Tom Levenson – Balloon Juice

Stupid Idea For David To Destroy

David’s post below got me thinking on single payer vs. universal coverage — I’m with David (and Elie). Don’t care how we get to health care for all Americans, as long as we get there. So here’s my stupid idea: a move in stages.* Stage one: Medicare For All Kids. Same program, just for every […]

A Handful Of Quick DACA-Related Thoughts

September 5, 2017 /90 Comments/in Assholes, Immigration, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Trump Crime Cartel /by Tom Levenson

Others here have said what needs to be said about the Coward Trump and his DACA debacle. I sign on to all of it. Here’s my PGO addition: 1: To reinforce a point Charles Pierce made today: DACA folks are Americans. Full stop. They may not be citizens, but they are us; members of […]

Grifters All The Way Down

September 3, 2017 /130 Comments/in The Money Party, The Party of Fiscal Responsibility, Trump Crime Cartel /by Tom Levenson

Here’s what I don’t get. Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, is a rich guy. Seriously rich: on the order of a half a billion in net worth, w. a cool $70 million in 2016 earnings. If he wants to check out a cool event — a total eclipse, say, a desire I wholly understnd — he […]

You Know You Have A Problem…

September 2, 2017 /138 Comments/in Hail to the Hairpiece, Just Shut the Fuck Up, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, Open Thread, Somewhere a Village is Missing its Idiot /by Tom Levenson

…When you say sh*t like this: “As he puts on plastic gloves to serve food at NRG Stadium…President Trump turns to press and says: “My hands are too big!” Dude. Special pleading like this only makes it harder to ignore the obvious inference. Seriously, Donald. Can we talk? I don’t care about your sense of adequacy, […]

Stray Thoughts and Mental Misdemeanors

August 16, 2017 /76 Comments/in Birdwatching, Cat Blogging, Dog Blogging, I Can't Believe We're Still Talking About Fucking Nazis, Military, Open Thread /by Tom Levenson

I’ve been quiet for the last several days* for several reasons. I’ve been heartsick; paralyzed with rage, unable to form sentences;** and, perhaps most to the point, unable to add much, if anything, to what everyone else has been saying. What’s more, I’m well behind on my book project, and just about ever last erg […]

Eclipses Make People Crazy, Daniel Defoe Edition

August 6, 2017 /102 Comments/in Open Thread, Science & Technology /by Tom Levenson

So: some of y’all choked on Annie Dillard’s perhaps overly magniloquent response to her eclipse. For you, then here’s something quite different for the more Augustan among us. For reasons not relevant to this post, I spent this morning nosing around Daniel Defoe’s writing from the late 1710s; just a few minutes ago I stumbled […]

Darkness At Noon (Well, A Little After 10 a.m. From Where I’ll Be Standing)

August 5, 2017 /118 Comments/in Because of wow., Open Thread, Readership Capture, Science & Technology /by Tom Levenson

This is a follow up to Anne Laurie’s post of earlier this morning. My family’s headed out for Oregon in a couple of weeks, basing ourselves with relatives in Portland before heading a little south and east in the very wee hours of the 21st. We’re putting ourselves in the hands of the cloud-cover forecast […]