Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We still have time to mess this up!

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Most of you should go to bed and try to be better Jackals in the morning.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

The revolution will be supervised.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

You are here: Home / Archives for 2014

Archives for 2014

Broken Typewriter

by | 97 Comments

This post is in: 

Arielle Duhaime-Ross writing at The Verge about what Apple left out of its “Health” app:

When it comes right down to it, most smartphone-carrying women want an app that will notify them before they end up with a blood stain on their jeans. That alone is nothing short of revolutionary. […]

So, is it really too much to ask to that Apple treat women, and their health, with as much care as they’ve treated humanity’s sodium intake?

It’s not too much to ask, but I’m not surprised that a product from a male-dominated tech culture missed this obvious feature.

Broken TypewriterPost + Comments (97)

Holder Resigning

by | 167 Comments

This post is in: 

As you all are in touch politically, you are all probably aware that Holder is resigning. I have no idea who will be nominated to take his place, but I sure hope it is someone who will push decriminalization of marijuana laws and will continue to aggressively pursue civil rights violations. Taking on the banksters would be nice, as well.

Who do we think the next nominee will be? I’m assuming it will be someone who is not being groomed for the Supreme Court, because serving for two years under Obama will make them impossible to elevate to the court, given the way the right wing and the compliant media are able to gin up lasting nontroversies (Fast and Furious, anyone?).

So who would you like it to be, and who do you think it will be? I have no earthly idea. Also, will the confirmation happen before or after the midterms?

Holder ResigningPost + Comments (167)

We Really Need A Law Telling Government Employees Not To Watch Porn At Work?

by | 29 Comments

This post is in: 

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know one of the first rules of working in an office: don’t look at porn on your work computer. But what’s even more of a concern is that Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) is seeking to pass a bill that actually states that government employees can’t watch porn at work:

In May, the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general disclosed that a senior-level employee was caught spending as much as six hours of his day looking at porn. The IG found that the employee had downloaded and viewed more than 7,000 pornographic files. … Four months later, the employee has not been fired and is still collecting government pay, Environment & Energy Publishing reported last week. Many agencies, including the EPA, have such rules, but Meadows says they are not enforced. EPA’s spokeswoman Liz Purchia confirmed that the porn-watching employee is still employed but on leave.

Frankly, if you can’t get through an eight-hour shift without watching watch Bang Bus, we’re worried about you. Also, those government bathrooms must go through a lot of tissues.

Team Blackness also discussed the Jordan Davis retrial, how it’s still okay to take upskirt pictures in Texas, and the destruction of the Michael Brown Ferguson memorial.

Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS

We Really Need A Law Telling Government Employees Not To Watch Porn At Work?Post + Comments (29)

Eric Holder Stepping Down

by | 129 Comments

This post is in: ,

So says the New York Times:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will resign his post, the Justice Department said Thursday. Mr. Holder will remain in office until a successor is nominated and confirmed.

Mr. Holder, the 82nd attorney general and the first African-American to serve in that position, had previously said he planned to leave office by the end of this year.

Particularly in President Obama’s second term, Mr. Holder has been the most prominent liberal voice of the administration.

I’m damn sorry to see him go. Holder has been an excellent AG and will be difficult to replace. Also, he makes wingnut heads esplode, and I’ll miss that about his tenure, though no doubt his successor will immediately be identified as a fellow agent of Satan, even if it’s Pam Bondi.

Eric Holder Stepping DownPost + Comments (129)

Convergence

by | 13 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

The important thing to remember is that 2014 was a beta test year for Obamacare.  Some insurers went into the market with loss leader membership build strategies, others went in with a reasonable price sustainability model, others went in with a hyper cautious approach.  Some insurers had optimistic pricing models, others projected a much sicker enrolled population than they actually got. 

2015 is the first significant readjustment and the market is acting pretty much as we should expect markets for minimally differentiated products.  Plans that were underpriced are seeing their pricing go up, plans that are overpriced are seeing cost reductions.  It is almost like the market structure could work.

ConvergencePost + Comments (13)

Narrow networks aren’t new

by | 6 Comments

This post is in: 

A Modern Healthcare article has an extensive piece on initial Exchange consumer reaction to narrow networks.  Besides wanting better web directories, people are relatively happy with them. However there is a throw-away line at the end concerning the proliferatin of narrow networks on the commercial/employer sponsored insurance side of the business that I think is wrong:

Jon Gabel, a senior fellow who studies insurance markets at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, told Modern Healthcare in March that if narrow networks “spill over into employer-based health insurance, I think we’ll see much more politically potent backlash.”

As I noted last July, most of the popular plans sold to groups by Mayhew Insurance are narrow network or tiered network plans. 

Note that the three commercial networks which are the top sellers by membership are narrow to very narrow networks and they were all fundamentally built when President Obama was either a state senator or a junior Senator in D.C.

I think he is wrong for two reasons.  First, the big trend for large groups and Fortune 1000 companies over the past several years have been to keep employee contributions reasonably stable while jacking up the deductible.  Companies that were offering low Platinum or good Gold style plans in 2012 are now offering weak Silvers as the base option.  A lower deductible but narrower network option at the same employee contribution per paycheck is a trade-off a lot of people are willing to make on an individual basis (that is what I choose for my family). 

So on the first front, narrow networks have been around for a while and they have been common for large groups for at least a decade in my market.  Secondly, as long as the networks are well disclosed, directories frequently updated and the narrow network is not the default or only option, but instead are a part of a set of choices, I don’t think there will be a potent backlash.

Narrow networks aren’t newPost + Comments (6)