Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The revolution will be supervised.

Consistently wrong since 2002

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I really should read my own blog.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

“woke” is the new caravan.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

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

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

You are here: Home / The Worst – the Absolute Worst

The Worst – the Absolute Worst

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Mario’s kid:

NEWARK — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York agreed to falsely explain the mysterious lane closings at the George Washington Bridge in 2013 as a traffic study to try to “put an end to” the growing scandal, the admitted culprit behind the scheme testified in federal court here on Tuesday.
At Mr. Christie’s request, he testified, Mr. Cuomo told the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, to “stand down” in trying to publicly blame the lane closings on Mr. Christie and his aides, at least until Mr. Christie had won re-election in November 2013.

If it weren’t Cuomo, I’d wonder if this is true.

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    Looks like little Andy learned at the feet of Mario “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo.”

  5. 5.

    cthulhu

    It would be great if this ends Andy’s further political aspirations but I doubt we can be so fortunate.

  7. 7.

    SFAW

    @srv:

    Once again proving that both sides do it.

    It’s not clear that Cuomo is actually a Democrat (philosophically, that is. I know what his registration is.)

  8. 8.

    Hal

    As a New York Stater, I feel like people from Illinois feel now about their Governors. I would say Carl Paladino is going to be thrilled, he might even run again, but given that he barely survived to keep his seat on the buffalo school board against an 18 year old, I doubt it.

  9. 9.

    Bobby Thomson

    The number one reason Clinton didn’t look so bad two years ago. That guy was also responsible for a Republican state legislature in New York. He’s worse than Wasserman Schultz when it comes to aid and comfort to the enemy.
    I have to assume he and Christie have common ownership.

  11. 11.

    Peale

    Still not certain what Buono did besides having lady parts to make so many Democratic office holders back The Fat One. While Cuomo technically doesn’t owe the NJ Democratic Party any favors, it appears that keeping the boys in charge was more important than party consideration.

  12. 12.

    sherparick

    It does appear that a good half of the Establishment Democrats want to keep Republicans in power as much as Republicans do.

    It is often said of one difference between Republicans and Democratic office holders these last 25 years.

    “Republicans fear their Base, Democrats despise their base.”

  13. 13.

    Hill Dweller

    In other Democrats doing stupid stuff news, Bill Clinton apparently shit all over Obamacare during a campaign stop. It’s already been tweeted out by Kelleyanne Conway. I’m sure the Village will be all over it.

  14. 14.

    Ryan

    I wonder if Cuomo had to get talked into this or if he volunteered when he found out. Is it too much to hope that we won’t be seeing Cuomo in 2024?

  16. 16.

    Stan

    Cuomo had to be in on this right from the beginning. The Port Authority is a joint agency and Andrew is a very well-known micromanager. Well, manager is the wrong word. “Micro control nut” is more accurate; he never ‘manages’ anything.

    He is caught up in a couple other scandals right now too.

    Andrew Cuomo will be re-elected anyway, if he wants to be. There’s no one of sufficient stature to run against him. Maybe Teachout will give it another try.

  17. 17.

    Hill Dweller

    The WH is now having to respond to Bill’s comments in the press briefing. Bill Clinton has zero discipline. I know he and PBO don’t like one another, but sometimes it seems like Bill tries to undermine Hillary.

  19. 19.

    patroclus

    @Hal: Pat Quinn was actually very good as a governor, but he got beat in the 2014 Republican sweep by Bruce Rauner, who doesn’t appear to be corrupt, but is terrible on policy. Rauner won’t sign a budget, so for four years, Illinois is doing stop-gap funding, where every facet of state responsibility is on a knife’s-edge of defunding, including education, children and family services, roads and bridges, water and other utilities and lots more. But Blago, Ryan and Walker all went to jail (deservedly).

  20. 20.

    JPL

    @Hill Dweller: On CBS this morning, Robby Mook addressed his comments. He mentioned that Hillary has a plan to reduce drug costs, which will lower the cost of coverage.

    I hope that Cuomo takes the stand and throws Christie under the bridge.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Timurid:
    @Hill Dweller:

    The last few times I’ve seen Bill in vid clips I’ve thought he doesn’t look healthy. I wonder if something else is going on, beyond his well-known penchant for stepping on it. (And I say this as someone who genuinely likes him.)

