Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

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

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Thursday Evening Open Thread: ‘Dumb’ vs. ‘Willfully Ignorant’

Thursday Evening Open Thread: ‘Dumb’ vs. ‘Willfully Ignorant’

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I first read Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi when I was 9 or 10 (my English-teacher mother gave me a copy when I told her Tom Sawyer was a terrible book, and I was having doubts about Twain’s literary stature). That book made explicit one of the great ‘secrets’ of American life: There’s a considerable percentage of our fellow citizens who genuinely admire con artists, thugs, and those who ‘know how to get what they want, whatever it takes.’

The number of such secret fellow-felons has certainly grown no less, here in our second Gilded Age. It’s not necessarily that all Trump voters are stupid (although many of them *are* plenty stupid; look at the Fox talking heads!), but they choose to insist on being ignorant enough to believe the crap Fox / Trump / the entire GOP ladles into their gaping maws…

As another great American artist once said, You can’t cheat an honest man…


Reader Interactions

198Comments

  1. 1.

    TS (the original)

    Woman just jailed in NY for 12 years for pretending to be a socialite and heir to a fortune – fooled the banks hotels friends etc. Trump does the same and they elect him president*

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I know one of those guys is named Doocy and the other one isn’t, but I never have known which is which, nor can I ever remember Not-Doocy’s real name.

    I don’t really want to know. And if you tell me, I probably won’t remember. Just making noise.

  3. 3.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I know one of those guys is named Doocy and the other one isn’t, but I never have known which is which, nor can I ever remember Not-Doocy’s real name.

    One of the twitter nicknames for that trio is ‘A Blonde with Two Boobs on A Couch.’ That’s good enough for me!

  4. 4.

    VeniceRiley

    I know a late night comedy writer that took a job in reality tv for a while. IT IS ALL SCRIPTED. None of it is real.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: The blonde, effeminate one is Doocy. The meathead with brown hair is Kilmeade. Basically, from Earnhardt’s perspective Doocy is the right boob and Kilmeade is the left boob of The Blonde with Two Boobs on a Sofa Morning Show.

  7. 7.

    Sebastian

    Fellow jackals, friendly reminder that we have a special election for NC-9 next week.

    Four Directions, a vote rider org for Native Americans just called me and asked for help to GOTV/vote ride 1,000 members of a tribe whose name I forgot. Chipped in $50, which I figured is a tank of gas. If I remember correctly it was here where I was introduced to them during the South Dakota bullshit last year.

    If you feel so inclined, here is their ActBlue page:
    https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fourdirections2019

    Or donate to any other GOTV org of your choice of course.

  8. 8.

    lumpkin

    Well, by definition half the population IS dumb. Good to see that a lot of them are owning it. The dumbass republicans are still seriously underrepresented in this
    study however.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    Always remember that what makes Trump’s enablers so awful is that almost all of them, including at Fox, know better.

    And they are willing to do this because all they care about is power.

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    but I never have known which is which,

    Doocy is the stupid-looking moron, and Kilmeade is the dumb-looking asshole.

    Glad I could help.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    Love the short film that accompanies this story.

    When Doug Peacock returned from his second tour in Vietnam, he was ready for some peace and quiet. He found it in the wilds of Montana and Wyoming, where Yellowstone National Park provided refuge for thousands of species of wildlife. Peacock learned to live among these creatures in the mountains and on the plains. An encounter with a grizzly bear, however, would change everything.

  13. 13.

    TenguPhule

    So the solution is to make the dumb people unhappy.

    And keep them there.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    Dad gets to go see the kiddo run the 1600 in division sectionals tonight. Top 6 qualify for masters, fingers crossed.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    Trump is theatrical and he hates the right people. Everything else is marginal to his supporters.

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    @SFAW:
    On his old show Colbert called them “Steve Doocy and guy who’s not Steve Doocy.” Still works for me.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: He pushes their fear buttons and plucks their resentment strings like no one in recent memory…and fear is a drug for some. They really do feed on it, crave it, etc etc. It’s sick.

