Trumpcare dead!? GOP has lost two more votes! Open Thread

@kupo, man, no one’s ever high-fived me over the rod in *my* leg. Guess it must be fairly pedestrian.

@SFHC

I too find it very difficult to believe that the average elected Republican hasn’t killed a few people for fun. Gov LePage of Maine I can almost guarantee has killed a dozen people at least. The Arpaio weirdo from Arizona is another safe bet. Huckabee and Cruz have definitely killed or ar least severely injured a few women each. What’s most chilling about these speculations, however, is that if it did come out that Rand Paul stalked and murdered a couple of black teenagers (as he probably has), other conservatives would 100% support him. They’d blame the victims and the media, and then quickly pivot to “Hillary killed Seth Rich”.

@Falconer
We can be leg rod buddies! High five! I got mine from a tib/fib fracture when I got hit by a car while in a crosswalk.

(Also, I saw what you did there.)

@ WWTH
Not related, but still political, a local story from my city seems to be going national.

International. The woman was Australian, so it’s all over Australian media.

My first thought was “Wow, white victim, maybe this one will get treated seriously”. Then it came out the shooter was a black Muslim. Oh crap.

There have been lots of televised interviews with the woman’s (white) neighbors and they are freaking out at the idea that it could have been them. Like you, I’m not sure whether decisive action against the officer (because a black officer shot an unarmed white woman) or no action (because he’s a cop and she wasn’t, therefore it’s OK to shoot her) will be less depressing.

Assumption in the states is, if you don’t have a job, clearly you’re not looking hard enough, and loss of income is clearly the best way to encourage people to take jobs they hate for crap pay. Unless you can prove that the chunk of meat removed from your arm (or whatever your hopefully obvious disability might be) keeps you from working, you can just go without income. If you’ve got difficult to prove non-obvious health issues? Good luck! Before Obamacare, if you did manage to prove one of the non-obvious disabilities, you then couldn’t get health insurance that covered it, or you paid at least double what the regular premiums were to get in the state “Health Insurance Risk Pool”. Texas’ version sucks. Connecticut’s was annoying enough that starting a company with friends in order to do electronics research (and get group health rates) was cheaper than paying for individual insurance.

There are multiple law firms whose main purpose in life is to help disabled people who were denied benefits get them. From what I hear, anyone with a permanent disability is VERY likely to need them at least once in their lives.

The American Puritanical Work Ethic really sucks.

ETA:
“Former feminist who found Christ”??? Then ignored everything He taught about women, got it!

Re:. Kentucky: McConnell is a political survivor though. In 1996 the Dems ran Steve Beshear who at the time was a fairly well liked ex-AG (and would go on to win 2 terms as Governor, while maintaining one of the better approval ratings at the time) and McConnell still cleaned his clock (if memory serves Beshear’s only loss in a statewide general election).

Latest thing that has Hannity in a tizzy:

http://www.pushtrumpoffacliffagain.com/

JS, that’s what I’ve read, too, but I just don’t understand how she was shot…did it go *through* the door? I mean, not out the window?

No current information on specifics, though it is quite possible for a handgun to shoot through a car door.

I can’t think what would convince any female-identifying person to cease to be feminist. This is baffling as well as sad.

Money. The wanker welfare circuit = Cha-ching!

Sinkable John: As someone who currently owns literally the only pair of running shoes in the running-shoe store that fit her, my sympathies to you and your feet.
(Double-wide feet, stubby toes, very high arch. I love it when the weather gets warm enough for hiking sandals. They used to be regular wide but they spread, and I never want to hear again that “these are made wider than the average sneaker”. Not gonna fit, trust me.)

I can’t think what would convince any female-identifying person to cease to be feminist. This is baffling as well as sad.

Let’s say you’re a young woman, and you are full of rage at men and you think this makes you a feminist. You don’t know what a feminist really is, so you adhere to strawman feminism, which is what you think feminism is all about. It’s the only “feminism” you know, so you perform that.

Then you come to a point in your life where you no longer hate men, and think that because strawman feminists are man-haters, this means you’re not a feminist anymore. You’re also happier this way, and better-adjusted. So you say you’re not a feminist anymore (but you totes were at one point) and have negative feelings toward feminism and people who identify as feminists.

This isn’t a pure hypothetical: I once knew an “ex-feminist” who took this trajectory. My point is that it’s possible for someone to claim to be an ex-feminist and honestly believe this to be the case. It requires one to not look very deeply into feminism, and to associate only with other people who think strawman feminism is real feminism, but these requirements are easy to meet.