Republicans Monday had new hope that they could influence health care deliberations — influence that’s so far eluded them — as the debate moves to the Senate, where the rules and the politics can work to their advantage.
Some Republicans are trying to win Democratic support for more help for small business, different medical malpractice policies and changes in how the health care overhaul would be funded.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of three GOP senators to vote for the Democratic-authored economic stimulus plan earlier this year, said moderates from both parties are discussing potential areas of agreement.
The odds are still long, and probably insurmountable, against the Senate’s 40 Republicans having significant input into the biggest decisions, notably mandates on employers and individuals and the plan’s funding. They continue to complain that, as Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., put it, the bill “is being drafted behind closed doors.”
You want to have some say in the bill? Become constructive negotiating partners. Show that there is some reasonable expectation that you will vote for the bill if your changes are implemented. Offer amendments designed to make the bill better, not tank it. Slap down idiots like Palin and McCaughey and Bachmann who are running around lying and screaming about death panels. Stop holding rallies on the Capitol steps waving pictures of emaciated corpses from Dachau. You worried about cost containment- stop doing everything you can to protect profits for your big insurance buddies. Until then, stfu.
(via)
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Na gah nah hapen.
dr. bloor
Reconcilliation, Harry. Stop wasting time and just do it already.
jenniebee
The finance committee bill was also drafted behind closed doors – most notably, the doors were closed on the Democrats on the committee.
Leelee for Obama
Most excellent title, John! I love that awful MTV video!
John S.
According to the Republitard I work with, it’s still the Democrats’ fault for not just giving the GOP everything they want, because only then would it have been a negotiation.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
That would require them to understand that they lost the last election, and that they no longer get to decide what legislation is proposed. That won’t happen at least until they lose the next presidential election.
pharniel
Yup. I’m gtting ready for the massive freakout and then turn about that they totally always supported it anyway once it’s passed and helping.
dmsilev
They had months upon months to contribute to the bill. Have we all now forgotten the Summer of the Finance Committee and the Gang of Six?
My reaction would be to call their bluff. Say that Democrats will consider GOP amendments if the Senators in question stand up in public, in front of news cameras, and say “If this amendment is considered, I will vote for cloture on all procedural votes related to this bill.” That exact language. Get it in writing, even. Make sure every yammerhead in the Village gets a copy of the sworn oath.
Since the size of the GOP caucus actually considering voting for cloture is best measured with an electron microscope, you either get them to shut up or you have thorough documentary evidence of hypocrisy and bad faith, in a sound bite perfect for the next round of attack ads.
-dms
DougJ
Clever post title!
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d say the Republican strategy so far has been very effective. Democrats have crafted a largely Republican-friendly bill that Republicans can demagogue and not vote for. Does it get any better than that if yer in the minority?
Violet
It’ll take a whole lot of illegally sourced substances to make it look like the Republicans are acting like this. In the real world I don’t think they would even know how to begin acting like normal people. Especially normal people who want to help their constituents, not prop up the profits of those who own them.
Leelee for Obama
@pharniel: And brag on how the bill helps their constituents so much, that said constituents should send them back to Congress so they can continue bringing such help! Blarrgh!
BH
John forgot the final step. The Republicans actually need to vote for the damn bill if their input is accepted. You gotta deliver the quo if you want some quid.
This nonsense about “I want input on a bill that I’ll never, ever vote for” is the height of stupidity.
MattF
There’s this ‘good faith’ thing that’s a problem for the Republicans. Like, you know, acting as if your goals here have anything to do with health care. Of course, actual health care problems and actual debate about those problems are just boring, so… It’s a problem.
Joel
sounds like at least 1 or 2 republicans might be constructive negotiating partners, so long as they’re not running scared of their own party.
Max
Seems to me that the media meme is already switching to ruh roh, the GOP is being split and the inmates are taking over the asylum.
