What if, perhaps, Obamacare is actually good and the GOP lit its hair on fire just to frighten the American people & score political points?
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 24, 2017
BREAKING: Stocks sharply rebound after news that House pulled GOP health plan https://t.co/TU32GDDTDF pic.twitter.com/F9bJniW536
— CNBC (@CNBC) March 24, 2017
Yes, it’s only one battle, the GOP will never give up, think of the Media Village Idiots whose cocktail-party weekend has just been ruint, yadayadayada. As a devout Cynic, I’ve always felt that one of our Democrats’ greatest weaknesses is that we can never stop looking for the defeat lurking behind every victory. Tomorrow, we gird for the next fight — tonight, we celebrate!
Apart from cheering our warriors, what’s on the agenda as we start our well-earned weekend?
John Lewis went off. #KillTheBillpic.twitter.com/co9eh4wjwi
— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) March 24, 2017
Trump tells the New York Times that the AHCA bill failure is the Democrats' fault https://t.co/ptisvmhrG8
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) March 24, 2017
Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla), asked what this failure meant:
"Obamacare is the law of the land."
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 24, 2017
Essential piece of today’s GOP disaster is Dem resolve & unity in never once showing any inclination to help out the GOP.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 24, 2017
Held her caucuses together to save Social Security, to pass ACA, & to save ACA.
She’s one of the most underrated pols of the last 50 yrs
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 24, 2017
If there's four years of dealmaking like this, Pelosi's going to wind up owning Mar-a-Lago.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 24, 2017
Really interesting that White House has made it seem like Obamacare is unsustainable ready to collapse and now they're like we're moving on
— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) March 24, 2017
Two months from now Trump will be denying he ever wanted Obamacare repealed
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 24, 2017
GOP aide on CapHill: "I'm starting to think that while we're pretty good at winning elections, we're not great at the whole governing thing"
— Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) March 24, 2017
"It's going to pass, so that’s it," Spicer says, again stressing that there is no Plan B and no contingency.
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) March 23, 2017
“This parachute is going to open, & that’s it.”
“Uh, there’s no pull cord. In fact, that’s a toddler’s Hello Kitty backpack”
“It will open” https://t.co/sdJ7TKWjHN— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 23, 2017
President Trump says he'd be "open" to bargaining with Democrats on a health care bill. https://t.co/sH3F7LxTrW
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 24, 2017
(And I am “open” to being handed a large bag of money, no strings attached. LOSER!)
schrodingers_cat
Reposted from previous thread
Victory Dance!
DCrefugee
This is sooo sweet…
Maybe, after all, that light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a work crew building more tunnel…
debit
I hope Ryan’s defeat tastes like a steaming pile of shit in his mouth.
lamh36
Thru the Looking Glass...
Gee… ya think?
Now excuse me while I go laugh at the GOP…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
lamh36
Remember when some Dems were trying to get rid of Pelosi as minority leader…cause she was “too liberal” for the new electorate…
maryQ
Mammograms for the house!
Jeffro
All that hard work, GOP, all of it…right down the fucking drain. And now you’re just going to have to somehow live with the fact that your fellow citizens might live healthier, fulfilling lives. I hope it frosts your balls right the fuck off.
SatanicPanic
Yeah right, president, Democrats are going to jump at the chance to work with you. Keep dreaming dumbass.
Zinsky
Are we great again yet??
mai naem mobile
Losingest winners or winningest losers? Who cares? Not SAD!
lamh36
Anyone dare to brave Fox News and see how they spinning it…my guess…
Dems did it..
Patricia Kayden
Any bargaining with Democrats would involve fixing (and not destroying) the ACA so I have no problem with Trump working with our side on that. He’s a real idiot if he thinks that Pelosi would help him destroy one of our Party’s signature laws.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@lamh36: Yeah but now I have it on good authority that’s she’s an evil old neoliberal.
lamh36
Taylor
She is one of the greatest pols of the last 50 years.
I remember when Congressional Dems (like Barney fucking Frank) couldn’t get to a mike fast enough to declare ACA dead. She held them together, while Obama told Rahm to STFU.
mai naem mobile
Also, I cannot wait for Herr Losingesht Loser’s Twitter Meltdown tonight. I can’t believe SNL is not new this weekend.
