I could go all wonky and technical right now. Intellectualizing has always been one of my favored coping systems. But I just want to highlight two short threads on Twitter. The first is between me and my sister.
This is a vote to make our country a whole lot nastier and crueler and sicker. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, my mother is a zebra full of odd medical edge cases. Whenever she goes to Mass General Hospital, the interns are called into her exam room so that they can see some unusual scenario. My family has a history of a variety of genetically linked cancers, asthma, a potpouri of mental illness and other things.
I want to come back to a post that I wrote when Obergfall became the law of the land and my kids:
I don’t know much about how my kids will turn out when they get older. I know a few things though.
I know my daughter will be a massive dork (as she cried last night that she missed school as she was not learning enough new things at summer camp, and could we buy her some new math workbooks). I know she will be a goof ball with a massive amount of empathy and a strongly developed sense of fairness. I know that when she is adult, her possibility space will be massive….
Their possibility space just widened a little bit this morning. Being their dad, that makes my day.
Today is a contraction of the possibility space.
Now, the other vignette I want to highlight is an economic success story. Tim Williams covers the Pittsburgh Pirates. He runs a profitable small business website, Pittsburgh Prospects that tracks the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system. I am a subscriber as the writing that he and his team of paid writers produce every day is great. Pittsburgh Prospects started as a labor of love and turned into a great and geeky resource.
As someone who is self-employed w/pre-existing conditions, baseball isn't a concern to me when people are voting to take away my healthcare. https://t.co/iFjKKeHNMW
— Tim Williams (@timwilliamsP2) July 25, 2017
Underwritten insurance in the individual market shuts down a lot of dreams that can turn into viable businesses such as Pittsburgh Prospects as well as keep people from taking a risk.
I’ll have more to say including something about the most recent round of Byrd droppings tomorrow morning. We’ll also start talking about what else can be done.
schrodingers_cat
Rs declared a war against the non Rs when President Obama got elected the first time, this is just the latest salvo.
Major Major Major Major
This was always, to my mind, one of the big selling points for Obamacare that never got sold.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
They declared back with Bush v Gore.
Everything after that has simply been a continuation of the original sin.
Yarrow
Healthcare handcuffs. Can’t leave your job that gives you your health insurance because you can’t take that risk. The Republicans are job killers and anti-entrepreneur because they don’t want people to quit being serfs and start being bosses who hire people.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Really? I recall President Obama doing his best to talk and get this message out.
Sadly, not enough people were willing to listen.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: I have to agree.
jo6pac
May be demodogs will now run on Medi-Care all for 2018. I sometimes make myself laugh.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Me too. I don’t understand why more people didn’t get that Obamacare enabled entrepreneurship. It created jobs.
SiubhanDuinne
Mama Anderson sounds cool. You should introduce her to John Cole’s mother, also cool.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat:
Goes back to Gingrich at least, if not Nixon.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Obama said it quite a bit; other Democrats, no so much. I agree that it’s a Big Biden Deal*.
ETA: BBD* to make jl happy.
lollipopguild
Other people have said it but it bears repeating–the Gop is no longer a political party but a cult-a death cult where a certain number of Americans must die each year due to a lack of health care. Certain members of the cult need to see a certain level of death and suffering in order to be appeased and happy.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Subversion, not open warfare. They had fig leaves then.
Now they’re naked and making a full frontal assault.
beth
http://www.postandcourier.com/politics/mount-pleasant-family-helps-donald-trump-push-for-health-care/article_3224824c-707c-11e7-95f9-b7efb885941a.html
This is one of the families that stood with Trump yesterday as “victims”. They have a three year old with spina bifida so they’ve never had to deal with insurance pre-ACA. They fully admit they’ve benefited from Obamacare. I don’t want to examine their countertops – I want to shake them by the shoulders and make them realize that without the ACA their kid would have probably hit his maximum lifetime benefit and instead of being photographed at the White House he’d be photographed for the “donate now” cans on the local 7-11 checkout counters. I only hope they read the comments (mostly unsupportive but respectful) and do some serious thinking. I just can’t figure out how we reach people like this.
Starfish
I really enjoy the
Limericking Twitter feed.
Yarrow
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Agreed. President Obama did everything he could to explain the ACA and how it benefited everyone in all sorts of ways. He is not to blame. The rest of the Dems…well, it’s a mixed bag.
Timurid
I got into it today with some NeverTrump conservatives (including a few of color) in my Twitter feed who are supporting this bill.
