You can’t shame the shameless, but damn, Rep. Adam Schiff sure went medieval on the fake cow lawsuit plaintiff and indefatigable Trump toady Rep. Devin Nunes and ended up indicting (figuratively, alas) the entire corrupt Trump cabal:
I say this to the President, and his defenders in Congress:
You may think it’s okay how Trump and his associates interacted with Russians during the campaign.
I don’t.
I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical. I think it’s unpatriotic. And yes, I think it’s corrupt. pic.twitter.com/nTdgRVfssQ
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 28, 2019
Well said, sir.
Open thread!
JPL
Mediaite has both videos up. It’s not worth listening to the republicans bloviate though. I’m glad he silenced the assholes at the end.
Eric NNY
The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee (all of them) asked him to step down as Chairman. They’re ALL in the bag for Trump. I hope this comes back and bites them right in the ass.
trollhattan
Elections matter. Had Republicans held the house last year they’d have figured out a way to keep Schiff, Pelosi, AOC, Waters, etc. off-camera entirely.
Let their voices be heard.
mad citizen
Ouch! Go Mr Schiff! The unredacted M report must be released to all citizens of the United States.
rikyrah
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP, Congressman.
Roger Moore
@Eric NNY:
They can just go fuck themselves. Congress should not take its marching orders on investigating executive malfeasance from the executive it’s investigating.
germy
Watch Nunes during Schiff’s statement. There are several times when he turns to giggle to his friend.
Salty Sam
Adam Schiff to R’s demanding his resignation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ZfahRzz_w
A Ghost To Most
“I will not yield!”, [You corrupt motherfuckers]
Jeffro
Schiff is right: people have forgotten that coming anywhere close to this level of conspiracy with a hostile foreign power – the one that attacked our democratic elections and preyed on our citizens – should have caused the whole country to rise up and demand that the collaborators forever hang their heads in shame. Or just hang.
Kraux Pas
@Jeffro:
But..but…both sides…
mrmoshpotato
Anyone else want Schiff to walk over and smack Cowfucker Nunes?
Villago Delenda Est
“It’s treason, then.”
kindness
The MSM’s pivot to supporting the Trump version of events following Barr’s 4 page Cliff Notes release was jaw dropping. We have to fight not only the Republicans but also the oligarchs and multinational corporations & our MSM. 2020 is going to be a wasteland.
Eric NNY
@mrmoshpotato: Yup
Ruckus
@Kraux Pas:
Proper response to that phrase uttered by any republican or especially a media moron?
Go Fuck Yourself.
J R in WV
Mr Trump asks the Russians, “If you’re listening, Russia, please release the Clinton emails as soon as possible!
Next day!! Those emails show up right on schedule, helping Trump gain election because “Someone” was able to hack a government email server… NOT Clinton’s private and properly well secured email server, a government server! Someone being probably Russia’s GRU security agency.
So we have a request right there on TV, and fulfillment of that request immediately… how is that not collusion? Because it was so public? I don’t think it needs to be secret, actually, to be criminal, what a stupid thought.
Bank robberies are public as hell. and still illegal, even the conspiracy parts!
KSinMA
Bravo, Mr. Schiff. That was excellent.
sukabi
@mrmoshpotato: Aren’t there still sealed indictments stemming from Mueller’s work? Nunes might not want to be giddy just yet.
Adding a huge BRAVO to Mr. Schiff for laying out the timeline between drumpfs public ask for russians hacking to the actual hack. That’s a detail that’s been glossed over or totally ignored by the news readers.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
With an aluminum bat.
The sound of the wack heard with glee.
Of course it’s not nice to wack people with less sense than a turnip.
jonas
.After they spent the past 5 years pretending some non-criminal violations of email protocols at the State Department were the worst crimes since Nuremberg, R’s can have a nice big cup of STFU. Schiff’s absolutely right: Mueller may have determined that, in legal terms, there wasn’t an active conspiracy to collude with the Russians in the election, but from a counterintelligence perspective, the Trump campaign was up to its neck in improper and shady contacts with foreign actors and enemy powers about which they repeatedly and persistently lied to investigators and the public. Investigate the shit out of that, Chairman Schiff!
hueyplong
Any Democrat who supports the resignation call should be expelled from the party
Frankensteinbeck
@Jeffro:
I don’t think they have. A few, maybe. News commentators are the main demographic for this kind of head-up-their-ass blindness, so it seems much bigger than it is. I think most people are grappling with the fact that Republican voters are evil, racist traitors. They don’t want to believe that half of whites are evil and that’s why this is happening. They know quite well that this is unacceptable. The Republicans know it as well, but they are evil, so it makes them happy.
Emerald
I heard Schiff say the other day that he isn’t sure Mueller pursued the counterintelligence investigation against Twitler. If he turns out to be correct, then we’re in for some merry times ahead (although I imagine most of that testimony wouldn’t be public, sadly.)
I think the Rs and our intrepid Media have really overplayed their hands with this Barr letter. The report is going to come out. If the evidence isn’t damaging they would have released it already.
Emerald
@kindness:
A bit redundant there.
tobie
I posted below but it seems worth mentioning again that Rosenstein issued a second letter to Mueller when he was appointed outlining his brief. Most of this letter is redacted so we have no idea how broadly or narrowly he defined the Special Counsel’s mission. Had any of you heard of this before? I can’t believe I missed this. Add Rosenstein to the list of individuals using the cloak of secrecy to undermine the very institutions that he claims to serve.
zhena gogolia
Big story by Farenthold and O’Connell in WaPo about Trump’s shady business dealings. The investigations of him aren’t going to stop just because of Barr.
tobie
@Emerald: We also don’t know if Mueller was charged with investigating not just Trump but the Trump Organization. More and more I think the fix was in from the start.
mad citizen
The unredacted M report must be released to the citizens. Now.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/1111307419886469123
darth™
sukabi
@Emerald: yep, a leak here, a little leak there and then the flood.
Twitler isn’t so much taking a vindictive victory lap, he’s melting down because he knows he’s being exposed…plus Jared has been turning over papers and having secret meetings with congressional committees.
MisterForkbeard
@J R in WV: @Kraux Pas: Look, I’d like to agree with Schiff but I’m reliably informed that Russians also gave money to Hillary’s Clinton Foundation and that makes her equally complicit. And that since she deleted some e-mails she’s even worse. /s
The fact that Adam Schiff even had to make this speech is a huge indictment of our country and of the Republican Party. What a ridiculous situation we’re in.
MisterForkbeard
@zhena gogolia: Hopefully somebody charges his ass in state court for bank fraud. That’s pretty damn clear cut.
A Ghost To Most
Since OT, I’ve been sitting on some Chris Stapleton albums (From A Room I & II, Traveller) that I’m finally listening to.
Stapleton has an amazing soul voice.
Emerald
@MisterForkbeard: Agree, but if they did that they’d have to charge the rest of the aristocracy with the same thing, because it’s really just standard business practice for them.
Now if I tried inflating my income even just a little bit to get a loan they’d sure as hell charge me.
