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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / We’re trying to have a civilization here

We’re trying to have a civilization here

by DougJ|  June 23, 20178:14 pm| 126 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Assholes

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Look, the politically savvy move for liberals is to let Republicans pass their shitty health care bill and use the backlash to take the House back. But fuck that, this is about people’s lives. So this is very good news:

Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, perhaps the most vulnerable Republican facing re-election in 2018, said Friday that he would not support the Senate health care overhaul as written, dealing a serious blow to his party’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act just days before a showdown vote.

There’s no time like the present to get ready for 2018. Let’s raise some more money for the guy running against Paul Ryan

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Reader Interactions

126Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    June 23, 2017 at 8:18 pm

    listened to Ralston from Nevada. It seems to be genuine from Heller.

  2. 2.

    efgoldman

    June 23, 2017 at 8:18 pm

    Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, perhaps the most vulnerable Republican facing re-election in 2018, said Friday that he would not support the Senate health care overhaul as written

    There is a weasel hidden in the weeds of those words.
    It’s not a weasely as Suzie Q Collins, but it’s in there.

    ETA: I grew up with Republicans who still believed in legislating and governing. Some of them were as liberal as any Democrat, more than some.
    And yet, I am now constitutionally unable to trust anyone with (R) after his/her name, if they told me this month was June and the sun rises in the East.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    June 23, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    Heller’s state is rapidly turning blue, and he’s up for re-election in 2018. If he votes to kill Medicaid and health insurance, he’s dead in the water, and he knows it.

  4. 4.

    bystander

    June 23, 2017 at 8:19 pm

    @efgoldman: Because nobody is as weasely as Suzie Q. Collins. She is after all from Maine.

  5. 5.

    efgoldman

    June 23, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @bystander:

    Because nobody is as weasely as Suzie Q. Collins.

    I’d call it a dead heat with Grandpa Mavericky Walnuts

  6. 6.

    Doug!

    June 23, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    @rikyrah:

    I don’t care who he is, where he’s from, or what he did, if he votes against this, he’s a hero to me.

  7. 7.

    Doug!

    June 23, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    @bystander:

    I hate her the most.

  8. 8.

    BBA

    June 23, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    Civilization? It would be a good idea.

    Ignore the kayfabe from the Senate Rs. It’s a tax cut. They’ll all vote yea.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    @Doug!: Do you feel the same way about Ted Cruz?

  10. 10.

    Doug!

    June 23, 2017 at 8:27 pm

    @Baud:

    If he stops this thing, then he’s doing the Lord’s work, yes.

  11. 11.

    middlelee

    June 23, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    Done.

  12. 12.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 23, 2017 at 8:30 pm

    @Doug!: Al Franken said he likes Ted Cruz more than his colleagues do, and he HATES TED CRUZ.

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 23, 2017 at 8:30 pm

    @Baud: I always thought Rand Paul might have an interest in derailing it to preserve the quirky family brand/pseudo-presidential campaign thing while keeping a bunch of angry Kentuckians off his back, but I thought I heard something on NPR news today that he’s already caved. He’s not nearly as quirky as the old man and may actually think the presidential possibility is real. Anybody know more?

  14. 14.

    frosty

    June 23, 2017 at 8:31 pm

    Josh Marshall’s take is that it’s an opening for a negotiation. He has a convincing argument.

    In This Form

  15. 15.

    Doug!

    June 23, 2017 at 8:33 pm

    @frosty:

    Yeah, but I hope more of them do this anyway.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 23, 2017 at 8:34 pm

    Lovett‏Verified account @ jonlovett 3h3 hours ag
    Monday on @ PodSaveAmerica, @ Sen_JoeManchin joins @ TVietor08 and me to talk about the latest on Trumpcare. Will be interesting.

    Oy.

    @frosty: I’m afraid this is the most likely scenario, but I don’t think it will do him a lot of favors at home. And people, including Ralston, are saying the Reid Machine is not something he can ignore. I’m trying to be hopeful…

  17. 17.

    satby

    June 23, 2017 at 8:34 pm

    @efgoldman: I’m with you. Old enough to remember Republicans who were ethical and often socially liberal, now if I see an R after their name I assume they’re a vicious, lying motherfucker. And now they come with a heaping helping of treasonous intent.

  18. 18.

    Doug!

    June 23, 2017 at 8:34 pm

    @middlelee:

    Thanks

  19. 19.

    efgoldman

    June 23, 2017 at 8:35 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    while keeping a bunch of angry Kentuckians off his back

    They ALREADY voted in a governor who’s whole platform was getting rid of Obamacare.

