Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

Militantly superior in their own minds…

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

This Blog Goes to 11…

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

Mission Accomplished!

Consistently wrong since 2002

We have all the best words.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Not all heroes wear capes.

Just a few bad apples.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

The house always wins.

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

The announcement is the point

by | 106 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Trump is rummaging through the executive order toy box again, this time to punish tech companies that are mean to him. This morning, he tweet-screamed the following: “This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!” Reuters reporters saw a draft of the EO and provided an overview in the wee hours:

The executive order would call for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose and clarify regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law largely exempting online platforms from legal liability for the material their users post. Such changes could expose tech companies to more lawsuits.

The order asks the FCC to examine whether actions related to the editing of content by social media companies should potentially lead to the firms forfeiting their protections under section 230.

It requires the agency to look at whether a social media platform uses deceptive policies to moderate content and if its policies are inconsistent with its terms of service.

The draft order also states that the White House Office of Digital Strategy will re-establish a tool to help citizens report cases of online censorship. The tool will collect complaints of online censorship and submit them to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It requires the FTC to look into whether complaints violate the law, develop a report describing such complaints and make the report publicly available.

It’s so confusing when creeping authoritarianism arrives not in jackboots but in a soiled diaper. Maybe I’ll regret not being more alarmed by this, but my initial take is that Trump is putting on a show, much as House Republicans did when they held hearings on alleged Big Tech bias against conservatives.

That event featured clowns like Diamond and Silk whining about their alleged “shadow-banning” on Facebook, which turned out to be a misunderstanding of how settings affect content delivery. The FTC complaints report will likely provide a similar outlet for idiotic grievance-mongering.

Maybe Trump’s real object was this, also from the linked Reuters piece:

Twitter’s shares were down over 4 percent in pre-market trade on Thursday. Facebook fell nearly 2 percent and Google was down 1 percent.

Stock market manipulation is included in Trump’s extremely limited skill set. But the real point is the splashy announcement. It always is with Trump, from licensing deals for sketchy real estate development schemes to the commission investigating non-existent voter fraud to the Ukraine shakedown and the recent “Obamagate” meeping.

I’m more worried about Big Tech’s subversion of democracy and society for its own moneymaking purposes than anything the crybaby in the White House might do.

The announcement is the pointPost + Comments (106)

Insurers and their 2021 crystal balls

by | 2 Comments

This post is in: 

Insurers are currently submitting initial rate requests to state regulators. Insurers selling ACA qualified individual market plans are starting to file their initial rates. Once initial rates are filed, insurers and state regulators will go back and forth over the summer arguing over assumptions, incorporating new data and coming to a final approved rate before Labor Day.

I’ve been getting several calls from reporters asking a very important and basic question:

What are insurers doing in their 2021 rates for COVID-19?

And at this time, my answer is effectively ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve started to read the actuarial memos of the insurers that have already filed (yes, I know how to have a good time) A few insurers are adding in small morbidity adjustments that boost rates by about a point. One insurer in Vermont is trying to model a vaccine and deferred utilization as a modest rate bump. Most insurers are not identifying COVID as a specific pricing pressure for 2021. Quite a few of the insurers have language in their memo that states that COVID is out there and they are monitoring the data as it comes in and will adjust as need be. A few insurers’ memos don’t mention COVID at all.

Insurers are working with almost no information for this current round of rate filings. The actuarial models that are powering the rates are based on 2019 experience. Most of the models will incorporate some 2020 experience, but these models stop taking in new data several weeks before the rate filings are submitted. This means that most of the claims models are not looking at anything that happened in April or May. And even if the models are looking at April or May, most of those claims have not actually arrived nor been processed to completion.

I think I was wrong in April:

Right now as actuaries are preparing their initial rate filings, good faith error bands are going to be huge. I expect rate filings in May to have huge variation in initial rate increases between insurers with similar 2019 and 2020 rate structures just because Company A will be more optimistic than Company B on some measures as we won’t have any clue what is happening with COVID19.

Right now, looking at the first few states that have had their insurers file, the variance is fairly tight because most insurers are not even trying to price COVID in their initial rate filings. This could change as more states report, but this is interesting to watch insurers deal with the inherent uncertainty of pricing a pandemic.

Insurers and their 2021 crystal ballsPost + Comments (2)

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Turn the World Around

by | 149 Comments

This post is in: ,


Found this while looking for an entirely different Belafonte clip, on a much less uplifting topic!

