Overnight Open Thread (12-5-2013)
— Maetenloch

Army Lt. Col. Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment, Constitution

Hoo boy this one just gives me a headache. Lt. Col Robert Bateman published an essay in Esquire in which he calls for complete gun control and ends up showing how unclear he is on the 2A and the Constitution in general.

Now Lt. Col. Bateman qualified as Airborne and a Ranger and is a military historian having written several books and taught at West Point. So he's not a nobody without any cred. Yet like so many others he gets hung up on the initial clause of the Second Amendment ("A well Regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.") and pretty much runs off the rails after that.

Fundamentally he doesn't accept the Supreme Court's Heller decision at all. His counter-argument: Well he just knows better and they're all wrong. For him the militia = the National Guard and therefore civilians have no right to own firearms.

Oh and if he were king, he has a few modest royal pronouncements in mind:

1. The only guns permitted will be the following:

• a. Smoothbore or Rifled muzzle-loading blackpowder muskets. No 7-11 in history has ever been held up with one of these.
• b. Double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. Hunting with these is valid.
• c. Bolt-action rifles with a magazine capacity no greater than five rounds. Like I said, hunting is valid. But if you cannot bring down a defenseless deer in under five rounds, then you have no fking reason to be holding a killing tool in the first place.

[See King Bateman is indeed a merciful and generous liege allowing people like yourselves to own something that goes bang - M.]

2. We will pry your gun from your cold, dead, fingers. That is because I am willing to wait until you die, hopefully of natural causes. Guns, except for the three approved categories, cannot be inherited. When you die your weapons must be turned into the local police department, which will then destroy them. (Weapons of historical significance will be de-milled, but may be preserved.)

3. Police departments are no longer allowed to sell or auction weapons used in crimes after the cases have been closed. (That will piss off some cops, since they really need this money. But you know what they need more? Less violence and death. By continuing the process of weapon recirculation, they are only making their jobs -- or the jobs of some other cops -- harder.)

4. We will submit a new tax on ammunition. In the first two years it will be 400 percent of the current retail cost of that type of ammunition. (Exemptions for the ammo used by the approved weapons.) Thereafter it will increase by 20 percent per year.

5. We will initiate a nationwide "buy-back" program, effective immediately, with the payouts coming from the DoD budget. This buy-back program will start purchasing weapons at 200 percent of their face value the first year, 150 percent the second year, 100 percent the third year. Thereafter there will be a 10 year pause, at which point the guns can be sold to the government at 10 percent of their value for the next 50 years.

[Okay his lordship is a tad weak in the econ area but that doesn't mean he still doesn't know what's best for all of you]

6. The major gun manufactures of the United States, less those who create weapons for the federal government and the armed forces, will be bought out by the United States of America, for our own damned good.

Okaaay - I don't even know what to say at this point.  I think this whole essay is clear evidence that a) some people simply don't get the whole concept of a constitutional republic b) when you leave your domain of expertise, there's no limit to the amount of stupid you can achieve, and c) under no circumstances must Robert Bateman ever be allowed even a scrap of political power. And it's also a reminder that there are some good reasons why the US is a civilian-run republic.

Update: Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal who's familiar with Bateman's previous work says he's just an academic troll:

And thus has Bateman shored up his progressive credentials one more time, and gotten the attention he so desperately wants, all at the same time. In the future, pay no attention to Mr. Bateman. He’s a publicity hound and attention seeker, and uses inflammatory and exaggerated rhetoric to evoke responses. The internet calls this a “troll.” It’s just that he’s a troll with credentials – and he’s an expert on everything. If you don’t believe it, just ask him.

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Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:49 PM | Comments (659)
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NYT: The looming "doctor shortage" is not real
— Purple Avenger

Mostly because you won't be seeing a doctor as often. You'll be fobbed off on people with less training.

... The opportunity exists to deliver more services and care with fewer physicians, but itÂ’s not a foregone conclusion. Policy changes will be necessary to reach the full potential of team care.

