Your modern "moderate" in action #obamacarefogmachine @ThePlumLineGS

Your modern "moderate" in action

by digby

Otherwise known as a bucket of warm spit:

Asked if she hoped the court would rule for the plaintiffs, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, paused a moment, then said: “Yes, I guess I do. It would provide an opportunity to transition to a new law, or an improved version of the Affordable Care Act.” But she added, “I don’t think it would be fair to cut off people who have been using Obamacare subsidies.”

She hopes the Court rules against the subsidies but doesn't think it would be fair to cut off people who have been using the subsidies. That's just daft.Especially the part about how it will provide and opportunity to transition to an improved version of Obamacare. Because that's what all those votes to repeal it were all about.Right.

Nobody really knows what the Republicans are going to do about all this if the Supremes nix the subsidies. There is a ton of speculation out there and the GOP is anything but resolved about how to proceed.

But Greg Sargent has been following this very closely and has found at least one talking point around which they seem to be rallying. It's as fatuous as you might expect: they are saying that whatever they do it will be to "protect" the Obamacare recipients. Which sounds good until you hear the next part: from the terrible Obamacare law.

Here are a few examples:

Senator John Barasso: “Every Republican has great concerns about the law. I want to do nothing to protect this law. I do want to protect the people who have found that they thought they were following the law and now find out the president is acting illegally.”

Senator Mitch McConnell: "Depending on what the Supreme Court decides, we’ll have a proposal that protects the American people from a very bad law. […] What we will do is offer a proposal to protect the American people."

.@Senate_GOPs are working hard to help those hurt by Obamacare, which is a fundamentally flawed system. #BrokenPromises

— Senator John Thune (@SenJohnThune) June 8, 2015


As Sargent wrote:

Republicans will argue that the post-King chaos is the fault of the law itself, and not the fault of the Court decision (which Republicans urged on) that is knocking out a key pillar of it. In this telling, the cause of all the damage will be that Obamacare held out the false promise of economic security for millions, in the form of expanded coverage, but that security was then snatched out from under all those people (thanks to Obummer’s incompetence) when the Court clarified what the law actually says. All this is only the latest way in which Obamacare is hurting countless Americans.

It sounds pretty lame to me but I've often observed that the Republicans, being completely without shame and totally comfortable with hypocrisy, take special delight in such word games. They know it's absurd but that's what makes it so great: they tire the Democrats up in knots trying to untangle the absurdity.

Here's the most perfect example of this I've seen in years:

No shame: Democrats “appear eager” to play “shutdown politics,” block a military pay raise. http://t.co/UpAqJLtvUE

— Speaker John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) June 16, 2015


You just have to laugh. And then cry because these guys have real power and they are using it.

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