They’ve been stumbling around like drunks in the dark for months wondering where this Trump monster came from and why their movement is suddenly overrun by racists and thieves. The one thing they all have in common is devotion to the idea of razor edged, merciless meritocracy. In their view, consequences and the fear thereof instill virtue. In reality, the absence of a safety net inspires not virtue, but vice. A meritocracy can only sustain itself when there are some guarantees for the losers and the stakes of competition are not lethally high. When the stakes of social and economic competition are life and death, playing by the rules is a fool’s game. People cheat the system, they turn away from civil society (which is now placing them in jeopardy instead of protecting them) in favor of their tribe, they seek protection from strongmen or they pursue some combination of all of these. Unrestrained meritocracy descends into corruption, lawlessness and tribalism. Always.
These people are crying about Trump while cheering the exact attitudes and actions that brought us Trump.
Starfish
@beth: The second person they interview in this story is mindbendingly stupid.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
The Republicans declared war on America when Nixon sabotaged the Paris peace talks to help him win the 1968 election. They’ve been putting party ahead of country ever since.
Starfish
@Timurid: Trump is evidence that there is no meritocracy because if there were a meritocracy, Trump would be homeless by now.
Yarrow
@beth: I saw the people standing behind Trump. They were all white with the exception of one young Asian girl. So they’re white people who voted tribally. Very hard to reach. It’s lizard brain, not facts. it’s going to take their kid losing coverage and them having to sell the house or beg on the street to cover medical expenses to make them realize they may have made a mistake. And even then, wouldn’t hold my breath.
Roger Moore
@Yarrow:
The Republican donors get it, and that’s one of the things they hate about it. Nothing scares entrenched economic interests more than actual entrepreneurship.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Couldn’t they please limit themselves to mopping the bathroom?
catclub
@Major Major Major Major:
yep.
I was thinking that when the various ACA proto-bills were scored by the CBO, all that mattered was the final dollar number of the change in the deficit, rather than how many people would be likely to get insurance for the first time (That is my impression now, I am not claiming there was no discussion of number of insured then – just do not remember that part compared with the $110B deficit decrease over ten years cheering.)
Omnes Omnibus
@jo6pac: Yep, that’s the direction to be pointing the guns today.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: I’ve been saying for a while, if you want to understand how we got here, read ‘Nixonland’.
jl
@Yarrow:
” It [Obamacare] created jobs. ”
Jobs for the ‘lesser’ people. Small business start-ups by the ‘lesser’ people. Freedom for the ‘lesser’ people to have a spouse or parent at home if they want. Not sure that is a plus for today’s GOPers or the super-rich who fund them.
Quinerly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Excellent book! The one on Goldwater was great too. I struggled with the last one on Reagan…couldn’t finish it. Maybe it was just too recent and I remember living it. Curious if anyone else struggled with it.
Gvg
Umm, I don’t think the entrepreneur idea was sellable widely because the vast majority of people don’t understand basic economic theory. This is at least partly because we don’t teach it early enough like math and English. It may also be because the real boom days of small businesses making it bigger being common enough for many people to have observed and learned how is back at least pre 80’s. The hollowing out of the middle class is related. I know of a few reasons, but not all. I do know we need higher taxes on the upper brackets
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore:
Cleaning is for losers. Winners piss on the floor.
lollipopguild
@Starfish: Laugh out loud funny! And True!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quinerly:
Nope, I liked it.
Another Scott
(Sigh) Coulda swore I refreshed the page before posting this downstairs:
Guess what else is going on while they try to gut the US healthcare system for tens of millions…
GovExec:
House Republicans are poised to move forward with a spending bill addressing one-quarter of the necessary segments to fund the federal government past October, even though the measure would trigger an across the-board sequester at the Defense Department.
President Trump has indicated he would sign the “minibus” legislation, which, in addition to defense, would fund programs related to military construction and veterans affairs, energy and water development, and the legislative branch. The House is scheduled to vote on the 2018 Make America Secure Appropriations Act this week, despite a lack of a budget deal authorizing lawmakers to exceed spending caps currently in place.
Democrats were quick to note the measure surpassed the limits spelled out in the 2011 Budget Control Act by $72 billion, which would trigger a 13.2 percent sequestration from all Defense accounts. That would mark the first actual revocation of funds since the 2011 Budget Control Act first went into effect in 2013, when agencies were forced to furlough employees and institute hiring freezes. In fiscal years 2014 through 2017, lawmakers struck bipartisan budget deals to alleviate the spending caps by offsetting the increases with other savings. Congressional negotiators have yet to unveil any such plan for fiscal 2018.
