Jim DeMint, who fittingly occupied John C. Calhoun’s old Senate seat before he decamped for a wingnut welfare gig at Heritage, published a screed in the WSJ today that was two parts “la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you” and one part argument for a modern twist on nullification.
The editorial, entitled “We Won’t Back Down on ObamaCare,” serves notice that the teaturd lemmings in Congress will continue to try to overthrow a law that was duly debated, legislated and upheld by the highest court in the land plus a national election. DeMint gives three reasons why the gallant cause to combat Northern aggression ObamaCare must continue:
The first is that ObamaCare was not the central fight in 2012, much to the disappointment of conservatives. Republicans hoped that negative economic news would sweep them to victory, and exit polls confirmed that the economy, not health care, was the top issue. The best thing is to declare last year’s election a mistrial on ObamaCare.
A “mistrial” — are you fucking kidding me? We don’t need to consult a “word cloud” of Republican talking points for the 2012 election to know “ObamaCare” would show up in a big fat font. It was a major issue by any rational measure, and even if it weren’t, exit polls aren’t a sane basis to nullify laws. There was an election. The GOP lost.
Second, the lives of most Americans are not dominated by the electoral cycle. They shouldn’t have to wait three more years for Congress to give them relief from this law, especially when the president has so frequently given waivers to his friends. Full legislative repeal may not be possible while President Obama remains in office, but delaying implementation by withholding funds from a law that is proven to be unfair, unworkable and unaffordable is a reasonable and necessary fight.
Take it up with the Founders, Jimbo. And you had your shot in the last election cycle. You lost.
There’s a third reason not to stop fighting. Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics. If the Republicans had not fought on ObamaCare, the compromise would have been over the budget sequester. Instead, they have retained the sequester and for the past three months ObamaCare and its failings have been front and center in the national debate. Its disastrous launch was spotlighted by our defund struggle, not overshadowed, as some contend. With a revived and engaged electorate, ObamaCare will now be the issue for the next few years.
No, what’s been front and center is the irresponsible and reckless behavior of the GOP — so much so that it’s overshadowed the glitchy healthcare exchange rollout. Only someone who is irrevocably divorced from reality could claim that Cruz & Co.’s disastrous nullification attempt was a win for the GOP. And make no mistake, fellow citizens, that’s what we’re dealing with here: people who are completely unmoored from facts. The kicker:
These are the reasons we fought so hard to get Washington to listen to the American people and take action to stop ObamaCare, and it is why so many are thankful for the courageous leadership of people like Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and conservatives in the House of Representatives. The law is economically unstable, financially irresponsible and harmful to hardworking Americans.
No, the Republicans are fomenting economic instability, behaving in a financially irresponsible manner and doing measurable harm to hardworking Americans. It’s been laid bare for all to see, and the American people reject DeMint’s Calhoun Doctrine 2.0 by huge margins.
When he was still a senator instead of a wingnut welfare queen, DeMint famously predicted that healthcare reform would be Obama’s Waterloo. But it’s looking more like the GOP’s Appomattox.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
Citizen_X
Shorter DeMented: “Grifters gotta grift. Give here, please!”
I’m gonna go with Stalingrad, but whateva.
chopper
please proceed, teabillies.
Scott S.
@Citizen_X: Jonestown seems most appropriate to me…
flounder
Wait a minute, it sounds like DeMint is coming out in support of the sequester. I guess that #obamaquester hash tag can get reitred.
japa21
Like most of his fellow conservatives of the non-reality based community, DeMint is a master of projection.
dmbeaster
This is all win, provided that Obamacare does not fall on its ass for some reason. Democrats should not be unhappy about making the issue about Republicans refusal to do anything about the health care problem, or do anything for ordinary people. Fight back with fire.
And there is really nothing wrong with the Republicans saying they will do everything they can to eff up Obamacare because they believe it is bad policy. The argument should be about policy, and what should be done. Of course, 99% of their argument will be misleading lying crap, but that is how the sausage both gets made and delivered to market.
