Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

We still have time to mess this up!

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

In my day, never was longer.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Good Government In Action

Good Government In Action

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In case you are interested, I am now at the two week mark of this god damned cold, although the past two days I have felt much better. However, I still can not get rid of this cough and fatique. It’s irritating as hell, because were it covid I would at least know what I am dealing with. Now it’s just some stupid bug and I just have to roll with it. On the upside, at least my cough is producing.

In other news, a couple of weeks ago I ordered the rapid home tests from the USPS website, and sure enough, they have arrived. I think it took about three weeks, maybe less. And I have to say I am pretty impressed with that. It’s just a small reminder that who is in charge of the government matters. They said they would get us the test kits, and if you want them, you can.

I find that comforting. Now spend a couple hundred billion and pump it all into the Post Office.

Reader Interactions

25Comments

  1. 1.

    Ruckus

    John

    Now spend a couple hundred billion and pump it all into the Post Office.

    Please, a baseball bat is less than $30 on amazon. Sure that won’t be enough to replace the machines but used properly that would motivate the current PG to retire and someone with the concept that government is for all of us to actually make our lives better, rather than make mass mailers wealthy.

  2. 2.

    danielx

    All the Postal Service needs is removal of the requirement that it fund post-retirement health care costs 75 years into the future, a requirement to which no other federal agency or private organization is held.

    That would help a lot right there.

  3. 3.

    Another Scott

    @danielx: A bill is coming soon…

    GovExec:

    The House is planning to vote on a bipartisan bill to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service as soon as next week, looking to finally make progress on legislation the mailing agency has said is vital to avoiding fiscal calamity.

    The 2021 Postal Reform Act (H.R. 3076) won unanimous support when the House Oversight and Reform Committee approved it in May and has companion legislation in the Senate, but has languished without action for months. Lawmakers are finally looking to move the bill forward, however, and are waiting only for a Congressional Budget Office score expected in the coming days.

    It’s a start, but not enough (of course).
    Incremental progress is how change happens.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  4. 4.

    The Oracle of Solace

    Speaking of good government, Texas has the opposite of that. In the hours before the arrival of tonight’s winter storm, there was Panic! In the Supermarkets. I am really, really hoping that Texans remember that fear, that panic, come November, and remember that the GOP did nothing after 2021’s vargavinter.

  5. 5.

    Yarrow

    I am now at the two week mark of this god damned cold, although the past two days I have felt much better. However, I still can not get rid of this cough and fatique. It’s irritating as hell, because were it covid I would at least know what I am dealing with

    I’m not sure the tests are totally accurate for Omicron. A couple I know are both double vaxxed and boosted and both started feeling sick. Got tested. He tested negative, she tested positive. It’s now seven days later, she’s still positive and he has never been positive. They did get PCR tests. Their symptoms have been fairly similar all the way through. Do they both have Covid? Who knows. They’re isolating as if they both do.

  6. 6.

    danielx

    Getting rid of the legal requirement that USPS fund its post-retirement healthcare costs 75 years into the future would help a whole lot, as would more funding. It would also help to alter the mindset among certain congresscritters and their funders/enablers/stringpullers that –

    • the Postal Service should be run as efficiently as any profit-making organization
    • indeed, should be a profit-making organization
    • this whole bit of delivering first class mail, let’s say a #10 envelope with three sheets of paper from Portland MN to Portland OR for 50 cents, is obsolete and if somebody wants to do that he/she should bigod pay what it costs, so stamps should be two bucks apiece, except for
    • large bulk mailers/campaign contributors/nonprofits/pols, who of course get monfucious discounts.

    Except that the Postal Service isn’t supposed to run efficiently, it’s supposed to deliver the mail, which is a) an inherently inefficient process and b) a constitutional requirement, which means that all Postal Service employees are required to swear a constitutional-type oath, not all that dissimilar to those taken by police, military, etc. To wit:

    I, Joe Schmoe, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

    I don’t imagine even Amazon could get people to sign something like that (with appropriate substitutions), much less stand up and be recorded doing it. I took that oath once and took it seriously, as one should.​​

  7. 7.

    different-church-lady

    WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GET A COUPLE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLA… oh, wait, you weren’t talking to me.

  8. 8.

    Major Major Major Major

    Glad to hear you’re feeling better.

    Feels like COVID tests have gotten a little funky, a friend of mine had a negative PCR but a positive rapid antigen, and he’s definitely got something, even hallmark symptoms like dizziness ??‍♂️ but of course there are plenty of other seasonal bugs flying around NYC.

  9. 9.

    different-church-lady

    @Major Major Major Major: Have a friend who got sort of almost but not quite definitive pink stripes on two different home tests, while her husband tested negative on both kinds. So they both went out and got official PCR tests.

    Result? She tests negative and he tests positive.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Not to go all pedantic but if your doc prescribed antibiotics (IIRC) then in his/her determination it’s not a cold.

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    @danielx: Nah, I haven’t had an “insert into the brain” style test for quite a while, even when getting officially clinic tested. But I will NEVER forget the first one. It took me about two minutes to regain the power of speech.

  18. 18.

    Leslie

    Yeah, entirely possible your test was a false negative. Those appear to be more common with Omicron. Glad you’re on the mend.

  19. 19.

    Asparagus Aspersions

    @Major Major Major Major:  I also think Omicron might cause skewed test results — my coworker had symptoms, so she took an at-home test which was positive, but the rapid antigen test at the pharmacy was negative. The next day she still felt kind of crummy, and took another at-home test, which was positive. So she went for a PCR test, which was also positive. She felt mildly crummy for a few days but is fine now (she is double-vaxxed and boosted).

    I was a little surprised that she got a correct result with her at-home test, but not with the antigen test at the pharmacy – I would have expected the reverse. I have a pretty big stash of autotests here, since we have to test AA Jr on a fairly frequent basis – whenever there’s a positive case in his class, which has happened three times in the past four weeks, he needs to have three tests over the course of five days. This could change though, France is constantly changing its school testing protocoles.

  20. 20.

    ETtheLibrarian

    I ordered mine on the first day and haven heard a peep. I do live in DC and some here have gotten them so I sit here a bit jealous. DC mail is tricky, but I haven’t even gotten confirmation they have even shipped so it is a problem somewhere higher up the supply chain.

  21. 21.

    satby

    In spite of the negative result of my clinic rapid test, I do think I had covid. Same general symptoms as John and several other folks, including my friends and coworkers who tested positive. H3N2 is the predominate flu this year and a lot of the symptoms overlap, but I never got a fever or sore throat.

    @NotMax: IIRC, John gets sinus infections nearly every winter. Antibiotics can be prescribed during a viral infection as a prophylactic against a subsequent bacterial infection for susceptible individuals.

  22. 22.

    pensive

    I had a cold or sinus infection for about 2 weeks in December.  Finally got better when I got some low level antibiotics (augmentin) and Prednisone (which is what I think really kicked things into gear to make me feel better.)  Feel better soon!

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