Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Let there be snark.

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

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

In after Baud. Damn.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The revolution will be supervised.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Busy, Busy, Busy

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Busy, Busy, Busy

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Wisdom from Our Founding Fathers…

This is a very informative list… and, like Mr. Mariotti, I have high hopes that the small fry — would-be capos — will realize that their best chances lie in turning on the Trump Crime Cartel early and with vigor…


======
Elsewhere: PG&E customers no doubt can especially relate:

Reader Interactions

335Comments

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    Politicians want to win.  Voters want to vote for winners.

    As long as TIFG looked like a winner, his voters weren’t going to drop him.  Without consequences, people don’t change.

    Consequences are coming.  Change is coming.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    Ken

    Ed Whelan: For about the millionth time since Nov. 2020, I’m thinking about how much better things would be if Trump had graciously conceded his loss

    … donated all his money to charity, taken a vow of silence, and lived out the rest of his life working on one of those ships that removes plastic from the ocean.

    (I know, Jean-Michel Connard got there first with the frog-and-scorpion line, but good lord, do these pundits ever listen to what they’re saying?)

  4. 4.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    This is basically a Rico indictment of the Republican Party. As it should be. Every Republican elected official who refused to acknowledge the winner of the 2020 election is an unindicted co-conspirator.— Stuart Stevens (@stuartpstevens) August 15, 2023

  5. 5.

    Ohio Mom

    Off topic: I am reading the Cincinnati paper, from which I hardly ever learn anything useful except for announcements of road closings and restaurant reviews, but today!

    Work is beginning on redistricting in my woefully gerrymandered state! This time our plan will be similar to Michigan’s, which as we know, is a lot more effective than the cockamamie system Ohio came up with the last go-round.

    What hopeful news! I am saving Balloon Juice for my wait in tne doctor’s office later this morning; I will be back on topic then.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    From the last WaPo link:

    It adds to evidence that the state’s main utility equipment sparked multiple fires last week, when powerful winds — predicted for days — whipped through drought-stricken grasslands.

    I really don’t like the “predicted for days” parenthetical there.

    Above-ground power lines are susceptible to damage. That doesn’t mean the utility can just shut off the power for a predicted storm. (Underground power lines can be susceptible to damage too…)

    A big problem is, modern infrastructure requires continuous maintenance and capitalism doesn’t like paying for things like that. That’s another reason why adequately funded public utilities make so much sense for things like this.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  8. 8.

    worn

    On a plane back home from London after a weekend of delight. Attended the wedding for my youngest sister on Saturday (at the Goodwood Estate*). I think it was the fanciest event I’ve attended to date in all these trips around the sun. Then, a day of rest, followed by the indictments dropping. I am so very proud of the folks in my state of birth holding the zoo of conspirators accountable.

    Tick Tock, you craven motherfuckers. The dusk of your liberty is visible on the horizon

    *Jackals who are auto enthusiasts should recognize the name.

  13. 13.

    Scout211

    I wondered why Jenna Ellis hadn’t been indicted yet.  She wasn’t even one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the Trump indictment #3.

    It’s good that she is now getting recognized for her role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. She posted on X the usual nonsense about “weaponization, blah, blah, blah.”  But she was mocked for her statement about God in her first tweet/X about her indictment in Fulton County.

    Apparently she has hired God to defend her. 

    The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law. I am resolved to trust the Lord and I will simply continue to honor, praise, and serve Him. I deeply appreciate all of my friends who have reached out offering encouragement and support. pic.twitter.com/3fFNObv4Ff— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) August 15, 2023

  14. 14.

    Kay

    @Ohio Mom:

    This time our plan will be similar to Michigan’s, which as we know, is a lot more effective than the cockamamie system Ohio came up with the last go-round.

    That is good news. My heart just sank when the (original) plan was presented at our local Dem meeting. Really nice, earnest, good government people who bent over backward to be bipartisan.

    I thought – “oh, Republicans are going to exploit all these checkpoints!”

    It was what I think of as “overdrafted”. They let too many people add too many provisions and Republicans took each one of the steps as a exploitable weakness.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    @Ken: that Whelan tweet, man…weren’t we all talking back in, oh, early 2017 about how trump was going to “leave claw marks on the Oval Office door” when it was time to go?

    This shit was obvious from the start.

  17. 17.

    Scout211

    @Another Scott: That doesn’t mean the utility can just shut off the power for a predicted storm.

    That’s exactly what is done in California.

    ETA:  it’s called Public Safety Power Shutoff.  PSPS They are getting better at pinpointing the areas that are the most susceptible but it’s still being done in red flag conditions.

  20. 20.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    It’ll be even more entertaining if either Judge Chutkan or Judge McAfee tells the defendant: “It doesn’t matter that you’re a declared presidential candidate. You’re a defendant in a criminal trial who’s violating injunctions against witness intimidation, so you’re remanded into custody pending trial.” That’ll put a wrench into the GOP’s efforts to win next year.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    @Ohio Mom:

    We have both the people who signed the petition to put the reproductive rights referendum on the ballot (guaranteed yes votes and maybe volunteers or at least influencers) and the lists we used to beat Issue 1 so a nice place to be in for the start of the reproductive rights campaign.

  23. 23.

    Leto

    Morning everyone! So Avalune went to check on her student loans this morning, but couldn’t get into her account. She thought she had locked herself out of her account, so naturally called the help line. The woman who was assigned listened to her, said hold on, was gone for a good number of minutes, but finally came back and told her the problem: her loans have been forgiven! She’s part of this next round of people (around 800k) that Biden’s helping after Trumplicans blocked the other student loan forgiveness program.

    This is such a gift, and such a huge weight off our shoulders. I hope everyone has a great Wednesday morning!

  26. 26.

    rikyrah

    Question for attorneys:

     

    Do those who have already been singing arias, which is the reason they weren’t charged….

     

    They DO have to sing those same arias in OPEN COURT…RIGHT?

     

    Like Lindsey Graham in the Georgia case…

     

     

    And Mike Pence reading his notes on a muthaphuckin criminal conspiracy 🙌🏽

  31. 31.

    worn

    Dang it all. Was attempting to mimic your typical morning reply to rikyrah while on a new tablet – and with clumsy digits apparently. But as long as I’m at it, thanks for your consistent, clever wordplay and humor!

  32. 32.

    prostratedragon

    @Jeffro:  Yes we were. In summer 2016 I told a couple of people that if he somehow were elected they wouldn’t believe either how badly they’d want him out of there or how hard it would be even after another election. I’m no seer; he’s just that blatant.

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: They don’t shut it off for the whole state.  As I understand it, all of Maui was affected by the high winds from the hurricane for days.

    I don’t think we live in the best of all possible worlds, but the post-hoc kibitzing in the story annoyed me.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    JML

    had 16 straight hours of mediation this week, before the employer finally said fuck off and gave us a Last Best and Final offer. But they were scared enough of our strike threat that’s it’s actually a decent one.

    Still so goddamn tired.

  36. 36.

    bbleh

    @Another Scott: I concur in part.  First, it’s still a little early to spend time and resources pointing fingers.  Not saying it should be put off indefinitely or to minimize any responsibility, but FFS there are a lot of people without homes, cars, jobs or money, and they need not only immediate help simply to survive but also help in the medium term to get back on their feet.  And second, while I’m sure “winds” were forecast — there was a fkin hurricane in the neighborhood — the winds in this case were extremely unusual, blowing at 30-40-50 miles an hour from the northeast, thanks to a really weird configuration of pressure centers (including the hurricane).  That’s not something that’s easily predicted.

    It’s gonna take time to untangle any culpability from mere Monday-morning quarterbacking, and resources right now are better spent on helping people in need.

  37. 37.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: the post-hoc kibitzing in the story annoyed me.

    News reporters are almost as good as internet commenters, when it comes to becoming instant subject-matter experts and telling the people who’ve been doing the work for decades that they’re doing it wrong.

  38. 38.

    Ms. Deranged in AZ

    As my mother used to say, ‘If wishes were fishes, I could feed the whole world.”

    OT speaking of wishes… I lost my job about a month ago and have been looking ever since. I’m a middle-aged woman who has worked in IT for over 30 years and it has not been easy.  Most companies aren’t even responding to me and those that are are sending me automated email rejections.  If I don’t find another job in the next month or two I’m going to lose everything and I am stressed out of my mind.  If it was just me I could sell my house and live out of a RV but I’ve got a 12-year-old son, two dogs, and three cats.  My son’s father passed away a couple years ago and it’s all on me. I have no family near me and very few local friends as I am quite introverted.   If any Jackals have leads on senior web developer positions that are fully remote can you please let me know? I live in the Phoenix area and have been working remote for the last 3 years.  My entire life was restructured to work from home since Covid struck and I want to continue in that vein and if at all possible.  Thanks in advance.

  41. 41.

    bbleh

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: I hope that first there are a series of humiliating orders to appear on short notice and sit still for a very public tongue-lashing.  Putting him in jail will make him a martyr.  It may ultimately be necessary, but I hope only as a last resort.

  42. 42.

    bbleh

    @Leto: Booyah!  Dark Brandon strikes again!  And maybe in return put some of the time and energy that’s being freed up to getting people riled up and out to vote, so he can keep doing stuff like this.

  44. 44.

    MattF

    Note that TFG’s Twitter DMs are now in custody. This includes DMs that were not sent or were ‘deleted’. Yes, social media platforms keep everything and it’s not encrypted. Musk tried to keep these messages from prosecutors and was fined $350,000 for contempt of court.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @bbleh: @Ken:

    Thanks.

    I’m probably overly sensitive on this subject because of a  story I heard about neighbor down the street.  A decade or so ago, NoVA got one of its occasional giant snowstorms.  A pine tree fell over some power lines and took out the power on that street.  Someone on that street was on oxygen and had an oxygen concentrator.  The power was out on that street for days, and the power company couldn’t get in to restore it because of the mountain of snow.  The person died.

    “Oh, they should have just shut off the power – duh!”  Shutting off the power can kill people, too.

    “The power company shut off the power and killed people, and the storm wasn’t even that bad!!1”  :-/

    None of this stuff is easy.  Reporters, like everyone else, should stay in their lane.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    wjca

    @Scout211:

    That’s exactly what is done in California.

    ETA:  it’s called Public Safety Power Shutoff.

