All the adults have now left the room. We should all be scared to death. Maybe Susan Collins will be thinking about her election coming up (I doubt it), and a few others. No Dems will vote for this charlatan.
“Not too long ago, John Ratcliffe was the mayor of Heath, Texas, a town of less than 8,000 people that was incorporated in 1959, largely because they were in the process of building Lake Ray Hubbard and every lake needs a town where folks can buy suntan oil and flip-flops and build a yacht club. I mention this because, unless god or common sense intervenes, John Ratcliffe, now a member of Congress, is going to be the new Director of National Intelligence.
Ratcliffe didn’t get the gig because of the fine job he did as mayor of Heath. He got the job because he threw a nutty at Robert Mueller last week during the House Judiciary Committee hearing and El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago needed a noisy bobo in that job to replace Dan Coats, who had the audacity on several occasions to point out that the president* doesn’t know anything about anything, and that he’s more than half-a-crazy person as well. From The New York Times:
Mr. Coats, a former senator and longtime pillar of the Republican establishment who angered the president by providing unwelcome assessments of Russia, North Korea and other matters, told Mr. Trump last week that it was time to move on, officials said. His departure removes one of the most prominent national security officials willing to contradict the president. If Mr. Ratcliffe is confirmed by the Senate, he will offer a starkly different perspective in the Situation Room, one more in line with Mr. Trump’s thinking. Mr. Ratcliffe, a third-term Republican from Texas and a former prosecutor, has embraced Mr. Trump’s theories about the Russia investigation and was among the sharpest questioners of Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, at last week’s hearings.
Mr. Trump met with Mr. Ratcliffe on July 19 to discuss the job, but the hearings just five days later offered the congressman a chance to essentially audition for the president, who enjoyed watching him grill Mr. Mueller, according to people informed about the process.
The Times is being polite. Ratcliffe did more than embrace “Mr. Trump’s theories about the Russia investigation.” He went stark raving mad, via the Washington Post:
‘You wrote 180 pages, 180 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided. And respectfully — respectfully, by doing that, you managed to violate every principle in the most sacred of traditions about prosecutors not offering extra-prosecutorial analysis about potential crimes that aren’t charged. So Americans need to know this, as they listen to the Democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle, as they do dramatic readings from this report: that Volume 2 of this report was not authorized under the law to be written. It was written to a legal standard that does not exist at the Justice Department.’
Perhaps Ratcliffe’s bravura performance as a drive-time talk-radio host was the reason for White House lawn ornament Devin Nunes’s dispirited performance that afternoon, when Mueller appeared before the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes ran through the whole litany of Deep State Paranoia but it was clear that his spleen wasn’t in it. I think he realized that he’d lost the audition to be DNI. It’s hard out there for a lackey.
That Ratcliffe should not be confirmed is overwhelmingly obvious. He has no experience. He is being appointed because a criminal presidency* needs a front man in intel. And, the most important reason of all, because Donald J. Trump is still President* of the United States. I guarantee you that, if he gets his puppet DNI in place there with consigliere William Barr installed at Justice, and Mike Pompeo essentially running foreign intelligence out of State, everybody who ever worked for Barack Obama and/or the DNC better lawyer up. If the president* gets this team fully in place, and if he gets elected to a second term, you are going to have investigations, covert and otherwise, that are going to make Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi! look like the appeal on a jaywalking citation. If the Republican Party regains control of the House, it will be many times worse.
(An aside: I didn’t think there could be any more reasons to dread having Barr as Attorney General. Turns out I was wrong. Turns out he’s a cradle Catholic like me, but that he’s attached to the First Things wing of American RC triumphalism. This is how he squares his conscience about reinstating the federal death penalty, I guess.)
There is a fully formed counter-narrative on the right concerning the demonstrable malfeasance of this administration*, and it hasn’t yet been fully unleashed on the country beyond the rightwing media terrarium. The pieces are now being arranged on the board so that the American intelligence community can put its full force behind selling that counter-narrative as we come into the 2020 election, and to continue to do so after the election, win or lose. John Ratcliffe, former mayor of Heath, is a big part of the strategy. Someone should kick over the board very soon.”
