Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

In my day, never was longer.

I was promised a recession.

Bark louder, little dog.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

After roe, women are no longer free.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / In the wee small hours of the morning

In the wee small hours of the morning

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A bill so great it needs to be pushed through when everyone is asleep!

The House Ways and Means Committee voted 23 to 16 to advance the American Health Care Act shortly before 4:30 a.m. Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) called the move historic and praised President Trump, who has vowed to counter resistance to the bill with his own campaign-style effort.

My wife and will be heading to a town hall this weekend to let local Congressmen Tom Reed let us know what we think of this shitty bill. You can find all the town halls near you here.

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  2. 2.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    American Health Care Act

    They got to be a douch about even the stupidest things “American” so it a REAL American thing, ie punish the poor, as opposed to Affordable, which is another name for socialism in their mind.

  3. 3.

    Hunter Gathers

    I imagine the rallies he’ll hold to support it will contain 30 seconds of talk about the bill followed by pitches for his massage parlors and escort services in China.

  6. 6.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    local Congressmen Tom Reed let us know what we think of this shitty bill.

    Assuming it doesn’t pass the House tonight at 2:00am 110 to 109.

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    In talking about healthcare, it would be helpful to stop using the all-inclusive “poor”. The reality is that people think “not working” when they think “poor”. The reality is that those who are aided by the ACA are low income workers who are struggling to make ends meet while working very hard, often at multiple jobs, and we do them a disservice when we lump them in with those who aren’t working at all.

  10. 10.

    efgoldman

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    those who are aided by the ACA are low income workers who are struggling to make ends meet while working very hard, often at multiple jobs

    No, see, they are unworthy slugs. If they were worthy, they’d have enough money for decent insurance.

    ETA: Somewhere, the shade of John Calvin is cackling like a loon.

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Go read what Martin Luther says about the poor – they are pure evil in his mind, doesn’t matter with they are legless beggar or some substance level farmer. The country was founded by Purtins so poor bashing is in the conservative mind.

  13. 13.

    OGLiberal

    But, but….look at the size! The size! It’s almost as small as the president’s hands!

  14. 14.

    efgoldman

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    The country was founded by Purtins so poor bashing is in the conservative mind.

    And yet, the puritans eventually split into the two most liberal dominations, the Unitarian Universalists and the Congregationalists. It’s the theocratic bible bangers who hate the poor and all kinds of social welfare programs – except for the money they get.
    If hypocrites really burned in hell, there would be no more charcoal left in the world.

  15. 15.

    Gin & Tonic

    OT, but funny. Nigel Farage just visited the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. As he was leaving and heading to his car (which was around the corner) a reporter from BuzzFeed asked him what he’d been doing there, and Nigel said “I can’t remember.”

  17. 17.

    D58826

    “I’ve been there a number of times as a senator and it’s just a very fine place for holding these kind of dangerous criminals,” Sessions said. “We’ve spent a lot of money fixing it up and I’m inclined to the view that it remains a perfectly acceptable place.

    From our new AG. Maybe like the roach motel he can check in but not check out since he seems to fit the profile that he describes.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/jeff-sessions-trump-should-use-guantanamo-bay-235863

  18. 18.

    schrodingers_cat

    @efgoldman: I have to agree, my most liberal friends with a high degree of social conscience are the ones with Puritan roots going back to Mayflower in one case. The couple under T’s thrall have Jewish and Slavic heritage respectively. Whose ancestors would have been barred by the Johnson Reed act.

  20. 20.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @efgoldman:

    ETA: Somewhere, the shade of John Calvin is cackling like a loon.

    Hopefully while being prodded with pitchforks by unsympathetic overseers with horns and forked tails.

    I just called my congressman, Jim Cooper, who has been tweeting against this thing, and told the staffer I appreciated Mr. Cooper’s efforts to fight the good fight here. He confirmed they are being pressured into moving the bill forward, without full knowledge of its cost and effects, but said he wasn’t sure it would pass in its current form, so things may be in greater confusion and disarray than ZEGS can manage to control.
    Later I’ll give the senators a shout. The best I can say there is that Alexander and Corker aren’t insane.

  21. 21.

