Oh boy. @NYDailyNews just posted tomorrow's front page. pic.twitter.com/pVV6N93Duf
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 5, 2017
When only the pain of millions brings you joy. pic.twitter.com/nmY9PJBtnF
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 4, 2017
I'm sure nobody there will ever regret a thing. pic.twitter.com/EEHQyAbsvI
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 5, 2017
Reading people's anguished pleas to not have to choose between economic ruin and death. pic.twitter.com/yaK83nqvtB
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 4, 2017
the ahca will make it harder to accomplish, but i hope i live long enough to see his twitter handle change to JasonInTheGrave pic.twitter.com/nvfuGsRTuw
— Big NAFTA Jeb Lund (@Mobute) May 4, 2017
And now the party begins. pic.twitter.com/YlJ3fxUJpL
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 4, 2017
jacy
Chickenshit motherfuckers, the lot of them. If I believed in Hell, I’d have no compunction about consigning every single one of them to burn in it. I’m with Nancy Pelosi — I hope they glow in the dark with this shit.
TenguPhule
This is going to end badly.
Beautifulplummage
Today’s weather in the Puget Sound area has been appropriately dramatic with rare thunderstorms & pelting rains
TenguPhule
@jacy: After 12 fluid ounces of gin and tonic I have come to the inspired conclusion that I still want to see every single Republican in the House, Senate, White House and Federal Court System burned alive at the stake (after a proper trial and conviction).
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
dm
The Republican Death Panel is proud of their work.
jacy
@TenguPhule:
I’m with you. No more Miss Nice Girl.
@Beautifulplummage:
It’s freaking cold here in Baton Rouge. 56 degrees. Okay, so maybe for other people that’s not cold, but I’ve gotten spoiled. Our thunderstorms have passed, but last night was a doozy.
EBT
Another day, more progress on the code on my interactive fiction. More mostly flavor things, letting an enemy leave before their HP pool is exhausted, or if the other enemy mob dies. But considering that an Interactive Fiction is mostly flavor that is kind of the point yet?
Elizabelle
I’m hoping they just built their own tumbrels.
That last one, with To Serve Man, made me laugh.
NotMax
Said it before, say it again. Dolt 45 doesn’t give a fig about health policy or what is or is not in any bill. He wanted to savor a vote against something closely attached to the name Obama.
Period.
amk
what buncha horrible corrupt critters. how did america end up in this place?
NotMax
@amk
Does the name Ronald “Government is the problem” Reagan ring a bell?
Memo to America: Never, but never again vote to elect anyone whose first name ends in onald.
Joyce H
@amk:
My theory? It’s the RUSSIANS who want millions of Americans to lose their health care.
TenguPhule
@amk: It started with Ronald Fucking Reagan, may his soul be tentacle-raped for all eternity.
And then the Russians discovered that Republicans really are the stupidest fucking people on the face of the Earth and acted accordingly.
greennotGreen
Up at this hour because I guess because diseased bowels demand it? Anyway, I’m up.
So, here is something I don’t understand: either most Republicans haven’t read the AHCA or they’ve read it and don’t understand what it will do. If they haven’t read it, that means the ability of our citizens to obtain affordable healthcare (via affordable insurance that actually covers stuff) is of no importance to them; the only thing that matters is the partisan victory. If they have read it, then they’re either okay with what it does, or they don’t believe it will do what the text says it will do. Never mind. It’s the last one. I forgot this is the administration in which words have no meaning.
jacy
@greennotGreen:
Been thinking good thoughts for you.
Republicans just want to win. That’s it. They don’t care. Except Paul Ryan. I think he really gets jazzed by hurting people.
Chet Murthy
@greennotGreen: gnG, I have a “friend” who’s a rabid libertarian. He didn’t vote for Dampnut, so I still talk with him. He’s been telling me that if there were no insurance (everybody paid cash), then medical prices would drop thru the floor. His version of the story is that basically, if you let the market work, prices would become much, much more reasonable.
The problem with this is, of course, that supply and demand meet at a point where not all supply is demanded, and not all demand is met. There is always some demand that isn’t met, b/c of lack of ability to pay. He simply can’t get his head around the idea that (in health care) this is …. monstrous. Even after I’ve explained it to him.
Some people are, like the Bolsheviks, so wedded to their ideology, they can’t see the -people- who will be affected. They just can’t. Yeah, I know: you’re thinking “monsters”.
