This is a piece of work, encapsulating the cluelessness of the average Republican, going into a presidential election year, where the GOP is likely to lose badly. The news clip came out this morning as part of an endorsement of Jim Jordan. A few pundits saw this as the jewel it was and lo and behold, within hours who else but the Lincoln Project turned it into an ad. They didn’t have to embellish a thing. It’s like that legal phrase, res ipsa loquitor, the thing speaks for itself. Here is Rep. Tom Cole (R:Oblivion) digging one hell of a hole for the Republican party in 2024.
Oralé Resisters
Happy Speakerween #SeditiousSpeakerJordan #Speakerween pic.twitter.com/GWLTwhfL26— Ruben Garcia (@goRubenRuben) October 18, 2023
Those grey haired folks are not going to be the only ones in the Republican party voting for Joe Biden if this madness keeps up.
A majority of people in America live from paycheck to paycheck. That’s plain reality. It’s also reality that people don’t have a lot of money in savings for emergencies. It’s also reality that credit card debt is as high as it is. Yet right here, Tom Cole made no bones about the fact that the basics of health care and basic living expenses in one’s old age are now on the chopping block.
And Cole is far and away not the only one. Go listen to some clips of Utah Senator Mike Lee saying the exact same thing. The Republican answer to balancing the budget is to get rid of debt by letting the poor and the middle class die without health insurance — or simply starve to death without even the basic funding of a Social Security check in one’s old age.
Even with Medicare in force the system is not perfect. Medicare should be a given, but in fact it’s not. The Medicare premium is something you have to pay for if you “make too much money.” I’ll explain why that’s in quotes. Just this month I found out that I can no longer get my Medicare premium paid for by the state. Why? Because if I make even $6.00 a month from blogging (or anything else) and I do make that much, the state will no longer pick up the tab. So now I have to eat it and pay the premium myself. This is the second time in ten years this has happened to me but last time I won the appeal. Now there’s nothing to appeal. And I’m also in the position of having to pay for secondary health care insurance out of my own pocket, or pony up co-pays on my own.
That’s the bad news, but the good news is that with what my Social Security check increased last year and will increase this year with the COLA adjustment, it’s not going to be that much of a burden. If Trump was in office and there were no increases to Social Security — not to mention everything else that would be going to hell — I don’t even want to think about it.
Bottom line, if Medicare wouldn’t be there, somebody like me could just die because I’m in no position to pay some fancy $2,000 a month health care premium. I never have been. When I was in the work world I either worked for an employer who paid health care benefits or when I didn’t, I just did without. The majority of us are in that position.
And my ego tells me that my life is worth something and I deserve to be here blogging, and other people like me deserve to do what they want to, when they hit a certain age. Medical care should be a right. Most civilized nations on this planet have paid health care for their citizens. Here in America, basic health care is insanely expensive to begin with and treated like some privilege that only the wealthy deserve. And that’s how the GOP, the “party of personal responsibility,” wants to handle it.
And may I remind you that the Republicans weren’t going to touch Roe v. Wade? You saw how that worked out.
And now we get to the part which shows you how sublimely stupid this idea is to begin with.
And they know this as well as we do. The point is that the Republicans who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare and particularly Medicaid simply want to eradicate any kind of a social safety net whatsoever. They want the rich to have everything, the poor to have nothing, and most of the middle class to be wiped out. The middle class has been shrinking for a while now.
And if they would achieve this? Look for unemployment insurance to be cut next. Look for emergency services to be reduced. Look for the cost of education to go up even more than it has, and the ability to finance an education to become more difficult. If you’re going to put together an oligarchy, you need to provide for the rich and the non-rich can get screwed. That’s how it works. I got mine, you go get yours.
Jim Jordan the election denying conspiracy theorist who was ginning up the Stop The Steal rabble on January 6 was a bad bargain before Tom Cole opened his mouth. Now we see why Jordan absolutely should never be Speaker. Not for the one year until the election, not for one minute.
And then they get French Revolution, American style. Will the rich taste as good as their self indulgence would indicate?
Only if you can tolerate lots of fat in your diet.
greg abbott is getting obsessed with school vouchers for private schools. Every one knows this is a huge tax give away from poor people who cannot afford private schools being given to middle class and rich people who are sending their children to private schools. tax the poor give to the rich. rich white parents will get a huge payday at their exclusive christian schools that do not accept children with disabilities. Poor darker skinned folks and families with disabled children will have less resources at their public schools. Take from the poor give to the rich from Monty Python.
When the wealthy have all of everything, the middle class is gone, and the rest of us have starved to death, or died from lack of medical care, will the wealthy be able to eat their money?
If you want to see how a society works like this check out India, Pakistan, or Somalia.
We’re getting a long way from the shining city on the hill.
Here’s to hoping the American public are paying attention and also believe what the putz said.
I can see an ad using the Benny Hill theme song coming.
Here is a satire by Tom Rush about the poor and the rich. This was written by Josh Brackett.
It answers the question of what’s wrong with america.
Yes Ursula, I was on the dole. Got the bright idea I could go to work and do alright. They told me I could keep my Medicare and all that. They were full of shit. The employer forces you to sign up or you can walk out the door. The insurance was crap. Didn’t cover anything. And I have issues that require prescriptions. There goes at least one paycheck a month, guaranteed. Oh I could work overtime but that requires more crap. Then girlfriends aunt got sick and she wanted to see her. So I drove her to Memphis and back. Messed myself up in the process. Had to take couple days off. Then doctors put me on light duty. All they did was give a different job. Well twisted wrong and that was it. Doctors said my name and work wouldn’t be in same sentence again. Let’s just say they were highly amused.
And by the way. The aunt had cancer. They think they got it all but she went septic and died about four weeks after the surgery. At least my girlfriend got to see her while she was still alive.