Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I was promised a recession.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans in disarray!

Come on, man.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let’s finish the job.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: A Responsible Social Safety Net

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: A Responsible Social Safety Net

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This will not come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard Elizabeth Warren talk about being a single mom desperately using M&Ms to toilet-train her daughter over a long weekend… because if the toddler wasn’t out of diapers, the daycare center wouldn’t admit her, and if the daycare center balked, Mommy wouldn’t be able to take the job she desperately needed to feed them both.

Whether or not it’s the best metric, money is how we measure the worth of jobs, and establishing that the people who care for our kids are ‘worth’ a living wage, well…


So far, Warren’s socialistic ideas don’t seem to be scaring prospective voters away:

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  3. 3.

    Bess

    Get the good ideas like this one out early. All of them. Let people get over their initial “shock” that we might change how we do things. Over the next year refine the ideas and fully explain how they would likely work.

    Go for complete control of both the White House and Congress in 2020 and make stuff happen quickly in 2021. Show up in January with bills ready for a vote. Give Republicans a limited time to study the bills and offer changes, improve the bills, vote them through.

  7. 7.

    Plato

    If the last two standing are both women, can we an all women team for 2020 and kick the traitorous thug’s nuts?

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “It was the moment,” Mendonsa told CBS News in 2012. “You come back from the Pacific and finally, the war ends. The excitement of the war being over, plus I had a few drinks. So when I saw the nurse, I grabbed her and I kissed her.”

    – George Mendonsa RIP

    Mendonsa was on leave and had been on a date with another woman when he heard the war was over. His date, Rita Petrie, is seen in the background of the photo. She said she didn’t mind that he locked lips with another woman amid the celebration. In fact, she became his wife of seven decades.

    “Either I was dopey or something, but it didn’t bother me!” she told CBS, adding that he would sometimes repeat the performance. “It’ll come up that he’s ‘The Kissing Sailor’. So the kissing sailor has to think he has to kiss everybody. So he does!”

  13. 13.

    Melusine

    So wait, you mean if billionaires and giant corporations pay their fair share we could like…get useful stuff to dramatically improve our lives? ?

    ?

    Nah, Imma go with the useless orange con man again. Maybe NEXT year I’ll get a couple hundred back in my tax refund. Maybe.
    /s

    I’m starting to seriously love Warren. Harris is tough and I could see her staring down Putin. I’d love women for both spots on the ticket, but I don’t want either of them for Veep. Warren for head of a new, improved CFPB maybe if Harris wins, with expanded powers. And if Warren’s President, then Harris as Sec of State? I’d like to see her negotiating on our behalf.

    Don’t want Gabbard anywhere near the WH. Maybe Klobuchar for Veep, unless the reports about her abusing staff are true, in which case fuck her. I’ve worked for enough toxic bosses of both genders to know a) no one should have to put up with that shit to keep a job and b) they inevitably drive away talented people who can afford to leave.

    Maybe Stacey Abrams, but I’d dearly love to see her make her own WH run someday. She’s like the female embodiment of Morgan Freeman’s voice. When I see her speak, I just feel BETTER about things. Like, yeah there’s some really hard shit going on right now, but I’ve got you and we’ve got this. She comes across as someone who’s dealt with so much in their own life that they can roll with any crisis. And do it without losing their sense of humor or humanity. But her state needs her right now.

  15. 15.

    Patricia Kayden

    I love that all of the Democratic candidates are running on overturning that ridiculous, unnecessary tax cut for the mega rich. I’m old enough to remember Trump promising to pass a tax cut for the middle class just before the midterms. Of course, that never happened.

  16. 16.

    Immanentize

    Good morning, All!
    I really don’t care much (yet?) how this primary sorts itself out as long as it doesn’t involve Democrats slaughtering Democrats in the process. I am hopeful that with as many women as there are in the pool, that far less attacking will occur than in previous primaries.

  22. 22.

    PsiFighter37

    Bernie is officially in…lovely. I hope the oppo research teams on the other campaigns stomp all over his ass this time. Clinton was way too kind in giving him the treatment not dissimilar to what Labour did when they let Corbyn in the leadership race…and look how that turned out.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Life imitating art?

