Someone needs to photoshop Pelosi in over his right shoulder.
Lanny Frattare fans will understand the title.
Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly
Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.
Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.
Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.
How stupid are these people?
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.
If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
Republicans do not trust women.
If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.
The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.
Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.
Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.
dmsilev
In all fairness, we need an equivalent picture of Nancy Pelosi. She deserves a major chunk of the credit for getting things done.
-dms
BTD
That picture was used to argue that the President “had” the public option.
Your use of the photo is incredibly ironic.
Zifnab
Health Care! Woooooooo!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Never doubted it
beltane
I think I’ll pass on the Massa massage.
master c
Thank you.
r€nato
Once again, the Republicans are on the wrong side of history.
jeffreyw
Ah, great morning to be alive if not actually kickin. G’day all.
James K Polk, Esq.
I keep having visions of Alice (of Wonderland fame) swimming around in great seas of tears that she wept herself for some reason…
Jack
Democratic leader worship and self-abnegation is no prettier than the Republican version.
Good thing Americans like to cheer on their corporate betters whilst they hammerfuck them with bad law.
It’s entertaining, even if it’s all bad for we hoi polloi in the end…
…I guess it’s just good copy, this making the rich richer, but calling it “progressivism.”
BR
@BTD:
WTF are you talking about? That picture has been around since the DNC in 2008.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Looks like the purity trolls are back with the sour grapes
BTD
@BR:
You must be joking. Cole’s reference is clearly to its use in the health care debate. Cole forgets it was used to deflect concerns that the public option was going to be jettisoned.
The response was that picture. Obama was going to make sure the public option would be in the final bill.
To use it now as Cole does is incredible and unintentionally amusing.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BTD:
I believe the original use of the picture was used to argue that Obama “had” the election in hand.
Your re-purposing of the photo is incredibly moronic.
Barbara
We are left to conclude that the grandmother has at least as much spine and a whole lot more empathy and perspective than the enforcer.
After this endless series in the press on how Obama would be so much more successful if only he would listen to Emmanuel, doesn’t it feel just a little sweet to find out that it was the “girl” Pelosi who rescued all those boys stranded at sea in the lifeboat?
And there’s a little asterisk I keep noting in my mind: those nuns who defied their bishops last week are probably from the same social milieu as Pelosi, who went to a small Catholic girls college, where she was taught, I am sure, mostly by nuns.
It’s a fool’s quest to think that the Church and Emmanuel should both take note of the limits of authoritarian insistence on their own right to call the shots.
James Hare
Add Nancy with the gavel from yesterday when walking in that YouTube video — that’d look fierce.
Nancy Pelosi kicks some serious ass.
scav
@beltane: ditto.
BTD
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Setting the record straight about the photo and its use to “rebut” the idea that the public option was being jettisoned is now being a “purity troll.”
Got it.
beltane
@BR: That picture would be posted on GOS just about every time something good happened during the campaign. Never once did I see it used in regards to the public option. At least not here or on Daily Kos.
Jack
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Medicare Part D was bad law, too.
It doesn’t take a “purist” to note who benefits and how it alters the body politic.
The further concentration of wealth and power in insurance companies, a direct result of this legislation, will almost certainly do greater damage to the surviving strains of democratism, in this country, than can be offset by any supposed benefit from extended mandatory “coverage.”
But, do continue to celebrate your own staking to the corporate behemoth. It makes for good BDSM, if only for a historical moment or two…
Tattoosydney
Holding the Gavel of Retribution.
Nancy SMASH!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BTD:
Why so butthurt?
Chyron HR
@BTD:
There, there, Obama hasn’t signed the bill yet. There’s still time for a “Browning” to “stop it”, as your noble allies are wont to say.
BR
@BTD:
That picture has been posted on some blog somewhere daily to support or justify something since the DNC in 2008.
So unless you have a link to a post where John posted it in reference to a public option…
jeffreyw
I think Nacy and Obama have been reading Sun Tzu:
Stupak jumped at the out the EO gave him.
West of the Cascades
@BTD: No – you are wrong – this photo circulated most heavily in the couple of weeks before the election in 2008 when the polling numbers seemed too good and it looked like he might actually win and so there was worrying and handwringing about what might go wrong. You’re making up the fact that it was ever used as a reference to the public option. Troll!!
maye
@BTD: you are a parady of yourself.
John Cole
@BTD: You are just making shit up. That photo is pre-election. Notice the date here: 6 September 2008.
Christ. Your spin is laughable. No one associates that with the public option. No one but you, it seems. You are just flat out making shit up. Period.
J.W. Hamner
@BTD: That’s a blatant strawman. Nobody but FDL types were arguing that a public option was viable past August. It was people like you who kept saying that “if only Obama would use reconciliation” that we’d have the most awesome bill ever. Well guess what? You were wrong. There weren’t even 50 votes for a watered down worthless public option in the Senate… so trying to pass the whole thing via reconciliation would have been a complete disaster. Why don’t you just admit that and run along?
Sigh… now why am I letting myself get irritated by BTD when I should be happy about the most historic progressive legislation since LBJ?
williamc
Someone, anyone, photoshop Nancy with the Gavel and…
NANCY SMASH!
rootless-e
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/galleries/daily_news_front_pages_for_march_2010/daily_news_front_pages_for_march_2010.html
BTD is right to remind us that the hallowed tradition of the left losing, but feeling good about itself, is one that we discard at peril to our souls. Remember, politics is all about self-actualization, not about mere doing stuff.
BTD
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Are you actually arguing that Cole is not referencing the health care debate with his use of this picture?
My gawd, idolatry has no bounds.
Ask Cole what he means. Will he explain in the comments?
Because if this is a reference to the election, and if he and the commenters here have no recollection of its use in the public option debate, well, you folks are either ignorant or lying.
SteveinSC
I don’t know what to say about Stupak. Maybe looking for his 15 minutes in the limelight, or ego or whatever. But goddamn he sank the motherfucking repukes last night with a torpedo straight amidships. They thought they had the baby-killing wedge to win on recommittment. When Stupak stood up and said it was the Democrats who are for life, not the republicans, I yelled “thank you Jesus!” I still am flabergasted by the united front the repukes have against the American people. Political terrorists, one and all.
Tattoosydney
@James Hare:
Damn you. [Does happy healthcare dance.]
Brien Jackson
Not to diminish what Pelosi has done in her tenure one bit, but it occurs to me that Harry Reid is being significantly short-changed in the conversation. I know it’s fashionable to disparage Reid, but consider what he accomplished. Without a single vote to spare, he got 60 Democrats, everyone from Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu to Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders, with vindictive Joe Lieberman thrown in for good measure, to vote for the same bill. That’s rather amazing.
Ash Can
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: LOL at all of them! I wonder how many of them will pop up around here today.
John Cole
@BTD: Worst trolling ever.
rootless-e
FDL has surprised me at the level of its collapse, but when Rick Perry is your hope, then you are a republican.
BTD
@John Cole:
Come the fuck on.
If you are unaware of the association, that is emblematic of your ignorance about the debate on the public option.
Terrible choice with this picture.
dmsilev
@BTD: That picture has been posted across the internet roughly a million times, in roughly 100,000 different contexts. Unless you can show that John personally posted that picture in the context of “the President has got the public option”, you’re just blowing smoke.
-dms
beltane
: @jeffreyw: Our tragedy is that the enemy is too frigging stupid to find their way to the exit.
cleek
i had almost no expectations that HCR would actually pass – even yesterday afternoon, i didn’t expect it.
so, this is a pleasant surprise to me.
i will being eating my hat shortly.
BR
@BTD:
He is – nobody is arguing otherwise. But how you get from there to some apocryphal use of it to defend the public option, I don’t know.
BTD
@John Cole:
Worst bullshit ever Cole. I take you at your word that you did not know the association, but that’s on you, not me.
Really ignorant of you.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@BTD: That photo was likely used for several purposes. Who are you referencing exactly used it for that purpose? Pretty weak shit even for you to make a fuss over a goddamned photo to mourn the loss of your PO pony. Obama didn’t promise you one, but you come here to piss and moan, on a day when 30 million people who can’t get health insurance, now can. Pathetic.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BTD:
No, you’re a butthurt troll. The use of that picture originally started during the ’08 election.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
BTD = Butthurt Troll Democrat
BTD
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I am referencing what person actually engaged in the PO debate know. Obviously that does not include anyone here.
joes527
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: I objected to the handling of HCR because after all the pain of the summer it was going to amount to nothing when it died in the house. The worst of all possible worlds (brought to you be the democrats)
My assessment was completely wrong, so my objection was completely unfounded.
I take solace in the fact that Rush is packing for Costa Rica. (he is leaving, right?) If he doesn’t actually leave the country there should be a law that he will have to share an apartment with Alec Baldwin for the next 8 years.
scav
and really, to think that some people argue on and on that the tuubz do away with copyright and iz da en’my of da intellectual property rights and iz da full of de pirates! (aarrr!), but no, its all just squabbling about who controls colored bytes and has ultimate magisterial authority about hastily assembled shit.
anonymous
I see BTD still reflexively likes Dems better when they FAIL.
