They were ordinary people, who did extraordinary things pic.twitter.com/WQBeWxWU9o
— WIRED (@WIRED) April 20, 2017
Question from commentor MarcoPolo:
Have my lab coat & will be at the St Louis march w/ friends. Hoping the weather winds up being more cooperative than is currently forecast (rain & about 50). 50/50 on whether I wind up down @ Howards afterwards to witness the actual physical existence of fellow BJers.
More importantly will folks post their bestest/favoritest Science March sign ideas? I really haven’t seen all that many good ones.
Nice piece from the Washington Post’s science reporters:
The March for Science is not a partisan event. But it’s political. That’s the recurring message of the organizers, who insist that this is a line the scientific community and its supporters will be able to walk. It may prove too delicate a distinction, though, when people show up in droves on Saturday with their signs and their passions.
“We’ve been asked not to make personal attacks or partisan attacks,” said honorary national co-chair Lydia Villa-Komaroff, in a teleconference this week with reporters. But Villa-Komaroff, who will be among those given two-minute speaking slots, quickly added: “This is a group of people who don’t take well being told what to do.”
The Science March, held on Earth Day, is expected to draw tens of thousands of people to the Mall, and satellite marches have been planned in more than 400 cities on six continents…
Rush Holt, head of AAAS, said there was initial hesitation about whether this was the kind of event a scientist ought to be joining but that members of his association overwhelmingly support the decision to participate.
This is not simply a reaction to President Trump’s election, Holt said. Scientists have been worried for years that “evidence has been crowded out by ideology and opinion in public debate and policymaking.” Long before Trump’s election, people in the scientific and academic community raised concerns about the erosion of the value of expertise and the rise of pseudoscientific and anti-scientific notions. Science also found itself swept up into cultural and political battles; views on climate science, for example, increasingly reflect political ideology…
**************
Apart from protest planning, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another week?
OzarkHillbilly
If I had been able to go, my sign would have read, “Ignorance is a choice”.
satby
I was planning on going to the Chicago March but had to switch my requested day off for a family thing so now I have to work. This is important and I hope it’s a huge turnout.
ThresherK
“What do we want?”
Evidence-based science!
“When do.we.want it?”
After peer review!
That’s now in the category of.oldie but goodie. First internet sign I saw of it must have been January.
OzarkHillbilly
@ThresherK: One of the folks I was at the Women’s march with already had his chant:
Facts and Science
On these I have reliance.
satby
Arkansas committed the state murder they were lusting for last night, in spite of the attempt by the Innocence Project and the ACLU to introduce new DNA evidence. It will be appalling if the DNA evidence exonerates the accused.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
I wonder if murder charges would be brought against the responsible parties.
.
.
.
.
.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…… gasp….. wheeze….
Sometimes I just crack me up.
debbie
@satby:
I will find it unsurprising. What will surprise me is when the alleged Christians will still insist they were right.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
amk
@OzarkHillbilly:
da kenyan.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?
@Baud: and to you too! We missed you.
NorthLeft12
So, identifying the specific people [Lamar Smith, Inhofe, Paul Broun, Betty DeVos, Deadbeat Donald etc.]who are leading the denigration of science is somehow wrong, so that science can somehow maintain its “objectivity”?
While it would likely be counterproductive to just call out all Republicans as anti-science, it will be even less productive to march around complaining about the lack of respect that science receives in our everyday lives without identifying who is actually leading that effort and why.
BTW I googled “anti-science Republicans” and had a hard time finding actual names, but I did find numerous articles spouting “both sides do it” and equating and blaming Obama for the lack of a Mars mission to climate change denial, and grousing about subsidies for alternative energy and opposition to GMOs as anti-science too.
Baud
@satby: Hey, you. I’ve been ill.
satby
@Baud: ? that sucks, glad you’re feeling better.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: @satby:
Yeah, but I’ve reloaded.
Baud
@NorthLeft12: The “both sides” crowd are co-conspirators.
@satby: Thanks.
weaselone
There’s really no reason to directly mention a politician or party by name in any sort of signage or chants. It’s pretty fucking clear to both the protesters and the politicians who is in favor of cutting funding for basic science research, cutting funds from the CDC and embracing ideology over evidence when it comes to policy making.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: So do I. A moving target is much more challenging.
Iowa Old Lady
Trump is tweeting this morning. Not about science but about how wonderful he is.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: We missed you, we were about to send out a search party.
debbie
@Baud:
Nothing can keep our Baud down! Glad you’re feeling better.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Iowa Old Lady:
Of course he is.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
If only!
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: OzarkHillbilly would call it a posse.
Baud
@debbie: Thanks. Felt pretty kept down for a couple of days. Still not perfect, but functional.
kd bart
All I can say is that his parents must’ve really f’d him up throughout his childhood. No other adult is this needy for constant praise and attention.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: ??
rikyrah
@Baud:
Baud…You are back???
You were missed ??
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: Trump needs Dems to avoid a shutdown, but is insisting on border wall funding. Winning!
Another Scott
@Baud: Welcome back. Hope you’re back to your old self soon.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@rikyrah: Thanks, rikyrah. ?
Baud
@Another Scott: Thanks, Scott.
satby
I’m thrilled for Dalai Rasta that his fundraiser for Bella kitty has raised more than he asked for. Because just since I’ve moved my gang has cost me nearly that much, and I’m sure Walter’s care cost debit even more. Vet care is pretty expensive. I just hope Bella gets better.
rikyrah
We lost Prince a year ago today. I still can’t believe that he’s gone ???
clay
@Iowa Old Lady: S.C. = Supreme Court, I guess. While Gorsuck’s appointment IS significant, he didn’t do anything but pick a name from a pre-drafted list. And he was only able to do so because Turtle broke the Senate. Twice.
Nonetheless, I’m sure he’ll be bragging about it for years to come…
rikyrah
@Baud:
The GOP controls both houses of Congress. How can any Democrat shut down the Government???
Baud
@rikyrah: Freedom Caucus is so insane that Dems have leverage. But if the government shuts down, it’s 100% on the Republicans, although I’m sure the media will blame both sides.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Trump will explain it for you.
satby
@Baud: they always blame both sides. We need to push back hard on that.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: Sorry to hear you were dragging. Functional is good.
satby
@Iowa Old Lady: most days I aspire to functional.
Baud
@satby: It’s amazing how ingrained it is.
@Iowa Old Lady: Thanks, IOL.
MomSense
Hey Wilmer, forced ultrasound isn’t just some issue that’s ok to disagree about. And by the way the forced ultrasound in early pregnancy isn’t the goop and wand on the outside of the belly kind. A wand is inserted into the woman’s vagina. Leave us out of your rape fantasies, please.
Oh and by the way if you haven’t noticed, the yuuge majority of the resistance is women. We are doing all the work and don’t appreciate having reproductive choice dismissed as just another issue.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
What happened MomSense to get you upset at Wilmer this morning?
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
God, what did he say? I hate that man.
satby
Wilmer is stumping in Omaha for an anti-choice Dem who sponsored one of the state rape of pregnant women bills.
Edited, because FU Kindle autocorrect.
Baud
@satby: I saw that news yesterday. Wilmer’s recent behavior actually got the attention of WaPo.
amk
munchin on that, libtards.
amk
MJS
@zhena gogolia: Here you go:
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/20/524962482/sanders-defends-campaigning-for-anti-abortion-rights-democrat
Someone will have to explain to me the logic Sanders employs when he states that in order to protect a woman’s right to choice, we have to elect anti-choice democrats. Paraphrasing, but that’s basically what he said.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
And Sam has been practicing. Sarah Jane just smiles. It sucks that you aren’t joining us again.
tobie
Sign idea for march: Stop the war on intelligence.
Re Wilmer: progress has been made. People are now openly making fun of the shmuck.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Baud’s back. Day is better already.
You scared us. Sorry to hear you’ve been ailing, and may you continue a speedy recovery.
Spanky
Reagrding MarcoPolo’s question in AL’s OP, I don’t have any real good ideas for signage, but think I’ll go with
And I think you could pull one out of Mr. Holt’s quote in the WaPo graph AL added:
Feel free to come up with something better, jackals.