RoonieRoo
I am so freaking proud of the Democratic caucus.
lamh36
Baby Paul and Cheeto, had such contempt for PBO, that they let themselves believe that what PBO accomplished was easy to do…
https://media.giphy.com/media/SH5dYg10Gpjvq/giphy.gif
Frank Wilhoit
Takeaways:
1) 2016 was the Boomers’ last election. Bannon has decided to throw the Boomers under the bus. Boomer though he be, he thinks the skinheads are the future of the Party, whereas the Boomers are not the future of anything. All future legislative proposals emanating from the White House will be generationally skewed against the Olds.
2) The Coercion Caucus are a third party, tho’ still dishonestly using the name of the Party they split from, like paramilitaries wearing false insignia. They will run their own slate in 2018 and they will reduce the Regular Republican delegation in the House to a rump.
SuzieC
So we keep Obamacare–I predict it will be transformed into TrumpCare. Isn’t that what Pres.Obama tried to persuade Trump to do in their Oval Office transition meetings?
Thru the Looking Glass...
I remember reading a quote years ago about Mao… something to the effect that he was a genius at guerrilla warfare and a disaster at peacetime administration… that always comes to mind when I see what Republicans have done next…
Grumpy Code Monkey
Gonna be a long four years.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: seriously, that is on.e bitchin’ victory dance…
RoonieRoo
I am also looking forward to the twitter meltdown. I wonder if someone in the WH is trying to flush his phone right now.
Shell
Not to mention, all that taxpayers money.
Anne Laurie
@lamh36:
What I remember them saying is that “somebody needed to be punished” after the midterm losses – and who better than the woman? Also, “we” needed “fresh blood” and she was “too old”, which (everybody knows) is the WORST thing for a woman leader to be, apart from that not-having-a-penis thing.
Nope, fellow Scorpio — I’m not forgetting that, not now not never. Our motto: Forgive, maybe. Forget, NEVER!
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Patricia Kayden:
I see no need for the rest of that sentence at all…
Iowa Old Lady
I am drinking wine and toasting the win. Tonight, life is good.
lamh36
@skenigsberg
Leader Nancy Pelosi @NancyPelosi just took off her heels and did a victory jump outside the U.S. Capitol @MoveOn
Capt. Seaweed
I can keep my health insurance and Medicaid. I won’t have to go die in a ditch. Yet.
hovercraft
@debit:
Bannon and his friends at Brietbart are trying to make sure it not only tastes like shit, but that is costs him his job, he failed the dear leader. Twitler may have been ‘magnanimous’ but he will be avenged!
efgoldman
The real political and procedural winner today was Yertle McTurtle.
He REALLY didn’t want to have to choose between trying to wrangle 51 (or maybe 60) votes for this pile of pig shit, or letting the Dems filibuster it to death.
Of course, he’d never say that out loud.
lollipopguild
@lamh36: Imagine being so stupid/evil that you thought that this flaming pile of manure was actually something good!
Baud
Good work, everyone.
hovercraft
@Anne Laurie:
Not just Nancy, remember Harry Reid was too conservative and we needed to bring in the next generation of leaders. The two of them with Obama gave us more of the democratic wish list than we had seen in decades.
ETA: Oh and we were supposed to be primarying Obama too.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t experience Schadenfreude often. I believe it is an immoral emotion, a complicated word for cruelty. I am feeling fucking tons of it looking at that photo of Paul Ryan, and I can’t make myself feel guilty.
lamh36
NotMax
For Republicans of today, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.
Iowa Old Lady
OT but I heard to day that unemployment in Iowa is now 3.2%.
Frankensteinbeck
@lamh36:
Nothing I hadn’t already figured out, and unfortunately, I don’t think many people who haven’t realized race is the #1, overwhelmingly dominant issue in American politics yet are likely to any time soon.
NorthLeft12
@Jeffro: “Hard work down the drain”?
WTF are you talking about? That is precisely the problem with the repubs. They don’t do hard work, they don’t believe that governing is hard work and takes effort and compromise. They don’t even trust their own members to fall in line when the chips are down. The leadership is as cowardly as the rabble in the House.
I would bet a lot of money that if they would have gone on with the vote, those simpering blowhards in the Freedom scrum would have folded like a four dollar lawn chair and voted 100% for this awful bill. Ryan and the fools in repub house did not have the balls to call them on it. Never have. Never will.
randy khan
I wanted to mention that my Facebook feed is filled with happy people right now. It’s very invigorating.
And I’ve noticed that my pet Trumpian trolls have been very quiet lately. I almost miss them.
lollipopguild
@NotMax: But, but, but the black guy left a YUGE mess for chetolini to clean up!