Waldo
Once more into the briar patch, Jimbo!
schrodinger's cat
Sore loser, I love the taste of wingnut tears in the morning. Yes please, DeMented double down on the crazy, and hasten your own extinction, while I do my Happy Dance.
satby
The ironic this is that every wingnut I know, EVERY SINGLE ONE, wants the goodies of Obamacare for themselves and their families but not for anyone else. And they don’t want to have to pay for it even for their families.
And this applies to everything progressive policies have brought: they would be outraged to have to work more than 8 hours with no overtime, or to have tainted food from no inspections, or to have an injured child hit a lifetime cap on insurance, etc., but to actually PAY for any of it or extend those benefits to their fellow citizens? Not so much.
Villago Delenda Est
There’s that “listen to the American People” shit again that redefines “the American People” to exclude 73% of the population of the United States.
This will end in violence. “The American People” will not get their way peacefully, so they’ll try to fire on Fort Sumter again and use that method to get their way.
The Red Pen
DeMint is right about this, in principle:
He’s wrong about it in fact, because the ACA hasn’t “proven” to be any of these things.
In the grand scope, it will probably be none of these things.
Uncle Cosmo
This bullshit doesn’t even rise to the level of spin. It’s wobble.
DeMintia is a terrible condition–you lose the ability to read polls, count votes, understand what people are actually saying, & gradually slip off into an illusive alternate reality where everything is just as you hope/fear & everyone else is guilty of your sins/crimes.
Without life support from virulent organisms like the Staphylokocchi he’d be wandering the streets pushing a shopping cart & collecting bits of tinfoil.
MattF
The whole notion that Cruz et. al. are Courageously Voicing The Outrage of the American People Against Obamacare… just makes me dizzy, and then angry, and then sad. I make the following wager: If anyone can come up with an actual reason for the TPer behaviour that isn’t disgusting and disreputable, I’ll eat my chapeau.
Ella in New Mexico
One major cause for the “Glitchy Obamacare Rollout”, if I remember, is that it has been impacted by limits on spending the GOP placed for the implementation of the law. Didn’t they cut the funding needed to do this thing right? Add that to the fact that so many GOP-run states opted out, forcing the Feds to pick up the slack, is anyone REALLY surprised this thing is not working perfectly?
Am I correct on this?
Sophist
If republicans hadn’t threatened to default over Obamacare, the compromise wouldn’t have been needed in the first place.
Steeplejack
Republican intransigence has been far more damaging than just the $24 billion the shutdown caused. As Krugthulhu puts it this morning:
agrippa
Those people are isolated. All they know is their small and confined world. A world where people are telling them what they want to hear.
schrodinger's cat
@Steeplejack: I only see one solution to this, flip the control of Congress to the Democrats in 2014 elections.
Hawes
Ohhhhhh. Burn! Or Snap!
One of those.
ribber
“mistrial”? No.
“forfeit”? Sure, we’ll take that. You in the GOP could have made the ACA a bigger central issue, you chose not to, because you picked its uncle as your candidate.
schrodinger's cat
Calhoun looks like a crazy person in that photo. The wild hair and eyes are something else.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF:
Your hat (and your cat’s hat) is safe, methinks.
Kay
I don’t think anyone is surprised that conservatives will run on lying about the health care law in the 2014 midterms, just as they did in the 2010 midterms.
They don’t have anything else to run on and they don’t have another base besides the Tea Party.
I don’t even know that they can call this a “decision.” What were their other options?
They got Obamacare and they got the Tea Party. That’s it. The Chamber of Commerce isn’t a voter base.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF: Ergot?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not a solution, but a starting point. It’s going to take several Congresses to put us back on a good track and keep it on a good track.
schrodinger's cat
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Correction accepted!
Sophist
@Hawes:
Burp?
David in NY
Obamacare not the “central fight” in 2012? — tell it to Sharon Angle, who was all for replacing it with chicken trading. Sure was argued about in Senate, held by Democrats, and House, where R’s lost seats.
Kay
Heritage paid him a ton of money to “decide” to do exactly what Republicans did in 2010.
These kind of decisions make it less and less surprising that “fiscal conservatives” just blew 24 billion (public) dollars on the kick-off to Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign.
Suffern ACE
What is this Obamacare that people are suddenly talking about. I hadn’t heard about it until last week. Has anyone read the bill?
pamelabrown53
@David in NY: Sharon Angle was not the chicken lady. Although Romney ran on repealing Obamacare on day one.
