The Trump/GOP Healthcare Plan: Lie

by 10:59 am. It has 2 Comments.

Indefatigable CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale surfaced this big, fat whopper from last night’s racist hate rally. Warning: the CNN clip contains brief video of Trump speaking at the hate rally, so if you watch it, you’ll see the bloated, sweaty orange shitgibbon chopping the air with his hand as he lies about the nonexistent Republican healthcare plan for about 15 seconds:

Hasty transcript of Trump’s quote for those unwilling to subject themselves to the image:

“Patients with preexisting conditions are protected by Republicans much more so than protected by Democrats, who will never be able to pull it off.”

As Dale points out, Democrats already “pulled it off” with the ACA, which is the only reason preexisting conditions aren’t a thing now, and if the Trump administration gets its way, the ACA will be struck down entirely by the courts, which will not only cause millions to lose access to coverage via the exchanges but also leave every single American with private insurance to the tender mercies of the insurance companies on a whole host of provisions, including preexisting conditions.

A few months ago, Trump started making noises about GOP healthcare reform policies, which Republican electeds played down. That’s because even if Trump is dumb enough to believe his own lies about the nonexistent GOP healthcare plan (debatable), people like Mitch McConnell know releasing a plan would necessitate defending said plan in upcoming elections. But are they going to go into the 2020 election with absolutely nothing? Possibly!

Trump appointed a couple of GOP senators to look into the issue, appointing Medicare fraudster Rick Scott as “point man.” But while Scott is definitely a crook, he’s not stupid, so he immediately threw that hot potato right back at the White House on one of the Sunday shows, saying “I look forward to, you know, to seeing what the president’s going to put out.” So did it fall through the cracks? Maybe Jared is working on it?

Anyhoo, regardless of what you think of the various Democratic Party primary candidates’ approaches to healthcare, at least they have policies to debate. The same is true of many other issues, like the phantom wall that Trump lied about last night too. It looks like all Trump will bring to the general election is more lies. Am I wrong in thinking it’ll be harder to pull off a all-lie-based campaign strategy as an incumbent? Maybe, but I ‘m going to choose optimism on this point.

Open thread!





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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Arena

by 5:30 am. It has 180 Comments.

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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I guess if Rep. Lewis can keep fighting, so can we… even if the well-intentioned members of the DNC seem to be trying to kill me:

And then, if I had my way, the members of the B Ark Tier One would be locked in a nicely stocked hotel annex until mid-November 2020. (Sorry, Sen. Gillibrand.) But nobody ever takes my advice, possibly because they’re afraid of insufficiently sanitized telephones.

It’s not as though this rigamarole is making anyone but the ad salesguys and the Media Horse Race Touts happy. (Seth Moulton, predictably, is making a very public fuss already.)

I hope to Murphy the Trickster God that the Inslee campaign was being sarcastic.





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Repub Venality Open Thread: Rand Paul Stays True to His Principle

by 10:47 pm. It has 84 Comments.

He has but the one: What’s in it for Rand Paul?

Rand Paul *and* Mitch McConnell. WHY, Kentucky?

Why now?…





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For the Love of Anyone’s Deity, Would Someone Please Donate a Strategist to the House Democratic Caucus!!!!

by 5:43 pm. It has 248 Comments.

I’m traveling this week, with lots of 0300 starts and wasn’t planning to post, but I just got into the gym at the airport hotel I’m staying at ahead of tomorrow’s pre dawn flight, and MSNBC is on the TV. And the Democrats are actually voting to table (put it to the side and not take up impeachment) an impeachment resolution of the President. This is happening despite only 89 members of the House Democratic caucus publicly stating they support starting an impeachment inquiry!

I have no idea whose idea this is, but I cannot state loudly or strongly enough how galactically stupid this is. Strategic and political malpractice at the highest levels! When this passes, meaning the House will not move to take up impeachment at this time, and it will pass, the President will spend the next week crowing about how he’s been cleared. He’ll use it to chew up the information space that should be devoted to the spillover onto him from the Epstein case, from his publicly going full in on blood and soil herrenvolkism where racism and anti-Semitism in defense of Judaism and Jews equated with Israel and Israelis is no vice, and the upcoming Mueller hearings in the House.

The motion to table just passed: 136 Democrats for, 93 against, and 1 present (abstaining). 194 Republicans and the 1 Independent (Amash?) voted to table it as well. So for now, the House, with overwhelming bipartisan support, isn’t going to do anything more on impeachment and I expect the President will start screaming about being cleared any time now.

Completely irresponsible political theater!

Open thread!

PS: Before anyone asks, I think the House should have a special select committee on impeachment focusing all the investigations through one point leading to either impeachment or exoneration. That’s not what happened with today’s strategic stupidity.





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Fake Eyebrows (Open Thread)

by 2:11 pm. It has 152 Comments.

As you’ve no doubt heard, NBC News unearthed a 1992 video of a coked-up-seeming Trump cavorting with serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein at a party held at Trump’s tacky-ass Florida property. Here’s a still photo from the vid:

I apologize for inflicting Trump’s hideous visage on you, which I generally avoid. But I’m hoping someone can explain Trump’s eyebrows in that photo. They look fake, especially when you see them in motion in the video. Can heavy cocaine use combined with tanning bed and hair product exposure cause alopecia? I remember the early 1990s — the hairdos of the women in the NBC video brought on flashbacks — but I don’t remember fake eyebrows being a thing.

Allegedly, many of the women pictured were Buffalo Bills cheerleaders. In the video, Trump grabs one of them from behind by the pelvis and then smacks her on the ass. I took a quick spin through the mainstream news sites, and all have a blurb about the tape, but it’s not the main story on any site I saw, including NBC, which broke the story.

Since its now fairly unremarkable to view tape of a future POTUS leering at women and aggressively grabbing a cheerleader while yucking it up with a notorious pedophile, I thought I’d explore the weird eyebrows angle. What do y’all think of that pair of caterpillars attached to Trump’s ugly mug? Strange, huh?

Open thread.





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