    PhoenixRising

    Richard Pollack, CEO of the American Hospital Association, voiced similar fears, saying efforts to “restructure the Medicaid program” by shifting it from an entitlement program to one based on a per capita allocation “will have the effect of making significant reductions in a program that provides services for our most vulnerable populations and already pays providers significantly less than the cost of providing care.”

    America’s Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry’s largest trade association, sent a letter Wednesday saying that while it appreciated several of the proposed changes, the changes to Medicaid “could result in unnecessary disruptions in the coverage and care beneficiaries depend on.”

    The trifecta: AMA (docs), AHA (hospitals) and AHIP (insurance companies) are all against the bill. It’s not going to pass, so root for injuries. It is possible that if decent people play this right, it will cripple the fragile coalition between Hair Furor and House Republicans. Which would be a service to the republic.

    If you live in the district of a Teahadi, press on him (are there any Teahdis of the female persuasion going long on this bill?) from the ‘right’: AHCA doesn’t end government meddling in my health care, which is what you promised to do! You said you were going to get rid of Obamacare and put my insurance back like it was. This won’t do that. Bonus points for wrapping with ‘You’re fired!’

  24. 24.

    gvg

    Washington Post article up saying Trump is in deal making mode to get the health care bill passed. currently in listening mode etc (ha). I think it’s nonsense fluffery but we will have to watch and see. Reason I think it’s nonsense is I don’t think Trump gets how laws are made. Article ends with mention of the threat to bring out the “big guns” against the stubborn Freedom coalition if they don’t cooperate i.e. Trump. honestly I don’t think that group is likely to feel that threatened by Trump nor do they care about being on the outside looking in (another mentioned threat.) They have their own supporters and haven’t shown any desire to be on the inside so far.

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    JUST IN: EPA chief Scott Pruitt disagrees that CO2 is primary contributor to global warming: report pic.twitter.com/g3K7JQIoki

    — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 9, 2017

  31. 31.

    gvg

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Go read what Martin Luther says about the poor – they are pure evil in his mind, doesn’t matter with they are legless beggar or some substance level farmer. The country was founded by Purtins so poor bashing is in the conservative mind.

    I think you must be confusing Luther and Calvin. Luther was not against the poor and was against the new capitalism. Calvin was the one who went all in on the rich have God’s favor. I have Calvinist relatives I don’t know well who really don’t seem like that but I haven’t known how to ask what they do believe now. Churches tend to evolve and I have not heard much about the modern Calvinist church in the prosperity movement these days so I have wondered.

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    ICYMI:

    Maddow was really on the Russian/Dolt45 connection last night. And, she was on the Secretary of Exxon, and the deliberate destruction of the State Department, which benefits Putin.

    Truth closer on Trump camp pro-Russia influence on GOP platform
    Rachel Maddow looks at new information on ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and its influence on the Republican Party platform at the national convention, adding credibility to another piece of the unverified Trump dossier

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/8/17
    Trump, Tillerson weaken State Department as Putin would want
    Rachel Maddow shows how the Donald Trump’s State Department under Rex Tillerson is being drastically weakened, a situation that suits Vladimir Putin well in taking U.S. soft power influence out of his way.

  35. 35.

    low-tech cyclist

    @rikyrah:

    90% of Trumpcare investment tax cut goes to the richest 1%.
    62% goes to richest 0.1%.

    Yeah, it’s basically a yuuuge tax cut for the rich, funded by gutting Obamacare.

  36. 36.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @efgoldman:

    Calvin believed one of the main responsibilities of civil government is to ensure the poor receive their rights. As he puts it in his commentary on Psalm 72:

    God takes a more special care of the poor than of others, since they are most exposed to injuries and violence. . . . David, therefore, particularly mentions that the king will be the defender of those who can only be safe under the protection of the magistrate.

    For that reason, a “just and well-regulated government will be distinguished for maintaining the rights of the poor and afflicted.”

    The rich rarely need the government’s protection, yet the poor almost always do. Thus, Calvin preached, it is “praiseworthy for a good prince to relieve his subjects’ poverty.” He must do so not only by prohibiting practices such as unjust usury, but also by opening poorhouses, hospitals, and schools.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    More Americans oppose Donald Trump’s agenda than support it on almost every issue, poll finds
    Improving infrastructure only topic agreed upon across political divide

    Philip Bump
    2 hours ago

    Among the many questionable claims that have come from the White House over the past month and a half, one of the most questionable came from an unexpected source: Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, Priebus asserted that the policies President Trump had outlined to that point met with the approval of 80 percent of the American public. We considered that claim and determined it to be true – if you considered only Republicans to be Americans.