Baud
@MJS:
That makes sense in a legislature, if it gives Dems a majority. But that’s true for just about every issue, not just abortion.
Baud
@Elizabelle: Thanks, EB.
Spanky
@tobie:
Yeah, but now the clock is ticking on the Dem leadership. How soon they cut him loose will indicate how tone deaf they are. I’m not hopeful.
Baud
@Spanky: What do you by cut him loose?
rikyrah
@satby:
Is this Dem our only option in that race?
OzarkHillbilly
“When he saw O’Reilly go into confession, the next guy in line said: ‘You know what, I’ll come back tomorrow,’”
-Jimmy Fallon
rikyrah
@amk:
Dynamic scoring..
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
satby
@Spanky: his fanatics will never cut him loose, so the Dem leadership is trying to thread a needle. I understand why in a way, but think they should too. Still, it’s all about his ego, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he caucused less with Dems if he felt disrespected. He’s a leftist Drumpf.
OzarkHillbilly
@amk: It’s the NEW math.
MJS
@Baud: I guess it makes sense when you look at democratic priorities overall, but if Nebraska is going to elect “democrats” that not only vote anti-choice, but actually introduce anti-choice legislation, then you pretty much have to take “protect women’s right to choose” off the list of democratic priorities in Nebraska. Large enough bloc of anti-choice dems + all republicans = shitty times for Nebraska women.
satby
@rikyrah: honestly don’t know. I know we have to put up with blue dog Democrats in conservative areas, but the forced transvaginal ultrasounds of pregnant women is a bridge too far for me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: I wish I was, but family calls and I love my brother dearly. Growing up we shared a room and I got all his hand-me-downs (and promptly turned them into rags) and we fought nearly all the time about the most stupid shit in the world. Now, I don’t get to see him nearly enough.
ETA: Stay dry and tell everyone I said “Hey”
satby
@MJS: yeah, the point of supporting that kind of Democrat is lost in me. It’s a violation of what we believe about personal autonomy, choice, and separation of church and state.
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
Perfect. That pretty much captures Republican voters’ mindset on any issue.
In previous thread, Dave Weigel was right on saying if Trump insisted they had already passed latest healthcare bill, 50% of R voters would believe him.
rikyrah
@satby:
He can stump for this guy, but doesn’t know if Ossoff is a progressive?
PHUCK OUTTA HERE ??
Baud
@MJS:
@satby:
Tough calls to be made. Everyone has their own lines.
What this does for me, though, is put the lie to the purity trolling of Hillary during the primary.
tobie
@rikyrah: I think his reluctance to endorse Ossoff has irritated a lot of people, including some of his diehard supporters. I just wish he would announce he’s not running for reelection. Can’t imagine how much his Dem colleagues in the House and Senate secretly hate him.
Iowa Old Lady
Kos has a thread with a big Wilmer fight right now. I don’t know what you do. Internal squabbling is harmful to the good guys, and I don’t want to alienate people who believe many of the same things I do. OTOH, I can’t let the forced ultrasound thing slide, and I’m pissed off at people who dismiss a govt ordered violation of women’s bodies as just a minor thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: For a while I was going to put
Lies
Damn Lies
Alternative Facts
on the back of my truck. But now I’m thinking of going with
Even I miss Bush now.
AMinNC
@MomSense: PREACH. My friends and I are beyond tired of having our bodily autonomy and physical safety considered as afterthoughts (when considered at all). We have all become more politically active over the past year, and have seen an enormous increase of political engagement in women in our area. Some men, but many more women.
I am encouraged by the numbers of women running for office and hopeful this can sustain and build momentum. We know that groups make better decisions that result in better outcomes when there are diverse perspectives. Women make up more than half the population but are woefully underrepresented in government; we all need to work to remedy that situation.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Oh and the icing on his “progressive” cake is that his man in Nebraska supports DAPL.
satby
@Baud: was an obvious lie to me for a while, because it never applied to himself. Still no tax returns, still no accounting of the donations and how they were spent, still no real financial support of his precious progressives he does deign to endorse.
Big fat fraud from jump street.
Chyron HR
@MJS:
You Democrats are stuck in an outmoded paradigm. The only “priority” the new Sandercrat party needs is “No Goldman Sachs speeches.”
amk
Dems are not in power in all 3 levels of govt. They cannot make any new legislation that requires the shouty old guy’s ‘support’ for at least next two to four years. So, why not ask him to take a hike? If he wants to vote for rethugs’ whatever crappy product, that’ll be on his indie ass.
Eric S.
The shirts i had made.
hovercraft
@Baud:
Hello Baud, you were missed ;- )
ETA: I’m sorry to hear yo were under the weather, you’ve got to take better care of yourself, we need you for the fight ahead.
It’s just not the same without you leading us jackals.
MomSense
@satby: @Iowa Old Lady: @AMinNC:
Here’s the thing, I can look past a blue dog who tries to be conservative about taxes or some other issue like that because I know that on those issues voting for a bluedog is a vote for Pelosi. She and Steny will count those votes with such precision that exactly the right bluedogs will get a pass on a vote based on the conditions on the ground in their district. But the stance on VAWA (Violence Against Women Act), Reproductive Choice, and a few others tell me where that person’s ethical and moral compass is pointed. If you dismiss the autonomy of half the population and the very people who happen to be your mother, sister, daughter, spouse, etc then I cannot trust you on a whole range of other issues.
satby
@Chyron HR: and I’m starting to suspect his animus about those speeches was based more on envy that he couldn’t command those kinds of fees.
MomSense
@Baud:
Word. We all missed you, Big Baud.
satby
@MomSense: Exactly. There are many Democrats who are personally anti-choice (I refuse to call those people pro-life), but don’t vote for anti-choice legislation because they realize they shouldn’t force their personal, usually religious, views on others. I can live with them.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I got my “Science not Silence” shirt from Cafepress.com yesterday, along with a “I’m with her” button (planet Earth). Yep, boring, off the shelf stuff. I liked a t-shirt that mentioned the March, with date, and was more pro-science than anti-Trump.
While Republicans are of course leading the charge against science, this march is not s protest march. It’s FOR science. Others will disagree but that was a message the original organizers put out and I liked it.
Signs? Also too boring to come up with one of those, but my favorite that I heard of was “What do we want? Time travel! When do we want it? Doesn’t matter!”
Goku
@NorthLeft12: To be fair, being anti-GMO is anti-science.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
Funny how he was all about the multitude of things he was going to do on his first day in office. Then he was inaugurated and he took the weekend off without doing anything, now after blowing off his self imposed first day goal, he’s pissing and moaning about the traditional 100 days benchmark that every other modern day president has faced.
Pathetic.
The least accomplished president in his first 100 days, check , way to go LOSER.
laura
@rikyrah: Prince’s death left a huge crater like when a meteor hit the earth. His influence on music was vast and will outlive us all. His insistence on creative freedom and willingness to oppose the system that robs artists of their agency is inspiring. To adopt the symbol was incredibly clever from a legal standpoint to be able to record his music his way.
A year ago seems like just days ago.
Thank you for the reminder Rikyrah. I think it’s a good day to wear some purple.
Baud
@hovercraft: Thanks. But I’m not that important. I merely reflect the will of the people.
@MomSense: Thanks, MS.
@satby: Harry Reid for one.
Spanky
@Eric S.: I couldn’t quite get it until I realized the shirts were sideways!
Pattern recognition fail.
Baud
@satby: Me too. I should have said this puts the lie for others. No such thing as a politician who is both successful and pure.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
Ummmm… Politically, that is a Pro Choice position. They are just saying they choose not to have an abortion, because they are personally against it.
satby
I need to get off the tubes and get stuff done. Am I the only person who’s gotten way less productive as I get older? I start the day with a list but finish the day accomplishing maybe two things in it.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: yes, that’s true.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Oh and the icing on his “progressive” cake is that his man in Nebraska supports DAPL.
So, he’s anti-environment too.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Did Ossoff bow down before the alter of BS and declare is the greatest evah?
