First this from Netanyahu during a UN speech in 2012:
Then this White House tweet from yesterday:
Worth sharing: Here's how the #IranDeal would shut down Iran's pathway to a nuclear weapon → http://t.co/BWuabs0TNz pic.twitter.com/8aYQi2KEgq
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 8, 2015
Boom.
Scotius
Being a lame duck with nothing left to lose has really brought out the snark in President Obama. I like it!
Duncan Watson
I love whomever came up with that. It is a thing of beauty.
Villago Delenda Est
Bibi is a putz.
BGinCHI
Bibi needs a Snidely Whiplash ‘stache.
ruemara
I fucking cannot stand that warmongering asshole standing in the US Congress, telling us to go fight his wars. But I do love the president kicking his ass, in the finest traditions of wit.
Waspuppet
It’s taken me such a long time to realize that pic of Bibi isn’t a Photoshop, that he gave an actual important speech with a diagram that Wile E. Coyote would think was childish.
Can you blame me? Look at his stupid, always-wrong face.
Peale
Sure. Obama is just making the fuse shorter…that’s what I see. Plus this deal leaves too many buildings in Iran standing and they aren’t begging to give us everything we’ve ever wanted. Plus, we got this deal without threatening Iran belligerently enough. We need to start from scratch basically. Deal at Lausanne will not make a good motion picture.
(Although it might be a good opera. Zarif in Switzerland…I like the sound of that.)
Rob in CT
This is pretty amazing. The WH is openly fucking with the Prime Minister of Israel.
Given the situation, I love it. But I’m also just amazed by it. Things have changed.
Heliopause
If there’s anything I’ve been saying to myself for years now, it’s “that Netenyahu needs a good trolling.”
Hey, here’s an idea for round two: “Now go away, Bibi, or I shall taunt you a second time!”
Chris
@ruemara:
This is what drives me insane about Israel policy. Bad enough that we’ve got our own warmongers doing this kind of thing, but we’re also required to run all our foreign policy decisions by Israel’s warmongers and make sure they approve.
J.Ty
Brilliant.
azlib
That has got to sting.
Roger Moore
That is a high-quality troll. There are a few regular posters here who could learn a thing or two from him.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I wonder if they’re trying to taunt Israel into recalling their former Republican neocon ambassador. Because that would be funny as hell.
Cacti
O/T but newsworthy:
Lincoln Chafee has announced that he’ll be exploring a Presidential run on the Dem ticket.
Link
gf120581
It’s amazing Bibi didn’t realize how utterly stupid he looked with that drawing. He looks like a little kid showing off what he drew during art class.
gf120581
@Cacti: I guess he wants to be the Mike Gravel of this election cycle.
Villago Delenda Est
@Waspuppet:
Bill Kristol and The Dark Lord should sue him for copyright infringement.
Rob in CT
@Cacti:
I’ve got nothing against him, but I can’t see him credibly running to Hillary’s left. So what’s the point?
Cacti
@Rob in CT:
Based on his announcement, he appears to be running to her left on foreign policy (slammed her Iraq AUMF vote).
At the very least, his entry might make HRC have to clarify some of her foreign policy positions for 2016. I don’t think he’s got a great shot at beating her though.
scav
@Cacti: If we’re doing OT in this thread of glee, Beeb is reporting the SC cop had a prior complaint of excessive violence (2013), and with a taser, no less, go figure.
Link
Rob in CT
@Cacti:
I mean, I’m not a fan of Hillary’s hawkishness, and her AUMF vote cost her my vote in the ’08 primary, but… that’s kind of 2008. I really don’t think the issue has much traction for 2016. But yeah, ok. I’m always up for more people taking a “let’s not be stupid” FP stance.
Steve in the ATL
@Cacti: He never ran for office as a Dem but now he wants to be our nominee? Fuck that shit.
MattF
In fact, Obama trolls right-wingers by simply existing. Any little reminder, like “President? You mean, me?” drives them nuts.
Roger Moore
@Rob in CT:
To get his name and face in the news again.
schrodinger's cat
Republicans really have bought into the outsourcing mantra, haven’t they?
They have outsourced their energy and environmental policy to Big Oil, foreign policy to Israel, tax policy to Grover Norquist and social issues to the fundamentalist churches, education policy to hedge fund managers. Although, many centrist Democrats are equally guilty of the last one. Have I left anything out?
