Maybe someone in Trump’s entourage has figured out how to stream Fox News so the Trumps can access this comforting spin from a Blonde with Two Boobs on a Couch:
WOW — huge boos for Ivanka and John Bolton when they emerge for the news conference!
(@kilmeade quickly tries to gaslight and says the boos weren't really for Ivanka) pic.twitter.com/cMl819A9Zg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 4, 2019
One of the Two Boobs claims the boos are for Bolton, who allegedly “loves it” since he’s a “tough guy.” Does the average Londoner even know who Bolton is? If so, they’re way ahead of the average American. Regrettably, Princess Complicity’s vacant visage is known worldwide. Ask not for whom the Brits boo; they boo for she.
What I want to know is who is paying for this European vacation for Trump’s adult hell-spawn? We taxpayers are almost certainly on the hook for Ivanka and Jared since they are (preposterously) employed by our government. But I hope the newsies will follow up on who’s paying for the trip for Don Jr., Tiffany, and Eric plus his idiot wife.
I remember wingnuts screeching like scalded stoats when Michelle Obama and her daughters toured London — even though the Obamas paid for their own personal expenses. They’ll guard the US Treasury just as jealously now that the vulgar Trump horde is abroad, amirite? [Rhetorical question!]
Open thread!
CCL
Boo for her.
Major Major Major Major
Yeah, no sympathy for either of them. And just think, even W wasn’t this unpopular until eight years in!
dr. bloor
Trump and May on stage together? Not enough rotten fruit in all of Olde England for that act.
schrodingers_cat
So is Ivanka going to be the next R nominee?
Anya
I would have loved it if they shouted at her “complicit in child abduction.” I hate that vacuous, heartless viper with all my heart.
SFAW
Eric’s idiot wife appears to be a less-decayed version of Crypt Keeper Conway. Trying to impress the old man, were you Eric?
OzarkHillbilly
I saw a blurb somewhere that at the very least implied we are on the hook for the entire entourage, including Mnuchin’s wife. Looking for it now. I f I can find it in the next few minutes I’ll put up a link before I start my day.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Nominee? You’re assuming a lot. More like the Traitor-in-Chief’s designated heir(ess) to the throne.
joel hanes
OT
Wow. Went to bed at midnight in the old familiar world — woke up and looked at Balloon Juice, and it’s a whole new world.
Congratulations and thanks to the webmaster crew.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Found it: US taxpayers shelling out millions for luxury hotels for Trump state visit
No doubt Republicans will be the first to criticize this wasteful spending.
MattF
We have attained new heights in maximizing vulgarity. Have we reached an endpoint? Is there a linear programming expert in the room?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@SFAW: Laura Trump looks like Caitlyn Jenner.
rikyrah
Read this thread. I just wanna scream.
Scream!
It doesn’t have to be this hard for us here
???
Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) Tweeted:
When I lived in Iceland, I found a lump. I had no idea how to navigate finding a doctor, so I went to our show’s production manager.
Me: I found a lump. Can you help me find a doctor?
PM: Just go to the cancer center.
Me: Okay. How do a get a referral?
PM: What’s a referral? https://twitter.com/MaryRobinette/status/1135684848465657857?s=17
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
A 16ft robot of Donald Trump sitting on a golden toilet, while tweeting, has just been wheeled into Trafalgar Square ready for today’s protests @LBC pic.twitter.com/au2p3fnu6i
— Rachael Venables (@rachaelvenables) June 4, 2019
rikyrah
???
This thread will break your heart. Thank you, Andrew for delineating just how terrible the net can be for people who struggle with mental illness, and for the caregivers who struggle to take care of them. I’m really sorry this is your story. Sending you ❤️ https://t.co/XA8dxwuwhF
— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) June 3, 2019
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Yeah, well, this president and his family are white, so, hey, no big deal if they want to loot the Treasury. Am I right?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Much respect, so much winning, wow!
OT: AL published the second post in my series about the Indian elections after I had logged off and gone to sleep. This time I focused on the Congress debacle. Elevation of a dynasty over everything else was one of the reasons for the fall. if you have questions I can answer them over here or on my blog.
I also has a Twitter account, but have not tweeted much.
Okay now back to T bashing.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: is this the rebuild or just updated formatting in anticipation of same? The headlines take up like the entire screen on my phone.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Didn’t the Obamas stay at the American Embassy?
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Looks unchanged to me.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
You’ll let us know when you take this act on the road, right?
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Same here.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: you might need to do a hard refresh to get the updated stylesheet.
Butch
The daughter who is the child by the middle wife (I can’t remember either of their names) is there for some inexplicable reason as well, yes?
Gin & Tonic
@Butch: Reportedly all four adult children. Makes me wonder where Barron is and who’s caring for him.
Sloane Ranger
As I said in a previous thread, I read somewhere that Trump brought his spawn to our fair country because he wanted them to have a “Next Gen” Leaders meeting with Wills, Harry and their wives.
It was never going to happen. The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex will do their duty – no more but, clearly, in Trump’s mind he thinks he is creating a dynasty!
Given this, I assume it counts as US Government business and the US taxpayer is footing the bill.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Not the rebuild.
TomatoQueen
@Butch: middle wife = Marla, daughter = Tiffany. Tiffany has been a law student (Georgetown Law, part of Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution founded at least in part on the profits gained from the sale of slaves) & school’s out. She keeps a low profile compared to the hellspawn, as does Marla.
mrmoshpotato
@Sloane Ranger:
A dynasty that will die in prison or in the gallows.
