With the Iowa Caucuses a few days away, I think this is the furthest in a contested primary that I’m still up in the air. I like Sanders and Clinton quite a bit. While there have been some moments that have been quite a problem, by and large, the process has been good. I think it has forced Hillary Clinton to address economic issues and Black Lives Matter in a way that she might not if she was running in a general. It has moved Sanders in ways I like on guns and reproductive rights. Whoever wins the caucus and ultimately the nomination will be well situated for the general.
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Primary elections are obligatory show. You have to do them, I get that, but as much as some may like Senator Sanders, he’s not electable. No southern state will vote for a proclaimed socialist even though his message is appealing on lots of issues, especially with the youth vote. Can Hillary govern? Absolutely. Can she beat Trump or whoever takes his place in the event he gets hit by a bus? It’s within the margin of error and the prospects are frightening.
Whoever wins the caucus and ultimately the nomination will be well situated for the general.
If (s)he was running in Venezuela, yeah.
@1 Some countries skip primary elections and just hold general elections in which you have to re-elect the generals again because all the other candidates are in jungle detention camps.
@2 It appears that Bickle is wildly optimistic about his party’s chances. Has he been pilfering happy pills from the pharmacy?
igorvolsky ✔ @igorvolsky
Here’s what’s happened to the uninsured rate since Obamacare became law: pic.twitter.com/vJ3R54KUt7 #GOPDebate
Retweeted by Goldy
OK, sure.
Here’s what’s happening to many of those who are barely insured, but still counted in the feel-good statistics mentioned above:
The median point-of-service collection per provider more than doubled from $0.7 million to $1.8 million; and
The median point-of-service revenue per bed increased from $2,660 in 2010 to $5,780 in 2014.
Hospitals are collecting more from patients up-front, because with those high deductibles (not to mention deleterious outcomes in many situations), they’re increasingly unlikely to be paid otherwise.
This will only get worse:
Point-of-service collections now represent nearly 0.6% of net patient revenue, Carrie Pallardy writes at Becker’s Hospital Review, but researchers conclude that hospitals and health systems must increase point-of-service collections to 5% of net patient revenue to sustain financial health.
You’ve got Obamacare insurance? That’s great. Still, bring your checkbook.
At Houston Methodist, a seven-hospital health system based in Texas, annual point-of-service collections grew by more than $20 million between FY 2010 and FY 2014.
“By using data and analytics, we improved the process for point-of-service collections, and currently collect close to 40% of total patient payments at the point of service,” said Scott Ulrich, the system’s director of revenue cycle operations.
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2015/10/30/how-the-rise-of-high-deductible-plans-is-affecting-hospitals
But hey, nothing to worry about. You’ve got healthcare insurance.
When Hillary situates herself for the general, perhaps she’ll dust off this pearl from 2008:
She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.....goer/?_r=0
Colorado recently recalled state legislators over their positions on gun
rightscontrol.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09.....n-law.html
In Virginia, McAuliffe just climbed down from his prior position
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/mcauliffe-to-restore-handgun-reciprocity-in-deal-with-republicans/2016/01/28/6f8c0240-c5d8-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html
and the gun control lobby is not a bit happy about it.
I suspect that in the general she’ll be playing to the battlegrounds, and not to the Newtowns.
For some time now I’ve been struggling to understand how the mainstream conservatives fucked this year up so badly. Consider Jeb! $200 million backing him and he polls in the single digits. These are political leaders who style themselves as rationally minded strategic thinkers.
Then I read something like this.
A reform program for federal entitlements that “leverages” the “flexibility and efficiency” of “the gig economy” to reduce taxpayer burdens (yay!), and decrease dependency (since apparently the only reason your “dependent” is ’cause yer a lazy bum). So long as you stick to the elevator pitch, she’s a beauty.
Even if you ignore the moral bankruptcy and political toxicity of this, and even if you also ignore the naked grab to exploit the needy for a new source of tech-money riches, you’re still left baffled by how a permanently disabled SSI recipient living on $400 a month is gonna drive for Uber.
