Today’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare makes the law about as settled as it can be given that congress and most statehouses are run by hairspray-huffing shitweasels who occupy an alternative dimension where “flush billions down the toilet” = “fiscal conservatism.”
Shortly after the Supreme Court decision today, our shitweasel governor here in FL announced that he’s dropping a lawsuit he filed against the Obama administration in an attempt to extract a $2 billion handout via a low-income care program — after declining to expand Medicaid to the 800K Floridians who would qualify under Obamacare.
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Rick Scott is dropping a lawsuit against the Obama administration after reaching an agreement over federal hospital funds.
State and federal health officials reached an agreement in principle earlier this week to continue funding Florida’s hospital low-income pool for two more years, but at a lower cost. Florida will receive $1 billion this year — about half of what the state had been receiving — and $600 million next year. In a statement Thursday, Scott said his lawsuit was essential to getting the funds extended.
Scott’s lawsuit accused the federal government of tying the funds to whether or not the state expanded Medicaid.
The Obama administration and the Florida Senate wanted to expand Medicaid to roughly 800,000 Floridians. But Scott and Florida House Republicans opposed to taking money tied to so-called Obamacare.
Yes, you read that right: These morons turned down $6 billion or so annually because it has Obamacare cooties but were prepared to go to court to shake the feds down for a relatively paltry $2 billion. As a result of this super-genius bluffing strategy, Scott got $1 billion this year and $600 million next year, and he deems it a victory for fiscal prudence.
As far as I know, Scott hasn’t yet outlined his double-secret negotiating strategy for next time the money dries up, which will be 2017. God willing, President Hillary will send him home pants-less with a $400K mortgage note on Stately Scott Manor. This would all be laughable if people weren’t literally dying because of Scott & Co.’s pigheadedness.
ETA: Open thread for anyone who wants to use it for one. We’ve had a lot of Obamacare threads today. In other news, the AP says Chris Christie is going to announce a run on Tuesday. They’re gonna need a bigger clown car (and no, that’s not a fat joke — there are just so MANY clowns!).
Paul in KY
They sure are great though at making lemonade propaganda out of rancid lemons.
It is the job, IMO, of the opposition to hilite how stupid this is. Betty, will the Florida Dems tie this around Gov. Voldemort’s neck?
Redshift
Huckabee, on Facebook:
Yep, that’s one of a nearly endless list of things you’ll never do as president, Huck.
Ben Cisco
Clearly a hair band, but playing what genre of music…
kindness
I am sorry the good folk of Florida have to put up with this but to those of us who live in ‘sane’ environments…..Well, we’re gettin’ a tad tired with places that elected TeaHaddist idiots to their governor’s office when the population breakdown seems to show that those folk should never have been elected to begin with.
Maine.
Wisconsin.
Florida.
…
prufrock
I was going to say that I can’t believe that guy won twice.
However, I remembered an interview my wife had to do as part of her teacher certification. The subject was an elderly woman who talked about her experiences with Hurricane Charley. There was a lot of ant and grasshopper references viz a viz how her house survived and her neighbors’ houses didn’t. It’s hard to describe, but there was this undercurrent of triumphant bitterness. She seemed to take pleasure in their misfortune. In that moment I knew that this woman voted for Rick Scott.
There are a lot of old people like her in this state and they all vote. And there is no point in waiting for them to die off, because the next crop pop up like blue-haired weeds.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker:
Typo alert, Betty: $600K should be $600M, I’m guessing.
Betty Cracker
@Paul in KY: One hopes so, but sometimes I despair. It’s not like this slow-motion train wreck wasn’t unfolding during the last election. Scott has flip-flopped like a boated marlin on this issue. First he was against expansion because Obamacare. Then he reversed course and said we should expand Medicaid (when he spied an opening for personal gain), and then he reversed course again. And still the morons down here reelected the crooked bastard.
JGabriel
@Ben Cisco:
Zep covers.
Gindy51
If a white guy had proposed the ACA they’d be covered from day one. You all know this as it happened in Mass. with Romneycare.