Betty Cracker
@Cacti:
And that’s a good thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: America is Rock Ridge writ large.
Steve
Really. The White House expects us to believe what they say!?
Elizabelle
I see Bibi on a lot with cars. Not particularly roadworthy ones.
Speaking of trolling: NYTimes news alert from last night:
and
All-gender restroom. For the win!
Trolling, trolling, trolling … keep those wingnuts rolling
srv
This chart goes to 11.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve: Well, you seem to believe Bibi. You’re pretty gullible on that basis alone.
Elizabelle
How much of the tweet is to remind Chuck Schumer to stay in line?
Hill Dweller
I believe the President’s aside about the “less than loving things said by Christians” at that Easter prayer breakfast earlier this week was some high quality trolling. Of course, the wingnuts went ballistic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: and he’s got a book out. I like Chaffee a lot, but he’s tied with John Kerry and Al Gore in being ill-suited for modern political media. Interesting that there are now two quasi-candidates for the Dem nomination who left the GOP over Iraq, and the front runner for the GOP nomination calls the man who took us into Iraq a “great president”, and is genuinely believed by the liberal media to be an old-fashioned, Eisenhower moderate.
themann1086
Don’t click the link to the tweet. The replies are nauseating.
Iowa Old Lady
@Elizabelle: Don’t try to understand ’em!
Punchy
So the White House is just shortening the condensing tube on the distillation apparatus utilizing a ginormous round-bottom flask?
Cacti
Also too, Happy 150th Anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
The only confederate flag that mattered in the end was the white one carried by the courier with his terms for General Grant.
Steve
Hardly gullible the Villago….case in point, remember the ole claim that insurance premiums would go do under Obamacare. Well I just reviewed my options for the group health i provide my employees which is set to renew June 1. Same benefits from last year merit a 16.98 percent increase in annual premium. I’m actually living at least one of the White House lies today. I’m sure there will be more.
scav
Another quote to drag out of the vaults
Rob in CT
@Steve:
Snicker. You tried this lie out before (though you have changed the percentage slightly, I guess in an attempt to make it more believable). Nobody believed you then, and nobody believes you now.
Violet
I love Obama’s lame duck presidenting!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steve: Yes, it is highly believable that you are a successful business man and job creator. Should we call you Steve The Plumber?
Lavocat
Cue the whips [to the rhythm of “Rawhide”]:
Trollin’, trollin’, trollin’
Bibi’s nonsense’s showin’
Barack just cut a hole in
His hide!
Don’t try to understand ‘im
Just outmaneuver and brand ‘im
As the man who won’t abandon
His pride!
Kick his ass, show ‘im up.
Show ‘im up, kick his ass
Kick his ass,
He’s snide!
Steve
Raise your hand if you post here, actually run a business that employs people and pay the entirety of their Heath insurance prim umps. Mine up. I doubt there are any others.
mdblanche
@Betty Cracker: Chafee is a nice boy but about as sharp as a bowling ball. If he’s the guy holding HRC to account on foreign policy, there’s a real risk her inevitable victory gets spun as a mandate for more war.
Jim Treacher
Those pesky Jews, huh?
kindness
@Heliopause:
or fill in any number of lines I’d read in Wonkette like:
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!
schrodinger's cat
@themann1086: No need to go to follow the Twitter link, they are here!
Ben Cisco
@Betty Cracker up top:
Though ‘baggers heads are swollen
Might as well keep trolling chapped hide…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I guess there is something more pathetic than being Tucker Carlson
that would be working for Tucker Carlson
trollhattan
@gf120581:
My hunch is Frank Luntz polled it in front of a group of 27-percenters and determined, “Go with the Wilie Coyote option.” It definitely had some unintended consequences, from an optics standpoint.
A great thing about what the WH just did is it will be VERY well circulated in Israel, as they’re probably better informed about American politics and international relations than most Americans. Boo-ya.
Speaking of Illustrations with a bite.
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: I posted on that downstairs. I’ve actually met him. He has what can best be described as anti-charisma. When he enters a room, everyone else looks for any possible excuse to leave.
Mandalay
@Rob in CT:
Nor me. It’s not as though any Republican will be going after Clinton’s vote. And I don’t think Chafee would necessarily do so well against Clinton on foreign policy in general. She has some credentials that he doesn’t, and she’s all for going after ISIS and helping those who oppose Assad (except ISIS). While that has all the makings of a clusterfuck, I’m not sure Chafee playing the non-intervention card would go down as well as it might have done a couple of years ago.
