Words mean something. Such a pleasure to read:
“I think they know their plan is not very popular,” the president said. “You can tell that because they’re being pretty dishonest about my plan.”
“Here’s what you need to know,” the president continued. “I have made reforms that have saved millions of seniors with Medicare hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs.” Obama was referencing the fact that Obamacare closed the donut hole, which Romney and Ryan would reinstate. “I have proposed reforms that will save Medicare money by getting rid of wasteful spending in the system. Reforms that will not touch your Medicare benefits, not by a dime.”As for Romney and Ryan? “They have a very different plan,” the president said. “They want to turn Medicare into a voucher program.” That would end the guarantee of Medicare, Obama said, citing the CBO study showing that the Ryan plan would cost seniors an extra $6,400 per year.
“My plan has already extended Medicare by a decade. Their plan ends Medicare as we know it. My plan reduces the cost of Medicare by cracking down fraud, and waste, and subsidies to insurance companies. Their plan makes seniors pay more so they can give another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. That’s the difference between our plans on Medicare, that’s an example of the choice in this election, and that is why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States of America.”
I regret only that the President has not adopted the Balloon Juice term for vouchers, which is “coupons”, but give him a week. If they keep lying, and they will, because Republicans have been repeating this Medicare lie completely unrebutted by media since 2010, we may yet get to coupons.
h/t Daily Kos
Hunter Gathers
After watching Mittens make an ass out of himself for the umpteenth time this morning, statements like that are going to turn the whining and crying by Mittens and The Boy Blunder up to eleven.
Scott S.
If they call them Groupons, it’s sure to be a success. Everyone loves Groupons!
Waynski
I listened to the whole speech. It was all about issues. You want talk about issues, Sparky McFucknuts? The President is happy to.
japa21
I am sure the beltway will start clutching pearls because Obama accused Romney et al of being “dishonest” and that shows how uncivil this campaign has become, etc. etc.
Of course, there is no similar pearl clutching when Romney actually uses the word “lie” in his accusations.
Come on Drum, where are you?
Randy P
Guess we need to expand the list of off-limits topics.
“It would be a big help to my campaign if Obama would stop talking about Medicare. They’re being hateful and mean.”
jl
Third time I said this, but cannot retreat on this issue.
Now GOP and VSP saying that the Democratic claim that Ryan/Romney ticket and GOP want to “end Medicare as we know it” is scare tactic and demagogic. I expect some fact schmecker will declare that a lie soon.
See Krugman’s blog post today.
Bullies bully until you stand up to them, no ifs ands or buts.
So, no concern trolling about what Obama and Biden say, if it is true. And what they have said is true. What Obama said about Medicare is true. What Biden said about financial re de regulation putting people back in chains is true.
Kay
@Hunter Gathers:
Screw them. I see Romney and Ryan are still repeating the disgusting dog-whistle welfare lie every day while the political media pretend they don’t hear it.
If this “debate” is going to be conducted completely per Mitt and Ann Romney’s demands on what may or may not be discussed, Obama has every right to hit them every day, on everything.
He’s the only one who is calling them on this. One is better than none, and right now, he’s it.
Valdivia
@Waynski:
exactly! on one side you have a guy fuming about tactics and going all Meta (whiny edition) and on ours Obama doing what he has been doing all along–talking about what matters.
trollhattan
@Randy P:
Republican solution: change name to Medicareless(tm).
Now, let’s have a frank and open discussion. (Who gets to be Frank?)
gbear
If they ever makes a movie about the Romney campaign, it’ll be a remake of ‘All About Eve’. I can see the movie starting with Mitt thanking everyone who helped him get the nomination while they’re all sitting there hating his guts, and I want to hear Obama say ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night’.
lamh35
Damn, Soledad O’Brien is kicking azz and taking names!
Pawlenty suggests that Soledad O’Brien doesn’t understand English
“Romney surrogates going up against CNN host Soledad O’Brien clearly haven’t learned their lesson.
A day after former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu angrily told O’Brien to “put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney’s national campaign co-chair, suggested that the CNN host didn’t understand English.
During an interview on Wednesday, O’Brien told Pawlenty that one of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate’s ads falsely claimed that President Barack Obama had cut $716 billion from Medicare — but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had determined that it was actually reduction in spending, not benefits.
“Isn’t that just patently untrue in that ad?” she asked the former Minnesota governor. “No, that’s not correct, Soledad,” Pawlenty replied. “It is absolutely beyond factual dispute that [Obama] has cut $716 billion out of the money that was projected to be spent on Medicare over the next 10 years.”
“But, sir, it’s not a cut in Medicare, right?” O’Brien observed. “Let me just read from the CBO. It’s a ‘permanent reduction in the annual updates to Medicaid’s payment rates.’ It’s a cut in the spending — future spending. And it’s cut that actually goes to insurers, right? I mean, it’s not cuts to individuals.”
“No matter how you say this, it’s a cut to Medicare,” Pawlenty insisted. “You can’t even with a straight face, look your viewers in the eye and tell [them] that it’s not a cut to Medicare.”
