Wow, so many Fake News stories today. No matter what I do or say, they will not write or speak truth. The Fake News Media is out of control!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017
NBC: Tillerson called Trump "moron," threatened to quit
PP/NY: Ivanka, Don Jr investigated for felony fraud
CNN: Russia FB ads target MI, WI https://t.co/uKjBhoH6wq— David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) October 4, 2017
Professor Krugman, back in 2003:
Academic economists often cite Stein’s Law, a principle enunciated by the late Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Nixon administration. The law comes with various wordings; my favorite is: ‘‘Things that can’t go on forever, don’t.’‘…
Meanwhile, for entertainment purposes only:
An oral history of the Trump administration, as told by the greatest cowards of this era—anonymous Republicans: https://t.co/a3vTSXpL3D pic.twitter.com/Wq12OOVqL0
— New Republic (@NewRepublic) October 3, 2017
You could say the Trump era began with an anonymous quote. “It will take a miracle for us to win,” an unnamed senior campaign adviser told CNN on election night. Steve Bannon suspected the source was Kellyanne Conway, according to Joshua Green’s book Devil’s Bargain, and the tell was that CNN went out of its way to avoid using gendered pronouns, a giveaway because Conway was the only woman on Trump’s senior staff…
While politicos have long used the anonymous quote to air policy disagreements and leak sensitive information they believe voters should know, Donald Trump’s Washington opts for anonymity as a cheap and easy form of exoneration, a way to telegraph to the world: Yes, we know that our boss is crazy and dangerous. And yet they preen and simper in Trump’s presence. Worse still, they dutifully push his agenda forward.
They are identified here only by the title assigned to them by Beltway reporters. What emerges from this anonymous stew is an ongoing record of the Republican failure to speak up in public, while the president wreaks havoc both here and abroad. It is a story about a rotting GOP, as told by the greatest cowards of the Trump era…
A Ghost To Most
No, just a whole lot of treason.
d58826
Well no wonder Der Fuhrer received a warm welcome yesterday. He visited an upscale gated community that leans right politically and suffered little damage in the storm. The electricity was generally on, the water was running and the supermarket shelves were all well stocked.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-tale-of-two-puerto-ricos-what-trump-saw–and-what-he-didnt/2017/10/04/2eeee62e-a8b9-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-banner-low_trump-puerto-rico-1220pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.d8d40a06e6ab
Baud
Hans: You ask for miracles, Theo, I give you the F.B.I.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
It’s practically a guarantee that Trump (and the Republican Party) will fall eventually. It’s just a question of when, how, and what will be left.
Major Major Major Major
Mm, I think I’ll stay in my boat for now and read that later.
Still nothing to do at work, still troubled by that.
I did a rough draft of a tool to let y’all check comments for forbidden words and mismatched formatting tags before you submit them–what sort of things would you like that to do?
Jack the Second
@A Ghost To Most: “In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option: I’m gonna have to treason the shit out of this.”
JustRuss
That could be because 95% of his agenda is pretty standard Republican fare, with the quiet parts said out loud.
The Moar You Know
One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn’t belong
A Ghost To Most
@Jack the Second: The Martian is such a good movie.
Mnemosyne
@d58826:
So he basically was escorted to a Potemkin village, with the same intended result. Lovely.
JPL
I left the house before seven, and this is the first I heard of this one
It’s a big news day. just sayin
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know: The Russia one, right? Because that’s just something neoliberals made up, the other two happened.
Baud
@JustRuss: Right. Policy-wise, the only thing that separates Trump from other Republicans is his focus on immigration. All the other differences between him and other GOPers arises out of his ineptitude for the office.
JCJ
I got a good laugh yesterday – my wife is not a pottymouth like me. She saw a clip of The Moron handing out flashlights in Puerto Rico where he said something along the lines of “you don’t need these anymore.” She yelled, “They don’t have fucking electricity, you idiot!”
I was so proud.
Teddys Person
@d58826: Unfortunately, not at all surprising. I am glad the Wash Post got it out there to shame the still shameable, if such a creature exists.
