If this were a normal day, the headline would be the failure of the healthcare.gov and some state exchange websites under crushing load. For example, New York’s had 2 million visits in the first two hours, and it’s now telling those interested in enrolling to come back later.
Since it isn’t a normal day, a story that would lead the news is pushed aside by serious analysts explaining how, exactly, both sides do it, and why Boehner should become the first-ever bipartisan speaker (which would also make him the shortest serving bipartisan speaker, since it would take about 5 minutes for the Republicans to elect someone else).
So. unfortunately, this nice little bit of spin by Obama will probably be lost in the shuffle, and I thought he put it pretty well:
[..] The reason is because more than one million people visited healthcare.gov before 7:00 in the morning. To put that in context, there were five times more users in the marketplace this morning than have ever been on medicare.gov at one time. That gives you a sense of how important this is to millions of Americans around the country, and that’s a good thing.And we’re going to be speeding things up in the next few hours to handle all of this demand that exceeds anything that we had expected. Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it. I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t. That’s not how we do things in America. We don’t actively root for failure. We get to work, we make things happen, we make them better, we keep going.
The real reason that things broke is because a bunch of useless contractors were too busy figuring out how to extract every penny out of the government’s pocket to load test their websites, but Obama’s explanation is a little more palatable.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Ha!
katie5
So much for my DDOS attack theory
On the subject of defiining deviancy down, Morning Joe had a couple of WSJ types on this morning arguing that defaulting on the debt wouldn’t be that horrible and the White House is fearmongering.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
This morning on NPR radio, the newsreaders with the clipped English accents were blaming it on both sides.
OzarkHillbilly
Gee who’da thunk so many people would want to take part in such an unpopular gov’t program!
Alex S.
Boehner as first bi-partisan speaker….so much stupid….
Litlebritdifrnt
@katie5: Joe was blathering on about a “government takeover of healthcare” and Gene Robinson just about called him a liar. Fun times.
Ted & Hellen
The reason for every percentage point of Americans over 27 who believes anything remotely like “both sides do it” is that O and his team suck at messaging.
Even in this dramatic moment of crisis, when distinctions couldn’t be easier to make, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, he comes off as “meh…”
MikeJ
I’m guessing it was load tested, just not to this load.
pseudonymous in nc
Oh, c’mon. You can’t easily simulate that kind of load testing.
And remember that the USG has all sorts of legal requirements for its hardware provisioning — it can’t just spin up more AWS instances like a startup would.
West of the Cascades
Coveroregon.com keeps telling me “Whoops, looks like something went wrong.” Pretty light hearted, and besides I’m on a writing deadline today so I shouldn’t be procrastinating looking at how much the ACA will save me in premiums (I’m self-employed).
Love the fact that there is so much traffic/demand on day one first thing in the morning. This thing is going to work, and it’s going to be a disaster for the GOP when it does.
MattF
@Alex S.: Yeah, all you have to accept is that ‘bipartisan’ and ‘partisan’ actually mean exactly the same thing. And subsequently, of course, that ‘first’ means the same thing as ‘last’.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Ted & Hellen: I think it’s more likely you’re just a spaz.
katie5
@Litlebritdifrnt: Morning Joe is my morning caffeine substitute: get the blood boiling early. Even then, it can be too much. His fluffing of entitlement reductions and the Pete Peterson crowd can exceed my Red Bull limits.
Linda Featheringill
@West of the Cascades:
It IS nice that the demand for Obamacare is overwhelming. It will work and it will become part of people’s lives quickly.
I thought it would take a couple of months to firmly take root but maybe I was wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
Mistermix, you’re never going to get a job in the MSM if you keep posting intelligently.
Just sayin’.
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Infinitely more likely.
Villago Delenda Est
@West of the Cascades:
And the vile fascist shits know it, too.
mistermix
@pseudonymous in nc: I’m sure the people working on it did their best with the limited resources allocated after the salespeople and upper-level management got their cut.
Ted & Hellen
@West of the Cascades:
I would love to agree with you. Unfortunately, everyone but Alan Grayson and Elizabeth Warrren will talk about how they couldn’t have done it without their “Republican Friends.” They’ll fall all over themselves to share the credit with pukes.
peach flavored shampoo
Well….actually….about 47% of Americans in 2012 did.
