BURNPIT: U.S. Politics, August 2022

Republicans are stupid.

But also, shhhhhh don't tell D leaning voters about certain compromises in a just passed bill ---

The two biggest benefits for seniors in the IRA are the Medicare negotiation of certain high-cost prescription drugs, and the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap. But while price negotiations technically start next year, no consumer will see the benefit until the new prices begin in 2026, and even then on only 10 drugs (another 15 are added in 2027 and 2028, rising to 20 by 2029 and subsequent years).

You could squint and maybe understand the need for a little delay in setting up a negotiation regime. There are some parameters to set up, like the benchmarks for prices and the penalties if drug companies refuse to deal. Maybe you have to train negotiators. But none of that can possibly explain the three-year delay between the beginning of negotiation and the realization of price discounts for seniors. To be crass, it means that substantial numbers of seniors living now will not be alive when the reduction in certain prescription drug prices is realized.

https://prospect.org/health/prescription-drug-price-reforms-wont-happen-for-years/

well it gives the pharma industry time to elect a different president

i also wouldn’t be surprised if that short list of drugs includes a handful whose exclusivity is going to run out shortly after the negotiation period opens

It also means that if and when the law actually leads to lower Rx prices for normal people, no voter except for Ezra Klein’s third cousin will connect it to the IRA.

It could also be one of those fun situations where in 6 years, the cost of a certain Rx has gone up 75%, due to the unavoidable conditions of life sucking so badly and things always getting worse. But without the IRA, the cost would have gone up 125%. Triumph

good morning!

lol these people will lie about every single thing, whether it matters or not

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve obtained audio from the Cheney campaign of the concession voicemail Rep. Liz Cheney’s left for Harriet Hageman last night.

The audio contradicts the narrative Hageman gave on Hannity tonight that she “didn’t address any kind of concession or anything else.” https://t.co/SZTxyyEmTn pic.twitter.com/LodE9YVVIW

— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) August 18, 2022

Liz always sounds as if she's reading minutes of a PTA meeting.

Get in the pit

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/nyregion/weisselberg-trump-guilty-plea.html

The Republican senator Rick Scott has warned Americans not to apply for new positions with the Internal Revenue Service because he says his party will defund them if it takes Congress later this year...

what a fucking asshole

The Republicans have drained the IRS to the point that it struggles to perform its basic functions.

joke country

"We need to grow our teeth back, fast. So part of those teeth, in this particular set of terms, is voting with the ballot before we have to vote with bullets" -- Stephen Lowell, a GOP-endorsed candidate for a Minnesota senate seat in the Twin Cities suburbs pic.twitter.com/B5LQigB74Y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 18, 2022

xp
take my life...please!

I notice that guy says "who wants to participate in a game that it looks like you're going to lose?" rather than "a game that's rigged"

i know everyone disagrees but i'm just going to say that 'republicans are stupid', whether true or not according to whatever measurement you might have in mind, is not a message that makes democrats look appealing to anyone except people who think they're smarter than everyone else. really, it's just a different side of the same meritocratic white-supremacist bullshit that republicans trade in, which makes sense given that democrats are more partners with the gop than antagonists in any meaningful way.

i know everyone disagrees but i'm just going to say that 'republicans are stupid', whether true or not according to whatever measurement you might have in mind, is not a message that makes democrats look appealing to anyone except people who think they're smarter than everyone else.

Did anyone suggest putting it on campaign posters or bumper stickers?

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that there simply isn't any coherent statement you can make re the smartness of democrat vs gop voters. if you really think so you need to reexamine your own bullshit.

Don't worry, map, your status as The Smartest Guy In The Room and The Guy Who Sees Through You All remains unchallenged.

Dems won't have to run on Republicans-are-stupid, not with the series of bills signed by Biden and the horrors happening in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, etc.

I just saw a headline that Ron DeSantis is announcing that 20 people have been convicted of voting illegally thanks to his new "voting integrity office." From the soundbite, it looks to be convicted felons who voted without having their civil rights restored.

iirc, several years ago the voters of Florida approved a measure restoring voting rights to released felons. (smacks head) oops! I forgot, the Republican legislators immediately decided to repeal law that because what's the use of a racist carceral system if it can't totally disenfranchise black men for the rest of their lives?

Did they repeal it, or just make it prohibitively difficult and costly to complete the process by requiring full repayment of court costs, etc.?