“Well, I can’t look viewers in the eye from where I am,” O’Brien pointed out. “I’m saying the way the CBO puts it. … That is a savings.”
“Do you know what that is in English?” Pawlenty quipped.
“I speak English incredibly well, sir, as you know,” O’Brien shot back. “So, tell me what it is in English.”…[keep reading in the article]
GregB
He’s brimming with anger and hatred, unlike our beloved, warm and loving Rush, Ann Coulter and Ted Nugent.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
No one wants to be old ferret face.
Roger Moore
I think vouchers is better. A lot of people have a positive association with coupons, especially people who are just scraping buy who see them as a way of saving money. Meanwhile, vouchers have something of a bad reputation already. The only thing I can think of that might be a better way of describing them would be to call them scrip.
JenJen
Also of interest to poll watchers, Gallup sees no discernible bounce since Romney picked Paul Ryan.
That leaves Romney with only the convention and the debates to improve his standing. I don’t like his chances.
kindness
BJ s getting many more GOS links than we used to. Mind you, the liberaler-than-thou attitude still sucks but at least they aren’t Firebaggers.
Balloon Juice is growing up. Does that make us toddlers or teenagers?
gwangung
If we aren’t whiny teenagers, we need to work on that.
jl
@lamh35:
Unbelievable. These GOP swindlers are just looking the US population in the eye and saying that one plus one equals zero, and I effing dare you, effer, to effing contradict me or something might happen, you knows what I mean?
The GOP has been running on, often bogus, claims to solve budget problems by eliminating ‘fraud waste and abuse’ for decades, and now they turn around and pretend that such a concept does not exist.
As in a partnership with an abusive jackass, it makes no difference what you say or how you say it. The concept of ‘being careful’ has no meaning. The abuser will find a pretext to make an insane and violent attack.
Exactly the same thing here, and disgracefully, done on national stage.
Only responses that will work is to stand your ground, and keep telling the truth.
I would recommend the Truman saying that “I’m just telling the truth and they think it’s Hell”. But today’s GOP would start up a lie campaign that you are attacking Christianity. See how it works?
Hunter Gathers
@Kay: Obama’s going to continue to beat the shit out of them everyday from now until Election Day. Who gives a shit what the MSM has to say about it. If memory serves, the entire MSM was predicting a McCain victory the morning of the election, they were still pumping up Palin’s ‘Grizzly Mom’ shit and were saying the ‘Bradley Effect’ was going to cost Obama the election. They’re going to continue to bend over backwards for Mittens/Boy Blunder so they’ll get their tax cut. And when the polls on the west coast close on Election Night, sealing the election for Obama, the MSM will spend the next four years complaining about how ‘hyper-partisan’ those uppity blacks, dirty hispanics and stupid younglings are for not voting to give David Gregory his tax cut.
Valdivia
@Roger Moore:
I tend to agree that vouchers is better. It really gets to the idea that you are never going to cover anywhere near the full extend of the price with it.
Jennifer
When Obama talks like this, I get a tingle up my leg.
Violet
@Roger Moore: Coupon Care kind of rolls off the tongue, though.
I’ve heard someone call it a Groupon. I’m not sure it matters if people understand the concept.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Do people know what “scrip” is? I had the cutest encounter at the clothesline some time ago. This smallish boy that lives behind me approached and asked me “what is a lumberjack?”
He’s thinking “she’ll know”, I guess? I do know!
jl
@kindness: I thought BJ was a pack of vicious hyenas.
Punchy
And I know a lot of seniors who can afford an extra $6.4K a year.
Wait a minute. No I dont.
Calouste
@lamh35:
Next Romney surrogate on Soledad O’Brien’s show:
“A b!tch like you shouldn’t ask me questions like that.”
NotMax
So both Bowles (and, by reference, Simpson) call Romney’s tax “plan” out for being the fraudulent smoke and mirrors rubbish which it is.
Violet
@Valdivia: See, I think “voucher” sounds like it covers the whole cost. “Here’s a voucher for a gallon of gas/ticket to the baseball game/whatever.” You give someone the voucher, they give you whatever it is you want. No money changes hands.
A coupon is automatically understood as something that gives you a discount, but not always very much.
Jamey
@Randy P: I think that discussing the list of topics that are off-limits should be off-limits. See: First Rule of Fight Club.
1badbaba3
@Villago Delenda Est: I hear he eats worms. Saws…
EconWatcher
I’m 46, and I’ve never been really enthused about a national politician before this guy. (I don’t want to start a gratuitous fight, but I can never forgive the Big Dog for Dick Morris, triangulation, and Marc Rich.)
But Obama–this guy’s the real deal. What a mensch.
Violet
Just want to say that I love my President. He’s so, so, so good when speaking like this. Love him.
