Friday, May 1, 2020

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May 1, 2020

Biden chooses a sex predator to help him pick a female running mate

Is Biden really running for president, or is he just acting as a placeholder while Michelle Obama makes up her mind? How else can one explain the fact that, while Joe Biden stands credibly accused of sexually assaulting Tara Reade in 1993, his campaign chose former senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of all people, as one of the co-chairs for his running mate selection committee?

Dodd is one of D.C.'s most notoriously corrupt politicians. David Harsanyi offers a quick rundown of Dodd's profiteering at taxpayer expense:

For those who are too young to remember, Connecticut's Dodd, a senator since 1981, was forced to retire from politics in 2010 after a string of favor-trading scandals. Most scandalously, Dodd had slipped an amendment into the 2008 "stimulus" bill ensuring that AIG executives would get their bonuses paid by taxpayers. AIG, not incidentally, had donated more to Dodd, who initially lied about the provision, than to any other politician in the country, and given his wife a cushy board seat on a Bermuda-based company in their orbit. The chairman of Senate Banking Committee had also been one of the "Friends of Angelo," a program in which Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo would hand sweetheart below-market rate mortgages to his friends in D.C.

It's awful that Biden counts as one of his closest advisers such a corrupt man (although, financially, Biden is every bit as corrupt). But it's actually worse than that.

While many people have forgotten about Dodd's financial venality, when they hear the name "Chris Dodd," they instantly think "waitress sandwich." Again, a hat tip to David Harsanyi for finding a 1990 GQ piece that is the best retelling of what happened to poor Carla Gaviglio in the mid-1980s.

A heads up before you read the passage: the "Kennedy" mentioned is Sen. Teddy Kennedy, the man who, to save his career, left 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne to suffocate in a car he'd drunkenly crashed. Democrats revered Kennedy as "the lion of the Senate." Biden partnered with Kennedy to destroy Robert Bork, and, at Kennedy's funeral, Biden said Kennedy was "like a brother" to him.

Now, back to Dodd's story:

It is after midnight and Kennedy and Dodd are just finishing up a long dinner in a private room on the first floor of the restaurant's annex. They are drunk. Their dates, two very young blondes, leave the table to go to the bathroom. (The dates are drunk too. "They'd always get their girls very, very drunk," says a former Brasserie waitress.) Betty Loh, who served the foursome, also leaves the room. Raymond Campet, the co-owner of La Brasserie, tells [waitress Carla] Gaviglio the senators want to see her.

As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd's lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. Kennedy, Dodd and their dates leave shortly thereafter, following a friendly argument between the senators over the check.

Gaviglio was right to consider the attack "sexual assault," for that's what it was.

More than 2,500 years ago, Aesop was reputed to have written the fable about a stork who partied with some thieving cranes, only to end up in the farmer's net. The stork pleaded with the farmer to spare him, saying he had no idea that the cranes would misbehave, but the farmer was unmoved, telling the stork that, while he might indeed be a good bird, having been caught hanging with the cranes, he would be treated like a crane. The moral: You are judged by the company you keep.

Dodd and the late Kennedy are Biden's company. These three sexually aggressive men, two of whom assaulted a waitress and one of whom endlessly fondles little girls, are birds of a feather. That Biden should team with Dodd to pick a female running mate is simultaneously ludicrous and disgusting.

Democrat women, though, are not disgusted. Stacey Abrams, who drips with flop sweat in her desperation to be his running mate, gave Biden a pass. Kirsten Gillibrand, another veep wannabe, has done the same:

Nancy Pelosi was offended that people would even ask:

These people are both immoral and amoral. Their only god is power. They should never be allowed anywhere near the center of American politics.

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May 1, 2020

Seesaw effect overturns false health care 'wisdom'

By Deane Waldman

Common wisdom teaches that those who have health insurance get the care they need when they need it, and those who don't have coverage don't get care. This false "wisdom" is used by progressives to push for government-controlled, single-payer health care.

Evidence proves that this wisdom is unwise. In fact, it is 180 degrees wrong.

Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the U.S. at 17.1 percent and a Medicaid enrollment of 16 percent. New York State has the lowest uninsured rate, 5.4 percent, and Medicaid enrollment almost double that of Texas, 32 percent.

Thus, Texas and New York are polar opposites with regard to health insurance. Texas has the most uninsured and the fewest individuals with government-supplied, no-charge health insurance. New York has the fewest uninsured and the most Medicaid enrollees.

How successful are New York and Texas in providing care?

Two useful indicators of access to care are wait time to see a primary care physician and meeting the primary care needs of state residents. A large national survey performed in January 2017 by Merritt Hawkins provided useful data on these two measures.

Wait times for primary care in New York averaged 28 days. Dallas, Texas had the shortest average wait time in the country: 16.5 days.

New York, with the lowest uninsured rate, satisfied the primary care needs of its population 45 percent of the time. Texas, with the highest uninsured rate and the lowest Medicaid enrollment, met primary care needs of Texans 71 percent of the time.

Put simply, having insurance does not assure timely care. Worse, there appears to be an inverse relationship, a seesaw effect. As the number of people with coverage went up, especially government supplied, no-charge Medicaid coverage, the harder it was to get care. And the state with the highest uninsured population did the best at providing care.

