump’s support has come from white Christian Nationalists. So, it should come as no surprise that Project 2025 is a Christian Nationalist initiative that ignores the Constitution’s separation clause to establish Christian “values” throughout the government. It proposes criminalizing pornography, funding religious schools with taxpayer funds, and replacing social welfare services by diverting federal funds to churches and religious organizations.

If Trump once again occupies the Oval Office, American will not be great. It will be unrecognizable.

Freedom Fighters?

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The Republican Party has a long history of claiming to be patriots and “freedom fighters.”  Indeed, many of its members have armed themselves with numerous AR15-style rifles and large stockpiles of ammunition while claiming such measures are necessary to defend themselves against tyranny – the tyranny of a Democratic-led federal government.

Really?

Exactly what Democratic policies do they fear? Providing SNAP benefits to poor families to keep their children from starving? Welcoming refugees from war-torn nations and migrants forced to leave their homeland as the result of violence or drought? Providing Social Security benefits to the elderly who spent decades paying FICA to ensure a comfortable retirement? Supporting Medicare and Obamacare so that Americans won’t die prematurely for lack of access to healthcare?

Do governmental actions cross into tyranny for distributing vaccines to millions to help prevent disease, sickness and death? Allocating billions to repair and restore our nation’s failing infrastructure? Enhancing voting systems to ensure that any eligible citizen can easily exercise their right to vote? Permitting a woman and her doctor to make decisions affecting her health? Or permitting the justice system to prosecute anyone, including the rich and powerful, who breaks the law?

Are these policies evidence of tyranny? Hardly.

Real tyranny is a government that requires elementary school gym teachers to check a child’s genitals to make sure they are using the correct pronoun. Tyranny is telling parents that they cannot decide to give their child gender altering surgery. Tyranny is telling qualified teachers they can’t give a true account of American history. Tyranny is banning books and threatening to criminally prosecute librarians. Tyranny is trying to ban boycotts of governments and corporations who commit human rights abuses. Tyranny is trying to abolish civil rights protests.

Tyranny is telling citizens they can’t marry the ones they love. Tyranny is making it increasingly more difficult for certain ethnic groups to vote. Tyranny is forcing a physician to check with attorneys before providing life-saving care to a pregnant woman whose fetus has died in the womb. Tyranny is prosecuting women and their doctors for seeking abortions. Tyranny is punishing corporations for taking a stand against discrimination or considering DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) in their staffing decisions. Tyranny is banning retirement fund managers and state treasurers from incorporating ESG (Environmental, Social and Good Government) investment strategies.

These are not the tyrannical policies of Democrats. These are policies of the Republican Party.

You know, the party that staged a violent coup to overthrow our duly elected government. The same “patriots” who supported Nixon despite his criminal activities to sway the outcome of an election. The same “freedom fighters” who supported Reagan despite his racism and his interference in President Carter’s negotiations to free the Americans taken hostage by Iran.

In reality, Republicans are more interested in fighting than freedom. It seems the only freedom they really care about is the freedom to discriminate and bully others into doing what they want.

Examining The Arguments Against Abortion.

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Abortion has become a simplistic catchall term for a wide variety of health care procedures for women, many of which don’t involve the removal of a healthy fetus. Yet the anti-abortion activists would have you believe that any intervention involving a woman’s uterus or reproductive system is against God’s will.

They imply that all abortions are undertaken merely for selfish reasons. That the woman is too lazy or immature to prevent pregnancy through the use of contraceptives or that she simply views pregnancy as inconvenient.

These are intentionally simplistic narratives that have been carefully crafted to invoke emotions. The activists want you to believe that all abortion is murder. That all women who consider terminating a pregnancy are evil. And that all doctors who come to their aid are “baby killers.” To that end, they pass laws giving the unborn the same constitutional laws as fully developed humans who are no longer connected to an umbilical cord.

To make their point, they inundate you with images of smiling babies and healthy fetuses along with (usually false) information about when a fetus’s heart begins beating. And when it is capable of feeling pain.

Given the misleading information, it’s easy to see why so many people recoil at the notion of ending the development of such sweet innocent “children.” But would they feel the same way if the anti-abortion activists told them the fetus was the result of rape or incest? Would they feel the same way if the activists showed images of unviable fetuses developing without lungs, without a digestive system, without brains, without skulls, or without other body parts necessary to sustain life? Would they feel the same way if shown images of a festering mass of dead cells that endangers the life of the woman?

Would they feel the same way looking at images of ectopic pregnancies? Of zygotes, blastocysts, or molar cysts? Would they feel the same way if they were told the only chance for a fetus to live is for the woman carrying it to die?

