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You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Monday You Can Fall Apart, Tuesday, Wednesday Break My Heart

Monday You Can Fall Apart, Tuesday, Wednesday Break My Heart

by @heymistermix.com|  January 10, 20208:29 am| 63 Comments

This post is in: Nature & Respite, Trumpery

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Mike Lee – or should I say Wednesday’s Brave Mike Lee – said so many bad things about the useless briefing that the Trump Administration provided to Congress. He “tore into” the Trump Administration. He said the briefing was ” un-American. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong.” He was so mad that he inspired a “Why Mike Lee Might Vote to Remove Trump” analysis piece at Bloomberg.

I think we can all agree, in a bi-partisan and fair-minded way, that we want more Wednesday Mike Lee Republicans in the Senate, and it sure sounds like Wednesday Mike is not in love with Donald Trump.

But that was Wednesday. Thursday, he went on Fox News and revised and extended his remarks:

“Those assigned to come and brief us yesterday from the administration didn’t share this president’s view that has been very respectful toward his commander-in-chief power.”

“I applaud this president. I support this president. This president has been fantastic. He’s been unprecedentedly deferential to the American people, and restrained in his use of the commander in chief power, more than any other president in my lifetime.”

“The briefers yesterday didn’t exhibit the same level of respect and deference and restraint that president trump has shown, and I think that’s unfortunate.”

So, Thursday never looking back, and Friday, Mike’s in love.

Mike’s a great example of a Senator throwing down a few “I was reasonable back then” cards at the right time and place. This motherfucker is the god damned chairman of Trump’s re-elect campaign in Utah. (Warning, the lede of that story will make you want to vomit.) He’s as much of a fucking coward as the rest of them, and the first question at that news conference should have been “In light of your anger, are you going to resign your position as Trump’s campaign chair?”

We should be issuing a deck of cards to the DC Press that has the Trump affiliations of each Senator on it, so they can pull out their own card when a Senator tries to play an “I was reasonable” card, and ask them about their Trump affiliations.

Speaking of reasonable cards, is there anyone throwing down more of them than Rob Portman? He got so much press and adulation for his gay marriage stance, which he based on happening to have a gay son. (If he didn’t, of course he’d be a bigot like the rest of them.) Today in my hobby news feeds, my place of respite, that fucker pops up in a puff piece about his love for the outdoors. One of Trump’s first acts was the largest national monument reduction in history. A Trump committee wants to privatize national park campgrounds and (this one is really awful) revoke some of the benefits of the lifetime Senior Pass. At least Jennifer Rubin sees through his bullshit.

If we ever get rid of Trump, the backlash needs to include people like these two, otherwise they’ll teach a lesson to others like them.

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Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    Jager

    January 10, 2020 at 8:41 am

    Is anyone surprised?

  2. 2.

    Nicole

    January 10, 2020 at 8:44 am

    There will be no consequences for them. The media will see to that.

  3. 3.

    kindness

    January 10, 2020 at 8:48 am

    They’ll all play Susan Collins game and the media gives them unearned credit for doing so.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    January 10, 2020 at 9:00 am

    I underestimated the cowardice of R senators. I’m searching for an analogy here to emphasize the point, but ‘the cowardice of R senators’ is paradigmatic, all by itself.

  5. 5.

    SFAW

    January 10, 2020 at 9:04 am

    Well, mistermix, you’ve cured me of the brief “respect” I had for brave, brave Sir Robin Michael.

    But I have to take issue with something:

    (If he didn’t, of course he’d be a bigot like the rest of them.)

    Portman is still a bigot, even if he maybe doesn’t hate on gays because of his son — and that’s a big if. Based on the various comments from Ohioans (Kay especially), the guy is slime, and seems to be as big a weasel as Collins.

    I think your deck-of-cards suggestion is good, similar to the way I think the NY Jets getting a real head coach would be good: great in theory, highly unlikely to happen in practice.

