"Obamacare is law of the land" as replacement fails in House

Blaming the Democrats for the bill’s defeat is like… It’s like, um, doing something that makes no sense. Blaming the guy who moves when you’re trying to punch him in the face, and so you, like… hit the brick wall behind him instead? It’s basically like that?

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Clever thing that. You’ll notice it doesn’t even hint at what exactly the policy to make that happen would look like. He’s not pushing single payer and government subsidies. Neither is he mentioning the free market magicking the problem away. What that boils down to is “gee wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had health coverage” ginned up into a vague call to action. It sounds bold. But it says nothing.

Remember the ACA is essentially a reworked, more practical version of the Right’s old pathway to universal healthcare. The Right’s current pathway to universal healthcare is the destroy all regulation, let insurance companies do what they will… profit? (No wait) UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE approach.

Trump’s book is mentioning the end result everyone claims they’re shooting for. A result few could argue is bad. But leaving out any mention of the conditions used to bring it about.

Wouldn’t be needed. Its a bland platitude. Whoever wrote it was told to make Trump look good without contradicting or committing to anything. It does that pretty perfectly.

Those in swing states, districts at risk of challenge from other parties (or even other Republicans), the few morderates hanging around. And largely anyone who saw those Town Halls. Were apparently out and out antagonistic to the more extreme bill. Even as they weren’t on board with the existing one, since it would obviously create a cluster fuck that they’d be held responsible for. 17% of voters approved of that bill.

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There was a good question in that article. Why did Ryan put forth such shitty piece of legislation? He should know how to build a coalition. I understand Trump not understanding how politics works, but Ryan sure as shooting should.

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Let’s keep the cuts coming.

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He has a reputation as a policy wonk. But if you look at his record. Well I don’t recall him having much of a deep history doing these sorts of things. And many of his ideas aren’t spectacularly deep. His career has largely been spent pushing massive cuts to the social safety net, minimalist budgets target at generating headlines, and bunch of policies noone wants. Even in his own party. In an environment where he didn’t need to worry about anything passing or whether it would work or not. Because he had no chance of any of it ever getting signed into law.

Thanks Obama.

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Same everywhere.

If the board of a football club issues a statement expressing “full confidence” in the coach, he’ll be sacked within a month. If a political party makes a display of publicly affirming support for their leader, there’s an intra-party coup on the way.

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He has a reputation as a policy wonk because the corporate media insists on mentioning that he has a reputation as a policy wonk every time they talk about him.

There’s absolutely zero substance or expertise underneath it; his sole policy motivation is to exempt the wealthy from taxation and legal restriction to the greatest extent possible, because Randian nonsense. Not an original thought in his head.

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His reputation for wonkiness is massively overstated.

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Thank goodness.

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Yep. The House Freedom Caucus is the most cruel, evil group of white men currently living on the planet.

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Its more that Paul Ryan deliberately branded himself as a policy wonk. His party thought that was a good angle. And noone felt the need to dispute that. He’s basically roll playing a smart guy. Dressing up his subsidize the wealthy policy approach in power points and pseudo academic language. He’s like those Bigfoot hunters, ancient astronaut theorists, and ghost hunters who play science dress up. Its totally science! See we have machines that go beep! We’re publishing research, in journals! Journals we made out of sticks and glue!

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Feel free to cast shade, throw emojis, or call me a know it all. But this is what happens when good faith entitlements get enacted.

ACA, you need work. As does my body. But neither of us wants to see the other go away.

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More like blaming the guy watching the fight from the other side of the room.

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Trump as Gollum… see if the description fits.

'What I have told you is what Gollum was willing to tell — though not… in the way I have reported it. Gollum is a liar, and you have to sift his words. For instance, he called the Ring his “birthday present”, and he stuck to that. He said it came from his grandmother, who had lots of beautiful things of that kind. A ridiculous story. I have no doubt that Sméagol’s grandmother was a matriarch, a great person in her way, but to talk of her possessing many Elven-rings was absurd, and as for giving them away, it was a lie. But a lie with a grain of truth.

'The murder of Déagol haunted Gollum, and he had made up a defence, repeating it to his “precious” over and over again, as he gnawed bones in the dark, until he almost believed it. It was his birthday. Déagol ought to have given the ring to him. It had previously turned up just so as to be a present. It was his birthday present, and so on, and on.

‘I endured him as long as I could, but the truth was desperately important, and in the end I had to be harsh. I put the fear of fire on him, and wrung the true story out of him, bit by bit, together with much snivelling and snarling. He thought he was misunderstood and ill-used.’

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And in Breitbart land the chatter is all about how Ryan failed

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Just to indulge the conspiracy theory for a second…

Trump’s probably eager to get this off his plate, because repealing the ACA is Paul Ryan’s shit. Trump just supported it to toss red meat to the conservative loyalists who would vote to put him in office if he pretended to want it. He didn’t want it. Probably even most establishment Republicans didn’t want it.

I think the establishment R’s figured that “people” wanted it, because “Obamacare is so unpopular,” but what went right this time around was that people in red states heard that their healthcare was going to be taken away and they were furious. That tipped the scales. I also think that it was unexpected, and the ramifications - I hope to Effing Jesus - will be felt through to 2018 and beyond.

We gotta make old people and conservatives feel personally threatened by his horror show of a budget, next, I think. That’ll be a bigger challenge.

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Judging by the robust vocabulary and the smoothly flowing sentence structure, I am willing to bet not only did he never write that but he’s never even read that.

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But “Freedom Caucus” just sounds so much nicer!

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Like the time I fell off my bike. Totally the fault of gravity.

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