Boring Meetings–Kushner Report

by

Here are Kushner's prepared remarks. 

I believe his defense can be boiled down to–I went to lots of meetings that I didn't know anything about and they were Bore-ing.

I don't have the energy to parse it for all the hedges, but one particular hedge got my lawyerly spider sense tingling:

Reuters news service has reported that I had two calls with Ambassador Kislyak at some time between April and November of 2016. While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador. We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place.

 

I immediately thought to myself: hmmm, most phones I know of are also capable of taking calls FROM people.  I wonder if he has thought of that? 

 

Russian ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH open thread. 

512 thoughts on “Boring Meetings–Kushner Report”

  3. Is anyone in possession of the blue dress Kushner was wearing during these pizza deliveries to the Russian Ambassador?

  4. Is anyone in possession of the blue dress Kushner was wearing during these pizza deliveries to the Russian Ambassador?

  11. Count’s Washington Monthly link mentions the fact that Richard Burt and Dmitri Simes first worked for the Rand Paul campaign. Interesting that Paul is one of the two senators who voted against the Russian sanctions bill.

  12. Count’s Washington Monthly link mentions the fact that Richard Burt and Dmitri Simes first worked for the Rand Paul campaign. Interesting that Paul is one of the two senators who voted against the Russian sanctions bill.

  13. Didn’t get any response to my suggestion to watch “Occupy”. Here’s an article“>http://www.politico.eu/article/occupied-norwegian-tv-series-thats-enraged-the-kremlin-norway-russia-occupation/>article about the series and the Kremlin pushback.
    I’d (whenever) be interested in people’s thoughts, especially Lurker’s and Hartmut’s.

  14. Didn’t get any response to my suggestion to watch “Occupy”. Here’s an article“>http://www.politico.eu/article/occupied-norwegian-tv-series-thats-enraged-the-kremlin-norway-russia-occupation/>article about the series and the Kremlin pushback.
    I’d (whenever) be interested in people’s thoughts, especially Lurker’s and Hartmut’s.

  17. I thought his message was, “I went to lots of meetings, and it is possible taht Russians are bad, but I only did it because I am stupid, so I’m not responsible>”

  18. I thought his message was, “I went to lots of meetings, and it is possible taht Russians are bad, but I only did it because I am stupid, so I’m not responsible>”

  19. The most interesting thing about ‘Occupy’ is the Russian reaction.
    The premise is extraordinarily unlikely (it would be much more convincing were it to be set in a Baltic or central european state), but the ‘why are you so mean to us after we forcibly occupied half of Europe for around fifty years’ thing is interesting.

  20. The most interesting thing about ‘Occupy’ is the Russian reaction.
    The premise is extraordinarily unlikely (it would be much more convincing were it to be set in a Baltic or central european state), but the ‘why are you so mean to us after we forcibly occupied half of Europe for around fifty years’ thing is interesting.

  25. The premise is extraordinarily unlikely (it would be much more convincing were it to be set in a Baltic or central european state),
    The mechanics of the occupation were different, but it feels eerily familiar, now that we have Putin’s puppet as President.

  26. The premise is extraordinarily unlikely (it would be much more convincing were it to be set in a Baltic or central european state),
    The mechanics of the occupation were different, but it feels eerily familiar, now that we have Putin’s puppet as President.

  27. Here’s a speech by Tim Kaine given last night on the Senate floor on health care. He was supposed to have been VEEP, and wouldn’t the world look different.
    He’s talking about the Wise county RAM clinic:
    “Remote Area Medical has held more than 860 expeditions worldwide since 1985,” said RAM Founder and President Stan Brock. “In that time, the RAM-Wise Clinic continues to be the largest patient turnout we see. The healthcare need in Southwest Virginia is extremely high, and the patients we see wait for this clinic days in advance every year in order to receive the care they need. Without it, they would have nowhere else to turn.”
    The people who are responsible for giving power to the greedy, cynical nihilists who took over this country make me ill, and will not be forgiven.

  28. Here’s a speech by Tim Kaine given last night on the Senate floor on health care. He was supposed to have been VEEP, and wouldn’t the world look different.
    He’s talking about the Wise county RAM clinic:
    “Remote Area Medical has held more than 860 expeditions worldwide since 1985,” said RAM Founder and President Stan Brock. “In that time, the RAM-Wise Clinic continues to be the largest patient turnout we see. The healthcare need in Southwest Virginia is extremely high, and the patients we see wait for this clinic days in advance every year in order to receive the care they need. Without it, they would have nowhere else to turn.”
    The people who are responsible for giving power to the greedy, cynical nihilists who took over this country make me ill, and will not be forgiven.

  29. There is really no other possible conclusion than that this man is either certifiable or suffering from dementia
    it’s not dementia, he’s always talked like that. and I doubt he’s clinically certifiable.
    its really quite simple. he’s a jerk. a rude, vulgar, bullying asshole.

  30. There is really no other possible conclusion than that this man is either certifiable or suffering from dementia
    it’s not dementia, he’s always talked like that. and I doubt he’s clinically certifiable.
    its really quite simple. he’s a jerk. a rude, vulgar, bullying asshole.

  31. The people who are responsible for giving power to the greedy, cynical nihilists who took over this country make me ill, and will not be forgiven.
    I’m also feeling like the whole trump phenomenon – not just Trump himself, but the fan base – is kind of a bridge too far.
    if they wanted to draw a line, they’ve achieved their mission.

  32. The people who are responsible for giving power to the greedy, cynical nihilists who took over this country make me ill, and will not be forgiven.
    I’m also feeling like the whole trump phenomenon – not just Trump himself, but the fan base – is kind of a bridge too far.
    if they wanted to draw a line, they’ve achieved their mission.

  35. “cynical nihilists who took over this country make me ill”
    When you get sick, republican murderers will put Remote Area medical out of business. Instead, the private sector, run mostly by cheating, lying, murderous we’re running a business over here conservatives who wrap a wet volume of Atlas Shrugged around their dicks and celebrate their soulless malignancies with a circle jerk as they pickpocket you during the ER visit, will palpate your bank account for radical surgery.
    Here’s the private sector at work, purposefully stealing from you. republican filth and killers own it all:
    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/blame-hospitals-for-the-big-spike-in-out-of-network-er-charges/
    You are a profit center. This is who sick fuck and unfortunately ambulatory McCain of Piety Central works for and is owned by. We are soylent green and they never cease eating all of us.
    Ted Cruz will be Attorney General by next Friday. Then the person who said in these pages during the campaign that Cruz was the only candidate who understood the limits government should operate under will watch with tragic glee, or horror, it’s so hard to fucking tell which, as Cruz expands the police powers of the Federal government exponentially at the whim of his walking shitbag boss.
    The Justice Department will become another purely political paramilitary branch of the VERMIN Republican Party, to bookend with much of the U.S. military and the fascist serial killers running and financing the NRA.
    The body count will be phenomenal.
    Boy Scouts everywhere will twitch and howl with blood lust.
    They’ll be awarded merit badges for not applying tourniquets to snakebites because they are the snakes, the little twats.

  36. “cynical nihilists who took over this country make me ill”
    When you get sick, republican murderers will put Remote Area medical out of business. Instead, the private sector, run mostly by cheating, lying, murderous we’re running a business over here conservatives who wrap a wet volume of Atlas Shrugged around their dicks and celebrate their soulless malignancies with a circle jerk as they pickpocket you during the ER visit, will palpate your bank account for radical surgery.
    Here’s the private sector at work, purposefully stealing from you. republican filth and killers own it all:
    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/blame-hospitals-for-the-big-spike-in-out-of-network-er-charges/
    You are a profit center. This is who sick fuck and unfortunately ambulatory McCain of Piety Central works for and is owned by. We are soylent green and they never cease eating all of us.
    Ted Cruz will be Attorney General by next Friday. Then the person who said in these pages during the campaign that Cruz was the only candidate who understood the limits government should operate under will watch with tragic glee, or horror, it’s so hard to fucking tell which, as Cruz expands the police powers of the Federal government exponentially at the whim of his walking shitbag boss.
    The Justice Department will become another purely political paramilitary branch of the VERMIN Republican Party, to bookend with much of the U.S. military and the fascist serial killers running and financing the NRA.
    The body count will be phenomenal.
    Boy Scouts everywhere will twitch and howl with blood lust.
    They’ll be awarded merit badges for not applying tourniquets to snakebites because they are the snakes, the little twats.

  37. Yes I do think it reflects on the character of people who are responsive to Trump. I have thought that maybe they were just misinformed since many of them live inside the hate/fear world of rightwing media–but that reflects poorly on character, too. Afer al it is a choice. People can shoose to watch Faux, or they can recognize hatemongering bullshit when they see it and watch something else. Teh rightwing base LIKES bullies. They LIKE hatefulness. They are attracted to it. They are the same people who supported Hitler before he opened camps. NOt necessarily the ones who supported Hitler after he opened camps, but definitely the same as the ones who put him into power and helped him in the early stages of his war against their fellow citizens.
    But it is too narrow to focus on Trump and his supporters. The Republican party has been using hate of groups of our fellow Americans for decades and their “Everything is the fault of those bad people over there message” resonates with at least forty percent of the population. So the problem isn’t Trump and his supporters; its the Republican party and their voters.

  38. Yes I do think it reflects on the character of people who are responsive to Trump. I have thought that maybe they were just misinformed since many of them live inside the hate/fear world of rightwing media–but that reflects poorly on character, too. Afer al it is a choice. People can shoose to watch Faux, or they can recognize hatemongering bullshit when they see it and watch something else. Teh rightwing base LIKES bullies. They LIKE hatefulness. They are attracted to it. They are the same people who supported Hitler before he opened camps. NOt necessarily the ones who supported Hitler after he opened camps, but definitely the same as the ones who put him into power and helped him in the early stages of his war against their fellow citizens.
    But it is too narrow to focus on Trump and his supporters. The Republican party has been using hate of groups of our fellow Americans for decades and their “Everything is the fault of those bad people over there message” resonates with at least forty percent of the population. So the problem isn’t Trump and his supporters; its the Republican party and their voters.

  39. He talks like this. This is how he mesmerizes Eagle Scouts and beauty queens and 50 million dupes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oq1z10QtOs
    His brain, regardless of its condition, is merely an incidental, little-used organ topping off the pure EVIL of the rest of the sack of shit which operates via malign animal spirits secreted in his balls and bowels.
    Kilgrave. That first syllable is key.

  40. He talks like this. This is how he mesmerizes Eagle Scouts and beauty queens and 50 million dupes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oq1z10QtOs
    His brain, regardless of its condition, is merely an incidental, little-used organ topping off the pure EVIL of the rest of the sack of shit which operates via malign animal spirits secreted in his balls and bowels.
    Kilgrave. That first syllable is key.

  41. Let’s say he is well into the throes of dementia.
    That would lead us to suspect the change in his speech patterns toward incoherency and dyspeptic nonsense connected catastrophically with like-minded senility and dementia in the body politic, enthralling the inner American zombie stupid.
    I’ve often wondered if the saying “If you aren’t a liberal at twenty, you don’t have a heart. But if you aren’t a conservative at 40, you don’t have a brain”, is just another marker for diagnosing early-onset senility and dementia.
    Maybe America at large will require diapering and a sippy cup to make sure it doesn’t hurt itself.
    The odd incidence of great numbers, tens of millions, of otherwise healthy American dumbasses inanely repeating the meaningless mantra that he’ll “Make America Great Again”, often in Russian, in answer to every query and in every circumstance reminds me of my late mother and my late father-in-law when they were deep into their separate dementias repeating ad nauseum some phrase or sentence and then looking at you searchingly to, I guess, ascertain if you were getting their drift.
    My father-in-law would communicate part of his mantra in a series of mouth clicks and smacks, like a San Bushman, once words started to fail him.
    My mother would ask over and over, day-in, day out, day-out: “Where’s Betty?”, her late sister.
    Both of them became extremely agitated when their mantra or question was answered truthfully, (“what do you mean, she died?”) or finally, met by silence because a caregiver becomes weary of playing that game ad nauseum.
    I had exactly that experience the other week when visiting nice friends getting on in years who are rabid rumpers. The lady collects large antique dolls and they are arrayed throughout their home, except now many them wear red ball caps with the rump logo and bullshit on them.
    She showed them to me with preternatural serenity.
    It was like Madame Tussaud’s House of Mixed Nuts. I felt like a debutante wandering around in Chuckie’s house with the electricity off and the phone lines cut.
    I was polite and silent. Had two extra drinks to acclimate myself to the surrounding political inebriation, so I didn’t blurt out that I’m from the deep state.
    Once, several years ago, her husband (they are from Chicago; he was a fireman and for a time before that a police officer) referred to Barack Obama as “that monkey”. I put him in the hospital in traction with a catheter up his everything.
    The hospital in my mind. CountmeCare.
    Have you ever noticed in dementia wards, many of the patients, mostly the males, wear ball caps and T-shirts with stupid sayings on them.
    Like “I say it’s spinach and to Hell with it!” or “Hang the Cunt!”
    The republican party plays its part in all of this as the malign criminal employed by your low-rent nursing facilities as supposed care-givers who steal from the addlepated male patients, their base, as they sleep and molest the female patients, their base, at night in their rooms, keeping them over medicated as well at great expense.
    I’d say we’re on to something about the epidemiology of the disease ravaging the American political system.
    But I repeat myself ad nauseum.
    Where IS Betty? I just saw her a minute ago.

  42. Let’s say he is well into the throes of dementia.
    That would lead us to suspect the change in his speech patterns toward incoherency and dyspeptic nonsense connected catastrophically with like-minded senility and dementia in the body politic, enthralling the inner American zombie stupid.
    I’ve often wondered if the saying “If you aren’t a liberal at twenty, you don’t have a heart. But if you aren’t a conservative at 40, you don’t have a brain”, is just another marker for diagnosing early-onset senility and dementia.
    Maybe America at large will require diapering and a sippy cup to make sure it doesn’t hurt itself.
    The odd incidence of great numbers, tens of millions, of otherwise healthy American dumbasses inanely repeating the meaningless mantra that he’ll “Make America Great Again”, often in Russian, in answer to every query and in every circumstance reminds me of my late mother and my late father-in-law when they were deep into their separate dementias repeating ad nauseum some phrase or sentence and then looking at you searchingly to, I guess, ascertain if you were getting their drift.
    My father-in-law would communicate part of his mantra in a series of mouth clicks and smacks, like a San Bushman, once words started to fail him.
    My mother would ask over and over, day-in, day out, day-out: “Where’s Betty?”, her late sister.
    Both of them became extremely agitated when their mantra or question was answered truthfully, (“what do you mean, she died?”) or finally, met by silence because a caregiver becomes weary of playing that game ad nauseum.
    I had exactly that experience the other week when visiting nice friends getting on in years who are rabid rumpers. The lady collects large antique dolls and they are arrayed throughout their home, except now many them wear red ball caps with the rump logo and bullshit on them.
    She showed them to me with preternatural serenity.
    It was like Madame Tussaud’s House of Mixed Nuts. I felt like a debutante wandering around in Chuckie’s house with the electricity off and the phone lines cut.
    I was polite and silent. Had two extra drinks to acclimate myself to the surrounding political inebriation, so I didn’t blurt out that I’m from the deep state.
    Once, several years ago, her husband (they are from Chicago; he was a fireman and for a time before that a police officer) referred to Barack Obama as “that monkey”. I put him in the hospital in traction with a catheter up his everything.
    The hospital in my mind. CountmeCare.
    Have you ever noticed in dementia wards, many of the patients, mostly the males, wear ball caps and T-shirts with stupid sayings on them.
    Like “I say it’s spinach and to Hell with it!” or “Hang the Cunt!”
    The republican party plays its part in all of this as the malign criminal employed by your low-rent nursing facilities as supposed care-givers who steal from the addlepated male patients, their base, as they sleep and molest the female patients, their base, at night in their rooms, keeping them over medicated as well at great expense.
    I’d say we’re on to something about the epidemiology of the disease ravaging the American political system.
    But I repeat myself ad nauseum.
    Where IS Betty? I just saw her a minute ago.

  47. The premise is extraordinarily unlikely (it would be much more convincing were it to be set in a Baltic or central european state)
    Except that Quisling will resonate more. Especially if you are a Scandanavian film maker. (Not that there weren’t equally bad people elsewhere. But not nearly, except maybe Putin, a infamous.)

  48. The premise is extraordinarily unlikely (it would be much more convincing were it to be set in a Baltic or central european state)
    Except that Quisling will resonate more. Especially if you are a Scandanavian film maker. (Not that there weren’t equally bad people elsewhere. But not nearly, except maybe Putin, a infamous.)

  51. Ted Cruz will be Attorney General by next Friday.
    Count, you have to look on the bright side. (That’s why God invented magnifying glasses.) If this happens, we will have gotten both Sessions and Cruz out of the Senate.
    And how long do you think Cruz will last? Apparently gotta be totally obsequious to Trump to count (no offense!) on that.

  52. Ted Cruz will be Attorney General by next Friday.
    Count, you have to look on the bright side. (That’s why God invented magnifying glasses.) If this happens, we will have gotten both Sessions and Cruz out of the Senate.
    And how long do you think Cruz will last? Apparently gotta be totally obsequious to Trump to count (no offense!) on that.

  55. Key Findings
    • This analysis finds five unique clusters of Trump voters: American Preservationists (20%), Staunch Conservatives (31%), Anti-Elites (19%), Free Marketeers (25%), and the Disengaged (5%)
    • There is no such thing as “one kind of Trump voter” who voted for him for one single reason. Many voted with enthusiasm for Trump while others held their noses and voted against Hillary Clinton.
    • Trump voters hold very different views on a wide variety of issues including immigration, race, American identity, moral traditionalism, trade, and economics.
    • Four issues distinguish Trump voters from non-Trump voters: attitudes toward Hillary Clinton, evaluations of the economy, views about illegal immigration, and views about Muslim immigration.
    The Five Types of Trump Voters: Who They Are and What They Believe

  56. Key Findings
    • This analysis finds five unique clusters of Trump voters: American Preservationists (20%), Staunch Conservatives (31%), Anti-Elites (19%), Free Marketeers (25%), and the Disengaged (5%)
    • There is no such thing as “one kind of Trump voter” who voted for him for one single reason. Many voted with enthusiasm for Trump while others held their noses and voted against Hillary Clinton.
    • Trump voters hold very different views on a wide variety of issues including immigration, race, American identity, moral traditionalism, trade, and economics.
    • Four issues distinguish Trump voters from non-Trump voters: attitudes toward Hillary Clinton, evaluations of the economy, views about illegal immigration, and views about Muslim immigration.
    The Five Types of Trump Voters: Who They Are and What They Believe

  57. Count, I realize that it’s a struggle to keep up. But how did you miss this one

    President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, has disclosed to Congress that he previously represented Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, whose owners have ties to President Vladimir V. Putin

    From the New York Times and Washington Post?
    You just can’t make this stuff up!

  58. Count, I realize that it’s a struggle to keep up. But how did you miss this one

    President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, has disclosed to Congress that he previously represented Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, whose owners have ties to President Vladimir V. Putin

    From the New York Times and Washington Post?
    You just can’t make this stuff up!

  59. I frequently stop by the front page of foxnews.com to see what’s going on in RightLand. At 12:30 there was NO mention of the Senate Health care vote coming up. Now there’s a single link, halfway down the under “Fox Business”: “Republican Senate leader to hold healthcare vote within hours”.
    Breitbart.com has nothing about the vote on the front page at all.
    That’s some cultivated ignorance about a bill that is intended to re-work 1/6 of the US economy and directly affect tens of millions of people.

  60. I frequently stop by the front page of foxnews.com to see what’s going on in RightLand. At 12:30 there was NO mention of the Senate Health care vote coming up. Now there’s a single link, halfway down the under “Fox Business”: “Republican Senate leader to hold healthcare vote within hours”.
    Breitbart.com has nothing about the vote on the front page at all.
    That’s some cultivated ignorance about a bill that is intended to re-work 1/6 of the US economy and directly affect tens of millions of people.

  65. It is difficult to say anything about a TV series I haven’t watched. The state-owned Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, the public TV service, shows a lot of Norwegian material, probably because they have a barter agreement with their Norwegian counterpart, so I expect to see the program in Finnish TV in the future.
    The point of the series seems to be rather far-fetched. Essentially, it posits that the Norwegian government decides to pursue ideological politics that alienate it from all imaginable allies. Furthermore, it assumes a weak government that rather allows Russia to occupy the country rather than choosing a war. Such a course would be a typical combination of stupidity and weakness that actually cause the downfall of a country.
    The Politico article draws a parallel from the series to the phenomenon of Finladization. The phenomenon was a real one, but it’s extent should be understood. Politico refers to Finland retaining its “formal” independence, compared to the Soviet-annexed Baltic states and Soviet satellites. What this “formality” meant is defined later: Politico reminds that while Finland retained a free-market system and democratic parliamentarian government, one of the parties, the conservative National Alliance was shut out of government years 1958-87 for foreign policy reasons, i.e. deference to the Soviet Union, although it remained a major actor in municipal politics and in the parliament. I would say that this is more than “formal” independence.
    What Politico fails to mention is that the Finnish foreign policy stance was dual. The public liturgical speak affirmed the constant friendship with the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Finnish foreign policy was actively carving Finland free movement space that allowed the integration of economy to Western structures. The whole was backed by active development of the Defence Forces using both Western and Soviet materiel.
    The defence planning was interesting. Since 1960’s, it has been based on the concept of “territorial defence”, which aims to contest the freedom of operation of the enemy in all parts of the country, while keeping vital areas in Finnish hands at all times. A very heavy emphasis is laid on the prevention of surprise occupation. For example, major Finnish airports were from 1970’s until 1980’s equipped with concealed old tanks that were permanently installed to have a free field of fire on the runway, with the airport personnel trained and instructed to use the weapons in case of a surprise landing.
    Another important point in defence planning is the idea of fighting against overwhelming odds. You would not believe if I told you what kind of relative enemy strength I have been trained to consider as a “normal” situation. The idea is not necessarily to win. It is to make the enemy victory so expensive in blood and treasure that it is not rational to attack.

  66. It is difficult to say anything about a TV series I haven’t watched. The state-owned Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, the public TV service, shows a lot of Norwegian material, probably because they have a barter agreement with their Norwegian counterpart, so I expect to see the program in Finnish TV in the future.
    The point of the series seems to be rather far-fetched. Essentially, it posits that the Norwegian government decides to pursue ideological politics that alienate it from all imaginable allies. Furthermore, it assumes a weak government that rather allows Russia to occupy the country rather than choosing a war. Such a course would be a typical combination of stupidity and weakness that actually cause the downfall of a country.
    The Politico article draws a parallel from the series to the phenomenon of Finladization. The phenomenon was a real one, but it’s extent should be understood. Politico refers to Finland retaining its “formal” independence, compared to the Soviet-annexed Baltic states and Soviet satellites. What this “formality” meant is defined later: Politico reminds that while Finland retained a free-market system and democratic parliamentarian government, one of the parties, the conservative National Alliance was shut out of government years 1958-87 for foreign policy reasons, i.e. deference to the Soviet Union, although it remained a major actor in municipal politics and in the parliament. I would say that this is more than “formal” independence.
    What Politico fails to mention is that the Finnish foreign policy stance was dual. The public liturgical speak affirmed the constant friendship with the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Finnish foreign policy was actively carving Finland free movement space that allowed the integration of economy to Western structures. The whole was backed by active development of the Defence Forces using both Western and Soviet materiel.
    The defence planning was interesting. Since 1960’s, it has been based on the concept of “territorial defence”, which aims to contest the freedom of operation of the enemy in all parts of the country, while keeping vital areas in Finnish hands at all times. A very heavy emphasis is laid on the prevention of surprise occupation. For example, major Finnish airports were from 1970’s until 1980’s equipped with concealed old tanks that were permanently installed to have a free field of fire on the runway, with the airport personnel trained and instructed to use the weapons in case of a surprise landing.
    Another important point in defence planning is the idea of fighting against overwhelming odds. You would not believe if I told you what kind of relative enemy strength I have been trained to consider as a “normal” situation. The idea is not necessarily to win. It is to make the enemy victory so expensive in blood and treasure that it is not rational to attack.

  67. America is in grave, mortal danger.
    Step up republicans with your fucking guns.
    Do something besides masturbate over Clinton’s foibles.
    Federal bankruptcy and thermonuclear war will be your legacies if you don’t take things in hand now.
    C’mon, you tough shits. Do something.
    Or else.

