Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

“woke” is the new caravan.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

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War for Ukraine Day 905: As the Clock Strikes Twelve the Bombardments Resume

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Two quick housekeeping notes: First, Rosie is still doing amazing. Her next treatment is Monday. Sometime this week I’m going to be putting in a lower/shorter bed frame to make it easier for her to get on and off the bed. A year ago, as some of you may recall, I bought a new mattress, which I love. But it’s about three or four inches higher than the old one. So this will take the height back down to what it was a year ago.

Second, I’m still fried, though I did get a lovely four hour nap this afternoon. Minus the fifteen minutes where both legs cramped. That said, I’m going to keep this on the briefer side tonight as I want to go and crash.

As we’ve noted a couple of times, as soon as the clock strikes twelve in Ukraine each night, the bombardments commence.

Most nights these assaults use Iranian Shahed drones. But every few nights the Russians switch over to their cruise missiles and glide bombs. This is a strategy of terror. Specifically, to stress the Ukrainians out. To interrupt and disrupt sleep patterns. To create adrenaline overload. All in order to destroy their social resilience.

Absolutely THE WORST national security team that could be assembled by a Democratic president.

No, no they have not. It does not enter into their mental calculus at all. To quote former Shin Bet Director Avraham Shalom, “raq taktik, ayn strategik.” In English: “only tactics, no strategy.”

For want of a nail!!!!

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Friday Night Open Thread

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Been feeling under the weather the past day and a half, so no gym today. Summer is winding down so I am getting ready for the fall, and one of the things I have to do is do a clean of the house so that I can think straight. Once everything smells like Murphy’s Oil Soap I will be able to get some mental organization back.

In other news, I saw a picture today of Kamala Harris in college:

Friday Night Open Thread 17

My chest got taught because I realized you Kamala was EXACTLY the kind of girl in the late mid to late 80’s and 90’s that I would have been drawn to like a moth to flame and would become infatuated with, those poor women. Artsy, independent, with that natural “I’m cooler than you and we both know it” look and style, etc. As I joked earlier, I can hear the Cure and Laurie Anderson. They, of course, wanted ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with my wild ass white frat boy lacrosse playing dead following drunken ass. If they were an English or Theater or Library Science major and looked good in a turtleneck and jacket I was fucking done for. And like I said, they looked at me like I was a madman and new I was a fucking omnishambles.

***

I have a friend who is constantly trying to make plans with me and simply does not seem to understand that while yes, I would love to go out to eat and hang out, I do not want to make plans or a commitment for two weeks from now. And it hurts their feelings. And I just wish they would understand that if you call me and say “I am going to so and so in an hour” I will more than likely say ok and meet them. But you want to plan something two Saturdays away so I can do nothing but stress about it for two weeks? Fuck off. I don’t know what I want to do in an hour, let alone two weeks.

And I don’t know if anyone else is this way, but if I have an appointment or meeting scheduled on a certain day, it does not matter how small or unimportant or painless that meeting is going to be, in my mind there is a big fucking X through the day on my mental calendar. It will be all I can think about the entire day until it happens. And it is no better if it is first thing in the morning, because then I will mentally be in prep for meeting mode the night before. I will not be able to concentrate until that task is completed and every 20 minutes for until the meeting I will be “oh shit did I forget about the meeting” or “oh shit what time is it I have somewhere to be at 2 pm” or “am I leaving early enough to be there 15 minutes before the appt?” It’s fucking torture. If I have to make zoom calls I try to schedule them for all in a row on the same few days so then mentally there is no stress, I just get off one call and go to the next.

And trust me, it is not easy living like this.

***

I was thinking of Tunch a lot today, so here are some pictures from ages ago:

Friday Night Open Thread 18

Friday Night Open Thread 19

A generous graphic designer answered my call the other day, and we are cooking up some extra special election swag for the Balloon Juice store for the election. Shooting for stickers, buttons, yard signs and maybe some t-shirts and flags. Who knows. Get some cool advertising for the Harris/Walz ticket and raise some money for the animal shelter.

I am tempted to show the samples now but I want to hold off until I know more. But they are awesome!

