Sorry, I forgot to get to the point I meant to make…
Sometimes it’s that feeling of invincibility that makes even the biggest of fools feel that they have the moral imperative/god is on their side.
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McCain just got a tragic medical diagnosis indicating he may not be long for this world, and is almost certainly not long for the Senate. He’s a lame-duck Senator facing a ticking clock.
So I’ll tell you what he COULD have done: he could have returned to the Senate from his sickbed to announce that he is immensely grateful to his country for the top-notch medical treatments he’s been afforded and that he will have no part in denying similarly critical care to any other citizen as long as he has that power.
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Looking at his actions, he voted no on Rand Paul’s “repeal only” amendment. If McCain votes “yes” on the actual bill, I’ll agree with everybody who says that he is a spineless, irresponsible maggot. But I refuse to condemn a Senator for demanding a debate, even on a shite bill like this one.
Edit: I seem to have been mistaken here? It’s all rather confusing.
edit:
thankfully, Trevor Noah dumbed it down for me
edit:
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I prefer to applaud or condemn his actions on an individual basis. As far as his decision to let the GOP health care bill go forward is concerned I’m squarely in the “condemn” camp.
The medibank system was established in Australia in 1975 but health care was still relatively cheap and affordable before that date. It certainly wasn’t like the US system.
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This.
The only reason the NHS is in financial trouble (if it actually is - it seems to struggle on ok) is because if you ask a bunch of voters " Do you support more money being spent on the NHS so that you can have better healthcare?", they say “Yes.”
If you then ask them “Are you in favour of higher taxes to pay for this?”, they say “Yes”.
They then actually vote Tory because they don’t want tax rises.
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Um, yes? Though it’s not exactly secret. For example, the recent news (in case you’ve been off the grid lately) that prompted this attention is around the fact that McCain has extensively criticized the Republican proposals to repeal the ACA, and most recently gave an extended speech (which was labeled “heroic” by many) decrying the secretive, highly unusual, and undemocratic process that senate Republicans went through to bring said proposals to a vote. And then he went ahead and voted with them anyway.
His public statements are in direct conflict with his voting record. Not that anyone’s hugely surprised by that in a politician, but don’t try to pretend that we’re all “imagining” the obvious, blatant hypocrisy.
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I think people expect that a Republican “Maverick” is like a crypto-Democrat, but that’s not the case at all. We have a false binary in this country that makes us think anyone who opposes one party must belong to the other.
McCain is ultra-conservative. When he criticizes his own party, it’s not because of his latent liberal ideology. Railing against the secrecy in the Senate’s health bill deliberations is not the same as opposing the result. It’s just grandstanding, and falls right in line with his vision of himself as a party leader, and his conception of what leaders do. I don’t see the hypocrisy in his statements, either. He made two real points:
- Republican leadership better give him his pound of flesh if they want his support in the final vote.
- The Senate might need to return to a more bipartisan method of operation AFTER they finish screwing up the healthcare system.
There’s not really any hypocrisy there. That’s about as honest as a Congress person will get.
Anyway, I backed myself into supporting him in this thread, and now I’m done.
I made the quote from the piece more accurate (spoiler: Doesn’t help McCain):
“Everyone should realize that John McCain is the perfect American lie, a man who professes to be noble and fair and just while being none of those things. He served his country honorably [questionable!] in combat, but in no other fashion. And he serves out his time in the Senate, and here on planet Earth, as a pathetic enabler. Never the lion; always the sheep. For [far more than] seventeen years, gullible people have been waiting for him to make his face turn, to make some grand defiant move for the sake of God and country. But that was always just clever branding on his part, and today should serve as a cold slap in the face to anyone who still thought he might have that kind of political courage left in him. He’s a fucking disgrace. [And inflicted on us Sarah Palin.]”
Got one comment for McCain:
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Further proof that I’m wrong about McCain’s maverick brand–he voted against the so-called skinny bill last night. Feinstein hugged him.
Shows what I know, I guess.
Dude, I get it. I get it.
Geez, make one post out of thousands where one forgets to make a summary statement… 
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