This after they spent the summer telling us how the Dems were in trouble in River City because the GOP was back like the Backstreet Boys.
I’m so glad that Obama, etal ignore the conventional wisdom and the media’s false themes and just do what they do.
Brick Oven Bill
Plato’s Third Understanding is that, although the physical application of mathematics may change, the thoughts themselves are eternal, and in another realm of existence.
Using this Understanding, and the Fourth Liberal Art of Arithmetic, behold this Logic:
If overall coverage goes up; and
If the number of people being covered goes up; and
The cost does not go up; therefore
Savings must be realized elsewhere; and knowing
Most health care expenses are expended on the elderly; it makes sense that
This is the place to find the savings; and
This is where there will be savings; and
This being a government organization;
There will have to be some centralized authority to make decisions to realize these savings;
Leading us to our conclusion:
Sarah Palin is smarter than Balloon Juice with regard to government death panels.
Michele Bachmann is nearing divinity.
Hunter Gathers
They are just looking to delay it. If the Senate doesn’t get this bill passed before they leave for X-Mas, it’s dead.
Mr Furious
They should just shut the Republicans completely out of the process at this point, and when anyone complains, just respond with an endless loop of Saturday’s “I OBJECT!” debate.
Rock
A bipartisan bill would be possible if Democrats would vote for the Republican-authored health plan presented by Boehner. The Republicans have offered up a bill that can be passed with bipartisan support, so if that doesn’t happen then it’s clearly the Democrats that are to blame.
At least that’s the vibe I’m getting from the media and Republcans. Have I got it about right?
dmsilev
Not now, BOB, adults are talking.
-dms
Notorious P.A.T.
Or, don’t get your asses handed to you on a silver platter in two straight elections.
Mr Furious
The resurgent BoB is clearly an automated spoof generated by combining random google searches for prose with Red State comments.
It’s the only way to explain #17.
PeakVT
Already, there’ve been signs of bipartisanship. When a public option plan similar to the one the House passed on Saturday came up in the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year, Democrats joined Republicans to defeat it.
This article is just total FAIL – unless the writer was trying to channel Broder.
stinkwrinkle
Excellent post, and that title is just top-shelf. This is why Balloon Juice has gone from a website I read every now and again, to my 10-times-a-day must-read list.
Thanks, folks!
(This is how realignments happen. Also.)
The Grand Panjandrum
Say it ain’t Snowe!
jenniebee
Shorter BoB: Democrats are going to kill the elderly because that is totally where he (BoB) would go first.
When people die in the status quo though, that doesn’t count because when people 18-64 die from curable diseases because they don’t have enough cash on hand to ransom their lives, that’s normal and the free market and WOLVERINES! because shut up, that’s why, and they probably deserved it for being hippies and fat and stuff.
Also, “Red, Red Whine” should also be a category too.
John D.
@Brick Oven Bill: Bill, you really need to stop reading philosophy and mathematics, as it’s obvious you have zero understanding about, well, anything.
There are at least three unsupported assumptions in your construct there — where the savings is found, what form the savings will take, and the group that the savings will impact — that are all incorrect.
The savings is primarily found through negotiation of better rates due to the massive pool being covered. The form the savings will take is one of cost containment and reduction in growth rates, not service reduction. The group it impacts primarily is not the elderly — they are on Medicare, a completely different government program that, oddly enough, has worked fairly well for over 4 decades, shrieking from assholes notwithstanding.
LOGIC FAIL. Don’t even bother trying again. You suck at this.
Senyordave
Ask for input and negotiate (if there any GOP takers) for two weeks. After they come back from Thankgiving, write the bill and pass it before Christmas recess.
Just don’t let Ben Nelson anywhere near it, he is as every bit as disgusting as Demint, the OK lunatics, and Sen. Diapers. I understand that many are strongly opposed to abortion, but I think he would gladly watch a woman die rather than chance that somehow federal money might mix with private regarding abortion.
