;)
The Commentariat -- March 26, 2015
Internal links removed.
Rod Nordland & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "American warplanes began airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Tikrit late Wednesday, finally joining a stalled offensive to retake the Iraqi city as American officials sought to seize the initiative from Iran, which had taken a major role in directing the operation.The decision to directly aid the offensive was made by President Obama on Wednesday, American officials said, and represented a significant shift in the Iraqi campaign."
John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "After two weeks of backroom negotiations with fiscal conservatives and defense hawks, the House approved a spending blueprint that would balance the budget in a decade, transform Medicare and Medicaid, prevent tax increases and repeal Obamacare.... The Senate is slated to vote on its budget Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday morning, after an hours-long 'vote-a-rama' to consider amendments." CW: All this is meaningless, but WTF? House members got a chance to repeal the ACA again (even as most of them get their insurance through it.)
For some odd reason, Charles Pierce sees the dead hand of Lee Atwater in Republicans' holding up Loretta Lynch's confirmation vote. Also, too, the lady opinionators of the Washington Post are dolts.
Maya Rhodan of Time: "Companies that provide special treatment for a large percentage of their injured workers should do the same for pregnant women, the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of former UPS employee Peggy Young, who challenged a company policy that did not allow her to take on lighter duties during her pregnancy, even though the company provided alternative work to some employees with injuries or other circumstances that prevented them from doing their regular jobs." The decision, written by Justice Breyer, is here. Justice Alito wrote a separate concurrence. Justices Scalia, Kennedy & Thomas dissented.
Rick Hasen, writing in ScotusBlog, says it might be consequential (Justice Scalia called the decision "a sweeping holding that will have profound implications for the constitutional ideal of one person, one vote, for the future of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and for the primacy of the State in managing its own elections"), or it might not mean much.
Jonathan Chait has a brief e-mail conversation with Larry Tribe regarding his sellout to advocacy for the coal industry. Chait pretty much whacks Tribe.
Presidential Race
Obama & Clinton, this week.Julie Pace & Ken Thomas of the AP: "Rather than keeping him at arm's length, Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing President Barack Obama -- sometimes even literally. Clinton had been expected to look for some ways to separate herself from the president to avoid the impression that having her in the White House would amount to a third Obama term. But as she prepares for another presidential campaign, Clinton has aligned herself with Obama far more often than not."
AP: Jeb "Bush was an aggressive chief executive throughout his tenure as Florida governor, pushing the limits of executive authority, bristling at legislative oversight and willing to work around the courts.... But as Bush draws closer to launching his campaign for president in 2016, he's aggressively criticizing President Barack Obama's own use of executive power, accusing him of 'trampling on the Constitution.'" ...
Pick the smarter brother.... Alexandra Jaffe of CNN: "Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's fundraising swing through Texas this week will be a family affair. Both former Bush presidents will reportedly attend fundraising events for the expected presidential hopeful in Jeb Bush's home state. According to The Dallas Morning News, George W. Bush and his wife Laura will both attend a Wednesday evening reception at the home of wealthy Dallas Banker Gerald Ford. Donors have reportedly been asked to contribute $100,000 per couple for the event...."
In an Effort to Make Himself Seem Presidential, Chris Christie Joins Immigrant-Suppression Suit. of the Elise Foley of the Huffington Post: "After months of staying out of the legal battle over the president's executive actions on immigration, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) finally -- but quietly -- waded in this week. Christie joined Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota in filing a brief on Monday that asked an appeals court to maintain an injunction that has prevented the Obama administration from moving forward with deportation relief programs it proposed in November 2014." CW: This should make Chris even less popular in New Jersey, which has a large immigrant population. ...
... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's political action committee on Wednesday hired a digital firm in the latest sign of the Republican's likely presidential run." Because Christie is so presidenty.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post does a lovely job on Ted Cruz's anti-science views on climate change, including his claim that Galileo Galilei had a conflict with "flat-earthers." (I just ignored this the other day & referred to Galileo's geocentric opponents, I think, but I should have pointed out -- as Bump does -- that Cruz, who somehow sees himself as a modern-day Galileo, was confused about Galileo's work, too.) Bump's piece is a pretty good read.
