Major concession from GOP, Koch-funded vets group: "We very clearly state that we oppose . . . privatizing the VA." https://t.co/Zv77KW8q0t
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) February 5, 2016
This seems significant, if only for the record books:
Officials at Concerned Veterans of America are lashing back at the two Democratic presidential frontrunners a day after both panned the group’s proposals in a national debate…
CVA has advocated restructuring the Veterans Health Administration as an independent entity and giving veterans more access to private care options with federal dollars, both radical shifts from the current system. But they reject the accusation that the plans amount to “privatization” of the department…
CVA officials have repeatedly declined to discuss funding sources and trustee information for the group, but numerous news reports have linked the group to the Koch brothers network of conservative activist organizations.
Both Sanders and Clinton — along with numerous mainstream veterans groups — have promised to fight privatization of VA services. CVA officials have said privatization and offering more health care choices are distinctly different things.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Democratic National Committee officials supported Sanders and Clinton.
“The jig is up,” said Eric Walker, spokesman for the DNC. “Vets shouldn’t be fooled by a right-wing front group whose main objective is not helping veterans, but electing Republicans like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and others who support privatizing the VA.”
In recent months, CVA officials have held a series of town halls to discuss their reform proposals, which have sometimes doubled as campaign events for Republican presidential hopefuls…
Am I over-optimistic?
If @ConcernedVets NO longer supports VA Privatization they have abandoned every #GOP leader that does #Election2016 https://t.co/lgyndvS3Tr
— Jon Soltz (@jonsoltz) February 5, 2016
Major Major Major Major
I saw this on the book of faces and can’t stop laughing.
Doug R
@srv: Bernie won six of seven recorded “coin tosses”
Redshift
“Privatization” doesn’t poll well, so conservative groups insist that their privatization schemes aren’t actually privatization. SSDD.
Patricia Kayden
Just saw this link on The Obama Diary showing that minority voters will make up 31% of the electorate. Hope they all come out and vote — for the right party of course. Trump’s bigotry should be a motivating factor for them.
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10919018/2016-diverse-electorate
JCJ
I remember VA patients from Evansville and Fort Wayne having to come to the VA Hospital in Indianapolis for radiation treatments for cancer when I was a resident. Prior to the Indianapolis VA having a radiation oncology department the VA had a contract with Indiana University Hospital to provide radiation oncology services. I never understood why the VA couldn’t contract out to the Fort Wayne or other hospitals for this.
OzarkHillbilly
@srv: Man, I want some of what ever you’re tripping on.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: I suspect that you actually don’t. Sounds like 2C-I or something.
Baud
I’m confident they’ll keep this pledge if the Republicans win the White House.
raven
I thought the asshole that led that outfit quit?
raven
Hey, it’s Sooner’s birthday.
Major Major Major Major
@srv: thank god they weren’t shipping hoverboards.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Worst haiku attempts, ever.
Baud
@raven: Well, Happy Birthday, SG.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rachel Maddow invites Chris Christie on her show, brief video at link
Germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Christie will spend the whole time talking about HRC’s emails, no doubt.
Germy
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/citi-the-global-economy-is-in-a-death-spiral.html
It’s weird how the world’s finances depend on me paying $3.89 at the pump for a gallon of regular.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Germy: I don’t know if email is a subject he wants to bring up.
drdavechemist
@Major Major Major Major: Only took me about two lines to recognize the inspiration. Les Mis FTW
Roger Moore
@JCJ:
I assume it’s a question of efficiency. Adding a capability like radiation treatments has a big up-front cost for the facilities and then a relatively low incremental cost. Once they’ve paid to bring the capability in house, they’ll try to maximize utilization to get the most from their capital investment. That means forcing everyone who lives within range to get their treatments there rather than continuing to contract out.
Also, IIRC, there’s a quality advantage to having a lot of patients. You really want to see the specialist who has a full schedule because they get better with practice and are more likely to be able to spot rare symptoms and side effects. It’s a case where the economics and medicine align.
Germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, that’s what I was thinking of. The Red Face test. Attorney-client privilege? A press secretary and a state official.
Kay
@Redshift:
True. But. The p-word is all over the place now, so they lost that battle :)
ThresherK
“Concerned Veterans for America”?
Gawd that name’s a giveaway. Is there any “Concerned (noun) for (America-Liberty-Freedom)” that isn’t totally for shite?
JCJ
@Roger Moore:
True, but some of the incremental costs for the patients at the VA included staying in the hospital for the weeks of treatment – they would come in on Monday and stay through Friday and go home over the weekend – might have been overlooked. Some of them liked it (a free one week stay in the Indianapolis VA!) It wouldn’t take very many hospital acquired pneumonias to blow up the cost savings.
I don’t know if they still do this – I finished residency nearly 23 years ago. (I am getting old!)
Geeno
@Major Major Major Major: That is hysterical – thank you
Some Guy
good news out of Syria today, looks like al Qaeda is being driven out of Aleppo.
Thanks, Putin!
Baud
@ThresherK:
I’ll have you know that Concerned Juicers for Baud! is an outstanding organization.
FlipYrWhig
@ThresherK: Didn’t the Kochs create all of the Concerned groups? (The Concerned expanded universe?)
Baud
@Redshift: It’s not private of it’s funded with taxpayer dollars, naturally.
Southern Goth
@Baud:
I trust that your campaign is not coordinating with them. That would be totes illegal.
trollhattan
Holy crap, strong earthquake in Taiwan topples entire buildings.
Mike in NC
@ThresherK: First read about these CVA frauds a few years ago. Their only concern is that the Kochs aren’t making more money.
Baud
@Southern Goth: Only if I lose.
Baud
@efgoldman: Part of me anyway.
gratuitous
Restructuring the VA as an “independent entity.” I wonder if the Concerned Veterans of America can tell us just what that means? Would this “independent entity” answer to any cabinet level officers? Or to Congress? Or to any governmental agency at all? Or would it become a non-government entity, more popularly known as a private company?
But one thing’s for damn sure: The Concerned Veterans of America is going to lash back at any suggestion that their scheme can be characterized as “privatization.” And no, you libruls don’t need to know who’s funding the Concerned Veterans of America because free speech.
ThresherK
@Baud: What’s this I hear about you mixed up with steroid freaks?
PS CVA reminds me of Stan Freberg’s “Daddies for a Decent America” from the 1950s.
WereBear
@FlipYrWhig: Yeah. They are not going to fix anything. They are just “concerned.”
Cacti
Breaking on CNN.
Turns out The Bern lurves him some of that dirty, dirty, big donor money after all:
On the plus side, Bernie does raise money for the party, so good on you Bernie.
On the down side, the reasons for his total lack of colleague endorsements keep getting clearer.
A Ghost To Most
@Baud:
Angling for a VP slot?
Felonius Monk
We should withhold further judgement of Bernie until we see his performance on SNL tomorrow night.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
I read that they want to privatize this blog and make us pay on a per-comment basis.
Supposedly that is what the long-rumored “new comment system” is all about.
jl
@Doug R:
‘ Bernie won six of seven recorded “coin tosses” ‘
Huh? I read that HRC won six of six coin tosses. I guess the reporting is not very solid on that.
Major scandal alert! Audit the Iowa Caucus!
Glad both Dem candidates are wise enough to, more or less at least in public, blow it off.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: Yeah. Actually I can’t fault him for any of that. He’ll probably say he was doing the bare minimum, grudgingly, and it wasn’t for the fattest of the fat cats.
jl
@Baud:
” I’ll have you know that Concerned Juicers for Baud! is an outstanding organization. ”
But remember what that old sayings, Baud helps those who help themselves, and vice versa.
I help Baud! best by wisely conducting my own ‘party activities’.
Right, Baud?
Major Major Major Major
Holy crap, just saved a woman’s life. She was choking on an olive. Yikes.