    .;……………………….

    On nearly every issue, Trump gets majority support only from Republicans. In the case of lowering taxes on the wealthy, he doesn’t even get that. In every case where the results are about split, both overall and within party responses, more people oppose Trump’s view than support it.

    But notice infrastructure, if you haven’t already. Spending more money to improve roads and airports (among other things) meets with overwhelming approval. More than 90 percent of the members of each party agree that such spending would be warranted. This highlights the partisanship that locked Washington over the past eight years. Infrastructure spending is popular, and President Barack Obama consistently called for new spending, but no major infrastructure spending bill passed the Republican-controlled Congress.

  38. 38.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @rikyrah: I’m listening to that show right now. She’s good on the Trump/Russia stuff.

    She also expresses admiration and sympathy for Andrea Mitchell’s efforts to get answers from Tillerson. My suggestion is that Mitchell write another piece about how concerned she is about HRC.

  40. 40.

    hovercraft

    Theses assholes are despicable. They think that if they ram this through in the middle of the night no one is going to notice? Hell no, we will give them hell, light up the switchboards.

    To contact your member: https://www.congress.gov/contact-us

    This lets you look up your congresscritters, just type in your zip code.
    Call them, make them squirm.

  41. 41.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    @rikyrah: We really need to start calling it “Millionaire-care” or some such. “Trumpcare” makes it sound way too legit.

  43. 43.

    danielx

    Congressman, there’s a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals in da house!!!

  44. 44.

    bystander

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Mitchell was among the most wretched this cycle. Sam Bee’s recent take on the rush by hacks to normalize Trump also included a great criticism of the way MSNBC treats black female hosts vs blondes from faux.

  45. 45.

    hovercraft

    @efgoldman: @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Maybe even drop the “low income”, all the media ever focuses on now is the working class, if we stop separating out the low income working class, then people may begin to understand that we are actually talking about them, low income is the working poor, they are working, and should be seen as just as worthy as them.

  46. 46.

    Kryptik

    @efgoldman:

    Calvinism and the odious belief of predestination is one of the great original sins of America. It’s been one of the justifications for so much cruelty, and has such a symbiotic relationship with America’s other great original sins (Slavery and its perpetuation, for one). The idea that Wealth and Status equal Righteousness is the perfect excuse for making someone’s shitty life even shittier. It’s easy when you believe you’re touched by god and someone’s suffering is proof they deserve to suffer anyway.

  47. 47.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @pamelabrown53: It’s the acronym for the epithet someone (maybe Charles Pierce? I can’t recall right now) gave Paul Ryan–the Zombie-eyed Granny Starver.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    Why DA PHUCK is Chris Hayes doing yet ANOTHER GODDAMNED TOWN HALL WITH WILBUR AND DOLT45 VOTERS?

    We have a DNC Chair.

    Wilbur is NOT A DEMOCRAT.

  49. 49.

    hovercraft

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Nigel said “I can’t remember.”

    The sad and scary thing is that, it is actually plausible that he can’t remember, he that dumb. But since he’s such a douchebag, I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt, lying asshole.

  50. 50.

    ArchTeryx

    I think, at this point, my bet is that it’s a done deal. It will get rushed through the House and Senate in the middle of the night, and it will be considered an absolute litmus-test vote for Republicans. It will pass. All of this stuff about how the controversy will cause Republican senators to get cold feet is so much whistling past the graveyard.

    So for me, it’s time to execute my disaster plan. Because one morning soon, I’m going to wake up with a letter from New York State of Health saying my Medicaid is going to end on X day. And my countdown clock begins in earnest. The only one that is going to save me is me.

  52. 52.

    Kryptik

    @ArchTeryx:

    This is my fear too. That all the public hectoring and warning by GOPers is theater, political play-acting, and when push comes to shove, as always, they’ll fall in line, pass it, and then point the finger at Dems when it fails miserably and hurts everyone.

  54. 54.

