But you’re going to repeal it anyway because you don’t give a fuck about your state.
Sen. Cotton states, "I'm not here to deny that Obamacare has helped Arkansans." #CottonTownHall
— Channing Barker (@ChanningBarker) February 22, 2017
Reader Interactions
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Betty
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand? Come on Tommy, be a human being and care about people’s lives.
LAO
…it has just cost wealthy Americans’ too much to subsidize your healthcare.
rikyrah
A woman at that Townhall lit Cotton’s azz up!! She was so forceful, blunt and direct – nailing him to the wall.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Standard Tea Party Republican: “I got mine — F*** you!”
Ian G.
One of the weird things (among many weird things about the current GOP) is the utter indifference to regional constituent concerns. Southern California, Arkansas, Upstate NY….doesn’t matter. It’s all the same tax cuts for the rich/kill big gubmint hive mind. Arkansas might be dirt poor, but what’s important is what some think tank in DC has dictated from on high.
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
She made me burst into tears. And she reminded me that where I come from (Missouri), it’s pronounced IN-sur-ance.
I mentioned it to my doctor this morning and he already knew all about it. It’s going viral!
Ian G.
Anyway, Cotton’s main goal in Congress appears to be maximizing the number of Arkansans (and other Americans) who come back in body bags from some lunatic war with Iran.
Corner Stone
DougJ, you’re not even going to give me anything for this from your recent thread?
“Oh, I wish I was in the land of Tom Cotton! Little folks there are all forgotten. Look away, look away, look away Senator Cotton.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Ian G.:
Only because you’re thinking in traditional economic concerns. They see their constituents as Republican voters, period. Nobody else. And the major concern of those voters is destroying Obama’s legacy, wiping his name from the history books, heaping suffering on minorities, and making sure that no colored person ever, ever, has enough power to offer them charity again.
The Moar You Know
Won’t be repealed. Just renamed, and rejiggered a little to have shittier benefits.
RareSanity
I like how the people are stating, emphatically, that they are not paid protesters…to nip that dodge in the bud immediately.
It’s the modern day GOP’s worst nightmare. Constituents that are paying close attention to what they are doing and saying, and they don’t like it one bit. I remember something Bill Clinton said some time ago during an interview with Jon Stewart on TDS, “When people are paying attention, they vote for Democrats.”
Timurid
What exactly is their plan to rig 2018? There has to be one (whether it will actually work is another question). The way things are going, even with the favorable map, there’s going to be real risk for them if they try to play it ‘straight’ (with no more than the usual suppression and chipping away at the margins).
rikyrah
We have a lunatic as President.
One that is an asset for a hostile foreign power.
All logic dictates that one of our branches of government is totally compromised by this hostile foreign power.
But, I’m supposed to be mad that The Spooks are fighting back.
In ordinary times, against anyone else, I would be up in arms.
But, today?
Eh.
Are We Witnessing a Coup Operation Against the Trump White House?
Our intelligence apparatus is doing far more than stoking paranoia about the Russian bogeyman—it’s threatening democracy.
By Patrick Lawrence
A couple of books come to mind amid the relentless leaks emanating from the spooks on either side of the Potomac and, not to be missed, their high approval ratings among our patriots of liberal persuasion.
..
kindness
Cotton don’t give a shit. He’s a(n idiot) Honey Badger. He’d just as soon run over, stop, back up and run over again one of his Democratic constituents.
RareSanity
Oh, I’m also happy that I get to deliver my own metaphorical shiv to the GOP in April.
I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to vote in the Tom Price special election…yay me!
germy
Humboldtblue
California elected officials — local, state and federal — have promised to save as much of the ACA as possible
They are also doing the same thing for the environment with a new bill aimed at preserving federal regulations as enforceable under state law.
Doug!
@Corner Stone:
I missed that!
dmsilev
@rikyrah: It’s been remarked on before that The Nation has been downright weird in their willingness to take Russia’s side on a whole string of issues recently. I’d read that article in that context.
hovercraft
Re-posting from downstairs.