VOR
@Gin & Tonic: I wondered about Barron too. My guess is he is staying with Melania’s parents (i.e. Barron’s grandparents) who IIRC live in the DC area. They entered the US through the chain migration policy Trump often attacks.
Central Planning
@OzarkHillbilly:
Wasteful? It was Obama that was wasteful. I remember the Republicans said it cost something like $60 million for him to go overseas for a week. Thank god the President* is saving us money! //
schrodingers_cat
@VOR: Don’t use T’s terminology for family based immigration. A route taken by most immigrants past and present.
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
Weird. On Windows 10 desktop, I get what I presume is the new site design.
Here on the Mac, I get the old familiar.
Using firefox on both.
joel hanes
@Major Major Major Major:
I suppose I’ll get use to it, but boy, the high-contrast blockquote boxes in the new style are … VERY high-contrast. I shall be eschewing the blockquote tag in my own comments, I think.
scav
@schrodingers_cat: It was a technical term for a type of migration before the great orange head used it. Oddly enough, not always family-based if I remember it correctly, it could also involve neighbors, just so long as you were following people tou knew. So yes, very common.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
Ah. Then perhaps my Windows 10 firefox mistakenly loaded the stylesheet for the mobile device ? The post subjects are VERY LARGE, and the blockquote boxes have a large graphic of a double quote on a glaring white frame.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: I suspect that some CSS malarkey is happening with the blockquotes, since the inner text has a gray background (except for links where it’s white again).
eta: Comment editor loading function is nice and smooth.
schrodingers_cat
@scav: Family based immigration is the USCIS terminology. The other method to get a green card is employment based immigration, where your employer sponsors you.
Currently citizens can sponsor their parents, spouses and minor children(no quotas), siblings and adult children are subject to yearly quotas and long waits because of that.
ETA: Anti-immigration zealots like the various think tanks run by Tanton and his allies use chain migration as a pejorative.
The Moar You Know
@dr. bloor: Even the BBC wouldn’t carry most of the remarks – a couple of his, none of hers.
Fucking brutal. She’s a loser and now an unperson to her own government. The one she is still running.
Wish American media would follow the fine British example.
Baud
Making the site look awful will make the rebuild look even better. Marketing 101.
joel hanes
After a page reload, now I’m getting the new style on the mac too.
scav
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not exactly arguing with how the term is used elsewhere, I’m bringing up that I was taught the term probably before the orange one had lost his millions — so the term has its own history despite some mouth breathers grunting. The important thing was the information and social insurance passed between migrants even if they weren’t biological kin and the geographic distribution of people was dofferent than people throwing themselves across the void randomly and blindly.
Leto
@rikyrah: No, it doesn’t have to be this hard. Avalune and I still don’t have primary care doctors. The area we’re in is underserved and wait times run from 4-6 months to be seen. I pay for insurance so that I can not have access to a doc in my area. Living the American healthcare dream.
schrodingers_cat
@scav: Thanks for the explanation, I have only seen it used as a slur.
tokyokie
@rikyrah: I had a similar experience while I was living in Norway. Dropped an acetylene bottle on my finger, and my co-worker drove me to the ER. After the ER doctor sewed up my finger, I asked where I needed to go to pay. He looked at me like I was from Mars. And that was more than 40 years ago.
MattF
Yeah, God will smite you if you’re really evil.
trollhattan
@scav:
Hijack their terminology and codewords to throw back in their faces. That’s how you defuse their effectiveness.
schrodingers_cat
@Leto: T’s capricious and malevolent immigration policy is driving many immigrants doctors to Canada and elsewhere.
rikyrah
@The Moar You Know:
That is brutal, and Bravo to them.
Gin & Tonic
@tokyokie: When my son was living in the socialist hellhole of the North (Canada) he got very ill. Spent 10 days in the city’s best teaching hospital, at one point getting an infusion of a drug which costs in the mid 5 figures per dose in the US. Total net cost to him (or us) – $0.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I have to admit, one area where I never connected the dots until Dolt45’s immigration policies were the number of immigrant doctors in this country. Had no idea. Didn’t know that many of them chose underserved communities (rural areas), because that was a faster way to get a visa.
And, the perversion of the racism of those in rural areas, whereas they would support Dolt45’s immigration policies, even though a lot of times, it’s the immigrant doctors sustaining them. So full of phucking racism that they’d like to send their own damn doctors away.
Once again, I will point out that, no, I don’t need to try and understand muthaphuckas willing to, at every turn, cut their nose off to spite their faces. ..and, expecting sympathy. Phuck. outta.here.
Kay
Interesting. It goes to what I have felt for a while- NAFTA became a kind of proxy for what people saw, which was lower wages and less employee power at work. It was almost a term of art in Ohio- it meant “I don’t believe I’m benefiting from the economic choices that are being made” and to some extent that was correct- they weren’t benefiting. So they stuck it all on China and NAFTA, Trump seized on that but then didn’t come through on any of the other real reasons the economy wasn’t benefiting them. The magic word no longer holds the same power.
J R in WV
@Baud:
This is why the CokeCola Corp introduced the terrible NewCoke formulation. IT was deliberately not good so that when they introduced Coke Classic, people would love it despite the fact that Classic Coke was sweetened with High-Fructose Corn syrup. Worked OK for them!
Classic Coke was not the original formula at all, much cheaper to produce, high profit margin. I hate coke products, all of them.
