Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

No one could have predicted…

“But what about the lurkers?”

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The revolution will be supervised.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Bark louder, little dog.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Monday Morning Open Thread: Once More Unto the Breech

Monday Morning Open Thread: Once More Unto the Breech

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Jack Ohman via Gocomics.com
.

Per the Washington Post:

The Republican senators at the forefront of the latest effort to undo the Affordable Care Act plan to release a revised version of their bill Monday sending more health-care dollars to the states of key holdouts, as hardening resistance from several GOP senators left their proposal on the verge of collapse.

According to a summary obtained by The Washington Post, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) will propose giving Alaska and Maine more funding than initially offered. Those states are represented by Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine), who have expressed concerns about the bill but have yet to say how they would vote…

The plan was distributed among Republicans late Sunday, with party leaders just one “no” vote away from defeat and as Republican senators from across the political spectrum were distancing themselves from the prior draft…

Although the CBO plans to release a “preliminary assessment” early this week, officials there have said they will not be able to provide estimates of how Cassidy-Graham would affect insurance premiums or the number of people with coverage “for at least several weeks.” Trump and McConnell are trying to bring the bill to a vote by the end of this week to take advantage of a procedural rule allowing the plan to pass with just 51 votes.

It remained far from clear Sunday that they could get close to that number…

Walt Handelsman via Gocomics.com
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On the other hand, if we can prevent this latest attempt…

***********

Apart from the Repubs’ never-ending efforts to make everybody elses’ lives worse, what’s on the agenda as we start a fresh week?

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    What’s that old chestnut again about trying the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome?

  6. 6.

    satby

    @Baud: it’s the self-fulfilling prophecy: GOP voters don’t think government can make their lives better and so they elect people who don’t. Then they can all bitch about “bad government” too.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    Surely the special treatment for Alaska and Maine is not going to escape the notice of Congresspeople representing other states. It can’t help the Republicans to win Murkowski’s vote if they lose votes from Senators in the lower 48.

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    I am a devout atheist, and have been for as long as I can remember.

    But I find myself wishing for the appearance of a Just God, an entity Who would descend upon Congress to say “What the FUCK?!?!?!” And then begin taking matters into His/Her Own Hands. I guess the only flaw in that “plan” is that God might look around, see how many fucking asshole Rethugs there are, and say “Too fucking many! Screw it, I’m giving up smoting for good,” and then toddle off to a more rational universe.

    Time to call Sen. Collins’s office. Or, it will be in a few hours.

  12. 12.

    satby

    @Baud: I don’t know. They might not feel so safe when their GOPer voters start bitching to them about their money going to those two states. Because GOPers hate, hate, hate other people getting “their” money.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: As an atheist, I am firmly convinced that if there is a God she is God the Almighty and the Utterly Indifferent, that she created the world in 6 days and on the 7th said, “It’s your problem now.”

    Either that or she is a standup comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh.

  16. 16.

    TS

    Senator Debbie Stabenow talking health care on MJoke – speaks well, knows the facts and figures. Why is it so damn hard for republicans to speak the truth.

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    @satby: Yes, if I supported this turd of a bill, I’d be pissed that my Senator didn’t hold out for some favors for my state.

    Of course, I now have to call Sen. McCain AGAIN to thank him.

  18. 18.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    10 days ago the usual suspects in the Village declared Drumpf had …. wait for it…. pivoted cuz he cut a deal with Chuck and Nancy and he would now become presidential.

    Summbitch, that sure aged well.

  21. 21.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Even the liberal Robert Kraft:

    “I am deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the President on Friday.”
    ***
    “Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful.”

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    As an atheist, I am firmly convinced that if there is a God she is God the Almighty and the Utterly Indifferent,

    Well, as I’ve written here plenty of times “Example # [insert suitably large number here] of the proof that there is no such thing as a Just God. “

  24. 24.

    Kay

    Remember back when we had a normal, decent President and he used sports as a way to unite rather than divide? Not being a sports fan I didn’t pay that much attention but it wasn’t overtly nasty and vicious, that basketball brackets thing.