    I’m surprised no one has thought to ask trumpov why he always plays “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at his rallies. Candidates (any office, every era) want something uplifting, upbeat, positive. His theme is ‘nope, you suck, now let me tell you who to blame’.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    @MomSense:
    I’ve noticed this. I remember commenting here that the men dress for business, the women for … let’s call it Sunday brunch.

  23. 23.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Anne Laurie:

    One of the twitter nicknames for that trio is ‘A Blonde with Two Boobs on A Couch.’ That’s good enough for me!

    I think Mr Charles P. Pierce* came up with that or something very similar (“Two Boobs and a Blonde,” IIRC).

    * ETA: Or Dr Adam L. Silverman, of course :-)

  24. 24.

    cmorenc

    @Sebastian:

    Four Directions, a vote rider org for Native Americans just called me and asked for help to GOTV/vote ride 1,000 members of a tribe whose name I forgot.

    In NC-9, that tribe is likely the Lumbee Indians, who tend to be clustered in western Robeson county around Pembroke, and the adjacent areas of eastern Hoke / Scotland counties.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    @TenguPhule:
    Actually, most dumb people are already unhappy; living with the consequences of one’s own dumbness generally does not bring much joy.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    I’m surprised no one has thought to ask trumpov why he always plays “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at his rallies.

    A long time ago (and maybe still), Rush Limbaugh used to play that on his show. For them, it stands for denying liberals the things they want.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SFAW:

    Doocy is the stupid-looking moron, and Kilmeade is the dumb-looking asshole.

    Glad I could help.

    With help like this….

  29. 29.

    tobie

    @cmorenc:Do you know when the special elections in NC will be held? I haven’t been paying attention but I know they’re coming soon.

  30. 30.

    Harbison

    5/ It’s also a reminder the Trump is a masterful con man and will apply the same level of b.s. in the 2020 election that he used on his endless chain of credulous lenders; lies, fraud, deception, and falsified financials are likely going to expose him to both risk and ridicule.

    Oh, it’s going to be much worse. As Josh Marshall has been detailing over at TPM, Giuliani is touring around meeting with despots trying to enlist their aid in smearing political opponents.

    In 2016 all the leverage Trump had was his candidacy to offer. Now he has a good chunk of the power of the US behind him along with at least one branch of Congress that doesn’t appear interested in doing anything to stand in his way.

  31. 31.

    p.a.

    Stupid and happy ~=~ un-self-aware and happy. The “I have no regrets” person… really? Never hurt someone else, never were curt, rude, insulting, insensitive, etc or worse??!! You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.
    I screw up every day.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Conservatives think that’s a good conservative song putting down welfare moochers and PC snowflakes.

  35. 35.

    Mike in NC

    Interesting to note that Donald Trump also dabbled in pro wrestling, which an alarming number of people in this country think is real. They changed the name to WWE for a reason (“entertainment”).

  37. 37.

    Ohio Mom

    What that bar graph says to me is, it’s true that Independents are almost always Republicans who don’t want to admit it.

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mike in NC:

    Donald Trump also dabbled in pro wrestling,

    Thanks for that. Now I need brain bleach to cleanse myself of the mental image of Donald Trump in wrestlng tights.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    Dad gets to go see the kiddo run the 1600 in division sectionals tonight. Top 6 qualify for masters, fingers crossed.

    Best of luck!

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in NC:

    Interesting to note that Donald Trump also dabbled in pro wrestling, which an alarming number of people in this country think is real.

    They know it’s fake. They just don’t care, because it makes them happy.

    These people think about Trump in much the same way.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I did not know that…and here I thought I was up on all my political ‘inside baseball’!

    What is that, like a double-dog-whistle, then? A triple if you count it as essentially flipping the bird to Mick and Keith telling him to stop? It’s like Cleek’s Law on steroids, in audio form.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    (Bleg reposted for those who skipped the gunz thread.)

    Anybody have any experience with Apple Music (not iTunes)? I got a free account when I upgraded my cell-phone plan, but I haven’t fired it up yet. Any advice appreciated.

    I do know the basics, but I was wondering about things like hidden fees, comparison with Spotify, the interface sucks, the app is a memory hog, lag time is a problem, etc. Or “Hey, it changed my life!”

  51. 51.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MomSense:

    I think Fox put it in the women’s contracts that they can’t wear pants.