    These Rethug mofos are all so tiring. There’s no real “happy place” I can find to get away from their insanity. Anybody got any Owsley?

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    January 10, 2020 at 9:06 am

    No one ever accused Rep. Matt Gaetz of being reasonable, but it’s been fascinating to watch him try to defend his vote with the Dems yesterday on the war powers resolution. I can’t think what motivated him to cast that vote; it’s not like he has principles or a conscience. It’s a mystery.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    January 10, 2020 at 9:06 am

    Also, wrt Jennifer Rubin— you can just see her crossing off, one by one, the names of politicians she once admired. Not a pretty sight, but necessary in the current timeline.

  8. 8.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    January 10, 2020 at 9:11 am

    I think you missed the shocking part, that reaction from Lee  was genuine and the Trump admin had seriously pissed him off with their arrogance.  I don’t think that was some calculated time to be the voice of reason, more Lee dropped his guard for moment.  I bet Turtle and Graham spent the next couple of days whining at Lee to be a good Republican and praise Dear Leader.

    Trump is so bad he gives the professionally spineless a spine.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    January 10, 2020 at 9:13 am

    Did he walk back his decision to support Kaine’s bill on war powers? What he says means nothing to me.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    January 10, 2020 at 9:20 am

    NEW: Mike Bloomberg won’t release women who have signed secrecy agreements with his company to speak publicly about past allegations that he fostered a hostile work environment for some female employees, he tells @ABC News. https://t.co/4bXUfBqtqJ— Matthew Mosk (@mattmosk) January 9, 2020

  11. 11.

    Barbara

    January 10, 2020 at 9:23 am

    Utah is probably a lost cause, and neither Lee nor Portman are up in 2020. Susan Collins’ penchant for playing poopyhead has been on prominent display for a while, but here are the other senators who are Republican, up for election in 2020, and in states where mindless fealty to Trump might not be seen as a plus:
    McSally (AZ)
    Tillis (NC)
    Ernst (IA)
    Gardner (CO)

    I believe that Gardner and Ernst actually ran away from the press at one point rather than answer difficult questions about impeachment.  No doubt they don’t want to answer difficult questions about war powers either.

  12. 12.

    Barbara

    January 10, 2020 at 9:25 am

    @rikyrah: I think the best way for the Democratic Party and its candidates to deal with Bloomberg is not to do or say anything.

  13. 13.

    Robmassing

    January 10, 2020 at 9:28 am

    Did Stalin get this kind of loyalty?

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    January 10, 2020 at 9:29 am

    My big fear for 2021 (after Trump getting reelected, natch) is that, should the Democrat win the White House and should Dems pick up seats in the House and Senate, that there will be a repeat of 2006 and a desire to just let bygones be bygones.  The Democrats, at least to my mind, have let the Republicans off the hook again, and again, and again, by not continuing to pursue abuses of power once the main perpetrator is out of the picture.  It’s like they see each restoration of sanity as the new normal, instead of just one more pause in the GOP’s never-ending quest for single party control.

    If I can parallel with the bullshit crap I’m dealing with in my personal life right now- as a lot of you probably read in one of my other comments last week, I’m dealing with a breast cancer recurrence.   I looked at the lab report from the lymph node that was removed.  The cancer is the same kind as before, EXCEPT, EXCEPT, that it’s now much faster growing than the original one, which sucks.  And I feel that way about the GOP.  Each time they get excised from power, they evolve to come back more aggressive and more damaging than before, and the Democrats seem to think that a policy of repeated surgery (elections), and healthy living (trying to pass legislation for the good of the nation) will keep them at bay, when what they need to do is suck it up and give the GOP a long stretch of chemotherapy treatment (investigation into corruption), knowing full well that some Democrats’ careers will get caught up and killed off in the process. too.  Painful and horrible and maybe it still won’t cure what’s ailing this body politic, but good grief, at some point the GOP has to face actual consequences for bad actions and 2 or 4 years at a stretch out of power isn’t going to do shit.

