POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[ewsieg]

Just learned Brian Woodward died hours before this Court decision was handed out.   Despite a crash that left him paralyzed, he continued to be active and owned a business.  After he couldn't afford to pay for his own care, he lost his house, business, and now his life.  

This law passed easily with bi-partisan support and hailed by Whitmer as a major win.  Most legislators claimed they were surprised that this new law would affect those already in the system, yet no one with the power to do something about it, did anything.  Shameful.

[gehringer_2]

I notice that in this report by the Hill, that the one Alabama Pol they don't mention is Tuberville. I wonder why?

(Hint - It woudn't be because it just might be TT's fault? - noo, a weakling senile Pinko Dem Prez could never play that kind of political hardball, could he?)
 

biden-overturns-trump-decision-to-move-space-command-hq-from-colorado-to-alabama

Edited July 31, 2023 by gehringer_2

[digitalpigsmuggler]

[gehringer_2]

So Diane Feinstein's daughter is a lawyer and has been a judge. But she also has step siblings. Hubby has already preceeded Feinstein to the grave and now the steps are at each other's throats in court over who gets what money. So who cares about 1%'er family problems, right? Except the rich part is that Daughter (the ex-Judge who probably knows whereof she speaks on legal issues) claims to have the Senator's power of attorney. A sitting US Senator's POA.

Let that sink in for minute. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/feinstein-husband-estate-family-fortune.html

government and politics in the US has descended into farce on so many levels it's hard to even keep track.

Edited August 3, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

46 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

So Diane Feinstein's daughter is a lawyer and has been a judge. But she also has step siblings. Hubby has already preceeded Feinstein to the grave and now the steps are at each other's throats in court over who gets what money. So who cares about 1%'er family problems, right? Except the rich part is that Daughter (the ex-Judge who probably knows whereof she speaks on legal issues) claims to have the Senator's power of attorney. A sitting US Senator's POA.

Let that sink in for minute. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/feinstein-husband-estate-family-fortune.html

government and politics in the US has descended into farce on so many levels it's hard to even keep track.

This is the both sidezen we can all agree on.

[ewsieg]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

So Diane Feinstein's daughter is a lawyer and has been a judge. But she also has step siblings. Hubby has already preceeded Feinstein to the grave and now the steps are at each other's throats in court over who gets what money. So who cares about 1%'er family problems, right? Except the rich part is that Daughter (the ex-Judge who probably knows whereof she speaks on legal issues) claims to have the Senator's power of attorney. A sitting US Senator's POA.

Let that sink in for minute. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/feinstein-husband-estate-family-fortune.html

government and politics in the US has descended into farce on so many levels it's hard to even keep track.

I never thought you'd become a Trump supporter and/or Russian bot.  

😉

Edited August 3, 2023 by ewsieg

[chasfh]

Fascinating insight in this:

Some of the more interesting tidbits, some of which I wasn't so aware of:

• The average physician over 40 makes over 400 bills a year, and that's including general practitioners, not just specialists.
• Graduates from the top medical schools, who can presumably write their own ticket to any field they want, tend to choose those that pay the most, responding to earnings potential when choosing specialties to go into. Homo economicus, indeed.
• As if to highlight something we all already knew, corrective and interventionist doctors make beaucoup bucks, and preventive medicine doctors make the least.
• Physicians were up in arms about this study when it came out because it questions the myth that doctors care only about patients, and not at all for the money. They probably care about both, and on a sliding scale depending on the individual doctor.
• The US has fewer physicians per capita than most first world countries, and than many second world countries as well.
• Most shocking to me, we have an artificial physician shortage due to a federal advisory committee who issued a report, which claimed we were "barreling toward a massive physician surplus", to a Reagan administration only too eager to cut back on federal spending on doctor-training systems. Therefore, from 1980 to around 2004, the number of medical graduates flatlined, even as the American population rose 29 percent.
• Least shocking to me, that current state of affairs was strongly support by the AAMC and the AMA, who only now is sounding the alarm about a doctor shortage. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

 

 

[smr-nj]

This is pretty maddening:

• Most shocking to me, we have an artificial physician shortage due to a federal advisory committee who issued a report, which claimed we were "barreling toward a massive physician surplus", to a Reagan administration only too eager to cut back on federal spending on doctor-training systems. Therefore, from 1980 to around 2004, the number of medical graduates flatlined, even as the American population rose 29 percent.

[gehringer_2]

US Medical schools colluding to supress enrollments goes back a long way before Reagan. Not an excuse but realize that that was just another play from the same deck the AMA has been dealing from for much longer time. If I had to guess it goes at least back to their realization that the WWII GI bill was a threat to grease the skids for the creation of a lot more Docs than they wanted to see.

Edited August 4, 2023 by gehringer_2

[smr-nj]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

US Medical schools colluding to supress enrollments goes back a long way before Reagan. Not an excuse but realize that that was just another play from the same deck the AMA has been dealing from for much longer time. If I had to guess it goes at least back to their realization that the WWII GI bill was a threat to grease the skids for the creation of a lot more Docs than they wanted to see.

Don’t really care about the Reagan reference, I just think it’s alarming that the # of medical graduates aren’t on a par with the population growth.

That seems bad… don’t w think?

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, smr-nj said:

Don’t really care about the Reagan reference, I just think it’s alarming that the # of medical graduates aren’t on a par with the population growth.

That seems bad… don’t w think?

I'm mostly surprised how many years the 'system' of keeping numbers down - which is mostly subtle and largely  underground, has persisted. 