    Baud has the same contract

  52. 52.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @trollhattan:

    Dad gets to go see the kiddo run the 1600 in division sectionals tonight. Top 6 qualify for masters, fingers crossed.

    How exciting! Everything crossable is crosssed.

  54. 54.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Steeplejack: my wife has it even though we have the Spotify family plan and it’s better in every way. But she represents Apple so….

  55. 55.

    misterpuff

    “Dumb and Happy” = Good Paying job (Until mine closes down or union busted and production moves overseas)

    “Dumb and Happy” = Comfortable Home (Until can’t afford downpayment or home value falls)

    “Dumb and Happy” = Good Health (Until medical expenses decimates savings)

    “Dumb and Happy” = Huntin’, Fishin’ and Foolin’ Around aka Guns, Boats and Pickups (until gas spikes and you have to hunt to put food on the table)

    “Smart and Sad” = My everyday state but I can pay my bills and buy shit that ultimately doesn’t make me happy)

    All in all, I’ll take that trade.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I think Colbert, in his previous Colbert Report persona, used to always refer to Brian Kilmeade as “not Steve Doucy.” So it’s not just you.

  59. 59.

    Steve in the ATL

    @trollhattan:

    Top 6 qualify for masters, fingers crossed.

    I hope she qualifies and wins the Masters next year instead of some jerk who cheats on his wife repeatedly and eats at Applebee’s.

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack:

    Weirdness is afoot on TCM — a movie starring Roy Orbison. It seems to be an attempt to make him into Elvis. No cigar.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    So it’s not just you.

    Heh. If I’m in company with Colbert in any of his incarnations, I won’t complain.

  63. 63.

    Kent

    This is why I still do facebook.

    I have a shitload of extended family relatives as well as some neighbors and even co-workers who are this mind-numbingly stupid and brainwashed. Well, maybe brainwashed isn’t the right word as I’m not sure some of them had any brains to wash in the first place.

    But checking into the stupidy on facebook from people that I actually know in real life is a good reality check for me. It is too easy to wall yourself off into your own world. I don’t actually ever engage in the stupidity except to gently poke some of my friends who really should know better about some of the stuff they post. But it is good to have it there as a reminder of what we are dealing with.

  67. 67.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ohio Mom:

    What that bar graph says to me is, it’s true that Independents are almost always Republicans who don’t want to admit it.

    Precisely the thought I had when I looked at the “Independent” results!

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gravenstone:

    Doocy is the stupid looking one. Wait, that doesn’t really help.

    LOL, but I actually think that’s exactly why I never can remember which is which.

    “Which of the two he could never make out,
    Despite his best endeavour:
    Of that, there is no shadow of doubt,
    No possible, probable shadow of doubt,
    No possible doubt whatever!”

  74. 74.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax:

    Yeah, it’s a pro-South-in-the-Civil-War Western. Roy Orbison sings like an angel but looks like Eddie Munster in an Elvis costume.

  75. 75.

    Gravenstone

    @VeniceRiley: Since we have the House, I would consider a hold for any existing Dem seat to be rather important. Can’t afford to backslide.

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    Was fairly sure it was Confederate oriented, but didn’t entirely trust to spotty memory. Also, IIRC, his gee-tar shoots bullets.

  80. 80.

    West of the Rockies

    @p.a.:

    I feel similarly when someone says, “Everyday I just do my best…” (With the implication that they also succeed, not just “try”.)

    No, we don’t. Sometimes we’re rude, self-involved, in a hurry, in a bad mood… We are all occasionally selfish or too tired to do our best.

  82. 82.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: eh. I’m in a Muslim country right now and business continues apace. Other than the early breakfast offerings and the nightly overpriced Iftar feasts, you wouldn’t know it’s Ramadan.

  83. 83.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jay: Jay! That is a terribl(y hilarious) way to put it!

    Full disclosure: I do not condone the clubbing of seals, just good wordplay.

    Fuller disclosure: If seals like to party, and they’re responsible and of age, live it up.

  84. 84.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax:

    Mercifully I came in on the last 15 minutes and didn’t give them my undivided attention. Your surmise is probably correct but I can’t confirm it definitively.