    (As for my personal bullshit, no word on what my follow-up treatment will be yet; I’m trying to take it as a good sign that the oncologist’s office seems content with my coming in almost a month after surgery, the earliest I could get an appointment.  If they were worried about delay in getting me on medication I’m trusting they’d get me in sooner.  Or maybe they’re just being the Democratic Party. I don’t know anything anymore.)

  15. 15.

    MattF

    January 10, 2020 at 9:30 am

    @Robmassing: Da.

  16. 16.

    Ohio Mom

    January 10, 2020 at 9:31 am

    Yeah, my (ugh) Senator Portman is cut from a very similar bolt of cloth as Collins. He makes moderate noises and occasionally, carefully and strategically, votes sensibly.

    For instance, there were a series of three votes in the run-up to McCain killing the  undoing of the ACA. Portman was a No in the middle vote. Didn’t make a difference in the final outcome but I imagine it helped some Ohioans hold on to their belief that reasonable Republications exist.

    Hes very proud that one of his big causes in human trafficking. You won’t hear him mention the trafficking that’s happening at our southern border though. What happened to all those girls, not on Portman’s radar.

    It’s a long haul until he’s up for re-Election. Maybe, just maybe, the Ohio Dems will have their act together by then, and mount a real campaign for a challenger.  I keep hoping…

    I will add that his offices rarely answer the phone and it’s not unusual for the voice mailbox to be full. He either can’t keep an intern or they are the laziest group without any work ethic.

  17. 17.

    Nicole

    January 10, 2020 at 9:35 am

    Also, thanks for The Cure ear worm.  Seriously.  I love that song.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    January 10, 2020 at 9:41 am

    @SFAW: Why couldn’t it be a Balloon Juice project?  Lots of smart, knowledgable people here.  We have some talented designers, here, also.  Some of whom could probably use some work.

    I bet we could put together a deck of cards that we could send to every media outlet.  Even the little ones, local press, that are more likely to ask real questions.  We could sell them on-line.

    Am I crazy?

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    January 10, 2020 at 9:43 am

    @Robmassing:

    My god, it’s approaching those levels. It is really scary.

  20. 20.

    zhena gogolia

    January 10, 2020 at 9:46 am

    David Brooks’s headline this morning is “Trump Has Made Us All Stupid.”

    Uh, wow, we’ve now found something I can’t blame Trump for, Mr. Brooks. You’ve always been stupid.

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    January 10, 2020 at 9:48 am

    @Nicole: I agree completely, and that’s an excellent analogy. I’m just sorry it’s personal experience that makes it so vivid for you. That sucks (huge understatement).

  22. 22.

    Ohio Mom

    January 10, 2020 at 9:50 am

    Nicole, I missed the thread where you announced your recurrence, all I can say is Rats! Shit! Think hard about getting a second opinion, and maybe pester your onc for an earlier appointment.

    I like my onc but I had to make a fuss before she agreed to send a slice of my tumor for the BCI test.* Which showed, contrary to her prediction, that I had a high chance of a recurrence if I did not continue on the estrogen blockers past five years.

    Which strengthen my belief that you gotta ride your doctors. They are all overworked and by necessity, tend to be a little blasé. It helps to demand their attention (nicely of course).

    Anyway, we’re all pulling for you, and please keep us updated.

    * For those of you who haven’t been lucky enough to have had a malignant rumor, the hospital encases the excised tumor in wax and stores it for years and years, just in case. The Breast Cancer Index test uses a sliver of the tumor to evaluate the cancer’s genetics and predict the cancer’s future course.

  23. 23.

    Rommie

    January 10, 2020 at 9:50 am

    OH, of course, it’s not that the President is incompetent, he just has incompetent followers.  I see, Senator.

    Who could have known?

  24. 24.

    SFAW

    January 10, 2020 at 9:51 am

    @WaterGirl:

    Am I crazy?

    Bad question to ask of fellow Juicers. [To be clear: whether it’s you or anyone else asking the question, not singling you out.]

