This is disgusting, but par for the course with the Republican party:
More than a year after lawmakers originally ordered it, Texas announced Monday it will enact significant cuts to the money that it pays therapists who treat vulnerable children with disabilities in two weeks.
Medicaid reimbursement rates are used to pay for pediatric therapy services provided to disabled babies and toddlers. Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, said that Texas will apply cuts on Medicaid rates on Dec. 15 in attempt to achieve savings directed by the Texas Legislature in 2015.
“The most important job we have is making sure kids have the services they need and that we are responsible with taxpayer dollars,” Williams said in an e-mail. “We will monitor the reduction of rates to ensure access to care is not impacted and that Texans around the state receive the much-needed therapies required to improve their lives.”
***“This is terrible news for Texas kids with disabilities and developmental delays and their families,” Rubin said. “Kids with autism, speech delays, Down syndrome, and other disabilities and delays rely on these therapies to learn to walk, communicate with their families, get ready for school, and meet other goals.”
Sociopaths.
Kryptik
“Healthcare for me, but not for thee.” Same as it ever fuckin’ was.
Major Major Major Major
There are three ways this country can go. Texas, Kansas, and California. We tried the first one in 2000. We’re about to try the second one. Maybe, some day, we can try the third.
Miss Bianca
Yeah? What ABOUT the children? Remember…the only important “pro-life” issue is ABORTION. As long as those babies are born according to God’s plan, who gives a shit what happens to them afterwards?
Mary G
This makes steam come out of my ears. The damn Republican governor is in a wheelchair himself and should know better. I am so sick of people without empathy.
PigDog
Just a trial run for the Breitbart eugenics program.
laura
“The most important job we have is making sure kids have the services they need and that we are responsible with taxpayer dollars,”
Well, that’s the tell, I suppose. There’s a most important job and two options. I’m guessing the emphasis will be on the latter as kids who need services sure as he’ll don’t vote or make campaign contributions so fuck em. Amirite?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mary G:
They’ve also cut funding for people with steam coming out of their ears. Just so you know.
Jeffro
Say what now? I’m excited to hear how less dollars means the same level of services. Is that how the all-mighty free market works or did I sleep through Econ 101 that morning?
Baud
@Jeffro: It’s possible in theory. But not if a Republican is in charge of it.
ArchTeryx
@Jeffro: It’s called “cut services without saying you’re cutting services, blame the Democrats, and watch the rubes all buy it.” Seems to work just fine in most of this country.
Hunter Gathers
I’m sure Texas would love to help these families. But that can’t happen, because, well, you know: the blacks.
Mary G
They will try to guilt the therapists into accepting less money. Who cares if they have bills to pay.
Jeffro
@ArchTeryx:
Yup, pretty much. Goes hand in hand with “elect me to serve in that institution I despise”, “send me to work in government, which as we all know doesn’t work”, and “we’d better cut this program now so we don’t have to make cuts down the road”. George Orwell, please pick up the white courtesy phone…
I think a few threads ago I mentioned how education in all its forms, from as early as possible until as late in life as possible, is a strategic imperative for Democrats. I’d like to double down on that statement.
amk
when the voters and the non-voters keep rewarding shitty behavior at state and federal levels, shit happens.
John Weiss
I was a Texan for most of my life. Texans are not, as a rule, backwards or crazy. At least if you live in the ‘big cities.
However, let me relate what my rural Texan neighbor did for me. My wife and I own property north of Tyler, which is a small city in red, red East Texas. He noticed that the gate had been broken down as well as the post it had been attached to. He called me the other day and told me about it and offered to replace it on his own dime.
That’s rural Texas as well. I’d bet that he voted for the Donald. I don’t think that the rural US has gone crazy; I think that they’re deeply misinformed. So I think that one of our vital jobs is to inform them. We cannot depend on the MSM to do that. I’ve no solution but I think that that’s the problem we must solve.
jw
Baud
@John Weiss:
That excuse might have worked in the past, but the Donald was too transparently odious.
Personal graciousness has nothing to do with political sociopathy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Onward, Christian soldiers ….
BretH
@Miss Bianca: remember the correct term is “pro-birth”, not “pro-life”
Cain
If we can find a way to shove them back into their mom’s uterus, magically they will be supported!
Texasdoc
@Mary G: They’ve already tried guilting the therapists into accepting less money. The problem is, if you lose money on each patient, you can’t make it up in volume. Some counties have only a single provider and many have announced they will have to close.
gene108
I thought Texas liked to brag about how awesome their state economy is. Figure a state economy as booming as Texas could spare a few bucks for their citizens.
@John Weiss:
There are plenty of people, with deplorable beliefs, who can be very nice on a personal level, but have real problems with the niggers and fags taking over the country and ruining our way of life.
I do not know, if those beliefs apply to your neighbor, but I’ve met a few folks like that, when I was growing up in NC.
Basically, as long as Democrats are the champions of a multicultural, multiethnic society, those folks are not reachable.
