Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

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

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

People are weird.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Mitch McConnell May Be A Worse Person Than Paul Ryan

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Mitch McConnell May Be A Worse Person Than Paul Ryan

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(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.

And that’s a low bar to slither under. The Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver at least has the weak excuse that he’s a sociopath living out his adolescent Randroid fap-fantasies; Mitch just wants to stay in his current position forever. He doesn’t want to achieve anything, he doesn’t want to be known or remembered for what he’s (not) doing — he’s like a fat maggot burrowed into the carcase of GOP responsibility.
***********

Apart from calling your Congresscritters, again, what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

169Comments

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Something actually good happening in the STL area:

    Low-income Missourians can double their government assistance dollars if they buy local produce at Schnucks, starting immediately. Double Up Food Bucks doubles the value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases when the funds are spent on locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. The program is billed as a national model for healthful food incentives that encourages low-income families to choose fresh foods and support local growers.

    Through a partnership with Fair Food Network and a grant from the Mid-America Regional Council, Schnucks will offer Double Up Food Bucks at all of its 56 Missouri locations. The program starts immediately and runs as long as local produce is available.

    After long and relentless sloppy wet kisses on Schnucks’ corporate behind, at the very tail end of the article, one finds this:

    So far, Schnucks is the only grocer in the St. Louis region identified as participating in the program, but some farmers markets are also doubling dollars.

    The participating farmers markets include:

    • North City Farmers’ Market, 2700 North 13th Street
    • St. Louis MetroMarket (a mobile market), 1421 Jefferson Avenue
    • City Greens, 4260 Manchester Avenue
    • Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, 1618 Tower Grove Avenue
    • Midtown Farmers Market, 6655 Delmar Boulevard
    • Thies Farm and Greenhouses, 4215 North Hanley Road
    • St. Louis MetroMarket (mobile market), 10266 West Florissant Avenue
    • Ferguson Farmers Market, 20 South Florissant Road
    • Seeds of Hope Farm, 12127 Bellefontaine Road
    • Lake St. Louis Farmers & Artists Market, 20 Meadows Circle Drive, Lake St. Louis
    • DeSoto Farmers Market, 520 North Main Street, Desoto

    So, good on Schnucks for following the lead of a bunch of farmers markets, but why couldn’t the article have been written with that as the lede? Ooopps, silly me, Schnucks spends millions of dollars advertising in the Post Disgrace daily.

  3. 3.

    bystander

    I don’t know which topic I want to hear less about: Ossoff or Warmbier.

    One gives me anxiety, even tho I know it’s being hyped and means nothing ultimately. The other one just makes me sad/angry.

    Watching the media discuss the end run the repubs are doing with healthcare as if it were just a game and not millions of American lives at stake is sickmaking.

    OTOH, blue skies and birds chirping here in the Poconos.

  6. 6.

    Bruce K

    McConnell has become an example of what I’ve come to believe is the most dangerous combination of traits to defend against.

    He’s intelligent. He’s utterly unprincipled. And he’s desperate. That makes him willing to embark on courses of action that are completely out of context for his adversaries. Like countering four aces with a Smith & Wesson.

    Between Garland, Russia, and this healthcare thing… if there’s any justice, he’ll be remembered alongside such luminaries as Benedict Arnold and Vidkun Quisling.

  8. 8.

    aimai

    @rikyrah: Good morning, rikyrah! I am up, writing a paper, and going to rush over to the elementary school where I worked all year to see if I can catch my favorite student/client to give her a gift before the end of school. Her mother has been keeping her out of school and my last day was yesterday but I’m hoping she turns up. Then I have to come back and finish this ^%%$#@ paper which is giving me conniption fits, then run to a five hour class this afternoon that ends at 6:00 pm.

    This will touch some of you: I have been struggling to put together a meaningful gift for this third grader and I wanted to make her a book of things we had done together, but work interfered. I knitted her a scarf (this is a big deal to her) and I have the book that we were reading (paddington) to give to her. When I got up yesterday morning I found that my high school daughter had stayed up all night to write and bind a special book, of japanese paper, filled with stories about things I had done with my student that she had gleaned from listening to me all year. Its so beautiful I cried while looking at it. So I have a bag filled with these things to take to the school.

  9. 9.

    Derelict

    If the AHCA becomes law, the American healthcare system might not survive it. However, it will provide some grim humor as hospitals and clinics shut down in the rural areas that voted for Trump. Those folks will be so tired of winning that they won’t be able to drive themselves to the big city for medical care.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    @Derelict: The bill will be designed in such a way, that you slowly lose healthcare over seven years. Healthy and young insurers will benefit, and they won’t understand the costs, until an illness causes there rates to go up.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @aimai:

    So I have a bag filled with these things to take to the school.

    Nice, and you have one very special daughter.

  15. 15.

    Lapassionara

    @JPL: Yes, this is the way they designed it, as they are hoping people won’t notice until too late. In the meantime, they do all they can to make the ACA weaker and weaker. So Obama will get the blame when rural hospitals start closing, etc. What I want to know is why anyone trusts any word that comes out of a Republican’s mouth.

  19. 19.

    bemused

    Paul Ryan is an Ayn Rand ideologue and selfishness and know-it-all arrogance goes with the territory. I don’t know if McConnell even has any ideology other than money, power and more money. What he is a stone-cold bastard. Both are miserable excuses for human beings.

  20. 20.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: Or they’re like someone I’m related to who when I asked why she would vote for Republicans when they tell her they’ll take away her health care she said she didn’t think it will happen and she’s happy in her own little bubble. She actually said that about the bubble. How do you even talk to someone like that???

