the Ukraine

I had a Professorof Russian history, Richard Pipes, who insisted on calling it "The Ukraine" long after that was no longer considered acceptable. Of course, he was Polish.

When all has been said and done, after my island has sunk beneath the seething waves and Gilead founded upon the scorched plains of North America, I will have learned this much: Ukraine requires no article.

With all this manure there's got to be a Scandinavian-style universal health care regime somewhere, right?

1: fixed

For maximal confusion, note that the Irish name for Ukraine is "An Úcráin." "An" is, despite appearances, the definite article; in Irish most countries take the article.

Anyway, let me join Heebie in inviting the president to go fuck himself. The Times has a nice annotated version of his letter that rebutes the falsehoods one by one.

"Rebutes" being a combination of "refutes" and "rebuts", obviously. I guess.

How quick we are to forget refudiation!

The real question is how many Democratic Senators will vote no. Sadly I think it will be more than zero.

Ugh, Sinema too? I didn't realize until searching just now she had joined Manchin in centrist wankery.

If someone can hold a Senate seat as a Democrat in a state Trump won by over 40%, I don't give a shit how they vote when they don't have the deciding vote.

Some of the wise folk on Twitter have been saying that Nancy Pelosi should refuse to send the impeachment to the Senate, since Mitch McConnell has made it clear that he's not going to allow a fair trial. Does this make any sense procedurally?

No.

I assume.

"An Úcráin."

Some Ukraine or other.

I feel like Michigan alums are picking on me.

With you, bro. University of THE [redacted].

E. Gordon Gee sent Archie Griffin on a secret mission to "The Ukraine" to steal "The".

from A Secret History of The University

6. Since "ukraina" means "the borderland," you can justifiably use it for any region (another proposed etymology) on the Russian border. (Fun fact: when I was learning Russian, my instructor said I had a Ukrainian accent. This was not a compliment.)

19: My Russian professor told me that some Russians pronounced Russian like I did, but it was considered to be a speech defect.

Did you speak slowly? Or were you...russian?

I laughed.

I don't get it.

I don't get that Moby doesn't get it.

12: The counter I saw to that gambit was that not doing so would be to Republicans' benefit, so they don't have to vote on the record to defend his lawlessness and get it hanged around their neck.

Apparently most comedians in Russia either have or affect mild Ukrainian accents.

25: Should that be hanged or hung?

Anyway, this assumes a future in which having helped Trump will hurt Republican Senators. It's nice to think that such a time will come someday.

12 Is there a possibility that further events (including unhinged behavior by Trump) might raise the number of Republicans from 0 to, say, 5? Does the conclusion of the impeachment trial in acquittal moot any of the House subpoena lawsuits? Is there really no advantage in holding the trial until after the Supreme Court rules (quite possibly against Trump) on one of those cases? Is there any reason to believe that the open impeachment matter is hurting Democratic candidates? Is there any possibility of new impeachable acts between now and, say, June?

Ordinarily, you'd want to get straight ahead because you'd want to remove the criminal from office. Here, acquittal is 100% certain, so what, really, is the rush?

I'm not saying I support waiting. I don't think, though, that the Beltway Consensus that because Fox News viewers haven't turned on Trump the whole thing is a failure and should be wrapped up asap is particularly valid.

28: I don't understand. Are you suggesting that the House delay the vote in impeachment? Or is it the case that the House can impeach the President and then the Speaker of the House can decide not to "send" the impeachment to the Senate, until she decides the time is right? For those paying attention this is the same question I asked in 12, and noted legal scholar Moby Hick answered definitively in 13.

Once Mitch gets it over with in the Senate, Trump's going to do even more insane shit*, and they'll impeach him again. Impeachment today, impeachment tomorrow, impeachment forever.

*I'm thinking ordering the arrest of a few House Democrats, given the relevant line in his manifesto.

29: Maybe Nancy can just delay naming "impeachment managers"?

