Thanks to European Austerity Policy Greek Children Are Going Hungry

Is This What Passes for Success by European Leaders?  That’s What They Say

The self imposed tragedy in Greece by Germany, the European Union and the IMF is resulting in children in Greece going to school hungry. 

As an elementary school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought was impossible in Greece: children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains.

Here is the way European leaders likely would have responded to this news.

Angelos Tzortzinis for The International Herald Tribune

Michalis Petrakis, who is jobless and whose son Pantelis has been going to school hungry, shows his nearly empty refrigerator.

Brussels AP – April 20, 2013 – The head of the European group that imposed austerity on Greece reacted to news that school children were going hungry by saying “Great, the austerity program is working.”  When asked to expand he said “Austerity means suffering, and that suffering should be borne by those least able to endure the suffering and by those least responsible for the economy.”

Meanwhile in Africa where several countries have suffered famine the leaders in those countries were organizing food drives to aid children in Greece. 

Paying for the Health Care of a Boston Marathon Victim Jeff Bauman Shows What is Wrong with American Health Care System

 And Much of What is Right About America

Apparently the health care bill for a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing will have a $300,000 bill for the surgery and care needed after he lost both of his legs.  And this individual was one of the few Massachusetts residents who did not have health insurance.  So here’s how he will pay for his care.

Jeff Bauman, who lost two legs in the Boston Marathon bombings earlier this week and helped identify the attackers, is without health insurance… and the Internet wants to help.

Bauman has become a national hero for helping authorities identify the suspectsinvolved in the attacks. From his hospital bed, he was able to pinpoint the suspects at large — one of which looked at him just minutes before a bomb went off.

But now, news has surfaced that the 27-year-old is without health insurance to pay for his care, an online funding campaign has been set up in his honor. According toThinkProgress.org, he was working part time at Costco and planned to go back to school soon. He is among the small percentage of Massachusetts residents (1.9%) without health insurance, the site notes.

Friends of Bauman have set up a crowdfunding page called “Bucks for Bauman!” on gofundme.com, looking to raise money to help pay for his surgery and medical expenses. Since the site launched on Tuesday, the site has raised $205,674 by 5,125 people — just $100,000 shy of its goal.

One can easily imagine Conservatives cheering this news, and saying this is why we don’t need the government involved in health insurance, that individuals can take care of their own bills.  And one can easily imagine Conservative think tanks like the Heritage or Hoover groups saying something like this.

“Well this person would have had a lot lower bill if he had just shopped around for his amputation.  He apparently was just too lazy to check with several hospitals while he was lying on the ground injured with his legs blown off by the blast, and if he did he probably would have found a clinic in Mississippi to treat him for a lot less.  The free market works if you just use it!!!”

Conservatives Defeat Modest Gun Regulation and the Blame Goes to . . . President Obama

Maureen Dowd is the Increasingly Irrelevant NY Times Columnist

Let’s see, you need 60 Senators, all of whom are independently elected to pass any legislation in the Senate.  So a minority of Senators, from a small minority of the population can block any legislation.  And this is what happened when the Senate tried to pass expanded background checks for gun purchases.

So whose fault is it that the legislation didn’t pass?  Well according to NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, it is the President’s.

President Obama has watched the blood-dimmed tide drowning the ceremony of innocence, as Yeats wrote, and he has learned how to emotionally connect with Americans in searing moments, as he did from the White House late Friday night after the second bombing suspect was apprehended in Boston.

Unfortunately, he still has not learned how to govern.

How is it that the president won the argument on gun safety with the public and lost the vote in the Senate? It’s because he doesn’t know how to work the system. And it’s clear now that he doesn’t want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him.

It is not clear exactly how the President can make a Senator vote one way when the Senator does not want to vote that way.  And it is not clear why the blame for the defeat of the legislation does not lie with those who voted against it.  And it is really not clear why anyone who has the slightest knowledge of politics would not know that whatever passed in the Senate was doomed in the House. 

But maybe knowledge of government and politics is not required for those who write opinion pieces for newspapers.  It is certainly the case for the Wall Street Journal and becoming the case for the New York Times. 

