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

I guess Neanderthal should probably change his DN again now

Also my cat has almost mastered did trick - and he's only like 46 in cat time

The National Review, looking at a tire fire and going "Tsk."

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446098/republicans-health-care-bill-debacle-start-over

This basic approach would be compatible with a variety of legislative tactics. House Republicans could try to pass an aggressive bill without much regard for whether it can pass the Senate: At least they would have outlined and stood for a set of health-care policies that make sense, that offer something for conservatives and moderates, and that can serve as the basis for future action. Or they could work with the parliamentarian and with senators to see whether they could get a bill better than this week’s past the finish line. If they went this route, Republican leaders would not spring a new bill on their followers and allies and tell them they have to vote for it posthaste. There would have to be more patient cajoling and less last-minute bullying. We know many Republicans on the Hill and inside the White House feel that they have already spent enough time on this issue. But we have no sympathy for this complaint. They have spent seven years saying they were going to replace Obamacare. They didn’t say they were going to spend a few weeks on a half-baked plan and then give up. Back to work, ladies and gentlemen.

Meanwhile, much more entertainingly, a Cato Institute/Federalist guy unloads:

https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/845408471885500416

But are they really? https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/844950037016731648?s=09

It'll be anecdotal but it'll happen bit by bit. I idly amused myself looking at some of Bill Mitchell's tweets and saw a few responses going "I dunno Bill, I had faith but this was pretty dumb."

And hyperbole in the URL but one of the bigger RW Obamacare critics vents...a lot

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-cave-on-obamacare-repeal-is-the-biggest-broken-promise-in-political-history/article/2618413

Best quotes from the W Post piece imo

“I’ll fix it as it explodes,”
“Look, I’m a team player,” Trump said of the Republican Party. “I’ve played this team.

You certainly have!

Frum with the I told you so https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/the-republican-waterloo/520833/

this is all just glorious

This was a good day.

maybe start-a-new-trump-thread good

Yeah, I don't expect it to last, but this is the first day since November that thinking about the federal government didn't fill me with dread. I'll enjoy the reprieve as long as I can.

Trump strategy of "let it fail" also seems like a boon to Democrats. Because now they can run saying they stopped the GOP from not just taking the ACA away but making it worse. And then if it does start to fall apart they can run as the only party with the ideas to fix it without breaking it, pointing to this GOP debacle as proof of Republican ineptitude.

Oh but the fire still burns among the true believers

https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/845384523349196800

This one's hliarious:

https://twitter.com/NewtTrump/status/845368675351871488

RETWEET if you think Newt Gingrich could have gotten a GREAT healthcare bill passed if he had been in Paul Ryan's place!

Just think: the final bill was a statement demanding that people die -- the lame and the old -- for the sake of a balanced budget principle that the party would've eschewed like it did during 2004-2005 under Bush

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/325698-flynn-discussed-how-to-whisk-away-cleric-wanted-by-turkey-report

Hey guys

man what a gift-wrap for the Dems, didn't even really have to do anything to earn it

well it's their only victory strategy of late

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 24, 2017 3:55 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

morbz otm

In other news, CA to Trump: "go fuck yourself"

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/business/energy-environment/california-upholds-emissions-standards-setting-up-face-off-with-trump.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&referer=https://t.co/CI885zN6aT

http://i.imgur.com/k79Jk0y.png

Ah, Mr. Hannity. So nice of you to try.

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/845456044356751360

Saw a great suggestion that Democrats sound start running ads in red states highlighting all the things Trump and the GOP were pushing to cut from the ACA, and that it failed because some didn't think it went far enough.

Plenty of fun here:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/obamacare-vote-paul-ryan-health-care-ahca-replacement-failure-trump-214947

The ending:

Earlier, as Ryan's motorcade was zipping toward the White House, I spoke with Kevin Brady, the Ways and Means chairman whose committee sits at the intersection of health care and taxes. I’ve known Brady, one of Congress’s truly decent people and a reliably cheerful spirit, for years; never had I seen him looking so despondent and defeated. Positing that health care was about to die, I asked Brady if re-writing the tax code would be any easier. “Tax reform is the hardest lift in a generation,” he told me, shaking his head. “So that would be a big challenge.”

“If you couldn’t get health care done,” I ask him, “how can you get tax reform done?”

Brady thought for a moment. “Every Republican is all-in on tax reform. We still have a lot of work. But it’s just a natural issue for us in a very positive way.”

But every Republican was all-in on repealing and replacing Obamacare, too, I told him. “Won't the devil be in the details?”

