Ideology kills

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And we don't need whistleblowers either, an intolerable intrusion on free market capitalism

WASHINGTON — After President Donald Trump took office, the US Department of Labor quietly removed a special website it created as a resource for current and former Wells Fargo employees on workplace issues, including whistle-blower retaliation complaints, according to a US lawmaker. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, sent a letter on Friday to acting Labor Secretary Edward Hugler after discovering on Tuesday that the site, www.dol.gov/wellsfargo, read: "Page not found." It is one of a growing number of web pages that have been removed since Trump became president. His administration also instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to remove pages on climate change.

Wells Fargo whistleblowers website vanishes after Trump takes office - Business Insider

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Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday vetoed a bill that would have expanded Medicaid to approximately 150,000 low-income Kansas residents. Brownback moved quickly to reject the bill. The legislature only officially delivered the legislation on Thursday morning, and he had 10 days to make a decision. Clearly the governor had already made up his mind.

Kansas governor vetoes Medicaid expansion, leaving 150,000 poor residents uncovered - Vox

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Well, even if it doesn't kill you it makes you sick..

More than 50 farmworkers in California became sick from pesticide drift, Kern Golden Empire reported, one month after a controversial pesticide was deemed safe to use by the Trump administration. On May 5, workers harvesting cabbage on a farm near Bakersfield were exposed to a “pesticide odor” from mandarin orchards in the west sprayed with Vulcan, an organophosphate-based chemical. The active ingredient in Vulcan is chlorpyrifos, a chemical linked to human health problems manufactured by Dow AgroSciences, a division of Dow Chemical. Chlorpyrifos was slated to be banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration.

Trump administration rejects ban on harmful insecticide, dozens of farmworkers get sick

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Here is Ben Bernanke former Fed chairman, when asked whether more could have been done for homeowners at the time of the financial crisis:

My perceptions of that effort, though, speaking from someone who was outside of that policy effort, was that there were two big sets of constraints. One was that it’s just a lot harder than you think to, for example, to modify or restructure mortgages when the borrower is possibly unemployed, possibly not interested in talking to the bank or participating in a program. It was awfully difficult as a practical manner to manage the restructuring programs.

But the other part was that, people don’t remember this necessarily, it was actually very politically unpopular to help troubled homeowners. And Congress put lots of restrictions on what could be done, and tried to make sure there wasn’t any significant subsidy, for example. So within the inherent logistical difficulties, which were substantial, and the political constraints from Congress, the Treasury was hampered, I think, in its efforts. It did make, I think, a good-faith effort, and it did help millions of people.

Again, whether a bigger effort would’ve had more effect on the recovery, I’m not sure that it was a first-order issue. It certainly would’ve helped a lot of individual people, a lot of families. From the political point of view, it cuts both ways. The story is that the Tea Party was triggered not by anger necessarily at the financial players, but at the idea that the government would be helping people who had “overborrowed” or been irresponsible in taking out mortgages.

Ben Bernanke explains what Donald Trump gets wrong on the economy - Vox

Saving the financial system was required stuff, without it the US economy would have spiralled down into a 1930s style depression. But saving families met with the ideologues..

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Ideology kills, that is, starves..

With two weeks until the election, Republican candidate Karen Handel has given her Democratic opponent a gift-wrapped present in the special election for an open Georgia House seat. At a debate on Tuesday, Handel said that she did not support a “livable wage” because she’s a conservative, not a liberal. Immediately, Democrat Jon Ossoff pounced on the admission, releasing an ad highlighting his support for the living wage. 

“This is an example of the fundamental difference between a liberal and a conservative: I do not support a livable wage,” Handel said, according to Talking Points Memo. “What I support is making sure that we have an economy that is robust with low taxes and less regulation.”

Georgia Republican candidate: “I do not support a livable wage” - Vox

The economy is the end in itself, whether it's good for a host of people doesn't matter. And this is a kind reading, a less kind one is that this robust economy with low taxes and less regulation is simply just a means to benefit the wealthy. 

There is, of course, a host of data to support the latter contention. Look no further than the repeal of Obamacare, an effort to reduce $1T of taxation on the rich, leaving 23M people uninsured and a host of vulnerable others (the old, the sick) with vastly more expensive healthcare. 

Or look at Trump's proposed budget, or the fact that there is no evidence tax cuts for the rich boost investment and growth, etc. etc.

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The ongoing Capitol Hill brawl over health care and budget cuts is getting Biblical.
In recent months, GOP lawmakers have taken to spouting Christian scripture to defend conservative fiscal policy and their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The first example came from Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who argued in early March that Jesus would support his criticism of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, as aspect of health care reform that extended insurance coverage to additional low-income Americans.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall told Stat News, quoting the Bible. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.” He added that “morally, spiritually, socially,” some poor and homeless people “just don’t want health care.”