Villago Delenda Est
“Lying Breitbart-betraying libtard”?
John Boehner is a “lying Breitbart-betraying libtard”?
beltane
@David in NY: Sharron Angle was not for chicken trading, she was for “2nd Amendment solutions”. It was her “moderate” opponent in the primary, Sue Lowden, who proposed the chickens for checkups plan. Nevada Republican primary voters apparently preferred shooting to trading.
Betty Cracker
@beltane: The chicken lady was the sane one!
Gene108
If DeMint wants another nullification crisis, he needs to be reminded the those crisis usually end up with the President calling in the Army, and more recently the National Guard, to enforce the rule of law.
Gian
@Scott S.:
I say Bagstone. As the Nazis.
Brian R.
Hey DeMint? Have someone in your office do a Google image search for the words Romney and repeal. See how many different times your candidate appeared in front of one of those “REPEAL AND REPLACE OBAMACARE” signs.
RaflW
“Only someone who is
irrevocably divorced from realitya professional, full time propagandist could claim that Cruz & Co.’s disastrous nullification attempt was a win for the GOP”It’s all they got. It’s all they’ll ever have: propaganda linked to seething white rage and insecurity. That sometimes wins elections, to disastrous results. But he is not divorced from reality. He is fundamentally uninterested in dealing in it, for it profits him not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brian R.:
Google searches have a libtard bias, silly.
Gene108
@Steeplejack:
Shorter version, imagine if states had received continued emergency funding and did not lay off about 1 million employees in 2010 and 2011; unemployment would be a lot lower and the economy stronger.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
They have to have a fig leaf of some sort over their crazed outrage about the ni*CLANG* in the White House.
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
They still say that. It was a million pages long, no one read it, and there was no public or congressional debate. That’s why it’s “invalid.”
I know there was no reality-based public debate, but since they set the terms of the fake-debate I hardly think that’s the fault of the Demoncrats.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: you know what would scare me? If we reorganized our healthcare system with a bill that was nothing but summary and two bullet points.
Anoniminous
blink
Pray continue, O Crazy One.
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
We know why Republicans capitulated to the demands of the Tea Party. They told us why.
The Tea Party is their base, and they don’t have any other base.
Republicans in Ohio are so terrified of them they’re secretly backing what is probably an extra-legal end run around the legislature so Kasich can expand Medicaid without the legislature and thus protect their sorry hides from foaming-at-the-mouth Tea Baggers. These are the actions of desperate people! This is not how confident people behave!
The Red Pen
@Kay:
It’s an easy job, too. Just fill out this template:
Liberals argue that [policy position] is unpopular because of polling data. This is obviously a misreading of public opinion, because Republicans swept the election in 2010 by focusing on [policy position]. In 2012, they shifted their focus onto other positions and the assumption — which turned out to be 100% correct, by the way — that the public was more interested in those topics. By returning to [policy position], which I am going to claim is clearly and unambiguously the basis for the 2010 wins, Republicans will win again in 2014. Because unicorn Reagan free market Benghazi.
Betty Cracker
@RaflW: He is a propagandist for sure but also a true believer.
boatboy_srq
@Steeplejack: This is what an agenda whose sole item includes the phrase “one-term President” will produce.
Belafon
@The Red Pen: The only unworkable thing about it is that it relied on Governors to be more level headed and caring about their citizens than the national Republicans. That used to be an OK assumption until Obama was elected, though I blame it more on him trying to actually fix health care than his being black. Republicans do not want health care fixed, for numerous reasons we have talked about here before.
Kay
@The Red Pen:
They never really understood the health care law. Most voters have health insurance, and the biggest flat-out beneficiaries of the health care by 2014 law will be Medicaid recipients. If they turn out for anyone n a midterm (which is doubtful) they’ll turn out for Democrats.
They used the health care law effectively in 2010 not based on the “health care law” but based on lying about Medicare.
Can they run on lying about Medicare again? I don’t know, but that had nothing at all to do with “the health care law”, which is now a reality. Are they still going to tell old people “Obama took your Medicare and gave the money to black people”? I would think old people might be catching on by now.
