Flood Destroys Home Of Hate Group Leader Who Claims God Sends Natural Disasters To Punish Gays The Gaily Grind (Dr. Kevin). So God is saying that this leader is suppressing his homoerotic urges.
Scientists say they have found a ‘fifth force of nature’ International Business Times (furzy)
From Now On You’ll Be Able to Access NASA Research for Free Motherboard (Chuck L)
Here are some of the strangest predictions of what life will look like in 100 years Visual Capitalist
U.S. senator expresses concern about ag tech mergers Reuters
New Startup Aims to Commercialize a Brain Prosthetic to Improve Memory IEEE Spectrum (Chuck L). As Lambert would say, “What can go wrong?”
Brexit
UK to avoid recession and world economy to ‘stabilise’ as Brexit shock passes Telegraph. IMHO this is due to the financial community not believing Brexit will get done. Ironically, the lack of a recession would make it harder for the Tories to back out.
New poll puts Labour ahead of Tories for first time since Jeremy Corbyn became leader Defend Democracy. we’ve been skeptical of the idea that the Tories would call for elections as a way for them to exit Brexit. This would seem to make that option even less likely.
Banks Won’t Wait to See What Brexit Deal the U.K. Can Get Bloomberg (furzy). As we have been saying…
Labour elections boss sought to increase criticism of EU before referendum Guardian
How Brexit brought UKIP to its knees Politico
Lament from a country on the brink Politico. Italy.
Ukraine/Russia
U.S. assessing if Russian use of Iran base violates U.N. resolution Reuters
Russia ups ante in Ukraine ahead of G20 Financial Times
Turkey
Turkey to release 38,000 inmates as prisons swell to bursting point in wake of failed coup International Business Times
Syraqistan
U.S. Held Cash Payment Until Iran Released Prisoners Wall Street Journal
Does this Change Everything? Russia’s first strikes on Syria from Iran Airbases Juan Cole (resilc)
US-Made Patriot Missiles Shoot Down Houthi Rockets Defense One (resilc)
Present at the Creation Foreign Policy. Of ISIS.
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Hackers Use Google’s Ad Network To Spread “Fake Login” Malware Fast Company (Chuck L)
NPR Host Demands That Assange Do Something Its Own Reporters Are Told Never to Do Intercept (resilc)
Imperial Collapse Watch
The World’s 25 Largest Defense Budgets Big Picture (resilc)
End the First-Use Policy for Nuclear Weapons New York Times
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
State Dept. to release all of Clinton’s deleted emails The Hill (furzy). But timing up in the air.
Clinton Foundation hired cyber firm after suspected hacking: sources Reuters (resilc)
2016
Clinton’s Powerful, Unreliable Coalition Bloomberg (resilc)
Yes, Clinton Is a Hawk, and It’s Silly to Deny It American Conservative (resilc)
Trump before classified briefing: I don’t trust US intel The Hill
Hillary Clinton Reacts to Trump Campaign Shake-Up Daily Beast. Resilc: “We have been “reintroduced” to Clintoon, what 12 times?”
NBC chairman blasts Donald Trump in private Facebook post Boston Globe
Networks brace for decision on Trump-Clinton debate refs The Hill (furzy)
Trump shakes up team in move back to freewheeling campaign Financial Times
Donald Trump hires boss of rightwing website Breitbart Stephen Bannon to boost campaign International Business Times. Less attention is being given to the elevation of Kellyanne Conway. I’m told a top MSM reporter that she;s very solid and has concluded that if Trump can drive Clinton’s negative ratings as high as his, he wins. But that’s a tall order as of now.
The Daily 202: What Trump’s latest shakeup says about his flailing campaign Washington Post
Trump the Crisis Actor: A Conspiracy to End All Conspiracy Theories AntiMedia (Chuck L). Better than the title.
The Unstable Economics in Obama’s Health Law Wall Street Journal. Blames government for the defects in a law written by health insurance industry lobbyists. Help me.
Aetna to Feds: Give Us Our Merger or Obamacare Gets It New York Magazine. If a big company had tried a stunt like this 30 or more years ago, the Administration and the media would have come down like a ton of bricks on them. And that’s before you get to the fact that Aetna, which almost certainly is making out well on the Medicaid expansion part of Obamacare, is explicitly denying needed coverage to patients in the name of profits on one part of Obamacare, while conveniently diverting focus from a more complete accounting.
Maybe U.S. police aren’t militarized enough. Here’s what police can learn from soldiers Washington Post (furzy). Aiee. The police need to become a better occupying army, or so we are told.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane Resigns Following Her Conviction Wall Street Journal. Brian C: “The story is interesting enough, but note that the comments are largely about Hillary Clinton.”
Chill Judge Allegedly Lets Law Clerk Wear Robe, Hear Cases Gawker
SEC tells another company: Stop blocking whistleblowers MarketWatch
VW’s key plant hit by parts shortage in supplier row Reuters
Louisiana’s Sinking Coast Is a $100 Billion Nightmare for Big Oil Bloomberg
Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Say They’ll Ease the Burden of Child-Care Costs WSJ Economics
Guillotine Watch
The Top 20 CEOs With Even Bigger Golden Parachutes than Marissa Mayer’s Bloomberg
Aetna CEO Received $27.9M In Compensation In 2015 Hartford Courant (Bill C)
Class Warfare
Hillbillies Of France American Conservative (resilc)
A New Report Sheds Light on Profiteering by So-Called Debt-Relief Companies Nation
In Many Courtrooms, Bad Interpreters Can Mean Justice Denied Pew Research
The “Sharing” Economy is based on a Fissured Workplace progressive-economy (John B(
How Unions Help Cocktail Servers New York Times (furzy)
How America Grew — and Grew Unequal American Prospect (resilc)
Uber to fight TfL plans forcing drivers to take written English test Telegraph
Antidote du jour (Lulu):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
146 comments
Comments are closed.