Ian Hanchett of Breitbart "News": "Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that he would not take a subsidy for Obamacare on Tuesday's' Mark Levin Show.'... He ... accused CNN of playing 'gotcha' over him complying with the law." ...
... Update. Jonathan Topaz of Politico: "Ted Cruz hasn’t made a final decision on whether he will sign up for Obamacare but will make up his mind 'in the coming days,' a spokesman said Wednesday." CW: He has to decide whether he can best continue to demagogue the ACA from within or without. Such are the dilemmas of a principled man. ...
... James Downie of the Washington Post: "With [Ted] Cruz' wife, Heidi, stepping away temporarily from her job at Goldman Sachs, the Cruz family has to get its insurance somewhere, and the Texas senator has decided that 'somewhere' is HealthCare.gov." Other insurance options are available to him. Cruz "thinks that Obamacare ... is such an existential threat to the United States and its health-care system that it was worth shutting down the government in an attempt to undermine the law. But suddenly the law and the health system it created is not scary enough for his family? If Cruz really wants to run as the candidate of righteous convictions, he'll have to do a better job of following his own." ...
... CW: Does this even make sense? The difference in cost between a policy obtained thru the ACA (without the subsidy for members of Congress) & private insurance, including one via Heidi's COBRA benefit, should not be all that great. If there is a great difference, then ObamaCare is obviously terrific, & Ted is making a tacit admission that, even without the subsidy, obtaining insurance thru the ACA exchange is a sweet deal.
Senate Race?
Vicki Needham of the Hill: "Liberal groups are threatening to back a primary challenge to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a key member of the Senate Finance Committee, in 2016 if he helps Obama secure a new trade pact that would stretch from the Asia-Pacific to Latin America. Activists have protested for months at Wyden's home in Portland and his offices in Oregon and Washington, D.C., demanding that the senator oppose the 'fast track' authority that the White House says is essential for a deal."
Beyond the Beltway
Anita Chabira of the Guardian: "California’s attorney general will go to court to stop a controversial proposed ballot initiative that calls for the legalized execution of gay people.... Kamala Harris, who recently announced her bid to succeed Barbara Boxer as US senator, had earlier appeared powerless to stop the Sodomite Suppression Act, a ballot initiative filed last week by Huntington Beach lawyer Matt McLaughlin. "Controversial," Anita? This is journo-hack beyond the pale. Get out your dictionary & find a better adjective. "Heinous" or "appalling" would do.
John Hanna of the AP: "Kansas is poised to join a handful of other states that allow their residents to carry concealed firearms without a permit after the Legislature gave final approval Wednesday to a bill backed by the National Rifle Association. The measure was headed to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Brownback's office didn't say what his plans are, but he's signed every other major gun-rights measure sent to him since taking office in January 2011."
AP (March 16): "While the Keystone project awaits a final decision..., almost every week ... lesser-known developments ... have quietly added more than 11,600 miles of pipeline to the nation's domestic oil network. Overall, the network has increased by almost a quarter in the last decade. And the work dwarfs Keystone. About 3.3 million barrels per day of capacity have been added since 2012 alone -- five times more oil than the Canada-to-Texas Keystone line could carry if it's ever built.... During the long wait for Keystone, the petroleum industry has pushed relentlessly everywhere else to get oil to market more efficiently, and its adversaries have been unable to stop other major pipelines."
Jack Jenkins of Think Progress: The Disciples of Christ, "A Christian denomination with historic ties to Indiana, is threatening to boycott the Hoosier state if the governor approves an exclusionary 'religious liberty' bill, the latest in a growing wave of criticism over legislation that could be used to discriminate against LGBT people."
News Ledes
Reuters: "Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi left his refuge in Aden for Saudi Arabia on Thursday as Houthi rebels battled with his forces on the outskirts of the southern port city."