MisterForkbeard
Nah. We have a longstanding practice of selectively charging only very specific people in this country and ignoring it when others do the same thing. We can make this work. :)
rikyrah
Scott Dworkin (@funder) Tweeted:
Republicans need to learn that when they attack us, we won’t stand for it. That’s why #IStandWithSchiff is trending. Chairman Schiff is in search for the truth. Republicans are trying to bury it. Schiff won’t let them. Neither will we. We got Schiff’s back 100%. #TheResistance ?? https://twitter.com/funder/status/1111323488537718785?s=17
Emerald
@MisterForkbeard: A fair point indeed.
Por ejemplo: Bernie Madoff was only charged because he stole from rich people.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
So was it just me, or did SHS’ comments the other day about treason:
sound kinda like eliminationist rhetoric? Like, she would be completely fine with Schiff and others being executed for accusing Trump of being a traitor? That’s fucking terrifying and I haven’t found any major news outlet calling this out for what it is or even commenting on it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Trump, if he could get away with it, would gladly have people like you and me imprisoned/murdered just for speaking out against him at a protest.
Aleta
(Yes I know that (at most places) the author doesn’t write, or choose or sometimes even see the headline. However I’ve found that contacting the author gets the best response, because the author cares more about an accurate headline than the managing editor, website owner, etc. Sometimes if I write the author directly, the author will get it changed.)
Lately I’ve noticed a non-subtle shift at the NYer.
Emerald
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: If he were to win a second term I have no doubt whatever that Stephen Miller would at least suggest getting some nice FEMA camps set up.
You know they want to. They accuse us of crimes they themselves have committed or dream of committing.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@MisterForkbeard:
Why be selective? Charge ’em all. They deserve it.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@MisterForkbeard:
Why be selective? Charge ’em all. They deserve it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Aleta: The vermin of the Vichy Times are in the same camp as Fuckabee-Slanders.
Traitors all.
Villago Delenda Est
@Emerald: Same for Shkreli.
Robert Elliott
Damn….I need a cigarette and a shot of Bushmills…
trollhattan
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I thought it was thumpingly overly aggressive and rhetorically, an 11.
That we paid no attention to the president’s press secretary threatening his political foes with execution seems unbelievable, yet reflects out times perfectly. Execution.
Jeffro
The GOP is ramping up its rhetoric in the wake of Dems’ refusal to let this just be brushed aside. They are throwing around “treason” and “treasonous” a lot. That is not good, but to give in to their bullying and lies would be worse.
All I got is, “tell your Dem reps and accurate media reporters to hang in there, tell the inaccurate media types to straighten up ’cause the Republic depends on it, and tell the opposition hell. no.”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Emerald:
That’s why we have to win in 2020. He (and the rest) are only going to get worse. The right wing want us destroyed.
ruemara
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Yes. This shouldn’t shock you. They are very eager for an all out call to arms to kill democrats and minorities. SHS comments are to ok saying those groups are the real traitors and should be attacked.
PJ
@Aleta: from the get-go, Masha Gessen has maintained that the Mueller Report and criminal investigation of Trump generally would amount to nothing and are only a distraction. I strongly disagree, but she has been consistent on this over the past two years.
GregB
@JPL: @Emerald:
laura
“Devin” looked a fool desperate to escape the chair he was tied to.
The only way Schiff could have improved that truth telling would have been to stand in front of the Pride of Visalia and shouted those words in his stupid face with the occasional “I’m talking to You Devin” followed by a dope slap to the back of the fool”s head.
Otherwise well done!
mrmoshpotato
@sukabi: Giddy or not, here Schiff smacks!
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: Don’t wooden bats absorb the “recoil” better for the batter?
James E Powell
@kindness:
I thought it was typical and predictable. With a handful of exceptions – none of whom have any influence with managment – the press/media have been adjuncts of the Republican Party since Reagan. Even the one’s who are supposedly liberal or Democratic leaning still follow the the Republican Party’s lead on what stories get covered and how they are framed.
WaterGirl
@Aleta: Shift in which direction?
rikyrah
ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) Tweeted:
NEW: “I’m so proud of the work of Chairman Adam Schiff,” Speaker Pelosi says after GOP members of House Intel Committee call for his resignation.
“I think they’re just scaredy-cats. They just don’t know what to do.” https://t.co/t2NWMxwLme https://t.co/ID59B7QtUf https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1111288243264188416?s=17
rikyrah
The last thing we should be doing is giving Saudi Arabia the tools to make a nuclear bomb. That’s why we have a law that requires Congress to review the sale of nuclear technology to foreign govts. But @SecretaryPerry seemed confused by that law – so I helped him understand it. pic.twitter.com/9t56GYkwDF
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 28, 2019
Sure Lurkalot
And let’s not forget when Kevin McCarthy said the quiet parts out loud admitting that the myriad Benghazi hearings were to harm HRC’s electoral chances.
These folks can FOADIAF.
Back to my hidey hole.
JoyceH
@trollhattan:
Thing is, that statement can be read another way.
“They literally accused the President of the United States of being an agent for a foreign government. That’s equivalent to treason. Thats punishable by death in this country.”
The way I heard it, she was saying that ‘they’ are accusing the President of a crime equivalent to treason that is punishable by death. Rather than her accusing the Democrats of treason, she’s saying that THEY are accusing HIM of treason.
Granted, it’s ambiguous. But while some are saying Sanders is threatening the Democrats, she might just be saying ‘look how over the top they are with their accusations’. Also granted – a communications professional ought to word their statements more carefully…
StringOnAStick
In today’s edition of “let’s think a bit harder about this” is who really thinks Vlad and his buddies would be stupid enough to NOT use cutouts when conspiring with tRump and his minions? He’s smart enough to not send uniformed officers, FCS! If it wasn’t obvious before, then Barr’s careful phrasing in his cliff notes makes it plain as day. And our Kardashian obsessed media flew right by that obvious tell.
mrmoshpotato
@jonas: jonas, jonas, jonas, my dear lad. You’re forgetting about the most important part – screaming BUT HER EMAILS! for 26 hours a day for weeks on end.
Look at it through that lens, and I think you’ll reconsider the bullshitness of it all.
*No sarcasm to see here. Move along.*
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
I think Sanders’s comment was deliberately vague. Her audience will hear “Trump’s accusers are guilty of treason” while she has plausible denial that her real point was to defend Trump against accusations of treason. It’s a reasonably clever gambit.
rikyrah
Adam Serwer? (@AdamSerwer) Tweeted:
In case it’s not obvious, Trump really likes the Jussie Smollett case because for him and his base it fits into the Trumpian/Fox News narrative that racism against minorities is fake but racism against white people is real. https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1111223090078457856?s=17
oldgold
Here is some funny stuff mocking Barr’s summary of Mueller’s Report from https://twitter.com/hashtag/Billbarrletters?src=hash
Ulysses arrives home late for dinner
Bilbo returns home with new ring.
A great man died, while thinking about his childhood sled.
Luke reunites with long lost dad.
Huck takes a trip with friend.
Kansas girl hits her head during a storm. Wakes up surrounded by friends and family.
Girl is living with some dwarfs because of complicated relationship with stepmother.
MisterForkbeard
@JoyceH: This is how I read it. She’s saying the Democrats are so unhinged they believe the President should be executed for Treason.