No? There’s his problem right there. I think there’s also latent hostility on BS’s part, Georgia went very strongly for Hillary, whereas
Nebraska was I think a caucus state that went heavily his way. I keep saying he shares a lot of Twitler’s traits.
Edited for clarity.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: You been reading my diary again?
rikyrah
@satby:
The Democrats MUST put in their rules that ANYONE running for President needs to release the last 10 years of their taxes.
Don’t get me started about the lack of transparency for the donations.
Baud
@hovercraft: I thought I read somewhere that Bernie supporters won control of the Nebraska Democratic Party.
hovercraft
@satby:
This always bugged the shit out of me, his hypocrisy and his fans refusal to hold him accountable. I can’t believe I’m typing this, but Uday or Qusay was right, one of them said that releasing Twitler’s tax returns would only open him up to attacks so he wasn’t going to do it. Hillary’s transparency was the source of almost all of the attacks against her from the media, Wilmer and Twitler.
I hate him, he feels he’s owed something by the party because the voters had the audacity to reject him? Well we don’t, and he can take himself off back to Vermont and fuck himself with a rusty chainsaw.
Major Major Major Major
Saigon tonight, I’m told by reliable sources it wasn’t always this way.
Eric S.
@Spanky: my bad. Pre-bagel and pre-caffine are my only excuses but I’m sticking with them
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Pretty.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
This is me, Hawking a Louis Pasteur at your ignorance. Maybe?
clay
@hovercraft: I wonder if Bernie’s wishy-washy-ness about this has anything to do with John Lewis’ early endorsement of Ossoff. After all, Lewis was an early supporter of Hillary’s 2016 run, and maybe in Bernie’s mind that makes Lewis part of the “establishment” that “cheated” him. So Lewis’ endorsement of Ossoff meant that Ossoff was also part of that same “establishment.”
Which, as everyone knows, you cannot be “establishment” and “progressive” at the same time!
hedgehog mobile
@Baud: Glad you are back and feeling better.
hovercraft
@Baud:
If true, I doubt it will work out any better for them than the Paulite take over of Iowa did for them. It’s the whole caucus dynamic all over again, a small group of zealous supports able to take over, but at the end of the day they don’t have the numbers, because they don’t have the support of the base.
@Major Major Major Major:
Beautiful.
Very different from when @Raven was there. Fuck LBJ
Baud
@hedgehog mobile: Thanks, hm.
amk
twitler’s ‘100 days’.
Baud
@hovercraft: I’ve never asked raven whether he’s been back to Vietnam. Where is he anyway?
amk
hovercraft
@clay:
Bitter old man is bitter.
And yes John Lewis is establishment, as is everybody who chose to endorse Hillary over him. Remember Ossoff is a former John Lewis aide, and John Lewis was the one who pointed out that BS may have protested at the University of Chicago back in the day, but that after that he was AWOL for years, whereas Hillary was right there with him in the trenches throughout the decades.
BS is a petty bitter man.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Looks like Coca-Cola and Levi’s won the Vietnam War after all.
@Baud: On the Gulf coast getting tickets for walking Bohdi on the beach.
hovercraft
@Baud:
No idea, this has been a strange week, AL missed a morning Open Thread, Baud missing and some of the usual jackals MIA, but everyone seems to be slowly coming back.
I don’t like it, creature of habit I am.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Nice.
@hovercraft: Change sucks.
geg6
@MJS:
That old fucker needs to be yanked off the party dime. I fucking hate his fucking guts. Women’s rights? Completely unimportant and negotiable. Civil rights? Ditto. Gun nuts’ rights? More important than anything except free college.
hovercraft
Sometimes I think we should all just pray for a meteor to strike and just get over with.
Suspended Chief Justice Roy Moore mulling run for higher office
by Associated Press
Thursday, April 20th 2017
MONTGOMERY, AL — Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore says he will announce next week if he will run for higher office.
Moore also lashed out at the Alabama Supreme Court, which upheld his suspension for the rest of his term for violating judicial ethics by urging state judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court on gay marriage.
Asked during a press conference Wednesday if he will run for governor or U.S. Senate, Moore said he will announce his plans for the future after talking to his family.
Moore said he considers his lengthy suspension to be an illegal punishment and in “clear disregard of the will of the people who elected me chief justice.”
I don’t know how realistic a run for governor is, but these people did elect him to their supreme court after he was disbarred.
geg6
@satby:
I prefer a pro-life pol like my senator, Bob Casey. He is personally pro-life. But he doesn’t vote against pro-choice legislation and he understands that the operative thing here is “choice.” I have other personally pro-life friends who believe in choice. I’m fine with that.
ruemara
@kd bart: I kinda am. I can own it.
rikyrah
@amk:
no lie
Baud
@ruemara: You are amazing!
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
People thought he would run…so, not a shock.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: they always do.
rikyrah
Happy Birthday to her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.
She’s 91.
Watching The Crown made me add a level of respect for her.
ruemara
@Baud: based on a name Al Giordano dropped at the most speech, i think you may be right. I didn’t know this guy was a DAPL supporter too. What a betrayal.
Chris
@MomSense:
It’s sad to say, but at this point, it’s hard for me to think of any issue on which a person who takes the Republican side of a Republican/Democrat debate doesn’t have a fucked up ethical and moral compass and isn’t untrustworthy on too many issues to note. Women’s rights, gay rights, minority rights, immigrants’ rights, poor and working people’s rights. It’s all tied down to morality, and they always make the wrong choice.
rikyrah
Dear America: You know, if you elect Democrats next year you won’t HAVE to live in constant fear of the ACA being repealed. Just saying. https://t.co/nNwRTP6hJm
— ☪️ Charles Gaba ✡️ (@charles_gaba) April 20, 2017
geg6
@rikyrah:
I was reading something this morning about some ridiculous thing Dolt 45 said and did and I got that funny, off-balance feeling that this simply can’t be reality. Told my guy that it feels like we’re living in the middle of the most absurd Coen brothers movie ever made.
hovercraft
The natives are getting restless, maybe Twitler and Ryan’s honeymoon, such as it was, is over?
This editorial is from Investors Business Daily, not exactly part of the liberal media, they are generally insane.
This Do-Nothing Congress Is A Travesty
genda: Shortly after Donald Trump won the election, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that Republicans had to “go big, go bold, and do things.” So far, the GOP has not delivered.
“They have the House, they have the Senate, they have the presidency — and nothing’s happening,” lamented PJ Media co-founder Roger Simon earlier this week. “Nothing, that is, that Donald Trump doesn’t do by himself. … The Republicans in the legislature are a disgrace.”
Congress did pass, and Trump signed, 13 bills to undo last-minute Obama administration regulations. And the Senate approved Trump’s Supreme Court pick. But what about actually advancing long-awaited Republican legislative priorities, like ObamaCare repeal and tax cuts? Nada.
Ryan claims that he’s working on yet another version of an ObamaCare repeal and replace bill — after the first attempt blew up — in hopes that he can get a vote on it before Trump hits his 100-day mark. But even if the bill wins approval in the House, nobody knows what the Senate will do, or when.
Now tax reform is slipping off the table, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saying that getting reform done by August is “highly aggressive to not realistic.”
These delays could easily have been avoided. ObamaCare repeal and tax reform had been on the Republican agenda for years, and Ryan had already hammered out detailed “Better Way” proposals for both last summer. There was every reason to think that Republicans would have, in the words of Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, bills “lined up like airplanes on a runway ready to take off in the new year.”…..
……There’s plenty of blame to go around for the GOP’s lack of achievements so far. But Ryan has been the biggest disappointment, since the House is where things get rolling.
Ryan earned his reputation for his ability to dive into big issues and produce thoughtful, innovative conservative reforms. So far, his ability to act aggressively and unify his caucus around anything has been sorely lacking.
If Ryan can’t figure out how to do this, and soon, he should consider handing the Speaker’s gavel to someone who can “go big, go bold, and do things.”
