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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Come on, man.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Bark louder, little dog.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

This fight is for everything.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

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You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Friday Afternoon Open Thread

Friday Afternoon Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  June 12, 20152:36 pm| 231 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Domestic Politics, NANCY SMASH!, Open Threads, Politics, Television, Assholes, Our Failed Media Experiment

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According to the Beltway bilge I sampled moments ago, the Republican House, which mostly voted for the TAA that was a precursor to the Fast-Track authority, which was a precursor to the TPP trade deal, did not pass the bill. The only take-away from that is that House Democrats kicked President Obama in the junk!

I’m not buying it comrades, and I hope you don’t either (the Beltway framing, I mean). Anyhoo, here’s an open thread to continue the donnybrook below or branch out into new topics, such as your weekend plans or the kickoff of season three of “Orange Is the New Black.” It was supposed to drop today but came out last night instead. I stayed up too late watching the first few episodes.

Mentioned this in the morning thread but I’ll repeat it here: We got good news from the vet about our suddenly fat and lethargic boxer dog today. She has hypothyroidism, which we’re now treating. She should be back to her bouncy self soon, the vet says, and will shed the excess pounds eventually. I was so worried it was something worse, so this is a relief.

Open thread!

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Reader Interactions

231Comments

  1. 1.

    max

    June 12, 2015 at 2:41 pm

    The vote was 302-126 against TAA. That means that a majority of Republicans had to have voted against it. I’m not sure of the vote breakdown yet.

    Since the TAA has gone down, there are now fewer reasons to vote to support TPA. It’s also in the Senate bill, so if it passes, something will have to be altered in conference.

    max
    [‘Not over yet.’]

  2. 2.

    shortstop

    June 12, 2015 at 2:41 pm

    Excellent canine news!

    I want to watch OITNB, but first I have to get through the last two seasons of GoT before HBO notices they’re giving it to me for free.

  3. 3.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 2:44 pm

    “The only take-away from that is that House Democrats kicked President Obama in the junk!”.

    Well, that’s what congressional democrats did. I’d say that is indeed the gist of today’s story. That, and the party’s better off for today’s vote, both near and long term.

  4. 4.

    max

    June 12, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    Never mind, here’s where we’re at:

    Republican leaders tried to muster support from their own party for trade adjustment assistance, a program they have long derided as an ineffective waste of money and sop to organized labor. But not enough Republicans were willing to save the program.

    Republican leaders then passed a stand-alone trade promotion bill, but that would force the Senate to take up a trade bill all over again. And without trade adjustment assistance alongside it, passing trade promotion authority in the Senate would be highly doubtful.

    max
    [‘Filibuster time.’]

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 2:47 pm

    Glad to hear about Miss Patsy Marie. You can post before and after pics.

  6. 6.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    I generally don’t make the same mistake twice. When NAFTA came up I remember reading about it and thinking trade = good. I believed what Clinton and all the talking heads told me/us.

    By all accounts pretty much the exactly opposite happened after it passed. Tens of thousands of factories closed. Jobs, good jobs gone.

    I’ve let me rep know how I feel about TPP. He shouldn’t vote for it, and he didn’t.

  7. 7.

    Phylllis

    June 12, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    Watching Detour on TCM. Next up, Mildred Pierce.

    Glad to hear the good news about your pup-pup, Betty.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    June 12, 2015 at 2:50 pm

    Since it’s an OT, today is my brother’s memorial. I’m really, really glad I pressured G into coming out here to be with me, because I can say all of the unworthy things I’ve been suppressing, like, “I resent that I have to be in charge of this. I know why I has to be me, but I still kind of resent it.”

    And the one plus side to my brother’s asshole estranged wife jetting off to New York is that we don’t have to worry that she’ll keep the kids away, so there’s that.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    June 12, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    On a happier note, the 12th of June marks the 48th anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Loving vs. Virginia.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): The kids being involved in their dad’s memorial is a huge silver lining.

    Wishing the best for you. Glad to hear G is with you.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 2:55 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): Damn, so sorry. When we lost our mom last year, there was some drama around the behavior of certain parties that really made a hellish time that much more stressful. It was nothing as fraught as what you’ve had to endure. But still, I kept thinking, “Really, asshole? Now?” Anyway, wishing you courage and strength.

  12. 12.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 2:56 pm

    @Phylllis: Just started watching The Strain on Hulu. I have high hopes for it …. so it will most likely suck :)!

  13. 13.

    Bobby B.

    June 12, 2015 at 2:56 pm

    Ornette Coleman RIP

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 2:58 pm

    @Tree With Water:

    Well, that’s what congressional democrats did. I’d say that is indeed the gist of today’s story. That, and the party’s better off for today’s vote, both near and long term.

    I hope the trade deal goes down, but that juvenile framing that you’re lapping up is one reason this country’s business is so tragically mismanaged.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 2:58 pm

    @Phylllis: Yes. Fridays are fab on TCM.

    Lot of good programming this month, including next Tuesday daytime devoted to dog movies (June 14; little heavy on Lassie flicks, but oh well) and a daytime marathon of Christopher Lee as tall, dark and gruesome on Monday, June 22.

  16. 16.

    geg6

    June 12, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    Glad your pup has something that is easily treatable!

    Made the appointment to get Lovey spayed today. I doubt it keeps her down long. She’s a super busy ball of energy.

    And for all who have been asking, I have now sent the Lovey pics to AL. Hopefully, she’s more reliable about posting them than Cole has been. ;-)

  17. 17.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    June 12, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    @Tommy:

    I remember reading about it and thinking trade = good.

    Likewise.

    Except in the intervening years I have realized there is no such thing as “trade”, absent a set of rules and laws and case law to define it, shape it, bound it and enforce it.

    This is where the injustice comes in, since the ones doing the defining and shaping are the vested interests, not the consumers or workers or people affected.

    When farmworkers and garment workers from all the nations affected are allowed to negotiate and write the treaty, then we can talk about how good “free trade” is.

  18. 18.

    cahuenga

    June 12, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    Not over by a long shot. Boehner will bring this up again next week.

  19. 19.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    This post by Charles Pierce is just wonderful:

    Why is it necessary at this point to have a formal Republican party structure at all? The RNC can’t control the size of the field, because any breathing primate who knows a friendly gozillionnaire can stay alive through the entire process. The RNC can’t control the debates, because the interests of the FNC and/or the Union-Leader are treated within the conservative movement especially as being equal or superior to the party’s interest in an orderly process. Times have changed. Back in the day, a party chairman could have felt free to tell McQuaid — and the candidates participating in his forum — to pound sand.

    The RNC has lost all control and the primary process is already spinning out of control. Boy this is going to be fun to watch.

  20. 20.

    shell

    June 12, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    Is it a good day for boxer news? It’s always a good day for boxer news!

  21. 21.

    SatanicPanic

    June 12, 2015 at 3:04 pm

    With apologies to Black Flag:

    OINTB Party Tonight!
    OINTB Party Tonight!

  22. 22.

    Mary G

    June 12, 2015 at 3:05 pm

    Yay for CrackerPuppy! My last cat Sophie had thyroid issues for years; she lived to 21 and loved the pill mashed up in baby food.

  23. 23.

    Joseph Nobles

    June 12, 2015 at 3:05 pm

    The TAA was passed four years ago with every Democrat voting for it. Today it went down in defeat so that the TPA, yoked to it by procedure, would be held up.

    Now the TPA has passed. On Tuesday, there’s going to be another vote on the TAA. In fact, Josh Earnest just said at the press conference that the President was aware of the distinct possibility that the TPA would be brought up even if the TAA went down in defeat.

    So now it’s going to be an interesting weekend.

  24. 24.

    shell

    June 12, 2015 at 3:06 pm

    @Elizabelle: I remember as a kid, hating the ‘Lassie’ tv show with a passion. It was basically, “How can we torture this poor dog this week?’

  25. 25.

    Yatsuno

    June 12, 2015 at 3:06 pm

    In the interesting times category: seems Tammy Duckworth is going to be coming after Mark Kirk’s seat. Sounds like a good place to throw a few shekels since she’d be great in the Senate.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:07 pm

    Is anyone doing the free online TCM-Ball State U (David Letterman’s alma mater) course on film noir? I should do it …

    The free, nine-week course will be offered on Canvas Network and will be taught by Richard Edwards, Executive Director of Ball State’s iLearn Research and film noir expert. The course, designed in part with TCM’s Summer of Darkness Programming event, will bring together an online community of film noir students and fans to learn about the genre and its place in cinematic history. The course will feature:
    • Educational lecture videos
    • Access to TCM’s online archives, including movie descriptions, original photos, movie trailers and original essays on film noir
    • OTTO (Open Text Tool for Online video) annotation software developed by Edwards and Christopher Turvey, a Ball State researcher/developer allowing students the experience of having real-time discussions about specific film titles
    • Online video chat with Summer of Darkness primetime host, Eddie Muller

    I can’t get the TCM enrollment link to work. Investigating …

  27. 27.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:09 pm

    @LWA (Liberal With Attitude): I’ve never been to Detroit, but was visiting a client in Cleveland a few years ago. A city that like Detroit used to be a manufacturing powerhouse.

    We drove from one side of town to the other. It is one thing to see video of closed factories. It is another (at least for me) to drive for mile after mile and see nothing but closed factories.

    And I don’t just see closed factories. I see lost jobs. Broken dreams. It is heart breaking and IMHO the TPP will mean even more of the same.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:09 pm

    My comment re TCM Film Noir class in moderation. Not sure which banned word I used …

  29. 29.

    some guy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    finally, some good news on a Friday. way to go, House Dems

  30. 30.

    Phoebe

    June 12, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    @Joseph Nobles:

    The President knew the vote on TPA might happen anyway? You’re right, that is interesting. It didn’t look as though anyone else on the Dem side expected it.

  31. 31.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    @Yatsuno: What do you think are her possibilities of taking it?

