I’ve never seen any Sam Shepard plays. The closest I’ve come is listening to that Joni Mitchell song about him. What are some good ones that I can watch movie versions of? I watched “Fences” on a plane ride recently and really liked it (once I was sure the main character’s best friend wasn’t going to start lecturing everyone about debt forgiveness), and that made me think I should make more of an effort to see contemporary or at least semi-contemporary plays. Since I live in a small city, there isn’t so much opportunity to see it on the stage (we have theater companies, and I go, but a lot of it is greatest hits).
Archives for July 2017
Mooch Booted
Well, that didn’t take long! Via the NYT:
Trump Removes Anthony Scaramucci From Communications Director Role
WASHINGTON — President Trump has decided to remove Anthony Scaramucci from his position as communications director, three people close to the decision said Monday, relieving him just days after Mr. Scaramucci unloaded a crude verbal tirade against other senior members of the president’s senior staff.
Mr. Scaramucci’s abrupt removal came just 10 days after the wealthy New York financier was brought on to the West Wing staff, a move that convulsed an already chaotic White House and led to the departures of Sean Spicer, the former press secretary, and Reince Priebus, the president’s first chief of staff.
The decision to remove Mr. Scaramucci, who had boasted about reporting directly to the president not the chief of staff, John F. Kelly, came at Mr. Kelly’s request, the people said. Mr. Kelly made clear to members of the White House staff at a meeting Monday morning that he is in charge.
It was not clear whether Mr. Scaramucci will remain employed at the White House in another position or will leave altogether.
Within hours of being sworn in, Kelly boots Mooch. That was the low-hanging fruit, as they say. But that’s not going to solve the chaos problem in the White House, which flows from the corrupt, unqualified, addled shit-stain in the Oval Office.
UPDATE: Ouch!
Anthony Scaramucci was escorted from White House grounds today after ouster, per source familiar with the scene
— Jackie Alemany (@JaxAlemany) July 31, 2017
Same Hymnal
The Russian embassy in the UK gets in on the “deep state” action, the cheeky bastards:
Russia wouldn’t respond in kind beyond pure dip.reciprocity.Our problem,like those of ??itself,doesn't lie w/??people,but elite&deep state pic.twitter.com/EKjdeCOp2K
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) July 31, 2017
Coincidentally, most Americans don’t have a problem with the Russian people but rather Putin’s blatant violation of our national sovereignty to install a dangerous fool at the head of our government.
I don’t know if he’s used the term yet, but Trump must buy this “deep state” nonsense completely since it suggests he won fair and square when he didn’t. The “deep state” concept is continuously invoked on Fox News as an excuse for Trump’s many failures, as well as by Trump’s paid supporters like this douchebag:
The deep state is real. All Obama hold overs in the Gov't need to go to allow @realDonaldTrump to Make America Great Again!
— Corey R. Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) July 30, 2017
It’s also a favorite term of Trump-enabling douchecanoes like this gigantic asshole who runs Wikileaks:
Will the US deep state destroy Donald Trump?
Background: What is the deep state? https://t.co/s3LboI2q6T
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 13, 2017
Interesting how they’re all singing from the same hymnal now — even the Russian embassy.
Open thread!
Bring out your problems
Good morning.
We have big challenges but we’re not going to focus on those in this post. Instead we’re going to focus on smaller, more solvable challenges in this series of posts.
Do you need to know if your deductible applies to a preventative visit?
Are you getting a ton of mail about Medicare Advantage plans?
What does redetermination mean for Medicaid?
Or any of the 1,001 other confusing things about health insurance that we have to deal with every day no matter what happens in Washington.
Let’s be a helping community for each other. Put your questions and situations in comments. We’ll try to solve them and I’ll recap a few at the end of the week.
Payment reform problem
Keeping babies out of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit should be an unambiguously a good thing if the avoidance is because the babies are being born healthier and in less need of intensive care immediately after birth. There are steps that hospitals, doctors and the rest of the healthcare system can do to tilt the field so that fewer babies are born in severe need of care. Those steps reduce suffering, increase happiness and lower costs.
Well, it is not an unambiguous good thing as this article from the Providence Journal shows an incentive problem:
Care New England reported a $40-million loss during the first half of its fiscal year (Oct. 1-March 31), with the deepest declines at Women & Infants Hospital and Pawtucket-based Memorial Hospital.
Women & Infants delivers the vast majority of babies in Rhode Island, with close to 9,000 births a year — 10 to 20 times the volume of any of the six other hospitals in Rhode Island with obstetrics programs.
Hospital officials have attributed the losses to declining birth rates and reduced volume in the neonatal intensive care unit due to improvements in the health of premature infants.
The specialized maternity care hospital is losing money because an expensive service is not being used as much because the population is healthier. From a cost curve perspective, this is a good thing. From a infant health perspective, this is a wonderful thing. From keeping that capacity open and available, this is a problem. One solution is that Rhode Island loses high end Ob-gyn capacity and they send all the hard cases up to Boston. That is a viable solution.
Another potential solution is to come up with some type of maternity care bundle or an alternative payment reform that throws money back to the hospital for the savings it realized by having fewer babies than expected go to the NICU.
As we try to bend the cost curve, we’re going to see more stories like this. There will be winners, there will be losers as we try to figure out how to make the population as a whole both healthier and using less expensive services to maintain or improve health.
On the Road and In Your Backyard
– note – this is the first auto-form-post –
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. <- make a link, etc. -> You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Monday Morning Open Thread: Sisters Are Doin’ It
Walk with your chin up and your shoulders back. Be proud of what we’ve accomplished together. And then let's get back to work.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 28, 2017
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Apart from savoring a hard-earned victory, what’s on the agenda as we start the new week?
***********
Lisa Murkowski was there to vote no all week because of a write-in campaign. All political involvement is not futile.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 28, 2017
At a tiny, remote town, Collins was overwhelmed with support. She went from being a soft no to a loud bill killer. https://t.co/fpRqUOuMHk
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) July 29, 2017
Jay Willis, GQ, three days ago:
At around 1:30 in the morning, after he was sure that he finally had the attention of the Senate clerk and of his nervous, exhausted colleagues who had been watching his every move, John McCain dramatically plunged his outstretched arm downwards, finally sealing the fate of Mitch McConnell’s “skinny repeal” bill in a gesture that had all the drama of a WWE heel turn. It was a wild, shocking moment that drew gasps from the gallery, and the only reason it mattered at all is because, from the very beginning of this debacle of an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, two women Republican senators—Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—never gave a fucking inch…
The Affordable Care Act is safe because of the courage of two women who were not swayed by threats, bribes, and every brand of public and private pressure. They might not be getting as much shine as John McCain today, but they are far more deserving of it.
"Sen. Murkowski thank you for saving our care" over anchorage rn. @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/jOG77JavGI
— Elizabeth Love (@lizlove000) July 29, 2017
.@TopherSpiro Alaskans marched to thank @lisamurkowski today and flew this banner! https://t.co/ufOYTzci0I
— Kathryn Madland (@notpd4patriot) July 30, 2017
.@SenatorCollins on #CNNSOTU says that receiving spontaneous applause at Maine airport was "extraordinary" https://t.co/PhzY8j0fqB
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) July 30, 2017
#EveryVoiceMatters
Monday Morning Open Thread: Sisters Are Doin’ ItPost + Comments (193)