(Image source: The New York Times) We should probably brace ourselves for an extended Trump shutdown because there's ultimately no reason for the president to end his ongoing temper tantrum. He straight up needs this. Even though his poll numbers are crashing, the longer the ...read more

After incumbent Wisconsin governor Scott Walker lost re-election to Democrat Tony Evers last November, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a controversial bill stripping key powers away from both Evers and incoming Attorney General Josh Kaul. Under the new rules, ...read more

Last night's election was a triumph for Democrats, who managed to take back the House of Representatives and a majority of the governorships across America. Yes, there was some heartbreak along the way - Andrew Gillum lost the governorship of Florida to an unabashed racist, ...read more

If there's one thing liberals want more than anything else in the world, it's for conservatives to suffer the consequences of voting Republican and leave the rest of out of their suicide pact. And according to Vox, at least as far as having health insurance, we may be getting ...read more

Republican lawmakers in Arizona put forth Senate Bill 1394 that seeks to require more information about why a woman is getting an abortion. There are 11 proposed check boxes for women to look over and decide what best suits their decision to end their pregnancy. Reasons include: ...read more

Scary fact: More women are dying from cervical cancer than initially predicted. But don’t worry though, health care for women is a priority of this administration, right? Oh .... Wait. There’s that war on women’s health care happening so we’re really looking for a revolution. ...read more

Women are objectified everywhere we go -- even at the doctor’s office. We are faced with a misogynist system where the qualifications of our vaginas are questioned. One area where this is painfully clear is with childbirth. There is far too much fear surrounding the very act ...read more

President Donald Trump received an “excellent” bill of health by the White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. We couldn’t have expected anything less than excellent because it’s become common to use superlatives when describing 45 -- at least and especially by 45 himself. ...read more

The Banter Long Read: The current common wisdom is that the Democratic Party doesn't actually stand for anything other than running against Trump. The right wing says it. The Purity Left says it. The "liberal" media says it. So many people say it just has to be true. Except for ...read more

I went to DC this week to take meetings, and in my free time, I decided to advocate against this travesty of a mockery of a sham of a healthcare bill, Cassidy-Graham. Having seen Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speak against it from the Senate Gallery this past Monday, I ...read more

In their rush to destroy Obamacare so they can give a massive tax cut to billionaires, Republicans are throwing roughly 30 million people off their insurance. One of the ways they will accomplish this is by simply making it unaffordable. The standard right wing reply is to "get ...read more

Even though it doesn't have a chance of passing (there's not an elected Republican in America that would vote for it), the Democrats are embracing Bernie's "Medicare for All" bill.  Emboldened by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat, and the Republican effort to dismantle former ...read more

Seven months ago, The Daily Banter's Chez Pazienza marveled at the astonishing hypocrisy of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: The unfathomable, breathtaking, staggering lack of even an ounce of shame you'd have to have to say, after Republicans had publicly looked for ways ...read more

In politics, there's horse-trading, influence peddling, arm twisting and other unsavory practices to get the sausage made. It's not pretty but it's the way things get done in a democracy. This is something else altogether: WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump isn't going to just ...read more

Once upon a time, there was a political party that existed only to tear things down. They used to know how to build but they decided it was easier to destroy and they were experts at it. But one day, they took over the entire government without meaning to and quickly realized ...read more

You have to hand it to the Republicans: Even when they're trying to be less cruel, they still end up looking like monsters. At some point during the secret sessions spent writing the Senate's healthcare bill, someone noticed that the deep cuts to Medicaid would leave about 5 to ...read more

We are a nation of uninsurables. By and large, that is—at least when it comes to healthcare and true market costs. We’ll do anything to dismiss this unpleasant truth. The only thing that varies is how we dismiss it. Is there a division into liberal and conservative on this issue? ...read more

Right now, as Senate Republicans literally hide from their constituents, the debate over repealing Obamacare is almost entirely focused on how many people will lose access to healthcare and how large the tax cuts for the rich will be. Essentially, the conversation is about those ...read more

Let's rewind to 2009 when the Democrats were working on Obamacare. Despite having total control and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (for a few months, at least) the Democrats insisted trying to make the bill a bipartisan one. They let Republicans stuff dozens of ...read more

