OK, so let me get this straight: Last week, Noted Neurosurgeon And Healer Of Children Dr. Benjamin Carson came out in favor of letting junk science have a voice in the vaccine debate. This week, he said Muslims are not qualified to be president.
Prediction: Tomorrow, higher poll numbers for the doc.
Carly Fiorina lays smack down by describing a graphic scene in one of the Planned Parenthood videos that doesn’t exist. When asked to answer for this, she says, essentially, nuh-uh, does too exist.
Today? A front-runner.
Last year I wrote about that elusive creature, the African-American Detroit Republican. I had a great conversation with a black lawyer who explained the essential role in democracy of the loyal opposition — the people who disagree with you and stand in opposition to you, but still respect your right to govern. Good opponents make stronger parties, he said. And Detroit’s Democrats have grown so flabby from a lack of meaningful opposition that he thought that was his role in the city. (P.S. He voted for Obama. Twice.)
I think he’s right, which is why I’m so worried about this election. I can no longer take a certain sneering distance from this crew. As I said a while back, one malignant tumor and Hillary is toast, and the Dems have no bench. Bernie is a torch-carrier for the old left. Biden’s charm would evaporate if he were moved from the bucket-of-warm-spit job. And on the other bench? These guys. That guy. And her.
I have a sense of history, yes. I know this country has faced peril before, far worse than this. But I see people I know are intelligent sharing lunatic-fringe nonsense on their social-media accounts. Some batshit in one of my networks suggested the other day that I and others like me have “blood on our hands” because the president is vetoing the Planned Parenthood defunding. I had a class in high school, Communications, that taught me how to judge the veracity of a news story.
I guess they don’t teach that anymore.
So, it was a pretty good weekend. What happened? Can’t remember. Oh, right. Friday night, dinner at the Polish Yacht Club, a wonderful restaurant down in the old Poletown ‘hood. The streets around it are so deserted and sketchy that you tip the car guy — who only suggests street spaces, as there’s no parking lot — at least $5 on your way in. In return, he keeps your catalytic converter from being sawed off. Inside is Polish-food heaven, pierogis and potato pancakes and fried perch that’s out of this world. Also, Polish draft beer and Polish hospitality.
After that, we had a nightcap at the Raven Lounge:
Those of you who saw “Detropia” should remember it. It’s the blues bar in that movie. Too early for any sort of crowd. We paid the cover, caught the first couple numbers in the first set, and left.
On Saturday, a market day to make you sad, because it was rainy and the harvest is so plentiful you know it can’t last forever:
But I got my September sword of brussels sprouts, some nuts, this, that and the other thing. Next week I’ll be back. And so on and so on until it’s winter and there’s nothing to do on a Saturday morning but day-drink. (I’ll probably do that to, at least once.)
Bloggage:
The most depressing thing about this are the comments from the nastiest wing of the childless-by-choice crowd, claiming a workplace that makes no allowance for parents is simply the way it should be, because having children is a choice, you know. Like raising shih tzus, apparently.
I didn’t expect much from “The Overnight,” which we watched via iTunes last night, but we were both pleasantly surprised. Dirty for sure, but still funny.
The woes of McDonald’s. I almost didn’t get past the first sentence, which reads:
Al Jarvis was 16 when he started working at a McDonald’s in Saginaw, a city in Michigan, in 1965.
I was born in St. Louis, a city in Missouri. Later our family moved to Columbus, a city in Ohio, and I didn’t leave until I relocated to Athens, another city in Ohio, for college. After that it was…you get the idea. Hello, editors? Wake up.
With that note, let’s get the week underway, OK?
Sherri said on September 21, 2015 at 1:56 am
I’m involved in local politics. I worked on a local levy campaign earlier this year, and now I’m working on the re-election campaign for our mayor. It’s amazing to me how little most people know about how government works. Not how little they know about what’s going on in the city; I expect that. How little they know and understand about the basics about government: what the city government is responsible for and what it isn’t (hint: not the schools!), whether businesses pay property taxes (yes, somebody who actually votes regularly didn’t know this), and various other surprising things. And of course, most people just don’t vote. There are 28,000 registered voters in the city; if there are 10,000 votes in the election, it will be a huge turnout. The median age of the most likely voters in the city is 65. Median.
