Weekend Wrap: ER Visits on the Rise After Obamacare

Christopher Walken is probably most famous for saying, “More cowbell.”  But now, an anonymous blog says they’ve got the identity of Cowgirl. MT Cowgirl that is, the anonymous liberal blog in Montana. That story is below.  Plus, I thought #70000CantWait…I guess a lot of them can.  Meanwhile, 3 out of 4 ER physicians say ER visits are on the rise *after* Obamacare.  Schweitzer says no comment. (That may be breaking news)  And, should President Obama be to blame for the Baltimore riots? 

Those stories and more are below in the Weekend Wrap.  But first, are big cities “the heart of America” as O’Malley suggests? 

Mediaite.com- Chuck Todd to Martin O’Malley: Can You Still Run on Your Baltimore Record?

O’Malley has been seen as the most viable contender against Hillary Clinton, but the unrest in Baltimore has been traced by some back to decisions made during his administration. Todd pressed him on why $130 million that had been pumped into Baltimore neighborhoods had apparently had no discernible effect.

Washington Post: O’Malley says Baltimore would be setting for announcement of presidential bid

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley said Sunday that he will announce his presidential campaign in riot-scarred Baltimore if he moves forward with a White House bid.

“I wouldn’t think of announcing anyplace else,” O’Malley, the city’s former mayor, said during an appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding that the plight of America’s cities would be central to a presidential bid.

O’Malley’s “zero-tolerance” policing policy led to steep decline in violent crime, but critics say it also contributed to the community distrust that erupted after Gray’s death.

VIDEO:

Must read piece by  Kevin Williamson in National Review:  Riot-Plagued Baltimore Is a Catastrophe Entirely of the Democratic Party’s Own Making

St. Louis has not had a Republican mayor since the 1940s, and in its most recent elections for the board of aldermen there was no Republican in the majority of the contests; the city is overwhelmingly Democratic, effectively a single-party political monopoly from its schools to its police department. Baltimore has seen two Republicans sit in the mayor’s office since the 1920s — and none since the 1960s. Like St. Louis, it is effectively a single-party political monopoly from its schools to its police department. Philadelphia has not elected a Republican mayor since 1948. The last Republican to be elected mayor of Detroit was congratulated on his victory by President Eisenhower. Atlanta, a city so corrupt that its public schools are organized as a criminal conspiracy against its children, last had a Republican mayor in the 19th century. Its municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, but the last Republican to run in Atlanta’s 13th congressional district did not manage to secure even 30 percent of the vote; Atlanta is effectively a single-party political monopoly from its schools to its police department.

American cities are by and large Democratic-party monopolies, monopolies generally dominated by the so-called progressive wing of the party. The results have been catastrophic, and not only in poor black cities such as Baltimore and Detroit. Money can paper over some of the defects of progressivism in rich, white cities such as Portland and San Francisco, but those are pretty awful places to be non-white and non-rich, too: Blacks make up barely 9 percent of the population in San Francisco, but they represent 40 percent of those arrested for murder, and they are arrested for drug offenses at ten times their share of the population. Criminals make their own choices, sure, but you want to take a look at the racial disparity in educational outcomes and tell me that those low-income nine-year-olds in Wisconsin just need to buck up and bootstrap it?

Yes, Baltimore seems to have some police problems. But let us be clear about whose fecklessness and dishonesty we are talking about here: No Republican, and certainly no conservative, has left so much as a thumbprint on the public institutions of Baltimore in a generation. Baltimore’s police department is, like Detroit’s economy and Atlanta’s schools, the product of the progressive wing of the Democratic party enabled in no small part by black identity politics. This is entirely a left-wing project, and a Democratic-party project.

Newsbusters.org: NY Times Blamed Reagan/Bush for LA Riots, But No Blame in Baltimore  (h/t Gordon in Great Falls)

Is President Obama responsible for the Baltimore riots? If you take a look at how The New York Times portrayed the reaction to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, apparently so.

Yes, that’s right. As Los Angeles burned, the media was quick to finger the real culprit as then-incumbent Republican President George H.W.Bush. Not to mention his predecessor, Ronald Reagan – then four years gone from the White House.

Now?  After Baltimore erupts over the death of Freddie Gray? With Obama, not Reagan or Bush, in the White House? With progressive Democrats in charge of Baltimore for almost five decades straight? And the last four of five liberal Baltimore mayors being black – two women and two men? And one of those liberal mayors — the white Martin O’Malley — now out there running for president as the new JFK?

WSJ’s Capital Journal

Americans are bracing for a summer of racial disturbances around the country, such as those that have wracked Baltimore, with African Americans and whites deeply divided about why the urban violence has occurred, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found.

Hillary isn’t out of the woods either…

Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate and former Hollywood studio owner, has given the Clinton Foundation more than $100 million and frequent use of his large private plane, putting him at the forefront of “a relatively new but substantial category of Clinton backers: foreign donors who are not legally eligible to contribute to U.S. political candidates but grew close to the Clintons through the charity,” reports The Washington Post.