RE: yet another WaPo hit piece on The Donald and his “flailing” campaign. Everything Trump does is framed as being evil, stupid, naive, discourteous, etc. If he had NOT changed his campaign workers there would have been a hit piece decrying his lack of flexibility. Yes, he will win by attacking Hill’s weak points, and there are many many.
i wonder what the wapost would have done had bernie pulled it off. bernie vs trump, the entire msm implodes.
Bernie was never going to win. No matter what. The scope breadth of the rigging was unprecedented in the history of US elections. They made Republican efforts look like schoolboy pranks. And when it was all over and they got caught in their own words, they even had their whores in the media claim what the media had previously vehemently denied was merely routine. Then their media turned on command and attacked their previous media darling, savagely beating him over his every utterance.
Sorry, voters, but the election’s been cancelled this year. We’ll tell you in November who won (but you already know.)
P.S. Did you see that little thing where Obama denied the elections were rigged? They really got their money’s worth out of him, didn’t they?
Yes Benny, I didn’t actually SEE Obama utter his absurdities (I can’t stand to look at any politicians anymore) (I can stand to look at The Donald, who is not a politician, but a reality tv star) but, yes, I heard his utterances. I believe that question was probably set up and rehearsed. An attempt to “nip in the bud” any talk about rigged elections.
Don’t give up, even if the ex-champion has gone and endorsed her.
Rare is the occasion when the Little People are given a 2nd chance to succeed, to beat rigging.
ah yes, the “discourteous and boorish” candidate line of attack. This is a time of realignment in US politics and parties. 4 years ago Kevin Phillips gave an interesting interview on Democracy Now about his new book “1775: A Good Year for Revolution”.
Part of what he said:
“What happened that set the United States in motion in the mid-1770s is still relevant in some ways, because what it showed was that you sometimes have to have a lot of very disagreeable politics to make progress, that you don’t get anywhere by having all kinds of nice slogans and by trying to barter every difference with a cliché and pretend that all’s well and the United States is in wonderful shape. The United States is not in wonderful shape, and it needs to get back some of that spunk that it had when people were willing to talk very bluntly about harsh and tough measures.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/28/former_gop_strategist_kevin_phillips_on
Hey! Clinton told me–criticism is bad! This country is already great!
Leary rolls in his grave…
That’s Reality-Politics when we do away with cliches and stop pretending.
To Fantasy League players, it’s politically incorrect and boorish to say what is.
Go ahead, exploit them, but no faux pas like ‘let them eat brioche,’ or ‘let’s make America great again.’
L’Autrichienne was indeed an utter disaster. But her infamous quip (“qu’on mange donc des brioches”) was perhaps the very least of her missteps since despite the scarcity of “des pains,” “des brioches” were readily available in the bakeries and their price was fixed at the same price per pound as that of ordinary bread.
Why does our anointed-landslide-winner worry about Trump’s flailing campaign?
The proper course of action for the Chosen One is to go to a spa for the next 3 months and rejuvenate herself.
The more the MSM criticizes him the more the WWC is going to vote for him.
People’s disgust, let me rephrase that, people likely to vote, at the MSM is so ingrained now that people do the opposite of what their editorial and fake news stories tell them to do.
Does anyone actually subscribe to newspapers for anything more than the want ads or New Yorkers doing the crosswords in the NYT?
re police not militarized enough.
we need to give them tactical nukes. oh and a way of assassinating prosecutors who actually prosecute them. maybe they could use obama’s guidelines.
Maybe the group should remember former NH governor Meldrum Thompson, who back in the hippy-nuking days of the ’70s actually wanted the Imperial military to give the NH national guard a nuclear weapon to deal with the Goddam Hippie Student Protesters, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/new-hampshire-is-a-fraud/2016/02/05/6960855e-cc21-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html
Predictably, police are not happy with predictive policing being used to predict abusive policing:
UChicago researchers use data to predict police misconduct [Chicago Tribune]
Irony died and its corpse is currently housed at Homan Square.
” The new approach also raises the complex issue of what to do once the system predicts an officer is likely to misbehave.”
“Complex.” “Misbehave.”
I’ll take better “training” for a thousand, Alex.
I wonder if we can use “data” to determine where “crimes” may occur and thus know where to put police to “deter” such conduct or to find “criminals”.
because we know that data would never FOLLOW THE MONEY…
I kept remembering something Michael Fertik had said to me at the Village Pub in Woodside. ‘The biggest lie,’ he said, ‘is “The Internet is about you.” We like to think of ourselves as people who have choice and taste and personalized content. But the Internet isn’t about us. It’s about the companies that dominate the data flows of the Internet.
Jon Ronson, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
Or an attorney general follow the money. Well, that’s not true. Eric Holder followed it all the way to that well paying gig he currently has.
“data flows on the internet” which has zero to do with the data set of police officers who have killed people. . nice try though.
law and order for everyone but the cops…
What is complex about the issue is that this writer is trying to use the term “misbehave”. We are not predicting misbehavior. We are predicting felonies. Once we understand that, all complexity disappears. You commit a felony. You are arrested. You go to trial. You go to jail. Period. Double standards never work. Ever.
Shockingly, the CPD’s predictive policing data mining (for civilians, not for themselves) is a self-fulfilling prophecy:
Chicago’s “Heat List” predicts arrests, doesn’t protect people or deter crime [Cathy O’Neil]
“…designed to determine if an officer is likely to engage in aggressive, improper conduct with a civilian. …”
Earth to Chicago Tribune: The police are *also* civillians. They are not a branch of the armed services. Deal with it.
I really dislike the distinction drawn between police and civilians. Police are civilian officers (as noted in Webster’s 2nd International). The pretense that they are non-civilian reinforces the tendency to militarization.
The thrust of imperialization, if you pay attention to the actions of the US High Command, is to obliterate the functional distinction between various local military establishments in those formerly sovereign nations being brought into “interoperability” with the Imperium. And the training up and arming of national police forces as a second order of business is to nail down the corners of the coffin.
“Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated….”
