I’m sitting in the waiting room of the outpatient surgery center in the local teaching hospital, waiting for a friend of mine to come out of minor surgery, wondering how in the hell the Republican Party thinks that they can make hay out of the inevitable bobbles and screw ups that are going to accompany Obamacare, a program that exists in the context of the delivery of medical care. How the hell do they think those fuck-ups will distinguish themselves in an experience that seems to consist entirely of mistakes, waiting, misdirection, arbitrary stupidity, more waiting, humorless colorectal surgeons (how the fuck can you stare up assholes all day without the ability to laugh and not want to swallow a bullet at the end of the week?), gowns that don’t cover anyone’s ass, the same question being asked 14 times, rooms that are kept at meatlocker temperature, the slow and broken elevators, ugly stained furniture, dirt collected in every corner (hospitals are the dirtiest places on earth), tears, frustration, fear, anger, shit, puke and urine?
Obamacare is going to be the bright and shining star in this experience. There have to be at least a few people sitting in this room with me sweating the possibility that this trip will lead to bankruptcy. A year from now, all they’ll be sweating is whether they’re going to contract MRSA.
Elizabelle
Mistermix: Good luck to your friend.
I am hanging on by my toenails for Obamacare.
It’s why the Republicans have really gone crazy.
Yes, there will be some potholes, but Obamacare is going to work.
SiubhanDuinne
You forgot blood. And pus. Pus and blood.
Ruckus
I see you got up on the bright side of the bed today.
You sound like a doctor who needs surgery but knows where all the dirt really is and bodies are buried.
Best of luck to your friend.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Didn’t see that he left out the highlights.
gogol's wife
@SiubhanDuinne:
And Fox News on the teevees while you wait.
glocksman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sweet Home Alabama, play that dead band’s song….
wenchacha
Hospitals are not great, but they could always be worse. When your loved one (or friend) is treated with care and is back home, the annoyances of institutional bureaucratic hospital care tend to fade into the mist. When someone you love dies in the hospital, it can become a very lonely place.
My folks have been in a couple times for very serious stuff. Fortunately, they have always been able to return home, even when the prognosis was not so great. Neither of them are very patient patients, and there is indeed so much repetition of history, testing, waiting to be taken for tests, waiting for the doc to come explain something.
I hope your friend will be free of hospitals for a long time after this procedure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@glocksman: Heh, my brain went right there, too. I think the update of that song would have to include Uncle Earl watchin’ Fox again, he don’t give a damn.
waspuppet
It’s because there are two groups of people who hate Obamacare:
1. People who have been force-fed lies that they’re not going to be able to see their regular doctor anymore and/or go in front of a death panel (lies they believe in no small part because they’re racists and think That One must have some sneaky hateful agenda).
2. Elected Washington officials who have spent their entire adult lives on single-payer, socialized medicine, which is the only thing better than Obamacare, and have no idea what it’s like to actually be in the private insurance market.
That’s it. That’s all.
Loneoak
Maybe not! The readmission penalty might finally be the incentive to tackle hospital acquired infections.
mistermix
@glocksman: At least there are two good things in sex, piss, gin and blood.
Punchy
They can throw anything against the wall and make it stick with their base. Anything. Evidence: this.
Pretty soon Obamacare will be responsible for people dying in nursing homes, cankles, and greyhound racing. Just you watch.
Trollhattan
If there’s a sudden rush at ER admitting, it might be folks who injured themselves reading Nooner’s latest. Or, put another way, there must have been a vodka sale at BevMo.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303342104579099623833385780.html
H/T NYMag
glocksman
@mistermix:
Isn’t that ‘jizz’ and not gin in the lyrics??
TAPX486
The VSP seem to think that it is ‘progress’ that we might avoid a gov’t shutdown on Tue. so that the GOP can hold up the debt limit. The house leadership is trying to convince the tea partiers that the debt limit is the better hill to die on.
If Obama caves on any of these threats he might as well pack his bags and head back to Chicago to build his library.
NotMax
When it comes to facilities serving large swaths of the public, it would be tough to beat bus station rest rooms in the filth-a-lympics.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@glocksman: Yeah, sweat, piss, jizz and blood is what I always heard. The only sex in that song is Daddy doin’ Sister Sally, no?
Villago Delenda Est
The truth is, should Obamacare work half as well as expected, it’s still the worst nightmare for the GOP. It will demonstrate in terms that everyone can comprehend that the GOP notion of “government does not work” is a lie.
This terrifies them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
There are several counties in South Carolina reserved for Nooners, when its’ finally converted into an asylum.
Elizabelle
James Fallows has a terrific blogpost up.