BTD
@BR:
Apocryphal? Just because this site seems unaware of what everyone else knew, does not mean it did not happen.
Pathetic shit.
cleek
shorter BTD:
images will symbolize exactly what i say they will symbolize. no more! no less! my experience is reality! mine!
Brian J
I think we should start a thread devoted to our friends’ and coworkers’ stupid reactions to the passing of the bill. Last night on Facebook, one told me that 70 percent of the country was against the bill, although it’s unclear what crevice he pulled that figure from. He also said instead of spending money that he earned, people who don’t have health insurance should get off their asses and get jobs, and that the money should be devoted to fighting the gang problem. Don’t think too hard about that one, because it will kill your brain.
Another friend, who is one of the smartest people I know–really, she’s been at the top of every class she’s been in, most recently at Notre Dame, and now she’s at Harvard Law–who is also a Libertarian, told me that I was uninformed and naive for believing this government takeover of health care would work, because the government never does anything right. What prompted this? Me, answering a question about what the bill does about kids on parents’ health insurance, among other things.
uila
Just wanted to share tbogg’s roundup of wingnut twitter outrage over Stupak’s capitulation. Funny on so many levels. That jackass has managed to set back women’s rights more than any democrat since roe v wade – by far – and the wingnuts are still making him gargle their teabags. What a fucking tool.
BR
Here you go: a Nancy SMASH:
http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/3/22/129137408310178815.jpg
rootless-e
The “public option” is a great example of one reason why it has been so easy for the Republicans to defeat liberals for decades despite pushing a deeply unpopular line of crap. The eagerness of stupid liberals to find hopeless tactical positions, to be tricked into fighting on unfavorable grounds, is hard to comprehend. Thanks God we now have some leadership, and not only in government, that does not consider the Charge of the Light Brigade to be how it should be done.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@BTD: Now you are speaking in tongues
BTD
@dmsilev:
I see. If JOHN did not personally use it in a way that everyone understood in the health care/public option debate, that means it did not happen.
What a crock of shit.
Ash Can
@John Cole:
How ’bout it!
BR
@BTD:
I love that you keep repeating yourself without a single link to back it up.
beltane
@rootless-e: Rick Perry is their hope? Sheesh, it looks like someone’s gone full teabagger on us.
slightly_peeved
Apparently BTD is not aware of all internet traditions.
Tell me, BTD, what do the helicopters think of this picture?
Keith G
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: That didn’t take long.
Is 9:19 AM too early to drink some whine?
I woke up late, sparked the TV, and found wall to wall coverage of…….Tiger Woods.
The world returns to normal.
BTD
@cleek:
Images will symbolize more than Balloon Juice thinks they symbolize.
What’s next? Cole will revise the Confederate Flag?
Ann B. Nonymous
Isn’t BTD that weird Armondo guy? The Josh Treviño of whatever splinter faction he represents? Pay him no mind, John. He’ll end up in a gutter with that crazy Edwards backer on Matthew Yglasias’s blog, singing old sea shanties.
beltane
@John Cole: Where is Brick Oven Bill when you need him.
Tattoosydney
@Brian J:
BTD is leading the way on that one…
BTD
@slightly_peeved:
I am aware of one tradition that apparently escaped the notice of this site.
Seriously, this is a bad joke.
Barbara
After 30 years of being beaten down, I do find success to be outside the comfort zone of progressives of all types, sometimes including myself. Seriously, I am still a little too stunned to think straight about it.
John Cole
@BTD: Show me where the image was used to SOLELY SIGNIFY the public option. Anywhere. I can send you hundreds of links of it used PRIOR TO THE DAMNED ELECTION.
You are just delusional.
geg6
@BTD:
Dood. That was from the election. WTF are you talking about?
scav
furthermore, BTD seems to be the Académie française of All Internet Meanings ™
West of the Cascades
OK folks, time to stop feeding the troll and it will skulk away.
BenA
@Brien Jackson:
And I always come back to the fact that Joe Lieberman is one of the biggest assholes on the face of the earth. Medicare 55 had 59 votes.
dmsilev
@BTD: OK, fine. Show us when/where someone, anyone, posted that picture to “prove” that Obama was going to personally save the public option.
And then explain how that random person/blogger/website has anything to do with John posting that picture in the context of the bill passing last night.
-dms
Crusty Dem
@BTD:
Gotta a link or just trolling today?
I’m sure BTD is right and “somebody”, somewhere, used this picture for the public option. Somebody used it to say Obama was Hitler. Somebody used it to say progressives have mad photochop propz!!
I think somebody woke up pissy this morning.
williamc
Come on guys, BTD is obviously here to rain on your parades, because you guys got what you wanted and he didn’t.
I think you all just need to take this lesson to heart.
Have a good day.
Redshirt
I love Obama, and can sincerely say I’ve never doubted him, and never will. If it can be done, he’ll find a way. If it should not be done, he won’t.
It’s a great psychic relief for me to once again have trust in the powers that be that at least, at the top, they do want what’s best for all Americans, and indeed all the world. They may not always get it right, and there may be compromises along the way, but the intention will always be correct, and that’s what matters.
Slowly, step by step, we can undo the poisons of these Fundie nutjobs.
Violet
@Tattoosydney:
Yeah! NANCY SMASH!
BTW, when is “NANCY SMASH!” being added to the Lexicon and BJ tags? Credit to loneoak for the coinage.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BTD:
You’re making a fool of yourself.
DanF
BTD – In this community, that image has nothing to do with the Public Option and never has. You are commenting in this community. So stop being such a douche.
Morbo
@John Cole: It’s just a good thing you didn’t mention Greenwald anywhere in the post. 11-dimensional chess, haha.
slightly_peeved
@BTD:
lol wut?
AB
holy shit guys it’s just a picture
mem from somerville
I am not psyched about the Stupak role, but I do have to admit I LOLed when the dimensional-chess-maneuver of Stupak stomping on the motion to recommit happened….
jrg
Chronically butthurt troll is butthurt.
It never ceases to amaze me that someone called “Big Tent Democrat” comes onto this blog on a regular basis and alienates everyone he can.
BTD, this image is from the campaign. I remember it well.
SteveinSC
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Right. I can handle this: Message to BTD: hama hamma flomma flooma halla falla whoola bashemma flam tam doola doola = Fuck off in English.
Ash Can
Now that HCR is finally in the all-over-but-the-shouting category and the “OMG HCR IS DEAD!eleventyone” screaming is (finally!) over with, bring on the immigration reform shitflip! :)
Tattoosydney
@BR:
Thanks.
BTD
@BR:
@John Cole:
So you admit you DO know it was used to signify that concerns about the public option being dropped were unfounded because Obama had it?
BTW, I agree with WilliamC that you folks should be happy because you got what you wanted in this bill and I didn’t
My objection is to this photo to signal that precisely because it was used to shut people up about the public option being jettisoned – the argument was Obama would take care of it by getting it back in.
At the time, it was going to happen in the House-Senate conference. Or so the argument went.
PeakVT
Whaddaya know. It turns out it wasn’t a dream. Health care reform passed last night.
I haz a happy.
BTD
@jrg:
And it was repurposed to argue “not to worry about the public option, Obama has got it.”
Now, I think you all know this happened and want to conveniently forget that.
Silly shit.
Chyron HR
I am outraged, outraged by the posting of a picture of a cat requesting a cheeseburger. This clearly represents nothing more and nothing less than real liberals calling upon Obama to deliver single-payer healthcare, and the abysmal spelling employed in the picture’s caption is the basest form of hippie-punching.
I refuse to listen to your “arguments” that my interpretation of this picture is not the one commonly employed by the rest of the human race. Apologize immediately, or you will not see me on your vile website again for at least five minutes.
MikeBoyScout
Lanny Frattare fan says, thanks!
jeffreyw
Big Tent Kitteh proves the the Law of Gravity is just an illusion and we are all saps for standing here and not flying like the fucking angels.
BTD
@DanF:
“IN THIS COMMUNITY.” Perhaps so.
I suppose that is a defense of its use now.
Balloon Juice, the self contained universe for some.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Ash Can:
Yup, and I plan to savor every second before that shitflip starts. Pointing and laughing at the weakest of all concern trollery is not a bad way to start the day, when you think about it.
The Grand Panjandrum
Thanks John Cole! I love that picture. I wonder if any other big legislation is in the works? I really hope DADT, immigration reform and finance reform makes it this year. This first two years could turn out to be a watershed in politics.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BTD:
Wow, you’re a butthurt freak. Go back to Hillaryis44 already.
BR
@BTD:
Since the Internet never forgets, instead of repeating yourself maybe you could provide links for us.
JonathanW
BTD, I don’t post here very often, but seriously STFU. You’re looking more and more ridiculous with each new post in this thread.
El Tiburon
Still have my reservations, but this is one hell of a great day.
Looking forward to see how all of this is implemented.
And my greatest joy is seeing my Republican friends shat themselves up and down their legs.