Poor Paulie Blue Eyes, someone has to get the blame.
rikyrah
The “new” GOP health bill is a sham. Changes are really about giving moderates/conservatives new talking points:https://t.co/Y4lncMJVuJ pic.twitter.com/72KOgHP3tJ
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) April 21, 2017
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft: A heads up so you don’t worry… I mean celebrate my demise too early, I won’t be around this wkend.
schrodingers_cat
BS needs to be kicked to the curb. Perez and BS roadshow is showing that more than anything else. Its like hugging a cobra close to your bosom thinking that will tame him. He is going to kill the party’s chances in 2018, just like he killed HRC’s last year.
CaseyL
Hi, everyone! Glad to see Baud is back among the jackals!
I’ve been looking forward to the Science March for months… and now can’t participate because of some much-needed repairs around the house, and this is the one day my contractor has free. Dammitall.
I do hope the turnout exceeds expectations, in DC as well as the satellite marches.
aimai
My husband is going to the Boston March with one of his old bosses from Georgia Tech. I just asked my father, who has a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, if he is going. He is 85 and he is not in the kind of shape that can stand out, like we did for the women’s march, for several hours while speakers get going.
aimai
@schrodingers_cat: Yup. My opinion exactly.
rikyrah
The GOP has a new plan to destroy Obamacare. It’s even crueler than the last one.
By Greg Sargent April 20 at 10:17 AM
THE MORNING PLUM:
House Republicans have been hinting they may introduce a new plan to replace Obamacare before the 100th day of the Trump presidency. Naturally, giving President Trump something to arbitrarily tout as an achievement (even if it passes the House, the Senate looms) in advance of the arbitrary 100-day mark is far more important than the human toll the proposal would have on millions.
Now Republicans are indeed set to introduce the new plan, multiple reports tell us. And judging by a new study set to be released today, it is even crueler than the last GOP plan: The study finds premiums would likely soar for the sick, probably pushing them off coverage.
The Huffington Post has a detailed rundown of the new GOP plan, which is designed to bridge the gap between moderates and conservatives who rejected the last one for different reasons. It allows states to seek a waiver to get rid of the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on charging higher premiums to people with preexisting conditions, on the condition that states set up or participate in high-risk pools that would help cover any of those people who lose insurance. It would also restore to the GOP bill the ACA’s requirement that insurers cover Essential Health Benefits (EHBs) — such as doctor’s and emergency room visits and maternity care — but allow states to seek waivers from them.
In effect, the waiver on preexisting conditions is designed to make conservatives happy, while giving moderates high-risk pools that allow them to argue it wouldn’t harm people with preexisting conditions. The restoration of EHBs is designed to make moderates happy, while telling conservatives states could still get out from under them.
But the waiver on prohibitions against jacking up premiums for people with preexisting conditions — which is called “community rating” — is a major problem. It would smack them with far more in costs — potentially pushing them off coverage entirely.
………………………..
Of course, the new plan’s defenders would reply that these people can go into high-risk pools (this is apparently meant to give moderates cover to back it). But they’ve historically been underfunded and/or resulted in people paying higher prices or going without coverage.
Meanwhile, the new GOP plan would keep in place the old plan’s phase-out of the Medicaid expansion, which would itself result in 14 million fewer people on Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office. You’d think that this, plus the gutting of protections for preexisting conditions, would render the new plan toxic for GOP moderates who, in rejecting the old plan, have confirmed that they are not willing to embrace a massively regressive plan that would push millions of poor and sick people off coverage while delivering an enormous tax cut to the rich. Of course, the need to give Trump a fake achievement to tout is also an urgent matter, so who knows what they’ll do.
Baud
@CaseyL: Thanks. I wanted to go to this march, but I still not feeling healthy enough for it. With you all in spirit.
bemused
@hovercraft:
That creepy old fart never gives up.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft:
It’s Alabama, nuff said.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Our wannabe royals can learn some dignity from her. Although I would like Lizzy bettah if she returned some of her ill gotten loot from India, for symbolism if nothing else.
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: Funny thing is, if he won, he’d be so ineffective, he’d do the same. The best result would’ve been a holding pattern.
schrodingers_cat
@aimai: Trying to work with him, to get him into the tent hasn’t worked. His followers are noisy but not numerous. He is not an asset to the party.
rikyrah
From WaPo:
KAREN HANDEL’S VULNERABILITIES: CNN profiles Karen Handel, who is now the GOP candidate in the June runoff against Jon Ossoff in the closely watched House special election. Two key points:
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Well anything is better than the Joker in the WH right now.
Baud
@rikyrah: Are those things liabilities in that district?
rikyrah
Will those who tweet, tweet Tom Perez asking if Democrats have changed the rules so that Presidential candidates MUST release 10 years of tax returns? And, if not, WHY?
Marcopolo
Sorry to get to this thread so late–if only I’d known I would be cited.
Sign I have decided on is “Don’t be precipitate; be part of the solution” with the image of an Erlenmeyer flask full of blue fluid. Might put “like Trump” in parens just after the word precipitate. I also like “Solar energy: powering everything in the world since…forever” with an image of the sun & the earth. And that would be good for the week after & the climate march.
Still predicting rain & chilly here in St Louis tomorrow–perhaps they’ll be wrong :).
hovercraft
@OzarkHillbilly:
But you’ll leave us some pretty pictures right?
At least Raven did before he scampered off to the beach.
El Caganer
@hovercraft: Thoughtful? Innovative? Shredding what social safety net we have is neither of those. I find it hard to be sympathetic. Are “Republicans’ problems” a subset of “white people’s problems?”
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
Last summer, a shell company with a bogus address started buying Trump condos. U.S. gov’t has been asking questions.https://t.co/IBNl6oZ5Nw pic.twitter.com/ksrTLrX4Te
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) April 21, 2017
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Have a great time with your brother!
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft:
And if they had been reading Krugman, they would have known a long time ago that Ryan was a full of shit charlatan.
Major Major Major Major
@Marcopolo:
Oh yeah? What about geothermal, libtard?
Goku
@rikyrah: I know they’re Republicans, but Jesus Christ why do they keep trying to polish this turd? Doesn’t the immense public opposition to the previous bill, as well as general hatred of Trump matter to them?
Oh wait, the only people’s opinions that matter to them are the ones coming from the idiots that live in flyover country that gave Traitor Trump the win. How long can this last, the will of minority completely subverting the will of the majority?
Goku
@OzarkHillbilly: Krugman is a shrill partisan, dontcha know?
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Our wannabees are not worthy of mention in the same breath as her. She may have reigned over the looting of many countries, but that’s the world she was raised in. She has adjusted to a changing world with dignity, there have been some rough patches but she’s come through it all to become a figure to be admired, not perfect but admired.
NorthLeft12
@Iowa Old Lady: What does that tweet even mean?
Is it in some kind of code that only Trumpettes or the Tin Foil Hat crowd can understand?
oldgold
How decent folks act as opposed to the less gracious.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028958599
Chris
@Goku:
That in itself isn’t a problem. But a liberal partisan. That’s outrageous.
OzarkHillbilly
@Marcopolo: Ouch. That hurt. Very punny.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/20/17
Excess Trump inauguration cash pairs with donor access
Rachel Maddow reports on the unusually large amount of money raised for the relatively small Trump inauguration and notes that some large donors with ties to Venezuela were granted access to the Trump White House.
NorthLeft12
@amk: Dynamic scoring? Is that something like wish fulfillment or unrestrained optimism?
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/20/17
Report shows high level Russian role in 2016 election meddling
Rachel Maddow relays a Reuters report that a Vladimir Putin-linked think tank drafted strategy papers for Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his promise to deliver a report on Russia’s 2016 cyber attack.
Marcopolo
@rikyrah: two thoughts: first, there are quite a few BS folks here in St Louis who are working to promote policies, to get candidates elected & to energize voters within the local Dem party structure–kudos to them & they are doing good work; second, there are also BS folks who are making asses out of themselves (as they did at the town hall for my D congresscritter last week)–when I talk to them I tell them I will take BS seriously when he releases his taxes :). But whatever our feelings might be for BS, we need to avoid painting all of his former supporters w/ too broad a brush.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/20/17
Trump Russia national security investigator leaving DoJ
Matthew Miller, former Justice Department spokesperson, talks with Rachel Maddow about the announced departure of Mary McCord, who is in charge of the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to the Donald Trump campaign.
