He lied, you idiot. He's been a pathological liar all his life. Are you really just now getting this? ?
— Betty Cracker (@bettycrackerfl) July 26, 2017
Politico has a story about how Trump came to ban trans service members by fiat. It’s a doozy:
Numerous House conservatives and defense hawks this week had threatened to derail their own legislation [spending bill containing numerous MAGAt goodies, such as The Wall] if it did not include a prohibition on Pentagon funding for gender reassignment surgeries, which they deem a waste of taxpayer money. But GOP leaders were caught in a pinch between those demands and moderate Republicans who felt the proposal was blatantly discriminatory.
“There are several members of the conference who feel this really needs to be addressed,” said senior House Appropriations Committee member Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) on Tuesday. “This isn’t about the transgender issue; it’s about the taxpayer dollars going to pay for the surgery out of the defense budget.”
That’s why House lawmakers took the matter to the Trump administration. And when Defense Secretary James Mattis refused to immediately upend the policy, they went straight to the White House. Trump — never one for political correctness — was all too happy to oblige.
“[P]lease be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
The president’s directive, of course, took the House issue a step beyond paying for gender reassignment surgery and other medical treatment. House Republicans were never debating expelling all transgender troops from the military.
“This is like someone told the White House to light a candle on the table and the WH set the whole table on fire,” said one senior House Republican aide. The source said that while GOP leaders asked the White House for help, they weren’t expecting — and got no heads up on — Trump’s far-reaching directive.
Fucking hell.
Trentrunner
What the hell is Sanders doing at this press briefing?
TenguPhule
And then proceeded to add oil and gasoline to put the fire out.
TenguPhule
Be careful what you wish for, eh Republican scum?
Major Major Major Major
Starting to wonder if he isn’t going to walk this back and ‘just’ go with banning the VA from covering a legal, medically necessary, lifesaving procedure.
Trentrunner
Also, Caitlyn Jenner is a shit person.
brendancalling
As I put it on Facebook, “Stupid person now feeling awfully stupid”.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Trentrunner:
Which one? I’m at work.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: Gender reassignment surgery is actually fairly cheap, probably because at least for now most people who have it pay out of pocket for it. When you consider the tiny percentage of people who are transgendered, and the even smaller percentage of those people who are active military — this is not a lot of money.
Jerzy Russian
@Trentrunner: which briefing is that?
Trentrunner
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: LOL sorry. Sarah Sanders, WH spokestroll.
Sanders was reading an adulating letter from a 9-year-old (she says), and she says she will be reading positive letters to Trump regularly.
She also started lauding her own status as a working mom, the first ever, she says, to hold the job she now holds.
Was just a weirdly self-serving opening 5 minutes.
TenguPhule
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Probably Huckabee.
Barbara
@Trentrunner: I would put it this way: Caitlyn Jenner has preserved the sense of entitlement that she had become accustomed to as a white man and seems to really not understand how the world usually works for women and “others.”
hellslittlestangel
It’s cruel to mock Caitlyn Jenner so soon after the tragedy of her ox being gored.
trollhattan
Really folks it’s all a misunderstanding: Trump is banning transfats in the military, obviously. They’re so expennnnnnsive.
rikyrah
@Trentrunner:
You just figuring this out?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Trentrunner:
Yes, we have two “WTF is Sanders doing” Sanders. Most of the time you can’t tell.
Guess which one was busted by the WaPo for stealing the neighbors’ Sunday WaPo for weeks at a time?
LurkerNoLonger
I have a few questions: Is this legal? How is it enacted and by whom?
Major Major Major Major
@Barbara: I have no idea how much it costs, but even if it was a lot, these guys will spend a trillion dollars on a plane nobody wants, they can afford to shell out for some medical care.
Elizabelle
And here I thought you were talking about Jeff Sessions.
Have no sympathy for him. He endorsed the a-hole who is assailing him on Twitter now.
LAO
There is simply no bottom at the White House or with the Republican party. I’m beyond disgusted at this point.
trollhattan
@Trentrunner:
Don’t say that aloud, she’ll run your ass over.
Betty Cracker
@brendancalling: Well played!
Trentrunner
@hellslittlestangel: Literally LOL. Good one.
ruemara
@Trentrunner: grandstanding?
Yarrow
This is terrible, but at some level it’s darkly hilarious to me. Of course he did this, you fucking moron Caitlyn “I’m a Republican” Jenner. What the fuck did you think he’d do? What the fuck did you think Republicans would do? They’ve all been telling you who they are for years, decades. Now you find his decisions appalling? Because they affect you? Cry me a fucking river, you selfish piece of garbage. People getting hurt doesn’t matter until it comes to your front door. Too bad, so sad.
The fact he’s burning down the house, along with the table and candle, is just the Trump cake topper on the shit cake that is Republicanism. Nothing about this should surprise anyone. Nothing at all.
Mnemosyne
@Trentrunner:
We should probably refer to her as “WH Sanders” or some such, because otherwise we’re in for three more years of confusion.
