• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

This blog will pay for itself.

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

After roe, women are no longer free.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Second rate reporter says what?

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“Squeaker” McCarthy

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Turn and face the strange

Turn and face the strange

by DougJ|  March 15, 20177:37 pm| 112 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

FacebookTweetEmail

No one could have predicted:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday that his health care proposal must change to pass the House, marking a significant retreat from his earlier position that the carefully crafted legislation would fail if altered.

[….]

Ryan backed away on Wednesday from his previous rhetoric of calling the measure’s fate a “binary choice” for Republican lawmakers.

Why did he start off with all his my way or the highway bullshit? Caving in now just makes him look like a low t beta. Paul Ryan is handling this they way Fredo would.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Everybody Fake Surprise Now
Next Post: It’s Always the Quiet Ones You Have To Watch Out For »

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  1. 1.

    Trentrunner

    March 15, 2017 at 7:39 pm

    So who’s going to take Ryan out “fishing”?

  2. 2.

    Joeff

    March 15, 2017 at 7:40 pm

    Pauly? Ain’t gonna see him (or his POS bill) no more….

  3. 3.

    Joeff

    March 15, 2017 at 7:41 pm

    Godfather is the gift that keeps on giving. The Great American Novel (in cinema form).

  4. 4.

    BlueDWarrior

    March 15, 2017 at 7:42 pm

    My answer: they legit do not know how to govern, they just know how to write bills to ostensibly get rich people stuff and decimate existing law. Writing bills that do something positive besides giving rich people more stuff is beyond them. See also Sen. Graham talking about asking Democrats to bail them out if they can’t pull off this repeal-and-half-replace.

  5. 5.

    Fair Economist

    March 15, 2017 at 7:42 pm

    Note: Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, will have to change his legislation to get it through the *House*. Somebody seems to lack clout with his caucus.

  6. 6.

    XTPD

    March 15, 2017 at 7:43 pm

    @Joeff: Welcome the Ides of March.

    Also: How many people know it was originally a novel?

  7. 7.

    ET

    March 15, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    I am sure part of all this repeal/replace dance the last week or so was so that they could try and get something. That what they got was crap was totally predictable because the dozens of attempts at it over the last few years were crap. Now they have what they have and it as bad as it is and that they can’t get it passed AND they can’t even get some blame the Democrats milage out of the failure.

  8. 8.

    Hill Dweller

    March 15, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    The Beltway will continue calling Ryan a wonk.

  9. 9.

    'As You Know' Bob

    March 15, 2017 at 7:48 pm

    “Why did he start off with…”

    Two reasons:
    1) He’s pretty stupid
    and (related)
    2) he’s not very good at governance.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    March 15, 2017 at 7:49 pm

    What do you young people mean with this “binary choice” thing?

  11. 11.

    sukabi

    March 15, 2017 at 7:50 pm

    @XTPD: WH has been working on throwing Ryan under the bus for the last several days…the audio of Ryan saying he wouldn’t defend or work with Drumpf has been made available on breitbart…Ryan is now claiming that the WH was working with him to help him write that garbage
    .. Let’s hope they all choke on this pos

  12. 12.

    Jay Noble

    March 15, 2017 at 7:50 pm

    I remember when Obama was negotiating bills that the complaint was he started at what he thought he could get and took what came out the other side if it wasn’t horrendous. This was generally ok. Ryan started with what he really wanted and now gets to negotiate down to something that something that is still truly horrendous – if we let him.

  13. 13.

    humboldtblue

    March 15, 2017 at 7:50 pm

    @ET:

    “Almost every aspect of the bill was inextricably linked,” says Nancy-Ann DeParle, one of Obama’s top health care advisers. “Every time we tweaked the subsidies or the individual mandate penalties, CBO had to re-estimate the bill to see how it affected coverage. If CBO said that coverage decreased, that was a big problem, because the hospitals’ support for the bill was contingent on getting a high percentage of the uninsured covered.”

    Health care, as the front page health care guy has been writing about for what seems like 12 years, is hard.

    From a link posted in the thread below by Miss Bianca (I think)

  14. 14.

    Doug!

    March 15, 2017 at 7:52 pm

    @Jay Noble:

    I think he’s negotiating to make it even more horrible. The Freedom Caucus made him their cuck.

  15. 15.

    Turgidson

    March 15, 2017 at 7:53 pm

    I’m sure that the media will glowingly praise the Granny starver for his pragmatic understanding of political reality and willingness to adapt rather than explain that he’s a towering fraud and bungler.