Omnes Omnibus
@BTD: Dude, it was used for a variety of reason by a variety of people. Cole is now using it for this purpose. It is a fucking Swiss Army knife photo. I do not doubt that someone somewhere used it for the purpose that you stated. Some probably used it to reassure people that their NCAA brackets weren’t busted when Northern Iowa won. Whatever.
Eric U.
can we all pretend to agree with BTD about the picture so he’ll go away? I am sure that it was used many times in reference to the PO. It’s used every time it looks like there is going to be a setback, and losing the PO was a setback.
I was just thinking about how when a republican gets elected president, the republicans are hoping he was lying about most everything he promised because they want more of an authoritarian daddy than is acceptable to win elections. Democratic presidents promise a pony, democrats want a pony, and are disappointed when it is impossible to deliver a pony. Obama promised a lot of things that were impossible to deliver without some republican help. Should we be bitterly disappointed that he can’t deliver those things, or should we have realized that they were impossible because republicans are idiots?
MikeBoyScout
Adding for Bob Prince fans
How SWEET it is!
We had ’em all the way!
Violet
@rootless-e:
Rick Perry? In what context is he FDL’s hope?
Ash Can
@AB: This is always what happens around here when BTD decides he wants attention. He flails and tosses shit and gets kicked around like a soccer ball. I guess he enjoys it.
scav
Wasn’t there something about Obama ramping up the talk about general big business type regulation that took place actually during the latest health care hoo-hah? I remember a short brainwave where I appreciated that as a neat and needed next step. [aside] Funny thing about jargon, it’s context specific.
Corner Stone
@r€nato:
About the only thing Ed Schultz did yesterday that I enjoyed was when he went out of his way to state, about 4 seperate times that I heard, that through all this HCR process there was a total of 1 Republican vote. Combined. Through all the fooforaw, 1 R voted Yes out of all votes cast.
It’s pretty stunning when you think about it a little.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BTD:
Video of BTD freaking out because the picture doesn’t mean what he wants it to mean.
burnspbesq
@Jack:
Oh, just grow the fuck up. Or, alternatively, explain your stance to one of the 30 million or so uninsured who will now be able to get affordable health insurance, and prepare to be punched in the face.
4tehlulz
Successful hijack is successful.
beltane
@DanF: But in some other community far, far away this image was used in conjunction with the defunct public option, so now we are all forbidden to use this picture ever again.
The alphabet was also used to form words advocating for the public option. Now that the public option is no more, we must also retire the alphabet. Now stop writing, your use of letters offends me.
anonymous
@BTD
Show us on the doll where Nancy Pelosi’s Hammer touched you.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@John Cole:
Please tell me BTD isn’t BTD from wherever the fuck Armando ran too when he was booted out of the GOS.
Sheesh, can’t you Hamsher clones (okay, to be honest, Hamsher’s a BTD clone) stay in your own ghettos?
scav
@scav: Found it. March 20: Obama Says New U.S. Financial Regulations Are ‘Essential’
geg6
@BTD:
I honestly have never seen this image used for anything other than the campaign, until today. Never. Of course, I don’t hang out at many of the sites you do, so I’m sure you may be right that someone used it for the public option. But that is NOT what it’s most well-known usage is. And, honestly dood, I’m not completely opposed to the idea that this bill isn’t what we’d all have liked (and often argued vociferously here for the PO). And I’ve even defended you here. But your pouting and pettiness over this is ridiculous.
Be glad for just one second for the people this bill will help. And instead of pouting about how an image is used, work with us to improve what they just passed.
williamc
@ BTD
I am not going to resort to calling you names like others have, but you need to think about what you are doing here in a rational way: you are coming to a blog that is full of self-proclaimed O-bots just to piss in the pot of people the morning after a bill passed that they personally invested a lot of time in to argue over a joke picture from the internet first thing Monday morning after what they all see as a peice of legislation of monumental importance passing. What is your goal? You are not stimulating debate or playing devil’s advocate, you are just stirring up stuff to cause trouble for what seems like no reason, which is why you are being attacked.
PS., this picture has been on mine and my friends desktops since the last week of the 2008 Presidential Campaign to remind us of all the hard work we did registering voters, knocking on doors, and raising cash for the man we trusted to be President. I never saw it used in any context for HCR, and if it was, that’s not where its use was popularized.
slightly_peeved
Shorter BTD:
“Because someone, somewhere, has shat in a punchbowl, it was perfectly appropriate for me to do what I did at your 21st birthday party”
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Jack: I have no time for butthurt ideologues today. Go in peace.
Redshirt
Does everyone see how trolls work? How one troll can dominate any conversation? Do you also see how this same technique is now used, writ large, by the Fox sponsored Tea Baggers, who are essentially stupid trolls?
There’s only one solution folks: You have to ignore them. But I know there’s no hope of that, whatsoever. Human nature will always prevent it.
BTD
@BR:
you missed the new talking point – of course it was used for the PO, but NEVER at Balloon Juice, so it does not have that meaning here.
Balloon Juice is a world all its own.
There’s an argument I can accept.
fucen tarmal
i took the obama caption to mean, the whole executive branch, and the mess it became under Bush. in other words, its the federal government, “he got”, and he was going to handle the crises we are/were in.
in other words, he was the man with the plan. chill.
Meanderthal
“It’s easy to spot a purist. They’re the ones without any skin in the game.”
anonymous
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
“Jane Hamshers of the Left” takes on a new meaning!
ACK
Sure it is. That photo is an iconic image of Obama in the public option debate. When I think of that debate, that photo comes immediately to mind.
What’s wrong with you people!
I mean just use the Google Image search for “Obama Public Option” and it comes up time and time again… the first few pages are full of this image only.
/snark off
Derek
@BTD:
That’s not what I thought of when I saw it, and I’ve commented here like twice.
It’s an all-purpose “President/Candidate Obama is generally competent” image, it being a macro, means that it can be suited for many different purposes, and is usually germane to just one at a time. It does not carry that baggage to most who see it, and there is no evidence to the claim that it does. I could use it to make a joke about how he “got” something completely benign or abjectly silly.
That’s like claiming the picture of a dog in front of sprinkler with caption WHRGARBL is always a metaphor for Israeli Settlement Policy if some clown uses it in a tweet.
Egilsson
BTD is really stupid.
That photo is from the election, when people were worried he’d lose. And it’s been used a bunch since then.
Meanwhile, BTD feels free to ignorantly and insenstively fling around charges that others are ignorant and/or insensitive (I guess) WHILE COMPLETELY UNABLE TO BACK UP HIS POSITION IN THE FACE OF PROOF HE’S WRONG.
I repeat, BTD is stupid.
BTD
@williamc:
I found Cole’s use of the photo to be a mocking reference to folks who wanted a public option and did not get it.
Punching PO supporters is a sport here, so I think my interpretation pretty reasonable.
If Cole intended something different, my apologies to him. That said, I can tell you I doubt I am alone in my view.
zzyzx
You know what the great thing about this vote is? If it turns out that the public option is needed, we can add it to the structure.
Does this bill give me everything that I’d like? No. However, it does seem to be a massive improvement over what we had for millions of people and for that reason I will celebrate.
Violet
@Redshirt:
Yes. Exactly. Don’t feed the trolls.
NANCY SMASH!
Tattoosydney
@Eric U.:
No fair. I want to see if his head explodes.
Ash Can
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Hell, I’m looking forward to the shitflip itself. I want to see how the GOP can outcrazy itself and how many more voters it can alienate in the process (not to mention how many times our curmudgeonly host says, plaintively, “shoot me now”). It’s gonna be a blast!
Redshirt
Yes, let’s keep talking about a picture. OMG Can you believe the arrogance Obama had during the Dem Convention?! Greek columns?!
williamc
@Redshirt:
Best comment of the week already. We all know it, why can’t we all do it?
Crusty Dem
BTD’s lament, a story in 7 parts:
1) The BTD, suffering without the PO he so long dreaded that Obama (and Obama alone) would fail to bring to life, slept poorly and woke up angry
2) He visited balloon juice and saw the Obama “Chill the Fuck out” picture and got angrier, thinking (mistakenly) that it was a tweak about the loss of his one true love (the public option)
3) Rage and anger and comments attacking the use of the picture to malign his love.
4) Haunting realization that the picture has nothing to do with the public option.
5) More rage and anger to cover up the fact that the picture has nothing to do with the public option..
6) Calls for “Link or STFU” intensify.
7) Ratchet up rage and anger, add accusations of stupidity.
fin
BR
@Violet:
NANCY SMASH!
Rhoda
@BTD:
It sucks that the PO didn’t survive but a lot of other good things did and we’ll get another bite of the apple BECAUSE this legislation managed to get passed. You could be happy about that and think about how you’ll fight in the future with the Congress you have rather than this petty bullshit. I can’t believe this thread got trolled so hard over a god damn picture from the primaries. Then again, most of your outrage seems connected to your primary issues.
Keith G
@jeffreyw:
Toby gives a high eight to Barak and Nancy!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Credit it where it’s due. BTD can fill up a BJ thread with the best of em. A dubious honor.
joeinoklahoma
PO aside, Pelosi deserves as much if not more credit than Obama. she worked vociferously for this all along.
