The Arkansas Times reports that the Arkansas House of Representatives has failed to vote to accept federal funding for Medicaid expansion via the private option for Fiscal 2015.
The Arkansas House of Representatives voted 70-27 with one present to approve an appropriation bill to continue for a second year the private option version of Medicaid expansion provided by the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
That was five votes short of the number needed. It will be brought up again.
28% of the chamber did not vote to accept free money. They decided to throw 95,000 people off of Medicaid.
I’ll split the no block to an equal split of special crazification factor and general crazification factors.
Villago Delenda Est
That number keeps showing up.
It’s amazing!
Parfigliano
At this point I am beyond caring. Ignorant people will do ignorant things. The sooner they die off the better.
feebog
Let’s hope it bites them in the ass come November.
slippytoad
I’m curious. Is the reason the AK house can’t function is that they’ve adopted an absurd supermajority rule that only benefits the minority?
jheartney
Why do they need such a large supermajority? Is this overriding a veto or something?
West of the Cascades
Why the @#% does one need 75 votes out of 98 legislators to pass an appropriations bill? That’s beyond nonsensical if you want a functioning democracy. Anyone know the details of how/why Arkansas’s legislature has this sort of requirement?
OGLiberal
Yes, the number is there, as always…but what the fuck kind of supermajority is required in Arkansas to get things done? Over 75%? WTF is that?
UPDATE: Second to the party. I guess that have this in there so they can make extra sure that no undeserving blahs get free stuff.
Shalimar
They think their personal federal tax dollars are paying for moochers to live longer. If you had pointed out that it is federal tax dollars from places like New York and California because Arkansas pays so much less in taxes than it gets back in federal spending, they would have unanimously approved stealing from evil democratic states.
Davis X. Machina
@West of the Cascades:
Appropriations bills sometimes have supermajority requirements, especially supplementals if the state legislature only has a pro-forma second session per biennium. Arkansas’ 1934 requirement is in the state constitution.
To have legislation take immediate effect also often requires a supermajority.
Bob In Portland
For years California has been strapped with a requirement for a two-thirds majority to pass tax increases and budgets, etc. That is why California has been in such bad fiscal shape for decades. Unfortunately for the reactionaries, California has recently moved past two-thirds Democrats. Now it has a balanced budget and no Republican elected to statewide office.
Tone In DC
Another case of tyranny of the minority. Sounds like California a few years ago.
I have a feeling some of the denizens of RazorbackLand are gonna be heading for Illinois and other states where those in charge have a modicum of sense.
catclub
@Shalimar: “they would have unanimously approved stealing from evil democratic states. ”
Important if true, but if the money is going to help_those people_ then they can still turn it down.
States rights means the right to immiserate our poor and not allow the federal government to help them.
Tone In DC
@Bob In Portland:
Just saw your comment. Great minds and all that. ;-)
KithKanan
@Bob In Portland: California also recently scrapped the 2/3 requirement to pass budgets — still there for taxes though.
Ben Cisco
@Tone In DC: That appears to be the second of the two options – either outvote the crazies or let them have the state.
nancy graham
Ernie Dumas, a progressive Arkansas treasure/journalist explains the history of the 75% rule here.
http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/hazard-to-health-minority-rule/Content?oid=3192376
Richard, my understanding is that the house will vote again after the State senate votes—where it will likely squeak through. It’s 50-50 (in my opinion) whether the house will pass it on a second vote.
This will play hell with local hospitals, not to mention the poor people who have insurance for the first time.
We have a health care system here in Carroll County where I live. It’s a mason jar on the cashier’s counter of local establishments asking for donations to help someone pay their medical bills.
The state lege is overrun with bible thumping knuckle draggers—even the ones who have been to law school.
The Dangerman
OT, but Canada and Latvia are 1-1 going into the 3rd Period; I wonder how much “puckerage” there is among the Canadian hockey faithful (I’m thinking typical white guy on a dance floor level of puckerage, but that might be too extreme).
ETA: I think someone else winning the Gold besides USA or Canda would be THE AWESOME.
Waspuppet
It’s hard to say which is worse: 1) that they voted this down; 2) that voting 70-28 in favor is “voting it down”; or 3) they created this Rube Goldberg contraption called the private option in the first place for no other reason than so they could pretend they weren’t running the whole thing on That One’s blackityblack Dime.
slippytoad
@West of the Cascades:
I said the same thing, and I think the answer is that Republicans fuck up our ability to function when we win, by imposing these kinds of rules. I think the answer long-term is to stop voting Republicans into office ever, and get them the living fuck away from everything we care about before they shit it up so bad it’s useless.
slippytoad
@nancy graham:
And again I’d feel sorry here but these folks have voted for what they want, and now they’re getting it.
