I can't get over this quote from @RepJoeBarton after the #AHCA failed. pic.twitter.com/TuUyAEyAbU
— Alice Ollstein (@AliceOllstein) March 24, 2017
Oh, my.
Republicans are everything we said they were.
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hueyplong
Donny, you’re out of your element.
cain
@hueyplong: I would say the same about Ryan.
Shinobi42
This Freudian slip by Ryan should be everywhere.
dmsilev
At least Barton has a glimmering of an understanding that there’s a difference between using your thumb and forefinger to aim a “gun” at someone while making ‘pew pew’ noises vs. holding an actual pistol with actual bullets loaded. That puts him roughly in the 90th percentile of the GOP Caucus (and yes, we’re grading on a curve here).
rikyrah
That quote
Simply ridiculous ? ?
amk
yup. the kenyan kept saving their sorry lil racist asses.
Mnemosyne
This is like when a little kid’s mom calls their bluff and starts packing their bag so they can run away from home. Governing is, like, hard, you guys!
dmsilev
What I’m wondering is whether they’ll have another tilt at the windmill anytime soon. The GOP base has treated Obamacare like the Great White Whale (Great Black Whale?) for the last several years, and watching a unified Republican government hork up a hairball of a repeal/replace bill that can’t even pass the House has got to be somewhere between enraging and demoralizing. So, you’d think they’d try again. However, all of the forces pulling in different directions which doomed this bill aren’t going anywhere, and if anything the second try will have a steeper hill to climb since they’ll first have to overcome the shattered wreckage of this one.
TriassicSands
I think Pelosi was wrong when she called Trump out for a ‘rookie” mistake. Rookies get experience and improve. I can’t imagine that happening with Trump. He’s an idiot, not a rookie and to accurately call him a rookie he’d have to know a lot more about government and being president than he does. Clown, buffoon, phony, poser, and crook. Yes.
danielx
Shorter: We don’t know how to govern or legislate and haven’t got a fucking clue as to what to do next.
seaboogie
Republicans care about two things:
Cutting taxes (for their corporate overlord donors who help to elect them)
and
Jobs (their own)
If they get to have a grand old time punching down and wrecking the lives of the poors in this pursuit, then that’s just a bonus to be savored over Sunday dinner with their wife (who is fucking the pool boy) or husband (also fucking the pool boy).
Me – I just want the poor pool boy have access to health care – because he’s probably going to need it.
bluehill
Supposedly Trump wants to move on to tax cuts. That should play well his working class supporters. Gave up on healthcare after 17 days and now we’re going to give the rich a tax break.
dmsilev
@danielx:
“The same thing we do every night, Trumpy, try to cut rich people’s taxes!”
amk
@TriassicSands: Implied insult is more effective than a blatant one.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@TriassicSands: An eternal rookie, much like the Eternal September.
GxB
Ah, Barton, the douchebag that apologized to BP for the “poor treatment” they got for the Deepwater Horizon spill.
That said, probably the most honest thing to fall out of any republican gob as of late. Go back to gargling oil-men’s balls you old goat.
SiubhanDuinne
@Shinobi42:
There was another nice Freudian slip on NPR tonight. Don’t have an audio clip, but the reporter said Ryan and Trump had decided to “pull the bull.”
She quickly corrected to “pull the bill,” but the damage was done and the memory lingers.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
Well she didn’t call him a rookie, just that he made a rookie mistake. And for someone with the stature that he holds himself in, that of being a perfect person, making a simple dumbass, rookie mistake is tantamount to calling him a moron. Of course we all know that he is a rookie, a rookie human being. He’s learned nothing in 70 yrs, other than how to be noticed as a massive ass. Or all those other things you called him. But being a rookie is what he is, it’s just that he will never be anything more, he’s just not capable of anything more and he will continue to prove it time and again. To our great dismay.
Yarrow
I bet they wish the black guy was still president.
amk
Has anyone checked on the gun waving klannity yet?
