The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Thursday
Feb122015
The Commentariat -- Feb. 13, 2015
In the Shadow of Ed Snowden. David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "President Obama will meet [in Palo Alto, California,] on Friday with the nation's top technologists on a host of cybersecurity issues and the threats posed by increasingly sophisticated hackers. But nowhere on the agenda is the real issue for the chief executives and tech company officials who will gather on the Stanford campus: the deepening estrangement between Silicon Valley and the government."
Peter Baker of the New York Times on President Obama's request of Congress for an Authorization to Use Military Force: "Republicans on Thursday said limits now were irresponsible. 'His approach is one of the stupidest approaches I've ever seen,' said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah. 'Any president worth his salt would want the A.U.M.F. to be as broad as it can be.' Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible Republican presidential candidate, said Congress would not pass Mr. Obama's proposal. 'We're going to write our own legislation,' he said, 'and I hope it's a very simple one that's going to say that we authorize the president to take whatever steps are necessary to defeat ISIS. Period.' Democrats wanted more limits, not fewer, and the party leadership was cautious."
Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday confirmed Ashton B. Carter to be the next defense secretary, installing a new Pentagon chief as the United States increases military action against the Islamic State.Mr. Carter, a former deputy defense secretary who is President Obama's choice to replace Chuck Hagel, was approved by a vote of 93 to 5, a striking scene of accord as tensions mount over the wait to confirm Loretta E. Lynch as the next attorney general." ...
... Seung Min Kim of Politico: Republicans are slow-walking Lynch's confirmation, & Democrats are irritated.
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, on Thursday delivered an unusually frank speech about the relationship between the police and black people, saying that officers who work in neighborhoods where blacks commit crimes at higher rates develop a cynicism that shades their attitudes about race.... While officers should be closely scrutinized, he said, they are 'not the root cause of problems in our hardest-hit neighborhoods,' where blacks grow up 'in environments lacking role models, adequate education and decent employment.' 'They lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted,' Mr. Comey said. Mr. Comey's speech was unprecedented for an F.B.I. director."
The Definition of Insanity. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "The Senate is going to vote again on a procedural motion to consider a bill reversing President Obama's executive actions on immigration and fund the Department of Homeland Security.... With Democrats opposed to the measure, it appears [Mitch] McConnell's latest effort is doomed for failure." ...
... OR, Maybe Not. Christina Marcos of the Hill: "A growing number of House GOP conservatives are pressuring Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday to invoke the 'nuclear option' and change the chamber's rules to pass a bill defunding President Obama's executive actions on immigration. Reps. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) and Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said McConnell should change Senate rules, so the House-passed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill, which includes language to revoke Obama's immigration-related actions, can bypass a Democratic filibuster in the upper chamber." CW: If Mitch ditches the filibuster & 50 Republicans went along with him, he could get the amended DHS bill thru the Senate. President Obama, of course, would veto it. ...
... THEN Again. Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Two GOP senators [-- Ted Cruz (Texas) & Dan Sullivan (Alaska) --] on Thursday shot down an idea floated by several House Republicans to change Senate rules in order to pass a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and reverse President Obama's immigration actions." ...
... ALSO, too, Bullying Could Work. of Lauren French & Jake Sherman of Politico: "At least three committee chairmen have issued formal warnings to subcommittee chairmen that lawmakers planning to vote against procedural motions on the House floor should give up their posts -- the third time in just six weeks that Republican leaders have made it known they will not tolerate members stepping out of line."
... Danny Vinik of the New Republic: "The practical effects of a DHS shutdown are relatively minor, since most of DHS's employees are classified as essential and thus would continue to work in the case of a shutdown. But the political implications of it are much worse. Obama can criticize the GOP for putting the U.S.'s national security at risk.... [Whatever Republicans do, it won't be] "good for the GOP. But this is what happens when one ideological group has outsized control over a party and wants to pick funding fights that they are certain to lose." ...
... Erica Werner of the AP: "A month into their control of both chambers of Congress, [Republicans] are confronting the very real possibility of a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department later this month. Instead of advancing a conservative agenda and showing voters they can govern, the GOP has been unable to overcome Senate Democrats' stalling tactics in a dispute over immigration.... They're all bad options from the GOP perspective. A short-term extension just pushes the problem to a later date. Removing the immigration language would amount to a bitter admission of defeat after Republicans have spent months accusing Obama of an unconstitutional power grab for limiting deportations for millions in the U.S. illegally. That's left Republicans staring down the third possibility: a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department." ...
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "What is most fascinating about the GOP's current quandary is that this is a scenario Boehner and McConnell orchestrated themselves...."