Dorothy A. Winsor
In my fantasy life, Sean Hannity goes to jail.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: I know she needs to play nice to some extent, but I’d rather she called them “cowards” rather than the tamer “scaredy cats”.
westyny
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Can you blame them? I mean, I want THEM destroyed. The fact that their venality and stupidity rises to the level of evil, that their “policies” are objectively cruel in the ways ours are not will not alter their bubble-reinforced subjectivity. They just point at us and say, “no bubble, no bubble, you’re the bubble.” Then they go home to their families, kiss the kids, and so on.
They might even stop to help you with a flat tire if you’re the right color.
KsSteve
@Ruckus: Or “Go piss up a rope” if in mixed company.
Gravenstone
@MisterForkbeard: I’d be cool with the interpretation. PPV optional.
jonas
@Emerald: I think he would have had to review all the CI case on the Trump campaign, however, because that’s where any evidence of collusion was likely to be. Being recruited as an intelligence asset, as long as you’re not trafficking in classified information, is not necessarily a crime (AFAIK), but it certainly raises red flags about security risks. It’s clear that a number of people on the campaign, from Manafort to Flynn on down to Carter Page, had CI red sirens blaring above their heads, which explains why the FBI opened a CI case on the campaign. The FBI couldn’t be sure that one of these guys wasn’t a Russian mole.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy:
I am left with the impression the GOP is mainly filled with over aged drunken frat bois. Like Nunes here, is he seems to have no other interest in being politics than to act like a jerk in public and the way he talks and reasons sounds like there is some kind of drug issue with him.
germy
Mandalay
Today’s Quinnipiac poll shows that with all the women running for the Democratic nomination for president, the top three candidates are white men: Biden, then Sanders then O’Rouke.
It’s depressing to see two male career politicians way past their sell-by date with a combined age of a gazillion doing so well.
I know it’s too early to read too much into the numbers, but:
– Buttigieg is kicking ass.
– Gillibrand has to be worried – she’s swirling around the bowl with a bunch of other one percenters. Perhaps she is getting blamed for Franken’s hurried departure?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@StringOnAStick:
Yes, and add on that Trump can’t keep a secret to save his life like Trump can’t balance his check book. The Russians know Trump well enough to not be that stupid to be direct and if they were, Trump would have bragged about it.
Fair Economist
@Aleta: cites:
Even more, often people read the headline without even reading the article. I mentioned yesterday a HuffPo article talking about the “human costs” of Kamala Harris’ truancy policies. In the article they mentioned only one single person being harmed, and that was by the action of the corrupt Orange County DA which didn’t even answer to Harris. The article was written in a way to disguise that the actual human cost from Harris’ policies on this was ZERO, but of course anybody just glancing at the headline has almost no way of knowing that. (Even if you read it you could end up bamboozled, but at least there were some qualifiers.)
tobie
It just occurred to me that Schiff’s off-the-cuff recitation of what we know about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia from public sources may be longer than Barr’s four-page letter summarizing the Mueller report.
MisterForkbeard
@Gravenstone: I mean, they’re not WRONG in my case. I’m pretty sure Trump did enough bad things (and especially with regards to the campaign, but also otherwise) that in a just world he’d merit execution once convicted.
MaryLou
@Gravenstone: Using ‘scaredy-cats’ reduces the opposition to timid little children. Using ‘coward’ implies you’re talking to adults. #nancysmash
Roger Moore
@tobie:
Was that off the cuff, or did he have notes?
Chris Johnson
@trollhattan: It’s projection. Because they are firmly aware that’s what they deserve. A whole bunch of them have been and still are actively working with Russia because Russia can do certain dirty things better than they can. The money is still flowing by the bucket and the trolls never left their posts. NOTHING changed from 2016: they never stood down.
The goal’s different, but it’s still as ambitious as the original unrealistic goal: elect Trump. Now that’s effectively been done, and now that they’ve held it, the new job is to kill off everyone in their way and to prepare the country for a giant brown-people kill-fest with all the death camps and railroad cars they used to claim Obama was using. It’s all projection.
I think there’s also a culling of the poor in store, perhaps in less direct ways: many poor can be killed by just obliterating their health care, and that’s another goal for these people. Bottom line is that in the new world and especially with intense global warming, the masses of people have to be reckoned with one way or another. You could treat it as an opportunity. They are treating it as waste disposal on a titanic scale.
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: If the responses on Twitter to Gillibrand’s every tweet on any topic are an indication, yes, she’s getting blamed for Franken’s ouster and is pretty much toast as a 2020 candidate. That will make a lot of people happy. She’s not my first, second or even third favorite at this point, but I do think it’s unfair that she bears the full brunt of the Franken butt-hurt and other folks who were just as involved in his departure get a pass for reasons that remain obscure to me. Oh well.
Mary G
I am proud to say that I voted for him in his first House election in 2000. The way the districts were drawn back then it was a Republican seat and he was not favored to win. It was a bit of consolation for the horrible GWB debacle.
tobie
@Roger Moore: It looks like he had notes but I don’t think he was reading a prepared statement. Hope someone else has a better idea. I thought it might be off the cuff because he begins by saying that before the hearing would proceed to its announced topic he wanted to address the call for him to resign from the committee or something to that effect.
zhena gogolia
@Roger Moore:
He had notes. It was very carefully crafted. It’s brilliant.
Aleta
@Villago Delenda Est: True, impossible to pick a winner between those two.
Btw those headlines are from the NYer not the NYT.
@WaterGirl: In the last few years the NYer is shifting to include more writers (than I have ever seen there before) of the kind that write articles on spec to align with conservative talking points. Leaving aside its other faults, this shift really stands out lately, because those articles are not even masquerading as thoughtful.
@PJ: Yeah I agree she’s consistently a committed ideologue, there to represent conservative thought. So not a good example of an author who’d care about an inaccurate headline.
Imo the avalanche this week of biased headlines about what was actually the Barr Report, deserves complaints to editors or writers though. Because the error is straightforward to state, and the pattern is set to continue through the election.
Eric NNY
@germy: That’s my worthless Congresscritter. She needs to go but unlikely up here.
jonas
@Mandalay: Gillibrand has to be worried – she’s swirling around the bowl with a bunch of other one percenters. Perhaps she is getting blamed for Franken’s hurried departure?
I can’t really figure out why she’s running. She’s virtually unknown outside NY state. She’s been a good senator, but other than loudly calling (and getting blasted) for Franken’s resignation, she doesn’t really have any major accomplishments to her name. Her signature issue has been to reform sexual assault investigations in the military, but that really hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s photogenic — I’ll give her that — but lacks the political “branding” of, say, Elizabeth Warren.
RedDirtGirl
Is it weird that I want to have his babies?
Mary G
@Betty Cracker: She is also getting flamed by the disability community because she just introduced a boneheaded bill mandating that all opioid prescriptions for acute care be limited to one week. She did not respond well to arguments that paranoid risk-averse doctors would just apply that to everybody. She took like a week to get it and semi-apologize, but by then she was toast with them.
Fair Economist
@Mandalay: Gillibrand is taking heat for being point woman on Franken (for most of the women in the Democratic Senate caucus, to be fair; she wasn’t alone) but my impression is that the key element is that she just hasn’t gotten people excited. She’s been quite liberal in her voting, but in her exploratory rollout she was talking about reaching out and working across the aisle and … fizzle… that’s not what Democrats want to hear. They want to hear about Medicare for All, Kamala’s progressive taxation, Warren reigning in corporate power, or O’Rourke getting swing voters. The jury is still out on Klobuchar’s infrastructure plan.
germy
@Aleta:
The reason I didn’t renew my print subscription.