  23. 23.

    kindness

    Damn. That’s one of my 5 free NY Times articles. Sure wish I had known it was a Times link. I wouldn’t have gone there.

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Rumor has it he has “pump head.” Memory and inhibition problems from being on a heart/lung machine. With his cardiac history he is probably on statins: notorious memory killers. (A respected NASA doctor wrote Lipitor, Thief of Memory.)

    And of course, he always had impulse problems. So to speak.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @WereBear:

    I know what statins have done to my memory, and I can well believe that’s part of it with Bill. (Being under anesthesia for long hours can also play merry hell with bits of your brain.)

    Just one more thing for Hillary and team to juggle. Sigh.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    @kindness: agree. People who put up links should identify publication if it’s behind a paywall. Common courtesy and readership capture.

  32. 32.

    hovercraft

    @Peale:
    They thought he was going to win regardless, and knowing his level of vindictiveness they all stood down. Bouno was a sacrificial lamb, no one ever thought she stood a chance. Coumo is just scum who has done everything in his power to keep republicans in power so that an all democratic legislature would not ‘force’ him to be a liberal. He thought it was his ticket to the presidency, being a moderate. The base will never let him forget this shit. being a centrist in a red or purple state is understandable, but being one in a blue state, making promises to get elected, and then screwing those that brung you, is reprehensible.

  34. 34.

    Trollhattan

    In a more positive vein, the NYT election thingie has Hillary at 79% vs. the yam at 21%. On debate day it was 70/30 so this is a dramatic upswing. Sam Wang has nudged his Senate count to 50-50 from 49-51 yesterday.

  35. 35.

    Barbara

    @Timurid: His language was inartful but the gist of his point was the people should be able to resort to a public option. Since that seems to be the preference of nearly every Democrat, that’s the part I would play up. Kellyanne Conway’s only answer is to repeal Obamacare and let everyone die in a ditch.

  37. 37.

    Srv

    I was excited when I read the title of this post, I really thought it was about me! I am a uniformly awful “person.”

  38. 38.

    NR

    @Trollhattan: Another poll out today showing a narrow Clinton lead in Nevada. Trump had been ahead there and it was looking like one of his best chances to take an Obama state, so this is good news. Also a couple of polls showing her up big in Pennsylvania.

  39. 39.

    Barbara

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I don’t know that it is anesthesia so much as heart surgery. My mother in law was told by her doctor that she probably would not be able to play the piano as well after heart surgery and it proved to be the case. At a social event she got into a conversation with a cardiothoracic surgeon about the effects of heart surgery and he said that it was absolutely true, loss of memory and some deterioration of higher level skills were pretty common, but that no one likes to talk about it.

  41. 41.

    hovercraft

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    This.
    They are both jealous. Bill hates that so much of his legacy has been repudiated, and especially that Hillary has to run away from his legacy. To many democrats the achievements of the Obama presidency for outpace his. As for McCain he’s just a bitter old man who feels that he was beaten by two undeserving upstarts, after he put in the time. it was supposed to be is, he spent years grooming the press, and all for naught.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    Preet Bharara has been waiting for an opening to do what his counterpart in NJ wouldn’t. He now has it and I expect he’ll run with it. And he will go after both Cuomo and Christie.

  43. 43.

    sukabi

    @Barbara: is it a lack of blood flow (to the brain) during surgery that would cause this? My dad had a couple of bypass surgeries and his cognition got very sloppy….

  45. 45.

    Roger Moore

    @Trollhattan:

    Sam Wang has nudged his Senate count to 50-50 from 49-51 yesterday.

    And the presidential meta-margin is up to 3.1%, which is nice. The generic Congressional ballot has also gone up to about D+5%; unfortunately, that’s still not likely to be enough to overcome Republican gerrymandering.

  46. 46.

    JGabriel

    NY Times:

    At Mr. Christie’s request, he testified, Mr. Cuomo told the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, to “stand down” in trying to publicly blame the lane closings on Mr. Christie and his aides, at least until Mr. Christie had won re-election in November 2013.

    And people wonder why Democrats despise our “Democratic” governor in NY.