Suspect In Kansas Triple Shooting Allegedly Yelled ‘Get Out Of My Country’
A suspect arrested on Thursday in connection with a triple shooting in Olathe, Kansas, allegedly shouted “get out of my country” before opening fire and later told a bartender that he had killed two Middle Eastern men, according to a report by the Kansas City Star.
The Olathe Police Department responded to reports of shots fired at Austin’s Bar and Grill in Olathe on Wednesday night. Three men with gunshot wounds were transported to area hospitals, where one victim later died.
According to a Wednesday report by the Kansas City Star, the suspect fled on foot. The suspect was arrested at approximately 12:40 a.m. and the case remains under investigation, according to police.
Adam Purinton, a 51-year-old resident of Olathe identified by the Kansas City Star as the suspect arrested early Thursday morning, reportedly told a bartender at an Applebee’s in Clinton that he had killed two Middle Eastern men and needed somewhere to hide.
Garmin officials identified two of the victims, who worked at the company’s Aviation Systems Engineering team in Olathe, as Alok Madasani and Srinivas Kuchibhotla. In an email to employees, officials wrote that Kuchibhotla was the deceased victim, according to the Kansas City Star’s report on Thursday.
The Kansas City Star identified the third victim as Ian Grillot.
Both Madasani and Kuchibhotla have Indian universities listed on their Linkedin pages.
The Henry County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to TPM that Purinton is being held at the county jail but did not immediately confirm whether he has been charged.
Purinton was booked for first-degree murder but has not officially been charged yet, according to a report by local CBS affiliate KCTV.
A clerk at the Henry County Courthouse did not immediately respond to TPM’s attempt to confirm if Purinton has been charged.
Humboldtblue
Huh
Roger Moore
@Ian G.:
It’s not weird. You just have to remember that they respond to the ultra-rich who fund their campaigns, not the marks who vote for them.
p.a.
@germy: what, white supremacy is avant garde?
Humboldtblue
California lawmakers, local, state, and federal, have already pledged to protect the ACA as best they can.
Now they are doing the same thing with federal environmental regulations by making them enforceable under state law.
hovercraft
@Ian G.:
Cotton was handpicked to run for senate by wingers. His resume was perfect, military, Ivy league school, neo-con views, and young. He is seen as future presidential material, so of course he is loathsome.
germy
@p.a.: I thought it was mainstream with them. I guess they prefer it kept quiet.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Corner Stone:
I knew I’d read that last night, but couldn’t recall who’d penned it.
Doug!, citation needed — proper MLA format required….
Gin & Tonic
CNN is now reporting that Andriy Artemenko, the Ukrainian MP who supposedly came up with the “sell out Ukraine” deal that 45’s lawyer delivered or didn’t deliver to Flynn (based on whatever Cohen is saying at the moment) is saying that it was all Cohen’s idea, not his.
Humboldtblue
@hovercraft:
God Bless America.
hovercraft
@Timurid:
Passing more restrictions and counting on the fact that their people vote in midterms and our side does not. The fly in that ointment is that they control everything, and they are doing everything in their power to piss us off and make us actually come out to vote.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@hovercraft:
He may have those virtues you listed, but photogenic isn’t among them, not with those cold, dead shark eyes and fuzzy face.
Gin & Tonic
@dmsilev: Not weird at all. Bought and paid for.
liberal
@germy: Yeah, but…pedophilia is also an “old idea”.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Fuck him, this man poses a threat to the nation, the oath is to protect us from ALL enemies foreign and domestic, Twitler is poses both. I would also normally be up in arms, but in this case, given that he can barely help himself from lying about what day it is, I say carry on.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
Katrina’s husband has a long tangled history with Russia, so not at all a surprise.
Villago Delenda Est
I still would love to have a beer with some of his NCOs from Iraq to get the real deal on this prick.
liberal
@Frankensteinbeck:
How’s it a race thing? They went completely batshit when Hillary et al. tried to do “managed care” in the 1990s.
Ian G.