    Joking aside: interesting project proposal. My “skill” set is not amenable to that kind of thing, but I bet there are plenty here who would be.

    Of course, I’d also like to see a card set for Uday, Qusay, and their “father,” similar to what was circulating post-2001.

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray

    January 10, 2020 at 9:54 am

    @zhena gogolia: Well, Trump hasn’t had any dissenters killed. Yet.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    January 10, 2020 at 9:55 am

    Wall Street Journal, via TPM:

    Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.

    It’s not news to us that the assassination was primarily ordered to improve Trump’s political fortunes; apparently that’s what’s driving foreign and domestic policy across the board now.

  27. 27.

    lee

    January 10, 2020 at 9:55 am

    I wonder if he complete turn was because of kompromat.

    I mean he could just be a Republican but in this day & age you never know.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    January 10, 2020 at 9:56 am

    @zhena gogolia:

    My god, it’s approaching those levels. It is really scary.

    The (il)logical extension is that we start seeing large (i.e., billboard-sized) photos of the Traitor-in-Chief everywhere, mixed with similarly-size photos of Putin.

    And the New York Novy Moskva Times will both-sides it.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    January 10, 2020 at 9:58 am

    @Nicole:

    So sorry to hear of the recurrence. Keeping my fingers crossed that any/all treatments are stunningly successful.

  30. 30.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 10, 2020 at 10:00 am

    @Nicole:

    The Democrats, at least to my mind, have let the Republicans off the hook again, and again, and again, by not continuing to pursue abuses of power once the main perpetrator is out of the picture.

    Does anyone, ANYONE, think that Bush and Cheney would have been convicted by the Supreme Court?  Because it would go to the Supreme Court immediately.  Their crimes were potentially illegal political decisions, like torture.  There was no way in hell Roberts or Kennedy would have voted that they were allowed to be prosecuted for that, and every likelihood there’d be a 5-4 decision declaring torture and a bunch of other stuff hunky dory.  As things stood, we got to legally walk back most of it.  I would love to have seen Bush and Cheney in jail, but I see no way it could have been achieved.

    EDIT – Trump, on the other hand, is guilty of personal crimes that are not part of being president, and none of our major candidates seem in a hurry to forgive him for those.

  31. 31.

    Barbara

    January 10, 2020 at 10:05 am

    OT, but possibly some useful and interesting news for many regarding the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy.  Source.

    Basically, a few very high profile decisions soon after Congress made it more difficult to discharge student loans have erected a seemingly insurmountable hurdle for most people with high student loan debts, unless they are physically or mentally incapacitated.  A few bankruptcy judges seem to be taking a somewhat less punitive approach.  It will always be difficult, but it might be more worthwhile to try than it has been previously understood.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    January 10, 2020 at 10:06 am

    @Betty Cracker:  Yep, the only surprise there is that Trump continues to not understand that he incriminates himself with nearly every off the cuff statement.

    I am a bit bleary-eyed this morning, and I first read the beginning of your quote as:  Mr. Trump, after the STROKE, only to realize a moment later that you had said “strike”.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    January 10, 2020 at 10:07 am

    Surprise, Surprise: The DOJ’s Hillary Clinton Investigation Has Been a Bust

    Back in 2017, buoyed by President Donald Trump’s calls for investigations into “Crooked Hillary & the Dems,” the Justice Department launched an inquiry into Hillary Clinton and Republicans’ pet conspiracy theories about her and her career. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked U.S. Attorney John Huber to look into concerns that the FBI hadn’t fully pursued cases related to the Clinton Foundation, as well as Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, including the baseless “Uranium One” conspiracy theory championed by conservatives. Now, Huber is finally almost finished with his much-vaunted Clinton investigation—and, unsurprisingly, there isn’t really anything to show for it.

