Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

I was promised a recession.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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

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

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Everybody saw this coming.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

This blog will pay for itself.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

No one could have predicted…

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Morning Open Thread

Morning Open Thread

by | 203 Comments

This post is in: 

I don’t know where everyone is. Kudos to TaMara for hosting for Alain and her photos of Paris!

Let’s start the morning with a baby rhino –

The Thomas Cook company has collapsed, leaving tens of thousands of vacationers stranded. Hope none of them were jackals!

In other early-morning news,

I’ve never watched “The West Wing.” I gave up on popular culture some time ago.

It’s going to be a difficult week. Let’s gather our forces and be ready for it.

 

Reader Interactions

203Comments

  6. 6.

    JPL

    Last year they laughed at trump during his speech at the UN. I hope that they repeat, because if anyone deserves to be mocked it’s him.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I read this a few days ago but didn’t get a chance to pass it on: Scientists use fossilised finger bone DNA to rebuild ancient human

    One of the most mysterious relatives in the human family has stepped out of the shadows after scientists used ancient DNA from a fossilised finger to reconstruct their appearance. The unprecedented feat, described as “exciting” and “extraordinary” by one leading researcher who was not involved in the work, shows that the Denisovans looked similar to the Neanderthals, but had wider heads and more protruding jaws.

    “We expected them to resemble Neanderthals more than modern humans and this is what we found,” said Liran Carmel, a researcher on the team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “But what fascinated us most is where the Denisovans differed from these other human groups.
    ……………….
    Carmel and his colleague David Gokhman came up with an ingenious approach to infer what the Denisovans looked like. They began by analysing what is called DNA “methylation” in Denisovans, neanderthals and modern humans. Methylation is a natural process that tags genes with a chemical marker. The markers operate a bit like volume switches, turning a gene’s activity up or down.

    By comparing “methylation maps” of the three ancient human populations, the researchers worked out which Denisovan genes were as active as those in modern humans or Neanderthals, and crucially which were expressed very differently.

    Armed with the list of genes, the researchers next consulted a huge medical database that links human genetic disorders, including skeletal problems, to glitches in the activity of particular genes. From this they worked out how gene activity patterns in the Denisovans would affect their appearance.

    Gokhman and Carmel identified 56 parts of the Denisovan anatomy that differed from modern humans or Neanderthals, 34 of which affected the Denisovan skull. While the Denisovans had wide pelvises like the neanderthals, the analysis published in Cell shows they had wider skulls and longer dental arches, or jaws, making room for their larger teeth.

    Ingenious indeed.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Speaking of readership capture, Nate Silver ran afoul of the Bros yesterday with these tweets:

    Nationally, Sanders is getting just 9% of Clinton 2016 voters. (And apparently, 0% of Clinton caucusgoers in Iowa, per the new Selzer poll.) Warren draws about evenly from both the Clinton and Sanders 2016 camps.

    You sometimes get the sense that the Sanders campaign never really asked itself: What’s our message to the 55% of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016?

    The schadenfreude is so thick, you have to brush it away from your nose to breathe!

    About an hour later, presumably after furious backlash from the Bros, silver tweeted this:

    I honestly think the annoyingness of a certain candidate’s supporters on Twitter prevents other reporters/analysts from pointing out that said candidate’s campaign obviously isn’t going that well.

    Hahaha! It’s like hiring notorious Twitter trolls as paid campaign staffers alienated people or something! Oh well. The Bros gleefully played their part in stopping That Woman from becoming president, but now they’re finding the price is the political relevance of their lord and savior. Thoughts and prayers!

  17. 17.

    Kay

    This is funny:

    Nate Silver
    @NateSilver538
    Nationally, Sanders is getting just 9% of Clinton 2016 voters. (And apparently, 0% of Clinton caucusgoers in Iowa, per the new Selzer poll.) Warren draws about evenly from both the Clinton and Sanders 2016 camps

    Bernie’s problem is he cannot win the primary without Clinton voters.

  18. 18.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    Being that it ended up on a dead thread, the Milky Way at twilight. I went back to Leo Carillio to reshoot my failed Milky Way shot from 3 years ago. My trip 3 weeks ago wasn’t shot close enough to the lifeguard tower. So I reshot it on Friday night, this is a test series that I shot before astronomical twilight, so there’s not as much color in the galactic core, but you do get the fading sunlight at the right.

    When I shot there 3 weeks ago, the guy shooting next to me and I traded IG addys, he put up a pic on Friday of PCH shot from the hills above. I looked at the picture and could see where I shoot further up the coast and could even see someone there. Turns out he shot that after shooting at Leo Carillio and I went to shot further up the coast. The car you see in his pic is my car and the white light in the pic is my headlamp. I shot startrails looking north and there are light on the hill that was him and his group.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    The Bros gleefully played their part in stopping That Woman from becoming president, but now they’re finding the price is the political relevancy of their lord and savior.

