18 October 19
Four days now without a triple digit donation. Not everyone will be able to manage that much but we normally depend on a few sustainers who can.
With respect and a bit of urgency.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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18 October 19
Please increase my monthly donation from $30.00 to $40.00 a month. Keep up the great work.
Peace!
If you would prefer to send a check:
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18 October 19
Al Franken | Um, Let's Win
Al Franken, Al Franken's Website
Franken writes: "Health care is an issue we win on, but only if we remind Americans of the difference between Democrats and Donald Trump."
Al Franken, Al Franken's Website
Franken writes: "Health care is an issue we win on, but only if we remind Americans of the difference between Democrats and Donald Trump."
IN ITS ENTIRETY:
First is that I wrote the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) provision into the Affordable Care Act back in 2009. The MLR is literally the strongest containment on health insurance company profits in the ACA. It says that insurance companies must spend 80% of their premiums for individual and small group plans on actual health care. Not on administrative costs, profits, or CEO salaries. On large group plans, the MLR is 85%. When the insurance companies don’t meet the MLR, they have to give the difference back to policy holders.
In the coming year, Americans will be receiving $1.3 billion in checks from their insurance companies. I am not a big champion of the insurance companies and I am not particularly popular with health insurance companies because of it.
Secondly, when I arrived in July, 2009, as the 60th Democratic vote, the first Senator I spoke to on health care was Bernie Sanders. I told him I would support single payer. I also told him I thought we’d be at least 55 votes short, so we should probably have a fallback position.
Bernie knew that as well as I did. Did he take his ball and go home? Of course not. He worked very hard to insert significant funding for community health centers. Bernie spoke last night about his work as chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee. He tried to get the largest, most comprehensive bill in the VA’s history, but was stymied by Republicans. But he moved on and, yes, compromised with Republicans to get a smaller, yet still very significant reform of the VA and a large increase in its funding.
All of this is a way of saying that getting to single-payer – especially, single payer without any private health insurance is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
But, as Bernie pointed out last night, every other developed country in the world has universal health care, delivered at half the cost, with as good or better outcomes than the United States. Canadians pay 1/10th the price for insulin as Americans. Canada has single-payer health insurance with as good or better outcomes than the United States at about half the cost. In fact, that is true for every other developed country in the world.
All of those countries also pay about 30-40% of what the US pays for our pharmaceuticals. Yet, not one of those countries has completely eliminated private health insurance. In fact, approximately 70% of Canadians have some supplemental private insurance, usually paid for by their employer. So, you can’t say that outlawing private health insurance is indispensable to creating an effective single-payer system.
That is why when our Democratic candidates engaged in an extended health care debate last night, I was frustrated that at no point did any one of our candidates pivot to the ten-thousand-pound gorilla. The Republicans lost 40 seats in the last election, almost entirely on health care. In exit polls it was the number one issue, beating two and three combined. (The economy and immigration). Why?
Because leading up to the 2016 election, Republicans had been pledging to repeal and replace the ACA for eight years. They won. They had the House, the Senate, and the White House. And what had they developed to replace the ACA with? Something “terrific?” Nothing. According to the Congressional Budget Office, led by a Republican who was hand-picked by Republicans, 23 million Americans would have lost health insurance under their plan. People with pre-existing conditions would lose the protections they have under the ACA. Older Americans under 65 would pay significantly higher premiums. There would be enormous cuts in Medicaid. Medicaid expansion would go away.
Americans HATED what Republicans voted for. HATED it. And suddenly, after giving Republicans the House in 2010, and the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016 because of the ACA, suddenly Americans saw what was in the ACA and its popularity shot up.
When the Republican health reform bill was defeated in 2017, Trump said, “Who knew that health care was complicated?” Everyone except you, putz!
So, in 2018, American voters sent an unmistakable message. Not only did 40 seats in the House flip to the Democrats. Three states voted by referendum for expanded Medicaid – Idaho, Nebraska, and Oklahoma!
So what does Trump do? He doubles down! And directs his Justice Department to join the State Attorneys General lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act entirely.
