Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

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

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

White supremacy is terrorism.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Wrong Kind of Retro

Open Thread: Wrong Kind of Retro

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137Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemazel

    I am sooooo hoping Joe & Mika go at Drumpf again tomorrow & Drumpf brings up the dead intern. This could get good!

  3. 3.

    Thoughtful David

    So what’s with Trump’s cancellation of speeches in CO, NE, and OR? Trying to figure out how to walk back his immigration flip-flop? Otherwise, I got nuttin’.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    Wasn’t it Rand Paul who tried to argue in favor of letting businesses segregate because the Free Market Would Take Care Of Fixing That? So, I guess Trump is slightly better than Paul. Low bar to clear, to be sure.

  7. 7.

    Trentrunner

    Slightly off-topic:

    In the past few days I’ve heard that Candy Crowley’s famous 2012 Prez debate correction of Mitt Romney is seen by the right as a huge failure by the media. (Recap: Romney said that Obama had not called Benghazi a “terrorist” attack. Obama had, and said so. This was the “Get the transcript, Candy” and the “Please proceed, Governor” exchange.)

    I’m not willing to check the fever swamps, but what’s their argument? Is it that 1) Crowley was out-of-line to correct Romney in real time or 2) that she was factually wrong with that correction?

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    @Thoughtful David: I think they’re trying to deal with the fundamental dilemma at the core of Trump’s policy proposal, which is that going hard-core deport-them-all racist attracted a fervent core of supporters but repels many many other people. So, how to be less repellent to the many many without losing the hard core because you’ve “sold out”?

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: I got an email today from Rand Paul asking me to join the National Association for Gun Rights’ Front Line Defenders Program. Apparently the M9 (Beretta 92F) I was issued for my deployment in Iraq is being oppressed.

  13. 13.

    Thoughtful David

    @dmsilev:
    Yes, I think that’s the issue. But why the cancellations now? They’ve been offending Latinos for > a year.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    @Trentrunner: As I remember it, he asked Crowley whether or not Obama called it terrorism. She simply responded. The problem for the right was she was correct.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @Thoughtful David: New campaign manager suddenly realizing what she’s gotten herself into? It hasn’t even been a week since the Great Shakeup, so maybe it took a few days to sink in for her.

  18. 18.

    Thoughtful David

    @Trentrunner:
    AFAIK, it’s the latter. Something along the lines of “he didn’t call it terrorism, he called it a terrorist act, so see Romney was right, he does love terrorists.”
    In other words, they’re 26m down below the surface of De Nile.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Thoughtful David: That’s the speculation. The rubber of Conway is meeting the road paved with the views of Trump’s supporters, Bannon, Senator Sessions, and Senator Sessions’ Senator Sessions Stephen Miller who has emerged as the ideologue behind Trumpism since Senator Sessions gave him to Trump.
    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/stephen-miller-donald-trump-2016-policy-adviser-jeff-sessions-213992
    A spoiled well off suburban kid from California that grew up believing that he was oppressed.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Trentrunner: You are correct. And its both. That 1) that is not the role of the moderator and 2) her correction for the record was, itself, incorrect. It is also the reason that she will never be allowed to do another debate. It is also the reason that they believe the non-partisan debate organization is, in fact, partisan. Of course we wound up with the current system because they accused the League of Women Voters of being partisan and biased against them.

  26. 26.

    Emma

    @srv: you know, I’m too tired and too sick to be amused. The Clinton foundation has done more for the world than Trump, you, and most of the republicans put together. There’s a special place in hell for people like you all.

  27. 27.

    Miss Bianca

    @Thoughtful David: Maybe, as someone suggested in another thread, *he’s* actually the one that’s ill? You know it’s always projection with these folks.

    ETA: I see IOL got there first.

  28. 28.

    Thoughtful David

    @Cat48:
    It really threw them for a loop, though. They had never been fact-checked in real time before. Or since :(

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @MomSense:

    Or buy bitcoins with gold.