    As justice requires. Still a ways to go, but I’m proud of Dems so far.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Their genius strategy didn’t include outreach to Clinton voters. The majority of the Democratic primary electorate and nearly 100% of the general electorate on the D side.

  27. 27.

    Quinerly

    Poco and I are firming up our dates and stops for “The Fabulous Flying Quinerly Traveling Road Show 2020” and are working towards a 3 night stop in Crestone, CO after we leave a week in Farmington, NM and 4 nights in Cortez, CO. Timing on the Crestone leg will be the middle of March before we hit CO Springs and truly start heading back from a 7 week road trip that started with a February stay in Santa Fe. Anybody been to Crestone?

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    If Warren does win, I wonder if he’ll ask for another unity commission.

    Iowa shouldn’t be first, but they have an opportunity to do the country a favor in a few months. I believe 15% is the threshold to get delegates.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah:

    5/ For example, a woman in Illinois went to the hospital with heavy vaginal bleeding resulting in a five-day hospital stay and a hysterectomy, only to be denied coverage under her junk plan on the ground that her menstrual cycle constituted a pre-existing condition.

  36. 36.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @rikyrah: Thanks, it was a test shot and I was bored waiting for astronomical twilight. It’s a series of 31 shots of 10 seconds each so I managed to kill about 5 minutes and change. The earlier shots have a lot more color where the sun is setting and the later shots have very little.

  38. 38.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: Goodness, my parents are black. Especially the part about paying bills on the first. I’ve tried to get them to switch to autopay, but they want to see the paper bills and write the checks.

  44. 44.

    rikyrah

    @rikyrah:

    Filet Mignon with a nice Chianti (@epitomee) Tweeted:
    I like Joy and please don’t take this the wrong way, she’s not an American descendant of slaves.

    Filet Mignon with a nice Chianti (@epitomee) Tweeted:
    She & her family immigrated here. It’s hard to understand the mindset of my folks until you realize they literally live 20 miles from the plantation our great great grandparents were emancipated from. https://twitter.com/epitomee/status/1175837537673211904?s=17

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s particularly humiliating because they apparently ARE open to going further Left. They just reject Bernie, personally.

    He was hurting The Movement! It’s always the people you least suspect.

  47. 47.

    satby

    @Baud: as some wag noted online, Wilmer’s problem is himself. His inability to adjust and adapt to a different electoral environment, his age showing… he’s his problem.

  48. 48.

    Baud

    If Warren does win the nomination, progressive political credibility will be on the line. I don’t see how we try to move even more left if her message doesn’t resonate.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ken: I stayed with my mother-in-law last week to look after her post-surgery. I ran some errands for her, including depositing a couple of checks at the bank and bringing the deposit slip back so it could be immediately recorded, by hand, in a paper record. Pretty sure it was the first time in years I’d entered a bank, talked to a teller, handled a paper deposit slip or made a notation in a checkbook. It felt so 1990s! :)

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Biden has a test the rest of the primary candidates don’t have to take yet. He has to show how he fights back when attacked by Trump and/or the NYTimes. Not his fault but it is his problem and he has to deal with it effectively. If he does I think D primary voters will reward him for it.
    I think Trump opened the door to attacks on the Trump adult children’s business interests- and Jared Kushners. Absolutely fair for Biden to go there, more than fair- Hunter Biden never worked in the Obama Administration, unlike the Trump children, and he’s crazy if he doesn’t.

  62. 62.

    satby

    @Baud:

    You could also say the same about Biden.

    not exactly. Joe tries to adapt, he’s just not good at it ?
    I do think both men are too old and show it. Warren has aged much better and is very vital and sharp especially contrasted with the other two oldsters.

  63. 63.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Scientists use fossilised finger bone DNA to rebuild ancient human

    Oh cool!

    One of the most mysterious relatives in the human family has stepped out of the shadows after scientists used ancient DNA from a fossilised finger to reconstruct their appearance.

    Oh, their appearance. Boooring.

    No really, it’s amazing work. I have a book on my ever-growing “to read” pile telling the story of human migration based on new genetic technology, and it upends a lot of the old story based on archaeology. Amazing stuff.

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    Of course he did, not that it matters. Badgering the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden is colluding with a foreign power to subvert American democracy all by itself.

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: if Warren publicly embraces Buttigieg’s (and others’) “medicare for all who want it” that would be game over for Biden.

    That and a speech to Wall St: “ be part of the solution”

  70. 70.

    JPL

    @Betty Cracker: The one and only thing Todd challenged Munchin on yesterday was that Ukraine received an extra 140 million from the state department. Munchin said it was appropriated, and Todd said no it wasn’t and Ukraine was surprised at the extra money.

  71. 71.