Kay
And I’m not sure demonizing immigrants has the same power. Remember- they went full-on anti-immigrant in 2018 and media went along, with the wall to wall coverage of The Caravan in the weeks leading up to the election and then completely disappearing, and Democrats still won big. So we’ll see.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Some urban areas count too. I know two immigrant doctors working in Anacostia in DC for the same reason. One is from Iran and the other one is from India. So people who have had no hand in electing T suffer as well.
The Moar You Know
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t really care, do U?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: It doesn’t aside from his rabid MAGA hatted base its not a winning issue even among Rs according to many polls.
J R in WV
@Leto:
Sorry you’re having trouble finding a good doc for your family. Our family doctor was just starting his practice when we moved here from my hometown. Board Certified Family Practice, then realized that all his patients would age, so became Board Cert Gerontologist as well. A little goofy/eccentric but a good doc. Seeking new patients actually, but you’re a long way from central WV. Take care!
Kay
I have to say I love these “nationalists” who allow Donald Trump, who is the leader of a different country, to set their agenda.
He interferes in their internal governance! He’s butting into every Right wing government sect on the planet. Do they know what “nationalist” means?
The low quality Trump hires are (allegedly) ordering the UK to get rid of their national health service. One would think “nationalists” would want to decide that themselves.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: That’s really odd. I’m not sure what you’re seeing, but the new site does not have “” in the blockquote box.
jl
The stoat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat
Thanks for background on the UK visit presser. I heard a news blurb that Trump allowed that May might be a ‘better negotiator’ than he is. Hard to believe he said that, so might be a garbled report. But, might be true in some sense. May has been good at horribly failed negotiations, employing dubious tactics in pursuit of ridiculous and infeasible policy goals, creating a public spectacle both ridiculous and disgusting. So, some basis for comparison with Trump and the Trumpsters.
tokyokie
@schrodingers_cat: Hey, if it wasn’t for an Iranian-born Armenian immigrant thoracic surgeon, I’d be dead.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You are on to us!
(in case it’s not obvious, that is a joke)
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: Would you mind taking a screen capture on your mac and sending it to me at BJfestivus at the google mail place? If it’s not too much trouble, can you also copy the URL for the page and include that in your message? thanks
schrodingers_cat
@tokyokie: A substantial portion of immigrant doctors are from Iran and Jordan, two countries affected by the Muslim ban. So their relatives can’t come and visit them, and if they travel they always have to be worried whether T and company will pull a stunt like banning even GC holders from coming back like they did in Jan 2017.
jl
@Kay: I read a news item listing all of Trump’s ‘recommendations’ for UK domestic policy, which he appears to be wrapping up with his ideas for trade negotiations with the UK following the proposed Brexit. Laughable. Trump recommends they do a hard exit, pick a fight with the EU over terms of exit, while he muses over extortion demands he’ll make as part of his proposed new trade agreement with the UK, while he mouths dimwit platitudes to the Brits on how great their brave new future will be if they follow his advice. Unreal.
Stuff like that is why Alexander Hamilton’s phrase ‘a spectacle both ridiculous and disgusting’ dances in my head every day.
Edit: the one items that sticks in my head is he’ll demand they privatize their National Health Service. The guy should be laughed or booed off the stage. Since May seems as inept and incompetent as Trump, no wonder he wants her to stay on her job for trade negotiations. What a grand mess those two could make of things!
Brachiator
And not just the evil spawn. From Politico
Conway was definitely at the dinner. Sanders, too, according to other stories.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
But, I doubt the folks in Anacostia voted for Dolt45.
I have to admit, it was the question that bothered me. ….they were in bumblephuck rural America….how the hell did they get such a hard on against immigrants. In my mind – they never encountered any. But, finding out about all the foreign doctors in rural areas explained a lot for me. Instead of being grateful that someone was working where they lived and they didn’t have to travel hours for care…they resented the doctors.
rikyrah
@jl:
That’s what stuck with me too.
Just going to remind people…..
Part of the way that Brexit was sold was lies to the folks about how much money the NHS would get…
And, you have this idiot talking about destroying it…
Yeah, like THAT will go over well.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
Maybe they forgot him, like in the movie “Home Alone.”
Kay
What kills me about the Trump Family and the low quality hires is how conventional they are. They worship rich people, celebrities, and royalty. What they want most in the world is to be accepted into and respected by a very specific “elite”.
When I read that Trump worships the royal family I thought “of course he does”
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I knew a British doctor of Indian descent in Maine, who ran a clinic serving several small fishing villages. His experiences were horrific.
ETA: DC voted for HRC, she got over 80% of the votes IIRC. But they have to suffer too because of T voters.
Sloane Ranger
@Kay: To be fair Kay, he’s preaching to the choir on that one. There is a consensus from Left to centre Right in support of NHS but the far right considers it a Socialist creation that takes money away from the wealthy, who go private anyway, to spend on the unworthy poor, who often make unhealthy life choices.
chris
@rikyrah: Canada chiming in. Friend went to the local ER because she was having trouble breathing and thought she was getting pneumonia. Four hours later she was in an ambulance to the big city and two days later they took a tumor out of her left lung. She was in the hospital for 10 days while her spouse stayed at the free Ronald Macdonald house. The big complaint? the hospitals charge $4 for parking and you need to keep enough change.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Conservatives have to grapple with the fact that no one likes their health care plans. They literally have to say they will preserve things like the NHS or Medicare or they cannot get elected. That’s how much people hate their health care plans. They have to PROMISE not to put them in.