So he has to go after Clinton on Wall Street stuff to show the difference between them. I wish him luck on that, but his campaign has no real chance of going anywhere.
Belafon
@Steve: I can’t see your hand up. Actually, I can’t see your hand at all. I also cannot see where you are, or whether you are actually a Steve.
Also, I would love to see where it was claimed that Obamacare would cause rates to go down. Rates have always gone up, and will pretty much have to due to inflation, but it’s slowed to near inflation in states with exchanges. And, are you in a state that has an exchange? If not, then you’re plans aren’t going to get the benefits of competition that you free-market people always claim.
Elizabelle
@Steve: And your insurance company had nothing to do with raising its rates? Previously, it charged you whatever you liked to pay? Cuz it’s your friend?
And every one of your employees was insurable? No pre-existing conditions?
chopper
@Jim Treacher:
2/10. meh.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: He didn’t even run for re-election as Governor in 2014 because he knew he’d get his ass handed to him. He has less chance of being the Democratic nominee than I do.
ruemara
@Steve: you’re a stunning example of the intellectual capacity of MOTU who comment on blogs.
chopper
@Steve:
and you’re a guy on the internet so you’re clearly believable.
trollhattan
@Steve:
You have “employees?” Please send them my condolences.
Elizabelle
@Steve: It’s rude to take a troll name of John Cole’s beloved cat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: His cousins, Mose and Gary. The three of them run the second most profitable beet farm in the greater Scranton area.
mdblanche
@Peale:
Paging John Adams. Time for a sequel.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Bears? Police? Wonderful cartoon.
scav
Are you people telling me he’s not Steve Jobs? I’d always assumed that whole “death” thing was staged so he could devote more time to commenting!
Elizabelle
@Steve: We’re all royalty, Steve. Can’t you tell? We say we are.
WaterGirl
@Lavocat: Most excellent!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
Oh, I believe his rates have gone up. I also believe that he’s too stupid and stubborn to check out the small business exchange and see if he can get a better rate. His insurance company knows that he’d rather pay more and bitch about it than save money with the evil Obamacare, so why not jack up his rate and blame Obamacare? They know he’ll believe them.
Chyron HR
@Steve:
Any day now, I’m sure.
Violet
@chopper:
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Steve: San Diego. 53 employees.
And you’re a fucking liar.
I haven’t seen those kinds of increases since…well, since they passed the ACA. It has not been all roses, and some of the documentation is onerous, but there is nothing like the kind of rate increases you’ve been tossing out here.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
There are also significant tax breaks for small businesses who insure their employees so his story doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Kylroy
@Steve: And by God, your personal experience trumps any amount of facts about the larger world.
MomSense
@Lavocat:
Excellent.
Steve in the ATL
@Steve: Please either change your nym or stop posting. You’re killing my brand.
Elizabelle
Maybe Steve took the blogpost title as a command? Anyway, he’s more fun to debate with than Bibi would be.
Probably less insufferable too. I want to hear more about the business he runs.
And does Steve pay for contraception through his employee healthcare, because I believe he was equating abortion with murder on an earlier thread? (Although contraceptive availability and effectiveness greatly reduces abortion prevalence. So there is that.)
Steve
This is absolutely wonderful!
kc
I love this.
Elizabelle
@Lavocat: Well done, sir or madam. Well done!
A Ghost To Most
@Steve:
So Steve is a Master of the Universe. hoocudanode?
I hope you’re getting paid well for your posts.
NonyNony
@Steve:
You’re a business owner? That’s so cool.
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m a secret agent. And an astronaut. And I totally have a girlfriend that lives in Canada as well.
Peale
Sad part is that this will get circulated as the troll and the message will be lost once again. There seems to have been a purposeful forgetfulness as to what these negotiations were about and who was raising holy hell to get the world to put nuclear related sanctions on Iran in the first place. Apparently, the request urgently sanction Iran was not made in very good faith by one of our allies, who labors under the misconception that it alone gets to determine under what conditions the rest of the world gets to lift those sanctions.
