The Republican Healthcare Plan & Trump's Budget Proposal

  After more than 60 attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Republicans have finally revealed their healthcare plan. This plan, called the American Health Care Reform Act of 2017 is their answer to the ACA. In typical Republican fashion, this bill sticks it to the poor, sick and elderly while giving massive tax cuts to the rich. Some questions and answers regarding the Repuclicans health care plan can be found here. Needless to say, the majority of people disapprove of the plan. Senate Republicans still don't like the plan and the CBO reports that while premium costs for young, healthy people would go down, for many others, like the elderly and those with pre existing conditions, the rates will increase significantly.
  Trump and the Republicans seem to love fucking over the average American citizen while dumping large sums of money into the pockets of the extremely wealthy. Trump's budget asks for deep cuts to social programs and Medicaid while providing tax cuts that benefit primarily himself and the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The people that elected this tangerine turd blossom are the very people he's screwing over the most. And, to make matters worse, many of these idiots will likely vote for him again should he run for reelection in 2020.

The Ideal Republican Constituent

  Rich, white, Christian, conservative, straight, cisgender and male. This is the ideal Republican constituent. The closer you are to this ideal, the more likely it will be that they will lick the shit out of your asscrack in order to cater to you. The farther you are from this ideal, the more likely it is that they will pass laws depriving you of your rights, costing you more money and ruining the environment where you live. The reason Republicans are so gung-ho about repealing the Affordable Care Act is because it taxes the rich. Golden Showers pick to head the EPA, Scott Pruitt, frequently tries to undermine laws protecting the environment. Betsy DeVos, Golden Shower's choice for Education Secretary has proven woefully incompetent for the job she now has. The real reason she was appointed was so more federal tax money could end up funding Christian schools in violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. They want to create a Christian nation in violation of Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli. Christian supremacists must be ecstatic over Golden Shower's pick. Steve Mnuchin, our new Treasury Secretary is exactly the kind of person Golden Shower railed against during his campaign. Wall Street looks to make massive profits under Trump's administration while the rest of us suffer. Conspiracy theorists Monica Crowley and Michael Flynn were picked to be the National Security Council's senior director of strategic communications and National Security Advisor respectively. Republicans only care about the average person during election time when they need their votes. The rest of the time they cater only to their ideal constituents. If the Supreme Court ever declares that money equals votes, they'll be able to ignore the average person completely.

Shitting Down Our Throats...

...and calling it chocolate pudding. That's what Trump a.k.a. Golden Shower and his propaganda monkeys Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway are doing to America. Their disinformation campaign is trying to rewrite history in order to suit Golden Shower's fragile ego. Conway has called for Trump's media critics to be fired. When it was thought that the Quebec mosque attack was committed by a  Moroccan Muslim, Spicer made it a point to mention this to the media in order to justify Golden Shower's Muslim ban. When it was revealed that the attack was, in fact, committed by a white French Canadian, both he and Golden Shower ignored it. Of course, Fox News, right wing propaganda monkeys all, joined in the spreading of the disinformation. White supremacists groups are celebrating the fact that Golden Shower is removing them from the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program. Steve Bannon, racist Breitbart fuckwad, has made it clear that the media will listen to Sean Spicer and like it.
  Trump is little more than a racist, misogynistic, homophobic narcissist suffering from delusions of grandeur. Anyone with dissenting views becomes the object of his wrath. This piss colored fuckwad wants to be God King Emperor for life of the United States and expects everyone to goose step in unison at his every proclamation. Sadly, Paul Ryan and other Republicans have proven to be little more than craven pathetic lackeys to our piss colored President. Orwell's Ministry of Truth is alive and well and exists in Trump's America. We are well and truly fucked.

"Alternative Facts"

  Trump's been in office for only a short time and already the bullshit is starting to fly. First off, this jackass is claiming that his inauguration drew in a massive audience. This simply isn't true. Obama's 2009 inauguration crowd made Trump's crowd look pathetic. You can see for yourself right here. Trump also claimed that the moment he started speaking, the rain stopped. This is simply another lie or as Kellyanne Conway calls it 'alternative fact'. It would seem that the Ministry of Truth from Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 is alive and well in Trump's America. In addition to the 'alternative facts' being spewed by this piss colored fuckwad and his band of sycophantic morons, we have the interference in the election by the Russians, his refusal to release his tax returns and his insistence on having his sons run his businesses instead of putting them in a blind trust as required by the Constitution. Could this be the reason why Republicans tried to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics?
  Trump is a lying, thin skinned, narcissistic egomaniac worthy only of contempt. He's insulted Mexico, women in general and Megyn Kelly specifically. He mocked disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski and claimed that thousands of New Jersey Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks. Some Jersey City Muslims did apparently celebrate 9/11 according to later reports. Unless something happens, we're going to have to deal with Trump for at least the next four years. If something should happen, wannabe theocrat Mike Pence will become president. If that happens will we have gone from bad to worse?