Wapiti
@rikyrah: The problem (from the locals’ viewpoint) with an immigrant doctor working in a rural area is (1) doctors are smart people, and this brown person thinks they are smarter than me, (2) yeah, it’s a doctor, but I hate a brown person telling me what to do, and (3) why are we despised by the city folk to the point where we can’t have a white doctor?
Jeebus forbid that their doctor not be a Xtian as well.
Kay
@Sloane Ranger:
Anyone who follows the United States plan on healthcare is insane. Cling to a public plan with your life. Make them pry it from your cold, dead hands. You will profoundly regret privatization.
Kattails
I don’t see anything different about the site, but I got here by clicking on the drop-down favorites bar, so maybe that’s using an old connection? Should I try typing in Balloon Juice in a Google search? I’m all confused. I never had any problems with the site before….
rikyrah
Child porn charges for Trump-tied Mueller witness raise questions
Rachel Maddow reports on the disturbing criminal past of George Nader as well as his unnerving influence within the Trump White House, and his crucial role as a witness in the Mueller report, all leading to bewildering (if not entirely surprising) child pornography charges filed against him today.
Major Major Major Major
@J R in WV: Coke Zero is the best diet soda. Fight me.
Butch
@Gin & Tonic: Does anyone ever care for Barron? But I’m also seeing lots of comments about a site rebuild. It looks exactly the same to me, and I’m still having a lot of problems getting comments to load. They usually stop loading after I enter one….
Immanentize
I was listening to On Point this morning and they were doing a cross-the-pond show with the BBC. Callers from the US and the UK. It was a good idea, but they began by talking about the “special relationship.” Trump was asked at the joint presser whether the UK health system will be off the table in post-Brexit negotiations. He said, of course, nothing is off the table which May tried to squash, put down, silence, etc. immediately. I had a moment of clarity:
Trump wants the UK to crash out of the EU so his corporate (and Russian) masters can watch the country stumble like a wounded wildebeest. Then the corporations will fall on the Brexit remains (see what I did there?) like jackals(?) and pick the country clean. The NHS will not be able to continue on the vastly reduced tax base. Finance has already left the city in large part and car manufacturing and other such jobs have planned their retreat and are starting to go. What does the UK have to offer the U.S.? Tourism? They only thing left to offer will be UK domestic clientele monopolies like the NHS which will soon after Brexit be a wholly owned subsidiary of Kaiser or Harvard/Pilgrim or Comcast….
the only defense the UK has against the U.S. is noblesse oblige and the E.U. The UK is giving the middle finger to the latter and we don’t do the former.
Immanentize
@Butch:
MeeMaw and BoonPaw from the Old Country.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
I believe this. We hired at least a couple dozen software folks from all over the world during my career. Brilliant people, went to night school while working hard all day, just to keep learning. One guy from Peru got an MBA just for the entertainment value… Really.
His wife was an architect in Lima, enrolled at U of Illinois Champaign, one of the best tech schools in the country. Deal was, if he paid for her grad school they could get married before the schedule. Different, but not that different. Lots of family in Vancouver, BC. Great people!
One Indian couple came here to be married, she was Muslim, he was Hindi, they believed they would have been killed if they remained in India and married. Both software developers. Great people, now in So California. I was kind of proud to be bringing such great people to America, to improve our nation!
And now this!
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
Done.
JPL
@The Moar You Know: Nope
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
I drink carbonated water – zero calories, no chemistry, just H2O and fizz.
Guess I’m contributing to global warming with every tiny bubble? Sad… I wonder what compressed Nitrogen would taste like?
Another Scott
@Immanentize: Everything’s zero-sum with Donnie. Weakening the UK means that the USA is stronger and can impose its will upon it. So Donnie will get more golf courses without pesky interference from the locals.
Donnie’s supposedly meeting with Farage and assorted other kooks today. With any luck, his loser stink will rub off on them, too, and the UK will finally turn away from the stupidity of Brexit.
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@J R in WV: My bride insisted that I get off artificial sweeteners after my stroke so I’ve gone to that with a splash of Traders Carbonated French Pink Lemonade.
plato
The thug is making the house appear as toothless tigers every fucking day
Kay
@Sloane Ranger:
What’s been interesting to me (and good, I think) has been watching the “best health care in the world!” myth collapse.
People no longer just accept that assertion and they did accept it, for years. Now it’s like “well, IS it the best? Because it’s hard to access and hugely expensive and we don’t have very good PUBLIC health outcomes…”
Conservatives used to be able to basically shout down any criticisms by screaming “best health care in the world!”
over and over, but the bad experiences became too widespread. Too many people had insane bills from emergency rooms, or couldn’t find a primary care doc, or couldn’t use their insurance in any real and practical way. The myth just quietly died.
japa21
@Major Major Major Major: I won’t. I generally hate diet sodas, but that one isn’t bad. Therefore it is the best of that category. “Isn’t bad” is high praise coming from me.
rikyrah
Soured deal considered as Mueller witness charged with child porn
Devlin Barrett, national security reporter for The Washington Post, talks with Rachel Maddow about the arrest of Robert Mueller witness George Nader on child porn charges and what that might indicate about any deals Nader may have cut with prosecutors for testimony about his dealings with the Trump transition and administration.
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
Seriously. They kept pushing the Gandhi/Nehru family thing for ages as literal Gods. It would irritate the crap out of me. They couldn’t do it anymore because newer generations don’t have the same link to independence like the older generations. I have not read your post but I will.