Reading material, for those inside and outside hospital waiting rooms.
Short and not sweet, but true.
Your False Equivalence Guide to the Days Ahead (a kind of politics we have not seen for 150 years)
Linda Featheringill
@Loneoak:
MRSA and hospital re-admissions: It is also a fact that the less often you’re admitted to a hospital, the less likely you are to pick up something nasty.
And please, please, please if your doc wants to put you on an IV antibiotic drip, do whatever is necessary to manage it at home and NOT in the hospital. This is how Clostridium difficile [C diff] sneaks up on you.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Trollhattan:
“Some say, some say, some say, some say, some say, some say, some say, some say, some say…”
Some say that when Nooners gets really drunk she loves to fellate dead pigs.
feebog
I am scheduled to have cataract surgery next week. The doctor will also insert a stint to alleviate my glaucoma. Both procedures are covered by Medicare and my secondary insurance. The Doctor also wants to correct my astigmatisim, which is not covered. So I called today and asked how much that procedure will be. $1900. And remember, the other costs are all covered. I don’t have a choice, as the sight in my other eye is very limited, I need the best possible outcome from this surgery. Plus, I can afford it. But what the hell do people do when they don’t have insurance? Just mind boggling.
jl
Among friends and acquaintances, those whom I have foolishly let be known I am an economist who works in health care, ask me whether the ACA will ‘work’.
My standard (very cautious) answer that I am sure it will make getting insurance a easier, at the very least won’t make things worse now, and will at least keep the system from getting even worse.
Most people indicate that they would consider that a success, if something, anything could keep the health care system from getting any worse.
drkrick
Health insurance rates have been rising every year since there’s been health insurance, and yet somehow in 2010 rate increase were “caused by Obamacare” according to my wingnut acquaintances. They’ll know what to blame every delayed appointment and waiting room furniture stain on when the time comes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Can she quote any foreign leaders or thinkers or anyone who thinks this way? Maybe Toby Blair or that French version of Hitchens whose name escapes me? Or is this just some of the voices in her head doing accents to fuck with her when she’s drunk?
drkrick
@feebog: Squint and look for publications with bigger type.
Comrade Dread
One of the many reasons why government involvement in health care has never bothered me is because I’ve been through the process of trying to buy health care for my wife, as well as past experiences trying to navigate the labyrinthine bureaucracy of trying to get HMOs to approve a non-standard procedure.
My conservative family would complain that they didn’t want their health care to be decided by some bureaucrat, and I would laugh.
Linnaeus
@Comrade Dread:
‘Zactly. Who do they think decides their health care now?
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, she pulls all of this crap directly from her longing-to-have-been-the-mistress-of-the-Gipper ass.
? Martin
Mission Accomplished
Cruz got the reward he was looking for. Expect him to repeat this. He’ll stay in the news. He’ll fundraise like hell off of this shit. He may or may not win the 2016 primary, but he’s going to go in a lot stronger than a week ago.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, the Senate has successfully stripped the defund-Obamacare segment from the continuing resolution.
Forkbeard
Methinks the problem isn’t that Obamacare isn’t going to work – it will work and it will generally be a vast improvement on our current experience. It’s just that anyone who has ANY problems with health care will be encouraged and told by the Republicans that the problem was Obummer and his awful freedom-stealing job-destroying health care law.
Can’t get a appointment quickly? Too many patients due to government health care. Somebody forgot to file a form? Totally Obamacare. Bathrooms at the hospital aren’t cleaned? Obamacare. Hospital on fire? Clearly Obamacare.
The sad thing is a lot of people will believe it.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You mean this bloke?
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Dread:
Stupidest fucking meme ever. Well, perhaps not, but in the running, for sure.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est: @Higgs Boson’s Mate: @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can think of a dozen reasons we should have impeached Reagan, but shutting Nooners the hell up has to top the list.
Trollhattan
@? Martin:
Oh, Teddyboy is getting noticed, alright.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/27/5772258/the-life-of-ted-cruz.html
Keep pointing cameras at that puss, play tape of that whiney voice, and watch him kill off the brand just by being Ted. This is not the putz who can keep the rabble stirred.
jl
@Elizabelle: Thanks. Good column from Fallows, and nice that he pointed out some journalists who have the courage and wits to relate the things they see and hear, rather than random pre-packaged talking points.
I disagree with Fallows on one point. The problem is also weak and feckless leadership: Boehner. Boehner is afraid to make any bold moves that will risk his speakership and standing in the little House GOP cesspool.
