Voters Are Starting To Catch On That GOP Obstructionism Could Be Dangerous The Their Families' Health

Paul Ryan and his utterly dysfunctional House Republican conference is riven with so much in-fighting and back-stabbing and with so many ideological purity tests that they can't get anything done-- not even the most basic functions of government. The Florida delegation-- both Democrats and Republicans-- have been begging and are now demanding that Ryan call Congress back into session to deal with the Zika crisis. Ryan hasn't and won't. He knows nothing will get done if he does, except confirming in the minds of the American people-- right before an election-- that the Republican Party is unfit for a serious role in government. You have the lunatic fringe anti-science head of the House Science Committee, Texas' Lamar Smith, acting as if everyone just needs to buy a can of RAID and keep their windows closed (as Zika spreads into the Rio Grande Valley) and you have the GOP peanut gallery who sees the emergency as an opportunity to force the Democrats to let them gut women's choice as a "compromise" in order to release funds to fight Zika.

Next week congressmembers are coming back to DC from their long, long vacations. One told me he expects Ryan to allow have Congress working on the barest on schedules and allow them to be back in their districts campaigning for almost all of September and October. "I'm making plans for a trip overseas... that's who certain I am that Ryan isn't going to schedule votes," he told me yesterday. A poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation released at the end of the week found that 92% of Americans are aware of the Zika crisis and that 36% say that passing new funding to deal with the outbreak should be a top priority for Congress, with an additional 40% saying it should be an important priority-- that's 76% and across party lines. 54% of voters say they trust Hillary to deal with the Zika outbreak more and 34% say they trust Señor Trumpanzee more. Among independent voters 45% trust Hillary to deal with Zika more effectively and 39% say they trust Trumpanzee to. But even 18% of Republican voters say they trust Hillary more on Zika than trust Trumpanzee.

The Zika virus outbreak continues to be the health policy story most followed by Americans. In July, health officials confirmed the first cases of individuals being infected by mosquitoes in the U.S. in a Miami, Florida neighborhood, and a subsequent travel advisory recommended that pregnant women stay away from the area.

...Three-fourths of the public (76 percent) are aware that there are cases of local transmission in the country-- that is, cases where people are being infected with the Zika virus by mosquitoes. A smaller share, but still a majority, report being aware of travel warnings issued for areas in the United States affected by the outbreak (58 percent).

About half of the public (48 percent) say that they would be “not too” or “not at all” comfortable traveling to places in the U.S., like parts of Florida, where people have been infected with Zika by mosquitoes. In contrast, six in ten say they would be not be comfortable traveling to U.S. territories like Puerto Rice where people have become infected (59 percent) or to places outside the U.S. where people have become infected (61 percent).

Individuals who report being aware of travel warnings for areas in the U.S. affected by Zika are more likely to say they are not comfortable traveling to places affected by the virus. For example, when asked about traveling to places in the U.S. like Florida where people have been infected by mosquitoes, 59 percent of individuals aware of travel warnings say that they would not be comfortable, compared to 39 percent of those who thought travel warnings had not been issued. In addition, women are not as comfortable traveling to places affected by Zika than men. Fifty-three percent of women, compared to 43 percent of men, report being not comfortable traveling to places in the U.S. where people have been infected by mosquitoes.

...Despite President Obama’s February request for almost $1.9 billion to deal with the Zika virus outbreak, U.S. Congress has not passed any additional funding. Thirty-six percent of the public say that passing new funding to deal with the outbreak in the U.S. should be a top priority, with an additional 40 percent saying it should be an important but not a top priority. Nine percent think passing new funding is not too important, and 5 percent say that new funding should not be passed at all.

There are partisan differences in these findings, with a larger share of Democrats than independents or Republicans saying Congressional funding to deal with the Zika virus outbreak should be a top priority (46 percent v. 34 percent and 27 percent). However, a large majority of all partisans say that new Congressional funding should be at least an important priority of Congress.

