The Washington Examiner — no friend of the reform effort either — sums it all up “Immigration reform is dead and Obamacare implementation killed it.”
Rhetorically, this constitutes a massive improvement over the old GOP line that President Obama will somehow be at fault if the House kills immigration reform, because he secretly wants reform to fail so he can use it to rally Democrats to the polls in 2014.
The House Republicans are really demonstrating how far human beings can crawl up their own asses.
Mustang Bobby
The medical term is “cranial rectitus.” Not sure if it’s covered under Obamacare.
Randy P
What’s depressing is when people I otherwise like or have to work with spout this stuff verbatim, as if it makes sense. A couple of weeks ago I heard about Obama’s $100 million family vacation to Africa. I know some of you fight the rhetoric, but I personally just feel weary when I try to imagine the conversation after “Have you given that two seconds thought. Does that actually make sense to you?” As I say, I have to work with these people.
So I maintain a stony silence. Sorry.
Emma
@Randy P: So do I. Nothing will change their minds at this point. Whatever progress this country makes from now on, we will be dragging these people along as they rant, scream, and crap themselves over whatever “outrage” right-wing radio is promoting. World without end, amen.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mustang Bobby:
Commonly called Rectal-Cranial Inversion, aka being a true Republican. I can’t wait until they lose the next Presidential election, I’m sure they will blame Obama for that too.
Republicans never fail because you can’t fail fail.
sherparick
This is what comes when all your information comes from an echo chamber of NRC talking points that you repeat to each other and then hear repeated on Faux News and read in the WSJ, Daily Fibber, etc.
It does give the David Gregory’s of the MSM a way of posing “when you have stop beating your wife questions to Democrats” (I can hear the questions now: Did President Obama’s decision to delay the employer mandate for 1 year doom immigration reform? Why should the House Republicans pass immigration reform when the President behaves so badly? Would he be willing to kill Obamacare in return for Immigration Reform? If not, then is he not responsible for its failure?”)
Jerzy Russian
@Mustang Bobby:
Amy comprehensive plan would also provide coverage to treat the associated lower back pain, and the shortness of breath.
Shakezula
Sure it does. If you enjoy the smell of GOP farts so much you had your nose grafted to Mitch McConnell’s ass. Meanwhile, in the real world, the GOP’s base contains people who have been hating them Messicans for decades and grandma killing Obamacare for less than five. Now the GOP’s message is Obamacare is keeping them Messicans away. (It also seems to indicate that the GOP doesn’t intend to fight ACA any more.)
Outside of the base you have people who know the GOP is full of shit and know this is one more piece of full of shitness. Massive improvement? Nuh-uh.
Baud
I heard George Will spouting the same talking point over the weekend. So that’s the official line that’s been faxed to all the GOPers. It is weak sauce.
EconWatcher
@Randy P:
The thing is, people who have this kind of misinformation (“Obama and family took a $100 million vacation”) have nearly always chosen to plug themselves into an endless source of similar b.s., because they regularly watch Fox News or listen to Limbaugh. And if they haven’t noticed that the bile they’re getting has dubious credibility, no amount of pointers will help. You can never bat it all down, so I don’t even try.
Wag
@Mustang Bobby:
All pre-existing conditions are covered. The GOP just doesn’t consider it an illness, and therefore won’t seek treatment.
Botsplainer
Its been interesting to watch the current meme develop regarding the cost of their obstructionism to the economy as a whole – “the recovery isn’t better because of fears over the impact of Obamacare implementation”.
I’m detecting some real signs of economic life – there is some major pent up consumer and business demand out there, and it is threatening to roll straight over the obstruction. I also find myself wondering if this might wind up being a much more resilient recovery, inasmuch as it didn’t improve so fast as to lead to weird investment bubbles.
Time will tell, and we’ll know the answer to that question in about 10 years.
Botsplainer
@EconWatcher:
It comforts me to know that Limbaugh will most likely be dead in about five years. I plan to take a big, steaming dump on the headstone, perhaps making a viral video of the event.
Elizabelle
The Republicans can crawl up their own asses.
I just hate when they try to drag us up there too.
And I hear those who have to work with these Foxbots, but a gentle “Does that really make any sense to you?” followed by silence could be helpful.
Silence is what they’re counting on.