Also controversially, the measure includes a provision to provide the Homeland Security Department with $1.6 billion for 60 miles of new fencing and 14 miles of secondary fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. That provision alone will likely doom the measure with Democrats and in the Senate, where the bill will need 60 votes to pass. Democratic appropriators warned that their counterparts were “raising the threat of a disastrous Republican government shutdown” by failing to work on a bipartisan basis on raising caps on both defense and non-defense spending. Republicans have left a funding plan for non-defense agencies “with no path forward,” the Democrats said.
In addition to Grandma not having health care any more, they’re trying to make sure she doesn’t get her checks on time, also too.
We have to fight them every single day…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
Free in flight WiFi is slow but cool.
Mnemosyne
@jo6pac:
Please, like you’d ever vote for a Democrat. You’ll come up with some other bullshit excuse for why you can’t be bothered to stop the Republicans from killing people.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gvg: I disagree.
You don’t need an Economic education to understand that benefits will lock you into a job.
More than higher taxes levels on existing tax brackets, we need more tax brackets with higher tax rates on those brackets.
Lapassionara
@schrodingers_cat: In truth, the R’s have now declared war on rural America, and on a big and growing segment of our economy. How do they keep their rep of being business-friendly I do not know.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You’re in an aeroplane a flying?
Quinerly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’ll give it another shot. Remember pre ordering it and being excited about getting it. Got a 1/4 way through it and put it down. Breezed through his other two without putting them down.
Mnemosyne
Also, a tiny rant before the onslaught of trolls begins:
We are going to get a bunch of trolls who claim to be on the left wringing their hands about how awful the Democrats are to try and distract us all for the fact that the Republicans just voted to kill millions of Americans.
Here’s my message for the trolls: if you voted for anyone other than Hillary Clinton in November of 2016, this is on you. YOU ARE PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED TODAY.
So go jerk off with your idiot friends and keep telling yourselves that everyone else is responsible for what you did.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Lapassionara: Low taxes.
KithKanan
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Hell, we don’t need tax brackets at all. Tax rates should be defined mathematically as a gradually increasing curve, such that the marginal tax rate for each additional dollar of income is infinitesimally higher than for the previous dollar. This is why we have computers.
Not that I expect this to happen in my lifetime.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
Needed some fixin’.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
You sound a little bitter, Mnemosyne.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
Righteous. It’s a shame your rant won’t act like a talisman against the trolls
?BillinGlendaleCA
@KithKanan: That’s just a really small tax bracket, but we need more brackets at the top.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep. Looking forward to Air Force One. I bet it has better internet speeds.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
I’m bitter because “leftist” Broflakes spend their time jerking each other off and complaining about how awesome everything would be if oppressed white dudes like them ruled the world again?
You may as well cut to the chase and claim I’m an ugly old maid who hates men and that’s the only reason I didn’t support the Broflakes’ savior.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The one I was on didn’t.
ETA: But it was the one that had to change it’s call sign midway over Misery(Air Force One to SAM27000).
rikyrah
Thank you Mayhew
Weaselone
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s a continuous function so there really isn’t a true bracket.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Those who failed to vote get lined up next for their ass-kicking.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Probably had a better taping system though.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Thank you. Agreed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
You betcha it did.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
I’m sure that’s an argument that’s been made somewhere
Starfish
@Mnemosyne: We have a wonderful delicious pie filter now so we can use that.
I am so tired of bros of all sorts. Taxation is theft bros. Both sides are equally bad bros. I told my sister I was going militant feminist and just voting for women if possible.
Mnemosyne
Though let me add one more thing to my above rant that is a repeat of something I’ve said before:
All you fucking Broflakes had a chance to resist fascism back in November, but you were too wrapped up in your fee-fees and your bruised masculinity to do the right thing.
You can play all the rounds of “Call of Duty” you want, but when it came to actually resisting fascism, you flopped over like a submissive puppy and invited Trump to have his way with you.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Weaselone: Unless you eliminate rounding to the nearest dollar, it’s be a dollar sized bracket, otherwise a cent. It’d never be truly continuous since money is discrete.
Roger Moore
@Lapassionara:
They’re friendly to rentier capitalists, which they pretend means they’re business friendly.
KithKanan
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I won’t argue with that. I’m happy CA finally added some. It was completely insane that a decade ago the top state income tax bracket started somewhere around the 60th percentile of household income.
