Author: luimbe
Gizmodo: “WordPress Strikes Back Against DMCA Censorship Trolls”
Link60 Minutes hoax Benghazi story timeline
Linkestimate: 70% of 15m individual market insured qualify for subsidy
StandardAbout 15 million people currently purchase health insurance on their own, using the individual market. And about 70 percent of them — about 10.8 million people — will qualify for the financial help buying coverage under the health-care law, according to a new study out Thursday from Families USA
This is huge. To not have healthcare.gov ready is killing the effectiveness of this law. Really, it’s the part of the law that has been a huge disappointment & stopped a long string of successes with implementation and improved medical care.
Harry Reid presses the red button. The Nuclear era is here.
LinkWorth losing your job over
LinkEverwars are not a new thing, should become old thing
AsideEverwars are not a new thing, should become old thing:
Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. and Afghanistan have reached an agreement on the final language of a bilateral security agreement.
now we police Afghanistan for Afghans to maintain the status quo which is crap.
The Obamacare ‘Fix’ punt
StandardThe Obamacare ‘Fix’ is a punt…and politically that’s a good thing:
“We came away agreeing that there was a lot of difference of opinions as to whether or not we can or should do what he urged us to do last week,” Louisiana Insurance Commissioner and NAIC President Jim Donelon said later.
According to the Washington Post’s Wonkblog,which is tracking state commissioners’ responses to the fix: six states have agreed to it, six states have said they won’t, and seven states have publicly said they’re still deciding. The others haven’t made public statements.
again, this is letting states make Obamacare work or not. Now the Republicans that can say this was so important can be asked: did you compel your state regulator to enact the “keep your junk plan” provision?
Senator Graham: Senator Scott’s got your back…with a knife
Link‘Race-Themed’ Newspaper headlines
VideoAlyssa Rosenberg comments on the ‘Race-Themed’ USA Today Headline:
USA Today found itself the subject of the news this weekend thanks to an unfortunate headline on a story about the weekend movie box office. “’Holiday’ Nearly Beat ‘Thor’ as Race-Themed Films Soar,” read the tagline on a story about The Best Man Holiday, the follow-up to the 1999 movie The Best Man. In a marketplace where African-American audiences are dramatically underserved, it’s amazing that analysts are still surprised when romantic comedies and family dramas with African-American casts perform well.
But even more telling was the idea, implicit in the headline if not in the piece itself, that a movie with a non-white cast must necessarily have race as its primary subject. By extension, the suggestion is that the lives of people of color are inflected first, and perhaps only, by race, rather than by gender, sexual orientation, class, love, ambition, jealousy, rage, or even pure, manic-pixie spontaneity. And the idea that culture about characters of color is necessarily about race also creates the assumption that stories about white characters are inherently deracinated. Some white people, like Jews, are exempt from this, and the recent spike in Boston movies has put more Irish-American characters and Irish-American humor to the fore. But for the most part, the experiences of white characters are treated like they’re neutral, rather than representative of their whole race, or revealing in some ways of the pathologies and problems of various subsets of white America.
what she said.
it came from space (research): check out NASA Spinoff
Link“Get Money”
LinkThe mayor of Atlanta wins the Braves deal
Standard“The Atlanta Braves are one of the best baseball teams in America, and I wish them well.
We have been working very hard with the Braves for a long time, and at the end of the day, there was simply no way the team was going to stay in downtown Atlanta without city taxpayers spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make that happen.
It is my understanding that our neighbor, Cobb County, made a strong offer of of $450M in public support to the Braves and we are simply unwilling to match that with taxpayer dollars.
Given the needs facing our city and the impact of Turner Field stadium on surrounding neighborhoods, that was something I, and many others were unwilling to do.
It was reported this week that Turner Field, which opened way back in 1997 before, as Will Bunch notes, there was even Twitter (!), will be demolished in 2017. The Atlanta Braves, you see, feel that they can no longer field a viable Major League team there. And when city of Atlanta said it couldn’t fork over the $200 million necessary to upgrade the stadium, the Braves went venue shopping. They struck gold. Nearby Cobb County will pony up $450 million in taxpayer money for a brand new, 42,000 seat, $672 million ballpark.
That’s right, neighboring Cobb County is forking over 300m to 450m+ to help the Braves build a stadium. Where is the money coming from? Cobb County taxpayers! Cobb County, whose school district has had teacher furloughs for it’s school district, due to an 80m+ budget deficit is going to fund this stadium for the Braves with money taxpayers won’t even be able to vote yay or nay on.
More big city mayors with sprawling school districts and infrastructure to maintain need to follow Kaseem Reed’s example and learn to say no to this corporate welfare and let these teams say yes to the suburbs.
ACA Still a BFD, still not a hurricane ignored.
needs to work. like now. damn it.