That, and their dishonest tactic of mailing out “Expiration Notice” letters when I had months and years left on my subscription. When it finally DID expire, I let it go.
They wanted $100 for a one year subscription. I ignored them and then they sent me a letter offering me one year for $50. Still not interested.
Aleta
@Fair Economist: I’ve written to a couple of HuffPo writers who answered and got the headlines on their articles changed. All credit goes to the writer for caring enough to take time, I think.
Emerald
@Mandalay:
Hope so. I blame her for Franken’s hurried departure.
germy
@PJ:
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Her brand is gloom-and-doom, so this fits her narrative and I’m sure she’s thrilled. I prefer the people who are working hard to point out the facts and try to change the narrative, like Schiff and journalists who are covering the subject with accuracy and facts.
Aleta
@germy: I always let it lapse, then wait for an offer that’s $39/ yr or lower. If I want it, I accept over the phone so I can specify non-auto renewal. Their marketing is increasingly deceptive. Recently resubscribed (35/yr for 2 yrs) hoping the covers will cheer me up. The covers are often seriously anti-Tr. and sometimes anti-fascist-US.
Gin & Tonic
@StringOnAStick: As I said earlier today, the people that Don Jr and others met with were not cutouts or agents, they were third-rate grifters, Putin’s equivalent of Carter Page.
hueyplong
@germy: In which Masha Gessen is indistinguishable from Donald J Trump.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
I think this is a key point. The reason her mentions look so bad isn’t necessarily because there are ton of haters. Every candidate has their share of haters, but the top candidates have a lot of supporters, too. If Gillibrand had as many supporters as Warren does, the people complaining about her stance on Franken would look like a minority of butthurt dead-enders. But because she doesn’t have a good core of supporters, her detractors can take over her mentions.
WaterGirl
I just got email from Julian Castro saying he has not yet made the cut and needs donations from Illinois. I already donated to him this week or last week — we are in such a time warp that I don’t recall which. So another donation from me doesn’t help him get to 200 unique donors in Illinois.
If you are reading this and you are registered in Illinois, please consider making even a small donation to Julia Castro so he can represent on the debate stage.
Nicole
@Mandalay:
I like Gillibrand, enough that I went to her rally outside Trump Tower on Sunday, but I came away unsure how aggressively she’s actually campaigning for this. It was a well delivered speech, and hit all the liberal talking points dear to my heart, but included no real policy proposals- the most specific she got was proposing a 10-year plan to make the US carbon neutral, but I haven’t seen any actual details (though I did appreciate her saying we do it not because it’s easy but because it’s going to be hard because it will be super, super hard). Compared to say, Warren, who coughs and out comes another policy proposal. Harris has been pretty light on policy proposals since her initial declaration (that I can see, I think the media is actively trying to ignore her, which is infuriating), but this week she came up with the proposal for teacher pay increase. I don’t think it’s a particularly well-thought out one at this point (I see states just using the extra federal $$ as an excuse to cut their own share of teacher salaries), but I give her points for at least offering up something with some details (and I’m always in favor of dead rich people paying more in taxes. She could run her entire campaign on dead rich people paying more taxes and I’d be cheering my approval at every whistle-stop).
I do think Gillibrand is the catch-all for liberal misogyny (Warren and Harris should both be thanking their lucky stars that neither of them were the ones who went first calling on Franken to resign), but honestly, even as someone who likes Gillibrand and thinks she did the right thing on Franken (as all the women Senators did), I’ve not been impressed with her campaign so far.
eemom
@Betty Cracker:
I think it’s plenty fair, considering that she led the charge. And that she’s a fucking hypocrite, per the situation in her OWN OFFICE.
Further, what Mary G. reports above about opiate legislation makes my blood boil. There is nothing as fucked as depriving suffering people of pain meds. NOTHING.
She’s also, as I’ve said before, a female Mitt Romney. I mean, I get that there’s no such thing as a purely principled politician, but she, like him, is 100% politics and 0% principle, as is evidenced by the series of major issue flip flops that constitute her career.
Oh, and I’ll vote for her if she becomes the candidate. (Maybe the entire blog won’t explode if a single comment about any 2020 Dem candidate is uttered without the “safe words”, but why chance it?)
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
Headlines used to be written by copy editors in a separate, independent department. Now they’re written by the same assignment editors who approved the story. Not a coincidence that they’ve drastically changed.
Aleta
@germy: Implying it was admirable to refrain? It’s not. Those standards of politeness don’t apply right now for a writer with her reach. Or is she trying to escape criticism?
Ohio Mom
@Mary G: Yes, there are a lot of chronic pain sufferers in the country who clearly do not appreciate Gillibrand’s opioid proposal.
This isn’t an issue I follow but I in the aftermath, I read a few pieces that seemed sensible to me that outlined many other approaches to helping addicts not included in Gillibrand’s proposal. She comes off as rather naive on addiction issues.
Also, I try not to let it cloud my thinking but on an emotional level, I do blame her for pushing Frankin out.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore: I agree. All the candidates have gotten a good share of haterz. I think Harris has gotten even *more* haterz than Gillibrand (mostly less honest, but they’re still tweeting) but there’s a lot more pushback. Maybe Sanders, too.
FWIW Biden will have something of the same problem. He’ll attract a lot of haterz but I don’t think there will be a lot of politically active people jumping in to defend him. Biden has been getting dragged on a lot in the leftie blogs but the only one I’ve seen claiming he’s is a *good* choice is Martin Longman at Bootrib. Most of the defenses are “don’t hate on him too much because he *is* leading the polls and might win” – which is true, but not all that compelling.
John Revolta
@germy: @Aleta: I let them go shortly after Conde Nast took over, when they started sneaking in articles about how fracking was pretty cool and such.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
A damn shame because it’s an artform, headline writing. Never again will we enjoy the brilliance of “Headless body in topless bar.”
We’re poorer for it.
eemom
There was an excellent article in the Atlantic that I linked to a few days ago about the Franken clusterfuck. Seldom have I read anything that I’ve so completely agreed with.
@Nicole:
Oh please. The meme that holding a woman accountable for her actions amounts to misogyny is so fucked.
A FB friend I really respect(ed) said that shit about the Hollywood twats who bribed their kids’ way into college becoming the so called “face of the scandal” even though just as many men were involved. When I called him on it he got all huffy.
Mnemosyne
@Gravenstone:
Nah. She’s calling them children. She’s saying they’re too immature to be trusted with anything important. And I can’t say I disagree with her.
cliosfanboy
@Ruckus: it may not be nice, but it’s just. What’s the line from the recent Magnificent Seven, “I seek righteous, but I’ll take revenge.”
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: Sometimes I think the political and policy machinists have not just cultivated reporters who can be wooed with status, but have also worked to literally place headline writers and assignment editors where they want them.
Nicole
@Mary G:
Which is already law in 15 states, including New York (since 2016 here). It’s not a new proposal; she and Repub co-sponsor modeled it on already extant state legislation and on the CDC recommendations for opioid treatment of a new acute pain (injury, surgery, etc). Doesn’t apply to chronic, palliative, cancer, end-of-life, etc.