OzarkHillbilly
@hovercraft: Both Anne and Alain have run some pics of mine in the last couple weeks. I need to give others a chance. ;-)
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12: not just something like–exactly like!
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/20/17
Georgia’s Jon Ossoff builds local strategy in national spotlight
Jon Ossoff, Democratic candidate for Congress from Georgia, talks with Rachel Maddow the national spotlight on his election and the dynamics of his district and the Democratic Party
GregB
@NorthLeft12:
It is the official term for fuzzy math.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: And his very lovely wife!
hovercraft
@El Caganer: @OzarkHillbilly:
Consider the source they quoted PJ Media’s Roger Simon, nuff said.
The fact that Ryan is the best they have tells you just how bankrupt the GOP is and the fact that the media has gone along with his “serious policy wonk” shtick tells you that they are just as bankrupt as well.
rikyrah
Sessions Suggests That Hawaiians Aren’t Real Americans
by Martin Longman April 20, 2017 4:23 PM
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sure knows how to make sure one of our fifty states gets the clear message that the Justice Department holds them in low regard:
I am going to make a general observation here that Hawaii is not only a series of islands in the Pacific, but it is the least white and most ethnically and racially diverse state in the country. That probably has at least a little to do with why a white conservative man from Alabama named after the former president of the Confederacy and the man who fired on Ft. Sumter doesn’t think it’s a legitimate part of America.
And, just so we’re clear, the Attorney General made this remark on the “The Mark Levin Show” Tuesday night while discussing the fact that President Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from entering the country wasn’t passing judicial muster. Sessions is confident that the placement of Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court will solve that problem.
OzarkHillbilly
@Goku: He’s also right but you just said that.
Marcopolo
@Major Major Major Major: don’t think geothermal or nuclear (since there is some of that too in nature) have had much to do with photosynthesis which is the primary path life on our world has taken to harnessing energy but I take your point. thanks for keeping it real.
rikyrah
How New York’s Free College Plan Could Disrupt Higher Ed Market
by Kirk Carapezza April 20, 2017 11:31 PM
Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill making the Empire State the first state to cover tuition at all public colleges and universities for low- and income families.
New York’s decision to offer free tuition at public colleges follows similar efforts in Chicago, Oregon and Tennessee, where lawmakers have made community college free.
“We say every child has a chance to make it in our New York,” Cuomo said shortly before signing that legislation at LaGuardia Community College in Queens.
Under the new law, students whose families earn up to $125,000 won’t have to pay tuition at the state’s community colleges or four-year universities.
Supporters say the legislation could rekindle the national movement for tuition-free college sparked during the presidential campaign.
Critics point out that there are a lot of holes in Cuomo’s free college program. For one thing, students still need to pay for room, board and other fees. For another, they’re required to stay and work in New York for the same number of years that they receive the benefit, otherwise grants convert to loans.
Regardless of the pros and cons of ‘free’ college, it’s good news if you’re a parent in New York, right?
Well, it could be bad news for the people running private and public colleges in neighboring states.
“I think they should be worried because it’s the same admission market,” said Brian Mitchell, the former president of Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
Mitchell expects Cuomo’s plan will reduce out-of-state admissions at private schools in the northeast.
“If you are subsidizing public sector tuition in the sense of making it free, you put the privates at a profound disadvantage,” Mitchell said. “It’s not just the privates in New York State, but it’s the privates in Pennsylvania and in Massachusetts. The first second and third largest collection of private colleges are in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts respectively, and they should all pay close attention to this.”
amk
@NorthLeft12: yeah, it’s a gop math where the numbers are whatever they want them to be. and numbers don’t lie.
eta: libtards will never get it.
OzarkHillbilly
@NorthLeft12: It means the media will continue printing facts refuting everything Trump says.
rikyrah
Attorney General Sessions Is An Extremist on Marijuana
by Nancy LeTourneau April 21, 2017 7:02 AM
Here is Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a Senate Hearing on April 4, 2016:
Of course, this is the same guy who recently said that marijuana is “only slightly less awful than heroin” — which is not only false, but dangerously so.
Yesterday, in honor of 4/20, CBS released a new poll on American’s attitudes about marijuana. The numbers demonstrate that Sessions is out on a limb on this topic.
Sixty-one percent of Americans think marijuana use should be legal, a five-point increase from last year and the highest percentage ever recorded in this poll. Eighty-eight percent favor medical marijuana use.
Seventy-one percent oppose the federal government’s efforts to stop marijuana sales and its use in states that have legalized it, including opposition from most Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
Sixty-five percent think marijuana is less dangerous than most other drugs. And only 23 percent think legalizing marijuana leads to an increase violent crime.
schrodingers_cat
@Marcopolo: Solar energy is mostly due to nuclear fusion in the star’s core.
hovercraft
Micheal Gerson is very concerned about the future of the democratic party. We need to stop being so mean, stop mocking him and his supporters and move to the middle.
Stop sneering at Trump. It won’t help
…………Trump’s solid basis of support is relatively homogeneous. It is fed up with foreigners, with foreign entanglements and with the political class as a whole. Its worst temptation is dehumanization — reducing migrants, refugees and Muslims to threatening types.
Trump opponents, in contrast, could hardly be more ideologically diverse — from conservatives (like me), to libertarians, to the hardest of the hard left. We have little in common but a hashtag. And our worst temptation is also dehumanization — turning Trump supporters into threatening types. It is a habit of mind that may help consolidate Trump’s control of the GOP and thus his prospects for reelection……………….
On the whole, people can better tolerate being shouted at than being sneered at. And the sneer of the knowledge class was clearly a motivating factor for many Trump voters. They felt condescension from the commanding heights of the culture and set out to storm its highest point. The pose of late-night television — duplicated by many on the left — is a continuing provocation. It is the general, obnoxious attitude in which it is somehow permissible for the Democratic National Committee to hawk a T-shirt on its website saying, “Democrats give a sh*t about people.”
This leads to a second, divisive and counterproductive tendency among anti-Trump forces. For many on the left, the energy of opposition to the president is useful only to drive an existing agenda — and to drive the Democratic Party leftward. When women marched on the day after Trump’s inauguration, their platform included “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion” — as though this was the natural position for all who have deep concerns about the president. Some talk of growing discontent as a “left-wing tea party” — as though this were finally the chance for MoveOn.org and the Occupy movement to complete their October Revolution in the Democratic Party. …………..
It is safe to say that many recent presidents have been saved by the radicalism, overreach and foolishness of their opposition. Some on the right went a bridge too far in impeaching Bill Clinton and discredited themselves with conspiratorial accusations about the death of Vince Foster. Some on the left were off-puttingly feverish in their presentation of George W. Bush as an election-stealing cowboy who may have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Some on the right used overheated rhetoric against Obama’s supposed socialism and obsessed over his birth certificate.
A substantive, centrist response to Trump has a chance of releasing his hold on the GOP and the country. A sneering, dismissive, dehumanizing, conspiratorial, hard-left-leaning response to Trump is his fondest hope.
Major Major Major Major
@Marcopolo: @schrodingers_cat: as a corollary, MarcoPolo could have played the “we’re all stardust” card.
You know, if Sagan’s whole Pale Blue Dot spiel could fit on a poster somehow…
amk
Chris
@hovercraft:
No.
hovercraft
@NorthLeft12:
Dynamic scoring is the continued evolution of voo doo economics. When your numbers don’t add up it’s because you didn’t include the magic asterix, when you sprinkle tax cuts on the economy there are starbursts and it suddenly starts growing at 4 to 5 % every year, just ask Sam Brownback and Scott Walker.
Baud
@Chris: Correct response.
Marcopolo
@schrodingers_cat: you forgot to add “and that fusion reactor is a safe 93 million miles away”; however, despite your literalness I think the point of the sign slogan still works :)
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’ve been wondering where you are, too. I assume you are on the upswing if you are here with us jackals, yay for that!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft:
Mike, name three elected Democrats who said Bush was complicit in 9/11
Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan. I could go on.
Marcopolo
@Major Major Major Major: Bill Nye has a somewhat shorter thought on those lines:
Still a little long for a sign.
schrodingers_cat
@Marcopolo: Distance doesn’t change how the energy is generated.
