Oh, good, Erick Erickson is gunning for Mitch McConnell’s head. This should make our work easier. Mr. Erickson has noticed that a lot of people on the right are coming to terms with the fact ObamaCare isn’t going anywhere, and it’s making him crazy. Never mind that the law is improving and saving millions of peoples lives already, it must be repealed. And replaced with…what?
And the irony is that the Republicans plan on making their entire midterm election strategy a national attack on ObamaCare.
Mr. Erickson is a loon, but he’s correct about one thing. The Republican midterm strategy is a fraud. You can’t uninsure millions of people. You can’t make an exchange work without a mandate. You can tinker with ObamaCare, or you can move to a more comprehensive government-run system, but you can’t move backwards.
There really are no words to describe the comments that follow the Erik Erik Erik Erickson article, although I’m definitely fond of the one that talks about the “soleless tyrant.”
McConnell wearing moccasins?
Or he puts his Hobbit feet into flip-flops.
Turtles don’t eat flatfish. I thought everyone knew that.
Good Lord, that is one fetid fever swamp in that comments section, all right.
“I think Obungo will make his move by this summer with the intent of inciting a violent uprising by the people so that he can justify declaring martial law and preempt the mid-term elections as a means of keeping his treasonous dem party in power.”
No hyperbolic racism there, no sirree.
You will be unsurprised to learn that this dude (because let’s face it, men are the ones who express their lunacy in this manner) informs us that the Chamber of Commerce is a truly treasonous organization. Oh, yes, and Godwin’s Rule is invoked, rather aggressively so.
My favorite, though, is the commenter who tells his fellow wingnuts that they can’t just repeal Obamacare without figuring out what to do with the multimillions of people who will gain health insurance through the ACA by the end of 2016. He attempts to retain his wingnut credibility by begging them to consider high risk pools, catastrophic coverage, but SOMETHING, guys!
10 hours later and counting…crickets. No replies to the sane one among them.
Fingers in ears LALALALALALALA…
OT: You better hope that the Menendez bill never comes to the floor, because the idiot Democrats seem like they are not breaking with it yet. This is as catastrophic a mistake as the Iraq War. If your Senator is one of the ones (hint, hint New Yorkers, Joiseys who love pointing fingers southward) who is on board with this, it is time for you and all your friends and neighbors to make a critter call to said Democratic Senator and read them the riot act.
Or is it absolutely impossible to put the fear of the voter into the folks anymore?
It is so nice that Jon Stewart focuses on Lindsey Graham and not on Bob Menendez, Chuck Schumer, Kirstin Gillibrand, and other key Democrats pushing this bomb.
It will be the missed diplomatic opportunity of a generation if they succeed in scuttling it. And it will mean more war.
The question on the critter call is this. “Has Senator X removed his name from Senator Menendez’s bill on Iran?” Then recommend that the dropping support for the bill is exactly what they ought to do.
The true estimate of a successful military operation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities (which are in compliance with IAEA) is a draft of 8 million troops (just for that operation), at least a 10 year commitment (comparing to the occupation of Germany and Japan) and that’s assuming that no other countries allied with Iran get involved. That’s likely $3-4 trillion in cost. But deficit.
I don’t get angry about anything in politics anymore since what’s the point, but this has pissed me off. As far as I’m concerned every single one of those Democratic senators is SCUM, and if the Democratic party had anything even remotely resembling an organization for the base, every single one would be facing the certainty of primary challenges. I don’t care if any of them have the purest progressive records otherwise (which I’m sure they don’t). Selling out the president in this circumstance is simply way way beyond the pale.
I don’t care if it turns out to be just posturing. That makes absolutely no difference. We’re talking about war and peace here. This isn’t a game.
We may be able to pull it off but we need to keep pushing and rousing opposition. There is little support for it outside of the Senators that are bought out by the AIPAC. A war weary public is not going to go for something like this once they know it is in process in Congress.
http://www.lobelog.com/feinsteins-denunciation-of-kirk-menendez-iran-act-may-be-decisive/
She earned her oats with that speech.
There is a theory being floated that the bill doesn’t exist to be passed. Rather, it’s being floated so that Congress can play ‘bad cop’ to the White House’s ‘good cop’, as a reminder to Iran of what could happen if negotiations fall apart, and that Reid will never actually bring it to the floor.
Fallows obliquely referred to this in his column earlier today.
How much credit you want to give that theory (and, even if you think it’s true, how much credit you want to give the likes of Manandez and Schumer for being in on it as opposed to just toeing the AIPAC line) is up to you.
And Iran’s reminder is that Iran could reverse its policy on its nuclear program within a day. And the US could likely reimpose some types of sanctions within a day.
These sorts of game-playing do not build trust and are mostly for domestic, not foreign consumption.
Having both the US and Iran do something and complete the reciprocal actions are what builds trust. And what the “bad cops” don’t understand is that normalized relations with Iran makes intelligence gathering much easier–both ways–and that eases tensions between the two countries.
If Menendez is playing bad cop to Obama’s good cop (for domestic consumption — other countries are not fooled by this nonsense) then Menendez’s next bad cop routine should likely be about Cuba.
What is going to be difficult for Americans to grasp going forward might be the absence of enemies. The end of the Cold War tore American domestic politics apart. Powerful interests do not want the ramping down of military threats–there is too much easy money to be made.
Short question every time some knucklehead talks about “repealing” “Obamacare”: So, you want to bring back denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions?
The further we get from the bad old days, the less folks are going to remember about why they were bad. And if someone’s really pre-occupied with that whole “keep your doctor” thing, ask them how long they’ve been going to their present primary care physician, and when was the last time a change in their coverage (initiated by their insurance company unilaterally) excluded the doctor of their choice.
You have hit squarely on why repeal is Na-Ga-Ha-Pn.
And Obamacare being what it is with the unpopularity of the individual mandate, there really is only one way forward and it cuts the profits out of health insurers and some of the wasted employment out of large providers. And it threatens the ability of physicians, especially specialists to make incomes that far exceed those of the people they are treating.
Unless there is a wave election, change is going to come in fits and starts. My choice for first fit is deductibles and co-pays, which shoves the cost and profit issues into premiums in a way in which there can be apples-to-apples price comparisons.
The right’s newest line:
Insurance-Company Bailouts
Will they agree to expand Medicare and/or Medicaid? If not, then this editorial is just concern-trolling.