The answer to most of these questions is no. Maybe that’s why 61 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.

Nevertheless, a minority of Americans (mostly men) believe they know better. They tell you that life begins at conception. And that any intervention with that life is against God’s will. They tell you that even the use of the morning after (aka Plan B) pill is murder. Some even go so far as to claim that any form of contraception is also interfering with God’s will.

For me, such beliefs raise some obvious questions: First of all, how do they really know what is God’s will? Which God? It’s only some Christian denominations that have taken official stances against abortion. Yet there is no mention of abortion in the Bible. In fact, the Old Testament tells us that life begins with the first breath.

Moreover, if you use the anti-abortionists’ logic, would not invitro fertilization (IVF) be against God’s will? Shouldn’t that be banned? And for the arrogant men opposed to abortion, what about ED? Isn’t the use of boner pills also against God’s will?

Using the anti-abortionists’ same flawed logic, wouldn’t most forms of health care treatment be against God’s will? If a micro-managing God controls every aspect of life on Earth as many suggest, aren’t most ailments, diseases, and accidents deigned by God? So, why not ban all other types of health care along with abortion?

The truth is abortion – all abortion – is health care. Nothing more. Nothing less. No religious or government body should meddle with it other than to ensure its safety. Such health care decisions should only be made by the patient with advice and assistance of a physician. Not by fascist politicians.

Why A New Civil War Seems Inevitable.

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It seems the majority of Americans have viewed Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s call for a “national divorce” as laughable. But many of us who have been following the extreme right for the last several decades are not laughing. Both the rhetoric and actions of what can only be called the sedition caucus point to the near inevitability of a civil war led by many of the same people responsible for the January 6 insurrection.

Consider that some of the planners and cheerleaders for the coup attempt are not only still occupying seats in the US House of Representatives. They have, thus far, faced no repercussions. Indeed, they now control both the Speaker and many of the House committees. Likewise, the former president who led the coup has not yet been held accountable. He has even announced that he is running for president in 2024 and, in fact, is the leading candidate of the Republican Party despite his obvious attempt to turn our democracy into an autocracy!

Moreover, he has previously shown an intent to use the office to dismantle institutions, to punish opponents, and to sell favors to other nations, including our adversaries.

But the threat to our democracy goes much deeper.

For one thing, the twice-impeached former president packed our courts with rightwing loyalists. So, any court cases against Republican legislation designed to undermine our democracy are likely to fail. Second, autocracy-friendly Republicans have full control of 23 of our 50 states. They also have legislative control of 30 states. And 19 of those states have already called for a convention to rewrite the Constitution. If successful, their rewrites are likely to remove the barrier between church and state, as well as to change the requirements for citizenship and voting. They might even embrace far more radical ideas such as a bill offered by a Florida legislator which would essentially ban the Democratic Party in that state.

An even more likely recipe for civil war was outlined in a chilling Twitter thread by author and former Navy aviator Brynn Tannehill. She begins by stating that “we have two competing visions for America that are mutually exclusive, both sides really don’t like each other, but one of the two is violent, delusional, and willing to destroy democracy to get its way.” She then explains how Republicans are forcing the issue with a new bill that passed out of committee in Tennessee. According to Tannehill, the bill “would bar insurers from doing business with the state if they cover health care for trans people anywhere in the US.”

What are the chances of the six staunchly Catholic justices who comprise the majority of SCOTUS ruling against such a law? After their ruling which overturned decades of precedent to throw out Roe v Wade, those chances are likely zero, nada, nil.

Almost certainly, that will cause states to react as they did following the end of Roe v Wade. Red states quickly banned abortion while blue states began passing laws that would codify a woman’s right to abortion. So, in a reaction to Tennessee, blue states are likely to require insurers to cover trans health care in their own states.

Even if the Tennessee bill doesn’t pass, there will be other discriminatory bills proposed by rightwing zealots with the intent to further divide us. As Tannehill points out, “…this sort of blackmail can be used on any topic: whether it’s Disney for promoting ‘woke’ material, coverage of abortions, drug manufacturers and Mifepristone, or anything else they want to ban.”

Of course, the real flashpoint between the two sides revolves around guns. Democrats rightfully want to limit access to weapons of war and to ban untraceable ghost guns. But Republicans view the 2nd Amendment as the 11th commandment: “Thou shall not take away our guns.” Yet, without new gun safety measures which restrict the sales of ever more lethal weaponry, our nation will be consigned to a future with more school shootings and mass murders. Assuming that our nation, which has been far too passive in addressing climate change, has any future at all.

