They haven’t been this bad since they called themselves Nazis. I’d say they are even worse now that Super-Hitler is President.
[my bold]
Ah, the circular firing squad theory.
[Yes, there will be typos. Couldn’t resist mate.]
There is none so blind as he who will not see.
Exactly the same took place during Lady Thatcher’s first term when it was timid, growing it’s strength during the rest of her demented reign.
The new apparatchiks fell into line and derided the older patrician Tory mob ( patricians, like Lord Macmillan and Sir Ian Gilmour = Old Whig descent / Thatcherites = Manchester Liberal descent ), calling them ‘Wets’ and making the new improved Poujadist party less tolerant of dissent and more committed to her barmy principles.
And persistence succeeded, not only in her direct Tory heirs of the recent Austerity kick, but in causing the opposition Labour movement under Blair to join the economic third way just as the Clintons adapted the Democratic Party to working with Newt’s ideas.
Let’s see. Obamacare increased coverage by tens of millions. It lowered the rate of increase of insurance costs. It made insurance available for the first time to people with pre-existing conditions. It provided for a range of policies for different income levels. It gave assistance to those who couldn’t afford it.
And yet, after seven years of voting to repeal Obamacare and with a president who promised to abolish it on day 1, what happened? The Republicans could not come up with a bill that wouldn’t remove benefits from tens of millions of Americans. Why? Because Obamacare rested on the common-sense principles listed above. Remove any one of them and it fails. That didn’t bother the vast majority of Republicans, because the failure would still transfer huge amounts of money to the wealthy, but it seemed that the tens of millions who embraced Obamacare didn’t see this as a good thing.
Now the President and Mitch McConnell are trying to repeal Obamacare with no replacement at all. Yes, that would indeed destroy healthcare for those tens of millions. Insurance companies aren’t going to issue policies in blindness. Obamacare bent over backward to placate insurance companies, to the point where liberals were steaming. They entered the market in droves, and then only left the market in red states, where Republican governors refused to take federal money. Seriously, look at a map where the so-called crisis of coverage is happening. Well over 90% of the counties reduced to one or no carriers are in red states.
Sure Obamacare can stand some tweaking. It was a compromise bill. But Republicans have been and are the only ones to try to destroy it and replace it with nothing at all. The GOP is that bad. It defies belief, but some of us have to live in the real world and face real world facts.
Excellent post(s) Exapno Mapcase. I’m going to quote this line
and then channel Der Trumpnik: “Not too many people know this…” In fact, I’ll bet some of the younger people here (age 40 and under) would be surprised to know that the south used to be solidly Democratic.
Um… What?
Do you deny that Republicans deny anthropomorphic climate change, in spite of overwhelming evidence? Have you noticed that Republicans have been attempting to quash discussion of climate change, with some success? (They do.)
Do you deny that Republicans Gerrymander districts? (They have.)
Do you deny that Republicans use such tactics as Gerrymandering, closing polling locations, making it difficult for certain demographics of voters to obtain identification, and so forth, to suppress the votes of that ‘certain demographic’? (They do.)
Do you deny that Republicans are trying, with some success, to limit or deny access to abortions? (They are.)
Do you deny that Republicans are avoiding their constituents? (They are.)
Do you deny that Trump’s Cabinet comprises incompetent, malevolent appointees who either are not qualified to hold their positions, or are actively hostile to the departments they are supposed to represent? (They are.)
Do you deny that there have been more racist attacks, both verbal and physical, since Trump took office? (It certainly seems so.)
Do you deny that the Republicans want to take money from the poor and middle-class, and transfer it to the very richest Americans through, for one thing, regressive taxation? (They do.)
Do you deny that Republicans want and attempt to merge Church and State, for example, by declaring The United States a ‘Christian nation’, by passing, or attempting to pass laws intended to discriminate against those with different religious beliefs, or the display of Scripture on public property? (They do.)
So let me ask, what planet do you live on? Because it’s not Earth. And it’s certainly not the United States of America.
One reason it is so hard for the GOP to replace Obamacare with a conservative plan is Obamacare is a Conservative plan. It is a purely market driven solution to the problem. They will never, ever admit it though.
EXACTLY! This is not “government health care,” nor is it “socialism.” It’s a law that directs people to buy insurance from a MARKETPLACE (that word should be a tip-off). Another tip-off is that it was Mitt Romney (remember him? He ran for President as a Republican?) who installed it in Massachusette.
