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July 23, 2019 07:03 AM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”

–John Cage

Comments

26 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread

  1. Ezra Klein at Vox describes the "Medicare Extra" plan from the Center for American Progress.

    Like Medicare-for-all — and unlike Obamacare — it’s universal, it uses Medicare’s pricing power to hold down costs, and it rebuilds the entire health system around public insurance. But like Obamacare, it’s designed to minimize middle-class tax increases while stepping gingerly around people’s fear of change and mistrust of the government. And so, unlike Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare-for-all bill, it holds on to much of the employer-based private insurance market and includes means-tested premiums and cost sharing for all but the poorest Americans.

      1. Warren was the only candidate besides Bernie to raise her hand in the debate when they asked who wanted to abolish private insurance.  I searched and as far as I know, that's still her position.

        1. Warren and Bernie were the only ones who put their hands up and did not take it back later.

          Harris, OTOH, has been doing this two-step dance which I think is brilliant. She puts her hand up timidly at the debate, and the next day, she walks it back.

          (This was the second time she did that when asked about MFA. When she was interviewed shortly after declaring, she flippantly said, "Just get rid of it" in reference to private insurance. After the blow back, she backed off on that.

          The reason I say it was brilliant is because she knows what she needs to do to win. She needs to persuade the lefties and the middle to both support her. What better way than by telling each exactly what they want to hear.

      2. Obviously there is a lot of sloganeering going on by all the candidates. I have no problem with that, because it positions the Democratic Party as defending Universal Health insurance. Even Bernie's more radical proposal, which is unlikely to be passed, is useful for pushing the Overton Window.

        Democratic Party = Health Insurance for all.
        Republican Party = You're screwed if you're not rich.

        It is inevitable that company-supplied health insurance will collapse. It's just not economically viable, and company HR departments will pull the plug either slowly or quickly.

        I'm convinced that "Medicare Buy-in as an Option", will lead to creeping socialism in health insurance, and that's a fine thing, because markets do not work in health care. The CAN proposal is easy-to-explain and fairly easy-to-model. It might not be a marker for a candidate who wants to be perceived as the most radical advocate of insurance reform.

         

  2. Doubly sad news.

    Ray Dangel, veteran Denver Post copy editor who steered the editorial page along with Sue O'Brien and moi when the paper still had visions of greatness, is dead in Broomfield.  He loved his life, he loved his wife, he loved his dog and no one ever had a more loyal friend.

    And Neil Westergaard, who led the whole paper to victory in our death match with the Rocky Mountain News before being fired by the graceless Dean Singleton, has also passed on to what scant reward awaits those who were great in our craft.

    No doubt, in a few years I'll join them.  When that happens, while Hell may still lack air conditioning, we will put out one damn fine newspaper.

    But as our long time office manager, Joyce Anderson, put it, life's a bitch — and then you die.

    And so it goes.

    1. I think that Dad knew Ray Dangel from the Post, but Westergaard was after his time. Sue O'Brien was a family friend and neighbor.

      Sorry for the losses of your friends. It happens.

       

      1. Thanks, MJ.  Ray indeed knew your dad, we talked about your dad when he ran for the school board.  Your dad was far too honest and forthright for politics, I'm afraid.  Sue died young, 64 if I remember.  Neil was just 67.  I think Ray was 87, so he had a good long life.  But he was terribly lonely after Emily passed away.

        I'm 74 and have fought diabetes for 47 years.  I think it's winning, but it always shakes a person when a long time cohort dies.  The last of that crowd is Dan Russel, who is also in poor health.

        I'd like to believe in journalist's heaven.  If it does exist, no one there has to edit Ken Hamblin!  Trying to untangle his prose could wreck Ray’s whole day!

  3. Meanwhile in Lakewood….

     

    Lakewood mayoral candidate shared climate change article written by fictional character

    “At the time I hadn’t read the entire article thoroughly, but I can tell you I have now and you know what, there are some great things that are coming out of this,” Johnson said. “Number one, scientists are still looking at global change.

    “They have not themselves come to a total answer of what’s going on.”

    Can someone call Drumpf and give this woman a Presidential Medal of Freedumb? (from the cognitive thought process)

    1. "… I am trying to get information from everywhere and I’m happy to read everything that’s out there,” Johnson replied.

      “We can all make up our own deductions, OK,” she said."

       

       

      No we can't.

      We're going to do it anyway. But all opinions are not worthy, are not equal.

      Experts are expert for a reason and it's not because they just want to hold office for some trivial, egotistical title and bs.

       

        1. "reasonable"

          That's one of the oldest tricks int he book.

          "even fools, keeping silent, are considered wise; if they keep their lips closed, intelligent"    ~ Proverbs 17-28

          (aka

          Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

          or

          It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.)

      1. I knew her in the lege.  She wasn't the hottest glow plug in the diesel engine, but did tend to be one of the more moderate Republicans on policy issues.  It may not have been philosphical moderation as much as a desire to please everyone, which seems part of her trouble in this case.

         

  4. Aspen Times is reporting a host of the the Pence Aspen event expected "about 25" couples for the afternoon event.

    Originally advertised for 5 pm, it apparently started early … and Pence left the Caribou Club at 4:45.

    And of course … no one has explained to the Pitkin County sheriff who will be paying for the $10,000 – $12,000 in his agency's security costs. He's been trying to pin someone down for a week, and has yet to get a reply.

    Vice President Mike Pence’s Aspen visit brings out supporters, protesters

  5. Last night's Eugene Robinson column in the WAPO:

    Democrats, independents and Republicans disgusted by Trump’s use of race as a wedge cannot pretend this is a normal election. Republican officeholders and candidates who stand by Trump, perhaps for reasons of self-preservation, must be pressed: Do they believe all Americans, regardless of race, have a right to participate in our democracy, or not? Do they believe Americans who disagree with Trump’s policies should leave the country, or not? Do they agree with white supremacists that whites are somehow threatened by “racist” minorities, or not?

    My responses:  Yes, every American citizen has a right to participate in democracy. [The Russians who want to participate, as FBI Director Wray talked about today, not so much.]

    No, those who disagree with Trump's policies (or anyone else's policies) should not have to leave the country.  I'm not in favor of exporting our disagreeables.

    No, whites (like me) are no more threatened by "racist minorities" than anyone else.  Everyone is threatened by white supremacists.  at least, that is what Christopher Wray of the FBI said today.

    FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress on Tuesday that the majority of domestic-terrorism arrests since last October have been linked to white supremacy.

    “I will say that a majority of the domestic-terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white-supremacist violence, but it does include other things as well,” the FBI chief said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    1. I thought our "beloved president" said, after Charlottesville, that there are good people on both sides. I guess Director Wray didn't get the "message."

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