Sucks, huh? It would be a fascinating exercise to see all these loudmouth Redstate conservatives live by their own principles. But we will never see that because we’re going to have to bail their stupid asses out again.
Baud
@nancy graham:
That article was amazing.
dmsilev
@nancy graham: From your link,
Maybe we can retroactively declare all Medicaid recipients as veterans of the war of
Southern TreasonNorthern Aggression?slippytoad
@Bob In Portland:
And Bob, I think that is a pattern we’re going to see rapidly play out across the states. GOP politicians can bullshit about their intentions, but they’ve had (to their great delight) a run of enormous electoral success in the last few years, and a real chance to show us what they’re talking about. And the people see they’re talking about pissing in our faces and telling us it’s raining again.
For my part I intend to keep reminding Red State denizens (including my neighbors) that this is what happens when you vote for the DUMBEST asshole on the ticket. You get stupidity and pain.
catclub
@slippytoad: “And again I’d feel sorry here but these folks have voted for what they want, and now they’re getting it.”
Good and hard, as Mencken would say.
Cacti
In other news affecting confederate states…
Volkswagen’s top labor official has threatened to block further investments at the Tennessee plant, following the vote against unionization.
This is a big deal, as German labor law mandates workers have a voice in management decisions, and labor representatives hold seats on the VW board of directors.
Elie
I read somewhere that this is not the last vote and that the expansion is ultimately expected to pass. Remember, this is one of the expansion that uses Medicaid to pay for private coverage, so its highly un-usual and favorable to the corporatists already…
We’ll see, but after its all said and done, it will pass is my guess…they just have to put on their same show
Matt
I’m honestly impressed they got to 70 votes; at least one of the 28 has come right out and *said* that he wants to keep poor people from buying insurance:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/18/3303871/arkansas-lawmaker-medicaid/
Once again, we see that given the slightest opportunity the GOP will sabotage anything to try to score political points. If you could track down those 96k people who are going to be kicked out of insurance, I suspect you could find 50% or more of them that will hear they’re going to lose their new insurance and blame “Obamacare”.
WaterGirl
It almost begins to feel like your only option in the red states that keep voting these guys in is to move somewhere else. And there are a million reasons that keep people from doing that. Sometimes it seems so screwed up that I’m not sure there’s a way out.
Baud
@Cacti:
If that comes to pass, we need to start calling it the Corker Divestment.
NonyNony
@Cacti:
That’s interesting – got a link? (A German one will do if you can’t find it in English).
I was wondering if this would happen, given that VW essentially asked the UAW to come in and organize for them because they wanted to set up a work council model in the US. Given the hostility they saw in TN, I wouldn’t doubt that the labor portion of the VW governing board wants to wash its hand of TN and invest in places more interested in working with the company instead of against it.
Redshift
@The Dangerman: Finland, Finland, Finland!
Davis X. Machina
@Cacti:
Ask anyone from George Mason University’s Mercatus Center — there’s no such thing as VW.
It’s simply unpossible. If that were the case, especially since the Land of Lower Saxony is also a major shareholder, the company would long since have folded. Between that degree of state ownership, and worker consultation in management, no corporation could possibly survive.
It doesn’t matter if VW didn’t fail in practice — it fails in theory. And that’s what really matters.
slippytoad
@Matt:
” *said* that he wants to keep poor people from buying insurance:”
So, can we ask him if he’s a fucking communist?
Davis X. Machina
@NonyNony: Lese und lache.
Cacti
@NonyNony:
Can’t link right now, but Reuters has the story.
Cacti
@Baud:
If that comes to pass, we need to start calling it the Corker Divestment.
A-yup, the exact opposite of what Corker said would happen is coming to pass.
Who knew that when he claimed to be speaking for VW, he was actually lying through his teeth?
Davis X. Machina
Story in German:
Baud
@Cacti:
Raises hand.
Davis X. Machina
Story in German: http://www.t-online.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/id_68141802/volkswagen-werk-in-chattanooga-bernd-osterloh-droht-mit-investitionsstopp.html (Two prior attempts in the moderator filter…)
Krishna
@NonyNony:
Via Raw Story.
