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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I swear, each month of 2020 will have its own history degree.

Four legs? good! two legs? we’re not so sure…

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

This is how realignments happen…

I can’t take this shit today. I just can’t.

Call the National Guard if your insurrection lasts more than four hours.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

This fight is for everything.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

This really is a full service blog.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Let there be snark.

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

The willow is too close to the house.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

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Kochsuckers

Scott Walker, Still Not Any Good at This “Campaigning” Gig

by Anne Laurie|  September 8, 201510:08 pm| 115 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Kochsuckers, Republican Stupidity, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

[email protected] : "Everybody wants to talk about hypotheticals; there is no such thing as a hypothetical." http://t.co/RczAK6kYxb — Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) September 9, 2015 Exact quote, per the ABC link: “I’m not president today and I can’t be president today,” the Republican presidential candidate and Wisconsin governor said when asked by ABC News during a …

Scott Walker, <em>Still</em> Not Any Good at This “Campaigning” GigPost + Comments (115)

Donald Trump’s existence in the race actually seems to be goading Walker into looking worse, when you’d think that The Donald’s hogging all the attention might have helped Walker avoid embarrassing revelations. After all, Walker’s political record basically involves refusing to tell anyone what his plans are and then doing something politically craven: he first campaigned on fixing Wisconsin’s budget, then once elected decided that it was public-sector unions’ fault and used a short-term crisis as an excuse to gut them; he evaded discussion about potential anti-union “right-to-work” legislation by calling it a distraction, then signed a right-to-work bill; he ducked questions about legislating more abortion restrictions, then signed a 20-week abortion ban.

And that doesn’t even get into the hail of convictions and indictments in his administration and the campaign finance investigation that suddenly stopped thanks to Wisconsin Supreme Court justices who received donations from many of the same groups being investigated. Walker was always going to have trouble with the scrutiny of a national campaign, outside those justices’ reach and outside the demographics of an overwhelmingly white state whose racial divisions he heightened with the help of a sycophantic right-wing media.

Instead, Walker seems to have felt that any gap in his coverage should have an unforced error hurled through it…

Texas, what a surprise:

by David Anderson|  August 11, 20159:38 am| 51 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Glibertarianism, Kochsuckers, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It), All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Bring On The Meteor, hoocoodanode, Meth Laboratories of Democracy, Peak Wingnut Was a Lie!, Sociopaths

Color me completely unshocked from this report in the LA Times: When the Affordable Care Act took effect in October 2013, there were 14 states in which more than 1 in 5 adults lacked health insurance; today only Texas remains, according to data released Monday…. Its uninsurance rate fell from 27% in 2013 to just …

Texas, what a surprise:Post + Comments (51)

Open Thread: Sunday Sermon, from Satan

by Anne Laurie|  August 2, 20157:18 pm| 190 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2016, Kochsuckers, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Assholes, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?, Go Fuck Yourself

Charles Koch compares work of his political network to civil rights movement http://t.co/dEKpRV1D4O — Alan Abramowitz (@AlanIAbramowitz) August 2, 2015 The Washington Post, reporting from an upscale California resort: DANA POINT, Calif. — Charles Koch on Sunday compared the efforts of his political network to the fight for civil rights and other “freedom movements,” urging …

Open Thread: Sunday Sermon, from SatanPost + Comments (190)

Open Thread: GOP Monkeys Dance for MotU Dollars — in Public!

by Anne Laurie|  July 27, 20159:59 pm| 86 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Kochsuckers, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes, Jump! You Fuckers!