  20. 20.

    efgoldman

    June 23, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    @satby:

    Old enough to remember Republicans who were ethical and often socially liberal

    Hell, I voted for some of them (but none after ’72). Ed Brooke, Saltonstall, Elliott Richardson, John Volpe, Frank Sargent….

  21. 21.

    Cacti

    June 23, 2017 at 8:43 pm

    @BBA:

    Ignore the kayfabe from the Senate Rs. It’s a tax cut. They’ll all vote yea.

    And it massively screws the poors in an immediate way.

    No way they don’t get 50 votes for it.

  22. 22.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 8:44 pm

    @efgoldman: I actually tell my sons, that in the olden days, you could vote for republicans.

    btw they laugh

  23. 23.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 8:44 pm

    The lefties on my Facebook have already started to hate the guy running against Paul Ryan, FYI.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: So you’re saying he’s a good guy.

  25. 25.

    Gian

    June 23, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    the four horsemen yesterday were bitching because it wasn’t cruel enough. Mitch can lose two moderates, and will let two moderates vote against it, so that Pence can break a 50-50 tie.
    when three moderates firmly commit to being against, I’ll believe it

  26. 26.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 8:47 pm

    Today I called my senators and said you can’t say you are pro-life and support this bill. It takes funding away from children and the elderly.

  27. 27.

    MisterForkbeard

    June 23, 2017 at 8:47 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Anything in particular, or he is just insufficiently loyal to Brogressivism?

  28. 28.

    debbie

    June 23, 2017 at 8:48 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I haven’t heard anything about his caving…yet.

  29. 29.

    Hal

    June 23, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    I work in a Cancer Center. I know for a fact many of our patients have exchange plans and medicaid through expansion. I cannot lie in that some days I really think, fuck em, this is what you voted for, let them burn and maybe people will wake up. But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do, and maybe, just maybe, people will realize what’s in their best interest and maybe Dems can use that to an electoral advantage. Hell, if anything, Republicans fucking over tens of millions of people would probably just get blamed on Obama anyway.

  30. 30.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 8:49 pm

    @Baud: one of them called him “the next Ken Bone” and I have absolutely no idea what the fuck that means for them, but it was bad.

    ETA: @MisterForkbeard: the person who said the ken bone thing said re: his apparent love of Louise Mensch, I think one of the Intercept people pointed that bit out.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I thought Ken Bone was popular during his 15 minutes. And he didn’t run for anything.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 8:52 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: haha.. I love all of the wilmer bros dissecting Ossoff’s loss. I think he needed a counter puncher because he wasn’t one, but they don’t really mention that. He ran a good campaign, and personally I think that if Scalise hadn’t been shot, and had she not received questionable mailer with white powder, the election was his. I hope he runs again, but this time with a spokesperson, who fights back. Her turnout became energized the last week, and you could feel it.

  33. 33.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 8:52 pm

    @Baud: I mean, he has a mustache I guess.

    Really have no idea what they meant.

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 23, 2017 at 8:52 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: working class guys with mustaches, not the cool hipster kind?
    (I never got the Ken Bone thing, wasn’t he just a reliable R vote pretending to be conflicted to get on TeeVee?)

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    June 23, 2017 at 8:53 pm

    @Doug!:
    Whatever else you do today, do NOT listen to the Brooks and Shields segment on ATC, in which Brooks intones McConnell’s bill is as moderate as earthly possible so as to not displease too many. On the heels of his Whitewater column it basically cements the argument for vaporization.

    Not that I’d suggest such a thing.

    Shields, to his credit, was having none of it in the usual dispassionate fashion.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 8:54 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: There was the sweater, right?

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    June 23, 2017 at 8:56 pm

    @bystander:

    Because nobody is as weasely as Suzie Q. Collins.

    yep

    truth

  38. 38.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 23, 2017 at 8:56 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Would a man bun be better?
    Y

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    June 23, 2017 at 8:56 pm

    @JPL:
    Just read Medicaid provides funds for schools (nurses, etc.) that would be wiped out. Maybe they can just shunt that over to DeVos for her discretionary funds.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    June 23, 2017 at 8:56 pm

    TheHill:

    House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said the Senate healthcare reform legislation doesn’t have enough conservative support to pass the House, should it get that far.

