DL Open Thread: Thursday, October 17, 2024

Brett Baier Tries To Mansplain Trump’s Superiority To Kamala Harris.  If the Fox interview accomplished anything, it likely turned women off to Trump’s toxic masculinity as channeled through Baier:

The interview with Mr. Baier gave Ms. Harris access to a large audience of Republican women whom her campaign is trying to win over. Her advisers believe there is a sliver of conservative women who might be receptive to the character contrast she is trying to draw with Mr. Trump — or who are at least willing to hear her out.

During this portion and others, the viewers Ms. Harris and her campaign are trying to appeal to also saw Mr. Baier repeatedly interrupt her as she tried to answer his questions.

The back-and-forth recalled how Matt Lauer talked over Hillary Clinton during a televised NBC News forum in 2016. Mr. Lauer was roundly criticized for being sexist.

“You have to let me finish, please,” Ms. Harris said at one point during the exchange on immigration. “I’m in the middle of responding to the point you’re raising, and I’d like to finish.”

Glad she did it.  Now move on.

Don’t Think This Will Spark Latino Support For Trump:

Jimmy Carter Lives To Cast Vote For Kamala Harris.  One of the greatest Americans of my lifetime:

Former President Jimmy Carter cast his ballot in the presidential race in Georgia on Wednesday, the second day of early voting in his home state.

He voted by mail, the Carter Center said, fulfilling his wish to live long enough to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. Carter turned 100 earlier this month, becoming the first former president in U.S. history to do so.

“President Carter, thank you for your support,” Harris wrote in a social media post Wednesday night.

He has been in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, since February 2023. Carter lost his wife, Rosalynn Carter, in November, after 77 years of marriage. The former president attended his late wife’s memorial service in a wheelchair.

Carter had told a family member that he was “only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” according to his grandson, Jason Carter, who recounted the comment to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August.

Why I Hate ‘Politico’.  Read the article with its gloom-and-doom implications in the title.  By the time you finish it, you realize it’s much ado about nothing.  Wash, rinse, repeat, and you have the Politico formula down pat.

Feckless Joe Threatens To Curtail Shipments To Israel…:

…and gives them thirty days to inflict whatever additional carnage they can before they ‘allow’ humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza.  Hmmm, thirty days.  Takes us past the election.  Anybody believe he’ll follow through?  Didn’t think so.

How A Small Regional Hospital Chain Became A Behemoth And Jacked Up Prices.  Could this happen here?:

Over more than a decade, Parkview Health has demanded that the people of north-eastern Indiana and north-western Ohio pay some of the highest prices of any hospital system in the country – despite being headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which currently ranks as the No 1 most affordable metro area to live in the United States. For 10 of the last 13 years, Parkview hospitals on average have been among the top 10% most expensive in the country, a Guardian US analysis of cost estimates based on data submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid shows.

Parkview’s steep prices are the product of a more than two decade campaign by hospital executives to establish market dominance in Fort Wayne and to squeeze revenue from a pool of patients and employers who feel they have no better alternatives, according to interviews with more than 40 current and former Parkview employees, patients, local business leaders, lawmakers and competitors, as well as leaked audio recordings of meetings and hundreds of internal billing, patient and policy documents obtained by the Guardian.

During this period, Parkview has taken over six former rival hospitals and built up a network of almost 300 sites for its physicians and providers, forming a ring around its gleaming regional center, which some staff refer to in private as the “Big House” or “Emerald City” for its ritzy amenities and green corporate branding.

This consolidation, former employees say, has allowed Parkview to control referral flows, routing primary care patients to their own costly specialists and facilities, even if those patients could get the same services elsewhere for less. It has also increased Parkview’s leverage in negotiations with health insurance companies, as they bargain over procedure prices on behalf of employers that offer the insurers’ health plans to their workers.

Great investigative reporting from The Guardian. Now answer my question:  Could this happen here?  Or, to be more precise, is this happening here?

Delaware ACLU Ensures Access To Tubman-Garrett Park For Public Protests.  Cool heads prevailed on all sides:

New exemptions negotiated by the American Civil Liberties Union and the owner of Tubman-Garrett Park along Wilmington’s Riverfront will ensure that protesters will have access to a longtime meeting place for advocacy.

Those conversations began after Jeremy McDole Police Reform Now, a community organization that advocates for meaningful police accountability and transparency measures in the memory of a man killed by Wilmington police nearly a decade ago, planned to hold a small rally at the park near the South Market Street Bridge last summer.

Dwayne Bensing, the legal director for ACLU of Delaware, credited RDC leaders with engaging in the discussion rather than forcing the issue to be litigated in courts, like some other First Amendment questions in Wilmington. They noted that requiring such a lengthy advance notice limits the community’s ability to organize quickly in response to current events, and the significant fees limit the participation of low-income people.

The executive director of the RDC, Megan McGlinchey, emphasized that her organization waived its requirements when it learned of the purpose of the Police Reform Now group. She added that they were not contacted about concerns regarding its permitting and fees for about 10 months afterward.

“While we have always had a practice of accommodating such speech, we did engage in a conversation with the ACLU and agreed to revisions of our policy to ensure that there was no confusion with respect to the right of members of the public to engage in free speech on our grounds. We look forward to a continued partnership with the public to ensure that First Amendment rights can be exercised and access to Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park is provided,” she said.

Props to everybody involved in settling this.

What do you want to talk about?