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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I very much doubt you'd find much support for mandatory voting in this country. Probably along free speech grounds; freedom to express yourself also means freedom to not do it.
Not to mention that before we could even begin to talk about mandatory voting, we have to end voter suppression, or we'd be criminalizing disenfranchisement.
^ Why not just let "Republican" become the new "Nazi"?
I eagerly await the day Godwin's Law is expanded to include comparing people to Republicans.
edited 4th May '17 8:56:30 PM by Wryte
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Some are simply Free Market ideologues (private insurance is the best to them), others are Prosperity Gospel believers (only bad people are poor in their eyes), others don't want to buck the party line, others don't want to go against Trump, and others just want to beat the Democratic Party. Most are a combination of the above. There's no single term that really captures what they are.
The ones who voted for it without even bothering to read it though? I have no qualms with simply calling them "fucking idiots".
I'd steer clear of the Nazi comparisons at least until the GOP actually starts rounding up people in camps to be gassed to death.
edited 4th May '17 9:00:53 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedSeeing that the GOP apparently loves and idolizes Andrew Jackson, over people like Eisenhower or Theodore Roosevelt, indicates that something is deeply wrong. Like, they love bringing up the "Democrats are the party of slavery" thing, but I'm not sure that they know Jackson was a Democrat? Like, what's wrong with Theodore Roosevelt? (Yes, I know he held some nasty views, but that's not what I'm talking about.) The guy is practically a folk hero who overcame asthma and became the most hilariously outdoorsy person ever. But instead they hold up people who would be disgusted at what they're trying to do, (because seriously, I'm pretty sure that if Lincoln was handed the opportunity to give proper modern healthcare to everyone, he would have jumped at the chance) or people who really shouldn't be looked up to.
Although it is kind of funny that the period when the Republican Party was the most stable and functional was when it was essentially being puppeteered by the Rockefellers, which the current Republicans will bend over backwards to avoid even hinting at. So, basically, the Republicans were at their best when they were being controlled by an enormously wealthy family of globalist Jews.
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I've started calling the current crop of Republicans "degenerates". The politicians, not the voters. Many of the voters are simply trapped in a tragedy. The politicians have certainly fallen way short of the ideals, and they've done it deliberately.
edited 4th May '17 9:07:49 PM by Zendervai
Oh, an ode to our ancient Party of LincolnTM sallying forth from their southern stronghold; boldly fighting for the union
; not saying but proving in word and deed! to have malice towards all and charity towards none; and who sincerely invoke our sacred cow and not to worry for this does not at all heavily imply that the last good thing they've done was almost 200 years ago.
note
So here's a question: If this revolting piece of rotting parchment new Trumpcare act gets through the Senate, exactly how long would it take for all of it to actually get implemented? Because here's things as I see it. If this passes the Senate, everyone who voted for it will quite possibly have just committed political suicide, (assuming that those who voted for it in the House haven't done so already,) making the probability of a Blue Wave in 2018 that much more likely. So depending on how long it would take Trumpcare to actually implement, it might be possible for a newly Democract house and Senate to come in and effectively reverse Trumpcare while putting Obamacare with the serial numbers filed off in its' place. And if Trumpcare hasn't actually been fully implemented by this point, then there's nothing stopping them from doing so.
edited 4th May '17 10:13:22 PM by kkhohoho
It's only political suicide if the victims understand who to blame. Now, the good news is that at least some of the Democrats, including those in deep red states like West Virginia and Missouri are working hard to make sure that message filters through to the voters there. I quoted him on it before, and I'll repeat it again—when Joe Manchin says he told Trump that West Virginia voters will "know who took away their healthcare" I really, really hope he's right.
Right now, probably the single most important thing for Democrats to do is to get the memo out there that the GOP really is trying to kill its constituents. With every Senate Democrat onboard with the idea that this bill is trash, and even the most cautious members of the party's red state caucus prepared to resist it (at least as it stands) this seems doable. They just need to get the message out there (the easy part) and make it stick (the hard part).
I'm pretty sure the Religous Freedom EO was to distract from Trumpcare, actually.
Georgia sixth may flip yet. A federal judge on Thursday declared that a Georgia law that closes voter resistration 2 months earlier than the federal limit to be voter suppression, and ordered Georgia to temporarily reopen voter registration until May 21. The Republican candidate actually seems worried about it.
edited 5th May '17 4:27:18 AM by megaeliz
Reaching back a few pages, buuuut...
They aren't evil for evil's sake, surely?
@Wildcard, 187036
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Perhaps not. Huffington quoted juror opinions, which have nothing to do with the charge. Desiree Fairooz was still indicted for "engaging in “disorderly or disruptive conduct” with the intent to disrupt congressional proceedings (read: laughing). The jurors don't decide the charges (usually, sort of) and her behavior towards the cop was irrelevant to both.
This is relevant:
EDIT: Ok, there's this:
edited 5th May '17 7:36:54 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesThe key point here is this one:
In other words, she wasn't arrested for laughing (though the prosecution did indeed argue that she could have been, under strict interpretation of the law). She laughed, she was asked to leave for being disruptive, and she responded by becoming more disruptive. That's why she was arrested and charged, not just for the laugh.
edited 5th May '17 7:21:26 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.As I understand it, the way this bill was put together and sent down for voting on meant that almost no-one had the time to read it before voting on it, even if they wanted to. That's where there were people getting together in groups to read (publicly comment on) different parts of the bill's content: there was so little time given for reading the content that even the people who wanted to whistleblow the content had to be strategic about how they could obtain a summary of it in the short time possible (by assigning different sections to different people).
It sounds like the 'no' Republicans were leaned on very heavily in the last 24 hours and promised the earth to meet their concerns - and with no-one able to properly read it in time, there's a question mark about whether even some of the Republicans knew what they were voting for.
I guess we'll have to see if there's any "Billgretters" afterwards.
I've also noticed that the Senate Republicans may not be the lifeline people want them to be, given that at least one of them has stated that, while they're working on another version of the bill, he's really proud of the House Republicans for passing it (I think it was John Cornyn).
edited 5th May '17 8:03:17 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.James Comey is not a senator, so it should be someone else. Also don't forget that under the Senate rules, they ought to get a CBO report first before the parliamentarian can decide which kind of vote is necessary to pass it.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yeah, that's not particularly surprising. This stopped being about the actual contents of any healthcare bill along time ago.