***

That’s it for me. Gonna take a shower and watch some tv.

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She is an Angel in a Polyester Uniform

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One of the fun things about the last couple of weeks is the absolute inability of the biggest shit talking mudslingers in politics to lay a hand on either Harris or Walz. Let’s start with Harris — do they have anything but the “is she really black?” racist nonsense? If they do, I haven’t seen it.

Also, she’s authentically middle class, and we know that because she worked at McDonald’s when she was young. Every middle-class kid of her generation can relate to a shitty high school fast food job (I certainly can). If you want to be humbled, do that job for a few days. (It’s also a good way to keep yourself from uttering the stupidest sentence that people who haven’t done a restaurant job will speak: “Wouldn’t it be great to open a restaurant?” No, it really wouldn’t. It’s hard, demanding work, and most restaurants fail in the first year.)

As for Walz, again, nonsense on stilts is all that we’ve heard. Let’s take this taco crisis. Here’s their massive gotcha: even though Walz said that black pepper is about as spicy as it gets for Minnesotans, and he mentioned making “white guy tacos,” Walz posted a taco recipe that actually had some spice.

First, tell me you’ve never been to rural Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota or Nebraska, without saying it. The native cuisine there is absolutely bland. Cream of mushroom features prominently in every hot dish. You’ll never walk into a regular restaurant and get anything that’s the least bit spicy. (Of course, nowadays there are Mexican restaurants everywhere, since Mexican laborers are indispensable to the ag economy, even though the Trump-voting rural folks are living in denial about that.)

Second, Here’s the recipe. It features ground turkey because Minnesota is the #1 turkey producer in the nation, and Walz is pushing that. And, yes, it calls for a jar of medium taco sauce, a can of diced chiles (mild) and an unspecified amount of chili powder. But it also calls for a pound of turkey, 16 oz of sour cream and a bag of tater tots. You could dump a quarter cup of chili powder into that mess and barely taste it. This is the epitome of a dish that a rural Minnesotan would say “has a little kick” and everyone else would say is quite bland. And, trust me, they’d put an infinitesimal amount of chili powder in it.

In closing, watching these Trumpist fuckers sputter has been just 100% entertainment, no notes. They’re careening between “let’s talk about the issues” whenever they’re called weird, and “you’re the real weirdos” whenever Project 2025 is mentioned. It’s been a great ride and I don’t see an end to it anytime soon.

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Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Putin on the Fritz

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Putin - STOCKPILE

(Walt Handelsman via GoComics.com)

 

But seriously… Russian immigrant Julia Ioffe, at Puck this Tuesday, on “Ukraine’s Guns of August“:

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What Does it Mean to Fight?

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What Does it Mean to Try? 1What Does it Mean to Try?

KamalaHQ is hammering Trump’s Medal of Honor comments yesterday at his New Jersey ex-wife burial ground and golf club, so I assume the Harris campaign thinks those remarks are pretty damaging.  Trump’s comments also clearly show that attacks on Walz’ military record have zero credibility from the Republican ticket, but I don’t think they were gaining much traction anyway, since they seem to have been replaced by false anguish over Kamala making fun of Walz’ white guy tacos.  (Again proving that the sensitivity of the white male to even the slightest of slights can never be overstated.)

Kamala’s comms team is very good, but Harris and Walz are also experiencing a moment where their excitement is feeding the public’s excitement, and the public excitement is feeding back into their excitement and energy.  This is where every campaign wants to be, a sweet spot where their momentum seems like it will never end.

Of course, this is rare:  a campaign can be doing everything right, yet they’re faced with an uninterested public.  Or, the campaign might have a message that would interest the public, but perhaps the candidate can’t deliver it for a number of reasons like age, poor retail political skills, etc.  That’s what I thought about when I saw this (from a Fake LBJ account that is written by some history profs at some university in Texas):

What Does it Mean to Try? 2What Does it Mean to Try? 3

What Does it Mean to Try? 4

I haven’t been paying close attention to Allred’s campaign, but let’s assume that fake LBJ is right:  Cruz is weaker than ever, and the Allred campaign is following a pretty worn out playbook.  The cause isn’t just money — they’ve raised $37 million to Cruz’ $57 million, and even though the concept of “enough” in political fundraising is hard to gauge, $37 mil is enough to run a decent campaign anywhere.  So if it isn’t money, is it candidate? Is it an unreceptive public?  Is it that Democrats often run very conservative campaigns in general?  I mean, whatever you want to say about Beto, the guy knew how to fight.