Either way, their goal was obvious.

you're right. I forgot that twist. makes it easier for white-collar felons to regain their rights, but poor people, nope.

Yes, the legislation passed last year gutting the referendum is called Stop Scum from Voting Act iirc

I enjoyed this ruling out of Florida, blocking part of the idiotic and obviously unconstitutional STOP WOKE Act. Props to the judge for a sustained Stranger Things riff in the intro:

In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. See Stranger Things(Netflix 2022). Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.

Now, like the heroine in Stranger Things, this Court is once again asked to pull Florida back from the upside down.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22140127/preliminary-injunction-order-honeyfund-v-desantis.pdf

this is sorely missing a reference to making deals with the gods even though it hints at the swapping of places.

Justice for Barb

I think that bro in Minnesota been snortin' a bit too much Black Rifle straight from the can (or maybe something else). He's a bit wired.

what the fuck are you doing Oz

Only in John Fetterman’s world can you go house hunting and get a home for $1. pic.twitter.com/0akJi1nNFW

— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) August 18, 2022

I don't even get what point that's trying to make.

I want to be in fetterman’s world which is really weird and not my own but the homes cost $1

Oz is running one of the worst campaigns I've ever seen, it's like he's trying to Tommy Wiseau his way into a Senate seat

like the same way The Room comes off like a poorly-trained AI trying to write its own movie, Oz's campaign is just a weird amalgam of stuff you see in other political ads with no understanding of what they're actually trying to convey. so he's just out there saying broadly popular ideas suck and grabbing raw vegetables with his bare hands

do I even want to know what this $1 house thing is about, or is it gibberish?

Fine, I looked it up:

Public records show — and Fetterman has openly acknowledged — that for a long stretch lasting well into his 40s, his main source of income came from his parents, who gave him and his family $54,000 in 2015 alone. That was part of the financial support his parents regularly provided when Fetterman’s only paying work was $150 a month as mayor of Braddock, a job he held from his mid-30s until he turned 49. He lived in an industrial-style loft he purchased from his sister for $1 after she paid $70,000 for it six years earlier.

(That's from a Philadelphia Inquirer article.)

surely no PA citizen could relate these days to needing financial help from their family.

Another lovely little flourish from the Florida ruling:

Nonetheless, the fact that the IFA uses real words found in an English
dictionary does not magically extinguish vagueness concerns. See Yates v. United
States, 574 U.S. 528, 537 (2015) (“Whether a statutory term is unambiguous, however, does not turn solely on dictionary definitions of its component words.”). If that were true, the Due Process Clause would tolerate laws containing the most incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness word salads so long as they used actual words. See generally James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939).

Concept 4 is even worse, bordering on unintelligible. Under that provision, employers cannot endorse the view that “(m)embers of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin.” § 760.10(8)(a)(4), Fla. Stat. (emphases added). Concept 4 thus features a rarely seen triple negative, resulting in a cacophony of confusion.

Good or at least promising news:

Wow. I've been sharing data showing a huge surge in women registering to vote since the 6/24 Dobbs decision. I just started to look at some age and party breakdowns of those new registrants, and the numbers are jaw-dropping.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 19, 2022

Starting in PA, where women have accounted for >56% of new registrants in that time period. Those women new registrants are 62%D to 15% R and 54% are under the age of 25. Compare that to men new registrants at 41% <25 and 43% D, 28% R.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 19, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfONxAeuOPg

anyone with a washington post sub (or willing to burn a free article) should check out the photo essay on the IRS system of processing paper tax returns, which was last updated back in the 1870s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/irs-pipeline-tax-return-delays/

starve the beast, especially the part of the beast that collects taxes.

https://i.imgur.com/zEyNA8C.png

sorry america, but IRS tech can only handle 4 dependents. it's just not possible to make it better.

if anyone knows a more more modern language than COBOL than yeah, be my guest and try to fix it

then, america. then.

easier to cap child bearing at 4

"... a cacophony of confusion'

Next month's title?

Not Megadeth’s best work imo

IIRC, you can only get deductions for 10 dependents at the most

well you have to curb that great replacement somehow

Manchin’s evil but sometimes dryly funny?

Manchin in WV: "We had a Senator from Arizona who basically didn't let us go as far as we needed to go with our [prescription drug pricing] negotiations and made us wait two years"https://t.co/GuaL9STfQN

— Pavan (@ppavnr) August 19, 2022