"Trump will destroy Medicare and Social Security" might do, as it appears to be true. https://t.co/Ign6jX3esH
— xpostfactoid (@xpostfactoid) December 20, 2016
I love my parents. One of the smartest and best things that I did for my relationship with them was moving six hundred miles away for college as I was a complete snot as a teenager. The distance allowed me to be less of an idiot while growing up without having them as a locally convenient authority figure to mindlessly but loudly rebel against.
One of my great pleasures as a parent is seeing my parents be grandparents. My mom tried to go bowling with the grand kids a few weeks ago. My dad spent most of a morning helping my son build a model so that it fly around the kitchen and living room while they tried to rescue stuffed animals and plastic figures. I laugh when I see my kids do something that harkens back to the grandparents’ curse — “May your children be just like you”. I look forward to calling home and telling my mom about what her granddaughter just did as I wait to hear her laugh at and with me.
I want them to visit. I want them to spend a week or two. I want them to be a part of my life and my kids’ lives. I want them to introduce the idea that ice cream can be dinner when it is Grandma’s Rules.
I also don’t want them to live with us as they age.
This I think is powerful messaging as to why the defined benefit nature of Social Security and Medicare need to be kept. I’m not a marketing person, but I think this is a valuable element.
schrodingers_cat
Wasn’t the poverty rate among seniors around 25% before Medicare? But we used to have nice things before the olds had economic security. Coincidence?
Hildebrand
I guess I still really don’t understand why the Republicans hate Social Security so completely. It makes no sense to me.
D58826
OT but it looks like the Comey letter smells even more than we thought.
The rest of the chain basically says the FBI had no probably cause and they played games with the dates to have maximum impact on the campaign. Wonder if Putin has something on Comey?
https://twitter.com/matthewamiller/status/811273069746683904
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Even higher before social security, of course.
Betty Cracker
Republicans will try to avoid political damage by grandfathering in current and near-retirees under the existing benefits scheme and sticking those of us who are still working stiffs with the shit sandwich in our dotage. I think Cole had it right when he said Democrats should tell the granny starvers that if changes to SS and Medicare are good enough for people under 55, they should be good enough for people already drawing benefits.
sherparick
Well, Trump and Ryan will bring back the extended family to the middle class, whether they want to or not. It has really never gone away for the poor. Good for literature, not necessarily for human happiness.
raven
We don’t have kids so it’s not an issue around here.
eclare
@D58826: I’ve also wondered about the Comey/Putin connection…
SenyorDave
I no longer have any faith in messaging in the traditional sense. The main message of HRC’s campaign was that Trump is an amoral pig who has no qualifications to be a county commissioner, much less POTUS. He had a history showing he is an amoral pig as well as the predator tape, and three debates where he was unmasked as totally uninformed and incoherent. People knew who he was, and he still got 60+ million people to vote for him.
schrodingers_cat
@sherparick: Tell me about it. You know who it is the worst for? The women of the family. There is a reason for all those Saas-Bahu dramas on Indian TV
Saas-Bahu (MIL-DIL)
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: True but it was post LBJ, with the advent of Nixon that our politics became so cray cray.
This coincided with both the passage of civil rights legislation and Medicare.
Feathers
Whenever I hear people bitching about Social Security I point out that the reason we have Social Security is so that your mother in law doesn’t have to come live with you. Then they start to get it.
I had a professor who always would point out that behind every moral panic is a technology shift. The need for Social Security, Medicare and the rest of the government social services net comes from the shift from a land based farming economy to an urban/factory based wage economy. When the economy was land based, you would let your children take over the farm when you got to old to work and they would care for you as part of the cost of getting the land. This carried over to greater and lesser degrees to tenants working large farms. When the economy shifted to a capitalist wage system, there were supposed to be pensions, but of course not enough companies had them or the company went bankrupt, so Social Security came along. But now the lords of the universe seem to have forgotten that Social Security was the deal which meant that their capital was no longer responsible for the support of former workers in their old age, and it is just another pile of money which they haven’t stolen… yet.
Cermet
@Hildebrand: Simple: as the population ages, the costs associated with these programs increase but the work force (source of money) can not then keep pace; hence, new sources will be tapped – i.e., the rich will be forced to pay more into the system. That is NEVER tolerated by the rich – period. They know its coming so they know the programs MUST, at all cost, be terminated (or only pay out what the poor put in, less taxes, and money’s paid to the rich through a vast system of rules.) The old saying that the rich get the gold and the poor the shaft is countered by these programs – so, the thugs, following their real masters, want to end these programs.
? Martin
@schrodingers_cat: Higher. Estimated between 35% and 40% – no real data on it though.
Interestingly, I just learned that nearly half of all poor americans live in the former Confederate states. I didn’t realize it was that lopsided. Sometimes I wonder if economics and not evolution should be the battleground for classroom instruction.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker:
I also think these are the right noises to make.
Gretchen
Weiner and Abedin both say they didn’t get a copy of the warrant. Did one even exist?
Pogonip
@Hildebrand: Me either. Republicans get old too.
schrodingers_cat
What offends me the post of the election of the Orange Crush is the sheer stupid that made it possible. And I am looking at you too Bernie or busters.
Archon
I’m sure to some hardcore ideological conservatives getting rid of social security and Medicare is the endgame. For your everyday elected Republican official the name of the game is corporate plunder at the expense of the taxpayer and/or bondholder.
That’s why I think the final Medicare “reform” bill will something similar to Big Pharma and the drug prescription bill. You will see a bill written by health insurance companies to privately insure seniors. And to make sure poor ole Grandma doesn’t have to pay for expensive health care the taxpayer will make up the difference, along with helping insurance companies make record margins in our new system.
Eljai
I was discussing what the rethuglicans have planned for Social Security and Medicare with a young co-worker. She mentioned that she didn’t expect it to be there when she retires. But I don’t think she grasps the larger picture. I’m trying to get her to realize (hopefully without sounding too shrill), that it’s not just about her. It’s about having to live with her parents again.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
I don’t think most people realize anymore that one of the biggest, most beneficial, & simplest poverty reduction programs of the last century was Social Security.
D58826
@Gretchen: a bit more on the story http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/20/fbi-warrant-gives-little-new-light-clinton-emails-comey-letter/95651778/
Mnemosyne
There’s a classic tearjerking film called Make Way For Tomorrow about an elderly couple that is forced to separate because none of their children are able to house both of them.
I guess we get to look forward to the Michael Bay remake about how the parents are just whiners who should be grateful that their beneficent children are willing to house them rather than letting them die in the street.
hitchhiker
None of us alive right now really know what it’s like when there isn’t an automatic safety net for elderly people. All of them have access to hospitals and doctors and medicine. Almost all of them get a check in the mail once a month.
Take that away instantly, and it’s chaos. Take it away over time, and the assumption is “something will work out.” What’s incredible is that anybody anywhere would look at the Republican record on fiscal responsibility and assume that they have the inclination or the will to ensure that something does work out.
They won’t.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
THIS. And when the GOP noise and disinformation machine tries to crank up to spew misdirection, deflection, and lies – keep shouting louder and LOUDER AND ! LOUDER ! this same, simple talking point back at them. It has the tactical upper-hand of not just clear simplicity, but appeals strongly to both logic and emotion simultaneously. And it’s the other side that’s left trying to explain a notion both much more complex and much less emotionally appealing.
azlib
@Betty Cracker:
Grandfathering is tantamount to destroying the program because current cashflow from those working pays for the benefits of those retired. Moreover, the increase in SS taxes in the early 1980s was sold as money needed to pay for the baby boomer bulge. Younger folks should not be happy their taxes are being used to pay current grandfathered benefits while their own future benefits are being cut.
Chris
@Hildebrand:
Republicans hate the notion of anyone having a safety net that they can depend on simply because they’re a citizen, and for no other reason. They realize that there will be people who have to depend on others in their old age (i.e. most people), but they want these people to be dependent on the right people – which is to say, if not their families, then the bosses who decide their pensons and the churches who will have a monopoly on charity. That dependence then becomes a tool with which to control your behavior. Want to be able to live in your old age? Then never put a toe out of line at work! Need charity? Then I’d better see you in the pews singing loudly every Sunday morning! And none of this “being gay” or “controlling your own body” or drinking alcohol shit! Etc.
Every time the safety net provides something like retirement security to everyone as a right, that’s one less tool that these people have to control their fellow citizens. And because they’re control freaks and sadists, they hate it for that.
cmorenc
@Feathers:
THIS TOO. Clear in its simplicity, and appeals strongly to both logic and emotions simultaneously. And leaves the other side in the position of trying to explain arguments that are both much more complex and unappealing emotionally.
Chris
@? Martin:
Oh, yeah. It was freaking bad. The South was a goddamn disaster for decades after Reconstruction even if you were white, with very few exceptions.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
The huffy statement I’m hearing from the heroic right wing vanguard of financial service product providers, insurance agents, doctors and engineers is that “those under 55 have time to plan for their retirements”, which is why those older will gave to suffer under the insidious Ponzi-like socialism of Social Security and Medicare. My response has been that they should enjoy the miraculous market miracles of Capitalism, just like me.
Reality is, looking at the appointees, we’re fucked. There’s no pressure that AARP can leverage that will change the plans of a Mulvaney or Mnuchin or Ryan. They’re going to do it, because this is their shot, and they’re going to zap all of it.