Like the City It Surrounds, The Washington Beltway Is Becoming Unhinged

A Symbol of Dysfunctional America – In More Ways Than One

When the Interstate Highway System was first started naturally Congress funded road building for themselves, and so one of the first major projects was the Washington Beltway.  That road completely circles the city, and it is absolutely critical to how the city and its booming, highly populated suburbs conducts transportation.  But like the government itself, the Beltway is falling apart.

The Washington Beltway - Imagine This With a Lane Shut Down for Many Months

The Capital Beltway, a politically iconic and locally vital highway, is dying beneath your turning wheels.

Under the surface of all but some recently restored segments, fissures are spreading, cracks are widening and the once-solid road bed that carries about a quarter-million cars a day is turning to mush.

The challenges are two fold.  One is how to fix a road when you cannot shut it down

In a perfect world, it would be torn up — the asphalt and concrete, and the bed of crushed stone below — right down to the bare earth. From that fresh start a new and stable highway would grow. But this is the Beltway, and closing down whole sections of it would tie one of the most congested regions in the nation into a Gordian knot.

And the second is where the money comes from to do the fix.

If bad roads cause sticker creep at the checkout aisle, the cost of fixing them is about to cause sticker shock at the gas pump.

Aware that they can’t rely on austerity-minded Congress to triple spending for roadways, states have begun to step in with tax increases.

Uh oh, Conservatives won’t like that.  But while Democrats and some Republican governors are facing up to the fact that tax increases will be needed,

With a push from Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, Virginia overhauled the way it pays for transportation programs. A $1.4 billion plan replaces a 17.5-cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline with a 3.5 percent wholesale tax on motor fuels that will keep pace with economic growth and inflation.

It’s a complex stew of new taxes that tacks about 11.5 cents on to the current cost of a gallon of gas, according to industry estimates.

Drivers in Maryland will be paying pennies more per gallon by summer under a bill thatpassed the Maryland Senate on Friday and will now go to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who has promised to sign the measure. Within three years, the new sales tax would rise until it reaches 13 to 20 cents per gallon, according to legislative analysts. It is expected to raise $4.4 billion for roads and transit over six years.

we can all count on Conservatives to engage in some budgetary flim flam to avoid raising taxes.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) wants to sell off dozens of power and heating plants that supply universities and prisons to win bond market support for a two-year $6.4 billion transportation plan.

Yes, the Wisconsin plan is just a scheme to borrow money, but it allows radical conservative Gov. Scott Walker to say he didn’t raise taxes.  He just mortgaged and sold the state’s assets, leaving the problem for the future.  Gosh, remember when Conservatives used to be against that sort of thing.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham Wants to Deny American Citizen in Marathon Bombing His Basic Rights

Why do Conservatives Hate the U. S. and the Constitution?

[Update:  The President apparently has joined others in deciding that  basic rights are not really basic.  Mr. Obama will not be remembered as the defender of the Constitution.  No, we don't know why he does what he does in this area.]

One thing about Conservatives is that they can almost always be counted on to abandon their principles and want to do the wrong thing.  South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham wants to deny the Boston Marathon suspect now in custody his Miranda rights.

Now exactly why Sen. Graham takes this position is unclear.  It may be the he thinks he has to appeal to the extreme elements in his party in order to get re-elected.  But more likely is that like almost all Conservatives he really doesn’t believe in many of the rights granted U. S. residents in that document.  Sen. Graham is a prominent member of the group that wants to go to war against totalitarian regimes in the Middle East.  But it turns out he has a lot in common with those who would deny the full benefits of democracy to citizens.

The test of the ability of the government to observe and protect the basic rights of citizens is when denying those rights is popular and there is great value to maybe denying those rights.  But basic rights are worthless if they are suspended when it is convenient.  And Conservatives always seem to lead the charge to destroy those rights.  So whose side are they really on?

Is Barack Obama the Margaret Thatcher of America?