Baud
@Steeplejack (phone): Balloon Juice will be the next LinkedIn.
@FlipYrWhig: Agree.
@jl: I don’t know who you are, stranger.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Cool. Glad you acted before posting about it online.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Does it make him a bad guy? Nah. Just playing the game the same way everybody else does.
Just makes him look like a prig for pretending that he was above such tawdry debasing of our national politics.
jl
@Cacti: I see this as a Bernie BS non-scandal scandal. I suppose the corporate media think that every Democratic candidate has to have one.
The idea that Sanders is hypocritical by not using the current public financing system (that would doom his campaign to complete irrelevance) is complete BS. A stupid media hypocrisy gotcha.
Maybe more meat in fact that Sanders has in the past played ball with the Democrats in fund raising.
But, as I understand it, Sanders has made a big deal out of not using what he considers a corrupt financing system for HIS CURRENT presidential campaign. And he has done something unprecedented with his small donor effort.
But if he has said he has always been completely independent and pure as the driven snow since forever, and never ever touched our questionable political financing system, that would be another thing. And I don’t know that answer to that question.
jl
@Baud:
Be careful, buddy. You might have your own campaign hypocrisy scandal to deal with. I have hard evidence that despite his most prominent policy positions, a certain candidate has stayed sober, non-stoned, chaste, non-gluttonous and out of the c A $ I nos for hours at a time.
Ruckus
@JCJ:
I live in the LA area and while there are two clinics within reasonable distance the hospital is across town. So any major procedures I have to go there. And they, like many providers, do not do everything. So if you need a very special procedure, they send you there, outside the VA system. Not all that uncommon in the VA system in a rather large demographic area and in a smaller demographic area I’d bet it is even more common. I occasionally talk to people who have traveled over 100 miles to see a specialist because their local clinic can not handle their needs and that’s at my local clinic, not the main hospital.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Good job!
Olive? Must be martini time.
Kay
This is (hopefully) fatal to the deal:
trollhattan
And then there were seven.
Edgar Mitchell, sixth man on the moon, has died.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Was it right to presume that the vote on the fast-track authority piece would be a “bellwether” for the agreement itself? I heard that a lot at the time but I wasn’t ever exactly sure why.
Anoniminous
@Kay:
Good.
Console
The house republicans currently have a bill to privatize air traffic, and they’re utilizing the same “it’s not privatization, we’re just handing the government agency over to a private company” rhetoric.
jl
@Germy: I don’t think there is any unprecedented panic collapse of non-oil commodity prices, and large price declines for those are pretty bad predictors for recession in the past. State of macroeconomic demand and investment cycle are better explanations.
And, I think in this case, I think weak macroeconomic demand, and low point in a huge investment cycle is best explanation for collapse of oil prices. Let’s see what the price of oil is in 2 to 5 years after current wave of disinvestment works its way through the supply chain.
Not sure how a high dollar is supposed to drive down commodity prices for whole world economy, anyway.
I think some banksters need to scare up some business shuffling investments.
Bobby Thomson
Of course they still support privatization. They just don’t like it being pointed out that’s what they are doing. Just semantic gaming, like Politifact’s asinine whopper of the year was Obama truthfully saying that Rmoney wanted to eliminate Medicare, because he wanted to create something entirely new but call it Medicare.
Bobby Thomson
@jl:
Fixed that for you.
jl
@Kay: Hope it goes down. If Obama really wants it, then back to the bargaining table, eh?
If people are afraid that the US will be ‘left behind’ if we don’t pass the TPP, they should calm down. This agreement is not big relative to emerging, low and middle income economies of the world. As I read someplace, it is ‘big’ in the same sense that opening a post office is big in the US because the US is a big part of the world economy.
If the US does not want to be left behind somehow, best thing to do is for the US to go back to real global multi-lateral trade negotiations, which have been abandoned in favor of these gimmicky deals that involve a few large economies and a few lower and middle income economies.