There are significant differences between the health care plans of our Democratic presidential candidates. Important differences that should be debated. But, at some point, (and I would suggest somewhat early), someone on our debate stage needed to pivot to the insane, destructive “plan” that Trump and the Republicans have to take away every achievement of the Affordable Care Act and remind American voters watching what is at stake between electing any one of our candidates versus the corrupt, ignorant, and not-a-little crazy president who allows our allies to be slaughtered, shakes down foreign leaders to get them to interfere in our presidential election, and wants to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans.
White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. (photo: ABC)
Trump's Legal Team Is Reportedly 'Stunned' After Mick Mulvaney Admitted to a Quid Pro Quo
Kathryn Krawczyk, The Week
Krawczyk writes: "Maybe there's a reason Mick Mulvaney's gig never went full time."
Kathryn Krawczyk, The Week
Krawczyk writes: "Maybe there's a reason Mick Mulvaney's gig never went full time."
EXCERPT:
Trump's camp has claimed there was "no quid pro quo" in his call with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, and that security aid for Ukraine wasn't held up because Zelensky didn't move to probe former Vice President Joe Biden. But the administration has still neglected to answer just why that aid was withheld — until Mulvaney's admission Thursday.
"The look-back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that [Trump] was worried about" when deciding whether to release aid to Ukraine earlier this year, Mulvaney said, referring to Trump's belief that Ukraine had something to do with the DNC hack. He later said it had nothing to with Biden, and then told the gathered reporters to "get over it" when it came to the admitted quid pro quo. Kathryn Krawczyk
After @jonkarl points out the White House's explanation for its dealings with Ukraine was quid-pro-quo, the chief of staff replies: "We do that all that time with foreign policy."
To those concerned about political influence in foreign policy, he says, "Get over it."
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The Trump National Doral golf resort, owned by President Trump, in Doral, Florida, on August 27, 2019. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty)
Trump's Move to Host the G7 at His Doral Resort Takes Self-Dealing to New Levels
Aaron Rupar, Vox
Rupar writes: "In one of the starkest examples of how the Trump administration is normalizing the sort of self-dealing that would have been unfathomable in previous eras, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney announced on Thursday that next June's G7 summit will be held at a resort that President Donald Trump still owns and profits from in Doral, Florida."
READ MORE
Aaron Rupar, Vox
Rupar writes: "In one of the starkest examples of how the Trump administration is normalizing the sort of self-dealing that would have been unfathomable in previous eras, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney announced on Thursday that next June's G7 summit will be held at a resort that President Donald Trump still owns and profits from in Doral, Florida."
READ MORE
Border Patrol agents. (photo: AP)
Documents Reveal Serious Abuse of Minors in Border Patrol Custody
Max Rivlin-Nadler, KPBS
Rivlin-Nadler writes: "A new trove of documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union sheds light on years of alleged abuse of minors by Border Patrol agents as the kids were held in Customs and Border Protection custody."
Max Rivlin-Nadler, KPBS
Rivlin-Nadler writes: "A new trove of documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union sheds light on years of alleged abuse of minors by Border Patrol agents as the kids were held in Customs and Border Protection custody."
EXCERPT:
The children say they were beaten while handcuffed, run over by ATVs, and bitten by dogs being handled by agents. The complaints cover the years between 2009 and 2014.
DHS followed up on many of the complaints but did not release its findings to the public. Parts of these investigations have now been released as a result of the litigation.
“A lot of these investigations are closed,” said Sarah Thompson, an attorney with the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. “They all happen in a black box. The individual investigations of what the results were for the individual kids, all of that happens behind closed doors, and we only know some of that because of the FOIA request.”
Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted. (photo: American Prospect)
Fighting the Republicans' Voter Purges in Ohio
Harlan Spector, The American Prospect
Spector writes: "Having won a United States Supreme Court ruling in mid-June that allowed him to kick voters off the rolls for not voting in previous elections, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted wasted no time directing county elections officials to restart his voter-purge program."
Harlan Spector, The American Prospect
Spector writes: "Having won a United States Supreme Court ruling in mid-June that allowed him to kick voters off the rolls for not voting in previous elections, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted wasted no time directing county elections officials to restart his voter-purge program."