Betty Cracker
@JGabriel: Right you are. Fixed and thanks.
Gin & Tonic
@Paul in KY: Doesn’t that require the presence of an organized Democratic party in Florida?
Betty Cracker
@prufrock: Yeah, I know the type. Scott has never cracked 50%, though. If people would get off their goddamned asses and vote in non-presidential election years, Scott would never have been elected in the first place. IIRC, turnout in Union Co. was upwards of 70% and less than 45% in Miami Dade. That’s the whole story right there.
Kathleen
@Ben Cisco: That has a Time Life series vibe, like when they advertise boxed sets of love ballads by Big Haired Metal Bad Boys who taught us how to love. Or Zep.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Thank you for response. Sorry you & other Floridians (especially ones who didn’t vote for him) are stuck with this slimoid for next 3 years.
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: Erm…well…I guess it does. Oh, crap!
Mandalay
@Redshift: Huckabee has only raised $100k in public donations this month. Hatemongers on gofundme do better than that.
Unlike most Republican candidates he has an easygoing manner and the gift of the gab, but lately he is just whining about everything under the moon and stars. Whiners don’t win the presidency. He’s yesterday’s man.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Even my politically apathetic daughter who thinks it doesn’t matter who you vote for voted against Scott twice. She cannot stand him.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker:
That’s most of the story, but TBF Scott’s opponent was also underwhelming, which may explain the lousy turnout. Scott was there for the taking if only we had had a slightly better candidate.
Betty Cracker
AP says Chris Christie will announce he’s running on Tuesday. Isn’t he only half a step ahead of an indictment, or did his legal troubles go away? I haven’t paid much attention.
catclub
@Mandalay:
So how is the Super Pac doing? It could have the other $59.9M!
gf120581
@Betty Cracker: Much like Jindel, Christie is trapped firmly in the suffocating grip of his own delusions.
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: I guess, but Rick Fucking Scott? Anyone who could fog a mirror should have beat the pants off him. Not only is Scott a crook, he’s unbelievably creepy and literally the worst retail politician I’ve ever seen in operation. Ever. I almost felt sorry for him in the debates, he was so goddawful, and I hate the motherfucker. Honestly, his reelection shook my faith in the intelligence of the electorate, which was already pretty much at nil due to Scott’s first victory.
TaMara (BHF)
How about a little video distraction this afternoon. Bixby cooling off playing in the tub. As soon as I’m done working today, I’m off to buy him a little kiddie pool.
jl
@Betty Cracker: Is that your Scottshitweasel pic? If so, nicely done.
beltane
I thought Christie had announced a long time ago. Are there any Republicans not running for president?
Origuy
Patrick Macnee, who played Steed on The Avengers, is dead at the age of 93.
Cacti
I just discovered that right wing internets are breathless with a hot new rumor that President Obama issued an Executive Order banning the possession or sale of the confederate battle flag.
Of course, it’s completely false.
But that still hasn’t stopped them from getting in a lather about it.
gelfling545
@Mandalay: I find not being excited about the candidate to be a poor excuse for not voting when the alternative is absolutely evil. Keeping Satan from being your governor or whatever should be excitement enough for anybody.
Betty Cracker
@jl: ‘Tis, and thank you. My kiddo turned me on to the Sketches app on iPad, which I highly recommend to fellow doodlers. I haven’t figured out a 10th of what all it does yet and probably never will, but I’ve rediscovered the joys of kindergarten-level finger-painting.
@TaMara (BHF): That’s a whole lotta dog!
Elizabelle
@TaMara (BHF): Bixby whirlpool!
So cute. It’s like little kids figuring out they can make the lights turn off and on.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker:
I still think the core problem is the apathy of the electorate (as you pointed out earlier). It will never happen, but this nation would be transformed if we introduced compulsory voting. Right now there is no price to be paid for extremism. Compulsory voting would choke it, and we would be so much richer for that.
And next time in Florida we need a candidate with a name that ends with a vowel or a ‘z’.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: It is a very good depiction. Recognizable.
Kind of Scott meets Nosferatu.
