The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally will be getting together this Tuesday for Christmas eve and end-of-the-year toasts. Stop by and join the festivities, if you can. And if I don’t see you, merry Christmas, happy Hannikuah, awesome Pancha Ganapati, joyous Kwanzaa, fulfilling Boxing Day, or miraculous Festivus to you and yours!
We meet every Tuesday (except this New Year’s Eve) at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. Look for us in the back room of the pub beginning about 8pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the 266 chapters of Living Liberally, including 22 in Washington state, seven in Oregon and three in Idaho. Find a chapter near you. Or start a new chapter for your community!
Let us all pause for a moment amid the delight and turmoil of the holiday season to think of Duncan Hunter, who is right now spending his last Christmas in Hawaii at taxpayer expense performing “fact finding” at a Naval base or two and Hoovering up giant piles of white powder. Sentencing in March.
Let us all give thanks.
Of all the gay guys running for president, Mayor Pete is my fave.
The poll, conducted by Change Research from Dec. 16-18, shows that “a significant majority of South Bend voters have a positive view of his tenure in office, seeing real improvements in their day to day lives and the economy as a result of his mayorship,” according to a memo obtained by IMPORTANTVILLE. The pollster used a sample size of 406 South Bend voters, and the margin of error is 4.8%. (FiveThirtyEight’s Pollster Ratings rank Change Research as a “C” pollster.) Interestingly, the poll targeted 2019 mayoral voters: 88% of respondents said they voted in the 2019 mayor’s race—roughly 15% of voters.
https://importantville.substack.com/p/scoop-mayor-petes-south-bend-polling
Turnout in the mayor’s race was < 10%, and the poll targeted the partisans who turned out to vote for the mayor.
Actually, there is no evidence he’s recovering.
Recovering crack addict Hunter Biden owns a home in one of the swankiest neighborhoods in America, it was revealed Monday.
The son of former Vice President Joe Biden shares a ZIP code in the Hollywood Hills with celebrities such as Ben Affleck, Christina Aguilera and Halle Berry, according to documents filed in Hunter’s Arkansas paternity case.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom mid-century home is valued at $2.5 million. It sits at the end of a private gated drive and includes a pool.
https://nypost.com/2019/12/24/hunter-biden-owns-massive-home-in-swanky-hollywood-hills-court-docs-reveal/
NY Post clearly not a Biden fan.
For a guy who hasn’t held a job since May, a June purchase in the amount of $2.5 million is pretty impressive, no?
Hunter Biden will take down Grandpa Joe.
This might be what it feels like to be the target of a Steele dossier-type hit piece.
Good.
Private-eye firm claims Hunter Biden is linked to multiple criminal probes
Hunter Biden is the subject of multiple criminal investigations related to “fraud, money laundering and a counterfeiting scheme,” it’s claimed in court documents filed Monday in his Arkansas paternity case.
The claims were put forward by a Florida-based private-eye firm, D&A Investigations, in Biden’s ongoing case against alleged baby mama Lunden Alexis Roberts, a former Washington, DC, stripper who went by “Dallas.”
Soon after the claims were filed, a judge struck the allegations down because they were filed by an “intervener,” according to court papers.
https://nypost.com/2019/12/23/hunter-bidens-baby-mama-says-hes-linked-to-multiple-criminal-probes/
What’s the line I use now? Oh, now I remember: “Some parts of the dossier have been corroborated.”
Hunter Biden will take down Grandpa Joe.
Ummm, well, … no.
Three bed, three bath built in the 50s. Probably has a view to account for the price tag.
But perhaps we shouldn’t judge bot-farm troll for having a very poor grasp of how people like Ben Affleck, Christina Aguilera and Halle Berry live. Or Duncan Hunter and family. Some of them might not even have a horse trailer.
I sure hope Bob is attending mid-night mass tonight. He sure needs to think of his sins.
I’d laugh.
The Senate majority could make a procedural motion to adjourn the start of a trial until Nov. 4, 2020. That would allow the American people to decide the president’s fate at the ballot box. The Constitution is silent as to when a trial should occur, timewise. A simple majority of 51 votes would be necessary to pass such a motion.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/475755-theres-no-requirement-or-need-for-an-actual-trial-in-the-senate
His fate would be decided more in the EC vote than at the ballot box. Which would be even more fun. Remember all the begging and pleading by Dems for the electors to abuse their position? It ended up costing Hillary 3 EVs.
Funny.
The party of Pramila Jayapal just voted to eliminate the Cadillac Tax for those great insurance plans, too.
Goldy✔
@GoldyHA
It’s weird how the people who keep telling me that Medicare for All is a terrible issue for Democrats because people don’t want to be forced to give up their private insurance are mostly people with great private insurance. #samplingbias
1m
You wanna whine about it? Whine to her.
“…. are mostly people
with great privatewho haven’t yet needed their insurance.”“Great” private health insurance only “fails” when you need it. Otherwise the system just keeps happily chugging along taking a few hundred dollars a month out of everyone’s paycheck and sending it off to pay for tests and procedures that nobody needed, wanted, or should have ordered.
