The Justice Department is going to phase out the use of private prisons. This news prompted a sudden drop in stock prices for private prison companies. Heh.
Aetna is dropping out of the health insurance market in about two-thirds of the counties it now serves. The ditched counties are mostly rural, low-population ones. Now it turns out that Aetna had threatened to drop out of Obamacare if the feds blocked its proposed merger with Humana. The Feds have sued to block the merger, and Aetna started shedding counties.
Bernie Sanders has revived the fight for a public option on the insurance exchanges.
“In my view, the provision of health care cannot continue to be dependent upon the whims and market projections of large private insurance companies whose only goal is to make as much profit as possible,†Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday.
“That is why we need to join every other major country on earth and guarantee health care to all as a right, not a privilege,†he said.
Aetna announced late Monday that it would pull out of ObamaCare exchanges in 11 states, including Arizona, Florida and Texas. The company’s CEO, Mark Bertolini, cited $200 million in losses over the past few months as a major reason for the move.
According to Wikipedia, Bertolini received $30.7 million in compensation in 2013, so if the company needs to cut some corners, I can think of a place to start.
In other news, Gawker.com will cease operations next week.
The NRA wants women to keep guns in their homes for protection. But if a woman actually uses a gun to protect herself, the NRA doesn’t come to her defense when she’s thrown in jail. Why is that?
Finally, you probably heard that The Great Awfulness/Bad Hair has hired Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, to be his new campaign manager.
Since June, Manafort has tried fruitlessly to mold Trump into someone palatable to establishment Republicans and the swing voters he’ll need to win over if he’s to have any chance of beating Hillary Clinton. Bannon, who becomes chief executive of the Trump campaign, represents a sharp turn in the opposite direction—a fireball hurtling toward the 2016 presidential election. (In announcing the hiring, the Trump campaign quoted Bloomberg Businessweek’s description of Bannon from a profile last fall as “the most dangerous political operative in America.â€) Along with campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, Bannon will encourage Trump to cast aside political niceties and aggressively go with his gut. “I’ve known Steve for a long time—he is an extraordinary guy, an extraordinary talent, and he, like me, truly loves our country,†Trump said in a statement to Businessweek.
Trump’s own diagnosis of his campaign’s shortcomings led to this unusual prescription—which is the diametric opposite of what most Republicans have been counseling for their embattled nominee. “The campaign has been too lethargic, too reactive,†says a senior Trump official. “They wanted to bring in someone who understood new media, understood digital. It’s not going to be a traditional campaign.†Trump was frustrated by Manafort’s efforts to contain him and angry about his plummeting poll numbers. With Bannon in the fold, the source adds, Trump will feel free to unleash his inner Trump: “It’s very simple. This is a change election. He needs to position himself as anti-establishment, the candidate of change, and the candidate who’s anti-Washington.â€
The shake-up is an ominous development for Republican elected officials alarmed at Trump’s collapse and the effect he could have on down-ballot races across the country. In recent years, Breitbart News has bedeviled Republican leaders, helping to drive out former House Speaker John Boehner and, more recently, making life difficult for his successor, Paul Ryan. Last fall, at Bannon’s insistence, Breitbart reporters visited Ryan’s Wisconsin home (which is surrounded by a wall) and published a story shaming him for not endorsing Trump’s proposal to erect a wall along the Mexico border.
See also Nate Silver, “Trump Is Doubling Down on a Losing Strategy.” Also, Sam Wang says the Dems are currently favored to take back the Senate.
I guess Rudy Giuliani is going to have to adjust his prison stock portfolio. I don’t think it will effect his holdings of stun gun stocks though, but you never know. I remember him and Bernie Kerik tried to corner the stun gun market when Homeland Security decided to fund and make stun guns standard issue all nation wide law enforcement agencies.
Bernie might have had to divest of his stun gun holding when his little fiefdom crashed in around him. But he did get a roll in the hay with Judith Miller. So it makes it all kinda worth it.
“In my view, the provision of health care cannot continue to be dependent upon the whims and market projections of large private insurance companies whose only goal is to make as much profit as possible,†Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday.
He is a better Bernie than me. My thinking pales to him. Might I be so humble to suggest that “money and medicine do not mix” may not be thinking of a higher order for him.
YAY! On the Feds not using private prisons anymore!
On Aetna! Fuck them!
They’re being greedy and short-sighted – but I’m sure the exec’s at both companies are banking on monster bonuses if the merger goes through; and massive “golden parachutes” if the new company fails. If more companies do the same, they may help expedite single-payer, and put themselves out of business. YAY!
On Gawker, one billionaire shopped around for a compliant and complicit judge, to help him put a company critical of him, out of business.
This, btw, is the “”Vampire” billionaire, who’s looking to provide young people with small stipends – for transfusing their blood into him, to keep him younger longer.
I hope the Hepatitis and AIDS/Zika and other screenings for horrible diseases fail!
As for the NRA and women, their message is “LARGE METAL P*NISES ARE FOR THE BOYS, NOT CHICKS.”
And as for the GOP, they’re standing around while t-RUMP brings in known arsonists to head their Fire Department!
Good choice!
If you want to help the D’s!!!
LOL!
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of bigoted sociopaths and psychpaths!
Naked Donald Trump statues appear in cities across the country.