Obama waited til the end to jump into the fray. this bill, or something better, could have been law 6 months ago, if Obama had provided leadership, instead of waiting in the wings.
MikeTheZ
Way way way too much feeding the troll.
Not nearly enough NANCY SMASH! Mwahahaha!
PeakVT
Don’t let the troll harsh your buzz, folks. Keep doing the happy dance.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Omnes Omnibus:
kay
@BTD:
Because it’s all about you. I have a suggestion. If you are sincere in wanting a public option down the road, the way to approach that is not to spend the next year discrediting health care reform, as it now exists. That won’t get you an expansion. All it will do is poison the whole idea of reform.
The way to sell the idea of broader reform is to sell the progressive parts of the reform that now exists.
[email protected]
Hello, fellow O-bots. Does everyone, like me, love the smell of VICTORY in the morning!!!!
Just remember, Repugs and Hamsher-crats were so sure this wasn’t going to happen that today they are having trouble comprehending how their “even keeled and logical opposition” wasn’t good enough. BWHAHAHAHA.
I will say that last night’s vote kept me a Democrat. If they hadn’t passed this, I was going to be one of those adored “independents”. Big ups to Pelosi and the O man. Now, let’s just hope that Hop-a-long Harry does his job.
Tattoosydney
@anonymous:
You owe me a keyboard.
Keith G
@BTD:
Dude, Jim Jones was not alone in his views either.
Ash Can
@Tattoosydney: Based on the stuff he’s posting in this thread, I think it’s already exploded. His headless body is still seated at his computer, and his fingers are on automatic pilot.
zzyzx
@Rhoda: What do you mean? BTD supported Obama! He said so all the time! The fact that all of his spin was the exact same as the Clinton hardcores was just an insane coincidence.
Darkmoth
The letter “P” was used in the phrase “public option”. I find it’s repeated use in this thread incredibly ironic. Also.
jeffreyw
Big Tent Kitteh puts his best foot forward.
drag0n
As much as I hate to defend Armando, I also found the use of the pic ironic as I too recall it’s use in the PO debate as a tool to shut up PO supporters.
Violet
@MikeTheZ:
Awesome! NANCY SMASH!
Seriously, Nancy Pelosi got this thing done. It isn’t pretty watching legislation get made, but she got it done, found the votes, and got that thing passed. Nancy is teh awesome!
daryljfontaine
@Brian J:
My favorite moment was seeing a wingnut (slightly left of teabagger territory) buddy of mine on FB join a group called “10 MILLION STRONG AGAINST OBAMACARE” and when I clicked through to see what fuckery this was, imagine my amusement at one of the Online Bastions of Teabaggery (FB really is a cesspool of “fucking retards” in the grand Rahm tradition) only mustering around 7000 “fans” out of their “10 MILLION.”
Wingnut math, almost as hilarious as wingnut tears are delicious.
ETA: NANCY SMASH!
D
Redshift
I think “So you admit…” belongs in the lexicon somewhere.
mr. whipple
@Ash Can:
LOL.
Tattoosydney
@Redshirt:
And American flags.
Gasp!
BTD
@drag0n:
That never happened at Balloon Juice, therefore it did not happen.
PTirebiter
@Brien Jackson: I agree.
Harry’s awful on tv and that image sticks. It’s really too bad.
GregB
But Scott Brown’s pink leather hotpants demanded that the vote go the other way!
Rod Hoffman
And for an earlier generation of Bob Prince fans,
“We had ’em allllllll the waaaaaay!”
gbear
@rootless-e:
This.
williamc
@BTD:
I understand, and I have my problem with JC myself (he won’t let me call people who are “crazy bitches” crazy bitches), and I really didn’t cotton to being termed a Manic Progressive because I thought that the Senate bill as passed was a sop to insurance companies, but I got over it, because this will give 30 MILLION PEOPLE insurance coverage, and as a liberal, that should be my goal, helping people (that and destroying Republicans).
Shorter me: this is done, stop whining, get on the train to fix it. The past is over, you can’t change it, help change the future.
Gotta go help people folks, have a good day doing your snoopy happy dances, you all deserve it.
Jack
@burnspbesq:
I am able to afford to buy a rusted out, useless car at the junkyard. It’s still, technically, a car – whether or not it serves a useful function in getting me from A to B.
So too with “affordable mandatory health insurance.” Sure, it’s insurance. It might even be “affordable.” That doesn’t mean it accomplishes the intended goals, in the possession of it.
Jesus, folks. Basic logic, already.
The category errors in these Obama suckjob hagiographies is just fucking disheartening.
BTD
@williamc:
Your comment is nice, but not to my point about the use of this photo.
Phoebe
I don’t think the picture is accurate in this context, though. I mean, I don’t think we got this passed because we left him alone and he carried the ball, or whatever the analogy is, at root. He had said during the campaign that this wasn’t going to happen without our support, and I think that’s accurate.
However. I first saw this picture during the primaries, when everyone was freaking out 3x a day, especially me, and this picture popped up everywhere and actually calmed me down. I am very grateful for this picture.
Redshift
@PTirebiter: Yeah, it’s interesting. Checking to see if there was any HCR news yesterday around noon, I turned on C-SPAN radio, and they were replaying excerpts from speeches to the Dem caucus from Saturday. First up was Harry Reid, and he was really good! He didn’t have the energy of Obama, of course, but his rhetoric was excellent, doing a very good job with the compare-and-contrast of supporters and opponents, much better messaging than we’ve heard through most of this. I think if I’d been seeing him with his usual slightly tired look, it would have been much less effective.
t jasper parnell
@zzyzx: Exactly, it’s like the opposite of Zeno’s paradox: halfway there is further than we were yesterday.
I would also like to second the notion that BTD is being really dumb on the question of the picture.
John Cole
You are just insane. It was a generic image from the election when everyone was freaking out. It is used for any number of things when people get into a fevered pitch. It never has and does not now have anything to do with your beloved public option. And I ask you again- show me all the links where this image was used to discuss the public option.
You can’t, and are instead just sputtering.
Seriously. Double up on the lithium.
Derek
@BTD:
This is straw man. Backup your fucking arguments.
taylormattd
@BTD: Oh god.
Doctor Science
BR:
Thank you! I shall use it.
Tattoosydney
@MikeTheZ:
@Redshirt:
Can I ask: Is it feeding the troll when you aren’t actually arguing with the troll, but just throwing rocks at it from the sidelines?
/knows the answer already and has a sad
Shalimar
@BTD: There seem to be lots of reasons given for why you’re full of shit, not just one talking point. Everyone clearly doesn’t know what you claim everyone knows, since no one here has agreed with you and you haven’t provided a link to support your point.
Corner Stone
@zzyzx:
*Meh, I’m waiting for a phone call. Sue me.
Yossarian
“If Cole intended something different, my apologies to him. That said, I can tell you I doubt I am alone in my view.”
You’re not alone. I have no doubt that the voices in your head constitute a quorum.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@BTD: Good to see you’re back to your asshole self.
taylormattd
@John Cole: You don’t know the half of it. Back in the day at Daily Kos, he used to go on like 18-hour posting rampages, usually about trivial shit like this.
drag0n
@BTD
I would think that PO supporters would be very happy today. A Public Option is far more achievable as an add-on to this system at a later date than it ever was as a part of this massive bill.
In fact, once the system is in place and people start to see how the exchanges actually function (both the successes and the flaws), a PO should be a no-brainer.
Crusty Dem
@BTD:
Most awesomely condescending comment on this blog, ever.
Redshirt
Yeah, I’m fully on the Pelosi love train too. She’s awesome, and she does it in wonderful panache as well. I trust Nancy and her Hammer.
MikeTheZ
@Tattoosydney: Throwing metaphorical rocks isn’t satisfying enough. It doesn’t really do much since they’re already quite butthurt.
Tattoosydney
@williamc:
Shorter BTD: I am focusing on my butthurt right now, thankyou.
unabogie
I heard the blogger from Loaded Orygun today on the radio, and he was pissed that this bill didn’t cripple the insurance companies. For many people, I think this is the source of their anger. They thought that this was their chance to kill private insurance, event though there’s no support for that and Obama never campaigned on it.
In the end, it still seems like both ‘Bagger camps just didn’t believe Obama when we was running for President. They both thought he was a secret far left ideologue.
Lisa
Yay woo hoo! I was really terrified for a while (after the many near death experiences of this bill) that it was not going to happen. I cursed the President’s skinny ass many a day. But I am ecstatic right now. Yes, I would have loved a public option. I would also have liked a million dollars and a pony.
But the reality is that this really is the most progressive piece of legislation that this country has seen in many many decades. Democrats got’r done.
Thanks, Democrats! And thanks to Balloon Juice for not letting me forget to call my congresscritters and do phone banks and all that shit.
taylormattd
@BTD: Oh fuck off Armando. We *are* public option supporters here.
Just because we are stupid, crazy assholes who want to kill a bill that provides access to health care to 32 million, that doesn’t mean we don’t support the public option.
