Trump's influence waning?

[Juvenal]

Dude, that was his excuse. People say they do things for one reason when it is clear that wasn't the motivation all the time.

And if it was his actual reason, what would he have said? The same thing?

The only thing clear is that you're constructing an unfalsifiable hypothesis, a conspiracy theory.

How long have you been a member of the communist party. Yeah, that's just what I'd expect a commie to say.

[rogue06]

And if it was his actual reason, what would he have said? The same thing?

The only thing clear is that you're constructing an unfalsifiable hypothesis, a conspiracy theory.

How long have you been a member of the communist party. Yeah, that's just what I'd expect a commie to say.

But the claim offered is falsified by the fact that he was a part of the process, literally helping to shepherd the bill along by "helping it in a key procedural vote." That makes any claim that he was opposed to the process untenable in the extreme. Even if it were his actual reason, then when he was "helping it in a key procedural vote" was the time to object. The fact he was silent about it until after his "no" vote is yet another reason to doubt it.

Moreover, keep in mind this was a man who got in a screaming match with his daughter and doctor, who were strenuously advising him against flying back to D.C. right after brain surgery because he risked a brain hemorrhage, because he insisted he needed to go vote. To vote no -- because he was dissatisfied with the process that he himself was involved in? Really? You are going to risk your life over being unsatisfied with a process? Something you didn't think was important enough to mention during that process. Like when he was "helping it in a key procedural vote."

Go ahead and tell me how any of that makes sense.

Finally, there is even a different excuse offered -- that it didn't do enough in repealing and replacing it. I don't think he ever gave even the slightest indication that he was a whole loaf or none sort on this issue, and the fact that it was only offered after the vote and not mentioned earlier again makes it suspect.




Btw, not really that pertinent but McCain: Obama Thanked Me for My Vote to Save Obamacare

[Juvenal]

But the claim offered is falsified by the fact that he was a part of the process, literally helping to shepherd the bill along by "helping it in a key procedural vote." That makes any claim that he was opposed to the process untenable in the extreme. Even if it were his actual reason, then when he was "helping it in a key procedural vote" was the time to object. The fact he was silent about it until after his "no" vote is yet another reason to doubt it.

Moreover, keep in mind this was a man who got in a screaming match with his daughter and doctor, who were strenuously advising him against flying back to D.C. right after brain surgery because he risked a brain hemorrhage, because he insisted he needed to go vote. To vote no -- because he was dissatisfied with the process that he himself was involved in? Really? You are going to risk your life over being unsatisfied with a process? Something you didn't think was important enough to mention during that process. Like when he was "helping it in a key procedural vote."

Go ahead and tell me how any of that makes sense.

First, strip out the parts that ain’t true.

The screaming match didn’t happen. Meghan did say she was screaming to anybody’d who would listen, but nobody said the doctor or the senator joined in. Click-bait headlines notwithstanding.

For what it’s worth, most of the country has found it remarkably easy to ignore Meghan’s hysterics, and I’m guessing her dad was no exception. And for what it’s worth, he survived the flight just fine, which is all the confirmation needed to show Meghan was wrong, as is any argument based on her being right.

Then eliminate the faulty arithmetic.

Without McCain’s trip to DC, the vote on skinny repeal would have failed 49-50 instead of 49-51.

Then lose the equivocations.

The procedural vote you’re citing was merely to close debate and allow the bill to come to a vote.

That’s not the process he was objecting to.
.

McCain at the time complained the legislation had been rushed to the floor without going through the normal committee process, and he leveled that same complaint against Graham-Cassidy.

“I would consider supporting legislation similar to that offered by my friends Senators Graham and Cassidy were it the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment. But that has not been the case. Instead, the specter of [the] Sept. 30 budget reconciliation deadline has hung over this entire process,” he said on Friday.

McCain also said he couldn’t back the bill without seeing a full analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Without a CBO score, McCain said, lawmakers have no “reliable answers” to questions about how much the bill will cost, how many people will be covered and how it will affect insurance premiums.

The CBO has said its analysis won’t be ready until next month.

