Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

[GasBandit]

Shame that the article does nothing to even try to touch on the negatives of this. It would have been nice to have two sides to the story. Too much to ask from NRO, though.

Well, what with "the states being laboratories" and so forth, you'll be able to see how it shakes out, one way or the other, without it impacting the other 49. If it turns out badly, it can be scrapped and the rest of the country dodged a bullet. But if it turns out to be what its proponents claim, then maybe other states will also take it up - perhaps even the federal government.

 

[Krisken]

Oh, absolutely, it if works well, that's great. What concerns me is the negatives that may come of it. Corporations already have a lot of power, and someone who is poor may not try to get what they have coming to them because they fear the super inflated lawyer prices corporations are able to afford. See how this could become very bad? That's my issue with the article. It highlights the benefits and completely ignores the negatives that will no doubt be attached to this.

As it stands, the article incomplete.

 

[GasBandit]

Oh, absolutely, it if works well, that's great. What concerns me is the negatives that may come of it. Corporations already have a lot of power, and someone who is poor may not try to get what they have coming to them because they fear the super inflated lawyer prices corporations are able to afford.

It's not "straight up" loser pays, it only applies if the suit is found to be groundless. So you can still sue and lose and not have to pay MegaCorp's million dollar lawyer's fees, so long as it's not the case that your filing was an obvious waste of everyone's time.

 

[AshburnerX]

Oh, absolutely, it if works well, that's great. What concerns me is the negatives that may come of it. Corporations already have a lot of power, and someone who is poor may not try to get what they have coming to them because they fear the super inflated lawyer prices corporations are able to afford. See how this could become very bad? That's my issue with the article. It highlights the benefits and completely ignores the negatives that will no doubt be attached to this.

As it stands, the article incomplete.

Actually, it still wouldn't matter. If your poor enough, it would still be advantageous of the corporation to pay you a settlement because of the likelihood that you'd never be able to pay for their lawyers even if they DID win. For that matter, what lawyer would want to tie their getting paid to beating someone who might not be able to pay them back? You'd never take a case if you didn't know you'd be getting payed for it somehow.

 

[GasBandit]

On Wednesday, three members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested in Lake Eola Park. Their crime? Feeding homeless people without a permit.

Tucked into the 232 pages of the May 31 Federal Register was glaring evidence that the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will exercise nearly unlimited power over how Americans obtain credit and loans and manage their money.

This is pretty self-explanatory: The Washington metropolitan area is the only major U.S. housing market where prices increased on an annual basis in the first quarter.

The combined unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare has reached nearly $107 trillion. That is about seven times the size of our economy and 10 times the size of the national debt.

GM had about 75,000 hourly workers before the bankruptcy. We could have given each of them a cool $250,000 and still come out well ahead compared to the ultimate cost of the bailout including the tax breaks.

Documents released by the Treasury Department indicate that General Motors and the Obama administration coordinated their PR strategy regarding GM’s 2010 ad campaign, in which the car maker misleadingly claimed to have repaid all its government loans.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that union support for Obama is waning. He is just trying to get some sympathy from Obama … get him to beg for their support.

The Obama administration will boycott a world conference against racism being held at the UN headquarters in September because of concerns about anti-Semitism.

 

[GasBandit]

Here’s the truth about that auto bailout Obama was so proud of last week in Toledo. Not really all that pretty.

The most emailed story to the show over the weekend was this from Collier County, Florida: Homeowners turn the tables by foreclosing ON Bank of America.

Here we go again! The Obama administration wants to help more struggling Americans stay in their homes by reducing the amount they owe on their troubled mortgages.

“I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.” -- Mitt Romney

The argument in Washington is not over whether we should raise the debt ceiling, it is whether or not we should tie a vote on increasing the debt ceiling to other spending cuts or entitlement reform.

Walter Williams says, “[T]he welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done.”

A new study reveals how ObamaCare is a treat to the innovation of our medical industry and our overall economy. Oh, did I say treat? Sorry, I meant threat.

The mystery behind Weinergate continues to unravel.

An increasing number of Americans, some 61%, say they don't expect to return to their respective pre-recession lifestyles until the spring of 2014, if ever.

Do you believe that we are experiencing the death of the American Dream?

 

[Adam]

You're about 10 minutes behind GB. Weiner has already had his press conference admitting everything. What a tool

 

[makare]

I always thought the american dream was being able to pursue what you want but I guess it is only the american dream if you want to pursue what other people think you should?

