Former VP Biden made some news in the wee hours. From The Hill:
Former Vice President Joe Biden said he plans to announce the members of a selection committee who will help choose his running mate by May 1 as speculation continues to mount over his vice presidential pick.
“We’re going to probably be announcing the setting up of that committee, which we’re doing now, between the people who have agreed to serve on it, and we will be announcing the formation of that I assume by May 1 we’ll have that done,” he said on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” which aired the episode early Wednesday morning.
Biden added that the committee will likely take until July to narrow the hunt for a vice president down to the top three contenders.
Gotta admit, my first reaction to that was mild irritation, along the lines of “what is this, The Bachelor”? I can’t recall past nominees making a production of the selection process. I assume there are always teams focused on vetting, etc., but it happens in the background. My recollection is that then-candidate Obama just sort of sprang Biden on us. Same with Clinton and Kaine.
The only selection committee member from a past nominee I can think of off the top of my head is Dick Cheney, and that’s only because the evil shitbag concluded he was the best man for the job. But occasional Trump era sense-maker Jen Rubin made some good points in her column on the topic in The Post:
Biden may have a strong preference for his vice president already, but the process is critical for several reasons. First, it will highlight the difference between Trump’s chaotic, impulsive style and Biden’s professional, data-driven approach to governing. Second, it will feature the sort of people who may appear in the Cabinet of agencies spot, again highlighting the quality of people Biden will attract (as opposed to the third-rate, ethics-challenged riffraff and relatives who populate Trump’s inner circle). Third, naming the committee creates another “event,” a rash of headlines and coverage for Biden who continues to look for ways to break through the confines of quarantine. It will be Biden’s first presidential-level action, and for that reason alone, it is worthy of scrutiny.
Correct on all counts, Ms. Rubin. The election will be a referendum on Trump, and any opportunity to juxtapose Biden’s team of smart, competent people with Trump’s low-quality hires and nepotism grifters is a win. Rubin also notes that a committee comprising people who represent various interests/factions within the party may also be designed to reassure stakeholders in those groups that they’re being heard, e.g., if AOC is on the committee, she’ll have input. If Clyburn is on it, he’ll be part of the decision-making process, etc.
Anyhoo, well done, Team Biden! Open thread.
PS: I was super busy earlier, and my laptop just up and shut down. I turned it back on, and it shut down again. This went on for a while, and I was freaking the fuck out because deadlines, meetings, etc. It turns out I’d neglected to plug it in properly after carrying back from my standing work desk (aka, the kitchen counter) hours before. Thank sweet merciful dog!
Open Thread: Happy Earth Day 2020
Patricia Kayden
zhena gogolia
About to cancel my subscription to The New Yorker. I’ve never been a big fan of Remnick, but I just read this in his column that began “When has New York known a grimmer week?” —
That’s it. I’m not supporting a publication with an editor who’s getting ready to replay 2016. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Mnemosyne
I’m guessing that, in a non-Covid-19 world, Biden wouldn’t bother formally announcing this step, so I think Rubin is right. It’s half keeping himself in the public eye and half drawing a distinction between his methodical process and Trump’s chaos. People REALLY need to be reassured right now that adults still exist and that we can put them in charge of complicated shit.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
Hi, I hope you’re doing okay. (Have to go to class now but will check back later.)
trollhattan
You reinforce my hatred of non-user changeable batteries. I dread the day my laptop battery goes kaput and I’m faced with paying somebody a couple hundred bucks to make the switch. They once popped free with merely sliding a latch.
I think Biden keeps manages to keep doing the right things because he’s been there before. It’s not mere kismet he’s the finalist out of two-dozen contenders. Here’s hoping he keeps the streak alive for [checks] seven more months.
