Also, pretty sure one Dante’s Circles of Hell includes scrolling through a mirror-hall of agonizingly similar healthcare plans like “UHG Choice Master HMO 1800” vs “RedGo Option Plus EPO 2000.”
I don’t know one normal person in this country that actually enjoys open enrollment.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) December 2, 2018
Yeah, pretty much.
The biggest problem with Obamacare is that selecting a plan is about as pleasant as Home Proctology Kit, the game.
Donald trump has said that Trump he is receptive to rescheduling marijuana, meaning he supports legalization.
I’m wondering what his grift is in this, because he won’t do this without some sort of vigorish:
President Trump said he likely will support a congressional effort to end the federal ban on marijuana, a major step that would reshape the pot industry and end the threat of a Justice Department crackdown.
Trump’s remarks put him sharply at odds with Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions on the issue. The bill in question, pushed by a bipartisan coalition, would allow states to go forward with legalization unencumbered by threats of federal prosecution. Sessions, by contrast, has ramped up those threats and has also lobbied Congress to reduce current protections for medical marijuana.
Trump made his comments to a gaggle of reporters Friday morning just before he boarded a helicopter on his way to the G-7 summit in Canada. His remarks came the day after the bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed their measure.
One of the lead sponsors is Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who is aligned with Trump on several issues but recently has tangled with the administration over the Justice Department’s threats to restart prosecutions in states that have legalized marijuana.
“I support Sen. Gardner,” Trump said when asked about the bill. “I know exactly what he’s doing. We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”
The legislative proposal, which is also championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), would reshape the legal landscape for marijuana if it becomes law.
I cannot understand what is driving this on Trump’s part.
I’m figuring either graft, or a big f%$# you to Jeff Sessions, but I’ll take it.
When I was 3 or 4, I’m not sure of the exact age, but I was in Juneau, Alaska before I started school, so it was 1965 or 1966 when I learned to tie my shoes.
I learned to tie my shoes using the “Bunny Ears” method, and started to work on the, “Chasing the bunny around the tree,” method, but being a clever lad, I realized that the knots were the same,
At that point, I started looking at tying my shoes with the “Squirrel and Tree” method where you make one loop and push the final loop through, but I gave up when I realized shortly after I realized that they created the same knot.
But my shoes kept getting untied.
Well, I just figured out what was going on.
Bows are tied in a, “double knot,” and there are two forms double knot, the square (reef ) knot, and the granny knot.
The difference is that in the former, it is over-under or under-over, and in the latter it is over-over or under-under.
If you naturally lead with one hand, and I do, then the, “Chase around the tree,” method naturally produces a square knot, while the, “Bunny ears,” method naturally produces a granny knot.
I was doing a granny knot, so my shoes were constantly coming untied.
I am still doing bunny ears, but now I am consciously doing under-over, and my shoes are staying tied.
Two clever by half, and it only screwed me up for 50 years.
The musical stylings of William Shatner on how to safely deep fry a turkey:
The Carlyle Group took over HCR ManorCare, a nursing home chain, and turned it into a charnel house:
To the state inspectors visiting the HCR ManorCare nursing home here last year, the signs of neglect were conspicuous. A disabled man who had long, dirty fingernails told them he was tended to “once in a blue moon.” The bedside “call buttons” were so poorly staffed that some residents regularly soiled themselves while waiting for help to the bathroom. A woman dying of uterine cancer was left on a bedpan for so long that she bruised.
The lack of care had devastating consequences. One man had been dosed with so many opioids that he had to be rushed to a hospital, according to the inspection reports. During an undersupervised bus trip to church — one staff member was escorting six patients who could not walk without help — a resident flipped backward on a wheelchair ramp and suffered a brain hemorrhage.
………
Under the ownership of the Carlyle Group, one of the richest private-equity firms in the world, the ManorCare nursing-home chain struggled financially until it filed for bankruptcy in March. During the five years preceding the bankruptcy, the second-largest nursing-home chain in the United States exposed its roughly 25,000 patients to increasing health risks, according to inspection records analyzed by The Washington Post.
………
The rise in health-code violations at the chain began after Carlyle and investors completed a 2011 financial deal that extracted $1.3 billion from the company for investors but also saddled the chain with what proved to be untenable financial obligations, according to interviews and financial documents. Under the terms of the deal, HCR ManorCare sold nearly all of the real estate in its nursing-home empire and then agreed to pay rent to the new owners.
Taking the money out of ManorCare constrained company finances. Shortly after the maneuver, the company announced hundreds of layoffs. In a little over a year, some nursing homes were not making enough to pay rent. Over the next several years, cost-cutting programs followed, according to financial statements obtained by The Post.
That sale and lease back arrangements are a central part of private equity looting.
The financialization of our economy is a very bad thing.
The Texas Rangers investigated and charged her with manslaughter.
Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson convened a grand jury, and Guyger has been indicted for murder:
A former Dallas police officer who walked into an unarmed man’s apartment on Sept. 6 and shot him while wearing her police uniform has been indicted on a charge of murder.
The Dallas County grand jury began hearing the case against Amber Guyger, 30, on Monday. Guyger was originally charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of 26-year-old Botham Shem Jean. She was released from jail on a $300,000 bond about an hour after turning herself in.
District Attorney Faith Johnson said that by 3 p.m., Guyger had turned herself back in on the murder charge. Her bond was transferred and she has been released.
Asked why the grand jury indicted Guyger on a murder charge, Johnson said, “We presented the evidence and explained the law.” She added that the law prohibits her from talking about the evidence presented to the grand jury.
She said her office had a “very spirited conversation” with the Texas Rangers, the lead investigators in the case, back in September.
“They chose to file this case as manslaughter,” she said. “We did our own investigation.”
A district attorney who doesn’t spend their time covering up for the police is remarkable.
The fact that she is a Republican makes it it even more remarkable.
She was turfed out in recent elections, but her replacement, Democrat John Creuzot ran on criminal justice reform, so my guess is that he will continue to pursue this case with vigor.
George H.W. Bush has died at the age of 94.
I am sure that many people will wax eloquent about the passing of a, “kinder and gentler,” Republican.
I think we need to understand what he was and what he did.
As is now tacitly acknowledged, he negotiated with the Iranians in 1980 to ensure that they held the hostages past the election, which does arguably fit the constitutional definition of treason, which, along with his role in sending a teenager to prison for almost decade as a political stunt, his atrocious behavior dealing with the AIDS crisis, and his full throated embrace of bigotry as a political tactic. (Willie Horton)
When you look at the coarsening of our political discourse, George Herbert Walker Bush was a genteel relic of an older era, he was an enthusiastic supporter of (on edit) racist dog whistles.