Re: Militarized Police
The irony is that, In the military, the cops have some of the worst discipline problems.
The poll showing Labour leading in the UK is from March…
True, but if you check the latest polls we see that for some reason, Labour has effected a 20 point turnaround in the past weeks! They have gone from roughly down by 13 to now being roughly up by 7. The only thing I can think of is that Tory voters are away on vacation in August and so only Labour voters are still in Britain answering the pollster’s phone calls?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
I’m not seeing Labour up over the Tories in any polling data there after 25-26 April.
When I refreshed the link it showed the Tories with a huge lead in the last three polls (which makes much more sense). I have no idea how that happened!
People that are drawn to the police profession tend to enjoy being “in control”, putting handcuffs on people, beating people, etc. Historically that’s been one of the reasons people go into the job.
It’s a known fact that serial killers are often cop wannabes who couldn’t quite make it onto a police force. Some worked as security guards. Many, like Edward Kemper of Santa Cruz, hang out at cop bars and make friends with cops.
IMHO, one reason more honorable people don’t become police is because of the stupidity of the laws they have to enforce (eg throwing a kid in prison for smoking a weed). Of course cops are not complete idiots and they quickly see the futility of the drug laws. Many if not most, if not all, become corrupt at least in regard to drugs. IMHO the reason for some of these seemingly senseless killings by the cops is they got screwed on some kind of a drug deal and are punishing the culprit.
This is why I we need conscription and reorganization for the police. Also, guns (many people don’t like guns even if they aren’t marching against the NRA), police pay (just get a real estate license or sell insurance), past experience with the police, and even uniforms and command structure are serious turn offs.
The police have a captured union. A few locals are okay, but for the most part, police unions are still useful as Richard Trumpka led unions.
That’s some amazing stereotyping you’ve got going on there.
My brothers became cops because it was a decent income and in their opinion it beat flipping burgers.
Needless to say there’s a lot of good cops too. But some are sadistic drug dealers.
Further to yesterday’s discussion about the ACA: Obamacare is not Doomed
The bullet points (I can’t call them “highlights”):
(1) insurers come and go
(2) the drawdowns may just be growing pains
(3) it’s a one-time pricing correction
(4) ways to make sure insurers’ revenues exceed their costs without increasing premiums (because that’s what’s really important, right? Not one word about improving access to care)
(5) let’s not overdramatize the Aetna pull-out: they’ll probably be back.
I’d expect more articles like this.
Trump says he’ll repeal and replace it. Hill says she’ll improve it.
This is one area where Trump’s business expertise might do some good. Hill has tried to point to her attempt at health care policy as first lady as somehow a positive, forgetting to mention that the entire operation was a massive failure and a waste of time and money.
As near as I can tell, Trump’s plan is a lot of the same old GOP ideas that don’t work (I really hate linking to his site, but that’s where the plan is):
(1) Eliminate the individual mandate (because you should only have insurance if you want it. I think this will guarantee that insurance pools will be filled with mostly sick people and premiums will be unaffordable)
(2) enable the sale of insurance across state lines. We know what’s wrong with this, don’t we? Companies get to sell crappy policies out of a state with little regulation and minimum mandates, so they don’t have to comply with the mandates in other states.
(3) Allow premiums to be fully deductible for income tax purposes. As in, not subject to the 7.5% limitation? He doesn’t say specifically. Wants the free market to rule, but also wants people to be able to have insurance even if they can’t afford it. How? We need to look at Medicaid. No discussion about states that abhor the poor and would rather they die than help them have affordable access to care.
(4) Health savings accounts, of course! But new and improved! Accumulate! Pass on to heirs at death!
(5) Price transparency, so we can all be better health care shoppers. Any specials on knee replacements? Can I get a free tummy tuck with my appendectomy?
(6) Block grant Medicaid. We know what a terrible idea this is, and what states end up doing – or not doing with the money. But you will be interested to know that “Nearly every state already offers benefits beyond what is required in the current Medicaid structure. The state governments know their people best and can manage the administration of Medicaid far better without federal overhead. States will have the incentives to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources.” Ugh, really?
(7) Access to imported drugs.
And bringing up the rear…if we can just get the illegals out, health care costs will be so much lower.
I don’t know – I read this and I’m not getting a sense that Trump’s business expertise will be much help in fixing what is wrong with the health system.
Thanks for this summary.
For-profit healthcare just seems fundamentally a bad idea to me.
Right, if the US had any brains we would go along with the entire 100% of the rest of the civilized world and have national health care. If not, then at least the Donald wants access to cheaper imported drugs.
Since most of “practicing” medicine seems to consist of prescribing one drug after another these days, cheaper drugs would seem to be a pretty significant deal.
Following your line of thought — I find it strange that medical doctors are given such all inclusive control over the choice of and prescription for drugs to treat various diseases. Who knows more about drugs — a medical doctor or a pharmacist? Once the doctor has made a diagnosis why do you require a doctor to monitor the drugs? Isn’t that a task that might be well handled by a nurse practitioner? If problems show up — then go back to the medical doctor.
Can routine monitoring be done by robots as well?
And human-worker-free pharmacies?
Jeremy Grimm
August 18, 2016 at 11:36 am
As someone who worked at FDA, as well as having had cancer and a heart attack, I once asked my Harvard trained cardiologist if he ever read the FDA mandated prescribing information (i.e., labeling) that accompanies every prescription drug. His answer was no – not ever.
Now, I certainly don’t believe the official self congratulatory BS and backslapping that FDA uses to describe how well they regulate – on the other hand, there is some good information in the labeling, some of it is objective and disinterested, and practically all the other information on drugs is essentially advertising by pharmaceutical companies. Most articles in “journals” are written by the doctors/PhD who conducted the study. Even if monetary considerations are not in play, than something maybe worse – “the true believer” bias may be in effect. (a belief in one’s own expertise that any positive effect must be so, and not an anomaly or a poorly designed/conducted study)
Not to mention the fact that FDA is prohibited by law in even considering cost benefit, as well as the criteria being for approval of a new drug “safe and effective” – – NOTE, NOTE, NOTE – not BETTER!!!!