I discovered this week that my Thunderbird email program has been misfiring — pumping my messages with “??” and “???”
turning this:
That’s the physics of it — can’t imagine how we will handle the politics and economics of it — 95% nuclear/thermonuclear or bust.
into this …
That???s the physics of it ??? can???t imagine how we will handle the politics and economics of it ??? 95% nuclear/thermonuclear or bust.
Better on some things — worse on others. May have been happening for two months. Turns out the same thing has been going on with my Windows 10 laptop as with my Windows 7 PC. I use AT&T. So if you use Thunder bird you might want to send yourself and email and check.
Here’s the simple fix:
Open up Options
go all across the top to the far right and hit a big button Advanced
go all the way down to the bottom (still far right) and hit the little button config edit
hit take the risk
scroll down endless list (better take slider more than half way) until you find mail.strictly.mime (don’t use any mimes with extra stuff on end) — which will have on the right to it “default boolean false.” Double click on line — it will change to “modified boolean true.” Click on OK. Problem solved.
Ratliffe asked a question that has been hashed by right wing “commentariat” since the report came out and the left wing “commentariat” grabbed on to Mueller not proving Trump “innocent” of obstruction.
It is the point of view of the right wing “commentariat” from Howie Carr who knew Mueller in Boston and the Whitey Bulger fiasco to Fox News that Mueller went beyond rule or custom to make statements about not proving innocence.
After all a citizen is innocent until proven guilty, or is the anti Trump faction writing new logic?
BTW Charlie Pierce (twice this week) is a hack on the order of Howie Carr on the opposite end of the spectrum..
High point for me: Bernie went “off the ranch” and observed that US health care is the only advanced system allowing ‘for profit’ insurance. From the look on Bernie’s face after the sentence I do not think he planned to bring that up.
A fact that is put off in conversations on US health reform.
Otherwise on health care half the stage sounded like they were really concerned for health insurers future.
I do not see how tomorrow’s session will be as ‘stimulating’!
Berwick and Kocher “While Considering Medicare For All: Policies For Making Health Care In The United States Better” suggested it would be difficult for the nation to go to Single Payor or Medicare for all and disenfranchise 150 million people who have private healthcare.
Medicare for All would require a massive political battle to make feasible the shift from private to public funding, to develop enough public trust to expand an entitlement program for all Americans, and to mitigate the disruption (for many) of substituting public insurance for familiar, existing health insurance policies. That will take time. Fortunately, even while the Medicare for All saga rolls out, much can be done in the meantime that is politically plausible to augment and improve the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and make health care work better for all Americans.
The paper states 4 points of attack:
Improve Affordability. Lower the cost of healthcare for more people. Many have disused increasing the subsidy to more people and beyond the 400$% FPL so that no one person spends more than 10% of income on healthcare. Reduce insurance premium growth by limiting hospital prices. As I have written in a post, hospital prices increased 42% from 2007 – 2014 outstripping physician prices. Through the ACPO methodology which was to improve efficient and quality, hospitals have used it to consolidate service where they can control the market limiting competition. Make medications more affordable. Ban rebates to all insurance markets and not just Medicare, reducing market exclusivity for biologic drugs from 13 years to 7 years, and use an international approach to pharma pricing.
Improve Access Create larger, lower-cost, healthier risk pools to reduce premiums. The laws of mathematics for insurance premiums are simple and inescapable. Larger and healthier risk pools reduce the average insurance premiums in the ACA’s community-rated and guaranteed-issue Marketplaces. Expand the use of reinsurance. The expanded use of reinsurance is an effective approach for lowering premiums. Reinsurance lowers premiums by reimbursing plans for medical expenses for the most expensive patients, so that these expenses do not have to be offset by increases in premiums for healthier patients. Improve Medicaid access. Medicaid provides comprehensive insurance for 74 million Americans. Unfortunately, in some states, coverage is dropping as a result of work requirements and other barriers to enrollment and reenrollment.
