Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

This blog will pay for itself.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Infrastructure week. at last.

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

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Not all heroes wear capes.

Bark louder, little dog.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

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

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / The wingers will give us vouchers to buy the rope we hang them with

The wingers will give us vouchers to buy the rope we hang them with

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This post is in: 

Here’s a pretty good run-down of all the reasons why TrumpCare is such a big political loser for Republicans, including this

Democratic operatives are already testing which ones resonate the most in swing districts.

If Dems can win in GA-6, that should be the final nail in the coffin for this shitty bill. (No, I don’t expect it to be passed before the special election.) So let’s give some more money to Jon Ossoff.

Goal Thermometer

Reader Interactions

297Comments

  1. 1.

    Kropadope

    “We’re going to have insurance for everybody.” That’s what President Trump told the Washington Post in January. He’s since fallen in line with the mainstream Republican position that they should guarantee access, not coverage. But that quote is not going to disappear.

    ‘

    Continuing with Trump’s tradition of promising the moon and delivering moldy cheese.

    ETA: Also worth mentioning that the Republicans claim to want to keep the ban on discrimination for pre-existing conditions, but their participation mechanism is laughable.

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    GOP Health Plan Would Hit Rural Areas Hard
    Poor, older Americans would see largest increase in insurance-coverage costs, analysis shows
    By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS and DANTE CHINNI
    Updated March 13, 2017 12:01 a.m. ET

    The House Republican effort to overhaul the Affordable Care Act could hit many rural areas particularly hard, according to a new analysis, sharply increasing the cost for some residents buying their own insurance.

  6. 6.

    Starfish

    Does anyone here live in that district? Is this story about him not living in the district going to hurt him?

  7. 7.

    Mike in DC

    Not sure how pissing off a bunch of 50-64 year olds and working class white people is a great mid term strategy.

  8. 8.

    evap

    It’s likely that the election in GA-6 will not be decided before the runoff in June, which I predict will be between Karen Handel and Ossoff. I’m supporting Ossoff, but I worry that expectations are high and people are too optimistic. It’s a R+12 district. I hope that I am proven wrong. Ossoff seems like a great candidate and even if he loses, I think he will stick around and run again in 2018 or for something else. He’s a great person to have on our bench.

  9. 9.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Kropadope: “if you like your plan you can keep it” was Politifact’s lie of the year in 2013. Let’s not hold our breath for Trump’s “We’re going to have insurance for everybody” to get the same treatment, if it’s even mentioned.

  12. 12.

    Major Major Major Major

    Also how the hell is their “tell companies how much to sell a product for” mandate mechanism constitutional if the individual mandate violated the commerce clause and had to be reinterpreted as a tax to pass muster? I know, I know, IOKIYAR and all, but still.

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    @Mike in DC:
    Two issues.
    They don’t give a shit, they want what they want and that is to end government. They also want to keep their “jobs” because they do OK on them. What makes their long term thinking seem, what’s the word, stupid, no that doesn’t really tell it, but OK let’s go with stupid for now, is that once they achieve their goals, there is no more job, there is no more government, there is no more grift from people like the Kochsuckers, because they are no longer needed. So we have at least some level of satisfaction in that the assholes are slitting their own throats.

  15. 15.

    jonas

    @Mike in DC: Depends on how willing those folks are to own up to the fact that they let themselves be conned by Trump and punish the GOP accordingly at the ballot box, or how willing they are to eat whatever size shit sandwich Limbaugh and Fox News tell them to shut up and eat — regardless of how pissed they are at losing their insurance. It will all still be Obama’s fault.

  18. 18.

    randy khan

    Reposted from below (with better formatting), since it seems more relevant to this thread:

    Interesting note from the Capitol Forum, which covers a range of legislative and regulatory issues in D.C. (I won’t vouch for the accuracy of its predictions, but its analysis on issues I care about generally is pretty good.) This was part of a broader piece setting or updating odds on various potential Administration-related items, the most worrisome was keeping the odds of a trade war above 50%. Anyway, here’s what it had to say about RyanCare/TrumpCare:

    We are lowering our outlook for Obamacare repeal and replace to 40% chance of passing from the “less than 50%” that we have predicted previously. Our thesis is simple—Republicans will prove less willing to risk their majorities in Congress to pass complex, unpopular healthcare legislation than Democrats proved to be in 2010.

    I have to say that the last sentence nicely encapsulates one particular characteristic of both parties.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @evap: I’m supporting Ossoff, but I worry that expectations are high and people are too optimistic. It’s a R+12 district.

    I thought Price won by more than 20? My worry is that the media will declare that an Ossoff loss proves that the Dems are doomed, and that the Usual Suspects will declare it proves that they have, once again, been betrayed!

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    @Starfish:

    Crap. Some mitigation:

    Democrat Jon Ossoff lives about 10 minutes south of the district, according to a campaign spokesman. Ossoff grew up in the district and has been registered to vote in it for many years. Ossoff’s parents also live in the district, and Ossoff moved out of the 6th and into an Emory-area neighborhood to be close to his girlfriend of 13 years, who started medical school.

    As soon as she finishes school, Ossoff’s campaign said he plans to move back into the district.

    But, yeah, this could hurt him.

  21. 21.

    jeffreyw

    Reuters Politics ✔ @ReutersPolitics
    BREAKING: Trump says “it will take a year or two for prices to go down under the Republican health plan…
    10:33 AM – 13 Mar 2017
    … at least till after the mid term elections, I hope.”

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Steeplejack: For. Fuck’s. Sake.

    This kid couldn’t have signed a lease on a fucking studio apartment the day before he filed to run?

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    GOP plan would be ‘a major retreat’ in addressing addiction crisis
    03/13/17 11:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    MSNBC’s Chris Hayes hosted an event in McDowell County, West Virginia, yesterday – the event will air tonight – in which he asked attendees how many of them have lost someone due to opioid addiction. By some accounts, roughly three-fourths of the audience raised their hands.

    It was a striking reminder about the toll the nation’s addiction crisis can take on a community. It also raised anew concerns about Donald Trump’s budget plans, which would make a horrible situation vastly worse. The Washington Post reported the other day:

    The Republican proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act would strip away what advocates say is essential coverage for drug addiction treatment as the number of people dying from opiate overdoses is skyrocketing nationwide.

    Beginning in 2020, the plan would eliminate an Affordable Care Act requirement that Medicaid cover basic mental-health and addiction services in states that expanded it, allowing them to decide whether to include those benefits in Medicaid plans.

    The proposal would also roll back the Medicaid expansion under the act – commonly known as Obamacare – which would affect many states bearing the brunt of the opiate crisis, including Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.

    Joshua Sharfstein, associate dean at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Advocates, told the Post, “Taken as a whole, [the Republican health care plan] is a major retreat from the effort to save lives in the opiate epidemic.”

    The fact that Donald Trump spent months assuring voters that he’d take the exact opposite course adds to the severity of the betrayal.

  24. 24.

    bemused

    What is the status of US senators and reps own health care insurance? Do they have to buy their health insurance on the ACA exchange?

  25. 25.

    Kropadope

    @Major Major Major Major:

    “if you like your plan you can keep it” was Politifact’s lie of the year in 2013.

    A statement which, by the way, lacked nuance but wasn’t exactly a lie. The ACA didn’t end people’s plans, but insurers were free to change and end plans as they saw fit.

  26. 26.

    liberal

    @Starfish: My impression—I haven’t read about this story for a couple weeks—is that him not living in the district isn’t necessarily a big deal, because the boundary has shifted a lot, or something.

    My concern re Ossoff (starting with my first finding out about the race, from a DKos email action alert) is that there are two other Dem candidates in the race. I have nothing against Ossoff, but the case for supporting him rather than one of the other two has to be made. So far, the case seems to be “Because John Lewis supports him.” OK, so what? (He served as a staffer to Lewis, or someone connected to Lewis.) Importantly, my impression is that he’s running not having been elected to a lower-level office; I think at least one of the other Dem candidates has been.

    Everyone here goes on and on about how more left people are too beholden to unattainable ideals. Then when a race comes up like this, the claim “Support Ossoff” is made by everyone, without any accompanying analysis as to why he’s the best candidate to support at all, other than “John Lewis supports him.” And by “best” I don’t mean “ideologically best,” but rather “most likely to win the seat.”

  27. 27.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Major Major Major Major: I think it’s more important for Trump saying it to get on TeeVee, where olds (people my age and older) will see it over and over again, during Wheel of Fortune and whatever crime procedural we’re watching Even younger olds like me who have mastered the DVR machine will see the images and the graphics while we fast forward through commercials for new meds we should ask our doctor about, along with concerns about projectile vomiting. I think the AARP has pretty deep pockets (?)

  28. 28.

    hovercraft

    @kindness:

    I will make the rope and rally New Yorkers to string them up from the Brooklyn Bridge.
    ETA removed the phantom link, just send all donations to hovercaft

  30. 30.

    liberal

    @jonas: Of course, it’s largely on the voters to figure this stuff out, but it’s partly up to the Democrats. Democrats need to make sure they “nationalize” the contest. Make it about the Republican incumbent’s vote (assuming there is one), but also make it about Trump and how the Republican Party is the party of Trump, how the Republicans are destroying the US, etc.

  31. 31.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @jonas:
    Trump didn’t con them (well, not in this sense). Trump told them what they already fanatically believed, and will go on believing: If colored people are shoved back into their place hard enough, every white man will get a unicorn pony that farts gold. They might get mad when they get screwed over instead, but they won’t change that belief. So far, the vast majority of Republicans are giddy that Trump is using the ICE to terrorize the shit out of Latinos.

  32. 32.

    germy

    @Kropadope:

    ETA: Also worth mentioning that the Republicans claim to want to keep the ban on discrimination for pre-existing conditions, but their participation mechanism is laughable.

    I believe you, but that’s not how I saw it reported on broadcast TV news. They did a bullet-point graphic. It stated your kids are covered until age 26, no problem with pre-existing conditions, etc. The TV news made the plan seem… plausible.

    And most voters, trump supporters or middle-of-the-roaders or whoever, don’t spend much time researching on Balloon-Juice and its links, or LGM. They flip through the channels and see quick TV graphics, or listen to what their favorite radio jock tells them.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Major Major Major Major: I think “moved in with my long time girlfriend temporarily to save money and help her get established in her long term plan to spread health and human services” is an easier spin

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    Republicans declare ‘war on their own voters’ with health care plan
    03/13/17 11:30 AM
    By Steve Benen

    On NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday, the New York Times’ David Brooks said the Republican health care plan is effectively “declaring war on their own voters.” The language may seem a little over the top, but the truth of the matter is, Brooks has a point.

    The people who stand to lose the most in tax credits under the House Republican health plan tended to support Donald J. Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, according to a new Upshot analysis. […]

    The voters hit the hardest – eligible for at least $5,000 less in tax credits under the Republican plan – supported Mr. Trump by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent.