Thanks, Bernie. Thanks a fucking bunch. I hope my RWNJ racist piece of shit grandmother enjoyed her 5 decades of social security despite never having worked, and all of those decades of procedures from hysterectomies to hip replacements courtesy of Medicare.
NR
@schrodingers_cat:
Exhibit A of this is the highly paid political consultants who took a billion dollars and set it on fire in the Clinton campaign. Bernie or Busters got nothin on them.
Mnemosyne
@azlib:
I am 47 years old, and I would definitely be filing a federal lawsuit to stop paying my Social Security and Medicare taxes if I’m not going to get any future benefits. Fuck. That.
catclub
@Hildebrand: It is government doing something right.
It is government dependence. They hate these in principle.
The strange thing is, old voters are STILL not purely Democratic votes, even if they know that only the Democrats support SS and medicare as programs.
D58826
@Chris: I saw a twitter comment string about der Fuhrur’s plan to destroy the VA. One commenter thought it was a great idea and long overdue. Needless to say he got instant push back. His response was – Well but but but did not really mean all those folks that the VA is really helping. He just wants to eliminate the cheats and deadbeats. The push back never did convince him that the dead beat population is small and that more people would be hurt just to punish the few.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
See, you managed to trigger the troll’s Google Alert by using the name of His Personal Jesus.
Capri
Getting rid of the social safety net and the department of education and environmental protections and on and on) is what every single GOP candidate clearly stated as their ultimate goal. Why is everyone so surprised now?
Botsplainer
@NR:
Fuck you. Go die.
D58826
@Botsplainer:
Actually it just gives the vultures more time to pick people pockets.
Botsplainer
@Mnemosyne:
I get to file Schedule C. I have options…
mai naem mobile
I turned the TV on the other day and the channel I had turned it off on now had the Andy Williams Christmas Special on with the Osmonds and some other entertainers. I only watched for a few minutes.I am guessing it was either from the late 60s/early 70s. Anyway what really struck me was how white the whole show was. Really white. Total contrast to what you see on teevee today. There weren’t even olive complexioned people on. The thought occurred to me that that’s what is scaring the Trumpkins. That’s why they voted for Lumpy.
D58826
@Botsplainer: Now Now its Christmas week. show a bit of charity – NR go die.
Botsplainer
@D58826:
Yup. Picture, if you will, a rerouting to a mandatory short list of “approved” investment programs.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: Lotsa luck with that. All SS forms tell you that the payout amount is under the control of this and future congresses. Nothing is guaranteed.
D58826
@mai naem mobile:
I was watching the Burt Lancaster flick Airport and was struck by the same thing. All white, mostly male, white shirts, ties and short hair.
NR
@Botsplainer: No. But thanks for caring.
NR
@schrodingers_cat: Here are the people you really should be angry at: Garbage In, Garbage Out: Turns Out Clinton’s Ground Game Sucked.
cmorenc
@SenyorDave:
Something the MSM’s prominent publicity of Trump’s rallies to throngs of enthusiastic supporters tends to mislead we progressives about is that a huge portion of the electorate who ended up voting for Trump did so rather reluctantly, because they bought into the notion that Clinton was the stinkier of two huge steaming turds the electorate was offered as the only viable choices. In short, their support for Trump is very shallow and tentative, and many of the voters in this category will become much more easily dislodged into disaffection with him as they see shit hit the fan and begin splattering in their direction. The perception that the establishment was showering regular folk with crap, and the easily-sold notion Hillary was the establishment personified, was precisely how they were primed to reluctantly vote for him in the first place.
Chris
@catclub:
Exactly this, for the reasons I put below. Government safety nets are as much an infringement on their prerogatives as things like universal suffrage.
Mnemosyne
@Botsplainer:
I get a paycheck. If I’m not going to get any of those benefits in the future, I want them to stop withholding it from my paycheck altogether. If old people wanted to live off my dime, they shouldn’t have voted for Trump.
Apologies to the many over-65ers here who most emphatically did not vote for Trump, but you need to understand where I’m coming from. I’ve been paying into this system since I was 12 years old, and now I not only get jack shit, I’m supposed to hand my money over to the very people who voted for me to get screwed? No thank you. Not today.
hovercraft
The tragedy of this is that we are currently in the midst of an explosion of autism at he bottom of the demographic tree, and Alzheimer’s at the top. These are both conditions that require a great deal of support, right at the time when the GOP has ascended to full control of the government. Cutting wasteful spending sounds great till these people realize that it’s the money that’s paying to keep Grandma and Grandpa in that nursing home that’s being cut, block grants to the states will quickly disappear into their General Funds and soon be given to corporations and the job creators as tax incentives. Little Johnny will no longer qualify for those state subsidized therapy sessions, and those state services that help you cope with your severely disabled child will be a thing of the past. What do you mean you need to stay home to look after your child, can’t have that, you already have one unproductive person if your household, you need to get out there and work, so the rest of us aren’t carrying your burden. Government is not a business, it is a contract between it’s citizens to provide basic security to all. If this group of savages enacts all of their wet dreams, the damage they do will be incalculable in terms of human life. There have been so many tragic murder suicide stories where care givers have decided that their loved one had suffered enough, or where they were ill themselves and didn’t want to leave their loved one behind with out a caregiver. I can’t remember the details but a few years ago I read about a man who had been married to his wife for over fifty years, she had dementia, and he had terminal cancer, so he killed her and then himself, in his note he said they had done everything together for most of their lives, and no one could look after her the way he could.
I can say from personal experience that he’s right, we nursed my father through the last year of Alzheimer’s, my mother, sister and I, and it was terrible, emotionally and physically, I can’t imagine having to do that alone, but these are the ‘things’ that cost the most. I have a neighbor who has identical twin teen boys who are severely mentally disabled, they don’t have speech, and have limited understanding, they are picked up every weekday and taken to daycare, one of them Michael, manages it seems every year to “escape’, he eventually makes it back home, he arrives usually in a police car covered in a blanket, because as soon as he makes his scape he strips, so he’s running around time naked. Given our limited resources and shitty training, how long before some trigger happy person/cop gets scared and shoots him for not following directions. ( The boys are huge, well over 6 foot, and they are blah, both their parents are police officers, but in Newark, not here.)
My mother lives with me, and for me it’s a great help, there are times when I have to remind her that I’m a grown woman, but on balance it’s a plus. Many/most people could not do this, I get it. But we made a choice, many people don’t/won’t have a choice, and that is what we need to get through to these small government morons, the governments job is to ensure the welfare of it’s people, corporations are not people, if anyone should be left to fend for themselves it’s them not the people. The Randians got this wrong, they think we are here to serve business.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
I’m willing to try, and to make a big public stink about it. I want all of these retired Trumpers to explain to me why they’re allowed to mooch off my hard work.
JMG
@Mnemosyne: They think they’re getting back only what they themselves paid. Selfishness always has a rationalization.
rikyrah
@D58826:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Botsplainer
@mai naem mobile:
I remember some people kind of losing their shit over inclusion of PoC in TV as the 60s wound closed and the 70s proceeded. Cosby had two runs in the early to mid 60s – Hikky Burr and I Spy. You get a lot of nothing until Mod Squad. Then, Lear writes the Jeffersons into the Archie Bunker lexicon, and everything explodes from there. I call it The Cambrian Expansion of PoC in television – The Jeffersons, Good Times, What’s Happening, etc.
But yeah, TV was super white prior to that.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
He had it absolutely right
gbbalto
@NR: When are you going to run for office yourself to show us all up?
Botsplainer
@Mnemosyne:
I’d happily smack the tapioca spoon from the mouth of any Trump voting oldster…
Mnemosyne
@JMG:
Then they don’t need my money to keep being paid in, do they? It should be fine for me to keep it, because they don’t need it since they already paid in.
(Note: I do know how Social Security works. That’s why I’m so pissed at these fucking morons right now.)
bemused senior
I’d love to see 55 year olds suddenly have to plan for a retirement without soc sec and Medicare. Mr. Bemused Senior just went through a three month period of unemployment looking for a new job after a large layoff, and I can tell you it wasn’t easy to find another job at age 62. He is a truly great software engineer with very up to date skills. This happens all too often in Silicon Valley. 55 is not a good time to change financial planning. Your kids are in college, or they face underemployment with no benefits. In our case our daughter and her family live with us, because a teacher salary is not enough to afford housing and insurance. They rely on us, they aren’t supporting us.
hovercraft
My afternoon alert of the most popular most read from the Washington Post
‘I’m such a failure right now’: A mom pleads on Craigslist for Christmastime help
For the first time, this mother might not be able to afford gifts for her six kids — a holiday dilemma for many poor and working-class families.
By Theresa Vargas • Read more »
Trump’s OMB pick seems poised to ignite a worldwide financial crisis
He’s content to default on our debt — and that’s dangerous.
By Catherine Rampell • Opinions • Read more »
The Daily 202: Donald Trump embraces the risky ‘Madman Theory’ on foreign policy
A flamethrower, not a firefighter, inherits a world that is on fire
By James Hohmann • Read more »
WASF
Elizabelle
@NR: Go to hell.
Go dance on someone else’s corpse.
