John McCain:For Excellence in the Field of Impotent Rage, we honor this comment on health care reform over at Confederate Yankee’s House O’ Nutfuckery and Ammo Swap Meet:
We have a war now, should this become law. The little liberal weenies who have been crying about illegal wars over seas are about to have a real reason to cry. This shall not stand in my land.
Never.
Posted by: Odins Acolyte at March 22, 2010 09:47 AM
Ragnarok, bitchez!
"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year. They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."Harry Reid:
Washington, DC—Spokesman for Nevada Senator Harry Reid, Jim Manley, released the following statement today regarding Senator McCain’s comment pledging no cooperation from Republicans for the rest of the year:Booman: Conservatives Thrown into Cold, Lightless Depths“For someone who campaigned on ‘Country First’ and claims to take great pride in bipartisanship, it’s absolutely bizarre for Senator McCain to tell the American people he is going to take his ball and go home until the next election. He must be living in some parallel universe because the fact is, with very few exceptions, we’ve gotten very little cooperation from Senate Republicans in recent years.
“At a time when our economy is suffering and we’re fighting two wars, the American people need Senator McCain and his fellow Republicans to start working with us to confront the challenges facing our country—not reiterating their constant opposition to helping working families when they need it most.”
John Derbyshire of the National Review is ahead of the curve. He's already in the depression stage of grief.Seth Masket:
I see plainly that Western civilization, over my lifetime, has been a slow-sinking ship. The few who have known what is happening have worked desperately to seal the watertight doors, repair the fissures, pump out the flooded zones. It's been a losing fight, though. The tilt of the decks is harder and harder to ignore. Last night, a major bulkhead gave way. Soon a funnel will topple over with a great crash and a shower of sparks. Yet still the band is playing, the people are dancing, the food coming up from the galley.Steven Hayward, writing about my latest in the Claremont Review of Books, says it is "surprising that Derbyshire never raises the obvious question: without the conservative movement of the past 50 years, how much worse would things be?" Not much, would be my answer. Certainly those working the pumps have been engaged in a noble endeavor, which I'm proud to have been associated with. They could hear the dance music too, though. It got their feet a-tapping; then an ex-colleague came down from the ballroom to mock and tempt, and soon there was one less pair of hands on the pumps, and one more government program, one more subsidy, one more tax, one more restraint on freedom of speech or association, one more futile war.
It'll be over soon. We'll be down in the cold, lightless depths of imperial despotism — in which, after all, the great majority of human beings, throughout history, have always lived. It's the natural way: liberty is an unstable temporary aberration.
Melodramatic? You bet. But the perfect epitaph to the Reagan Revolution. Derbyshire understands, as the real Jeffrey Lebowski put it, "The wars over. The bums lost." Of course, Derbyshire will get over his despondency. He'll be back in the fray. But he'll never see the American he just lost come back again. He will always remain in the cold, lightless depths.
LGF (conservative but increasingly sane blog): Malkin's Wingnuts Seriously Cheesed Off[W]hile I don't think tonight will have an extraordinary effect on elections in the near or distant future, I do think this will have a profound impact on public policy. Even if this bill seems watered-down to you, realize that from this point forward, the federal government is responsible for making sure people have health insurance. The question is no longer whether government should do it; it's whether it's doing it well enough. I heard somewhere that the two major votes tonight were symbolic ordered that way -- first they passed health reform, then they passed reconciliation to improve it.
Marshall: LaughableTo Michelle Malkin, if President Obama shows any sign of being even slightly happy about the success of his health care reform bill, it’s “gloating.”