Improve Health Care Quality Much of the excess cost of US health care comes from pervasive and serious defects in the quality of care. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine categorized six such defects, and they are still abundant: problems in patient safety, unscientific variations in care leading to ineffective treatment, lack of patient-centeredness, unwarranted delays due to poor system designs, excessive prices due to lack of transparency and open competition, and fraud. Most, if not all, of these defects waste resources, lead to worse outcomes for patients, and erode value.
Protect Americans from surprise bills and Reform medical malpractice policy. I disagree with Berwick on the latter as many states control the amount of awards and no attorney will take a case he can not win. I would concentrate on reducing the the high rate of errors in hospitals which cause many people to sue. Typically, a few make many of the errors (Public Citizen).
I read a different take on Senator Sander’s “Medicare -for- All” by Kip Sullivan who also writes for PHNP. “Why the Bernie Sanders Bill Is Not Single Payer.”
What is single payer? One payer, not multiple risk bearing entities called insurance companies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) or accountable care organizations (ACOs). One payer. All the risk lies with that one government payer. One entity budgets hospitals and nursing homes. Established and uniform fee schedules for individual providers – doctors. Price controls for drug companies and perhaps what Berwick suggested in his thoughts. These are the 4 elements of Single Payor – the Government.
Those 4 elements can be found in House bill HR 1384 and HR 1384 reflects the true definition of single payer.
Senator Bernie Sanders bill does not reflect the definition of single payor. S 1129 is missing two elements; it does not have one payer and it has multiple risk bearing entities called accountable care organizations. Due to multiple ACOs, S 1129 also can not authorize hospital budgets.
Berwick and Kocher’s plan highlights a way to get to single payor something which Senator Bernie Sanders wants and not legitimately achieve with his plan without angering millions of people and the lack of two elements needed to be Single Payor. The premise by Kip is such that Single Payor failed in Vermont because of ACOs put in place on the state board to manage it. They would mimic closely what we have today.
She may be a bit of a whackadoodle, but she sure hit this one perfectly. And the key words were:
“And if the Democrats don’t start saying it, why would those people feel they’re there for us. And if those people don’t feel it, they won’t vote for us, and Donald Trump will win.”
“Marianne Williamson Spoke the Truth
The former New Age snake-oil salesman got it right on the psychic force of race in America. The question is, why aren’t the other candidates talking about it?
Consider this: Does any thinking person with an even marginal appreciation of American history doubt that racial hatred has been a dark psychic force in that history almost since the moment the first colonists stepped off the boat in Jamestown?
‘I assure you — I lived in Grosse Pointe, what happened in Flint would not have happened in Grosse Pointe. This is part of the dark underbelly of American society. The racism, the bigotry and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.
We need to say it like it is — it’s bigger than Flint. It’s all over this country. It’s particularly people of color. It’s particularly people who do not have the money to fight back. And if the Democrats don’t start saying it, why would those people feel they’re there for us. And if those people don’t feel it, they won’t vote for us, and Donald Trump will win.’
Is there anything in that statement that is in any way inaccurate? You can argue about the relative effectiveness of wonkiness, but there’s no doubt that race is something deeper and more powerful in American politics than a set of laws or a menu of policies devised to further white supremacy generally. There was something inherent in the American character that made those laws and policies possible in the first place. (Later, Williamson scored with a long answer in favor of reparations.) So, when Marianne Williamson says it in a Democratic presidential debate, why do people react as though she was drawing on some esoteric knowledge handed down from Simon Magus to the guy who sells crystals and spirit candles in what used to be a video-rental shop down the block?
Well, most of it derives from her long career as a New Age snake-oil salesman who once trafficked in notions about how AIDS patients needed to get in touch with the virus within. But even the worst grifter has a healthy respect for how useful even a little touch of the truth can be. And the question is not what Marianne Williamson was talking about here. It’s why none of the rest of them were.”