    What would be the point? Since both have intrinsic value, they must always have the same exchange rate. It’s like the natural 15:1 ratio of gold to silver, a fundamental constant of the universe.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: Its more the “Gun Rights” part of the name of the group that always gets me. It makes it sounds like the right is possessed by the gun. Always brings a smile to my face.

  38. 38.

    Mary G

    I think Trump is embarrassed about his new hair color. Yesterday it looked much more yellow than orange, but at the speech in Akron today it was going a sort of Ryan Lochte-ish fluorescent lime green. I clicked on the live stream, but it was already over and he was trying to pretend to shake hands with strangers. You can really see the germ phobia; he starts to reach out to the fans, but his hands stop before they make contact and he does a thumbs-up instead to cover.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Emma: It is also not shutting down. They’re changing how its funded and they have planned a leadership change should Secretary Clinton get elected to the Presidency.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @Ken: Pure gold bitcoin! Bullion bitcoin! Unobtanium bitcoin! With a Kryptonite safe to put them in. That is the next wise play for a pre-codger fearful old with an eye on the main chance.

    Saw an ad on Balloon-Juice said for real security, I could get my IRA cashed out and sent to me in gold coins. Then I could see my retirement savings and let it trickle through my fingers. I could roll in it. In the special safe they would deliver to my door. If I could see my savings with my own eyes in my own home, that was real retirement security (that was the actual pitch). That sounded so cool, I was going to click, but I dozed off and it was gone.

    I turned that one down, and ever since only been getting very boring ads. One or wool suits and another patio furniture on right now. I guess the ad placement algorithm figured I am hopeless. Not even worth a Trump ad. I never been offered a discounted Trump VIP Gold Card. Not once. Feelings hurt.

    Edit: Actually, there is endless spam of Tramp ads every day, but it’s just him yelling stuff. I never been offered a Trump VIP Gold Card.

  45. 45.

    Lizzy L

    Dog attack update: my right arm with only puncture wounds is healing quickly. The left wrist and hand with lacerations and stitches hurts and is very stiff and swollen still. I am elevating it as much as I can. The circulation is good in the fingers. Pain is under control. Can’t drive yet.

    The dog is confined to the back yard at home for 10 days. The officer who saw him followed the protocol: dogs are only impounded if the person bitten is badly injured, and the EMTs underestimated the damage to my hand. They did not think it would need stitches. I called Animal Control and got the report updated, so the dog may yet be impounded. At the end of the 10 days they check for rabies. If the dog has rabies, I get shots and the dog is euthanized.

    Turns out the dog is unlicensed, so the owner is going to pay a bunch of fees and fines and he’ll be required to take the dog to a behavior class. I can request a copy of the report when the 10 days are up. Once I get it, I will know the owner’s name and phone number. I will call him and request him to reimburse me for the medical expenses — ambulance fees, ER co-pay, whatever. If he refuses, I’ll file a claim against his house insurance. If that proves unsuccessful, II’ll take him to small claims court.
    I walked Theo around the neighborhood twice today. The neighbors saw the bandages and asked what happened. Several discussions of what to do about loose, dangerous, biting, etc. dogs. Everyone has a story.

    Stitches out in two weeks.

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It makes it sounds like the right is possessed by the gun.

    Every gun, like every sperm, is sacred. (/wingnut)

    (No Python link cuz I’ve been too close to the fetus fetishists to find them entertaining, even as satire.)

  49. 49.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev:

    So, how to be less repellent to the many many without losing the hard core because you’ve “sold out”?

    I thought their strategy – not just on immigration but on Trump’s many other repellent “policy” positions – was to say offensive shit, then say the opposite, cycling through this 2-3 times a day. (I think some of you call this the “Gish Gallop” – w/ Trump it’s more of the “perpetual pivot”).

