Eric Cantor, Republican Underboss, is trying to move the needle on his personal “Stupid vs. Evil” (h/t Roy Edroso) axis. Dave Weigel, at Slate, at 9:39 this morning:
Last night I posted the text of the legislation Republicans will introduce to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The GOP’s legislation is not called the “Repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” It is called the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” It’s ironic that this is submitted by incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor, because, you’ll remember, he blamed the original Republican vote against TARP on the shrillness with which Speaker Nancy Pelosi closed the debate on the legislation.
Dave Weigel, reporting from “Speaker Pelosi’s Final Presser(Health Care Reform Won’t Be Repealed)”, at 11:07am:
Again and again, Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Chris Van Hollen, and the other Democrats at the pressure employed a conservative argument against repeal. They drafted legislation that, according to the CBO, would cut the deficit. Republicans could not promise that. Everything Democrats supported, Pelosi said, would have to pass the test of “whether it creates job, strengthens the middle class, and reduces the deficit.”
__
“They’re going to employ budget gimmicks to try and hide the cost of their actions,” said Van Hollen. “They’re going to engage in Enron-type accounting to argue that repeal won’t have that much of an impact on the deficit. They’re going to rely on flim-flam.”
__
More from Hoyer: “It seemed to me there were two compelling messages: We need to grow the economy and create jobs, and we need to do something about the deficit and the debt.”
__
So that’s the argument: HCR repeal might poll well, but they’re going to attack the GOP over how much it costs. They’re going to do so by presenting themselves as very considered about passing on debt, which is something Republicans will laugh off as long as they can get away with doing so.
Dave Weigel, 1:39pm: “Eric Cantor: Health Care Repeal Will Happen Because ‘It Was Litigated in the Last Election.'”
Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor faced off with a skeptical press corps this afternoon, defending the Republican majority’s plan to vote on repeal of health care reform even though it has no serious chance of getting through a Democratic-run Senate…
__
Several more questions about the strategy for the vote were answered the same way. “This was litigated in the last election,” said Cantor. He repeated that a few minutes later: “Most people out there believe that this health care bill has been litigated.”
__
Does it sound like Cantor was on message? He was. Asked whether a push on health care repeal would increase uncertainty about what laws could govern peoples’ health care decisions, Cantor suggested that Republicans would have an open debate on what they were replacing the law with. “The imperative is that we put a repeal bill across the floor,” said Cantor, “reflecting our willingness to listen to the American people.” …
__
One thing Republicans have not done as they tee up repeal is provide a score or an economic analysis of how much repeal would cost or save — Democrats point to their CBO score and say the GOP response would blow up the deficit.
__
“I think most people understand the CBO did job it was asked to do by the then-Democratic majority,” said Cantor, “and it was really apples to oranges. Everybody knows that beyond the 10-year window this has the potential to bankrupt the federal budget and the states.”
The Dangerman
We basically had 2 years on Health Care Reform and, now, we’ll start the new Congress with … a silly exercise on Health Care Reform. It will never pass the Senate, so why waste the time? Other than the Right being sick, obstinate fucks, I mean.
Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)
Cantor voted against 9/11 responders.
I wish congressional Dems and bloggers made an issue of their unpatriotic, unAmerican vote.
Can you imagine the scandal if a Pelosi or barney frank had voted against the bill.
Bachmann is another traitor who betrayed the 9/11 responders. In fact the gop caucus voted against the bill by a 2 to 1 margin.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll664.xml
El Cid
The Democrats should have named it the God and America Health Care Salvation Act For Americans In America To Love Their Country And Keep Their Jobs And Save Babies And Grandma From The Deficit Act.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
You know, Republicans, you keep using that word “bill,” and I don’t think it means what you think it means.
HCR is a law. It actually passed. It’s a motherfucking LAW.
The Dangerman
This coming from someone that probably argued that the Iraq War would pay for itself, I shouldn’t bother to ask, but how the hell do they come up with this “everyone knows” stuff? It appears to be pulled out their asses.