Belafon
Maybe Obama could show up at the UN with his new image the next time he’s supposed to speak.
ruemara
Let us turn to far more important matters. These chocolate chip ginger cookies are quite good. The lemon ginger coconut vegan cookies are also good. But all would need more ginger to get to my ginger threshold. Or maybe some black pepper. Maybe lavender in the lemon one? It’s a puzzlement.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve: No stupid dumbshit lie like an old dumbshit lie, fuckwit.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: It can’t be Steve who lives at Cole’s place. That Steve demonstrates a lot more intelligence.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Peale: Hate to be that guy, but unless you can point me to a formal treaty of alliance between the United States and Israel, I regret to inform you that they are not an ally.
germy shoemangler
Depressing anti-Obama comments on the whitehouse twitter.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/585879181520728064/photo/1
Seanly
But, but, but an Iran deal means that we won’t go to war with Iran to feed the blood lust of monsters masquerading as leaders & pundits.
Peale
@germy shoemangler: Yep. The silliness is strong with us and will probably always be there. OMG – you actually TRUST those lying Iranians? We cannot deal with untrustworthy people….
Roger Moore
@Peale:
No more cutting deals with the Tea Party, then.
Cacti
@Seanly:
Peace with Iran is not good for the net worth of Bush family.
Or Dick Cheney.
Or (sadly) Dianne Feinstein.
coin operated
@germy shoemangler: Holy shit…these guys *never* grow up, do they? Notice one dude went full Godwin by comparing Obama (and, lets see, 5 other major world powers) to Chamberlain being naive about Hitler.
SRW1
@Jim Treacher:
What!? Bibi has a multiple personality disorder?
lowercase steve
I am the steve at LGM and I am very sad that we have a right wing troll using my name and the name of the glorious feline mascot of this blog. I suppose I will use this moniker from now on.
Redshift
@Steve:
Yes, I do remember. It was a very popular story amoung wingnuts, and was never a claim that was made by the administration. “Bending the cost curve,” the actual claim that administration officials made, means that premiums go up at a rate comparable to inflation, rather than much higher, which is what they’ve been doing for the past couple of decades.
If you’re relying on wingnut media to learn what the White House has said, instead of looking at what they actually said, it’s not surprising you’re confused. They repeat blatant lies pretty much nonstop, and surveys have shown that Fox watchers are less well informed about politics than prior who watch no news at all.
germy shoemangler
@coin operated: The trolls say the exact same shit, over and over again, word for word. It’s almost like they’re copying and pasting their “original” thoughts from some supreme source…. the Echo Chamber Machine!
Mike J
@Peale:
Perhaps we should send them a cake. Or sell them missiles.
germy shoemangler
@Redshift: surveys have shown that Fox watchers are less well informed about politics than prior who watch no news at all.
No accident.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Peale:
I remember that some famous American figure said that his plan when making a nuclear deal with some of our enemies was, “Trust but verify.” Shouldn’t that guy be excoriated by conservatives the way Obama is?
Patrick
@Steve:
16.98%? And you are complaining? Pre-ACA, there were many years when our premiums would go up 20%, plus the deductible would go from $4000 to $6000 (50%), not to mention the co-pay would go from $20 to $30 (50%)!
I wish all those people complaining about ACA would also be honest enough to talk about the rates of increases pre-ACA. Because it was an awful time.
Furthermore, pre-ACA, as an individual your pre-existing conditions weren’t covered. Period. Now they are.
Peale
Next up, however, we should start discussing Yemen and our other most trustworthy Iranophobic friend in the region.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
Next you’ll be saying that Al Gore didn’t really claim to have invented the internet.
jl
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Sorry, no. You are confusing Myth Zombie Godhead Reagan with Historical Reagan.
It is mistake that will send you to hell (according to the Xtianists), on a par with mistaking Gospel Jesus with Endtimes Christ, which are actually more the same than the two Reagans, though still different, somehow.
Remember that the neocons yelled that Historical Reagan was making a huge mistake talking with Gorbachev, and that the senile old fool, and secret liberal (Reagan, not Gorby) did not understand (or maybe pretended not to understand), that the fall of the Soviet Union was a big hoax.
Also remember, that the neocons were correct, and that none of us exist now, having been destroyed in the fiendish first strike nuclear attack that the Soviets unleashed on us after they fooled us into letting down our guard.
If you don’t remember history, you will just end up repeating it!
Steve the Cat
I do haz moar intelligence than Steve the Troll. Cat intelligence is far superior to that of hoomanz…and we haz our own spellings too.
raven
The 150th Anniversary of the end of the Civil War was 4 minutes ago.
jl
@raven: Hey, pics or it didn’t happen.
