But there is no crying over spilled milk and get to what is really important and that is righting the ship we call America. Unfortunately, that is highly unlikely to occur for numerous reasons and there is every reason to believe the best case scenario is this country implodes and millions die or WW3 starts and we ALL die. These is near a 100% chance that one or all three of these incidents I will describe below will come to pass. How we handle them will decide if we survive or not.
Let us start with health care. For the rare few who may be new to this sire let me explain the current GOP health care bill: YOU WILL DIE! That is their plan. If through some horrific Faustian bargain the GOP somehow manages to get their health care bill through, no one has health care in three years who isn't fabulously wealthy. Repeal only is even worse as the scenarios done by experts strongly suggest that 175 million people will have no health care by 2026. That's more than half the country and I still think that number is not high enough and would almost certainly crash the system long before that.
Supposedly, McConnell is holding a vote tomorrow but we still have no idea what on. If they try to push their health care bill, the senate parliamentarian ruled recently that half of it isn't eligible for budget reconciliation. There has been talk of overruling her, but that would be a de facto repeal of the legislative filibuster and there is little support for that outside of Trump. Even if they did, as Collins and Paul as still certain to say no and McCain out for now, that bill is dead. Repeal has even less of a chance as it would be political suicide to vote for a program that destroys health care rather than save it. If this did pass, premiums would double by next year and people would be murderous in their response. If the GOP fucks up health care, this country will burn. While it looks unlikely this year beyond some tweeks to the current system, next year is another whole new ball game and this will probably start all over again.
So, let's assume that health care isn't destroyed and Congress somehow cobbles a program together that helps stabilize the market. Before you get your hopes up that that means clear sailing ahead, we still have a budget, a debt ceiling and an economy running on spit and promises. Chances are sky high that the Republicans and Democrats are going to have a head on collusion over this and a solid chance of yet another government shutdown. The GOP is hell bent on devastating entitlement cuts as well as taking on sure to kill it amendments to the spending bill needed to pass, like anti-abortion crap. Their budget will reek to high heaven as it will attempt to kill off the poor for a tax cut for the rich. The debt ceiling will also get a lot of flack from morons in our government who have no idea how debt works. They don't get we already spent the money and have to pay for it now. They want to skip out on the check instead.
There are a variety of reasons to suspect our economy is on borrowed time. The auto industry is starting to see a huge slowdown in sales, as well as a ton of repossessed cars from sub prime auto loans coming due. GM saw a huge drop in sales this year and are struggling again. The car market is saturated, just like housing circa 2007, and as a result, new car sales are going to drop. Unlike the housing market, the economic reality of car sales isn't enough to crash the system but it can leave a big dent in it. Wages have stagnated AGAIN, as no wealth ever seems to flow downward anymore. So much for trickle down theory which is so provably wrong anyone who supports this should be flogged publicly.
There has been a huge uptick in death threats to various people around the globe. The parents of the sick kid in England, the hospital treating their sick kid, Ellen Page, for no good reason, the mayor and former police chief of Minneapolis, Eugene AND Tara from the Walking Dead to name just a few. As someone who has gotten death threats from people who a)know where I live and b)have killed people before, I can sympathize. I also know they are almost always bullshit. One of the reason I am still here is my scorched Earth policy. Anyone giving me a death threat, especially if I too know who you are, knows that if anything happens to me or my loved ones, several of the most dangerous people on Earth that you will never want to meet will show up at your doorstep and extract a horrific revenge. I have made a lot of friends over the years in dangerous areas of the world, along with Irish relatives once connected to the IRA, some of whom owe me everything. If some harm comes to me, these guys will be PISSED. Famous people should do the same in uncovering these lowlifes and ratting them out to the cops. How funny would it be to watch some short, fat bastard being dragged out of his mom's basement because he threatened to kill Halle Berry or the like. That might put an end to this violent nonsense. We as a people are becoming way too warlike lately and I blame Trump.
But war is the one thing we have the most to worry about. Here is a stat no one wants to hear: there is near a 100% chance that war with North Korea is inevitable and it wouldn't matter who is in office. Hillary wouldn't have any better luck than Trump is going to. The military is starting to realize that and have started saying that exact thing in statements to the press. Here is the problem: North Korea will never give up their nukes. That ship has sailed. Had Bush the Lesser been competent at all, which he wasn't, he could have had a chance to make peace back in 2004 when Kim Jung Il made some serious outreach to the administration. Bush's team responded with a slap instead. From that moment on, peace was not going to happen. The same thing happened back in 1999 with Arafat and Israel when the Palestinians were offered their greatest, best chance for an end to their suffering and the PLO shot it down. Now, peace is impossible and chances are there won't be any end until one side is crushed into oblivion and the chances of that being Israel are slim to none. North Korea is the same thing except with WMDs.
We can never accept a nuclear armed North Korea as it would destabilize the region, almost certainly lead to a nuke arms race in the area from countries like South Korea and Japan, and eventually lead to an armed conflict that could wipe out the planet. We should have finished this in the fifties but Truman was too much of a pussy to cut off Chinese supply lines, even though they instigated the whole thing along with Russia. And instead of showing the world we mean business, even if it meant dropping more nukes, we should have won this stupid war instead of dragging it out for over sixty years and now face the end of everything instead. This is why people like Bush are going to get blamed for things decades after they left office. The Presidency can do good or harm depending on what his actions are and the effects can last a century a more. We are still paying for Woodrow Wilson's bullshit constitutional amendments that appear to have never been actually ratified. Trump could be our last president if he follows a similar path.
There are no good options for North Korea. We can't attack. We can't let them continue to get nukes. Peace is not a likely option. So what then? Best case scenario is one in which we do a surprise attack on North Korea at the earliest possible time. And if we go in, we take out EVERYTHING! All cities, installations, bases, all of it should be burned away from the Earth by an attack worthy of God himself. However, this is highly unlikely to pass muster and instead, the best we will get is some half assed attack on his nuke facilities and government installations, which would result in a counter attack that will kill millions. This is the most likely plan ahead and one doomed to fail if implemented. This country hasn't had the balls to fight since WW2 and I see no sign of that changing any time soon. Because of our liberal notion that war should be fought fairly, we will all lose.
So that's what we have to look forward to: a health care system slowly dying and no will to fix it, an economy on life support and an inevitable war on the horizon that may end us all. Smoke em if you got em, because we are on borrowed time. You decided to pick Trump and now that decision is having real world complications. Pray for us all.
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