Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

No one could have predicted…

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

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Sunday Night Open Thread: Words to Live By

Sunday Night Open Thread: Words to Live By

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What’s on the agenda, as we wrap up the weekend?

***********

Also, Larry Summers, still an arsehole:

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    Going to try and have Luby’s fried fish again tonight. With mac and cheese and seasoned greens as the sides.
    Thanks for asking.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    There is nothing Trump says, in any forum, that can be held as at face value. For any length of time.

  7. 7.

    jl

    @Baud: Summers has evolved considerably on issues he understands, and has played a very constructive role in debate on financial regulation and macro-economic and fiscal policy. After giving some very bad advice early in the BHO administration. So, I still don’t like the guy, but don’t go out of my way to diss him.

    But what the hell, being widely disliked is some people’s karma and I guess Larry did something bad in a previous life.
    Why not set him up so he gets it coming and going on this here blog?
    He gave BS’s ideas on Federal Reserve reform very good reviews in a recent article. He now considers HRC’s ideas on financial reform too timid.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    @schrodingers_cat: She’s a pretty, buxom widower that runs a B&B / diner style food service out of her home for locals. Served family style and quite delicious if I do say so. Plus the desserts…

  11. 11.

    khead

    “You can look at this anyway you want, but it is clear it has galvanized the NFL” – Al Michaels.

    Chris Collinsworth said that maybe Trump should apologize to the players and perhaps have them to the White House. Hey – maybe we can call it “Trump’s Beer Summit“.

    But this is pushback. The NFL just sent it’s announcers out to ask Trump to apologize. On Sunday night – the prime TV spot of the week. I will now go bathe in acid after taking up for the NFL. But that’s where we are at the days.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @jl: I’d have to see his new ideas for decide whether I agree with him or not. Believe it or not, I judge ideas on their merits.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    @jl: Summers’ has been engaged in a multi-year whitewashing of his history. Trust nothing he says about any topic. It is almost certainly an effort to re-write some nasty piece of work he is responsible for in the past.
    That’s not just my take – cohorts in realtime gave him the piss when he tried to pull his bullshit.

  14. 14.

    chris

    Planed a little bit of rough pine this afternoon with one of my neighbours. Only took an hour but we thought we were gonna die in the heat. It was 90F out there in the sun at the end of September in Nova Scotia. Somethin’ ain’t right.

    Came home to find this story about an American Jewish woman helping to get the rightwing extremist AfD elected in Germany. I know, it’s from The Intercept but the links check out.

    https://theintercept.com/2017/09/22/german-election-afd-gatestone-institute/

    I will never ever understand these people.

  21. 21.

    jl

    Reading about the tragedy in Puerto Rico. After SF earthquake in 1906, it took President and Congress less than 48 hours to pass special emergency appropriation and send substantial military and other federal assistance. So, something else to call Congress about?

    Edit: IIRC correctly, with no dissenting votes on Congress. Unanimous.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @jl: Thanks. That was interesting. Some of it was a bit technical, and I didn’t read the Bernie piece he was referring to. I didn’t read that as overly populist, at least not more so than Hillary’s agenda.

  26. 26.

    jl

    @Baud: OK, just as long as this ‘idea’ stuff doesn’t mess up the Baudist movement, you are free to make up your own mind as far as I am concerned.

  28. 28.

    CaseyL

    @debbie: I believe what is meant is, “These people” as in people of identifiable demographics who actively work to elect people who despise and would destroy them, given half a chance.

    That definitely includes any Jewish person who works for a far-right candidate.

    Plus any gay person or POC who supports the GOP; any woman who believes in fundamentalist religion, etc., etc.

    Speaking as a Jewish woman, I was not offended by the remark.

  29. 29.

    Felony Govt (formerly Old Broad in California)

    @jl: I just posted this in the dead thread below:

    We have relatives in Puerto Rico who we still haven’t heard from. Some live in Arecibo.

