Jacob Luria @JGLuria

MAGA fundraiser David Sacks’ recent open letter explaining his support for Trump over Biden got it wrong on just about every count, awkwardly regurgitating pro-Trump groupthink. David makes four specious main points: (1) Trump’s legal troubles result from Joe Biden’s puppeteering (“lawfare”); (2) America’s economy is struggling due to Biden’s leadership (“the A/B test”); (3) Biden should fear Russia too much to keep supporting Ukraine; (4) Trump had an “orderly process of legal immigration” that Biden disrupted. Let’s compare these claims to some easily knowable and known facts. 1) Biden isn’t the reason Trump is a convicted felon. What’s more likely: That Joe Biden controls the actions of diverse local judges, prosecutors, and jurors – a charge for which there is no evidence? Or that Donald Trump is simply a criminal -- a charge for which the evidence is abundant? Trump became a convicted felon in New York City, where he lived for 73 years. His own lawyers signed off on the 12 jurors, who unanimously agreed Trump committed all 34 felony counts. (As I’ve explained elsewhere (bit.ly/45Qghyh), these are serious crimes that should disqualify him from leadership roles in business or politics.) Meanwhile, in the Hunter investigation, President Biden kept a Trump-appointed prosecutor on the case, before a Trump-appointed federal judge. When a jury convicted Hunter of felonies, the President promised not to pardon him. Joe Biden believes in the rule of law. Courts and juries aren’t perfect, but they are the best system we have for defending the rule of law against powerful criminals. Trump toadies attack America when they attack our courts and juries. 2) America has a successful economy and President. America today has the world’s greatest economy. Of course it’s not perfect. There’s no such thing. But our economy under Joe Biden is the strongest on the planet. David helpfully sets out to compare the economic performances of presidents 45 and 46. He explains that “In tech, we call this an A/B test.” Great! I know how this one works. We just look at the data. When Biden & Obama took office in 2009, they inherited an economy deep in crisis. We called it the Great Recession. When they peacefully stepped down in 2017, the US was in a 6th straight year of economic expansion. Unemployment below 5%. Stock markets up >150%. That’s what Donald Trump inherited; then he left office four years later as the first President since Hoover to oversee a net loss of jobs. Under Trump, crime was up. The national debt skyrocketed. Even before the pandemic, Trump had grown the federal deficit nearly 50%, to $1 trillion. Joe Biden promised to bring America back from by bringing us together, and that’s what happened. He worked with both parties to pass critical recovery and infrastructure bills. Crime and unemployment are near 50-year lows. The Dow has hit an all-time high. And a recent IMF report says US economic dominance will keep growing – double any other rich country. To sum up: (a) Biden and Obama grew the economy handily; (b) Trump’s violent, chaotic, one-party approach blew it up and crushed us with debt; and (c) After four more steady Biden years, America has the world’s strongest economy again. Looks like David is reading his A/B test results backwards. In tech, we call this "being wrong." And now Trump 2024 is seriously and literally promising tariff trade wars and deficit expansions that risk hyperinflation. The macroeconomic case for Biden vs. Trump is embarrassingly one-sided. But David wants to go back to Casino Bankruptcy Don? Hard pass. 3) Trump’s 2nd term would be disastrous for world peace. If you hate war, today is the best time ever to have lived. Thank Pax Americana, the international system we built after defeating the Nazis. In that system, nations that invade their neighbors pay consequences. That’s been true from FDR, to NATO, to JFK, to Reagan, to Bush 41, and now Joe Biden. And Americans have benefited enormously. Russian arch-criminal Vladimir Putin hates Pax Americana because he wants to break international law without consequence, and bring America down. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up the Soviet nuclear weapons on its soil in exchange for a treaty with Russia and America promising to protect its borders. Today, Putin’s unprovoked invasion has killed, injured, raped, and displaced millions of innocents. We already know how obediently Trump echoes Putin’s propaganda. Now David joins him. They say Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was somehow America’s fault – because in their minds apparently anything other than a flaccid US somehow forces Russia to invade other countries. Appeasement doesn’t work with autocrats like Putin. Trump may not know this, but David ought to. 4) Trump 2024 would make border chaos worse. Without irony, David describes Trump’s 2017-2020 border policy as “an orderly process” that elevated “the principles of American leadership.” We here in the boring old fact-based community remember it as chaotic, bad for business, and un-American. Trump cut legal immigration, including green cards and visas we in business needed. Remember his call for a “total and complete” ban on all Muslims? Remember him separating toddlers from their migrant parents? Some haven’t been reunited even now. But he was sure great at talking about building a wall. (Not so much at actually building one.) Trump 2024 has promised even crazier: military deployments in US cities, mass concentration camps, mass deportations. Volatile, impractical, unethical, illegal: the four horsemen of the Trumpocalpyse. Joe Biden works differently. Backing a tough new law to bring order to the border, he got congressional Democrats to work with deep-red Sen. Jim Lankford (R-OK). They came to bipartisan agreement, and struck a deal. You know – what a functioning, pro-business government is supposed to do. And then, Trump sabotaged it. Literally, he ordered Republicans to block Lankford’s deal from even getting a vote. Border security isn’t a political toy. If wealthy donors like David want order at the border, they should back leaders who can work together to deliver.