LAO
I hate how much this made me laugh:
dmsilev
@Trentrunner: Without watching or reading about the briefing, I’ll go with ‘telling large numbers of lies’.
Jerzy Russian
@Barbara: As I understand it, gender reassignment costs about $10,000,000,000,000, whereas covering the thousands of soilders wounded for life from being in unnecessary wars and other military actions costs $12 per year. Also, defense contractors actually pay the Pentagon to take weapons systems they (the Pentagon) don’t want. Given this, there is not much else to cut.
LesGS
So, what now? What does this mean in the real world? Does the Pentagon have to rewrite all its rules allowing transfolk to serve, and then purge all those already openly serving?
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Huckabee Sanders. It’s easiest.
encephalopath
There’s just something about money and sheltered privilege that makes people stupid.
Mnemosyne
Yes, it’s so weird that when you give an arsonist a book of matches and a can of gasoline, he runs around setting things on fire. Morons.
mai naem mobile
I think it’s just a shiny object to distract. Dolt 45 couldn’t care less about Trans gendered people or their healthcare expense issues.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Or Sarah Sanders. Huckabee is kind of a pain in the ass to type on a phone.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: be nice; they never thought he would eat their faces.
Jeffro
Should be funny watching Trumpov realize that “numerous House conservatives and defense hawks” were only asking that the surgeries not be paid for by the military budget, not to kick 15,000 folks out of the US Military. Will he walk it back, claim he was misled by the House conservatives, claim that he has to go with it now since his evangelical base (I still can’t type that without laughing) LOVES it, ???
Hey GOP, it’s fun not knowing what you’re going to get on even the most basic requests with this clown, amirite? What could go wrong??
Yarrow
@dmsilev:
They’re all lying now. Ohio Mom called Portman’s office this morning and the intern just lied to her about his vote.
Ohio Mom: I’m calling to express my disappointment with Portman’s vote for the healthcare bill last night
Intern: He didn’t vote for it
OM: Yes, he did.
Intern: No, he didn’t.
OM: He did. I’m looking at the article about it in the New York Times right now.
Intern: That article is wrong.
Fact: NYT article was right; Ohio Mom was right; intern was wrong; Portman voted for the bill.
How the hell do you counter that sort of determined blindness?
matryoshka
Trump needs an easy win, so he’s shooting some culture war arrows. Such a predictable POS.
different-church-lady
@Trentrunner: Everything — every single thing — is going to be aimed directly towards the lizard brain from this point forward. They are not even going to pretend anymore. It’s just going to be buttons pushed all the way down.
But her emails!!!
The real question is how these morons are being defined as Hawks? I thought military Hawks would be all about military strength, readiness, etc. The cost of this medical care is the equivalent of a drop of piss in a sewage treatment plant. Meanwhile, they’re shedding qualified, trained soldiers and trimming their pool of potential recruits. They’re going to be paying far more in additional advertising, incentives and degraded standards to fill the holes and this is on top of the hit they’ve taken for reneging on their promises to foreign recruits.
EBT
Hahah now I can follow you too! Amature mistake Betty.
Major Major Major Major
@mai naem mobile:
I refuse to believe he’s capable of that level of strategic thinking.
Ohio Mom
@Barbara: I am sure feeling desperate could be part of why someone might choose the military as a means to change one’s physical manifestations of gender (if there is actually anyone who actually followed this path), but if I wanted to have such delicate surgery, I would want to research the surgeon very carefully. I’d want someone who had many such surgeries under their belt.
Didn’t our blog host complain about having his wisdom teeth pulled in the army?
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Yeah. Although I like reminding people of SHS’s tie to Mike Huckabee, and that this lying shit-ass was raised in the evangelical bosom. Ugly through and through.
Mostly, I am tired of our tack-ass president and anything to do with him. And how dare they go after healthcare, again and again.
Who’s to say that Trump/Scaramucci didn’t go wild ass about transgender to deflect attention from the Senate? It will work, too.
lurkypants
@Major Major Major Major: Like they do for abortion.
Elizabelle
@Major Major Major Major: I think it is distraction. It works too.
catclub
@Barbara:
Remember the old “pay any price paid for defense, not one penny for tribute?”
Now it is “pay any price paid for arms – not one penny for healthcare of the troops”
les
@Mnemosyne:
The Huckster. Short and accurate.
bemused
@Yarrow:
Wow, no words.
trollhattan
@mai naem mobile:
I’d assumed, wrongly it turns out, that he’d leave them alone because they simply don’t interest him but noooo, since he can’t abort all the abortions and kill all the contraceptives he’s going after the fundie’s second-favorite target.
Know your base.
Brachiator
@mai naem mobile:
To distract from what? I don’t get the impression that these people are smart enough to have a hidden agenda.
I don’t think he cares much about anything. There is, though, a thoroughly childish and false “tough businessman” idea about cost cutting and efficiency. But here it is an absurd’s eye view.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: TRUMP: “Give me matches and gasoline and I will burn everything down!”
GOP: “This sounds like a person we can trust with matches and gasoline.”
But her emails!!!
