Tag: Paul Ryan

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Opinion The Last Word

Trumpscare

CREDIT: Americanspirit | Dreamstime.com

Now that the farce called Trumpcare has imploded into finger pointing and recriminations, you can bet the insurance companies, aided by the GOP congress, will do everything in their power to assure the final destruction of Obamacare. Since the health-care industry is in turmoil, may I ask a basic question? What in God’s name is the insurance business doing in the heart of health care in the first place? Why should anyone profit from the misery of others?

I roughly understand the basics of life insurance. People come together as a group and pay continual premiums into a general account. Miss a payment, and they keep your money. Just ask me. Everybody’s premiums are invested, making the insurance companies grandly prosperous, so they can afford to pay death benefits to the beneficiaries of the dearly departed who had the courtesy to die within the allotted time frame. In other words, you’re making a bet on when you’ll buy the farm. The insurers even have mortality tables that provide odds on your death, sort of like a human expiration date. Should you win your bet, your family gets paid, only you’re dead. If you live past the 20 or 30 years usually proscribed in an insurance contract, you lose and get squat. And they keep your money — all of it.

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The whole thing is purposely vague so that you need to hire an agent, or one will surely find you. The same principles apply to other insurance instruments, like car, home, travel, or personal accident. The difference is that not everyone will be involved in a car wreck, or have their travelers’ checks stolen, or their house burn down, but sooner or later, everybody is going to get sick. 

The purpose of Obamacare was to spread the risks of health-care costs among a large group of people in order to pay the extortion rates of the medical and pharmaceutical industries. For instance, a bottle of Excedrin at Walgreen’s costs six dollars, but in the hospital, it’s six bucks a tablet. It’s all a scam assembled by the institutions that stand to reap the profits from the treatment of the sick and elderly. That’s why Obama asked for the mandate, so that younger people who tend to be healthier join the pool of the insured. Just as everyone is required to buy auto insurance, even if you never use it, everyone’s purchase of health insurance would pay the costs of colossal, backbreaking hospital bills and prescription medications.

The plan faltered because young people weren’t interested in another monthly note, and the bill had Barack Obama’s name on it. Still, 20 million people were able to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act, even if many didn’t know it was Obamacare by another name. The mistake was allowing the insurance companies to remain in place to continue fleecing the populace, but that would require a public option, and you know how those free marketeers love their capitalism. It’s well known that the United States is the only country in the civilized world that doesn’t offer health care to its citizens as a right and not a privilege. A study by the Commonwealth Fund of the health-care systems in 11 developed countries found America dead last, despite our health care being the world’s most expensive.

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By contrast, just across the river from Detroit is the nation of Canada — less than half a mile away, but light years away in the care of its citizens. Health care in Canada works like Medicare for everyone, advocated by Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign. All medical expenses are free except dental and prescription drugs. The government keeps drugs cheap by negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies on a federal level. Bringing that model to this country would bring peace of mind to patients, free doctors from endless paperwork, and since the profit motive would be removed, there would be no need for fraud or superfluous hospital tests to run up Medicare bills that benefit someone’s bottom line. Of course, that would require that hospitals be funded by the public as part of the national budget. Now that the Jolly Orange Giant has turned his back on the health-care issue, he has focused his gaze on tax cuts for the wealthy. So there will be no universal health care during Trump’s tenure — however long that may be.

The reactionary Republicans voted to repeal Obamacare more than 60 times. They had seven years to come up with a replacement, and they couldn’t do it. Speaker Paul Ryan’s hastily constructed American Health Care Act couldn’t pass muster with the GOP Freedom Caucus, the group formerly known as the Tea Party. Although health-insurance lobbyists helped shape the bill that slashed funding for Medicaid so the poor would suffer first, it still wasn’t cruel enough for the hard-right zealots. Last-minute revisions intended to throw raw meat to the jackals included turning the funding of Medicare over to the states, giving “health-care tax credits” to the elderly, the immediate repeal of Obama’s taxes on the rich, and the instituting of a test for all “able-bodied adults” to pass a work requirement before being enrolled in Medicaid.

Americanspirit | Dreamstime.com

Donald Trump

Herr Trump blamed the Democrats for not voting to destroy President Obama’s signature achievement. Trumpcare went up in flames because of the activism of millions of people who opposed it and transformed town hall meetings into episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show. As it turns out, the public seems to like their Obamacare, which was formulated by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s and enacted into law by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land and a bruising defeat for the “Art of the Spiel.” Donald Trump rose to prominence by appearing in a reality TV show called The Apprentice. He should return to a career in reality television, only this time, Trump could be the host of The Biggest Loser.
Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

A Visit to Bizarro World

CREDIT: Americanspirit | Dreamstime.com

Though I’m going to write about something very serious, I would be remiss in not first mentioning the astonishing comeback victory of the Atlanta Falcons in Sunday’s Super Bowl. What a game for the ages!