  16. 16.

    Aleta

    March 15, 2017 at 7:55 pm

    I wish Ryan could lose a vote of confidence and the House be dissolved.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 7:55 pm

    @Doug!: Yep. I predict mandatory organ harvesting.

  18. 18.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 15, 2017 at 7:56 pm

    John Boehner is laughing his ass off between sips of his Merlot and a drag on his Camel.

  19. 19.

    Turgidson

    March 15, 2017 at 7:57 pm

    @Jay Noble:

    I’m not sure that’s quite right. The “health reform” he’d like to pass would repeal every letter of the ACA, vocherize Medicare, and abolish Medicaid. Because he’s a cruel asshole who shouldnt be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.

    His shit sandwich bill was what he thought he could get, I think.

  20. 20.

    hovercraft

    March 15, 2017 at 7:57 pm

    @‘As You Know’ Bob:
    But he’s from central casting, he looks the part and sounds the part, so long as you don’t actually look at or listen to what he says. Republicans are all about stagecraft, they loved the “pile at ground zero”, they loved the aircraft carrier, they loved Bosh;s speech in Jackson Square after Katrina. The substance is not important, hence their constant bitching about the number of pages in legislation. They want to live and govern by crib notes.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    March 15, 2017 at 7:58 pm

    Caving in now just makes him look like a low t beta.

    Unpossible, since that would result in something true coming from Paul Ryan.

  22. 22.

    zhena gogolia

    March 15, 2017 at 7:58 pm

    (Repeated from an irrelevant thread.) I called his office today. First you get an opportunity to listen to him pontificate about various topics like the Constitution. Then you get his message — “We want to make this House work for the people who sent us here.” So I began my message, “I’m not one of the people who sent you there, but I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I am a taxpayer, and I want my taxes to pay for health care for Americans.” The slimy little creep. “the people who sent us here” — the real Americans

    I can’t wait to see these people out of power. Will it ever, ever happen?

  23. 23.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 7:58 pm

    @‘As You Know’ Bob:

    “Why did he start off with…”

    As I said last nite, his ambition made him Peter Principle himself about two levels too high.

  24. 24.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 15, 2017 at 7:59 pm

    @hovercraft: He’s the wonk’s wonk.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    March 15, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    @Jay Noble:

    Ryan started with what he really wanted and now gets to negotiate down to something that something that is still truly horrendous – if we let him.

    We don’t get a say in it. He’s negotiating within his own caucus.

  26. 26.

    p.a.

    March 15, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    AHCA sleeps with the fish…

    ETA: tRumpcare sleeps with the fish

  27. 27.

    Duane

    March 15, 2017 at 8:01 pm

    The problem they face is the only better alternative to Obamacare is single payer.Their ideology will not allow them to accept this reality, so they flail away with useless proposals.

  28. 28.

    Mike J

    March 15, 2017 at 8:02 pm

    Big lottery got to him.

  29. 29.

    ET

    March 15, 2017 at 8:02 pm

    @sukabi: The WH didn’t need to work at throwing Boy Wonder under the bus with the repeal/replace legislation because Ryan and the Republicans in Congress would do it themselves. Now leaking video/audio is another matter.

  30. 30.

    Frankensteinbeck

    March 15, 2017 at 8:03 pm

    @Jay Noble:
    I think we’ll see the demonstration of why Obama was right and his critics did not understand negotiation. Because by asking for too much, Ryan will get nothing at all.

  31. 31.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 8:04 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    He’s the wonk’s wonk.

    More like the wanker’s wanker.

  32. 32.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    March 15, 2017 at 8:04 pm

    Again, poor Paul Ryan’s dreamy blue eyes must turn from his noble visions to the ugly business of voting.

    Paul listens to the left and sighs “do we not have overpasses on our nation’s highways for the poor to quietly starve to death under?” Paul asks. In Paul’s eyes the Left understands nothing, certainly the poor would be better off if we stopped just trying to save their lives.

    Paul listens to the hard right and sighs A man of Paul’s nobility and compassion can not have the blood of hobos on his hand from hunting and eating them like the hard right wants. The Hard Right understands noting; A man of Paul’s intellectual capabilities can not just chase the vagrants while naked and armed only with a knife like a Representative King can.

    Poor, poor Paul. He is just to good for the rest of us.

  33. 33.

    ET

    March 15, 2017 at 8:04 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: and breathing a profound sigh of relief I bet

  34. 34.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:05 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Singing Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.