Could Be – Look At this Similarity

With the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher conservatives will gush about how her conservatism transformed Britain from a crumbling socialism into a modern, well functioning state.  This will require, of course, ignoring the fact that Conservatives now in charge of Britain are in the process of transforming that country into a crumbling economic basket case, but conservatives do not let actual situations get in the way of a good story.

Expect a torrent of loving tributes, and a glossing over of the failures like this.

But her third term was riddled with setbacks. Dissension over monetary policy, taxes and Britain’s place in the European Community (it would later become the European Union) caused her government to give up hard-won gains against inflation and unemployment. By the time she was ousted in another Tory revolt — this time over her resistance to expanding Britain’s role in a European union — the economy was in a recession and her reputation tarnished.

But one of the real successes of Thatcherism was her ability to get British government out of the business of business.  The control, ownership and operation of major businesses and industries were returned to the private sector.  This is something almost everyone can agree is the right policy.  Government should regulate enterprises not own them.

So how does this bring Mr. Obama into the picture?  Well the President inherited a government that essentially owned companies like AIG, General Motors and Chrysler and he has returned that ownership to the private sector.  Oh, just like Ms. Thatcher.

So the recommendation here is that everyone should say to their conservatives friends that “You know, President Obama is just like Margaret Thatcher, trusting in the private sector and ending the Bush administration’s socialism.”  Really, do this, it will drive conservatives crazy.

Texas Gov. Perry Suspected Mexicans Were Involved in Killings in Texas of Law Enforcement Officials

It Was Good Politics – and It Appears It Was Wrong

After two law enforcement officials and the wife of one of them was killed in a Texas county, the lame Governor, Rick Perry suggested that maybe Mexican drug cartel members had done this.  That position was a nice on politically, as it put the blame on weak border enforcement and on Hispanics.  The only, problem, it now turns out that he was probably wrong.

The wife of a disgraced justice of the peace has been arrested and charged with the murders of the Kaufman County district attorney, his wife, and another prosecutor, and has told investigators that her husband was the one who shot them.

Her confession was contained in an affidavit filed with the arrest warrant, which said the woman, Kim Lene Williams, 46, had confessed in an interview with investigators on Tuesday. She described in detail her own role and that of her husband, Eric Lyle Williams.

Assuming the case holds up, and there is that confession, a decent and honorable person who was Governor would admit he was wrong.  But don’t expect Gov. Perry to do the decent and honorable thing.  He hasn’t done anything like that yet in his years of Governor, why change now.

Major Economic Paper of Debt Fear Mongers Reinhart and Rogoff is Discredited

Using Their Own Work

One of the academic papers that the folks who cry havoc and let slip the dogs of the war on the government debt is a paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.  It is titled "Growth in a Time of Debt." And their conclusion is that when debt hits 90% of GDP economic growth stops.  Most real economists have disputed this, and now thanks to a reader of this Forum we have this story on just how flawed the research is.

Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems.

APR 16, 2013Mike Konczal

In a new paper, "Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff," Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst successfully replicate the results. After trying to replicate the Reinhart-Rogoff results and failing, they reached out to Reinhart and Rogoff and they were willing to share their data spreadhseet. This allowed Herndon et al. to see how how Reinhart and Rogoff's data was constructed.

They find that three main issues stand out. First, Reinhart and Rogoff selectively exclude years of high debt and average growth. Second, they use a debatable method to weight the countries. Third, there also appears to be a coding error that excludes high-debt and average-growth countries. All three bias in favor of their result, and without them you don't get their controversial result.

All of this reminds The Dismal Political Economist of listening to the defense of a controversial position by a noted academician who argued vehemently that his results were vindicated as long as one ignored those instances where they were not.

So Conservative economic policy and European Austerity programs are based on false analysis.  Wow, who would have thought it.  And how false is the analysis, well part of the mistake was an Excel coding error.

This error is needed to get the results they published, and it would go a long way to explaining why it has been impossible for others to replicate these results. If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

Oh, that

In Florida Highly Unpopular Gov. Rick Scott is Seeing the Light

Amazing What Bad Poll Numbers Can Do

One of the meaner Governors elected in the Republican surge in 2010 was in Florida where Rick Scott, a former health care executive (whose company was charged with huge Medicare fraud) was carried into office by the Tea Party movement.  Mr. Scott promptly lived up to expectations.