UncleEbeneezer
For any fans of ballet and Frida Kahlo, there’s a showing of Broken Wings happening on YT now.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s because Fox is desperately hoping they don’t get sued for giving medical advice for people to use shit that doesn’t actually work and never did.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Can’t disagree. That’s beyond weak.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
I’m okay. I’ve been feeling a little bummed about being furloughed, so I spent way more time than was good for me reading TV lists on Buzzfeed. I’m starting to calm down a bit now.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
Were you able to explain the reason for your abandoning your subscription? Hearing your explanation may be useful.
dogwood
Obama had a very similar process. I remember Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy were on the vetting committee. And Biden wasn’t just sprung on us; he was always in the mix.
zhena gogolia
@West of the Rockies:
I haven’t had time to actually do it yet. They have not had the most user-friendly customer service in the past, even pre-pandemic, so it’s not going to be easy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
looks to me like Biden was asked about the process, so he talked about the process. I don’t remember Obama having a vetting committee, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t.
@zhena gogolia: that’s a surprisingly hothouse view from somebody with Remnick’s experience. I don’t watch every Biden appearance, and he’s no Obama, and he sometimes rambles, but I saw John Kerry on MSNBC a day or two ago and I was reminded that, god love him and I’m a big fan, the man rambles through a sentence like a three year old chasing soap bubbles.
Also, I’m baffled by this idea that Bernie has changed the debate on health care. We pretty much need to run the vulnerable R Senate seats to have a hope of doing anything, and the Dem candidates in those races are largely on record as opposing BernieCare.
zhena gogolia
@dogwood:
I can remember a number of “Bachelor” style processes. Gore’s process resulting in Lieberman was one such. I’m expecting a better outcome this time.
Keith Kennedy
As an IT person, I had to ask people all the time “Is it plugged in?”. This really pissed people off… but …
MattF
We’re so used to the malice and incompetence of the Orange Asshole that a more-or-less rational process evokes a WTF. It matters, though, who is on the committee… no repeats of the Cheney ‘I choose myself’, please.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I hope the furlough is brief and productive!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: It shouldn’t be that expensive to change the batteries in a laptop. They’re not too hard to open(just be careful prying the lid off, there are sometimes components right at the edge). It may depend on how they glue the batteries in.
Miss Bianca
I’m starting to like the cut of Jennifer Rubin’s jib more and more. Hell, I’m even now including a quote of hers on my email signature line – “No significant segment of voters actually wants government to be small. The issue is what you want government to do and how well you want it to perform.” (This serves as my special little dig at all the “small government” types I am forced to interact with as a govt. meetings reporter).
Dear gods, what is the matter with me? Am I turning conservative, or is she turning liberal?
Betty Cracker
@dogwood: I don’t mean Biden was sprung on us in the sense that no one thought he was in the mix, just that I don’t recall a big build-up about a selection committee. But that was a different time. Ostentatiously announcing a committee, etc., makes sense in the present context. There’s the pandemic, obviously, and also Trump’s carnival barker media hogging.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia:
Do what you gotta do, but remember:
https://socialjusticeleaguenet.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/how-to-be-a-fan-of-problematic-things/
Jane Mayer writes for the NewYorker, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
pamelabrown53
@zhena gogolia:
Whatever you decide re your New Yorker subscription, I hope you share your thoughts with David Remnick.
I gotta admit, the block quote you included did have a whiff of “here we go again” crapola.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Keith Kennedy: …have you turned it on?
(I used to do computer support for attorneys.)
trollhattan
@dogwood:
Always thought Kaine was an odd choice for Hillary and one who ultimately did not deliver any key voters. Which then has me ponder who might have, or if it’s even plausible.
Hillary did not have Biden’s obvious age “issue” and further, did not emerge from a large cohort of competent women candidates like Biden does. His VP choice path seems pretty distinctly laid out. And potentially meaningful for once.
Cleardale
@trollhattan: Ifixit is a pretty good site for repairing lots of electronic products. They are big into right to repair laws. If you are inclined in that direction.