What the Elvis A. Motherfucking Presley Riding a Bicycle in Bathtub are these guys thinking? Truth is, as nutty as this thing sounds, it scares me. The shithead behind this is operating in full stealth mode and lining up like-minded assholes like Scotty Walker to “experiment” with this. Fuck it. If they’re gonna experiment, why not do it right. Give the poor Syphilis and make ’em into lampshades and be done with it.
@ 7
…you’re still left baffled by how a permanently disabled SSI recipient living on $400 a month is gonna drive for Uber.
From your own link:
What do these jobs look like? For those willing and able to drive, Uber and Lyft…
Not everyone receiving SSI is a Stephen Hawking.
A bit less baffling when you actually read the linked piece, no?
What timing. Taking a trip and as I leave Penn Station on Amtrak I see an adjacent train on the track next to me that has a blliboard that says “health plans with No deductibles”.
But anyways, maybe Bob could enlighten me with his knowledge.
“The growth of high-deductible health plans has created new pressure on hospitals to collect upfront payments.”
As opposed to what? Not collecting $0 from an uninsured individual? Or chasing the person to bankruptcy?
And Bob maybe you can answer why it was from years 2010 to 2014? When did Obamacsre kick in? 2012? 2013? 2014?
Also Bob, many things go from transformation from time to time, year to year – is it correct to just blame or make responsible the actions that may may have occurred during the time period?
@8 you have to have a spotless new car to drive for uber. Can a person on SSI get a car loan? If they are already on SSI, can they afford a new car? Seems like a scheme to get them massively in debt.
Bob your argument has some problems. How would you solve them?
Do you think they could get a robot to do some of that up-front collection? In time they’ll streamline costs.
@11 Bob solve a problem? Nah, he’s only good at seeing problems.
@8,
read it. Got the t-shirt.
So? You really wanna defend this? Go for it, girl.
Even on practical terms it’s a bust.
There are not that many “stay at home” jobs that these people can perform adequately. If you stop your bullshit for just long enough (I can dream, can’t I?) you’ll note that what we spend on medical care for the poor and disabled swamps the rest of entitlement expenditures combined. (Of course you know that. You live to grift off it.) Most of these people are sick. Very, very sick. They aren’t coming over to shovel your sidewalk any time soon. Many of them don’t have phones they could use for these imaginary telemarketing and CSO jobs. And all of that implies that these things are trivially easy. They actually aren’t. They can’t come over and clean your toilet right now because they can’t get there, they have infant children to look after, they don’t know how to read a bus timetable (do you?), their oxygen cylinder is too heavy, the ulcer on their heel is infected, and they’re as likely to drink the toilet cleanser as wash your toilet with it because that’s what the voices in their heads tell them to do. Mkay?
I posted this before but it applies to 8.
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/apploitation-city-instaserfs
“It is generally quite easy to become an Uber driver; all you need is a relatively new car and a driver’s license. Unfortunately, my 2012 Scion xB has a few scratches on the passenger side. Uber’s car inspectors told me it wouldn’t have been a problem had the scratches been on the driver’s side, but they would be too visible to customers, so I was rejected!
The standard ride-sharing or courier app’s business model looks something like this:
1.When introducing your app into a new city, take heavy losses by over-paying drivers and under-charging customers.
2.Offer drivers cash bonuses to get their friends to sign up.
3.Once you’ve got a steady supply of drivers invested in the app, start lowering their pay.
It happens inconspicuously through “upgrades” to the app, which can often change fare and payment rates.
After enough pay cuts, some will quit, but many in the workforce buy cars specifically to become a part of the sharing economy and end up stuck, continuing to work for less money”
Bob, do you think that’s fair?
If people on SSI could get full or part time jobs, they would have already.
I posted this before but it applies to 8.