4tehlulz
@Randy P: It’s even more fun when they’re your supervisor.
mai naem
I watched Mornin Ho beat up on Eliot Spitzer. Apparently it takes 3 people on Mornin’ Ho to beat up Eliot Spitzer on his five year old hooker affair. Yet, Mika never seems to have a problem with a man where his intern mysteriously died. Or with Rudy Giuliani came on when he was running for president in 08. Or with Diaper David. Mark Halperin, I’m pretty sure was getting a boner while he was grilling Spitzer.
MomSense
@Randy P:
I feel your pain. I tried once to counter the “Obama crashed the stock market and destroyed the economy so he could force through socialism Chicago thug style” with the calendar argument. You know the argument that goes the stock market crashed and we slid into the great recession in September of 2008 and Obama didn’t become President until January 2009 timeline response. Didn’t work.
lojasmo
Edit: Fixt
third of two
Remember ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome?‘ Conservatives don’t…
…despite the fact that in case after case, presidential historians are virtually united in asserting that Dumbya ranks among the nation’s Worst Prezidents Ever.
dmsilev
@MomSense: Of course it didn’t work. All True Conservatives(tm) know that Obama has a time machine; how else do you think he faked the evidence of his own birth?
Another Halocene Human
@dmsilev: If they could tell they were being hornswaggled they wouldn’t be conservatives any more.
My only hope is not a reduction of hatred, because that seems to be endemic, but a reduction in derp due to lowered lead poisoning levels. Maybe if we could get VOCs down that would be nice, too. I’m not sure it causes intellectual deficits in children but severe toxic/allergic reactions can make adults so sick they’re basically tv/computer zombies who herp-derp it up. I have a coworker who is a decent guy but in any political discussion launches into some dumbshit about Messicans. Now, I’m sure he wants to believe this crap and if he were getting sleep at night he’d still be rationalizing it somehow, but I doubt he’d be so effing stupid about it if he could sleep for more than a few seconds without his breathing becoming obstructed. (Dum dum hasn’t had this condition treated either. But then, I’m sure it happened so gradually it’s normal to him to be a zombie all the time.)
rikyrah
@Randy P:
No stony silence.
Ask them if the President and his family were supposed to take Southwest to Africa and stay in a Howard Johnson?
then ask them if they knew the price of ANY of George Bush’s foreign trips.
And ask them why they didn’t know since Bush spent 3 times the amount on vacation than Obama.
...now I try to be amused
The Republicans have an inexhaustible supply of dogs to eat their homework, don’t they?
RaflW
More and more I think Fuxx and Weird Net Daily and the Examiner and all those outlets of crap are doing us a favor. They are keeping the idiots entertained — and yet totally surprised when reality slaps them in the ass (ie: the last election) — so let them push this useless garbage.
Only a fairly small percentage of the general population pays any attention to Fox. Or David Gregory. Or any of the nonsense we love to get het up about.
But the GOP thinks this stinking pile of disinformation will win the morning, and the next election. Let them continue to believe their own propaganda. The vast majority of Americans don’t actually pay any attention to it. Even El Rushblo only reaches about 6.66% of (semi)sentient life in America.
Please proceed, self-deluding morans.
MattF
And who, exactly, are the health-care experts in the GOP, and who, exactly, are they trying to persuade? This is some Republican buzz-word specialist trying to get on the Politico front page. It will be dead and forgotten in a week.
Lurking Canadian
What is the proposed mechanism by which a delay in the implementation of part of Obamacare causes the death of immigration reform legislation?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@lojasmo: Not even Daily Kos would buy that sentence, and they now rank him up there with Stalin (not literally, but he is spying on everyone, not really like Venezuela where they tape your conversations and put them on TV, but worse because shut up).
RepubAnon
It’s interesting that the party which claims to advocate “personal responsibility” refuses to ever take responsibility for its own actions. One could almost think that they don’t have any morals, scruples, or any capacity for honorable behavior, and are just a pack of slimy con artists willing to say anything to sell their snake oil to their victims.
Keith
It’s an improvement over “‘Cuz Obama didn’t invite us over to dinner.”
