Enrolling a 28 year old in Obamacare
Tonight my son and I got him enrolled through the Affordable Care Act, but we had to do it over the telephone. Our experience was a bit more frustrating than what YaNevaNo reports in this diary, which...
View ArticleCustoms can seize your computer in New York
In the latest insult to the Fourth Amendment, a Brooklyn judge has upheld the right to search and seize laptop computers at the border.http://www.nytimes.com/...The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by Pascal...
View ArticleIf the EU Parliament wants to hear from Snowden, they should offer him asylum
From today's New York Times:"E.U. Panel Invites Snowden to Testify on Privacy Breaches"http://www.nytimes.com/...
View ArticleHow good is your Ombudsman in Washington?
Someone should rate Senators and Representatives on the quality of their constituent service. When someone writes a Representative for help with a government agency, he or she should get a poll a few...
View ArticleIs this what it's like in Ohio every election?
We have a number of hotly contested primary races going on in Texas, and my phone won't stop ringing. As a politics junkie, I suppose I ought to appreciate it, but I hate the noise -- especially the...
View ArticleDavid Brooks tries to get inside Vladimir Putin’s mind
In his column today, David Brooks tries to get inside Vladimir Putin’s mind.http://www.nytimes.com/...Putin was personally involved in getting [Ivan] Ilyin’s remains re-buried back in Russian soil. In...
View ArticleFactCheck.org calls out the Koch brothers
For a long time their email seemed to favor the GOP. But yesterday they unloaded on the Koch brothers. FactCheck.org calls itself A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy...
View ArticleThe Veteran's Administration Can't Even Tolerate a Compliment, Much Less...
When someone from housekeeping at a VA hospital did a good job promptly, we asked if we should put in a good word to his boss.He said, "Please don't."
View ArticleWe need to export the union movement
Today at Netroots Nation, Senator Debbie Stabenow said we need to quit exporting jobs and go back to exporting goods. I'll suggest we should also export the union movement.
View Article34 million vehicles recalled for airbag replacement. What could go wrong?
It is been decided that the airbags made by Takata in almost 34,000,000 United States vehicles are defective. http://www.cbsnews.com/... That means those vehicles will be recalled to have their...
View ArticleMy internet service problems with Time Warner
Time Warner was going to leave me without internet service from yesterday (Thursday) until next Monday until I said by then I could have service from a competitor in place. Then the guy on the phone...
View ArticleTo err is human, but you need a computer if you're going for FUBAR
Don't get sick Sunday night. I just got an email from one of the big hospital chains in town that starts out System Outage Notification On November 1 the electronic data...
View ArticleFactCheck.Org has quit trying for false balance
If I remember correctly, in previous election cycles FactCheck.Org seemed to be trying to expose lies and half-truths by Democrats as often as those by Republicans. I remember being irritated that...
View Article"Contraception mandate challenge ends with a whimper" -- headline for a...
A victory last Tuesday seems to have gone by under the radar. I was thumbing through today’s Sunday San Antonio Express-News, and I must not have felt busy because I opened the “Faith” section. I...
View ArticleHow the GOP would end up putting everyone on Medicare
I’m not sure if the person who wrote this is liberal or conservative, but she/he is perceptive.thehealthcareblog.com/…It’s titled Looking Back From 2019: Why the Republicans Nationalized Healthcare and...
View ArticleGender isn't always clear-cut
Gender isn’t always as clear-cut as North Carolina lawmakers seem to thinkThe emphasis on the gender recorded on someone’s birth certificate is misplaced in North Carolina’s transgender discrimination...
View ArticleSo stupid it hurts
I get emails from Fact Check. Today this item came:www.factcheck.org/…Louisiana Republican Rep. Ralph Abraham falsely claimed there are “thousands of studies” that refute the Environmental Protection...
View ArticleLet's change how we vote
Some Ideas on Changes to How We Conduct ElectionsSince I was young I remember people, especially liberals, talking about voting for "The Lesser of Two Evils". Perhaps we should let people vote against...
View ArticleNow the NY Times says Hillary’s being treated for pneumonia.
Now the NY Times says Hillary’s being treated for pneumonia. www.nytimes.com/...®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-newsThe story uses the word “pneumonia” once in the text and once in the headline. But it’s...
View ArticleObama Falsely Claims He ‘Can’t Pardon’ Snowden Unless he Returns to the US to...
I need to pay more attention to Dave Lindorff, who writes at “This Can’t Be Happening!” Here are excerpts from an article there today, which has almost the same title I used above:On a final trip to...
View ArticleWhere has Trump's Bible hand been?
Trump plans to take the oath of office using two bibles, one of them the one Lincoln used, which was re-used by...
View ArticleA vote for Neil Gorsuch is a vote for overturning Roe v Wade.
A vote for Neil Gorsuch is a vote for overturning Roe v Wade.Don’t deny that, based on some pious reasoning that the Supreme Court is not and should not be dragged into politics. The Supreme Court has...
View ArticleThe Least Alarming Thing I’ve Read All Week
Kushner Family Is in Talks to Buy Miami Marlins www.nytimes.com/...“The sale of a major league sports team always draws attention and local interest. But this one may attract even more interest,...
View ArticleWhy is the stock market so calm?
You’d think that with all the confusion and chaos in the Trump administration, the stock market would be on a roller coaster. Actually, it’s been the opposite, at least so far. Barron’s, Bloomberg...
View ArticleShort Attention Span President -- "He couldn't sit through the meeting."
Adam Davidson has a story dated May 12, 2017, on the New Yorker web site. That quote, in the first paragraph, struck me. Here it is:I spoke recently to a longtime business associate of Donald Trump,...
View ArticleNY Times runs column by John Yoo, identified as "law professor" but not...