  32. 32.

    jacel

    June 12, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    For all the talk about this fast-track voting, I’m not seeing much mention of the addition of sizable Medicare cuts being built into the Senate bill. That’s a poison pill in itself.

  33. 33.

    NCSteve

    June 12, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    @Tommy: No. For once the asshats are right. They totally kicked him in the junk.

  34. 34.

    Julie

    June 12, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    Hi Betty, will your dog be taking Solixine to treat the hypothyroidism? The good news about Solixine is that it’s cheap, even if you buy it at the vet’s office. Also, the pills are small, and easy to disguise in a handout of cheese or bread. The only problem is the need to administer twice a day – not always easy to remember. The med schedule for my elderly Great Pyrenees is so complicated I need to keep a written record. Good luck!

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    @Joseph Nobles: Yeah, it’ll be interesting, all right. I had read somewhere (WaPo or NYT, I think), that if TAA went down, TPA was a goner, which turned out not to be the case. But what’s really fucked up about it is that TAA was just a continuation of a preexisting band-aid that was supported by Democrats, not some new deal sweetener, as it was being sold. So the Republicans got what they want — TPA — and the Democrats got screwed. But it will all be reconsidered and reconciled. Is that about right?

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    June 12, 2015 at 3:13 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    For non-horror fans, I can highly recommend the “Three Musketeers”/”Four Musketeers” double feature. It’s directed by Richard Lester and has a terrific cast that includes Michael York, Oliver Reed, and Faye Dunaway.

    Of the Hammer films, the first of each monster series (Mummy, Frankenstein and Dracula) are all good. They picked the two strongest of the Dracula sequels with Lee, but you kind of need to be a Hammer fan to enjoy them.

    “Horror Express” is kind of fun because it’s Lee and Peter Cushing together, plus Telly Savalas in his Eurotrash phase. No great shakes, but entertaining.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    June 12, 2015 at 3:14 pm

    Freedom’s Crossfire has claimed another innocent.

    A three-year-old boy has killed himself while playing with his mother’s handgun, according to police in Ohio.

    The boy shot and fatally wounded himself in the chest after finding the gun at his home near Cincinnati. In a 911 audiotape release by police, the boy’s mother Elizabeth Green is heard reporting the incident.

    “My son just shot himself and I’m not getting a pulse,” she is heard screaming. Prosecutors are considering whether to charge her.

    In the call, she said she keeps the gun in her purse and had set the purse down at home before the tragedy.

    “The gun is mine. It is in the house, I carry it in my purse, I laid it down. We just got home,” the mother told the 911 operator.

    The boy has been identified as Marques Green, according to local media. A detective was seen leaving the home with a small black handgun, and placing it into an evidence bag. This is the second accidental shooting death of a child this month in this region of Ohio.

    About two children die in the US every day in accidental shootings, or about 100 per year, according to data compiled by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

    –BBC

    Two children per day. I’m building a hell myself just to have a place to send Wayne LaPierre and everybody who grovels at the feet of the gun and ammo industry. At long last, they’ll only have each other to shoot at.

  38. 38.

    Steve in the ATL

    June 12, 2015 at 3:14 pm

    @Tommy: Detroit has some bad spots, but the suburbs are as rich as ever. Flint, on the other hand, is awful. There is one remaining open GM plant and a couple of colleges. Other than those, no real reason for the town to exist. Toledo and Akron are just as bad.

    Sadly, I have spent a lot of time in the rust belt the last couple of years.

  39. 39.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    Anthony Lane of The New Yorker does a nice piece on Christopher Lee, worth a read.

  40. 40.

    some guy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:16 pm

    “We want a better deal for America’s workers,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California,

    go Nancy, go

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 3:18 pm

    @trollhattan: If two children die every day, it’s more than 100 a year (maybe they meant two die per week?). Even one is too many. And even though I hate fucking gun nuts with the white hot heat of 20,000 exploding supernovas, I can’t imagine the awfulness of that woman’s situation. Losing a child is an unimaginable horror, and to know that it was your own carelessness that caused it would be unbearable. I think I’d shoot myself if I were her.

  42. 42.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:19 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: I live in St. Louis and we have some bad spots but nothing like Cleveland. As I said it was heart breaking.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    June 12, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    @Valdivia:

    Loved it! My only caveat is that Lane doesn’t seem to realize that Lee was, in fact, opera-trained. He sang in several movies, including “Wicker Man,” and would sometimes give on-set performances for the cast and crew between set-ups.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    Here’s link to enroll in free online course, collaboration between Ball State U and Turner Classic Movies, on film noir. Summer of Darkness series.

    Look forward to it! Quiz already due this week!

  45. 45.

    Mike in NC

    June 12, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    Weekend heat index will be 105, so binging on OITNB sounds like a plan.

  46. 46.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    @Julie: Lil Bit gets 4 meds, twice a day in her eyes and one extra in the evening. She also gets an oral med 3 times a week. It ain’t that hard.

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Got a comment stuck in moderation. About TCM Summer of Darkness. ( Noir movies.)

    And agree with gun death toll on children and other innocents.

    Remember the freakout over one, count it, one Ebola death in the US last year?

    And we are looking about about 100+ child deaths, annually? Except it’s the precious that’s doing the killing. Because that’s its purpose.

  48. 48.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 3:28 pm

    @Elizabelle: IT’S A MOOC, RUN AWAY!!!!

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    June 12, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    @Betty Cracker:
    If a mean of two American children die every day because they chanced upon Mommy’s or Daddy’s loaded handgun, that’s around 730 every year. If it’s two every week, that’s an annual rate of 104 or so.

  50. 50.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    June 12, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    @Tommy:

    Which is why I reject the framing of this as “Free Trade” versus “Not Free Trade”

    Trade does in fact enrich multiple parties just as speech is ennobling.

    What we see with these trade deals is a system of chutes and ladders, gates and switches that provide access here, blockage there, subsidy here and penalty there, and always always, always to the benefit and enrichment of the few who sit at the negotiating table.

    We have managed to harness dozens of disparate nations and cultures to embrace standardized laws and structures for property and tort, for how contracts are written and enforced.

    So why can’t we have international environmental laws? Why not international labor unions and workplace safety and wage structures?

    Why am I free to compete with a Chinese worker, but forbidden to cooperate with him?

  51. 51.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 3:30 pm

    Ads for t-shirts with 3-D dog faces are following me. The dog faces are not cute, actually disturbing imo and seeing them so many places is creeping me out.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:30 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I think Lee mentioned The Wicker Man and one of the Musketeer movies as his faves. Don’t quote me.

    It’s always cool to find out someone you admired — and who lived a full, long life — was even more interesting than you suspected.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 3:30 pm

    @Julie: Yes — a small pill and 1/2 twice a day. We wrapped it in cheese and she sucked it right down. We have to give BOTH dogs cheese, though. Wouldn’t be fair otherwise!

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:31 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Yeah. I was wondering a bit about the math too. (sigh)

  55. 55.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 3:33 pm

    @Betty Cracker: You know about Lil Bit’s eye meds. Bondi has always looked longingly as I put her little butt on my lap and wait a minute between doses. A couple of weeks ago he started showing some discharge and we took him in to the vet eye doc. $150 later she said he was fine but it would be good to put eye wash in daily. Now he has a fit when I include him!

  56. 56.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:34 pm

    @Elizabelle: I am not a gun owner. Fired a gun once and just not my cup of tea. But as liberals go I tend to be to the right of many.

    That is mainly because the people I know that own guns, and most do, are so anal about safety. They treat guns as what they are, a potentially deadly tool. They keep them under lock and key, not just laying around. They know I know nothing about guns and would NEVER hand me one. I once asked to go hunting with a buddy and he said sure, after you take a gun safety course.

    But my thinking is starting to change on this topic because the daily news reports clearly highlight a large number of gun owners are shit all stupid and have no idea what gun safety means.

    How a three-year-old child gets their hands on a gun is beyond my understanding, but my gosh it seems to happen daily.

  57. 57.

    satby

    June 12, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    @Betty Cracker: @Mnemosyne (tablet): Betty, so happy to hear good news on your baby.
    Mem, hang in there. So sorry you have to go through this.

  58. 58.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    June 12, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    Well, CS, TWW, CORPORATE CASH and anybody here named Steve lap up the narrative, so they must all be right.

    Right?

  59. 59.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I did not know that detail which adds to teh coolness.
    I tend to like Lane’s reviews a lot. He did a fabulous long piece on Barbara Stanwick and noir a few years ago.

    Betty: glad to hear your dog will be ok. One of my cat’s who is 19 years old has hypothyroidism plus renal issues; balancing those two has been hard, but he’s still going strong.

  60. 60.

    SWMBO

    June 12, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    Betty, we had several dogs over the years with thyroid problems. The trick is getting the right dose. It can take months (start a dose and wait 30 days to see what the new blood levels are) before things settle down. Once implemented, they go back every 6 months to recheck levels. Ours were on levoxothrine and did very well. It isn’t really nasty flavored so putting it in a treat is easy. And yes, in some cases, they will suddenly have more energy than you would have thought possible.

  61. 61.

    Cervantes

    June 12, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    If two children die every day, it’s more than 100 a year (maybe they meant two die per week?)

    Numbers are ostensibly from a study done by Moms Demand Action. Quoting (correctly):

    From December 2012 to December 2013, at least 100 children were killed in unintentional shootings — almost two each week, 61 percent higher than federal data reflect.

    And even this larger number reflects just a fraction of the total number of children injured or killed with guns in the U.S. each year, regardless of the intent.

    The count began after the killing in Newtown.

  62. 62.