Barbara
@Patricia Kayden: No doubt he sold on the good news and so achieved what he was aiming. There simply aren’t words to describe the loathing I feel for Trump. At a minimum he diverted money from more promising treatments, exposing untold numbers of people to treatment as medical guinea pigs. And yeah, some people were no doubt harmed.
MattF
@Miss Bianca: My dad used to say that inside every fat person is a thin person trying to get out. I suspect the same is true for conservatives; in Rubin’s case, the liberal inside her sometimes gets out.
Ten Bears
Lot can happen twixt now and August. Looks like buck fever.
Or letting the cart get ahead of the horse?
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The debate on health care has been going on since the 90’s (actually before), Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch actually got CHIP passed, they wanted more but that was what they settled for because it was what they could get, Hillary Clinton tried to get the subject into the public eye and on the table starting in the 90’s too. The ACA is not nothing and was better than what we had for a lot of us. That was thanks to President Obama and the Dems.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Heh :-)
I have tried to coax attorneys into applying Word styles and formatting to source documents that will be published. May as well tell a cat to go to its room. Some engineers do come around, so I’ll always have that.
WhatsMyNym
@trollhattan:
If the manual won’t tell you (you may have to download the real manual), somebody on youtube will.
ETA: Also iFixit.
Miss Bianca
@Keith Kennedy:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Obligatory
Catherine D.
@Keith Kennedy: Anyone who says “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” has never done computer support.
Betty Cracker
@Ten Bears: I don’t even know what that means.
trollhattan
@Cleardale:
You’re right and looking at videos for a specific device can reveal whether it’s merely popping a back cover to discover a fully exposed battery, or if a bunch of PSBs have to be liberated first. I decided my phone was too risky and paid somebody eighty bucks to swap a $12 battery, a good investment on an $800 phone.
OTOH I watched several videos on replacing the battery in my kid’s bluetooth boombox and decided “I can do that!” Imagine my surprise when the guts were completely different than those on the video and instead of the battery being on the top layer, it instead was shoved into a plastic interior slot where it had swelled and would not come out.
Admit I’m gunshy at this point.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cleardale: If it’s a MacBook, Louis Rossmann has lots of repair vids(though most of his are board repair), he’s also a big proponent of Right to Repair(for obvious reasons).
Martin
@Mnemosyne: I’m not sure that Fox will lose that suit. It’s established that news networks can knowingly lie to the public under their first amendment rights.
But Congress isn’t constrained by such things.
Barbara
@zhena gogolia: The dinner party set must be able to look down their noses at anyone chosen by the rest of us. It is required for membership. If David Remnick showed enthusiasm for anyone he would be summarily disinvited. I don’t know what that means in the age of social distancing, but I can assure you I don’t read the New Yorker because I am on the edge of my seat desperate to know what David Remnick thinks about . . . anything at all.
There was an article in the WaPo by Marc Fisher, another dinnery party set member, about how hard Donald Trump had been hit by the death of one of his New York real estate pals, who was actually much closer to Jarvanka than Trump. I assume that one of them reached out and fed Fisher the goods, and he dutifully reported. The comments were merciless. Just FYI, I know Fisher through his wife (not the same last name), and he is definitely of that set — elite New York City private schools. He wrote a long, very good article for the New Yorker about the sexual abuse scandal that occurred at his school (that he knew nothing about as a student).
Anyway, this is to remind you that these guys have personal relationships with a lot of people that they need to please socially.
FelonyGovt
I think this announcement is mostly a shrewd way for Biden to claim some news time in this weird environment, but where Trump is doing his deranged rants every day. But yes, it also shows what responsible decision making looks like.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: The batteries on all the laptops I’ve seen are easily accessible once you have the cover off, however sometimes they’re glued in pretty much permanently.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not a fan of the old coot, but yeah, Sanders changed the debate on healthcare. You’re correct to point out that there’s almost zero chance of any movement toward M4A given the congressional realities, and certainly Sanders didn’t invent the concept of single payer. But it’s no longer a fringe notion in the party, and Sanders deserves a lot of credit or blame for popularizing it, depending on your POV.
