Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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

“But what about the lurkers?”

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

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

I was promised a recession.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Everybody saw this coming.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Repub Venality Open Thread: There Is A Cartoon Villain Squatting in the Oval Office

Repub Venality Open Thread: There Is A Cartoon Villain Squatting in the Oval Office

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… and Mitch McConnell is just fine with that, apparently.

Jay Willis, in GQ, “Mitch McConnell Owns the Government Shutdown, Too”:

… The fact that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, to this point, has managed to keep him name mostly out of the debate is a tribute to his congenital dishonesty, unquenchable thirst for power, or some combination thereof.

This bears repeating every day until the government is open: Less than 24 hours before the shutdown, by voice vote, McConnell’s Republican-controlled Senate passed a then-uncontroversial bill that did not contain wall money to fund the government through February 8. The next day, all the country’s worst right-wing media personalities crawled inside Donald Trump’s ear and worked him into a frothy rage, and to spare the president the humiliation of having to fight a spending bill passed by his own party, disgraced lickspittle Paul Ryan decided not to bring the bill to the House floor. The shutdown began shortly thereafter.

… Only two things have changed since that unanimous vote: First, Democrats control the House, which means that Ryan’s spinelessness is no longer an obstacle to holding votes. And second, Donald Trump told them McConnell he wouldn’t sign any bill that doesn’t include wall funding, and so McConnell has pretended to forget all about it…

McConnell, of course, has a proven track record of getting his way when he stakes out unprincipled policy positions on high-risk-high-reward grounds. The next election is a long way off, and voters’ infuriatingly-short memories may prevent them from punishing his party for any of this in a meaningful way in 2020.

But a Supreme Court nomination and a government shutdown are different in kind: Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and government contractors are going without paychecks as a direct consequence of his party’s failure to govern itself, and as the shutdown’s consequences become more salient, Americans everywhere are going to get angrier with each passing day. No matter how vociferously any dissenting senators complain, they have no recourse unless McConnell stops enabling the president and stands up to his intransigence. His refusal to do so makes him as blameworthy for the shutdown as anyone else.

 
To use the kind of faux-folksy metaphor McConnell leans on, we need to hang this shutdown around his neck like he was a chicken-killin’ hound dawg..

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Trump’s very own Department of Homeland Security released statistics which show Trump’s fearmongering to be bullshit:

    According to the Department of Homeland Security’s latest statistics, yes, 16,831 “criminal aliens” were encountered by Customs and Border Protection in Fiscal Year 2018, excluding the final month of September. (The US government’s fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.)

    That seems pretty black and white. The final number for FY18 will probably be even higher once September’s figures are added. (The DHS website is not being updated because of the shutdown.)

    However, a full 63 percent of those individuals were “encountered” by the Office of Field Operations (OFO). Those are the people you meet at the airport and at border crossings. In other words, the “criminal aliens” they encountered were travelers who failed routine checks at legal entry points and were denied entry.

    When a non-US person enters the country, their fingerprint is electronically checked, they go through a facial-recognition screening and of course, their name is checked. If any of these gets a hit on a law enforcement database, the person is deemed inadmissible and goes back the way they came.

    Only 6,259 individuals of the 362,000 individuals apprehended by Border Patrol were actually found to have criminal convictions. Those individuals get fast-tracked for deportation.

    That still seems like a big number though. But take a look at their crimes. A full 47 percent of the 6,259 individuals were convicted for illegally entering or re-entering the United States. 14 percent have DUIs. One in ten has a drug offense.

    Only 13 percent — or 800 people — have records of violence or convictions for sexual or firearms offenses. That’s less than 1 percent of the total 362,000 apprehended by the Border Patrol in that period.

    That’s a ratio of 1:450. By contrast, one in 12 adult Americans has a felony conviction.

  4. 4.

