I think that repealing Obamacare would be a disaster for Republicans. You could argue that the takeaway from GA-6 and the other specials is that, while things aren’t great for Republicans in 2018, they have a good chance to hold the House unless some crazy shit happens. Repealing Obamacare qualifies as crazy shit and then some.
So I can see reasons why McConnell, who’s a shifty one, might be happy if repeal fails. That said, all the Senators expressing “concerns” about the bill looks and smells like kabuki to me. Jim Newell is probably right:
If he’s sticking to the script, McConnell has a list of giveaways that he saved to offer members later so that they can argue they only voted for the bill after extracting concessions:
This bill could fail, but that would be an abrupt last-minute rewrite of a script from which none of the players, so far, have deviated. Conservatives are organized, coordinated, and eager to share with the press their early objections. They will move the bill further to the right. Moderates are disorganized and press-shy, keeping their objections within the family. They will get offered a few more bucks or state-specific carve-outs and then draw straws to determine who has to vote for it. The Senate sequel to the House bill process is playing out like the most disciplined scene-by-scene retread since Home Alone 2. Don’t expect a surprise ending.
The so-called moderates always cave. I’m not a fan of calling people cucks but if anyone deserves it, it’s so-called moderate Republicans in Congress.
Major Major Major Major
Then …don’t?
But they’re getting exactly what they want. The media is being played for cucks.
Cheryl Rofer
Is the vote scheduled yet?
cmorenc
…and yet, the MSM will continue labeling Susan Collins R-Maine as a “moderate” Republican, even if she is a “yes” vote on this.
BBA
It’s also the central plank of the Republican platform, and will be until the Dems elect another nonwhite president. As such, I expect leaving it in place will hurt them more.
Doug!
@BBA:
I think they can leave it and not get hurt that much. Sure it may appear to depress the base but they can always get the base roiled up with some Shakespeare production or something a celebrity does.
smintheus
Democrats should stick to a script, preferably one that Republicans wouldn’t have predicted. For example, focus on demanding an answer to a devastating question Republicans cannot answer without giving the game away (“Why was this bill written in a clandestine fashion?”; “Why did lobbyists get to comment on this bill before anybody in the Senate saw it?”).
jl
I’ll be amazed if the GOP moderates don’t play along. I’d be less amazed if they bucked their extremist masters this time than on previous occasions, because McConnell seems to have gone out of his way to humiliate them. Though I’d still be amazed, since so far, most of them are acting like if they play along they will be less humiliated and disgraced than if they actually tried to do something to retain a shred of dignity.
Bobby Thomson
No, they will get away with it with lots of help from the usual suspects.
Eat the dessert. Take that vacation. Our days are limited.
smintheus
OT, but the jokes in Britain will write themselves:
BBA
@Doug!: Well, if policy is irrelevant to the base, can’t the GOP get their tax cuts, make people suffer, and still keep their majorities on a campaign of repeatedly shouting “PELOSI IS A C*NT”?
Major Major Major Major
@BBA: I imagine we’re about to find out.
Ohio Mom
In my fantasy, Paul and those others who claim the bill doesn’t go far enough succeed in derailing it. All the other Rs get to save face and we can go on to other fights.
But, fantasy. I spend many more moments spinning my wheels trying to figure out Plan Bs for my little family. My autistic 20 y.o. pulled a few doozies this week.
I can not imagine him on his own but that is where he will eventually be if the Medicaid Waiver that would have paid for a supervised living situation isn’t there. As it is, Waivers in my state are so underfunded, he wasn’t going to get one until my husband and I are completely frail or dead.
Marcopolo
Guy running against Ryan on Lawrence O’Donnells show. He comes across great! Have we done a fund raiser for him?
Mnemosyne
For anyone who needs an interesting diversion, I have this story from OutSports about a former NFL player who planned to kill himself as soon as his football career was over so no one would ever find out he was gay. Fortunately, he got the help and support he needed before he could carry out his plan.
Kryptik
@BBA:
I’m pretty sure that’s what’s exactly happening right now in the aftermath of the special elections, with the lefter-than-thou gang playing right along. Setting the perfect state for ‘sure we just damned you all to death by easily treatable ailments so people 5 tax brackets above you can make more money, but see, Pelosi, therefore vote for us forever!’
And it may just fucking work because hell, it worked against Hillary, it’s working against Pelosi now it looks like, and damned of Dems will be able to do anything when it’s getting cannibalized from the left while the GOP looks on with popcorn, fully inoculated from any consequences whatsoever.