@Mnemosyne:
She’s SS, he’s BS. The initials fit.
Yarrow
@matryoshka:
Small comfort, but I guess it might be better than shooting off actual bombs and starting a real war.
rikyrah
“Skinny repeal” should be called “gut it and run.” Voting to destroy insurance markets and kick millions off health care remains immoral. pic.twitter.com/D8N1Jlk6tD
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 26, 2017
mai naem mobile
@Yarrow: I like to call him the shit supersoaker because he just sprays shit wherever he’s at. CIA, Boy Scouts, the Navy, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Paris,NY,DC…
rikyrah
The wall — it always comes back to the wall. This story is astounding: https://t.co/2KZaeKigcB pic.twitter.com/qF6sImzL4W
— Megan Cassella (@mmcassella) July 26, 2017
Ian G.
I seriously cannot believe there are still people who trust Trump to do anything other than that which advances Trump’s greatness in his own “mind”. How many fuckin’ times is Lucy going to pull the football away?
At least now it’s Republicans getting burned, rather than retail investors.
Frankensteinbeck
@trollhattan:
Trump is a mean shit. He hurts people for fun. There is no one safe from him, if they catch his attention. With Pence as his VP, every minority will catch his attention. Anyone he hasn’t hurt yet is just waiting their turn.
jl
@mai naem mobile: Probably true. I heard about this ugly mess when I woke up this morning. News said Trump personally intervened to allow a transgender person to compete in his beauty contest after the organization said it broke their rules (forget the name of it, Miss Universe, or whatever?). Trump doesn’t care.
Last person in the room convinced him they were bad and low energy in the military. The bigot last person in the room forgot to tell Trump exactly what to do in order to meet bigot goals with minimum of fuss and muss, versus blowing the whole thing up into an ugly public mess that is counterproductive to bigot goals.
What I am curious about if this was literally executive branch action via tweet? Military didn’t know anything about it. I guess Trump’s tweets are really official documents now.
Mattis gave the correct response. The House GOP bigots are using the expense of treatment as an excuse to hinder transgenders from serving. So, they take the issue to Mattis. And, my surmise is that Mattis correctly responded that IF the issue was treatment expense, he needed to finish the study of how expensive it would be. But I think treatment expense is a pretext for discrimination. Trump too dumb to understand how to use a bigot pretext to meet bigot goals without blowing up the whole bigot operation.
What to do about the thousands of transgenders now serving? Mattis understands that is an issue. Trump doesn’t, or maybe figures he’ll give them MAGA gear, give them some coupons to some of his Trump party destination properties, and tell them to go away, nicely, and what is the problem? What a dope.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ian G.:
They trusted Trump to terrify and persecute Hispanics, and he delivered where every other politician failed them.
mai naem mobile
@Brachiator: the story of the day would have been Manafort and his turning over documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead we are talking about transgendered people in the military .
matryoshka
@Yarrow: Wouldn’t rule that out before it’s all over.
Blahblah
@Trentrunner:
She’s the WH Press Secretary. Scaramucci is the WH Communications Director, which makes him her boss, but he is not the Press Secretary.
Shell
Ooh, Children’s letters to Trump. When is that paperback coming out?
Chris Fisher
Because God knows the Pentagon is super careful not to waste taxpayer money.
*cough*F-35*cough*
VOR
@Brachiator: I think part of McConnell’s strategy is taking advantage of the constant stream of shiny objects coming off Trump’s twitter feed. Things in the Senate which would normally dominate news cycles now just slip through the cracks. I don’t think McConnell is coordinating anything with Trump, I think he has simply recognized that Trump is going to distract all on his own.
Virginia
@Elizabelle: I really prefer possum queen.
NorthLeft12
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” – Deadbeat Donald
I am really not sure what to say anymore. Every damn day he says something even dumber, ignorant, creepy, abusive, and inappropriate. Who can keep up?
But I am sure that life under President Hilary Clinton would have been worse, right?
different-church-lady
@Ian G.:
That’s not true. They can also trust him to hurt people for no reason.
Timurid
Jesus F. Christ.
(((CassandraLeo)))
“I never thought leopards would eat MY face,” sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.
Blahblah
@Mnemosyne: You’re assuming she’ll survive the next three years in that job?
I wouldn’t take that bet.
Jeffro
@Yarrow: @mai naem mobile: Someone else here called him “Shit Midas: everything he touches turns to crap” That’s about right.
jl
@rikyrah: The skinny mini will blow up insurance rates substantially, and quickly, after it goes into effect. Several states have experience with insurance markets with and without regulated minimum coverage, and with and without some kind of coverage mandate, or kluge that effectively imposes one. Washington, New York and New Jersey come to mind immediately.
Don’t need no Deep State fake news CBO to tell you that. the experiment has been done and undone several times at a state level.
Edit: by ‘substantially’, I mean 50 percent to 100 percent increase, from experience in individual states. Rates might double. People will notice and notice quickly, and be mightily displeased.
trollhattan
@Virginia:
I’d like to declare a winner now, please?!?
Elizabelle
@Virginia: Possum queen. LOL. That fits too.