    Luthe

    It concerns me greatly one turtle has so much control over our country. Are there no mechanisms in the Senate for a bill to be brought to the floor without the Majority Leader’s consent? I’m pretty sure the House has ways for bills to get to the floor without the Speaker’s consent (because some of the Freedumb Caucus were trying to use it on Spineless Ryan).

    I think we’ll really start seeing movement when farm subsidies don’t go out on time. I doubt the GOP care about whether SNAP benefits keep flowing, but those from rural states will get an earful if those sweet sweet ag dollars don’t appear.

  6. 6.

    Brachiator

    It’s weird, but a pattern. Trump used to stiff people he owed money instead of paying him. That same mentality is in play as he treats federal employees like shit.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    Jay Willis, in GQ, “Mitch McConnell Owns the Government Shutdown, Too”:

    McConnell is like a turtle hiding in his shell.

    What a coward. But other Republicans are silent, still backing unsupportable BS. They are hiding in shells of gerrymandering and Koch money. They need to be flushed out into the open and have their asses voted out of office.

  9. 9.

    Barbara

    @Luthe: It would take the courage of a minimum of 3 and preferably 4 senators to deprive McConnell of his power but it could be done in theory. But of course we are talking about US senators who caucus with Republicans and courage is scarcer than snow in the tropics.

  10. 10.

    hitchhiker

    Friday is the first real day of reckoning, when reality hits hundreds of thousands of Americans that the paycheck they count on ain’t in the bank. So, 48 hours from now there will be about a zillion stories on every media with nothing to say except, This. Is. Bullshit.

    And they’re going to say it.

    In the meantime, I am having more frequent episodes of opening my own social media and then, not finding the indictment story we all expect, wanting to throw things around the apartment.

    Bring it, already. Just get it over with.

  11. 11.

    Shana

    @Luthe: Isn’t that a discharge petition? You have to get a certain percentage of the members to sign? Or is that only the House?

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    My husband has been saying that it’s the only thing Trump knows how to do: if one of your kids makes you mad, you cut off their allowance. His dad did it to him, he does it to his kids, and he extended it to his contractors and now the country. It’s pretty much the only thing he knows how to do, because he has always controlled the world around him with money.

    Put him in a situation where his money doesn’t let him override everyone else and he’s totally powerless. Hence the tantrum.

  13. 13.

    Miss Bianca

    @Luthe: @Barbara: I’d like to hear more about this, because I am about to write my R Senator, Cory Gardner, and I would love to torment him by spelling out exactly how he could grow a spine and do something to lessen his chances of getting thrown out of office like an old pair of gym socks in 2020.

  20. 20.

    Ken

    @debbie:

    He said that the federal workers were all Democrats.

    He was of course wrong, but I suspect he’s becoming more right.

  21. 21.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Brachiator: Q:

    While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it cannot do so without your help. You are not helping. Why?

    A: Because it is Mitch McConnell.

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    Good evening BJ.

    Just sitting here doing some final prep and calculations for the LA trip this weekend.

    My goal is complete policial blackout this weekend while in LA, esp since next week Spring semester of grad school begins. So this may be my only travel trip for a couple of months and I want to enjoy it.

  27. 27.

    lahke

    Since it’s an open thread, I have a question for the hive jackal mind. I bought a carton of happy chicken eggs at the store, organic and all that, and on opening the carton, discovered that they were extremely organic, some being covered in what appears to be poop. At least it looks like bird poop–could have been worse. Is this an issue for using the eggs? If so, would rinsing off the shells help? I don’t want to crack open the eggs to get poop into the contents.
    Thanks!

  29. 29.

    Frankensteinbeck

    “Mitch McConnell Owns the Government Shutdown, Too”

    I believe I’ve been saying that since day one, yes. In fact, I’m pretty sure McConnell could force Trump to pass it, and Trump cannot force McConnell to do anything. So, this is more on McConnell’s head than Trump’s. He, Ryan, and Boehner have had an incredible ability to divert even liberal attention to scapegoats.

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    Question for anyone who knows… the BAFTA awards…are only “British” films eligible for nominations? Just trying to figure something out

  33. 33.