Joe Mandak of the AP: "A federal appeals court has reversed lower-court victories by two western Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses and a private Christian college that challenged birth control coverage mandates as part of federal health care reforms. The 3-0 ruling Wednesday by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the reforms place 'no substantial burden' on the religious groups and therefore don't violate their First Amendment right to religious expression. All three groups -- the college and the Pittsburgh and Erie dioceses -- are mulling whether to appeal to the entire 3rd Circuit Court or the U.S. Supreme Court."
Jeff Toobin has a good primer in the New Yorker on the principle of "legal standing," in general, & in King v. Burwell specifically. John Roberts thinks it's very important that litigants have standing.
Justice Ruth Ginsburg says she was "not 100 percent sober" at the President's State of the Union address. Not a fun drunk, she fell asleep, "as I often do" during the President's speech.
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: If Scott Walker & other Fourth-Amendment scofflaws want to make the poor pee in a cup, why not expand that to the middle-class & wealthy recipients of government largesse, who, on average, abuse illegal drugs more than applicants for welfare assistance programs? "... drug-testing people who want to claim tax breaks could produce a huge windfall.... If we start pulling all of the nation's elderly into our drug-testing dragnet, enough aging hippies will test positive for doobie use to disqualify them from benefits and save the country some major dough.... Want to take that deduction for home mortgage interest? I'm sorry, sir, you'll have to submit a urine sample.... Same with charitable deductions, health insurance deductions and everything else on your thick, itemized 1040.
Richard Marosi of the Los Angeles Times: "The Mexican government and Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, have announced steps to improve the lives of the nation's farmworkers, two months after a Los Angeles Times investigation detailed labor abuses at Mexican agribusinesses that supply major U.S. supermarket chains and restaurants.
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Tim Egan: Jon "Stewart didn’t degrade politics and the press. He walked through a degraded landscape, the tour guide who’s also a smartass."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. He's No Forest Gump. CNN Money: "As NBC's fact-checking continues, two accounts from [Brian] Williams' younger days could invite scrutiny": claiming he was in Berlin "the night the wall came down" & claiming to have met Pope John Paul II in 1979. CW: It appears all or most of the events Williams describes as "a highlight of my life" are fictional.
Watch the Nutball Machine on High Speed. J. K. Trottler of Gawker hears that besides President Obama & his family, the guests at the wedding of MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner and former White House chef Sam Kass included a couple of other 2008 celebrities: former Weather Underground radicals Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn. "While the fact that Obama was literally partying with former advocates of violent struggle against the U.S. government will no doubt be taken by his critics as further evidence that he hates America, the most interesting thing about the wedding is the shocking proof it offers that -- at long last! -- Obama truly no longer gives a fuck about keeping up political appearances." ...
... That's right, he truly no longer gives a fuck:
... ** Don't miss the BuzzFeed video. ...
... AND the Nutball Machine Is in Gear. Daily Caller: "Greta Van Susteran slammed President Barack Obama for his recent Buzzfeed video on her show 'On The Record,' noting the zany 'YOLO'-filled video was filmed the same day the White House was dealing with the death of ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller." ...
... Yo, Greta. He truly doesn't give a fuck. Besides, those crusty Brits loved it.
Presidential Race
James Downie of the Washington Post: "Some might say the costs of [Hillary Clinton's] delaying [an announcement that she will run for president] are overblown. But they are eerily similar to the strife and indecision that sank Clinton last time." ...
... Clinton & Bill Frist the Long-Distance Doctor have an op-ed in the New York Times advocating for Congress to pass an extension of the Children's Health Iinsurance Program (CHIP).
Anybody feel that the Fed is out to get us? -- Rand Paul, the Most Interesting Paranoid in Politics, in Iowa last weekend
Paul Krugman: "... monetary crazy is pervasive in today's G.O.P. But why? Class interests no doubt play a role -- the wealthy tend to be lenders rather than borrowers, and they benefit at least in relative terms from deflationary policies. But I also suspect that conservatives have a deep psychological problem with modern monetary systems.... Monetary policy should be an issue in 2016. Because there's a pretty good chance that someone who either gets his monetary economics from Ayn Rand, or at any rate feels the need to defer to such views, will get to appoint the next head of the Federal Reserve." ...
... CW: Come the real campaign, I'll have to start yelling "Remember the Fed!" along with "Remember the Supremes!" The Most Interesting Man in Politics & his entire party are dimwits & loons. This is very scary. ...
... Matt O'Brien of the Washington Post elaborates on Paul's misunderstanding of how the Federal Reserve works. As I said, very scary. ...