That means expanding the scope of practice laws for nurse practitioners and pharmacists to allow them to provide comprehensive primary care; changing laws inhibiting telemedicine across state lines; and reforming medical malpractice laws that force providers to stick with inefficient practices simply to reduce liability risk. New payment models must reward investments in technologies that can save money in the long run. Most important, we need to change medical school curriculum to provide training in team care to take full advantage of the capabilities of nonphysicians in caring for patients...

...Innovations, such as sensors that enable remote monitoring of disease and more timely interventions, can help pre-empt the need for inpatient treatment...

Perhaps piss sniffing toilets and sewer crawling robots?

Of course they point to MA/RomneyCare as evidence that there won't be any doctor shortage.

Take Massachusetts, where Obamacare-style reforms were implemented beginning in 2006, adding nearly 400,000 people to the insurance rolls. Appointment wait times for family physicians, internists, pediatricians, obstetricians and gynecologists, and even specialists like cardiologists, have bounced around since but have not appreciably increased overall, according to a Massachusetts Medical Society survey.

Curiously in 2006 Massachusetts had the highest per-capita concentration of doctors in the country, 462/100k...compared to Idaho, at the bottom with 169/100k. Having 2.7X more doctors available might just, maybe, kinda, sorta have had something to do with that, although I'm probably way out on a limb with such wild fact based speculation.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:57 PM | Comments (262)
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AOSHQDD U.S. Senate 2014
— CAC

A very lazy piece, but since everybody's already writing about the races, it is long overdue. So here's where the Senate races stand right now:

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Posted by: CAC at 03:35 PM | Comments (228)
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Nelson Mandela Dies at Age 95;
Obama, Get This, Eulogizes Mandela By Injecting Himself Into His Life
— Ace

Obama's remarks on Mandela were largely about how Mandela had inspired him. How the first political event Obama attended was an Anti-Apartheid rally. Observers of Obama know, of course, that Obama feels a life isn't validated or worthy unless Obama can somehow connect himself to it.

But even worse than that was the quotation Obama chose to honor Mandela with. It just so happens that this quotation is perfectly aligned with Obama's current political narrative: I screwed up, but I'm going to keep on working until I get this fixed.

So here's what Obama deemed to be the most important quotation of Mandela's life:

"I'm not a saint, unless your definition of a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying."

That's not Mandela's most important quote.

That's the Mandela quote that's most politically useful to Obama.

But to Obama, these are the same thing.

Not Very Hard to Predict The Actions of an Evil Dullard:

actually Obama does have a staged propaganda photo of a "private" sojourn in Nelson Mandela's cell. We should see that rereleased soon.

— SquatchPride69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 5, 2013

And... boom.

Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela. pic.twitter.com/4qlqsXLp6e

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 5, 2013

That's the photo I was talking about-- the staged White House propaganda photo of a supposedly "private" visit by the First Family to Mandela's old cell.

Odd how many of these "private" moments are used for public propaganda, eh?

Posted by: Ace at 02:07 PM | Comments (245)
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About That "Enrollment Surge"
— JohnE.

Something has been bugging me about the administration's very careful and coordinated media push earlier this week about both the website and enrollment.

For starters, the website is still not in any sort of working order. It might not be coughing up as many errors and may be a little more navigable, but it's still failing at its stated purpose. The website is supposed to be a place you can easily sign up for an account, shop for available plans and then actually enroll. This isn't happening. Insurers are still complaining about being sent faulty data and the administration is quietly encouraging people to work directly with insurance companies, bypassing the system entirely.

But the word went out and it was covered in the media. The website has seen a vast improvement.

Reuters:

The rollout of the program through a government website, HeathCare.gov, has been plagued by technical problems since it was launched two months ago. But the White House said on Saturday after an intensive overhaul of the website that it was now working at an acceptable level.

In addition to this miraculous turnaround, we were also given enrollment numbers for two days: Sunday, November 30th and Monday, December 1st.