    Princess

    Call your reps and tell them to support impeachment. GOP ones too — we need them to feel the fire. This tool is great — you can check to see if your rep is on board and then tweet, call or email them directly. They even give you a script:

    https://impeachmentinquiry.org

  72. 72.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: I wish I’d left home about 20 minutes earlier and been able to get the actual sun setting, it was pretty nice watching it on the drive down the coast. I might try to go out on Tuesday, but I’ll have to fight traffic.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Chris T.:

    I’m kind of glad they call it that- Obama always used that term. People know what it means.

    It’s more than the outright fraudulent policies the Trump Administration promotes, too. McDonalds use to “give” their managers absolutely terrible health insurance prior to Obamacare. The managers paid thru the nose for it, too. I’ve seen it- walked through the coverage with people. I had this kind of heartbreaking encounter with a young woman who had it and she asked and I told her my advice was to stop buying it and go without herself and put her kids back on Medicaid. Medicaid is good insurance. She was really offended and I realized she was proud of the fact that she had risen to management and the insurance meant to her that she had “made it” into this category of people she wanted to be among. But she had never seen a good insurance policy so had nothing to compare it to. I insulted her. I was ashamed I didn’t consider that part of it, for her.

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: That would be true with either Warren or Sanders, and as a progressive, I’m pleased it’s looking more like a test drive of lefty ideas is in her capable hands rather than his waving old paws.

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Many years ago, I worked for a consulting company that designed benefits packages for large corporations. My job was to write the brochures, so I had to have a basic understanding of the coverage. I remember the first time I saw one of those junk policies and recall wondering why people even bothered to offer one, let alone purchase it. You’re right — it’s a symbolic thing.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Warren is keeping it open – “there are a lot of plans I like” which is driving political media into frenzies but it’s smart!

    She does not have to follow their playbook. Some of the people yelling that she has to pin it down are full of shit too- Mayor Pete is complaining that she hasn’t said how she’d pay for it. His plan is paid for by “closing corporate loopholes”. Please. I get that he’s moving in the center lane, which I’m fine with, but the “center lane” proposals and kind of weak and fuzzy themselves. He may as well say “waste fraud and abuse”.

  89. 89.

    Ken

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Cool as it would be to bring back the Denisovans, Neanderthals, and other cousins, you know it would end in tears.

    “Human intelligence, but not technically or more importantly legallyhuman? Well, we can definitely use as many as you can breed. And you say they’re an almost perfect model organism for human medical research?”

  90. 90.

    Sab

    @Lapassionara: When I got out of high school being a woman in 1972 being a woman was a pre-existing condition. The only medical insurance I could get was catastrophic with a 100,000 vap.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    At that time Ohio covered children with Medicaid for 80 dollars a month, thanks to Democrats. Exclusively Democrats, who saved the program from George W Bush who did his best to gut it. It made no sense for her to pay more than three times that for much worse insurance. I think we have to keep in mind that what I’ll call “first generation insured” are comparing “nothing” to “something”. They have no good insurance benchmark. They never had it. Their parents didn’t have it.

    I regularly encounter middle aged people who have not had a medical check up since their “sports physical” in high school. The appointment they have to make to participate in (public) high school sports in Ohio.

  92. 92.

    laura

    I’m gearing up for a drive to Guerneville for a termination for cause hearing and have an uneasy feeling. Violation of a last chance agreement from several years earlier and he’s a year short of retirement age. I have some settlement terms and a willing employer, but dang, its heavy to watch a life unravel.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: When I first got Carpenters insurance, it was like a whole new world for me (my son in ICU for 6 days and on $2K a day antibiotics for a month and half? “$200 for the ER copay please.”) and came crashing back to earth when I had to stop working. It was in fact insurance, but my wife’s was sure a let down for us.

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Yep, lots of folks in that boat, and there’s the false perception that Medicaid is for unemployed welfare recipients, even though the lion’s share goes to middle-class grannies to pay for their ALFs.

  102. 102.

    laura

    @OzarkHillbilly: he’ll still have the right to apply, as it is vested and payable at 55. He had an on the job injury and had a melt down. A fall off the wagon to meth. Loss of a good job with negotiated wages and benefits. A decent employer. The opposite of running off an “almost to the finish line” worker.
    A sorrowful day.

  103. 103.

    WaterGirl

    @Princess: Thanks for that. I just wrote a letter. I took out 3/4 of what they had supplied because no one on the other end reads the whole thing anyway.

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    Not frequently but have had my share of problems with banks and with making payments over the years. So I do my banking in person and get a receipt. I pay the electric bill in person and get a receipt. I pay the cable/phone bill in person and get a receipt. I pay the credit card bill in person and get a receipt. All a part of the monthly circuit through town while doing the grocery run. Saves on stamps, too.

    Thing which tipped me over the edge on switching from the phone company to the cable company for telephone service was when the phone company closed their office on Maui, leaving the only way to pay in person by doing so at certain banks, with an added $1 fee for the ‘privilege’ of paying.