    ArchTeryx

    @Kryptik: At this point, the Republicans are making a death bet: Who’s supporters will die quicker once thrown off of healthcare? D supporters or R supporters? Right now, they’re betting a lot more D supporters will be dead or unable to vote by 2018. I’m trying my best to make sure their nasty little death gamble doesn’t pay off when it comes to my own life.

  56. 56.

    Calouste

    More effects of the new regime:

    Fifa president Gianni Infantino has indicated Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban could prevent the United States from hosting the World Cup.

    The US is favourite to win the right to host the 2026 World Cup, either on its own or in a cross-border bid alongside one or both of Mexico and Canada.
    But President Trump on Monday signed a new executive order banning immigration from six Muslim-majority countries, which could have implications for the nation’s ability to host football’s biggest tournament, as well as the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games which Los Angeles is bidding to stage.

    Speaking in London on Thursday, Infantino said: “When it comes to Fifa competitions, any team – including the supporters and officials of that team – who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious.”

  58. 58.

    ArchTeryx

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve just seen this once too often during the Bush years. The more ginned up controversy, the more likely the bill is to pass. It’s how they roll. This is the third test-vote for this abomination and it passed on a party line vote with no defections. I think it’s over. It was the moment we put Trump in the WH and let the Rs keep the Senate.

  59. 59.

    liberal

    @ArchTeryx: It’s hard to say, though, because the Republicans don’t at all appear to be united on this. (Of course, the ones against it aren’t against it for “good” reasons.)

    My money is still on this and related efforts failing, and Trump strangling Obamacare via executive actions and/or neglect.

  64. 64.

    themann1086

    Does anyone have a list of how the members of the committee voted? My rep is on it and I need to be 100% sure he voted to push this through.

  65. 65.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: Seems to me that Republicans are ignoring the protesters at their Town Hall meetings by voting for such an awful replacement for the ACA. They really don’t care.

  66. 66.

    hovercraft

    @D58826:
    I’ve always thought that Guantanamo to these people was a symbolic fuck you to liberals and Europe, with a hefty does of fuck you Fidel. At this point what is the point of it? Everyone knows it’s stupid, why continue to waste the money, they could just say that now that we have a real tough president who knows how to keep us safe, we are moving these people to a superduper, bestest prison evah, right here in the good ole USA!! Where you can bet your ass they will never ever escape, put Ghouliani in charge and show the world how it’s done. Winning. I wish Twitler would take that opportunity to show us all how much better he is than Obama! Build a big beautiful prison for them, with a viewing pavilion, his version of the Tower of London menagerie.

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    Trump’s budget chief: Health insurance is ‘not really the end goal’
    03/08/17 12:54 PM—UPDATED 03/08/17 12:58 PM
    By Steve Benen

    he architects of the new GOP health care plan have an amazing new perspective. “Republicans,” Politico reported this morning, “say the plan’s price tag and estimates of how many people it will cover aren’t really important.”

    Under normal circumstances, it’s tempting to think these would be the first two questions Republicans would ask about any reform plan. Wondering how many Americans will have health insurance and how much the plan will cost aren’t exactly obscure matters of policy minutiae, but as of this morning, GOP officials prefer to think of these metrics as trivia.

    Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s budget chief, added this morning that “insurance is not really the end goal here.”

    No wonder Republicans are proceeding without a score from the Congressional Budget Office. They don’t know what their bill will cost or how many millions of Americans will lose their health insurance – and they plainly don’t care.

    The effort to move the goalposts, ignoring meaningful metrics and making up new ones, is almost certainly a political necessity borne of the realization that the GOP’s American Health Care Act isn’t going to work as a matter of public policy.

    ……………………….

    There’s a reason Republican leaders are in such a rush to get their bill passed: the more time there is for scrutiny and analysis, the more “Trumpcare” looks like a cruel joke.

    A report from S&P, for example, found that between 6 million and 10 million Americans would lose their health coverage under the Republican blueprint.

    ………………………….

    As for private insurers, who’ve kept a fairly low profile in recent months, one CEO of a major insurance company told the Wall Street Journal that he’d expect to see “individual-plan premiums up by 30% or more next year” – and even more still soon after – under the Republican proposal.

