While Mike Pence was governor, his relationship with the Democratic minority in the legislature was crap. Someone on his staff suggested having the Democratic leaders over to the governor’s mansion for dinner. The table was set for 20, but there were only around seven in attendance. One unlucky legislator stuck next to Pence tried to make conversation, but found even at dinner she couldn’t shift Pence off his talking points. Gov. Pence shouted to his wife, Karen, his closest adviser, at the other end of the table.
“Mother, Mother, who prepared our meal this evening?”
The legislators looked at one another, speaking with their eyes: He just called his wife “Mother.”
Maybe it was a joke, the legislator reasoned. But a few minutes later, Pence shouted again.
“Mother, Mother, whose china are we eating on?”
Scenes from a Mall
Trump’s press secretary said many stupid, mock-worthy things during the “reboot” press briefing today, but one set of talking points pissed me off on a personal level. Via TPM:
White House press secretary Sean Spicer downplayed on Monday the massive women’s rights marches that took place Saturday in Washington, D.C. and across the United States, saying that protestors were actually “not against anything,” let alone Donald Trump.
That car trip my crew and I took over the weekend? Not an afternoon drive. And this isn’t a photo of some friends who just happened to be chilling in the same space:
Millions of us marched, in cities all over the fucking world. We marched to reclaim our status as full citizens of this country, after the election of Spicer’s boss implied our worth as human beings is linked to some leering, tiny-fingered old goat’s opinion of our boobs.
More broadly, we marched to send a message that Trumpism isn’t the future of this country, that those of us who embrace a diverse, inclusive, equal future are still here, and that we won’t give up without a fight.
Make it rain
I’m going to try to do a Moral Mondays kind of thing here where every Monday I do a post about calling Congress or going to protests or giving money to a good cause or some other kind of IRL type of shit.
In at least five states, Republican lawmakers are attempting to criminalize peaceful protests. So why not give some money to the ACLU?
Spicer: Take Two (Open Thread)
Looks like Spicer is going to take a second run at the press. Let me know how it turns out. I can’t bear to watch.
Open Thread
Aetna and cynicism confirmed
The anti-trust case where the government has been seeking to block the Aetna-Humana from merging has a ruling. The District Court judge has sided with the FTC and blocked the merger. I would be shocked if the ruling is not appealed.
There is a bit in here that made me smile as it gives some context to some of my more cynical writing over the summer. Aetna was profitable on the QHP market in Pennsylvania. However it pulled out of the entire state despite making a good deal of money.
Aetna was profitable in 2015 in the individual market in Pennsylvania. It is projecting to be profitable in 2017. The filing memo was drafted in late May and submitted to the Pennsylvania regulators in early June. Conditions have not changed enough to make Pennsylvania a money loser in under two months.
My wee bit of cynicism bears fruit. Aetna is trying to logroll an anti-competetive merger with on-Exchange political consequences.
The judge seems to be a cynical bastard as well:
Aetna ditched ACA exchanges to make itself look smaller and help its proposed Humana merger avoid antitrust scrutiny, judge rules pic.twitter.com/NzBbfcm4KT
— Jeff Overley (@JeffOverley) January 23, 2017
I’ll have more on this including a policy perspective when I have time to write, but cynicism was completely justified.
Sport Open Thread
I want to highlight a couple of things from yesterday’s sporting events.
First, just for John:
Steelers good for a "cover no one" a couple times a game. pic.twitter.com/ADCHl3Yyh3
— Rich Hill (@PP_Rich_Hill) January 23, 2017
Secondly, look at the scoreboard:
Stars Jumbotron with a topical joke. pic.twitter.com/9vsmTG1Agj
— Kate Morrison (@unlikelyfanatic) January 22, 2017
Let’s think about who goes to NHL hockey games for a second (especially in Dallas). The crowd tends to be white, middle class or higher income, and more likely to be male and older than average. That sounds like a core Trump demographic especially in Texas. And the Jumbotron is mocking Trump. Whoever put that up there thought they had at least implicit permission to mock. And it is only week one. Our objective is to get Trump and the Republican Party competing with syphilis in terms of popularity. Mockery will help (and it is a lot of fun anyways)
Updates Ahead: Planned But Bumps Likely
Folks,
Just a head’s up – I’ll be working on the site off and on today. After the fiasco yesterday, I’m going to take calm, measured steps. This will be less dramatic as I will be doing the updates myself instead of trying to clean up a mess.
I am working with the wonderful folks from Hosting Matters to sort out some rights issues when we try to roll back changes. It is possible that the site might go down for a few minutes; this might be necessary to ferret out the lurking issues with the restore process so that it never misfires again.
Hopefully the site won’t go down, but once I update the theme files, the site will temporarily be “vanilla” until I apply our customizations. That should just be a matter of minutes except that one of the main parts of the theme seems to have changed so our normal customizations result in a blank page. Obviously this won’t do, so should you see this happen, take a deep breath and try again. I’ll have a backup copy of the file at issue ready to drop back in should something happen, but going into this with the painful lesson of yesterday should help limit the likelihood of an incident.
After my profuse thanks for their help yesterday and after I pointed out that I gave them a nice plug for their help, Hosting Matters pointed me to a great deal they offer – the Social Media Special
It’s for new customers and offers a site with unmetered resources and a free domain for the first year for $8.16 a month. It’s a great deal, and they are a great host. When my current hosting plans wind down later this year, I’ll be moving to them as their support and expertise are fantastic, and their reliability and pricing are awesome.
So, if you’re looking to setup a new site or move off of nickel-and-dimer-hosting companies, please check out Hosting Matters.