Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

He really is that stupid.

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

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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

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Archives for August 2016

Hey, What’s Roger Stone Up to Lately?

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Glad you asked:


Keep digging, idiots.

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Hep-C, auto-enrollment and cures

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Severe Hep-C is a condition that will usually qualify an individual for Social Security Insurance. Individuals on Social Security for disability purposes qualify for Legacy Medicaid. In most states individuals who qualify for Legacy Medicaid based on disability status will have streamlined or auto enrollment in a variety of safety net programs (heating assistance, housing assistance, SNAP, some job training programs etc). The logic behind this auto-enrollment is to streamline cases where there is a very high probability that if a person is on SSI, they will qualify for everything else and that as a class, most of the people are “deserving poor” so politically it is easy.

This program logic was built out with an assumption that most people won’t get better, that they’ll just (at best) stay stable or decline slower.

Now with the creation of highly effective but expensive Hep-C cures, this logic does not work anymore.

People who were originally Medicaid qualified as part of SSI received a Hep-C cure. These individuals then follow three pathways. The first is that they are non-compliant and not cured so they still have Hep-C. The second is that they were medically compliant but their bodies did not take the cure so they still have Hep-C. Finally, they got cured. The first two groups are fairly simple from a policy point of view. The first group is still on Medicaid for SSI. They may or may not get another round of treatment depending on state policies. The second group is also simple. They are still on Medicaid through SSDI qualification. Once their doctors can figure out why the cure did not work, there is a very good chance that they’ll get another round of something slightly different to see if that works.

It is the third group which is an interesting policy challenge. They are cured. A good proportion of this universe now no longer has a medical disability according to Social Security. Some of these people will have comorbidities that will re-qualify them for Medicaid through SSI. A decent number of people won’t requalify for SSI or Medicaid through SSI. Their support structure that they previously auto-qualified for is now based on individual application qualification. Some of these people will re-qualify for Medicaid Expansion or other Legacy qualification categories. States would prefer that these individuals qualify for Medicaid as Expansion category individuals as the Feds take up 100% of current costs and over the long run take 90% of the costs. Any other qualification has the state picking up between 30% to 50% of the costs.

So the question is how do people who were previously assumed to be very long term SSI recipients who are now cured and losing their qualification for Medicaid and other wrap around services transitioned? Is there a slow off-ramp with plenty of assistance on navigating the system or is it a brick wall?

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Wrath at Khan

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Khannn

The Khans, the Gold Star parents who created a sensation at the Democratic National Convention, deserve our notice, and I’m glad the party gave them a platform to address Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry. But given the frenetic pace of our news cycle, they would have quickly faded from the headlines if not for Donald Trump’s overweening self-regard and inability to let a perceived slight go.

Thanks to his attacks on Mrs. Khan, who said nothing publicly against Trump at the DNC, the story carried through the weekend, with both Khans appearing on TV and Mrs. Khan penning a guest op-ed in the Washington Post. Good — any roadblock to the election of the dangerous demagogue Trump is a good thing. But surely Trump’s advisers will pry his phone out of his tiny hands and let this story fade?

Nope. Trump kept it up over the weekend via Twitter, ensuring that more and more Republicans would be called upon to denounce him. A group of Gold Star families has also issued a statement demanding an apology from Trump. Then today, the Khans were on the CNN morning show and Trump responded via Twitter in real time:

Un-fucking-real.

Trump’s fired goon Corey Lewandowski, now receiving checks from CNN and the Trump campaign, was asked to respond as part of a CNN panel, and his answers made it crystal clear why he was such a good fit for the Trump organization, even past the day when his boss pointed a stumpy digit at him and dismissed him from the campaign.

While Lewandowski was filibustering the panel with Trump talking points, a woman affiliated with NY Democrats who was sitting next to him attempted a counterpoint, gently touching his arm as a signal that she’d like to get a word in edge-wise. Lewandowski’s voice rose a few octaves as he shouted “Don’t touch me!”

I noticed something new when the anchor was attempting to talk Lewandowski off the ledge: On that CNN show, at least, they aren’t letting the lie that Trump opposed the Iraq War pass undisputed. And the next segment was going to cover Trump’s seeming unawareness that Putin had already gobbled up a chunk of Ukraine.

I’m not in the business of predicting which outrage will ultimately sink Trump — or if indeed there’s a limit past which he cannot go. The fact that he has made it this far as a credible candidate for president after the things he’s said and done well before we’d ever heard of the Khans is an indelible stain on our national character.

But make no mistake; Trump is having a terrible week — of his own making — and the timing is awful, following as it does a successful Democratic National Convention. Trump couldn’t have demonstrated Hillary Clinton’s point about the unfitness of a leader who can be so easily baited any more effectively if that had been his sole object.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: “Answers to ‘Lucky’… “

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lucky Khampha Bouaphanh - Fort Worth Star-Telegram

(Khampha Bouaphanh – Fort Worth Star-Telegram via the Washington Post)

Speaking of shaggy-dog stories. I love the expression on the smaller guy’s face, and that’s not even the heart of the story…

Corky went missing in August of 2009, when he somehow slipped away from the Montez family’s fenced-in yard in Texas.

The family spent months looking for the little terrier, whom they had adopted that year. He was wearing his collar when he went missing…

The family moved from their home near Boyd, Tex., to Fort Worth, and added two dogs (and more kids), but they never forgot about Corky, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Then, this month, the Montez family got a phone call.

Corky was microchipped, which was lucky for all parties involved here. Because that’s how he was reunited with the family, after he and another dog were brought into the Humane Society of North Texas.

Staffers discovered the microchip after Corky and another dog, named Captain, were brought in, according to a Humane Society post on Facebook. Kim and Jimmy Montez were contacted and when the family arrived, they took home not only Corky, but his pup pal, the one-eyed Captain…

More pics & details at the link. ‘Scuze me, it’s been a terrible season for allergens (that’s my story & I’m sticking to it).

What else is on the agenda as we gear up for another week?

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Open Thread: The Hits Keep Coming!…

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I’m the last person to make light of the horrors of addiction, but I think this is a really sound analogy. Trump is an attention junkie, and the GOP ‘leadership’ is now split between his enablers and his co-dependents. The enablers want to keep the pipeline open to his angry voters and the media attention he garners; the co-dependents are wringing their hands about the shame of it all, but they can’t muster the guts or the backbone to stand up to the bullying and cut him off…

And I feel like I should give y’all a break from the Trumpdolyte downpour, but by mid-morning tomorrow, there will be another wave of Trumptastery to confront!
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