Mnemosyne
@BBA:
That’s pretty much how they won GA-6.
Ohio Mom
@Marcopolo: He is a charmer all right. I liked his video a lot.
I hope there’s a “there” there and am crossing my fingers that he is as good as he first appears.
jl
And I won’t let the special elections worry me too much as of yet. I heard on the news that between 2008 and 2010, during Obama’s first term, the Democrats won the first four special elections for House seats. That didn’t prevent them from losing the House in a historic defeat in 2010.
So, I looked it up. Turns out that the Democrats won the first seven special elections, including one that was vacated by a Republican. At least recently, special elections early in an administration aren’t a bellwether, or build momentum for anything, despite what mindless talking heads on the TV and radio say.
Democrats lost the last 4 special elections from mid to late 2010, though. Plenty of time to worry later on, but not now, over special elections.
Special elections to the 111th United States Congress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_elections_to_the_111th_United_States_Congress
Corner Stone
@Marcopolo: I like him. He sounds really real. Not too smooth and like he means it.
He’s a cancer survivor, his mom needs 20 pills a day with MS and his dad has Alzheimer’s. What a fucking dick punch the Universe dealt him.
Corner Stone
@Ohio Mom: They are going to character destroy him but this takes a lot of fucking guts on his part. That’s worth supporting as much as we can.
Mike J
Kick over the wall ’cause government’s to fall
How can you refuse it?
Kryptik
@jl:
My problem isn’t the results, my problem is that snap reaction looks to only be furthering the splintering of the Dems at the perfect time to ensure the GOP gets away scot free from fucking any consequence whatsoever. And that fucking terrifies me because it seems any attempt to assuage the worries from the lefter-than-thou gang seems to only convince them more that the Dem party needs total blowing up, and at this rate, it may very fucking well just happen, right in time to make the grand conservative eternal majority a reality.
Marcopolo
Well he came across as a very down to earth, white working class guy who think there should be more working class people holding seats in Congress. And he has a real family: an older mom who requires a lot of meds, a dad w/ Alzheimer’s who seems to be in a facility, and he’s raising a kid. Guess we’ll see.
Bill E Pilgrim
I’m actually surprised at how thoroughly the common wisdom on both the left and right about what happened in Georgia is that Democrats lost a seat they should have won, which is therefore terrible and demoralizing and doesn’t bode well for them for 2018.
Imagine if a Republican came within a few points of winning a seat in say Massachusetts that’s been solidly Democratic for decades and last time around the Democrat won by a 28% margin. Do we imagine pundits would be talking about what a devastating loss it was for Republicans because they lost this seat they should have won? Or instead about what a near-total reversal of fortunes it was that they came so close, and then analyzing to pieces why, with heavy doses of how the Democrats screwed up basically, which is the common denominator always.
rikyrah
Thread from Harry Reid’s former deputy chief of staff:
Adam JentlesonVerified account @AJentleson
A quick word on this, which is, in a nutshell: the Senate vote is the entire ballgame. This is it, pure and simple.
…
Anyone who thinks there’ll be another chance to stop Trumpcare should disabuse themselves of that notion immediately.
There won’t be.
…
If the Senate passes a Trumpcare bill, the House will quickly pass it with no changes and Trump will sign it into law.
Game over.
…
There won’t be a conference committee.
There’s no need for a conference if one chamber passes the other chamber’s bill with no changes.
…
The powerful incentive of having the bill signed into law will overwhelm any reservations among House Republicans about the Senate bill.
…
In short, if the Senate passes Trumpcare, it will be on Trump’s desk and signed into law within days.
Not weeks or months.
Days.
Corner Stone
@Bobby Thomson:
I am kind of on that glide path, myself. I’m taking my son to Austin for a few days next week and then when he goes on vacay with his mom’s fam I plan to do a road trip of my own to the West to see some some shit while I can.
Marcopolo
@Corner Stone: Did not know he was also a cancer survivor. Like I said he has a real life & family. He’s emphasizing Ryan & Trump are joined at the hip and I can get behind that.
BlueDWarrior
@Mnemosyne: And the sick thing of it is, it doesn’t matter if Democrats vote nothing but white bread men as leadership. It’s too late, we are the party of beta, emasculated nu-men, ball-rending harpies, and dark-skinned thugs and terrorist who will take and pillage in no particular order.