So the idea that this physician pretty much believes adverse reactions are so improbable as not to be worth considering is eye opening.
My general practitioner proscribed Avandia for me (one of my reasons among many for doubting the usefulness and or integrity of the regulatory process) – for somebody who has had heart problems, an ironic choice indeed. I am on Metformin now, a drug well, well known as far as adverse side effects as well as the efficacy is far greater (it is the first line treatment), as well as being orders of magnitude cheaper than the brand name drug.
So why was I not prescribed Metformin to begin with? Most physicians get their drug knowledge from drug detail people (i.e., pharmaceutical salesmen). YES….people probably below the ethics of a used car salesmen tell doctors why they should prescribe the new and improved drug!!! Look it up – its true. And doctors believe them….except when they believe in some other drug….that they believe is better because a drug detail person convinced them of that 20 years ago.
And we wonder why our health care system seems not to work so well….
So the point of this rant is: Don’t trust your doctor too much – he doesn’t know everything, and he/she has economic incentives as well…
There is a website that tracks how much doctors are being paid by pharmaceutical corporations.
The doctors I checks (for myself, my brother and my mother) all have taken money from them. Maybe not millions, but hundreds or thousands.
The telling thing for me was hearing (hearsay evidence) that med school spent 6 months covering drugs — while a pharmacist spent 6 years studying drugs. Both are subject to Pharma capture but I still believe some human beings are capable of some empathy and can somehow manage to slip by the filters. If true — six years trumps (as in bridge) six months.
Bingo. Either the goal of healthcare is to provide a public service to humanity or the goal is to create a market from which profits are generated. You cannot have it both ways.
One thing I have noticed with Trump is he changes and will change…perhaps too often and too much.
But he is not 100% rigid.
This could be good or it could be bad…
For profit or non profit.
Not sure non profits (for example, charitable foundations) are necessarily better.
When non profit management pays themselves a lot, every year, the entity will show no profit.
Nice post. But I wanted to paste this link for its humor.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/epipen-price-hike-has-parents-kids-allergies-scrambling-ahead-school-n633071
I thought it was safe now they had cornered Shkreli!
I saw that article, too, and the first thing I thought of was Shkreli! Maybe there are Shkreli clones on the loose.
From the article:
Why isn’t this man the Democratic nominee for President?
Why isn’t this man the Democratic nominee for President
The Democrats as an entity do not care about this.
Democrats are no longer the party of the people and they can no longer be treated as the default or “go to” vote.
In 2009 Senate Democrats defeated the Dorgan amendment to allow drug re-importation, and House Democrats defined long-term patent rights and evergreening to postpone and prevent generic versions of biologic drugs.
If the Democrat in the WH has his way the TPP will make things worse, not only for the US but for countries that currently do provide controls on drug prices.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2016/august/tpp-and-pharmaceutical-regulation-in-canada-and-australia
Stein is still fighting. In vain you say?
If the Democrats are no longer the party of the people, it was still possible to be the nominee of the Green Party, before the Endorsement.
Or perhaps the Ds are still the party of the people, and only one road leads to Rome.
Or perhaps the Ds are not, but can be redeemed, saved or reformed.
Why?
Because Washington “elite” is bought and paid for.
Because former SOS HRC is terminally corrupt (read Bob Herbert’s piece from 15 years ago about the clinton’s here: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/26/opinion/in-america-cut-him-loose.html)
Because TPTB are terrified of the masses
Because we are not a democracy.
Because there is no end to the greed, corruption and duplicity of our leaders.
Because terminal capitalism run amok
Maybe the drug companies wouldn’t have to charge so much if they didn’t do so much advertising…watch a couple nightly network news broadcasts and marvel at how many drugs are on offer. Drugs for ED, incontinence, arthritis, atrial fibrillation, diabetic neuropathy, fibromyalgia, acid reflux, psoriasis, toenail fungus – it never ends!
(and yes, it’s clear the drug companies have identified the major demographic that watches the evening news is people over 50 – along with the drugs, there are the ads for adult diapers and denture cream).
In addition, Americans pay a lot more for drugs than people in other countries; this article is kind of an eye-opener.
I can’t help myself either — which ads do you find to be most obnoxious — Pharma ads or Political ads?
Thanks for your answers. My question was rhetorical, since the corruption of the Democratic party is well known. Also the Republicans and the billionaires who own both major parties.
yeah i knew it was rhetorical. i just couldn’t resist
Even so, your rhetorical question triggered some interesting comments. Thank you!
I think it’s interesting that they chose Medicaid instead of Medicare as their model.
I’m pretty sure the intent was to eventually pawn off the costs to the individual states……because deficits. The result was that states could opt out(and 25 did). Now we find the out the other result is now that the insurance companies can cherry pick where they want to operate based on profitability.
When all is said and done I wonder how many of those 25 states who opted for Medicaid expansion are going to be left with coverage(since apparently some of them are “unprofitable?” At what point will DC admit that they should have modeled on Medicare which essentially tells the for profit insurance agencies and hospitals, they don’t get to cherry pick either cover ALL Medicare recipients or you don’t get ANY Medicare money at all(those creating a pool and forcing the companies to decide to help serve the 10% market share or forfeit it entirely.)
Medicaid was definitely a bad model decision.
Definitely, all of the insurance companies must be required to cover anyone who applies or it won’t work.
Huh?
1. The health insurance is highly concentrated. That’s why the Cigna-Anthem merger is being blocked by the DoJ over anti-trust concerns. The new players set up on the state level under ObamaCare have almost without exception failed.
2. I have spoken to tons of people re ObamaCare. The proportion that are paying the penalties is shockingly high, and the ones who are buying it are not keen about it, even the people I’ve spoken to personally who have pre-existing conditions. They said it was a coin-toss as to whether the policy was worth it. Every time prices go up, it becomes less attractive and more people will rationally opt out, increasing the death spiral.
