June 17, 2021: Republicans Having a Bad Month

  

6/17/21: June still isn’t going well for Republicans. Today the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge filed by the Trump administration and various GOP-controlled states, asking for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed. This was their third try to kill the 2010 law. The vote was 7-2. 

In a way, a good liberal such as this blogger can feel almost wistful about the Republican defeat – because if they had killed Obamacare, they would have had to trot out the plan Rejected-President Trump said they would have shortly after the November 2020 election. 

They don’t have any plan at all; and it would be nice for the American people to be able to see that.

U.S. Supreme Court.

 

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NEVERTHELESS, this week Congress got something right! First, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make June 19 a federal holiday, “Juneteenth” being the day in 1865, when the last roots of slavery were ripped up in Texas. In the House, the vote was 415 for, 14 against. All opposed were Republicans, including Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. Other “no” votes came from South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky, and a couple of other states. 

I think some of these GOP lawmakers miss slavery.

 

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ALSO, Rep. Paul Gosar – a dependably nutty member of Congress from Arizona – decided to vote “no.” 

He was busy insisting that the name of the Capitol Hill police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the January 6 riot be released. “It’s disturbing,” Gosar said, claiming Babbitt was “executed.” 

“The Capitol Police officer that did that shooting appeared to be hiding, lying in wait and then gave no warning before killing her.” 

Yeah, he should have just yelled loudly enough for the mob that was right behind Babbitt to hear, even though they were howling about killing House Speaker Pelosi and hanging VP Pence.

 

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WE ALSO LEARN today that Emergent, the manufacturer which signed a $628 million no-bid contract in May 2020, to produce coronavirus vaccines was so excited when it got the federal government’s business, that it awarded five company officials $8 million in cash and stocks. Emergent proceeded to botch production, spoil 75 million doses, and produce…so far…exactly 0 usable vaccines. 

In the Land of Trumplicans this proves we can always trust Big Business, but never Big Government, and we can never raise taxes on people like those who run Emergent and get fat payoffs. 

In related news, the Department of Education has decided to cancel $500 million in student loans owed to ITT Technical Institute, a for-profit college which profited greatly, mostly by defrauding students. This brings the total value of loans forgiven to $1.5 billion and covers 90,000 young Americans who were chiseled by for-profit operations, that specialized in profit, not education. 

The Department of Education has also announced that it will interpret provisions of Title IX as protecting transgender students from discrimination. This will no doubt enrage right-wing fans of discrimination.