Fair Economist
@Nicole:
I don’t agree. Harris has been pushing a huge progressive shift in taxes, rent subsidies for the housing crisis, and now teacher pay. She’s not Warren, but I’d say she’s #2 in talking policy. It’s Biden and O’Rourke who have been light on policy, and Klobuchar initially although she did just put out the infrastructure goals.
I’m not *too* stressed out about light policy candidates because the Senate is likely to limit any policy changes to ones that are already in the Democratic consensus, and pretty much any or our candidates will thus support anything that can get passed. The only big difference would come with appointments.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
It’s unfair and I disagree with it, but it’s apparently not going to go away.
Fair Economist
@Aleta:
Only sometimes? Misleading headlines happen all the time, and they virtually always favor Republicans. It can’t be accidental.
Betty Cracker
@eemom: I think we have at least one or two regular commenters who eschew the “safe words” when Bernie Sanders is the topic, but maybe that’s okay because he’s not really a Democrat? I don’t know. The safe words apply to him too in my book.
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
To be fair, the two actresses that were charged were pretty much the only famous names in the bunch. Of the non-famous people, there were several men.
For us locals, the least surprising news ever was that the most obnoxious of the kids was partying with corrupt local developer Rick Caruso when the story broke. Did we mention that Caruso is president of the board of directors at USC, so the BOD is partying with UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS?
The kid I feel sorriest for is the one whose parents lied to HIM throughout the entire process and laughed behind his back at how stupid he was for thinking he had brought his SAT score up so far all on his own. I think those were the same parents who faked his participation in track without his knowledge and then scolded the corrupt track coach for letting one of his assistant coaches talk to the kid, who asked his parents why the guy thought he was going to be on the track team.
That kid needs to run from those assholes for his own good.
Betty Cracker
@Fair Economist: Speaking of Klobuchar and her infrastructure proposal, if anyone sees a good analysis of it, please link it. I’m not finding much about it online.
J R in WV
@JoyceH:
And where did you get the idea that Possum Queen Sanders is a professional at anything? Really!!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@James E Powell: I agree it’s predictable, but beyond the closet agendas I also would say the media loves Barr’s letter so much because Barr makes no conclusions no matter what the evidence before him and that intellectual vacillation is what the media runs on. The entire American media is based on the premise that “open minded” = can’t make up one’s mind and anyone takes a position on anything is a close minded bigot. Thus we get the question is the earth a sphere open to debate.
Nicole
@eemom: Gillibrand is being held accountable for a decision the women of the Senate made together. Harris released her call for Franken to resign less than an hour after Gillibrand did (and she was a lot blunter than Gillibrand. Which I give her props for. Brevity and the soul of wit and all that).
I fail to see where Franken’s resignation was a bad thing for the Democratic party. We still hold the Senate seat (a woman, who just won it in her own right in 2018), we had a blue wave in 2018, and we held the Senate seat loss to just about the absolute minimum we were going to be able to. It wasn’t the wrong call. Franken was a perfectly adequate Senator, who happened to be really good on the teevee because he’d been an actor. I remember when Anthony Weiner was the new hot thing among the Democrats, too, because he was good on the teevee (and in his case, he was not even adequate as a Representative). Sometimes we’re just as gullible as the Republicans when it comes to wanting good teevee.
debit
@Nicole:
As his constituent, I can tell you he was more than fucking adequate.
Nicole
@Fair Economist: I said, since her initial announcement- I am aware of what she’s proposed tax-wise. I just hadn’t heard anything new until this week with the teacher proposal. But again, I think the media may be actively trying to ignore her, because oh my, look at all the white men who want to be President! Ugh.
Nicole
@debit: Do you dislike his replacement?
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
Probably.
But they don’t make as good a sound.
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
I have reluctantly come to accept that Franken had to go for the good of the party. I think that cutting him loose gave Doug Jones the edge he needed to win in Alabama, and I think you’re right that it helped Democrats a lot in 2018.
John Revolta
@trollhattan: Oh I think headline writing is still an artform- only it’s becoming more of a dark art.
(I had just moved to NY when that “Headless Body” paper came out. Sent a bunch of copies back to my friends in Chicago for laughs. Never kept one for myself of course…………) 8^(
A Ghost To Most
@J R in WV: She’s a professional liar. She’s just terrible at her job.
Nicole
@Mnemosyne:
I know there was at least one big name lawyer caught up in it. I despair of any of these rich folk seeing a jail cell, but there’s at least a reasonably strong chance the ones with “Esquire” after their names may get disbarred over it.
Aleta
I appreciated that Gessen wrote about Barbara Hammer in February. Especially since interviews were part of the way Hammer was making use of her dying, as an artist. I didn’t realize til last night that she died around March 15th. Last night I watched a piece–performance merged with a talk, adding audience into the piece– that she did about herself at the Whitney last November or so.
debit
@Nicole: Actually, I don’t care much for her. She doesn’t have his staff and doesn’t do the same outreach. And perhaps this is unfair, but she she aired a commercial showing off her farming roots that showed her shoving a newborn calf into a veal pen.
She has D in front of her name, and I voted for her. But she’s not Franken.
ETA: Here’s the commercial.
Mnemosyne
@debit:
Was his replacement smart enough to hire Franken’s constituent services staff, at least? My House member is a bit of a back-bencher (Brad Sherman), but he makes a point of highlighting his constituent service staff.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Fuck him.
jonas
@J R in WV:
Trump was talking about the “missing” non work-related emails Clinton had wiped from her private server that wingnut conspiracy theorists are still convinced contained all the evidence that she was the instigator of every evil in human history. That was different from the hacked DNC emails Wikileaks actually released soon thereafter. So why did Trump have it in his head that the Russians had hacked Clinton’s server? Of course, he could have just been confused. But it’s more likely because his campaign had been told by George Papadopolous that he had heard from a Kremlin-connected contact in the UK (Josef Misfud) that Russia had hacked thousands of Clinton’s personal emails and that they contained all kinds of “dirt” on her (perhaps non-coincidentally, this is also the same language that Veselnitskya used to lure Don Jr. to the Trump Tower meeting, though that didn’t have anything to do with emails). Misfud appears to have been misinformed (the FBI found no evidence Clinton’s private server was ever compromised), but this is a little-appreciated story about how Trump had been told that Russia supposedly hacked Clinton’s emails, and that he was eager to have the Russians release them to harm his opponent.
Ruckus
@KsSteve:
Nope.
These are trying times. They require the real response. Not some almost pleasentry.
A Ghost To Most
@Mnemosyne:
You may believe that, but you will never convince me.
debit
@Mnemosyne: I honestly don’t know. My calls to her office are just like calls to Kloubuchar’s: ignored.
Emerald
@Nicole: I think one of the reasons they went after Franken, who was clearly being ratfucked, was that he really would have been a major contender for President this year. Got him out of the way.
Now, I can see the argument that his resignation was a good political move for the Democrats because of the Alabama senate race, but I also don’t think it would have made any difference in the outcome of that race. Franken was a terrific voice for Democrats and now he isn’t, because other Democrats were perfectly willing to ally themselves a Roger Stone-style dirty trick.