Litlebritdifrnt
@katie5:
Drives me nuts sometimes but still I watch. Strangely enough I am following a twitter discussion about how they are discussing changes to the immigration laws for Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK. There was some talk about how they would flood the UK for healthcare and overburden the NHS then came this tweet “actually American Medical tourism is much more of a burden on the system”. I have no link to back it up and I was not aware of this.
Citizen_X
@Ted & Hellen:
Yes, we never, ever heard that phrase before Obama. [eyeroll]
Face
That’s because dirty, jobless moochers dont have jobs to get ready for.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Litlebritdifrnt: I love Gene Robinson, but I don’t think Squint’s a liar, just a blinkered, arrogant ideologue and, at his core, a mean-spirited and small-minded man. The fact that he’s both smarter and a better human being than ninety percent of his former caucus mates is the problem.
Matt McIrvin
I just got the toenail fungus ad AND the boobs ad! JACKPOT!
Ted & Hellen
@Citizen_X:
As per usual, because you are a stupid and close minded Botulist, your received meaning bears no relation to my actual one.
Ergo, also too as per usual, piss off.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes but he was lying this morning as Gene tried to point out to him, private insurance companies are offering the coverage in the exchanges not the government. Joe just wouldn’t listen and persisted with his talking points.
OzarkHillbilly
@Linda Featheringill:
A lot of desperate people out there who want healthcare. The Repubs never would have known of course because you just can’t talk to the 47%.
Gene108
@Ted & Hellen:
Politicians DO NOT MESSAGE themselves. Their party operatives and partisan pundits in the media push the agenda to the masses.
If a politician has to sell his message to the masses he has already lost. He does not have enough loyal retainers to carry his water for him.
Fox News, Limbaugh, the Natinal Review et al carry the message for Republicans. The worst of the mud flinging never comes from a Republican politician. The message gets put out by their minions and they just happen upon those points because that is what people are talking about.
So who is in the media fighting for Democrats? You?
Amir Khalid
@Matt McIrvin:
I usually get one of the boobs ads — I prefer the one with the staring eyes — but never the toenail fungus ad. Pout.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gene108:
Special Timmeh is a fucktard. A vile racist fucktard.
Trollhattan
@Gene108:
Shhh, it’s not too savvy on this whole “media and marketing” thing. Best to not point that out.
Zifnab
@Ted & Hellen: But do you really need that much sugar in a single recipe? I feel like I’d give myself a stomach ache that way. I think maybe just chill the fruit filling to condense it and you’ll get the same flavor.
Punchy
And if it didn’t have a brazillian amount of peeps flooding the servers, we’d be subjected to wingtards screaming how unpopular and ignored these new exchanges are.
I do find it funny that bad press for the rollout could have had long-lasting negative effects, but the GOP is instead shooting barrels in the fish b/c they made the shutdown the story du jour.
IowaOldLady
@Litlebritdifrnt: I think I have to give up being shocked by the ignorance or mendacity of the other side. It’s too exhausting.
Aimai
@Ted & Hellen: oh fuck you. Warren already sent around a kick ass letter to all her supporters.
Trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, apparently the Googles knows me well enough to keep the two orb girls in rotation and skip the whole foot thing. This does not make me unhappy.
srv
GLENN GREENWALD IAMA ON REDDIT!
Time for MM and DougJ to get wet and dirty.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Litlebritdifrnt: Someone here was recently asserting that Robinson is a milquetoast, over-the-hill, old-style Democratic pundit who just doesn’t understand how we do things today. In print and on air, I have found him not only consistently readable/watchable — especially when he gets going laughing at some winger idiocy and can’t stop — but also far more likely than most younger pundits to call bullshit bullshit.
OzarkHillbilly
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I have no personal experience but a friend of mine’s father got desperately ill in England once (ICU for weeks) and he had to pay for every bit of it. took well over a year before his insurance compensated him for it.
Gene108
@Litlebritdifrnt:
The talking points are effective for Republicans because most people have employer coverage and do not think much about the finer points on how medical insurance works.