All the adults have now left the room. We should all be scared to death. Maybe Susan Collins will be thinking about her election coming up (I doubt it), and a few others. No Dems will vote for this charlatan.
“Not too long ago, John Ratcliffe was the mayor of Heath, Texas, a town of less than 8,000 people that was incorporated in 1959, largely because they were in the process of building Lake Ray Hubbard and every lake needs a town where folks can buy suntan oil and flip-flops and build a yacht club. I mention this because, unless god or common sense intervenes, John Ratcliffe, now a member of Congress, is going to be the new Director of National Intelligence.
Ratcliffe didn’t get the gig because of the fine job he did as mayor of Heath. He got the job because he threw a nutty at Robert Mueller last week during the House Judiciary Committee hearing and El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago needed a noisy bobo in that job to replace Dan Coats, who had the audacity on several occasions to point out that the president* doesn’t know anything about anything, and that he’s more than half-a-crazy person as well. From The New York Times:
Mr. Coats, a former senator and longtime pillar of the Republican establishment who angered the president by providing unwelcome assessments of Russia, North Korea and other matters, told Mr. Trump last week that it was time to move on, officials said. His departure removes one of the most prominent national security officials willing to contradict the president. If Mr. Ratcliffe is confirmed by the Senate, he will offer a starkly different perspective in the Situation Room, one more in line with Mr. Trump’s thinking. Mr. Ratcliffe, a third-term Republican from Texas and a former prosecutor, has embraced Mr. Trump’s theories about the Russia investigation and was among the sharpest questioners of Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, at last week’s hearings.
Mr. Trump met with Mr. Ratcliffe on July 19 to discuss the job, but the hearings just five days later offered the congressman a chance to essentially audition for the president, who enjoyed watching him grill Mr. Mueller, according to people informed about the process.
The Times is being polite. Ratcliffe did more than embrace “Mr. Trump’s theories about the Russia investigation.” He went stark raving mad, via the Washington Post:
‘You wrote 180 pages, 180 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided. And respectfully — respectfully, by doing that, you managed to violate every principle in the most sacred of traditions about prosecutors not offering extra-prosecutorial analysis about potential crimes that aren’t charged. So Americans need to know this, as they listen to the Democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle, as they do dramatic readings from this report: that Volume 2 of this report was not authorized under the law to be written. It was written to a legal standard that does not exist at the Justice Department.’
Perhaps Ratcliffe’s bravura performance as a drive-time talk-radio host was the reason for White House lawn ornament Devin Nunes’s dispirited performance that afternoon, when Mueller appeared before the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes ran through the whole litany of Deep State Paranoia but it was clear that his spleen wasn’t in it. I think he realized that he’d lost the audition to be DNI. It’s hard out there for a lackey.
That Ratcliffe should not be confirmed is overwhelmingly obvious. He has no experience. He is being appointed because a criminal presidency* needs a front man in intel. And, the most important reason of all, because Donald J. Trump is still President* of the United States. I guarantee you that, if he gets his puppet DNI in place there with consigliere William Barr installed at Justice, and Mike Pompeo essentially running foreign intelligence out of State, everybody who ever worked for Barack Obama and/or the DNC better lawyer up. If the president* gets this team fully in place, and if he gets elected to a second term, you are going to have investigations, covert and otherwise, that are going to make Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi! look like the appeal on a jaywalking citation. If the Republican Party regains control of the House, it will be many times worse.
(An aside: I didn’t think there could be any more reasons to dread having Barr as Attorney General. Turns out I was wrong. Turns out he’s a cradle Catholic like me, but that he’s attached to the First Things wing of American RC triumphalism. This is how he squares his conscience about reinstating the federal death penalty, I guess.)
