RSN: Robert Reich | My Response to Bernie Skeptics, 3 Reasons Big Coal Had a Bad Week, As a Doctor Who Treats Concussions and a Lifelong Fan, I Now Believe Pro Football Is Unethical

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Robert Reich | My Response to Bernie Skeptics

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
Reich writes: "'He'd never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.' Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical match-ups."
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ix Responses to Bernie Skeptics:

1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.” Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.)


2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.” If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged.


3. “America would never elect a socialist.”
   
   P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent.
4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.”
   
   This is a duplicitous argument. Single-payer systems in other rich nations have proven cheaper than private for-profit health insurers because they don’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance.
5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.”
   
   Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it.
6. “He’s too old.”
   
   Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn't age; it's having the right values. FDR was paralyzed and JFK had Crohn's disease, but they were great presidents because they stood forcefully for the right things.

What do you think?

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34649-my-response-to-bernie-skeptics

More Than Half of Americans Reportedly Have Less Than $1,000 to Their Name 

Jack Holms, Esquire 

Holms Writes: "In a recent survey, 56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined, Forbes reports. Nearly a quarter (24.8 percent) have less than $100 to their name." 

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In 1993 Meeting, Hillary Clinton Acknowledged "Convincing Case" for Bernie's Health Plan
Zaid Jilani, The Intercept
Jilani writes: "Two doctors who met privately with Hillary Clinton during the 1993 health reform debate say she agreed that single-payer healthcare would be good for Americans."
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Iran Frees Washington Post Correspondent Jason Rezaian, 3 Others, Officials Say
Carol Morello, William Branigin and Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Iran released Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and three other detained Iranian Americans on Saturday in exchange for seven people imprisoned or charged in the United States, U.S. and Iranian officials said, a swap linked to the imminent implementation of a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers."
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As a Doctor Who Treats Concussions and a Lifelong Fan, I Now Believe Pro Football Is Unethical
Joseph A. Annibali, The Washington Post
Annibali writes: "Stop and think a minute. Have you noticed just how violent professional football is? Does it strike you as odd that so many are excited about a game in which players are knocked senseless and many are maimed?"
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Pentagon to Punish Personnel for Bombing of Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan
Paul McLeary, Foreign Policy
McLeary writes: "The Pentagon is preparing to punish specific members of the U.S. special operations forces and others involved in a bungled airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that left 42 civilians dead. But the move, which has not previously been reported, could also spark new questions about the military's ability to police itself."
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Médecins Sans Frontières medical personnel treat civilians injured following an offensive against 
Taliban militants by Afghan and coalition forces, at the MSF hospital in Kunduz. 
(photo: MSF/AFP/Getty Images)

he Pentagon is preparing to punish specific members of the U.S. special operations forces and others involved in a bungled airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that left 42 civilians dead. But the move, which has not previously been reported, could also spark new questions about the military’s ability to police itself.

Gen. John Campbell, who commands U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has forwarded an exhaustive 3,000-page investigation into the incident to the U.S. Central Command along with his recommendations for disciplinary action against the troops involved in the airstrike. Officials there and at the U.S. Special Operations Command are now weighing who to punish — and how.

Staffers at the Tampa, Fla.-based Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will likely need “about two to three weeks” to redact the Kunduz report for potential public release, said one defense official who is not authorized to speak for attribution. The official said that no decisions have been made about when and if it might be made public.

One congressional staffer told Foreign Policy that the U.S. Army Green Beret team on the ground on the night of the attack has come under particular scrutiny from investigators for their role in calling in the strike by an AC-130 gunship, which lasted about 30 minutes.

In addition to the 42 killed, including 14 of the aid group’s staffers, several dozen others werewounded. The organization — also known as MSF, after its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières– has called the attack a “war crime.”

Also likely in the crosshairs of investigators is Army Lt. Col. Jason Johnston, the commander of the military’s special operations task force in Afghanistan. Given the strict rules of engagement in Afghanistan, it’s likely that his superior, Army Maj. Gen. Sean Swindell, who oversees all U.S. and NATO special operations forces in the country, and Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott West, the overall commander of the air war in Afghanistan, are also likely to have drawn the attention of the investigators.

If the only military personnel reprimanded are enlisted soldiers or junior officers, it will further infuriate MSF, which has already made clear that it didn’t believe the Pentagon could be trusted adequately investigate itself. The aid group has called for an independent investigation.

A spokesman for the U.S. military command in Afghanistan, Col. Michael Lawhorn, would not comment on the specifics of the report or those involved, but said that any legal process would potentially “have different decisions for different individuals.”

The bungled strike came after several days of intense fighting between Afghan troops and Taliban fighters in the wake of a major Taliban offensive in the city. The American special operations forces had also been involved in heavy ground fighting for several days, and on the night of the tragedy occupied a position several hundred meters away from the hospital, where they couldn’t see the building itself. The aircrew of the AC-130 also relied almost entirely on a physical description of the building while ignoring the correct grid coordinates they had been supplied, leading them to strike the hospital, which matched a physical description of their real target nearby.

Announcing some of the preliminary results of the investigation on Nov. 25, Campbell said that those “most closely associated” with the incident had been suspended from their duties. He added that the strike “was a direct result of avoidable human error compounded by process and equipment failures.”

Campbell’s spokesman, Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, said the investigation found that the “actions of the aircrew and the special operations forces were not appropriate to the threats that they faced.” Members of the crew of the gunship also failed to “follow the rules of engagement” in launching the prolonged attack.

At one point during the air assault, the aircrew sent the coordinates of the building they were hitting to headquarters at Bagram Airfield, but the staff there also failed to realize the location matched the MSF hospital, which was clearly listed as a “no-strike” location.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34645-pentagon-to-punish-personnel-for-bombing-of-doctors-without-borders-hospital-in-afghanistan

3 Reasons Big Coal Had a Bad Week 

Sierra Club 

Excerpt: "Sec. of the Interior Sally Jewell announced Friday that the Obama Administration will be putting an immediate suspension on all future and modified coal leases." 

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