But it is harder to push US corporate friendly trade deals when countries like Brazil, India, So Africa, and others have a place at the table, and they have more capacity to say ‘no thanks’.
jl
@Bobby Thomson: thanks.
trollhattan
@Console:
Then the private company can do like Delaware North Corp did with Yosemite when they lose their rebid and sell the trademarks on “airplane” “airport” “baggage” and “runway” back to the government for millyuns of dollars.
Ksmiami
@jl: ding ding ding. Please ignore the screaching- they know nothing.
jl
@Ksmiami: There are some very early signs of recession in US economy, but these are signals for three to four years out. More like signs of late stage of expansion, and not nearly precise enugh for any kind of investment timing. But they have nothing to do with the bankster mumbo-jumbo in Germy’s post.
If you look at Economist View and Econbrowser blogs have some commentary on recession forecasts in recent weeks.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, I think so. It won’t matter at all if they vote for the actual agreement. The distinction between “fast track” and “TPP” won’t get thru to voters. They took the risk when they voted for fast track.
Portman is (somewhat) legit on this. He and Sherrod Brown have worked on currency manipulation together so maybe he believed he could get somewhere with that in return for the fast track vote.
I’m also pleased because to me it means Portman thinks he’s vulnerable. He’s up for election and Ted Strickland will be the Democratic opponent. Strickland was kind of a weak governor and not much of anything in the House but he would be much better than Portman in the Senate. Clinton will be on the top of the ticket with Strickland so hopefully it will be like the Obama/Brown match up in 2012, which was almost too perfect :)
Strickland was, famously, a big Clinton backer in ’08 so they’re a good team.
sparrow
@Bobby Thomson: None of the claims about coin flips came from the Sanders campaign. I only saw the claims on regular media — and they were corrected reasonably fast (however inexcusable it was that they indulged in such sloppy reporting). I’ll even buy that they “made a mistake” and didn’t gin up controversy over nothing on purpose, simply because first reports of any event are practically always crap.
mclaren
Oh, I thought CVA stood for “Confederate Version of America.”
My bad.
mclaren
@Cacti:
So let’s see…when Bernie Sanders cooperates with other Democrats and helps the Democratic party, he’s a corrupt thug who loves him that dirty, dirty, dirty big donor money.
But when Bernie Sanders refuses to allow donations from giant corporations or wealth billionaires in his presidential campaign, he’s an evil hypocrite.
Well, okay, then! Heads I lose, tails you win!
And by the way, when you refuse to denounce this hit piece on Bernie Sanders it proves you’re part of the corrupt inside-the-Beltway hack establishment…but if you do denounce this hit piece on Bernie Sanders you’re just cleverly trying to draw attention to the charges because you know what matters isn’t calling a candidate a pig-fucker, it’s making him deny it.
And if you beat your wife, you’re a terrible person, but if you don’t beat your wife it’s because you’re impotent and too much of a girly-man to get frustrated about it, and that’s even worse.
LanceThruster
There were election nigjt irregularities that had nothing to do with the coin flips.
mclaren
Meanwhile, more proof that Richard Mayhew is lying to you:
Robert Reich: The Washington Post is lying to you about Bernie Sanders.
When far-right billionaires lie, Richard Mayhew rushes to parrot whatever they say.
John Cole, you need to shut Mayhew down and throw him off your front page. And you need to do it stat.
Major Major Major Major
@mclaren: mmm, pie.
gwangung
@Major Major Major Major: You know, anyone who thinks EWF is crud is automatically suspect.
Glidwrith
@mclaren: Good Lord, every once in a while you make a comment that makes sense then you spew bilge like in the EWF thread. Lemon pie, stat!
Bobby Thomson
@sparrow:
Maybe not, but Sanders people pushed them to the point where they are now zombie lies, like Al Gore inventing the Internet.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@jl:
You’re completely overlooking Baud!”s campaign.
bk
@mclaren: Not sure who “Christ, what an asshole” is more appropriate for. You, or srv.
Cacti
@mclaren:
Have you ever considered switching to decaf?
No, of course you haven’t. ;-)