Malkin on Texas Shooting

Washington Examiner: Despite ObamaCare, Emergency Room Visits Up

(75% of docs say ER visits are up due to Obamacare…yet, see below and 40% expect an increase if we get rid of Obamacare?  Huh?)

“Three in four emergency room doctors said patient visits have increased since the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to have health insurance went into effect, in an email survey released Monday by the American College of Emergency Physicians. That’s not the news some healthcare advocates had hoped for. The thought was that by expanding health coverage to more people, they would get their ailments treated earlier by primary care doctors and could avoid visiting emergency rooms, which already struggle with an overload of patients.”

WSJ Capital Journal Poll:

40%: The percentage of emergency physicians who say they expect emergency-room visits to increase if the Supreme Court rules that subsidies provided to people who obtain insurance on the federal exchange are invalid.

On the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion in Montana…

Buttrey estimates that if approved, only about 45,000 people of the 70,000 eligible will sign up for Medicaid in the next four years at least in part due to the copay and premium requirements.

And here we were told #70000CantWait…

Schweitzer declines to comment? Washington Times: Commodities slump tests Montana’s largest mining company

Yet plans to remake the 23-year-old company into a more efficient operation are running into growing union opposition. That’s put McMullen in the precarious position of balancing his workers’ demands against a desire among shareholders for greater returns on their investments.

“As we often say in mining when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel: Is that the exit or just a train coming the other way?” McMullen said during a recent tour of the company’s Stillwater Mine near Nye.

Schweitzer declined comment.

The Daily Inter Lake: In-fighting kills infrastructure bill

Unfortunately, the Legislature passed the water compact bill with its nearly unlimited potential to cause mayhem for Montana property rights, and left the infrastructure bill dangling until it died a slow death.

The argument between the Republicans and Democrats had two essential components. Republicans were opposed to using bonding authority to pay for part of the cost of the bill because they claimed enough cash was on hand already to pay for the most important projects without borrowing on behalf of taxpayers. Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock said he would veto any spending plan that used part of the state’s $300 million surplus.

That’s pretty close to the same argument that resulted in Bullock’s veto in 2013.

Lee Newspapers’ Chuck Johnson- Horse Sense: Bonding, ‘pork’ doomed public works bill

But as far as a major infrastructure bill goes, nothing will be considered until 2017.

Bullock could call the Legislature into special session to take up the issue again, or legislators could call themselves into special session. Neither prospect is likely.

MISSOULIAN EDITORIAL: Infrastructure demands return to Capitol

Now, some Republican legislators are blaming Bullock for refusing to continue negotiations, and Bullock’s office is likewise pointing the finger at the 34 House Republicans who “refused to negotiate to find common ground.” But Montanans are not interested in buck-passing or political maneuvering.

Nor do we want to wait for another two years while our streets and sewer system strain to hold up under heavier demand. Now that the state’s legislators have returned home to their communities, they will be in a position to see for themselves the results of their inaction. Their constituents back home ought to take pains to point out their local infrastructure needs – and tell legislators we expect them to return to Helena immediately to approve infrastructure funding for Montana.

WOMEN…per The Great Falls Tribune

For the first time, legislators said “Madame President” with the election of Sen. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon, as the first woman president of the Senate. Rep. Nancy Ballance, R-Hamilton, served in the powerful position of chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Sarah Laszloffy, R-Billings, headed the House Education Committee at only 23 years old.

Copper Commando: The Story, and Identity, of Montana Cowgirl

One of the many mysteries that seems to pervade the state political landscape is the existence of MTCowgirl, a shrill anonymous blog run by state employees who’ve been involved and working in Helena for at least the last decade or more.  Many people have tried to figure out this mysterious person behind the persona who seems to have a nasty habit of leaking politically expedient information and call everyone they don’t agree with names.  Many prominent Democrats have used the anonymous forum to spout talking points about their political opponents, never once pausing to wonder why they seem to need to use anonymous attack blogs to spout their opinions about anonymous speech in politics.

Eric Stern as author and media commentator

Deputy Secretary of State Stern has quite a prolific online life aside from managing and writing Cowgirl, just ask himself through his Wikipedia profile. (According to the Wikipedia page edits, while some edits have come from California and long-deleted Wikipedia user profiles, the traceable IP addresses that do the largest amount of editing oddly enough go to Helena, Montana.)  On his Facebook page, he regularly promotes his gigs at Salon.com, MSNBC… oh I’ll just let him tell it himself via his Wikipedia.  “He has also written as a guest columnist for the New York Times[5]and Salon Magazine[6][7] and has been a political commentator on MSNBC, CNN, the Larry King show Larry King Show[1] and Bloomberg TV andRadio.[8]He is a former Clinton Administration aide and a graduate of Columbia Law School and Connecticut College. He led Mexico’s 2003–04 effort to acquire a Major League Baseball franchise.[9][10] Stern’s father is David Stern, former Commissioner of the National Basketball Association.”