  25. 25.

    TS

    @Suzanne: My thoughts on Sen McCain – he really cannot believe that the party gave him the nomination in the year when it was near impossible for a republican to win – while they supported GW Bush and later Donald Trump who McCain thinks are way below his intellect – and for this reason and to repay tRump for his personal attacks is why McCain is voting against the GOP Bill. He wants to be seen as “the wise one”” and he wants to ensure his legacy – “the man who saved health care for Americans”.

    If he was not in the throes of a likely terminal illness – things would be different.

  26. 26.

    Suzanne

    @TS: I agree with most of your assessment.

    I also think he hates the fuck out of Trump. And I think he hates the fuck out of the wretched Kelli Ward.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    I certainly hope the FBI has opened an investigation into Kushner’s email. As we know, this is an urgent matter of national security.

    I bet they find a bunch of people in that White House who aren’t using secure communications, since everyone knows this happens and happened for years prior to the time Hillary Clinton did it.

  32. 32.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Kay: I know. This is how monarchs work. But it speaks volumes

    Hirohito’s surrender message to his subjects read: “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”

    Ayatollah Khomeini message for accepting cease fire in the iran-Iraq war read: ”we formally announce that our objective is not to have a new tactic for continuation of the war.”

    NFL monarchs are no different when losing face.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Because he’s an asshole and 70 year old assholes don’t turn into completely different, better people when they’re given unlimited power?

    Oh, well. Maybe next month he’ll transform into a decent human being, as if by magic! They’re really like people in an abusive relationship. He’s currently, right now, completely ignoring a humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico.

    He’s getting worse.

  37. 37.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Kay: Don’t forget:

    During the 2007 Congressional investigation of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, it was discovered that administration officials had been using a private Internet domain, called gwb43.com, owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee,[1] for various official communications. The domain name is an abbreviation for “George W. Bush, 43rd” President of the United States. The use of this email domain became public when it was discovered that J. Scott Jennings, the White House’s deputy director of political affairs, was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas.[2]

    Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

    In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been lost.

    22,000,000 emails on private servers by at least 88 White House officials and no FBI investigation into violations of the Hatch Act, Presidential Records Act, or mishandling of classified documents.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    So far Nancy Pelosi and Schumer are the only people who have gotten something from him without hurting themselves.

    It’s weirdly delightful how he so consistently screws the people who suck up to him to benefit themselves. They deserve it.

  43. 43.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Kay: He already destroyed an entire professional football league – the USFL

    Then he sued the NFL for 1.7 billion dollars (4Billion in today’s dollars) and he lost, but not before costing NFL owners tens of millions in time and attorney fees.

    eta: imagine how pissed and what grudge the owners would hold if the player’s union had did that.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Kay: True. On the flip side, there are people I would like to go after but I can’t because they are now opposed to Trump. Think Comey and the NYT.

  45. 45.

    Schlemazel

    @SFAW:
    Omnipresent
    Omniscient
    Benevolent

    This god person could be any 2 of those but has demonstrated they cannot and never have been all three.

  53. 53.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @SFAW: ESPN did a 30 for 30 documentary on this and at the end they presented the check for $3.76.to him on camera and the look of humiliation on his face was priceless.

  54. 54.

    Schlemazel

    @GregB:
    If Murkowski or Collins bite after their states get carved out of the pain, they are monsters.

    They have demonstrated they know that GOP policies are evil yet they vote for them, they are lower than the moron true believers.

  58. 58.

    TS

    And … the Sen from South Dakota just lied stating that his state will be net positive under the latest health care bill. He forgot the part that after 10 years EVERY state will be in negative territory and he didn’t seem to mind at all taking the money from other states – money his state could have had with the ACA but refused to take. He added that they tried to expand Medicaid but got knocked back – the Obama admin bent over backwards to support all the states and their desire for the funds without admitting it was Obamacare – so IF they even attempted to join the expansion they must have had some seriously wild conditions.