What does two days worth of "enrollment data" give you? Well, it just happens to give you a "rate of enrollment", which can then be conveniently extrapolated over the coming open enrollments months. Watch how the National Journal does this:

Enrollment is still substantively behind schedule, and the administration has a lot of work to do to make up for lost time. The broken website effectively shaved two months off the six-month enrollment window, and enrollment in October was only 20 percent of the administration's initial expectations.

The administration expects 7 million people to sign up, nationwide, by the end of the six-month enrollment window. Signing up 29,000 people every two days would still not be enough to hit that target, but it's a significant step in the right direction for the White House.

Politico does it too:

The sharp increase in the pace of enrollments could begin to allay one of the industry’s other major fears — that after a two-month delay in standing up a functioning website, the administration won’t enroll enough people or the right mix of people by the March 30 deadline.

Isn't it interesting that the two days they targeted for the "fixes" to be completed also happen to be the same two days they have accurate enrollment data. This comes only a month or so after Kathleen Sebelius testified that accurate data wasn't going to be available in real-time.

"I want to give you reliable, confirmed data from every state and from the federal marketplace. We have said that we will do that on a monthly basis, by the middle of the month. You will have that data, but I don't want to turn over anything that is not confirmed and reliable, and that's what we'll do."

But now she has access to two days of data right away. You'll notice since this "source who is familiar with the program" (who is never named) confirmed this two days worth of enrollment data, it's been radio silence. Dead air. They're now back to touting web traffic metrics like pageviews again. So, what are we left with? A "vastly improved" website and an "enrollment surge" based on two days worth of data.

So, here's my theory. These 29,000 new enrollees over those two website deadline days was not a spike in enrollment; they were the backlogged November enrollments that had gotten caught in this data communications black hole. The information was fixed and these people were then formally enrolled over these two days. Boom, there's your enrollment spike.

Politico all but makes my case for me:

About 29,000 people signed up for health insurance through HealthCare.gov on Sunday and Monday — a figure that surpasses the total for the whole month of October, an official familiar with the program told POLITICO.

The quickened pace of enrollments came as the White House hit its self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to fix the troubled Affordable Care Act website.

Little odd, right? This administration is in desperate need of a win. The chances of a technical win at this point was a pipe dream given how far behind they were. All that was left was a media win, and for the most part, they got it. Improved website and surging enrollment.

We'll see what happens later in the month. If I'm right, this will all catch up with them. If there is one thing we've seen from this bungled operation is that they're panicked and will gladly trade a long-term loss for an immediate short-term win. Just get through today's news cycle. I could be wrong, of course. It's just a theory of mine. But it all does seem convenient.

Posted by: JohnE. at 01:20 PM | Comments (153)
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Healthcare.gov Is Totally Fixed You Guys But You Need to Send a Check to Your Insurer Directly
— Ace

Right. "Fixed."

This happens all the time with Amazon. I "select" a book online, and then they send me an email instructing me I should write a check and send it to the publisher, and complete the transaction with him.

In the podcast last night (which will be available tomorrow), we talked a lot about the coming Crisis. We tried to figure out exactly what the hell was going to happen on January 1st, given that Obamacare kicked five million people off their insurance, and would certainly not manage to sign up that many by the deadline.

Especially given that payments must be made by mail.

And that premiums are now very high.

And that one-third of all 834's sent to insurers are riddled with errors.

And that the whole system is in chaos.

What will happen January 1 when thousands of people have car crashes or other need for insurance, but don't have it, due to Obama's incompetence and stubborness?

John Ekdahl suggested that Obama will just order hospitals and doctors to treat anyone who says he has insurance, whether he does or not. I believe Ekdahl's term was that Obama will order everyone to be "deemed" as covered by insurance.

Is that inconceivable? I don't think so. That's what Allah's thinking, too.

