.
Crazy, maybe; stupid, well… Eric Wemple, at the Washington Post:
Here’s some interesting accountability journalism: CNN’s Dana Bash asked Sen. Ted Cruz, a freshly announced 2016 presidential candidate, how his family would get health insurance now that his wife has taken an unpaid leave from her job at Goldman Sachs. “We’ll be getting new health insurance and we’ll presumably do it through my job with the Senate, and so we’ll be on the federal exchange with millions of others on the federal exchange,” the Texas Republican told her.
Yes, there’s irony there, as Bash noted in her interview. Cruz’s statement means that he’ll be getting insurance through the Affordable Care Act, the same law he has committed himself to repealing….
Next issue: Will he take the federal “subsidy” that others on Capitol Hill accept to defray their costs? asked Bash. “We will follow the text of the law,” Cruz said. “I strongly oppose the exemption that President Obama illegally put in place for members of Congress because Harry Reid and Senate Democrats didn’t want to be under the same rules as the American people.” So Bash wanted to know if Cruz would accept the “subsidy.” “I believe we should follow the text of the law,” said Cruz, repeating himself…
A formulation that reminded me of a former GOP stalwart who, despite undergoing surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon, insisted that he’d never had cancer. “I had something inside of me that had cancer in it, and it was removed,” he insisted. So, in that sense, I guess you could call Ted Cruz… Reagan-esque.
Louie Gohmert assures me that Ted Cruz is not a “bomb-thrower” as the media portrays him.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) March 24, 2015
I'm increasingly inclined to file Ted Cruz in the "performance art" folder.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 25, 2015
Ted Cruz looks like a clown without makeup and communicates solely via intellectual clickbait and I could not be happier that he’s running.
— Chase Woodruff (@dcwoodruff) March 23, 2015
***********
Apart from more GOP performance art, what’s on the agenda for the day?
BillinGlendaleCA
Well, if Louie Gohmert sez Tailgunner Ted isn’t a bomb thrower; fuck, that’s good enough for me.
PurpleGirl
I have some paperwork to do, so while I’m doing that I’ll be livestreaming the rally for Remember the Triangle (Shirtwaist Factory Fire). Today is its 104th Anniversary.
rememberthetrianglefire.org/
Culture of Truth
I don’t see this as hypocrisy. You can oppose a law and still follow it, in the same way that Democrats might oppose Super PACs but aren’t going to fight with one hand tied behind their back, or oppose a tax break and still take advantage of it as long as it’s still on the books.
Waldo
Ted makes it sound like he has no choice but to go “on the federal exchange”. Can’t he buy health coverage from a private insurer? You know, like he wants everyone else to do when he kills Obamacare.
OzarkHillbilly
The clown car parade is already full. No others need apply.
David Fud
@Culture of Truth: the difference is one of these affects electoral viability whereas the other is simply a way for a politician to put a little more money in their own pocket. Personal hypocrisy versus electoral inviability is quite a bit different in my book.
Mary G
I was clearing out some nooks and crannies in the living room and I found two sections of the LA Times my mother carefully saved – from November 5, 2008. “IT’S OBAMA” and “Change – Obama’s Moment.” Doyle McManus leads his story with “We are a different country now.”
Mom went from a passionate Goldwater supporter in 1964 and a lifelong registered Republican to a Democrat in 2008 with a “Hope” sign in the yard, which is also carefully preserved in the garage.
The last six years of assholery and racist dogwhistles from the right and where-is-my-unicorn-pony whinging from the left kind of overshadow that election night, but I remember the tears in my eyes when I realized that he really was going to win and think of all the accomplishments I thought I would never see, like healthcare reform, however flawed, and I feel lucky to be alive to see this period in history.
She was more than a bit of a hoarder, and everything else in that drawer went into the trash, but I will keep the papers wrapped up in acid-free tissue along with the family photos.
Now I am going back to bed.
dmsilev
I kind of doubt he’d be getting a subsidy. Even putting aside any investment income or whatever deferred income his wife might be getting during her leave, a Senatorial salary is easily high enough to be well over the ceiling for subsidized policies on the exchanges.