NorthLeft12
@Goku: I know there was a fair bit of resistance to GMOs due to fear of potential long term health impacts [yeah, that is completely unreasonable, right?] which through research have been mostly allayed, but there was also the social impact that GMO corporations were gouging farmers and specifically, producing plants that were sterile so that farmers had to continue to buy new seed every year. Not a problem for rich Western farms, but a big issue for subsistence farmers.
I see from the article you posted that they pretty much do not produce sterile plants anymore, due to the public blowback from that policy, but I think some people still have concerns regarding the control this gives some corporations over the food supply.
I think the continued negative view of GMOs is a result of the incompetency of the food industry in fighting labeling initiatives and virtually anything else that would make their industry more transparent or accountable.
Just sayin’.
aimai
@Iowa Old Lady: Right–I can’t even go over to Kos right now its so horrible. And I have had a vaginal ultrasound–they are horrific. No one should ever be forced to undergo one.
ruemara
@Marcopolo: 2 things. 1. Don’t run to the brush to get painted. 2. No one needs permission or approval to offer thoughts on Sandernistas.
ThresherK
@geg6: Tangent: At some point will the media get past the “what would you do if your sixteen-year-old daughter got pregnant” idea?
In the current mediascape it’s a useless question to ask conservatives: We all know that Muffy will spend a “semester abroad” if her parents have the means, no matter the answer.
And, in the same mediascape, I think it erodes the actual term “pro choice”, while buttressing the right-wing canard that a government employee, wheter elected or appointed, was put there with the express authority to make governance, laws, or jurisprudence over in their (or their deity’s) image.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Doing better. Thanks, WG.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s long been the case that anonymous blog commenters have equal standing with high level GOP officials in Both Sides World.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No, the correct response is a simple, “Fuck you.”
NorthLeft12
@satby: Visiting Ballon Juice is on my list……so, check that off.
Baud
@NorthLeft12: Time for a nap.
hueyplong
Gerson wants help surviving Trump as his party’s head, face, and faux hair. Here’s an anvil, asshole. Hilz says hello.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
Bull-phucking-shyt
From top to bottom of the GOP they did it….stop with the some on the right bullshyt.
rikyrah
Trump desperate to revive failed, unpopular GOP health care plan
04/21/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 04/21/17 08:07 AM
By Steve Benen
In its latest national poll, released this week, Quinnipiac asked respondents an interesting question: “Do you think that Republicans in Congress should try to repeal and replace Obamacare again, or do you think they should move on to other issues?”
The results weren’t close: only 36% of the public wants GOP lawmakers to keep trying, while 60% want Republicans to move on. What’s more, the results were quite broad: men and women, people of different education levels, people of every age group, people of different races and ethnicities all said they don’t want to see the repeal effort to continue.
And yet, Donald Trump, who said last month that he’s prepared to move on, now insists he’s not moving on. The Washington Post reported:
……………..
The president, referring to proposed changes to the GOP’s existing American Health Care Act, told reporters yesterday, “The plan gets better and better and better, and it’s gotten really good, and a lot of people are liking it a lot.”
Like so much of what Trump says, there’s no reason to believe any of this. In fact, let’s take these two points one at a time.
hovercraft
@Chris: @Baud:
But, democrats said that Shrub stole the election and was a cowboy, that’s just like when “some” republicans said Obama wasn’t born here.
I have no patience for Gerson and Frum, they are bitching about Twitler now, but they were at the heart of the administration that lied constantly and helped condition their voters to accept that up is down and all democrats are unpatriotic. They were right in the thick of it when Bush and Chaney were saying you are with us or against us.
Equating the two parties as having both moved away from the center is bullshit, they’ve lost their fucking minds, we may have moved slightly left, but we still have MaCaskill, Mancin, Heidkamp, Tester and others I’m forgetting, name one “moderate or centrist” republican, and I don’t mean Susan Fucking Collins who pretends to be moderate and then votes with McConnell like 99% of the time.
OzarkHillbilly
@NorthLeft12: There is also the issue of what they are modifying the plants to do, such as resistance to Monsanto’s Round-up, which science says the use of has been horrible for Monarch butterflies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the last couple of years, I find it harder and harder to get moving in the morning. Almost everyone I know in my age group (pushing fifty) seems to be more and more matinal as I take longer to get in to gear.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
If Ossoff concentrates on Karen Handel tried to prevent poor women from getting mammograms, he wins. The one thing that can (usually) overcome a knee-jerk “pro-life” vote is breast cancer. Denying cancer screenings to poor women makes Handel look really, really bad with the country club Republican set.
hovercraft
@aimai:
Men can barely tolerate having a doctor check their prostate by sicking a finger up their but. Imagine if they had to endure the discomfort and embarrassment of having to get up on that table with your legs in the stirrups every few months and have all sorts of implements stuck up in your hoo ha? I know for many of these men the humiliation is the feature not a bug, but fuck you to any man who says that it’s no big deal. I tolerate this ritual embarrassment because it’s necessary for my health, anyone who wants to make it more difficult just for shits and giggles should subject themselves to a urinary catheterization just for the hell of it. Fucking assholes.
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12:
What, pray tell, is the legitimate interest the state has in mandating disclosure of GMO ingredients? All it does is stigmatize something that has no factual basis to be stigmatized. If you made a product that contained I don’t know sea salt, or even better manufactured sea salt, and suddenly a bunch of hippies decided that sea salt is toxic and evil and they would only eat cave salt, would you support a sea salt labeling initiative?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@rikyrah:
You’re making the same mistake Sanders and his supporters did: vastly overestimating the power of the DNC. Tom Perez cannot make that rules change. Who is eligible to run on the ballot to be a party’s nominee for office is determined by each state legislature.
That’s why not.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
It’s one thing to be a “pro-life” politician who advocates for, say, parental notification laws or waiting periods, heinous as those are. It’s a whole other level of evil to demand that women who want an abortion be forced to get a vaginal probe.
rikyrah
Trump admin: Tax cuts for the wealthy will pay for themselves
04/21/17 10:14 AM
By Steve Benen
As things stand, it’s hard to say with confidence whether Donald Trump’s White House intends to pursue a sweeping tax reform package, which would overhaul the entire federal system, or a more modest package of tax cuts. The former is a very heavy lift, while the latter is difficult to pay for.
At least, that is, in theory. In practice, the Washington Post reports that the Trump administration isn’t too worried about finding the money to pay for tax cuts, because it believes the Tax Fairy will come along and make the costs magically disappear.
Sure, tax policy has an impact on the economy, but every time Republicans have said tax cuts will pay for themselves through increased, growth-based revenue, the money hasn’t materialized. For a contemporary refresher, consider what happened in Kansas when Gov. Sam Brownback (R) said his tax cuts would pay for themselves.
Even House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said he disagrees with the idea. The person Republicans chose to lead the Congressional Budget Office doesn’t believe it, either.
Major Major Major Major
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: legislators decide who can be on the primary ballot? I know there are some signature rules and stuff but I think something like that would be determined by the party. The DNC central committee could certainly pass a rule that delegates can’t be allocated to somebody who hasn’t released taxes.
Goku
@rikyrah: Despite all the other bullshit in that article, there were some. They called themselves Truthers. Their impact was limited
Major Major Major Major
@Goku: The Venn diagram of Bernie-or-busters I know and 9/11 truthers I know is that the circle with the truthers is entirely inside the circle of ‘busters.
rikyrah
White House’s ‘heavy hand’ makes government shutdown more likely
04/21/17 08:43 AM
By Steve Benen
When it comes to putting a price tag on Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, estimates vary quite a bit. The White House started the year using a $12 billion figure, while congressional Republicans said $15 billion. The Department of Homeland Security thinks the costs may reach $20 billion, while congressional Democrats believe it’s more realistic to say $70 billion.
There’s no shortage of problems with this. The president may dream of a giant wall separating the United States and Mexico, but there’s little public support for the project, and even less backing for spending billions of our taxpayer dollars on it. (The idea that Trump would get Mexico to pay for this has always been one of the Republican’s more ridiculous campaign pledges.)