    It really frosts me that Shitgibbon has obviously spent the day watching, fuming about and tweeting about football games rather than doing anything to help American citizens in Puerto Rico.

  31. 31.

    Ohio Mom

    @debbie: If I understood @chris: correctly, I don’t understand my co-religionists who expouse extremist right-wing views, either. I will never get over the fact that a local Jewish family helped found the Cincinnati branch of the Tea Party.

  32. 32.

    eemom

    resembles Pres. Nixon in many ways

    uh, what ways are those? Horrible human being, egomaniac and sociopath? Cuz those are some pretty broad categories.

    Vile as he was, even Nixon doesn’t deserve that utterly moronic comparison.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jl: Two things about Puerto Rico:

    1. Brown
    2. Speak Spanish.

    Therefore, unpersons in the world of Donald and the GOP…and the Village.

  35. 35.

    different-church-lady

    Going by the comments I see on the sports blogs, the median IQ of the NFL’s fan-base is about to skyrocket through a process of voluntary attrition.

  37. 37.

    chris

    @debbie: No, wingnuts in general. Maybe read the article and then we can talk about why any Jewish person would assist in the election of Nazis.

    @Major Major Major Major: I didn’t read the byline. Got the article from someone I know in Germany. What horrors has Fang committed.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @Baud:

    ” I find ideas to be divisive. I’m more of a uniter.”

    Thanks. I was worried I’d have to stop my support. And then what would I do with all the sacks of old soda pop cans on my porch?

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat:
    @ Corner Stone:

    Wait?

    You did not mean Luby’s cafeteria? A chain found in Texas? Infamous for a mass murder by gun — 23 dead, 20 injured in 13 minutes, many mass murders back? It was a record at the time. (1991)

    PS: If Luby is an individual, one assumes she’s a widow, unless she’s even more interesting.

    The Luby’s Cafeteria Massacre, from 1991, from Crime magazine.

    In a great twist of Texas-style irony, the mass murder at Luby’s Cafeteria in 1991, where 23 were shot to death and 20 wounded, led not to calls for gun-control but to the passage of legislation signed by Gov. George W. Bush that eased the way for citizens to obtain concealed-carry licenses.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @Felony Govt (formerly Old Broad in California): April 1906 Teddy Roosevelt was president. I think within 24 hours, he sent several troop trains and ships to SF with people and supplies, even though there was large, and functioning military presence in SF already. But TR had a different governing philosophy than the modern GOP.

    IIRC, House was in turmoil, in the middle of one of a series of revolts against Cannon, So I don’t think there even was a speaker. But they managed to get some action going within two days.

  45. 45.

    Ohio Mom

    What’s on the agendas as we wrap up the weekend you ask? Going to bed early so I can be bright and bushy-tailed for the IEP meeting my kid’s team is holding first thing tomorrow morning.

    As others who have their own IEP teams can tell you, UGH. Nothing like going over all your kid’s many um, challenges in detail to harsh one’s mellow.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @Villago Delenda Est: Most Puerto Ricans think of themsevles as ‘white’. So maybe not ‘white’ enough for some peoples’ tastes. Or they speak the wrong language. Or not enough $$$$$$. But, yeah, seems like no one in the circle of power is noticing, let alone cares.

  54. 54.

    Shana

    @chris: I have an elderly great-aunt-in-law who posts the most awful fake news on her Facebook page. She’s jewish and posts so much bizarro xianist crap I worry about her ability to take care of herself nowadays.

  55. 55.

    Elie

    “Every single day, every single thing Trump does, remember, the blame goes to the Republicans. They can stop him, but they’re empowering him” – Dana Houle

    Says it all — For everything. I would go one further — the people who voted Trump and the Republicans into office are beyond contempt. That said, we will have to figure out how to fix this — blowing it all up is not an option in my book

  56. 56.

    jl

    @khead: Trump says he doesn’t drink alcohol. Root beer summit? Cola summit?

    Edit: Trump would have to stop talking like a jackass for a while, before anyone would calm down enough to attend. That will never ever happen.