We are fighting against a polity so deluded they see apparitions as reality, and nothing we say or do matters. We have to hold on and activate as many of us who are like minded but don’t vote to fight this, or we will be living in Capitalist Gilead.
schrodingers_cat
@jl: Good advice.
I think we should stop fretting about Punditubies and T supporters.
Kryptik
@Bill E Pilgrim:
But that’s kind of the problem. It’s the ‘Good news for John McCain’ effect, applied broadly. No matter what Dems do, it will never be seen in any thing but the most negative light in the post-mortems, because it’s an article of faith that the Dems = Wrong, no matter fucking what. And that’s what’s scaring me here: we’re not going to be given the chance to make right on things, especially if we have the growing braying from the leftest of wings wanting to blow everything up for purity ponies.
Bill E Pilgrim
Leave the dessert. Take the cannoli.
rikyrah
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I’ve been saying this.
If this were Nancy Smash’s district, and a GOPer came in just 3points under – they’d say that this was the end of the Democratic Party.
BlueDWarrior
@rikyrah: I think it’s done anyway, the Rage Virus that has consumed the Republican Party has now subsumed the entire organization.
Those not of that mind need to understand that protecting what we have is no longer sufficient. We either fight for Moyer and better actively, or cede the field and allow the country to revert to its state c. 1890.
Shalimar
@Bill E Pilgrim: Common wisdom will change quite a bit in the next 17 months as Republicans continue to screw more and more people. What policies do they have that actually make life better for even most of their own supporters? Momentum now doesn’t matter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ohio Mom: I think there is. I also think that his let’s switch jobs line was a great manliness challenge to PDX-90 boy Ryan. He was also working Juneteenth celebrations in Racine. One of the few areas in WI-1 with a lot of AA folks. He is doing the right things.
N.B. If Archyterix stops by. I live in WI. About 30 minutes up I-90 from Janesville. I work with middle and working class people from that area weekly. I’ve worked for the agency that oversaw (the world has changed) WI elections. And I have worked in WI politics at various levels since 1992. I am sorry that I didn’t answer you in the previous thread when you asked.
Major Major Major Major
@BlueDWarrior: You forgot marriage-destroying, bathroom-lurking queers.
Mike J
BTW, I dislike Maggie Haberman as much as anyone, but did you read her story in the Times today? Inline fact checking of Trump. If this were to catch on we might have some jounalamising going on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/politics/trump-iowa-rally-venting-session.html
jl
@Kryptik: Similar thing happened with the GOP in 2008 and 2009. They didn’t fight so much in the open, but retreated to their quiet back rooms and made noises about soul searching and reforming the party’s attitudes on race and ethnicity and immigrants and such and and so forth.
As we know, in the end, they didn’t do anything, it wasn’t an honest effort. In the end, the party brass essentially said ‘Aw, the heck with it’, buried the insipid excuse for a report, and carried on. They had wheezing feeble presidential primary in 2010 that coughed up Mitt and they lost. And they lost the majority of the people this time.
Might be better to have an honest airing of grievances in the Democratic party now. I don’t understand why Democrats have such a defeatist attitude all the time. Watch some FDR and Truman, and Big Dawg and Obama clips on youtube, maybe that will cheer you up. I think we need to go Truman. I am going past to future, forget Hillz and The Bern, neither are the best we can do. We’ll find a Truman or a few to kick some ass and win some elections.
Marcopolo
@Bill E Pilgrim: I don’t buy that. It is a popular POV that is definitely out there and being pushed by various parties for their own interests (like R’s and folks on the left who think the Dems in disarray narrative might advance their cause) but I’ve seen plenty of sensible people poo pooing that interpretation. No one in my circle is pushing it either but most a my friends use their brains.
Mnemosyne
@BlueDWarrior:
Sadly, yes. And though I hate to agree with Kryptik, our local pessimist, part of the problem is that the left is swallowing the same propaganda that the right is, with the same results. At least half of the Hillary haters I heard from in the run-up to the 2016 election identified as leftists, but spouted the exact same crackpot bullshit about her “crimes” and “untrustworthiness” the right wing does. Exact. Same.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Kryptik: Yeah that’s what I meant. I mean listen it would have been much better to win the thing, but hearing people like Tweety (I try not to but the flesh is weak) saying to some Democratic strategist who was telling him look, that was a Republican seat it’s amazing we came that close, snicker at her and say “Oh come on, had Ossof won you’d be touting how meaningful the election was and how it showed Republican weakness!” and of course that’s exactly what she is saying but he’s incapable of actually listening to anything that doesn’t fit the Villager mindset.