  69. 69.

    dww44

    @Eric U.: I’ve read that the GOP leadership doesn’t really want this to pass;they want to protect the rest of their tax cutting, federal government dismantling legislative agenda by having a very public vote for repeal of the ACA. They are trying to go into the 2018 elections with as little damage to their party as possible while fulfilling a longstanding commitment to their voters.. It doesn’t matter if it is a terrible bill, which they probably know very well.

    But we are all going to be hurt if we get the same kind of unexpected result that we got last November.

  70. 70.

    ArchTeryx

    Apologies for the defeatism. That’s wrong of me. I don’t think anyone should stand down – quite the opposite. I just have to make decisions now, because by the time I get The Letter from NYS, it will be far too late to save myself. Crohn’s Disease has no mercy if left untreated, and it will quickly and completely disable me long before it kills me. If by some miracle the train is stopped before it reaches the station, great! I can stand down. But I have to bet at this point that nothing will stop it, because the stakes are my life.

  72. 72.

    Kryptik

    @ArchTeryx:

    At this point, the Republicans are making a death bet: Who’s supporters will die quicker once thrown off of healthcare? D supporters or R supporters? Right now, they’re betting a lot more D supporters will be dead or unable to vote by 2018. I’m trying my best to make sure their nasty little death gamble doesn’t pay off when it comes to my own life.

    The ‘unable to vote’ part is going to be extremely key. Not to mention how easily they’ll be able to divert blame and anger toward another scapegoat so they can get away with paying any electoral consequences. Unfortunately, considering how very few true electoral consequences the rank-and-file have paid the last decade or so, this is a bet they have depressingly good odds on.

    EDIT: Not to mention that the only realistic hope we have is for the House, considering how bleak the Senate slate is. And we’ve seen how unassailable their House advantage has been thanks to scapegoating and gerrymandering.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah:

    Priebus asserted that the policies President Trump had outlined to that point met with the approval of 80 percent of the American public. We considered that claim and determined it to be true – if you considered only Republicans to be Americans.

    That is absolutely in keeping with Trump’s words and deeds thus far, including the stupid rallies that allow him to wallow in the adulation of morons. Unlike any president in my lifetime, Trump almost never bothers to give lip service to the idea that he’s the president of all Americans, referring to people who don’t support him as “enemies,” in his childish New Year’s message, etc. Well, that’s okay with me. I do not consider him my president and do believe he is my enemy, so we’re even.

  75. 75.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:

    Scott Pruitt disagrees that CO2 is primary contributor to global warming

    My shocked face.
    This is why he was nominated/appointed, to put and end to this Chinese hoax. Though my tiny brain is confused, China evil, enemy, but, China dozens of new patents, and just about the only nation in the world where the value of the Tramp brand has gone up, my brain hurts.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    Republicans’ health care plan has already run out of friends
    03/09/17 08:40 AM
    By Steve Benen
    Yesterday afternoon, the American Nurses Association condemned the House Republicans’ health care plan, explaining that the American Health Care Act “threatens health care affordability, access, and delivery for individuals across the nation.”

    The ANA, representing over 3.6 million nurses, is hardly the only major stakeholder drawing this conclusion. The list of organizations that have come out against the Republican plan has grown quite quickly, and includes the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, AARP, the American Cancer Society, and the American Psychiatric Association, among others.

    Even America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the powerhouse trade association for private insurers, isn’t happy.

    At least some on Capitol Hill, however, have embraced an amazing new phrase to dismiss critics of their ridiculous plan from throughout the system.

    Opposition to the GOP bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act continued to emerge on Wednesday – the bill’s second day in the public eye – with statements condemning the bill from groups representing doctors, nurses, hospitals, and the elderly.

    Mobbed by reporters as he emerged from casting an afternoon vote, the bill’s author Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) brushed off the latest round of criticism, saying the thousands of hospitals and hundreds of thousands of doctors are part of a “medical industrial complex” that opposes major reforms to Medicaid.

    ……………….

    And now with the debate over “Trumpcare” under way, the circle of sources deemed untrustworthy by Republicans has grown even larger, to include doctors, nurses, seniors’ advocates, hospital administrators, and insurers.

    We are, evidently, supposed to believe Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, GOP officials, and no one else.

  77. 77.

    schrodingers_cat

    Meanwhile, General Potted Palm Kelly is rubber stamping the most heinous treatment of immigrants and inhumane policies of the T cabal.