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/apploitation-city-instaserfs
“It is generally quite easy to become an Uber driver; all you need is a relatively new car and a driver’s license. Unfortunately, my 2012 Scion xB has a few scratches on the passenger side. Uber’s car inspectors told me it wouldn’t have been a problem had the scratches been on the driver’s side, but they would be too visible to customers, so I was rejected!
The standard ride-sharing or courier app’s business model looks something like this:
1.When introducing your app into a new city, take heavy losses by over-paying drivers and under-charging customers.
2.Offer drivers cash bonuses to get their friends to sign up.
3.Once you’ve got a steady supply of drivers invested in the app, start lowering their pay.
It happens inconspicuously through “upgrades” to the app, which can often change fare and payment rates.
After enough pay cuts, some will quit, but many in the workforce buy cars specifically to become a part of the sharing economy and end up stuck, continuing to work for less money”
So now the person is stuck with a car loan they can barely pay and they better not do any thing to threaten their rating or they are stuck with a car loan they cannot pay off. Great system to get serfs that will never question or object to anything a paying customer says or does.
@7. If people on SSI could get full or part time jobs, they would have already. Seems like a republican back door way to weaken the safety nets even further.
Bob what percentage of people on SSI do think are able bodied? I wonder if greed driven conservatives estimate the the number to be higher than it? Do they see them as basically moocher and takers?
@15. well said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails with material requiring one of the highest levels of classification. The revelation comes just three days before the Iowa presidential nominating caucuses in which Clinton is a candidate.
Department officials also said the agency’s Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research bureaus will investigate whether any of the information was classified at the time of transmission, going to the heart of one of Clinton’s primary defenses of her email practices.
…
But The Associated Press has learned seven email chains are being withheld in full from the Friday release because they contain information deemed to be “top secret.” The 37 pages include messages recently described by a key intelligence official as concerning so-called “special access programs” — a highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes or government eavesdropping.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article.....ton-emails
That’s “bigstory”. Or at least it would be if a Republican were in the crosshairs.
Wonder what Bernie thinks now.
@17,
Ultimately this thing is about GOP grift. The clown behind it is using some heavy hitter political connections to begin negotiating state contracts. They’d get paid state by state for “developing” some shitty smartphone app to “streamline” the delivery of services. Never mind that this obviously demands that the recipient of the services has a $300 phone. No prob! These assholes still get paid anyway, even though nobody installs the app. And in the unlikely event that this were to happen, I’m sure they plan on raking some off the top as well.
The danger as I see it isn’t that this idiocy would somehow “revolutionize” entitlements. The danger lies in how they are selling this nonsense to credulous shallow thinking pols seeking “tech savvy” headlines. When it all falls apart you won’t see Bobby Jindal or Rick Scott accepting responsibility for advancing a dumb idea. They’ll blame the poor. The media will play along. And I’ll have to listen to my father-in-law patiently explain to me how “poor people refuse to work”.
@6
The usual Sloppy, very Sloppy analysis.
@ 22
You’re right, cz. No reason to worry about losing CO in ’16 because you might win it in ’20.
Oddly enough, not a peep from bob about the SSI comments but bob’s got yet another smoking nerf gun email story.
It’s got no proof, just could ofs and maybes. And even…
“But without classification markings, that may have been difficult, especially if the information was in the public domain.”
Come back when they charge her, until then, I DON’T care to hear your propaganda.
Voting for Bernie in the Primary.
It’s going to be a fun Spring/Summer. Nothing like having Saudi Royalty remind everyone that without their money The Donald would be a two time failed businessman looking for a gig on Fox Business Network as a Stock Tip Analyst.
“bob’s got yet another smoking nerf gun email story”
Funny how Bob and his Republicans think nothing of outing a CIA agent or revealing the location of a secret CIA base when it suits their political agenda (to disinfect DUMMOCRETIN scum), and yet clutch their fucking pearls over Hillary’s emails.
“Republicans Reveal Location Of Secret CIA Base During House Hearing On Libya Attacks”
http://thinkprogress.org/secur.....ase-libya/
@5 So, Bickle is in favor of hospital patients skipping out on their bills so the rest of us get stuck paying for them?