Everyone else can just wait to find out if they are VP material. pic.twitter.com/3CcHbM6QF6 — Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) July 27, 2015 Never a meteor around when you need one… From that Politico story: … The gathering – which also will include former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, but notably not Sen. Rand Paul — is …

Open Thread: GOP Monkeys Dance for MotU Dollars — in Public!Post + Comments (86)

Prepare the Ice Floes

by David Anderson|  July 9, 201510:39 am| 81 Comments

This post is in: An Unexamined Scandal, Anderson On Health Insurance, Crazification Factor, Cruz-ifiction, Grifters Gonna Grift, Kochsuckers, Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin, Politics, Republican Venality, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It), All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Bring On The Meteor, Flash Mob of Hate, Fucked-up-edness, Go Fuck Yourself, Good News For Conservatives, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own, Nobody could have predicted, Our Failed Political Establishment, Peak Wingnut Was a Lie!, Teabagger Stupidity, The Wingularity, Very Serious People, Wingnut Event Horizon

The New York Times reports on the next great cost saving measure in the US: Medicare, the federal program that insures 55 million older and disabled Americans, announced plans on Wednesday to reimburse doctors for conversations with patients about whether and how they would want to be kept alive if they became too sick to …

Prepare the Ice FloesPost + Comments (81)

We know a few things about death.  It happens to everyone.  The months immediately preceding death are statistically the most expensive time on average, we tend to overtreat and over-intervene at a heroic basis before death even as the person being intervened on does not want heroic treatment.  Death and the possibility of heroic intervention to avert death can and will tear apart families.

Talking about death is important, and that means paying for providers to talk about death.

Wisconsin has had some success in getting people to think about how they want to die:

Imagine a town of 50,000 Americans where 96% of those who die have signed an “advance directive” codifying their conscious decisions about how they would like to die. This is quite an accomplishment given we haven’t been able to move the needle at a national level beyond 30% over the past 30 years….In La Crosse the simpler, cheaper and more accessible innovation that was good enough to get the job done was the ancient art of conversation. Hmmmm. Talk maybe cheap… but effective….By 1995, 85 percent of people that died in La Crosse County had an advance directive and by 2009 the number had reached 96 percent–more than three times higher than the national average. Nationally, the average cost for a patient’s last two years of life is $26,000 (in some hospitals average costs run as high as $65,000) the average cost in La Crosse, is just $18,159. More importantly, knowing patients’ wishes ahead of time ensures the best possible care and relieves debilitating emotional and financial stress for families. Family members don’t have to debate about what their loved one would want for treatment and avoiding decisions made in the spur of the moment.

 

 

Get ready for a summer of Crazy

by David Anderson|  June 29, 20159:57 am| 47 Comments

This post is in: Crazification Factor, Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Kochsuckers, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Clown Shoes, Fools! Overton Window!

The incentive structure of the Republican primary debate cut-off is to promote the crazy even if the goal of the cut-off is to minimize the crazy talk. The debate will be on August 6th, and it is split into two parts. The main event will have ten candidates who have filed with the FEC and …

Get ready for a summer of CrazyPost + Comments (47)

There are two other groups who have to embrace the Republican Party’s Id. The first group is the cluster of candidates who are currently qualified for the debates but whose position is precarious. They have a simple objective in the first two rounds; survive and advance to the next round. That means they have to punch down until the moment the moderater welcomes them to the stage. The last group has to generate a surge of momentum to get into the top ten between now and August 4th. The bottom six (the currently excluded candidates) have a consolidated 3rd place position if all of their support was pooled together. These candidates need to grab support from one another as well as grab support from the easy switchers of debate qualified candidates. Given what we know about the Republican Party, the easiest way to get base Republican support is to embrace the crazy; threaten mass deportation, threaten mass impeachment of the Supreme Court, threaten massive resistance to healthcare, make a few racist and or sexist jokes and then claim persecution by the liberal elites.

Given the incentive structure of an early, public and hard line cull, the bottom half of the Republican field has no incentive to avoid making statements in July 2015 that could hurt them in October 2016 because without those statements in July 2015, they don’t make it to September 2015.

One DB to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

by Betty Cracker|  June 11, 20152:06 pm| 142 Comments

This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Kochsuckers, Open Threads, Politics, Assholes, General Stupidity

Did you know the Koch Bros created an all-seeing Eye of Sauron-like contraption to turn its terrible, burning gaze on voters? And that the Koch Bros and RNC’s Reince Repeatus are now squabbling over the RNC’s master voter data file like a pair of horny frat boys over a bootlegged sex tape? It’s true! Interviews …

One DB to bring them all and in the darkness bind themPost + Comments (142)

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