Health Care Reform Dead

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Biggest head trip to me is the second panel. Who knew the US president could order executions?

[erimir]

Of note is that McCain has announced he is returning to Arizona to undergo treatment, and won't return until the end of the August recess, which means that his vote will be unavailable until around Labor Day. Of course, depending on how his treatment goes, he could potentially be gone longer.

It seems that the Senate will probably not be entering a full recess in order to prevent Trump from making a recess appointment to replace Jeff Sessions, so I don't know if that means that McConnell could try some shenanigans.

Either way, with McCain gone, McConnell only has Collins or Murkowski available to flip for the next few weeks at a minimum.

After McCain returns, they have until the end of September until the reconciliation bill expires (at the end of the fiscal year), after which point I believe they'd have to restart the whole process from the House again.

So if they don't pass anything by the end of September we're probably in the clear for a while. The GOP can always try again, but after this months-long process, how extremely unpopular it was and constant protests and calls at their offices, I can imagine there are some who just want to move on.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Steven Dennis on Twitter: "Just to be clear, AHCA is still alive and on the Senate calendar. It can be called up when and if McConnell has 50 votes.
He has 49."

[MonCapitan2002]

Personally, I think at some point the Repugnantians will find a way to pass their shitty health care bill. The only question to my mind is when and not if.

[erimir]

They have until December 2018, I would say. It looks like there's a pretty good chance they'll lose the House. And even if they don't, they'll have a fairly small majority.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Senator Hirono's emotional final plea against WealthCare didnt get much recognition. Sharing it with you. ❤️pic.twitter.com/BAVZJYmcLd

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) July 29, 2017

[Jerome]

I didn't know Obamacare is putting hospitals in rural Japan 50 years ago.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This isn't a regular occurrence for members of Congress 👆

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) August 1, 2017

[MonCapitan2002]

Originally Posted by erimir

They have until December 2018, I would say. It looks like there's a pretty good chance they'll lose the House. And even if they don't, they'll have a fairly small majority.

I find that doubtful considering how the Repugnants had been able to draw Congressional districts in such a way as to prevent that very thing. Although, when they pulled that stunt it was before acting so heinously that they inspired a massive backlash against them.

[The Man]

Originally Posted by MonCapitan2002

I find that doubtful considering how the Repugnants had been able to draw Congressional districts in such a way as to prevent that very thing. Although, when they pulled that stunt it was before acting so heinously that they inspired a massive backlash against them.

The thing about gerrymandering is that when it breaks down, it breaks down hard. I'm currently on my phone and on break at work, so I can't find or write a good explanation of this right now, but if the typical ten-point shifts to Democrats hold through next year, gerrymandering won't be our biggest obstacle; vote suppression will.

(The short explanation is that because gerrymandering spreads one's supporters out over larger numbers of districts, a sufficient collapse in support can be catastrophic; the support is spread widely but shallow.)

[erimir]

That's why it's not guaranteed. If simply winning the House popular vote was good enough to win control of the chamber, the GOP would be like >95% sure to lose the House.

The polls suggest that Democrats ought to win the House popular vote by around 7 or 8 pts, but intervening events could expand that or contract it. The presidential party's position tends to decline over time relative to the polls at this point. 2002 is the biggest outlier because of 9/11. I suspect Trump is more likely to bungle the response to a crisis than rise to the occasion. The special election results are also consistent with a Democratic advantage.

Democrats need to win the House popular vote by somewhere around 5-8 pts to overcome Republican gerrymandering and other effects. With Democrats up by around 7-10 pts in the generic ballot polls now, that suggests they will probably be able to hit that mark. But it's not a guarantee. The polls can be wrong. Likewise, it's possible that they will outperform that mark, and end up winning the House popular vote by >12 pts (for comparison, they won it in 2006 by 8 pts and in 2008 by 10.6 pts).

The funny thing is with gerrymandering, once you get past the "firewall" or whatever you want to call it, it can actually harm the gerrymandering party. The goal is to win many districts by a moderate margin - big enough that you're generally safe. If the opposing party wins by a large margin, they will expand past their packed districts into the cracked districts. It's not likely, but if the environment declines significantly for Republicans compared to now, Democrats could win their biggest majority since 1992 or earlier.

And of course, Republican voter suppression tactics could affect this as well. But if the public turns against them strongly enough, that won't be enough to save them. Voter suppression won't save them if suburban white people turn against them too.

Anyway, you can check out this for some graphs and stuff too:
Here’s The Best Tool We Have For Understanding How The Midterms Are Shaping Up | FiveThirtyEight

Basic takeaway is: Republicans will almost certainly lose seats and Democrats have a good shot at taking the House.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Jerome

See, you think being 'liberal' gives you a free pass on openly being racist.

