Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I was just reviewing some of my old posts and it occurred to me that in some respects this blog is like the Truman Show without cameras and the writing staff on drugs.
Speaking of cameras, what would be a low cost but effective way of having a live cam on the birds nest. Would that be doable?
Also, I should probably point out that Tammy told me that the first yellow was going to be way too bright but I didn’t listen. I never listen. She’s always right.
So I may have gone a touch too yellow with the shed color:
Fortunately, I only bought a gallon and the wood sucked up the paint, so I went and got two more gallons of something a little less retina burning:
The main reason for painting it was to protect it, but I did want to brighten it up, too, but I didn’t intend for it to be so fucking bright you could see it from the space station. Hopefullly “sunglow” will be better than the first color.
The paint never looks like the sample on paper they have at the store.
Clinton published a must-read op-ed in Le Post this afternoon. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Our election was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, our sovereignty and security violated. This is the definitive conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report. It documents a serious crime against the American people.
The debate about how to respond to Russia’s “sweeping and systemic” attack — and how to hold President Trump accountable for obstructing the investigation and possibly breaking the law — has been reduced to a false choice: immediate impeachment or nothing. History suggests there’s a better way to think about the choices ahead.
Obviously, this is personal for me, and some may say that I’m not the right messenger. But my perspective is not just that of a former candidate and target of the Russian plot. I am also a former senator and secretary of state who served during much of Vladimir Putin’s ascent, sat across the table from him and knows firsthand that he seeks to weaken our country.
Clinton urges Congress to hold hearings on the Mueller report findings, not jump straight into holding a vote on impeachment, citing the Watergate inquiry as a model. She notes that during Watergate, a Senate select committee held hearings that added to the facts of the case before an impeachment inquiry began and suggests that a committee could do something similar now by calling Mueller and McGahn to testify. Clinton doesn’t spell this out, exactly, but this would all have to be on the House side since the Republican-controlled Senate has demonstrated that it will do nothing.
Clinton calls out Trump in deservedly savage terms:
We have to get this right. The Mueller report isn’t just a reckoning about our recent history; it’s a warning about the future. Unless checked, the Russians will interfere again in 2020, and possibly other adversaries, such as China or North Korea, will as well. This is an urgent threat. Nobody but Americans should be able to decide America’s future. And, unless he’s held accountable, the president may show even more disregard for the laws of the land and the obligations of his office. He will likely redouble his efforts to advance Putin’s agenda, including rolling back sanctions, weakening NATO and undermining the European Union.
Clinton emphasizes a key point that Trump and the Republicans are determined to ignore: the Mueller report isn’t only or even primarily about Trump. It’s about an attack on our democracy by a hostile foreign power, and the report establishes that the attack happened unequivocally. That requires action. By making it solely about Trump and crowing about his supposed “exoneration,” Trump and the Republicans are derelict in their duty to protect the country.
Clinton is right, of course. But given that just today Trump signaled refusal to cooperate with any oversight at all because NO COLLUSION HOAX WITCH HUNT I WON, with the full support of his Republican toadies in Congress, impeachment might truly be the only way forward. Greg Sargent explains, outlining how stonewalling on requests for tax returns, urging former and current administration officials to disregard subpoenas and requests for committee appearances, etc., might force Democrats to use an impeachment inquiry to get anywhere at all:
Trump, in a new interview with The Post, just made it overwhelmingly clear that he will henceforth treat the House and its reasonable oversight efforts as fundamentally illegitimate.
“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said, referring to the latest round of oversight requests House Democrats have made…
Perhaps Trump views an impeachment inquiry as a less bad outcome than releasing his tax returns. Or perhaps he hopes to run out the clock, gambling that Democrats won’t have the guts to pull the trigger.
If so, that creates a torturous dilemma. Democrats themselves say the full truth must be pursued, for the sake of the country. But if Trump blocks them from doing that, it would seem to force their hand and require an impeachment inquiry.
Clinton’s op-ed is a timely reminder that the stakes are much higher than the orange fart cloud’s presidency. Perhaps the House Democrats’ first move should be to get Mueller’s testimony about the true purpose of the report and underscore the national security implications, then proceed from there within that framing, explicitly pursuing impeachment if that’s the only way to get at the facts.
The op-ed also brushes back the notion voiced by some Democrats that we should close the book on the Mueller report and focus on removing Trump via the ballot box in 2020. What ballot box, if Putin or someone else decides to diddle our election again? Anyone who urges Democrats to move on has lost the plot — it’s not only about Trump, though holding a lawless president accountable is a Congressional duty; it’s the national security threat, stupid.
Hillary Clinton: It’s the National Security Threat, StupidPost + Comments (146)
"Two people close to Trump told The Daily Beast that Trump has repeatedly griped to associates about how President Obama had more Twitter followers than he has, even though—by Trump’s own assessment—he is so much better at Twitter than Obama is." https://t.co/GwAVXB3OxF
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 23, 2019
Trump spent a "significant portion" of his meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey complaining that he was losing followers. https://t.co/VbtnNUkOAi
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) April 23, 2019
… In a statement, Twitter said the meeting — initiated by the president — focused on “protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis.” Twitter partners with the federal government on a program to encourage Americans to dispose of prescription drugs they no longer need to prevent against abuse.
In March, Trump accused Silicon Valley’s largest companies of harboring a “hatred” for “a certain group of people that happen to be in power, that happen to have won the election.” In doing so, Trump threatened potential regulation, telling reporters at a press conference that the government may “have to do something about it.”
