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By David Futrelle
BAM! Two more Republicans have announced they’ll be voting no on moving forward on Trumpcare, for a total of four. So it looks like the bill is DONE.
!!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/nLFBRINoFh
— shauna (@goldengateblond) July 18, 2017
DISCUSS! Celebrate! No trolls, Trump fans allowed!
UPDATE: McConnell is now pushing REPEAL ONLY. Seems like a desperate move, but we need to keep calling and protesting!
McConnell is moving on from Repeal & Replace to… Repeal & Suffer.
The battle to #ProtectOurCare continues!
🔥☎️🔥: https://t.co/4hAUAAmYTE pic.twitter.com/3qXigBoFjW— 5 Calls 🇺🇸 (@make5calls) July 18, 2017
Somehow he said “full transparency: I’m deleting stuff” and the internet didn’t implode from the irony.
He’s going for the other definition of transparent: “Can easily be seen through.”
Popping up in the open thread belatedly as a disabled person to say it’s not dead until they stop trying to repeal or strip the ACA period, so please keep calling your Congresspeople, especially in red states!
OT but i just heard this: The Wildrose party and the Progressive Conservative party have just joined in Alberta. They are hoping that by ‘uniting the right’ they will be able to oust the NDP government.
For anyone who doesn’t know, the fact that the NDP were elected was a frikkin’ miracle. The PCs have been in continuous power since 1971. I think that is a record! Now the NDP are attempting to clean up the mess of Alberta refusing to diversify their interests away from oil, and also raising the minimum wage, and just fixing messes that have been left over.
(I mean, what the hell was the point of that stupid one time oil payment in like, 2006, that went to all Alberta residents? It was apparently known as “Ralph Bucks“. MAYBE if you had invested that in infrastructure or social services or something it would have done more good than giving everyone 400$. Stupid Ralph. Bet you could have used that 1,6 billion in 2008, right? RIGHT??)
So now I’m worried about the next election. The NDPs are doing unpopular things because they need to be done, and now they are facing one party instead of the Conservatives and the Ultra Conservatives.
I’m not in the ol’ Alberta anymore, but i grew up there and all my family is there. Also their economic and social decisions impact all of Canada, and… ugh.
Hugs to everyone there dealing with this. (If wanted)
… yeah….
@Weird Eddie
Where is that from?
What’s kind of funny is ‘uniting the right’ is essentially the right-wing fringe and/or hate groups…and they are uniting to try to defeat the NDP. The NDP, which is the party that brought us our universal(ish) healthcare, started out somewhat ‘left’ish although now is pretty centrist.
At this point the Conservative Reform Alliance Party (CRAP for short, and formerly the Progressive Conservative Party), is now a right-wing fringe group that hates anyone who isn’t cishet and white. As much as I like tea, one thing we didn’t need here is our own version of the US Tea Party.
On a different note, we just held our annual Pride parade yesterday, predictably today I’m seeing comments like, “So when are we going to have a straight pride parade”. Trolls are so tiresome and unoriginal. What pisses me off though are the people claiming that we have everything already and there is no need for Pride anymore.
Kupo,
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/07/opinions/comedians-lead-resistance-opinion-obeidallah/index.html
@Kupo:
CNN
… annnnd ninja’d, thanx for the link, PeeVee!!!
@PeeVee & Eddie
Thanks!
On another note, I’m just going to leave this here:
For some reason all of the global nonsense these days really has gotten to me today. Realization that the new Conservative Reform Alliance Party here in Alberta could legitimately win the next provincial election is probably what pushed me over the edge. Eugh. My only hope is that, since they’ve pushed all the decent human beings out of their party at this point, they’ll expose themselves for the monsters they are, and they will be a bridge too far. God, I hope so.
Unrelated good news – kitty went to vet yesterday and they suspect allergies, not autoimmune disorder or diabetes. So we’ve gotten some hypoallergenic everything for her, and we’re going to give that a try. I am 100% happy feeding her fancy high-quality hypoallergenic food for the rest of her days. She mostly eats sunbeams these days anyways. So here’s hoping!
I’m gonna go play a board game or something today and incinerate politically minded interlopers with my mind. Or try to at least. You have fun, my ducks.
@Scild
Yay for kitty news! I had a cat with skin problems that developed later in life as a result of allergies and the hypoallergenic food did the trick. Pepper also has food allergies, but her symptoms were GI rather than skin related. Good luck, I hope it goes well and kitty feels better soon. 🙂
@Jesalin and @Scildfreja – omg I am just calling it CRAP from now on, I had forgotten about that!
I hope your prediction is right, Jesalin. I guess I’m just worried that people are going to go ‘CARBON TAX?’, gnash their teeth, and vote the NDP out. But my god, that was a ridiculous result. I was in shock for like, a day.