    It’s also an incentive to install solar on your roof — especially after the first time you’ve suffered thru a few very hot days without air conditioning.  You may refuse to think about climate change, but keeping cool matters ever to MAGAts!

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ:  Good luck to you.  Keep reaching out to us.

    I wish I had a job lead to send, but I don’t.  What about state or federal government?  Universities, out of state or wherever?   I am told they are sometimes easier in terms of avoiding age discrimination; do not know if that is true.

  49. 49.

    wjca

    @sdhays:  I’d double check God’s law license before signing that cheque.

    Not to worry.  The check actually gets cashed by the (supposed) PAC funding Trump’s legal staff, not yours.  It’s just another fundraising scam.  (You didn’t really think Trump believed in God, did you???)

  50. 50.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @wjca: ​
      That’s great if you own our own place and if your place is a house. It doesn’t work for people in apartments and condos.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    @MattF:  Even the deleted and drafts. LOL.  That might be kind of an amusing (if infuriating) job, sorting through them.  When you think how whack the published messages were ….

    @Leto:   Wonderful news.  Tipping the coffee mug to you and Avalune.

    We have so much work, getting out the news of how effective Biden has been.  Especially in the face of disinformation from the FTF NY Times and other plutocrat-fellating papers.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ken:

    News reporters are almost as good as internet commenters, when it comes to becoming instant subject-matter experts and telling the people who’ve been doing the work for decades that they’re doing it wrong.

    True, but that’s their job, and I’m grateful for local reporters who make the effort instead of just recording what they’re told and printing it. We want them to be fair, but we also want them to ask questions and not credulously accept the involved parties’ explanations. (I don’t know who’s right in this particular case — just noting a general principle.)

  58. 58.

    lowtechcyclist

    For about the millionth time since Nov. 2020, I’m thinking about how much better things would be if Trump had graciously conceded his loss.

    frog ponders what the swim would have been like if the scorpion hadn’t stung him

    I’d go with “and if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his tail” but close enough.

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: Anthony Atamanuik, the Trump impersonator, had a bit on his show with Trump having to be dragged out of the White House screaming and ranting in January 2021. He actually underestimated what it would be like.

  60. 60.

    Edmund dantes

    @Another Scott: Maui is not that big of a space. And yes PG&E shuts it off for fairly wide swaths of California. Spots that are probably the size of Maui do get shut off considering Maui is less than 800 square miles.

  63. 63.

    hueyplong

    @bbleh: I like the idea about serial court appearances but kind of want to push back on all references to “making him a martyr.”

    At some level the long-awaited consequences = making him a martyr.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ: Is a temp agency an option?  It used to be that some places would only hire staff via that route – they got to try them out before making a commitment.

    I’m sure that you have seen things like This ad for JPL

    Good luck!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    wjca

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s great if you own our own place and if your place is a house. It doesn’t work for people in apartments and condos.

    True.  But the installations on homes cuts the total demand on the grid.  Potentially allowing taking down some parts (the ones at risk) while leaving a few others still running.  The folks doing their homes may be totally selfish on this aspect as well in their motivation, but as long as it gets the installations done….

  66. 66.

    Edmund dantes

    @Another Scott: well then you actually want Thai discussion started now. Cause pg&e was doing this cause the company wasn’t sitting waiting for people to grieve and get stuff down. They acted ruthlessly to figure out how to protract themselves.

    the whole point of having government is to do both at the same time. Rescue and take care of people and hold people accountable. It took several years to get pg&e to get more precise in safety shutoffs. And also to get more preemptive work done. It’s still not enough. And you can’t sit back and wait for stuff to calm down cause the utility lawyers and corporate overlords are already moving.

  67. 67.

    bbleh

    @hueyplong: yes, and I don’t think he should be immune from the long-term consequences, just like any criminal defendant.  But there’s a lot of call for him to be locked up at the first available opportunity, sort of as a punishment for all his transgressions legal and political, and that wouldn’t be appropriate either.  Plus, he has to be SEEN to be given proper warning and a chance to stop, and then SEEN to continue.  After that, his excuses won’t fly nearly as far.

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    About the bizarre ‘wishcasting’

     

    It started with ECONOMIC ANXIETY They continue with this bullshyt, because they continue to be unwilling to call them out for what they are. So, we’re subjected to the endless Cletus Safaris. Hillary was right. They are deplorable. She was just too kind about the % of them.

  71. 71.

    worn

    @danielx: Yes, indeed. I attended the Member’s Meeting last year and was able to lay my hand on The Beast of Turin. Hella fun, that event.

  72. 72.

    glory b

    @Scout211: This is because she said somethng nice about DeSantis & now Trump ahs said “not even a dollar” goes to her defense from his funds.

    This is also why i’m not sure about his codefendants flipping on him. If he’s paying thier legal fees, they have less incentive to do so, at least for the short run.

  73. 73.

    Scout211

    @Edmund dantes:  Thanks.

    I was in the process of looking up that info.  In the first PSPS several years ago, my entire county was shutoff, some of us for 2 days, some for as many as 6 days.  My county is 1037 square miles.

    After several years (and pressure from the Governor) PG&E has improved their predictions and pinpointed the probable hotspots much more accurately.  In our section of the county, we have had several alerts and warnings about a coming PSPS, but all were canceled.  The higher elevations had PSPS shutoffs, but for shorter periods of time.

    Obviously, for all areas, power lines need to be underground but the cost of that retroactively is huge*.  In my county, there are sections that are being buried now but only for a small area.

    *Not defending PG&E.  They should still start burying the lines all over the state no matter what the cost is.  Or let the state take over the power company.  But that’s a discussion for some other time.

  75. 75.

    wjca

    @hueyplong:

    I like the idea about serial court appearances but kind of want to push back on all references to “making him a martyr.”

    At some level the long-awaited consequences = making him a martyr.

    Especially since he will play the martyr card in his fundraising no matter what.  So no cost to treating him like any other recalcitrant defendant.

  77. 77.

    MattF

    @glory b: OTOH, TFG paying (or promising to pay) raises conflict-of-interest issues for attorneys and clients— which will make things more expensive in the short run and impossible in the long run.

  78. 78.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ: ​
     

    If any Jackals have leads on senior web developer positions that are fully remote can you please let me know?

    My agency, the U.S. Census Bureau, has been fully remote since March 2020, and it’s hired a fair number of new people for jobs ‘at’ Census HQ who live nowhere near the DC area. I’m not an IT person, so I have no idea whether the Census needs Web developers, but I’d say go to usajobs.gov and see what’s there.

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    See, this is why he will NEVER be allowed to live down 2016

     

    Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (@esglaude) posted at 4:21 PM on Tue, Aug 15, 2023: I honestly thought we had an opening to break the hold of Clintonism on the Democratic Party, because I did not believe white America would elect someone so obviously unqualified to be president. That was a mistake.

     

     

    ICAM with this:

     

    Portia ♍️ 🐳McGonagal portiamcgonagal1619 on Insta (@PortiaMcGonagal) posted at 5:18 PM on Tue, Aug 15, 2023: This is the most disqualifying statement by a Black man, perhaps ever. “I did not believe white America…” The same white America that’s been on a grievance revenge tour since the Civil War and has fought relentlessly to obstruct every gain we’ve made? (https://twitter.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1691575033322463636?t=UtIIO8i2Ks9HvfjIvYyU8Q&s=03)

  82. 82.

    Ms. D. Ranged in AZ

    @Elizabelle: I checked govt and unis in AZ but will start looking nationwide.  I could try to go back to online teaching but I didn’t really enjoy it.  It is, however, better than being homeless.  Thanks for the encouragement and advice.

    @zhena gogolia:   I probably will do that.   Thanks!

    @rikyrah:   Thank you :)

    @Another Scott:  I’ve worked with two recruiters so far and neither have produced very much.  They keep saying that summer is a slow hiring time (which seems to be true).  Maybe if I can hold out until everyone is back from summer vacays?  I will take a look at the JPL position.  Thanks!

  84. 84.

    lowtechcyclist

    @bbleh: ​
     

    Plus, he has to be SEEN to be given proper warning and a chance to stop, and then SEEN to continue. After that, his excuses won’t fly nearly as far.

    Doesn’t that describe the documents case to a T? He got a shit-ton of warnings that those docs weren’t his and he needed to give them back, and that in the meantime they had to be properly secured. And he kept right on going.

  86. 86.

    Ms. D. Ranged in AZ

    @lowtechcyclist: I saw the Treasury Dept was looking but not the Census…will take another look. Thanks!

    @Leto: Appreciate it!  And congrats on the student loans.

    @rikyrah: LOL I think that first Tweet/Xcrement falls squarely under the HOOCOODANODE category!

    @Sandia Blanca: Will do, thanks!

  88. 88.

    Eunicecycle

    @Ohio Mom: I was very excited to read about the new redistricting petition, too! It’s a shame we have to do it AGAIN, because Republicans won’t follow the law, but let’s do it!

  89. 89.

    jonas

    @Another Scott: I dunno — Trump’s had loser stink on him for a while now (from Repubs losing the House in 2018 to him losing in 2020 to most of his handpicked candidates going down to defeat in 22) Yet his base is more riled up than ever, because he’s not a politician — he’s a cult leader of a Christian apocalyptic movement. The more you persecute him the more it vindicates him in the eyes of his supporters.

    The truth is, however, that only about half of Republicans are serious members of this cult. The other half tolerate it to pwn the libs or get tax cuts, but I think in the end, not many of them will vote for an indicted or convicted felon and neither will most independents and virtually no-one calling themselves a Democrat. That’s not an electoral majority, even in pretty red states.

  90. 90.

    The Pale Scot

    @glory b:

    If he’s paying thier legal fees, they have less incentive to do so, at least for the short run.

    My understanding is that defendants paying for other defendants defence is evidence of a conspiracy. Georgia’s RICO includes actions takin’ out of state.

    I hope I’m right. Of course IANAL.

  91. 91.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sdhays:

    I’d double check God’s law license before signing that cheque.

    Law license? He’s credited with writing books of statutes!  Sure, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are kind of old, but I bet the Big Guy can still bring it! ;-)

  92. 92.

    Betty Cracker

    @MattF: A defendant raising tens of millions through a PAC under false pretenses and then using that money to foot the legal bill for co-defendants whose silence he requires to avoid conviction — how can any of that possibly be okay?

    In a recent podcast, Josh Marshall was talking about why it’s so important to hold Trump and his co-conspirators accountable. Among the many reasons, Marshall said the law must be applied in such a way that ordinary people aren’t made to feel like chumps for following the rules.

