Study finds significant racial disparities in hospital readmissions

From [HERE] Black patients enrolled in both Medicare fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage are at greater risk for hospital readmissions after surgery than white patients who underwent the same procedures, according to a study published in Health Affairs.

Researchers found black Medicare patients were 33 percent more likely than their white counterparts to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of discharge. The disparity was nearly twice as large within Medicare Advantage — black MA patients were 64 percent more likely than white patients to be readmitted within 30 days of discharge post-surgery. The overall rates of 30-day readmission for Medicare and MA enrollees were 13.2 percent and 13.1 percent, respectively.

Though the data does not indicate why this disparity exists, the researchers identified several potential factors. Minority patients may receive lower quality surgical care in the hospital or they may be more likely to seek care at hospitals with lower quality care. They may also have poor transitional care post-discharge or lack access to rehabilitation services or community support, for example.

The study authors call for more research into why managed care in particular seems to be leaving black patients behind. Managed care plans like Medicare Advantage can be too restrictive in terms of provider networks and "gatekeeping policies," but they do offer enhanced education, preventive care and support, the authors wrote.

"Thus, our findings provide empirical evidence that these contrasting managed care mechanisms may collectively help reduce 30-day readmissions for white Medicare Advantage patients but work in the opposite way for black Medicare Advantage patients relative to their traditional Medicare counterparts — which leads to increased racial disparity among Medicare Advantage patients," the authors wrote.

The study was based on data from the New York State Inpatient Database from January through November 2013. Researchers examined data for more than 13,700 Medicare patients and 6,600 Medicare Advantage patients undergoing six selected surgeries in 2013.

Read more here.

The inside story of how TMZ quietly became America’s most potent pro-Trump media outlet

ThinkProgress

After the release of the infamous Access Hollywood video where Trump was caught bragging about sexual assault, Trump struggled to generate positive coverage. One notable exception: TMZ.

The site, best known for celebrity gossip and interviews, landed an “exclusive” from former Miss Teen USA Katie Blair. In an edited two-and-a-half minute video shot from the front seat of a car, Blair says that she “never had a bad experience with him” and “has a great deal of respect for him.” Blair went on to describe, in the words of TMZ, “why Trump couldn’t have done many of the things some other pageant contestants have accused him of doing.” She concluded the video by saying she would vote for Trump.

Trump’s accusers, on the other hand, got harsher treatment. TMZ highlighted how one woman, Jessica Drake, “might’ve pulled off the ultimate publicity stunt — announcing an online sex shop 1 day before accusing The Donald.” The story wasn’t exactly true, Drake’s lawyer later made clear in an email to TMZ, but still served as an effective vehicle to discredit her as a sexual deviant and profiteer.

Another “exclusive” on TMZ reported that Bill Clinton made “trashy, disparaging remarks about women during golf games” with Trump. According to the report, Trump was considering bringing this up in the next presidential debate. TMZ cited “sources familiar with the situation.” (Trump didn’t end up bringing up Clinton’s alleged comments during the debate.)

A former TMZ employee, who spoke to ThinkProgress on the condition of anonymity, was watching this unfold — and praying for it to end. “In the weeks leading up to the election, it was all Trump all the time… and it was gross.”

But after months of fawning Trump coverage that put the site’s creator, Harvey Levin, at odds with its young, liberal, Los Angeles-area staff, many saw Election Day as the solution.

“In the back of my mind the entire time I was like, ‘All right, you know, come November this will all be over, we won’t have to think about this anymore, we can get back to normal business,” the former TMZ staffer told ThinkProgress.

Then the results came in.

“I felt like I had blood on my hands.”

The morning after the election, Levin, who sits on a raised platform in the center of an open newsroom, got a call. It was Trump. Levin “went into his big sort of conference room right behind my desk,” the former staffer told ThinkProgress, “I don’t really know what they were talking about, but I heard some laughter.”

Trump was the ideal vehicle for TMZ to break into political coverage. A reality TV host and a creature of celebrity culture pursues the most powerful position in the world — all while dishing out TMZ-friendly sound bites on a daily basis.