McCain urged his colleagues to try to craft a bipartisan healthcare bill using “regular order.”

“We should not be content to pass health-care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009. If we do so, our success could be as short-lived as theirs,” he said.

Is there anything left of your argument to reconcile.

Finally, there is even a different excuse offered -- that it didn't do enough in repealing and replacing it. I don't think he ever gave even the slightest indication that he was a whole loaf or none sort on this issue, and the fact that it was only offered after the vote and not mentioned earlier again makes it suspect.

Curb the woeful impulse to claim news reports don’t exist because they couldn’t force their way into your bubble.

There was perhaps some faint hope or vague fear that despite his longstanding public positions on irregular legislation in general and the contemporary sequence of increasingly slapdash alternatives to the ACA in particular, McCain was returning to DC to push the repeal effort forward another step. But those hopes and fears were contrary to everything we knew at the time.

It was never the case that he was the deciding vote on repeal of the ACA. There were alternatives to skinny repeal, including the BCRA which had already received his vote and no bar to continuing those efforts in a more regular process. Moreover, skinny repeal voided the $800 billion in proposed savings from the AHCA that was decisive in its ability to pass the House. The “skinny” of it was a “repeal” that left most of the ACA intact. It would not have survived the reconciliation process.

Rational folks recognize cleaning the pots and pans isn’t a goal in itself but is instead intended to keep foul tastes and contaminants out of the cooked meals.

I suspect McCain’s interest in “regular order” was similarly in service of creating robust legislation that would withstand the tests of judicial scrutiny and time. Because that is, after all, what he said, repeatedly, in the news reports you couldn’t be bothered to read. And because I’m not a partisan hack who takes public statements in direct contradiction to my hackery and crafts them into conspiracy theories to reconcile the cognitive dissonance.

What really doesn’t make sense is how you go from anything you’ve cited to an argument that his no vote was intended to poke a finger in Trump’s eye. Personal vindictiveness was Trump’s game, and while redirecting that accusation may be emotionally satisfying to whatever’s left of Republicanism, and consistent with the theme of despoiling the defenseless dead, it’s not a game that can be played without turning the winners into losers.

So please, by all means, forge ahead.

[CivilDiscourse]

First, strip out the parts that ain’t true.

The screaming match didn’t happen. Meghan did say she was screaming to anybody’d who would listen, but nobody said the doctor or the senator joined in. Click-bait headlines notwithstanding.

For what it’s worth, most of the country has found it remarkably easy to ignore Meghan’s hysterics, and I’m guessing her dad was no exception. And for what it’s worth, he survived the flight just fine, which is all the confirmation needed to show Meghan was wrong, as is any argument based on her being right.

Honestly, this has to be one of the dumbest arguments I've seen you make.

It is the equivalent of arguing that "I smoked every day for 85 years and didn't get cancer, therefore my daughter who said it was likely to kill me based on the doctors advice was wrong."

[rogue06]

First, strip out the parts that ain’t true.

The screaming match didn’t happen. Meghan did say she was screaming to anybody’d who would listen, but nobody said the doctor or the senator joined in. Click-bait headlines notwithstanding.

For what it’s worth, most of the country has found it remarkably easy to ignore Meghan’s hysterics, and I’m guessing her dad was no exception. And for what it’s worth, he survived the flight just fine, which is all the confirmation needed to show Meghan was wrong, as is any argument based on her being right.

Then eliminate the faulty arithmetic.

Without McCain’s trip to DC, the vote on skinny repeal would have failed 49-50 instead of 49-51.

Then lose the equivocations.

The procedural vote you’re citing was merely to close debate and allow the bill to come to a vote.

That’s not the process he was objecting to.
.

McCain at the time complained the legislation had been rushed to the floor without going through the normal committee process, and he leveled that same complaint against Graham-Cassidy.

“I would consider supporting legislation similar to that offered by my friends Senators Graham and Cassidy were it the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment. But that has not been the case. Instead, the specter of [the] Sept. 30 budget reconciliation deadline has hung over this entire process,” he said on Friday.