  35. 35.

    sukabi

    March 15, 2017 at 8:06 pm

    @Duane: really what they really want is for Medicare, ACA, social security, and Medicaid to be abolished. Wealthy get all the benefits of citizenship without paying taxes while not wealthy get screwed.

  36. 36.

    Jay Noble

    March 15, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Hope so!

  37. 37.

    sukabi

    March 15, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    @ET: I know, but someone in WH {{cough}} Bannon wants him gone.

  38. 38.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 15, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    @Baud: Yup.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    March 15, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    I don’t think Ryan’s problem is his negotiating tactics. His problem is an intractable caucus. They were able to get along as long as Obama was president because they were free to grandstand without any risk of being called on the crazy shit they were demanding. That helped to get them completely hooked on Teh Crazy, so now that they’re in a position to accomplish something they have no fucking clue about how to legislate.

  40. 40.

    PST

    March 15, 2017 at 8:09 pm

    Ryan is giving up on actually passing legislation and returning to what he does best — pantomime. He compromises with his right wing, making the bill more cruel rather than less, even though this makes it impossible to get through the Senate. He gets a bill passed in the House and then what happens is someone else’s fault. Republicans can continue to blame everything on Obama and wait for the implosion to arrive (along with Godot).

  41. 41.

    pattonbt

    March 15, 2017 at 8:11 pm

    But what can the R’s pass? The problem with what they have put forth is that it’s too nasty for the public, but not nasty enough for the crazy R faction. Anything “better” is DOA with the crazy faction and anything worse is DOA with humans (and anything “better”, but worse than the ACA will get zero D support (at least it better not)). Trump has no clue, but his white trash supporters are a bit more clued in now on healthcare and they are the ones who will suffer with any R bill. And now the R’s are on the hook if Obamacare fails, because they’ve said they will let it fail – which is now being seen as not caring to make it better, which is what their rabble really wants now that they don’t have to pretend to hate it because a Obama is in office.

    The D’s must sit on the side lines the whole time simply saying “we will support nothing that isn’t an improvement on the ACA in terms of coverage, cost, regulation, and assistance”. Let the R’s sink alone. But I do think the D’s should be proposing improvements to the ACA, such as single payer / universal healthcare – its the anti-50 votes to repeal the ACA trick – keep putting up better than the ACA over and over and over again. And keep getting it scored by the CBO.

    The lasting legacy of Obamacare may really mean that coverage becomes universal (as a starting point – as we all know, the ACA was only a starting point, not the desired end point). It may still be a long road to something approaching humane, but maybe that first big step is cemented – maybe.

  42. 42.

    TenguPhule

    March 15, 2017 at 8:12 pm

    @Trentrunner: Wasn’t that quail hunting?

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 15, 2017 at 8:13 pm

    @Jay Noble: . Ryan started with what he really wanted and now gets to negotiate down to something that something that is still truly horrendous – if we let him.

    Yeah, I’m hoping he’s poisoned the well and spooked his gazelles enough to screw whatever he hacks up next.

    MSNBC is showing trump with no sound, which I guess is the best way to show trump, but they could also not show trump. I think Lee Greenwood sang him on to the stage.

    @XTPD: Also: How many people know it was originally a novel?

    I actually read it. In a Fresh Air interview last year, Coppola talked about what he cut out of the novel and working with Puzo (and Brando)

  44. 44.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:14 pm

    Paul Ryan should have kept the bill secret.

  45. 45.

    TenguPhule

    March 15, 2017 at 8:16 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I can’t wait to see these people out of power. Will it ever, ever happen?

    Yes, but some axes and manual head chopping will be required.

  46. 46.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 8:17 pm

    @PST:

    Ryan is giving up on actually passing legislation

    Because he never actually knew how. It’s like the scrubbing pots and pans thing.

    @Roger Moore:

    now that they’re in a position to accomplish something they have no fucking clue about how to legislate.

    Part of the same syndrome.

  47. 47.

    TenguPhule

    March 15, 2017 at 8:17 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Poor, poor Paul. He is just to good for the rest of us.

    Somewhere in rural America, a wienermobile is missing the pig’s anus that should be stuffed inside.

  48. 48.

    YellowDog

    March 15, 2017 at 8:18 pm

    What a cuck.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:20 pm

    Chris Hayes sucks. Showing Trump’s speech just for the hell of it.

  50. 50.

    dm

    March 15, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    @Trentrunner:

    So who’s going to take Ryan out “fishing”?

    Oh, is that why Josh Marshall had this on the front page?