  68. America is in grave, mortal danger.
    Step up republicans with your fucking guns.
    Do something besides masturbate over Clinton’s foibles.
    Federal bankruptcy and thermonuclear war will be your legacies if you don’t take things in hand now.
    C’mon, you tough shits. Do something.
    Or else.

  71. They have nothing but harsh language, like the Alien movies:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/conservative-legal-experts-shocked-trump-bizarre-attacks-jeff-sessions
    They defend a racist, malign Sessions from a hallucinating malign maniac.
    They want process. There is no process. There are no facts. There is no procedure. There is basic human decency in these scum.
    It’s all coming down. Their blood coursing thru the gutters.
    They own all of it, every pigfucking one of them.

  72. They have nothing but harsh language, like the Alien movies:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/conservative-legal-experts-shocked-trump-bizarre-attacks-jeff-sessions
    They defend a racist, malign Sessions from a hallucinating malign maniac.
    They want process. There is no process. There are no facts. There is no procedure. There is basic human decency in these scum.
    It’s all coming down. Their blood coursing thru the gutters.
    They own all of it, every pigfucking one of them.

  73. That would be “no” basic human decency….
    Hey look, even Madame Defarge garbled a few words caught up in her spittle storm.
    But you didn’t see a break in the 24-hour deserving decapitations, did you?
    No, you didn’t.

  74. That would be “no” basic human decency….
    Hey look, even Madame Defarge garbled a few words caught up in her spittle storm.
    But you didn’t see a break in the 24-hour deserving decapitations, did you?
    No, you didn’t.

  75. Welp, McCain voted for the atrocity.
    Without reading a word of the thing.
    How does he know there isn’t a line item in there repealing all payments for brain cancer treatments for ruthless shitheads?
    Because it’s only repealing all payments for brain cancer treatments for the poor, someone I expect will helpfully point out.
    But he got his Planned Parenthood defunding, which makes complete sense considering all of the bareback cooch he got here and overseas. He screwed everything that limped as a young man, his legend has it.
    I wonder if he’s having My Lai flashbacks as he reboards the Medivac with his gummint supplied healthcare coverage.

  76. Welp, McCain voted for the atrocity.
    Without reading a word of the thing.
    How does he know there isn’t a line item in there repealing all payments for brain cancer treatments for ruthless shitheads?
    Because it’s only repealing all payments for brain cancer treatments for the poor, someone I expect will helpfully point out.
    But he got his Planned Parenthood defunding, which makes complete sense considering all of the bareback cooch he got here and overseas. He screwed everything that limped as a young man, his legend has it.
    I wonder if he’s having My Lai flashbacks as he reboards the Medivac with his gummint supplied healthcare coverage.

  77. Welp, McCain voted for the atrocity.
    Actually, he voted to talk about it. While saying that he would NOT vote for passing it as it stands.
    Of course, that doesn’t say what he would vote for. Your expectation may vary. But it’s a bit less noxious as your statement here makes it out.

  78. Welp, McCain voted for the atrocity.
    Actually, he voted to talk about it. While saying that he would NOT vote for passing it as it stands.
    Of course, that doesn’t say what he would vote for. Your expectation may vary. But it’s a bit less noxious as your statement here makes it out.

  79. wj, this comedy routine we’re developing here reminds of old Smothers Brothers shticks.

  80. wj, this comedy routine we’re developing here reminds of old Smothers Brothers shticks.

  87. Lurker: anybody who remembers, or has read about, the Winter War knows what the Finns think about long odds.

  88. Lurker: anybody who remembers, or has read about, the Winter War knows what the Finns think about long odds.

  89. I really appreciated Lurker’s comments. I enjoyed the program for its own sake, but also (thinking back on it, because I saw it before Trump), it rang scary and true, and a decent parable of how people might react to a creepily soft occupation by a foreign government. Of course, no one wants war, so how do we resist?
    Everything right now in the US points to Federal autocracy. Weirdly, I’m thankful for state government semi-autonomy so that Democratic governors can carry the torch to some extent. How long that can last I don’t know. A federal judge has (yesterday, in other news) okayed the voter repression commission. We are screwed on so many levels, and I don’t know to what extent that will affect state elections.
    We have to fight, and I’m gong to try to fight despair in order to fight them. And, although it’s annoying to you for me to say I told you so — I’ve been trying to tell y’all for years.

  90. I really appreciated Lurker’s comments. I enjoyed the program for its own sake, but also (thinking back on it, because I saw it before Trump), it rang scary and true, and a decent parable of how people might react to a creepily soft occupation by a foreign government. Of course, no one wants war, so how do we resist?
    Everything right now in the US points to Federal autocracy. Weirdly, I’m thankful for state government semi-autonomy so that Democratic governors can carry the torch to some extent. How long that can last I don’t know. A federal judge has (yesterday, in other news) okayed the voter repression commission. We are screwed on so many levels, and I don’t know to what extent that will affect state elections.
    We have to fight, and I’m gong to try to fight despair in order to fight them. And, although it’s annoying to you for me to say I told you so — I’ve been trying to tell y’all for years.

  91. Sorry, but those of us who can still remember how the Southern Democrats, especially in the Senate, held stuff hostage — we didn’t need telling so for a lot of years now. The labels have changed, but the mindset is depressingly lively.
    As for the commission itself, I will be unsurprised if they come up with lots of people who didn’t un-register for voting when they moved. (I know it never occurred to me to do so when *I* moved in the past.) So, lots of duplicates.
    But beyond that, I suspect that they are forced, as Kovach has been in Kansas, to accept that there just isn’t anything there — and their own numbers prove it. (Not that they would ever ADMIT….) In short, hoisted on their own petard. Which the bulk of the country will know, even if they remain in denial.

  92. Sorry, but those of us who can still remember how the Southern Democrats, especially in the Senate, held stuff hostage — we didn’t need telling so for a lot of years now. The labels have changed, but the mindset is depressingly lively.
    As for the commission itself, I will be unsurprised if they come up with lots of people who didn’t un-register for voting when they moved. (I know it never occurred to me to do so when *I* moved in the past.) So, lots of duplicates.
    But beyond that, I suspect that they are forced, as Kovach has been in Kansas, to accept that there just isn’t anything there — and their own numbers prove it. (Not that they would ever ADMIT….) In short, hoisted on their own petard. Which the bulk of the country will know, even if they remain in denial.

  93. Sorry, but those of us who can still remember how the Southern Democrats, especially in the Senate, held stuff hostage — we didn’t need telling so for a lot of years now.
    You might want to be more specific. A lot of stuff got done before Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
    But beyond that, I suspect that they are forced, as Kovach has been in Kansas, to accept that there just isn’t anything there — and their own numbers prove it.
    With “fake news”, etc., it’s going to take a very long while for the stupids to figure this out. Also too, the world marches on, and we’re due for a national emergency. Don’t worry though, wj. Be happy.

  94. Sorry, but those of us who can still remember how the Southern Democrats, especially in the Senate, held stuff hostage — we didn’t need telling so for a lot of years now.
    You might want to be more specific. A lot of stuff got done before Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
    But beyond that, I suspect that they are forced, as Kovach has been in Kansas, to accept that there just isn’t anything there — and their own numbers prove it.
    With “fake news”, etc., it’s going to take a very long while for the stupids to figure this out. Also too, the world marches on, and we’re due for a national emergency. Don’t worry though, wj. Be happy.

  95. wj,
    The Dixiecrats, like liberal Republicans, are ancient history.
    I hate to say it, but The Count is right: first the current GOP has to be reduced to rubble and its fields sown with salt; then we can argue about state autonomy versus federal protection of individual rights compared and contrasted with federal trampling of those rights versus states’ defense of them.
    –TP

  96. wj,
    The Dixiecrats, like liberal Republicans, are ancient history.
    I hate to say it, but The Count is right: first the current GOP has to be reduced to rubble and its fields sown with salt; then we can argue about state autonomy versus federal protection of individual rights compared and contrasted with federal trampling of those rights versus states’ defense of them.
    –TP

  97. sapient, I was thinking late 50s/early 60s. (Yes, some of us really are old enough to remember that!) Long before Nixon did the Southern Strategy.
    Tony, I would only ask that, this time, WE actually clean up the mess. Instead of just foisting it off on someone else (no matter how willing, even eager) to clean up. Or, worse, just co-inhabit with.
    Sewing their (mental) fields with salt seems like a fine idea. A little bit unclear exactly on the methodology for achieving that, however.
    Well, if we can figure it out, we’ve got a serious money spinner. Even if we’re picky about clients, which I suspect we would be.

  98. sapient, I was thinking late 50s/early 60s. (Yes, some of us really are old enough to remember that!) Long before Nixon did the Southern Strategy.
    Tony, I would only ask that, this time, WE actually clean up the mess. Instead of just foisting it off on someone else (no matter how willing, even eager) to clean up. Or, worse, just co-inhabit with.
    Sewing their (mental) fields with salt seems like a fine idea. A little bit unclear exactly on the methodology for achieving that, however.
    Well, if we can figure it out, we’ve got a serious money spinner. Even if we’re picky about clients, which I suspect we would be.

  103. Getting the supply lines is of only limited use until you get the big funding sources: Mercer, Koch, Adelson, etc.
    Yes, most of them claim to be libertarians, not conservatives — more accurately known, these days, as reactionaries. (See the David Koch Fund for Science for how non-reactionary.) But it’s not hard to see who ends up benefiting.

  104. Getting the supply lines is of only limited use until you get the big funding sources: Mercer, Koch, Adelson, etc.
    Yes, most of them claim to be libertarians, not conservatives — more accurately known, these days, as reactionaries. (See the David Koch Fund for Science for how non-reactionary.) But it’s not hard to see who ends up benefiting.

  105. Snarki:
    Good idea, but how? Even if there still was a Fairness Doctrine, how can it be applied to cable, which isn’t using a limited public resource like broadcast?

  106. Snarki:
    Good idea, but how? Even if there still was a Fairness Doctrine, how can it be applied to cable, which isn’t using a limited public resource like broadcast?

  107. Most cable franchises are a long-term monopoly granted by the local government. Talk to the people at the cable HQs and they’ll tell you that spectrum down the coax is a limited resource. Satellite TV is very much a user of limited public resources (spectrum and geostationary orbital slots). Two-thirds of the eyeballs watching local “over the air” content receive it over cable or satellite. Somewhere in there is a basis for “fairness” if people wanted to push it.

  108. Most cable franchises are a long-term monopoly granted by the local government. Talk to the people at the cable HQs and they’ll tell you that spectrum down the coax is a limited resource. Satellite TV is very much a user of limited public resources (spectrum and geostationary orbital slots). Two-thirds of the eyeballs watching local “over the air” content receive it over cable or satellite. Somewhere in there is a basis for “fairness” if people wanted to push it.

  109. Talk to the people at the cable HQs and they’ll tell you that spectrum down the coax is a limited resource.
    limited, sure. but it’s a privately-owned resource. nobody is going to force Time Warner to carry balanced news coverage.

  110. Talk to the people at the cable HQs and they’ll tell you that spectrum down the coax is a limited resource.
    limited, sure. but it’s a privately-owned resource. nobody is going to force Time Warner to carry balanced news coverage.

  111. I suspect it would be difficult for a “fairness” doctrine to overcome First Amendment constraints in the courts these days.

  112. I suspect it would be difficult for a “fairness” doctrine to overcome First Amendment constraints in the courts these days.

  113. The only part of the “cable spectrum” that I’d want to use to counter Fox News is 0-0.01 Hz….
    In which I would apply 50kV, DC, for about 2 minutes.
    But no, those bastids have been converting everything to fiber. Do you people have any idea how much a HV power supply costs that can jump 10km of fiber?1??
    SHEESH!

  114. The only part of the “cable spectrum” that I’d want to use to counter Fox News is 0-0.01 Hz….
    In which I would apply 50kV, DC, for about 2 minutes.
    But no, those bastids have been converting everything to fiber. Do you people have any idea how much a HV power supply costs that can jump 10km of fiber?1??
    SHEESH!

  117. It’s clear that McKinney left us some time ago, but I don’t think we’ve heard from Marty for several days either. Have things finally come to the point where we can no longer talk to each other? I could understand it, but I hope not. However, if so, I hope it doesn’t last too long.

  118. It’s clear that McKinney left us some time ago, but I don’t think we’ve heard from Marty for several days either. Have things finally come to the point where we can no longer talk to each other? I could understand it, but I hope not. However, if so, I hope it doesn’t last too long.

  121. but it’s a privately-owned resource. nobody is going to force Time Warner to carry balanced news coverage.
    Privately-owned but installed under a local franchise agreement on a monopoly basis. Franchising authorities impose all sorts of odd requirements as part of the agreement. And the cable company will bend over backwards to keep the franchising authority happy during the last couple of years before the current agreement expires. One chunk of my career was doing technology demonstrations to franchising authorities to help convince them to let us keep the franchise when we had purchased the assets of whichever cable company had owned them previously.

  122. but it’s a privately-owned resource. nobody is going to force Time Warner to carry balanced news coverage.
    Privately-owned but installed under a local franchise agreement on a monopoly basis. Franchising authorities impose all sorts of odd requirements as part of the agreement. And the cable company will bend over backwards to keep the franchising authority happy during the last couple of years before the current agreement expires. One chunk of my career was doing technology demonstrations to franchising authorities to help convince them to let us keep the franchise when we had purchased the assets of whichever cable company had owned them previously.

  123. “It’s a tough time to be a conservative.”
    Spot on. They may have to move, change their names, dye their hair, and pretend that they NEVER had that kind of political affiliation.
    The more rational conservatives are likely the first to jump ship.
    The large number of Trumpers? It may too many to handle on an individual basis.
    I suggest a Federal Witless Protection Program.

  124. “It’s a tough time to be a conservative.”
    Spot on. They may have to move, change their names, dye their hair, and pretend that they NEVER had that kind of political affiliation.
    The more rational conservatives are likely the first to jump ship.
    The large number of Trumpers? It may too many to handle on an individual basis.
    I suggest a Federal Witless Protection Program.

  125. In the past year or so, cable subscriptions have been declining by about a million and a half per year.

  126. In the past year or so, cable subscriptions have been declining by about a million and a half per year.

  127. It’s a tough time to be a conservative.
    No, actually it’s not. Irritating? That I will grant you — just because of all the loons who have tried (with depressing success) to appropriate the label.
    It’s definitely a rough time to be a reactionary. And a KnowNothing is feeling a lot of pain, because there is just so much, and so much new, that you are expected to know these days. But just being a conservative? Not so much of a problem, at least regarding the way the world is changing — the world does that; it’s a feature.
    Note that, for example, a real conservative would never argue for repealing Obamacare at this point. Modify it, to make it more effective? Sure. Just rip out — that’s a lot of things, but “conservative” isn’t a word that applies to that approach.

  128. It’s a tough time to be a conservative.
    No, actually it’s not. Irritating? That I will grant you — just because of all the loons who have tried (with depressing success) to appropriate the label.
    It’s definitely a rough time to be a reactionary. And a KnowNothing is feeling a lot of pain, because there is just so much, and so much new, that you are expected to know these days. But just being a conservative? Not so much of a problem, at least regarding the way the world is changing — the world does that; it’s a feature.
    Note that, for example, a real conservative would never argue for repealing Obamacare at this point. Modify it, to make it more effective? Sure. Just rip out — that’s a lot of things, but “conservative” isn’t a word that applies to that approach.

  129. In the past year or so, cable subscriptions have been declining by about a million and a half per year.
    The vast majority of which purchase high-speed data service delivered over exactly the same facilities, and subject to the same franchising agreement for the physical plant. Pissing contests where the franchising authority says “We won’t renew your franchise” and the cable company says “The voters will crucify you at the next election” are always fun.

  130. In the past year or so, cable subscriptions have been declining by about a million and a half per year.
    The vast majority of which purchase high-speed data service delivered over exactly the same facilities, and subject to the same franchising agreement for the physical plant. Pissing contests where the franchising authority says “We won’t renew your franchise” and the cable company says “The voters will crucify you at the next election” are always fun.

  131. It’s a tough time to be a conservative.
    Cry me a river, conservatives. (Or, nod to wj, “conservatives”).

  132. It’s a tough time to be a conservative.
    Cry me a river, conservatives. (Or, nod to wj, “conservatives”).

  133. I don’t want a “witless protection program”. I want blood and guts and veins in my teeth and …
    Sorry, got carried away there. The witless are god’s creatures, too. They deserve our pity — after they stand up in their wrongness and admit they were wrong. For the moment, Head Half-Wit still has their support, so they continue to pose a danger to pedestrians and traffic which cannot be ignored.
    I’m beginning to think the only way to get through to them is to talk as plainly as their Dear Leader. Call them morons, publicly and loudly. Refer to them as dupes, without apology. Let them feel, for real, the contempt they have claimed to feel for the last 8 years. Make it clear to “independents” and “swing voters” that they can side with dupes and morons or they can side with people who can spot a dupe or moron at 10 paces or less.
    To be sure, reality may be nothing but a fable agreed upon, to paraphrase Napoleon(?). If enough Americans agree on the fable of “He, Trump, Tribune of The People” not even a Coalition of The Sane can prevail.
    But in that case The Sane have no more to lose than the condemned-to-stoning prisoner in The Life of Brian: “Jehovah! Jehovah!”
    –TP

  134. I don’t want a “witless protection program”. I want blood and guts and veins in my teeth and …
    Sorry, got carried away there. The witless are god’s creatures, too. They deserve our pity — after they stand up in their wrongness and admit they were wrong. For the moment, Head Half-Wit still has their support, so they continue to pose a danger to pedestrians and traffic which cannot be ignored.
    I’m beginning to think the only way to get through to them is to talk as plainly as their Dear Leader. Call them morons, publicly and loudly. Refer to them as dupes, without apology. Let them feel, for real, the contempt they have claimed to feel for the last 8 years. Make it clear to “independents” and “swing voters” that they can side with dupes and morons or they can side with people who can spot a dupe or moron at 10 paces or less.
    To be sure, reality may be nothing but a fable agreed upon, to paraphrase Napoleon(?). If enough Americans agree on the fable of “He, Trump, Tribune of The People” not even a Coalition of The Sane can prevail.
    But in that case The Sane have no more to lose than the condemned-to-stoning prisoner in The Life of Brian: “Jehovah! Jehovah!”
    –TP

  135. Just listening to Rachel (which I don’t always do), I see that she’s aggregating news about the gazillion ties between the Russian mob and Trump.
    Yawn, say the Republican Congresspeople.
    Yawn? Are you f’ing kidding me? Jesus F’ing Christ! Sorry that I feel violent.
    GftNC, what are Marty and Tex going to say? Yawn? Who the f’ cares what lies they parrot?

  136. Just listening to Rachel (which I don’t always do), I see that she’s aggregating news about the gazillion ties between the Russian mob and Trump.
    Yawn, say the Republican Congresspeople.
    Yawn? Are you f’ing kidding me? Jesus F’ing Christ! Sorry that I feel violent.
    GftNC, what are Marty and Tex going to say? Yawn? Who the f’ cares what lies they parrot?

  139. So, to be “civil”, we’re supposed to be sad that McKinney and Marty, who were [unwittingly, perhaps] furthering the agenda of Trump and the Russian mob, even though they clained not to be for Trump (but by their actions helped him win), we are supposed to wish that they would come back and propagandize for that agenda?
    I’m not sad. I’m only sad that we can’t go back to last year and convince them to change their votes, and convince their friends to do so. I’m eternally sad that we failed.

  140. So, to be “civil”, we’re supposed to be sad that McKinney and Marty, who were [unwittingly, perhaps] furthering the agenda of Trump and the Russian mob, even though they clained not to be for Trump (but by their actions helped him win), we are supposed to wish that they would come back and propagandize for that agenda?
    I’m not sad. I’m only sad that we can’t go back to last year and convince them to change their votes, and convince their friends to do so. I’m eternally sad that we failed.

  141. They deserve our pity — after they stand up in their wrongness and admit they were wrong.
    The trouble with asking too much is that it motivates the other guy to keep hacking away at you. Nice as it would be for them to admit their error publicly, nice as it would be if they would at least admit it to themselves, that isn’t really the critical thing.
    The critical thing, I submit, is that they stop inflicting their errors on the rest of the world. I can live with stupidity (actually, real lack of mental ability deserves sympathy), or with refusal to accept reality for themselves. If they would just stop trying to drag the rest of us down to their level….

  142. They deserve our pity — after they stand up in their wrongness and admit they were wrong.
    The trouble with asking too much is that it motivates the other guy to keep hacking away at you. Nice as it would be for them to admit their error publicly, nice as it would be if they would at least admit it to themselves, that isn’t really the critical thing.
    The critical thing, I submit, is that they stop inflicting their errors on the rest of the world. I can live with stupidity (actually, real lack of mental ability deserves sympathy), or with refusal to accept reality for themselves. If they would just stop trying to drag the rest of us down to their level….

  145. I find the constant personal attacks tiresome and boring. As I predicted, the health care debate in the Senate is preventing the most stupid things and pointing out the Dems are just interested in getting out from under the ACA.
    Aside from Trumps weekly idiotic text, slowed from daily mostly, the conservative agenda is being implemented across the government and Congress is starting to work through a way to get past healthcare.
    Hyperventilating about every conservative policy is not the same as criticizing Trump. Although they have become synonymous in liberal speak.
    Russia is a significant economy, business people do business there. The idea that every interaction with the Russians is suspect is simply stupid and a useful myth.(Not defending the campaign but Rachel documenting every interaction with any Russian is silly)
    It’s a really bad time to be a Trump fan, except the Trump fans are as certain they are right as the left is, but ok for conservatives. Judges will get through Congress, tax reform will pass, infrastructure bills will pass, regulatory reform is well underway.
    So no, I don’t come here every day to read about how I, specifically, am any number of names. And no, we can’t talk to each other anymore, because the left’s fee fees are hurt so it’s ok for them to act out like two year olds, read left as sapient.
    I have avoided complaining, because I have greatsympathy for those on the left. We watched 8 years of policy implementation that we fundamentally disagreed with, it’s hard to take.
    Sucks to be on the other side.

  146. I find the constant personal attacks tiresome and boring. As I predicted, the health care debate in the Senate is preventing the most stupid things and pointing out the Dems are just interested in getting out from under the ACA.
    Aside from Trumps weekly idiotic text, slowed from daily mostly, the conservative agenda is being implemented across the government and Congress is starting to work through a way to get past healthcare.
    Hyperventilating about every conservative policy is not the same as criticizing Trump. Although they have become synonymous in liberal speak.
    Russia is a significant economy, business people do business there. The idea that every interaction with the Russians is suspect is simply stupid and a useful myth.(Not defending the campaign but Rachel documenting every interaction with any Russian is silly)
    It’s a really bad time to be a Trump fan, except the Trump fans are as certain they are right as the left is, but ok for conservatives. Judges will get through Congress, tax reform will pass, infrastructure bills will pass, regulatory reform is well underway.
    So no, I don’t come here every day to read about how I, specifically, am any number of names. And no, we can’t talk to each other anymore, because the left’s fee fees are hurt so it’s ok for them to act out like two year olds, read left as sapient.
    I have avoided complaining, because I have greatsympathy for those on the left. We watched 8 years of policy implementation that we fundamentally disagreed with, it’s hard to take.
    Sucks to be on the other side.

  147. Btw, i fund it interesting that the Congress passed the new sanctions and our good friends in the EU immediately took Russia’s side, those traitors. They must be owned by Putin.
    It’s Trumps fault I’m sure, since they were passed almost unanimously.

  148. Btw, i fund it interesting that the Congress passed the new sanctions and our good friends in the EU immediately took Russia’s side, those traitors. They must be owned by Putin.
    It’s Trumps fault I’m sure, since they were passed almost unanimously.

