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You are here: Home / Just another word for nothing left to lose

Just another word for nothing left to lose

by DougJ|  March 26, 201712:45 pm| 48 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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I’m not a fan of the Freedom Caucus, but let me get this straight: Paul Ryan writes a health care bill that only 17% of voters support (with 56% opposing), that is projected to cause 24 million people to lose health care, that calls from constituents oppose 35-to-1….and it’s all the fault of the Freedom Caucus that the piece of shit didn’t become law?

Paul Ryan, like conservatism itself, can never fail, he can only be failed.

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48Comments

  1. 1.

    Goku

    March 26, 2017 at 12:48 pm

    At some point you have to call the GOP a cult

  2. 2.

    Hunter Gathers

    March 26, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    Is it possible to become a Lame Duck less 100 days into your first term?

    So, so much Winning.

  3. 3.

    germy

    March 26, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    Patton Oswalt‏Verified account @pattonoswalt Mar 24

    Ayn Rand’s ghost materializes in @SpeakerRyan’s office. Stretches her labia like pup tent. “Into the death-bag with you.” Ryan submits.

  4. 4.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    @germy:

    I’m trying to eat breakfast here!

  5. 5.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    March 26, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    Of course, the FreeDumb Caucus opposed the bill because it did not harm as many people as they wanted, so I’m not crying a river here for them.

  6. 6.

    aimai

    March 26, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    @germy: Patton Oswalt is rather amazing.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    March 26, 2017 at 12:56 pm

    @germy: No way Ayn Rand would have done that for free.

  8. 8.

    RobertDSC-iPhone 6

    March 26, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    The reason they get the blame is that TrumpCare didn’t hurt enough people faster. The HFC holds an effective veto over any legislation due to Ryan (and Boehner before him) sticking to the child molester’s rule of GOP legislation being passed with only Republican votes.

    TrumpCare was too nice for them. Not enough pain.

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    March 26, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    @germy:
    Oh man….

    Trying to decide which characters in the WH most closely resemble Veep’s Patton Oswalt and Jonah.

  10. 10.

    Big Ole Hound

    March 26, 2017 at 1:03 pm

    The GOP are all taking a dump on each other but with Pelosi’s guile maybe a bunch will come over to the Dem’s side a defeat the “Heritage” assholes.

  11. 11.

    amk

    March 26, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    Per grey lady, moderate repubs, who were NO, were more in numbers than the teabagger caucus.

  12. 12.

    Steve in the ATL

    March 26, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    @germy: Good lord. The wife and I had brunch at the Brown Palace in Denver this morning and now I want to puke it all up.

  13. 13.

    Doug!

    March 26, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    @amk:

    That too.

  14. 14.

    dr. bloor

    March 26, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    and it’s all the fault of the Freedom Caucus that the piece of shit didn’t become law?

    Well, yeah.

  15. 15.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 1:12 pm

    @dr. bloor:

    Don’t worry, those bag of dicks are going to be the cause of many of other upcoming shenanigans. Between them and the tangelo train wreck, we are going to be in for a rocky road. Not the delicious kind either. Cant’ wait to see what drama comes out of the debt ceiling stuff.

  16. 16.

    NR

    March 26, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    From Twitter:

    Number of golf trips Trump has taken as president: 11

    Number of town halls/speeches he did about Trumpcare: 0

  17. 17.

    Hobbes83

    March 26, 2017 at 1:18 pm

    Ryan doesn’t make it to the end of the year as speaker of the House.

  18. 18.

    dr. bloor

    March 26, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    @cain: Oh, absolutely. I’d go so far as to use “credit” rather than “blame.” Useful idiots can be useful for all sorts of reasons.

  19. 19.

    Anonymous At Work

    March 26, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    If I were Paul Ryan, I’d call the bluff. Name myself to my choice of committees, step down as Speaker and name the Freedom Caucus leaders as my successors.

  20. 20.

    David Spikes

    March 26, 2017 at 1:25 pm

    Mick Mulvaney-Washington is just much more rotten than we could have imagined. And you can’t expect us to change things in just 65 days.
    This the same Mulvaney who as a member of the Freedom Caucus has prevented any substantive legislation since
    2012.
    The #1 requirement for Trump jobs-liking lying not just a little but absolutely loving it.
    OT-Trumpers claim he’s working/conferencing while at golf courses-should be pretty easy to check who else is there. Apparently his “conference” today was with the club pro and a random member of the club who happened to walk by. sheeeeesh!!!

  21. 21.

    smintheus

    March 26, 2017 at 1:28 pm

    Not quite straight. It wasn’t a health care bill because it wasn’t about health care. It was a tax cut camouflaged as a health care bill.

  22. 22.

    wag

    March 26, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    you know a bill must really suck when it polls below the Cleek lower limits of GOP support.