Mike E
@Calouste: Seriously. Asking tough questions while possessin’ lady parts… Obama presidentin’ while swarthy
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Maybe not enough to make it a good advertizing campaign. And maybe I’m wrong and coupon is a better term than voucher. The big question is whether you can come up with a good, quick, and still accurate description of Ryan’s plan. The truth is bad enough that it doesn’t need any fancy labels to get people to hate it; you just need to get them to believe he wants to do what he’s been promising.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@jl: I thought it was an enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus, and thus indistinguishable from Pawlenty or Sununu.
...now I try to be amused
@Roger Moore:
The last time I was given a voucher was when a late flight caused to me to miss a connection and I had to stay overnight. The airline gave me a voucher for the hotel, but I still was delayed for most of a day. I daresay that every voucher is an attempt to make a shit sandwich taste a little less like shit.
Obama’s plan benefits consumers. Romney’s plan benefits middlemen. I wish Obama’s campaign would put it in those terms.
TG Chicago
Yeah, this rhetoric is getting good, but it could be better.
“What Medicare has always been is a guarantee to our seniors that they will have top quality medical care. My plan upholds that guarantee in full. Their plan takes away that guarantee and replaces it… with a coupon.
“Medicare isn’t a coupon. It’s a pact we’ve made with our nation’s senior citizens that they can spend their golden years free from worries about medical bankruptcy. And it’s a pact we make to younger adults that they’ll also get this guaranteed treatment when they get older. You can’t replace that peace of mind with a coupon. That’s not Medicare.”
Framing like that might get the “they’re taking away Medicare” message across while keeping the fact chuckers from throwing pinnochios at them.
dmsilev
@NotMax:
Romney needs to stop citing the works and opinions of living people. They seem to have a bad habit of showing up and pulling a Marshall McLuhan moment on him.
1badbaba3
@1badbaba3:
Culture of Truth
A day after former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu angrily told O’Brien to put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead”
“Gov Sununu… charming to the last…”
pseudonymous in nc
I know that Obama does the standard “Mittens is a good family man” line, but I also get the feeling that he really doesn’t like him as a politician, whereas he had some respect for Grandpa Walnuts.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@trollhattan: I’ll be Frank. It’s a family nickname of mine. And I hate being open.
Valdivia
@Violet:
I guess my experience with vouchers has been bad enough that I immediately know I am going to put a lot out of pocket and force me to spend it in places I may not want to.
Steve
Every word is true, indeed. It feels good to know that. Also too, “voucher” is a perfectly cromulent word that does not need improvement.
Culture of Truth
Coupons and vouchers aren’t the same thing. It’s a little like a mail order rebate, and those never work out well.
the Conster
He’s the only one out there who is willing and able to articulate the liberal position clearly and concisely, and he’s showing the other Dems by example how to do it. He’s making the case for his second term to protect what little people have, and the logic and force of facts will be too compelling for Mitt’s squid ink of a campaign to overcome. Mitt knows it too, which is why we’re seeing his circuitry start to smoke.
NotMax
@Roger Moore</a.
@Kay
Might I humbly suggest “ration slip?”
blingee
Only RePugs are allowed to use coupons…mkay [/snark off]
kindness
We will truly have come of age as a society when we can all finally punch that button on the remote that sends an (small non-lethal) electric current through which ever moron is on the screen.
We would either be a come of age society or revert to a Roman Coliseum society. The choice would be if it was your guy getting shocked vs. the other guy’s guy.
1badbaba3
@1badbaba3: I have no idea why the word “saws” is there. That’s not what I wrote. Hey! I think I just lost my FYWP virginity! Whoot!
eric
@NotMax: might i suggest “death ticket.”
MikeBoyScout
Oh dear [clutches pearls]!
Did the President just sink to another “new low” [falls on to the fainting couch]?
Look, Mittens has repeatedly told us that his plan for Medicare is just like Republican Ideological House Leader, Paul Ryan’s, only different in ways you people cannot begin to understand.
So, let’s all move on to something different to talk about, like … well, how wonderful Slick Willard is if you just got to serve him. After all, once we all come to the realization that there are only two types of people, Slick Willard and the Help, the campaign for our future will be better off.
Violet
@NotMax: I like “ration slip”. For anyone who remembers WWII, it would harken back to those days where you had a coupon book and could only get certain things–gas for your car, milk, butter–via the ration coupon.
As I said upthread, I don’t think it matter what it’s called so long as it’s effective and people understand it.
hep kitty
Vouchers for Medicare have one purpose and one purpose only. To kill off the seniors. The old people, they just can’t trim those hedges, cut that grass or scrub those toilets like those young bucks and tuff little immigrant girls.
Why can’t filthy rich people just be happy to be filthy rich? Why can’t they leave us alone? This type of cruelty, well I guess it’s just the modern form of bloodsport.
jl
And, while I admire news people like O’Brien when they stand their ground, as a whole, the corporate newsies have not fully understood how badly they have been played.
They think there is some way that they can be ‘safe’ and keep their easy approval ratings, and money.
But the modern GOP has become abusive in all things, it has become little more than a conspiracy to commit political fraud. And they will push the fraud and con to any limit to cage an extra frightened or gullible vote.