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to say something that will be difficult for me, as a Hillary Clinton supporter. As we know, the election went as predicted, though Donald Trump did unexpectedly win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida, making the Electoral College vote closer than predicted. But that’s politics. Or so we thought.

The day after the election, we got the first indication that things might not go as expected. Clinton appeared to have an obsession with the electoral vote, claiming in speech after speech, even weeks after the election, that Republican “voter suppression” efforts had kept “millions of eligible voters” from being able to cast a ballot. Though urged by advisors to move on, she simply would not.

The week prior to her inauguration, CIA, FBI, and NSC leaders presented her with an intelligence report that showed that Russia had clearly interfered in the U.S. election and that several members of her campaign staff, including newly appointed National Security Chief John Podesta and Secretary of State designate Howard Dean, had been in Russia during the campaign and had regular phone and email contacts with Russian officials. Clinton denounced the report as “fake” and accused U.S. security agencies of leaking information to damage her, comparing them to Nazi Germany.

As Inauguration Day approached, some Democrats’ quiet fears were exacerbated when Clinton repeatedly boasted that she would have the “largest crowd to ever attend an Inauguration.”

When it turned out that Clinton’s Inaugural crowd was, in fact, smaller than most recent presidents’, Clinton called the National Park Service and demanded new aerial photos and sent her press secretary out to make assertions that were provably false.

Clinton next announced that her daughter, Chelsea, would become a chief advisor and would also run the Clinton Foundation. Chelsea’s husband, Wall Street banker Marc Mezvinsky, was named chief of staff. All of Clinton’s cabinet nominees were large funders of the Democratic Party and notably unqualified to run their designated agencies.

Finally, in a brazen move that stunned everyone, Clinton announced that “First Husband” Bill Clinton would not move into the White House, but would stay in a New York penthouse that would cost taxpayers $400,000 a day.

By this point, conservative talk radio and Fox News were going berserk, but we hadn’t seen anything yet. Clinton began issuing bizarre tweets, many apparently in reaction to what she was seeing on MSNBC and radical-left websites. She denounced any negative news or polls as “fake news” and disparaged a federal judge who halted one of her executive orders.

When she booted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of National Intelligence off of the National Security Council and replaced them with Podesta and socialist Bill Ayers, GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan went public, raising the question that many were asking privately: Is the president mentally fit to serve? They were joined by a few courageous Democrats who had seen enough.

The last straw came when Clinton, in an interview with Rachel Maddow, dismissed Maddow’s assertion that Vladimir Putin was a “killer” by saying “we’ve got killers, too, Rachel.” Later that evening, Clinton tweeted four times about the latest episode of The Bachelor, saying that Jessica should have never gotten in the hot tub with Jake.

Enough, already. My friends, as I said earlier, it truly hurts me to admit this, but I was wrong about Hillary Clinton. She is not a good president. She is mentally unfit to serve. I urge Congress to impeach her for the good of the country.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Dark Ages Coming?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen‘s cell phone rings in telephone calls to the theme song of the old Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson? Who knew?

Whatever the answer was before, the updated answer is: Everyone who attended the 9th District U.S. Representative’s annual public issues meeting for constituents, held on Monday in his third-floor office at the Federal Building downtown.

The bouncy chords of the Paul Anka-composed tune that used to signal “Here’s Johnny” rang out once during the nearly two hours of Q-and-A between Cohen and his overflow crowd, and that sound lasted just long enough for the congressman to put the phone on hold and stash it away.

Cohen himself was as accessible and upbeat as the tune suggested, and both were ironically at odds with the basic message the congressman had for his constituents. That was summed up in his statement: “We’re going into a new Dark Ages that will make Dwight Eisenhower look like a progressive.”

That’s understating the case a bit. Eisenhower, a tough but genial presence known to his generation as “Ike,” was the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe during World War II, and his popularity never sagged very much during the two terms he served as president from 1953 to 1961.

Historians, in fact, have already begun to locate Eisenhower on the moderate end of the political spectrum. In Cohen’s forecast of things to come, the administration of President-elect Donald Trump might well make such past Republican conservative figures as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan look like progressives.

Reviewing Trump’s cabinet appointments, for example, Cohen called Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions “the wrong person to be attorney general.” He regarded the president-elect’s designates for such agencies as the EPA, Energy, and Education as uniformly “awful,” enemies to the legitimate aims of their departments and cases of “the fox in the henhouse.” And, said Cohen, all the other appointees are “just billionaires.”

Said the congressman: “He’s cut out the middlemen; he’s put the billionaires in charge, which is called oligarchy. That happened in Russia, and it’s happening here.”