    Older Americans and rural voters – which is to say, Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters – tend to fare the worst under the Republican plan some are calling “Trumpcare.”

    Center for Budget and Policy Priorities published a related analysis last week, noting which states’ residents would stand to lose the most. Of the 10 states that would fare the worst, literally all 10 were “red” states that Trump won last fall. This comports with a new Wall Street Journal report that noted this morning, “The House Republican effort to overhaul the Affordable Care Act could hit many rural areas particularly hard, according to a new analysis, sharply increasing the cost for some residents buying their own insurance.”

    ………………………

    But I’m not so sure. Matt Yglesias’ take rings true:

    It’s certainly true that Trump voters might still support Trump all things considered, regardless of his health care plan, since they likely agree with him about guns, immigration, the environment, abortion, and other topics. But Trump probably didn’t run around the country promising people lower deductibles, universal coverage, and no cuts to Medicaid for no reason at all. He said that stuff because it’s popular.

    He broke with the Republican establishment on a key issue, soundly beat their candidates in the primary, and then won a general election boosted by considerable outsider credibility but an unusually low level of institutional party support. And now, in his first major legislative act, he’s betraying that promise.

    If Trump and his team are counting on there being no political consequences for these betrayals, they’re placing an enormous bet that the Republican base will simply go along with their allies knowingly making their lives worse.

  39. 39.

    TriassicSands

    @Kropadope:

    You know what a Republican voucher is?

    Not even serviceable as toilet paper.

    Unless it’s a voucher for a rich person to attend a religious school then it’s as good as gold.

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Trump is having a “listening event” about health care, with some well informed experts and people who really care about expanding access to health care

    Sam Stein‏Verified account @ samsteinhp 20m20 minutes ago
    Texas doctor at Trump event bemoans that Medicaid expansion hasn’t done what Obama claimed it would.
    Texas didn’t expand Medicaid.

    A guy at Trump’s health care event says he literally won’t say Obama’s name it disgusts him so much.

  41. 41.

    Kropadope

    @rikyrah:

    If Trump and his team are counting on there being no political consequences for these betrayals, they’re placing an enormous bet that the Republican base will simply go along with their allies knowingly making their lives worse.

    That’s a pretty solid fucking bet.

    ETA:

    Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters – tend to fare the worst under the Republican plan some are calling “Trumpcare.”

    Good.

  43. 43.

    Raoul

    I also want to put in a pitch for (longshot) KS-04 open seat endorsed Dem James Thompson. Election is April 11. I’ve given to his campaign because I want every Dem to be funded and able to get our message out to voters. And who knows, if the GOP keeps on this path on health care, maybe KS-04 isn’t quite such a long shot!
    If you are on the Twitt-box, at least please follow @JamesThompsonKS. Thanks!

  44. 44.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:
    But Twitler said that fighting the opioid crisis was going to be a priority. Or is this the tough love that a tough leader delivers? Rural America voted for him, the opioid problem is more acute in rural ares, and they have the fewest resources to deal with it. Karma.

  46. 46.

    Kropadope

    @TriassicSands:

    Unless it’s a voucher for a rich person to attend a religious school then it’s as good as gold.

    Oh, all the voucher programs work great for people who have all the money they need to get the desired service anyway. It’s like coupons.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    good god, a “small business owner”, a cattle rancher, says Obamacare is jeopardizing our food sources! Let’s tax beef as a preventive measure to decrease heart disease!

    I hope everyone at that roundtable gets fisked down to their countertops

  50. 50.

    artem1s

    @evap: My understanding is the optimism is mainly about this being a Trump+1 district that has been traditionally been double digit red. Hillary nearly flipped a district that voted solidly for Romney and McCain. I’ve been curious whether the bucket full of GOP deplorables could mean Ossoff could squeak out the 50% margin that he would need to avoid the run off. I’d like to know whether that is at all a possibility. And considering the Koch’s are spending this amount of money on these early ads, instead of saving it for the run off, suggests they are worried about that happening too.

  51. 51.

    hovercraft

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    So he’s listening to his base, the kind of people who think that Obama is a secret Kenyan Mooslem Socialist, yes, I think this will be a very productive “listening” session. He will emerge convinced that like him, everyone hates Obama and all he did. And maybe he will be given the exact location of Obama’s real birth certificate.

    A guy at Trump’s health care event says he literally won’t say Obama’s name it disgusts him so much.

    I know exactly how he feels, hence Shitgibbon Twitler.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    good god, a “small business owner”, a cattle rancher, says Obamacare is jeopardizing our food sources!

    ok, please explain

  54. 54.

    Kropadope

    @hovercraft:

    I know exactly how he feels, hence Shitgibbon Twitler.

    Ooh, let me see if I can get it out. President Chump. No. Il douche. No. Cheeto Benito. Gotta try again. The Biergarten Putz. It’s only getting worse. Trumpster fire. Ok, that’s as close as I’m gonna get, I give up.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: she can’t afford health care for her employees and the stock and equipment for her ranch, so we’re gonna run out of cattle.

    as I understand it, this “small business” has over fifty full time employees? open up the books and show us the horror

  56. 56.

    Kropadope

    @rikyrah: From the article you posted:

    CNBC’s John Harwood’s analysis added last week, “ ‘To the victor belong the spoils,’ candidate Donald Trump reminded 2016 voters. But the House Republican health bill turns that old maxim on its head.”

    Here’s the spoiled country you asked for.

  60. 60.

    BretH

    The sad fact is people who believe Trump on health care would believe him and buy his Trump brand hair regrowth tonic based on his tremendous hair.

  61. 61.

    pamelabrown53

    @liberal: #26.
    Re: “my concern re Ossoff. Rather than just express “concern”, why not add to the info. by sharing some research on the other dem. candidates? Have you done an analysis? IMO, that would be a value added post rather than “oh noes, we’re all blindly jumping on the John Lewis bandwagon”.

  64. 64.

    Barbara

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: What really is jeopardizing the food supply in the long run are people who raise non-native domesticated livestock in the arid conditions found in places like the Southwestern United States. Meat is resource intensive (you have to grow feed) but it wrecks the environment when there is insufficient rainfall to replenish grasslands. Besides, red meat is hardly the healthiest item in anyone’s diet. So raising the cost of beef is probably a net long term win for the environment and our health.

  65. 65.

    Immanentize

    I am still having trouble choking down my uncharitable thoughts about how this is going to bite Trump voters so hard. Yes, elections have consequences and your candidate is going to ‘consequence’ all over you rubes. But it is also going to hurt so many others — innocents even. Trying to stay human, here.

  66. 66.

    evap

    @artem1s: I think that Ossoff gettiing > 50% is more likely than any other candidate. There is a lot of excitement about him and I think most Democrats who vote will vote for him. There are 11 Republican candidates with several having some visibility/supporters, so probably the Republican vote will be split to some extent. There are 5 Democrats, though, 2-3 are known, so it’s a long shot.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @Mike in DC:

    Not sure how pissing off a bunch of 50-64 year olds and working class white people is a great mid term strategy.

    Shhhhhhhhh…no need to let the GOP know anytime before, oh, next November…

  68. 68.

    WereBear

    We are dealing with people who would watch American Beauty and say, “See? Gayness destroys lives. And he shouldn’t have let his wife work.”

  69. 69.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    Yes, elections have consequences and your candidate is going to ‘consequence’ all over you rubes. But it is also going to hurt so many others — innocents even. Trying to stay human, here.

    I’m human. I have sympathy for those smart enough NOT to vote for the people who would take away their healthcare. Saving all my sympathy for THEM is human.

    Phuck those stupid muthaphuckas. I hope that there are a lot of youtube videos of the Trumpettes getting the letters that their healthcare is no more. No better for them.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    Steve King’s racially charged comments put Republicans on the spot
    03/13/17 12:30 PM
    By Steve Benen

    A couple of months ago, in a brief item, I referred to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) as an “anti-immigration congressman.” I’d used that phrase in relation to King before, as have others describing the far-right Iowan, and it didn’t occur to me that anyone would even bat an eye.

    A few days later, however, King’s office contacted MaddowBlog to complain. The Republican lawmaker, his aides insisted, is not “anti-immigration,” but rather, he simply opposes illegal immigration. For a congressman who’s literally compared immigrants to dogs, it seemed like an odd thing to make a fuss over.

    All of this came to mind yesterday afternoon, when King, touting right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, said via Twitter, “Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

    Today, responding to the controversy he created, King was eager to talk about how correct he thinks he is.

    In an interview on CNN on Monday, King said he “meant exactly what I said.”

    “You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies. You’ve got to keep your birth rate up and that you need to teach your children your values” and in doing so, then you can grow your population and you can strengthen your culture, you can strengthen your way of life,” King said.

    King called Western Civilization a “superior culture” and said some cultures contribute more to American society than others.

    “If you go down the road a few generations or maybe centuries with the intermarriage, I’d like to see an America that’s just so homogenous that we look a lot the same,” King added.

  72. 72.

    The Other Bob

    After watching Harry Potter this weekend, I am now referring to Trump supporters as Death Eaters.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    I’m not at all convinced it will hurt them. Trump voters are older – a huge group of them are on Medicare. The white working class were all bitching about “Obamacare” AS they were signing up for Medicaid. Half the time they don’t even know they’re on “Medicaid” (the state plans have different names) and even if they do they act is if it just sprung from the ground, unbidden. One would think all these Trump voting people with chronic medical conditions would have insisted Trump say something on health care but instead all we heard was “lock her up”

    Why would they start voting on policy now? I think there was ONE debate question on health care . They were interested in Clinton’s emails.

  74. 74.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Kropadope:

    Toilet paper is hella useful. Unless you have a bidet. Those things are amazing.

    One of the many things Europe does better than us. But I meant as useful for education as toilet paper.

    @evap:

    There are 5 Democrats

    whyyyyyy??? They should all drop out and endorse Ossoff or something.

  76. 76.

    JPL

    @pamelabrown53: I’m late to the thread, but your comment is spot on.
    My mayor helped Ossoff gain name recognition, and no other democrat running has that. Ron Slotin was a state rep, but that was decades ago. I’m not sure that many remember that.
    Ossoff’s signs are all over, and the good news is that I know moderate repubs who are considering voting for him. The bad news is that Trump’s approval ratings are at 51 percent in the district.
    Ossoff’s best chance is to win out right, by hoping the repubs stay home. Yeah, I’m a dreamer.
    What I’ve been able to learn is Handel’s popularity is shaky, and Moody or Gray could overtake her. Most of that is just gossip though.

  77. 77.

    Barbara

    @p.a.: Not really. While blacks have lower income levels and on average disproportionately benefit from income based entitlement programs, the ACA particularly benefited people “in the middle” of the spectrum whose incomes exceed the federal poverty level but are insufficient to purchase insurance. Whites are on average older, and on average more likely to avail themselves of Medicaid at the end of their life, two populations that will be seriously hurt by this legislation. The states that will be hit the hardest are Idaho and Florida (highest ratio of people on exchange in non-Medicaid expansion state) and Kentucky and West Virginia (highest absolute ratio of people benefiting for all elements of ACA). With the exception of Florida, the proportion of whites exceeds the national average by a good bit. States like Alabama and Mississippi and South Carolina with a high quotient of African Americans did not expand Medicaid to begin with. Nevada is another state that will take a big hit.