    We’re too close to the “chump” line in several scenarios where the powerful and well-connected are clearly operating under a different set of rules. Egregious public corruption (Crooked Clarence, et al.) and tax avoidance shenanigans by giant corporations and billionaires are two examples.

    I’d argue Trump’s ability to fraudulently raise tens of millions through a PAC and then use the money for his own and his co-defendants’ legal bills is another example.

  94. 94.

    Edmund dantes

    @Scout211: and the problem was while the people were grieving and trying to figure it out. Pg&e acted and came up with the idea they did which was stupid and horrible, but the government and people were caught on the back foot.

    it sucks, but these conversations need to be out there and in the papers cause decisions are already being made and it took a long time to get pg&e back to better power safety shutoffs. And the populace needs to be advocating or they will get run over like California did for awhile.

    and yes, pg&e should be doing more and the utilities commission needs more teeth to force them to get more work done making their stuff safer. The same will be true in Hawaii. And they can’t wait. Cause the power company isn’t waiting.

  95. 95.

    mountain granny

    @Another Scott: yeah, they do just shut off power for predicted weather. See PG&E out here in CA. It’s not like I don’t think they shouldn’t be careful, but it is primarily to cover their asses, not the customers’.

  96. 96.

    cain

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ: IT sector has been the greatest thanks to the fake financial times. I know it takes longer than usual to get a job unless you built a network.

    I’d try looking at jobs on indeed.com or some other? I’d help you if my employer was hiring – but alas.

  97. 97.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:

    I saw the Treasury Dept was looking but not the Census…will take another look. Thanks!

    Really no reason not to check all the Federal agencies.  Their policies concerning remote work will probably vary greatly (we’re still 100% remote because the Bureau decided to take advantage of our being out due to Covid to ‘reimagine’ our workspace (i.e. gut it and do a total redesign), and it’s taken a lot longer than expected.

  98. 98.

    steppy

    @lowtechcyclist: Never mind how much better things would have been if T***p conceded. How much better would things have been if he had died of Covid in October 2020 like he should have?

    Ed Whelan can stick that in his pipe and smoke it.

  99. 99.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kay: IANAL, I don’t get into the fine print. It’s my legacy as a former normie.

    Someone asked to sign a petition the first go-around, which I happily did, I happily voted for redistricting, then I was gobsmacked that my small efforts boomeranged.

    My take-away was, Boy, did we screw up, your comment about good government types and over-drafting is my first peeks into what went wrong.

  101. 101.

    Jackie

    Good for a morning chuckle!

    “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wouldn’t rule out challenging Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat in 2026, the Atlanta Journal Constitutionreports.”

    “Said Greene: “I haven’t made up my mind whether I will do that or not. I have a lot of things to think about. Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?””

    “Greene called serving as Trump’s running mate “an honor” and something she would consider “very, very heavily.””

    If TIFG chooses Marge for his running mate… I see a landslide LOSS for the GQP! And, deservedly so.

  102. 102.

    Barbara

    @Another Scott: Power goes out unexpectedly often enough that anyone who is dependent on oxygen needs to have a battery back up that allows them enough time to get to a safer place.  In the last 10 years, we have had at least four power outages that lasted for more than 24 hours, in one case (the derecho) for more than four days in punishing heat.  We live in Arlington.

  104. 104.

    sdhays

    @lowtechcyclist: Just because you write laws doesn’t mean you can practice. And, honestly, I think a modern jury would convict on the basis of making them read/listen to Leviticus and Deuteronomy alone, regardless of the merits of the case. And be justified in doing so

    There’s also the matter of God being flaky. It/she/he has a reputation for checking out for thousands of years and just not giving a shit, and that could be awkward to explain to the judge.

  105. 105.

    Ohio Mom

    @Leto: Congrats to Avalune! Yes, what a weight off your shoulders. I assume an official letter is on its way and will be carefully stored away.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    : I honestly thought we had an opening to break the hold of Clintonism on the Democratic Party, because I did not believe white America would elect someone so obviously unqualified to be president. That was a mistake.

     

    People will justifiably rag on him for the second part, but the fact that he thought “breaking Clintonism” was needed in 2016, much less a priority, is the more damning part IMHO.

  107. 107.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: Breaking the rules is a core element of the Trump brand. Again and again, saying ‘You can’t do that’ not only doesn’t deter him, it encourages him to go a step further. And it makes him more popular with his cultists. I’m not really persuaded that the legal system can deal with him. I do think his unceasing lying and whining is pushing his popularity down, even with the hard core, but who knows. We shall see.

  108. 108.

    cain

    @cain: The other good thing is that it could get you in the lucrative ‘AI’ market – which might help distinguish you from other candidates.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    @glory b: ​
     
    One of the lawyers here was saying it’s very unusual for defendants to share counsel in RICO cases. Part of the burden in a RICO case is proving the defendants formed an organization, and having them share counsel paid for by one of them is basically conceding that point. It doesn’t mean they won’t do it, but it might be a very bad idea for them.

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @glory b: It is highly doubtful that Trump is paying anybody’s legal fees. Co-defendants almost never share lawyers because it’s rare for defendants to have interests that are so well-aligned that you can represent them both to an equal degree

    @Roger Moore: It just raises so many ethical issues, unless, truly, the defendants are in exactly the same position legally, such that they will share exactly the same defense and cannot be pitted against each other.

  112. 112.

    OGLiberal

    I’ve cut myself from most of them because they showed their colors in 2016 but I grew up with a bunch of people – very white, very New Jersey, very not rich – who I thought were sane and not racist – who I know voted for Trump in 2016 and, I’m pretty certain, are going to vote for him again in 2024 if they have the option.  What the fuck is wrong with these people and what the fuck happened?

    Full disclosure:  Almost all of their parents were either hard or soft racists so maybe that has something to do with it?  But many – the kids, not the parents – didn’t appear to be racist.  And they still are not rich, not even close.

    This is what I worry about…even in blue states, seemingly normal, non-rich white people love Trump.  I don’t worry about Trump winning NJ but if this many folks in NJ love Trump, what do we do with white folks in red states?  Do we just have to keep hoping we can eke out wins in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, etc?

    ETA:  Those states I mentioned are not red but if a Dem win there is up for grabs every year, how do we win red states?

  113. 113.

    smith

    @Leto: Is this the group of student loans for which the Biden Admin just won their court case yesterday? If so, that was fast!

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Barbara: In the last 10 years, we have had at least four power outages that lasted for more than 24 hours,

    Heh, sounds like a recent 2 week period we went thru, lost power for more than 24 hrs 6 times. I still haven’t put away the damned generator because I know that as soon as I do, we’ll have another outage.

  116. 116.

    jonas

    @MattF:   I think his unceasing lying and whining is pushing his popularity down,

    I think that’s right. It’s schtick at this point and getting so, so old.

  117. 117.

    Yarrow

    @rikyrah:  I haven’t looked at this closely, but it seems like it was mostly Black men who said they wouldn’t/couldn’t/didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I don’t recall seeing a lot of Black women do the same.

    Edit: I mean among the group of people who are self-described as being on the left or generally voting for Democrats. Of course there are always going to be some black people who vote for Republicans but I wasn’t thinking of those people.

  119. 119.

    Soprano2

    @Edmund dantes: Maui has less permanent population that a mid-sized city – around 165,000 people. I think the tourists outnumber them by about 10-1, or even more. It’s a lot more rural than you’d think, too – I was surprised by that. There isn’t a highway where the speed limit is above 55 mph.

  121. 121.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: What does “breaking with Clintonism” in that context even mean? Hillary Clinton’s platform in 2016 wasn’t anything like Bill Clinton’s platforms in 1992 and 1996. Did he make the (sexist AF) assumption that Bill would be running the show? Did he fall for the “dynasty” trope and put the Clintons in the same box as the Bushes, thereby failing to account for women’s limited access to power in a misogynist society?

    Sometimes you make a whole-ass mistake, and you shouldn’t compound it with post-hoc justifications. I should know since I was one of the idiots who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. It was wrong and stupid. Period. I’d have more respect for Glaude if he made a similar admission.

  122. 122.

    smith

    @Fester Addams: Actually, there were two Black co-conspirators (Trevian Kutti and Harrison Floyd). Apparently they were recruited into the scheme specifically to intimidate Ruby Freeman into confessing to a crime she didn’t commit. They’re actually from Chicago and were recruited by a crackpot minister (Stephen Lee) also from the Chicago area.

  123. 123.

    Barbara

    @OGLiberal: I won’t go so far as to say that Trump is unique, but he definitely is singular in that he combines longstanding fame, amplified for a new generation by The Apprentice, and a visceral appeal to many people who would love to be able to say and do what he does and get away with it.  They are his true enablers, and even if not all of them would include racist tirades in their list of things they wish they could get away with doing, they are no better than indifferent to Trump’s own brand of racism or xenophobia.

    Someone linked to Gary Abernathy’s latest column about not upsetting the apple cart over his elderly parents’ love of Trump.  He’s in that second camp.  He is unwilling to risk anything in the face of other people’s treachery, lawlessness, or racism.

  124. 124.

    Kelly

    @Scout211: Pacificorp in Oregon does public safety shutoffs. Of course it was after dozens of fires started by downed power lines in a dry wind storm Labor Day 2020.

  126. 126.

    Barbara

    @Soprano2: It’s like the Outer Banks — the permanent population is under 200,000, but it is visited annually by millions of tourists.

  127. 127.

    OGLiberal

    @Betty Cracker: You’ve likely explained multiple times before but why Nader in 2000?  I rarely encounter the third-party voters in person – everybody I know votes for one or the other of the two major parties.

  128. 128.

    wjca

    @Baud:

    Interesting article for the math inclined.

    One might have wished for some better examples, however.  Sure, “a cat is more like a dog than a rock.”  But is a coral more like a dog than like a rock?

  129. 129.

    bbleh

    @lowtechcyclist: and he got busted, and then indicted. That’s how it should work.  And there even have been MSM stories pointing out the many differences between his situation and Biden’s (and Pence’s).  And so his whining about jackbooted thugs invading his home doesn’t have much pull beyond the Cult.

    I’m not particularly worried that this judge will jump the gun.  But the lock-him-up folks need to get used to a little disappointment.