GOP legislators in Kansas support civil rights for guns, but not for people. http://handbill.us/?p=66986
@26
Yep, that’s where the biggest part of the BENGHAAAAAZI ™ “They cooked the talking points” falls apart.
“But, but, but, but they knew right away because the assets in the safe house told them! They Lied!”
Yes by all means, right away let’s tell the whole world that there is a safe house in the vicinity and worry about if the people still in it are safe. The CIA has repeatedly said they provided the famous talking points. It was a CIA safe house and the CIA is always totally up front with the public…cough…cough…Cocaine Trafficking…cough…cough…El Salvador…cough…cough…ahem Manuel Noriega.
“No chance at all they were protecting lives. They just wanted Obama to win the election.”
That info is in lots BENGHAAAAZI! ™ testimony and final reports but it doesn’t matter. There are people 100% sure Hillary picked up the phone, cackled and ordered Ambassador Stevens to the metaphorical guillotine and no amount of actual evidence will change that. Fortunately those people are a near perfect Venn intersection of the 3% of Americans who watch Fox News daily.
“Cruz: First of all, we have seen now in six years of Obamacare that it has been a disaster. It is the biggest job-killer in this country. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work, have lost their health insurance, have lost their doctors, have seen their premiums skyrocket.”
Also, plus, runaway inflation, massive layoffs, collapse of the US Treasury, the Van Allen Radiation Belt caught fire, and I lost my car keys.
@30. That’s funny because I just filled two prescriptions today, cost me $7.20 for three month supplies. It use to cost me $45.
I must be one of the lucky few takers.
I still have my job too. Cruz still has his job.
Maybe the ones that don’t are doing something wrong.
Once again checkmate visits left wrong sites full of BULLSHITTIUM and leaves a smelly pile @29.
Yes by all means, right away let’s tell the whole world that there is a safe house in the vicinity and worry about if the people still in it are safe. The CIA has repeatedly said they provided the famous talking points. It was a CIA safe house and the CIA is always totally up front with the public…cough…cough…Cocaine Trafficking…cough…cough…El Salvador…cough…cough…ahem Manuel Noriega.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po.....eferences/
PuddyCommentariat: 12 revision sets? CIA created paragraphs entirely deleted? Extensive State Department edits? Remove any reference to the CIA warning State of possible attacks from terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the real attack? CYA mode please?
“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote. And we know what those changes were!
@31 Shaming them with facts has no effect, they are reality proof. If it doesn’t fit their ideology, it bounces off.
Hey checkmate… It seems the Wa Post knew the CIA was in Libya? Apparently your “sources” you never reference butt everyone knows that you love left wrong DUMMOCRETIN BULLSHITTIUM sites knew the this FACT! https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-libya-cia-is-gathering-intelligence-on-rebels/2011/03/30/AFLyb25B_story.html
And checkmate… The British knew about the CIA gun running in Libya. Why didn’t you checkmate? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....acked.html
PuddyCommentariat: Every time checkmate FARTS, a new pile is created!
So is checkmate lazy or stoooooooooopid?
BOTH! Very lazy and exceptionally stooooooooooooopid!
Fast and Furious in Mexico, US border agent dies.
Fast and Furious in Libya, US Ambassador and three other Real Americans die!
Keep trying to tie it all together Piddles. Maybe when we’re in the second term of a second Clinton Presidency it will all fall into place for you.
Libya is a big country. Not far off the size of Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas combined. Knowing that the CIA is in Libya is about as secret as knowing Mossad is in the United States. Knowing that the CIA is in Libya is about as surprising as finding a broken Pringle in a can you just opened. Knowing the location of a safe house in BENGHAAAAZI! ™ while it is still classified is like seeing an entire grocery display of Pringles and knowing which can exactly has zero broken Pringles in it without opening.
@35
“Fast and Furious. That was a great movie. The Acting was terrible but when the cars go zoom and then crash. Great Stuff!” Every American voter outside the 3% who watch Fox News.