  57. 57.

    Bostondreams

    @Ohio Mom:

    I spent ten years as a classroom teacher sitting on that side of the table writing and implementing IEPs.

    Since my little girl has gone through elementary school, it is so so so much harder on the parent side of the table I have come to realize. Because it is YOUR kid you are talking about.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @chris: I didn’t read the story, but my question is, what do publications get out of featuring such oddballs? Is it simply that they get more clicks?

  59. 59.

    chris

    @CaseyL: Thank you. Didn’t mean to offend anyone.

    My friend in Germany is also confused by Alice Weidel of the AfD. She’s one of the guiding lights and yet she’s a lesbian and a very well educated person. I don’t see that ending well for her.

    Reminds me of when I first heard the term Gay Republican. My brain just crashed for a few seconds.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Regardless of Fang or The Intercept, Rosenwald is a legitimate Islamophobic hack who uses her considerable wealth, and her institute, to fund anti-Muslim and anti-Middle Eastern, Central, and Southeast Asian refugee initiatives.

  66. 66.

    Felony Govt (formerly Old Broad in California)

    @Teddys Person: thank you!

    And thanks to all of you for bearing with me as I transition from mostly lurker to sometimes poster. :)

  70. 70.

    Mel

    @Baud:Absolutely! He’d find those pee tapes in no time! Repubs, Russian hookers (and plumbers, and small children, and manufacturers of Port-o-Lets) beware – PeePee Pennywise is on the move.

    Or perhaps he should go British, and join MI 6 as Agent 00#1 ?

  71. 71.

    ThresherK

    @Corner Stone: She’s a pretty, buxom widower?

    Am I missing something in the local argot, having spent my whole life in the burbs between Boston and NYC?

    I have been to the chain in a foray out West, and I remember enjoying the three dishes mentioned.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @chris: @Major Major Major Major: @CaseyL: @Ohio Mom: There is a small, but well funded and well organized component of Jewish Americans who have gone past political conservatism straight to authoritarian right and neo-fascism. As such they make common cause with some pretty unpleasant and extreme individuals. They are bolstered by the fact that the Israeli right has moved farther and farther in a neo-nationalist and neo-fasicst direction with a significant chunk conflating their neo-nationalism with ultra-devout religion. Bibi has spent a lot of time over the past couple of years cozying up to the neo-nationalist parties and movements in Europe. The most recent instance was his very chummy visit with Victor Orban in Hungary over the summer. And his son’s very public embrace of neo-fascist and in some cases neo-NAZI social media imagery and messaging.

  77. 77.

    chris

    @Shana: Got a neighbour like that. He’s 70ish and doesn’t sleep well so he listens to American talk radio late at night. Comes out with some real zingers.

  79. 79.

    p.a.

    Oh goody. The new Star Trek really comes out of left field by introducing new bad guys… the Klingons. 1st episode, so I’ll suspend real judgement and just engage in snark. Promos imply current captain Michelle Yeoh (yay!) doesn’t last (boo!), but at least the lack so far of human white males in leadership roles may inspire some mockable tweets.

  82. 82.

    frosty

    @Ohio Mom:

    Going to bed early so I can be bright and bushy-tailed for the IEP meeting my kid’s team is holding first thing tomorrow morning.

    Hope it goes well. Ours were related to ADD and weren’t terrible. There *was* one point where we told the teacher if she had to sit our son next to her so he wouldn’t disrupt other kids, that was fine with us.

    They both graduated from High School, one from college, the other on his way. I can’t say enough about the IED staff we worked with.

    And the truant officer, LOL. She was on our side.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: I don’t recall that. I though I had done something about that a while back, but it may have just been in a comment. Or answering a request for information from someone. It’s all beginning to blend together…

  87. 87.

    NorthLeft12

    I agree 100% with Mr. Drezner. Deadbeat Donald is just not credible at all on his threats against other countries. Trump is a typical bully, that talks big and will hurt people that cannot hurt him in return. That’s why he is so cruel and vicious to the poor, immigrants, and minorities.