  151. … tax reform will pass …
    Tax “reform” means tax cuts, of course, unless Marty has a different reform in mind than Ryan, McConnell, and every other True Conservative ever espoused.
    I’m not opposed to tax “reform”, myself:
    Let’s make the personal income tax progressive-all-the-way-up: 45% kicking in above $5M/yr, 50% above $10M/yr, 60% above $100M/yr, up to 95% above $1B/yr so that you take home only a measly $50M of your second billion dollars of income.
    Let’s make the corporate rate 25% for corporations which do NOT spend corporate dollars on political “speech”, and 45% for corporations who DO.
    Let’s impose a carbon tax, at source, with the proceeds rebated, on a per-capita basis, to all Americans in the form of a monthly check. (To save paper, let every American who wants in on the rebate sign up for a federally-issued debit card, and credit the monthly rebate to those accounts.)
    There — that’s what “tax reform” means when I say “tax reform”. But I’m not a conservative.
    –TP

  152. … tax reform will pass …
    Tax “reform” means tax cuts, of course, unless Marty has a different reform in mind than Ryan, McConnell, and every other True Conservative ever espoused.
    I’m not opposed to tax “reform”, myself:
    Let’s make the personal income tax progressive-all-the-way-up: 45% kicking in above $5M/yr, 50% above $10M/yr, 60% above $100M/yr, up to 95% above $1B/yr so that you take home only a measly $50M of your second billion dollars of income.
    Let’s make the corporate rate 25% for corporations which do NOT spend corporate dollars on political “speech”, and 45% for corporations who DO.
    Let’s impose a carbon tax, at source, with the proceeds rebated, on a per-capita basis, to all Americans in the form of a monthly check. (To save paper, let every American who wants in on the rebate sign up for a federally-issued debit card, and credit the monthly rebate to those accounts.)
    There — that’s what “tax reform” means when I say “tax reform”. But I’m not a conservative.
    –TP

  153. the Dems are just interested in getting out from under the ACA
    I’m trying to figure out what might be evidence of that. I certainly see acknowledgement that there are things than need work. But “trying to get out from under”??? What shows that?

  154. the Dems are just interested in getting out from under the ACA
    I’m trying to figure out what might be evidence of that. I certainly see acknowledgement that there are things than need work. But “trying to get out from under”??? What shows that?

  155. Let’s make the corporate rate 25% for corporations which do NOT spend corporate dollars on political “speech”, and 45% for corporations who DO.
    Tony, do you really think it is possible (not just possible for a bunch of Congressmen, but possible at all) to write a definition of “political speech” which would be unambiguous enough to be usable by the IRS?

  156. Let’s make the corporate rate 25% for corporations which do NOT spend corporate dollars on political “speech”, and 45% for corporations who DO.
    Tony, do you really think it is possible (not just possible for a bunch of Congressmen, but possible at all) to write a definition of “political speech” which would be unambiguous enough to be usable by the IRS?

  157. The 5000 times Schumer and gang have said, about any proposal or the idea of fixing it in general, that “Republicans will own healthcare”.

  158. The 5000 times Schumer and gang have said, about any proposal or the idea of fixing it in general, that “Republicans will own healthcare”.

  159. However, I do like the idea of ramping up the top rates. Nobody making over $50 million (probably a damn sight less!) is doing it for the money any more — he can’t spend that much, even with annual family vacations to the International Space Station. So he doesn’t need the money in pocket to keep doing whatever (presumable, for the sake of discussion, useful) thing he is doing to make that money.
    Spreading the upper part of his income around would be good for the country, and for society IMHO. How we spread it out is another discussion. But I figure we can pay down the national debt while we are working it out. 😉

  160. However, I do like the idea of ramping up the top rates. Nobody making over $50 million (probably a damn sight less!) is doing it for the money any more — he can’t spend that much, even with annual family vacations to the International Space Station. So he doesn’t need the money in pocket to keep doing whatever (presumable, for the sake of discussion, useful) thing he is doing to make that money.
    Spreading the upper part of his income around would be good for the country, and for society IMHO. How we spread it out is another discussion. But I figure we can pay down the national debt while we are working it out. 😉

  161. The 5000 times Schumer and gang have said, about any proposal or the idea of fixing it in general, that “Republicans will own healthcare”.
    By which, as you are plenty bright enough to know) they meant “You break it; you own it.” Nobody believes that, if the Republicans actually create something better, the Democrats would want them to own it. Right? 😉
    Nobody, certainly not more than a handful, even of Republican Congressmen, believes that what they are likely to come up with will be better. From the plans that have gotten floated so far, what they come up with will be, at the very best, as bad as what we had pre-Obamacare. Most likely, it will be substantially worse for the vast majority of those impacted.
    Yeah, we can find people who are worse off under the ACA. And I can find people who are worse off under ANY law you would care to mention. Trade-offs are what legislation is all about, and there has never been a perfect law written. One which benefited everyone and had zero negative impacts.

  162. The 5000 times Schumer and gang have said, about any proposal or the idea of fixing it in general, that “Republicans will own healthcare”.
    By which, as you are plenty bright enough to know) they meant “You break it; you own it.” Nobody believes that, if the Republicans actually create something better, the Democrats would want them to own it. Right? 😉
    Nobody, certainly not more than a handful, even of Republican Congressmen, believes that what they are likely to come up with will be better. From the plans that have gotten floated so far, what they come up with will be, at the very best, as bad as what we had pre-Obamacare. Most likely, it will be substantially worse for the vast majority of those impacted.
    Yeah, we can find people who are worse off under the ACA. And I can find people who are worse off under ANY law you would care to mention. Trade-offs are what legislation is all about, and there has never been a perfect law written. One which benefited everyone and had zero negative impacts.

  163. Spreading the upper part of his income around would be good for the country, and for society IMHO.
    But mostly good for the ones doing the spreading and their cronies. Spreading other people’s money is such fun!

  164. Spreading the upper part of his income around would be good for the country, and for society IMHO.
    But mostly good for the ones doing the spreading and their cronies. Spreading other people’s money is such fun!

  165. We watched 8 years of policy implementation that we fundamentally disagreed with
    Been there myself, a time or two.
    the Dems are just interested in getting out from under the ACA
    I have no idea what this is about.
    However, I do like the idea of ramping up the top rates
    We spent a lot of money we didn’t have, and borrowed to do it. Mostly under “conservative” (R) administrations, see also two stupid freaking wars that we are still fighting 15+ years later. Not to mention that it costs a lot to reproduce the command deck of the starship Enterprise so the spooks can get their cosplay on.
    Now we have to pay it back.
    Cutting Medicare, or Medicaid, or SS, is not going to do that. Raising revenue is going to do that.
    I don’t much care if we do that with tariffs, or raising top marginal rates, or bake sales. Whatever will be the most expeditious and least harmful way to do it.
    The health care thing comes down to two basic facts:
    1. We have no meaningful way to manage the cost side in this country, and in fact the way we approach things creates many incentives for costs to rise.
    2. Nobody wants to pay for it. Everyone – the feds, the states, local communities, insurance companies, employers – are approaching the health care issue as an exercise in passing the hot potato to somebody else.
    The only folks who can’t pass it on are the consumers, which is to say the patients. The buck stops there.
    To address the health care issue we need two things:
    1. Get our heads around the idea that access to health care is a public good of the same type as access to clean water and basic public safety.
    2. Take public action to manage the relatively uncontrolled increase in costs. Private actors won’t get it done, they will just find a way to further their own particular interests.
    If we can figure out a way to control costs, the question of “who pays” will be much more tractable. We’ll figure it out.
    I don’t see this happening, so we’re going to continue f***ing around until the whole thing falls over from its own bloat and inefficiency.
    Americans are really freaking stupid. As in, can’t get of their own way stupid. Won’t come in out of the rain stupid. Cut their nose off to spite their own face stupid.
    Really really stupid.
    That is my take-away.
    And yes, conservative policies are being enacted, and they suck. Across the board. See also my comment about “stupid”.

  166. We watched 8 years of policy implementation that we fundamentally disagreed with
    Been there myself, a time or two.
    the Dems are just interested in getting out from under the ACA
    I have no idea what this is about.
    However, I do like the idea of ramping up the top rates
    We spent a lot of money we didn’t have, and borrowed to do it. Mostly under “conservative” (R) administrations, see also two stupid freaking wars that we are still fighting 15+ years later. Not to mention that it costs a lot to reproduce the command deck of the starship Enterprise so the spooks can get their cosplay on.
    Now we have to pay it back.
    Cutting Medicare, or Medicaid, or SS, is not going to do that. Raising revenue is going to do that.
    I don’t much care if we do that with tariffs, or raising top marginal rates, or bake sales. Whatever will be the most expeditious and least harmful way to do it.
    The health care thing comes down to two basic facts:
    1. We have no meaningful way to manage the cost side in this country, and in fact the way we approach things creates many incentives for costs to rise.
    2. Nobody wants to pay for it. Everyone – the feds, the states, local communities, insurance companies, employers – are approaching the health care issue as an exercise in passing the hot potato to somebody else.
    The only folks who can’t pass it on are the consumers, which is to say the patients. The buck stops there.
    To address the health care issue we need two things:
    1. Get our heads around the idea that access to health care is a public good of the same type as access to clean water and basic public safety.
    2. Take public action to manage the relatively uncontrolled increase in costs. Private actors won’t get it done, they will just find a way to further their own particular interests.
    If we can figure out a way to control costs, the question of “who pays” will be much more tractable. We’ll figure it out.
    I don’t see this happening, so we’re going to continue f***ing around until the whole thing falls over from its own bloat and inefficiency.
    Americans are really freaking stupid. As in, can’t get of their own way stupid. Won’t come in out of the rain stupid. Cut their nose off to spite their own face stupid.
    Really really stupid.
    That is my take-away.
    And yes, conservative policies are being enacted, and they suck. Across the board. See also my comment about “stupid”.

  167. Russia is a significant economy, business people do business there. The idea that every interaction with the Russians is suspect is simply stupid and a useful myth
    Likewise the idea that every financial transaction carried out by people holding positions of public responsibility are harmless and benign.
    Which is why we have established the tradition and, in some cases, the legal requirement that people holding offices of public responsibility maintain, at a minimum, an arms-length distance from financial entanglements.
    I don’t give a shit if CEO Trump does business with oligarchs. There’s a bright line when it comes to money laundering, and I more than expect that Donald and the kiddos are up to their ears in that. But absent actual illegality, I don’t give a flying f.
    I care very much if POTUS Trump does the same, and I care very very very much if POTUS Trump uses his office to do favors for, or accepts favors from, folks he has financial dealings with. That shit is illegal, and Mueller should, and should be allowed to, run that to ground without interference.
    And if Trump has been involved in that, he should go. End of story.
    It’ll immediately turn into the latest Dolchstosslegende for his fans, but so be it. There’s a limit to how far I’m willing to go to avoid ruffling their tender feathers.

  168. Russia is a significant economy, business people do business there. The idea that every interaction with the Russians is suspect is simply stupid and a useful myth
    Likewise the idea that every financial transaction carried out by people holding positions of public responsibility are harmless and benign.
    Which is why we have established the tradition and, in some cases, the legal requirement that people holding offices of public responsibility maintain, at a minimum, an arms-length distance from financial entanglements.
    I don’t give a shit if CEO Trump does business with oligarchs. There’s a bright line when it comes to money laundering, and I more than expect that Donald and the kiddos are up to their ears in that. But absent actual illegality, I don’t give a flying f.
    I care very much if POTUS Trump does the same, and I care very very very much if POTUS Trump uses his office to do favors for, or accepts favors from, folks he has financial dealings with. That shit is illegal, and Mueller should, and should be allowed to, run that to ground without interference.
    And if Trump has been involved in that, he should go. End of story.
    It’ll immediately turn into the latest Dolchstosslegende for his fans, but so be it. There’s a limit to how far I’m willing to go to avoid ruffling their tender feathers.

  169. “Yeah, we can find people who are worse off under the ACA. And I can find people who are worse off under ANY law you would care to mention. Trade-offs are what legislation is all about, and there has never been a perfect law written. One which benefited everyone and had zero negative impacts.”
    Yes, this. There is literally no coverage of the people that are disadvantaged by the ACA. There is a huge discussion of 15M people opting out of the new law based on the removal of the mandatory purchase, I struggle with that as being a bad thing. People choosing not to buy insurance isn’t denying them insurance. There are huge assumptions about peoples behavior buried in there.
    It does have some impact on prices, but that’s what risk pools are for, and where the money that is in the bill could be used. However, the current plan requires ongoing subsidies for the insurance companies, when did the democrats become huge supporters of corporate subsidies?
    In addition, I keep hearing how all of the medical associations are against all of the options, which is not stunning since it would likely reduce their leverage on prices….

  170. “Yeah, we can find people who are worse off under the ACA. And I can find people who are worse off under ANY law you would care to mention. Trade-offs are what legislation is all about, and there has never been a perfect law written. One which benefited everyone and had zero negative impacts.”
    Yes, this. There is literally no coverage of the people that are disadvantaged by the ACA. There is a huge discussion of 15M people opting out of the new law based on the removal of the mandatory purchase, I struggle with that as being a bad thing. People choosing not to buy insurance isn’t denying them insurance. There are huge assumptions about peoples behavior buried in there.
    It does have some impact on prices, but that’s what risk pools are for, and where the money that is in the bill could be used. However, the current plan requires ongoing subsidies for the insurance companies, when did the democrats become huge supporters of corporate subsidies?
    In addition, I keep hearing how all of the medical associations are against all of the options, which is not stunning since it would likely reduce their leverage on prices….

  171. wj,
    I think the IRS has vast experience making fine distinctions in order to implement sometimes-nebulous statutory language. (“Passive” income, “contractor” vs “employee”, etc.)
    Still, I’d be willing to compromise and define “political spending” to mean “PAC contributions (super- or otherwise) and campaign contributions”. Corporate money spent to buy TV ads, say, would not count as “political spending” as long as the ad clearly identifies the corporation — even if the ad explicitly endorses a candidate. An ad that shows peanut M&M’s dancing around and chanting “Lock her up! Build the wall! Vote for Trump!” with a voice-over at the end saying “We are Mars Candies and we approve this message” would be just fine.
    A single corporate dollar contributed to some organization called “Americans for Chocolate” which turns around and runs a TV ad that does anything other than promote chocolate consumption would be enough to kick you into the higher corporate tax bracket.
    There may be good reasons why we should value anonymous “speech” by flesh-and-blood human beings. There may be good reasons why we should value “free” speech by dollars-and-cents corporations. There may even be good reasons to value anonymous corporate “speech” — but I can’t think of any, whether I imagine myself as a customer, or as a stockholder, or an employee.
    Tax “reform” is about values, in the end.
    –TP

  172. wj,
    I think the IRS has vast experience making fine distinctions in order to implement sometimes-nebulous statutory language. (“Passive” income, “contractor” vs “employee”, etc.)
    Still, I’d be willing to compromise and define “political spending” to mean “PAC contributions (super- or otherwise) and campaign contributions”. Corporate money spent to buy TV ads, say, would not count as “political spending” as long as the ad clearly identifies the corporation — even if the ad explicitly endorses a candidate. An ad that shows peanut M&M’s dancing around and chanting “Lock her up! Build the wall! Vote for Trump!” with a voice-over at the end saying “We are Mars Candies and we approve this message” would be just fine.
    A single corporate dollar contributed to some organization called “Americans for Chocolate” which turns around and runs a TV ad that does anything other than promote chocolate consumption would be enough to kick you into the higher corporate tax bracket.
    There may be good reasons why we should value anonymous “speech” by flesh-and-blood human beings. There may be good reasons why we should value “free” speech by dollars-and-cents corporations. There may even be good reasons to value anonymous corporate “speech” — but I can’t think of any, whether I imagine myself as a customer, or as a stockholder, or an employee.
    Tax “reform” is about values, in the end.
    –TP

  173. do you really think it is possible (not just possible for a bunch of Congressmen, but possible at all) to write a definition of “political speech” which would be unambiguous enough to be usable by the IRS?

    You don’t even need to involve the IRS. Little ‘ol DELAWARE could do it by a slight revision of corporate charter law, to protect the property rights of shareholders.
    To wit: if a corporation spends corporation fund (i.e., ‘shareholder property’) on political advocacy, it must refund to shareholders that ‘opt out’ a proportionate amount of that spending.
    If the CEO wants to pay for it himself, fine. If he wants ‘the fun of spending other people’s money’, he’s out of luck.

  174. do you really think it is possible (not just possible for a bunch of Congressmen, but possible at all) to write a definition of “political speech” which would be unambiguous enough to be usable by the IRS?

    You don’t even need to involve the IRS. Little ‘ol DELAWARE could do it by a slight revision of corporate charter law, to protect the property rights of shareholders.
    To wit: if a corporation spends corporation fund (i.e., ‘shareholder property’) on political advocacy, it must refund to shareholders that ‘opt out’ a proportionate amount of that spending.
    If the CEO wants to pay for it himself, fine. If he wants ‘the fun of spending other people’s money’, he’s out of luck.

  177. There is literally no coverage of the people that are disadvantaged by the ACA
    You’re overreaching here.
    I’ve heard a reasonable amount of coverage of folks who are (a) self-employed and (b) make too much money to qualify for the subsidies.
    It’s not an unknown issue.

  178. There is literally no coverage of the people that are disadvantaged by the ACA
    You’re overreaching here.
    I’ve heard a reasonable amount of coverage of folks who are (a) self-employed and (b) make too much money to qualify for the subsidies.
    It’s not an unknown issue.

  179. Marty, “risk pools” are not going to do it. The average cost of healthcare, plus insurance company overheads and profits, for people like you is more than many of you can afford.
    What you need is cost pooling with younger, healthier people. That’s what every other G10 country does, and it works.
    Mandatory insurance is one way of doing this. Yes, it means that young, healthy people are paying more than their expected healthcare costs. In return for that they’ll pay less than their expected costs when theyre older and sicker. Unless of course a death panel of republican legislators decides that it would be better for them to die untreated.

  180. Marty, “risk pools” are not going to do it. The average cost of healthcare, plus insurance company overheads and profits, for people like you is more than many of you can afford.
    What you need is cost pooling with younger, healthier people. That’s what every other G10 country does, and it works.
    Mandatory insurance is one way of doing this. Yes, it means that young, healthy people are paying more than their expected healthcare costs. In return for that they’ll pay less than their expected costs when theyre older and sicker. Unless of course a death panel of republican legislators decides that it would be better for them to die untreated.

  181. “There’s a limit to how far I’m willing to go to avoid ruffling their tender feathers.”
    I would be perfectly happy for there to be a legitimate reason to impeach him. I would be concerned but not mortified if he got impeached on a tenuous but reasonable excuse. I will be outraged if he gets impeached for any reason so far discussed.
    My desire for him not to be President doesn’t outweigh my desire for following the law.

  182. “There’s a limit to how far I’m willing to go to avoid ruffling their tender feathers.”
    I would be perfectly happy for there to be a legitimate reason to impeach him. I would be concerned but not mortified if he got impeached on a tenuous but reasonable excuse. I will be outraged if he gets impeached for any reason so far discussed.
    My desire for him not to be President doesn’t outweigh my desire for following the law.

  183. his actual crimes aside, there would be nothing illegal about impeaching Trump for simply being an asshole. and there is no means to enforce ‘legality’ in the first place. if the House and Senate hold their respective votes and they agree that he’s an asshole and that he should be removed for it, then he’s impeached for being an asshole.

  184. his actual crimes aside, there would be nothing illegal about impeaching Trump for simply being an asshole. and there is no means to enforce ‘legality’ in the first place. if the House and Senate hold their respective votes and they agree that he’s an asshole and that he should be removed for it, then he’s impeached for being an asshole.

  185. Marty,
    Tell us please: do you think Trump is a better POTUS than Obama was?
    It’s a simple, straightforward question. Answer it or don’t; this is not a deposition. You need not justify your answer either way, or explain your criteria unless you want to. But a definite yes or no would be most welcome.
    –TP

  186. Marty,
    Tell us please: do you think Trump is a better POTUS than Obama was?
    It’s a simple, straightforward question. Answer it or don’t; this is not a deposition. You need not justify your answer either way, or explain your criteria unless you want to. But a definite yes or no would be most welcome.
    –TP

  189. There is a huge discussion of 15M people opting out of the new law based on the removal of the mandatory purchase, I struggle with that as being a bad thing.
    Perhaps I have missed something, but my impression was NOT that those 15 million were people just taking advantage of the disappearance of the mandate. I thought it was primarily (maybe even exclusively) people who could not, as a result of losing Medicaid (just the expansion, or cuts from what was there previously, depending on which bill we’re talking about) and/or subsidies, afford insurance. Period.
    Simply put, if you take the healthiest people out of the insurance pools, especially if you keep the prohibition on blocking those with pre-existing conditions, insurance simply cannot work. You achieve a death spiral so fast it will make your head spin.
    Think about it. If you can get insurance any time, no matter what, why buy it until after you get ill or injured? You can sign up on the way to the hospital, so why start paying earlier? Who would want to sell, who would be able to sell, health insurance under those conditions? Nobody.
    Now, if you get rid of the pre-existing conditions part, that’s another story. We have, as a society, decided that leaving people to die on the sidewalks is not something we are willing to tolerate. But it certainly would be possible (not politically possible, but technically possible) to go to that.

  190. There is a huge discussion of 15M people opting out of the new law based on the removal of the mandatory purchase, I struggle with that as being a bad thing.
    Perhaps I have missed something, but my impression was NOT that those 15 million were people just taking advantage of the disappearance of the mandate. I thought it was primarily (maybe even exclusively) people who could not, as a result of losing Medicaid (just the expansion, or cuts from what was there previously, depending on which bill we’re talking about) and/or subsidies, afford insurance. Period.
    Simply put, if you take the healthiest people out of the insurance pools, especially if you keep the prohibition on blocking those with pre-existing conditions, insurance simply cannot work. You achieve a death spiral so fast it will make your head spin.
    Think about it. If you can get insurance any time, no matter what, why buy it until after you get ill or injured? You can sign up on the way to the hospital, so why start paying earlier? Who would want to sell, who would be able to sell, health insurance under those conditions? Nobody.
    Now, if you get rid of the pre-existing conditions part, that’s another story. We have, as a society, decided that leaving people to die on the sidewalks is not something we are willing to tolerate. But it certainly would be possible (not politically possible, but technically possible) to go to that.

  193. Thanks, Marty. Glad to know you consider He, Trump worse than the POTUS you wrote this about:

    Doc, the executive order discussion isn’t a question of how many, it is a question of what. He has purposefully and with astounding hubris rewritten laws. Maybe you should put a few brain cells into the longer term implications of a President simply telling the executive branch to stop enforcing any law he doesn’t like. He is trying to get a legacy he couldn’t achieve. And now he killed a Supreme.
    A man who would be king.
    Posted by: Marty | February 14, 2016 at 11:46 AM

    Bygones are bygones, but I can’t help feeling that your outrage scale w.r.t. what’s an “outrageous” basis for impeachment has evolved a bit.
    –TP

  194. Thanks, Marty. Glad to know you consider He, Trump worse than the POTUS you wrote this about:

    Doc, the executive order discussion isn’t a question of how many, it is a question of what. He has purposefully and with astounding hubris rewritten laws. Maybe you should put a few brain cells into the longer term implications of a President simply telling the executive branch to stop enforcing any law he doesn’t like. He is trying to get a legacy he couldn’t achieve. And now he killed a Supreme.
    A man who would be king.
    Posted by: Marty | February 14, 2016 at 11:46 AM

    Bygones are bygones, but I can’t help feeling that your outrage scale w.r.t. what’s an “outrageous” basis for impeachment has evolved a bit.
    –TP

  195. Tony, I believe it has evolved a little in the middle. I probably am more amenable to the here is a good excuse impeachment, but I would like for it not to be something that is clearly just we don’t want to abide by the election results.

  196. Tony, I believe it has evolved a little in the middle. I probably am more amenable to the here is a good excuse impeachment, but I would like for it not to be something that is clearly just we don’t want to abide by the election results.

  199. “If you can get insurance any time, no matter what, why buy it until after you get ill or injured?”
    Well, in the exchange you cant do this, in Medicaid IDK, and in the individual market it gets expensive.
    It is the really tricky part, but not in the way I think people think about it. It has always been controlled in the employer market by having defined enrollment periods, it is a 12 month risk window that most people don’t want to have.
    So make April insurance buying month, if you don’t you have a 12 month risk window, most people will choose to buy. Those that don’t still had aa choice and will have access to emergency and critical care. One of the plans had a waiting period for preexisting conditions if you went 60 days without insurance, I have a hard time with that being a problem. All those options provide a choice, they don’t “deny” millions of people coverage they let you assume whatever risk level you want to assume.
    About a third of my extended(through nieces and nephews) family doesn’t have health insurance today, they don’t qualify for Medicaid and anything they could get would be meaningless. They would be bankrupt before any coverage kicked in. People have limited choices today so some of these measures just aren’t bad, compared to today.