    Signal often enough to the mouth breathers that Trump’s ‘with them’, then say something vaguely contrite to the media in the hopes of winning a few dupes, then signal, then act contrite…and all the while, staying in the limelight good or bad (a need for Trump on a par with oxygen)

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: Sorry to read this. I had this happen to one of my dogs back in 2011. Fortunately there was a PA state police cruiser parked around the corner from where the other person’s dog left their yard and attacked mine.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anne Laurie: Here’s an appropriate Python link for the comment:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Python

    The Colt Python is a .357 Magnum caliber revolver formerly manufactured by Colt’s Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut. It is sometimes referred to as a “Combat Magnum”.[1] It was first introduced in 1955, the same year as Smith & Wesson’s M29 .44 Magnum. The now discontinued Colt Python targeted the premium revolver market segment. Some firearm collectors and writers such as Jeff Cooper, Ian V. Hogg, Chuck Hawks, Leroy Thompson, Scott Wolber, Renee Smeets and Martin Dougherty have described the Python as the finest production revolver ever made.

    The Colt Python is a double action handgun chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge, built on Colt’s large I-frame. Pythons have a reputation for accuracy, smooth trigger pull, and a tight cylinder lock-up.[2] They are similar in size and function to the Colt Trooper and Colt Lawman revolvers.[8]

  55. 55.

    Mary G

    @Lizzy L: Take lots of pictures, worth a thousand words in court. The bruises should be really nasty-looking now.

    You can tell your medical insurance, too, and they will go after him for the part they paid, too, in subrogation.

    Sounds awful all the way around. Hope the healing goes fast.

  56. 56.

    amk

    donnie dick & co are media bashing 24×7 and yet the msm whines 24×7 how hillary is not doing press cons.

  57. 57.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: What happened then? I don’t know what the animal control laws are like in PA. People think the laws in CA are tough, but the CA Animal Control officers don’t think so.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    @Thoughtful David:

    So what’s with Trump’s cancellation of speeches in CO, NE, and OR?

    Possible reasons (and yes I recognize that some of these are based on the assumption that someone, anyone, inside the Trump camp is paying actual attention to actual issues, their budgets, etc)
    – they recognize that CO and OR are lost and they’re gonna focus hard on OH, FL, and PA from here on out
    – crowd RSVPs were minimal
    – nobody had made even minimal plans for these rallies (there is a story up on CNN about a 12-year-old running a CO office for Trump?)
    – western trip too far away from home for Trump’s liking
    – diverting $$$ to other things like…I dunno…more hat purchases? Renting Mar-A-Lago to himself a couple more times?
    – Trump wanting to hold more rallies in more white-nationalist-friendly redoubts like Texas?

    I think the guy just wants to be the next Rush Limbaugh – didn’t Rush sign a $500M contract at one point? And he doesn’t have to leave his ‘broadcast booth’- he can just phone in from Trump Tower every morning. This whole campaigning crap ( much less governing, OMG!) is for the birds!

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Emma: What isn’t being reported is that none of the Bushes that weren’t president when George W. Bush was President felt the need to remove themselves from the corporate boards or foundation boards, including the family ones, that they were on. That Secretary Rumsfeld refused to place his investments in a blind trust – at least VP Cheney did, including his ownership stake in KBR-Halliburton – so that every time a spending decision had to be made at the secretary level of the DOD he had to recuse himself from the decision and leave the room where the decision point meeting was being held. And what wasn’t being reported at the time about this? Very, very little. And the official Democratic Party positions on this? Not sure there even was one.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    Getting ready to make some hard-shell tacos for dinner. I found out the hard way last time why they say not to warm the shells in the toaster oven. Who knew they would actually catch on fire, though?

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @Adam L Silverman: It’s Clinton Rules again.

    Has anyone even bothered to ask Trump what he plans to do with all of his business dealings if he becomes president?

    See this from a few days ago.

    Donald Trump Has a Huge Conflict of Interest That No One’s Talking About

  63. 63.