  88. 88.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    There is a small, but well funded and well organized component of Jewish Americans who have gone past political conservatism straight to authoritarian right and neo-fascism.

    The nastiest, most racist, most prejudiced man i ever knew personally. was a concentration camp survivor.
    If ever someone should have been tolerant….

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    Oh goody, we’ve got a new travel ban:

    And before anyone asks because they don’t want to click across and read it: 5 of 7 are Muslim majority countries. The other two are Venezuela and North Korea. And it appears the Venezuelan restrictions are for government personnel. And exactly how many people are actually visiting the US from the DPRK annually? So its a travel ban of Muslim nations with Venezuela and the DPRK tacked on because Stephen Miller thinks this that by doing so it will pass muster with the courts.

  94. 94.

    Mike in NC

    Just watched the latest episode of “The Vietnam War” on PBS, which was mainly about the 1968 Tet Offensive and the stateside turmoil that followed it. I was 14 years old back then and horrified by the nightly news. These days I’m horrified again at what’s happening in this country, when the draft dodger white supremacist in the White House is doing his MAGA act to turn us against one another.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Sec. Mnuchin to @MarthaRaddatz: “It’s not about free speech.” NFL players “can do free speech on their own time.

    These clowns really believe everyone in the country works for them.

    They were horrible people without power and, completely predictably, they are worse people with power.

    Speaking of “on your own time” how much has the low quality Trump Team spent on chartered jets this week? Did anyone
    bother to look? Shouldn’t they have to at least pay back the public funds they used? I know no one ever gets fired or is in any way held accountable but the federal government can bill them, can’t it?

  103. 103.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Unfortunately some people that are treated that barbarically develop into exceedingly intolerant individuals. Natan Sharansky is an example. As was Eli Wiesel as he got older.

  105. 105.

    Anne Laurie

    @sylvania:

    I see some of the wankers around here are critical of Summers to the bitter end

    If Summers were to say “It is unwise to stick forks into live electrical outlets”, I wouldn’t disagree. But, being Summers, IMO he’s more likely to say “Of course it is conventional wisdom that sticking forks in live outlets is suboptimal, but how many thoroughly vetted studies have been done to prove that assumption? ‘Random dead children & idiots’ anecdata is hardly a reliable standard for wise judgement!”

  110. 110.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    some people that are treated that barbarically develop into exceedingly intolerant individuals.

    True. I was raised (and still am, maybe more so) as a good liberal in the live and let live aspects of the constitution, but I certainly never had his experiences.

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Corner Stone:

    I thought you did that last night. I even wrote you a heartwarming anecdote about going to Luby’s in San Antonio in the ’60s.

    I delivered a chair to Bro’ Man’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach today, so we went to eat at Agave in Lewes (Maryland). We sat at the bar and had the usual: three apps (shared) and two margaritas (each). Good eats.

  113. 113.

    debbie

    @raven:

    I was remembering back to 1968 and how intensely I felt the world was coming apart, and then comparing that to tonight, listening to the intensity of the soldiers’ testimony. It was one fucked up time.

  114. 114.

    Ohio Mom

    @Bostondreams: I like and hold tremendous respect for our teachers. My kid’s twenty and in a very good transition program.

    I’ve been to so many of these, I think I could do all the parts myself, like one of those Off-Broadway shows where there is only one actor playing all the characters all at the same time. There aren’t too many surprises at this point. And even so, I’m left wincing a lot of the time.

    All this with the awareness that these are the good old days. In two years, no more team to advise and direct…

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    They trot him out for everything. I have no idea why. He’s as bad or worse than the rest of them.

