Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

We still have time to mess this up!

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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Totally gonna kill that nonexistent thing…

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Today in WTF:

Also, Trump’s wife had surgery this morning and will be hospitalized for the rest of the week. About half an hour ago, Trump tweeted that he was headed over to visit her at Walter Reed.

Can you imagine the media meltdown if any other president had loafed around the White House live-tweeting Fox News all day while his wife went under the knife? Especially if said president was in the middle of a massive sex scandal?

I get that everyone pretty much assumes the Trumps hate each other’s guts and that we all knew he was a gross philanderer from way back. Still, it’s amazing how quickly the Beltway press acclimated themselves to these circumstances, and yet they struggle to adjust to the fact that the president is a mind-blowingly corrupt, incompetent liar.

They are still covering the JOB aspect of Trump’s presidency as if he were a normal president, but the personal life angle — they were able to skippidy-doo-dah right over that. Hmmm. Not sure if I should be grateful or annoyed. (About being spared media hand-wringing about the Trumps’ fucked up family dynamics, I mean.)

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  3. 3.

    Chyron HR

    “The leaks don’t exist and when we find the leaker he will be executed.”

  4. 4.

    TenguPhule

    With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!

    “Those who oppose the regime shall be first up against the walls!”

    “And their little dogs too!” //

    The Death of a Republic is long and painful.

  5. 5.

    debbie

    @Chyron HR:

    Maybe the leaker will turn out to be Trump himself. Who knows what goes on during those pillow talks with Sean Hannity?

  6. 6.

    TenguPhule

    @Chyron HR: I remember when we’d poke fun at China and NK about things like that. Seen from the other side its not so funny.

  7. 7.

    ruemara

    I dunno. It’s amazing how much the beltway media &, let’s be honest, all the media are just ok with this bizarre marriage, the philandering, the corruption, the inane & insane tweeting. But regularly, the Obamas were criticized for vacations in the foreign country of Hawaii and wearing summer weight suits, fist bumps…

    Someone pointed out that reporters made money for being on tv punditing etc. You can’t force people to be ethical when corruption pays so well.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    I really appreciate him defining “traitor” and “coward” for us – very helpful!

  9. 9.

    Yarrow

    She’s going to be hospitalized for the rest of the week? That’s not minor surgery. Wonder what’s really going on there.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: wait… I don’t mean him defined in the words, I mean him, personally, defining what it means to be a traitor and a coward

  11. 11.

    TaMara (HFG)

    I’ve been gone most of the day (though did catch the adorable Mr. B in the last thread). Just caught up with Harry Reid’s cancer. Sounds like he has the curable type of pancreatic cancer – we’ve had a run of both kinds in my family, so I cringe at the words. Pardon if it’s already been noted in previous thread.

  12. 12.

    Annie

    I wonder if Melania told him to stay away, or if he’ll go over to the hospital and just hang out in a hallway instead of seeing her.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @M. Bouffant: just as Betty noted in the original post, I want to know where the media meltdown is over the fact that these two don’t even sleep in the same room, travel separately to the same location, and now the president* feels the need to kick around all day tweeting then – oh yeah! – zip over to the hospital to see how she’s doing

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    @TaMara (HFG): I had not seen that. Thanks for posting. Best wishes to Sen. Reid for a full recovery. Pancreatic cancer is tough. I didn’t know there were various kinds.

  16. 16.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    After he tweeted this most of the responses on his twitter feed were “hey dumbass shouldn’t you be going to visit your wife in the hospital, you know that woman you are married to inbetween affairs with porn stars” . Sure enuf an hour later he tweets he is going to visit her. Maybe he does read the responses to his tweets. Or did someone on Fox News say that he should (more likely). However mores the point why wasn’t he at the hospital during the surgery? It’s not like he had anything better to do other than watch Fox News and I’m sure he could have done that in the waiting room.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @Yarrow: Maybe she bribed the doctor in order to stay. Who wants to heal at home, when you can hear the asshole yelling in the house.

  18. 18.

    Major Major Major Major

    I’m sorry, I can’t disclose any information about that customer’s secret, illegal account.

    [hangs up]

    Oh, crap. I shouldn’t have said he was a customer… Oh, crap. I shouldn’t have said it was a secret… Oh, crap! I *certainly* shouldn’t have said it was illegal!

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    To be honest, I don’t really care about their relationship, except that the obvious PR attempts to show a loving marriage are just one more thing that he lies about. The leaking getting under his skin, that’s amusing. See, if he actually was the Genius Boss he likes to portray himself as, there’d be much much less leaking of embarrassing episodes. Know who didn’t have all that many embarrassing leaks from his administration? Obama.

  20. 20.

    SFAW

    @Annie:

    or if he’ll go over to the hospital and just hang out in a hallway instead of seeing her.

    Easier to hit on the nurses that way. Of course, it will be interesting to see what happens if he tries to grab one’s pu$$y. He might end up getting 25th’ed after all.