    Little wonder that the voters have not a clue as to reality until they are in desperate need of health care and discover there is none to be had.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: A hellspawn redheaded Nun who beat her students at least twice a day and if someone had done nothing wrong it was for the time they thought they got away with it. I had her for 2 years, beat the religion right out of me. The year after I left she smacked a girl with her gigantic ring of keys. 88 stitches later they shipped her off to Colombia.

    Decades later my mother apologized to me. Said she knew something was wrong but had no idea what, that I had always been a little quiet but then I just shut up.

  60. 60.

    bystander

    @Kay:

    Remember back when we had a normal, decent President and he used sports as a way to unite rather than divide? Not being a sports fan I didn’t pay that much attention but it wasn’t overtly nasty and vicious, that basketball brackets thing.

    You missed the “He Throws like a Girl” chapter of “Dog Whistling: How to Vent Your Racism Freely from a Blind”.

  61. 61.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    Trump is up and tweeting. Puerto Rico is not on his so-called mind.

    Donald J. Trump‏
    7 minutes ago

    The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!

    15 minutes ago

    Many people booed the players who kneeled yesterday (which was a small percentage of total). These are fans who demand respect for our Flag!

    21 minutes ago

    So proud of NASCAR and its supporters and fans. They won’t put up with disrespecting our Country or our Flag – they said it loud and clear!

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Oh, God I can. Comey behaved badly in the Clinton investigation. It’s not his job to opine on her managerial skills. He’s responsible for Mueller so I give him that but that doesn’t change the fact that he did a bad job. He was trying to please everyone – that’s not his job either. That’s a kind of conceit that is common among law enforcement “MY reputation is what matters here!” No, it doesn’t. He personally was WAY too big a factor- way out of his lane. He would have been better served controlling his own employees- the notorious “NY field office”- that’s actually his job.

    I don’t have much faith in the FBI. I don’t care which high profile investigation you delve into, you find real fundamental problems with their work. I think it’s systemic and organizational- a bad culture.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    The Pittsburgh Penguins respect the institution of the Office of the President, and the long tradition of championship teams visiting the White House. We attended White House ceremonies after previous championships – touring the historic building and visiting briefly with Presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama – and have accepted an invitation to attend again this year.

    Any agreement or disagreement with a president’s politics, policies or agenda can be expressed in other ways. However, we very much respect the rights of other individuals and groups to express themselves as they see fit.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):

    Everything he says is either wrong or a lie:

    A dozen years ago, few leagues could match the popularity of Nascar, which boasted record-high viewership and was going toe-to-toe with the NFL. But then few leagues suffered worse during the economic crash. Nascar watched as corporate sponsors fled the sport and fans tuned out by the million. Though the race series has bounced back in the years since, it’s never returned to those pre-crash highs and some continuing negative trends have taken their toll: Team values are down this year, with the top ten worth an average $137 million, a 7% drop.

  66. 66.

    mai naem mobile

    I’ve had this awful feeling deep down that they’re going to succeed this time. It’s like the doubts I had about Hilz winning but didn’t voice pit loud. I hope to god I am wrong. These people are awful. They call Dolt45 a sociopath but they’re all sociopaths. They had eight years to come up with something and they’re doing this with no real logical thought except we gotta repeal Obamacare and make out donors happy

  68. 68.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The year after I left she smacked a girl with her gigantic ring of keys. 88 stitches later they shipped her off to Colombia.

    They should have given her a blanket party for a send-off.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    Hey, has Trump tweeted about the declining popularity of this sport? Yeah- I thought not. Crook.

    Other Americans, however, long ago abandoned the course as a place for doing business.
    Lately, Steven Herz has noticed something different on the golf course: No one is there. “The courses are much less crowded,” he says. “It’s fascinating to me how open they are.” Herz, 50, who lives in Manhattan and is the president of talent agency IF Management, is a member of the golfing service Eligo, which allows him to access 80 private golf clubs in the U.S. and Europe without having to join one.
    The meager attendance Herz has noticed isn’t limited to courses in the New York metro area. The entire U.S. golf industry has been experiencing slow growth in participation and club memberships for the past five years, according to data from industry research firm IBISWorld: From 2011 to 2016, golf course and country club revenue grew by little more than 1% annually.