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Linda said on September 21, 2015 at 3:02 am
Work/family life issues are not just for people with children. If you don’t have kids, you will have elderly parents to care for. I know, because I was grateful for the generous paid leave policy at my job that enabled me to help care for my mom at the end of her life. Same thing with an old batchelor I worked with. Unless you hatched from an egg, someday it will be your issue.
I am disturbed by the outright racism and anti Muslim hysteria I see in even people I know and like. And the Republican Party has just sunk to both crazy and morally bad. The sane people in it are just keeping their mouths shut, which is even worse. How can they allow their own party to sink this low without a fight? And the Democratic Party needs more leaders on the state and national level.
Miss the Polish Yacht Club. Grew up in the neighborhood, and there is nothing like it where I live.
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alex said on September 21, 2015 at 3:29 am
Old school leftist though he may be, Bernie’s the only one talking any sense, and I’m optimistic that his message will yet rise through the cacophony of nonsense. Even my parents, who were stalwart Republicans until the GOP became unmoored from reality, are feeling the Bern. “He’s been an independent all these years because he can’t stand party politics. And neither can I,” my mom said the other day, which is why she trusts him at this juncture. Neither of my parents particularly likes Hillary, but they can’t find anything to like about any of the Republicans who are running this time around.
As for Carson throwing in with the anti-vaxxers and Fiorina bearing false witness on behalf of the Bible Thumpers, it’s not all bad. This is what makes otherwise sensible Republicans like my parents fed up enough to defect to the other side, and they left well before it got this crazy.
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Deborah said on September 21, 2015 at 6:04 am
My 96 year old mother-in-law left the Republican Party also, she hated Bush and loves Obama. She lives in a home in NC and her best friend there is the only other Democrat. She thinks the Republicans running now are a bunch of loons.
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David C. said on September 21, 2015 at 6:23 am
We’re all against the wall in this world, whether at work or outside. Look at this, a pencil-necked douchebag hedge fund manager buys the rights to a drug for treating parasitic infections and raises the price by 5000%. The fucking drug has been on the market for over 62 years, so there aren’t any of the usual excuses for high drug prices such as need for research into the next boner pill or its female equivalent. He just did it because he can. If we can’t have single payer health care, could we at least have some sort of anti-trust exemption so the insurance companies can work together to tell drug makers to go fuck themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html
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alex said on September 21, 2015 at 6:51 am
Don’t know if any of you have been following the serialized investigative report on Huffpost about Johnson & Johnson and the drug Risperdal. Wishing it were just a splendidly good work of fiction.
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 7:13 am
Part of the problem, Alex, is that so many people like your parents have already pulled away to one degree or another from the Republican party. Many, many people share Ben Carson’s beliefs. I haven’t seen any polling on beliefs about a Muslim as president, but about 50% of Rs believe Obama is a Muslim: among Trump supporters, it’s 66%. There really is no sensible center, which is just another way of saying what Nancy said about the absence of a loyal opposition.
What drives me to the edge of despair is what I see as a general failure to face facts. We have thousands more gun deaths than in any other country not because we have more illness or a higher level of addiction to video games than in other rich countries but because we gave more guns. Of course, we should improve our mental health services, including providing better protection from domestic violence, but the idea that we have or will have any time soon, the expertise to predict who will act out violently is beyond the realm of reason. What we could do is, as other countries do, limit access to guns and ammunition through background checks, waiting periods, training requirements, and other such measures.
Similarly with climate change. Thousands of scientists have documented climate change already occurring and predicted dramatic changes that will affect us all in the years ahead. Germany is working to convert its power grid to renewable sources of energy, while Republican candidates and legislators are still talking about whether they “believe” in climate change. Guess what, guys. It will occur whether you believe in it or not.