    Then she whined about Jerry Brown raising the gasoline taxes. I pointed out that the money will go for infrastructure projects and she fussed about how much more gasoline will cost. I finally asked why she cares about the cost of gasoline because she doesn’t drive much and doesn’t buy gas very often.

    .

  24. 24.

    SFAW

    Since I no longer watch TV news (except rarely), and (also) rarely listen to radio: has anyone from the MSM ever asked how Turtle’s bill makes life better for ANYONE outside of the Rich? And when he (or ZEGS or whoever) responds with some “better choice/free market” bullshit, has anyone from the MSM followed up with some form of “On what do you base that ridiculous ‘idea’?” or “There has been NO study/research showing what you claim, and in fact there are myriad contradicting your claim.” ?

    I know, I know — they’re stenographers, not investigative journalists. [With a few notable exceptions.] But a boy can dream.

  27. 27.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop seeing my dominatrix

  30. 30.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning ☕?
    @aimai: That was a beautiful gift from your daughter to you for you to give that little girl. How proud you must be of the wonderful daughter you raised!

  31. 31.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: She thinks Republicans will protect her from nasty new and higher taxes. She thinks Democrats want to take all of her money and she’s sure her taxes really went up when Obama was president, when in fact they went down.

    She’s not quite a miser but she has some miserly qualities that are starting to show up. She’s just 65 and she’s starting to worry me.

  32. 32.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    NBC Peacock Lays An Egg

    Megyn Kelly’s Alex Jones Interview Had Lower Ratings Than A Game-Show Rerun

    With 3.5 million viewers, this week’s airing of “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly” came in last place among the four major networks during the coveted 7 p.m. time slot, according to Nielsen Media Research.

    Kelly’s show was not only beaten out by an ABC rerun of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” that attracted 3.7 million viewers, but also by a CBS rerun of “60 Minutes” watched by 5.3 million viewers, and Fox’s U.S. Golf Open Championship coverage that received 6.1 million viewers.

  35. 35.

    Lapassionara

    @Baud: around here, voting Republican was imprinted on their brains back when John Danforth was the white knight who rode in to clean up the corruption that had taken hold under Dem management. At least, that is what I have gleaned from conversations with people who appear to be otherwise sensible. I no longer talk to them, so I don’t know what they think now that their party is completely in charge.

  41. 41.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    GMA was decent about reporting on the secrecy this morning.

    Which is good, and perhaps a prerequisite to being able to report on the evilness of the bill, but I’m talking about someone (outside of Dems) screaming about how Turtle is trying to fuck over the 99 percent ON PURPOSE, just as ZEGS did. That (in)famous slide [ZEGS in front of the presentation saying “More money for us” “FUCK YOU”] can’t really be shown on broadcast TV.

    Maybe I just need to watch the news more. I’m sure they’re all over it.

  42. 42.

    randy khan

    McConnell is more evil, in part because it’s apparent that at least some of the time Ryan thinks what he’s doing is going to make the country better. (He’s utterly wrong, of course, but I’m just talking about motivation here.) McConnell only cares about himself.

  44. 44.

    randy khan

    @JPL:

    The really stupid thing about that is that the young voters tilt Democratic, so the Republicans won’t get much in the way of electoral benefit from helping out the young.

  48. 48.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: My younger sister. We’re trying to convince her to move up here near us but she’s scared of change, worried that if she sells the house she’ll lose all the money to taxes, doesn’t know anyone here except her older daughter and us and my two daughters, etc.
    Dementia does seem to be a pattern in my family; Dad didn’t have it but his mother and brother did. Mom had three forms, just for fun. We tend to live well into our 90s except when the doctor screws up (that’s how we lost Dad at 94). I’m starting to worry about memory loss already, at 67. I’ve joked about it but I am now having a lot of trouble remembering the names of things that I use often, places, people. I’ve learned to visualize the thing I’m trying to name and the name usually comes to me, so I’ve discovered a coping mechanism. It doesn’t work for names.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @randy khan:

    at least some of the time Ryan thinks what he’s doing is going to make the country better.

    Unless you mean he thinks what is better for the country is even wealthier rich people, even poorer poor people, and even fewer middle class, I have to say he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his country.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    Washington Post has an article about cats.

    Whether house cats are truly domesticated is a subject of debate among scientists. Their genes aren’t very different from those of wild cats, nor are their bodies or features — they don’t, for example, have the floppy ears and curly tails common to many domesticated animals. What’s more, although some of them are perfectly happy to curl up on human laps, cats, unlike their canine housemates, have proved themselves quite capable of living outdoors and feeding themselves.

  52. 52.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    They have yooge chips on their shoulders with bitter grudges against people receiving gov’t assistance. Even people that I thought were decent folks with some sense in their heads surprise me by their comments. I ran into a woman that I’ve always liked in supermarket I hadn’t seen for quite awhile and after chitchat about grown kids, grandkids, retired or not, joint surgeries, etc. somehow she brought up people on welfare. What I remembered later was before that she said something about our world going to hell. I agreed imagining she was referring to Trumpism but then she complained about people getting assistance. I replied it’s not like they are living high off the hog. I really don’t think they know or bother to know how low one’s income has to be before one is eligible for most government assistance. I brought up the corporate ceos and mega wealthy and why is it that they are working so hard to raise SS/Medicare eligibility ages. Seems to be a lot of resentment of people getting gov’t assistance but the 1% going after the rest of our money doesn’t register with them.