But if it did happen, thanks for noting it. An important day, with lessons that need to be remembered.
raven
@jl: My wife is there and I am here. It sucks but I had to attend a conference.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: Old times there are oft forgotten.
geg6
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
This.
Elizabelle
@raven: Defeat is never forever.
Harold Meyerson today, The Washington Post, Today’s GOP is the party of Jefferson Davis, not of Lincoln.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@raven: No worries, we’ll be fighting another one sooner rather than later.
Howlin Wolfe
@Steve: White House is responsible for raising your premium, huh, Steve? The insurance company had NOTHING to do with that? You really are a gullible twit. Did you know that Bibi was contradicted by his own intelligence agency? That the Mossad says that cartoon bomb has no basis in reality? But you believe that? I guess your ideology was written in comic book form.
Howlin Wolfe
@Steve: I pity the people working for such an idiot.
Howlin Wolfe
@Jim Treacher: So you’re anti-semitic, Treacher? Or you don’t understand how to use snark? Pathetic.
Lee
@NonyNony:
Small world, I’m an astronaut & firefighter (actually an firefighting astronaut). My GF is actually not in Canada but Sofia Vergara.
Doug r
Has Obama pointed out we’ve got a massive defense budget we can afford to take a chance. Screaming chicken sh*ts, the lot of them
Patricia Kayden
I’m positive that if the Israelis every truly feel that Iran is a real threat, they will bomb it into the stone age. They don’t need our help to protect themselves given all the billions in financial aid that the US government already gives them.
I’m very disappointed with Senator Schumer and other Democrats who have sided with the Republicans against the Iran framework. Cannot believe that they’d side with Republicans against their own President on such a crucial issue.
Mike J
Patricia Kayden
@Steve: So sad. I weep for you. /snark
hoodie
@Steve: Need better trolls. Yearly increases like that were true for the health insurance we provided to our employees before ACA was enacted. Often, it was because the competing firms offer a teaser rate to get your business and then nail you with a big increase in the next few years, knowing that it will cause a bit upset if you change providers and have to change networks for your employees, which can be a bitch for a smaller business. My guess is that, assuming you’re not a complete fiction, you have a small business with a relatively small number of employees (but maybe not eligible for SHOP), and they’re getting into the high-usage age demographic and/or had significant claims for things like heart disease or cancer. Happening to us right now, as most of our employees are now over 50.
shell
Okay, enough with the Bibi.
I’m waiting to see a ‘graduation’ picture of Thurston Howell.
Patricia Kayden
@Steve: Yes, and many of us do.
Perhaps you should be at Red State or some other far right extremist website where you and your fellow Obama haters can commiserate about the Kenyan Muslim in the White House. This aint that type of website.
jl
@Steve: Please provide some evidence that a selling point for the ACA was that it would make premiums go down in absolute levels.
@Howlin Wolfe: Steve probably prefers a total ‘free market’ Swiss solution that his ideological leaders recommended. That would include provisions like ability of federal government to audit the hell out of any company that asked for large increases in premiums.
japa21
I just love how the RWers are screaming about how we can’t trust Iran and that is what Obama is doing. I looked at the details that have come out and there is no trust involved. Hell, the verification procedures at 10 times more intense than what Reagan had negotiated with the Soviet Union.
Trusting Iran would be saying “Hey, Iran says they have no interest in getting nuclear weapons and I trust them so let’s just drop the sanctions and let it go at that.”
BTW, I tend to believe they have no interest in acquiring nukes and I see the agreement as verifying that.
mdblanche
@Roger Moore: As Jon Stewart said, “if it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hardline, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world, but not with Republicans, maybe he’s not the problem.”
@Villago Delenda Est: Except in dear ol’ Dixie.
Mike E
@Lee:
Unpossible. Nice sofa tho.
Patricia Kayden
Watching President Obama live in Jamaica!! Whoohoo. So glad that he visited JA during his Presidency. Hope he’s having a good time although his trip is short.
mdblanche
@Mike J: Well, what was he supposed to say? You certainly can’t distinguish Man-on-Dog and Dog-Pelt-on-Head based on their equally non-existent chances of ever becoming president.
jl
@mdblanche: I hope Trump actually enters, though I think he is just grifting.
If we have Trump, we at least have some half decent jokes.
Without Lil’ Newtie, Trump will be best excuse for entertainment in the GOP primary.