  51. 51.

    MisterForkbeard

    March 15, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @YellowDog: I really hate that word.

  52. 52.

    Duane

    March 15, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    @@su: ttc: <a href="#[email protected]sukabi: 6291675″>Duane:

  53. 53.

    Alain the site fixer

    March 15, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    There shall be no pictures tomorrow as I am sick as a dog and haven’t left the bed for much today. They shall return Friday so please send them in!

  54. 54.

    randy khan

    March 15, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    It turns out that not only is health care hard, legislating is hard, too.

    My sense was that this bill was intended as a compromise between the Freedom Caucus zealots and the not-entirely-crazy caucus, but it failed on both counts. Maybe he’ll veer hard right now; maybe he’ll just send it back to committee and have them whack at it to see what happens.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:26 pm

    CNN

    Most voters — 55% — say they disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of health care, while just 35% said they approved, according to a new Fox News poll released Wednesday.

    The vast majority — 72% of respondents — said they were familiar with the Republican plan to repeal and replace part of Obamacare. Only 34% of people said they supported that plan.

  56. 56.

    japa21

    March 15, 2017 at 8:28 pm

    So Trump is going after the courts again, as well as the media.

  57. 57.

    Ruviana

    March 15, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    @dm: That was beautiful.

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    March 15, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    @Alain the site fixer:

    There shall be no pictures tomorrow as I am sick as a dog and haven’t left the bed for much today.

    Given what the next post is about, I hope you have somebody to clean the floors for you.

    Get well soon.

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 8:30 pm

    @randy khan:

    this bill was intended as a compromise between the Freedom Caucus zealots and the not-entirely-crazy caucus, but it failed on both counts.

    Whatever he does, he’s now “speaker” in name only.
    Sam Rayburn is spinning in his grave.

  60. 60.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:32 pm

    Can’t believe Hayes has turned his show over to Trump. Click.

  61. 61.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 15, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    low t beta

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! “LOW T BETA!!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 15, 2017 at 8:36 pm

    @XTPD:

    Also: How many people know it was originally a novel?

    I must be older than dirt. I thought everybody knew that.

  63. 63.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 15, 2017 at 8:36 pm

    @Alain the site fixer: I sent over a bunch, get well.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 15, 2017 at 8:36 pm

    Looks like the Shit Gibbon is really getting his hate on for the goobers

  65. 65.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s why he was elected.

  66. 66.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    March 15, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    @Trentrunner:

    Good idea! Maybe someone can find a farm for him to live and run around in the sunshine.

  67. 67.

    Hunter Gathers

    March 15, 2017 at 8:39 pm

    Putin is going to have a higher approval ratings w\republicans than Trump will by summer.

    Low T Beta Cuck Loser can’t get his agenda passed.

  68. 68.

    YellowDog

    March 15, 2017 at 8:39 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: I do, too.

  69. 69.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    March 15, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    Just watching Trump on CBS Evening News, talking about his tax return that got leaked…

    Given what an unstable, volatile character he is, he didn’t seem the least bit upset about it… incredibly calm about it… which makes me believe he might have indeed leaked it himself…

    Gee… why would he have done that? Trying to distract everyone’s attention form something else?

  70. 70.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    March 15, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    @pattonbt:

    But what can the R’s pass?

    Kidney stones?

  71. 71.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    March 15, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    ¡¡¡NANCY SMASH!!!

  72. 72.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    March 15, 2017 at 8:48 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m a doofus – I thought everybody knew it was originally a novel by Mario Puzo. I read it also, though it was bit of a mature read for my age at the time, IIRC.

    @SiubhanDuinne: I should read before I reply.

  73. 73.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:48 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: What happened?

  74. 74.

    JustRuss

    March 15, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    Can you imagine if Obama held a rally every month once he was elected? There wouldn’t be enough fainting couches and clutching pearls for all the Very Serious People shocked(!) by this inappropriate and dictatorial behavior, and right-wingers’ heads would be exploding like popcorn.

  75. 75.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    March 15, 2017 at 8:50 pm

    @Baud: just that Nancy pushed though ACA while Mr. P90X just got stuffed by his own caucus on their decade long legislative objective.

  76. 76.

    ljdramone

    March 15, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Kids these days. When I was in junior high (circa 1974) “The Godfather” was the go-to novel to pass around for kids who wanted to read an Actual Sex Scene.