Plenty of otherwise bright folks are ambivalent about Obamacare because of the right wing noise and thus are not as politically engaged as they could be; they are discouraged.
John S.
@Ted & Hellen:
Wasn’t your point that people believe “both sides do it” because Obama and his team suck at messaging? So if we accept your stated premise, why did people believe “both sides do it” prior to Obama and his team sucking at messaging? Or do you contend that this phenomenon only exists in a post-Obama and his team sucking at messaging era?
NonyNony
@Linda Featheringill:
There have been people out there waiting for this to take effect for more than four years.
We hear a lot of the negatives on the Internet (because the Internet is an Asshole Megaphone) but normal people out in meatspace have been waiting for the benefits of affordable healthcare for decades, and have been looking forward to the implementation of SOMETHING since Obama took office in 2009.
I’m not surprised at all that the systems got overwhelmed on the first day. I think that no matter what the implementers tried to guess for the expected initial load they would have been overwhelmed. Because there’s a true “silent majority” of people out there who are very politically passive and who really just want the world to work and let them live their lives in peace. And those folks are going to be the ones very happy with having something that works better than what was there before, even if it isn’t perfect.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Matt McIrvin:
Thanks a lot, Obama!
Jay C
@Amir Khalid:
Amir, take our word for it: missing out on the toenail-fungus ad on the site is nothing you should regret experiencing….
IowaOldLady
Maybe the heavy traffic today is people who already want/need to buy health insurance. We’ll see what happens when the less motivated need to show up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Punchy:
Exactly. The wingtards (and their fellow travelers like Special Timmeh) would find fault in the Obamacare rollout no matter what is actually going on.
The fact that it is so unpopular that the servers are keeling over from the loads is driving them nucking futz. More nucking futz than usual, even.
Keith G
@shortstop:
scav
Rather an honor (with detriments) to have such an olympic caliber bullshit triathalon contender visit. Pies, Perversions† and Paint are the events I’m seeing — counting on you lot to better the descriptions.
† (of truth and body)
Comrade Mary
So I’ve been swamped but have been paying some attention to the shutdown, and I thought I had a half-decent handle on things.
Nope.
I just read something that shocked me: Boehner is not just incompetent just because he can’t control the Tea Party / most of the House Republicans, but because (caps lock ON!) HE IS PREVENTING THE HOUSE FROM VOTING ON THE SENATE BILL AND IF A VOTE WERE HELD NOW, THERE ARE ENOUGH COMBINED REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS TO PASS THE BILL AND STOP THE SHUTDOWN.
If my interpretation of what I read is correct, this is the message that needs to be hammered over and over again. “Congress” isn’t determined to delay the ACA, and “House Republicans” aren’t determined to delay the ACA. A MINORITY of House Republicans want to delay (and do a lot of other shit) and Boehner is going along with them.
So ONE GUY is fucking with your entire country and, soon enough, the world. Is that it? Really?
(Don’t ask how the CBC is covering this. Hint: it involved the word “shenanigans”. I weep.)
zattarra
Just saw Roger Simon from Politico on my TV say how it was easy to come on and say both sides do it but in this case it just isn’t true and this is the Republicans shut down because John Boehner is a weak Speaker of the House. So Republicans have lost one of their chief stenographers from Politico on day 1, this does not bode well for the Republicans trying to deflect blame for their shutdown when even Politico ain’t buying it.
NonyNony
@John S.:
T&H’s “point”, such as it is, can be summed up as “I Hate Obama For Reasons”. That is the point of every other post he makes.
In fact, you could replace him with comment bot that posts “I Hate Obama For Reasons” every other post. (Interleaved with “Person Who Responded To My Comment, Here Is A Rude Name That I Will Call You.” posts)
T&H is the most boring troll on the Internet. He must have an utterly miserable life considering how much glee he seems to get from posting variations on the same two damn comments every day.
Eric U.
scattered reports of U.S. insurance companies encouraging medical tourism. There are some things I would probably have done in India if that came to pass. A friend was going to have to hobble around on crutches for a 6 months for a torn ACL. He went to India and had it done before the U.S. surgeon was going to see him for the initial consult.