Also, when I stepped outside this morning, it was cold, so I put on a coat -- but it didn't work, because it was still cold. -- Paul Krugman, explaining the GOP's understanding of Federal Reserve actions which weakened the depression ...
... Never Mind Krugman. Freeeedom's Just Another Word for Wal-coin. In Silicon Valley, Dr.-Sen.-Macroeconomist-Etc. Randy Paul-Krugman said it might be a good idea of WalMart & other major corporations got together & established their own currency, which would allow them to cut out the credit card companies. Maybe somebody should tell Paul-Krugman WalMart has its own credit card (& some other rip-off financial products) & doesn't need to become a country unto itself to cut out Visa.
... Sam Youngman of the Lexington, Kentucky, Herald-Leader: "... U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is asking members of the Republican Party of Kentucky to create a presidential caucus in 2016 that would happen well ahead of the May primary election.... Kentucky law prevents a candidate from appearing on the same ballot twice, and Paul and his allies have endeavored for more than a year to either change the law or find a loophole that would allow him to run for the White House and re-election to his U.S. Senate seat at the same time.... Paul's supporters also maintain that the law is unconstitutional, suggesting that it could be challenged in federal court. However, if Kentucky Republicans decided their choice for the 2016 Republican nomination in an earlier caucus, his name still could appear on a May primary ballot for re-election to the Senate." ...
... In a Senate hearing, Elizabeth Warren not so obliquely took on Dr.-Sen.-presidential-candidate Rand Paul's assertions about vaccinations. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos notes that Warren asked the director of the CDC's Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases if there was "any scientific evidence that vaccines cause 'profound mental disorders,' an assertion that Paul made & then disingenuously walked back (by pretending he didn't mean what he clearly did. Clawson fails to note it, but Warren dinged Paul a second when she asked if there was any "scientific evidence that giving kids their vaccines further apart or spacing them differently is healthier for kids." Dr. Randy said he & his wife purposely spaced their children's vaccines to avoid harmful effects of haviing them administered all at once (or twice). The answers to Warren's questions, of course, were "no." ...
By Walt Handelsman. Thanks to MAG for sending it along.
... Noah Bierman of the Los Angeles Times: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) appeared peeved Thursday when an interviewer at a technology conference asked him to weigh in -- again -- on the national debate he helped fuel over vaccines last month." "Appeared" peeved, Bierman? The little tyke was livid.
Ben Terris & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: Marco Rubio distances himself from his former mentor & supporter, Jeb Bush. Ungrateful twit.
Charles Pierce welcomes Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) to the Presidential Sweepstakes Clown Car. You should especially read it to find out what is the Worst Idea in American Politics. You'll have to click on Pierce's link. And, yeah, Pierce is absolutely right about this. ...
... CW: Any politician -- Republican or Democrat -- who cannot get an A- in Macro 101 at the Krugman-Stiglitz School of Economics disqualifies him/herself from a presidential run. As it stands, I'm not sure there's a single candidate who could pass the course, tho I suppose Hillary -- an overachiever if there ever was one -- could muster a C+.
Texas has been criticized for having a large number of uninsured, but that's what Texans wanted. -- Former Gov. Rick Perry, in New Hampshire
Write your own joke. -- Constant Weader
Beyond the Beltway
Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "A federal judge [in Mobile, Alabama,] on Thursday ordered that a county probate judge must comply with her earlier ruling and cannot refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The federal judge, Callie V. S. Granade of Federal District Court here, wrote that the county judge, Don Davis, of Probate Court in Mobile County, cannot deny a marriage license 'on the ground that plaintiffs constitute same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the sanctity of marriage.'... While the ruling Thursday was focused only on Judge Davis, it was intended to send a signal to judges statewide who are caught between the federal ruling and the order from [State Supreme Court] Chief Justice [Roy] Moore." ...
... MEANWHILE, Justice Moore likens a U.S. Supreme Court decision making same-sex marriage a Constitutional right to, um, Dred Scott, the infamous 19th-century case that upheld slavery. He he just might ignore the Supremes' decision if he doesn't like it: "You can dissent to the United States Supreme Court."
Laura Gunderson of the Oregonian: "Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek met with Gov. John Kitzhaber on Thursday morning and told him it was time to resign." All are Democrats. ...
... Update: "In one of the most surreal days in Oregon political history, the state's top Democratic leaders called for Gov. John Kitzhaber to resign, and the governor vanished from public view. With support of even allies evaporating, the ability of Kitzhaber to remain in office appeared less viable by the hour." ...