New Year's update

  The cancer marker tests came back negative. This is good news. At the moment I'm cancer free. I'll be retested in March. Hopefully that test will come back negative as well. My blood glucose levels have been much better lately. I don't how this happened but I'm not going to knock my good fortune. Because my blood glucose levels have been much closer to normal, Dr. Boerger wants me to stop taking the pioglitazone. If this keeps up, I might not have to take the glyburide either.
  My Gen Con 2017 badge has been ordered. Hopefully this year I won't have to wait over 3 hours for a hotel room. I also hope to get into some Paranoia, One Ring and Firefly events this year. Last year, despite having a bunch of events picked out ahead of time and submitting them promptly at the 11:00am start time, I was still way back in line and most of the events filled before I got to the front of the line. I'm going to move my state and federal tax refunds over to my Amex Serve and Simple accounts to serve as spending money at Gen Con.

November musings

  In 2016, my birthday and Election Day were the same day. It started out with Mom, Dad and me going to the polls to vote. I wish I could say that things turned out well, election wise, but that didn't happen. In a show of unprecedented stupidity, we elected Trump to be the next president. This man insulted Mexicans, Muslims, women, the disabled etc. and was rewarded with the highest office in the land. He offered to pay the legal fees of any supporter that attacked people protesting him and selected as his running mate the man responsible for SB 101. For my take on SB 101, look here. His candidacy was endorsed by both the KKK and the NeoNazis. This is the man that's going to be our next president. And to make matters worse, after running what had to be the most divisive campaign in history, Trump has the unmitigated gall to ask everyone to unite with him. But enough of this fucktard.
  Election Day afternoon was spent at Red Lobster indulging in an Ultimate Feast. This dish consists of breaded shrimp, shrimp scampi, crab legs, rice pilaf and a lobster tail. Add to that some mashed potatoes and a warm apple crostada and you have one incredible meal. My birthday movie this year was the latest Marvel movie Dr. Strange. I'm not going to go into detail about the movie because I have no wish to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it yet. I do highly recommend seeing this movie though. The Marvel movies and tv shows form an integrated universe where events in one movie or tv episode have ripple effects that turn up in other movies and tv episodes.
  November 29th would've been my brother Scott's 56th birthday. It's hard to believe he's been gone 6 years. I still mourn your loss and wish you were here with us.

Catching Up

  It's been a while since I last made a blog entry so it's time to catch up. In early July, I had finished the first of four rounds of chemo. I felt pretty good and I worked that Fourth of July. Since it was a holiday week, I had the next three days off. Things went downhill very quickly. It turns out that my immune system had been severely compromised by the chemo and I ended up catching pneumonia. An ambulance had to be called and I spent about a week in the ICU.
  GenCon got cancelled. I couldn't risk the possibility that I could get sick again while in Indianapolis. This fucking sucked because I was looking forward to the gaming events I had scheduled. As compensation, I ordered three books from Cubicle 7 for The One Ring rpg; Erebor, Horse Lords of Rohan and Journeys and Maps. I've received the Horse Lords book. The other two will come after they're printed.
  Another item I purchased was a paracord slungshot I saw in a YouTube video. It's referred to incorrectly as a Monkey's Fist. Technically, the monkey's fist is the knot wrapped around the 8 ounce phenolic resin ball that gives the weapon its flail like head. Here's the video. As you can clearly see, it's a nasty weapon. I've had to straighten out a snafu with my FMLA paperwork. Fortunately, things worked out and I'm covered until Sept. 30th. I'm debating whether or not I want to order a Sharpshooter keychain. This device is a form of self defense keychain that allows you to do Kubotan style strikes. In addition, you can deploy a length of paracord that allows you to lash out at your attacker with flail like strikes from your keys. Here's a video.