Sanka
Yeah!! Take that Baucus and Dodd!!! Douche-bag Republicans!! Oh wait…
John S.
There is no explanation other than hallucinogens.
Zifnab
@Hunter Gathers: It’s bottling up business in the Senate, it’s the hallmark legislation for the election cycle, and it’s the biggest legislative triumph for the Democratic Party since Johnson’s Great Society.
We’ve been hearing about health care since 2008. They’ll pass something. If they have to hammer the bill through Reconciliation, I don’t doubt they’ll do it. But I think the Conserva-Dems know how to play the game better than their Republican peers, and aren’t going to cede filibuster power by forcing Reid’s hand. They’ll wring exactly as much filthy lucure out of this bill that they think they can, then go home to their constituents and brag about their liberal reforms and conservative fiscal prudence.
RememberNovember
That’s called Leadership, not the politics that is rampant these days.
Simple respect, courtesy and compromise are dead in American Democracy.
I blame reality shows and Blackberries.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Brick Oven Bill:
You know that Sarah Palin proposed Alaska adopt “death panels”, don’t you?
Cat Lady
@stinkwrinkle:
Don’t make the mistake like I did of using two wetsuits and a dildo as shorthand for Republican hypocrisy outside of this weird little B-J world. It doesn’t translate.
RememberNovember
BOB-
I think is just posting to be satirical, I really do. No one person could be so incredulously obtuse…wait, I can think of two-Bachmann and Palin.
cleek
@Notorious P.A.T.:
i heard she proposed hunting the elderly from helicopters !
MikeJ
I take it you’re thinking of UB40 and not the ‘Mats.
Brick Oven Bill
That would be the Medicare that the plan cuts $500 billion from?
You are the one who sucks John D.
We spend too much on the elderly, for the record. Those terminally ill patients should be given pills, or a .45 and a bullet, if they choose not to use their own funds to artificially extend their life.
Obama should have the balls to say this. It is what he is doing. This is what really bothers me about this guy. He is way too comfortable lying. Either this or he is really, really stupid.
General Winfield Stuck
@Zifnab:
You may well be right. Forcing this thing thru reconciliation means likely a much more liberal product as a result. So in a way, Lieberman’s seeming intransigence, and Nelson’s and Landrieu’s may well, or potentially could make for a stronger PO in the end. Shakespeare might be grinning in his grave before it’s all said and done. My blue, blue heart.
jibeaux
Are y’all ready for the War on Christmas? Saw a FB poll today asking whether or not you agree with the Obamas’ decision to have a holiday tree and not a Christmas tree.
I swear you could write a FB poll asking whether or not you agree with Michelle Obama serving roast loin of human baby at Thanksgiving and you’d get a quarter of a million indignant responses disagreeing with cannibalizing our young. For all the advantages of modern medicine, education, and sanitation, we sure are stupid.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
“I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..I object…..”
Not gonna happen.
Leelee for Obama
@MikeJ: Correctamundo! In keeping with the ad thread, gratuitous Fonzi reference!
General Winfield Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
BoB likes pissing in the wind is all. A parody troll’s shower day.
El Cid
I don’t think people understand the strength of this maneuver.
If one or two Republicans merely claim that they would like to work with Democrats to ‘improve’ the bill, then they know there is a very, very good chance that that claim alone will get Democrats to change the bill in their favor.
And then they won’t vote for it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jibeaux: Yeah, my sister voted NO on that. I commented “Christmas tree is a pagan ritual anyway.” And she replied, “I know, but you can make it what you want. For me, it reminds me of the light of Christ, blah blah blah..
I replied, “So you can make it what you want but President Obama can’t make it what he wants?”
No reply.
John D.
@Brick Oven Bill: Sigh.
$500 billion / 10 years == $50 billion/year. The CBO already released the data of where the savings for THAT is coming from and hey — it is not from cutting services, but cutting administrative costs. Or did you have a conspiritorial plot for why there is a major push for record standardization?
