Claiming mandate, GOP Congress lays plans to propel sweeping conservative agenda

[DonViejo]

By David Weigel January 1 at 7:46 PM

For six years, since they took back the House of Representatives, Republicans have added to a pile of legislation that moldered outside the White House. In their thwarted agenda, financial regulations were to be unspooled. Business taxes were to be slashed. Planned Parenthood would be stripped of federal funds. The ­Affordable Care Act was teed up for repeal — dozens of times.

When the 115th Congress begins this week, with Republicans firmly in charge of the House and Senate, much of that legislation will form the basis of the most ambitious conservative policy agenda since the 1920s. And rather than a Democratic president standing in the way, a soon-to-be-inaugurated Donald Trump seems ready to sign much of it into law.

The dynamic reflects just how ready Congress is to push through a conservative makeover of government, and how little Trump’s unpredictable, attention-grabbing style matters to the Republican game plan.

That plan was long in the making.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/claiming-mandate-gop-congress-lays-plans-to-propel-sweeping-conservative-agenda/2017/01/01/9840338a-ceee-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.cb4ceeac3b5b&wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1

[jodymarie aimee]

1. I keep telling us guys everything that has happened to us in WI

is going to happen now in the country. We have no power. And they have no morals. No hyperbole, fact.

[spanone]

2. mandate, my ass.

[yeoman6987]

3. I am so thankful planned parenthood received donations to record levels

Because those repugs are going to strip their funding first day. So nasty. Americans will have planned parenthood's back. Fuck the repugs.

[MineralMan]

4. Yes, exactly.

Putting all three branches of federal government in the hands of today's Republicans is a horror story that is about to be written. This was the disaster I've been talking about for months, in hopes that it would not occur. Well, now it has.

Few people really understand what it will mean to have Ryan, McConnell and Trump working together to destroy the progress we have made in the last 50-60 years. Add to that a conservative SCOTUS justice who will soon be selected, and it's a recipe for a toxic stew we will be served as our last meal.

We are truly in for it now. You're right, too, that this has been in the works for a very, very long time. We lost our chance to thwart their plans again. How terrible it will be remains to be seen.

[Rustyeye77]

5. Wake me up in 4 years...

when this nightmare is over.

[sarcasmo]

7. If the human race still exists in 4 years.

[edhopper]

8. The devastation

will last much longer than that.
And it is naive to believe the American people will wake the fuck up and change it's leaders to end it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Or 8 ...

perish the thought.

[kentuck]

6. There is no mandate.

And this cannot be stressed enough.

They lost seats in the House and Senate, although they kept majority in both.

They lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes and won a very controversial election, with probable Russian involvement. It is unseemly
to talk about "mandates" at this time.

However, we should expect Repubs to claim some great victory.