    ETA: According to the Twitter feed of an immigration attorney I read, even Vichy Times was moved to write a stinging op-ed.

  78. 78.

    Librarian

    @rikyrah: Because Wilmer is a celebrity and brings in ratings. Its as simple as that. Almost nobody knows who Tom Perez is.

  80. 80.

    ArchTeryx

    @schrodingers_cat: If I dodge the Grim Reaper I intend to fight this to my last breath. But then, I’ve been a tribal Democrat since the Clinton years. They can’t make me hate Republicans even more then I already do. Republicans, reactionaries and conservatives (but I repeat myself) have been trying to kill me since childhood. My mother fought them into the ground when I was a kid. Now it’s my turn to take up that cudgel.

    ETA: The thing that sealed the deal for me was an absolutely fawning biography of Rush Limbaugh by Reader’s Digest during the Clinton impeachment. That one of my favourite magazines turned out to be completely in the tank for the Right told me just what I was up against, and assured I would never even think of voting R again.

  81. 81.

    Yarrow

    @Calouste: That probably means no Olympics in the US either.

    @rikyrah:

    Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s budget chief, added this morning that “insurance is not really the end goal here.”

    This needs to be given a lot of publicity. Republicans don’t care if you have health insurance. It’s “not a goal.”

  82. 82.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:

    We considered that claim and determined it to be true – if you considered only Republicans to be Americans.

    Where the hell has Phillip Bump been the last few decades. Princess Caribo of the North campaigned on retaining the reigns of power for “Real Americans “, FFS all during the campaign pundits talked about how Twitler was speaking to and for “the heartland”, and for the “America Washington had forgotten”, they all think that white America is the real America, the rest of us are just the help.

  84. 84.

    ArchTeryx

    @Yarrow: The end goal is death to the poor and sick. But heaven forbid you say that in the open and give the Very Serious People the vapours. Your death is less important then their feelings.

  85. 85.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @gvg: Luther was really bad during the Peasant Revolt (I think that’s what it was called). That revolt was also linked to more radical strains of Protestantism than the magisterial reformers of Wittenberg, Zurich and Geneva.

  87. 87.

    dww44

    @rikyrah Yes, I saw that as well. Tillerson is out to destroy American soft power and that benefits no one except his pal Putin. Also China! We will be extraordinarily fortunate if we can take back the house in 2018 and hold even in the Senate, thereby slowing Trump and the GOP down.

    Best case scenario is that Trump leaves office and his successor, Pence, is strong enough to undo some of the damage. All of that remains to be seen. Nevertheless there are so many policy moves going on under the radar that we must all of us stay tuned and informed.

  90. 90.

    Peale

    @rikyrah: Yeah. Not to be all conspiracy and alarmist about the state department, but when I read that long atlantic piece this last weekend about the demoralzed foggy bottom staff, they mentioned that after dismissing and reassigning the top floor, they were in the process of renovating it. I’m like, gee, I wonder who was hired to do that floorplan redesign and how many bugs can be installed in that building by contractors selected by Putin.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kryptik:

    There are enough House Republicans in blue states that I honestly think we could flip the House just by flipping those seats. It’s not much, but at least there would be some kind of firebreak.

    Of course, it might be a pyrrhic victory if it gives the Republicans a chance to push responsibility for their decisions off on the Democrats.

  92. 92.

    hovercraft

    @ArchTeryx:
    No need to apologize, we all have moments of despair, the key is to keep fighting, it’s not over till it’s signed into law, and we’re a long way from that still. Hang in there.

  93. 93.

    Mandarama

    @1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): You and I share a district! I’m calling too, but it seems hopeless. I shamed Alexander’s office over the Betsy DeVos nomination: reminded him that I remember when he was Secretary of Education, and that I teach first-year Peabody students who could answer questions better than DeVos did. And the aide actually agreed with me! Doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the vote. It’s hard not to get discouraged.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @ArchTeryx:

    I think I recommended this before, but it may be time to get in touch with the media and make yourself as much of a cause celebre as you can. I’m thinking of the woman who made herself the poster child for assisted suicide in Oregon because she had (IIRC) an inoperable cancer. Maybe we can use the hivemind here to brainstorm some contacts, but I would definitely start with one of the national Crohn’s disease organizations since they’re probably freaked the fuck out right now.