You are abhorrent.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: You obvious do not understand the miracle of the Randian free market system. (yes that is snark)
I truly do not understand these folks. When you have a congress critter BRAGGING about how he tried to save a few bucks on an ER visit by having his son wait 12 hours before getting his broken arm fixed, then I think it’s a lost cause.
Mnemosyne
@Botsplainer:
TV viewers freaked the fuck out when Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte on the arm while they were singing a duet. In 1968.
gex
How do we make this work? This has been on the GOP wish list for forever. W. tried it. Ryan has explicit plans for it. They simply believe the GOP will not follow through.
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
And then they’ll say “Okay, we’ll cut everybody’s SS.”
Isn’t it better we all stick together and fight changes, rather than telling them “Oh, if you’re going to change SS and Medicare, make sure you change it for everybody.”
NR
@Elizabelle: Posting facts is abhorrent now? So much for the reality-based community.
NR
@gbbalto: “Um, Mr. Engineer? That bridge you designed? It just collapsed.”
“Yeah, well, can YOU do any better?”
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
This is but one story of millions that will be harmed by the GOP.
? Martin
@Chris: That wasn’t past tense – that is NOW. Right now, nearly half of the poor people in America live below the line drawn from Virginia to Texas.
RSA
@hovercraft:
As a caregiver, you probably already know this, from the Alzheimer’s Association:
That doesn’t even include opportunity costs. Republicans don’t think such numbers are high enough.
? Martin
@NR:
They literally set it on fire? You have an odd definition of ‘facts’.
Elizabelle
@NR: There’s reality and there’s sadistic.
You are the latter.
I think it’s becoming a character issue for John Cole and the blog that you are allowed to be here.
You are sheerly cruel. You do not belong here.
Fuck off.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
We can do both: no changes unless it changes for everyone. No tweaking. Either they kill it outright or they leave it the fuck alone.
Elizabelle
@? Martin: How much of that is just population density?
Although I don’t doubt that being in the former Confederate states is also causative.
gvg
I think this may not be the best message for all. Frankly I grew up expecting my parents to have to live with me at some point because my grandmother had to live with my aunt for at least 15 years after her strokes began, she was in a wheelchair. My sister were discussing it before we were out of school, her in elementary me in high school. we thought it would be best if we lived close to each other because my aunt ended up with the entire burden due to my dad having to be hours away for a job and the other uncle chose to not help.
that doesn’t mean it will be all smooth and joy, but I have always expected it. Additionally it is the rest of the family’s prediction that my dad would get depressed and not take care of himself if mom goes first. He has a touchy stomach and really hates eating, plus diabetes. also probably prone to depression when alone judging from a few vacations and such. Mom is having health issues.
I think the Republican antitax idiots have done such a good brain washing job on the population that many perhaps most people just accept that SS won’t be there when they retire and they have been saying that to me for 20 years at least. Random people leaning both ways just seem to accept that like the sun coming up in the east and haven’t even noticed that its been 20 years since I first heard you saying it and SS is still here. Nor do they notice the only reason it’s in danger is the idiot republicans keep trying to end it. this belief is really widespread and apparently learned so young that people can’t seem to see that it doesn’t need to be true if you just make sure we all vote smart. My dad says he made charts and calculations to show other engineers 40 years ago that SS was a better investment than private stock and pensions but he couldn’t get through to them then. Its brainwashing.
Gin & Tonic
@NR: We like reality. We just don’t like you.
JMG
Medicare and Social Security are very popular. So is Medicaid to a lesser degree (since it’s means-based, a lot of white people who don’t get it assume it’s just another program for minorities). Trump promised not to touch them. It’s on video. The ads should be running now. Republican Congresspeople should be getting unhappy phone calls. Democratic Congresspeople should be getting, “you’d better fight” phone calls. Letters to the editor (not comment threads) should be being written. People should be doing their best to frighten the hell out of their neighbors about this. Everybody gets sick. Most everybody gets old. Almost nobody makes enough money when younger to provide enough savings to live on when old.
germy
@Botsplainer:
I have fond memories of watching Julia back in the ’60s. Diahann Carroll. Of course, almost every episode was some white patient or another exclaiming “Wait… a black nurse???”
But she was great, and she was a groundbreaker in many ways.
Miss Bianca
@NR: So you’re pretty much admitting you don’t have what it takes to lead the charge/change you keep saying we need? Finally!
NR
@Elizabelle: Calling out your bullshit is not sadistic. You keep trying to blame people who weren’t at fault for the disaster that just happened. It’s not sadistic to point out that you’re wrong.
If anything, you guys are the cruel ones, because you want to assign blame to people who don’t deserve it while letting the real culprits off scot-free. That’s a pretty damn cruel thing to do.
Elizabelle
@gvg: Excellent post.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
Don’t forget, Russian interference in the election was no big deal. In fact, we should stop talking about it so there’s more room to whine about how Hillary was the worstest candidate ever.
Strange how the Berniebros and the Russians are so united in their hatred of Hillary. Almost like one group was getting propagandized and is too stupid to realize it …
Jeffro
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones):
Oh, they absolutely don’t. That’s why we’re even having this kind of debate – people have long since forgotten what life was like for seniors back in the Bad Ol’ Days. Very similar to forgetting what the Nazis were really about (and hence their resurgence as “white nationalists”).
Chris
@? Martin:
Oh, dear.
I misread. What I posted is still true, but while I knew the South was still pretty much the worst part of America, I didn’t realize it was still that lopsided.
And now white people all around the country are deciding that we all should be like the South. Goodie!
Elizabelle
@NR: Why don’t you leave this cruel blog?
You are sadistic. Go find another mud puddle. There is something wrong with you. Fuck off.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Yes. NR may be one of the stupid ones, here to tell us how stupid and cruel we are.
NR
@Elizabelle: You don’t know what “sadistic” means.
Again: pointing out that you are wrong about something isn’t sadistic.
? Martin
@Botsplainer: I grew up on Sesame Street which had black actors from day one. Unlike other kids shows that always looked like a farm or some other foreign place, Sesame Street looked like a city where I lived. Mod Squad and All in the Family were important, but it was Sesame Street that got preschoolers pre-wired for diversity. Electric Company and other PBS shows followed suit. (Seriously, how could you not come out as a better person with Morgan Freeman teaching you how to read).
Mnemosyne
@gvg:
Actually, the message is probably better the other way around, Ending Social Security means that you will end up living off your kids. Make it clear that an end to Social Security means an end to independence for retired people.
gene108
@Hildebrand:
When you are wedded to the idea that “government is the problem”, anything run by the government that’s been working for 80 years sort of undermines your claim.
Their whole governing philosophy is based on making sure the government they are running fails.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Yes, Hillary was the bestest candidate ever and ran a perfect campaign and anyone who disagrees is a Russian dupe.
tobie
@cmorenc: I think you’re right that his support in the election was broad but thin. The rallies are deceptive (though the uncritical broadcasting of them by the media is boosting his numbers).
FlipYrWhig
@NR: See, but your answer is “Have you considered _flying_ over the water instead? Bridges are NEOLIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT.”
gbbalto
@NR: I’m not claiming to be an authority on what works or doesn’t to get a candidate elected. You seem to be – why not put it to the test? If you’re not claiming to be an authority, why do you keep lecturing us?
FlipYrWhig
@gbbalto: “Someone else should do something different better” is the extent to which NR thinks about anything.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I think the word Elizabelle grasping for regarding your comments is “tedious.” Sadism at least has the interest of variety.
But, please, tell us more about how voter suppression, Russian interference, white racism, FBI meddling, and Berniebro whining had absolutely nothing to do with Hillary’s loss, and it was all about her total suckitude as a candidate. It’s pretty funny to watch you keep trying to keep your head above the flood of evidence to keep gasping out, Butbutbut it’s still all Hillary’s fault!
rawhide rawlins
@Major Major Major Major</
I paid out of every check my whole career, and now you think I should lose that? Even though you will stop paying?
Raven
@schrodingers_cat: right, it didn’t start with the assasination of the president.
Bnad
@Chris: This. Gets at a core reason for this that I’ve never thought of before.
Sad to think the reason is just straight out control and anti-fun, hatred of others’ joy. I always thought it was just to increase the supply of dignified old butlers.
Jeffro
@Hildebrand: Republicans hate Social Security because a) they can’t funnel all those investments through Wall Street and take a cut off the top, and b) (bigger picture) they think the government should provide for the national defense and protect property rights and that’s. it.
The truly radical folks in this country are the Randians, best exemplified by the Kochs*: they think government has no place telling business what to do, running schools, or even passing clean-water laws. Magically, it will all work out…and if their profits are trebled or quadrupled by this, then what a happy coincidence!
Of course, if the ‘magical’ solution ended up being citizens uniting, forming a government, and passing laws that kept businesses honest, created public schools, and ensured that the water was clean – all at the expense of the rich and business – well, then we’d better take things back to square one and try again folks(!) They just will not let it go that society progresses and that it progresses because we. work. together.
*btw any of y’all that haven’t already read “Dark Money” by Jane Mayer, please do…the story about the Kochs’ caregiver and, ahem, how she may have played a part in them being against authority in any form is kinda priceless!
randy khan
@NR:
Once again, I ask: So what do you want to do to going forward? Complaining about the Clinton campaign isn’t going to help, and if that’s all you do, you’re about as useful as the idiot electors who were pledge to Clinton but didn’t vote for her.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Jacobin? You actually think the white male sausage party at Jacobin would tell you that white racism gave Trump his victory?