Scarborough then pivoted from healthcare.gov fiasco meant to claim the stimulus shouldn’t have been “rushed” out of congress as it was also from the federal government. This ignores the fact that the stimulus was an economic success and was well administered by VP Joe Biden). You can watch the segments below or click here…
second segment below…
And there you have it: the two conservatives teamed up to say: this proves everything by government shouldn’t be done because they are so bad doing everything. The center right Dem and the journalist worried about political impact while the true liberal on the panel actual worried about a workable solution. This is what you’ll see now, the panic patrols of Republicans offering the president poison pills to fix his marquee legislation aka destroy it. “he can’t be trusted” and “he won’t be able to do anything” just like Bush after Katrina. Remember more people will get access to healthcare which will help them live longer. After Bush ignored Katrina and it became evident his whole administration was checked out, people died unnecessarily and then the economy began to unravel and people were losing homes and their jobs. That’s why no one trusted George W. Bush like ever again: people died or lost their quality of life. This is not the same.
So I found out by reading things you can go Here or here. and see what Obamacare has to offer even if you can’t get to healthcare.gov (which I could as of this morning).
Last time I bought individual insurance, it was 2004 or 2005, I was in my mid 20s, and still playing Rugby. It cost me over 300 for a catastrophic plan that I bought for the Rx coverage through an insurance broker. I was laid off at the time and took the time to find a job I really wanted and COBRA was even more costly because I had what I now know was a gold level plan. I didn’t really realize it wouldn’t had covered anything had I gotten hurt. Imagine that.
According to the 1st site, today being in my mid 30s, a Platinum plan under Obamacare, with my salary which is out of the subsidy range, range from 382.85 HMO and 419.05 PPO. Gold plans range from a 293.50 HMO to 408.71 PPO. A Bronze plan range starts at 228.72 PPO and tops off at 294.43 PD.
I know, people were paying 170 for their policy, but paying 228.72 and having access to real insurance and my prescriptions would have been great in 05 when my salary level was about 30-40% less and I was a jr. programmer would have been much, much better.
I can’t stress how much better this law is better for most (95% to 96% of Americans immediately) and 99% of us in the long term. really.
Austerity forever! It will never stop.
AsideAusterity forever!. It will never stop.
Old Stuff: Mixtapes Explained
VideoI forgot how personal mixtapes were.
props to Devour original here
Bonus content: some history on the even harder to compile beat tapes
Gov Patrick urges MA delegation to keep political “fixes” to ACA temporary
MA Gov. Deval Patrick
Gov. Patrick to MA Delegation:
However, any delay in requiring plans to meet the basic standards of the ACA must only be temporary. Leaving non-compliant plans to remain permanently in place means we revert to the status quo: a broken health care system where many people carry policies that don’t cover them when they get seriously ill, and where those with comprehensive coverage pay for those uninsured or underinsured in higher premiums and taxes. Permitting plans to be permanently non-compliant means the pool of individuals who do purchase plans through the marketplaces will likely be sicker on average, and their options will be more expensive and constrained. And it will disrupt the market-based model on which premiums and policy options hinge.
“Jingle Hoops”
VideoCourtesy Henry Abbott @ TrueHoop.
Obama’s ACA “fix”:a political fix to cover administrative mistakes but does damage to the program
AsideWhat Balloon Juice’s Richard Mayhew said:
“Minimal damage to the risk pools, and this is a viable political solution to a political problem”
more about it from Johnathan Cohn at TNR
Go read the Veteran’s Week at “Tell us a Story”!
Excerpt from “Firefight” by Rebecca Goodrich:
Rebecca Goodrich & 18lbs of pure rock and roll (photo courtesy Tell us a Story/Goodrich)
“This, ladies and gents, is an M60: a 7.63mm, lightweight, air-cooled, disintegrating metallic link belt-fed portable or tripod-mounted machine gun designed for ground operations.” A staff sergeant with ropy forearms hefts the gun with both hands, performs two biceps curls. “Eighteen pounds of pure rock and roll.”
Tell us a story is a blog of true stories. It’s excellent. Submit a story here.
Many covered by employers, medicaid & medicare were on the individual market
StandardI suspect the higher levels of dissatisfaction come from a different source, one that has different policy implications: Unlike people on Medicare, Medicaid and employer-based insurance, people who buy coverage in the individual market know exactly how much they’re paying for it. A plan that you would only rate “fair” when you have to pay $5,000 for it might merit an “excellent” if its apparent cost to you were only $1,000.
Look, the groups of people not mutually exclusive. People who have employer, medicaid or medicare insurance quite often have had to go without insurance or buy their own on the individual market. Lay-offs, no coverage periods between jobs, etc. So personally I suspect many of those people who are satisfied who have medicare, medicaid or employer plans know how much it costs and are glad they can get it subsidized or earn pre-tax employer benefits. I suspect many of the 45% of folks who dislike their plans on the individual market actually had to use their benefits and found out they were paying for nothing of any use.