If I understand correctly, the rules for nomination and election of a speaker are very flexible. If things get tight and Boehner actually leads and risks his speakership, he could go to the Democrats and discuss some kind of coalition of Dems and the remaining sane House GOPers, pointing out that if he loses the GOP nomination, the House might be led by someone totally insane and harder to deal with.
That would be risky, would destroy him with the GOP, but might make him a speaker with at least an interesting an notable career. As opposed to sad feckless powerless loser, repeatedly punked by insane and dishonest creeps in his own caucus.
If I were Boehner, I would be having some feelers out about that. I wouldn’t be able to function with those Houe GOP nutcases, and sooner or later would tell them to GTFO of the room and stay out, during one of the closed door caucus meeting.
SiubhanDuinne
@feebog: Best of luck with the eyes. I’m supposed to have cataract surgery myself at some point in the next few months, but at the moment there’s no urgency.
Patrick
@Comrade Dread:
I take it they are against both Medicare and the insurance companies then, since they both have bureaucrats making health care decisions for the rest of us.
I recently overheard an older white male (big surprise) talking about how bad he had heard health care was in Canada. “That’s managed care for you”. The man was easily old enough to be on Medicare. The level of stupidity, ignorance and utter selfishness is just stunning to me.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s okay if said bureaucrat is a big insurance company claims drone. That’s DIFFERENT, because they’re incentivized to not cover as much as possible. Win!
Fort Geek
I was sweating Obamacare since before it became law. At first, I just had an embarrassing medical issue and was afraid it was testicular cancer, but a few months after I went to the urologist for that (not cancer), I ended up in the hospital with an aortic dissection, a golf-ball-sized malignancy in my kidney…and no insurance. My job’s medical plan offerings all sucked so badly I just went without. If not for the hospital’s charity compensation program, I’d have been humped for $53,000. My job ejected me. Took 10 months to get Disability going. Everything’s taken care of.
Don’t know what effect Obamacare/ACA will have on my life now, but to everyone paying into Social Security…thanks.
Emerald
Guarantee:
Obamacare will work, people will love it, and the GOP (or whatever is left of it after this debacle) will claim that they were able to repeal the Death Panels and all the things about it that were just awful, and they will take credit for the whole thing.
And a goodly portion of the population will believe them (at least 27%). More as time passes. The MSM will adopt scenario that as History.
Watch.
ellie
My father contracted staph infection MRSA in the hospital while there for a heart valve replacement. He died from it. Hospitals are filthy.
JPL
It appears that there are a lot of republicans including Susan Collins voting to close down the government.
There should be a final tally soon.
Amir Khalid
@? Martin:
No, not now. If he’s the frontrunner now, he’ll hit his peak and fizzle out way too soon. He needs to pace himself, so that he takes the lead just as the primary season picks up in January 2016. Then, with any luck, his capacity for pissing off party colleagues will result in the biggest intramural poo-flinging brawl in the history of American presidential campaigning.
JPL
54/44 to amend and send back the CR bill to fund the government.
joes527
Maybe not humorless so much as has already heard 20-something ass jokes today?
dmsilev
@JPL: And now we get to see what the howler monkeys in the House will do next. I predict large amounts of shit-flinging.
tazj
I hope your friend has a successful surgery and is feeling better soon. .
Having been a nurse for a number of years, I have to agree with you that hospitals are some of the most ugly buildings in existence and I spent most of my time as a pediatric nurse. I mean I often thought, can somebody just paint the walls? Can’t they do something to make this experience any better? Where is all the money going? It certainly wasn’t going to staffing. The administration seemed to think that if you weren’t running around like a chicken with your head cut off you weren’t actually working.
Having been back to that hospital as a parent, at least I can say the aesthetics have improved. I can’t say the same for most adult facilities I have visited.
As for the repetitive questions, I know that when I left our admission questionnaire had increased from two to four pages. Parents weren’t really in the mood to answer questions about whether they had a refrigerator or backyard at 4am. I know that an assessment of a child’s home environment is important I just don’t know if it was necessary to ask these questions after the family had been in the ER for 8-10 hours. I think the questionnaire was the hospital’s answer to laying off social workers because our nursing admission paperwork would be signed “reviewed by so and so MSW” However, I never worked in administration so I really don’t know
NonyNony
Well, they won’t, actually.
What they will do is just blame everything on Obamacare. Repeatedly. Your insurance company denied a claim? Obamacare. Your insurance company lost your paperwork? Obamacare. Your doctor accidentally dropped a Junior Mint into your body when he was doing open heart surgery? Obamacare.
Good things, of course, will be because of the doctors and, of course, because of God. Anything bad will be Obamacare.