ArchTeryx
I’ve been talking with this over with my psychiatrist, who’s an Ecuadorian refugee. He started out a well-to-do right winger before the death squads, but once they came close to knocking on his door, he fled to the U.S. and completely changed his political stance.
He thinks that we haven’t gone that far yet but he sees this whole push to wreck medical care as nothing less then a purging of “undesirables”. Purges rarely are finicky about who they kill, either. They may be targeted primarily at one group, but there’s tons of collateral damage. They’re purging the poor and shoveling the money upward. No more, no less. If they break the health care system in the process, well, ? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
?BillinGlendaleCA
@KithKanan: True, I think the top bracket starts around 200k, really? So someone making 10 million pays the same percent as someone making 200k; not very progressive.
chopper
that’s my 8yo to a tee.
ArchTeryx
“Contraction of possibility space” is a rather gross understatement. More like the kid’s choices and a crapload of economic luck may well end up determining whether she lives a long healthy life or dies in her 20s from some treatable genetic malady.
“He chose…poorly.” ain’t just for Indiana Jones any more.
Lapassionara
@Roger Moore: Unfortunately, their base believes it too.
KithKanan
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Federal? It’s in the 400k range. Low 400k if single, high 400k if married.
Comparatively, the highest tax brackets in the first half of the century started in the millions of dollars if inflation-adjusted.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Also those who voted for HRC but only after spending 18 months lamenting how hard it would be to hold their nose and do it because SinglePayerGoldmanSachsEmailz etc.
She made it real clear that if elected she would protect Obama’s Legacy and prevent shit like today from ever happening, but too many assholes just couldn’t take that threat seriously. Fuck all of ’em.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Keynes spoke of the “euthanasia of the rentier”. At this point, I’m far more inclined to go with slow painful deaths for them.
Mnemosyne
I’m going to beat rikyrah to the Very Smart Brothas link since she introduced me to them:
Coward with Terminal Brain Cancer Jumps Out of Government Funded Death Bed to Kill Other Sick People
And, no, I still don’t think McCain “deserves” brain cancer, because nobody fucking deserves to get cancer. If you still think that, then you’re no better than my asshole grandfather, who told my dad (his son) that my mother must have done something really bad since God decided to punish her with terminal breast cancer.
Ohio Mom
@beth: Having a kid with spina bifida is hard. Your kid needs the regular attention of a half-dozen different sub-specialties, and those doctors need to be working together.
If I was advising them, I’d say they should move to someplace with a children’s hospital with a strong spina bifida program, where all the different types of doctors work together. You go in for your regular check-up and see one doctor after another, and in between, the doctors step out and compare notes on your kid right then and there. Yeah, it is a big sacrifice to uproot your whole family because of your kid’s medical needs but it is not unheard of.
But I am not advising them, I am cursing that complete idiot of a mother out. How naive can you be, to think that arguing with the insurance company is something new?
All of us have put up with our insurance plans dropping doctors, refusing to cover procedures, telling us we can’t take the med prescribed by our doctor, take this one instead, for as long as we have been adults with insurance. It is why insurance companies need more regulation, not less.
She didn’t get to be so stupid on her own though. The disability community (with small exceptions like ADAPT) has been horribly silent on health care policy. The spina bifida association didn’t educate her, and obviously, neither has her kid’s doctors. They are all laboring under the impression, “They wouldn’t do anything to our kids.”
Guess what lady, you are about to find out how bad things can get for your kid.
I usually feel a lot of comraderie for my fellow special needs moms but her…!
weaselone
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We can carry over fractions to next year’s income tax.
Just out of curiosity, does that mean that current upper bracket is actually multiple brackets because of rounding to the nearest penny?
SenyorDave
But her emails.
There, somebody has to inject some common sense into this discussion. Seriously, my wife’s cousin and wife stayed with us last Tuesday. I was talking to Stephen, and he casually mentioned that he voted for Trump. Why? He gave two reasons, Benghazi and “he wanted to shake things up”. And no, Trump’s character didn’t bother him a bit. He said everybody’s got some skeletons in the closet. When I pointed out that trump’s skeletons were probably MUCH WORSE than the terrible things we actually do know about him, he did shut up a little. I started to give him the standard “he’s an amoral, racist sexual predator”, but I just gave up and said let’s not talk politics. I don’t want to get an ulcer. So many white males are stupid shits (coming from a white male).
