Month: July 2014

California dreaming (of a fully insured population …)

by digby

Here’s some good news:

The percentage of uninsured Californians has been cut in half since the federal health law began expanding coverage nine months ago, according to a new national survey.

In September of 2013, 22 percent of California adults were uninsured. By last month, that number had fallen to just 11 percent, the biggest drop among the nation’s six largest states.
[…]
The Commonwealth Fund survey found that 61 percent of those who were newly insured said they felt better off thanks to their new coverage. And nearly four out of five said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their new coverage.

The survey also found that since last year, awareness of the Affordable Care Act has increased significantly, although that awareness still lags among poorer Americans. For example, more than half of the poorest people surveyed still did not know that the federal health law makes subsidies available to help pay for health insurance.

But if you divide that by six it doesn’t sound so impressive, amirite?

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And they call themselves American Patriots

by digby

There’s dumb and illiterate … and then there’s too dumb to be allowed out in public without a minder:

I think it sounded better in the original German …

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QOTD: Renee Elmers

by David Atkins

Many of you have likely seen this already, but just in case you haven’t:

North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers, a leadership favorite who’s often put forward when the party wants a female messenger on health care or jobs, explained that men failed to bring policy “down to a woman’s level” and thus lost votes.

Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level. Many of my male colleagues, when they go to the House floor, you know, they’ve got some pie chart or graph behind them and they’re talking about trillions of dollars and how, you know, the debt is awful and, you know, we all agree with that … we need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman’s level and what everything that she is balancing in her life — that’s the way to go.

Oy. How much self-loathing do you need to have, and how driven by greed or fundamentalism do you have to be, to be a female Republican?

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Tailgunner PoMo

by digby

I think people are being much too hard on Old Legitimate Rape here when they criticize him for being clueless:

In a phone interview with St. Louis Dispatch, the former congressman compared himself sympathetically to Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI), who spearheaded an infamous Communist witch hunt in the 1950s. Akin argued that McCarthy was another victim “assassinated by the media.”

“I use McCarthy as an example of someone who was assassinated by the media, so he had no credibility,” Akin told the Dispatch

If you think he’s daft, you’re reading the wrong websites. Here’s Ann Coulter to set you straight:

When I wrote a ferocious defense of Sen. Joe McCarthy in Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism , liberals chose not to argue with me. Instead they posted a scrolling series of reasons not to read my book, such as that I wear short skirts, date boys, and that “Treason” was not a scholarly tome.

After printing rabidly venomous accounts of McCarthy for half a century based on zero research, liberals would only accept research presenting an alternative view of McCarthy that included, as the Los Angeles Times put it, at least the “pretense of scholarly throat-clearing and objectivity.”

This week, they got it. The great M. Stanton Evans has finally released Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies . Based on a lifetime’s work, including nearly a decade of thoroughgoing research, stores of original documents and never-before-seen government files, this 672-page book ends the argument on Joe McCarthy. Look for it hidden behind stacks of Bill Clinton’s latest self-serving book at a bookstore near you.

Evans’ book is such a tour de force that liberals are already preparing a “yesterday’s news” defense — as if they had long ago admitted the truth about McCarthy. Yes, and they fought shoulder to shoulder with Ronald Reagan to bring down the Evil Empire. Thus, Publishers Weekly preposterously claims that “the history Evans relates is already largely known, if not fully accepted.” Somebody better tell George Clooney.

The McCarthy period is the Rosetta stone of all liberal lies. It is the textbook on how they rewrite history — the sound chamber of liberal denunciations, their phony victimhood as they demean and oppress their enemies, their false imputation of dishonesty to their opponents, their legalization of every policy dispute, their ability to engage in lock-step shouting campaigns, and the black motives concealed by their endless cacophony.

The true story of Joe McCarthy, told in meticulous, irrefutable detail in “Blacklisted by History,” is that from 1938 to 1946, the Democratic Party acquiesced in a monstrous conspiracy being run through the State Department, the military establishment, and even the White House to advance the Soviet cause within the U.S. government.

In the face of the Democrats’ absolute refusal to admit to their fecklessness, fatuity and recklessness in allowing known Soviet spies to penetrate the deepest levels of government, McCarthy demanded an accounting.

Even if one concedes to on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand whiners like Ronald Radosh that Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson didn’t like communism, his record is what it was. And that record was to treat Soviet spies like members of the Hasty Pudding Club.

Rather than own up to their moral blindness to Soviet espionage, Democrats fired up the liberal slander machine, which would be deployed again and again over the next half century to the present day. In hiding their own perfidy, liberals were guilty of every sin they lyingly imputed to McCarthy. There were no “McCarthyites” until liberals came along.

See? He knows his history … of Conservative Bizarroworld …

And to think that Lynn Cheney used to lecture us all about relativism and post-modernism…

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It’s getting hot in here

by digby

Via Think Progress:

You may recall that the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reported last month that March-May was the hottest in more than 120 years of record-keeping. Well, the JMA reported Monday that last month was the hottest June in more than 120 years of record-keeping.

