NEW NOTE: I am not suggesting we FORGIVE or SUPPORT Rubin. I am suggesting that many of her posts reflect just how divisive it is getting for the GOP and it will only get worse. There are nuggets in her works to use in our own battles as we approach 2018.
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I am sure that I will one day again go back to muttering under my breath and swearing at Jennifer Rubin over policy issues. Oh, how I miss those days when Rubin, David Frum, George Will and other GOP pundits irritated me daily based on issues. Seems like many years ago.
However, I must admit that some of the most biting, spot on attacks on Trump and his Congressional hacks are coming from several GOP Never Trumpers. Rick Wilson is hilariously demeaning on Twitter and I highly recommend following him. For example.
The star of this week’s Never Trumpers Revenge has to be Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post. She is on fire with FIVE columns today alone! I focus on just three of them below… the ones that do the most damage.
#1 Why this clown Congress won’t accomplish anything:
Rubin notes that Congressional leaders will likely try to blame dysfunctional Trump White House for its inevitable failures to get anything notable done this session. But, wait:
All that is true, and yet Congress has only itself to blame for what now appears to be a year in which the repeal and replacement of Obamacare goes nowhere and tax reform never happens.
She especially calls out Speaker Paul Ryan whose “A Better Way” task force report emphasized transparent, conscientious lawmaking and the commitment to rigorous oversight. But...
(These) have been sacrificed in a spasm of partisanship and frenetic rush to give the president quick wins on immensely complicated legislation. The result has been the most haphazard, counterproductive and unpopular major piece of legislation ever to pass the House, the American Health Care Act. Passed with no Congressional Budget Office score (due out this afternoon), no fact-gathering hearings and no consultation with Democrats, the process by which the AHCA passed guaranteed a substantively incoherent product. That is precisely what the House delivered, a bill so bad that the Senate has chosen to ignore it entirely and start anew.
Apparently things are not going any better in the Senate with all health care discussion behind closed doors with no experts nor actuarials, as reported by Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) and posted here in Daily Kos yesterday.
Rubin several very unflattering reasons why the development of legislation is happening in such a secretive, haphazard manner:
- GOP leaders don’t trust many of their own members.
- GOP has never really wrestled with fundamental questions about health care.
- The GOP’s own lack of patience fed the White House conviction “that all of this could be done quickly and easily.”
- What they are trying to do is highly unpopular with Americans.
Rubin closes with this bomb:
Republicans’ performance to date suggests that the GOP is not capable of governing. Thankfully, in a democratic system, there is a solution for that.
#2 The Trump Team’s five major shams
In this column, Rubin states that the Trump administration has demonstrated an unusual degree of intellectual dishonesty.” These are illustrated by five shams:
- A refusal to admit that they are reneging on the vow to not touch entitlement programs.
(NOTE:I especially enjoyed the exchange she provided verbatim between reporter John Harwood and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in which Munchin spins himself into a sweaty knot.)
- A refusal to admit that it is engaged in a massive giveaway to rich.
- An inability to provide any plausible explanation for why its policies won’t create huge increases in the national debt.
- A refusal to admit the anti-growth aspect of its immigration policies.
- A refusal to produce an budget that has any chance of passing.
#3 Republicans are in deep trouble in 2018
Posted at just 1:15 pm today, this article looks at recent analyses by Cook Political Report and Roll Call that show growing enthusiasm for Democrats in Congresssional races for 2018. Here is what Roll Call posted earlier today:
The midterm elections are still nearly a year and a half away, and the political dynamics could yet change, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that history and the current environment are merging together for a potentially great set of elections for Democrats in November 2018.”
Rubin also included today’s Monmouth poll, which has terrible news about public perceptions of Trump. He is clearly losing ground, even growing percentages of GOP respondents, on such issues as draining the swamp, health care and dealing with important issues. She sums this up:
Even aside from its inexcusable laxity in policing ethics, financial impropriety and possible obstruction of justice, the GOP seems headed for a wipeout, unless it can rid itself of the Trump albatross and reset its agenda.