BBA
@Shalimar: Abolishing the 3.8% investment income surtax for people earning more than $200,000 will make life better for their supporters who matter to them.
schrodingers_cat
Let BS run as a Democrat was a stupid own goal by the Dems.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Marcopolo: Well not to point a finger but I was partly responding to the second sentence of this blog post, i.e. the takeaway from Georgia is that it means Republicans have a good chance to hold the House. I don’t think it’s the takeaway at all.
It’s pretty widespread, of course it’s all the rage with those on the right who are politically motivated to push the idea but I’ve seen it a lot elsewhere.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: TheHill says “before the July 4 recess”.
McConnell was having a Petulant Senior Moment™ (perhaps he and St. John McCain have been sharing beverages or something?) this morning in a CSPAN clip I heard this evening. He kept calling Schumer the “Majority Leader” and kept trying to object to Schumer’s characterization of the bill by saying (roughly) “we haven’t released the bill yet” even though Schumer kept saying “we read the 142 page PDF that was released online this AM”….
Something (else) is not right with him (and too many others in the GOP). :-/
I do think that a lot of the stuff we’re hearing is posturing – Senators don’t get to show how Important™ they are too often. Paul and Cruz, especially, cannot resist the sirens’ call of the klieg lights.
But will they eventually vote for the bill? It’s not a sure thing, IMO. Cruz, especially, likes nothing better than to present himself as the Only True Conservative In The Senate™ and seems to love the scorn of his fellow Senators. He could easily argue that McConnell’s bill “isn’t good [bad] enough”. Collins will want her pound of flesh and I think she is willing to tell Mitch to take a hike if she doesn’t get enough of what she wants.
The GOP has a habit of putting poison pills in bills. In the Senate, those efforts run up against the Parliamentarian and those who have red lines (like PP funding). Those red lines are different in the House. McConnell may try to jamb the House with this bill, but lots of people in the Freedom Caucus don’t like being forced by anyone to do anything. It might well be the case that they ultimately can’t agree.
The fact that GOP senators are only seeing the bill today tells me that this isn’t a done-deal yet. Mitch is trying to give them their kabuki, but I don’t think his skills as an Evil Genius™ are as sharp as they used to be.
It’s still an uphill battle for us, though. We have to keep fighting.
Cheers,
Scott.
ArchTeryx
@Omnes Omnibus: Then I’ll switch a snarky tone with an honest one. Why is Ryan so completely bulletproof in WI-1, coasting even when Republicans were busy losing the district to Obama in 2008? That year it was blatantly obvious there were a ton of Obama/Ryan split ticket voters in the district, which simply boggles my mind. What are these people thinking?
jl
Sorry for all caps, but…. OK, no, I won’t. I’ll bold it.
Everyone complaining about biased and poor quality news pieces should call up and register a polite but strong objection about the coverage. Give enough details on the piece you are complaining about so they can ID it. Before you call, do some research at library or internet so you give some relevant facts and ask why this important info was not mentioned. Very politely mention that this did not take a lot of work or time on your part and you have no staff or interns, and ask why they cannot provide useful news.
I do this for local news coverage that I find biased, misleading or uninformative. Or just butt ignorant, though I would never use those words on the phone.
RealityBites
OT But relevant: There is a rumor Kennedy will announce his retirement on Monday. Shit. Shit. Shit. Roe, voting rights ….
kevin
elvis costello headline earlier today, then clash ce soir la.
u r on fire !!
Doug!
@Marcopolo:
Yup, 5K already.
Doug!
@kevin:
thanks
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Doug!: What about a Prodigy headline?
Marcopolo
@Shalimar: I’d like to believe that a lot of the policies Trump & the Republicans are advancing will screw up the economy (like food prices rising because there are no migrant laborer’s to help with the farming & and foreign tourism dropping off because Trump is an ass), since there’s nothing so like a bad economy to help ruling parties lose elections. However, things like that usually take a year or two before effects are really noticed. Not that it feels particularly good to root for a crappy economy.
Doug!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I don’t think GA-6 was a bad result. But if Ossoff had won, Rs would have known they were likely fucked in the House in 2018.