  78. 78.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: There was a question on deficit in every damn debate even the stupid VP debate. Fuck the poor is the motto not just of the Republicans and their moronic voters. But also the “serious” media.

  79. 79.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: See, that is where I’m at — I’m right there with you! But trying to also keep in mind that the pain will not be party specific. My Mom is 86 and had a brain tumor when she was much younger; blind in one eye with cataracts forming in the other (but otherwise remarkably healthy). My sister-in-law has early onset Alzheimers. My other brother has a stent and high BP. They all voted for Hillary, but they are going to get hurt hard.

  80. 80.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Kay:

    Half the time they don’t even know they’re on “Medicaid” (the state plans have different names) and even if they do they act is if it just sprung from the ground, unbidden.

    Everybody knows that assistance for white people springs fully-formed from the head of Zeus. It’s assistance for everybody else that’s evil government handouts.

    Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a longlimbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Let’s not hold our breath for Trump’s “We’re going to have insurance for everybody” to get the same treatment, if it’s even mentioned.

    Sure, but that’s mostly because Trump has more than 9 months to top it. I’m sure he will, bigly.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @Kay:
    They’re 1. astonishingly thick about how the world works and 2. amazingly adroit at wrapping facts around the box containing their world view. Everything bad will be either ignored or Obama’s fault

  85. 85.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @schrodingers_cat: “What Do You Think of Western Civilization?”
    “I Think It Would Be a Good Idea”

    -attributed to Gandhi, the internet suggests it’s apocryphal, but what the hell

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Charlie SpieringVerified account @ charliespiering
    At the White House, Brittany Ivey of Georgia says that Obamacare has nearly put her family in financial ruin with high premiums

    Igor Bobic‏Verified account @ igorbobic 1h1 hour ag
    Igor Bobic Retweeted Charlie Spiering
    Her family declined to take its premium assistance

  88. 88.

    Immanentize

    @schrodingers_cat: Two things:
    1) If you are asking seriously, I think “Western Culture” is primarily the idea that the individual is the center of philosophy — rather than saying, as many other cultures do, that society, or community, or the state, or the leader, or the collective is the center of philosophy. Lots of implications and ramifications from each of those beginnings….

    2) I was in my local WF this weekend and I thought of you. A fellow had a T-shirt on that said “Schrodinger’s Cat Is Dead.” I stopped him and said — I am not sure that’s true. He took off his coat and on the back of the shirt it said, “Schrodinger’s Cat is Not Dead.” I want one of those shirts!

  89. 89.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, in fairness, in WWII, eastern culture — Japan — played its own part in the mayhem. What’s frustrating is that when King et al. go on like this, they usually ignore the one aspect of Western civilization (whatever you want to call it) that really is original — the emergence of a secular society, in which religion takes a back seat in important spheres of life. King may be opposing Islam in his mind with Christianity, but in truth, what is at stake is not Christianity but secular, trending egalitarian norms. In any event, most of what we think of as major western works are either pre-Christian (Greek and Roman works) or only tangentially Christian (not religious in orientation even if clearly incorporating biblical imagery — e.g., The Canterbury Tales) or not really Christian at all — the works of Shakespeare, for instance, or the major European novelists of the 19th century. Religious people or scholars might read Augustine, but most of the rest of us don’t, or do so only if studying the history of Christianity.

  90. 90.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Trump told them what they already fanatically believed, and will go on believing: If colored people are shoved back into their place hard enough, every white man will get a unicorn pony that farts gold. They might get mad when they get screwed over instead, but they won’t change that belief.

    It will only convince them that they didn’t shove hard enough.

  91. 91.

    Immanentize

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: A friend of mine once went to a speech by Shunryu Suzuki who started off his talk with something like: “Man against God. Man against Man, God against Man, Man against Nature. Nature against Man. What kind of philosophy is this?”

  92. 92.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Roger Moore: I didn’t mean that it should get “lie of the year” treatment, just that I expect it to be completely lost to the sands of time.

    Though it’s true that part of Trump’s political… talent?… that’s worked, so far, is that there’s no damn statement you can point to as a promise he broke because he uses hyperbole and the word ‘promise’ all the goddamned time.

  93. 93.

    Kropadope

    @Immanentize:

    A friend of mine once went to a speech by Shunryu Suzuki who started off his talk with something like: “Man against God. Man against Man, God against Man, Man against Nature. Nature against Man. What kind of philosophy is this?”

    Sounds like one of conflict.

  96. 96.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: Umm, no, I am not blaming Turkey for WWI. Japan was a copycat, without question, in that once it had undertaken the effort to become an industrial nation as a defense to being colonized by western powers, it made its own colonial forays into other Asian countries that were as brutal as many European colonial regimes. I had a friend whose parents lived under Japanese colonial rule in northern China, and they were deeply scarred by it. I actually hadn’t even thought of Turkey at all in WWI. Clearly, Turkey’s role in starting WWI was subsidiary at most.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    GOP critter on MSNBC babbling about debt and deficit and spending out of control. Seems to me a rather obvious question is “so do you oppose the top bracket tax cuts that Paul Ryan is proposing?”

  103. 103.

    Eric U.

    the asshole trumpsters around here are all employed by Penn State, so they feel pretty smug even in the face of Trumpcare. I hope they are right on that front at least, but there is pretty good evidence that the people that run PSU health care are asshole republicans, so they may be surprised. The other problem is that we are surrounded by a large population of basically unemployable people here in Pennsyltucky. If it weren’t for hospitals, prisons, and convenience stores, nobody would have a job. If the economy goes bad, the criminals will start coming into town a lot more frequently than they are now.

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I didn’t mean that it should get “lie of the year” treatment, just that I expect it to be completely lost to the sands of time.

    Though it’s true that part of Trump’s political… talent?… that’s worked, so far, is that there’s no damn statement you can point to as a promise he broke because he uses hyperbole and the word ‘promise’ all the goddamned time.

    polifact will get out of this by saying he told the lie last year. And I was thinking the same thing about him not being specific about healthcare, but he was specific enough. Said it would be cheaper and more people would be covered. Easy soundbites for a political ad if the Dems can work up the guts to run it

  104. 104.

    TriassicSands

    If Dems can win in GA-6, that should be the final nail in the coffin for this shitty bill.

    That seems wildly optimistic to me. The Republicans have been waiting for seven years to dismantle our social safety net beginning with Obamacare (they’ve been after the net itself for much longer). It’s hard for me to imagine that they’re going to let this die no matter what happens in a special election in Georgia.

    Sadly, I think Democratic optimism about 2018 is greatly exaggerated. The House is gerrymandered into a knot that is almost impossible for Dems to untie. Think about your own attitude toward a congressional election. Let’s say that your own Democratic candidate turns out to be a crook or a pervert. Would you vote to replace him with a Republican? Any Republican? Of course not. One reason is that you’re not voting for an individual representative. You’re voting for a party. It’s probably even worse in the Senate where the Democrats are defending many seats in states won by Trump. In the last few elections, selected Republican senators have managed, through outrageous behavior or statements, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Things like “legitimate rape” have cost the GOP seats they were a virtual lock to win. But they know about that now and at least some are being more careful. Jason Chaffetz showed that typical Republicans are such thoughtless, insensitive people that they often can’t help themselves. However, that’s an unreliable thing to depend on for electoral defeat. I hate to say it, and this is not pessimism, but realism, but I think that even is Trump continues to be totally incompetent and say one outrageous thing after another, the Republicans will maintain majorities in both Houses and could even achieve a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

    Will the defeat of a single representative spell the end of Chumpcare? I doubt it. The Republicans are virtually impervious to rational thinking. If they were really worried about the AHCA turning off voters they would never have created it, and after its chilly reception you’d expect them to hustle to revise it to make it more palatable. There is no sign of anything like that.

    I am not at all optimistic about the Democrats being able to turn things around in the Congress in 2018. The House is terminally gerrymandered and the Senate profile is simply terrible for Dems in ’18. Depending on how things unfold (and Trump is the wildest of wild cards) the Republicans could even pick up a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Democrats will have to be more motivated and work harder in ’18 than they ever have before if they’re going to turn things around.

    It’s frustrating because the case for total rejection of the GOP seems so obvious. But all you have to do is read comments from people with nothing to gain and everything to lose from a Trump win and still they voted for him. Sigh.

  105. 105.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara:

    Japan was a copycat, without question, in that once it had undertaken the effort to become an industrial nation as a defense to being colonized by western powers, it made its own colonial forays into other Asian countries that were as brutal as many
    European colonial regimes.

    Agreed.

  106. 106.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    He was a lawyer

    Family legend says my grandfather, who spent several years as a cotton buyer in India, hired him to handle some of his company business paperwork. It’s believable in the sense that my grandfather was in the right place at the right time to have met Gandhi, and he did have an amazing ability to do interesting things and meet interesting people, but I don’t know of any documentary evidence behind the story.

  107. 107.

    Barbara

    @Eric U.: It’s a depressing reality that many people can’t absorb: willingness to work hard isn’t the same as being employable. The skills gap is just so enormous for some people, and these people still cling to the memory of being very well-paid for very low skilled work.

  108. 108.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Barbara:

    at really is jeopardizing the food supply in the long run are people who raise non-native domesticated livestock in the arid conditions found in places like the Southwestern United States. Meat is resource intensive (you have to grow feed) but it wrecks the environment when there is insufficient rainfall to replenish grasslands.

    This is why I quit eating red meat

  109. 109.

    JPL

    I’ve been door knocking for a local election, and there are several subdivisions that are trending lower in age. Although I haven’t campaigned for Jon, several of the homeowners, brought up his name. It will be difficult to turn the district blue, but if it is close, it’s a sign of what’s to come. The schools in Roswell are good, and housing costs are lower than just south of here.

  110. 110.

    WereBear

    @Barbara: these people still cling to the memory of being very well-paid for very low skilled work

    And they Will Not Move. Not to another state and not down the block.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @Kropadope:

    “We’re going to have insurance for everybody.” That’s what President Trump told the Washington Post in January. He’s since fallen in line with the mainstream Republican position that they should guarantee access, not coverage. But that quote is not going to disappear.

    The Trump Administration and Paul Ryan are on the same page. Access, not coverage.

    And Trump is also now on record as saying that he is going to work hard to sell the Republican plan.

    The Tea Party are even more adamant that taxpayer subsidies should not be offered.

    They are not “fixing” Obamacare. They are returning to the status quo, with a couple of items (pre-existing conditions, kids on parents’ insurance until age 26) that the insurance companies will insist have to be eliminated later on.