  85. 85.

    Procopius

    @MomSense: “… women’s skirts are so short.” When I was in high school the norm was for the hemline to be half way down the calf when standing. It varied an inch or two every year, but that was the average. Somehow, when they sat the hem came just an inch or two above the knee. Drove me crazy.

  89. 89.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax:

    BTW, I came here looking for you to tell about it, but didn’t see your nym so addressed it to Steeplejack instead. Nice to see that it was a kind of bat-signal for you.

  92. 92.

    TenguPhule

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Other than the early breakfast offerings and the nightly overpriced Iftar feasts, you wouldn’t know it’s Ramadan.

    So essentially like Lent in Texas?

  93. 93.

    zhena gogolia

    @zhena gogolia:

    It’s funny because when I turned it on, I at first thought it was Elvis, but then I thought, “OMG, something has gone terribly wrong with Elvis’s face!”

  94. 94.

    TenguPhule

    @Amir Khalid:

    living with the consequences of one’s own dumbness generally does not bring much joy.

    But its never their fault. //s

  96. 96.

    Chris

    @cmorenc:You rang??…LOL Thankfully the primary is the republican primary and while we lumbee are blessed with our share of “intractable mulish stupidity” McCready did carry ol Robeson county last time. Its funny how in all the brouhaha about our neighbors to the east in Bladen county that somehow it was never mentioned that they ran the same game here in robeson county. The return rate on absentee ballots here was absurdly low. So low that it looks like Mr Dowless’ game worked here too.

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Ancient joke (short version):

    Harp seal enters a tavern and bellies up to the bar.

    Seal: Boy, have I ever had one of those days.

    Bartender: You sure look like you could use a drink. What’ll it be?

    Seal: Anything but a Canadian Club.

    (rimshot)

  100. 100.

    TenguPhule

    @NotMax: I don’t understand the aversion to seal meat. Properly prepared, its supposed to be fairly tasty.

  102. 102.

    chris

    @zhena gogolia: Got it. I saw the movie on TV in the early ’70s with some friends. It was awful but we were kinda high and my ribs hurt the next day. There’s a reason ol’ Roy was only in one movie.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TenguPhule:

    I don’t understand the aversion to seal meat. Properly prepared, its supposed to be fairly tasty.

    Like chicken, right?

  111. 111.

    Kent

    @TenguPhule:

    @NotMax: I don’t understand the aversion to seal meat. Properly prepared, its supposed to be fairly tasty.

    I’ve actually had it and it’s not that tasty. I spent a decade living and working in Alaska and when I was still single I’d always get invited to big pot-luck Thanksgiving dinners in Juneau. One year I went to one hosted by a co-worker and some of the guests were Alaska native (Tlingit) who brought a big plate of grilled seal ribs. Only Alaska natives are allowed to harvest seals. Anyway, the meat was extremely dark and pungent and I could only swallow a bite or two. Not my thing at all.

  113. 113.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: not that I’ve seen, but I’m a Waffle House guy. Sadly, nearby are two McDonalds, a KFC, and, inexplicably, a Hardee’s. Tahrir Square, which is in fact a circle, isn’t what it used to be. Which may have been a square, what do I know?

  114. 114.

    Jay

    @TenguPhule:

    That’s the source of commercially available seal meat. It’s a byproduct of the baby seal fur trade.

    Indiginous Peoples are pretty much the only people who hunt seals ethically for food.

  117. 117.

    TenguPhule

    @Jay:

    That’s the source of commercially available seal meat. It’s a byproduct of the baby seal fur trade.

    Ah, that would explain why its not popular. Harvesting them too early and the wrong kind of seals.

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I came here looking for you to tell about it, but didn’t see your nym so addressed it to Steeplejack. instead.

    [Jack Benny voice] Well!

  121. 121.

    TenguPhule

    Senate committee’s subpoena of Donald Trump Jr. sets off Republican firefight

    Wapo headlines you wish were literal instead of figurative.

  124. 124.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    This cannot be true. Can it?