  23. 23.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 1:30 pm

    @Anonymous At Work: If I were Paul Ryan, I’d call the bluff. Name myself to my choice of committees, step down as Speaker and name the Freedom Caucus leaders as my successors.

    Doubt it, he’s going to ride the speaker train over the bridge, through the gap, and into the river below. It would be hard to face his fellow conservatives if he did the above. So either he sticks with it, or he gives up on politics altogether and I suspect the latter is not going to happen.

  24. 24.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    @NR:

    Number of town halls/speeches he did about Trumpcare: 0

    To raise the numbers, you need to remove the ‘care’ portion and then you’ll get much better numbers!

  25. 25.

    EriktheRed

    March 26, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    All hope is not lost, according to the leader of the Teabag Caucus:

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mark-meadows-still-good-chance-of-obamacare-repeal

  26. 26.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    @smintheus:

    Not quite straight. It wasn’t a health care bill because it wasn’t about health care. It was a tax cut camouflaged as a health care bill.0

    That’s pretty much all the Republican party knows how to do these days. They really don’t know how to govern. Wait till the debt ceiling and taxing stuff shows up. They’re going to have to be forced to increase taxes on the rest of us while lowering the taxes on the 1%. That’s pretty much all their tax policy is going to be. They have no artful subtlety whatsoever.

  27. 27.

    Mike E

    March 26, 2017 at 1:42 pm

    @Baud: only when the Eagle flew?!

  28. 28.

    NR

    March 26, 2017 at 1:47 pm

    @cain: Well, higher numbers at least.

  29. 29.

    smintheus

    March 26, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    @cain: Yep, the GOP remade itself in the ’80s in the image of corporate raiders and vulture capitalists. They’re now tribal raiders and vulture bag men, using old-fashioned bigots as their frontmen to class up the operation.

  30. 30.

    patrick II

    March 26, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    What Paul Ryan thought republicans would hear: “Blah, Blah, Blah, tax cuts.”
    What the republicans heard at town halls and on the phones, loudly: “Don’t take away my Obamacare.”
    Ryan couldn’t hear the latter because that permanant smirk on his face interferes with his hearing.

  31. 31.

    Anonymous At Work

    March 26, 2017 at 1:50 pm

    @cain: If Ryan tries to keep riding the train, he’ll be blamed for every failure, every problem, every bad optic, regardless and especially those that are Trump’s fault. His caucus has no unifying vision, no secondary leadership, and no one else waiting in the wings. The Freedom Caucus has no positive agenda and no ability to create, only deny or destroy. The White House has no ability or personnel to craft policy, not even bad policy or weak legislation. Ryan’s cards aren’t great but he knows that they are better than the ones held by everyone else. Call the bluff and force Trump and the Freedom Caucus to take the reins.

  32. 32.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @Anonymous At Work: They do have a unifying vision – tax cuts.. it is just that one portions wants extreme tax cuts because they will never be kicked out of their seats.

  33. 33.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    March 26, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    @aimai: Except when he goes on one of his PC Mafia Threatens Comedy jags. Then he turns into another precious a-hole like Bill Maher because heaven forfend comics be criticized for telling rape and transphobic jokes. But yes, on skewering the GOP he’s pretty consistently great.

  34. 34.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    Breaking – trending on twtter: United refused to let a 10 year old girl board a plane.. apparently spandex is not an approved travel clothing.

  35. 35.

    Anonymous At Work

    March 26, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @cain: They can’t admit to it, though, and will be split on crafting a disingenuous bill versus openly handing a trillion dollars to the Top 400 Families. Everything they want to cut, spending-wise, is popular. Ryan’s their best flim-flam artist and he knows it. Ryan’s bluff is: You can’t do anything without me and I’ll make you back me over Trump.

  36. 36.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    @Anonymous At Work: Fair enough.

  37. 37.

    D58826

    March 26, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    As a followup from the ‘what should the d’s do about ACA going forward’ on an earlier thread, here is a link to a VOX piece from Friday:By stitching together bits and pieces of Trump’s rhetoric with various improvement proposals offered over the years by the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Democrats can and should devise an affordable replacement scheme that moves the country closer to the single-payer system they mostly agree would be theoretically superior

    In a nut shell:
    1. there are middle ground fixes to the weaknesses in ACA
    2. they move toward single payer but single payer is still a bridge to far in spite of Bernie continuing to flog that dead horse and divert time an energy from what is doable
    3. they can even call it “Trumpcare if it would get the President’s somewhat worthless support
    4. and who knows it might attract enough ‘moderate’ Goopers to have a chance of passing

    http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/11/14223470/progressive-obamacare-alternative-public-option

  38. 38.

    D58826

    March 26, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    @cain: Well maybe (and it’s aBIG maybe, for an adult but a 10 year old. GADZOOKS

  39. 39.