  131. 131.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: Did he fall for the “dynasty” trope and but the Clintons in the same box as the Bushes

    This motivated me somewhat in 2008. I didn’t have strong feelings about Hillary (my biggest disappointment with her was that I saw a failure to seize the moment and lead on opposing the Iraq war before it started), but I didn’t like a lot of the “Clinton people”, and going Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton made my stomach queazy. “Dynasty” might not be fair, but strengthening the “Clinton institution” wasn’t something I was excited about. But if she had been the nominee, I would have enthusiastically supported her.

    After Obama, most of those concerns had abated for me.

  133. 133.

    trnc

    If the Trump’s DC trial last 4-6 weeks starting in January 2024, Trump would have to be in DC. as a defendant at trial, during the Iowa caucus and NH primaries (unless there’s time off for those). Whatever you think of Trump, that’s not a happy situation.

    All a matter of perspective. It is a happy situation precisely because of what I think of him.

  135. 135.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Yarrow: According to Pew’s Validated Voter Poll (considered the gold-standard of post-election polling, because they actually verify who people voted for) the % of Black men that refused to vote for Hillary in 2016 was very small, only 14% (making them by far, the best racial category of Men voters, White men being the worst, obviously) but much more than Black women, whose number was so low that it only got an * on the report, which I assume means it was under the margin of error and effectively, 0%.  But there were definitely some very prominent Black men on Twitter who made whole productions about hating Hillary and refusing to vote for her.  Glaude, Mark Lamont Hill, Ice Cube, Killer Mike, Elon James White and even Michael Harriot etc.  So there is a lot of animosity for these dudes, especially from Black Women.

  136. 136.

    MattF

    @Baud: There are several fields where a small number of ‘generic’ constraints lead to a surprisingly specific result— but where do you go from there? The main alternative, an axiomatic approach, has the advantage that you can see specifically what’s being assumed.

    ETA: And ‘convexity’ always seems to be in that small group.

  137. 137.

    schrodingers_cat

    @sdhays: Iyer-Mitra called her a carcinogenic presence. IDK what she thinks.

    I have a sneaking suspicion that Avivek Cringeswamy has support from the Hindu rightwingers in the diaspora who want to peel away D support.

    I would bet anything that a substantial part of the 25% of Indian-Americans who voted for the Orange Error are Modi and BJP diehards.

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A much-hyped biography of the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has struggled to find favour with readers, a leading US publishing authority said, listing just over 3,000 copies sold in the first week of its release.

    According to Publishers Weekly, Tucker by Chadwick Moore sold just 3,227 copies in its first week after publication on 1 August.

    Carlson cooperated with his biographer, giving extensive interviews. Moore promised to tell Carlson’s side of the story regarding his shock ejection by Fox last April, in the aftermath of a $787.5m settlement between the rightwing network and Dominion Voting Systems, regarding the broadcast of Donald Trump’s election fraud lies.

    Fast fading into irrelevance.

  140. 140.

    Yarrow

    @UncleEbeneezer:  Thanks for the link and data.

    But there were definitely some very prominent Black men on Twitter who made whole productions about hating Hillary and refusing to vote for her.  Glaude, Mark Lamont Hill, Ice Cube, Killer Mike, Elon James White and even Michael Harriot etc.  So there is a lot of animosity for these dudes, especially from Black Women.

    Yeah, those are examples of Black men that I was thinking of. And I don’t recall any prominent Black women doing the same. Misogyny is a helluva drug.

  141. 141.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Betty Cracker: THANK YOU!!!  I was just about to type almost the exact same thing.  You’d have to be brain-dead to think Hillary 2016 was just warmed-over 90’s Neoliberalism.  She moved substantially to the Left on just about every issue over the years (like good Dem politicians should, and Biden is doing now) to meet the Dem Voters where we were at.  It sounds like Glaude just didn’t like the Clintons and decided to take it out on Hillary (and America).  I’m sure there’s a bunch of misogyny in his thinking too.

  142. 142.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Yarrow: Maybe Nina Turner or Briana Joy Grey?  Don’t remember…not gonna look.  But none that I can really think of.

  144. 144.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    People will justifiably rag on him for the second part, but the fact that he thought “breaking Clintonism” was needed in 2016, much less a priority, is the more damning part IMHO.

     

    Oh, this part never sneaks past folks.

  146. 146.

    Barbara

    @trnc: The thing is, however, that news coverage of Trump would be off the charts, even in Iowa, such that he would still be hogging most of the available oxygen in the room.  It might be bad for him in the long run, but that doesn’t mean it will be good for competing candidates.

  147. 147.

    Miss Bianca

    @Yarrow: And wtf was the *actual* problem these Black men had with HRC?

    You know, I take a lot of flak for saying that misogyny is the Ur-problem of our society, even more than racism, but I think it’s really true. Fear and hatred of women – particularly strong, intelligent, supremely capable women – seems to underlie every other “ism” out there.

  149. 149.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    3,227 copies

    lol
    The Fox people talk about their stupid careers too much. Every time one of them gets fired they act as if it’s huge and important news for normal people. Who gives a shit.
    Megyn Kelly still talks about what a brave contrarian she is because she got fired or left or whatever. Just such an inflated sense of importance.

  150. 150.

    H.E.Wolf

    @smith:there were two Black co-conspirators (Trevian Kutti and Harrison Floyd). Apparently they were recruited into the scheme specifically to intimidate Ruby Freeman into confessing to a crime she didn’t commit. They’re actually from Chicago and were recruited by a crackpot minister (Stephen Lee) also from the Chicago area.​

     Talking Points Memo had a detailed exposé on this. The author (or editor) doesn’t know the difference between “mad” and “madcap”, which makes for a jarring image at one point in the article, but otherwise seems to have done their homework.
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trevian-kutti-harrison-floyd-steve-lee-fani-willis

  151. 151.

    rikyrah

    @OGLiberal:

    Do we just have to keep hoping we can eke out wins in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, etc?

     

    In a word, yes.

     

    We should have a two pronged attack outside of this.

     

    First, we  must engage the young people. If you want something to change vote. Please understand that anyone telling you both parties are the same is lying to you. Anything you want to change in this country, Republicans are blocking it. It’s that simple. Break it down like a fraction. Republicans are blocking your advancement in life- personally, financially, educationally.

    Republicans mean you harm.

    And two,  we need to work hard to turn those VOTER SUPPRESSED States purple.

     

    Not all Red States are Red States. A number of them are VOTER SUPPRESSED States.

     

    EVERY State that allows for the Voter Referendum process to change the law and improve things – we must get those issues ON THE BALLOT.

  152. 152.

    Maxim

    @OzarkHillbilly: Interesting. Normally, right-wing books get bought out in big numbers to artificially boost sales. Significant that they’re not willing to do that for Tuckums.

  153. 153.

    Redshift

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ: I don’t have any direct leads (my company had layoffs earlier in the year), but I’ll check my connections.

    The other suggestion I can offer for IT job hunting while middle-aged is the one really helpful thing I learned last time from the state unemployment office. It was too take my graduation year off my resume, and only include the last ten years of experience. Age discrimination is a very real thing, and it made an instant difference in getting responses. (Of course, you may already know about that.)

  154. 154.

    Barbara

    @Miss Bianca: I don’t agree that misogyny underlies every other ism, but it definitely crosses and/or amplifies other isms.  If you are racist, chances are very strong that you hate strong Black women even more than Black men.  I mean, look at the way Kamala Harris is treated — people like Nikki Haley think they only need to say her name and the audience will swoon in horror and grief at the very idea she might be in charge some day.

  155. 155.

    rikyrah

    @smith:

    @Fester Addams: Actually, there were two Black co-conspirators (Trevian Kutti and Harrison Floyd). Apparently they were recruited into the scheme specifically to intimidate Ruby Freeman into confessing to a crime she didn’t commit. They’re actually from Chicago and were recruited by a crackpot minister (Stephen Lee) also from the Chicago area.

     

    And, I hope they get the book thrown at them.

    All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk, but, they need to be made an example of for the next ones who think they decide that they want to go bootlicking for right-wingers.

  156. 156.

    Yarrow

    @Betty Cracker:

    Sometimes you make a whole-ass mistake, and you shouldn’t compound it with post-hoc justifications. I should know since I was one of the idiots who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. It was wrong and stupid. Period. I’d have more respect for Glaude if he made a similar admission.

    Agreed. It’s so much better when people just admit they made a mistake. Maybe even talk about what they’ve learned and how they’re going to avoid making the same mistake again.

    For someone who has a platform it’s a great opportunity to help educate others who may have made the same mistake or who might make the same mistake in the future. Why was he opposed to voting for Hillary? Why was that wrong? What did he learn from that mistake? What would he say to others in similar situations in other elections to help them avoid his mistake? Etc. Etc.

  158. 158.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Miss Bianca: The most common reason I saw was anger over the Crime Bill (even though Hillary couldn’t vote for it as FLOTUS and still apologized for it years later and admitted some parts had very bad consequences that she regretted).

    Also, it should be noted, every one of the dudes I can think of (except Elon James White) were big Bernie supporters, which seems relevant…

  159. 159.

    Burnspbesq

    @wjca:

    It’s also an incentive to install solar on your roof

    We actually had the opposite motivation—the big 2021 freeze in Central Texas. But your point is well taken.

  160. 160.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Betty Cracker:

    A defendant raising tens of millions through a PAC under false pretenses and then using that money to foot the legal bill for co-defendants whose silence he requires to avoid conviction — how can any of that possibly be okay?

    Just one of those “norms” (actually maybe three) just waiting for the right opportunity and opportunist! You are not proposing this should be ILLEGAL I hope.

    Kidding aside, I do hope this story has legs:

    Jack Smith following the money?

  161. 161.

    Kay

    More on what Leto is talking about :

    Starting Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal student loan borrowers received emails from their servicers with the subject line “Your student loans have been forgiven.”
    The notices came as part of the Biden administration’s previously announced efforts to cancel debt for 804,000 borrowers who qualify for relief under their repayment plans but haven’t yet received it because of what officials have called administrative failures.
    The emails started going out on Monday, according to a copy of the confirmation notices to borrowers that ABC News exclusively obtained.
    It’s expected that all 800,000-plus borrowers will be notified of some relief in the coming weeks. By the end of the day Monday, the Department of Education estimated that it had already wiped the debt of more than 200,000 people.
    Around 614,000 people are expected to have their entire student loan debts canceled, while others might have remaining loans that they took out at different times.
    The relief is targeted at people who enrolled in income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which allow student loan debts to be forgiven by the federal government once payments have been made for 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan.
    But because of well-documented errors in tracking payments, many borrowers enrolled in IDR plans have been left paying well beyond their payment end dates, with no forgiveness in sight    .