Raven
@Mnemosyne: I want a pony
Jeffro
@Botsplainer:
Lear is probably 50% responsible for my cultural awareness/open-ness/progressive-ness…between The Jeffersons, Good Times, and What’s Happening, that was quite a bit of my “upbringing”. Then there was Alice & One Day at a Time (working women) and M*A*S*H (anti-war).
Fortunately, Dukes of Hazzard did not leave me with the wish to embrace the good ol’ boy life…I didn’t want to have to deal with Roscoe P. Coltrane, I guess…
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Unfortunately the FICA withholding (and employee match) are baked in and we wage-earners have no power to stop that. We can declare a ginormous # of exemptions on our W2 to lower income tax withholding, but there’s an underpants gnome dilemma when it comes time to file.
If you self-employ you can do whatever you want until that first audit.
(Yes, I get the overall point but the counterpoint is only the Truly Rich are above the rules. The rest of us are together, riding this zeppelin into the concrete.)
hovercraft
@gvg:
I think it’s a cultural issue. Depending on your ethnic background, how many generations removed you are from it, your expectations regarding elderly relatives differ. As an “African” American, my parents were both from Zimbabwe, the concept of not looking after them, is alien. When each of the kids was born my mother who was still living back home at the time, came for several months to help look after the babies, 7 months for the first, 9 for the second. It was a given that she would come and stay as long as necessary, Dad came to visit but did not stay the whole time. They have very few “homes” back there for the elderly, not looking after your elderly brings “shame” to your family. I know that many Asian families also live together as parents age. The thing is whether on not you do, should be a choice you make, not something that is forced on you by the government.
NR
@gbbalto: So in order to tell the difference between lead and gold, I have to be able to create both?
PST
@mai naem mobile:
I was having lunch in a Bennigan’s sort of restaurant in the Chicago loop when I read this. I looked up, and on each of the televisions over the bar, with three different channels, the talking head occupying the screen at that moment was black. That is by no means the norm, and they were all sports talk, which skews blacker than straight news, but it brought home how much has changed in my 60 years of watching television. I don’t mean to suggest for even a fraction of a second what a Trumpist might say: “and so there is no more racism.” But as I look around at the tables, lots of groups are multiracial. This place gets a lunch crowd of coworkers and those selling something treating those who buy, and these days the working stiffs downtown in major U.S. cities are no longer all white men. I don’t see any way we ever go all the way back to Andy Williams.
oatler.
Adult kids living at home is very common in southern Oregon and I’d guess most of the other states. Rent is quite impossible for anyone not making a very decent salary ( the kids), Ignore the Chamber of Commerce-ey newspaper articles about “14 surprisingly affordable brownstones in Brooklyn”.
schrodingers_cat
@Raven: Which one?
Kay
@NR:
They should go do it, then NR. Bernie raised plenty of money. He doesn’t need to direct the DNC. He can find and back a candidate to run in any of these Great Lakes states. No one will stop liberals from doing this. Elect a governor in Michigan or Wisconsin. Find a Left/labor candidate and back that person. Elect anyone using this method and approach. You’ll only need one governor and you’ll win the argument.
The Democratic Party proper is a low ebb in MI, WI and OH. It’s wide open. You’ll have two prominent backers in Ohio – Tim Ryan and Marcy Kaptur. Kaptur endorsed Sanders. She’s very active in candidate recruitment and she’s powerful among Ohio Democrats in the whole northern part of the state You don’t need permission from the Democratic Party or some national proclamation that the “platform” changed. It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t matter.
? Martin
@Elizabelle: That’s raw numbers so population density only applies as far as how it influences policy – the suggestion being that cities are better for economic growth and wages (which evidence supports).
So, I think you have a mix of issues here:
1) Lack of density leading to a lack of upward mobility. Fewer universities and large employers, for example. It would be nearly impossible to run a mid-large tech company out of Alabama, or even half the states in the south. That’s also true for places like Nebraska and Idaho, but the south seems to have a real concentration of these issues.
2) Right-to-work. No question the lack of organized labor hurts southern workers.
3) Regressive attitudes regarding taxation, safety nets, public health, etc. Some of that is changing in certain locations but is still prevalent.
So, some is structural, a lot is cultural. I’d put the California public university system up against the entire public/private systems in that region. Toss in Stanford, CalTech, and USC, and we have them down easily. You want to know why so much of the new economy is here in CA – that’s why. They need an educated workforce, and education is what pulls up wages.
Look at the list of states by BA/BS attainment (starting with the lowest):
West Virginia
Arkansas
Mississippi
Kentucky
Louisiana
Nevada
Alabama
Indiana
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Wyoming
Idaho
Ohio
South Carolina
Michigan
Iowa
South Dakota
Missouri
Florida
New Mexico
Texas
Arizona
Wisconsin
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
Alaska
Maine
First off, only NM and NV (edit) didn’t go for Trump, but every state in the south except for Virginia is in that list. Now the highest (highest first)
Massachusetts
Maryland
Colorado
Connecticut
New Jersey
Virginia
Vermont
New York
New Hampshire
Minnesota
Washington
Illinois
Rhode Island
California
Hawaii
Every one went for Clinton and only Virginia is in the south.
hovercraft
@ Martin:
Heck yeah !!
It’s all that freedom, and right to work, and cheap, housing, and labor. It allows you the right to negotiate for poverty wages with few if any benefits, with no stinkin union to steal half your wages. Oh yeah and very low if any state income taxes. Can you smell all that glorious freedom. Don’t worry America, the Shitgibbon and the Granny Starver will be trying to bring it to you very shortly.
ETA: I see you beat me to it.
Elizabelle
@? Martin: Thank you, Martin. That’s fascinating.
Mnemosyne
@Raven:
No. No, you really don’t.
(That’s from one of the all-time greatest half-hours of TV animation.)
mpem
@Mnemosyne: @JMG: What we paid in for 50 plus years and what you are paying in. Some of olds really do get it.
rikyrah
Will Trump’s OMB Director Blow Up the Global Economy?
by Martin Longman
December 20, 2016 12:36 PM
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post is worried that Mick Mulvaney will blow up the global economy by destroying the creditworthiness of the United States’ debt. It’s not an unreasonable concern considering that Mulvaney has been nominated to serve as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a position which is responsible for preparing the president’s budget proposal to Congress.
Mulvaney is most famous as a congressman for being a debt ceiling truther. That is, he joined irresponsible nutcases like Paul Ryan in arguing that the United States government could fail to make debt payments on time without defaulting on its debt or causing a downgrade in our nation’s credit rating.
Here’s how Ryan, who was then serving as the House Budget Committee chairman, put it in June 2011:
In early August 2011, Standard & Poor’s downgraded our credit rating simply because we had come so close to defaulting.
Here’s what Mulvaney said in October 2013:
Days later, Fitch Ratings issued a warning that “it could cut the sovereign credit rating of the United States from AAA, citing the political brinkmanship over raising the federal debt ceiling” and “Dagong Global Credit Rating downgraded the United States from A to A-, and maintained a negative outlook on the country’s credit.”
Since entering Congress, Mulvaney has never voted to raise the debt ceiling and has opposed all budget deals crafted to avoid default. He has consistently argued that that we can prioritize interest payments without doing damage to our credit or blowing up the global economy.
As Rampell notes, Mulvaney is out of his mind. And Trump is insane on this issue, too.
? Martin
And that last comment. West Virginia, I’m sorry to say, your economic plight isn’t because Obama hates coal, it’s because you never put cultural value on going to college and learning a set of skills that would allow you to do something other than coal. Why would a company want to set up in a state where half as many people go to college as the states in the bottom list?
trollhattan
@NR:
Now I see your problem: you believe you can “create” either. Go forth and sin no more.
rikyrah
@? Martin:
Interesting stats.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Well, I really mostly want the publicity. I’m not actually expecting to get the money back. I just want the government to be forced to explain in open court that they’re cheating me out of my money.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: Looking forward to the GOP vs GOP fight on this one, honestly
Mnemosyne
@NR:
You should at least be able to tell the difference between pyrite and gold before you start insisting that you know where all the gold is.
Shell
Theres a Japanese film called “The Ballad of Narayama.” Set in a 19th c. village that often experiences famine; the practice has developed where every 70 year old (healthy or not) must travel to a remote mountain to die of starvation. How long before the Republicans decide that isn’t such a bad idea.
Elizabelle
@Shell: So much for institutional memory, eh?
We could do a Famine FilmFest one night. Or not.
Mike in dc
So:
1. The FBI didn’t even have probable cause to get a warrant to search Humas laptop. Comey had less than zero standing to send a letter.
2. Various Hollywood moguls had copies of the Apprentice outtakes, with Trump freely using the N-word and disparaging women and minorities, but sat on it because they thought Clinton was a lock to win, and why risk getting sued?
3. Added to the previous bs with Russia, emails, and Wikileaks.
Christ. WASF.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: THIS! Democrats are copycats. Win an insurgent left campaign and you show everyone else how it can be done. It will be hard. People will oppose your candidate. She or he will have to overcome the headwinds in the process. That’s how it works. That’s how Jim Webb prevailed in a Senate primary over a Mark Warner protégé, and then he won the general. Unfortunately, then he was Jim Webb. But it can be done. Has it been done from the populist _left_? I’m not thinking of any examples of that. Pull it off and you have a playbook that changes the way Democrats run for office and maybe even how they act when they win. But win FIRST, as opposed to squawking about how winning is toooooo haaaaard and The Establishment is sooooooo meeeeeean.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Raven: Why settle for a pony, a unicorn or NOTHING!