TriassicSands
@amk:
There was nothing “implied” about her insult. She was obviously enjoying herself and I certainly don’t begrudge her that. I wasn’t being critical of Pelosi, I simply think she overstated his qualifications. If any other newly minted president had done what Trump did, I’d say the word rookie absolutely applied. But Trump isn’t like any other new president.
seaboogie
@Yarrow: I bet you’re right. Their MO only works in oppo to foster racism, anger, hatred, etc.
Now to sideline Gorsuch – I am really kind of appreciating Schumer these days – he’s becoming as effective as Pelosi – good team to have on our side.
efgoldman
@dmsilev:
As noted earlier, Barton has been in congress since before the inmates took over the asylum (elected 1985). Apparently that creates partial immunity to the prion disease.
He’s seen how the house is supposed to work.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
This should not become an argument about what Trump is or isn’t. Everyone has their own favorite ways to describe him. I think what Pelosi said was fine and it worked as both an insult and an admonition.
I thought the most insulting thing about her commentary was not in what she said, but in the way she said it. She was smirking and laughing at Trump — richly deserved derision. Of course, since Trump is the most accomplished man in the world (in his own diseased mind) it’s hard to tell if anything anyone says will ever make a positive difference in his attitude or behavior.
Kudos to Pelosi for doing what she did.
ArchTeryx
@rikyrah: Dinner was quite yummy. We tried a new restaurant, not terribly expensive but not fast food either, and both of us had a good old fashioned pig-out and a toast, in hopes that Donald Trump and Paul Ryan would meet again in hell some day.
danielx
@efgoldman:
That was in the days when Ronald Reagan could say he’d rather get seventy percent of what he wanted than one hundred percent of nothing, or words to that effect. That statement would be considered heresy by the minions of the HFC*, who are opposed to compromise in any form. Governing, as opposed to ruling, involves compromise by its very nature. Even kings had to listen to some input from barons, dukes, earls and the like. Now these HFC guys are going to have the rest of the party saying, for the next two years: “great, you blew our main goal and got to hang up Ryan’s scalp. Know what? You own this shit, and don’t be asking the rest of us for any favors.”
They Do Not Know How To Govern.
*HFC, House Freedom Caucus, although I’m coming to like Highly Filled Cobags.
Lizzy L
@danielx: This. And the Democrats should only help them when the issue or policy being addressed actually helps the people who vote for Democrats, i.e. not millionaires.
amk
amk
efgoldman
@danielx:
I like my formulation (kkkrazy kkkaukus) better.
Of course, he was dealing with Dem majorities at least part of the time. And, as a two-term governor of California, he actually knew (when he still knew anything) how government worked.
amk
He is Soooo Weak! Sad!
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
You guys, I’m just so fucking happy tonight. Never mind the future, I just want to enjoy this for a minute.
amk
TS
@Mnemosyne:
Memories – my dad put sister and I and the bag outside the front door and said goodbye.
amk
amk
can’t wait for the twitler’s poll numbers next week.
amk
Also. Too. His ‘rallies’ in the reddest of red states.
Frankensteinbeck
@danielx:
That was before they got seventy percent of what they wanted for thirty years, and not only did black people not learn their place again, one actually became president. There is no room for compromise anymore. Everything minorities and their enablers (white liberals) want must be opposed. All of it, no matter how obviously good or correct. Making exceptions got them Obama.
efgoldman
@amk:
I can’t believe MattY actually thinks Mango Malicious Malignancy could possibly understand any aspect of the issue beyond the name of the bill.
amk
It’s not just the kkk kaukus that derailed twitler and zegs.
Amir Khalid
@TriassicSands:
Yet you start by arguing that Pelosi was wrong to call Trump a rookie.
Goku
Oh, Superman where are you now
When everything’s gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power,
Are losing control by the hour
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
As someone not all that far from his age, I can guarantee that it isn’t hard at all to tell, if he hasn’t figured it out before now he never will unless he has what used to be called a come to jesus moment. And for that to happen the world will have to began to spin in the opposite direction. IOW given his enormous and extremely undeserved ego he isn’t going to change. He will go to his grave a massive fucking asshole, like he’s been for his entire adult life. And probably even before that.