Baud
@SenyorDave: He didn’t think Benghazi was an attempt to shake things up?
khead
@Timurid:
I just tell the folks I know with that view – “Yes, I enjoyed Bioshock too”.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Well, its starting. Don’t plan to watch myself, but anyone can here if they wish:
http://wkbn.com/2017/07/25/vienna-struthers-and-youngstown-ready-for-president-trumps-visit/
Unfortunately, it looks like a fairly decent crowd from pictures. Only one picture of protesters in the gallery:
http://wkbn.com/2017/07/25/photos-president-trump-visits-youngstown/
ChrisH
Who will be the first to Photoshop Senator Capito in with the picture of Rep Farenthold in the ducky pajamas? She certainly proved she isn’t one of those awful women today.
Villago Delenda Est
@SenyorDave: There seems to be an endless supply of stupid shit white males, and I’m also a white male. They are an embarrassment to us all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
Damn.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Just make sure to increase the estate tax first.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
That’s horrible that your grandfather said that about your mom.
Betty Cracker
@SenyorDave: Half my family are wingnut Trump voters. I used to invoke the “no politics” rule to keep the peace. No more.
What did their t-shirts say, “Fuck your feelings”? My attitude now is, “No — fuck YOUR feelings.” I’ll be at a big family shindig this weekend. Should be interesting!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@weaselone: Numbers in taxes can legally be rounded to the dollar.
Mnemosyne
@Ohio Mom:
I hope that woman’s parent or grandparent has to come live with her because they weren’t getting Medicaid for the nursing home anymore. ?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker:
Film at 11!
Yarrow
@beth:
From the article:
How the hell does she get that? What a dumbass. Well, maybe now they’ll get to experience the nirvana that is healthcare under Republicans. Oh, their kid suffers and dies? At least it’s not Obamacare! What a relief!
To be clear, I’m not wishing any of that on them. But these kinds of idiots will only learn how bad it can get for them when it gets that bad for them.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I’m pretty sure my paternal grandfather was a classic toxic narcissist. The stories …
JKFJS
@schrodingers_cat: It goes back further than that. Think Bill Clinton’s first inauguration.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
And that’s why “X deserved to get sick” is kind of a berserk button for me.
I didn’t know about this stuff until I was an adult and my grandfather was long dead, but it’s all been confirmed and augmented by additional stories from my aunts.
JKFJS
@TenguPhule: The whole Clinton impeachment process was open warfare.
Patricia Kayden
@beth:
We can’t. Perhaps after Trump Care is passed and they start suffering its consequences, then they’ll figure things out. But until then, they’ll continue to support their MAGA President.
Roger Moore
@Yarrow:
Because that nice Mr. Trump promised.
gene108
@Yarrow:
Because Republicans and right-wing media were screaming about how the PPACA would destroy human civilization, nay all of creation. It would destroy all the jobs. Make wait times for doctors so long we would all die.
They thought it would be sooooooo bad that dubbed it Obamacare, so he would forever be linked to the law that ushered in the extinction of humankind.
The first bill the House voted on to repeal Obamacare was entitled, “Repealing the Job-Killing Healthcare Law Act”.
With so much noise saying how terrible the PPACA was going to be, it’s hard for people to hear the good points. The good points got drowned out in a flood of argle-bargle.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: The Trumpers in your family should be very happy now. Their peeps are on their way to destroying one of President Obama’s greatest accomplishments. Hope none of them depend on the ACA in any way because they’re about to get screwed (along with the rest of us).
Ohio Mom
@Mnemosyne: There won’t be space for grandma, her son isn’t going anywhere after Medicaid is shredded.
The entire disabled adult supports system and structure is funded by Medicaid. Those day programs, etc. don’t fund themselves. She’ll look back fondly on these days of arguing with the insurance company when her son is home with nothing to do, ever.
frosty
@Quinerly:
That was the case with Nixonland for me. Couldn’t make it past the first chapter or two. Lived it, did NOT want to live it again.
Annie
“Underwritten insurance in the individual market shuts down a lot of dreams that can turn into viable businesses”
This, this, this. Back in 1997 I left a job and wanted very much to work as a paralegal long-term temp and/or consultant to small law firms. But I could not find individual insurance that I could afford, while maintaining a financial cushion against periods of unemployment. So I got another job, and eventually moved on to the job I have now that I mostly like. Not a tragedy, certainly, but a missed opportunity that the Rethugs have now taken away again.
And those Trump supporters with the T-shirts that said “F*** your feelings” don’t seem to get that now we can say “F*** your feelings back atcha, schmucks.”