@rikyrah:
Leaving aside The Nation’s disturbing affection for Putin, if we’re going to live in a weak democracy run by a demented kleptocrat who considers the 1st amendment and the Constitution to be bothersome impediments to his power, then we live in a country where a coup (if you want to generously go along with this article’s premise) is a legitimate form of politics.
The concern trolls at The Nation can get fucked with a rusty screwdriver.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: Oh, the shivs are being flaunted, they are.
liberal
Why is that the end game? I would assume a likely outcome is that they don’t do anything for quite a while, but Trump somehow poisons the exchanges, and they go belly-up when insurers pull out. No legislation needed.
Villago Delenda Est
@germy: In contrast, Spencer’s exciting “new” ideas include gassing Jews en masse.
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: The Nation is dangerously close to a Putin propaganda outfit
hovercraft
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Those are his “virtues” according to the villagers, the same villagers who tried to make John Thune a thing till they realized that much like Kevin McCarthy, he can barely string enough words together to form a sentence. Cotton is smarmy and as you say, those eyes, but the beltway is always looking for the GOP’s Obama. A young handsome, smart, well spoken politician who comes out of nowhere. I think they forgot about the charisma bit.
rikyrah
Trump Waste Of Taxpayer Money Sets A New Record With 4th Weekend Trip To Florida
By Jason Easley on Thu, Feb 23rd, 2017 at 2:09 pm
President Trump will once again spend the weekend at his Florida private club, as his 4th straight taxpayer funded trip will set a record by spending more money on travel in a month than former President Obama spent in a year.
President Trump will once again spend the weekend at his Florida private club, as his 4th straight taxpayer funded trip will set a record by spending more money on travel in a month than former President Obama spent in a year.
Ken Vogel of Politico reported that Trump is heading back to Palm Beach, FL to meet with donors, “The party’s biggest donors are gathering in Palm Beach for a retreat organized by the Republican National Committee, and the president has been announced as the featured speaker, according to people with knowledge of the plans. A number of senior administration officials will also attend the retreat, the people familiar with the planning said, a key draw for the donors.”
Taxpayers will now be paying for Donald Trump and senior administration officials to meet with Republican donors in Florida. It is not a coincidence that the RNC is holding the donor retreat on the weekend in the same city as Trump’s private club.
When makes President Trump makes his fourth trip to his club in Florida, he will have spent more money on those trips alone ($13 million) than former President Obama spent during an entire year on travel ($12.1 million).
chopper
i like how the post category is ‘keep banging’.
gene108
@LAO:
Damn straight!!!
Joe Billionaire’s stuck with owning only 5 Bentleys, instead of the 6 he wanted, because he had to pay another $300k in taxes.
I hope that stupid lady in Arkansas, with her husband who has Alzheimer’s, is happy depriving Joe Billionaire like she has.
Chet Murthy
@hovercraft: Not that it matters, but this shitbird did the same thing they always do: “brown, therefore Moooslim”. At least at first blush, these names don’t sound like Muslim names at all. Not that I really know (having spent 6mos total in India over the last … (uh) 47 years), but they sure sound like standard-issue Hindu names.
Of course, it didn’t stop Sikhs from being attacked, beaten, run over, and shot, either.
And just to be clear, it changes nothing of the heinous nature of the crimes. Just …. wow, criminally depraved -and- single-neuron-disease victim.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ALLIES WITH EASTASIA!
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est: Edgy. Edgy, indeed.
geg6
@Roger Moore:
Exactly. They don’t see voters as their constituents, only their funders.
different-church-lady
Oh? Where do you usually go?
randy khan
@rikyrah:
I have to admit that I don’t much care about the money spent on travel by the President. I care more that he spends about every minute he can away from the White House.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Two points:
1) Of course conservatism is filled with old ideas. The whole point of conservatism is to preserve old ideas.
2) Nazism isn’t exactly new itself.
Chet Murthy
@SatanicPanic: In the same vein, as much as I find Counterpuch’s writing to be good sometimes, they -also- have this strange pro-Russia bent.
Archon
Turns out quite a few older white people would rather keep their health insurance then stick it to Obama and liberals.