    Of course, her aim would need to be pinpoint.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yarrow:

    From my understanding, it wasn’t even surgery but more accurately a procedure — that is, an arterial catheter inserted in the groin that snaked up to the kidney and closed off the blood supply to the affected part (growth, tumor, whatever). No knives involved.

    When I underwent quadruple cardiac bypass surgery in 2001, I was in the hospital for three days. THREE DAYS. So either Melania’s procedure was a great deal more serious than they’re acknowledging, or maybe the First Lady paid a lot of money up front for a legit excuse to be away from her husband for a week.

    #NoVisitors
    #NotEvenHim
    #EspeciallyNotHim

  23. 23.

    Kraux Pas

    Not sure if I should be grateful or annoyed. (About being spared media hand-wringing about the Trumps’ fucked up family dynamics, I mean.)

    Well, things that would be awful for any other President barely rise above the tree line with this one.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    Yeah, the people I know who had heart bypass surgery were usually sent home within a couple of days. My mom had to stay for about 5 days because she has COPD, which caused a few complications (but she’s fine now).

    So what did Melania have that requires a weeklong stay? I can’t imagine that the White House is not equipped for patient care.

  25. 25.

    Yarrow

    @JPL: Who would want to live with that asshole at all? She could recuperate with her parents or at a hotel.

    Something doesn’t add up. People get kidney procedures and are out of the hospital the next day or maybe two days later. A week in the hospital is a long time and usually means a big deal kind of surgery. Even with five star treatment since she’s married to the president, they still wouldn’t want to keep her longer than necessary due to infection risk in hospitals.

  26. 26.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Yarrow: As far as I know (with our family experience anyway) there are two – one is almost always fast and fatal, one is treatable with a high probability of remission. My uncles had the fast and furious type, my aunt has the other. It responds to surgery/chemo.

  27. 27.

    lollipopguild

    @Kraux Pas: Trump could have been having sex on Air Force One with Hope Hicks or any other willing female and our press corpse would have ignored it. If Obama had even looked at another woman the wrong way it would have been Breaking News!

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    Ha! Not the first time you and I had the same thought at the same time! I’m just a slower typist.

  30. 30.

    momus

    The phrase “massive over exaggeration” suggests donnie has self-calibration problem. Ya think?

  31. 31.

    Yarrow

    @TaMara (HFG): Thanks. I didn’t know that.

    @Mnemosyne: I’m sure she doesn’t want to be near him, but even so, staying in the hospital isn’t recommended because of increased chance of infection. For her own health I’m sure the doctors will want her to go home as soon as medically advised.

  32. 32.

    efgoldman

    @M. Bouffant:

    I want to know what’s (physically) wrong w/ her

    I cut neither of them any slack, but it’s really none of our goddamned business unless it’s an injury that Weasel Face caused.

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: My dad was in and out of the hospital in 5 days for a hip replacement operation. Basically, prep on day 1, operate day 2, recover for 3 days, and then discharged (to a short-term rehab place, where he stayed for 4 or 5 more days).

  34. 34.

    TS (the original)

    The president* is so besotted by having the title he ALWAYS refers to his wife as First Lady, Melania. Utterly weird, like everything else he does and says. He just has to tell everyone Melania is the First Lady!!!

  35. 35.

    TenguPhule

    @efgoldman:

    but it’s really none of our goddamned business unless it’s an injury that Weasel Face caused.

    he decided poisoning her was cheaper and quicker then divorce?

    /at this point nothing would surprise me anymore.

  36. 36.

    RemindsMeOfThatMovie

    I’m willing to bet it’s for plastic surgery. Not Kidneys. Walter Reed is known for that and she looks like she has had quite a bit already. Also the recovery time out of the public eye seems kind of long. Just speculation but I have no reason to believe anything that comes directly from the liar in chief and his administration, ever.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    Over the past 18 months, political journalists and news executives have done plenty of dancing around the idea that a “Trump Bump” has provided a financial lifeline for national media outlets. The idea that a Donald Trump presidency is a good thing for the bottom line doesn’t mesh with the notion that he presents a unique threat to the press or other democratic institutions. And while there are plenty of ways to spin a surge in subscribers or profits—quality journalism! More demand for accountability!—that doesn’t make the narrative any less inconvenient.
    Press briefing room clashes and personalized insults from Trump himself have also catapulted individual journalists to greater prominence. MSNBC and CNN are hoovering up reporters from print and digital outlets who can break news about the Trump world. Publishers are seeking out the next bestseller chock-full of juicy anecdotes that may be true, may be false, who really cares? And a new BuzzFeed report suggests that they are turning all of these minor indignities into piles of money. While news outlets across the country are being sucked dry by Wall Street vampires, the going in Washington is good.