Lamar Smith, mosquito

The Texas progressive running for the Austin-San Antonio district congressional seat Lamar Smith holds, Tom Wakely, is worried that Smith's ideological obstructionism is getting in the way of safety for people in his state. "While departmental waste is undoubtedly a bipartisan issue that warrants investigation," he told us, "it boggles the mind that we're having a pay-for discussion in the midst of a public health crisis. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, there have been 147 reported cases of Zika virus in the state of Texas. Twelve of these cases have occurred in counties that are represented by my district. This is no longer a threat we can view with binoculars. It is no longer an issue that can be evaluated in dollars and cents. One of the Texan cases is already confirmed as being a pregnant woman. How many children have to be born with microcephaly before our Republican-led Congress addresses this as what it is, a public health emergency? Where's the media outrage over the fact that we're treating an emergency of this nature with the fiscal scrutiny typically reserved for corporate tax rates or oil subsidies? Quite frankly, the fact that Congress is willing to treat a public health crisis with the same blasé attitude that they employ in their unconditional rejection of a Supreme Court nominee should be a grave warning to the American people. If they're willing to make a point out of a plague, where does it stop?"

And when does all the knee-jerk GOP obstructionism stop? They need a lesson they won't forget-- like defeating crackpot anti-science Republicans like Lamar Smith. In fact, defeating enough Republicans to make Paul Ryan think twice about ever pulling this kind of stunt again.

When It Comes To The Zika Emergency, Even Mr. Trumpanzee Has More Sense Than Congressional Republicans

The headline that everyone picked up on from Señor Trumpanzee's interview with the Miami Herald Thursday was all about his deranged plans for the Guantánamo gulag he seems so enthralled with. Reporter Patricia Mazzei quotes him saying American citizens could be tried there and points out that "under current federal law, it’s illegal to try U.S. citizens at military commissions" and that only Congress could change that. But there was more worth reading, from Trumpanzee denial of human activity being involved with Climate Change to his breaking with the GOP's obstruction of President Obama's proposals to fight Zika.

On Miami’s Zika outbreak, Trump said he would “let some of the funds that they’re asking for come in” to fight the virus.

He would ask Congress to do that?

“Yeah, I would. Absolutely,” he said, in apparent agreement with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and Florida Republicans from both political parties who have urged lawmakers to help fund the Zika response. “They’re fighting for it, and hopefully that’s going to be approved very soon.”

“It’s a tough thing to stop anyway,” he added about the mosquito-borne virus, praising Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Trump supporter. “But they’re spraying all over the place. I see it. And I think it’ll be fine.”

Does he? Floridians aren't as cavalier about it. One running for a seat due north of Miami is Dr. Dena Grayson in Orlando, a progressive with both an MD and a Ph.D and a devotion to actual science instead of bullshit. She's leading virologist who has spent years researching cures for diseases including cancer, Ebola and Zika and her work has been widely published in theworlkd's most significant scientific journals. Even before Trump stumbled into the dispute, she told us that "Health experts "have been warning us for months that it’s not 'if, it’s when' we would see the first case of a person infected by a mosquito in the U.S. We are literally in a race against time, and thanks to the utter aversion of science-phobic Republicans to spend money on anything other than walls, weapons, or war, our efforts to combat Zika virus are falling behind." She wants Central Florida residents to remember that since the Obama administration’s first request for funding-- and its rejection by House Republicans-- early this year, at least 15 babies have been born with devastating and irreversible brain damage, and 479 pregnant women in the U.S. have been infected with Zika virus. "Republicans," she said, "prefer to play petty politics and the blame game, rather than acknowledge the cold, hard facts that are staring them right in the face... The ongoing Zika virus outbreak has been unfolding since early this year in the U.S., and and even earlier than that in Central and South America. Democrats, of course, embrace science and quickly recognized the threat to public health. Back in February, the Obama administration asked Congress to approve $1.9 billion in funding to combat Zika virus. Republicans, in predictable fashion, balked at spending money on anything science-based. Since then, over 1,800 cases of Zika virus have been diagnosed in the U.S., but because 80% of infected individuals don't ever show symptoms, the actual number of people with Zika is likely closer to 7,200, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control)... Ominously, starting in late July, Zika virus is now being spread by mosquitoes in Florida, with at least 17 cases of 'mosquito-borne' infection already confirmed."



