Official 2012 GOP Primaries Shitshow

[coop]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/us/po ... ml?_r=1&hp

picture for this article is beyond words

wow

[murray st.]

the look on the far right policeman's face
that guy's weird stance

just everything

[coop]

[orange farmer]

I want to work for whoever makes those Pawlenty ads. It'd be like interning for Michael Bay, but with actual free world stakes on the line.

[Feech La Manna]

Is it too early to conclude that Pawlenty is just not very good at this

[VHGisdead]

I'd like to hear Krugman's thoughts on being included in this video

[reversemigraine]

Not exactly related to the primaries, but definitely gonna come up if it moves forward:

House Republicans are preparing to introduce a 10-year budget Tuesday that will eliminate Medicare and replace it with a private insurance system that closely resembles the new health care law, and end Medicaid as an entitlement program all together.

This plan, which also will include major restructuring of the tax code and cap discretionary spending, will reduce the deficit by over $4 trillion in 10 years, according to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

Good luck explaining that to my grandma, Paul.

[Shotfrog]

Josh Marshall's response to the Pawlenty video made me lol:

In response to President Obama's reelection announcement, Tim Pawlenty has dropped yet another of his action thriller, fast-cut super-hero campaign videos. To me, I'm not sure his campaign is really going to catch fire before he debuts his official 2012 metal exoskeleton. But we'll see.

[darger]

Not exactly related to the primaries, but definitely gonna come up if it moves forward:

House Republicans are preparing to introduce a 10-year budget Tuesday that will eliminate Medicare and replace it with a private insurance system that closely resembles the new health care law, and end Medicaid as an entitlement program all together.

This plan, which also will include major restructuring of the tax code and cap discretionary spending, will reduce the deficit by over $4 trillion in 10 years, according to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

Good luck explaining that to my grandma, Paul.

i think we can all agree that the november elections were a mandate to abolish medicare.

[Feech La Manna]

Paul Ryan is such a smug piece of shit

[Jeremy]

Not exactly related to the primaries, but definitely gonna come up if it moves forward:

House Republicans are preparing to introduce a 10-year budget Tuesday that will eliminate Medicare and replace it with a private insurance system that closely resembles the new health care law, and end Medicaid as an entitlement program all together.

This plan, which also will include major restructuring of the tax code and cap discretionary spending, will reduce the deficit by over $4 trillion in 10 years, according to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

Good luck explaining that to my grandma, Paul.

i think we can all agree that the november elections were a mandate to abolish medicare.

Jesus Christ. This shit is unbelievable. At least the threat of this might clue people in to Medicare being a government program I guess.

[palmer eldritch]

Mike Huckabee won the Iowa Caucuses last time. And his political director in the state -- the person who's most important in such a contest -- just signed on with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

[fox]

Okay, that's it, I'm supporting Bachmann.

[palmer eldritch]

This medicare elimination idea seems like such a political loser. It's not going to happen, so why even put yourself out there as having this platform. Moving goalposts?

[Feech La Manna]

Privatize That

[(^_^) tasty]

when the government tries to cut costs by rationing care and cutting down on unnecessary usage of healthcare its called 'a death panel'

when aetna & humana do the same thing, it's called the free enterprise system successfully cutting down on government waste

having not yet read read ryan's specific proposal i'm going to guess that this is the principle behind it.

[reversemigraine]

This medicare elimination idea seems like such a political loser. It's not going to happen, so why even put yourself out there as having this platform. Moving goalposts?

I know the name of the game for the GOP is "privatize," but this...

replace it with a private insurance system that closely resembles the new health care law

...seems like it leaves the door wide open for Dems to say, "See, the Republicans like our plan so much they want more," at a time when the newly elected GOPers are trying to make hay off of repeal talk. House GOP is gonna have a terrible time trying to explain any of this in layman's terms to anyone who would care, and it's not like they exactly have the kinds of level-headed, respectable voices who can do that.

[Feech La Manna]

well, you see, you have the CHOICE to refuse insurance and die alone in a hole

God Bless America

[Frank]

I can't wait to see Paul Ryan's roadmap for containing health care costs.

[reversemigraine]

when the government tries to cut costs by rationing care and cutting down on unnecessary usage of healthcare its called 'a death panel'

Except that the "death panel" stuff wasn't even about rationing care.

It was just about giving grandma a pamphlet about hospice care.

[(^_^) tasty]

when the government tries to cut costs by rationing care and cutting down on unnecessary usage of healthcare its called 'a death panel'

Except that the "death panel" stuff wasn't even about rationing care.

It was just about giving grandma a pamphlet about hospice care.

you're right about how it was initially used, but the death panel rhetoric was expanded after the initial palin quotation to comprise pretty much any effort to rein in medicare costs. not sure which usage is/was more pernicious but they're both pretty disgusting.

[Jeremy]

I can't wait to see Paul Ryan's roadmap for containing health care costs.

I mean, I know to you his other roadmap was clearly stupid, but wasn't it reported on like "Relatively non-ghoulish Republican has deficit reduction plan with numbers?" People apparently don't understand this stuff so it just makes the party look "responsible."

[Feech La Manna]

yeah, I saw something recently that called Ryan a "think-tank conservative"

I wanted to throw up

[Feech La Manna]

although considering the kind of garbage that comes out of Republican think tanks...

[Frank]

I can't wait to see Paul Ryan's roadmap for containing health care costs.

I mean, I know to you his other roadmap was clearly stupid, but wasn't it reported on like "Relatively non-ghoulish Republican has deficit reduction plan with numbers?" People apparently don't understand this stuff so it just makes the party look "responsible."

It is pretty embarrassing that Ryan is looked upon as some budget guru rather than as a dude whose plan amounts to taking a black marker to entitlement programs.

[fox]

It was largely reported as if it were not just a, but the responsible deficit policy, and this by virtue of its willingness to use hard data to endorse necessary, hard decisions that the wishy-washy Washingtonian consensus was avoiding not out of political dispute, but rather moral failure.

[Frank]

It was largely reported as if it were not just a, but the responsible deficit policy, and this by virtue of its willingness to use hard data to endorse necessary, hard decisions that the wishy-washy Washingtonian consensus was avoiding not out of political dispute, but rather moral failure.

But Rome is burning, fox.

[Feech La Manna]

I'd like to think that if it actually had a chance in hell of becoming a reality, someone would have pointed out that everything about it is regressive

[Broncobama]

well, you see, you have the CHOICE to refuse insurance and die alone in a hole

God Bless America

The part that Republicans refuse to get is when you're rushed to the emergency room and they end up treating you anyway or let you die because you aren't capable of providing insurance information. Either way it's going to cost just as much. People are fucking stupid.

[fox]

It was largely reported as if it were not just a, but the responsible deficit policy, and this by virtue of its willingness to use hard data to endorse necessary, hard decisions that the wishy-washy Washingtonian consensus was avoiding not out of political dispute, but rather moral failure.

But Rome is burning, fox.

what channel again?