I just got this email from the Tom Reed for Congress campaign (NY-23) and it is a remarkable little piece of sophistry:
A leading Senate Democrat once said that Obamacare implementation is a “huge train wreck.” I couldn’t agree more.
That’s why I’ve introduced my own continuing resolution that will delay Obamacare implementation for one year and eliminate special exemptions for Members of Congress, congressional staff, and Obama administration employees.
Hard working people like you aren’t exempt from higher premiums and limited choices, so why should Washington insiders get a free pass? It’s unfair, and that’s why I’m fighting to stop this train wreck.
It’s time to change the culture of Washington D.C. Making sure that no one in Washington receives special treatment under Obamacare is a good start. That’s why this fight is so important.
Why, shit, Tom, that makes a lot of sense. As long as Congress and the awful Obamites get worse insurance, we’re all willing to make better the enemy of good enough and deny the working poor insurance coverage for a year. But let’s not mention that this “continuing resolution” of which you speak happens to fund the entire government — that’s just a little detail.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
How does he know you are hard working, mistermix?
mistermix
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: The same way he knows that I don’t want insurance.
Jerzy Russian
Who is this leading Democrat? If it indeed becomes a train wreck, it will largely because Republicans everywhere at the national and state level are intentionally fucking it up.
Patrick
What a liar!
VERDICT:
False. Congress is no more exempt than any other employer who drops coverage and then helps employees purchase insurance on the exchanges.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/25/fact-check-congress-staff-are-exempt-from-obamacare/
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@mistermix: Write him back and tell him you can take care of your own damned healthcare, and tell him about the time you were masturbating with the belt sander and accidentally ripped open yer nutsack and fixed it with staples and a hot glue gun.
Spaghetti Lee
It’s amazing how often Republican ‘solutions’ revolve around not lifting up the quality of life of the poor and unprivilged, but dragging it down for everyone else.
Patrick
@Jerzy Russian:
It was Senator Baucus. He was taken out of context and he has since backed off even that statement.
Here’s what has said about 2 weeks ago:
he thought Obamacare would be a train wreck only “if they do not implement it very well” but that the Obama administration is “doing a pretty good job” at getting it up and running. “I don’t expect a train wreck. I think the train’s going to keep running, not maybe totally on time, but it’s going to be pretty efficient.”
This Tom Reed guy is quite the liar.
mdblanche
@Jerzy Russian: Max Baucus
@Patrick: Beat me to it.
Ruckus
All I get are several emails a day from OFA asking for money to fund the fight against the current rethugs. I thought the guy we hired twice and are currently paying was doing that.
IowaOldLady
At the Y this morning, lots of the other old ladies were mad at Congress, but to my despair, they were mired down in silliness, including that “Congress doesn’t have to pay for its health insurance.”
Anoniminous
Ah, Senator Leading. I worked on his campaign back in ’08. (That’s 1908.) He represents Jefferson, the 51st state.
Spaghetti Lee
OK, someone clear something up for me. Congress does have its own health plan, and it is publicly funded, right? I remember that coming up a lot when the bill was still being debated, i.e. why is congress denying us public health care when they enjoy it themselves. So what exactly do sitting congressmen stand to gain from PPACA, in terms of personal health coverage? They already have good coverage.
ribber
The thing that continues to amaze me is that Republicans with this Congress-is-exempt BS allows them to have it both ways. They introduced the Grassley amendment with the idea that rejecting it would make the bill hypocritical “Congress itself doesn’t have to go on the Obamacare exchanges!” but the Dems approved it, so they DO have to go on, and yet the Repubs are STILL saying they don’t, because now an “exemption” that FORCES them into the exchanges is being portrayed as an exemption that gives them an out. Up is Down! Black is white! If the Grassley amendment was rejected, they’d cry that Congress is exempt; but the Grassley amendment was passed, so they cry that Congress is exempt.
IowaOldLady
@Spaghetti Lee: They have to buy their coverage on the exchange now, but will still receive their employer’s subsidy to buy it. That’s what the fuss is all about.
I like it that they’re buying on the exchange. It might actually make a dent in their various kinds of ignorance.
Punchy
Why’s he gotta hate on trains so much? Boats wreck too, ya know. So does Miley Cyrus. Why cant ObambiCare be a Lohan instead?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@IowaOldLady: Old people believe every rightwing email they get so that makes it hard to talk sense to them. Have you tried emailing any of them as Mike Huckabee? They really love Mike Huckabee.