Biscuits
@Randy P:
Me too, Randy. But if I were to respond, it would be laced with sarcasm. So, I am silent as well. Can’t maintain civility with people who actually buy this nonsense. So frustrating!
rea
Well, of course, this is the basic Republican approach to everything. We are not going to be permitted to address any of the country’s problems until that black man in the White House has been replaced by a legitimate (Republican) president.
MomSense
@dmsilev:
Is his time machine bigger on the inside? Maybe he could take us with him.
A Ghost To Most
Assumes facts not in evidence
BGinCHI
One fucking word, Beltway Journos, just one.
How?
Cacti
@MomSense:
The recession actually started in December 2007, and the economy had been contracting for 9 straight months before the subprime crisis and stock market crash.
But as Karl Rove said, the wingers create their own reality.
MomSense
@Cacti:
Oh I know the recession started earlier but the big shock and awe moment was in September 2008.
gene108
@MomSense:
You timeline doesn’t take into account that markets are forward looking.
Look at the drop in the stock market and look at Obama’s lead over McCain.
Coincidence?
They knew he’d use the down turn to implement his Chicago-Gangsta-style-Kenyan-Muslim-Marxist-Socialist-Islamfascist-Terrorist-Fist-Jabbing economic agenda and they realized they needed to get out sooner rather than later.
Cacti
@third of two:
Whenever they’re flogging the latest phony scandal, it’s always compared to a real Republican one. “This is Obama’s watergate” or “this is Obama’s (third or fourth) Katrina”.
It makes them so angry that Obama isn’t as corrupt, venal, or incompetent as Republican presidents have been.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@MomSense: The right answer: the nation was so terrified at the prospect of a black president – one who would of course roll into the White House in a stolen hoopty and immediately declare every day National Rape A White Woman Day – that the economy crashed.
Sounds deranged, but I’ve been told this on more than one occasion by someone who meant every word.
gene108
@rea:
Looking at what Republicans are doing in state governments, even if a Republican becomes President, I think they’ll as much harm as humanly possible in as short a period of time as possible.
In the end, these guys are trying to stand up to the march of progress and yell, “Stop!” over issues like climate change, sexual promiscuity, same sex marriage and even economic reforms, we’ve taken for granted, like the minimum wage.
Anya
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): It is sad to see how the GOS is turning into a crazy place full of conspiracy theorist who believe every little conspiracy about Obama admin’s supposed evilness. But the worse part is how dairy after diary celebrates the supposed slap in the face of Obama Admin by some foreign country. Actual Dkos diary title: Ecuador to US: keep your trade, and here’s $23 million for Human Rights education.
ruemara
@Randy P: I call them out on it. Wingnuts around me maintain the stony silence. Works for me.
And sadly, House Republicans do not demonstrate the cranial rectalis move any more dramatically than any other branch of humanity.
MomSense
@gene108: @Forum Transmitted Disease:
You are cracking me up!!
RaflW
All this is small bore posturing. The real deal will be the GOP’s next hostage-moment with the debt ceiling.
Our main hope is that they f*ck that up just as well as they have each of the last several times. It seemed like in the last round, the usually shitty MSM has finally started to notice that it’s the GOP that is the hostage taker and is willing to kill the economy for it’s political aims.
That’s just a tad too blatant, even for those toadies.
patrick II
I listened to Rush Limbaugh blame the democrats for wanting to double the student loan interest rate to help pay for Obamacare. According to Rush, young people should know the “truth” about the democrats plan to steal their money to help pay for Obamacare, a government plan that no one wants.
Paid liar.
ruemara
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Nah. They’d believe that. You give them way too much credit.
MomSense
@gene108:
I honestly think that for the wingnuts they are trying to legislate their perfect society where women are home, pregnant, submissive, raising god-fearing Christians while white men work in good free market jobs (full employment y’all) and everyone (hard working real ‘muricans) lives happily ever after.
Cacti
@patrick II:
Was he talking to the 10 people under age 60 that actually listen to his show?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Anya: i finally decided it’s time to stop visiting, not even for the abbreviated pundit round up. My last diary was about the actual surveillance going on in Venezuela – where they tape your phone conversations, either from the phone or from your house – and then put them up on television. Last check: 24 recs, 170+comments.
One of the things I find interesting is how little Markos has commented on Snowden. I don’t think he’s all that gung ho about Snowden, but the purists would tear him apart in the threads if he were to comment.