CBS News: "A National Guardsman arrested for supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, had allegedly planned an attack on a military post in Illinois, the Justice Department said Thursday. Army National Guard Spc. Hasan Edmonds, 22, was arrested at Chicago Midway International Airport Wednesday night while he was attempting to fly to Cairo to allegedly join ISIS, the department said in a statement."
Guardian: "The UK supreme court has cleared the way for the publication of secret letters written by Prince Charles to British government ministers, declaring that an attempt by the state to keep them concealed was unlawful. The verdict -- the culmination of a 10-year legal fight by the Guardian -- is a significant blow for the government, which has been battling to protect the Prince of Wales from scrutiny over his 'particularly frank' interventions on public policy."
Washington Post: "Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes early Thursday in neighboring Yemen, heading a coalition of Arab nations in an effort to dislodge Houthi rebels sweeping through that country. The strikes were a startling turn of events that came as the Houthis, in control of Yemen's capital for months, barreled south toward the coastal city of Aden, seizing an air base along the way that was evacuated by U.S. Special Operations forces last week." ...
... New York Times UPDATE: "Egypt said Thursday that it was prepared to send troops into Yemen as part of a Saudi-led campaign to drive back the Iranian-backed Houthi advance, signaling the growing likelihood of a protracted ground war on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula."
New York Times: "As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a [Germanwings] jet with 150 people on board crashed amid a relatively clear sky, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane's descent and was unable to get back in." ...
... ** UPDATE: "The co-pilot of Germanwings flight 9525 deliberately crashed the aircraft, French officials said Thursday, pointing to voice recorder evidence that he had locked the captain out of the cockpit, ignored his pleas for re-entry and steered down into the French Alps as passengers were heard screaming. The assertions instantly changed the nature of the Tuesday crash, which obliterated the Airbus A320 and killed all 150 aboard, into a wide-ranging criminal investigation that focused on the co-pilot, a 28-year-old German with no obvious reason to commit mass murder, who had been hired less than two years ago." ...
... The Guardian's live updates are here.
... Washington Post: "A mother and daughter from Prince William County were among three Americans who perished when an Airbus jet plunged into a frozen ridge in the French Alps this week, officials said Wednesday. Yvonne Selke, a longtime government contractor, and Emily Selke, a recent graduate of Drexel University, died Tuesday along with 148 others on the Germanwings flight...."
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Reader Comments (20)
Re: What will remain?
It's bad enough that the Confederates and their minions have been doing their best to reverse all social progress that has occurred over the last century, proposing apocalyptic scenarios if we don't follow them down their own damp, dank ideological tunnels. Leaving a better world for their children seems to equate a world of exponential inequalities, extraordinary individualism and extreme segregations.
There is one traditionally bipartisan issue, that confederates and progressives both equally enjoy (although likely for different reasons), that could truly leave a decent world to future generations: US National Parks. Nature is a rare unifying factor that is enjoyed by all the spectrum of the population. Sure, the deep divide between preservation and conservation is not insignificant, but having the National Parks around and well-maintained gives our over-worked population a much needed break from the daily grind and a wonderful location for the "stayvacations" of the large part of the population that can't snatch up some plane tickets and head to Paris or even New York.
And yet, among the watery slush fund that our spineless elected officials make deals on, our National Parks have achieved a spectacular funding deficit, and proposals to privatize and outsource are rearing their ugly heads more and more. While adding new protected lands, lawmakers are slashing funding and neglecting the ones already established that are the envy of nature-lovers across the world. Maybe we could have the Kochs buy up Yosemite, then close it down to the public on a whim because he wants to bring his bought and paid for GOPers on a bonding camping trip. They can tell scary stories of treehuggers and commies huddled together in a rotted out Sequoia tree.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/national-parks-underfunded-billions
I had to read Chabira's piece on "the controversial" Sodomite Suppression Act twice. I still can't get my mind around this–-especially the fact that a judge––any judge would let this thing stand? This is not just outrageous, it's evil! Why hasn't this McLaughlin been excoriated––why is this even being discussed as if this could possibly be implemented? Controversial???? Dick Durbin's "back of the bus" is controversial, NOT THIS.