Kent
I have no problem with Biden’s approach.
The Biden Campaign is going to have to be creative to stay in the front of the news from now until August. I suppose this is one way to do it. And having national discussion of capable Democrats as an alternative to Trump and Pence can only be a good thing. Candidates who don’t get the nod will have their profiles elevated by getting national attention. How is that a bad thing?
Do you want Paul Manafort to pick your candidate? Apparently that was Trump’s approach.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I nominate this for the coveted Betty Cracker award for excellent phrases and sentences.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Gotta be careful, sometimes that can void the warranty.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know, the public option was pretty much in the mix during the Obamacare legislative discussions back in 2009.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Oh, it’ll void the warranty.
ETA: If it’s under warranty, just let the manufacturer do it.
Another Scott
Sensible thing by Uncle Joe. Good job.
In other news, BooMan at WaMo – Why are the US and UK doing so badly at fighting COVID-19?:
I won’t spoil it – click over.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
I’m not trying to pick on you Betty. But I find this sort of argument from Bernie-land to be infuriating.
Bernie gets major credit for incrementally moving THE DEBATE towards some policy objective without actually accomplishing anything at all? But Obama gets pillorized for incrementally moving ACTUAL POLICY towards some policy objective? And is labeled a sell-out for not accomplishing more?
That is how we measure things in Bernie-land? Incremental changes in “the conversation” are valued more than incremental changes in actual policy that affects millions of lives?
In any event, I hear that said all the time. But is it actually true? Has public opinion actually shifted in favor of M4A and is any of that attributable to the Sanders campaign? Or is that just some conventional wisdom that no one has actually examined? The Kaiser Family Foundation has recently looked into this question and the answer is mixed. But more people support Biden’s incremental approach over Sander’s: https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public-opinion-on-single-payer-national-health-plans-and-expanding-access-to-medicare-coverage/
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Agree. That’s awful. It’s how propaganda spreads.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yes, bankrupt state governments are just what we need while recovering from an economic crash
@WaterGirl: aw, you make me blush
Kent
Don’t be fooled. It is a long term deliberate scheme to allow states to default on public pension obligations and public sector wages and unions in lieu of raising taxes on Mitch’s wealthy supporters. They know what they are doing. The Detroit bankruptcy and receivership from a few years ago was a test-drive of this idea. As was Puerto Rico. Bankruptcy of a state would be the single biggest redistribution of wealth upwards in history.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Umm, that will send a chill down the spines of municipal bond holders, of which there are many. McConnell might want to reconsider.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent:
I think that’s key. As much as a handful of MoC are touting single-payer, and a few Senators have said they do or would support it, what “Our Revolution” has been far more effective in, as I see it, is convincing a lot of emo-folk that “incrementalism” is a sin, and specifically on health care, that anything less that single-payer is worse than nothing at all. This is just one aspect of the toxicity of Sanders’ “movement”, which he is never asked to account for.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Won’t happen.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Whatever improvements Dems will make on health care in the next few years, I guarantee you that they won’t involving banning private insurance, so it will be considered a failure for M4A die-hards.
dopey-o
@?BillinGlendaleCA: as for voiding the warranty by popping the cover to replace the battery, if the battery is dead you might already be past the warranty date of your laptop. Check online.
Ifixit.com is a very good site. Clear instructions, large photos identifying screws, they sell took kits and their parts – though pricey – are first rate. I couldn’t begin to guess how much money they have saved me.
You may look over their instructions and decide that it will be easier to follow Dopey-o’s Law: “It’s cheaper to spend the money”. But you will sleep better knowing that you have made a well-informed decision.
Just like Biden and his selection committee.
Barbara
@Another Scott: In fairness, a number of European countries have suffered proportionately high losses, including Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. France is also suffering greatly. The US is a stand out for the sheer level of economic hardship being imposed on citizens and residents — a function of the lack of safety net and federalism. I do think it will always be harder to impose draconian solutions in a democracy, and I think we should study Korea and Germany closely. Korea suffered a lot from SARS and apparently was much readier than any other nation with its response. Bravo.