Yarrow
@gene108: It’s also that the Republicans play to fear and Democrats and liberals have a tendency to respond with facts. Somehow Dems need to figure out how to reach the lizard brain. Maybe losing healthcare will do it.
But honestly, I’d talk up the entrepreneur-enabling side of Obamacare all the time. Talk about how it freed people up to start businesses, take some chances. I’d get puzzled looks in return. It really never registered. Every single increase premium increase or loss of a medication being covered on their work policy sure did, though. Now that the Republicans are “doing something” to healthcare, whatever happens to employer-based health insurance will be on them.
Zelma
@Quinerly: I couldn’t read Nixonland for the exact same reason. It was all too real and current for someone who lived through it. Too painful. I read a lot of history but nothing after World War II. Then, for me, it’s current events.
schrodingers_cat
@JKFJS: What happened at his inauguration?
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
I like to say, “Thanks for voting to kill me!”
frosty
@Mnemosyne:
There’s Christian Science in a nutshell. He deserved it, he didn’t have enough faith. And probably a few other offshoot cults as well that I’m not as familiar with.
woodrowfan
@?BillinGlendaleCA: even more basic, if you are a US citizen and you did not vote for Hillary, FUCK YOU.
Patricia Kayden
@Another Scott:
Wouldn’t it be bizarre if Republicans shut down a government over which they have full control? Just another indication that they really don’t know how to govern (which may not be a bad thing actually).
Jeffro
Could one of you front pagers please post a picture of the Photoshopped merit badge that Trump supposedly earned during the Vietnam war? It’s up on Twitter
Jeffro
Look at @snarkaroni and you’ll see it!
Kathleen
@lollipopguild: It’s their Viagra. The suffering is of others is all they have.
dmsilev
@ChrisH: The Onion has taken the measure of Senator Capito:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: You should have continued on, there are some real insights in there.
Kathleen
@Roger Moore: Then Reagan and Company delayed release of hostages in Iran to make Carter look bad and strike a deal to advance death and destruction in Central America.
schrodingers_cat
@khead: That is bullshit, they have no respect for people who make it by the rules they have set either, like either President Obama or President Clinton. They bow before those born with silver spoons in their mouths.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Please replace the batteries on your snark detector please. Sincerely, the Dept of Redundancy Dept.
Kathleen
@Villago Delenda Est: I prefer drawn out, painful, tortuous lives.
Quinerly
@Zelma:
I was born in 1961. Actually, the Goldwater one (Before the Storm)might have been the most interesting one of the three. Even though I was a political science major in college, most of the inside baseball stuff in Before the Storm was new to me. I’m going to try again on the Reagan one. Right now I have been spending my days sitting on the beach, plowing through one Tony Hillerman a day. I’m on politics overload.
JKFJS
@schrodingers_cat: Nothing at the inauguration specifically, just using that as the demarcation point for the GOP’s open warfare against Democrats. But as others have noted, it probably goes back to Nixon in 1968, if not earlier.
Zelma
@Quinerly: I graduated from high school in 1961 and have been something of a political junkie ever since. I taught 20th century world history and some modern American history for 40 years (as well as Western Civ, British history, women’s history – you name it, I’ve taught it.) I think the reason I couldn’t read Nixonland was because Perlstein made it so real and I knew what was coming and I just couldn’t take it! Right now I’m reading a great history of the Reformation which is far enough removed from 2017 to be a distraction. Even though I know what’s coming and it ain’t pretty.
Sab
@Ohio Mom: I am not dealing with a disabled kid. I am just an older adults too young for Medicare.
Back before Obamacare I got my insurance from my employer, and every time there was a premium hike they switched insurers, so my doctorschedule stopped being in network, my deductible increased, etc. Eventually it got to the point where the entire County I lived in was out of network, so if I had to go to the emergency room the in-network one was 40 miles away.
That mom in South Carolina is an ignorant fool.
Ithink
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Fellow B.J. community members, this rally is as gawd-awful atrocious as any of the previous few hundred I’ve witnessed through the T.V.; its all standard Trump fare of course, nothing outstanding CRAZY per se.
Except for the fact that its clinically insane to realize with a modicum of reservation that this many reactionary loons are my fellow American citizens and wish harm or worse upon all outside their fascistic bubble. I don’t return their darkest impulses, but seriously f*** compromising politically with most all these troglodytes. They make me physics I’ll to even look @ behaving like this!
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: this. this this this. it’s as if they WANT us to have no dreams, run no risks, stay chained to our shitty jobs for the insurance. Wait…could it BE….?