Peale
@Doug r: No. Part of the deal is that we agreed to sink our aircraft carriers.
scav
Why not a morning tweet to start the day, every day remaining, with a grinning Obama still in his PJ’s, feet-up, juice-sipping, in the Oval Office, with the caption: “Yup. Still President.” Better still as we’ve some time to play with, move him about the White House in a virtual tour, a Where’s Waldo: Still Presidenting social media campaign.
Bystander
Just emailed my senator, Chuck Schumer. Probably the least effective method of registering displeasure but I needed the exercise in restraint.
I wanted to say, “Look, you jerk, on the day you voted for DOMA, I swore I would never vote for you. And I have never voted for you. But why don’t you stand aside and not prove what colossally bad judgment you have yet again?”
Patrick
@japa21:
That’s a great point. Why was it A-OK for the most awesome President ever, ie Reagan to make deals with the Soviet Union, but it is not OK for President Obama to make deals with Iran? Hell, Reagan even labeled the Soviet Union the evil empire.
I’m totally at a loss at the disconnect and utter hypocrisy.
Elizabelle
@Patrick: They don’t need any coherence. They just want to destroy and detract.
Can we have a new thread? This one is Bibi’d out.
Fresh thread, please, preferably with more Cole pets. Or chickens. Or backyard photos.
Just no more Netanyahu.
LanceThruster
Bibi is desperate to find a way to unleash Major Kong.
Elizabelle
Betty put up an Open thread.
We’re sprung from looking at Bibi!
Kilgore Trout
@Steve:
What’s your point? I don’t *run* a business, but my employer (about 100 employees) pays 100% of employee health care premiums. Our premiums went up 4% this year.
Maybe your beef isn’t with the President, but with your health insurance provider.
Roger Moore
@japa21:
I suspect that they have an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, mostly because of a justified worry about US aggression. OTOH, that interest is not an overriding one. They’re also worried about their domestic economy, and they understand that nuclear weapons are not the only way of guarding against a US attack. My guess is that at least some parts of the Iranian government would be at least as happy with normalized diplomatic relations, which would reduce their worries about US aggression and help them get better integrated into the world economy. IOW, they may see a nuclear weapons program primarily as a way of getting the US to negotiate, but with the added bonus of giving them protection if we don’t.
pluege
how sad is that when the WHite House has to go into marketing mode to count a craven psychopath. Good little piece of work on their part, but sad nonetheless that this is what it comes down to.
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
More to the point, Reagan cut a deal with Iran, and one with considerably less in the way of verification that they would follow through on their side of the bargain. Unless Iran has somehow gotten much crazier between then and now- hard to believe- it’s beyond parody to hold up Reagan as the model of refusing to negotiate.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: I did not know he was out of the country. Great!
Turgidson
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
He may or may not be lying about his personal circumstances, but its a fundamental ignorance of how statistics work. Legislation on the scale of Obamacare will have major effects that can be modeled into something resembling your typical bell-shaped distribution. Valued commenter Steve may be way out on one of the tails of the curve and be laboring under larger-than-usual premium increases this year, and it may somehow be as a result of Obamacare. And that would be genuinely unfortunate for him. But the aggregate numbers coming in show premiums rising more slowly than before in most states, the cost curve starting to bend, the uninsured rate dropping, and broad satisfaction among those with new coverage.
Legislation should be judged on the big picture results, and in this sense the ACA seems to be a resounding success so far. It just so happens that the anecdotal victims/outliers (and more importantly, the well-funded political forces exploiting these stories to undermine the ACA) are raising a much bigger fuss about their change in circumstance than the beneficiaries are. Which is just the most recent phase of the nonstop propaganda campaign that dragged the ACA’s approval numbers into the ditch in the first place. Add in the fact that premiums were rising rapidly before the ACA, but there wasn’t a boogeyman like Obamacare to pin the blame on (usually incorrectly).
The nutjobs trying so hard to tank Obamacare are actually doing a much worse job than I expected of rounding up the outliers and parading them in front of Fox News cameras to scream and yell about how their lives have been ruined by it. And some of the people they have found turned out to be ignorant of the fact that they could easily be made better off by the ACA if they’d bothered to look on the exchanges and take advantage of new options. Which makes me think there aren’t actually all that many outliers to begin with, which is a good thing.