Some Democrats said they became convinced such a move was under consideration when House leaders decided against naming impeachment managers -- the set of lawmakers who would argue their case on the Senate floor -- until an undetermined later date.

When President Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, House leaders identified their impeachment managers on the same day. But Pelosi instead will be empowered to pick managers at her discretion and without a deadline.

31: Did you lose an "e" and become more energetic?

31: But, seriously I can't see Mitch McConnell losing this kind of Calvinball. If Speaker Pelosi won't name impeachment managers, he'll name Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes as impeachment managers and they'll come over to the Senate and explain the True Story of Impeachment.

Ironically, there is no "the" in the Ukrainian language.

I thought it was a very good comment somewhere yesterday on Twitter, that Dem politicians (and I would include my fave Warren in this) think of politics as chess, winnable with some super-clever coup de grace, whereas Republicans think of it as a punching match.

35 That's a nice description, but, imo, totally wrong about Democrats. People keep saying this kind of stuff -- that we're looking for just the right magic words to make Republicans like us, or have to go our way even if they don't like us -- and I just don't see that as the motivation at all. We need turnout from voters of color at 2012 levels rather than 2016 levels. That's not something you get with a clever chess move that some fucking Beltway shithead likes, but with engagement, and persistence.

But it does capture something about how Democrats play by rules and Republicans think it's a cage fight where biting someone's nose off is a feature, not a bug. Unless there's a bug on it, in which case it's both.

Since "ukraina" means "the borderland," you can justifiably use it for any region (another proposed etymology) on the Russian border

See also "Welsh", which basically means "foreign" in most European languages.

I had a Professor of Russian history, Richard Pipes,

For real?

I never had him for a teacher, but I can confirm he is real.

See also "Welsh", which basically means "foreign" in most European languages.

the Germanic root word for neighboring people - gave rise to

Welsh
Wallachia
Wallonia
Vlachs
Gaul/Gaulois
a dialect of French spoken in Alsace
the Polish/Czech/Slovak word for Italians
the word for Romanians in many languages

39: I mean, as in, Team B Richard Pipes?

That's the one I heard of.

If Richard Pipes was the father of crazed anti-Islam campaigner Daniel Pipes, which I now see he was, he may have come here from Poland but he predominantly was Jewish.

37 The Republicans' Actual Religion was stated plainly by Taney:

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken.

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics which no one thought of disputing or supposed to be open to dispute, and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use, but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.

The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time.

A coalition that can only attain power by the reliance on the support of people who are not legitimately citizens is itself not legitimate. It not that, traditionally, there aren't any rules, or that one side is in a cage match. It's that one side thinks the other is such an unholy alliance that it need not be given the advantage of any rules. This is why it has been, and will remain, so asymmetrical: We don't and won't deny the right of white farmers in Wisconsin to vote. Many Republicans simply do not accept that the 3 million more people who voted for Clinton was legitimate citizens.

I don't think the average Democratic organizer/activist acts like that, but it's a Beltway failing: Pelosi and Schumer seem to, given their focus on weird deals for the sake of being bipartisan. And think of Warren's DNA test: "We're turning his slur back around on him!"

Is "for the sake of being bipartisan" your interpretation or theirs? Our coalition has a lot of factions. Needs of factions sometimes yield to the political needs of the whole coalition, and sometimes they don't. For example, I think Pelosi's embrace of the new NAFTA was driven completely by labor within the coalition and not at all by whether some Village Idiot would be impressed that she's bipartisan.

43: Yes, Jew born in Poland.

Ugh, both the Pres and VP are at one of those awful rallies in Battle Creek, Michigan. All local TV is being preempted. I'd been avoiding the news. This does not help.

At least they don't come to PA at the same time.

I am hoping maybe the earth will swallow them both.

That almost never happens.

To be on topic for once, just watched the end of the vote live. It's a weird feeling. 229-184 to impeach. Sorry, 228-185, because the one Republican who voted to impeach changed their mind. Of course.