Cassidy
We should think happy thoughts.
Your welcome.
Botsplainer
@Matt McIrvin:
Shit. I always only get the boobs one and never the toe funk one. As a sufferer of toenail funk, I have been wanting to see it but never have.
Mandalay
@pseudonymous in nc:
Yes we can! You can load test way above and beyond any expected real world volume of requests. Businesses do it all the time.
Of course. whether that was actually done properly in this case is another story. I’ve been waiting for over two hours to get to the login page for Florida…
tybee
every time i hear the rethug and their msm supporters clamor for negotiations, i think of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpsYJrGb_yI
taylormattd
@Ted & Hellen: “is that O and his team suck at messaging”
Jesus christ you are fucking stupid.
mike with a mic
@Mandalay:
You mean like how Blizzard (who knows how to load test) screwed up with the Diablo 3 launch? Or EA did? Businesses have these sorts of issues all the time, including businesses who’s model is online gaming.
A system is buggy on release, oh noes!
NonyNony
@zattarra:
Um, that isn’t the takeaway I’d pull from that.
I’d say that’s a shiv from the monied wing of the party into Boehner’s back and into the Tea Party’s gut.
The order has come down. An example must be made to the Tea Party. Boehner will be hung out to dry.
Frankly, though, I think it’s too late. I doubt another Republican Speaker will be able to put Frankenstein’s Monster back into its cell. Who would want to be the leader of this gaggle of idiocy?
tybee
@Villago Delenda Est:
racist fucktard libel
taylormattd
@John S.: No, no, he’s likely perfectly happy to blame all democrats for everything the media does.
Shorter Ted & Hellen:
“If only [Obama / Pelosi / Reid / generic democrat] would BULLYPULPIT LEEEDERSHIP MESSAGING, then Politico, the Washington Post editorial board, and all local news would dutifully report that the republicans are liars.”
Cassidy
Holy shit! This is some funny shit. It’s horrible. It is some of the worst redneck crap I have ever had the misfortune to listen to. But I can’t turn away.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@tybee: One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies.
Unfortunately, the teahadis won’t collapse into grief if we take out the leader.
Botsplainer
Toenail toenail toenail toenail toenail toenail toenail
Keith G
@shortstop:
What happens here a bit too often is that a good analyst makes an observation which is not supportive enough of the president and they become a villager with an agenda.
Sometime later, they will issue forth something laudatory and they then become the fount of all that is wise.
To the overall point…in Houston ACA glitches are not in the headlines. When ACA in mentioned it is in headlines such as
I think some of y’all are obsessing too much. As yet this is a non story in fly over land. People have lives to lead and care not one wit about Morning Joe or Politico.
? Martin
@Comrade Mary:
Yes. The House will only reopen the government on their terms. If it takes even a single Democratic vote to achieve it, they’ll leave it shut down. It doesn’t matter what Democrats try and compromise on – it needs to carry with nothing but GOP votes or it doesn’t happen.
JustRuss
@NonyNony:
I don’t know the answer, but just the question is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.
Mandalay
@mike with a mic:
If Blizzard “screwed up” then your claim that Blizzard knows how to load test makes no sense – they obviously don’t.
Businesses load test web sites far above anticipated usage levels all the time. Those that don’t test properly get problems, but simulating massive levels of usage is trivial. Software for doing that has been around for a long time.
andrewsomething
@srv:
No way I’m actually going to read that, but loading the page and searching for the term “both sides” reveals that DougJ did not show up.
Cassidy
It gets worse.
Seriously, take a break from the doom and gloom and watch this shit. It’s hilarious.
Roger Moore
@Comrade Mary:
Then the Democrats and the relatively sane Republicans need to get a discharge petition going. If they really want to vote for the Senate’s CR, they should do something about it.
Seanly
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, same here.
