By David Futrelle
I find a lot of interesting and funny stuff on Twitter every day so I thought I’d try rounding some of that up for you all on a regular, perhaps even daily basis. Today, it’s all (or mostly) about the FAILURE of the Republican’s attempts to destroy healthcare. A good day (so far, but it’s not even noon yet where I live)!
Sorry, international readers, but today’s tweet collection is pretty US-centric. But there is a tweet about New Zealand if you scroll down enough.
Sen. McConnell takes a deep breath and begins inflating his neck pouch in a show of anger at the failure of #SkinnyRepeal. pic.twitter.com/MTpV9x7iG1
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) July 28, 2017
LOL OWNED pic.twitter.com/qi2evWAdxH
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 28, 2017
— nick (@nick_pants) July 28, 2017
Take joy in the sadness of these bozos. pic.twitter.com/njbz8MNmIx
— TakedownMRAs (@TakedownMRAs) July 28, 2017
In the end, the president's closing message – that his attorney general is terrible – couldn't put the bill over the top
— Alex Burns (@alexanderburns) July 28, 2017
https://twitter.com/jesseberney/status/890818981568937984
Can't be said enough. The people who actually killed this bill were the activists and ordinary Americans who mobilized against it. https://t.co/l0nA1jSeEm
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) July 28, 2017
https://twitter.com/feministabulous/status/890923749637328896
Literally, we were one vote away from medical catastrophe. Do. Not. Rest.
— Phillip Atiba Goff (@DrPhilGoff) July 28, 2017
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/890894713448017921
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/890933126599409666
https://twitter.com/darth/status/890952827543011328
The three Repubs to break with McConnell and kill the bill were Collins, Murkowski and McCain.
If your Senator(s) voted no, please call and thank them! If they voted yes, call and give them hell! You can get the numbers of your Senators (and more info) at 5Calls.org Moveon.org, or on the Senate website or by calling the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
And in other news:
"Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them." https://t.co/moOsk1tqI0
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 28, 2017
https://twitter.com/AlongsideWild/status/890637074927243264
https://twitter.com/braddybb/status/890633298581504000
Why you never wear GREEN on TV🤗 pic.twitter.com/IsC8TuE3Ei
— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) July 28, 2017
Well, I despise McCain slightly less now. Of course, the republican women who have been opposing this for a while now don’t get to be called mavericky mavericks who favor people over party, but what can you do?
I’m sorry, that last video with the green sweater broke me in ways I would rather not discuss. I – I went places I never wanted to go. I can’t handle it.
@Schnookums, silly – women can’t be mavericks, that’s a manly word! The female form of maverick is harpy, of course.
Well, phew – and congratulations to everyone who did something to apply the pressure and to keep the pressure up.
But my goodness, how I wish we didn’t need to!
Aaaand there’ll be something else ghastly along in half a minute, but for now, cheers to you all.
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes
Aaaaaaand now I’ve got a new name thanks to you 😉
Susan Collins is running for Governor when her term of office expires. Lisa Murkowski has a lot of leverage due to popularity, seniority, and the fact that she isn’t up for re-election until 2022.
McCain voted “yes” on Monday and “no” on Thursday because he is still pissed at Donnie “Bone Spurs” Trump’s crack about liking vets who weren’t captured. It was his version of inviting Romney to discuss an appointment and then ignoring him. It was petty, and we should not count on a repeat.
The legislature of New fuckin Zealand gets banned from facebook, but the literal nazis are A OK. This is real life…
That last one cracked me up.
dreemr, me, too!
Never been happier to see a sad turtle.
Reminds me of when Thatcher left Downing Street in tears after being forced to resign. So salty and delicious! Glad your healthcare is safe for now.
I’m glad the bill failed, but we must not lionize the three Republicans who voted against stripping millions of health insurance. Their basic human decency deserves an approving nod, at best, but not a standing ovation. Ultimately, as some have said, the real heroes are the ADAPT activists and everyone who called their senator or representative.
McConnell is a soulless monster. I wish him early retirement, then a very, very long life of watching everything he opposed become reality and his name dragged in the mud. I want him to die at age 95 knowing he was never more than a speed bump in the way of inevitable progress, and that everyone hates him for it. Same goes for Trump, Ryan and the rest.
As a HuffPo thinkpiece eloquently put it: I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people. This is what it feels like to argue with Republicans in 2017.
Seeing Juicebro all red-faced and bawling like a baby made my day. Ha, ha!
There are so many people who seem to think that they are totally independent and don’t need any help from society. Just try being a computer programmer in a world without electricity.
