Navigating the disaster that is Brexit

Brexit and Donald Trump have one thing in common: They were intended to be alternatives which were so repugnant that no one would vote for either one.

I should be making a fortune off of this since my legal studies were geared toward the European Union. I was expecting to get hired to help someone navigate the European Union, and now navigating the disaster that is Brexit.

And Brexit is far more of a disaster than Donald Trump since no one expected to really have it happen. I could have told anyone who would have listened that it was going to be a disaster: especially since no one worked out what would happen when it happened.

Take the US Civil War: only make it non-violent with a lot of negotiation.

It was a bad idea to separate a nation which functions: no matter how poorly one may see it functioning. It's even worse when the party that wants to separate has less party than the what they are separating from.  The bad divorce analogy sounds really good.

Only most divorces try to be equitable: this one has no need to be equitable.

This one can have you pay for their education and support them. Then when the person who was supporting decides to leave has to pay twice the amount of support to leave.

Not only that the party separating finds that they can only sleep in the doghouse...

If they take the agreement.

And they are totally fucked if they don't take the agreement.

Unfortunately, there is the "prestige point" factor that says, "we can't go back since we have already gone too far to reconcile." Or so the person thinks.

Yes, Britain could, and should, have a second referendum since now they understand what exactly leaving the European Union means. They have been getting a preview and not liking it since the process began.

But the other thing that Brexit and Trump have in common is that the people have to live with the decision until they decide to elect them out.

Trump a mistake

Seriously,  I have to wonder about whether this picture accurately describes the game plan for the 2016 election.

The reason for my saying this is that Trump's campaign has been described as a clown car in quite a few places (e.g. the Economist).

Now, there is a book out that pretty much cements all the rumours about the Trump campaign. Michael Wolff's, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, claims that Trump was horribly unprepared for the challenge he took on. It seems to me that Trump wasn't supposed to be the winner in the election.

According to this book:

"Shortly after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend - Trump might actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears - and not of joy. There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States."

On the other hand, Tony Blair commented  about the claims made about him in the book that “This story is a complete fabrication, literally from beginning to end. I’ve never had such conversation in the White House, outside of the White House, with Jared Kushner, with anybody else.”

I have to admit that if Trump's election was a monumental fuck up in that Clinton was supposed to have won, that his election makes serious scrutiny of the Electoral College a must: far more than silly allegations of Russian Interference in the election. 

Any screw ups in the US electoral system are purely home grown: they don't need anyone else to make the system worse.

After all, the Election was framed as a choice between two of the worst possible candidates imaginable.

The end is near......in a matter of speaking I'm embarrassed by the MN GOP, again

Behold the right in all their glory, from Rump, our temporary president on down the food chain to the despicable MN GOP.

From the latest Wonkette piece on the MN GOP passing health care 'reform' legislation

"Minnesota Republicans Pass Health Insurance ‘Reform’ That Doesn’t Cover Any Actual Medical Stuff"

You betcha: If this thing went into effect, you could buy health insurance in Minnesota that excluded coverage for costly stuff you don’t need. Like diagnostic tests or cancer treatment. Or Emergency services. Or much of anything. In essence, it would allow a return to the good old days of “Junk Insurance” policies that had low premiums, low deductibles, and didn’t cover hardly anything. But they were inexpensive, and by golly, those were the policies you couldn’t keep when Obamacare went into effect. And it’s a preview of the glories of keeping costs down by allowing people to buy insurance policies across state lines — if the bare-bones coverage that this Minnesota bill would provide still cost too much, you could go buy your insurance in some state that doesn’t require insurance policies to cover, say, “doctor visits.” Just think how much you’d save on insurance, unless of course you actually needed insurance!
It’s unclear whether the bill would pass the state Senate, where Republicans only have a one-seat majority, and it would certainly be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, who just had his own health scare yesterday — he passed out while giving his state of the state address, and while he’s back at work today, he revealed that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last week. Oh, look at item 22 on the list of things insurance companies wouldn’t have to cover: “Prostate cancer screenings.”

I am assuming the model for this graphic is not temporary president Rump,
because while the overall size and shape are about right, the skin tones are not orange enough
unless, like so many other things, he's only concerned with what shows...

I used to believe, and still do occasionally, that the Republicans were simply clueless as to how to govern.  But they know; they just don't want to do it.

It might be more fundamental, that they don't grasp the proper role of government, which would explain why they keep trying to privatize everything.
But bottom line -- pun intended on the photo -- the right exists to redistribute wealth to the wealthy from the less wealthy, in whatever form they can devise, and the hell with the average citizen or the middle class. Like the soup nazi from friends, if I might slightly paraphrase -- NONE FOR YOU.No medical care. No education. No roads. No libraries. No voting.  No post office. No retirement. No safe and clean environment. No safe drinking water. No food or shelter for the poor.

There is no end to what the right wants to......end, except when it comes to corporate welfare and big bonuses and salaries for the obscenely rich.  Well.........maybe there is one naked end.......goal, that is.