    A spokesman for the conservative leader, who played a role in passage of the House legislation repealing some parts of ObamaCare, said Meadows doesn’t think the draft bill released Thursday by the House will pass muster.

    “Rep. Meadows believes the current version of the Senate bill would not have the conservative support to pass through the House, but we’re optimistic that the issues can be resolved,” Meadows spokesman Ben Williamson told The Hill.

    Senate Republican leaders intend to vote on the legislation next Thursday, before leaving for the Fourth of July recess. They face defections from conservatives and centrist Republicans to their initial draft and have vowed to make changes. It’s not clear how they can satisfy both groups and get to 50 votes, however. Vice President Pence could then cast a tie-breaking vote.

    If it passes, the House will need to either pass the Senate version or go to a conference committee to work out the differences.

    The Freedom Caucus has not taken an official position on the bill, but caucus spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said one could come in the future. Farah also said Meadows believes the House needs to go to conference with the Senate, if a bill should pass.

    Meadows isn’t the only House Republican to express misgivings about the Senate legislation. Even before the bill was introduced, 28 members of the House Republican Study Committee sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) outlining four crucial areas that needed to be addressed, including ending Medicaid expansion after 2020 and repealing all of ObamaCare’s taxes.

    The Republican Study Committee is the largest bloc of conservatives in Congress. It opposed an earlier version of the House bill but was brought in by giving states the option to impose work requirements to Medicaid, as well as block granting the program.

    The American Health Care Act narrowly passed the House in May only after the legislation was amended to win votes from conservatives. Until those changes were made, the legislation lacked the support to pass.

    But the Senate has softened some of those same provisions, which could prove problematic in the House.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Yeah, there’s the weasel language, but that’s actually understandable IMHO. They want McConnell to satisfy their demands on the promise of getting their support. If they say, “there’s no way I’m voting for the Senate bill” then there’s no incentive for anyone to try to accommodate them.

    What I think is important is that they feel no need to pass the Senate bill and they want to go to conference. I don’t think McConnell can force the issue (but may be wrong) – the House has already passed a bill after all. If McConnell really wants the House to pass his bill (to eliminate the need for a conference), then he has to cater to at least some of their demands (and in the process risk pissing off votes he needs in the Senate).

    We’ll see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 8:57 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    (I never got the Ken Bone thing, wasn’t he just a reliable R vote pretending to be conflicted to get on TeeVee?)

    With a penchant for reviewing films of pregnant women engaging in certain acts on Reddit, yes.

    @schrodingers_cat: lol!

  42. 42.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 8:58 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Oh, that’s news to me.

  43. 43.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 8:58 pm

    For those of you like me who live in states with two solid Dem Senators, still call! Express support! It’s not an empty gesture–our representatives need to know that we have their back when they do the right thing.

  44. 44.

    p.a.

    June 23, 2017 at 8:59 pm

    The leadership will allow some ‘No’ votes if their ultimate number = at least 50, otherwise it’s all talk by Senators who fear a primary by Koch etc funded teatards more than a D in the general.

  45. 45.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 9:00 pm

    @Baud: he did his reddit ask-me-anything under his real username, forgetting that it was easy to look up the history..:

  46. 46.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Haha. Of course he did.

  47. 47.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    @trollhattan: The federal government mandates that you educate the disabled, no matter how severely disabled they are. They are keeping the mandate but cutting the funding. They are cutting the funding of public clinics. It’s amazing how cruel the bill really is.

    I will say that if you live in a conservative state, it’s a good idea to call them on their pro-life positions.

  48. 48.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    Anyone else find the concern trolling (on Twitter especially) from the right about how stating that this bill kills people is somehow outrageously beyond the pale? FFS this is coming from the people who talked about “death panels” and “pulling the plug on grandma” on 2009–in response to something as innocuous as counseling for end-of-life decisions. These people ARE pulling the the sick and dying–and now they’re going to profess their shock when we point out the obvious?

  49. 49.

    hueyplong

    June 23, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    Sociopaths pretending to have concerns.

    I’ll believe something else when the yertle side gets 49 votes and not before.

  50. 50.

    kd bart

    June 23, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    @JPL: Live in the district. The 2 month lag between elections, in the end, probably did him. Loss all momentum off that surprising 48% in the jungle primary & the GOP had plenty to coalesce around Handel. He might’ve pulled it out a month earlier. But still, he got 48% in a district where no Dem has gotten over 40% in over 2 decades. If he runs a Wilmer style campaign, he comes nowhere 48%.