3. Since when is this a “one time pricing correction?” Quite a bit of inventiveness. Generally speaking the price increases have been well ahead of inflation. And insurers exiting means the players that remain can implement price increases and de facto increases (like narrowing networks further, particularly eliminating specialists who cover costly diseases) further.
4. Why should anyone assume Aetna will be back? The plans are not attractive to them plus a threat (re the merger with Humana) is a threat. You lose your cred if you relent on or reverse a threat. I live in NY state which tons of insurers have redlined over the years because we have a tough insurance commissioner. They’ve never come back after leaving.
In other words, this article is pretty desperate.
Dear Yves,
Be careful what you wish for!
A few years ago, before the ACA, our small company was offered a 40% reduction in our health insurance rate to switch to Aetna. So, of course we all went off to Google Aetna. What came up at the top of the search were numerous consent decrees. Apparently, Aetna’s modus operandi was to routinely deny claims, in the well-justified hope that some customers would not protest. They got nailed for this repeatedly.
So, one possible explanation of Aetna bailing from the ACA is that they are fundamentally incompetent; that they can only be profitable if they are allowed to operate as a scam. Under this theory, when it became clear that under the ACA they would not be allowed to play their usual games, they then head for the exit. This plausible incompetence would also explain their desperate need to merge with Humana! As a quasi-monopoly they might be able to make a profit in spite of themselves.
So, be careful what you wish for.
Clinton meeting with top law enforcement officials.
“Hillary Clinton is set to meet with law enforcement leaders, including the retiring New York City police commissioner who recently said Donald Trump’s candidacy scared him.
Clinton campaign aides says she will meet in New York Thursday with eight leading law enforcement leaders, including retiring commissioner Bill Bratton of New York and his successor, James O’Neill; Charles Beck of Los Angeles and Charles Ramsey, the former police chief in Philadelphia.”
Oh hooray! Finally… they must be going to arrest her!
With eight of them there, I feel sure they can take her.
Can I dare ask why the he77 people continue to use “compensation” as a descriptor, when yakking (“$29,7 million in compensation“)about the amount of money CEOs and other C-suite-ers take out of the corporate coffers to fund their lavish lifestyles?
It ain’t “compensation:” compensation is what workers get for their labor, what injured people get from the people who harm them (including people injured and sickened by the products and “services” that the C-suite-ers inject into the “stream of commerce” in full knowledge of the murderous stuff uncovered by tort lawyers and the few remaining pro-publica securities lawyers and the residual mopes in government regulatory agencies who don’t plan a nice second career or have not gotten the memos on their new marching orders. It’s corruption, pure and simple, denominated by captive “compensation committees” and the fauxery of “boards of directors.”
Yah, but it’s in the Style Manual and Literary DNA of the Major Media Players, and of course the lexicon of the corporate whores and shills, so no uprooting it.
Thank you for the opportunity to emit this complaint into feckless bitspace…
I agree JT, it is a tortuous stretch of the English language to call it that, along with the use of the word “entitlements” to describe a paid for right. I think of the term compensation as used describes a reward to the chief for being the too big to jail CEO that can provide cover for all the corruption going on underneath. I have no doubt that it can also be called hush money for what they know. Honor among thieves? Only if there’s more than enough to go around, and obviously there is. There is no other whitewash term for looting unfortunately
“U.S. government attorneys had not yet decided whether they think Russia’s use of the Iranian base is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231”
So true, to the USG it doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t, all they have to do is arbitrarily “think” it is and poof, it’s a violation.
What a benevolent and even handed hegemon.
And yet, the US uses secret (illegal) bases in Syria (to help Al Qaeda) and THAT’S perfectly legal?
In any case, the UN is irrelevant for everything since they collapsed before pathetic Saudi Arabia whining about being listed as a human rights abuser.
I used to have, at least moderate regard for the UN…But as you mention Praedor. they have made a pact with the Devil, in cowtowing to the despicable Saudi Government…….
UN = Global Careerists with disfunctional haloes……..
This is what happens when a country is run by rogue lawyers who view international law purely as a means for achieving a desired self-serving end.
With 0zero’s executive drone assassinations, the U.S. has entirely shredded any semblance of the rule of law. We’re down to the “hyenas scrapping over a bloody carcass” stage. And we’re the Big Hyena.
Eventually the Big Hyena gets old and weak, and then the other hyenas take it down and eat its rotting carcass…
Eventually the Big Hyena gets old and weak, and the other hyenas take it down and eat its rotting carcass…
It’s nature’s way, JT.
Or as ol’ Neil Young said … “Once you’re gone, you can never come back.”
Global empire don’t pay. It’s a collective cultural death wish.
Toner
“And so our concerns remain very vivid,” he added. “We’re trying to remain focused on … trying to get a cessation of hostilities back in place in Syria. And this doesn’t help it.”
The guy is a real poet of bs. Of course the US is quite likely deeply involved in the current ground assault on Aleppo.
Have you actually gone and read Resolution 2231? Page 100, in particular, which lays out the arms control regime for Iran post-“nuclear deal.”
Your link doesn’t seem to work for me. Why don’t you just tell us what it says.
The relevant text:
Doesn’t sound to me like it applies to the present case at all. If anything Iran is supplying a benefit to Russia, not the other way around. More FUD from our ever reliable State Department.
Yes, that part of the Resolution is clearly intended to control arms sales to Iran only through Security Council authorisation. It says nothing about third party countries transiting through Iran for their own military purposes. That is an entirely separate issue.
Anyone want to ask those US government attorneys what it matters?
No, I’m serious. I know it is yet another pravda on the potomac piece of propaganda about Russia. Still it is not going to lead to anything except that. And our much vaunted Press, if they were actually doing their job would make it clear how much this was bullshit by pointing out that what can be done about it is a decision for the UN, and that just as addressing any of Israel’s multiple and never ending abuses will never happen because permanent member of the Security Council the United States blocks it. Permanent Member of the Security Council Russia, along with other permanent member China, can tell the US to go pound sand and block any actions. But that is asking for them to one notice that this is yet more posing and war mongering on the part of people who should be hiding their heads in shame for not noticing that the US, which they supposedly do have some say in, has also been operating outside of the rules for awhile.