Tulsi voted "present". One way to get attention I guess.

Maybe she thought she was back in school.

AND YET THE CHIMPEROR STILL REIGNS

52: there was an independent who voted to impeach and 2 Dems who voted against.

For many issues, you can make a case for Democrats voting against their own party to stay on good terms with their constituents. But if your case for impeachment is both a moral one (you must vote how you think is right) and one based on reasoning from facts (the evidence presented), it is very hard to use Republican votes against impeachment (and acquittal in the future) against them if Democrats also vote to against impeachment, unless you're prepared for the same case that takes down Republicans to take down Democrats who vote like them, something I absolutely think Democrats should be prepared to do.

It's one thing to disagree about public subsidies or whatever, but if the justification for Democrats voting against their party on many issues is that you need them for the things that matter more, and then they can't even vote to preserve a semblance of democracy and rule of law, then fuck them. There's no future in that. Voting for Trump won't do a thing to prevent Republicans from going after them anyway.

The case against DeRay Mckesson seemed to half-assed that I don't know whether to be relieved by the switch or still enraged about the first decision.

On topic because of it's part of the same horror of the era.

46: I was thinking more of Pelosi's apparently being convinced that a bipartisan deal to reduce drug prices (aside from questions of its achievability) would somehow help Democrats. I know her office has put a lot of effort into it.

57 One of the two no votes in that NJ congressman who was flirting with changing parties, and the other is from a Trump leaning district in Minn. I presume that both will face primary opponents. Are you suggesting that Pelosi or Hoyer do something to them now?

You don't think lowering drug prices will help the members who voted for it?

And you think she's working on a bill to lower drug prices not because she wants lower drug prices, but because she wants the political benefit of having agreed with Trump?

In much of the country, working to solve problems, when it can be done, is considered a plus. Our senior senator just won re-election on a record of getting a lot of legislation passed in 2017 and 2018, and (as noted in a recent thread) our junior senator is currently defying the white supremacist consensus on a couple of issues to help his re-election. These things work, if they do, not because some fucking Broder somewhere thinks bipartisanship is good, but because of the underlying legislation itself.

And to 57 last, I think this whole thing about Republicans attacking or not attacking as a motivation is a complete straw man. Who thinks doing something, anything would prevent Republicans from attacking? Any elected official anywhere? The only way in which Republican attacks matter, imo, is if they are likely to stick among persuadable voters. So, while you can't, shouldn't, and I would say elected officials don't, do things for the purpose avoiding being attacked, they can act to insulate themselves among the target audience from the effects of those inevitable attacks.

Hoyer used the 2017, 2018, and July 2019 votes against impeachment to good effect in his remarks tonight. Those votes were worth taking not because they prevent Republicans from claiming that Democrats have been hot to impeach from day 1, but because they show any persuadable observer that the Republican attack is contrary to fact. Obviously, that doesn't matter to Republicans, but the game isn't about their votes anyway.

And to 57 last, I think this whole thing about Republicans attacking or not attacking as a motivation is a complete straw man.

The WP had a subhead about how the GOP is now going to spend $2.5 million to attack moderate House Democrats, like if it weren't for impeachment they were going to use the money to buy edibles and gourmet popcorn.

It's going to be impossible to watch TV here. Fortunately, I mostly just watch Netflix.

60: I'm not suggesting Pelosi or Hoyer do anything to them. I'm suggesting there isn't a case to defend them on this particular issue, as opposed to other issues. If no one is making the case to defend them on this vote, or to back off on pointing out the disgrace of Republican votes because a couple of Democrats are more vulnerable to that same criticism, then good.

Apparently the sitting President of the United States is going to put his personal brand name on brothels in China, among various other goodies. There seems to be some question over whether this violates the emoluments clause, but we shall see.

It's a logical brand extension for him.

44. Are we talking Chief Justice Roger B. Taney here? He was a Democrat. He authored the Dred Scott decision. What he is describing is the beliefs of many Americans in his day, including himself, but it isn't even factually accurate for the time, much less for today. Do you have a context or cite for this?