The good news is that we have responsible leadership like this fine lady, the mother of five children whom she clearly has no use for:

Liz Cheney did not hesitate when asked Monday what the Republican Party should do to address climate change.

“Nothing,” she immediately replied…

Cheney also criticized those who are concerned about climate change last year during her failed primary bid against Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). In June, she told conservative host Sean Hannity that “the science is just simply bogus, you know, we know that temperatures have been stable for the last 15 years.”

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Economic populism is a boost in Republican areas, too

by David Atkins

It’s almost as if this economic populism message works:

Populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) got a rock-star reception during a standing-room-only campaign rally here Monday, as hundreds of liberal activists cheered her broadsides against corporate interests and voiced hopes that her presence might shift the political winds in an increasingly Republican state.

The rally on behalf of Senate candidate Natalie Tennant was the latest in a string of recent Warren appearances in red and blue states alike, where Democratic base voters have embraced her fiery message as an envoy to working-class voters frustrated with both Wall Street and the Obama administration.

“Our job is to fight for the families of America,” Warren said, speaking to a packed ballroom at the Clarion Hotel in West Virginia’s eastern panhandle. “Stitch up the tax loopholes so that millionaires and billionaires pay at the same tax rate as the people in this room.”

Warren stumped in Kentucky late last month for Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who, like Tennant, is running for the Senate in a state easily won by Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. Later this week, the freshman senator and former Harvard professor will be in Michigan supporting Democratic Senate candidate Gary Peters.

It’s also worth noting that Warren isn’t a bomb-thrower from the edge of the coalition. She’s actively helping Democratic candidates win their races in 2014. Certain other very high-profile Democrats aren’t doing likewise. Some people are beginning to notice.

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If we can’t even do this, how will we ever be able to do anything about climate change?

by digby

I will never get over the fact that people in this country are crusading against the First Lady’s program to help kids eat healthy foods. One would have thought it would be the most benign cause ever — moms have been exhorting children to eat their vegetables since time immemorial. It’s shocking that people find this controversial in the least, but they certainly have. You have conservative leaders like Sarah Palin, alleged mom of the century, out that waggling her Big Cup and smugly proclaiming “it’s just pop!”, while legions of Republicans act as though trying to get kids to heat healthy and go outside and work off some energy is akin to putting them in Guantanamo.

Naturally, much of this is driven by rank hatred for Michelle Obama as this cartoon attests:

But still, the idea that the First Lady is some kind of jackbooted thug for wanting kids to be healthy — when it’s patently obvious that many American kids are in serious danger of having life long health problems due to their terrible diets — is just depressing. What a world.

On the other hand, these haters are all being manipulated too. They may be cruel and nasty people but they don’t deserve to die from all these diet related diseases either — and their children certainly don’t. They’re just aiming at the wrong people. As usual:

Michelle Obama’s food policy czar, celebrity chef Sam Kass, was once so in with the lunch lady crowd that he landed a guest judge spot on a tearful school lunch episode of Food Network’s “Chopped” and handed out awards at the School Nutrition Association’s convention in Denver.

The rebuke shows how ugly the fight has become between the first lady and her supporters, who want kids to eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains in their school lunches, and the organization that represents cafeteria workers and their allies who argue that the federal government is going too far in its push for healthier meals.

At stake is the health of millions of kids, an $11 billion school lunch program dominated by big food companies that want to build brand loyalty early and even the legacy of the first lady — who has made combating the childhood obesity epidemic her primary cause.

90% of the schools have complied happily and are doing fine. 10% are fighting it and the big food lobby is pressuring the School Nutrition Association (SNA)and members of congress to roll back the guidelines. Of course they are.

If this wealthy country cannot even do this one little thing — make school lunches marginally healthier with a measly requirement that they include a serving of fruit or vegetables and put a little whole grain in the pizza crust — then we are a lost cause. This should not be the least bit controversial.

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QOTD: Janet Yellen

by digby

Via the NY Times:

Nevertheless, valuation metrics in some sectors do appear substantially stretched — particularly those for smaller firms in the social media and biotechnology industries, despite a notable downturn in equity prices for such firms early in the year.

Apparently, this comment is being pooh-poohed by the bulls who once again believe that it doesn’t matter when a market is no longer making a lick of sense, but I’m with Salon’s Andrew Leonard on this:

I learned long ago to take Janet Yellen’s warnings very seriously. Back in 2006, when she was president of the San Francisco Fed, she gave a speech pushing back against former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan’s claim, with respect to the housing crisis, that the “worst of this may well be over.”

Not so fast, said Yellen. Her contacts were “willing to bet that things will get worse before they get better…”

Yellen was right. Greenspan was as wrong as it is possible to be. Her warning on the excessive valuations of small social media companies may seem like the mildest caution possible in these go-go days, but as we head into ever more uncertain waters, it is a warning to be heeded.