Hal
Is there a concise, one stop resource about the ACA that one could read to fully understand how the law works? I’ve been reading bits here and there and some health care blogs, but I have this desire to really understand how Obamacare works, now that it’s not going anywhere. At least anytime soon.
Though now that I think of it, I could start with Richard’s posts right here on this little blog.
How about a PDF of all those posts for people to access?
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: Now they come in the comments to preach doom and gloom even when we have a good day, like today. They are our version of the Tea Party caucus.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: Economically anxious, indeed.
Frankensteinbeck
@NorthLeft12:
While I see where you’re coming from, I disagree. The Freedom Caucus shafted Boehner again and again, particularly when he offered budgets. Any time anything but a symbolic vote came up, he would make a deal with the White House and Senate, and the Freedom Caucus would give him the finger and vote it down. They will not vote for anything that is not full-on sadistic, extremist racist asshole.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Frank Wilhoit:
Really? Where’s GoBlow72 with my fucking ice floe tickets,
NotMax
@NorthLeft12
(Only because it’s so passing rare to have an opportunity to dust off the word.)
Floccinaucinihilipilification is their touchstone.
Steve in the ATL
Saw something crazy today in Denver: a dirty Subaru wagon in a Whole Foods parking lot with a Wilmer sticker on it!
Now back to the gloating.
sukabi
@lamh36: well, Baier says the big winner is Obama. Lol
Yarrow
NANCY SMASH! I hope she gets that giant gavel back again. She’s awesome.
lollipopguild
@Frankensteinbeck: Not voting on stuff allows them to stay pure. it also means they have a very small record of votes in case someone wants to run against them. The fewer things you have to actually vote on the more you can lie/bullshit the voters.
Timurid
Good Gawd Almighty! That’s Paul Ryan’s music!
Immanentize
OK. You (social)media savvy folks. How do I start a trend of having people (maybe in pink hats?!) on twitter or Book of Faces post selfies with the L (loser) sign on their foreheads on Trump’s and every trumpistas feed?
Elizabelle
Meanwhile, update on the story of Trump-voting Helen the Greek from near South Bend, Indiana: her illegally present husband has agreed to be deported any day now, and she herself used to be an illegal immigrant. Twice. She overstayed a visa as a child, and snuck back into the country through Canada as a young adult. You cannot make this stuff up.
Wife of Granger restaurant owner facing deportation says she regrets voting for Trump
I am wondering if Helen was able to take advantage of Reagan’s amnesty program, which continued well into the Clinton administration, and maybe a little longer. She was allowed back in 1993, whereas Roberto is looking at a ten-year bar to entry.
Also, you will recall President of Details Trump suggesting intending immigrants, now here illegally, should go back to their home countries and apply. Yeah, with that ten-year bar to re-entry in place.
Le sigh.
hilts
A wonderful start to the weekend: Donald J. Trumpenstein is a fucking loser!.
I guess he’ll spend the weekend playing with Tonka trucks to cheer himself up.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Crack the Sky!
debbie
Listening to Trump’s comments after the bill was pulled, he was practically hoping people — even the people who voted for him — would suffer. What a psycho.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: Probably the same who claimed that President Obama was too much of a Corporatist Moderate.
p.a.
Our offer to you is… nothing.
Quick, someone get Joe Lieberman’s take on this… NOT
Eric S.
It reached into the mid 70s in Chicago thus afternoon. Sol decided to make or victory that much more pleasant here!
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL: that describes Vermont perfectly.
Shana
@RoonieRoo: Yeah, and it’s rapidly approaching Shabbat so Ivanka and Jared won’t be available to talk him down.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: I’ve had similar sightings recently in Seattle and Portland. It seems to be a common stereotype across the country, but with higher concentrations in certain areas. Sort of like the Prius-with-an-Obama-sticker archetype from a few years ago.
Ksmiami
FUCK THE GOP – All of them Katie… Keep kicking them until they no longer rise. I’m not a violent or mean person, but the GOP is actively opposed to good governance and therefore a treasonous pile of dog crap.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Hal:
Just go to one of his recent posts, click the tag “Mayhew on insurance,” and that will bring them all up.
Barbara
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, but has anybody given any thought to whether the “holdout” states on Medicaid expansion will now give up the ghost and stop bankrupting themselves in the hope that the ACA will be repealed “soon”? The statement from that Florida rep, that Obama is now the law of the land made me wonder about it — because Florida is the biggest holdout, with Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia in tow. It would make ACA even more secure if the bigger states bought in.
efgoldman
@Frankensteinbeck:
Watching CBS News, I have been grinning like a loon since 630.