Maybe there is hope for this country yet.
gene108
@Ian G.:
It comes from the Kock, Mercer, etc. cash that has inundated the Republican Party, along with billionaires funding right-wing media. The right-wing media always repeats the same talking points, so Republican voters are not getting news about local concerns, such as “hey, we need to fix the bridge on the interstate, sure would be nice for Senator Cotton to get us some money to do it”.
In the early Republican debates, in 2015, one of the themes was “are you bought by a billionaire” and Trump was able to differentiate himself by saying he could not be bought. He was the one doing the buying.
Get the big money out of politics and you have a more responsive Republican Party.
rikyrah
@randy khan:
I only care, because everytime 44 or his family went on what they thought was a ‘vacation’, they made sure to keep a running tally. Gotta bring up their hypocrisy.
Jado
@Timurid:
Their plan is always the same – ruin the government for the poor and the minorities, and then when they get thrown out of power, obstruct and deny as much as possible, and then blame liberals for not fixing what they broke.
It’s death by 1000 cuts. They are dedicated to the destruction of the liberal progressive notion of an American Dream as something attainable except by Gods Own Annointed (read:Wealthy), and just enough Lucky Ducks to insure that everyone thinks that it’s still possible (“I could be the next Bill Gates – he dropped out of college too”), while insuring that the reality is that virtually everyone is relegated to being a lowly cog in the Great Machine
They are playing the long con, with the understanding that the “Useful Idiots” like Cotton will serve a purpose for a term or two. And whoever manages to survive for three or four terms gets to be the next McTurtle or ZEGS. But it’s always the same plan – make sure the Kochs and Adelsons get a steady supply of tax cuts and unskilled laborers for their 21st century sweatshops
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: You mean when their trip to India cost the US TAXPAYER $2 TRILLION?
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
No honor among thieves, I guess.
Frankensteinbeck
@liberal:
No, they were assholes when Hillary tried it in the 90s, and THAT was a race thing. It came straight from Reagan’s telling White America that they could keep the blacks down while praising themselves for not being racist just by saying government was the problem. Then a black man became president, and that’s when they went batshit. Hillary wasn’t dealing with mobs screaming about death panels.
laura
Here’s my repost from the earlier thread.
Cotton is the lowest of the low. He punches down, he lacks scruples despite his miltary service and Havard Law degree. If he were on fire, I wouldn’t allow my dog to poss on him to put it out.
That look wasnt shame, that was inconvenience. That crowd doesn’t fund his campaigns. That crowd wants basic services at reasonable rates.
It’s not their interests he was elected to serve.
I, for one, will never forget that that bag “o” shite skeev’d his way into the memory care facility to photograph his opponent’s wife with end stage alzheimers to use in his campaign. He can choke on a bag of salted dicks.
Harrumph.
hovercraft
@gene108:
Bannon: We’ll Target The ‘Administrative State,’ Boost ‘Economic Nationalism’
White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, sitting beside Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, spelled out the Trump administration’s policy priorities during an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday.
“I break it out into three verticals,” he said. “The first is national security and sovereignty, and that’s your intelligence, the Defense Department, Homeland Security.”
“The second line of work is what I refer to as economic nationalism,” he continued, “and that is Wilbur Ross at Commerce, Steve Mnuchin at Treasury, Lighthizer at Trade, Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller; these people are re-thinking of how we’re going to reconstruct our trade arrangements around the world.”
“The third, broadly, is deconstruction of the administrative state,” he said. Later, Bannon expanded on that point: “If you look at these Cabinet appointees, they were selected for a reason, and that is the deconstruction. The way the progressive left runs is if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put it in some kind of regulation in an agency. That’s all going to be deconstructed.
Later, Bannon, who has shunned press coverage and only rarely gives interviews outside of his former outlet, Breitbart, said that while CPAC attendees might identify as populists, libertarians, limited government conservatives or economic nationalists, there was a “new political order” being formed.
“We have wide and sometimes divergent opinions but I think the center core of what we believe: that we’re a nation with an economy, not an economy just in a global marketplace with open borders, but we’re a nation with a culture and a reason for being and I think that’s what unites us,” he said.