“Taking back” the Senate is not enough against the politically savvy Republicans – only an unbreakable 60% majority will allow actual legislation to go forward (unless we think sunset clauses a la assault weapon ban are the thing to do).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3748188/Trump-says-sorry-Donald-apologizes-causing-personal-pain-inflammatory-comments-admits-don-t-choose-right-words.html
Does anybody see the dynamics of an abuser or abusive relationships at work here? I wonder how many people are going to fall for that line of bullshit. In Christian theology there is a three step process for personal redemption..confession, repentance, and then restoration.. The confession part comes easy if it’s not sincere… but the repentance aspect, if it is sincere, can’t be accomplished by a simple apology. It takes a long period of time for a true repentance to manifest itself..it certainly can’t happen before November.
Maybe the undecided repuglican voters who have reservations about voting for Trump because of his obviously flawed character, but are feeling sympathetic toward his sudden change of heart should heed the words of the immortal St. Ronnie when it comes to evaluating Trump’s sincerity…”Trust but verify”… wait until after the November election to see if his new found character will survive through defeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcblpO6YdlA
Steve Bannon has a whiskey glow..He looks like he’s found consolation in a relationship with John Barleycorn.
One of the things that strikes me about many of the Greens (and some of the Libertarians) is how unaware they are of the way things actually work. They don’t know in how many states their candidate of choice is on the ballot. They don’t know how that translates to electoral college votes. They certainly seem unaware of (and unwilling to accept) the limitations on the powers of a President who has the backing of neither House.
Margaret — Yeah, I know. I’ve had that conversation with many of them. Reality does not penetrate.
The articles opened by the NRA links are especially depressing and galling. Even if we put the horror that abused women go through aside, they reveal a mechanism that cranks out flawed, harmful, and sometimes barbaric policies that benefit those who hold the purse and leave the vulnerable as bad or worse off than before. I don’t think the Randian Libertarians that I have known would change a thing, about that mechanism. But, I’ve been fortunate to have only known a few, so I might be wrong.
Like some of you here, I think it is very likely that both political parties will find themselves in crisis after the election. I suppose the most likely alternative party would cut its share out of the center. But, the center might well be to the left of what we’ve been led to believe. Maybe that’s an idle hope, but, the polls on sensible gun control, the social safety net and healthcare seem to be drifting our way, as did the issue of great rights for LGBT people. I have to maintain a bit of the starry eyed character to avoid becoming the classic ranting codger.
All of this being said, I did appreciate the information in the articles about abused women. I’ll keep them at hand.
If we’re stuck with “stand your ground” laws, I’d go for an amendment that, in the case of verified abuse, would allow women to shoot their abuser at will, and to deputize their friends to hunt the blackheart down and dispatch him. After all, an armed society is a polite society.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/being-donald-trump-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry_us_57b75ddae4b0b51733a376ef?0ithzlz2g4k0m5cdi
Interesting link, Swami.
Yesterday, I heard part of an article on NPR about the characteristics that language takes on, when someone is lying. (I think it was a “Ted Talks†series, “Why we Lie.”) As usual, I just got to hear bits and pieces, so I’ll have to stream it. One of the “tells†as I remember is that they tend to use first person more frequently. I suppose most of us have been socialized to pick up on these warning signs subconsciously. Maybe, I should say, “certain warning signs†because I think even the most worldly and risk averse among us have blindspots and weaknesses. In the vast variety of con-games, there are some which will trip us up. Somewhere out there, someone has our number.
Trump is a simmering stew of curiosities and subclinical(?) abnormal psychology, although I say this as a layman. As Swami noted, he has smell of the abusive, with heavy doses of the histrionic and manipulative. One of the things that makes his game so tenacious is that he is able simultaneously convince his “marks” that they are piercing the illusion presented by such things as “political correctness,” etc, as he feeds and validates the illusions that allow him to manipulate them. It’s like convincing the most gullible person you know that they are a shrewd and insightful judge of human character, and of course, selling them some dodgy steaks and vodka at the same time.
Many of the people following Trump have seen their security and place in our society go up in smoke over the last few decades. Through this process, they seem to have become increasingly vulnerable in other ways as well. The sort diminished expectation that they have experienced, produces fear and anger, that’s a natural, human response. Unfortunately, the world provides a wide range of huckster to blow on the embers of their disappointment.
One of the “tells†as I remember is that they tend to use first person more frequently
Swami agrees with that! 🙂
Wow, I need a proofreader! What can I say, it was past my bedtime, I guess. A few extra commas snuck in and an “s” escaped.
The L’Affaire Aetna is a great snapshot of a good reason not to “let the market decide.” When a few million workers lose their jobs, it’s “creative destruction” or innovation. But, along side of the too big to fail, there are the too big to get pushed off the gravy train. They have the capital and political clout to make us all wait to the bitter end.
I am not sure how the story about Aetna leaving in a huff over a rejected merger, time will tell. But, clearly there is a fork in the road. One side leads to a civilized, modern approach to providing universal healthcare and the other fork leads to PROFITS for a healthcare industry that is clearly Byzantine, outdated and inefficient. One cost of this is 45K excess deaths per year in the USA, according to the Harvard/Cambridge Healthcare Alliance study. I suppose one could calculate the average dollar value of each lost year of life or dead body, but then, they’ve probably already done that.