  200. “If you can get insurance any time, no matter what, why buy it until after you get ill or injured?”
    Well, in the exchange you cant do this, in Medicaid IDK, and in the individual market it gets expensive.
    It is the really tricky part, but not in the way I think people think about it. It has always been controlled in the employer market by having defined enrollment periods, it is a 12 month risk window that most people don’t want to have.
    So make April insurance buying month, if you don’t you have a 12 month risk window, most people will choose to buy. Those that don’t still had aa choice and will have access to emergency and critical care. One of the plans had a waiting period for preexisting conditions if you went 60 days without insurance, I have a hard time with that being a problem. All those options provide a choice, they don’t “deny” millions of people coverage they let you assume whatever risk level you want to assume.
    About a third of my extended(through nieces and nephews) family doesn’t have health insurance today, they don’t qualify for Medicaid and anything they could get would be meaningless. They would be bankrupt before any coverage kicked in. People have limited choices today so some of these measures just aren’t bad, compared to today.

  201. Tony, do you really think it is possible (not just possible for a bunch of Congressmen, but possible at all) to write a definition of “political speech” which would be unambiguous enough to be usable by the IRS?
    No.
    What would be very easy to pin down is the category of “speaker” whose speech deserves 1st A protection.
    People do. Non-profit corporations, whose members include only natural persons, and which are constituted specifically for the purpose of engaging in political speech or advocacy, do.
    For profit corporations don’t.
    Done and done.
    I would be perfectly happy for there to be a legitimate reason to impeach him.
    Using illegally obtained opposition research provided by an unfriendly foreign power.
    Money laundering.
    Obstruction of justice demonstrated by firing the FBI director who was leading an investigation of potentially criminal behavior.
    Manipulating foreign policy to do favors for foreign powers to whom, or to whose friends, you have financial obligations.
    Exploiting your office to obtain financial favors from creditors, or to receive things of value from foreign governments.
    Start with those.
    Trump’s a crook. His behavior, in and out of office, is unlikely to withstand responsible legal scrutiny. You can get away with a lot when you’re just some random rich asshole. Less so when you’re POTUS.

  202. Tony, do you really think it is possible (not just possible for a bunch of Congressmen, but possible at all) to write a definition of “political speech” which would be unambiguous enough to be usable by the IRS?
    No.
    What would be very easy to pin down is the category of “speaker” whose speech deserves 1st A protection.
    People do. Non-profit corporations, whose members include only natural persons, and which are constituted specifically for the purpose of engaging in political speech or advocacy, do.
    For profit corporations don’t.
    Done and done.
    I would be perfectly happy for there to be a legitimate reason to impeach him.
    Using illegally obtained opposition research provided by an unfriendly foreign power.
    Money laundering.
    Obstruction of justice demonstrated by firing the FBI director who was leading an investigation of potentially criminal behavior.
    Manipulating foreign policy to do favors for foreign powers to whom, or to whose friends, you have financial obligations.
    Exploiting your office to obtain financial favors from creditors, or to receive things of value from foreign governments.
    Start with those.
    Trump’s a crook. His behavior, in and out of office, is unlikely to withstand responsible legal scrutiny. You can get away with a lot when you’re just some random rich asshole. Less so when you’re POTUS.

  203. None of those have happened AFAICT. No matter how many times you say them. You just want them to be true. Thus my reference to legal.

  204. None of those have happened AFAICT. No matter how many times you say them. You just want them to be true. Thus my reference to legal.

  205. People have limited choices today so some of these measures just aren’t bad, compared to today.
    There are very few measures that aren’t superior to not having any health insurance at all.
    There’s also a simple solution to all of that.
    We have our heads so far up our “free market” behinds that we’re incapable of thinking about the issue in any way other than as an exercise in price setting for a commodity good.
    So we will continue to flail, until the flailing becomes unsupportable.
    All good, except “unsupportable” means people get sick and die, for entirely preventable reasons.
    Some people have to learn the hard way.

  206. People have limited choices today so some of these measures just aren’t bad, compared to today.
    There are very few measures that aren’t superior to not having any health insurance at all.
    There’s also a simple solution to all of that.
    We have our heads so far up our “free market” behinds that we’re incapable of thinking about the issue in any way other than as an exercise in price setting for a commodity good.
    So we will continue to flail, until the flailing becomes unsupportable.
    All good, except “unsupportable” means people get sick and die, for entirely preventable reasons.
    Some people have to learn the hard way.

  207. You just want them to be true
    Bullshit.
    The “as far as you can tell” was a worthwhile caveat. For whatever reason, you appear to be uninterested in entertaining the idea that Trump may be involved in activities that are corrupt and/or criminal.
    So instead you accuse people like me of bad faith.
    F*** that noise.
    Mueller will do his job, unless Trump finds a way to prevent him from doing it. And then we’ll see where it all lands.
    Trump has been around for something like 40 years. He is, famously, a sleazebag and a crook. He’s not an honest up-by-his-bootstraps business man, he’s a crook, a sleazebag, a fraud, a con-man. And a bully, and a creep. And has always been. It’s got nothing to do with him being POTUS, it’s just who he is.
    Think what you want, but don’t tell me what I think or why I think it. Check your own head, buddy.

  208. You just want them to be true
    Bullshit.
    The “as far as you can tell” was a worthwhile caveat. For whatever reason, you appear to be uninterested in entertaining the idea that Trump may be involved in activities that are corrupt and/or criminal.
    So instead you accuse people like me of bad faith.
    F*** that noise.
    Mueller will do his job, unless Trump finds a way to prevent him from doing it. And then we’ll see where it all lands.
    Trump has been around for something like 40 years. He is, famously, a sleazebag and a crook. He’s not an honest up-by-his-bootstraps business man, he’s a crook, a sleazebag, a fraud, a con-man. And a bully, and a creep. And has always been. It’s got nothing to do with him being POTUS, it’s just who he is.
    Think what you want, but don’t tell me what I think or why I think it. Check your own head, buddy.

  209. Which has nothing to do with the specific charges you levelled, and level regularly. Your and/or criminal is equally a worthwhile caveat. If Mueller finds either corruption or criminality I will be happy to see him impeached.
    Not just because he is a known shyster asshole, we’ve had more than one President that meets that criteria. And had a choice between two of them this election.

  210. Which has nothing to do with the specific charges you levelled, and level regularly. Your and/or criminal is equally a worthwhile caveat. If Mueller finds either corruption or criminality I will be happy to see him impeached.
    Not just because he is a known shyster asshole, we’ve had more than one President that meets that criteria. And had a choice between two of them this election.

  211. Perhaps I should have asked Marty whether He, Trump is a better POTUS than She, Hillary would have been 🙂
    –TP

  212. Perhaps I should have asked Marty whether He, Trump is a better POTUS than She, Hillary would have been 🙂
    –TP

  217. Which has nothing to do with the specific charges you levelled
    The specific charges I leveled are things that are currently under investigation. Ergo, should any of this mess proceed to impeachment, they are the most likely basket of things for which he will be impeached.
    Any one of them is a legitimate basis for impeachment. None of them have anything to do with me “wanting them to be true”.
    There is more than sufficient basis for Mueller to investigate Trump for all of the things I listed. If you disagree with that, I respectfully submit that you have have your head up your behind. No offense.
    In any case, Mueller is investigating them. What I want is for that investigation to proceed to its conclusion without interference. Full stop.

  218. Which has nothing to do with the specific charges you levelled
    The specific charges I leveled are things that are currently under investigation. Ergo, should any of this mess proceed to impeachment, they are the most likely basket of things for which he will be impeached.
    Any one of them is a legitimate basis for impeachment. None of them have anything to do with me “wanting them to be true”.
    There is more than sufficient basis for Mueller to investigate Trump for all of the things I listed. If you disagree with that, I respectfully submit that you have have your head up your behind. No offense.
    In any case, Mueller is investigating them. What I want is for that investigation to proceed to its conclusion without interference. Full stop.

  219. Including media companies?
    OK, here we go again.
    Yes, including media companies. People author the content that is distributed or broadcast by media companies. People have a right, protected under the 1st A, to speak.

  220. Including media companies?
    OK, here we go again.
    Yes, including media companies. People author the content that is distributed or broadcast by media companies. People have a right, protected under the 1st A, to speak.

  221. Hi! Haven’t trolled for a week, y’all said open thread, Just a quick rant. Reading my Guardian, Emma Brockes has an article on Sheryl Sandberg that contains this quote.
    “…as Sandberg has herself pointed out, the need to be likable is a criterion only applied to women..”
    Oh fucking really? This wasn’t presented as hyperbole, but apparently as unquestionable scientific fact.
    I am working my ass off trying to get woke, currently reading a radical Critical Feminist (feminism + Marxism + Lesbian + AntiRacism + PostColonialism + rage) take on the occupation of Japan. And liking it.
    So what, male celebrities and politician never ever are measured as to likability or charm or lack of pretension or who will have a beer with them.
    Q Ratings
    Hanks gets a 48, Adele a 45, Chris Rock a 38, Vin Diesel a 33. Likability means money in the bank, and they work at it.
    So how exactly am I supposed to take “need to be likable is a criterion only applied to women?” This is not sarcasm or irony, she doesn’t throw any sometimes or most in there, but uses the absolute “only” as in never ever. She believes it to be true as stated. She believes it, and if I disagreed, you would get something like “Oh sure whadda about the men, MRA guy.”
    I encounter this kind of stuff every single day, and apparently the female readers go “yup”
    So the only conclusion is that public feminists and their readers are crazy, stupid, or evil. So I am not a feminist. And it makes me look at women more generally.
    The academics are perhaps kept relatively sane by their peers.
    I will grant that there are some men who have little drive to be liked, as evidenced by this comment. And I don’t know why I bother.

  222. Hi! Haven’t trolled for a week, y’all said open thread, Just a quick rant. Reading my Guardian, Emma Brockes has an article on Sheryl Sandberg that contains this quote.
    “…as Sandberg has herself pointed out, the need to be likable is a criterion only applied to women..”
    Oh fucking really? This wasn’t presented as hyperbole, but apparently as unquestionable scientific fact.
    I am working my ass off trying to get woke, currently reading a radical Critical Feminist (feminism + Marxism + Lesbian + AntiRacism + PostColonialism + rage) take on the occupation of Japan. And liking it.
    So what, male celebrities and politician never ever are measured as to likability or charm or lack of pretension or who will have a beer with them.
    Q Ratings
    Hanks gets a 48, Adele a 45, Chris Rock a 38, Vin Diesel a 33. Likability means money in the bank, and they work at it.
    So how exactly am I supposed to take “need to be likable is a criterion only applied to women?” This is not sarcasm or irony, she doesn’t throw any sometimes or most in there, but uses the absolute “only” as in never ever. She believes it to be true as stated. She believes it, and if I disagreed, you would get something like “Oh sure whadda about the men, MRA guy.”
    I encounter this kind of stuff every single day, and apparently the female readers go “yup”
    So the only conclusion is that public feminists and their readers are crazy, stupid, or evil. So I am not a feminist. And it makes me look at women more generally.
    The academics are perhaps kept relatively sane by their peers.
    I will grant that there are some men who have little drive to be liked, as evidenced by this comment. And I don’t know why I bother.

  223. no telling
    Among the very many differences between HRC and DJT is the fact that, within the domain of constitutional republican governance, HRC knows her ass from her elbow, and DJT does not.
    On that basis alone, I give the edge to HRC.
    I say that FWIW, because it is what it is. We’re living in “can’t tell my ass from my elbow” land.

  224. no telling
    Among the very many differences between HRC and DJT is the fact that, within the domain of constitutional republican governance, HRC knows her ass from her elbow, and DJT does not.
    On that basis alone, I give the edge to HRC.
    I say that FWIW, because it is what it is. We’re living in “can’t tell my ass from my elbow” land.

  225. Mandatory insurance is one way of doing this. Yes, it means that young, healthy people are paying more than their expected healthcare costs. In return for that they’ll pay less than their expected costs when theyre older and sicker.
    Why this simple point is so difficult to understand is amazing.
    First, treating a health care policy as a limited-term arrangement, like homeowners’, say, is a mistake, and fundamental misunderstanding of the risks involved.
    Second, the path of expected medical costs over a lifetime do not match the path of expected income. That is, the ratio of average income at age 30 to average medical costs is much lower than the same ration at age 60. So a sensible system front-loads insurance costs to some extent, to provide what amounts to a reserve, so they remain affordable later. (Tax-funded single-payer, anyone?)
    That is the essence of why pro bono’s comment makes perfect sense.
    Notice, by the way that this mismatch doesn’t not occur in other areas. Your homeowners insurance matches your income precisely because the cost of the house you buy – hence the cost of the insurance – is closely correlated with income.

  226. Mandatory insurance is one way of doing this. Yes, it means that young, healthy people are paying more than their expected healthcare costs. In return for that they’ll pay less than their expected costs when theyre older and sicker.
    Why this simple point is so difficult to understand is amazing.
    First, treating a health care policy as a limited-term arrangement, like homeowners’, say, is a mistake, and fundamental misunderstanding of the risks involved.
    Second, the path of expected medical costs over a lifetime do not match the path of expected income. That is, the ratio of average income at age 30 to average medical costs is much lower than the same ration at age 60. So a sensible system front-loads insurance costs to some extent, to provide what amounts to a reserve, so they remain affordable later. (Tax-funded single-payer, anyone?)
    That is the essence of why pro bono’s comment makes perfect sense.
    Notice, by the way that this mismatch doesn’t not occur in other areas. Your homeowners insurance matches your income precisely because the cost of the house you buy – hence the cost of the insurance – is closely correlated with income.

  227. Including media companies?
    Media companies put their brand logo on their speech. When a Fox News show speaks, even to blatantly sloganeer in support of this or that RWNJ meme or hero du jour, you know it’s Fox News speaking. Stop there, and okay: let Fox News Corp. have a 25% corporate tax rate.
    If Fox News Corp. funds “Americans for Apple Pie and Puppies” so that AfAPaP can mouth FNC talking points without informing FNC stockholders or the general public that it’s Rupert Murdoch using corporate funds to push his personal agenda, then tax Rupert’s FNC at the 45% rate.
    Of course, no “tax reform” advocate would ever countenance raising FNC’s tax rate under any circumstances, because tax “reform” is one of those trigger words that provoke only one Pavlovian response: cut, cut, cut!
    –TP

  228. Including media companies?
    Media companies put their brand logo on their speech. When a Fox News show speaks, even to blatantly sloganeer in support of this or that RWNJ meme or hero du jour, you know it’s Fox News speaking. Stop there, and okay: let Fox News Corp. have a 25% corporate tax rate.
    If Fox News Corp. funds “Americans for Apple Pie and Puppies” so that AfAPaP can mouth FNC talking points without informing FNC stockholders or the general public that it’s Rupert Murdoch using corporate funds to push his personal agenda, then tax Rupert’s FNC at the 45% rate.
    Of course, no “tax reform” advocate would ever countenance raising FNC’s tax rate under any circumstances, because tax “reform” is one of those trigger words that provoke only one Pavlovian response: cut, cut, cut!
    –TP

  229. “Mandatory insurance is one way of doing this. Yes, it means that young, healthy people are paying more than their expected healthcare costs”
    No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period. Their priority for that money could be a perfectly rational process that excludes buying health insurance. That’s not “paying more than their expected healthcare costs”.

  230. “Mandatory insurance is one way of doing this. Yes, it means that young, healthy people are paying more than their expected healthcare costs”
    No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period. Their priority for that money could be a perfectly rational process that excludes buying health insurance. That’s not “paying more than their expected healthcare costs”.

  231. it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    Just so I’m clear. Suppose, having not had the wit (and that lack is exactly what it is) to get health care insurance, they get ill or injured. And cannot afford to pay for treatment. What do you propose happen?
    If you want to advocate for them paying for their stupidity by dying in the streets, OK. Evolution in action real-time is at least an internally consistent position. Bit messy for those having to navigate around the bodies on the sidewalks, but keeping the streets and sidewalks navigable is a different government function.
    But if you want anyone else to bail them out, in spite of their having refused to make provision for reality? Not sure how you square that circle. Maybe a magic sudden increase in charitable giving for medical care….

  232. it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    Just so I’m clear. Suppose, having not had the wit (and that lack is exactly what it is) to get health care insurance, they get ill or injured. And cannot afford to pay for treatment. What do you propose happen?
    If you want to advocate for them paying for their stupidity by dying in the streets, OK. Evolution in action real-time is at least an internally consistent position. Bit messy for those having to navigate around the bodies on the sidewalks, but keeping the streets and sidewalks navigable is a different government function.
    But if you want anyone else to bail them out, in spite of their having refused to make provision for reality? Not sure how you square that circle. Maybe a magic sudden increase in charitable giving for medical care….

  233. No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    nobody wants health insurance (or car insurance) until they need it.
    and then, when they don’t have it, they go bankrupt or have to use the emergency room in which case we all pay for it together. and then we get to look down our noses at them for being poor.

  234. No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    nobody wants health insurance (or car insurance) until they need it.
    and then, when they don’t have it, they go bankrupt or have to use the emergency room in which case we all pay for it together. and then we get to look down our noses at them for being poor.

  235. People should be able to do whatever they want with their money (and in general), regardless of the larger effects on the country and society, because everything they have and are able to do is entirely the fruit of their own efforts in an acontextual vacuum with no underpinnings or benefit from the society they live in or the government thereof. (I mean, it’s not like the money, itself, is a creation of government, right?)

  236. People should be able to do whatever they want with their money (and in general), regardless of the larger effects on the country and society, because everything they have and are able to do is entirely the fruit of their own efforts in an acontextual vacuum with no underpinnings or benefit from the society they live in or the government thereof. (I mean, it’s not like the money, itself, is a creation of government, right?)

  237. “nobody wants health insurance (or car insurance) until they need it.”
    Then no one cares what the law says as long as they don’t have to buy it. Problem solved.

  238. “nobody wants health insurance (or car insurance) until they need it.”
    Then no one cares what the law says as long as they don’t have to buy it. Problem solved.

  243. If Mueller finds either corruption or criminality I will be happy to see him impeached.
    pull the other one

  244. If Mueller finds either corruption or criminality I will be happy to see him impeached.
    pull the other one

  245. No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    To be honest, my response to this is “tough sh*t”.
    We all pay for stuff we don’t necessarily want, need, or directly use. Because, for lack of a better word, it makes the world a better place.
    In my very humble opinion, we need to stop thinking about health care, and access to health care, as some kind of commodity good like TV’s and shoes. It’s not, and shouldn’t be treated that way.
    We don’t have arguments about whether it’s worthwhile to make running water available to everyone, or police or fire protection. I’ll cut what could be a very long list short right there.
    We need to think about health care as a basic and necessary public good, and proceed from there. Until we do that, we’re just going to flail away.
    There is for sure no “free market” solution to the problem, because health care has none of the attributes of an efficient market.

  246. No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    To be honest, my response to this is “tough sh*t”.
    We all pay for stuff we don’t necessarily want, need, or directly use. Because, for lack of a better word, it makes the world a better place.
    In my very humble opinion, we need to stop thinking about health care, and access to health care, as some kind of commodity good like TV’s and shoes. It’s not, and shouldn’t be treated that way.
    We don’t have arguments about whether it’s worthwhile to make running water available to everyone, or police or fire protection. I’ll cut what could be a very long list short right there.
    We need to think about health care as a basic and necessary public good, and proceed from there. Until we do that, we’re just going to flail away.
    There is for sure no “free market” solution to the problem, because health care has none of the attributes of an efficient market.

  247. We don’t have arguments about whether it’s worthwhile to make running water available to everyone, or police or fire protection.
    If you mean those here with ‘we’ you may be right. You are definitely wrong, if you mean the US as a whole.

  248. We don’t have arguments about whether it’s worthwhile to make running water available to everyone, or police or fire protection.
    If you mean those here with ‘we’ you may be right. You are definitely wrong, if you mean the US as a whole.

  249. it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    Tell me something, Marty.
    What happens when these young healthy people turn 40 or so, with a family, and suddenly decide they do want health insurance?
    Suddenly they will find that it is really expensive, because hey, there’s that kid to cover, and you have some back problems – nothing serious, but still – and there are some random doctor’s visits, and the cholesterol is a touch high, and so on.
    I’ll tell you what. All those wonderful libertarian principles will go by the board, and they will be looking for help because the premiums are high and the government should do something. And that’s even if there are no major medical disasters.
    What happens when they have a problem that threatens to linger forever? Diabetes? An unexpected heart issue? A child born with a serious health issue?
    What happens when they have a major car or motorcycle accident and get taken to the ER and need tens of thousands of dollars worth of treatment?
    The libertarian will be happy to take advantage of bankruptcy law, I bet.

  250. it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period.
    Tell me something, Marty.
    What happens when these young healthy people turn 40 or so, with a family, and suddenly decide they do want health insurance?
    Suddenly they will find that it is really expensive, because hey, there’s that kid to cover, and you have some back problems – nothing serious, but still – and there are some random doctor’s visits, and the cholesterol is a touch high, and so on.
    I’ll tell you what. All those wonderful libertarian principles will go by the board, and they will be looking for help because the premiums are high and the government should do something. And that’s even if there are no major medical disasters.
    What happens when they have a problem that threatens to linger forever? Diabetes? An unexpected heart issue? A child born with a serious health issue?
    What happens when they have a major car or motorcycle accident and get taken to the ER and need tens of thousands of dollars worth of treatment?
    The libertarian will be happy to take advantage of bankruptcy law, I bet.

  251. “pull the other one”
    There is only one reason that I can imagine that makes getting rid of Trump as President the least bit disappointing: Because I don’t have to break the posting rules to reply to this. His existence says it every day.

  252. “pull the other one”
    There is only one reason that I can imagine that makes getting rid of Trump as President the least bit disappointing: Because I don’t have to break the posting rules to reply to this. His existence says it every day.

  253. His existence says it every day.
    To speak plainly, I receive the Trump presidency as an offense, because as you point out, his supporters intended it to give offense.
    I can say quite honestly that I have never voted for anyone, or advocated for any law or public policy, with the goal of poking people who don’t agree with me in the eye.
    Just another difference between people like me and people like them.
    Here’s the thing.
    Barring truly disastrous economic and social events, Trump as POTUS will likely have almost no negative effect on my life. I’ll probably even make some money.
    I doubt most of the folks who voted for him can say the same.
    Go ahead and dig that hole nice and deep, you dumb-asses. Learn to love it, because you’re going to spend a lot of time in it.
    Who learns, must suffer. Some people never learn no matter what.

  254. His existence says it every day.
    To speak plainly, I receive the Trump presidency as an offense, because as you point out, his supporters intended it to give offense.
    I can say quite honestly that I have never voted for anyone, or advocated for any law or public policy, with the goal of poking people who don’t agree with me in the eye.
    Just another difference between people like me and people like them.
    Here’s the thing.
    Barring truly disastrous economic and social events, Trump as POTUS will likely have almost no negative effect on my life. I’ll probably even make some money.
    I doubt most of the folks who voted for him can say the same.
    Go ahead and dig that hole nice and deep, you dumb-asses. Learn to love it, because you’re going to spend a lot of time in it.
    Who learns, must suffer. Some people never learn no matter what.

  255. Good to see you, Marty. I for one believe you that if Mueller finds either corruption or criminality you will be happy to see Trump impeached, and I’m particularly happy if (as seems to be the case, but I can’t be sure) you are not jumping on the anti-Mueller bandwagon.
    Now, in other news, this is getting to be fun:
    http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/anthony-scaramucci-called-me-to-unload-about-white-house-leakers-reince-priebus-and-steve-bannon/amp
    Samples:
    Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)
    “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

  256. Good to see you, Marty. I for one believe you that if Mueller finds either corruption or criminality you will be happy to see Trump impeached, and I’m particularly happy if (as seems to be the case, but I can’t be sure) you are not jumping on the anti-Mueller bandwagon.
    Now, in other news, this is getting to be fun:
    http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/anthony-scaramucci-called-me-to-unload-about-white-house-leakers-reince-priebus-and-steve-bannon/amp
    Samples:
    Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)
    “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

  259. I am working my ass off trying to get woke, currently reading a radical Critical Feminist (feminism + Marxism + Lesbian + AntiRacism + PostColonialism + rage) take on the occupation of Japan. And liking it.
    Ok, spill the beans! Title, author? I will be doing a hospital stay in Sept (nothing serious), and would love to have some stuff to read.

  260. I am working my ass off trying to get woke, currently reading a radical Critical Feminist (feminism + Marxism + Lesbian + AntiRacism + PostColonialism + rage) take on the occupation of Japan. And liking it.
    Ok, spill the beans! Title, author? I will be doing a hospital stay in Sept (nothing serious), and would love to have some stuff to read.