This is actually a huge boon for insurance companies. They’ve spent decades blaming doctors, nurses, and US for problems caused by the insurance companies (“Why didn’t we pay out on that claim? Well your doctor’s office filled in the wrong bubble on page 34 of Form-J, so they need to fix that first. Why is your doctor sending you a bill instead of revising the form? Oh because his office doesn’t want to follow the rules.”). But people like their doctors and hate insurance companies, so that trick rarely works. But now they’ve got a scapegoat – Obamacare. Every fuckup the insurance company has will be the fault of Obamacare.
And, if the program operates as it should, the benefits won’t be visible. Because it will be the insurance companies who get the goodwill of offering low rates.
So I can see why they would want to demonize it, though I can’t see them ever successfully repealing it. Because people will love the benefits that they receive, even as they may curse “Obamacare” under their breath every time something bad happens to them at a doctor’s office.
Trollhattan
@ellie:
That’s horrible, very sorry about your father.
IIUC hospitals that refocus on the basics, such as proper hand-washing, see big improvements in infection rates. Very important considering the lack of effective antibiotics against the newest “superbugs.”
David in NY
@Villago Delenda Est: There are several counties in South Carolina reserved for Nooners, when its’ finally converted into an asylum.
I take it that the Republicans, by their sheer numbers, have at last disproven James Petigru’s dictum that SC is “too large for an insane asylum.”
Fort Geek
@Fort Geek: Should have added: I’m on Medicaid and Medicare…and thanks for the help there, too.
? Martin
In today’s news about California lapping the nation, the governor signed a bill requiring domestic workers be paid overtime:
And we’re moving in the right direction on education as well:
h/t to Calitics on both of these.
WereBear
Yes, there’s something really really really awful when worries about pain and mortality are juxtaposed with “and if I live, I’ll be broke for the rest of my life!”
John Weiss
Heh. How could you spend your days looking into assholes? I asked a proctologist about that once. He said, “The procedures rarely kill anyone and my patients are so grateful. Sounds like a good gig to me!
Davis X. Machina
@feebog:
They just go to the emergency room. For chronic illness, and eye surgery. Because that’s what the ’emergency’ in ’emergency room’ means.
(Not really. I’m not a Senator from Oklahoma…)
Paul in KY
@waspuppet: I think there is at least a 3rd group: Hard core partisan Republicans who know this will be good for Democrats & are agin it for that reason only.
Paul in KY
@? Martin: Will probably move there when I retire. Go California & go Gov. Brown!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, that one always confuses me. “My health care decisions will be made some Dwight Schrute-ish middle manager whose salary depends on the profit margins of the giant corporate Borg he works for! Because FREEEEDUMB!”
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
People are often willing to die for their religion — this — the profit margins of the giant corporate Borg — is just their religion.
Baruch atah ha Shuk, dayan ha emet. Blessed be the Market, the righteous judge.
Any deity worth the name can extract human sacrifice from its adherents.
debbie
@feebog:
When I was unemployed and uninsured, I spent an awful lot of time dancing in order to qualify for financial assistance from hospitals and doctors’ groups. Lots of bowing and scraping. Even for something as small as an INR blood test. It took 3 months to get approval and I had to be tested every month. Filling out the same paperwork every single time too. That made no sense. ACA can’t have half the bureaucracy I went up against every single time I needed any kind of help.
WereBear
@Fort Geek: A heartfelt Dude!
Glad to hear you are safely on the other side of all that!
And you are welcome :)
mistermix
Thanks to everyone who corrected my fucked up Warren Zevon lyric. I think it was the MRSA.
cckids
@waspuppet:
This. I had the unfortunate experience this morning of listening to Wolf Blitzer attempt to interview Michele Bachmann. Oy. The absolute flood of lies & bullshit flowing from her was astounding. To his (minor) credit, he kept trying to cut through & get her to answer questions, but Jesus, what a lost cause.
She kept saying she thought the features of the ACA were good, but shouldn’t be imposed by government – that the markets in the individual states would take care of these things. She actually said that there was no reason to cut off adult kids at 27, that you should be able to keep your child on your insurance forever, “because some of those children have major health problems & will be dependent on their parents forever”.
By that time I was trying not to yell at the Blitzer “ASK HER WHY NO INSURANCE COMPANY EVER DID THOSE THINGS, THEN”. But he had his questions & wasn’t really listening to what she was spewing.
El Caganer
@John Weiss: If you gaze into the asshole, the asshole gazes into you.