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    June 23, 2017 at 9:04 pm

    Hayes: Stop saying that the GOP didnt get it. They got it. They are traitors to this country.

  52. 52.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 9:04 pm

    @kd bart:

    I don’t think the shooting helped, either. And, if anything, Ossoff being slightly more moderate on social issues would have helped–even if it was just shallow cultural signaling.

  53. 53.

    Mike J

    June 23, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    @kd bart: UK held an entire parliamentary election between the primary and the runoff.

  54. 54.

    SectionH

    June 23, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: My first reaction is No way he crosses Mitch on this. Said so to Mr S. We went back and forth a bit, until I got it that Rand and 3 other R No votes under discussion were from the right, and they want the bill to be even worse than it already may be.

    That made sense.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    @rikyrah: What didn’t the GOP get?

  56. 56.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:06 pm

    Oh fk he’s tweeting

    Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?

    @kd bart: That’s definitely true.

  57. 57.

    Kathleen

    June 23, 2017 at 9:07 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The only thing I know is that he wanted a leaner, meaner bill so I’m thinking in the spirit of Kentucky Camaraderie he amended bill to state that in order to purchase horribly expensive health insurance that covered nothing one also had to provide proof that he/she killed a puppy.

  58. 58.

    kd bart

    June 23, 2017 at 9:08 pm

    @Mike J: Believe me, a lot of people were tired of the contant barrage of ads and mailings. Was getting 2 or 3 mailings a day from the Ossoff campaign. At some point, the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

  59. 59.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 23, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    @trollhattan:

    E. J. Dionne, I think you mean. Not Shields.

  60. 60.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:13 pm

    @kd bart: Did you see this

    4,653 anti-Pelosi ads run in GA06 btwn 4/19-6/20

  61. 61.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 9:13 pm

    @kd bart:

    What are the odds the district can be flipped in 2018 in your opinion? A lot of online liberals/leftists are ready to write-off GA-06 as some dystopian Klan bake at this point.

    Also, do you think the anti-Pelosi stuff got anti-Trump Republicans to vote for Handel anyway?

  62. 62.

    efgoldman

    June 23, 2017 at 9:13 pm

    @Gian:

    Mitch can lose two moderates

    Before he loses them, he has to find them. You’ll see a live T-Rex eating a live dodo before you find any “moderates.”
    I don’t care if the “no” votes are phony moderates or Savonarola; I don’t care why they vote against it, as long as there are at least four of them.
    I doubt we’ll see it.

  63. 63.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 9:15 pm

    @JPL: we would’ve been way better off if those were anti-Hoyer ads ??

  64. 64.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 9:15 pm

    @efgoldman: At least three.

  65. 65.

    Redshift

    June 23, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    Look, the politically savvy move for liberals is to let Republicans pass their shitty health care bill and use the backlash to take the House back.

    I agree that we shouldn’t be that irresponsible, but I disagree about the politics. They’ve set up Medicaid to wither away over many years, rather than pulling the rug out immediately, so I’m not convinced it’ll materially affect people enough by 2018 to make implementing it more of a disaster for them politically than just introducing it. And in addition, of they fail, they’ll have backlash and demoralized wingnuts. Win-win in my book.

  66. 66.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 9:18 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Nobody who wants Pelosi out would want Hoyer in her place. Again, tired of the Dem House leadership looking like the Brezhnev-era CPSU.

  67. 67.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I think they like to use Nancy. They’ll attack anyone though. Since they only have policies that help the one percent, it’s what they do to win.

  68. 68.

    Mike J

    June 23, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    Funny how similar MRA and MRSA are.

  69. 69.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 9:21 pm

    @Mike J: can’t catch MRA in the hospital.

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 9:23 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Are you sure? A TBI might get you there.

    ETA: Or some kind of prion disease.

  71. 71.

    kd bart

    June 23, 2017 at 9:25 pm

    @JPL: They were still using Jane Fonda as a symbol of Hollywood support.

  72. 72.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 9:25 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: those are things that get you to the hospital though, prions aren’t really a hospital-based infection.

  73. 73.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 23, 2017 at 9:27 pm

    @Ben from Virginia: So you want Putin, instead? Got it.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 9:27 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I wasn’t saying it was likely.

  75. 75.

    kd bart

    June 23, 2017 at 9:28 pm

    @Ben from Virginia: She’s such an awful hack that she can be beaten in 2018 but you have to go after her hackdom on behalf of Trump & Co.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 9:29 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: I think the House rules require shirts be worn on the House floor.