    Nicole

    June 12, 2015 at 3:38 pm

    Oh, it’s nice to hear some good pet news. My uncle called the vet for my elderly appaloosa (I board him with my uncle) because he (my horse) wasn’t dragging my uncle out to the paddock every day like he usually does and had gone off his feed. The vet diagnosed uveitis, which Appys are prone too, and the poor guy is in some discomfort. It’ll probably end up taking his sight. :( He’s also got some other things going wrong, and it’s hard to say if they’re treatable or if his springs are winding down. Hoping a good deworming and some antibiotics will perk up his appetite.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 12, 2015 at 3:39 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    IIRC, Kirk is the one who said in the vicinity of an open mic “Lindsey is a bro with no ho.” I’m no Lindsey Graham fan, FSM knows, but that is just a hateful thing to say.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    @raven: May be good advice. Gonna try it, though. It’s 2-4 hour commitment each week, plus watching the movies …

  65. 65.

    the Conster

    June 12, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s really hard for me to care about such a careless stupid woman. It’s unimaginable to me that she could think that toting around a gun with a THREE YEAR OLD makes any fucking sense, AT ALL. She should go to jail, if for nothing else than being too stupid to live.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 12, 2015 at 3:42 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I lived in Flint for six years. Worst years of my life, except maybe for the next three in Battle Creek.

  67. 67.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 3:42 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Just from my observations, not many Republicans have a good sense of humor. They just think they do.

  68. 68.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:44 pm

    @the Conster: Agreed 110%. I want to feel sorry for her but I just can muster that energy. What happened to her child was all her fault. It could have been avoided in dozens of different ways. And as you said she should be in jail as we speak.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    @raven: Ha! Karmic justice fit for a Bodhi!

    @Nicole: Poor horsey. The Appys I’ve known have all been good people. I hope he rallies.

  70. 70.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    @SWMBO: My Druid had the levothyroxine as well. No problems giving it to him, and it worked great – but he grew to hate the previously beloved vet because he hated the blood draws. Vampires in the back room! This story published in here years ago was about him.

  71. 71.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    @Elizabelle: Aw I was just fooling around. It could be fun!

  72. 72.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    @Tommy:

    Hell of a way to learn to practice gun safety. Then again, I wonder how many of these idiots do learn from losing a child due to their own carelessness.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 12, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    @the Conster:
    @Tommy:

    All together now: Hasn’t she suffered enouuuuuuuuuugh?

  74. 74.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    @Betty Cracker: You should see what passes for my own record keeping. I can therefore accept your characterization of my point of view as tragic.

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    June 12, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    @Tommy:

    How a three-year-old child gets their hands on a gun is beyond my understanding, but my gosh it seems to happen daily.

    Honestly, the little kids getting their hands on guns are just the tip of the iceberg. If you read a bunch of stories about accidental shootings- and our own Southern Beale has a pile of them- you’ll quickly see that they’re mostly the result of failing to follow some very basic safety precautions. They could almost all be prevented if people didn’t keep a round chambered. But they’re so stupidly paranoid or overcome with fantasies of being the big hero that they don’t want to lose a second chambering a round before blasting away, and the net result is that their guns are one careless move away from an accidental discharge.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2015 at 3:51 pm

    @Tommy:

    By all accounts pretty much the exactly opposite happened after it passed. Tens of thousands of factories closed. Jobs, good jobs gone.

    I ran across this on the InterWebs

    By establishing the principle that U.S. corporations could relocate production elsewhere and sell back into the United States, NAFTA undercut the bargaining power of American workers, which had driven the expansion of the middle class since the end of World War II. The result has been 20 years of stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power.

    NAFTA affected U.S. workers in four principal ways. First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. To be sure, there were some job gains along the border in service and retail sectors resulting from increased trucking activity, but these gains are small in relation to the loses, and are in lower paying occupations. The vast majority of workers who lost jobs from NAFTA suffered a permanent loss of income.

    Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits.

    Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market.

    Fourth, and ultimately most important, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor.

    http://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/

    I don’t think this report is accurate at all with respect to the flow of undocumented workers into the US, but some of the other points may be valid. However, much of this would have happened without NAFTA as Mexico improved its infrastructure.

    Ultimately, you need a full North American Union, possibly including parts of Central America. I do not see how you can “protect” labor. Are you going to pass laws requiring companies to locate or remain in the US? What are you going to do about companies like Apple, which outsources almost all of its manufacturing (and also outsources much of its profit)?

    As an aside, does anyone know what the impact of NAFTA has been on Canada?

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    More reporting from the paper of record.

    It’s all horse race politics. The first paragraphs say NOTHING about whether the proposed deal was a good one or not.

    Democrats Desert Their President
    by Jennifer Steinhauer, NY Times

    WASHINGTON — After years of Republican derision of President Obama’s fiscal agenda, which they frequently describe as socialism, in the end it was the president’s own Democratic Party that deprived him of what would have been the largest economic policy victory of his second term.

    The stunning defeat was the culmination of years of political dysfunction in Washington, with a twist.

    After decades of watching presidents secure trade agreements from South Korea to Mexico, even in the face of opposition from their base, Democrats have broadly come to the conclusion that such agreements exacerbate income inequality. They refused to come out in sufficient numbers to help Mr. Obama bring a broad agreement over the line.

    Republicans — minus those who simply would not support Mr. Obama on any policy — found their goals far more in concert with the president. Teeth clenched, they had agreed to vote in large numbers for one part of the policy they have long derided as a bailout to labor — a trade adjustment measure that helps trains displaced workers — in order to get the broader trade agenda passed. It would have been a remarkable throwback to the way Congress used to work, but Mr. Obama’s own party did not play.

    Do you think Obama is going to be crying into his martini tonight? I do not.

  78. 78.

    Amir Khalid

    June 12, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    @the Conster:
    From what I’ve seen reported, the gun culture in America seems to encourage not only the ostentatious display of weapons and their use as playthings, but also a reckless disdain for basic weapons safety. I understand the former, more or less, but for the life of me I can’t make sense of the latter.

  79. 79.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 12, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    The Fonzie of Freedom, Nick Gillespie, lets the mask slip again. https://twitter.com/eliasisquith/status/609439787532066817

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 3:54 pm

    @the Conster: I’m certainly not in the “she’s suffered enough” camp — she was criminally negligent and should be prosecuted for it. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to live with it if it were me.

  81. 81.

    gene108

    June 12, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    Opinions from another TPP country, Canada:

    Back in the days when tariffs were high, tallying the benefits of free trade was a relatively easy task.

    Drop duties on wheat or auto parts to zero from 25 per cent, and the winners and losers are obvious.

    Not so with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

    Tariffs on goods are already pretty low between Canada and most of the other 11 countries involved in the TPP. So the most significant potential gains come from tackling tougher-to-quantify non-tariff barriers, as well as trade in services and investment. These include regulations, competition policy, investment rules and intellectual property protections.

    The economic payback could also be much smaller than most people realize – negligible, even.

    One of the most widely cited TPP studies, by economists at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, projects a 0.5-per-cent bump in Canadian economic output by 2025. That’s a $10-billion-a-year boost.

    But even this relatively modest gain may be exaggerated because the study assumes much freer trade than what negotiators are likely to settle on.

    Recent research by Dan Ciuriak, former deputy chief economist at Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, attempts to predict more realistic outcomes, including a longer phase-out of tariffs and less than “full” free trade in key sectors, such as agriculture.

    And the net gain? The TPP would add a mere 0.1 per cent to gross domestic product, or $2.7-billion, by 2035 for Canada, versus an estimate of 0.45 per cent if trade was fully liberalized, according to a recent working paper by Mr. Ciuriak and Jingliang Xiao. That’s barely a hiccup in a $2-trillion economy.

    Their “best guess” is that countries continue to protect their “sensitive” sectors, particularly in agriculture. For example, the paper assumes Canada gives additional duty-free access for imported dairy products, but doesn’t dismantle the protectionist tariff wall that shields dairy, chicken and egg producers.

    SNIP

    Ottawa has not released any estimates of the benefits of the TPP, although officials insist the government is constantly doing economic modelling. Nor has it publicly updated its projections of the gains from the free-trade agreements with Europe and South Korea, based on the now-completed accords, as the European Union routinely does.

    SNIP

    In the real world, however, Canada can’t afford not to be in the TPP, even if it won’t mean winning the trade lottery.

    The cost of exclusion from the TPP club could dwarf the measurable benefits of membership. Canada would lose the competitive advantage it now enjoys in the U.S. market due to the North American free-trade agreement. Exporters of products such as beef would cede ground in the massive Japanese market against their U.S. and Australian rivals. And Canada would be on the outside looking in at what the deal’s architects hope will be a new template for global trade rules.

    But Canada needs to go into these deals armed with reliable data on what its economy will look like on the other side.

    Good policy depends on good data.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canada-needs-data-on-economic-benefits-of-tpp-trade-deal/article24836742/

    They are so incredibly polite in their opinion pages.

  82. 82.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    @bemused: I don’t have any kids. I also don’t own a gun. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that very young kids are curious yet at the same time don’t have the mental capabilities to understand the concept of a gun and death. If you are going to have a gun in the house it should only be two places. In your hand with the safety on or under lock and key. Period. Anything else is at least child endangerment.

  83. 83.

    EriktheRed

    June 12, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    Agenda for the weekend: put on my new suit I paid about $400 for (with the new tie) and go to a cousin’s wedding.

    It’s a nice suit.

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    @raven: I will learn something.

    I’ve meant to try a MOOC or two. This seems an easy way to slip into the habit.

    And one eye on Mildred Pierce as we blog comment …

    The good child has just …. no spoilers.

  85. 85.

    Alex S.

    June 12, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    It is easy to make fun of the libertarians of the Black Helicopter/New World Order variety… until a bill like TPP comes along and gives exactly the same impression of a secret business cabal ruling the world undemocratically. Just saying, because David Rockefeller is 100 years old today.

  86. 86.

    gene108

    June 12, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    Got a comment in moderation. Anyway opinion piece from Canada on the TPP, which is what I posted.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canada-needs-data-on-economic-benefits-of-tpp-trade-deal/article24836742/

    Worth reading on how other countries think about this deal.

  87. 87.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    @Elizabelle: I don’t either. And furthermore, I do expect that PBO will continue to support Democrats, even the ones who opposed him on this deal, and campaign his ass off for Democrats in 2016 and beyond. Because he’s a grown up.