    The few at the top make the big bucks and state and local coverage sucks more and more as they fire every non-national journalist. Those that don’t get fired make 40k a year and have no job security and no chance at advancement. In ten years all we’ll have left are 3 “national” newspapers and cable tv opinion shows.

    To read statehouse news in Ohio- actions on state law- one has to read something called the “statehouse reporter” which is one or two sentence blurbs on legislation. No one outside lawyers and lobbyists reads it, because 99% of people probably don’t even know it exists. They’ll be operating completely in the dark soon, state legislatures, but we’ll have plenty of “campaign memoir” books!

    Trump is the best thing that ever happened to these people. They hit the fucking personal jackpot when they got him elected.

  40. 40.

    randy khan

    @Yarrow:

    The snarky part of me says that I didn’t know that Walter Reed did cosmetic surgery.

    However, the non-snarky part of me says that, whatever it is, it’s not really my business and I hope the surgery was successful and she recovers completely. I think the non-snarky part of me wins this time.

  41. 41.

    TS (the original)

    @efgoldman:

    unless it’s an injury that Weasel Face caused.

    And that’s always possible in relation to kidneys.

  44. 44.

    jl

    Ummm…. I just heard on the news that there is a fuss because the pastors Trump sent to the opening of the new US Jerusalem believes that all Jews will be damned by the Christian God to eternal damnation and they well go to Hell be for intoldrable torture for eternity.

    I hope I am not an intolerant liberal who will drive Trumpsters further into intolerant fascist barbarism by noting that some might consider that somewhat odd and not quite in the proper spirit of things.

    I guess since these pastors think every single human who does not believe exactly as they do to every jot and tittle will go to Hell too. So, in that sense, it is all OK, perhaps.

    Netanyahu probably didn’t care though.

  45. 45.

    sukabi

    @SiubhanDuinne: it’s more than likely that Melania staying in the hospital for the next week is just cover for drumpf’s much more complicated surgery involving getting hannity’s lips removed from his ass.

  46. 46.

    Mike in NC

    Trump will make sure the trip to Walter Reed will be worthwhile by groping a female nurse or doctor on the way out.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    And why do they pay so much for this crap? Dennis Kucinich ranting on Fox is really worth 130k a year? That’s 3 or 4 statehouse reporters and we can probably give them health insurance and a 401k too. They can pay off their student loans.

    Another sector follows the race to the bottom formula, where 150 people at the top suck up all the revenue and no one else gets a job or gets paid at all.

  48. 48.

    Yarrow

    @randy khan: I have no particular interest in what the actual surgery is. I care about the lying and their explanation makes no sense. It creates more questions.

    This White House lies all the time about everything. Big things, little things. Lies, lies, lies. Melania having the procedure they described doesn’t make sense for a week long hospital stay. Another lie. It is none of our business and they could have just said that. They didn’t. They lied. Again.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    I wonder how Barron is going to do for the week. Grandparents from Slovenia caring for him?

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The vermin of the Village, from Carter on, have been at least healthy 65% or so of the dysfunction in the polity.

    Hence my nym.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    Diagnosis by guess

    I am neither diagnosing nor guessing. I am going by how physicians/surgeons on CNN and MSNBC described an “embolization procedure,” which is the terminology the WH used in their press release. In all honesty I don’t much care (and don’t wish her ill) but if it does turn out to be plastic surgery, or something much more serious than a “benign kidney procedure,” I plan to scream loudly about yet another blatant example of lying from this malAdministration. But I obviously don’t know any more than the rest of us do.

  52. 52.

    Yarrow

    @Kay: If the free press is to benefit the country it should not be a for-profit entity. Since they’re greedy bastards and all about making money, everything is sensationalized and the big names get the big money.

    In other news, everything is fine.

    Pres. Trump's national security adviser says U.S. could sanction European allies if they continue nuclear deal with Iran. https://t.co/ub80tiHdYY pic.twitter.com/Ik1lKe0tYH— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 14, 2018

  56. 56.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    I was wondering about Barron too. Have never heard what kind of care arrangements are in place for him when both parents are absent.

  57. 57.

    ruemara

    @lollipopguild: It was! There was a whole “breaking” scandal of a photo at one angle that made it look like Obama was staring at some woman’s butt while abroad. Other angles showed he was looking at something else. Guess which one conservative media showed?

  58. 58.

    Citizen_X

    @Kay:

    Another sector follows the race to the bottom formula, where 150 people at the top suck up all the revenue and no one else gets a job or gets paid at all.

    Why is that the dominant mode today? It’s across all sectors; I can’t imagine that it makes more money than any other way. Why did it take over? Is it ideological? I don’t understand.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Yarrow:

    If they’re so concerned about a free press why don’t they ever advocate for local news reporters? They’re the unsung heroes of this profession, in my opinion. They’re getting fired all over the place. They make next to nothing. You’d have to be insane to pursue that as a career. No one worth anything will do it. Instead of hiring some washed up politician as a commenter and paying HIM why don’t they invite someone from an actual Ohio newspaper and pay HIM.