Bravo for Bump for taking apart point by point Cruz's "happy talk." I'm becoming more and more puzzled by Ted––we were led to believe that he was one smart cookie, but from what he's been dishing out lately I'm not so sure about that. He can't possibly think no one is going to find fault in his faulty rhetoric, can he? If he's alienated many in the Republican party, even those that drink the tea, who or what is his base?
Given that CW linked a piece about Kansas's approaching expansion of their gun laws (in favor of gun toters, of course), I would like to pass along a marvelous stand up routine by Australian comedian Jim Jeffries. It is 15 minutes of hilarious but pointed zingers targeting the irrational beliefs of America's gun fanatics.
Intellectual Dishonesty.
The current face of Intellectual Dishonesty in American political life is Ted Cruz, but choose any number of Republicans in the congress and you'd do just fine.
I've been doing some reading on the history of demagoguery and if you guessed that we are in a golden age of demagoguery not seen since Alcibiades was exhorting fellow Athenians into a costly and stupid war, based on lies (sound familiar?) that put Athens on its heels for generations, you'd be right on the money.
And intellectual dishonesty goes slime in hand with demagoguery. Cruz comparing himself to Galileo is some kind of high water mark for hypocrisy and historical ignorance. Aside from the reasons already mentioned in the Bump article linked above, Galileo was a scientist who dealt in facts and who adhered assiduously to the scientific method. Cruz detests science and scientists, like most wingnut true believers. I recall once reading Rush Limbaugh's "proof" for the phoniness of global warming: the people making the claim in favor of its recognition as a problem, scientists, academics, and liberals. There! QED. None of these people can be trusted, ergo, whatever they say is a lie. Let's not even get into how many logical fallacies are contained in that fat head.
But Cruz is of that same ilk.
Not to mention the fact that, as Bump reminds us, there were no flat-earthers in Galileo's day (in fact, scientists in ancient Egypt figured out the circumference of the Earth to within an astonishingly close figure, and that was several thousand years before the birth of Christ, so the flat-earth crowd was never very solid). Besides, that wasn't even the problem that put him on the wrong side of the Vatican. His work was challenging the authority of the Church and that could never be allowed (even though a substantial number of Christian scientists and even some prelates at the Vatican, essentially agreed with Galileo's findings). Were Cruz around during the trials of Galileo, does anyone believe that he would have sided with science over religion? He'd be first in line at St. Peter's with a torch and a pitchfork.
So much for Galileo Cruz.
But to answer PD's question about what he (Cruz) could be thinking when he lays out his smorgasbord of the irrational, I don't believe he really cares if he gets called on his lies and subterfuges. His base takes any attack on him as a sign that he must be right, a bit like Limbaugh (and many of his ditto heads) deciding that they are right because they don't like the people telling a different story, regardless of the facts.
Then there is the possibility that Cruz truly is delusional. Marie is not far off when she says that this guy looks insane. He does. Or he may simply be intellectually dishonest (I say "may be" just for form's sake--if he really is nuts he's probably not truly dishonest)--in reading a list of signs for detecting intellectual dishonesty, the first tip is anyone who claims to be the "messenger of truth", the one who will tell you the truth everyone else is trying to hide from you. The title of Cruz's new autohagiography? "A Time for Truth".
Had he gone another path, Cruz may have become a Jim Jones. But I still think he's a huckster. He talks down to people, he gives off the air that he thinks he's above all those nasty little people he's courting.
So intellectual dishonesty, crippling narcissism, overbearing arrogance, and outsized ambition. That's Cruz.
Intellectual Dishonesty and Demagoguery
Thanks to Safari for reminding us of the immense collateral damage Republican demagoguery is creating. And both sides me no both sides. I don't care if you can come up with a list of Democrats who vote with big energy, coal, gas, oil, and mining CEOs, environmental destruction and anything connected to it should have a Republican (TM) sign emblazoned on all sides.