“Resolution 2231 calls for Iran to refrain from activity related to nuclear-capable missiles (“Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, …” wiki on resolution 2231
The RuAF is not involved in any such activity. They are bombing the unicorns the Obama administration keeps supporting.
I enjoyed the humor in this comment of Mark Toner’s, re the Russian bombing of ISIS:
“It’s not helpful because … it continues to complicate what is already a very dangerous situation…”
Hey, Hill, how’s that Libya thingy workin’ out for ya?
Here is Jill Stein’s CNN Town Hall in full (I assume Lambert will have more in Water Cooler): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF0g-dzU64Q
Thanks. I didn’t have time to watch it last night. Something to do tonight.
It will be interesting to see whether Ajamu Baraka admitted that he overstated his case that Bernie Sanders is a white supremacist, and he apologized, and declared that Sanders and his supporters are not white supremacists.
The Reuters piece on the Clinton Foundation hiring a cyber firm after suspected hacking attempts is a real peach. In it, the authors quickly pivot away from the Foundation (with nary a mention of its questionable activities) and to the supposed hackers — the nefarious Russians and/or proxies. However, the core proof of their guilt offered up by U.S. officials (and dutifully passed on without comment by Reuters stenographers) is laughably weak. Here’s the offending excerpt:
Get that? According to any analysis of hacking techniques you care to consult, spear phishing is a hacking technique used all over the world, all the time, by all kinds of hackers. Yet, in this case, because Russia supposedly used spear phishing in previous attacks (which is an unproven accusation all by itself) then any other hacking attempt using spear phishing must be by Russia or its proxies.
The laziness of this logic by unnamed U.S. officials is outdone only by the laziness of the Reuters’ staff in passing along this bogus bit of detective work without even a shred of skepticism. Nice work boys!
Another day, another expose of the sharing economy. Wake me when something actually happens.
light tap…pssst AS, just open one eye “Shares of GEO and CXW are crashing to multi-year lows after The Washington Post reports that The Justice Department says it will end the use of private prisons.” yeppppppppppie
I guess they didn’t pay their dues on time.
Re: Financial Times: Russia Ups the Ante
So, the Ukrainians attempt to infiltrate Crimea with the aim of committing terrorist acts, killing two Russians, and a few days later the entire episode is portrayed as a ploy by Putin to ease the sanctions. Predictably, the article quotes only Ukrainian sources and western ‘experts’. I enjoyed this quote from a Ms. Weinberger:
Russia is showing us a very overt and threatening 20 per cent but leaving 80 per cent of what they’re doing unclear.”
Exactly 80% of the Russian response is unknown?
She also cites ‘reports’ of large military convoys moving to the separatist areas. The source of those reports? No sources are given but let me guess the source is Kiev which has been trying to play the Russia invasion card for two years with no evidence.
Algazeera this morning:
This certainly fits into an early Fall timetable for Hillary (with General Allen standing alongside) to demonstrate her willingness to save us from the terrible Russian threat.
Business Insider, another globalist propaganda tool swears that Russia has amassed battalions of troops on the Ukraine border waiting to invade, but can show no satellite confirmation. The neocon propaganda is becoming so, so transparent.
I would’t call it a “global propagandist tool”. It’s a bog standard finance site with no geopolitical expertise passing on conventional wisdom….which in the US includes tons of distortions re what Russia did in Ukraine.
“Exactly 80% of the Russian response is unknown?”
Even if unexactly, how, if unknown, could they be quantitative? Must be one of Rummy’s “known unknowns.”
The largest obstacle to banks moving out of the UK is that they don’t want to move to different locations. There’s a definite plus from being in one place, as opposed in five different places. So it’s a bit of a coordination issue. But say if two or three large banks visibly announce a move to (say) Amsterdam, you’d get a stampede afterwards.
That said, there’s now quite a strong incentive for the non-UK banks to keep some of the jobs in London, because the drop in sterling made it >10% cheaper already. So I’d say that there wouldn’t be plans to move large IT operations etc. just yet – you’d struggle to get literally thousands of jobs at once where business knowledge is often as important (or more) as technical knowledge, and the cost basis would be higher/comparable too.
Granted almost everyone in Amsterdam speaks fine English but bankers from London are going to find living in Amsterdam like living in a quirky little village compared to what they are accustomed to. Paris is probably the only EU city that can go big city gravitas vs. big city gravitas head to head with London, but of course in Paris French fluency is almost completely obligatory.
That scale of move is not uncommon in the construction or oil/gas industry. Usually its the senior people and some with very specific technical skills who move while lower level staff are recruited locally. So I think this is bad news for low to mid level staff in London.
I doubt the banks will coordinate together for the simple reason that they will struggle to find that quantum of office space and staff in any one of the likely cities for a move. They will be in competition for prime locations and office space. Here in Dublin I’ve heard whispers that literally within days of the Brexit vote there were scouting groups from various banks having a look at available office space.
I’m not sure if the drop in sterling is an encouragement to stay – that 10% drop is an equivalent drop in profit if the profits are repatriated to the US or elsewhere.
My guess is that Dublin will be the big winner of the mid-sized cities trying to get a share. Primarily because the strategic decision will be made by senior managers who will usually have families and will want a move with the least disruption for them. Younger staff would I’m sure love Amsterdam or Vienna or Paris, but I suspect older staff in London will want an easy change of schools and no language issues. I’ve posted this before, but I know several people in the international relocation game and they say the prime reason so many US and other companies move to Ireland is not tax, but that senior staff feel its a safer, easier move for families (similar school set up, etc). Dublin is also perhaps the easiest of all for a commute to London. Also the legal/property set up is much more similar to a British/US model which makes things easier.
re profits – nope. While the profits may be expressed in sterling, the vast majority comes from USD/EUR/other ccy deals – it’s an export sector. The impact on sterling profits is up (we’re talking about non-UK banks here).