  77. 77.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    March 15, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    @JustRuss: poor Ruth Marcus would be in intensive care.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    March 15, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    @BlueDWarrior:

    My answer: they legit do not know how to govern, they just know how to write bills to ostensibly get rich people stuff and decimate existing law. Writing bills that do something positive besides giving rich people more stuff is beyond them.

    You nailed it.

  79. 79.

    tobie

    March 15, 2017 at 8:52 pm

    @JustRuss: Was just thinking that too. Only dictators hold rallies this regularly. Why are the networks broadcasting it in full? I can’t imagine he’s saying anything newsworthy. I hope the media outlets see their ratings go down the moment this shitstain is on.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 15, 2017 at 8:54 pm

    @Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: one of the interesting things about the FFC interview was that the studio wanted him to update the setting to a contemporary NYC to save money. I was retroactively horrified by that thing that didn’t happen

  81. 81.

    debbie

    March 15, 2017 at 8:55 pm

    @Baud:

    Also, check out her statements in this interview:

    http://www.npr.org/2017/03/15/520301553/pelosi-says-democrats-have-a-responsibility-to-look-for-common-ground-on-health

  82. 82.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    March 15, 2017 at 8:55 pm

    at least Ryan can move on to something more popular, like his long time plan to end Medicare.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 15, 2017 at 8:55 pm

    “This decision makes us look weak”

    it makes you look dumb and disorganized, Donnie.

  84. 84.

    efgoldman

    March 15, 2017 at 8:57 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Ruth Marcus would be in intensive care.

    Not necessarily a bad thing

  85. 85.

    Baud

    March 15, 2017 at 8:58 pm

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Thanks.

    @debbie: Thanks.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    March 15, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    Black Boy Fly: St. Louis Pre-Teen Starts Club To Promote Literacy Among His Peers
    Lifestyle Jessica McKinney | March 15, 2017 – 11:45 am

    After growing tired of selecting books out of his school’s library that featured characters and authors that didn’t look like him, 11-year-old Sidney Keys III decided it was time for a new reading curriculum. So, the St. Louis pre-teen started Books N Bros, a reading club for boys that celebrates black books and promotes literacy.

    Sidney first got the idea after visiting Missouri’s University City bookstore, EyeSeeMe, according to St. Louis Public Radio. The bookstore is known for its large collection of African-American children’s books. Upon his first visit, Sidney’s mother, Winnie Caldwell recorded a video of her son reading in the store, which garnered more than 62,000 views on Facebook. Almost immediately after the impressive video reception, Sidney came up with the idea to form the book club, using EyeSeeMee as the common meeting grounds.

    Since September 2016, Books N Bros has met monthly to discuss one book with a black protagonist that the group votes on for an hour. In the past, the group has read and dissected Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, Ty Allan Jackson’s The Supadupa Kid, and A Song for Harlem: Scraps of Time by Patricia McKissack. After the hour-long conversation, the boys play video games for thirty minutes at the Microsoft Store nearby.

  87. 87.

    liberal

    March 15, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    @humboldtblue: that’s not health care; it’s non-single payer health insurance.

  88. 88.

    liberal

    March 15, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    @Turgidson: yep.

  89. 89.

    mainmata

    March 15, 2017 at 9:06 pm

    Ryan has never moved a significant piece of legislation (apparently he renamed a post office once). In addition, he is a well-known policy fraud and Ayn Rand devotee. He’s in well over his head, quite aside from the fact that the GOP has been the Party of NO for so long they don’t actually know how to construct positive legislation (as opposed to just cutting taxes and programs and repealing laws). They’re a bunch of ignorant brats.

  90. 90.

    Citizen_X

    March 15, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    @efgoldman:

    He’s the wonk’s wonk.

    More like the wanker’s wanker.

    Perfect!

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    March 15, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    @hovercraft:

    They want to live and govern by crib notes.

    Close! But that would require one of them taking actual notes of some kind.

  92. 92.

    Nora

    March 15, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    @debbie: I liked how she just kept talking when the interviewer tried to distract and interrupt her with right wing talking points. She knew what she wanted to say and she made sure she said it. Too bad she’s not Speaker.

  93. 93.

    Jeffro

    March 15, 2017 at 9:09 pm

    If only…

    …if only they weren’t such frauds…

    …if only they weren’t so devoted to goals that will impoverish, even kill, their own countrymen…

    …if only they weren’t so beholden to the .01%…

    …if only they’d ever had an ounce of compassion for anyone not in their immediate family or circle…

    …if only…if only they’d just jump right into the ol’ dustbin of history, where they belong.