    I don’t know if she and her husband listen to Fox news/rightwing media but even if they only listen to the rest of msm, local news they still aren’t getting very much good information. The most reporting on McConnell’s death bill has been on msnbc. Most msm have been noticeably awol.

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne:

    I’m starting to worry about memory loss already, at 67.

    I went to see a neurologist about that (and other troubling to me signs) at the age of 58. He said, “Welcome to the club! I have the same problems.” In other words, a certain amount of that is just normal. I will still worry about it at least a little, but until I have further degradation, I’ll take his word for it.

  55. 55.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: Here the cats don’t last too long living outdoors. They tend to met Mr Coyote for lunch.

    The floppy ears/curly tails have been bred for in dogs and rabbits. The features cats are bred for seem to be and entirely different esthetic

  56. 56.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: GMA? You mean the entertainment program that ran TWO of Handel’s ads for her as part of their “reporting” on the tight race? Yeah, ABC/Disney isn’t in the tank on that one…

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @bemused:

    Seems to be a lot of resentment of people getting gov’t assistance but the 1% going after the rest of our money doesn’t register with them.

    I know Dems who don’t watch Fox who have expressed the same resentment. Maybe it’s because people see poor people in their daily lives but don’t really interact with CEOs on a regular basis. It’s more real.

  59. 59.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @randy khan: I think you’re confusing “Wisconsin Nice” with actually being motivated to help the country. Ryan is just as bad as Yertle. He’s only in it for the power, though he does claim to have read one book on policy (I can’t recall if he says it’s The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged).

  61. 61.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I got that from a neurologist last year. Sort of a brush-off don’t worry about it no biggie. I wanted to establish a baseline record of what I’m like right now but he wanted to talk about my ptosis of my left eye. The lid droops, a lot when I’m tired. He wants to hook me up to a bunch of electrodes and light me up like a Christmas tree. I eventually agreed but the University where he does the test never called to schedule. I’m trying to decide if I ought to pursue it or just have plastic surgery to fix my eyelids (the other one is a bit droopy sometimes now).

  63. 63.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: The girl who was walking home from the mosque? How does this even work, this road rage nonsense? She was on foot, not in a car. Did she stand in the road and dare him to hit her?

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:
    @opiejeanne:

    BuzzFeed

    After a late-night trip to McDonald’s, 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen and some of her friends were heading back to their Virginia mosque where they had been observing Ramadan early Sunday when a man in a red, beat-up car came up behind them.

    One boy on a bike got into an argument with the driver, Darwin Martinez Torres, who then drove his car over a curb, scattering the group of about 15 teens, police said Monday night. When they regrouped at the All Dallas Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center in Sterling at around 4 a.m., they realized that Hassanen was missing.

    Police in Fairfax, Virginia, found her body in a nearby pond around 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.

    Officers say after Torres caught up with the fleeing teens in a parking lot, got out of his car and chased them with a baseball bat. He then “simply caught up with Nabra,” striking her with the bat and then kidnapping her in his car, police said in a press conference Monday night. They say that her death “appears to be the result of a road rage incident.”

  68. 68.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    Let’s face it. Not many people are political junkies like BJ readers. I’m always astonished in light conversations on issues with people that aren’t Trumpanzies or teaparty and they don’t know basic, extremely important facts such as GOP and the billionaires working their butts off to raise SS/Medicare ages. I wonder how many of these folks know what McConnell and GOP are trying to do to their healthcare or if they heard a little, don’t know the magnitude.

    It’s infuriating that we can’t count on our cable or local news to inform us because that’s the main way people get their news or from their social media friends or their circle of equally uninformed family and friends They would have to be motivated to look deeper for themselves. When I get the rare opportunity I will say I worry about the threats to our healthcare/SS/Medicare but worry much more about what will be left for our grown kids and grandkids.

  70. 70.

    gvg

    @Baud: I have noticed some drivers get absolutely bonkers enraged over bicyclists. Doesn’t compute to me but it comes up anytime more than 6 random people talk about something to do with road widening or bicycle lanes. Apparently everywhere even bike friendly areas.

  71. 71.

    NorthLeft12

    @opiejeanne: @opiejeanne: It is that kind of selfishness and ignorance that will doom western society. No hyperbole intended.

    I am starting to hear more and more of this up here too. The “if I can’t use it, then it is worthless” and the “I am not going to pay taxes to help someone else [usually the other]” camps are growing and putting pressure on the spineless and opportunistic politicians to serve them. I hate those guys.

  73. 73.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: In Virginia, hate crime or not, kidnapping plus murder is a capital crime. I want to see what is charged.

  74. 74.

    hueyplong

    Ryan pauses before a mirror. McConnell does not.

    The “my precious” dude got old, added a turkey neck, and voila, we have Mitch McConnell.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @bemused: Agreed. I sometimes shake my head at some of the messaging tips I see on blogs and I’m as out of touch as anybody could be.

  76. 76.

    Immanentize

    Also, re:Ossoff. If he should not win. I fear I am likely to get all Tenguphuley on the first person who suggests he lost because he wasn’t progressive enough.

  77. 77.

    NorthLeft12

    @gvg: My brother, who likes to bike, once told me that the only reason he does not bike more often is because he knows there are a lot of drivers WHO ARE LIKE HIM driving around Ontario roads.

    Ray is a nice guy and I was pretty gobsmacked at that comment. I asked him if perhaps he might consider changing his driving habits based on his biking experiences?