On issue after issue, Republicans turn away from evidence as a basis for problem-solving and decision-making. Faith may prompt all sorts of virtuous efforts and sustain people through troubles of many kinds, but it cannot turn away bullets or stop the glaciers from melting. Denial of the president’s religion and place of birth are just the beginning of what’s wrong with contemporary Republican thinking.
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alex said on September 21, 2015 at 7:44 am
If the 50 percent of Republicans who are that fucking stupid is up from their former 25 percent, I take it as a sign that the GOP has managed to alienate half of its own constituency and won’t have a plurality come election time.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 21, 2015 at 8:07 am
What Sherri said. And what Nancy said at the top on “loyal opposition.” Ohio in general and my county in particular are handicapped by a Democratic Party that’s barely functional. I’m friends with some people running for city council on the left, and I think they’ll do fine, but they’re dumbstruck at how non-existent party support & infrastructure is. We were canoeing recently, and we concluded that the Democrats at least here, but it would fit then to say the same thing for the state, were so entirely intertwined with the labor movement that when unions imploded and and lost their stature, position, and ad budgets, they took the Democratic Party with it. There’s some state-level voices, but it’s a shadow of even what it was in the 80s, and today Ted Strickland, who eviscerated JFS & children’s services spending (so all my MSW friends loathe him as much as they do Kasich), is all the state party has to put out on the track.
Sherrod Brown and Connie Schultz are carrying the whole progressive agenda for Ohio on their own, from where I sit; they’re two fine standard bearers, but if you don’t have the nuts and bolts of a party apparatus, you’re not going to elect much except some urban state reps and a few college town based county commissioners. And city council members who are proud to claim a D, but are doing it entirely on their own.
I say all this with sorrow, and as a registered and life long Republican. (With lots of Democratic friends.)
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ROGirl said on September 21, 2015 at 8:09 am
Facts just get in the way of resentment, fantasy, delusion, anger, bigotry, wishful thinking, fear, ignorance, and gullibility.
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coozledad said on September 21, 2015 at 8:09 am
Carly’s dad was the dean of Duke Law. She’s unacquainted with reality except as an occasional inconvenience. Even when her worthless ass was fired she mopped up. if she’s anything like the children of other Duke Faculty I’ve known, she already filled a curbside pickup drum with fetal waste before she got through undergrad.
Ben Carson has shilled for miracle cures. If he was ever a good physician, it was an accidental stop on his highway to the big grift. If he thought it would mean living like a Saudi Prince, he’d convert to Islam before you could say Herbalife. He has no moral center.
Huckabee is a linchpin in the Arkansas pedophile network, and an Orville Faubus racist.
Bush wants to give the store away again. They ought to jail the whole goddamn family and auction their holdings for the benefit of the veterans of both Iraq wars. I’m talking Babs, too. They’re not just corrupt in the grifter sense, but in the medieval sense- the intrinsic corruption of a bag of mortal guts.
http://juanitajean.com/and-even-republicans-are-acting-surprised/
This is the party that nominated a stale hooker for veep. They’ve been baring their monkey asses at the body politic since 1964, and it’s paid off.
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beb said on September 21, 2015 at 8:40 am
The people who say that the Dems have no bench are the same people who have been touting the 16 members of the Republican Clown Car as viable presidential candidates. They’re wrong about the Republicans and they’re wrong about the Dems.
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Heather said on September 21, 2015 at 9:21 am
I never wanted to have kids and I agree 100 percent with that article. I certainly didn’t choose not to have kids because I wanted to work myself to death.
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 9:42 am
Remember when the Republicans were (jokingly?) advocating for the repeal of that pesky 22nd Amendment, which was the only thing stopping the Reagan administration from continuing on to the end, like the Pope?