Priebus, for his part, seemed intent on painting a rosy picture of his relationship with Bannon. The two are often seen as representatives of two separate camps within the Trump administration.
“If the party and the conservative movement are together, similar to Steve and I, it can’t be stopped,” Priebus said to applause early in the discussion, which was moderated by the Conservative Political Union’s Matt Schlapp. “It was Donald Trump that was able to bring this party and this movement together.”
LAO
@Archon:
Yeah, no. Last I looked, Trump is still the President of the United States of America. (Wow, still scares the crap out of me to type that).
Chris
@Ian G.:
I mean, what do you expect? Their own constituents (they’ve made it abundantly clear multiple times at this point that people who didn’t vote for them are not their constituents to them) don’t give a shit, so why should they?
tobie
I gather the Hair Führer is planning to address a joint session of Congress on February 28. Have any protests in DC been planned?
cain
Hi all! thank you so much for all your condolences yesterday. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to respond to them until now, the reason being that I was at a professional conference (looking for a job) and didn’t have time to respond to the many people who responded to me.
Yellow will be cremated and her ashes will come back to me next week. I plan on spreading them under her favorite spot under the porch. It’s where she hung out until she adopted me. At some point, I will adopt another cat, but for now I’ll enjoy my memories of yellow for awhile. Her little foot prints are still on the carpet here and the spot she sat before I took her to the vet for the last time is still undisturbed. Better stop, starting to tear up again. :-)
different-church-lady
@hovercraft: shorter Bannon: “People are going to love New Coke!”
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Exactly, the president and his or her family deserve protection. They bitched about Malia’s trip to Mexico, can you imagine if Chelsea was jetting around the world working on her private business at the tax payer expense how they would be howling. It’s the hypocrisy.
Chris
@liberal:
It’s a race thing because Democrats are the party of These People, and because the health care plans they propose are thought to disproportionately benefit These People.
Whether the public face of the party happens to be black or white only matters so much.
The Moar You Know
@Archon: Unlikely. They put an ambulatory rage carrot into office who said he would do both. He’s going to fuck them into living in a van down the river. They know it. Regardless, they’ll vote for the next guy who says the same thing. And the next.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
“They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the egimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers… call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.”
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: I haven’t been able to trace him beyond “in Iraq, he led a 41-man air assault infantry platoon in the 506th Infantry Regiment,” so he was in the 101st but no company. He got a CIB and other show-up shit, his bronze has no “V” and we’d sure know about it if it did. I assume he earned the CIB and Ranger tab so he did something. I said it last night, I don’t like him one but bit but at leastt he showed up, better than these chickenshit motherfuckers in Georgia.
tBone
@rikyrah:
Well yeah, but Obama is black, AND a Democrat. So you have to apply like a 10x inflation factor to every public dollar spent on him vs a white Presznit. [/RWNJ]
hovercraft
@liberal: @Frankensteinbeck:
When Hillary did it in the 90’s there were two issues, number one they do not believe in a safety net, and two they always feared that her ultimate ambition was to become the first woman president, and everything she stood for, feminism, empowering women, the concept of “it takes a village, were anathema to them, so they spent the next twenty plus years trying to destroy her. For all the damage they did to her, and their ultimate success in stopping her, she is still the most admired woman in the world and their victory is a Pyrrhic one.
As for Obama, they hate that their last two presidents have not been seen as successful, have been rocked by scandal, and left in disgrace, Obama had none of these problems, in spite of their best efforts, he ran a clean efficient government and left with real accomplishments, and high approval from the American people.
ETA: Oh and obviously he did all this while being black, the audacity of the man!!
blackcatsrule
@cain: I’m tearing up too reading this. You gave Yellow a good life and someday will do the same for another kitty. My elderly Tinycat is slowly but steadily declining and I dread having to face the end. No matter how many times it happens or in what manner it occurs it is heartbreaking.