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12: why, i distinctly remember being told that Hillary was worse on LGBT rights!
Gelfling 545
Seriously, anybody who thought Trump would honor, or even remember, his campaign promises is just delusional.
mai naem mobile
I saw this on an earlier thread. The Budget totally cuts the fed share of Special Olympis. It’s only $12M. It’s literally less tHan what it cost for protecting Princess Melanoma in NY for two weeks. What pieces of shit the GOP are. I have a tendency to swear but I mostly stick to fuck,bitch,shit and asshole. This administration want to make me use the c word for the women and mofo c-rhymes with fucker and other words.
Elizabelle
Possum Queen is really brilliant for Huckabee Sanders.
Although possums do useful stuff, like eating bugs, if memory serves.
patrick II
There is resolute disregard for the affects on individual soldiers/sailors who have now dedicated years of their lives to defending our country and who are now told they must leave. They can’t have those years back, and they have delayed without thanks or regard other life paths they may have chosen.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Its not that he’s setting things on fire they have trouble with. Its that he’s setting EVERYTHING on fire and they’re having trouble realizing he’s not following their directions of where to set the fires.
debit
@mai naem mobile: As a woman I am perfectly fine with calling a c#nt a cunt. Sometimes it’s the only word that suits.
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
Ah. Politico (in the article you linked) says
So now we have a name. (Dunno if true but could believe it.)
P.s. as others are saying, this is also, alas, a Squirrel.
News cycles will be eaten by it. (And yes, this administration does this a lot.)
TenguPhule
@mai naem mobile:
Which is why its government waste and must be destroyed. Because that’s money Trump isn’t getting for shit he isn’t doing.
Hal
More than willing to cut 800 billion from medicaid, but sure; 8 million a year in medical care related to transgender service members keeps Congress up at night.
Oh, and Caitlin Jenner can go hug a land mine. Take Susan Sarandon with her.
germy
MomSense
Afraid to ask but have we heard anything from the amendmentorama going on in the Senate?
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
It worked for Trump. Obviously they think it will work for them.
TenguPhule
@MomSense: GOP still attempting to make sausages out of live babies.
Yarrow
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes, which is why what he said last night about young girls is terrifying when considered along with how everything he says is projection.
Link. What in the world has he done? Is that what’s really on those tapes? Just how much of a monster is he?
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Being queen of the possums seems pretty useless even if possums themselves are useful, so I vote to call her the Possum Queen from now on.
TenguPhule
This report is subject to sudden change without notice in the event the Republicans do something stupid or unexpected.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
You’re excessively optimistic about her tenure as spokespuppet. She’ll be lucky to last as long as Spicer.
Major Major Major Major
The Onion: Trump Administration Worried President Burning Through Minority Scapegoats at Unsustainable Rate
barb 2
Stupids (GOP, Evangelical christ-nots, Trumpsters etc) just can’t stop being who they are. Hate is stupid — and these stupids are world class haters.
We have school board elections coming up — three candidates. Evangelicals keep trying to take over the school board and all political offices. One female candidate put out a lot of effort trying to make herself sound “liberal” — caring about the education of special needs children blah blah. Except that she mentions drivings her kids to school in a rural area when kids are bussed, rarely if ever driven.
So I check out her website (facebook) and google her. Turns out that she was very big in leading the fight to get an bill passed which would discriminate against all transgendered students as well as adults. That piece of crap bill got voted down by the sane folk of Washington State.
On her facebook page was a comment by someone asking if she really cared about all children when she was working so hard for the transgendered hate bill. School board positions are non partisan — so DEM, REP or Indi aren’t listed. One has to do a bit of digging. Thankfully Wash State ballots are mail-in so there is time to do the research.
The haters can’t help themselves — Jenner is still a hater, as long as she remains in the GOP. Jenner still uses the special male privileges — she doesn’t have a woman’s card. It is doubtful she will ever learn or have the empathy required.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: You can just see her, out at night, with a scepter and those pearls, hanging out with the other lesser animals.
And ringworm. Def has ringworm.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
To be fair, that’s what won Trump the Electoral College in the first place. It wasn’t transgender people running around demanding to be let into bathrooms, it was conservatives demanding they be thrown out, and yet Trump and the Republicans turned it into Liberals are obsessed with bathrooms!
Ohio Mom
@TenguPhule: I called the Cleveland office back and there were two women there this morning. I’ll address my note to both of them with the caveat they they’ll know which one of them it was.
As I said, it’s not much but it is the best I can do.
I am trying to adjust to the idea that the ACA is over and that a certain level of background low-level anxiety about my family’s coverage/various health conditions will just have to be tolerated.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Its going to be a lot less funny when it turns out to be true.
Mike in NC
It’s only Wednesday, so Trump has plenty of time to pull off even more outrageous shit before he goes to play golf on Friday.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: wouldn’t it be a good thing if it turns out to be true and he runs out of (effective) scapegoats?
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
True. Just more reason to use the Possum Queen name while we can.