Jesus Christ you are stupid for supposedly being smart.
schrodinger's cat
This lol has been around since before the 2008 elections, I remember seeing at Pundit Kitchen, ICHC’s sister site and yes we did! This site has been great through the whole process, a
rare beacon of sanity in an otherwise crazy media landscape. Thanks!
BTD
@John Cole:
In Balloon Juice world. Get out of the bubble some time John.
In the health care debate context, its use to deflect concern about the public option, particularly in the summer of 2009, is well known imo.
But have at it.
I’m making this up.
You are all knowing and what I say never happened.
Whatever makes you happy.
Lisa K.
@williamc:
Too bad someone will not telegraph that in great big letters to Boehner and McConnell and McCain before they waste another week or so trying to KILL THE BILL that, dammit, just won’t die. It does seem the otherwise worthless teabagger-in-disguise Frum has tried, but yet to no avail.
Payback is such a fucking bitch, guys. You give us tax cuts for the rich and two wars? This is what you get in return, and guess what, out of the goodness of our hearts we did not exclude ignorant teabagging fucks from benefitting from this bill, in a year which whose merits you will be trumpeting just as surely as you all have the stimulus. I cannot get this stupid ass grin off my face. I fell asleep with it, and woke up with it…
scav
@Tattoosydney: no haz sad, pls. Think of it as Happy Troll Dancing instead?
Lisa K.
@BTD:
You know, I don’t know about anyone else here, but I really don’t care.
Betsy
@jeffreyw:
Love ecstatic dancing kitteh.
BTD
@taylormattd:
Some supported it more than others Matt.
Look. what I do not get is why you are still mad.
You got the historic bill.
Some are skeptical of the results. I do not see why that still angers you.
Lisa
BTD you are a real attention whoring troll. A damn good one. Of course on a day when 30 million uninsured will now have a chance to NOT go bankrupt if they fuck up their knee, it is ALL ABOUT YOU AND YOUR BUTTHURT.
As the British say: Why don’t you fuck off somewhere, mate?
TR
Can anyone develop a program that substitutes a sad trombone noise for every BTD post? Because that’s all I hear.
Kevin K.
@BTD:
And with that, BTD returns to his abode…
taylormattd
OK, this is just epic trolling from Armando.
Please, please John, add the following to your rotation of slogans at the top of the site:
BTD
@drag0n:
You think so? I do not.
But I hope you are right and I am wrong.
It’s pretty simple for me, my view of what health care reform should be lost. I am not sure how happy I should be about that.
Lisa
Kevin K.
That was WTFhilarious.
And with that, you win the internets.
MikeTheZ
@TR: I’d rather it replace it with the text “Nancy SMASHED this troll.”
BTD
@taylormattd:
That is commonly referred to as hyperbole Matt.
It was used in response to the argument that if Ballon Juice never used an image, then Balloon Juice could change the meaning of that image for Balloon Juice.
You are smart, I assume you understood my point.
taylormattd
@BTD: It angers me, because you people have been crazy fucks on a jihad to prevent passage of a bill that expands health care coverage to 32 million people.
That is not just stupid, it’s exceedingly immoral and the opposite of progressive, and I’m fucking sick of hearing about it.
TR
@BTD:
You’re upset about the result. That’s all I need to know about how happy I should be about all this.
bloodstar
Man, there are a couple of people with serious sour grapes going on in here. Hell, I’m libertarian, and while I can say from a purely philosophical stand point that the law is a ‘bad’ law, that doesn’t change the fact that from a pragmatic, governing the nation viewpoint, the law is fine.
I think Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, “Glibertarians” (hee), Communists, Facists, whatever… have this amazing tendency to try to fit reality to their viewpoints, rather than fitting their viewpoints to reality.
The reality is, we’re not going to accept our friends and family dying on us because of preexisting conditions, we’re not going to accept the idea that insurance companies will maximize profit at the expense of our friends and family dying.
I don’t think this bill is perfect, and I think there are some fundamental changes that can still be done to make it more effective, but that doesn’t change the fact that the prior system was incredibly broken and corrupted, and even the Libertarian in me just kinda shrugs and says to myself, ‘well, maybe if the corporations hadn’t been so fucking corrupted and profit hungry, they wouldn’t have fucked up to the point where government had to step in.”
Can someone explain to me why insurance, particularly health insurance is a for profit industry? That’s just asking for trouble (Profit versus life, health, and well being).
BTD
@taylormattd:
“You people?” “Jihad?” “Immoral?”
Sheesh. Beyond the fact that it is not true for me, wtf? Is disagreeing with you now a question of morality??
In your own words, fuck off.
Tattoosydney
@scav:
Aww. So cute and hairy. Happy troll dance.
Nancy smash?
ETA: Video has scary boyband to start, but gets odd very quickly. Hot Chip – I feel better.
scav
@Tattoosydney: Nancy Smash!
Comrade Scrutinizer
@taylormattd: Ah, those were the days, watching an Armando thread go from intelligible to drooling incoherent savagery. Kinda like watching John Kirby do his thing in Silent Rage.
Ed Drone
@BTD:
1. You’re the only denizen of the internets who would think that. Really. Unless ‘tipped off’ by your posting, not even one of your PUMA or FDL compatriots would have thought the same.
2. What do you mean about not wanting a public option? I’d be willing to bet that most of the people who hang out here are for the public option — I’d even say “single payer” rings the bell. It’s just that we are not ready to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Politics is the art of the possible, not the make-a-wish foundation. In the words of the Rolling Stones:
You can’t always get what you want.
You can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes, you might find,
You can get what you need.
So you ripped us for a misconception held only by you. You complain that BJ has its own language and worldview, where that picture has a completely different meaning from what it means for you, but you must know that it is only in your mind that that picture means what you think it means.
OR:
You keep mentioning that picture, but I do not think it means what you think it means.
/Inigo Montoya
Ed
BTD
@TR:
That’s one perspective. I am dissatisfied with the result.
I disagree with the approach to reform this bill takes. the end game of this bill is Wyden-Bennett. I am a supporter of an end game of Medicare for All.
I would have replaced the exchanges for an expansion of Medicare.
If you disagree with that, then you should be pleased.
mrmobi
@BTD
Because if this is a reference to the election, and if he and the commenters here have no recollection of its use in the public option debate, well, you folks are either ignorant or lying.
First, BTD, thanks for calling us ignorant liars. It’s clear from this and your post over at TL that you view the passage of this bill as a failure, or as you say, “a progressive failure.”
Please explain to the over 30 million people who will now have access to health insurance how this is a “failure.” Explain to my adult daughter, who will now be able to be on my family health policy for two more years at a much lower cost, and not have a $5,000 deductible, how this is a failure. Explain how this is a failure to the thousands who die each year because they don’t have health care coverage. Go ahead, try.
John’s post isn’t about the public option, he is simply pointing out that this President, and these Democrats, got something done, thanks in large part to Nancy Pelosi. You seem to be making the case that with a different emphasis and better planning on his part, the President would have been somehow magically able to enact the public option or single-payor and get the 34 or so Democrats who voted against this very centrist bill last night to see the light. Even the Obamabots here (and I count myself as one) understand that that wasn’t going to happen.
The fact is, this fight was never about getting Republican votes, and was always about getting very conservative Democratic votes. It was hard, ugly work, and people got roughed up, including women, unions, and anyone who wanted a robust public option, or, as I do, single-payor.
Clearly, you have an axe to grind. You seem obsessed with the perfect, progressive solution. It is clear to me that this obsession with the perfect solution is why it’s taken so many years to get this done. Did you watch any CSPAN the past couple of days? Is there some way you think the House and Senate were magically going to become more progressive during this session?
Democrats have finally made a (far from perfect) start at health care reform, and the fight continues. But you and the rest of the gang at TL continue to re-fight the 2008 election. What’s next, partnering up with Jane Hamsher and Grover Norquist?
Speaking for me only.
fourlegsgood
Better yet, where’s woot? he needs to go a booby type graphic with Pelosi popping up behind Obama.
taylormattd
@BTD: yes, as a matter of fact, actively trying to prevent 32 million people from obtaining access to health care coverage is deeply immoral.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@rootless-e: Couldn’t have said it better myself. So true, sad but true.
BTD
@mrmobi:
In terms of political bargaining, it is clearly a progressive failure. Now I assume you have read my posts for why I think so.
Perhaps this bill is the right policy, and it certainly does some progressive things, especially the expansion of Medicare.
But on the question of reform, the progressive approach was discarded in favor of the market based Wyden-Bennett approach.
From my perspective, the progressives lost the political bargaining.
Cain
@Keith G:
No shit.. that guy sucked all the oxygen out of.. healthcare?? I mean.. wtf..
cain
Nazgul35
I blame Rahm for BTD’s inability to keep track of their own arguments from post to post!
Comrade Mary
If this image was used often enough re the PO that the association between the two is burned into your brain, then you can probably find a link or two to back up what you say. But over the course of this thread, you haven’t brought out those links. (You do know how to link, don’t you? You just put your fingers together and poke.)
Mom?
PaulW
@bloodstar:
Wise words.
Kevin K.
@Lisa: Thx a bunch, but I think TR deserves the award.
Svensker
@BTD:
Is this a haiku?
