McCain’s Brain
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I don’t think much of McCain, but I do think his treachery here is overstated. If he won’t vote for the bill in it’s current form then I think no bill will be able to pass. A clean repeal bill has at least 3 nos in the Republicans and I think pretty well anything else will be a no from Paul, Lee, and (from what I’m reading) Johnson.
They couldn’t get to 50 before, I don’t think they can get to 50 now. They just have a few more days to figure out how to not get there.
McCain might not be the only one. Voting to proceed is not voting for the bill. We don’t even have any idea what the final bill will look like right now. It could be a bill about constructing a 20 foot golden statue of Trump in the middle of the senate floor.
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Technically, they can vote to extend the deadline but that means delaying the FY18 budget - which creates other issues such as a possible government shutdown assuming the Democrats vote against any continuing resolutions.
The GOP needs to keep the process alive otherwise they lose any chance of repeal/replace because it resets the requirements back to 60 votes needed for cloture which they know they can’t get without working with Democrats.
There’s also the “Byrd Rule” which limits the kind of debate they can have to just budget matters. For example, the Senate Parliamentarian recently ruled that the Planned Parenthood defunding amendment was a violation of the Byrd Rule.
It’s all due to the arcane Senate rules which prevent simple majorities from running roughshod - thank God.
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Not to diminish McCain’s terrible ordeal as a POW in any way, but it would be more accurate to say he was forced to endure torture than “withstood” it. McCain, like countless others in similar situations, broke under torture. The VC were able to coerce McCain into sharing important information (such as the fact that his father was an Admiral) and recording “confessions” of war crimes.
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And it’s incredibly stupid to vote to proceed with a bill that will impact the lives of millions of Americans and 1/6th of the US economy without even knowing what it is. There has been no public discussion of this bill, no committee hearings, no opportunity for amendments, no input from stakeholders, nothing. But they’re going to put it on a 20-hour countdown clock to passage anyway (barring filibuster by amendment from the Democrats). “Craven and reckless” doesn’t even come close to describing how terrible this process has been. McCain wants to whine all day about how awful it is that the Senate is a cess pit and that regular order is gone, but he doesn’t actually want to make any of the hard votes that would do anything to put the brakes on this trash heap of a repeal attempt.
The fact that he flew across the country just days after having brain surgery to vote yea on the MTP, then spent the next 5 minutes crying about how terrible the process of crafting the bill has been so far, is worthy of every ounce of contempt I can muster. If he cared, he could have stopped it. But he didn’t. So he didn’t. And so the clock ticks one more minute closer to midnight.
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He knew the stakes, he made an eloquent argument against the process the GOP is using to push this bill through, and he voted to proceed anyway.
Whether he votes for the final bill or not, this is like inviting a machete-weilding Jason Voorhees into the cabin and trying to absolve himself of any responsibility once the stabbing starts.
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All those pretty words. All the gravitas of his years in politics, service, AND THE FACT HE JUST HAD FUCKING SURGERY TO OPERATE ON A FUCKING TUMOR giving his words extra weight…
And he blindly votes along party lines.
Why John. WHY?!
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Assholes.
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Exactly. If we are to be fair, we need to calm down a bit. McCain didn’t vote for the bill, he voted to discuss the bill.
If he, in the end, votes for a bad bill, then we can trash him.
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Perfect, vintage McCain. A fiery, impassioned speech that presents the illusion that he’s really sticking it to party leadership and doing what’s best for the country, party be damned, then immediately giving party leadership exactly the vote they flew him in to give. He’s a real maverick, that one.
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That’s an insult to sex workers everywhere. Please avoid using language that insults and denigrates honest hard working prostitutes by comparing them to these well dressed sociopaths.
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Well, apply now, bro; if you have a trade, education, or lots of experience, there are many first world nations who are deserving of your contribution and would love to have you.
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The joke is that he’s not considered competent at this juncture, until tested otherwise. Brain surgery, etc etc…
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Uhm… Picking on a former POWs personal healthcare plan… Yeah… we’re not going to be doing that. OK?
My condolences - I’m so glad I don’t live there.
Methinks we will not be divesting these folks of their pitchforks and torches today, no matter how much we point out that this isn’t a win for Trump any more than getting the ball back when your team has possession for a 4th down, is a victory for a football team.
Welcome to my friggin world.
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What bill‽ This is entirely the problem: the ACA spent over a year being drafted, and only proceeded to the floor for debate after an enormous amount of time had been spent on it. Republicans are trying to ram through an incomplete book report on a book they haven’t even read, while trying to pass it off as the collected works of Shakespeare. It’s intellectually dishonest at best, and absolutely a willful destruction of the legislative process. Which 50 people and the vice president are apparently fine with.
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I’m not picking on his personal healthcare plan.
I’m pointing out that his personal healthcare plan, protected under the federal government, is the same as the one that other former POWs have… which he just voted to authorize debate on removing. And he should know that quite well.
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