    The Republicans do not believe in the concept of health care for everyone. They now have to continue demonizing lower income Americans as unworthy. They are counting on the idea that Republican voters are suckers. And if they fall for this, the Republicans can move on to dismantling Social Security.

  112. 112.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Kropadope:

    Running with your TP analogy, Obamacare is nice, thick two-ply with plenty on the roll. Trumpcare is like the stuff I recall from public schools forty plus years ago: individual squares of waxy, stiff paper, and lucky you, there’s only two left in the dispenser.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Our de facto Secretary of State

    Kushners Set to Get $400 Million From Chinese on Marquee Tower
    A company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, stands to receive more than $400 million from a prominent Chinese company that is investing in the Kushners’ marquee Manhattan office tower at 666 Fifth Ave.
    The planned $4-billion transaction includes terms that some real estate experts consider unusually favorable for the Kushners. It provides them with both a sizable cash payout from Anbang Insurance Group for a property that has struggled financially and an equity stake in a new partnership.

  115. 115.

    cranky

    Why is that an R+12 district? What is that? (I know what that is)

    Only 325 K voted in the last election, 201K (R) vs 124 (D). What the heck happened to the rest of the population of 700K? Are they all less than 18 yrs old?

    These kind of districts should not exist because of lack of registration. Everything else will be a waste, unless voter registration numbers go up. Get those up.

  116. 116.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    And when the Obamas bought a small piece of land for a few thousand dollars from shady real estate developer Tony Rezko, that was supposed to be a frickin’ scandal. Kushner making $400 million for being the president’s son in law? No big deal.

    ETA: The Obamas may even have paid several hundreds of thousands. And yet it was a bigger scandal than $400 MILLION.

  118. 118.

    Roger Moore

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    Running with your TP analogy, Obamacare is nice, thick two-ply with plenty on the roll.

    I would say that Obamacare is generic store brand with barely enough to finish your business. Single payer systems would be the nice two-ply with plenty on the role, and NHS is one of those fancy Japanese bidets.

  119. 119.

    germy

    @WereBear:

    And they Will Not Move. Not to another state and not down the block.

    Over the past thirty years, we’ve lived in three different towns. And in each town, we had a neighbor who lived in the house he grew up in.

    In the first town, the neighbor was full of libertarian ideas he loved to share. He’d never paid a mortgage in his life. Basically lived in the house his mom gave him. In the second town, it was the same deal. A guy two houses away from us grew up there. Big talk radio fan. Again, full of opinions. No mortgage. And now we have a guy across the street who never left home. Rented an apartment briefly in his twenties, and then moved back to the house he grew up in. I make a point of avoiding political talk with him (he had a drump sign on his lawn last election)

    They don’t like moving, and very few of them face the financial challenges and responsibilities they pretend to.

  120. 120.

    pamelabrown53

    @Kay: #73.
    Well it’s hard to believe that after their family members start dying because they no longer can afford what “Obamacare” provided then they are indeed impervious to the ravages of life. What I think will happen with at least some of them that is while they are conditioned to hate Obamacare, they will be shown, in the harshest terms, what Obamacare is as opposed to what they were told. This should at least accelerate the rate of attrition. Granted, there are people who on their deathbeds will not overcome cognitive dissonance.
    So, you’re right that they won’t vote policy but some will make the requisite connection and vote for themselves and family members to live.

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @FlipYrWhig: and he kept talking about “when I was in the business world…” Government isn’t supposed to run a profit, you fucking dingbat

  123. 123.

    JMG

    @TriassicSands: Fun fact: In early 2005, there was much talk that the Republicans could get a filibuster-proot Senate majority in 2006 because the map was so favorable for them. Same map as 2018’s.
    Look, people may be wildly uninformed about public policy. They may have deep bigotries that affect their political choices. But nobody is so blind to reality as to not know when something is taken from them. Blaming Obama for losing your insurance (or losing money to keep it) when he’s out of office is going to be a very hard sell if it happens. Which it may not. The Republicans would be smarter just to pass their big tax cut, let Trump persecute minorities, and then do nothing but pat themselves on the back for the next 20 months.

  125. 125.

    Major Major Major Major

    @schrodingers_cat: You’re saying Japan went on a brutal campaign of ethnic domination throughout East and Southeast Asia only because they were copying Western colonialism?

    @Roger Moore: ‘single-payer’ is neither necessary nor sufficient for universal access to healthcare, I wish people would stop saying it’s the prima facie best course of action.

  128. 128.

    pamelabrown53

    @JPL: #76.
    What a great comment re Ossoff and yes it is bad news that Trump’s approval ratings in the district are at 51%. A dose of reality. Still, there’s no reason that Trump won’t blunder so badly in the next few weeks that a few % points won’t omly be shaved but provide the anger impetus to vote against him by proxy.

  129. 129.

    Jeffro

    Steve King is, um, adding some additional thoughts on his remarks from yesterday, to the effect that he wants to see “an American that looks” – yes really, LOOKS – “homogenous”

    I am guessing he doesn’t mean “homogenous” so much as “all of us just as pale as can be…not a shade above ecru…”

    Oh my. Hey Enterprising Young Reporters out there, ask Trumpov what he things of such comments, please!

  130. 130.

    TriassicSands

    @JMG:

    The earlier GOP failure was why I made the point about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They could blow it. But at least some of them have learned from the mistakes of the past, which decreases the likelihood of a repeat. Not an impossibility.

    But nobody is so blind to reality as to not know when something is taken from them.

    The article in yesterday’s WaPo demonstrated why even this is not guaranteed. If you haven’t read it, do so, and look for the woman who says something like “Thanks a lot , Obama.” She knows something is being taken away, she’s just too stupid to know whom to blame. I hate to think of what percentage of Americans are now in that boat.

    For a long time, some people thought I was too pessimistic about the condition of the American electorate. Today, all you have to do is look at who’s in the White House and I don’t see how a person could be too pessimistic. This country elected Donald Effing Trump. I may have been too kind when talking about the electorate in the past.

  131. 131.

    germy

    @Jeffro: They’re not even pretending anymore. They used to keep the “quiet parts” quiet. Now they’re loud and proud. I guess we better get used to it.

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Kushners Set to Get $400 Million From Chinese on Marquee Tower
    A company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, stands to receive more than $400 million from a prominent Chinese company that is investing in the Kushners’ marquee Manhattan office tower at 666 Fifth Ave.

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

  134. 134.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Benjy Sarlin‏Verified account @ BenjySarlin 1h1 hour ago
    More
    Sen. Tom Cotton on Ingraham keeps attacking WH talking points on AHCA: “This so called three phase process, that’s just not going to happen”

    I trust these people as far as I could throw them, especially if it comes to an actual vote, I’d say he and Sweet Susie C will hold hands and smile as they vote along with Mitch, but he really seems determined to troll all the way till that moment.

  135. 135.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: and how hilarious is it that it’s 666 5th Ave? I wonder if Trump keeps a secret office on the 13th floor

  137. 137.

    rikyrah

    Why Did Trump Just Fire 46 Federal Prosecutors?
    by Martin Longman March 13, 2017 11:19 AM

    On Friday, forty-six “United States attorneys appointed by President Barack Obama [were] asked to resign — and to immediately clean out their offices.” This was normal in one sense and abnormal in another. It’s customary for U.S. Attorneys to resign whenever control of the White House changes. In fact, they can be replaced even when a president is reelected or is replaced by a member of his own party.

    For example, after George W. Bush was reelected in 2005, Karl Rove stopped by the White House counsels office to talk with Deputy Counsel David Leitch. He had to settle for leaving a message with Colin Newman, an assistant in the office, who dutifully wrote up a memo for Leitch. It read, in part, “Karl Rove stopped by to ask you (roughly quoting) ‘how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them or selectively replace them, etc.’”

    That was the seed from which the U.S. Attorneys Scandal grew. Before it was over, it would cause the resignations of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Acting Associate Attorney General, the chief of staffs for the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, the Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (and his appointed successor), and the Department of Justice’s White House Liaison Monica Goodling.

    I bring this up now, though, to point out that Rove was at least considering asking all the U.S. Attorneys to resign despite the fact that they were all appointed by Bush during his first term. One of the reasons for not replacing them all was provided by Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Writing to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, he observed that it would be “weird to ask them to leave before completing at least a 4-year term.” To White House counsel Harriet Miers, Sampson argued that they should focus on replacing only a few of the prosecutors, and then only if they had replacements ready:

  139. 139.

    sukabi

    @rikyrah: the two screws in his otherwise empty brain pan are causing a bit of conflict… Advocating racial / cultural purity by …. Blending races to make a Caramel latte….or by removing other races from the equation….

    His current statement infers the former, but his past statements and actions point to the latter….

  140. 140.

    hovercraft

    @schrodingers_cat:

    WTF is western culture?

    White “culture”, it’s been expanded from anglo saxon, to now include all europeans, this has been necessitated by the encroachment of blacks and browns. Between the invasion through immigration, legal and illegal and miscegenation, the “west” is being overrun by POC. A big UKIP bugaboo is interracial breeding, to many mongrels. Real charmers.

    Whatever bad has been done by white people is okay because it was for the greater good of “white” power and domination. The rest of us savages need white culture to civilize us, our bad deeds are a sign of our savagery. Unfortunately for them it took them far too long to realize they by conquering and exploiting us, they opened the door to us following them home, and now there are too many of us, and we want equal rights. Oops.

  143. 143.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @TriassicSands: Aye, this is the rub. The teabaggers were correct that something was wrong, but they came to a totally wrong conclusion about what it was. Their actual oppressors were more than happy enough to finance their wrong conclusions.

  144. 144.

    TenguPhule

    @JMG:

    But nobody is so blind to reality as to not know when something is taken from them.

    Untrue. Many people lost their minds in 2016 and are still unable to find them now. Worse, they still don’t realize they’ve turned into Republican patsies.

  146. 146.

    Miss Bianca

    @Barbara:

    So raising the cost of beef is probably a net long term win for the environment and our health.

    Ahem. However much I may agree with the sentiments you express here, allow me to point out that this would not be a winning argument for Democrats out here in (semi-arid) cow country, where cattle outnumber people by approximately the same ratio that Republicans outnumber Deomocrats: 4:1.

  147. 147.

    germy

    @Jeffro: I think when King uses the word “homogenous” he’s really talking about homogenized milk… the white stuff.

    These guys aren’t intellectuals. They don’t read much, and when they try to sound smart they use words in ways that don’t make sense. But their intent is clear.

    They looked at Obama’s speeches and said to themselves, “Hell, I can do that!”

  148. 148.

    Ksmiami

    @rikyrah: I’m there with you. these rabid hate filled morons deserve to suffer having flung Trump and the evil GOP fascists on the entire country. besides I’m beginning to think that there might not be a country left after Trump

  150. 150.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    IIRC, Japan decided they wanted their own European-style empire so they could compete with the West on their own terms.

    It’s part of the unfortunate logic of colonialism. It appeared that everyone was either going to be a colonialist or become a colony; there didn’t seem to be a safe place between the two where you could be independent and not take over somebody else.