OTOH - In general I don't begrudge docs their money that much - I'd rather see them be well paid than Ad men or banksters, and TBF when you look at Docs' raw income numbers is that before or after the cost of their malpractice ins and all the debt a lot of them end up carrying? Just in the last few years an older pediatrician friend of ours was looking to drop back to a part time practice, but just retired instead because she couldn't cover her ins costs working part time.

[oblong]

[1984Echoes]

Demographics will out.

Eventually.

[Toddwert]

18 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Demographics will out.

Eventually.

That’s Why republicans feel like they need to put their thumbs on the scale instead of moderating their policies

[1984Echoes]

7 hours ago, Toddwert said:

That’s Why republicans feel like they need to put their thumbs on the scale instead of moderating their policies

100% correct.

And they (and we all) know it.

[gehringer_2]

8 hours ago, oblong said:

These numbers are certainly correct, the question is why it doesn't show up in any polling data. Of course we know traditional polling is becoming more difficult to do with each passing yr. Probably none of those 32 million have a land line or answer their cell phone on a conventional ring for an unrecognized number so maybe they are invisible.

Has anyone heard of a pollster doing a poll by SMS or Instagram? Would probably be the only way to catch them. There certainly are web based solicitations to participate in various poll, but the very fact they only catch the interested biases them in other ways....

Edited August 6, 2023 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

I’d be interested to know the demos of those numbers. Also as people transition from middle aged to old do their voting preferences change? When I think of elderly I am thinking 80+. Middle aged?  40-60.  Whats 60-80? 
 

also it only matters which demo comes out to vote.  Maybe that’s why republicans want to get rid of voting outside the window of “in person 8-5 pm on Election Day.”

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

I’d be interested to know the demos of those numbers. Also as people transition from middle aged to old do their voting preferences change? When I think of elderly I am thinking 80+. Middle aged?  40-60.  Whats 60-80? 

the most recent reporting I've read about this is that while there is a certain amount of rightward drift with age, gen Z is more monolithically blue than any ever seen in the past, so the normal equilibrium is going to be upset. At least that's the theory.

Edited August 6, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

I have gone left with age.  The more I have learned about life, the more left I have become.  

[smr-nj]

3 hours ago, oblong said:

I’When I think of elderly I am thinking 80+. Middle aged?  40-60.

 Whats 60-80? 
 

*** raises hand ****
Some days, -  ancient, others - merely middling & experienced. 🙄

But I will offer that most I know (granted, I’m in a fairly blue section of my state) are determined to find a way for our country to get back to reasonably human… because right now, it’s a screaming inhumane cult looking to end it for our children and grandchildren.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I have gone left with age.  The more I have learned about life, the more left I have become.  

I believe there is progression that enough people go through in life to show up in average survey data . When you are young, your are hypersensitized to injustice, the world always appears grossly unjust to a child and you carry that with you into early adulthood. That tends to drive left, but not always, it can also result in a move into any rigid ideology like fundamentalist religion that promises neat resolutions of all moral ambiguity. Then in adulthood one takes on responsibility for other people, accumulates property and gradually preservation of your own interests, particularly your economic ones, tends to drive you to conservatism - mostly as regards economics, taxes, and opposition to any social change that threatens the existing economic hierarchy you are situated in. Then the final stage can go either way. For the larger number, post retirement the circle of social concerns/awareness begins to shrink, social empathy falls, if you fear loss of personal agency or security with your aging - those can all drive you right. OTOH, apparently it's a lower number for whom the reverse happens. Age lowers those intellectual personal preservation barriers you constructed to justify yourself in middle age and you become more intellectually flexible and there is a return to some of the idealism of youth.

Edited August 7, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Jim Cowan]

Ha ha, all I can say about this Pollyanna take about "don't worry, the MAGAs are all old, everybody over 80 is a MAGA, and they will all die soon, and nobody under 25 is MAGA" is charmingly naive.  There is no polling data to support it at all, none whatsoever. Take a look at the Jan 6 videos and count the number of shock troops who are in wheelchairs. 

You have 2 generations' worth of a**holes ready and willing to keep things going, they don't give a **** about Trump, he is just their excuse to misbehave.  They don't need him.  If your society ever achieves reducing them back down to 15% of the population, it will occur after most of us are dead.

[gehringer_2]

33 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

Ha ha, all I can say about this Pollyanna take about "don't worry, the MAGAs are all old, everybody over 80 is a MAGA, and they will all die soon, and nobody under 25 is MAGA" is charmingly naive.  There is no polling data to support it at all, none whatsoever. Take a look at the Jan 6 videos and count the number of shock troops who are in wheelchairs. 

You have 2 generations' worth of a**holes ready and willing to keep things going, they don't give a **** about Trump, he is just their excuse to misbehave.  They don't need him.  If your society ever achieves reducing them back down to 15% of the population, it will occur after most of us are dead.

My SO's 96 yr old aunt informed me just the other day that she 'used to be a republican, but not anymore'

But GOP electorate does skew older than the Dem. The only question is does the skew change over time or not.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184426/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-age-us/

Edited August 7, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Jim Cowan]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

My SO's 96 yr old aunt informed me just the other day that she 'used to be a republican, but not anymore'

But GOP electorate does skew older than the Dem. The only question is does the skew change over time or not.

 

 

Oh sure, "skew", that's fair.  But to add the new voters to the old dead voters and come up with a net that 100% favours the Democratic party, we'll that's just idiotic. 

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

the most recent reporting I've read about this is that while there is a certain amount of rightward drift with age, gen Z is more monolithically blue than any ever seen in the past, so the normal equilibrium is going to be upset. At least that's the theory.

Too many Gen Zs I know have little idea of any difference between Trump and Biden. Or, more exactly, neither affects them or their daily lives, so why bother thinking about them?