God’s Will?

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In the ongoing abortion debate, those who oppose the procedure justify their opposition by saying that a pregnancy is God’s will, even if that pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. They even claim that if the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life, that, too, is God’s will.

Really?

This philosophy presupposes that God is the ultimate micromanager. That everything that happens on Earth (or in the cosmos for that matter) is dictated by a supreme being who is constantly watching over us. So, if someone miraculously survives a calamity, that’s God’s will. But aren’t such calamities and the deaths of all those who don’t survive them also God’s will?

At the risk of being dismissed as an atheist, I have a few more questions:

If God is to receive credit for all the good that happens in the world, shouldn’t He/She also receive credit for everything bad that happens? Why don’t the football players who point to the sky after scoring a touchdown also point to the sky after they fumble, miss a tackle, or involuntarily drop a pass? Do the player’s innate talents, character, determination, and training have no part in their successes and failures?

In the case of abortion, how can those of faith deny a medical procedure to a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy – even if it endangers her life, or contributes to the pain of having been raped, or leaves her facing poverty? Who are they to make such a life-changing decision for another human being? Moreover, isn’t it hypocritical to then support medical intervention for other issues? Aren’t broken bones, burns, lacerations, infections, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer also God’s will?

Likewise, if you are willing to deny plan B pills or abortion pills to a pregnant woman, shouldn’t you also wish to deprive others of the prescription medications they need for other medical conditions? Shouldn’t the patients who seek such medications, and the doctors who provide them, also face rejection and possible imprisonment?

After all, why would any mere mortal choose to intervene with God’s will? (Sarcasm very much intended.)

An Open Letter To The Once Supreme Court Of The United States

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I know that I speak for many Americans when I say that I no longer respect the court that I once believed supreme in regard to the wisdom of its legal rulings and interpretation of the Constitution.

In recent years, the conservative majority has ruled that money equals free speech, that corporations have the rights of people (giving executives and boards of directors both individual and corporate rights), that free speech does not include the right to boycott, that the separation of church and state does not extend to taxpayer funding of religious schools and, as the leaked document indicates, that a woman no longer has the right to privacy concerning her medical treatment and conversations with a physician.

The court’s most recent ruling seems to be based on an originalist reading of the 2nd Amendment, noting that its wording gives citizens the right to “keep and bear arms.” But what about the rest of the Amendment’s wording: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”?

If the majority so strongly believes in the Framers’ original intent, why not rule that all males of a certain age must provide their own arms and order them to muster at designated times for training as my colonial ancestors were required to do?

I can only assume that it is because that reading does not fit the political ideology of the conservative majority.

Therein lies the problem. Many of us can no longer hold the court supreme because it has become utterly and hopelessly political. Unlike every other court in the land, this once supreme court has no code of ethics. A number of the justices have taken speaking engagements with highly partisan groups. Some have refused to recuse themselves from decisions in which they have a conflict of interest. And the wife of one justice has deeply engaged in a seditious attempt to overturn the results of an election.

In virtually every nation that has become a failed democracy, it has done so with the complicity of its judicial system. I now fear, with this court’s aid, that will be the future of the United States.

The Frightening Descent Of The Court We Once Held Supreme.

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Many of us grew up with great respect for the highest court in the land. We did not always agree with its rulings. But we always respected them because we knew they were considered judgments based on the law.

The current version of the Court is different. Very different.

Contrary to the protestations of Alito, Roberts, and Thomas, the Court has been made highly partisan. Certainly, there have been periods of partisanship in the past. But none quite like this. It began when Republicans were enraged that Robert Bork was not confirmed by a Democrat-led Senate due to his role in firing the Special Prosecutor assigned to the Watergate investigation. Never mind that the Senate’s refusal to confirm Bork was justified, Republicans threw an absolute hissy fit that continues to this day.

Republicans became further incensed when Democrats contested the nomination of Clarence Thomas based on Anita Hill’s credible allegations of sexual impropriety. The fact that the ethically challenged Thomas was married to and influenced by a far-right extremist and activist was lost in the controversy. And we’ve been paying for that oversight ever since.

As it became clear that the Court’s rulings dramatically lurched to the right, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito all portrayed themselves as “originalists.” They seem to view the Constitution as a static document that should be viewed from the perspective of 1788 when it was ratified by the original 13 states.

Yet these “justices” always seem willing to reinterpret the Constitution to benefit Republicans.

