12 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. Federal Gov't Reaches Debt Limit, Treasury Takes "Extraordinary Measures" to Avert Shutdown. What hocus pocus can we expect in the coming days? More Green Eggs & Ham from Eduardo Rafael?

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   1. Also from the annals of good governance…

      Schumer to GOP: Funding the wall means government shutdown

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      1. just as the Sociopath Doug Bruce hobbled our state with a foolish, short-sighted scheme to defund government and re-fund the wealthy (TABOR), the same thing happened with Paygo at the federal level.

         Of course Dems fell for the Republican B.S. on Paygo, mouthed Repub rhetoric until it sank it to their brains, and fell for the same trick again with Sequestration all the while letting R's Coal-roll them on taxes.

         It's time once again for D's to fight to make these motherfuckers (yes, I mean that literally) pay their fair share in taxes and rebuild America through INVESTMENT and HARD WORK, not through tax breaks and parliamentary maneuvers and an infinite set of shape-shifting lies. 

         All Republican officials at the national level* want is to eliminate government enough to feed the rich. Republicans could not care less about the debt or deficit in any conservative or fiscal or economic sense and only use it to make Democrats feel guilty about wanting a fair and prosperous society for all Americans.

         And if Democrats like Mikey Bennet and Jared Polis are afraid that they'll be called socialist and Boulder Liberal, they should buck up, recall the guts that FDR and Harry Truman evinced, or get the hell out of the way.

         (Hasn't always been the case, and may change in the future, but not without us kicking their ass then kicking them in the teeth……with Doc Martens.)

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         1. Anyone who holds on to the notion that Republicans can be trusted is naive. The Republican Party is led by people with no morals, ethics, or willingness to cooperate. They don't have the best interests of the American people at heart and will stop at nothing to line the pockets of their benefactors and themselves.

            They will lie…they will cheat…

            They will continuously and contemptuously move the goalposts in any negotiation and, without a breath of remorse, sign legislation that kills people and heaps misery and poverty on millions of struggling humans.

            Then they will retire to the lounge for a few drinks and a nice filet.

            This administration and the Congress are bent on anarchy and the diminishment of America. The loudly proclaimed mission of the Republicans is to Make America Great Again. Just as has always been the case, their real mission is just the opposite…to hobble the federal government before industry and to use the military/security/industrial complex to set themselves up as the authoritarian rulers of the country.

            The billionaires are in charge…no longer in the shadows, but right out front. And their sole collective mission, according to the Liar-in-Chief, is to take really good care of all those people who aren't billionaires, like you and me….'cause that's what billionaires do.

            Right.

             

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            1. Don't forget the medical-industrial complex, Duke. As Tom Price knows, there's a lot of money there.

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               1. Oh, yeah. The demographics of health care and the aging population from which it generates most of its business have them drooling at the profit potential.

                  The Sunday morning news shows on TeeVee sure know their audience. At least 50% of the advertising seems to be from Big Pharma…and now (taking a cue from API, the American Petroleum Institute) they are even starting institutional advertising in a ploy for some positive PR. 

                   

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2. In Trumpcare news — forecast is for another 60 GOP House dry humping votes:

   The defection of those lawmakers would be enough to sink the GOP bill in the House. And there are other House members who have expressed reservations.

   Which is all to say that even under the best circumstances, even if Trump gets actively behind the health care plan and pressures reluctant lawmakers, this is a tough sell.

   If Ryan and other GOP leaders can just get the bill out of the House, that would be a win for them, which is an amazing recalibration of expectations. Not so long ago, Republicans were promising the swift repeal of Obamacare and its replacement with a better plan that would be cheaper for everyone and expand coverage. Those promises seem to have fallen by the wayside. And in their place is another messaging vote.

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3. Yes, Republicans are fucking up bigly, but Democrats can't win solely by refudiating their lies and hypocrisy and failures, but by actually supporting and acting as true Liberal and Principled Democrats of yore:

   West Virginia is ground zero for those of us who empathize, but who do not sympathize. The state went big for the president*, who promised to bring back the coal industry and reopen the mines and otherwise revive a local economy that had vanished decades ago. Since then, he has freed up not the miners and the workers, but the people who own the companies. He and the Congress have demolished the protections the people of McDowell County had against coal waste products in their drinking water.