HTH
P.S. Eventually, as in “yesterday AM” I decided I’d had enough of this “friend”. I couldn’t take his politics anymore, and he seemed unable to not project it at me. So I blocked him, and am at peace.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
“To serve man”? That can’t be real. Is it real? What’s wrong with these people? How did we get to this point? Good God…
BlueDWarrior
@jacy: what, another Juicer in the 225? I’m shocked (honest).
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@greennotGreen: I think a lot of them do understand what it’ll do. That’s why they voted for it. Yes, the ones in iffy districts may well have just fucked themselves, but most of them wanted this shit. I don’t understand why they think this way, but I can’t help believing that they think that some people deserve to get fucked over in life. It seems to be their animating belief. Some people, the poors most of all, need to suffer or things are out of balance, and they fear that they suffer too little. So they work to see that they suffer more. That’s what drives a lot of these people. I can’t understand it, but that’s all I can figure. They want people to die needlessly. I don’t see any other way to explain this.
BlueDWarrior
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): in some schools of thought, only,true clarity can be achieved from strife. If people aren’t being stressed, they become lazy and complacent.
See also: tying all assistance to work requirements.
jacy
@BlueDWarrior:
::::waves:::::
Yep. Moved here a year ago from NOLA. But actually from the Bohemian West of Colorado. (20 years ago, but still, that’s home.) I actually like Baton Rouge, for the most part. I would have moved back to Colorado after the divorce, but the ex said no, so I’m stuck here for 6 more years, till the last kid turns 18. Then I’d like to convince The Boyfriend to try out New Mexico….
seaboogie
@greennotGreen: The cases of Bud-light and premature cele-jaculation might have been your first clue that a “Win” is more important than anything to these degenerates.
Anne Laurie
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
No, that’s a photoshop (as is the breaking-news chyron in the third tweet, I think). Remember the old sf story? Aliens arrive on Earth, give us all sorts of valuable gifts, round up human ‘volunteers’ to fly away with them… and in the last sentence, the appalled narrator finishes translating their manual, and realizes it’s a cookbook.
But Paul Ryan would be okay with that ending, as long as the ‘volunteers’ were only poor people and Democrats.
greennotGreen
@Chet Murthy: I also have a libertarian friend, this one voted for Gary Johnson. We mostly talk about things other than politics, so I don’t think I’d be dropping his friendship even on a longer timeline. He has the wacky idea that the way to fix the healthcare problem is to re-institute poor houses. He seems to believe that people just willfully don’t pay their medical bills. I have been lucky enough during this whole Cancer Cruise Lines voyage to have had excellent insurance, and I actually could have afforded to pay for my original de-bulking surgery which was $114000, but my ability to pay after that would have rapidly diminished. I would have ended up in his poor house, medical bills unpaid, family finances destroyed, and dead a lot sooner.
Jeffro
@seaboogie: so true – one of the things they actually said they were celebrating was bringing the Republican Party together. Over this, the stripping of health care from 24 million of their fellow citizens.
Well done, GOP!
Chet Murthy
@greennotGreen: Something else that came to mind, as I reflected on Mo Brooks’ (I think it was) argument that (paraphrasing) the goal should be to lower premiums for people who live their lives right, and hence are healthier ….. this is basically a version of calvinist predestination. In that theory, as I remember it, the elect (those whom God has chosen to bless with ascent to Heaven) can be discerned b/c they live godly lives. It isn’t that -because- they live godly lives, they’re going to heaven. No, it is that the fact that they live outwardly Godly lives, is proof that they’re going to heaven. And of course, the opposite holds for those who live sinning lives.
In this context, Brooks is arguing that those who have good health lived lives with good habits, etc, and those with poor health did the opposite. So it’s their fault. We of course know that this is bullshit. From developmental defects in newborns, to cancer being (what was it? 3/4 randomness?) he’s full of shit.
But Calvinism’s a heckuva drug.
Chet Murthy
@greennotGreen: And another thing. It’s been noted repeatedly that one thing many, many Rs share, is a lack of compassion for others’ situations until/unless they or a near-and-dear experience that situation. Over and over, we learn about some R who has a road-to-Damascus moment over some particular issue, upon learning that their child, or near relative, is LGBT, or suffers some disease, or what have you. Each time, it’s touted as proof that the R is such a great person. But what’s left out, is that that R continues to be lacking in compassion for all the -other- folks who suffer in ways that his photogenic relatives do not.
There’s something really wrong with these people, inside.
lowtechcyclist
@Chet Murthy:
All too true. I’ve thought of this as FWill’s Syndrome, after George F. Will and his (now fortysomething) son with Down’s Syndrome, which was the first case I saw (of many) of this compassion-only-in-this-specific-case phenomenon.