What happens is at some point the media celebrities have to make a choice, play along with an abusive swindler, or lose credibility with a good chunk of their audience.
Honest ones, like O’Brien will make a choice to stand their ground sooner or later, when some con person shows up to say white is black, and you better agree with me or I will insult you, and call you a crooked and corrupt partisan hack.
Total losers and fraudulent partisan media hacks will sit their and take it, and hope there is not too much damage to their ratings and audience approval and focus group scores before the campaign is over.
Linda Featheringill
@lamh35: #11
That, my friends, is racist. Pure. D. Racist.
Violet
I think it’s awesome that Mitt is tied to Ryan who has an actual plan on record. People are asking them about the plan and they can either say they support it–and then have to admit it helps billionaires and screws over everyone else–or disavow it and the tebagger contingent bolts.
There is no good choice for Mittens. I couldn’t be happier.
SatanicPanic
@EconWatcher: I love to imagine all the haters 50 years from now being asked by their grandkids “grandpa what was it like when Barack Obama was president?” and then they explode with rage, while their grandkids look at them like they’re nuts.
KXB
@Roger Moore:
Depends – I like coupons – I use them quite a bit at neighborhood businesses. But, I would not want to associate coupons with health care, aside from optician coupons.
Linda Featheringill
@kindness: #16
13-year-old. :-)
gogol's wife
@Linda Featheringill:
It is an amazing clip where he just keeps lying and lying and saying the same thing over and over again. These people have no soul, none whatsoever.
jl
@Violet: also good that Ryan, so far, cannot separate his plan from the very unpopular House plan (cause they are the same), and cannot explain the mythical plan that Romney claims he has. Couldn’t even do that in a friendly Fox interview yesterday.
All Ryan can do is BS, and then pout and whine if someone calls him on the BS, or even dares ask him any substantive question.
hitchhiker
@Culture of Truth:
Yes to Mail Order Rebate language . . . as in:
“They want to give you vouchers. Vouchers for dealing with heart disease or cancer. What’s next, green stamps? Mail order rebates?”
Violet
@KXB: Anyone who’s used one of the coupons from an eyeglass place knows that you still end up paying $200 or so. And that’s with the cheapest frames, the ones you don’t really like. It helps defray the cost, but the cost itself isn’t cheap.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Roger Moore: Re: “voucher” already having a negative connotation, that’s what I thought, too. Didn’t the whole privatized/religion-ified school voucher mess poison the word for people?
Chris
@hep kitty:
It’s not about the money. It’s about power and status. Even at the height of the “liberal consensus” years, there was still a 1%er business class that was vastly more comfortable than the average American. But what good is relative wealth if the public is comfortable enough to live a decent life? The rest of us have to be cringing like beaten dogs before they’ll be satisfied.
(The same mentality applies to the rubes who vote for them when looking down on minorities, poor people, foreigners and what-have-you).
I don’t really understand it, it just reinforces my opinion that conservatism is more properly a subject for psychologists than politicians.
eric
@Linda Featheringill: at least he didnt say: “Do they speak English in What motherfucker?”
Steve
@Linda Featheringill: How can you be racist against Soledad O’Brien? She’s like every race and then some!
dogwood
“Coupon” vs “Voucher” – not a semantic argument worth having. If Democrats want to start changing attitudes about “trickle-down fairy dust”, they need to start talking about what the Romney tax plan will do to demand and how that will effect small businesses and consumers in this country. Taking 5 trillion from 95% of the population and handing it to the top 5% will be devastating to small businesses. It’s time the Democrats got enough balls to state the truth. Middle-class and working class consumers are the real job creators in a free enterprise system. Business owners don’t refuse to hire workers because their taxes are too high. They don’t hire new workers because they don’t have enough business to warrant it.
NonyNony
@lamh35:
Damn. I particularly like this condescending Pawlenty part:
And then this O’Brien retort:
I actually am quite impressed that the Republicans have decided that going “all in” on making cost reductions in Medicare that their own VP candidate is on record as supporting as an attack is the way to go.
And by impressed I think I mean that I’m impressed with Obama and Axelrod and the rest of the campaign crew. How is it that he’s been President for 4 years now with the economy still suffering from the Bush crew’s disastrous time at the helm and the GOP in Congress determined to keep it in the tank and THIS is the kind of stuff that the GOP thinks is “winning”? Jeebus.
1badbaba3
@Linda Featheringill: She should have cussed his ass out in Spanish. I believe the word I’m thinking of is bendejo.
Michael G
The real terminology they should use is “Medicare stamps.”
Because that’s what the plan is: Food stamps but for healthcare.
jayjaybear
@SatanicPanic: Kind of like some people’s grandparents still talk about “that man” (aka, FDR).
Violet
@NonyNony: It almost makes me wonder if we’re about at Peak Wingnut. Is it even possible….?