McCain also said he couldn’t back the bill without seeing a full analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Without a CBO score, McCain said, lawmakers have no “reliable answers” to questions about how much the bill will cost, how many people will be covered and how it will affect insurance premiums.

The CBO has said its analysis won’t be ready until next month.

McCain urged his colleagues to try to craft a bipartisan healthcare bill using “regular order.”

“We should not be content to pass health-care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009. If we do so, our success could be as short-lived as theirs,” he said.

Is there anything left of your argument to reconcile.



Curb the woeful impulse to claim news reports don’t exist because they couldn’t force their way into your bubble.

There was perhaps some faint hope or vague fear that despite his longstanding public positions on irregular legislation in general and the contemporary sequence of increasingly slapdash alternatives to the ACA in particular, McCain was returning to DC to push the repeal effort forward another step. But those hopes and fears were contrary to everything we knew at the time.

It was never the case that he was the deciding vote on repeal of the ACA. There were alternatives to skinny repeal, including the BCRA which had already received his vote and no bar to continuing those efforts in a more regular process. Moreover, skinny repeal voided the $800 billion in proposed savings from the AHCA that was decisive in its ability to pass the House. The “skinny” of it was a “repeal” that left most of the ACA intact. It would not have survived the reconciliation process.

Rational folks recognize cleaning the pots and pans isn’t a goal in itself but is instead intended to keep foul tastes and contaminants out of the cooked meals.

I suspect McCain’s interest in “regular order” was similarly in service of creating robust legislation that would withstand the tests of judicial scrutiny and time. Because that is, after all, what he said, repeatedly, in the news reports you couldn’t be bothered to read. And because I’m not a partisan hack who takes public statements in direct contradiction to my hackery and crafts them into conspiracy theories to reconcile the cognitive dissonance.

What really doesn’t make sense is how you go from anything you’ve cited to an argument that his no vote was intended to poke a finger in Trump’s eye. Personal vindictiveness was Trump’s game, and while redirecting that accusation may be emotionally satisfying to whatever’s left of Republicanism, and consistent with the theme of despoiling the defenseless dead, it’s not a game that can be played without turning the winners into losers.

So please, by all means, forge ahead.

Do you seriously expect McCain to come out and say that, in spite of repeatedly claiming he wanted Obamacare repealed that he cast the deciding vote to save it because he was an angry, spiteful man who was more interested in sticking it to Trump than doing what was best for the country?

His funeral, which he was the architect for, was one long "Screw you Trump" ceremony, which shows just how obsessed he was with sticking his thumb into the eye of Trump.

But you are correct that the doctor wasn't involved in the screaming match -- something Meghan says did happen in her book John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls

When she was a host on the View one of the other shrews commented on how her father really stuck it to Trump with his vote and she was sitting there with a smug smile nodding her head in agreement. I'm looking for anything from that show but given she didn't say anything but just shook her head in agreement might make this search a difficult one at best.

[Mountain Man]

Honestly, this has to be one of the dumbest arguments I've seen you make.

It is the equivalent of arguing that "I smoked every day for 85 years and didn't get cancer, therefore my daughter who said it was likely to kill me based on the doctors advice was wrong."

It's the magic rock argument. "This rock keeps tigers away. How do I knnow it works? Because I don't see any tigers."

[CivilDiscourse]

It's the magic rock argument. "This rock keeps tigers away. How do I knnow it works? Because I don't see any tigers."

I don't need a bike helmet. Adults these days rode all the time as kids without bikes, and we survived.
I don't need a seat belt. I drive all the time without one and I survive.

[Juvenal]

Honestly, this has to be one of the dumbest arguments I've seen you make.

I live for unwitting irony.

It is the equivalent of arguing that "I smoked every day for 85 years and didn't get cancer, therefore my daughter who said it was likely to kill me based on the doctors advice was wrong."

No it's not.

McCain's brain cancer was actual. He was dying from it. The lung cancer you're equivocating is potential. The octogenarian wasn't dying from it. The flight was intended to mitigate a short-term risk. Lung cancer risk for an 85-year-old lifetime smoker is long-term, and can't be mitigated much by quitting.

