Tag: news

Elizabeth Warren voted against funding the Export-Import Bank a
few weeks ago. But is that because she wants to live up to her reputation as a crusader against
crony capitalism or “socialism for the rich” as she calls it? Not
really, I note in the USA Today.

Warren voted against the funding because it was attached to a
bill to fund Syrian rebels. Otherwise, she’s a big fan of the bank,
which, she insists, “helps create American jobs and spur economic
growth.”

 But both those claims are laughable. So why is Warren, the
female Robin Hood, so readily abandoning her pet cause (and making
a liar and a fool of herself
again)?

It’s because, as former Democratic Massachusetts Congressman
Barney Frank
told the Huffington Post, Democrats have made a
tactical decision to close ranks and dump their previous opposition
to Ex-Im. Why? Because they want to wrest Corporate America — and
presumably its campaign contributions — from the GOP.

In other words, it appears the woman who went to Washington to
vanquish the corporate powers-that-be has become a classic
Washington insider serving those powers.

Go
here to view the whole thing.

Could the Netflix model work in
health care? A doctor’s office in Rochester, New York is aiming to
find out. Good MD, a primary care office set up this year, charges
patients a single, flat monthly fee for unlimited visits. Monthly
charges are based on age, and extra services—whether stitches or
strep throat tests—are provided for an additional fee, posted
online and in the office. The practice doesn’t accept private
insurance at all.

The result is a system that benefits not third-party payers, but
doctors and patients, Good MD Founder Dr. Thuc
Huynh, told local TV station WROC. “Insurance isn’t who
reimburses me or dictates what we do together in terms of our
treatment. So, it’s a direct financial relationship.”

This is what the future of health care reform could look like:
It’s provider-driven. It’s consumer-focused, with an emphasis on
both price and service. And it’s happening at the margins—at a
single practice, in a single town.

As Obamacare’s has settled into place, the Republican party’s
promises to repeal and replace the law have stagnated. The law is
still unpopular, but the coverage expansion has made the already
difficult prospect of repeal harder than ever, and despite years of
promises, no obvious replacement plan has emerged. Obamacare’s
critics in Congress are still opposed to the law, but increasingly
seem unsure about what to do instead.

Senior Editor Peter Suderman writes that provider-driven
experiments like what’s happening at Good MD could help point to a
different way of thinking about the problem.

View this article.

First we were
told that a man jumped the White House fence and ran across the
lawn. Then came
word that the intruder had in fact gotten through the White
House doors. Yesterday we
found out that he made it surprisingly far into the building,
passing the stairs to the first family’s living quarters and
barreling into the East Room. At this point I half expect to learn
tomorrow that the guy actually killed the president.

At any rate, The New York Post
reports that the Secret Service has taken steps to prevent
future invasions of this nature:

There are already new White House security measures
under way, according to presidential press secretary Josh Earnest.
He listed them as beefed-up foot patrols, additional surveillance
and increased training.

Additionally, the Secret Service has “changed the procedures for
ensuring that the entrance to the White House is secure,” Earnest
said—eventually explaining that meant the front door would be
locked.

“After Friday night’s incident, when the door is not in use, that
will be secure,” he explained.

Glad they worked that one out. I suspect there will be further
changes too—though just as the one post-9/11 security measure that
clearly made sense was the decision to reinforce cockpit doors, I
won’t be surprised if locking the White House is the one change to
come out of this that actually makes people more secure. At any
rate, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is
holding a hearing on the subject right now; you can watch
it here.

“Either the president doesn’t
read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting,” a former
Pentagon official
said of President Obama after the gormless chief executive
tried to
pass the buck to the intelligence community for underestimating
ISIS. But the president likely isn’t full of shit—he’s playing
hooky from his intelligence briefings. According to the latest
report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute,
President Obama
has an overall 42.09 percent attendance rate at his Presidential
Daily Briefs. This year (marking the rise of a certain
troubling organization/new shithole country) the rate has been 37.5
percent.

President Obama’s low attendance at his briefings raised
eyebrows in the past. In the Washington Post, Marc
Thiessen raised “where in the world is Barry”
questions about the president’s absence in 2012. By contrast,
noted Thiessen, President George W. Bush “held his intelligence
meeting six days a week, no exceptions.”

The White House responded that the president reads his briefs on
his tablet whether or not he attends the meetings, so that he stays
up to speed on the big issues. The intelligence community doesn’t
seem convinced, though, as indicated by the “bulllshitting”
comment. Maybe skimming a document isn’t the equivalent of
listening to experts emphasize the highlights.

Of course, being informed about what’s going on is different
than using the information effectively. The second President Bush
reportedly
had a month’s notice that Osama Bin Laden planned to hijack
airplanes, but that didn’t prevent 9/11. Good information and good
judgment don’t necessarily go hand in hand, and this president,
like the last, has plenty of lousy decisionmaking to share across
the policy spectrum.

Being informed doesn’t necessarily imply a specific response,
either. Knowing about ISIS does not inevitably lead to a decision
to wage all out war in the Middle East, as the hawkish likes of

John McCain imply. 

But if it’s true that the briefings contained warnings about
ISIS that just got missed because the president didn’t make it to
class or do his homework, throwing the bearers of ignored news
under the bus is an exercise in lousy judgment.

“Either the president doesn’t
read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting,” a former
Pentagon official
said of President Obama after the gormless chief executive
tried to
pass the buck to the intelligence community for underestimating
ISIS. But the president likely isn’t full of shit—he’s playing
hooky from his intelligence briefings. According to the latest
report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute,
President Obama
has an overall 42.09 percent attendance rate at his Presidential
Daily Briefs. This year (marking the rise of a certain
troubling organization/new shithole country) the rate has been 37.5
percent.

President Obama’s low attendance at his briefings raised
eyebrows in the past. In the Washington Post, Marc
Thiessen raised “where in the world is Barry”
questions about the president’s absence in 2012. By contrast,
noted Thiessen, President George W. Bush “held his intelligence
meeting six days a week, no exceptions.”

The White House responded that the president reads his briefs on
his tablet whether or not he attends the meetings, so that he stays
up to speed on the big issues. The intelligence community doesn’t
seem convinced, though, as indicated by the “bulllshitting”
comment. Maybe skimming a document isn’t the equivalent of
listening to experts emphasize the highlights.

Of course, being informed about what’s going on is different
than using the information effectively. The second President Bush
reportedly
had a month’s notice that Osama Bin Laden planned to hijack
airplanes, but that didn’t prevent 9/11. Good information and good
judgment don’t necessarily go hand in hand, and this president,
like the last, has plenty of lousy decisionmaking to share across
the policy spectrum.

Being informed doesn’t necessarily imply a specific response,
either. Knowing about ISIS does not inevitably lead to a decision
to wage all out war in the Middle East, as the hawkish likes of

John McCain imply. 

But if it’s true that the briefings contained warnings about
ISIS that just got missed because the president didn’t make it to
class or do his homework, throwing the bearers of ignored news
under the bus is an exercise in lousy judgment.