Humans have always been social animals for a reason. We have always done best in a community. We needed people to care for us when we were small, if nothing else. “No man is an island, entire of itself …” — or in Hobbes’s famous statement about humans without community, “No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
For many millennia, “man” has relied heavily on women to keep society working, so a tip of the hat to Sens. Collins and Murkowski. (I haven’t had to worry about my senators and congresscritter, because they are all Democrats — and not coincidentally, all women.)
As a Canadian I’m personally glad that this bill failed. Also that I will continue to call John McCain the Songbird of Hanoi until his final day.
Like someone else pointed out, it’s the tireless activists who risked arrests and beatings on Capitol hill and countless others who called, emailed and wrote letters to their senators and congresspeople that stopped this bill.
That story about the guy who murdered his wife because she laughed at him is so heartbreaking 🙁
From Driftglass:
Basically, McCain was Lucy pulling away the football at the last second.
Me too!
I think Trumpkins just plain don’t understand how the government actually works. They truly thought that because Trump is a noisy blowhard, he could just order his will done and it would immediately be done. I guess they weren’t paying attention in third grade when they taught about the separation of powers.
Cornyn has apparently deleted his earlier condescending tweet “Just a reminder: a bill has to pass both houses (etc. etc.)” containing a video of the “I’m Just a Bill” cartoon Schoolhouse Rock explainer. I’m guessing he got too many reminders that “if you don’t want a bill to pass, you vote against it”. And clips of the Bill going through committees in each house first, etc.
@Ravenclaw
Especially since 48 Dems also against including Mazie muffugin Hirono. And all the calls and protests. The public has spoken out, blue team seems to be holding the line, and that’s all getting lost in the narrative of the Republican Rebel Alliance.
I remember that. Great read. Speaking of, and on the subject, a recent teardown of John McCain:
http://www.gq.com/story/john-mccain-is-the-perfect-american-lie/amp
I’m not sure McCain’s shitty voting here was meant as revenge against Donald as I’ve seen suggested. McCain’s been doing this longer than I’ve been alive, and Congress used to be semi-functional. Debates were had, budgets passed, confirmation hearings held, etc. I think it might just be frustration at how absurd and farcical his coworkers have gotten, but in true Republican fashion he blames the Democrats for not cooperating instead of blaming the Tea Party for being nihilistic, incompetent assholes.
Thus his vote for beginning debate is him trying to go back to the old ways of actually working on laws, instead of using Byzantine parliamentary rules to avoid any chance of legislating. Then he saw what was proposed and had an attack of humanity, voting no on a bill that was rushed and drafted in complete secrecy.
If his biggest opposition is from the twisting of the rules, he’d probably vote yes on anything that was drafted publicly like the old days, though I suspect none of the Republicans have the discipline to actually agree on something long enough to get it to a vote.
Reminds me of the tweet I saw (I lost the link, if anyone knows the source please link it), “Who will win, an entire political party with control of all three branches of government and seven years of prep, or a single law?”
@GrumpyOld SocialJusticeMangina
I agree with everything you said. It literally astounds me when my friends and neighbors proclaim with a straight face that “no one ever gave ME any handouts!”
I live in a very rural area. Agriculture is our main business! We have plenty of subsidies and crop insurance as well as tax relief ALL underwritten by the government.
Not to even mention roads, the military, and on and on and ON.
Yet many of my neighbors feel they should not have to subsidize “lazy welfare takers” when they want to purchase a lake home to go with their winter home in Arizona (many farmers here only work from spring to harvest and take the winters off).
Oh and they don’t pay property taxes, either.
Yet they feel they are the ones being scammed. The attitude is abominable.
Folks, if you wanna bathe in some more tears, the Daily Stormer has got you covered. [As always, all the warnings apply, ’cause it’s the DS]
Here are some choice bits so you don’t have to risk precious braincells heading there :
And also three entire paragraphs about pissing on his grave, out the fly of your jeans so as to not expose your bits, which is apparently how public urination is legal (for penis-having people) in Arizona. Andy dear, I’m pretty sure even though that isn’t illegal in and of itself, desecrating a grave will still get you in trouble.
(If anyone was gonna do it, please stay sneaky and safe, especially if nazis get the same idea and go there too.)
Aaaand Drumpf just fired Reince Priebus.
Now the Chief of Staff is John F. Kelly.
Even though it may have served a useful purpose once, I have to say the filibuster has such a shameful history in the service of reactionary and racist legislation it deserves to be nuked from orbit. Defending it is like praising Zyklon-B because it rid your pantry of mice, and just ignore that business in Poland.
The filibuster was a fantastic way for cowardly legislators to let good laws die and bad ones be passed without taking a stand. All they had to do was vote against cloture.