    The Washington Post reported Thursday that after continuing on for more than two years, Huber’s investigation “has effectively ended with no tangible results.” After combing through documents and conferring with federal law enforcement officials looking into the Clinton Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Post reports that Huber has “found nothing worth pursuing,” let alone any criminal charges. The U.S. attorney has not yet officially reported any results to the Justice Department, however, and the inquiry is technically still ongoing. But officials cited by the Post say that Huber’s years-long investigation has by this point “largely finished”—and with nothing to show for it.

  34. 34.

    jimmiraybob

    January 10, 2020 at 10:07 am

    Predicted it.  Predicted Thursday Mike.  Best wager ever.  Now, all I have to do is sit back and wait for all my winnings to start rolling in.  Still waiting.  Gonna make some coffee.  Still waiting.  Maybe a breakfast sammich  Waiting…………………

    Oh crap.  Forgot to get this to my bookie.  Next time.

  35. 35.

    zhena gogolia

    January 10, 2020 at 10:11 am

    @Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:

    He’d love to.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    January 10, 2020 at 10:12 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I wish you’d have given me a trigger warning. I had to run to collect my winnings find my nitro pills, such was the shock to my ticker.

  37. 37.

    zhena gogolia

    January 10, 2020 at 10:13 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I saw that last night. I’m sure it will be the top story on all the MSM and big headlines in the NYT for weeks.

  38. 38.

    waspuppet

    January 10, 2020 at 10:18 am

    “I applaud this president. I support this president. This president has been fantastic. He’s been unprecedentedly deferential to the American people, and restrained in his use of the commander in chief power, more than any other president in my lifetime.”

    It’s well past time to just say to these people, “You think ‘the American people’ are just Fox News viewers, right? No one else counts, do they?”

    Because they really couldn’t make it more obvious.

  39. 39.

    Mike in DC

    January 10, 2020 at 10:24 am

    @Nicole: Harris(and to a lesser extent, Warren) are/were the only nominees of whom I thought, “maybe they’ll hold the previous administration accountable”.  Unless they piss Biden off to an extreme degree, we all know in advance that he won’t lift a finger to hold 45 or his admin accountable, because he’ll want to try to work with Republicans, likely wasting months of legislative time trying to get (shitty) deals.  Bernie will be focused on his agenda, and a lot of his supporters come across as indifferent or even hostile to Russiagate et al.  And I don’t get the vibe that Mayor Pete is all about holding Trump’s feet to the fire.

    I think that a Warren/Harris ticket is the only thing that might make people like Lindsey Graham nervous.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    January 10, 2020 at 10:30 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    When has the absence of evidence ever been a reason not to accuse Hillary of wrongdoing?

    I for one call on Barr to launch an investigation into Huber’s investigation.

  41. 41.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 10, 2020 at 10:32 am

    Did you guys really expect any different?

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 10, 2020 at 10:34 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: accountability for the Iraq War was never about the courts for me. We needed something like the Warren Commission to have public hearings and testimony and report. I can’t jump in the wayback machine and speculate who in 2007 had the kind of standing necessary to make such a thing credible, but I think at that moment it was possible.

    By the time the economy started going to hell, it was too late to make people care.

  43. 43.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 10, 2020 at 10:36 am

    BTW I am loving all the wonderful slogans and the music that the Indian protests against the CAA-NRC are inspiring

    One older woman in Varanasi (NM’s constituency)

    Pehle ladhe the goronse

    Ab ladenge choron se

    It doesn’t quite rhyme in English

    First we fought against White people

    And now we fight against thieves.

    The same woman also called the Home Minister Amit Shah

    Genda (rhino) which rhymes with Goonda (Goon)

    Another woman called him aate ka thaila (sack of flour)

  44. 44.

    JPL

    January 10, 2020 at 10:41 am

    @zhena gogolia: The NYT will highlight it on the front page, just like they did for Clinton Cash.

  45. 45.

    zhena gogolia

    January 10, 2020 at 10:42 am

    He said at his rally last night that all Democrats are terrible, horrible people.

