NBC News reports from the Senate debate over shutting down the government today, where Texas Sen. Ted Cruz just wrapped up his 21-hour pseudo filibuster:
Arizona Sen. John McCain lit into Ted Cruz's marathon speech against Obamacare shortly after the Texas senator's 21-hour effort came to its conclusion on Wednesday.
[John] McCain, Republicans' 2008 presidential nominee, castigated the effort to use the specter of a government shutdown to defund Obamacare. But more pointedly, McCain sharply criticized Cruz for likening those who oppose defunding Obamacare to Nazi appeasers before World War II.
"I resoundingly reject that allegation. That allegation, in my view, does a great disservice," McCain said on the Senate floor. "I do not agree with that comparison; I think it's wrong."
Cruz had said Tuesday on the Senate floor in reference to those who are skeptical of the effort to undo Obamacare: "I suspect those same pundits who say it can't be done, if it had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. Then they would have made television. They would have gotten beyond carrier pigeons and beyond letters and they would have been on tv and they would have been saying, 'You cannot defeat the Germans.'"
It's not the first time Sen. John McCain has called out the excesses, rhetorical or otherwise, of the "Tea Party"-aligned crop of new and newly prominent Republicans in Congress. It's often the case that invoking a universally-regarded evil like the Nazis, in defense against which so many Americans died, clarifies not the point being made by the politician going there–only the ridiculous exaggerations they're willing to make to justify their behavior. However you feel about "Obamacare," there is nothing about it that any reasonable person would compare to Nazi Germany. It's simply absurd.
And seriously, don't go all "Nazi" in front of a combat veteran like John McCain without a very good reason.
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Isn't this a blog about Colorado politics? If I want to read about John McCain I'll go to Daily Kos.
I guess you must be running out of things to talk about in Colorado, since it's all bad news for liberals here…
In your case it would be Red States so don't let the mouse hit you on the way out.
I would say that the shutdown of our national government will have a colossal impact on Colorado recovery efforts so it does have comment potential when we witness Republicans airing thier disagreements in public over something as stupid Nazi analogies.
We discuss lots of national issues here. Always have. Is this the first time you've noticed?. If you really haven't noticed, a quick review of pretty much any thread will bring to your attention the fact that lots of non-Colorado pols and issues not specific to Colorado are discussed pretty much every day. Reagan ring a bell? I think we even have several recently posted pictures.
We even have the occasional Hawaii political news item here 🙂
Not to mention the freaking Russian Eurovision videos.
. . . almost as entertaining, and well appreciated, as our trolls!
Okay – try adding this to the end of the diary…
"Sen. McCain was responding to the upcoming threat of a Federal government shutdown, which would have serious immediate consequences for Colorado's economy, with troops stationed here being paid in IOUs, Medicaid payments being delayed or denied, and Federal road construction project funding drying up."
Now it's a Colorado diary. And Sen. McCain is still right (this time).
John McCain should understand that Republicans are going to fight Obamacare with everything they have. I don't support a shutdown, but I want every American to know that Republicans didn't stop fighting Obamacare until the end. If Obamacare comes apart at the seams as McCain and I both believe it will, I want the American people to know we did everything we could.
I don't condone Nazi analogies, but I respect Ted Cruz for fighting the good fight. I respect John McCain too, but he needs to realize that Obamacare is not business as usual. The fight against socialized medicine must go on.
You aren't really familiar with the word "socialized," are you?
I don't suppose we could get an FAQ on this site… 'cause some common definitions would be useful. "Socialist" is at the top of the list.
I think it's socialist that we all speak the same language.
From Merriam Webster
Obamacare doesn't affect private ownership of insurance companies. There are already certain controls, that is regulations, in place governing this and every industry. No Democrats I am aware of advocate government ownership, nationalization, of our major industries.
Republicans and Libertarians either don't know what socialism means or know perfectly well but find there is still some residual cold war paranoia left to be milked out of the term when applied to anything to do with the non-golden safety net for non-golden Americans or with any rational 21st century healthcare strategy.
Effective way to keep Joe Six Pack voting against his own interests. As for the more affluent sectors of the middle class, wouldn't you really rather risk bankruptcy if you get really sick, even though you do have insurance, than become a, gasp, socialist?
And there you have it.
We have "socialized" medicine today. Because we have ten's of millions of uninsured using ER's for their only access to healthcare, we, the taxpayers are stuck with the unpaid bills, which are higher than if they got regular care from a family physician or neighborhood clinic. You know the old GOP Mantra: privatize profits and socialize the losses. That's they system they are fighting to save.
So all our premiums go up, and the deficit goes up due to runaway medical costs. ACA is the modest first step in breaking that vicious cycle by having citizens direct their money into the pockets of private insurance companies (ok, maybe that fits your definition of socialism?) to pay for more efficiently delivered care (preventive care, care from a trusted professional that knows your history, etc.).
As with most things Tea Party — logic has nothing to do with it. Fear and Ignorance Rules!
Yep. When we don't let children whose parents are uninsured and can't produce the cash be admitted to the ER then we will truly have pure free market healthcare. But that's not the way we do it.
As long as we admit and treat and cover the costs for those children then we do have a form of socialized medicine, universal healthcare, whatever you want to call it.
So all those who are supposedly resisting universal health care are a little late. It's not that we don't have it. We do. It's just that the kind we have is really crappy and inadequate and costs at least twice as much as the quality universal health care all the other civilized countries have. We're number nowhere even close to one. Cheers for us? Seriously?