BTD
@taylormattd:
“Actively trying to prevent” means what to you Matt?
And who the fuck are you to judge someone’s morality for disagreeing with you on the best health care policy?
Svensker
@mem from somerville:
Me too
Keith G
@BTD:
Where? Show me. It cannot be hard.
slightly_peeved
Most people who dislike the bill because “it’s a giveaway to insurance companies” haven’t read it. Simple as that.
A bill that spends most of its time describing the shitload of new regulations insurers have to do business under is not a giveaway.
Once the mandate’s in, this is how you buy insurance:
“Hi, I’m 30, live in Peoria and don’t smoke. Give me insurance.”
“Do you have any pre-existing conditions?”
“Yes, for 5 years I’ve suffered from GO FUCK YOURSELF AND GIVE ME SOME INSURANCE”.
And the mandate only kicks in if:
– There is an exchange in your state
– The exchange has options to choose from
– At least one option on the exchange is non-profit
– The exchange plans supply all care as required by the Secretary of HHS
– The exchange plans supply preventative care for free
– The premiums are below a pre-set percentage of income
– The plans spend the required percentage of premium cost on care.
Not Europe, true, but a lot stricter than the current system (except Hawaii’s).
PanAmerican
Every party has a pooper, that’s why we invited you….
Citizen_X
@Jack:
No. At worst, it’s more like the transportation solution of tens of millions of Americans (Hell, probably, at some time in their lives, most Americans): the beater. A beat-up, ugly piece of shit, but it actually “serves a useful function in getting me from A to B.”
Are you saying this bill won’t actually insure people? Then please demonstrate.
Lisa
Kevin K.:
LOLOL!! That is also a win.
Pasquinade
BTD
17 months ago
http://www.flickr.com/photos/idlyadam/2890200141/
Grocery stores are open, so you can restock your supply of Cheetos.
Tattoosydney
@mrmobi:
Not just you, I promise.
TR
@BTD:
I’d also like to see Medicare for All. But I know enough about the history of progressive reform in this country to know that all successful welfare state programs have to begin with an opening step like this.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — all of them began as much less than progressives wanted them to be, and all of them were steadily expanded to get to where progressives wanted them to be in due course. As Kucinich noted, the same thing will happen here.
That may not make sense to you in Magical Fairy Princess Land, but that’s how stuff happens here on the planet Earth. You’ve made your opinion, your petulance, and your stupidity perfectly clear here, so feel free to go away and sulk elsewhere.
taylormattd
@BTD: I am somebody who understands the following:
– 150,000 people not dead = good.
– Seeking to kill a bill preventing those deaths = bad.
It’s not really difficult to comprehend unless you are a wingnut, a firebagger, an immoral piece of shit, or some combination of all three.
TR
@Kevin K.:
Honored to accept. I’ll donate the proceeds to the Act Blue account.
Lisa
Will this work as a sound effect for BTD and all firebaggers?
Butthurt sound effect, per TR.
IronyAbounds
BTD – John has made a simple request a number of times: provide a link showing that pic used in connection with Obama’s support of the PO. You continue to insult him and this blog, yet have not provided the link, which should be a simple thing based on your claims. Provide the damn link or shut the fuck up.
BTD
@TR:
The problem with your formulation is there is no “starter” public insurance program in the health bills.
there is a starter exchange program that leads the way to full blown Wyden Bennnet, but not Medicare for Aall.
ADS
@BTD:
Dude, if Balloon Juice bothers you that much, then please go the fook away. Really. Please. You’re not changing anyone’s mind and you are making a fool of yourself.
Marc
He may post as BTD, but he will forever be Armando, the Black Knight, to me.
It’s only a flesh wound!
BTD
@taylormattd:
Once again, I wrote about that health care reform I favored, not against the present bill, which I think does some good thing, but not in the area of reform.
It provides health insurance to 32 million people – good.
But it does not reform our health insurance system in a way I believe is necessary, nor does it take a step in the direction I think it needs to go.
I do not hold your disagreement with me to be a moral failing on your part, though in my view, my approach would save many more lives than the approach you favor.
John
BTD – Show us some fucking links to this purported usage of the picture or shut the fuck up. 17 posts so far and not a lick of evidence of the claim that is the basis of your whole argument.
I can’t tell if BTD is dense or just being an asshole. Probably a bit of both. But I don’t think anybody is going to argue that the picture has never been used to indicate the public option. It’s very difficult to prove a negative, and given the fact that somebody or other probably trots the picture out every time Democrats start panicking about one thing or another (and that’s all the time), I imagine it’s reasonably likely someone, at some point, has used it about the public option.
But, so what? To most people, the association it brings up is the election. Doing some quick google searching, I’m unable to find any real usage of the picture from “O-Bots” promising that Obama will deliver the public option. The best I can find is firebagger types posting it ironically to indicate that Obama has not, in fact, got this, and we should all hate him. If this is such a common trope, surely BTD should be able to find some prominent examples of it, from reasonably prominent bloggers, to support his point. That he has not done so is pretty good evidence that there basically isn’t any. And if it’s hard to find on google, that surely suggests that it wasn’t a very prominent trope, and that thus there’s no reason to think that JC was thinking of that when he posted the picture.
I’m sure I’m giving this ridiculous troll way more time than it deserves, but, seriously.
To close, I’ll repeat: BTD, show us some links or STFU. Some examples from prominent blogs of that picture being used by people saying that Obama would deliver the public option.
bemused
Woke up to a cloudy morning but all I see is bright sunshine & blue skies. As imperfect as this bill is, when the gavel came down it created a big crack in the wall of anti-progressivism.
Da Bomb
@BTD: I mean really, are you off your meds?
This photo was used eleventy billion times during the election. I have a magnet of that exact picture on my fridge, it was bought before the election.
I have never seen John use it in anyway wrt the Public Option.
Just because you keep repeating it over and over again, doesn’t make it true. We don’t live in the land of Oz, you are not Dorothy. Please get over it and stop being a butthrt concern troll.
The stupid and delusion is strong with you.
DAMN!
BTD
Enjoy the hippie punching BJ.
A big win for your vision of HCR yesterday.
Congrats.
mrmobi
@slightly_peeved
Once the mandate’s in, this is how you buy insurance:
“Hi, I’m 30, live in Peoria and don’t smoke. Give me insurance.”
“Do you have any pre-existing conditions?”
“Yes, for 5 years I’ve suffered from GO FUCK YOURSELF AND GIVE ME SOME INSURANCE”.
Great, now there’s coffee all over my iMac screen.
ADS
@BTD:
Go away.
scav
@BTD: it got us out of a century long rut. I’m fairly close to an all-out socializt on some issues (you really do not want to know what I’d nationalize), but it got the U.S. out of a rut of not changing a god damn thing for over a century. And, so sorry that our bubble-speak doesn’t conform to your bubble-speak and that our tactics differ. But I ain’t be changing on your say-so.
DanF
@beltane: Damn Alphabet! I knew it was evil.
over_educated
Guys, guys…. BTD is obviously aware of all internet traditions. Why can’t we just admit it to ourselves?
Chris Johnson
Okay, settle down. My senator is Bernie Sanders. He got an amendment into the thing about local healthcare centers, that people are calling the Sanders amendment. He is, no shit, a soc1alist, and we in Vermont have his back, and he’s not even slightly done yet.
Chill out.
We got this.
Kevin K.
@BTD:
Wait, I get a blow job if I punch a hippy? Why didn’t someone tell me this earlier?
sparky
a. congratulations to those of you who pushed for this.
i am sorry that i am still unable to agree this is a good plan for the future but you should be commended for your efforts as well as your optimism.
b. it is unclear to me why critics deserve so much loathing. never cared what jane h. had to say, though i do agree that she seems to be more about gestures than anything else. still it would be nice to see people here attacking genuine issues rather than silly strawwomen who happen to deviate from D orthodoxy. ultimately, this particular win seems to be more a victory for the enforcement of D party orthodoxy than anything else. i hope you all do not make the mistake the GOP did of driving skeptics out. the early signs here are not encouraging.
c. i hope that those of you who worked to get this passed will not think that you are done. if you do, then i will probably end up being correct and you will be wrong about this being a step forward, as it will merely cement the entrenchment of another fund-dependent complex into the federal fisc.
d. again, the reason i cannot hope along with y’all here is a simple one: the insurers were not touched, at all. that health care stocks are rising (again) today is proof. i would like to be all hopey and changey about it, but after years of permanent Empire war-making, the steady Obama-ratified erosion of civil liberties, and wholesale reassignment of the Treasury to the oligarchy, it strains credulity (well, mine, at any rate) to think this will somehow turn out differently. all of that said, i am sincere when i say i hope you all are right and i am wrong.
e. a question, sincerely meant: what about Obama’s executive order saying pro-life is now the law of the health-care reform land? are you really in favor of that? seems like Stupak got exactly what he wanted. if i am wrong, please explain how. seriously.
Karen in GA
@slightly_peeved: Ha! Consider your explanation stolen.
And I thought the picture referred to Obama’s bracket. I thought it mocked everyone who picked Kansas.