    RAVEN

    @lamh36:

    B. ELIGIBILITY
    Programmes must have had their first transmission in the UK between 1 January and 31 December
    2018 on terrestrial, cable, satellite or digital channels, including web-based broadcasters who
    commission content (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, You Tube Originals).
    Programmes may be regional or networked.
    Programmes will be considered for one category only.
    Unless otherwise specified in the rules of the individual category, all programmes must have a
    minimum scheduled running time of 20 minutes, not including any commercial breaks.
    For a programme to qualify for the Virgin TV British Academy Television Awards, the programme
    must have had the worldwide premiere transmission in the UK.
    The programme should have been initiated and developed in the UK; with creative control
    residing within the UK and/or a UK broadcaster must have the primary editorial control over the
    programme.
    Where your programme falls outside of this eligibility, it can only be considered in the International
    category.
    Programmes previously entered into the British Academy Children’s Awards or the EE British
    Academy Film Awards are not eligible for the Television Awards.
    Programmes that are self-commissioned and self-published are not eligible for the Television
    Awards.
    If you are in any doubt about the eligibility for your programme, please contact the Awards team
    at [email protected].

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    @lamh36: Good evening!

    I mentioned it on a dead thread, too. The podcast Gaslit Nation is EXCELLENT. Half of the team is the author of The View from Flyover Country.

  37. 37.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @lahke:

    Wash the eggs thoroughly. Preferably not in a food preparation area.

    Don’t buy eggs there any more.

  38. 38.

    NickM

    This is apparently a sociopath’s negotiation strategy. They take human hostages, knowing that not caring gives them leverage over people who do care. Is it “peak wingnut” naivety to hope that some scales are falling from a few eyes?

  39. 39.

    MazeDancer

    So, if the shutdown isn’t ended by Friday, wouldn’t it be time to start the Balloon Juice Federal Employees Support Fund?

    Soonergrrunt just tweeted that Sprint worked out a payment plan to cover his furlough. Apparently, Sprint is doing that for all unpaid Feds.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    @lahke:

    The shells are porous and the shells have a coating called the bloom which helps to keep the bacteria on the outside from getting in the inside of the egg.

    Can you use a dry scrubber sponge to remove just the chicken poop and dirt? Try not to scrape off the bloom. If you want to wash the eggs use warm water. I usually try to use a dry towel or sponge and sometimes a little white vinegar and/ or warm water.

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    Oh goody, release the hounds!

    WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has agreed to deliver a classified briefing to U.S. House lawmakers on Thursday on his recent decision to lift sanctions on companies linked to a Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin ally, marking the start of an aggressive new focus on Mnuchin by newly empowered House Democrats, according to two top Democratic aides.

    Mnuchin, who served as the Trump campaign’s national finance chairman in 2016 before being confirmed to President Donald Trump’s cabinet, has largely escaped investigative scrutiny.

    But because of his role in the campaign — and, most recently, the Dec. 19 announcement easing sanctions on companies aligned with Oleg Deripaska, the Putin ally with ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — House Democrats believe Mnuchin should be a focus of and source of information for several planned investigations both related and unrelated to the Russia probe, according to the aides. These include examinations of Trump’s finances and the business practices of the Trump Organization.

    The Thursday briefing comes in response to a letter sent Tuesday to Mnuchin by the new chairpersons of the seven major House investigative committees, asking him to provide answers on the Treasury Department’s decision to lift the sanctions, which was announced as lawmakers left town for the holidays.

    The Treasury Department said it would lift sanctions on companies linked to Deripaska — triggering a statue that gives Congress just 30 days to try to reverse the decision by passing a joint resolution of disapproval. On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed such a motion, but it’s unlikely to succeed in the Republican-run Senate.

    Would LOVE to see that oily prick Mnuchin taking down.

  45. 45.