Jado
@Timurid:
Their plan is always the same – ruin the government for the poor and the minorities, and then when they get thrown out of power, obstruct and deny as much as possible, and then blame liberals for not fixing what they broke.
It’s death by 1000 cuts. They are dedicated to the destruction of the liberal progressive notion of an American Dream as something attainable except by Gods Own Annointed (read:Wealthy), and just enough Lucky Ducks to insure that everyone thinks that it’s still possible (“I could be the next Bill Gates – he dropped out of college too”), while insuring that the reality is that virtually everyone is relegated to being a lowly cog in the Great Machine
They are playing the long con, with the understanding that the “Useful Idiots” like Cotton will serve a purpose for a term or two. And whoever manages to survive for three or four terms gets to be the next McTurtle or ZEGS. But it’s always the same plan – make sure the Kochs and Adelsons get a steady supply of tax cuts and unskilled laborers for their 21st century sweatshops
@rikyrah:
I would agree with you about the hypocrisy if i thought there was anyone who would care about it. If you are preaching to the choir, we all know about the hypocrisy and are not at all surprised.
If you are preaching to the conservatives, they don’t care because Obummer spent $200 million on a trip to India, with all these warships and task forces and an entourage that took over an entire 5-star hotel for as month on the taxpayers dime. And just cause its a complete fabrication doesn’t mean it not “true” for them, and they will never believe you anyway.
If you are speaking to the “independents”, I don’t know that they are able to process ANY facts, cause they voted for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. Would hypocrisy mean anything to people who voted third party in the single most important election in decades?
Who’s left? The PRESS? Yeah, they will care when hypocrisy equals ratings.
grandpa john
@germy: Well yes they are filled with old ideas, like white supremacy
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@hovercraft:
Obama’s eyes revealed gentle good humor, deep intelligence, passion for life, compassion for his fellow humans. Cotton’s eyes reveal all the opposite.
lollipopguild
@different-church-lady: We haff vays of making you like New Coke!
trollhattan
@hovercraft:
Both of which have gateways reading “Arbeit macht frei.”
Aleta
@hovercraft: More blood on the hands of Republicans, Trump, donors and enablers in the media.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Hey Steve…let us know more about that ‘center core’…that ‘culture and reason for being’…no really, go on at great length, as loudly and publicly as possible. Please.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Archon:
Going by the crazy way they talked about him, I wouldn’t be to surprised if most of the Obama derangement was more that they were jealous that Obama wasn’t a Republican. More of white entailment to all the good things than just pure old fashion racism. Sort of like during the 2012 election they convinced themselves Bill Clinton was a Republican, because Bill had been good a good president.
And in due time I am sure we will be hearing from conservative pundits about “that Democrat Donald Trump, unlike his Republican predicessor”
ruemara
@rikyrah: The Nation & Katherine Van De HufflePuffle should be viewed as extremely compromised on anything to do with Russia.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And people will be waiting for that shit to slap it down like it deserves.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Young conservatives are always convinced that being racist and sexist is “new” and “edgy,” even when they recycle jokes that Henny Youngman would have thought stale.
StringOnAStick
@cain: I hope peace is with you, it is hard letting such a good friend go. I sometimes see footprint dents on the bed just like when my sweet girl was still here, but they have a different source. It always catches me a bit when the first thought in my mind is “footprints”, and that’s not possible now. Hang in there.
Tokyokie
@Corner Stone: The meter works better if you change the last bit from “Senator Cotton” to “Dixie man.” But either way, the bastard needs to be serenaded with it every time he puts his mug in public.
Citizen Alan
@laura:
I’m pretty sure you’re confusing Tom Cotton from Arkansas with Chris McDaniel from Mississippi who did what you described to the wife of Thad Cochran. It’s an easy mistake. They’re both loathsome subhuman pig people who vaguely resembles one another
laura
@Citizen Alan: Gah! I stand corrected and appreciate the assist. And yet, fuck that guy.
john fremont
@rikyrah: Yeah, and Slick Willie held up air traffic for four hours at LAX 25 years ago!!! Getting a haircut !!! So both sides do it!!!