  70. 70.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Any agreement or disagreement with a president’s politics, policies or agenda can be expressed in other ways.

    Tell that to Tim Fucking Thomas, assholes

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Thank you NASCAR. Up until now I’d always ignored you because racing is the most boring sport in the world to watch,

    They’re going to institute a rule change, to liven things up: half the cars will go clockwise, half will go counterclockwise (or “anticlockwise” as those fake ‘Muricans like Amir Khalid would say). If that doesn’t work, the next step is that attendees will get live grenades to toss onto the track.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “I’m pissed off, I’ll be honest with you,” Ryan said. “I supported Donald Trump. When he asked me to introduce him at a rally in Buffalo, I did that. But I am reading these comments and it is appalling to me. And I am sure it is appalling to almost any citizen in our country. It should be. I mean, calling our players S.O.Bs and that kind of stuff, that is not the man that I know. The men I know in the locker room, I am proud to be associated with them in the locker room. I apologize for being pissed off but that’s it. Right away I am associated with what Donald Trump stands for because I introduced him. I never signed up for that. I never wanted that.”

    As the then-coach of the Bills, Ryan introduced then-Republican presidential candidate Trump during a campaign stop at the First Niagara Center in April 2016.

    “One of the things I admire about Mr. Trump is that he says what’s on his mind,” Ryan said during the rally. “So many times you’ll see people want to say the same thing [as Trump]. But there’s a difference: they don’t have the courage to say it. They all think it but they don’t have the courage to say it. And Donald Trump certainly has the courage to say it. And that’s what I respect. And you know what? So do the people of New York.”

    No Rex, that is exactly what you signed up for. He was a racist POS all those years before, he was a racist POS when you introduced him, and he’s a racist POS now. You own this Rex, lock stock and barrel.

  74. 74.

    gene108

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    How do you investigate something that no longer exists? No e-mails, then nothing to investigate. No tax returns, then nothing to investigate.

    Being open and transparent hurts you. It gives the media something to easily report on and dig into.

  75. 75.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: I like to think she did me a favor, showing me first hand the hypocrisy of the church, and how much all the other nuns and lay teachers cared about us little chilluns. They all knew what was happening in that class, but they turned a blind eye and pretended it wasn’t their problem. Either that or they thought we deserved it. Truth be told, by the time I left we had become a bunch of little terrorists. What could they do to us? Send us back to Sister K?

  76. 76.

    Shalimar

    @Suzanne: Might as well call Flake too and ask his staffer why Arizona doesn’t get the same great deal that Alaska and Maine do.

    I finally have an argument that might convince Rubio to do more than talk about the right thing while voting for the wrong thing.

  77. 77.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I was not big into the Ryan-hate when he coached the Jets — he was an annoying, loudmouthed asshole, but I just couldn’t get too het up over that — but I had assumed he was not a fucking moron. Obviously I was worng.

    Lying Littledick “says what’s on his mind”? So the fuck what? Lots of racist motherfuckers do that. FOAD Rexy.

  82. 82.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    How’s about free beer? That’d make the grenade throwing a lot more exciting.

    I like the cut of your jib.

    Maybe add some subsonics (or “infrasonics” I guess they’re called)?

  83. 83.

    Lurking Canadian

    @SFAW: Exactly. He “says what’s on his mind”. And “what’s on his mind” is hateful, racist garbage. So that’s not really a selling point.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    On ABC, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that Trump “can use whatever language he wants” and NFL players should “do free speech on their own time.”

    Hey Treasury Secretary asshole, you can do “free speech” on your own time too, but right now you are on OUR time, so STFU.

  85. 85.

