Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

[Yoji]

I'm hearing that DeVos got confirmed as Secretary of Education thanks to a tie-breaker vote from Pence.

[Caithness]

Remember how after Obama's first year we needed a cute website to tell us what the hell he'd actually been doing? Like any other kind of asshole, the measure of how well a President is doing is how little you notice it's there.

No, you're thinking of God. Assholes are quite capable of doing damage without anybody noticing right away (we're only just now hearing about some of the shit Nixon pulled behind the scenes); it's just this *particular* asshole is as obsessed with showmanship as Nixon was with tape recorders.

I think Brentai was referring to literal anuses (ani?).

[Romosome]

Again, the utter destruction of the Department of Education might be neutral to good for California's public education. A lot of this federal destructive nightmare won't hit us too bad because our own state government departments are often *better* than the federal equivalents.

If you live in like Missouri though you're screwed.

[Joxam]

Sometimes I wonder what the actual percentage of people in the Midwest who don't know that the 'coastal elites' they bitch about are also some of the only states that actually make enough money to help fund their shitty states when they talk about reducing federal government.

[Blossom]

Putin's other useful idiot strikes again.



Here's a thread about it.

[Thad]

And talking of Putin, here's how weird things have gotten: Bill O'Reilly now seems like the voice of reason. In that he is not backing down from the well-documented and very very obvious fact that Putin assassinates dudes who criticize him.

Every once in a while I find myself in agreement with him, like when he says the government should stay out of the bedroom or when I'm drunk.

[Z%rø]

From the various interviews he had on the Daily Show he had, I always read Bill O'Riley as playing a character when on the air on his own network - he seemed reasonable and intelligent when he was actually sitting there and talking with Jon.

In fact, if I recall correctly, wasn't O'Riley who Colbert based the character off of?

[Yoji]

From the various interviews he had on the Daily Show he had, I always read Bill O'Riley as playing a character when on the air on his own network - he seemed reasonable and intelligent when he was actually sitting there and talking with Jon.

In fact, if I recall correctly, wasn't O'Riley who Colbert based the character off of?

Among others, yeah. There's a reason he called O'Reilly "Papa Bear" while in character.

[Thad]

"Reasonable and intelligent" is a stretch, but dude knows how to play to the room he's in. He was witty and charming on The Daily Show; I absolutely grant that.

And, while his claims to being an impartial independent are as honest as Fox News's claim to being fair and balanced, he is just a little less likely to toe the party line than his peers.

Here's a little bit more of that Franken passage:

It's not that O'Reilly is a Republican hack like Sean Hannity, whom we will meet in the next chapter. His position on issues is not doctrinaire movement conservative, and every once in a while I find myself in agreement with him, like when he says the government should stay out of the bedroom or when I'm drunk. But his constant protest that he is an impartial observer and not an ideological conservative is just another lie.

[Thad]

Jonathan Chait: Obamacare Repeal Is Failing Because It Was Based on a Lie

It is, perhaps, premature and optimistic, but he's right about one thing: the Republicans do seem to have gotten awfully quiet on the subject all of a sudden, and in the O'Reilly interview Trump kicked repeal down the road to "by the end of the year, at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year."

Predictions are a mug's game. My previous guess was that they'd do the same dumb-ass thing they did with the budget in Obama's first term, pass a repeal with a deadline, and then hope they came up with a replacement by then. That could absolutely still happen. But it seems, at the moment, like they're just hoping that with all the other news coming out, everybody forgets about this whole Obamacare thing, because nobody can agree on what the "and replace" part actually entails and whatever it is will certainly be unpopular.

We can hope. But obviously we need to keep an eye on these fuckers.

[Joxam]

Most people I've heard on the subject (Dr Aaron Carroll, Austin Frakt) think IF they do repeal that they're going to 'repeal and delay' by repealing it with a stipulation that it can be funded until they come up with a replacement plan and then just keep voting to fund it indefinitely until they're no longer in a position to be blamed for taking away people's Healthcare (say when they lose majority control of the Senate or the White House).

[Thad]

Yeah, that's very plausible. "Congress will talk tough and then not actually change anything" is usually a pretty safe bet.

[Yoji]

To borrow from Lewis Black, this is the same deliberative body that, if they actually did decided to build the border wall, would argue for five years over what fucking color to paint it.

[Mongrel]

HuffPo: Bannon believes that the Apocalypse is coming and that war is "inevitable"

UH.

*tugs collar*

[Joxam]

There are no silver linings to losing my mother so early, but I've honestly thought, multilpe times over the last three months, "at least she didn't have to deal with this shit." Well Sessions made it, and that sentiment is echoed.

[Thad]

On the plus side, McConnell not only just Streisanded the fuck out of Liz Warren's speech objecting to his appointment, he also did her the courtesy of writing her a campaign slogan she can use if she decides to run in 2020.

Honest to God, there are people who pay millions of dollars to PR firms for slogans that aren't nearly as good as "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

Hell, you're around movie posters all day -- have you seen any recently that had a tagline that good on it?

I mean, okay, so we still got Sessions as AG, and that's fucking terrible. But I'll take what little victories I can get.

[Yoji]

In a sick way, I kinda look forward to when we hit rock bottom. Just... fuck, get it over with so we can try to hot-glue this dump back together.

Honest to God, there are people who pay millions of dollars to PR firms for slogans that aren't nearly as good as "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

Hell, you're around movie posters all day -- have you seen any recently that had a tagline that good on it?

Hell, Wonkette already has a shirt design on its store. Not a very good one, but it's there.

There are no silver linings to losing my mother so early, but I've honestly thought, multilpe times over the last three months, "at least she didn't have to deal with this shit." Well Sessions made it, and that sentiment is echoed.

Word. I've been thinking the same thing about my late aunt/unofficial second mother. She was never particularly political, but I bet she would be after 11/9.

[Eumenes]

Well the funniest part to me was the plan to appoint Jim O’Neill to head the FDA.

He has no medical background, he's a Silicon valley investor that back in '09 was advocating for stringing shipping containers together in the ocean to build artificial islands and declare them nation states.

And in '14 he was talking about some off-brand vague idea for Methuselahsation. Promises like "reverse aging."

He would also like to end pharmaceutical testing and just let companies release whatever because quite literally 'the free market will resolve it.'

We're now officially part of a Cyberpunk dystopia's origin story. We were before, but this was the missing piece.

He's also a close associate of Peter Thiel; known to have received blood transfusions from young people because he thinks it'll make him younger.

O'Neill being too controversial has lead to another Thiel associate, Balaji Srinivasan, being suggested for the position instead.

[sei]

On the plus side, McConnell not only just Streisanded the fuck out of Liz Warren's speech objecting to his appointment, he also did her the courtesy of writing her a campaign slogan she can use if she decides to run in 2020.

So from the article:

For Ms. Warren’s supporters, it was the latest and most visceral example of a woman muzzled by men who seemed unwilling to listen.

Framing this as a matter of sex appears manipulative and dishonest, at a glance. Am I missing some greater context?

The letter from CSK is about race ("Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens"). The above seems to just cloud the issue.

[Joxam]

The great thing about bigotry is it doesn't have to just be either/or. A group of white men definitely went out of their way to officially shut up a white woman talking about race. It can be both racist as fuck to protect their racist as fuck friend and sexist as shit at the same time.