    I’m not sure how they did it. Obama reduced the length of the repayment period in 2014 from 25 years to 20 years w/out Congress so maybe that’s the route they went, that mechanism.

  162. 162.

    cain

    @UncleEbeneezer: I haven’t heard from Elon James in awhile. He was doing a podcast with ABL a few years ago – not sure how it is going now.

    ABL is living her best life! She looks so happy and in good spirits. :)

  163. 163.

    Burnspbesq

    @glory b:

    If he’s paying thier legal fees, they have less incentive to do so, at least for the short run.

    Somebody (LAO?) pointed out the other day that paying others’ fees is a really bad move in a RICO case, because it is really strong evidence of the existence and scope of the enterprise,

  164. 164.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Barbara: Racism and Misogyny are both so profoundly huge in the history (and present) of America, both in policies and in the minds of voters, that I view it as basically a tie between the two and don’t really find much value in picking one or the other as the worst.  They have played out differently, at different times, for a whole number of reasons, so it’s not easy to make an apples-to-apples comparison.  They are just different, but also very similar since they are both branches of the same terrible tree.

  167. 167.

    coin operated

    @Redshift: @Ms. Deranged in AZ:

    It was too take my graduation year off my resume, and only include the last ten years of experience. Age discrimination is a very real thing, and it made an instant difference in getting responses. (Of course, you may already know about that.)

    +1 on this.

  168. 168.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Maxim:TPM does good work but is badly in need of a copy editor to look over posts before they’re published.

     That’s for sure. :)

  170. 170.

    Alison Rose

    I’m watching a clip from Lawrence O’Donnell last night, and I really need a producer at MSNBC to tell him he does not need to say “Donald Trump” every single time he references him. You can just say Trump! We know which one you’re talking about!

  172. 172.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ: Along those lines, CDC is largely remote these days and have had a web development group for a long time. They’ve also had some turnover, so maybe there’s something there. As suggested by others, check the federal job website. Good luck!

  173. 173.

    FelonyGovt

    As a baseball fan, I was tickled by a statement attributed to a Congressional staffer that T***p now faces prosecution in every NL East city except Philadelphia.

  174. 174.

    Yarrow

    @UncleEbeneezer:  What seems relevant is that they weren’t (aren’t?) willing to vote for the Democrat when their candidate loses the primary. That’s more like the TFG cult than being part of a party and voting for the person who can enact your preferred policies. Which indicates they care less about getting shit done and more about grandstanding about how great their preferred candidate is and how everyone else is Doing It Wrong.

  175. 175.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Barbara: YSISIDNT.** And oy do I remember that derecho – 4 days without power in my Baltimore row-house neighborhood. Tried sleeping in the basement the first night, then spent the next few days on my brother’s basement couch (their power lines are buried and were unaffected).

    ** You Said It So I Didn’t Need To

  177. 177.

    Burnspbesq

    @Betty Cracker:

    A defendant raising tens of millions through a PAC under false pretenses and then using that money to foot the legal bill for co-defendants whose silence he requires to avoid conviction — how can any of that possibly be okay?

    It’s not—and that’s why a Federal grand jury in DC is looking at it. The likely fifth indictment is for wire fraud and mail fraud related to fundraising off the Big Lie.

  178. 178.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ: Consider using this as an opportunity for additional training to broaden your skills. A lot of companies are moving toward using things like SharePoint for their internal web sites. Broadening your coding skills can help. Expanding into other types of front end development, like app or mobile development can be really handy. Alternatively, you could consider adding skills in usability / UX.

  179. 179.

    Miss Bianca

    @Barbara: OK, a challenge: a friendly one! Name me *one* “ism” that you can’t, ultimately, trace back to sexism. Because I honestly can’t.

  183. 183.

    Tenar Arha

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ: Sorty to hear this. Hope everything turns out okay. Are you on Mastodon or other geeky social media besides us here, & have you posted about your availability there too? Because I’ve seen people post for jobs there, and I believe it’s still enough of a den of geek that people boost along both job postings, and job requests.

  184. 184.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Men of every demographic voted in higher numbers for T than the women of the same demographic.

    They certainly did. And that fact is almost completely ignored by the media and pretty much everyone else.

  185. 185.

    wjca

    @Burnspbesq:

    a Federal grand jury in DC is looking at it. The likely fifth indictment is for wire fraud and mail fraud related to fundraising off the Big Lie.

    Definitely good news.

  191. 191.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Yarrow: It is ignored for the same reason that the media focuses on microscopic changes in Republican support from Latinos or Black people but completely ignores the white elephant in the room that lets Rs punch above what their actual numbers support.

  192. 192.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Yarrow: Exactly.  None of them seem to really grasp the reality that politics is hard and gains are usually small and slow.  And they got a lot of attention for refusing to support Hillary as some sort of badge of Progressive Purity or devotion to Black Lives.  Performative contrarianism dressed up as Black Liberation.

  193. 193.

    wjca

    @Miss Bianca:

    Name me *one* “ism” that you can’t, ultimately, trace back to sexism. Because I honestly can’t.

    “Liberalism”

    This was just waaaay too easy.

  194. 194.

    Manyakitty

    @Jeffro: I pictured the scene at the end of “Fargo” where Bill Macy is in the seedy motel in his underwear and tries to escape, then to stay in the room, screaming and crying.

  195. 195.

    Kay

    I think it’s worth mentioning too, on student loans, that the groundwork for any forgiveness plan was laid by the Obama Administration, in 2010:

     President Obama today signed into law the final piece of the health care puzzle, which mandates sweeping changes in the way the nation provides health care and makes the federal government the primary distributor of student loans. “That’s two major victories in one week that will improve the lives of our people for generations to come,” Obama said. To highlight the education reforms in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, Obama signed it at the Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Va., and focused on the largely overshadowed student loan reforms. The student lending overhaul ends the current program that subsidizes banks and other financial institutions for issuing loans, instead allowing students to borrow directly from the federal government. Now, instead of having banks use government money to loan tuition, the government will lend the funds directly. Starting July 1, all new federal student loans will be delivered and collected by private companies under performance-based contracts with the Department of Education, according to officials. “By cutting out the middleman, we’ll save American taxpayers $68 billion in the coming years,” the president said. “That’s real money — real savings that we’ll reinvest to help improve the quality of higher education and make it more affordable.”

    I don’t think Biden could have done what he’s done (and he’s done a lot) without Obama getting banks out of the middle. They might have blocked it.

  196. 196.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Miss Bianca: As I watched Hillary being interviewed by Rachel Maddow the other night, I was of course reflecting on how brilliant and knowledgeable and competent she was. But also on how the people who hate her, really hate her, hate her precisely FOR that brilliance and knowledge and competence. Not in spite of it.

  198. 198.

    Barbara

    @UncleEbeneezer: I don’t think it’s all that valuable to try to compete for worst bigotry award, but misogyny transcends many cultures, and is probably not as bad here as it is in other places.  Misogyny is the belief, in some sense, that women are inferior or just worth less, typically supported by social and especially religious mores or doctrine.  Racism is a form of tribalism so has more of a shape shifting essence, with racism by color being more enduring because color makes it easier to classify people as in or out.  In the U.S., I believe that access to social and other forms of capital, such as education, makes racism a more potent force in limiting people’s life chances than misogyny, but there is no doubt that misogyny is on the upswing and bringing the hammer down hard in states that are trying their best to control women’s access to reproductive care and liberty.

  200. 200.

    Kelly

    Worth noting if a wind storm is knocking down power lines which start fires the power is out after the fire starts.

  204. 204.

    Barbara

    @Kay: Agreed.  This was a major achievement, not really heralded because it probably didn’t look or feel all that different to borrowers.  But the fact that banks became service providers instead of subsidized lenders means that their interests as lenders do not have to be put into the mix of policy considerations in any proposals to change or reform student loan programs.

  208. 208.

    KrackenJack

    I’m sure someone else has mentioned it already, but I can’t cheer on the idea that people will have to plead guilty or flip to avoid financial ruin. The State has enough advantages over defendants.

  209. 209.

    Maxim

    @Miss Bianca: I don’t think racism derives from misogyny, nor the reverse. I think both have existed for as long as human societies have existed, and both ultimately derive from fear of the Other.

  210. 210.

    Yarrow

    @UncleEbeneezer: 

    None of them seem to really grasp the reality that politics is hard and gains are usually small and slow.

    You’re much kinder in your assessment of them than I am. They’re smart people. They know actual progress in politics is hard. But they’d much rather grandstand, have their followers tell them how right and great they are, and use that platform to promote themselves. It’s all about them and not about the country and helping the people in it.

  211. 211.

    Kay

    When Biden gets re-elected he should go after Medicare Advantage. It’s a rip off, in terms of the government. Bush II put it in so of course it’s overpriced crap. We really do need to save money re: Medicare and we could save a bunch if we cut private middlemen out.

    Humana is the most prominent example of how insurers have built a major cash cow out of systematically overbilling Medicare Advantage, the private Medicare program operated by private interests. These overpayments are symptomatic of a broader profit-driven policy agenda that seeks to completely privatize Medicare, one of the nation’s most popular social programs, and lock program recipients into subpar private insurance plans, even when they get sicker and need the best care possible.

  212. 212.

    M31

    @H.E.Wolf: lol the article referenced right above from Salon calls Bernie Kerik “Keris” in the first paragraph, speaking of copy editors needed

    also left out “convicted criminal” but that’s to be expected

  213. 213.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @KrackenJack: … but I can’t cheer on the idea that people will have to plead guilty or flip to avoid financial ruin. The State has enough advantages over defendants.

    true, though I have to admit I would celebrate the impoverishment of Rudy Giuliani. I’m a bad person.

  216. 216.

    Barbara

    @KrackenJack: I can agree with the point of not having to plead guilty to a felony, which has enduring life consequences, but “flipping” means, essentially, being willing to be a witness and provide a truthful account of what happened.  In the case of the defendants in the Georgia action, they are not being threatened with physical harm for testifying, and my understanding is that at least some of them were offered immunity if they testified.  To put it another way, there are some people who would rather risk financial ruin and felony conviction rather than testify for the prosecution.  That is a willing choice they have made.