Since Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan have chosen to ignore the pleas of the entire Florida congressional delegation-- both parties-- to call Congress back into session to deal seriously with Zika, the president decided ignore their childish game=playing and just shift $81 million away from biomedical research and antipoverty and health care programs to pay for the development of a Zika vaccine, as part of an emergency.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, told members of Congress in a letter that without the diverted funds, the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority would run out of money to confront the mosquito-borne illness by the end of the month. That would force the development of a vaccine to stop at a critical time, as locally acquired cases of Zika infection increase in Miami.

As of last week, 7,350 cases of Zika had been reported in the United States, most in Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Burwell said that 15 infants had been born with Zika-related birth defects. The virus can cause abnormal brain development and other serious defects in children born to infected mothers.

The local spread of the illness in the continental United States, with the first cases reported late last month, has raised the political stakes surrounding the federal government’s response. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday made a campaign stop in Wynwood, the Miami neighborhood that has had a rash of locally transmitted Zika cases, and pressed Congress to return from its five-week break to approve emergency funding to fight the virus.

President Obama and congressional Republicans have been at odds for most of the year over Zika. In February, Mr. Obama requested $1.9 billion in emergency funding. Republicans balked, demanding a more detailed accounting of where the money would go.

Lawmakers have feuded for months over how much money should be earmarked and how it should be spent. Last month, Democrats blocked consideration of a Republican measure that would have allocated $1.1 billion to fight Zika but included provisions that would have banned funding for Planned Parenthood to provide contraception related to the virus, which can be sexually transmitted.

...“The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental has forced the administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid these delays,” Ms. Burwell wrote... Even then, Ms. Burwell said, the additional money will last only through next month, at which point agencies would have to “severely curtail many of their critical efforts” against Zika without action from Congress.

"The president asked for funding to combat an emergency in this state," Dr. Alina Valdes in the Miami-Dade area told us, "and the Republicans-- including my opponent, Congressman Diaz-Balart-- responded by refusing to give it to him without strings attached that would advance their ideological agenda-- interfering with women's right to choice. Rubio was more eager to prevent infected women from getting abortions than in preventing more infections. This has got to stop. This attitude and this arrogance are a threat to the well-being of families here in South Florida. Career politicians seem to think they know more about this emergency than medical doctors and research scientists."

Both Florida doctors, Alina Valdes and Dena Grayson are on the Blue America Florida thermometer below. Their primary is August 30.

Are Republicans Fit To Govern If They Can't Even Pass A Bill To Protect Americans From The Zika Virus?

President Obama started asking congressional Republicans for emergency Zika funding in March. BY May they hadn't done a damn thing. We wrote at the time that instead of cooperation, what the House Republican leaders had given Obama instead of cooperation was more deranged right-wing intransigence and more of their crazy, dangerous anomie. The sociopaths at the Heritage Foundation started threatening to finance primaries against Republicans who moved to help Obama protect the country from a grave health problem unless the money to fight the virus was taken from programs already funded that they don't like (like Medicare and Obamacare). "When, we wondered aloud, is enough enough from these crackpots?"

Another 6-7 weeks have gone by and the Republicans are still playing politics with Zika. This morning even Politico noted that it could come back and bite them in the ass at election time. "Congress," wrote Burgess Everett, "is poised for an epic failure in its efforts to combat Zika before lawmakers leave Washington for a seven-week vacation-- and it could come back to bite Republicans at the ballot box if there’s an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in the United States this summer." Seven week vacation, while the country faces a truly devastating threat the GOP has let ride while Paul Ryan was busy wringing his hands about Trump, figuring out the most effective timing for the GOP's partisan Benghazi attack against Hillary, and repackaging his old schemes to wreck Medicare and Social Security by calling them "A Better Way?"

The GOP proposal the Senate Democrats rejected today not only stole money from the Affordable Crae Act, but gratuitously threw in some nonsense about allowing Confederate flags to fly at national cemeteries. This is why voters are so sick and tired of Congress-- and particularly so sick and tires of the House Republicans.

The attack ads this time write themselves: Faced with months of dire warnings from health experts, the Republicans who control Congress failed to provide money to stop the spread of Zika to the United States. Bracing for such a message, Republicans began the week spinning the expected defeat of the House-passed bill as politics as usual for Democrats, alleging that the minority party would rather attack Republicans over the issue than pass a funding bill.