In recent years, Republicans have accelerated the Court’s descent into blatant partisanship. The GOP-controlled Senate blocked hearings on Garland’s nomination to replace Scalia for purely partisan reasons claiming that, since it was eleven months before a presidential election, the decision to fill the Court’s vacancy should be left to the next president. Then, when Trump won, the GOP began searching for judicial nominees who would be willing to bend the rule of law to benefit the Party and to overturn Roe v Wade. They rammed through three Supreme Court nominees, the last just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.

Such choices were a payback to evangelicals – people who can’t tell a zygote from an embryo from a fetus – for supporting the GOP’s ever-present culture wars against school integration, against interracial marriage, against contraception, against gay rights, against gay marriage, against sex education, against racial equity and, of course, against abortion.

Despite angrily denying their obvious partisanship, conservatives on the Court have made their partisan views public as featured speakers at numerous Republican and conservative “Christian” gatherings. And the leaked opinion by the Court’s five conservatives as expressed by Alito is the most obvious display of partisanship yet. They have gone out of their way to impose the beliefs of evangelicals and the GOP on all American women. Further, Alito’s draft opinion sets the stage for taking away other rights, including all of those at the heart of the GOP culture wars.

His opinion, if adopted as is, would enable his cult (aka the Republican Party) to transform the nation in ways unlike any previously experienced in American history.

For example, prior to Roe v Wade, women were seldom prosecuted for having an abortion. Those women who could afford it, would ask their doctors for a procedure called a D&C to terminate their pregnancies. Those who couldn’t afford such niceties would either seek a dangerous abortion in some back alley or take things into their own hands by employing coat hangers or acid. Or they might simply throw themselves down a flight of stairs. Apparently, that was seen as punishment enough by the Puritan crowd, since only the abortionists themselves were charged with crimes.

But, in this era of theological and ideological vengeance, it seems that no punishment for women is draconian enough. According to the current GOP anti-abortion bills, women will be arrested and jailed for terminating a pregnancy. So, too, will anyone who advised or enabled them. And every woman who has a miscarriage will be under suspicion.

What’s next on the GOP agenda? Burning women at the stake?

Why You Should Take Tyrants At Their Word.

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In the 1970s and 80s, after looking at the nation’s changing demographics, Republicans embraced southern racists still angry at having lost the Civil War and furious with forced integration of schools. Around the same time, they also crafted a deal with far-right evangelicals – people like Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, Jim Baker, John Hagee, and Pat Richardson. The deal was that this so-called “Moral Majority” would deliver votes in exchange for the GOP embracing their cruel and hateful ideas, including a ban on abortion.

This unholy alliance resulted in the daily picketing of clinics, harassment of women seeking abortions, distribution of home addresses and license plates of clinic personnel, the bombing of clinics, and the murder of abortion providers.

Through it all, the GOP platform and most GOP candidates called for an end to abortion. They began stacking the courts with anti-abortion judges and they prayed for the deaths of liberal and moderate Supreme Court justices. They passed draconian laws in GOP-led states like Texass that would imprison women for having an abortion, even if they traveled to another state where abortion is legal or if they ordered abortion pills online.

Most of the GOP’s current or pending laws make no exception for victims of rape and incest. They have made it clear that they will not help feed the children of forced births. They will not provide them with healthcare. They will not even agree to pay for improvements to our already over-stretched and disastrous foster care system.

In reality, the GOP is pro-birth. Not pro-life.

And given the fact that a significant majority of Americans, including Republicans, favor reproductive freedom, this is truly tyranny by a minority. Yet many of you, much like the cancer stricken notorious RBG who refused to resign when a Democratic president could appoint her successor, failed to act. You simply assumed they couldn’t take away a woman’s reproductive freedom.

It took them 50 years but, through a combination of legislative tricks to steal a SCOTUS seat and to hypocritically fill another one, they have apparently succeeded. You didn’t need a crystal ball to see it coming. They told you what they would do if they gained control of the Court.

And if you take these same people at their word, they won’t stop there.

They have openly talked about banning contraception, gay marriage, inter-racial marriage, LBGTQ rights, and affirmative action. They have tried to take away public school funding, Social Security, and Medicare. Even the freedom to practice religions other than Christianity, the right to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rights of certain minorities to vote are on the line.

It doesn’t matter that most Americans disagree with Republicans and evangelicals on these issues. They have a plan to seize permanent control of our government. They may have failed on January 6, 2021, but, if you listen to them, they haven’t given up. The only way to stop them is to vote while you still can – in the midterms and beyond. To end this pending nightmare and the collapse of our democracy, they must be convincingly and overwhelmingly repudiated.

