Well Done, Senator Booker!

 

Senator Cory Booker (D., NJ) has surpassed Strom Thurmond's record, holding the Senate floor for an astonishing 25 hours! (Get yourself a well-deserved rest!) As he closed his speech, during which he spoke to the Trump agenda and the ways that it will hurt working families, he invoked the memory of John Lewis:

"This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right; it’s right or wrong. Let's get in good trouble," Booker said as he concluded his remarks and was met by a standing ovation from Senate colleagues. "I yield the floor."

Democratic lawmakers have been facing pressure from their constituents to respond more forcefully to the Trump administration’s sweeping policy changes, including massive cuts to the federal workforce, ramped-up deportations and sweeping tariffs.

Booker's remarks clearly resonated with many who watched them. A live feed of the speech on the senator's TikTok account had more than 220 million likes by early Tuesday night, before he exceeded 24 hours on the floor, and users were posting fan edits.

This was a demonstration about what our Democratic representation in congress can do even if they do not have the majority in either chamber--they can hold the floor adn speak to the values and concerns of the people they represent. 

That's what we want them to do--represent US. 

This is not Normal

 

How do you confront a man who has done a lot of damage in a very short period of time, and promises to get up in front of the American people and lie about everything? Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D., NM) chose to hold a simple sign: "This is not normal."  (It was snatched from her by Republican Rep. Lance Gooden.)

What the folks who attended or tuned into this speech beheld was a long rally speech--not really like a State of the Union speech at all. Trump called out the head of DOGE, Elon Musk (who isn't supposed to BE the head of DOGE, allegedly, for some sort of legal reason). He dwelled on the ideas of immigrant crime and trans people in sports for some reason. (Divisiveness. Feeding the bigotry beast.)

There will obviously need to be heroic fact-checking. This is a speech where Trump blamed Biden for the economy that he has actually contracted, threatening higher prices and a recession. Economists were not predicting a recession with Biden's policies--only with what Trump has been doing so far. 

But we aren't new to this game. Trump lies. Trump blames other people. Trump comes up with proposals that might just be a puppet show in a madhouse. We are in a trade war with our North American neighbors. Trump has openly sided with Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian war. 

This is, in fact, not normal. A ketamine-fueled megalomaniac with poor sleep habits is Peter-Panning his crazy ass through our government with his Lost Boys, looking to move fast and break stuff--not really understanding what he's breaking, just hoping to get the contracts to fix whatever it is. Daddy Ourbucks rose for a little applause during the speech. 

One could almost wonder why he didn't give speech himself. Shy? 

The Kennedy Hearing was Ugly

 

When your own family thinks you are a weird conspiracy freak who is uniquely unqualified and literally call you a grifting predator, well, that's probably bad news, right? 

But when quizzing by US Senators demonstrates you don't know Medicare from Medicaid and have not just trimmed your public pronouncements to suit your audience but are a legal grifter profiting off of your own BS (as Sen. Warren demonstrated), well, that hurts to be aired publicly, in so many words, doesn't it? 

Or maybe it doesn't.

This guy gave himself a brainworm from consuming roadkill, admits to dumping a bear corpse in a public park, seems sketchy about how germ theory works, has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, has opinions about the AIDS virus and vaccines that would have been shameful and out of date 25 years ago, let alone today, and yet?

He's got influence in his corner. Why they want him, I don't know. You might think people would want someone who isn't a whole fucking flake in an important position like Secretary of Health and Human Services--

Unless you just aren't that interested in health and will be goddamned if you see it as a basic human service. 

Unauthorized Thoughts and Declined Prayers

 

Generally, when a stranger is murdered in cold blood, there's at least a muted "Damn shame!' sort of reaction. If a man with a family dies at the age of 50, why, you can certainly say "That's far too young, that poor man's family!" (Not that he was poor--unfortunate, but not poor.) You don't actually see people writing folk songs about the killer and posting them to social media, or see people back out of the search for the killer. 

What has happened, if one can at all "read the room", is that the murdered CEO has become a stand-in for a parasitical industry. Our health insurance system isn't a "health care system"--it's a promise to pay for protection. Some of your health care bill will be paid. Not all. Your course of treatment can be affected by your insurance company. 

This can and does result in bad (fatal or crippling) outcomes. Of course, people feel some way about that. 

And the result of that feeling may look very cold-blooded. It isn't. It's rather hot, actually.

