THE WSJ DEBUNKS A BAGGER MEME

(h/t Mark Thoma)

For months, the radio gasbags & FAUX News have been trying to convince Americans that Obamacare has caused a dramatic increase in the number of part-time jobs and as usual, that claim is a LIE.

Still No Evidence Obamacare Is Forcing Large Numbers Into Part-Time Work
October 31, 2013, 11:20 AM
By Ben Casselman
WALL STREET JOURNAL

One of the most common arguments against President Barack Obama’s signature health law is that it will drive employers to shift from full-time to part-time workers. That’s because the law requires most midsize and larger employers to provide health insurance to employees who work at least 30 hours per week. Some companies say they’re already cutting workers’ hours.

As we pointed out last week, there’s little evidence of a broad-based shift, at least so far. Most significantly, there’s been no meaningful increase in the share of workers saying they usually work less than 30 hours at their primary jobs.

But some observers have noted that in its data, the Labor Department rounds workers’ hours up to the next whole number. That means someone who works 29.5 hours would be reported as working 30 hours. So if companies are cutting workers’ hours back to just under the 30-hour cutoff — as some report doing — it might not be reflected in government statistics.

But if that’s happening, it isn’t showing up in the data. About 5 million Americans reported working exactly 30 hours per week in their primary job in September, or a bit under 4% of all workers. That figure has been largely unchanged for the past two years. And the share of employees working 30 hours or less has actually trended slightly downward over the past year.

RUSSELL KIRK ON THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE THINKERS

In The Conservative Mind (1953) Kirk tried to give the essence of conservatism derived from his understanding of Edmund Burke, John Adams, T.S. Eliot  and a few dozen others.

Just considering these three, we can see that conservatives really don't value independence, freedom & tolerance.  Burke was willing to be an MP from a "rotten borough" and as I noted below, had no qualms about personally accepting welfare from the State. John Adams was a closet aristocrat who distrusted education and approved of the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts (1798).  T.S. Eliot was an early Fundie.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Lori G provided a link to a functioning online source for insurance plans:

HEALTH SHERPA

UPDATE: The highest rated comments here provide a more modest evaluation.

THIS MEDICAL STUDY WAS PUBLISHED LAST MONTH

(h/t NYT)

It examined the difference in skills between surgeons and what I found most interesting was this part:

To the researchers’ surprise, there were huge variations in operative skill between the practicing surgeons, with the lowest ranked surgeons working at what the reviewers considered a level only slightly better than a trainee at the end of residency, and the highest-ranking surgeons working like “masters” in their field.

The study is the first to reliably measure operative skills in practicing surgeons and correlate those measurements with patient outcomes.

The lack of information is one reason the Free Market Fairy approach to health care just won't work.

MARK LEVIN IS BITTER BECAUSE HE IS A LOSER

He's backing Cuccinelli in the VA governor race and that's not going to end well for him. Levin also has backed other miserable losers, like Quinn Hillyer:

Levin, before the Sept. 24 primary, endorsed Quin Hillyer for the congressional seat. Hillyer finished fourth in the election. 

IN DENIAL ABOUT COOCH'S FAILURE

In this POLITICO article, another GOP super-genius opines:

Republican Governors Association executive director Phil Cox, whose group has spent nearly $8 million boosting Cuccinelli, firmly rejected the idea that the Virginia race reflected any limitations of conservative ideas.

“It’s not about nominating less conservative candidates, moderating our messaging or changing our principles. It’s about effectively connecting with voters on issues they care about,” Cox said.

