Pun Salad

I started following (without subscribing) to Jen Rubin's "Contrarian" substack back in mid-January. As I said then: "For as long as I can stand it."

Four days after that, I said I was "waiting patiently for the Contrarian to be anything other than partisan dreck".

And five days after that, Jen offered Nina Jankowicz, Joe Biden's wannabe disinformation cop, a platform for trashing Trump's Executive Order "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship".

And a couple weeks later, Jen gave Shalise Manza Young room to vent on Trump's "bigotry" in his EO restricting girls' and womens' sports to… um, girls and women. (Um, Shalise, you misspelled "biology".)

And yesterday we were furnished with Jen's paean to "a remarkable figure who stands up in defense of democracy, American leadership in the world, the rule of law, and truth." And that person is … (drumroll please) … Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And it is, indeed, a tongue-bath of an article:

Absent from the article is any mention, let alone criticism, of AOC's demagoguery, or her steadfast advocacy of socialism.

Well, you get the picture. Jen's substack is not so much "contrarian" as it is kneejerk, hyperbolic Trump hatred combined with obsequious praise for any and all partisan hacks on the D-side.

So I'm unfollowing the "Contrarian". Anyone have recommendations for actual contrarians to follow?

But I did want to comment further on another bit of Jen's AOC sycophancy:

Well, geez. This should not be an issue. Just yesterday, I quoted a recent report from the Government Accounting Office, which claimed at least $150 billion per year in improper payments from Uncle Stupid to … well, anyone willing to accept an improper payment. Specifically, the GAO's full report estimated Medicaid improper payments in FY2024 of $31 billion. (Much much more at the link.)

Some other Medicaid commentary I've collected:

• From the WSJ editorialists, who wonder Who’s Afraid of Medicaid Reform? The answer turns out to be GOP cowards:

  As Republicans try to move their budget through Congress, Democrats and their loyal media allies have found what they think is the GOP’s Achilles’ heel: Medicaid “cuts.” The GOP passed their budget resolution Tuesday, but they risk losing in the end because so far they aren’t even trying to fight back. Yet the Medicaid program has exploded far beyond its design and is in great need of reform.

  Keep in mind that Medicaid was established to help the needy—poor children, pregnant women, the elderly and disabled. Democrats have since expanded it by degrees into a far broader entitlement for able-bodied, working-age adults with lower incomes.

  No surprise, Medicaid spending is out-pacing even Social Security and Medicare. Federal Medicaid outlays have increased 207% since 2008 and 51% since 2019. Medicaid spending as a share of federal outlays rose to 10% from 7% between 2007 and 2023, while the share of Social Security and Medicare remained stable.

  Note that 2019 pre-COVID date. That GAO report linked above notes that there was a pandemic-loosening of Medicaid eligibility rules, but that was supposed to be "ended effective March 2023." Yet the process is "still ongoing as of January 2025." Speedy they ain't when it comes to saving taxpayer money. In addition:

  Mr. Biden’s HHS even blessed California’s plan to spend federal Medicaid dollars on “activity stipends” for art and music lessons for children and club sports. Oregon is tapping Medicaid to pay for cooking classes, air conditioners and mini-refrigerators. Some Republican states have joined this all-you-can-spend Medicaid buffet.

• At the NYPost, Jessica Reidl says: Yes, we have to cut Medicaid — it’s grown out of control. Ya think?

  Democrats are attacking the House Republican budget, saying that the $1.2 trillion of savings it calls for will “gut” social services. In particular, they call out the proposal to save $880 billion over 10 years from Medicaid.

  But these savings reforms need not “gut” Medicaid, In fact, well-designed reforms may finally restore some fiscal common sense to the health-care program.

  Republicans should own this proposal, and confidently assert that Medicaid’s waste, fraud, and poor accounting practices absolutely provide room for savings without harming the most vulnerable.

  After all, since 2013, the number of Americans living in poverty has fallen by by 10 million. Yet during that time Medicaid’s monthly enrollment has leaped from 54 million to 79 million, and its inflation-adjusted federal cost has nearly doubled from $351 billion to $643 billion. Opportunities for savings certainly exist.

  If there's no way Republicans can put forth this case to the people effectively, then we really are screwed.

• And for a local heads-up, here's Drew Cline at the Josiah Bartlett Center who's noticing that The Medicaid alarm is ringing.

  Medicaid now consumes 29.6% of New Hampshire spending, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. That’s 10 percentage points higher than K-12 education spending (19.6%).