Germy Shoemangler
@Cacti:
But never quite breathless enough, unfortunately.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mandalay: Don’t they have compulsory voting in Australia? And that hasn’t prevented fools from taking office.
Ben Cisco
@JGabriel: @Kathleen: Great minds…
Elizabelle
LA Times:
Parents and others opposing the bill showed up in red shirts.
JPL
@TaMara (BHF): A little kiddie pool????
jl
@Elizabelle: I don’t know if same in other parts of the state, but in SF Bay I hear several misleading scare ads from the anti-vaxxers every day. As I interpret them, they are implying that there is no more medical exemption, which is not true.
Mandalay
@Germy Shoemangler:
Yes, they do, but I didn’t claim that it would prevent fools from taking office. I said it would reduce extremism (based on my experience of living in Australia).
Right now a Republican in a safe seat can say whatever crazy shit (s)he likes and there are no negative consequences – (s)he will still win regardless. But if you force Muslims and athiests and Hispanics and blacks and gays and the poor and women to vote the statements from that Republican would change pretty quickly.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: An indictment didn’t stop Rick Perry from running…isn’t one of the other Klowns charged with something currently as well?
WaterGirl
I am watching a video of the President talking about the ACA decision today, and I am struck by how very sad Joe Biden looks. This is the first time I have seen Joe in a normal setting since Beau died, and it’s just shocking to see him look so terribly sad. Even on this happy day with such great news, the sadness on his face is so extreme that it’s like seeing a kid’s drawing of a frown.
I imagine the 9 nine senseless hate killings in Charleston ripped his grief wide open again even if he had been able to move past it even a tiny bit after losing Beau.
I guess that’s one of the things we love about Joe Biden; he is genuine, he wears his heart on his sleeve.
Anne
@TaMara (BHF): Yes! Our Lab mix loves her kiddie pool. She’ll shuffle around in it with a tennis ball for a good half hour. I don’t love the muddy paws that result when she gets out of the pool, but it definitely keeps her occupied for a wee while, and I like that she knows to get her feet wet when she needs to cool off.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I thought the same thing. Little? I’m thinking Bixby needs his own bathtub outside. Maybe TaMara can pick up an old claw foot tub that she can build a garden around in whatever new place she finds?
geg6
@Elizabelle:
Okay, I hate to ask, but why red shirts? To show how bloodthirsty they are because they want to kill others in order to show how special their little snowflakes are?
I really hate those people. Really hate them.
TheMightyTrowel
@Germy Shoemangler: my experience down under suggests that compulsory voting sort of works, i mean the electorate turn out, there’s a bbq, it’s a big social event. But at the same time all that happens is that the tribal voting trend is exacerbated – eg you’re a labor family or a liberal family or a national family and you all vote that way. There are lots of small parties for protest votes but because of Australia’s delightfully screwy preference allocation system you can protest vote for the motorists party and still be casting your vote for liberal hacks.
At least some of the problem lies in aussie culture which publicly despises double dealing and cleverness and so positions politicians as the most odious sort of person with people who care deeply about politics being only slightly more trustworthy.
That said, i still think more voting is better and – as long as election days were made holidays and voting early and at any precinct was allowed I’d be all for compulsory voting in the USA.
WaterGirl
@Anne: We got so much rain last night that my little Henry (10 pounds) was wading in the standing water. I bet he would love a wading pool. He runs hot.
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy:
Very sad face. I loved him.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: There’s just nothing on earth worse that can happen to a person. A close family friend of ours lost an adult child a few years back. She’s the same warm, funny person I’ve known all my life, and she’s going on with things because there’s no other choice, but some light has been extinguished in her, and it shows. For Biden to have to endure that two times over, well, I just can’t imagine. Life is just fucking cruel sometimes.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Me, too. Every time someone talks about The Avengers, my heart momentarily skips a beat in the hopes that they are bringing back John Steed and Emma Peale.
Elizabelle
@geg6: I don’t know either. Is it in solidarity with measles spots, cuz measles are good for you and protect you against cancer?
For the red in the face babies turn, as they cough and cough with whooping cough? Or do they turn white and pale?