 

[Tress]

You're about 10 minutes behind GB. Weiner has already had his press conference admitting everything. What a tool

I would have had more respect for him if, from the very beginning, he had said "Yes, I did it. I never meant to share it with the public (etc. etc. etc.). Nothing I did was illegal, and I won't resign." That would have been okay with me. Now he looks like a tremendous asshole and hypocrite for all the times he attacked political opponents for perceived moral failures.

 

[Adam]

I would have had more respect for him if, from the very beginning, he had said "Yes, I did it. I never meant to share it with the public (etc. etc. etc.). Nothing I did was illegal, and I won't resign." That would have been okay with me. Now he looks like a tremendous asshole and hypocrite for all the times he attacked political opponents for perceived moral failures.

I feel worse for all those strident defenders of his suggesting that this was a frame-up or some other such nonsense. His bullshit was pretty transparent from the start but people will believe what they want to believe I suppose.

 

[Espy]

Well good thing he got caught lying and proving he's a giant lying dipshit and he's gonna stepdown from offi...

Wait.

Whats that?

Oh, he's NOT going to stepdown. In fact he's gonna run again? Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

 

[Krisken]

What an idiot. Going the way of John Ensign and prolonging this until someone finds something illegal about it is pretty pointless.

 

[Tress]

I feel worse for all those strident defenders of his suggesting that this was a frame-up or some other such nonsense. His bullshit was pretty transparent from the start but people will believe what they want to believe I suppose.

I don't feel bad for them. His excuses were shaky from the beginning, so anyone who wanted to defend the guy should have known better. I just wish he had skipped all the crap and been honest. This just destroyed any last shreds of respectability he may have had.

If you want to send pictures of your wing-wang on twitter to other women, then that's between you and your wife. You want to lie about it, make up a grand conspiracy about it, and basically be a schmuck about it... then it becomes a problem for other people.

 

[Chad Sexington]

This whole story is mind-boggling to me. Who uses their official Twitter account to send photos of their penis? I mean, it doesn't take a genius to think of creating a new account. At the least. I mean, for fuck's sake. He deserved to be caught and skewered for this.

But I am grateful. You don't need Colbert, or Stewart, or Maher or... anyone. His name is Weiner. And he sent a photo of his penis. It's a gift.

 

[Terrik]

You don't need Colbert, or Stewart, or Maher or... anyone. His name is Weiner. And he sent a photo of his penis. It's a gift.

*cough*

 

[Chad Sexington]

*cough*

? Jon Stewart. You know? The Daily Show?

 

[Tress]

This whole story is mind-boggling to me. Who uses their official Twitter account to send photos of their penis? I mean, it doesn't take a genius to think of creating a new account. At the least. I mean, for fuck's sake. He deserved to be caught and skewered for this.

But I am grateful. You don't need Colbert, or Stewart, or Maher or... anyone. His name is Weiner. And he sent a photo of his penis. It's a gift.

Not that this is a whole lot better, but he claims that he meant to send the photo via IM (I don't remember if he specified which service). When he realized he had sent it out via twitter instead, he came out with this "Someone hacked me!" bullshit.

 

[Espy]

? Jon Stewart. You know? The Daily Show?

Maybe he thought you were talking about Green Lantern John Stewart.

They are so similar you know.

 

[GasBandit]

I hesitated to even post that wiener link.. really the story doesn't interest me that much, but everybody else keeps going on about it, so I figured I better. Personally, I don't have a strong feeling that he should stay or go, I guess the voters will decide. I mean, let's face it - every last one of them inside the beltway is corrupt to the core, and if his worst vice is sending dirty pictures to women, well, I've heard worse. Was he under oath when he lied about it?
Added at: 13:38
... but when it comes to Weinergate, THIS is funny: Gennette Cordova, the 21-year-old journalism student from Seattle who received the wiener tweet that launched Weinergate, was apparently something of a scandal-rod during her days at Shorecrest High School — at least enough to be dubbed “Most Likely to be Involved in a Tabloid Scandal” in a 2007 issue of her school’s newspaper.

About 6.2 million Americans, 45.1% of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months - a higher percentage than during the Great Depression.

Obama administration monetary policies have added approximately 56.5 cents to the price of every gallon of gas you pump.

Are we still bailing out the banks?

Herman Cain says that he does not support the TARP bailouts and banks should be allowed to fail. Change of heart of flip-flop?