@ 9
By one estimate, 7% of health care spending is defensive. Wanna save that 7%? Tell the trial lawyers’ groups to go fuck themselves. Ah, but y’all need that campaign money, doncha?
@4 Hunter’s house is swankier than yours, neener neener! Medicare pays well, but not that well.
Don’t cry or wet your pants Bob.
https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/buttigieg-tops-iowa-poll-ahead-of-first-primary-75624005701
After all it’s just a poll, a snapshot in time, but we all know how you use the polls to your advantage when they support you but yet downplay polls when they don’t go in your favor; kind of like a fair weather friend.
Go Pete!
The racist incel is not a Christian, he just wants you to be, so he can manipulate your Christian values against you.
And you need Putin, doncha!
@10 I think we can assume you pulled the “7 percent” figure out of your ass, as nobody has reliable estimates, let alone reliable data, on that subject. The most recent competent assessment I could find is this 2010 article looking at 2004 data.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048809/
We can say for sure, though, that the cost of malpractice lawsuits and “defensive medicine” would be zero if doctors never fucked up.
Since no one is perfect, making victims whole (and paying their lawyers) is a cost of doing business in any line of business. Why should yours be exempt? Why should incompetent doctors have a government-issue license to kill and maim innocent people?
Pull your dick out of your ear and stick it up your ass, because you’re the one who needs to go fuck himself.
Headline
Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, says he is ‘more of a Jew’ than George Soros, who survived the Holocaust
Money is money, you should understand that Bob. Let me guess….you’re just a Troll, a Putin loving Troll, trolling. Amirite?
Shitty doctors complaining about good lawyers. Heh. Been going on forever.
And Bob is more of a Doctor than the Horse is.
https://theweek.com/speedreads/886160/elizabeth-warren-once-held-campaign-event-restaurant-wine-vault
I guess that is when she needed the money, or was a chic back then?
Probably not the “estimate” that would include the in-network primary care giving practitioner ordering tests out of network from his own lab company, or the in-network specialist practitioner making patient referrals to the out of network specialty clinic from which he receives over $1 million in annual referral fees, or the local EMT contractor ordering air transport services from the life-flight company he owns, or in any way shape or form any sort of financial interest on the part of the payer in controlling any of the costs or really even giving a shit.
It’s a fundamentally stupid system. Of course bot-farm Dumbfuck defends it and pleads for understanding. On-brand as the kids like to say. But when the system is set up to both ignore and reward corruption it’s little wonder we see steady increases in cost and consumption of economic capacity along with steady declines in outcome quality. It must be hard for any MD to have sacrificed so much of their lives and their self-worth to an industry that consistently fails. But failure and rising costs are the only consistent features of the US health care system.
@16 Well, of course. Rudy has gone off the deep end. He’s already planning his insanity plea for when it all catches up with him.
“A former GOP congressman who retired earlier this year says President Donald Trump is ‘psychologically, morally, intellectually, and emotionally unfit for office’ and that he will consider voting for a Democrat in 2020.
“Dave Trott, who represented suburban Detroit for two terms until he declined to seek re-election last year, … went on to say Congress should remove Trump from office. …
“Trott … is the latest former Republican office-holder who is publicly criticizing the President only after retiring or losing re-election.”
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/24/politics/dave-trott-donald-trump/index.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Useless cheap talk. Bet he voted for Trump in 2016, and would’ve voted against impeaching him if he was still in Congress. They’ll all write in their memoirs, “I never thought electing Trump was a good idea, and he should have been removed.” To which we’ll say, “Where the fuck where you when it mattered?” Then crickets chirping.
GOP = bunch of sissy-ass chickenshits
“Warren, for her part, has acknowledged she used to have a big donor program but now thinks there is a “better” way to do things”
Are you person who believes in charge and redemption. Or a conservative who believes people can never reform?
@23 agreed. Never opened his mouth when it could have mattered. Coward.
I hope Jaime Herrera-Butler gets her ass handed to her in 2020. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, too. I wish they all would.
I’d Like You To Do Me A Little Favor, Though Dep’t
“Bevin, who was defeated last month by Democrat Andrew Beshear, also came under fire for pardoning Micah Schoettle, who was sentenced last year to 23 years in prison for rape, sodomy and other sexual crimes, according to Courier-Journal. The victim told police the abuse started when she was nine and lasted until she was 12, the newspaper reported. …
“The Courier-Journal has reported that Schoettle’s mother, Deborah Jo Durr, served two terms on the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission from 2009-2017, according to the Courier Journal. Schoettle’s stepfather, R.C. Durr, was a prominent businessman and philanthropist who co-founded the Bank of Kentucky and whose construction and contracting business built hundreds of miles of state highways.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/report-fbi-looking-pardons-ex-kentucky-gov-bevin-n1106961
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Anyone wanna argue Bevin isn’t a crook? Doc? Pork sauce?
“A longtime editor of the Christian Post resigned after learning the publication plans to write an editorial praising President Donald Trump and blasting another Christian publication for condemning him.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/christian-post-journalist-resigns-trump-editorial_n_5e0251bee4b05b08babb4148
Really the only thing he could do. You can’t work for Always Trumpers. You can’t pray with them. Or hire or date them. The correct thing to do with an Always Trumper is turn your back and walk away.