Punchy
I cannot believe they were unable to mix in abortion, gays, salty boogers, and the Democrat Party.
Mike in NC
Eric Fucking Cantor (R-Marlboro) is a slimy little shit totally in the pocket of Big Tobacco. That’s all anyone needs to know about the guy.
Judas Escargot
@Mike in NC:
Perhaps we should start referring to him as Cancer Man.
gnomedad
Soon, the Repubs will campaign solely via the titles of proposed bills, in the manner of the Star Trek episode Darmok.
Joseph Nobles
Yes, beyond the 10-year window, the ACA cuts another $1 trillion off the deficit in the next 10 years.
Cantor is a clown. The bitchy title to this two-page Tea Party pudyanker of a bill proves it all over. And undermining the non-partisan CBO to try to avoid its true consequences is just the red nose on the whiteface.
suzanne
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: They didn’t watch this.
KCinDC
Remember, last time these guys were in charge they were rewriting the summaries of Democrats’ bills to make them say they were about helping sexual predators. They’re all 14 years old.
Three-nineteen
@gnomedad: Republicans: Shaka, when the walls fell.
pattonbt
Well, I guess I will be hearing my boss in the US parroting this exact wording (“job killing”) in the next few weeks. He is one of the lovely “religious, right wing, Ayn Rand true believer” types (how those three things can be reconciled into coherence in a mind is amazing balancing act of self delusion). I’m constantly amazed at how the Fox news types just spew buzz words. I mean, here on this site we joke about things like “cramming down your throat” and such, but it’s weird when it comes from someone who actually believes it’s a valid point, factually correct or has any real meaning. My boss uses all the right wing approved buzz words as if they are facts which can be used to win arguments on policy.
The people that support the R party no longer have a grasp on reality. I ask my boss about the state of health care in the US and he agrees “something” must be done. So when I point out what the health care act does he just says he opposes it and he would “just do it differently”. So then I ask how would you do it differently while at the same time achieving the goals we both agree are important (coverage expansion, cost control, preventative versus catastrophic care, cost neutral as possible, etc.) and I get “but the Democrats just crammed it down our throats” in return. So he says he’s for everything in the act, yet hates the act with a passion, facts be damned. And then he sits back like he’s won the day.
So I just look at this college educated, world travelled, supposedly religious man and think “WTF?”. This is literally what they have become “because shut up, thats why!”.
That’s why you see polls of what Americans want line up with a liberal agenda yet when faced with moving liberal agenda forward you get vitriol against it.
Mind boggling.
On the flip side, I have an old boss in the US I keep in touch with who just admits he’s a selfish prick and doesn’t want to pay for anyone else. While I call him a selfish prick to his face (and he calls me a commie), he at least owns up to why he supports what he supports and doesn’t try and delude himself that he is doing it for some BS pious reason. He thinks people like my current boss are just useful pawns (i.e. suckers).
asiangrrlMN
@Judas Escargot: I’m down with this. It’s simple. It’s evocative. People will remember it.
Eric Cantor is a vile, miserable excuse for a human being. That is all.
@suzanne: Without even clicking on your link, I’m guessing, “How a Bill Becomes a Law”.
::Clicks link and raises fist triumphantly in the air:: Score!
El Cid
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
It isn’t in the Constitution. So it cannot be Law.
gnomedad
@Three-nineteen:
Ooh, this could be fun:
Bible Spice, when the interview began.
Boner, his face aglow.
Gramps, on Sunday teevee.
Jules
That may be the most ridiculous name ever for a piece of legislation….
I cannot even put into words my disdain for these Muther Fucking assclowns.
oh really
@The Dangerman:
This makes perfect sense (to wingers). They vote to repeal health care reform now. Then, in 2012, they take control of the Senate, while keeping control of the House (and maybe grabbing the White House too — possible though less likely than controlling Congress).
After the 2012 elections, they will be able to claim they have a mandate to repeal health care — after all, they already voted to do so in 2011.
