Last Call For Bevin's Dis-Kynect-ion

It looks like KY GOP Gov. Matt Bevin's plan to throw 400,000-plus people off Medicaid while pretending he's doing them a huge favor isn't going over very well with the federal government.

Sylvia Burwell, U.S. secretary of health and human services, raised concerns about Bevin's plans for Medicaid expansion, citing the "historic improvements" in health coverage for Kentuckians. She also questioned Bevin's plans for dismantling kynect, the state health insurance exchange where people may shop for private plans or enroll in Medicaid. 

Burwell addressed the proposed changes in two separate letters last week – one to Bevin and one to [KY Attoney General Andy] Beshear. 

In a July 20 letter to Bevin, Burwell described his plans to dismantle kynect as "highly aggressive" and said it is uncertain whether "we can confirm a transition will be possible this year." 

As for Bevin's plan to restructure the Medicaid expansion, Burwell, in a separate letter to Beshear, said her agency will review Bevin's request in light of federal law directing that any changes strengthen coverage and increase access to health care. 

"As you know, Kentucky's Medicaid expansion has led to one of the biggest reductions of uninsured people in America," said Burwell, responding to a May 9 letter from Beshear questioning Bevin's plans for Medicaid. "We are committed to the principle that any changes to the program maintain or build on the historic improvements Kentucky has seen in access to coverage, access to care and financial security, rather than take the state backward." 

The Bevin administration said it expects to meet all federal deadlines for dismantling kynect and said Kentuckians should plan to use the federal website to shop for health coverage this fall. 

It disputed Burwell's characterization of the Medicaid expansion. 

"There has not been a historic drop in uninsured – this is misleading," West's statement said. "Medicaid is not health insurance – it is a benefit program like SNAP (food stamps) or TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) ... What we have seen is a historic rise in people on taxpayer-funded Medicaid."

In other words, Bevin is trying to sell the state's Medicaid expansion not a health insurance, but welfare or food stamps: something that only those people use and people like us pay for.

I'm glad to see Secretary Burwell isn't having any of it, especially bringing up the very real possibility that HHS will call Kentucky out and say that Bevin's plan to destroy kynect and have everything ready by October isn't realistic, considering October is only two months and change away.

But for Bevin's team to sell the Medicaid expansion as not helping to insure Kentuckians, rather to view it as awful icky welfare, is absolutely incorrigible.

I hope Burwell calls his bluff.

Tightening Up The Ship

WaPo columnist and right-wing scold Marc Thiessen makes the argument that the WikiLeaks attack on the Democratic party came about precisely because President Obama hasn't done what the organization has repeatedly accused him of: using the full resources of the federal government to systematically go after Julian Assange and his allies and tossing them in the nearest dark hole.

WikiLeaks has released tens of thousands of emails showing that, while presenting itself as an impartial arbiter during the primaries, the DNC was, in fact, working overtime on Hillary Clinton’s behalf to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). In one leaked email, DNC officials said they planned to expose Sanders as an atheist with Baptist voters in Kentucky and West Virginia. Others showed DNC staffers mocking Sanders supporters as “Bernie Bros” and plotting how to spin the narrative of his failure. Others reveal that the DNC and the Hillary Victory Fund apparently channeled money through state Democratic parties, perhaps in an effort to avoid contribution limits to her campaign. Other leaks include spreadsheets that appeared to match Democratic donors and fundraisers with appointments to federal boards and commissions once Clinton was elected. Still others show DNC staffers calling their donors “clowns” and promising to have one “sitting in the [s-----est] corner I can find” at a DNC event. The convention in Philadelphia has been roiled by the revelations, which caused Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) to step down as chair.

Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for this debacle. As I pointed out in The Post on August 2010, there were many steps the Obama administration could have taken to stop WikiLeaks. It could have indicted Assange and his fellow WikiLeaks staffers and made clear that the United States will not tolerate any country — particularly NATO allies — providing them with a haven. They could have sought their extradition and — if the countries where they were hiding refused to cooperate — used existing Justice Department authorities to arrest them anywhere in the world, with or without those countries’ consent. They could have used the assets of U.S. Cyber Command to carry out cyberattacks on WikiLeaks servers to disrupt its ability to disseminate classified information that puts lives at risk. 

But it appears that the administration has done none of these things. In 2013, The Post reported that “The Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because government lawyers said they could not do so without also prosecuting U.S. news organizations and journalists . . . unless he is implicated in criminal activity other than releasing online top-secret military and diplomatic documents.” Seriously?
As for using our nation’s offensive cyber capabilities to disrupt WikiLeaks’s ability to disseminate classified information, that clearly has not happened. To this day, WikiLeaks’s entire archive of stolen classified documents remains available on its website for anyone to read. 

Now Democrats are paying the price for Obama’s inaction. And WikiLeaks promises there is more to come. In an interview with CNN this week, Assange said he might soon release “a lot more material.” That should have Democrats terrified. 