The Harris Plan--Supporting Our Values

 

What if the way to support families and the middle class was to put our money where our values are and invest in the changes we want to see to make life better for the average American? 

It's a loaded question, and I get why some folks would be mad--supporting new families and encouraging homeownership are fine things for people who want to talk about financial security for households to reference, but actually doing something about it? Isn't that the business of other people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps about? 

Look, I used to do a feature on this blog about our "Know Your Class War" and just like "Climate Sunday", it fell by the wayside because we have a first-world economy with disastrous outcomes in terms of health, happiness, and upward mobility in general. Democrats have, through measures like Social Security, Medicare, the ACA, and others--actually tried to do something about this. Republicans usually dub these measures "Communism".  (See Reagan and Medicare.)

Biden Knocked 'em Dead in the Old SOTU

 

After Biden's claim that some Republicans want to end Medicare and Social Security provoked GOP anger, the president responds, "I'm glad to see it, I enjoy conversion."

"Social Security and its bookend, Medicare, are off the books now, right?," Biden adds. "We have unanimity!" pic.twitter.com/3aymKQlf1d

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 8, 2023

Now, after that, are the GOP feeling like they want to try to introduce something about so-called "entitlement" (paid-benefit) programs and be made liars? 

Joe Biden foxed them. He got them rolling. He just set up the ad against whenever they want to roll that idea out. He decided to go off message to use the GOP's contrary energy against them, like political aikido.  This is what Joe Biden does best--he gets people. His EQ is outstanding. And he knew how to bait the hook. 

Now you know: Democrats and the Biden Administration will protect your Social Security--and the GOP, not so much. But they might leave it alone for now. He also called out opposition to his infrastructure plan, saying he would meet his opponents at the ground breaking. Because you know goddamn right Republicans will vote against things and then take credit for them like butter would not melt in their mouths. 

And I don't care what nepo-baby Sarah Huckabee Sanders has to say in response, because she is going to pretend like the culture war fell on her, not like she and her inappropriate-length dresses fell on the culture war and like she maybe did not lie for a former president and therefore has no standing whatsoever to call out anyone else's supposed factual shortcomings. 

The story is, Democrats perform in office, and the GOP performs like a madhouse--incoherent and signifying their delusions. 

I have nothing better to say about what I saw. 

Defining the GOP

 

Is that a pizza menu Rep. Elise Stefanik holds in her hand in the picture above? Why, no, it is the Republican party's plan to define itself ahead of the midterms! Many GOP legislators, we are assured, worked long and hard to boil down what the party plans to do in their Commitment to America, and while I think what's on offer is long on goals and short on policy specifics, I can already envision what the party will do, because they have been telling us.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, I think, has done the best job of defining the party: it's about a federal abortion ban.  He has literally said the words "defines our party" regarding this issue, and I sure as heck don't disbelieve him, because even if they can't manage it federally, you can be sure GOP governors and state houses are ready to exercise their "states' rights" to take away the rights of people who can become pregnant. 

They have goals regarding crime and inflation, and also oversight of the White House. I think we can predict fairly well what House Republicans would do with their opportunity--pretty much nothing useful for the economy (tax cuts for the rich and "cutting waste" really won't accomplish much) and maybe they are only concerned about crime regarding some people, but as long as Biden is president, they have a great incentive to not make things better and to, I dunno. Try impeaching him for something. Anything, really. 

They say they want to protect Social Security and Medicare, and Sens. Rick Scott and Ron Johnson have given us a good window into their thinking about that--they are going to destroy the village to save it. 

From the skimpy pamphlet that GOP House leadership brandished, to the video that contained a lot of stock footage from...Russia (Really? A national party won't foot the bill to contract a videographer to shoot B-roll out in Indiana or wherever?), you can really see the loving, thoughtful work that has gone into their messaging. 

Even the comments of their probably-planted concern-mommy let you really know what they are all about:

"Critical race theory; diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender identity ... anti-bullying programs ... These are all Marxist-style programs targeting our children."

— A mom at the House GOP's "Commitment to America" agenda rollout, as Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy nods along pic.twitter.com/AiLhVvX07f

— The Recount (@therecount) September 23, 2022

So, you understand, they will defeat classroom communism with a commitment to be....pro-bullying, anti-inclusion, and definitely crack down on that diversity and equity stuff. You bet! In sum, f you want a party that stands for culture war, inaction on kitchen table issues, the Big Lie, book-banning and making kids carry their rapists' baby to term, well, the GOP have well and truly demonstrated who they are! 

