Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

“Alexa, change the president.”

Peak wingnut was a lie.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

You are here: Home / Archives for 2014

Archives for 2014

For All Your Breaking News

by | 60 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

NO NO NO NO NO NO!:

Leading astrologers say that Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky is destined for a future working on social justice and will enjoy a strong relationship with her proud grandparents, Hillary and Bill.

After Chelsea Clinton and Mark Mezvinsky’s daughter was born at 7:03 pm at Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Friday, POLITICO asked astrologers to weigh in on what is written in the stars for the former first daughter’s first daughter.

“She may not follow her family’s politics, but she will follow the family’s activism and social justice and finding a way to serve the world, following in that community organizing path and picking up the roots of her grandparents,”said Ophira Edut, of the AstroTwins and co-author of the book “Momstrology: The AstroTwins’ Guide to Parenting your Little One by the Stars.”

They asked them. They didn’t just report what some crank said, they solicited astrologers for advice.

Your media at work.

For All Your Breaking NewsPost + Comments (60)

How To Create Jihadis

by | 133 Comments

This post is in: ,

I’ve talked about our cavalier use of drones, our lack of a clear policy, how they create more terrorists, how armed drones will inevitably be an accepted police practice (something that used to be mocked but maybe not so much after Ferguson and the exposure of the 1033 program) and the damage they do to our nation’s reputation, and usually am met with catcalls about being a dudebro or a Greenwald lover or a hysteric (“Would it be better if they were shot?” ala Archie Bunker- and really, you sound that stupid), so I’ve basically given up talking about it here. What’s the point? You mention drones and the usual suspects go into full on defense mode as if this is an attack on Obama, when it’s really about the future of our nation and the place in the world and ending our constant involvement in overseas war, death, and destruction. So I’ll just outsource this to John Oliver so you can shit all over him.

What he said.

How To Create JihadisPost + Comments (133)

Utter Stupidity

by | 62 Comments

This post is in: , ,

So initial reports stated that there was an unrelated shooting of a police officer in Ferguson, and the police are still searching for the subject. This is more difficult than it should be, because of this:

Local police continue to search today for a suspect who wounded a Ferguson police officer Saturday night, but now authorities say the incident involved only one person and that it appears no burglary took place.

Police also confirmed today that the wounded officer had a body camera, but that it was turned off during the incident.

St. Louis County Police Sgt. Brian Schellman, a police spokesman, said he did not know why the camera was off.

Ferguson police officers began wearing body cameras on Aug. 31, three weeks after a white police officer, Darren Wilson, fatally shot Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed black teenager.

Police originally reported late Saturday night that the officer spotted two suspects trying to break into a business and that when confronted, one of them pulled a gun and fired at the office, wounding him in the arm.

Police, however, now are describing a different scenario: that the police officer, during a business check, saw a male subject in the rear of the Ferguson Community Center. When he approached, the person began to run and the officer followed on foot. During the pursuit, the man spun around and fired at the officer, who was hit in the left arm, before disappearing in the wooded area behind the center.

If there is one fucking police force in the country that needed body cameras, it was the Ferguson PD. Now, if we could just get them to turn the damned things on, we might make some progress. Although in their defense, when you are rotten to the core, you probably don’t want the cameras on, as it makes it harder to change your story after the fact. I doubt we will see the Police Chief attempting to bodysurf the protests again.

Can anyone give me ONE reason why the entire Ferguson police force has not been disbanded?

Utter StupidityPost + Comments (62)

Pricing and the next best alternative

by | 3 Comments

This post is in: ,

The Incidental Economist passes along a pair of interesting studies as to how Medicare pricing and provider reimbursement influences private payer provider reimbursement.  The short story is that over a long time period, private pricing imperfectly tracks Medicare pricing.  The longer story will be after the quotes:

 Jeffrey Clemens, Joshua Gottlieb, and Adam Shapiro make the case that Medicare cuts in rates paid to hospitals induce private insurer cuts….

A study of this relationship in the hospital setting by White (2013) estimates that a 10% reduction in Medicare’s hospital payments results in a 4 to 8% reduction in private payments. White and Wu (2013) further find that hospitals handle these cuts by reducing their operating costs; this and related findings are summarized in Frakt (2013).