  61. 61.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Can you imagine the media meltdown if any other president had loafed around the White House live-tweeting Fox News all day while his wife went under the knife? Especially if said president was in the middle of a massive sex scandal?

    I just wanna hidden camera video of the 35 seconds he’ll spend at her bedside before the morphine makes her knock him upside the head with one of her “Get Well Soon” bouquet vases…

    Seriously, who’s kidding themselves? He’ll probably just show up for a camera op, walk in and then go hide in one of the doctor’s lounges and steal stuff out of their lunch boxes in the fridge

  63. 63.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    Dennis Kucinich ranting on Fox is really worth 130k a year?

    It is for them. Remember, the goal is Right wing domination.

    what’s a few hundred million compared to that?

  65. 65.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    Trump’s national security adviser says U.S. could sanction European allies if they continue nuclear deal with Iran.

    How many trade wars do these people intend to fight at the same time?

  67. 67.

    Yarrow

    @Kay: But they AREN’T concerned about the free press. The heads of the giant media conglomerates just want to make money. News doesn’t make money. That’s why shows like The Today Show are the leaders in the “news” division.

    We the people are the ones who need the free press. We need those local reporters to go to the city council and school board meetings and report back. We need the small town newspapers. We need that. The giant media conglomerates don’t need that. In fact it might even hurt their ability to make money when those local reporters reported on corruption. They will do what they can to eliminate that sort of local, independent media and turn everything into mind-numbing infotainment.

    We the people need a strong free press. We do not have one.

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    @Ella in New Mexico: He’s a big germaphobe, so…nickel bet some asshole in the both-sides media gives him praise for being…yup…BRAVE ENOUGH to go into a hospital, considering his ‘condition’.

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lollipopguild: Well, you know about the insatiable sexual appetites of blah men, especially when it comes to being around flowers of Southern womanhood.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Citizen_X:

    I don’t know but it seems obviously and blatantly unsustainable, doesn’t it? I met a quality engineer today and they actually pay her a decent wage. That’s hard job! I was thrilled- “oh, GOOD for YOU” – I was just hugely relieved that whoever runs that company restrained themselves from hoovering up every available dollar. We decided it was because it’s a “small” company so they’re not intrinsically greedy, short-sighted assholes.

  73. 73.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    From my understanding, it wasn’t even surgery but more accurately a procedure — that is, an arterial catheter inserted in the groin that snaked up to the kidney and closed off the blood supply to the affected part (growth, tumor, whatever). No knives involved.

    Yeah, something’s fishy about her condition as “benign tumour”. At our hospital, a procedure like this MIGHT require an overnight’s stay, just to monitor for internal bleeding or hematoma at the site of the insertion of the catheter. There’s more happening here than what they’re saying.

  74. 74.

    Yarrow

    @Ella in New Mexico: As I said above, I don’t care what the deal is or why she’s in the hospital, but she’s not there for what they’ve said she’s there for. It’s another lie.

  75. 75.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Citizen_X: Norms changed, during the Reagan years. It’s all take the money and run now. Before, people thought in terms of generations. Now they think about the next fiscal quarter and their bonuses.

    Capitalism is destroying itself. Galbraith and Keynes saw this coming. So did Smith and Marx. It has to be restrained from its excesses to deliver on the positive things it can contribute.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    MSNBC and CNN are hoovering up reporters from print and digital outlets who can break news about the Trump world.

    Funny, I don’t remember Michael Wolff getting a job as a pundit thanks to his book that made the Trump White House look like a bunch of incompetent boobs. He got interviews for a couple of weeks and then the MSM dropped him like a hot potato.

    I’m fully expecting CNN to not renew Jake Tapper’s contract, because he’s not sufficiently aboard the Trump Train.

  77. 77.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Jeffro: Yeah, you’re probably right. At least the docs won’t go hungry this shift–he’ll be too scared to steal other people’s food. Secret Service will just bring him take out from McDonalds while he sits in the limo in the underground garage.

    Man, I definitely wish someone could get a hidden camera video of him shoving a Big Mac in his face with one hand, swigging a drink of Diet Coke in between each bite while the mayo accumulates on his chin and the droppings just fall in his lap…

  78. 78.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: Nah, the networks like having one reporter that doesn’t quite follow the party line. Shep Smith is that guy at Fox.

  79. 79.

    Baud

    It’s hard to believe Trump people would lie about something as serious as someone’s medical condition.

  81. 81.

    Gelfling 545

    @Yarrow: When they yanked out my gallbladder i was in the car on my way home about an hour after I opened my eyes in recovery. Let’s get you out of here, they said. They somehow stuffed me into my clothes & my sister drove me home. I don’t recall much about getting here but home I went. Very unusual to keep someone that long for something that’s not pretty severe.

