It is axiomatic that Truth And Beauty belong together. When we separate the two, our knowledge capacity diminishes. When we unite truth and beauty, we know almost all that can actually be known. The US Senate is hardly a place where truth and beauty mix. It is more like a place where beauty is besmirched and truth is mauled. Nowhere is that more the case than in the current machinations of GOP Senator Lindsay Graham.
Graham is the villain of a current travesty that is going on under the cloak of media inattention. This is a fellow who has on occasion said things that were almost true and beautiful.
It is the distance of his current fall that is remarkable. He is engaging in what Paul Krugman has accurately called lying. He seeks to pass yet another bill to eviscerate Obamacare and hurt millions of Americans in the bargain.
Multiple defects
Here is a concise and damning list of things in the current bill Graham is pushing, once again using the nuclear option, seeking a bare majority to ruin the lives of Americans. People who know the reality are scared to death because so little attention is being given to the effort of Graham and others to sneak this perfidious legislation onto the desk of the president.
Among the problems the Graham bill has are the following: 1. The bill zaps subsidies and Medicare expansion.
2. Forget Opioid funding because it is not even in the bill. 3. Conservatives will balk at the taxes built into the legislation. 4. Preexisting conditions? Don't count on one for your ailment. The future is completely unclear. 5. As usual, the GOP bill is too slap-dash to allow for timely CBO scoring. 6. There is no clear path for this in the Senate, and that is even truer in the House.
Endless repeal blather
If this sounds like a broken record, it's because that is exactly what this is. It is yet another effort to do what Trump is trying to achieve by all means necessary. Kill Obamacare. This is a war that will be resolved in 2018 at the polls
Here is yet another indication of the perfidy behind the Graham bill.
Hot off the presses. Just published by the NY Times Editorial Board which observes that the Graham bill is even worse than its insulting predecessors.
Graham's tragedy
Trump has been a disaster for the GOP, and the current collapse that the Mueller probe will reveal will be the frosting on the cake. It will be lethal. And if Graham is not roundly rejected along with this bill, he will rank as one of the most conspicuous victims of the president.
How ironical that a man who once pleaded that the GOP un-endorse Trump might go down in history as the mindless generator of a repeal that is the height of stupidity.