Tom65
Our hate makes him stronger.
Oh wait, wrong troll…
nepate
@John Cole:
BTD is failing spectacularly here. That image, which does indeed go back to the campaign and was leveraged repeatedly to calm the Chicken Littling crowd, is referenced directly in Richard Wolffe’s book about the campaign, Renegade: The Making of a President – a book which does not include a discussion of the public option.
rachel
@sparky:
a. Thank you.
b. Liberals do not ally themselves with that vile shitweasel Grover Norquist. Jane did, and flushed her reputation down the toilet. She has only herself to blame.
c. We shall see, but this is the way the big reforms have always started in the past.
d. Insurers will have to follow regulations that will only allow them to make profits, not obscene profits like they’ve been able to make up until now. No insurance blogger I read (know your enemy being a wise maxim) is the slightest bit happy about this bill.
e. The President’s EO will announce that the law is still the law and will continue to be followed. This would happen even if he didn’t say a mumbling word, and will continue to be the case until the Hyde Amendment is repealed. It was a small concession for getting the Stupidpak on board that cost nobody anything they weren’t going to pay already.
Little Dreamer
@BTD:
Ummm, BTD – you come from a different playground, perhaps it means something on your playground that it doesn’t mean here (and I’ve never seen that graphic equated with the public option anywhere, it’s news to me just as it is to many others here, so you’re obviously wrong) – we don’t play by the rules of your playground here, this is John’s playground, you’re not on your home field, you don’t get that advantage.
Little Dreamer
@sparky:
Nice try. Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land (the question of pro-life issues in HCR was about funding, not rewriting law).
Little Dreamer
@John:
Yes, but, I’m sure I saw that graphic go up on election night 2008 (or the morning after) so if anyone has handy availability to those threads, I’m sure they’d find it). That graphic is the MUP equivalent, it stands for everything.
Little Dreamer
@BTD:
Really? I’m a huge fan of the public option and I’ve never been punched, the difference is that I knew that if we didn’t get it now we could still work on it later. I didn’t make it a demand that would make me want to kill the bill.
I think you’re delusional.
Tim P.
What a strange guy.
sparky
@rachel: thanks for your considerate response.
my responses–
a. you’re quite welcome. though i can’t see it the same way you do i can respect your thinking.
b. Liberals do not ally themselves with that vile shitweasel Grover Norquist. Jane did, and flushed her reputation down the toilet. She has only herself to blame.
agreed–that was not smart of her. i think for me the question is whether a mistake like that is sufficient cause for exiling her completely. it feels a bit too Stalinist for me, but that’s a personal opinion. i can understand people thinking otherwise.
c. We shall see, but this is the way the big reforms have always started in the past.
fair enough, though i disagree with your starting point. i am unaware of any “big reforms” that started by entrenching private industry. it may be that this is a case of looking through a telescope or a microscope. to me, it seems that the concessions to industry were minor ones compared to what they gained, which brings me to…
d. Insurers will have to follow regulations that will only allow them to make profits, not obscene profits like they’ve been able to make up until now. No insurance blogger I read (know your enemy being a wise maxim) is the slightest bit happy about this bill.
that is actually the first good thing (as in contradictory to my take) i’ve seen on this point. would you care to share any links?
e. The President’s EO will announce that the law is still the law and will continue to be followed. This would happen even if he didn’t say a mumbling word, and will continue to be the case until the Hyde Amendment is repealed. It was a small concession for getting the Stupidpak on board that cost nobody anything they weren’t going to pay already.
um, not sure about that. are you sure you want to say that federally-mandated health insurance that is forbidden from paying for abortions is the same as the status quo? it seems to me that this is a rather large restriction.
tripletee
I’m reasonably sure that pretty much everyone here would have liked to have a robust public option, and were disappointed and dispirited when it became clear that it wasn’t politically feasible in the current environment.
See, we don’t enjoy punching PO supporters – we enjoy punching solipsistic egomaniacs who would rather stand on “principle” and see the Democratic party go down in flames than accept modest, incremental progress that will help a lot of people in the long run.
But please, carry on, BTD Quixote. I enjoy watching you running down the hill toward the windmills, howling incoherently, hair aflame, trailing great sulfurous clouds of butthurt.
nepat
@John Cole:
BTD is failing spectacularly here. That image, which does indeed go back to the campaign and was leveraged repeatedly to calm the Chicken Littling crowd, is referenced directly in Richard Wolffe’s book about the campaign, Renegade: The Making of a President – a book which does not include a discussion of the public option.
gil mann
I wonder what BTD thinks of the new NASA logo.
Little Dreamer
@BTD:
Uh, yeah… because (as we all so OBVIOUSLY know) NO Bill NOW with no future chance of a public option or more is like so much better than actually having a bill that covers people and is signed by the president and which has a chance to be improved in the future (even just the cost of the paper it’s printed on makes it a much better deal).
Maybe you should try a different bat?
Germane Jackson
JFC, is BTD the dumbest motherfucker on the entire planet? That image is super-duper-uber famous FROM THE ELECTION, not w/r/t the public option. Go climb a wall of dicks, Armando.
Little Dreamer
@tripletee:
That’s a great visual, I like it.
;)
The Sheriff's A Ni-
So when do we realize that Pup Tent ‘Democrat’ is an attention whore who adds nothing to the debate?
sparky
@Little Dreamer: as my remark referred to health care land not “the law of the land”, i am at a loss as to the point of your response.
@williamc: points taken and i’d be inclined to agree with you, except that i believe the 30 million number is (a) just a guess (b) in significant part the consequence of existing program expansion (and thus this particular legislation was not needed to do that) and the balance is [c] probably incorrect as it is based on IIRC some rather dubious assumptions. in exchange some rather large funding sources were handed over to privately-held businesses. so for me that particular quasi-factoid was not enough to do it. but i can understand how it would be for some people, provided it was taken at face value. it just seems to me that the wish for health care pushed through something that doesn’t really align with that wish.
edit: i confess i don’t really understand what BTD is after in this thread. for myself, i’m not standing on any particular principle as to this issue.
Kerry Reid
Here is some video footage of BTD in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De6AkndwRpM
Little Dreamer
You did state “health care reform land” and you also stated law.
The law is the law. Roe v. Wade is the law and nothing can stop that. The new bill may not be able to fund abortions but that does not mean they will no longer occur. Women can still get the procedure done if they have a way of finding private funding for it. There are ways to fix this situation by having a separate funding source available that can help out with emergency funding (such as from private foundations). I’m sure those who wanted to see abortions covered will figure ways to get funding available to those who desperately need it. Private enterprises have to be part of the solution too. Help comes from many different sources, and when you combine these sources, the wheel turns much easier.
I’m not unhappy with the bill simply because it doesn’t provide for abortions even though I am pro-choice. I didn’t expect that it would fall that way and I don’t see that it’s a huge problem.
Kerry Reid
There hasn’t been public funding for abortions in 30 years, thanks to the Hyde Amendment. Frankly, I haven’t seen many Leftie Purity Trolls of the Male Variety be too concerned about the injustice of that until they needed to piggyback onto the issue as a way of beating the drum for their Pet Shiny Public Option.
Little Dreamer
@Kerry Reid:
Exactly
Jack
@sparky:
I share your concerns, which are not as solitary (or “loony”) as the PTHs think they are. See:
“As the kvetching progressivisti came predictably into line, lending their unconvincingly grudging support to “health care reform,” a new . . . how would a progressive put it? . . . a new narrative coalesced, in which the current vast boondoggle is really no more than a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a symbolic first shovelful of earth at the groundbreaking. Oh, when pressed, they will defend its supposed real merits with their by-now selfsame platitudes: “30 million uninsured . . . pre-existing conditions . . . tra la la.” But within their own whisper galleries, they flop like fish who disbelieve the hook because they still taste the bait. There is no public plan, you fools, you morons. This is it!
I won’t spend a lot of time reiterating old arguments, but it does bear repeating that the US House of Representatives just based a bill universally mandating that individuals purchase a private commodity–a commodity, let’s be clear, that the same bill goes to great lengths to keep private. A so-called “public plan” is exactly the opposite of what this bill is, and the idea that public insurance will somehow flow naturally from its own nemesis is either crazy, a lie, or a crazy lie.”
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/03/now-we-know-how-many-holes-it-takes-to.html#links
*
Perhaps the Obamaphiles can next explain to us how civil liberties will flow from the expansion of wiretapping or the extension of the Patriot Act, or maybe how Plans Colombia and Mexico made the drug war obsolete…
Allan
Shorter BTK: The butthurt, it burns.
Thanks for the Schadenfreude, Armando. Your tears are delicious!
SadOldVet
@BTD & Everyone criticizing him…
STFU!
I vividly recall Balloon Juice first using this picture in conjunction with Obama’s avowed support of Single Payer! To proclaim that it had anything to do with support of a Public Option or not is to overlook my reality.
Any my reality trumps BTD’s reality…
Marc
Gosh Jack, clearly we’ll be convinced that you’re an unbiased observer with your seamless stream of consciousness summary of every evil unleashed by the demon Obama.