Cohen eased up only a bit for Elaine Chao, Trump’s Transportation Secretary designate. The congressman, a member of the Transportation Committee, said “I’ve met her; I know her. I’m going to try to get projects from her. Let’s leave it at that.”

The essence of Cohen’s forebodings was that the combination of a Republican Congress and President Trump would mean less money for desirable public programs, more privatization for the gratification of special interests, and an erratic foreign policy.

Cohen expressed some hope that a minority of relatively moderate Republican senators might be open-minded in forthcoming Senate hearings on the cabinet nominees. He named them as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona. “And, hopefully, Corker and Lamar” (Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander.) 

Asked if he had hopes of being able to have a useful conversation with Trump himself, Cohen said, “Dr. Shea has passed away,” a reference to the late Dr. John Shea of Memphis, famous for his work in improving or restoring faulty hearing.

“What Trump has done is unleashed people so they feel it’s a cool thing to be mean and that it’s okay, and it’s not a cool thing to do at all.”

The congressman noted the occasional strains that have occurred between Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. “He could get Paul Ryan upset. … He’s the guy who can bring an impeachment.”

Cohen had opened his meeting with constituents with a tease: “There’s an announcement coming.” He said that “in about three weeks, I’m going to be receiving a leadership position.” When that moment comes, Cohen said, it would mark the first time in 30 years that a Tennessean would be in the Democratic leadership.  

Jackson Baker

State Senator Randy McNally (R-Chattanooga) (center) was sworn in Monday as Tennessee’s new Senate Speaker and Lieutenant Governor.

• By a 7-4 vote on Monday, the Shelby County Commission approved another year’s appointment of former Commissioner Julian Bolton as special legal advisor to the Commission at a stipend of $65,000 a year. There were four nay notes — from David Reaves, Mark Billingsley, George Chism, and Steve Basar. The commission also approved a legislative package to present to the current session of the General Assembly.

• Deidre Malone, founder and CEO of the Carter Malone Group, a public affairs, advertising, and consulting firm, has been named chairperson of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP and will be installed as such in a ceremony on January 22nd. Malone is a two-time candidate for Shelby County mayor, a former Shelby County Commissioner, and a long-time eminence in civic and Democratic Party affairs, having served the last extant version of the local party as a vice chair. She also logged several years at WLOK-AM as a news reporter and anchor and at WMC-TV, Action News 5, as a producer.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

It’s Paul Ryan for Speaker — for better or worse

Want to hear a good one? For much of the last month, the House speakership being vacated by Representative John Boehner (R-Ohio) was going unfilled because the sizeable super-right minority of Republican House members who call themselves the “Freedom Caucus” were finding Boehner’s most likely replacement, Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) too “moderate” to hold the job.

Having basically run off Boehner and another possible successor to the leadership post — Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-California) — on grounds of being too soft toward President Obama or Planned Parenthood or congressional Democrats or whomever, the Freedom Caucus gang was surely choking on a gnat if they were gagging on Ryan, whose reason for entering politics had been his self-confessed youthful swoon for the writings of objectivist icon Ayn Rand.

Somehow, though, the far-right House members have apparently found themselves out of any other acceptable options, because the word is that, on Thursday of this week, the votes are on hand for Ryan to be elected as Speaker of the House, when Boehner formally steps down.

So Paul Ryan, who not too long ago was nominated by his party to be vice president, will have now slipped down a notch to become third-in-line for the presidency, no matter who gets elected president next year. That’s what the Constitution provides.

Never mind that Ryan has never forsworn the philosophy of Rand, whose guiding ethical principle was to trust in human selfishness as the only motive needed to guide the government of mankind. The speaker-to-be is still, so far as we know, an exponent of that 21st-century derivative of Randism which holds that society is divided into makers —the privileged minority who profess to need nobody’s help — and takers — the mass of mortals who, to one degree or another, require some measure of concern or assistance on the part of their government.

Not only is the makers/takers dichotomy an unethical point of view, it is woefully inaccurate, inasmuch as the supposed “makers” class contains as many moochers dependent on government protection of inherited wealth as it does innovators or manufacturers of tools necessary for life. And conversely, the so-called “takers” are often the toilers who provide the muscle or the man-hours to actually keep the wheels turning that allow the ticker tape (or, these days, the digital dial) to reflect some measure of economic progress.

Even so, we take our satisfaction when and as we can. And if the party that now controls both elected houses of Congress on the basis of its hatred of government per se is willing to name someone as leader who at least pledges — as Paul Ryan has done — to forgo the right to shut down government by rejecting a routine debt-ceiling increase, then maybe that’s the best we can hope for.

So here’s a weak whoopee that the GOP is willing to abide by some measure of economic common sense. Maybe they’ll even get tired at some point of exploiting Benghazi!

But that really would be asking too much.