  Despite having the lowest poverty rate in the nation, New Hampshire devotes a higher share of its state spending to Medicaid than all other New England states except Maine. To the extent that Medicaid funds health insurance coverage for able-bodied adults who could purchase insurance on the private market or obtain it from an employer, these are wasted dollars that could fund other state priorities or be returned to taxpayers.

  None of this is remotely sustainable. Hack away, and ignore Jen Rubin and her new BFF, AOC.

Also of note:

• Apparently he didn't get the memo. We alluded above to the one of the Executive Orders Trump issued on Inauguration Day: Restoring Freedom Of Speech And Ending Federal Censorship. Very forthright, very important. And yet, Reason's Joe Lancaster reports: FCC Chair Brendan Carr wants more control over social media.

  In his short time as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr has been no stranger to using his power against disfavored entities. The chairman's targets have primarily included broadcast networks and social media companies.

  Recently, Carr revealed a fundamental misunderstanding about one of the most important laws governing the internet and social media.

  On February 27, digital news outlet Semafor held a summit in Washington, D.C., titled "Innovating to Restore Trust in News," which culminated in a conversation between Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith and Carr.

  "The social media companies got more power over more speech than any institution in history" in recent years, Carr told Smith. "And I think they're abusing that power. I think it's appropriate for the FCC to say, let's take another look at Section 230."

  Just a reminder: we should just Abolish the FCC. Established to allocate "scarce" slices of the electromagnetic spectrum, it's gotten way too big for its regulatory britches.

• Mini-review: Bill Clinton continues to lie. Nobody cares. Except Jim Geraghty, who reviews Bubba's recent ass-covering book in print National Review: Bill Clinton Whines into the Sunset.

  The former president released his second memoir, Citizen: My Life After the White House, last November. You probably didn’t hear a lot about it; Donald Trump had just won his second term, and the Clinton presidency, his post-presidential scandals, and even Hillary Clinton feel like ancient history now. It was startling to see Clinton, the country’s perpetual kid brother of a president, looking so pale and old, and sounding so hoarse, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last summer.

  You can find some mainstream media reviewers straining to say nice things about the 464-page tome (with index). The ugly truth is that Citizen is a long, dragging, meandering series of humble-bragging stories that not so subtly reveal that Clinton, arguably one of the luckiest men who ever lived, is still soaked through to the bone in self-pity and sees himself as an always well-meaning, noble, blameless, unjustly demonized perpetual victim of that notorious “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

  By page 4, Clinton is already lamenting his high legal bills on leaving office and declaring, “I had to start making money, something that had never interested me before.” (Isn’t it amazing how often fabulously wealthy people insist they’ve never had an interest in making money? It may be genetic; Chelsea Clinton once told a reporter, “I was curious if I could care about [money] on some fundamental level, and I couldn’t.” At the time, she was making $600,000 a year doing part-time work as a nearly no-show NBC News correspondent.)

  I almost inserted an Amazon paid link for the book here, but … nah. Anyone reading Jim's review (and that's a "gifted" link, by the way, number one for this month) will wisely save their money.

• What is that "something"? The answer may surprise you! Annie Duke has some good news in the WaPo: Finally, something is puncturing conspiracy theories. (Another free link.)

  In a pair of studies involving more than 2,000 participants, the researchers found a 20 percent reduction in belief in conspiracy theories after participants interacted with a powerful, flexible, personalized GPT-4 Turbo conversation partner. The researchers trained the AI to try to persuade the participants to reduce their belief in conspiracies by refuting the specific evidence the participants provided to support their favored conspiracy theory.

  My observations: (1) 20% reduction is pretty far from a panacea. (2) One of the debunked conspiracies is COVID-related, but apparently not the lab leak. That one's not just for conspiracists any more!

• Yascha Mounk sees a conspiracy, though. And he's usually so mild-mannered! But he goes all libertarian on us when he talks about The Never-Ending American Eye Exam Racket.

  In every other country in which I’ve lived—Germany and Britain, France and Italy—it is far easier to buy glasses and contact lenses than it is in the United States. Like in Peru, you can simply walk into an optical store and ask an employee to give you an eye test, likely free of charge. If you already know your strength, you can just tell them what you want. You may even be able to buy contact lenses from the closest drugstore without having to talk to a single soul—no doctor’s prescription necessary.

  So why does the United States require people who want to purchase something as simple as a pair of glasses to get a costly prescription?

  The answer may surpr—OK, it probably won't surprise you. There is no good reason to require a prescription for a pair of glasses.

  I write this having just gone through the optometrist/eye exam/glasses pipeline. The folks at Dover NH's "MyEyeDr" were very pleasant, efficient, and professional. And I tried not to think too hard about how I was being ripped off.