Rush Limbaugh, "The Big Voice on the Right," is carried by many Vriginia radio stations so the claim that Baggers can't get their message out is ridiculous:

Virginia
Blacksburg	WFNR	710	M-F 12p-3p
Charlottesville	WCHV	1260	M-F 12p-3p
Charlottesville	WCHV	107.5	MoFr 12p3p
Fredericksburg	WNTX	1350	MoFr 12p3p
Harrisonburg	WKCY	1300	M-F 12p-3p
Lynchburg	WLNI	105.9	M-F 12p-3p
Norfolk	WNIS	790	M-F 12p-3p
Onley-Onancock	WESR	1330	M-F 12p-3p
Richmond	WRVA	1140	M-F 12p-3p
Roanoke	WFIR	960	M-F 12p-3p
Tazewell	WTZE	1470	MoFr 12p3p
Waynesboro	WKCI	970	M-F 12p-3p
Winchester	WINC	1400	MoFr 12p3p
Woodbridge	WMAL	105.9	MoFr 12p3p

SUICIDES & THE ECONOMY

Below I posted a couple of graphs of the suicide rates in America and it's seems obvious that the increase after 1930 was due in part to the Great Depression but what about the earlier increase, from 1907 to 1915?  According to the NBER, there were several economic shocks over that period:

May 1907(II) to June 1908 (II)
January 1910(I) to January 1912 (IV)
January 1913(I) to December 1914 (IV)

HANNITY WON'T STEP OUTSIDE THE BUBBLE

Ed Schultz has challenged Hannity to a debate on neutral ground and Hannity has refused. I'm not surprised given that Hannity never followed through on his public promise to be waterboarded for charity.

THIS ISN'T NITPICKING...

The AP had one error in this report:

Virtually unknown outside Washington, a coalition of hard-line conservative groups is fighting to seize control of the Republican agenda.

Tea party allies like the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and Heritage Action for America showed their might by insisting that the GOP embrace the government shutdown that hurt the nation's economy and the party's reputation.

Freedomworks has been promoted by Limbaugh, Beck & Hannity, so it's not true that it's virtually unknown outside of DC.

I KNOW THIS ASS CLOWN DIDN'T MEAN THIS

(h/t John Amato at Crooks & Liars)

In a segment devoted to bashing the Poors & SNAP benefits, a FAUX pundit mistakenly has a good idea:

Blakeman: The fact that so many are in need -- no it's not a need, it's a dependency when government should be freeing people up and giving them work, instead of a drug dealer, they are giving them dependency that they don't need.

This caught my attention because I recently came across this quote:

“Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.”

― Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

MORE ON THE GOOD OLE DAYS

I came across this graph in a CDC report about suicides in America (Suicide in the United States, 1950-1964) published in 1967:

A study from 1995 shows that the rate since the late 40s has been fairly steady:

I guess neither the New Deal nor the Great Society sapped Americans of their will to live.

RIGHT NOW IT'S A GOOD BET THAT CUCCINELLI WILL LOSE IN VIRGINIA SO...

I want to do a little pre-emptive post on why the explanation for the loss from Baggers (e.g. Mark Levin) will be that the libertarian candidate syphoned votes away from the Coochster.  That seems plausible on the surface but Dave Weigel informs us that the WaPo poll asked about this and McCauliffe would win 53% of the libertarian vote to Cooch's 43%.

MORE BAGGER LUNACY

There is no good reason to refrain from mocking wackos like these two:

Guandolo: 'Tennessee Is One Of The Most Dangerous States In The Union' Because Of Sharia
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 11/1/2013 3:10 pm

Vander Plaats: DOMA Decision Provoked A 'Constitutional Crisis' Because It Defied the Bible
Submitted by Miranda Blue on Friday, 11/1/2013 5:04 pm

FATS LIMBAUGH IS OVERRATED

I've noted before that POLITICO stories about him rarely get even 200 comments and his latest bilge conforms to that pattern.  I was a little surprised that The Right Scoop didn't excerpt Fats' remarks and on FOX Nation, the comments are still less than 50:

MORE BENGHAZI BULLSHIT

CBS fell for all the wingnut agit-prop about Benghazi so it's nice to learn that they got snookered:

Report: Benghazi witness was nowhere near diplomatic compound during terrorist attack
By Travis Gettys
Friday, November 1, 2013 12:27 EDT
The Raw Story

A security subcontractor who gave his account to CBS “60 Minutes” of the events leading up to the fatal attack at Benghazi had previously told his employers he was nowhere near the diplomatic compound at the time, according to a Washington Post report.