    At least he didn’t say “deplorable.” That would be cause for big headlines.

  46. 46.

    chris

    January 10, 2020 at 10:51 am

    @schrodingers_cat: Hey, SC, how did your heating adventure turn out? Thought of you last night when the bottom fell out of the thermometer.

  47. 47.

    The Moar You Know

    January 10, 2020 at 10:51 am

    Did you guys really expect any different?

    @schrodingers_cat: Dems need to stop jumping at stories that imply that any Republican in these United States is going to behave in any manner that would uphold the Constitution, if Trump won’t like the results.

    Only when Dems stop buying into, or even clicking on, those stories will the media stop making them.  There’s a huge market out there for bullshit; the idea that a Republican might “go rouge” is an attractive one to a Dem electorate looking for an easy way out of the Trump reign, but it’s not going to happen and we need to stop acting as though it might.

    Hell, I’m still running into friends, mostly of the more centrist/moderate sort, who insist that enough GOP senators will break with Trump and vote for removal.  I don’t even discuss it with them any longer, I just laugh right in their faces.  Not gonna happen.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 10, 2020 at 10:52 am

    @zhena gogolia: it’s that weird reverse-snobbery in the media. All the Ivy/NU/UM/Stanford grads who absolutely look down on the howler monkeys, but can’t admit that publicly, or even to themselves, so they (the diploma’d, socially credentialed media) are easily stampeded into R talking points to prove they’re not snobs.

    And of course, as Charlie Pierce puts it, it’s not about race, because nothing is ever about race, so let’s go back to Flo’s Diner in Rustberg one more time to talk to Dub and Smitty about why they love trump

  49. 49.

    chris

    January 10, 2020 at 10:54 am

    @zhena gogolia: “vicious, horrible people”

    https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1215447835753185280

  50. 50.

    Jay

    January 10, 2020 at 10:56 am

    Australia urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes on Friday and prepared military backup as authorities said the next few hours could be “very, very challenging” even as rain poured down in some parts.

    Defence personnel stood ready to move to bushfire grounds if conditions became extreme, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters, as soaring temperatures and erratic winds create dangerous conditions.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-urges-quarter-of-a-million-flee-huge-bushfires-1.5421851

  51. 51.

    Citizen Alan

    January 10, 2020 at 10:57 am

    @Gin & Tonic, Duke of Tanqueray:

    If Shitgibbon is reelected, I really do think we’ll have organized violence against liberals. They’re a fucking death cult.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    January 10, 2020 at 10:59 am

    This is the kind of thing that only increases my conviction that Republicans who start to step out of line are shown proof that their campaigns were funded by Russian oligarch money and that they will go to jail if they oppose Trump.

    The last time I said this, someone challenged me and said that this would only work if the Republicans who were threatened that way were total cowards who would roll over as soon as they saw that proof, and what if one of them had some actual courage?

    Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case. None of them have a lick of courage and not a single one is willing to risk his or her own well-being for the good of the country.

  53. 53.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 10, 2020 at 11:00 am

    Chants of Azadi at JNU with Deepika Padukone, one of India’s highest paid actors standing in the background and lending her silent support to the JNU students. At a rally on JNU campus where BJP affiliated student organization went on  5 hour rampage breaking bones and destroying property, while the police locked the gates and didn’t intervene.

     

    ETA: BJP government and their cronies have demonized the students of JNU for the last 6 years calling them everything from traitors to anti-nationals. For daring to speak their mind.

    Azaadi == independence. Its telling that Indians are reviving the slogans from the Freedom struggle against British collaborators who are using the time tested Divide and Rule policy.

  54. 54.

    Barbara

    January 10, 2020 at 11:02 am

    @Mnemosyne: Listening to Susan Collins jabber on about how mean Democrats are to make impeachment into a campaign issue certainly supports that hypothesis.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    January 10, 2020 at 11:03 am

    @Baud:

    I’m sure they’re going to keep accusing her, but we are not (yet) at the point where they feel comfortable manufacturing evidence that would stand up in court, so all they have is innuendo and accusations.