Let's all pause at this moment of continual Republican-caused catastrophy to remember that in the 1850s, the Democratic party had some problems.

OT: Does anyone know whether striking down the Obamacare mandate would affect state level mandates? We reinstated our State-level mandate in MA when the Federal penalty went to zero. Presumably a 5th circuit decision would not be binding without review by the Supreme Court?

It's a good reminder of the essentially destructive nature of the Republican party of today. It's been nine years since the ACA passed and there's not a single alternative plan put forward by any Republican of consequence. Yet it's full-speed ahead to undermine it.

71: The distressingly bonkers federal court decisions stem from whether the federal government has the power to impose an individual mandate. Completely different when it's a state doing it.

Why?

Hasn't the ACA been doing fine with a $0 mandate penalty, or whatever it is they did to cripple it before? Will this ruling make any difference?

73. Also, talking about District Courts, why isn't the ruling from the Fifth Circuit applied everywhere, like various rulings against stuff Trump tried to do? (Just as well that it isn't, but why?) Is it a box the court checks off or is there some more comprehensible reason?

||

"We started with floor boards made of plywood from used coffins we took from a temple."

"Coffin for sale, only used once."

75: IANAExpert, but it wasn't the fear that healthy people who only got insured due to the penalty would opt out of insurance, making it uneconomical to insure sick people? If nothing else happened, this would put the insurance industry into a death spiral and insurance for everyone would go away. Realistically, long before that happened, the insurance industry would find a way to pass costs on to sick people. We'd be back to the pre-Obamacare status quo but with more paperwork for everyone and the measures that benefited the insurance industry would still be in place.

The individual mandate was struck down effective 2019. The bad effects of it would still be just starting.

Hasn't the ACA been doing fine with a $0 mandate penalty, or whatever it is they did to cripple it before?

For some definition of "fine."

Right now we are paying about 15% our family income for exchange-purchased health insurance that doesn't even get used because the deductible is super high. I would not describe that as fine.

It's a good reminder of the essentially destructive nature of the Republican party of today.

Yes, it's so hard to keep examples on the tip of one's tongues these days.

ACA: It hasn't fallen apart, probably because people got used to the coverage and are not leaving it just because the penalty is gone, but enrollment seems to be slipping, federal outreach is deliberately non-existent, so I suspect a few more blows plus attrition over the next few years could push it into the feared death spiral. It would be a different story in states like CA and MA that passed their own individual mandate.

However, the previous ruling would have also eliminated the Medicaid expansion, which is not dependent on the individual mandate and covers millions more people than the insurance exchanges do.

62.2: I suppose it might help incumbents - but of both parties. I don't see how it flips seats. And the kinds of compromises that (these days) make a health deal bipartisan also make it toothless, not helping people so much as making a headline and some new consulting contracts.

Let's not forget how ridiculous and motivated the constitutionality argument is. In 2012 SCOTUS said (also wrongly) a straight-up requirement would be unconstitutional but a tax was fine. In 2017 Congress repealed the mandate by replacing the penalty amount in law with $0. Now the courts are saying that makes it a requirement rather than a tax and it's unconstitutional again, and they're inappropriately using severability principles to say "Can the rest of the ACA stand if the mandate falls"? as if Congress wasn't explicitly deciding to remove the mandate and not touch the rest.

I assume they're also fudging standing six ways from Sunday, as nobody can possibly be impacted by a $0 penalty.

Ratfuckery all the way down.

It is, but enough voters in Kentucky noticed their rat was being fucked on Medicaid expansion that it cost a Republican governorship. I would like to see that happen nationally.

69 Yes, that's a quote from Scott v. Sandford. I'm not saying it was the Republican religion then, it wasn't. It is the Republican religion now. You don't have to spend much time with pretty much any of them for the white supremacy to emerge. It's the foundation from which everything flows, including hostility to the ACA.