I agree on Dublin for the reasons you say, but that’s for say the trading desk people. For sales people Amsterdam (with a major airport with direct links to just about anywhere) makes much more sense. Same goes if you wanted to move lot of the middle-level jobs, because the job market in Amsterdam is much bigger than Dublin (say, if you want to recruit specialist Market/Credit risk people, you’ll struggle in both, but less in Amsterdam – especially if you’re trying to recruit 50 of them at the same time).
For BO/MO/IT etc. I still say I’d think a lot of it would stay in London, unless regulatory specified otherwise – I know a few banks that nearshore into Europe, and struggle a bit. Say in IT the technical knowledge they can get on the continent is often as good if not better, but the business knowledge tends to be weak to non-existent. I’d prefer an ok coder with lots of business understanding over a super-nerd with no idea about the business (and no interest in, which is often the case for people obsessed with technology) anytime.
File under class warfare for me:
‘Uber introduces self-driving cars’:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on
Money quote: ‘The goal: to replace Uber’s more than 1 million human drivers with robot drivers—as quickly as possible.’
Which should be brought up every time Uber tries to circumvent one law after another because they are providing flexible good jobs for people who need them….
I’m beginning to think that it isn’t Idiocracy that is coming true, but Gilliam’s Brazil.
robots are people too…… ;(
They do dream, you know.
Are robots a new entity like Corporate Persons?
More seriously — robots/AI may achieve a degree of consciousness. When should they be regarded as “people”? The recent movie “Automata” makes the interesting point that the robots/AI we create may be the next stage of evolution. If we succeed in making Earth uninhabitable for our kind they may remain among the evidence that intelligent carbon based life once existed on earth. [and No! I abhor the very concept of robot driven vehicles.]
How soon before robot entrepreneurs hit the scene, backed by robot venture capitalists? All it will take is one AI unit to intercept one EFT or Bitcoin transaction and start looking around for likely investments. I just pray that the robot CEO of the next Uber doesn’t decide to forgo human market opportunities altogether to focus on machine-to-machine products and services.
That’s a great idea! We already have robot traders. A new robot master might be able to modify their programs to use a modest amount of cash to crash the financial system.
Past robot traders in friendly hands succeeded at this — though incurring substantial losses for those friendly hands and their employers.
An astute nc commentator recently posited that self driving cars would become targets for mischief, both by pranksters and drivers who would take advantage of the autonomous vehicle predictability as well as (or due to) its inability to reason…idle hands are the devils workshop after all…
Does anyone truly believe that self driving cars will survive in NYC? The drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. will take advantage of every safety feature built into them and they will go nowhere.
And who gets sued when one of these auto-piloted cars zigs instead of zags and plows right into some little old lady crossing the street?
Surely not the semi-comatose occupant of the vehicle, eyes a-glaze as they struggle to hold their head upright during the dream-like voyage.
If not them, then who?
The programmer who wrote the code?
The technician who failed to install the latest update?
The anti-virus software that inadvertently conflicted with some crucial bit of safety protocol?
Luckily, their are already robot lawyers that could be easily be reprogrammed to handle cases such as this. And instead of a retrial in situations where the ruling is disputed, one will only need to shut down the robot and restart it to see if you can achieve a more favorable outcome. Just remember to keep this phrase handy: “Klaatu barada nikto.”
Yes. Absolutely. The pod will initially be blocked but easily re-programmed to move slowly through pedestrian blockages, but I have no idea how they will move through other vehicles until the govt grants them priority or makes them mandatory (which will have to happen soon). Could also consider divvying up the roads with the best maintained for SD and sideroads for those resisting adaptation/adoption.
But, yes, it will happen because it’s an opportunity to disemploy a large number of peasants, monetize transport (I can’t imagine that oligarchs are going to watch common activities like parents driving children to school and not monetize it) and parasitize wealth for a couple of oligarchs. Just think of the fees that can be imposed for interfering with a pod.
I’ll have my laser pointer ready.
Perhaps a better question — Does anyone truly believe that drivers, pedestrians and cyclists will survive self driving cars in NYC?
[Now — put the “self-driving” — into an 18 wheeler … or large delivery truck or van.]
Unless…if a self-driving car is never at fault when involved with a human driver.
Then, like studying science (if they have a scientific edge in getting a better bomb or a better job, you will not survive the Darwinian struggle. So must study! Forget curiosity and inquiring mind), you have to get a self-driving car as well.
You will be forced to get one…self-defense.
Boston Globe link: Error 503. Needs a fix.
The link worked earlier this morning. I love the error message, “503 Backend is unhealthy” New one to me.
Sounds like the database server needs a course of probiotics.
Or, just more fibre.
“503 Backend is unhealthy”
Message: get over your butthurt and vote for HRC.
As Frenchguy rightly pointed out, the British poll is old. The latest polls show Labour trailing by 11 and 12 points.
May’s numbers are, for now, excellent. She is the only UK politician with a net positive rating. She’s at +12, Corbyn -25, Cameron -27, Osborne -52. Of course Brexit means this could change quickly, but who would benefit is unclear.
The leader’s numbers aren”t dispositive in a Parliamentary system. Churchill was wildly popular at the end of WWII yet was turfed out because the public wanted a change from the Tories.
Churchill wasn’t ‘turfed out’ in the 1945 election. He retained his seat (none of the other parties stood against him).
Despite there having been a notional coalition government during the war the Tories had held power since the previous election in 1935, and were ‘turfed out’ as it seems to have been felt that despite Churchill’s brilliance as a war-leader Labour offered the best basis for a fairer post-war reconstruction.
Which confirms Yves’s point.
On the link “New Startup Aims to Commercialize a Brain Prosthetic to Improve Memory”.