Shalimar
A study I would like to see: How many people throughout history have been proclaimed some form of dictator-for-life by their respective countries? 100? 1000? 10000? What was the average age they lived to? How many of them lived past the age Trump was when he was elected?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Of them? Or of the rest of us?
I suddenly started thinking of Leipzig, which we visited years ago and which was an Allied bombing target in WWII. I remember reading a plaque in the Bishop’s Palace, one of their major tourist attractions, about how one bombing raid flattened the city and killed 90% of the population in 20 minutes.
But there’s still a Leipzig and still a Bishop’s Palace with all its (rebuilt) furnishings and ceilings. And the historic district, home of J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn, seems to be largely intact.
So I’m thinking, if they can rebuild from that, I guess we can rebuild our institutions and our government from whatever bombs the Trumpites set off in their remaining time.
But we’re going to be years finding out just how extensive that damage was.
Is this the place for wishing for ponies and unicorns? I want a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Republican crimes going back at least to Nixon’s sabatoging of the Vietnam peace talks.
Brachiator
There’s a lot of this going around. Read some of the UK papers and read about the turmoil within the Conservative Party and the disdain for Prime Minister Theresa May.
For a satirical, but no less incisive look, check out BBC comedy programs such as The News Quiz or The Now Show (part of the BBC Friday comedy podcasts, or straight up on BBC 4). The stories of the UK stumbling toward BREXIT and the incompetence of the May regime, just amazing.
Mnemosyne
Well, one tiny piece of good news — the House bill on silencers has been taken off the schedule. We have to keep an eye out for when they try to bring it back, but at least they aren’t pushing it right now.
Ithink
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Will the rest of America & the world @ large be left in tact though?
Betty Cracker
@JPL: One of the most infuriating aspects of that report is that the story first broke in April 2016. But her emails…
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: Didn’t they shelve it the first time after somebody tried to assassinate a bunch of them at a ball game?
Shalimar
@d58826: So basically the government has focused on getting this rich community back to normal before helping anyone else. “Here, let me help you replace that broken window. This afternoon, I have to take water to a community that has been without for 13 days. Or bag the bodies if they don’t make it. Whichever.”
Adam L Silverman
Toxic, passive-aggressive, or, perhaps, aggressively-passive boss (leader) creates a toxic work environment. I had a boss like that a few years back. I resigned six weeks in. Of course the worse thing I was being asked to do was violate the Federal human subject research protection laws and the DOD regulations based on them. In this case, of course, the problem was a research center director who was wrongly qualified for the position who had followed someone into that position who was also wrongly qualified for the position. Who knew that a colonel doesn’t equal a colonel doesn’t equal a colonel? That some actual subject matter expertise is as important as simply reaching the rank that assumes you’re a qualified senior manager. Regardless of what it is you might be asked to manage.
randy khan
By now, everyone who works with him clearly knows he’s a disaster on pretty much every level you can imagine, yet hardly any of his team has left voluntarily. (Sean Spicer comes to mind as a potential exception, but he left after a very public humiliation.) Most of the people who are gone were fired (Bannon) or had some serious scandal that forced them to go (Flynn, Price).
Maybe for a couple of months, you could have bought the argument that people were staying because that was the best shot to keep him in check – give him the best advice, etc., and maybe some good could be done. It’s evident now, though, that there’s no chance of that. So everybody who is staying pretty much is doing it for one of two reasons – the proximity to power (quite a drug) or the ability to enact their own agendas with not a lot of interference from the guy in the Oval Office because he has no interest in anything they’re doing. These anonymous criticisms are just an attempt to retain credibility with the press, so they won’t leave the Administration with their own reputations in smoking ruins.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Hah! Yes. Or the Putin Palisades.
And Trump loved it. He just ate it up. The sad thing is that this president is not emotionally able to handle tragedy or pain. Bad for him, worse for us.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Yep, you can’t listen for it because the suppressors will make it hard to hear.//
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Yep.
Cheryl Rofer
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’ve been thinking a lot about a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think that we will need one no matter what the outcome. There are a great many things it might address, a few of which we are beginning to address anyway.