  88. 88.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    @Elizabelle: I was pretty disappointed in the HBO mini. I guess driving on a beach road that was OBVIOUSLY on the east coast killed it for me.

    I love Our Miss Brooks!

  89. 89.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 12, 2015 at 3:59 pm

    If the Democrats had accepted the deal, the story would be: Democrats throw their base under the bus!

    There is no right action as long as you’re a Democrat.

  90. 90.

    catclub

    June 12, 2015 at 3:59 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    they had agreed to vote in large numbers for one part of the policy they have long derided as a bailout to labor

    Sure seems like an exaggeration to me.
    The roll call showed 88 GOP votes in favor, and 168 opposed. Is that considered large numbers voting for it?
    There were fewer Democratic votes against (144?).

  91. 91.

    lamh36

    June 12, 2015 at 4:00 pm

    November 2016 can’t come fast enough for me.

    I’m counting down the days until the Obamas are put the WH and the new crew comes in. So they can enjoy the rest of their lives.

    can I just cast my vote now for 2016? Is it too early for early voting?

  92. 92.

    Joseph Nobles

    June 12, 2015 at 4:01 pm

    @Betty Cracker: TAA was the only leverage the Democrats appeared to have – a bill mostly supported by them but yoked to the TPA by procedure. TPA was going to pass and so labor unions and progressive Democrats seized on the TAA as a way of holding it all up.

    And Nancy Smash just sent a letter to her caucus that mentioned a highway bill being the way to get TPA back on the fast track, as it were. The deal I expect is the GOP finding a way to replenish the Highway Fund and the Democrats coming back around on TAA. Greg Sargent lays it out:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/12/dems-deal-obamas-trade-agenda-a-huge-blow/

  93. 93.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:01 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Same here. I don’t own any guns, but my father has more than a few. I actually have a gun permit, because we follow the law and are not worried about the government coming to take his guns, so in the sad day he is no longer with us I can take control of his gun legally.

    He has even been pushing me to take a gun safety class, which I think isn’t really required, because I will never load much less fire a single one of his guns.

    I just plan to call a friend, many of which have a lot of guns, and say would you please come over and take them. They are yours. I don’t even want to touch them. Buy me a steak dinner and we’re cool.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    @catclub: Don’t get in the way of teh Democrats are divorcing that No account Nobama narrative.

    You and your numbers.

  95. 95.

    Gravenstone

    June 12, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    @trollhattan: A tragic loss, to be certain, but this snippet from the article,

    About two children die in the US every day in accidental shootings, or about 100 per year,

    makes no sense. Two per day would be about 700, not 100 per year.

  96. 96.

    RaflW

    June 12, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    Meanwhile, the insane Kansas legislature finally, after 22 days of special session, passed a tax bill, narrowly avoiding “imminent fiscal calamity.” It sounds like a terrible solution – but then that’s GOP “policy making” for you.

    How is it that Kansans haven’t kicked Brownback firmly in the junk? He’s a destructive buffoon, but I guess he’s their own special snowflake dervish dipshit.

  97. 97.

    catclub

    June 12, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    @Brachiator: One of the arguments for passing the TPP is that it fixes some of the big errors of NAFTA. [I am not in a position to judge the accuracy of those claims.]

  98. 98.

    Belafon

    June 12, 2015 at 4:04 pm

    So, the quesiton I have for people is why do you think Obama is trying to get the TPP passed? And don’t say legacy unless you can come up with a reason for why he would think this would be good for his legacy as compared to, say, increasing the number of people who get overtime.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    June 12, 2015 at 4:04 pm

    @raven: Yes! Eve Arden is wonderful. As always.

    Didn’t see the HBO version (Kate Winslet).

  100. 100.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:06 pm

    @RaflW: Wow that is just a “great” solution to their budget problems:

    The Republican-dominated chamber approved two bills that in combination would hike sales taxes and cigarette taxes, while limiting the power of cities and counties to raise property taxes.

    Sure raise the sale tax. Might as well let the middle class and lower middle class pay for the tax cuts for the top 1%. That sure makes sense.

  101. 101.

    Gravenstone

    June 12, 2015 at 4:06 pm

    @Elizabelle: Ah Ball State, source of one of my favorite sweatshirts from the early ’80s; “Ball U” and on the back it said “I-69” (closest interstate to Muncie). I should have bought a couple back in the day.

  102. 102.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:07 pm

    @Tommy:

    It is mind boggling how many people carry around a gun or just put it down somewhere in the house so casually and absentmindedly. They should be aware of it and the people around them at all times, safety on? kid or someone else likely to grab it or pick it up? Behavior like this seems worthy of studying.

  103. 103.

    Fair Economist

    June 12, 2015 at 4:08 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    But they’re so stupidly paranoid or overcome with fantasies of being the big hero that they don’t want to lose a second chambering a round before blasting away, and the net result is that their guns are one careless move away from an accidental discharge.

    Sadly, so true. The last time I visited my brother he pulled out the loaded semiautomatic rifle (it may have even been the one used in Newton) he keeps next to his bed and talked about all the time he spent planning how to kill invaders coming into his house by various routes. I was horrified and pointed out that home invasions in upper middle class neighbors basically don’t happen but suicidal teens and mistaken identities happen all the time – to no avail against his Die Hard delusions (I won’t even dignify them with the term fantasies).

    As I said, the last time I visit my brother. I like him, but it’s just too dangerous.

  104. 104.

    Cervantes

    June 12, 2015 at 4:09 pm

    @Joseph Nobles:

    The deal I expect is the GOP finding a way to replenish the Highway Fund and the Democrats coming back around on TAA.

    Possible, yes.

    Do you see any indication so far that Trumka, Levin, Ellison, DeLauro, et al., will take the bait?

  105. 105.

    Alex S.

    June 12, 2015 at 4:10 pm

    @gene108:

    Interesting. It is expected that the “free trade” portion of the bill will be weakened. [And look who created the optimistic study, the Peterson Institute!] Free trade isn’t really the main point of the bill, is it? It’s all about the continued de-democratization of the global economy.

  106. 106.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:11 pm

    @Belafon: I honestly have no clue. The only conclusion I can come to are not that positive, like it is what “big business,” Wall Street, and the Chamber of Commerce wants. About the only other conclusion I can come to is his advisors are giving him bad advice.

  107. 107.

    Belafon

    June 12, 2015 at 4:11 pm

    @Tommy: That’s how it works here in Texas. The Upper class here pays the smallest percentage of their income in taxes. But it’s “fair”.

  108. 108.

    geg6

    June 12, 2015 at 4:13 pm

    @the Conster:

    Glad to see I’m not the only one who feels that way. Fuck these people. I have no sympathy whatsoever for whatever carnage The Precious wreaks on their own lives. I feel sorry for that poor child. But I don’t feel one ounce of sympathy for that stupid and reckless mother.

  109. 109.

    Alex S.

    June 12, 2015 at 4:15 pm

    @Belafon:

    The legacy argument is interesting. Why would Obama spend his time with something like this? Paul Krugman has said something about the Greek government, the fact that they, as convinced leftists, can never expect to go on the international speech circuit like the Clintons, or invitations to the IMF/World Bank/G7 summits, or Tony-Blair-as-Middle-East-envoy or something like that. They are not part of the club. Does Obama think that his support of TPP will gain him access to the club? It is frustrating to think about him and this situation.

  110. 110.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:16 pm

    @Fair Economist:

    Does he carry too? Just wondering if he decides to visit you.

  111. 111.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    @bemused: And I am willing to bet that same person that just sets down a gun would never think of leaving a cordless drill or band saw within a young child’s reach. What is it about guns that are different? I really don’t know.

    As the Fair Economist just noted with his brother pulling out a loaded gun he keeps at the side of his bed, well that would freak me the fuck out. If I went to a friends house and there were loaded guns just laying around that would be the last time I went into said house.

  112. 112.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:19 pm

    @bemused: I know a woman who keeps a handgun in the bedside not only with a round chambered, but with it cocked – because she’s not strong enough to cock it. I wondered at her having a gun in the house at all, as her grown son that lives with her is mentally ill – and was told that it was his gun that he lent to her “for safety”. I said at least go buy a gun that you can handle if you are determined to have it. And I refused to ever go in her house again, nor even wait in the driveway.

    Know another guy who was always buying more and more guns “for protection”. Not necessary in this area, but then he’s a real asshole, so maybe he has a lot of enemies? He has bought so many guns for protection that now he never leaves the house because he has to stay home and guard the guns. He keeps a loaded handgun stuffed down into the cushions of the chair he sits in, too far to reach for the 16 racked up on the wall there. I found out when I got yelled at for sitting in the special chair. Really hoping he blows himself a new asshole with that. Also he has severe hearing loss due to not using hearing protection while shooting, but refuses to get a hearing aid. So he has an alarm set up at the end of the driveway to let him know when the marauders are coming for him. Ooh, perimeter alert! It’s almost like he’s in the military. Except that in the military he’d actually have to do some work.

  113. 113.

    LWA (Liberal With Attitude)

    June 12, 2015 at 4:19 pm

    @Alex S.:
    Sorry to harp on this, but what makes a deal that adds thousands of pages of new regulations part of “free trade”?
    How is allowing foreign nations to overrule American city councils, “free”?

    I won’t cede to those who want to claim the high ground of advocating “freedom”.

  114. 114.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    @Joseph Nobles: That’s a fine synopsis, thanks. My gut feeling is that eventually enough votes get rounded up from both sides to pass TAA, which probably means eventual passage of the TPP. The Democrats are just angling for sweeteners to make the medicine go down. That’s not my preferred outcome, but I think it’s the most likely. So all this sturn und drang about Obama’s “stinging defeat” boo-hoo-hoo will be for naught. It’s just hard for me to believe that something corporations want this badly won’t happen.

  115. 115.

    Gravenstone

    June 12, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    @muddy: Is she strong enough to flip the safety? Or does she leave that off too? And I thought the special snowflake I once knew who slept with throwing knives under her pillow was dangerous.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 12, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    @Fair Economist: Nitpicking about pet peeve alert: It is Newtown, not Newton.