Davis X. Machina
@Spaghetti Lee: The entire legislative branch, including the Library of Congress, the Office of the Architect of the Capital, the whole thing, employs ca 30,000 people.
Who cares? The average congresscritter is a millionaire.
This is the worst kind of symbolic politics. It just doesn’t matter. The sums involved are risible. Change between the federal couch cushions.
Southern Beale
I blogwhored this downstairs but yours isn’t the only email going around …
Walker
We really had an awful candidate running against Reed last election cycle. I hope to God we can kick him out next time around.
Kay
NOT THAT IT MATTERS, but that isn’t what he said.
The hearing was actually about Republicans’ refusal to fund outreach for the law.
That’s what he’s talking about.
That said, I don’t know why Baucus can’t answer a small business Obamacare question. He’s a moron, but he’s a moron with a big staff.
Sebelius often seems to be the only person working on this. Of all the people to bitch at, I don’t know why he’d pick her.
AxelFoley
@Ruckus:
And I thought the saying was “Yes, WE Can”. You forget about that?
Chris
@Jerzy Russian:
“Some people say…”
Trollhattan
@Punchy:
Because high-speed rail is for commies, hippies and Europeans! Wrecked trains everywhere.
Trollhattan
@Chris:
He’s The Stig!
Suffern ACE
@Jerzy Russian: That train wreck is retiring Senator and soon to be Health Care Company Board Member Max Baucus.
Cacti
But what does Edward Snowden think about all of this?
Isn’t that the real question?
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
Which, of course, is what they accuse us of. We want to “tear down the rich rather than build up the poor.”
Hal
What special exemptions? Those people already have health insurance.
Patrick
Don’t forget Benghazi, Mr Reed!
Cacti
Also, too, for your viewing pleasure, which TeaPublicans Marsha Blackburn and Dana Rohrabacher do everything but answer whether they’d support suspending their own Congressional salaries during a shutdown.
chopper
you have no idea how hard he’s working to make sure people don’t get access to a doctor.
no idea.
Spaghetti Lee
Well, looks like it’s full steam ahead: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/house-gop-signals-shutdown-with-yet-another-anti-obamacare-vote
Unintentional comedy:
“The 2010 election was all about Obamacare. And I know me and my class members came to fight with every tool that we have,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC). “And so if we can delay, defund — anything we can do with Obamacare, that’s what we came here for.”
What about the 2012 election? TPM asked. “I’m sorry — ask that again?” he said, before adding: “Oh I was re-elected in 2012 too, so I can stand on that.”
Belafon
@Hal: Except, as pointed out above, they are required to go on the exchanges. They don’t even have a choice of whether to stay on their current health care.
Ash Can
Gotta love the House GOP. If the shutdown is all Obama’s/Reid’s/Dems’ fault, someone needs to get the memo to the Loony Wing currently running the show, who are happy and excited about a shutdown and more than willing to claim credit for it themselves. (H/t tip commenter Kragar at LGF)
Violet
@Cacti: No, the real question is, “What would Reagan have done?”
Roger Moore
@ribber:
The Republicans have never felt themselves particularly constrained by facts.
dmsilev
@Spaghetti Lee: Yep. And apparently Boehner is scheduling another vote, this time to eliminate the individual mandate and some other nonsense.
Over the cliff we go.
Sigh.
dmsilev
@Violet:
Real actual Reagan, or the current wingnut idealization of the Reagan who never actually was? It’s important.
Violet
@dmsilev: Doesn’t matter. Reagan’s not here. He’s dead. None of us know what he would have done at this point in time. But pretending they know is what matters to wingnuts and their emissaries in the media.
James E Powell
To the best of my recollection, all the leading Democrats, including the one leading the executive branch, voted in favor of Obamacare.
And by the way, where are the Democratic pitchforks and torches? Are we going to act like there are rules in knife fight again?
Mnemosyne
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Don’t forget to include the pictures, too.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
It’s certainly true that the Republicans don’t want to tear down the rich and make them equal to the poor. It’s the middle class and below who need to watch their backs when the Republicans are in charge.