And yet, we’re confronted with the possibility that short-term funding for Trump’s wall may push the country towards a government shutdown next week. The Associated Press reported yesterday:
…………………………..
A Politico report added, “Republicans said privately it would be helpful for Mulvaney and the White House to concede that the Democrats are not going to fund the wall and move on. But there is a combative element to the divided Trump White House that believes otherwise.”
NorthLeft12
@Baud: Check!
Goku
@Major Major Major Major: One of the very few times I agreed with Republicans when Dems tried getting labeling mandated for GMOs
Ellen R
@rikyrah: I framed the New Yorker Purple Rain cover for my office. Inspirational presence left us early. @OzarkHillbilly: @OzarkHillbilly: This is the only truly valid objection to GMO food. The big companies pushed too fast and too hard, for money, and the regulatory system went with it, because money. No one objects to GMO insulin, for example.
Marcopolo
@ruemara: As someone who never supported BS, I am not worried about any brushes myself. And as my comment made clear I have no problems with folks who are critical of him or his supporters when they earn it. Still, there are folks who were activated politically as a result of his candidacy who are now pragmatically working to bring their energy to the broader Democratic party. Perhaps you don’t know anyone who fits that description, but I do and I welcome them wholeheartedly.
laura
@hovercraft: discomfort and embarrassment barely scratch the surface of the transvaginal wand experience. Painfully intrusive every damn second plus the anxiety attendant in the underlying reason you are having one, and the inability of the wand operator to share any information about what the probe reveals, because “not a doctor, just a technician.”
And the copious amount of water you’re required to drink and order not to piss yourself or we’ll just have to do this again to “get good images” yeah, it’s a special day I’ll always remember.
Another Scott
@MomSense:
This. Eyes on the prize.
If voting for this guy would help flip the national or state leadership, and outside support would make the difference, then it’s worth it to support him. But only if. If not, he shouldn’t get any support from the national party and national figures.
This guy is running for Mayor, for crying out loud. Wilmer should keep his shouty, pointy fingers out of it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris
@rikyrah:
Don’t you just love how they pack a bunch of different accusations together? To elaborate:
1) “Election stealing.” Uh, yes. Not only did he win by Supreme Court fiat, a move that was so blatant and transparent that they had to actually introduce a clause in their decision to say “this can’t be used as precedent ever!” but the only reason Florida was even close enough to steal was that the state government just happened to accidentally misidentify a whole bunch of voters, disproportionately black, as felons just in time to purge them from the voter rolls. (While Bush’s brother was governor). Yeah, 2000 was absolutely stolen, at least twice over.
2) “Cowboy.” Not much of an insult, but yeah, I did hear that thrown around. But what I heard a lot more was “fake cowboy” – that Bush was a Connecticut Yankee born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who was cosplaying at being a Texas cowboy in much the same way he cosplayed at being a soldier.
3) “Who may have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks.” No. Just no. Yes, there were a few people who believed this, and yes, they were mostly on the left. It was no more representative of the left-of-center in the U.S. than the anti-vaxxer movement is now. Democratic politicians, Democrat-affiliated pundits, and the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters thought they were kookoo, and said so. If you can find me, say, a Democratic billionaire who spent the entire Bush presidency becoming famous by promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories, and then was rewarded for it by his voters with a resounding victory at the next party primaries, then you can claim it’s an equivalent problem to Birtherism on the right. But you won’t, because despite your desperate need to believe otherwise, both sides really aren’t the same.
Elizabelle
@hueyplong:
Laughing. Bitterly. But laughing, all the same. Gerson helped build his predicament, every time he gave cover to liars in the past. They own this.
@Mnemosyne:
Yes. Even if a woman has great health insurance at present, it’s not hard to remember using Planned Parenthood for one’s health needs when younger. If that district wants to vote for someone who wants to prevent healthcare for poorer women, make them own that.
Ownership society, peeps. And it would seem some Republicans have grave doubts about the stuff they bought previously. “Here, let me stick this on you.”
“Uh, no.”
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Gotta love how Bush’s victory being awarded to him by the Supreme Court after they halted the recount in Florida has now been shoved down the memory hole and anyone who recalls the facts gets dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. As though the Bush v Gore decision isn’t publicly available for anyone to read.
Of course, we can’t look at that too closely, because that “victory” was what made Karl Rove realize how easily the Electoral College could be gamed for an unpopular Republican and led directly to the result we saw last November. God forbid we talk about how Republican scheming and voter suppression got Twitler elected, exactly as Rove planned.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: Gerson is a torture enabling bullshitter, what else do you expect from the poor man’s David Brooks.
Elizabelle
@Chris: And never forget the badly designed Palm Beach ballot. That is the horrible mistake that gave the Bush cartel cover for stealing Florida in 2000. Several thousand votes meant for Gore, cast by accident for Pat Buchanan.
amk
who da fuck is gerson?
Mnemosyne
@laura:
My probe was unsuccessful because I took one look at the “wand” and said, “That’s not a probe, that’s a new boyfriend!”
(Mine was supposed to see if my appendix was inflamed, but my pain and white blood cell counts had gone down, so it was no longer vital.)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Major Major Major Major: Election rules are set by the state governments. Not the DNC. Not the state parties. And I suspect that the courts would rule against any attempt by a party to refuse to seat the delegates won by a particular candidate in an election that followed a state’s laws. It’s one thing to refuse to seat all of the delegates from a state that refuses to follow the party’s rules, but something else for the party to do so for only some of a state’s delegates.
About the only way to do this would be to do away with primary elections altogether and use only caucuses, That’s not a road I want to head down.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: It’s amazing what people have already forgotten about the Bush years, especially in my cohort since we were in fucking college for the worst of it, some of the most activisty times in a person’s life usually! I’m used to people thinking I’m crazy when I talk about things Nixon did, but now I’m starting to get a similar reaction when I talk about things W did.
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Sorry, that’s what I meant.
schrodingers_cat
@amk: Speech writer for W and now a columnist for WashPost.
NorthLeft12
@Major Major Major Major: I guess what I am saying is that the history of the food industry on issues of transparency is very poor. They regularly tout “improvements” in their products that are pretty much non-existent, yet they have no problem with doing that. If they were stupid enough to make the choice that hiding the presence of their product in other foods was better than being up front about it, then yeah I guess you reap what you sow. HA HA.
They should have owned it and bragged about the presence of GMO related foods. It will be a complete non-issue soon as they take over the market in the seed industry. But they have foolishly decided to fight it now and create more suspicion regarding their motives, which hardly anyone believes is actually in the best interests of humanity in general versus their bank accounts in particular.
Elizabelle
@amk: Michael Gerson. Ordained minister and former speechwriter for George W. Bush.
Now part of the WaPost’s cartel of crazy ass Republican deniers. Fred Hiatt has assembled a zoo: torture supporters, fabulists, glibertarians, people who cannot believe their party foisted on them a Donald Trump. How did that happen?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Too focused on Bill Clinton and NAFTA to remember Bush’s crimes.
Jeffro
Since this is an OT, I just have to say…I think I’m going to have to go to Riot Fest this year. Holy cow. These festival shows don’t normally do much for me, but I’m excited about almost all the first eight lines’ worth of bands.
I better start prepping my eardrums, it’s going to be loud out there!
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
That word, it does not compute with this sociopath, he is always right and he always wins.
Winning! Trump, GOP Congress Are 0-4 On Major Campaign Pledges
Republicans may now hold the House, the Senate and the White House, but their failure to mobilize early and follow through on long-held campaign pledges has political observers wondering: can a unified GOP government actually govern?…………..
“The biggest thing that hasn’t happened in the first 100 days is that Donald Trump hasn’t developed a relationship with Congress,” Stan Collender, a former top staffer on the House and Senate Budget Committees who worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations, told TPM. “That’s something that should’ve happened during the transition so they could’ve just started off like a house on fire on Inauguration Day, but just hasn’t.”
The cost of that failure to forge a steady working relationship is that, though he declared Tuesday that “no administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days,” Trump will almost certainly complete 100 days in office on April 29 with no notable pieces of legislation to his name………….
