elmac
elmac's JournalRepublicans loot the palace: GOPs plan to govern looks a lot like the way it rebuilt Iraq
We've seen this combination of shameless greed and incompetence before — when Republicans tried to govern Iraq
This week’s rollout of Paul Ryan’s “repeal and replace” Obamacare bill is an excellent reminder of what the country would look like if any Republican other than Donald Trump had won the presidency — not that different. We can now say for sure that the problem isn’t just that the party nominated an crude, unprepared conman for the top job. The problem is that the party itself is a big sloppy hot mess. How could we have forgotten?
Like the old Republican cry of “tort reform,” which nobody really understood, “Repeal Obamacare” became a slogan that would evoke lusty cheers from an audience of partisans. If you asked any of them what it meant in practice, not one could tell you. Not that it mattered. The whole issue was political kabuki once the Affordable Care Act was rolled out and tens of millions of people signed on to it, and the Republicans knew it. Their elected legislators just kept voting for repeals they knew would never be enacted and screaming their empty slogan at rallies to keep their base excited.
When Trump unexpectedly won the elections, after having promised that he too would “Repeal Obamacare!” and “replace it with something terrific” which he promised would happen immediately, cover everyone and be much cheaper and much better, Republicans were suddenly stuck with a problem that had no solution. Now that he’s president, Trump has discovered that “nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” Based on what we’re seeing from the GOP Congress, he’s actually right about that.
I won’t go into all the machinations here because they’re changing by the hour. First Trump’s on board and then he’s not and then he’s back on. (He’s been saying for weeks that he’d really prefer to let Obamacare fail — sabotage it from the executive branch —and then blame the Democrats.) He does not want people to call this monstrosity “Trumpcare” — but everyone is doing it anyway.
http://www.salon.com/2017/03/10/republicans-loot-the-palace-gops-plan-to-govern-looks-a-lot-like-the-way-they-rebuilt-iraq/
Mass grave of babies and children found at Tuam care home in Ireland
A mass grave containing the remains of babies and children has been discovered at a former Catholic care home in Ireland where it has been alleged up to 800 died, government-appointed investigators said on Friday.
Excavations at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, have uncovered an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains”, the judge-led mother and baby homes commission said.
The commission said analysis of selected remains revealed ages of the deceased ranged from 35 weeks to three years old. It found that the dead had been mostly buried in the 1950s, when the facility was one of more than a dozen in Ireland offering shelter to orphans, unmarried mothers and their children. The Tuam home closed in 1961.
The home, run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Catholic religious order of nuns, received unmarried pregnant women to give birth. The women were separated from their children, who remained elsewhere in the home, raised by nuns, until they could be adopted.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/mass-grave-of-babies-and-children-found-at-tuam-orphanage-in-ireland
Most died from neglect at the hands of nuns because they were born out of wedlock, pure evil cults.
Was downtown Muskegon built with Confederate Gold?
MUSKEGON, MI - The whereabouts of the Confederate treasury have been a mystery since the end of the Civil War, but two West Michigan men believe they've solved it.
One of the country's most illustrious mysteries, the theories about what came of the fabled "Confederate Gold" are as numerous as they are various.
Two history buffs are putting forward their own theory, one that feels like a real life "National Treasure" movie in which many seemingly unrelated events are brought together into one narrative. At the center of it is Muskegon's most generous philanthropist.
Charles H. Hackley, a lumber baron, is arguably the Lake Michigan community's most influential historical figure.
Although he has been dead for more than 100 years, his name lives on through his many gifts to the community, including Hackley Park, Hackley Public Library, Hackley Hospital and the Hackley Administration Building.
Yet, Hackley's legacy contains a mystery of its own.
When he died in 1905, his net worth was about $10 million, or $261 million in today's dollars, according to the Hackley and Hume papers at Michigan State University.
But a biography Hackley authorized in 1899, in which he gave notes to author Lois Haight, says that he earned $3 million in his lifetime.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2017/03/did_missing_confederate_gold_h.html
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Name: Mean GreenGender: Male
Hometown: Hell, MI
Home country: USA
Current location: Hell
Member since: Thu Oct 1, 2015, 08:45 PM
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