Jeremy
The media is so pathetic and so in the pocket of the GOP. When Bush and the republicans passed Medicare Part D it’s popularity was lower than the ACA. I don’t recall the media going on and on about how unpopular that piece of legislation was. After it’s implementation it rose in popularity though there were glitches, and democrats accepted it and said they would work to improve it. Of course we get the opposite from the media and the opposition party when it comes to the democrats and the ACA.
cckids
@Emerald:
And, as the President said yesterday, “When it is all working, I can guarantee they won’t call it Obamacare anymore”. That speech was great.
Jeremy
Also since Medicare Part D was not that popular the media should have questioned the Bush administration’s ability to sell their idea. The beltway continues to blame the administration for not properly selling the ACA, but at the same time they continue to publish lies and negativity about the law.
Villago Delenda Est
Newsmax headline: Noonan: World Wants Old America Back
Well, here’s the problem, Nooners. The Old America the world wants back is the one of FDR, Truman, and Marshall.
You know, the one that fought and defeated fascism.
Not the America that supported fascism everywhere it could. That’s the America of the shitty grade Z movie star. And you, you besotted bint.
Richard Mayhew
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hell, that middle manager is probably not making the decision. It is some just past entry level drone with enough experience to know something but not to know better making that decision.
shelly
*************
Can someone please translate that?
cckids
@ellie: My sympathies. My son contracted MRSA in a hospital as well; it cost him his eyesight in one eye & he is still colonized with it 5 years later; every time he has any other problem, MRSA (and pseudomonas) rear their ugly heads again.
With all his endemic problems; he also has contractures & tiny, fragile veins. We can’t do a PICC line anymore, even an IV only lasts a couple of hours, so the only medicines that would work, he can’t have. I am sure that it will be one of those two bugs that take his life.
stinger
@Fort Geek: You’re quite welcome — and I hope you’re better now!
The Dangerman
@Punchy:
We’re still fighting over Social Security and Medicare several decades later.
999,999 things can go right; on the 1,000,000 thing that goes wrong, the howling monkees will be screaming. For decades.
Villago Delenda Est
@shelly:
“If that bitch Nancy hadn’t hogged the coffin, I could have hugged it, too”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shelly: Do three shots of Jameson, drink one bottle of chardonnay while watching FoxNews, masturbate to a dream of Ronald Reagan’s shoe, then drink a bottle of Bailey’s while drawing pictures of dolphin-angels on big pieces of beige construction paper with pink and purple magic markers. Get your glue and some silver and gold sparkles to make the dolphin-angels’ hallows and give them sparkly wings. Do one more shot of Jameson. Just before you pass out, you will have one moment when Peggy Noonan makes perfect sense.
Suffern ACE
@shelly: merkel liked it when Bush goosed her and the Hondurans loved our juntas.
jl
@cckids: Bachmann thinks insurance would keep your kids on your pollicy until Medicare, with proper ‘free market reforms’?
All the GOPers I’ve seen on clips are rudely filibustering, talking over, and insulting the hosts or raving nonsense that even very uninformed people can see is ridiculous.
How long can they keep up the two-dimensional strategy of rude filibustering and raving nonsense?
The GOPers have nothing to offer, nothing that makes sense. The GOP politicians should just stop giving interviews to the media and send out their PR flacks and consultants.
That strategy worked wonders for the GOP in California (from my point of view).
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: not really. Our friends were the creme de la creme of the torturing set. Still are, really. The folks who didn’t want to be tortured so much were the hoi polloi and not worth the time for their trouble.
cckids
@jl: I’m not sure you can say Bachmann “thinks” in any real sense of the word. :)
But, yes, Blitzer was going through the litany of the big features of ACA – the adult kids, the lifetime limit/cap being gone, the pre-existing conditions; the end of freeloading – and to all of it, her only answer was that the market was taking care of that. That people could buy insurance and get covered.
Even for her, it was just mind-boggling.
burnspbesq
OT: way to go, New Jersey.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jesus, that thing with Reagan’s shoe was positively creepy. First thing I ever read of hers.
WereBear
@cckids: That’s a rotten thing for anyone to deal with. Can they place a shunt, or is that a not working option, either?
WereBear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Heh. I had an evening like that… only minus the booze & masturbation. :) They were pre-schoolers.
Which is probably how Nooners first drafts…
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@David in NY: Of course, I’m now beginning to think it’s too small for an insane asylum if you were to house today’s wingers there. Help some people with actual mental illness by supporting Team Bella Q.
Perhaps SC could annex NC and put all the wingnuts in the Combined Carolinas. And then sell them to Canada for winter travel destinations. That could be fun.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@cckids: and @ellie: My sympathies for both of you. It is 17 kinds of wrong that hospitals should be so dangerous, given all the advantages we got – and abused – from antibiotics. It’s a shandah.