Kryptik
@jl:
The problem is that a lot of the supposed soul searching we’re getting into isn’t in good faith, not when so much of it takes the same regurgitated right-wing impressions that are and have been full of shit for ages, and repackaging them as “True Progressive” pablum,and ignoring the massive elephants in the room regarding why the Dem brand is so easily dismissed negatively. The absolute discounting of racism, sexism, genuine xenophobia, etc. and the dog-whistles and foghorns on those manning the othering paintbrush and the exalting of economics as the end all, be all source of all that ails the party not only perfectly plays into the right’s hands but threatens to abandon Dems PoCs, women, Muslims, immigrants, etc. at a time where the right-wing agenda seeks to twist the knife the furthest it will go against those marginalized groups. I extremely doubt we’re going to get a Truman out of this environment that way.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Please explain how not letting him run and a Dem and having him run as an Indy would have been better. We really need to move past what happened last year and work on limiting the harm that the short-fingered vulgarian can do.
tobie
General question–I’m assuming the phone lines to most GOP senators will be switched to voice mail tomorrow. Does it pay to send faxes? Are they counted in call tallies? I’d rather write than leave a message.
Doug!
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
I don’t know Prodigy that well. I was meaning to check his stuff out though.
Mnemosyne
@RealityBites:
Meh. I don’t have enough emotional space to worry about rumors right now. There’s plenty of real-life stuff to worry about without getting spun up over a rumor.
ArchTeryx
@Marcopolo: Don’t. A crappy economy combined with Medicaid essentially being defunded will create a human rights catastrophe that would break our health care system completely. When unemployment approaches 10%, you’ll see mass hospital failures, since now none of these people will have insurance. It was just such a threatened human rights catastrophe that birthed the ACA in the first place.
I don’t think we’ll get the utopia of single payer out of an EF-5 tornado rampaging through our health care system. You’ll just get a whole lot of human wreckage.
Jeffro
@Mike J: It’s good writing, but you can almost hear the sighs as she adds in the #NotFakeNews.
Let’s have national Dem or six step up and smash the Rs in teeth. Hold your own rally. Buy a half hour of airtime. Follow Trumpov around the country (especially to his golf courses). Let’s GO!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Doug!: Yes as I say there’s no doubt it would have been better symbolically, not to mention actually, by having one less Republican in the House, to have won.
jl
@Kryptik: I try to make it a practice to act as if my opponent is arguing in good faith, for as long as humanly possible. When that doesn’t work anymore, I try to calmly explain why I can’t assume good faith anymore. I don’t worry much about entrenched and obstinate opponents, even if there are many of them. They may be hopelessly entrenched, or have an ulterior motive, but who cares about them? I try to remind myself that it is much more important to sway the wider audience who is listening to the debate.
I am not perfect about it, but that is what I try to do. I admit that I sometimes fail, or do it very imperfectly. I tell myself that both Hillary and Bernie would approve.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx: Ii is quite likely that some people left the top row blank. I haven’t, and I doubt you have, looked at the numbers.
Marcopolo
@Another Scott: I am firmly in the camp of if this passes the Senate then the House will hold their nose and vote for the Senate version in a NY minute. And I firmly believe that all the conservative R senators that are bitching & moaning are already yeses. That leaves the Moderate R’s and I suspect the two passes go to Collins & Murkowski leaving Flake & Heller as the only chances to stop this POS.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
QFT.
Mike J
@Jeffro: Having actual facts alongside Trump statements can almost be counted as a victory these days.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kryptik: @jl: jl, I cosign
Mike J
Comey at the Covington & Burling office party
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DC-Kp_2UMAAIR9E.jpg
BlueDWarrior
@Kryptik: Someone said it on another thread, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the non-Democratic left are made up of White Socialists.
Because any populism in this environment eventually turns into white populism. And a lot of the Brogressives seem thoroughly convinced that shedding all social issues will lead to Leftist Nirvana.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Mike J: It’s funny what it says over his right shoulder given the way he’s masking some letters.
Marcopolo
@tobie: Call & leave messages. Even if they aren’t answering they are paying attention to the volume. If you’re able, go to their local office and drop off a note or talk to a staffer.
And even though I do believe it really only comes down to two or three or four R senators, I will still call Blunt’s (MO and sure yes) office tomorrow.
Kay
All lies. Just a big pack of lies by the President, covered as if he was telling the truth even though they all knew it was bullshit.
Trump does that crazy liar thing where he isn’t satisfied with just an ordinary lie- he has to add to it..”by the way….”