As Trump has risen, TMZ has quietly emerged as, arguably, the most important pro-Trump outlet in America. Fox News is the largest and best known, but its audience is older and already inclined to support Trump. Breitbart is the most aggressive and strident, but its connection to white nationalism limits its appeal. TMZ attracts a large and diverse audience — precisely the folks Trump needed to reach to stitch together a winning coalition.

Stories on TMZ not only gain a wide audience online but also appear on two nationally syndicated daily television shows (TMZ and TMZ Live) that, in most markets, are aired multiple times each day.

‘Trump is calling you’

One person who understands the importance of TMZ is Donald Trump.

In April 2016, TMZ interviewed Trump on the red carpet and asked him what TV shows he’s watching. “Only TMZ. Only Harvey. That’s all I want to watch,” Trump said with a grin. [MORE]

Court: Bush Administration Officials Can't Be Held Liable for Post-9/11 Mass Roundup of Undocumented Muslims

Jackson, Miss. Mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba: I Plan to Build the "Most Radical City on the Planet"

Trump Creates A new emergency alert for cops

Politico 

The White House declared it “Tech Week,” inviting a group of CEO’s to repair the administration’s somewhat rocky relationship to the innovation industries. But for all intents and purposes, this turned out to be Healthcare Week in Washington.

The Senate GOP’s healthcare bill dropped with a bang on Thursday, drafted so secretly that even key Republican lawmakers didn’t know what was in it. The bill so dominated the Washington news that even Trump’s walk back of his Comey-tape threat got only a short ride in the spotlight.

Whether Congress really gets a health care bill done is anyone’s guess; for now, it’s a massive rethink of Medicaid and some significant changes to Obamacare. But away from Capitol Hill, the White House really is still getting stuff done, quietly continuing its broad rollback of Obama-era policies. As part of our weekly roundup of what’s really changing across the government, here are five big policy changes from the last week:

1. The Labor Department loosens a rule on beryllium exposure

You haven’t heard of it since chemistry class, but beryllium is a chemical toxic to lung tissue. The Department of Labor took years to finalize a rule protecting workers from exposure, and didn’t issue the final version until the tail end of Obama’s presidency—January 9, to be exact. It was always at risk of removal by the Republican Congress, which could have repealed it with just a majority vote, but it survived until now.

On Friday, the Department of Labor proposed a new rule on beryllium exposure; it doesn’t change the original exposure limits imposed by Obama but instead eliminates additional safety requirements for the construction and shipyard industries, such as conducting medical surveillance or providing training for those workers who are near, but not above, the exposure limits. Labor groups slammed the change, saying that it would lead to more lung disease and cancer among workers. Industry groups applauded the changes; the original rule, they argued, was too restrictive.

The DOL must still go through a full rule-making process, so the new beryllium rule won’t be finalized for months. In the meantime, the department said it wouldn’t be enforcing the Obama-era rule.

2. A new emergency alert for cops

We’ve all noticed the emergency warnings on television or radio, which alert audiences about a child abduction (the “Amber Alert”) or severe weather. Soon, there may be a new alert: a “Blue Alert” for when a police officer is missing, seriously injured or killed in the line of duty.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved the first stage of rulemaking to add such a “Blue Alert” to the FCC’s Emergency Alert System (EAS), which was created in 1997 to enable the president to communicate quickly and directly with the American people in the case of an emergency. Stations are required to carry such presidential alerts but alerts for a child abduction or severe weather are voluntary.

A “Blue Alert” has already been implemented in 27 states; the FCC proposal would make it a national standard. The change has bipartisan support—it’s hard to see politicians taking a stance against showing concern for officer safety—but it also fits with the Trump administration’s focus on attacks on cops, and the Department of Justice’s pivot from Obama-era policies on police accountability toward a more protective stance on police.

