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

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

with diet Cokes for everyone

I can imagine him sipping Sharpie ink and making notes with Diet Coke.

As was said on Twitter, lawyers definitely involved:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/infowars-apologizes-for-pizzagate-coverage/article/2618409?custom_click=rss

Meantime, I guess Napolitano had to get himself back into the news without Fox around:

https://secure.politico.com/story/2017/03/andrew-napolitano-supreme-court-shortlist-trump-236488

This speech by Schiff from a few days ago worth noting

https://lawfareblog.com/rise-autocrats

so if trumplethinskin colluded with putin to steal the white house, and now the GOP can't even repeal "obamacare", and here we are, can we revise our preconception that wealth = competence, and restore the highest income tax rate to what it was pre-reagan? this experiment has gone on long enough, no?

nah we haven't all died yet

Only then can we be a control group.

conservative Philip Klein makes a concession:

One has to admire the commitment that Democrats and Obama had to delivering something they campaigned on and truly believed in. They spent 13 months getting the bill from an initial concept to final passage, and pressed on during many points when everybody was predicting doom. They had public hearings, multiple drafts of different bills, they kept negotiating, even worked into Christmas. They made significant changes at times, but also never lost sight of their key goals. They didn't back down in the face of angry town halls and after losing their filibuster-proof majority, and many members cast votes that they knew risked their political careers. Obama himself was a leader, who consistently made it clear that he was not going to walk away. He did countless rallies, meetings, speeches — even a "summit" at the Blair House — to try to sell the bill, talking about details, responding to criticisms of the bill to the point that he was mocked by conservatives for talking so much about healthcare.

The contrast between Obama and Democrats on healthcare and what just happened is stunning. House Republicans slapped together a bill in a few weeks (months if we're being generous) behind closed doors with barely any debate. They moved the bill through committees at blazing speed, conducted closed-door negotiations that resulted in relatively minor tweaks to the bill, and within 17 days, Trump decided that he'd had enough, and was ready to walk away if members didn't accept the bill as is. It reminded me of the scene in "Duck Soup," in which Groucho Marx portrays Rufus T. Firefly, leader of the fictional Freedonia. Firefly conducts a cabinet meeting that he starts by saying he'll take up old business. One official says, "I wish to discuss the tariff." Firefly responds, "Sit down, that's new business." When nobody has any old business to discuss he decides to turn to new business. "About that tariff —" the same official interjects. "Too late," Firefly responds, "That's old business already."

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

hail Firefly!

“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

meh, he's not really a Democrat, shaddap old man

love Bernie but lol @ the idea he's first person to do grassroots organizing in the democratic party. c'mon man

An emergency meeting of the House Republican Caucus was called shortly before the scheduled vote. As it was announced, the House went to recess, with Democrats shouting in a taunting manner, “Vote, vote, vote”, daring Republicans to bring the bill up. They did not.

there can't be enough news stories that contain the phrase "Democrats shouting in a taunting manner" to suit me

MODERN history, Tracer. You know, since the Golden Age of Television started.

"We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do," said House Speaker Paul Ryan, faced with the biggest loss of his career. "And now in three months' time we tried to go to a governing party. We will get there, but we weren't there today."

maybe someday you'll get to where you understand that the Social Security benefits which paid for your expensive private college tuition is a good thing, too, congressperson galt

Sounds like this damages Bannon's reputation as well. Which I'm fine with:

https://www.axios.com/inside-the-trumpcare-meltdown-2329417172.html

When the balky hardliners of the House Freedom Caucus visited the White House earlier this week, this was Steve Bannon's opening line, according to people in the conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building:

"Guys, look. This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill."

“He'll take your call and invite you to the Oval Office, but he just wants you to say nice things about him on TV,” the source says he told Napolitano at the time.

oh christiepaws

Doesn't scan so good, but it's got potential for a stanza-ending blues lyric imho.