Because the first 32 times were too subtle
Posted with permission.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/11/12686534-because-the-first-32-times-were-too-subtle?lite
Because the first 32 times were too subtle
By Steve Benen
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Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:17 PM EDT
Following up on an earlier item, the House went ahead and voted once again to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. The vanity exercise, done to make Republicans feel better about themselves, passed 244 to 185.
Five red-state Democrats sided with right, while a grand total of zero Republicans broke ranks. (Update: the five Dems, two of whom are retiring, are Oklahoma's Dan Boren, North Carolina's Larry Kissell, Utah's Jim Matheson, North Carolina's Mike McIntyre, and Arkansas' Mike Ross.)
Of course, the House bill is inconsequential -- it can't pass the Senate and wouldn't get President Obama's signature -- making this a rather pointless waste of time, which could have been devoted to job creation, immigration policy, energy policy, or anything else of any substance at all.
But it's the sheer repetition that really rankles. While House Republicans haven't even voted on any major jobs bills this entire Congress, today marked the 33rd time the House GOP felt compelled to try to gut "Obamacare," apparently because votes 1 through 32 were too subtle. Jamison Foser pointed to this great scene from "A Few Good Men," which helped summarize the problem.
Video @ link~
As for the policy, let's also not forget that literally House Republicans today voted to take away health coverage for young adults staying on their family plans, raise prescription drug prices for seniors, end protections for those with pre-existing conditions, reinstate lifetime insurance caps, scrap tax breaks for small businesses, raise the deficit, and take benefits away from 30 million Americans, all as part of a repeal crusade they can't pass.
There has to be better uses for Congress' time.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I never thought I'd see the day when even the likes of CNN started "asking questions" about whether this was wise or not. 
This is something the GOP does well that the Dems could stand to learn from. The GOP proposes bills, and conducts votes, etc, often to stake out a position and advertise their ideas, frames, etc, and reinforce how they are different from Dems and what we stand for, and what they stand for.
They've been doing this now for 30 years or so. They used to be laughed at (OK, we still laugh at them) but you know, the cumulative effect of this has been that they have won the war of memes so thoroughly that the modern Democratic party governs to the right of Nixon, and the modern GOP looks like this:
So my devil's advocate question of the day is: why don't we stake out our wish-list positions for the same reasons? How come we don't hold votes on Medicare For All, over and over and over again, regardless of whether we think it's going to pass?
If we did more of that, maybe we'd be a country governed between the far left and center left, instead of what we have now, which is between the center right and far-batshit-right.