Scarlett fever?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Since it’s an open thread, I’m getting ready to book plane tickets for two of my nieces to come out to visit from Florida. They’ll be traveling as unaccompanied minors — any advice/tips on that? I think I’m going to book the tickets through a travel agent because they unfortunately won’t be able to get an easy nonstop from where they are, and they’re going to return to a different city.
Elizabelle
I was scared for years over that Avengers episode where the killer was a giant eagle who could swoop down on you, from the ceiling or the sky.
You’d look into a room, to see if you were safe. But you didn’t look up at the ceiling.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Life really can be terribly cruel and unfair. Seeing that soul crushing sadness on Joe’s face is heartbreaking.
catclub
@Mandalay:
I am very tired of this trope. The safest seats in gerrymandered states are Democratic – 80% plus majorities. But because of this, there are many more marginally GOP seats. In a wave election, even those GOP ‘safe’ seats will get washed away. Not so that 80% majority seat. The plan is that there will not be such a large wave.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): My 13-year-old niece just flew from Chicago to Vegas as an unaccompanied minor two weeks ago. Would you like me to check with my niece or her mom to see if they have any thoughts to share?
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Approximately how old are they?
Cacti
@Elizabelle:
To protest the capitalist conspiracy by the vaccine manufacturers?
Eric S.
@jl: Around the time of the measles outbreak last year I read an article (sorry I don’t remember where so link) that stated there were some doctors that would write a Medical Exemption on demand with no real proof. If, IF!, that is true then it would imply an independent review would be necessary.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mandalay: I agree about compulsory voting. The tragedy of our age is that so few people vote, and then repubs can crow about landslides and mandates (when in reality a tiny fraction of the population turned out on election day).
Have you ever seen Australian comic Aamer Rahman?
Tenar Darell
@Mandalay: Holiday to vote, yes. Early voting, yes. Mail in ballots, yes. But with our current police and legal system, this would be one more thing that would result in disparate impacts. Like marijuana arrests, or driving while black, or parking fines, a compulsory voting law would victimize the people who can least afford the consequences of run-ins with the legal system.
Better to make the effort to make it easier to vote, and get out the vote.
Germy Shoemangler
@WaterGirl: Joe actually looked a bit happier to me in that clip. I saw the clip of Obama handling the heckler, and Biden stood behind him wiping his hands over his face. He looked so utterly miserable, but then perked up with a grin when Obama joked at him.
When smart-ass repubs like Ted Crooz poke fun at him, I want to poke them right in the nose.
David Koch
the White House blog posted this remarkable letter, written to the President by a woman in Palmer, Pennsylvania, a woman named Debra Lee Oren. As you can see it`s a handwritten letter written on a yellow legal pad.
Mike J
@Eric S.:
It’s undoubtedly true. There are unethical people in every profession,
Some anti-choice people don’t believe in allowing abortions even when medically necessary to save the life of the mother, and they make the same argument about doctors just doing whatever the patient asks. Having heard this argument makes me leery of adding too many hoops to jump through. People will find a way to get around whatever system you set up. The medical exemption rules are probably good enough to minimize the problem.
Jeffro
@catclub: It’s not tired – it’s important. Think about it this way: if offered the chance to switch scenarios (so that Ds hold a majority of seats by 55/45% margins, and Rs have less, but by bigger margins like the 80% you describe), do you think Rs would switch? Heck no.
Going by more ‘clustered’ congressional districts (whether drawn by an independent commission or even by computer) would take a lot of the heat out of today’s partisans (meaning, primarily the RepTea Party). That and overturning Citizens United oughta be items #1 and #2 on everyone’s to-do list.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@WaterGirl:
That would be great, thanks! I flew a lot as a youngster, but I don’t think I ever did the unaccompanied minor thing.
@Betty Cracker:
They’re 14 and 9. Technically, the older one will be 15 by the time they fly and some airlines would let her go it alone, but I’d rather have them both fly as UMs so the airline knows to keep tabs on both of them. Plus it’s a single fee for multiple kids from the same family, so why not?
