US Politics: The 'In His Own Words' Edition

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, aceluby said:

His base just doesn't care and will repeat whatever he says.  He'll pardon these treasonous assholes as soon as he can and his base will justify it via some crazy left wing media conspiracy.

Maybe, but the messaging can't move much further. They're already at, "Collusion isn't a crime, and Obama set poor Don Jr. up." Where do you go from there? 

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Maybe, but the messaging can't move much further. They're already at, "Collusion isn't a crime, and Obama set poor Don Jr. up." Where do you go from there? 

"Collusion is a good thing when its in service of a higher purpose like stopping Clinton from becoming President, Don Jr. deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom!"

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

44 minutes ago, Fez said:

"Collusion is a good thing when its in service of a higher purpose like stopping Clinton from becoming President, Don Jr. deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom!"

Up means down, black means white, dry means wet and life means death. 

[ThinkerX]

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

One has to wonder how much further the Trump Administration can move the goal posts. It seems to me that they're nearing the water's edge. 

You are in grave danger of forgetting a key rule of thumb:

 

'You CANNOT out-crazy Trump.'

[denstorebog]

Today on "Things That Really Ought To Sink The Healthcare Bill Once And For All": Looks like Mitch is about to have a credibility problem.

Quote

Johnson said the bill could be "in jeopardy" after he confirmed with his GOP colleagues that the McConnell is privately telling members that some of the bill's efforts to reform and scale back Medicaid will never go into effect.

"I've confirmed those [remarks] from senators that those comments were made to, so I find those comments very troubling," the Wisconsin Republican told reporters on Monday night. 

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/342435-gop-senator-mcconnell-telling-moderates-medicaid-cuts-wont-happen?rnd=1500332571

[Swordfish]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

You are in grave danger of forgetting a key rule of thumb:

 

'You CANNOT out-crazy Trump.'

Have we not, from a social justice point of view, moved past the point of using 'crazy' as a pejorative?

[Crazydog7]

1 hour ago, Swordfish said:

Have we not, from a social justice point of view, moved past the point of using 'crazy' as a pejorative?

 

Oh good God really?  Posts like this encapsulate pretty well why the Democrats lost an election where they should crushed it.  

[drawkcabi]

Anyone remember that lawyer Martin Short used to play on SCTV/SNL? Always smoking and sweating and defending shady businesses?

Short needs to bring back that character as a lawyer for the Trumps. 

I mean, which one is an actual news interview and which is the comedy bit? 

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/saturday-night-news-segment---nathan-thurm/n9331?snl=1

 

 

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Have we not, from a social justice point of view, moved past the point of using 'crazy' as a pejorative?

In regards to Trump? If the shoe fits.

Hey, I know, let's partner up with the hostile foreign power who mucked with our election in order to improve our cyber-security.

TOTES CRAY-CRAY.

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

In regards to Trump? If the shoe fits.

Hey, I know, let's partner up with the hostile foreign power who mucked with our election in order to improve our cyber-security.

TOTES CRAY-CRAY.

And lets change our excuses and reasons and timelines about the meeting via twitter, lawyers, Fox News, dog ate my homework BS and so much gaslighting it looks like a three alarm fire and lies lies lies everywhere.

Oh no, that's not crazy.    

 

[The Anti-Targ]

So, am I correct on the Republican divide on a health care legislation?

Some Republicans want a federal law that puts a nation-wide blanket over certain aspects of healthcare (details TBC) = the repeal and replace camp. Other Republicans don't want any federal healthcare legislation and want it left 100% in the hands of States = the repeal only camp.

The repeal only people more or less see any federal healthcare legislation as the slippery slope to single payer and socialised medicine. So to get them to vote for any legislation that does anything other than say "The Free Market Rules Baby - peace out!" is more or less out of the question. For the repeal and replace people a law that doesn't put some federal systems including retaining some elements of the ACA is out of the question.

So repeal and replace isn't going anywhere if relying solely on Republican votes, and Repeal only has even less chance of getting up for a vote.

I think one truism the Republicans are right about is that once people have an entitlement they will never willingly give it away. And we're seeing that with the ACA. So the only way Republicans can really get rid of entitlements is to stop them before they get started. You can see that some Republicans got it when they fought tooth and nail to prevent the ACA from being implemented, because they know that once it was in place and providing what little benefit to the populace that it did actually getting rid of it would prove a virtually insurmountable task.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Have we not, from a social justice point of view, moved past the point of using 'crazy' as a pejorative?