  261. I have no choice about whether my healthcare costs and insurance premiums are jacked up because freedom-loving jackasses without money in the bank or insurance show up at the emergency room with a life-threatening libertarian bug stuck up their asses.
    “You just want them to be true.”
    rump’s scary moocher claims the White House is infested with republicans who want it to be true.
    Take it up with them.
    Still, yes, I want all of it to be true. That all of it IS true is either ironic or a coincidence.
    Whatever it takes to kill the Republican Party, including massive violence on a national scale against all of them.
    Yeah, it’s tough being a conservative. They can fuck off.
    http://juanitajean.com/bright-lights-big-city-2/
    If Texas Governor Abbott enters any one of the five largest Texas cities whose Mayors he is locking out of meetings regarding laws that cocksucker wants to impose on local control, then those Mayors should order his arrest and imprisonment without trial. If the Governor’s Office wants to call in the Texas Rangers to liberate his fascist, pigfucking ass, liberal militias can wait until they enter city limits and bring a firestorm down on their fucking heads.
    Yeah, it’s tough being a conservative. Fuck them:
    http://juanitajean.com/lets-go-smack-a-woman/
    Hey, cracker filth Buddy and yer fat boy faggot Farenthold gonna lay a whupping and some gunfire on conservative women who want you to step away from their vaginas and murdering their constituents?
    Let General Sherman tell you what’s coming to you and your scum families:
    “I was satisfied and have been all the time, that the problem of war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the south must be killed outright than in conquest of territory.”
    “You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization!”
    “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
    “If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place.”
    For “they”, and “the South”, read every fucking conservative, Republican rumper in this country, you stinking filth.
    Yeah, conservatives have it tough. Conservative principles are being spread throughout the government. Fuck them:
    http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/trump-military-transgender-ban-joint-chiefs/index.html
    HIS Generals, rump calls them? HIS Generals?
    What are we, in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, up some stinking tropical river seeking the heart of darkness feeding on human carrion?
    Thank you for the thug Scaramucci quotes GFTNC. The pious virgin, corrupt, republican murderers on the Christian Right are just now kneeling to receive the sacrament of rump’s and scarramucci’s ejaculate in their mouths. They like it. Anything to kill the poor, and the unhealthy, and the gay and especially kill the legacy of the nigger Obama.
    Scarramouchi is right of course about filth Bannon and Priebus, just as one murderous inner city gang is right about the rival murderous inner city gang.
    If they don’t kill each other, then some enormous force must kill all of them.
    Enjoy the rump/sessions kabuki. They are having us on. Yes, Sessions may go, but he’s so brown-nosed loyal to trump that it’s an act to secure the firing of Mueller, which I want to happen too, because I want bloody war. I want Clinton prosecuted, because I want bloody, savage war against every element of the rumpublican party.
    When rump pulls this one over, he will gather loyal sessions to his rotten bosum and nominate his racist ass to the Supreme Court, bringing joy to the hearts of the racist pigfucking subhumans in Congress who are just now defending their blackhearted racist colleague sessions against the hypnotic piece of shit rump and his dainty rasputin, Mike Pence, who believe me, wants to be a woman so he can touch herself and call it moral.
    Too bad this has become personal now. Brothers bayoneting brothers and cousins cutting cousins to pieces at Antietam expressed the same sentiment in letters home to their loved ones.
    But there was still three and half years minimum of savagery ahead of them.
    But sometimes when Marty is telling us what’s good for us I feel like I’m being punked like Rick Perry was, natch, by some Russians:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/rick-perry-punked-into-fake-interview-with-russian-jerky-boys
    One day, soon perhaps, the ignoramuses leading the republican party to their waterloo and the Nation to apocalypse are going to be punked by savvier foreign operatives into unleashing nuclear holocaust on America and the world.
    I pray the main targets in America are designated in red.
    I hope to lead the mop up operations if I live through the first onslaught.
    In closing, for my last comment before a month-long trip through Dixie, perhaps Sherman-like, on the way to New York City, I visited some trump-loving acquaintances recently in their home. Very nice people.
    The lady of the house collects antique dolls, some life-size. She led me through the house introducing me to them with preternatural serenity, many of them sporting red, Make America Great Again ball caps. She smiled beatifically upon them and said she and her husband feel sorry for Donald, the way he is bring treated.
    She said nothing about Bannon sucking his own cock, but she wouldn’t, would she?
    Her husband, a very nice man, a retired cop and firefighter on a government pension and Medicare from Chicago referred to Obama some years ago in front of me as “that monkey”.
    I smiled back at her and quickly poured myself another drink. I didn’t let on, as I do here, but neither do I to my other rump-loving friends, that I am a member of the deep state.
    And that one day, not too far in the future, when rump and company are under lock and key and awaiting firing squads, and their millions awaiting concentration and deportation to their true homelands that I’ll be back to arrest them because I’ve never met more dangerous, brainwashed people in my life, not since I was a Jew in 1933 Tubingen.

  262. I have no choice about whether my healthcare costs and insurance premiums are jacked up because freedom-loving jackasses without money in the bank or insurance show up at the emergency room with a life-threatening libertarian bug stuck up their asses.
    “You just want them to be true.”
    rump’s scary moocher claims the White House is infested with republicans who want it to be true.
    Take it up with them.
    Still, yes, I want all of it to be true. That all of it IS true is either ironic or a coincidence.
    Whatever it takes to kill the Republican Party, including massive violence on a national scale against all of them.
    Yeah, it’s tough being a conservative. They can fuck off.
    http://juanitajean.com/bright-lights-big-city-2/
    If Texas Governor Abbott enters any one of the five largest Texas cities whose Mayors he is locking out of meetings regarding laws that cocksucker wants to impose on local control, then those Mayors should order his arrest and imprisonment without trial. If the Governor’s Office wants to call in the Texas Rangers to liberate his fascist, pigfucking ass, liberal militias can wait until they enter city limits and bring a firestorm down on their fucking heads.
    Yeah, it’s tough being a conservative. Fuck them:
    http://juanitajean.com/lets-go-smack-a-woman/
    Hey, cracker filth Buddy and yer fat boy faggot Farenthold gonna lay a whupping and some gunfire on conservative women who want you to step away from their vaginas and murdering their constituents?
    Let General Sherman tell you what’s coming to you and your scum families:
    “I was satisfied and have been all the time, that the problem of war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the south must be killed outright than in conquest of territory.”
    “You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization!”
    “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
    “If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place.”
    For “they”, and “the South”, read every fucking conservative, Republican rumper in this country, you stinking filth.
    Yeah, conservatives have it tough. Conservative principles are being spread throughout the government. Fuck them:
    http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/trump-military-transgender-ban-joint-chiefs/index.html
    HIS Generals, rump calls them? HIS Generals?
    What are we, in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, up some stinking tropical river seeking the heart of darkness feeding on human carrion?
    Thank you for the thug Scaramucci quotes GFTNC. The pious virgin, corrupt, republican murderers on the Christian Right are just now kneeling to receive the sacrament of rump’s and scarramucci’s ejaculate in their mouths. They like it. Anything to kill the poor, and the unhealthy, and the gay and especially kill the legacy of the nigger Obama.
    Scarramouchi is right of course about filth Bannon and Priebus, just as one murderous inner city gang is right about the rival murderous inner city gang.
    If they don’t kill each other, then some enormous force must kill all of them.
    Enjoy the rump/sessions kabuki. They are having us on. Yes, Sessions may go, but he’s so brown-nosed loyal to trump that it’s an act to secure the firing of Mueller, which I want to happen too, because I want bloody war. I want Clinton prosecuted, because I want bloody, savage war against every element of the rumpublican party.
    When rump pulls this one over, he will gather loyal sessions to his rotten bosum and nominate his racist ass to the Supreme Court, bringing joy to the hearts of the racist pigfucking subhumans in Congress who are just now defending their blackhearted racist colleague sessions against the hypnotic piece of shit rump and his dainty rasputin, Mike Pence, who believe me, wants to be a woman so he can touch herself and call it moral.
    Too bad this has become personal now. Brothers bayoneting brothers and cousins cutting cousins to pieces at Antietam expressed the same sentiment in letters home to their loved ones.
    But there was still three and half years minimum of savagery ahead of them.
    But sometimes when Marty is telling us what’s good for us I feel like I’m being punked like Rick Perry was, natch, by some Russians:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/rick-perry-punked-into-fake-interview-with-russian-jerky-boys
    One day, soon perhaps, the ignoramuses leading the republican party to their waterloo and the Nation to apocalypse are going to be punked by savvier foreign operatives into unleashing nuclear holocaust on America and the world.
    I pray the main targets in America are designated in red.
    I hope to lead the mop up operations if I live through the first onslaught.
    In closing, for my last comment before a month-long trip through Dixie, perhaps Sherman-like, on the way to New York City, I visited some trump-loving acquaintances recently in their home. Very nice people.
    The lady of the house collects antique dolls, some life-size. She led me through the house introducing me to them with preternatural serenity, many of them sporting red, Make America Great Again ball caps. She smiled beatifically upon them and said she and her husband feel sorry for Donald, the way he is bring treated.
    She said nothing about Bannon sucking his own cock, but she wouldn’t, would she?
    Her husband, a very nice man, a retired cop and firefighter on a government pension and Medicare from Chicago referred to Obama some years ago in front of me as “that monkey”.
    I smiled back at her and quickly poured myself another drink. I didn’t let on, as I do here, but neither do I to my other rump-loving friends, that I am a member of the deep state.
    And that one day, not too far in the future, when rump and company are under lock and key and awaiting firing squads, and their millions awaiting concentration and deportation to their true homelands that I’ll be back to arrest them because I’ve never met more dangerous, brainwashed people in my life, not since I was a Jew in 1933 Tubingen.

  263. My best friend in college woke up one morning with Guillain–Barré syndrome. The first morning his toes were numb; the second day his legs didn’t work; the third day he quit breathing. Six weeks in intensive care on a ventilator, where they had to jump-start his heart at least twice. Another six weeks in a hospital bed until he’d recovered enough weight and strength that they would let him leave. The hospital bills ran to most of $200K in 1976. Today, probably a couple million. If he had no insurance today, and presented at the emergency room, the taxpayers would be on the hook for that couple million dollars because they have to stabilize him — which took twelve weeks.
    Nobody dies of Guillain–Barré if you get to the hospital in time. A machine can breath for you, the antibiotics are good enough to keep pneumonia or bed sores from killing you, we can feed you through a tube, and at some point your immune system quits attacking your peripheral nervous system and you get well. But it can be damned expensive to treat.

  264. My best friend in college woke up one morning with Guillain–Barré syndrome. The first morning his toes were numb; the second day his legs didn’t work; the third day he quit breathing. Six weeks in intensive care on a ventilator, where they had to jump-start his heart at least twice. Another six weeks in a hospital bed until he’d recovered enough weight and strength that they would let him leave. The hospital bills ran to most of $200K in 1976. Today, probably a couple million. If he had no insurance today, and presented at the emergency room, the taxpayers would be on the hook for that couple million dollars because they have to stabilize him — which took twelve weeks.
    Nobody dies of Guillain–Barré if you get to the hospital in time. A machine can breath for you, the antibiotics are good enough to keep pneumonia or bed sores from killing you, we can feed you through a tube, and at some point your immune system quits attacking your peripheral nervous system and you get well. But it can be damned expensive to treat.

  269. the Mooch, Feb 2017, twatted:

    President Trump is most pro-LGBTQ rights in history. Why’s that story not written in mainstream media?

    the GOP really is the dumbest collection of daughter-fuckers the world has ever known.

  270. the Mooch, Feb 2017, twatted:

    President Trump is most pro-LGBTQ rights in history. Why’s that story not written in mainstream media?

    the GOP really is the dumbest collection of daughter-fuckers the world has ever known.

  271. I suspect Mooch has one less friend than he thought he had.
    If you want to have a friend, you need to be a friend. Many of us learn this in kindergarten.
    Seems like Mooch still hasn’t grokked it.
    Her husband, a very nice man, a retired cop and firefighter on a government pension and Medicare from Chicago referred to Obama some years ago in front of me as “that monkey”.
    I don’t know what your relationship is (or was) with those people, but that’s actually quite a bit further than what I’d put up with.
    There’s a lot of brown people in the world. Folks need to get used to it.
    And not for nothing, but everyone should read Sherman. The man saw very clearly.

  272. I suspect Mooch has one less friend than he thought he had.
    If you want to have a friend, you need to be a friend. Many of us learn this in kindergarten.
    Seems like Mooch still hasn’t grokked it.
    Her husband, a very nice man, a retired cop and firefighter on a government pension and Medicare from Chicago referred to Obama some years ago in front of me as “that monkey”.
    I don’t know what your relationship is (or was) with those people, but that’s actually quite a bit further than what I’d put up with.
    There’s a lot of brown people in the world. Folks need to get used to it.
    And not for nothing, but everyone should read Sherman. The man saw very clearly.

  275. hey cleek,
    I bet that T-shirt-modelling couple are Sherry and Vern, or whatever the hell this year’s Harry and Louise were called by Senator Ron Johnson in his joint appearance with Senator Beauregard J. Butchmeup and The Senator Who Elevated Caribou Barbie to National Prominence.
    –TP

  276. hey cleek,
    I bet that T-shirt-modelling couple are Sherry and Vern, or whatever the hell this year’s Harry and Louise were called by Senator Ron Johnson in his joint appearance with Senator Beauregard J. Butchmeup and The Senator Who Elevated Caribou Barbie to National Prominence.
    –TP

  277. I’d like to put up a post but I choose sleep and sanity. Unlike Republican Senators, who apparently are choosing neither.
    My guess about what’s going on: many (most? all?) GOP Senators got specific warnings from major donors that they want Obamacare repealed, and there will be no more money until it is. Because these Senators are acting like students who’ve been assured that if they turn in something, *anything* by the deadline, they’ll pass the course and not be expelled. So they’re writing at the last minute using their roommate’s gel pen, thinking that will count.
    Or that if they pass something, *anything*, all the problems will magically transform into Someone Else’s Problem.

  278. I’d like to put up a post but I choose sleep and sanity. Unlike Republican Senators, who apparently are choosing neither.
    My guess about what’s going on: many (most? all?) GOP Senators got specific warnings from major donors that they want Obamacare repealed, and there will be no more money until it is. Because these Senators are acting like students who’ve been assured that if they turn in something, *anything* by the deadline, they’ll pass the course and not be expelled. So they’re writing at the last minute using their roommate’s gel pen, thinking that will count.
    Or that if they pass something, *anything*, all the problems will magically transform into Someone Else’s Problem.

  279. Comment at LGM, uhh doesn’t matter, Joe Paulsen, following “is there any reason for Democrats to work with Republican legislators, ever again?”
    “You just had Kamala Harris introduce some bail bill with Rand Paul.”
    Frickin Nazi’s are killing millions and Kamala Harris makes nice about bail? She’s dead to me, as is every other Democrat who fraternizes with monsters. Will. Not. Vote. For Harris. Evah. She enables genocide for her own ego. She, like Clinton and Obama, want to deal with the Devil. Collaborator.
    That’s the difference between me an the Count, or whoever. I hated Clinton for throwing her arms around Bush. Hate her. I also hate Democrats who don’t think the only use for Republicans, and Republicans-to-be, is landfill. Do you talk to landfill?

  280. Comment at LGM, uhh doesn’t matter, Joe Paulsen, following “is there any reason for Democrats to work with Republican legislators, ever again?”
    “You just had Kamala Harris introduce some bail bill with Rand Paul.”
    Frickin Nazi’s are killing millions and Kamala Harris makes nice about bail? She’s dead to me, as is every other Democrat who fraternizes with monsters. Will. Not. Vote. For Harris. Evah. She enables genocide for her own ego. She, like Clinton and Obama, want to deal with the Devil. Collaborator.
    That’s the difference between me an the Count, or whoever. I hated Clinton for throwing her arms around Bush. Hate her. I also hate Democrats who don’t think the only use for Republicans, and Republicans-to-be, is landfill. Do you talk to landfill?

  283. Bob, allow me to say that that’s nuts. If the Democrats were in a position to make things happen? Sure. But that’s not where we are.
    A Senator like Harris has only one option if she is to accomplish anything for the people who elected her: she has to find an issue that needs attention *and* a Republican Senator who is willing to work with her on it. Not, certainly not initially, on anything beyond that. But on that one thing. Then she can maybe do something to justify her salary.
    Unless you think that the issue itself is problematic? But that would be true regardless of who she was working with.
    Who knows. It could end up being one of the extremely few constructive things that actually get done this year.

  284. Bob, allow me to say that that’s nuts. If the Democrats were in a position to make things happen? Sure. But that’s not where we are.
    A Senator like Harris has only one option if she is to accomplish anything for the people who elected her: she has to find an issue that needs attention *and* a Republican Senator who is willing to work with her on it. Not, certainly not initially, on anything beyond that. But on that one thing. Then she can maybe do something to justify her salary.
    Unless you think that the issue itself is problematic? But that would be true regardless of who she was working with.
    Who knows. It could end up being one of the extremely few constructive things that actually get done this year.

  287. Bob, allow me to say that that’s nuts.
    “Yeah, I know he’s a Klansmen who just lynched 5 young men, but hell, there’s this bridge my constituents need…”
    As if they hold the smoking gun in their hands, they are killing poor people for profit and fun.
    No, it is the Democratic leadership and most of the Democratic voters that are nuts, not me. And nuts is frankly too complementary.
    You cut them off, shut them down, and walk away. You don’t make deals with killers and terrorists. Just cause they aren’t holding the smoking gun over the bodies doesn’t mean you don’t see what they are. Republicans are evil, radical evil. Anybody who legitimizes or pretends they are respectful partners, or supports them in any way is just as evil.
    If Harris just said “screw these monsters” she would get the nom and election.
    But she wants to deal. Apparently you want to deal. The cost is your soul.
    My grandparents spent their last twenty years wondering why I hung up on them. I wouldn’t talk to them to tell them.

  288. Bob, allow me to say that that’s nuts.
    “Yeah, I know he’s a Klansmen who just lynched 5 young men, but hell, there’s this bridge my constituents need…”
    As if they hold the smoking gun in their hands, they are killing poor people for profit and fun.
    No, it is the Democratic leadership and most of the Democratic voters that are nuts, not me. And nuts is frankly too complementary.
    You cut them off, shut them down, and walk away. You don’t make deals with killers and terrorists. Just cause they aren’t holding the smoking gun over the bodies doesn’t mean you don’t see what they are. Republicans are evil, radical evil. Anybody who legitimizes or pretends they are respectful partners, or supports them in any way is just as evil.
    If Harris just said “screw these monsters” she would get the nom and election.
    But she wants to deal. Apparently you want to deal. The cost is your soul.
    My grandparents spent their last twenty years wondering why I hung up on them. I wouldn’t talk to them to tell them.

  293. FYI, the “skinny repeal” that was supposed to be “just a path to conference” just went down.
    It appears that McCain wasn’t buying. It also appears, from the whole weeks of flailing around, that McConnell is nothing like the tactical master he was reputed to be.

  294. FYI, the “skinny repeal” that was supposed to be “just a path to conference” just went down.
    It appears that McCain wasn’t buying. It also appears, from the whole weeks of flailing around, that McConnell is nothing like the tactical master he was reputed to be.

  295. It appears that McCain wasn’t buying.
    It was shit bills that everybody hated. So why go through this charade for the last two weeks? It was a show.
    So dying John McCain could cement his reputation and pretend there are decent Republicans. Let us remember McCain’s foreign policy, and all his other votes, and piss on his grave.
    No diagnosis of cancer, and deathcare goes to the House.
    McConnell had it under control.

  296. It appears that McCain wasn’t buying.
    It was shit bills that everybody hated. So why go through this charade for the last two weeks? It was a show.
    So dying John McCain could cement his reputation and pretend there are decent Republicans. Let us remember McCain’s foreign policy, and all his other votes, and piss on his grave.
    No diagnosis of cancer, and deathcare goes to the House.
    McConnell had it under control.

  297. Oh, thank God. And yet, reading the reports, the journalists have learned their lesson: they are no longer referring to repeal as “dead” like they were a few weeks ago, they are hedging. After what we have seen recently, surely no zombie resurrection can be completely ruled out. And this was way too close for comfort, apparently only happened because McCain thought Ryan’s assurances about going to conference were too slippery. A different phrase or two, and the result would have been different.

  298. Oh, thank God. And yet, reading the reports, the journalists have learned their lesson: they are no longer referring to repeal as “dead” like they were a few weeks ago, they are hedging. After what we have seen recently, surely no zombie resurrection can be completely ruled out. And this was way too close for comfort, apparently only happened because McCain thought Ryan’s assurances about going to conference were too slippery. A different phrase or two, and the result would have been different.

  299. Republicans are evil, radical evil. Anybody who legitimizes or pretends they are respectful partners, or supports them in any way is just as evil.
    reminds me irresistibly of the wonderful:
    Damn John Jay. Damn everyone who won’t damn John Jay. Damn everyone who won’t put up lights in their windows and sit up all night damning John Jay.
    Eternal gratitude to the Count for bringing this marvellous quotation to my/our attention.
    And yet, as a prescription, it seems to lead directly into a cul-de-sac.
    If Harris just said “screw these monsters” she would get the nom and election.
    I doubt this is true, even if my emotions make me wish for it. And even if it is true, I fear a civil war, something which increasingly seems likely somewhere down the road, if things play out in such a way so as to cement, rather than lessen, the polarisation.

  300. Republicans are evil, radical evil. Anybody who legitimizes or pretends they are respectful partners, or supports them in any way is just as evil.
    reminds me irresistibly of the wonderful:
    Damn John Jay. Damn everyone who won’t damn John Jay. Damn everyone who won’t put up lights in their windows and sit up all night damning John Jay.
    Eternal gratitude to the Count for bringing this marvellous quotation to my/our attention.
    And yet, as a prescription, it seems to lead directly into a cul-de-sac.
    If Harris just said “screw these monsters” she would get the nom and election.
    I doubt this is true, even if my emotions make me wish for it. And even if it is true, I fear a civil war, something which increasingly seems likely somewhere down the road, if things play out in such a way so as to cement, rather than lessen, the polarisation.

  301. God LGM is gushing over the guy, like they watched Speer kiss a kitten. Bastards keep getting told they hate the Left much more than Republicans. Now we see.
    Democratic Party has to die.

  302. God LGM is gushing over the guy, like they watched Speer kiss a kitten. Bastards keep getting told they hate the Left much more than Republicans. Now we see.
    Democratic Party has to die.

  303. Bastards keep getting told they hate the Left much more than Republicans. Now we see.
    Democratic Party has to die.
    irony.

  304. Bastards keep getting told they hate the Left much more than Republicans. Now we see.
    Democratic Party has to die.
    irony.

  305. GftNC, it’s not the polarization that is wrecking the US. It’s Republican nihilism. We saw with the health care vote (Yay!!!) that when a few Republicans think about their constituents instead of their hate agenda, Democrats are willing to give them some credit.
    Republicans have been operating on cleek’s law. They have had no other agenda. They couldn’t articulate a health care policy as an alternative to Obamacare. We’re in this place because of Republican resentment, not polarization. Obama tried to be nice to the rage heads – it was a mistake.

  306. GftNC, it’s not the polarization that is wrecking the US. It’s Republican nihilism. We saw with the health care vote (Yay!!!) that when a few Republicans think about their constituents instead of their hate agenda, Democrats are willing to give them some credit.
    Republicans have been operating on cleek’s law. They have had no other agenda. They couldn’t articulate a health care policy as an alternative to Obamacare. We’re in this place because of Republican resentment, not polarization. Obama tried to be nice to the rage heads – it was a mistake.

  307. I’ve had a pretty low opinion of Kamala Harris due to her record as California AG. It has upticked a bit with her support of the badly needed bail reform.

  308. I’ve had a pretty low opinion of Kamala Harris due to her record as California AG. It has upticked a bit with her support of the badly needed bail reform.

  309. It has upticked a bit with her support of the badly needed bail reform.
    Her cosponsorship of the bill with Rand Paul is a good example of how bipartisanship can work.

  310. It has upticked a bit with her support of the badly needed bail reform.
    Her cosponsorship of the bill with Rand Paul is a good example of how bipartisanship can work.