    Thank you and we now return to your regularly scheduled program.

  117. 117.

    trollhattan

    June 12, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:
    Am so glad you’re in the hood. Did you see this bombshell (pronounced: Bim-shell)?

    With drought conditions continuing into the summer months, the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) announced today that there is insufficient water available for senior water right holders with a priority date of 1903 or later in the San Joaquin and Sacramento watersheds and the Delta. The need for further curtailment of more senior rights and curtailments in other watersheds is being assessed weekly.

    Notices are being sent to water right holders that direct recipients to stop diversions of water to protect more senior water rights and releases of previously stored water, as required by state law. Diversion of water when water is not available under the right holder’s date of priority is unauthorized and unlawful. Violations are subject to fines up to $1,000 per day and $2,500 per acre-foot of water unlawfully diverted, cease and desist orders, or prosecution in court.

    Senior water right holders with priority dates earlier than 1903 in the affected watersheds can continue to divert water in accordance with their water right. In addition, those who have previously stored water under a valid right may continue to hold that water or release it for beneficial use.

  118. 118.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:22 pm

    @Tommy: I have been told many times what is different about guns than other dangerous tools:

    “IT’S IN THE CONSTITOOOOOOOOO-SHUN” (tone suggesting you have offered to rape the person’s mother and eyes bugging)

    They only like the 2nd clause of the 2nd amendment, anything else is anathema to them. It’s just a religion, it’s based on faith and not facts.

  119. 119.

    glory b

    June 12, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    @bemused: I was thinking the same thing.

  120. 120.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    @Gravenstone: No safety, silly, that would defeat the purpose. Thing is she’s such a tiny bird-boned little lady that she is apt just to drop it due to weight and have it go off by that. It’s crazy.

  121. 121.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    @Tommy:

    I was thinking the same thing about other dangers around the home. They probably get stove knob covers and outlet covers when kids are very young and put toxic stuff out of reach or under key such as the laundry pods in the news lately. How can anyone not treat a gun or rifle with the same caution? Bizarre.

    I was watching the news on the prison escapees and there was an interview with a woman who lived in the area carrying around her rifle outside her house. She said she knew guns well and how to handle them, blah, blah but so she says. I thought it would be really awful if that rifle went off as she was moving it from her right side up to sling over her left shoulder and wondered if the reporter and camera person there had the same thought.

  122. 122.

    Belafon

    June 12, 2015 at 4:27 pm

    @Alex S.: I don’t quite buy that argument from Krugman. Bill was the president of the third largest country with the biggest military and economy in the world. Hillary has been spouse, senator, SoS, and attempted presidential candidate. Greece would be the 8th largest state in the US; its the 80th largest country. I bet those places don’t ask Cuba for advice either.

    I really doubt Obama has to do anything more to go on a speaking fee tour for the rest of his life.

  123. 123.

    catclub

    June 12, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    @Belafon:

    So, the quesiton I have for people is why do you think Obama is trying to get the TPP passed?

    Check out Andrew Tobias on that.

    http://andrewtobias.com/column/fast-track-and-trade/

    I bet you can other links from there.

  124. 124.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:29 pm

    @glory b:

    I love dogs, we have Samoyeds,but would never buy a t-shirt like that with a Samoyed face. Sammies have the sweetest, smiley faces but I would guess they would look like mad dogs ready to eat you on one of those t-shirts.

  125. 125.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 12, 2015 at 4:29 pm

    @trollhattan: @trollhattan: hey trolly, yeah was just reading about that. they punted on the senior rights due to one week of good (read: wet) weather. smh.

    hope things are going well for you and yr family.

  126. 126.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 4:32 pm

    @Alex S.: I am as opposed to this trade deal as anyone but to begin speculating that Obama supports it so he can rake in money post presidency? Maybe he really thinks it is the right thing in terms of alliances with other countries and thinks he can do good with it? And he may be wrong in that assessment and we can vehemently disagree with him about it on policy terms and political strategy grounds. But to start accusing him of ulterior agendas and monetary motives for it?

  127. 127.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    @bemused: Yeah I just don’t understand either. I can only assume wingnuts love their kids as much as my brother and his wife do (and me as well). When my niece was an infant the house was so child proof it was almost hard for adults to use it :). Now they don’t own guns but if they did clearly they would be under lock and key 24/7.

  128. 128.

    NotoriousJRT

    June 12, 2015 at 4:34 pm

    Here’s to good doggy health news!!!

  129. 129.

    Elie

    June 12, 2015 at 4:35 pm

    @Brachiator:

    However, much of this would have happened without NAFTA as Mexico improved its infrastructure.

    Ultimately, you need a full North American Union, possibly including parts of Central America. I do not see how you can “protect” labor. Are you going to pass laws requiring companies to locate or remain in the US? What are you going to do about companies like Apple, which outsources almost all of its manufacturing (and also outsources much of its profit)?

    Yes. This. I don’t know. There is so much animus against TPP based on the perceived experiences with NAFTA. Its going to happen with or without the US in it. Fine, many say here, but as you question, will that really “save” the American worker? Can we say that we will retain more jobs, have better wages and safety without it?

    Reading the comments on the rebuff by the House Democrats to Obama in the NYT, the resentment and anger about Obama’s support for this agreement is real. I take it seriously and respect it, even as I don’t fully understand how defeating this will end up saving anything. The statement that defeating it will “save” the Democratic Party is interesting. Not sure how that is going to happen, but ok.. that would be great. How? All the non voting progressives that haven’t been voting are suddenly going to start voting because why exactly? Promise of more jobs, better pay (Democrats can say that?) Hey — what progressive isn’t for fairness, wage equity, etc — at least conceptually. But how does this save us? Making sure we crush ol evil Obama and the other demon spawn HILLARY! Yay! We’ll show ’em allright!

  130. 130.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:37 pm

    @Tommy:

    Maybe it’s not so much people with a sick relationship with guns as it is the same people who you wonder how they manage to get themselves dressed in the morning

  131. 131.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 12, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    @Belafon: Maybe he is trying to get it passed because he thinks passing it is a good idea. I tend to go the other way on the issue, but I don’t think we need to look for ulterior motives here.

  132. 132.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:39 pm

    @Valdivia:

    But to start accusing him of ulterior agendas and monetary motives for it?

    Agreed 110%. Like Obama needs this trade agreement to get book deals and endless speaking engagement once out of office is just crazy talk. I think it is safe to say if groups are willing to pay George Bush $150,000+ to speak many more would be willing to pay Obama at least as much.

  133. 133.

    Belafon

    June 12, 2015 at 4:39 pm

    @Valdivia: I do kind of wonder if Obama views the TPP as more of a foreign relations agreement than an economic one.

  134. 134.

    Belafon

    June 12, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    @catclub: I will have to check those out later.

  135. 135.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    @Betty Cracker: If not a sea change, today’s vote is proof positive that “what the corporations want so badly” no longer cuts it with the people who vote democrats into office. The scene outside of Pelosi’s office in San Francisco is a harbinger. Their expectations have undergone a profound change, and Wall Street democrats will ignore it at their electoral peril. Those that won’t belong in the republican party, anyway.

  136. 136.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 4:44 pm

    @Valdivia: That’s where I am. I’m sure he sincerely thinks it’s the right thing to do. Other people sincerely disagree. There doesn’t have to be bad faith or personal animus involved, and that’s why the Beltway framing annoys the shit out of me.

  137. 137.

    cahuenga

    June 12, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    @Tree With Water:

    Pelosi’s quote today: “Today we have an opportunity to slow down [fast-track legislation]”

    A rather curious statement. I don’t think for a second she won’t flip next week.

  138. 138.

    Bill

    June 12, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    @Tommy: It pains me to admit it, but Perot was right about NAFTA. That crazy old fucker wasn’t just spinning a yarn when he talked about the “giant sucking sound.”

  139. 139.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 4:46 pm

    @Belafon: I can only tell you that from the perspective of how much China has gained influence in South America by investing crazy amounts of money there and signing trade deals my gut feeling is that the answer is yes. This is a move is partly to counter that.

    @Tommy: Yes, he doesn’t need to do anything but finish his term and it will happen.

    @Betty Cracker: Exactly, why do we need to make up conspiracy theories about it that make Obama the enemy of the Dems? The Village will village and unfortunately find many who give them quotes to make this story line stick.

  140. 140.

    cahuenga

    June 12, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    @Valdivia:

    China is running up against a labor shortage. A considerably different situation than the US.

  141. 141.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Agreed again. I get what he thinks the agreement will do, I just don’t think the end results we be what he hopes. In concept it is a great idea. Let’s face it if we want to really grow our economy it would be nice to be able to sell our cars, iPhones, and such to billions of people in Asia and around the world.

    Having the people making our iPhones getting a better wage and better work conditions so they can afford to buy our products, again good.

    But I thought the same for NAFTA and as other have posted links, what happened with that deal wasn’t want anybody thought would happen (or if they did they never said it in public).

    I don’t see how this is going to be any different.

  142. 142.

    Omnes Omnibus

    June 12, 2015 at 4:51 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Of course bad faith has to be involved. If not, the Villagers might be forced to write about policy and facts instead of personalities and positioning and that would never do.

  143. 143.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 4:52 pm

    @cahuenga: I am not saying it’s the same situation. All I am saying is that there is a foreign policy calculus. We may not agree with it, think its the wrong way to frame it, but still the President might see it in this way and think it’s the right thing to do.

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s in the Village™ manual they receive when they start covering the WH or Congress or just politics in general. There must be drama, and loathing and personal invective. Policy is so dry and boring.

  144. 144.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 4:53 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I do not see how you can “protect” labor. Are you going to pass laws requiring companies to locate or remain in the US?

    No, you make deals where countries that want no trade barriers to the giant market in the US start protecting their own workers. If they don’t comply with that you sanction them under the terms of the trade deal.