  78. 78.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: That’s a little different from the other accounts I’ve read, but while I can understand feeling exasperated by a bunch of sassy teenagers (not saying they were sassy) I don’t see how that escalates to beating a girl to death with a bat as the result of road rage. The fact that the girls were wearing clothing identified with Muslims makes me disbelieve the road rage theory.

  79. 79.

    gvg

    @bemused: recently someone posted a link showing an example of reporting of someone in 1992. I was struck by a different point than intended. The article was detailed with lots of background and I understood more of the issue after reading. I felt smarter not confused and wanting more answers. Aparently a typical artical in the NYT at the time. I felt like our reporting has been getting dumber for decades but its not as noticable unless you go back n read whole issues.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne: I had a doc who really wanted me tested for sleep apnea. At first I was OK with it, but the more I thought about the test (during which I was guaranteed not to get any sleep due to all the BS involved) and then the cure being a mask I am guaranteed never to wear because I can’t stand breathing thru any kind of apparatus, I just said screw it and canceled. Got a # of phone calls trying to reschedule and I just ignored them. If they weren’t listening when I said no, it wasn’t going to be any better the 2nd or 3rd time I said no.

  83. 83.

    Woodrowfan

    @OzarkHillbilly: a buddy of mine was the same way. Finally broke down and did it and wears a mask connected to his device. He tells me he wishes he’d done it earlier. FWIW, i feel the same way you did.

  84. 84.

    germy

    Lady at walk-in clinic demands to see a white doctor

    Hitesh Bhardwaj videoed a lady whose son required medical treatment, at a Mississuaga, Ontario clinic — but only from a white doctor.

    Extremely rude and racist woman openly asking to see a white doctor who doesn’t have brown teeth, who is born in Canada and who can speak English. Incident happened at around 12:30 PM on June 18, 2017 at Rapid Access to Medical Specialists (Clinic) in Mississauga, Canada

    This genre of footage, the indelible record of naked public racism, is the Internet’s only gift to the discourse.

    Cheryl Teelucksingh, a sociology professor at Ryerson University, sees the incident as an example of the kind of “everyday racism” that is “beginning to resurface” in Canada.

    She said some people are pointing to the election of U.S. President Donald Trump making people feel more comfortable saying things they normally wouldn’t. But Teelucksingh thinks there’s a more important factor: perceived multiculturalism, or the assumption by some Canadians that racial minorities are already treated equally across the country.

  88. 88.

    opiejeanne

    @gvg: A few years ago there was a trial of a doctor in SoCal who pulled in front of a pair of cyclists on a downhill road, then slammed on his brakes. He got five years in prison and lost his license to practice medicine. The injuries to one of the men were pretty awful.
    bicycles and road rage

  90. 90.

    Patricia Kayden

    @bystander: I hate to say this but perhaps the American public deserves the GOP and all the sick things it is doing in Congress. This is what happens when you vote for a sociopath — not just in the White House but to control Congress. What do we really expect would happen when the entire Congress is controlled by the party which made it clear that it has no interest in healthcare for middle class or poorer Americans? My biggest concern is that even if a Democratic President wins in 2020, the damage he/she has to fix may be overwhelming. A Trump legacy may be more difficult to overcome than a Bush 43rd legacy.

    Resistant is not futile but we’re beginning to see that resistance is limited when you’re dealing with a political party which feels that it answers to no one but its 1% donors and its alt-right White Supremacist supporters.

  92. 92.

    Chris

    You know, at this point, I think it’s gotten pretty futile to say “X Republican is worse than Y Republican.” What difference does it make? Pretty much anyone who’s not only Republican but has risen to national prominence through Republican politics is about as close to irredeemable as a human being can get.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne:

    I don’t see how that escalates to beating a girl to death with a bat as the result of road rage.

    I do. It happens all the time. I had some fucker wave his gun at me (for obeying the law) and another chased me after me while his preteen son was in his vehicle because I did not yield when he thought I should have. These people are not wound too tight. It has less to do with the initial grievance than their anger at how unfair life has been to them.

  95. 95.

    Baud

    @Patricia Kayden:

    My biggest concern is that even if a Democratic President wins in 2020, the damage he/she has to fix may be overwhelming

    He’ll be worse than Trump. He’ll sell us out.

  97. 97.

    Chris

    @Baud:

    What’s more, although some of them are perfectly happy to curl up on human laps, cats, unlike their canine housemates, have proved themselves quite capable of living outdoors and feeding themselves.

    Clearly, they’ve never met my housemates’ cats.

  98. 98.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Woodrowfan: Some people can adjust to it. I spent more than a little of my working life wearing masks and a hell of a lot more of it avoiding them. I just can’t do it.

  100. 100.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Good morning, all! The heat is supposed to be 100+ the rest of the week. The Chinese are thorough in their climate hoaxes.

    And aimai, I hope you find the little girl today. You and your daughter are kind and thoughtful people!

  104. 104.

    Chris

    @satby:

    @Baud: I think it’s more real and the really rich are rich in a scale the average person can’t grasp.

    I have a friend who works as a judge’s clerk in small town Pennsylvania who confirms this. They’ve had a few times when they’ve had success in finding a health insurer or other megacorporate entity guilty of gross crimes, but they can never get juries to agree to fine them more than a certain amount, because to the people who live there, any fine above a certain amount is simply obscene, inhuman, and unrealistic.

