Sen. Marco Rubio, in danger of actually having to produce legislation in his pointless quest for immigration reform that will never pass the House, has decided instead to take a page from the House GOP freshman playbook.
Answering a question from a constituent as part of a weekly series conducted by his office, the junior Florida senator and potential 2016 aspirant said he intends to renew his focus on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the wake of the IRS scandal.
“So the only answer to this is to repeal Obamacare,” Rubio said in response to an email from a man in Orlando, Fla. “It’s just one more reason why this law is going to be a disaster for our country. And in the months to come, I’m really going to focus on the issue of repealing Obamacare because in addition to the IRS’s role there is all sorts of other problems with regards to Obamacare that we need to answer.”
Immigration reform? Jobs? Crumbling infrastructure? Let’s repeal Obamacare, that’ll fix everything.
Please tell me again how Very Serious Marco Rubio is the “savior” of the Republican Party because unlike House Republicans he believes in actually governing instead of holding America hostage to useless votes on Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Alex S.
I have erectile dysfunction, REPEAL OBAMACARE!
chopper
in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
c u n d gulag
Well, since they can’t hit, field, or throw, they all want to go back to what they can do – take whack’s on what’s become the Republican batting-practice fastball – Obamacare.
They’re like a bad garage band with a song they like, and think everybody else really likes it, ’cause they keep playing it – no matter now many cat-calls come raining down on them.
‘Keep fucking that tofu chicken, boys and girls.’
And of course, Issa’s trying to get that next tofu chicken ready for prime-time fucking – “BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI!! BENGHZI!!!”
c u n d gulag
@chopper:
And don’t forget to buy a steel-reinforced umbrella – ’cause when pigs are flying, the world is their Depends.
maya
O Rubio, Rubio, what for art thou Rubio?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
People in the media keep telling me not to underestimate him. I don’t think I am. He just doesn’t seem ready for prime time. Whatever Tea Party appeal he had goes to Cruz or Paul.
Shakezula
The WH should leak a rumor that Obama is planning to repeal ACA via EO. The GOP would shit itself.
different-church-lady
Irrational pandering to the base — worked so well for Romney.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m guessing you’re talking to the Beltway media here? Locally, all I remember was speculation that he might be smart enough to court the Hispanic vote and stop the bleeding, opposed by assertions that the racist Tea Bagging base will not allow that. I believe the latter won the public consensus, and now have won in empirical results.
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The people in the media said the same thing about Rick Perry.
Higgs Boson's Mate
You guys are just jealous of Rubio’s mastery of the non sequitur.
BGK
Much like Rick Scott, no one I encounter here in actually existing Florida admits to having voted for young Marco. Even those defiant “Marco 2010” bumper stickers I used to see have disappeared. Funny how that works.
Paul B
@Alex S.: It’s actually “electile” dysfunction. They lost twice to the brown dude and now can’t seem to get it back up. So they decided to just block him.
ranchandsyrup
Can’t leave that right flank open if you’re a goper. Even if you’re a teatard darling. A 2 party system is traditionally a sign of a healthy democracy but we’re way past that point.
Frankensteinbeck
@Hill Dweller:
I remember that. Even here there was some worry. Perry was going to revive the ‘compassionate conservative’ schtick that has been allowing Republicans to put an acceptable mask on their racist hate rhetoric. Then he got up on national stage and proved he was as complete a moron as our Texan brethren told us he was.
belieber
The focus group tested GOP approved propaganda word salad was a nice touch.
“IRS’s role there is all sorts of other problems with regards to Obamacare that we need to answer.”
IRS + Obamacare is WINNING apparently. Oh and BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI
ranchandsyrup
SOMEONE GET FRANK LUNTZ ON THE PHONE AND TELL ME WHICH ISSUE POLLS BESTEST!
Twirling, twirling toward freedumb.
mai naem
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Supposedly he’s got a lot of the “smart” GOP advisors behind him. Also too, Floriduh. I can actually kind of see his appeal but from the Puerto Rican Hispanics and some Mexican Hispanics I know, they don’t care for Cuban Americans. The GOP is making this assumption that Hispanics are automatically going to vote for him because he’s one and not sure that’s going to pan out. Also, I’m not sure his boyish looks work in his favor for a presidential run, although he is losing his hair so that should make him look older.