    Not in a million gajillion years would I ever, ever do any banking online.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    Alayna Treene
    @alaynatreene
    · 15h
    Conservative leaders are circulating data to White House staff that claims adults who vape will turn on President Trump if he follows through with his planned ban on flavored e-cigarettes

    I told you guys this. The “key battleground states” they’re worried about are rust belt states, and vaping is wildly popular here. Just like SMOKING was more popular here than in some other states.

    Not that I thought they would ever follow through. They do very little actual work in the Trump Administration and they lie constantly. It was much more likely they wouldn’t follow thru. Melania doesn’t know jack shit about Trump voters in the rustbelt, and why would she? Why would any of them? They didn’t even know these people existed until they realized they could exploit their racism with “birtherism” (which Melania enthusiastically endorsed, BTW).

  108. 108.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @satby: IMHO teaching college students into your 50s and 60s forces you to be more open and adaptable than you might otherwise be (personal experiemce)

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Okay, “cost savings” and “closing corporate loopholes”. My mistake. She’s not accepting this framing on health care. She’s under no obligation to take direction from cable tv hosts at debates on how to present her own case. She believes (perhaps wrongly!) that she knows how to present her case to the public, and they don’t. That seems like a fair bet- at the very least a coin flip.

  111. 111.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:

    You sometimes get the sense that the Sanders campaign never really asked itself: What’s our message to the 55% of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016?

    I think if they did ask themselves that, the answer they came up with was. “We don’t need a message, we have a Bernie!”

  112. 112.

    john b

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I have a book on my ever-growing “to read” pile telling the story of human migration based on new genetic technology,

    Does this book have a title?

    I, too, would like to know what this book is. Thanks

  113. 113.

    Sab

    @Betty Cracker: I refuse to do automatic payments.

    When we put my dad in a nursing home last year I couldn’t get ATT to stop deducting payments even ‘though the house had been sold and later demolished. Couldn’t get the utilities shut off until the new owner transferred them, and they had no intention since planned to demolish, so everyone kept deducting payments fromdad’s checking.

    I had to go in with a power of attorney to get the ATT “service” cancelled. Even the internet service that I (not dad) had ordered.

    Also, nobody knew how to return the 1960s era telephones they were still leasing. Told me to throw them out. I am still getting bills for that, but with the ATT connection finally severed at least the automatic withdrawals stopped.

  114. 114.

    L85NJGT

    The West Wing aka The Great White Father Always Knows Best.

    Sorkin’s white male elitist political patriarchalism is of another timeline. His both-siderism insisted upon itself, and is in constant conflict with the internal logic of the story arcs. The final season (an Obama-esque election arc), done after NBC fired him as show runner, is the better show.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @satby:

    I like Mayor Pete and I have no problem with the center lane- I think Biden is squatting in it and it could USE a choice, since IMO there are more centrist D’s than Lefty D’s and I think Biden is a weak candidate, but Warren is talking about VOTERS. I know cable tv hosts once again located the calculators they misplaced in 2016 now that a Democrat is running again. Warren says VOTERS don’t look at this question like that.

    It’s her case. She can make it how she wants.

  116. 116.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: Glad it works for you, but just reading about all those in-person trips is exhausting!

    @Amir Khalid: That sounds about right. A campaign that realized it had to expand its appeal wouldn’t have staffed its communications shop with Bernie or Busters who spend most of their time on Twitter spats with Neera Tanden. They’re comically bad at this, and I am SO here for it! ;-)

  117. 117.

    Ben Cisco

    @rikyrah:

    I like Joy and please don’t take this the wrong way, she’s not an American descendant of slaves. “She’s” on that ADOS BS, huh? I smell someone well fed on Purina Troll Chow, and she’s dismissed.

  118. 118.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yes, yes it does.

    (Crickets)

    Ok there was a long pause while I wandered around the house looking at the various literal stacks of books. It’s David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here

  119. 119.

    PST

    Maybe this was pointed out in a thread I missed, but David Leonhardt has a succinct, 40-sentence summary of Trump’s most egregious actions In yesterday’s Times. It could come in handy as we prepare for Thanksgiving dinner with extended family. Sometimes the fresh horrors make me lose track of the older.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I will say this for them- they work the media refs in a way I have never seen on our side, and it’s effective. I give them credit for that. The other candidates could take the best of that- they don’t have to call for the closing of the Washington Post but they could yell “bias!” more. It works.

  121. 121.

    Josie

    @Princess:

    Thanks. My rep is Henry Cuellar – very conservative and not in favor of impeachment. I just sent a email and will continue to lobby him. Maybe a phone call later this week.

  123. 123.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    All stops during the same trip to town. Takes a grand total of around 45 minutes max on a good day on top of the time for other necessaries, including driving to the various offices. Used to be faster but the cable/ISP company moved their offices to the boondocks a few years ago, so a bit of extra driving. Scuttlebutt is they are now planning to move the bill paying function only back into town proper.

  124. 124.