    They don’t grok that the megacorporation, and the persons who run it, all have so many more times that amount of money that the fines they pay in court are barely a slap on the wrist, and will simply be written off as a cost of doing business, and taken as a sign that they can go right on committing the same crimes because they’ll get away with it. Because they simply can’t conceive that much money.

  106. 106.

    opiejeanne

    @O. Felix Culpa: Phoenix is supposed to be 120 today, and that’s hotter than commercial flights are allowed to operate in so they’ve cancelled a bunch of flights.

    My BIL lives in a double-wide in Yuma where it will be hotter today, and I just hope the power doesn’t fail because people will definitely die. I couldn’t live there. I’ve been there in the dead of winter and it still felt like an oven even though it never topped 78. The smell of the heat early in the morning, the smell of baked dirt I guess.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    @OzarkHillbilly: LOL. Know how unnatural racking out at the sleep center can be. My late mom underwent the tests, and got a CPAP machine. And put it on faithfully every night. Napped a bit watching Letterman.

    And then took it off so she could go to sleep at night. (!!) Talked with her neurologist; they read the CPAP machine’s chip and she was getting a bit of quality sleep. So they said that was enough.

    One could not tell my mom anything. Anything. But I know they work on the designs of the CPAPs constantly; maybe they will come up with one that is comfortable for you.

  108. 108.

    Chris

    @bemused:

    Let’s face it. Not many people are political junkies like BJ readers. I’m always astonished in light conversations on issues with people that aren’t Trumpanzies or teaparty and they don’t know basic, extremely important facts such as GOP and the billionaires working their butts off to raise SS/Medicare ages. I wonder how many of these folks know what McConnell and GOP are trying to do to their healthcare or if they heard a little, don’t know the magnitude.

    For all that we think the MSM lives in a bubble, my experience is that the average person is absolutely riddled with MSM-inculcated “conventional wisdom.”

    It’s not surprising. They can be as cynical towards the media as they want, but as long as that media (and its right-wing rageaholic cousin) is all there is on the air, then that’s all they’re going to hear, and it’s going to shape their opinions whether they realize it or not.

    And then you’ve got my pet peeve/source of despair when it comes to the media, which is that Newscorp & co. have been completely successful in propagating the myth that the MSM is “liberally biased.” Which means that even if the average Joe knows he’s being lied to, his attempts to compensate for that are likely to run in exactly the wrong direction. Stories that are good for liberals will be given less credence, because “of course they’d say that, they’re all liberals anyway,” while stories that are good for conservatives will be given more credence, because “it must be bad if even the liberal media is reporting it!” Which basically explains the entire 2016 election coverage news cycle, and its impact on the public.

  111. 111.

    Elizabelle

    @Chris: I wonder how much the juries don’t want the ambulance chasing trial lawyers making out like bandits. Since it’s widely known they get a big cut of the judgement.

    But yeah, inform juries about the “cost of doing business” aspect.

  112. 112.

    Chris

    @gvg:

    Well, I can relate. As a bicyclist, I regularly get enraged over drivers.

    (And pedestrians, I’m sure, get enraged over me, because I use the sidewalks all the time. Sorry, but I just don’t trust those drivers. If there’s a bike lane, then absolutely I’ll use it. If not? I’d like not to die in a car accident).

  113. 113.

    germy

    Off topic, but I just found out Bill Dana died a few days ago.

    I remember his comedy from the ’60s. A great comedy writer; he wrote the Sammy’s Visit episode of All In The Family.

    Most known for his “Jose” character, although that was only a small part of what he did in comedy.

  116. 116.

    opiejeanne

    @Chris: My niece was ranting about the size of the house across the street from us. 17,000 sf. My house is smaller than their guest house. She could not wrap her head around anyone wanting a house that big because it would take forever to clean it. She also couldn’t grasp having the money to pay people to clean the house and swore that even if she had that kind of money she’d just have a little house she could clean herself. She just couldn’t conceive of having that kind of money (My God, the property taxes in 2015 were $43,000!).

    The owners paid $9 million for it in 2000 and it went up to $12 mill by 2010, but now it’s worth half what they paid for it. Two people our ages, retired, kids all grown up and gone.
    The original owners had five kids and a ton of money, and the little I’ve seen of it from the front porch looks like a very nice house. Other neighbors tell me that there’s a large indoor pool included in that square footage, with large doors that open onto the patio in nice weather. It sits on 7 acres and sits back from the street and it’s positioned so that you’d never think it was that big from the front. I’d like to see inside the place but they suspect I’m a dirty liberal so we are not invited to parties supporting their chosen candidates, while the people in the single-wide two doors down do get an invite.

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    Senator Merkley (OR) said to Rachel last night: “They just want to go with the Republicans. They’ve been very clear about that. The irony here is that in 2009 (ACA): “”We had – in just the Senate – a hundred hearings, round tables and walk-throughs. We had the longest ever meeting of the Health Care committee with television cameras rolling while we marked it up. The second longest meeting ever with the Finance Committee. Over 300 amendments considered. Over 100 Republican amendments are ACCEPTED into the bill. And 25 days of debate on the floor of the Senate…and (in 2009) the Republicans said “Wait that’s not enough. We need more input from the People”.
    And now they’re at the other end of spectrum and they’re saying ‘NO input’ from the People.””

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    “Why are my constituents not allowed to see the details of what’s about to happen to their lives?” — a frustrated @ChrisMurphyCT asks pic.twitter.com/s6EVaOAOJo
    — CAP Action (@CAPAction) June 20, 2017

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    @Chris: in the McDonald’s hot coffee case, the original jury awarded punitive damages of 2.7 million. Everyone freaked out! 3rd degree lap burns from coffee and the crazy jury give the woman 2.7 million?!