Supernumerary Charioteer
He isn’t. He’s trying to fake doing the impossible – being the representative of the establishment and the nativist right without alienating either side. The more he tries to court the establishment, which he’s stuck on because that takes accomplishment, and accomplishment takes work, the more the nativist right cries ‘squish’. Any attempts to rile up the base will sound increasingly hollow and Romney-like.
IowaOldLady
Hillary Clinton would squash him like a bug.
Rubio doesn’t have the chops for a national election. Not yet, anyway.
Todd
That’s just awesome. Yesterday afternoon, I flipped the radio to Hewitt’s show. He was grilling some poor Latino GOPer who had the audacity to support Rubio on immigration (the grilling medium consisting of green sticks and vines soaked in gasoline), so I guess this was all part of the “fuck Rubio” gambit, and it is paying off in spades. By the time Hewitt was done, the Latino GOPer was ready to donate to OFA and to put money and time into supporting whatever Democrats run, it sounded like.
Frankensteinbeck
@Supernumerary Charioteer:
I’m not sure it even matters anymore. Romney played the ‘tack to the middle in the general election’ game. The Information Age got his ass. No matter how moderate he pretended to be, he had to shoulder ‘legitimate rape’ Akin. I see no reason this is going to stop. The GOP will keep having these clowns who forget to sugar-coat conservative positions, and they can’t be hidden anymore. Every time an election comes around, they’ll become the face of the GOP.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
“So the only answer to this is to repeal Obamacare…”
That have any legs outside the Fox News Fanbois anymore? My impression is the rest of the population likes it or could careless.
Shakezula
This. It is the same thing they’ve tried with African-American candidates, only this time with a heaping side order of “We’re going to completely ignore your vastly different heritages and backgrounds and experiences because … we don’t really give a shit, just vote for us Or else.”
And yes, anecdotally speaking assuming that non-Cuban Hispanics and Cubans will sit down and sing Kumbaya is particularly dim-witted. Sort of a British vs. Europe (Including Scotland & Wales) thing going there it seems.
NonyNony
@Frankensteinbeck:
Pardon me for asking this, but “how?” Where did Romney try to tack to the middle?
I don’t remember him trying even once, but that may be my memory failing. I don’t even really remember him trying to moderate his rhetoric for a more general audience. In fact, I seem to recall that early in the general election cycle he actually doubled down on the nuttiness instead of backing off, though by the debates he’d backed back down to where he was during the primary.
By the general election he was still disowning all of his own successes in Massachusetts and trying to keep the Tea Party in his clown car. Not a good place to be for a candidate.
SFAW
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Good point, and in response to your observation, I have a question: will the Pens beat the Bruins? And what do you think of the Chevy Volt?
OK, three questions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m kind of pleasantly surprised by the recent poll that suggests that people are noticing that Republicans have no plan to fix health care other than “repeal”. Part of the danger of only associating with rich people when you’re talking to people who, if my own experience is any example, all know at least one person whose life has been significantly and badly affected by our fucked up health care/insurance program.That said, it still amazes me how many people can get their hate on for “government” when the alternative is private insurance companies.
Frankensteinbeck
@NonyNony:
The most obvious was changing his entire platform for the debates, because that’s the only part of the campaign most Americans see.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
For the Tea Baggers, the government won’t let them beat their wives and children, force everyone to pray like they do, run Negros out of town, and occasionally murder a homosexual so that they never have to see one openly. Then the government takes some of their money out of every paycheck.
SFAW
@chopper:
I was trying to think of how that could be modified to fit the insane/stupid/clueless wingnut base, but realized that Rubio’s right there with them. Maybe not in reality, but he plays one on TV.
Roger Moore
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
They have to repeal Obamacare by the end of the year or it’s hopeless. Once the exchanges are up and running and people are depending on Obamacare for their health insurance, outright repeal will be a political non-starter. The only way forward will be to improve the system, not eliminate it. That’s the scariest thing imaginable for the Republicans, so they’re flipping out over the need to destroy it now, now, now.
gratuitous
Who knew that denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions was such a popular notion? Isn’t that what the Republicans are saying each and every time they’re stumping to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Has it really been such a long time ago that apparently nobody remembers the pre-existing condition dodge? Just once I’d like to see an interviewer ask that of a Republican: “So Ted/Louis/Michele/Marco/John/Eric/Cletus/etc., are you saying that insurance companies should again be able to deny coverage for whatever they decide is a pre-existing condition?”
Villago Delenda Est
Marco, buddy, we know you are a fucktard. You don’t need to keep reminding us!