Edit: The other issue is the outsized impact non-urban and non-suburban folks have on politics. They are about 1/3 of the population, but their needs seem to be more front and center than the rest of the country.
mkro
Reason #1001 not to move to TX
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
What conceivable excuse could these fuckheads have for doing something like this? Jesus Christ…
mkro
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): The reason is simple and obvious: screw the poor
mkro
@mkro: BTW, reason #1000 not to move to TX is because they now make women pay to have aborted fetuses cremated. Pigs.
mai naem mobile
I was thinking about Calexit today and had an idea. Screw Calexit, get Canada to take the blue states. Keep the name Canada but turn it into some kind of acronym – Cheerful Association of New American Democratic Alliance or whatevah. I can get on board with the hawt Justin Trudeau as my PM and the Maple Leaf. I will even go along withe the states being called Provinces and the Poutine. We Americans can do withat some classing up with the French language in our schools. Good idea eh?
hamandeggs
Yep. Sociopaths. Who’ve been kicking our ass since 2010.
They are smarter at politics and they’re voters care a whole helluva lot more than ours. They actually turn out in off-year elections.
Get used to these stories. We’re about to be nationally gerrymandered to the coasts with Voter ID. If you can’t beat a party that cuts money that goes to help disabled kids, I really don’t know what to say. And from what I’m seeing in the election post-mortem from our side I have zero faith that Dems and the left will organize, mobilize, and effectively execute the 2018 campaign (we’ll warm up by blowing the 2017 legislative/gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey first). We have been stuck in a reactive posture since Obama first took office. We are afraid to lead when we are given majorities. We think nothing needs to change. We love to argue with ourselves, especially when it serves no real purpose.
So expect to hear more about how Republican policies are hurting our children.
We started our movement about 12 years ago. I’m starting to think we blew it. Shoulda kept Dean at DNC. Should have made a clean break with the Clintons after 2008. We had our people-powered moment. We captured the House and Senate, then the Presidency. Then we argued with ourselves about the importance of turning out in 2010. Because that’s when the battle was lost. They gerrymandered us into oblivion across “flyover” country. Think we should have been a little more focused and disciplined in hindsight? Doesn’t matter. Millions of Dems all over “flyover” country. Millions of liberals. You ignored us. You took us for granted. Take one issue: heroin epidemic. Where the fuck were all of you on this??? Nowhere. But too often we don’t actually respond to governing needs, but we sure as fk get animated about salon issues that don’t effect many people. This is what people mean about the transgender bathroom issue. Absolutely it is important to protect their civil liberties. But do ya think you folks could have maybe at least acknowledged the heroin epidemic wrecking rust belt towns? Can ya walk and chew gum or not? Could we have taken a break from bashing Trump to actually offer people something?
Let’s look at PA: it’s been gerrymandered. They have all but locked themselves in re: Congress. And you only undo that by winning the legislature and holding onto the guv mansion in 2020. I mean, what the fuck is the point of winning the presidency when we can’t do anything??? At best we are a White House stop-gap to Republicans and even that’s not a guarantee (it certainly won’t be after national Voter ID). How on earth do we reverse this when our voters don’t care enough or don’t understand how government works and don’t show up to vote in mid-terms?
Like I said. Get used to these kinds of horrible stories. This is likely to be our new “normal” for some time to come. We lost in PA, MI, and WI because enough people their believed we don’t give one fuck about them after they gave us a chance in 2008. Argue about that all you want, but until you come to terms with it, horrible shit happening to innocent people is the new normal. We’ll be lucky if we can keep red state elected Dems from abandoning us.
PhoenixRising
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I’d expect to see more of this sort of thing. It’s a way to put pressure on families with expensive kids, like mine, to move somewhere else. I know families that moved to California or NJ from lower-resourced states when their children were DXed with something like autism that requires intensive and expensive intervention.
The interesting part is, it’s going to destroy early intervention and pediatric rehab practices, because they rely on (infrequent and late) state contract payments to cover their base expenses so they can hold out for the 6 to 10 at a time payments from insurance.
So this will be the first in a pattern of services that, once the states refuse to pay for the Medicaid patient, will just not be available for anyone in that location.
gene108
@mkro:
Nah…it is just a side-effect of tax cuts for the rich.
How can you hope to balance a state budget, without slashing services, because you sure as fuck can’t tax the rich people, who have all the money. That would not make them happy, and the first rule of Republican government is always make sure the super rich are happy.
What else is government for, unless you can keep your rich backers fat and happy?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You think this comment section is the DNC?
Here.
I’m confused, are we “we” or “you”. Are “you” one of “us”, or did “we” ignore “you”.
Also, does your righteous fury grow as you furiously type?
SarahT
@BretH: Yes ! Or “pro-forced birth”
SuzieC
@mkro: Ohio aka North Alabama also has a bill in the legislature to do that. Of course it will pass and that wonderful moderate R Kasich will sign it. I’m now ashamed, scared, and embarrassed to live in the red state of Ohio.
kdaug
@Mary G: Precisely. Parse carefully what she said -“access to care”, not quality of care. They’re going to privatize therapy out to the lowest bidder
Another Scott
@Mary G: Yup. It’s kinda funny that the professionals who actually do the work are expected to do more with much less, but somehow those same constraints don’t apply to Republicans.