To understand this counterintuitive result, follow the money trail. When the government offers no-charge insurance to more people, such as Medicaid expansion, it costs money. That government money goes to insurance companies for a list of benefits. The federal dollars are not paid to providers for care. The federal government issues reimbursement schedules that establish fixed payments to physicians, and insurance companies generally follow these payment schedules. Since fewer and fewer physicians are willing to accept these low payment schedules or are willing to spend the time satisfying the federal bureaucratic burden, fewer providers are available to care for the government-insured patients.

In Maryland, a 12-year-old boy named Deamonte Driver died of a dental cavity because no local pediatric dentists would accept Medicaid insurance. In Illinois, 752 Medicaid enrollees died waiting in line for care. In the VA health system, "47,000 veterans [covered by Tricare federal insurance] may have died" waiting for medical care according to an internal VA audit.

Americans need to be wary of any proposal for federal control of health care, whether it is called single-payer, Medicare for All, or universal health care. Promises for "Universal Coverage," as in Section 102 in the Medicare for All bill, H.R. 1384, may deliver insurance coverage but fail to deliver care.

Conclusion

Popular wisdom is wrong: coverage does not equal care. Having insurance does not guarantee access to care. Being uninsured does not mean that one is unable to get needed care. The media's focus on the uninsured rate diverts attention for what matters: access to timely care.

Any policy recommendations advanced by politicians or experts should be judged on proof of access to care rather than vain promises of greater insurance coverage.

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA, is professor emeritus of pediatric, pathology, and decision science; former director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation, and author of Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine. Visit him at "We Can Fix Healthcare."

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April 30, 2020

Gavin Newsom, beach cop taking on all California

By Monica Showalter

Like Mrs. Grundy making the entire class stay after school because of something Reggie and Veronica did, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom is shutting down the beaches, just as the entire population of California goes stir-crazy and the sunniest weekend of the year beckons.

According to CNN, which actually did a good report:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom intends to order the closure of all state beaches and parks starting Friday, according to a copy of a memo provided to CNN by a senior law enforcement official.

"We wanted to give all of our members a heads up about this in order to provide time for you to plan for any situations you might expect as a result, knowing each community has its own dynamics," the memo says.

The closures are expected to be announced Thursday, and state park personnel will help in local efforts to close the sites, the memo said.

Newsom's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

Good luck with that one. Notice the reflexive call to a use of force, too -- "any situations you might expect as a result." Unless city officials intend to deploy every police officer to politicing the beaches, it's very unlikely to be the sort of order that's going to work.

Already there are signs the order will never be heeded. The opening of the beaches, about a week ago, was brought on by public pressure to open the public space, and that's just for starters.

The surfer enclaves of Encinitas and Huntington Beach have already seen fierce protests and calls to end the lockdown. Surfer after surfer had been hunted down by beach cops for paddling out to shore, prompting scenes like this a few days ago, reeking of hypocrisy - notice how the cops aren't socially distancing, yet they're arresting and charging a man for swimming in the open ocean in violation of social distancing. What's wrong with this picture?

The intensity with which the surfers feel about their lifestyle and their willingness to defend it against people who would put a stop to it is very much an indicator that there's no 'consent of the governed' in this Newsom order. Telling surfers they can't practice their lifestyle is like telling gay people they can't be gay - it's not going to work.

Here's another thing: It's viewed as counterproductive. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and the more people can be encouraged to go outdoors instead of stay cooped up in recycling air housing units, (same as a cruise ship), the less there will be of the coronavirus. Viruses tend to go away in hot weather, so ordering everyone off the beach is going to generate more, not fewer, coronavirus cases.

It's also odd stuff for a district that hasn't been all that hard-hit. Southern California in fact has 'flattened the curve' on new cases and as Laura Ingraham notes below, has had only 51 deaths per million in the state, most in the Bay Area. The Newsom order puts the northern California urban straitjacket on spread-out Southern California with fewer cases, given its sunshine and detached single unit homes.

Cheryl Chumley at the Washington Times thinks the order is so out of order the beachgoers ought to just storm the beaches in defiance of the Newsom orders. That might just happen.

And in reality, based on the pictures - are the people really not socially distancing? When you discount for family units, it's actually looks as though they are, I see at least six feet between visitor groups in this crowded beach picture below, something that has escaped Newsom who can only see a lot of people enjoying themselves and wants it stopped.

Some on Twitter have noted a political component, too - Newport Beach, which had the beach scenes that so incensed Newsom, just happens to be one of the few remaining solid red conservative enclaves in SoCal. Was Newsom really incensed about the social distancing, or was he maddest about the area being right-wing with people who were enjoying themselves?

It's petty tyranny. People still crowd at Walmart and Costco for goods, raising questions as to why they can't spread out on a hot beach. Newsom, though, seems to enjoy his moment in the coronavirus sun and therefore appears intent on extending the misery for misery's sake. Why does he do it? Because he's convinced he's secure in power in his solidblye state. He may be sadly mistaken, because this is not going to work. One only hopes he's opened a big can of whoopass for his party with this stupidity.