In his first year in office, Mr. Scott chose to introduce his budget in a rural town surrounded by Tea Party supporters.

That year, he sought $4.6 billion in budget cuts, including steep drops in education, while pushing for large corporate tax breaks (both were tempered by the Legislature). He successfully pushed for measures that linked teacher pay to merit, shrank unemployment benefits and required state workers to contribute 3 percent to their retirement. He laid off thousands of workers and returned $2.4 billion in federal dollars that would have financed a high-speed rail line.

The results were not what the small government Tea Party folks expected.  They thought this was what voters wanted.  The voters didn’t, they wanted what voters always want, well managed good government projects.

His policies led to a tangle of expensive legal challenges. And polls found that he had turned off an overwhelming number of voters.

And one other reality exists in Florida.  Unlike other states, there is a well regarded Democratic challenger waiting to take on Mr. Scott.  Former Republican Charlie Crist, rejected by his party for not hating Mr. Obama is now a Democrat and polls show he is competitive with Mr. Scott and could probably defeat him. 

So Mr. Scott does what every politician does, he gives up principles for re-election.

Facing stubbornly low approval ratings, Mr. Scott has crisscrossed the state advertising his enthusiasm for education, state workers, highways, commuter rails, early voting, the disabled, environmental protection and jobs. With Florida’s economy slowly burbling to life and a tiny budget surplus, the governor’s proposed budget of $74.2 billion is one of the largest in Florida history and includes a $2,500 across-the-board pay increase for teachers.

Along the way, Mr. Scott has danced in a music class, hugged teachers, quipped about his bald head and sprinkled cartoon-size checks around the state like a reborn Ebenezer Scrooge.

Can Florida voters be fooled twice?  Sure they can, they were dumb enough to elect Mr. Scott Governor once, even if they have gain a huge amount of smarts in the meantime remember they had a large intelligence gap to overcome.  As for the Tea Party folks that elected him in the first place, well, they have no place to go.  And so once again they may play the role of Useful Idiots, voting someone into office who doesn't even represent their views.

As Gun Legislation Moves Towards Its Near Certain Defeat – Here’s a Lesson That Was Taught in the 2013 Boston Massacre

Sorry Gun Nuts, Your Assault Weapon Will Not Protect You

The fantasy of many people and the media that meaningful gun regulation would pass after the Newtown shootings is running up against reality.

 

As debate begins, Senate background check proposal for gun sales lacks necessary votes

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By Ed O’Keefe and Tom Hamburger, Published: April 15

Debate on a major overhaul of the of the nation’s gun-control laws is scheduled to begin Tuesday in the U.S. Senate, but there were still not enough votes late Monday to assure expansion of the national gun background check program for gun sales, which is the centerpiece of the proposal.

This is to be expected.  Men and women who think that the right to own an automatic weapon is greater than the right to be safe and secure in one’s own home will never  be defeated  by logic, honesty, or respect for life.

But their argument that gun ownership will make everyone safer was cruelly destroyed by the events at the Boston Marathon.  No amount of automatic weapons would have prevented that tragedy, no amount of unlimited gun rights would have stopped the bombs.

Think about it.

Knicks Forward Amar Stoudemaire Will Coach Canada’s Team in the Maccabiah Games

And Gives All of Us the Opportunity to Use the Wonderful, Overworked Cliché

[Editor’s note:  Before anyone gets upset, yes, The Dismal Political Economist is Jewish.]

The Maccabiah Games are sort of like an Olympics for Jewish Athletes.  Yes we know the idea of Jewish Athletes is the stuff that jokes are made of.  But let’s put an end to that silliness with two words, Sandy Koufax.

Canada is all excited because it will have the star forward of the New York Knicks, Amar Stoudemaire coaching its basketball team in the upcoming games.