*change….Yes I am.
But Is there a better way for her to express her argument without attacking her opponent? And from her past experience does she feel it compromised her decisions? Is there anything she should confess to? I’m not asking to be a smart ass but only to suggest that I think she and others are bringing it up to be little their opponent. To me, to exploit the issue for sole benefit is wrong too.
I read an NBC article the other day about Pete’s fundraising and in the article it said that others were doing it but it failed to indicate who the others were. It would have been nice if they had done so.
You could look at Warren as a boomer who got hers and then pulled the ladder up after here.
You could look at Warren like a ex smoker that now that’s she’s quite doing something toxic, she’s being holier than thou not letting anyone else to do it.
Maybe Pete’s ideas are just not as attractive to small donors as much as Warren and Sanders are, so he has to resort to begging from very rich patrons to get some cash.
That said, I know I like Warren more of the candidates, but I’ll campaign like hell whom ever get the democratic nomination.
Tulsi Gabbard Becomes Most Disliked Democratic Primary Candidate After Voting ‘Present’ On Trump’s Impeachment, Poll Shows
Yuh think?
She’s also the most disliked Republican in the Democratic Primary.
Oops.
Mike Bloomberg Exploited Prison Labor to Make 2020 Presidential Campaign Phone Calls
https://theintercept.com/2019/12/24/mike-bloomberg-2020-prison-labor/
Another reason to NOT vote for him during the primary.
These folks are not allowed to make calls to their relatives without paying an arm and a leg, but we can use them as slave labor to make phone calls for billionaires? Feels worse than a wine cave.
Our conservative friends love to extol the glories of capitalism, although what we have here in America is corporatism, not capitalism. Here’s how corporatism works in real life: Boeing’s failed (and fired) CEO will walk away with up to $68 million. Meanwhile, workers for 737 MAX suppliers get pink slips and unemployment benefits for Christmas, and shareholders got fucked, too.
Even “corporatism” doesn’t completely fit. What we have in this country is “C-Suiteism.”
I think I just coined a new synonym for “highway robbery.”
Next time you hear a conservative mention “capitalism” and “accountability” in the same sentence, stop him, because there is no accountability in the current iteration of capitalism.
All Muilenburg lost was his job. I’d be willing to get fired from a thousand jobs — one a day for three years — to get $68 million.
@30 I look at Warren as someone who might not be the equal of Putin and Xi on the world stage, but still way better than electing a boy to do a man’s job.
@32 Did we need another reason?
Or maybe it’s Warren that is just whining because she regrets having to just raise funds from the less rich, and not happy that the very rich don’t like her ideas.
I like a lot of what each of them have to say, including Bernie and Warren, And I think this Country can and should invest in ways that they speak about, and I don’t think you can squeeze blood from a rock, meaning the very, very rich have to pay. I can never see myself voting Republican, never have and never will.
But I also believe in telling people that they have to be accountable and help themselves too. Sometimes I don’t hear that part of their speech and I wish they would include that. I’m not saying Mayor Pete expresses that either. I think some policies go too far to the left, and aside from being uncomfortable with that myself, I think it can turn some moderates to the right, or the wrong way.
Just as added information, aside from contributing $ to his campaign, I haven’t actively campaigned for Mayor Pete. But I did do some limited volunteer work for the 1st Obama Presidential campaign. Only for about 3 days, because I really didn’t like what I was doing.
This guy never had ay marbles in his brain to begin with.
https://time.com/5755255/brazilian-president-jair-bolsonaro-leaves-hospital-after-losing-memory-in-fall/
Is it time to call this racist douche a “domestic terrorist”? I mean, attacking children walking on sidewalks with a car, because she hates their skin color, what does that make a person? Hopefully, she’s going away for good; she should never get out of prison.
@37 I think the billionaires are so fucking scared of Warren’s ideas that at this point, watching the buzzards circling over Trump, they’ll bankroll anybody who’ll merely repeal his tax cuts.
Not one single House Republican deserves to be re-elected in 2020. They’ve all put the interests of a corrupt political party above the preservation of our democracy.
When Doctors, real doctors, were able to retrieve what was up Bob’s rectum, he was then able to speak to how his head wound up in his ass.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74mgb/what-did-we-get-stuck-in-our-rectums-last-year
I’d like to wish a very Merry Christmas upon my two fave girls, Hillary Clinton and YLB.
Linus:
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace and goodwill towards men.’”
That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
@43 How did you find that shit?*
* I assume your search phrase had to include the word “Republican” somewhere in it, as in e.g.: “Objects Republicans stick up their asses besides their heads.”
@44 Hillary says go fuck yourself, after you’re done fucking Santa’s reindeer.
The world’s most sexually depraved doctor. See #43 for lurid details.
@45 “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace and goodwill towards men.”
Yeah, and some twisted fucks, including Billy Graham’s son, think that means dissing Christianity Today and praising Trump, can you believe that shit?
Well, every family has to have a prodigal now and then. That’s just the way things are.
@46 oddly enough I found it in some Christian Family magazine, I think A Million Moms authored it.