I think the reality is that it will have to be restricted in some way, very likely (as a practical matter) to the wrongdoing that started with the Trump campaign. But there are other things that contributed and that I wish we could address in a formal way.
That word “Reconciliation” is important. Much as we might like to think about it, it can’t be a war crimes tribunal, although if real crimes are uncovered, they should be prosecuted.
But the things we’ve swept under the rug need airing
– slavery and the rolling back of reconstruction
– the various lies that various presidents have perpetrated – the Gulf of Tonkin, the Vietnam peace talks, the second Iraq war, torture, the banksters’ role in the crash of 2008, and maybe more. We’ve said let’s move on, but that’s allowed some ugly things to grow.
– the role of money in elections
– the use of the Second Amendment to destabilize our society.
I may have missed something, but that’s enough to keep us busy for a while. I tend to think that my list might better be addressed by separate commissions for each, rather than rolled into one big ball.
Work in progress.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman:
Those of us who have met a variety of colonels.
SATSQ
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
It came back and was put on the schedule prior to Las Vegas. Now it’s been taken off again while they wait for a slow period when there are no mass shootings.
They’re going to have a long wait.
Brachiator
@Shalimar:
Here’s tidbit for you.
Fidel Castro ruled for 52 years, near the top for long lived dictators. There is actually a list of such things here. By the way, Putin intends to break whatever record may exist.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
It’s pretty far down on the long, long list of crimes committed by this administration, but this report on how the ICE is accidentally revealing the personal information of people who call their “let’s deport the neighbors” hotline got me steamed up for personal reasons.
As a federal employee, I was trained, thoroughly and repeatedly, on privacy law and the proper handling of PII (Personally Identifiable Information). Trained to take it at least as seriously as the handling of classified information. Taught about the laws dealing with PII, and the consequences of violating those laws, and what the responsibilities of any agency collecting them are.
So what I see between the lines here are: a government agency which started collecting PII without authorization (violation of law), which did not inform Congress of its intent to do so (violation of law), and which then of course made no steps to protect it (big time violation of law). It’s a drop in the bucket of federal crimes the administration has committed of course. And it makes me wonder how many other agencies (All Of Them, Katie?) are committing PII violations right now.
Of course, if there’s a place to file a complaint, it’s probably through the Attorney General’s office. Sigh.
The Moar You Know
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I said the same thing in 1986 when Reagan committed what was a FAR more cut n’ dried act of treason against the United States. Weapons to Iran in exchange for crack cocaine to the inner cities, proceeds going to the CIA to keep it all running.
Here we are.
ETA: also thought there was no way we’d have a CIA after all was said and done. Ahh, the optimism of my youth. I did not understand what America was up against back then.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: Open thread, so –
I’m a little lost in your webcomic. In the last chapter it seemed like Jesse wasn’t even aware of the existence of magic. Now he seems to be practicing ritual magic and has some kind of servitor I didn’t see introduced. Did I miss something?
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: You’d think their continued bouts of unlucky timing would cause some of them to reconsider. But that’s the sort of thing that would only happen to actual humans, not power-mad ghouls.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: Nope, you’ll just have to wait and see what’s up.
ETA: Feel free to comment over there if you’d like, instead of waiting to see me here, btw.
A Ghost To Most
@Cheryl Rofer: How about using a foreign country to steal the election? Treason would be first on my list.
Mnemosyne
@A Ghost To Most:
I’ve been told that it was patriotic for Trump to get Russian help in order to win because it prevented Hillary from becoming president. QED.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: Was that from a Trump supporter, or from one of the useful idiots supporting Stein etc.?
Baud
@Mnemosyne: I remember when conservatives hated moral relativism.
chris
@Major Major Major Major: Figured it was too glaring to be an error. Looking forward to the explanation.
A Ghost To Most
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, these people certainly have a twisted view of patriotism. They are only “patriotic” to their wallets and party. We need to reclaim that word.
Mike in DC
@Brachiator:
It should be the next president’s solemn vow that Putin’s reign end with him in prison for corruption, or alternatively face down in a ditch somewhere.
