I’ll bet every one of the fuckers at that godawful shitshow of a debate tonight think this graph is an index of decline. Still, a simple fact remains: despite Hobby Lobby, despite the war on Planned Parenthood, despite years of noise, bullshit and outrage from a bunch of bible banging old men, almost all women on insurance can finally get a safe and effective medical device without paying out of pocket.
When I see graphs like this, it makes me stop and think about the amount of simple human misery Obamacare has reduced or eliminated in just a couple of years.
boatboy_srq
Betcha somebody brings up that graph and complains about how Obummercare has radically increased the number of murderesses in the US.
Baud
Add to that the misery alleviated by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and you can understand why the Democratic Party is despised.
Geeno
A-f-ing-men
dmsilev
A Big Fucking Deal, to quote a certain Vice President.
Baud
@dmsilev: I hope Biden runs for the profanity alone.
mikeinIreland
Yeah but…..Obama’s such a corporate sell-out!
Speaking of Obama…
Anyone talking about what role he might play in the general election? I’m curious to see how it plays out
Baud
@mikeinIreland: I expect him to support the nominee. What other role do you have in mind?
dmsilev
@Baud: If he doesn’t run (most likely, I think), and if Trump becomes the GOP nominee (frighteningly plausible), I hope Biden gets the role of Official Trump Needler. He’d be so so good at it.
KG
@mikeinIreland: sitting, termed out presidents rarely play a role in the general election for their successor. usually, they’ll give a speech at the convention and that’s about it. it’s deemed undignified to do much more.
schrodinger's cat
When I saw this title on my phone I thought mm was going to be discussing NYFW.
Baud
@dmsilev:
Agreed. He would be excellent in that role.
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: haha.. I had to google NYFW, to see what I was missing.
boatboy_srq
@JPL: Now Yoooge For Work, no?
boatboy_srq
@mikeinIreland: One imagines the Reichwing celebrating their victory insofar as HRC is leading in the polls – which means BHO won’t get a third term even from his supporters…
boatboy_srq
@schrodinger’s cat: @Baud: I read your two comments back-to-back, and my brain did things totally unrelated to the FP post with them.
NotMax
Wondering if anyone will be keeping a comprehensive list of the advertisers, just for curiosity’s sake.
mikeinIreland
Baud, I meant by what KG above addressed. Wondering if he’ll do any stump speeches during the campaigns at all.
I guess it all depends on how the general plays out. I just think of back to so many Senate races where nobody wanted to be seen with Obama and they all got crushed.
shell
Amen!.
Save us from the type of wingnut who equates suffering with FREEDOM!
All for our own good, of course.
Tommy
@Baud: I work for myself. I pay less, let me say that again I pay less money for a better policy. It should IMHO be less. But things got better not worse with Obama.
boatboy_srq
@efgoldman:
Dunno about you, but I see a trend in the Shrubbery.
benw
@Baud:
They don’t wear enough flag pins on their lapels.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
Wouldn’t that be more like “what everybody’s barely wearing this season”?
ETA: NYFW, NSFW, what’s the difference?
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: I don’t see how the Democrat wins without President Obama pulling out the stops in campaigning. He has to, for the country’s sake, and to protect his own legacy.
The MSM is that in the pukefunnel with the Republicans, and the constant deluge of negative advertising and fearmongering by the GOP.
The Supreme Court: next president may have 2 vacancies, at a minimum.
2016 is a can’t lose election for Democrats. They have to keep the White House. I’d love to see an Obama with no f*cks left to give out there, campaigning at full strength.
Lithe-ducking.
Amir Khalid
@KG:
Bill didn’t play much of a role for Al Gore in 2000 because it was Gore’s (mistaken, I think) strategy to distance himself from Bill. W didn’t in 2008 for McCain because by then everybody (including McCain himself, for personal reasons) despised the fucker.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Gives you an idea of how Orwellian the political discourse in this country; how successful the Republicans have been at putting up the false narrative and having it stick.
Among Very Serious People, anyhow.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: That was Gore’s biggest mistake, IMHO. He needed Bill. People who did not like Clinton were not going to vote for Gore. Where was the downside?
Gore won the popular vote. 500,000 vote margin. Clinton at his side, W would not have had the chance to steal.
raven
@Elizabelle: I ain’t buying all this legacy gas. No one knows how things will look down the road, you do your best and let the chips fall where they may.