3. The Yucca nuclear controversy re-opens

So … where is America supposed to put its spent nuclear fuel over the long term? A decades-old debate was reawakened this week when Rick Perry, the energy secretary, announced at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that he was reconstituting the Office of Civilian Radioactive Management, which ran a proposed Nevada site for long-term waste storage.

Throughout the Obama administration, with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid leading the Senate Democrats, plans to store nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain had no chance of actually happening. Now it’s back. This wasn’t exactly a surprise, since Trump’s budget included $120 million to restart the licensing process for the Yucca site; in fact, in May, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took the first steps towards restarting that process. But Perry’s words nevertheless created a sharp backlash from Nevada politicians who have long fought any plan to store nuclear waste in their state.

Perry somewhat walked back his comments at a separate congressional hearing on Wednesday, saying that “no decision has been made at this time with respect to the timing or the location, for that matter, of waste storage." But the Office of Civilian Radioactive Management is still set to reopen during fiscal 2018. The next Yucca fight is just beginning.

4. The White House gets tough with Russia

Amid multiple congressional inquiries and the investigation by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, the Trump administration hasn’t done much to distance itself from Moscow. So it may have come as a surprise on Tuesday when the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on more than three dozen individuals and organizations involved in Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The announcement coincided with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko’s visit to the White House, but many observers wondered if the administration had a different motive: discouraging the House from taking up the Senate’s Russian sanctions bill. That legislation, which passed the Senate last week by a 98-2 vote, would limit Trump’s ability to ease sanctions on the Russian government. The White House has been working to water down or kill the Senate bill. The new sanctions can’t hurt those efforts.

5. Trump quietly releases another immigration executive order

It went almost entirely unnoticed: At 9:20 p.m. on Wednesday, the White House released a new executive order on immigration. Compared to Trump’s past orders on immigration, which have set off national protests and ongoing court cases, this one was minor. It makes a very small change to an Obama-era executive order, removing one section that directed the secretaries of state and homeland security to create a plan so that “80 percent of nonimmigrant visa applicants are interviewed within 3 weeks of receipt of application.”

So now, DHS and State can take more time to review nonimmigrant visa applicants. What’s the reasoning for this? Michael Short, a White House spokesperson, said in an email that the change was “a very straightforward step that removes an arbitrary requirement and ensures the State Department has the needed discretion to make real world security determinations.” He explained that the White House didn’t want to set an “arbitrary deadline” for reviewing and vetting visa applicants.

For people seeking nonimmigrant visas, which include everything from business travelers to foreign athletes to diplomats, this could mean longer waits as their applications are processed. But to the White House, any additional waits are simply a necessary step to keep the country safe.

Facial Recognition May Boost Airport Security But Raises Privacy Worries

NPR

Passengers at Boston's Logan International Airport were surfing their phones and drinking coffee, waiting to board a flight to Aruba recently when a JetBlue agent came on the loudspeaker, announcing: "Today, we do have a unique way of boarding."

On flights to the Caribbean island, JetBlue is experimenting with facial recognition software that acts as a boarding pass. The airline says it's about convenience. For the federal government, it's also about national security. But for privacy activists, it's an intrusive form of surveillance.

This is the first trial between an airline and Customs and Border Protection to use facial recognition in place of boarding passes.

"The practical side of that is you will not need to show a boarding pass and you will not need to take your passport out because your face will be essentially your boarding pass," says Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue's executive vice president of customer experience.

Michelle Moynihan, who was flying to Aruba for a wedding, says facial recognition would make her life easier.

"Typically when I travel I have my three kids with me and I travel alone with them," she says. "They're all under age 10, so flipping through multiple boarding passes on my phone, making sure I have all the kids, all the backpacks, all the suitcases can be cumbersome and frustrating."