Meaning the proposed analogy was nonsense standing alone, even before it was chosen for a stage prop.

To be generous, I might guess you know the differences there but that's not the most likely scenario. More likely you're hunting for an objection and this was the best you could do before you ran out of brain juice, so you'll stick with it, no matter how flawed.

We don't know if the doctor advised against the flight. More likely he gave Meghan a worst case and she drama-queened it with her dad thinking she could make the old man bend to her will by throwing a tantrum. Because that never worked before, and like any bad idea she'd grown fond of it. If an argument needs to be screamed, that's pretty good evidence that all it's got going for it is volume.

McCain was dying from brain cancer. He had about a year left, and less than that of active life, and chose to spend that year doing things he thought were meaningful.

It's too late to deny a dying man his last pleasures, but not too late to stop dragging the dead bodies of American heroes behind your stolen humvees to satisfy your inner Somali terrorist. I know, I know. It's a bad idea, and you've grown fond of it.

[Mountain Man]

Sixteen Republican candidates backed by former President Donald J. Trump enjoyed sweeping election wins in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota Tuesday night, putting Trump’s endorsement record at 116-7 in 2022.

https://www.breitbart.com/midterm-el...erfect-streak/

[Mountain Man]

Candidates backed by former President Donald J. Trump had a near-perfect night in the South Carolina, Nevada, and North Dakota primaries Tuesday evening as 12 candidates secured their nominations, while only one lost her race. Trump’s endorsement record now stands at 129-8 in Republican primaries this midterm election cycle.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...wins-sc-nv-nd/

[rogue06]

Yesterday the Republicans took a Democrat seat that has been Democrat for 150 years and is the district with the second largest Hispanic population in the country. Obama and Hillary took it by +30 points and the duffer took it but in the teens. The DNC poured a good deal of money into this safest of safe districts to make sure it stayed blue but it looks like the Republican, who ran on border security, will win by about 5 points.

Democrats kept saying it wouldn't happen because Trump wasn't on the ballot. They claimed that Hispanics like Trump because they like bombastic jerks to be their leader (racist stereotype much?), but they still lost this deep blue seat without Trump on the ballot.

[Mountain Man]

Yesterday the Republicans took a Democrat seat that has been Democrat for 150 years and is the district with the second largest Hispanic population in the country. Obama and Hillary took it by +30 points and the duffer took it but in the teens. The DNC poured a good deal of money into this safest of safe districts to make sure it stayed blue but it looks like the Republican, who ran on border security, will win by about 5 points.

Democrats kept saying it wouldn't happen because Trump wasn't on the ballot. They claimed that Hispanics like Trump because they like bombastic jerks to be their leader (racist stereotype much?), but they still lost this deep blue seat without Trump on the ballot.

Mayra Flores is her name, and she is absolutely gorgeous.

[rogue06]

Mayra Flores is her name, and she is absolutely gorgeous.

h3-mayra-flores-special-house-election-texas.jpg

Cool your jets there. She's married. And to a border patrol officer FWIU.

I've heard that she's also the first person born in Mexico to be elected to Congress. If so, that would be hyped by the MSM big time -- except she's a Republican so it gets ignored.

[Mountain Man]

h3-mayra-flores-special-house-election-texas.jpg

Cool your jets there. She's married. And to a border patrol officer FWIU.

I've heard that she's also the first person born in Mexico to be elected to Congress. If so, that would be hyped by the MSM big time -- except she's a Republican so it gets ignored.

So if she's married, I'm not allowed to observe that she's gorgeous?

And, yes, her election win very soundly kicks the liberal "Republicans don't care about Hispanics" narrative to the curb.

[seanD]

h3-mayra-flores-special-house-election-texas.jpg

Cool your jets there. She's married. And to a border patrol officer FWIU.

I've heard that she's also the first person born in Mexico to be elected to Congress. If so, that would be hyped by the MSM big time -- except she's a Republican so it gets ignored.

We've been told that there are no people of color in the GOP. They're all white supremacists by default. At best, they're just naive and ignorant minorities being used or misled by the GOP.