Monday Open Thread

21
  by: Colorado Pols Mon May 21, 2012 at 3:39 PM MDT

Why is his nature forever so hard to teach

That though there is no fixed line between wrong and right,

There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed?

–Robert Frost


Full story: Monday Open Thread

21 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. Libertad says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 4:17 PM MDT

    While insurance premiums and healthcare costs continue to skyrocket local healthcare titan Davita is betting on core business with its $4.5 Billion takeover of HealthCare Partners.

    Obamacare could be be tossed or kept in tact or something in between …. regardless Davita’s making a ballsy billion dollar move to strengthen its service portfolio and reap handsome profits.

    What does Davita know that we don’t? Does it matter? Denver based Davita, a strong community player since its arrival from California a few years ago, looks to grow and profit in whatever the post Obamacare world brings us — that’s great news for Denver and Davita’s customers.

    DENVER-Kidney dialysis services provider DaVita Inc. said Monday that it has agreed to buy the doctor network operator HealthCare Partners in a cash-stock deal worth about $4.42 billion.

    Denver-based DaVita said it will pay about $3.66 billion in cash and contributed common stock valued at $758 million as of last Friday to the deal. It also could pay an additional $275 million in cash if HealthCare Partners achieves performance targets this year and next.

    HealthCare Partners manages and runs medical groups and doctor networks, with operations in California, Nevada and Florida. It coordinates care for more than 667,000 patients and provides primary and specialty doctor care. HealthCare Partners had $2.4 billion in revenue last year.

    Read more: DaVita to buy HealthCare Partners in $4.42B deal – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/brea…

    Read The Denver Post’s Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/term…

    Now dear liberal leftist friends …. Don’t go getting all excited about all the cash on the table …. its not yours. This is investor cash due to the investors as they parse out decisions on capital reinvestment (increasing customer services/products) versus share buy backs or debt retirement or new M&A or dividend payments.

    Don’t go getting all excited about new taxes and regulations targeting Davita as it seeks to grow … we (collectively) are already going to be paying for your misguided healthcare policies via new Obamacare taxes, regulations, or their hidden costs.

    • Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
      Mon May 21, 2012 at 4:28 PM MDT

      What does Davita know that we don’t? Does it matter?

      The answers to your questions are…

      1. Who cares?

      2. No.

      A corporate buyout is about as non-newsworthy as a Richard Simmons shopping trip and your implication that we (liberals)watch the corporate news sheets drooling for a new corporation to tax is about as asinine as….well, you are normally.

      You must really be desperate for something about which to talk.  

      • Gray in Mountains says:
        Mon May 21, 2012 at 8:11 PM MDT

        demonstrates a great deal of confidence that they can make a lot of money.  

        • rocco says:
          Tue May 22, 2012 at 4:16 PM MDT

          are his/her own work.

          Every thing’s coming in from breitbart, drudge, etc, and the polls he spouts are righty schlock.

          It just seems contrived, as his/her post about Davita was about something he’s/she’s never even talked about before.

          Somebody’s incentivising “libertad” to lurk, wait for the open thread, and post.

          I guess it’s worth it to “libertad’s” handler if it provokes retort, een if it’s scorn.

          Maybe.  

          For what it’s worth, his/her information concerning the relationship of the ACA with the merger was incorrect.

          I guess it doesn’t matter, but it’s irritating when false charges, made by simpletons, just get thrown against the fan.

  2. Libertad says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 5:19 PM MDT

    On Sunday’s Meet the Press David Gregory asked Mayor Booker to defend the Obama campaign attack ads targeting Mitt Romney. Mayor Booker responded:

    “As far as that stuff, I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just this-we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, it ain’t-they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses, And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.”

    “This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity, stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on. It’s a distraction from the real issues. It’s either going to be a small campaign about this crap or it’s going to be a big campaign, in my opinion, about the issues that the American public cares about.”

    Calling out Obama can be brutal, but Mayor Booker and Governor Christie have regularly stood their ground and called as they saw it. As usual with these two we get honest and refreshing analysis from bipartisan Government CEOs from NJ.

    Tragically for Obama, his policy failures and flawed political tactics have all sides calling on him to be accountable and focus on the real issues.

  3. SSG_Dan says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 5:39 PM MDT

    You Might Be A Conservative If – 2012 Edition

    1: You think that if the government is forced into another shutdown scenario this summer – again – it’ll be the fault of the president – again – and not due to John Boehner and Eric Cantor playing the same game they played last year which resulted in the nation’s credit rating being reduced. And you believe this, in spite of the evidence, because Sean Hannity said so last week – again.

    2: You believe President Obama’s support for gay marriage will weaken the sanctity of your own marriage. And the two babes you’re banging on the side down at Bubba’s Busty Bistro both agree with you.

    3: In the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, you immediately took the side of Zimmerman, because Martin was wearing a hoodie and had no business being out at night in a gated community. But you still insist your position has nothing to do with race.

    4: You bristle whenever someone reminds you that today’s recession began during the George W Bush administration, and have even developed a talking point to combat it; “Bush is gone, It’s Obama’s presidency now!” Except of course, when president Obama killed Osama bin Laden, then suddenly Bush did it.

    5: 2012 is already trending to be the warmest year in recorded meteorological history, followed by 2011, 2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2009, 2006, 2007, 2004, and 2001. But because 2008 didn’t make the grade, you’re quite certain climate change is bullshit.

    6: You’re convinced that there’s massive voter fraud going on in the African/American community, because you saw 13 “New Black Panthers” looking mighty intimidating at a polling station on Fox News once. Even though, those 13 jokers make up the entirety of the New Black Panthers, and Fox News played that footage more times than they played the Rev. Wright tape. Oh, but don’t you assume from this that Fox is appealing to racist voters.