I’m wondering about this because the Harris campaign is doing something special and rare.  If Democrats are going to win in Texas, or Florida, or some of the other reddish-purple states that always seem to elude our grasp, we need to be able to replicate some of what’s led to this moment for the Harris/Walz campaign.

(Also, as usual, if there are Texans or people who know Texas politics reading this, tell me what I’ve missed about Allredl)

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UPDATE: Kamala Harris Live: Raleigh, NC Rally and Economic Proposals

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UPDATE: See I go for a walk and they change the times on me. It looks like the Harris video time was incorrect. So the PBS  feed is probably of the rally, too. Which is fun, btw, because, unlike the Harris feed, they show all the opening speakers and we get to hear the DJ

Hey, let me know if you guys want more of these. Watergirl and I’ve been talking about how best to keep posting these. I’m happy to do it when I’m around and I know she’s keeping an eye on events, too.

But if they’re of no interest or feel repetitive, no need to coordinate the posts.

This is scheduled to begin in 20 minutes.

 

PBS has the feed for her Economic speech later today (2:45 EDT, 11:45 PDT):

I’m off to walk the dogs, so hopefully this will go off without a hitch (bwhahahahaha)

Otherwise, totally open thread

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Mmmmm Donuts

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PercyOwner asked a great question yesterday on Medicare Part D:

The cap AND making the donut hole smaller is going to help him so much. But good lord, why is there a donut hole in the first place? Other than to save the insurance companies money.

Great question. And let me get into character for my health insurance reform and politics lecturer-mode.

[Disclaimer — Dr. Mark McClellan was my ultimate boss when I was at Duke and he had a substantial role in Medicare Part D design ]

Congress tries to do something with health insurance every few years. Sometimes it works and sometimes it fails. We can count on Congress as an institution to look at the last thing that they tried to do and react to its successes or failures. These lessons will be filtered through the perspective and priorities of the minimum winning coalition in Congress and the White House.

The last big attempt to do a prescription drug benefit for Medicare was ClintonCare and before that it it was Medicare Catastrophic. Both failed. Congress was going to do something different.

Medicare Catastrophic passed and then was repealed because the program finance and benefit designed pissed off a ton of middle and upper middle class healthy-ish Medicare beneficiaries by increasing their costs without providing a benefit that they could see. Medicare Catastrophic’s benefits were scaled to only ever apply to 7% or 8% (I don’t have my notes with me) of beneficiaries in a year even as almost all beneficiaries had to pay premiums.

Part D was a reaction against this lesson. First it was a voluntary program. Secondly, it was heavily subsidized by general tax revenue and, third, it tried to give at least a token benefit to almost everyone who enrolled. It had a small deductible and then a pretty rich early benefit where almost everyone who purchased a plan would see some day to day savings (might not match their premium, but it would be real).

But given that there was a soft budget cap and a desire to have some nearly catastrophic coverage, something had to give.

And that was the donut hole. It was designed to have higher cost enrollees pay a substantial chunk of cost-sharing at a point where the median beneficiary was not even close to caring. This provided political buy-in from healthier enrollees while still offering near catastrophic protection for really sick/expensive enrollees.  It was near catastrophic as there was still an unlimited 5% coinsurance for very high cost drugs so someone who was really sick/unlucky could still be paying $5000 to $10,000 per year in catastrophic expenses after they paid the donut hole.

There is an economic argument that a big cost-sharing shock will force people to be better shoppers/consumers too.  The donut hole is placed so it hits a population with enough spending where changing that spending produces real savings while not driving people to avoid really low cost but highly effective generic drugs that are the most common/typical drugs that low cost utilizers use.

The ACA started to shrink the donut hole.  The IRA eliminates it in 2025.

 

 

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