    CaseyL

    McConnell isn’t a coward. He’s a Neo-Confederate. A prolonged shutdown, destruction of a not inconsiderable part of the economy, and hundreds of thousands of shattered lives suits him just fine.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Be prepared that it’s a bit chilly right now, relatively speaking: low 60s during the day and down to the 40s at night. You may need a light jacket or hoodie during the day and a warmer jacket at night. Have fun!

  47. 47.

    joel hanes

    @Ken:

    Once upon a time (1978), about 30% of working scientists in the US considered themselves Republican.

    Now I believe that number is about 3%.
    The Rs drove the scientists out of the party for being unwilling to accept ideologically-based policies that fly in the face of reality.

    Trump’s GOP is ejecting prety much everyone except older white male evangelicals and Catholics, and will lose some of them too as the widespread goring affects their own oxen.

  48. 48.

    Chris T.

    @hitchhiker: While Friday is the day they’ll feel it, today is the day it actually happened.

    Even if the orange lump were to mysteriously vanish overnight, and the Senate to pass the House bill, and it were signed by President Pence (shudder) or, far better, President Pelosi Thursday morning, they wouldn’t get paid Friday. It takes at least two days to get the wheels turning.

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Luthe: There is, but it would require Republican senators to support the move by the Democratic senators. That will not happen.

  51. 51.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: They’re predicting a 1/3 of an inch of rain for Friday night/Saturday morning, next week is when the majority of the rain(the kind that will bring the hills to the sea*) are predicted. Monday-Thursday they’re saying 3″ of rain here in beautiful Downtown Glendale.

    *…and Trump sez, “No FEMA for you”.

  52. 52.

    Redshift

    @Frankensteinbeck: I would say it’s less that McConnell could force Trump to sign it and more that everyone knows Trump will back down and not veto. There only reason the shutdown happened is because he said he wouldn’t sign and his lapdogs in the GOP House obediently passed a bill with Wall funding that they knew would die in the Senate.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Also, if you’re staying at the same place on Western and you like cute, cheap stuff from Japan, go across the street to the mall where the Ralph’s grocery store is and check out Daiso on the 2nd floor. Almost everything is $1.50 and almost everything is freakin’ adorable. That particular store has a great selection of sticky notes, page markers, erasers, and other stationery supplies.

  55. 55.

    lamh36

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: ok…cool. So our trip is late Friday until early Monday.

    We’ve got all day Saturday and most of Sunday to do stuff. Sunday evening is the Grammy concert at the Shrine. Still haven’t decided what to do…remember I’ve been at least 2x…my sis is new…so of course the Walk of Fame, and stuff…Universal park maybe…

    I will have a car, so driving to a destination is not an issue…hmmm we’ll see

  58. 58.

    Adam L Silverman

    People need to understand, there aren’t any actual cracks within McConnell’s caucus. He’s given Senators Murkowski, Collins, Tillis, Gardner, and Moore Capito permission to publicly grouse. So they can be on record ahead of their next elections that they’re opposed to the shutdown, reasonable, and willing to compromise. Both he and they know that the impression they’re trying to create will not be tested until and/or unless the President caves and agrees to sign appropriations bills and/or an omnibus continuing resolution to reopen the departments, offices, agencies, and/or bureaus that are now closed. And he knows this, and these publicly dissenting Republican senators know this, because he’s made it clear he won’t bring any bill to the floor, at least for this issue, unless the President makes it clear he’ll sign it. And since the President has already gone back on a clear statement that he’d sign these 6 appropriations bills and one short term continuing resolution for DHS back in December, McConnell also knows that even if the President clearly and publicly states he’ll do it, he still may not do it. And, as a result, McConnell will continue to do what he’s been doing: refusing to bring anything the House passes to reopen the government up to the floor for a vote, giving lachrymose speeches explaining why he can’t and won’t do so, and blaming the Democrats. And he will, as is the case with every other action he’s taken since January 2009, suffer not a single consequence as a result of his actions and/or inactions.