...Republicans say there will be no do-over: Once the bill fails on Tuesday, the Senate will not revisit Zika funding, Cornyn said. They say Democrats got what they wanted and won’t take yes for the answer... The stalemate comes in the midst of the summer mosquito season, when the Zika threat is strongest.

In May, 3 Florida Republicans-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Vern Buchanan and Carlos Curbelo-- worried their constituents might lynch them-- since that is the state were Zika is thought to be the biggest and most immediate threat-- voted with the Democrats against Ryan's bill (as did Justin Amash of Michigan). The chairman of the House Science Committee, Texas goof-ball Lamar Smith, wasn't helpful in the Zika matter. In fact, his only "contribution" to the debate was to demagogue against refugees and warn that refugees might be carrying Zika virus. As for President Obama's request for $1.9 billion last February to prevent a major Zika outbreak, Smith has been opposed. And in May ole Lamar voted for the ridiculously ineffective $622 million bill that isn't going to do anything but ruin the lives of thousands of infants and their families. Marco Rubio (R-FL) didn't agree with the approach Smith and Ryan were taking. "There is no reason why we should not fully fund this. Quite frankly, that’s just not going to cut it."

It's time for Lamar to Smith to move along

The Texas progressive running for the Austin-San Antonio district congressional seat Smith holds, Tom Wakely, sees it the same way Rubio and President Obama do-- and is worried that Smith's ideological obstructionism is getting in the way of safety for people in his state. "While departmental waste is undoubtedly a bipartisan issue that warrants investigation," he told us last month, "it boggles the mind that we're having a pay-for discussion in the midst of a public health crisis. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, there have been 36 reported cases of Zika virus in the state of Texas. Five of these cases have occurred in counties that are represented by my district. This is no longer a threat we can view with binoculars. It is no longer an issue that can be evaluated in dollars and cents. One of the Texan cases is already confirmed as being a pregnant woman. How many children have to be born with microcephaly before our Republican-led Congress addresses this as what it is, a public health emergency? Where's the media outrage over the fact that we're treating an emergency of this nature with the fiscal scrutiny typically reserved for corporate tax rates or oil subsidies? Quite frankly, the fact that Congress is willing to treat a public health crisis with the same blasé attitude that they employ in their unconditional rejection of a Supreme Court nominee should be a grave warning to the American people. If they're willing to make a point out of a plague, where does it stop?"

The final House bill passed Thursday 239-171, complete with all the GOP-engineered poison pills. Only 6 right-wing Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP in favor of it-- all the regular suspects, Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA) and Jerry McNerney (CA).

The bill needed 60 votes in the Senate today and only got 52. The 48 NO votes included every Democrat but right-wing Blue Dog Joe Donnelly (IN), as well as Republicans Mike Lee (UT) and Jim Lankford (OK). In blocking the bill this morning, Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Democrat, noted that "Four months after the request for emergency funding, the House in the dark of the middle of the night, with no opportunity for debate, puts on an otherwise uncontroversial bill, a bill to deal with the virus. It's not serious. Instead, it's another attempt to use an emergency must-pass bill to try to further extremist political agendas. Why can't we grow up and get to the point that we don't want to play partisan politics? We need to stop playing these political games. It's time to treat this as a real emergency and it's time to pass the appropriations bill without all of this political agenda added to it."

Alan Grayson pointed out right after the Senate vote that "Florida's first Zika-related microcephaly birth was confirmed today. So, of course, Marco Rubio and his fellow Senate Republicans respond with a bill that not only fails to fund an adequate response to this unfolding crisis, but is also larded with poison-pills for Planned Parenthood, clean water protections and health programs. It was a craven abdication of their legislative duty. It has to stop. There's no time left to put politics over public health."

If you'd like to help Grayson get into the Senate and Wakely get into the House-- replacing the two buffoons that currently hold the seat-- please tap the thermometer below and contribute what you can:

Maybe The Zika Virus Has Already Destroyed The Minds Of House Republicans

Tuesday we looked at how miserably Paul Ryan had failed in attempts to protect the American public from the Zika virus epidemic. Since then, whine wasn't busy trying to pass laws making homophobia legal, the House passed an inadequate Zika funding bill that is less than a third of what's needed and just half of what the Senate passed. 3 especially bad right-wing Democrats-- Jim Costa, John Garamendi and Kyrsten Sinema-- chipped in their votes so Ryan could claim his Zika failure is "bipartisan.")