Moynihan gets in line and right before she gets to the jet bridge, there's a camera that's about the size of a shoebox. It takes her photo and she gets a checkmark, saying she's good to go. [MORE]

Possible to Get Good Public Service From Racists? Oakland Police Officers Speak More Respectfully to White Drivers

From [HERE] Police officers in Oakland, California speak more respectfully to white drivers than black drivers, according to a study of officer body-worn camera footage published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, covered by CNN. This study controlled for contextual factors such as the severity of the offense and the outcome of the stop. “This provides evidence for something that communities of color have reported, that this is a real phenomenon,” said Rob Voigt, lead author of the study, “Language from Police Body Camera Footage Shows Racial Disparities in Officer Respect.”

The study used 183 hours of body camera footage taken during 981 routine traffic stops in April 2014. The data were coded using research participants’ ratings of transcribed officer utterances and by developing computational linguistic models of respect and formality. Utterances connoting respect included those in which officers offered reassurances (“no problem”) or mentioned driver well-being (“drive safe”). Utterances connoting disrespect included those using informal titles (“my man”) and issuing commands (“keep your hands on the wheel”). White drivers were 57% more likely to hear officers say one of the most respectful utterances in the dataset, while black drivers were 61% more likely to hear one of the least respectful utterances.

The Passion Of Colin Kaepernick

MintPress

Like a million and a half other bleary-eyed workers, I commute into Manhattan early every morning.  My train ride takes me right through the foul-smelling no-man’s-land that is the wetlands between East Rutherford and Secaucus, New Jersey – a methane-laden marsh that is beautiful in a “don’t dig or you’ll find a low-level mob guy’s skeleton” kind of way.

And, as I stare off into the hazy distance, dominating the skyline is that bulging, pimple-shaped eyesore that is MetLife Stadium, home of the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets.  

And on this sticky, humid, gray June morning, I peer out the dirt-encrusted window of the NJ transit train out towards the stadium, sitting empty in anticipation of the upcoming football season, when every Sunday it will be transformed into America’s equivalent of Chartres or the Temple at Karnak – a sacred and holy space complete with the images and symbols of venerated saints of past glory, and hordes of devout worshipers clamoring for a glimpse of greatness, desperate for the communal belonging that comes with the price of admission.

And when the Giants and Jets begin their 2017 NFL seasons, they will do so with significant quarterback questions: The Giants, with their past-his-prime two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning, and the Jets with a God-knows-who collection of cast-offs and scrubs (Josh McCown? Bryce Petty? Christian Hackenberg? A bucket of sand?). One team has a desperate need for an NFL-level starter, while the other surely needs an insurance policy on their over-35 and consistently mediocre franchise quarterback, Eli Manning.

Both teams reside in a massive, high-profile football market. Both teams represent a city that boasts a majority of people of color. Both teams have a history of employing “controversial” players, some of whom have had significant legal and public relations troubles; the Giants kept serial wife-beater Josh Brown on the roster until public pressure forced them to release him.

And yet both teams have refused to even offer a tryout to the lone NFL-level starting quarterback who is still available just two and a half months before the season starts.

And why have both teams chosen to move forward with subpar starting and/or backup quarterbacks rather than offering a tryout to an unsigned free agent QB who remains head, shoulders, arms, waist, knees and toes above every other available QB?

Because that man is named Colin Kaepernick. And because that man has chosen to use his fame to draw attention to the institutionalized, systemic racism and violence that primarily targets people of color.

But oh, we’re told by the preening sycophants of so-called sports journalism – almost without exception just corporate mouthpieces with communications degrees – that it’s not racism that keeps Kaepernick off NFL rosters; it’s not the blacklisting of an athlete for the dangerous sin of being both black and politically radical.

No, it’s a purely football decision because Kaepernick is just not very good … or so they tell us.

Of course, no one would argue that Kap is Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. But “not very good”? Really?

Is Kaepernick worse than Josh McCown, Mark Sanchez, Josh Johnson, Geno Smith, Aaron Murray, Case Keenum, David Fales or Austin Davis? If your response to reading those names was “Who the hell are those people?” then you’d be joining the tens of millions of other football fans who would ask the same question. Still, every one of those scrub QBs has landed a spot on an NFL team.   

But perhaps the even better question is: “Why is this even up for debate?”

