Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

In my day, never was longer.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

After roe, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / Archives for Very Serious People

Idiot Box (Open Thread)

by | 56 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m camped out in my yard watching a grill and anticipating some company. Thought I’d see what was on TV:

IMG_3386.JPG

Netanyahu lecturing us about what’s good for us. As a BFF, you understand.

Then Mittens:

IMG_3389.JPG

He was saying Obama should have listened to the Republicans and stayed in Iraq. He warned that thanks to Obummer, we’re going to probably need ground troops to settle ISIS’s hash. I’m sure Tagg, Lagg, Bagg, Ragg and Mittlet are at the recruiting office right now signing up for our next glorious Middle East adventure.

I changed channels:

IMG_3390.JPG

Ah. Much better!

Open thread.

ETA: In college football news, Florida finally shit-canned Muschamp. About damn time. Now, the AD needs to find someone with successful head coaching experience to replace him. Head coach of the Florida Gators is not an entry level job.

Idiot Box (Open Thread)Post + Comments (56)

Forbes wants death panels for the poor

by | 30 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, it is actually a Forbes writer who wants to block grant Medicaid and allow states to conduct explicit cost effectiveness decisions for what treatments Medicaid will fund. Those decisions will lead to numerous early deaths.

an advisory board recommended that Arkansas’s Medicaid program cover Kalydeco, a cystic fibrosis drug whose…net cost to the state Medicaid program will only be $239,000 per patient year….the state is being sued on grounds that its policy violates a federal statute requiring state Medicaid programs to pay for all medically necessary treatments. This case illustrates some deep flaws in current Medicaid policy….

The WHO considers a medical intervention to be “not cost-effective” if it costs more than three times a nation’s per capita GDP per year of life saved. With U.S. GDP per capita currently at $51,749, it is pretty obvious that $239,000 lies pretty far outside the bounds of what WHO would deem cost-effective. If the WHO criteria are viewed as legitimate enough for entire nations to decide what tax-financed national health programs should cover, why should it be illegitimate for state Medicaid programs to adopt similar thresholds?

I’ve written about Kalydeco before as it is an excellent case study of specialty drug pricing and policy implications.  Compared to the next best alternative, it is an amazing treatment in both prolonging life and dramatically improving the quality of life.  It is also on patent and will be a quarter million dollar a year drug for life.  Until it is off patent, treating a CF patient from birth to eighteen is a five million dollar tab.  Most insurers will pick up the cost and then aggressively do everything possible to get that patient to be someone else’s problem next year.  Medicaid entities are the payers of last resort and will pay as well.

We could have a discussion about the legitimacy of cost effectiveness decisions if this country did not have a massive fact free freak out stoked by Connover and his ideological ilk about Medicare paying for a doctor to discuss end of life treatment possibilities with patients.  A Republican proposal inserted into PPACA’s draft stages to allow people to make more fully informed decisions while not asking experts to donate their time became death panels.  PPACA established research centers that were forbidden from applying long division on comparative effectiveness research to determine cost effectiveness.  All of one political party opposed cost effectiveness decision making or even knowledge creation the last time this was up for debate, and a significant chunk of the other party was either squeamish or fearing for their political lives about introducing a hard no based on cost or effectiveness into the system.

Now we could have this type of discussion if there are other no’s introduced into the system.  If Medicare/Mediciad was allowed to negoatiate, if Medicare/Medicaid was allowed to tell a provider that their drug was to be off the formularies entirely at a price point, if the specialty drugs could be reduced in price to a point where there is no longer massive rentier profits.  Now if we could have those policies in place where the cost effectiveness decision was based on at least the average cost of a treatment and not the rentier/monopolostic profits of a treatment, then that is a disucssion that could be worth having.   Until then, cost effectiveness decisions for extreme outlier cases basically means a death sentence.

Cystic Fibrosis is a quarter to half a million dollar a year diagnosis.  Hemophilia is a multi-million dollar a year diagnosis.  Does Chris Connover want to say “tough luck, you lost the genetic lottery, go die quietly in the corner…” to a hemophiliac and his family?  I will post the bail money after he is punched in the face if I am allowed to watch the conversation.