    Lizzy L

    @Mary G: The right arm is just covered with bandaids, and I don’t want to take the wrap off the left arm. So no pictures. But I can get the ER report and the Animal Control Report.

    Insurance is Medicare & Kaiser Senior Advantage. I’ll have to ask them if they want to go after the dog’s owner and/or the homeowner. Didn’t know they did that.

  65. 65.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh, btw…a ramble with the dogs led to the discovery of a shell on the property the likes of which I’d never seen before – with a “WRA” printed on it. A bit of Google research revealed it to be for a Winchester Model 94. Old, old, old – I don’t think it’s for a reissue. Interesting rifle!

  66. 66.

    randy khan

    @JPL:

    Transcript of the key bit (from CNN):

    OBAMA: And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary
    of State, our U.N. Ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics
    or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive.
    That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president, that’s not
    what I do as Commander in Chief.

    CROWLEY: Governor, if you want to…

    ROMNEY: Yes, I – I…

    CROWLEY: … quickly to this please.

    ROMNEY: I – I think interesting the president just said
    something which – which is that on the day after the attack he went
    into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.

    OBAMA: That’s what I said.

    ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it
    was an act of terror.

    It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re
    saying?

    OBAMA: Please proceed governor.

    ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because
    it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi
    an act of terror.

    OBAMA: Get the transcript.

    CROWLEY: It – it – it – he did in fact, sir.
    So let me – let me call it an act of terror…

    OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?

    CROWLEY: He – he did call it an act of terror. It did as well
    take – it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there
    being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct
    about that.

    ROMNEY: This – the administration – the administration
    indicated this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous
    reaction.

    CROWLEY: It did.

    * * *

    In real time, I remember thinking she was taken aback by Romney’s statement, possibly because she’d been there when Obama made the original statement.

  67. 67.

    Trentrunner

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks. There’s a lot of workin-the-refs going on already about the upcoming debates, and this Crowley moment is (apparently) a big part of the discussion.

  68. 68.

    mike in dc

    @Jeffro:
    Mostly I think this is a sign of a new internal struggle between Conaway and Bannon over immigration and other issues.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    @Trentrunner: I would actually prefer it if the moderators were forced to ask “What is your position on X?” and then not say anything while the candidates gave their 2-minute spiel. The moderators during the primaries were pretty bad. I’m not looking forward to their behavior in the GE debates.

  70. 70.

    Gavin

    Just re-watched the unedited Comedy Central roast of Trump.

    All thruout that entire 90min was mention of him running for President.. In fact Yrumpz final sentence is “I’ll be the greatest”. Apparently nobody took him seriously but himself.

    And I’ll never tire of watching Situation bomb epically.. Cuts to Ice-T and Russell Simmons both making the “o” face in the audience as yet another joke falls flat.

  71. 71.

    SenyorDave

    @Major Major Major Major: Facebook let us look under the hood of their ad/tracking engine. It’s basically what you suspected, they know everything about your online life.

    People would be shocked/alarmed at what Facebook knows. When you agree to their terms it gives them amazing privileges. I work tangentially in the same industry and I was shocked/alarmed when I found out some of the data they have access to, and what it is used for (nothing nefarious, by the way, just more than I want them to know).