Kaepernick’s real-world performance on the second-worst team in the NFL (the San Francisco 49ers finished 2-14 in 2016) was more than adequate. In fact, Kap was one of the better QBs in the league when he got a chance to start, even on a horrendous dumpster fire of a football team.  Now, let’s look at some numbers. Forgive me non-football fan readers, but this is important:

1. According to the NFL’s official research organization, Kaepernick threw 16 touchdowns and only four interceptions while going 1-10 as a starter. That was good for the sixth-lowest interception percentage in the NFL, just behind Aaron Rodgers and Derek Carr, two poster boys of the NFL who were considered contenders for the Most Valuable Player award in 2016.
2. Kaepernick finished the 2016 season 16th among QBs in adjusted yards per attempt (better than two Pro Bowl QBs).
3. Kaepernick finished 17th in QB rating.  
4. Kaepernick finished 13th in touchdown percentage.  
5. He finished second in total rushing yards among QBs despite starting just 11 games, as well as posted the best yards per carry of any player with at least 50 carries.

In short, any objective analysis of Kaepernick’s level of play shows that he is at worst a middle of the road, average NFL QB, which should make him sought after by every single organization and earn him tens of millions of dollars. Consider the fact that Brock Osweiler last year signed a $72 million contract and performed as one of the worst QBs in the NFL, performing far worse than Kaepernick in every offensive category. And yet Kap remains unemployed. Why? 

Radical Liberation Politics in a Reactionary, Oppressive League

Kaepernick’s lack of a job is less about him than it is the NFL and American society as a whole. As the numbers show – and many experts agree – Kaepernick’s performance is, by any statistical measure, worthy of an NFL job.  So there must be another reason for his fall from grace.

As ESPN’s Bomani Jones eloquently wrote:

“Stop hiding behind code. Stop trumpeting the idea that sports are the ultimate meritocracy, then shrugging and say ‘thems the breaks’ in the face of a visible potential case of discrimination. It’s intellectually disingenuous at best, indefensible cowardice at worst and sounds eerily like the worst of past evaluations and coverage of black athletes…And, then perhaps, we could address the cruelest irony of this. Kaepernick’s stand was a refusal to pay homage to American ideals because he couldn’t ignore America’s reality. Now, writers and fans are ignoring those same ideals and their defense of that outlook is … it’s reality.”

Indeed, it is good old-fashioned racism and white supremacy at work in the Kaepernick saga, not some putrid garbage about reading defenses, being a pocket passer or getting rid of the ball too slowly.

It is, once again, a professional sports league dominated by the same rich white billionaires who revel in ostentatious displays of hero worship for U.S. military – it makes no difference whether those wars are unjust, illegal, imperialist wars, mind you – and other agents of the state such as politicians and cops. [MORE]

Trump administration eliminates funding for group countering white nationalism

ThinkProgress

The Trump administration has dropped federal support of an organization dedicated to countering white nationalist and neo-Nazi extremism, a Politico report revealed on Friday.

The organization, Life After Hate, was founded in 2009 and is run by a small staff of men and women who were once part of racist activist and extremist movements, and who now work to de-radicalize others involved in violent extremist groups.

In its final days, the Obama administration awarded the group a $400,000 grant as part of its Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) program. Life After Hate was the only group dedicated to fighting white nationalist extremism to receive a grant under the program.

It’s also in increasing demand: Picciolini told Politico that since President Trump’s election, Life After Hate has seen a 20-fold increase in requests for help, coming “from people looking to disengage or bystanders/family members looking for help from someone they know.”

But Life After Hate Founder Christian Picciolini told ThinkProgress in February the group never received its check from the federal government. And now, the organization has been dropped altogether from the list of grants associated with the CVE program, which the Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday.

DHS did not clarify to Politico why Life After Hate was dropped, and Life After Hate did not respond to ThinkProgress’ request for comment on the news by publishing time.

Picciolini previously told ThinkProgress, however, that the group feared its grant would be rescinded after Reuters reported that Trump planned to rebrand the CVE program to focus solely on terrorism carried out by groups that claim to be Islamic, and wouldn’t target far-right and white supremacist groups.