As I mentioned, I've been scanning through the history of demagoguery. And, funnily enough, I've hit upon numerous articles and book chapters (Google Books really is pretty helpful at times) which purport to remind the reader that Both Sides Do It. One article says as much then goes on to list famous historical demagogues, every one of which is a right-winger (Fr. Coughlin, Yukio Mishima, Joe McCarthy, Glenn Beck, for instance). I even did a search for "Left Wing Demagogues" and found a piece which lists the two most infamous lefty demagogues: Paul Krugman and Robert Reich. I kid you not. Another lists Katie McDonough, an assistant editor for Salon as a dangerous liberal demagogue. Seriously. We can get into the various degrees of demagoguery later, but leave us all agree that in no way can either Krugman or Reich be considered in the same ballpark as Joe McCarthy, or Glenn Beck. Krugman and Reich deal in facts and live in the real world. 'nuff said.
Anyway, one piece I hit upon was fascinating for the way the author, one Doug Bandow, then of the Cato Institute, with a kind of weird facility (and the usual cherry picked factoids) tried to paint the administration of George W. Bush, one of history's great mountebanks, into a victim of vicious left-wing demagogues. To "prove" his point, Bandow suggests that Democrats were bullying Bush so that they could be the ones to appoint his cabinet (this piece was written in 2001). Two examples he picks as being particularly unfairly treated were both eventually appointed to the Decider's cabinet, John Ashcroft and Gale Norton.
Bandow claimed that Norton was as pure as the driven snow of the Rocky Mountains she claimed to love. But, as it turned out, the epithet "James Watt in a dress" wasn't anywhere near as bad as she turned out to be. She began an auction of public lands to be strip mined and drilled out. Thousands and thousands of drilling sites were approved with hardly more than a single page document. Her land managers were told that they needed exceptional reasons to deny a request by miners, oil companies, or natural gas drilling crews, to defile public lands. When she finally resigned five years later, she had decimated the national park system and supervised the most scandal ridden DOI tenure in living memory. Her deputy was convicted of bribery and involvement with Jack Abramoff, other Norton appointees were also found guilty of ethics violations and cozy crony deals with the industries they were supposed to oversee. So much for poor Gale being the "victim" of left-wingers who were, in fact, right all along.
But interestingly, something that critics on the left found disturbing was her support for states' rights and her claim that the Civil War was terrible, not because of the south's support for slavery, but because it undermined the states' rights crowd. This Bandow found an unforgivable example of demagoguery, because, you know, Cato was all about stringent intellectual honesty and states' rights, etc.
The problem?
Bandow himself was forced to resign from Cato and some other gigs when it came out that he too was on Abramoff's payroll and had for years been churning out "unimpeachable" op-eds in favor of Abramoff clients. Oops!
Bandow called it a "mistake in judgment". I call it intellectual dishonesty and demagoguery of the first order.
You may also recall the Bush administration also hiring "reporters" friendly to the Decider's lies, to help spread propaganda without revealing, of course, that they were paid by Bush to do so.
The right just can't seem to help itself. If the facts are not on your side, find yourself some demagogues and start in with lying.
Regarding the Tailgunning Dickhead and his new health insurance plan (the ACA), Marie said:
"If there is a great difference [between the ACA and COBRA], then ObamaCare is obviously terrific, & Ted is making a tacit admission that, even without the subsidy, obtaining insurance thur the ACA exchange is a sweet deal."
I don't know about now, but a few years ago, I went onto the COBRA plan to continue insurance between jobs and it was incredibly expensive.
I think anyway you cut it, Cruz and family have a great deal here, and so do millions of other Americans. I can't wait for the first time Cruz finds something he considers a flaw in the system. He'll demand five hours on Fox to explain in great detail that a form letter got the address of his doctor's office wrong (it's 26 Elm Street, not 25 Elm Street) and that's reason enough to end health insurance for all those other Americans.
'cause that's the kind of slimy douchebag he is.
Silly, but mildly interesting. Early this morning I read Gail Collins commentary amusingly titled " When Nancy Met Johnny"—but, by noon the NYT editors changed the title on the Home page to "When Nancy Met Boehner".