@mike with a mic:
Rockstar Games is warning that due to the initial sales of GTA V, they think their servers won’t be able to handle the traffic now that GTA Online (the multiplayer aspects of the game) go live today. They are warning that it’ll be a couple of weeks of terrible traffic until they get the new servers online. Now if they would just finish the Android app for training the dog…
mike with a mic
@Mandalay:
They do, and they have to deal with WOW which is why their D3 screw up was hilarious. They run a system with millions more people than Diablo 3, two actually, WOW and Starcraft!
On funny news about Obamcare, turns out Sullivan is going to sign up for it.
ericblair
@Mandalay:
I’m guessing there’s no funding or real business case to scale up for a one-off load spike. After the initial surge, there’s no reason that there would really be another one. I don’t think cloud implementation is far enough along in the government space for them to have used it (security certification/privacy issues mainly). Would be good to find a case study on the implementation somewhere.
Joel
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: That’s why you’re the thought leader!
Joel
@Keith G: Similarly, people who read Politico and watch Morning Joe – minor media figures, congressional staffers, etc. – generally don’t give a fuck about the lives of everyday people.
? Martin
@Mandalay:
Oh, FFS. Obama mentioned the iOS launch. For a 24 hour period Apple consumed roughly 25% of all internet traffic. Are you suggesting that all of these services should have been built for a one-time peak load that would never be repeated again? How many millions in hardware would have been purchased to support 24 hours worth of peak traffic, never to be needed again?
As was noted above, businesses can roll out additional AWS services to handle the peak load and only have to pay for that peak usage. Government is prohibited from using cloud services in this way.
If the sites are still screwed up in a week, then you’re free to complain.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
No, it’s not that they refuse to accept any Democratic votes, it’s that they’re trying to follow the Hastert rule about needing a majority of Republicans for anything to get a vote. Now, Boehner has added a corollary that requires majority support from the Teabagger caucus before he’ll even present it to the Republican caucus to test if it will pass the Hastert rule.
shortstop
@Keith G:
I like it when your own comments obsess too much. Makes a nice break from the rest of your comments rebuking everybody else for obsessing too much. You sure are full of disapproval for most everyone these days. I miss the old Keith I knew a hunnert years or so ago.
zattarra
@NonyNony: I watched it. It was pretty much Simon putting full blame on the Republican Party. Don’t know if he was paid to do so but there was actual emotion in his voice when he went after the blame both sides people and The Republican Party. Not the Tea Party, The Republican Party.
Ash Can
@Roger Moore:
Good fucking grief. It’s a wonder he hasn’t had a nasty accident at home by now, involving slipping and falling off the roof with a rope around his neck and 18 knives stuck in his back, courtesy of some nice folks hired by Wall Street. I can’t imagine the phone calls he must be getting. At home. At 2AM.
Keith G
@shortstop: I’ll see what I can do to find him, though he was a bit of a self-medicating mess (which goes to explain some of those late, late night conversations)
Trollhattan
@Ash Can:
Yup. I hope they’re happy with the shiny model Republican Party they’ve bought and paid for.
Schmucks.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Ahh yes. I noted the same thing yesterday on an open thread. The funny thing is NPR’s slogan, at least in these parts, is “the mind is our medium.” It’s supposed to evoke their ability to keep you intelligently informed, but given that they’re too stupid to figure out who’s to blame here, I think “medium” refers to the size of their brains, though I’m probably being too generous.
Chris
I realize there are other priorities, but cutting down on contractors seriously needs to be put on the Democrats’ political radar front and center at some point. You want graft, government inefficiency, cronyism, job handouts to the undeserving and Chicago style politics? There it is. Stop figuring out how to privatize all your governments’ jobs and you’ll cut down on a ton of “parasites” right there (and yeah, you can start with the DOD ones).
wenchacha
The longer the Republicans keep the govt on shutdown, the more time people will have time to research plans thru ACA. I hope they choke on this so hard they wish they had ACA.
Ted & Hellen
@Aimai:
Of course she did, you stupid bitch. Warren and Grayson, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, are two of the very few Dems who do not consider spineless cowering a form of messaging.
Trollhattan
@Ted & Hellen:
Aaaaaaaand here comes the banhammer.
Pity.
Ted & Hellen
@Trollhattan:
Oh gosh, I’d think not…lots of people use the bitch word here.