Just One More Canuck
@Brachiator: What does Sarah Sanders do these days. When was the last time she gave a press briefing, which I thought was at least part of her job?
Kay
@plato:
Well, they can’t do anything to Hope Hicks. She’s in crisis. They’re counseling her at the NYTimes. I imagine we’ll get an update on her psychic condition soon. I for one hope she’s ok.
rikyrah
Instinctive action amid security breach serves as inspiration
Karine Jean-Pierre, chief public affairs officer for MoveOn.org, talks with Rachel Maddow about what went through her mind as she put herself because Senator Kamala Harris and an out-of-order protester who had just strode on stage and seized the microphone from Harris at the California Democratic Convention.
Steve in the ATL
@rikyrah:
When my wife was in Emory hospital last year, there were over a dozen staff doctors working there. Every single one was an immigrant. As is her primary GI doctor. In fact, she didn’t see an American-born doctor until we got to the Mayo Clinic.
chris
To be a fly on the wall…
JPL
@plato: I doubt that he can prevent Manafort from being transferred to Riker’s, so at least there is a little ray of sunshine.
rikyrah
CA Democratic Convention tests mettle of candidates (and hosts)
Rachel Maddow reports on how some candidates performed and were received at the California Democratic Convention, as well as an incident in which a protester walked on stage and took the microphone from Kamala Harris’s hand.
japa21
@Kay: There is a difference between “best health care” in the world and “best health care system” in the world. If you are able to access the system, the actual health care is great. Unfortunately the system is structured to make actual access to the care difficult for the most part and nigh impossible for many.
rikyrah
Dear MAGAs,
Melania Trump will never happen. Ever.
Michelle Obama is going to remain more beloved around the world than Melania will ever be.
I know that upsets you. I don’t give a fuck.
Good day to you.
— Wakandan War Dog (@Kennymack1971) June 4, 2019
Sloane Ranger
@Kay: You are preaching to the converted. There was a time when, influenced by nostalgic TV series like Dr Finley’s Casebook, I thought returning to the pre NHS days would be good but my parents, both active members of the local Conservative party by the way, set me straight. My Dad particularly. He had had Rheumatic fever as a teenager and the stories he told about his parents efforts to pay for his treatment were horrifying.
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: The only carbonated beverages I drink are beer and “tonic water” (the latter is part of a refreshing combination.)
Probably not a health guide here.
Mike in Pasadena
Long article in WaPo about Pompeo hoping people give Middle East peace plan a chance. Question: What peace plan? Haven’t sseen a word about the substance. Googled it. Nada, nichts, niente, bubkas
Just One More Canuck
@chris: I took my wife to emergency in the middle of the night a few months ago (she’s fine now) here in suburban Toronto. Pulled up to the entry and helped her to the triage desk before going to park the car. As I was walking away, she fell to the floor – the security guard took my keys, moved my car about 15 feet away and told me not to worry about it
jl
@Mike in Pasadena: News reports say that Trumpsters have had great difficulty turning confused oral BS sessions, wish lists, and pipe dreams, into decipherable marks written down on paper. Probably we’ll need to live long enough to read accurate histories of the process. Anyway, apparently some doubt that a stable written document of any kind of exists for a lot Trumpster ‘plans’.
Leto
@schrodingers_cat: @rikyrah: That’s something I knew about, doctors coming here (health professionals including nurses, therapists, etc…) to practice, going to more rural areas for faster immigration purposes. The doctor who saved my life was an immigrant. Came from England (he’s not white English), trained at Oxford, etc… dude did all the surgery to save my life, patched me back together, and has a very keen interest in my follow ups. I can never thank him enough. I don’t want to think about what might have happened if he wasn’t there. I also want more men and women like him over here, doing his thing, helping all of us.
One of the surgeons that was following me through my four weeks of rehab at the hospital was a Jordanian woman. Fourth year resident. Really nice, super smart person. I think she was planning on going back to Jordan because of all the shit going on here wrt immigration. All of her family is back home, but she’s not going to stay here. Another loss for us.
@J R in WV: It is what it is. We’ll keep searching but /shrug
Shana
@Gin & Tonic: Melania’s parents who live close to his school.
I can understand why Ivanka and Jared are there, they supposedly work for Trump, but why are Don Jr. and Eric there? They don’t have even the pretend jobs that J&I have.
James E Powell
@plato:
What does “directed” mean, exactly? Do they mean ordered and, if so, on what basis is the White House ordering private citizens to ignore a subpoena? Do they mean asked? Is that a defense to a contempt proceeding?
Query? What if Bill Clinton had simply “directed” Monica Lewinsky to ignore Ken Starr’s inquisition?
Omnes Omnibus
@plato: You do know that you can’t take action against someone for failing to comply with a subpoena until they actually fail to comply with it, don’t you?
OzarkHillbilly
@Steve in the ATL: A long long long time ago I ended up in a public hospital with a collapsed lung. The ER doc? Indian*. The radiologist? Filipino*. The surgeon? Pakistani*. The person who cut me open and inserted a drainage tube into my chest cavity? Some scared shitless, fresh faced, white, med student who I’m not sure had ever removed so much as a splinter before. I almost got up off the table to slap him because he kept repeating every single instruction the surgeon gave him, instead of just doing it..
* I am not certain of their nationalities, it was just the impressions I got of each
Shana
@Major Major Major Major: Not gonna fight you about Coke Zero, you’re absolutely right.