... Laura Gunderson: Secretary of State Kate Brown, who would become governor if Kitzhaber resigns or is removed from office, describes a "bizarre" meeting she had with Kitzhaber. ...
... Nigel Jaquiss of Willamette Week: "Gov. John Kitzhaber's office last week requested state officials destroy thousands of records in the governor's personal email accounts, according to records obtained by WW and 101.9 KINK/FM News 101 KXL. The request came as investigations into allegations of influence-peddling involving Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes were intensifying.... The records indicate that state employees refused to carry out the request from Kitzhaber's assistant to destroy emails. Oregon law makes it a crime to improperly destroy or tamper with public records or evidence."
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky released a study Thursday predicting that his expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would generate a positive fiscal impact of nearly $1 billion for the state over the next seven years. The findings from Mr. Beshear, a Democrat, countered a drumbeat of Republican warnings that extending the program to nearly 400,000 additional Kentuckians to date -- far more than state officials had predicted -- would eventually impose a heavy burden on state taxpayers." Also, too, fewer Kentuckians will get sick & die. ...
... Okay, now let's hear the confederate response to the good news: "But Jim Waters, the president of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian think tank in Bowling Green, Ky., said that the numbers in the report could not be trusted and that it was too soon to know the long-term financial effect. 'We hear this sort of thing from government all the time. Blah, blah, blah.'" (A portion of Waters' remark has been paraphrased.)
Growing up in America has been such a blessing. It doesn't matter where you come from. There are so many different people from so many different places and of different backgrounds and religions, but here we're all one. We're one culture. -- Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, last year, in a StoryCorps oral history session. An alleged Second Amendment enthusiast murdered Abu-Salha, her husband & sister earlier this week in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. You can listen to portions of Abu-Salha's StoryCorps session here.
CW: This is off-topic, but it was on the front page of the New York Times, & it caught by attention. Jon Ronson writes that Justine Sacco, a PR exec, sent this tweet -- "Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!" -- and "tens of thousands" of Twitter users sent outraged tweets accusing her of racism. She lost her job. I don't know Sacco, but I would have assumed immediately that the tweet was ironic & not racist, that she was making a joke about privileged American whites who thought that were immune to all sorts of difficulties that others face. Or something of that nature. What do you think? Do "tens of thousands" of people -- including her employers -- just not get irony? Or what? ...
... Update: For those of you who don't get satire, Catherine Rampell, in the post linked above, does not want to make you send in a urine sample with your 1040.
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Reader Comments (24)
Rush Limbaugh has taken his white male victimization schtick to new heights with his latest tantrum suggesting that Scott Walker should claim he didn't go to college because he didn't want to be falsely accused of rape.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rush-limbaugh-scott-walker-campus-rape
CW: The gist of the Times article is that you put your employment and even your life in jeopardy if you ironize on Twitter.
@Calyban: Yeah, I guess that is the gist of it. As I just wrote to another reader,
"I also thought the Seinfeld episode where George mistreated a disabled person was funny. On that, I got a lot of grief from the PC police, who, again, didn’t seem to understand that Seinfeld always mocked the lead characters, not the people they mistreated. So either I’m a sick fuck or lots of people really don’t get what the joke’s about. I think it’s a subject-predicate problem. These people probably would think Jonathan Swift actually advocated eating Irish babies. Also that 'Moops' is the right answer."
Marie
Krugman takes the gloves off today and it's a good one. The psychology of the GOPers regarding the evil deeds of printing money and its incoherence to their world view where heroic "Job Creators" build their entire wealth-creating machines singlehandedly is particularly hits the nutiness right on its head.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/opinion/paul-krugman-money-makes-crazy.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
Re: Buzzfeed video:
Now THERE'S the guy I thought I voted for. Nice to have him back.
To quote Tony the Tiger, "That was Grrrrrreat!"
And for all those wingers whose heads are exploding, a quote from some wise wag or other, "Bite me."
Given that his typical responses to questions about his own silliness and ineptitude surrounding even a field in which he should be, shall we say, less inept, such as medicine, range from sullen and aggressively defensive to hostile and rude, AND given his propensity for making silly and demonstrably false claims, on a regular basis, one can only suspect (hope?) that the next two years will be mighty uncomfortable for The Little One. Those tightie whities will be permanently bunched, not to mention the damage that flop sweat can do to that cheap rug.
Hard times comin' Randy boy. Gonna get me some popcorn and a front row seat!
Let the bullshitting and the backtracking commence.
Krugman's statement that Paul Ryan, 'who remains the G.O.P.’s de facto intellectual leader' says it all about what "Republican" means.