Iowa Old Lady
The trans-ban tweet is so radical that neither Ernst nor Grassley jumped to support it. Ernst, who served for a number of years, said anyone who met the qualifications should be allowed to enlist. Grassley said he’d defer to her because of her military experience.
TenguPhule
@Ohio Mom:
Its not over yet. But we are losing ground on it. Trouble is that there are so many other explosive problems which the Senate hasn’t scheduled for that this may all wind up causing a chain reaction of emergencies.
Just one example, if they fuck up the debt ceiling, ACA premiums and providers are going to go batshit insane next year because the whole market is going to be crashing regardless of what status the BRCA is in.
Betty Cracker
Possum Queen is unable to state whether the ban on transgender service members will affect those currently serving. When asked whether it might have made sense to iron out details like that prior to announcing the ban, Possum Queen demurred: “I think sometimes you have to make decisions and once he made a decision, he didn’t feel it was necessary to hold that decision.”
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
He never will. Remember, his greatest champions are an apocalyptic death cult that promises its followers that they are among the few elect that will be saved. Anyone they know who gets scapegoated or victimized by Trump will be revealed as Not One Of Them, so they won’t give a shit. And when they get victimized, their current “friends” won’t care, either.
jl
@Roger Moore:
” She’ll be lucky to last as long as Spicer. ”
From pics I’ve seen, Huckabee Sanders (aka ‘Possum Queen) doesn’t hid consternation and befuddlement very well. Trump likes the way The Joker handles everything, with a demented grin, and happy patter, no matter how inappropriate for the given situation.
Edit: if we are going to dub Huckabee Sanders the Possum Queen, I want to dub Mooch The Joker, since I think he looks just like the ones from the Batman comics and TV series, and has same general attitude and affect.
Ohio Mom
@mai naem mobile: Disclosure: I am in a very bad mood today.
I am a suburban special needs mom. My kid isn’t interested in athletics but I know a number of Special Olympic families.
This isn’t a scientific sampling, it’s a reflection of the politics of my area, but except for one, all the Special Olympics families I know are hard-core Republicans.
So let Special Olympics be cut, maybe some of them will get a clue. All I ever hear from them is, “They wouldn’t do that to our kids.”
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
For most slimy evil bastards, yes.
But this is Trump we’re talking about here. Of course he’d make things worse from there.
Brachiator
@mai naem mobile:
You know about it. I know about it. I’m not seeing political masterminds practicing the art of deception.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Also, Ivanka may be last on his list of scapegoats, but she’s still on the list.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: Agreed, but I was pointing out that even in the context of what the military spends for medical care, never mind trillion dollar planes, it’s just a tiny amount of money.
Betty Cracker
@mai naem mobile & @debit: I totally understand that impulse and have succumbed to it myself, but I’d really appreciate it if folks wouldn’t use that word here.
Mnemosyne
@Ohio Mom:
Because I am a jerk, if any of them asks you for a donation for Special Olympics, I would say, “Sorry, I’m spending all my money on health insurance now that Trump killed Obamacare.”
Barbara
@Yarrow:
As I was lying awake last night trying to stay calm about this, it occurred to me that McConnell’s strategy is to throw so many bills up for random votes that every Republican who needs to can say simultaneously that they did vote for repeal and that they did not vote for repeal. It just depends on what bill you’re talking about. In this way, they can tell people like Ohio Mom that they did not vote for repeal, and they can tell donors that they did. They don’t care whether you are smart enough to figure out that there are multiple bills and you can tell what they actually did. They don’t care.
TenguPhule
Jennifer Rubin is Shrill.
Now if she’d just get a clue and stop being a Republican.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Yarrow:
By doing something grossly illegal
jl
@Betty Cracker:
“I think sometimes you have to make decisions and once he made a decision, he didn’t feel it was necessary to hold that decision.”
Problem with calling Huckabee Sanders the Possum Queen, is that possums don’t talk such nonsense. At least, not the possums I know. But, then, most California possums have at least a year or two of college.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: *Rolled up Newspaper* *THWAP*
Bad Goku. Sit in the Corner.
Barbara
@Ohio Mom: There are very few surgeons who do gender reassignment. I am sure there will be more, but yes, it’s the sort of thing you would save up money for in order to find the best surgeon you can.
Yarrow
Senate is just passing the buck:
TenguPhule
@jl: And there’s good eating on a Possum.
Kentucky Lied Huckabee….not so much.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Ah, but she’s not necessarily a possum herself just because she’s the Possum Queen.
In fact, I’m picturing her declaring herself to be Queen of the Possums while they all stare blankly at her and then go back to unearthing grubs.
ruckus
@LAO:
I passed disgusted about 2 decades ago, passed completely fucking pissed about a year ago, so where does that leave me?
TenguPhule
@ruckus:
In dire need of a better laxative?
Yarrow
Republicans really can’t deal with women except by threats of violence:
Patricia Kayden
@TenguPhule: This is what you expect when you put an idiotic manchild into the highest political office in the land. What the hell do we expect from a blowhard like Trump?
Elizabelle
@jl: This one’s a homeschooled possum.