So, he could have simply said “no” rather than weaseling. Guess he doesn’t know much about the law he rails against.
Central Planning
@dmsilev:
Wait. What?! That’s IMPOSSIBLE.
Derelict
Cruz may not be electable, but he will make extreme rightwing views and policies acceptable–dragging the Overton Window even further to the right. So, by the time election day rolls around, America will be having a “discussion” about repealing the Estate Tax and expelling all the foreigners on American soil.
PurpleGirl
@Waldo: I’m sure he could buy the insurance directly himself. But then he wouldn’t have anything to complain about… and you know he wants the process to take a long time and have him turned down or receive a ridiculously low amount of a subsidy, so he gets something else to complain about.
He needs to complain, he wants to complain.
Schlemazel
@Derelict:
Yeah, this is his actual function, whether he knows it or not. And remember, one of these assclowns will be selected & have a 50-50 chance of getting elected. No matter what this little circle of people think of the choice Hilary is not going to set fire to the electorate the was Obama did and recent results indicate that the Presidential vote is going to be narrow & decided in large part by turnout and a swath of people who are not paying attention but “vote their gut”.
I’m past pointing & laughing any more
Betty Cracker
I just read an infuriating article in the NYT about Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the US / GOP operative who orchestrated Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Having done so much to damage US-Israeli relations, Dermer is now trying to hand-wave it all away by sucking up to Democrats (while continuing to undermine the Iran negotiations, of course).
The infuriating thing is that it will probably work. I get that Obama and the Democrats have to be the grown-ups in Washington (someone has to run the country, after all). But the rock-bottom price for Israel’s outrageous meddling should be Dermer’s job. Kick that fucker out, Mr. Obama!
MattF
Can’t sleep? Watch this video, and your tension WILL BE EXTERMINATED:
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18393
jayackroyd
@Culture of Truth: Exactly. This is precisely the kind of idiotic “journalism” we should be deriding.
Mustang Bobby
Finally going to get around to writing my paper for the William Inge Theatre Festival’s scholars conference. I’ve already written most of it; now I just have to put it on paper. After I clear the TiVo list, though…
ThresherK
Another Drawbridge Conservative? How novel.
Seriously, the novel thing is that this time it’s a straight white Christian male doing it.
ThresherK
@PurpleGirl: Hey, is “Shirtwaisting” in the lexicon yet?
I’m thinking of David Brooks, from his utterly unloseable post at the Times, telling us mere mortals “You can always get another job somewhere else”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mustang Bobby: Priorities,man.
Layla the baby dog will be headed off for her annual dental in a bit. Never mind that she’s 8 years old now; she was originally the baby of the dog pack and names stick.
Iowa Old Lady
@dmsilev: @Waldo: My guess is that by “subsidy,” this article means the contribution Cruz’s employer will make toward his purchase. As I recall, congressional employees, including members of congress, used to have an employer insurance program that they paid part of, like most working people do. Then when the Rs where snitting around about the law, they did away with that and said the employees had to buy on the exchanges but the govt would kick in the amount it was paying anyway. At least, I think that’s how it went.
The part of this that annoys me is the claim that congress has some sort of exemption and doesn’t have to follow the law. I don’t believe that’s true, though god knows, stupid stuff happens. Maybe Cruz is referring to allowing their employer to kick in. I don’t know.
JPL
@Waldo: MSM will ask him that soon.
Germy Shoemangler
This is from the NYTIMES. I highlighted words in the article that are supposed to make me love Boehner and Nancy Pelosi and despise Harry Reid:
WASHINGTON — The deal is as politically remarkable as it is substantive: a long-term plan to finance health care for older Americans, pay doctors who accept Medicare and extend popular health care programs for children and the poor. It was cobbled together by none other than House Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the leader of House Democrats, who rarely agree on anything, with the apparent blessing of a majority of their respective members.