Joey Maloney
@c u n d gulag: They’re like a bad garage band with a song they like, and think everybody else really likes it, ’cause they keep playing it – no matter now many cat-calls come raining down on them.
I was in a bad garage band once, and we wrote a song that we called “Get The Fuck Off The Stage” and it became our most-requested hit.
Roger Moore
@gratuitous:
The thing to understand is that there are parts of Obamacare that are widely popular and parts that are widely unpopular. People love the idea of not being turned down for preexisting conditions, but they don’t like the idea of being required to have coverage. Meanwhile, insurance companies have the opposite view. The Republicans can’t complain about the parts that are popular with the public, even though those are the parts they most want to overturn for their corporate buddies in the insurance industry. Their best hope is to use the unpopularity of the parts as an excuse to overturn the whole thing before it goes into effect, because once people are actually taking advantage of the popular parts, taking them away will be a non-starter.
SFAW
@Joey Maloney:
Albert Brooks and I are glad that I wasn’t drinking my coffee when I read that.
GregB
Rubio is a shitheels shitheel. All I can say is to the thought of Marco Rubio as the GOP standard bearer. I’ll drink to that.
Citizen_X
Will Nobummercare pay for treating the whiplash I suffered by reading that non sequitur?
Ash Can
Ever since I saw that poor thing dive for his water bottle so artlessly during his State-of-the-Union reply, I knew he wasn’t anywhere close to having the chops for top-level office. It didn’t make him a bad person, of course, nor did it prove him totally talentless. But a high-pressure office such as the presidency requires a generous amount of aplomb — Hillary’s 2008 ad had it right in that there will be crises over the course of a presidency that must be dealt with in a highly professional manner — and Marco showed that he just wasn’t up to handling a high-stress situation the way he’d need to.
I don’t mind if he tries for it, though. The results of a presidential campaign on his part are likely to be hilarious, when not cringeworthily embarrassing.
mk3872
Yeah, yeah, we know, the only answer to ANYTHING == “Repeal Obamacare”.
We need to repeal Obamacare to cure my constipation, too …
patroclus
I’m not giving up on passing an immigration bill this Session – the arguments in favor of it are overwhelming and a coalition of most of the Democrats plus 40+ Republicans could be put together in the House to pass it. There are certainly a lot of hurdles to jump to get there, but this is the one major bill that I continue to think has a chance of enactment this year. We need to Rubio to stay with us on this one, so I’m not inclined to give him a lot of grief right now for all of his other idiotic positions.
Roger Moore
@Citizen_X:
It actually makes more sense than most wingnut crazy:
1) The IRS will be involved in implementing some provisions of Obamacare
2) The Teabagger targeting scandal proves the IRS is evil and out of control
3) Therefore we must repeal Obamacare before it gives even more power to the evil and out of control IRS
It does way better at superficial logic than most of the stuff the wingnuts say.
catclub
@Roger Moore: “Their best hope is to use the unpopularity of the parts as an excuse to overturn the whole thing before it goes into effect”
I disagree. They do know there is no way to repeal it until they get a GOP president. The way to kill it is to sabotage it with bureaucratic snafus which they refuse to fix – and they are doing their best on that.
But they can only continue the sabotage out of view, and they keep it out of view by having continual votes to repeal. If those were not going on, voters would have time to ask ‘Why aren’t you working to fix detail X of the bill?’
Just One More Canuck
@mk3872: Don’t forget the tax cut to go with it
Yatsuno
@Ash Can: Marco won in a three-way race that could have been taken if Crist and the FL Dems had reached some kind of agreement. But nope, Rubio got in and now we’re stuck with his idiocy until at least 2016. But I really do want him to try for the Big chair, for teh lulz if nothing else.
shortstop
The way — the only way — to the heart of the GOP (i.e., the nomination) is through the noxious gut flora of the fringe right’s stomach.
Thought I’d try something new there, but that didn’t quite come off, did it?
quannlace
So, what the hell was the original question? Good bet it had absolutely nothing to do with Obamacare.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop:
Actually, I think it was a good attempt, but it isn’t crisp enough.
So, yeah, it didn’t come off as well as you aspired to, but still, it’s a noble effort.