  217. 217.

    Yarrow

    @Kay:

    When Biden gets re-elected he should go after Medicare Advantage. It’s a rip off, in terms of the government. Bush II put it in so of course it’s overpriced crap. We really do need to save money re: Medicare and we could save a bunch if we cut private middlemen out.

    YES! It sucks. I wish David Anderson would do a post on it. I asked in comments in one of his threads. If you actually need to use the coverage it’s bad. And I know retirees who get health insurance as a retiree benefit whose companies switched to a Medicare Advantage plan and now they’re stuck.

  222. 222.

    Barbara

    @Baud: I could give you chapter and verse but I would probably need to retire first.  The shortest answer: if you give people incentives, they will respond to those incentives, and that’s true for both the plans and Medicare beneficiaries.  On the flip side, it is also true for providers in the Medicare fee for service program.

  223. 223.

    moonbat

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      Full disclosure: I voted for Obama in 2008 and Clinton in 2016, but I did so knowing it was going to be so close.
    I always pay attention to the candidate that the GOP WANTS to run against and they desperately wanted to run against Hillary Clinton. They had been filling up their arsenals for 30 years in the hopes of running against her and the margins being so thin gave them the opening they needed to slip that orange meat sack of a mobster into the White House on a tiny misogynistic wave.
    And I too was influenced by the dynasty business. Seriously, I don’t believe in the “It’s their turn” bullshit and I think the Democrat bench was deep enough then that we could have fielded any number of candidates besides Clinton capable of winning. I like Hillary, but I’m not sentimental about it. As people keep pointing out, when the democracy is at stake, sentimentality needs to take a back seat.

  224. 224.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Barbara: Absolutely.  Misogyny is in every culture because while some places like Scandinavia or Africa can be 80+% White or Black respectively (causing Racism to be far less prominent than other forms of Tribalism), there is no place on Earth where that is true for Gender.

    Also, I view the current attacks on LGB(especiallyT) rights as being a part of Misogyny, since they are both rooted in Gender assumptions of Male Superiority.

  225. 225.

    Yarrow

    @Baud:  Everyone I encountered, from Urgent Care personnel to hospital personnel, to rehab facility personnel all despaired that the person I was helping had a Medicare Advantage plan rather than a Medicare plan. The MA plan covers less and requires more approvals.

    Oh, and Medicare Advantage companies don’t work weekends. No answering the phone for two days to get anything approved. So if, for example, you need approval for someone to be admitted to a hospital and it’s a Saturday you wait until Monday. They sit in urgent care or the ER until then. The stories I was told from a wide variety of people about this happening over and over – their family member having to wait in the ER for 48 hours, that kind of thing.

  227. 227.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Yarrow: I am a retiree who receives health benefits through my former employer. For 2023 they offered traditional Medicare + “medigap,” as in the past, but added a Medicare Advantage plan. I did a cost/benefit analysis last fall, and switched to MA. As it developed, both dear wife and I have had significant health issues this year, and we have paid a grand total of $0 out of pocket (other than the MA premium, which is deducted from my pension payment.)

    I know everyone has to evaluate their own situation, but a blanket “MA sucks” doesn’t help make an informed decision.

  232. 232.

    Betty Cracker

    @OGLiberal: I utterly despised Lieberman (still do!) and perceived that pick as a signal that Gore was either caving to the moralizing GOP hypocrites who abused their power to hound Bill Clinton or, worse, sincerely thought they had a point.

    I also bought into the dumb “duopoly” argument to some extent, and I didn’t think an idiot like GWB could win or get close enough to steal the election. In short, I was a moron! By way of explanation (not excuse), in 2000, there hadn’t been a popular vote winner who lost the electoral college since the 1800s, so I didn’t give that possibility the weight I should have.

    It was the only time I’ve ever voted third party, and I will regret it until the day I die. But there’s no going back. All I can do is not make the same mistake again and volunteer as a cautionary tale.

  233. 233.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Maybe seniors are too scary a foe to engage.

    OMG another giant pack of lies about how Democrats are killing Medicare! It might not be worth it. We may just have to overpay Humana forever :)

    Because student loan forgiveness isn’t that popular either – it’s like 45 or 50% but  approval skews YOUNG so I guess you could argue it’s targeted to younger people politically.

  234. 234.

    Yarrow

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m glad it’s working for you.

    My experience in helping someone who used to have Medicare and Medigap and now has a MA plan (both the Medigap and MA plans were/are retiree benefits from the same company) is that the MA plan is far worse. And every health professional I’ve encountered in this process has echoed that. It also takes a lot more work to deal with the MA plan. Much more effort for prior authorizations, etc. It’s more expensive and a lot more work and covers less. Perhaps it depends what state you’re in an if there are regulations in the state that make a difference. I don’t know.

    Like I said above, I wish David Anderson would do a post on Medicare Advantage. He might have some professional insights into how it works and how to make a good decision.

  235. 235.

    rikyrah

    @cain:

    @UncleEbeneezer: I haven’t heard from Elon James in awhile. He was doing a podcast with ABL a few years ago – not sure how it is going now.

     

    2016 wrecked his entire business model.

    He was phucking done.

    That ‘ earn my vote’ shyt was played out the moment Dolt45 was elected.

    He has never been forgiven.

    Anytime he has tried to venture back onto social media he has his azz handed to him.

  237. 237.

    Yarrow

    @Kay:  It’s my understanding that if you’ve been on Medicare Advantage for a year you can switch back to traditional Medicare but have to undergo underwriting to get a Medigap plan. That’s almost impossible for seniors and have it make financial sense because everyone has something. Maybe I’ve misunderstood.

  239. 239.

    patrick II

    Does anyone know what “Freespoke” is? I just saw an ad on twitter that said if I want unbiased facts, don’t use twitter, use Freespoke.  I’m not going to, but I’m just wondering.

  241. 241.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Betty Cracker: I made the same mistake for similar reasons.  Bought into the ridiculous idea that there would be no difference between a Gore and a W Presidency.  I also voted for the Gray Davis Recall in CA.  I was not a very serious thinker about my political decisions then.  But I learned my lesson with W (which eventually led me here and to LG&M where I learned from many FPers and Commenters) and have been a staunch Dem in every election, ever since.

  243. 243.

    Barbara

    @Yarrow: I have professional insights, especially on the way it works financially.  To put it in a bottom line context, Congress constructed the program in a way that gives plans an incentive to maximize the kind of “fluff” they can offer for marketing purposes while reducing the expenses associated with basic medical care, and you don’t get paid unless people enroll in your plan.

    On the other hand, the Medicare fee for service program generally sucks from the point of benefit design.  Medicaid is much better, but until you deal with Medicare close up you don’t really understand how fragmented and downright stupid it is as a benefit plan — and one advantage of MA is that it “marries the pieces together” in a way that is easier when you are buying benefits.

    Somewhere there may be a middle ground but it’s really hard to see how we could find it in the political universe we currently live in.

  244. 244.

    smith

    @Yarrow: I’ll add my bit of anecdata: When I qualified for Medicare, I chose Medicare + a supplemental, partly from the principle of the thing — I had long considered Medicare Advantage a Republican scheme to privatize Medicare. It was also based on my parents’ experience. My mother did Medicare+supplemental, my dad had Medicare Advantage. He had no end of problems, she had none.

    Since I went on Medicare, I’ve had two major surgeries and paid exactly $0 out of pocket, no pre-approvals necessary. Really, I’ve had to do was give providers my account numbers, and all the doors have opened seamlessly.

  245. 245.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Yarrow: I’m sure it varies by state, and certainly varies by provider. The plan my former employer offers is run by BC/BS, the largest health insurer in the state, and I have found no difference in ease of use compared to when we had actual BC/BS health insurance. If you go with one of those outfits that spends all autumn blanketing the TV with ads, it may work out differently.

  246. 246.

    Scout211

    @patrick II: From The Daily Beast last year. Seems like another techbro platform.

    A new “anti-censorship” search engine helmed by conservative tycoon Todd Ricketts has big ambitions of taking on Google, but already the platform is turning up some questionable results.

     

    Ricketts, who co-owns the Chicago Cubs with members of his massively influentialfamily and who helped spearhead fundraising for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, launched the Freespoke app in May after complaining that platforms like Google were advancing a left-wing bias.

    One example in which he thinks other search engines display too much orthodoxy is climate change, he told conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly last month. “I don’t think I’m a denier or anything, but I’m also an intellectual who wants to see the facts and lay it out and be thoughtful about it. And to say that there’s some sort of consensus, or that people who disagree with the consensus can’t be heard, it’s just dangerous,” he said.

    Freespoke’s aversion to filtering out content, however, appears to amplify some fringe positions. In response to a search query about vaccines, one of the top headlines declared that, per one study, the coronavirus “jab [is] more dangerous than COVID.” (Google displays national vaccination rates and eligibility information from vaccines.gov.) A curated selection of public commentary on the pandemic, meanwhile, featured conspiratorial takes, including one suggesting the U.S. government and Moderna nefariously knew COVID was coming before the pandemic had started (“How did they know!!??”) and another that seemed to imply Bill Gates may have been behind the outbreak.

  248. 248.

    Barbara

    @Miss Bianca: OK, a challenge: a friendly one! Name me *one* “ism” that you can’t, ultimately, trace back to sexism. Because I honestly can’t.

    I don’t think you can trace racism/tribalism back to sexism.  They exist side by side — societies like Sweden that score high in social equality by gender still have significant problems with ethnic tribalism.  Misogyny might compound those problems such that they are even worse for women in disfavored ethnic or racial groups, but I don’t think they are the same.

  249. 249.

    Scout211

    Original post had too many links. Trying again.

    @patrick II: From The Daily Beast last year. Seems like another techbro platform.

    A new “anti-censorship” search engine helmed by conservative tycoon Todd Ricketts has big ambitions of taking on Google, but already the platform is turning up some questionable results.

    Ricketts, who co-owns the Chicago Cubs with members of his massively influentialfamily and who helped spearhead fundraising for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, launched the Freespoke app in May after complaining that platforms like Google were advancing a left-wing bias.

    One example in which he thinks other search engines display too much orthodoxy is climate change, he told conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly last month. “I don’t think I’m a denier or anything, but I’m also an intellectual who wants to see the facts and lay it out and be thoughtful about it. And to say that there’s some sort of consensus, or that people who disagree with the consensus can’t be heard, it’s just dangerous,” he said.