  77. 77.

    Mike J

    June 23, 2017 at 9:30 pm

    @kd bart: Tut tut now, he’s likely to call you a sjw. A title I would hope all decent people aspire to.

  78. 78.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 23, 2017 at 9:30 pm

    Inspired by Pelosi should be replaced because of winger criticism:
    Indian National Congress in the 1940s, we should replace Gandhi because Churchill calls him a naked beggar.

  79. 79.

    efgoldman

    June 23, 2017 at 9:31 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    can’t catch MRA in the hospital.

    Apparently you can catch it any damned place where bros hang out.

  80. 80.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 9:31 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: which one makes you like pie?

  81. 81.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 23, 2017 at 9:33 pm

    @Baud: Manly men need no stinking rules, shirtless, pantsless, with a mop or not, everything is OK.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I’ve always liked pie. I have even requested a birthday pie rather than a cake on occasion.

  83. 83.

    JPL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:34 pm

    @kd bart: I actually read that had he served that would help. I’m sure that Max Cleland appreciated that comment.

  84. 84.

    Steve in the ATL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: me too! Chocolate cream. And now pie is my favorite B-J accessory. What a world we live in!

  85. 85.

    Morzer

    June 23, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    I think that the only real chance of stopping this thing is if the cosplay moderates like Collins and Heller manage to put enough concessions to reality into the bill that the House conservatives won’t accept it. I am not particularly hopeful that this will happen, since the GOP has to pass this monstrosity to get to their tax cuts for Trump’s fellow martyrs of the plutocracy. The prospect of angering their owners tends to scare the GOP more than the prospect of angering real Americans in gerrymandered states.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    June 23, 2017 at 9:40 pm

    @JPL: Heh.

  87. 87.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 23, 2017 at 9:41 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Steve in the ATL: me three! Pie twinsies!

  88. 88.

    Sab

    June 23, 2017 at 9:44 pm

    @Mike J: And they got Theresa May in Coalition with Ian Paisley ‘s party. This is a good thing?

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 9:46 pm

    @Sab: The GA-06 election resulted in Karen Handel going to Congress. This isn’t a good thing either.

  90. 90.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 9:47 pm

    @kd bart:

    I do think there’s merit in criticizing his lack of tying Handel to Trump.

  91. 91.

    Sab

    June 23, 2017 at 9:52 pm

    @kd bart: I said rude things in an earlier post about wishing her constituents the constituent services they voted for (none). But a sizeable minority did not vote for her, including you, JPL, and Steve ATL. So I apologize (and I used an Oxford comma doing so just to piss off SteveATL).

  92. 92.

    Cckids

    June 23, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: As a (barely) former Nevadan, I think and hope there’s a chance Heller votes against it. And hopefully he’ll still get his ass handed to him next year. He’s not registering well on the “what have you done for me lately” scale.

  93. 93.

    TenguPhule

    June 23, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Whatever else you do today, do NOT listen to the Brooks and Shields segment on ATC, in which Brooks intones McConnell’s bill is as moderate as earthly possible so as to not displease too many. On the heels of his Whitewater column it basically cements the argument for vaporization.

    Not that I’d suggest such a thing.

    Of course not, too fast and not painful enough.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    June 23, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    @Ben from Virginia:

    These people ARE pulling the the sick and dying–and now they’re going to profess their shock when we point out the obvious?

    It’s what they do. It’s what they’ve done since at least the 1950s. And the media will never, ever call them to account for it. If anything, they’ll refer to “death panels” as though they were an actual part of PPACA to claim that both sides tried to kill the same number of people.

  95. 95.

    Sab

    June 23, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: God no. She’s the chick who almost destroyed Susan J Komen Foundation. I never thought I would say no to local runners trying to raise money for breast cancer research, but I do, every chance I get.

  96. 96.

    TenguPhule

    June 23, 2017 at 9:57 pm

    @Sab:

    And they got Theresa May in Coalition with Ian Paisley ‘s party. This is a good thing?

    Yep. The alternative was Teresa May in full control.

  97. 97.

    Steve in the ATL

    June 23, 2017 at 9:59 pm

    @Sab:

    1. I am strongly pro-oxford comma; and

    2. Not only did my older daughter and I vote early for Ossoff, I forced my apolitical wife to vote for him IN THE RAIN, and I successfully discouraged my Koch-dating younger daughter from voting.

    #winning

  98. 98.