Adam L Silverman
@randy khan: I think there’s two groups. The first is made up of the people you’re referring to. The second is a much smaller group of maybe three to five senior appointees and, perhaps, some of their trusted agents if they were allowed to bring them on board with them. The former are looking to enrich themselves and/or finally implement an ideologically, or in the case of Carson and Devos theologically/dogmatically, driven agenda. The latter are willing to sacrifice their professional reputations to keep the President from doing something galactically stupid – like nuking the DPRK because his cheeseburger from lunch at the turn is repeating on him.
There’s a reason that the Pentagon and the National Security Staff (now that almost all the Flynnstones and Bannonites have been gotten rid of) aren’t leaking. At all. The reason is that the folks in the Building (the Pentagon) and on the National Security Staff recognize what Mattis and McMaster are doing – sacrificing their reputations. So the normal leaks demonstrating differences with “the Boss” aren’t happening because they don’t want either of them to go. The argument is that Kelly is the third part of this group. And that Mattis and Kelly have coopted Tillerson who is now sort of straddling the two groups. Tillerson is also in the weakest position of the three despite being the first among equals within the cabinet based on its actual structure. This is because the President is enamored of “generals”.
ArchTeryx
@A Ghost To Most: “You ask for a miracle. I give you the F. B. I.”
Jeffro
@A Ghost To Most: amen – let’s call it what it is
joel hanes
@Cheryl Rofer:
I may have missed something
Native American genocide, the original sin of the United States.
Cheryl Rofer
@A Ghost To Most: That comes under my category of “things since the campaign.”
Baud
@ArchTeryx: Dude….taken.
Raoul
@JustRuss:
*ding* *ding* *ding* He (and now folks like Ron Johnson, many others) can freely blurt the shizzle, because nothing matters any more except raw power. That might turn on them, but as others are noting … at what cost to our country?
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes, I figured you’d follow up on this. I used to make this argument all the time at USAWC, which, perhaps, explains why I’m no longer at USAWC. Conventional forces personnel are treated as widgets. And it shows.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: @chris: Thanks for reading, by the way.
Adam L Silverman
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The people running this are most likely from the transition landing team. Not the career civil servants. Most of them aren’t qualified for even the temporary positions they’re in. So they don’t know and don’t care about the PII regulations.
Raoul
@randy khan: One of tho things will happen over the next weeks/months/years (?!?):
their own reputations in smoking ruins
OR
our own nation in smoking ruins
Well, possibly both.
A Ghost To Most
@Baud: The reference eluded me the first time. What is the reference to? I am obviously not aware of all internet traditions.
tobie
@A Ghost To Most: @Mnemosyne: I’m still not over this and stunned at how from Nov 9 onward the possibility of election shenanigans has been swept under the rug. Someone posted here the other day that there were 5 statewide elections in PA, and Republicans were victorious in the Presidential and Senate races but not in the races for Attorney General, Treasurer, and Auditor. It’s certainly possible that the GOP had tons of first-time voters who didn’t complete the ballot but that strikes me as a little odd in a state that allows for straight-party voting by pressing a single button for Republican or Democrat. This election was stolen in so many ways. Why worry about the vote tally then? Because it will affect the outcome in 2018.
chris
@Adam L Silverman:
Let’s go with that. These are some scary people…
Source.
Baud
@A Ghost To Most: Comment #3
randy khan
@Adam L Silverman:
I could buy that.
It is evident, though, that Tillerson got nailed by a leak on the “moron” comment. One wonders where it came from.
Baud
@tobie: Sexism is also a factor there.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Congressman Scalise stated yesterday, when asked by a reporter, that his being shot at baseball practice has actually made him a more zealous defender of the 2nd Amendment rather than someone willing, through painful personal experience, to reconsider his previous position.
Adam L Silverman
@randy khan: Someone who was in the room when he said it who was looking to undermine him. My guess is either someone on the VP’s staff or one of the Flynnstones before he or she was turfed out by Kelly.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I saw today that Scalise, whose life was saved by a married lesbian cop, will also be speaking at Tony Perkins’
kill-all-fagssanctity of marriage organization.Mnemosyne
@dmsilev:
I can’t remember. It could have been either. I block those people on Facebook.
chris
Wow.