The latest asinine quote from Debbie Wasserman Shultz: “Now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.”

The latest culprit of global warming … the Internet!

 

[Tress]

I hesitated to even post that wiener link.. really the story doesn't interest me that much, but everybody else keeps going on about it, so I figured I better. Personally, I don't have a strong feeling that he should stay or go, I guess the voters will decide. I mean, let's face it - every last one of them inside the beltway is corrupt to the core, and if his worst vice is sending dirty pictures to women, well, I've heard worse. Was he under oath when he lied about it?

It's a (slightly) bigger deal for me because I genuinely liked him. I thought that he was at least someone who stood up for his beliefs and tried to do the right thing. Sending "naughty" pictures of himself wouldn't have changed that view either, because I separated any stupidity he does in his personal life from his public job. But when he started lying and making a spectacle out of this to cover his tracks then I lost respect for him.

 

[AshburnerX]

Yeah, the whole thing would have basically been a big "So what?" for me. But then again, I thought it was no one's business what Clinton was doing ether.

 

[GasBandit]

Sorry about missing yesterday, work was heck.

President Obama’s phony accounting on the auto industry bailout.

The federal government's financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit.

Is Tim Pawlenty in the ascendant?

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said his agency will remove the Fairness Doctrine from the rule books.

Some telling figures from the Wall Street Journal .. the economy is worse than you think.

The median period of unemployment is now at a historic high.

Many experts say private debt owed by households, as well as businesses, is an even bigger problem than the government debt that's getting so much attention lately.

Here are the numbers that could decide if Barack Obama wins a second term.

Democrats are framing Republican moves to cut federal spending as a war on women, an effort aimed at influencing the 2012 elections. Observe the Left’s Medicare playbook.

ExxonMobil announced two major oil discoveries and a gas discovery in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico after drilling the company's first post-moratorium deepwater exploration well.

.. “a majority of Americans don't really know anything about the economy.”

The United Nations has declared Internet access a human right.

Barbara Walters offers her view on why Anthony Weiner and others have ended up going down this road of infidelity – erectile dysfunction medication.

Emergency room visits have been on the rise in Massachusetts since the passage of RomneyCare, much to the chagrin of supporters who projected that the opposite would happen.

The War on Drugs has failed. Let's try something else.

 

[Eriol]

Emergency room visits have been on the rise in Massachusetts since the passage of RomneyCare, much to the chagrin of supporters who projected that the opposite would happen.

If anybody's actually interested in this, take a look at many studies done in Canada on this issue of trying to get people NOT to go to emergency rooms unless they REALLY need to. Go to urgent care centres, or your family doctor for most things, and leave the emergency room for broken bones, trauma, "holy crap I can't believe how much this hurts" type of things, head injuries, etc.

Canada has the research (from decades of this), and by my reading the end result is "when health care is 'free' people are more likely to seek care than before." This can be both good AND bad, in that it seems more likely that things will get caught early (many bad things are easier/cheaper to treat earlier), but the front-line-diagnoses places are more swamped with the odd cough when they should have just stayed in bed.

 

[SpecialKO]

If anybody's actually interested in this, take a look at many studies done in Canada on this issue of trying to get people NOT to go to emergency rooms unless they REALLY need to. Go to urgent care centres, or your family doctor for most things, and leave the emergency room for broken bones, trauma, "holy crap I can't believe how much this hurts" type of things, head injuries, etc.

Not only does the blog GB links not seem to be reading the actual article, the article itself is sparse on the details. Equating insured usage and uninsured usage as cost equivalent is simply not reflective of reality (insurance underwriters never pay the uninsured amount), and needs to be examined with actual numbers (of which the article has almost none).

Furthermore, if "low severity" problems in the ER actually dropped over time, while ER usage overall has increased, a very likely possibility is that either high severity (i.e. life-threatening) problems also increased YOY, or the number of people with high severity problems going to the ER increased YOY (which is kind of what the ER is for).

The study might go into that, but the article does not, nor does it link or actually cite.

 

[Eriol]

Special, I think you're equating something I said with something said in the article, and putting them together. I'm saying "low severity" problems SHOULD go down when the other facilities open, not saying that they have been going down in that state. I'm actually saying that they're likely increasing. Before the uninsured would only go to Emergency if it's life-threatening (or close). Now they go for anything because they don't have a doctor yet, or just have the "if I'm sick, I go to emergency" mindset because that's what they've always done.