The shocking new news in Allah's post is that only 20% of people who have "enrolled" in insurance have sent a payment yet -- and the hour is growing late for January 1st coverage. And furthermore, that if payment is not received by the start of the term (actually, a week before it-- they need to make sure the check clears), the policy is considered void and the customer will have to go through the nightmare of signing up for Obamacare again.

So is it actually inconceivable that Obama will simply issue a Kingly Edict and instruct insurers to insure people whether they actually are insured or not? Or that hospitals and doctors must, through this "transition period" which may contain "some disruptions," must provide care without actual promise of payment?

Unfortunately, we'll be discovering the answers to these frightening questions very soon.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (345)
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Performance Artist and "Craftivist" Has New, Innovative, 100% Novel Way of Drawing Attention to Herself: Involving Her Vagina
— Ace

I would never have seen this coming. A female artist using her vagina as a prop? Why, I never. Where do these geniuses come up with these startling new ideas I've seen six thousand times this past year?

So, thanks to @laurww (I guess...), a woman who knits Vaginal Yarn. Yes, vaginal yarn. She puts a skein of yarn up her foo and then draws it out as she knits.

Why? Because Patriarchy or Male Gaze or Negative Body Image or Vulva Pride You Guys. She claims, for the seventy billionth time, that people feel "fear and revulsion" towards the vulva, which is why it's Art and Stuff You Guys to knit a muff muffler.

You know, the usual airheaded crap. Do artists feel any need any more to explore a new thought?

The article itself is on HuffPo, and is somewhere between Safe For Work and Not Safe For Work. The video that accompanies the article is Not Safe for Work (you can see bits of her foo, and she mentions knitting with... wet yarn).

You make the call.

And... Open Thread. Weird thing to say in this context.

But I'm sick, and I'm done for the night. I'm going to nap.

Posted by: Ace at 02:36 PM | Comments (401)
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Four Cases Making Way Through Courts That Might Wind Up Overturning Obamacare
— Ace

It'll take a while to get a ruling on these cases, and then come appeals, but it's something to keep your eye on.

If the law known as Obamacare gets struck down in the latest court challenge, the victors will thank a Hudson resident and Case Western Reserve University law professor who discovered what the law's critics say is a major flaw.

Jonathan Adler, 44, says he didn't even appreciate initially how significant his discovery might be. He thought it was an interesting bit of legal arcana, worthy of scholarship. But his analysis of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, has led to four pending cases in federal courts, two likely to be decided within months, that offer ACA opponents their best chance of gutting the law.

Oral arguments were heard in one of the cases, in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Adler, a Case law professor since 2001, pored over the ACA after it passed in 2010 and found this: Congress created a system for providing tax subsidies and penalties in order to give incentives for people to buy health insurance or for employers to provide it. States were supposed to create new agencies that would offer online insurance-shopping options, and states would tie into a federal tax system to dole out the subsidies and assess the penalties.

But the ACA made clear, Adler says, that the subsidies were to be used in these new state marketplaces, or "exchanges." There is no record, he says, that shows Congress directed the subsidies to what has since evolved: a large, federally run, health-policy shopping exchange. When the subsidies are mentioned in the law, Adler says, it is always and only in the context of state exchanges.

The IRS fabricated a regulation that stated, basically, that no matter what the law itself says, they're providing subsidies through the federal exchanges anyway.

These are Gabe's favorite dark-horse candidates for ending Obamacare in a year or two. He mentioned in the podcast that he'd watched arguments in court, and the Administration's line seemed to be that it didn't matter what the law said -- Obamacare needs this.

Apparently Obamacare contains its own Necessary and Proper Clause amid its penumbras and emanations.

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (186)
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Obama, Get This, Lied: Having Previously Denied Ever Meeting His Drunk Illegal Alien Uncle Omar, Obama Now Remembers He Lived With Him For a While During Law School
— Ace

Are we supposed to believe he forgot living with a man?

It would be one thing if he lived with him as a child. But he lived with him as an adult in law school.