No, not "When Pelosi met Boehner" but, "When Nancy Met Boehner"—so it's first name for the little woman, but surname for the man. Who wasn't or isn't getting the 'we've come along way, baby" message?
Wonder why they felt the need to change!
Intellectual Dishonesty Action Figures!
They walk, they talk, they bullshit.
The latest in the collection of wingnut ID Action Figures? Neocon "historian" and "classicist" Victor Davis Hanson. He even has opposable thumbs, something few neocons have! The better to throw a grenade into your lap, dirty liberal commie traitor!
This idiot has been around far too long slinging far too much bullshit. A few years ago he was on about how there were no racial problems in America until Obama came along and made "white" a dirty word. He also, at one point, wrote that immigration should be regulated so that we only allow in immigrants who can be "easily assimilated" and agree to learn English right away and not give us any shit.
A while back he wrote a book about Thucydides. I picked it up to see what his take on the Peloponnesian War might be, as I had just read a new annotated translation. As far as I could tell, his goal was to equate America with Thucydides' Athens and refashion Bush's war of choice in Iraq into our very own Peloponnesian War. This was very odd (not to mention ignorant) for a number of reasons. First, Athens lost. Not just lost, they got their asses kicked. Second, the Peloponnesian War devastated the Greek city-states and severely impacted democracy for years. They suffered enormous civilian losses from plagues, starvation, warfare, enslavement, you name it. I don't recall any of that happening during the Iraq war. At least not in America. Nor do I recall massive naval invasions and sea battles. Near the middle of that war, Pericles gave the famous Funeral Oration. Bush told us to go shopping.
So much for his chops as an historian or a classicist. So what's this idiot on about now?
More Greek tragedy. Or maybe Arkansan tragedy. This time, the tragic figure is our own modern day Pericles, Tom Cotton. Yup, Tom-fucking-Cotton is a tragic figure. Why? Because Obama, who hates white people and now hates Tom Cotton too, will blame him for the eventual tragic breakdown with the Iranian negotiations. Poor Tom. Poor wingnuts. Evil Obama.
But for someone supposedly knowledgeable about history and current affairs, he gets everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, wrong.
First, he says this sort of thing (interference in foreign affairs) happens all the time and it's no big deal. Douglas MacArthur bugged Truman about his decisions on Korea. Congress killed Wilson's idea for the League of Nations, and finally (again!) that bad, bad, bad, Nancy Pelosi went to Syria!
Okay, (heavy sigh). Neither of the first two situations involved members of congress going to a foreign power to undermine ongoing negotiations. Congress was SUPPOSED to vote on the League of Nations. The fact that Wilson's idea was blown out of the water was partially his fault anyway, and no foreign powers were involved. And the Pelosi trip to Syria in 2007 was okayed by the Bush people, fer crissakes. Yes MacArthur was out of line in trying to undermine Truman, but it's not like he was going to the North Koreans and telling them what an asshole his president was and to ignore him (Truman canned his ass anyway, and rightfully so).
Then he goes on to repeat the tired talking point that congress must ratify treaties anyway so Cotton was right. AAAAARRGHhh.. (loser buzzer sound effect). The negotiations with Iran do not constitute a treaty, fuckhead. They don't get to approve or disapprove any of this.
This is the sort of thing that passes for "intelligent", even "academic" right-wing punditry and opinion. In fact, it's simply littered with lies, wrongheadedness, misunderstandings, and willful misdirection, all hallmarks of this wingnut "intellectual".
The Victor Davis Hanson Intellectual Dishonesty Action Figure should fly off the shelves in red states.
Get yours while it lasts.
MAG,
Weird, but the Collins piece is back to "Nancy and Johnny", which, to my ear, arrives with a much more mellifluous tone than "Nancy and Boehner" (which is just weird) or "Pelosi and Boehner" (too formal), neither of which seem to sit well with Collins' style.
@AK on the Opinion pages it is the original 'title', but the Home page still has the revision. Weird, is right.