1. I have to find a conspiracy.
2. I have to create my own view.
3. I don't know what the word 'fact' means.
4. I ignore the fact that I have to search the whole country to find an 'expert' that agrees with me.
5. Under no circumstances, including the end of the world, will I admit I got it wrong.
6. I don't know what the word 'dumb' means.
Re: my dog ate my homework is officially amped up;
" I peed on my 1040 form".
Bad news for you JJG, your form turned purple, no return for you!
Damn damn damn, one toke in '68, and I lose out on the forty four dollars and twenty one cents I was counting on.
OK, maybe there was another experiment in '73, oh, once in the eighties, whoops, forgot about the nineties; fuck it,keep my money, buy a left nut for your new drone.
When will the powers that be realize you can not legislate morality?
Here's something else you can put in your pipe and smoke Scotty boy.
At some point your freeeedom backers are going to say, " hey, you're trying to take away my freeeeedom, fuck that noise."
Some where along the same line, am I the only lonely that thinks defunding or non funding the Department of Homie Security is a great idea? Before 911 how many people felt safe and secure? And now?
Department of Homeland Security, the most expensive and wasteful scarecrow the world has ever seen. But hey (hay) it gives a lot of the unemployable work.
@Marie, don't think a body would go to Africa if one was concerned about contacting AIDs. So a joke. Lots of times people take what I say as serious. Like boiling and eating the the Irish. Everybody knows the Irish are tough. You have to marinade and BBQ them for any kind of flavor.
David Carr, that intrepid NYT journalist, best beloved by most, is dead––just keeled over in his office yesterday. Here is Vox's, via a video, showing in part why Carr was such a force to reckon with.
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032351/david-carr-vice
@JJG asks, "... am I the only lonely that thinks defunding or non funding the Department of Homie Security is a great idea? Before 911 how many people felt safe and secure? And now? Department of Homeland Security, the most expensive and wasteful scarecrow the world has ever seen. But hey (hay) it gives a lot of the unemployable work."
Actually, DHS represents a federal government reorganization, with an ocean liner full of extra cash thrown in. The DHS incorporated 22 pre-existing agencies including INS, FEMA the Secret Service & the Coast Guard. These agencies (except FEMA, which was a stand-alone) originally reported to other Cabinet-level departments. Wikipedia has the rundown.
Marie
P.S. As a person of Irish descent, I will concede that I'm tough, but I'm shocked that you would propose to make me the Specialty of the House.
The Children's Hour.
Oh, not Longfellow's wonderful poem. It's Hellman's play of vindictive, spiteful, hateful little brats I'm thinking of.
To pick up where Marvin left off, it strikes me that the little brats in the Confederate Party are busy, day and night, scheming away to find a way, any way, to get their way. And screw everyone else. Because what does it matter if someone else is unfairly treated, if facts are as dodgy as Li'l Randy's rug? As long as they win.
So here now come the Rule Changers. They can't win fair and square? Just change the rules. Make a new rule and call it "We Win, No Matter What".
Republicans are having a tough time ramming through a funding bill for Homeland Security, packed with GOP amendments designed to cripple new immigration policies. What to do? Change the rules, of course.
Paul Ryan, so-called big brain of the GOP (a little like saying smartest kid in the kindergarten) helped to change the rules when it comes to adding and subtracting. Mathematics is far too "fact based" for the Lyin' One, so from now on, the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation will have new rules that will ensure that 2+2=tax breaks for the wealthy. In fact, no matter what math operation you select, it will equal tax breaks for the wealthy and less for everyone else. Facts and mathematical equations too inconvenient? Make up your own rules.
Scott Walker, since first soiling the cushion on the governor's chair in Wisconsin has become a master at changing the rules to suit himself and his cronies and anyone else in Scott Walker's Pay to Play Wisconsin.
Li'l Randy has a problem. According to Kentucky law says he can't run for both senate and president. Randy's solution? Change the rules so he gets what he wants. Fuck the law. Fuck Kentucky. Fuck everyone who disagrees with what this whiny little shit wants.
Too many "urban" voters going to the polls not voting for the Confederates? Change the rules. Make them jump through hoops, close polling places, put a limit on early voting, demand multiple forms of ID and allow any gun carrying slug to challenge their right to vote. Oh yeah, and change the rules so that those slugs can bring their guns right into the polling place.
An outcome that doesn't suit your ideology? Bury it or come up with an opposing "report" written by apparatchiks to deny the facts and call those who believe in truth and rationality traitors to America. You see, they don't want to just be "right", they need to make sure anyone who doesn't goosestep right along with them is characterized in the most wicked ways possible.