Frankensteinbeck
@oldgold:
Mother. It was Snow White’s mother in the first edition Brothers Grimm collection. Wilhelm changed a lot of mothers to stepmothers in later releases because he thought motherhood was sacred. Also, Snow White was seven years old when she became the most beautiful woman in the world, and the prince bought her corpse from the dwarves so he could have servants carry it around and he could look at it Always.
I AM SCARRED FOR LIFE BY THAT STORY.
J R in WV
@Nicole:
The feds can and do have very strict requirements with grants and funding. You have to spend it in the ways prescribed, or go to jail. I used to write grant applications to EPA and always worried a little about spending that money correctly.
Not that the RWNJs wouldn’t try to steal some of that money, and a tiny bit would be authorized for administering the funding, but one whistle-blower and someone would be in deep hot water, even if they tried to cut their funding when not allowed by the terms of the accepted grant program.
Gin & Tonic
@Emerald: I thought Franken was pretty clear that he wouldn’t be a Presidential candidate, ever.
rikyrah
@germy:
Get.the.ENTIRE.Phuck.Outta.Here.
A Ghost To Most
@Ruckus: “Go to Russia, you seditious fuck” would also be acceptable.
Nicole
@Mnemosyne:
That’s where I ended up. And for all that I’m sanguine about it now, I was really, really upset at the time- I went down every rabbit hole of “he’s being set up!” that I could find online, hoping to find vindication for him. Because I liked him. (and I’m glad he’s back podcasting). But the GOP wants power, and unfortunately, the Democrats are always going to be held to a higher standard than the GOP, because, as much as we screw up, we really are trying to get towards a more perfect union for all Americans. And sometimes we’re going to lose officials we really like, and lose them to things that the GOP shrugs off, and it sucks, it sucks hard, but we all have to be a Pelosi and keep our eyes on the long game.
Franken resigning was bad for Franken, bad for my personal feelings about how much I like Franken, bad for Gillibrand’s Presidential aspirations, but good for the Democratic Party as a whole. And that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. I won’t put party over country, but I will put party over any individual Democratic official. And I’ll do that as long as the Democratic Party is the one working towards a better nation. The lone wolf dies but the pack survives, as Ned Stark allegedly told his kids. Didn’t work out so well for him, but the Starks are still around. ;)
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Like the important bipartisan work that was led by Devin Nunes? Fuck that. Elections have consequences, Elise.
rikyrah
@eemom:
I have followed folks on her and this opiate legislation..folks are hotter than fish grease about it.
trollhattan
@John Revolta:
Because it deserves resurrection, will also cite “Pennant Fever Grips Hub.”
Emerald
@Gin & Tonic: Hadn’t heard that. If you’re right then I feel better, but I think we still screwed ourselves.
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
Local newspaper headline writing is a well-known mine-field.
We have towns here named Odd and Big Ugly. imagine the difficulties that presents to headline writers.
Odd Man Dies
Big Ugly Woman Elected
Etc.
Dan B
@James E Powell: Yep. MSM seems to be repeating the claim that Mueller found Trump innocent. Amanpour repeated that and had a Russian on to explain how Russia was completely without stain. I turned off the TV. Un-effinng-believable!
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
New York is not sending their best.
“Bipartisan” uttered by any Republican means “Democrats do what we want them to.”
Aleta
@PJ: I guess the reason I think of her as conservative is that she seems careful about authority. I know she’s consistent about being anti-Trump and drawing parallels with him and Putin. What I wrote isn’t accurate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Nicole: OTOH, Republican found out that their rodent copulation is effective, it will happen again.
Nicole
@J R in WV: No, I get that, but for something like teacher salary, that is set at a local level, I see a boatload of trouble trying to make sure that the $13,500 doesn’t end up calculated by the states into what the teacher will be paid. HOWEVER- that said, I was really pleased to see teacher salaries being brought up at all, as it’s ridiculous how little they’re paid relative to the education that they are required to have (and continue to get) throughout their careers.
And admittedly, the strikes weren’t JUST about money; they were about a lot of issues teachers face. A friend of mine, teacher with almost 20 years experience, worked in a really tough middle school last year. She couldn’t make it through a second year, and felt like a pretty big failure, but it was a tough situation. She said to me, in NYC at least, the money was fine; the lack of support was the issue. She had an assistant for part of the year and it was the only bearable months. We discussed how, in more challenging schools, assigning two full-time teachers to each class, rather than one teacher trying to handle 30 kids with differing levels of poverty and trauma, would make an enormous difference, and she said, would be a bigger incentive for teachers to take on the tough schools than more money is. It’s not just about the money. It’s about not wanting to cry every Sunday night because you have to go back to work on Monday.
(For what it’s worth, she really, really loved her students, and didn’t hold any of the things they did against them; it was just a really hard situation. Poverty sucks.)
trollhattan
@J R in WV:
What was the conservative news bureau who autocorrected “naughty” words with their prefered alternatives, giving us headlines like “Homosexual breaks 10-second mark in 100-Meters”? Kinda miss that.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m with you. Fuck Bernard Sanders, and the Russian Ass he rode in on. Although that may be too harsh on the Ass, who is a dumb animal. Like Bernie.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: No fuck Bernie – his role in 2016 is why we are literally fighting for our liberal lives right now. and he’s not a Democrat and hasn’t even released his tax returns.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
You got that right!!
Elise Stefanik is obviously a RWNJ and credulous ass who never met a Russian plot she didn’t approve of.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
She is getting paid to be a professional ass. And is quite successful at that.
germy
@J R in WV: Elise is a protege of Karl Rove.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Ohio Mom: That’s such a polite way of saying she doesn’t know jack shit about addiction. I’m not that polite. She’s an idiot on the topic, and she might want to consider learning a bit about issues she wants to legislate.
Nicole
@rikyrah:
Is it because it’s bad legislation or because the media is misconstruing it when they report on it? From what I read (and mind you, I just googled it today because I hadn’t heard anything about it), it seems to be similar to already-passed state legislation and in line with what the CDC recommends when prescribing opiates for new acute pain. It pretty clearly stated it didn’t apply to chronic, cancer, palliative, end-of-life, etc, and was limited to new prescriptions.
I’m asking out of curiosity, regardless of who proposed the legislation. I don’t recall any hullabaloo when NY passed basically the same legislation in 2016 (in fact, I found out NY had this law about 30 minutes ago, when I googled). I’ve been prescribed opiates since it passed for pain after surgery, but I’ve never needed them more than a few days so I fully admit I’ve not had a situation where I felt I couldn’t get pain medication when I needed it. Have there been problems in the states where the legislation has passed, with patients not getting needed medication? Does anyone know?
If anyone wants to see the CDC factsheet (I thought it was interesting reading, but then, I’m a nerd):
https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/guidelines_at-a-glance-a.pdf
Dorothy A. Winsor
@J R in WV: For God’s sake, Elise, get an honest job.
Nicole
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Oh, they’ve known how to do that for years. I’m so old I remember the Democratic Speaker of the House being pushed into resigning over book royalties.
eemom
With due respect, I think the argument that throwing Franken under the bus was necessary to defeat Moore, and that it “helped” us in 2018, is utterly ridiculous from any perspective other than than of a media hack.
