Tag Archives: newsman

In Shocking News, Scott Walker’s Health Care Plan Screws the Poor

by ForrestTrujillo Posted on August 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is going to be the most anticlimactic blog post ever, but can you guess how Scott Walker’s health care plan compares to Obamacare for the poor? And how it compares for the upper middle class and the wealthy?

Damn. You guessed. But just to make it official, here are a couple of charts that show how the subsidies in the two plans compare at different income levels. I used the Kaiser calculator to estimate Obamacare subsidies and Walker’s written document to calculate tax credits under his plan. The chart on the left shows a 3-person family with 30-year-old parents. The chart on the right shows the same thing with older parents.

And have no fear: I chose $30,000 as the minimum income level because most families below that level qualify for Medicaid. And you guessed it: Walker’s plan slashes Medicaid too. So the poor and the working class get screwed by Walker no matter what their income level is.

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In Shocking News, Scott Walker’s Health Care Plan Screws the Poor

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Carson, Cruz, Fiorina Are the Big Winners After the Debate

by VirgilBadger Posted on August 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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It’s taken a while, but we finally have a national poll taken following the Republican debate. Fox News conducted a poll starting on the Tuesday after the debate, so the results capture not just reaction to the debate, but reaction to the big Trump-Kelly feud over the weekend. The results, it turns out, aren’t that different from some of the insta-polls: Ben Carson (!) is the big winner and Jeb Bush is the big loser. And Trump? He pretty much stayed where he was.

Carson and Carly Fiorina “won” the debate; Trump and Rand Paul lost it. But these numbers are for all registered voters. Among Republicans, about equal numbers thought Trump did the best or the worst, for a net score (best minus worst) of -1 percent. Surprisingly, independents were the most enthusiastic about his debate performance, giving him a net score of +4 percent.

Overall, nearly half of Republicans now support either Trump, Carson, or Cruz for president. Those are the three of the most extreme candidates running. For the moment, anyway, it appears that Republican voters are in no mood to support anyone even remotely in the mainstream.

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Carson, Cruz, Fiorina Are the Big Winners After the Debate

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Friday Cat Blogging – 6 February 2015

by LawrencdeLargie Posted on February 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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My sister is the guest curator for catblogging this week, and this was her selection. I always call this “being a lizard cat,” especially when they strike this pose outside on a nice sunny patio.

This is also the aftermath of being a burrito cat. Hopper likes to burrow into the quilt on the sofa and then stretch out, which makes the whole thing look like a cat burrito. A purring burrito. But then, I’ve always thought that burritos could be improved by a bit of purring. Right?

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Friday Cat Blogging – 6 February 2015

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In Ferguson, Cops Hand Out Three Warrants Per Household Every Year

by Reyna8421h Posted on August 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Alex Tabarrok comments on the rather remarkable caseload of Ferguson’s municipal court:

You don’t get $321 in fines and fees and 3 warrants per household from an about-average crime rate. You get numbers like this from bullshit arrests for jaywalking and constant “low level harassment involving traffic stops, court appearances, high fines, and the threat of jail for failure to pay.”

If you have money, for example, you can easily get a speeding ticket converted to a non-moving violation. But if you don’t have money it’s often the start of a downward spiral that is hard to pull out of….If you are arrested and jailed you will probably lose your job and perhaps also your apartment—all because of a speeding ticket.

We’ve all seen a number of stories like this recently, and it prompts a question: why are police departments allowed to fund themselves with ticket revenue in the first place? Or red light camera revenue. Or civil asset forfeiture revenue. Or any other kind of revenue that provides them with an incentive to be as hardass as possible. Am I missing something when I think that this makes no sense at all?

This is sort of a genuine question. I know these policies are common, but where did they come from? Are they deliberate, created by politicians who like the idea of giving their local cops an incentive to get tough? Were they mostly the idea of police departments themselves, who figured the revenue from fines would provide a net boost in their annual funding? Or did they just accrete over time, popping up whenever there was a budget crisis and then never going away?

Does anyone know?

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In Ferguson, Cops Hand Out Three Warrants Per Household Every Year

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