Children. But vicious children.
Just finished reading the whole of Jon Ronson's article; wiping my forehead while letting out a whew! I think how fortunate I do not tweet on twitter nor am I on Facebook––both seem like dangerous territory. This new age of "look, see, here's ME! and I have so much to say" which reaches hundreds is mighty risky. The fact that one ironic tweet can ruin a person's life is scary.
"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own"
Jonathan Swift
P.S. As a person of Irish descent also (see Marie) I suggest you, JJG, marinate me for at least a week down in your dark, dank cellar (be sure you throw in a lot of spices) and although I could not be the Speciality of the House, I could very nicely go as a side dish with some fresh Catch of the Day.
Oh, and while the Supremes are sharpening their straight razors in preparation for carving up the ACA, how about a few facts from the field? Real facts, not Republican invented bullshit.
The state of Kentucky commissioned a report on their medicaid expansion under the ACA to get a more accurate idea of how things are going in the Bluegrass State.
According to Deloitte Consulting, a not insubstantial group, medicaid expansion is going great guns. More than double the originally estimated residents have signed up. And according to Louisville Business First, the health benefits are up substantially as well. Uncompensated care costs have dropped significantly. And before wingers start yelling "Job Killer", the ACA has brought 12,000 new jobs to Kentucky in just 2014. Double the original estimate. Deloitte estimates that by 2021, the president's plan, fought tooth and nail by Republicans, will have brought 40,000 new jobs to Kentucky at an average salary of $41,000, plus will have benefited the state to the tune of $30 Billion. That's billion with a B.
So let's see. Better healthcare for all residents. A boat load of new jobs at excellent salaries (in Kentucky $41K is pretty damn good), and an additional $30B to the state.
Wow. Better kill that program right the fuck away. It's just too damn good.
And predictably, wingers in the state are crying foul. Jim Waters of libertarian "think tank" in Bowling Green (likely the brainchild of Bad Toupée if it's in Bowling Green, his hometown), is whining that it's all a bunch of lies:
“We hear this sort of thing from government all the time: This or that company is going to bring 500 new jobs paying $80,000 each. But it ends up being 100 jobs at $30,000 each,” Mr. Waters said. “Government doesn’t really know.”
First, douchebag, it's not a government report. It was done by an outside consulting agency run by Deloitte Touche, one of the largest professional services companies in the world. Second, the report never says anything about $80K jobs (just one of the many ways these people make shit up). And no, the government doesn't always know, but so far, the actual facts (not disputable, Mr. Waters, by the way) demonstrate that the ACA medicaid expansion in Kentucky, and almost everywhere else, has dramatically exceeded expectations and original estimates.
They'll just have to kill it.
Public shaming... a la Sacco, now Brian Williams are we out for blood?
According to Rick (Niggerhead) Perry, Americans want someone who has been tested.
Yes. But not someone who failed the test.
Perry has denied Texans access to the kind of healthcare that is dramatically improving lives across the country in states that have adopted the ACA and medicaid expansion. Why? "That's what Texans wanted" whines Perry. Just ask them.
"We want to live lives without access to health insurance and decent healthcare, and want our kids to grow up the same way, no doctors, no hospital visits, unless and until you're dead, and with as poor a quality of life possible. Just like the cowboys way back when, when life expectancy was less than 40 years."
Is that what they're saying?
Here's what Perry's leadership has brought Texans:
Worst healthcare in the nation. Dead last among the states with terrible healthcare. (US Census data as of 2012)
Pct. without health insurance: 22.5% (worst)
Unemployment rate: 6.8% (17th lowest)
Poverty rate: 17.9% (11th highest)
Pct. aged 65 and over: 10.9% (3rd lowest)
Highest rate of uninsured, including children and the elderly, of which 30% (over 65) were uninsured as of 2012.
That is some leadership, Ricky.
The last Texan we put in the White House--hell, the last two--were disasters. Should we go for yet another rattlesnake?
According to Jeffrey Toobin in his piece linked above, "standing" is jurisdictional and can always be considered by a judge weather the plaintiffs raise it or not. He further points out that all four of the plaintiffs in the King v. Burwell case may lack standing, but that the Government has not raised the issue. My question is, why don't they file a supplemental brief? Or at least write a letter to the Court as Toobin suggests. Because I really wouldn't want to rely on the Supremes to raise an issue on their own that could result in sustaining the ACA, even temporarily.