There is a fully formed counter-narrative on the right concerning the demonstrable malfeasance of this administration*, and it hasn’t yet been fully unleashed on the country beyond the rightwing media terrarium. The pieces are now being arranged on the board so that the American intelligence community can put its full force behind selling that counter-narrative as we come into the 2020 election, and to continue to do so after the election, win or lose. John Ratcliffe, former mayor of Heath, is a big part of the strategy. Someone should kick over the board very soon.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28541017/john-ratcliffe-director-of-national-intelligence-trump/
TROUBLE WITH THUNDERBIRD EMAIL APP
I discovered this week that my Thunderbird email program has been misfiring — pumping my messages with “??” and “???”
turning this:
That’s the physics of it — can’t imagine how we will handle the politics and economics of it — 95% nuclear/thermonuclear or bust.
into this …
That???s the physics of it ??? can???t imagine how we will handle the politics and economics of it ??? 95% nuclear/thermonuclear or bust.
Better on some things — worse on others. May have been happening for two months. Turns out the same thing has been going on with my Windows 10 laptop as with my Windows 7 PC. I use AT&T. So if you use Thunder bird you might want to send yourself and email and check.
Here’s the simple fix:
Open up Options
go all across the top to the far right and hit a big button Advanced
go all the way down to the bottom (still far right) and hit the little button config edit
hit take the risk
scroll down endless list (better take slider more than half way) until you find mail.strictly.mime (don’t use any mimes with extra stuff on end) — which will have on the right to it “default boolean false.” Double click on line — it will change to “modified boolean true.” Click on OK. Problem solved.
Fixed
Getting on CSPAN is a threat!
Ratliffe asked a question that has been hashed by right wing “commentariat” since the report came out and the left wing “commentariat” grabbed on to Mueller not proving Trump “innocent” of obstruction.
It is the point of view of the right wing “commentariat” from Howie Carr who knew Mueller in Boston and the Whitey Bulger fiasco to Fox News that Mueller went beyond rule or custom to make statements about not proving innocence.
After all a citizen is innocent until proven guilty, or is the anti Trump faction writing new logic?
BTW Charlie Pierce (twice this week) is a hack on the order of Howie Carr on the opposite end of the spectrum..
Been watching the dem debate.
High point for me: Bernie went “off the ranch” and observed that US health care is the only advanced system allowing ‘for profit’ insurance. From the look on Bernie’s face after the sentence I do not think he planned to bring that up.
A fact that is put off in conversations on US health reform.
Otherwise on health care half the stage sounded like they were really concerned for health insurers future.
I do not see how tomorrow’s session will be as ‘stimulating’!
Berwick and Kocher “While Considering Medicare For All: Policies For Making Health Care In The United States Better” suggested it would be difficult for the nation to go to Single Payor or Medicare for all and disenfranchise 150 million people who have private healthcare.
The paper states 4 points of attack:
Improve Affordability. Lower the cost of healthcare for more people. Many have disused increasing the subsidy to more people and beyond the 400$% FPL so that no one person spends more than 10% of income on healthcare. Reduce insurance premium growth by limiting hospital prices. As I have written in a post, hospital prices increased 42% from 2007 – 2014 outstripping physician prices. Through the ACPO methodology which was to improve efficient and quality, hospitals have used it to consolidate service where they can control the market limiting competition. Make medications more affordable. Ban rebates to all insurance markets and not just Medicare, reducing market exclusivity for biologic drugs from 13 years to 7 years, and use an international approach to pharma pricing.
Improve Access Create larger, lower-cost, healthier risk pools to reduce premiums. The laws of mathematics for insurance premiums are simple and inescapable. Larger and healthier risk pools reduce the average insurance premiums in the ACA’s community-rated and guaranteed-issue Marketplaces. Expand the use of reinsurance. The expanded use of reinsurance is an effective approach for lowering premiums. Reinsurance lowers premiums by reimbursing plans for medical expenses for the most expensive patients, so that these expenses do not have to be offset by increases in premiums for healthier patients. Improve Medicaid access. Medicaid provides comprehensive insurance for 74 million Americans. Unfortunately, in some states, coverage is dropping as a result of work requirements and other barriers to enrollment and reenrollment.
