US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Whoops

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/25/white-house-mistaken-identity_n_5390566.html

[benjipwns]

[Dickie Dee]

(Image removed from quote.)

Nailed it.

[Great Rumbler]

[Phoenix Dark]

the funny/sad thing is that they'll still win big in November lol.

[Joe Molotov]

(Image removed from quote.)

Nailed it.

Liberals destroyed.

[Raban]

please quote that image more

[Great Rumbler]

please quote that image more

Don't tempt me.

[benjipwns]

please quote that image more

Which one? This one?

(Image removed from quote.)

Nailed it.

Liberals destroyed.

I'll try not to.

[benjipwns]

Legit challenger to Hillary announces campaign for Democratic nomination.

[Yeti]

http://i.imgur.com/Yr40y2y.jpg

http://imgur.com/DUosOwb

[Brehvolution]

Dat ODS.

[Mandark]

Yup.  The FT averaged by population rather than by country.  I'm sure there are good arguments for this, but you really need to make those arguments rather than pretend that adopting a different methodology is all part of fixing errors and "simplifying the data."

Which doesn't let Piketty off the hook for what sounds like some sloppiness on his part.  But it's a reminder that the FT study isn't some indisputable final word on the subject.

[benjipwns]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/27/duck-dynasty-star-phil-robertson-to-address-republican-leadership-conference/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/black-republican-congressional-candidate-defends-cliven-bund
this dudes name is racist!

[Brehvolution]

Religious people with the last name of Robertson have been irrelevant for 30 years.

Tickle and Shelby were first asked, but they could not make it.

 

[benjipwns]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/exclusive-texas-va-run-like-a-crime-syndicate-whistleblower-says.html

New whistleblower testimony and internal documents implicate an award-winning VA hospital in Texas in widespread wrongdoing—and what appears to be systemic fraud.

Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay.

What’s worse, the documents show the wrongdoing going unpunished for years, even after it was repeatedly reported to local and national VA authorities. That indicates a new troubling angle to the VA scandal: that the much touted investigations may be incapable of finding violations that are hiding in plain sight. 

“For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.”

...

In Cheyenne, Wyoming, Chicago, and Albuquerque, more VA whistleblowers came forward claiming that the same fraudulent scheduling was being used in the hospitals where they worked. At last count, the VA inspector general’s investigation had expanded to 26 separate facilities.

...

“If [VA] directors report low numbers, they’re the outlier. They won’t stay a director very long and they certainly won’t get promoted. No one is getting rewarded for honesty. They pretty much have to lie, if they don’t they won’t go anywhere,” the whistleblower added. Weighted more heavily than other performance measures, the wait time numbers alone “count for 50% of the executive career field bonus, which is a pretty powerful motivator.”

Though VA hospitals may be struggling with increasing patient loads and inadequate resources—including too few medical providers—they are punished for acknowledging those problems. The VA’s current system appears to reward executives’ accounting tricks that mask deep structural issues and impede real solutions.

...

After the warning from Harper and questions about scheduling from several other doctors, including Spann, the final comment in the thread concerns Dr. Vincent. The message reads: “It doesn’t help if you insist on a date that doesn’t meet their 30-day criteria. Vincent just cancels the order. End of story. ”

In other words: it never mattered what was entered to show the “desired date” requested by the patient or the medical provider treating them. Despite Harper’s protestations, if the entry didn’t help meet the VA’s performance objectives it never made it into the system.

Nevertheless, the VA recently cleared Vincent of wrongdoing and, while acknowledging scheduling malpractice, blamed it on mistakes made by lower-level clerks.

On the ultrasound request form, Dr. Vincent writes that he canceled the order because it was “entered in error.” But that would have come as news to the medical provider who actually interacted with the veteran and entered the date based on their evaluation of the patient’s needs. The real reason for canceling it, according to both Dr. Spann and the whistleblower who spoke with The Daily Beast, was to meet the VA’s performance objectives—whatever the cost.

Meeting the performance objectives, which made executives eligible for bonuses and put them in line for promotions, became the overriding imperative among VA executives, according to both Spann and the whistleblower.

The VA’s 2012 performance plan, provided to The Daily Beast by the whistleblower, contains five critical elements to evaluate success, each one containing multiple sub-criteria. But critical element No. 5, the “Results Driven” component that contains the “wait time” criteria, is worth 50% of the overall score. That’s as much as all the other elements combined.

And scoring high on the performance measures is of paramount consideration in a VA hospital. “This is what your bosses, the executives, are being evaluated for,” the whistleblower said. “So if you work for them you must support this because that’s how they’re prioritizing their evaluation of your job.”