“It sends a message that white extremism does not exist, or is not a priority in our country, when in fact it is a statistically larger and more present terror threat than any by foreign or other domestic actors,” Picciolini said at the time.

Since 9/11, far more Americans have been killed in attacks by right-wing organizations than by groups claiming to be Islamic, according to the SPLC. [MORE]

Federal judge orders major changes to Arizona death penalty procedures

[JURIST]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Arizona [official website] signed an order [text] on Thursday accepting major revisions to Arizona's death penalty procedures. The order provides such changes like eliminating paralytic drugs for lethal injections, providing witnesses with more access to watch prisoners inside the death chamber, limitations on the department director's authority to change drugs, and time allotted to prisoners to challenge any drug changes. The changes are the result of a settlement reached in a 2014 lawsuit [Reuters report] brought by seven death row inmates who argued Arizona's policies were experimental and caused unnecessary suffering. The deal is the first time any state has agreed to major changes in death penalty procedures due to prisoners' complaints.

Federal Judge In Michigan Temporarily Halts Deportation Of Iraqis Who Fear Torture

NPR

A federal judge in Michigan granted temporary reprieve from deportation on Thursday to more than 100 Iraqi nationals with criminal convictions who were living in the Detroit area. They had argued they could face persecution or torture in Iraq because of their status as religious minorities, The Associated Press reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the Iraqis, says they include Christians and Muslims.

"We are thankful and relieved that our clients will not be immediately sent to Iraq, where they face grave danger of persecution, torture or death," ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Michael Steinberg said in a statement. "It would be unconstitutional and unconscionable to deport these individuals without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate the harm that awaits them in Iraq."

Mobb Deep's Prodigy RIP

Dr Umar Johnson (6.17.17): Black People Scared to Confront White Supremacy

Black Appalachia

Politico

The conventional portrayal of people who live in Appalachian coal country, a part of the United States that has ballooned in the national consciousness after its support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, has generally focused on a few key characteristics: Rural, mostly poor and mostly white. Lynch, Kentucky, might fit the bill for the first two—but its racial diversity stands in stark contrast to the popular perception of Appalachia.

In the early 20th century, when the coal industry was booming across Appalachia, coal companies used labor agents to recruit a racially and ethnically diverse labor supply for the mines. Those efforts weren’t exactly progressive: For the companies, a demographically diverse workforce and the racism that likely followed hindered the formation of strong unions. So labor agents looked abroad to southern Europe and southward to Alabama, where they made arrangements to sneak poor black sharecroppers off their land and ferry them to the heart of coal country. Now, after a decades-long decline in the coal industry, many of those black families have left for urban centers on the coasts, leaving behind shells of former coal towns. Lynch, Kentucky, with its mere 800 residents left behind from the collapse of coal and the resulting out-migration, is one such community.

A scholar who focuses on Lynch, Kentucky, and other communities like it invited Sarah Hoskins, a photographer with experience documenting black communities in Kentucky, to visit the town of Lynch last year, and Hoskins came away with a picture of Appalachia that was much more complicated than what she had heard and read about the region. “I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know there were black people in Appalachia,’” she says.

All photos by Sarah Hoskins [MORE]

Supreme Court agrees to hear Wisconsin Partisan gerrymandering case

From [HERE] The US Supreme Court [official website] agreed Monday to review Gill v. Whitford [docket; order, PDF], a partisan-gerrymandering case from Wisconsin. The state is appealing the decision of a three-judge panel for the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin [official website], which struck down [order, PDF] a redistricting map that was created by the state's Republican-controlled legislature on the grounds that it was a product of partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court also put the lower court's order for the state to create a new redistricting plan by the fall on hold as per the request [application, PDF] of the appellants. The opinion states that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor would have denied the application, which could be indicative of how the court will decide the case as the justices had to consider whether the state was likely to succeed on the merits when making their decision. Arguments for the case will likely be heard in November or December.