    It must be awkward for them that the HHS secretary has to hide out during the push to pass their garbage health care bill. Obviously he can’t appear or they’ll get questions on the astronomical travel costs, so they trot out the other one- the one with the appalling wife.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    The jet setter is gearing up to cut Medicare:

    The Trump administration is signaling it will pursue significant changes to Medicare that could put beneficiaries on the hook for higher costs.
    In an informal proposal on Wednesday, federal health officials hinted at several new pilot programs it may implement in the months ahead. One idea would give doctors more latitude to enter into so-called private contracts to charge Medicare beneficiaries more for certain services, if the patients were willing to pay. Elsewhere in the document, officials indicated they might offer more incentives to encourage beneficiaries to join private Medicare plans, known as Medicare Advantage plans. Democrats and other experts said the language suggested interest in the controversial “premium support” model long favored by Republican policymakers.

    They blatantly lied about not cutting Medicaid- may as well go all the way and cut Medicare too.

    Is Price the most corrupt Trumpster? I would say yes, but that excludes family members and the President himself.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    If Democrats can’t get some mileage out of Trump planning on cutting Medicare they really need to find another line of work.

    That’s a gift.

  126. 126.

    JPL

    @Kay: Currently because of the large amount on Medicare, there are significant doctors who take a reduced cost. What will happen is doctors will drop out. It totally destroys the program and I hate him. I’d welcome him back to my town, if Trump fired him because of his grifting.

  127. 127.

    Ohio Mom

    @frosty: Yes, we had an opportunity to interact with the truant officer assigned to our district as well, due to my kid’s chronic tardies. When I explained his disability, she laughed and told me to say no more, and I never heard from her again.

  128. 128.

    opiejeanne

    @debbie: I was 18 in 1968, graduating from HS. My favorite cousin died in Vietnam in the fall of that school year and a friend from the previous class was killed there in June.

    The world really was coming apart.

  130. 130.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ohio Mom: The break has begun. I posted some links in comments to a post over the summer on this. Basically Bibi allowed the ultra devout to kill the mixed prayer area at the Wall. Here’s some links to excellent coverage from Haaretz:
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.797925
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.797774
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.797842
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.798094

    For the three premium links, just google the article titles, click on the link, and then you’ll be able to read the articles.

  131. 131.

    JPL

    @opiejeanne: Since I was raised in a small city, I walked to town a lot. My most poignant memory was walking home and a police officer walked along side me. He had just lost his son. My brothers were all in the service at the time. The youngest among them in Nam, the middle in Alaska and the oldest bombed Hanoi a few years later.
    I have no interest in watching Burns’ documentary.

  133. 133.

    Tenar Arha

    @Ohio Mom: @Adam L Silverman: At the temple I usually go to, the Reform Rabbi’s sermon on Rosh Hashanah was about the futile tendency to build walls, and referred specifically to the incident with the women rabbinical students being treated shamefully at the Western Wall. And he named Bibi as breaking his promise. I read it as not an absolute break, but it’s closer. It’ll be interesting if there’s a bond drive this year at all. (I mean we’re already at the point where at least part of my extended family have said not buy Israel bonds anymore. That’s a BFD for some of the 70-80 year old generation to decide).

    ETA grammar

  135. 135.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Tenar Arha: They had a bond drive at my Mom’s synagogue. I could hear it while working security out in the lobby. Of course the guy who did the appeal actually told the story of his whirlwind tour of Israeli medical facilities. He’d been ill and hospitalized before his trip. Made the trip anyway, and preceded to spend the whole time in hospital there. I thought there couldn’t be anything more quintessentially, stereotypically Jewish: an Israeli Bonds appeal that was one long story of a Jewish American man describing his medical problems.

  136. 136.

    opiejeanne

    @JPL: We are recording it to watch later. I can’t do it yet. Too many other people close to me who suffered because of that war, even if they did come home.

  137. 137.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    People were just as upset back in the 1980s, when Israeli rabbis stated American Jews weren’t Jewish enough. Plenty of New Yorkers threatened to stop their financial support, but it came to nothing. Much as I wish otherwise, I don’t expect any significant change.

  139. 139.

    chris

    @Adam L Silverman: From the email that included the Intercept piece.

