I feel this is a full-on civil war within the GOP.
Mercer vs Koch
Apparently the Kochs hates The Donald lol. So we should be thanking the Kochs for today rather than any competence from the Dems.

/regarding the twitter picture:

why not? everybody can see that it has flaws. at least they are living in reality. which can't be said for every party...

taking a break amid an 8 hour online session right now and def lol'd at this. can confirm they are always one hell ****in wild ride

so in other news that got out there today

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ex-cia-...u-s-1490380426

The WSJ story that flynn was gonna kidnap some dude and hand him over to turkey story without going through the extradition process is bonkers. Like we already knew the turkey foreign agent part, but wowzers. Trump just hires the best people.

That was in september. Shame they fired him just from the added outrage the story would've gotten.

They shouldn't use the GOP's rhetoric. Say improve, enhance, augment, upgrade or similar. Messaging is important and the Dems suck at it.

"Even the Democrats admit Obamacare is broken. We need to repeal and replace it."

ok, that's fair critique.

I agree that was horrible wording from a Dem Representative nonetheless. Basically comes off as a Dem pol "admitting" Obamacare sucks [it doesnt]. could use improvements like Louisville said, though. +1 to horrible messaging from Dems as usual

https://twitter.com/ashleyfeinberg/s...99611468648449

I kinda feel that way too.

And I don't care if you guys think I'm a troll. As long as I'm not attacking users or condoning violence, I think my posting is okay. Just a little conspiratorial, that's all.

Buzzfeed with actual funny content:

funny:

https://twitter.com/TUSK81/status/845456242801729536

how do you imbed a tweet?

Put that unique tweet # in [ tweet ] [ /tweet ] tags.

not working...oh well

Obviously nuclear destruction and martial law may be in our future, Trump doesn't need to realy build popular consensus for that.

But this has been a theme of mine lately. While the stuff about the GOP incompetence clown show is of course true, and funny, I think the catastrophic underestimation here is just how important welfare programs are to people. That government provisions for well-being and social support are hugely popular and necessary. That's the holistic failure of the liberal bubble: NOT that the right-wing trope that the movement is caught up in creating snowflake politically correct safe spaces. That's not the offense of the bubble. But that we totally lost the language of talking to people about the practical, real ways in which government matters and can deliver things that make their lives easier, keeps them healthier, gives them economic security, and dignity.

Think of how much self-induced pain the GOP stirred up for themselves here, how much panic they created in the electorate that depends on Obamacare, and how that political pressure created an outcome we cheer as liberals. That's how you win this ****ing country back. It's not depicting Republicans as sexual assault enthusiasts and Russian kompromats although they might very well be both. It's not David Axelrod and David Plouffe microtargetting soccer moms from deep within the catacombs of a database on convertible swing district voters. It's probably not even Hope and Change memetics and charisma, although obviously that helps.

Republicans are taking your damn money and giving it to rich people. Democrats are going to take rich people's money and give it back to everyone else. It's that simple. Say that for the next 2 to 4 years. Let them Red Bait and cry infinite tears of sadness about this on Fox News or whatever. Let them moan the government is so inefficient and can't deliver. Let the strategists threaten this is all anathema to the donor class, who we need because if not them who will fund the TV ad buys they take a 3% rake on, that their livelihood depends on.

I hope people don't forget this lesson: Obamacare is kinda flawed, is in many ways subservient to the desires of the health care industry, is really a pale comparison to the single payer health system we all deserve, and yet it does just enough good and the constituent pressure so real and genuine that EVEN THE MODERN ****ING GOP had to kowtow and respect the popular consensus on this. This is a political movement based on giving the middle finger to broad popular consensus and flattering rich elites and they have no idea how to respond to any of this.

you've been posting here since 2004

good post Dvaut

If I'm reading the internets right, significantly more than 50% of the people who voted Trump in were under the age of 41. It's closer to 65% of his votes even?

The prospect of that is utterly terrifying and not something I knew till now. I had heard about the % of female voters, but the age of Trump supporters being so low leads me to think it's not entirely impossible for him to win a second term. What he might need to do it is a war though. Take it out of the old playbook and rally around patriotism.

Dvaut,

It's all a litteraly not seriously problem. The swamp dwelling grifters (fox etc al) keep telling people it's a "centre right nation" that wants "limited government" and "personal responsibility" and the griftees repeat it blindly. But what they really want is the government to "keep its hands off" my medicaid and disability payments or not "distort the market" or "pick winners and losers" long enough to work our a massive infrastructure spending program to subsidise my construction job and for the government to be so "limited" that it can pay for great schools and parks and on and on.

The liberals hear the rhetoric repeated rote without meaning and take it literally (but not seriously) and try to argue against the indoctrination instead of saying we'll deliver good health care good schools and a solid safety net and you can call it whatever you like.


I think even the Republicans got high on their own supply and are thinking 'why is this health care repeal so unpopular when everyone says they want limited government and they hate Obama care? But the people are so confused by 20+ years of propaganda that they are just completely mislabelling their desires.

an analysis of Trump's most rabid following

A must read imo.

TLDR; Trumpkins are insane, hate-filled, racists as demonstrated by their own actions.

the gop already use two of the best healthcare buzzwords, strengthen and access, so why not just use those words? democrats could just start by saying things like "we need to strengthen obamacare to provide access to every single american through a medicare-for-all system."

although where democrats usually end up failing is in their inability to get all their members to repeat a talking point into oblivion, which is the gop's specialty. they've used the phrase "death spiral" so frequently that when it's said it's hard not to think of obamacare.

At first, I was gonna contradict the claim that the GOP cares about entitlements because the majority of the AHCA opposition came from the Teahadists. Then I remembered that the GOP didn't want to replace at all, yet Ryan felt he had to. AHCA certainly got more votes than a straight repeal would.

Made me smile, particularly when I thought about how difficult it must have been to get all of the dogs to stay still and look at the camera.

Lowering expectations is a good thing, when he gets his small victories on other issues he will get more credit. Good to get the big loses out of the way early, the wall and obamacare repeal.

Passing a new health plan would have been a disater for the 2018 election, every glitch magnified in the media right before the election. Bad for the GOP. Remenber Obama postponed Obamacare to 2014 so he could win in 2012. He won 2012 and left the democrats to suffer in 2014.

Congrats Dems, you got 1. Don't let it go to your head. There's a whole lot more coming.

Healthcare was the easy one. Trump is out of sync with a fundamentally divided Republicans. Like Boehner said, Obamacare wasn't going anywhere.

Wait until tax cuts and budget fights start. Everyone anticipating a shutdown due to delay and incompetence?
Meanwhile, all kinds of regulations and a Supreme are going right up our collective behinds.