I’d say President Obama would easily sail into a third term, absent the 22nd Amendment
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Kirk said on September 21, 2015 at 9:56 am
Brian@14: So would Bill
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 21, 2015 at 10:01 am
I’m not saying there’s no *national* party, it’s that the polarization problem is leading to growing blots of uni-party governance. I grew up under Democratic hegemony in Chicago, and I’m not sure there’s any GOP to speak of in Cook County even today; it’s not good for the governing party, IMHO, to have a non-existent opposition. Likewise Ohio, where outside of Cleveland & Toledo (?) there doesn’t seem to be a counterweight to GOP hegemony. My sense is that those sorts of zones are growing, with much less middle ground — my optimism is that historically, when that happens, you see a shift and a new party rise out of the debris, with the historic party picking up pieces of both establishment remnants.
So the question is which party is most likely to vanish, which will scoop up the functional parts of the electoral apparatus, and what new beast slouches toward the Potomac?
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 10:03 am
Kirk – good point.
And then, no Bush-43….and September 11 would be our 21st century “bloody shirt” since the rightwing noise machine would have a clear (and flatly incorrect) path to blaming the whole thing on WJC (the video of the towers’ collapse would be on endless loop).
and in ’04, what crazy R would have won the White House? One shudders to think
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 10:21 am
(I’d say “President Cheney” – but that’s sort of what happened in any case!)
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 11:39 am
Two automotive non-sequiturs alert:
1. The UAW/Chrysler deal looks good from here. Is this the prevailing view, from people who understand such things?
2. Is Volkswagen dead in America? (From the cheap seats, I cannot see how they survive their phony emissions tests, with the massive recall/repair expense, plus crushing fines)
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Charlotte said on September 21, 2015 at 12:01 pm
An editing aside — watching the Packers/Seahawks game last night, Al Michaels popped out with “they’re running it on the ground” which lead my Himself into a sputtery rant. Which wound up with speculating about a wire-work Jackie Chan movie moment where suddenly football players can run it through the air —
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 12:25 pm
Charlotte – the sports moment that made me come out of my chair on this past weekend was during a Formula One night-race in Singapore. The race was moving along, when suddenly the yellow lights came on and there was some moron, in street clothing, walking on the track…!!!
http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2015/09/man-intrudes-onto-f1-tracks-arrested-by-police/
The organizers of the race immediately deployed the safety car onto the race track to limit the speed of the cars. Most of the drivers used this interruption to make a pit stop. The man who tresspassed then hopped back into the stands as seen in the video above. Race leader Sebastian Vettel was one of the first who saw the unexpected intruder. “There is a man on the track! A man on the track!” Vettel shouted over the team radio. Formula One cars can run at speeds of up to 360 km/h.
This is twice this year, and with a world-wide audience, what might a terrorist-type do with (what appears to be) such lax security?
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Sherri said on September 21, 2015 at 12:33 pm
A related question for Brian’s list – how do you convince people to bring their vehicles in for a recall repair when the repair is going to make their cars feel sluggish and get worse gas mileage? (Or at least, the perception of same.)
I suppose that some of that VW fine money could be used to buy up the vehicles to get them off the road, but depending on how hard VW fights the fines, that could take a while.
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 12:50 pm
The “growing blots of uni-party governance” that Jeff refers to @16 is are not just a political phenomenon. Sometime back somebody wrote a book called The Big Sort about the idea that the country was sorting itself geographically into segments that were increasingly homogeneous in political views, but also in a wide swath of cultural and lifestyle preferences, with the result that people are less and less familiar with and, hence, sympathetic toward others whose views differ.
We all experience these divisions in large (e.g., voting patterns in national elections) and small (e.g., awkward conversations with relatives who differ politically) ways. As the divisions sharpen, hostility grows, and compromise becomes more and more difficult.
Not really saying anything new here, I guess, but perhaps it’s useful to realize that what we’re confronting is not just Rs vs. Ds.
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Suzanne said on September 21, 2015 at 1:09 pm
Does make sense Jolene. Living here in rural Indiana, we are noticing more & more that when young people with brains & lots of potential go off to college and have their horizons broadened, they don’t return.