    If you don’t do that the protections that US workers have achieved are undermined AND workers in other countries are also harmed.

    US workers can protect what they have gained by bringing up the bottom. It is quite literally win/win, as far as working people. In this instance it really doesn’t have to be win/lose. Who loses? Definitely business interests when they are in or operating in those countries. Maybe consumers, with slightly higher prices.

    That’s the labor protection they want. International. They know companies can move. That’s why they want it.

  145. 145.

    jl

    June 12, 2015 at 4:53 pm

    All the back and forth on the benefits of free trade are interesting, but I think they miss the point.
    Conventional trade barriers are already very low by historical standards.

    The main short run effect of the TPP will be to spread and strengthen US IP law, particularly the rights of patent and copyright holders. In the short run, it will result in more restraint of trade due to strengthened patent and copyright law. Supposedly, there will be a long term benefit in more innovation due to greater returns to innovation. But the current US IP law is very extreme historically in putting priority for property rights claims above everything else, and it is an open question whether it has gone so far that the costs of short run restraint of trade outweighs the long run benefits of increased innovation.

    Edit: and the short run costs will hit all workers, impoverished, poor, middling and middle class.

    Secondly is the use of the TPP to further the project of providing blanket corporate investment protection, and making that a priority. Obama himself admitted that previous trade deals have produced counterproductive results when corporation intimidated smaller poorer countries over policies that had the result of reducing their expected profits, tobacco being the main example. Obama wants us to trust him that these problems have been worked out.

    I don’t care whether all previous presidents had fast track authority. the nature of the negotiations and the role of governments in providing representation for a wide range of national stakeholders was different under FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. The nature of the trade deals, and the interests dominating the negotiations have changed, and the original rationale for fast track authority and secrecy no longer apply.

  146. 146.

    trollhattan

    June 12, 2015 at 4:53 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:
    Thanks, we’re doing well, and yesterday the newly minted teenager who was bemoaning her “too COMPlicated life” is now BORRRED on account of it’s being the first day of summer vaycay. And so it begins. She will probably break Minecraft by the weekend.

    Hope all is well with your wee ones. Pics always welcome! Especially in princess or fairy outfits. I miss those.

  147. 147.

    MomSense

    June 12, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    Just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your brother’s passing. It may be stressful for you to have to be the one to deal with this but you are doing a really good thing for your family and yourself. You’re a good sister.

  148. 148.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    OT but minutes ago on msnbc, I saw the photo of professor with nose hair who made sexist comments. Wowza, that nose hair is horrifying on the big tv screen. I know that there are other photos of him without the nose hair but I think it’s interesting that a lot of media has chosen to use the nose hair photo.

  149. 149.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    @Valdivia:

    I can only tell you that from the perspective of how much China has gained influence in South America by investing crazy amounts of money there and signing trade deals my gut feeling is that the answer is yes. This is a move is partly to counter that.

    I would say that is a spot on analysis and China has done the same in Africa. Having a powerful military is one way to have global influence. But at least as important, if not far more important, is for nations like the US and China to INVEST in future potential markets.

    You might not make back that investment today or tomorrow, but in the future you will hands-over-fist. Don’t think the government (and people) of those nations will forget those investments and when contracts and trade deals come up, want to bet where they will spend their money?

  150. 150.

    Germy Shoemangler

    June 12, 2015 at 4:56 pm

    It Ain’t All Flowers – Sturgill Simpson.

    My neighbors just adopted a new puppy. I suppose they subscribe to the “dog whisperer” school of training, because they’re screaming at it right now.

    Yesterday I heard barking for about ten minutes. I looked out my window and the dog was in front of their door, jumping up and down, asking to be let in. The lady of the house was behind the closed glass door, staring at the dog, cell phone to her ear. Finally she came out and yelled “NO! You have to poop more!”

    The dog never gets walked. They subscribe to the “slide door open, let dog shit in yard” school of dog exercise. Most people in the neighborhood walk their dogs; this poor little guy never gets the chance. And there are some nifty trails close by.

  151. 151.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 4:58 pm

    @bemused: Maybe there are no pics without the nose hair. It’s pretty prominent.

  152. 152.

    Germy Shoemangler

    June 12, 2015 at 4:58 pm

    @bemused: I find as the hair on top of my head thins, my nose and ear and eyebrow hair thickens and grows luxuriously.

    When I finally go completely bald, I’ll comb my eyebrows up over my head, and train my nose hair into a fine moostache. The ear hair, I’ll let grow out like a cat.

  153. 153.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 4:59 pm

    @muddy:

    Yes it is. I thought just seeing it on internet was bad enough but to look up and see it on the tv was pretty startling.

  154. 154.

    Keith G

    June 12, 2015 at 5:00 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Do you think Obama is going to be crying into his martini tonight? I do not.

    I think you are absolutely correct.

    Which makes me wonder why some here do take it so personally for Obama. Yet they do.

  155. 155.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 5:00 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    It’s peculiar how that hair dynamic changes with time.

  156. 156.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 5:00 pm

    @MomSense: How did the talk go?

  157. 157.

    DCrefugee

    June 12, 2015 at 5:01 pm

    I’ve done a bit of lobbying, at the state and federal levels, and one of the things I’ve learned over the years is you never let something come to a vote unless you know you’re going to win. I’m guessing the fix is in, something like this:

    Everyone gets a pass on this vote, then they’ll restructure the package and ask for an up or down. It will be different enough that those who are on the fence and voted NO can now vote YES and get away with it. After all, they voted the right way on the big one, right?

    Eventually enough House Dems will take one for the team and this will go through like crap through a goose.

    Not that I’m pessimistic or anything…

  158. 158.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 5:02 pm

    @Brachiator:

    The other thing you can do is keep the advantages the US has, one of which is the fact that the US isn’t totally corrupt and has a functioning legal system, so the state can’t seize your company or facility and you can enforce a contract. That’s a benefit to locating here. Order. Reliability. A legal system that protects private property and adjudicates disputes in an orderly predictable manner, with rules and case law and courts of appeal and process that can be learned and isn’t made up depending on who paid off whom. Setting up a seperate investor/state tribunal makes that no longer a competitive advantage for the country.

  159. 159.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: Some people shouldn’t own pets. As much as I love my brother and his wife they do the “slide door open, let dog shit in yard” method as well. The dog is large and pretty hyper. It is never taken for a walk.

    When I am over I always take it for a walk and/or play fetch in the backyard with him for an extended period of time. Funny how after doing this he isn’t so hyper.

    Oh and after a long walk and playing some ball you get pics like this, where he is my best friend and just wants to lay his head in my lap.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/7260903216/in/dateposted-public/

  160. 160.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    What she, they, should be doing is go out with the puppy and then give puppy treat when it pees or poops and praise it to a ridiculous degree. It works with repetition. When our grownup dogs are all excited to go for a drive with us or time for bed, we tell them to go potty first which is usually pee. They understand and do it.

  161. 161.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    June 12, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    @Belafon:

    My recollection is that Krugman made the comment about the Greeks, not the part about Obama. I believe that is Alex’s speculation.

  162. 162.

    Archon

    June 12, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    @Keith G:

    True, conversely though I sure wish the President’s critics would stop psychoanalyzing his “nefarious” motives against American workers as if they read his secret diary.

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I think Lee mentioned The Wicker Man and one of the Musketeer movies as his faves. Don’t quote me

    I’m not sure that “The Three Musketeers” was one of his favorites, but he was absolutely chilling as the Comte de Rochefort. And he did recognize “The Wicker Man” as a greatwork in a great film.

    The obituary in The Guardian is very good. It is interesting to note that he and some other luminaries of horror films formed a little club:

    He shared his aptness for sinister material with two friends who lived near his London home in a Chelsea square: the writer of occult thrillers Dennis Wheatley and the actor Boris Karloff. The latter once cheered him up when Lee was overloaded with horror roles, remarking, “Types are continually in work.”…

    Furthermore, three other actors who also enjoyed sinister roles in exploitation movies kept a quartet of friendship with him: [Peter] Cushing, Karloff and Vincent Price.

    http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/11/christopher-lee

  164. 164.

    cahuenga

    June 12, 2015 at 5:06 pm

    @Tommy:

    We heard those exact words from Bush then Clinton in the 90s, followed by a trail of broken promises to labor about a mile wide.

    I’ve said it here before but it bears repeating that the only people with informed opinions on this issue are our congresspeeps, who have exclusive rights to read the text. The only people from that group that I trust with labor issues resoundingly reject the treaty. All of them. On the other side of the issue we have plutocrats (from both parties), corporate interests and fiscal conservatives. This really can’t be a much clearer choice for a Democrat.

  165. 165.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: Funny how that happens isn’t it. I used to joke once I started to go bald I’d just shave my head. No combover for me. So I now have a shaved head (which is a total pain in the ass do maintain I might add).

    But my ear and nose hair seems to move into hyper-growth mode. Never thought I’d have to take some tweezers to them, but alas I do pretty regularly.

    Oh getting old …..

  166. 166.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    @Keith G: They’re buying the Villager framing. They shouldn’t.

    @Archon: Yep. This too.

  167. 167.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:10 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: Dog whisperer guy never yells. His main thing is that you have to be calm. Else the animal will not be calm.

  168. 168.

    jl

    June 12, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    Also, NAFTA was a corporate investment insurance agreement, an international corporate tax agreement, and an IP protection agreement just as much as it was a free trade agreement. And I think a lot of the debate over the benefits of ‘free trade’ provisions of NAFTA mistakenly assume that its effects in lowering conventional trade barriers were all that were going on, when in fact the other parts of the agreement were just as important.

    And even the conventional free trade parts of the agreement were not a uniform lowering of tariffs. the US and Canada had separate provisions from the US and Mexico, and Canada and Mexico. Many tariffs and other conventional trade barriers between the US and Canada were left in place, particularly in agriculture.