  59. 59.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Elizabeth Warren wins the first Daily Kos 2020 Presidential Straw Poll (full results)

    Well, our first presidential primary straw poll of the 2020 cycle began with a bang! Nearly 35,000 of you voted! The results:

    Elizabeth Warren…….22%
    Beto O’Rourke………..15%
    Kamala Harris………….14%
    Joe Biden………………..14%
    Wilmer……………………..11%
    Unsure…………………….09%
    Other……………………….09%
    Cory Booker…………….03%
    Julian Castro……………01%
    Kristen Gillibrand…….01%
    (link)

    BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA

    Turns out Wilmer wasn’t even popular with his own crowds, rather just a stand-in for others.

  60. 60.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Adam L Silverman: Put the turtle on a fencepost, and drive on. Senators are beginning to peel off, for self-preservation.

    When 20 R senators peel off, this horseshit will end.

  61. 61.

    B.B.A.

    It’s like the Seinfeld episode where George has to maintain his lie about having a place in the Hamptons. Except instead of driving all the way to Montauk, we’re just putting millions of people out of work.

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    @hitchhiker: The actual real day of reckoning will come sometime in the next week or so. That’s when the fresh food and the drugs that have passed FDA and/or USDA inspection prior to the shutdown will have cleared the supply chain. Starting sometime in the next couple of weeks every fresh foodstuff and every drug will have gone uninspected. And then we’ll see how long it will take for a massive e-coli or salmonella or other fresh food borne illness to break out and for the government to be unable to respond because those departments and agencies are also closed. Or a bad batch of medicine gets through and the pills people are taking to keep them alive start killing them.

  66. 66.

    Catherine D.

    @lahke: And my general rule for all eggs is to crack them one at a time into a tiny mise en place bowl. Rotten or half-chicks can be tossed before adding to the recipe.

  67. 67.

    Redshift

    Both Trump (behind closed doors) and Pence, in public, seemed astonished that Dems won’t trade the Wall for reopening the government, because that’s “something Democrats want.”

    I wish I could convey to anyone who wants a functioning government that they should only vote for Democrats, because they’re the only party that wants that. “It’s not me saying that, it’s the GOP leadership!”

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lgerard: The reason for McConnell’s separation from the Army during boot camp that he has made public was a treatable eye infection. It should have had him recycled into a new training cohort three weeks later. The real reason, however, is on his DD 214, which has been missing since the 1970s.

  72. 72.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Baud: also too, his cult always stuffs the online ballot box with repeated votes, and still, he did poorly.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: Yes, Idris could still win something. Yes, he’ll be at the award show so it will be worth it for you to watch it. We know your schtick.//

  75. 75.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @lamh36: Some places you might still want to use Metro since parking can be a problem and expensive.

    ETA: Count on rain Friday night and you may have rain for your flight out. Remember, LA drivers don’t know how to drive in the rain.

  76. 76.

    Melusine

    Where are all the decapitated Texans? Why aren’t the survivors lined up along the border with their family arsenals and ammo dumps screaming, “Remember the Alamo!” Why haven’t they been screaming for Shitler’s and every Congress critter’s head for the last two years for ignoring this ceaseless bloody slaughter?? Why has Fox News been ignoring this genocide????

    Oh yeah, cause it’s it’s all bullshit.

    Also, native born white men will not only stab you or decapitate you like them imaginary evil brown furriners – they’ll torture you, rape you, murder you, butcher you, eat you, and then fuck/worship your skull.

    Most serial killers in this country are white men. Just sayin’.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @joel hanes:

    Trump’s GOP is ejecting prety much everyone except older white male evangelicals and Catholics, and will lose some of them too as the widespread goring affects their own oxen.

    Actually the evangelicals will turn on the Catholics and the Mormons and the Orthodox Jews for being papists, polytheists, and Christ-killers. Then they’ll turn on each other over issues of theological and dogmatic purity and practice.