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
Don’t forget Julia, with Diahann Carroll in the title role.
trollhattan
@? Martin: Got me curious and poking around I found the West Virginia Office of Mine Safety Health & Training. The 2015 report shows 13,000 underground and 3,000 surface miners, 30,000+ “independent contractor” employees (basically all the support bidnezes) and 1,900 coal handling facility employees. So for the entire state coal employs about 18k folks directly and another 30k for some fraction of their time. In the meantime, they have the nation’s lowest “civilian” labor force participation:49.1%.
Donny’s gonna fix all that.
randy khan
@ Martin:
Maine went for Clinton, too; it was just the one Congressional District that went to Trump.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
I believe we’ve found the problem.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Okay, that was pretty funny, I’ll give you that.
NR
@randy khan: Understanding the reasons why something happened is critical to making sure it doesn’t happen again in the future. When people want to blame the wrong things for a disaster, all they’re doing is helping ensure that disaster happens again (and again, and again, and again….)
Hillary Rettig
@Feathers: >I had a professor who always would point out that behind every moral panic is a technology shift
Astute, but I think it goes even deeper than fear of economic dislocation (altho that’s pretty deep) to fear of change itself. I once heard a speaker on the history of creationism in the U.S., and it seems to surge during periods of technological progress. The late 80s (after railroad, telegraph), Snopes trial during the 1920s (radio, films), and currently (the Internet and social media).
gex
@germy: The only way to keep them from using divide and conquer to get the olds to support cuts for everyone else is to threaten the olds’ social security. It’s not like we are the ones that want to cut it. It’s just that if the olds insist that it gets cut, they ought to be forced to cut theirs too.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Thank you for the textbook example of argument ad hominem.
Gindy51
@Hildebrand: FOR, a Democrat, brought it about. The GOP hates anything and everything the Democrats bring about even if it is their idea first…
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: wasn’t that based on Tokyo Story, an outstanding film? (or I could have it backwards)
SiubhanDuinne
@? Martin
Georgia is missing.
NR
@Kay: Not me personally, but this is what I want to see Democrats doing and will support.
BillinGlendaleCA
@hovercraft:
Maybe first generation; the kid’s sister hasn’t spoken to their father in over a year and the kid loves her father but wouldn’t want to live with him and her step-mom.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NR: Why are you still here?
Frank in midtown
You’re missing a coma, it should read “Love you, don’t want to live with you, Mom and Dad”
Mnemosyne
@Hillary Rettig:
Other way around — Tokyo Story‘s screenwriter was a big fan of the McCarey film.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Come on libs, there’s no point in getting hysterical. What’s the worst that could happen, it’s not like were talking about a doomsday machine or anything, the dear leader is a great negotiator and I’m sure he can talk his way out of any problem that arises.
Elizabelle
@NR: You just want to argue one topic, from one side, and we are all goddamned bored with it. Also disheartened, although I’m not sure how tuned you are in to emotions.
I think I have met your kind in offline life. People who feel they are so super intelligent they can deal with others only through the Socratic method. And only they are the teachers.
You are mean. And boring. Couldn’t you find a more amenable group to hang out with?
People who are miles smarter than us sheeple? You know you could. That’s a good boy.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I can’t help it, I laugh every single time you show your total lack of self-awareness like this.
ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Said this before, I fully agree. I also fully disagree, but that’s because I counted on that since the last time the assholes were in charge and fucked up the economy so bad that I lost everything. If you make them take away my SS benefits for the obviously proper reasons, I’ll have to move in with someone, or live on the street.
So I really don’t know what the proper thing to do is. Maybe those of us over 65, or even close shouldn’t have a say.
rikyrah
@PST:
.
That doesn’t mean that they don’t long for the delusional world of Mad Men.
ThresherK (tablet)
@Mnemosyne: I am sure there are plenty of 30s movies ripe for reexamininn. Tales of Manhattan follows a man’s dinner jacket in several vignettes until it ended up with a down-on-his-luck Edward G Robinson, and it helps him. (A Warner Bros pic of course.)
Another was about a bunch of squatters spending winter in a NYC mansion when then snowbird owners have gone for the season. That was It Happened on Fifth Avenue.
Open to all: Any additions for studio movies to get us thru the Trumpocalypse? (And Dr. Mabuse is acceptable, but I’m looking for a bit of hope here.l
catclub
@gvg:
Why do I suspect that the same people saying this are not saving more in the knowledge that SS is not going to be there.
Cognitive dissonance, again.
JPL
@Frank in midtown: You’re missing a coma It’s probably difficult to miss a coma. On the other hand, missing a comma might cause someone to misinterpret the statement.
NR
@Mnemosyne: You could really stand to read this article: Everything Cost Clinton the Election
catclub
@ruckus:
Every “Unified Republican Government” Ever Has Led to a Financial Crash
Including 1907.
JPL
@NR:Without Comey she wins. The rest is hyperbole.
NotMax
@Memosyne
Make Way for Tomorrow is a polished little gem. With an unexpected non-Hollywood ending.
Beulah Bondi was born an old lady. :) She deservedly won an Emmy for her last role, in an episode of The Waltons.
El Caganer
@Mnemosyne: I would back your play 100%. I’m retired and I’m on Railroad Retirement, not SS, but screw this nonsense of throwing people to the wolves as they get older. If one of these bullshit ‘reforms’ is actually passed, I’m going to contact the national offices of the major railroad unions and suggest a strike. You want to fuck with people’s retirement? Fine, we’ll shut down the whole country. Wobblies are right: an injury to one is an injury to all.
hovercraft
What is with dirty old men who can’t stand the truth. I guess this is why they’ve been friends for thirty years.
Ailes Asks For Apology After NY Daily News Labels Him ‘Gropey Old Man’
They just can’t handle the truth.
gvg
Well sure it should be a choice but I don’t think it’s scary to everyone put like that. I wouldn’t find the threat bad. On the other hand I need that money in about 10 years and the economics have not been as favorable for me as my parents managed. I also don’t have kids and only 1 young nephew. So I need it for myself.
In addition I’ve known for decades that the threats to SS were partisan scams not real hard economics. There have been needed tweaks from time to time because of demographics, employment pattern changes or inflation but nothing that wasn’t quite solvable.
I’ve seen this play before. My dad was so mad when his in laws whined after Reagan cut benefits after they voted for him. He yelled “he said he was going to, why didn’t you believe him?”
Trump said he wouldn’t but he is a known liar and that party always tries when they get power. they should have known.
Elizabelle
@NR:
Look at the framing there. Words associated with Clinton: “neglect, refusal, flawed.”
Get away from us. You are not a brave and good-hearted truthteller. You are a sadist and a bore.
rikyrah
@? Martin:
My previous boss moved to Texas. The people working with her now consider her a ‘ rabble rouser’, because so many things that she just thinks are logical – work wise- too many are afraid to speak up about at the new job.
She doesn’t need the job. She was fully vested here, and her husband is comfortably retired. They moved to be closer to family. I think that frees her to just speak her mind. That she’s a minority naturalized citizen also cracks me up- thinking about her in a room full of White good-old boys and girls. That she probably is the most educated in the room also gives me a chuckle.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
they paid millions to his victims. will wind up paying millions more. He’s a sexual predator.
NR
@Elizabelle: And what you just want is a hermetically sealed echo chamber, where you can endlessly complain about how horrible liberals are and all the problems in the world today are only because they’re too stupid to understand that you know what’s best for them.
Are you seriously surprised that liberals wouldn’t want to play along with that?
JPL
@Elizabelle: It would be nice if MSM covered the warrant that was released today.
Comey’s hedge fund dealings must have raised some issues with the Russians, because nothing else explains what he did.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Hey, what a shock, you linked to a guy who thinks the Russians are totally innocent and had nothing to do with the leaks.
I realize that nothing short of a public announcement by Vladimir Putin himself will ever convince you that the Russians meddled in the election, but your denial of reality doesn’t actually change reality.
NR
@JPL: You should read the whole article, the author addresses that argument:
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not even ‘insurgent Left”. It’s not new that people run populist campaigns in rust belt states. Obama ran one in 2012. We had a Left/labor candidate for the statehouse here in 2011. He lost, but he was a Bernie Bros before Bernie Bros existed. None of this is new. Democrats have been fighting about NAFTA in Ohio since the day it was passed. Clinton and Obama know this. Obama ran anti-Nafta ads against Clinton in the 2008 primary. He lost. Clinton won.
these people are acting like they invented this. It is every Presidential cycle in Ohio.
NR
@Mnemosyne: This “argument” (such as it is) is addressed in the article:
Chris
@hovercraft:
There’s a periodic roundup of best quotes of the last few days on therealinterrobang. I don’t save most of them, but there’s one from a few years ago that I saved for just how spot on it was in describing the wingnut Id;
“It always baffles me. The right is fueled by machismo. They talk tough about crime and international politics. Mock liberals for being effeminate. But if someone is sarcastic about them they completely fall apart with hurt feelings. Krugman noted that the facts aren’t politics. But even if it is politics, politics is a contact sport. Sorry about your fee-fees. But your policies get people fucking killed so suck it up you hothouse flowers.”