Rather than demonstrating their compassion, it really highlights their failure to feel any compassion for people who have gotten the shit end of life’s stick in any other way. It’s hard to see them as the least bit better than those who feel no compassion for anyone with a net worth under eight or nine figures.
TenguPhule
@Chet Murthy:
That one is easy to shoot down.
“Give me all your money or I let you die.”
if he’s too fucking stupid to figure that one out, be a good friend and take all his money.
lowtechcyclist
I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe in hell as a permanent thing: I believe that, with all eternity to work with, God will ultimately save everyone.
But I wouldn’t mind if each of the 217 Republicans who voted for this abomination spent one lifetime in hell for each of the ~25 million people whose insurance they’re so eager to take away. I think that would be fair.
And Mitch and the Senate Republicans who will support some compromise semi-abomination can go join them.
lowtechcyclist
Last thought before I get ready for work: the Dems should oppose any bill that the Senate might try to pass.
Sure, David Anderson says Cassidy-Collins would be OK, and I believe him, because he’s coming from the same place we are, and understands the details of this shit.
But if the Senate passed Cassidy-Collins, it would go to conference with the AHCA that the House just passed, and what would come out would be the bastard child of both, not quite as evil as the AHCA, but a lot worse than either Obamacare or Cassidy-Collins.
And the House and Senate Republicans would line up behind that bastard child of a bill, and it would become law. And millions of people would lose their insurance in a slightly kinder, gentler way than the AHCA would do.
This whole process is evil, and people of good will should call it that, and reject the whole thing.
TenguPhule
@lowtechcyclist:
Eternity isn’t long enough to save Trump, or Dick Cheney.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule:
12 fluid ounces? And if it was Bombay Sapphire, distributed in Canada, you’re doubly affected.
From Canada’s National Post:
Behind Bombay Sapphire’s 77% gin mixup: Unhappy customer in Sault Ste. Marie led to nationwide recall
Although you’re probably safe from this demon spirit, in that island nation that Cokie Roberts thinks is too exotic.
rikyrah
Sociopaths.
The.entire.lot.of.them.???
Leto
@Anne Laurie: I looked up the story and it was “To Serve Man” by Damon Knight. They also did a Twilight Zone show about it: To Serve Man. I need to see if my local library can either get the short story, or if I can find that Twilight Zone episode somewhere. This is also sounds like the general plot to the 1980’s tv series “V”.
Mustang Bobby
For some reason I can’t get the clip of Bette Davis in the film “The Little Foxes” telling her husband, suffering with heart disease, “I hope you die. I hope you die soon” out of my head. I can see Paul Ryan in drag — he’s got the shoulders for it — doing his version of that.
lowtechcyclist
Doug, from an earlier post:
No it isn’t, of course, but it’s still goddamn bad. Because it treated yesterday’s vote, not as an abomination, but as a political opportunity.
Yeah sure, it’s both, but singing that sends the message that the loss of insurance for 25 million people is mostly just a political game to the Dems too. They may be on the right side of the game, but it’s still just a damn game.
What slim chance we have of keeping anything from passing the Senate depends on keeping the focus on what this is really about – how abominable it would be to uninsure 25 million people, who would live much worse lives as a result, not to mention those who would die a lot sooner.
So yeah, I’m pretty pissed at the House Dems for trivializing yesterday’s vote. There was nothing trivial about its potential consequences. And no, the Senate probably won’t save them.
gene108
@greennotGreen:
I want to thank you, personally.
Awhile back you had commented about buying a new house, and living your life to the fullest.
I’ll be starting dialysis in a three or four weeks. I spent a lot of time hesitant to act with doing things in my life, because of my declining kidney function. It was a steady drip of something getting worse each time, I went to the doctor. I found it demoralizing.
Your posts about living your life to the fullest have been a personal inspiration to me, with my own health problems.
Thank you.
Gvg
@lowtechcyclist: since it will take an earthquake to make most of the gerrymandering GOP house seats to be lost, the democrats are NOT trivializing the vote. You are misunderstanding, not the professional politicians. They are also building their own team spirit and moral which is nessesary to keep fighting after a crushing defeat. Someone who was at the protests outside said here earlier that the democrats came out afterwards and joined the crowd for awhile. Many were in tears. Now it is our job to get these evil people out of office. That also means not being emotionally manipulated into attacking our own allies over trivial bs. If you keep doing it I will consider you a troll.