I think from a social justice perspective pejoratives in general should be off the table. Ergo choosing a different pejorative by which to insult someone / group / ideology etc is no better than just sticking with 'crazy'. 

[LongRider]

Looky at wut John McCain is saying now:

Quote

“One of the major problems with Obamacare was that it was written on a strict party-line basis and driven through Congress without a single Republican vote. As this law continues to crumble in Arizona and states across the country, we must not repeat the original mistakes that led to Obamacare’s failure. The Congress must now return to regular order, hold hearings, receive input from members of both parties, and heed the recommendations of our nation's governors so that we can produce a bill that finally provides Americans with access to quality and affordable health care.”

The first part is complete and utter bullshit of course, but the bolded, well well.  Just adds to the noise but it is coming from a R senator.

[LongRider]

And this just dropped:

Now I read somewhere that Prez pardons only apply to fed cases, not state cases.  hmmmmm,,,,, go New York!  Hope NY is looking hard at Jr. and Jared too.

[DMC]

So turns out to be Mike Lee and Jerry Moran to kill the bill.  For the time being.  Who had them in the pool?

[Frey Kings]

US Politics is one gigantic clusterphuck and there goes my interest 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

24 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

So turns out to be Mike Lee and Jerry Moran to kill the bill.  For the time being.  Who had them in the pool?

Carl Spackler?

 

[S John]

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So repeal and delay is pretty much dead in the water right? I can't imagine anyone now has MORE confidence that Republicans will ever be able to get a plan hammered out, even if they do give themselves two years. If they're even still around that long from now.

What is amusing to me is that congressional Republicans put a straight repeal bill on Obama's desk but don't have the stones to put one on Trump's out of fear that he will actually sign it.  

That should tell everyone something, but I'm afraid that in today's polarized climate it may be lost on much of the conservative rank and file just how utterly full of shit that makes the Republicans look on healthcare. They begged for voters to put them in power with repealing Obamacare as thier primary battle cry, but as it turns out a fair few of them don't want their names attached to a bill that will harm thier most vulnerable constituents.  

They really painted themselves into a catch 22 on this, waffling between doing the thing they repeatedly promised they'd do while knowing deep down that ownership of a new, even shittier healthcare bill will probably cost a bunch of 'em thier jobs - as will a full repeal, as will any substantial cuts to Medicaid.  

The optics are terrible and would absolutely and rightfully be used against them by democrats.  They can either break campaign promises and do nothing, do a full repeal, or stick the country with a worse thing than we had before.  All 3 options are so politically terrible that I can't believe the party leadership allowed Obamacare repeal/replace to be such a staple of the platform.   OCare has its flaws for sure, but the R's are calling thier own bluff right now.  

It increasingly looks as though healthcare reform will require the help of Democrats and it'll be interesting to see where that takes us.  Likely to a dead end until 2018 or 2020 - but I think Trump just wants to sign something big into law that supersedes the big thing that Obama did.  So, while he's not really helping, he's not the obstacle here either and I wonder if democrats and the more moderate republicans might actually be able to cobble together some legitimate ACA  improvements.  Not holding my breath, but it would be nice to see.

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, S John said:

What is amusing to me is that congressional Republicans put a straight repeal bill on Obama's desk but don't have the stones to put one on Trump's out of fear that he will actually sign it.  

Sounds like that's what they're going to try now.  Or at least, that's what McConnell is going to try:

Quote

In the coming days, the Senate will vote to take up the House bill with the first amendment in order being what a majority of the Senate has already supported in 2015 and that was vetoed by then-President Obama: a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period.

As the kidnapper said to Liam Neeson:  Good luck.

[denstorebog]

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So repeal and delay is pretty much dead in the water right?

That was my first thought as well, but I've seen two news articles now stating something to the effect of "it's hard to imagine that clean repeal would fail in the Senate or the House". I assumed it had to be typos, but maybe my expectations of the party of excellence are too high.

That said, with the Mutant Ninja Turtle probably pretty desperate at this point, you have to wonder if he's looking at removing the filibuster now.