    Steve in the ATL

    June 23, 2017 at 10:01 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Handel is such a horrible person that there’s a very good chance she will piss off enough people to lose in 2018.

  99. 99.

    Timurid

    June 23, 2017 at 10:03 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Stolen.

  100. 100.

    Davebo

    June 23, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:

    And yet you FAILED!!!!
    There will obviously be repercussions…..

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: I was rather confused by the OxCom comment.

    @Steve in the ATL: Woohoo?

  102. 102.

    Steve in the ATL

    June 23, 2017 at 10:11 pm

    @Davebo: I’m a hardcore liberal so my voter suppression skills are limited, but 1>0, right?

    Oh shit–there’s not supposed to be any math on this blog!

  103. 103.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 10:17 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Writing off the entire district as a Klan rally or its voters as “stupid” or “toxic” as some are wont to do is probably not the way to go, then.

  104. 104.

    Viva BrisVegas

    June 23, 2017 at 10:17 pm

    @JPL: I thought the reason why was remarked on at the time.

    ZEG and Yertle were called in by Obama to discuss the Russian hacking and they threatened to make it a partisan issue in the middle of the campaign if Obama tried to do anything about it. i.e. They would claim that Obama was using his office to subvert the election. Obama backed down.

  105. 105.

    Steve in the ATL

    June 23, 2017 at 10:20 pm

    @Ben from Virginia: I expressed concern about half the district, not all of it, but keep misrepresenting everyone’s comments. And tell me more about what my neighbors are like since you seem to know them better than I do.

  106. 106.

    Sab

    June 23, 2017 at 10:26 pm

    @Viva BrisVegas: Perhaps I am naive, but I have always felt that Obama has infinitely better political instincts than my own. If he didn’t want to go all out on a Russian challenge then I will accept that as the best choice. It does make Comey’s behavior even more egregious.

  107. 107.

    Ben from Virginia

    June 23, 2017 at 10:28 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:

    That wasn’t directed against your comment, which I wasn’t even aware of.

  108. 108.

    Dave

    June 23, 2017 at 10:50 pm

    I say let ’em pass this stinker and wear that shit smell for decades. Sure people will die, but it’ll mostly be poor dumb fucks that voted for these clowns, so fuck ’em. The innocents are collateral damage in a war for the soul of the nation. Oh wait, we already sold our soul to the Koch brothers et al. So fuck ’em anyway. In the long run we’re all dead. I’m a Nevada resident, in Heller’s district. He’s a pervert pedophile asshole so fuck him too.

  109. 109.

    Elie

    June 23, 2017 at 10:55 pm

    I think that the GOP feels confident that the tricks they have learned from Russia and their own IT discoveries to impact voter results in enough states, has given them confidence that they will not be flipped in 2018. That is the only thing that explains their assurance in plowing forward with such a bill. Yes, they know something that we don’t. I am not saying that nothing can be done. I AM saying that the way forward will be extremely contentious and that the Democrats are going to have to “go to the mattresses” in tone and most of all, in recruiting the citizenry. They have slacked off on the latter lately, but I understand its hard to keep up intense outrage.

    Somehow, we have to get the entire party to start rowing together in a unified fashion instead of continuing the internecine bickering around fault for 2016 and the worthiness of populism. We just can’t do this anymore — we have to bridge our differences and get ready for a long war for hearts and minds. I tell ya, this has been so hard for me. I love this country but my ambivalence after all this is making me crazy. I want to be more optimistic and hopeful but it is just so hard. As a *black* woman my identity is screaming but I am also a rule follower who managed to survive in the system and understood how to play the game.

    I am trying to get my footing, to continue to love and to trust. This health care thing is just blowing my fucking mind as I recoil from what is ahead for so many. Those of us who know this know that we have to be ready to do — something — to at least bear witness for this incomprehensible cruelty. For me, after a lifetime of working in public health and public health policy — I am anguished and completely unmoored as I live one foot middle class, stable existence and another in knowing what it means to be a black woman in this country – for example the stats on maternal health, mortality and on access to treatment for breast cancer. It is on me to continue to find my way to influence policy and to stay effective politically, but I am aching and enraged – trying to cooly make myself ready for what is ahead. We progressives must stay together and be ready to back each other strongly and with positive energy toward goals we know to be universal — to care for “we the people”, to be there, to bear witness not only to what we observe that is wrong, but to continually reinforce the values and ethics that have the only real hope to save us..