It’s all quite mysterious.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@hamandeggs:
How are the Republican state governments handling this? WI, MI and OH are all run by Republicans and have been for six years.
Those guys must be doing a great fucking job handling the crisis, because they keep getting re-elected, and it is a big issue.
Maybe Democrats should watch and learn how Republicans have successfully managed the heroine epidemic in their states, because it is a serious issue and if Republicans are ignoring it, they would be losing elections.
****************************
Sorry, but people are no longer voting for good government. If they were Republicans would lose. They are voting based on what they perceive to be grievances they have with society, such as The War on Christmas.
Gretchen
@Major Major Major Major: how do Texas and Kansas differ? I live in Kansas, so I know what a disastrous model is about to go national. But isn’t Texas also a cut taxes for the rich raise taxes on everybody else and cut their services place also?
PhoenixRising
There is one acorn of truth in that mountain of bullshit, though.
I swear I held it together for the first 300 doors, but around the middle of Sunday as I canvassed a Maricopa County precinct that had about 50% longtime registered Dems (vs newly registered), it happened for the 5th time: Someone whose ballot record was in front of me, in the app of voter data, confirmed proudly that the party doesn’t need to knock on HIS door because in this house, we vote every 4 years.
I cried. Until that door, I smiled and thanked and walked on, but that last one, I cried. Day 5 of constant changes to voting location, rules for early voting, mail ballot drop off, all of which were engineered by GOP county and state officials who were rightly terrified that Trump was the candidate who was finally going to turn AZ blue because the Latinos were finally going to get out and vote…but they couldn’t. People who had never voted before had their ballots thrown away because they attempted to vote in the “wrong place”, not a handful of times but 5 figures.
We vote every 4 years some more, we’re not going to have much left to argue about but ownership of the rubble.
Gretchen
@mai naem mobile: great idea. I don’t think they would agree to take Kansas but this would get me to consider moving north. I love northern Wisconsin but not sure which side of the divide they would fall on.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
What’s especially odd to me is that if you asked these people, I’m sure they see themselves as good, intelligent, frugal people. They’re not rubbing their hands like cartoon villains and chortling with glee. They probably think it’s the “damn takers” who are gaming the system and messing things up for god-fearing folk.
What kind of psychosis is this?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@hamandeggs: I don’t know what the fuck more Democrats could do to make the noble “working class rust belt” people, or the sainted “rural real American voters” think that we care about them. Social Security? Medicare? Clean water? Clean air? Rural electrification? Shit. If these people think that Democrats don’t give a shit about them, then I don’t know what the fuck else anybody can do. Democrats have been trying to help these assholes for years, and the assholes won’t take yes for an answer.
What more do these people want? Do they really want us to go back to Jim Crow? Would that fucking help? Would it help to shove all the nasty gays back into the closet? Would that make these fucking losers feel appreciated and special again? I don’t know. I just don’t. Democrats spent the first two years of President Obama’s first term, when we had the whole Congress, trying to help these fuckers, and the Republicans came to them with tales of death panels and “free shit” like the fucking Obamaphones–and I still don’t know what the fuck those things were–for the unworthies, and these shitbags ate it up.
I don’t know. I think that a lot of the people in your vaunted “flyover country” are irredeemable turds, and are thoroughly unreachable. This lie, this Big Lie, that Democrats and liberals don’t care about working people, and don’t respect the salt of the earth who live on the land and all that shit, I don’t think there’s any way to overcome it. The whole of America–aside from us effete, pointy headed liberals–have bought into it. The ignorant shits living in Arkansas and South Dakota have bought into it. The fucking press has bought it. Even some of the fucking Democratic Party has bought it, though, thankfully, not most of us–witness the reelection of Nancy Pelosi.
I don’t know what more we could do. What the fuck do you people want, anyway? What would make you feel loved and appreciated and cared about? ’Cause it sure is hell isn’t any kind of actual policy or help from the fucking government. We try to give you that shit, and you tell us we’re snotty, arrogant elitists, and you vote for the Republicans. I’d be all for giving up–only that isn’t what drives us. God help us, we’re animated by a need to fucking help you thankless assholes. So we’ll keep doing it, and you’ll keep kneeing us in the groin by way of thanks.
Sometimes I wonder why we do keep at this. I wonder if we really are a fucking dumb as this makes us look. But then I think a little more, and I know why we do it. We do it, or at least we try to, because it’s the right fucking thing to do. And, not to sound arrogant here, but I’m proud to say that at least we fucking know what the right thing to do is, even if you turds don’t. This is our lot in life, I guess. And, as hard as it is, and as bad a taste as it leaves in our mouths much of the time, I’ll happily take it. And do you know why? Because at least this way we can sleep at night. Virtue, they say, is its own reward. I don’t know if that’s true. It sure hasn’t seemed that way for the last few years. But if it’s no reward, it is, as I said, at least a recipe for a decent night’s sleep every night. And I guess that’ll have to do.