For the eclectic Stoudemire — he also has written children’s books and is the subject of a documentary that will have its premiere April 19 on EPIX— the coaching role is new but the destination will not be.He visited Israel in 2010, shortly after signing a free-agent contract with the Knicks. That trip, he said then, was spiritual in nature.

Funny, he doesn't look
Jewish

So it turns out that Mr. Stoudemaire is a fairly extraordinary person, not at all like the typical professional athlete.  It may be that he plays the game for fun, and is coaching because he actually enjoys teaching the game. And there is this.

The coming visit promises to be uplifting, too, especially if Canada earns the gold medal, something it last accomplished in 1997. But Canada has scored a coup just by getting a star of Stoudemire’s magnitude to Israel, especially one who professed in his previous trip that he believed he might be partially Jewish.

Partially Jewish huh, that’s great.  And yes on the left is the punchline everyone is waiting for.

TV Networks Start Their Push to Make Fla. Senator Marco Rubio a Republican Star

Media Bias That Conservatives Hate is Almost Always in Their Favor

Immigration reform, which may actually make it very difficult for young immigrants brought to this country by their parents illegally to have legal status, is currently entering the front burner of Senate debate.  A gang of eight Senators have tried to fashion a compromise.  And the media has latched onto Florida ultra conservative Senator Marco Rubio to be the face of the debate.

The impending introduction of legislation to overhaul the country’s badly strained immigration system received an extraordinary endorsement on Sunday from Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who, after holding back for weeks, appeared on no fewer than seven television talk shows to explain and defend a plan that he said would be “a net positive for the country, now and in the future.”

Notice that no Democrats are featured here, but the a junior Senator is given air time on seven Sunday shows.

The reason for this is simple.  The media has decided that Sen. Rubio, a Cuban Hispanic, will make a good Republican leader, and so they are boosting him with a bunch of free publicity.  Democrats, well the media doesn’t like any of them.

So yes Conservatives, there is a media  bias.  And Conservatives know that it is in their favor.  Which is why they try to say it is not, they don’t want anyone to catch on.

Supreme Court Hearings in Gay Marriage Cases Reveal Extent of Bias and Ignorance on the Part of the Court’s Conservatives

No Equality Before the Law There

Regardless of how one feels about the issue of gay marriage, everyone, Conservatives and Progressives alike have to be dismayed about the performance of the Court during the recent hearings on whether or not laws refusing to allow or recognize gay marriage are Constitutional.  The conservative members of the Court displayed their biased in a straight forward manner.  Now biases are ok, The Dismal Political Economist certainly has his, but in a court of law they are supposed to be absent.

First up was the comments by the Chief Justice, John Roberts about Obama’s unwillingness to stop enforcing DOMA since he thought it was Unconstitutional.  Mr. Obama had no choice here, DOMA and its related 1,000 regulations has been in force for over a decade.  Had the President unilaterally changed those regulations he would have been subject to severe criticism and probably impeachment.  He did what he was supposed to do, he kept the law in force and asked for the Supreme Court to rule.

But the Chief Justice essentially called Mr. Obama a coward, a person who does not have the courage of his convictions.  All this did was expose the Chief Justice for what he is, a partisan ideologue intent on imposing his views on America regardless of their legal basis.

In Associate Justice Scalia’s comments we have an example, thanks to Ezra Klein, of how this bigoted and biased judge just makes things up.

On Wednesday, I wrote about Justice Antonin Scalia’s comment that “there’s considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not.”

Okay, first of all note that there is nothing in these cases about children or the ability of same sex couples to adopt and raise children. All this comment did was to reveal the animus and bias of Justice Scalia.   And it turns out Justice Scalia was wrong.

It relied, remember, on the idea that sociologists are, in some significant way, split on this question. That’s not what the American Association of Sociologists thinks. Here’s its official statement on the matter:

The claim that same-sex parents produce less positive child outcomes than opposite-sex parents—either because such families lack both a male and female parent or because both parents are not the biological parents of their children—contradicts abundant social science research. Decades of methodologically sound social science research, especially multiple nationally representative studies and the expert evidence introduced in the district courts below, confirm that positive child wellbeing is the product of stability in the relationship between the two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources. Whether a child is raised by same-sex or opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a child’s wellbeing.