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: The person’s St. Bernard (this was down the street and around the corner from my house in my neighborhood), came flying out of its yard and attacked my black lab/Australian shepherd mix. Dog had no collar or tags. Bit her ear – more of a gouging scrape. We immediately beat a careful retreat 1/2 a block to where the police officer was parked writing reports. She then went to the house, got the owner, the owner (the wife) was aggressive, belligerent, and denying everything despite the cop indicating that she’d seen the dog chase us down the street to her cruiser. And that my dog’s ear was bit open and bleeding. The cop wrote up the details, gave me the info on the report, and told me to call the dog warden the next day and the warden would do the rest. I then took my dog to the vets (this happened around 5:30 PM), the vet took care of the laceration/bite, we paid the bill, and I spoke with the dog warden the next day. The dog warden indicated that the dog owner claimed the dog was on an invisible fence and I was lying. I told the dog warden: 1) the St. Bernard is not wearing a collar, 2) the state cop noted in the report she witnessed the dog chasing us down the street towards her cruiser, 3) she also noted the damage to my dog’s ear, and 4) there are no signs for an invisible fence in the yard and the dog is usually kept on a long, tethered lead in the garage. I explained what I wanted was confirmation that the dog did not have rabies/was up to date on its rabies shots and registration and the owner to reimburse me for the costs at the vets and for the owner to enter into an agreement with the dog warden to keep the dog properly restrained to its yard. The dog warden indicated he could take care of that, but if the owner wouldn’t pay, I’d have to go to small claims court. I had also spoken to the borough chief of police the evening of the attack. About a week or two later I get a call from my vets that the dog’s owner was in there, screaming at them, and demanding they take his money for my dog’s care because he wasn’t going to personally pay me a damn thing. He kept screaming about this as they explained to him, repeatedly, that the bill had been paid the night I brought my dog in. I told them to call the borough chief of police right away. I called the dog warden the next day, explained what had happened, and indicated that if he didn’t sort this guy out (my demands now included a written apology to my vet and her staff and agreement to never set foot in their again) and just have him mail me a check, I was going to get an attorney involved and that attorney would be requesting an audit of exactly what it is the he was doing as the dog warden. I had a check within the week.

  74. 74.

    PsiFighter37

    @mike in dc: Good. Internal conflict for the bad guys makes me happy.

    I am not happy, though, that my regulatory exam scheduled for tomorrow morning got CANCELLED at 7:30 PM this evening. WTF! All of a sudden said the location was not available. I rescheduled to Thursday, but now I have to fill 2 extra days with material…there’s no way I’m just sitting on my laurels for 2 days letting this fresh knowledge rot away.

    Fuck these clowns. I really want to just show up at any testing center and demand to take it immediately.

  78. 78.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: Thank you! This may end up being very helpful. I have been advised to contact a lawyer but I don’t want to do that yet. Lawyers are expensive, and I am poor.

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: I had some leverage. The dog’s owner showed up at my vets and made an ass of himself and threatened people in public. I leveraged this with the dog warden that he had clearly not done his job properly because the owner didn’t just cut me a check, but instead showed his ass in public. And that if I took it to an attorney we wouldn’t be dealing with small claims court for minor claims, but that there would be a very large civil suit that would include the state of PA, the department his office was in, and him in his professional capacity including an attempt to determine if he was this bad at his job for all cases or just mine.

  81. 81.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lizzy L: Most lawyers will do a free consult. Also, this a personal injury case, and most PI firms to work on a contingency basis – that means they get 25-40% of the judgment or settlement + costs, but nothing if you lose. Look for a reputable firm in your area and talk with them.

  83. 83.

    Ceci n'est pas mon nym

    My dog attack story is much less horrific than the experiences of other BJers. It was about as civilized as such an encounter can be.

    Started when I was walking our lab past the yard where a female Akita lives. This dog is never loose but they accidentally left the gate open. She jumped my dog and gave her a couple of bites on the back which required stitches.

    The owners were very apologetic and paid the vet bill without hesitation. I met with them in their home and met the Akita face to face. They told me she was fine with people but couldn’t be trusted around other dogs as she just hated them.

    Had I not seen the attack I would have just said this is a sweet-tempered dog, and in fact when I run into them on the street (without the lab, who died several years ago) I get a very friendly greeting from both dog and humans.

  85. 85.

    hovercraft

    @Trentrunner:
    Since facts have a liberal bias, Crowley pointing one out was proof of her bias. RMoney was going to win that election, if only the media hadn’t helped Obama win and if hurricane Sandy had not occurred and Christie had not endorsed/hugged him. Since the unskewed polls showed RMoney winning, only these factors caused him to lose. The silent majority was thwarted.