Mallard Filmore
@WaterGirl:
How many warranties outlive the battery?
patroclus
I don’t think states will go into receivership – they can now borrow money (i.e., issue bonds) at low interest rates, they can also raise taxes and negotiate new (lesser) pension deals (which would be challengeable in courts). They won’t want to do any of that and there are political ramifications, of course, but defaults seem unlikely.
I also don’t credit Sanders with “changing” much on the health insurance debate – it’s been going on since at least TR and has contained single payer advocates and public option proponents throughout. Single payer continues not to have majority support (in the U.S.) except for veterans, the elderly and the disabled.
I think Kaine helped Hillary carry Virginia although that might have happened anyway. If Harris, Warren or Klobuchar were, say, a Florida Senator or Governor who had proven state-wide appeal, that would be the obvious choice. The problem is they all reside in blue states which Biden should carry in any event.
Gravenstone
@Martin: Established, because of Fox News. Always the long game with those folks. Preemptively covering their asses.
Doc Sardonic
@Catherine D.: Yep remember very clearly the day I received the call about the cup holder being broken on a doctor’s office manager’s pc………
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And the long term plan being what, the bankrupt states go into Federal receivership? Not exactly seeing the end play here.
Another Scott
@Gravenstone: Presumably the GOP powers that be would appoint “managers” that would have powers to go around various state laws to gut the safety net, labor agreements, sell off park land to developers, etc., etc., like they tried in Flint and Detroit and various other places.
It’s a transparent ploy to try to restore the 1850s.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@Kent: as I said in Anderson’s thread this morning, after trying to determine all the stuff I need to put together for full coverage in Medicare when I turn 65 next month, the next asshole who says M4A is what we all should have is going to get bitch-slapped into a coma by me. It’s going to cost more than my ACA coverage and I’m going to need three “plans” to equal my ACA coverage. Sanders is a fucking moron for making that the baseline.
Taken4Granite
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Somewhere around here I have a book which is a collection of amusing tech support tales. In one particularly memorable tale, a full-bird colonel complained that whenever he set the switch to the official position, his computer shut down. The tech support guy informed the colonel that “OFF” was not an abbreviation for official.
Taken4Granite
@Betty Cracker: It means he wants to discuss pastries.
Recall
@Kent: “The Kaiser Family Foundation has recently looked into this question and the answer is mixed.”
Any relation to the for-profit health insurance giant?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dopey-o:
Yeah, I was thinking if the battery dies during the warranty period, wouldn’t it be covered? ifixit is really good and there are other videos on youtube that have teardowns of various models, sometimes even from the manufacture.
I’ve actually torndown my old hp laptop(it’s a hackentosh/windows machine) and replaced the system board.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
So much for federalism and the 10th amendment.
It’s GOP state governments dictating policy to liberal localities writ-nationwide.
Kent
My first big boss in the Federal Government…around 1995, had a big screen monitor on his desk, because he was the boss. But it always showed a blue DOS screen and a c: prompt because he didn’t know how to use Windows and didn’t want to learn. So all he used his computer for was to type in the DOS command to open email.
WaterGirl
@Mallard Filmore: You can get a “bad” battery right out of the gate. By “bad” I don’t mean dead, I mean a battery that won’t have a normal lifespan.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
….Isn’t the big appeal of Windows then and now that it’s supposed to be fairly user friendly?
Carol
@zhena gogolia: my sentiments exactly. It’s Hillary redux at the times.
H.E.Wolf
I remember being surprised at the time, too, until learning something about his background and record.
It’s all ancient history now, of course, but it’s still interesting to speculate about the reasoning. Some of his background might have signaled “familar” and “comforting” to people who might not find a female Presidential candidate to be familiar or comforting. Other aspects might have signaled “one of us” to other voters.