    How did the jury get that figure? It was just two days of McDonald’s coffee revenues. TWO DAYS. ONLY COFFEE!

  122. 122.

    WereBear

    @Immanentize: And it came to that because McDonald’s had been repeatedly warned they served coffee hot enough to cause serious injury… and they ignored the law.

    Then it was spun as “jerks who love to sue corporations.” That myth of “I am in control of my own destiny.” It’s… powerful.

  124. 124.

    opiejeanne

    @WereBear: And they had already settled some of those earlier claims for far more money than the $72k the woman needed to pay for her surgeries.

  125. 125.

    opiejeanne

    @Elizabelle: I’m pretty clean except for when I dig in the garden. Then I end up with twigs and leaves and bugs in my hair, but I clean up pretty good.

  126. 126.

    WereBear

    @scav: One of my readers shared an article about it in the Smithsonian. It’s pretty much what I’ve been saying all along: We wouldn’t have civilization without cats.

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Is that an Airplane reference? Nicely done.

    edit: and I see by comment 22 and beyond that I was not the only one to notice. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

  129. 129.

    satby

    @O. Felix Culpa: @opiejeanne: I was a basket case last week when it was in the 90s here. And I have air conditioning, though I keep it set at 75. Which is too hot to me, but I use fans too. I couldn’t live in a place that got that hot so much of the year. My friend in Law Vegas said it was supposed to be 117° today. UGH!

  130. 130.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: I presume you mean like this? (0:22 et seq.)

    Looks like we picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue…

    ETA: Jeeheebus carripes, late to the fucking party as usual… Stuff it, all of you.

  131. 131.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo fka Edmund Dantes

    Mitch McConnell is the “gift” of Louisville’s East End suburban/exurban Republicans to the nation. Now relatively marginalized in Louisville proper, (run as it is by a combo of granola progressives, old labor, Vatican II Catholics and people of color) and also being shut out to some extent by statewide religiousity (which they happily pretend to share while sinning mightily), McConnell abundantly represents their resentment, hatred and callousness in the quest for personal benefit and power.

  132. 132.

    Immanentize

    @WereBear: That case still makes me mad because it had such a long term effect on the public. Law students today generally were not born in 1994 yet they still talk about it as an example of tort abuse.

  134. 134.

    bemused

    @Chris:

    You’re right the average person is riddled with msm “conventional wisdom”. Even if they say they are skeptical of all media, if that’s all they have listened to for decades, it’s going to permeate and affect their views. Any form of skeptism was taboo in the msm coverage pre-Afghanistan/Iraq wars and for a long time after. I’m wondering why most of msm is so late in talking about Senate death care bill. There’s so much pharma advertising, I have to restrain myself from throwing things at the tv.

  135. 135.

    opiejeanne

    @satby: I lived for 23 years in Riverside, CA and it got well into the triple digits every year in late summer. We coped.

    I don’t think I could ever go back to living like that.

  136. 136.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby: But it’s a DRY heat. /

    The temperature drops considerably at night, so we open all the windows to cool the house off, then close all the windows and blinds during the day to keep it cool. It works pretty well until late afternoon. I might have to get our portable swamp cooler out to manage the coming high temps though. Don’t have a/c and don’t want to get it.

  137. 137.

    opiejeanne

    @Immanentize: They talk about it as an example of tort abuse? Then they haven’t actually read the arguments and know little about the case. .

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    As @SenFranken points out Dems held 25 days of debate on ACA…I’m reminded McConnell complained about having to be in session to debate it
    — igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 20, 2017

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    Perry sees climate denial as evidence of being ‘intellectually engaged’
    06/20/17 08:40 AM
    By Steve Benen

    In the Obama administration, the first Energy Secretary was Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and a physics professor at Berkeley. He was succeeded by Ernest Moniz, who led the physics department at MIT.

    In the Trump administration, things are a little … different.

    Energy Secretary Rick Perry told CNBC on Monday he does not believe carbon dioxide emissions from human activity are the main driver of climate change, joining the EPA administrator in casting doubt on the conclusion of some of the government’s top scientists.

    Asked whether CO2 emissions are primarily responsible for climate change, Perry told CNBC’s “Squawk Box”: “No, most likely the primary control knob is the ocean waters and this environment that we live in.”

    In an apparent attempt to drive the reality-based community batty, Perry added that his skepticism towards climate data is a sign of a “wise, intellectually engaged person.”

  145. 145.

    WereBear

    @Immanentize: And a co-worker just the other day related that she had gotten a coffee from McDonald’s and couldn’t drink it for an hour, it was so hot.

    I always get ice out of the dispenser if I am stuck with no other coffee alternative. Dunkin Donuts, despite being a kind of gluten free hellscape, has better coffee and wifi, in my experience.

  146. 146.

    rikyrah

    McConnell, GOP prepare a showdown over secret health care bill
    06/20/17 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    As things stand, they’re actually doing this.

    Senate GOP leaders have set a timeline to vote next week on legislation to repeal large chunks of the Affordable Care Act, even though they don’t yet appear to have secured enough support to pass it. […]

    GOP aides and others familiar with the negotiations said they anticipate the Senate bill’s text will be released later this week. The CBO is expected to release its estimate of the Senate bill’s impact on the federal budget and insurance coverage early next week, and a vote could potentially be held next Thursday, before lawmakers scatter.