Just a little word to the wise …

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Papers please?

by digby

So we now have “interior checkpoints” in America where they demand your papers? Who knew?Ryan Grim has the story:

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas was arrested Tuesday after attempting to board a plane out of McAllen, Texas, according to United We Dream, an immigration advocacy group.

On July 10, Vargas, who is an undocumented immigrant, flew to the small border town with a camera crew from his own organization, Define American. Vargas, like many other immigration activists, was there to interview and film undocumented minors fleeing escalating violence in their home countries in Central America. But what Vargas didn’t know is that in order to leave the border town, he would need to pass through an interior U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint set up within 45 miles of McAllen.

In an interview with The Huffington Post on Saturday, Vargas, a former HuffPost editor, said he intended to fly out of McAllen using his Philippines-issued passport.

According to a United We Dream press release, Vargas was taken into custody by the Border Patrol in McAllen after attempting to board a flight to Los Angeles. The Border Patrol maintains a security presence at the McAllen-Miller International Airport.

A person who accompanied Vargas to the airport told HuffPost that Vargas handed his Philippines password to a TSA agent, who asked if he was traveling with a visa. Vargas said he was not. According to the source, Vargas was then directed toward one of the 21,000 border patrol agents who have the border region on lockdown.

The agent asked Vargas two or three questions, placed him in handcuffs and escorted him to the McAllen border patrol station for more questioning, according to the source. The station is not a detention center.

Evidently, the Border Patrol has set up “interior checkpoints all over the Southwest sometimes a hundred miles from the border where they can search anyone without probably cause and demand your papers. And it is obviously at this American airport examining papers and ID — for people on flights within the country. The Border Patrol. WTH?

Such checkpoints are located throughout the Southwestern U.S. border, comprising of a 100-mile wide, Bill-of-Rights-free strip where authorities have claimed the privilege to do things they would not be permitted to do anywhere else in the country, such as executing a “routine search” without a warrant or probable cause, or asking American citizens for papers.

I had family living in Mexico for many years and went over the California border literally hundreds of times and never faced anything like this. The border was murder and I’ve had my car thoroughly searched and been heavily questioned many times, but once in the US you’re in. I’ve flown out of airports all over the US and have never encountered border patrol. TSA, yes. But this wasn’t TSA.

Vargas’ story as the ultimate DREAM kid is well known. He’s a very brave man, as are all the DREAMers who come forward and put themselves on the line. I wonder what’s going to happen to him now?

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Inane “Six Californias” measure may be the perfect encapsulation of the GOP

by David Atkins

It looks like that measure to divide California into six states may be heading to the ballot after all:

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper will submit signatures Tuesday to put what could be one of the most dramatic startups ever on the ballot – a plan to divide California into six states.

Draper, a multimillionaire known as the Riskmaster, and his team are expected to announce in Sacramento that they’ve gathered more than enough signatures to put the Six Californias measure before state voters.

The measure, a constitutional amendment, needs 807,615 valid signatures to qualify. Because the deadline has already passed for November, the plan could end up on the November 2016 general election ballot.

Supporters would not say how many signatures they have gathered until Draper holds a news conference Tuesday in Sacramento. But they said they were confident they had plenty to spare.

There’s no reason to freak out, because there’s no way this thing happens regardless.

A Field Poll in February showed 59 percent of Californians surveyed opposed the idea. Even if Draper can turn that around, there would be another major hurdle: The U.S. Constitution requires the approval of both Congress and the state Legislature, which is now firmly controlled by Democrats.

But it is instructive because the entire effort is representative of the Republican Party at large. Here you have a wealthy Silicon Valley technocrat who doesn’t want his tax money going to the rest of California. He wants Silicon Valley to essentially become the world’s richest country and a techno-libertarian paradise.

Keep in mind, though, that most of Silicon Valley doesn’t want this. Silicon Valley is deep blue, and most Democrats aren’t as selfish or shortsighted as Mr. Draper. Instead, Draper is being abetted by a bunch of fools in less populated red areas of the state who are discontent with Democratic dominance and want to run their own show. They’ve been edging for a “two Californias” solution to this “problem” for some time, one in which in the desert counties in the east have their own state.

The biggest problem with that, of course, is that those counties have no money. Their roads and stop signs are paid for by the wealth of the coastal counties who send more to Sacramento than they get back, while the inland counties take more than they send off. This all the while Republican politicians in those counties decry “dependency” and “big-spending waste in Sacramento.” If we created a six-state version of California, the new Republican-leaning states would be among the poorest and most dysfunctional in the country. But that’s where most of the support (and, likely, the signatures) appears to be coming from.

So here you have an obscenely rich, selfish ideologue leading a bunch of people dependent on government largesse to decry wasteful government and demand more local control. The technocrat would make out like a bandit on the deal and the rubes will suffer, cheering the whole time. And when the fantasy gets stopped by reasonable people, both the ideologue and his marks will complain about the evil Democrats the whole time.

If ever there were a perfect encapsulation of the Republican Party, that would be it.

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