Frank in midtown
@JPL: What’s an “m” aong friends?
JPL
@NR: You should understand that before Comey’s bullshit, she was a head and the rest wouldn’t have been discussed. Maybe she should have realized that Comey was out to get her, and she didn’t.
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
This I am fully in favor of. I was pouring cold water on the case for winning.
Elizabelle
@hovercraft: That’s hilarious, because now people who didn’t see it are going to go back and read the NY Daily News column that bothered him. Hello, Groper Ailes? Losing your, uh, touch there?
From your link (which is TPM):
He’ll be back. Sounds better in the native Austrian. Speaking of groping allegations ….
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I especially love how Kushner’s open courting of white supremacists is termed “innovative.”
I’m guessing the writer is a great admirer of Josef Goebbels, who was nothing if not “innovative.”
ThresherK (tablet)
@NotMax: Have you read a book called The Runaway Bride?
It goes thru 30s romantic comedies and focuses on folks of youth and often some privilege, interacting with the Great Depression face to face. It Happened One Night and My Man Godfrey are of course prominent but there’s a lot more little jewels on display.
Highly recommended.
JPL
@Frank in midtown: lol ,,,,,,,,
Kay
@Elizabelle:
“Earned media” is a Right wing construct. They objected to “free media”, which was always what it was called before.
They earn it. To me it’s like “Democrat policies” or “ballot security”.
It’s code :)
Elizabelle
@Chris: It’s all about the butthurt.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yup. I scanned the densely written blogpost NR delivered up with the link. Looked like a fall straight down a rabbit hole.
No thank you. No time in the world for that.
“Earned media”, but they don’t mention cable news suckitude. Dollars, dollars, dollars. Trump sucked all the air out of the room, and the vultures running the cable networks salivated at the ratings.
Botsplainer
@NR:
I’m a liberal, you fucking cocksucker. You’re not one – you’re a “burn down the center left” Bolshevik, heightening the contradictions via fomenting electoral failure.
Your kind can simply SHUT THE FUCK UP because you ruin real people’s lives for your bullshit nihilist ideology.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Here’s the writer’s “argument”:
He’s a denialist. He thinks the Russians are innocent and the CIA is lying. IOW, he’s as stupid as you are.
Oh, and he goes on to say that if the electors had gone for Clinton, he would have considered that a “neoliberal coup,” so apparently he’s fine with Trump destroying the social safety net.
Kristine
@mai naem mobile:
I was thinking the other day about how commercials have changed over the years. Now, they’re more diverse than many TV shows. I wonder if companies will feel the pressure to backpedal? If they don’t, or if they ignore it, is that one way in which the clock can’t be rolled back?
Elizabelle
@JPL: Yeah. I would like to see that shoe drop.
You will have to tell me, because I don’t watch any broadcast news.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Learn to read. He didn’t say the Russians are innocent, he said that there’s no hard evidence pointing to their involvement, and that in the absence of such, the intelligence community’s claims about them should be viewed with skepticism given how wrong they were about Iraq. Or have you forgotten that already?
And I’ll repost this, because it obviously didn’t sink in the first time:
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I always tire of the slam about the CIA and Iraq intelligence. Bush-Cheney were driving that war; they wanted the cooked intelligence. They would settle for no less.
Our allies could see that, even if our fearless media were imagining themselves at cocktails with the fearless commander in chief.
Elizabelle
@ThresherK (tablet): I would love if you and Mnemo and Ms. Cat would do a feature — maybe biweekly — on what we can learn of movies from the Depression era. We might have to see the same fare, again, in a new guise.
Have been hearing raves about “Manchester by the Sea”, but wonder if it will not find its audience because real life is depressing enough right now. The majority of us are processing an enormous loss.
NR
@Botsplainer:
You want to talk about electoral failure? Look at this map (from 2009) and then at this map (from today).
Now that’s electoral failure. And none of it is owned by liberals like me; it’s entirely owned by the establishment Democrats you continue to support.
randy khan
@NR:
I’m just going to keep repeating this: What do you think we should do going forward? Telling us what you think went wrong isn’t sufficient, or even interesting at this point, since we’ve all heard all of the arguments about that a hundred times. If you haven’t noticed, nearly everyone else here is focused on what to do next. You might want to try it.
Chris
@Kay:
The refusal to recognize that most white people in this day and age simply don’t prioritize economic justice like they used to and that this is increasingly a thing even in the Rust Belt… well, annoys me, but doesn’t exactly surprise me, because after one recognizes that, one kind of has to recognize that it puts a giant dent in one’s treasured theory of high-handed coastal elites refusing to reach out to the poor put-upon hardworking white man who’s just waiting for the right populist to sweep him off his feet.
And then where would one be?
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie supporters think the Democratic Party is more organized than it is :)
Look, I WISH they were these top down puppeteers masterfully pulling strings on every race in the country. They’re not. They have no plan. Not an evil plan, not a good plan, no plan. I was in the state Democratic Party for about a month and they were sending me to conventions. A month after that I was a delegate to the national convention. Not one person ever asked me about my issues or my ideological leanings. I literally could have been anything from a communist to a Republican.
That’s the thing I find unpersuasive about conspiracy-minded people. They think things are more orderly than they are. I wish it was more orderly! I would like that! :)
NR
@randy khan:
Actually, people here are still complaining about Bernie Sanders and blaming him and his voters for the election loss all the time.
What should we do going forward? It starts with listening to the people who have been right all along.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@JPL:
He’s a REPUBLICAN. Anything else is just distraction.
ruckus
@catclub:
Oh I know.
That’s why I said last one. I had time to recover from the one before that. I don’t have that this time. Right now SS is almost half my income, when I can’t work any longer that will be all of it.It’s almost enough for now what about in 15-20 yrs?
Elizabelle
@NR: You haven’t been right all along. Neither has Bernie. Nor his voters. It’s why we find you so tedious.
Mnemosyne was right upthread. You have no self-awareness. It’s sad.
You post this list of things that went wrong, but it’s always back to the one big thing with you.
Emma
@randy khan: But his job is not to move forward. His job, whether self-selected or paid, is to demoralize the rest of us. Have you ever walked into an abandoned place and moved through a cold spot that made you shiver and want to run away? That’s him.
tobie
@Mike in dc: I hadn’t seen this before:
I found a link to this disclosure on People (not the most trust news source but it’s the first that came up on my google search). Geez, these people are assholes for not releasing this stuff. Christ, they could have put a GoFundMe appeal together and countless would have contributed to a defense fund. Why are people such friggin cowards?
Elizabelle
@NR: Further, if your mission was to alienate people from Bernie Sanders, you could not be doing a better job of it.
Elizabelle
@Emma: Yeah. I think Cole should bounce NR.
He’s here to drive the rest of us away, or mad.
randy khan
@NR:
“One of many factors” is a cop-out. Every campaign does things wrong – the Trump campaign spent a week going after a Gold Star family, after all (okay, it was just the candidate doing that, but close enough at that point).
And, honestly, when all of the intelligence agencies and the FBI (and a ton of outside analysts) line up, and when the intelligence agencies say that both parties were hacked but only one party’s stuff was leaked, you don’t need a freaking press release to figure out what was going on.
Plus: I still don’t know what you’re doing going forward. Apparently you are willing to agree that it would be okay if a Sanders-leaning candidate or two were to run in Ohio. But I want to know what *you* think should be done and what you’re going to do.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@Elizabelle: Do what I do and just skip over posts by “NR”. No muss. No fuss. No biting at troll-bait.
randy khan
@NR:
I should have been more specific: People are focused on what to do until you come along.
When you say you were right, it seems that you’re referring to your claims that Clinton was a terrible candidate. Now, leaving aside that there’s a pretty good chance that Trump would have chewed up Sanders and spit him out – he’s a shouty old guy Socialist with no real talent for sound bites or clever responses, and connected with PoC and women much less than Clinton – I’m not sure exactly what lesson we’re supposed to take from that about what to do going forward, other than not nominating terrible candidates in the future.
Elizabelle
@Spanky (ex P-man): Good advice. And I usually do. But the stabbing Hillary’s corpse, again and again and again, just got to me today. That is not something a good person does.
Kay
@Chris:
Well, I think they do prioritize economic issues but elections are sets of limited choices – it’s “pick one of these two candidates”, it’s not “pick your set of issues”.
So between Obama and Romney rustbelt voters went for Obama’s blatantly populist appeal and didn’t prioritize race or gender and in 2016 they did. It doesn’t mean Trump voters don’t care about the economy. Of course they do. They just cared MORE about Clinton’s supposed ignoring of them and preference for “social issues”.
I have plenty of clients who are working class white men. I socialize with some of them. My son is one of them. I have a lot of sympathy for their economic issues so me and Bernie bros are aligned there. BUT. A lot of them have issues with women in power. I see this up close. I see it with female prosecutors and judges and I saw it with Hillary Clinton. It’s just a fact. They’re not very “progressive” on women. It hurt her. A lot of other things hurt her too but that was a factor. If Democrats ran another woman in 2020 I would subtract some points as to likelyhood of winning that group of men.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Seconded, and generalized to say “the trolls,” as NR is just the latest edition.