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Do we even have a statement from the Turtle?
Millard Filmore
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
May the Intelligence Community bless us by shortening the time we spend with Rs in charge.
Jeffro
@debbie: He’s incapable of thinking about how something – anything – affects anyone but him. So, bill goes down in flames, embarrasses him? He hopes his team suffers humiliating defeats in 2018 (with zero thought about what that would do to him/his ‘agenda’, assuming he’s even in office then)
Baud
@Barbara: Yep. Get in before they try again.
NotMax
@Shana
Question is who is their designated shabbos
goyshaitan?efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Doing the East Coast first.
Wait, I hear the doorbell….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
hee hee
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t doubt this is true, cause health care was just an excuse to spew hate at Obama, but that last one…
NotMax
@efgoldman
Word on the street is that tickets for the chaste ice floe are plentiful and dirt cheap.
;)
efgoldman
@rikyrah:
He’s probably home, enjoying a quiet bourbon, not answering the phone. He won’t say anything out loud, except maybe anodyne disappointment, with his fingers crossed behind his back.
efgoldman
@NotMax:
At my age, i don’t need “chaste” anything.
Steve in the ATL
Zing!
Shana
@Barbara: I can only speak to Virginia: We’ve got a lot of safe R State House delegates (all of whom are up for reelection this year) who currently control the House of Delegates by a fair margin. The state senate is pretty evenly divided with one seat more in the State Senate on the R side. We currently have the Gov., Lt. Gov., and AG and can’t have our D Gov run for reelection. The momentum is certainly on our side this year, and VA traditionally elects a Gov from the opposite party of the Pres. although last time was the exception. The problem is, and has been, that the Rs in the House of Delegates have enough nutjobs that they’re impervious to reality. They know the state is screwed without Medicade expansion but don’t care.
We’ll see if that changes this year.
Elizabelle
And the New York Daily News is shrill. This is a free read, not that long, and quite good. You will not see such straightforward language in our nation’s paper of record, the Fuck the Fucking New York Times. Unless it’s a Paul Krugman column.
How Trump botched health reform: Blame ideological incoherence, threats, inattention to detail — and, not least, a bad bill
Its very last line:
Please, let it stay dead. Let the Republicans waste their “credibility” on something else.
Shana
@NotMax: Bannon? Preibus? I got nothing.
NotMax
If he were a car, Rep. Nunes’ transmission would be bits and pieces scattered on the asphalt from slamming into reverse while barreling ahead at 70.
Aleta
@lamh36: They’re crying because of how many people are organized now to vote them out of office.
bemused
Ryan said doing big things is hard. Of course it’s hard when the bill is a mountain of crap.
NotMax
Inspires confidence, don’t it? (Not.)
NotMax
Oopsie. Bad linky.
Fix.
lamh36
Welp…this series of tweets from Harry Reid’s Senior Advisor…
@AJentleson
A word about Paul Ryan based on past experience: when you clear away all the fluff, he’s really only demonstrated talent for 2 things… 1/
Read the entire thread…cause…well damn…
TenguPhule
@NotMax: If Nunes were a car he’d be a 1970 Ford Pinto.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@schrodingers_cat: Love it!
JMG
To everyone on this board: You all called. You all donated. Many of you went to meetings and raised hell. Take a bow, take a drink, take whatever makes you happy. You did this.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Joy-Ann Reid is killing it on Tweety’s show right now. She’s on such a roll that he has even shut up and is not constantly interrupting.
gwangung
Pelosi’s internal skills are vastly underrated. In fact, a lot of the more progressive folks still dismiss them, I think.
That’s unfortunate, because a) you need a mix of skills in s party, and b) her skills are EXACTLY what you need when you need to enact sweeping change.
Like, say, the ACA….
(Of all the old guard who I think should be replaced, she’s on the very last row of the very last page)
hilts
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Whoa! Stop the presses. Chris Matthews is keeping his fucking mouth shut. It’s a goddamn miracle.
D58826
@Steeplejack (tablet): I was going to comment on Tweety’s show as well. They have a GOP flack, John Feehey, as the other guest. He agrees that there is no sense in bringing up the bill again since they didn’t have the votes. He also felt that it was important that the democrats work with the GOP to put a bipartisan bill on the president’s desk. The D’s have to do this for the good of the country. Tweety then nailed him on 8 years of GOP opposition to anything and everything that Obama did. His response was ‘that was different’ because the GOP had a principled opposition to all of the awful things that Obama was proposing. Even Tweety did not buy it.