Roger Moore
@Lurking Canadian:
If you don’t understand the rules of Calvinball, why are you following the game?
amk
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): we hit peak dkos in 2006 or thereabouts. It’s been a downhill since then now hitting peak lefty teabaggerism.
Anya
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I feel the same way. It’s sad to see GOS’ demise as a result of crazies. I usually read the election report but even that worthwhile service is not enticement enough anymore.
catclub
@Forum Transmitted Disease: As long as you don’t notice that the decline ended, shortly after the stimulus package passed. The uptick the stock market was then anticipating was … Romney in 2012? Nope … Christie in 2016? Sure!
In the real world the stock market is forward looking about 6-9 months, except for sudden shocks.
elisabeth
@Shakezula:
Boehner said today the House will vote for repeal again; “count on it” was the quote I saw on Twitter. I believe that will make 38.
Patricia Kayden
@Randy P: I know you’re tired, but I would have at least asked how much President Bush’s trip to Africa (and other places) had cost the tax payers. It’s not like Obama is the first President to travel to foreign countries. Although he’s the first one to travel while blah.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cacti:
I think it’s close to that. They resent the public shaming that happens when they express their racism or their presidents prove that the whole conservative belief system is incompetent and wrong. They desperately want to turn it back on us, and it leads to ‘I’m rubber and you’re glue’ arguments.
@MomSense:
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Their whole way of life is dying, especially fundamentalist Christianity. The numbers are dropping like a rock. They want to force a world where they are normal and we’re the fringe again. Since they’re Right and we’re Wrong, they believe it will look pretty much like you just described!
Roger Moore
The Republicans are truly impressive at the denial of reality game. The latest is that they’re using the deaths of those 19 firefighters in Arizona as proof that we need more logging to remove dangerous fuel loads in our forests. The only problem: the fire in question was a brush fire, not a forest fire, and the Republicans’ policies wouldn’t have done a thing about it.
Chris
@RepubAnon:
Yes, I’ve always found that interesting about them. How did we go from “personal responsibility” to “it’s all the government’s fault! The unions’ fault! The liberal media’s fault! The Messicans’ fault! IT’S NOT ME, I SWEAR!” For a party of personal responsibility, they seem to have an inordinate amount of scapegoats.
Patricia Kayden
@mai naem: Spitzer should have been able to defend himself. I’m sure he’s going to be mocked mercillessly by the media for his entire campaign (and beyond).
Seanly
@Elizabelle:
My wife & I tried that with her father re: the Benghazi thing. He just muttered about the cover-up being worse than the crime yadda yadda. Her step-sister went off the deep end into Ron Paul territory over talk of gun control.
gene108
@MomSense:
I think there’s a small subset of fundies, who really want to return to those days.
I think most GOP voters really don’t feel the impacts of what GOP policies would mean, because of the “safety net” measures that Democrats keep fighting to keep in place like environmental laws, zoning laws, access to contraception*, etc.
I think their loyalty to the GOP is either purely out of greed, i.e. the GOP will help them keep their
serfsemployees down and allow them to keep more of their profits or out some sense of tribalism, either accepting the GOP as one of them or rejecting the eggheaded coastal liberal stereotype.*I know very few Republicans, who actually are chaste and admit to screwing around before marriage (like everyone else these days) and after they’ve split with their wife/husband, having sexual relations with new partners. They just assume the gains in access to contraception from the Sexual Revolution aren’t going away and as long as they can by condoms off the shelf, I don’t think they’ll really care about the other attacks on contraception.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
The same way that tax cuts always increase revenues and building a giant border fence will do something about illegal immigrants already in the country.
ricky
Angry Weak Sauce Recipe……Fill in your favorite ingredients
Roger Moore
@gene108:
In other words, IGMFY as applied to social issues.
ricky
@ricky:
Obviously I failed to properly strike the words about “internet tough guys” and “Manning torture”. I’d fix it, but some
dickheadrepealed the Commentcare edit function.Patricia Kayden
@ricky: Stop making fun of our overlord!
Just heard that Snowden has accepted Venezuela’s offer.
J.D. Rhoades
@Randy P:
I pointed out to a relative who was spouting that “$100 million vacation” nonsense that this was a diplomatic trip, and her reaction was “come on, what possible diplomatic reason could there be to go to AFRICA?”
