This is a really fantastic piece Jia. Really really great. One thing I would note - many people on the right, conservative right, are starting to co-opt the language of the left, or of the identity politics left. It is staring slowly, but you’ll see it even at Trump rallies or on Fox News, the use of “trigger words”…

Did he slip in Donatas’ butt sweat?

Okay papi

Pretty sure purchasing an insurance plan that only covers birth control = purchasing birth control out of pocket with a coupon from the interwebz.

Contraceptive only insurance would cost... exactly as much as contraceptives cost without, or slightly more due to administrative costs. It’s basic actuarial math; you’ll only get it if you want contraceptives. So you’d basically be betting that you would remember to get your prescription every month (or make your IUD…

The vacancy is better then what we had. My bet is Scalia would have purposely misunderstood how insurance works, too.

This makes me think that the justices don’t understand how insurance works. Full stop. You don’t buy insurance for specific medicines and condition. There is no “diabetes insurance” that you specifically buy on the marketplace when you need insulin. You buy comprehensive insurance and the company is gambling that more…

Do you know what would be awesome? If we completely divorced health care from the employer/employee relationship. We could have some sort of, I don’t know, single payer system or something.

look into Modern Monetary Theory. Stephanie Kelton, one of the biggest MMT macro theorists, is also Sanders’ chief economic advisor. Governments need to run debts in order to fuel growth - the idea that debt is spreading the government too thin is incorrect. In fact, we’ve seen how austerity policies (including the…

but Bernie can actually get a lot of what he wants done. Almost all economic policy is directed through the treasury and the executive, NOT congress - we made sure of that in the past so that Congress would have little oversight....Obama could have done much more with the economy but didn’t, not because of gridlock…

Jesus, it sounds as if you are describing how democracy actually works. Who would have thunk that possible here?

This needs more stars!

I really dislike the Bernie/Trump comparissons, but one way they are similar is that they are propelled by a populist movement. The villain in each movement is different (rich people and corporations vs minorities and immigrants), but the general sentiment is Fuck This Shit.

If Trump becomes…

Well that was the argument, but Obama kind of blew it up by nominating a white male conservative (Mitch Mconnell’s choice!) in Garland.

Dude, you are confused. Susan Sarandon hasn’t been subject to any of the potential depredations she is fighting against in years. Years. And her kids are grown, too. She is looking out for the interests of people poorer than she, and people younger than she. If she was looking out for her own interests, she would be…

What is the issue with ralph nader?

tbf, she is borrowing the language from the sanders campaign and using it the same context —at least, i’m assuming, because she works closely with the campaign

I think she’s wrong for a completely different reason.