@MAG: It seems to me that lumping Brian Williams & Justine Sacco into a category of “People Who Have Been Shamed” is a fool's errand – sort of like lumping Paul Krugman & Rand Paul into a category of “People Who Have Advanced College Degrees.” While one could argue that Sacco is a “public figure” because she had a PR job & that she is “privileged” because she had a well-paying job in Manhattan, the degree of difference between her public & economic situations & Williams' tips you off from the get-go that one of these people is not like the other.
Forget that Williams' income is 10 or 20 times what Sacco's was. Let's just look at the make-up of their audiences. Somewhere near ten million people watched Williams five nights a week. Millions more occasionally saw him in other teevee venues. Sacco had 120 Twitter followers. I have more than that & I don't use Twitter (but I keep meaning to get my Twitter password straightened out).
When Williams went on the teevee – or before groups – he meant to have his inflated stories impress his audiences. He wanted them to see him as larger than who he really was. He was boasting, even as he presented his fake-heroics in a self-deprecating way. He wanted to be the Most Interesting Man in Television. And, incidentally, you're not.
Sacco was laughing at herself & at people like her. She figured 120 people – most of whom probably knew her at least slightly – were her maximum audience. She wasn't making anything up. She wasn't boasting (or maybe was boasting about exotic travel – I don't know – but the travel isn't what ticked people off). Twitter obviously is a public medium, but I'll bet she viewed that comment as a personal chuckle between her & a few of her Twitter buddies.
Williams wanted a huge audience. Sacco wasn't looking for one; it was foisted on her.
The people who outed Williams were people who felt he had wronged them & misrepresented their work. The guy who outed Sacco should have known better. The little asshole works for a media outlet that fucking specializes in snark & irony. Did he think that only he & his hip New Yorker friends “got” jokes & everybody else was clueless? (If so, he should read some Gawker comments. They tend to be pretty funny.) If you read the linked post – which he bills as an apology -- you'll see that after a year, he still doesn't seem to understand the substance of his error nor the magnitude of the damage he caused.
Williams has been pilloried for being a misremembering braggart. And not just for one incident; the suspicious misrememberings keep piling up. Sacco was attacked for something she didn't believe, & wrote only in the imaginations of the readers. Today JJG wrote in with a recipe for barbequed Irish people. For some reason, P. D. Pepe & I did not consider it hate speech nor have we asked Homeland Security & the FBI to go calling on JJG on suspicion he's a dangerous terrorist. That's because it's obvious to us that JJG doesn't actually recommend marinating the Irish any more than Sacco believed she couldn't get AIDS because she was white -- and thus "better" than black African people. Why the Gawker guy Sam Biddle couldn't figure that out is beyond me. Not only that, he is supposed to be reporter; he works for an outfit that covers the news. If he thought Sacco was a racist, why didn't he contact her & ask her to clarify her Tweet before exposing her to ridicule & hate-tweets from thousands of people? I suspect it's because he's a publicity-seeking schmuck. If anyone should be shamed in the Sacco story, it's Biddle.
As to whether or not “we” are out for blood, well, yes, maybe. Every day on this site we make fun of politicians & other public figures. We relish the gaffes & pratfalls of politicians we don't like for other reasons. When we laugh at them, we usually mean it. That picture of Li'l Randy in a tinfoil hat is not an affectionate ribbing. I think he's a dangerously uninformed loon. Would I tell him that to his face? Yes, only I would (and perhaps I will) convey the message in a substantially more polite form. Were I Miss Manners or a priest, I would always use that substantially polite form to express my disagreement with Sen. Paul. Though by now I'd be dead, a victim of self-squelching hypertension. Not to be sanguine, but virtual bloodsport has its virtues.
Marie
How about a little more blood on the floor?
Little Randal has some more 'splainin' to do.
Yesterday, in an effort to boost his educational credentials, perhaps to stave off any smart ass at the Lincoln Labs Conference he was attending who might question one of the Little One's regular forays into La-La Land, Paul lied twice about degrees from Baylor he never earned.
This is even more ridiculous since it's been known for some time now that Bad Toupée never graduated from Baylor. And not only that, but he claimed that he had not one degree, but two. "I have a degree in Biology and in English" was the gist of it. When in fact, he has none.
Does he believe no one will call him on his regular departures from the truth or does he just not care about accuracy and veracity?
"Liar, liar, pants on fire" would be funny if this guy weren't, as Marie quite accurately indicates, a dangerous solipsist who exists in his own mind and whose fantasies he acts upon as if they were real, and who becomes incensed and quite aggravated when the facts are held up for him. If this were anyone else, you'd have to conclude that the guy needed help.
