Archives for 2014

Putting A Price On Domestic Abuse

by Elon James White| September 9, 201412:10 pm| 16 Comments

The internet has been on fire with the developing story of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. Graphic video surfaced on TMZ from an Atlantic City hotel in February, showing Rice punching his fiancee and then dragging her unconscious body out of the elevator. Initial video only showed the aftermath and got Rice a two-game suspension, but when the full video surfaced, Rice was cut by the Ravens and suspended from the NFL:

The new video of the incident reignited criticism of Goodell and the league’s handling of domestic violence. The commissioner was portrayed as out of touch on the issue, and it came as he was grappling with other explosive issues, including bullying in the locker room, players driving drunk and carrying weapons, and a drug and steroids policy that some considered outdated. [Commissioner Roger] Goodell, who has wide discretion to penalize players for violating the league’s personal conduct policy, was criticized for giving Rice only a two-game suspension. The N.F.L. received hundreds of phone calls in protest, and petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were collected.

Goodell has now stated that future policy now dominates that all NFL players or employees are suspended for six games for a first offense of domestic violence. Just imagine if there wasn’t such a thing as public outcry.

Team Blackness also discussed media accountability, why the NFL is the worst, and the impact of social media.

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Putting A Price On Domestic AbusePost + Comments (16)

Reminder — manually re-enroll this year

by David Anderson| September 9, 201410:51 am| 8 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Readership Capture, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It), Rare Sincerity

Just as a reminder for people who bought policies on the Exchanges for 2014 and plan to continue those policies in 2015 — please manually re-enroll at some point during the open enrollment period.

Healthcare.gov is preparing an automatic re-enrollment as te default mechanism. The default re-enrollment will be the same person going to the same exact plan that they had in 2014 for 2015. If that plan does not exist because the offering insurer is pulling the plan, the buyer will be defaulted into a similar plan from the same insurer. If the insurer is pulling out of the market, the individual will receive a nice e-mail telling them about the problem.

There are several significant problems with this default (there are always problems with defaults, it is a matter of choosing which ones to embrace and which ones to avoid).

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Reminder — manually re-enroll this yearPost + Comments (8)

Have you done all you can do?

by DougJ| September 9, 201410:33 am| 26 Comments

This post is in: Music, Readership Capture

The most important thing we can do as Democrats is to vote against corrupt triangutards in low turn-out primaries. So if you live in New York State, be sure to vote for Teachout-Wu. Here’s my song tie-in for Wu (I dig his retro 70s facial hair, btw). Don’t have one for Teachout yet.

Have you done all you can do?Post + Comments (26)

Early Morning Open Thread

by @heymistermix.com| September 9, 20146:19 am| 126 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

In last night’s post on Cuomo, I said that polls in New York open at today noon. This is true out in the boonies, but, as commenter BBA pointed out:

[V]oting hours for primaries are 6 AM to 9 PM in NYC and its suburbs (Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam) as well as Erie County (Buffalo), noon to 9 PM in the rest of the state.

I wanted to make sure we got that in since we know you dirty hippies want to vote for Teachout early and often.

With that out of the way, here’s a top-of-the-morning open thread with a little good news. Pat Roberts is losing in Kansas, which puts Sam Wang’s model at 83% probability that Democrats will keep the Senate.

Early Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (126)

Late Night In-It-to-Win-It Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| September 9, 20141:17 am| 36 Comments

This post is in: Election 2014, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat

H/t commentor LAMH36:

First lady Michelle Obama debuted on the 2014 campaign trail Monday in Georgia, where Senate candidate Michelle Nunn is working to pick up a key seat for Democrats.

The open Senate seat is a critical battleground in the national fight for control of the Senate, in which Republicans must gain six seats to win the majority. Businessman David Perdue has relentlessly tried to tie Nunn to President Barack Obama, who did not win Georgia in 2008 or 2012.

Mrs. Obama made the trip to boost voter turnout for Nunn among independents, minority and women voters. She told a large crowd gathered in a recreation center just steps from the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site in Atlanta that Nunn and Jason Carter, a Democrat running for governor, can win in November if just 50 Democrats per precinct who voted in 2008 and 2012 cast ballots this year.

“Barack won because record numbers of women and minorities and young people showed up to vote. But then when the midterms came along and too many of our folks tuned out,” Mrs. Obama said. “That’s what folks on the other side are counting on because when you stay home, they win.”…

Mrs. Obama’s visit was designed to pump up a voter registration effort led by the state party. Georgia Democrats have been hoping that an increase in out-of-state residents and a growing minority population would help them regain power after Republicans claimed every statewide office in 2010.

That year, in a competitive governor’s race, the Democrat lost by about 259,000 votes. Democrats are hoping that by use of targeted voter registration and outreach efforts, including contacting voters who only vote in presidential years, they will be able to make up the difference. In addition, they are working to reach an estimated 800,000 eligible voters who are black, Hispanic and Asian that for one reason or another are not registered.

And a change in early voting could also help lift Georgia Democrats in November. DeKalb County, one of the largest sources of Democratic votes, plans to add a Sunday to its early voting period, which would be the first county in the state to do so, according to state party Chair DuBose Porter. In 2012, DeKalb County alone represented just over 13 percent of Obama’s vote in Georgia.

“Democrats believe that the easier you make it for people to participate in their government, the better,” Porter said, adding he hopes every county does the same. “We’re for expanding the franchise to make sure that democracy actually works and we know when we do that a true reflection of the state will be represented.”

Late Night In-It-to-Win-It Open ThreadPost + Comments (36)

Are You Crazy, Are You High? Or Just an Ordinary Guy?

by @heymistermix.com| September 8, 20149:45 pm| 99 Comments

This post is in: Election 2014

andrew_is_scared Following up on John’s post, I thought you might want to see this display of Andrew Cuomo’s fear and loathing, as delivered to my house. Four pieces of direct mail in two weeks, two of which arrived today. Add to that two polls, some robo-calls from Democratic luminaries (like Kirsten Gillibrand) urging me to to vote for Kathy Hochul, and Andrew hiding from view, I think he’s a running scared.

So, New York Democrats, you know what to do. If you want to see Andrew’s worst fears come true, vote for Zephyr Teachout in tomorrow’s primary. Only about 350K Democrats are expected to vote, so your vote counts a hell of a lot more than in the average New York statewide election.

Even if you don’t want to vote for Teachout, if you want to give Mario’s kid some agida, split your ticket tomorrow. Vote for Wu for Lt. Gov. and Cuomo for Governor. Give him a hemorrhoid he won’t forget.

Polls open at noon and close at 9 so you’ll need to plan accordingly.

Update, via commenter BBA: “[V]oting hours for primaries are 6 AM to 9 PM in NYC and its suburbs (Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam) as well as Erie County (Buffalo), noon to 9 PM in the rest of the state”.

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Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory. oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

This blog will pay for itself.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

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

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.