It really separates the mentally unstable liars from the ordinary variety.
Mnemosyne
@BlueDWarrior:
I was saying the other day that there’s a lot more overlap between left-libertarians and right-libertarians than a lot of people on the left want to admit, and most of that overlap is in the areas of race and gender. Most of the die-hard Sanders supporters are left-libertarians, not Democrats.
El Caganer
@Kryptik: Pure class warriors who poo-poo any societal distinctions except economic ones really should read the following article. When it comes to basic human nature, it seems to me the purists have it exactly back-asswards: http://nautil.us/issue/49/the-absurd/why-your-brain-hates-other-people
Marcopolo
@Doug!: Having real money this far in advance can do wonders for organizing–wishing him the best.
Another Scott
@tobie: Getting through to a human is best. If you can’t do that, probably things that show the most actual effort count more than things that don’t.
– Hand written letter (slow)
– Faxed hand written letter (faster)
– e-mailed original letter on their web form
– e-mailed form letter
– bulk e-mail from some organization
– “like” on FB or T
– etc.
I would assume that voice mail is somewhere on that list, but since it takes even more effort on their staff’s part than a real phone call (harder to listen to, harder to take notes), most Senate staff probably just ignores it and/or never empties the voicemail box.
These are just my suppositions though. The Indivisible people are the experts.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro: As I said when they shutting down freeways here in LA, go the fucker’s golf course and shut that down. It’s only about 20 miles from Downtown LA.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kryptik: Do we need a Truman? Honestly, if you are that negative, the best thing you can do for our side is to stay quiet. What is the result you want? Not the one you expect.
If anyone wants to argue free speech: Every one can say what they want. Sometimes saying certain things is dumb.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Doug!: The Infamous and Hell on Earth are classics, with Murda Muzik and Juvenile Hell being pretty good/decent; their guest work throughout the ’90s is also consistently good. Worthwhile material gets a lot spottier after 2001, though, regarding Prodigy; the fallout of Summer Jam ’01 seems to have seriously affected Prodigy’s writing.
A good rule of thumb for Prodigy’s ’00s-and-beyond output would be something like this: His work with the Alchemist is consistenly good-to-great; his work aside from that is highly erratic, and his work in Mobb Deep post-Infamy (as opposed to “featuring and/or produced by Havoc) generally ranges from OK-to-poor. Blood Money, Amerikaz Nightmare & H.N.I.C. 3 should be skipped.
Marcopolo
@Kay: Plus they conned how many millions of dollars out of the gov’t for “saving” those jobs? Wasn’t it six or seven?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Scott Brown and Teddy Kennedy’s seat in 2010.
Corner Stone
@Bill E Pilgrim: Those girls look like they are in middle school.
BlueDWarrior
@Mnemosyne: they are the Paulistas who became nominal leftists.
Kryptik
@jl:
I get that, and I try to default to that as well, but I can’t help but see where our political environment is now, and feel like our assumptions of good faith have precisely been weaponized against us, because so much of our system assumes at least some modicum of good faith and reason from all sides involved. And when one side decides to dispense with all pretenses and goes scorched earth against a side still preaching good faith, it makes the whole process stink even when it’s one side that’s massively the problem. And that’s what’s happening now it seems like. The very same ‘both sides same thing’ refrain that has dogged us for decades, seemingly further reinforced by trying to argue still as if our opponents were acting like rational participants rather than chaos agents reaping the benefits of a completely poisoned system.
I mean…I don’t know how we fight that without being just as dirty, and I hate the idea that such might be the only solution. But our good faith so far seems to simply be helping to normalize bad behavior and get the target painted on us instead.
tobie
@Marcopolo: @Another Scott: Thanks for the advice. I’ll see if I can reach anyone in person tomorrow.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Corner Stone: Just made me laugh to see James Comey in front of a sign saying “We are a pow”
BlueDWarrior
@Kryptik: if enough people are truly that committed to Capitalist Gilead, you won’t be able to avoid violence.
The question outstanding is will enough people on our side care before or after people start getting dragged off to be ‘re-educated’. Because the right has gone beyond the bend and become utterly toxic, in my opinion.
Anyone who’d support a party that’d produce legislation like this doesn’t deserve my god grace.