Betty Cracker
@Germy Shoemangler: It’s hard to tell real from fake in DC, but the close relationship between PBO and Biden looks very genuine to me. I don’t think I’ve seen a clip of PBO at a public event or making a statement lately without Biden at his side.
the Conster
@Cacti:
It’s been 6 whole hours since the Obamacare ragegasm – it’s time for a fix.
cmorenc
@Ben Cisco:
They play “gangstagrass”, a hip-hop subgenre of bluegrass. I can’t find any youtube videos of the hairspray-huffing shitweasels, but you can get the idea from this clip of “Gunslinging Rambler”, featuring R-SON..
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Mike J:
At least here in California, there are often specific pediatricians that anti-vaxxers flock to. I would have no problem if the California medical board decided to investigate particular practices that were supposedly general practitioners but just happened to have a high proportion of medical excuses written. (Obviously, pediatricians who have specialty practices in things like allergy/asthma or immune disorders would be exempt.)
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): They should be fine, then, as long as they stick together. My kid has flown out to CA a few times without me and never ran into a problem. (There was a teacher along, but that poor soul had a bunch of teenagers to look after.)
The main challenge is to keep boredom at bay. My kid finds her phone indispensable and was glad to have a recharging thingy with her since there was a scarcity of plugs.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: Okay, now I’m beginning to fear that I may be crazy. Did we watch the same video? What heckler? When did Obama poke fun at Biden?
MattF
My suspicion is that Scott’s motivation is 99% ‘because Obama.’ Right-wing politicians generally assume that everyone hates BHO, because. Or, at least, that more people hate him than don’t. Those who hate him are motivated to vote for anyone who is a good and true hater. Those who don’t aren’t as motivated.
Mike J
@cmorenc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNmz00dHv2A
Iowa Old Lady
@MattF: I’ve read that politicians overestimate how conservative their districts are. On average, they rate them more conservative than what data shows to be the most conservative districts in the country.
In one way, that gives me comfort. OTOH, these district keep electing these fools.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
And if you make them go to two doctors, they’ll find two compliant doctors. Meanwhile, people with legit medical needs are going to have to jump through the same hoops and have the same added expense.
Florida Frog
More on our Governor Shitweasel – He just vetoed $9.5 million for the 30 free and charitable medical clinics in Florida. Even our Repub legislature strongly supported the clinics. He just took another completely spiteful shot and the most vulnerable people in the state.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I sent an email, will let you know when I hear back.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: Forgot to reply to the second part of your comment… You want to poke idiots like Cruz in the face for doing that to Uncle Joe when he lost his sone? I wanted to poke him in the eye!
beltane
It looks like the teabagger governor of Maine may be facing impeachment for applying extortion tactics against a school district. Teabagger shit rules from one end of I-95 to the other. Let Freedumb Ring!
Eric S.
@Mike J: I’d be very leery of it as well. Ultimately it would come down to how many people would be able to obtain a false exemption. If it is enough to damage herd immunity then another layer MAY become necessary.
Mandalay
@catclub:
Trope? Which Democrats are saying crazy shit? AFAIK it’s invariably Republicans.
Gerrymandered districts are a related but separate issue; even if you didn’t touch any electoral boundaries the tone of “safe” Republicans would change if they knew that the spics, fags, n-clangs, dykes, heathens and towelheads were legally required to vote. It wouldn’t necessarily lead to more intelligent politicians, or a better informed electorate, but the toxic comments that constantly spew from Republicans would be greatly reduced.
raven
@Florida Frog: And he was on Mornin Joe with that weasly ass voice talking about the economic miracle.
LWA
@Cacti:
As with the FEMA camp/ gun ban rumors, my response is usually-
I wish a mutherfucker would!
the Conster
@beltane:
Scott Brown, who is apparently shilling for a weight loss supplement now. Although if that doesn’t work out, he still could announce.
ruemara
@gelfling545: If it’s evil that doesn’t immediately impact them, many people tend to sit things out.
Scratch
All I can say is I hope that Governor Shitweasel becomes the way that Rick Scott is forever immortalized.