The racism has many layers with these people.
J.D. Rhoades
@MomSense:
Calendars have a well-known liberal bias.
scav
The domestic brand®™ of well-mannered better then thou Xianists going on about whose photos would the baby jeebus FB vomit on and the notoriously charming southern “ladies” defending the lace-glove charm and inevitability of ni@@ing it up is astonishing. They’re leaking bile and vitriol through every bruise and nick on their bodies (imagined or otherwise). Those ever so nice people.
ricky
@Patricia Kayden:
I guess you could interpret my comment as overlord derision only by ignoring the framing subtext of my subtle Greenwald injection. Glad you accepted the bait.
Speaking of bait, no matter which bait you use, the mosquitos are always biting at beautiful Lake Maracaibo.
I understand you can retire there in luxury after a few months of drawing down six K per annum listening in on Presidents and Chief Justices.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
I believe IGMFY is the driving force behind all conservative thought on ant topic.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
I know this is a typo, but I love it anyway. Reminds me of this classic TV moment.
Frankensteinbeck
@gene108:
I think that used to be the driving force. Now it’s anger that they can’t call people niggers and faggots and sluts in public anymore.
Moderation, here I come.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think the phenomenon you’re describing is the FY side of IGMFY. I prove that I’m higher on the totem pole than you are by making sure I have stuff that you don’t. I’ve got mine just isn’t satisfying if I can’t say fuck you to people who don’t have theirs.
StringOnAStick
@amk:
This seems to happen to anything people are passionate about, even book clubs. The loudest voices take over the commons, and those with some ability to argue without insults finally get tired of the crazy and move on, leaving the crazies to just get crazier.
StringOnAStick
@Roger Moore: another thing to add to that “log more, burn less” argument: the standing beetle-killed trees (and increasingly, the dangerous falling beetle-kill trees) are low-value timber. So many of the areas where this kind of logging should happen are simply uneconomic unless the USFS wants to subsidize the work. Sequester, you know.
DavidTC
An important message to the future:
You. Future political party. Perhaps you are on the left, perhaps the right, perhaps you are on the north west side (Or even the North West side.), or kata, or up-when or some other side we don’t even know about.
Make sure you look at what happened to the Republican party here. They handed over the future of their political party to the Fox media machine, and it got them a president. It worked. _Once_.
And then, the media machine continued to grow and grow and grow, and before the Republicans knew what was happening, they ended up having to fight _their own proposals_ to see ‘right wing’ enough, and that ‘right wing’ was now somehow defined _by Fox News_ instead of the Republican party.
These seemed workable…_at first_. And then Fox New, due to needing more ratings, proceeded to _stab them in the back_ by inventing ‘Tea Parties’, which the super-rich donors that the GOP had always relied on immediately hijacked, to primary challenge whoever they wanted.
We are now at the point where the legislature literally does not function. During a recession. I presume, being in the future, you already know about the GOP’s spectacular meltdown in [2014/2016/insert year here], and know the accepted theories about how that happened, and the theory is that party ‘went too far right’.
That is not what happened. Or, rather, that was the symptom of the problem, not the cause. The party didn’t move right, at least not that far, the party was _kidnapped_ right.
The thing to learn from the GOP is not anything about the political spectrum, it is that _the media does not have your best interests at heart_, and will happily turn your party into a collection of deranged loons shooting at the moon to stop it from following them…because _deranged loons create ratings_. And if you’re not deranged enough they will happily create a subset of your party to be deranged for you.
I write this a Democrat, one pretty far to the left, but one that wishes to make sure people learn the _correct_ lessons from our current history. There wasn’t some groundswell of epic conservative-ness from 20% of the population that caused any of this. It was Fox News repeating nonsense continually, for decades, until they were able to literally hijack the Republican base, and, with it, the Republican primaries.
I warn you because history is written by the victors, and I suspect your history was written by the Democratic party (Which would be happy to lay the death of Republicans on extreme right-wing policies, which it was…in much the same way that almost everyone dies ultimately from ‘heart failure’, even if someone shoots them in the face.) and the media (Which obviously will refuse to blame itself).
chopper
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
lol. so he’s going to venezuela, where men are truly free.