I doubt if most people are going to vote for Republicans specifically so they can repeal healthcare, but no one will be able to claim they didn’t sign off on repeal, since Republicans will have made it clear they were going to get rid of it. And their 2011 vote will be proof of their intentions.
GregB
Team Starve the Beast is almost at home plate folks.
We are going to need all that state worker money to fund the incipient holy war in the Middle East that is finally coming about.
It was a great run.
Suffern ACE
@Jules: The most important thing about it beyond the title is its length. That other healthcare act was just too long.
RareSanity
@pattonbt:
That was brilliant…
You have just succinctly described the corporate Republican Party, and the rubes that vote for them, in one short paragraph.
cheers!
Joseph Nobles
@gnomedad:
I literally laughed out loud. That freaking works.
eemom
if Eric Cantor gets any stupider he’ll have to primary himself in 2012.
gene108
You know, in the “good old days” when Republicans tried this sort of shit, by watering down and / or messing with other liberal landmark bills, like the 1965 Voting Rights Act, there was an organized and effective backlash against that sort of shit.
I just don’t see a constituency that would rally to keep the pressure on Congress to keep this law in place. Republican bullshit will be met with no organized resistance. Political Parties can’t do all the politicking for a position by themselves, they need special interest groups to fire people up to solidify a Party’s position.
It’d be great, if you had screaming people at townhalls, demanding “Obamacare” remain in tact. Unfortunately, there’s probably no group willing to jump up to save “Obamacare”. Liberals, I think, would be happy to see it die, so they can keep pushing for single-payer.
It is the GREATEST POLITICAL VICTORY POSSIBLE for Republicans, if they can repeal “Obamacare”, since it will be forever his single greatest accomplishment and destroy something, Democrats have been trying to accomplish for decades.
TooManyJens
@gnomedad: I know people say LOL all the time, but I literally laughed out loud.
edit: I promise I had not seen Joseph Noble’s comment when I wrote that. What can I say, you’re a funny guy.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
So by that line of reasoning, the CBO will now spit out numbers you like, right Mr. Cantor?
I’m going to enjoy watching these asshats fuck up their party for the next two years.
Xenos
“It was litigated in the last election”?
WTF? If it was litigated, you people FAILED to flip the Senate. If it was litigated in the last election, YOU LOST.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@pattonbt:
I had this self same argument with an ambulance driver. We agreed on all the major points so his beef came down to “Democratic arrogance.” Specifically citing the arrogant Pelosi and Obama.
A unionized, city employed, second generation fire dept ambulance driver. Madness.
Suffern ACE
@gene108:
Yep. Yep. Yep.
See also the consumer protection in the financial reform law.
That is of course where the “everything we got is a shit sandwich” blogger activists could be helpful. Identifying organizations. But they are irrelevant. Maybe MoveOn supposed to do everything.
El Cid
@pattonbt: They have not ‘become’ those who say ‘shut up, that’s why.’ It’s what they always have been.
I believe it was Bertrand Russell, or him quoting someone, saying that Liberals are weak in their arguments because they must take into account the arguments of others and deal with them via reason, thus appearing ambivalent, whereas the Conservative can simply retreat into ox-like stubbornness, and by so doing, appear to win.
Suffern ACE
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Who has health insurance already. He won’t for much longer, but good for him.
Paul
Next up: repeal the Job-Killing James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.
Jobs, and the Job-Killing Jobkillers who Kill Jobs.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Dey killdur jeebs!
cckids
@gnomedad:
Too, too classic. thanks for the laugh.
El Cid
@Xenos: I think somebody forgot that in the last elections AMERICA SENT A CLEAR MESSAGE that Obama and the Democrats were too much of something or another and they needed to do other stuff and the Republicans weren’t Obama or the Democrats.
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN: “I’m Just A Bill” is my favorite Schoolhouse Rock. Never a bad time for that shit.
jcricket
Since we all know in the short term they have no chance in succeeding, I see two longer-term possibilities:
1) They keep failing to repeal it, fail to take the Senate (or overcome Democratic filibusters) and/or the WH – and the whole notion of calling it “Obamacare” kills them as the law goes into effect and Obama becomes the guy who gave you options, or healthcare, lowered the debt, began to bend the cost curve, blah blah blah.