Even assuming there was anything remotely “inconsistent” about giving Franken the fair ethics investigation he asked for and opposing the election of a documented child molester — which is itself a ridiculous proposition — do you honestly think voters give a shit about that kind of consistency?
Please read the Atlantic article.
PJ
@Aleta: I think her sympathies are, broadly speaking, liberal, but she seems to have little or no faith in democratic institutions (and perhaps events will show that mine is misplaced), on top of the “there’s nothing we can do but endure corruption and oppression” she seems to have marinated in as a child in Russia.
I grew up in an era where there were still Republicans who put country above party, so I have a different view, but I also think her kind of pessimism is lethal to positive change, and is exactly the kind of attitude that Republicans have been striving to inculcate in Democrats for the last 40 years.
Betty Cracker
I don’t need reminding that Bernie Sanders is a selfish asshole whose gigantic fucking ego is is partly responsible for creating the hellscape we’ve been stumbling through for the last two-plus years. But I’m damn sure going to vote for that son of a bitch if we are cursed with him as the Democratic Party’s 2020 nominee. That’s because despite his many grievous faults, Sanders is unlikely to cage children at the border, put more Bible-humping, anti-woman fascists on the SCOTUS, etc. Honestly, I can’t see any responsible alternative if it’s Sanders vs. Trump.
Nicole
@Ohio Mom:
Mind you, I don’t watch televised news anymore, so I’m basing this on what I read on the intertoobs, but I don’t think this proposal is intended to curb addiction so much as it is trying to restrict an avenue where addiction begins. Because yeah, once addiction is established, it’s a whole different kettle of fish to address, and the science of addiction is not well established. It’s hard to treat because it’s so different in different individuals.
The legislation was pretty clear that it wasn’t to apply to chronic pain.
It’s legislation that, unfortunately, is trying to close the barn door after a lot of horses have already escaped, but 15 states seem to have thought it was a good idea. I’m curious if restricting new pain prescriptions will do anything about addiction rates. I’m doubtful, but in any event, it’s the sort of data that won’t become clear for a number of years. And, better to never get addicted at all, I imagine.
So yeah, I agree that it’s not useful legislation for addressing current addiction, but I also don’t think that is the legislation’s intent. It’s intended as a preventative, not a treatment.
Mary G
@Nicole: The fact that it is already the law in some states is why the disabled community is so against it on the federal level. The increase in paperwork and second-guessing by aggressive law enforcement have caused many doctors to decide it’s just not worth it, so they issue all prescriptions for a week, no exceptions. Nothing is more horrifying than to be in pain and have no access to medication for it, or be forced to have an elderly wife go out and buy fentanyl on the street, like one terminal cancer patient I know.
eclare
@eemom: That article was good, thanks for the link.
John Revolta
@Frankensteinbeck:I ain’t gonna tell you about the the bits about the sisters trying to fit into the slipper then.
However, in an earlier French version of the story, the “glass slipper” has also been translated as “fur slipper”, which gives the whole tale a rather different twist.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Not unless I see his tax returns first.
Skepticat
Although I’m neither his constituent nor a registered Democrat, I just wrote Schiff what probably qualified as a fan letter. The (all too few) people who stand up and actually represent us need to know we support, appreciate, and agree with them.
rikyrah
I may be stupid, but I’m not a moron
by Liberal Librarian
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Gin & Tonic: No thank you.
Immanentize
@trollhattan:
“Red Biggie Brez Says Nyet!”
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: Okay, thought experiment: It’s November 2, 2020, and you’re in the voting booth. Neither Trump nor Sanders have released their tax returns. One or the other of them is going to be inaugurated as president in January 2021 — either Trump for a second term or Sanders for a first. Who do you vote for?
I dislike Sanders intensely for reasons enumerated above and feel strongly enough about the tax returns issue that I wish Tom Perez would give him until April 15 to cough them up or get the fuck outta our primary. But to me, there’s absolutely no debate in the above scenario: I will hold my nose and vote for Sanders. I can’t conceive of a responsible alternative in that situation.
mrmoshpotato
@eemom:
Haha what? I must’ve missed all the ‘Bama Democrats threatening to elect a Republican pedo to the Senate unless Minnesota Dems gave Franken the heave-ho.
Denali
My daughter was denied sufficient pain medicaton after surgery in New York in 2017.
She is rightfully very bitter about that experience.
Sab
@Betty Cracker: Who are the Veeps in your scenario?
Fair Economist
@Nicole:
I haven’t looked at it in detail, but my money is on “misconstrual”. Even lower-tier Democratic candidates (I know she’s good on paper, but her polling is low) get everything the RW noise machine can generate.
Frankensteinbeck
@John Revolta:
I was ready for glass slipper mutilation. Hell, I was ready for Rapunzel, Pregnant Thirteen Year Old. I was not ready for seven year old girl necrophilia, and particularly how it was portrayed as socially acceptable.
Steeplejack
Just remembered that Trump has his first “post-exoneration” rally at 7:00 p.m. EDT tonight in Grand Rapids, MI. Should be a doozy.
Gotta check my liquor reserves and make sure I’ve got Daniel Dale queued up to filter the crazy for me.
Mary G
He’s at it again:
We have got to take the Senate in 2020.
Nicole
@Mary G: I googled for some info on what you’re saying, and it seemed, from what I could gather, that the issue is not over-aggressive law enforcement, or doctors writing all prescriptions for 7 days, but insurance companies denying claims (one article I read said one insurance company decided, on its own, to limit opioid prescriptions to 5 days, even though the law allows 7. And didn’t put much effort into putting that 5 day info out there. OF COURSE) and pharmacies not making a distinction between acute and chronic pain (which… okay, but if the pharmacy is not the one to get in legal trouble, why is it their business? Oh, right. Morning after pills and “personal morals” and that kind of crap).
The Crains article said the doctors interviewed supported the intent of the law, but that, as always, the devil is in the details and it needed work. And there were some pretty upsetting stories of doctors fighting with insurance companies over pain medication for terminally ill patients. And good points made about the issues of access in rural areas with limited access to doctors (a whole other problem). Unfortunately, I don’t know what the solution to insurance companies looking for reasons to deny coverage (or writing their own, more limited, rules for prescriptions) is. At least in the short term. I have an idea for the long term. ;)
Fascinating (and frustrating) reading. I’m glad the topic was brought up in this thread; made for informative googling.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Wow. This fucker gives turtles a bad name.
Fair Economist
@Nicole:
And it is a good idea. California has a relatively low rate of addiction, and its relatively strict prescription guidelines are a key element.
Like you say, prescription controls don’t help with existing addicts and actually make things worse for them, but we have to staunch the bleeding. Years of life lost to opiates are getting close to those lost to cigarettes – there are many fewer deaths, but they occur much earlier. And that’s only counting the direct deaths. There are a lot of deaths due to suicide and other drug abuse, especially alcohol, which are epidemiologically linked to opiate use and may be caused indirectly by opiate-induced misery.
MomSense
Here’s another great video!
duck water slide
Betty Cracker
@Sab: Pence and Tulsi Gabbard, who are both horrible. Does it matter? I can’t even believe this is a debate. What am I missing?