  47. 47.

    patroclus

    @NR: As things stand now, Trump might flip Iowa, Ohio and Maine2 and Clinton looks like she’s gonna flip North Carolina. If Clinton continues to accelerate her lead, others might be in play (Georgia? Nebraska1? Arizona? Alaska?), but if not, the election seems like a mirror of the Obama elections – it’s been remarkably stable all year long.

  48. 48.

    hovercraft

    @Trollhattan:
    Ed Kilgore

    Clinton has led in all nine four-way national polls that were in the field after the debates, including three iterations of Rasmussen’s tracking poll. Her lead in the RealClearPolitics polling averages in a four-way race is back up to 3.7 percent, a bit more than double its size the day before the debate. In two-way trial heats, the picture is the same, though Trump does continue to enjoy a steady 3- to 4-point lead in the USC/L.A. Times tracking poll, which has showed him continuously leading since September 12.

    There hasn’t been quite a luxurious volume of battleground-state polls in the last week, but those we have similarly indicate a small but significant Clinton “bounce.” Nate Silver calculates that she’s led in 18 of 20 post-debate battleground-state polls, including surveys of states (e.g., Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, and Colorado) where she had been slipping (a Quinnipiac poll of Ohio is the only one showing her actually behind). Election forecasts have, unsurprisingly, been more bullish on Clinton since the debate; her win probability is up to 72 percent at FiveThirtyEight, 78 percent at the Upshot, and 80 percent at the betting-market aggregator PredictWise.

  50. 50.

    NR

    @patroclus: That’s what it looks like now, yes. I don’t think Michigan and Wisconsin are 100% solid yet, which worries me, but if Clinton holds PA, VA, and FL, and adds NC, I don’t think there’s any way Trump can win even if he sweeps the Midwest.

    Edit: Actually, just checked the map and she could even lose NC there if she holds on to Nevada. She’d have 271 electoral votes. I’d rather it not be that close though.

  52. 52.

    Barbara

    @JGabriel: Cuomo went out of his way to try to keep the NY Senate under Republican control. When, in spite of his efforts, Democrats won an outright majority, he then helped engineering a “power sharing” deal such that, effectively, Republicans held veto power over Democratic initiatives. Then, when the New York gay initiative passed he took great credit for engineering the additional Republican votes that were needed because of this Democratic led gerrymandering in favor of Republican power. In my book, Cuomo deserves zero credit as a result. Cuomo is a reasonable guy when it comes to social issues but he is horrible and unimaginative when it comes to almost everything else.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: Factually speaking, I actually have no problem with what Bill said. He’s attacking the weakest and most flawed aspects of the post-ACA system, and it needs to be reformed. But of course politically it comes across as “even Bill Clinton wants to repeal Obamacare.” If Republicans repeal it, we get nothing, or nothing worth mentioning.

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    UPI/CVOTER released an alarming set of 50-state polls that actually show Trump ahead in PA, VA and NC, but if you look closely at them, you see they’re incorporating data from a long survey period that goes back to the pre-debate, post-Pneumoniagate period.

  57. 57.

    Aleta

    Hate to be alarmist, but in the category assholes:
    Today (quite soon now) Ammon Bundy will be testifying (by his own decision) in court. (This is the twitter description mostly as it happens in court. So it’s “live” now and sometimes updated later in the evening.)
    Maybe connected? Last night a 2 am, fire destroyed one of the four BLM field offices in the Idaho Falls District BLM. The field office is in Challis idaho, employs 25 people, and manages 792,243 acres of public lands for multiple-use and sustained yield.

  59. 59.

    Gelfling 545

    @Peale: I’m pretty sure he has faced reality on that one. By now he has certainly been made aware that he is only governor on sufferance and has just been fortunate in his opponents.

  60. 60.

    NorthLeft12

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Not sure what Bill’s point is in all this. Is he trying to point out that the Dems did not get as good a health care plan as they would have liked because of the need to attract a few right wing votes in the Senate? Or is he really trashing the ACA and those that negotiated/designed it?

    I would have to read the entire speech to get a feel for this. Since I am a generous person, I think he is pushing the former narrative with a punch line of elect Hillary and a bunch of Dems in Congress and we can improve this thing. Although the part of his speech that CP quotes does not really support that thought.