Ok, here is a cite: https://www.ahip.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Joint-AHIP-BCBSA-Consumer-Freedom-Option-Letter-FINAL-071417.pdf
This letter is from the two leading health insurance lobbying groups, about Ted Cruz’s amendment. The Cruz amendment was embraced by Republican leadership as a plan to cut the cost of insurance and presumably get more people able to buy coverage. (I take both claims with a huge grain of salt.)
Others have pointed out that every version of the Republican health care bill analyzed so far would likely have roughly doubled the number of uninsured people in the U.S. Is that destroying health care? Some may say yes; I’m sure you think no.
But look at the letter from health insurance companies that I linked to: it paints a picture of a disaster if the Cruz plan became law. Not only do they argue that people would lose coverage, but also that coverage options would generally get worse for people. The letter cites that the American Academy of Actuaries agrees that Cruz would split Americans into healthy groups with cheap plans, and sick people with expensive and worthless plans.
Many conservatives believe Obamacare is in a death spiral, caused essentially by uncertainty regarding markets and the extent to which they will be, or deserve, subsidies. I disagree that it’s a death spiral, but I generally agree there is a problem. But the Cruz plan, according to the industry most impacted by the proposal, apparently sees it as an even more serious death spiral.
Is that “destroying health care?” When it comes to destabilizing the insurance market for ALL Americans, based on whether they are healthy or sick, I’m more inclined to say that “destroying” is a minor, rather than major, exaggeration.
Why they fought so hard against it, other than the reflexive denial of a win for Obama, is a mystery. It’s not what the liberals wanted, it rewards the big players in a conservative industry, and it directly helps the people who they claim to stand for.
It’s not a mystery–you called it. It’s called being President while black.
Do we have demographic data about GOP voters across the last few decades? If it’s gotten older, less educated, comparatively more religious (given the overall decrease in religiosity), more from economically depressed areas, that might explain much of its getting nastier.
Working class whites in low-density areas have gotten worse at the same time as educated, cosmopolitan coastal urbanized areas have gotten better. “Make America great again” resonates with people whose lives and communities have gotten worse in the last decades. Here are two interesting articles where health and obesity as emblematic of some people’s lives getting worse:
Not that such people are victims only. For many of them, they chose to deal with trying circumstances in dysfunctional ways, whether it’s fattening food, alcohol, tobacco, meth, idiotic brands of religion, kooky radio shows or hateful Know Nothingism.
So do you think this is an oversight?
I was a Republican for decades. I kept thinking “Sure, there are problems in the party. But I’m going to stay inside of it and try to steer it away from its bad elements and towards its good elements.”
But then there was 2016. There were sixteen “major” Republican candidates running for President. I felt that fifteen were unqualified to be President (the exception was George Pataki - who was immediately rejected by primary voters). I came to the realization that there no longer were good elements left in the Republican party. So I gave up and quit the party. And this all happened before the worst of those sixteen candidates won the nomination.
Same here! I once was Republican, but I now feel that the party is utterly inept and evil.
I would never vote Republican again!
This is all true but there is more to it than that. First let me say that every party has gerrymandered. It is just that with computers it can be done to higher precision. But if Dems control a state they can and will do it to. I can’t provide a cite, but a friend of mine claims that Dems have traditionally started more wars than the Reps. On the other hand, despite popular belief the economy has on average done better under Dems.
Traditionally, until the 1960s, the Dems were the party of the southern racists. Sen. Jacob Javits (R, NY), asked why he was a Rep replied that being a Dem was aligning yourself with Herman Talmadge. After the civil rights acts of the 60s, Talmadge became a Rep. Then the rest of the racist vote followed. After the civil rights acts blacks could suddenly vote. Until the five Reps on Scotus decided otherwise.
As for Reagan, he helped the destroy the unions. But the real damage was done by the Taft-Hartley act, passed over Truman’s veto by a combination of northern conservatives and southern racists. This allowed states to outlaw the union shops (that is, where every new employee was required to join the union) which at first happened mainly in the south until recently.
Note that Obamacare was originally a Rep program proposed in the early 90s mainly to stave off real medicare. I believe that Obama would have preferred real medicare, but passage of anything required the votes from every blue dog Dem (Dinos).
If you want people to take your posts seriously, it would behoove you to use standard spelling, punctuation, and grammar. And no, we don’t care that you’re on your phone.
“Failures of church star separation” is a little more than a “typo”.
And this refutes the facts… How, exactly? :dubious:
Name one fact that Wesley posted.