And in the comments for her thread (among dozens of comments talking about buying food, guns, and ammunition, and going on “a war footing”), “Snowfire” tries to raise the plummeting morale by posting the poem “Invictus” — the final statement of Timothy McVeigh.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) is on Fox at the moment describing what's coming next in the Senate. And with all due respect he's just not telling the truth, to put it generously. There's no other way to describe it. He's claiming that Republicans are going to do everything they can to improve the bill, not just gum things up. Now, 'improvement' is inherently subjective. Improvement in his eyes would mean dramatically changing the legislation. But this is a case where there's no ambiguity. In the simplest, most direct sense that's simply not what they're trying to do. Republicans are going to do everything in their power to prevent the Democrats from doing things like taking out the "Cornhusker Kickback" and all the rest of the unpopular stuff. This isn't an opinion. That's what they're trying to do. It is transparently political. They want to keep that stuff in the bill so they can blame it on the Democrats and run against it.Marshall: "Unconscionable Abuse of Power"
I'm really wondering whether folks like Mitt Romney, who desperately wants to run for president again, realizes that the stuff he writes at NRO will still be available for regular voters to read months and years in the future, long after the even most Republicans have emerged from the current fever swamp. Here's Mitt's description of what just happened. "America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation."
Not Glenn Beck, not some Tea Partier banging on the door of a Democratic townhall.
Think Progress: Rep. Steve King floats secession as possible response to health care reform.With all respect to Frank Zappa, why do Republicans hate Democracy:
In short, despite the fact that no one believes some of the basic actuarial and fiscal assumptions that under-gird this legislation — no one who isn’t besotted with partisan fervor — it was rammed down the throats of the American people with as much cynicism, trickery, deliberate obfuscation, and budgetary tomfoolery as has ever been seen for a major piece of legislation in the history of the republic.The bill was passed with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, as required by law and Senate rules. It was then passed in the House by majority rule and in accordance to all House Rules.
It was done so by a Democratic majority elected sixteen months ago along with a Democratic President who campaigned daily on Health Care reform, and who received the most votes in the history of American elections and won by the widest margin in decades.
The bill was crafted quite openly, after a year and a half of public debate, and the exact Senate bill that was passed in the House yesterday has been available for people to read and discuss for three entire months. This was the slowest, most open, most thoroughly discussed piece of legislation in my lifetime.
Anyone who says this was “rammed down” anyone’s throats simply does not know what they are talking about. But hey- ride that wave of anger Rick. It has really served the Republicans well so far.
Yesterday as the House passed historic health care reform legislation, groups of Tea Party activists were still amassed on Capitol Hill protesting the bill. When word reached them that they had lost their battle, they began singing the national anthem and reciting the pledge of allegiance. “The most important thing to remember,” said Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, “is that the fight for freedom, it never ends!” Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Steve King (R-IA) then went out and spoke to the protesters, with King floating the possibility of secession (even though he said they should “hope” it doesn’t come to that):
KING: I just came down here so I could say to you, God bless you. … You are the awesome American people. [...]
If I could start a country with a bunch of people, they’d be the folks who were standing with us the last few days. Let’s hope we don’t have to do that! Let’s beat that other side to a pulp! Let’s take them out. Let’s chase them down. There’s going to be a reckoning!
Watch it:
LGF: Boehner to GOP: 'Behave Like Grown-Ups'
At a closed meeting yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner told GOP legislators to “behave like grown-ups.”
Now, why would he think it was necessary to tell them that?
House Minority Leader John Boehner told his conference to “behave like grown-ups” if the healthcare bill is passed by the House on Sunday.
The Ohio Republican made the warning at a quick closed-door meeting with fellow House GOP lawmakers at noon in the Capitol.
According to several lawmakers who attended the 15 minute meeting, Boehner said “we will behave like grown-ups,” and not engage in taunting the vulnerable Democrats who support the controversial measure.
During his campaign for the presidency, the signature of Barack Obama's rallies was the "Yes, We Can!" chant from his supporters. "Yes, we can responsibly end the war in Iraq." "Yes, we can repair our reputation in the world." "Yes, we can provide access to health care to all Americans." And so on. I don't know if it was intentional or not that House Minority Leader John Boehner's floor speech opposing health care reform contained the following, but it was unfortunate:DougJ: Cry, cry if it makes you feel better
“No, you can’t......“The answer is no....
...“No, you cannot...
...“No, you cannot...
...“Hell no, you can’t!...
...“Hell no, you haven’t!
Yet, once the key votes had been cast, enacting the most sweeping expansion of the social safety net since the passage of Medicare, the joyous Democratic caucus erupted in the signature "Yes, We Can" chant. It could have been "Yes, We Did," but it certainly wasn't “Hell no, we haven’t."