I have both the digital and analog equivalent already. It’s called a smart phone. For things I want to remain secure and know that it isn’t hovering in some digital cloud that everywhere and nowhere it’s called a notepad and pen.
What a fabulous image to have chosen for the Antidote du Jour !!!
May there always be Narwhals !
Ted Rall:
You Did It! $75,000 Crowdfunding Effort Succeeds, LA Times Court Bond Filed
August 18, 2016
YOU DID IT!
746 people.
$75,390.
Thanks to you, we beat back the Times’ despicable attempt to deny me a chance to prove my case in court.
Thanks for the link. Didn’t know about this. wow.
Way to go Ted funders !!
hope he sues the zoot-suit off the LA Times!
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-18/the-u-s-recovery-is-not-what-it-seems
If we focus on jobs, the U.S. looks worse. The fraction of those aged 25 to 54 with a job was about 2.5 percentage points lower in 2015 than in 2007. This shortfall is roughly the same as in the euro area. In the U.K. and Japan, though, the prime-aged employment-to-population ratio already exceeds its 2007 level — by about one and two percentage points, respectively. In Japan, the level is about five percentage points higher than in the U.S.
==============================
My first reaction to the article is: Duh.
I guess I should be grateful that SOMEONE associated with the FED religion at least acknowledge there are criteria other than GDP growth that mean something. Maybe in a century or two, we can make the economic soothsayers understand that if 99% of GDP growth goes to the 1%, than there is going to be a demand problem.
GDP is measured in money, in currency.
The money can be this: If you are kind to a person, you get a slip of paper that entitled you to an act of kindness from another person.
“Hey, I have 5 units of kindness money. What I can buy?”
From there, we can calculate a corresponding GDP.
…and credentialed experts will conduct the studies and compile the lists of relative values of various acts of kindness…
Is a BJ on an old man worth more than delivery of a meal on wheels? Enquiring minds want to know…
if Trump can drive Clinton’s negative ratings as high as his, he wins. But that’s a tall order as of now.
ever since Bernie dropped out we have not heard anything about making life better for the 99%.
Hey, it’s still summer. And remember October 2011? That’s when the Occupy movement got started.
Watch the 99% return with a vengeance!
Offense vs. defense.
Right now, at the nadir, we work on not making life worse for the 99%.
Defense now, and we hope to go on offense.
Stopping the TPP is our defense.
“Trump Crisis Actor” is definitely better than its title. Given the bizarre twist of the news both MSM and alternative it’s becoming difficult not to reach for a tin hat.
A dark and massive creature lurks in the depths — and now the Kracken wakes?
More than 11 dimensional perhaps.
That could throw off all the math around string theory!
The Most Venomous Comments on Trump’s New Campaign Chief Are Coming From the Right
By Ed Kilgore
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/bannon-hiring-draws-venomous-comments-from-conservatives.html
“And more succinctly, here’s conservative talk-radio host Charlie Sykes:
Trump’s campaign has now entered the hospice phase. He knows it’s dying and he wants to surround himself with his loved ones.”
You know those horror movies, where, after a terrifying encounter with a serial killer, it appears the movie’s main character/intended victim has at last vanquished him/her – except you just know the killer isn’t really dead, and he/she will have one more chance to kill?
Yeah, that’s what I think about when I see all these “Trump is all-but-dead” predictions. That and the fact that there is still a lot of campaign left, lots of time for new scandals and damaging information – plus we have debates where, Trump – who never seems particularly constrained – will be operating in all-bets-are-off, I-have-nothing-to-lose mode and could potentially land some hard blows to the Clinton effort.
There isn’t enough popcorn for what’s coming…
If Donald the Trumpe-l’oeil wanted to win (yes, I know that’s a monumental counterfactual) there’s a winning debate tactic wide open to him. For the media, “boycotting the debate that’s the last thing anybody wants.” Just denounce the “Commission on Presidential Debates” as what it is–a tool of the Bipartisan Party-Media Establishment to rig the elections–and insist on the presence of all FOUR nationally-qualified candidates. If the Clinton refuses he can devastatingly portray her as terrified of debating. If she doesn’t she finds herself caught in a three way crossfire that might very well reduce her vote below the hard-core Trumpians. A win-win tactic that only a dedicated Loser would pass up!
NY Magazine has been attacking Trump since the 1980s. Not making that up. He was the tacky local rich guy they pilloried to make the new rich like Henry Kravis of KKR who were buying board seats at the city’s top institutions, like the Metropolitan Museum, look good by comparison.
Trump has to climb out of his current hole. Not clear he can do that. But he has been hoarding his ad spend $ and will presumably start deploying that after Labor Day.
Big news:
This policy change is for federal prisons. State prisons constitute the lion’s share of the Gulag. CCA’s lobbyists already are fanning out through the corridors of state capitols as we speak.
But states tend to follow the lead of Big Daddy in Washington. So perhaps some reductions in state private prisons can be expected too.
WaPoo’s just campaigning for their Party. “Plans” = sweet nothings.
But will Immigration and Customs drop using private prisons, too?
If not, all hat and no chattel.
From Now On You’ll Be Able to Access NASA Research for Free
Until Getty Images sells it to you.
Shorter Stavridis in Time Magazine:
“Russia must go back to helping the US achieve its foreign policy objectives while the US continues to eliminate all vestiges of Russian influence wherever it can find them.”
From the headline I thought it might be about the US and Russia making a peace treaty. He lists Putin’s objectives, then ignores them, and says the US needs to continue economic sanctions and make new military deployments in Europe and the Baltic and Black Seas. What is the conflict actually about?
We have anti-trust regulators in this country? Where are they? Have they been removed to a basement in DC somewhere? If these creatures do exist they should be held with their feet to the fire for collecting a paycheck while performing no tasks whatsoever for decades now.
o U.S. senator expresses concern about ag tech mergers | Reuters — Translation: “Dear Ag-Tech: please help incentivize away my concerns.”
Scientists say they have found a ‘fifth force of nature’
The Force of Trump or the Foundation of Clinton?