    L85NJGT

    @Sab:

    That’s Ma Bell for ya. Best practice is to put that stuff on a credit card, and cancel the card when service ends. Don’t ever put auto pays on the primary bank account.

  126. 126.

    satby

    @Kay: “closing corporate TAX loopholes”.
    Oh, I agree that none of them should accept media framing on anything. And hitting the basic unfairness of corporations paying no taxes and rich people paying relatively smaller taxes while average people pay through the nose for everything is smart because it resonates with everyone.
    You seem to think that’s a weak argument, but both Warren and Buttigieg are making it, though in different ways. It enrages people that the biggest, richest corporations in the world suck money out of the country but pay essentially no taxes to support the education and infrastructure they depend on. I hope all the Democrats get behind that argument.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Ha! True. I didn’t think of that. Like the dynamic of “Liberal appears on Tucker Carlson”. Must be an anti-Democrat liberal.

    It IS odd for a primary campaign to utterly ignore the vast, vast majority of D primary voters, though. Very innovative. You wonder how they saw that working, ultimately.

  129. 129.

    Aleta

    @Aleta:

    … his work has established the central role of population mixture in our species. He led the analyses of the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes proving interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. By implementing a series of technical improvements, his lab has produced than half of the world’s published ancient genomes. His team’s analyses have highlighted the power of ancient DNA to reveal previously unknown events, for example showing that “whites” are a mixture of four groups as different as Europeans and East Asians; that Europe and South Asia were both impacted by massive migration from the Eurasian Steppe after 5,000 years ago; and that there were equally large population turnovers in East Asia, the Americas and Africa. He also works on using ancient DNA to track how biological traits evolved in the last 50,000 years, and on making ancient DNA technology accessible to all scholars interested in using it.

  134. 134.

    satby

    @Ben Cisco: I was staying out of that because, well, I’m a pasty Caucasian; but the folks who do the ADOS thing have got to realize that racists aren’t checking a black or brown person’s lineage, don’t they?!? Racists see color, full stop. They aren’t differentiating between descendants of slaves and people who just landed at LaGuardia from Africa yesterday.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @satby:

    It’s not a weak argument. It’s a weak rebuttal to Warren’s argument, because as you say she’s for taxing corporations too. That’s the revenue.
    I’ve wanted someone to challenge this for a long time, because it’s nonsense. Private health insurance isn’t free.

    We saw the natural and inexorable end to this ludicrous argument during Obamacare, where conservatives were insisting that Catholic employers STILL OWNED their employees wages. Health insurance is wages. Compensation is wages + health care+ retirement. That’s what it is. No one “gives” these things to their employees. The framing is ludicrous, it’s ideologically Right wing, and it’s about time it got knocked down.

  137. 137.

    TS (the original)

    @Betty Cracker: Then there is always a craxy tweet – this is also from Nate

    I think Sanders’s low numbers are the biggest surprise/story out of this poll. In 3 post-debate Iowa polls, he’s at 9%, 16%, and now 11%. In a state where he got ~50% of the vote last time and that should really play to his strengths

    I would assume he got 50% of the vote last time because there were only 2 candidates. Am I missing something?

  138. 138.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Josie:

    Maybe a phone call later this week.

    I encourage you to call. That mode of expression has the greatest impact. You don’t need a long speech. All you need to do is establish that you’re a constituent of said Representative and you want him to move on impeachment. NOW.

  139. 139.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    5/ For example, a woman in Illinois went to the hospital with heavy vaginal bleeding resulting in a five-day hospital stay and a hysterectomy, only to be denied coverage under her junk plan on the ground that her menstrual cycle constituted a pre-existing condition.

    Just wanted to scream when I read that.

    And, this is what the GOP wants.

    DEMONS

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Biden’s “labor union” argument is bullshit too. If there is ANYONE in this country who knows that health insurance is wages it is labor unions. They negotiate a three part contract- wage + health insurance + pension/retirement. Joe Biden really believes they don’t know they’re doing that? They’re the ONLY middle class people doing that.

    The GM employees are striking mostly because of health insurance. Their health insurance has been cut. They (rightly) see that as a cut in compensation.

  141. 141.

    NotMax

    @TS (the original)

    The Bernmites flash mobbed the process in Iowa in 2016. Things got so out of kilter that the head of the party (IIRC) in Iowa essentially threw his hands in the air and more or less told people, “Say whoever you want won, I can’t say with assurance.”

  144. 144.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Oh, let this be true…

    Jonathan Martin @ jmartNYT
    NEW: The ground appears to be shifting on impeachment.
    Those Dems reluctantly for it increasingly see no other recourse & some of the freshmen are rethinking their opposition, may speak out this week

    The other thing: even some traditionally cautious, more mod Dems are coming around bc they increasingly see opportunity in making Senate Rs exonerate Trump in an election year

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @satby:

    I think Mayor Pete is hugely talented and a genuine political phenom. I also think, though, that he’s a gunner, hugely competitive and not used to losing. Anything. Ever.