Republicans will then start claiming they just wanted to make the law work right – but it’ll be like Social Security and Medicare and the Civil Rights act (and gay rights and soon enough, Immigration Reform) – a noose around their neck reducing their potential constituency.
2) They fail to repeal it now, but by taking the Senate and WH, they do succeed in repealing it in a couple of years. A few years after that major ERs/hospitals in America will start going bankrupt from all the uncompensated care – because we’ve already reached the point where when they pass those costs on to consumers (via insurance companies), people can’t afford it. Businesses would shed healthcare left and right, because insurance premiums will be through the roof.
#2 is really, really awful, for tens of millions of people, but would quite possibly make the constituency for real healthcare reform large enough that doctors and hospitals and big businesses. I’m not suggesting we’d get single payer at that point, but if Republicans repeal ACA (as modest as it is), all it does is hasten the point at which more people are without insurance than with it, and more people who have insurance can’t use it than can. That won’t last that long.
Shorter me: I have decided that Republicans are Beavis and Butthead, and Democrats are Daria.
jcricket
@El Cid: What’ll be funny is in another 2 years, if the GOP does go all bat-shit, all the time, the people will send another message that the GOP wasn’t something or another and the Dems are being given another shot to do something or other, but not really, unless they’re bipartisan, with the GOP that people hate.
Again, it’s depressing, but GOP overreach is something we should be praying for in the short-term. It hastens our return to power, even while making things shittier for the country now. The enemy is GOP moderation, unless it were a long-term change to some kind of british or french-style conservatism (not gonna happen).
gnomedad
Improved.
Yutsano
@jcricket: Oh they’ll overreach. They’re stuck with that now. They have a very vocal and angry constituency that will make them all unemployed if they don’t get their exact way, which is way to the right of where the majority of the country is.
El Cid
@Three-nineteen:
@gnomedad: I thought I was the only one using this episode as an analogy for how all conservatives talked through repetitive invoked epithet speech.
Fannie Freddie, their arms crushing. Reagan, his arms wide.
The Dangerman
@jcricket:
Minor disagreement; Beavis and Butthead were stupid and acted with ill intent as a result. Republicans just act with ill intent.
It’s going to be a long two years; my BP is rising and the House isn’t even in session yet. Galt may be for me.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: I know. It’s a classic.
@Yutsano: But why does everyone have to suffer for these fools? BIG SIGH.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Suffern ACE:
Who, as I came to find out via mutual friends, has the kind of job security that 1) many of the rest of us slobs only dream about 2) was fought for and attained by union members and organizers he happily pisses on with his vote every election.
Diagnosis: too much AM radio, for reals.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Because nothing drives home the consequences of not voting like getting totally ungestuppt. Tough love and all that.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yeah, but what about those of us who did vote? We don’t deserve to get screwed over like this.
Mike in NC
@jcricket:
Even douchebag Joe “Morning Joe” Scarborough has stated that if the GOP doesn’t clean up its act, they’re done for. But we all know the leopard doesn’t change its spots. The teabaggers are already screaming bloody murder about being betrayed.
Dee Loralei
I wanted to drop a quick note to thank everyone for their kind words, thoughts, prayers and advice Sunday night after the murder of my friend. Police still don’t have any official suspects, but they said they have a number of leads and have confiscated her computer and phone etc. They told her sister she put up a hell of a fight.( She asked if her sister had died quickly, she wanted some comfort.) They think she probably knew her killer, but none of us thought she was seeing anyone. The cop who lives next door was home and never heard anything, even though a window was smashed during the fight.( The glass was on the outside.) They said blunt force trauma and multiple deep contusions as cause of death. ( We’ve heard nothing about semen present yet, but they have lots of forensic evidence.)
Her 11 yr old daughter seems to be holding up reasonably well. I spent some time with her tonight. While I was there she drew a picture of her and her mother. On the back she wrote ” This is a picture of Taylor and Mommy two days after her Mommy was murdered.” That about broke my heart yet again.