    As others have said, the Repubs will use this to justify the greedy anger of those that ended up paying more for the same coverage, and those angry people will not blame the Repubs, they will blame the party with their name all over it.

  63. 63.

    Shell

    CNN and MSNBC is just blanket live-blather about tonights debate. In the back you have the milling crowd, many holding up banners and signs, touting their candidate. Somebody was holding up a huge placard of Gary Johnson’s face and what has to be the worst sign/slogan ever…”Feel The Johnson!”

  66. 66.

    gratuitous

    Well there it is at last! The infamous “stand down” order.

    The difference between Cuomo and Christie? As a Democrat, Cuomo’s antics in relation to this bit of petty revenge have put an end to his further political aspirations. As a Republican, Christie’s antics have shored up his support with the Nitwit Brigade that is the Republican base.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Barbara:

    Unfortunately, nobody warned me in advance about loss of mental acuity as a possible result of bypass surgery, and prolonged anesthesia was suggested to me as a reason. In my case, happily, (and subject to correction by those who know me!), it’s a fairly slight dropoff — mainly some diminution of quick recall, and occasional fumbling for words or names. But I’m of an age where that’s not unexpected, regardless of surgeries.

  72. 72.

    Villago Delenda Est

    That high pitched sound you’re hearing? Andy’s dad rotating at near-relativistic speeds in his grave.

  76. 76.

    Anoniminous

    It is recognized post-surgery cognitive therapy assessment and as-needed intervention should be A Thing. It is also recognized under our Bestest EVAH!® medical care system it isn’t going to happen unless the patient coughs-up the money.

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Shell: He’s been using that for a while. It’s the kind of cheeky bro-joke that appeals to Johnson’s target audience. Also serves to highlight Johnson’s primary qualification vs. Clinton, to said target audience.

  79. 79.

    germy

    @Stan:

    Preet should be our next governor. Seriously, we love the guy.

    The man who terrifies Wall Street

    Bharara argues that publicizing criminal behavior is a public duty, for the purpose of deterrence. “It’s not my job to put out a ten-point program to fix corruption in New York State,” Bharara told me. “Prosecutors alone are not going to solve the problems. But we do want the problems to be solved. I can say that when you have an overabundance of outside income for legislators, when you have an overconcentration of power in the hands of a few people, and when you have a lack of transparency about how decisions are made and who makes them—that it is our job to point that out. We can give these issues a sense of urgency. A lot of people wake up to the possibility of better government when you start putting people in prison.”

  80. 80.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Whenever I want Ds to win everything, everywhere, I remind myself that one-party rule tends to breed corruption. At the moment, I’m tempted to say I’ll take it, but it is something to watch out for.

  81. 81.

    stacy

    @Stan: $100’s of millions in bid rigging in return for donations to Cuomo’s re-election fund. I think a blue chip company is going to be implicated before it’s all said and done.

  84. 84.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    Listen to what Bill Clinton actually said about Obamacare before you soil yourself: Of course, it can be taken out of context. That is exactly what CNN did. CNN seems to be willfully misinterpreting what candidates and their surrogates are saying. Yesterday CNN claimed Trump said something demeaning about vets and PTSD. Listen to the question and his response. It seemed obvious to me that it was an inelegant answer but I didn’t think he was saying vets with PTSD are weak. CNN’s journalistic standards are so compromised it makes it impossible for me to take anything written or spoken by them seriously.

  85. 85.

    Hal

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Hey-Zeus Christo, Bill! This reads like something you’d here at a Trump rally.

    Speaking Monday at a Democratic rally in Flint, Michigan, the former president ripped into the Affordable Care Act for flooding the health care insurance market and causing premiums to rise for middle-class Americans who do not qualify for subsidies. “So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world,” Clinton said… “On the other hand, the current system works fine if you’re eligible for Medicaid, if you’re a lower-income working person; if you’re already on Medicare, or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care,” Clinton said. “But the people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies.”

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Iowa Old Lady: If the Republican Party were destroyed as a national force and the Democrats were winning everything, it’d be reasonable for the Greens or somebody to evolve into a new left party. I don’t want one-party rule, but I see no reason that the Republicans as currently constructed need to be one of the parties (under that scenario the Democratic tent would probably have a significant right wing anyway).