But, really, if trying to help you people isn’t enough for you, then I don’t know what the fuck is.
celticdragonchick
@Steeplejack (tablet):
They found the lost scouts hanging head downward from the limbs of a fireblacked paloverde tree. They were skewered through the cords of their heels with sharpened shuttles of green wood and they hung gray and naked above the dead ashes of the coals where they’d been roasted until their heads had charred and the brains bubbled in the skulls and steam sang from their noseholes. Their tongues were drawn out and held with sharpened sticks thrust through them and they had been docked of their ears and their torsos were sliced open with flints until the entrails hung down on their chests. Some of the men pushed forward with their knives and cut the bodies down and they left them there in the ashes.
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.
Your GOP health plan. Simple for everyone!
hellslittlestangel
@mai naem mobile: Great idea. If they’ll have us, and that’s dubitable.
hellslittlestangel
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Don’t we store a lot of nuclear warheads in the Midwest? It would be a shame if there were a few accidents.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Well said. Damn.
satby
@BretH: the correct term is “forced birth”.
Patricia Kayden
This post is another entry into the “Republicans only care about fetuses and the children which fantasy transgender women bother in women’s bathrooms” catalog.
They can’t hide their contempt for real live poorer or darker children.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@efgoldman:
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Thank you. Sometimes I just get sick of all this horseshit. If it would help, I’d gladly tell these salt-of-the-earth Real Americans® how wonderful they are, and how truly lucky we are to get to share our country with them, but I fear that wouldn’t be enough. And I’m not willing to turn my back on people who need help and do vote for Democrats just to try to suck up to a bunch of soulless, self-important dickwads. Fuck ’em. I mean, yeah, we’re going to keep trying to help them, but, still, if that isn’t enough, fuck ’em. We aren’t about to fuck people just to kiss their worthless asses.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@efgoldman:
I was just thinking that the announcer on the Wisconsin-Penn State game is way too excitable. If he wants to yell and cheer, he should buy a ticket and sit in the the stands. The sound guy must be going nuts adjusting his volume.
khead
So, I know he’s an angel and all that. Plus – everything worked out just swell at the end of the movie.
But in my version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, Clarence would’ve taken just a few minutes to whip out some angel powers, kick Bad Nick’s ass, and get his flaming rum punch while saving George.
Lizzy L
@efgoldman: I’m totally watching your version from now on.
khead
@hamandeggs:
If you would like to offer up some advice on how to get the folks in Oceana WV to vote for Democrats, I am all f#$%^& ears. Dumbo size even. Please, do share the secret. What would you like to offer them?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@khead:
I couldn’t watch it this year because I kept picturing the Trump version where Mr. Potter is grabbing Donna Reed by her you know what and the town lines up behind him because he’s foreclosing on all those dagos and running them out of town. And George Bailey is a loser because he wears earth tones and doesn’t understand the economic anxiety of the white working class.
fuckwit
Kill the poor.
Kill the disabled.
Line them up and shoot them.
Wait, that costs too much money. Bullets are expensive.
OK, we could send them all to a special place. A camp, say. We could concentrate them there.
Nah, that’d be expensive too, we’d be on the hook for paying to keep them alive.
OK, OK, this is it: we’ll take them to a special place, a camp, and then we can just gas them all. It’ll be final solution to this problem!
Nah, that’s been done before. People would get upset.
OH OH ! I GOT IT! Best idea ever!
We’ll just deny them medical care. Won’t cost us a dime. Then they’ll just die young, on their own. We don’t have to feel guilty about it, and there’s no fingerprints on the murders, nobody can blame us.
Finally, the problem is solved.
khead
@efgoldman:
I can settle for the SNL “lost ending” where Potter takes a beatdown.
Another Scott
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Nice rant, with a lot of truth to it, but the brush is too broad.
Let’s take Ohio.
It’s a big, important state with lots of manufacturing, lots of farming, lots of universities, lots of mining, and lately, lots of oil from shale.
It’s also got lots of big and small cities that have been declining for decades because GM and NCR and US Steel and Armco and Chrysler and lots of other huge companies went through many years of shrinkage and reorganizations and the like because they didn’t do enough to anticipate a world when oil was no longer cheap, when other nations with much lower wages could produce things that we had been producing for decades (coal, steel, cars, etc.). Cities with infrastructure that was built up during times of plenty and prosperity, but that then lost a huge fraction of their population and had old, obsolete physical plant that they couldn’t afford to repair and modernize. Cities that got less and less funding from the state government as the state’s tax revenue stopped growing, and as the divide between Democratic-controlled cities and Republican controlled suburbs and rural areas grew and became more polarized.
I went to high school in Dayton in the ’70s. High school kids that always figured they were going to graduate and get a good job at GM or NCR, or go on to school at GMI or one of the affordable local universities, were suddenly graduating into time of great change. The big, familiar institutions were shrinking and becoming much more expensive if they were taking people at all.
People in Dayton were seeing the neighborhoods crumbling and reading stories in the paper about the incompetence and corruption of the Democratic city government.
Long story short, there’s probably still a majority of people in Ohio and elsewhere who would vote for people who want to implement the kinds of policies that we all want – policies that stop rewarding those who have already won in the US economic game. But our candidates have to figure out a way to talk to them. We can’t simply say “vote for Democrats because the Republicans are horrible” when they can look at Dayton and compare it to Oakwood and (naively) say “I’d much rather that Ohio be like Oakwood than Dayton!”.