CarolDuhart2
Coupons or vouchers, I’ve never run into any that didn’t require you to put some money with it. They almost, almost never cover the full cost of something. And when they do, the item is usually so cheap it doesn’t matter whether or not you have a coupon or voucher. A medical voucher would work the same way. Yes, it might cover something that’s really a one-shot simple elbow sprain. It will never, ever, cover something that requires lifetime care or multiple followups. (And will be designed to be that way on purpose).
And of course, the amount will always be shrunk depending on the whims of Congress. Or will cover some things but not others. Or some doctors will take it and others not. Welcome to the great run-around, Tebaggers.
AZmando
While I have not checked this, someone apparently ran Mitt’s tax return through the Ryan budget scenario, and found his federal taxes went down to .83%. This makes sense if cap gain and qualified dividend rates are reduced to zero.
Some of our guys need to get on this one – “Mitt’s taxes would drop to less than 1% of his income under the Ryan-Romney budget, while your taxes would go up. No wonder the super wealthy are spending so much money to get these guys elected.”
Pound away with this and don’t stop until the polls close in Hawaii!
jl
@1badbaba3: O’Brien beat the miserable swindler TPaw at his own game, and he is bully who can dish it out but can’t take it, so he started with the insults.
See, big serious daddy white man dressed up in his suit got shown up by a little wimmins on the teevee and he flamed out like a spoiled brat kid. Sad sad, very sad day for TPaw, ain’t it?
patroclus
Romney said today that “no one is talking about deregulating Wall Street” despite calling multiple times for the repeal of Dodd-Frank. That is a baldfaced flat-out lie.
tamied
Coupon to me has a nice warm and fuzzy sound to it. It’s always a good thing, having a coupon. I like the ration slip idea, but I think that’s a bit much. Voucher is right.
Mike E
@Steve: Hah, Stephen Colbert agrees with you!
scav
Might just be the active election unannounced practical truce. Bickering will resume the instant results are announced. These are still the interwebs, with masking tape carefully making out critical fault lines. Agree with Linda. barely tweenie.
NonyNony
@Violet:
No. There is no peak wingnut. Peak wingnut is like bigfoot or an honest guy trying to get money out of Nigeria. It’s a myth.
But it is almost like we’re approching the point where the wingnut goes asymptotic. Like you can get more wingnutty, but it’s at the level where it’s as harmful as it’s going to get so it just gets more headscratchingly weird.
I honestly don’t understand the attacks on saving money. I really don’t. They’re fine for a direct mail sort of thing where you can lie with impunity to targetted elderly voters, but putting them up front and making them a centerpiece attack is just headscratchingly weird.
MikeBoyScout
Request to our hosts.
The estimable Chuck Pierce sometimes offers theme music with his posts.
I don’t think he would object if you flattered him with a touch of imitation, and I think we all can agree that this wonderful and inspiring post needs a sound track.
So, I humbly request you add the Rocky theme song as a sound track to this post.
Sincerely,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvEnIkz82A0
Violet
Good Lord. The Republicans are just comically bad:
...now I try to be amused
@Chris:
It’s not good enough for some people that they win; they need the other guy to lose too. I suspect it goes along with the zero-sum thinking right-wingers are prone to.
eric
@Violet: I thought it was asymptotic, but now I think it is when we hit N-clang
Steve
@Mike E: If I’m as sharp an observer on racial issues as Stephen Colbert, I can die happy.
@1badbaba3: I don’t think Soledad O’Brien speaks Spanish. I remember some story where Al Gore started talking to her in Spanish and she was like “uhhhh…”
SatanicPanic
@jayjaybear: Complaining about FDR is just nuts. Only acceptable if you’re Japanese-American.
Chyron HR
@Violet:
Mmm, boy, look at all them issues the GOP is campaigning on. Why can’t Obummer focus on these here issues, I tell you what?
General Stuck
OT
Looks like the wingnuts are getting jittery in their demagoguing. Speaker of the Louse gathers the troops for a pep talk on medicare and Paul Ryan and the election.
Hear hear, those aging hoof beats shouldn’t worry them, as they are but echos of the past – on heroes and famous last words.
JACK CRABB
I didn’t say that. There are thousands of Indians down there. And when they get done with you, there won’t be nothing left but a greasy stain. This ain’t the Washite River, General, and them ain’t helpless women and children waiting for you. They’re Cheyenne brave, and Sioux. You go down there, General, if you’ve got the nerve.
GENERAL CUSTER
Still trying to outsmart me, aren’t you, mule-skinner. You want me to think that you don’t want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really *don’t* want me to go down there!
Little Big Man
Mike E
@jl:
That was the Friday he was told by NotMitt he didn’t get the VP nod.
Steve
@Violet: Joe Biden may not be able to explain quantum mechanics, but I bet he’s at least smart enough to know that you can’t win the Republican nomination for President if you’re a pro-choice gay marriage supporter.
...now I try to be amused
@Violet:
I feel personally offended when they diss my Uncle Joe. Not that Uncle Joe can’t take care of himself, with a grin.
