Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

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

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

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You cannot shame the shameless.

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

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

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

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

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Fuck the Fucking Washington Post, Too.

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The aristocracy sucks.  They buried this for fellow aristocrats Alito and his wife.


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Washington Post  (gift link)

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a Washington Post reporter in January 2021 that an upside-down American flag recently flown on their flagpole was “an international signal of distress” and indicated that it had been raised in response to a neighborhood dispute.

Martha-Ann Alito made the comments when the reporter went to the couple’s Fairfax County, Va., home to follow up on a tip about the flag, which was no longer flying when he arrived.The incident documented by reporter Robert Barnes, who covered the Supreme Court for The Post for 17 years and retired last year, offers fresh details about the raising of the flag and the first account of comments about it by the justice’s wife.

The Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said. It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said.

The upside-down flag has long been a sign of distress for the military and protest by various political factions. In the fraught weeks before and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, it had also been adopted by supporters of the “Stop the Steal” movement, which embraced Donald Trump’s false claims that Joe Biden stole the election from him. Some of the rioters who participated in the attack had carried upside-down American flags with them.

h/t Steeplejack

I am beyond angry.  I don’t read the comments on articles, but there are 3,500 of them.  I hope the Washington Post is being destroyed in the comments.  Or maybe that should just read: I hope the Washington Post is being destroyed.  Period.

What is the point of the national news media if they bury the news?

Open thread.

 

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Illinois implementing premium alignment for the ACA

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The Illinois state Senate just passed HB-5395 and sending it to the Governor for his signature.  There are a lot of insurance provisions in the bill.  But the one I want to highlight is the following:

(c-5) Unless prohibited under federal law, for plan year 2026 and thereafter, each insurer proposing to offer a qualified health plan issued in the individual market through the Illinois Health Benefits Exchange must incorporate the following approach in its rate filing under this Section: (1) The rate filing must apply a cost-sharing reduction defunding adjustment factor within a range that: (A) is uniform across all insurers; (B) is consistent with the total adjustment expected to be needed to cover actual cost-sharing reduction costs across all silver plans on the Illinois Health Benefits Exchange statewide, provided that such costs are calculated assuming utilization by the State’s full individual-market risk pool; and (C) assumes that the only on-Exchange silver plans that will be purchased are the 87% and 94% cost-sharing reduction variations. (2) The rate filing must apply an induced demand factor based on the following formula: (Plan Actuarial Value) 2 – (Plan Actuarial Value) + 1.24. In the annual notice to insurers described in subsection (c), the Department must include the specific numerical range calculated for the applicable plan year under paragraph (1) of this subsection (c-5) and the formula in paragraph (2) of this subsection (c-5).

What the hell does that mean?

It means that the Not Silver health insurance plans for both subsidized and non-subsidized Illinoisans will be cheaper in 2026. Silver plan premiums will be calculated on the basis of blended CSR actuarial value so they will be priced as if they are near Platinum plans instead of being priced as if they were near Gold plans. Bronze and Gold plans get a bit cheaper (see Aims 2 and 3 of my dissertation) and we should expect substantial enrollment boosts for folks earning over 200% FPL.

This policy is known as “premium alignment.” Several states, including Texas have adapted variants of it. My early research shows that it is not having big market effects but big enrollment effects.

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George Floyd, Definitely Not Forgotten

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George Floyd: Two Years Ago Today
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – JUNE 01: A memorial site where George Floyd died May 25 while in police custody, on June 1, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. George’s brother Terrence Floyd visited the site today and called for justice and the prosecution of all four officers involved in the incident. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Four years ago today.  We all know what happened that day.  I don’t know whether anything has really changed.  Is it safer to be black in America?  I’m gonna say ‘no’ to that.  Did the protests make a difference?  You tell me.

Trayvon Martin was murdered 12 years ago.  I don’t think I was clueless before that, but what happened to him opened my eyes in a new way.  Once you see that it’s open season, particularly on black and men and boys, you can’t unsee it.  There’s no going back.

George Floyd was that, taken to infinity.

I am still not over the injustice and the horror of what was done to George Floyd that day.  Damn, it’s hard to see what you’re typing when you are crying.

Let’s remember George Floyd today.  And not in the gross “tributes to Sept 11” on the anniversary sort of way.

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Climate Solutions: Angry Rant On Myths and Misconceptions, Induction and Battery News

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Just a quick hit of some videos that crossed my path this week.

First up, I feel every mood Robert has in this video.