    Matt

    The fact that they’re trying to get Cruz / Paul / Lee on board by promising to HURT MORE PEOPLE is really the modern GOP in a nutshell.

    Conservatism has switched into “family annihilator” mode: they’ve decided that if they can’t win they’ll kill us all.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @Lurking Canadian:

    And “what’s on his mind” is hateful, racist garbage.

    Yeah. I have found that “says what’s on his mind” is the go-to phrase for appeasers/collaborators to cut racists, Nazis, bigots, etc. all sorts of slack. I’ve seen “refreshing candor” (or similar) as well.

    Fuckem.

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW:

    I imagine no one in her hierarchy paid any price, either.

    It’s the Catholic Church, if raping little boys was OK, beating them (and the girls) for not getting with the program was even better.

    @Lurking Canadian: Not to mention that when you are a rich white person it takes no courage to mouth whatever BS pops into your head. Not like he was ever gonna have to clean up whatever mess he left behind. That’s what lawyers are for.

  89. 89.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Kay: I took up golf only recently, by at least in my area, there’s a kind of class divide in golf. There’s what I think of as “blue collar golf” (this is the kind I play): public courses, green fees about $20-$30, annual membership $20000, hordes of well-scrubbed young men expecting tips for services you didn’t request and didn’t need, and lots and lots of snobbery about who should be allowed to play and when, who has played where, and the game is really just an excuse to show off to your rich friends how rich you are.

    Of course the latter kind is dying. Who can afford those membership fees? And besides those people are assholes. Who would pay through the nose to associate with them but other assholes?

    Edited because something ate the middle of the original.

  90. 90.

    Shalimar

    @SFAW: “Says what’s on his mind” means Rex was a fan of grabbing pussies and calling people sons of bitches as long as it was people he also doesn’t like, not players he coaches.

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Martellus Bennett said on his twitter feed something to the effect that trump actually thinks playing football is all FB players are capable of doing. I am really hopeful that when the Bennett brothers are done playing football, one of them takes up politics and runs for the Seante. The collective IQ of the Senate would double if one did.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of The Union on Sunday that “it’s very difficult” to envision a scenario where she would vote for the latest Obamacare repeal bill,

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s enough wiggle room there to drive an aircraft carrier through, since they’re changing the bill this AM and what we’ve been talking about is no longer the “latest” bill.

    Every one of the Teabagger Senators should be working on their cut of the pie. The fact that so few are (at least publicly) is kinda surprising. But how any Senator thinking about their future in elected politics could vote for this horrible, horrible bill no matter what temporary kickback they get is surprising, too.

    The Congress doesn’t like being rushed. Remember the first 2008 banking system bailout failed. That refusal to be rushed is probably our best defense right now. They want to show Donnie that they can’t be bullied. So I expect this to die before October 1. But it’s not a sure thing. We have to fight them every single day…

    And even after this fails (assuming it does), there will be other bills coming and we can’t let our guard down.

    History is watching. We must do what we can.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  95. 95.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Another Scott: Yes, they were found by the Obama WH, but it was 2 years after the issue first emerged.

    The point is the double standard – FBI didn’t bother to investigate and the media didn’t make it into a dire scandal as they always give the gop a free pass.

  96. 96.

    japa21

    I just found out, and due to the fact I am almost always the last one to find out anything this has probably already been noted, but during the anthem yesterday at least two of the performers also took a knee. One was an AA singer at Detroit. The other was a white couple performing the anthem in Tennessee. In freaking Tennessee.

  97. 97.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Schlemazel:

    God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent-it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

    –from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” in Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein, 1973)

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @japa21:

    One was an AA singer at Detroit. The other was a white couple performing the anthem in Tennessee. In freaking Tennessee.

    Maybe his/her owner can fire him/her. Well, only the one in Detroit, of course.

  99. 99.

    grandpajohn

    @Kay: Most of us ordinary and retired folks can’t afford the green fees and cart costs on a regular schedule. I can remember the time years ago when I played almost daily for a very nominal membership fee, I haven’t swung a golf club in years

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