Last Call For Will To Powerless

The Party of Trump has lost long-time conservative WaPo curmudgeon and weird baseball fetishist George F. Will, who has apparently tendered his party affiliation in a fit of pique.

Will, who writes for the Washington Post, acknowledged it is a “little too late” for the Republican Party to find a replacement for Trump but had a message for Republican voters.

“Make sure he loses. Grit their teeth for four years and win the White House,” Will said during an interview after his speech at a Federalist Society luncheon.

Will said he changed his voter registration this month from Republican to “unaffiliated” in the state of Maryland.

“This is not my party,” Will said during his speech at the event.

He mentioned House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) endorsement of Trump as one of the factors that led him to leave the party.

Here's the kicker:

Will, a Fox News contributor, said a “President Trump” with “no opposition” from a Republican-led Congress would be worse than a Hillary Clinton presidency with a Republican-led Congress.

Which, if you think about it, that's bonkers, and this is how I know he's lying.  Trump with a GOP Congress would be the Dubya years unchained, would almost certainly lead to a 6-3 SCOTUS conservative majority, and effectively the end of the New Deal and Great Society eras that have defined modern liberalism for the last 80 years.  The Republicans would have nearly unfettered control of the entire US government and total control of at least half the states and the Democrats would be relegated to a being a coastal, urban party.

In part, it would be exactly what Will has said that he has wanted for decades. And you want me to believe that he's bailing on Trump out of principle after helping to create and enabling his rise?

That's hysterical.  Tell me another knee-slapper like this, laughing this hard burns a respectable amount of calories.

It's far more likely that Will is walking away from this slow-motion car crash so he can say "See? Trump failed our conservative values, but I was smart enough to know better."  He's saving his career, is what he's doing.

Nothing more, nothing less.  Count on it.

Waging Concession Negotiations

The Sanders camp is starting to get concessions from Clinton and the DNC as far as this year's official party platform, and the first is something America needs to get behind: a federal $15 minimum wage.

Democrats' platform drafting committee took a first step toward giving Bernie Sanders a major concession, voting to adopt language in support of a $15 minimum wage. The committee, which will continue drafting the party's guiding document Saturday, also aligned itself with Sanders's support for progressive ideas such as abolishing the death penalty and expanding Social Security, the Associated Press reported. The minimum wage language adopted echoes a common refrain by Sanders, who has called the current federal minimum of $7.25 a "starvation wage."

The platform also tackles financial reform, calling for "an updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall."

Sanders has refused to suspend his campaign and endorse Clinton despite the fact that she has clinched the nomination. He has turned his focus to instilling progressive ideas into the party's platform — the party adopting proposals in support of a $15 minimum wage and free college tuition could factor into Sanders's potential support of Clinton.

"Right now, to be very frank with you, we are talking to the Clinton campaign to try to determine whether or not they can come up with some very serious proposals which will help us transform America," Sanders said to supporters at a rally in Albany, N.Y., Friday. "Whether it will happen or not — that's a good question. I don't know. We are working with them right now."

Clinton has proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $12 but has expressed support for movements calling for $15 in places like New York and Los Angeles.

Considering California and New York have already beaten Clinton to the punch on that, it's good to see yet more evidence that Clinton is trying to accommodate the Sanders position on things in the name of unity, that's how it's supposed to work.

Having said that, hey Bernie folks? You will never, ever, ever, ever, ever see a dime increase in the federal minimum wage in this country again as long as Republicans control either chamber of Congress.

Help Democrats fix that in November.

Thanks.

Dispatches From Bevinstan, Con't

The unstoppable Obamacare analysis machine that is Richard Mayhew takes a look at Gov. Matt Bevin's new Kentucky HEALTH Medicaid waiver and nails him to the wall in one paragraph:

The only way money is being saved as per person costs are either the same or higher is by covering fewer people. The way that Kentucky will cover fewer people is by putting up half a dozen barriers to enrollment. Premiums, health savings accounts, limited open re-enrollment periods, benefit lock-outs and job training requirements all are barriers. Individually any of those barriers might only knock a few people out from the pool, but they are a bewildering array of complexity when put together. The goal of this type of waiver design is to reduce costs by making more people go without insurance.

And if all that sounds familiar, that's the same exact plan Republicans are using to keep people from voting, to keep people from getting abortions, and to keep people from taking advantage of a host of other government programs.  If you make it too obnoxious to get, then people will start going without it.

Bevin is no different.  His plan is designed to kick people off the Medicaid rolls, period, and claim that they're too lazy to jump through the hoops he set up to get back on.  It's not his fault people aren't going to do all the things he's making them do in order to get health coverage, you see, it just weeds out the bad ones.

The reality is far different, but Bevin doesn't care.  Once again, we punish the poors and tell ourselves that if we ever needed Medicaid, that we would follow all the rules out of "dignity".

And this state will buy that line of crap every time.