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Sherri said on September 21, 2015 at 1:12 pm
Our city elections are all non-partisan, so R vs. D isn’t really an issue. My candidate didn’t even seek the endorsement of either party, though he has the endorsements of elected officials of both parties in the area (legislative races and King County races are partisan). The opponent did seek and receive the endorsement of the Democratic parties in the two legislative districts the city is part of, but he also hasn’t bothered to vote in at least half of the last few elections. I don’t know exactly what his voting record is, but our campaign bought a list of the voters in the city who had voted in at least 3 of the last 4 elections, and he wasn’t on it. (He’s also never been involved in the city in any way, never even attended a city council meeting, nor does he have any plans other than vague ideas about efficiency and listening to people, but there’s a group of people unhappy about growth that couldn’t find a better front man, I guess.)
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 1:57 pm
As a respite from our terrible politics, there’s always TV. From The Washington Post, here’s Hank Stuever’s fall preview, with reviews of 28 new series, brief comments on a collection of everything else (specials, mini-series, documentaries), and a listing of dates and times for returning shows. Always worth checking out what he has to say.
And speaking of TV, has anyone seen Rectify? If so, would be interested to hear what you think. It’s a story about a man released from prison after 19 years. He was released not because he was exonerated, but because the evidence on which he was convicted was found to be faulty. Thus, part of the show is about what really happened all those years ago, part about how the justice system will deal with him now, and part about the extremely complex community and family dynamics that unfold when he is released. It moves at a glacial pace, but the acting is terrific. The characters have really stayed in my mind. Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Netflix and some other services now, and Season 3 is available on the Sundance channel through OnDemand. Will likely be streaming soon too. The seasons are 6-10 episodes, so it’s not a lifetime commitment.
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 2:20 pm
One more recommendation: David Maraniss–political historian and much-lauded biographer of Clinton, Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi–has a new book out about Detroit. It’s called Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story
His publisher’s web site lists appearances in DC, Detroit, and Ann Arbor, but I’m sure there’ll be more. It was reviewed favorably and at length in the NYT> a few days ago. Heard him talk about it on the tube this AM, and it sounded very appealing.
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 2:22 pm
Oh, edit button. Will you ever return? In the meantime, I need to pay more attention. Sorry about the faulty coding above, but the links work.
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Judybusy said on September 21, 2015 at 2:41 pm
Jolene, thanks for the book recommendation; I’d heard the author interviewed on NPR, and you’ve saved me linking it!
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 2:50 pm
Fort Wayne should have a visitor right about now, which should make it into at least the regional news….
http://wane.com/2015/09/01/confusion-over-sharpton-visit-clarified/
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LAMary said on September 21, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Yay. My VW is a gas powered Golf.
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 3:24 pm
That IS good news! (I’m supposing that if anyplace takes emissions seriously, it’s southern California)
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Julie Robinson said on September 21, 2015 at 3:24 pm
A friend has a VW that looks very sporty, which is why she bought it. But it needs high octane gas and many expensive repairs, so she’s paid dearly for falling in love with the style.
The VW we had back in the day was the kind where you could do almost all the repairs yourself, and parts were cheap. In all fairness, it also had lousy acceleration and no heat in the winter. You had to keep scraping the frost off the windshield, so you had to drive with one hand out the window. Ah, the good old days.
Would I buy one these days? Unlikely. It’s hard to beat the long-lasting reliability of a Toyota or Honda.
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 3:35 pm
We’ve had tremendous success with our Dodge minivan, and before that, with an older Olds 88 (which my son totaled)
Don’t ask me about the Pontiac; and the jury is still out on our Ford Escape
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LAMary said on September 21, 2015 at 4:00 pm
I really like my VW. I bought it as a certified used car when it was two years old and got the same warranty as a new car.It’s a five cylinder gas powered golf and it’s peppy, amazingly comfortable, has bluetooth for hands free phone, radio, CD, media card and satellite radio. The glove compartment can be switched on to take cool air from the air conditioner so you can keep you lunch cool. I get about 30 mpg average and a free servicing every ten thousand miles. It was 13k. I’ve had toyotas and hondas and liked them both. This car beats them.