  95. 95.

    ArchTeryx

    @rikyrah: It is wrong. There’s a definite difference between disaster planning for myself and advising everyone else that it’s a done deal, so what’s the point? Those that are not immediately affected, fight like hell. I’m sadly an extreme minority – someone for whom repeal will have immediate and fatal effects. Most folks will be scared out of their heads at having access removed, but not immediately fall ill, so they can still fight.

  96. 96.

    ArchTeryx

    @Mnemosyne: I’ve NEVER been good at such things. I’ve tried the media thing once during the fight to pass the ACA and I was roundly ignored. I’m a great public speaker – I can get a crowd going quite well – but not a very good media person. I’m not handsome and look rotten on a TV camera – I’m just a weatherbeaten old dinobird.

    Which is a shame, because as a white guy with a STEM PhD, I completely shatter the stereotypes of po’ folks receiving government “welfare”. I just happen to be ill and poor, but that’s enough for the media to Not Care.

  97. 97.

    D58826

    @ArchTeryx: Afraid I agree with you. The GOOPERS spent a lot of time pissing and moaning while Obama was in office but when it came time to vote it was straight line opposition. It didn’t matter whither it was Obamacare, appointments, debt limit or government shut down, when it came time to vote it was the straight arm salute and a hearty Sieg Heil.

  98. 98.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @gvg: “I think you must be confusing Luther and Calvin. Luther was not against the poor and was against the new capitalism. Calvin was the one who went all in on the rich have God’s favor. I have Calvinist relatives I don’t know well who really don’t seem like that but I haven’t known how to ask what they do believe now. Churches tend to evolve and I have not heard much about the modern Calvinist church in the prosperity movement these days so I have wondered.”

    Luther really tore in the peasents – see the Great German Pesant Revolt and I’ve seen Lutherns claim that “Eye of needle” is a gate in Jeruslem, Then again modern Luthern Germans are quite happy with socialism, so one suspects they just ingore obvious nonsense and do what is right.

    From what I’ve seen you are correct – Calvinism is big with them, but, it more like selling point.

  99. 99.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @efgoldman:

    And yet, the puritans eventually split into the two most liberal dominations, the Unitarian Universalists and the Congregationalists. It’s the theocratic bible bangers who hate the poor and all kinds of social welfare programs – except for the money they get.
    If hypocrites really burned in hell, there would be no more charcoal left in the world.

    Yes, sure, but that’s with people who actually believe or rather seriously want to do what they believe is Christianity because it’s morally correct.

    During the Great Devival in the 60-70s a bunch of salemen decided to BS people into calling themselves Christians threw a mixture of pressure sales tactics and then cult like peer pressure. That’s why tea party is filled with wack jobs – these are all evangelicals who’ve been trained since childhood to shut up, don’t think, recite dogma when signaled to or they will be shut out of the community. And the dogma is delibertly vile to isolate the marks from the secular community. The salesmen then mined Christian theology for rewards, like poor bashing, to keep their marks happy.

    Less hypocits and more like cult abuse victims.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @gvg: @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Puritans actually were really against stacking up material wealth for its own sake, fwiw – this whole “wealth is a sign that you’re one of the elect” stuff has really been misrepresented and blown out of proportion; and don’t forget that it was they who put the “commonwealth” part into the “Commonwealth of Massachusetts”. Whatever Calvin’s views may have been on it, the Puritans don’t deserve a bad rap for shitting on the poor. The community was supposed to take care of its own.

    Now, if you want to shit on them for religious intolerance, as in “who got to be part of the community”, go ahead. //

  104. 104.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Miss Bianca: why stop there, go look at England during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.

    why stop there, go look at England during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.

    I suspect the Puritans evolved a lot having seen their theory enacted in the real world and nothing that’s simple. People who threw themselves into a howling wilderness to build a religious utopia are much more sincere in their beliefs than anyone today. “Poor = bad” was just one strain, but it’s a strain the modern evangelicals have latched on because it’s a self serving..

  107. 107.

    oldster

    I’ll be at the Southside Community Center too, Doug. I’ll keep an eye out for you, though I don’t know what you look like.

    Luckily, you don’t know what I look like either. So we have that in common.

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