DL Open Thread: Thursday, July 25, 2024

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on July 25, 2024

Do Rethugs Really Want To Go Down This Road?:

Republican leaders said that Mr Biden’s decision to step aside confirmed their view that he was not in cognitive shape to serve as president – an issue that has dogged the Democrat since his disastrous debate last month.

“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, the most powerful Republican in congress.

Tell ya what–Biden and Trump with a map of Europe with the countries’ names left blank.  You have twenty minutes–Go!

‘Non-Profit’ Hospitals–An Oxymoron?:

“Hospitals are some of the biggest businesses in the U.S. — nonprofit in name only,” said Martin Gaynor, an economics and public-policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “They realized they could own for-profit businesses and keep their not-for-profit status. So the parking lot is for-profit; the laundry service is for-profit; they open up for-profit entities in other countries that are expressly for making money. Great work if you can get it.”

To be sure, many hospitals’ major source of income is still likely to be pricey patient care. Because they are nonprofit and therefore by definition can’t show that thing called “profit,” excess earnings are called “operating surpluses.” Meanwhile, some nonprofit hospitals, particularly in rural areas and inner cities, struggle to stay afloat because they depend heavily on lower payments from Medicaid and Medicare and have no alternative income streams.

Not-for-profit hospitals merged with one another, pursuing economies of scale, like joint purchasing of linens and surgical supplies. Then, in this century, they also began acquiring parts of the health-care systems that had long been for-profit, such as doctors’ groups, as well as imaging and surgery centers. That raised some legal eyebrows — how could a nonprofit simply acquire a for-profit? — but regulators and the IRS let it ride.

And in recent years, partnerships with, and ownership of, profit-making ventures have strayed further and further afield from the purported charitable health-care mission in their community.

“When I first encountered it, I was dumbfounded — I said, ‘This not charitable,’” said Michael West, an attorney and senior vice president of the New York Council of Nonprofits. “I’ve long questioned why these institutions get away with it. I just don’t see how it’s compliant with the IRS tax code.” West pointed out also that they don’t act like charities: “I mean, everyone knows someone with an outstanding $15,000 bill they can’t pay.”

The Anti-Semite With The Jewish Husband.   Tell me again who has cognitive, um, challenges?

Veepstakes: Buttigieg Wants In.  I thought it was odd that he mentioned several times that he and his family live in Michigan now during a recent interview:

On Wednesday morning, MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reported Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had joined the list of potential running mates being vetted by Harris’ team. Since then, multiple sources have confirmed to TPM that people have gotten to work trying to promote Buttigieg to Harris’ inner circle.

“Pete’s people are working and calling up Kamala allies,” one longtime Harris backer told TPM on Wednesday afternoon, adding of Buttigieg, “He wants it bad.”

A source close to Harris who requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing deliberations confirmed that both Buttigieg and Pritzker were being vetted along with the elected officials on that initial shortlist. However, despite the ardent efforts of Buttigieg and Pritzker’s supporters, the source said that, as of now, they did not appear to be among the leading candidates.

“The top three choices are probably Kelly, Shapiro, and Cooper,” the Harris source said.

Not Cooper, please.  We’re talking Tim Kaine 2.0.  One of Hillary’s most egregious mistakes.  A big fat middle finger to  progressive D’s.

JD Vance Did NOT Have Sex With That Couch.  Somewhere, Jerry Penacoli’s pet gerbils nod their heads in agreement.  Time to resurrect that Santorum memeIt always is:

The campaign for the neologism “santorum” started with a contest held in May 2003 by Dan Savage, a sex columnist and LGBT rights activist. Savage asked his readers to create a definition for the word “santorum”[1][2] in response to then-US senator Rick Santorum’s views on homosexuality and comments about same sex marriage. In his comments, Santorum had stated that “[i]n every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”[3] Savage announced the winning entry, which defined “santorum” as “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” He created a web site, spreadingsantorum.com (and santorum.com), to promote the definition, which became a top internet search result, displacing the senator’s official website on many search engines, including Google, Yahoo! Search, and Bing.[4]

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. Jason says:

    It seems Dems were able to hand off the baton to Harris without it turning into the Hunger Games because Democratic voters voted with donations quickly and in large numbers. That speedy mobilization was no doubt due to the fact that every sensible person in the country sees another Trump term as an unmitigated disaster.

    So, I guess, Trump is due some thanks for helping the Democrats unify for once.

    Thanks, Asswipe!

    • bamboozer says:

      Agreed, Trump would be both a unmitigated disaster and a decent into a Fascist hell. Fired off a donation myself, this is the “Big One”. As for American medical I remained surprised that it has not fallen from it’s own weight and astounding cost, we are poorly served at best.

  2. AllOverIt says:

    Lydia York is auditing 11 more opioid grant recipients, and some people are mad about it.

    Said people are BHL political supporters who got handed opioid money by BHL, and they’re peeved that they might actually be held accountable for how they spend it.

    This comes after Lydia audited Code Purple and found that they probably stole $290k in opioid money. Go Lydia!

    https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2024/07/25/delaware-audit-10-more-nonprofits-opioid-grant-funds-kathy-jennings/74459023007/

    • Carrie says:

      Interesting how this appears to be used as a political slush fund by BHL.

      Where can we read who the 11 being audited are?

      • Facts says:

        Surprise surprise. Apparently 10 out of the 12 audits are of organizations led by bhl donors and boosters.

        • Carrie says:

          An enterprising reporter should look at Congo’s political support for BHL and the relationship to these opioid grants. Remember last time around Congo supported BHL’s R opponent. This time around he has a BHL sign in his yard along with 500,000 in opioid money. Where are the journalists?

  3. When you look closely, BHL has used that pile of opioid money as a personal political slush fund.

    • AllOverit says:

      El Som, which opioid grants stood out to you?

      Obviously, the Congo Funeral Home grant is ridiculous.

      Also, I see that Rep. Kendra Johnson (another Bethany groupie) works for both CORAS and Conexio, and they got over $1 million combined.

      • Joe Connor says:

        Coras and Conexio are the successor Companies to Connections and are legit addiction service providers. The are following their predecessor company’s practice of hiring electeds. a couple of Connections notables was Darius Brown and Haneefa Shabbaz.

  4. Facts says:

    Why did she endorse Bethany then? Bad look on her.

    Yeah I saw the DSEA mailer. Looked like Congo was on the front with Bethany. His funeral home got 500k from the opioid fund. What exactly is a funeral home doing with that money?

    Starting to feel like Bethany and carney think they can just use government dollars to do whatever they want.

    I also saw Peggy Geisler in spotlight clutching her pearls about the public good. For some reason the article never mentioned that Peggy is a consultant for code purple and also a Bethany donor. Also just sort of a well known consultant scammer type.

    No wonder the people who are wasting the money are mad that Jennings wants them to stop lol. And they are hiding behind sick and addicted people.

  5. MonteCristo says:

    Im sure we will have much time to discuss but the elections report on Bethany hall long and her husband is more damning than even I expected.

    She needs to not just drop out. She needs to resign

    And there needs to be an investigation into why carney and albence made the decision to keep the report confidential unless a FOIA request was made. Do we even have a general assembly that conducts any hard work? Or is it just rah rah planned parenthood happy hours and paid leave press conferences? Where the fuck is Sokola?

    It’s disgusting. Absolutely positively disgusting.