Obama should have the balls to say that your fevered fantasy scenario is what he’s planning? THAT would be a lie, and yet in the same breath you castigate him for being too comfortable with lying.
I really, truly cannot figure out if you’re just a spoof or if you really are that stupid. I think spoof, but you get so easily riled in responses that it seems like you actually believe the horseshit you spew in here.
bemused
BoB must have really hated his grandparents. If they’re still living, I sincerely hope he’s not their family advocate in health care decisions or they are sol.
jibeaux
@Just Some Fuckhead:
He’s calling it a Christmas tree. They’re ordering it from a Christmas tree farm. Do people honestly think that a president a quarter of the country thinks is Muslim anyway came out and gave a press conference on how they had decided not to have a Christmas tree but a holiday tree, and by the way they’re just going to ban the baby Jesus and pumpkin pie while they’re at it?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@General Winfield Stuck:
Naah, as usual BOB’s just standing around here with his meat out, looking for a circle jerk and not finding one. Pissing in the wind is just another day for him.
Face
There’s zero chance this bill survives the Senate. The Dem party is just too varied/diverse to have all 60 vote in one direction. It’s reconcilliation or nothing, IMO. All of this leading up to reconcilliation is pure theater–to show the nation just what turncoat fuckheads Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson, etc. are.
ksmiami
We would listen to the other side if they weren’t effin nuts and stoopid, but since that just is not the case, ram a good, Democratic bill through minus Stupak’s “free the zygote” amendment.
Koz
Just remember when the health care bill goes to pieces, at least the Prez and his spokespeople said some nasty things about Fox News, so it wasn’t a total loss.
Uloborus
Sigh. BoB, the money cut from Medicare Is directed at a program in Medicare that subsidizes private insurers who partnered with it, then didn’t actually contribute anything for the money. Not cutting any actual servi- why am I arguing with BoB? Straw men give me HIVES.
John, actually, this interests me. Will we see more of this? It’s language I haven’t heard from Republicans in months that, frankly, their teabagger masters have not tolerated. It even sounds like they’re asking for compromises not meant to neuter the bill, although they can be tricky there. The fringe loonies have been pulling away from moderate Republicans. Instead of going ‘Yes, Master!’ I’d kind of like to see the moderates pull back. Either the GOP returns to sanity, or splits utterly. I’m good with either.
JGabriel
David Lightman:
I can’t believe someone from McClatchy wrote that sentence. Republicans know that any benefits from health care legislation will be credited to the Dems, and they have no interest in helping to construct a popular or effective bill.
The GOP wants to derail health care reform and, failing that, will do everything in its power to make it cumbersome, ineffective, and unpopular.
Any assertion to the contrary is just wrong.
.
jibeaux
@Koz:
Maybe BoB could give you troll tutoring. He is teh awsum at the rope a dope.
inkadu
@pharniel: I don’t think the GOP needs to support this bill; in fact, I’m guessing this horrible bill that will weigh down Democrats in every election cycle until it’s “fixed,” if such a thing is even possible.
I mean, we’ll be giving insurance and drug companies companies even MORE money to fuck us over with lobbying… I’m not sure how that’s a recipe for legislative success. The stake holders in medical reform are corporations, not citizens.
General Winfield Stuck
@Koz:
Not going to happen Koz. Big Dawg is right now delivering some much needed religion on what would happen with failure. Loss of power and gavels and the like. Dems are often scatterbrained and herding them into a focused force is difficult at best. But the likely hood of minority status focuses the mind. 1994 is not all that long ago, when considering the time in the wilderness just ended a few years ago. They will pass something with at least a weak PO, or we the base will cook their collective geese. Not the tea baggers.
Brick Oven Bill
Math is cool.
Growing numbers of seniors + Growing numbers of treatments – Money = Rationing
Government + Rationing = Panel
Panel + Life/Death Decisions = Death Panel
DougL + Keyboard = Projection
Sarah Palin can understand this.