Peale
@Roger Moore: I don’t think Reagan had a major client that was nearly as vehemently Anti-Soviet as Bibi is anti-Iran. Even if she would have been more hard line, you didn’t exactly find Margaret Thatcher going on TV to proclaim that Reagan was selling her out. I couldn’t see Helmut Kohl wishing that would “just get over the inevitable and start the invasion already” either. The Soviets were very capable of pushing back and that kind of serves as a mute to the kind of foolishness we are seeing from Bibi. Iran cannot do anything right now to Israel, except, what? Give a few more ineffective missiles to Hezbullah? Ooooh. Bibi is sooo scared.
Also, too, Reagan wasn’t a secret communist. If you’ve been paying attention, the reason Obama can’t be trusted is that he wasn’t born in the US and isn’t really a Christian.
Patrick
@Turgidson:
Hell, I have yet to see friends/relatives of somebody who has been subjected to the Obamacare death panels that Sarah Palin/Chuck Grassley et al warned us about. Why could that be?
Bubblegum Tate
@Patrick:
Wingnut I know who is super-duper pissed that Obama sonned Scott Walker on foreign policy said that Obama knows less than Scott Walker about foreign policy because he (Obama) “took trips to tyrannical regimes” and “gave tax dollars to terrorist organizations” (huh?). It’s too easy to rub his nose in Reagan’s record, but boy, is it fun!
TerryC
@Steve: I do.
Patrick
@Bubblegum Tate:
If this guy that you know has evidence that Obama gave tax dollars to terrorist organizations, why isn’t he sharing the evidence with the FBI? By any chance, is this guy committing a crime by withholding evidence?
Tehanu
@Lavocat:
Thank you! I was trying to think of a rhyme but you really did the job!
Waysel
@Steve: @Steve: As do I.
Jebediah, RBG
@Lavocat:
yee haw!
Excellent!
Waysel
@Steve: By an unbelievable coincidence, rates for my employees actually went DOWN by 16.98%. Uncanny. Astounding, in truth of fact.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@Lee:
I am a spy, astronaut and quan guantum physicist. Plus my girlfriend is a supermodel so gorgeous than the other supermodels were too jealous for her to be in the S I swimsuit issue.
Steve
This is absolutely wonderful. One other individual here actually employs others and pay their insurance. Another question , raise your hand if you’ve borrowed money on your personal credit card on a Friday morning toske a payroll that afternoon. Mine is up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So you’re not even good at running that imaginary business? I am sorry.
Would you like a cookie?
RaflW
@Kilgore Trout:
Din. Ding. F*ing, Ding!
But Steve is one of the makers (well, evaluate that claim at your leisure), and they can’t blame each other, that’s not done. So it’s that gubmit’s fault!
Citizen_X
@Peale:
Dear Islamic Republic of Iran:
Yrs Truly,
Republican Senators
Ruckus
@Steve:
I’ve owned two. The last one was murdered by the financial assholes with their recession.
So what does owning your own business have to do with anything you’ve stated? You think you are a hero? What I see is someone who jumps to conclusions based on poor information and then wonders why everyone thinks he’s a putz.
Bubblegum Tate
@Patrick:
Yeah, I wasn’t even sure what non-scandal that was supposed to be in reference to.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
I’m living off the money I inherited from my rich father. In conservative terms, that makes me better than you, a mere money-grubbing tradesman who actually has to work for a living. Fetch me some iced tea, peasant.
dmbeaster
@Steve: The average rate of increase of insurance premiums for 2015 is 4%. That is an all-time low.
But I guess your unsourced anecdotal experience and right-wing bias trumps facts. The link, by the way, is to a Forbes article, and quotes a conservative study on Obamacare for the 4% figure.
dmbeaster
@Peale: @Peale: @Peale:
That logic means that diplomacy is never an option, and treaties are pointless.
And I have another clue for you — most business involves doing deals that are also not based on trust. I wonder how anything gets done if you cannot deal with untrustworthy people?
Jim Treacher
@chopper: You’re welcome.
Jim Treacher
@SRW1: Well, you know how those Jews are.
Jim Treacher
@Howlin Wolfe: No, you guys are the anti-Semites.
worn
@Steve: Most folks running legitimate businesses, Steve, have a line of credit with their chosen financial institution so as to be able to handle tight cash flow situations such as the one you describe. That you don’t and instead use a credit card for this purpose says much about either your business acumen or general creditworthiness.
Although, thinking about I guess it could be both.
Steve
Lol worn! You’ve no idea what your talking about