  86. 86.

    Lizzy L

    @Omnes Omnibus: All I want is to be reimbursed for the out-of-pocket expenses, and I don’t know what they are yet. I will be billed. The ambulance will be at least $250 I think and the ER co-pay is either $65 or $100. There’s more, I am sure. I’m retired, so no issues with loss of livelihood. But I will keep your advice in mind, and I will at least find out if there is a reputable local firm that I can talk to. Thank you very much.

    This is all assuming I don’t have to take the fucking rabies shots. If I have to do that, I will not play nice.

  89. 89.

    hovercraft

    @Miss Bianca:
    They register voters, so they are as bad as ACORN was in the modern GOP mind. What they did back then to exhibit bias, I don’t know.

  90. 90.

    James E Powell

    @Lizzy L:

    Echoing Omnes, above. Any legit PI attorney will talk to you at no charge. This is a relatively common case.

    Unsolicited advice – Make appointments with at least two lawyers. Don’t bother with anyone who will not do a consult for no charge. And in the interim do not say anything to anyone about the incident, your injuries, or anything else. NO EXCEPTIONS.

    Best of luck.

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @SenyorDave:

    One more reason I’m not part of Facebook, nor Twitter. None of that kind of social media. Email, 2 blogs (this and LGM) that’s about it.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @James E Powell: @Lizzy L: Signing on to Mr. Powell’s advice. And adding that when he says don’t talk about the incident, that means don’t talk about it here as well. Not until you talk to a lawyer or decide that you will not do so.

    @Lizzy L: Stop now. Say no more. As long as you stories are consistent, you have not really hurt yourself.

  96. 96.

    catclub

    Something nice to look at – a video from an MFA student – pretty.

    Amir – or any other expert – – do you think it is influenced by Sufism?

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    @Lizzy L:

    In personal injury cases, often a lawyer will take a case on spec, you sign a contract with them to pay them a percentage of the amount they wrangle out of the person who caused your injury, or their insurance, called a contingency fee in legalese, I think.

    Most of them will talk with you about your situation, to determine if you have a claim, without a charge. I bet some of the legal eagles who post here will opine on this… IANAL.

  98. 98.

    Shalimar

    @Schlemazel: Lori Klausutis was an aide, not an intern. She had been working for Scarborough for 2 years. And it was a constituent services office in the county east of his home county, not his main office in the district. He says he barely knew her, and there isn’t any reason to doubt that.

    On the other hand, the medical examiner who did the autopsy lost his license in 2 different states and has a rather embarrassing history of his own. His conclusions don’t make sense, and seemed designed to shut down the news story of a death in Scarborough’s office. It seems pretty clear from the evidence that she was murdered, and her employer showed no interest in finding out what happened to her.

  99. 99.

    Lizzy L

    @Omnes Omnibus: Everything I have said and written has been entirely consistent from place to place and person to person. In the case of what I have written as a description of the incident, it is one account copied almost word for word from one site to others.

    I will do as you and James Powell suggest, and cease to talk about it unless I am talking to law enforcement, to medical personnel, or to a lawyer should I decide to approach one. Thanks for the advice.

  101. 101.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Thoughtful David:

    So what’s with Trump’s cancellation of speeches in CO, N[V], and OR? Trying to figure out how to walk back his immigration flip-flop? Otherwise, I got nuttin’.

    He exhausted himself last week doing lunchtime and dinner fundraisers along with rallies, and he’s not doing that again. He hates having to sleep in a bed he doesn’t own, probably doesn’t sleep, probably gets cranky and starts tweeting shit out.

    Everything is projection with Trump.