In the morning we’re going to pack up all of Taylor’s bedroom, toys, books, clothes, stuff and some of the other things she requested, so she can have some normalcy. They had a special cleaning team go over the house tonight. And tomorrow there will be 4 of us and we’ll hopefully make a quick and non-spooked job of it. My friend is going to try to sell the house and put all the proceeds into some sort of education fund for the daughter. The Will gives her custody, but she’s not going to fight the father for it. Though the girl says she wants to live with her aunt and visit her father on weekends, “like things are now, but here instead of my mom’s house.” Tn law gives the child the say at 12 in custody disputes during a divorce. Luckily both of them do agree that Taylor needs to remain in the same school for the rest of the year.
So, we’re all coping and muddling. I’m so glad I was not asked to identify the body or walk the cleaning crew through the house pre-cleanse, even though I offered and they accepted. Luckily, they figured out who her dentist was for verification. And the cleaning team finally relented to going in alone and cleaning the house without insisting a family member be present. ( I think they do that to shield themselves from accusations of theft or something.)
There’s still 4+ more days to deal with this shit. And I’m just spent. (YAY! football and beer!Go Hawgs!) The Visitation is Friday evening and the funeral service Saturday at the Episcopalian Cathedral downtown. A dinner after the Visitation and then luncheon/wake Sat afternoon after burial. I’m gonna beg off of anything Saturday night, or Sunday morning.
I’m trying to compose a letter for Taylor, I mean I’ve known her Mommy longer than anyone who wasn’t related. I want her to be able to have something to hold fast too, through puberty and young adulthood. I want to give her something that says ” This is your Mom.” But dammit I’ve known the woman for 36 years and all my memories of her are a wee bit off. My friend was an odd duck. A very odd duck. She was a monotreme of odd ducki-ness… Just a difficult person to know, shallow and needy, fiercely independent, strong in odd places, fiercely loyal and a complete pushover. And OMG was she organized! She kept records of everything. Everything she ever cooked, recipes, reactions, pictures of finished product, a notation to make again or to never make again. ( Most people throw away worthless recipes they don’t like, she filed them, so she wouldn’t attempt them again.) She has like 10 filing cabinets of her work activities, cooking, personal meetings etc. The Detective told my friend that she needed to keep those files, in case they needed to go backwards to build a case. I’ll know more about those files tomorrow, and will see if they contain anything more interesting. The Detective said he couldn’t devote enough man hours to perusing every one. But he’d want them, when they found the killer. To see if my friend knew her killer and kept track of him.
Anyway, I’ve typed much more than I intended. Murder is hard, damned hard on the survivors. I don’t think we’ve felt or seen any of the fallout to this violence visited upon us yet. I think it will come in jibs and jabs and in huge imperious bangs and booms and will knock us all around. I think our lives haven’t been tossed and turned enough. I think when we find out who the murderer is and why he did it, we will be more mad, and more unsatisfied and we will consider the loss of a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend to be diminished because of the killer’s reason. Because you know it’ll be fucking petty. And she’ll have died for nothing.
But, to her credit /snark/ she was the FIRST homicide in Memphis on 2011.
pattonbt
@El Cid:
I would imagine you are right (that they have always been that way), but they just seem to have gotten, I don’t know, louder, more obvious and dumber. Like they aren’t even bothering to try any more.
asiangrrlMN
@Dee Loralei: Oh my god. I am so very sorry about the murder of your friend. I don’t have the words. My deepest condolences to you, Taylor, and everyone who knew her. That’s just heartbreaking.
Yutsano
@Dee Loralei:
This. Say exactly this. Give Taylor the true impression of what her mother was, not some Disneyfied version you think needs to be perfect in order to protect her feelings. Odds are at her age she had this suspicion of who her mother was. You’ll just be able to fill in holes and gaps.