  87. 87.

    Doug R

    @Hill Dweller: I don’t see a huge problem with Bill speaking out. A lot of Bernie fence sitters want single payer and Hillz wants to allow a Medicare buy in.
    That’s why it’s Bill saying it.

  90. 90.

    sherparick

    @Hill Dweller: Yep, he does seem to pick the worse times to open his piehole and insert foot so as to maximize the damage to his wife. Day of the VP Debate to so you can be sure Tim Kaine will be made to respond to this and that every other phrase out of Mike Pence’s mouth will be Obamacare (and he will utter and Death Penalty with the other phrase).

  91. 91.

    sherparick

    @Matt McIrvin: Well, no matter how much we wish it other, the current Republican Party has 61% of the white population locked up. They have a long future as the White Nationalist Party of the United States.

  92. 92.

    sherparick

    @Doug R: Well, first he has his facts wrong. Health insurance premiums are going up slower after the Affordable Care Act on average, not faster, then before the ACA went into effect. https://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2015/nov/20/obamacare-premiums-deductibles-increase-health-care

    Second, he is repeating a Republican Talking point, as we will find all night to night at the Debate and post-Debate spin.

    Third, we are no longer Trump not paying taxes, Trump being a business fraud, Trump being basic asshole toward women, and Trump being crazier then a loon. Instead, Republicans will be saying that Obamacare is the worse thing to health care since the Bubonic Plague and just repeal and Trump will sign the repeal. And since if Trump is elected he will make himself President for Life, we may have to wait a while for the single payer revolution.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  94. 94.

    Marc

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I think that matters are far from as cut and dried as people here are claiming. I worried about this a lot, for the same reason that you did, and the recent literature doesn’t support claims that there are necessarily problems of this type. There can be – the brain is a tricky thing and anesthesia can be deadly. But it just isn’t the case that there are automatically problems. See for example

    http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/bypass-surgery-an-uncommon-cause-of-memory-loss-cognitive-decline-201507228148

    https://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/surgery/blog/does-heart-surgery-have-a-negative-impact-on-the-mental-function-of-older-patients

    It’s quite noteworthy that the articles claiming problems tend to be 10-15 years old, and practices in this field have changed quite a bit in that time. Basically, when people are really old, their memory gets worse even without surgery. As stents get more common the open heart surgery population gets older and sicker. It could really be nothing more than that.

  95. 95.

    Geeno

    @sukabi: It’s because heart machines shake loose a lot of the stuff stuck to the walls of your circulatory system, and that stuff does damage as it gets flushed though the body. The brain, of course, being most susceptible to even minor damage.

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @kindness:

    On a phone or tablet, if you press and hold a hyperlink a context menu pops up and gives you the exact destination—as well as the opportunity to open it in a private or “incognito” tab that doesn’t add to your story quota.

    On a computer, hovering over a link should display the destination in the browser’s status bar. Or you can right-click on the link to get the context menu mentioned above.

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    I just hope he isn’t frequenting prostitutes and blackmailing them into keeping quiet like the last guy was (blanking on his name ATM).

  99. 99.

    Marc

    I’ve got some links stuck in moderation, but it simply isn’t the case that bypass surgery automatically causes memory problems and the like. That data is some 10-15 years old. More modern studies have found little or no difference for most people. The key factor: memory gets worse in older people period, and the earlier studies didn’t use proper controls to account for that. As a result, a lot of the memory loss correlation goes away when you account for this – basically, the surgery group looks a lot like a control group matched for age. Practices have also changed.

    A direct quote from one recent paper:

    The operation itself may not be to blame, according to a review in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine. For the review, a team of researchers—mostly from the U. S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs—synthesized data from 17 clinical trials and four well-designed observational studies of adults ages 65 and older. Most of these study participants had undergone CABG, but some had had other heart-related procedures—usually to replace a valve or treat atrial fibrillation.