People need to lash out when they hurt and our reaps are human too. They have to believe that the GOP will pay the price for hurting people, or they can’t keep going.
gene108
@Chet Murthy:
Is you frien aware of Price Elasticity of Demand?
Basically attempts to quantify how sensitive the demand for goods and services are to a change in price.
Highly elastic goods and services are sensitive to changes in price. If you double the price of copy paper, I can buy the same thing from your competitor at half your price.
Medical care, on the other hand, is highly price inelastic. If I double the price of Epipens, I still need an Epipen, because the alternative is bad and so as long as I do not price too many people out of a market, I can charge what I god damn well please for my medical good or service and people will find the money to pay up.
laura
@greennotGreen: Good morning GreennotGreen. They’ve achieved part 1 of their goal, massive tax cuts for the rich. Millions losing their care all together, millions more to see their access to care restricted and costing more is just an amusing incidental effect.
But the prospect of preparing for larger and more permanent tax cuts through tax reform is part 2 of the goal.
The fact that there was no real or meaningful bill to read and understand is just something for us inconvenient nobodies of consequence to deal with.
I’m sending you warm thoughts for a peaceful and easy day. Your presence here on this bloggy thing is a joy. Thank you.
HinTN
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): It’s a cookbook.
HinTN
@Anne Laurie: I see you beat me to it.
Steeplejack
@Leto:
Next Thursday at 1:30 and 6:00 a.m. EDT on the Syfy channel.
Ohio Mom
@greennotGreen: I am sorry the last part of your life contains such ugly current events, it would be much nicer if it seemed clearer that you are leaving Earth in good hands.
But you ARE leaving it in good hands, life is one big relay race and the rest if us have the baton. We will run with it will all our heart and might.
I hope you continued peaceful days, filled with love and beauty.
Leto
@Steeplejack: Unfortunately I’m in the UK, but I’ll see if our Syfy channel is playing it. Thanks though!
Shalimar
My biggest disappointment yesterday was finding out Chaffetz didn’t die from surgery complications.
Shalimar
@greennotGreen: They haven’t read it, but they all know the 1-page Trump bullet point summary. They know exactly what it does and yes, winning the media cycle is more important to them than 24 million lives.
chopper
@seaboogie:
the fact that they dumped Gatorade on the coach and carried him off the field cheering after the end of the first quarter is another clue.
chopper
@lowtechcyclist:
I guess that makes sense if literally the only response the dems had was to sing that song. seems to me they’ve had a shitload else to say about this bill.
bemused
@Chet Murthy:
Oh right, these amoral people want to be the judge and jury on who has led a good enough life to get health care. He/they are lying about that too. They just want humongous tax cuts and would deep six any of their own tribe in a nanosecond if those “good” people prevented them from getting what they want.
lowtechcyclist
@Gvg:
Based on the list of the Cook PVIs of all the House seats, winning the national House vote by 3% should put the gavel back in Pelosi’s hands.
“Na na, hey hey” is a taunt. You sing it when you think you’re beating the other team’s ass. Nobody who sees the clip of that is going to take it any other way.
Yeah, only that clip won’t be on the news.
You’re right, I should shut up when our side scores own goals, so they can be stupid enough to score more of them in the future. My apologies.
Given your attitude of ourside > truth, I really don’t give a flip what you consider.
Now this is so idiotic that I positively welcome your negative consideration.
TenguPhule
@Shalimar: Still has time for infections.
Draco7
RE: Democrats on the House floor signing “Na-na-na, na-na-na, hey, hey, goodbye.”
From TPM:
This is both an homage and a literal repetition of what Republicans did when the Clinton tax bill passed in the House in 1993. Same singing, same song. The bill paved the way for budget balancing over the course of the decade and (more arguably) played a role in creating the prosperity of that decade. It also came little more than a year before Democratic majorities in both Houses were annihilated in the 1994 midterm.
“Stop, you’re both right!” It’s a breath mint *and* a candy mint. I would expect that the Dem reps were furious to the point of boiling over, and this was preferable to a brawl. Seeing the above note, my thought is that this is not “trivializing”, but is more complex due to background. My strongest feeling at this time is being echoed by a Freddie DeBoer quote from the Atlantic:
“A fundamental, structural impediment to liberal political victory is that their preferred kind of moral engagement necessarily limits the number of adherents they can win. It’s just math: you can’t grow a mass party when the daily operation of your movement involves finding more and more heretics to ostracize from the community.”
So be nice.
Obdurodon
@TenguPhule: Also large segments of the FBI, DHS, and DoD. Stake-worthy, all of them.