  311. bob, that attitude (re: Kamala Harris) is a big part of how Republicans got themselves into this mess.
    For decades, now, right-wing media has been saying that ALL Democrats are evil, baby-killing traitors. Since 2008, it’s reached the point where any appearance of cooperation with Democrats on ANYTHING will get a Republican accused of being a RINO, and may end a career.
    Remember the shit Christie got for being nice to Obama, when the issue was “helping the state recover from physical destruction”? If NJ wasn’t fundamentally a blue state, that would have ended him.
    Senator Harris — FUTURE PRESIDENT Harris — is doing *exactly* what she’s supposed to do. She’s working to address a real, serious problem of economic injustice, a system that is designed to punish the poor.
    She’s capable of thinking about and working on more than one problem at a time. And she’s realistic enough to know that the *only* way she can accomplish anything in Congress right now is to find Republicans she can work with on a particular issue.
    It’s a sausage factory in there. Demanding purity and uniformity is counter-productive.

  312. bob, that attitude (re: Kamala Harris) is a big part of how Republicans got themselves into this mess.
    For decades, now, right-wing media has been saying that ALL Democrats are evil, baby-killing traitors. Since 2008, it’s reached the point where any appearance of cooperation with Democrats on ANYTHING will get a Republican accused of being a RINO, and may end a career.
    Remember the shit Christie got for being nice to Obama, when the issue was “helping the state recover from physical destruction”? If NJ wasn’t fundamentally a blue state, that would have ended him.
    Senator Harris — FUTURE PRESIDENT Harris — is doing *exactly* what she’s supposed to do. She’s working to address a real, serious problem of economic injustice, a system that is designed to punish the poor.
    She’s capable of thinking about and working on more than one problem at a time. And she’s realistic enough to know that the *only* way she can accomplish anything in Congress right now is to find Republicans she can work with on a particular issue.
    It’s a sausage factory in there. Demanding purity and uniformity is counter-productive.

  315. I like getting bob’s perspective on things, but it does seem that, while he readily appreciates that it’s an imperfect world, he doesn’t seem to appreciate that there’s no way to make it perfect through moral purity – or the possibility that attempts at moral purity may even make the world more imperfect.
    It’s a sausage factory in there.
    Particularly so – by which I mean there’s at least a little sausage being made just about everywhere. We may be living in a universe that is actually one big sausage factory. Perhaps sausage is another word for entropy.

  316. I like getting bob’s perspective on things, but it does seem that, while he readily appreciates that it’s an imperfect world, he doesn’t seem to appreciate that there’s no way to make it perfect through moral purity – or the possibility that attempts at moral purity may even make the world more imperfect.
    It’s a sausage factory in there.
    Particularly so – by which I mean there’s at least a little sausage being made just about everywhere. We may be living in a universe that is actually one big sausage factory. Perhaps sausage is another word for entropy.

  321. No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period. Their priority for that money could be a perfectly rational process that excludes buying health insurance.
    This is fundamentally true. Making health insurance mandatory does mean denying a person the freedom to decide that they’d rather spend the money on something else, and go without healthcare if they get sick.
    But first, what are we going to do if people who’ve exercised that freedom do get sick?
    And second, it’s impossible to have universal healthcare for older, sicker people without sharing the costs. The numbers just don’t add up, especially in the USA where healthcare is so expensive. Many Republicans, including Marty, seem to put their fingers in their ears when this point is made. Every other G10 nation, however right wing their government, gets it.

  322. No, it means they are often paying for something they don’t want period. Their priority for that money could be a perfectly rational process that excludes buying health insurance.
    This is fundamentally true. Making health insurance mandatory does mean denying a person the freedom to decide that they’d rather spend the money on something else, and go without healthcare if they get sick.
    But first, what are we going to do if people who’ve exercised that freedom do get sick?
    And second, it’s impossible to have universal healthcare for older, sicker people without sharing the costs. The numbers just don’t add up, especially in the USA where healthcare is so expensive. Many Republicans, including Marty, seem to put their fingers in their ears when this point is made. Every other G10 nation, however right wing their government, gets it.

  323. It was shit bills that everybody hated.
    They couldn’t articulate a health care policy as an alternative to Obamacare.
    I think those points sum it up pretty well.
    They (R)’s have been so focused on living out cleek’s law, for so long, that they’ve forgotten how to govern.
    Ball’s in their court. We’ll see if they can figure it out. If they don’t, I imagine they’ll lose the House and maybe the Senate.
    Cry me a river.
    Also – I’m on board with the Doc’s 10:17, and I consistently enjoy mcmanus’ posts. It’s all good.

  324. It was shit bills that everybody hated.
    They couldn’t articulate a health care policy as an alternative to Obamacare.
    I think those points sum it up pretty well.
    They (R)’s have been so focused on living out cleek’s law, for so long, that they’ve forgotten how to govern.
    Ball’s in their court. We’ll see if they can figure it out. If they don’t, I imagine they’ll lose the House and maybe the Senate.
    Cry me a river.
    Also – I’m on board with the Doc’s 10:17, and I consistently enjoy mcmanus’ posts. It’s all good.

  325. If they don’t, I imagine they’ll lose the House and maybe the Senate.
    From your lips to God’s ear.

  326. If they don’t, I imagine they’ll lose the House and maybe the Senate.
    From your lips to God’s ear.

  327. I know people who don’t have children and rail against having to pay taxes that go to public schools. They would probably like to spend that money on something else, too. It’s their money, after all.
    Then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make any of that money had they not gotten their public-school education.
    How many industries wouldn’t exist at but for people who were educated in public schools, where they attained knowledge without which their industry-creating innovations would not have been possible? What would the people who work in those industries do for a living had those industries not been created?
    Maybe nothing, in which case they wouldn’t have to worry about paying taxes that go to public schools. Wouldn’t that be swell?

  328. I know people who don’t have children and rail against having to pay taxes that go to public schools. They would probably like to spend that money on something else, too. It’s their money, after all.
    Then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make any of that money had they not gotten their public-school education.
    How many industries wouldn’t exist at but for people who were educated in public schools, where they attained knowledge without which their industry-creating innovations would not have been possible? What would the people who work in those industries do for a living had those industries not been created?
    Maybe nothing, in which case they wouldn’t have to worry about paying taxes that go to public schools. Wouldn’t that be swell?

  329. Pro Bono’s 10.17 (and I think wj’s somewhere upthread about people dropping sick/dead on the streets) taken in combination with hsh’s 10.33 here, seem to me to be absolutely unanswerable. Marty, if you’re still around, how do you answer these ripostes to your freedom-to-choose-not-to-get-healthcare point?

  330. Pro Bono’s 10.17 (and I think wj’s somewhere upthread about people dropping sick/dead on the streets) taken in combination with hsh’s 10.33 here, seem to me to be absolutely unanswerable. Marty, if you’re still around, how do you answer these ripostes to your freedom-to-choose-not-to-get-healthcare point?

  331. hsh: It’s their money, after all. Then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make any of that money had they not gotten their public-school education.
    The second sentence is a good first answer, but I always want to go back to the first part: what makes it “their” money? If we believe in the rule of law, and our laws include the obligation to pay taxes, then some of what they “earned” (many meanings to that word) was never theirs in the first place because it was earmarked by tax laws for collective enterprises.
    I would rather “my” money didn’t get spent on a bloated military (F35 anyone?), but oh well.

  332. hsh: It’s their money, after all. Then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make any of that money had they not gotten their public-school education.
    The second sentence is a good first answer, but I always want to go back to the first part: what makes it “their” money? If we believe in the rule of law, and our laws include the obligation to pay taxes, then some of what they “earned” (many meanings to that word) was never theirs in the first place because it was earmarked by tax laws for collective enterprises.
    I would rather “my” money didn’t get spent on a bloated military (F35 anyone?), but oh well.

  333. The old forgot to close the tag problem. We’ll see if this fixes it.
    You didn’t forget. You just got the a before the slash.
    I hash this stuff up all the time. I just have the luxury to log into typepad and fix my embarrassments. 😉
    — wj

  334. The old forgot to close the tag problem. We’ll see if this fixes it.
    You didn’t forget. You just got the a before the slash.
    I hash this stuff up all the time. I just have the luxury to log into typepad and fix my embarrassments. 😉
    — wj

  337. http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/07/26/the-pentagon-thought-trump-was-announcing-a-war-via-twitter/
    First tweet:
    “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…..”
    In the interim between that tweet and the second one, Russian satellites and however else they have bugged our communication, probably via Scarrimouchi’s flag lapel pin, could have relayed that incoherent, incomplete bullshit to the Kremlin and Putin and HIS paranoid generals could have completed the sentence as “any further Russian troop or military asset movements anywhere on the globe, for do so will provoke an immediate nuclear first strike on Moscow”, and unleashed their full nuclear capabilities against the United States of America.
    Now THAT would have the kind of nuclear option the conservative movement deserved.
    Regarding yet another long-term friend of mine, worked with him in the Federal government but we also were warriors on a really good softball team in the early days and who adores rump, ryan and mcconnell, if you read his InYourFaceBook page, which I don’t but learned about second hand:
    This guy just retired from federal service with 40 years in the bank. Here’s the thing though. He is one of the few federal employees I came across who lives down to the horseshit conservative republican stereotyping of federal employees as useless, overpaid leeches on the taxpayer, you know, assigning general condemnation on the basis of one individual example.
    In fact, as I tell this story, conservatives reading it probably assume he’s black too, given their propensity for group hate based on individual foibles.
    He was well known in the agency as the one guy (he was a low pay grade on the GS scale) the higher ups, under both Democratic and republican administrations, wanted to terminate for nearly 35 years once they got a load of his act, which is to day, he did nothing to earn his pay and reveled in it.
    He was transferred umpteen times from office to office in an attempt to get some productivity out of him and to get him out of the hair of everyone around him.
    Course, conservatives will blame federal rules making it hard to terminate folks like this, but if we did away with those rules, conservatives would fire every single individual, despite their evident competency and expertise, who didn’t pass their political purity tests and would replace them with their own ideological cadres intent on ruining and sabotaging the government, and if you don’t believe that, you haven’t been paying attention.
    At any rate, this guy, without a trace of self-awareness, is full in the tank for politicians who would rape him.
    As to my patience with friends in my personal life, if I snubbed all of my friends and family who are racists and jackasses and express sadistic glee in the suffering of the Other, I’d be a very lonely person.
    I settle for going off my kazip at them when they really need it.
    However, when it comes to the people they elect, I want to turn the ground they stand on to glass. In an entirely general way, without discrimination.
    This particular guy, despite being crazy, has raised two lovely, now grown daughters.

  338. http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/07/26/the-pentagon-thought-trump-was-announcing-a-war-via-twitter/
    First tweet:
    “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…..”
    In the interim between that tweet and the second one, Russian satellites and however else they have bugged our communication, probably via Scarrimouchi’s flag lapel pin, could have relayed that incoherent, incomplete bullshit to the Kremlin and Putin and HIS paranoid generals could have completed the sentence as “any further Russian troop or military asset movements anywhere on the globe, for do so will provoke an immediate nuclear first strike on Moscow”, and unleashed their full nuclear capabilities against the United States of America.
    Now THAT would have the kind of nuclear option the conservative movement deserved.
    Regarding yet another long-term friend of mine, worked with him in the Federal government but we also were warriors on a really good softball team in the early days and who adores rump, ryan and mcconnell, if you read his InYourFaceBook page, which I don’t but learned about second hand:
    This guy just retired from federal service with 40 years in the bank. Here’s the thing though. He is one of the few federal employees I came across who lives down to the horseshit conservative republican stereotyping of federal employees as useless, overpaid leeches on the taxpayer, you know, assigning general condemnation on the basis of one individual example.
    In fact, as I tell this story, conservatives reading it probably assume he’s black too, given their propensity for group hate based on individual foibles.
    He was well known in the agency as the one guy (he was a low pay grade on the GS scale) the higher ups, under both Democratic and republican administrations, wanted to terminate for nearly 35 years once they got a load of his act, which is to day, he did nothing to earn his pay and reveled in it.
    He was transferred umpteen times from office to office in an attempt to get some productivity out of him and to get him out of the hair of everyone around him.
    Course, conservatives will blame federal rules making it hard to terminate folks like this, but if we did away with those rules, conservatives would fire every single individual, despite their evident competency and expertise, who didn’t pass their political purity tests and would replace them with their own ideological cadres intent on ruining and sabotaging the government, and if you don’t believe that, you haven’t been paying attention.
    At any rate, this guy, without a trace of self-awareness, is full in the tank for politicians who would rape him.
    As to my patience with friends in my personal life, if I snubbed all of my friends and family who are racists and jackasses and express sadistic glee in the suffering of the Other, I’d be a very lonely person.
    I settle for going off my kazip at them when they really need it.
    However, when it comes to the people they elect, I want to turn the ground they stand on to glass. In an entirely general way, without discrimination.
    This particular guy, despite being crazy, has raised two lovely, now grown daughters.

  339. while he readily appreciates that it’s an imperfect world, he doesn’t seem to appreciate that there’s no way to make it perfect through moral purity
    I have these memories of the last time the left/Democrats (at least a big chunk of them) went down the moral purity road. The result? From 1968 to 1992 we had just 4 years of a Democrat as President. Got that, a quarter of a century of being out of office (considering Carter wasn’t exactly a hero of the left either; at least at the time). With such heroes of the left as Reagan in office.
    And yet they persist. (Repeat?)
    The biggest problems with the moral purity approach are:
    a) it demonizes roughly half of our fellow citizens. Some of whom may, admittedly, deserve it, but far more of whom are our friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, etc. That’s no way to run a society.
    b) it is demonstrably antithetical to actually running a government. See the lovely experience of Kansas under Brownback.
    Sure, it feels good. Especially if you are a sophomore (in both senses of the term). But adults have to be able to work with people that we don’t totally love.

  340. while he readily appreciates that it’s an imperfect world, he doesn’t seem to appreciate that there’s no way to make it perfect through moral purity
    I have these memories of the last time the left/Democrats (at least a big chunk of them) went down the moral purity road. The result? From 1968 to 1992 we had just 4 years of a Democrat as President. Got that, a quarter of a century of being out of office (considering Carter wasn’t exactly a hero of the left either; at least at the time). With such heroes of the left as Reagan in office.
    And yet they persist. (Repeat?)
    The biggest problems with the moral purity approach are:
    a) it demonizes roughly half of our fellow citizens. Some of whom may, admittedly, deserve it, but far more of whom are our friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, etc. That’s no way to run a society.
    b) it is demonstrably antithetical to actually running a government. See the lovely experience of Kansas under Brownback.
    Sure, it feels good. Especially if you are a sophomore (in both senses of the term). But adults have to be able to work with people that we don’t totally love.

  341. Wonkie’s link above to the Chris Ladd editorial in Forbes should be read by all. The links to other musings by the author (especially the one on race)are also quite insightful.
    Who at Forbes let their guard down?

  342. Wonkie’s link above to the Chris Ladd editorial in Forbes should be read by all. The links to other musings by the author (especially the one on race)are also quite insightful.
    Who at Forbes let their guard down?

  343. conservatives would fire every single individual, despite their evident competency and expertise, who didn’t pass their political purity tests
    The reason we have a civil service, with its attendant hire-and-fire rules, is because handing out public jobs like candy in return for political favors used to be the way things ran.
    That sucked, because quite a lot of the folks who were hired had no clue. Think Michael Brown, if you’re looking for an example from more recent history.
    If folks would put more than a minute’s worth of thought into it, they would realize that a high bar for firing federal employees is actually a good idea.
    I will not be holding my breath on that one.
    I settle for going off my kazip at them when they really need it.
    Yeah, that’s all I’m really talking about.
    No need to cut folks off, especially because many of them are very fine people in most ways.
    I just don’t feel like I need to spare them my kazip. If they feel free venting their opinions, I consider that license to share my own.
    The biggest problems with the moral purity approach
    To wj’s most excellent list, I would add: moral purity is not the concern of government, and we really don’t want to make it the concern of government.
    Government is about managing public life. And, at least in our understanding of it, it’s legitimacy is based on the consent of the governed.
    If you have a population who are of one mind on points of morality, you might be able to get away with enshrining moral precepts in public law.
    If not, trying to do so is basically asking for trouble.
    If we can get to the point where we’re keeping the lights on and the bills mostly get paid, I’d say mission accomplished.
    It’s a big country, different people believe different things, want different things, think different things are good. That makes the morality-via-government thing problematic.

  344. conservatives would fire every single individual, despite their evident competency and expertise, who didn’t pass their political purity tests
    The reason we have a civil service, with its attendant hire-and-fire rules, is because handing out public jobs like candy in return for political favors used to be the way things ran.
    That sucked, because quite a lot of the folks who were hired had no clue. Think Michael Brown, if you’re looking for an example from more recent history.
    If folks would put more than a minute’s worth of thought into it, they would realize that a high bar for firing federal employees is actually a good idea.
    I will not be holding my breath on that one.
    I settle for going off my kazip at them when they really need it.
    Yeah, that’s all I’m really talking about.
    No need to cut folks off, especially because many of them are very fine people in most ways.
    I just don’t feel like I need to spare them my kazip. If they feel free venting their opinions, I consider that license to share my own.
    The biggest problems with the moral purity approach
    To wj’s most excellent list, I would add: moral purity is not the concern of government, and we really don’t want to make it the concern of government.
    Government is about managing public life. And, at least in our understanding of it, it’s legitimacy is based on the consent of the governed.
    If you have a population who are of one mind on points of morality, you might be able to get away with enshrining moral precepts in public law.
    If not, trying to do so is basically asking for trouble.
    If we can get to the point where we’re keeping the lights on and the bills mostly get paid, I’d say mission accomplished.
    It’s a big country, different people believe different things, want different things, think different things are good. That makes the morality-via-government thing problematic.

  345. Way back up thread, on July 25 at just after 11, is a long post by the Count. It had gotten stuck in the Spam bucket, but is now free. Just an FYI, for those who don’t wish to miss a word….

  346. Way back up thread, on July 25 at just after 11, is a long post by the Count. It had gotten stuck in the Spam bucket, but is now free. Just an FYI, for those who don’t wish to miss a word….

  347. moral purity is not the concern of government, and we really don’t want to make it the concern of government.
    My, perhaps naive, knee-jerk reaction to someone who talks about moral purity and government is that they want government to enforce (their!) moral standards.
    Whereas what I thought we were talking about here was extending “morality” drastically, to encompass political philosophy and governance approaches. Call me crazy, but I think anyone doing that has lost track of what morals are really about.

  348. moral purity is not the concern of government, and we really don’t want to make it the concern of government.
    My, perhaps naive, knee-jerk reaction to someone who talks about moral purity and government is that they want government to enforce (their!) moral standards.
    Whereas what I thought we were talking about here was extending “morality” drastically, to encompass political philosophy and governance approaches. Call me crazy, but I think anyone doing that has lost track of what morals are really about.

  351. Defining “moral standards”, like defining “income” can be difficult.
    Characterizing the Democratic campaign of 1972 as one of “moral purity” (Wallace got nearly as many votes in Dem primaries as McGovern did, and Humphrey got more)is a disservice to the actual history…dare I say, sophomoric?
    Regards.

  352. Defining “moral standards”, like defining “income” can be difficult.
    Characterizing the Democratic campaign of 1972 as one of “moral purity” (Wallace got nearly as many votes in Dem primaries as McGovern did, and Humphrey got more)is a disservice to the actual history…dare I say, sophomoric?
    Regards.

  353. Wonkie’s link above to the Chris Ladd editorial in Forbes should be read by all.
    Seconded.
    Ladd has a blog, which is worth reading.
    I’d even suggest adding it to the blogroll….

  354. Wonkie’s link above to the Chris Ladd editorial in Forbes should be read by all.
    Seconded.
    Ladd has a blog, which is worth reading.
    I’d even suggest adding it to the blogroll….

  355. Open Thread!
    Appreciate the acceptance. My politics ain’t unique, I’m just an old Counterpunch guy, with about 50% less old white men and 50% more theory. But politics isn’t even my main entertainment. Coltrane, John Fahey and the old man’s consolations, history and philosophy.
    Getting the rescue Anatolian Shepherd back today from the heartworm treatment. Now all we have to do is keep 90 lbs of hyperpuppy immobile and sane for three months.
    This made me laugh, from Jameson Archeologies of the Future, book about Utopias:

    It is a situation which
    reverses Ernst Bloch’s interpretation of the absent work of art at the center
    of the artist-novel as a hole in the present which marks the place of a Utopian
    future to come. With Star Maker we have the work, and only its Utopian social
    context is missing. Meanwhile an immense galactic Spinozan vision completes
    philosophy as well, endowing Marxism with its appropriate metaphysic, and
    realizing philosophy by abolishing it

    What’s funny is that Jameson fans will get stuck on wondering why he used “artist-novel” instead of “kunstlerroman.” Or just me.
    Ernst Bloch wrote a book called The Politics of Hope. I want more than present politics offers, and I want it now. Like an infant or a sophomore. Sue me. Growing up sucks, and I don’t have to at 66.
    I like sophomores. Not that way. I read expanded dissertations. I try to follow youth.
    Shit had to go down during a tolerance break. I feel much better now. God Bless Coloradans. Sorry for the rants and vents. Republican failure on healthcare is such a good thing that I too have to cry.

  356. Open Thread!
    Appreciate the acceptance. My politics ain’t unique, I’m just an old Counterpunch guy, with about 50% less old white men and 50% more theory. But politics isn’t even my main entertainment. Coltrane, John Fahey and the old man’s consolations, history and philosophy.
    Getting the rescue Anatolian Shepherd back today from the heartworm treatment. Now all we have to do is keep 90 lbs of hyperpuppy immobile and sane for three months.
    This made me laugh, from Jameson Archeologies of the Future, book about Utopias:

    It is a situation which
    reverses Ernst Bloch’s interpretation of the absent work of art at the center
    of the artist-novel as a hole in the present which marks the place of a Utopian
    future to come. With Star Maker we have the work, and only its Utopian social
    context is missing. Meanwhile an immense galactic Spinozan vision completes
    philosophy as well, endowing Marxism with its appropriate metaphysic, and
    realizing philosophy by abolishing it

    What’s funny is that Jameson fans will get stuck on wondering why he used “artist-novel” instead of “kunstlerroman.” Or just me.
    Ernst Bloch wrote a book called The Politics of Hope. I want more than present politics offers, and I want it now. Like an infant or a sophomore. Sue me. Growing up sucks, and I don’t have to at 66.
    I like sophomores. Not that way. I read expanded dissertations. I try to follow youth.
    Shit had to go down during a tolerance break. I feel much better now. God Bless Coloradans. Sorry for the rants and vents. Republican failure on healthcare is such a good thing that I too have to cry.

  357. Coltrane, John Fahey and the old man’s consolations, history and philosophy.
    Mon semblable, mon frere!

  358. Coltrane, John Fahey and the old man’s consolations, history and philosophy.
    Mon semblable, mon frere!

  359. Republican failure on healthcare is such a good thing that I too have to cry.
    One thing that I find interesting is that even the quite conservative among us here appear to agree that last night’s decision was a good thing. And that it was unfortunate (to put it mildly) that such a piece of garbage ever came to the floor. We may have quite different ideas about what should happen instead, but we seem to agree that far.
    What does that say about the people running the Congress?

  360. Republican failure on healthcare is such a good thing that I too have to cry.
    One thing that I find interesting is that even the quite conservative among us here appear to agree that last night’s decision was a good thing. And that it was unfortunate (to put it mildly) that such a piece of garbage ever came to the floor. We may have quite different ideas about what should happen instead, but we seem to agree that far.
    What does that say about the people running the Congress?

  361. Wonkie’s link above to the Chris Ladd editorial in Forbes should be read by all.
    Seconded. Thanks wonkie.

  362. Wonkie’s link above to the Chris Ladd editorial in Forbes should be read by all.
    Seconded. Thanks wonkie.

  363. What does that say about the people running the Congress?
    They’re stuck. There’s very little they can do to improve the ACA. And it would cost them politically. There’s any number of things they can, and will likely do, to make it worse. And, again, the political costs. No way out. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  364. What does that say about the people running the Congress?
    They’re stuck. There’s very little they can do to improve the ACA. And it would cost them politically. There’s any number of things they can, and will likely do, to make it worse. And, again, the political costs. No way out. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  365. I read some stuff at his blog, too. The recent post about black voters, both generally and concerning Trump’s election, was interesting. I’m sure it would get hand waves and fingers in ears from certain corners, but it’s still worth it.

  366. I read some stuff at his blog, too. The recent post about black voters, both generally and concerning Trump’s election, was interesting. I’m sure it would get hand waves and fingers in ears from certain corners, but it’s still worth it.

  367. there’s a lot they could do to improve it. but their ridiculous ideology forbids them from improving it, or from even taking the matter seriously.
    all they have is their hatred of liberals (which burns 100x brighter in their idiot base) and their Free Market™ mythology. that’s great for mass-market demagoguery but worse than useless when it comes to governance.