    So the Red Sox's Tom Werner spoke to reporters briefly and said this happened: Trump "is a pretty good raconteur of history and he did say that, uh—he was talking about Abraham Lincoln losing the war and said ‘Well, I know you guys have lost a game or two, but this was a war.’”— Elaina Plott (@elainaplott) May 9, 2019

  125. 125.

    TenguPhule

    QUESTION:

    Do you have plans to talk to President Xi, or no, not yet?

    TRUMP:

    Well, he just wrote me a beautiful letter. I just received it and I’ll probably speak to him by phone. But look, we have two great alternatives. Our country is doing fantastically well. Our numbers at 3.2. Don’t forget, 3.2 — the first quarter is always by far the worst quarter or at least almost always. You look back over the years, first quarter’s always weak, and we had 3.2 GDP.

    Our unemployment numbers are the best in the history of our country, and we are doing well. And our companies are really doing well. Even in Ohio, the great state of Ohio yesterday, General Motors at my very strong urging, to put it mildly, very strong urging, I wasn’t even nice about it, but I appreciate what they did, they sold the — the beautiful plant, Lordstown. They sold that beautiful plant to a very, very good company that’s going to make electric trucks.

    And that worked because that was the only thing they could say about our whole economy. Lordstown. They kept saying Lordstown, Lordstown. And when you had all of these great companies spending billions and billions of dollars coming into our country, they couldn’t talk about it. They’d only mentioned the one plant that was a GM plant from a very long time ago. And now we have a great company going in going to make electric trucks. Very appropriate. Interesting idea, actually. Electric trucks. Yes, please.

    QUESTION:

    Will you allow Robert Mueller to testify to Congress?

    TRUMP:

    Well, I’m going to leave that up to our very great attorney general, and he’ll make a decision on that. But I will say this, look, the Mueller report came out, it was done at I guess I’m hearing numbers now close to $40 million with 17 or 18 very angry Democrats who hated Donald Trump and also everything that they could possibly have at their disposal.

    There was nobody that was in the history of our country more transparent than me. I said give them every document, give them every person. Let the White House counsel testify. I think he testified for 30 hours. I guess they must have asked him the same question because there wasn’t very much to testify about. But I said let him testify and let him — keep him as long as you want.

    Actually, when I heard 30 hours, I said that’s a long time, but I let him testify. I didn’t have to. I have presidential privilege. I could’ve stopped everything. I didn’t have to give them a document. I gave them 1.5 million documents. I gave them White House counsel, I gave them other law — anybody you want, you can talk to. At the end of the testimony, no collusion and essentially, no obstruction.

    Our media will never learn.

  126. 126.

    Jay

    @TenguPhule:

    It’s the method of harvesting, and of course, the beauty and helplessness of the slaughter. It’s easier to kill the Mom’s, then the pups, as the Mom’s will defend their young.

    As the adult carcasses are worthless for fur, and the law requires minimal waste, the adults are processed at a loss, and the meat is sold, mostly to Northern Europe and Asia.

    The pups carcasses are turned into animal feeds and fertilizer.

  136. 136.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MomSense: send me some recommendations then! I don’t have a car, though, so limit it to places within a camel ride of my hotel.

  138. 138.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    This cannot be true. Can it?

    So the Red Sox’s Tom Werner spoke to reporters briefly and said this happened: Trump “is a pretty good raconteur of history and he did say that, uh—he was talking about Abraham Lincoln losing the war and said ‘Well, I know you guys have lost a game or two, but this was a war.’”— Elaina Plott (@elainaplott) May 9, 2019

    Okay, I’m sorry, but this is officially batshit insane.

  139. 139.

    NotMax

    @MomSense
    Came across something on Prime which seems to fit in with your previously stated parameters for watchability.

    TV series, The Royal (8 seasons). Sort of a smaller scale and more insular, countrified British version of St. Elsewhere, set in Yorkshire in an amalgam of the 1960s. Okay enough for what it is as something to have in the queue to pass the time. The mostly contemporaneous music soundtrack plucks more than a few strings of memory.

    Maybe one of the across the pond jackals can explain why the consulting surgeon to the hospital is always addressed as Mr. Rose rather than Dr. Is that standard practice? Also unclear on where and how in the staff hierarchy the Sister fits in.