    As the Wall Street Journal report makes clear, the Republicans’ legislation – the life-or-death bill that will be voted on next week – does not yet exist. What’s more, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not yet secured the 51 votes he’ll need to advance the measure.

  148. 148.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah:

    What’s more, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not yet secured the 51 votes he’ll need to advance the measure.

    Hopefully he never does. Keep the senatorial phones ringing!

  149. 149.

    Yoda Dog

    Ok, I’ve listened to the wisdom of a certain teacher here and I’ve decided against freaking out if Ossoff loses. I know its a red district, it’s just tough to see us continue to send just the worst kind of people like Gianforte and Handel up there…. C’mon America….

    Go, Jon, Go.

  150. 150.

    rikyrah

    Remember when Trump vowed, ‘We’re not going into Syria’?
    06/20/17 09:20 AM—UPDATED 06/20/17 09:32 AM
    By Steve Benen
    In April, shortly after ordering a missile strike against a Syrian airbase controlled by the Assad regime, Donald Trump said in an interview that “we’re not going into Syria.” Even at the time, it was a strange thing for a sitting president to say.

    After all, not only had he just launched a new military offensive against Bashar al Assad’s government – putting the United States on more than one side in Syria’s civil war – but there’s also the fact that American troops are already serving in Syria.

    The assertion that “we’re not going into Syria” appears even more bizarre now in light of the developments from the last few days, as reported by the Washington Post:

    On Sunday, a U.S. fighter jet downed a Syrian warplane for the first time in the conflict. By Monday, a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia, had suspended a pact used to prevent crashes with the U.S.-led coalition in the skies over Syria and was threatening to target American jets. […]

    On Monday, Russia condemned that strike as a “flagrant violation of international law” and said its forces will treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft and drones as targets if they are operating in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates River while Russian aviation is on combat missions.

  152. 152.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    “They warned me that if I voted for Hillary, we’d have a war in Syria. Well, I voted for Hillary, and sure enough, it looks like we’re going to have a war in Syria!”

  153. 153.

    rikyrah

    McConnell Keeps Winning by Playing the Villain
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    June 20, 2017 8:00 AM

    When the Republican plan to repeal/replace Obamacare, AHCA, was working its way through the House, some people started calling it ZombieCare. That’s because the bill died the first time, only to come back to life and survive. Now, Paul Krugman compares the Senate version to a vampire.

    Clearly, the goal is to pass legislation that will have devastating effects on tens of millions of Americans without giving those expected to pass it, let alone the general public, any real chance to understand what they’re voting for…

    Why this combination of secrecy and speed? Obviously, this legislation can’t survive sunlight — and I’m by no means the first to make the analogy with vampires…

    Vox.com asked eight Republican senators what problem the legislation is supposed to solve, and how it’s supposed to solve it. Not one offered a coherent answer.

    Of course, none brought up the one obvious payoff to taking health care away from millions: a big tax cut for the wealthy. As I said, while bloodsucking isn’t the main reason to call this a vampire policy, it’s part of the picture.

    …………………………………………….

    What we are facing is a Senate bill that affects one sixth of our economy, whose House companion bill has the support of about 20 percent of the American public, but has been kept a secret to minimize any challenges. Yes, outrage is certainly called for. This is not how a democracy is supposed to work.

    Would Sen. Mitch McConnell really try to pull off something that unprecedented and inconceivable? We’re talking about the man who rallied Republicans to oppose anything the Democrats tried to do during the worst recession since the Great Depression. The same man who denied a sitting president the chance to even hold hearings—much less a vote—on his Supreme Court nominee.

    Not only did McConnell do those things, he won a Senate majority for his party and secured the nomination of a Supreme Court judge for a newly elected Republican president. So he got exactly what he wanted and never had to pay a price for taking the risk to go low with his political strategy.

    I’d suggest that the current Republican Majority Leader will keep on doing unprecedented things unless/until he pays a price for doing so. A profile of McConnell back in 2013 described him this way:

    While most politicians desperately want to be liked, McConnell has relished—and cultivated—his reputation as a villain.

  154. 154.

    NorthLeft12

    @bemused: He just kind of laughed it off. He is not what I would term an aggressive driver, but he is the kind of guy who would probably drive pretty close to cyclists to pass them if they were slowing him down. Ontario now has a law that drivers are supposed to give cyclists three metres of space on the road.
    Too soon to see if it is effective or not, but a step in the right direction.

  157. 157.

    SenyorDave

    The only consolation about McConnell is believing that when he does leave this earth (hopefully in screaming agony after years of intense and uncontrollable pain) he will be punished for his sins. Sisyphus was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back to hit him, repeating this action for eternity. McConnell has spent a good part of his career making life harder for many Americans. His punishment should make Sisyphus’ look like a week at Club Med.

  158. 158.

    NorthLeft12

    @germy: Yeah, I saw that. More data for review for those in Canada who don’t believe racism is a problem.
    I think there is more of it, but at the same time it is being pointed out and being publicly being mocked far more often than it used to be.

  159. 159.

    Chris

    @SenyorDave:

    I think the punishment for people in a hypothetical afterlife should be having to live through everything you inflicted on other people.

    So, Osama Bin Laden, for example, would get to be either killed in a crash, burned alive, crushed by falling rubble, or falling to his death, 3,000 times over.

    And someone like McConnell? Would get to live through every illness that could’ve been cured but, thanks to him, wasn’t; every experience of poverty endured by people who ended up going broke or homeless or worse because of their medical bills; every childhood that was destroyed by parents going through something like that… We’re talking millions and millions and millions of horrific experiences. And that’s just for his role in the AHCA.