    Freespoke’s aversion to filtering out content, however, appears to amplify some fringe positions. In response to a search query about vaccines, one of the top headlines declared that, per one study, the coronavirus “jab [is] more dangerous than COVID.” (Google displays national vaccination rates and eligibility information from vaccines.gov.) A curated selection of public commentary on the pandemic, meanwhile, featured conspiratorial takes, including one suggesting the U.S. government and Moderna nefariously knew COVID was coming before the pandemic had started (“How did they know!!??”) and another that seemed to imply Bill Gates may have been behind the outbreak.

  252. 252.

    Yarrow

    @Barbara:

    To put it in a bottom line context, Congress constructed the program in a way that gives plans an incentive to maximize the kind of “fluff” they can offer for marketing purposes while reducing the expenses associated with basic medical care, and you don’t get paid unless people enroll in your plan.

    Oh yes. The endless mailings, emails and phone calls about their AMAZING benefits, like Zooms about the plan, pushing you to talk to a random doctor on the phone about your health, or pushing you to download the app. It’s got to cost money and they come in all the time.

    There has to be a better way. Like I said, I’ve got a “before and after” comparison between Medigap and MA and the Medigap was way better. Every medical professional I’ve dealt with has confirmed this for this particular person.

  253. 253.

    M31

    on CNNs front page:  “Maggie Haberman reveals how Trump feels about Giuliani indictment”

    OH MY GOD WHO CARES

    what a steaming pile of rancid trash

  254. 254.

    Kay

    @Yarrow:

    I think MA plans could be working both ends to their advantage – ha ha. So they offer a better price to increase enrollment (profits) and overcharge the entity paying– the federal government- in terms of what they actually provided.

    That way the individuals who purchase the plans would be happy (they’re not being overcharged) but the government could be getting ripped off. It’s how I would do it if I were a rapacious insurance company – cheap for the purchaser, expensive for the government – the insurance co wins on both ends :)

  255. 255.

    Yarrow

    @Gin & Tonic:  The MA plan I’m referring to is the retirement benefit offered by a massive multinational company based in the US. Multiple thousands of retirees. The previous Medigap plan was gold plated, or so I was told by providers. The MA plan is…not.

  256. 256.

    Anyway

    @OGLiberal: (writing about NJ)

    This is what I worry about…even in blue states, seemingly normal, non-rich white people love Trump.

    I  am NJ-adjacent and know quite a few middle-class R-voting white NJers. My take is it’s not that they “love Trump”, they hate Ds and will almost always vote for the GQP candidate. These are educated suburban folk with mild economic anxiety – the kind most of us have,

  257. 257.

    skerry

    If we’re messing with Medicare, I’d like to see out-of-pocket limits on Part A and Part B

  259. 259.

    Leto

    @Scout211:

    “I’m also an intellectual who wants to see the facts and lay it out and be thoughtful about it.”

    He’s an intellectual like Trumpov’s an example of a discriminating palate. Dude can barely put a winning team on the field and he’s over here, “show me the evidence”… get the F outta here. What’s going to make the most impact with regard to climate change, like everything else, is to fucking tax them into oblivion. Returning to a 1940s/1950s 90% taxation rate is too generous. 200%. Fuck them.

  265. 265.

    Kay

    @skerry:

    I changed my mind. If we do anything at all there will be 5000 ads in swing states about how Republicans saved Medicare. They will just lie their asses off like they did in 2010.

    I cannot go thru that again :)

  266. 266.

    rikyrah

    @smith:

    @Yarrow: I’ll add my bit of anecdata: When I qualified for Medicare, I chose Medicare + a supplemental,

     

    WHERE do you get a Medicare+ Supplemental.

    Is it sold as EXACTLY THAT – SUPPLEMENTAL?

    Medicare Advantage – sold like that?

    I am putting these away for future reference.

  267. 267.

    Miss Bianca

    @schrodingers_cat: you really don’t think that, at the root of it, any attempt at “othering” or subjugation doesn’t have its roots in subjugating women? I don’t share that confidence, personally.

  269. 269.

    Paul in KY

    @schrodingers_cat: IMO, Cheney is incapable of looking ‘cuddly’, but Loserman was completely pathetic and made Cheney look like the only competent adult in the debate and Loserman like a little child that you’d never want anywhere near the Oval Office.

  270. 270.

    Leto

    @Kay: ​ have follow up ads run behind it similar to all the construction project billboards that have “President Biden did this”

  272. 272.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: You go to Medicare.gov and look for general information on how Medicare works, and what your options are.  Basically, most people are automatically entitled to Part A, but you must affirmatively enroll in Part B, and there is a premium that you must pay regardless whether you get FFS benefits or enroll in Medicare Advantage.  Your choices are:

    (1) Medicare FFS + standalone Part D plan + Medicare supplemental for copays that the FFS program doesn’t pay, which is 20% of all Part B expenses, with no cap.

    (2) MA + Part D prescription drug benefits, in a single plan.

  274. 274.

    Alison Rose

    @Miss Bianca: I suppose one could argue that there is a similar strain of “I deserve to be above you” directed by white men toward POC of all genders and women of all racial/ethnic identities. But the reasoning behind it can be quite different, and men of color can also be sexist.

  277. 277.

    Barbara

    @Alison Rose: And for this very reason, that is, high anxiety about or obsession with status relative to other people and the world at large, it would not surprise me if men who score high on an index of racist beliefs also score high on an index of misogynistic beliefs, relative to others within their social group.

  278. 278.

    trollhattan

    Sparked by a power line is the least surprising news from Maui. Pretty sure they can’t blame this one on PG&E, either.

    Traditional wood power poles snap like toothpicks in high winds, but alternatives are expen$ive so we continue to rely on them.

  279. 279.

    Yarrow

    Y’all see this?

    Texas wants Planned Parenthood to give back millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements — and pay far more in fines on top of that — in a lawsuit that appears to be the first of its kind brought by a state against the largest abortion provider in the U.S.

    A hearing was set for Tuesday in front of U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who earlier this year put access to the most common method of abortion in the U.S. in limbo with a ruling that invalidated approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.

  280. 280.

    Another Scott

    @brantl: Indeed.

    But it’s much easier for someone to flee down the road in California (on the mainland) to escape a large power outage (and have a chance to get shelter and support) than to flee on a small island.

    (Tough crowd here today.  ;-)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  281. 281.

    Alison Rose

    @Barbara: Oh definitely. I mean…I’m sure there are some sexist white men who are cool with men of all races, and some super racist white men who don’t exhibit sexism, but…they are probably not the tip of an iceberg in either scenario!

  282. 282.

    jonas

    @Anyway:  These are educated suburban folk with mild economic anxiety – the kind most of us have,

    The Republican base is what Marx described as the petit-bourgeoisie — small business owners who hate workers and immigrants because their labor/wage demands reduce their income, and who hate government and taxes for the same reason, and double-hate upper-class “elites” for supposedly “looking down on them” even as they secretly desire to be one. They’ve been the backbone of every authoritarian movement in modern times.

  284. 284.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: I see that like much of California, Hawaii’s electricity purveyor is private and publicly traded. One wonders if they survive this–PG&E declared bankruptcy #2 after causing several of our megafires and being held accountable.

  285. 285.

    cope

    @Betty Cracker: Mea culpa re voting for Nader in ’00 and living in Florida at the time, an action I also will take with me to oblivion.  My motives were much like yours including the thought that there was no way Bush would win and I could feel smug sending a “message” vote. Also, Lieberman…blech.

    ETA link to interesting article about troubles at New College. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2023/08/16/chaos-reigns-new-college-florida-fall-semester-nears

  286. 286.

    sab

    @Burnspbesq: My RWNJ brother in California has solar that plugs back into the grid so he can sell power back to PG&E. But that means when his portion of the grid goes down he still oses power.

    Ohio we don’t have option to sell back so my generator cuts us off from the grid when the grid power goes out. Mine is natural gas.

    My sister in MA is thinking about a stand alone system like mine but with solar. She thinks that will need a lithium battery backup. But she thinks lithium batteries are too dangerous/flamable to have in the main house, and her snooty town does not allow stand alone garages.

    She also says solar works better in more moderate climates like MA, OH, Germany. Hot, super sunny places have conditions that can fry the solar panels.

    Complicated stuff.

  289. 289.

    jonas

    @trollhattan: Yeah, burying power lines costs something like 5-10x more than stringing them overhead. And it can’t be done everywhere due to local geological conditions. Maybe some of the huge lawsuit payouts over fires caused by downed lines in CA and now HI will start shifting that cost-benefit analysis now.

  291. 291.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    Is someof the variance due to providers? I ask because I have a rural hospital and health care subsidiary close to home (bth for profits) and I use them for ordinary care. I have good insurance and I often have to pay some out of pocket. But I was disagnosed with osteoperosis and my husband insisted I go to Cleveland Clinic – he thinks the local providers are low quality. So I go there – it’s not too bad because I do a lot of it virtually so although 3 hour ride it’s infrequent enough that I can do it. But I notice Cleveland Clinic seems to accept what my plan pays as payment in full because I pay next to nothing out of pocket.

    I recall Obama held up Cleveland Clinic and Mayo as good examples because they’re not fee for service, but in MY case, better care is also cheaper.

  293. 293.

    Subsole

    @KrackenJack:

    Counterpoint: Fuck them.

    They tried to steal our entire-ass democracy and planned to shoot down like dogs in the street any of us who didn’t lie back and thank them for the abuse.

    No, seriously: Fuck. Them.

    If anyone in this hemisphere deserves to feel the awful, pitiless grinding of the gears as America the Vast and Implacable rolls right the hell over them without so much as upcycling, it’s these clowns.

    I repeat, reiterate, and reaffirm:

    Fuck them.

    Sideways.

    With missiles.

  294. 294.

    patrick II

    @Scout211: ​

    Thanks. I had a feeling it was something like that. Like we needed a search engine that returns Q theories and pseudoscience.

  295. 295.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: When she was a high school student in Alaska, Magdi Jacobs volunteered for the Nader campaign. She has tweeted some on her rationale at the time, and also how she came to regret her choice not long into Bush’s presidency. One reason for that was that Jacobs finally appreciated how good a candidate Gore was on environmental issues, a factor she had not given due weight in 2020.

  297. 297.

