Just a note to some of our non-North American readers, glad to see you all showing up more regular. I was beginning to think we had lost that special thing.
"Kaiser Health News is suing the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to release dozens of audits that the agency says reveal hundreds of millions of dollars in overcharges by Medicare Advantage health plans." Insert dramatic music here.
"This started as a simple outsourcing exercise in which 'physician groups' were contracted to provide services to hospitals, but then, giant hedge funds and private equity groups started buying up these groups and jacking up prices by 86%-91% in just a few years (prices are still rising). The private equity looters focused on emergency care because, apart from prisons, it is the ultimate captive market…" And as someone who works in healthcare, I can tell you these groups denigrate, over work, and cheat those doctors as much as they can just to soak out a few more dollars at the end of the day. And I've seen one doctor I loved working with (you can read that as, "they are a very good doctor") forced out to replaced by some, whom if they were working when I would need emergency services, I'd tell the ambulance to keep on driving. (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)
"Joker director Todd Phillips has questioned why the violent John Wick movies are 'held to a different standard' than his own." Clueless director is clueless. To be fair, in Hollywood they try to boil things down to basic elements that can be repeated. In Todd Phillips head, this is just "a violent character" in the movie. And violence sells. The action may be exactly the same, and cinematographers and editors study how to recreate items (this is why you'll see some things repeated ad nauseam, such as "two characters fighting as they fall" which was big a few years ago). Ambrose Bierce once said, "There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy." Mr. Phillips doesn't realize he picked from the wrong half of that statement.
Sure we're a post-racial society. "Three sixth-grade boys are accused of pinning down a fellow classmate -- a 12-year-old girl -- on the playground and cutting her dreadlocks because they are 'nappy' and 'ugly.'" Since the school has a "zero-tolerance" policy, I'm assuming these boys, who have bullied this girl before, and after an investigation if they're are found to have done this, will be expelled no matter who their parents are or how much they can pay. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath either. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"You don't know where people are coming from. You don't know their stories. And you shouldn't need to. Everyone deserves respect and space. So don't tell me what I'm eating is bad for me. You didn't see all the times I wasn't eating enough." Seanan McGuire tweet-storm on how our childhood's have shaped out bodies as well as our minds. We were on those free (and later "reduced cost") lunches. We ate leftovers. Burger King was a luxury. Not everyone becomes bulimic, but most of us have unhealthy relationships with food. Pop is my crutch (and I miss it as much as a drug-addict can). When I have it I feel like I used to. But I've gotten "well" enough that I reduce my intake as much as possible and I no longer get headaches when I don't have it. For some gods forsaken reason I still like mac 'n cheese (the box stuff, save that fancy-ass real melted cheese-bake for someone else) and tuna casserole, but I can't stomach raman noodles anymore. And not eating everything (on my plate, offered for free, shared office food, whatever) is still a trouble for me. Last night at the hospital we were offered free burgers and hotdogs (at 9:30 pm) and it took real willpower to not get both, and the chips, and the cookie, and the diet pop (fortunately I hate diet pop and feel unpleasantly drunk when I have it). So yeah, if you ever want to know why I focus on stories like this, where the conservatives want to roll back these nutrition programs (SNAP, free-lunches in schools, etc), it's because I don't want to fuck up another generation.
"The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), the yearly distribution of unconditional cash to all Alaska residents, is providing researchers with a one-of-a-kind source of information on the effect of a universal basic income (UBI) on socioeconomic well-being. The latest study shows that a $1,000 PFD reduces the probability of an Alaskan child being obese by the age of three by as much as 4.5 percentage points. That translates to about a 22 percent reduction in obesity."
"With deer season just around the corner, the Centers for Disease Control are warning hunters about tuberculosis… Officials with the CDC issued the warning after learning that a man likely contracted tuberculosis after dressing a deer." When the deer bite back.