    …just read that the state plans to start validating the Jewish heritage of its citizens — going back generations. Reverse of the one drop of blood policy of you know where/when.

    Does not bode well.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @JPL:

    I have no interest in watching Burns’ documentary.

    I have two minds on this. It was a horrible time and I don’t want to relive any of it, even in my mind. But that ship has sailed so to speak, my mind goes there anyway. Raven has told me that I need to go see the wall, that while it is difficult it is also cathartic. Not sure I see either of these that way. On the other hand like you I know people who went, some who didn’t come back or came back so broken that their lives will probably never be better. Should I look at their stories again? Should I relive that? I already know that it was horrible.
    I already know.

  142. 142.

    Ohio Mom

    @Tenar Arha: There is an old joke about Cincinnati which goes something like: If the world is about to end, move here because everything happens here ten years late.

    The articles Adam linked to, and your rabbi’s sermon are interesting to me because I am not seeing too much evidence here of a growing divide. But maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention.

  149. 149.

    Felanius Kootea

    Could we get a donation thread up for Puerto Rico? They need even more help than Houston in the aftermath of a category 5 hurricane and I can see the president is not going to spotlight them or encourage anyone to address the needs of his fellow US Citizens.

    A good donation link I’ve found is: http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/

  150. 150.

    GregB

    One of the two things I still remember from Mrs. Pierce’s ‘Early Western Civ.’ class was the phrase: In the long scope of history, the oppressed often become the oppressors.

    The other was how to pronounce Alcibiades.

  152. 152.

    Ohio Mom

    @Major Major Major Major: There are a couple of local bakeries selling their versions, not sure how authentic they are. Which is pretty much in line with everyhing else “big city” Cincinnati tries to do.

    Sign me,
    An Ex-pat New Yorker, born and raised on the Bronx

  153. 153.

    J R in WV

    I’m not an expert in radio astronomy, (nor even visible light astronomy, though I do have a tiny telescope) so I could have messed up my recollection of the damage at Arecibo. I do also think I recall that the HAM radio operator who passed that damage report out to the rest of the world informed us that his generator wasn’t working all that well, and they could use some help, which I don’t doubt a bit.

  157. 157.

    Mike J

    @Omnes Omnibus: My roommate’s best friend’s roommate[0] (how’s that for tenuous link?) introduced me to networked computers and used to talk to people at Orono all the time.

    Russell knew a lot about computers, but he believed Rutgers was in Israel because in these pre-DNS-all-bang-path[1] days, the way to get from Mizzou to Rutgers went overseas to Israel and back.

    [0] Who were both from Bellevue, right up the lake from where I now sail. Haven’t seen them at the Meydenbauer race though.
    [1] In ye olden dayes ye had to specify HOW to get to a remote site, not just the name, every hop, from bigcat to Mizzou to USL to UChi to where ever.

  165. 165.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eemom: I don’t give a fuck. Why do you? It seems like nitpicking to me.

    FWiW, s_c, my English ancestors came here before the English did fuck all to India.

  177. 177.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Millard Filmore: Thank you for those links! The one I linked to is from Beatriz Rosselo, first lady of Puerto Rico (the Puerto Rican Governor’s wife). I noticed that some of my Puerto Rican friends were using that link, so I figured it must be legit but the more donation avenues the better. It really is horrible how the impact and aftermath of Maria isn’t getting this administration’s attention.

  178. 178.

    ArchTeryx

    Before I bed, from the Great Orange Satan, the news that the revised Graham-Cassidy manages to be yet worse – it does away with waivers altogether and essentially lets states do as they want with health insurance.

    That’s even worse that the pre-ACA status quo. It’s total deregulation of the health insurance market. It means that people in ANY red state will have absolutely zero protections against their health insurers.

    They’re going for broke.

  179. 179.

    CaseyL

    Two things happened today that have me feeling more pessimistic than ever.