  151. 151.

    Miss Bianca

    @hovercraft:

    Whatever bad has been done by white people is okay because it was for the greater good of “white” power and domination. The rest of us savages need white culture to civilize us, our bad deeds are a sign of our savagery. Unfortunately for them it took them far too long to realize they by conquering and exploiting us, they opened the door to us following them home, and now there are too many of us, and we want equal rights. Oops.

    Karma, she is a beeyotch.

    Oh, wait…”karma” is one of those suspicious Eastern Civilzation Concepts, isn’t it? Ruh-roh…

  152. 152.

    hovercraft

    @Brachiator:

    The Trump Administration and Paul Ryan are on the same page. Access, not coverage.

    What the hell is that, I have access to all sorts of shit, but if I don’t have the money to afford them that access isn’t doing shit for me. The media needs to ask these assholes why the hell anyone wants access to something they can’t afford. This will produce a nation of people with their noses pressed up against the window as the die longingly staring at the treatments that could have saved them, but can’t afford. Sorry about the convoluted metaphor.

  155. 155.

    hovercraft

    @pamelabrown53:

    This should at least accelerate the rate of attrition. Granted, there are people who on their deathbeds will not overcome cognitive dissonance.

    I appreciate your optimism, but I don’t share it, the negative consequences will be because of Obamacare, see it was so terrible and destructive that it is still hurting you after it’s gone. Like the “deep state”, Obamacare will be with us long after it’s gone, wreaking havoc on “real American” patriots who voted to clean the country up after 8 years of devastation.

  156. 156.

    Taylor

    If Dems can win in GA-6, that should be the final nail in the coffin for this shitty bill. (No, I don’t expect it to be passed before the special election.)

    I had the suspicion that they were trying to get Trumpcare passed before the special election, in case they lose and there’s a rush for the exits (reminiscent of Dem panic after Coakley lost Kennedy’s seat).

  157. 157.

    Kathleen

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    If colored people are shoved back into their place hard enough, every white man will get a unicorn pony that farts gold.

    Sadly, the shoving part will be enough to satisfy their need for spite fan fic. Unicorn pony is irrelevant.

  158. 158.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:
    It was quite specifically the Gandhi my grandfather was talking about, since he knew about Gandhi’s political interests and continued to follow his career after going back to Germany. My grandfather had a number of similar stories about interacting with famous people that were all at least superficially plausible, i.e. he had actually been somewhere they had been so the interaction could have happened. But he was a real storyteller, so it’s hard to know where the truth left off and where the made-up part started.

  159. 159.

    Brachiator

    @hovercraft: RE: The Trump Administration and Paul Ryan are on the same page. Access, not coverage.

    What the hell is that, I have access to all sorts of shit, but if I don’t have the money to afford them that access isn’t doing shit for me.

    The Republicans have made it simple. They don’t think that the government should ensure that Americans get health insurance. Period.

    Ryan is offering some weak ass vouchers, but the Tea Party Republicans oppose this. Ryan and now Trump are promising that the magic of the free market will poop out so many different types of plans that everybody will be able to afford something, maybe. Kinda.

    If some low income and poor people get left out, they need to work harder, as Jesus intended.

    Some in the media have been good about making this clear, but you can’t depend on the media to do the heavy lifting since Trump’s base look only to him, the Donald Everytrumping, to tell them the truth. Maybe the AARP is getting the word out, since fixed income seniors will be screwed by this plan.

    The Democrats need to get the word out. Oddly enough, Bernie the Unfaithful Sanders was pretty clear during a Face the Nation appearance.

  160. 160.

    hovercraft

    @Jeffro:
    I caught a snippet of a CNN discussion about his comments, and the GOP defender was saying that King doesn’t represent the thinking of the republican party or values, when another panelist pointed out that Twitler, Bannon and Miller have voiced similar sentiments, perhaps not as baldly, but in the same vein, she replied that they also did not represent republican thinking. Asked how the president and leader didn’t represent the party, she filibustered, but not the party, not the party!

  161. 161.

    WereBear

    @hovercraft: “Access” sounds good.

    As pointed out here many times, I have “access” to a month in London, a Lamborghini, or a fabulous diamond necklace.

    I just can’t afford them.

  163. 163.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

    They’re not even pretending anymore. They used to keep the “quiet parts” quiet. Now they’re loud and proud. I guess we better get used to it.

    I think Alexandra Petri (WaPo) tweeted something like, “I guess they’re all sold out of dog whistles?!?”

  164. 164.

    TenguPhule

    @Miss Bianca:

    where cattle outnumber people by approximately the same ratio that Republicans outnumber Deomocrats: 4:1.

    Eat more Republicans?

  166. 166.

    Kropadope

    @Brachiator:

    Ryan and now Trump are promising that the magic of the free market will poop out so many different types of plans that everybody will be able to afford something, maybe. Kinda.

    People should have the freedom to choose a plan that takes their money and covers nothing, allowing them to pretend to have insurance.

  167. 167.

    germy

    I can watch “Access Hollywood” on TV.
    Doesn’t mean I can walk the red carpet with Charlize Theron.

  169. 169.

    Pangloss

    I hope this crew is looking at state legislatures as well. When we’re worried about Connecticut and Delaware going GOP at the state legislature level, it’s obvious how much work there is to do.

  170. 170.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    I caught a snippet of a CNN discussion about his comments, and the GOP defender was saying that King doesn’t represent the thinking of the republican party or values, when another panelist pointed out that Twitler, Bannon and Miller have voiced similar sentiments, perhaps not as baldly, but in the same vein, she replied that they also did not represent republican thinking. Asked how the president and leader didn’t represent the party, she filibustered, but not the party, not the party!

    Would have killed to be on that panel: “So where are these mythical not-racist Republicans, O GOP Defender? Show us one who stood up to Trumpov’s birther nonsense, or made a fuss when Tea Party demonstrators put up all manner of racist signs. Show us someone – anyone – who’s called out Steve King and demanded that he apologize”

    This is the problem with the GOP for at least two decades now: they continue to absolve each other of horrendous behavior and refuse to police their own party…it’s why they don’t have any principles except their own power.

    And if it’s not racist, it’s always something that runs working class or poor people down while extolling the awesome virtues of the 1% (or .01%)

    The Venn diagram of Republicans who hate non-whites and Republicans who hate non-rich folks could really just about be represented by a single circle.

  171. 171.

    Barbara

    @Roger Moore: Well, this is overstating things. Japan successfully avoided being a colony for many decades before it aggressively began to colonize other countries. Becoming industrial and market oriented was probably a really good idea for avoiding colonial exploitation, but Japan was also homogenous (still is) and already had a central government, and these things helped it considerably to avoid being subject to foreign colonial rule, which often excelled at playing ethnic groups off against each other and taking advantage of diffuse or weak governing institutions. Burma was not a colony when Japan invaded it at the beginning of WWII.

  172. 172.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @Barbara:

    Are you going to blame for Turkey for WWI, now? Japan was at best a copycat as was Turkey, trying to emulate the killing machines of Germany/Britian etc.

    I’m not sure why the discussion is limited to WWI. In any case, Japan had it’s own, independent, jingoistic and militaristic ideology and did not need to copy the West. They had also put the fear of god into the Western powers when they kicked the shit out of Russia in 1904-1905.

  173. 173.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    I wouldn’t give them too much sympathy. Once the Japanese decided to go into the colonialism business, they emulated the worst of the worst. King Leopold was probably astounded at how much they had learned from his actions in the Congo.

    Weird thought I had since I’m immersed in Regency history: Leopold only ended up as King of the Belgians because his wife Charlotte, heiress to the throne of England, died in childbirth along with their son. How would history have been different if she, or at least their son, had survived? At a minimum, there would be no Victoria, who was only born because Charlotte’s uncles had to scramble to reproduce after she died.

  174. 174.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:

    What it means… ? Who knows.

    I think that’s the whole point. It’s a weasel word that lets them claim they aren’t denying people care even when they are. See, those people still have access to insurance; they just just aren’t taking advantage of it. That’s freedom!

  175. 175.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator: So because Japan was terrible, Steve King and company get to crow about the wonders of Western Civilization and the British, Germans etc get a pass for the awful carnage they were responsible for in the twentieth century. A price that many parts of the world including the Middle East are still paying?

  176. 176.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: How about no one gets a pass for wreaking carnage or destruction on others regardless whether they are Western or Eastern in orientation? The West, having more power more recently has generally wreaked more havoc within our historical time frame, but not many cultures are completely immune to the exploitation of others, not even Buddhists in Burma.

  177. 177.

    germy

    “Ultimately, Republicans are counting on Democrats to step in and help repair what even Republicans anticipate as upheaval if a repeal measure is passed without a broad remake of American health care,” the Times noted. “Republican leaders have made no effort to hide the strategy.”

    House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) explained the plan last week that would begin with allowing Republicans to vote to repeal the majority of the Affordable Care Act. It would be Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s job to use his new powers to stabilize the insurance markets. Ryan suggested that House leadership wold then pressure Democrats to vote for additional fixes to the law.

  178. 178.

    hovercraft

    @WereBear: @Villago Delenda Est:

    Every single democrat should be on TV saying this. Access means nothing.

    This time we have allies, AARP is a good one, the olds trust them, for now at least. When they find out that Obama infiltrated them too, who knows.

  179. 179.

    Barbara

    @germy: But once you strip away the subsidies, there is no “help” Democrats could give that Republicans would be willing to accept. This is simply code for “help Republicans avoid consequences of destroying the ACA.” And they will claim it is bipartisan if even one Democrat votes for it.

  180. 180.

    Brachiator

    @Kropadope: RE: Ryan and now Trump are promising that the magic of the free market will poop out so many different types of plans that everybody will be able to afford something, maybe. Kinda.

    People should have the freedom to choose a plan that takes their money and covers nothing, allowing them to pretend to have insurance.

    This is exactly the logic of some of the crappy low cost plans that the insurance companies used to offer. People paid money and found out that they were not covered for anything when they went to use them. Someone like Trump is very familiar with the idea of this kind of “all flash no substance” BS.

    Paul Ryan is peddling a version of this with the promised return of “catastrophic” plans. Some suckers, especially younger people, might go for this. They figure that they only want to be covered for a piano falling on them, and don’t need any other insurance. They also hate, hate, hate, the individual mandate “stealing” their money.

    But the heart of Obamacare was the idea of minimum essential coverage, which did not let insurance companies get away with offering nothing for something. And the Republicans killed this while mumbling about the virtue of the free market.

  181. 181.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Did he write down these stories?

    My grandmother did. One of the favorites- and one for which there’s some actual documentary evidence- was about a cotton ship that was flooded and sank in the harbor. By the time they were able to raise the ship again, the cotton had been damaged by contact with sea water. My grandfather bought it for a song. He figured- correctly- it had been packed tightly in bales so only the outermost part was damaged, so he had it unbaled, the damaged parts pulled off the outside, and the remainder rebaled.