  147. 147.

    NotMax

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist

    McConnell got away with keeping a Supreme Court seat vacant “because it is an election year.” Who’s to say he won’t be emboldened by that to try the same stunt and refuse to initiate the process in the Senate?

  148. 148.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    She was really offended and I realized she was proud of the fact that she had risen to management and the insurance meant to her that she had “made it” into this category of people she wanted to be among. But she had never seen a good insurance policy so had nothing to compare it to. I insulted her. I was ashamed I didn’t consider that part of it, for her.

    You always bring us good insights, Kay. Make us think about things that hadn’t crossed our minds.

  149. 149.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: that’s my assumption, but I still want the House to impeach. I think (and I think Pelosi thinks) it has to be a unanimous vote of the House Dems, but I still have some hope.

  150. 150.

    satby

    @Kay: I think in a field where the candidates basically agree on the big outlines of change, the minutia of how to bring that about is how they’re trying to differentiate themselves (and I haven’t paid any attention to Biden, so not familiar with whatever he said about labor unions). Warren (and Sanders) is implying an immediate overhaul into a single payer system, Buttigieg, Harris, Biden are all falling at various levels of incremental change toward a full coverage system.

    Buttigieg is proposing a public option attractive enough to cause people to self select into it while it immediately covers people without insurance. Almost makes me wonder if he’s a fan of our own David Anderson’s health care coverage analysis.

  154. 154.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I don’t have a dog in the vaping issue, and, I haven’t studied it. But, IMO, it’s just BULLSHYT.
    They can ban vaping, yet, can’t do shyt about weapons of death?
    PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.

  155. 155.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay:

    It IS odd for a primary campaign to utterly ignore the vast, vast majority of D primary voters, though. Very innovative. You wonder how they saw that working, ultimately.

    They presumed that no one actually liked Hillary Clinton and that everyone adored their guy. That we voted for her grudgingly and deep down knew he was superior.

  156. 156.

    Ben Cisco

    @satby: The folks doing the ADOS thing aren’t that bright, nor are they arguing in good faith. They’re simply muddying the waters and looking to influence people who can’t/won’t think things through logically as you just did.

  158. 158.

    L85NJGT

    @Kay:

    He got clubbed running statewide in Indiana. He’s in the wrong state, and is facing a maxed out career path. I’ve always thought he is running for one of the DC intel slots.

  160. 160.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay:

    Health insurance is wages. Compensation is wages + health care+ retirement. That’s what it is. No one “gives” these things to their employees. The framing is ludicrous, it’s ideologically Right wing, and it’s about time it got knocked down.

    Quoted for truth. Back when I was working for the aforementioned consulting company, another of my assignments was working on “Total Pay” statements that corporations handed out to employees annually to get credit for the compensation the employers were paying in the form of benefits. The recipients of these statements typically weren’t union people, though some of them may have been.

    But the point is, the employers went through the expense and hassle of compiling the data and commissioning these statements because they wanted an employee who was paid $60K in salary to realize the total compensation was actually $80K (or whatever) when the employer’s contribution to benefits was calculated.

    I firmly believe one of the reasons we can’t seem to get to universal healthcare like every other developed country is because many people with private insurance provided through an employer just don’t see that a big chunk of their wages are garnished to provide insurance. They don’t think of it in those terms, but that’s the reality.

  162. 162.

    zhena gogolia

    I just got off the phone with Rosa De Lauro’s office. The person on the phone wouldn’t even tell me what the Rep’s position on impeachment is (I know she has not come out in favor of it, but I wanted to see what they’d say). She told me to check the social media. So while still on the phone I looked up her Twitter. I said, “The President is brazenly breaking the law in public, and she’s tweeting about Nafta. Good to know. I don’t feel very represented.”

  163. 163.

    JPL

    IMO The information from the whistle blower is more important than the transcript of the Ukrainian call because the initial reporting was multiple of times. Would it be fair to say that he asked Putin to pressure Ukrainian leaders?
    Would it be fair to say that the extra 140 million dollar bonus Ukraine received apparently was the quid pro quo.

  164. 164.

    Citizen Alan

    @NotMax:

    The odd thing to me is that I see the same female tellers for years and years. The occasional male teller looks like young enough that he’s probably not shaving yet, but they’re only there for a few years before vanishing. Whether into another line of work or into management (after a few years of the women training them in what to do), I don’t know.

  165. 165.

    satby

    @L85NJGT: originally, I thought he was running for VP or a cabinet position, for exactly the reason that you mention. But his campaign is resonating with a lot of people and I think he’s doing better than even he expected. Having him run is a plus and I look forward to him being elected President someday, though not likely in 2020.

  166. 166.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty Cracker:

    I firmly believe one of the reasons we can’t seem to get to universal healthcare like every other developed country is because many people with private insurance provided through an employer just don’t see that a big chunk of their wages are garnished to provide insurance.