SatanicPanic
@shortstop: it was kind of stomach-churning so it worked on that level
Tonal (visible) Crow
I have heard from certain highly-placed winger sources that Republicans will buttress their campaign to repeal Obamacare with a new campaign to amend the Constitution to prevent Obama from running for a third term. They plan to hold a vote on both items twice daily in both houses for as long as it takes. When asked why the term-limit Amendment was necessary, in view of the 22nd Amendment, my sources said that “Nobama disrespects the Constitution so thoroughly that a new Amendment is necessary that would authorize the military to remove him physically from the White House and institute a caretaker government until new elections — with tough voter eligibility requirements — can be held.” When asked whether it was desirable to thus sanction a military coup, my sources responded, “You’re a libtard, that’s why!” and hung up.
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: @SatanicPanic: Boys, I’m not afraid to try and fail. Onward and upward!
ericblair
@catclub:
Fortunately for us, the ACA seems pretty well designed to stand up to constant legislative opposition and has failsafes like the national exchange and review board to deal with asshole goopers at the federal and state level. It’s pretty depressing that they needed to do this.
I’m sure the gooper fail parade will blame every implementation snafu on Obama, and there are bound to be some. However, the current (non-) system is so truly fucked up and recognized as such that almost anything is an improvement. What are they going to do, lose paperwork, fail to cover agreed conditions, take fucking forever to do the simplest administrative duty, start pointing fingers at everyone else but themselves, be staffed with poorly trained drones who couldn’t care less about the patient? We have all that already and everyone’s just used to it.
Patricia Kayden
Could Reid and other Democratic Senators have changed the filibuster rules so that Repubs like Rubio wouldn’t matter as much? I guess the people who vote for them have no problem with the Repubs putting a halt to any real governing for the next 4 years (8 if Hilary Clinton is elected).
Tractarian
This is hilarious. Really just sums up the GOP’s platform (and grammatical skills).
Tonal (visible) Crow
@Patricia Kayden:
They definitely could have done so at the beginning of this Congress. Arguably they can do so at any time via a simple majority vote, since Art.I s.5 cl.2 gives each house basically unlimited discretion to”determine the Rules of its Proceedings”.
Chickensh*t Democrats argue that curbing Republican filibusters would open them to equivalent payback when Republicans get a Senate majority. This ignores the fact that modern Republicans will do anything, and thus that their first order of business when they gain a majority is very likely to be eliminating Democratic filibusters.
I thought Harry Reid claimed to be a “boxer”.
Tractarian
Got a problem with illegal immigration?
The only answer to this is to repeal Obamacare.
Poorly performing public schools?
The only answer to this is to repeal Obamacare.
Sluggish job growth and rising inequality?
The only answer to this is to repeal Obamacare.
SFAW
@Tractarian:
As is self-evident to any thinking person.
QED, ipso facto, WTF, and LSMFT
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tonal (visible) Crow: also assumes the not at all certain notion that Reid could herd 40 Demo-Cats against anything the GOP wanted to do. Depending on the issue: Heidkamp, Pryor, Landrieu, Warner, Kaine, Nelson, Manchin, Hagan, Casey, Donnelly, Carper, Tester, Baucus, Reid himself, Feinstein. Angus King is something of a wildcard. Harkin’s seat is up for grabs. I can see a few more Democrats deciding on “principle”, and some of them are dumb enough to mean it, that X deserves an up or down vote
gratuitous
@Roger Moore:
As ever, specifics are the doom of right-wing rantarrhea. Yes, there are bitter parts of the Affordable Care Act, but they were foisted upon the final bill because Republicans couldn’t bear the thought of their insurance industry pals being tossed out onto the sidewalk to work for a living. So the compromise was that insurance stayed in the mix (instead of single payer) and denials for pre-existing conditions were terminated.
Something that I never saw during ACA battles was the notion that health insurance companies could simply go into the supplemental insurance market. Under single payer, everyone would have a base level of access to health care, but folks who wanted to jump to the front of the line and not have to wait with the hoi polloi could buy supplement insurance that would cater to the consumers of boutique health care. You can bet that a lot of doctors and clinics would have happily restricted their clientele to the well-heeled who paid handsomely for premium service. But I don’t recall that that idea was ever advanced.
I guess I’m incorrigible, and I keep thinking that media people receiving fat salaries for their ability to sit in front of a camera could, every once in a while, ask their subjects a pertinent question or two. It could happen!
Tonal (visible) Crow
@gratuitous:
It does actually happen not infrequently on Terry Gross’s program Fresh Air. Gross is always prepared, and only rarely shies from asking the important (and often embarrassing) questions that need to be asked. I wish we could clone her 10,000 times.