Republicans Don't Care About Your Family

 

Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg had sharp words for the Republicans opposing a bill codifying the right to same-sex marriages, urging them to support the legislation's passage in the Senate after it won bipartisan House approval. https://t.co/mBKJi45Egb

— ABC News (@ABC) July 24, 2022

Republicans demonstrated with their vote in the House against supporting same-sex or interracial marriages that they don't care about all of our American families. After all, House Republicans also failed to support access to contraception.  They don't care if lack of access to abortion means that a pregnant person dies, or that pregnant people can't move freely across the country to access their right to bodily autonomy according to their own conscience. 

It has to be finally admitted--they don't care about your family. Republicans chatted quite comfortably with a gay man and then right afterwards told him his family did not matter to them. They don't care about his family, and his young children. They don't care about his parental rights and those of his spouse. 

They would not care about your family, that you made via IVF, because it offends the anti-abortion people. I want you to know that. 

If you are Jewish or gay, they would probably prefer you not adopt because you aren't the right sort of people to raise kids. Marjorie Taylor Greene considers adoptive parents "fake" and thinks they are a danger to children. 

The Biden Administration Makes a Good Decision

 

The Biden admin reassured doctors that they’re protected by federal law if they perform an abortion in an emergency situation — and threatened to fine or strip Medicare status from hospitals that don’thttps://t.co/E93Sm4f2kA

— POLITICO (@politico) July 11, 2022

One of the most heartbreaking things about the anti-choice laws being rammed in place or triggered by the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe was that for many health care providers, the fear of liability in the case of laws that were either without any exception for life of the pregnant person (made by anti-science or anti-woman legislators) or that were very vague regarding the physician's latitude would lead to life-saving healthcare being denied. 

I think there is a likelihood that either a religious-based organization or state AG will challenge this if an appropriate case presents itself, although not being remotely an attorney, I couldn't say how likely it would be to succeed (supremacy clause?) but in the meanwhile this will save lives, and that is what matters. 

I also want to stress that while I have posted how I think the Administration hasn't done what it could messaging-wise, this is the kind of meaningful decision that they should be making; it's just that it feels like it's trailing the SCOTUS announcement and should have been ready within days of it, especially since we were given a sneak-preview into what was going to happen. 

 

I Wish This Woman Well, But

 

Chuck Todd put Meghan McCain on his panel this morning and said "it's good to have a McCain back on Meet the Press" because we live in a constant state of right-wing propaganda pic.twitter.com/Qs75M6T3b7

— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) September 26, 2021

I have defended Meghan McCain at certain junctures because taking potshots at her figure (voluptuous, or zaftig, so, you know, I am in her corner about that) or her youth back when she was younger is just missing the point. The thing that sucks about Meghan McCain is giving credence to someone for having opinions as if those opinions matter more because they are importance-adjacent, not because they are informed. This grown woman child is now speaking as a Republican with no elected office with two exact bona fides: Senator John McCain (deceased)'s daughter and Ben Domenech (alive, propagandist)'s wife. Her expertise in politics is being a person the media pays attention to. She hasn't the least fucks whether what she says is right, and it is not.

How Not to Lose

 

A lot of digital ink has been spilled this week over Nina Turner's loss to Shontel Brown and what it means regarding progressive and "establishment" Democrats, but I'm going to just say that this primary had a lot to do with some critical errors on the part of the candidate with all the name recognition and quite a lot of money and doesn't really say anything about the direction of the party. It says something about how to campaign and be part of a team. 

Nina Turner is unquestionably part of a team. The Squad and many "name" progressives supported her. But politics is local and parties are national. And somehow, Turner failed to sort out how to manage either the local politics or the national politics. She got told to stop running a negative campaign against her rival by local clergy. She left tv money on the table despite her fundraising from small-dollar donors. And she had already pissed off Hillary Clinton voters by supporting Jill Stein in 2016 and Joe Biden supporters by scatologically deriding his candidacy in 2020. She also ran afoul of the CBC by calling Rep. James Clyburn "stupid".  

Which made her opponent look pleasant and trustable in comparison. It isn't deep. People saw her grievances, and lost sight of what she could do for them, and her campaign didn't turn that impression around. 