Brady stared back at me. “It always is,” he said. “It always is.”

From the Freedom Caucus types:

The president had been working on many of them individually in recent days, typically with what members described as "colorful" phone calls, littered with exaggerations and foul language and hilariously off-topic anecdotes.

Always with the dick jokes.

I notice the anecdotes aren't of-topic & hilarious, but hilariously off-topic.

"a toupeed moon ape just called & said some crazy shit. so i'm rethinking my position on the health care thing."

More fun in this one too

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-closer-the-inside-story-of-how-trump-tried--and-failed--to-make-a-deal-on-health-care/2017/03/24/3e6353d6-0fdc-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html

Still in a suit jacket and striped red tie Wednesday evening, the president dialed Rep. Joe Barton, a wavering Republican from Texas, and placed the call on speakerphone. He put his finger to his lips to shush the clutch of advisers that always surrounds him. The president listened as the congressman ticked through his concerns, sipping from a glass of Diet Coke and jotting down notes with a thick, black Sharpie.

He cajoled and charmed uncertain members, offering flattery and attention to some and admonishment and the vague threat of political retribution to others. He invited members to the White House for bowling sessions, gave others rides on Air Force One (complete with ­lasagna) and grinned for pictures in the Oval Office, where he reminded lawmakers of his margins of victory in their districts.

See, if only it had been meat loaf instead.

On March 8, Trump met with a small group of conservative activists with hopes that their groups would get behind the bill. Someone with direct knowledge of the meeting described it as “a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit,” with the president boasting about how “great” the bill was and his aides seconding his assessment “like a Greek chorus.”

Yeahhhhh, that's one way to describe it.

lol

this doesn't sound like a very good idea....

https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/845477304436510720

@aravosis
Andrea Mitchell reports that White House officials are “purging their cell phones” in expectation of getting subpoenaed.

Suspended by goodell

http://ambassadors.net/archives/images/pelosi-gavel.jpg

feelin this

good memories, nice contrast

An actual lunar simian wearing a toupee and taking all his notes in permanent marker would still be more competent than this. I'm not buying y'alls metaphors.

So I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, and I know that a lot of more moderate Dems don't actually want it, but from a strategic point of view, why, exactly shouldn't every Democrat/lefty given airtime/column space about healthcare for the next year just repeat "Medicare for All" until their voices crack? It's popular, it's a clear alternative vision, it takes them out of the weeds of the rhetorically convoluted ACA, it taps into all this #resistance energy, and it makes Republicans talk shit about seniors' favorite thing the government does.

They should do exactly that and more than a few already are, like my freshman rep Pramila Jayapal who is amazing and the best

72 cosponsors.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676

With the GOP completely falling on their face, yet still saying that a fix of obamacare is needed, Dems might even be forced into picking an alternative vision, such as Medicare for All. This has got to be the stupidest fucking thing a US party has done in decades.

But i though twitter told us he was a dictator

Oh no, he's into US politics now.

(continue to feel it wd be auspicious to mark a significant defeat w/a new thread)

Agreed.

Well:

Instead, Democrats watched as a roiling, well-organized “resistance” bombarded Republicans with calls and filled their town hall meetings with skeptics. The Indivisible coalition, founded after the 2016 election by former congressional aides who knew how to lobby their old bosses, was the newest and flashiest. But it was joined by MoveOn, which reported 40,000 calls to congressional offices from its members; by Planned Parenthood, directly under the AHCA’s gun; by the Democratic National Committee, fresh off a divisive leadership race; and by the AARP, which branded the bill as an “age tax” before Democrats had come up with a counterattack.

Congressional Democrats did prime the pump. After their surprise 2016 defeat, they made Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) the outreach director of the Senate caucus. Sanders’s first project was “Our First Stand,” a series of rallies around the country, organized by local Democrats and following a simple format. Elected officials would speak; they would then pass the

microphone to constituents who had positive stories to tell about the ACA.

“What we’re starting to do, for the first time in the modern history of the Democratic Party, is active grass-roots organizing,” Sanders said in a January interview. “We’re working with unions, we’re working with senior groups, and we’re working with health-care groups. We’re trying to rally the American people so we can do what they want. And that is not the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/03/24/left-out-of-ahca-fight-democrats-let-their-grass-roots-lead-and-win/?utm_term=.81cb3e9a9790

where's the tax returns?

I got'em, right here.

i say we stick with the monthly threads... otherwise they'll proliferate crazily. plus easier to find shit later. a tall bookcase of three-ring binders with monthly labels on each one.

Can we switch to sharpie markers though? I heard that's what the pros use