With pearls.
They’re probably fake too.
Jerzy Russian
@Betty Cracker:
Does anyone here speak Stupid? What the hell does this even mean?
Maybe we can have a WP plug-in that automatically replaces Stupid with English (to the extent possible). I would suggest putting a limit on how long a given CPU can process each Stupid–>English request (utterances from the Possum Queen probably are harder to crack than normal), and if it times out just output “derp, derp”. Either way, it will makes things easier to follow.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: Snatch a knot. Grab them by their p*ssies. Knock them out.
Our GOP brethren and sisters are so Christ-like.
debit
@Betty Cracker: Yes ma’am.
Elizabelle
Possum Queen just works on so many levels.
Lives in a swamp: check. ….
Yarrow
@Patricia Kayden:
Men are afraid women will make them look stupid. Women are afraid men will kill them.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
It’s okay, I’m sure it’s just their economic anxiety talking.
ruckus
@But her emails!!!:
Never, ever underestimate the ability of republicans to shoot themselves in the dick to stick up for a lack of principals.
Frank McCormick
@Barbara: Earlier I saw a statistic where the military outlay for Viagra is several times higher that transgender medication AND surgery.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: That’s the first question that came to my mind. What is going to happen to the thousands of transgender people already serving in our military?
Trump is just inviting unnecessary lawsuits against his government. He is running the country as if we were his private business.
The Moar You Know
I am sick to death of ingenuous Republicans acting like this kind of behavior out of Trump is some sort of surprise. Nobody is surprised.
jl
@Yarrow: Is anyone keeping a list of this BS from ultra retro GOP Congresscruds who seem to have serious issues with women?
Yarrow
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s what his voters wanted. They’re getting it good and hard.
TenguPhule
@Jerzy Russian:
He has to make decisions but don’t expect him to ever be consistent about not changing his mind about those decisions because of Cleek’s Law.
/Best I can do
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Didn’t say what or that I endorse what ever it is
jl
@Patricia Kayden: You forgot ‘shoot them’.
Edit: referencing some GOP Congressfool who wanted to fight a duel with some woman in Congress. I forget. Was it the ugly fat buy in the bunny jammies?
Edit2: Sorry. Ducky jammies. Commenter below gave correct info. Sorry for giving out fake news.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
I really hope someone has sent up the Batsignal for Adam so he can explain for us how disastrous this policy would be.
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden:
Worse. He’s treating everything like his own private kingdom.
Yarrow
@jl: Not that I’m aware of. I’m just seeing comments on blogs and Twitter. It’s a good idea–someone should be keeping a list.
jl
@Patricia Kayden:
” He is running the country as if we were his private business. ”
That often meant bankruptcy. And the debt ceiling is coming up. Uh oh.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Doesn’t matter, its getting to the point where people are confusing you with me. Either be a lot more subtle about it or just stop before you commit it to keyboard.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Also, if that horrifying ducky pajamas photo of that Texas rep doesn’t make it into his Democratic opponent’s commercials in 2018, that Dem doesn’t deserve to win.
ETA: AL posted it a few days ago.
DanF
Thank god Ivanka is there to be a moderating influence. /snark
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Yarrow:
What the fuck? This sounds like the shit that happened in the run-up to the AGW with pro-slavery southern congressmen threatening to beat up or kill their Northern counterparts. Even doing it in at least one famous case.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule: Then I’ll stop
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Thank you.
H.E.Wolf
@debit:
Thank you, debit; and thank you, Betty. No need for us to speak Senator McCain’s language (as he so infamously did to his wife).
Heywood J.
@Elizabelle: Oh, she’d eat bugs and a lot worse, if her oompa-loompa overlord commanded it.
I wonder what it would take for actual non-cult journamalists to simply stop showing up to these dog-and-pony shows. Reading children’s letters to F. von Clownstick, really, is this what they’re sitting still for now?
gvg
I think he is going after the transgendered because they looked weak and easily picked on. I also think he is escalating. he is enjoying picking on people even more than he did at the start of his campaign. Mr. psycho is going to scare more and more people soon. i just wish he would scare Putin.
Ohio Mom
@Barbara: Maybe the military outsources it? That would take the scarey out of it.
Gelfling 545
So Michele Bachmann thinks Trump is a “model Christian.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/07/24/michele-bachmann-donald-trump-is-a-man-of-prayer-who-hasnt-taken-a-day-off/
ruemara
@Yarrow: I have no doubts that if the Republicans succeed in winning any more states, they will call a constitutional conventional convention, remove our right to elect Senators and limit service to men only. These women have been siding with bastards that would gladly throw them out of office even though they’re on the supposed same side. Bitches.
Mike in NC
Spicer was repeatedly blindsided by the sociopath Trump for six months. Not being allowed to meet the Pope was just icing on Trump’s shit-cake. Huckabee Sanders cannot last long as press secretary if she hasn’t a clue what’s going on. Most likely fired in less than 90 days. Meanwhile, good luck on reading those fan letters submitted by children (or Trump himself) to the WH Press Corps.