    Sunny Raines

    March 26, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    Here’s evidence life is both bizarre and unpredictable. Progressives can thank the batshit insane, vile disgusting immoral right wing extremists in Congress for:

    1) killing Obama’s “grand bargain” to cut Social Security and Medicare
    2) getting rid of the deplorable John Boehner
    3) killing horrific AHCA as replacement for ACA

    True the wingnut extremist accomplished these feats for all the wrong reasons, but they accomplished them none the less. Really weird

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    March 26, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    Hmm, when I add the 17% who supported the piece of shit bill and 56% who opposed it, and then subtract that number from 100, I see that 27% of the people in this country were too stupid or disengaged to the point that they had no opinion about something that would likely have a huge impact on their lives. Life or death impact, possibly.

    I would say they are too stupid to live, but I am certain that one of my sisters was in that 27% and the other sister was in the 17%. Seriously, sometimes I wonder how it’s possible that we grew up in the same household and only 2-5 years apart in age.

  41. 41.

    Kent

    March 26, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    Ryan is by reputation the leading Repub policy wonk.

    Can anyone name a SINGLE policy of any kind that he has shepherded from concept into law? A single one? Is there some law somewhere that has his name on it as a principal sponsor or co-sponsor? Has he ever accomplished anything in his entire career besides grandstand?

    Because I sure can’t think of any.

    Talk about grading on a curve

  42. 42.

    Turgidson

    March 26, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Bummer. My brother was a Bernie fan (but not an OrBuster, due to SCOTUS if nothing else) which led to numerous spirited discussions, but we’ve been trading Sad Paul Ryan pics and jokes and he texted me a picture of the beer he was drinking and said it was infused with Paulie Boy’s tears. Much better political relationship to deal with.

  43. 43.

    Kent

    March 26, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    @Big Ole Hound:

    NEVER EVER gonna happen. The speaker controls the agenda not the minority party. For that to have any actual effect would require that McConnell follow along in the Senate and rein in the firebrands like Ted Cruz who would go ape shit over a Dem + “red dog” alliance in the house (or whatever you call Republican moderates)

  44. 44.

    cain

    March 26, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    @D58826: Watching this United/Girls thing turn sideways in real time… the missteps.. oh man, and it is continuing to grow. The inexplicable reason for United to deny 2 girls because they are wearing spandex makes no sense. I realize they are flying on a ‘staff ticket’ and that has a different dress code than a regular passenger… I doubt that should extend to children especially when spandex and yoga pants are accepted attire in any flight/school.

  45. 45.

    Frank Wilhoit

    March 26, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    “…it’s all the fault of the Freedom[sic] Caucus that the piece of shit didn’t become law?”

    Well, the word “fault” is value-laden, but they were the ones who blocked it. If they had voted with the Republicans, it would have passed.

    You see what I did there? The Coercion Caucus are a third party. They are still using the Republican Party name, partly from inertia, partly because dishonesty and confusion are all what they are about; but they are a third party.

    The Democrats are the largest party in the House, followed by the (regular) Republicans. The Coercion Caucus are a splinter, but they are larger than the difference between the two large parties, which means they can always determine the outcome. From a parliamentary standpoint, this is about the most toxic situation that can be imagined.

  46. 46.

    SFAW

    March 26, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    @Baud:

    No way Ayn Rand would have done that for free.

    She woulda, if she thought PermaSmirk was a serial killer.

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    March 26, 2017 at 4:16 pm

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    The Coercion Caucus are a splinter, but they are larger than the difference between the two large parties, which means they can always determine the outcome. From a parliamentary standpoint, this is about the most toxic situation that can be imagined.

    Only because the mainstream [sic] Rethuglican Party is almost as fucked-in-the-head and evil as the Freedumb Caucus. If there were any moderates to speak of, and if the last N* idiot Rethug Speakers did not worship at the “Hastert Rule” altar, then some semi-decent legislation might get passed.

    But, as the saying goes, you “legislate” [sic] with the crazy/stupid/evil motherfuckers you have, not the rational persons you wish you had.

    * Where “N” is a large positive integer. And fuck you, Newt, for your part in all this. Yeah, I remember GOPAC, you evil fuck.

  48. 48.

    J R in WV

    March 26, 2017 at 7:11 pm

    @cain:

    Regarding United and their mistreatment of their passengers:

    They are leaving correct attire decisions up to their thousands of gate agents, some of whom are no doubt christianist fascists, who are bound by their “morals” to make terrible decisions about women. And no decisions whatsoever about men who may actually constitute a threat.

    Our last encounter with United involved a ticket counter staffer who forced us to walk the entire length of Washington National terminal, both ways, after arriving from Paris overnight. Because they wouldn’t accept the ticket voucher we had been given when our flight was canceled at Dulles and they put us on a cab to National.

    We were treated well at the other end of the terminal, got major vouchers for dinner that night while we waited to depart for home sweet home WV. But won’t ever willingly deal with United ever again. A real shame, Continental was a good outfit to do business with, until they were swallowed up by United and forced to turn into United agents.

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