Watching the joint Trump-Peña statement. Hot take: Apparently Peña is a blithering idiot, so score one for Trump by default. His talent for choosing easy marks did not fail him today.
What say you?
Archives for August 2016
J.J. The Hospice Therapy Dog
Back from yet more travel and have some posts queued up, but nothing seems as meaningful as this video of J.J. the hospice therapy dog comforting a dying patient:
Turn up the volume. Can anyone identify the text the reader is using?
Here’s J.J.’s Facebook page.
Also open thread to discuss dogs or anything else.
A note on Colorado Care
I’m still trying to get my head around the Colorado Care single payer initiative. One of the big questions is how would it be financed and a subquestion is how would the 1332 Wyden State Innovation Waiver apply as well as how 1115 Medicaid waivers would move funds. Yes, your eyes should glaze over here but we’re talking about big money.
A new report highlights one of the big questions.
Proponents believe a study by the Colorado Health Institute overlooked aspects of Amendment 69. The institute’s analysis earlier this month concluded that ColoradoCare would struggle to cover costs….
“Amendment 69 requires the state to maintain its current funding of Medicaid, including the state match for Medicaid expansion and CHP+,” said Ivan Miller, executive director of the ColoradoCare campaign. “The federal government matches all state funding sources for Medicaid.”
But Michele Lueck, president and chief executive of the Colorado Health Institute, pointed out that while Amendment 69 calls for a full transfer of Medicaid funds to the state, the federal government is not required to follow state law.
“Our policy experts advise that only some Medicaid funds will be available to finance ColoradoCare,” Lueck said. “This is based on years of analyzing when and how federal grants and waivers are awarded.”
This is a major question. Does the financing actually make sense? If Colorado Care can’t get a firm commitment for 100% transfer of Medicaid money and Exchange money into the Colorado Care pool, then the financing falls apart.
I have two major concerns with Colorado Care. Financing is one of them and the second is a deep reluctance to put any more people and their health coverage under Hyde restrictions. If I was a Colorado voter, I would be very reluctant to vote yes without better answers than handwaving and hope that the money adds up and Hyde is limited to no worse than the currently impacted population with the hope that Hyde hits fewer people.
Secretary Clinton Campaign Speech at the Cincinnati, Ohio American Legion
Secretary Clinton will be giving a speech on American Exceptionalism to the American Legion in Cincinnati, Ohio shortly. She is scheduled to appear with James Clad, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Bush 43 Administration who endorsed her yesterday saying:
“For Republicans and Democrats alike, everything in national security requires clarity and steadiness, whether managing nuclear weapons or balancing great power rivalries,” Clad said in the statement. “Never losing sight of the national interest is key – a discipline which Secretary Clinton possesses in full measure.”
Without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Clad dismissed the GOP nominee as “an incoherent amateur” who cannot win in November.
“Our adversaries must never hear flippancy or ignorance in America’s voice. They should never take satisfaction from an incompetent president,” he said. “Giving an incoherent amateur the keys to the White House this November will doom us to second or third class status.”
. Secretary Clinton’s speech is intended to partially reach out to independents and Republicans who are dissatisfied with Donald Trump as the GOP nominee.
The live feed is embedded below and I’ll cue up a live feed for tonight’s Trump campaign speech on immigration.
Secretary Clinton Campaign Speech at the Cincinnati, Ohio American LegionPost + Comments (140)
Teens these days
Via the Incidental Economist a fascinating study from the Journal of Adolescent Health that attempts to decompose the reasons behind the continual slow down in the teen birth rate. Teenagers are having just as much sex at the end of the study period as at the beginning. They are just having much smarter and safer sex.
They found that that sexual activity didn’t decline. What changed was contraceptive use. Use of the pill went up from 26% to 35%, as did IUDs (1.3% to 2.7%), condoms (49% to 56%), and even withdrawal (15% to 20%). The use of multiple methods increased from 23% to 34%. The percentage of kids reporting no contraceptive use dropped from 20% to 13%.
This led to the PRI dropping 5% every year from 2007 to 2012. Further, about 94% of the decline in the pregnancy risk index was attributable to contraceptive use.
I would love to see a follow-up once the 2014/2015 policy years are included as that is when IUD adaption has significantly increased. Given people tools to minimize risk, teaching them how to use those tools to minimize risk leads to lower risk.
And now I’m double dipping on The Incidental Economist and teen pregnancy prevention programs as they also flag a recent study on the baby simulator doll program:
A number of people, and programs, have decided that one way to combat teen pregnancy is to teach teens how hard it is to raise a baby. They sometimes force kids to “couple up” in school and pretend they have a child. Sometimes, they even give them a doll – one that cries, wakes up at night, etc. – to bring home the point…
And… more girls in the intervention group got pregnant. In the intervention group, 8% of the girls had at least one birth, compared to 4% of those in the control group. Even after adjusting for potential confounders, the intervention group had a more-than one-third higher relative risk of pregnancy in the teenage years.So not only are those baby-doll-simulators likely a waste of time and money, they may be leading to an increase in teenage pregnancy.
Scaring them straight seldom works.
Kids these days… how will us old(er) people complain about the next generation when they are way less stupid than my cohort?
Well at least we had snow to walk through uphill both ways…..