Garbo
@hitchhiker: Yeeeeesssss! Like that. And it gets in the mocking tone that makes Mittens blow a gasket.
jl
@Violet: Rudy looking for another take down from Biden, I see. Since Rudy is asking for it, I will not feel mean enjoying it, if Biden finds time to bother with humiliating him this cycle. but, probably more important things to do.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: He’s bitter about being on the receiving end of the best zinger of the 08 campaign.
jl
@Mike E:
Thanks for info. I am glad we have these vary serious grown up GOP man daddies to look after us.
Not like those irresponsible scumbag no account kids like Bill Clinton, or HRC, Obama, Biden, etc.
CarolDuhart2
@SatanicPanic: Of course he’s bitter. Once Biden got hold of him, he went from potential contender to has-been immediately. And of course, Biden was one of the advisors on taking out bin Laden, making Rudy (Elect me, and don’t forget 911)permanently irrelevant.
mamayaga
I think the coupon language could be used to advantage to explain to your teabagger Grandma why the Repubs are full of it. Ask her about this scenario:
You go to the store for groceries, and find the prices have gone down so you pay $10 less than you usually do for the same groceries. Is that a cut to your groceries or a savings for you?
Compare to:
You get a coupon for $10 off on your groceries, but when you go to the store you find the prices are all 4 times higher. You have to either get fewer groceries or pay a lot more out of pocket.
Which of these would you prefer?
Bobby Thomson
@Valdivia: ??? Coupons never cover the full price of something. Some vouchers do.
Culture of Truth
“I mean, this guy just isn’t bright. He’s never been bright. He isn’t bright,” Giuliani, a Republican, said on CNBC. “And people think, `Well, he just talks a little too much.’ Actually, he’s just not very smart.”
Heard from Bernie Kerik lately?
kay
@Michael G:
I like stamps a lot. Food stamps are a voucher and everyone callls the “food stamps”.
Punchy
@Violet: Did Guliani just get 2 paragraphs of quotes in without referencing 9-11? Isn’t that a modern day record for him?
hep kitty
As I was saying . . . except that’s actually Mark Halperin in a wig
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
OT: If I were in Virginia, I’d knock on doors for this candidate.
El Cid
“Store credit.”
“Gift card.”
Mike E
@jl: I’m afraid further GOP disappointment will manifest into even moar ‘healthy’ outbursts that will test the limit of MSM ass-covering…I can almost picture Wolf sayin’, “I believe he meant, ‘My ni**ah‘ there, Anderson…”
Bobby Thomson
@EconWatcher: Oh, I’m expecting to be giving the president hell again in December when he appoints Erskine Bowles Treasury secretary and does his own triangulation. But he’s the best we’ve got. With some help in Congress, he could be even better.
jl
@Mike E:
‘ I can almost picture Wolf sayin’, “I believe he meant, ‘My ni**ah’ there, Anderson…” ‘
“Bill, can you look into the camera and apologize to Mitt? You know he said not to be mean to him. Look into the camera…. Bill? Look into the camera…”
Poopyman
@Violet: Bet Rudy believes it, too. But “smart” to a grifter like Rudy really means “cunning”. He just thinks Joe is a soft touch. That kind of “not smart”.
Biden would clean Rudy’s clock in a debate.
@kindness:
I believe The Penguin had the right description.
Nellcote
@MikeBoyScout:
The leadoff song for the PBO ropeline today was Springsteen’s We Take Care of Our Own.
I presume he got permission to use it ;)
hep kitty
oops, 3rd one down
kerFuFFler
@lamh35: Thanks for the link—-I just hope enough viewers could see through Pawlenty’s weaselly, evasive answers. O’brien did a great job!
trollhattan
@lamh35:
Pawlenty went there?!? We’ll never hit the Wingularity, will we?
amk
The point of using ‘vouchers’ is because it was coined by the voucher boy himself. Repeated derogatory of that term will make it as toxic as ‘libruls’.
1badbaba3
@Violet:Ahhhhh shaddup, Rudolf. Time for your noun, verb, 911 withdrawal treatment. Ya goddam kook. @Steve: Ah, but the T pawcity wouldn’t know that. I’m sure he was trying to insult any and all non-‘Murican-lookin’ folks.Or, just as well, pick a fight and try to get someone on our side to lose their cool. Hell, they’ve been trying hard for just about four years and it rarely, if ever works. Oh well, a wingnut can dream…
sagesource
@hep kitty: Why can’t filthy rich people just be filthy rich? Well, a few of them can. But for a lot of them, they’re insecure and need to affirm their existence, and if you’re insecure, the easiest way to show you’re there and making a difference is to cause pain. Pain to others is the purest expression of selfhood, since the victim would never have chosen it themselves. Orwell pointed that out in 1984.
Josie
@1badbaba3: Actually, the correct word is “pendejo” and works quite well in this instance.
liberal
@Violet:
Oh, OK—he’s talking about Ryan, the latest fascist pseudointellectual who the Villagers claim is an intellectual because…that’s why!
mamayaga
@amk:
Actually, I think they’ve moved on to “premium support” (sounds luxurious, no?), because “voucher” had already become toxic all on its own.
liberal
@Poopyman:
IIRC my friend who follows debates a lot (and who’s incredibly smart himself) said that in 2008 Biden was the best debater among the Dems.