  140. 140.

    MomSense

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Oh god – nothing is left from the old days I’m sure.

    @mrmoshpotato:

    It’s rice, lentils, macaroni, chickpeas, fried onions, and a garlicky tomato sauce. Lots of herbs, vinegar and hot sauce if you like it that way – I do!

  142. 142.

    Baud

    Fucking Comey is on CNN saying his behavior in 2016 was acceptable.

    In other news,

    Former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been released from federal custody after 62 days. Manning was jailed for refusing to testify in front of a federal grand jury.

    She is subject to another grand jury subpoena and will need to appear in court again on May 16. If she again refuses to testify, she could be found in contempt of court a second time.

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/politics/chelsea-manning-release/index.html

  146. 146.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:

    That does sound like a show I’d like. On Sunday my son and I watched Crazy Rich Asians and I have to say I did enjoy it. It’s a formulaic romcom with beautiful scenery and people. Nothing exciting or outstanding, just a pleasant couple of hours.

  147. 147.

    Emma

    @NotMax: Tradition, IIRC. Surgeons did not study medicine in college prior to the mid 19th century; they apprenticed to a surgeon and passed an exam. Sort of like the butcher’s boy becoming a butcher.

  153. 153.

    Sab

    @Steeplejack: Not on point but possibly related: I read somewhere that in the UK NHS the only medical guys in private practice stil are the general pactitioners/family practice doctors. All the specialists are salaried employees.

    I don’t know if this is correct, and at this hour British jackals are all asleep.

    I think I read it in TR Reid’s book about healthcare around the world.

  154. 154.

    Steve in the ATL

    I feel like I’m back in States—it’s 3 am, I am getting up in 3 hours, and instead of getting much needed sleep I’m reading a book and posting on Balloon Juice. Self destructive am I!

  155. 155.

    Dr Ronnie James DO

    @Harbison: What’s even crazier is, all the stuff Rudy’s alleged to be doing now basically *is* the COLLUSION with foreign powers to get elected Needy Amin has spent the last 2 years swearing he didn’t do. I have yet to see those dots connected by the media yet.

  156. 156.

    tobie

    @Sebastian: well that’s a huge relief. I thought it was around the corner, and we were in danger of letting this one slide.

  157. 157.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    Fucking Comey is on CNN saying his behavior in 2016 was acceptable.

    Man must really have an egged-wish.

  158. 158.

    Dr Ronnie James DO

    @Steeplejack: It’s a very longstanding distinction: America’s oldest medical school at Columbia was founded as (and still is)?the “College of Physicians and Surgeons” Oh, if only they’d put parentheses around “and Surgeons”!

  164. 164.

    Harbison

    @Dr Ronnie James DO:

    Yep. Our media can’t handle the firehose of crazy and corruption now. Just wait until we are at war with East-Asia or whoever- that right there is going to become 14 minutes of the 22 minutes of the evening news. I was reading the coverage of the Met Gala or whatever it was and I couldn’t help but think of that scene in Brazil at the restaurant with people wearing the most absurd fashion while the totalitarian state marched on.

    Shit is going to get much worse before (and if) it gets better.

  166. 166.

    Quinerly

    @VeniceRiley: I was startled to learn she and Ambassador Wilson divorced in 2017. Their house was listed for sale awhile back for $2.4, I believe. I have seen her out and about in Santa Fe on a couple of my visits. Very pleasant, very approachable. She’ll make a great Representative. (Related, Poco still pines for Ali Mcgraw… she petted him once at the rail yards. Honestly, I think he would have left with her…..)

  167. 167.

    TenguPhule

    US attorney general William Barr did not seem bothered by a vote in the House judiciary committee to hold him in contempt of Congress.

    One day after Democrats on the panel approved a resolution to hold Barr in contempt, the attorney general cracked a joke about the matter at a farewell ceremony for his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, in Washington.

    “You like records,” Barr said. “This must be a record for an attorney general being proposed for contempt within a hundred days of taking office.”

    because apparently nothing matters anymore.

  169. 169.

    Bill Arnold

    @Harbison:

    As Josh Marshall has been detailing over at TPM, Giuliani is touring around meeting with despots trying to enlist their aid in smearing political opponents.