80 Spike, the achievement of the ACA isn't for people like you and me. The heart of it is Medicaid expansion. And the achievement of the exchanges is for the folks making too much for expansion, but little enough to need a real subsidy. It's a first step, and the fact that our situation (I buy from the exchange as well, without subsidy) isn't fine is what should drive us all to the next steps.

74 The powers of the federal government are limited to what is listed in Article I, as well as by the bill of rights, etc. The powers of state governments are limited only by the bill of rights etc -- federally -- and also by their own versions of article I, of course. The difference is, I suppose, more hypothetical than real, but there are edge cases where a state can do something that the feds can't do (gun free school zones covering even guns made in the same state).

And preemption, say by the dormant commerce clause. Which may or may not survive the current era.

Spike, the achievement of the ACA isn't for people like you and me.

I think that's right, but I'm curious about you and Spike: Do you believe ACA has been good/bad/indifferent for you personally?

because they show any persuadable observer that the Republican attack is contrary to fact

This seems to be the central hub around which all question of political strategy in this century revolve. Are there, in fact, such observers in any meaningful numbers?

I continue to posit no. There are now three essentially three national camps: Democrats, Republicans, and people who are paying so little attention that it is unnerving and legitimately frightening to talk to them. To the extent that the last group are mobilizable, it's definitely not by appeals to truth and reason.

86-7: Thanks. Can you explain 87 in Layman?

89 IMO, the existence of the Electoral College means that 'meaningful numbers' can be very very small indeed. Yes, to 2000 election turned on 5 votes, but it's also fair to say that a net increase of 1,000 for Gore out of the 97,000 votes that Ralph Nader got in Florida would have changed the result. Does a smallish tweak in the narrative change that result? How much of the result is due to the bad faith truth-and-reason-are-irrelevant way our elections are presented in the media?

The 2016 vote also turned on a very small margin, which included enough people who thought one candidate was a crook and the other had had reasonable success at various ventures, and got the question of which was which completely wrong.

I'm sure the helmet in the tank thing didn't by itself turn any votes, but it reinforced a narrative.

We're facing, almost always, a hostile press both because our positions are not favored by the owners of press outlets, but also because the worst people (and most reliable voters) are/were the group the advertisers wanted. What it means in practice is that our candidates have to be twice as good on the factual record. Which is the only thing a candidate can control, given that the actual levers of communication are controlled by entities with different interests. Actually, 2020 is going to be a test whether our candidate can be infinitely better.

Do you believe ACA has been good/bad/indifferent for you personally?

As someone who is self-employed, the availability of insurance has gone a long way (though not 100% of the way) to ease my concerns the risk of medical bankruptcy in the event of a health emergency in my family.

However, what has been damaging is the way it was architechted to rely on the mechanism of using extremely high deductibles as a means of discouraging people from accessing medical care or buying the medication they need. Its neoliberal bullshit and yes, it has negatively affected my overall health.

It really is medical bankruptcy insurance, not health insurance.

90 The US Constitution gives Congress the power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." This has been interpreted to mean that states may not enact laws that unfairly advantage domestic industries, even when there isn't a federal statute or regulation that is directly relevant.

I suppose it might help incumbents - but of both parties. I don't see how it flips seats.

House Dems are currently in the majority, so their primary focus is on retaining seats rather than flipping them.

I can't tell what the ACA has done. I haven't had employer provided insurance since 2000; the policies we bought between then and the ACA had much lower deductibles than our current ACA policies, and premiums were probably similar, in constant dollars. Of course, holding to the rate of inflation is a win wrt medical matters, and we've done nothing but age in the interim. I agree with Spike that I'm paying not to lose my house if I get cancer.

Actually, I probably paid as much or maybe even a little more in nominal dollars in 2010 and 2011 than I am paying now -- I suppose I could pay for gold and have low deductible, and still have a win on the premium side. Why don't I do that? Because our medical needs haven't historically called for better than a high deductible plan.