    Or they do see that and don’t believe that they will see and commensurate increase in pay if they move to a different form of insurance that they still will need to pay for.

  167. 167.

    Citizen Alan

    @PJ:

    I deeply regret that Martin O’Malley didn’t make more of an impact. If he had, he’d have eventually realized that the only way to make headway was to take out Bernie, and he’d have used all that copious oppo research that Hillary left untouched (for sensible reasons, but still).

  168. 168.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker:

    I firmly believe one of the reasons we can’t seem to get to universal healthcare like every other developed country is because many people with private insurance provided through an employer just don’t see that a big chunk of their wages are garnished to provide insurance. They don’t think of it in those terms, but that’s the reality.

    That’s exactly the problem. They think they’re getting paid the $60k and that the $20k “benefit” is somehow largess. Which is how big companies frame it.

  171. 171.

    L85NJGT

    The myth of the American housewife was a leisure class indulgence and aspirational marketing tool.

    Women have always worked in this country. The “good ol’ days” assembly work that regressives fantasize about? It wasn’t tool belted hard hats giving each other reach arounds. Just endless rows of women doing piece work.

  172. 172.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: Interesting comment about Medicaid trumping McDonald’s offered insurance.

    Heartbreaking for that mother, but I am glad you told her.

    We could do so much better. It is just a greedy subset that is keeping the great majority of us from having security in our lives. As do first world countries, to a larger extent. We are held captive by the greedy gazillionaires and the magical-thinking sheeple.

  175. 175.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: I suspect DeLauro, like John Lewis and other old guard Pelosi allies, would impeach The Beast last year if she could. They’re being cagey about the question to give cover the Blue Dogs and newbies who are afraid

  177. 177.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SFAW: crazy thought : Bill Weld could do more good by buying a house in Maine, if he doesn’t already have one, and announcing an anti-trump primary challenge to Susan Collins. “You’re damn right I’m a carpetbagger. And she’s enabling treason”

  178. 178.

    SFAW

    @trollhattan:

    How uncivil of him!

    Might he also be called shrill?

    I can hear it now, from the Traitor-in-Chief: “No treason! NO Treason!! YOU’RE the TREASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  182. 182.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: The hardcore ones believe the “rigged primary” theories and believe the Democratic rank and file actually overwhelmingly supported Sanders. Appealing to 2016 Hillary voters is not an issue because they don’t believe a majority for Hillary actually existed.

  187. 187.

    Betty Cracker

    @Omnes Omnibus: True, and regardless of how employees perceive it, any transition to single payer would have to address the corporate role, which is enormously complex because companies handle it in so many different ways and would undoubtedly try to minimize their own liability. As a fool once said, “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.”

  188. 188.

    L85NJGT

    Like all cash industries, branch banking is in a steady state of decline. Converting Post Offices into banks is pretty pointless from that perspective, and strikes me as elitist to boot. Working poor need internet enabled devices and access for personal finance. Just like everybody else. That Obamaphone bullshit is just old white men not groking that smart phones are now commoditized, and no longer symbols of conspicuous consumption.

  190. 190.

    JimV

    On a contracting job in a small town I looked for some DVD’s to watch in my apartment and bought the first three seasons of “The West Wing”. The first season was standard TV, which I don’t recommend, but the second was great. I wound up buying all the rest of the seasons. Good dialog, good plots, good acting–frankly, compared to it, most of “Game of Thrones” sucked. Since then I guess Aaron Sorkin has repeated the formula, but it was new and great TV at the time. If you admired the job he did on the movie “Steve Jobs”, which I did, you should like “The West Wing”. (For my two-cent money.) (Steve Jobs was a monster who thought he was a genius, but don’t get me started on him.)

  191. 191.

    PST

    @satby:

    So yeah, he knows how to lose, graciously even.

    Not only graciously, but strategically. Buttigieg had no chance at party chairman, but he raised his profile and impressed some insiders. His great advantage, I think, is that he has accumulated affluent fans and friends who are willing to support him even in races where he has no chance as an investment in the likelihood of future success. I have no doubt that he is very ambitious.

  192. 192.

    SFAW

    @Miss Bianca:

    Crestone Needle. (Not “Needles”, my bad. Not enough coffee this am).

    “Needle,” huh? Interesting use of the term. If I look at it from 90 degrees left or right, does it look like it’s 50 feet wide?

    Anyway, thanks for the info. Were I a rock-climber, I’d probably be more appreciative, but even without that, I’m envious of your view.

  193. 193.

    L85NJGT

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Get me a sandwich politics.

    They say corrupt but mean they’re too fucking lazy to do the work of lining up state and local party support, unions, community leaders, etc.

  194. 194.

    dogwood

    @Ruviana:
    For anyone here who is interested in the subject of global migration, I would recommend Jason DeParle’s – A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century. Thirty years ago DeParle, a journalist, embedded himself with a Filipino family in the slums of Manila. His exploration into the political, economic and cultural roots of this complex issue is interwoven with the story of 3 decades of this family’s global journey to find a place in this world. It’s a powerful story.