Three Florida Republicans-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Vern Buchanan and Carlos Curbelo-- worried their constituents might lynch them voted with the Democrats against Ryan's bill (as did Justin Amash of Michigan). The chairman of the House Science Committee, Texas goof-ball Lamar Smith, wasn't helpful in the Zika matter. In fact, his only "contribution" to the debate was to demagogue against refugees and warn that refugees might be carrying Zika virus. As for President Obama's request for $1.9 billion last February to prevent a major Zika outbreak, Smith has been opposed. And this week he voted for the ridiculous in ineffective $622 million bill that isn't going to do anything but ruin the lives of thousands of infants and their families. Marco Rubio (R-FL) didn't agree with the approach Smith and Ryan were taking. "There is no reason why we should not fully fund this. Quite frankly, that’s just not going to cut it."

The Texas progressive running for the Austin-San Antonio district congressional seat Smith holds, Tom Wakely, sees it the same way Rubio and President Obama do-- and is worried that Smith's ideological obstructionism is getting in the way of safety for people in his state. "While departmental waste is undoubtedly a bipartisan issue that warrants investigation," he told us this morning, "it boggles the mind that we're having a pay-for discussion in the midst of a public health crisis. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, there have been 36 reported cases of Zika virus in the state of Texas. Five of these cases have occurred in counties that are represented by my district. This is no longer a threat we can view with binoculars. It is no longer an issue that can be evaluated in dollars and cents. One of the Texan cases is already confirmed as being a pregnant woman. How many children have to be born with microcephaly before our Republican-led Congress addresses this as what it is, a public health emergency? Where's the media outrage over the fact that we're treating an emergency of this nature with the fiscal scrutiny typically reserved for corporate tax rates or oil subsidies? Quite frankly, the fact that Congress is willing to treat a public health crisis with the same blasé attitude that they employ in their unconditional rejection of a Supreme Court nominee should be a grave warning to the American people. If they're willing to make a point out of a plague, where does it stop?"

On Friday President Obama addressed the nation about the threat-- from the mosquitos and the Republicans. "Right now," he said, "what we've seen is a little over 500 cases of Zika in the continental United States, and they all appear to be travel related, not mosquito-transmitted, meaning somebody from the U.S. went down to an area that has Zika, got a bite, came back. We have seen at least 10 cases in which a individual went to one of these areas, got infected, and then sexually transmitted Zika to their partner." 

A more significant, immediate concern is Puerto Rico, where we know that there are over 800 cases that have been diagnosed. However, we suspect that it could be significantly higher. The reason is, is that for most people, you may not have a lot of symptoms when you get Zika. If you are not pregnant, or the partner of somebody who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant, then you may not even know that you end up having Zika. And that means that people oftentimes are not affirmatively going to the doctor and getting tested on these issues.

Now, here’s the good news, is that because of the good work that's been done by the Department of Health and Human Services, by the CDC, as well as NIH, we have put forward a plan-- we've got a plan over the next several months to begin developing a vaccine and to continually improve our diagnostic tests. We're also working with all the states so that they’re properly prepared if we start seeing an outbreak here in the primary United States during the summer when obviously mosquitoes are more active.

And what we're also trying to do is to develop new tools for vector control, meaning how do we kill mosquitoes and reduce their populations, particularly this kind of mosquito. That's a tricky piece of business because we've been using a lot of insecticides for a long time that have become less and less effective. New strains of mosquitoes become resistant to the insecticides that we have. The methods we use aren't as effective as they used to be. And so we're also investing a lot of time, research, logistical support to states and local communities to start improving our ability to control mosquitoes.

Puerto Rico is more urgent, and some of the territories, but we're also spending time working with the states so that they can be better prepared.

All of this work costs money. And we have put forward a package that costs $1.9 billion in emergency funding in order for us to make sure that we are doing effective mosquito control, to make sure that we are developing effective diagnostic tools and distributing them, make sure that we are developing the vaccines that ultimately will prevent some of the tragedies that we've seen for those who have contracted Zika and then end up having children with significant birth defects.

