Buyer's Remorse?

Well... all those sub-GED shitkickers are about to get a barge pole up their butt (partial paywalled). They'll likely follow Garfield 2.0's command and blame Sleepy Joe for the betrayal. Or may be not so much. May be they'll figure out they were duped.

Agricultural producers could face worse losses than any other economic sector from Trump's plans to impose sweeping tariffs on imports and to undertake what he frequently has called "the largest domestic deportation operation" of undocumented immigrants "in American history." Hospitals and other health providers in rural areas could face the greatest strain from proposals Trump has embraced to slash spending on Medicaid, which provides coverage to a greater share of adults in smaller communities than in large metropolitan areas. And small-town public schools would likely be destabilized even more than urban school districts if Trump succeeds in his pledge to expand "school choice" by providing parents with vouchers to send their kids to private schools.

Once again, the Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnuts seek to govern not on real policy 'for the people', but culture war. "I didn't get no big city woke book larnin, and I'll be damned if my kids know more than I do. Book larnin never did me no good, anyway and it'll just turn my kids agin me and mine. Schools that just teach the larnin of the Bible, now that'd be good." How much of modern economy came from the shitkickers? Less than zero. Fun fact: bin Laden ran 9/11 with satellite phones. Ya need the modernest tech to take The People back to the 7th century. Or the 1st. Ya should only live as long as God says you should. We don't need no hospitals. And so forth.

Now, the question is: is Brownstein right? Will the MAGAnauts feel the harsh lash of the whip? Likely not. If for no other reason that Garfield 2.0 and his cabal will make sure that the negative impact of these various decisions don't happen in Red Counties. The tariff scam being first among many. Garfield 2.0 can exempt industries/companies as he wishes, and he will. Last time he gave away on the order of $60 billion to his beloved farmers to offset the tariffs. I don't think he's forgotten that bit. Will he and his worry about being shamed by the obvious fact that he'll be targeting Blue states? Not a bit; that's the point. Will the Blue states rise up and throw the bastards out in '26? One can only hope.

On the whole, the whole point of this retribution is to make the Blue States pay for opposing him. There's no reason to doubt he's had second thoughts. Or any thought at all, of course. Reptiles have such meager brains.

Thought For The Day - 11 December 2024

Well... further proof that the USofA would be better off if it had had an FBI director with stones swinging in his BVDs rather than cotton candy.

Two For The Show

Once again, a two-fer from the NYT. First, how the Brits are facing The Greatest Threat, although not due, according to the report, nefarious action by the Damn Gummint. In sum: without accurate data, government administration turns into: 'it is just my opinion that counts'.

An essential ingredient in economic policymaking, from interest rates to government spending, is reliable data. But government officials, economists and other number crunchers in Britain are expressing deepening concern over a long-running issue with a data set used to understand a crucial area: the country's jobs market.

Well... no shit, Sherlock. At least the Brits are taking the situation seriously, rather than creating the mess on purpose to just destroy governance. Not the same as Garfield 2.0's clear intent.

And, second, we have more support for the private sector taking climate change seriously. After all, climate change is affecting profit, that All American Ideal.

Historically, officials at Fannie and Freddie have banked on their mortgage portfolio's being diversified across so many markets that even when delinquencies and defaults spike after disasters, they wouldn't cause significant losses.

What was the mantra leading up to The Great Recession, fueled by ARMS and CDS via Blythe Masters? Oh yeah, the whole country can't go into housing collapse. How did that assumption work out?

"We cannot change the fact that in Florida we have hurricanes, so we shouldn't be penalized for it," Mr. Diaz said, noting that high insurance costs were already pushing prospective buyers to less popular submarkets. œ"This is why we have the federal government."

Ah, now the MAGAnaut ox is being gored. "Uncle Sugar has to rescue us!!!"

I Have it on Good Authority

Way back in the dark ages, I spent some years working for Optimed Medical Systems, which purveyed a medical prior authorization system written in Progress (not at all relational) database and language suite. This was the early 1990s. The point being, of course, that computerized PA moats have been around for decades. In fact, the OMS software was sorta, kinda an implementation of the Milliman & Robertson books in use for some time. The only thing that's really changed today is that the Medical Industrial Complex has leveraged lots more compute and data than was available 30 years ago. And things are so much better now for the unhealthy.

In 1998 (using 1996 data), this is what the Annals of Surgery thought of M&R Guidelines

Many of the M&R guidelines were found to be at wide variance from the actual length of stay of patients treated for these diseases in North Carolina. For many patients, the M&R guidelines are not applicable. Applying them in an uninformed way--in other words, discharging patients from the hospital too early--may hurt some patients.

Yeah, patients are so much better off with PA moats. "Stop cutting!! The gas passer's time is up!" The Medical Industrial Complex now has a smorgasbord of choice for denying healthcare.

Thought For The Day - 6 December 2024

Yeah, I guess it's true that Bidenomics is a complete failure.

US job growth surged in November, adding 227,000 jobs

Of course, Garfield 2.0 will fuck it up. And place the blame on Sleepy Joe. Remember what I've said about The Greatest Threat? Garfield 2.0 will order BLS/Census to 'revise' down, steeply, the employment data for 2024 (at least). And order same to only produce rosy data while he's still around. I guarantee it. The Gang of Six^© has said he can order anyone in the Damn Gummint to do what he says.

Judges Make Law

The Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnuts continually bleat that judges, liberals and progressives, are always 'making law' that should be done by legislatures, preferably in Red States. So now we have transgender status before the The Gang of Six^©. And, as one might expect from the righteous and God fearing, Roberts et al claim no jurisdiction.

We might think that we can do just as good a job with respect to the evidence here as Tennessee or anybody else, but my understanding is that the Constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor.
-- Roberts

As if hillybilly part-time legislators in those wonderful Red States are? There are 10 states with full-time legislatures, and only one might be sort of Red, Ohio. The rest just show up every now and again after walking behind their mule plow. Since when does being a politician make one expert on each and every technical nuance of human life? Well, the Garfield 2.0 and his mob consider themselves to be such experts. Better than the actually trained and experienced ones on Earth One. Damn Deep State educated elites. "Ever ting I no or need to no I gots from ma Bible!1"

So, how many qualified physicians are there in DC? Enquiring minds need to know. According to the wiki page, only 3 could possibly be qualified to be 'expert' on the nuance of childhood transgender issues. That's it.

[Y]ou could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.
-- Hillary Clinton/2016

Damn right.

JAMA actually did the count at the state level, for 2022: 86 of 7552. We don't know how many of them are just country sawbones fixing gunshot wounds.

Past is Prologue - part the second

For those who haven't read American history for a while, if ever, here's a taste of what we can expect from Garfield 2.0 and the Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnuts. Enjoy.

Williams founded the first place in modern history where citizenship and religion were separate, providing religious liberty and separation of church and state. This was combined with the principle of majoritarian democracy.

The Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnuts will put a stop to that.

The Greatest Threat - part the fifth

Today's reporting shows another example of what Science and Smarts we'll likely lose on 20 Jan. It's a report on NOAA's efforts to map the ocean's degree of warming from climate change. It is a full page, "with 8-by-ten10 glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back" story. Herewith the punch line:

A decade ago, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific shot up to 11 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than normal. A high pressure system parked over the ocean, and winds that churn cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths to the surface died down. Stagnant, warm water spread across the Northeast Pacific, in a marine heat wave that lasted for three years.

Under the surface, the food web broke down and ecosystems convulsed, at first unseen to humans on shore. But soon, clues washed up.

You can bet your sweet bippy that such a report will never again leave NOAA, if it even still exists.