My baseline opinion is that most people simply want to be treated fairly. If they believe that someone who isn’t working is getting some unearned benefit that they can’t get (free healthcare, free ObamaPhones, free food, free housing), then most people are going to get upset about that and reward a political party that says they’re going to end that abuse. The answer isn’t to say “fuck em” to people who buy into that story, but to find a way to explain to them that that isn’t what’s happening, and in fact the reason why it is so hard for everyone to get ahead is that too few people are sucking up all the gains of the last 30 years. Almost anyone who has ever been on public assistance knows that it’s not better than working at a good job, and that story needs to be told more.
How do we get the story out? Dunno. The brilliant political consultants that make orders of magnitude more than I do are supposed to have answers to that question.
As tempting as it is to say that people are unreachable, I don’t think they all are. Some are, sure, but one never knows who will be swayed when one makes the effort to try to reason together…
In the process of trying to reach voters, we have to fight tooth-and-nail to make sure that voter registration rules and voting rules and procedures are fair as as expansive as possible. That’s where our immediate efforts need to be concentrated, I think, while undertaking the decades-long process of moving hearts and minds….
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lizzy L
@khead: Boring. No special effects. I WANT A METEOR.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@fuckwit:
No, see, you were on the right track with the camps, but you left out one big part: Slave labor! You get those concentrated people in there, and you just work them until they die! The problem takes care of itself. And it pays for itself! Even better, with a little skillful management, you can make money on the deal! Everybody wins!
Texasboyshaun
@efgoldman: I´ve lived here most of my life. I´ve escaped a couple of times only to have to come back and help family. Some of the best people I know are here, and I really don´t want to leave my family again, so I´ll be parked here a little while longer. I try not to stray too far from Houston city limits so I can at least maintain my sanity.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@fuckwit:
Even better, don’t even bother with the camps. You know what? Just sell the slave labor–let’s call them “slaves” for short–to rich people, and the rich people can use these “slaves” however they want. They can have the “slaves” build their own modest shelters right on the owners’ land. The “slaves” can work in the rich people’s houses, or on their farms, if they have them, or ranches, or in factories, or, really, wherever the owners want them to work. They’ll belong to the rich people, so, you know, they can do with them whatever they want. Even some enterprising poorer people might find a way to save up enough to but a few “slaves” and then they, too, can know the joy of having their own free workers doing their bidding!
I think it would be ideal if we could choose not just any poor people for these “slaves”, but rather those who are in some way physically distinct from the majority of Americans. Skin color, maybe, might be a handy way to choose just which of these lucky poor people get to become “slaves”–and, even better, since all the children of these “slaves” will share the same physical attributes, we can make this condition–let’s call it “slavery”–hereditary! I don’t know why nobody ever thought of this before…
khead
@Another Scott:
No. Just, no. People who wrongly believe they aren’t getting that “free healthcare, free ObamaPhones, free food, free housing” are already being treated “fairly” enough.
Dog Dawg Damn
Off-topic but Dana Rohrabacher being floated as Secretary of State, and my head is about to explode. This is Putin’s America now, apparently.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@khead:
Yes. You can only tell people the truth so many times before you wake up and it dawns on you that these people don’t want to know the truth. They don’t care about the truth. They believe what they want to believe, and there isn’t enough explaining and debunking you can do to get it through their stubborn heads that what they believe are all lies. They don’t care. They believe what they believe because they want to believe it for whatever reason. You can’t reach people who believe in Obamaphones.
greennotGreen
@Another Scott: The problem with the education approach is that the same Republican voters who are so assiduously voting against their own interests have shown themselves to be very resistant to new information. Plus, now that we’re in a “post-fact” world, it’s all just opinion anyway.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Dog Dawg Damn:
What makes Rohrbacher worse than, say, Giuliani or Gingrich? I don’t know much about him. Is he one of Putin’s asskissers, too?
Omnes Omnibus
@hamandeggs:
Oh, go fuck yourself. I live in Wisconsin. We weren’t ignored or taken for granted. Our white people weren’t coddled. There is a difference.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, well, when politicians don’t coddle white people, that’s worse than ignoring them; it’s outright oppression. Jesus, I’m sick of these whiny turds. I’m a pasty-ass white guy myself, and I’m really beginning to hate white people.
Mary G
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): He is a complete loon on subjects too many to enumerate. Also very Trump-ish in believing himself to be the greatest thing since sliced bread who never needs to ask questions or read or anything.
Mary G
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Politico: Putin’s favorite congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Mary G:
Well, I can’t see why that would ever be a problem. He’ll do wonders to Make America Great Again®, why, I just bet!
jackmac
@mai naem mobile: I like the idea. And living here in Illinois, we already have a Great Lakes link to the Great White North.
Omnes Omnibus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I am more pinkish than pasty, but yeah. My state and its people weren’t ignored by Dems. A lot of people here voted cultural resentment over self-interest since 2010.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): yes, and a horrific Islamaphboe.