Take a few minutes to look over Jill Stein's Facebook wall and Twitter feed. If this was your primary source of information, you would literally have no idea that Republicans are on the brink of taking healthcare away from 24 million Americans to pay for a one Trillion dollar ...read more

For American journalists, interviewing the President of the United States is a big deal. Or at least it should be if you believe your job is to hold officials accountable. It’s a rare opportunity to sit down one on one with the leader of the most powerful country in the world. ...read more

There are many ways to look at what happened in the special election for a Georgia house seat on Tuesday night. Republican Karen Handel beat her Democrat opponent Jon Ossof in the traditionally red district for the seat vacated by current Health and Human Services Secretary Tom ...read more

The Republicans don't want you to know what they're doing. "The Silent Treatment" seems to be the new strategy driving the congressional GOP as well as the Trump White House.  And their most loyal disciples don't care. But they should. We'll return to this presently. The strategy ...read more

At some point in the near past, the Republican Party decided that Second Amendment rights were the only rights that are absolute and untouchable -- rights that can not be regulated or restricted in any way. Ever.  It used to be that Republican saints like Ronald Reagan could ...read more

If there’s one thing you can always rely on Senator John McCain for, it’s doing his best to scare the American public. The Arizona Republican’s penchant for supporting aggressive military action against a variety of menacing actors overseas, or at the very least, consistently ...read more

At the same time Donald Trump is discussing working out a deal (because he's a terrific deal-maker, the best!) with the Democrats on a second shot at a healthcare bill, Paul Ryan is making sure everyone knows that won't be happening. Ever. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an ...read more

America's favorite moose huntin', truth tellin', bible readin' hockey mom wants you to know that Obama's "DEATH PANELS [ARE] STILL NOT DEAD" (notice the alarming caps). In a rambling facebook rant posted yesterday, Palin attacked the Obama administration for reviving its ...read more

It finally happened. We're only a few months away from the 2014 midterms and I thought maybe we'd see a longer roster of infuriatingly misleading campaign ads from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS outfit. But finally we have our first big winner. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) is running for ...read more

I've told parts of this story before so I'll mostly skip over the narrative about the why and the how, but since 2005 and for various reasons including a punitively large premium increase, a preexisting condition (back injury) and cash-flow issues due to the Great Recession, ...read more

Another example of President Obama just being awesome! Seriously, close your office door, put in your ear buds, just stop what you're doing and watch this right now: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/18e820ec3f/between-two-ferns-with-zach-galifianakis-president-barack-obama ...read more

On the 41st anniversary of Roe v Wade, here's a sure-fire way to significantly reduce abortions. Make pregnancy free. Providing free healthcare during and immediately following pregnancy for both the mother and the child is crazy talk, I know. But the anti-choice movement, ...read more

It started out on the campaign trail in 2008 with the most generic of titles, “Health Care Reform.” At the time the concept was a popular one with the public at large. Everyone hated the insurance companies and the rising costs were clearly untenable long-term. Every Democratic ...read more

Last week on Fox & Friends, Steve Doocy, speaking in an incredulous, leading tone of voice, asked his co-hosts, "What percent of Americans now have health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act?" I'm sure you can see where this is going. Brian Kilmeade didn't bother to ...read more

Since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have voted 42 times to completely de-fund the law. Most recently, the House voted several days ago to continue to fund the government ...read more

The House of Representatives voted this morning on Congressman Paul Ryan's budget proposal.  It passed by a vote of 221 to 207.  The 221 yeahs were all Republican, 197 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted no.   You can read the official vote count here.  You can read the official ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab (from the The Hill): Although the White House has endorsed that idea before, White House press secretary Jay Carney unequivocally took it off the table during his daily briefing Monday. It's not altogether surprising — Democrats firmly backed ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From NBC News: TOLEDO, OH -- Mitt Romney on Wednesday pointed to the health care reform law he enacted as governor of Massachusetts as proof of his empathy and care for the American people. In an interview with NBC News, Romney referenced an ...read more

By Bob Cesca: It wouldn't be a presidential election year if the Republican nominee didn't threaten to cut funding to several "liberal" institutions that rely upon federal money: Amtrak, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab (via The Huffington Post): "The president, I am told, is talking about Medicare today," Ryan said during an appearance at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. "We want this debate. We need this debate, and we will win this debate. "What I don’t ...read more