Raven
VW workers may block southern U.S. deals if no unions -labour chief
NonyNony
@Raven:
Thanks!
Given the tone of that article, Detroit should be begging VW to open a factory in Michigan.
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
VW is trying to civilize barbarians in Tennessee. It’s not easy dealing with backwards cretins like Corker.
I don’t think VW will be interested in opening any more plants in the land of backwards fucktards.
Raven
Rick Pitino critiques social media
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
VW is tring to civilize barbarians in Tennessee. It’s not easy dealing with backwards cretins like Corker.
It’s funny reading the winger comments. They’re all some version of “How dare those union thugs insist that the TN plant conduct itself in the same way as every other VW plant in the world!”
Sloegin
What a ridiculous percentage requirement. You can’t get get that kind of supermajority to agree on the color of an orange.
jl
Peak wingnut may be a lie, but we do need some measurement scale for the intensity of the sheer insanity and fail.
For example, 70 year old geezer GOP House candidate in Texas arrested for trying to beat up a wingnut precinct walker.
70-Year-Old GOP Candidate In Texas Arrested For Assaulting Man With ‘RINO’ Signs
“I walked over to him and said ‘you’re pulling up my signs and destroying them.’ He said ‘what are you going to do about it?’ It was a fight. He was landing punches, too. I can tell you this-he will remember the day,” Wilson said about the brawl. “Whatever my punishment is, I’ll take it. If I had to do it over again I don’t think I’d change one thing. He deserved what he got.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/candidate-attack-rino-texas
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Well, it succeeds in theory in the same way as the theory that a rise in the minimum wage will always result in higher unemployment.
Please note that this particular use of “theory” is TOTALLY unlike other “theories” such as evolution, gravity and electromagnetism, which are all just passing fancies, according to the wingtards.
Time to test the “theory” of gravity by tossing a few Rethuglicans (Corker and McCain would be two good ones, after McCain’s comments on Kerry and global climate change) out of helicopters. Let’s see that intelligent falling at work, guys!
ryanayr
That’s so close to 27%…
jl
I think the next frontier on wingnut GOP fail will be nutty insane posturing (maybe with a few hidden corporate bennies hidden deep down in the madness) will be global warming (caused by humans). I noticed over last few weeks that CBS and NBC seem to have allowed climate science into their meteorological analysis. Seen several reports tying the series of extreme storms to changes in jet stream pattern, and tying changes in jet stream to arctic warming. (Edit: One of the reports neatly explained the relationship between prolonged jet stream excursions, drought in west and series of storms in east together with arctic warming).
Not sure if similar is happening at other channels. It is of course not happening at Fox News.
So, I guess we will see more of this:
Utah lawmaker: Our atmosphere needs more carbon dioxide
Air quality: Bill would exempt CO2 and other “natural” gases from regulation.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57562425-90/anderson-andrade-atmosphere-carbon.html.csp
via http://wonkette.com/542222/brave-utahn
Another Holocene Human
@NonyNony: Too right!
Another Holocene Human
@jl: Awesome if true. I am so, so tired of the Newspeak and Rightthink on global anthropogenic climate change.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: We will see if it keeps up. I hope so. I’d be interested whether people have seen similar at other channels (besides Fox News, of course). Anyway, that damned liberal media strikes again.
jl
Regarding VW, I would recommend to our distinguished GOP politicians to take the advice of Abraham Lincoln, and welcome benevolent advice and support for the exact and equal rights to all men, as Lincoln so eloquently did in his letter to Karl Marx:
” Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the welfare and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse and example. It is in this relation that the United States regard their cause in the present conflict with slavery-maintaining insurgents as the cause of human nature, and they derive new encouragement to persevere from the testimony of the workingmen of Europe that the national attitude is favored with their enlightened approval and earnest sympathies.”
Lincoln and Marx
http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2014/02/lincoln-and-marx.html
via http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2014/02/lincoln-and-marx.html
Edit: I do hope that fact that Lincoln and Marx exchanged a couple of letters does not make Lincoln a RINO. That would produce angst and frisson within the GOP.
Edt2: Never mind, when is the last time the GOP gave a rat’s ass about Lincoln, except when they are lying about their last 40 years of Southern Strategy to try to cage a few gullible minority votes? It’s all zombie Saint Patriarch Godhead ground-of-all-being Reagan all the time now.
slippytoad
@jl:
So only “natural” gases are to be regulated.