MikeBoyScout
Which asshat, Ted Cruz or Jim DeMint, will be most responsible for Senate Dems holding the Senate majority and putting Nancy SMASH! in a position to regain her gavel?
fuckwit
Not Appomatox, Gettysburg. It’s a turning point in the war, not the end to it. Not yet.
Also,
WATT?? Which waivers, which friend, when? I haven’t heard of any…
Oh. I see. THOSE “friends”, those people who look like him, who he’s always sticking up for. You know, his in-crowd, the…. darker… ones, the ones who aren’t like us. Yeah, he’s always giving favorable treatment to those “friends”, isn’t he? While brutally persecuting our Real Americans who LOOK like Real Americans, like those brave old white male heroes storming the barricades at the WWII memorial… you know, “us”.
Jeebus. You’ll have to excuse me, my dog is running full speed with all those whistles.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
Oh, I was referring to the teabaggers themselves.
They’ve always had to have a fig leaf over their racism. First, it was their concern about the deficit that manifested itself at 8PM PST 4 November 2008. Then, it moved on to other ostensible outrages instead of the actual outrage that sparked it all…things like Medicare cuts, Fast and Furious, Benghazi!, whatever.
With “Obamacare” they managed to subtly include their nominal policy outrage with their actual outrage.
hoodie
@Kay: Whenever I start wondering why they keep flogging this dead and rotting horse, I always end up there. Obamacare is a lousy foil for conservatism because, in the end, it’s just a website where you buy health insurance from an insurance company. Even if it’s a lousy website, who is going to have nightmares about that, especially when a lot of folks will never experience it anyway? It has none of the ominous and mysterious malevolence of an Osama bin Laden or a Soviet Union. They keep trying to make it into the dreaded S-ism, but how do you get that from BCBS, UHC, Cigna and Aetna? I get the sense that the GOP is in the Chrysler Cordoba phase of their political life cycle, trying to stretch a marketing gimmick that worked for a brief period in 2010-11 into a long-term sales strategy, when there is a fundamental problem with the premises of modern conservatism, i.e., it doesn’t work in an age of globalization. Maybe they can try square headlights.
Thrax
In the grim alternative universe where Romney won the 2012 election, and the GOP retook the Senate and held the House, I’m sure DeMint would have been a forceful voice of restraint. “That election had nothing to do with Obamacare,” he would say. “That was a mistrial. GOP brethren, leave Obamacare alone.” I can almost hear him now.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.)
This is a piddling thing, but for whatever it’s worth, De Mint never held Calhoun’s seat; he held the other one. Graham sits in Calhoun’s seat.
nineone
Boy, that Black Guy sure makes ’em “crazy”, no? Of course, girifters gots to grift, so letting go of that “crazy” is a convinient excuse, amirite? It was the Black Guy, he made me do it.
@MikeBoyScout:
All of ’em, Katie.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
We really fucked up by not nicknaming it HeritageCare.
catclub
DeMint claimed also that the shutdown helped to focus the eyes of the nation on the horrible rollout of Obamacare on the websites. Which is the exact opposite of the effect of the shutdown.
White is black. Keep fucking that chicken, James.
Betty Cracker
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Holy shit, that would have been perfect.
The Red Pen
@Kay:
I’m thinking no. Right now, they are slamming the HIX web sites pretty hard. I think that those will be sorted out in time for the anticipated signup spike. In general, they’re “trainwreck” attacks feel like the “stock market” attacks on Obama in 2009. If you recall, Obama was given credit for the crash of the equities market retroactive to his nomination in 2008. Those arguments aren’t heard anymore for some reason.
I think they’re problems can be summarized by the fate of Freeper Cringing Negativism Network. CNN’s big issue was trade imbalance and policies that shift jobs overseas. As far as I can tell, he was a good Rush-listening Freeper since 2005. Today, he made his last comment before being banned:
This isn’t the first pro-Obamacare comment I’ve seen on Free Republic — just the most blatant.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Betty Cracker: Who knew the Heritage Foundation would work so hard to destroy their own market-based health care solution when Obama got black cooties all over it? Certainly not me.