H.E.Wolf
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Thank you both. Although I’m very glad you two are here, and respect your perspectives (from blue and red locations, respectively), the eliminationist rhetoric upsets me because of family history on the receiving end of same.
rikyrah
@Gelfling 545:
I absolutely want for that tape to drop, if only to have all these so-called Christians be forced to explain why they’re still supporting him.
gene108
Trump probably did not understand what they said. Conversation went like this for Trump:
“Transgender people blah blah blah ‘I wonder what Ivanka’s wearing’ blah blah ‘I really kicked ass at the Boy Scouts’ blah blah not in the military blah blah blah…”
Roger Moore
@mai naem mobile:
No, it wouldn’t. The story of today was always going to be the Senate voting on something related to Obamacare repeal.
rikyrah
WaPo: The head of the State Department’s diplomatic security bureau has resigned.https://t.co/Lju6JYrQWm
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2017
Brachiator
@TenguPhule: RE: Yes, it’s so weird that when you give an arsonist a book of matches and a can of gasoline, he runs around setting things on fire. Morons.
Odd that the Republicans don’t remember the legends about Roman Emperor Nero.
TenguPhule
The bitter fruit of victory in Mosul
And the cycle of revenge will continue. And so on and so forth.
sigh.
catclub
Justification for voting for skinny repeal – ignore the fact that the ‘two sides’ are both made up of crazy Republicans, who still cannot agree on how cruel to be.
Shalimar
@Virginia: Sarah Huckabee Sanders is from Arkansas, so technically I think she would be a hog queen or razorback queen.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
I would really prefer the Handmaid’s tale remain fiction.
sharl
There’s likely a political angle to this new transgender issue that its GOP supporters won’t likely admit to on the record:
ETA: This worked for Bush in Ohio in 2004, but maybe in the ensuing years we’ve become better as a nation on gender and sexual orientation issues, hopefully sufficiently better that these rile-up-the-rubes political moves aren’t quite so effective these days.
And regarding the probably bogus claim that a big reason for it is because of the added medical costs it would impose on the Defense Department, a 2016 Rand Corp. study found that such additional costs would likely be small, if not negligible.
TenguPhule
Thread too depressing. NEED FLUFFY BUNNIES!
Elizabelle
Only GOP senators voting no on both measures today:
Susan Collins
Dean Heller
Lisa Murkowski
And every single Democrat voted no.
Proud of all of these NO votes. Well done.
Ohio Mom
@Mnemosyne: Nah. They don’t ever ask for money, though sometimes they invite us to watch various meets (like those things aren’t boring enough when it is your actual kid, like I want a headache from hanging around a noisy indoor pool for hours).
I’m going to wait until the cut is real, in place, and felt, and then ask them nonchalantly about their kid’s participation in Special Olympics when I run into them at the supermarket or Target (I almost always see someone I know at the Target down the street). The conversation will evolve from there.
Yarrow
Did Balloon Juice crap out for a few minutes for anyone else? Or was that just me?
Mike in NC
@rikyrah: Dang! Jared has to pause and update his resume again. How can he concentrate on restoring world peace with so many distractions?
Matt McIrvin
@sharl: The “negligible cost” argument never works; it’s “I don’t want ONE CENT of my tax money going to pay for anything I disapprove of.”
Felonius Monk
Here’s some interesting info:
(WaPo)
sharl
@Yarrow: Yeah, B-J crapped out for me too, right around the time I had just finished the original version of the comment I posted above.
Major Major Major Major
I got a CNN alert that “proposal to repeal Obamacare without a replacement is heading for a defeat in senate”, what’s going on?
sphex
@Yarrow: Happened to me, too. It was weird.
sharl
@Matt McIrvin: Heh, that’s true enough (sadly so, in this case).
Felonius Monk
@Yarrow:
It wasn’t just you.
Ohio Mom
@sphex: Me too.
The workings of the internet ether are mysterious.
sharl
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve seen that on Twitter – here and here, for example – but that’s all I “know” at the moment.
JMG
I love the assumption that Ohio and Michigan voters will naturally make bigotry their prime voting motivation. Dems there should be everywhere saying, “it’s not us who think you’re bigots, it’s them!”
Yarrow
@sharl: @sphex: Thanks. I checked it on my phone using data to make sure it wasn’t just my internet connection, but it wouldn’t load there either. Some kind of hiccup I guess.
Major Major Major Major
@Ohio Mom:
Please don’t conflate ‘wordpress’ with ‘the internet’!
Ohio Mom
@sharl: Talking Points Memo has a post up.
Ten (!) votes against repealing now and waiting until 2020 to cobble replacement together.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: And a good thing I was sitting down when I read that because Portman was one of the No votes.
That must have taken all his gumption. I will have to call all his offices to compliment him.
Lalophobia
@jl: Twitter has dubbed Mooch That 80’s Guy from Futurama. I think it fits.
Major Major Major Major
@Lalophobia: isn’t it UNCANNY?