And we didn’t just choose the $1.9 billion from the top of our heads. This was based on public health assessments of all the work that needs to be done. And to the extent that we want to be able to feel safe and secure, and families who are of childbearing years want to feel as if they can have confidence that when they travel, when they want to start a family that this is not an issue-- to the extent that that's something that we think is important, then this is a pretty modest investment for us to get those assurances.

Unfortunately, what we have right now is the Senate approving a package that would fund a little over half of what’s been requested. The House so far has approved about a third of the money that's been requested-- except that money is taken from the fund that we're currently using to continue to monitor and fight against Ebola. So, effectively, there’s no new money there; all that the House has done is said, you can rob Peter to pay Paul. And given that I have, at least, pretty vivid memories of how concerned people were about Ebola, the notion that we would stop monitoring as effectively and dealing with Ebola in order to deal with Zika doesn’t make a lot of sense. And I don't think it will make a lot of sense to the American people.

So here’s the upshot. This is something that is solvable. It is not something that we have to panic about, but it is something we have to take seriously. And if we make a modest investment on the front end, then this is going to be a problem that we don't have to deal with on the back end.

Every child that has something like microcephaly, that may end up costing up to $10 million over the lifetime of that child in terms of that family providing that child the support that they need. That sets aside the pain and the sorrow and the challenges that they’re going to go through. Add that up. It doesn’t take a lot of cases for you to get to $1.9 billion. Why wouldn't we want to make that investment now?

So my hope was that we would have had a bill that I could sign now, because part of what we're trying to do is to accelerate, get the process going for vaccines. You don't get a vaccine overnight. Initially, you have to test it to make sure that any potential vaccine is safe. Then you have to test to make sure that it's effective. You have to conduct trials where you're testing it on a large enough bunch of people that you can make scientific determinations that it's effective.

So we've got to get moving. And what essentially NIH and CDC have been doing is taking pots of money from other things-- universal flu funds or Ebola funds or other funds-- just to get the thing rolling. But we have to reimburse those pots of money that have already been depleted and we have to be able to sustain the work that’s going to need to be done to finish the job.

So bottom line is Congress needs to get me a bill. It needs to get me a bill that has sufficient funds to do the job. They should not be going off on recess before this is done. And certainly this has to get done over the course of the next several weeks in order for us to be able to provide confidence to the American people that we're handling this piece of business.

If I'm a young family right now, or somebody who’s thinking about starting a family, this is just a piece of insurance that I want to purchase. And I think that's true for most Americans. And understand that this is not something where we can build a wall to prevent-- mosquitoes don't go through Customs. To the extent that we're not handling this thing on the front end, we're going to have bigger problems on the back end.

So, for those of you who are listening, tell your members of Congress, get on the job on this.  This is something we can handle.  We should have confidence in our ability to take care of it.  We've got outstanding scientists and researchers who are in the process of getting this done, but they’ve got to have the support from the public in order for us to accomplish our goal.

Ryan has promised his members a longer than usual summer holiday. If you'd like to contribute to the campaigns of Tom Wakely and other sane progressives who will slap down the Republican dystopian vision whenever it rears its ugly head, just follow the thermometer:

How Many Babies In Florida Have To Be Infected With Zika Before Florida Republicans Get Off Their Asses?

The Republicans have an absolute majority in the House and control every aspect of legislation there. The Speaker is Paul Ryan. The House Majority Leader is Kevin McCarthy. A Republican chairs every single committee and Ryan's office sets the agenda for what gets discussed and what doesn't. That said, April 15 was the legal deadline to approve the annual budget and it's now a month past that and there is still no budget-- and it isn't because of objections from Democrats. Ryan can't control his own fractious cannabalistic party, where the extremists-- who are eager to shut down the government-- have veto power. Last month, Ryan told the media, "We're still having conversation with our members, and we do want to pass a budget resolution." So far, he's accomplished nothing at all but to make John Boehner look like a brilliant legislative strategist.

Combatting the Zika virus before it's an existential emergency wouldn't be a bad idea. President Obama asked for congressional cooperation 3 months ago. But instead of cooperation, what's he got is more deranged right-wing intransigence and their crazy, dangerous anomie. The sociopaths at the Heritage Foundation are threatening to finance primaries against Republicans who move to help Obama protect the country from a grave health problem unless the money to fight the virus comes from programs already funded that they don't like (like Medicare). When is enough enough from these crackpots?