The VA’s performance measures were originally established to provide uniform criteria for evaluating employees.  The idea was to use the grading system to reward those who met the standard with bonuses and identify those who were lagging behind. But over time, VA executives realized that the wait time numbers they reported were almost more important than anything else—including the actual care they provided veterans—in how they were judged by the VA’s leadership. At that point the measures became a perverse incentive, encouraging VA facilities across the country to hide problems by cheating their numbers. Eventually, cooking the books became an alarmingly regular procedure—a standard that might have remained if it hadn’t been exposed in Phoenix and unraveled over the past month.

Best part:

The inspector general’s report from January 2012 stated that, according to the hospital’s own staff, “appointments were routinely made incorrectly by using the next available appointment date instead of the patient’s desired date.” The improper scheduling “led to inaccurate reporting of GI [gastro-intestinal] clinic wait times,” the report concluded. But the IG stopped there, blaming the practice on lower-level scheduler error—and ignoring evidence that shows the fraudulent scheduling practices were pervasive and consciously directed by higher-level executives.

“Every doctor, nurse, and clerk in the hospital knows it’s true, but the VA’s investigative team wasn’t able to find any evidence,” the clinician said. “They didn’t interview any of us or really try to find out what was going on. This was reported in 2011 and it’s still not fixed today.”

The Central Texas management parroted the inspector general’s findings when the hospital applied for a “Robert W. Carey Performance Excellence Award.” According to the clinician, in the hospitals award application they actually listed as an accomplishment that they had found “front line staff” incorrectly using desired dates in the scheduling process and fixed the problem. It must have been convincing. Despite the OIG investigation, the hospital won the award.

[Oblivion]

I know we were discussing the financial crisis a few pages ago, but I have one specific question. It's about the claim that banks were forced to lend to poor people who couldn't pay back the loans. Is there (or was there) any actual law that forces banks to do such a thing? I hear that mentioned all the time, but no specifics other than the CRA, which, if I understand correctly, didn't do that, but just made sure that low income minorities that qualified for loans, weren't turned away cause of racist business practices or something to that effect.

[benjipwns]

This is probably the simplest link for the CRA/related argument: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users-guide-2009-6

[AdmiralViscen]

I know we were discussing the financial crisis a few pages ago, but I have one specific question. It's about the claim that banks were forced to lend to poor people who couldn't pay back the loans. Is there (or was there) any actual law that forces banks to do such a thing? I hear that mentioned all the time, but no specifics other than the CRA, which, if I understand correctly, didn't do that, but just made sure that low income minorities that qualified for loans, weren't turned away cause of racist business practices or something to that effect.

Not all banks were required, and the loan failure rate of loans required by the government was lower than the failure rate of those subprime loans that were done just for funsies.

[Brehvolution]

There is a special spot in hell for people that fuck over veterans for personal bonuses.

[Dickie Dee]

How are the "socialist healthcare amirite?" folks spinning the fact that the problem was executive compensation and perverse effect of performance incentives?

[Joe Molotov]

How are the "socialist healthcare amirite?" folks spinning the fact that the problem was executive compensation and perverse effect of performance incentives?

I'm assuming like this...

[Phoenix Dark]

You've gotta be a real piece of shit to abuse veterans while being paid.

[Oblivion]

This is probably the simplest link for the CRA/related argument: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users-guide-2009-6

Thanks. I'll admit I don't understand half of that, but at least someone makes an attempt to explain how it happened.

How are the "socialist healthcare amirite?" folks spinning the fact that the problem was executive compensation and perverse effect of performance incentives?

Eh, if it's a government agency, Republicans don't seem to have a problem with calling for people's heads.

[benjipwns]

Thanks. I'll admit I don't understand half of that, but at least someone makes an attempt to explain how it happened.

Basically what he's saying is that the CRA isn't directly responsible, but second and third order effects from it contributed and same for things trying to support it contributed as well. That without it there still would have been a bubble and so on but it probably would have been smaller and affected fewer.

The standard GOPer or columnist takes this and reduces it to CRA CAUSED IT because they don't understand the concept second or third order effects any better and heaven forbid the banks or more than one party be responsible for anything.

[Phoenix Dark]

giving black people loans

[Oblivion]

Thanks. I'll admit I don't understand half of that, but at least someone makes an attempt to explain how it happened.

Basically what he's saying is that the CRA isn't directly responsible, but second and third order effects from it contributed and same for things trying to support it contributed as well. That without it there still would have been a bubble and so on but it probably would have been smaller and affected fewer.

The standard GOPer or columnist takes this and reduces it to CRA CAUSED IT because they don't understand the concept second or third order effects any better and heaven forbid the banks or more than one party be responsible for anything.

Oh, I understood the guy's thesis. I meant some of the more finer, technical details that I'm not too familiar with.