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alex said on September 21, 2015 at 4:15 pm
Loved my last VW. Hated the frequency and cost of repairs. And the high-octane gasoline, which I didn’t buy most of the time anyway to no ill effect. (The repairs were for things like power windows.) I’m with Julie as regards Honda and Toyota and that’s why I just bought a Honda recently.
The growing blots of uni-party governance are quite obvious here too in a state that used to have a much stronger Democratic presence than it does, but I don’t think the demise of unions is the reason so much as the rise of FOX. Twenty years ago there was generally no ill will between people of differing parties, but today the bullshit rhetoric has become so amped up that a Dem couldn’t win even if he/she were a bigger right-wing asshole than the Republican opposition.
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 4:35 pm
Alex, I don’t know.
I think that, by design, the party apparatus is supposed to essentially be (not an app – but instead) an Operating System…
so instead of relying on intelligent voters, a party apparatus does most of the thinking, and then presents a slate to the voting public.
Assuming the party at grass-roots level has mobilized their voters to go vote the ticket – success!!
But parties are now more of an App than an O/S – I think they’re almost vestigial, nowadays. (And I heard Uncle Rush at lunchtime complaining about a lack of decorum in “the meeedia” – and punched the radio back to WXKE as I laughed out loud!! Talk about your pots and kettles!!!
And we have breaking news that Scott Walker is taking a walk, right out of the campaign.
(on three – 1, 2, ..) Awwwwwwwww
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alex said on September 21, 2015 at 4:38 pm
Good news. The indecorous media have been pretending he’s one of the more sane ones.
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brian stouder said on September 21, 2015 at 5:00 pm
sane (more or less): Kasich, Graham, Jeb!
insane (more or less): Santorum, Cruz, Carson
Irretrievably narcissistic: Trump, Christie
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Sue said on September 21, 2015 at 5:05 pm
The instant narrative is going to be that he was ‘too nice’ to win. It’s going to be sickening, plus he’s back in the state full-time now, after being basically gone for the last few years.
Not as happy about this as I should be.
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 5:08 pm
Good categorization, Brian, but you forgot a few. What about Huckabee, Jindal, Fiorina, Pataki, Gilmore, Rubio, and Paul?
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 5:10 pm
Wisconsin is a good state, Sue, with a strong progressive tradition. It can recover from a couple more years of Walker.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 21, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Walker hits the eject button.
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jcburns said on September 21, 2015 at 5:32 pm
He worked at McDonalds, a word found earlier in this sentence.
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Sherri said on September 21, 2015 at 6:13 pm
More about the “pencil-necked douchebag hedge fund manager” (as David C. called him @5): http://fusion.net/story/200779/martin-shkreli-cancer-drug-finance-bro/
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A. Riley said on September 21, 2015 at 6:21 pm
Re the horribly edited sentence “Saginaw, a city in Michigan” — I’m surprised they didn’t work in some adjectives, like maybe “gritty,” “hardscrabble,” or “rust-belt.” Those seem to be favorites of New York writers describing midwestern life. Hey! I know! I bet they could throw in all three.
In gritty Saginaw, a hardscrabble city in rust-belt Michigan . . . why, it almost sings itself, doesn’t it?
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Dexter said on September 21, 2015 at 8:12 pm
“…It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W773ZPJhcVw
My daughter bought a brand new VW Beetle two months ago in Las Vegas. She now regrets she didn’t get the turbo. She said the salesman never mentioned any turbo option. Now she doesn’t like the doggy acceleration sans turbo. Meanwhile my very frugal friend discovered through his SO’s Costco membership that he could take a 2015 model off VW’s stockpile at $250 less than dealer’s cost. He bit. He got a Golf with turbo and he loves it. If repairs down the line start piliog up, he’ll trade that car in a heartbeat. He hates car repair bills. I hate car payments worse than repair bills. Brian, I recently bought a 1996 Town and Country Chrysler van. This past week I have had to beat it to Toledo many times and had to go there today as well to the VA medical clinic. I drive 75 mph on the new Route 24 most of the way and this old van ( with a load of new installed parts my mechanic did), is running beautifully. For now.