Nicole
@Denali:
Ugh, that’s awful. I’m sorry.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I know the right answer to this is “vote for Bernie.” And I would. But right now, I not only dislike Sanders, I think that he is an incompetent mediocrity. I think his half-baked ideas, which have been stewing for decades without improvement would be a disaster for the country.
But Trump not only is incompetent, he is also evil. He must be defeated at all costs.
I guess it probably marks me as insufficient as a political junkie, but I don’t see why the Democrats could not say to Sanders, “You ain’t no Democrat, and you cannot use the party to feed your presidential ambitions.”
During my morning commute, I listened to a couple of political programs. I was a little surprised to hear a couple of people worry excessively about the “who is most electable” issue, and conclude that even though they liked Warren, Harris, Abrams, etc., they felt that the presidential candidate must be a white male, and the VP candidate could not be a black woman. One person liked, in order Sanders, Biden and Beto, even though she (a retired white woman who lives in Florida) voted for Hillary in 2016.
This is early and anecdotal, and personally I strongly reject this. But I think it is interesting, for now. I am hoping that as we get into the actual primaries, and people have to actually register a preference, that this unnecessary fear will evaporate.
Uncle Cosmo
@Betty Cracker: I will join you in that sediment ;^D.
But were BS** to become the nominee I would immediately be investing bigly in clothespin futures. So many will be in dire need of them…
**NB initials more à propos are rather thin on the ground, n’est-ce pas?
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: my goal is to snuff out his loser campaign early because I think he’d lose by a landslide to Trump and he’d kill off the Democratic Party- but that’s just me…
Nicole
@Fair Economist:
And there’s still so little we actually understand about the process of addiction- why some, and not others, why it manifests differently person to person. It’s hard to treat when we don’t understand why it starts in some people and not in others.
zhena gogolia
@Ksmiami:
He would definitely lose to Trump.
Nicole
@Brachiator:
I am a political junkie (I just spent 90 minutes I should have been working googling about legislation and acute pain prescriptions) and I don’t understand this, either.
Mike in NC
Just got in from a medical appointment. Did anybody mention that Fat Bastard has waved the white flag of surrender on wiping out federal support for Special Olympics? Such a craven coward, and once again he threw Davos under the bus. Yet he still demands Mafia boss loyalty from his shitty minions.
KSinMA
@Mary G: Didn’t know that about Gillibrand’s opioid proposal … then she SHOULD be toast!
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Oh, hell yes!
I think it is obvious that Trump needs these rallies, because they let him unwind and most be himself.
He is also like a comedian trying out material in smaller clubs before he takes his act to the big leagues; so we will see some of the rhetoric that Trump will use in his re-election campaign, along with all the old favorite routines that his supporters love.
Betty Cracker
@Ksmiami: Stipulated! Can’t stand the guy! Hope he loses in humiliating fashion in Iowa, New Hampshire, etc., and washes out before Super Tuesday. But if it’s Sanders vs. Trump, I’m voting for Sanders.
@Brachiator: Agree that Sanders would be a disaster. I think he’d lose to Trump after the networks ran endless loops of him visiting Moscow, El Salvador, etc., and fed-up Democratic women decided to sit 2020 out because of 2016.
Tom Perez is in a tough spot because Sanders really is popular with a lot of Dems. But at this point, I think Perez should give Sanders an ultimatum: cough up the tax returns, or no debate participation, no party support. It’s a risk because he could run 3rd party and tank us. But enough is enough!
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: it’s the bare minimum requirement and if he can’t do it sayonara. the Democratic Party needs to carry the banner of good governance and transparency and Sanders gets no special privileges- I mean come the fuck on old man
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think this would hurt Sanders. I also think that Sanders would be ornery enough to punch back effectively at Trump. Still don’t like Bernie, though.
Anyone who claims to hate or fear Trump and sits out 2016 is a fool. Women stepped up big time in the mid-terms. Any woman nursing any butt-hurt about Sanders should he become the nominee hopefully will get a clue fast.
Yep. However, Sanders would only be looking at a path to political obscurity if he ran as a 3rd party candidate.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Agree that anyone who’d sit out 2020 over 2016 would be a fool, but we’ve got fools aplenty among our fellow citizens. There were two or three commenters at this here blog who refused to vote for Clinton because of lingering 2008 butt-hurt or other (dumb!) reasons, and I’d rate our collective intelligence higher than the electorate’s. I just hope to Christ the old coot gets blown out early, and I believe he will.
KSinMA
@Skepticat: Good for you. I’m going to do the same.
JoeyJoeJoe
@mad citizen: @KSinMA: me too. I tried calling his office, couldn’t get through even to leave a message. I don’t want to think of what dickhead’s supporters are trying to say to Schiff
Mandalay
@Brachiator:
The risk of that scenario is that Sanders will say GFY, run as a third party candidate, and automatically hand the presidency to Trump.
In my world the unlikely but ideal outcome would be for Perez to get some radioactive dirt on Sanders (say from a tax return) and then privately persuade Sanders that he should step down from running for “health reasons”, and get behind whoever secures the nomination.
The next best outcome is that Democrats continue to accept Sanders, but he gets soundly beaten by (say) Harris, and he voluntarily steps aside, and plays Mr. Nice Guy for the election.
The worst outcome for the Democratic Party will be to wound Sanders (i.e. have a public falling out), but not destroy him. An ultimatum for his tax returns might fall in that category unless his reputation can be destroyed in the process.
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck: The original Grimm stuff was well named.
I read the whole collection bequeathed by someone to the children’s library with what I hope was ignorance.
My trauma tale was “The Goose Girl.”
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Oops, Daniel Dale posted earlier today that he won’t be covering Trump’s rally. My bad.
Here’s a live stream, if you can stand it. I don’t think I can, although I might give it a few minutes. But if Trump humps the flag I’m out!
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
I took a course in college on Psychoanalysis and Literature. A core section featured the work of the Grimms. I kinda hated the class and fought with the professor, who refused to acknowledge the substantial editorial changes that were made to the text and insisted on reading them as unfiltered folk tales which supposedly revealed much about the psychology of common folk.
Captain C
@StringOnAStick: our Kardashian-obsessed media happily and willingly flew right by that obvious tell.
FTFY
Captain C
@Gravenstone: I think ‘scardey cats” does a better job of making them seem like impulsive little kids.
dww44
@Mike in NC: Too bad, he didn’t actually throw Davos under the bus, self- aggrandizing gathering of the wealthy that it is. Nevertheless, as much as I dislike “I never met a public school I liked” Betsy DeVos, I’ve no doubt that she had removed it from her budget under specific instructions from her boss. Although there’s a good chance it could have been the oh so caring Mick Mulvaney who had her red line all funding.. Surely, she wouldn’t be so stupid to do that on her own?
Ruckus
@A Ghost To Most:
I think you might have to explain that seditious word to them. They don’t understand the concept or that it might be wrong.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I seem to recall that Franken was even hesitant to run for the senate, stating that he had a history that might work against him and that president would be right out.
That is a reason that I was not all that shocked that while he was willing to have an actual investigation, he was also willing to walk away. Hard to disbelieve the person with first hand knowledge, and from the side that normally denies everything. It would have been better to hear both sides of the argument.
HinTN
@eemom:
I remember the flame wars.