Hey checkmate… Have your libtard web sites thought of this? Remember when Heilary sent her server to Platte River Networks? Well these people had full access to 1340 confidential and 22 SAP super special top secret emails!
http://www.denverpost.com/busi.....server-was
How about DEM apples checkmate!
@36
More checkmate BULLSHITTIUM. You really know how to create and sling it checkmate!
Puddy called it!
BTW Pringles are great tasting. Must be what you are eating right now!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
And the Clinton’s FREE left wrong super pac is in full swing now to provide low information DUMMOCRETINS more BULLSHITTIUM! http://www.vox.com/2016/1/29/1.....top-secret
Oh no… overclassification is in action now!!!!!
Except a TOP SECRET SAP document is created by the originator not the recipient! http://www.cdse.edu/documents/.....andout.pdf
And because of Heilary’s email fiasco State had to revise the revisions http://www.state.gov/documents...../88403.pdf
DAYUM you are too stooooooooooopid checkmate!
Lazy too!
This will go right over the Oregon Moron and its simple mind!
How do you know Carly Fiorina hit four grand slam home runs? Mother Jones screams unhinged rant! http://www.motherjones.com/moj.....ry-clinton
“She’s escaped prosecution more than El Chapo.”
“If my husband did what Bill Clinton did, I would have left him long ago.”
“The Clinton Way: say whatever you have to say, do whatever you have to say, lie as long as you can get away with it.”
You Go Carly!
@33,
who cares about what those mouth breathers think. They’ve lost. Done deal. Nothing left but to sweep up the popcorn, and laugh at their fool asses. Which is what I intend to be doing.
I wish people would stop winding up the mechanical troll. Or at least get a new voice box for it. This one is stale.
Here checkmate, this is for you; being the LIV you are… http://twitchy.com/2016/01/29/.....ly-photos/
@41 Wow, that IS an unhinged rant! What is Carly qualified to be? Certainly not CEO of HP, just ask the board that fired her or the shareholders who lost money during her tenure not to mention the thousands of workers who lost their jobs thanks to her incompetence. So, what is Carly qualified for? Answer: To be a windup Sarah Palin doll on rightwing talk shows.*
* The GOP debates qualify as a “rightwing talk show.”
Actually, I would love to see a Carly – Hillary one-on-one debate, although it ain’t gonna happen.
Meanwhile, I wonder if Piddles got back into the market ahead of today’s 396-point Dow gain? I did because I never got out.
Must be awfully cold on the southern Oregon prairie after the sun goes down when you don’t have electricity or running water.
One less racist cop in Georgia. Good!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wh.....ck-driver/
Dunno if there’s a story here, but state workers in Flint were supplied with safe bottled water over a year ago while Republican officials continued to assure the city’s mostly black population that the lead-tainted municipal water was safe to drink. A coincidence? Or smoking gun? Gov. Rick Snyder claims he knew nothing about the bottled water, and a governor normally wouldn’t pay attention to that, or the paper clip supply.
Wow a 396 point gain. Still down since first of the year R senile!
Meanwhile in a penthouse in New York city a superhero is ironing his cape. With it’s giant B.
Look the whole Behghazi thing is a travesty. My 90 plus year old mother would have told the State Department and the CIA you are fucking nuts putting anything remotely like a embassy in Benghazi. Come on folks the people living in Benghazi knew where the CIA safe house was at and probably pretty much everything remotely associated with the US was in the area. The ball was dropped and dropped big time. The biggest factor is our hubris. Not particularly Hillary Clinton’s hubris, but all of ours. The embassy and ambassador should have been in Tripoli. A much more cosmopolitan city. Benghazi is pretty tribal.
The neo cons got their wet dream Khadaffi is dead, only they were not planning on Libya becoming the wild wild west that is beyond their control. Democracy could actually come out of the bloody mess, but I guess the neo cons want that really less, as the Libyans may just decide hey it’s our oil dammit.
