Another day another crisis

Hoo boy, let's start with the good news, such as it is.

The Senate voted down another attempt to repeal Obamacare, this one a straight repeal with no attempt at replacement, seven Republican Senators defected, including John McCain, who I spoke harshly of yesterday, I stand by my statements but good for him I guess. Next up is an attempt to strip out just a couple things from Obamacare that the Republicans hate including the individual mandate and- you know what? It doesn't matter, every major aspect of Obamacare as it is written is pretty much critical to the operation of the law, dumping any of them will cause problems ranging from skyrocketing premiums to insurance companies leaving the market altogether.

Anyway, I think they are calling this option the "Skinny repeal" which, whatever I guess, it has a chance in the Senate but is probably DOA in the House, since the Freedom caucus holds so much power there and won't be happy until it is legal to shoot the poor when they become sick, so I think we are in good shape so far as health care goes.

In related. and bad, news, The Toddler, influence by people who probably want national attention turned away from healthcare for a minute, decreed via Tweet that Trans individuals would no longer be permitted to serve in the military "in any capacity".

This was completely unexpected, cruel, and probably illegal, the reason given in his Tweet, which, here we are, trying to parse policy announcements from Twitter. Suggest that he doesn't want the military to have the financial burden of caring from Trans people's medical requirements. Now you can easily enough find statistics debunking that idea, but even bothering to do so is giving the argument more attention than it deserves. Basically if any argument includes the idea that the DOD can't afford it, it is entirely bunk.

So here's the thing: Tweets aren't actually laws, and he has not submitted any guidance to the Department of Defense on how to go about instituting the ban, nor has the DOD begun any proceedings to do so on its own. Remember back at the beginning of the year I wondered if he actually knew how to do anything? Like, just saying something doesn't actually make it happen, you have to file the paperwork, create the paperwork generally, sign things, and so on. Today may just be an example of that ignorance at work. Right now some staffers are scrambling to figure out both how to make his Tweets reality, and how to explain to him that he needs to actually do work to make it so.

Honestly this has been something of a regular thing with the administration, equating talking about something with accomplishing something, they take credit for his rallies as if they actually changed policy for goodness sake.

Anyhow, I don't see a ban surviving, even if it actually gets instituted, the blowback has been almost uniformly negative from both sides of the aisle even, the GOP doesn't seem to think that this is an issue it can win on, at least not in this manner, and I agree.

That said, there are many who think this is just the best idea, these people are all terrible, but there are rather a lot of them and they are apparently pretty influential. Even having something like this floated by the man in the most powerful position in the world is pretty terrifying even for those of us who aren't Trans, I can't imagine how it feels for those who are.

Trans people in the military, I respect your choice to serve and support your right to do so, but you might want to consider that the country doesn't deserve your service right now, if it ever did.