Here’s what Kaine brought to the 2016 Democratic ticket:
– white male
– longtime married husband and father
– devout Christian
– civil rights lawyer
– fluent in Spanish
– previous experience, both executive and legislative, as an elected official (City Council member, Mayor, Governor, and Senator)
https://www.kaine.senate.gov/about
Beyond that, I know virtually nothing about him. But it’s not utterly incomprehensible to me that he’d have been considered a reasonable choice.
Barbara
@Recall: Go to KFF.org and read all about them. They are independent. One of the best unaligned sources of information about health care that you can access, for free.
Jeffro
I think Robert Reich had something similar as one of his main themes/tag lines/stuff he said frequently: “it’s not the size of the government that matters; it’s who government is looking out for”
Something like that, anyway… =)
Kent
@Recall:
No, completely separate, although founded by the same family. It’s like the Ford Foundation is not Ford Motors, and the Carnegie Foundation is not US Steel.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Taken4Granite: Oh, I have stories, many stories.
Kent
The real money is in gutting the public pension programs run by the states. CALPERS is worth maybe $400 BILLION right now. And the partisan objective is to gut public sector unions. But selling off parks lands would be a side benefit.
Cleardale
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It was my experience in IT, that most people who use computers, don’t know what they are doing. Wait I know. I mean they know HOW to do what is required for their job, but they actually have very little idea of WHAT is going on. They know, click this, type this, then I can work. They have no idea what the clicking and typing does.
Now there is a somewhat fair argument that in a lot of cases, they have no reason to know what they are doing it doesn’t affect them 99% of the time.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Does the First Amendment cover practicing medicine without a license? I would be very curious to find out the answer. The FTC generally frowns on quacks promising miracle cures and they don’t seem to be able to claim free speech rights to give harmful medical advice.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Universal health coverage hasn’t been a “fringe notion” since PPACA passed in 2009, but go on.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cleardale:
I feel about my computer the same way I feel about my car. It’s a tool. I want it to work to do what I need. I don’t care how. But once in a while, an emergency comes along and we’re all in lockdown. Then I care.
Jeffro
McConnell is calling relief to the states “blue state bailouts” and saying that their precarious finances are due to their pension obligations, rather than the historic impact of Covid-19
Where
Is
My
Bat?
satby
@Cleardale: well, no one really needed to know exactly how an internal combustion engine worked to learn to drive a car. Pretty much the same thing. Auto geeks see a beautiful tool they can endlessly tweak when they look at a car, computer geeks are the same thing when they look at a pc. The rest of us just want to go places in the car and type and read stuff on a pc.
Mnemosyne
@Recall:
Kaiser Healthcare is not for-profit, at least not on the west coast. It’s a nonprofit. What state do you live in where it’s organized as a for-profit?
ETA: And it’s not a health insurance company, it’s a healthcare provider. They own medical offices and hospitals.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: IIRC, you were Bloomberg curious for a minute or two. Just saying.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Maybe Pelosi should respond by proposing that all states get to keep their share of federal taxes.
Cleardale
@satby:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Totally valid, especially for personal use.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was mildly Bloomberg-curious myself, because he was campaigning as a competent adult. But I stuck to my pledge to listen to Black voters this time around and waited until the SC results came in to mark my ballot for Biden. ?
Betty Cracker
@Kent: Here’s Jim’s comment that I was responding to:
So, whether Sanders changed the DEBATE is what I was addressing. I went on to agree with Jim that moving the debate doesn’t mean dick in terms of actual POLICY, and it hasn’t — yet. But the idea that Sanders didn’t affect the healthcare DEBATE in this country seems kind of daft to me. Love it or hate it, of course he did.
satby
@Cleardale: FYI, I was in tech support for years across a number of industries. Not just valid only for personal use, valid pretty much for everyone outside of IT.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: FWIW I was not.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: I like the way you think!
