Prickly City by Scott Stantis for August 07, 2020

Don’t know what to say.

Captures the feelings of a lot of us today.

Especially since, in a few minutes, along will come someone to tell us they deserved it.

Coming soon, an announcement!

.

Anyone remember three weeks ago, when Trump announced that the shiny new Republican* health plan would be ready in…

… wait for it …

in two weeks!

.

Anyway, when the announcement comes, it will be great news about the new vaccine.

The announcement will say that the vaccine will be ready …

now, don’t spoil it…

.

The vaccine will be ready in … two weeks!

.

161,000 an counting.

.

#TraitorTrump

Oh… And remember, the police still steal your stuff, ‘legally’.

Just because they can.

~

The driver, Rohith Mathew, was arrested on drug and gun charges, and his car was seized as the instrumentality of those crimes.

Except it wasn’t his car. Mathew, an executive at a Houston-based supply chain management company, had rented it from Manni Munir, who owns a small Houston car rental business with a fleet of about two dozen vehicles.

Munir, who described Mathew as “a giant nerd” who was “very chatty” and “very friendly,” said he had no idea what his customer was up to.

Munir, whose business specializes in serving people who come to Houston for medical treatment, said he did not even know that Mathew, contrary to the rental contract, had taken the car out of Texas.

But under federal civil asset forfeiture law, none of that mattered.

While this case might seem like small potatoes compared to many other forfeiture outrages, it vividly illustrates the dilemma faced by innocent owners who find that challenging a forfeiture can cost more than their property is worth.

It also shows how civil forfeiture encourages cops to prioritize profit over public safety.

As Giacomo Bologna reports in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Munir found out that his car had been seized after Mathew failed to return it on time and a GPS tracker showed the car was parked at the Hancock County Jail.

When an alarmed Munir called the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Fred Eagan matter-of-factly informed him that he would not be getting the car back.

Munir said he offered to share his GPS data, seemingly relevant to the case against Mathew, but investigators were not interested.

“What is the accusation?” Munir wondered in an interview with the Clarion-Ledger. “If the accusation is that I’m involved, then the burden should be on them to prove it.”

~

https://reason.com/2020/08/05/the-cops-took-this-guys-car-because-he-unwittingly-rented-it-to-an-alleged-drug-dealer/

At least the Middlemen ‘economy’ is doing very well!

~

Some of the largest companies, including Anthem, Humana and UnitedHealth Group, are reporting second-quarter earnings that are double what they were a year ago.

And while insurance profits are capped under the Affordable Care Act, with the requirement that consumers should benefit from such excesses in the form of rebates, no one should expect an immediate windfall.

✁

Just this Wednesday, CVS Health, which owns Aetna, the big insurer, posted much higher earnings.

CVS, which also owns a large pharmacy benefit manager and a drugstore chain, said net income for the second quarter reached $3 billion, about $1 billion more than it reported for the same period of 2019, on revenues of $65 billion.

Others had already trumpeted blockbuster results, ensuring that their stocks weathered swings in the markets.

Anthem’s net income soared to $2.3 billion for the second quarter, from $1.1 billion in 2019, while UnitedHealth reported net earnings of $6.7 billion, compared to $3.4 billion for the same three months last year.

Although many hospitals have been overwhelmed by the coronavirus outbreaks raging from state to state, insurers have shelled out billions of dollars less in medical claims in the last three months because expensive, elective surgeries have been postponed in many places.

Moreover, people have steered clear of doctors’ offices and emergency rooms in fear of contagion.

The companies’ staggering pandemic profits stand in stark contrast to the scores of small medical practices and rural hospitals that are struggling to stay open.

And the earnings are putting a spotlight on the big insurance companies at a time when government officials in many states are facing massive budget shortfalls as businesses collapse, unemployment rises and tax revenues plummet.

~

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/health/covid-insurance-profits.html

“I’ve done the math and it’s terrifying” Coming Next: The Greater Recession https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1291525220491317248

^ ^ ^

“Ah, a scene from the world under the…”

He said, in regard to a comic referring to the current Trump administration…

“You apply one law to the poor and none to the rich . . . because the poor are such a nuisance.” Terry Pratchett writing in Snuff (2011).

It’s really lazy to draw several strips that are just pairs of cartoon eyes in the dark.

Thanks to Silly Season, above, providing a place to “reply” to Tom Pain without making Tom the “comment of the day.”

That is, the Go Comics algorithm that sees which comment gets the most “replies” and places it at the top of the page (unless “all” comments are enabled).

That is the proper way to “reply” to him – rather than allowing him the gratification of hogging all the attention as he used to do over at Two Party Opera.

Methinks he went over to TPO where he was more successful over there in subverting the message. But TPO s creator is also an elected official in Los Angeles and, this year especially, has often needed and taken extended breaks from publishing.

Maybe Tom Pain thinks he drove TPO out of business. Rather, some of us – and the creator of Two Party Opera – have real lives and are making a real difference in the world.

I would like to remind readers which way this toon leaned pre-Trump and I would like to remind Scott that it was his Republican party the allowed, nay, encouraged this to happen.