"That’s because a large subsection of the commentariat driving the abuse of Greta (Thunberg) is part of an established network of radical free-marketeer lobby groups — a network that has firm ties to the fossil fuel industry and funders of climate science denial." They're afraid of a child. Seriously, grown (white) men are so threatened by what she is saying that they are coordinating attacks on her. Well, I guess at least one side is taking her seriously. SO in case you ever wanted to know how the adults actually responded in The Emperor's New Clothes here's your example. (Grokked from Ellen Datlow)
"Vimeo is collecting and storing thousands of people's facial biometrics without their permission or knowledge, a recently filed lawsuit alleges." Because they could do it, and there's money to be made. Just wait until someone realizes that they could scrape through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other sources to build a facial recognition database they could sell, without even launching a media service of their own. It would be illegal, and highly immoral, but I think we all know that's not an impediment to some (coughFtMeadecough). You know, sorta like how Google and Apple can tell you who is in your photographs to help you tag people easier. Guess how they do that. (Grokked from John)
"A North Carolina detective was fired after he was accused of sending inappropriate messages to an alleged victim of sexual assault whose case he had investigated, officials said Wednesday."
Oh no, it was just a joke, all the photos of people with the okay sign. See, conservative were baiting liberals. "On Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, added 36 symbols to its 'Hate on Display' database including the index finger-to-thumb sign that in some corners of the Internet has become associated with white supremacy and the far right." I guess not everybody got the memo about it being a joke.
"President Trump has ordered that the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. in the coming year be cut nearly in half to 18,000… The limit represents the lowest number of refugees seeking protection from violence or political persecution allowed into the country since the modern refugee program was established in 1980." Our country is so great, we can't share it with anybody else.
"Even among the president’s closest allies, Giuliani is now the subject of scorn. When I reached him by phone this morning, following House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s release of the full whistle-blower complaint at the center of the Ukraine scandal, he was, put simply, very angry… 'It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero,' Giuliani told me." It's not the first time he's been reportedly on the outs. But this is what happens when you lose control of the spin. The abusive personalities emerge in the public, and the rats start tossing each other overboard. (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)
"House Democrats have warned President Trump to stop his 'reprehensible witness intimidation' aimed at the whistleblower whose complaint document has triggered the escalating Ukraine scandal."
"The whistleblower complaint released Thursday charges that White House officials attempted to limit access to potentially damaging details about President Trump's call with Ukraine's president by using a classified system reserved for highly sensitive information… If this allegation is true, former National Security Council officials say, it would represent a highly unusual misuse of procedures that were created to keep America's most important intelligence secrets safe." Allow me to translate; "highly unusual" in spy talk is "what the fuck?"
"It might be too early to invoke the specter of the Watergate scandal that cost President Richard Nixon his job 45 years ago. But President Donald Trump's pressure on Ukraine to investigate 2020 presidential challenger Joe Biden is increasingly drawing comparisons to one of America's darkest chapters." Only in the most broadest of terms and actions when viewed from a few miles high. Dear Media, I understand that Watergate is a fascinating story of journalism, but stop trying to relive those glory days. We need you here in the present to focus on what is happening. Also, Nixon was four-times as smart and six-times as savvy as Trump. Guiliani is not Dean.
Just an observation, you may remember news reports about many big-time donors to the GOP threatening to withhold support if the GOP didn't push a certain agenda (Obamacare repeal, Justice Kavanaugh, etc). So this kind of transactional extortion (and that's what the call was about) is normal operating procedure in their world view. This is why many in the GOP choose the willful ignorance to say there was nothing wrong here. They know it was wrong. That's why the transcripts were routed to the code-word secure server. Democrats aren't in the clear here, there are reports that Wall Street donors have issued a similar threat to pull their money from 2020. The democrats should publicize that, and tell them to get bent.
"Jeffries is a Democrat and an avid hip-hop devotee, while Collins is a Republican who favors country music. Jeffries hails from a largely urban New York district, and much further south, Collins represents a largely rural pocket in northeast Georgia… Yet, somehow this duo found common ground to pass a major policy initiative this past year." I'm old enough to remember when this wasn't unusual.
Remember when people were saying, "Of course the NRA was able to compartmentalize the Russian money and they would never…" "Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin." At the very least they should lose their tax-exempt status. Now here I should state most people who helped the former Soviet Union (now diminished into Russia) didn't do it for ideological causes, they did it for the money. Usually very low sums.
"Former Rep. Darrell Issa, a once powerful chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who retired last year, says he wants to return to Washington… And he is seeking to unseat a fellow Republican to do so." So, conservatives, which crook do you want representing you?
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