Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

and trump is too fucking stupid to break the mold and figure that out..

xp

So if they could somehow bring themselves to take the ACA and make it better (expand Medicaid, fix the problems with people not getting in the pool, etc), Trump could claim a big win and do something popular at the same time.

Trump might almost be smart enough for this - or rather, susceptible to it if someone explained to him that it would make him even more popular than he's ever been. Except: it's pretty unappealing to the business-oriented "low taxes, small government" wing (which includes people like Donald Trump), and total anathema to the ideological wing of the GOP (which also includes Donald Trump where it overlaps with "deny poor people and minorities everything"). Actually these wings overlap to an enormous degree but basically a Medicaid-expanding bill would only pass Congress with a Dem majority or a completely different Republican Party than the one we actually have in there. Yes, it's populist, but in a Huey Long "spread the wealth" sense, which is a square peg for the current GOP's round hole.

Besides, it just scrambles their narratives. I agree with the people pointing out that they screwed themselves by building their whole health care secret plan cult around opposing Obamacare. The chance for them to perform a realigning, thunder-stealing, Bismarck-implements-social-security maneuver was to implement a Romneycare or ACA model under Dubya! Expanded health care access that embraces the dynamism and job creation of the private insurance market blah blah blah. It would have been a brilliant populist move and left the Dems stuck campaigning on "well sure we like it but it doesn't go far enough!" which is fine but not quite a red-meat sales pitch.

Not to write a fifth-dimensional Obama narrative but if there's any upside to the ACA being, basically, a plan tailor-made for Romney/Jeb! Republicans (even if they won't admit it), it's that it leaves present-day GOP pols nowhere to go except proposing draconian and unpopular plans that take coverage away from people who already have it.

would also involve Trump actually having to work to develop policy + build a coalition of votes in congress, two things he clearly has no interest in doing

Yeah like the most we could ever expect would be him suddenly and incongruously tweeting "Have had great talks on 'health care',, Medicare, Medicaid must be FREE FOR ALL! Can't wait for great plan from Congress! #MAGA" but then never doing anything about it. Cue weeks of GOP media outlets emitting showers of sparks and thick clouds of black smoke, congresspeople awkwardly double-talking at town halls and on talking-head shows, and in the end they're way further from passing a plan anybody wants than they are now.

even for Yam backpedaling from "O-care is a disaster/imploding" wd be a trick

although he managed a similar 180 w/ Goldman Sachs

That's one of the ironies of Trump and the GOP as a whole: they could probably push through a huge hunk of their agenda if they just weren't such assholes about it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/445791/problem-hoping-phase-three-obamacare-repeal

Backpedalling or random side-pedalling is one area where Trump is a viking tbh - - - not because he has any talent for it but because his supporters sincerely do not care if he's hypocritical. Fascism is about delivering results, they like him because he's gonna get results, you stupid chief! Nobody except his critics is paying attention to what he said in the past.

Anyway, his critique of Obamacare was always horrendously vague. It was just a disaster, the worst plan, such a horrible plan - to be honest with you, I don't think I've ever seen something that was failing so badly, and we're gonna have something that works way better and we're gonna make America great again. So,if he was actually smart, and not motivated entirely by ego and self-interest, then yeah, sure, he could accomplish a once-in-a-lifetime party realignment by using his strongman status to insist that Republicans are now the party of universal health care. He's not going to do that, but the absurdity of the cognitive switch would be the least of the reasons why not.

I bet Trump could convince his hardcore supporters to accept higher taxes if he told them it was a way to lower taxes and make American great again.

Cornyn: if you don't like our bill, where's your suggestion?

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/323934-top-gop-senator-to-democrats-offer-your-own-bill-to-fix-obamacare

Um, how about the one already in place?

If Trump strengthened the ACA, made a couple of threatening snorts aimed at Russia, committed himself to shoring up the Social Security trust fund, and condemned offshore drilling, he'd be a hero to his base and drive Dems crazy.

lol seriously. there was an article on the shitty Wash Examiner today saying "Democrats need to fix their mess of a law" or something and I'm like, yeah, we agree Obamacare needs fixing and we want to work on it, we however can't do that if you're repealing the entire thing and forcing us to work on something we think is fundamentally terrible at best

xpost

Sean Hannity is deeply displeased with Joe Scarborough! The Republic trembles!