Apparently, exposing intelligence sources and methods has not mattered enough for the Obama administration to do something about WikiLeaks. Maybe saving Hillary Clinton from further embarrassment, or worse, will finally spur them to action.

My immediate reaction is that Thiessen works for the Washington Post, arguably the world's largest beneficiary of exposing federal government leaks in existence.  Hell, it's their profit model for crying out loud. Perhaps he's being a bit hard on Assange and at least owes the guy the kind of professional courtesy that mobsters, lawyers, and sharks reserve for one another. At the very least I think the reporter doth protest too much for a business that's built on exposing information that people may not want to see the light of day. Even if you're a DC think-tank pundit like Thiessen, you operate on leaks on a daily basis.

I mean, reporters have been pretty critical of the Obama White House for supposedly being very unkind to the press, particularly in the president's second term.  That's always seemed very odd to me considering the previous administration's repeated admissions that manipulating the press for things like, oh, I dunno, starting a war with Iraq was always a chief goal. I've long postulated that the press had to find some similar accusations to hurl at Obama in order to prove that they were dupes of both parties along with the rest America, rather than willing participants along with Bush/Cheney.

That's why it strikes me as very odd to see any major newspaper columnist advocate extradition, arrest, even counter-cyberattacks to shut WikiLeaks down, especially taking the position that WikiLeaks should have been dealt with in 2010.  But it turns out Thiessen is something of a special case in this regard, to his credit he had Assange pegged as a criminal six years ago:

Let's be clear: WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it is a criminal enterprise. Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible -- including to the United States' enemies. These actions are likely a violation of the Espionage Act, and they arguably constitute material support for terrorism. The Web site must be shut down and prevented from releasing more documents -- and its leadership brought to justice. WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, proudly claims to have exposed more classified information than all the rest of the world press combined. He recently told the New Yorker he understands that innocent people may be hurt by his disclosures ("collateral damage" he called them) and that WikiLeaks might get "blood on our hands."

So in the end I guess that Thiessen is just continuing his call for the President to do something about putting Assange in decidedly substandard federal housing for a long time.  Perhaps now that WikiLeaks has gone after Obama and the Democrats personally and is obtaining help from our good friends the Russians, that might get moved up the priority list.

It's a kick square in the crotch to have to agree with Thiessen on anything but yes, Obama should have scooped up Assange some time ago.

The Case For His Successor

Last night several big names in the Democratic Party (and for some unfathomable reason, Michael Bloomberg) laid out their respective cases for Hillary Clinton's election at the Democratic National Convention in Philly, including arguably Clinton's most powerful proponent, the current POTUS himself.

President Barack Obama painted an optimistic picture of America's future and offered full-throated support for Hillary Clinton's bid to defeat Republican Donald Trump in a speech that electrified the Democratic National Convention.

He urged Democrats to enable Clinton to finish the job he started with his election nearly eight years ago in a rousing speech that capped a night when party luminaries took to the stage to contrast the party's new standard-bearer with Trump, whom they portrayed as a threat to U.S. values.

"There has never been a man or woman, not me, not Bill - nobody more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States," Obama said to cheers at the Philadelphia convention on Wednesday night.

Hillary Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, will accept the party's White House nomination in a speech to end the convention on Thursday night. The election is on Nov. 8.

Her address will be closely watched to see if she can make a convincing argument for bringing about change while still representing the legacy of Obama, who is ending his second term with high approval ratings.

"Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me," Obama said. When he finished, she joined him on stage where they hugged, clasped hands and waved to the crowd.

I saw this speech and as far as Obama speeches go it was pretty decent, not among his top ten by any means, but a good one nonetheless.  But he did what he set out to do, which was to endorse Clinton as someone who can and should follow him, and to go after Donald Trump, hard.

In fact that was the theme of the night. VP Joe Biden, Clinton running mate Sen. Tim Kaine, and retiring Senate minority leader Harry Reid all ripped Donald Trump to bits. Even Bloomberg got in on the festivities, declaring that as a New Yorker, he knew a con when he saw one.

All in all it was a good night for the Dems.  We'll see what Clinton herself has to say tonight.

StupidiNews!

• French officials have identified the second suspect in Tuesday's deadly attack on a church in Normandy where two men killed an elderly priest in the name of ISIS.
• President Obama's presidential library will be built in Chicago's Jackson Park on the South Side of the city, the library is expected to be open by 2021.
• Turkey's Justice Minister is warning that the exiled Islamic cleric the Erdogan government believes is behind a coup attempt may flee the United States for Canada or Mexico.
• British banking stalwart Lloyds says it will cut 3,000 UK jobs in the wake of the Brexit vote earlier this year as profits and share prices fell in 2016.
• Apple announced that even with slowing iPhone sales, the company sold its billionth iPhone worldwide in July in just under nine years.