Oh, and where was this information?

That paragraph isn’t buried in a press release on its blog or in an editorial from its trade magazine. It’s from the amicus curiae brief that the ASA filed in the very case Scalia was commenting on.

In other words, the official organization representing American sociologists went out of their way to provide the Supreme Court with their “consensus” opinion on the effect of same-sex parents on children. And yet, when struggling for a “concrete” harm that could come from gay marriage, Scalia went with “considerable disagreement among sociologists.” So we’ve gone from a weak claim — “considerable disagreement” over harm is not the same thing as actual harm — to an explicitly wrong claim.

But this is par for the course for Conservatives.  When the facts don’t fit the argument, make the stuff up.

What the Decline in Gold Prices Means in Terms of the Economy and the Monetary System

Well It Means Nothing – Gold is Just a Speculative Commodity Like Oil, Wheat and Other Commodities

Those people who think that gold has some type of monetary magic associated with it, and who think the way to make money is to invest in gold have had a rude shock.  Following the large surge in gold prices we have had what happens with almost all commodity bubbles, a drastic drop in the decline in the price of gold.

Gold posted its biggest one-day percentage drop in 30 years Monday as new signs of a global economic slowdown emerged and fears diminished that central banks' easy-money policies would stoke inflation.

Gold futures for April delivery fell $140.40, or 9.4%, Monday to a two-year low at $1,360.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. That extended their bear-market descent of more than 20% from their 2011 all-time high. Since Thursday, gold prices have declined by more than $203 an ounce, a record skid since the futures began trading in the U.S. in 1974.

So what does all this mean in terms of macro economic policy?  Nothing.  Gold long ago ceased to be a monetary asset, it is simply another commodity.  Yes there are people who believe in the ‘gold standard’ even though they know nothing about what a gold standard is, and there are people who believe gold is the ultimate hedge against inflation, when in fact almost every commodity is a hedge against inflation.

But these are the crackpot members of economic philosophers.  Gold is behaving like any other commodity.  It had a big increase in price, sort of a speculative bubble, and now it has a big drop in price, like any other bubble that has burst.

That’s it, that’s all folks.

Believe It Or Don’t – NRA Accused of Being Too Soft on Guns

Yes, That’s Sen. Rand Paul Doing the Accusing

Sen. Rand Paul - Is It Just Us or Does It Look Like He is Speaking From Hell?

Assuming that this is not an April Fool’s story, it appears the gun nuts are even nuttier than anyone ever supposed.  Politico, which usually doesn’t publish silly made up stuff has this story, which we assume is not silly made up stuff.

Sen. Rand Paul, the tea party favorite and possible 2016 presidential candidate, is raising money for a conservative gun-rights group that’s targeting fellow Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

And when one congressman complained, the message from Paul’s camp was: Too bad.

The Kentucky Republican has lent his name to fundraising pitches for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that says the National Rifle Association is too willing to compromise on gun rights.

Now this is a story that delights on several levels.  For example, there is the Republican Party getting a taste of its own creature, Rand Paul.  For more of a delight is the news that there is an organization, apparently quite active, that thinks the NRA is too willing to compromise.

Really, how in any place except an alternate universe is that possible?

In Minnesota the Reliance on Gambling Revenues to Fund a Football Stadium Is a Disaster

So Maybe the State Will Cut Education, Transportation or Aid to the Needy to Make Up the Difference

This Forum likes to pick on Minnesota, not because the people there aren’t nice and friendly, they are, but because they seem idiotic in their fiscal policy (and they keep sending Michele Bachmann to Congress, but that’s for another time.)  Minnesota Republicans shut down the state government briefly in 2011 rather than raise taxes to fund needed programs.  Then the state decided it had hundreds of millions to give to the NFL Vikings for a new stadium.  That hasn’t worked out well.

The state decided it could painlessly raise the money by approving new gambling devices and games.  The money raised would be $35 million a year, or maybe not.

Those estimates became the foundation for the state Department of Revenue’s projection that the new games would rake in $35 million for stadium funding by the end of this year.