It’s been a strange day. I’m of course quite happy that that Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of upholding the subsidies. I had had some worries about that, although I suspected that Roberts had enough self-awareness and honesty not to want to twist himself into a pretzel like Scalia to find the favored “conservative” ruling. But even better is that it doesn’t appear that Roberts put any sort of poison pill into the ruling like he’s had a fondness for, but truth be told, there wasn’t anything in the case to do that with. Plus Roberts was smart enough to realize that if the court had ruled against subsidies based upon the plaintiffs’ arguments, it would open the courts up to a flood of cases brought on by finding little glitches and typos and minor contradictions created in the process of large numbers of human beings writing laws.
It is so strange though to go browsing in the world of the conservative news bubble. They really live in another reality, one not inhabited by real people and issues, but one ruled by a weird idealism of prejudices and exclusion if one does not measure up to their beloved principles.
At least sanity prevailed in our country today.
Joel
Jerry Orbach did a pretty good rendition of “Mack the Knife”.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: @Germy Shoemangler: Whew! We were watching different videos. I was watching the ACA video of Obama, you were watching Obama at the LGBT event at the white house.
I am not crazy. Yay!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Mike J:
We’ve had three pertussis epidemics in three years, plus the measles outbreak at Disneyland. I don’t give a fuck about their precious snowflakes anymore.
It’s not the low-income parents who are the problem out here. They are getting their kids immunized properly. It’s the rich assholes in Marin County and other wealthy areas whose unimmunized kids who are the problem. What’s your solution other than shrugging your shoulders and letting them continue to endanger the rest of us because, hey, they’re rich.
Mike J
@Cacti:
At least the NPS are going to stop selling it, including at Ft Sumter. But it’s not single payer, so Obama sold us out under the bus.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
You can do a heck of a lot more than kindergarten-level finger painting with an iPad. David Hockney has done most of his recent work on one, and it’s quite impressive. It’s especially interesting because he can capture the whole process of painting and play it back as a movie, so you can see not just what the final picture looks like but how it got that way.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
It’s because the people in red shirts always die first, while the main characters in yellow and blue shirts survive.
Cacti
@Mike J:
He does have authority to halt any sales of it by Federal agencies, or on property of the US government under the authority of the Executive Branch. And good for him for not having the Park Service sell it.
hells littlest angel
Look, I’m as against clown-car pedantry as the next guy, but the BLOODY POINT OF A CLOWN CAR is that it holds more occupants than seems physically possible. There’s room for half a dozen Chris Christies (each more ridiculously clad than the previous) in the GOP clown car.
Iowa Old Lady
@Scratch: I had that same disconnected feeling when I read the reactions of the R presidential candidates. Every one of them said we much continue to fight to repeal this terrible failure of a law. It was like I’d wandered into upside down world.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Here’s the reply in answer to my query about how the unaccompanied minor thing went:
beltane
@the Conster: Fred Thompson, too. Running for the GOP nomination must have a bigger potential grift payout than doing infomercials.
Hal
Really NPR? A few days ago they gave airtime to a white supremacist on the confederate flag debate, and today it was Tom Cotton touting his much better healthcare plan with not a single challenge to his claims.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: And if a picture of the wife and kid comes out, look out.
SuperHrefna
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Are these your late brother’s daughters? I’m glad they get to come and visit you. I flew unaccompanied minor from the age of five( divorced transatlantic parents) and it was never a big problem. Make sure they have plenty of familiar food, including their favorite treats, and plenty of distractions – although I found flying kinda traumatic because it meant leaving one parent behind each time I always really looked forward to the NEW BOOKS I’d get to distract me on the plane. I don’t know how it works today, but back in the 70s when I was tiny I’d get to spend the whole flight hanging out with the stewardesses, which I liked because it reminded me of hanging out with the tea lady in my mum’s department ( back in the day every Engligh office worth its salt had a tea lady to prepare the tea trolley that was wheeled out for tea breaks). When I was a bit older the stews would find a respectable looking traveller to seat me next to and put them in charge of me. The one I remember best being some poor sap who tried to entertain me all the way over the Atlantic by showing me his amazing DIGITAL WATCH. Those poor people. Anyway, times are so paranoid now that I have no idea what they do with unaccompanied minors ( swathe them in Kevlar?) but I’m sure your nieces will be fine.