The GOP’s idea of how this world works is so fucking stupid and cartoonish I sometimes wonder how the hell a Republican gets through a single day without killing themselves.
Tommy
@Parfigliano: Yeah. I live in a large state. Somewhat liberal. Illinois. I feel like yelling at these folks. WE DON’T WANT YOU TO BE MISSISSIPPI! For every dollar my state gets in federal funds we pay $1.32. Often to a state like Arkansas. We are trying to help over here …..
If you can’t take “free” money to improve the health care of those needing in your state, then there is apart of me that says fuck you. Fuck you gosh darn it. I am done with your state! I want my state to vote not to give you a single dollar. Clearly you are stupid!
Villago Delenda Est
More crazy from Noisemax:
McCain Blasts Kerry: ‘On What Planet Does He Reside?’
Earth, Gramps. You, on the other hand, are obviously from the Pakled home world.
Waynski
Reverse 8-Ball from Full Metal Jacket, “I guess they’d rather be free than alive, the poor dumb bastards.”
Waynski
Reverse 8-Ball from Full Metal Jacket, “I guess they’d rather be free than alive, the poor dumb bastards.”
jl
@slippytoad: Radon is natural. Not the governments business you might get sick from it.
And probably a lot of fracking fluids are being unfairly maligned, since I am sure many of their ingredients are perfectly ‘natural’.
So, the only impulse of this loony proposals is surely to Save the Plants (and why do you miserable libs want to hurt the plants?). There could be no ulterior motive to provide even more generous hidden subsidies to corporations.
Ben Cisco
@Villago Delenda Est: I thoroughly approve of this comment.
Suffern ACE
@jl: There’s lots of interesting things in Saturn’s atmosphere that we don’t even have here and humans aren’t even there. Why are you inhibiting us from having Saturn’s natural atmosphere? How much wealth do you want us to forego simply to allow breathing?
Villago Delenda Est
@Ben Cisco:
I genuflect in the direction of the Emissary’s baseball.
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Love all those Deutsche compound words!
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: LOL but sad. I live in a rural area. Not so liberal. Small family farmers. I could take you to a pub in my town and let you talk to farmers. Again nothing close to liberals. They will tell you climate change is happening. Global warming is a reality.
It is eye opening to talk with them about that, and in the next sentence they call Obama a non-American Muslim (and worse). But I like to think they tend the land with their hands and next to climate scientist, they might be a group of folks I listen to on said topic.
Gex
@Cacti: It’s funnier because they aren’t insisting on it at all. They are just going to go where their way of doing things is welcome. No force necessary. Enjoy your freedumbs, Tennesse!
ET
Sadly for places like Arkansas things will have to get really bad before the voters realize/be convinced that they keep voting for people who in turn screw them. There is a part of me that just shrugs my shoulders because the people of Arkansas want this or they wouldn’t have vote for these people. Then I remind myself that a whole bunch of Arkansans didn’t vote for them. Of course there were likely a bunch who couldn’t be bothered one way or another.
nancy graham
The Ark house just voted on the medicaid funding again. This time it was 68-27 with one present, so it has lost 2 votes from yesterday. WTF?
Tone In DC
@Ben Cisco:
Getting tougher all the time to outvote the rage-filled, fact free 27% of the population. I don’t even want to speculate on the voter disenfranchisement dirty pool that may be in the works for Arkansas.
Or already is in effect.
Rob in CT
Newsmax headline: EPA Bans Most Wood Burning Stoves.
I google. It’s all over the wingnuttisphere. EPA is indeed rolling out some new regs (still in the comments stage, IIUC) on wood stoves. New ones. Old ones, and ones in the stores now: unaffected. Reasons: um, obvious? Particulates, duh.
Oh, that awful EPA, attacking Real Americans(tm) in The Heartland(tm) and undermining their Self Reliance(tm) – seriously, one wingnut headline went with that one (as if you’re “self-reliant” when you go buy pellets for your pellet stove or something).
MikeJ
@Rob in CT: I’m guessing the new regs don’t come anywhere near a ban either.
Yep, I just checked:
http://www.gazettenet.com/news/stateregion/10517695-95/us-environmental-protection-agency-issues-tougher-regulations-for-residential-wood-burning-devices
Villago Delenda Est
@Rob in CT:
I figured that was the case…the EPA is sending up trial balloons on new regs, looking for comments, etc, and the wingtards are up in arms just because it’s the EPA.