It’s true, though that they are generally Bots and are thus excused.
Oh, and fuck yourself.
aimai
@Ted & Hellen: Are you really going to pretend, once again, that there is any daylight between Warren and Obama–the politician who gave her her start and helped vault her into the Senate seat? As usual your political analysis is moronic and distinguished only by its spite and vituperation.
Ted & Hellen
Plus, if one considers the mouth on that Aimai person, one supposes it’s been called far worse than bitch…
Ted & Hellen
@aimai:
You idiot.
Since taking office, EW has vocalized more progressive goals, called out more reprobate wingnuts, and taken more aggressive progressive stands in public than has Barack Milquetoast Obama in his five years of Republican Lite rule.
And yes, it matters a great deal what politicians say and do. I know that comes as a shock to Bots.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
They stepped all over their own message, did the Republicans. Instead of being out there pointing out massive Obamacare fail! the coverage is all about the government shutdown.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
Needs to be made permanent. As in we never see the racist fucktard again.
Matt McIrvin
Novel wingnut argument I just heard: the ACA is unconstitutional “because it involves a tax but originated in the Senate.” (Which it didn’t, which I suppose is par for the course.)
PaulW
here at the library just had a lady try to register through healthcare.gov, but the site was unresponsive and it didn’t have any of the preformatted Security Questions showing.
Suggested she try later in the week. She’s got until Jan. 1st, after all.
PaulW
@Matt McIrvin:
Never accuse a wingnut of applying the facts to their reasoning.
shortstop
@Keith G: Well, self-medication’s no good; I’m with you there, pal. I don’t remember the late-night stuff, though, as I’m kind of an early-to-bed-and-first-up girl. Anyway, he’s welcome anytime.
PaulW
for anyone thinking Wall Street might bring the Republicans to their senses… the stock markets are not panicking at the moment.
Maybe if this all drags into the debt ceiling crisis in two weeks, then yeah maybe… but I doubt anything can bring the wingnuts to heel this time. They want blood.
shortstop
@Matt McIrvin: This was big during the long, hot summer of 2009. They’ve just brought it back to undead status.
taylormattd
@Trollhattan:
“Pity.”
Not really.
ThresherK
Spin?
I dunno, I can get Chuck Todd to say “Obama quoting a fact about access to the gov website is spin”.
But seriously, it is good news. And it’s better news that the masterminds behind the GOP election day software didn’t design this website and accompanying infra.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
You have to admit, it’s pretty funny to watch Timmy excoriate all of us for our supposed hero-worship of Obama while he runs around telling us that Warren is the Last Honest Politician and he luuuurrrrrrvvvvveeeesss her.
But, as I’ve pointed out many times before, Timmy’s whole schtick is to scold other people for doing the exact same thing he does. He’s the king of “do as I say, not as I do.”
Biscuits
We are self employed people who have a type I diabetic to insure. Up until this point, our premiums have been astronomical. I could just cry happy tears at the thought of how our payments will now become manageable. It is one part of our lives that is no longer insecure. The relief I feel right now I don’t think most insured people will ever understand. I am so happy and relieved. :)
Buck B.
@Chris:
Yeah, because all the best developers are just clamoring to work for the federal government.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
Huh? I want what you’re smoking.
Trollhattan
@Ted & Hellen:
You’re the Asperger boy who goes up to people and slugs them while chanting “I’m not hitting you. I’m not hitting you.”
It’s not even cute when they’re five. Take your meds.
teiresias
You know… the government could create a couple hundred jobs by building its own cloud facility for whatever use a Federal agency might need it for. Surely there’s a warehouse or three laying empty in the back nine of NoVA that they could fill up with servers?
SiubhanDuinne
@Matt McIrvin:
I hope there is no such thing as Boobs Fungus, just sayin’ iz all.
xian
@Gene108: no, T&H is a useful idiot, purity troll division, unwittingly doing the work of the GOP by sowing strife among Democrats and the left.
xian
@NonyNony: I don’t think he’s that bright. Anyone with half a brain would refresh their shtick from time to time.
And anyone who’s a full-time troll has got a deep emptiness he’s trying to avoid feeling.