Benghazi! WTF?

I find the whole Republican shitfit about Benghazi! totally incomprehensible. Of course, the incident on 9/11/2012 was a bit of a fuckup and was certainly tragic for those killed. But come on! In the scheme of things? Seriously? Like compared to 10 years of unnecessary and fraudulently induced war in Iraq? Say?
 

Not to mention that ginning up a scandal where there isn't one actually cost this same party gains in midterms that normally go their way at the 2-years to go-mark of a Democratic presidency back in '98. You know when Barney Frank got to say (as Rachel Maddow reminded us) to Ken Starr...(in effect)... "OK, nothing on Foster, nothing on Beefgate, nothing on Whitewater, nowhere to go with the sex scandal. Be nice if you'd told us that a year and a half ago."

So what are these fools thinking? I dunno, and truly, I don't really care because I don't believe this will make one whit of difference, and to the extent it does it will cost them votes.

Which isn't to say that the structural predicament we Democrats are in this year isn't a major bummer, because it is.

The Awful, Terrible, Really Not Good (albeit unintended) consequences of Obamacare

Just as the Republicans are flailing and failing to show the American people how Obamacare is a total failure (in that it isn't), the New York Times last week rather blithely published an article that talked about the effects of the law from a corporate employer's point of view. Read through the prism of a corporate employee, come to find out there actually is a serious, and truly terrible, unintended and very, very negative consequence of the passage of Obamacare, likely to occur in the next few years. The problem comes from the fact that it isn't really universal public health care, but reform of private health insurance. The presumption always was that it would supplement existing employer provided health care, which is what most people in America depend on.

But no. Apparently, according to surveys of employers, what is actually likely to happen is that the majority of employers intend to phase out private health care benefits, and replace them with nothing. Which will force working people to pay more for health care, on private exchanges, and will have the net effect of transfering even more wealth from production employees to rentierist owners of corporate shares and supersalaried corporate executives.
 

An unintended consequence indeed. More welfare for the rich, and more erosion of the middle class.

I would weep, but I'm too used to working people getting the shaft to be anything but confirmed in my cynical and deeply pessimistic view of our nation's economy and politics.