    Kelly

    @sab: Integrated battery backup power that kicks in automatically when the grid fails is available. Similar to fossil fueled backups. More expensive. Less effective in winter storms.

  300. 300.

    Barbara

    @Kay: If a provider has a contract with the payer, they have to accept the amount as payment in full.  It’s a matter of state insurance law in nearly every state.  If the provider does not have a contract, you can be balance billed, a subject that has become very hot over the last five years.

    Except for Medicare.  Medicare protects beneficiaries from balance billing, by imposing a cap on what a provider can charge for Medicare covered services, and this applies to both MA and non-MA beneficiaries for Part A and B covered services, and regardless whether the provider is in or out of network.

    Every general rule in Medicare has a long and complicated rabbit trail of exceptions, including this one, but for most people and services and providers, the general rule prevails.

  301. 301.

    cain

    @M31: Basically the media has turned into yellow journalism – national enquirer level nonsense where we are talking about stupid shit instead of facts and analysis.

    It’s about 90% speculation – and the media loves our edgy, close to end of democracy situation

  302. 302.

    Ksmiami

    @Paul in KY: not campaigning with Bill was another own-goal. Despite the ridiculous impeachment stuff, he really was super popular at the time. Lieberman is a scold.

  303. 303.

    cain

    @Scout211: What a sucker. I hope he enjoys losing all that money.

    Now he has a search engine that works really well for conspiracy theorists.

  304. 304.

    Ksmiami

    @Subsole: yep. I’d ship them off to Saudi Arabia or Russian if I could. They are undeserving of democracy here. And part of where this country has gone wrong is indulging them on their misinformation and utter ignorance. We can’t sustain Democracy with alternative facts.

  307. 307.

    Subsole

    @Ksmiami:

    Ironically enough, a Republican politician pointed all this out a long while back. We cannot remain half slave and half free. We will become one or the other.

    The only reason I wouldn’t deport every last one of them is that plenty of countries would recruit them to come back over as spies or terrorists and I don’t trust the spiteful little bastards not to sign up.

  308. 308.

    gvg

    @Kay: Direct student loans were created in 1992 by Bill Clinton and congress.  That program gave schools a choice to be a direct loan school or stay a bank loan school and it made a huge difference at the time because they offered lower fees and interest and were also much faster and did electronic funds transfer which the banks were still insisting on individual paper checks that had to be sent back and reissued if any changes to the eligible amount occurred while we waited weeks or months for the checks. This was when electronic banking was obviously going to be the wave of the future but the banks were resisting giving better service and students were needing money for food and books and avoiding rent evictions. This does not help get good grades. Also bank loans had to be certified by a state guarantor agency that was also slow and it was hard to tell the student which piece was missing, and once we figured it out we would have to tell them who they had to call next to find out what was wrong. About a third of the schools became direct and the banks lost easy money. They were really rude and nasty to us that year of transition (I was a new financial aid employee) and also spread scare stories to students and parents. Then the program started and the money showed up on time. We told other schools and more left bank loans…and then Banks started giving much better service and lobbied congress to be allowed to lower their rates and fees to equal direct loans!

    The department of Ed tried to go all direct loans only several times but the banks lobbied against it until Obama and I think that was because of the financial crisis causing banks to not have enough liquidity to stay in student loans when they needed to up their reserves due to real estate losses.

    Obama’s time

  310. 310.

    Citizen Alan

    @rikyrah: I still say she was too kind. Deplorable is a respectable for syllable word. She could have saved herself time and breath if, instead of calling them a basket of deplorables, she had just called them a bucket of shit.

  311. 311.

    Citizen Alan

    @OGLiberal: I voted for him because I lived in mississippi, where there was no possibility of al gore getting within ten points of george bush. So I thought my vote for nader would increase the green party’s percentage of the vote to the point where they could get matching funds in 2004 or, more likely, getting close enough to do it so that the democrats would respond by moving left on the issues that the greens were pushing that were important to me.  Also, I absolutely hated Joe Lieberman and by the time the election ruled around, had come to dislike Al Gore for a number of reasons. I am still mad he made a point of saying that he supported the death penalty for its “deterrent value,” which I saw as pandering to blood thirsty racists.

  312. 312.

    Geminid

    @Citizen Alan: I think Clinton would have done better to talk to that audience about her plans for infrastructure investment, and reserved characterizing Trump supporters for a more private gathering.

  313. 313.

    satby

    @Ms. D. Ranged in AZ: Also, if you haven’t applied for SS survivor benefits for your son do so ASAP. For you too, if you are eligible (and you might be, even if unmarried, if you live in a state that recognizes common law marriage.)

  314. 314.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: I offer up my 1980 vote for John Anderson as an additional cautionary tale. I became a Yellow Dog Democrat after that election. I’m sorry it took eight years after my first vote.

  315. 315.

    Citizen Alan

    @Betty Cracker:

    I also bought into the dumb “duopoly” argument to some extent

    I know some people here mock the idea of “optics” being a factor in politics. But I, for one  remember feeling quite angry at the spectacle of gore and bush sitting next to each other on a stage and watching impassively as nader was escorted out of the building even though he had bought a ticket to the debate with his own money. It really drove home the idea of both democrats and republicans being united against anyone who would challenge ” duopoly.” And honestly, I think it was also an own goal by Gore, because I believe he could have neutralized the greens completely simply by debating nader in public and revealing what a complete crank he was.

    Semi relatedly, is nator a word? Because speech to text on my phone keeps spelling nader’s name that way. I mean, speech to text always sucks, but I am baffled at how eager it is to misspell a well known person’s name or common phrases with complete gibberish.

  316. 316.

    ian

    Because they are in deep denial about what this says about half of the country. (“We Still Like Trump Because F*** You”.)

    This sentence kinda says it all about American politics for the past eight years.

  317. 317.

    Ruckus

    @jonas:

    SFB has had loser stink on him for at least the last 50 yrs. It just wasn’t as near obvious back then. But if you read any of the financial press back then there would be occasional bits and pieces, because his dad was a slumlord and he was seen as an up and comer. He came and he shit the bed.

  318. 318.

    Ruckus

    @OGLiberal:

    I’m an old and started school a rather long time ago. There was racism everywhere. Here in CA it wasn’t as obvious as other places but it was here. The wrong side of the tracks was not an unusual thing to hear. But as time went on and our schools were integrated the concept of racism got less. And NO, it has never gone away completely but it was/is far less than it was when I lived in Charleston, SC for 2 yrs, 50 yrs ago.

  319. 319.

    Ruckus

    @Miss Bianca:

    Many men skate by on the fact they have a penis. As a human with one I’ve seen this on so many occasions that I’ve lost count long ago. It was worse decades ago. Women have had to fight hard to get anywhere and make progress. Many have and the world is a better place for it. I’ve known women that I could see would be great leaders but the culture alone would have made them failures because so many men would have fought their leadership no matter how positive it was.

  320. 320.

    narya

    @rikyrah: I just went through aaaalllllll of this. I found the Medicare site to be super helpful–you can do a whole lot of poking around without even a login. I ended up doing a supplemental plan, NOT an “Advantage” plan, because I am picky about my docs and the Advantage plans sound way too much like HMOs. You essentially go through the Medicare site to get to the pricing, and, eventually, the plans for the supplemental, but you do end up getting the supplemental from the specific insurance company, not Medicare. I did a lot of poking before I was eligible so I could budget for it.

  321. 321.

    Barbara

    @narya: ​Med Supp is totally private, and is not paid by the Medicare program at all. Med Supp plans have to conform to federal standards that govern the specific plan types, but they are regulated directly under state insurance law.

    Medicare Advantage plans contract with CMS to provide Part A/Part B benefits, and must offer at least one alternative that includes Part D (drug) benefits. The plans are paid directly by CMS, and might also charge a premium to beneficiaries. CMS reviews benefit plans and has to approve the structure of the plans, including cost sharing. State insurance regulators cannot separately regulate MA plans beyond ensuring that they are financially solvent under state insurance standards.

    Part D plans also contract with and are paid by CMS, but there is no fee for service analog for benefits. If you want prescription drug coverage under Medicare, you have to choose a Part D plan or enroll in an MA plan that also offers Part D benefits.​

  322. 322.

    StringOnAStick

    @Yarrow: You can switch to traditional Medicare within the first year after signing up for MA without having to undergo underwriting; of course this is because at age 65 you signed up, no later.  After a year, underwriting kicks in if you want to switch from MA.

  325. 325.

    Barbara

    @StringOnAStick: ​Increasingly, Med Supp plans are not underwriting even in circumstances where they are legally entitled to. It really pays to shop around. In my view, enrolling in traditional Medicare plus Part D plus Med Supp is the default choice if it is affordable for you. But MA plans really can be more affordable and less complicated — and if you already have a relationship with a plan prior to Medicare, like Kaiser, you might already have a good idea of how it might work out for you.

    But you can ALWAYS switch from traditional Medicare into MA during the open enrollment cycle that begins in October of every year.

  327. 327.

    Barbara

    @Ohio Mom: ​We passed redistricting amendments to the VA constitution in the last few years and I am in the minority of people who voted no, because, after reading the proposal and corresponding with the head of the group proposing it, I determined that all it would do is create a stalemate. The guy pooh poohed my concerns when I emailed him, but I was right and he was wrong. It didn’t work out terribly, and it will probably avoid the extreme partisan gerrymandering that was put in place after 2010, but I felt like we could have done better. My husband called me Pollyanna and voted for it.

  328. 328.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: I could see the potential for the Redistricting Commission to deadlock (which it did). I was up in the air about the constitutional amendment, but I ended up voting for it. When the commission deadlocked and redistricting was punted to the Supreme Court, I thought the two special masters they apointed did ok with the state legislative maps, but maybe not so great with the Congressional map (although personally I was very glad to be moved from the 5th CD to the 7th).

  331. 331.

    Sally

    @Miss Bianca: I agree with you at least mostly on this – misogyny is a huge, insidious as well as ostentatious, and universal problem in the world.  It is everywhere, top to bottom, left and right, global.  I didn’t realise how much until 2008.  Living in the South, I bet my husband that they wouldn’t choose Obama over Clinton.  Apart from the FACT(ha) that she was the most qualified candidate who had ever stood for nomination, I insisted the electorate would not put a black man in the White House.  He said they would not put a woman in the WH and especially as CIC. He was, and remains, correct. Everyone who said “Just not THAT woman” was lying.

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