Susan Collins So Mad Sexism Made Her Help Murder Your Healthcare

That word ... we don't think it means what she thinks it means.

Oh fiddlesticks, it sounds like there was a chance Senator Susan Collins might have been willing to help kill the awful GOP tax cut for Ivanka Trump, if it hadn't been for all the sexism that required her to cast that "Yes" vote on the tax bill, which features the entirely intended side effect of killing healthcare for millions of people. When will this vicious cycle just STOP? Wait what?

OK, let's back up. Reporters were trying to ask Susan Collins normal questions about why she was voting for this atrocity, especially when, as people have pointed out, it's NOT DAMN LIKELY she's going to end up getting all the things Mitch McConnell promised to secure her vote, including two other bills to control Obamacare costs. (Mitch McConnell loves protecting Obamacare!) Instead of defending her choice, Collins decried the sexism of ... pointing out that Mitch McConnell lies and everybody knows it and why did you fall for it, Susan Collins, WHYYYYYYYYY?

The Maine Republican, a key swing vote on the tax package, accused reporters of ignoring her influence over the final legislation and unfairly criticizing her efforts to pass a pair of Obamacare stabilization bills.

“I believe that the coverage has been unbelievably sexist, and I cannot believe that the press would have treated another senator with 20 years of experience as they have treated me,” she told reporters in the Capitol. “They’ve ignored everything that I’ve gotten and written story after story about how I’m duped. How am I duped when all your amendments get accepted?”

Fair point! Except ...

... [A] host of House Republicans told reporters that the promises made to secure the vote of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) have no chance of passing the lower chamber and becoming law.

One bill would restore government subsidies to insurance companies known as CSRs that the Trump administration cut off earlier this year, and the other would set up a temporary federal reinsurance program.

Oh.

As Talking Points Memo notes, the bills Collins wants, but that McConnell somehow hasn't found the time to persuade his pals in the lower house of Congress to support, wouldn't do anything to stop the actual bill that passed from knocking 13 million folks off their healthcare. Susan Collins was fine voting for that part, though! Just as long as she got some amendments (achievement unlocked!) and also these two bills that would ... oh wait she's not getting those.

But is it "sexist" to say she was "duped"? Are all the Maine women who spent last Friday playing cribbage on the floor of Collins's office, because their senator "got played," being unfairly sexist for saying that? What about all the other hundreds of her constituents, largely women, who have camped out at her office and in front of her house, begging her not to fall for it? WOULD THEY HAVE DONE THAT IF SUSAN COLLINS WAS A MAN? Actually, we think they would have!

We just don't feel like it's sexist to point out that "Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are probably lying to you" is a really common trope on the Hill, said about boys and girls alike, when Mitch McConnell woos them with his sexual turtle eyes, or Paul Ryan or Donald Trump convince other members of Congress to fall for some dumb bullshit.

Is it sexist when we say Trump can get Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley to do anything he wants, as long as Trump teases Grassley's Iowa butter nipples with a fresh ear of corn? (Because, you know, Iowa and ethanol.)

Is it sexist when we note that Marco Rubio was all Mister Big Pants "GIVE ME ONE MILLION CHILD TAX CREDITS OR YOU'RE NOT GETTING MY VOTE ON THIS BILL!" and then McConnell was like "Nah" and Rubio was like "OK! I rescind my demands and will go nap in my Little Marco cubbyhole now"?

We don't mean to be flippant here, but we are wondering if this is another example, now that the right wing in America has recently become #woke and has learned the word #sexism, of a GOP-er deploying that word slightly disingenuously .

Collins also noted a New York Times article that said she didn't even cry when meeting with sick people, led by healthcare activist Ady Barkan, begging her not to kill them by taking away their healthcare with this vote, saying NYT would never say that about Arizona Senator/Penis-Haver Jeff Flake. (NYT removed the line from its article.) We'll give Collins that one, as we are reminded of the 2008 campaign, where every time Hillary Clinton cried, it was proof that she was a conniving tear-making pretending lady trying to fake like she was human, where did she even get off.

NYT should have just told Collins and Flake to go fuck themselves, which, again, brain geniuses of the right-wing internet, is  still not sexist. 

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[ Politico / Talking Points Memo ]