 

Forbes wants death panels for the poorPost + Comments (30)

You can’t base a restrictive law on an imaginary fear

by | 106 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

Good piece about the work behind the latest win on voting rights:

The debate over state voter-ID laws in the lead-up to November’s elections may have gained a national audience, but the legal action has played out largely in Midwest and Southern courtrooms to this point. That’s not to say Seattle hasn’t been well-represented. University of Washington political science professor Matt Barreto has been in the middle of most of it. Or at least his research has.
The 37-year-old professor has lately been a man in demand. The research he and his colleague, New Mexico professor Gabriel Sanchez, are becoming known for has become part of the standard playbook for lawyers challenging voter-ID laws. Using statistically sound large-swath surveys on a state-by-state basis, Barreto’s findings have demonstrated that not only are blacks, Latinos, and minorities less likely to possess valid photo ID, they’re also less likely to have the documents necessary to obtain such ID.
These laws have proliferated in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder, in which the court, by a controversial 5-4 vote, struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requiring states to obtain federal preclearance before changing voting regulations or practices. With the federal preclearance hurdle removed, states that pass voter-ID laws can move quickly to implement them—and have, to the dismay of many, including the national legal arm of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Last month the effort logged its biggest victory to date when a Federal court struck down a Wisconsin law, signed by Republican Governor Scott Walker in 2011, requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot.
“[Judge Adelman] just systematically dismantled the voter-fraud myth in a way that went beyond any other court decision that I have seen,” Young continues. “He said, correctly, that when it comes to election integrity, the perpetrator of the voter-fraud myth are the ones that are undermining voter confidence in the electoral process, not actual voter fraud . . . He said you can’t pass a restrictive law based on an imaginary fear.”

Who knows what will happen when it gets to the US Supreme Court, but the truth is the laws have gotten more and more restrictive. We’ve gone from “voter ID” when I first started following this to “photo ID” and now we’re accepting only certain forms of photo ID.

Ohio’s original ID law contained some protections for voters who could not jump through the hoops; utility bills, “government documents” – there was a genuine effort to recognize and address the problems that real people run into. But that wasn’t enough, the compromise wasn’t acceptable to the GOP base and looking back I don’t think it was ever going to be enough. Because, what’s “enough”? Voter impersonation fraud is imaginary. We’ll never be able to prove we fixed voter impersonation fraud with Ohio’s less restrictive ID law because that problem never existed to begin with.

This is the Texas law. We’ll never know if this one fixed the imaginary problem either:

Here is a list of the acceptable forms of photo ID:
• Texas driver license issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
• Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS
• Texas personal identification card issued by DPS
• Texas concealed handgun license issued by DPS
• United States military identification card containing the person’s photograph
• United States citizenship certificate containing the person’s photograph
• United States passport

The voter fraud fraudsters have all but given up on arguing voter fraud. Now they argue that the ID laws are intended to promote public trust in the election process. That’s a dilemma for voting rights enthusiasts, too, because as the judge in the Wisconsin decision pointed out voter fraud fraudsters created the lack of confidence they’re now “fixing”:

“He said, correctly, that when it comes to election integrity, the perpetrator of the voter-fraud myth are the ones that are undermining voter confidence in the electoral process, not actual voter fraud . . .

I guess they’ll have to tell us when voter impersonation fraud is solved and thus their confidence is restored since this entire issue now rests completely on their “feelings.”

You can’t base a restrictive law on an imaginary fearPost + Comments (106)

This Too Is The Smell Of Fear

by | 61 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

At least some Republicans have grasped what it means — maybe for 2014, certainly later — if/when Obamacare is and is seen to be a success:

“I don’t think it means anything,” [Sen. John]Barrasso said on “Fox News Sunday” about the news that 6 million people had signed up for health care plans. “I think they’re cooking the books on this.”

Barrasso, (R-Not-Liz-Cheney’s-real-home-state) is not your garden variety Republican talking horse.  He is, in fact, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee — which is a post that puts you on the GOP leadership team in the upper house. This is, in other words, someone taken seriously by people who have plenty of evidence to suggest they shouldn’t.  And this Very Serious Person is telling the Most Misled Viewership™in America that any reports that might have troubled their spotless minds about the possibility that Obamacare may succeed are skewed, false, nothing-to-see-here-move-along lies of the sort they’ve come to expect from the Kenyan Mooslim Usurper.

Frans_Hals_-_Regents_of_the_St_Elizabeth_Hospital_of_Haarlem_-_WGA11139

Given that the argument for the last several months has been that the new health care law is an obvious and abject failure, just waiting for that one last shove to send it crashing on to the ash-heap of history, evidence of the law actually functioning pretty much as designed is a disaster.