  195. 195.

    germy

    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes about the a-hole who was fired from SNL. (It seems Lorne Michaels was deliberately looking to hire a cast member who would appeal to conservatives. And the guy he picked turned out to be, of course, an a-hole)

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kareem-abdul-jabbar-shane-gillis-snl-art-post-racist-rant-apology-1240924

    The weakest of all defenses in his case is that he’s a “comedian who pushes boundaries.” He’s right that artists push boundaries of cultural conventions. Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor were all boundary pushers. The difference between an artist and an artisan is the artist’s willingness to poke at the audience’s comfort level in an effort to unveil weaknesses, discrepancies and hypocrisies. Not everyone appreciates having their values questioned. That’s why it’s important that we give artists plenty of leeway to sincerely explore their interpretation of humanity. The goal of the artist is to bring people together by showing us our similarities through our weaknesses, even when we are reluctant to acknowledge them. At the same time, we are under no obligation to financially support self-proclaimed “artists,” like Shane Gillis, whose work promotes hatred toward groups based on ethnicity, gender identity and religion. Gillis’s humor doesn’t so much expand boundaries as shrink them back to where they were in the 1950s.

    His failure does not mean subjects now should be taboo or that we should not have comedy that offends. Ricky Gervais is able to make comical fun of religion, Atlanta has poignant and hysterical observations about race, Sarah Silverman is riotous about sexual politics, Will and Grace and Tig Notaro are hilarious about the LGBTQ community. All of them offend some people. But they don’t offend through deliberate, malicious attacks. Their humor brings the culture into sharper focus through intelligent and often barbed observations.

  196. 196.

    PersistentIllusion

    @Quinerly: Yes, and it’s lovely in a very Colorado way. Lots of spiritual people and a welcoming community. I live in COS, so if you’re looking for someone to suggest sites to see and places to miss, DM me.

  197. 197.

    The Moar You Know

    not an accident.

    @OzarkHillbilly: I dunno. I never assume what’s going on. Just watched a guy just absolutely fuck himself out of a career – seriously, it’s all he knows how to do and he is done after this – over, of all things, time card fraud. Spent the last few months saying he was at work when he wasn’t. His buddies tried to cover for him but it was just too obvious (one week you’d probably get away with it, two months and you will not) and he had to be terminated. And he’s going to lose his security clearance for that, for good.

    Oddly enough, time card fraud is the one thing that no matter what kind of union protections, or any other job protections you have, will get you fired without question or recourse. Think it’s a felony here in CA.

    We did manage to save the jobs of his buddies, although given the role they played in this I’d like to see them shitcanned too.

  198. 198.

    Fair Economist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I suspect DeLauro, like John Lewis and other old guard Pelosi allies, would impeach The Beast last year if she could. They’re being cagey about the question to give cover the Blue Dogs and newbies who are afraid

    That’s what I’m seeing on Twitter. Supposedly it’s freshmen Dems (presumably from red districts) who have been most opposed to impeachment. Add in some Blue Dogs, and then a few concerned about the Clinton impeachment backlash, and it’s easy to see why there’s not a majority for impeachment, and why Pelosi would be so reluctant – she needs to give her marginal seats political cover.

    With the latest revelations the opponents are apparently wavering. Impeachment, after all, is just political theater with our profoundly compromised Republican party. With Trump exposed as committing crimes that even the politically uninvolved can understand, the tradeoffs for impeachment theater change in these R-leaning districts.

  199. 199.

    glory b

    @Omnes Omnibus: This is exactly correct. I come into contact with a number of union members for work. NONE of them believe that the funds put towards healthcare will wind up in their pockets. They figure the money will go back to the employer and they will be stuck with taxes to pay for some form of universal care.
    Also, a number of the unions have their own health and welfare/pension funds. A lot of them don’t want that controlled by the government. They see what repubs constantly try to do to social security.

  200. 200.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:
    I’ve been telling people I’m an old.
    Up until 4 months ago I went to the bank to deposit my check. Now I use my banks mobil deposit app. I still pay some bills by mail, but others I’ve been paying online for years.

  202. 202.

    Ruckus

    @laura:
    That life unraveling bit happens a lot more than people realize. Some just can not face that life changes when you reach a certain stage. I say stage because it’s not a set age, but a way station. You can’t do things you could, not very long ago, and heath is always an issue that can go upside down in an instant. You aren’t quite as articulate as you were the week/month/year before, people that were friends for years, you can’t recall their name or face without concentration. Or at all. And you start looking backwards rather than forward, if for no other reason there is more behind than ahead and because you start to realize that a lot of forward may not be all that pleasant. And that stage has stages, milestones of old if you will. Known people who started that in their 60s and some who started in their 80s. A very few get to their 90s before it’s obvious.

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