Somehow this gap keeps getting wider - great review by @zackcooperYale and team re: a big reason - mergers. Hospital prices used to track with textbooks and now a category of its own .

Zack Cooper @zackcooperYale

3 years ago

Context here matters: the $1.3 trillion US hospital sector accounts for 6% of national GDP. According to @BLS_gov data, since 2000, prices in the hospital industry grew faster than prices in any other sector of the economy!!!

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@chrissyfarr Continuous coverage as long as possible like Oregon 6yr for kids. Allows plan to benefit from preventative care investments. oregon.gov/oha/hsd/medica…

Agreed - that’s been a staple for the last 10yrs. I wonder what happened to textbooks.

Farzad Mostashari @Farzad_MD

3 years ago

so weird looking for and not finding hospitals and textbooks atop this graph

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This is one of the reasons I really miss Minnesota - could have been so many places in that state.

coup d’brah @jacobjbg

3 years ago

Somewhere in Minnesota, on my way to an ultimate frisbee tournament, the exhaust pipe of my car fell off. As if on cue, a giant van with some fundamentalist Christian family with like 10 kids pulled up, hopped out, and repaired the car like a NASCAR pit crew

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CUT - A brief history and look inside the program: youtu.be/btm9bD6kfuM

@chrissyfarr SaaS or more SaaS in health care

@chrissyfarr Applied data science to bring social factors to action - looking for individuals with data expertise and a bias for action (training data doesn’t create itself) - jobs.lever.co/algorex/78adc6…

I would love a worst speed but still effective list for the AUDL - some great candidates out there - @tylerkinley may be too fast.

Tyler Kinley @tylerkinley

6 years ago

This makes me want to play in the @theAUDL just so I can get voted “Worst Speed”

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@gregpak - just donated, can’t DM, let me know if open slots.

Tyler Kinley @tylerkinley

6 years ago

This makes me want to play in the @theAUDL just so I can get voted “Worst Speed”

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Donald Trump is running TV ads taking Dr. Fauci out of context and without his permission. So, here’s a message from the President in his own words.

@jasperhoitsma

Andy Slavitt @ASlavitt

6 years ago

Wow. #inthrbubble sponsor @Livinguard has agreed to give away 300 reusable antiviral+antimicrobial face masks to FOOD SERVICE workers. Reply to this tweet & mention a friend that works in food service & if they win, we will take the next step. And...

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On what engagement rate? I would love for all MA members to reliably report what supports would be helpful but my experience shows it’s consistently underwhelming.

Andy Slavitt @ASlavitt

6 years ago

Wow. #inthrbubble sponsor @Livinguard has agreed to give away 300 reusable antiviral+antimicrobial face masks to FOOD SERVICE workers. Reply to this tweet & mention a friend that works in food service & if they win, we will take the next step. And...

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Increasingly clear yes, especially by moving upstream - by the time a member reports may be too late to have financially sustainable intervention.

Andy Slavitt @ASlavitt

6 years ago

Wow. #inthrbubble sponsor @Livinguard has agreed to give away 300 reusable antiviral+antimicrobial face masks to FOOD SERVICE workers. Reply to this tweet & mention a friend that works in food service & if they win, we will take the next step. And...

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It's not a goddamn joke Ted. Millions of families are facing hunger, the threat of eviction, and the loss of their health care during a pandemic that is worsening every day. Get real.

Ted Cruz @tedcruz

6 years ago

Why be so cheap? Give everyone $1 million a day, every day, forever. And three soy lattes a day. And a foot massage. We have a magic money tree — we should use it!

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Full speech for those interested: pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4…

Ibram X. Kendi @ibramxk

6 years ago

Perhaps the greatest anti-slavery speech ever uttered is “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” by Frederick Douglass, in 1852. I wanted to make the speech more accessible. Here’s a thread with an abridged version of the speech we should reread every #FourthofJuly. 1/

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Spend the 10 minutes to read.

Ibram X. Kendi @ibramxk

6 years ago

Perhaps the greatest anti-slavery speech ever uttered is “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” by Frederick Douglass, in 1852. I wanted to make the speech more accessible. Here’s a thread with an abridged version of the speech we should reread every #FourthofJuly. 1/

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We can’t take four more years of this.

Why are prisons + policing the only investments we make communities of color in MA? Black and Brown communities deserve so much more. The @BOSCityCouncil can lead by defunding the police and shifting resources to Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan. #DefundRacism #DefundPolice

Black people: Stop killing us. We are human beings. This has been going on for 400 years. The lynchings never end. NYTimes: Gotta hear both sides