    The researchers concluded that intermediate and long-term cognitive impairment after cardiovascular procedures “may be uncommon.” That said, they recommend that anyone thinking about open-heart surgery or other major cardiovascular procedure should discuss the possibility of cognitive impairment with his or her surgeon.
    ——————————————
    And from another:

    The most commonly used method to assess neurocognitive decline is the administration of a battery of tests, examining different domains, such as language, attention span, and memory. Declining cognitive function has, then, been described as a fixed amount of decrease (usually a percentage) on those tests performed at intervals before and after surgery, with the preoperative tests serving as control.

    The fundamental issue has been the fact that no control groups not having had surgery or having had a different procedure, such as coronary angioplasty, have generally been included. At baseline in this patient population, a preoperative cognitive impairment has been reported in 20% to 46% of the population (see Mullges et al.).

    Short-term cognitive decline after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, then, does occur, but it does not seem to be any worse than with procedures not involving cardiopulmonary bypass (use of heart-lung machine) or after non-cardiac surgery (see Price et al.; Sweet et al.).

    Most patients in whom new cognitive symptoms develop in the short term recover by one to three months, and, as in the present study, at 12 months hardly a difference can be found. Self-reported symptoms mostly relating to memory have not been able to be confirmed by testing, and an explanation for these subjective feelings is lacking.

    Another famous study published in the NEJM, in 2001, showed a decline five years after CABG in cognitive performance in 41% of their patients (see Newman et al.). This very controversial study became the focus of intense research in this field in the last decade .
    The obvious implication was that cardiopulmonary bypass was responsible for this decline. Since then, however, long-term follow-up studies comparing CABG patients to non-surgical controls have shown that non-surgical patients with diagnosed coronary artery disease have a very similar decline to CABG patients.
    ——————————————————-

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    Yeah, that scumbag. I know he was good at prosecuting Wall Street, but making your name as a prosecutor by convicting prostitutes and madams while frequenting prostitutes yourself is just fucking sleazy.

  101. 101.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @The Ancient Randonneur:

    Listen to what Bill Clinton actually said about Obamacare before you soil yourself:

    Actually, you’re correct. And also correct on the Trump PTSD comment–it’s one thing to jump on these guys when they actually do something egregious, but wasting energy on when it’s not is silly.

    That being said, and taking into consideration what Marc above posted, I’ve been wondering if Bill Clinton IS starting to have some cognitive changes kicking in from his long history of Coronary Artery Disease, his surgery, and the subsequent years he has probably spent on medications such as statins. He just doesn’t seem as sharp, like his judgement is off.

    This is just an anecdotal point of view. As a CCU-RN I care for a lot of open heart surgical patients of all ages. You might think that once their blood flow is restored, they’d bounce back, but for many, there has been ongoing inflammation and damage to the entire circulatory system, including the micro-vessels of the brain. Sometimes, that damage that doesn’t show up until the patient undergoes a major physiological stressor like CABG surgery. Short-term, I see a lot of post-operative “fogginess”, mood swings, lack of inhibition and even acute dementia in my patients, depending on where they were health and cognitively before. In general, the ones with the worst symptoms were often the sicker or more elderly folks in the first place.

    Bill was relatively young, and in otherwise good health when he was diagnosed with mulit-vessel heart disease. But it has been 12 years and he is 70 now. He had a five vessel bypass, if I remember correctly, which meant he did spend a great deal of time “on pump” and under anesthesia. The research does show that more exposure time to anesthesia is associated with later cognitive dysfunction, especially when paired with other chronic disease. I occasionally see people years after a CABG for other issues and yes, I sense that the overall combination of the chronic inflammation from CAD, having undergone a big surgery, and long term use of medications (including statins and BP meds) seem to “age” people cognitively. Sometimes I have 70 year-old patients who are less sharp than 80-year olds who didn’t have those issues.

    I hope I’m wrong, but if he’s slipping, his filters for what’s appropriate and what’s not are not gonna work and he’ll end up pulling another “just visiting the Attorney General right before the FBI Director testifies before Congress about my wife” moment.

  102. 102.

    Kerr Lockhart

    Don’t stand near Mario Cuomo’s grave — your hat will be blown off from all the spinning down there.

  103. 103.

    Procopius

    @maurinsky: No way Cuomo can be impeached. The Republicans will always vote in his favor. He’s better for them than if they had one of their own in there.

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