    A Minnesota businessman has been charged in a 25-year-old murder case, after investigators ran crime scene DNA evidence through a genealogy website then obtained the suspect’s DNA from a napkin thrown away at a hockey rink.

    Jerry Westrom, 52, was charged with second-degree murder in the 1993 death of 35-year-old Jeanne Ann “Jeanie” Childs in Minneapolis, a case that had gone cold. Childs’ body was found in her apartment, which, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was in an area known for prostitution. Police found her dead in the shower, wearing only socks, with the water running. She had dozens of stab wounds, several inflicted after she died.

    The accused is a father of two from Isanti, Minnesota, who was 27 at the time of the crime, according to the Star Tribune. He was released from jail on Friday in Hennepin county, after posting bail.

    The FBI ran DNA from the crime scene through an online genealogy website in 2018 and got a match, the Hennepin county attorney, Mike Freeman, told the newspaper. Either Westrom or a close relative had submitted DNA to the site to get information about family genealogy. “If we don’t have a match, we don’t have a case,” Freeman said.

    Officers then followed Westrom in hopes of collecting a sample of his DNA, and got lucky at a hockey game where he ordered a hotdog at a concession stand, wiped his mouth after eating, and tossed the napkin in the trash. Investigators matched the DNA on the napkin to that found on a washcloth at the crime scene, the Star Tribune reported. Authorities said DNA taken from Westrom after his arrest also connected him to the crime scene.

    I remember a movie where they caught the perp in this exact manner, but for the life of me I can not come up with it’s name at the moment.

  27. 27.

    Immanentize

    Looks like Wilmer is going the Schultz route of being color-blind:

    We have got to look at candidates not by the color of their skin, not by their sexual orientation or gender, and not by their age. I think we have got to try to move us toward a nondiscriminatory society that looks at people based on their abilities, based on what they stand for.

    ETA Old straight white guy making the case for old straight white guys.

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: agreed. Hillary dispatched Wilmer. Almost any Democrat running will do it again. Especially if Warren (or any other candidate) can crush him in NH.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    I think we have got to try to move us toward a nondiscriminatory society that looks at people based on their abilities, based on what they stand for.

    We are Bernie. And you don’t measure up.

  36. 36.

    Chyron HR

    @Immanentize:

    I think we have got to try to move us toward a nondiscriminatory society that looks at people based on their abilities, based on what they stand for.

    “Unless I lose again, in which case human civilization must be destroyed for its folly.”

  41. 41.

    plato

    @Azelie: I think that boogie man is overrated. Look at the other party, they are not even letting their own to primary the traitor.

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: Not according to anything I have read. From the amazon page for the book, The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II:

    On August 14, 1945, Alfred Eisenstaedt took a picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, minutes after they heard of Japan’s surrender to the United States. Two weeks later LIFE magazine published that image. It became one of the most famous WWII photographs in history (and the most celebrated photograph ever published in the world’s dominant photo-journal), a cherished reminder of what it felt like for the war to finally be over. Everyone who saw the picture wanted to know more about the nurse and sailor, but Eisenstaedt had no information and a search for the mysterious couple’s identity took on a dimension of its own. In 1979 Eisenstaedt thought he had found the long lost nurse. And as far as almost everyone could determine, he had. For the next thirty years Edith Shain was known as the woman in the photo of V-J Day, 1945, Times Square. In 1980 LIFE attempted to determine the sailor’s identity. Many aging warriors stepped forward with claims, and experts weighed in to support one candidate over another. Chaos ensued.

    For almost two decades Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi were intrigued by the controversy surrounding the identity of the two principals in Eisenstaedt’s most famous photograph and collected evidence that began to shed light on this mystery. Unraveling years of misinformation and controversy, their findings propelled one claimant’s case far ahead of the others and, at the same time, dethroned the supposed kissed nurse when another candidate’s claim proved more credible. With this book, the authors solve the 67-year-old mystery by providing irrefutable proof to identify the couple in Eisenstaedt’s photo. It is the first time the whole truth behind the celebrated picture has been revealed.

    The authors also bring to light the couple’s and the photographer’s brushes with death that nearly prevented their famous spontaneous Times Square meeting in the first place. The sailor, part of Bull Halsey’s famous task force, survived the deadly typhoon that took the lives of hundreds of other sailors. The nurse, an Austrian Jew who lost her mother and father in the Holocaust, barely managed to escape to the United States. Eisenstaedt, a World War I German soldier, was nearly killed at Flanders.