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/842094601842393090

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/842096900102881291

(Although how does Hannity square his Putin bromance with the spy charges today, one wonders.)

Ah, meanwhile, Roger Stone everyone:

https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/842085241795796996

I am fine after suspicious hit and run. Blurred vision in right eye on which I had surgery for detached retina sustained in boxing match

I bet Trump could convince his hardcore supporters to accept higher taxes

unfortunately, his biggest supporter (himself) is deeply opposed to paying higher taxes.

Sean Hannity is deeply displeased with Joe Scarborough! The Republic trembles!

Scarborough is deeply displeased with everyone this morning.

Joe Gould‏Verified account
@reporterjoe
.@RandPauI just blocked @SenJohnMcCain's UC request to add Montenegro to NATO & exited. McCain: "The sen from Ky is now working for Putin."

@adamjohnsonNYC
everyone is Putin

Maybe...the Putin is us.

Every GOP rep/Admin flack who is interviewed on NPR about Ryancare/Dontcare sounds like Martin Short's Nathan Thurm character from SNL. "I don't accept your premise..."

you'd think some day our "conservative" friends would get beyond the 'i know you are but what am i?' stage of social development. maybe raising the estate tax would help?

Perfect combination of tweet and screenshot here

https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/842122519897333760

Fun interview with Snowden:

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/15/intercepted-podcast-snowden-vs-trump/

More of this:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-volcanologist-says-she-is-considering-a-1489547480-htmlstory.html

I would vote for her if I could for her name and occupation alone.

Sounds a bit like a pitch for a superhero origin story. Jess Phoenix, scientist/activist, studies volcanos and wishes she could do more to fight evil. Then one day she falls into a radioactive volcano (that part needs work)....

President salutes man on money he sees most often.

https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/842128458314571783

I assume Trump will be parroting this argument shortly:

On "Fox & Friends" this morning, Judge Andrew Napolitano said that even if the Obama administration did spy on Trump, there may never be a way to prove it.

He explained that the statutes allow the president to order the surveillance of any person in the U.S., without suspicion, probable cause or a warrant, but that would leave "fingerprints."

In this case, the alleged surveillance was reportedly ordered in a way that left no record, he said.

"Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command," Napolitano said. "He didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI, and he didn't use the Department of Justice."

Instead, Napolitano said, Obama used GCHQ, a British intelligence and security organization that has 24-7 access to the NSA database.

"There's no American fingerprints on this," Napolitano said. "What happened to the guy who ordered this? Resigned three days after Donald Trump was inaugurated."

In a statement to Fox News, a UK government spokesperson responded, saying that "no part of this story is true."

Cruz has a formidable challenger too: https://ballotpedia.org/Pavel_Goberman

House races are p different from Senate races fyi

Oh for sure, this dude is just a PNW batshit perennial candidate and I was amused to see he's hunting big game now.

And moving to Texas, apparently?

Here's his website, there's some excellent late-90's design: http://www.getenergized.com

speaking of batshit PNW candidates, looks like Robert Mercer is bankrolling 4-time loser and lunatic Art Robinson for yet another challenge to our Rep Peter Defazio

New GOP repeal and replace strategy seems to be arguing that those millions of people who will lose health insurance don't want it anyway.

Apparently some of them have begun arguing for 'collapse and repeal', that is, sit around and wait for ACA to fall apart on it's own. Which, of course, it won't. But whatever.

I mean, of course it will! Choose collapse and repeal, guys, it's a perfect plan!

New travel ban shot down again?

Hawaii judge issues temporary restraining order

See you in court! As long as court is in Hawaii, and you pay!

The illogic of the Government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one
can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at
once is fundamentally flawed. The Court declines to relegate its Establishment
Clause analysis to a purely mathematical exercise.

A review of the historical background here makes plain why the Government
wishes to focus on the Executive Order’s text, rather than its context. The record
before this Court is unique. It includes significant and unrebutted evidence of
religious animus driving the promulgation of the Executive Order and its related
predecessor.

daaamn.

these from http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015a-d421-db68-a97b-d5e934210000

this comes down so hard on the administration i just had to triple check the section i'm reading wasn't a brief filed by the plaintiffs

love it

extensive quotes from interviews with trump and rest of administration in this, heh