[Joe Molotov]

Guess who's still alive?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney blasted President Obama as the weakest president of his lifetime on Wednesday, following the president’s speech defending his foreign policy approach at the U.S. Military Academy commencement ceremony.

“He is a very, very weak president,” Cheney said in an interview with Fox News. “Maybe the weakest — certainly in my lifetime.”

Cheney went on to say that during a recent trip to the Middle East, allies he had “dealt with all the way back to Desert Storm” expressed alarm at the president’s handling of foreign policy.

“They all are absolutely convinced that the American capacity to lead and influence in that part of the world has been dramatically reduced by this president,” Cheney said. “We’ve got a problem with weakness, and it’s centered right in the White House.”

 

[Oblivion]

Well Cheney did prevent 9/11 from happening, so...

[Trent Dole]

But Cheney is the worst president of Cheney's lifetime?

[Phoenix Dark]

Too bad Obama is too polite to just say "look, I can't think of anything weaker than lying to instigate a war that should have never been waged, cost a trillion dollars, and led to the death of thousands of people. Dick Cheney has no credility on any foreign policy issue."

[Great Rumbler]

Good ol' Karl Rove was out making the rounds, too, saying pretty much the same thing. Obama is weak blahblahblah allies don't trust us anymore blahblahblabh enemies emboldened blahblahblahb Putin is so strong.

[Oblivion]

Reporter: When you said that you think the Internet should be free are you talking about broadband infrastructure free access nationwide?
Land: Right, right.

Reporter: So you think that if you were in the Senate you would push for the creation of a nationwide broadband infrastructure with free access?

Land: No, no, no. We were talking about one specific item, there.

Reporter: Right, net neutrality, which is about access to faster Internet, not free Internet.

Land: Right. I think that … I think it's important that the costs don't go up so people can't have access to the Internet, meaning that what he said, if it's faster than [sic]  they're gonna charge more to the consumer."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/29/1302809/-Terri-Lynn-Land-shows-why-the-FCC-needs-to-save-the-internet

[Great Rumbler]

 

And Scalia didn't understand what HBO was or how it works

[Joe Molotov]

Net Neutrality sounds like limp-dick liberal bullshit, I'm against it. We need to meet our Net Enemies with strong Net Aggression, possibly a pre-emptive Net Strike.

[Phoenix Dark]

Net Neutrality sounds like limp-dick liberal bullshit, I'm against it. We need to meet our Net Enemies with strong Net Aggression, possibly a pre-emptive Net Strike.

Net Freedom, provided by AOL.

[DCharlieJP]

MARKET FORCES WILL MAKE A COMPLETELY UNNEUTRAL INTERNET PROFITABLE AND EFFICIENT! (for the big companies)

[benjipwns]

[Phoenix Dark]

Seems like they're moreso laughing at her wording than anything else.

I'm all for looking weak as long as it keeps our troops from getting blown up for no fucking reason.

[benjipwns]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/when-bushies-blew-a-cia-cover-it-was-treason.-now-its-a-mistake./article/2549026

Many observers seem satisfied with the White House's explanation that the incident was just a regrettable error. And that is indeed what it appears to be. But such assessments represent a remarkable change in tone from the discussion several years ago, when the George W. Bush administration leaked Valerie Plame's identity as part of a bitter fight over the origin and direction of the Iraq war. Back then, it was quite common to hear the words "traitor" and "treason" used to describe top Bush officials involved in the controversy.

There's no doubt the Bush officials deliberately revealed Plame's CIA connection, if not her name, to the press. But the Plame leak could be characterized as inadvertent in one sense: the leakers, both in the State Department and the White House, did not know that Plame's status at the CIA was classified when they mentioned her to reporters. That is why no one was ever charged with leaking her identity; they did not knowingly and deliberately reveal classified information. So in that sense it was all a mistake. Yes, it was inadvertent, colossally stupid, an embarrassment -- but it was a mistake.

No matter. Pushed relentlessly by Democrats, the White House agreed to the appointment of a special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, which led to years of investigation -- top Bush aide Karl Rove was called before a grand jury five times -- and the conviction of former top Dick Cheney aide Scooter Libby on charges of perjury.

Now that a high-profile inadvertent leak is in the news again, perhaps it would be a good thing, just for memory's sake, to go through some of the things that were said during the Plame affair.

...

Fast-forward a few years, and there has now been another leak of a CIA employee's classified status. The circumstances are entirely different from the Plame case. But they are similar in the sense that the person doing the leaking, then and now, most likely did not know that he or she was revealing classified information. Was one an act treason and the other an embarrassing mistake?

That's what Plame suggests. The new leak, she explained at The Atlantic gathering, "is not analogous, I would argue, to what happened to me because the crucial distinction being intent, right? My view of it is that there was retaliation for my husband, Joe Wilson, who was a fierce critic, I think it's fair to say, of the Iraq war, the Bush administration. It was a warning shot —versus this, which was just foolish."