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid: Hey, Amir, long time no see. How’s your health?
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
I’m sure this is the first time in his life anybody has told him “no” about anything of consequence.
Chet Murthy
@Amir Khalid: Ehhh, c’mon guys, the correct answer to “What is Trump?” is AoT,K. He’s a moron, a sociopath, a narcissist, AND a rookie. He’s a rapist, a fraud, a traitor, AND a grifter.
Lordy, Katie Couric deserves an award.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: One could argue, possibly successfully, that that’s not what she said. And as I believe she knows what to say with precision, her wording should be interpreted in that fashion.
Side note: HOWDY!!!
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
Es geht mir so.
NotMax
Dolt 45 has no interest in (or knowledge of, for that matter) health care. He’s against the ACA because it is so closely associated with the name Obama.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
At least anything that he would ever admit to. Even or especially to himself. Which probably hasn’t happened yet and which I’d bet never will. He’ll just make an excuse/blame someone else. Nothing is ever his fault. I went to HS with a kid like that. Stupid fucker was always in trouble for something and always blamed someone else. He got stopped for tailgating a buddy once and told the cop that his buddy had been leading too closely. And he wasn’t kidding. There are many more stories like this.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Agreed, in that he is too unaccomplished to qualify as a rookie.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
rookie
noun
1.an athlete playing his or her first season as a member of a professional sports team:
The rookie replaced the injured regular at first base.
2.a raw recruit, as in the army or on a police force.
3.a novice; tyro.
He sure qualifies as #3. a novice. Agreed that if you limit the definition to sports he might not qualify. Except that the office of president doesn’t require anything other than being a citizen and over 35 and a resident for over 14 yrs. No experience, no proficiency necessary as in professional sports.
grandpa john
@ArchTeryx: I thing it is very probable that they will meet there rather than at the other place much to their surprise
EBT
@TS: My answer was to call their bluff and fuck off in to the woods in the dark where their old people eyes were no good, and I could avoid them.
@Amir Khalid: He really doesn’t deserve that much credit. He isn’t a rookie he is a fuck up. A rookie can improve, a fuck up is a fuck up for life. And his life is that of a fuck up.
Applejinx
I can’t help but wonder if there’s a Lincoln Chafee arc in the future for Trump.
It’s not like the guy believes in anything or anyone, so why shouldn’t he get pissed off at the epic failures and ruthless unpopularity of Republicans and switch over to become a Democrat? That would be mighty trippy, but I feel like it would be wrong not to speculate :)
Ruckus
@Applejinx:
I see what you did at the end there.
But still, he isn’t going to have a come to jesus moment and change. He isn’t going to decide to be a better person, he’s going to be the massive asshole he’s always been. He started high enough up the food chain that even as a fuck up deluxe, he’s been, I hate to use this word, understand it only applies from his direction, a success. That a not unreasonable asshole could have been far more successful and a far better human being as well has never entered his tiny little mind. And it never will.
PaulWartenberg
what will happen next is an attempt to pass the Ryan Death Budget with its massive tax cuts. they’ll just do whatever damage they can to defund ACA – ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE THAT’S NOT AN F-35 OR SUPERCARRIER – as much as possible. THAT will probably get enough support from the House GOP to pass there. Dunno if it’ll get through the Senate though.
Debbie1
@amk: I know, but imagine playing “fantasy football” with someone’s healthcare! All the while knowing that their taxes fund your health insurance. No self-awareness w/ these people.
No One You Know
@Amir Khalid: Hi, Amir. It’s good to see you back.
Ian
The link does not say what post claims it says.
Not trying to defend this douchebag, but we gotta be accurate with our criticisms.
Tehanu
@seaboogie:
Or in the famous words of Governor LePetomane, “We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!”