These people really need to be forced to drink fracking fluids to demonstrate how safe they are.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
So, it’s a gradual change in particulate release levels in newly manufactured wood stoves over time, and the time frame is several years, which gives the manufacturers oodles of time to comply with the tightening standards..
Yes, that’s EXACTLY like a ban, no doubt with jack booted thugs (also too playing THUG MUSIC (if you can call it that) on boom boxes really loud) breaking into family rooms and ripping wood stoves out of the walls, tracking mud all over the carpets and scaring the cat, and oh by the way grabbing guns while they’re at it Uh huh.
Shakezula
Arkansas’ legislators know that their constituents would rather suffer than enter the slavery of affordable medical care!
MikeJ
@Villago Delenda Est: And did you see why they’re doing it?
waspuppet
@Tommy: Well, they’re confident that the GOP will take action on climate change someday.
And I’m sure they will – they just have to wait until 1) doing so no longer means admitting the liberals were right (Chuck Todd began laying the groundwork last Sunday) and 2) the costs can be socialized, rather than making the people who caused the problem pay for fixing it, which is so unfair.
NonyNony
@waspuppet:
The GOP is not going to take action on climate change.
They will do what they always do – keep doing what they’re doing until they lose enough elections to put Democrats into power, have the Democrats make all of the tough choices to keep things afloat, and then use the fact that the Democrats had to make tough choices to win the next election.
It’s been their pattern for a while now, and I don’t see why they’d deviate from it now.
Suffern ACE
@NonyNony: And yet, they win on being the big daddy deciders who make the tough decisions.
Linnaeus
@NonyNony:
When VW was in the process of selecting the site for the plant they ended up building in Tennessee, Michigan was one of the 3 finalists. The fact that Tennessee was chosen makes me question how much VW really cared to have a union in their plant.
Suffern ACE
@ET: The thing is, they don’t appear to be voting for people who screw them. Most of their reps aren’t voting to throw 95,000 people off of medicaid. And they have a governor willing to sign the bill if he gets it on his desk.
jl
@Linnaeus: It may have been a combination of not really caring, and not really understanding how vicious and self-destructive wingnut GOPers would be in opposition to any unionization at all. Worker councils have seats on the board of VW, and will have a say in future decisions, and they have been put on notice that the South does not want them if the allow unions, even if the company prefers management with union representatives. Makes no difference to the GOPers, VW can cake its commie ass company and its factories elsewhere. Which I expect will happen.
jl
@Suffern ACE:
” And yet, they win on being the big daddy deciders who make the tough decisions. ”
For GOP voters, competent big daddy deciders who make tough decisions, only make them tough on somebody else.
Steeplejack
@Linnaeus:
I think Tennessee gave VW something like $600 million in grants/tax breaks/whatever, which Michigan probably couldn’t match (or didn’t want to).
Bill Arnold
@slippytoad:
It is OK to regulate supernatural gasses?
(is the text of the bill available?)
Cacti
@ET:
Sadly for places like Arkansas things will have to get really bad before the voters realize/be convinced that they keep voting for people who in turn screw them
Not sure how much worse it could get.
Arkansas has long been near the bottom of the barrel among the 50 states for poverty.
Baud
@jl:
FTFY!
Southern Beale
Oh, dear. Looks like Tennessee Republicans shot themselves in the foot with their “interference” in the UAW vote.
MikeJ
@Southern Beale: Nah, they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot. Republicans would rather lose the factory than have a sizable number of union members as constituents.
pseudonymous in nc
@jl:
That’s my assumption: they just hadn’t seen old southern union-bustin’ in practice.
VW’s going to try and get a works council one way or another, and doing so may require them calling in a bunch of Tennessee pols and explaining in baby talk just what that means.
Amir Khalid
@MikeJ:
I wonder if they’ll make it a party slogan at the next statewide elections: Better No Jobs Than Union Jobs!
jl
@Southern Beale: Nice summary of the situation. But your post implies that v-wand wielding medical techs being converted into state reproductive police are not respectable, well-paying, good, free enterprise jobs. That is unfair and uncivil, and very similar to some human rights atrocity or other, against the wingnuts.
Excuse me, I meant teabaggers. I love their whines about being victimized with that term, since they thought it up, and I remember seeing some daft GOP Houser on a national TV morning show, hanging teabags from his ears and saying how they were going to ‘teabag’ the liberals into not destroying our freedoms. I was not educated about the other meanings of ‘teabag’ until later.
