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Okay, this just astounds me.

They know how awful this bill is.  They know it would kill people.  They just don’t care.

Thanks to Bryan for the heads up.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has champagne taste on a taxpayer’s budget.

He likes those private jets.

You will remember Price as the guy who made stock trades in health-care companies while serving on a House panel overseeing Obamacare and other health issues.

He has also positioned himself as a champion of fiscal efficiency, backing major spending reductions to agencies he oversees and legislation that would cull hundreds of billions of dollars from health entitlement programs.

Price spent $60,000 of your money on private jets in a two day period.  All other cabinet secretaries travel commercial.

The only explanation Price has?  “I’m a very busy man.”  Well hell, child, so am I, but I don’t call a limo to drive me to the damn grocery store and then send you the bill.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up. 

Senator Chuck Grassley ain’t well-known for his intellect.  I thought I would possibly be the last person on earth to celebrate that.

But, things have gotten weird.  Really weird.

Grassley supports the Graham-Cassidy bill and, bless his heart, took to the airwaves to explain why.

“You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered,” Grassley said. “But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.”

In normal times, you’d think that being totally political would be one of the reasons NOT to support the bill.  But, these are weird times.

It appears that removing the word “Obamacare” far outweighs putting 10 million people off healthcare.

Grassley does not stop with the admission the Republican plan is solely a political move and heath care be damned. Oh no, he also explains why state boundaries were originally set for health care reasons.

We’ve been getting some interesting responses to our post earlier this week about flood ravaged Little Cambodia and how two “citizen organizations” took over, and announced that FEMA was not welcome.  Yes, you, Rick and Cowboy (officers of the motorcycle club Confederate Riders of America), you said it.  ON TELEVISION.  YOU determined YOU were in charge and the YOU were having a meeting with FEMA because, “They came in here blind.”  So, guys parading around in black leather vests covered in white supremacist imagery declared themselves in charge.  Teamed up with Portland Oregon militia group American Freedom Keepers, fresh off their mission of “protecting” racists and white supremacists in Charlottesville Virginia, with CRA just up and decided who was going to get help and when, and when the federal government could come in.  I’ve been wondering who died and put them in charge?

We’ve been getting some pretty lively feedback on our post from some of these folks and their supporters, acting shocked and saying things like, “…there’s not a racist bone in my body…” and other such declarations, exactly as we said they would in the original post.  Essentially, it’s “How can we be racists?  We’re helping Asian people.”  Of course.  And we’re supposed to ignore your statements and actions immediately prior to this disaster.

There are several issues here –

• First, and let’s be clear…these people desperately need help, and these organizations are helping.  Houses are getting cleaned up, some supplies are making it in.  However,
• They have clearly delayed federal response by at least a week, maybe longer.  They’ve delayed residents getting federal aid. They’ve taken up time with law enforcement.  FEMA representatives felt threatened, and I’m betting they weren’t scared by the muddy streets.
• Third, who the hell put these guys in charge?  That’s the weird thing about these goofy citizen and militia groups.  They somehow believe that they can show up with rifles slung, declare themselves in charge, and just take over.  Like one of our readers said, it’s like watching one of those old westerns where the evil rancher shows up with a bunch of his ranch hands and just takes over the town.  These goofballs do this all the time…they think they can put on some camo and body armor, whip out their AR-15s, wrap a shemagh around their necks, put in an earpiece, and all of a sudden they’re “peacekeepers”.  Yes, peacekeepers who get in the way of actual police trying to keep the peace.
• And last, but not least, when you dress in racist symbols or paramilitary gear, openly carry weapons, support white supremacist demonstrations, do YouTube videos about “protecting our southern heritage”, so and and so forth, you can’t then be shocked when normal people make the observation that maybe, just maybe, you actually are a racist.  Feigning shock at that glaring fact is not convincing.

Yeah, yeah, and I’m not going to listen to your  bullshit about how being the “Confederate” Riders is not racist.  The entire confederacy was about the belief in the superiority of the “white race” over the “lesser race” and the “permanence” of this superiority.  It’s especially odd that some groups, like the CRA, wear BOTH the American flag and the Confederate battle flags.  You do know that the Confederacy rebelled against the US government, right?  You know they committed treason, right?  Oh, and they also lost.  How inconvenient.  So, you can’t honestly say you’re for your “Confederate heritage” AND support the Constitution.  Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Oh, and before you blather on about the Confederacy being about states rights and your “heritage” let me just interrupt you with a direct quote from declaration of secession made by the State of Texas, February 2, 1861:

“She [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery–the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits–a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy.” (emphasis mine)

So, I’m not going to allow you to blather unchallenged about you not being racists.  Oh, and one last thing.  Let’s look at some pictures and we’ll let people judge for themselves whether you “fine folks” are racist or not:

Confederate Riders Patch

Nazi Cross

Skinhead Cross

White Supremacist Black Saltire

KKK Cross

Confederate Battle Flag

Remember the white supremacists chanting “Blood and Soil!” during their march in Charlottesville?  The chant is part of the German Nazi tradition of , “Blut und Boden”, based on blood descent and inherited land.  In other words, the right of the white race to dominance in their homeland. In Nazi and White Supremacist symbolism, the red represents the Blood, and the black represents the Soil.  The similarities between these symbols and the CRA patches are striking and certainly don’t look simply circumstantial.  If they are, you can certainly understand the confusion of normal people when we see them.  So, if the shoe fits…

You guys want to really help?  Take your guns and put them in the truck.  Pack up your camo and black leather.  Act like normal people wanting to help and cooperate with local and federal officials.  We’re not Somalia where it’s every man for himself.  We’re also not a military dictatorship. We’re a civilized society.  I suggest you join it and put all that self-righteous “peacekeeper” and “southern heritage” BS aside so these people can get back on their feet (and you can then go home and leave us alone).

Florida Republican State Senator Jack Latvala doesn’t take guff off anybody.

He’s a stand-up guy who will tell you how the cow ate the cabbage.

Florida state senator [Latvala] who is running for governor said this week that he would punish Duke Energy for its slow response after Hurricane Irma by refusing their donations for one campaign cycle.

“In this cycle,” Latvala told the Times, “I’m done taking money from them.”

Well, that’ll show ‘um, dammit.

Rep. Chris Sprowls (R) also promised to “ask a lot of difficult questions.”

And there will be no grading on the curve.

Thanks to SGray for the heads up.