@Omnes Omnibus: AAAAGH, don’t remind me!! *blushes in shame
Calouste
@Baud: I’d like those diehards to provide an example of a country that has banned private health insurance. Because all the ones I know of allow private health insurance as a supplement to public health insurance.
sdhays
And then he whined about it. I forget exactly what he said, but I remember at their first rally together, he made it pretty clearly that Dense wasn’t his first, second, or third choice. Because what you want in a “leader” is someone who lets others make the major decisions and then whine like a small child who didn’t get their favorite flavor of ice cream (2 scoops!).
I lived through this, and I still can’t comprehend how so many people considered this person leadership material. I mean, I understand it on some level in the abstract, by I still can’t accept the reality of that.
Scuffletuffle
@Cleardale: This. My computer is a black box inside which magic happens.
Ten Bears
I don’t even want to think about starting my computer career at a law firm in Montana, in 1995.
sdhays
@Baud: “McConnell says pensions should be raided to pay for COVID-19.”
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was kind of curious to see if Bloomberg’s anti-gun and anti-global warming positions could overcome his putrid record on stop-and-frisk and other racial issues with Black voters. Obviously, it did not, and we’re all better off for it.
Kent
I’ll grant you that Sanders changed the debate within the Democratic party activist wing. and he brought the idea onto the Democratic Debate state. I’ll grant you that. Whether or not he moved the needle in the country writ-large is a different issue. Biden’s approach is measurably more popular than Sanders.
I would need to see polling that shows M4A popularity increasing, AND evidence that this is due to the Sanders campaign and not others promoting the idea.
I’m not saying that he didn’t accomplish that. Just that it requires actual evidence.
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
I believe that Ten Bears is saying that if one gets too keyed up about a hoped-for development, one can easily screw up the opportunity when it arrives by excitedly executing too soon, or one might spend all one’s energy preparing for a different situation than the one that actually happens.
I’m guessing that he’s referring to the Democratic National Convention, happening (virtually) in August; but I’m not certain which anticipated development is the object of this caution.
Interpreting the remarks of the sphinx considered tricky.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: Reading LOLGOP and Eclectablog on what Mayor Mike did with regard to supporting Snyder (who poisoned Flint), and all the rest, saved me from even being mildly curious about him as a presidential candidate.
E.g.
Thanks, LOLGOP!!
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@sdhays: These days it’s really hard to tell whether that would be something McConnell actually said, or whether it’s something we would expect him to say.
Recall
@Barbara:
@Kent:
Considering what the Trump Foundation was able to get away with, aren’t you guys being a little naive?
@Mnemosyne:
There’s some fine print.
From Wikipedia:
“Each Permanente Medical Group operates as a separate for-profit partnership or professional corporation in its individual territory, and while none publicly reports its financial results, each is primarily funded by reimbursements from its respective regional Kaiser Foundation Health Plan entity.”
stinger
Then I hope Kamala Harris isn’t on the committee!
Kent
@Recall: You are confusing the Kaiser Permanente Health Care system with the Kaiser Family Foundation which is the charitable and research foundation, both founded by California shipyard magnate, Henry Kaiser.
The Kaiser Permanente health care system, is indeed somewhat convoluted and has separate but connected entities operating the health plan (insurance) and the hospitals and doctors groups. But that is all separate from the Kaiser Family Foundation that does heath care research.
The way that it actually works is that each Kaiser regional medical group is a doctor-owned group that operates jointly (or as a sole-source contractor with the Kaiser Health Plan which is the insurance wing and the Kaiser hospitals. Yes, the medical groups are for-profit, but also employee-owed in that all the doctors have ownership shares.
stinger
I never understand why the pleasing only goes in one direction.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
almost simultaneous to the news her daddy fired a doctor who refused to help him sell hydrochlorquine (sp?) as a miracle cure
Recall
@Kent: How are they independent? You just said how they were founded by the same person.
sdhays
@Kent: I tend to think it’s a net plus that the range of the debate is M4A on the left and pre-Obamacare+tort reform on the right. That makes a lot of good possibilities “moderate” or “centrist”.
