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[Reelya]

Hey sorry I missed that as I just go back on the thread and started from where I read last.

[smjjames]

Oh my god, will you losers stop trying to all have the last word on nazi punching? Make AmeriPol Great Again!

Yes....

So far the only arguments I've seen is that it would be nice if open hostility to Nazis was supressing Nazis. e.g. the tactic is justified based purely on having a good intention rather than having any proof that the tactic achieves the goals that are claimed. I've not see any evidence that this actually works like it "says on the box", and have every reason to think, from previous experiences and knowlege of history that it actually works the opposite of that claimed.

>.> A huge and ideologically varied chunk of the world's population literally used open hostility to suppress nazis, you know this.

Effectively mass-murdering those you strongly disagree with is an option, I'll admit. But it's kinda extreme and can end up turning you into the thing you despise. See example of Guantanamo / Abu Graihb.

Hey sorry I missed that as I just go back on the thread and started from where I read last.

Thank you.

[Hanslanda]

Hey sorry I missed that as I just go back on the thread and started from where I read last.

I wasn't trying to be bossy, genuinely thought you missed what he said. Just fyi

[Dunamisdeos]

Have they come out with any new plan for repeal/replace ACA? Or are they just floating the idea again.

[Frumple]

If by "come out" you mean the same behind doors shit that happened last time, cranked up to the next level, trying to get shoved through the senate as an "amendment" to the AHCA the house passed so it can avoid having to actually pass the house as yet another facet of what the scumshit GOP is trying to pull, on top of a dozen other things that are an attempt at embodying the platonic ideal of hypocrisy, then yes. Yes, there's a new plan.

It's looking to get put through the senate. Fucking nobody except the people writing it knows what's in it. They're trying to avoid it being scored by the CBO. They're trying to run it through a committee that has fuck all to do with health care. There's just this whole passel of shit flowing out the orifices of the GOP side of the senate right now.

E: Oh, and yet again, they've intentionally waited to the deadline so they have ten goddamn days before this shit becomes functionally impossible, in order to try to strongarm what parts of the GOP make even an attempt to vaguely resemble a caricature of decency. Fuckers really want to get that tax break for their donors, and to hell with tens of millions of americans.

[Dunamisdeos]

I detect some hostility and/or sarcasm there.

Also, I am upset that they have not released any details but are still trying to pass the bill/amendment behind closed doors. There's no reason to do that except that they know we wouldn't like it.

[Frumple]

It's definitely a great deal of hostility. Probably sarcasm, too, but it's mostly significantly filtered hostility.

Also note that "just" doing it closed doors is only a portion of how much they're shitting on the legislative process, healthcare legislation specifically, and more or less our entire goddamn country. Shit's pretty much everything conservative politicians have ever accused other segments of the country's political groups of doing vis a vis legislative malfeasance.

Frankly, at this point I'd say the healthcare crap, as bad as everything we can guess is likely to be, has somehow managed to be less of a freaking travesty than how the goddamn GOP is acting regarding it. Could disregard half the shit they're doing and it'd still be one of the most egregious violations of american political mores and procedure in something near or over a friggin' century.

[alway]

You can in fact find some details; search for the 'Graham-Cassidy' or 'Cassidy-Graham' bill, as it's being called. Tldr though, it's the same as their previous ones, but manages to be worse. Among other things, it gets rid of bans on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, with histories of heart disease, cancer diagnoses and similar serious illness expected to raise premiums generally in the $10k-$50k per year range or just generally make it impossible for the sick to get insurance by raising the prices above anything anyone can pay for. As with previous ones, the increase in the number of uninsured (expected at around 32 million losing insurance, though they won't give the CBO time to estimate the changes in that number from the previous attempt) means you can expect tens of thousands dead per year as a result; killing more people than a particularly effective car bomb set off on a crowded street every day of the year with enough left over for two on holidays and three on christmas. On top of that, it would gut medicaid, just like the last attempt. Subsidies gone too. Things like maternity care? No longer required to be covered, due to rolling back the 'essential coverage' guarantees; making 'able to get pregnant' into a pre-existing condition requiring a different healthcare plan. Same for mental health services and a variety of others. It also makes plans sold on the marketplace that cover abortion illegal. This is just the tip of the shitberg that is this bill, being done entirely out of spite.