Anne Laurie
@Dee Loralei: __
Well, this seems to me like a pretty good start! Taylor may not understand every word perfectly just yet, but it’s the sort of letter she’ll keep and read again when she’s older, and cherish the memories of her mother and the fact that she was, obviously, loved…
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yeah, I was gonna say this, too. Tell Taylor who her mom really was. Make her mom alive and vibrant in a way that a sanitized version simply cannot do.
hamletta
Dear Lord, Dee, I didn’t grok how you’d been friends for 36 years. I have a friend like that; at some point, you pass from friends to family.
I’m so sorry. You and her daughter, and the rest of the family will be in my prayers.
suzanne
@Dee Loralei: Once again, I am so, so sorry for your loss. And I concur with Yutsano. The unvarnished truth about your friend will be the best way for her daughter to remember her. Hugs.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Dee Loralei:
Oh, gosh! That’s just heart rending. I am sorry.
Especially when there are children involved, the fragility of life seems such a deep injustice.
Dee Loralei
Dear Taylor,
I met your mom when she was just a year older than you are now. She was as skinny and tall as you are. You are a beautiful girl, and so was she. She was painfully shy and hesitant. Mostly because she had low self-esteem (which didn’t exist in the 1970’s). She had epilepsy, brown hair and crooked teeth. Your mom re-made herself. She became that which she admired. In the mid-1980’s she had brain surgery to get rid of her Epilepsy, she never knew the disease was the source of her strength, her driving force….
She was ashamed back then, of her handicap, not knowing it was what made her strong and different. All of her life she searched for that which made her special.
And it was her disease and her handling of the disease that made her stronger and more special. When we were 12 we went to N’Awlins , on the way back to Memphis we stopped at Biloxi Beach and went swimming in the Gulf…
Leigh Ellen went into an epilectic fit and fell into a nest of jellyfish. It was awful, we actually thought she was going to die, but she persevered.. Your mom always overcame her illness.She was that strong.
((Okay, that’s my first bit of letter.)) Please tell me it’s OK.)))
Yutsano
@Dee Loralei: That’s actually pretty damn awesome. :)
Mnemosyne
@Dee Loralei:
My mother died (of breast cancer) when I was 7, and I don’t know nearly as much about her as I wish I did. I would have loved to have that kind of letter from a close friend of my mom’s even if it was a little over my head at the time I got it, so definitely don’t whitewash it.
Darkrose
@Dee Loralei: I’m so sorry–that’s awful. Like others have already said, I think what you’ve written here would be a good letter. I’d be a lot more mentally healthy now if someone had written a letter like that to me about my father, even though I wouldn’t have been ready to hear it at the time.
Ed Marshall
Folks, they aren’t going to do shit. Do you remember when the 2006 congress came in and every democrat you could find would vote for the EFCA at any opportunity?
Then the democrats got a majority and the democrats faded into the woodwork? They were there to show their patrons that they were looking out for their interests until they got a working majority and then then reality set in.
That’s what the ACA is. They are going to bray, and make noise, and vote for whatever as long as they know the Senate and the Executive will cut them off. After that it gets dangerous.
Watch a city council meeting sometime to see the experiment in small scale. They don’t have the luxuries of a large assembly, they just get stuck voting the way they need to while counting the votes as they come around the table.
NobodySpecial
I read Cantor’s title above as Replicant Underboss.
Somehow that makes more sense.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
And I just ‘got’ the title of this post. Lord, I’m slow on the uptake sometimes.
Lysana
@Dee Loralei: That was a great start. And I wish condolences could do more than offer small solace, but I offer mine anyway.
bob h
HCR was actually legislated in two elections: One massive election in 2008, and a much smaller one in 2010.
Rick Massimo
@Punchy: They would have called it the That N!&&@r Is Not The Boss Of Us Act, but they wouldn’t have been able to say that on TV.
AAA Bonds
“It’s job-killing! You like jobs, don’t you, Sparky? Run boy! Fetch!”
Bulworth
Yes, “everybody knows” HCR’s a budget-buster, despite the CBO estimate. How do we know? Because shut up that’s why.