  94. 94.

    Duane

    March 15, 2017 at 9:10 pm

    The problem they face is the only better alternative to Obamacare is single payer.Their ideology will not allow them to accept this reality, so they flail away with useless [email protected]sukabi:

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    March 15, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    Kay, did you see this?

    Ivanka Trump’s Bitter Scent
    MARCH 15, 2017

    The next time you hear about the sway that Ivanka Trump holds over her father and what a powerful advocate for equal opportunity she is, I want you to remember these numbers:

    Twenty. That’s how many men are in, or poised to join, the president’s cabinet.

    Four. That’s how many women.

    Barack Obama’s first cabinet included seven. Bill Clinton’s, six. George W. Bush’s, four, same as Trump’s, but that was 16 years ago, and he didn’t have an adult daughter who styled herself as both an influential adviser and a feminist hero. Where precisely is the Ivanka Effect?

    She won’t be engaging this riddle in her new book, “Women Who Work,” due out in early May, and I say that not because I know what’s in it — I don’t — but because I know Ivanka, or at least I’ve been watching her closely for a while. She doesn’t take responsibility, not where dear old Dad is concerned. She takes advantage, all the while asking us to be grateful for her presence beside him.
    When he behaves, word goes out that she or her husband, Jared Kushner, had his ear. When he doesn’t, word goes out that it wasn’t their fault, that they can do only so much and that if they hadn’t valiantly moved to Washington, well, think about how much worse off we’d all be.

    There’s a big problem with this spin: His behavior wouldn’t matter if he weren’t sitting on such a lofty throne, and they helped to put him there. They empowered the mad king.

    Now they want credit for mitigating the madness.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    March 15, 2017 at 9:15 pm

    @Doug!: Paul remembers what happened to Boehner, and he knows he has no future in politics if he loses the Speakership. He has to pretend he’s powerful, and he knows if they stick together then he is. He has to pass something, but he’s always been at the mercy of his crazy caucus. Now that they don’t have Obama’s veto to protect them, the GOP realizes that they actually have to try to pass something more than King’s crazy “let’s pretend the ACA never happened” bill, and they are finding it is nearly impossible to do. And rolling it out as a giant tax cut that they didn’t even try to defend, while kicking 24M people off of their insurance, and adding a 5:1 “Age Tax” also too, means the optics is horrible. They’re scared, so he’s scared that his house of cards and his political future is blowing away.

    It’s not a done deal yet, but the pressure is working. We need to keep it up.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    PaulW

    March 15, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    Ryan is starting to realize that if the House can’t pass something this public – and key to the identity of the modern Republican Party of “Fuck Obama” – it looks bad for *him*. So he’s trying to send signals that he’s open to suggestions/compromise to get a bill that WILL pass.

    Tough shit, Ryan. Pardon my Swedish.

    You and the GOP campaigned for 7 years that Obamacare was illegal and broken and wrong and doomed, and that you HAD A PLAN to Repeal and Replace. You based your entire ideology – aside that of “TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH” – around the NEED of the nation to destroy the healthcare fixes that Obama and the Dems spent two years to hammer out. And now that you’re finding that 1) you can’t replace Obamacare with anything further to the Right because that takes us back to when things were WORSE, 2) people suddenly realize what Obamacare actually IS (a functional healthcare system) and are willing to approve it, 3) anything that happens now is ON YOU and you can’t blame the Dems no matter how hard Fox Not-News can try.

    And now Ryan – who was NEVER the political and policy genius his PR people sell him to be – is looking at a party he can’t whip into line one way OR the other.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    March 15, 2017 at 9:20 pm

    Kushner’s Felon Father Back at Helm of New York Empire With Two Fellow Inmates

    “It can’t hurt to be doing business with Jared Kushner’s family. It’s a road to the administration.”

    by David Kocieniewski
    and Caleb Melby
    January 27, 2017, 4:00 AM CST

    It’s hard to find work right out of prison. But Avram Lebor and Richard Goettlich walked from their Alabama penitentiary into top jobs at the real estate company then run by Jared Kushner, now President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. The two men, convicted in separate sprawling fraud schemes, were hired several years ago by his father, Charles Kushner, who had been locked up in the same federal prison with them.

    As 36-year-old Jared Kushner settles into a White House role that includes personnel decisions and Middle East peace, the most extensive organizational experience he has to draw from is his lifetime at the closely held family real estate company, where his father is once again deeply involved. It’s a business where, like Trump’s, family and loyalty loom large. Management at Kushner Cos. has been mercurial, its feuds bruising and its political influence considerable. Recent joint ventures and investments expanded by Jared could lead to opportunities for unseen influence. Given the company’s history, ethics lawyers say, such opportunities merit close watching.