If he ever becomes president, it's we who will be needing the help.
Marie, I understood MAG's are "we" out for blood to be "we the people" not "we the RealityChex." You seem to imply it was more personal the universal.
Sen. Paul's idea of "Waltonbucks" is not a new thing, company stores in company towns used to issue scrip to company employees back in the bad old days of wage slaves, particularly in the extraction industries. Tennessee Ernie Ford sung it in "16 Tons". KY is a coalmining state (also, a personal lube), so Sen. Paul may think that it is a great way to keep 'em down in the mine and capture all those wages right back to the company. Up the company('s)!
@James Singer: No, I took her remark as "we, the people," just as you did. I was only using myself -- and by extension, some Reality Chex commenters -- as exemplars of the "blood lust" to which MAG refers. I do think that ridiculing public figures is a form of aggression -- and a socially-acceptable one, at least in some company -- that is also a healthy outlet for the ridiculer.
Many of these public figures have tremendous power over us (tho Brian Williams of course is/was not -- directly anyway -- one of those power-wielders. We have teeny arrows in our quivers to fight back, but the virtual pen is one of them. The voting booth is another.
Marie
@Patrick: Good points all.
In his musings, Paul saw his Wal-coin as a way for companies to increase profits; he gave no consideration to the idea that WalMart could use those fabulous savings to reduce its prices so ordinary WalMart consumers would get a better deal. Nary a word either that WalMart could use its imaginary Wal-coin windfall to increase the starvation wages it pays its workers. He's a real company man, that Li'l Randy, who evidently thinks workers owing their souls to the company store is a good thing.
Marie
Boy, a girl can't take a break to deal with the ice dam that dripped through the ceiling soffit & filled two pans (so far) with water while she waits for the next blizzard...
My phrase 'are we out for blood' was not aimed at RC (thanks James S.), but because I had linked to the New York mag article by David Marchese, "Brian Williams and the State of Public Shaming" (in which it was used) I thought the reading of it would focus in part on those who never have a nice thing to say about anyone. And are always looking for something bad to say; i.e., Sam Biddle. Whether it be a big target such as Brian Williams who has self-admitted conflation issues or an 'unknown', the nitpicky stories that keep cropping up about what was said or not said over the past twenty some years strike me as far more mean-spirited sniping then necessary.
There are worthy targets out there that deserve all the snark and derision they get. (Usually, I'm happy to pile on myself). Other times, it's overkill.
Marchese interviewed Ronson who wrote the Sacco feature, where in the question was raised:
Marchese (queries): "We’re out for blood"
Ronson: "Yeah, it’s interesting because we still see ourselves on social media as the hitherto-silenced underdog, yet we have huge power. We are more powerful en masse than NBC. Brian Williams’s fate was sealed because social media decided that he deserved a severe punishment..."
Marie,
I don't think Rand Paul even thinks about something as coldhearted as workers owing their souls to the company store. I don't think he considers them at all. And why should he? He grew up the scion of a well off family whose patriarch spewed victimhood and conspiracies against them like ketchup at a hot dog stand.
People like Rand Paul don't give half a shit about those they consider inferior. Solipsists are so self-absorbed that the plight of others doesn't make a dent. It's a form of sociopathy. His concern for the betterment of the wealthy doesn't necessarily mean he hates the underclasses (as Paul Ryan does, having been there, for a brief period in his life, and having been rescued by our tax monies). Paul has always been among privileged royalty. This is why he considers himself above things like rules and laws.
Who could bag college as a junior and waltz into medical school at Duke? Certainly there are genius level students who can do that stuff, but do you think Rand Paul is in that set? Paul's people, without any evidence to back up the claim, state that he was in the 90th percentile of applicants. But more importantly, his dad, Ron Paul, was a graduate of Duke's medical school AND a member of congress.
Paul's people here scream that no school, especially Duke, pays attention to legacy applications. I can tell you that this is a flat out lie. My college, which prides itself on merit applications (which is probably true of about 90% of the applicants) overlooks sketchy legacies as long as they aren't a total embarrassment. I can't tell you the rich idiots I encountered at school, although I was thrilled to have these guys sit down with us for all-night poker games during reading period, thank you very much.
And honestly, folks, do any of you, given Li'l Randy's startling lack of medical and general knowledge, believe he was in the 90th percentile of anything other than legacy applications?
He certified himself, fercrissakes. He lies about his educational achievements. He plagiarizes with abandon. He's a fucking loser.
This guy is a fraud. And he isn't even aware enough of the rest of humanity to recognize when he is so out of touch that other people are laughing at him.
But he wants to be president.