Then along came a surprising impediment: Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, along with other Senate Democrats, objected to abortion restrictions in the bill and limits to an extension of a health insurance program for children. They have begun to undermine what was poised to be a sweeping bipartisan solution to several policy problems that have long vexed Congress.
It is a role in which Mr. Reid is becoming increasingly comfortable as he exploits his leverage in the minority to thwart his political opponents, even if that means an unusual split with Ms. Pelosi.
ThresherK
@Waldo: Reminds me of Every Single Failed Stunt by a Republican congresscritter or congressional aide to survive on the largesse of food stamps.
Didn’t they all basically quit the experiment after about 72 hours, or get caught lying their asses off about their secret stash of food?
Barbara (“Nickeled and Dimed”) Ehrenreich pwned them, even before the term was invented.
Eric S.
Here’s where I’m confused and maybe it has to do with the rules for Congress. I read Tailgunner Ted would have to pay more if he didn’t use the exchange. I didn’t use the exchange in Illinois but instead purchased directly from BCBS. The prices were the same.
Second, and maybe the same answer, why would a Senator get a subsidy? I – thankfully – do not qualify for a subsidy and Senators make more than I do.
debbie
@PurpleGirl:
Ah, Triangle. A portent of Industry under Right to Work.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: You have it right. The lie has taken hold tho. I have explained this to several people and they always react with “Really? That’s not what I heard.”
To which I always want to reply with, “You need to get your head out of Roger Ailes’ ass.”
danielx
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, there you go. If the Emperor-for-Life of All Teh Crazy says Ted Cruz isn’t a bomb-thrower, you have to go with that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric S.:
Because he has a job where the subsidy is a part of his compensation package. Just like so many other Americans with jobs that offer health insurance subsidies to their employees. Like my wife for instance.
debbie
@danielx:
To paraphrase Bentsen: “I know bomb-thrower, Sir, and you are no bomb-thrower.”
beth
@Iowa Old Lady: Yeah I remember the Republicans constantly crowing about how Congress was exempt from going on the exchanges and purchasing insurance as if it was some bug that proved how awful Obamacare was. I screamed myself hoarse yelling at the tv “you’re just like millions of others who have employer supplied insurance!”. Drives me crazy that people can’t see that.
Valdivia
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t even read that (it would make me too angry) but I did see on twitter yesterday that he had a few dems over for dinner to lobby them against the Iran deal. I hope he stays and gets a real kick in the ass from the executive branch every time he tries to get anything done.
Eric S.
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. I remember those rules now. It isn’t a subsidy as much as an employer contribution. Although one could argue with government as the employer it is equivalent. I wouldn’t but some will.
WereBear
Cripes, one of the reasons W “won” (ie, made it close enough to steal) is that he came off as likeable. I don’t understand it myself, but enough people did.
Cruz is the opposite. He’s utterly repulsive to 73% of the population. And I hope that carries over to the policies he espouses.
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
Thanks again.
Lurking Canadian
@beth: What you are forgetting is that government jobs aren’t really jobs, as Amity Shlaes taught us.
Patrick
@Culture of Truth:
Couldn’t he, if he was true to his convictions, selected COBRA instead of selecting an insurance on the exchange? At least those were the rules before ACA. And those will be the rules if the ACA is repealed (as Cruz wants).
Cervantes
@Mary G:
Oversimplification, I think. The Overton Window will not move back leftwards unless someone applies pressure.
Or to paraphrase Shaw (really), all progress depends on unreasonable people.
opiejeanne
@dmsilev: It’s a special subsidy, about 70%, just for Congress. It’s not the same as the subsidy that my sister gets because of her level of income.
Cervantes
@Schlemazel:
More Shaw: “Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”
Little did he know: the two can be combined.
Cervantes
@ThresherK:
That’s hardly novel.
waysel
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think the president has the legal power to remove the ambassador of another country. Am I wrong?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cervantes:
Like how they moved the Overton window by supporting Nader.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: Thanks for that extra chunk of info. It hasn’t been many years since they decided who the last two victims were (I think it was two).
opiejeanne
@waysel: He can’t, no, but he can demand it.