  45. 45.

    trnc

    Wowza. The line to see [email protected] in Los Angeles is as big as I’ve seen. All the way down this block, round the corner, and beyond.

    I don’t know what the obsession is with pointing out lines at Warren events, but I don’t think it’s as impressive as they seem to think. The line in the picture could probably fill up the first 8 rows in the theater. Crowd shots will eventually tell the story, but I could personally give a rats ass about crowd size before the primaries get going. Focus on the message and the crowds will grow.

  47. 47.

    trnc

    @Azelie:

    It’s a difficult situation. If he runs as an independent he splits the Democratic vote.

    He essentially did that in 2016 by whining.

  51. 51.

    Lapassionara

    @satby: Dems should require all Dem primary candidates to release at least ten years of tax returns.

    Good morning, everyone.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Don’t know about a movie, but they have used the same technique to get DNA samples on Law and Order.

    And this case is but another example of why there is no statute of limitations on murder.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    Thanks to landmark child care legislation more than a decade ago, many parents who once struggled to afford quality child care are now eligible for financial assistance. Whether a parent prefers a child care center or a family child care provider, help is available to low-income working parents. Specific eligibility levels and the process for obtaining a subsidy vary by state.
    Ohio Publicly Funded Care
    In Ohio, public child care subsidy is generally available for low-income working parents or parents enrolled in approved work or training programs. Other eligibility guidelines also apply.

    There may be less resistance to this than one would think, because many states are already paying child care subsidies for people at 100% of poverty level- 100% is really ow- in Ohio it’s a little less then a full time minimum wage job for one adult plus one child.

    But many states have adopted this idea already- it’s just limited to very poor people and no one talks about it for some reason.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: I rather doubt you misremember so much as have a vague recollection. I have a vague recollection of such a theory as well. It just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Neither do the “staged moon landings”, the “flat earth theory”, or the “vaccines cause autism” stupidity, but one doesn’t have to look far to find websites promoting them.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    So when people say Warren is “far Left” she can point to all the states who already subsidize childcare – because I think it’s a success. I’ve never heard anything bad about it and if I recall correctly it was sold as a way to keep everyone employed and working.

  65. 65.

    Princess

    I like Warren a whole lot and this plan would make a big difference to people — they’ve done something like it in Quebec and it has been a great thing.
    I also like Harris. She’s the only candidate who has lived somewhere with single payer healthcare and has a parent who worked as a doctor in that system. She’s well placed to know what is good and bad.
    I like Gillenbrand and Klobuchar too, but they interest me less. However, if that’s how people want to go, fine with me. I also like Buttigieg and Castro a whole lot (but wow, it was harsh that Dolores Huerta did not even endorse her own son. Ouch).

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @Bess:

    Give Republicans a limited time to study the bills and offer changes

    I guess I’m just a nastier person, but I’m hoping for majorities in the House and Senate and constant invocation of the Hastert and McConnell rules: We consider no Republican proposals unless the entire Democratic caucus supports them, and we consider no bill at all unless President Warren supports it.

    (For extra vindictiveness points, call it the “former Republican speaker and confessed sex criminal Dennis Hastert rule”.)

  71. 71.

    Melusine

    @Immanentize: Of course. Old rich white guys always got that way solely on the basis of THEIR virtues and accomplishments, right? They never got/had to play the gender card or race card or sexual identity card….

    [because it was automatically played for them, without them even having to think about it. which is why they get so mad when certain people talk about “privilege”. because they didn’t get to enjoy the sensation of having it.]

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: All good but sounds like Bernie. She could have led with voting rights, we all know the the GOP’s #1 voter suppression target is black people.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    A child care center costs about 125-150 a week here. I paid $75 13 years ago so it’s almost doubled. Home-based child cares are cheaper but I always preferred a center- I think adults behave better when there’s other adults in the room :)

    The quality probably goes up in the home-based day cares if they participate in the subsidy program because they get inspected and have to follow safety rules, etc. Many people use the home-based places because they work 2nd or 3rd shift, and the centers are just for 1st shifters. I know it varies hugely- one of my daughter’s friends pays about 15k a year just for child care in Columbus on what I would guess is 100k combined income.