  160. 160.

    schrodingers_cat

    What the Rs are doing is kinda expected, they have demagogued (sp?) ACA since its inception with an able assist from the media. Now that they are in power they are going to try and pass the repeal. No matter it does to the rest of us. They control all the levers of power in DC so their chances of success are high. Even so, we must fight every step of the way because giving up is not an option. That’s exactly what the Rs want us to do. Fight among ourselves, get dejected and do nothing. Our job is to stop them if we can’t stop them then make their job difficult.
    I hope Ossoff wins but there is a high probability that he may not win Newt Gingrich’s seat. We don’t give up if that happens, we fight another day. I don’t intend to make the Rs job easy for them by giving up. May be it is a futile battle but I want to do everything I can, otherwise I won’t be able to live with myself. 2018 midterms is our biggest opportunity to turn the tide.

  161. 161.

    opiejeanne

    @Rugosa: Initially, yes, but they’ve been refining the characteristics, breeding for exactly what we see now. I’m 67 and I remember when collies had a much differently shaped head, wider than the current fashion.

    The basic dog is medium-sized with a brown coat, according to a study I saw several years ago. You can see this type of dog in large cities in third world countries, where all sorts of dogs have found themselves homeless and the poodles bred with the cocker spaniels who bred with the terriers, etc. Sort of a devolution, all of the selective breeding undone in a few generations.

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @zhena gogolia: Reminding me of that heartwarming old adage:

    I want to die like my grandfather did, in his sleep.
    Not like the other people in the car he was driving at the time.

  163. 163.

    NobodySpecial

    @OzarkHillbilly: Speaking as just an occasional commenter, I’d feel much better if you went in and did it.

    From my personal experience as a guy with untreated sleep apnea since his teens, I had no problems going to sleep in the sleep center – they arrange them with really comfy beds, drowsy color schemes, decent temps, the whole nine yards. Yeah, they stick a bunch of electrodes on you, but they don’t stick a mask on unless the sensors really trigger. I remember waking up just enough that I could feel them putting on the mask and was out again before it activated. I woke up several hours later very disoriented, mostly because for the first time in two decades plus I’d had all the oxygen my body could use. It’s really been a blessing, and you get used to it really quickly once you start getting sleep like normal humans. It just plain feels GOOD to wake up not facing hypoxia and sitting on the side of the bed in a daze while you catch up the oxygen deficit after waking up.

  164. 164.

    SFAW

    @Yoda Dog:

    Ok, I’ve listened to the wisdom of a certain teacher here and I’ve decided against freaking out if Ossoff loses.

    Here, let me help you with that

    DOOM
    GLOOM
    DOOM
    GLOOM

    [Not really subscribing to that idea, just sometimes get a little tired of comments akin to “This ain’t looking good” or “If Turtle is true to form, THIS will happen, which would really suck” or any number of predictive/forward-looking comments, being characterized as “Doom and gloom!why fight it? I give up!!!”]

  165. 165.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Chris: Plaintiffs’ attorneys might try to recast the damages requested in terms of cost to the corp’s shareholders per share & compare that to the share price &/or the dividends paid per share (or the increase in share price) in a corresponding period. E.g., $20 million might sound like an obscene amount until you note that there are 200 million shares outstanding valued at $100 each (for a total value of $20 billion); then the award becomes $0.10 per share or 0.1% of the share value. If the corp paid a 2% dividend that year ($2 per share) then an award of $20 million would be equivalent to just 5% of the shareholders’ earnings.

    Brings to mind Richard Wilbur’s poem “Advice to a Prophet” from the eponymous volume (1961):

    When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
    Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
    Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
    In God’s name to have self-pity,

    Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
    The long numbers that rocket the mind;
    Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
    Unable to fear what is too strange.

    (Emphasis added. I believe the prophet addressed was Bertrand Russell wearing his nuclear-disarmament hat. Full poem here.)

  166. 166.

    pb

    “McConnell – a fat maggot burrowed into the carcass of GOP responsibility.” One of the best descriptions ever. Thanks

  167. 167.

    Origuy

    @rikyrah:

    Perry added that his skepticism towards climate data is a sign of a “wise, intellectually engaged person.”

    Otto West: Apes don’t read philosophy.
    Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

  168. 168.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    The temperature drops considerably at night

    I was about to ask And where the F is that? but I see it was asked & answered above. (Pet peeve reiterated: We should have locations in the nym line of the comments, defaults amenable to editing in a separate window in the comment form. Écoutes-tu, Alain?)

    If you run into a climate denier who maintains that it’s not any hotter in the summer than it always was, ask him/her/it about nighttime lows. I grew up (50s & 60s) w/o AC in a rowhouse suburb of Baltimore & I recall summer nights were tolerable (<75 F) with window fans except for maybe 7-10 days. Nowadays temperatures at 11 PM on summer nights are routinely 85 F or above & in my rowhouse home A/C is a necessity. It's not any hotter in the day but it doesn’t cool down as much or as fast at night.

    Same (FWIW) for summer thunderstorms, which used to drop the air temperature from the 90s into the mid-70s & the humidity as well for a couple of hours after roaring through; now things are as hot & sticky as before 15 minutes after the rain stops.

  169. 169.

    JR in WV

    @Chris:

    It is stone illegal for a bike to be on the sidewalks. No sympathy from me, dude, if you’re riding on sidewalks. None. F U into the hospital…

Comments are closed.