My doctor snapped at me for being late . I was early. I had received a letter saying my appointment had been moved back a half hour. The doc never got the word. She demanded to see the letter, then she kept it. The nurse that did that change is surely to get an earful shortly. My visit was really moved along quickly…I did get a high-five for my 38 pound weight loss since February but I’m just short of the marker for iron, meaning I am one tenth of a point off the minimum. Another colonoscopy looms unless today’s blood test indicates the first one was an anomaly.
Then she was pissed off because my MRI results never got to her desk at all. Sometimes going to the doctor is a real downer. The whole experience left a cloud over my head on a beauty of a day. At least my diabetes is totally under control now; I only have to take one pill a day for it. Good old cheap Metformin.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 21, 2015 at 9:06 pm
Enjoy. Walkernfreude — http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2572552
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LAMary said on September 21, 2015 at 9:20 pm
Only 250 for the Costco discount? I got 500. Still liking my car.
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alex said on September 21, 2015 at 9:23 pm
If Walker didn’t know diddly about foreign policy, then what are Trump, Fiorina and Carson doing at the top of the heap?
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Sue said on September 21, 2015 at 10:14 pm
Jolene, Wisconsin is a good state in a bad time right now. Some of the stuff that’s happened and is going to happen can’t be turned around once the citizenry decides it’s had enough of a governor, legislature and supreme court who are working together to screw workers, poor people, women, the environment, etc. etc.
Most recent case in point – the Wisconsin DNR, headed by a non-scientist chosen by Scott Walker due to her ‘chamber of commerce mentality’, just announced that they would not comply with a judge’s orders regarding groundwater contamination. They are not going to comply with a judge’s orders. Offsite groundwater monitoring system for a set number of cows? Not going to happen, that CAFO’s going in, polluted private wells be damned. Of course, Kewaunee County did go for Walker 62% – 36% in 2014, so they must have wanted this.
http://www.thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2015/09/more-on-wi-dnrs-refusal-to-heed-water.html
These elected and appointed folks have several more years to wreak Scott Walker’s special brand of havoc on the land and people, and they are going to do it. Scott’s coming back after a few years away, and he is going to be in a bad mood.
And the Wisconsin media will continue to give him a pass. It’s one of the reasons he made such a monstrous fool of himself once he got out of the state – he wasn’t used to not being allowed to hide from reporters, didn’t know how to handle anything but softball questions and he sure as hell didn’t know what a followup question was.
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Deborah said on September 21, 2015 at 10:19 pm
We have a 17 year old beemer in Chicago and a 3 year old Jeep Patriot in Santa Fe. The Jeep is already in much worse condition than the BMW.
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Sherri said on September 21, 2015 at 10:44 pm
Brian, you’ve got Al Sharpton coming for a visit; we’ve got Xi Jinping. It’s going to be worse than the President coming for a visit, because he’s going to stay for a couple of days. Several blocks of downtown Seattle will be cordoned off, and when he’s on the move, there will be rolling road closures for his motorcade. One day, he’s going from Seattle to Everett to Redmond to Tacoma back to Seattle. That’s going to be lots of fun.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/traffic/2015/09/20/traffic-nightmare-next-week-chinese-president-visits-seattle/72420382/
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Jolene said on September 21, 2015 at 11:13 pm
Good grief, Sherri. Seattle traffic is pretty dreadful to begin with. An itinerary like that is practically an act of war.
Sue,your observations about the lasting damage that Walker has done are important and heartbreaking. And environmental issues of the sort you mention do readily elicit groundswells of political involvement. I wish I had more to offer than the hope that things won’t get too bad before they get better.
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