If were not for those pervert degenerate reactionary teabaggers, my innocence would not have been sullied.with such horrible knowledge, which now cannot be erased.
MomSense
@Southern Beale:
Ever since 2009 the Republicans have been working against anything that would benefit their constituents economically. If it weren’t for our failed media experiment–maybe their constituents would voted the mofos out.
jl
@pseudonymous in nc: If the workers councils decide to force VW to get serious about that particular plant, and the money VW guys come in and talk money, I predict the GOP will fold, since it’s bidness. The only question is what asinine BS and raft of lies the GOP will float to cover up their surrender.
Edit: My guess is to call it something else, and impose some kind of public humilation or financial penalty targeted as closely as possible to the VW plant workers to make sure the other serfs, er… I mean proud free enterprise Southern workers don’t get any ideas.
jl
@MomSense: And barely disguised racist pandering. Don’t forget the racist pandering. Divide and conquer is the GOP’s main weapon.
The problem is that the economic issues are cutting so close to vital arteries and bones of the white working class, is that the GOP racist pandering and wedging is working on fewer and fewer issues.
The GOP is really trapped itself into mining their weak minded gullible and senile scared white bigot base into extinction.
There is enough unease and dissatisfaction with the ACA that the GOP could really make it an issue if they would even be able to pretend to have some constructive ideas. A plurality of the voters do not like the ACA, but want it improved, not repealed and replaced with GOP BS for going back to status quo ante. But the GOP cannot do that. They are trapped into mindless reaction and opposition. That won’t work with any white, even many scared white bigot whites with half a brain, because the problems with health care in US are just too up close and personal to deny.
Steeplejack
@Cacti:
“Thank God for Mississippi!”—the motto of the rest of the South.
Bokonon
I am waiting … just waiting … for some stupid GOP officeholder in Tennessee to retort that VW was founded by Adolf Hitler, and people in Tennessee don’t care at all what union thugs from fascist socialist companies like that have to say about anything. So there! On behalf of the proud state of Tennessee … up yours, Volkswagen!!
And just watch what happens next.
jl
@Bokonon:
” And just watch what happens next. ”
A public health emergency in TN because of all the GOPers too befuddled and disoriented to conduct normal activities of daily living?
Edit: Oh, I forgot, the VW plants in TN are Obama’s fault. Thanks, Obama!!
Edit2: Newsmax editorials about what a paradise the world might be, if only Obama had used his time machine for good, and not for evil.
catclub
@jl: “The GOP is really trapped itself into mining their weak minded gullible and senile scared white bigot base into extinction.”
More than half of the employees voting at the VW plant.
? Martin
@jl:
The GOP isn’t calling the shots, the Tea Party is. And they don’t care about business so long as they Kochs are throwing money around.
BGinCHI
Test. FU WP.
BGinCHI
Anyone post stats from Kaiser?
AR Medicaid distribution (non-elderly) by race.
Whites, 59%
Af-Am, 25%
Whites are 74% of the population, but still it’s an interesting stat…
danielx
I’m channeling H.L. Mencken….
Also, too:
In the case of the latter quote, the crazy caucus in the Arkansas lege is proclaiming that guvmint is going to take away all their benighted constituents’ munniez and give it to Those People.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: How is Tea Party different from the Republican Party for all intents and purposes they are one and the same.
ruemara
@Linnaeus: I swear to you, foreigners do not truly understand our fetid southern swamps of crazy.
danielx
@schrodinger’s cat:
Exactly.
There is no Tea Party. The Tea Party is the Republican party wearing a tricorner hat and not wearing a thousand dollar suit.
While I’m thinking of it…heard first from Mr. Charles Pierce. Kind of Arkansas related so not totally off topic.
They’re getting the band back together!
WaterGirl
No new threads in 4 hours? Are all the front pagers napping?
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
Unlike me — as a medical retiree, I can be here 24/7 if I want — they do have to sleep some time.
schrodinger's cat
@WaterGirl: I has a new post up on my blog, about W’s concern troll architect telling Obama to go small with his Presidential Library plans.
Gex
@schrodinger’s cat: This. If they want to pretend they are different parties, the Tea Party is going to have to start doing the work that’s required to get on the ballots as a third party. Fight to get into the debates. Hold their own primaries and caucuses. And stop getting funding from the Republican Party. And stop getting seniority and committee placements in Congress as though they are Republicans.