The Oct. 27 television report was based on a yearlong investigation by reporter Lara Logan and producer Max McCellan and featured an interview with a man identified by the pseudonym “Morgan Jones,” who was described as “a security officer who witnessed the attack.”

THIS BLOWS

The banksters pretty much won this battle:

The House voted 292-122 to pass Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act, which repeals a provision in the law that required big banks to move some derivatives trading into separate units that aren’t backed by the government’s insurance fund.

The vote followed months of heavy lobbying by Wall Street banks, and The New York Times reviewed emails that showed Citigroup lobbyists drafted at least 70 of the House bill’s 85 lines.

Only three Republicans, Reps. John Duncan (TN), Walter Jones (NC), and Thomas Massie (KY), voted against the measure, which gained the support of 70 Democrats.

I HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR TRADITION SO...

I have opposed changing the Senate's filibuster rule but the GOP has been so extreme recently and seems on the way to getting worse, so IT'S TIME:

Tell Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that it’s time to go nuclear on nominations. SIGN AND SHARE THE PETITION HERE: http://bit.ly/19geXTO

GOOGLE+ AND THE BAGGERS

Over the last 2 weeks or so, I've noticed that Bagger posts are now being included in the "What's Hot and Recommended" selections.   Here are just a couple of examples:

alias inkhorn

Shared publicly  -  10:21 AM

 #Congress

 

 DEMOCRATS HAVE UTTER CONTEMPT FOR THE CONSTITUTION.

Hank Roth

Shared publicly  -  8:18 AM

 

Obama Knew Americans Would Lose Their Insurance

I REALLY TRY TO FOLLOW CURRENT EVENTS

so I was very surprised to learn Israel has carried out 5 (five) military strikes inside Syria.  I don't see how I could have missed all the previous attacks.

Israeli Warplanes Strike Inside Syria for Fifth Time This Year
Oct. 31, 2013
By LUIS MARTINEZ and JOSH MARGOLIN
ABC NEWS

Israeli warplanes conducted an airstrike early today on a Syrian military facility near the northern Syrian port city of Latakia along the Mediterranean coast, a U.S. official confirms to ABC News.

The attack is believed to be the fifth airstrike conducted by Israel inside Syria this year. Like the earlier airstrikes, the official said the latest attack presumably targeted advanced Russian missile weapons systems headed to the extremist group Hezbollah based in Lebanon.

An Israeli source also confirmed the attack to ABC News which like the four previous attacks this year has not been acknowledged by the Israeli government.

The Jerusalem Post plays dumb:

It is unclear who is behind the explosion or its purpose. There were no reports of casualties.

I HOPE THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Non-Bagger conservative groups were reported to be considering supporting non-Baggers in primaries and this is the first instance I've come across:

ALABAMA: Roll Call: “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a message to the tea party on Tuesday, when it endorsed an established lawmaker over the tea-party-aligned candidate in the Nov. 5 GOP runoff in Alabama’s 1st District. So far, the chamber has spent $185,000 to boost former state Sen. Bradley Byrne over Dean Young — effectively laying down a marker in the growing battle for control of the GOP in the midterm cycle. ‘It’s the first shot, really the first political shot, in the GOP civil war between the establishment and business community versus the tea party,’ Republican consultant Ron Bonjean said.”

JOBS & GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Conservatives routinely attack government spending as wasteful and unproductive even though they somehow believe that spending on defense IS productive.  I've noted before that Federal government spending has been very productive and Mariana Mazzucato offers more support for this claim:

Indeed, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants have funded a higher percentage of early stage seed finance than private capital. This is because private finance is too risk-averse -- afraid -- to engage with industries characterized by high technological and market risk.