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 10:56 pm

    @Dave:

    Sure people will die, but it’ll mostly be poor dumb fucks that voted for these clowns, so fuck ’em.

    Bullshit. I know very liberal adjunct professors who get insurance from the Exchange who will be fucked by this. Would you like their phone numbers so that you can tell them that they are merely collateral damage?*

    *Rhetorical. I ain’t handing out phone #s.

  111. 111.

    Elie

    June 23, 2017 at 11:03 pm

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    I know that Obama must be spinning this over and over in his mind. I love him, but I know that he made a horrible mistake. I forgive him but we have paid and will pay a terrific price — even though we have no assurance that had he pressed this issue, that it would not have blown up in his face or had other negative effects. There will never be any way to know for sure. But here we sit with the work of our lifetimes ahead —

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 11:08 pm

    @Elie: No one should try to pin this on Obama. It’s on the Russians and the Republicans who knowingly accepted the “help.” Don’t get distracted.

  113. 113.

    Elie

    June 23, 2017 at 11:11 pm

    @Elie:

    I have to think that Obama must have thought our system to be stronger and more resilient — the voters more in tune and despite the hate and antipathy that he had been shown, that enough people who believed in the American core value of diversity would be our anchors. He took his risk on THAT. He was surprised I am sure, even though he knew and we all did actually, how much racism and hate of the “other” still shaped us and how far down the path that the Republicans had drifted to obtain power… He underestimated Trump and the power of that hate to completely redirect the fate of this country.

  114. 114.

    Elie

    June 23, 2017 at 11:21 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Oh I am not pinning this on Obama. I just feel his pain as having been responsible for “protecting” us and seeing what happened. No. I have no “blame” for him. But like many black people, there is anger and anguish when there is a bad outcome from something we might have — no — should have — seen. How could we dare to trust the system?– why didn’t we know that you can’t ever trust? He was surely trapped by the fates either way….

    I am so sorry. I am in so much pain about this and the last 6 months. As I said, the health care thing is killing me most of all.

  115. 115.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 23, 2017 at 11:26 pm

    1) For years we heard that Obama had too much faith in the Republicans and wisdom of the American people. There’s some, a very little some, truth to that. In this case, Obama trusted the Republicans to do the wrong things, and the public to be susceptible to their demagoguery. Even assuming, as we all did, as trump did, as it looks like the vast majority of Congressional Republicans did, that HRC would win, what trump and Putin were working toward was an embittered, jaded electorate and a delegitimized Clinton presidency.

    2) the overall passivity of the electorate in the face of what we know now suggests that Obama was at the very least not wrong in estimating the his intervention would not have helped. Maybe he should have gone full East Room or Oval Office announcement. He did that lots of times. He did it on health care, they called him a liar. He did it with infrastructure, gun safety, the climate… trump was elected, Paul Ryan is Speaker, Mitch McConnell controls the Senate.

    3) Knowing what we know now, Devin Nunes is widely thought to be a safe bet for reelection. Russia Hawk John McCain and Lidnsey Graham are trying to turn hearings into anti-Clinton, anti-Susan Rice investigations (you think Graham doesn’t know exactly what “unmasking” is? I think he does). Paul Ryan is currently trying to water down a Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia. You hear any outrage? The President went on TV (imagine this twitter clap emojis for emphasis) and admitted, bragged about, obstructing justice. No small portion of Democrats/Lefties tells us not to fall for the hype.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 11:30 pm

    @Elie: Okay. I was just making sure. Others have dropped it on him. In my white-ass view, Obama did everything he could given his office to signal what was happening. HRC called it out too. The MSM ignored or mocked it. The GOP bought in = because anything to win.

    I don’t blame anyone on the Dem side. All of us were willing to fight hard, but we weren’t willing to be complicit with a foreign effort to fuck with our elections.

  117. 117.

    Elie

    June 23, 2017 at 11:37 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thanks for the fresh air. I was wallowing a bit — which is my wont.

    I have no idea what Obama really thinks — not knowing him and all. I just see him as such an aware person that it would not surprise me that he had some feelings about this. Being neurotic as I am, I would have definitely.

    Enough. I appreciate your wake up call to me — :-)

  118. 118.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 23, 2017 at 11:42 pm

    @Elie: It is all good. Just put your shoulder down and get back to work. We can fix this – but it will take time.

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 23, 2017 at 11:42 pm

    @Elie: I would vote, if I had one, for Obama to give a very limited interview (with Maddow) about his reasoning.

  120. 120.