It is mathematically, scientifically and undeniably true that male darkies lack self-control. Your disgraceful use of a pee see buzzword designed to squelch the free exchange of ideas does not alter that truth one whit.

Originally Posted by Jerome

You will couch it as mockery, but you really get a thrill up your leg

"Get a thrill up your leg" ... is that some sort of congoid sex thing? Cuz, ew.

Admittedly, I enjoy telling unpleasant truths even at personal cost to myself, but "get a thrill up [my] leg" is not an apt description. You couldn't possibly be expected to understand this, but civilized human beings simply don't express themselves in such ways.

Originally Posted by Jerome

racist.

There's that pee see buzzword again. Sorry there, cupcake, but snowflakey cucks such as yourself no longer control the terms of discourse here in Donald Trump's America. If the mention of unpleasant truths upsets you, then perhaps you should retreat to your safe place.

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Biggest head trip to me is the second panel. Who knew the US president could order executions?

And apparently POTUS's authority to send people to death row on his own say-so expires pretty quickly. It was just over four months into the Trump administration when Mr. James made that tweet, and the time when "[Trump] had the chance" had already expired.

Twitter is a veritable cornucopia of lolyerly knowledge.

[Vivisectus]

It is mathematically, scientifically and undeniably true that male darkies lack self-control. Your disgraceful use of a pee see buzzword designed to squelch the free exchange of ideas does not alter that truth one whit.

Typical of the kind of fascistoid, repressive SJW types to ignore the documented fact that male darkies as a demographic are prone to a lack of self control. Hypocritically they ignore the data based only on their ideological views about race, which of course is where the real racism sets in.

Just like how making racial profiling illegal is an essentially racist policy, but try telling THAT to the groupthinking drones!

[The Lone Ranger]

I've sent my Congresscritter -- Mitch McConnell, no less -- missives expressing my distaste for some of his policies.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from him. It's obviously a mass mailing, but it was interesting nonetheless. In it, he insists that he's so determined to get rid of "Obamacare" because it was "forced" on the American people.


I'm tempted to send a short reply that begins with: "You unbelievable hypocrite ...".

[But]

It might be more likely that he reads the letter if you put the hypocrite at the end.

[erimir]

It was forced on America by solid majority of the House and 60 votes in Senate.

Gawd, it's so awful that Democrats thought they could do stuff just because a large majority of America voted for them.

It's not fair that Republicans don't get to do whatever they want when fewer Americans vote for them but they get to control the Senate and White House anyway. I mean, they have 52 votes, why isn't that as good as 60?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

"...there are a bunch of extremely wealthy people for whom these tax cuts are the entire point of engaging in politics" (with tweets) · Storify

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Fresh off Sen. Dean Heller’s vote for the so-called skinny Obamacare repeal, a SuperPAC linked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says it will spend seven figures to defend him — including fending off any primary challenge.

[erimir]

I think strong conservatives should be very disappointed with Dean Heller and promote a primary challenge that will force McConnell to spend heavily to defend him. They should probably air vicious attack ads against him too.

[Stephen Maturin]

I'm not saying that John McCain's brain tumor is what voted against repealing the ACA, but hey, let's face it - McCain's brain tumor is probably what voted against repealing the ACA.

~ Sen. Ron Johnson

[erimir]

I knew it was only a matter of time before a Republican said that.

Ron Johnson would not have been at the top of my list of "Republicans most likely to say that McCain's brain cancer affected his thinking and made him come to the ridiculous conclusion that people dying is bad" though. Kudos for being the first notable one to get there.

[Jerome]

It was funny watching the libs piss on McCain, he has always been a typical warmongering lib.

He was the patsy to get Obama elected.

He said it was wrong to point out Obama had two Muslim fathers, lol

Reality TV, and you dopes fall for it, every time.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Why trolls post.

Stonekettle on Twitter: "Remember, the objective is to disrupt public conversation and the ability of ideas to coalescence into coherent public positions
1/"

[The Man]

Ugh. It's this shit again.

Time to call the Senate again – Balloon Juice

Graham-Cassidy would shift money from states that have successfully implemented the ACA to non-expansion states and then ratchet down the block grants.

Time to call the Senate again.

We need to run out the clock to 12:01 October 1, 2017 at which point the healthcare reconciliation instructions expire. Encourage Senate Democrats to submit bills to the CBO for scoring so that they are back-logged and can not rapidly score anything that needs to be scored for reconciliation. Call and encourage the Sanders budget team to go to town with the Parliamentarian. 24 days need to be burned.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Jon Walker on Twitter: "Would be deeply ironic if after liberals cheered McCain for stopping skinny repeal, he passed Graham-Cassidy which is so much worse https://t.co/yX8i8ih1mY"