In November, that figure was sliced to $17 million. In February, it was slashed to $1.7 million.

So what was the source of ‘those estimates’?  Oh, the industry that makes the devices, the industry that would benefit from the program, they provided the estimates.

The botched projections showing that electronic pulltab sales would explode in Minnesota and immediately start paying for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium were based largely on estimates made by gambling businesses with a vested interest in the new but untested form of charitable gaming, the Star Tribune has found.

Sales estimates were based on different kinds of gambling devices played in other states, made by national gambling equipment managers and vendors, according to e-mails obtained by the Star Tribune. Express Games MN, the first e-game vendor approved by the Minnesota Gambling Control Board, reviewed and analyzed the sales estimates that were part of the final stadium legislation.

Charities selling the games had little input into the projections, according to e-mails and interviews with key players in the stadium debate. The e-mails also reveal the fine line walked by the board between being a regulator and an advocate for the new games, despite no track record with consumers.

Now how did all this happen?  Well the Governor, a wealthy Democrat wanted a new stadium.  Republicans wanted no increase in taxes.  The solution, just increase gambling, increase social problems of those who ruin their live gambling and use the money for a football stadium with seats so expensive the local population cannot afford to attend.  But like all corrupt analysis, reality ultimately sets in.

So what’s Plan B?  How does the state replace the lost revenue?  Well there cannot be any tax increase, so how about all that money that is wasted on education, roads and public safety. Or, turn things over to the Republicans who will just shut down state government.  That will save a ton of money that can then be used to build a football stadium.

Insurance Company in California Ordered to Pay $3.8 million to Doctor They Retaliated Against

The Physician Was Guilty of Trying to Get Reimbursement for His Patients

The corrupt, mismanaged, inefficient, outdated (fill in your adjective here ________) U. S. health care industry got a nicet lesson when a jury in California awarded a physician $3.8 million in damages when an insurance company tried to exclude him from their preferred physician group.  The problem, according to the doctor and validated by a jury was this.

The jury ruled late Monday in favor of Jeffrey Nordella, 58, an urgent-care and family-practice doctor who alleged that Anthem barred him from its network in 2010, when he applied to be a preferred provider. The damages could climb higher Friday, when the 12-person panel reconvenes and considers punitive damages against Anthem, a unit of insurance giant WellPoint Inc.

The jury found that Anthem, the state's largest for-profit health insurer, violated Nordella's right to "fair procedure," and the company did so with "malice, oppression or fraud." That latter finding prompted the hearing Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court to determine punitive damages.

Now juries are notorious for siding with doctors, so this case will go to appeal and the insurance company may yet prevail.  But here is one of the smoking guns in the trial.

The company rejected Nordella's application for its PPO network because he wasn't board certified in family medicine and because Anthem already had a sufficient number of primary-care physicians, Ng said. At the time, Nordella was medical director at Porter Ranch Quality Care, a walk-in clinic that offers urgent care and family medicine.

Theresa Barta, a Newport Beach attorney who represents Nordella, said the insurance company contended it had 137 primary-care physicians in its network within 10 miles of Porter Ranch. At trial, Anthem could name only seven of those doctors, Barta said.

Gee, seven instead of 137.  Well the company had an excuse.

Because of frequent changes in its list of physicians since 2010, Anthem said, it could not retrieve all of the requested information.

but of course there is another explanation as to why the company could not name the 137 doctors.  They didn’t exist.

 Oh, that.

Washington Post Columnist George Will Complains About Pro-Choice Extremism

Apparently Murdering Doctors and Others – Which Anti-Abortion Rights Supporters Do – Is Not Extremism

The inconsistently irrelevant columnist for the Washington Post, George Will, is furious, just furious because students and faculty members who are in favor of the rights of women to control their own bodies are rather pushy in the debate.  He is upset that the free speech rights of some of the opponents of choice are being denied their full rights to speak and protest.