  368. there’s a lot they could do to improve it. but their ridiculous ideology forbids them from improving it, or from even taking the matter seriously.
    all they have is their hatred of liberals (which burns 100x brighter in their idiot base) and their Free Market™ mythology. that’s great for mass-market demagoguery but worse than useless when it comes to governance.

  373. GftNC,
    People, as a rule and with a few notable exceptions of homeless people who refuse care, don’t drop dead in the streets in the US. Didn’t before the ACA, won’t because 15 million people choose not to pay insurance premiums. Its stupid hyperbole.
    People die, on the other hand, from poor health care and bureaucratic bs, government or otherwise, every day.
    Do esnt matter, health care is all fixed now. Thank god.

  374. GftNC,
    People, as a rule and with a few notable exceptions of homeless people who refuse care, don’t drop dead in the streets in the US. Didn’t before the ACA, won’t because 15 million people choose not to pay insurance premiums. Its stupid hyperbole.
    People die, on the other hand, from poor health care and bureaucratic bs, government or otherwise, every day.
    Do esnt matter, health care is all fixed now. Thank god.

  375. Its stupid hyperbole.
    National Institutes of Health.
    New England Journal of Medicine.
    Kaiser.
    The Commonwealth Fund.
    tl;dr : Expansion of health insurance coverage unequivocally improves people’s access to primary care and improves their mental health. It also dramatically reduces catastrophic financial events caused by health care costs.
    In the Oregon study, it showed significant improvement in the detection of chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. No dramatic improvement in the clinical measures of illness for those diseases was shown during the study period, but you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see that in the time frame of the study.
    Read’em and make up your own mind. And/or, dig deeper and see what the literature has to say.
    IMO the claim that a reduction in health insurance coverage will have no detrimental effect on people’s overall health is a pretty big lift. It’s a plainly counter-intuitive claim, some information would make it more persuasive.
    If nothing else, 15 million young-and-healthies deciding to opt out so they can have a little more jingle in their pocket is likely to raise costs for the no-longer-young and less-than-healthy. Which in turn will reduce the likelihood of their getting care they need.
    Access to care means improvement in overall health. If you want to argue against that idea, you need to bring more than dismissive assertions.

  376. Its stupid hyperbole.
    National Institutes of Health.
    New England Journal of Medicine.
    Kaiser.
    The Commonwealth Fund.
    tl;dr : Expansion of health insurance coverage unequivocally improves people’s access to primary care and improves their mental health. It also dramatically reduces catastrophic financial events caused by health care costs.
    In the Oregon study, it showed significant improvement in the detection of chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. No dramatic improvement in the clinical measures of illness for those diseases was shown during the study period, but you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see that in the time frame of the study.
    Read’em and make up your own mind. And/or, dig deeper and see what the literature has to say.
    IMO the claim that a reduction in health insurance coverage will have no detrimental effect on people’s overall health is a pretty big lift. It’s a plainly counter-intuitive claim, some information would make it more persuasive.
    If nothing else, 15 million young-and-healthies deciding to opt out so they can have a little more jingle in their pocket is likely to raise costs for the no-longer-young and less-than-healthy. Which in turn will reduce the likelihood of their getting care they need.
    Access to care means improvement in overall health. If you want to argue against that idea, you need to bring more than dismissive assertions.

  379. You mean there’s a difference between:
    – we made it perfect, and
    – we refrained from destroying it?
    Who knew???

  380. You mean there’s a difference between:
    – we made it perfect, and
    – we refrained from destroying it?
    Who knew???

  381. You, or whoever, need to stop talking about people dropping dead in the streets. Then I won’t be dismissive.
    And yes cleek, there are millions of people who people who think everything’s ok now. Because, you know, the ACA isn’t collapsing, everything is hunky dory and the Republicans were just trying to kill people. Thank God they failed, now everything’s ok.

  382. You, or whoever, need to stop talking about people dropping dead in the streets. Then I won’t be dismissive.
    And yes cleek, there are millions of people who people who think everything’s ok now. Because, you know, the ACA isn’t collapsing, everything is hunky dory and the Republicans were just trying to kill people. Thank God they failed, now everything’s ok.

  383. You, or whoever, need to stop talking about people dropping dead in the streets. Then I won’t be dismissive.
    I, or whoever, don’t need to do anything at your request.
    If you wish, continue to be dismissive, and folks will respond to you accordingly.
    Information is good. Pulled-it-out-of-my-ass BS, less so.
    If you want to claim that a reduction in coverage will not have a negative effect on outcomes, make the claim. But if you want anyone to take it seriously, back it up.

  384. You, or whoever, need to stop talking about people dropping dead in the streets. Then I won’t be dismissive.
    I, or whoever, don’t need to do anything at your request.
    If you wish, continue to be dismissive, and folks will respond to you accordingly.
    Information is good. Pulled-it-out-of-my-ass BS, less so.
    If you want to claim that a reduction in coverage will not have a negative effect on outcomes, make the claim. But if you want anyone to take it seriously, back it up.

  385. And yes cleek, there are millions of people who people who think everything’s ok now.
    [citation required]

  386. And yes cleek, there are millions of people who people who think everything’s ok now.
    [citation required]

  387. Circular stupid arguments are why I haven’t been here lately:
    Them: people will die in the streets
    Me: people won’t due in the streets that’s stupid hyperbole
    russell: if you want to claim blah blah
    Me; where the hell did I ever claim that?
    Longer me: there are negative outcomes to literally thousands of things we allow in our society. So what’s your point?

  388. Circular stupid arguments are why I haven’t been here lately:
    Them: people will die in the streets
    Me: people won’t due in the streets that’s stupid hyperbole
    russell: if you want to claim blah blah
    Me; where the hell did I ever claim that?
    Longer me: there are negative outcomes to literally thousands of things we allow in our society. So what’s your point?

  389. So what’s your point?
    My point is that reducing health insurance coverage will reduce access to health care, which will cause negative outcomes.
    I.e., people will get sick and die for preventable reasons.
    If you want to address any of the other thousands of things that we allow that are harmful, fine with me.
    Reducing public support for health insurance is the one we were talking about, so that’s the one I was addressing.
    For the record, we all understand that “people will die in the streets” is hyperbole. Most of the discussion of any topic of public interest in conducted at the level of hyperbole.
    The best way to counter hyperbole is to address the substance of the issue. Saying “that’s just hyperbole”, as if that somehow addresses the substance of the question at hand, is as fatuous as talking in hyperbolic language.
    If we reduce public support for Medicare, Medicaid, or (through subsidies) private insurance, fewer people will have access to health care.
    That means more people will be sicker than they need to be, and some of them will die from preventable or treatable illnesses.
    That’s the substance.

  390. So what’s your point?
    My point is that reducing health insurance coverage will reduce access to health care, which will cause negative outcomes.
    I.e., people will get sick and die for preventable reasons.
    If you want to address any of the other thousands of things that we allow that are harmful, fine with me.
    Reducing public support for health insurance is the one we were talking about, so that’s the one I was addressing.
    For the record, we all understand that “people will die in the streets” is hyperbole. Most of the discussion of any topic of public interest in conducted at the level of hyperbole.
    The best way to counter hyperbole is to address the substance of the issue. Saying “that’s just hyperbole”, as if that somehow addresses the substance of the question at hand, is as fatuous as talking in hyperbolic language.
    If we reduce public support for Medicare, Medicaid, or (through subsidies) private insurance, fewer people will have access to health care.
    That means more people will be sicker than they need to be, and some of them will die from preventable or treatable illnesses.
    That’s the substance.

  391. there are negative outcomes to literally thousands of things we allow in our society. So what’s your point?
    It’s quite true. (I seem to recall some disputes here on some of those things.)
    However it is exceptional for us to decide to step up and do something which will cause increased negative outcomes. Not that we don’t hear arguments for why we should, on one topic or another. But mostly, while we may refuse to change something to avoid a negative outcome, we don’t generally actively do something which will create one.

  392. there are negative outcomes to literally thousands of things we allow in our society. So what’s your point?
    It’s quite true. (I seem to recall some disputes here on some of those things.)
    However it is exceptional for us to decide to step up and do something which will cause increased negative outcomes. Not that we don’t hear arguments for why we should, on one topic or another. But mostly, while we may refuse to change something to avoid a negative outcome, we don’t generally actively do something which will create one.

  393. Everyone I know wants to make the ACA work better. Let’s remember that the Supreme Court held Medicaid expansion to be optional for states. In states that adopted Medicaid expansion, the ACA works better for people who are above the poverty line than in states that didn’t adopt it.
    People were thrilled with the way Kentucky’s version of ACA worked until it was gutted because people were confused that Kynect wasn’t “Obamacare” and they hated Obama. This is a narrative of that story. The ACA needs to be improved, but that’s not going to happen through Republican sabotage. Until Republicans can come up with a different plan whose numbers add up, they should (for their constituents’ sake) help the ACA work. The middle finger doesn’t help with that, something that should be obvious.

  394. Everyone I know wants to make the ACA work better. Let’s remember that the Supreme Court held Medicaid expansion to be optional for states. In states that adopted Medicaid expansion, the ACA works better for people who are above the poverty line than in states that didn’t adopt it.
    People were thrilled with the way Kentucky’s version of ACA worked until it was gutted because people were confused that Kynect wasn’t “Obamacare” and they hated Obama. This is a narrative of that story. The ACA needs to be improved, but that’s not going to happen through Republican sabotage. Until Republicans can come up with a different plan whose numbers add up, they should (for their constituents’ sake) help the ACA work. The middle finger doesn’t help with that, something that should be obvious.

  395. Let’s also remember that Marty set out his Obamacare plan, and when I looked at it and compared it to the plan that I have with a small business employer, the plan that he was so disappointed with is basically the same plan I have, for about the same cost, except that my employer pays a bit of it (for me, but not for any family members).
    So I’d like to see Marty’s “free market version” or whatever plan he’s thinking will come about. Hint: it won’t be cheap. That’s true even if it’s “single payer” – money will be taken out of people’s paychecks. Health care is not free, and doctors and hospitals will want to be paid.

  396. Let’s also remember that Marty set out his Obamacare plan, and when I looked at it and compared it to the plan that I have with a small business employer, the plan that he was so disappointed with is basically the same plan I have, for about the same cost, except that my employer pays a bit of it (for me, but not for any family members).
    So I’d like to see Marty’s “free market version” or whatever plan he’s thinking will come about. Hint: it won’t be cheap. That’s true even if it’s “single payer” – money will be taken out of people’s paychecks. Health care is not free, and doctors and hospitals will want to be paid.

  399. You, or whoever, need to stop talking about people dropping dead in the streets. Then I won’t be dismissive.
    OK, my bad, I was on my phone and couldn’t go back to check exactly what it was had been said, and who had said it. The point being made by whomever was that some people would freely choose not to get health insurance, and then get sick, very sick, and that the results and cost of that (A+E treatment, resulting unemployment, possible homelessness, family hardship) both socially and, inevitably, economically would be such as made universal healthcare more cost-effective and beneficial generally for the rest of society. I should have stuck to Pro Bono’s 10.17, particularly:
    But first, what are we going to do if people who’ve exercised that freedom do get sick?
    combined with hsh’s 10.33:

    I know people who don’t have children and rail against having to pay taxes that go to public schools. They would probably like to spend that money on something else, too. It’s their money, after all.
    Then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make any of that money had they not gotten their public-school education.
    How many industries wouldn’t exist at but for people who were educated in public schools, where they attained knowledge without which their industry-creating innovations would not have been possible? What would the people who work in those industries do for a living had those industries not been created?
    Maybe nothing, in which case they wouldn’t have to worry about paying taxes that go to public schools. Wouldn’t that be swell?

    I simply wanted to know your response to the (in my opinion unarguable) argument made by the combination of these two points.

  400. You, or whoever, need to stop talking about people dropping dead in the streets. Then I won’t be dismissive.
    OK, my bad, I was on my phone and couldn’t go back to check exactly what it was had been said, and who had said it. The point being made by whomever was that some people would freely choose not to get health insurance, and then get sick, very sick, and that the results and cost of that (A+E treatment, resulting unemployment, possible homelessness, family hardship) both socially and, inevitably, economically would be such as made universal healthcare more cost-effective and beneficial generally for the rest of society. I should have stuck to Pro Bono’s 10.17, particularly:
    But first, what are we going to do if people who’ve exercised that freedom do get sick?
    combined with hsh’s 10.33:

    I know people who don’t have children and rail against having to pay taxes that go to public schools. They would probably like to spend that money on something else, too. It’s their money, after all.
    Then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to make any of that money had they not gotten their public-school education.
    How many industries wouldn’t exist at but for people who were educated in public schools, where they attained knowledge without which their industry-creating innovations would not have been possible? What would the people who work in those industries do for a living had those industries not been created?
    Maybe nothing, in which case they wouldn’t have to worry about paying taxes that go to public schools. Wouldn’t that be swell?

    I simply wanted to know your response to the (in my opinion unarguable) argument made by the combination of these two points.

  403. “But mostly, while we may refuse to change something to avoid a negative outcome, we don’t generally actively do something which will create one.”
    Well, we just legalized recreational marijuana. In another few states. No reasonable person can argue that it will not have negative health outcomes. So yes, we do. Lots of states have reversed motorcycle helmet laws, so yes we do. Seem we legalized alcohol after the law had been passed to outlaw it, because millions of people objected.
    So yes, we do.

  404. “But mostly, while we may refuse to change something to avoid a negative outcome, we don’t generally actively do something which will create one.”
    Well, we just legalized recreational marijuana. In another few states. No reasonable person can argue that it will not have negative health outcomes. So yes, we do. Lots of states have reversed motorcycle helmet laws, so yes we do. Seem we legalized alcohol after the law had been passed to outlaw it, because millions of people objected.
    So yes, we do.

  405. Marty, FWIW, see my clarification of the question I was asking you, if you wanted to answer, at the foot of the last page.

  406. Marty, FWIW, see my clarification of the question I was asking you, if you wanted to answer, at the foot of the last page.

  407. GftNC,
    They are not equivalent. No one is required to send their child to public schools and almost everyone I know uses the cost of local taxes or the quality of the school system as a criteria for where they prefer to live.
    The social and economic impact of young people opting out of insurance is pretty small, because they are quite healthy generally. The same reason people want them in the pool limits their cost outside it.

  408. GftNC,
    They are not equivalent. No one is required to send their child to public schools and almost everyone I know uses the cost of local taxes or the quality of the school system as a criteria for where they prefer to live.
    The social and economic impact of young people opting out of insurance is pretty small, because they are quite healthy generally. The same reason people want them in the pool limits their cost outside it.

  409. But it’s not just young people who are free not to choose healthcare insurance, in your formulation.
    And everyone’s taxes go to public schools, as I understand it, whether they have kids or not?

  410. But it’s not just young people who are free not to choose healthcare insurance, in your formulation.
    And everyone’s taxes go to public schools, as I understand it, whether they have kids or not?

  411. Just back from dinner, so possibly caipirinhas and wine are impairing my ability to follow this argument…..

  412. Just back from dinner, so possibly caipirinhas and wine are impairing my ability to follow this argument…..

  413. But those taxes are very different town to town. So people who don’t have kids often opt for places with lower taxes and lower rated schools.
    And young people are far and away the majority of people who are willing to risk not having health insurance.

  414. But those taxes are very different town to town. So people who don’t have kids often opt for places with lower taxes and lower rated schools.
    And young people are far and away the majority of people who are willing to risk not having health insurance.

  415. so possibly caipirinhas and wine are impairing my ability to follow this argument
    Or maybe more is necessary.

  416. so possibly caipirinhas and wine are impairing my ability to follow this argument
    Or maybe more is necessary.

  417. we just legalized recreational marijuana. In another few states. No reasonable person can argue that it will not have negative health outcomes.
    Marty,
    This is true. But what about the net effect of all outcomes, especially on the criminal justice system?
    And while use will increase, which is the reason there will be negative health outcomes, it’s easy to overlook a benefit. Lots of people get pleasure from smoking marijuana. Not me, by the way. The stuff hurts my throat and gives me a headache. But some like it.

  418. we just legalized recreational marijuana. In another few states. No reasonable person can argue that it will not have negative health outcomes.
    Marty,
    This is true. But what about the net effect of all outcomes, especially on the criminal justice system?
    And while use will increase, which is the reason there will be negative health outcomes, it’s easy to overlook a benefit. Lots of people get pleasure from smoking marijuana. Not me, by the way. The stuff hurts my throat and gives me a headache. But some like it.

  419. Dear sapient, I don’t think any amount of alcohol would make me an entirely satisfactory interlocutor from your point of view!

  420. Dear sapient, I don’t think any amount of alcohol would make me an entirely satisfactory interlocutor from your point of view!

  421. So people who don’t have kids often opt for places with lower taxes and lower rated schools.
    Maybe I forgot (as is my wont), but weren’t you also for single payer? Single payer being anyone but you? Your health care theories don’t add up.
    entirely satisfactory interlocutor
    Hmmm. Sadly, I’m not easily entirely satisfied by any interlocutor, which is why I participate myself. But I’m not even satisfied by that, I’m afraid.

  422. So people who don’t have kids often opt for places with lower taxes and lower rated schools.
    Maybe I forgot (as is my wont), but weren’t you also for single payer? Single payer being anyone but you? Your health care theories don’t add up.
    entirely satisfactory interlocutor
    Hmmm. Sadly, I’m not easily entirely satisfied by any interlocutor, which is why I participate myself. But I’m not even satisfied by that, I’m afraid.

  423. Sapient,
    Let me be clear, I am for a single payer safety net that provides needs based coverage for people who need coverage and can’t afford it, or who can’t get coverage for other reasons.
    None of that means a 25 year old making 50k should be required to buy insurance. Or that the safety net should protect his lack of common sense financially.

  424. Sapient,
    Let me be clear, I am for a single payer safety net that provides needs based coverage for people who need coverage and can’t afford it, or who can’t get coverage for other reasons.
    None of that means a 25 year old making 50k should be required to buy insurance. Or that the safety net should protect his lack of common sense financially.

  425. I am for a single payer safety net that provides needs based coverage for people who need coverage and can’t afford it, or who can’t get coverage for other reasons.
    Medicaid? If so, I would (if I were arguing that) use the term “Medicaid” because “single payer” is commonly understood to mean a system similar to the UK’s NHS.

  426. I am for a single payer safety net that provides needs based coverage for people who need coverage and can’t afford it, or who can’t get coverage for other reasons.
    Medicaid? If so, I would (if I were arguing that) use the term “Medicaid” because “single payer” is commonly understood to mean a system similar to the UK’s NHS.

  427. Sadly, I’m not easily entirely satisfied by any interlocutor, which is why I participate myself.
    Hmmm. I am obviously much drunker than I realised, because this sentence makes absolutely no sense to me! Sorry, I’m sure it’s my fault.

  428. Sadly, I’m not easily entirely satisfied by any interlocutor, which is why I participate myself.
    Hmmm. I am obviously much drunker than I realised, because this sentence makes absolutely no sense to me! Sorry, I’m sure it’s my fault.

  431. Well, we just legalized recreational marijuana. In another few states. No reasonable person can argue that it will not have negative health outcomes. So yes, we do.
    What byomtov said

  432. Well, we just legalized recreational marijuana. In another few states. No reasonable person can argue that it will not have negative health outcomes. So yes, we do.
    What byomtov said

  433. At some point in any problem solution requiring collective action, people have to be told with a gun to their heads, “We know better than you what’s best for you. So, if you know what’s best for you, you’ll STFU and get with the program!”

  434. At some point in any problem solution requiring collective action, people have to be told with a gun to their heads, “We know better than you what’s best for you. So, if you know what’s best for you, you’ll STFU and get with the program!”

  435. Where is that even coming from CharlesWT? Maybe now I need a caipirinha?
    (Had to look that drink up, by the way – Brazilian rum? Do I need to learn more about cocktails and liquor? Probably know more than is good for me already.)

  436. Where is that even coming from CharlesWT? Maybe now I need a caipirinha?
    (Had to look that drink up, by the way – Brazilian rum? Do I need to learn more about cocktails and liquor? Probably know more than is good for me already.)

  437. They’re highly recommended sapient, not dissimilar to a mojito, but a bit stronger and no mint.

  438. They’re highly recommended sapient, not dissimilar to a mojito, but a bit stronger and no mint.

  439. Next time we’re in proximity, GftNC, we should have one together. It might be awhile before I’m back in the UK, but I’d love to. Thanks.

  440. Next time we’re in proximity, GftNC, we should have one together. It might be awhile before I’m back in the UK, but I’d love to. Thanks.

  443. None of that means a 25 year old making 50k should be required to buy insurance.
    when the 25 year old gets cancer and requires $300K of medical care but doesn’t have that kind of money whose street would you prefer she dies on, yours or mine?

  444. None of that means a 25 year old making 50k should be required to buy insurance.
    when the 25 year old gets cancer and requires $300K of medical care but doesn’t have that kind of money whose street would you prefer she dies on, yours or mine?

  445. At some point in any problem solution requiring collective action, people have to be told with a gun to their heads, “We know better than you what’s best for you. So, if you know what’s best for you, you’ll STFU and get with the program!”
    do you see a gun in this picture ?

  446. At some point in any problem solution requiring collective action, people have to be told with a gun to their heads, “We know better than you what’s best for you. So, if you know what’s best for you, you’ll STFU and get with the program!”
    do you see a gun in this picture ?

  447. The social and economic impact of young people opting out of insurance is pretty small
    to them.
    which is the point.
    as far as beverages go, if there’s no mint, I’m out.

  448. The social and economic impact of young people opting out of insurance is pretty small
    to them.
    which is the point.
    as far as beverages go, if there’s no mint, I’m out.

  449. do you see a gun in this picture ?
    Perhaps I should have said, “government enforced collective action.”

  450. do you see a gun in this picture ?
    Perhaps I should have said, “government enforced collective action.”

  451. Professor Jonathan Anomaly (Duke and UNC – Chapel Hill) discusses collective action problems, which include any situation in which there is a conflict between individual rationality and social welfare, so that individuals working in isolation produce a worse outcome than they might if they could find a way to coordinate.
    Political: Collective Action Problems

  452. Professor Jonathan Anomaly (Duke and UNC – Chapel Hill) discusses collective action problems, which include any situation in which there is a conflict between individual rationality and social welfare, so that individuals working in isolation produce a worse outcome than they might if they could find a way to coordinate.
    Political: Collective Action Problems

  457. Or, as Budget Director Mick Mulvaney would put it, she’s living/dying on Easy Street while holding a gun to the head of the taxpayer.
    Bad, bad neighborhood.

  458. Or, as Budget Director Mick Mulvaney would put it, she’s living/dying on Easy Street while holding a gun to the head of the taxpayer.
    Bad, bad neighborhood.

  463. the freedom to die on Upshit Creek, with collection and disposal of your corpse provided by the state, is the greatest freedom of all.

  464. the freedom to die on Upshit Creek, with collection and disposal of your corpse provided by the state, is the greatest freedom of all.

  465. LGM: “Since 86% of the calls to the Senate to preserve ACA were from women, I think we need to change that metaphor to “victory has a thousand mothers”.
    This is the year of the wonder women.”
    Well yeah, after 11/8/16, wonder women have developed a huge credibility deficit that it will take time to repair.
    Russiagate is unlikely to help at all, but saving the ACA is exactly what works and is needed.
    Political credibility is only (re)gained through concrete, not discursive or symbolic, victories.
    The other things is that if we view politics through a narrow lens of the ACA, one could say that the “wonder women” and their coalition have been accumulating their fair (maybe accelerating until 2017) share of victories for at least a decade. That stock of credibility strongly contributed to the Clinton nomination.
    Which implicates the analysis. If “wonder women” can save the ACA under these material conditions and determined opposition…
    …they have power.
    This is not the Patriarchy of 1950 or 1800 or 1200. Patriarchy is dynamic and diachronic and must be historicized. The present (the modern) of Patriarchy has under neoliberalism late capitalism IMO been increasingly (accelerating) rationalized (think of universal education to improve productivity;also Taylorism) and psuedo-democraticized and the resistance (say corporate or inadequately intersectional feminism) has also been rationalized, commodified, consumerized, capitalized.
    Marxism/socialism/laborism is the reproductive competitor of capitalism.
    Need to find the synthesis.