    It’s been interesting to watch Guiliani’s transformation from America’s Mayor[1] to not-particularly-competent matchmaker for evil volk / fixer.

    How does one make a society rapidly more resistant to these methods? The press is high leverage and has been improving. I’m not able to consult other timelines where the Fascists are definitively losing. Somehow e.g. France seems more resistant.

    [1] At least in that video Guiliani was mentally together; he seems much less so now.

  173. 173.

    RAVEN

    Beach chronicle day five. A brutal south-southeast wind made the morning fishing like losing a prize fight. I finally decided to take a break and hoped the wind would “lie down”. It did and one of the chair/umbrella guys came down to fish at sunset. They didn’t know a great deal about surf fishing so we chatted some and I cut up a ladyfish for bait. One of the guys was casting away when he got hit by a nice big redfish. It was quite a fight for him but he got it in. I cleaned it for him down and the beach and they went on their merry way. Two days ago I landed a lunker and, with the help of a great guy I got to know on the beach, I landed it. It was almost as exhilarating helping someone else as it was to catch one myself. I think I’ll stick with this here fishin!?????????

  175. 175.

    Jay

    @TenguPhule:

    Naw, starting in the ‘90’s, the ReThug aristocracy and plutocrats started drinking the same Koolaide they had been feeding the base for decades.

    As a result, they now live their interior lives in 4chan/8chan/QAnon/Alex Jones alt reality, and it spills out through their external voices from time to time.

  176. 176.

    Redshift

    @lumpkin:

    Well, by definition half the population IS dumb.

    Technically, while half the population is dumber than average, that doesn’t mean half the population is dumb. (It doesn’t mean they aren’t, either…)

  177. 177.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    The name comes from their original menu, a many paged affair which listed a plethora of pancakes ostensibly native to various lands, alphabetically by country and replete with pictures of flags of the nations.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    @RAVEN:

    You know what they say,

    Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day,

    Teach a man to fish and he’ll spend thousands of dollars a year on tackle, lures, trips, boats, gas and hundreds of hours a year on the water.

  180. 180.

    RSA

    Not that John Stuart Mill had all the answers, but…

    “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.”

  181. 181.

    Mary G

    I’ve been out all day having my final Rituxin infusion in a medical center that allegedly provides free WiFi, which they may, but at a slower speed than my first 1400 (or whatever no.) dial up modem, so I was offline all day. Received a horrible shock – that bitch at Medicare and Anthem have changed the way it’s billed and paid for, so my cost for each treatment went from $0 to $3,000. So now I have to find $6K under the sofa cushions. The company has a program which waives it for people who make than 100,000, but it’s full.

  186. 186.

    Mary G

    @RAVEN: I’ve been reading threads late, but just wanted to say your picture with the huge fish and the little girl in water wings was adorbs.

  187. 187.

    BottyGuy

    You were correct about Tom Sawyer, it is not a very good book, it is a children’s book with an unlikable protagonist. Tom is a ass hole in Huck Finn as well, but that is an adult book and his racism shows through.

  193. 193.

    Dr Ronnie James DO

    @Harbison: Met Gala was ghastly this year. Camp was a brilliant choice of theme, and then everybody proved they had no fucking clue what it meant. Just pure disappointment.

  194. 194.

    plato

    "The GOP wants a one-party state, and Trump wants to be the autocrat of that state. The idea that they are incompetent is a myth. They are very competent. They are just not interested in the process of governing. They are interested in ruling." #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/expbKG6ijT— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) May 4, 2019

  195. 195.

    dww44

    @Steeplejack: Maybe a dead thread but I’ve long been a bit gobsmacked that Brian Kilmeade is a best selling author of semi non fiction books about American historical figures or events. There’s almost always one included among the hard copy books on offer at my Kroger’s. I’ve a conservative friend who’s bought and read every single one of them.

  197. 197.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: On Doc Martin it’s explained that surgeons are always addressed as Mr. rather than Dr. He is now Dr Martin; he had been Mr Martin when he was a surgeon but was overcome by an aversion to blood (and surgery) while operating on a colleague’s wife, and lost his nerve.

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