Valdivia
sorry if this has already been posted but Benen gets to the important point: lying ok, mean words a tragedy.
FlipYrWhig
@NonyNony: The centerpiece of both this Medicare gambit and the “work requirements for welfare” one is that Obama took your stuff, which you worked hard for and need, and gave it to Negroes so they could sit and home and laugh at whitey.
liberal
@CarolDuhart2:
Seems unlikely. I’m sure there’s a long list of scary Muslim/Arab types that can stand in for bin Laden in a pinch.
cckids
@Linda Featheringill: Very true. He’d never say that to Blitzer or Crowley. But to the “brownish” chick with the funny name . . . anything goes.
Ed Drone
@Violet:
True, but how about:
“Voucher Vittles” (sounds too much like food stamps)
“Voucher Vitamins” (closer to health care as a subject)
“Health Company Voucher” (points out that it’s only good for buying insurance*)
“Oucher Voucher” (sounds too childish)
“Not Medicare” (the truth, for sure)
or
“Voucher, Smoucher; I need a Doctor!”
Ed
And * I thought the Republicants didn’t want to require folks buying from a private company. Isn’t that what their hypocritical rant was about?
1badbaba3
@Josie: Thank you Josie. Shit, seven years of high school Spanish down the drain.
I blame Obama.
Steve
@Ed Drone: I believe Ryan’s latest iteration of Vouchercare has a public option, tee hee.
Turgidson
@Violet:
Ha. Poor Rudy is still smarting from “a noun, a verb, and 911.” Dude, that was over four years ago. Let it go already.
Lurking Canadian
@AZmando: New bumper sticker:
Romney: He’s running for your money.
General Stuck
WARNING – Clown On Acid
Quarks
OFf topic, but, Kay, did you see this list from the ACLU of Pennsylvania voters who will not be or may not be able to vote in November if the new law holds:
http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/applewhiteetalvcommonwealt/voteridclients.htm
Very pointed in reminding people that not all states have kept full and complete birth records from 1918, and some of those U.S. citizens are still alive.
Ed Drone
@NonyNony:
I have a way to represent what the Republicants are saying here:
If you go to buy a new Mercedes, and the price tag is $40,000, when someone offers to sell it to you for $35,500, they bitch that he’s trying to reduce the value of your new car!
Sounds like what they’re saying, to me!
Ed
hueyplong
Peepaw McCain is just the guy to be giving advice about VP selection. If we learn that Obama didn’t laugh until he got a stomachache, I’ll be disappointed.
Brian R.
@JenJen:
TPM reports some new swing state polls that show a bounce that brings the race to near even, but that’s to be expected. The honeymoon is going to be over pretty quickly with this one.
El Cid
@Ed Drone: Let’s say a city negotiates with a monopoly electric utility which is raising its rates under whatever current agreement at X% per year.
Such that on average the typical resident’s electrical bill would go up by $20.
The city says, no, you’re going to have to raise your rates at a maximum of X-1% percent per year, and you also have to do this and that efficiency increasing plans for production and usage so that costs rise more slowly.
And Republicans will run around screaming that the gubmit has stolen $20 from your electricity service and now you won’t be able to see your way down your hallways in the dark and you will fall and die.
Calouste
@Culture of Truth:
Bernie is not allowed to send emails from prison and one phone call a week doesn’t get him very far either, does it?
Brian R.
@Linda Featheringill:
Eh, I may be alone on this, but I took that as a garbled effort to say Soledad was talking policy details, but in “plain English” it amounted to a cut.
Still T-Paw is shilling for Romney even after Tagg was dispatched to show him the door, so fuck that guy.
Gus
I want him to refer to Paul Ryan as a zombie eyed granny starver.
Steve
@Gus: “Paul Ryan is a good man, he’s a family man, I believe he loves this country. But he is a zombie eyed granny starver.”
kay
@Quarks:
Thank you. I can’t read it today. I’m just sick about that decision. I’ll read it when I’m not actively enraged :)
What bothers me the most I think is targeting a specific city, Philadelphia. I don’t think we’ve seen that kind of focused attack on a US city before.
Sure, they went after Cleveland, but that was in the context of a broader state plan.
50% of AA in PA live in Philadelphia. It was targeted at THAT city, and a judge just let it stand. Incredible.
gogol's wife
@Brian R.:
I think you’re alone on that. Her reaction shows that she knows exactly what was going on there.
Calouste
@General Stuck:
Hasn’t Hillary already said that she was going to retire after the elections?
Brian R.
It was in the Atlantic. Spread it around.
gogol's wife
@Steve:
LOL. God, I would love that! And he could do it so well.
Culture of Truth
Rudy could always pay a visit to his old buddy. The could talk about how he was going to run Iraq and Homeland Security and how dumb Joe Biden is.
Brian R.