RK
Nate Silver tells Andersen Cooper that Trump has a 5% chance to win the nomination.
benw
@efgoldman:
What about OFA, too? Is it still the massive fundraising/ground game/campaign resources organization it was during Obama’s reelection? I know it technically spun off from Obama after 2012, but just a glance at their webpage (barackobama.com!) and it’s still heavily associated with him. I hope their resources will be leveraged for the eventual D nominee.
A Ghost To Most
@Amir Khalid: not often that you use profanity. You picked a worthy subject.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: Biggest mistake was choosing Moral Scold Lieberman as his running mate. He made Dick Cheney look cuddly and reasonable in the VP debate.
RK
I don’t think a president’s legacy, in the minds of the people or pens of the historians, is colored by his successors party affiliation.
Or come to think of it maybe you meant his legislation being undone.
Davis X. Machina
That IUD stuff is all well and good, but I know this guy who had excellent — really excellent, covered everything — individual health insurance for like $200 a month — no, it was actually less — and now he has to pay like $1700 a month for a policy that actually covers less, with huge co-pays, and it requires something like $5000 in out-of-pocket before caps set in. And he lost all his old doctors — they’re all out of network. All his new doctors have degrees from a med school in Bolivia, too.
Thanks Obama.
trollhattan
@Baud:
As much as I’d enjoy a Biden run (if not the disruption it would generate) I’d REALLY enjoy the hell out of Onion Joe’s shadow campaign. Can you just imagine?
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
I too expect Obama to endorse the nominee next year, and campaign for her.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Haha. You are a little devil today.
Roger Moore
@RK:
No, but his legacy, both in the public imagination and in reality, would be compromised if his signature accomplishments were gutted immediately after he left office. The Republicans are going to do everything they can to undo everything positive that Obama has done, from Obamacare to restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba.
RaflW
But, you see, misery is g*d’s way of showing Republicans that they are the chosen. If no one is miserable, how can old men feel superior and righteous?
And if GOPers help create some of that misery, they’re just do in’ the work of g*d, dontchaknow.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I thought that was the function of the Baud campaign.
gelfling545
@Elizabelle: I think that this is most always the case. “Distancing” from a predecessor of one’s own party never works, largely because nobody believes it anyway. The exception is of course GWB from whom most sentient beings should distance themselves.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
True, Biden would peel away some of the support I receive for that reason alone.
Baud! 2016! — Why the Fuck Not!
RaflW
@KG: Given our current GOP, why the bleep should Dems care about dignified.
BTW Obama inviting the kid clock not-bomber to the White House is the sort of awesome I am loving about his 2nd term.
trollhattan
How drunk are RtR and srv already? This must seem like one of those old-school WWF battle royals to our resident spambots.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
purrs: I love it when you talk like that.
? Martin
The moderator should tell the candidates that there’s a Planned Parenthood clinic about 4 miles away – and ask what they think should be done about it.
Elizabelle
@raven: Legacy was maybe the wrong word. Definitely concerned about having the next administration try to dismantle Obama’s accomplishments. We’d all be safer if a Democrat kept and even improved on them.
Baud
@? Martin:
The upcoming shutdown will probably come up. If Trump endorses it, say bye-bye to the government until Jan. 2017.
Cacti
Kill the bill! We’ll get something better starting from scratch!
benw
@Cacti: Yes, sir! Which one’s Bill?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: There goes the Malay vote, nice move Baud.
Amir Khalid
@Baud: When I remember what the Republicans achieved by shutting down the government, both in Bill’s time and in Obama’s — nothing, and it backfired on them — I wonder why they want to do it again.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti: Hey!!!
Tom Q
@gelfling545: In fact, there’s a great deal of evidence that elections waged after a two-term presidency are largely a referendum on that second term, whether the candidate wants it to be or not — William Jennings Bryan couldn’t have disowned Cleveland more loudly, but he still suffered for his party’s association with the economic depression in 1896. It’s pointless to run away from your own party’s incumbent…and it may have cost Gore just a tick around the edges that would have made it more difficult for the Supreme Court Five to steal.