Scildfreya, good luck to you and your kitty!
Re: that article – interesting point about comedians. I’ll have to think about that. How does a political party start making headlines like that, start using the power that the comedians have shown they can wield?
@Scildfreja
“Conservative Reform Alliance Party”
Is that the real name of this CRAP party?
And wishing as good health as you can get for your kitty and you.
Seriously? Did they not look at what that acronym spelled, or do they just think that the people who might vote for them are too unintelligent to notice?
Also, isn’t “progressive conservative” an oxymoron?
“Progressive conservative”, that’s why they changed the name, they were just self-aware enough to realize that doesn’t really work the way they hoped.
“I’m all for progressive conservatism, so we should consider changing the standard lunch start time by 1 minute (to the right, natch) some time in the next decade.”
The new party is the United Conservative Party. Which works too, I guess. “You See Pee? Yes I do.”
The vote to merge passed, 25k yes to 1k no. 24 spoiled votes. Eugh.
When I close my eyes, I can see the unholy alliance of the UCP and Rebel Media, and it’s horrifying.
Wishing your feline overlady good health, Scildfreja – hope the hypoallergenic everything makes her comfortable and happy and helps her appetite pick up ::transatlantic virtual tucked-under fingers for her to bump her head against if she feels like it::
@Scildfreja
I’m glad the vet visit went well. Hope everything turns out well for you and your fuzzy one.
I had mine at the vet on Friday as well. I noticed a swollen lymph node. It turned out to be a urinary tract infection. A course of antibiotics, and he should be good as new.
Have fun with your board game telepathic pyrotechnics.
And I’m truly sorry to our Canadian Mammotheers for your worries about impending elections. I just hope the US didn’t pass along the right-wing rash we seem to have contracted.
We vote for a replacement senator next month since Sessions became AG. I feel the stress as the days grow closer, but I will be at the polls come that day. Here is to hoping we both have favorable outcomes.
I heard about the Alberta political merger on the news this morning.
@JS, PaganReader:
It was, at least for a while in 2000. (Actually, Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance; the ‘Party’ was added later by people pointing out what a stupid naming decision they made.)
And ‘Progressive Conservative’ was the party for quite some time. There’s still a tradition of ‘Red Tories’, even if there aren’t many of them anywhere near power anymore. Joe Clark, for one example. Current Toronto Mayor John Tory probably qualifies.
@Scildfreja:
Gaaaahhh.
Fuzzbutt was puking a bunch this morning, but my father accidentally mixed two of her medications that he shouldn’t have. Nothing tremendously bad from it, but she was a sad kitty. I went and got her some canned food instead of dry and she ate all that up and asked for more, so I think she is doing okay. Thank you for all the kind worlds! And I hope the UTI for your kitty clears up soon @Myriad.
The right wing wash has certainly, 100% washed up in Alberta something fierce, I’m afraid to say. There are MAGA hats and bumper stickers around here, and I’ve been seeing confederate flags here and there. Pretty much entirely on trucks. It’s gross. There won’t be an election for awhile yet, they aren’t impending, but… well, I sure hope that things change between now and then, because it’ll otherwise be Make Canada Great Again Proud Boy Nonsense Brigade all over the place over here. At which point I really don’t know what I’ll do.
We used to have Progressive Conservatives here – as much as those two things can be combined at least. The idea was to be compassionate and progressive socially, but fiscally cautious, with minimization of support for new programs until they have proven themselves. (Which, well. Doesn’t entirely work, but is at least not horrendous). They’ve gone through the process of evicting all of the progressive elements of their party, though. They’ve been ousted, largely, leaving the horrible core of paleocons and neocons and christian dominionists and alt-right monsters. But they’re perfectly capable of wearing the skin of “social progressive, fiscal conservative” to get elected, and they’re horrifying.
Inorite @Jenora? Horrible, utterly horrible.
Doesn’t help that I have family and friends in Alberta. Though, granted, my cousin was out volunteering for an Alliance MP campaign at one point, so I don’t normally talk with him about politics. He’s in B.C. now, so a little less open social support for that sort of view.
My parents live in B.C., in Central Saanich, so they’re actually in the riding of Canada’s only Green Party M.P.
@Scildfreja:
Just noticed this
And the mental image of that ill-fitting skin trying to look like polite company on the outside is such a perfect description of Stephen Harper.
Latest Chuck Tingle book:
DOMALD TROMP JR. SLAMMED IN THE BUTT BY HIS SECRET RUSSIAN MEETINGS AND THE GROSSLY INCOMPETENT COVER UP SHORTLY THEREAFTER
They’re Slitheens!