Omnes Omnibus
@plato: You can’t take action against someone for not complying with subpoena until they actually fail to comply with it. If the deadline is today, then they have not yet failed to comply.
Leto
@J R in WV: I’ve met a number of people who enlisted into the military from other countries (as a way to fast track their citizenship). Harder workers than just about everyone else, more grateful/enthusiastic for the opportunities afforded them… we also made sure that they earned bonus pay for speaking a foreign language. We’d take them down to the education center, talk with the people there, get them scheduled for a test in that language (verbal/written), and then tell them in no uncertain terms to keep current so they could keep that extra pay. It also added them to a list of specialist speakers, which if we needed to tap we could.
Imagine that, diversity helping us. /headdesk
JaySinWA
@rikyrah: I’ve seen a couple of Melania glorification posts from a relative on Facebook. Apparently there is a campaign afoot.
Leto
@James E Powell: Impeachment articles would’ve been immediately drawn up… oh, wait…
Just goes back to the established theory that Dems are simply Rethug babysitters. We can’t expect them to do anything: govern, negotiate in good faith, see opposing views, view POC as humans, wear proper fitting coat and tails…
If Dems aren’t constantly fixing Rethug fuckups, then what’s the point of the Democratic Party? ?
JaySinWA
@Gin & Tonic: Excess tonic water causes “black water fever”, I understand.
plato
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, “It’s just a flesh wound.”
TenguPhule
@MattF:
You think we’re still in a linear time line?
Peale
@chris: Came back from India last month. The weather there had made my breathing issues worse to the extent that I needed wheelchair assistance at the airport. I couldn’t put on socks or walk ten feet across a flat floor without coughing and gasping. I also had other issues, like, say, urine in my blood, that developed on the plane flight home. Went to “urgent care” because my plan will deny emergency room care if you’re not admitted to the hospital. They took 5 seconds to call me an ambulance and send me to the emergency room where I was admitted for 2 days to rehydrate, go on oxygen, and steroids, some of which I already take. Long story short, my insurance plan denied the coverage since they say it was a chronic condition that did not get worse. The hospital which would have taken $17,000 in payment for services as contracted with the insurance company is now charging me the full $60,000 for the care. There is very little incentive for anyone to help with the appeal, since the doctors get paid more if I don’t have insurance and the insurance company doesn’t want to pay. This was my first trip to the hospital since I was 11 and had my tonsils out. One more trip like that and I’ll have to file for bankruptcy. The insurance company says “You did nothing wrong but there is nothing they can do to help me.” Basically, I have to be nearly dead. Just debilitated to the point of not being able to care for myself isn’t enough. You are kind of better off dying in our current system.
TenguPhule
@mrmoshpotato:
On the gallows. He may weight over three hundred pounds, but American ingenuity will ensure that the platform will not break.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
To be fair, the Tories already have made great strides in destroying the National Healthcare system by appointing ministers with a vested profit motive to wreck it.
Gelfling 545
@Major Major Major Major: There is no “best” diet soda. Only less bad.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
Congress probably would have impeached him.
Oh, wait….
Ruckus
@Leto:
One gets assigned a primary at the VA. In the last 3 years I’ve gone almost 2 years without one. First was maternity leave, her replacement took almost 6 months, went in for appointment, she had gone into labor that morning. Getting nowhere so I changed clinics, got my first MD primary.
Not a lot of people working towards being a primary, an MD will have spent 6-8 years after college to be a primary that doesn’t pay all that much. And any one else has to take additional schooling, which costs as well.
hells littlest angel
@OzarkHillbilly: They’ll claim it barely begins to compensate for the $200,000,000 a day the Obamas’ trip to India cost, so the taxpayers owe Trump whatever he wants.
Omnes Omnibus
@plato: That’s not remotely what I said. The House has scheduled a vote on holding Barr in contempt. And before you go there, MoCs don’t sit around the chamber waiting to vote on things. Votes like that need to be scheduled ahead so that people can clear their schedules.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Unfortunately, this is considered an acceptable offer by the Tories.
TenguPhule
@Gelfling 545:
There are no less bad diet sodas. They are all horrible.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I think it’s actually worse than you make it sound. And that’s hard to believe but there are good people everywhere. But in some/many places the shitty ones are so shitty that the good ones can’t make up for it.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Nehru deserved most of that praise and more. Indira Gandhi’s tenure was mixed some great decisions like ending the privy purses of princely states, development of the space program etc and some truly terrible decisions like the emergency declaration and foisting of Sanjay Gandhi on the nation. Rajiv Gandhi was unfairly maligned in the Bofors deal, many of those so called investigative journalists behind making the the front page news are now the biggest cheerleaders for Modi (Gurumurthy and Chitra Subramaniam come to mind). His political judgment was questionable in his first term ( Shah Bano and opening the gates of the temple in the disputed Babri Masjid site). He never got a second chance. To me they are a mixed bag. Whatever else you may say about they dedicated their lives for the country. Indira and Rajiv died for their country. That said I think the party needs to move on from Nehru’s family.
Captain C
@dr. bloor: Brexit hasn’t happened yet; they can still easily import some from the continent.
Leto
@Ruckus: Yup. We have a satellite clinic here. What does that mean? I get a PA who takes my pulse/temp and not much more. Flu shot, maybe. Closest VA center is 45 mins away. They’re a bit better but still…
Gin & Tonic
@JaySinWA: That’s why I never drink unadulterated tonic water. Can’t be too careful.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Sloane Ranger: If they try to sell off and privatize the NHS there would be an uprising in this country the likes of which have never been seen. Politicians now that, which is why they feel free to spout about it knowing that it would never be allowed to happen.