    Elie

    June 24, 2017 at 12:03 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I would go for that… but after a while longer. This is a critical decision but we are in the midst of this so much I am not sure that the truth or insight would matter much. Its probably why history is so much better after years and passions diminish some

  121. 121.

    kindness

    June 24, 2017 at 12:43 am

    It’s all theater at this point. Not one Republican will vote against it after a couple pitiful amendments (none from the Democrats obviously) are added to it.

  122. 122.

    mai naem mobile

    June 24, 2017 at 1:48 am

    I don’t know if this was mentioned but Dolt is criticizing Heller and a Koch Super Pac is going to spend $$$ going after Heller. Also, Pence met with the Kochs in the past couple of days. I am guessing they’re seeing the end of Dolt 45 and want to make sure Pence will follow their instructions.

  123. 123.

    Applejinx

    June 24, 2017 at 8:28 am

    @kindness: Could be an end game. Nakedly shovel cash to the incredibly wealthy NOW NOW NOW by any pretext, before the whole place goes up in flames. The brazenness of it indicates how close we are to actual, total collapse.

    Past a certain point ‘health insurance’ is a sick joke because we don’t have roads or cities or hospitals. Things can collapse in a matter of months or years (not decades or centuries) if it really starts to go… and humans don’t have to do most of the destruction directly.

    Climate does. Think about that. How often are we getting floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves etc.? It’s only going to accelerate.

  124. 124.

    NCSteve

    June 24, 2017 at 11:18 am

    @trollhattan: There are some truly loathesome people on the right. Objectively evil psychotics like Steve King and Carl Paladino who you don’t necessarily suspect of having torture-murdered people for fun but you wouldn’t be surprised if the cops found bodies buried on their property. Psychopaths like Roger Ailes, may he burn in hell, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove who systematically destroyed the norms and conventions that made our inherently unworkable separation of powers system function to enhance their own power. Randian sociopaths like Ryan and Mulveney. Grifters like Palin and Trump. Hateful, acid spewing proto-fascists like Charles Krauthammer and Sean Hannity. Corrupt plutocrats, Bigots, Nazis too numerous to name.

    But I swear to god, the only one whose name or voice instantly fills my head with visions of nihilistic, apocalyptic revolutionary excess is David Brooks.

  125. 125.

    NCSteve

    June 24, 2017 at 11:36 am

    @Dave: I was on the exchange until a very few months ago when I left a job I loved and sold out because the job I loved didn’t have health insurance. My Exchange premiums doubled over two years and were exceeding ten percent of my gross, not my AGI, my gross, largely because of the Massive Resistance to Medicaid expansion and the Republican killing off of the risk corridors. But I knew that it was likely I wouldn’t be able to get a policy at any price next year.

    And, the thing is, I found out that, though I’m much too young for it, I’ve got cataracts and thus face eye surgery to suck the lenses out of my eyeballs and replace them with plastic sometime in the next three to five years (if I’m lucky).

    Everything in this bill affects me, a more or less affluent fifty-something professional. It dictates where I work for the next decade and binds me to my current job as surely a serf to the land–a reversal of a fact about the ACA that the Kochs of the world most surely hated most about it because, in addition to middle age, I have precisely the kind of preexisting condition insurers used use to exclude and will again as soon as they’re able.

    And my situation is nowhere near as dire as those of the “poor dumb fucks” you dehumanize and discard as necessary collateral damage. They are “poor dumb fucks” because we failed them, as a nation for forty years.

  126. 126.

    JR in WV

    June 24, 2017 at 4:35 pm

    @Ben from Virginia:

    ….tired of the Dem House leadership looking like the Brezhnev-era CPSU

    Let’s analyze this a little bit. I think it’s pretty ageist hateful. Try it with this”

    “…tired of the Dem House leadership looking like the NAACP” – how do you like that Ben? I don’t like it at all.

    How about this:

    “…tired of the Dem House leadership looking all female” – how do you like that? Maybe you’re OK with that, being a sexist pig. We already knew that, you hate Nancy Pelosi, who guided the ACA through the House just a few years ago.

    You’re not judging people on their ability, you’re judging them on factors that have nothing to do with how well they d their job. That’s exactly why men my age can’t get an other job if they get laid off – TOO OLD!!! In other words, too much experience, right??

    You’re a pig, sexist, ageist, probably racist, from the confederate state of Virginia, capital of the slave-holding south. And from now on,, you’re going to talk about pie, even though I like pie a lot.

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