About yesterday’s Early Morning Open Thread…

Speaking of serendipity, somehow it’s not surprising that the earliest roots of human speech might’ve been what we politely term ‘cat-calling’:

… and that’s why it’s gonna be hard for some primates to move towards low-touch social interaction…

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Turn the World AroundPost + Comments (149)

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, May 27-28

by | 14 Comments

This post is in: ,


One note of grace:

… The world’s largest book fair will take place in Frankfurt as scheduled in mid-October, a sign of some return to normality.

Organisers said they were able to persuade city authorities the fair could go ahead after outlining comprehensive sanitary measures. The event, which dates back to the 15th century when Johannes Gutenberg introduced the mass printing of books in nearby Mainz, usually draws more than 300,000 visitors…

(Of course, bibliophiles are notorious good at social distancing!)

show full post on front page

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, May 27-28Post + Comments (14)

On The Road – Redshift – Walks around the Neighborhood (Northern Virginia)

by | 18 Comments

This post is in: ,

If you’re not walking alone, it would be a great time to play “I Spy”.  I spy something red, something yellow, something purple, something white, something orange!  The white azalea is stunning, and the Spanish Bluebells are my favorites.  You’re in Virginia, so I have to ask – where are the Virginia Bluebells?  ~WaterGirl

Redshift

I’ve been taking walks around the neighborhood, watching the progression of spring, and occasionally taking pictures. Three weeks ago, it was tulips and cherry trees everywhere, bright and gorgeous.

 

On The Road - Redshift - Walks around the Neighborhood (Northern Virginia) 7
Northern VirginiaApril 4, 2020

On The Road – Redshift – Walks around the Neighborhood (Northern Virginia)Post + Comments (18)

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Cannibal-in-Chief

by | 63 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Bossie’s an old-school, successful ratfvcker — which is why the #failsons and luzers in Trump’s permanent cortege hate him. Lewandowski’s a no-neck two-bit thug, which probably intimidates Jared and Stephen Miller, and it won’t surprise me when rumors leak out that he tried to throw hands on Parscale. Insert ‘Let them fight’ gif —

… Republicans involved with setting up the Thursday meeting with Trump’s state directors said they were taken aback by Bossie and Lewandowski’s warning. They felt the need to mollify Trump, who has been kept abreast of his reelection effort but hasn’t always been aware of the granular, on-the-ground details.

The sequence, which was described by four people familiar with what transpired, offered the latest snapshot of Trump’s angst about his battleground state standing. With just five months until the election, the president has been privately expressing concern about his poll numbers and senior Republicans are openly sounding alarms about his swing state prospects...

When the discussion turned to Arizona in the Thursday meeting, Trump and his political advisers expressed concern about GOP Sen. Martha McSally’s campaign to win the seat to which she was appointed in 2018. The president waved in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was there to meet with him on a separate matter, for the discussion.

Those present in the meeting also voiced worry about the prospects of another red state senator, Georgia Republican Kelly Loeffler. The senator had at the time been under federal investigation for stock trades, though the Department of Justice has since dropped the investigation.

Georgia, like Arizona, hasn’t been won by a Democratic presidential candidate in decades. But recent surveys have shown Trump on shaky ground, including one commissioned by the political team of GOP Gov. Brian Kemp that had the president running neck-and-neck with Biden.

On Tuesday, the campaign announced that it was promoting former White House political director Bill Stepien to deputy campaign manager. The move was described as an attempt to provide additional support to campaign manager Brad Parscale, though some in the White House viewed it as a check on Parscale…

Whisper: Mitch McConnell doesn’t care whether Trump wins in November. Mitch has his wife’s multimillions to fall back on, not to mention his own ties to Putin. Mitch would be just as happy to see a Democrat in the Oval Office next year, so he could go back to being ‘the (dis)loyal opposition…

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Cannibal-in-ChiefPost + Comments (63)

Open Thread: A Real, Compassionate Leader

by | 96 Comments

This post is in: ,

I’m going to make it my mission over the next few months to remind us what real leadership looks like.

 

Also: If anyone sees a good campaign ad, especially from the Senate candidates in possible flip states, send them to me and I’ll highlight them.