  77. 77.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    She always finishes strong. I want people to know I see it and I’m going to do something about it.

    @satby:

    I like Warren on some things like wages, bankruptcy, taxation, SEC regulation but not on trade at all. I don’t think Warren or Brown are the right people for our country’s trade policies and we desperately need to sort it out because we are losing our green energy sector to the anti trade anti environment trump administration. I’m still very angry at Warren and Brown for sabotaging TPP the way they did.

    Also too fuck Wilmer.

  78. 78.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We’ll have to see, but I think Sanders is going to do much worse this time. In 2016, he seemed, at first, to be speaking of lefty D ideals. I approve of those ideals. It was only later that I heard him downplaying sexism and misogyny, failing to provide a way to achieve his ideals, and finally attacking HRC. He was a bad loser. Every time he did one of those things, he lost some potential votes. People are going to remember that, so he starts from a weaker place. And he has more competition in his lane. And he just seems like a holdover from the past.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: It’s a big deal, a very big deal. If one has children one knows this first hand and it doesn’t take a whole lot of thought for others to get it too. Especially when the #1 reason they are forgoing children is the cost of having them.

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    She is from the state that gave us Philando Castile.
    I’m going to need all the ‘Kamala is a cop’ muthaphuckas to pipe up and step to former prosecutor Klobuchar in the same way.??

  82. 82.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    She was talking specifically about New Hampshire voters in New Hampshire. The NH GOP shenanigans here have to do with tying up Democratic campaign phone lines and other bizarre shit but not suppressing the black vote.

  84. 84.

    Princess

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, and once you poked at his lefty ideals, you realized they were nothing but slogans — he had no plans to back them up and didn’t even seem to understand what he was proposing (cf. the NYDN interview and the plan to break up the banks, which he has quietly dropped). I think, frankly, his heart is the right place –sort of, in some areas — but at bottom, he just isn’t very bright.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    I like Warren the best on policy but we had so many other things to deal with last time I feel like we never really grappled with the anti-female bias that is out there, even among the Democratic base.

    Maybe it will be fine, it worked out with Obama and there was certainly racism in the Democratic primary base – I mean, OVERT here, you’d have to be blind to miss it, so maybe it’s factored in to these campaigns.

    Our base is NOT all that open-minded – let’s just be honest about that. Many of them are horrible.

  86. 86.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    When people say Warren is far left she can say I’m just repackaging Neo liberal corporate shill Clinton’s 2016 Chikdcsre proposals. ?

  88. 88.

    Bess

    @Ken: I understand the sentiment but I think the country would be better served in the long run is we allow Republicans input.

    In the best of worlds we would probably be best off with one party pushing progressive ideas and the other party looking at them critically, pointing out legitimate problems and working on ways to make them most cost effective. Then the more conservative, business oriented party could present their ideas and let the progressive side give objective critical input.

    If we let Republicans give their input it doesn’t mean that they get to mark out stuff they don’t like as long as they don’t have the votes.

    We should go high when we can. Both sides going low is likely to make for a very unhappy country.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I think it’s important for another reason- because it appeals to younger people. Day care is only really a huge central interest of people for 5 years. It’s a set period in their lives, then they’re in school, you don’t need it so much anymore and you forget about it because you have the next set of problems and expenses. It’s a subsidy that will go almost entirely to the younger half of adults. Democrats don’t address them enough and Warren has always been good on their issues.

    It’s why I don’t focus so much on chronological age. If they remain relevant and clued into young people they’re fine at any age. Warren does. Pelosi does too.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense:

    She was talking specifically about New Hampshire voters in New Hampshire.

    There are black people in New Hampshire?///

    Seriously tho, she’s not talking just to New Hampshire voters. This was in a nationally broadcast “town hall” (unless I am mistaken?). She’s talking to black voters everywhere, she should be talking about the issues that affect black people in particular, not these kinds of vague standard talking points that every DEM. mutters in every election. Voting rights is one. Police violence is another. Substandard schools. Incarceration of young black males. etc etc etc

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    @trnc: Maybe we can ask DougJ! to set up a Thermometer where we each contribute a quarter for each time he says “Corrupt™” or “Millionaires and Billionaires™” or points his finger and gets shouty. A Thermometer to benefit the Democratic nominee…

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    Day care is only really a huge central interest of people for 5 years.