Cheryl Rofer
@Another Scott: I hope you are right. I was working out a scenario something like that, but the vile and lying “moderate” Republicans just do what the vile and honest-about-that extremists do. I sent a tweetstream to Susan Collins in effect telling her that her lying is damaging the country but I will applaud her if she actually follows through on her statement that she cannot support a bill that strips insurance from millions of people. For whatever that is worth.
Mike J
@Bill E Pilgrim: Comey and his wife were foster parents to those girls.
Zelma
I think this abomination will pass the Senate. They have three votes to “give” and they’ll probably “give” them to Murkowski and possibly Collins. I suppose there is some hope that Paul, Lee, and Cruz could vote their “principles” but the evil McConnell will probably do something to bring them on board – which can only make the bill worse.
But there is hope. Remember the House bill squeaked by and only after a number of Rs who had voted against its first incarnation changed their votes. So while those who have Republican senators should keep the phone lines busy, those of us who have Republican Congresscritters should get on the phone PDQ. My own rep voted against both versions so I will be back to calling him regularly.
This is an absolute nightmare and people will die. It’s that simple. We are talking about evil here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zelma:
QFT.
Kay
Trump and Pence hosted a congressional picnic at the White House today. Were they picnicking while security were dragging those disabled people down the Senate hallway, I wonder? I hope the protesters can afford to stay overnight in DC before driving hundreds of miles home – it’s pricey to protest in DC when you’re coming a long way. And then Mitch McConnell wouldn’t meet with them. Too busy. Had time for a picnic though.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: [had to save a link] AARP wants the Senate bill dead:
Medical groups oppose Senate bill.
The health insurance industry helped write the bill, but they didn’t get everything they wanted.
It’s an uphill battle (as it has been all along – they do have the majority after all), but the battle isn’t lost yet.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Zelma:
I’ve been calling Portman. I know what they’re doing though. Portman is pretending he’s “holding out” for opiate abuse money which is already baked in and then he’ll pretend he got a concession. It’s appalling how cynical they are. They must have been planning this for weeks. It’s such an elaborate lie – took real planning. Hours and hours of work they put in this charade.
Mike J
@Another Scott:
A’gin it:
American Cancer Society
American Lung Association
Children’s Hospital Association
AARP
American Psychiatric Assn
American Acadamy of Pediatrics
American Hospital Assn
Catholic Health Assn
American Nurses Assn
American Public Health Assn
BlueDWarrior
@Mike J: people who are the truly unreachable will of course blow off these concerns. The mushy middle has to start actively choosing what they want the country to look like, even if that is admitting the idea of Capitalist Gilead intrigues them.
It’s hard to fight a conflict when you don’t know the force each side brings to bear.
Cheryl Rofer
@Another Scott: Thanks! I’m not following this closely – too many other things to do. The thing is, if this monstrosity is beaten, it will be a MAJOR defeat for the death panel wing of the Republican Party. Since that is probably the biggest plurality, the “moderates” know it can and will damage them. So they are likely to smile nicely and go along. But if the vote is all the way out to next week, there is a chance that seeing manacled people in wheelchairs and the numbers of calls to their offices may press them in another direction.
And my cats are licking, cheek-marking, biting, and scratching (the last two gently) my ankles and feet in their usual signal that it is time for bed and their bedtime kibble, so I’ll sign off now.
efgoldman
@Zelma:
If this pig shit goes thru, eventually it will cause more deaths than The Holocaust. It will take longer, and be much less centralized. The deaths will all be from preventable, repairable, or treatable conditions rather than actual malice by low level individuals, but the people will be just as dead.
Thanks RWNJ assholes. Rot in hell.
Another Scott
Charles Gaba (of ACASignups) on the Senate bill:
And here…we…go: Say hello to the GOP Senate’s pile of BCRAP! (PART 1)
(PART 2)
(part 3 is coming)
It’s a great summary (in addition to David’s work here) of what’s in the bill and how horrible – in easy to understand specifics – it actually is.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Good job, Tim Ryan! You should definitely be the Democratic Party strategist. Rolling the Pelosi attack out the day of the health care bill means you’re much smarter than Nancy Pelosi and should be promoted.
You have to wonder sometimes if they’re on the other side, you really do. No one is that dumb.