Thus, we close the book on an era of endless onslaught on liberal ideology that began on election night in 1980. For thirty years, liberals were on the defensive. Today, we are back on the offensive. Republicans will have to adjust to an entirely new paradigm. It will take them some time to come to terms with the size of their defeat. We can perhaps evaluate the Republicans' behavior using the Kübler-Ross Model known as the five stages of grief. The Republicans have been in denial for a long time, and they've been angry ever since they lost the presidential election. They began bargaining at Obama's health care summit, where they asked repeatedly for us to 'start over from scratch with a blank piece of paper." The next stage is depression: "We can't repeal it, our country has been taken away from us."
In reality, the Republicans will stay angry for a long time. They have no intention of reaching 'acceptance.' But they have no chance of undoing these reforms, and they will soon realize that a huge percentage of what future congresses will do will be to provide oversight and adjustments to the health care system. The government will be constantly looking for ways to make health care plans more consumer friendly and less costly to the budget. They will not be trying to take health care away from people.
The longer it takes the Republicans to realize this, the more credit the Democrats will get for having passed these reforms. When Republicans complain about the mandate and score political points, the Democrats will offer to create a public option as the only solution to the problem. They are trapped.
This is precisely why they fought against even these modest reforms. We do live in a different country today than we did yesterday. It's a country that has no use for the old Republican Party.
The winger across the hall from me is taking the passage of health care reform pretty hard. But he insists that he isn’t angry, he just doesn’t want to hear about politics for a couple days. I can understand that.
I can sort of understand this too:
The roughly 250 activists, some of them wiping away tears, cheered for Martin, then belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner,” then recited the pledge of allegiance. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) slipped through their ranks unnoticed, then politely took the megaphone for himself.I see plainly that Western civilization, over my lifetime, has been a slow-sinking ship. The few who have known what is happening have worked desperately to seal the watertight doors, repair the fissures, pump out the flooded zones. It’s been a losing fight, though. The tilt of the decks is harder and harder to ignore. Last night, a major bulkhead gave way. Soon a funnel will topple over with a great crash and a shower of sparks. Yet still the band is playing, the people are dancing, the food coming up from the galley.
Steven Hayward, writing about my latest in the Claremont Review of Books, says it is “surprising that Derbyshire never raises the obvious question: without the conservative movement of the past 50 years, how much worse would things be?” Not much, would be my answer. Certainly those working the pumps have been engaged in a noble endeavor, which I’m proud to have been associated with. They could hear the dance music too, though. It got their feet a-tapping; then an ex-colleague came down from the ballroom to mock and tempt, and soon there was one less pair of hands on the pumps, and one more government program, one more subsidy, one more tax, one more restraint on freedom of speech or association, one more futile war.
The phrase “one less pair of hands on the pumps” is a lot more apt than Derbyshire probably realizes.
digby: Cool Hand Luke
There are different ways of interpreting the Bible, but this is pretty unbelievable:
Stephen Colbert,interviewing Mary Matalin:I think this explains the reason why the Republicans are so upset at the idea that the government should do something to help the tens of millions of people who don't have health insurance. They think it says so in the Bible. The problem is that the people they're listening to see Atlas Shrugged as the Bible. That misunderstanding has led to some confusion.
Colbert: First question, why are you wearing a cross? You know Jesus preached social justice. Makes you look like a commie.
Matalin: Yes he did. He also preached teach em how to fish. Not give em a fish, right? You don't work you don't eat.
Colbert: He said "I will make you fishers of men." I don't think Jesus said "if you don't work you don't eat." I think that was Cool Hand Luke.
You should go look at the video to see the size of the glittering diamond cross she's wearing. I think she must have ripped it off of a Cathedral somewhere. I don't think the Queen of England in her capacity as head of the Church has anything like that. (Either that or it's one of those Baby Phat zircons you can buy in the Lillian Vernon catalog.)
Update: Here you go:Beck: "Jesus Martinez" might favor health bill, "[b]ut not the Jesus from Nazareth that I know"
No comments:
Post a Comment