Chyron HR
@Major Major Major Major:
Uh, excuse me, his life was saved by GOD.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I wonder what would happen if someone told him that the blood transfusion he received included blood donated by LGBTQs.
A Ghost To Most
@Baud: Yea, I saw it and did not get the reference. It it from a movie?
Adam L Silverman
@chris: As I was saying…
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
He’s no different than the women who use the services of the same abortion clinic that they protest outside of.
Barbara
@chris: This is putting way too much theology on garden variety racial resentment. Most people opposed to the ACA, etc., believe that it helps unworthy people, and are willing to one degree or another, to hurt themselves rather than help the unworthy. Their churches are a reflection of who they always were, not the other way around. In particular, evangelical churches are usually organized and run by their membership. Theology is a post hoc rationalization. It’s not the cause.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: You know what’s horseshit? The rule that sexually active gay men can’t donate blood is still on the books.
Baud
@A Ghost To Most: Die Hard.
Barbara
@chris: I guess Corker is not running for governor after all.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: don’t tell me, let me guess – the asshole is planning to pack heat himself from now on? So he can waste any would-be attackers practicing their 2nd Amendment rights on him again? I know i shouldn;t think this or say this, but if this idiot didn’t have a come-to-Jesus moment after such a close brush with death, he is really too stupid to live.
Yutsano
@Major Major Major Major: I’m trying to decide if this is better or if he wasn’t better off being a martyr for the Molon Labe types.
debit
@Adam L Silverman: Someone is hoping for some of that sweet, sweet NRA money into his reelection PAC.
Raoul
@Baud: I remember when conservatives used hating moral relativism as a convenient cudgel, akin to deficits or gay marriage or really any relativistic advantage.
But I’m sure we all knew that. Sorry not sorry for the pedantic FTFY.
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: Good to see he’s avoided learning anything. Like a bit of common sense.
@Major Major Major Major: Can you email me your comic link?
oatler.
Anyone remember that disco song?: Rah rah Rasputin Russia’s greatest love machine
Been thinking about historical parallels lately.
Raoul
@Adam L Silverman: I suspect, but Adam you may know better and feel free to differ, that Tillerson is also in this weakest position because he’s the least adept and capable.
I think we’re discovering that one can be the CEO of Exxon and not actually be all that bright. Ruthless, maybe. Able to scramble up a corporate ladder of fellow mildly capable men, sure. But smart? Tactical? Not really, imo.
chris
@Barbara: Doesn’t matter which came first, now they have real power.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: it’s my nym link
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
The argument is of course that SAGM are more likely to transmit HIV than others. However, couldn’t the blood be simply be tested for the presence of HIV?
I remember back in HS, I was in AP GOV. There was a group of 4-5 College Republican types. Head conservative dbag whispered under his breath one time a joke about AIDs killing gay people. I was across the room and I have really good hearing. I called that fucker out during class. He had the most shocked expression on his face.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@oatler.: Boney M, Baby!
p.a.
Tillerson proved himself a loyal tRump supporter because he didn’t refer to him as a fucking moron.
Shalimar
@Adam L Silverman: Scalise wouldn’t care because he doesn’t personally care either way about LGBTQs. He cares about being a racist, so he pretends to hate the people Perkins hates in exchange for Perkins pretending to hate the people Scalise hates. And they’re all cynical for power, which you don’t get by empathizing with those being discriminated against.
jl
@p.a.: When Trump started running in the GOP primary, I found it weird that people saying very obviously true things about Trump suddenly became interesting and controversial stories that required confirmation from several news organizations and deep analysis and scrutiny.
I still find it very strange, but am getting more used to it.