In case everyone isn’t on the same page, the Putin lovefest coming from alt-right quarters is because Putin is seen as anti-Muslim, and these people hate Muslims and view us as a beleaguered West in a mortal struggle with the Muslim hordes.
They literally wish to relitigate the Crusades, and since Putin is an ally in that struggle, they are willing to get on board with him.
FlipYrWhig
The way I remember it, the concept of the “Rust Belt” started under Ronald Reagan. Factory closings, Asian competition; “Allentown,” “My Hometown,” “Gung Ho,” all that. Why isn’t it the Republicans who presided over the beginning of the phenomenon who are held responsible for it? Democrats didn’t make the Rust Belt rusty. I don’t see why it’s Democrats who suffer for the sins of globalization.
Steve in the ATL
@Dog Dawg Damn: it’s about damn time someone stood up against Saladin.
Omnes Omnibus
@mai naem mobile: @jackmac: It won’t happen. And if it did, your social security and medicare contributions would be lost – the USA wouldn’t hand over the money. How will you fund your o/a pensions and such? Think it through.
Another Scott
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I think we need to be careful about what we think we know about the characteristics of the Presidential vote. Heavy has a decent summary of the issues:
Voters don’t check off their race, party, etc., along with their candidate choices. Pollsters answers are only as good as how closely they’re able to create a representative sample.
We know that less than 100,000 people in 3 states (out of ~ 124 M total votes cast) gave Trump the victory. The lesson shouldn’t be to say that some voters want to be coddled or that they’re too stupid and brainwashed to be convinced, and we should just write them off, but rather to distrust polling and to find ways to fight for every vote in every single election.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Why not both/and?
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott:
That sounds reasonable, but we really prefer shrill and fatalistic. Can you rewrite it?
Dog Dawg Damn
@Another Scott: And we are quickly and quietly moving toward rigged elections, where polling and exit-polling have be used to show the result is contrary to democratic will. In our world, though, we will have a compliant press that will would rather not sully our international reputation and acknowledge the truth of the matter–voter suppression and phantom votes–because that happens in other countries, not America. It will be a complete Orwellian nightmare at some point if we can’t start retaking statehouses and turning this shit around.
demz taters
@Omnes Omnibus: The rust belt White Working Class is the biggest bunch of special snowflake crybabies I’ve ever seen.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
At least you went to Econ 101 and remember something from it. Econ 101 is evil in the conservative world. There are all those icky facts and something approaching reality.
Mary G
From the Daily Beast in 2014
He’s also said that global warming was caused by dinosaur flatulence and has claimed for years to be an avid surfer, which makes every surfer I know laugh. He claimed to have gone to Afghanistan in the 80s and fought Russians with the mujahidin. He also still thinks fluoride in the water is a plot, but now it’s the Chinese doing it instead of his new friends the Russians. He’s been an embarrassment to Orange County for years, but he represents a filthy rich district and apparently knows how to schmooze rich people really well and gets big vote margins.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Multiple paragraph explication of how you are wrong barely avoided. You are trading on popular mythology. I’ll just be quiet.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Stop it. Just stop.
Ruckus
@mkro:
My list is a lot longer than 1001. It runs seven pages single typed.
Of course it’s mostly “It’s fucking Texas!”
And yes I know people from there and who still live there. There are nice people living in every state. I haven’t figured out why they live in some states though. I’ve been to 46 of the states and I have to say that most of them have no hold on me. I don’t care to visit, let alone live there.
Mary G
Daily Beast 2014Meet The Putin-Loving Congressman Who’s Worried About Fluoride In Our Drinking Water
I could go on and on. He’s been a laughingstock in Orange County for years, but he represents rich people and was a buddy of Reagan’s, so he keeps getting elected.
Omnes Omnibus
I also presume that the seeming sausage fest here is a bad place to bring up the Last Tango in Paris story. Maybe AL or BC will notice and give it some attention.
Mary G
@Omnes Omnibus: Now you stop.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: More words, please.
It’s a privilege to be elected to government to represent people. Candidates shouldn’t punch down or act as if they’re entitled to be elected or they’re the obvious choice and if the voters don’t see it that way, well, they’re just stupid.
Of course, in any real election, there’s never enough time, money, or resources to try to go after every single vote and choices have to be made. Lefty McLeftish trying to hold a rally at the Mercatus Center or the ASLS or Bundy’s Ranch isn’t likely to be a good use of resources. But own-goals like “you could put half of Trump’s supporters in a bucket of deplorables” don’t help. (She should have said “too many” rather than “half” even if “half” is accurate, because she fed a meme that millions of voters are Nazis or KKK members, etc..)
We don’t win by intentionally driving voters away. We won’t win every vote, but we always have to respect that votes are given by voters, not created by consultants or big donors.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary G: Why?
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott: Republicans win by intentionally driving voters away. It’s an entire party based on hatred and resentment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: We can both not write people off and distrust polling. Sorry that you thought I was unclear.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
One hundred million fucking times this.
Another Scott
@FlipYrWhig: And keeping people from voting.
We’re better than all that, aren’t we?
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Link is bad. Fixed here: “Last Tango in Paris butter scene.”