There's been no reaction, at least not yet, from the now-former chief of station in Afghanistan.

[Phoenix Dark]

Wait, so relations with the UK and France are worse now than they were under Bush? Fuckouttahere

And even in the examples he cited...should we send troops to Syria? Should we send troops to Libya? Should we have stayed in Iraq? Go on record and stop hand wringing. I'm not going to defend Obama's dithering "maybe maybe not" approach to Syria, after all he pretty much was saved by Kerry throwing a hail mary and the Russians catching it. But I'll take that over bombing Assad anyway.

[benjipwns]

That Afghanistan announcement the other day was funny, you could go one place and they're praising Obama for "ending the war" and some place else and bashing him for leaving almost 10,000 "advisers" and then you had McCain, Graham and places like NRO talking about how Obama was surrendering and hadn't learned the lessons of 9/11.

And then the media gets all up in arms when both Bush and Obama admit they don't pay too much attention to them. (As if they need to turn on or visit CNN to learn about events.)

[Phoenix Dark]

He can't win. Even back in 2011 when there were more "Obama the realist/HW Bush successor" type fp articles floating around, there was still plenty of "Obama is weak" stuff. My complaint is that we saw what idiotic foreign policy looked like for eight years and are still suffering for it, yet the media has the audacity to suggest Obama is worse. It tells you everything you need to know about mainstream media

Poll after poll shows Americans agree with Obama on most foreign policy issues, yet when generally asked "do you agree with Obama's foreign policy" most say no. To me that's an issue of bad communication and bad media.

[Oblivion]

Wait, so relations with the UK and France are worse now than they were under Bush?

More importantly, since when do conservatives give a shit what our allies think? Especially France! I mean, really? France? Did we all forget what right-wing hatred of the French led to back in the good old days?

[Joe Molotov]

Wait, so relations with the UK and France are worse now than they were under Bush?

More importantly, since when do conservatives give a shit what our allies think? Especially France! I mean, really? France? Did we all forget what right-wing hatred of the French led to back in the good old days?

Well, we showed the French when we invaded Iraq anyway and it turned out to be a GREAT idea! (Source: Dick Cheney)

[benjipwns]

It's really an unfalsifiable thing either way. And so much turns on personality. Maggie liked Reagan but distrusted him, Mitterand thought he was stupid but useful. Clinton got along decently with Blair but didn't exactly make love with Chirac, Chirac disliked Bush personally and vice versa while Blair was Bush's BFF. Cameron and Sarkozy both seem to like Obama, but Hollande seems a little more cool to him. All of this with a jumble of ideologies both on domestic and foreign policy.

But the objectives of foreign policy and relations don't really change too much:
http://vimeo.com/85914510

[Kara]

https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/472196261211541504

behold the desert of the real

[benjipwns]

holy crap, I didn't think I'd be able to find it, but the Reagan Foundation has posted footage of this:


Newt's over the top fake laugh (or at least one of them) at 5:25ish. (4:58 for the setup for the punchline)

[Great Rumbler]

Middle East relations are worse under Obama than Bush? Somehow I doubt that very much.

[Joe Molotov]

https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/472196261211541504

behold the desert of the real

[ToxicAdam]

Is Holder the only guy that the Obama administration didn't crumble over and fire under any threat of pressure?

[Great Rumbler]

Holder is too awesome to be fired.

[benjipwns]

The hits keep coming:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/05/30/giuliani_under_obama_america_is_weaker_in_every_significant_area_of_the_world.html

RUDY GIULIANI: He isn't cut out to be an executive. He doesn't have the natural skills of an executive. I said if you were hiring an executive who would you hire, Obama or McCain. There is nothing in this man's background to suggest he could run the most complicated organization in the world.

...

If you look at the last six years in every significant area of the world, America is in a much worse position. I go to South America and advise them on security. Our relationships with South America are weaker and worse.

[Brehvolution]

9/11 happened on GIULIANI's watch. Wouldn't that make him the weakest mayor in the history of human existence?

[Steve Contra]

It's amazing how hard the right is still campaigning against Obama.

[benjipwns]

9/11 happened on GIULIANI's watch. Wouldn't that make him the weakest mayor in the history of human existence?

What part of Tower of STRENGTH don't you understand?

[Joe Molotov]

[Great Rumbler]

9/11 happened on GIULIANI's watch.

Let's not talk about that, though. Or the 1,400 first-responders who have died from illnesses related to the toxic dust cloud, or the additional 19,000 people who are sick or dying from the same kinds of illnesses, despite being told that the air was safe.

[Oblivion]

Wait, what executive experience did McCain have again?

[Joe Molotov]

Old white guy.