Suffern ACE
@cckids: because your employer would love to pay for any number of people who don’t work for that company. It’s just regulations won’t let him.
It’s one thing to love the market, but I’m not certain why she thinks it loves her back.
MikeJ
@The Dangerman:
And they simultaneously complain about red tape slowing everything down and about people who cheat the system.
Paul in KY
@cckids: Man that sucks. I hope your son can pull out of that somehow. Sending a prayer for his better health.
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think you have to sniff the magic markers as well to be transported to the state of conciousness required to grok that word salad.
Punchy
Comma-gasm. I’ll bet $50 Ameros that she wrote this waiting in line at an Applebee’s salad bar.
cckids
@WereBear: No, they tried one when the last PICC line failed, but he has never been an ambulatory person, so his skeletal system has sort of collapsed down – the surgeon couldn’t do it.
We’ve been told repeatedly since he was 3 that he wouldn’t live much longer, and now he is 30, but the strikes adding up against him over the past few years are coming due. And most of them aren’t due to his basic condition, but to medical screwups of one kind or another.
cckids
@Suffern ACE:
Yes, of course! That is why companies are dropping family members off insurance as fast as they can now that ACA gives people other options. It is better for their bottom line. And I don’t blame them; the whole system of linking health insurance to people’s jobs is insane. The companies that try to do it right take huge amounts of time & effort to do it, and why should they have to? It is as if everyone expected their employer to find them a new house when they want to move, or a good therapist or something. It makes no sense, especially on a “free market” basis.
Paul in KY
@cckids: Very sorry to hear that.
cckids
@Paul in KY: Thank you, that is appreciated.
dmsilev
Obama to speak shortly; talking heads say “likely to be about foreign affairs, possibly Iran”.
WereBear
@cckids: That is really tough; they give with one hand and take away with the other.
May he keep defying those odds.
max
President talketh on the phone with Iranian leader. Awesome. Agreement on Syria. Also awesome.
max
[‘Keep it up.’]
dmsilev
Obama: “Now it’s up to House Republicans.”
…we’re fucked.
cckids
@WereBear: Thank you, we’re hoping as well.
schrodinger's cat
Friday Kitteh has a tired. Needs better minions.
Corner Stone
“It’s not gonna happen”
BURN BITCHES!
Corner Stone
Man, another “Red Line” comment?
C’mon.
Corner Stone
Shennanigans.
Shit…he had me at “hello” after that one.
? Martin
We’re fucked, guys:
If the House is following Cruz, that means that the only avenue out of this is for Boehner to go to Nancy along with 20 moderate Republicans willing to escape this madness with a clean CR. I don’t know how many more times Boehner can do this before the House members remove him from power. I imagine not many.
dmsilev
Obama is describing the list of GOP ransom demands, and he’s (unsuccessfully) trying not to laugh as he does so.
Corner Stone
Man, he just snapped a lot of underwear waistbands with that one.
SNAP!
dmsilev
@? Martin: If Boehner is smart, he’ll take that dive on the debt ceiling vote and retire the next day to some corporate-board sinecure.
Corner Stone
“pet projects”
“hobby horse”
that is some funny shit
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: It’s basically a long extended middle finger towards the GOP. Beautiful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@? Martin: Is there anywhere I can place a bet on Cantor installing Marsha Blackburn as his meatpuppet speaker, a la Delay and Hastert?
MattR
OT, but some good news from NJ. A judge has just ruled that same sex couples must be allowed to get married (NJ currently has civil unions), because now that DOMA has been struck down denying those couples marriage denies them federal benefits which is in violation of the state constitution. Obviously, Christie is expected to appeal.
Trollhattan
The hell?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24304245
Can somebody summon zombie General Sherman? I think we’re in need of a second ass-kickin’.
dmsilev
“Pass a budget on time. Pay our bills on time.” Simple enough even for the morons in the national media.
max
He’s trying to be reasonable, and it’s so not going to make any difference.
max
[‘The upside, is if he keeps telling them to screw off, he’s going to win.’]
Corner Stone
Seriously. I am honestly waiting for Obama to reach behind him, pull on a Jason from Friday 13th mask and a fucking chainsaw and start hacking some people to death on camera.
You can tell he’s *this* close.
IowaOldLady
Love this! Want to bet the R’s point to the laughing and say the president isn’t serious (unlike us clowns) and besides he hurt our feelings (by pointing out our big noses and bottles of selzer).
Elizabelle
ABC and NBC networks are carrying Obama’s remarks live. That’s progress.
In DC, it did not seem that CBS was doing so.
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: if I were the Dems I would not bail him out unless the debt limit is eliminated. I don’t know if there are the votes in the senate for that, but this is a seriously silly and dangerous way to run a country.