  103. 103.

    catclub

    @J R in WV: My experience was: 1) once My insurance knew someone else was responsible, they did not pay on any of my hospital bills. 2) the bill are of course now at the list price rate rather than the discounted insurance company pay rate.
    3)I did have to track down all of my related bills – which I did very badly – there was one that I missed until after I had been paid a settlement.
    4) The settlement was X times the medical bills so having more bills is fine as long as you can put off paying them until settlement, or can pay them before getting settlement.
    Also bad if anything comes up in the future related to the initial injuries.

  104. 104.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @amk: Clinton is running a deeply deeply conventional campaign. August is for opening offices, pulling in volunteers, registering voters, phone-banking the shit out of your existing lists and working out what needs to be done in the actual campaign. Pretty sure Romney was doing similar in August 2012. It’s only weird in the context of Trump doing fuck-all field stuff and thinking that a rally with a thousand yahoos equals an actual campaign.

  106. 106.

    TS

    @Baud:

    It’s Clinton Rules again.

    It’s democrat rules. If a democrat does it – it’s wrong, immoral, illegal, criminal or all of the above. If a republican does it – he (never she) has a mandate. The right to rule is strong with republicans. Anyone else got there by fraud.

  108. 108.

    burnspbesq

    Text message from the kid at 3:01 a.m. London time: “I partied with Usain Bolt.”

    I suppose it’s possible, but I’m a little skeptical.

  109. 109.

    Mary G

    @Lizzy L: Medicare didn’t used to bother unless there was a lot of money (ICU for days, for example), and Kaiser I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I did that stuff. I just mentioned it because a friend settled with a friend who ran over her foot with a golf cart and then got dunned by her insurance. It is something you can ask the lawyer about at the initial meeting, or it should be.

  113. 113.

    Eric U.

    I’m going to have to unfollow my local paper on facebook. 90 percent clickbait garbage with a heavy dose of right wing noise machine. They had a story today about how Clinton wasn’t letting the press into her fundraisers. I don’t think Trump is letting the press into his either.

    I was riding my bike up a hill in the nearby state forest yesterday when I passed by some morons that had 3 large collies off leash. Of course, the dogs were running at me at full speed. Moron owners were pleading with them to come back, as if. At first I wasn’t worried, then I remembered that collies are responsible for more hospitalizations than any other breed. And I’ve seen packs of collies take out another rider, broke his collarbone. I have a really good command voice, which the dogs finally heeded. What is with people doing dangerous stunts like that with untrained dogs? Is walking a dog off leash an ego-stroking high that makes them feel good about themselves? That place is absolutely crawling with rattlesnakes, dogs die there every year. Stupid all around

  115. 115.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Why are you comparing her to Romney? What is her comparison to Obama?

    I’m saying that in 2012 the Republican candidate was spending August doing conventional campaign things like opening field offices and ‘message of the day’ stuff. And so was the Democrat. Hillary is doing what normal presidential candidates do. And whatever you think of Romney, he was normal.

    Let me spell it out: conventional is good. Conventional is what wins elections. Conventional is bringing in volunteers during August, telling them how important they are for a couple of really hard months of often dull and back-breaking work up and down the ticket, and also telling them that that the candidate will be back to thank them towards the end of the campaign.

    It is very important that Clinton runs a conventional campaign, because it establishes the narrative that demagoguery does not dictate how a presidential election is conducted.

  116. 116.

    Redshift

    @Jeffro: I don’t think there’s that much strategy to it. Trump is a BS artist. He met with Latino activists, so of course he told them what they wanted to hear. Then when he was back among his usual crowd, he told them what they wanted hear. The only thing that made it unusual is that his new staff apparently didn’t realize that’s what he was doing, and put out “pivot” press hints in between.

  119. 119.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Omnes Omnibus: yes, but you have to understand that I’m emphasising how this isn’t a normal election and not get all knee-jerky about it.

    So much of what Trump is doing is just plain weird: he’s deeply averse to campaign visits out of easy range of his homes — Pence is assigned a travel itinerary that will fuck him up, and I’m sort of glad of that — and he’s treating rallies and fundraisers as a stand-in for field ops, which I assume will end badly. Everything is being done with an eye on being able to bill back as much as possible from the campaign account to a Trump company or Trump-affiliated company.