@32 Come on Puddy there are a lot of things that are open secrets that the whole bloody world knows. Except American citizens. It would appear often the folks the US government wants to keep in the dark is the American people. Or the classification is there to keep egg off someone’s face. Neither of these are reasons for those things to be kept secret and in fact the actual rules require the US government to be open in both situations. Perhaps for awhile President Nixon was justified in lying to the people about bombing in Laos and Cambodia. It did not take long for the people in both of those countries to figure out the bombs were coming out of US B-52’s and the rest of the world figured it out. It was an open secret, and our government lied to us and tried to extend the secret way way past its expiration date. It finally hit the papers, but by then everyone knew unless they were living under a rock and going NA NA NA NA.
Sure we could have won in Vietnam, but that would have meant putting a million troops into South Vietnam, and invading the north. The joint chiefs frankly knew this to be the truth from the beginning, but they didn’t want to face the music by telling the truth to the civilians in charge. At that point the Joint Chiefs were all ready to resign. Fortunately some secret talks came to pass.
Of course Vietnam was a self inflicted wound as we could have done business with Ho Chi Minh, but we were blinded by the communist label. The folks we supported in the south were not angels, and a lot of them were less nationalists than Ho Chi Minh.
So how much longer is it going to take the Republicans in congress to realize it’s time to normalize relations with Cuba. Hold our nose do what needs to be done. That includes returning Gitmo to the Cuban’s after all it’s part of Cuba. The Cuban’s wanted Spain out and did not want Uncle Sam to replace Spain. If they wanted that they would apply for statehood as part of the United States. So how about a good glass of Cuban rum and a good Cuban cigar? If you don’t like that how about some good Cuban sugar….you can make rum out of it. So don’t burn the rum!
@54 “Sure we could have won in Vietnam, but that would have meant putting a million troops into South Vietnam, and invading the north.”
As one who was there, I assure you a million troops wouldn’t have been enough (after all, we had well over half a million in 1968, not counting the South Vietnamese or allies*), and we couldn’t have won in any event. Throughout the war, every U.S. troop buildup and escalation was matched by the enemy. Tet effectively destroyed the Viet Cong as a fighting force, but they were replaced by the NVA. Invading North Vietnam would have triggered a Chinese intervention, in addition to every peasant in the North shooting at us. In reality, the only way out of that quagmire was to go home, and even Nixon accepted that as a fact at the end.
* South Korea had 50,000 troops in South Vietnam as of 1968.
@51 Yes, it’s still down a few percent, and I’ve used this opportunity to add to my holdings, so now my dividend income is even more than before. How much does your mattress pay?
@53,
Look,if you’re gonna feed into a troll’s bullshit you’ll have to keep up.
Benghaaaaaazi! is done. Trey Gowdy fucked it all up. So it’s on to eeeeeeeeeemails!
Know Your Unhinged Talking Points.
How much does your mattress pay?
Don’ know. Told you four times now R senile money in the bank!
This is why R senile fits you perfectly!
FACTS appear and checkmate disappears!
@55 Actually Nixon promised to get us out of Vietnam when he ran for President and he actually did keep the promise. He lied a bit about the details.
I think the US fucked up at the end of WWII and should have told the French it’s done it’s no longer your colony and supported Ho Chi Minh and done some kind of Marshall plan there. We could of said yeah he’s a Communist but he’s our communist. Bad things would have still happened, but we could have docked at one of the worlds greatest deep water ports. Waved at the Russian sailors from our naval ships, and played the diplomacy game. That was not too be.
You do leave out inviting the Nationalist Chinese into Vietnam from Taiwan. If the south could have adopted the same tactics of Revolutionary war in the north could have been helpful. As long as the plan was limited war and keeping invading North Vietnam off the table then only a long drawn out war over 30 to 40 years was possible. South Vietnam while similar to South Korea was not South Korea. The fall of South Vietnam was very fast and very dismal considering the resources available ohhh darn we did it again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Old lessons forgotten.