  85. 85.

    sukabi

    @A Ghost To Most: per the Daily Kos poll article there are about 24 likely dem candidates, they’re going to swap out the bottom 2 every week for 2 of the ones not included in that’s week poll…they mentioned Klobachar(sp?) in that explanation.

  86. 86.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Adam L Silverman: They said the same thing during Watergate. It’s Asshole’s Hierarchy of Greeds:

    Self
    Tribe (party)
    Country
    No Humans Involved.

    Eventually, self-preservation will take over. That’s my belief, although preparations continue.

  92. 92.

    B.B.A.

    @Miss Bianca: My guess is, the shutdown lasts long enough that CBP officers start deserting. Without them, there’s nothing to keep the Mexicans from flooding across the border to contaminate our precious bodily fluids.

  94. 94.

    chopper

    @lahke:

    that’s good. that’s called bloom, and the hen makes it to cover the eggs. it helps protect them and make them last longer. wash it off or don’t.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @A Ghost To Most: There was no Fox News or right wing talk radio during Watergate. White evangelical Christians were still, by and large, politically hibernating at the national level during Watergate – though they had begun to finally start to become active again at this time. There was no right wing social media, nor sites like Breitbart and Drudge and Gateway Pundit and Daily Caller and whatever that Shapiro idiot runs. The NRA wasn’t a hard core social and political conservative financing network. There wasn’t an entire ecosystem of hard right and right-libertarian think tanks and research institutes. The Kochs hadn’t taken control of economics departments and law schools. And the political parties were at the beginning of their demographic and ideologic realignments. And Hugh Scott of Philadelphia was the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate.

    The year is not 1974. Richard Nixon is not president. The political parties have now completed their demographic and ideologic realignments and are well into consolidation, save for college educated whites and suburban white women who may be realigning because of the President. And Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the Republican Majority Leader in the Senate.

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    …the pills people are taking to keep them alive start killing them.

    I take 1/2 tablet a day of a generic diuretic for blood pressure control. A 90-day supply is like a $5 co-pay. The pill was long, and quite hard and brittle, so easy to snap in half with my fingers. Then the pharmacy changed generic supplier.

    Now the pill is squat and round, and very soft and crumbly. I have to use either a really sharp knife or a pill splitter to get halves, and usually one half is shattered into tiny fragments and dust. So really inconvenient.

    Then I saw my family doctor the other day, and my BP wasn’t where it has been for the many years I’ve been using the generic product. It was up from 130/70 to 150/85 — so not only inconvenient, but it doesn’t appear to be controlling my blood pressure correctly.

    And who do I contact for this no longer functional medication right now?

    It isn’t killing me directly, but it isn’t helping me stay alive to see what happens next, is it? Grrrr. Pharma is as bad or worse than Republican Senators!!

  98. 98.

    Dan B

    @debbie: I saw a vet state that 31 per cent of furloughed federal employees are vets. Trump is harming vets. President Draft Dodger is hurting vets.

    Color me shocked.

  100. 100.

    Dan B

    @lamh36: Love Disney Hall!!! There is a way to walk all the way around it far above the sidewalk passing above a skylight for the lobby and a hidden artsy gem of a park. AMAZING! And the new Broad Museum is next door. Plus I love the LA County Museum of Art complex by the La Brea Tar Pits (hoping to get a rise out of Spanish speakers and savvy Angeles, ha!)

    And if you’ve got a car or budget for a Uber, the Huntington, especially the Desert garden, Wow! And the Chinese and Japanese Gardens ain’t nuttin to sneeze at. Bill in Gdale should get some pics of the Desert garden. Mind blowing.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: The FDA administrator tweeted it out:

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @J R in WV: Each generic manufacturer uses a slightly different formulary. You need to speak with your pharmacist, figure out who the manufacturer was for the pills that were working, and then see if your pharmacist can order those for you.

    Also, I’m not that type of doctor, I’m a PhD, not an MD or OD. I do know about this because it happened with a medication my mother was taking.

  103. 103.