But keeping in mind that tomorrow....exists, how Turner has chosen to lose is also very puzzling, because the faults that lost her the race are how she's going to stick her impression. Like, just what were her comments about "evil money" supposed to mean when she also had some really good fundraising? And if she wants to talk about corporate money, well, okay then, let's do that. And why is she saying that her loss is about how the establishment does progressive candidates specifically dirty when she earned her retaliation by specifically pissing on the establishment in the first place? It feels to me like she could have gotten backing with her name recognition if she didn't start off on the entirely wrong foot. 

Also, now that we are are well past the 2020 Democratic primary, I'm just going to say it--Bernie Sanders has questionable taste.  Regardless of whether any fundraising has fossil fuel money behind it, Brown's priorities per her website generally support the Green New Deal, and she says she would be a vote for Medicare for All if it ever came to the floor.  That's not a candidate who is not progressive, that's a candidate who is, but just doesn't have Turner's progressive connections. Which reminds me that Sanders  also had David Sirota, who was a great communicator that blocked a shit-ton of liberals on Twitter and also seems to hate the MSM, as one of his press folks and had Shaun King as a surrogate. It isn't necessary or helpful to defend Turner's primary loss as having a damn thing to do with corporate money when there is a general election to be won, no matter how much of a guaranteed D district it is. 

Sometimes a personality just isn't a fit for a job. And taking a loss without any grace, and by deriding the process as being at fault instead of showing any introspection, basically pulling a Trump, isn't a great look or demonstrating that any lessons were learned. This is how not to lose. It isn't winning, because it precludes the possibility of figuring out how to win. It doesn't help anybody, 

I'm not saying Turner is a very bad candidate, just that she wasn't the best candidate for right there and then, and needs to see a direction away from that loss that is positive and meaningful. Her initial response was anything but. 

Fouling Up Social Security

Today, Donald Trump stated that if re-elected, he'll undermine the entire financial footing of Social Security.

Our seniors and millions of Americans with disabilities are under enough stress without their hard-earned Social Security benefits in doubt. https://t.co/glUDQlcbEO

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 9, 2020

Of all the ding-bat things Trump could decide to try during a time of massive job losses, of course he'd have to throw in one that makes no real sense: a payroll tax deferral when the problem is people aren't on any damn payroll. (And the surprise-level about that should be nil--he lies about things, but he also does not understand shit about crap.) It's a fake gave-away to employers--except it will have to be paid back oh, unless Trump is re-elected when he will make it "permanent". So Social Security and Medicare will just not be funded, and that means he's basically fucking them as hard as he's fucking the post office right now.

Older people who were thinking of voting for Trump--first he wants you to die of coronavirus because he thinks he wants better economics numbers and to his clueless brain, that means business as usual, but he doesn't understand the economy is dependent on the virus actually being under control because fear of death is a pretty big factor in determining consumer habits. (I certainly wouldn't go to a restaurant if I thought my entree came with a side-order of COVID, for example.) Then he threatens your benefits, because, get this, your benefits are funded by people contributing to programs right now. And then he's also going to mess with, not just your voting by mail so you can do it safely, but things like your getting medicines by mail, or paying your bills by mail on time (incurring late fees), and other little things you might want to sit and think about.

And it's because he was too dumb to get his ass sorted about the pandemic back in February. Oh, and because he's lousy at being president, but is shit-scared that not being president will wind his ass up in prison, and there are reasons it should.

Also, in Trump's continuing plan to make executive orders that he most likely can't do and hasn't thought out and are campaign stunts and not actual things that will materialize are pretending he can stop evictions (by having different agencies look into it) and reducing the previous federal UI amount and making it dependent on what states are paying. And he's taking the money out of FEMA disaster relief and damn. That could be really bad.

Like, how is this all supposed to help? He could provide more immediate aid by directing Meadows to not fuck around and cooperate with Pelosi who already has something not-useless planned. It would show he has confidence he could sell that to the American people outside of his little club.

It just looks an awful lot like he's decided he'd rather wreck a lot of things than be remotely constructive, at a time when his being useful, or even vaguely like a leader in fact instead of play-acting as one, would be useful not just to see the country through an actual crisis, but maybe even do some magic on his poll numbers so he wouldn't have to fuck about with voter suppression. But he isn't the man for that. And it's starting to look pretty clear who should be doing the job Trump can't.

See Kellyanne. See Kellyanne Lie!