Though of course a president’s after-the-fact reputation can flourish in retrospect even without a successor from his own party — as Clinton’s has — I think following up a two-term presidency with a party continuation gives a president validation in real time: no question Bush being elected in 1988 sealed the idea of Reagan being a success, and Hillary (or whoever) following Obama would do the same.
Calouste
@efgoldman: Counting back, Eisenhower was probably the last president who was popular enough to campaign for his successor, and he did it by commenting that he couldn’t remember anything that Nixon contributed in 8 years as VP.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Votes.
Calouste
@Amir Khalid: There’s that quote that’s probably incorrectly attributed to Einstein that says that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: it might not have backfired for them individually
Hungry Joe
The reduction or elimination of simple human misery can’t be calculated for political benefit or monetized for somebody’s bottom line, so what good is it?
Brachiator
@RK:
Voodoo statistics. With zero primaries or caucuses, it is too early for this to be meaningful. Might as well be playing Fantasy Politics.
But hey, Nate needs to be out their doing punditry as much as anyone else.
@Elizabelle:
Well, not so much for the legacy, but for the country and the party. I presume, for now, that Hillary will be the nominee. Obama and Bill Clinton out on the campaign would be formidable.
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
Ike disliked Nixon, didn’t he? He picked Nixon for the states Nixon could help him win, not because Nixon was someone he wanted to work with. I seem to remember reading that somewhere.
JPL
It’s on..
Pataki.. faith and prosperity
Santorum.. ended partial birth abortion and cut spending has disabled girl
Jendal … not famous but has backbone..
Graham… He’s glad Mrs Reagan invited.. he’s running to destroy radical Islam..
benw
@JPL: Keep going…
JPL
Jendal.. He’s not breaking the 11th commandment by criticizing Trump.. cuz he’s not a republican President is more concerned about twinkies than Iran….
Santorum.. Not criticizing Trump…
Smiling Mortician
@Baud: Or maybe Baud 2016 — cause fuck those other guys, seriously.
I think it still fits on a bumper sticker.
Amir Khalid
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The Malay ethnic vote is far less important in America than in Malaysia.
JPL
Graham.. Why do folks like Trump compared to you… There’s a long way to go and he has a plan to destroy ISIL
wahoo. Ground troops..
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
I value it highly.
JPL
Ahmed is on CBS so that’s more important than the debate.
benw
@JPL:
Chortled. You are doing God’s work, sir.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: that’s the CW, as expressed by the quote Calouste referred to above. I thin it was last week’s NYT had a review of a new book (DIck and Ike?) that argues that DDE came to admire and appreciate his political skills and advice.
This is from a google search
Hungry Joe
@Amir Khalid: Shutting down the government didn’t backfire when they did it to Obama. The GOP got some bad press at the time, which included head-shaking and an occasional cluck from a Sabbath gasbag, but the very next off-year election (2014) they scored big. So they got to strut and posture and spew (cf. Cruz), and the price they paid was $0.00. Which is why they’ll do it again.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
Reagan.
Elizabelle
@Hungry Joe: I think shutting down the government helped elect Terry McAuliffe governor in Virginia.
The feds I ran across while canvassing were PISSED.
Patricia Kayden
“When I see graphs like this, it makes me stop and think about the amount of simple human misery Obamacare has reduced or eliminated in just a couple of years.”
Thanks Obama.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: and he was lazy, and didn’t much care about HW. He spoke at the ’92 convention*, and IIRC there were even rumors that he had told Nancy he was going to vote for Clinton because Poppy “didn’t seem to stand for anything”
* I remember that in part because Reagan wore a very brown suit (with a red-checked shirt) and I had just read a long article on his buddy Sinatra, and they said that one of SInatra’s rules was that anybody wearing a brown suit after five o’clock was a “clyde”.
Jeb? is a total fucking clyde.
Tom Q
@Hungry Joe: That’s because the Medicare.gov disaster came along shortly after, wiping the story off the news. While it was going on, the shutdown was awful for the GOP’s ratings. They cant assume something’ll come along to distract this time as well.
terben
‘bunch of bible banging old men’ Here in Oz we would call them the more alliterative (and euphonious) ‘bunch of bible bashing bastards’
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tom Q:
Plus EBOLA WAS GOING TO KILL US ALL!! ALL OF US!! DEAD!!
And then, the day after the election, the media didn’t give a shit about Ebola anymore. Funny, that.