Patrick
@Betty Cracker:
Can you imagine the cries of being traitors etc if a foreign leader’s ambassador to the US were trying to sabotage George W Bush by working with the Dems in Congress to sabotage Bush? I can’t remember this ever happening before. On top of this, as per the WSJ yesterday, Israel have been spying on the US and has shared its findings with the GOP.
Cervantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I said something was an oversimplification and you respond by … oversimplifying (at best).
Nicely done.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne: @waysel: Yes he can. He can expel him. Happens all the time, especially in cases of spying. Of course, if he did Israel would engage in tit for tat and expel ours.
Cervantes
@Patrick:
When Prince Bandar was Saudi Ambassador in DC, he participated in Reagan’s Iran-Contra crimes. And in 2002-03, he participated in Dick Cheney’s Iraq crimes. But in both cases he was not trying to subvert the President, merely law and justice — so perhaps it does not count!
Anyhow, good question, thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne:
There is nothing special about it. It is about the same as my wife receives from her employer.
Betty Cracker
@waysel: I think the State Department is actually in charge of that, but the Obama administration could declare Dermer persona non grata and tell him to get the hell out of dodge, I think. (Unless he’s also an American citizen, which he may be; he was born and raised here, I think.) But in any case, the administration could refuse to receive him, which would force the Netanyahu government to appoint someone else. They should, but they almost certainly won’t. The tail will continue to wag the dog.
Patrick
@Cervantes:
Yes, Bandar is not doing the same as the Israel ambassador.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, right. I didn’t sleep at all last night and it’s 6:30am now so the brain is frazzled.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Dermer gave up his American citizenship in 2005.
J R in WV
The President can declare any diplomat persona non grata, not welcome, and that diplomat must leave the country, perhaps to be replaced by the country that Diplo represents.
That would be a big step for the Israeli ambassador, though they have been more pissy than usual lately!!
rikyrah
Dark-money probe raises questions about Scott Walker donations
Michael Isikoff, Yahoo! News chief investigative correspondent, talks with Rachel Maddow about revelations stemming from a dark money investigation into Wisconsin governor Scott Walker raising questions about donations from a local billionaire.
msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/dark-money-probe-puts-new-pressure-on-walker-417736771934
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: yes, but not like the subsidy my sister gets. I didn’t state it very well.
It was the result of Republican maneuvering before the ACA passed, and one of them added the provision that they be subject to it the same as the rest of the country. I read somewhere that their own employees would be at the mercy of their home states, IIRC, so Cruz’s paid assistants would have to deal with Texas’ laws and would not be eligible for the group insurance afforded to Federal employees. Is this correct?
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I hope something takes Walker down before the GOP picks a nominee. As dull as he is, he scares me more than the rest of the clown car occupants.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cervantes:
The Overton Window is what television talking heads are willing to talk about as reasonable. They are not interested in moving it to the left, ever. One thing Ferguson eloquently proved is that they’re racists themselves, and we already knew they’re rich people who want tax cuts, and that they love war. So… they’re solid Republicans, who don’t want the GOP to ever look unreasonable and approve of everything the Teabaggers (ah, that true grassroots movement of the American middle) do. They just wish people like Akin would be more polite about it.
Loudly left Democrats will move the Overton Window further right, as they’re held up as an example of how unreasonable and batshit insane Democrats are.
Cervantes
@Frankensteinbeck:
So progress is impossible and we’re all doomed.
I blame Obama.
Mike E
@Cervantes:
B-J/GOS/Atrios in a tidy nutshell!
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: I don’t think that’s true. To cite one example, the “Overton Window” on gay marriage moved left with dizzying speed.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I’m just worried Kasich would step in, and he could seem a “moderate”. He’s more telegenic than the rest of the Klown Kar, and has won a lot of elections in his day.
Not following any of the GOP race. They’re cretins.
I wonder if CNN gets a big audience with plane crashes, etc., because people have tuned out over all the boring political news and glibness.