The target of Mr. Will’s wrath is the student government association at Johns Hopkins which is fighting against anti-abortion rights groups that want to thrust their views and their images on the campus community, a community that may not want to hear those views and see those images.  But he also rants against what he thinks are pro-abortion rights advocates actions to deny opponents equality of speech.

Hopkins’s institutional intolerance would be boring were it simply redundant evidence of academia’s commitment to diversity in everything but thought. It is, however, indicative of the increasingly extreme ambitions and tactics of those operating under the anodyne rubric of “choice.” 

We don’t know if Mr. Will’s examples are valid, he is not exactly the paragon of objectivity here.  But we do know that if one is looking for extremism in this arena, it is those who are on Mr. Will’s side who are killing those with whom they disagree.  Maybe Mr. Will doesn’t consider that the kind of extremism that should be denounced, although since killing a pro-abortion rights individual does rob them of their right to free speech, maybe he would object for that reason.

Anyway, Mr. Will inadvertently presents the argument that is in favor of abortion rights and against his position.  He presents this dialogue in a legislative hearing in Florida involving rights advocate Alisa Snow.

“If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?” Snow replied: “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician.”

Mr. Will’s position is of course that he, George Will, knowing nothing about the individuals, the situation or having any medical expertise should make that decision in every case, and do so through the intrusive arm of government.  And this is what passes as Conservatism these days.

Tiger Woods and August National Embarrass Themselves Even More Than They Have Done in the Past

Something Everyone Thought Was Impossible

On Friday at the Master’s golf tournament Tiger Woods cheated.  He admits he cheated, in fact, in a clear statement he described how he cheated.  He was either deliberately violating the rules, or incredible as it may sound, he was ignorant of the rules.  The penalty should have been disqualification.

The rules officials at the Masters could have and should have stepped in to disqualify him.  That was the  penalty imposed when a person does not report their score correctly.  But they didn’t, coming up with a set of convoluted excuses.  Why?  Because Tiger Woods is a draw, he is a reason people watch the tournament and basically he got a break no one else would have or should have been given.

And oh yes, the Rule peoples at Augusta did penalize a 14 year old for slow play, a ruling supported by Mr. Woods who said 'Rules are Rules', which they are except for himself.

The honorable and decent thing would have been for Tiger to withdraw.  But as has been shown in the past, Mr. Woods is not a decent and honorable person.  For him, his personal life has no principles and in golf he only cares about winning, no matter how.  As for the Augusta National, this is a group that has a long history of discriminating against African Americans and women.  What exactly do they know about honor in sports and competition?

So if Mr. Woods win the tournament the headline should state,

Tiger Woods Cheats His Way to a Victory in the

Master's Golf Tournament

All Those Conservatives Worried About the President Attacking Them with Drones – Not To Fret, You Can Shoot Them Down with a Laser Pointer

And It’s Cheaper Than a Gatling Gun (A Gatling Gun??)

Conservatives were recently outraged by the fact that the United States government would not categorically rule out the use of drones in domestic operations.  Of course, this did not mean the government and their fleet of black helicopters and gun confiscating special forces would use drones in everyday life.  It meant that in the event that a domestic terror operations drones could be used if appropriate.

And now it turns out that for about $1.00’s worth of electricity one can shoot down or disable a drone.

The Navy plans to install a laser gun on a ship next year to zap dangerous swarming small boats and flying drones while in the Persian Gulf.

Officials say the $32-million high-technology system offers the Navy a weapon a fraction of the cost of its traditional arsenal -- cruise missiles, as well as rapid-fire Gatling guns.

"Our conservative data tells us a shot of directed energy costs under $1," Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder said in a statement. "Compare that to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to fire a missile, and you can begin to see the merits of this capability."

The laser’s power also can be scaled down, presenting the Navy a non-lethal alternative to ward off threats such as pirates, terrorists and smugglers.

Okay, so that solves that problem.  But what’s this thing about ‘Gatling guns’.  Really, weren’t Gatling guns something that was used in the last part of the 19^th century.  Are we really still using Gatling guns? 

As for the scaling down to ward off pirates, presumably this will simply mean using one of those laser pointers to distract them or even blind them.  See, everyone knew those things would multi-task.