Open thread

Open Thread: A Real, Compassionate LeaderPost + Comments (96)

Never Help, Always Divide

by | 37 Comments

This post is in: 

Yesterday I got a breaking news alert from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, our (on a good day) mediocre local paper. “Greece restaurants can open outdoor dining before NY reopening phase.” (Greece is a suburb of Rochester, run by the Republican county chair and known asshole Bill Reilich.) The paper rushed to get that breaking news headline out to all subscribers. Why? Because local media is stretched thin and Reilich gave them a packaged story at deadline (the story was published at 4:45 PM).

In the absolutely predictable re-write of the story now posted to the D&C’s website, which was published at 6:20 PM, the fact that the town of Greece can’t fucking do that now occupies the second graf. Restaurant re-openings are in phase 3 of our extremely clear re-opening plan, and we’re only at phase 1. Bob Duffy, former Lt. Governor and currently head of our region’s re-opening panel, also pointed out that the liquor licences of those restaurants are controlled by the state liquor board. In other words, open your patio, lose your liquor license.

This may seem like small potatoes, but it is just of a piece of the way that a whole lot of Republican office holders have responded to this pandemic — stirring shit, looking for division, and showing a constant willingness to sacrifice public health in the cause of their own publicity. Reilich’s last brush with media glory was going to the Supreme Court and winning the right to have a prayer prior to every town meeting (thanks Justice Kennedy!). Just like that prayer, this latest piece of horseshit is all for show — he knew at the outset that no restaurant in Greece would open their outdoor seating one second before any other restaurant in the area.

I know that a lot of you live in red states, but even in blue states, the media is wired for Republicans, or, more specifically, only Republicans are really good at exploiting the weaknesses of our depleted local news outlets. The D&C is a Gannett paper — Gannett lived in Rochester and his media empire started here. For some reason, it’s the prime playground for the stupidity of Gannett management, who have chased every digital fad and crapped up the experience of visiting the paper’s website to a point of near unusability. They’ve also laid off most of the reporting staff, and a lot of the remaining staff seems to be doing things like posting raw video of news conferences that probably exist on YouTube. I’m sure that Gannett management would be proud of the reporter who broke this story “first” — a whole 15 minutes prior to the TV news broadcasts that start at 5 PM. Their monthly TPS reports will certainly reflect that they “won the cycle” yesterday.

At least this announcement won’t hurt anyone, unlike the mask nonsense. Leave it to Republicans to divide the country into wimpy liberal mask wearers, and manly unmasked real men who have truck nuts on their big manly real man pickups. Reilich hasn’t gone there yet, but I certainly won’t be surprised when he does.

Never Help, Always DividePost + Comments (37)

‘Maximizing His Time’

by | 140 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

As I’ve mentioned in this space before, my fondest wish for the present era is that Trump’s fall will be so humiliating that it blights the political prospects of all the horrid wingnut remoras who attached themselves to Trump during his rise. Mike Pompeo is one such horrid wingnut remora, and boy does he deserve ruin for nestling so close to the Trumpian anal fin.

Ever seen Pompeo interviewed? He seems really angry. He’s definitely not enjoying life, despite having taxpayer provided dog-walkers and dry cleaning picker-uppers.

He snaps out pained, exasperated, prefab responses to softball questions and gets super prickly and sneery when gently queried on Trump’s lunatic pronouncements or — the sheer effrontery, the unmitigated gall! — the propriety of Pompeo’s own actions. You can almost see the thought-bubble over his head that reads, “DON’T YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM?!?”

From The Hill:

Ex-Pompeo staffers asked to sign letter against ‘smear campaign’

Former House staffers to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are being asked to sign a letter offering him support after a “smear campaign” that he and his wife asked staffers to carry out trivial tasks such as bringing him lunch or getting his dry cleaning.

The letter obtained by The Hill says Pompeo, while serving as a House member from Kansas, picked up his own dry cleaning and that if there was a deviation, it was to maximize his time with constituents…

“In our time working with them, Mike and Susan never expressed that a task was so trivial or mundane as to be beneath them,” the letter states.

“To set the record straight: Mike picked up his own dry cleaning. Mike bought his own lunch. And yes, Mike picked up the phone and took constituent calls,” it says. “Any deviation from these norms was in order to maximize Mike’s time serving constituent needs. Misreporting on these practices is such a gross misuse of journalistic resources at a time of a global pandemic that it boggles our imaginations.”