  182. 182.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara: You tally the numbers and see which countries have been responsible for the most bloodshed in the last century. This is a both-sides-do-it argument. Steve King was not crowing about the glories of Imperial Japan.
    I will give you the example of the British Empire.
    You want to tell me about the Glories of the Empire and How Britain brought Civilization to the World, and make loving soft focus stories about Young Victoria.
    I am going to tell you that the entire criminal enterprise was based on ethnic cleansing through starvation, a brutal police state and blood and wealth of millions of Indians. British get the credit for their brave stance during the World Wars who was manning their armies and funding their wars? They fucking deserve no recognition, right?
    ETA: “You” is generic, not specifically targeted at you.

  183. 183.

    Jeffro

    @germy: Fuuuuu-uuuu-uuuuuuu-ck that. If any Dem anywhere so much as lifts a finger to help these clowns take health insurance away from 20M people (and cause rates to go up for the other 310M of us) then I’ll be glad to donate to his/her primary opponent, because they’ll surely have one.

  184. 184.

    FlipYrWhig

    I felt a bit like a sucker but I gave a small contribution to Ossoff after being solicited by the DCCC over the weekend — I liked the way the caller talked about the stakes in these special elections.

  185. 185.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    Weird thought I had since I’m immersed in Regency history: Leopold only ended up as King of the Belgians because his wife Charlotte, heiress to the throne of England, died in childbirth along with their son.

    Note, though, that it was Leopold I who married Charlotte and became the first King of the Belgians. It was his son, Leopold II, who was the brutal colonial overlord of Congo.

  186. 186.

    germy

    @Barbara:

    This is simply code for “help Republicans avoid consequences of destroying the ACA.”

    Code for “let Democrats take the blame.”

  187. 187.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: Except I am telling you no such thing, and I would never argue that Britain brought civilization to the world because I do know something about how Britain operated its empire. Did I not just write that the West was responsible for more havoc and mayhem — and given the more modern nature of the weapons, that translates into a lot more people who are dead. But you would have to be blind not to see that exploitation of the other is not limited to any single culture. Look at the treatment of the Rohingya in Burma. You’re ascribing things to people that they aren’t saying.

  188. 188.

    Raoul

    @germy:

    Ryan suggested that House leadership wold then pressure Democrats to vote for additional fixes to the law.

    I guess we will have to see how much personal destruction we can accept at the hands of the scumbag Republicans. I dearly want Nancy Pelosi to just look the watery eyed fraud in the eyes and say, “You broke it, you bought it, puny boy.” But that means leaving people to suffer and die. I fucking hate politics these days.

  189. 189.

    schrodingers_cat

    The last 300 or so years, the West, more specifically countries of western Europe and more recently the United States have been militarily powerful and been better at harnessing scientific knowledge but more civilized? Steve needs to read history.

  190. 190.

    Barbara

    @Raoul: What fix is he talking about? If he is so willing to “fix” it why is he “breaking” it so that it needs to be fixed to begin with?

  191. 191.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    No Leopold I, no Leopold II. Also no Kaiser Wilhelm, who was the grandson of Queen Victoria. And no Czar Nicholas, another grandson. It creates a potentially interesting alternative history. ?

  192. 192.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara: I was countering what Steve King was saying, no one is claiming the mantle of a better civilization for Japan or Myanmar. Like King and his fellow Rs are for the so called Western civilization.
    You are muddying waters by changing the subject by pointing to Japanese atrocities, which I have not denied.

  193. 193.

    Mnemosyne

    @Raoul:

    Yep. Basically, Republicans are threatening to shoot the hostages if the Democrats don’t go along with … shooting the hostages.

    Either way, the hostages are toast. ?

  194. 194.

    TenguPhule

    @germy:

    It would be Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s job to use his new powers to stabilize the insurance markets.

    Sure, Price will bail out that ocean with that sieve he’s been given.

    Any Insurance CEO not shitting their pants about the GOP inspired Deathspiral is literally too stupid to be allowed to live.

  195. 195.

    rikyrah

    @Raoul:

    I guess we will have to see how much personal destruction we can accept at the hands of the scumbag Republicans. I dearly want Nancy Pelosi to just look the watery eyed fraud in the eyes and say, “You broke it, you bought it, puny boy.” But that means leaving people to suffer and die.

    Yes, they will. No help for them.

    THEY.MUST.OWN.ALL.OF.IT.

  198. 198.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    We’ve all seen and mocked the photos of the Flower of White Manhood that doesn’t have any way to feel good about themselves other than trying to kill and injure non-whites.

    King is pretty high up on that list of non-beauty kings himself.

  199. 199.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s pretty clear that his idea of civilization begins and ends with European ancestry. I doubt if he sits around reading Plato or Aeschylus or even Shakespeare much less Spinoza or John Stuart Mill, and I would actually bet my house that his constituents aren’t either.

  201. 201.

    Doug R

    @Barbara: The Japanese like to think of themselves as homogenous, they just like to ignore the part of their history where Koreans took over fishing villages.

  202. 202.

    Spanky

    @TenguPhule: I’ve been thinking about this for a while. If the Republicans create millions of constituents in desperate straits, some terminal, they may be setting themselves up for more than a few attempts like that.

  203. 203.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    So because Japan was terrible, Steve King and company get to crow about the wonders of Western Civilization and the British, Germans etc get a pass for the awful carnage they were responsible for in the twentieth century. A price that many parts of the world including the Middle East are still paying?

    History is complex, and if you study it carefully, you rarely find that any one side is pure and glorious.

    So if Steve King and company crow about the wonders of Western civilization, they do so only because they are ignorant fools. As ignorant as ultra nationalists anywhere, from Denmark to Turkey to India.

  204. 204.

    germy

    @Spanky:

    they may be setting themselves up

    Nah, the idiots will go out and shoot democrats, because their talk radio jocks will blame “teh libruls” for the suffering. They don’t think clearly. Look who they voted for.

  205. 205.

    hovercraft

    @germy:

    Ryan suggested that House leadership wold then pressure Democrats to vote for additional fixes to the law.

    Does he think democrats are stupid?
    Does he think we’ve all been asleep for the last eight years?
    He’s in for a very rude awakening, we are not the rubes, any democrat trying to fold will be shouted down, they will not vote for any shit sandwich.

    YOU BREAK IT YOU OWN IT !!

  206. 206.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: I wasn’t changing the subject, and I am not generally disagreeing with you by pointing out that the world is more complex. If you want to be precise, America did not start WWII either even though it is also part of the West. So the entire “West” did not start WWII. One very specific country did — Germany, with Italy being not much more than a “me too.”

    Also, my understanding is that the emerging preference is to go back to using Burma. “The former ruling junta summarily changed the name 23 years ago without consulting the people — a typically high-handed act by an unpopular regime that had gunned down hundreds of anti-government protesters the year before. The change was opposed by democracy advocates, who stuck with ‘Burma.'”

    The United States State Department uses Burma.

  207. 207.

    rikyrah

    Republicans Have Devised a Health Care Plan For the Healthy
    by Nancy LeTourneau March 13, 2017 11:57 AM

    Speaker Paul Ryan took a lot of heat for this part of his power point presentation on the Republican health care plan last week.

    Ryan says problem with ACA is that the healthy are “subsidizing” the sick…AKA *literally* the point of insurance: pic.twitter.com/IbHzoKAqlj

    — Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) March 9, 2017

    He was proposing to take people with pre-existing conditions out of the group that would purchase insurance on the exchanges and put them into a high-risk pool. Other than the fact that there is not enough money allocated in their bill to cover those costs, states have pretty consistently shown that high-risk pools don’t work. But for the remaining healthy people, Ryan is right that such a move is likely to reduce their premiums. The takeaway is that the Republican plan works as long as you stay healthy. It would be a disaster if you get sick.

    ……………………………………..

    Aside from the fact that not having coverage is a pretty substantial barrier to getting care, Mulvaney is right that high deductibles can inhibit the ability to get care. But rather than increase subsidies to cover those deductibles, the Republican plan will decrease them for those who are older and more likely to get sick. As a result, they are more likely to lose their coverage, meaning that they won’t drive up costs. The takeaway is that if you’re young and healthy, this plan will work. If you’re older, it is a disaster.

    Finally, Republicans have been clear that the current bill is merely phase one in their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. Phase two involves the Trump administration (i.e., HHS Sec. Tom Price) getting rid of regulatory reforms contained in Obamacare. That is when we will witness a loosening of the 10 essential benefits that all insurance plans are currently required to provide and the return of “junk insurance.” Prior to the ACA, that meant things like “mini-med health plans” that covered the first $2000-$7000 dollars of health expenses, with the remainder coming out of the pocket of those insured. Once again, that works well for those that are relatively healthy, but would be a disaster if you got sick.

  209. 209.

    Roger Moore

    @germy:

    Ryan suggested that House leadership wold then pressure Democrats to vote for additional fixes to the law.

    Which the Democratic leadership has said flat out isn’t going to happen. Not that I expect that to prevent the Republicans from trying.

  210. 210.

    germy

    With Obamacare repeal, Republicans are trying to accomplish something that’s never been done

    Congress has never reversed a major program of social benefits once it has taken effect and reached millions of Americans.
    By James Hohmann

    WaPo

  211. 211.

    Millard Filmore

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Unless I can afford it, I have no access at all. Window shopping does nothing for a broken arm.

    This is a “let them eat cake” moment. Make the most of it.

  212. 212.

    Ruckus

    @sukabi:
    Never attribute an even semi-positive position to a conservative who has spent their entire political life banging a shoe on the lectern about the major opposite negative position. Their stripes will not wipe off that easily if at all. And in the case of King, it is they will not wipe off at all. He is who he has professed to be for decades, he isn’t having a “come to Cole” moment.

  213. 213.

    hovercraft

    @Mnemosyne:
    So let them, this shit has to stop, period.
    It’s not the democrats job to protect the GOP from it’s own stupidity.

  214. 214.

    Spanky

    Chris Cillizza tells us:

    You can tell how much trouble a Washington politician is in by how forcefully his (or her) allies push back in the immediate aftermath of a bombshell negative story. By that measure, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is in big, big trouble.

    Yeaaaaaahno. Who’s gonna push him out?

    The best hope Sessions has in all of this is his close relationship with President Trump. Sessions was among the earliest endorsers of Trump’s presidential bid and has been a member of the inner circle almost since Trump began running back in June 2015. Trump prizes loyalty above all else and loathes the demand for scapegoats that he believes the media provokes in situations like this.

    But, Trump also hates when people who work for him get bad press — particularly on a day like Wednesday, which was, without question, Trump’s best press day since he was sworn in. And, as Trump’s eventual decision to fire national security adviser Michael Flynn — also over lack of truth regarding Russian contacts! — suggests, loyalty has its limits with Trump.

    Uh huh. I note that it’s been almost a week, and Sessions is till around with little indication he’s in trouble with his boss.

    SSDD.

  215. 215.