  56. 56.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 10, 2020 at 11:16 am

    @The Moar You Know: Agreed. I will believe it when it happens.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    January 10, 2020 at 11:41 am

    @Robmassing:Did Stalin get this kind of loyalty?

    Communist who were out of the Soviet Union in countries that would have eagerly welcomed their defection returned to the Soviet Union to be tortured to death during the Great Terror.

  58. 58.

    Jay

    January 10, 2020 at 12:04 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    for the most part, that was loyalty to a system, not to an individual.

    even late in the Purges, when things were known or suspected, many Communists “returned” to the Soviet Union to meet their fates, believing that Communism, after the Guilded Age, WWI, Roaring 20’s, the Great Depression, was the only way of “breaking the wheel”.

    Forseeing their own deaths at the hands of a System they had helped build, and wanted to “perfect”, even those who saw Stalin as an “abberation”, a “hijacking”, many still returned. They did not become Menshiviks, Trotsyites or other splinter factions, convert to Capitalist Democracy, Anarchism, or Socialism.

    They were “true believers” who believed that their trials, ( if they got one), their suffering, their deaths, would help perfect an imperfect system.

    In contrast, nothing remains of what once passed for the Republican “belief” system except Cleeks Law, Greed, Cowardice, White Supremacy, Self Interest and Duex ex Machina’s Collary.

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    January 10, 2020 at 12:56 pm

    @Nicole:

     

    Sending you prayers in your continued fight :(

  60. 60.

    Nicole

    January 10, 2020 at 1:21 pm

    @Ohio Mom: Oh lord, the calls to the oncologist- the surgery office called 4 times with no luck, and by the time they got through I’d already gotten through myself and moved up the appointment (my regular 6 month check up was scheduled for early February).  At this point I’m only 5 days from the appointment, and my follow up with the surgeon is the same day so in some ways it’ll be knocking out 2 birds with one stone.

    They did do lots of genetic tests the first time, so that at least I feel they covered.  They did the OncoGene on my original one and I came back with a very, very low risk of recurrence (like 6%).  And in fact, everything pointed to low risk- no lymph node involvement then, a very slow growing cancer, blah blah blah.  Unfortunately, somebody’s got to be in the 6% and it turned out to be me.

    While I’m really upset about the Ki-67 coming back so much higher, I’m trying to remind myself that otherwise it hasn’t evolved (still Her2-, still very high estrogen and progesterone responsive, and while they took out 10 lymph nodes it was only in the original one I felt in November).  Also, I didn’t go on hormone therapy the first time so I’m hopeful that going on it now (along with Warfarin, probably, as I have blood inclined to clot excessively) will starve the motherfuckers that may be remaining somewhere in me.  I’ll do chemo and cut out my ovaries or whatever else the doctor recommends me to do, obviously, but some of the sites I’ve read said with the ER+PR+ Her2- ones they sometimes don’t move automatically to chemo unless the hormone therapy isn’t working anymore because the risk-reward benefit isn’t high enough with this kind of cancer cell.

    @rikyrah, @betty cracker, et al; thanks for the continued good wishes.  I’m not telling many people in my in real person life because they get upset and cry and then I’m spending emotional energy trying to make THEM feel better about my problem, but it’s nice to be able to vent about it a bit here, along with how mad I am at the state of the country.

  61. 61.

    Kathleen

    January 10, 2020 at 2:10 pm

    @Nicole: ❤❤❤❤❤❤

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    January 10, 2020 at 2:21 pm

    @Nicole: Thanks for letting us know.  We are all pulling for you.

    Best wishes,

    Scott.

  63. 63.

    J R in WV

    January 10, 2020 at 2:53 pm

    @Nicole:

    As one of the few guys I know who has had mammograms and biopsies, I am feeling with and for you!

    ((((Nicole))))

    Take care, best wishes for good luck, and please keep us posted!

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