Don’t Just Blame Joe Manchin!

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Certainly, Manchin sold out President Biden and his Democratic Party by effectively blocking the Build Back Better Act this week. In doing so, he has undermined efforts to address climate change, committing all of us to suffer from increased severe weather events. Additionally, his refusal to support the bill means that more children will grow up in poverty, that more seniors will be forced to move from their homes into nursing facilities, that seniors will continue to be denied help for dental, hearing and vison care, and that all Americans will continue to pay more for pharmaceuticals than the rest of the world.

It is also almost certainly true that Manchin’s hands are deep in the pockets of the leaders of the fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industries. Indeed, Manchin is said to have received nearly $260,000 in corporate contributions in just the month leading up to his politically charged statement about Biden’s signature legislation on Fox News Channel.

But Manchin is not alone in blocking the Build Back Better Act. Senator Kyrsten Sinema has proven that she’s every bit as craven and greedy as Manchin. Though she doesn’t have a yacht or drive a Maserati, she has personally blocked provisions in the bill designed to lower the prices that all Americans pay for pharmaceuticals while taking political donations from big Pharma and refusing to meet with her own constituents.

And Manchin and Sinema are but two of the 52 Senators refusing to vote for BBB. They are joined in their greed and dumbassery by the entire Sedition Caucus, aka the Republican Party. A party that has long ignored the needs and wishes of the majority of Americans as it continues to pander to greedy corporations and billionaires. A party that continues to deny human-caused climate change. A party that embraces the gun cult and violent extremists. A party that has cozied up to Vladimir Putin and the world’s worst autocrats. A party that is vehemently anti-government, and therefore anti-American, to its core.

So, if the Biden administration and the Democratic majority fail to do more to level the economic playing field for ordinary working families. If they fail to provide help for those who are struggling. If they fail to pass legislation to head off the worst effects of climate change. Don’t blame them. And please don’t think that rewarding their political opponents in the midterm elections will improve your life in any way.

It won’t.

Unless you are a billionaire, an executive of a multi-national corporation, an executive of a fossil fuel company, an executive of a pharmaceutical company, or a member of the gun lobby.

Jan. 6 Commission Vote Explains Why Bipartisanship Is A Myth.

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Most Americans continue to call for bipartisanship in the US Congress. But it has become as elusive as UFOs, Bigfoot, and the mythical unicorn. First, let’s note that the “bi” in bipartisanship denotes the participation of two parties. Unfortunately, for at least the past 12 years, one party has been largely absent. Sure, the Republicans have been more than happy to demand a voice in any bill the Democrats put forward. For example, as Congress was debating the Affordable Care Act, Republicans offered hundreds of amendments to the bill, and Democrats accepted hundreds of them in hopes of gaining Republican support. But, when it came to the final vote, not a single Republican voted for the bill in the House or the Senate.

That set a pattern that continues to this day.

Senate GQP (Grand QAnon Party) leader, Moscow Mitch McConnell has stated repeatedly that his primary goal is to stop the Democratic agenda at any cost. When Republicans are in the minority, he repeatedly calls for bipartisanship. But when Democrats have control, he ramrods through Republican bills and nominations at record speeds, decrying any attempts at negotiation as obstruction. One need look no further than McConnell’s actions on the Senate Supreme Court confirmations of Merrick Garland and Amy Coney-Barrett to confirm his hypocrisy and his contempt for bipartisanship.

As if those two examples are not enough to make the point, consider the recent votes on a bill calling for a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection of January 6. After Democrats agreed to each of the House Republican’s demands, both parties announced that they had reached a deal on May 14, 2021. Then, on May 18, the day before the bill was to come up for a vote, House GQP leader Kevin McCarthy announced his opposition to the bill. And hours before the House vote, Moscow Mitch followed suit. As a result, only 35 Republican House members broke ranks to vote in favor of creating the commission.

The fate of the commission now hangs in the balance in the Senate where, given the filibuster, 10 Republicans will have to demonstrate their independence from Moscow Mitch and vote for bipartisanship. Unfortunately, that is very unlikely.

One can’t help but compare the GQP to Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon series and Democrats to Charlie Brown. Despite assurances that they will hold the football this time, the GQP continues to withdraw support at the last instant, leaving Democrats to whiff and fall onto their backsides. Though contrary to their instincts and their desire for the kind of bipartisanship needed to solve our nation’s problems, it’s time for Democrats to give Republicans a dose of their own medicine.

Bipartisanship is not possible now that one of the parties has become a belligerent and autocratic cult.