Kent
@Steve in the ATL:
It’s because the US hasn’t invested in enough med schools to keep up with demand. My wife is a foreign-born doctor (from Chile) so we’ve been through this. The number of residency training spots in this country is far larger than the number of medical students being produced by US med schools each year. US med students tend to run off to take residency spots like dermatology and radiology in nice places so all the internal medicine and family medicine primary care residency slots in big urban hospitals go unfilled unless they recruit applicants from overseas.
Much cheaper to recruit trained doctors from India than build new med schools in the US. Especially to take the less desirable primary care jobs in big inner city hospitals and far flung rural clinics.
Gelfling 545
@TenguPhule: You may be right at that.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
We do cocktails most evenings, mine is a G&T, wife’s is Rum and Tonic. Lots of lime juice, also!!
I have heard that G&T can keep one from coming down with malaria…?
But you can’t drink G&T all day long and get much done… so carbonated water til the sun is across the yardarm.
Kay
@japa21:
I think a lot of people took it the other way- that it was the best system. Period. The qualifiers came after “if you can afford it” etc. Partly depends on definition. I wouldn’t rate it “best” (or even “good”) unless it’s easily accessible, somewhat affordable and also has good PUBLIC health outcomes – maternal mortality, infant mortality, vaccination and prevention. It has to be good across the population and it just isn’t. I’m not even saying “best”. I’m saying “good”.
Some of this stuff is amazing. I appreciate that. My youngest had amazing eye surgery that was like magic, I once took part in a bone marrow trial (donor) that literally took a relative from death’s door, but it isn’t “good” unless it’s widely shared. And it isn’t. We’re not a particularly healthy country.
Brachiator
More hard line BS from Der Trumpenfuhrer
From CNN and others
Kay
@japa21:
To me the point of a public system is universality. Once you have that you can go to “good, better, best”. We can’t even get to “good” with that. It doesn’t meet the first requirement- it doesn’t even meet “a system”. I think other places focused on the first requirement, first, which makes much more sense to me. THEN they can ask “is this system good?”
Kay
@japa21:
You can compare it to other private systems in the US. The food delivery system. It’s good. I can buy healthy safe food at an affordable price. I can also buy lavish food if I want, but I won’t starve on just the lowest tier system. Our lowest tier health care doesn’t deliver at all, so the system will never be great no matter how fancy and elaborate and miraculous the highest tier gets- it can’t be. There are too many people in the lowest tier.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
And if it ain’t Schweppes it ain’t tonic water. IMHO.
@J R in WV
When it comes to non-alcoholic imbibing, the complete regular list of what’s on the menu chez NotMax: Coffee, black, unsweetened. Lots of water, tap. Occasionally iced tea, unsweetened. Small glass of ruby red grapefruit juice as an eye opener some mornings.
Sodas? Blech.
jl
@Kay: You can also compare it to the other two mostly private systems in comparably developed and high income countries, Netherlands and Switzerland: the US system is a deadly, sloppy, overpriced mess compared to them.
tobie
@Peale: I’m so sorry to hear about your health troubles and your battle with your insurance company which won’t cover you when you’re sick. This is disgusting. What are you supposed to do — refrain from going to the emergency room when you can’t breathe because you have a pre-existing condition? Good luck to you on both the health and the financial fronts. Put up a GoFundMe page and let BJ know if things get out of hand.
NotMax
@Kent
The AMA has implicitly demanded a hard cap on med schools and admissions slots for decades.
Chickens. Home. Roost.
Immanentize
Just saw my favorite (so far) anti-Trump UK sign:
Gin & Tonic
Interesting. NBC News has published a story alleging that Manafort’s business associate Dmytro Firtash has made “hundreds of millions” in “illicit profits” while he stalls his extradition to the US on a 2014 warrant. The interesting part is that his lawyer, one Lanny Davis, threatened to sue NBC for defamation if they published. I guess NBC’s lawyers said “bring it on.”
Kent
@NotMax:
The AMA is a mainly Republican trade organization for mostly older white male doctors. My wife and pretty much all of her younger colleagues are not members of the AMA and to the extent that they pay attention, they mostly oppose its policy objectives. The AMA is similar to the AAA or AARP in that once you get on their mailing list you get endless monthly solicitations for membership. We have long ago learned to dump any envelope in the mail with the return address “State Street, Chicago” because that is an AMA mailing and they don’t always put their name on the envelope. About once a month or so we get ‘Membership Statements’ from the AMA that look like bills even though we’ve never joined. They try to trick doctors into just sending in the check or credit card number and joining like it is a required board license or something.
Whatever the AMA is advocating is usually the opposite of what we should be doing in medicine.
Jay
Bad Boris Johnson’s big backer Arron Banks is big in Insurance.
The NHS is toast.
Kent
@Jay:
Killing the NHS would most hurt the oldsters who voted for Brexit because they are the least insurable. NOBODY is going to want to insure your 65 year-old overweight unfit and pasty-white pensioner who lives on fried foods and watches the TV all day, and who is the most rabid Brexit supporter.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
I have a co-worker who was going to Cuba at the end of this month. She freaked out when I sent her a text containing the tweet about this.
Brachiator
@Kent:
So, is there any other organization picking up the slack?