Betty Cracker
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I know, right? Obama really should declare January 1st “National Don’t Pour Kerosene on Your Crotch and Strike a Match Day.” Wingnut fecundity would cease nine months later, and in just a few generations, we could transform FL, GA, AL, MS, LA, etc., into one vast pot-growing collective.
jl
It’s over. Heard on the news this morning that there have been seventeen million unique hits on Obamacare exchange websites in first two weeks. Glitches are being worked out, if Medicare Part D could survive its chaotic roll out, Obamacare can survive its initial glitches.
Over 100 thousand people already enrolled in California.
So, the GOP’s efforts to destroy the ACA will be more popular after another 12 to 16 weeks after what we’ve seen in the first 2? No way.
jl
@Betty Cracker:
“National Don’t Pour Kerosene on Your Crotch and Strike a Match Day.”
Is that the US version of Canada’s Person Day?
TG Chicago
Betty – thanks for using teatUrds rather than the version with an A. Million times better.
Uncle Cosmo
@fuckwit:
W. S. Churchill, 9 November 1942.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Betty Cracker: I think it’s a fine idea in theory but I’d be concerned that Obama would try to turn it into a compromise wherein both sides need to give up some portion of their genitals because that’s what Americans sent us to Washington for.
Betty Cracker
@TG Chicago: Yeah, the “A” version bothers me, though I’m sure I’ve slipped up and used it myself on occasion.
Ruckus
fuckwit has it right. The tp/conservative end game is to end government. Period. Full Stop.
Yes we have to focus on the means they use to try to get there, but we should not lose sight of their ultimate goal, No Government. If their rich daddies own everything, no need for government and they will be taken care of, by magic I suppose.
We should ask this question, Is it better to owe a little to the government(each other) or everything to someone who doesn’t give 2 shits about you and never will?
burnspbesq
I might be ready to punch DeMint in the neck tomorrow, but today I have a major case of outrage fatigue. I just want to listen to records, do work, and maybe go test-drive a potential replacement car (my current lease runs out in December).
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
Stop in the shop and get your outrage meter reset/recharged while you are out. The idiots pulled about the last thing they have out of their asses, no telling what they might think of next.
cmorenc
A far better Civil War analogy than Appomattox would be Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Appomattox was the final surrender of what was left of the principal Confederate army in the field, whereas (more like the recently concluded situation) the GOP recognized its decisive defeat and heavy losses in the battle at hand, but slinked off back southward to renew the fight on future days, for nearly another two years. Or, in the current context, the war will continue through 2014 and 2016 with the GOP attempting to regain the tactical initiative. Even the respective governments of the Union and Confederacy come into this analogy; the government of the Confederacy was weak and divided, except in its determination to continue the war, whereas the Union was far more cohesive, though Copperheads (that era’s equivalent of firebaggers) constantly nipped at Lincoln’s heels.
LanceThruster
feebog
It seems a lot of states who developed their own exchanges, such as California and Kentucky are having very few problems and signing up astounding numbers in just two weeks. The Federal site has simply been overwhelmed and it is going to take weeks before the bugs are all out. Luckily, the sign up period extends to March, so a lot of folks who are discouraged right now are gong to eventually be able to sign up.
gelfling545
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: They’ll be calling it that by this time next year.
Hawes
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.): Calhoun was in and out of the Senate thru his career. He could’ve held both seats.
And you know what Hofstadter called Calhoun? The Marx of the Master Class.
LittlePig
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s the one that leapt out at me, too. How dare you defy the Brentwood Speedbump!
boatboy_srq
@fuckwit:
And if the Teahadist push to primary all the “Yes” votes is to be believed, about as bloody as Gettysburg, too.
burnspbesq
@Ruckus:
My guess: the District Court will order Virginia to restore the purged voters to the rolls pending a trial on the merits, and Virginia will tell the court to suck rocks.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Hawes:
He could have, but he didn’t. He held Graham’s seat for two stretches, but never sat in De Mint’s seat.
Villago Delenda Est
@Uncle Cosmo:
The beginning of the end was to happen about three months later, in the snowy ruins of Stalingrad, and affirmed on the dusty steppes around Kursk six months after that.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
That should work well.
Hugely
@fuckwit: which I love about those white WWII vets, one of them is Obama’s grandfather IIRC