This is why Sarah Palin is smarter than Balloon Juice on this matter.
Rommie
I support the addition of a Red, Red Whine as a Tag Category, because we all know we’ll be swimming in it over the next few weeks. If you can come up with a good Blue tag as well, so much the better, as I’m sure we’ll get some from both sides.
inkadu
@General Winfield Stuck: Your logic only applies to Democrats in unsafe political districts. Most incumbents enjoy a healthy margin for victory — even more so in the 6-year-term senate.
I also don’t see any indications of party discipline. Do you? Can you show me? Lieberman should be the weather vane for this kind of discipline, but he’s still crowing on the roof about the public option being the worse thing to happen to America since the Clenis. When I see Lieberman knocked off his perch, I’ll have a little more confidence in what you are saying.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
BOB, I believe that the bulk of the savings will come from the fact that the government is not required to maintain 35% profit levels, like those of the insurance industry.
But if ignoring the obvious works for you, then just keep doing what you do.
.
slag
The fact that they think they can keep getting away with this whine seems to indicate a flaw in the system. Comprehensive documentation of the process could fairly easily enable a basic quantifiable analysis of all the changes Republicans offer and are included or rejected.
Of course, there’s still nothing stopping Republicans from being as outrageous as they wanna be in their proffered amendments. So, that kind of analysis would inevitably backfire after Democrats end up having to reject the inevitable 15 variations of Republican proposals to turn poor people into feedstock for the CEO of Pfizer’s prize collection of pygmy goats.
Yeah. There’s no solution to this problem.
General Winfield Stuck
@inkadu:
We hear only from the dissenters, they get the mics which exagerates their power and numbers. According to Harkin, there are at least 52 Senate dems solidly for a good PO. And that number when crunch time comes will grow. Forget about passing something thru the Senate with regular order, it was never a likely route, though still is possible per my earlier comment. Quit listening so much to the msm wankers looking to create drama unnecessarily.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brick Oven Bill:
You know, teh google doesn’t show any results for “Plato’s Third Understanding,” BoB.
And at least one link suggests the “Seven Liberal Arts” is a freemasonic construct.
Are you a Mason, BoB? because that would explain a lot of that philosophical babble you’re spouting. But it doesn’t explain the racism, sexism and – now – ageism that adds to your exceedingly weak sauce.
inkadu
@Brick Oven Bill: BoB + Killfile = +2 IQ
What is the name of that killfile extension? I keep not getting it thinking I can slog through the filth for a few more weeks. But it’s getting to that point.
The Grand Panjandrum
@arguingwithsignposts: He seems more of a Scientologist because he’s very good at jumping up and down on the proverbial sofa in a public place proclaiming his love for Glenn Beck.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brick Oven Bill:
Ignoring the obvious rationing that is already occurring in the system.
That’s some serious trollbait there, BoB. Probably not acceptable under Plato’s Third Understanding.
Tsulagi
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Pretty much. So far out of the House a watered down public option with mandatory insurance purchase and noncompliance penalties. Plus jacking around with abortion language where that procedure would only be covered in instances of rape, incest, or death of the mother if carried to term.
In the Senate, in still seeking that bipartisanship pony underneath all the shit maybe they’ll add billions to churches for family planning and being sole dispensers of birth control. Of course Rs would still vote as a block against any HCR bill, but it would show Ds are serious in being the Rs at the table in their absence.
Republicans are incompetent at governing, Democrats are incompetent at dealing with Republicans.
inkadu
@General Winfield Stuck: 52 isn’t enough when there are 8 ditherers who don’t give a fuck. I have no doubt that the majority (overwhelmingly it seems) of the Dem party wants a PO (I mean, if 68% of the public wants it, it must be close to 95% of democrats)… But we’ll see.