The Tea Party tries to play it both ways and it just shows how lazy those fuckers are and how entitled they are.
If they are two parties, then Nancy Pelosi should be Speaker of the House.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: It is day time here, right now. So unless they are kittehs they should not be napping.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Moocher.
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Okay, now I’m mad (after reading about more hypocrisy). I’ve known children who are more self aware than the Republicans who seem to think President Obama isn’t quite a real president.
PsiFighter37
Pretty sure Bill Clinton wouldn’t be able to win the state if he were running for office. Same thing goes for when Hillary runs in 2 years, too.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yeah, but Amir has to pay twice as much as the rest of us since he can read 24/7.
jl
@Gex: I guess there will be study some day of exactly what the teabaggers did on their own grassroots without gobs of corporate money and logistics. Nothing is my guess. Either because they could not, or the local grifter running them ran off with their money.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: Not really. The GOP at least acknowledges that these policies are hurting them with the broader electorate. The GOP keeps getting back into the game on immigration reform. They have the strategic sense to work out what hurts and how badly, even if they don’t have the courage to oppose the stuff that hurts them.
The Tea Party are the ideologues and reactionaries. They’re the ones proudly setting themselves on fire for the cause, and they’re the ones that show up during the primary elections. They don’t care if it does harm to the party because *they* don’t identify with the GOP, even if we identify them with the GOP. And I’d argue that no matter how far the GOP lurches right, they’ll still not identify with the party, and they’ll move even farther right themselves. There’s something deeply perverted about the radicalizing effects of that party. In any other country, I’m reasonably sure we’d have seen suicide vests out of some of these guys.
The GOP rep that I had an extended dialogue with some months ago was fully aware that the GOP had no alternative or solution to ACA, and that they desperately needed one in order to get voters on their side. But they are so terrified of the Tea Party candidates that they continue to demand repeals and calling it marxism and all that. He fully acknowledges that it’s a private market solution, that most of it came out of Heritage. He’s not stupid, he’s just a coward. He knows they’re full of shit. And in 2008, everyone here would have called him the ideological fringe of the party (he’s been in Congress for some time). Now not only does he look like a moderate Republican now, I haven’t seen a new GOP candidate that wasn’t far to his right.
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
Actually, I get the volume discount.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
They should make you a front pager. It would class up the joint a bit.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: Even supposed RINOs like Susan Collins vote lockstep with the so-called tea-partiers. Its a distinction without a difference in my opinion.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Seconded. Definitely a step up, over EDK and Boring Freddie.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Seconded.
Cassidy
@? Martin:
God I wish. If they’d give a few liberaltarians a hug in the process, that’d be great.
boatboy_srq
@Gex: I’m with you on this – but I think the opposite action needs to happen. It’s not the Teahad that should separate from the GOP, but the auld part of the Grand Auld Pahty who should spin off from the Teahad. The Republican brand is now so owned by the extremists in that party that there’s little point in them leaving, and there are so few rational moderate-to-conservative pols still under the GOP umbrella that they can’t apply sufficient pressure to force the Teahadists to leave, so it’s easier, quicker, and less painful for them to split off than for the Tea Party to spontaneously break free of the GOP machine.
Mind you, it’s 2014: these days, most moderate Republicans are nominally referred to as Democrats. So really there’s no there there. But watching what few remain split between the Party of Big Business and the Party of B#tsh!t-Crazy would definitely have entertainment value if nothing else.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: I believe that’s third-ed, but what do I know. All this time I thought you were The Thin Black Dude, at least until someone mentioned the david bowie reference the other day. I should try actually reading all the letters that are in front of me. Sheesh.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat:
It definitely is when it comes to voting. But if the GOP can get the policy reins back, things would look a fair bit different. They still wouldn’t be good – they’ll always play the opposition, but I think the 19th century policies would pretty much all vanish.
There is a legitimate struggle playing out for control of the party. I think they’re pretty much at stalemate right now, just repeatedly punching themselves in the junk. Heaven help us if the Dems lose seats this year.
WaterGirl
@? Martin: Republicans would still be completely obstructionist, which is why we can’t get anything done. That’s the biggest problem, I think.
Tommy
Happy days.
I live in St, Louis. Oshie is given like a world renowned thing. Last week his Jersy sold out.
rikyrah
@Parfigliano:
Amen.