    Kropadope

    @germy:

    Ryan suggested that House leadership wold then pressure Democrats to vote for additional fixes to the law.

    If those fixes don’t restore or even improve upon the original ACA, the Dems should tell them to take a hike.

  216. 216.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara: If King wants to take credit for all that’s good and wonderful he also gets the credit for everything bad and awful. If the glories of Western Civilization mean that King wants to crow about Shakespeare and Beethoven and cathedrals of Europe. Western Civilization also means the atrocities of WWII and the British Empire.

  218. 218.

    Kropadope

    @Roger Moore:

    Which the Democratic leadership has said flat out isn’t going to happen. Not that I expect that to prevent the Republicans from trying.

    Cue the media: “Dems holding America’s healthcare hostage!!! Why oh why can’t they be as civil and responsible as the Republicans?!?!?”

  219. 219.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: “You” don’t have to apologize for anyone. For the same reason it isn’t unambiguously glorious it isn’t unambiguously bad but the real point isn’t that the West is not perfect the way King apparently likes to think, it’s that he doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about because there are other civilizations with long and glorious histories and achievements that rival the West and his fear is basically racist and cultural, not because he is worried no one will read the great books anymore. What aspect of culture does he think is going to disappear because Latinos are working on farms and in meat packing plants or because Syrian refugees start living in Des Moines?

  220. 220.

    Brachiator

    @Doug R:

    The Japanese like to think of themselves as homogenous, they just like to ignore the part of their history where Koreans took over fishing villages.

    The people of Okinawa are not ethnically the same as other Japanese. The admixture of the Ainu and other grouips is under-investigated. Despite its national origin myths, Japan was probably settled by people from Korea.

    And I think it is still the case that Koreans who have lived in Japan for hundreds of years still have to register as resident aliens.

    Japan’s population is aging at a near non-replacement level. They might have to consider inviting other groups in if they want to survive. Ironic, ain’t it?

  221. 221.

    germy

    @Barbara: And what sort of culture do people like King create (or anyone on the right)? I think when he says “culture” he means “$$$” (because that’s all people like him care about)

    Has he been to the opera lately? An art museum? Does he listen to jazz or the blues?

  222. 222.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:
    They aren’t going to ask for help blowing shit up. They’re going to blow everything up and then blame Democrats’ refusal to help for why they can’t build a halfway decent replacement.

  223. 223.

    The Moar You Know

    Japan’s population is aging at a near non-replacement level. They might have to consider inviting other groups in if they want to survive. Ironic, ain’t it?

    @Brachiator: More to the point, will never happen. The Japanese will happily die out first.

  224. 224.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara:

    For the same reason it isn’t unambiguously glorious it isn’t unambiguously bad but the real point isn’t that the West is not perfect the way King apparently likes to think, it’s that he doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about

    That’s the point I was trying to make by using the debating technique of taking King at his word and then proceeding to shred its premise.

  226. 226.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: He actually isn’t crowing about any of those things. I don’t know what he is crowing about, and in context what he is actually doing is using western civilization as a stand in for European heritage. Also, I really don’t see how you can say western civilization “started” WWII. Engaging in empire building I will go along with because the entire history of the west was to expand territorially, although China also did this (as did Viet Nam). Still, the widespread and far ranging technological colonization by Western European nations of much of the rest of the world is unprecedented and unparalleled and maybe most important, in some sense of the word, resulted in enduring if not permanent changes.

  227. 227.

    Mike in DC

    Brainstorm. Since a lot of WWC to welfare, entitlement and social spending programs is rooted in racial grievance, how about rebranding? Propose massive expansion in spending on these programs, but instead of “welfare” it’s now “Whitefare”, instead of “Obamacare” it’s “Whitecare”, “white security” instead of “social security”, etc. Heck, we can even promise that white people will receive at least 51% of the funds in these programs.
    (Sarcasm, of course, but as a marketing experiment the feedback from Trump/GOP voters would be fascinating/depressing).

  229. 229.

    Ruckus

    @hovercraft:
    @MattF:
    It means exactly what it implies. You can have all the health insurance you want, you just have to purchase it. That’s their access. If you can buy it you can have it. No guarantee or control of price so that cuts off at least the lower third, maybe half. No control of pre-existing conditions, so the expensive crappy insurance costs even more for even less. IOW what we had just a few yrs ago. Those 30 million and adding? Poof, gone off the rolls, gone off the payments, back to die early, die young, you aren’t worth a shit anyway.

  232. 232.

    Lyrebird

    @MattF: “Access” is what people had before… if they could afford a taxi to the ER, then they had access to a choice: go bankrupt or go untreated? And then the public as a whole and families on their own suffer the costs of way less prevention…

    I’ve never taken Tamiflu before, and it’s making me queasy,
    but thanks for all the reminders how fortunate I am!

    And let’s keep pushing back!

  233. 233.

    Lyrebird

    @Ruckus: Hey Ruckus!

    You’re one of the other folks I brought to mind before reading this…

    FWIW I was on a plane last week next to a radiation oncologist from a VA hospital (other side of the country from yours). Sent her ,and your docs, some good thoughts while she rested her eyes…

  234. 234.

    AWJ

    @Doug R: The kind of Japanese who are obsessed with being “homogeneous” are in fact very very aware of the Koreans among them. In Japanese right-wing demonology, ethnic Koreans are the Jews and the blahs and the Muslims and the Mexicans all at once.

  235. 235.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara: FWIW, I don’t think there is a monolithic Western Civilization or a monolithic Eastern Civilization. I was just taking Steve King’s stupid statement to its logical conclusion.
    So I don’t think that Western Civilization, whatever that is caused WWI or WWII.

  236. 236.

    hovercraft

    If Ryan is going to be able to “pressure” democrats into supporting “fixes”, he will need to be more skilled at showing his leadership skills by herding his own caucus first. He’s losing rats like Issa, and I’m sure there are a lot more in districts Hillary won.

  237. 237.

    Barbara

    @Lyrebird: Whoever brought up the image of “window shopping,” I actually think that’s a keeper. “Saying this bill gives you access to health care is like saying you have access to anything you could ever want to buy because you can go window shopping at the mall.” Access means you can get it when you need it, not that you can dream about getting it when you win the lottery.

  238. 238.

    Kropadope

    @Mike in DC:

    Brainstorm. Since a lot of WWC to welfare, entitlement and social spending programs is rooted in racial grievance, how about rebranding? Propose massive expansion in spending on these programs, but instead of “welfare” it’s now “Whitefare”, instead of “Obamacare” it’s “Whitecare”, “white security” instead of “social security”, etc. Heck, we can even promise that white people will receive at least 51% of the funds in these programs.

    Sometimes I wonder if the plan would have been more popular if, instead of a mandate and penalty, the Dems had just raised taxes across the board a commensurate amount and offered tax credits to people who bought plans. Now you’re not being “forced” to buy health insurance any more than credits for homeowners and students force you to buy a house or go to school. the public option would’ve helped a lot in this regard too.

  240. 240.

    Roger Moore

    @Doug R:

    The Japanese like to think of themselves as homogenous, they just like to ignore the part of their history where Koreans took over fishing villages.

    And they love to ignore the Ainu and Ryukyu.

  241. 241.

    Peale

    @The Moar You Know: They’ve invested too much in Robots just so that won’t happen. My guess is that the first country to have an all robot army (that ends up taking over the world due to some mishap) will be Japan.

  242. 242.

    zhena gogolia

    OT but not really, local weather guy tweeted the POTUS’s reassuring words about the upcoming blizzard that will affect the entire Northeast: “Trump says government is ready for the blizzard: ‘Let’s hope it’s not going to be as bad as some people are predicting. Usually it isn’t.’”

    Oh, that makes me feel so much better.

  243. 243.

    les

    @Barbara:

    Not really. While blacks have lower income levels and on average disproportionately benefit from income based entitlement programs, the ACA particularly benefited people “in the middle” of the spectrum whose incomes exceed the federal poverty level but are insufficient to purchase insurance.

    While this is true, the assholes need reminding that every federal program benefits more whites than any other group. Blacks may benefit disproportionately but more whites benefit. The assholes don’t believe it, of course, but what the hell. Reality may break through some day.

  246. 246.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    With Obamacare repeal, Republicans are trying to accomplish something that’s never been done

    Congress has never reversed a major program of social benefits once it has taken effect and reached millions of Americans.
    By James Hohmann

    But Obama was evil, and following Trump’s lead, the Republicans are determined to undo everything that Obama did or even tried to do (via executive order). They are continuing to try to brand Obama as an un-American and unpatriotic Muslim Trickster by making him the malignant leader of the mysterious “deep state” dedicated to opposing Our Glorious Dear Leader Trump El Bigly The First.

    More seriously. I don’t know if the Republicans will succeed, but I absolutely believe that it is vital to Trump’s racist instincts, and to those of the worst of his base,to see that everything that Obama tried to do be extirpated from the historical record. And sadly, there are some white people who have a desperate need to deny that a black man tried to help them in any way.

    Along these lines, I was (mildly) surprised to hear one of the on air talent of a local talk radio station here in Los Angeles repeat the lie that Obama had signed a law giving all welfare recipients free smartphones. I think this woman was Asian American, in her 20s, and part of the news staff of the station. This in turn feeds into the lie that Obama was justly rejected because his presidency stole from good white people to give to underserving blacks and non citizen Latinos.

  247. 247.

    Barbara

    @zhena gogolia: And one reason it isn’t as bad as it could be is because we have something called NOAA that predicts weather so that we can prepare and make intelligent decisions. Which Trump would do away with if he could.

  248. 248.

    aimai

    @Kropadope: Its really hard to raise taxes “across the board.” It is INCREDIBLY hard to do so. They had to find the money in a variety of places in order to avoid doing just that.

  249. 249.

    Barbara

    @les: I meant to say that the ACA disproportionately benefited whites in ways that other income based programs don’t. Thus, the predicate assertion that it was okay to hurt whites so long as others were hurt more was actually not going to happen. The ACA helped whites disproportionately. You just have to see which states benefited the most to understand that.

  250. 250.

    Lyrebird

    @Barbara: Agreed! Sessions wants chain gangs back, and DeVos and Pence and my horrid Senator Toomey want to bring back ragpicking and poorhouses.

    “Window Shopping” calls up for me Dickens.

    Now if someone could come up with a super-clever image contrasting the hate on immigrants with the violence towards our only non-immigrant communities, e.g. the Native Americans in the way of that big-league pipeline.

  251. 251.

    A Ghost To Most

    I wonder if Steve King ever thinks about the fact that 100-150 years ago, people said the same horseshit about Irish Catholics?

  253. 253.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara:

    What aspect of culture does he think is going to disappear because Latinos are working on farms and in meat packing plants or because Syrian refugees start living in Des Moines?

    He’s afraid of demographics. Sure, nothing terrible will happen right away because we have Latino farm workers and Syrian refugees. But if we keep letting people immigrate here from elsewhere in the world, more and more of the population will be non-white, until finally whites will be a minority. How will we protect our precious bodily fluids racial purity cultural accomplishments when that happens?