I watch very little TV news, and am so much the better for it.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I don’t know much about Kasich, but yeah, anyone who can be marketed as a “fresh face” or a candidate who isn’t obviously a drooling loony is a worry. If the Democratic nominee is to be Hillary Clinton, and it sure looks that way, I hope Jeb Bush is the Republican nominee.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cervantes:
Well, I think progress in THAT area is impossible. We’ll have to go around it – and yes, that’s a serious challenge! The national news media is going to remain heavily stacked towards Republicans. What we think of as the national discussion, IE what’s treated as reasonable on TV and in newspapers, will not move left. We’ll have to move our message through non-traditional means, presumably internet-based. The irony is that this logic says we might as well go far left ourselves. The window is not ours to control anyway.
@Betty Cracker:
This is an interesting point, and I think it raises a question of definition. What exactly is the Overton Window? Is it what the American population thinks is reasonable? I don’t think the American population is sufficiently monolithic for that to even be a thing. The GOP base is becoming more extreme every day. The branch of the population that gets its politics from traditional news is being nudged right as crazier and crazier things are treated as reasonable. But the TV news audience is shrinking, partly because a large portion of the electorate is actually being turned off by all this crazy, and is moving left. They also tend to get dispirited in the process. We’ve been seeing the results of both at election time.
Or is the Overton Window the ‘national discussion’, the thing we see political and social figures talking about? That is defined almost entirely by the news media, and they are Republicans and want to swing that discussion to the right. They are not the definition of what the common man is thinking, despite their thinking so. They are excellent at controlling what information is out there. When the Overton Window is discussed here, the standard used to figure out where that window is, is almost always what the talking heads are saying. Only a giant cultural shift like the gay marriage situation allows a peek behind that curtain at what Americans are actually thinking.
The Republic of Stupidity
‘Reagan-esque’?
I think I’ll go w/ a ‘cancerous polyp’, if it’s okay…
Mike E
@Betty Cracker: Traditional marriage is a window treatment put over a gaping hole where the wall fell down.
I think a better analogy is how E. German guards looked at all those determined people pushing their broken down cars over the border, shrugged and said, “Who are we to keep these folks from voting with their feet?” The writing had been on that wall for many years.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I’m from Ohio. Kasich is neither telegenic or moderate. It is inevitable he’ll show his real self. And if he doesn’t do so soon, I’m sure the multitude of people he’s pissed off just since he became governor will be only too happy to show you who he really is.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: My understanding of the term is that it means what’s acceptable to the public. As you note, that’s certainly not monolithic, but we can reach a critical mass and tip the scales, as happened with gay marriage.
The TV talking heads and political press corps do have their thumb on the scales for Republicans, and they play an out-sized role in shaping public dialog, but I don’t think the situation is hopeless. They get caught flat-footed by unexpected (by them) surges in public opinion sometimes. I don’t think they saw the Occupy movement coming, for example.
The trick is to push an issue forward in a way that makes it harder for them to immediately discredit it. Even the most odious corporate media figures have to find a balance between promoting the plutocratic agenda and losing their credibility.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle: @Betty Cracker:
I too worry about Kasich. Elizabeth Drew from the NYRB posted on twitter yesterday that she thinks he should run. She’s generally pretty sharp and sees through the facade, so I guess this means he’s the one who will get a pass.
Wasn’t he a Budget guy for Bush? Am I making this up?
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
Re Overton-window-shifting, what do people think of the new Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism, co-chaired by four Republicans and four Democrats?
I ordinarily would not read much into it but the timing is suggestive of an attempt to de-legitimize efforts to de-legitimize Israeli policies, e.g. the BDS movement, and the less-fawning-than-usual language from the Obama administration. (i.e. not really fully “Bipartisan”.)
Elizabelle
@debbie: That’s reassuring.
@Valdivia: That’s less so.
I do see Kasich as the “responsible Republican with a track record” our corporate-media betters can get behind. Tongue baths to ensue.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle: yes, they are going to pimp him for all they’re worth