May 19, 2024
Join Robert for May’s Almost Breaking News! This episode tackles misinformation about electric vehicles spread by the BBC, busts myths surrounding secondhand EVs, and delves into the world of BIG electric trucks. Robert also explores Amazon’s extraordinary charging network, wooden wind turbines, the surge in EV chargers in the UK, gas leaks from old oil wells, the ongoing issue with Tesla and the Supercharger Network and some good news on Gigabatteries.Get ready for a whirlwind tour of all the essential news from the world of EVs and clean energy from the past month, peppered with Robert’s signature rants! @fullychargedshow @EverythingElectricShow

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A compilation of energy storage in rocks (mostly via heat) and its viability:

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Entertainment Notes

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The world has indeed changed, because I can remember a Cannes Festival era when the phrase “a tribute to George Lucas” would’ve caused actual physical violence to break out amongst the judges…

The 77th Cannes Film Festival draws to a close Saturday with the presentation of its top award, the Palme d’Or, along with an honorary tribute for George Lucas.

The closing ceremony is set to begin at 6:45 p.m. local time, 12:45 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. It will be streamed live on Brut internationally and air on France 2 within France…

During the brief awards ceremony, Lucas will be given an honorary Palme d’Or. During the festival, Cannes gave the same tribute to Meryl Streep and the Japanese anime factory Studio Ghibli.

Me, I’d give an award to Xin, just on general principles…

… Swiss comedy “Dog on Trial” premiered in the Un Certain Regard section, directed by and starring Laetitia Dosch. Based on a real case, the French-language film tells the story of a defense lawyer who takes on Cosmos, an aggressive dog facing legal action, as a client.

The titular dog is played by Kodi, a griffon, who Dosch says is really the star of the movie. It was important to her that Kodi had his name on the credits and the film poster and would be by her side in Cannes. A comedy-drama with a feminist outlook, “Dog on Trial” is about exploitation, Dosch says — and she has an offbeat theory as to what women and dogs have in common.

“Dogs come from wolves and we have been sculpting dogs for 40,000 years to become our perfect friends full of love,” she explains in an interview. “We castrate them also, so they can be peaceful all of the time, so we manipulate them to fit and to be exactly what we need. So, if I replace the word ‘dog’ by ‘women’ and I say the same sentence, it also makes sense.”

Kodi, however, did not get the memo. He spent the interview humping Dosch’s leg and licking her face, sending her earring cascading through the slatted flooring and earning him an eviction from the interview. He was kept away from subsequent red carpet appearances…

Also competing in Un Certain Regard — which curates a lineup of original and daring films — is another dog-centered drama, “Gou Zhen” (“Black Dog”) from the Chinese director Guan Hu. In it, Taiwanese superstar Eddie Peng plays Lang, who’s charged with removing stray dogs from his hometown on government orders ahead of the Olympic Games. One particular dog has a profound impact on Lang — and, as it turns out, on the actor himself.

Peng built up such a bond with his canine co-star Xin, a Jack Russell-greyhound cross, that he adopted her after filming ended and credits her for changing his outlook on life.

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Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread: CRASHING

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I finally saw my first Cybertruck today and it didn't disappoint. Looked like an enormous version of one of those old VHS-tape rewinders, both driver and passenger looked uncomfortable, stain on the door. It's not in the way he intended, but this is absolutely Elon: The Car. A masterpiece.

— David_j_roth (@davidjroth.bsky.social) May 19, 2024 at 11:07 PM

… The experience was not any less startling or unsettling for how ready I considered myself to be for it. I had read about the Cybertruck for some time, and watched numerous videos of Cybertrucks doing rudimentary four-wheel-drive shit with the sort of dexterity and confidence generally associated with concepts like “George C. Scott’s first capoeira class” or “Robocop doing burpees.” I have also been following Elon Musk’s uncanny transformation into the single most unfortunate middle-aged outcome for the Butt-Head character from Beavis And Butt-Head. I knew that his pretty vile company had made him very rich, and I also knew that despite some duffed hagiography and thanks mostly to his world-historic dedication to showing his ass, Musk himself is now most famous as a wrecker and creep, and also that the cars he makes, the Cybertruck in particular, extremely do not work. I knew what he was like, and I knew that this dorky truck was his passion project. This would seem like pretty good preparation for seeing his latest vehicle, but I can tell you that it absolutely was not.

… The Cybertruck was made to not look like other cars and trucks, which is a statement that would scan as a compliment if you had not seen a Cybertruck. The Cybertruck is mostly but not entirely car-shaped. It is stiff and very gray and looks like home electronics looked when Bill Clinton was president; it is both too jankily long and too upright for its amusingly normal-sized tires, in a way that makes them look like small, cheap dress shoes. There is a lot of vertical space serving no evident purpose, and the vehicle is somehow imposing and goofy in exactly equal measure. It looks like if Hot Wheels made a VHS rewinder, or like what the cars would look like in a version of Freejack in which a circa-now Rob Schneider was the star. Imagine a neckroll-equipped NFL fullback from 1995 who gets himself onto a frankly risky steroid program and simultaneously stops working out and you are maybe some of the way there in terms of the proportion.

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Giant Babies or Freaking Snowflakes? You Decide.

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Righteous rant from Jared Moskowitz.  Very fun!   I love that this guy is in the House.

Open thread.

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