Improve Health Care Quality Much of the excess cost of US health care comes from pervasive and serious defects in the quality of care. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine categorized six such defects, and they are still abundant: problems in patient safety, unscientific variations in care leading to ineffective treatment, lack of patient-centeredness, unwarranted delays due to poor system designs, excessive prices due to lack of transparency and open competition, and fraud. Most, if not all, of these defects waste resources, lead to worse outcomes for patients, and erode value.
Protect Americans from surprise bills and Reform medical malpractice policy. I disagree with Berwick on the latter as many states control the amount of awards and no attorney will take a case he can not win. I would concentrate on reducing the the high rate of errors in hospitals which cause many people to sue. Typically, a few make many of the errors (Public Citizen).
I read a different take on Senator Sander’s “Medicare -for- All” by Kip Sullivan who also writes for PHNP. “Why the Bernie Sanders Bill Is Not Single Payer.”
What is single payer? One payer, not multiple risk bearing entities called insurance companies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) or accountable care organizations (ACOs). One payer. All the risk lies with that one government payer. One entity budgets hospitals and nursing homes. Established and uniform fee schedules for individual providers – doctors. Price controls for drug companies and perhaps what Berwick suggested in his thoughts. These are the 4 elements of Single Payor – the Government.
Those 4 elements can be found in House bill HR 1384 and HR 1384 reflects the true definition of single payer.
Senator Bernie Sanders bill does not reflect the definition of single payor. S 1129 is missing two elements; it does not have one payer and it has multiple risk bearing entities called accountable care organizations. Due to multiple ACOs, S 1129 also can not authorize hospital budgets.
Berwick and Kocher’s plan highlights a way to get to single payor something which Senator Bernie Sanders wants and not legitimately achieve with his plan without angering millions of people and the lack of two elements needed to be Single Payor. The premise by Kip is such that Single Payor failed in Vermont because of ACOs put in place on the state board to manage it. They would mimic closely what we have today.
She may be a bit of a whackadoodle, but she sure hit this one perfectly. And the key words were:
“And if the Democrats don’t start saying it, why would those people feel they’re there for us. And if those people don’t feel it, they won’t vote for us, and Donald Trump will win.”
“Marianne Williamson Spoke the Truth
The former New Age snake-oil salesman got it right on the psychic force of race in America. The question is, why aren’t the other candidates talking about it?
Consider this: Does any thinking person with an even marginal appreciation of American history doubt that racial hatred has been a dark psychic force in that history almost since the moment the first colonists stepped off the boat in Jamestown?
‘I assure you — I lived in Grosse Pointe, what happened in Flint would not have happened in Grosse Pointe. This is part of the dark underbelly of American society. The racism, the bigotry and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.
We need to say it like it is — it’s bigger than Flint. It’s all over this country. It’s particularly people of color. It’s particularly people who do not have the money to fight back. And if the Democrats don’t start saying it, why would those people feel they’re there for us. And if those people don’t feel it, they won’t vote for us, and Donald Trump will win.’
Is there anything in that statement that is in any way inaccurate? You can argue about the relative effectiveness of wonkiness, but there’s no doubt that race is something deeper and more powerful in American politics than a set of laws or a menu of policies devised to further white supremacy generally. There was something inherent in the American character that made those laws and policies possible in the first place. (Later, Williamson scored with a long answer in favor of reparations.) So, when Marianne Williamson says it in a Democratic presidential debate, why do people react as though she was drawing on some esoteric knowledge handed down from Simon Magus to the guy who sells crystals and spirit candles in what used to be a video-rental shop down the block?
Well, most of it derives from her long career as a New Age snake-oil salesman who once trafficked in notions about how AIDS patients needed to get in touch with the virus within. But even the worst grifter has a healthy respect for how useful even a little touch of the truth can be. And the question is not what Marianne Williamson was talking about here. It’s why none of the rest of them were.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28565242/marianne-williamson-debate-race-psychic-force-donald-trump/