If cantor is going to be put in charge, and Cruz is going to call the shots, we need to get rid of the number of times anyone needs to negotiate with the lower chamber.
ruemara
@shelly: Translation: “It’s 5 pm somewhere and a tumbler of gin with my prozac icecubes has already been consumed”.
Mnemosyne
@max:
If Obama and Kerry (presumably building on groundwork laid by H. Clinton) manage to repair our relationship with Iran, then I will personally travel the country to find every person who sneers about Obama’s Nobel Prize and punch each of them in the throat.
Comrade Jake
What’s the difference between the House GOP and terrorists? You can negotiate with terrorists.
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE: Hmmm. It’s like no one actually wants to try doing away with this hostage takers.
We’re still playing least loss.
Elizabelle
ABC’s Jeff Zeleney: “These remarks were not directed so much at Congress. More to frame public debate.”
Oh really??
Because the public has so much sway with Congress, as we have seen …
dumbass.
Suffern ACE
@dmsilev: why on earth would you invest in a board that he would join?
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE: If Boehner cried Uncle and used D’s to pass us through all this mess I’d be happy to buy him a bottle of bourbon, etc.
dmsilev
@Comrade Jake: Boehner’s spokesbot:
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
If it’s any consolation, 9 times out of 10 those kind of guys chicken out when they arrive and discover that the counter-protest group waiting to shout them down is about 5 times bigger than their KKK group. Because, of course, they always forget that free speech means other people get to respond.
max
@Corner Stone: Seriously. I am honestly waiting for Obama to reach behind him, pull on a Jason from Friday 13th mask and a fucking chainsaw and start hacking some people to death on camera.
I would back him if he did!
@Suffern ACE: if I were the Dems I would not bail him out unless the debt limit is eliminated. I don’t know if there are the votes in the senate for that, but this is a seriously silly and dangerous way to run a country.
If we get down to and past the wire, I think he could make the demand stick, but the D Senators and the usual centristy suspects will whine and kvetch. (Because they like debt ceiling crises.)
max
[‘Well, that beat the hell out of bombin’ Syria or getting a Grand Bargain.’]
IowaOldLady
@dmsilev: Did Putin and Iran threaten to blow up the US economy unless Obama sent them ponies? I think not. There isn’t enough shut up in the world for these guys.
elftx
HOLY CHIT POTUS just told those aholes where to get off the crazy train!!! WOOT
a nice pre-empting of the “he won’t negotiate” BS
now can I continue to dream Cheney will be brought up on charges LOL
SamR
I think they’re right, actually. The same screweups that are seen as fine under the current system will simply be treated by the media as a far bigger deal.
If it reflects badly on Democrats, it instantly becomes more important; if it reflects badly on Republicans, it instantly becomes less important
Elizabelle
Oh Gawd.
CNN: Jake Tapper and female White House correspondent discussing that Obama has talked more today with the President of Iran than the Speaker of the House.
Asshats.
And Breanna informs that, in talking about how much power the House Republicans have, Obama is telling us that he is weak.
Where the remote?
Comrade Jake
@Elizabelle: why do you bother watching Tapper’s show? Is there a bigger media tool walking the Earth?
Gravenstone
@? Martin:
I think he should do so, then turn and hand his gavel to Cantor with a flourish as he tells Eric, “Here ya go, you little peckerhead. Be sure to let me know how the knives feel in your back for a change.”
Elizabelle
@Comrade Jake:
This was honestly the first time I’ve turned on CNN since before last Christmas.
I was curious what they would be saying, and they lived up to billing.
CNN and the networks are training us not to get our news from them; Fox News is crazy planet.
Suffern ACE
@Elizabelle: Christ. I’m shocked to learn that in our system, the House of Representatives might be powerful?
Svensker
@cckids:
Blessings and hugs to you. Can’t even imagine.
WereBear
@Comrade Jake: Awesome!
Comrade Jake
@Elizabelle: Got it. I avoid CNN like the goddamn plague.
Elizabelle
Next up on CNN with Jake Tapper: Mark Levin, Obama hater/rightwing talk show host (but I repeat myself) to discuss Obama’s call with the Iranian president.
I fled.
Elizabelle
@Comrade Jake:
Yeah, well, this was my annual pilgrimage. It’s over!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle: Good lord. I thought the change in management meant CNN was giving up on their Fox-lite ratings hunt. Mark freakin’ Levin? I guess Erickson was fired for being too moderate.