  254. 254.

    Kropadope

    @Barbara:

    And one reason it isn’t as bad as it could be is because we have something called NOAA that predicts weather so that we can prepare and make intelligent decisions. Which Trump would do away with if he could.

    His budget already starts to chip away at that unnecessary government agency, while providing sustenance to our starved military.

  256. 256.

    tobie

    @les: You could probably hook these doofuses by including Patriot in the name of every social service: Patriotcare, Patriot Food Assistance, Patriot Housing, Patriot’s Helping Hand Unemployment, Patriot’s Helping Hand Medicare etc etc etc. Smack an American flag in the logo, and a good percentage of rural residents will sign up in a New York minute.

  259. 259.

    Brachiator

    @The Moar You Know: RE: Japan’s population is aging at a near non-replacement level. They might have to consider inviting other groups in if they want to survive. Ironic, ain’t it?

    More to the point, will never happen. The Japanese will happily die out first.

    Hmmm. I don’t think so. I bet they will find a way. South Korea, with some similar demographic issues, has been welcoming non Koreans, including non Asians to become part of their country and society. It has not been easy, but it is happening.

    There is a part of the German experiment with assimilating immigrants that reflects demographic needs.

  260. 260.

    Lyrebird

    @A Ghost To Most: Word! Just 100, and even somewhat more recent. My Irish forbears saw (and had to obey) those “No Blacks/ No Dogs/ No Irish” signs here, 85-90 yrs ago.

    I teach, and I really work hard to leave my politics aside at the podium. When we talk about immigration-related things, though, I tell them that I can not pretend to be indifferent. “Those people” are gonna settle here and have SO MANY BABEEZ! Yep they did, and here I am.

  263. 263.

    Roger Moore

    @A Ghost To Most:

    I wonder if Steve King ever thinks about the fact that 100-150 years ago, people said the same horseshit about Irish Catholics?

    I’m sure he does. There are two basic responses when a historically repressed group finally gets its hands on power. Some people remember what it was like to be repressed and become dedicated to making sure that nobody else has to suffer the way they did. Others are gleeful because it’s finally their turn to do the oppressing. You can guess which camp Steve King falls in.

  264. 264.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    I meant to say that the ACA disproportionately benefited whites in ways that other income based programs don’t. Thus, the predicate assertion that it was okay to hurt whites so long as others were hurt more was actually not going to happen. The ACA helped whites disproportionately. You just have to see which states benefited the most to understand that.

    Yep. White people in Kansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Massachusetts, just to name a few states, have benefited greatly from the Affordable Care Act. Kentucky even changed the name so that people would not have to acknowledge that Kynect (I think) was really Obamacare.

    Some white people are stupid. Now we will see whether they are also suicidal.

  265. 265.

    Kropadope

    @aimai:

    Its really hard to raise taxes “across the board.” It is INCREDIBLY hard to do so. They had to find the money in a variety of places in order to avoid doing just that.

    Yeah, god forbid, they could have handed the Republicans a rhetorical cudgel that they’d still be beating them with 8 years later….

  266. 266.

    japa21

    Sometimes Kornacki drives me crazy. He is talking about how the CBO’s numbers were off for Obamacare in terms of enrollment and number of people gaining coverage. The numbers are true, but don’t you think he could mention that the big reason 8 M fewer people gained coverage was mainly due to Medicaid expansion not taking place in numerous states?

  268. 268.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mnemosyne:

    IIRC, Japan decided they wanted their own European-style empire so they could compete with the West on their own terms.

    Japan had a horrible food shortage starting in the ’20s and the wheels fell of their society in the forms a series of attempted coups and assassinations by junior Japanese army officers. After the elite lost control the Japanese Manchurian army ran amok in China, taking over Manchuria, picking a fight with the Nationalist and getting beat by the Soviets. When the rest of the world started putting pressure on Japan to cool it in China, again the Japanese elites were to terrified of being murdered by the militarists and instead went to war with the West, knowing they would lose it.

    Japan at the time was more like the GOP and the Teaparty than an anything else.

  269. 269.

    J R in WV

    @Mnemosyne:

    And when the Obamas bought a small piece of land for a few thousand dollars from shady real estate developer Tony Rezko, that was supposed to be a frickin’ scandal. Kushner making $400 million for being the president’s son in law? No big deal.

    ETA: The Obamas may even have paid several hundreds of thousands. And yet it was a bigger scandal than $400 MILLION.


    See, here's your mistake: The Obamas paid hundreds of thousands for property in hell-hole Chicago. Kushner was PAID $400,000,000 for a share of a property in New York!

    It isn't the same thing at all!!! See the criminal taint of buying property in Chicago? And the honesty of selling property in New York!!?!? It's so obvious!!

  270. 270.

    Mike in DC

    CBO: +14 million more uninsured, rising to 24 million by 2026.

    Sounds like a winner GOP, please go on the record voting for this.

  275. 275.

    Barbara

    CBO just announced that 24 million fewer people would have health insurance if TrumpCare passes as currently written. They knew it would be bad, that’s why they have been dissing CBO for days now.

  278. 278.

    gene108

    @japa21:

    Sometimes Kornacki drives me crazy. He is talking about how the CBO’s numbers were off for Obamacare in terms of enrollment and number of people gaining coverage. The numbers are true, but don’t you think he could mention that the big reason 8 M fewer people gained coverage was mainly due to Medicaid expansion not taking place in numerous states?

    Sometimes, for liberal talking heads, it is more important to be smug in their knowledge of things others do not readily know, than actually saying something to advance their cause.

    This never happens with conservatives. They care nothing about facts, as long as what they say advances their cause.

  279. 279.

    Mike in DC

    Premiums for the next two years would be 15 to 20% higher than under the ACA, too.

  280. 280.

    les

    @Barbara:

    I meant to say that the ACA disproportionately benefited whites in ways that other income based programs don’t. Thus, the predicate assertion that it was okay to hurt whites so long as others were hurt more was actually not going to happen.

    True dat–I missed your specific meaning. But it’s also true that the assholes believe more blacks benefit, period; and many believe there are benefit programs solely for blacks.

  281. 281.

    cain

    @TriassicSands:

    It’s frustrating because the case for total rejection of the GOP seems so obvious. But all you have to do is read comments from people with nothing to gain and everything to lose from a Trump win and still they voted for him. Sigh.

    2018 might be a bust, but 2020 might be much better, by then if the healthcare law passes things will be quite dire for rural america. Even gerrymandered districts might be a problem since a lot of those voters are older and do survive on govt assistance. Once that stuff is gone, the shock of reality is going to wake them up. They can’t blame democrats if Republicans have majorities everywhere especially if they have fillerbuster proof ones. They will own this clusterfuck, lock stock and barrel.

  282. 282.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat:

    So because Japan was terrible, Steve King and company get to crow about the wonders of Western Civilization and the British, Germans etc get a pass for the awful carnage they were responsible for in the twentieth century. A price that many parts of the world including the Middle East are still paying?

    I don’t think anyone here would agree with that. All the colonial lordships were pretty bad. Even Teddy Roosevelt and the USA got down with the Philippines. After “liberating” them from the Spanish Empire… and Cuba, too… how odd, how all that looks now.

  283. 283.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in DC:

    CBO: +14 million more uninsured, rising to 24 million by 2026.

    Sounds like a winner GOP, please go on the record voting for this.

    GOP Talking points begin… Now!

    Scary Spicer: The CBO lies!

    Tea Party Congressman: Those 14 million are all freeloaders buying iPhones.

    Trump: We will come up with a free market plan that will soak up all those freeloaders and give them … access … to the best health care in America.

    Paul Ryan: So, a few million will die. The rest will learn a useful, hard lesson. They don’t call me the “Blue Eyed Granny Starver” for nothing!

  284. 284.

    NR

    @TriassicSands: You can’t beat something with nothing.

    If the Democrats want to win, they have to offer voters a compelling alternative to the Republicans. Tepid, milquetoast, status-quo “centrism” isn’t going to cut it.

  285. 285.

    Kathleen

    @Roger Moore: OT but I’m looking at my grandfather’s certificate of citizenship from 1934 and it lists is race as Irish and former nationality as British. So Irish was considered a “race”.

    ETA And I’m proud to say he was an empathetic Irishman who instilled in his children and in me the importance of fairness and justice. I remember being in the car with him in the back seat and my grandmother driving in Long Beach in late 1960’s. He leaned up towards the front seat and said, “The biggest mistake labor unions ever made was trying to keep black people out”.

  289. 289.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The last 300 or so years, the West, more specifically countries of western Europe and more recently the United States have been militarily powerful and been better at harnessing scientific knowledge but more civilized? Steve needs to read history.

    But you overlook the fact that the Honorable Steve King (R) thinks the peak of civilization is military power and the military uses of science. Nothing else matters to him, except for whiteness.

    He also is ignorant of the fact that Republicans 90 years ago knew that irish Catholics were NOT white, not at all. Papists were all olive, or darker, Black Irish, after all, interbred with Spanish sailors from one of the other of those armadas…

    Not that I’m subscribing to any of Rep. King’s fantasies. Screw him and his fascist racist fantasies. We’re bound to win because of hybrid vigor, that’s my favorite fantasy!

  290. 290.

    J R in WV

    @Lyrebird:

    I’ve never taken Tamiflu before, and it’s making me queasy,
    but thanks for all the reminders how fortunate I am!

    How can you tell the Tamiflu is making you queasy, as opposed to the virus/infections you are suffering from? I think what it’s supposed to do is just keep you from getting worse and worse. So you can potentially cut off the worst period symptom-wise and shorten the whole terrible experince.

    Mrs J gets queasy when she has drainage, snot etc. I just feel terrible all over. I guess we’re all different in our response to both the illness and the drugs.

    For example, I’m on an antibiotic that’s supposed to have a sedative side effect. For me, it’s more like speed. More trouble sleeping than usual, medications that are supposed to slow me down don’t so much. Exactly the opposite of what they warned me to expect. Go figure.

  293. 293.

    AWJ

    @raven:

    DCpols.com is independent News platform That allow People oe independent Journalist to bring the news directly to the readers. Readers come to us as a source of independent news that not effected from the big channels.

    That doesn’t exactly sound like a trustworthy news site.

  295. 295.

    J R in WV

    @Peale:

    After looking Burakumin up, it appears to be yet more proof that all cultures have some group or sub-culture that is arbitrarily despised, mistreated, and excluded from mainstream life. And the groups are different everywhere. Japan hates – butchers and leatherworkers? Grave diggers? Here helping a family with preparing a grave in a family/rural cemetery is something friends and neighbors feel honored to participate in.

    But obviously every culture will devise a tradition that requires some sub-set of the culture to be on the bottom of the social strata with an arbitrary rule, as opposed to, say, making liars bullies or thieves the bottom of social class. Broken psychology in our brains, probably. Sad.

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