Is there any PO in the House Bill? All I’ve heard is an exchange, which, by all prior accounts, really sucked. This has pretty much been SoP for this bill so far. I don’t know what’s in it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not enough.
Brachiator
OT, I know we’re all good Amurricans, and only care about stuff that happens in the good ol’ US of A, but damn, these pics commemorating the taking down of the Berlin Wall are amazing (World leaders gather to see the Berlin Wall topple again, 20 years on)
All in all, you’re not just another brick in the wall.
The free market Germans have a pretty good health care system, also, too.
Paris
The cost per person is reduced. Math is teh awesome!
General Winfield Stuck
@inkadu:
You need to educate yourself some, unless you just enjoy worrying. 52 is plenty enough to pass a bill thru the Reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority to pass.
Koz
“Big Dawg is right now delivering some much needed religion on what would happen with failure.”
This is where the offyear elections change things a little bit. The Prez can’t protect the D’s in Congress.
Furthermore, there is an expectations gap that can’t be breached. People like you aren’t going to get what you want. Better to piss you off now where you have the chance of going back to hating on R’s than six months later.
ppcli
And while we’re at it: it would have helped your case if when *you* were in power you hadn’t been in constant search-and-destroy mode, blackballing lobbying firms that had Democrats in senior positions, “forgetting” to inform minority members about key meetings, threatening to eliminate the filibuster if you didn’t get your way on every last judicial nominee, enlisting the Justice Department to launch hurried pre-election indictments of Democrats that never seemed to pan out post-election and firing the prosecutors that wouldn’t play ball,…
.
Naturally the media has allowed all that crap to vanish down the memory hole.
Little Dreamer
@Brick Oven Bill:
There ya have it folks, BOB is FOR death panels after all the projection is introduced and called out. Why am I not surprised? I guess life is only important when it belongs to a zygote.
Little Dreamer
@General Winfield Stuck:
Perhaps the problem isn’t that it’s a simple majority through reconciliation, but the fact that Harry Reid is in charge of getting it done. I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to stick a wrench in it somewhere.
inkadu
@General Winfield Stuck: I occasionally forget about reconciliation since so much emphasis is put on the filibuster…
But don’t we have to have two bills to reconcile first? And doesn’t at least one of those bills have to have some decent provisions? Or can the reconciliation process come up with something entirely novel? Because so far all I see is one very weak bill from the house, and one increasingly water-logged bill in the Senate. Can reconciled bill be better than both?
arguingwithsignposts
I was amazed at the absolute assholery of the Repubs. attempting to cut off all the Dem. female Reps. trying to speak against Stupak. That should be required watching for every person with half a conscience. Shameful behavior from a shameless bunch of troglodytes.
General Winfield Stuck
@Koz:
Sure he can. He can keep them from pissing off their base who are the ones who vote in midterms. Because it sure as shit ain’t going to be the tea baggers. Dems will lose seats like all first mid terms of a presnit of the same party. But keeping the base happy and wanting to vote mitigates that, maybe a lot.
And no, I won’t get what I want, don’t expect to. Getting enough, for now, is enough. And I never quit hating the “R’s”, it’s a twenty four seven job that never ends. Somebody has to do it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jibeaux: I think a war on Christmas is long overdue. It will pay for itself in money saved that would normally go to purchasing unnecessary junk. Retail salespeople will greet us as liberators. Viva el Grinch!!
inkadu
@Little Dreamer: Nah. BoB just put that comment in so he can later say, “I read right here on Balloon-Juice that some commenters think old people are too expensive and should just be killed.”
Of course, by Republitard logic, that’s exactly what should happen to old people, because it’s not the government’s job to take over an entire sector of the economy.
General Winfield Stuck
@inkadu:
LOL. Inkadu. Your going to give yourself gray hairs worrying so much about stuff yet to happen. It’s a process that has to play out, and will.
joes527
@General Winfield Stuck:
That is my fear.
mandates + subsidies + PO that is really a dumping ground for folks who actually get sick == higher profits for insurance companies (which will only cover healthy folks) + chronically and impossibly underfunded PO (which covers all sick folks) == more folks will die for lack of effective health coverage.
