In an idiotic ceremony today, Trump hurled a blazing molotov cocktail into the nation’s health insurance program by abruptly ending $7 billion of subsidies that make insurance affordable for millions of Americans.  Every health organization opposed the move, but he predictably did it anyway, and all the normal morons showed up at the WH today to celebrate killing off poor Americans.

Trump has already cut the enrollment period for 2018 in half, cut the advertising budget by 90% and slashed the navigator program which helps people enroll.  Even though the ACA survived repeal by the knuckle draggers in Congress, it looks like Trump was the useful idiot who signs everything put in front of him, and he did it again today.

Hopefully, when the program implodes, voters will understand who did it, but I’m not holding my breath.

While the media was obsessing this weekend over Trump’s latest foul-mouthed tirade, his staff extended the Muslim travel ban and Republicans in the Senate wrote in more payoffs to hold out Senators to get them to vote for gutting the US healthcare system.  This has become a common occurrence since Cheeto Jesus infested the WH, and I don’t believe it’s a strategy put in place by him; I believe it’s a strategy developed by very evil and very smart people who are exploiting his proclivity for attention-getting bombast.

Trump’s childish tirades and embarrassing behavior are well known.  They’re also predictably unpredictable.  Almost every time he engages in outrageous behavior, his staff slips something out to the public – unwinding environmental protections, rounding up immigrants, issuing some other cringe-inducing executive order.

This weekend, Trump attacked NFL and NBA players for various fake affronts.  Steph Curry declined to come to the WH with his NBA team, so Trump rescinded the invitation in a Twitter based insult.  Later, in one of his silly campaign rallies, this time in Alabama in support of appropriately named Luther Strange, Trump started his war on NFL players who refuse to stand for the national anthem as a form of protest against violence against racial minorities by police.

During the ensuing firestorm, his staff issued a new travel ban, adding countries to the existing ban that has been blocked by the courts.  Also, under the cover of this circus, Senate Republicans added payoffs for Arizona, Kentucky, and Alaska to the latest effort to destroy healthcare for millions of Americans in an effort to get yes votes from John McCain, Rand Paul, and Lisa Murkowski.

Stayed outraged.  But pay attention.

As we’ve all heard, the latest iteration of the GOP’s “Appeal and Replace”, better known as “Search and Destroy”, died last night when two conservative senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas, said they couldn’t vote for the bill because it didn’t wreak enough havoc or kill enough Americans to suit them.  Later in the evening, TurtleNeck McConnell predictably announced that the Senate would then just vote to repeal with no replacement so even MORE people would die.  That idiotic notion died a sudden death today when less insane Republicans said no to that.  So what is left of this issue, Donald Trump’s biggest promise to his red-capped mobs who voted for him?  This:

For the Republicans, who are hell-bent on erasing Barack Obama from the history books to satisfy their mouth breather base, they can only offer Kabuki, or highly stylized and exaggerated staging, like signing ceremonies for letters, executive orders, and silly truck shows on the White House lawn to make it look like they’re really doing something when they’re not.

In these days of clowns, carnival barkers, and totalitarians infesting the White House, I’ll certainly take nothing over something, which is what the Congress is producing, at least so far.

Welp, the Senate bill is out, and you guessed it right, it sucks just about as badly as the House version.  What I can’t get over is the name.  Why do they do that?  I mean like the Clear Skies Act – that allows more pollution to be emitted…into the sky; the Internet Freedom Act – that destroys network neutrality.  Today’s doozy is the Better Care Act – that kicks millions off of health insurance, cuts Medicaid expansion, allows states to opt out of essential coverages, eliminates the individual mandate, and just for good measure, defunds Planned Parenthood.  Hoorah.

As Vox puts it in their analysis, it helps the healthy and wealthy, and hurts the sick and poor.  How patriotic.  You know one thing, though – if Republicans give a name to something – just apply the antonym.