Elizabelle
NYTimes profile of Clementa Carlos Pinckney. Worth a read. He died 43 days shy of his 42nd birthday.
Clementa Pinckney Felt Called to Spiritual and Political Service.
Such a loss.
Mandalay
@Scratch:
Heh – I was just reading Marco Rubio’s plan to replace the ACA which included this gem:
In other words, if you have a pre-existing condition you will have to pay whatever the insurance companies demand. Thanks Marco!
As you say, they live in a reality “ruled by a weird idealism of prejudices and exclusion”.
bystander
Just read the good news at Huffington Post: Bristol Palin is with child! Again!
Maybe this deserves its own thread. We should vote on the new baby’s name. After all, the Palins seem to love gender neutral names so we don’t really need to know boy or girl.
SuperHrefna
@bystander: Trapper. Clearly, it has to be Trapper.
BlueNC
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
1. Most important: The person who drops them off must fill out a pile of paperwork and identify the person picking them up in that paperwork. You’ll want to show up with photo ID that matches the person listed on the paperwork!!
2. Departure: Unaccompanied minors (UMs) cannot check in online. Their guardian must check them in at the ticket counter, in person, fill out paperwork, and pay the UM fee. Allow extra time for this. Guardian will be allowed/required to go to the gate with them. UMs will likely pre-board the plane around the time that passengers in wheelchairs board. Guardian will be asked NOT to leave the gate area until the plane actually takes off. When kids are called for boarding, either an airport employee (like the wheelchair pushers) or a flight attendant will get them onto the plane.
3. As a general rule, UMs are not allowed to take the last flight of the day to anywhere. There are also some rules about connections (no connecting across NY airports (like fly into JFK and out of LaGuardia, no interlining from one airline to another).
4. Arrival: Guardian must check in at the ticket counter (come early!) and get a gate pass, which is a bogus boarding pass to nowhere. Quite entertaining, actually. Guardian can then go through security (clear out your purse/pockets of anything not allowed in the airport!) and go to the arrival gate. UMs will generally come off the plane LAST, either with a flight attendant or an airport employee. Guardian will then show photo ID, they will match against their paperwork, and hand over kids to you.
If kids get stranded/misconnect/whatever, they will get top priority on the standby/reaccommodation list. In case of extreme problems, they will likely end up in a hotel room with a flight attendant. This will be just fine, especially since there are two of them traveling together.
Make sure the kids have some cash, a credit card if possible, and a cell phone would be nice. That said, once the airlines take custody of the kids, they WILL keep track of them.
Remember that the UM fees are one-way. In other words, when you drop them off to fly home, you will need to go through the entire procedure again, including the payment. And you need to know who is picking them up, although I suppose you could probably get away with listing two people.
We’ve done this a few times. Our kid prefers flying without us. :-)
boatboy_srq
@Hal: It’s 2015. NPR = “Now Presenting Republicans.” Because Fair and Balanced donchano, or else their
listenersGOTea CPB-hating masters will take theirradioslargesse elsewhere. I gave up on them a long time ago, and I remind WAMU every time they come begging that they’ve sold their souls for Teahadi peanuts.Aleta
@WaterGirl: Same here. Well said; thanks for that.
Elizabelle
@BlueNC: From years and years past, airlines used to put unaccompanied minors next to businessmen in business class (remember that)? LOL.
brantl
That needs to be a new tag for the Republican DUH-genda, but then so should Republican DUH-genda, come to think of it……
brantl
@Elizabelle: Scott meets Scott. The Nosferatu are scared of Scott, not the other way around.
BlueNC
@Elizabelle: There’s a rumor that British Airways has a policy of NOT putting UMs next to male passengers. Men are torn between relief at not sitting next to a child and righteous indignation at being classified as a potential threat.