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
No they resent anyone who doesn’t look like them, or isn’t from where they are from or speak like them. Their world is small, because they don’t know how to look past their own noses and they don’t trust anyone outside their world.
Ruckus
@Sloane Ranger:
The wealthy can buy higher quality drugs? Or at least pay for good rehab?
EthylEster
@schrodingers_cat wrote:
Bless you for that. What this county needs is less tweeting….by everyone.
Kent
@Brachiator: There are a LOT of non-profits engaged in health care policy. I don’t know of any others that specifically represent doctors though.
People should understand that the AMA is not what they think it is. The AMA is simply the trade organization for doctors that was created long ago when most doctors were mostly white men who were running their practices as small businesses and so advocates policies that most benefit the older doctor running his own practice, perhaps in partnership with a couple of others. Those days are long gone with the rise of HMOs and large Hospital-run clinical groups and all the other forms of vertical integration happening in medicine. So young doctors like my wife who works for a large HMO basically get nothing from the AMA.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
That’s about the sum of it.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
No good deed goes unpunished.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I once had a $3600. bill from an ER visit. I was the only person in it the entire 1 1/2 hrs I was there, had one Xray and talked to a doc for less than a minute. One unexplained charge was for $1. That’s one dollar. My total time other than waiting was less than ten minutes. This was in this century.
Jay
@Kent:
Nope. Old fat Brexter’s will just have to pay more for less, just like the US system, or pay more for nothing. They can set it up as a monthly direct deposit from the Pension payments.
The whole reason the Billionaires Boys Club backed Brexit, and is now pushing a Hard Brexit, is it is going to be the greatest looting of a Nation since the Soviet Union, or the Mongols in Iraq.
Naomi Klien wrote “Disaster Capitalism” as a warning,
The Billionaires Boy’s Club adopted it as a users manual.
One of the least covered Brexit stories, is that a huge whack of the Vulture Funds have moved from The City, to the low tax EU havens, so they can have all of the benifits of the EU while looting the UK blind.
Jay
@Ruckus:
Yup, and they can also fly away for better specialist care.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: I looked up Tanton. “Interesting” read. How a progressive idea, protecting the environment, can morph into a toxic brew. Environmental ideals lost to tribalism and racial supremacy, among other horrors.
Seems strange that Tanton has fl ok wn under the radar, partly because he’s a wierd and uncomfortable mix of liberal and white supremacist.
gvg
I welcome immigrants, we are a nation of immigrants, and it’s wrong to complain.
That said, we should not have to import so many doctors, nurses, and computer people. People want to grow up tp be doctors, they dream of their children being doctors, and the AMA policies that restrict our medical schools from training more American students causes a lot of resentments. As someone who has to review petitions of students not doing well academically I can tell you that many people have a highly unrealistic view of their own intellect, however the school recruiters say they could accept much larger classes with no decrease in quality, and that the choices of who is admitted gets to be kind of arbitrary due to their being no measurable differences.
All kinds of fields that are desirable are like this. Instead of blaming immigrants, people should blame mostly republican state legislatures……and themselves if they have tended to always pick the ones that promise to cut budgets and taxes, This is the result of that.
Ruckus
@japa21:
If you can’t get healthcare, then it’s not good. Healthcare access is part of good healthcare, because without access it isn’t healthcare. Look at my story above. One person paying for an ER for the day isn’t realistic. Healthcare in this country sucks donkey balls, system or care. Your particular situation may turn out great but healthcare and the healthcare system suck.
Mike in Pasadena
@J R in WV: if you don’t start drinking in the morning, you won’t be able to drink all day
Dan B
@rikyrah: Anti-immigration deprives poor rural whites of doctors. Anti-gay policies deprive kids of adoptive parents. Gay couples, and singles, are more likely to adopt bkack and brown kids, older kids, and special needs kids. But these kids wouldn’t be raised in fundamentalist churches.
But punishing (undeserving) poor people is a hidden goal.
Jay
Caroline Orr
@RVAwonk
·
2h
NEW (!): After the White House directed her to defy a subpoena and refuse to provide any documents to Congress, Hope Hicks has agreed to turn over documents related to Trump’s 2016 campaign to congressional investigators, according to a key lawmaker.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
WAS going to Cuba. Wife is pissed, we always wanted to go to mostly hear the music, and also to eat the food. Maybe soon? 2021?
Mnuchin should be welcomed back from the EU trip with handcuffs and a ride to night court.
chris
@J R in WV: Fly from Canada?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: But Plato said the House was like a toothless tiger. Why ever would she turn over documents?
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I know.
Funny that.
And they didn’t even have to impeach her on contempt charges, because she’s not in contempt, ( yet).
Almost like the actual processes and powers act slower than a TV Crime Drama.
Jay
@J R in WV:
@chris:
If you fly/cruise to Cuba via Canada or Mexico, as an American, Cuba will stamp your visa card rather than your passport, so it looks like you only visited Canada or Mexico.
Sloane Ranger
@Ruckus: Probably too late for you to pick up on but the UK has a private health system, doctors, nurses, hospitals, prescriptions, rehab services, that runs alongside the NHS. Some companies offer private medical insurance as part of their pay and benefits package and individuals can either pay a regular subscription to a private medical provider or “go private ” as we say for a specific procedure.
For instance, my cousin and I both had total hip replacements and subsequent rehab on the NHS. This was sufficient to allow us to function normally but my cousin wanted to go back to competitive sailing so he paid for further private rehab.