  84. 84.

    Fair Economist

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    From my understanding, it wasn’t even surgery but more accurately a procedure — that is, an arterial catheter inserted in the groin that snaked up to the kidney and closed off the blood supply to the affected part (growth, tumor, whatever). No knives involved.

    That makes me think aneurysm. Which could also explain an extended hospital stay, for observation, because if one of those pops, you can drop dead on the spot.

  85. 85.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I’d say a large part of the problem is that the left wing doesn’t have the sort of infrastructure dedicated to sliming the right wing. Remember the Clintons and “crack pipe Christmas trees”? The idea is so absurd on the face of it that it makes no sense, but it was gobbled up. Remember how Bill Clinton visiting a friend on the tarmac was a big deal, when, jeezum frickin’ criminy, how would it make sense to do something unbecoming so blatantly obviously? Did any of you see the ridiculous glee when Obama says “I think we can agree that a cop who arrests a cranky homeowner acted stupidly” because they were sure they could gin up outrage over how Obama hates law enforcement, because? (Yes, that’s punctuated correctly. A person who asks “because what?” shows a lack of understanding of the RW noise machine.)

    Me? I want good governance. I’m concerned that Trump is viewed as a criminal slimeball only because the truth allows no other description, not because I want to win the news cycle.

  86. 86.

    TenguPhule

    Signaling a dramatic shift in Iraq’s politics, anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s movement tops election

    A ticket backed by Sadr has won the most votes in Iraq’s parliamentary election, placing him in the strongest position to select the country’s next prime minister and set the course for how the nation emerges from a costly war against the Islamic State.

    Fuck. here we go again.

  87. 87.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @efgoldman: @SiubhanDuinne:

    @efgoldman:

    Diagnosis by guess

    I am neither diagnosing nor guessing.

    Actually, you did not guess at all. You are 100% accurate. An embolization procedure such as this is done percutaneously, by going through a major arterial or venous site to access the blood supply leading to the tumor and cauterize it, thus killing the tissue.

    @Fair Economist: Actually, even that diagnosis wouldn’t require a week long stay unless the patient suffered post-surgical complications. I’ve recovered many types of aneurysms in the ICU, and unless the patient had lots of other problems, you’re talking three days at most.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    Hey folks, just some advance notice that I’m in the market for a Hugh Hewitt voodoo doll, or failing that, would really like to just stick pins into the real thing. WaPo saw fit to publish this pile of crap with all the hot, fresh, new “narrative” (i.e., complete bullshit) that the both-sides media is trying to cough up these days:

    Here’s how to crack the electoral code.

    Oh, fuck you, Hewitt…

    The key theme is status — a fundamental conviction that elites of the big four metropolitan powers of Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Manhattan and Washington wore a collective, fixed sneer toward their lessers between the coasts. Midwestern swing voters felt, to use the cliche from sports, “disrespected.”

    “Trump voters are acutely conscious of the disdain in which they are held,” Zito and Todd wrote, and the same emotional current runs through Balz’s reporting. That’s a profoundly bad dynamic for the country.

    On my radio show last Friday, I spoke with historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson about this deep divide. I noted that there was an analogy in the distant past: the “Social War” of the late Roman Republic, also known as the “Friends War” or “Allies War,” which pitted the peoples of the Italian peninsula against the vast might and wealth (and status) of Rome itself. Hanson spoke to the similarities and the differences, the greatest of which, thank goodness, is that the ancient battle was a blood feud and ours is a political struggle. But the similarity, too, is profound: The center of wealth and power allowed itself to become alienated from the much larger geographical region on which it depended.

    The modern version of this struggle is now deepening, driven in part by the profit to be made by playing to the 10 percent on both the left and the right ends of the voting spectrum, and even more dangerously to the identitarianism of the 0.1 percent of the far fringes. The president and his fiercest opponents hear most often and at the highest decibels from these extremes.

    So we have this nonsense about being “disrespected”, and now the new, additional, “fresh” narrative: all this here fightin’ is jes’ the extreme 10%, don’t you know?

    Except that is COMPLETE FUCKING BULLSHIT, because 80-85% of the Republican Party’s voters support the radical Cruelty First agenda of Trumpov-backed-by-the-Kochs.

    No one on the left is even comparable in terms of the damage they would do or even like to do to Republican voters and/or the country at large. Majorities of us absolutely hate these people, because they are un-American and support pedophiles, looters, and traitors.

    Fight this dumbass both-sides “it’s just the radical 10% on each side” wherever you see it. I don’t worry about Hewitt, but plenty of Beltway media types actually think he has something to say, and that there might be truth to that something. They couldn’t be more wrong.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Citizen_X:

    I get freaked out sometimes. Today is one of those times. My son is retrofitting a Chinese-owned magnesium recycling facility in rural Ohio. They take magnesium by products left over from manufacturing process and process it (somehow- don’t know- he lost me for that part) and ship it to China.