The White House claimed Obama had never so much as met the man. They claim, now, that their previous claim was a mistake or something, because they had "researched" the question and had not found any evidence the two had met.

Instead of just asking Obama. Which they now say just occurred to them to do. And they claim it just occurred to them to ask Obama after a witness with no reason to lie (Omar's landlord) came forward to say that Obama had lived with Omar.

President Obama acknowledged on Thursday that he lived with his Kenyan uncle for a brief period in the 1980s while preparing to attend Harvard Law School, contradicting a statement more than a year ago that the White House had no record of the two ever meeting.

Their relationship came into question on Tuesday at the deportation hearing of his uncle, Onyango Obama, in Boston immigration court. His uncle had lived in the United States illegally since the 1970s and revealed in testimony for the first time that his famous nephew had stayed at his Cambridge apartment for about three weeks. At the time, Onyango Obama was here illegally and fighting deportation.

On Thursday, a White House official said the press office had not fully researched the relationship between the president and his uncle before telling the Globe that they had no record of the two meeting. This time, the press office asked the president directly, which they had not done in 2011.

Roger Simon says he's not a conspiracy theorist, but he's beginning to wonder about this Enigmatic Elegant Liar named Barack Obama.

Around Obama there is an unprecedented silence, almost a media omertà. So much remains unknown about this man, although we do know, through the debate surrounding David Maraniss’s failed and tentative biography, that the president lied about his personal history on multiple occasions in his autobiography Dreams from My Father.

Of course, Bill Ayers — the semi-retired terrorist — has claimed on similarly multiple occasions that he was the true author of Dreams, which would make it a lie about a lie about a lie or something like that. The permutations of this are mindboggling.

Actually let me clear that last claim up, because this has far too much traction on the right: Ayers did not claim he was the true author of Dreams from My Father. He says this, sarcastically, in a bit of rightwing-baiting, because he knows the right suspects him of having authored the book.

See, for example, the below clip, starting at 0:33. He always answers the question in this way.

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Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (357)
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Obama Loses Majority Support with Important Swing Demographic, White Women
— Ace

First he lost young voters, now white women. Over Obamacare.

Polling provided to National Journal by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that white women have soured considerably on the law, especially in the month since its botched rollout. The skepticism runs especially deep among blue-collar women....

The Kaiser poll, which has been conducted monthly since ObamacareÂ’s inception, shows the law has never been a big hit with white women. But this groupÂ’s opinions took a sharply negative turn in the November results.

According to Kaiser, 40 percent of college-educated white women hold a “very unfavorable” view of the law—10 points higher than a month ago. An additional 10 percent view the law “somewhat unfavorably.” A month ago, those two groups together totaled just 42 percent.

ThatÂ’s not damning in and of itself, but this is the one slice of the white electorate where Democrats usually perform well. President Obama won 46 percent of the group in 2012, and even that was an underwhelming showing compared with recent Democratic presidential candidates.

And that’s not all. Democrats should be far more worried about white women who do not have a higher education. The numbers are astounding: In the latest Kaiser poll, 50 percent have a “very unfavorable” view of the law—9 points higher than in October. An additional 13 percent view it “somewhat unfavorably.” Indeed, antipathy among blue-collar white women runs even deeper than the most conservative white demographic group, blue-collar white men (59 percent of whom hold an unfavorable view, Kaiser found).

Remarkably, only 16 percent of blue-collar white women have a favorable view of Obamacare. They disapprove of it by a 4-1 ratio.

Democrats typically do not win the white women vote, but they do fairly well, picking up somewhere between, say, 40-45% of that large section of the vote. They lose white women, but narrowly enough that minority women (strongly Democratic) push the whole of the women's vote to the Democrats.

Because white women make up such a large fraction of the voting population, a few percentage points shifted from Democrats to Republicans will have an impact at the ballot box.

Maybe pro-Obamacare Happy Hours will do the trick. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (398)
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