James Powell
@smintheus:
Those are interesting questions but a) no one will ever give an honest answer and b) the voting public doesn’t care about process.
efgoldman
@Kay:
Maybe people named Ryan are just shitty politicians.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
People who continue to support Trump even against their own dire self interests are like fans of a sports team that has a bully coach, dirty players, a craptacular stadium, unaffordable ticket prices… as long as their team wins, they don’t give a shit about honor, integrity, or their own health.
tobie
@Kay: Don’t forget Kathleen Rice (NY-04) who piled on Pelosi today, too. What a waste. On a day when we should have been fighting the GOP, we were fighting each other. I called Ryan’s office to express my displeasure and will do so with Rice’s office tomorrow. They really need to know how many hackles they’re raising.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: OMG, the fucking bill is really called BCRAP; fitting.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
I’ve been wondering about that too, Kay.
Kay
@efgoldman:
How could he not know they’d seize on it to ignore the health care bill? He did know. He just decided it was more important to promote his own career and for that purpose the timing is perfect because he knew that all the hacks would run after Pelosi looking for blood and he would have a huge audience.
Oh, look. Here’s one of his constituents now:
With his survival. And the populist warrior friend-of-the-working-man who represents Youngstown is busy attacking Nancy Pelosi.
BlueDWarrior
@Kay: The last standing moderate officeholders want to finally vanquish the evil liberals that have hijacked thier party, without even realizing that most moderate D voters don’t really mind the more liberal officeholders, even if they find some liberal activists distasteful.
KS in MA
@Bill E Pilgrim: Exactly.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Yes, yes they are.
Many are much dumber than a sane person could ever imagine.
Morzer
It should be. The problem is that the Democrats aren’t too popular either, don’t seem to have much of a plan beyond not being Trump and are still fighting the pointless Clinton/Sanders civil war. Throw in some ruthless gerrymandering and news outlets that are increasingly incapable of asking a coherent question and you can see why the GOP think they can get away with this.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer: Next week Thursday.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Letting him run as an independent would have been a quick recipe for fucking suicide.
You can kindly shut up about it already please.
TenguPhule
@ArchTeryx:
I suspect vote rigging/tampering. Have you seen some of the corrupt shit they’ve been getting up to there? Buying off fucking judges FFS.
Skippy-san
I have zero faith in Americans anymore. I see lots of people actually trying to defend this abomination ( most of them with government provided or employer provided health insurance) who think that nothing bad can happen to them.
Trump wins because of the stupidity of the average American.
jl
@Kryptik: The politicians are better at fighting dirty in the appropriate way than I am, so I let them worry about it.
And, like I said above, when I hear stuff on the local news that I feel is misleading or lazy, I do call or write and let them know about it and give them some info and helpful hints on how I think they can improve their work.
So, don’t sit and fret. When you hear unfair and misleading ‘both-sides-do-it’, get some info that demonstrates that is not accurate and call or write. I do it. I don’t care if others do or not really. It’s self expression for me, and my civic duty. But if more people did that, it would have some impact. Especially if eventually you have to say, with regret, that you just aren’t listening to them much any more since no reason to listen to their news if it isn’t really news.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat:
Not necessarily. The counterfactual at the time was a Nader in 2000 who caused arguably worst problems for Gore by running as a third party. For most of the campaign up until around March, I was actually quite pleased to see Bernie inside the Democratic party moving it to the left instead of outside the party running as a green or something.
Kathleen
@Kay: I don’t wonder. I know they are.
ETA As are the WouldaStalkers
Aimai
@smintheus: christ no one cares about this process crap. Just campaign on ” they threw grandma out of her nusring home to give Trump a tax break–suckah!”
kindness
I think the term ‘moderates’ gets bantied about too loosely wrt Republicans. I mean if you never vote against something obviously odious to your own constituent’s welfare, how in the world could one be termed ‘moderate’? Susan Collins isn’t a moderate. Susan Collins is a spineless sack of steaming bullshit. I miss the Republicans of my youth. They might have been more conservative than me but they weren’t nuts. Nowdays Pierce is correct. They’ve all eaten the monkey brains.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: @Omnes Omnibus: Its his behavior since the election that concerns me. He has been attacking the Dems and shitting on them non-stop and making conciliatory noises towards T and his base.
maura hart
the rethuglicans don’t care. the effects won’t be felt for 2 years or so, they already will have been re=elected. the racists and old white men who vote for them have short memories. the irony is that they do not want the poor and need y to have government subsidized health care. but they sure do want it for themselves
maura hart
it’s for sure going to pass. it’s not about health care for the rethuglicans. it’s neve been about health care. it’s about tax cuts for the rich. and some part is that at one time there was a black man in the white house. eeeekk!
from day one of obama administration it was about that, race