   It'll be ugly………but this is why Dems have to push back on the lies at every step and until R's stop lying.

   This is the profound emptiness at the heart of conservatism when it gets into government. Even in triumph, it can't turn off the autonomic anti-government nerve system that has animated modern conservatism for the past 50 years. It has relied on so much that is contrary to human nature and human experience that it doesn't know how to relate to the world any other way.

   This is a movement that believes that, to be free, a 68-year-old Alzheimer's patient should shop for his own health insurance, which will be provided to him at a reasonable price because, if it isn't, some market magic will make the health insurance company go bankrupt for being mean to its customers. This is the movement that produces critters like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, who, when asked why he voted against the Violence Against Women Act, replied that violence against women was a state issue and not a federal one. When asked, and I'm paraphrasing here, whether or not he realized how very stupid his first answer was, Barton replied, Shut up.

    That's who they are, Jason. That's who they are, Alva.

   That's AC. That's PP. That's Moddy.

   That's your peers at work.

   Maybe we can have lunch together and praise each other's children, but there is not room for 2 realities based on 2 different universes.

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   1. And the GOP is actively sabotaging the ACA to make the gleefully hoped-for "death spiral" a self-fulling prophesy:

      The GOP masterminds behind the Obamacare sabotage

      Now opponents of the law are using the wreckage they created to justify their own plan, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects would cause 24 million more people to go without coverage than would have under Obamacare. It would dramatically cut coverage for poor and middle-class Americans, increase costs sharply for older Americans and give hundreds of billions in tax breaks to the wealthy and corporate interests. There would actually be more people without health insurance under the GOP plan than there were before Obamacare.

      Confronted with the task of selling this cruel plan to the public, the administration and its allies are doing what they’ve done before: attempting to deny reality. They’re seeking to discredit the CBO, perhaps hoping people won’t recall that Republicans picked the man who runs it: Keith Hall, a conservative former George W. Bush administration economist .

      Worse, they’re perpetuating the canard that Obamacare was collapsing on its own, leaving them no choice but to repeal it.

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4. Here's a provision in Trumpcare that I wasn't aware of — no employer mandate to provide health insurance.  Could start a trend of employers dropping that benefit for employees.

   3. Companies will no longer be mandated to offer health insurance to workers.

   Under Obamacare, companies with 50 or more full-time employees must provide those workers with health coverage or face a penalty for not doing so. That mandate is being lifted, which leads to this question: Will corporate America voluntarily continue to be the portal for most Americans’ health coverage? The consensus is divided, but a lot of smart minds are saying no.

   Untethering health insurance from our jobs may not be the worst thing that could happen ― if meaningful safeguards are in place. But that’s a big caveat.

   The ACA protected people with pre-existing conditions. Under the GOP’s replacement plan, insurers still have to cover pre-existing conditions, but they can charge more for people who are recently uninsured. 

   On the plus side, following the Law of Unintended Consequences, our Republican friends might inadvertently hasten the day of single payer, as that is the most affordable health care option out there.  We really can't afford the high overhead and 20% of GDP spending just on healthcare.  

   Personal example — my wife needed a biopsy for a lump in her breast.  Retail price for the procedure?  $14 grand.  Insurance balked and settled for $3,100 plus $850 out of our pocket.  That's because I'm lucky to have excellent employer-provided insurance.  If we were eligible for Medicare, it would have been *much* less than that!

   Forgot the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/4-ways-the-ahca-uniquely-screws-older-people_us_58c81537e4b0598c6699fbd3?hhlofdnxkyzzlrf6r&

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5. Okie GOper caught with live boy

   Shortey, a Tea Party state senator in Oklahoma, and the state Trump campaign chairman, was caught with a teenage male prostitute in a motel room last week.

   If it weren't for "family values" hypocrites, we wouldn't have any fun stories at all.

    

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   1. Another day, another family values conservative gets caught in flagrante delicto…..

      Will not MoldyAnus, Andy Cornhole or Prickly Pear step forward to defend one of their ilk?

      Will not one of them label this fake news, or put forth the alternative fact that Shortey (got to love that name) was not really in the sleazy motel room with the teenage boy but actually playing Scrabble at home with his wife while drinking hot cocoa?

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