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure, we can and should do both of those things. I was thinking that even if it didn’t come across in the text.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Now that would be a good movie.
Being older than 12 I’ve seen this a few times. I have no idea why I’ve watched it more than once but there you go.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (tablet): Thanks.
The story still appalls me.
Cleardale
Honestly, fuck us white people. The Dems shouldn’t nominate anyone for office that isn’t a minority. No white men at all, sorry gay or transgender men but you are too close to cis-het white males. The only white women have to be transgender or lesbians. Every single nomination should be a minority of some kind. Racist bigoted whites will NEVER be won over by policy, so stop fucking worrying about them. Worry about getting minorities involved and excited by having actual minorities run the fucking party.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: condolences for the loss to Pedophile State. And also for having Scott Walker as your governor.
If it makes you feel better, my team couldn’t even win the SEC East and my governor is so corrupt he had to resign from the Republican-led House of Representatives.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
It’s pretty hard to understand why you say that. I mean you take out the racism, misogyny, birthing religion, and there are a few million nice white people left over. What 20% or so?
hellslittlestangel
@Omnes Omnibus: James Toback, Roman Polanski, Bertolucci and who the hell knows who else …
That the 1960s-1980s are regarded nowadays as rather barbaric and oppressive times makes me wonder what the present day (and not just the hateful pigs of the right wing) will look like to the enlightened eyes of the 2060s.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: WI was expected to do nothing this year. Also too, I my mom and my brother went to WI. I have no education connection to the institution. OTOH, the Lawrence Vikings have sucked for a longtime, except for a run at the D-III basketball crown a couple of years ago.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. Me, too.
Omnes Omnibus
@hellslittlestangel: Polanski, at least, had the Holocaust and Manson in his defense. The others? Not so much.
Ruckus
@FlipYrWhig:
Politicians didn’t create the rust belt. Companies did. The factories were old, the labor expensive and all of this about the time the rest of the world caught up with and then passed us. Companies decided to compete in the cheap market rather than create a wealthy one. Germany was decimated in WWII and had to start over, they haven’t done all that bad building expensive products. The concept of fair wages was fought hard for here in the US and companies have won, workers have lost. Of course they now have to create and sell cheap stuff because cheap wages leaves little for purchasing power for a very large percentage of the population. People are worried financially because they see their cities decaying, roads in disrepair, and they are getting shit for their effort. So they want to revert to what they think was a good time rather than change the present for the better. Smedely stated it real well, we’ve tried to give them a better life and they don’t get it. So I say fuck them. I’m tired of explaining what the advantages of a reasonable government are to people too stupid, or have their head too far up their own asses, or are unable to look around and see what is going on because it doesn’t fit some narrative that doesn’t even sound reasonable.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Exactly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Harrumph!
frosty
@FlipYrWhig:
In an early book on geography and economics (The Nine Nations of North America) published in 1979, there was no Rust Belt. It was called “The Foundry”. It was where everything in North America was made.
The policies that let the outsourcing occur were a disaster.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Consent is still a very difficult concept for way too many dudes. (Please note that I am specifying dudes, not adult men.) The notion that consenting to one act does not automatically mean consent to every possible act is very confusing to them.
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: What would fix it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: You get that they raped her on camera? Right?
frosty
@Another Scott: Own Goals. I can think of three and they all came at speeches with fundraisers:
Romney: 47% of the population are moochers.
Obama: They cling to their guns and religion.
Clinton: They’re a basket of deplorables.
Maybe the candidates should figure they’re always ALWAYS on the record and not try to schmooze the money quite so much??
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: Fuck off. I get who you are. And you can blow goats.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: What would fix it? No idea. It’s not my line of work. Some kind of tariff on outsourced products? What’s Germany done to keep their manufacturing? We kept the high end for aircraft but not for electronics. Why? Why does Apple build all their gear in China? I don’t have an answer.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve seen the movie. Yes, I get it. However, there is a certain set of dudes who think that if you consent to being filmed pretending to have sex on camera, then you can’t be raped because you already agreed. Even on the hardcore side, there was a whole brouhaha recently when a group of porn actresses complained that they had been raped on-camera, and they were scorned because, hey, they agreed to have sex on camera, so what’s the problem?
There’s also a weird contempt that some directors have for actors where they think they won’t get a “real” reaction unless they trick the actor in some way, so they withhold information or outright lie about what’s going to happen. This sounds like one of those situations, and neither the director nor Brando stopped to realize that, by keeping their plan a secret from her, they were conspiring to rape Schneider.
Keith G
@Another Scott: The Democratic Party used to be able to effectively reach both rural and urban voters with equal effectiveness. I guess we can have a debate about why that is no longer the case and why the Democratic Party has become a predominantly urban political party, but let’s save that for later. What is pertinent to what Scott is saying it is that since both our states and federal governments are designed to give voting power to chunks of land as well as to per capita groupings of citizens, we still have to find a way to reach out to rural America with some type of message that gets a better portion of them to vote for the Democratic Party
Telling them to go to hell and that “you”* are quite exceptionally happy not to have to live amongst them may get your jollies off, but it is not going to win enough votes to help guarantee Democratic power in our governments.