Then reality set in. Divisions within the Republican caucus derailed the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare in a mortifying defeat. Hundreds of White House jobs sat unfilled, complicating efforts to produce big-ticket pieces of legislation. To date, the one campaign pledge Trump has unequivocally checked off is the confirmation of a conservative Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, practically a given with Republicans controlling the executive and legislative branches.
“There is not a lot to show for all of this kinetic political activity other than the fact of the activity itself,” Russell Riley, an expert on the U.S. presidency at the University of Virginia’s non-partisan Miller Center, told TPM…………………..
A piecemeal approach to rolling back regulation
The only real progress on rolling back regulations has come through the Congressional Review Act, a previously little-used law that gives Congress 60 legislative days to undo federal regulations. Using only Republican majority votes and Trump’s signature, they have undone 11 Obama-era regulations…….
A jaw-dropping health care meltdown
“Repeal and replace Obamacare” was the GOP’s seven-year battle cry until the party failed to do either in a high-stakes March effort to pass the American Health Care Act. Stark divides on what that replacement bill should contain cleaved away votes from both moderates and hard-liners, and mixed messages from Trump, who said he was “100 percent” behind the bill while doing little to drum up public support for it, ended up killing the legislation before it was even put up for a vote………..
Turning to tax reform no easy pivot
The GOP was banking on repealing nearly $1 trillion in taxes associated with Obamacare in order to pave the way for the more aggressive tax cuts Ryan has promised to secure. But after the AHCA failed to pass, both Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have walked back Mnuchin’s pledge that the President will sign a tax bill before the next congressional recess in August…………..
An uncertain road ahead for infrastructure
Trump’s promised $1 trillion infrastructure bill is one of the few issues on which Democrats have signaled they might be interested in cooperating. Despite the pressing legislative focus on health care and a tax overhaul Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao recently declared that a comprehensive bill covering transportation, energy, water and “potentially broadband and veterans’ hospitals” would be unveiled by the end of this year………….
Trump’s reported pledges to tie infrastructure spending to health care or a tax overhaul to pick up Democratic votes are a fundamental miscalculation of the political math, according to DeGood.
“Democrats are not going to go along with taking away 24 million people’s health insurance for a little bit of bridge money, or to engage in the largest upward redistribution of wealth the country has ever seen through a massive tax cut bill in exchange for some bridge money,” DeGood said.
So much WINNING!!!!
amk
@schrodingers_cat: @Elizabelle:
Thanks. A gopee pos then? Dismissed.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
The magic word will be “mammograms.” Saying “healthcare” leaves room for the Republicans to claim it’s a code word for “abortions.”
Say, Karen Handel blocked women from getting mammograms. The prospect of not being allowed to get a needed mammogram freaks most women out, including conservative Christian women.
Handel managed to destroy the organization she had supposedly set up to honor her dead sister by trying to deny mammograms to other women. Use the M word, Mr. Ossoff!
hovercraft
@laura:
Tell it, Sister!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Holy shit – I just saw one of those composite photos showing a bunch of presidents interacting with their wives, compared with Trump’s distance and lack of gentlemanliness with Melania (I’m not sure that Trump has ever opened a door, held an umbrella over, or happily or quietly picked up a restaurant check). Nixon was omitted, and knowing how aloof and somewhat paranoid he was as a political figure, I decided to take a look at him and Pat.
Google it – there was genuine affection between the pair, and you can tell in their interactive photos over the years. He was genuinely fond of his family, and you can see him making a little quip to Tricia as he was walking her down the aisle, You see his glee while waltzing with Pat and the expression on his face during her 1993 funeral was heartfelt for one reportedly so cold.
Contrast that with the dour, soulless asshole that 50,000 Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania voters selected as President.
MomDoc
@rikyrah:
I know. I am listening to The Current online, the public radio station in Minnesota. They are diving deep into the Prince playlist. It brings back memories.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah. That’s kind of how I felt when I started hearing all the “not a dime’s worth of difference!” shit from all the shitheads. Ralph Nader? Who’s that?
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12: It’s fair enough to say that they suck, and there are good reasons to find them untrustworthy, but of course they opposed GMO labeling. It would have been insane not to. IMO trying to get in front of it and “be proud” of their GMO contents wouldn’t have worked either — best to take the hit for looking bad opposing it and wait for it to go away, which… it has, for the most part.
hovercraft
@amk:
This piece of shit:
From Wikipedia
Elizabelle
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Link? That would be fascinating.
And you are right about Nixon. He loved his wife and daughters.
Marcopolo
@Mnemosyne: I agree with this take. I saw Ossof on Maddow last night (first time seeing him speak) and he presented himself well–seemed to have good message discipline localizing the race & focusing on his district’s economy & constituent needs. The R’s will be trying to nationalize it (I guess). But with the bottom line GA 06 demographic (R+20 ish) it’ll still be an uphill battle to win in June. Will send his campaign (which seems to be competently run) some more cash & keep my fingers crossed.
Time to call my congresscritters & get on with the day. Everyone have a great Friday!
Weaselone
@Goku:
They also weren’t all on the left. 911 truthers were bipartisan nutbags.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: Yup. Nixon was devastated at Pat’s funeral.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Good point. Mammograms it is.
Mnemo: are you conflating Karen Handel and Nancy Brinker re the dead sister with breast cancer? Because Susan G. Komen was Nancy Brinker’s sister; Handel is the hack who was hired to be Public Policy VP and helped tank the charity’s reputation. (As I recall, also a problem with the Brinker family paying themselves generously for their charitable work.)
Handel has also written a book called Planned Bullyhood. Projection in the first degree, no?
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I used to live surrounded on three sides by fields that were planted with Frankencorn or Frankensoy, depending on the year. The pesticide dousing those fields got put me off GMO solely for that reason. It was creepy how everything growing died but those crops. Philosophically, I don’t have a problem with the whole concept of HIM for crop yields and increased nutrition, but the pesticide load bothers me a lot.
satby
@laura: and those wands are also really big. BIG. A guy would faint if someone proposed one of those up his ass to ultrasound his prostate.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
TRUTH
mainmata
@Baud: Trump actually has bipartisan opposition to tying the debt ceiling increase to wall funding. Very few Congress critters actually like this monstrous white elephant.
J R in WV
@Baud:
He’s at the beach. He and his little doggie already got a ticket at dawn for dog on a no dog’s allowed beach. So sad!
Fuck anti-dog laws, and LBJ, too !!!
les
@Major Major Major Major:
The legitimate interest of citizens to know what’s in their food. If hippies don’t want sea salt, that’s their prerogative. I’m not crying about the huge regulatory burden on corp. ag. that labeling imposes.
artem1s
@Chris:
I call bullshit on this. most of the 9/11 truthers I knew were libertarian nutjobs who used 9/11 to further their ‘one world order’ conspiracy theories. they were mostly goldbugs and anti-Semitic Birchers. They were only ‘leftists’ if you count Jill Stein style Greens to be leftists. Mostly they were delusional grifters selling hatred for the Federal Reserve, globalism, and the Bush family.
schrodingers_cat
@artem1s: 9/11 truthers I have found online have been anti-semites, who love them some T
Miss Bianca
@MJS: So, let me see if I’ve got this straight…Bernie Sanders says,
When that one issue, Bernie, happens to *be* a WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE, and you start stumping for a so-called “Democrat” who is not only personally anti-choice – which is fine, we can live with that – but actually introduces anti-choice legislation, you are NOT FIGHTING FOR THE PRO-CHOICE AGENDA, DICKHEAD, YOU ARE UNDERMINING IT. This is non-negotiable for an actual Democrat, Bernie, but I wouldn’t expect you to get that, because you’re not one.
Meanwhile, you can’t say whether Jon Ossoff is “progressive” enough for you? Fuck you, you fucking old fraud. The sooner you stop trying to “help” Democrats by throwing anvils at them, the better off we will be.
Miss Bianca
@laura: @rikyrah: Man, that was a year ago already? My, how time flies when you’re not having fun. : (
BCHS Class of 1980
@hovercraft: Ah, Alabama: if too racist to be appointed, get elected instead.