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Some Local Primary Results
Are you patriotic? A cartoon from the archives: #Kaepernick pic.twitter.com/1bvVdaKRWg
— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) August 30, 2016
Which may or may not say anything useful about the big one in November…
Vox reports “Debbie Wasserman Schultz fends off primary challenge from insurgent backed by Bernie Sanders”:
… Wasserman Schultz faced a primary race from Tim Canova, a law professor who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. But Wasserman Schultz looks to have won easily, with the Associated Press projecting at around 10pm that she’d defeat Canova in her bid for a seventh term…
… [I]t was never really clear how Canova’s bid threatened the long-time Democratic Congresswoman. Sanders’s endorsement of Canova helped him raise money, but probably didn’t make him that much popular — after all, Clinton easily defeated Sanders in Wasserman Schultz’s district.
Good night for Repub incumbents, too. The Washington Post:
Sen. John McCain beat back a primary challenge Tuesday from a Republican tea party activist to win the right to seek a sixth term in November in a race that has been inundated with questions about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The 2008 GOP presidential nominee easily defeated former state Sen. Kelli Ward and two other Republicans.
He faces a tough Democratic challenge in the November general election from U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. She advanced Tuesday after facing only a write-in opponent in the primary…
AZ ‘Juicers: Should ‘we’ set up an ActBlue widget for Kirkpatrick?
Speaking of thirsty, the WaPo also mentions 2020 presidential hopeful looking to keep his interim seat:
… Rubio easily won the Republican nomination to retain his seat and will be challenged by Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who defeated Congressman Alan Grayson in Tuesday’s Senate primary. It’s a race Democrats are targeting in an effort to regain a majority in the Senate, and their hope is that Rubio’s presidential ambitions have dulled the shine he had with Florida voters..
And a genuinely positive win, via commentor Hovercraft, from the Florida Times-Union:
Melissa Nelson, an unknown corporate lawyer and former prosecutor three months ago, cleared her path to become one of the most powerful and influential figures in Northeast Florida on Tuesday night when she easily defeated incumbent 4th Judicial State Attorney Angela Corey.
The election caps a dizzying rise for Nelson and an equally shocking fall for Corey, one of the most polarizing political figures in Jacksonville history who generated national attention and enormous criticism for her prosecutions of George Zimmerman, Marissa Alexander, 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez and many others. Corey will depart office in the first week of January as the first incumbent state attorney in modern history to lose a contested election…
Controversy had followed Corey even before she was elected as Duval, Clay and Nassau’s top prosecutor. She had engaged in a long-running feud with Shorstein, her predecessor and former boss that rose up again this year when Corey unsuccessfully tried to tie Nelson to Shorstein, blaming both for dropping the death penalty against convicted murderer William Wells, who would later kill again in prison.
Once in office Corey engaged in multiple feuds, refusing to speak to this newspaper for a year, and often lashed out at criticism of her.
And that criticism became more vocal when she chose to prosecute Zimmerman for the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin, sought a 60-year prison sentence for Alexander after she fired a shot in the direction of her abusive husband and decided to try Fernandez as an adult…
What else is on the agenda for the day?
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Some Local Primary ResultsPost + Comments (68)
Early Morning WTF Open Thread: With Donald Trump, It Can Always Get Weirder
RYAN: So you know, President Nieto has compared you to Hitler and Mussolini.
TRUMP: Ah. OK.
RYAN:
TRUMP: Are those guys popular down there?— Owen Ellickson (@onlxn) August 31, 2016
Epic fiction may be the only way to get a proper handle on the dumpster fire behind the fertilizer plant that is Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Gonna be a long day for political reporters, this Wednesday.
I have accepted the invitation of President Enrique Pena Nieto, of Mexico, and look very much forward to meeting him tomorrow.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2016
The Three Amigos going to Mexico together: Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Jeff Sessions, @JoshuaGreen reports.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) August 31, 2016
As of right now (pre-dawn), my best guess is that Trump’s handlers are using this last-minute visit as an excuse for Trump to put off/cancel his big Phoenix Immigration Pivot(tm) Speech, because he can’t do morning fundraisers in Los Angeles, jet down to Mexico City, meet with Presidente Nieto, and get to Phoenix in time for prime-time news coverage.
Josh Marshall has what seems like the most sensible take — “Can Trump Be This Stupid? Not A Trick Question”:
… It’s a general rule of politics not to enter into unpredictable situations or cede control of an event or happening to someone who wants to hurt you. President Nieto definitely does not want Donald Trump to become President. He probably assumes he won’t become president, simply by reading the polls. President Nieto is himself quite unpopular at the moment. But no one is more unpopular than Donald Trump. Trump is reviled. Toadying to Trump would be extremely bad politics; standing up to him, good politics…
Remember that the central force of Trump’s political brand is dominance politics. Trump commands, people obey. Trump strikes, victims suffer. It will be extremely difficult for him to manage anything like this in the Mexican capital. He comes with a weak hand, no leverage and the look of a loser. All Peña Nieto needs to say is no.
Again, when you’re in a campaign under constant scrutiny you do your best to control every situation, reduce the risk of unpredictable, embarrassing or damaging events. You try not to cede control to others. You especially try not to cede near total control to someone who has every interest in the world in harming you. The maximal version of that ‘big thing you’re not supposed to do’ is precisely what it looks like Trump is doing.