Except for a grocery delivery from Safeway.com in the next seventy minutes, I finally have everything ready for tomorrow’s cataract surgery. I have to report at 7:15 AM for 8:30 surgery. I should be able to leave by 10:30. When I return, either I will post a Personal Update, or Wendy, who is taking me both ways, will do so on my behalf. On Wednesday, I plan to post a Personal Update in the morning. I have to go to Christine’s office for a day one follow-up appointment in the afternoon, and Wendy will pick me up from there on the way to my normal shower evening. Then I’m done with medical mayhem for eight days, god willing. The groceries came and I have put them away.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:33 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Tree Crowder Channel): Liberal Redneck – (Internet) Freedom Isn’t Free
If I wanted crying dwarf porn, I’d watch Republicans in Congress. Demand Net Neutrality! RESIST!!
From Daily Kos: Donald Trump announced his candidacy back in June of 2015, and though he got some mention in other articles, I went all the way to November before I did my first piece entirely donated to Donald.
Sixty million people died in World War II, but fascism won. It didn’t win on the battlefield. It didn’t win right away. It won because the same fears, the same greed, the same hatred that fueled its growth in the first part of the twentieth century never went away.
The symbols of fascism became anathema, but the causes … went deep. And gradually, slowly, one step at a time, all those vices became first tolerated, then treated as virtues, and then as the only acceptable view.
That was my view of Trump then — the manifestation of how America had grown not just to accept, but celebrate, all the hatred, prejudice, fear, and repression that marks the worst authoritarian dystopias. And the most horrible thing about what’s probably the most horrible article I ever wrote, is that all of it fell utterly short of being horrible enough.
Like too many people, I thought “no, we’re past that, Americans will never accept this level of racism.” I was wrong. I thought “Americans will never tolerate such blatant sexism.” Wrong again. I thought “Christians will never hand their banner to a man who openly, proudly, daily shapes his life around vengeance, a man who thinks forgiveness itself is contemptable.” I was very, very, wrong.
The author, Mark Sumner, and I seem to have an awful lot of thought in common here. Click through for the rest. RESIST!!
From NY Times: Sometime in the next few days the Congressional Budget Office will release its analysis of the latest version of the Republican health care plan. Senator Mitch McConnell is doing all he can to prevent a full assessment, for example by trying to keep the C.B.O. from scoring the Cruz provision, which would let insurers discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Nonetheless, everyone expects a grim prognosis.
As a result, White House aides are already attacking the C.B.O.’s credibility, announcing in advance that whatever it says will be “fake news.” So why should we believe the budget office, not the Trump administration? Let me count the ways.
First, this White House already has a record of constant, blatant lying about health care that is, as far as I can tell, without precedent in modern history. Just a few days ago, for example, Vice President Mike Pence made the completely false assertion that Ohio’s expansion of Medicaid led to a cutback in aid for the disabled — a lie that the state’s government had already refuted. On Sunday, Tom Price, the secretary of Health and Human Services, claimed that the Senate bill would cover more people than current law — another blatant lie. (You can’t cut hundreds of billions from Medicaid and insurance subsidies and expect coverage to grow!)
The point is that on this issue (and others, of course), the Trump administration and its allies have negative credibility: If they say something, the default assumption should be that they’re lying.
Click through for the rest of this fine Paul Krugman editorial. The only time Republicans stop lying is after someone nails the lid on. Our choice is simple. RepubliCare dies, or we do. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Even though I made this cartoon in 2011, InsaniTEA still comes in the same flavors.
15 Responses to “Open Thread – 7/17/2017”
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3:52 I have seen scarier dragons.
Hope everything goes perfectly.
Now here’s a headline you don’t see every day: Three Out of Four Democrats Would Give Up Drinking for Life in Return for Trump’s Impeachment, Poll Finds
YT/TC – Well, great minds do that, don’t they? This is a super-important issue.
DKos – Mark Sumner is very sound, always. This is no exception.
NYT – No kidding. I was reading this morning that now Mitch wants to wait for a vote until McCain is back, but McCain just got notified his recovery (no work) period will be longer than they originally thought, but more than enough to make trouble for McConnell. I guess we need to wait and see (and of course can also resist in the interim).
Cartoon – What God-awful flavors, for tea or anything else!
Yeh! Me for one! I am a dragon on the Chinese zodiac! When I was at my last position, both of my assistants were dragons. I was the oldest and the other two were 12 years and 24 years younger than me. Man, there was lots of fire breathing in the department!