Hill Dweller
I’m watching the WH feed for the President’s impending statement, and Chuck Todd, Special Ed Henry, Major Garrett and Jonathan Karl are laughing it up like they don’t have a care in the world. Sociopaths, every one.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
We passed an initiative here in California to do that since the legislature kept sticking its collective thumb up its collective butt and not passing a budget for months on end. We also managed to get rid of the obstructionist Republicans who kept shitting in the pot, but we still have that initiative in the constitution in case they somehow manage to get more than 2/3rds again and start playing budget games again.
Bokonon
I do believe that the good Congressman is trying to change the subject. Verily so.
And … my GOP Congressman here in Colorado gave me a similar steaming, heaping pile of BS when I wrote to his office and asked them not to shut the government down. Clearly, some talking points have been circulated by the GOP leadership to give their members a way to sound like something other than complete hammerheaded morons.
It is really depressing that the GOP seems to think that all they need is a good media strategy, to compensate for everything else. And maybe enough people will in fact be fooled by their claims that Obama is trying to shut down the government, refuse to compromise, or defund the military.
schrodinger's cat
As long as the Beltway fluffers keep excusing Republican behavior with the both sides do it nonsense, they can behave any way they want to. Pravda on the Potomac has outdone itself today.
Violet
So what’s going to happen to Boehner? Will he keep the Speaker position?
schrodinger's cat
@Southern Beale: I agree, too many damned email from OFA begging for money.
mdblanche
@Cacti: Edward Snowden has no comment on this matter, but he wants us to tell you that he is remaining at an undisclosed location in Western Siberia of his own free will and he is not currently scheduled to die of an unspecified illness early next year.
kdbart
Senior Teabagger’s Social Security is not stopping. He/She doesn’t care about anything else.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Wingnut sockpuppet Reagan, of course. Reagan would do whatever the Teabaggers say he would. The whole point of worshiping the dead rather than the living is that the priesthood can put words in their mouths without fear of contradiction.
Suffern ACE
I am genuinely confused by this “strip congress, staff an the white house” of their healthcare subsidies. Are there other government employees at risk here? Are we really down to “Malia doesn’t get to see a doctor or we blow up the government?”
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: Zombie Reagan would totes fire all the uninsured like he did Petco or something.
Comrade Dread
@Violet: I don’t really care who presides over the shit-flinging monkeys in the House, I just hope that at some point, perhaps after they’ve driven us to default or created a constitutional crisis and are dragging us back into impeachment-land, that the people who elected them will realize that they’ve done jack all to help them and done a lot to harm them and will vote, if not for a Democrat, for a squishy RINO who will at least fight to get some of that government loot back to his district in the form of jobs.
lamh36
I posted this pic on my twitter page when Obama called Boehner to tell him he wasn’t negotiating, and now I’ma post it one more ‘gin..
Obama to Boehner, House Repubs and Tea Party: No More Fucks to Give!!!
gogol's wife
@Suffern ACE:
PATCO, please. Air-traffic controllers, not cat-toy salesmen.
Anya
“You don’t get to extract a ransom for just doing your job.” POTUS
srv
The artist formerly known as Hannah Montana wants to strip things also
Mr. Reed is at least trying authentic and not to be a hypocrite.
See, here’s a real man who pulled himself up. Probably a favorite of many of Doug’s friends.
Ash Can
@mdblanche: I’d bet he’s actually relatively comfortable there. After all, he served up a whole load of inside NSA information to the Russians on a silver platter. I should think they’d reward him for that in some way (within reason, of course, given the, ahem, freedom inherent in their system).
burnspbesq
That’s some tasty horseshit. Redolent of alfalfa, with a clean finish and just a hint of clover at the end.
The Horseshit Spectator rates it 87 out of 100.
Ruckus
@AxelFoley:
That guy I paid money to when I had very little to help get him elected? That guy’s organization that I offered my services to when I had no job and figured I might be able to help with time and effort, but only got a response to send more money? That organization who is spending the money they have been given in what manner?
Yea those folks, they are the one’s that keep asking me for money. When and if I have any I’ll give it to people who it may help to get elected, people who I can see getting the money, not a huge organization who keeps asking for just $5 to keep them going, so they can ask for another $5. I want at least the possibility of results, not just the possibility of giving up $5 at a time. Given what I’ve seen about them I’ll go with act blue. Or maybe play the lottery, the odds seem better.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Ruckus: Turn in your Obot card and get the fuck out of here. You’re fired.