    “It can’t hurt to be doing business with Jared Kushner’s family,” said Larry Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on election laws. “It’s a road to the administration. At the very least they’re going to have an inside track.”

  99. 99.

    PaulW

    March 15, 2017 at 9:20 pm

    @Trentrunner:

    It’s always a friend who pulls the trigger on you.

    So I figure it’s McConnell.

  100. 100.

    sukabi

    March 15, 2017 at 9:20 pm

    @Duane: that’s just it though…Ryan and a bunch of the Republican don’t think the gov. Should be involved in providing services / help to folks not in the upper 1% … It’s why they repeatedly try to strip services from low income people, it’s why when they can’t outright kill a program they make it so personally invasive to potential recipients they cut down enrollment. All the drug testing required (in some states) for assistance programs comes from this need to further disenfranchise and stigmatize poor people…

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    March 15, 2017 at 9:22 pm

    Watching Ryan bungle this whole charade of “repeal and replace”…I’d have to say we’re about as close as we’ll get to Peak Wingnut and live to tell about it. Trumpov in the WH and Ryan as Speaker…yeah, that’s about as close to the edge as it gets…

  102. 102.

    Jeffro

    March 15, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    @Duane:

    The problem they face is the only better alternative to Obamacare is single payer.Their ideology will not allow them to accept this reality, so they flail away with useless [email protected]:

    If they don’t hurry up and kill the TrumpRyanCare bill, even the Serious People in the DC/NY media will start in with stories – all true! – about how Medicare, Medicaid, and even VA health care are cheaper than ‘regular’ plans with the same or better outcomes.

    They’ll never get to a serious discussion of how badly we fare compared to the other Western democracies, of course, but a boy can dream…

    I’m still shocked that the GOP didn’t cut the ACA-related taxes on the rich by, like, 1% (making up the difference by passing the cost on to the poor, of course), rename it TrumpCare, and call it a day. It was a Heritage plan to begin with, fer chrissakes. Declare victory and move on…

  103. 103.

    Another Scott

    March 15, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    @Jeffro: Depending on what you mean by ‘it’ in the last sentence, you’re either unclear or wrong. ;-)

    Scott Lemieux in 2014:

    The assertion that the ACA was “conceived” at the Heritage Foundation is simply false. I say this with no little humility—since Republicans at the national level have never actually favored any significant plan for health-care reform, I thought the content of the Heritage Plan was irrelevant, but didn’t think to question claims that it was fundamentally similar to the ACA. When I actually took the time to read the Heritage plan, what I found was a proposal that was radically dissimilar to the Affordable Care Act. Had Obama proposed anything like the Heritage Plan, Moore would have been leading daily marches against it in front of the White House—and I would have been right there with him.

    The argument for the similarity between the two plans depends on their one shared attribute: both contained a “mandate” requiring people to carry insurance coverage. But this basic recognition of the free-rider problem does not establish a fundamental similarity between the two plans.

    It’s a good read.

    Saying the PPACA is a Heritage plan, or a Republican plan, really does a great disservice to the Democratic majority who worked for decades to get (nearly) universal coverage passed, and gives the GOP far too much credit. Let’s celebrate our victories!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  104. 104.

    trnc

    March 15, 2017 at 9:38 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Personally, I think he’s a duck’s dork.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 15, 2017 at 9:42 pm

    @Another Scott: thank you for that

  106. 106.

    artem1s

    March 15, 2017 at 9:48 pm

    are you tired of winning yet Paul? hehehehe! I could certainly use some more of this kind of winning.

  107. 107.

    hovercraft

    March 15, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    @p.a.:
    What will they call it’s next iteration?
    I mean this was the Worlds Greatest Health Care legislation so what do call it’s successor? They went all in with that name, so how do you top that ?

  108. 108.

    El Caganer

    March 15, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    @rikyrah: That’s wonderful, and that’s one sharp kid. Back 10-15 years ago when I worked for Children’s Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia, it was a major part of our reading specialist’s selection process to find good books that were culturally appropriate. A lot of people don’t realize that there is a huge (yuge?) number of terrific books out there to meet anybody’s need.

  109. 109.

    sukabi

    March 15, 2017 at 10:15 pm

    @hovercraft: they should go with honesty on the next iteration…

    Republican
    Enterprise
    To make
    Children
    Homeless

  110. 110.

