So, the Democrat candidate did better than the last election but still got absolutely annihilated. Woo. Yay. Happy Day.

This is such a non-news story for anyone but a DNC staffer it’s ridiculous. Maybe someone wants to breathlessly report on how much better or worse the green party candidate did last election as long as we’re talking about things that don’t actually make any difference.

If you “outperform by double digits” and still lose by a double digit margin that just highlights how terrible you are, and how fucked we all are. Had they managed to win that seat or even get things close enough that the loss was in question that would be a news story, this is just reading political tea leaves.

Reading the quote it doesn’t sound like she was necessarily talking about Charlie Kirk. What was actually said was very ambiguous and there are a few different ways it could be interpreted only one of which would be in reference to Charlie being a grifter while the others wouldn’t. It’s certainly interesting and a decent chance it was a freudian slip, but the article title doesn’t really seem justified. It acts like this is some huge bombshell when it barely qualifies as a footnote.

Well, I guess on the bright side we might finally see the utter waste of resources that the TSA is eliminated. Guess this is one of those “a broken clock is right twice a day” situations. Not many wins to be had under this administration, but if this happened it would be one of the only positive things.

Turns out letting the guy who habitually bankrupts businesses run the government “like a business” leads to financial problems. Who could possibly have predicted this? There’s also the fact he’s a complete moron, and likely is suffering from early onset dementia, and he’s a felon and conman just for that extra bit of spice.

There’s a time and place for disagreements, but basic human rights ain’t it. If this was the 1980s and we were all arguing over whether the wealthy getting yet another tax break would actually benefit the poor you might have a point. At this point the argument is about whether trans people should be allowed to exist and whether birth right citizenship should be removed (to say nothing of the concentration camps). Those are not disagreements anyone needs to hear.

OK, but now, what if instead of everyone using that money to buy insurance the government just bought the insurance for everyone. And then what if instead of paying an insurance company to pay healthcare expenses the government just directly paid those healthcare expenses. It would be so much simpler with a lot fewer middlemen involved.

Only the first one can be fixed by competition, the rest aren’t impacted by that at all. There are too many moving parts for it all to magically go away by just saying “make them compete”. For instance what happens when insurance companies compete to offer the best deals on group rates to employers but then charge exorbitant premiums to employees? Or what if insurance premiums all magically came down but pharmaceutical prices kept skyrocketing?

Medical costs are an inelastic demand as well as a non-discretionary expense. That’s an absolutely terrible combination which means they’re almost entirely isolated from market forces.

Consider for instance a situation I find myself in. I need a certain medication for a permanent medical condition. Fortunately there are multiple medications available (often due to patents there’s only a single option). Unfortunately I’m allergic to all but one of them. That means it doesn’t matter if the pharmaceutical company is charging $5 or $5000 I’m paying for it. I literally have no choice. Whether my insurance pays for 100% of that or 0% doesn’t change what the pharmaceutical company is charging. Further for insurance I was offered a choice of about 5 different plans through my employer (which is a lot by most standards, often employers only offer one or two plans). My insurance is by all metrics terrible, I pay thousands of dollars every year in deductibles, but once I hit those deductibles it covers everything at 90% which with my medical expenses save me tens of thousands of dollars a year. There are cheaper plans of course, but then the tradeoff is that I’m restricted to a tiny handful of doctors who are all terrible and every single medical decision has to be pre-approved by the insurance company or they don’t cover it and I’d rather pay the extra thousand dollars a year to keep those decisions between me and my doctors.

The US medical system is a hydra and fixing any one part doesn’t actually solve anything. The entire system needs to be overhauled top to bottom. Switching to a single payer system is just the first step in that process but it’s a necessary one because otherwise the problem is intractable. It’s likely the patent system is going to need to be overhauled at least with regards to medications before it’s fixed as well.

Mostly because:

A) Insurance companies collude with each other

B) are only half the problem (the other half being hospitals and pharmaceutical companies cranking prices up)

C) Most Americans get their insurance through their employer

and

D) Healthcare costs are complicated because they’re split between insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses and typically raising one lowers the other and vice versa

Insurance was always a terrible way to handle healthcare expenses because healthcare costs are generally non-discretionary and have far too many moving parts and payers.

They’re also doing an amazing job of very accurately depicting all his minions.

Considering everything we know about Trump, yeah this guy would 100% be his spiritual advisor, they’re cut from the same cloth. He would have fit right in alongside Trump in Epstein’s club.

That’s why I specifically said non-Republicans.

Edit: here, I’ll walk you through the math. The article says 70% of Republicans approved of him and 33% of everyone approved of him. Republicans make up ~30% of the population. 70% of 30% is 21%. That leaves 12% unaccounted for (33-21). So 12% out of everyone both approves of him and doesn’t identify as a Republican, while 21% out of everyone both approves of him and identifies as Republican. The remaining 67% of everyone doesn’t approve of him whether or not they identify as a Republican.

Hmm that suggests the remaining ~10% must be from non-Republicans which is really depressing. I suppose he might have fans in the anti-vaxx movement still and a certain percentage of those are non-Republicans so maybe that explains it.

Edit: Just did some napkin math and it comes out to ~12% of non-Republicans approving of him.

That works out to what, something like 20% of all Americans?

Lol, not even Fox can find a way to spin this as a valid case. Wonder if we’re about to see more of Trump’s pet lawyers get disbarred.

If this ever actually happens I will be drawing little hitler mustaches on every one I get.

That didn’t happen.

And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

And if it was, that’s not a big deal.

And if it is, that’s not my fault.

And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

And if I did, you deserved it.

So I saw a pretty believable breakdown that would absolutely explain this. It’s basically because they had a messy falling out over Trump being a spoiled brat. The timeline is as follows.

The inciting incident was Epstein putting in what he thought was a winning bid on a new mansion. Confident in his bid he then showed the property off to his good buddy Trump and asked some advice on some renovations he was planning. Trump then went to his Russian buddies, got a “loan” and put in a higher bid on the property ultimately winning it. This pissed Epstein off who was further confused because he knew Trump had been having financial problems and didn’t have enough money to cover the bid he put in. Six months later Trump sold the property to the same Russian who had given him the money in the first place for twice what Trump paid for it laundering millions of dollars in the process. Epstein correctly realized that Trump just used his property that he swiped from him to launder Russian money which pissed him off even more. Enraged he called Trump and threatened to expose the money laundering. In retaliation Trump then informed the FBI about what Epstein had been up to on his island which is what ultimately led to his arrest. Whether Trump and/or the Russians then silenced Epstein and whether that was about Trumps participation in Epstein’s crimes or about the money laundering who knows, but it definitely makes some pieces fit.

Edit: Dug up the video the claim was made in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTz6X5Bh_lw

[Citation Needed]

Trump said he thinks the office’s makeover will stand the test of time.

“They can’t imagine anyone changing it,” he said. “People come in. They really love it. They love what we’re doing here.”

Guarantee that the next guy rips that gaudy shit out day one.

It’s mostly the Republican lead states that use it. It’s funny how the biggest federal welfare queens are all the supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans while the Democrats meanwhile actually run balanced budgets and aren’t reliant on federal bailouts.