If the PO does not provide downward pressure on insurance prices, and there there is not a robust firewall to keep it from becoming a dumping ground for all sick people then it will make things worse, not better.
inkadu
@General Winfield Stuck: So that’s where those few gray hairs came from…
I just read the Wiki page for reconciliation, and it’s not at all what I thought. At least I don’t think it is at all what I thought. Still confused.
And the brownshirts are ready to start a rebellion at the first gavel of a reconciliation session.
Tsulagi
@Tsulagi: Okay, kinda curious why your ass went into moderation purgatory. Was it a link to a “Just Some ‘Fuckhead’” comment? Maybe the words “rape,” incest,” or “shit?” Will linking to a comment awaiting moderation automatically condemn this one to the abyss too? Questions, questions.
joes527
wordpress fail
General Winfield Stuck
@inkadu:
You are right that the recon. process is not the best way to do this, but the repubs set the table by using it to pass Welfare Reform in 96, so it will take away much of their outrage and fury. Actually, no it won’t, but will label it correctly for the hypocrisy it is with the public. And they will likely take their hissy fit out by slowing senate business to a crawl, at least for awhile.
inkadu
@General Winfield Stuck: Hypocrisy would be filibustering an entire session of congress while spending the previous years screaming “Upperdown!” and damning the filibuster as a tyrannical undemocratic act that should be abolished.
But that never happened, because I’m sure I would have heard about it on the the teevee if it had.
mak
Righteous rant there, Mr. Cole.
DougL
D: Mmmm… pie!
R: I could eat the whole thing.
D: Well, I was hoping to have some, too. We can each have half.
R: Let’s compromise. I’ll take 3/4.
ppcli
@DougL:
Almost – except the last line should read:
“Let’s compromise. I’ll take the whole thing.”
Koz
“And no, I won’t get what I want, don’t expect to. Getting enough, for now, is enough.”
What you’re likely to get is the status quo. I hope you’re happy with that.
“And I never quit hating the “R’s”, it’s a twenty four seven job that never ends. Somebody has to do it.”
Except, of course, that the Prez said nasty things about Fox News. I hope that makes up for (the lack of) health care.
General Winfield Stuck
@Koz:
wank on dude
slippy
@DougL:
Fixx0red for ya!
jibeaux
@Koz:
It doesn’t get any wittier with repetition, you know.
ruemara
@Koz:
Whatever, kassandra.
Koz
“It doesn’t get any wittier with repetition, you know.”
Sorry. I just wanted to make sure the original point didn’t get lost in a sea of invective.
Midnight Marauder
@Koz:
Don’t worry. We got your “point.” It’s an absurd and inane point, but we get it nonetheless. But feel free to remind everyone one more time about the “mean things” the president has said about Fox News.
Just in case there are a few stragglers this morning.
mrmike
Uloborus
Eh. Koz is doing the ‘liberal defeatist’ thing. I’m not one, and I actually think we have both a good chance at getting a decent reform out the gate and breaking the back of resistance to more reforms.
But man, LOOK at the way the Democrats kept fumbling the ball since 9/11. Is it any bloody wonder people like him think it can’t be done? I at least sympathize.
Hob
Ziegelofen Bob just realized it had been too long since he tossed out a piece of literal Nazism. It’s a decent effort, but the “pills or a .45” bit is still a little weak compared to his past hits, like “the Jews are genetically defective and that’s why they’re too nice to the Palestinians.”
someguy
There we go. I think we just came up with a viable, long term policy for Republicans across this great land of ours.
ford powers
@JohnCole A-fuckin-MEN
daryljfontaine
@inkadu:
BoB / (BoB’s IQ) = divide by zero error
D