They had a party

The House Republicans were carrying on as if throwing millions of people off health insurance were an exciting football game this morning.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his GOP leadership team held what amounted to a pep rally for rank-and-file members in the Capitol basement Thursday morning as they predicted victory in their push to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

Leaders played the “Rocky” theme song as lawmakers walked into the meeting. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put an image of George S. Patton on the screen and read inspirational quotes from the general.

“Let’s get this f–king thing done!” Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) told her colleagues, according to sources in the room.

PAR-DEE!

Then they got that fucking thing done, and had a party for real.

They had a party in Washington on Thursday. They had a party in the Capitol and then they all got into nice shiny buses to roll through the tall gates of the White House to have a party there. This was an afternoon to celebrate, and these folks were going to celebrate with their President* of the United States.

They had a party in Washington on Thursday to celebrate the fact 24 million people would be made free by losing the healthcare that has made their lives easier since 2009. This was a thing to celebrate.

They had a party in Washington to celebrate that people with diabetes, or a genetic disposition to Parkinson’s, or a congenital heart defect, would be made free because their insurance rates would be subject to the kind ministrations of Republican governors like Sam Brownback, or Republican state legislatures like the one presently sitting in the newly insane state of North Carolina. This was a thing to celebrate.

They had a party in Washington to celebrate that one state—Mississippi? Kansas?—could bring freedom by restoring lifetime limits on employer-based healthcare coverage for 129 million Americans. This was a thing to celebrate.

They had a party in Washington to celebrate the fact that taking healthcare from poor people was enough to give the top two percent of Americans a trillion-dollar tax cut. This was a thing to celebrate.

Scum. I hope they all get voted out and can’t get other jobs and find themselves broke and without health insurance. Every damn one of them.

Charles Pierce feels much the same way.

This was a bill constructed to be as cruel as possible to as many people as possible for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans and to give a “win” to an incompetent and vulgar talking yam that flukes and circumstance have placed at the head of a once-great republic. It is an altogether remarkable piece of American political history that should follow the people celebrating it to their graves, to which they will be proceeded by thousands of their fellow citizens, who might not have, had there not been so much to celebrate on Thursday, in Washington, among all the tomb-white monuments.

Amen.

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