Ryan has been sitting around fighting with Trump, positioning himself for a 2020 presidential run and unable to move any serious policy off the dime. He's been afraid to agree to a strategy that would allow the House to vote on a Senate bill, where sane Republicans could vote along with Democrats to pass emergency funding because that's what led to Boehner's forced retirement. Yesterday Andrew Taylor reported for the Associated Press that Obama's proposal to create a vaccine and to control mosquitos that spread the virus-- both here and abroad-- (price tag: $1.9 billion) will result in a Senate bill granting $1.1 billion and a House bill granting $622 million, which will then go to a conference committee. The White House has agreed to take $600 million out of the Ebola fighting budget to use in the anti-zika efforts.

Obama made his $1.9 billion request almost three months ago. Republicans say he has padded the request, for instance with a $246 million request for Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico. Democrats complain of GOP foot-dragging.

Republicans have slated action for this week, starting Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has scripted three votes, with Obama’s request and a GOP alternative likely to fall short of the 60 votes required to turn back a filibuster. A $1.1 billion bipartisan alternative, however, is expected to advance despite grumbling by Democrats who think it’s not enough and conservative Republicans who believe it should be offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. The Zika funds would be attached to a separate spending bill for the departments of Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development that McConnell hopes can be finalized for Obama’s signature before Congress goes on vacation in mid-July.

The House, meanwhile, promises action later this week on a $622 million stand-alone Zika measure that would be offset by cutting other spending, including leftover Ebola funding. The outlines of a final compromise are unclear.

Meanwhile there are over 100 confirmed cases of pregnant women in the U.S. with Zika already! The Aedes mosquitoes that spread the virus are all over the country but risk is greatest "based on things like temperature, precipitation, and population, as well as things like proximity to airports (with high numbers of travelers entering the country from other Zika zones), as well as cities' socioeconomic standing (higher poverty rates generally lead to higher exposure to mosquitoes, due to factors like a lower overall likelihood that people are using air conditioning, have windows with effective screens, and potentially also greater difficulty accessing clean water)." The most at risk populations are in 5 states-- Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana-- states that have overwhelmingly larger numbers of Republicans, far right ones at that, than Democrats representing them in the House. Five Florida cities with the greatest risk include Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville and Tallahassee, cities represented by obstructionist Republicans like John Mica, Daniel Webster, Ander Crenshaw, Ted Yoho, Ron DeSantis, Dennis Ross, Gus Bilirakis, David Jolly, Carlos Curbelo, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart. How many Floridian babies have to be born with tiny heads before these 11 Republicans decide maybe obstructionism isn't want their constituents sent them to Congress to work on.


UPDATE: Ryan-- Still Playing Partisan Games With Babies' Lives

House Republican asshats decided to play a little more with the seriousness of the Zika outbreak. Let's hope everyone of them has a family member who catches the disease. No, that's too cruel. Let's hope they all get defeated at the polls instead. They re-named an anti-Environmental Protection Agency Bill, the Zika Vector Control Act, without changing a word in the bill that would help with Aedes mosquito eradication. Pelosi: "In a brazenly political act, the Republican leadership is trying to mask gutting the Clean Water Act as having something to do with fighting Zika. This bill has nothing to do with Zika and everything to do with Republicans’ relentless special interest attacks on the Clean Water Act. It will do nothing to stem the growing threat of the Zika virus."

Pelosi perhaps didn't notice that 23 Democrats blithely skipped across the aisle and voted with the GOP on this-- and now Ryan is calling it a "bipartisan effort"-- knowing there is no price to pay in terms of DCCC or House Majority PAC funding. The 23 House Dems who played on Ryan's team today were mostly the same wretched crew of New Dems and Blue Dogs like...

• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)
• Lois Capps (New Dem-CA)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)
• Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX)

In the Senate, where they are taking Zika more seriously than the goof-balls in the House, a far right filibuster was overcome, 68-29. Among the culprits were Pat Toomey (R-PA), Rand Paul (R-KY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI), each of whom will have to face the voters in November.