Suffern ACE
@Elizabelle: wow. If there’s one guy who has been a longtime advocate for a peace that doesn’t involve lots if dead Persians, its Mark Levin.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Trollhattan: The park service is correct. It’s otherwise known as the 1st Amendment. I’m of course hoping that more people will protest than actually attend.
@Elizabelle: Fuck Jake Tapper with one on Yutsy’s wife’s rusty pitchforks. Or perhaps a rusted and molten chainsaw, at full throttle.
Elizabelle
@Suffern ACE:
Well, the Republicans in the House are powerful.
The Democrats are your usual wusses, pussies, non-entities.
Dana Bash mentioned Boehner’s trying to round up 217 Republican votes.
‘Cause he’s Speaker of the Republican House, you see.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle: but I gather Politico won the morning with a story about how Boner can’t even get his own ransom note approved. Will the civil war in the House lead to a Village civil war between neighboring CW sausage factories?
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
Sherman’s humanitarian weakness when moving through Georgia has burdened us today with the teatards.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m going to be worn out rooting for injuries in the two civil wars.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Not simple enough. There’s a single two syllable word in those two sentences.
Suffern ACE
@Elizabelle: maybe that’s our solution. A constitutional amendment to rename it the Republican House, so they’ll feel that they’ll always be in charge of it.
cckids
@Svensker: Thank you. We’re actually in a better place now; we know where we’re at, we aren’t agonizing about the next step, we’re done (mostly) raging at the machine & at fate. What is, is.
He’s happy, he’s home with his family & his dog, we’re all as peaceful as we can be. Just living.
There’s a book I’m working through: “Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death” by Joan Halifax. It is amazingly helpful.
Botsplainer
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Fucking Tapper has been mainstreaming that fuckwit Levin today (Levin needs a baseball bat to his head in mid-screech, frankly). He also asked the irrelevant Non-President Romney about Iran.
When the revolution comes, I find myself debating on whether the pundits should be hanged, shot or simply thrown into pens full of feral hogs, the pay per view (and DVR replays) of the feral hog meals being used to pay for the costs of reconstruction, a top notch national child care and educational system, national health care for everybody and a nicely scaled and inexpensive national cell and wifi network.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Botsplainer: That’s doubly infuriating because Romney’s total indifference to foreign policy was always clear, especially on MENA– “I’ll just ask my good friend Bibi Netanyahu what to do”. Absolutely no reason to ask him anything, but especially about foreign policy
mclaren
@Botsplainer:
Instead of being trained to attack savagely at the sound of screams, the feral hogs should be trained to frenziedly tear apart anyone who says “Both sides do it.”
Mike E
@Elizabelle: Instead of reaching for your remote, try a brick instead: Write “CNN” on it and bash yourself in the face every time you get the urge to punch that number into the remote.
Your welcome!
Fort Geek
@WereBear: :)
I refuse to die. Got wingnuts to piss off.
Botsplainer
@mclaren:
No, I think the screaming will be definitely more fun than a canned event with trained feral hogs. We can drop pundits i, three at a time, the pundits awaiting penalty in an adjoining enclosure listening to the screams of the dying. We would, of course, allow the hogs an adequate resting period between meals (for their health, food should settle), and broadcast segments where the revolutionary cadre walks around the “pundit awaiting” enclosure with microphones, asking them the following:
I would totally watch that.
Mike G
…how in the hell the Republican Party thinks that they can make hay out of the inevitable bobbles and screw ups that are going to accompany Obamacare
Because most of them either receive guaranteed soshulist healthcare (ooga booga! eeeevul!) as members of Congress, or have gold-plated plans as members of the uopper crust.
As always with Repukes, if it’s not THEIR problem, it’s not a problem.
Patrick
@Mike G:
Don’t forget that a big portion of their voters are older and are on Medicare. And as I understand from having heard some of the Tea Party rallies, Medicare is apparently privatized and we should keep the government off it.
Fort Geek
@stinger: Stable. Got to be careful about my blood pressure, can’t lift much, but I’ve adapted and get around pretty well for all that.
One foot in front of the other ;)
burnspbesq
@Botsplainer:
Advertising time will sell out quickly, because ratings will be astro-bygod-nomical.
Ruckus
@cckids:
First off, best of luck.
Second, when my dad was suffering greatly with alzheimers a good friend told me about his mom and everything that he went through. It was more help than one could imagine. Not know what happens next is a tough nut. Knowing takes that edge off, makes understanding a little easier, and in general lessens the fear. It sounds like you have a handle on this so once again good luck. Attitude helps.
Ruckus
@Botsplainer:
I’d get cable and a TV for that.
Older
@Fort Geek: You’re very welcome. I do not grudge you whatever benefits you’ve managed to snag.