P.S. meantime you've got me Googling Greeks, pretty neat jar Diogenes inhabited! Sure beats cardboard.
@MAG: I agree. I have a problem with Hillary because I can't just call her "Clinton" unless there's no hint in the story that it could be that other Clinton. Ergo, I've taken to calling most of the male presidential candidates by their first names for some measure of gender-parity.
But Nancy & Boehner? No excuse for that.
Marie
@Akhilleus: It's still "When Nancy Met Boehner" on the online front page.
Marie
Oops! I see MAG already covered that.
Ak, re: Teddy and Cobra/ACA
The reason COBRA seems so expensive is because the individual taking advantage of it is responsible for paying the full cost of the monthly insurance premium. The difference between what you were paying as an employee and what you pay under COBRA is actually the amount of the premium that the employee receives as a subsidy, or non-wage benefit, from the employer.
Having been-there, done-that with the missus and me being on extended COBRA (don't ask) immediately prior to joining an state-run ACA exchange, the difference between our COBRA and ACA gold-plan premium was only about $10. This year it went up $110 to over $1400 per month with $0 subsidy.
What Cruz will flip out over, when he figures it out, is that there really is no such thing as Maximum Out-of-Pocket. This is a marketing myth that relies on insurance company funny money of the provider charges versus insurance allowable amounts and what counts against the deductible, co-pay, and co-insurance totals. This is true whether the providers are in-network or, even worse, out-of-network. When using out-of-network providers the participant is potentially on the hook for 100% of the amount in provider charges less any amount of eligible reimbursement by the insurance company as we were made so rudely aware last year. Some providers are willing to negotiate, others are not.
Also, what Teddy refuses to realize is that he is already receiving a 100% subsidy. He hasn't done and isn't doing shit, but still collects his pay check from funds provided by the rest of us US taxpayers. On second thought, he is doing shit but I'm sure you get the expression.
Unwashed,
Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't paying $1,400 (crap!) but it was still a good chunk. The Cruzes of the world never wonder how other people make it and don't care (unless it makes a good campaign story in support of their ideology). As long as they're taken care of, everything is jake.
MAG,
Funny you should mention Diogenes, a friend and I were recently riffing on some of Diogenes' greatest hits (look them up....some crazy shit--literally). I've always wondered how it was that a guy who behaved like such a dick came to be associated with the search for honesty.
Although anyone who could piss off Plato so often must have been a funny guy to be around (for short periods). Wouldn't you love to have a Diogenes-like guy in the senate, bugging the crap out of Jowly Boy McConnell every time he got up to bloviate? I'd pay to see that.
Maybe I've answered my own question.
The wonder boys (as in, you wonder what the fuck is wrong with them and the people that elected them into office) Rubio and Cotton are at it again.
Just read their editorial on CNN stating that "Our highest priority during the ongoing budget debate should be undoing the damage caused by defense sequestration and the hundreds of billions of dollars of defense cuts made by the Obama administration."
At the moment the building I'm in is shaking as the Blue Angels fly overhead while practicing for their air show this weekend.
Unwashed,
Pretty funny since it was Republicans who pulled the trigger on the sequestrations. The Obama administration didn't make any cuts. They were automatic and kicked in when Republicans decided to be the assholes they really are. Kinda like an arsonist blaming the guy whose home he just burned down. I wonder if anyone at CNN or anywhere else will call these liars on this bullshit.
I doubt it.
The obvious next step:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/indiana-defines-stupidity-as-religion
from Politics With Charles P. Pierce
Mar 26, 2015
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The Courage Of Teresa Fedor: More Like This, Please
In which one woman in Ohio puts it all on the line. By Charles Pierce
A legislater with courage-
http://www.toledoblade.com/State/2015/03/25/Ohio-House-votes-across-party-lines-for-heartbeat-abortion-bill.html
mae finch
Just a footnote. NYTimes (at about 7:30 pm) is now back to the Nancy/Johnny title on the Home page. Do you suppose someone there is following Reality Chex? Hmmmmm...