    First, I went to a friend’s house to watch football. There was discussion of the players kneeling or not kneeling. I was the only person who agreed with the players. The others agreed this was a free country, but apparently not during football games. They didn’t bring up, or want me to bring up, why the players were protesting. They brought up the canard about disrespecting soldiers who’d died for the flag, and waved off my responding that the flag stands for American values, and free expression is an American value. These were otherwise intelligent, kind, friendly people. I didn’t ask how many of them were Trump supporters. I didn’t want to know.

    The other thing was watching the Oprah segment on 60 Minutes (because it was just before ST: Discovery). Listening to Trump supporters say they loved everything he was doing, and the Trump non-supporters talking about how afraid they were for themselves and for the country, brought home once again how broken we are as a country. I realize Trumpism is a symptom of a breakdown decades in the making, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. I just don’t see how the country can be put back together when it’s this broken.

    Dammit.

  181. 181.

    ArchTeryx

    @CaseyL: The last time our country broke down like this, we had to sacrifice a few million lives and give the losers everything they wanted to heal the breach.

    Last time a major Western democracy did this in modern times, we had to basically burn the entire country to the ground to burn out the sickness. Twice.

    Whither us?

    ETA: We were every bit this divided over the Vietnam War and Nixon’s presidency, and we got through it okay.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    @ArchTeryx:
    I think even the assholes who want to cripple the healthcare of the entire country understand that really, they have one chance for this. And this is it. The longer that they have to wait the worse it gets for them. Of course they may be too stupid to realize that if they pass this piece of hateful crap it’s going to come back at them badly.

  183. 183.

    fuckwit

    @CaseyL: It has always been this broken. Since the Original Sin of slavery. It was this broken during the Continental Congress, it was brokern during the Constitutional convention when the south threatened to walk out until they got their 3/5’s. It was this broken during the abolitionist era, it was this broken during Dredd Scott and the Missouri Compromise. It was this broken during Bleeding Kansas. It was this broken during the first Civil War, and the Reconstruction. It was this broken during the Ku Klux Klan and the NRA and the lynchings and segregation. It was this broken during the compromises of Social Security that left most black folks out. It was this broken during the segregated military of WWII, of the lead up to Brown vs Board of Ed and Ruby Bridges. It was this broken during the controversy over Rock and Roll being “race music”. It was this broken when Emmit Till was lynched. It was this broken during the Martin Luther King era. It was this broken when the Black Power salute was given at the Olympics in 1968. It was this broken during bussing in Boston. It was this broken during White Flight throughout the 1960s and 1970s. It was this broken during the MOVE bombing. It was this broken with Bernard Goetz. It was this broken during the crack epidemic. It was this broken during redlining. It’s still broken now. It has been this broken for hundreds of years now.

    We have never apologized for slavery and segregation. We’ve never compensated black people for it. Racism is still deeply embedded in our culture. We are still struggling with the same issues. They have not been resolved.

  185. 185.

    John Revolta

    I really think that if it hadn’t been slavery it would’ve been something else. A quick glance at the last 500 years of Europe’s history shows even more stupid, pointless hatred and violence, and not a black face in sight. The black/white thing just made it easier for us to tell the teams apart.
    Seems like half the people we have to share this planet with, regardless of race, color or creed, are just flat out assholes. And I’m fucking tired of it. Me’n’my doggie are goin’ to bed.

  188. 188.

    NotMax

    @fuckwit

    Do you truly believe that over more than two centuries there has no advancement, zero progress?

    Do you truly believe that the rate of infection of virulent racism has remained constant over all that time?

  189. 189.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    It takes time for civilisation to overcome some 200,000 years worth of tribal conditioning. Too many of us humans never get civilised enough to manage it.

  192. 192.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: I think the point is that this isn’t some new development, not that it hasn’t gotten better in any way.

    A large part of what’s happening now is that gross racial injustice is more visible to white people than it used to be. White liberals can’t pretend that this is all fixed just because we don’t have segregated drinking fountains. And there’s an associated backlash.

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