@gogol’s wife:
I have no doubt that’s how she took it, but I didn’t read him as meaning it that way. His next line was “In plain speaking is this — and I just mean in compared to the mumbo jumbo in the bureaucracy in the CBO ….”
There’s plenty of real racism in the modern GOP, hell, just in Romney alone. This didn’t raise any alarms for me, but again, I must be alone on that.
CarolDuhart2
@liberal: Not any more. Obama’s been killing them at a rapid rate these days. And there are probably few new recruits since the Arab Spring made it clear there were other ways to make change in the Middle East.
David Hunt
@pseudonymous in nc:
But Brutus is an honorable man…
bemused
@lamh35:
Whoa, bad move Timmy. Now that’s the Pawlenty we Minnesotans know and loathe.
The Lodger
@mamayaga:
Actually, I think they’ve moved on to “premium support” (sounds luxurious, no?), because “voucher” had already become toxic all on its own.
“Premium support” sounds like something they’re already planning to outsource to Bangalore.
Boohunney
@lamh35: Dayum, a Soledad 2fer….
Shawn in ShowMe
@Violet:
Good lord, one of the most respected foreign policy experts in the Senate “is not very bright”. Giuliani knows quite intimately how bright Biden is. Uncle Joe dismantled Rudy’s entire presidential campaign with a one-liner: “A noun, a verb and 9-11.”
Uncle Cosmo
“Vouchers” is the appropriate term, for phonetic reasons alone–you can’t say “voucher” without saying “ouch!”
That goombah Julie-Annie needs to shut his fucking pizza-hole–he disgraces the Italoamerican community every time he opens it.
1badbaba3
Oh boy, another July flame-out for the GOP leads to another hail Mary in August. Really makes you appreciate the incredible job Team Obama continues to do. Like in ’08 , this one was over in July, but it’s fun to watch Obama bat the repugnikkkans around like a cat playing with a mouse.
Elizabelle
@Ed Drone:
Why not Vulture Voucher, since Ryan plan eviscerates Medicare? And it reminds us all who’s pushing for this toxic mess.
Kudos to the Wonkette commenter who came up with Vulture Voucher …
...now I try to be amused
@CarolDuhart2:
For a moment I thought you were talking about the Presidential campaign there.
trollhattan
@Brian R.:
I’d challenge the BJ commentariat to a Ryan convention speech drinking game for each use of “liberty” and “freedoms” but I fear rapid alcohol poisoning is no way to end the week.
dmsilev
@trollhattan: At this point, I’m glad that I’ll be out of the country for the week of the GOP convention and will be enough time zones away that I won’t be tempted to try to tune in.
My liver will thank me.
Hypatia's Momma
Dear Mrs. Obama,
Should you ever grow tired of the man, do put in a good word for me, won’t you? Thanks ever so.
Elizabelle
@lamh35:
Thanks for posting this. Cheered me to see this, especially since I don’t watch CNN ever. Fox Lite, complete with Wolf Blitzer.
Very proud of Soledad O’Brian.
Brian R.
@Elizabelle:
What are you saying? Wolf Blitzer broke the important story of Peanut Butter and Honey Gate 2012!
Patricia Kayden
President Obama has to get ads out about Ryan’s budget and medicare revisions in the swing states. Otherwise, he’s going to allow R & R to lie their way into the White House.
Fluke bucket
@EconWatcher: so glad to hear that. I am 54 and have wondered at about what age a mature person realizes what an unforgivable political sin the Ryan Plan would be. The republican Party made a calculated decision to cut me off at the knees and how anybody who graduated from high school in 1977 would vote for Rmoney / Rayn is beyond me. And that includes classmates that went on to be multi- billionaires. I do not begrudge them their billions. Why would they begrudge me basic healthcare?
jl
Ha ha ha. I see on the intertubes that various GOP pols and spox are ‘very concerned’ that Biden just might be hurting the Democratic ticket. They suggest probably HRC would be better.
I thank them for their concern.
Actually, objectively, on issues and delivery, either HRC and JB would do about same, and very good, job.
My guess is that some GOP tacticians a little a loss for wedgies with a white guy. Probably salivating over all the sexist garbage they could throw against the wall if HRC were the veep nominee.
Anyway, that is your political fart joke for the day, courtesy of GOP PR flak machine.
pseudonymous in nc
@trollhattan:
Once again: ignore combined “swing state polls”. they’re an innovation from pollsters who want a new product that sounds appealing to the media, but they’re statistically dubious: Nate Silver doesn’t include them, he’s focused on national or single-state polls, and he’s recently talked about the historical “veep bounce”.
Felinious Wench
@Shawn in ShowMe:
“Joe, Rudy G. claims you’re not very smart.”
“Are you sure he didn’t say ‘like I was on 911’ in that sentence?”
bob h
Obama cut waste out of Medicare; I don’t see why he can’t call it that.
Traditional Medicare is not free; a couple can expect to pay about $7-8k a year in premiums including Medigap and Part D drugs. That is a burden for most retired couples. If you are talking about adding more under the voucher plan, you are talking catfood.