Previously, Trump joined a chorus of Republicans in claiming that Twitter secretly limits the reach of conservatives, a tactic known as “shadow banning” that Twitter has vehemently denied. And the president regularly has raised fears about changes in his follower count. Twitter’s heightened crackdown against spam, however, long has affected both liberals and conservatives on the site.
In response, Twitter regularly has stressed its political neutrality. “Impartiality is our guiding principle,” Dorsey told lawmakers last year who grilled him over allegations that the site and its social-media peers exhibit bias against conservatives. Over the past year, Dorsey has sought to huddle with high-profile right-leaning pundits and political figures, hoping to assuage their concerns about censorship…
Dorsey long has faced pressure to curtail Trump’s tweets, as critics contend that the president regularly violates the site’s policies against harassment and abuse. Twitter has long maintained that it applies a different standard to prominent public figures, given that their comments — even offensive ones — remain in the public interest. But the company in March said it soon would adopt a new approach, labeling offensive tweets so users know why such content hasn’t been removed…
Reminder: Dorsey was *not* invited to Trump's 2016 sit-down with big tech CEOs. https://t.co/i9qLknmxl0
— John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) April 23, 2019
Trump’s Twitter support is as much of a fraud as he is. https://t.co/6hlkBJcb71
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) April 24, 2019
Social Media Open Thread: ‘President’ Grampa Has PROBLEMS!!! With You People…Post + Comments (112)
WSAZ, the NBC affiliate for Huntington-Charleston, WV, had some guests on promoting the Queens Slay Cancer Drag Show at Marshall University, an event to raise money for cancer. Predictably, the Family Policy Council of West Virginia, affiliates of Focus on the Family, lost their shit.
Hats off to WSAZ’s Tim Irr for this public response:
The Family Policy Council of West Virginia took exception with one of our guests yesterday on First Look at Four. The young man was one of two guests being interviewed about upcoming events to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
The event in which he’s participating is the Queens Slay Cancer Drag Show at Marshall University, at 6 p.m. Friday, April 27. All the money raised at the event, and the other events discussed on our show yesterday, will go the American Cancer Society.
Our guests were not there to forward some type of political or social agenda. They were not promoting adherence to a certain lifestyle. They did not speak negatively about or demean anyone in any way. They simply promoted events meant to raise money to fight cancer.
Drag shows may not be your cup of tea. Undoubtedly, they have a somewhat limited, but very supportive target audience. You may not consider members of the LGBTQ community worthy of your friendship, or even your respect, which is rather sad from a humanity standpoint. Perhaps your religious beliefs put you at odds with something you see as immoral.
We all feel the need to pick our battles in life. There are plenty of people who believe they have a moral responsibility to stand up for their religious convictions, and how they would like to see those convictions applied to the rules of our society.
Conversely, there are plenty of people who see no redeeming value whatsoever in a society guided by what they perceive as religious intolerance. That battle will no doubt play out for many years to come at the ballot box, in the street, in our homes and on social media.
But dragging people down who are simply trying to raise money for something like cancer research — on their own time, in their own way… no matter how you may feel about it — just seems mean-spirited and very wrong. Perhaps the way we feel about the “other side” is best kept in our own thoughts, especially in a situation like this.
Fucking American Taliban.
This is what I wrote a little while about the House probes and it is coming true.
Pretty obvious what happens with House probes into Trump: Trump refuses to give them docs, witnesses refuse to testify, and the media blames it all on Democratic overreach.
You can take this to the bank. It's more likely than the sun rising tomorrow.
— Totebaggers4Schultz (@DougJBalloon) March 5, 2019
The way to win in 2020 is through sheer, unbridled anger. I’m going to start fundraising in earnest soon. For now, I think nominee funds for the Senate, money for the Virginia races, and money to vulnerable House incumbents are the way to go. I’ll have a list for the last soon.
For now, here’s the Senate nominee fund (I chose the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, but you can pick and choose which exact states among those to give to)
Give here to Virginia Democrats. Their state legislature elections this fall are the most important state elections on my radar.
And don’t forget to vote your ass off in local elections this year if you have them.
Update.
Baby pictures.
This is what a summary of costs for open heart surgery and 14 days in the hospital looks like. It does not include doctors, who bill separately, nor does it include in patient rehab and out patient rehab and medications. pic.twitter.com/XiXhNhpZO8
— Jackie Kazil (@JackieKazil) April 24, 2019
I am assuming that these are charges and not contracted rates. But my god, this is a lot of money. Even assuming a net 75% discount to the contracted rate, it is still a lot of money. And it is not the entire cost of the episode as professional fees that go to clinicians are a separate set of bills, outpatient rehab is a distinct set of claims and all the ancillary costs are elsewhere too.
This episode of care is an outlier at whatever contracted rate is applied. It is wicked expensive. And it destroys any cost sharing incentive designs. A deductible only model has the out of pocket maximum met in the first seventy seven seconds of the episode. A copay model that is heavily charges inpatient stays maxes out in a few days at the hospital. A coinsurance model of say 20% coinsurance on surgery charges is maxed out after two or three days in the ICU.
There is no benefit design structure that changes marginal costs or incentives. In this case, open heart surgery is most likely not a shoppable service, so it is irrelevant but there are enough other cases where something is both wicked expensive and somewhat shoppable. Someone with a cancer diagnosis in Chapel Hill can go to Duke or UNC hospitals. Right now the only insurance steering mechanism for that decision is network design. My personal insurance steers me to Duke Hospitals while some of the folks at my gym would be steered to UNC hospitals.
I think that the outlier cases are where the money is and rejiggering cost sharing and steering structures is a possible way to get a little more value and competition.