I think there are two seperate channels of pricing in play.  The first is simple and mechanical.  Quite a few provider contracts are based on Medicare plus 30% or Medicare plus 50%.  Medicare in this case is a base rate, so a decrease in the base rate results in a decrease of the derived final rate.  The sequester was a noticable decrease in the base rate so a provider getting paid at 150% of Medicare is now getting paid at 147% of non-Sequester Medicare rates now. 

The more interesting story is the search for the next best alternative.

show full post on front page

Pricing and the next best alternativePost + Comments (3)

Monday Morning Open Thread: Occupy Central (HK)

by | 69 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Click on the link for the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post‘s full story.

From the NYTimes:

A wave of public protest in Hong Kong extended into the working week on Monday as thousands of residents defied a government call to abandon street blockades across the city, students boycotted classes and the city’s influential bar association added to condemnation of a police crackdown on protesters a day earlier.

The continued public resistance underscored the difficulties that the Hong Kong government faces in defusing widespread anger that erupted on Sunday, after the police used tear gas, pepper spray and batons to break up a three-day sit-in by students and other residents demanding democratic elections in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.

The Hong Kong government said Monday morning that it had pulled back the riot police from roads across the city where thousands of determined protesters were blocking traffic. The government urged the demonstrators to end their street sit-ins so that life in this busy commercial city could return to normal.

But in the Admiralty area, home to the government’s offices and a focus of the demonstrators’ anger, many of the protesters who were occupying a main road said they were determined to stay until the city’s top leader, Leung Chun-ying, resigned and answered their demands for democratic elections to choose his successor…

The protesters are calling for fully democratic elections for the city’s leader, the chief executive, in 2017. Hong Kong, a former British colony that was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, had been promised universal suffrage by that date. But under China’s plan for conducting those elections, only candidates vetted by a Beijing-friendly committee would be allowed to run…

Slate aggregates reports from the weekend, including multiple video clips, here.

James Fallows, at the Atlantic, has a report from one of the protestors: “When we felt threatened, we opened umbrellas and raised our hands“.

The Wall Street Journal‘s “China Real Time” section has a live blog:

There will be no fireworks in Hong Kong to celebrate National Day this year.

The Oct. 1 fireworks show, one of the world’s finest, takes place in the skies above Victoria Harbor and annually showcases the city’s stunning skyline against a backdrop of exploding colors. However, in a statement, the Hong Kong government announced that out of “regard to public transport arrangements and public safety considerations,” the display would be canceled.

The government said it anticipated that the main roads leading to popular viewing points “may continue to be seriously affected” on that date, which will mark the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China…

Monday Morning Open Thread: Occupy Central (HK)Post + Comments (69)

Late Night Open Thread: Putting the Crass in Classy

by | 55 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Axis of weasels evil — never forget.

Late Night Open Thread: Putting the Crass in ClassyPost + Comments (55)

Long Read: “Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire”

by | 63 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Where there’s muck, there’s money, goes the old saying — and, in the case of the Kochs, where there’s money, there’s muck. The current generation of profiteers has its roots in the original Gilded Age, when their grandfather (local rail baron & newspaper owner) started the family fortune by misappropriating government resources and stealing from his competitors. Charles and David have remained true to their clan’s history of dishonesty — among their many violations, they were sued for stealing from Native American tribal oil fields as recently as the 1990s. (That seems to be when the brothers decided they couldn’t count on the Birchers-cum-Libertarians to protect them politically, so they started the process of taking over the entire Republican Party.) Tim Dickinson reports for Rolling Stone:

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they’ve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today’s GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year’s midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers’ fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America’s second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The company’s stock response to inquiries from reporters: “We are privately held and don’t disclose this information.”

But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company’s troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle­-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP.

Under the nearly five-decade reign of CEO Charles Koch, the company has paid out record civil and criminal environmental penalties. And in 1999, a jury handed down to Koch’s pipeline company what was then the largest wrongful-death judgment of its type in U.S. history, resulting from the explosion of a defective pipeline that incinerated a pair of Texas teenagers.

show full post on front page

Long Read: “Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire”Post + Comments (63)