...the U.S. government has been a leading player in funding not only the Internet but all the other technologies -- GPS, touchscreen display, and the new Siri voice-activated personal assistant -- that make the iPhone, for example, a miracle of American technology.

...the technological leadership in countries like Singapore, Korea, China, Israel, Brazil, Finland, Denmark and Germany is a result of the well-funded network of state agencies in those countries that are able to attract expertise and drive change, working of course, alongside the private sector, but often leading it.

There simply are not enough large businesses today playing the role that Xerox PARC (the Palo Alto Research Center) and AT&T (Bell Labs) played in the past.

RUSH LIMBAUGH CORRECTS A HOUSE MEMBER ABOUT HIS OWN CONSTITUENTS

In addition to going "Alex Jones" by claiming Pres. Obama wanted a healthcare mess so he can get to a single-payer system, Limbaugh once again spun a fictional meme:

In fact, one Republican I heard (I don't remember his name) said, "My constituents want to be able to buy insurance, and you're making it impossible." What are you saying, bud? Your constituents do not want them! He was from Texas. I saw that. "My constituents want to be able to buy health insurance and they want to be able to go to your website to do it."

No, they don't want to go to this website. What is this guy talking about?

WHY REPUBLICANS AREN'T FIT FOR OFFICE

In addition to wackos like Bachmann or Gohmert, there are many others who are simply too stupid:

GOP Rep.: ‘You Can’t Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don’t Know Your Privacy Is Violated’
by Josh Feldman | 6:07 pm, October 29th, 2013
MEDIAITE

Republican Congressman Mike Rogers was interrogating American University College of Law professor Stephen Vladeck over his concerns about NSA surveillance programs, poking and prodding a professor more aggressively than most members of Congress have dared do with the people actually making these decisions behind closed doors.
Rogers said, “Maybe the fact that we haven’t had any complaints come forward with any specificity arguing that their privacy has been violated clearly indicates, in ten years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right––somebody must be doing something exactly right.”
Vladeck rightly asked, “But who would be complaining?” And that’s when Rogers dropped this piece of knowledge.

“Somebody whose privacy was violated. You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated, right?”

THE VIEW ALSO BOTTOM FEEDS

The View had Betsy McCaughey and she was falsely portrayed as a "health care policy expert."  I sent a web mail to ABC informing them that this was a mistake.

HUFFPO BOTTOM FEEDS

There's no good reason for Huffpo Live to interview Ann Coulter.

THINKPROGRESS TRIES HARD...

but it can't make the fact that "keep your own insurance" was at the very least misleading go away.

FEINSTEIN PISSES ME OFF AGAIN

First it was her morally perverse & politically inane attempt to ban types of guns, then it was her mindless defense of the NSA's surveillance of Americans.  Now that we know the NSA has spied on foreign leaders, she's finally decided that something needs to be done.  I guess normal Americans don't deserve protection...

GLENNZILLA EATS THE ESTABLISHMENT

(h/t Jay Ackroyd at Eschaton)

I thought this was a nice smackdown -

Dear Bill [Keller of the NYT),

I have just a couple of last, quick points.

My “contempt” for David Brooks is grounded in his years of extreme war cheerleading and veneration of an elite political class that has produced little beyond abject failure and corruption. I don’t see anything moderate about him at all. I was just simply pointing out that if you want to pride yourself on hiring conservatives to write for your paper, he is hardly representative of that movement.

Glenn later hits a grand slam:

So, for the top national security official in the United States to go to the Senate and lie to their faces and deny that the NSA is doing exactly that which our reporting proved that the NSA was in fact doing is plainly a crime, and of course he should be prosecuted, and would be prosecuted if we lived under anything resembling the rule of law, where everybody is held and treated equally under the law, regardless of position or prestige. Of course, we don’t have that kind of system, which is why no Wall Street executives have been prosecuted, no top-level Bush officials were prosecuted for torture or warrantless eavesdropping, and why James Clapper hasn’t been prosecuted despite telling an overt lie to Congress. And what’s even more amazing, though, Amy, is that not only has James Clapper not been prosecuted, he hasn’t even lost his job. He’s still the director of national intelligence many months after his lie was revealed, because there is no accountability for the top-level people in Washington.

THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM FOR PRES. OBAMA

Sean Hannity has been banging the war drum about this for weeks and now it's reached the mainstream media:

More than 300,000 cancellation notices have been sent out in Florida, according to Kaiser Health News, and another 180,000 in California. In New Jersey, the number of cancellations tops 800,000, the Star-Ledger reports.

According to NBC News, approximately 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million Americans who buy their health insurance individually should expect to receive a cancellation letter over the next year "because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law."

Right now, the NBC article isn't available:

UPDATE: I found this on Google+...

EDITOR'S NOTE: A publishing glitch took down the story we posted earlier on policy cancellations under Obamacare. It has been republished here: http://nbcnews.to/1hoTtHH

I EXPECTED THE BECKSTERS TO MAKE A BIGGER STINK

Time Warner Cable has decided to carry Al-Jazeera America (it doesn't carry Glenda Beck's clown network) but there hasn't been much of a fuss in wingnut world. There were only 3 posts about this on POLITICO but Mediaite had plenty of comments by this wacko:

roccolore repubcooks
• 2 days ago

Democrats promote the American Taliban. They support CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, and other Muslim supremacist groups that want restrictions of free speech and punishment for anyone who criticizes Islam. You Democrats are the Taliban because you are anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, pro-Sharia, and anti-miltiary. The Taliban would be proud of the fascist, terrorist, anti-Semitic Occupy movement. And you support Al-Jazeera because they advocated the killing of Danish cartoonists.

The Drudge Report also covered this but there are currently only 22 comments, many of them positive.

I MISSED THIS

(h/t Anne Laurie)

I read a lengthy biography of Edmund Burke and somehow I missed this gem but Corey Robin didn't:

Some day someone should write an essay on the struggles of Edmund Burke in his final years to overcome his considerable debts—some £30,000—by securing a peerage and a pension from the Crown. ...

Thanks to the interventions of his well connected friends, Burke secured from Pitt in August 1795 two annuities that would wipe out his debts and a pension that, along with an additional pension and the income from his estate, would enable him and his wife to live in comfort into their old age.

Three months later, when Burke took up his pen against a proposal for the government to subsidize the wages of farm laborers during bad harvest years (so that they could sustain themselves and their families), he wrote, “To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government.”

ANOTHER COUNT OF THE RADICAL HOUSE BAGGERS

This is from one of them instead of an outsider and is in agreement with them:

Right flanks join to push conservative goals
By BURGESS EVERETT | 10/27/13 4:57 PM EDT Updated: 10/27/13 5:55 PM EDT
POLITICO

“If they were secret, we wouldn’t have done it at Tortilla Coast,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), referring to a meeting at the Capitol Hill eatery with Cruz and other conservatives two days before a crucial debt ceiling deadline this month.

“There’s about 30 to 40 now,” Salmon said of the House’s ranks. “And there was nobody you could talk to in the Senate. Now there’s about nine or 10 on the Senate side.”

SUNSPOTS OR HURRICANES?

In addition to the software problems, the ACA seems to fail in two other areas: (1) the minimum coverage required by the law is more costly than many existing plans; (2) rural health care costs are NOT being lowered.  Unfortunately, the House GOP will block any attempt to constructively address these problems.

WEST VIRGINIA & A MISATTRIBUTED SAYING

The saying is "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." and is usually cited a a quote from Sinclair Lewis but that's wrong.  I was reminded of this when I read this WaPo article on politics in West Virgnia and came across this:

Mayor Steve Williams strode onstage with a Bible in his right hand, and a bound copy of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in the other.

“Our independence day is on Easter Sunday,” he said, and held the Bible aloft. “This is our Declaration of Independence.”