Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans in disarray!

Second rate reporter says what?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

This blog will pay for itself.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

In my day, never was longer.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are here: Home / 2018 / Archives for January 2018

Archives for January 2018

This Is Just Weird: Russia’s SVR Chief Allowed Into US To Meet With DCI Pompeo

by | 165 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Sergey Naryshkin, the Chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, was placed under US sanctions back in 2014 after Russia invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. Nevertheless, Naryshkin was allowed to enter the US last week and subsequently met with DCI Mike Pompeo. Part of what we know of the trip was learned, of course, because the Russians decided to make it public. First in reporting at Tass, which was then highlighted by the Russian Embassy in DC.

What I find interesting is the reason presented: consultations with counterparts regarding terrorism. Ordinarily this type of senior principal to senior principal meeting would be reserved, outside of an official visit or summit, for dealing with a high level, quickly emerging threat the details of which no one would be willing to commit to regular secure channels for fear the details and/or the urgency could get lost in the shuffle. But from the reporting that doesn’t seem to be the case. According to CBS, this was about discussing “the joint struggle against terrorism”.

While it is possible that this is an attempt to cover for a more serious, important, and urgent reason to meet, this whole thing just seems weird. If the meeting was about something that important and urgent, both sides would have worked hard to keep it quiet until well after whatever they were concerned about had been prevented or dealt with.

For now, file this between the Hmm Files and the X-Files.

Stay frosty!

Open thread.

This Is Just Weird: Russia’s SVR Chief Allowed Into US To Meet With DCI PompeoPost + Comments (165)

Lest We Forget Russiagate Open Thread: Hey, What About Those “Sanctions”?

by | 58 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

show full post on front page

Lest We Forget Russiagate Open Thread: Hey, What About Those “Sanctions”?Post + Comments (58)

Of Trees and Forests

by | 77 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

I found more pleasant things to do last night than watch Trump’s teleprompter recital, but I read it this morning. It was what I expected: a mélange of unearned brags and bellicosity, alternately layered with military valorization and mindless jingoism, then sprinkled with a somewhat more refined form of the usual racist, xenophobic appeals.

As I mentioned in comments this morning, I was heartened to see that most mainstream media outlets didn’t buy the “pivot” bullshit this time. Could our Beltway pundits be learning? Maybe, but not fast enough. Even the criticism gives Trump too much goddamned credit.

Here’s an excerpt from local columnist Joe Henderson’s hot take that illustrates this point:

Donald Trump’s missed opportunity in State of the Union

Your opinion of President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union speech probably hinges on whether you like him or not. This isn’t about that. It’s about something much more basic — the chance to change the narrative about his presidency.

He had an opportunity to make a splash about what’s happening with Puerto Rico, and he didn’t take advantage.

After all, did anyone else find it curious that he pledged his love and support for the people of Puerto Rico on the same day NPR reported that FEMA will end hurricane food and water shipments to that American island?

[snip]

So, about that whole thing the president said to Puerto Rico about how “we love you” and we’ll be there with you, what’s the deal?

You know what would have been a real headline-grabbing moment for the president?

He could have taken that stage to announce, “You know, I saw that today about FEMA and Puerto Rico. That was a bad decision. People are still suffering, and I am hereby issuing a presidential executive order that the aid be immediately restored and continued until the island is back to 100 percent.”

Okay. But seizing that public relations initiative would require Trump to actually give a shit about our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico — to recognize that they deserve better — something his words and actions since the hurricane have proved he does not. To discuss it in terms of a lost public relations opportunity is to ignore the profound, racist malevolence behind the neglect of that island.

It disturbs me greatly that the columnist, a garden-variety centrist-y guy I’ve been reading for many years now, seems to miss that point entirely. Maybe it’s a minor thing, but it strikes me as emblematic of a larger blindness that threatens to keep us in the dark indefinitely.

Of Trees and ForestsPost + Comments (77)

What’s going on with Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan?

by | 51 Comments

This post is in: 

Cam asked a good question yesterday in comments:

I wonder if you have any thoughts on this press release from Amazon/JPMChase/Berkshire Hathaway?

Right now it is mostly a press release. I don’t have enough information to really have a strong opinion. My first professional thoughts though are the following:

  1. Healthcare is hard
  2. Big data is already being run hard in healthcare by incumbents (Optum), start-ups (Oscar, Clover) and tech companies (Google/Verily)
  3. What are they planning to do differently than previous private sector consortiums?
  4. What are they planning to do differently than CalPers and other large pension pools?
  5. What are they planning to do differently than large insurers with significant fully insured pools?
  6. What are the planning to do differently than large integrated delivery networks that also self-insure?
  7. 1+ million covered lives is a good pool for experimentation and beta testing but not a representative sample for the nation
  8. Healthcare is hard

We have good ideas on how to reduce costs.  They mainly involve a variety of ways of saying “No” or at least saying “No, not at this price” as well as care design.  I could see a strong play for reference pricing, centers of excellence and value based insurance design.  Bringing that all in-house could make some sense on some level.  But I am really scratching my head on the so-what unless they really think that they have a special sauce that can accurately and effectively intervene so far upstream of preventable costs at pennies on the dollars.  If that is the case, great but so far no one has found that special sauce.

My unprofessional thoughts:

 

Have fun storming the castle!

What’s going on with Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan?Post + Comments (51)

On the Road and In Your Backyard

by | 20 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

I skipped the shitshow last night and am still catching up on what all was said, etc. So I hope these fantastic pictures do down well for all.

Tomorrow we’ll have a bunch from Le Comte’s trip, just amazing stuff.  But first, evidence of some great living – just WOW.

show full post on front page

On the Road and In Your BackyardPost + Comments (20)

Another SotU Open Thread: The Democrats Respond

by | 237 Comments

This post is in: , ,


(click on the pic to embiggen)

show full post on front page

Another SotU Open Thread: The Democrats RespondPost + Comments (237)

Trump’s First (Last?) SotU: Early Reviews

by | 47 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Many thanks to Adam for posting the livestream!

I got called away from the computer, but I did follow the final two-thirds on the Guardian‘s excellent-as-always livestream, with facts and commentary:

Guess which line of those below was a Trump improvisation?

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our wealth.

The nations has lost its wealth but we’re getting it back so fast.

The era of economic surrender is over. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and more importantly reciprocal.

My opinion of the speech and the speecherator: Low energy. No stamina. SAD!

Just look at the reactions right on this here blog. Used to be, we could get three, four massive fast-moving threads out of a single nationally-televised Preznidential speech. Tonight, we didn’t even break a TBogg unit (500+ comments). Not once did the livestream overload my crappy old laptop didn’t even overload, until it came to young Kennedy’s rebuttal!

At least we can take some consolation in knowing that Trump is now — or will be once the tranqs wear off — scouring every available source looking for a metric that will let him tweet that *his* speech was totally more popular than You Know Who’s…
.

Also from the Guardian:

Twitter says tonight’s speech was “the most-tweeted #SOTU or #JointSession address ever, passing last year’s record of 3m tweets.”

Perfect. Trump’s devolved past “soundbite president” into “140 character president”. Can’t even muster the energy to deliver a decent quip on-camera.

show full post on front page

Trump’s First (Last?) SotU: Early ReviewsPost + Comments (47)