They usually do get bounced, eventually, but by “eventually” I’m talking months and months and fucking months, sometimes more than a year.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
So weird how those maps perfectly match the Brennan Center’s map of states that instituted voter suppression laws after 2011.
I guess that’s just another one of those unexplainable coincidences that keep mysteriously popping up in this election, right? It certainly couldn’t be true, because if it was true, that would mean that nobody but you actually gives a shit about how “awful” Hillary Clinton is.
Chris
@randy khan:
Even there, the suspicion would be understandable if it was something coming out of the blue. But it’s not. Putin has supported, financially and politically, far right parties whose politics are identical to Trump’s in many NATO countries for years, Trump’s election would be a one-shot-in-a-million godsend for Putin and his policies, Putin and Trump have had nothing but good things to say about each other in public and, oh yeah, Trump openly called for Putin to interfere in the election on his behalf.
“Russia probably interfered in this election” isn’t pulling a rabbit out of a hat, it’s Occam’s razor.
germy
@tobie:
They’re careerists. Career above all else.
Timurid
@NR:
Do your posts read any better in the original Russian?
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yes. And we are not going to get to an honest discussion of how ingrained sexism is.
I was dispirited to find out that a professional woman I like and admire greatly in real life, now a Facebook friend this year, has fallen down the rightwing hole. Breitbart, support the troops all the time (I mean, are we not supportive of our soldiers?), Blue Lives Matter, and crowing a few days after the election that she didn’t think sexism made one bit of difference in Hillary’s loss.
Earlier she was carping about Hillary’s use of “deplorables” and twisted that into suggesting that Hillary was the one who wanted to do away with great segments of society. Like Hillary was the Nazi.
This woman is a Ph.D. psychologist. And just lovely, in offline life. So sad.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Yep. There are people who refer to Hillary Clinton as “the Red Queen.” You know, because she’s so capricious and tyrannical, you just don’t know what she’s going to do next!
Unexamined misogyny on the left really hurt us in this election. I expected it from the right, but I was really pissed off by the “leftists” who were spouting the same tired misogyist bullshit and refusing to examine it.
zhena gogolia
@Timurid:
Да нет, это такая же хуйня.
Miss Bianca
@Kay:
My favorite book is Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. Of course, I have always loved Lizzy Bennett for her spirit and inciveness, but the older I get, the more I appreciate the character of Jane Bennett, and the one thing I find myself quoting from P & P more than anything else these days is this renmakr of hers: “I have no idea of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine.”
catclub
Can I just laugh at this headline at Time if they think he cares, or feels bound by court orders. There is plenty of evidence before being elected that he ignores court orders. Let em sue again is his motto.
zhena gogolia
What happened to that press conference about his conflicts of interest? When I called the House Oversight Committee, they said they were waiting to see what he’d say on Dec. 15.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Yeah. I think voter suppression and sexism were huge factors. And like the press gives a fuck about voter suppression.
Dollars vote in their world. Dollars.
Plus: all the fake news. Too much of it purveyed by the New York Fucking Times and other outlets that should have known better. Making us all question the editors’ news judgment.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I could not get over the Bernie supporters — young women! — I met who vomited forth the rightwing’s caricature of Hillary. Where did they get that from, uh huh?
tybee
@NR:
you and reality never met and a fact is that you’re a bernie worshiper with lust in your heart for him and can NOT get over the other fact that hillary whipped him badly.
lastly, to reiterate the common theme: go die in a fire.
Redshift
@Elizabelle:
The one thing I hope everyone on the intel community learns from this debacle (and everyone else, too, but baby steps) is that knuckling under and giving them what they want, even if you know it’s wrong, not only won’t save you, but will shamelessly be used against you by the people who made you do it.
D58826
@JPL: from huffington on the warrent – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-subpoena-that-rocked-the-election-is-legal-garbage-attorney-say_us_58597cd9e4b03904470b0633
It looks like cold blooded character assassination.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
My husband said one of his female students said, “I just can’t get over what she did in Central America.” WTF?
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Yes indeed. Comes through loud and clear, when brayed by Trump. And his spokesliars.
I guess we take refuge in the slow wheels of bureaucracy now. Our voters did not save us, but maybe smart bureaucrats will.
JPL
@D58826: Thanks!
matryoshka
Where I live, church-member health insurance is already happening. I agree with your assessment completely.
Dave in Dallas
@catclub: Exactly. All those youngsters that got screwed? 12-20 years later they’re going to be the core voters and the senior politicians. The only thing that ever made this work is that we’re all going to get screwed equally.
Elizabelle
@D58826: Betty’s got a new thread up on the Comey “warrant”.
NR
@Elizabelle:
Yes we have. We’ve been warning for years that the Democratic party establishment’s favoring of corporate donors over working-class voters, and listening to highly paid political consultants instead of voters, was going to have terrible consequences, and we have been proven right about that again and again. If you’re too blind to see that, that’s your problem.
NR
@Emma:
I’m trying to show you the way forward, and you say I’m demoralizing you? You’re strange.
NR
@Elizabelle: Translation: “I want a place where no one will challenge me on my bullshit.”
The real world is going to be a huge disappointment for you, I’m afraid.
catclub
@tybee: just don’t feed the troll.
Redshift
@D58826:
And complaining that if people get the care they need, the only alternative is squeezing providers, like that’s a bad thing. I forgot that the purpose of the health care system is for doctors to make bank, not for people to get care.
I was at my eye doctor a year or two ago, and got to hear one of the older doctors chatting with a patient about how another doctor he knew was quitting because all of these new requirements were too expensive. And then mentioned that he himself wasn’t going to be there any more because he was retiring to his horse farm. Doctors have it sooo hard…
Inmourning
Google up filial responsibility laws and see if your state has one. If so, you are on the hook for your parents’ medical expenses and other debts. It is not just a matter of having the parent in the house, it is becoming financially responsible for them.
SS and Medicare are the way we as a society prepare for the costs of old age, and spread those costs. There is an easy fix to the future issue. Just raise the cap. Reagan did it and was hailed as a hero.
NR
@randy khan: Clinton was part of the problem, but only part. The Democratic party’s standing has deteriorated so much over the past eight years that this most recent presidential election was only the capper of a long trend. The party needs to go back to the parts of the country that it’s abandoned and talk to the voters there. It needs to get back to the economic policies that made those voters strong Democrats years ago.
But the problem is, no one can so much as utter the words “working class whites” around here without everyone howling at them that they’re a horrible racist who wants to throw everyone who isn’t a white male under the bus. Which is an attitude that’s destructive for the party.
tybee
@NR:
lol
you’re not a liberal. you’re a bernie bro which makes just an ordinary trump supporting asshole.
so do as suggested: fuck off and die.
in a fire.
ThresherK
@Elizabelle: Whoa, I don’t know if I qualify to be in that company. I have a few musings likely skimmed off the top of a bunch of famous movie critics and culture authors. Or as academics call it, “research”.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Yes, this mysterious “deterioration” of the Democratic Party that completely coincidentally happened in states with voter suppression laws. No connection between the two things, of course. It must have been because the Democratic Party didn’t listen to the workingman.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Hey, that’s great, except for a few things:
1. Lots of those states were lost in 2010, which last I checked, was before 2011
2. There’s very little hard data about exactly how many races were decided by voter suppression
3. The Democrats have been swept out of power in states without voter suppression
4. If you want to blame all the Democratic party’s ills on voter suppression, how do you explain Minnesota in 2016? Minnesota was controlled by Democrats coming into this election. No gerrymandering, no voter suppression. And yet, Hillary only won the state by 1.4% of the vote, far worse than Obama did. Minnesota is one of the most reliably Democratic states in the country, and Hillary won by a mere 1.4%, and the Republicans took control of the state legislature.
But nope, you’re right, the Democratic party doesn’t have any problems beyond voter suppression and Russians. Move along, nothing to see here folks.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: yeah, and strangely, all those progressive Democratic candidates who passed muster with the BernieBros lost also, either their primaries or in the general election.What do you suppose their problem was? “Not talking to the voters”?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
So I gotta save for my own retirement, save against a catastrophic medical costs in my old age (because, no Medicare), AND pay for the retirement of current or near retirees? Yeah, right. Like, where is that money coming from? If I gotta do the first two I damn sure ain’t doing the third. No way the Republican ideology explains in any way, shape or form why I’m obligated on #3 anyway. If the olds want to live by that ideology they can damn sure die by starvation from it without any financial support from my generation.
NR
@tybee: Hey, you’re back, and you’re talking about homosexual lust again! How unsurprising.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.
tybee
@catclub:
the dipshit amuses me. i don’t believe i’ve ever seen such a one trick pony since W’s supporters.
he loves bernie and can NOT stand that bernie got whupped by a girl.
i am also amused by his refusal to implement his own suggestions. he can’t sully his bernie fingers over it, he’s too busy worshipping the tax cheat.
tybee
@NR:
of course you don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. you seem to enjoy it. revel in it. spread the news of your love around.
but you still are a trump supporting sack of shit.
NR
@tybee:
Because there isn’t anything wrong with being gay. The fact that you seem to think there is in 2016 is pretty sad.
