Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

It’s the corruption, stupid.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Interesting Analogy…

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Interesting Analogy…

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… The story Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) tell about their legislation during speeches and news conferences is a straightforward, seemingly innocuous one ― that they are simply transferring money and authority away from the federal government.

To their colleagues in the Senate, Graham and Cassidy make a different, more nuanced pitch. With key Republicans nervous about what the bill would mean for coverage of their constituents, Graham and Cassidy are promising the vast majority of Republican states would end up with more money, not less, if the proposal becomes law.

The story Graham and Cassidy are telling the public is a vast over-simplification, one that leaves out the bill’s most important elements. And the story they are peddling to colleagues? That’s even more misleading…

ETA:

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    Major Major Major Major

    Good chance, BTW, that even _Cassidy_ doesn’t know what his bill would do, or how.

    I put that at about 20%, which is still awful high.

    I mean look at the guy, he’s an idiot.

    I’m drawing a bored young man getting berated by a ghost, how are y’all?

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Cassidy looks a bit like some brainiac alien from Marvel Comics.

    Of course, there is no brainiac there to speak of.

  6. 6.

    opiejeanne

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m good, although having the pump replaced on our septic system set us back about a grand. It’s no fair; I’d rather have spent that money on fun stuff.

    I need to revisit your comic strip soon. Enjoyed it last time I took a look.

  7. 7.

    StringOnAStick

    We’ve spent the last week hiking in Austria with a British tour company and a diverse group of Brits. They all agree that the US health care system is insane and cruel. They’re too nice to say it but they whole heartedly agreed that the US is the world’s best example of rapacious capitalism and the forced march to the new feudalism.

    Not too many complaints about their national health service other than thinking people should pay a nominal fee for services to help funding a bit and reduce over use by the bored and lonely. I’ve heard this from Poles too about their system. Even the lowest level workers here have an easy way about them due to the better social safety net that is so absent in say airport maintenance workers. Here they laugh a bit and get on with their work, in the US they look desperate and afraid. Once again we are wishing we had immigrated to Canada or Europe while we were still young enough to be accepted.

  9. 9.

    Mel

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m working on a bead embroidered cuff bracelet. I started out with a very Deco piece in mind, and had sketched and then blocked the design onto the wool base, but it has a mind of its own and didn’t want to cooperate. After several false starts, I just decided to roll with it, and go wherever it wanted to take me. Now it has a very Baroque look to it, with a little nod to high Victorian in the work surrounding the central stone.
    Quilting, jewelry, writing – it becomes what it really wants to be, despite my best laid plans, I think – often for the better.

  11. 11.

    Bruce K

    Crap, I think I just twigged to why this repeal push scares me more than the last few: the bastards are desperate. There’s that threat of losing untold millions in Koch money for their campaigns if they don’t get it done, and if I read right, if it’s not done by September 30, they can’t use the reconciliation trick to bypass the Dems, so they’re in a position that they need to do something, anything, or they lose millions.

    That completes the trifecta that scares me most about dangerous evil people: smart, unscrupulous, desperate. (McConnell’s the one I fear most, because he’s all three.) That combination means you’ve got to be ready for them to do anything – a nominally stupid course of action because they’re desperate, one without considerations of morality because they’re unscrupulous, and the smart ones just may figure out a way to make it work.

  12. 12.

    lowtechcyclist

    When Pat Roberts was talking about being in the back seat of the car driven by Thelma and Louise headed for the canyon, I figured he meant Graham and Cassidy as Thelma and Louise, and their bill as the car.

    But apparently he means Obamacare is the car. I’d love to ask him, WTF is he talking about? Because while sure, Obamacare could use the tweaks and fine-tuning that any big, complicated new program could use in its first few years (and which the GOP has prevented), Obamacare even without those tweaks would probably continue to do OK for quite some time as long as the GOP doesn’t sabotage it.

  13. 13.

    Some Dude

    I know someone who would not be alive if not for the ACA. This person hates Obama, and has griped about how piss poor of a President he was; also believes that ‘Obamacare’ was the name the Democrats gave it, to boost his popularity. If this monster of a ‘health care’ bill passes, I don’t think many Trump supporters will be wishing for ‘Obamacare’ to return, but they will surely be missing the insurance their lives depend on. Somehow, Fox will put the blame on (former) President Obama….

  14. 14.

    Tokyokie

    So in other words, the GOP is pretty much admitting that their entire raison d’être the last several years is an evil murderous lie, but they feel honor-bound to follow through on it.

  16. 16.

    trnc

    Amazing quote from @ChuckGrassley here: Despite many reasons to oppose Graham-Cassidy, GOP must support it to uphold campaign promises.

    “Even though those promises were built on lies?”
    My proposed response from a fantasy journalist.

  17. 17.

    Tokyokie

    @evodevo: I keep coming back to an exchange between Ernie Borgnine and Bill Holden in The Wild Bunch:

    Dutch: He gave his word to a railroad.
    Pike: It’s his word.
    Dutch: That ain’t what counts! It’s who you give it to!

    To them, the promise is more important than the effect and the circumstances of said promise, because breaking it makes them look like the amoral bastards they are. And we can’t have that. Too bad they don’t have the cojones to take on the Kochopolus in an epic, bloody gunbattle that nobody survives, but then the murderous bastards in The Wild Bunch were a lot more honorable and likable than today’s Republicans.

  18. 18.

    trnc

    “Four of our states are getting a disproportionate amount of money from health care now,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said. The bill, he added, “wouldn’t cut Alabama.” (Numbers from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest Alabama would receive more than $1 billion in additional funding under the bill, but most states would see big cuts.)

    If Alabama wants federal $ for health care now, why don’t they just take the medicaid expansion?

  19. 19.

    Lurking Canadian

    @trnc: That’s the part that a decent media would hammer them on. Yes, the blue states are getting a “disproportionate” amount of money, but that’s because the red states fucking turned it down!

    If Mississippi had taken the Medicare expansion, they’d probably be the ones getting the “disproportionate” share of Medicaid money, as compared to New York & California because of a combination of poverty and long-term health problems finally being addressed.

    I guess I can see why they’re using the “States Rights” spin: it’s all they’ve got. But they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

  20. 20.

    dr. luba

    @trnc:

    If Alabama wants federal $ for health care now, why don’t they just take the medicaid expansion?

    Perhaps because that money might have to be sent on non-white individuals? As opposed to block grants which the state can spend at its discretion.

  21. 21.

    gratuitous

    “Holy socks, this is serious! Gentlemen! We’ve gotta protect our phoney-baloney jobs!”

    If you’re familiar with that movie scene, you understand the Graham-Cassidy bill. One other thing to note is how interchangeable the sponsoring names are, almost as if even the authors don’t want top billing on this shit sundae.

  22. 22.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Ah, so the Health Care Pixies are back. The heath care pixies are so much better than Obamacare, BUT, you can’t see them or they go away!

    So what is the story, 45% of the population of this country is gullible rubes?

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