[Frumple]

That does sound about right. Just thought the actual text hadn't been made public to much or any extent, yet, which would leave anything stated about it mostly reliant on republican honesty (which they're damned and determined to make an oxymoron) for accuracy. Entirely possible I just missed stuff.

[EnigmaticHat]

Repeal without replace.

Its worth pointing out that health insurance premiums were already rising prior to Obamacare, so even if this was a well thought out reset button (which it isn't), there's no option of going back to the old days.  There's a good chance that this unspecified plan will result in *everyone's* premiums going up, even the wealthy.

[sluissa]

Can we talk about how Repubs were so afraid of obamacare death panels but are perfectly willing to pull the plug on a medicaid patient costing too much?

[Dunamisdeos]

More like fully willing to fan the flames of those fears, legitimate or no, in order to maintain power. They would absolutely do any of the things the generally denounce if it meant being on top.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Can we talk about how Repubs were so afraid of obamacare death panels but are perfectly willing to pull the plug on a medicaid patient costing too much?

What you have to realize is that such a thing is meaningless to GOP's value system. They have a religious logic, which says that this life is as a dream and to be saved is better than to live. They have an economic logic, which says that everything good in society stems from capitalist abundance and so businesses need to be allowed to do as they please. And they have a nationalist logic, which says that if America (but only Real America, not Liberal America) does something it should be assumed right, and that the state should be divested of any specific authority whenever possible.

The religious prefer holy death to secular life, the economic think no regulations is the physical peak of healthcare law, and the nationalists will throw out Obama's socialist European tyranny by any means necessary.

[Trekkin]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they have an evangelical base, a series of plutocrat donors, and a set of jingoistic swing voters who either vote Republican or hide in rural Appalachia polishing their guns.

There is no logic here other than "keep getting re-elected." There is no goal other than "be lobbied." There is no hope other than that enough of their colleagues will be voted out or resign so that the other party is in power when the other shoe drops and they can go back to being the opposition, free to promise a gun-filled theocracy to their voters and a corporate state to their donors without having to reconcile the two.

It would be a mistake to call these Republicans a political party any longer, or to apply the usual rules of party politics to their current decision making processes. They are more like a group of people all propping up a decayed and rotten tree (with Trump tweeting in its branches): everyone's arms are tired, but they know the tree is falling on the first person to stop pushing.

Everyone wants to be the 52nd "nay" on Trumpcare or the guy to second a call for impeachment, because the first one to do either is going to be blamed by hundreds of desperate people who are no longer being handsomely bribed to destroy the country but everyone who doesn't do it risks being labeled a conspirator. Looked at in that light, their current frenzy makes sense.

[Paxiecrunchle]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they have an evangelical base, a series of plutocrat donors, and a set of jingoistic swing voters who either vote Republican or hide in rural Appalachia polishing their guns.

There is no logic here other than "keep getting re-elected." There is no goal other than "be lobbied." There is no hope other than that enough of their colleagues will be voted out or resign so that the other party is in power when the other shoe drops and they can go back to being the opposition, free to promise a gun-filled theocracy to their voters and a corporate state to their donors without having to reconcile the two.

It would be a mistake to call these Republicans a political party any longer, or to apply the usual rules of party politics to their current decision making processes. They are more like a group of people all propping up a decayed and rotten tree (with Trump tweeting in its branches): everyone's arms are tired, but they know the tree is falling on the first person to stop pushing.

Everyone wants to be the 52nd "nay" on Trumpcare or the guy to second a call for impeachment, because the first one to do either is going to be blamed by hundreds of desperate people who are no longer being handsomely bribed to destroy the country but everyone who doesn't do it risks being labeled a conspirator. Looked at in that light, their current frenzy makes sense.

You, are amazing I wish that you were being paid to do this!