Actually, the cuts in Medicaid will be catastrophic for the exact people this program was intended for. Some people who will be impacted, children, nursing home residents, simply can't get jobs. Other people are already working, but don't make enough to afford to buy care out of pocket.

It's worse though--the CBO on the Senate Health care bill demonstrates that 22 million more people would be without health care--people now getting health care through their employer may also be affected. Premiums would rise at first, but then be brought down specifically because the sickest and poorest get opted out. (They don't necessarily choose to not be covered. They just prefer food, rent, and the light bill.)

This plan is a shambles and lying in favor of it is the act of a shambolic human. I don't know if she understands the consequences of the plan she is lying in favor of, but this bill threatens the lives of children who are on Medicaid, and those who have been born or acquire, through no possible fault of their own (unlike, maybe, those folks who willingly flirt with emphysema or black lung in the mines? Yes, Trumpcare will also block out the working class folks he claims to adore) pre-existing conditions that could bar them from obtaining health insurance.

Her alternative facts are leaving out a lot of vulnerable Americans. I don't think pointing this out will shame her, necessarily. But we could always do with a reminder of her utter lack of interest in truth over her personal career expedience.

Yes, People Die from Lack of Access to Health Care

I don't want to oversimplify things here, but I'm not even sure what the Idaho congressman thinks health care is for. If getting medical attention wasn't for, um, our health, are we just being weird wanting people to see us nekkid and giving us random tests for entertainment's sake? Of course we go to doctors for our health because we want to live and think something has gone wrong with our bodies. What else are we looking for? Who has a disconnect between health services and the desire to keep on living?

That's a really special kind of stupid he has, right there.

More than that, before the ACA, there was a study that found that 45,000 deaths per year were attributable to people just not being financially able to access health services because they weren't covered. These were people who had conditions that might be curable or manageable, and could have lived quite alright lives. They just couldn't afford to...live. They didn't have the money to see the right doctors and get the right care. They died because they never got their sugar regulated, their blood pressure sorted, that wound looked at. They died because that cough never did go away, or that thing on their neck never bothered them so much.

I buried my mother-in-law today, and her passing was made better because of excellent care covered by Medicare. She lived longer because she had access to insulin and Metformin and blood thinners and blood pressure medications, but when that was not enough, she had access to rehabilitation care for stroke treatment and hospice. Even when death is inevitable, the access to specialized treatment and care is essential and valuable and an absolute gift for the loved ones of the patient.

Discounting this reality is weird and a terrible lie. Of course health care matters. From the obstetrics ward to hospice. We are mortal, and our time here is fragile and fraught with mortal perils. We benefit from doctors, from their slapping our just-born bottoms and jabbing us with vaccines, to setting our bones and seeing to our various ailments.

It is just true. We would die earlier without such care. We just would.

Bad Medicine Is What They Need!

As near as I can tell, the Trump Administration would like to get a "repeal and replace" thing done very quickly because they need a win--but I really don't think they care at all what is in it, because the original version didn't even fulfill Trump's campaign promises regarding health care. He even went so far as to imply that not voting for the repeal and replace measure could cost GOP House members their seats.

VP Mike Pence worked on them, too, but so many members simply failed to be as ecstatic as Speaker Paul Ryan was over the prospect of 24 million Americans losing their coverage and several millions more having their premiums go up.

So what are they doing? Why, they are diluting the mandatory coverage so that premiums stay low enough for people to accept weak tax credits for shittier coverage, meaning that tax money will go to providing people with the kind of coverage that should be a shame to offer at any price. No one at this rate will know what exactly is in the bill until it passes, and it's guaranteed to still cover less people and do less for them. But to what extent we won't know, because there will be no CBO score on that at all.

And for all I know, this crazy unhealthy unpopular nonsense might even succeed. Not that I think congresspeople up for re-election should want getting this wrong on their c.v. But didn't Trump tell them this was important? And to never mind the people showing up at their townhalls?

I am interested in the outcome--not in the same way a person with pre-existing condition(s) is, or who knows someone or is someone who could easily exhaust a cap right at the beginning of a year, or who has health care only because the exchanges plus a subsidy were available to them. Not in the same way a person who might be penalized by Medicaid by having to pay back benefits for having a body with leukemia tastes on a laryngitis budget would. But as a person who really wants to know who will take the leap with Trump and Ryan over this bad medicine bill. And who wonders just where that will get them.