Keith P.
CNN reporting that Trump is pissed at Kushner for being on a skiing trip while all this went down. LOL
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Paul Krugman took a sledgehammer to Paul Ryan’s reputation today — as he has before — but he called out the media too for false symmetry. Ryan would not be known as a “wonk”, when he’s not, if the media had not constructed him. They had to. Ryan’s from a party bankrupt of ideas, and media demands symmetry.
The Scammers, the Scammed and America’s Fate
hilts
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Maybe the Dems can regain the Senate in the midterms and possibly by that time there’ll be enough evidence to warrant an impeachment and conviction of this fucking pathetic excuse for a President of the United States.
Debbie1
@Patricia Kayden: I would sooner have Ben Carson perform brain surgery on me than have Republicans “fix” the ACA. Holy molley, TR*mp just learned Lincoln was a republican and that healthcare policy is hard and people want HIM tinkering w/ the law?
Aleta
Soon a news story will explain that Ivanka and Jared used their compassionate influence to halt the bill, because protecting the health of women in dangerous footwear is one of their causes.
D58826
Howard Fineman on Tweety’s show is saying, correctly, that the D’s have only won a small temporary victory because HHS Sec. Price will use his power to destroy Obamacare from within. If and when it does collapse the GOP will say ‘see we told you so’ and they will not have their fingerprints on the knife. Most folks don’t follow the kind of backroom tactics that HHS can engage in.
hilts
@Keith P.:
Trump has redefined the term clueless sack of shit. He truly has no fucking idea what’s he ‘s doing.
D58826
@hilts: Won’t help. We get Pence and he is just as hard right but more competent in terms of things done in DC.
Elizabelle
@D58826: That’s ridiculous. Of course, it’s the GOP guest saying it.
I am proud, proud of the Democrats standing together and not lifting a finger to try to sabotage Obamacare, under the guise of “saving it.” Sick of the rightwing talking about how it is going to implode/explode, take your pick.
This was a good, if nailbiting, experience. Democrats in Congress stood together against a common enemy — and enemy is not too strong a word for what the GOP was trying to dish out.
Plus, citizens are getting increasingly comfortable at turning out and protesting in the streets and directly to their representatives. That skill is going to be reinforced; will be lots more to resist.
But this was a good day in a ghastly year, and it’s great to have something to celebrate.
Keith P.
@hilts: It’s almost worth him winning to be able to actually watch him fuck up as badly as predicted. Hell, he’s doing it way faster than I thought he would. All that’s left are a few rapid-fire resignations.
john fremont
@Yarrow: She persisted!!!
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I laughed out loud when Trump insisted the Democrats now owned ACA. When didn’t they own it?
Aleta
@Keith P.: He ordered Pence back, but cell coverage is just so spotty when you’re going up the mountain in a gondola.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: @hedgehog the occasional commenter: Thanks! I am glad you liked it.
Chyron HR
@Elizabelle:
Paul Ryan took a sledgehammer to Paul Ryan’s reputation today.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Proudly own it.
Elizabelle
@Chyron HR: Yes indeed. And it was glorious to watch.
Barbara
@Shana: What I meant was whether it is now clear that resistance is futile and there is no longer any political point or advantage in refusing to expand. Refusing to expand theoretically made the process of repeal easier because it is harder to take something away. Now it makes a lot less sense even as a symbolic gesture.
NR
Obamacare certainly isn’t “good,” but it’s a damn sight better than the hot pile of garbage that was Trumpcare. Bury that thing in a deep hole somewhere and never let it see the light of day again.
JWR
@Hal:
Not sure if this site is truly independent, but I’ve found lots of pretty good links while researching different bits of “ObamaCare”.
(Plain ol’ URL, just in case the above embed don’t work. http://obamacarefacts.com/ )
tybee
@schrodingers_cat:
i like. more?
thruppence
In the Denver TV market, the American Action Network is still running ads urging constituents to call Rep. Mike Coffman to thank him for getting rid of Obamacare and replacing it with the far superior Republican plan. I’m not in his district, but I think I’ll give his office a call tomorrow anyway.
catclub
I want some reporter to ask what Trump offered to get Democratic votes.
Applejinx
@Steve in the ATL:
Oh, you mean Bernie Sanders, my Senator, who helped to kill this horrible Obamacare repeal business?