Frank Wilhoit
@Hildebrand: It works, and thereby it makes Government look good. What you fail to understand is why that bothers them. The reason is because Government is the seat of accountability. The emotional allergy is to accountability. Taxes, for example, are resented not for their economic impact, but as tokens of accountability. View everything through this prism.
gorram
@Feathers: It’s worth noting that we’ve also deindustrialized in much of the US – with a consequent move away from pension-building manufacturing jobs towards what’s been called the hourglass economy.
There’s people closer to the top who have transitioned from manufacturing into office jobs where a pension-like item is typically part of the system (usually in the form of a 401K) but additional security is discouraged because agitating and organizing can get you booted, and you can fall easily into the lower part of the hourglass.
Down there, you have similarly non-union jobs, but with even lower pay, even less economic security, and even fewer options to build a nest egg for yourself. And those are the jobs, alternatively you’re a contractor running around for a boatload of companies that aren’t offering you anything in terms of pension.
In a nutshell, the pension system you described has collapsed. Why on earth would you want to dismantle social security in the midst of that? That’s when it graduates from lifeline to general citizen’s fund.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
You know that Minnesota’s House is controlled by Republicans, right? And that Mark Dayton won by less than 9,000 votes in 2010? And that he barely squeaked out 50 percent in 2014?
MN is not quite as “reliably” Democratic as you seem to think.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Historically, it’s one of the most Democratic states in the country. It’s voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1976. Can you name any other state with that track record?
Anyway, you’re avoiding the point. How do you explain Hillary barely winning Minnesota and the Republicans taking over the legislature if the Democratic party’s only problem is voter suppression? There was no voter suppression in Minnesota.
tybee
@NR: nothing wrong with being gay. there’s a LOT wrong with you fellating the christ bernie on a regular basis on this blog. surely you’d be better off on putin’s blog.
you trump supporting sack of shit.
ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
One small problem. You’ve used the words think and NR in the same idea, like they go together. They most assuredly do not. Not in any way, shape or form.
NR
@tybee:
The only one around here talking about fellating Bernie Sanders is you. Hey, if that’s what’s in your head, I don’t judge. But it’s pretty weird for you to broadcast it to a bunch of strangers on the internet. Just saying.
NR
@ruckus: Care to point out exactly where I was wrong? Or do you prefer to just snipe from the sidelines?
tybee
@NR: i talk about it. you do it here daily.
you have a problem, ok, problemS. and you’re still a trump supporting sack of shit.
NR
@tybee:
This is a blog. People don’t “do” anything here. All we do is talk. And like I said: the only one talking about Bernie Sanders in any kind of sexual context is you. If that’s how you feel about the man, there’s nothing wrong with that, but you might not want to be so quick to share it with everyone. Just a suggestion.
tybee
@NR: you metaphorically fellate christ bernie daily.
you must be a sad, lonely little person to come here and shown to be wrong every time you post something and get the abuse that you do.
but hey! any attention is better than what you get from real people as they avoid you like the plague.
you’re still a trump supporting sack of shit.
NR
@tybee:
There you go again! Look, you obviously have a lot of sexual thoughts about Bernie Sanders, and that’s fine, but sharing them with anyone and everyone is pretty weird. Maybe you should cut down on that some, eh?
StringOnAStick
@BillinGlendaleCA: My boss’s kid had a life-changing accident that made him into a quadriplegic at age 18, and while he was in the rehab hospital there was a fellow young man, first generation from mainland China parents (divorced). His dad slept in his room every night and the hospital hired a translator since the injury makes it hard for his son to speak. When the hospital said “OK, he’s ready to go home now” the dad refused, saying “look at him, he can’t do anything, I can’t take him home” (the kid is in a puffer chair, meaning he uses breath to control his motorized wheelchair). So they contacted the mom – same response. The explanation is that it was the son’s job to be there to take care of his parents as they aged, and he blew it so they sent him to a nursing home for the rest of his life. Cultural differences can be a bit shocking sometimes; the hospital people and the fellow patients were blown away by this whole thing.
brooklyn michael
@Hildebrand:
It proves taxes go to a worthy cause that isn’t bomb-related and the federal gov’t can run a program effectively.
artem1s
@NR:
this is bullshit. I’ve never seen so many campaign offices in CLE as I did this election. and they had volunteers crawling all over the city. No fucking way the AA vote was ignored. Ohio had a rally almost every day from a major party member and/or celebrity for the last couple of weeks before the election. They had people lined up around the block the first day of early voting in CLE. Anyone says they didn’t have a GOTV, early or late doesn’t have a clue or is some Occupy or Kasich baby butthurt about not getting St. Bernie. Anyway, either they tried to peel away GOPers or they ignored the white working class. Which was it? WWC are GOPers in Ohio. Were they ignored or did the campaign go after them? White retired union workers have been abandoning the Dems for two decades now. They totally bought into the NAFTA and TPP lie, just like WV bought into the lie of bringing back clean coal.
My bet is this came from the same brain trust that thought Dennis Kucinich was a viable presidential candidate cause he promised them legal dope and single payer. The fucking state is crawling with these idiots. The truth is the OH DNC decided to run an old guard failed candidate for a critical Senate seat because they know certain people in the state will give them money if they stay with the state insiders. The early GOTV in Ohio was stuck in the mud because the locals did a crappy job and their chosen Senate candidate was as lousy a campaigner as he was when he lost the governors mansion to Kasich.
Citizen Alan
@Jeffro:
Looking back, the Dukes of Hazzard should have been the first clear hint (at the age of 9 or so) that I was gay. Alas, growing up in Mississippi in the 80’s pushed me so far into the closet that I could almost see Narnia.
Citizen Alan
@PST:
I literally gasped while watching Captain America: Civil War when there was one particular shot that showed Black Panther, War Machine, and Falcon standing together in profile. For a moment, I was struck by the image of three black actors playing prominent black superheroes in a major motion picture, something I would never have anticipated when I was a kid actually reading comics.
J R in WV
@? Martin:
No offense taken, Martin.
No clue how to fix WV or the confederate states. When I was a kid, WV wasn’t like the deep south, and now it is so much closer than it was back then.
Once we drove to FL, probably in 1959-61 or so… and I saw White Only and Colored Only signs on gas station water fountains and bathrooms. I was shocked, because we didn’t have anything like that back in WV. This may have been Georgia, which you drive through to get to Florida.
But it is obvious that the Confederate States are in such bad shape because of what is different about them, abnormal, not like the other states. And the disease of the CSA seems to be spreading to Kansas, and WV, and hell, even MI and PA and OH and WI… we are so fucked!
J R in WV
@NR:
Sorry, but I’m gonna feed the troll again:
NR, you are the person in the fight who is telling us how terrible liberals are, because we are too stupid to understand that you, NR, know much better how to run liberalism. And the Democratic Party.
But we disagree with you about all this.
I’m not sure why you think you can get away with claiming your bullshit is Elizabells’s, and are trying to turn everything around, but the projection is obvious to all of us, it’s as obvious as Trump’s projection is.
Fuq you, republican asshole!!
NR
@artem1s:
Well, regardless of your anecdotal experience, the fact is that Clinton’s ground game wasn’t as big as Obama’s. From the article:
I mean, these are just facts.
NR
@J R in WV:
You can disagree all you like, but the fact is that we’ve been trying it your way for several years and the result has been a disaster with most of the country being lost to the Republicans. Your way doesn’t work. This is an objective fact.
Even if you don’t believe that liberals like me would do better if we were in charge, the simple fact is that we could hardly do any worse.
J R in WV
@NR:
The intelligence community wasn’t wrong about Iraq, they told the president and his merry band that there were no “weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq, and sure enough there weren’t.
That didn’t matter, because the policy of LYING about the WMD in Iraq was already established. Bush thought he knew there were WMD chemical weapons in Iraq, because we shipped thousands of them to Iraq during the Iraq/Iran war. Under Saint Reagan, the demented.
So NIE didn’t matter, it was established truth that there were WMDs in Iraq. Just like it is now established truth that Hillary’s Emails were desperately illegal because of the server in her basement.\
NR, you’re a Russian rat-fucker.
NR
@J R in WV:
Oh really? How about we look at the National Intelligence Estimate from 2002? Why, what does that say?
Do you ever get tired of being wrong?
randy khan
@NR:
So, your solution is to go after the white guys? That’s brilliant; I’m shocked that nobody has thought of it.
Now tell me how you’d do it. Do you think the Dems should shift right? Promise to bring back the jobs in coal (that is, lie)? Change their messaging by getting rid of all the pictures of brown people and women? Run only white male candidates? Seriously, what are your ideas here? (And, by the way, your earlier endorsement of Bernie-friendly candidates would seem to suggest that you don’t really mean this anyway, except to the extent that you’re saying the Bernie Bros should be the target audience, which honestly is not going to be very productive since there really aren’t that many of them.)
Chris
@matryoshka:
I’ve seen the basic plan from one of my Appalachian fundiegelical cousins who got on one of them. You have to pay $250.00 a month; you still have to pay for all the costs of any operation up front; the “insurance” is that after that, you then email everyone in the network and ask them for donations to cover the cost of everything. In order to be in the network, your lifestyle has to conform to all of their rules (up to and including no extramarital sex and no drinking); you have to make your personal medical information available to everyone so that they can confirm that; and you have to sign something promising never to sue the “insurance” “company” for failing to cover your claims.
It’s fucking horrifying. It’s Big Brother taken to the kind of extreme most governments have never even dreamed of, and it’s what they want all of us to live in.