The column is titled, “Forget Watergate. Think Iran-Contra.” Link: www.nytimes.com/…The two line biography reads: “John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003, is a law professor...
View ArticleMy letter to Senators Cornyn and Cruz
The US Senate used to call itself The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. As I remember, customs of Senatorial courtesy used to mean any Senator could delay some actions for a week with a “hold” just...
View Article"One heck of a hard sell" -- Krugman on Medicare for All
Paul Krugman gets my Monday morning award for being realistic. In today’s column he points out that there are several ways to universal health care coverage that work in different countries. He goes...
View ArticleHouston schoolkids are in for a good year of learning
From the New York Times www.nytimes.com/...The Houston Independent School District announced that classes would not resume until Sept. 11. Superintendent Richard Carranza said that more than 10...
View ArticleBetter late than never -- Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine today for work...
The Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology was announced today. It’s for work on circadian rhythm, research that seems to have been completed in 1984. One of the three recipients is an emeritus...
View ArticleFor some conservatives it's worth listening -- I think
Here are three paragraphs from a column by Roger Cohen in today’s (or maybe tomorrow’s) New York...
View ArticleDid Trump just threaten to fire Mueller?
If I heard correctly, on NPR this evening there was a report that Donald Trump had said he was impatient for Robert Mueller’s probe to finish, claimed it wasn’t going to find anything, said the country...
View ArticleGutless Wonder Capitalists
Two mutual funds that I have shares in had very similar shareholder proposals in the proxy statements they've recently sent me.For a Vanguard fund the proposal is:A SHAREHOLDER PROPOSAL TO "INSTITUTE...
View ArticleIs competent IT help that hard to find?
From the NY Times:American Airlines Error Leaves Thousands of Holiday Flights Without Pilotswww.nytimes.com/…The flights that currently have no scheduled pilots originate from cities including Boston;...
View ArticleI just hung up on a "survey".
Element removedI just hung up on a survey.It claimed to be a political survey, from Anderson Williams Research. It was a robo-call, starting with, “First, am I speaking to -------.” If it had been...
View ArticleEuphemism of the week: ”Supervised Consumption Services”
Euphemism of the week: ”Supervised Consumption Services”I just got an email from the Drub Policy Alliance about San Francisco opening the first government sponsored Supervised Consumption Service...
View ArticleHawaiian Pizza – a paradigm for gut-level controversies?
Hawaiian pizza, with pineapple on top of the things we all expect on a pizza, seems to be a very controversial food. Some people love it, while others find the very idea revolting. I’ll suggest the...
View ArticleMaintaining Net Neutrality Passes the Senate
By a 52-47 vote the Senate voted to roll back the scuttling of net neutrality by Agit Pai and the Trump toadies at the FCC. www.commondreams.org/… As demand progress put it,BREAKING: We did it! Thanks...
View ArticleHalf-Assed Nazi Wannabees
Half-Assed Nazi WannabeesWhat’s the difference between the kids at that Tornillo camp and the victims at Auschwitz? No tattooed serial numbers....
View ArticleNancy Pelosi is too old, rich, secure, and COMPLACENT. And the DCCC is worse.
Nancy Pelosi is too old, rich, secure, and COMPLACENT. And the DCCC is worse.For the first time in a while I actually looked at an email (supposedly) from Nancy Pelosi. I filter them to the junk...
View ArticleThoughts on Taxes
Yesterday, August 3, 2018, at Netroots Nation I attended the 1-2:15 session "Why the Fight Over Taxes is Central to the Progressive Movement -- and Why it's Not Over." The panelists were Chad Bolt,...
View Article"Didn't you ever have a condom break?"
I’ve always gotten a naughty pleasure out of asking questions you’re not supposed to ask. I thought of this one at a session of Netroots Nation last Saturday morning, August 4, 2018, “No Choice:...
View ArticleTonight is the August Full Moon
This was posted by Hunter on Daily Kos the evening of August 22, 2013. Hunter usually turns his sense of humor loose on politicians, but in this gem he takes on farm...
View ArticleKavanaugh admires Rehnquist's dissent in Roe v Wade, and the facts don't fit...
Earlier today, reading an email from FactCheck.org https://mailchi.mp/factcheck/factcheckorg-weekly-update-tqvivpiak8?e=2e45e37b21I clicked a link that led here:...
View ArticleWhat planet is Senator Cornyn on?
I don’t usually even read the replies I get when I send an opinion to Senator John Cornyn. I skim through them, and they’ve all seemed to be puff pieces that don’t say much and don’t offer much...
View ArticleMy party line vote
I asked a good friend, who I think is as liberal as I am, for recommendations on some of the down-ballot races. He’s a lawyer and I’m not, so I thought he’d know some of the many judges on the...
View ArticleAn article worth reading in The Guardian, and a link to the UN Commission on...
An article worth reading in The Guardian, and a link to the UN Commission on Human Rights:UN special rapporteur demands inquiry into death of Guatemalan girl held in USExclusive: UN monitor calls for...
View Article"Closing the Southern Border" could be as bad as the government shutdown
Trump says he’s going to “close the southern border”. www.nytimes.com/…I’ve just sent this to my senators and to my very lame duck congressman.Donald Trump's latest threat, to "close the southern...
View ArticlePalatable gun control
Palatable gun controlLast night I watched some of the House of Representatives debate on the gun buyer background check bill. Some of the opposing speakers seemed shrill, but Bradley Byrne from...
View ArticleSide benefits of impeaching now or soon
Watching MSNBC I keep hearing about risks to the Democrats if the House were to go ahead and pass articles of impeachment. As I remember from when they impeached Bill Clinton, a LOT of things stop and...
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