  122. 122.

    gene108

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What isn’t being reported is that none of the Bushes that weren’t president when George W. Bush was President felt the need to remove themselves from the corporate boards or foundation boards, including the family ones, that they were on. That Secretary Rumsfeld refused to place his investments in a blind trust – at least VP Cheney did, including his ownership stake in KBR-Halliburton – so that every time a spending decision had to be made at the secretary level of the DOD he had to recuse himself from the decision and leave the room where the decision point meeting was being held. And what wasn’t being reported at the time about this? Very, very little. And the official Democratic Party positions on this? Not sure there even was one.

    The media loved Bush, Jr. and his crew. They were the serious grown-ups, who would restore a sense of “honor and dignity” to the White House. They would wear suits and ties at all times and never take their suit jackets off, in the White House, like good professional grown-ups.

    By the time the cluster-fuck of Bush & Co.’s administration became too hard to deny, the media was overwhelmed by the scale of the calamity that they did not have resources to focus on some petty conflicts of interest issues.

    Plus the Democrats, by the time they started getting their shit together had too much to try and investigate, with regards to Bush & Co. malfeasance that they did not have time to look over conflicts of interest in the administration.

    Hell, Bush & Co.’s failed North Korea policy, with regards to nuclear non-proliferation, barely gets a mention. There was so much going wrong by then that North Korea getting nukes was a blip on the radar.

  125. 125.

    Redshift

    I figured out why Trump has started going on about the Clinton Foundation. The Washington Times (wingnut rag) headline today was “Foreign Money Taints Both Campaigns” or some such. So it’s intended to turn forthcoming really bad Manafort revelations into “both sides do it.”

    Sadly, it will probably work.

  128. 128.

    Adam L Silverman

    Shiny new late night/early morning open thread up. Also, shiny new Cole bigfoot of the shiny new late night/early morning open thread up. ?

  129. 129.

    Eric U.

    my wife got a call from a local HRC staffer. I’m guessing that State College is special, and most of rural PA doesn’t get their own staffer, but I was impressed.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    @burnspbesq:

    It’s probably like here in LA where every part-Hawaiian guy with a passing resemblance to Keanu Reeves claims to be him to try and get dates (and this happens with both straight and gay versions thereof). Because if you have a resemblance to a famous person, why wouldn’t you exploit it?

    (Though apparently people would sometimes walk up to JFK Jr. on the street to ask if he was, in fact, JFK Jr., and he would say, “No, I’m not, but I get that all the time.”)

  132. 132.

    sukabi

    @Shalimar: and it was kept relatively quiet because at about the same time Chandra Levy went missing and Gary Condit (D) was the focus of all the media scrutiny…. who says there isn’t a definite media bias.

  133. 133.

    gene108

    @Redshift:

    I figured out why Trump has started going on about the Clinton Foundation. The Washington Times (wingnut rag) headline today was “Foreign Money Taints Both Campaigns” or some such. So it’s intended to turn forthcoming really bad Manafort revelations into “both sides do it.”

    Sadly, it will probably work.

    It’s common knowledge, by now, that the Clinton Foundation is little more than a slush fund / money laundering operation for the Clinton family to rake in billions tax free and under the radar.

    This is held to be true, not just by right-wingers, but by many skeptical political types, who maybe backed Bernie and think the whole system is rigged and there’s nothing they can do about it because both major parties are just different sides of the same coin.

  135. 135.

    sukabi

    @hovercraft: don’t think there was actual bias. The parties just wanted more control over the process…how else you going to get debates that allow the same level of bullshit as the sunday show “interviews”?

  136. 136.

    piratedan

    @Lizzy L: talk to your vet or your doc, believe it or not, they may be able to keep you away from the ambulance chasers and to someone reputable.

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