Later that month, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) attempted to use scripture to justify increasing work requirements for unemployed adults who use food stamps. When a representative from a Jewish anti-hunger advocacy group cited a passage from Leviticus to argue that poor people who receive benefits should not be judged by constrictive work requirements, Arrington fired back with a line from the New Testament.

“Scripture tells us in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3:10…‘for even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: if a man will not work, he shall not eat,’” Arrington said. “And then he goes on to say ‘we hear that some among you are idle’ … I think it’s a reasonable expectation that we have work requirements.”

These statements from Arrington and Marshall are rooted in the same religious idea: that the poor and sick — or at least a subset thereof — supposedly deserve their plight, and healthy and more financially secure Americans shouldn’t be forced to care for them.

This theology has incensed many progressive Christians of late, but it didn’t appear overnight. It’s the result of a decades-long campaign by conservative lawmakers, intellectuals, and theologians to craft a theology that rejects longstanding Christian understandings of society’s needy. As debates over the budget and health care continue to escalate, it’s worth investigating the strange origins of the belief system being preached from GOP podiums.

The strange origins of the GOP ideology that rejects caring for the poor

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Ideology kills, or it takes advantage of killing:

The Republican Party chairman in Georgia's 11th Congressional District said that the shooting at a congressional baseball practice near Washington, D.C., will result in a GOP win in the state's special House election, The Washington Post reported. Brad Carver, the GOP chairman, said the shooting will drive moderates and independents to vote for Republican Karen Handel, the Post reported. “I’ll tell you what: I think the shooting is going to win this election for us,” Carver told the Post Saturday. “Because moderates and independents in this district are tired of left-wing extremism. I get that there’s extremists on both sides, but we are not seeing them.”

Georgia GOP district chairman: Shooting will win us the special election | TheHill

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The reverse Robin Hood of the Senate health reform plan, aka Trumcare, from Vox:

The Congressional Budget Office’s report now confirms it: Medicaid, a health service for poorer Americans, as well as the disabled and elderly, would see a $772 billion cut over the next 10 years. To what end? This chart in the CBO’s report is a telling diagram of why Republicans are trying so adamantly to gut the program: They’re trying to offset the cost of tax cuts to reduce the deficit. Here is the chart:
Congressional Budget Office
As you can see, on one side there are the parts of the health care bill that would increase the deficit, the majority of which come from the “repeal or delay of taxes on high income people, fees on manufacturers and excise taxes enacted under AHCA” — in other words, cutting taxes on the rich and corporations.

Then in the “savings column,” there is $772 billion from a “reduction and termination of enhanced federal matching funds” and “per capita-based cap on Medicaid payments.” This is in reference to the part of the health care bill that looks to phase out Medicaid expansion in 2021 and restructure funding for the program that would ultimately result in less funding to states for Medicaid.

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Compassionate conservatism in action..

First denying that there are cuts to Medicaid (as recent as yesterday), now a different story, equally harsh..

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway says people on Medicaid who will lose coverage under the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare could find jobs that provide health insurance. When the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid coverage, Conway said, that "opened it up" to healthy people who could theoretically work, Conway told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

As Jonathan Cohn points out in the Huffington Post, however, Conway's reasoning is faulty: "The majority of able-bodied adults on Medicaid already have jobs. The problem is that they work as parking lot attendants and child care workers, manicurists and dishwashers ― in other words, low-paying jobs that typically don't offer insurance. Take away their Medicaid and they won't be covered."

Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation bears that out: "Among Medicaid adults (including parents and childless adults — the group targeted by the Medicaid expansion) nearly 8 in 10 live in working families, and a majority are working themselves." Fifty-nine percent of them work either part or full time. Their jobs, however, do not offer health insurance.

Kellyanne Conway: Those on Medicaid who will lose insurance can get jobs

And it was the white working class that tilted the election towards Trump, right? They are the ones that will be suffering.

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And this is how their media defend it..

We’re all going to die. Many of us, however, hope to put that day off as long as possible. That insight appears to be lost on Fox News’ Lisa Kennedy Montgomery. During a discussion about Senate Republicans’ decision to temporarily pull the plug on Trumpcare on Tuesday evening, Kennedy criticized progressive “hysteria” about the bill, which would cost 22 million Americans their health care, since “we’re all going to die” anyway. “You know what, at least they are not employing any hyperbole at all. No exaggeration, no hysteria,” she said. “You know what the crazy thing is? We’re all going to die. And they can’t predict — there’s no way unless they are absolutely psychic and have a party line to heaven, they don’t know who’s going to die or when or how many people.”

Fox News host argues stripping coverage from millions is no biggie since ‘we’re all going to die’