TenguPhule
@Yarrow: Not just you.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: I am telling you, the no votes are trading places from bill to bill, so that sometimes they are yes and they can point in both directions if anyone calls them to the mat. There are going to be very few people who vote no on every substantive bill, and only two who voted not to proceed at all.
FlipYrWhig
@Lalophobia: My bonitis!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@H.E.Wolf: Technically it’s blue. Well the county is. And the Democrats aren’t exactly uber-progressive…
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: For such a horrible disease it sure has a funny name.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ohio Mom:
Not at all; it’s a series of tubes, not a dump truck, a series of tubes.
sharl
@Ohio Mom: Thanks for the TPM info.
The ‘No’ vote certainly beats the alternative, but I suspect this is just step 2 in a choreographed roll-out of these votes. GOP Senators like Portman – unlike Maine’s Senator Collins who has been (so far) consistently good – can safely vote ‘No’ here and momentarily take some heat off themselves from supporters of ACA and Medicaid. What they do in votes after this is anyone’s guess at the moment, but this lot will need constant watching over – I’m certain there’s more mischief to come.
Mike in NC
@Major Major Major Major: Former Speaker John Boehner has been telling reporters they just can’t get their act together about “repeal and replace”. They only seem to know how to obstruct.
sharl
@JMG:
I hope it doesn’t work, but the big advantage it gives state and local GOP operatives is that the word can be passed down to rank-and-file via information networks that are mostly self-contained. I’m specifically thinking of christian evangelical churches, and on a gender issue like this, that will include African-American churches as well, where a strong current of homophobia runs among older congregants. (Lots of older black folks were not happy with Obama’s positive moves in favor of expanded rights in this area.)
A skilled preacher can write a sermon that riles up the flock without breaking the laws that forbid churches engaging in partisan political activities. And then there are church meetings and activities outside of Sunday services, etc…
Ohio Mom
@sharl: I know Portman’s vote today means nothing. But I will call in a thank you because, why not?
I am pretty sure at this point that in the end, an unsustainable mess will be signed into law, because they can’t bear not to put something on Trump’s desk.
People will become disabled by untreated illnesses, people will die, people will go bankrupt. The reverberations from these events will derail many lives.
All sorts of programs and agencies that depended on government funding will close shop, and the people who would have been served by them will lead diminished lives.
Hopefully, all this will cause enough people to get a clue. Lord knows, I intend on rubbing it all in every face I can.
sharl
@Ohio Mom: That’s a good attitude, but – and I say this as a glass-half-empty kind of guy – this repeal BS might well be stopped, given how fired up people are. We’ll keep on keepin’ on!
Which reminds me: I gotta send a contribution to the ADAPT folks…
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
“Didn’t our blog host complain about having his wisdom teeth pulled in the army?”
Yes he did. I had mine out in the Navy, and it went well enough. Seeing them take a mallet and chisel to my face was a little … um, disturbing, but alls well that ends well. 1971 IIRC.
But that’s a long, long way from surgery on your genitalia, for which I personally (were I wanting that kind of medical work) would want to do a TON of research before carefully selecting a surgeon who was proud to specialize in that work. As opposed to, well, you know… Someone who was told to do the work because someone has to do it, and well, it isn’t going to be me… The colonel said so! So There!
Virginia
@trollhattan: thank you. I am glad to finally contribute to my fav place to lurk. Besides, PQ has a good ring to it.
Virginia
@Shalimar: yeah, but PQ reminds us of her beady eyes.
Kathleen
@Blahblah: Or “Mooch”, as @Maggie@NYT called him on Twitter as she lauded his appointment.
Kathleen
@Gelfling 545: More like a “Model Inquisition Era Christian”.
Betty Cracker
@Virginia: It really fits. I intend to call her Possum Queen as long as I’m forced to acknowledge her existence as a government employee, which I hope will be brief. Thank you for inventing such a fitting moniker!
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
I also understand your distaste for the word, but it’s so hard to accurately describe John Sidney McCain III without using it as a quote of his, speaking about his second wife, with reporters and a hot mike.
Just goes to show what a piece of work McCain really is, that you can’t be wholly descriptive of his failures without resorting words you would really rather not use.
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
‘Men are afraid women will make them look stupid. Women are afraid men will kill them.”\\
And this is why Mrs J has a concealed carry permit… after receiving death threats from a dirty cop, she took that tape to the judge, who at the time was responsible for issuing carry permits. It took her no time at all to be legalized. I’m glad my Grandma taught her how to shoot!
JustRuss
@mai naem mobile:
Special O was started by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, JFK’s sister. Anything with a whiff of Democrat is getting hacked by these effing hacks.
Origuy
@les:
How about just SHuck.
Sister Golden Bear
@Major Major Major Major:
The military spends five times as much on Viagra, as it would for medical care for transgender troops.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/26/the-military-spends-five-times-as-much-on-viagra-as-it-would-on-transgender-troops-medical-care/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.f229390ea802
No One You Know
@LesGS: Whatever causes the most pain, humiliation, and ongoing misery for the most people. In a system where money votes and people don’t count, that’s the return on investment.
No, I’m not bitter. Why do you ask?