Did Something Change?

This is probably a really stupid question but I have this sense that once upon a time (like 25 years ago) the issue was "oh god I will owe medical bills for the rest of eternity" and now the issue is "oh god I need cash up front or nobody will treat me and I will die." I have no idea if this is a true read of the evolving state of health care in America. Anyone?

Victory!

The House GOP voted to kill people, and they are very proud of it!!!

Obummercare

Democrats have been shit at defending it for 8 years because our health care system is shit. Yes Obamacare was a big improvement over what came before, but politicians have a hard time defending it (and they really didn't defend it until they could just say "Trump is bad" which he is) because it enshrined our shitty healthcare system, with improvements. To defend Obamacare is to defend our health care system and nobody can really do that. The best part of it is the Medicaid expansion which nobody is allowed to talk about because that is (drum roll) SINGLE PAYER. The dirty little secret of our free market health care system is we spend more public money (medicare, medicaid, VA) as a percent of GDP than many/most comparable nations that actually have universal health care. And then we spend that much again.

Be More Honest!

Lost in the recent controversy about the new hire at the New York Times is the fact that "we" don't complain about Ross Douthat all that much because he is usually smart enough to know where the boundaries are. Which is another way of saying he's a full of shit elitist racist borderline fascist bigot, but he's usually smart enough not to say so!

Whiner In Chief

I sorta get self-pitying fake macho bro culture. You know, the MRA-types who think the world (women) is trying to sap their bodies of precious fluids. They are all a bunch of whiners. But their leaders are not! I mean, they whine to each other, but the dudes they worship are not whiners. They kick ass! Trump is a fucking whiny ass titty baby.

The Fake News media is officially out of control. They will do or say anything in order to get attention - never been a time like this!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 4, 2017

America's Worst Humans

Jeff Sessions

12

Margot & The Nuclear So&Sos; - Jen is Bringing the Drugs

Happiest Hour

Got a case of the Wednesdays.

Afternoon Thread

I know nothing, but my spidey sense tells me that THE AMERICAN DREAM will be officially dead soon.

Cletus From Fritters Doesn't Care About Your Fancy Internets

Journalists have spent months listening to WWC whisperers but still have no idea what their economic concerns actually are.

But narrative can overwhelm that. And the firmly established narrative of Clinton and Trump is that she couldn't connect to rural voters, whereas he was a “blue-collar billionaire” who made surprising emotional connections. Trump may be the first president whose plunge to 40 percent approval was marked by stories about the voters who still loved him. And Clinton may be the only politician who can talk about the need for rural broadband — at this point, an almost banal priority of rural politicians — and be accused of snobbery.

Dave Weigel is the only "journalist who talks to voters" I am aware of who actually "talks to voters" instead of quote-grabbing for a pre-written narrative. Since I often shit talk journalists on this website, let me compliment Dave. He actually does do the work that many journalists pretend to do.

Black Mirror

The only good thing about a likely Zuckerberg run for president is that it will let us know who the truly shameless mercenaries-for-hire in DC are.

I am one! My price, as always, is ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

Never Tweet

Atrios never refers to himself in the third person.

...Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2017

Let Facebook Eat You

Nobody listens to Atrios, but can someone please tell the people who run almost every newspaper site on the internet that their sites are like kryptonite to sanity? I almost never load a newspaper homepage directly anymore as I have to contend with auto-on ads, popover ads, whack-a-moles, etc. Maybe if you didn't require your customers to hit themselves in the face to read your product more of them would?

Overnight

See you tomorrow.

TUESDAY NIGHT IS THE BEST NIGHT

Ok I got nothin'

Tuesday Evening?

Isn't it like FUTUREDAY already?

David Brooks Gets Married Again

I don't care that divorced father of 3 David Brooks is marrying a woman who is 23 years younger than he is, but it is the kind of thing David Brooks the Columnist would care about if he was writing about black David Brooks.

The Southerner

I was out and about running some errands in the urban hellhole, dodging the bullets and whatnot, and I was thinking about the decline of the Southern Politician Archetype. I've probably commented on this before (like everything) but for decades in any movie or teevee show, any major politician (other than, say, mayor of New York) was a Southerner. You know, the president was from the South, the important senator was from the South. Or maybe Texas, which is distinct from the South but still basically the same archetype. That isn't true anymore. But it was always a bit weird. I mean, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush I were not from the South and Bush II only pretended to be Texan. Carter and Clinton, sure, but that's it.

Afternoon Thread

busy with stuff

Nostalgia

Was thinking about The Can Kicks Back for no particular reason.

Street Festival Season

Nice weather is here, and soon the Philadelphia street festival/block party season will arrive. The thing is, they're too popular. As in, nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded popular. What is the magic formula behind a street festival? Close off some streets to traffic. Let people walk around outside with an adult beverage in their hand. Have some food trucks/stalls. Maybe some other vendors. Possibly a band. But, really, the first two are the only ones that matter. People like to eat and drink outside and walk around without getting run over by cars!

Sadly, it is next to impossible for the powers that be to make the next step... which is, what if some streets were made pedestrian only every weekend? Or even just every Saturday during the summer? Without making it a big "festival" it still might be... popular!

Ivankasplaining

It of course doesn't occur to her that people who have worked on specific issues forever have probably thought about and considered every passing random thought that floats through her melon.

White House officials said Ms. Trump was trying to find a common-sense solution amid the roar of abortion politics. But Planned Parenthood officials said they thought Ms. Trump’s advice was naïve, failing to understand how central reproductive choice was to the group’s mission. Ms. Richards sharply criticized Ms. Trump for not publicly objecting to the Republican health care bill that failed in March, and Ms. Trump felt stung.

Speaking generally, Ms. Trump complained in the interview that many advocacy groups were “so wedded to the headline of the issue that sometimes differing perspectives and new information, when brought to the table, are viewed as an inconvenience because it undermines the thesis.”

I love everyone who touts "common-sense solutions." Why did nobody else ever think of that? Just apply some common sense, and all the politics will go away! Really, just a bit of common sense, you are the only person who has any.