    These deals are very complex. The devils is in the details. They need to be debated. Corporations should not dominate the stakeholders who are present at the negotiations. The mechanism of action of the deals may not at all be what they are advertised to by in the media and by the proponents. The original rationale for fast track approval and secrecy, that could be justified for truly global multilateral trade deals no longer holds. So, no on fast track.

    I think people are missing where the corporate money action is on these deals.

  169. 169.

    Elie

    June 12, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    @Valdivia:

    well said

  170. 170.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    @bemused: But but all those women falling in love with him! So much that it’s a nuisance!

  171. 171.

    Roger Moore

    June 12, 2015 at 5:12 pm

    @Tommy:

    And I am willing to bet that same person that just sets down a gun would never think of leaving a cordless drill or band saw within a young child’s reach. What is it about guns that are different? I really don’t know.

    I think a big part of it is that the true gun crazies want to make guns an everyday part of people’s lives in a way that cordless drills and band saws aren’t. They seriously want everyone- or at least everyone who shares their worldview- to carry a weapon at all times that’s ready to use at a moment’s notice. But the things we carry with us all the time tend to fade into the background in a way that things we only carry occasionally don’t.

    The gun nuts get so used to having a gun all the time that they stop thinking about it. That’s how so many people manage to show up armed at airports without realizing that it’s going to get them in legal trouble. I think it also contributes to their resistance to anything that prevents them from taking their guns with them everywhere they go.

  172. 172.

    bemused

    June 12, 2015 at 5:13 pm

    @muddy:

    That fantasy of his is even more hilarious than the nose hair.

  173. 173.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:15 pm

    @bemused: What I like best is the conjunction. That fantasy coming forth from behind the nosehair is just delightful.

  174. 174.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:17 pm

    OK totally OT, but I just went to check the mail.

    Why are people still sending me phone books. Who still uses a phone book?

  175. 175.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 5:17 pm

    @Elie: Thanks :)

  176. 176.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 5:17 pm

    “Corporations should not dominate the stakeholders who are present at the negotiations”.

    LBJ counseled not to (necessarily) expect him in on any landing in which he was not on board for the take off.

  177. 177.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    From what I’ve seen reported, the gun culture in America seems to encourage not only the ostentatious display of weapons and their use as playthings, but also a reckless disdain for basic weapons safety.

    This is not universally true. I am not a gun owner, never been a gun owner. But family and friends who own guns, especially those who have been hunters, do not display their weapons, nor do they flash them around as playthings.

  178. 178.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 12, 2015 at 5:20 pm

    @trollhattan: lol break minecraft.
    We’re doing great. Will put up some vacation pics of the girls. They did great (mostly) with the traveling.

    Still battling with sen Wolk (and others) on SB 7 so I’ll be up in sacto a bunch over the summer. Good times.

  179. 179.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    @Roger Moore: I had not thought about it that way, but now you outlined it that seems to make sense. I just started wearing glasses for the first time at 45. At first I found myself not wearing them and just leaving them laying all over the place.

    So I forced myself to wear them at all times because I don’t want my vision to get any worse. After a month or so now I am always wearing them and I don’t even really notice it. It has become a “habit.”

    I guess I could see how the same thing would happen with a gun.

  180. 180.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    @Tree With Water: fuck lbj

  181. 181.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    @Tommy: They send it unless you tell the phone company not to.

  182. 182.

    Amir Khalid

    June 12, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    @Brachiator:
    I confess, I was over generalising. Instead of talking about the general population of gun owners, I should have said that there’s a segment of whom this seems to be true. A segment that includes the mother of the three-year-old mentioned above.

  183. 183.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    @muddy: Guess I need to fish it out of the recycle bin and call them and politely ask them not to waste their time, money, and paper on me.

  184. 184.

    Alex S.

    June 12, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    @Valdivia:

    Not necessarily money, but influence. Like Bill Clinton’s mission to rebuild Haiti (well-meaning but in the end a very corrupt affair), or staying in the good graces of other people of power so they donate to his foundation or something like that. I believe Obama wants to do good, but since one sometimes has to accept bad concessions for greater goods, compromises will have to be made. Economics is not Obama’s strong suit and his conduct towards Congress on TPP has been bewildering. One’s moral compass can get warped after many years in politics.

  185. 185.

    raven

    June 12, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    @Tommy: odds are it is not from the phone company.

  186. 186.

    redshirt

    June 12, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    Free trade will work when everyone makes the same amount of money, roughly.

    So, look forward to 25 cent a day jobs of the future!

  187. 187.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:28 pm

    @Tommy: Mine asked some years ago if I wanted it or not, I didn’t bother to reply. Then after a couple of years of recycling I called them up.

    It’s a useful kind paper for crafts though, if you are into that sort of thing. I also sometimes use a piece over the top of a clay piece when I pick it up from the wheel, helps keep it from getting out of round.

  188. 188.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    @raven: As you will. But it remains a sage bit of political advice for all those who aspire to get something accomplished.

    “This insanity of getting to pass the parts of a bill you like and having them smushed together Frankenstein-monster style makes it impossible to hold anyone responsible for the ultimate outcome. Democrats should be proud of opting out of that charade”. David Doyen posted that at Salon.com, and he’s absolutely right.

  189. 189.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    @Alex S.:

    Economics is not Obama’s strong suit […..]

    Yes that. When somebody here initially asked why Obama was doing this I said a few things. What I think is most true is he is getting bad advice from some of his advisors. Let’s face it even somebody as super smart as Obama can’t even know a fraction of what he takes to govern the United States.

    So much if not most of the time he has to rely on his advisors and the analysis they put in front of him. If I am a senior level econ advisor, I am eyeing a huge corporate job after Obama leaves office, being able to say I helped get this trade deal passed couldn’t hurt in many circles.

    Clearly I have no inside information but if I had to bet I am thinking this is what is going on.

  190. 190.

    Cacti

    June 12, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    In the interesting times category: seems Tammy Duckworth is going to be coming after Mark Kirk’s seat. Sounds like a good place to throw a few shekels since she’d be great in the Senate.

    Representative Duckworth should be able to cut a sharp contrast with Senator Kirk, who is now in the news for having a hot mic moment where he referred to women as “hos”.

  191. 191.

    Germy Shoemangler

    June 12, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    phone books. I remember a magic trick in a book I had as a ten year old. The “strong man” trick; you can tear a phone book in half!

    Trick: take the fattest phone book you can find, and bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes at low temperature.

    It’ll look the same, but all the heavy moisture will be evaporated. You can tear it easily and impress your friends.

  192. 192.

    Cervantes

    June 12, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    @raven:

    !

  193. 193.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    @Cacti: As an IL resident I can’t wait to vote for her if she runs (oh she is running). She just needs to make sure she does what Obama did when he ran for the Illinois Senate. Come downstate where I live and talk to us face-to-face.

    My district and those around me are pretty “blue dog” but a pro-union, more spending on education, tax cuts for the middle class, those messages work wonders here.

  194. 194.

    jl

    June 12, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: I vaguely remember semi-mythical folkloric fetish objects called phone books. The phone books elves used to deposit them at the front door every year.

  195. 195.

    MomSense

    June 12, 2015 at 5:42 pm

    @Valdivia:

    It was so dumb. There were pictures of penis anatomy plus some bizarre term for things like nocturnal emissions instead of wet dreams. I guess the film itself made the kids laugh. My son described one bit of dialogue as:

    boy: Will I get big?
    uncle: Yes. you will keep growing and pretty soon you’ll be tall like me.
    boy: I don’t mean that kind of big. I mean will something else get big
    And then it was penis, penis, penis, penis but he wasn’t exactly sure what else they said because all the boys were laughing.
    I did like all the mentions of grooming and showering in the booklet. My kid is in the post onset of smell and pre girl or boy interest to inspire showering and picking up his room.

  196. 196.

    MomSense

    June 12, 2015 at 5:43 pm

    Oops I used a word that the FYWP gods do not like.

  197. 197.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:45 pm

    @jl: Giving out the phonebooks used to be a good seasonal job.

    But at least we can be happy that the phone companies gave us all a break on the bill from all the money they’ve saved by not having to give them out anymore.

  198. 198.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:46 pm

    @jl: I still get 2-3 a year. But I guess some people must use them. Heck my mom was over awhile back. On her laptop watching a soap. She sees me walk into the kitchen and she asks me if I have a phone book.

    I am like mom, you are on your freaking laptop. You know there is this thing called Google.

    But then again I have a Chromecast on each of my three TVs and I can’t seem to explain and/or make her understand that installing a little app would let her watch Young and the Restless on a 60 inch TV instead of her little laptop screen.

    I guess sometimes it is hard to get people to change the way they are used to doing things.

  199. 199.

    dww44

    June 12, 2015 at 5:52 pm

    @Tommy: I do, but then I’ve a land line so that explains it I guess and I have a cell phone but not a smart phone. The only problem with current phone books is that they are missing lots of info, but i still find them useful.

  200. 200.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    June 12, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    @Tommy:

    Who still uses a phone book?

    My wife. Though, in her case, it’s Korean phone books.

  201. 201.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    @dww44: I could see how they would be useful. I was more joking around. It is just with Google not only can I get the contact info, a map to the location, but if I am looking for an electrician or an Asian market (like I did in the past few days) I can quickly get reviews.

  202. 202.

    different-church-lady

    June 12, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    …that juvenile framing that you’re lapping up…

    Lapping up? I rather think the flow is going in the opposite direction, towards “SPEW”

  203. 203.

    Roger Moore

    June 12, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    @muddy:

    But at least we can be happy that the phone companies gave us all a break on the bill from all the money they’ve saved by not having to give them out anymore.

    I realize this is intended as sarcasm, but the yellow pages, at least, were a profit center, not a cost center. That’s why there were third-party phone book providers.

  204. 204.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 6:06 pm

    @Roger Moore: The Yellow Pages were a massive proof center “back in the day.” I was in advertising and we never placed ads in the Yellow Pages, not what my clients like HP or Lucent did. But I followed the industry pubs and the Yellow Pages were like a license to print money. You just couldn’t really be a local business and not be in them if not place an ad. To a large extent I think those days are gone.