See What Obama Has Meant?

So, here are some news stories that matter a lot, and in the course of the 2016 election stuff, I might not have given them each the attention they deserve--but here goes:

Eric Fanning, a gay man, has been confirmed by the US Senate for the position of Secretary of the Army.  DADT was only ended in President Obama's first term. His hold for several months was not due to his orientation, but because a Republican Senator wanted assurances that Guantanamo prisoners would not be transferred to a certain US facility. In other news, the GOP is really the reason why we never closed GITMO. We would have GITMO squared under any GOP president.

Obamacare has been a success, reducing the percentage of US uninsured to single digits.  We could do better, especially if states (all with Republican governors, by the way) all accepted the Medicare expansion to cover some of the poorest and sickest. Obamacare would be under the gun in the first term of a Republican President.  Hillary Clinton would like to build on this success with a Medicare buy-in program.  This is a really great idea.

The Obama Administration has doubled the salary threshold of workers who benefit from the overtime rule, meaning more middle/working class people get compensated for the hours they work. The Obama Administration has supported fair pay, higher minimum wage, and decent working conditions. Hillary Clinton will do the same. You are not getting that assurance from Donald "wages are too high" Trump no matter what the hell he says.

In just a day, the news stories remind us of what significant things President Obama has been doing, and still does, even in what should be considered the "lame duck" period of his administration. These are meaningful things to real people. They aren't "paper" signifiers.

Voting matters, and who gets hold of an office matters. And a President needs a sympathetic Congress to get his larger agenda through. It bears repeating and rinsing and repeating. It really matters. A lot. There is no "principle" respected by sitting the election out that compares to the damage that gets done when people don't aim to at least prevent harm, if not root for an active good. So that's where I stand.

Unmitigated Socialism and the Modern-Day Red-Baiter

The one thing that would, I'd like to think, harsh the confidence of a modern-day red-baiter, is the actual lack of anything like a world socialism. When the Berlin Wall fell, if capitalists were keeping score on that day, Communism took a beating from which it was not to recover. With the impending normalization of relations with Cuba, I think it's safe to say that the US, as the leader of the free world in terms of buying missiles and giving shits, won the Cold War. We make the stuff the world wants dollars to buy.  Don't ask me how I feel about that.

Just chuckle with me when I notice that PK and all-around PITA TX Senator Ted Cruz called President Obama an "unmitigated socialist".

Oh, Ted, you slay me with this 1950's flavored performance art you do. Please do tell me about the industries our Red Diaper Dandy three-pointered into nationalization.  None? Look at that. None. And it seems like Obamacare is at any rate more of a free market private company thingamajig than the Medicare that Cruz thinks is now totally acceptable.

Could it just be because President Obama went to Harvard? Because Cruz totally believes there were Communists at Harvard. 

Cruz also went to Harvard--and so did Tom Cotton! I'm feeling menaced by Reds, you guys. I think I'll read the business pages of the newspaper until I feel better.  Because we weirdly are still not in a socialist workers paradise. But maybe people with money are doing okay? Could the senator from the Texas branch of Goldman Sachs cool his jets, already?

All Over Lil' Ol' Obamacare, Too

So, I went looking for what I think is the banner thing--the symbol--the geegollysothatswhatdoneitall failure to communicate that we have here. And I came across this:



Now, that voiceover is the Once and Future Rex Ronaldus Magnus, telling all us heathens about how the Founding Fathers wouldn't have stood for no Medicare, no way, no how. You know, the Medicare that has become so much a way of doing things in this country that the last Republican president actually expanded the pharmaceutical coverage under it and the last Republican candidate for president used a fear that President Obama might cut Medicare as one of his biggest scare lines. Medicare, the thing that some naïve Tea Folk might hope the government keeps its hand the hell off of.

After 41 attempts to defund, repeal, or otherwise fool with Obamacare, for crying in the soup, sore loser Republicans, can we please get past the Louie Gohmert fucking line of deliberate ignorance?

Because it is no longer 2009. This question is for Republicans in the House: You somehow got enough people into the House of Representatives to make a go of expressing your sorry-ass displeasure that the private health insurance that many people get through paying lots of money in premiums for, or otherwise work for as part of their employment package, is now extended to less-funded individuals, rather in the way Heritage designed it and Romneycare first enacted it some time ago. You never did get enough senators to repeal it, though. So what gives?