What the connection is between freedom, mom, apple pie and the American way and Americans continuing to pay the most per capita of any country on the planet for health care, including all those ER bills, while getting so much less bang for the buck escapes me. You'd think righties l would be for getting the best value for their money.
Don't know what that extra "I" is left over from. Oh for a really easy to use preview/edit.
end?
In the late 20's and early 30's Social Security was the slippery slope to Cummunism – no serious politician of any party affiliation has tried to repeal it. And we are not communist.
After that it was the military industrial complex that was going to ruin us.
In the late 50's early 60's it was Medicare, the sure step on the path to socialism and then communism.
In the 90's it was sex.
And now it's Obamacare.
When it's implemented and most people hate it, the GOTP need only shake their heads, mutter "told ya" and win every important election in 2014, 2016 and 2018.
Democracy works. Win some elections, legislate like you care about every American, and you will win some more.
Instead, do what you've been doing since ….2008 and see how that works out. GLWAT.
Sex was going to lead to communism???
No, sex led to our military-industrial ruin. Communism led to the demise of the Soviet Union. Mary Ayn Rand led the sheep home from Gilligan's Island. And, FOX news led to the end of reason . . .
And when Mary Ayn Rand was leading the sheep home, she upbraided them for their lack of initiative and their "herd mind".
"What are you, a bunch of sheep?"
You need to drink. Just a little (just a bit less than 2 drinks) – and then, but only then, will the secrets of the Inebriati become clear.
I thought godless communism was supposed to lead to sex. You mean it's the other way around?
moderatus…
please explain to me how the ACA consitutes socialized medicine…or I will be forced to use a very unkind, but funny, ad hominem attack upon you to demonstrate my contempt for your continued inappropriate mislabeling of our nations' new health care law.
How am I doin', guys?
+100
If you don't condone Nazi analogies, how can you say Cruz fought "the good fight?"
“You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”
~The Princess Bride
PS: It's hard to miss the irony that the moral of the story "Green Eggs and Ham" was that you should't say you don't like something until you've tried it….
"I do so love green eggs and ham."
And green eggs and bacon. And ice cream and bacon. And pre-existing coverage and bacon.
It really is the ingredient that makes everything better. Next time you make beef stew, fry up some bacon first, brown the flour dredged beef cubes in bacon grease augmented with butter, don't crowd the cubes, add some red wine along with usual liquid and bacon pieces along with the usual stuff you like to throw in and voila! Really yummy, classy beef stew without all the fuss of slavishly following Julia Child's beef bourguignon recipe.
Now what were we talking about, again? I think I need to run out and by some high grade chuck. Already have the bacon.
Ruining a good book. Thanks, Ted Cruz. Just please, stay the hell away from "Good night, Moon," or "Where the Wild Things Are". I would like to have some books that I can still read to my grandchildren.
You noticed that, too, MichaelBowman? I burst out laughting at the television when I heard what that clown was reading. And what's that they say, "The first one to bring up Nazis or Hitler loses the argument."?
As partially noted earlier, we have all kinds of socialized medicine in America: Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and as Geo.Bush The Younger noted: "No one in America has to go without healthcare.Just go to any emergency room and you will be treated." He failed to add "And the cost of your care will be passed on to insured patients in the form of $10.00 Tylenols, $5 Band-aids and sugeries that cost, at minimum, twice what they do in countries with evil socialized medicine."
Left out the VA. So we're all a bunch of socialists already, by the righties' definition if not by the actual definition. We're all covering the ER costs of the uninsured already. Then why are we having arguments about whether or not to have something we clearly already have instead of discussions on how to do it rationally for less than half the money and with better outcomes, the way it's done in the rest of the 21st century modern industrialized world? The whole thing is not so much Green Eggs and Ham as pure Through the Looking Glass nuts.
As long as we're noting Cruz's offensive WW2-era analogies…
He said this too:
Cruz, as he approached the conclusion of his overnight speech, thanked the Senate staff and others "who have endured this Bataan death march."
he does not only over emphasize his own contribution but he dilutes to meaningless something like Bataan
Know thyself, John McCain.
By selling out and legitimizing Sarah Palin and her Tea Party followers in 2008, McCain empowered the people he now denounces. He was stuck–he could do what he did, or he could have stood by his established conservative "maverick" positions and won more moderate/independents, but lost the far right Repubs. At another time in our history he might have had a better shot to make the presidency. As it is, he betrayed his own credibility, and now we're supposed to take him seriously? I agree with him in this case but don't have any trust in his integrity–He burned his bridges with me when he stood by and let a brother officer and decorated veteran be smeared by a partisan campaign of lies. Maybe that's too harsh but he is going to have to deliver some real movement in the Repub caucus to earn any cred as a leader.
+10 RavenDawg!
And there was enough reluctance to vote for a black guy with a funny foreign African/Muslim name that McCain might have pulled it off by tacking back toward the center after winning the nomination, maybe losing a piece of the wacko fringe (most would have come over to oppose their idea of the Prince of Darkness anyway) but with a lot of people in the middle jumping on board who might have been relieved to excuse themselves from voting for Obama if the other option had been good ol' Maverick McCain instead of blatantly dense and loony Palin a hear beat away from the presidency. Obama definitely benefited from bad advice accepted by both HRC and McCain. Speaking of which HRC had better boot the old team this time out.
Newsman Colbert reports on Canadian Senator's heroic effort to waste America's time.