  466. LGM: “Since 86% of the calls to the Senate to preserve ACA were from women, I think we need to change that metaphor to “victory has a thousand mothers”.
    This is the year of the wonder women.”
    Well yeah, after 11/8/16, wonder women have developed a huge credibility deficit that it will take time to repair.
    Russiagate is unlikely to help at all, but saving the ACA is exactly what works and is needed.
    Political credibility is only (re)gained through concrete, not discursive or symbolic, victories.
    The other things is that if we view politics through a narrow lens of the ACA, one could say that the “wonder women” and their coalition have been accumulating their fair (maybe accelerating until 2017) share of victories for at least a decade. That stock of credibility strongly contributed to the Clinton nomination.
    Which implicates the analysis. If “wonder women” can save the ACA under these material conditions and determined opposition…
    …they have power.
    This is not the Patriarchy of 1950 or 1800 or 1200. Patriarchy is dynamic and diachronic and must be historicized. The present (the modern) of Patriarchy has under neoliberalism late capitalism IMO been increasingly (accelerating) rationalized (think of universal education to improve productivity;also Taylorism) and psuedo-democraticized and the resistance (say corporate or inadequately intersectional feminism) has also been rationalized, commodified, consumerized, capitalized.
    Marxism/socialism/laborism is the reproductive competitor of capitalism.
    Need to find the synthesis.

  467. die on the street, or just die. I’m not seeing a significant difference.
    maybe I’m missing something.

  468. die on the street, or just die. I’m not seeing a significant difference.
    maybe I’m missing something.

  469. Given current malignant trends, most streets will be in private high-toll controlled hands, so they won’t be available to 90% of the population looking for a place to lay down and die.
    rump Avenue, rump Street, Boulevard of the rumps, rump Lane, rump Court, rump 66, rump Alley, rump Drive, rump Highway, rump Low Road, all off limits to the vast majority of the gene pool that is not rump.
    Despair all:
    https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/trump-dynasty-luttwak/
    And yet hope abides:
    http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40719743
    Further assigned reading for the day:
    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/the-tv-that-created-donald-trump
    Some choice quotes from his TV career and from the skittering insects who enabled the filth:
    Mark Burnett, producer of The Apprentice:
    Donald “will say whatever he wants.” He “takes no prisoners”, If you are Donald’s friend (funny usage of the that word, methinks) “he’ll defend you all day long. If you’re not, he’s going to kill you. And that’s very American. He’s like the guys who built the West.”
    I’m very American too, so I hope Burnett doesn’t mind me being no less a killer when the time comes.
    Interrupting Ivana when she criticized a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice for bearing grudges, rump ejaculates: “Who doesn’t? I do. Nobody takes things more personally than me. When somebody says something personal about me, I hate them for the rest of my life …. Do you understand that? I hate ’em. I never recover from it.”
    He’s my role model. “I hate ’em.” would look good on a red ball cap for the 2020 campaign.
    To wit:
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-nuclear-deal-is-in-real-danger/
    I hope he reneges on the Iran deal. And I hope Iran in turn begins stockpiling millions of nuclear warheads and positions them aiming at the heads of 60 some million anti-American conservative republican rump voters, one for each head.
    I’d be happy to point them out.

  470. Given current malignant trends, most streets will be in private high-toll controlled hands, so they won’t be available to 90% of the population looking for a place to lay down and die.
    rump Avenue, rump Street, Boulevard of the rumps, rump Lane, rump Court, rump 66, rump Alley, rump Drive, rump Highway, rump Low Road, all off limits to the vast majority of the gene pool that is not rump.
    Despair all:
    https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/trump-dynasty-luttwak/
    And yet hope abides:
    http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40719743
    Further assigned reading for the day:
    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/the-tv-that-created-donald-trump
    Some choice quotes from his TV career and from the skittering insects who enabled the filth:
    Mark Burnett, producer of The Apprentice:
    Donald “will say whatever he wants.” He “takes no prisoners”, If you are Donald’s friend (funny usage of the that word, methinks) “he’ll defend you all day long. If you’re not, he’s going to kill you. And that’s very American. He’s like the guys who built the West.”
    I’m very American too, so I hope Burnett doesn’t mind me being no less a killer when the time comes.
    Interrupting Ivana when she criticized a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice for bearing grudges, rump ejaculates: “Who doesn’t? I do. Nobody takes things more personally than me. When somebody says something personal about me, I hate them for the rest of my life …. Do you understand that? I hate ’em. I never recover from it.”
    He’s my role model. “I hate ’em.” would look good on a red ball cap for the 2020 campaign.
    To wit:
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-nuclear-deal-is-in-real-danger/
    I hope he reneges on the Iran deal. And I hope Iran in turn begins stockpiling millions of nuclear warheads and positions them aiming at the heads of 60 some million anti-American conservative republican rump voters, one for each head.
    I’d be happy to point them out.

  473. For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about John McCain. This past week, of course, my feelings about him ricocheted wildly between contempt and loathing on the one hand, and relief and a sort of admiration on the other. I can’t seem to stabilise them. When explaining the whole thing to Mr GftNC, I said that explanations for his apparent volte-face range from revenge served cold, to the rumour that he would have voted yes if he got the appropriate assurances from Ryan about going to conference. My opinion of him was pretty low to begin with, mainly because of the Palin pick, although the more detailed stories that ran about his Vietnam captivity when he was diagnosed did impress me more than I had expected from the few facts I knew before. Apart from his war-mongering, which I know many here understandably hate and despise, can I ask how some of you are assessing him at the moment?

  474. For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about John McCain. This past week, of course, my feelings about him ricocheted wildly between contempt and loathing on the one hand, and relief and a sort of admiration on the other. I can’t seem to stabilise them. When explaining the whole thing to Mr GftNC, I said that explanations for his apparent volte-face range from revenge served cold, to the rumour that he would have voted yes if he got the appropriate assurances from Ryan about going to conference. My opinion of him was pretty low to begin with, mainly because of the Palin pick, although the more detailed stories that ran about his Vietnam captivity when he was diagnosed did impress me more than I had expected from the few facts I knew before. Apart from his war-mongering, which I know many here understandably hate and despise, can I ask how some of you are assessing him at the moment?

  475. McCain puzzles me. at times (like this week) he does seem to deserve the ‘maverick’ label; but other times he seems like little more than a petty, spiteful, grandstanding jerk.
    maybe it’s that he simply is a petty, spiteful, grandstanding jerk and what we see as the ‘maverick’ stuff is what happens when his spite makes him rail against the GOP at interesting times.
    IIRC, i was thinking he was someone i could vote for, when he ran for the GOP Pres nomination in 2000. but in 2008, he seemed bitter and petty.

  476. McCain puzzles me. at times (like this week) he does seem to deserve the ‘maverick’ label; but other times he seems like little more than a petty, spiteful, grandstanding jerk.
    maybe it’s that he simply is a petty, spiteful, grandstanding jerk and what we see as the ‘maverick’ stuff is what happens when his spite makes him rail against the GOP at interesting times.
    IIRC, i was thinking he was someone i could vote for, when he ran for the GOP Pres nomination in 2000. but in 2008, he seemed bitter and petty.

  477. Apart from his war-mongering, which I know many here understandably hate and despise, can I ask how some of you are assessing him at the moment?
    McCain has done much that I despise, and I think he’s a cranky old coot. But I’m eternally grateful that he voted against the Republican attempt to repeal the ACA. Maybe his illness allowed him to look seriously at what the bill would do to so many people.
    It’s impossible to imagine what living in a torture chamber for 6 years might do to a person – his strength in overcoming that experience is certainly admirable. I never admired his political career though – his reputation as a maverick was completely overblown. He voted for campaign finance reform in part (I think) because he wanted to shed the stigma of the Keating 5 scandal. His votes are almost 100% with the worst of the GOP.
    I hope that he continues to speak out against the Russian interference in the election (and, let’s face it, in current White House policy).
    I would never have considered voting for him but, again, he saved a lot of lives with his No vote, and I’ll be happy to remember him positively for that.

  478. Apart from his war-mongering, which I know many here understandably hate and despise, can I ask how some of you are assessing him at the moment?
    McCain has done much that I despise, and I think he’s a cranky old coot. But I’m eternally grateful that he voted against the Republican attempt to repeal the ACA. Maybe his illness allowed him to look seriously at what the bill would do to so many people.
    It’s impossible to imagine what living in a torture chamber for 6 years might do to a person – his strength in overcoming that experience is certainly admirable. I never admired his political career though – his reputation as a maverick was completely overblown. He voted for campaign finance reform in part (I think) because he wanted to shed the stigma of the Keating 5 scandal. His votes are almost 100% with the worst of the GOP.
    I hope that he continues to speak out against the Russian interference in the election (and, let’s face it, in current White House policy).
    I would never have considered voting for him but, again, he saved a lot of lives with his No vote, and I’ll be happy to remember him positively for that.

  481. GftNC: the rumour that he would have voted yes if he got the appropriate assurances from Ryan about going to conference.
    It’s hard to know what Ryan could have said that would have been adequately convincing.
    Also, which might be more critical, why anyone would believe Ryan on this, no matter what he said. Which is to say, I suspect that, if he couldn’t get something better (in his very-different-from-McCain’s view), Ryan would have slammed thru the “skinny repeal” bill of the Senate’s without a second thought.

  482. GftNC: the rumour that he would have voted yes if he got the appropriate assurances from Ryan about going to conference.
    It’s hard to know what Ryan could have said that would have been adequately convincing.
    Also, which might be more critical, why anyone would believe Ryan on this, no matter what he said. Which is to say, I suspect that, if he couldn’t get something better (in his very-different-from-McCain’s view), Ryan would have slammed thru the “skinny repeal” bill of the Senate’s without a second thought.

  483. cleek: IIRC, i was thinking he was someone i could vote for, when he ran for the GOP Pres nomination in 2000. but in 2008, he seemed bitter and petty.
    Ditto.

  484. cleek: IIRC, i was thinking he was someone i could vote for, when he ran for the GOP Pres nomination in 2000. but in 2008, he seemed bitter and petty.
    Ditto.

  485. i was thinking he was someone i could vote for, when he ran for the GOP Pres nomination in 2000. but in 2008, he seemed bitter and petty.
    the Bushes stripped the bark off of him (to coin a phrase) in 2000, notably in SC. stuff like that can make you bitter and petty, depending. and in 2008, he somehow found himself lumbered with Sarah Palin as a running mate.
    plus, he’s 80, and in more or less constant physical distress.
    my general impression of McCain is that he has spent his senatorial career trying to walk the fine line between his personal basic decency, and his ambition. that’d be a challenge for anyone.

  486. i was thinking he was someone i could vote for, when he ran for the GOP Pres nomination in 2000. but in 2008, he seemed bitter and petty.
    the Bushes stripped the bark off of him (to coin a phrase) in 2000, notably in SC. stuff like that can make you bitter and petty, depending. and in 2008, he somehow found himself lumbered with Sarah Palin as a running mate.
    plus, he’s 80, and in more or less constant physical distress.
    my general impression of McCain is that he has spent his senatorial career trying to walk the fine line between his personal basic decency, and his ambition. that’d be a challenge for anyone.

  487. Also, too, health care.
    This problem has been solved 20 different ways. Pick one and move on.
    And yes, I know we’re very very special and not like the other countries. So what? Every other country is very very special and not like the other countries, but they somehow don’t let that get in the way of figuring this crap out.
    Only we have managed to find a way to pay more than anyone, yield a mediocre result, and then fight about it all day every day.
    Pick one and move on, for god’s sake. Or chop them all up, throw the bits in a big box, and cobble together our own Swiss-German-French-Slovenian-Swedish-UK-Canadian health care salad. Just freaking do it, so we can live our freaking lives and get some other things done.

  488. Also, too, health care.
    This problem has been solved 20 different ways. Pick one and move on.
    And yes, I know we’re very very special and not like the other countries. So what? Every other country is very very special and not like the other countries, but they somehow don’t let that get in the way of figuring this crap out.
    Only we have managed to find a way to pay more than anyone, yield a mediocre result, and then fight about it all day every day.
    Pick one and move on, for god’s sake. Or chop them all up, throw the bits in a big box, and cobble together our own Swiss-German-French-Slovenian-Swedish-UK-Canadian health care salad. Just freaking do it, so we can live our freaking lives and get some other things done.

  489. It’s hard to know what Ryan could have said that would have been adequately convincing.
    Nothing that Ryan could say would be ironclad. Under House rules, any member may make a motion that the House concur with Senate changes to a bill, and the motion must be voted on. At best, Ryan would be saying that (a) he thinks the Dems would vote against such a motion and (b) he thinks he has sufficient control of his caucus to know that they won’t pass such a motion.
    Most state legislatures have similar rules. Unexpected things can happen. One year while I was part of the Colorado legislature’s budget staff, someone in the House jumped up when the big budget bill came back from the Senate with small changes and moved the House concur. One of the members of the Joint Budget Committee had to get up and explain that an important thing that happened in the conference committee was that assorted small errors that had been found by the staff would be corrected (you try to assemble what is basically a 400-page table that gets changed dozens of times through an odd formal syntax, with changes having to be manually entered, often in the middle of the night, and not let any small errors sneak in). The motion to concur failed and we got our chance to fix things.

  490. It’s hard to know what Ryan could have said that would have been adequately convincing.
    Nothing that Ryan could say would be ironclad. Under House rules, any member may make a motion that the House concur with Senate changes to a bill, and the motion must be voted on. At best, Ryan would be saying that (a) he thinks the Dems would vote against such a motion and (b) he thinks he has sufficient control of his caucus to know that they won’t pass such a motion.
    Most state legislatures have similar rules. Unexpected things can happen. One year while I was part of the Colorado legislature’s budget staff, someone in the House jumped up when the big budget bill came back from the Senate with small changes and moved the House concur. One of the members of the Joint Budget Committee had to get up and explain that an important thing that happened in the conference committee was that assorted small errors that had been found by the staff would be corrected (you try to assemble what is basically a 400-page table that gets changed dozens of times through an odd formal syntax, with changes having to be manually entered, often in the middle of the night, and not let any small errors sneak in). The motion to concur failed and we got our chance to fix things.

  491. I find it hard not to believe that McCain is a conceited old coot more interested in his own reputation than any particular policy or it’s effects. At the same time I’m aware that could be quite unfair; people are, after all,morally complicated beings.
    What has become clear is that his vote to allow the substantive vote on the bill has effectively and completely scotched the whole thing in a way that not allowing it to the floor would not have done.
    Was that a deliberate plan ? I have no idea.
    There is an interesting take over at the Atlantic what do people think ?
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/mccain-goes-high/535218/
    (I suspect the count will disagree with it – but it does remind me that Imwas quite wrong in my predictions about what would happen.)

  492. I find it hard not to believe that McCain is a conceited old coot more interested in his own reputation than any particular policy or it’s effects. At the same time I’m aware that could be quite unfair; people are, after all,morally complicated beings.
    What has become clear is that his vote to allow the substantive vote on the bill has effectively and completely scotched the whole thing in a way that not allowing it to the floor would not have done.
    Was that a deliberate plan ? I have no idea.
    There is an interesting take over at the Atlantic what do people think ?
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/mccain-goes-high/535218/
    (I suspect the count will disagree with it – but it does remind me that Imwas quite wrong in my predictions about what would happen.)

  493. he somehow found himself lumbered with Sarah Palin as a running mate.
    Hmmm. He found himself lumbered with her because he chose her, some say in a (characteristic, apparently) fit of pique after his advisors vetoed his first choice. To this day, even with the corrupt moron in the White House, I find the thought of her as VP unconscionable.
    But I agree – I should have made clear that in his earlier incarnation, reading articles from the Straight Talk Express, and seeing him on the Daily Show, I thought him a decent sort who, despite being a Republican, might not be a disaster in the White House. That was why I was so confounded by so much of his behaviour during his 2008 campaign.
    And I am still confounded, after the events of the past week. But thank you all for your reflections and opinions, which I by no means wish to stop!

  494. he somehow found himself lumbered with Sarah Palin as a running mate.
    Hmmm. He found himself lumbered with her because he chose her, some say in a (characteristic, apparently) fit of pique after his advisors vetoed his first choice. To this day, even with the corrupt moron in the White House, I find the thought of her as VP unconscionable.
    But I agree – I should have made clear that in his earlier incarnation, reading articles from the Straight Talk Express, and seeing him on the Daily Show, I thought him a decent sort who, despite being a Republican, might not be a disaster in the White House. That was why I was so confounded by so much of his behaviour during his 2008 campaign.
    And I am still confounded, after the events of the past week. But thank you all for your reflections and opinions, which I by no means wish to stop!

  495. I respected McCain at some point in the far past, but those days are gone.
    However, I’m happy to be wrong and have my opinions shot out the window. After all, when I’m wrong, the world somehow is a better place.

  496. I respected McCain at some point in the far past, but those days are gone.
    However, I’m happy to be wrong and have my opinions shot out the window. After all, when I’m wrong, the world somehow is a better place.

  497. I respected McCain at some point in the far past, but those days are gone.
    I respect him for his vote on Friday. I respect him because he endured a terrible ordeal in fighting for our country (in a cause that was horribly wrong, which he supported, but still).
    I think it boils down to the fact that he’s not very smart. He may well not have known what a wacko Sarah Palin was. Although there was a long trail of evidence, most people who knew about her thought of her as a mavericky young, attractive woman governor from Alaska who had placed a jet up for sale on Ebay. It was all good, he probably thought! I was terrified (before I knew anything about her) that she would be an asset to his campaign. Once her real self was revealed, it was a whole different kind of terror.
    Anyway, if he’d been truly mavericky, he could have done some good shutting down McConnell’s obstruction agenda against Obama. But he was bitter and angry that Obama won, and couldn’t seem to get over it.
    Like all of us will someday do, he is nearing the end of his life. He did a good thing last week, and I thank him for it, and I will refrain from hating him.

  498. I respected McCain at some point in the far past, but those days are gone.
    I respect him for his vote on Friday. I respect him because he endured a terrible ordeal in fighting for our country (in a cause that was horribly wrong, which he supported, but still).
    I think it boils down to the fact that he’s not very smart. He may well not have known what a wacko Sarah Palin was. Although there was a long trail of evidence, most people who knew about her thought of her as a mavericky young, attractive woman governor from Alaska who had placed a jet up for sale on Ebay. It was all good, he probably thought! I was terrified (before I knew anything about her) that she would be an asset to his campaign. Once her real self was revealed, it was a whole different kind of terror.
    Anyway, if he’d been truly mavericky, he could have done some good shutting down McConnell’s obstruction agenda against Obama. But he was bitter and angry that Obama won, and couldn’t seem to get over it.
    Like all of us will someday do, he is nearing the end of his life. He did a good thing last week, and I thank him for it, and I will refrain from hating him.

  499. I saw a video pf McCain casting his vote. He orchestrated it for maximum drama. He didnt vote when the Ms were called. In fact, he wast even in the room at that time. He waited until the P’s then wandered in and interrupted, them gave a big thumbs down gesture and walked out.
    It was obviously staged for maximum play. But who was his audience? WHo was he trying to impress? I think that would have to be the press, because he does not have to think about voters any more. I cant see that he would want to please dems. He might be actin on principle, but he failed to do taht so many times befoe…he’s not so much a maverick as a bad shot who occassionally shoots in the right direction.
    So I think he was trying to establish his memory. He wants everyoen to think of him as the hero who showed his love of principle and bipartisanship by voting no.
    There the possibility that he might now become more consistant in his stands adn he might be a leader away from extermism and toward bipartisanship.
    I’m not holding my beath but it is a possibility.
    Also there was a distinct fuck you in the way he turned his back on mcConnel

  500. I saw a video pf McCain casting his vote. He orchestrated it for maximum drama. He didnt vote when the Ms were called. In fact, he wast even in the room at that time. He waited until the P’s then wandered in and interrupted, them gave a big thumbs down gesture and walked out.
    It was obviously staged for maximum play. But who was his audience? WHo was he trying to impress? I think that would have to be the press, because he does not have to think about voters any more. I cant see that he would want to please dems. He might be actin on principle, but he failed to do taht so many times befoe…he’s not so much a maverick as a bad shot who occassionally shoots in the right direction.
    So I think he was trying to establish his memory. He wants everyoen to think of him as the hero who showed his love of principle and bipartisanship by voting no.
    There the possibility that he might now become more consistant in his stands adn he might be a leader away from extermism and toward bipartisanship.
    I’m not holding my beath but it is a possibility.
    Also there was a distinct fuck you in the way he turned his back on mcConnel

  501. But who was his audience? Who was he trying to impress? I think that would have to be the press, because he does not have to think about voters any more.
    I think you got it closer later, when you said:
    I think he was trying to establish his memory.
    I think at this point he is only playing to historians of the future. Even the press doesn’t matter to him that much any more.
    And I think one of the things that he cares about is maintaining the traditions and customs of the Senate as an institution. That was why his attitude towards McConnell at the end. McConnell pissed on Senate tradition by refusing to even hold hearings on Garland. He could have just held the hearings, held a vote, and probably gotten a negative anyway. But he chose to trash tradition.
    And then there was the way he created this (several versions, actually) health care bill. That isn’t how the Senate traditionally does things. And it was a golden opportunity to show McConnell just how much he was shooting himself in the foot by getting cute.

  502. But who was his audience? Who was he trying to impress? I think that would have to be the press, because he does not have to think about voters any more.
    I think you got it closer later, when you said:
    I think he was trying to establish his memory.
    I think at this point he is only playing to historians of the future. Even the press doesn’t matter to him that much any more.
    And I think one of the things that he cares about is maintaining the traditions and customs of the Senate as an institution. That was why his attitude towards McConnell at the end. McConnell pissed on Senate tradition by refusing to even hold hearings on Garland. He could have just held the hearings, held a vote, and probably gotten a negative anyway. But he chose to trash tradition.
    And then there was the way he created this (several versions, actually) health care bill. That isn’t how the Senate traditionally does things. And it was a golden opportunity to show McConnell just how much he was shooting himself in the foot by getting cute.

  503. Apparently, Lieberman and Biden (whose son had the same kind of cancer as McCain) both lobbied him to oppose…

  504. Apparently, Lieberman and Biden (whose son had the same kind of cancer as McCain) both lobbied him to oppose…

  507. I’m of two minds. Maybe he
    1. Decided he just wanted totally stick it to Trump and this was a great chance.
    or
    2. Decided it was truly unconscionable, especially given the medical treatment he was getting, to vote to deny it to others.
    or
    3. Something else.
    Three minds, I guess.

  508. I’m of two minds. Maybe he
    1. Decided he just wanted totally stick it to Trump and this was a great chance.
    or
    2. Decided it was truly unconscionable, especially given the medical treatment he was getting, to vote to deny it to others.
    or
    3. Something else.
    Three minds, I guess.

  511. New Rules For Making It In Hollywood
    Actors. More actors are making more money with huge audiences…and you never heard of them because they work for Crackle, Youtube, gc90, cellphone ads. Okay, they also crossover back and forth with Amazon, SyFy.
    “I went into an audition a few weeks ago, and the first thing they asked me was how many followers I had.”
    “The videos that I post every day are averaging 7 million views per day,” he says. “And I post one of those a day. I spend an average of $200 a day to make that. The Disney show that I’m on, they spend $2 million over the course of five days to create one episode that gets 1.7 million views.”
    He gets his audience on personality, style, individuality, difference. “Abstractions” or reifications or objectifications are now commodities carrying value which can be accumulated. Is accumulated and aggregated (historical) value-carrying bodies the source of Disney’s advantage?
    These actors have political power, a little, just a little. They tell the director “my character wouldn’t do that” and sometimes they lose, but sometimes they get met halfway. So feminism or gay rights and yeah racism and patriarchy get reproduced.

  512. New Rules For Making It In Hollywood
    Actors. More actors are making more money with huge audiences…and you never heard of them because they work for Crackle, Youtube, gc90, cellphone ads. Okay, they also crossover back and forth with Amazon, SyFy.
    “I went into an audition a few weeks ago, and the first thing they asked me was how many followers I had.”
    “The videos that I post every day are averaging 7 million views per day,” he says. “And I post one of those a day. I spend an average of $200 a day to make that. The Disney show that I’m on, they spend $2 million over the course of five days to create one episode that gets 1.7 million views.”
    He gets his audience on personality, style, individuality, difference. “Abstractions” or reifications or objectifications are now commodities carrying value which can be accumulated. Is accumulated and aggregated (historical) value-carrying bodies the source of Disney’s advantage?
    These actors have political power, a little, just a little. They tell the director “my character wouldn’t do that” and sometimes they lose, but sometimes they get met halfway. So feminism or gay rights and yeah racism and patriarchy get reproduced.

Comments are closed.