    7: You take Mitt Romney at his word when he said “Of course I would have given the order [to go after bin Laden in Pakistan], even Jimmy Carter would have.” Even though Mitt Romney previously said “Osama bin Laden is not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch. I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours.” But hey, this is all academic anyway, because everyone knows President Obama was only following Bush’s strategeiry.

    8: You think the recall movement going on in Wisconsin is un-American, and Scott Walker is only doing what the voters of his state demand. And that recording of Walker taking a phone call from a bogus David Koch was overblown… He just thought it was a courtesy call to discuss their mutual love of cheese.

    http://www.addictinginfo.org/2…

    More after the jump – bonus item just for ArapaBot:

    13: You think Mitt Romney would make a better president than Barack Obama, because he’s had hands-on experience in the business world. And who was the last president who ran on his record of business experience? George W. Bush. So there.

  4. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 9:49 PM MDT

    NYT editorial makes clear that the “War on Women” is a real thing, and none of the marches, demonstrations, or voter backlashes have stopped it.

    Last month, the Senate approved a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, designed to protect victims of domestic and sexual abuse and bring their abusers to justice. The disappointing House bill omits new protections for gay, Indian, student and immigrant abuse victims that are contained in the bipartisan Senate bill. It also rolls back protections for immigrant women whose status is dependent on a spouse, making it more likely that they will stay with their abusers, at real personal risk, and ends existing protections for undocumented immigrants who report abuse and cooperate with law enforcement to pursue the abuser.

    As some who know me are aware, I recently completed some training which gives me a fairly authoritative perspective on what law enforcement actually sees preventing women from leaving their abusers. Immigration fears are a major, major reason that women stay with violent partners.

    Memo to GOP: You can’t keep a majority forever if the only people left voting for you are wealthy white males.

  5. SSG_Dan says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 9:59 PM MDT

    How Amazon learned to love veterans

    Won over by their logistical know-how and “bias for action,” the online retailer is on a military hiring spree.

    FORTUNE — In a world where the typical preparation for becoming a junior executive at a Fortune 500 company is to go to college, sign on to some big corporation’s management-training program, and perhaps pick up an MBA, Dennis Clancey stands out. The fresh-faced 29-year-old is an operations manager at an Amazon.com warehouse in Phoenix, one of the 34 Amazon runs across the U.S. He oversees scores of workers who make sure products are accurately picked, packaged, and routed for delivery to Amazon’s millions of customers.

    Clancey’s training, however, didn’t involve earning a degree in the business of logistics management. Instead, the West Point graduate served as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq and then as an operations officer with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Colorado Springs. There he scanned the digital horizon for incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the United States. (If he’d detected one, he would have had less than 30 minutes to advise the lieutenant colonel whose job it was to initiate the missile defense system to try to save the world as we know it.)

    Why would someone who’d been trained to protect America against incoming missiles want to work at a company whose more pedestrian mission is to relentlessly drive down retail prices on goods large and small? “I was attracted to peak season,” says Clancey, referring to the chaotic, all-hands-on-deck period at Amazon that merchandising civilians would call the pre-Christmas shopping rush. Having joined Amazon in September 2010, just before “peak” began, Clancey says he needed to “train up” in a short period of time, military-speak not quite having exited his system. “That excited me to come here,” he says. “I stayed because of the leadership and the relationships we have with associates.”

    “Associates” are Amazon’s hourly workers, the workaday world’s equivalent of the military’s enlisted personnel. If Clancey’s aw-shucks fealty to his employer and his subordinates seems a little too good to be true, well, that’s just one of the many benefits a company like Amazon (No. 56 on the Fortune 500) gets for placing its talent bets on those who cut their teeth in uniform.

    http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/20…

    NCO translation – we get sh*t done, no excuses.

  6. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 10:50 PM MDT

    Unfortunately, if it’s played loud enough, sounds like there’s also a change of “sex, drugs, and Mozart!”

    Loud music correlates with sex, drugs, drinking.

    • allyncooper says:
      Tue May 22, 2012 at 6:30 AM MDT

      I can remember buying these vinyl things called albums that came in packages called album covers. Some of these album covers were not only iconic works of art but sometimes contained the phrase:

      THIS ALBUM IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED LOUD

  7. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Mon May 21, 2012 at 11:11 PM MDT

    I have a friend who would like to get involved in the fight to prohibit the use of credit information in hiring for non-cash handling positions. Is it Morgan Carroll? My google-fu is not working today.

  8. SSG_Dan says:
    Tue May 22, 2012 at 2:35 AM MDT

    …come and see what DU is spending my tuition and fees on (instead of student vet programs)…

    Did the Party Decide? What the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination tells us about American Politics

    Featuring the authors of “The Party Decides”

    Marty Cohen

    James Madison University

    David Karol

    University of Maryland

    Hans Noel

    Georgetown University

    John Zaller

    UCLA

    Friday, June 1st, 2012

    2-4 p.m.

    Davis Auditorium

    This event is free and open to the public.

    To register, please visit: https://udenver.qualtrics.com/…

  9. Sir RobinSir Robin says:
    Tue May 22, 2012 at 2:52 AM MDT

    The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States fell 6.2 cents to $3.78 in the last two weeks due to a drop in crude oil prices, partly on concerns about Europe’s economy, according to the nationwide Lundberg Survey.

    According to the survey of some 2,500 gas stations in the continental United States, the national average for regular gasoline as of May 18, was down more than 12 cents a gallon compared with a year earlier.

    http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.co…

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