Our media tends to ignore the left unless it’s really loud and almost as obnoxious as the right, so it constrains the debate to what John once described as a discussion between “pizza vs tire rims and anthrax”. It lets the media “both sides” things while leaving Democrats more room to actually do something positive while still falling in the “moderate” lane.
Being able to be radical while seeming moderate is something Republicans sort of get for free.
Chyron HR
@Recall:
Have you considered the possibility that Bernie is lying when he claims God chose him to be President?
Recall
@Chyron HR: I supported Warren.
Chyron HR
@joel hanes:
I believe that Ten Bears is saying Biden won’t be the nominee because he’s a rapist with brain damage who’s secretly dead. You know, all the stuff from Bernie’s progressive platform that’s pushing the Democratic party to the left.
Mnemosyne
Okay, this made me LOL about this subject when I really needed to:
https://mobile.twitter.com/OfficialJLD/status/1253061318019411968
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
I was never serious about Bloomberg, because he was so clearly a vanity candidate and I was pretty sure that Democratic voters would be too smart to fall for his schtick (which they were).
But if it had somehow ended up being a choice between him and Tulsi, I would have voted for Bloomberg with bells on.
Mnemosyne
@Recall:
Right, but they’re still not a health insurance company. They’re a healthcare provider. They’re Tenet, not Aetna.
Also IIRC they’re a private company, not a publicly traded one, which does make a difference.
Mnemosyne
@Recall:
And if we’re going with dueling Wikipedia entries, you should have used the one for Kaiser Permanente. They’re a consortium of for-profit and not-for-profit entities:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente
So merely saying “they’re for-profit!” is more than a little misleading.
Jinchi
Rubin isn’t liberal at all, she’s just a legitimate Never-Trumper who wants competent people running the country.
Jinchi
It’s shrewd three times over. He’s announcing that he going to announce the members of a committee to select his vice-president. What would normally be a single day’s coverage (Biden picks Harris!), becomes 3 key events (today’s announcement, the actual announcement of the committee members and finally the VP pick). And in between each, the talking heads can do their thing (Who should be on the committee? What does the membership say about how he’ll govern? Who is the most likely pick given the people involved.)
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I have never had a laptop with permanently installed batteries. They all have easily opened latches and pull right off the main device. I have had a battery fail, ordered a replacement from eBay, plugged in the new battery, good to go.
Tablets are different, I have had the battery fail, it is a fatal error in most tablets.
Recall
@Mnemosyne: That’s the article I quoted. Third paragraph from the top.
texasdoc
@Cleardale: My problem with using computers at work isn’t with the IT stuff, it’s with the blasted software developers. Sure, they know the code, but they don’t understand how you use the information and how it can best be displayed. Some of it is just stupid. Why, in all creation, would the location of the office note (I’m an oncologist) be in a different place in the chart depending on what kind of cancer the patient has??? And I’m lucky if more than one round of chemotherapy appears on the screen at a time, which makes it rather difficult to monitor where a patient is in a course of treatment and how their blood counts and tumor markers are doing, never mind any dose adjustments. In the old paper chart, you could see many months of treatment on a single page–one line for each cycle. When I mentioned this to the developers, I was basically patted on the head as though I knew nothing about computers, and told I couldn’t possibly understand how difficult it would be to display the data that way, topping it all off with “You just want to duplicate the paper chart!” To which I answered well, if it works! I’m not against computers, but they should help you do your job, not hinder you.
Yutsano
@Recall: I can’t figure out what the hell it is that you’re whining about. And I have decided I don’t care.
Recall
@Yutsano: Ok.
way2blue
My vote for vice presidential nominee would be either Susan Rice or Sally Yates. And save the obvious former Democratic presidential candidates for perhaps other roles in a Biden presidency. One could argue that either would face mountains of slime. But. The Democrats need to get better, much better at parrying such attacks.