Bolded text = Busted. According to The Hill’s sources, it was the missus who turned congressional, CIA and then State Department staff into personal butlers, but that’s probably a load of horseshit too. I’m willing to speculate they’re both arrogant, entitled shitheads, and if the Trump era marks the last stop on the federal gravy train for the Pompeos, something positive will have emerged from this shit-blizzard after all.

Open thread.

‘Maximizing His Time’Post + Comments (140)

Remdesivir and its value

by | 36 Comments

This post is in: ,

The New England Journal of Medicine has the first trial report out on the effectiveness of remdesivir, an anti-viral medication made by Gilead, for treating hospitalized individuals with COVID-19.

METHODS
We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of intravenous remdesivir in adults hospitalized with Covid-19 with evidence of lower respiratory tract involvement. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either remdesivir (200 mg loading dose on day 1, followed by 100 mg daily for up to 9 additional days) or placebo for up to 10 days. The primary outcome was the time to recovery, defined by either discharge from the hospital or hospitalization for infection-control purposes only.

RESULTS
Preliminary results from the 1059 patients (538 assigned to remdesivir and 521 to placebo) with data available after randomization indicated that those who received remdesivir had a median recovery time of 11 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 9 to 12), as compared with 15 days (95% CI, 13 to 19) in those who received placebo (rate ratio for recovery, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.55; P<0.001). The Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality by 14 days were 7.1% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo (hazard ratio for death, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.47 to 1.04).

This is good evidence that remdesivir is useful as a therapeutic. The study is a gold standard randomized clinical trial without the typical confounding seen in observational studies. It does not have selection effects and the statistics indicate a high confidence in at least recovery effects. Median recovery time is 26% (4/15) faster for people administered the drug than people who received placebo and regular care. Remdesivir does not have proven mortality effects at this time.

So what is its value?

I think remdesivir has two value propositions in the United States. In the current environment where hospitals are currently not overrun, it has real value in reducing hospital stays by 26% and reducing PPE, supportive medication and staff time demands to treat any one patient. This is valuable.

In an environment where a region’s hospitals are being overwhelmed, surging remdesiver into a region has both the baseline value and then an add-on value. A region with an overwhelmed hospital system will have a case fatality rate several times higher than the same region with hospital capacity to spare. The faster recovery time means beds clear faster and the staff that would be committed to helping two patients recover per month would be available to care for almost three patients per month. This would be a fast way to surge effective care capacity into a region that is the equivalent of deploying a hospital ship or an army field hospital with the attached train staff.

In that scenario, remdesivir will likely have indirect mortality effects. Shorter lengths of stay means the effective hospital throughput is higher which means the length of time that a region is in an overload scenario is shorter. Some individuals who would have been admitted to the hospital during a slam period without remdisivir will be admitted to the hospital during normal(ish) operations with far lower mortality risk due to the increased throughput.

Using this logic, remdesivir has both immediate resource replacement value and mortality prevention value in some scenarios. These two value streams can be modeled to be a fairly large number under some modeling assumptions. The value of the mortality prevention by minimizing periods of slam will be a function of modeling both COVID-19’s inherent response to seasonality, our social responses, our public health responses and the length of time to widespread, effective vaccine deployment. The less optimistic an analysis is about any of these parameters, holding all else equal, the more valuable remdesivir will be. But a fairly large number could be justified under standard cost effectiveness models depending on the underlying assumptions about disease spread and regional overload scenarios.

Remdesivir and its valuePost + Comments (36)

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Blast Off

by | 146 Comments

This post is in: ,

Assuming the weather cooperates:

… NASA and SpaceX are targeting 4:33 p.m. EDT May 27 for the launch of the first commercially-built and operated American rocket and spacecraft carrying astronauts to the space station. NASA and SpaceX will provide joint, live coverage from launch to arrival at the space station.

Full mission coverage will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website, as well as numerous other platforms…

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and is scheduled to dock to the space station at 11:39 a.m. Thursday, May 28.

This will be SpaceX’s final test flight for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and will provide critical data on the performance of the Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon spacecraft, and ground systems, as well as in-orbit, docking, and landing operations.

The test flight also will provide valuable data toward certification of SpaceX’s crew transportation system for regular flights carrying astronauts to and from the space station. SpaceX currently is readying the hardware for the first space station crew rotational mission, which would happen after data from this test flight is reviewed for certification…

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Blast OffPost + Comments (146)