    I have to take exception to the 5 years. More like 10 or 12 years depending on the maturity of your child. I certainly never would have let either of my 6 or 7 year old sons come home to an empty house.

  93. 93.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh sorry I thought you were talking about the NH interview. She’s been very vocal and active about voter suppression. I don’t think she has to say it in every interview. I also think that we are a terribly racist country – including on the left side of politics and she will have to walk a tightrope just like Obama did when it comes to discussing race.

  94. 94.

    Leto

    @Bess: Unfortunately this won’t work because 1) Republicans don’t know how to govern and 2) Republicans argue in bad faith. When your singular policy of tax cuts and bombing brown people are your only ideas, people notice. Also I want a second round of the FDR model: fuck you, we have the votes and we’re going to pass this. If we could count on the Republicans being sane, working with us constructively to further advance the j threats of the American public, then sure, include them in the sausage making process. But they’re not, so fuck’em. They had their chance and they used it to punch down, as expected.

  95. 95.

    Leto

    @MomSense: I think in nationally televised interviews the candidate should bring it up. I agree, not every interview, but when you’re on the big stage (all eyes on them) they should. It says you recognize POC and the problems they face. It’ll be a tightrope but it must be done.

  96. 96.

    sherparick

    @Bess: The guys and gals at the NYT political desk are yawning at Warren’s proposals and want to get back to questions about why 30 years ago she thought she was an American Indian (because her Mom told her is apparently not good enough). Questions must be raised, unless it is about Donald Trump.

    A little known fact. The United States had a universal, free child care program from 1942-1945, to encourage mothers to go to work, particularly but not exclusively war plants.

  97. 97.

    Bess

    @Leto: Please read my original comment.

    I said nothing about sharing control with the present Republican party. I suggested coming to the first day of the 2021 Congress with bills ready for a vote, giving Republicans a limited time to review and make suggestions. If there are any good suggestions then take them.

    Down the road we need to get the country back to where the two parties cooperate as they have in the best of times. We’ve been much better at discussing and horse trading in the past.

  98. 98.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense:

    She’s been very vocal and active about voter suppression.

    Good, but I think she needs to hammer on voting rights at every opportunity.

    I also think that we are a terribly racist country –

    I know we are. And we will continue to be as long as we don’t confront it at every opportunity..

  99. 99.

    mere mortal

    Gah.

    Listen to Atrios, everybody. Don’t means test programs, provide them for everyone and deal with the costs through the progressive income tax.

    Keep it simple, stupid.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    True, but it’s much less expensive when it’s bookending school. My daughter complained about after school day care. She wanted to come home and she probably would have been fine but my middle son would have been jumping out windows, so they all had to go. OTOH she still has some of the friends she made in after school daycare, so it wasn’t all bad for her.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense: Aha, we has cornfusion. @rikyrah: comment that I was replying to was this:

    @donlemon asks what is her agenda for Black America. @amyklobuchar says economics is key: retraining, increase minimum wage, access to health care & childcare. #KlobucharTownHall

  104. 104.

    Leto

    @Bess: I did read your comment. Please go back and read mine. They’re an insane party. They don’t have good ideas. They don’t know how to govern. If they did, we wouldn’t be in as much shit as we are. Continuing to operate on the belief that there are sane Republicans is faulty. When they continually show you who they are, believe them.

    @MomSense: I believe it, but like Ozark said, she needs to hammer it. Honestly all of the candidates need to hammer it every time. Fuck John Roberts.

  105. 105.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I can’t imagine:

    In late March 2015, Bashiurul Shikder made an urgent call home to ask about his wife and children. The 37-year-old American had just completed a pilgrimage to Mecca and his repeated messages to his wife in Florida had gone unanswered for over a week. Come home, his family told him. They’re in hospital. A short while later came the truth: “They finally told me, ‘they’re gone’,” said Shikder. “She’d taken them to Isis.”

    In the anguished following days and the four long years since, Shikder’s search for his children, Yusuf, then seven, and Zahra, then three, has been a bitter journey, which he has kept to himself until now. As the ground held by Islamic State shrank, Shikder desperately followed his family’s retreat to the last enclave of the final town held by the group – a battered pocket of an eastern Syrian town named Baghuz.