    Ken

    @Adam L Silverman: Somehow I read that, and I hear “31% of the companies we deal with would be sweeping yard waste and human feces into their sausage grinders if we weren’t on their backs 24/7”.

  107. 107.

    Steve in the ATL

    On a related note, I drove around Panama City, Florida today. Very depressing. Not just because it’s Florida, but because three months after the hurricane there are still more blue tarps than roofs there.

    One humorous observation: not one Baptist church escapes the storm without major damage. God rests his case, you judgmental hypocrites.

  111. 111.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: A note to people who may not have noticed: Conservative Think Tanks do very little “thinking”. Their research is mostly to find ways to determine groups and subgroups who can be influenced to move the political needle. They train pundits in how to appear reasonable and persuasive in media. The big outfits have full TV and radio studios where their spokespeople can rehearse or broadcast directly. Not only do us “fishes” swim in the sea if corporate media but the citizens if the US have right wing and far right media channels and people pouring out of Think Tank conferences and seminars.

    Without these we’d have many more progressive representatives. We desperately need to fund progressive institutions to push back against wingnut welfare institutions.

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL: Actually, if I understand the problem correctly, there is still a significant backlog in the Federal and private insurance payments to make people whole on their losses. Some of this has less to do with the money being available as other bureaucratic hoops that are backlogged because there aren’t enough of whomever are supposed to sign off on certain steps so that payouts can be made or homes and buildings that are a complete loss can be destroyed. So they stay tarped and/or wrapped.

  113. 113.

    Dan B

    @Steve in the ATL: It reminds me of the Talebangicals screaming about Katrina being Gawds punishment for sinfulll Nwaluns. The verrry Gay French Quarter had the least damage. Of course the damage to the black 9th district was terrible so it doesn’t quite work.

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Dan B: No arguments from me. It is this dynamic that has given us everyone from David Brooks, who was a publicly self declared Trotskyite before he realized he could make a lot of money doing whatever it is he’s been doing for 30 plus years, to Megan McArdle, who is simply a publicly self demonstrating dumbass, to Chuck “Rage Furby” Johnson, who is simply a publicly self identified racist.

  115. 115.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Dan B: so your theory is that if more of the black residents of the 9th had been gay, the area would have suffered less damage?

    I’ve heard crazier things.

  116. 116.

    Salty Sam

    @Adam L Silverman:

    there is still a significant backlog in the Federal and private insurance payments to make people whole on their losses.

    Here in Rockport TX, fourteen months after Harvey, there are still buildings that are “blue-roofed” (interesting term, but real). Many condos, retail shops, and homes still waiting to be either demolished or rebuilt. Many folks are still fighting with insurance to cover repairs, even after maintaining full coverage policies for year/decades without a single claim. FEMA and Red Cross were useless, turned down a vast majority of requests for aid.

    I watched as Michael came ashore in FL panhandle and knew it would not be good…

  119. 119.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dan B:

    We desperately need to fund progressive institutions to push back against wingnut welfare institutions.

    Amen, brother.

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:
    Here is a website that will help you identify any drug manufacture.
    As I use the VA and the VA uses generic unless they can get a deal on still on patient drugs or those drugs are so lifesaving that there is no choice, I check every time I get a new prescription or a refill. Some of the drugs I take have several generic mfg, so often every refill looks different. I’m also very careful to watch what each drug is supposed to do, so that if that changes I can report this and call attention to it.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I know what kind of Dr you are, Adam, I have PhD friends who won’t talk about any kind of medical thing, lest they be accused of working outside their field.

    @Ruckus:

    Thanks for the feedback!

    I’m on this thing, still have a few of the original, the bottles actually have the manufacturers on the label, so that at least is easy.

  122. 122.

    Rand Careaga

    @Adam L Silverman: David Brooks a “publicly self declared Trotskyite”? Look, I yield to no man in my contempt for the second-dumbest individual to hold an op-ed gig at the NYT in living memory, but he’s been an insufferable right-wing twit since at least his undergraduate years.

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