Barbara
@Raoul: I’m really smart but I would not have the first clue how to go about running the State Department. If I had made diplomacy my career path I might be a reasonably competent Secretary of State. We too frequently confuse experience and expertise with intelligence. Tillerson is assuredly smart enough, but he has no experience and he is completely out of his depth, and he is not the first CEO to hit this particular wall — a wall that CEOs are particularly ill-suited to cope with.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Well, yes and no. There’s a window during which a person is infected but won’t test positive. It’s shrunk considerably with newer tests, but last I looked the rule of thumb was 1-3 months, but I think it’s down to weeks now.
Up until last year, when they revised the policy to a one-year-from-last-sex ban, it was a lifetime ban, which sort of suggests that they do not in fact give a shit about detectability windows and just think gay men have icky blood.
ETA And of course I’m sure Trump could undo this with a flick of his wrist (and Pence certainly would).
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Why am I not surprised? Of course he doubled down. And not even for ideological reasons but electoral ones. He’d kiss his career goodbye
PPCLI
@A Ghost To Most: Following up on Baud’s post just above this to give you context. Roughly, going from memory. Evil gang led by Hans take control of skyscraper with goal of breaking into a hi-tech vault. One of the locks is electrically controlled, and cannot be forced open — with one bug. It can be opened if power is cut off from the building. Hans has studied FBI hostage protocols and knows that they will cut power off at some point. Henchman says smth like “We’ll need a miracle to get into the vault” Just then the power goes out, and you know the next line.
Shalimar
@Miss Bianca: From memory of the reporting, carrying his own gun wouldn’t have done Scalise any good in the baseball diamond shooting. His critical injury happened in the first few seconds, before anyone had any clue there was a gunman. Weird lesson to learn from that if he is carrying now.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Are gay women not included in this policy?
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
Conservatives in my Twitter feed whined endlessly when the Scalise/baseball shooting story fell off the front page… “I don’t care about your stupid hurricane! You’re burying the REAL STORY!” and so on… But why should we care about Steve Scalise when Steve Scalise doesn’t care about Steve Scalise?
prob50
@Brachiator:
He’s not able to handle much of anything except applause and fawning servility.
A Ghost To Most
@PPCLI: Thanks. I haven’t seen Die Hard in many years.
Gin & Tonic
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: While I am neither gay nor a woman, I’ve gone through the blood donation process many, many times, and that’s not a line of questioning they pursue.
Many of the restrictions on donation are inconsistent and medically illogical, but there you are. I am “permanently deferred” myself, despite being O- and having a donation history of over 12 gallons.
jl
@Timurid:
Interesting story about country lead guitarist of band playing in the concert that was the target of the shooting, When they saw how helpless they were, and how useless, counterproductive, and dangerous their gun stash was in the face of a heavily armed shooter, they changed their mind on gun control. But, then I figure an average musician is far smarter and has far more integrity than the typical GOP Congressperson. But I’m a musician, so biased.
‘I cannot express how wrong I was’: Country guitarist changes mind on gun control after Vegas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/10/02/i-cannot-express-how-wrong-i-was-country-guitarist-changes-mind-on-gun-control-after-vegas/?utm_term=.469d76cf2ba9
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Only because they get so many tattoos. //
The fact that there was a lifetime ban in place more than twenty years after off-the-shelf home testing kits (not just some obscure medical procedure!) were available suggests bias to me.
@Gin & Tonic: Every time I’ve tried to give blood they’ve asked and turned me away. Once I donated during a crisis and their tone of voice made it pretty clear they didn’t care so I lied.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
The silencer bill will come back vewy, vewy quietly.
The Golux
@Shalimar:
Maybe he thinks that by packing heat, the bullets headed for him would have been magically deflected by the object of his affections.
jl
@The Golux: Real men have special secret knowledge that packing a big gun down your groin gives you special spidey-sense powers.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Or Congressman Murphy (R-PA).
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: As is that those of us who lived in Britain can’t do so because we’ve got Mad Cow Disease.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: My guess is he was a concealed carrier before. At least when not in DC.
prob50
@The Golux:
Well, duh, yeah…don’t you know that guns create a natural force-field like aura bestowing invincibility upon the holder? If you’re a Congressman it makes you like Superman except you also get to vote on stuff.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: There’s a test for HIV.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@A Ghost To Most: I’ve mentioned to my wife that Hans the Terrorist is one of Alan Rickman’s most beloved roles among Rickman fans, but I haven’t been able to explain why people love him in that role so much. Heck, I’m not sure I understand it myself.