    There, amid the rubble of an intensive air campaign to oust the remnants of Isis and reclaim the last patch of the so-called caliphate after a withering five-year war, Yusuf and Zahra are believed to be alive, along with just a few hundred fighters and family members. The two American children are now without a mother – she was killed in Baghuz three weeks ago – and, according to two Isis-affiliated women who fled Baghuz in the past week, they have been taken in by British jihadists, who do not plan on leaving.

    ………………………………..

    Far away in Florida, where his four-year nightmare continues, Shikder says a strong faith and enduring love for his children give him reason to hope. “My children will come back to me: this is my faith. I will tell them that God did not leave you and I will never leave you, even though your mother left you. It will be the happiest moment of my life.

    May your prayers be answered.

  106. 106.

    BellyCat

    @Baud:

    As a childless person, I’m not sure I want to finance the fecundity of others.

    You tell ‘em! And you shouldn’t have to pay School Tax either!1!!1!

    I mean, why pay to help raise and educate kids whose parents can’t afford private school — especially when they’ll probably join the Demoncrat Party!!!1!1!! ///

  107. 107.

    Bess

    @Leto: I read yours. You may have read mine but you failed to comprehend what I wrote.

    We can’t give the present Republican party any control if we want to make progress. But we need to take some steps to returning to a saner political process in which people with differing opinions discuss and come to agreements. We’ve been there before. We would have better governance if we returned to being a community that cooperated.

  108. 108.

    Immanentize

    @Leto: Example numero uno — Health Care. Obama designed his program as a very particular response to Republican input and trials for a market based system. What did Republicans do? Hmmm, I can’t remember it was so long ago.

  109. 109.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Also, New Hampshire has A big voting suppression issue right now. The aged but forever Voting official who was a Democrat once perhaps has been working hard to stop students from voting. Clear violations of the constitutional right to travel, etc. So there is plenty to talk about regarding voting rights in New Hampshire.

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: to quote myself:

    I made some smoked pastrami this week following a couple of online recipes and some sage advice from Immanentize. Turned out horrible. Worst shit I’ve ever eaten. Just to make sure it was as bad as I first thought it was I had a second sandwich that was even worse than the first. So bad I can’t feed it to the dogs. So bad I daren’t throw it into the trashcan lest some poor itinerant bear finds it. I guess I’ll just have to eat it all myself.

    Sacrifices have to be made, you know.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Bess:

    But we need to take some steps to returning to a saner political process in which people with differing opinions discuss and come to agreements.

    When the GOP starts behaving sanely, we can have a discussion about this. Until then, we can hash things out within the Democratic Party.

  118. 118.

    tokyokie

    @OzarkHillbilly: I used to make sausage for tailgating at Sooner football games, and you can find everything you need to know from Rytek Kutas’ book on the subject. (I can’t remember the title exactly, but Google won’t turn up a lot of people named Rytek Kutas.) Of course, you’ll need to scale back the recipes, as Kutas’ seemed aimed at feeding several dozen people. (Or maybe a half-dozen who weigh about the same as he did.) But you’ll need casings (I prefer sheep gut casings, but they’re not uniform in size and shape, so you might try collagen casings if you’re feeding guests.) a meat grinder and access to large quantities of fresh spices. Oh. And if you’re using a really lean cut of meat, you’ll need to make a fattier meat about a third of the weight because most of the spices are fat rather than water soluble.

  119. 119.

    VOR

    There is going to be considerable backlash to Warren’s proposal from the usual suspects. Anyone who thinks she is trying to indoctrinate our children. People who think the moms ought to be at home taking care of the kids. I’m thinking of my die-hard republican sister, who loudly proclaimed she “didn’t believe in childcare” and then had our mother caring for her children full time (uncompensated, of course) while she went to work. Kneejerk opposition to any taxes. Kneejerk opposition to further state intrusion on our Freedoms. Rich idiots saying they don’t see a problem while they import au pairs and nannies from other countries.

  120. 120.

    Mike in Pasadena

    I loved seeing the marquee of the Alex theater in Santa Monica marking the location of Senator Warren’s appearance in SoCal. Excellent location scouts in her campaign.

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