After watching the cynical self-congratulatory beer bust in the WH rose garden on Thursday, I found myself not just angry or disappointed; I was enraged.  The arrogant, taunting, narcissistic, boasting Cheeto-skinned parasite currently infesting Our House, along with virtually every gerrymandered-in weirdo and screwball in DC made me want to throw my shoe through the screen.

That rage came alive on Friday morning when, on Facebook, one of my conservative friends expressed frustration with Republicans voting to strip him of his healthcare because of his pre-existing condition. Immediately, one of his more conservative friends responded about how wonderful the new bill was and that it would “help many”.   Enough was enough; I launched on him, pointing out that the bill was rushed through the House without representatives reading it, it wasn’t scored by the CBO, and that early readings by the media were pointing out its legion of flaws, including re-introducing lifetime and annual caps, restoring exclusion of pre-existing conditions, slashing of Medicaid, slashing healthcare for special needs kids, etc., etc.  His defense?  Lying.  Not just spinning, outright lying.

He argued that they caps are not part of the bill when they are.  He argued that health savings accounts would cover the shortfalls (which is laughable; when’s the last time you saw someone pay a $300,000 chemotherapy bill with an HSA?); he argued that this bill was an actual effort to improve healthcare when, in fact, it was just a disguised tax cut.  When challenged, he said, “Well, the bill’s not finished.”  Not finished?  They already voted for it in the House!  They went to the WH and celebrated!

In fact, this last statement was the only thing that he had said that was true…it wasn’t finished.  It still must go to the Senate where it most certainly won’t survive, at least in its current form.  The defense of this bill is built on lies.  It has to, because math is math.  You cut a trillion dollars out of healthcare, and millions will suffer, and no lie justifying it can change that.  You place caps on coverage, people will die.  You exclude pre-existing conditions, people will die.  It’s like gravity; those truths are just there.

So, what was this all about?  That’s easy – it’s Kabuki.  It’s a glittery show for the base voters of this crowd in DC who waste a lot of oxygen trying to meet there demands of erasing President Obama’s name from history regardless of damage to millions of Americans.  I believe that Trump and conservatives in the House realize that the chance of actually repealing the ACA is slim, therefore the shameful display in the rose garden.  With any luck, this will be the only celebration they hold cheering on the deaths of millions of Americans.

Welp, no one can accuse this president of being consistent.  In fact, the only consistent trait Trump possesses is inconsistency.  His administration swerves from ditch to ditch worse than a drunk driver on a three day bender at the local watering hole, and this week’s swerving has been epic.  Yesterday, in an interview with Fox Noise Business, Trump reversed himself from putting tax reform cuts first to going back once again to urinate on people who need healthcare.  Then, in an interview with the WSJ, he declared that he’s going to “force” Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to negotiate by cutting off federal Obamacare subsidies, which will destroy the program for millions of poorer Americans.

Let’s get this straight – Trump who is already holding poor Americans hostage is now threatening to kill those hostages to force the Democrats to the table.  What a dumbass (sorry, Momma).  If the ACA fails on Trump’s watch destroying Trump’s voters’ health insurance, guess what happens in 2018 and 2020?  Yep, you guessed it, ol’ Dandy Don Meredith will be heard singing “Turn out the lights…” to the GOP.

The real tragedy here is that Trump and the Knuckle Draggers have painted themselves into a real corner here by chanting the “repeal and replace” mantra for 7 years.  All of Obamacare’s problems can be solved if only an adult stood up and stopped the nonsense.  For instance, Alaska solved its problem of skyrocketing premiums by diverting some tax revenues to supplement money being paid out by insurance companies to the sickest insured Alaskans.  The result?  This year’s premium increased dropped from 42% to 7%, and Obamacare continues to function.  The state is also setting up a reinsurance fund to stabilize its market.  Alaskan elected officials are considering introducing legislation to federalize the program.  How novel – working to actually fix a problem rather than burning it down.