    He’s doing the electrical work and it will be fully automated. They’re putting in very fancy motion sensor lighting because the robots don’t need lighting so it only triggers when a random human being wanders thru. We were just marveling over this- “they don’t need LIGHTS to work under!” Because of course they don’t. They’re machines. He was just like “it’ll be dark in there- this huge facility- open and running, but dark”.

  91. 91.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Jesus H. Christ–was going to go in under Betty Cracker’s post below until I saw it’s at 415 comments. I’m stayin the heck outta there

  93. 93.

    Jeffro

    Ok, back on topic…here’s Ms. Petri’s tweet-take on, well, the topic:

    whoever claimed the lifesize replica of sexy c3po carved from butter belonged to me is a despicable liar with that being said please bring it back it completed the room

  95. 95.

    Aleta

    @Yarrow:
    a-Could be uterine, ovaries, or both, or prolapse or hysterect., or extensive endo + fibroids
    b-getting some plastic surgery done as long as she’s in there for something anyway–I’ve known women who do that. Stay away from WH staff until bruises gone.
    or
    c-hide bruises caused by Trump, get away from his rage (at Mueller) for awhile Hard to believe he doesn’t blame and scream at her since he does at everyone else. Probably shoves her around and grips her at the very least. You could see him do that with her hand during the campaign even.

  99. 99.

    lamh36

    Saw the sad news today about the death of Margot Kidder. The ONLY Lois Lane that I “stan” for.

    No other Lois Lane can come close to Margot Kidder’s Lois! RIP Ms. Kidder!

    @tomandlorenzo
    6h6 hours ago
    More
    There were plenty of actresses who tried, but no one managed to balance Lois Lane’s essential grit, intelligence, sharp-tongued cynicism, sexiness and passionate hope for a better world than Margot Kidder. That balcony interview scene is EVERYTHING.
    @tomandlorenzo
    Following Following @tomandlorenzo
    More
    The scene in question; one of the sexiest scenes in any superhero film.

    https://youtu.be/4Bb78jAYhcc via @YouTube

  102. 102.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Aleta:

    thanks for the laugh

    LOL if you only knew how often people in the medical field steal out of someone else’s lunches and never fucking cop to it–it’s an ongoing source of “WTF? Who steals from their fucking coworkers?” frustration where I work :-)

  103. 103.

    Mike in NC

    @Jeffro: When Hugh Hewitt needs somebody eager to fellate Trump, he can do no better than Victor Davis Hanson, author of a book called “Mexifornia”. Just a wild guess that he hates Mexicans more than Trump does.

  104. 104.

    Aleta

    @Kay: Weird! I never pictured it like that, but makes sense. Surprised they don’t need cameras on to monitor some things, but maybe that’s all done with data readouts sent to a control room.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    Wonderful T storm passing through central VA right now. DC was due for a big one tonight too. They mentioned possible “derechos”, which can be serious.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @ruemara:
    The very concept of pimps and whores has been so ripped apart by this maladministration that it will never again be able to be used by people legitimately in the sex business.

  110. 110.

    TenguPhule

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    if you only knew how often people in the medical field steal out of someone else’s lunches and never fucking cop to it

    This doesn’t seem wise in a work area where everyone has access to some truly disgusting things of human origin.

  111. 111.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @TenguPhule: It’s insane. But then again, any discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian/Middle East situation inflames opinions, even among those of a liberal bent. There’s so much wrong on all sides. And so much right.

  116. 116.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mike in NC:
    A fast food drive through clerk here in Kentucky noticed my California plates, and asked me and asked me if LA had a lot of crime. Seemed shocked when I said Lexington was worse. These idiots have no idea they live in the shithole.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @Citizen_X:

    Is it ideological?

    Yes. Yes it is.
    Those at the top get paid the most because they are the most valuable. For proof just ask any number of wealthy people. And if they are the most valuable then what do you need anyone else for in the first place? Of course in the TV industry if you get rid of the writers then you have more money to pay the idiots who spew the approved bullshit. And you bring on asswipes from think tanks to tell them what to say. What do you mean those think tanks don’t do any thinking, it’s right there in the name.

  120. 120.

    TenguPhule

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    they’re sneaky bastards about it–makes it hard to retaliate ;-)

    Reminds me of that old joke:

    Sign

    “One of these tomatoes has AIDS on it.”

    Next day.

    Someone has replaced the original sign.

    “Now there are two tomatoes with AIDS on them. Have a nice day!”

  121. 121.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elizabelle: If the God of Abraham wanted to demonstrate that He actually exists, smiting Donald’s motorcade in the Tornado Watch Zone would have been a splendid target of opportunity.

    But He missed it.

    Flying Spaghetti Monster, you’re on deck. Meatball sized hail, please.