When I first saw Die Hard, I had never seen Rickman in anything else and he just registered as a generic bad guy, made no particular impression on me. Of course it’s fun to go back now and see him knowing who he is and his later roles.
Adam L Silverman
@Raoul: That is beyond my ken.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
You may be slightly too young to remember this directly, but the full-on ban of SAGMs donating blood was in reaction to a major fuckup by the Red Cross where they didn’t bother to start testing blood even after it became known that AIDS was spread that way, and quite a few hemophiliacs and surgery patients were infected via blood donations. The Red Cross got sued for their negligence and the policy was a reaction against that.
Keeping the policy in place for so long afterwards is probably a combination of inertia and bigotry.
gene108
@Miss Bianca:
The gun lobby pays too well for Republicans to ever have a come to Jesus moment, even if they got shot. Plus their’s a lot of wing-nut welfare money to be had, while in Congress, and more when he gets out of Congress, if he keeps the faith of guns-everywhere-fuck-yeah!!!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: @Shalimar: See my next post.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Self care is important.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Gay women are statistically very unlikely to get infected with AIDS via sex. Hopefully they’ll cover some of that during your infectious fluids training.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I know. But Variant Jakob Kreitzfeld (Mad Cow) has an incubation period of no more than 10 years. And I lived in Scotland from 92-95, not England, and Scottish beef was not infected.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Well, if we’re using HIV logic, then after doing something that almost certainly wouldn’t have given you the disease (low-risk behaviors/living in Scotland), you should be good to go after 4-16 times the length of the incubation period.
ETA once there’s a test, of course.
satby
@Cheryl Rofer: or anyone who ever watched MASH
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I think the line was something like “if you are a male who has had sex with a male”.
satby
@jl: Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station had a response to that guy.
Facebook link, may not work for everyone.
Cheryl Rofer
@joel hanes: Yep
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: I was thinking of colonels who might make general and the ones who won’t/didn’t.
satby
@Major Major Major Major: the American Red Cross has been under a Consent Decree for over 20 years due to problems with proper blood processing which was one of the sources of HIV infection back years ago to a lot of people. Unless the decree got lifted for compliance recently, the donation restrictions are more a reflection on ARC’s lax screening record than anything else.
Edited to note Mnem got there first.
Ian G.
I thought “Stein’s Law” was going to refer to the half-wit failed folk singer Russian stooge who ran for president on the “Green” Party ticket last year.
MomSense
@Cheryl Rofer:
I completely agree with you. I’ve been saying we need a truth and reconciliation process for a long time because I just can’t see another way that we reconstitute ourselves as one nation again without one.
Raoul
@Barbara: Excellent point. It is why the businessperson as governor (or similar) theory is so often wrong.
I still kinda think Rex is a dope (but I’m not being charitable and I know it). But maybe he has smarts of some types.
gorram
@Major Major Major Major: Still enforced, if you’re dumb enough to say yes to the wrong questions.
Major Major Major Major
@satby: The consent decree was about the Red Cross only, the donation ban was at the FDA level.
Frankensteinbeck
@A Ghost To Most:
Translate ‘patriotism’ as ‘white power’, and conventional Republican use of the word makes perfect sense. It doesn’t even require them thinking in code, just looking at non-whites and getting an ‘other’ feeling.
frosty
@tobie:
From my observation at a single poll there were a lot of first-time voters. It’s possible they came out to vote against the two women, or that they knew to vote for Pres and Senate and nobody encouraged them about the statewide offices. They might not even be Repubicans, so why press the R button?
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Right, but the FDA’s policy was based on an actual bad outcome caused by the Red Cross’s negligence. It wasn’t just paranoia — people did get AIDS from donated blood and died because of it.
You can argue that the policy is outdated and needs to be changed, but you can’t argue that it was never needed. The Red Cross fucked up and people died, so they adopted a very restrictive policy.