Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Republicans do not trust women.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Fight them, without becoming them!

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

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

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

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

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Archives for 2020

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Preznit I.R. Turkee

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Preznit Turkee

(John Deering via GoComics.com)
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From the Urban Dictionary:

Corncob: Someone who has been brutally owned, yet insists that they are victorious in the online discourse despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary…

Speaking of pwned turkeys… look who’s back, it’s Mr. But the Deficit!, via Politico:

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Preznit I.R. TurkeePost + Comments (111)

Balloon Juice Pet Calendar: Verify Your Info Today!

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We’re still shooting for 2021 Balloon Juice Pet Calendars to be available for order on December 1.

But we need your help to make our deadline!

Open Thread, 60 Minutes, I Will Vote Concert

We have 327 pet pics for the calendar, so there are two BJ Pet Calendars this year.  For now, we are calling them Calendar A and Calendar B.  If you submitted photos of more than one pet, all of your pets have been placed in either Calendar A or Calendar B.

Please check the Pet Calendar links in the sidebar.

This is your chance to make sure we get it right.

Please check for:

  • Are all of your pets listed with your nym?
  • Is the spelling of your pet’s name correct?
  • Are ALL of your pets listed with the same calendar?  (look for either A or B)
  • Is the information in the heart/rainbow column complete and correct?

Fine print:

If your pet is no longer with us, you can have a heart or a rainbow next to their name, if you like.

Note: there will be a separate post with pricing, ordering information, etc.

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Here We Fucking Go

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Washington Post reporter:


You know what else Biden didn’t do? Infect reporters with COVID, tell dozens of lies, and talk about his love affair with a couple of dictators.

It’s a simple fact of the media business that outlets like the Post, Times and the rest will see a decrease in traffic during the Biden Administration. They will struggle with this, and pressure for clicks will drive them to look for some nontroversies. They also fetishize the rituals of the White House Press Corpse, and after Trump stomped all over them, they’re looking to re-assert some authority and relevance, since the Trump Administration made clear how little they really had. The right response to this has already been modeled by Jill Biden:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, shut down a question Sunday from CNN’s Jake Tapper about any “gaffe” her husband may make.

“Oh, you can’t even go there,” Jill Biden told the “State of the Union” host when he led into a question by noting that the former vice president “has been known to make the occasional gaffe.”

“After Donald Trump, you cannot even say the word gaffe,” she said.

“I can’t even say the word gaffe?” Tapper asked.

“Nope. Done. It’s gone,” she responded.

“Over, so over,” she added.

Also, there’s no law that every pre-Trump press ritual should be restored in the Biden Administration. Is the daily briefing helping Biden get his message out? Then keep it. Is it turning into a “Why did Joe wear a brown suit in the Oval Office” circle jerk? Close it down. Don’t attend the White House Correspondents Dinner. I’m sure you all can think of many other examples of empty rituals best left in the past.

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The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate

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Open thread.

The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimatePost + Comments (193)

Plan type availability on Healthcare.gov

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A reported asked me about the availability of PPO plans on Healthcare.gov recently. I had to do some data digging as this was not something that I’ve been tracking too diligently. PPO plans are not unusual but they are not common.

Insurers can offer four basic plan types; HMO, POS, EPO and PPO. The plan types vary on whether or not there is an out of network benefit of any sort and whether or not there is a primary care provider gatekeeping function from higher cost care. HMOs are the most restrictive plan types. They have no out of network benefit and a gatekeeping function. PPO plans are the least restrictive as there is an out of network benefit and no gatekeeping.

All else being equal (network, insurer, risk adjustment etc) the least restrictive plan will tend to have higher premiums than more restrictive plans.  There is a ton of variance as there is a lot of fuzziness between what an HMO is as implemented and what an EPO is.  There is a lot of fuzzines between a POS and a PPO.  Some times the only difference is what license the insurer has to sell a product and the label designation has no  pricing impact.  But as a rule of thumb, more restrictive plans are lower premium plans and therefore more attractive to individuals who think that they are going to have low costs throughout the year.

Since 2018, PPO plans have become rarer on Healthcare.gov.  In 2018, Iowa, Tennessee and Kansas had PPO plans offered throughout the state.  In 2019 to present, these states have no PPO plans.  HMO plans are more common.  POS plans have no notable change as they are overwhelming a Mississippi watershed choice.  EPO plans look to be slighlty more comon with more of Texas and all of Tennessee have EPOs in 2021 compared to 2018.

Insurers have a lot of latitude in what they offer.  The trend seems to be a movement away from less restrictive and towards more restrictive plans types.

Below the fold is the Tableau presentation:

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Late Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Biden’s Assembling Team (So *Very* Different… )

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Late Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Biden’s Assembling Team (So *Very* Different… )Post + Comments (221)