Tag Archives: politics

Just finished reading “Bloodlands,” a book by Yale historian Timothy Snyder. It was published in 2010, but now has a lengthy afterword that discusses the book’s reception and ties the theme to current events. I was inspired to read this book because of events in Ukraine and I believe that I have a much better understanding of the current conflict from having read it.The bloodlands refers to the territory lying between central Poland and, roughly, the...

Infidel753: Cultural vandalism As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of ‘The Times’ had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead.  This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks,...

This is Part One covering Medicare Advantage, Direct Contracting, and the MA Money Machine of which the Risk Scores drive the payout. If the Risk Scoring methodology was eliminated, ~$355 billion over the next eight years if just the risk-score related overpayments were eliminated. This is a pretty good read if you have the patience to cover all of it. I have added acronym and other definitions at the bottom. I have also added some additional...

This NYT story just dredges up the stories we would read and hear in the fifties and sixties. Popular song when I was hanging around the coffee houses then. No Starbucks then or laptops. If the song was of your ilk. Arriving in record numbers, the children escaping other countries are ending up in jobs violating child labor laws. Their presence can be found in the factories making the products your own and safe children might be eating or wearing....

Parts of this Covid Vaccine Story came via the Daily Beast; Just hours after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) swore to question Moderna’s chief executive in a Senate hearing next month about plans to quadruple the price of its COVID-19 vaccine, the company abruptly reversed course, announcing in a statement that the vaccine would remain free to all consumers “regardless of their ability to pay.” The pharmaceutical giant was widely denounced last...

“Michigan Supreme Court hearing on automobile no-fault reform: What to know,” Bridge Michigan, In reading this, I can almost guarantee, the citizens of the state of Michigan had not given any thought to the screwing over of those who suffered catastrophic injury due to automobile accidents. Indeed, it was business interests who set the pace for the repeal of No-Fault Auto Insurance. Michigan residents lived with the higher insurance...

The Fed still seems determined to bring about a recession  – by New Deal democrat As I wrote on Saturday, several coincident indicators have stabilized in the past several months (for example, Redbook consumer sales, which has been at roughly 5% YoY for 8 weeks; and payroll tax withholding, which was only up 1.2% YoY for the last 4 months of 2022, but is up 4.7% YoY for the first 9 weeks of this year). This has led to increased speculation that...

Unfortunately, this did not include the screening of “Loan Wolves.” The clip is approximately 36 minutes long. It includes Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice who I have known for over a decade. Alan has been on Angry Bear Blog multiple times. He has not given up his, the crusade seeking relief for student loans. “Loan Wolves” Writer and Director Blake Zeff has written for The Onion and Politico besides doing other things. He is the chief...

Dale Coberly talking about reforming entitlements and the impact on Social Security . . . CRFB, “The Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget”, is an organization dedicated to reducing the National Debt or federal budget deficit, so it says.  But it seems to spend most of its time calling for  “reforming entitlements,” meaning “cut Social Security” which has nothing to do with the Debt/Deficit. Social Security is paid for entirely by the...

For most of my adult life, I’ve learned history almost exclusively by reading books. I took American and World history in high school and two quarters of American history in college, but after that, I became a history autodidact. I’ve written several book reviews (and published three of them), but this is the first course review I’ve written.In a footnote to an article on Ukraine in New York Review of books by British historian Timothy Garton Ash, he...