  123. 123.

    chopper

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    there are two general types of pancreatic cancer. the “he we can deal with this” type and the “oh you are so fucked” type. I think it depends on the part of the pancreas.

  124. 124.

    Aleta

    I guess if she’s having a medication adjustment that needs monitoring, it could be 4 days. (Or more if she’s talking an arrhythmia or psych med that is incompatible with a new kidney med.) Lower one, increase another, watch levels, adjust, repeat til they like the result.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The last Big Scary News Alert I saw for my area was guys sneaking up to unlocked cars while the owner was pumping gas and stealing stuff out of them. Not threatening or strong-arming anyone, just sneak thieves who ran away if anyone spotted them.

  128. 128.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    In TV, you don’t get rid of the writers, you hire people as low-level “producers” who aren’t covered by the Writer’s Guild minimums.

    All “unscripted” “reality” shows have writers — they’re just non-union so they can be paid less.

  129. 129.

    bk

    @Gelfling 545: I had a liver biopsy and a colonoscopy back to back one morning several years ago. I was discharged three hours after the second procedure.

  130. 130.

    Feebog

    I a full knee replacement in January. Surgery Wednesday afternoon, discharged Friday morning. Definitely something more than a simple procedure going on here.

  132. 132.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @chopper:

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    there are two general types of pancreatic cancer. the “he we can deal with this” type and the “oh you are so fucked” type. I think it depends on the part of the pancreas.

    When I read about his diagnosis today I went back and looked at my references about types, treatments, survival rates, etc. I had no idea just how many cell types and locations in the pancreas there are.

    There is a type that has a far greater 5 year survival rate–Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors. People with stage I pancreatic NETs surgically treatable have about a 61% rate of surviving 5 years after diagnosis.

    Here’s a link to some excellent info re: pancreatic cancer in general:
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreatic-cancer/about/what-is-pancreatic-cancer.html

    and survival rates
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreatic-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/survival-rates.html

  134. 134.

    Aleta

    @Mike J: Good strategy. And so very fucked up.
    Why resign if you’ve got sway over prosecutors, judges. Government by stockpiling compromising material.

  135. 135.

    Gvg

    Trump,is a germaphobe who is disgusted by elderly men falling down and bleeding according to himself in one story. I think he might just not want to see someone who has surgery. He is really weird you know.

  137. 137.

    marcopolo

    @Mike J: So here’s the thing–I live in a suburb of St. Louis, have seen Gardner try to prosecute a few other cases, and she is just not very good. In fact, last year her office botched the investigation and trial of a St. Louis police officer, Jason Stockley, who shot and killed a black man after a high speed chase. There was pretty clear dashboard camera footage that caught the entire incident but she and her team just didn’t do a good job with the prosecution. That led to a month of street protests, which I think were justified by the not guilty verdict but the case could have been handled better for a different outcome.

    Anyways, I’ve been predicting an outcome like this for a while in this Greiten’s case–the main issue is Gardner only has a “he said, she said” case right now. The Circuit Attorney’s office was never able to find “the photo” that Greiten’s allegedly took with his phone. I suppose it would be possible to go forward with a trial on such skimpy evidence but the judge today ruled that due to poor handling of the case by Gardner’s office that the judge would allow Gardner to be called to the witness stand. That put Gardner in the legal crosshairs, so to speak, since it is possible there are aspects of her handling of the case she doesn’t want made public, so her office dropped the case.

    To wind this up, there is a second case going forward against Greitens relating to his improper usage of his former charity’s email list for fundraising during his campaign for Governor. There is actual firm evidence, a paper trail/testimony from his former campaign manager/etc…, to substantiate that actually occurred so if Greitens is going to be convicted for something it will happen with this issue. The caveat, once again, is that Gardner doesn’t run a very good prosecutorial shop so don’t take that to the bank.

  139. 139.

    Ruckus

    @bk:
    @Feebog:
    My colonoscopy, I was put to sleep and released about an hour after they finished. Had to have someone bring me.
    My angiogram they didn’t put me to sleep as they said they would need permission to proceed if they needed to do a stent. Because of that and that they don’t want you to move for 6 hrs after the procedure and not to do anything strenuous after that for a couple of days they don’t let you drive yourself to or from. But I got discharged after the 6 hrs. I’ve been on the table for a biopsy for my cancer 3 times and each time I drove there and home after the procedure. (The angiogram was better than the biopsies, no question, and I was getting seriously poked and prodded each and every time. So on the table 5 times, sliced and diced each time and was never checked into the hospital. No body does that any more or any longer than absolutely necessary any more. Some of it may be the cost, some may be the number of beds, some is for sure that it’s easy to get infected in a hospital, all those sick people and everything.

  141. 141.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Jeffro:

    an analogy in the distant past: the “Social War” of the late Roman Republic

    “Distant past”? Oh fuck that shit. The Roman Republic is barely yesterday.