    Jeffro

    March 15, 2017 at 10:16 pm

    @Another Scott: or perhaps not:

    From Politifact:

    Is the Affordable Care Act really the same as “the Republican plan in the early ’90s?”

    Short answer — sort of. There was a Republican bill in the Senate that looked a whole lot like Obamacare, but it wasn’t the only GOP bill on Capitol Hill, it never came to a vote and from what we can tell, plenty of conservative Republicans didn’t like it.
    …
    1993: Health care takes center stage

    President Bill Clinton took on an ill-fated effort to reform health care in 1993. As the president’s task force (led by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton) worked behind closed doors to craft solutions to ever-rising health care costs and a growing number of uninsured families, Republicans scrambled to forge an alternative.

    Republican Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island was the point man. The bill he introduced, Health Equity and Access Reform Today, (yes, that spells HEART) had a list of 20 co-sponsors that was a who’s who of Republican leadership. There was Minority Leader Bob Dole, R- Kan., Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and many others. There also were two Democratic co-sponsors.

    Among other features, the Chafee bill included:

    An individual mandate;

    Creation of purchasing pools;

    Standardized benefits;

    Vouchers for the poor to buy insurance;

    A ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition.

    “You would find a great deal of similarity to provisions in the Affordable Care Act,” Sheila Burke, Dole’s chief of staff in 1993, told PunditFact via email. “The guys were way ahead of the times!! Different crowd, different time, suffice it to say.”

    That said, the Senate plan from 1993 was not identical to the health care law that passed in 2010. The Republican bill did not expand Medicaid as Obamacare does, and it did have medical malpractice tort reform, which the current law does not. In contrast to the current employer mandate, the Chafee bill required employers to offer insurance, but they were under no obligation to help pay for it.

    Policy differences aside, health care scholar and former Clinton adviser Paul Starr at Princeton University said the Affordable Care Act is distinct in one other important way.

    “The Chafee plan did not spell out how increased coverage would be financed,” Starr said. “It was more of a symbolic bill than an actual piece of legislation.”

    In fact, after the bill was introduced, the Senate never took it up again.
    …
    We rate the statement Half True.

    Potato, po-tah-toe. ACA was still similar to some conservative plans out there, and it takes nothing away from the Ds achievement to say so. Onward and upward.

  111. 111.

    chopper

    March 15, 2017 at 10:44 pm

    @Mike J:

    Perfect. “powerball! (grunt) it was powerball what done it … (keels over)”

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    March 15, 2017 at 11:46 pm

    @Jeffro: Thanks for the link. But, unless I’m reading it wrong, that’s not the Heritage (140 page .pdf) plan. The Heritage plan is a lot of verbiage about history and other countries and basic principles. But, my admittedly quick skimming, seems to agree with Lemieux’s major point. It’s not the same as Obamacare. It says things like:

    p.67 (page 75 of the file):

    (Typos mine.)

    Objection #4: Insurance premiums would be unaffordably high for high-risk families

    This objection would also become less valid if insurance policies were restructured to eliminate or reduce coverage for routine services.

    That’s almost diametrically opposed to what Obamacare tries to do. Because Obamacare is about reducing long-term costs by getting people healthier, not just cutting program costs by reducing coverage. And sometimes keeping people healthy means that they need to use the medical system more often to reduce the need for much more expensive outcomes later. Plus, it really doesn’t make much sense that routine treatment would be more expensive than heroic actions later unless the system prevents most “high-risk families” from being covered. And that section is talking about catastrophic coverage which wouldn’t help most people who would still be on the hook for “routine” expenses of tens of thousands of dollars. And the benefits come from “tax relief” that most people who don’t itemize can’t claim.

    It’s not like Obamacare.

    FWIW.

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Recent Comments

  • cain on War for Ukraine Day 390: The Owl Has Sharp Talons! (Mar 21, 2023 @ 12:42am)
  • Jay on War for Ukraine Day 390: The Owl Has Sharp Talons! (Mar 21, 2023 @ 12:36am)
  • YY_Sima Qian on War for Ukraine Day 390: The Owl Has Sharp Talons! (Mar 21, 2023 @ 12:29am)
  • strange visitor (from another planet) on Open Thread: Too Good Not to Share (Mar 21, 2023 @ 12:26am)
  • eversor on War for Ukraine Day 390: The Owl Has Sharp Talons! (Mar 21, 2023 @ 12:24am)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!