 

[GasBandit]

So, I don't have a link (edit - Link), but apparently all of Newt Gingrich's senior campaign staff quit on him. Guess that's it for Newty-2012!

Is Texas Governor Rick Perry jumping into the 2012 GOP candidate pool?

With the departure of chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, there’s only one member from the original Obama economic team still working for the administration, not quite three years into the first term.

Janet “the system worked” Napolitano says that concentrating our terrorist screening efforts on Muslim men under the age of 35 is “not good logic.”

Move over Arizona. Move over Georgia. Alabama has now signed the toughest immigration legislation into law.

Illinois is proving what bookshelves full of studies have found: Handing out special favors one business at a time is politically corrupting and an ineffective economic development strategy.

What is the worst thing that could happen if Michigan became a right-to-work state?

Has Obama broken up with his teleprompter?

 

[Covar]

So, I don't have a link (edit - Link), but apparently all of Newt Gingrich's senior campaign staff quit on him. Guess that's it for Newty-2012!

Is Texas Governor Rick Perry jumping into the 2012 GOP candidate pool?

Gingrich's men were former campaign workers for Governor Perry. Coincidence? Maybe, but we'll know soon enough.

 

[sixpackshaker]

I'm OK with Perry running for President, as long as he quits being the TX Governor... and loses the race... I just want him gone.

 

[SpecialKO]

Special, I think you're equating something I said with something said in the article, and putting them together. I'm saying "low severity" problems SHOULD go down when the other facilities open, not saying that they have been going down in that state. I'm actually saying that they're likely increasing. Before the uninsured would only go to Emergency if it's life-threatening (or close). Now they go for anything because they don't have a doctor yet, or just have the "if I'm sick, I go to emergency" mindset because that's what they've always done.

Sorry, I was trying to reply to GB's thing about the article without losing your reply, which I thought was interesting and to-the-point. It just didn't come out that way because it was after 11:30pm for me and I was tired.

 

[GasBandit]

Friday's stock market drop extended the longest weekly losing streak for stocks since the fall of 2002.

Tim Pawlenty says that the NLRB’s suit against Boeing evokes the 'Soviet Union circa 1970s.' Democrats and liberal groups are fighting back against criticism of the National Labor Relations Board as they grow worried that the attacks could diminish the labor board’s authority.

The Economist says that Barack Obama is a beatable candidate but only if a Republican candidate starts laying out a sensible plan for the American economy.

Department of Justice officials pressured the Dayton Police and Fire Departments to lower testing standards because not enough black candidates passed the written exam.

Many Americans will have to keep on working well into their 70s and 80s to afford retirement,according to a new study.

Bill Maher: “I’m not one of those people who believes in American exceptionalism”…

Which car creates more American jobs: the Ford Escape or the Toyota Camry?

 

[GasBandit]

According to the latest IRS figures as reported by the Wall Street Journal, Americans are jumping ship in record numbers. The number of Americans renouncing their citizenship has increased nearly ninefold since 2008.

The Texas vs. California Example.

For all you environmentalists … looks like electric cars are worse for the environment than gas-fueled cars!

As part of the Obama administration’s campaign to promote transparency, the White House intends to eliminate the public’s access to half of the federal government’s websites within the next year.

George Will’s latest column on ObamaCare: Government by the ‘experts.’

Obama highlighted the “great American success story” of a company that created “green jobs” ..the only problem is that those jobs are being created in China.

Our state budgets are in pretty bad shape thanks to lower tax revenue, long-term pension payouts and enormous health care obligations.

What do we have in store for the second half of 2011? The top money managers and financial market experts believe we can look forward to slower economic growth.

We have discovered that just about anything you can say about Obama, besides ‘Messiah’ is some sort of racist code word.

Americans really “better off” with freedom?

An Apple store employee has decided that he wants to start a union.

Obama administration policy - mimicing Ayn Rand.

 

[jwhouk]

Welp, guess I don't have collective bargaining rights anymore.

 

[Krisken]

Such an epic fail on the part of the State Supreme Court. So much for upholding the law.

 

[Cheesy1]

A Boehner asks a Weiner to stop being a dick.

 

[GasBandit]

So much for upholding the law.

I've said that, out loud, about 30 times over the last 10 years. It's just eminently clear that government (both parties) are not interested in the rule of law, just in the aggregation of power to reward ones allies and punish ones opponents.