I suspect Barrasso grasps the difficulty he faces.  Facts have a habit of willing out — and the many millions covered by the new health marketplaces, by Medicaid, by extended access to their parents’ policies — are going to be acutely aware if their health insurance falls under renewed threat.  So (in a rhetorical move that might confuse the uninitiated) Barrosso adds the inevitable “numbers are irrelevant” dodge: 

Barrasso said people care more about what kind of plans people are purchasing and whether they can keep their doctors, not how many people have signed up for new plans.

Maybe so. Fox News viewers (and anchors) may continue to believe this kind of nonsense.  But those who have the good fortune to live in places where denialism isn’t what’s for breakfast know better.  And they vote.  As do their kids, their friends, the whole shooting match.

I just hope they do so this November.

Image: Frans Hals,  Regents of the St. Elizabeth Hospital of Haarlem, 1641.

 

 

 

This Too Is The Smell Of FearPost + Comments (61)

Serious Conservative

by | 79 Comments

This post is in: 

Paul Ryan voted against the debt ceiling increase.

Here’s  how you can determine who to support in the 2016 Democratic primary: imagine how each candidate and his or her team will go after Ryan for that vote.  If you don’t like the result of your little thought experiment for your current favorite, pick a different candidate.

Serious ConservativePost + Comments (79)

Schadenfreude: It’s What’s For Dinesh

by | 120 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Oh, the FSM smiled on me today:

Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza has been indicted on federal charges of violating campaign finance laws, the the U.S attorney in Manhattan announced on Thursday.

William_Hogarth_-_Soliciting_Votes_-_WGA11457

D’ Souza is accused of

“making illegal contributions to a United States Senate campaign in the names of others and causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission in connection with those contributions.”

If I were a much better person than I am, I’d suppress the grin that seems to have pasted itself across my mug since I read that over at TPM.

Still smiling…

Image: William Hogarth, The Humours of an Election:  Soliciting Votes, 1754

Schadenfreude: It’s What’s For DineshPost + Comments (120)

“Suspending” voting rights is a new twist

by | 14 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

We talked about how Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has set up a special election system in Kansas where some people may to vote in all elections, some people get to vote only in federal elections and some people get “suspended” and can’t vote at all.

Kobach is not a fringe figure on the Right:

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration bill, ensured on Tuesday that the Republican Party platform will also have his fingerprint. During a meeting of the GOP platform committee in Tampa, Fla., Kobach called for the party to officially back increased border fencing and the E-Verify employment verification system, and to go after two immigrant-friendly initiatives: in-state tuition for some undocumented young people and so-called sanctuary cities. Those measures were in the 2008 Republican platform but had been dropped from the draft this year, Politico reported.
“These positions are consistent with the Romney campaign,” Kobach said. “As you all remember, one of the primary reasons that Governor Romney rose past Governor Perry when Mr. Perry was achieving first place in the polls was because of his opposition to in-state tuition for illegal aliens.”

The ACLU has filed a challenge in state court:

TOPEKA, Kan. – The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit challenging Kansas’ two-tiered voter registration system. The petition charges that eligible voters are being divided into separate and unequal classes, in violation of the Kansas Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer that states could not impose a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement for those who register to vote using the federal form. Voters declare under penalty of perjury that they are citizens when they register using the federal form.
Kansas has implemented a dual registration system to prevent people who use the federal form from voting in state and local elections unless they show additional documentary proof of citizenship. Voter registration for thousands of Kansans is already being held in “suspense” – essentially limbo – because of the new documentation requirements.
The ACLU petition charges that state officials have, without statutory authority, “unilaterally established an unprecedented and unlawful voter registration system that divides registered voters in Kansas into two separate and unequal classes, with vastly different rights and privileges…based on nothing more than the method of registration that a voter uses.”
“It makes absolutely no sense that someone would be qualified to vote for president, but not for governor,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “This case is about people who have done everything they are supposed to do – complied with all legal requirements for voter registration – but are arbitrarily being denied the right to vote in state and local elections simply because of the form they used.”
The lawsuit, Belenky v. Kobach, was filed in the Third Judicial District in Topeka on behalf of Equality Kansas and individual voters. The petition charges the dual system not only deprives Kansans of voting in state and local elections, but also denies them election-related rights such as signing petitions.

“Suspending” voting rights is a new twistPost + Comments (14)