  143. 143.

    daverave

    @dmsilev:

    I got just two nights after my total hip replacement, 60 hours from check in to check out. So glad to get out of the hospital, weird patients wander the halls in the dead of night.

  144. 144.

    Aleta

    From Science

    Two thousand years ago, the Romans smelted precious ores in clay furnaces, extracting silver and belching lead into the sky. Some of that lead settled on Greenland’s ice cap and mixed in with accumulating layers of ice. Now, scientists studying annual deposits of those ice layers have found that spikes and dips in lead pollution during the Roman era mirror the timing of many historical events, including wars fought by Julius Caesar.
    The level of detail is “astounding,” says Dennis Kehoe, a scholar of Roman economic history and law at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, who wasn’t involved in the work. What really impressed him was how closely the lead pollution numbers tracked what ancient historians know about the expansion and collapse of the Roman economy—a system built on silver coinage known as denarius. “It’s really the rise and fall of a monetary system based on silver,” he says. “Prices were reckoned in silver, so they had to have silver.”

    Lead pollution was greatest at the height of the Roman Empire—during the first century C.E.—at levels roughly six times higher than during the 11th century B.C.E. But after the Antonine Plague hit in 165 C.E., likely killing millions, lead pollution suddenly dropped back down to pre-Roman levels and remained that way for 500 years. Dips in lead pollution also occurred in the middle of the Roman era, particularly when wars erupted in Spain—a hot spot for lead-silver smelting—during the last few centuries B.C.E.
    Based on air circulation patterns, the team thinks that the Roman-era pollution, which peaked annually at just under a millionth of a gram of lead deposited per square meter, came mostly from the western half of the Roman empire, in western and northern Europe.

  146. 146.

    Aleta

    @marcopolo: Good to know. Any guess as to if he will try to stay on for a long time or is just waiting for something — a buyout, a candidate, whatever?

  147. 147.

    Amir Khalid

    @Yarrow:
    To Bush 43’s Republican party, this approach to foreign policy/diplomacy made Bolton unacceptable as Ambassador to the UN.

  148. 148.

    PIGL

    @WereBear:

    It makes less money but the few at the top get more

    Way to hit the nail on the head… Neo liberalism … it’s turtles all the way down. and by turtles I mean transparent self-serving lies that shouldn’t fool a six-year-old.

  149. 149.

    Marcopolo

    @Villago Delenda Est: Dunno if this thread is dead but, for example, questions have been raised about how the grand jury process was run. I am pretty sure the circuit attorney doesn’t want to be deposed over that.

  150. 150.

    Bonnie

    That seems like a long stay. I thought hospitals throw people out as fast as they can.

  151. 151.

    Marcopolo

    @Aleta: There are still several different threads regarding Greitens moving forward: 1) the improper/illegal use of his former charity’s email list for fundraising for his Gubinatorial (sp?) campaign which the circuit attorney is also prosecuting; 2) investigation of his adminitration’s use of a texting app called “confide” that deletes message automatically after their sending/receipt which would violate state records laws; and, 3) the state legislature is holding a special session starting in a week or two. I have no idea how any of those will play out. Whatever happens, Greitens ability to pursue his agenda, which is awful, has been totally neutralized by all these issues—that’s a positive.

  152. 152.

    catclub

    @lollipopguild:

    If Obama had even looked at another woman the wrong way it would have been Breaking News!

    It was. Some meeting in Italy and Obamas eyes strayed for a few seconds. there were steps involved. Possibly a funeral?

  153. 153.

    J R in WV

    @daverave:

    My shoulder replacements, pretty serious in my book, in on Tuesday morning, out Wednesday afternoon. One night. maybe 30 hours?

    The nurse on overnight came by around 1 or 2 am, asked if I wanted the IV pain med… oh yeh! But my IV had “inflitrated” – wasn’t flowing correctly.

    Duty nurse wasn’t prepared to do another IV, went for help, around 3 a younger nurse from ICU came up, took about 3 minutes to get me set up, was a vast improvement. They basically cut your arm off, glue some new parts in, then close it up.

    Ouch!

  154. 154.

    wuzzat

    If we were in a movie, this would be the part where Melania’s foreign contacts help her fake her death at the hospital while her husband is distracted by Fox News and his phone. Then she could kidnap Barron from whatever boarding school Ivanka will send him to and start their new life in, I don’t know, Alberta or something.

  155. 155.

    opiejeanne

    @Bonnie: I had my appendix out the day before Thanksgiving 2016. They discharged me the next morning at 10am. I think I was in the hospital a grand total of 26 hours, but it was done with a laparoscope so that would be much less invasive than the old-fashioned slice across the belly.

    OTOH, in 1985 I was kept in the hospital for a week after a hysterectomy, because I hemorrhaged after I left the recovery area and had to have more surgery. Again, that was done with the less invasive method or I probably would have been there even longer. .

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