Can we make 65 before the roulette wheel comes up the other way?

We considered paying for the gold plan and just go all out on consuming health care this year to try to get the most out of the deductible, but as far as I could tell the numbers didn't come out ahead. And when I say "as far as I could tell", I mean that with the stipulation that I have neither the actuarial training, nor access to the appropriate cost data, nor psychic vision of the future to be able to tell for sure.

Like, for an extra $700 a month - the additional premium for a month that gold costs over bronze - how many extra doctor's visits does that actually translate into? How much would that buy in meds that we would otherwise forgo?

Eventually the answer boiled down to "fuck if I know," so I ended up going with the second-cheapest option that has the local medical center in-network.

89: A college classmate of mine mentioned that he knew a Yale graduate (in MA no less) who voted for Trump who just thought it was time for a change. It boggles the mind.

Gosh, I've gone without guinea worm infection for so long, I just thought: y'know, I've been in such a rut, it's time to change things up a little. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to twist the rod.

96: I thought the best deal for most people was the silver - and not just the ones with subsidies who get help with cost sharing on co-pays and deuctibles.

Underwrite new polices, keep the old. One is silver, the other gold.

I don't recall even seeing a silver on the exchange. Probably one was in there somewhere, but not near the top of any list I saw. It was mostly bronze with a few gold.

I just googled "nh health connector" and one of the questions under People ask "How do I enroll in Trumpcare?" Ugh.

Enrolling in TrumpCare is effortless. You are auto-enrolled and just pay for everything yourself.

102 made laugh/wince.

I don't recall even seeing a silver on the exchange. Probably one was in there somewhere, but not near the top of any list I saw. It was mostly bronze with a few gold.

Plans have to offer at least silver and gold plans (on the federal exhange, anyway, and I'd be surprised if it's not the same on state exchanges). They don't have to offer bronze or catastrophic. (Of course, they all do offer bronze because it's a great fucking deal for them.)

I didn't realize until this year that the federal marketplace layout is significantly more user friendly than at least some state exchanges. I was looking at New York's to give a friend some advice, and it's much harder to compare plans there.

That was me.

104 to 103 but also to 102, I suppose.

I had a bunch of silver options. I'm sure there are people for whom it makes sense. For me, I could pay an extra 450 per month and bring my deductible down by 3,500. Which makes sense if we're both going to max out, I guess. But if 2020 is like 2019, where our total combined medical expenses was less than a single month's premium, buying anything other than cancer insurance isn't compelling.

Obviously, BernieCare will be better and cheaper.

Do you believe ACA has been good/bad/indifferent for you personally?

The ACA has been great for me personally. I had really good insurance at a job I loved until I got an insane and horrible boss who made our office a miserable place full of clockwatchers. Were it not for the ACA, I likely would have stayed for another 10 years to make sure I never got stuck without insurance, even medical bankruptcy insurance. (I'm in a more tolerable position than Spike since I don't have kids to cover or support.)

I would have been concerned about cost, but I would have been terrified about pre-existing conditions. For people who didn't live through it, it's hard to overstate how profound and literally life-saving a change this was. As one small example, before my mom died of ovarian cancer they didn't yet know that the BRCA mutation is an indicator for both breast and ovarian cancer, so she was never tested to see if that was the source of her cancer. If it had been, there was a 50% change she'd passed it on. Once that become known, it would have made sense for me and my 3 siblings to be tested so that we could make prophylactic decisions like our own dear heebie. If you have the mutation, your breast cancer risk is 70%. But this was pre-ACA and any of us who tested positive would have been fucked for the rest of our lives if we ever changed or lost our jobs. Because I was likely to keep my job the longest, we decided that I would get tested (negative) so we could rule out at least one of us, but it was too risky for my siblings, WHICH IS INSANE. (In reality, even one of us testing positive could have fucked over all of us, but we decided to take that gamble.) Heebs, if I recall correctly, you knew about your BRCA1 well before the ACA but kept it on the DL?