He is clearly inferior to the rainbow unicorn: the one who can pass laws by invoking sunshine and dandelions and calling on the house elves and leprechauns to vote in congress.
I think this calls for a giant puppet.
Jack
@Marc:
If you want to argue with points and positions I haven’t taken, by all means do so.
It’ll be fun to watch.
Hint: My original critique was of the embarrassing kneeling before Obama, not Obama himself. He does what any member of his class will do. I’m not surprised by it, but I don’t conjure up any need to hate him for it either.
Anyway, while you toss sticks at illusions, I have coffee to make…
Lisa
Jack:
Projection much? Because we support the current healthcare reform as a beginning, we are Obamaphiles?
Okay, you win. You are so awesomely skeptical and we are just lemming like posers.
Feel better now? Okay. Now go away.
Lisa
Why should he argue with you. It is the same dead horse you are beating. Everyone sucks for not holding out for a perfect fucking bill. What is there to argue? You are totally smarter, righter, and more pure than everyone. America is a bunch of sellouts and you are the Last Pure Liberal.
See? Done. Debate over.
Kerry Reid
Enjoy your Very Important Coffee, Jack.
Jack
@Lisa:
Huh?
I characterize people who swoon at Obama as some sort of righteous dude who’s “got this” as Obamaphiles because the term fits.
Those folks defending this crap on the grounds that Obama “accomplished” something historicky and now he should be treated with all his historicky signifigance deserve contempt. Kneelers anywhere, everywhere deserve contempt. Whether they kneel for Bush or Obama.
It’s just fucking unseemly.
People who believe that Romneycare gone national will somehow transmogrify into health care reform just merit compassion. Unless they’re Nate, Yggie or Ezra, who ought to know better…
marindenver
@Sparky “that is actually the first good thing (as in contradictory to my take) i’ve seen on this point. would you care to share any links?”
I believe this would be a reference to the fact that insurance companies would now have to spend 80% to 85% of premiums collected on medical coverage. (Currently they are spending much less.) Failure to meet these thresholds results in rebates to the policyholders. This goes into effect 1/1/11. Here’s a link http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2199 courtesy of NANCYSMASH!! my hero.
“um, not sure about that. are you sure you want to say that federally-mandated health insurance that is forbidden from paying for abortions is the same as the status quo? it seems to me that this is a rather large restriction.”
Anyone who has a policy that currently covers abortions will not see anything change. Abortion coverage will still be available in plans bought through the exchanges but people have to go through a ridiculous procedure of writing a separate check for it. (Because modern accounting systems aren’t capable of segregating funds into different accounts unless they’re paid for by separate checks or whutev.) While it’s an inconvenience it can’t really be seen as an enormous obstacle. It appears the EO will do nothing but re-iterate the Hyde thing. Which did nothing but give the StupidPak a face saving way to get on board the history train.
Jack
@Lisa:
Is it just some sort of collective habit, round here, to argue with points not made?
Who made a “sell out” argument?
Not me.
I don’t see the political class as “sellouts.” They serve the interests which are rational to them.
That’s not selling out. That’s class fealty.
So, when they pass legislation mandating the entrenchment of a particularly nasty but politically powerful industry, it’s not all that unexpected.
It’s what people with power and wealth do: they protect it.
It’s just that my interests (and those of many of the people purportedly protected by this new raft of dumb laws) don’t align with their interests. If that’s mockworthy to you, so be it.
But I’m not inclined to apologize for my loyalty to my own class.
marindenver
@Jack
“Those folks defending this crap on the grounds that Obama “accomplished” something historicky and now he should be treated with all his historicky signifigance deserve contempt. Kneelers anywhere, everywhere deserve contempt. Whether they kneel for Bush or Obama.”
Wow, an acolyte of the Bugfucker!
Comrade Kevin
BTD apparently subscribes to the theory that if you repeat something often enough, it will eventually become true.
Jack
@marindenver:
The irony is sweet. I don’t know the reference.
While you take the time to shape another inside joke, here’s a perspective which encapsulates my own:
“…Health Care is now a done deal. Fine. But Dems who think that this will somehow salve this anger are delusional. The new health regime is fundamentally an elitist activity: one set of elites (in Washington) is requiring you to pay money to another set of elites (at the insurance companies) “for your own good”. It’s regulating things, and it might be better than the system that exists, but it is still very much a top-down approach. It will do nothing to help this fundamental alienation, and that alienation is what will dominate the next elections.
No, the only way that this will be sorted out is if one set of elites sticks it to another. It could be pro-business leaders sticking it to Washington. That’s more likely than you might think: it motivates a lot of deregulation fervor, and is a favorite of Republicans that argue that government “is the problem, not the solution”. People go along with it because at least some elites are getting knocked down.
Dems can’t do that, though. It doesn’t fit their ideology, their themes, or the public’s perception of the party. The Republicans will always outdo them on that front. No, the only way they can recover is if Washington sticks it to the big business elites. They need to get populist, and get there fast, before the tea partiers distort and exploit the existing rage even more than they already have.
HCR was a good opportunity to do that, since everybody despises health insurance companies, but the Dems dropped the ball on that one. So it’ll have to be finance reform. They have to go beyond wise and minimal regulation. They must be seen to be horrible punitive bastards—and when called on it, they need to frame it as a conflict between the common man and the fat cats that exploit them and grow rich at their expense. It’s not difficult for a Dem to pull off, and if you contrast it with small business and businesses that actually make things, you’ll do well. (Businesses that make things tend to employ more people, leading to more votes.)
Do I think they’ll do anything along that line? No. Not with the Senate the way it is now. Not with the conservative Democratic Senators having been given ample proof that the White House will do and say absolutely anything they want, and that they need never fear the sort of arm-twisting that brought principled progressive Reps like Kucinich on board.
I still think 2010 will be a disaster. The Dems simply Do Not Get It, and the people who are supposed to be speaking truth to power have been almost completely co-opted to support everything the party tells them to. But I do hope that 2010 will change this. I hope that, post-disaster, those people who are so reflexive in repeating the party line will wake up and start doing their damned job. I hope that the progressive movement will finally find its own feet, and realize that its own interests can vary from those of the Dems.
No promises. But one can hope.”
http://demosthenes.blogspot.com/2010/03/n-bombs-and-populists.html
kay
@Jack:
16 million new people are going to be enrolled in a public health care plan. 16 million people who make 133% of the federal poverty level.
You never got it, and you never will. It’s bottom-up. A public health care plan will only move from the bottom up.
The top has health care. 85% of them are satisfied with it.
marindenver
@Jack – this reference should help you out. http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/vastleft_bugfucker_watch_the_final_collectors_edition/
I was objecting to your characterization that what was accomplished yesterday was not historic and that Obama apparently had nothing to do with it. The reference above was an objection to the blogger vastleft observing an Obama Hysteria Watch after the election. Same page if you ask me.
Your following comment was phrased in more rational terms but still proposes that the Dems follow a course of action that cannot possibly work but for you is the only acceptable course. I disagree with you that “the Dems simply do not get it.” Some of them do not. You do not. If you want to live in your world of “truth to power ponies” go ahead. But the real world is the one that policy has to be made in right now.
Jack
@kay:
People who can only qualify for a “public plan” if they stay poor. Priceless. But, I guess you can call that “bottom up” when your “up” is really “down” and what perhaps really matters to you is not being a Republican…
kay
@Jack:
It’s been amazing for me to watch, I have to say. Progressives completely dismiss 16 million new enrollees in a public plan.
All your yammering about “moving the Overton Window” is pure nonsense. The way to sell people on a public health care plan is to enroll people that need health care in a public plan.
The people you dismiss as “poor people” are the people who are going to be sold on a public health care plan. It’s already happening with S-CHIP. Once parents realize they can enroll their children in a public health care plan, they love the idea.
You’re all elitists. You obsessed over the tiny section of the country who would be purchasing individual insurance on an exchange, and missed the whole fucking ball game.
You insisted on selling a public plan to people who have health insurance, because 94% of college grads have health insurance, and 85% of THEM are happy with it.
What does it say about you that you completely missed the potential market for your ideas?
Lisa
Does anyone get the sinking feeling that BSD, Jack, and the next Firebagger iteration are the same person?
Seriously, this commenter really, really wants us to know that we are just a bunch of Skinny Negro Worshippers.
Lisa
Does anyone get the sinking feeling that BSD, Jack, and the next Firebagger iteration are the same person?
Seriously, this commenter really, really wants us to know that we are just a bunch of Worshppers of Skinny Kenyan Usurpers.
Comrade Kevin
@kay: Jack would probably find something to complain about if the bills that passed completely nationalized the health care system.
Polish the Guillotines
I can’t believe I wasted my time reading this thread. Bad me! Bad!
slightly_peeved
The German, French, Taiwanese and Dutch healthcare systems all say hi.
Crusty Dem
I’m still upset BTD left without giving us a single link that used this photoshop to state that Obama would deliver the public option.
Anybody else got one?
Mnemosyne
@slightly_peeved:
Also the Japanese, Korean and Swiss systems.
AxelFoley
Jack, BTD, don’t you two ever get tired of being owned?