Hottie Alert! Right?
And here I thought my “hotness” was a result of being a middle age-elderly female or from a blood sugar low.
Nope! It’s that fire breathing!
YT: Yea, this is a good video, and makes his point very clearly.
DK: Excellent post. Will be passing this one on too.
NYT: Absolutely, it sure is! Those lies they are telling us, is going to literally nail US!
Cartoon: Bleck!!!
Positive and good thoughts to you for tomorrow, hope all goes well for you. Take care, get some rest, and Thanks, Tom.
This Just IN:
I hope this is true. McConnell doesn’t have the support as two more senators defect.
Senate Republicans No longer have the votes needed to Pass the ObamaCare repeal bill !!
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/342447-two-more-gop-senators-defect-on-healthcare-bill
I read the same thing earlier. I also read that one Republican senator is receiving threats because he won’t vote for the new healthcare bill. Don’t you just love consensus building the Republican way!
Woooo Hoooo!!
They coordinated to issue their statements simultaneously, so that neither one could be excoriated as “THE on” who doomed it. Even when Republicans do have backbone, they don’t.
Yes, Pat, I just saw that elsewhere!!!!
TC: Most good luck with the operation!
Puzzle — 3:27 There’s nothing to eat there but at least you will have plenty of water to drink.
YouTube — There is no other acceptable status for the net — neutral as in net neutrality.
Daily Kos — A long but excellent piece. I had a giggle at this part:
Drumpf saying it might be solar powered? That’s rich coming from him. I would have thought that the Drumpfian climate change deniers would opt for natural gas or oil, you know those fossil fuels.
NY Times — Good article by Krugman.
With anything Republican’s don’t agree, Drumpf has taught them well . . . it is fake news. The only things fake are the Republican talking points on their healthcare bill. Let’s hope that more Republican senators feel the heat from their constituents and choose not to support the Republican Deathcare bill.
Cartoon — Those brews will melt a teapot! Pure acid!
Resist and Persist!!!
Don’t give the bastards an inch!
I know you won’t see this before you go, but know that I’m thinking about you as you have the eye operation. I am very glad that Wendy is going with you. Damn, she is one GOOD woman! . . . a real keeper!!!
TCC: Well stated, Liberal Red Neck, and in a way that will make many realize
what net neutrality means for them and what they’re about to loose as Republicans again go for the money and do their masters bid.
DK: Many here have something in common with Sumner and even I, not privy to those strong American values and emotions, thought for a little while that those who did have these feelings would never allow the country to sink so low. But having seen from a less emotional distance what Drumpf got away with during his campaign and the fervor of his followers, I was down to hope only by the time of the election, remembering my unbelief when Dubya was re-elected. And nothing that Drumpf and his henchmen now do really surprises me, but the continuing support from the Republicans does. It is the Republican agenda he helps to realize that keeps him in power and that agenda turns out so much more evil and depraved of any humanity than I realized then.
NYT: Republicans ar back to trying to feed people the same lies as when they first tried to repeal Obamacare and have added some new ones to give some credit to Trumpcare, a task they find immeasurably more difficult. They now realize that it’s so much easier to make up horrible bad stuff than it is to think up some positive lies (yes, they now why this is a contradiction in terms
), so McConnell and his minions now see themselves forced to keep the C.B.O. as far away from their new plans as possible and badmouthing one of the few independent watchdogs left. I bet the C.B.O. is next in line to see mass cuts and redundancies and to being hollowed out to the point of irrelevancy.
Cartoon: Yes, InsaniTEA is still only available in almond flavor.
The best of luck today (it’s Tuesday here already), TomCat. I’m sure you’ll be absolutely fine, with some of your sight restored soon. And there’s little chance of additional mayhem around the appointments now Wendy is taking you. Tell that gem “thanks” from all of us, I’m sure.
YT/TC: Resist!
DK: Sadly, we have learned, ironically thanks to Rumpy, just how sick our country’s vast underbelly is! Sadly, on some level, the political process has left out those folks, and, feeling helpless, it is easy for them to maintain that the “other” is at fault!!!
NYT: As of this morning the NYT is announcing “2 MORE DEFECTIONS LEAD TO COLLAPSE OF HEALTH EFFORT!”
The exclamation point is my offering!!!!!!!!! (Have some more)
GOPig lying, spinning, is what they do!
Thanks all! Pooped Hugs!!