Ya’ll Need to Come and Get Your Boys

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Bill O’Reilly famously declared back in the spring that if any Republican other than Trump won the nomination that the GOP could count on the white aggrieved voters that powered his campaign would stay home. They didn’t stay at home, of course, because Donald Trump executed a campaign of dog whistles, outright demeaning rhetoric and spectacular lying to pick at the scab that is this country’s white grievances. Trump famously blamed trade deals and government complicity in the disappearance of the kind of good middle-class jobs at places like Bethlehem Steel or US Steel or American Motors or RCA that let you support a family right out of college. He told voters that he would bring these jobs back and that he would get rid of the trade deals, the regulations and the taxes that were holding back job creation in the US. On top of that, he blamed immigrants for taking jobs, used Obamacare as a proxy for poor people taking your stuff and impressively – for a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth – made these people believe that he felt their pain.
Paul Ryan Tells Donald Trump ‘Bye Felicia’

Paul Ryan Tells Donald Trump ‘Bye Felicia’

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This is breaking news -- that Speaker Ryan has gathered his House Caucus and told them that he will not be defending Trump or campaigning with Trump. He also advised the members of his caucus to do what they needed to do, but he (Ryan) would be working to preserve congressional majorities:
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan dealt a hammer blow to Donald J. Trump’s presidential candidacy Monday, telling Republican lawmakers that he would no longer defend Mr. Trump and would focus instead on defending the party’s majority in Congress. But in an illustration of Mr. Trump’s powerful grip on much of the party, Mr. Ryan faced angry blowback from conservative lawmakers supportive of Mr. Trump.

In Which the Western Sussex Republican Club Gets Its Comeuppance

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It's definitely political season and it's time to watch some of the local GOP dust off and exercise their resentments. They do this, of course, because they can't figure out how to connect with enough voters to actually govern. They also do it because they think that their resentments and bigotries are somehow supposed to entitle them to run the world. The latest local exercise in GOP bigotry was directed at Sarah McBride, who recently endorsed Bryon Short for the US House seat being vacated byJohn Carney. The Western Sussex Republican Club responded to Sarah's Facebook announcement by reposting it with a snide and hateful comment, with a screen shot shown below. Sarah had losts of people supporting her after this stupid bit of business was posted, including a quick (but deleted) comment from John Fluharty who observed that stuff like this is why the GOP can't win. The Western Sussex Republican Club has deleted its post, so the comments opposing them are gone. But both Sean Barney and Bryan Townsend took to Twitter to stand with Sarah and to denounce this hateful business. Note to the GOP -- this stuff may speak to somebody, but this is not the stuff of electoral coalitions. Not in Delaware, it isn't.

John Kasich Shows How They Think They’ll Get Away With Cutting Social Security

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Watch this clip of Kasich speaking about Social Security at an interview in New Hampshire recently: Got that? Kasich asks the audience if they even know what their benefit is going to be when they retire. Then he asks if people would be bothered by a smaller benefit in order to save the program. Did you see what he did here? By trying to show that people don't even know what their SS benefits are, he asks this audience if they would take less of this unknown for the health of the program. The person who would be bothered by a lesser benefit is then told that "they'll get over it".

Ken Simpler Thinks That Seniors Are Stealing From You

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He argues in this piece over at Town Square Delaware that seniors who are taking advantage of Medicare Part D subsidies and co-pays are stealing. To be fair, the analogies and even the basic metaphor here are incredibly tortured. Starting with trying to make the hold up a bunch of convenience stores somehow the equivalent of presenting an insurance card to get a discount on medications, then moving on to claim that savings from the Medicare Part D aren't savings, then working at trying to wrap around all of it around no free lunches, government taking, the NJ needing to report better and Astra Zeneca laying people off. (This was sent to be by a GOP pal, who noted in his email to me "You will have a field day with this!")