  205. 205.

    chopper

    June 12, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    I don’t subscribe to the dog whisperer school of dog training, but only letting the dog out back and yelling at it when it hasn’t pooped enough doesn’t sound like it much. unless the show has gone even more downhill.

  206. 206.

    different-church-lady

    June 12, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    @Belafon:

    So, the quesiton I have for people is why do you think Obama is trying to get the TPP passed?

    Well, it’s obvious: he’s inherently evil.

    Or so I gather from reading what “progressives” have to say about him on the internet.

  207. 207.

    EthylEster

    June 12, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    @gene108: Thanks for the link. The last line is key: Good policy depends on good data. Good on the Canadians for trying to verify the claims made by Pete Petersen’s cat food brigade. As usual the devil is in the details.

  208. 208.

    Cacti

    June 12, 2015 at 6:10 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Well, it’s obvious: he’s inherently evil.

    Or so I gather from reading what “progressives” have to say about him on the internet.

    Well duh.

    We’ve known that since he didn’t Green Lantern a public option into the Affordable Care Act.

  209. 209.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 6:18 pm

    @chopper: I have never had a dog, but cats. I wouldn’t say I have “trained” them. They kind of always have done what they want. But using positive reinforcement I have her trained to do a handful of things. I would assume the same would work in spades for a dog. And I don’t always mean food or treats. My little girl requires a ton of attention. I’ve found an extended time of petting does wonders to reinforce behavior.

  210. 210.

    Bobby Thomson

    June 12, 2015 at 6:19 pm

    @RaflW: that’s easy. A plurality of Kansans are stupid enough to vote for Brownback’s reelection. They are going to get exactly what they voted for, good and hard.

  211. 211.

    Valdivia

    June 12, 2015 at 6:20 pm

    @Alex S.: Sorry but I still think that there is absolutely no need to go into these sort of speculations. What is the purpose of creating all these scenarios about him supporting TPP for anything other than what is obviously Occam’s Razor: he really thinks it’s the right thing to do, even if we don’t agree with him.

    @MomSense: I was so curious about how it had gone. Thanks for sharing that. Being a bit of a net freak I can appreciate the whole grooming, cleanliness focus. :)

  212. 212.

    Bobby Thomson

    June 12, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    @Belafon: partly wanting to get Republicans to work with him, but mainly he legitimately thinks it’s good policy. Keep in mind the people he appointed to run the economy.

  213. 213.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 6:23 pm

    @Roger Moore: I liked the Yellow Pages. You can’t look at local businesses the same way online.

  214. 214.

    muddy

    June 12, 2015 at 6:30 pm

    @MomSense: My mom tried to get us to say “nasal secretions” instead of “snot”. You can really make the former sound a lot more disgusting if you want to.

    As to the bigger, I remember my son being about 3 and proudly showing me how he had made it grow. I said it was very nice, and he was headed back to make it bigger yet. I had to burst his bubble and tell him it only got a certain bigness, and went away after. He was outraged, thought he could turn himself to a tripod I guess.

  215. 215.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    Give Democrats something they want: Nancy Pelosi’s Dear Colleague letter makes this clear: “The prospects for passage (of fast track) will greatly increase with the passage of a robust highway bill.”

    It even makes sense. Pro-trade agreement people can call it a commerce package or something- “the conduits of commerce must be strengthed to get all those new exports to ports”

  216. 216.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    @Kay: Which American industries are barking for new ports? What American products are currently being bottlenecked for lack of infrastructure? Why must there be a quid pro quo in order to fund domestic spending in the first place? Has the USG opened negotiations with a foreign power(s)?

  217. 217.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @Tommy:

    Why are people still sending me phone books. Who still uses a phone book?

    In California, there are stupid, archaic laws on the books that require that phone books be delivered to home and business customers. Other states may have this too, and legislators and maybe some special interest groups want this to still happen.

    But increasingly, almost no one uses these things. And yeah, people will note some exceptions. I notice apartment building managers refusing to allow these things to be delivered. And I see undelivered phone books dumped in the trash or at the sides of buildings. And no one calls for replacements.

    We get them delivered and they are all thrown away.

    Sometimes there is an inertia where regulations do not catch up to reality.

  218. 218.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 6:45 pm

    @Tree With Water: None that I am aware of. Ports are talked about a lot since I live near St. Louis and the Mississippi river and all. If my local business journal is accurate, and it always is and has great coverage on things like infrastructure, people don’t want new ports, they want the facilities we currently have upgraded. They are kind of dated.

  219. 219.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 6:48 pm

    @Brachiator: I didn’t know there were laws on the books in some states that required phone books. Interesting. I just don’t like waste. That phone book went like 10 feet from my mailbox right into my recycle bin. Just a total waste.

  220. 220.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 6:50 pm

    @Tree With Water:

    I don’t think the trade deal will increase exports, although I don’t know. I’m just basing that on every trade deal thus far.

    I was offering Nancy Pelosi’s suggestion. Why does she have to do quid pro quo? Because Democrats probably aren’t taking back the House until 2020 or later. I think she would anyway. She strikes me as a quid pro quo kind of person. Infrastructure is wildly popular with voters and we do need it.

  221. 221.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 7:00 pm

    @Kay: You are right we do need it. A town here in Southern Illinois got millions from the Recovery Act and built an off-ramp from the major highway. Before there wasn’t one.

    Funny thing happened. Something like 45 jobs were created. Main Street came back to life. Sure it was only 45 jobs but do this a few thousand times and what do you know, it makes a HUGE difference.

    Heck my little town got $750,000 in Recovery funds and we laid a fiber optics backbone and wired the schools, library, City Hall, all the public buildings direct with fiber. I mean think of that. I live in a small rural town of 5,700 and I have a fiber optics backbone. We can do nice things if we invest the money.

    In fact we’re currently looking at what legal actions Verizon and Charter Communications might take if we started to offer free WiFi city-wide and direct fiber into homes.

    We also totally ungraded out entire electrical system (we buy power through a co-op) and next thing you know Boeing and Monsanto opened up shop here. Not two of my favorite companies, but they did bring more than 100 jobs.

  222. 222.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    @Tree With Water:

    Here’s Mr. Trade on the dem side:

    Ron WydenVerified account
    ‏@RonWyden
    I will vote no on TPA if other trade bills that help the American middle-class – like TAA and enforcement – are not moved forward.

    As you know the TAA piece is mostly bullshit, so I;m glad he’s upping the ante a little there :)

  223. 223.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 7:06 pm

    @Tommy:

    I just think it’s gross and free-loaderish to rely on investments people made before we were born without maintaining or contributing. I mean, come on. These things didn’t spring up magically. Someone paid for them. The understanding was we would have to contribute at some point.

  224. 224.

    Tree With Water

    June 12, 2015 at 7:11 pm

    @Kay: I guess by that I meant it smacks of bargaining with Wall Street corporations for rights we already possess, and that should be held as non-negotiable (i.e., domestic spending priorities). … “Nice country you’ve got there. It’d be a shame to see anything happens to its infrastructure”. Your term “wildly popular” connotes otherwise, too. Infrastructure funding is simply another term for a nation of adults making sensible, sound plans for our own sakes and that of the next generation.

  225. 225.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 7:12 pm

    @Kay: Yes it is. I was doing some research around the time the Recovery Act was being debated. Looking at some of the work programs around the Great Depression. I had no flipping idea how much shit we built that we still use today.

    Things like TVA and freaking Red Rocks (just to name a few of thousands). We built an amphitheater in the side of a mountain, well because. When I think about what we could do but don’t my eyes start to leak a little.

    We could do great things, we just seem to choose not to. That is sad on many, many different levels!

  226. 226.

    Tommy

    June 12, 2015 at 7:25 pm

    @Kay: Oh one other thing. My great grandfather became a very rich man in the 30s and 40s when his construction firm was hired to build a ton of bridges in Southern Illinois. We got a lot of streams and creeks you got to build over if you want to build a direct, point-to-point highway.

    He’d put a brass seal noting his firm built it, and I still use a few of them even today. A lot of people do. Am I proud they are still standing almost 100 years later, sure. But some of them are in pretty “rough” condition and really need to be replaced like yesterday.

  227. 227.

    PurpleGirl

    June 12, 2015 at 7:26 pm

    @bemused: Ah, but thanks to the NRA and gun manufacturers, some times in 1990s or early 2000s, gun safety studies were banned.

  228. 228.

    Kay

    June 12, 2015 at 7:41 pm

    @Tree With Water

    I agree. I think Pelosi tends toward the practical though and she wants to make a deal. She was quietly whipping votes for the trade deal leading up the vote. She’s not opposed to it. I don’t think she’s ever pretended to be anything other than a competent deal maker. She’s been saying “why are we slow walking transportation and fast tracking trade” for weeks now. Maybe it’s strategic- Republicans had planned to trade transportation support for something else they want so she gets them coming and going- takes away leverage they were banking. It really IS her job, to do these things.

  229. 229.

    PurpleGirl

    June 12, 2015 at 8:30 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: I’ve watched the Dog Whisperer. I don’t remember him yelling at the dogs or puppehs he trains. While I know many here don’t like his emphasis on alpha dogs, he doesn’t promote yelling at dogs. He does want dog parents to walk their dogs at least 45 minuets at a time for the dog to use up their energy and calm down.

  230. 230.

    J R in WV

    June 12, 2015 at 10:40 pm

    @Tommy:

    I hear Buick is a big seller in China. They don’t ship them from Detroit, though, they build them there, in China, and sell them to rich Chinese businessmen.

    Funny how that works out so well for General Motors, but not for the UAW, huh? Maybe the TPP should allow US unions to organize anywhere American companies do business, or any country that exports to the US. /fantasy

  231. 231.

    jafd

    June 13, 2015 at 7:58 am

    @Elie:

    Old Pennsylvania joke:
    Why is The Tariff like Marriage ?

    Both are ways to
    Protect the Domestic Enterprise, and
    Encourage the Infant Industry

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