*”you” being as the average reader of this blog
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Same here.
We haven’t lived in caves and carried big sticks to get mates willing or otherwise for thousands of years, why do some still think it’s OK to employ the tactics?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
That story quoted Schneider as saying that it was simulated. Which in no way excuses the non-consensual way the situation was set up and filmed.
Omnes Omnibus
?: @frosty: Why would you ask me?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Yep. I am reconsidering every movie that he has done. And Brando’s.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (tablet): And?
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: Not asking you in particular, it’s a generic rhetorical question. Something changed between 1979 and now, most likely in the Reagan years. Free trade? Busting the unions? The rest of the world catching up to us? Like I said, I don’t know. Could we have prevented it? It’s nice to think so.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It makes me think of Stealing Beauty (1996). I remember getting into a huge argument with friends when we saw it in the theater because they thought it was this fresh, open look at young female sexuality and I thought it had a voyeuristic, creepy old man vibe about it. Ugh.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hmmm. OK, Dunno exactly where that came from, maybe you can elucidate?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (tablet): Creepy as hell.
frosty
@efgoldman:
I didn’t know this happened. I saw the movie when it came out and I was grossed out by the scene.
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: Go find the goats.
Keith G
@frosty:
No.
Since the human condition is always changing, comparative advantages (like those experienced by the industrializing United States 50 to 100 years ago) will always change as well. Given what else is happening throughout the world, it no longer makes sense to build durable goods in thousand person factories in the American Midwest. Our current set of comparable advantages lay elsewhere.
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: Why should I care?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@efgoldman:
Well said.
Keith G
@efgoldman: I grew up in rural Northwestern Ohio. Political affiliation would vary from house to house. Many families of my kin were New Deal Democrats. These folks had faced problems and the Democratic Party created solutions to address those problems and won the loyalty of those families for a few generstions.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
To be fair (and God knows the MSM wasn’t), she didn’t call those voters “deplorables.” She was talking about the neo-Nazi assholes like Bannon who were supporting Trump because he was preaching white supremacy.
Of course, those voters immediately turned, embraced the neo-Nazis, and declared themselves to be one with them, so it looks like they didn’t have a problem with neo-Nazis anyway.
TriassicSands
@John Weiss:
I’m afraid the evidence is that these people are not educable. Whether it’s because they lack the necessary intelligence or because their minds are locked closed by religion and early indoctrination by their parents and churches, I can’t say. But something makes it nearly impossible to get through to right wingers. Facts roll off them like water off a duck’s back.
Arclite
Obviously, the TX GOP is on the path toward euthanization for this group. It isn’t enough to be the state with the greatest number of executions: you need to have an order of magnitude greater than the next state.
SWMBO
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I don’t smoke but I really needed a cigarette after that. Thanks.
TriassicSands
Kids? We don’t need no steenking kids. Let them pay for their own therapy — it will build character. After all, the Trump administration may opt for getting rid of child labor laws. Since most of them will be unemployed due to automation, it’s important for them to learn menial labor while they’re still young.
@efgoldman:
It was an error, but that doesn’t mean she was wrong. Her percentages may have needed tweaking, but an awful lot of Trump voters are pretty damn deplorable. You’re right she shouldn’t have said it out loud — like Obama’s guns and religion comment, also true, those kind of statements, judgments if you will, don’t play well in the media. Truth on untruth isn’t the problem.
rikyrah
Evil AZZ muthaphuckas?????
Kathleen
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): You couldn’t let the little tykes work for free, though, since there are child labor laws…oh wait. New Sec of Education thinks kids should work for free. Never mind.
Racer X
@Another Scott: Scott you are so right. I hope the folks who are angry and keep “explaining” how things are better, finally understand that things are NOT better for the rust belt people. They are worse. These voters did not see how some policy “tweaking” by a candidate tied to Wall Street was going to help – because it has not helped in 35 years!
leeleeFL
@Major Major Major Major: If we survive the second. That remains to be seen. I am in despair mode just now, so I am hoping I will feel better soon.
leeleeFL
@Major Major Major Major: If we survive the second. That remains to be seen. I am in despair mode just now, so I am hoping I will feel better soon.@fuckwit: Sweet Lord,that really calls for a cigarette, like Smedley’s post. It is terrifyingly believable that a modern Goebbels actually posited that.
leeleeFL
@efgoldman: The thread, it is won. Many great rants. Only one sound bite. YOURS
JAFD
@frosty: Old Pennsylvania riddle:
Q – Why is Marriage like The Tariff ?
A – They’re both ways to
Protect the Domestic Enterprise, and
Encourage the Infant Industry.
Jado
@John Weiss:
HOW??
They don’t believe us. They won’t believe us. Their master will decry us and they will believe the people that say we’re coming for their guns and to force them to abort their pregnancies and gay marriage their neighbors, regardless of the reality of facts
The GOP stickers on their bumpers repel man-eating lions. If there are no lions in Texas, it’s a testament to how well those bumper stickers work.
Jado
The way I wish it would be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ7lGA27wAw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6CVvNRQcvE