EXCERPT:
Husted didn't originate Ohio Republicans' reliance on voter purges, but he certainly intensified it. Elected as the state's chief elections officer in 2010 (he had previously been speaker of the Ohio House), Husted (who is currently running for lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket) stepped up the frequency of the purges from every two years to every year.
County elections boards in 2012 sent 1.5 million notices to voters who hadn't voted in two years, according to the numbers cited by Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote a dissenting opinion in the Court's June case. More than one million of those early mailings were not returned. One could argue the poor return rate underscores how badly flawed the policy is. Certainly not nearly that many voters moved away or died. It's likely that many people ignored the mailing or never saw it. Moreover, the postcard did not make it clear that failing to respond or vote in the next four years would result in certain cancellation of their registrations.
The impact of the purge has been greatest in Cleveland, Columbus, and other cities, where voters are more likely to change addresses and miss elections. Cleveland has one of the highest big-city poverty rates in the nation (36 percent). The city housing court processes more than 11,000 evictions every year. Some 23,000 residents of Cleveland's county (Cuyahoga) experience homelessness every year. It's not hard to imagine how poverty and unstable housing get in the way of voting and answering postcards from the elections board.
Republicans claim that aggressive purges, voter-ID laws, and other restrictions are necessary to prevent voter fraud have not stood up to scrutiny. That point was underscored in August, when it was revealed that President Trump's now-disbanded election integrity commission found no evidence of widespread fraud.
The actual, and intended, effect of such purges is to shift the partisan balance of the electorate to Republicans.
In reliably Democratic Cuyahoga County, more than 40,000 voters were purged in 2015 alone, according to published reports. A 2016 Reuters analysis found registrations were canceled in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at about twice the rate of Republican neighborhoods.
Afghan security officials inspect the scene of a bomb blast in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Oct. 7. At least 10 civilians were killed in the explosion. (photo: Ghulamullah Habibi/Shutterstock)
Past Three Months in Afghanistan Have Been the Deadliest for Civilians in a Decade
Susannah George, The Washington Post
George writes: "More civilians were killed and injured in Afghanistan in the past quarter than during any other three-month period in the past decade, according to a U.N. report released Thursday, a spike that coincided with increased violence as talks to end an 18-year war gained steam and then suddenly collapsed."
Susannah George, The Washington Post
George writes: "More civilians were killed and injured in Afghanistan in the past quarter than during any other three-month period in the past decade, according to a U.N. report released Thursday, a spike that coincided with increased violence as talks to end an 18-year war gained steam and then suddenly collapsed."
EXCERPT:
Overall, the United Nations blamed Taliban attacks for the most civilian casualties this year, because of an increased use of suicide bombs and other explosives. Such attacks have killed 647 and wounded 2,796 since January, the study found.
Women and children have made up 41 percent of all civilian casualties this year, according to the United Nations. The report said violence in Afghanistan has killed 631 children in the first nine months of this year and injured 1,830.
The United Nations warned that “indiscriminate and disproportionate” Taliban attacks using explosives “are serious violations of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes.” One such high-profile Taliban-claimed attack on Sept. 19 killed 28 civilians and injured 130 in Zabul province when a truck bomb detonated near an intelligence headquarters and a provincial hospital.
The increase in Taliban attacks marks a shift since July. The United Nations reported that during the first half of 2019, Afghan government forces and their U.S.-led allies were responsible for more civilian deaths than the Taliban.
Afghan and U.S. airstrikes and search operations continue to be deadly for civilians: They have killed 784 and wounded 377 this year, more than in the first nine months of any year since the United Nations began recording civilian casualties in 2009. Since 2018, “international military forces” have been responsible for the majority of civilian casualties caused by aerial operations.
Increasing numbers of outdoor recreationists - everything from hikers, mountain bikers and backcountry skiers to Jeep, all-terrain vehicle and motorcycle riders, aren't good for Elk populations. (photo: Alamy)
Trail Use Near Vail, Colorado, Has Driven Elk to the Brink, Scientists Say
Christine Peterson, Guardian UK
Peterson writes: "Biologists used to count over 1,000 head of elk from the air near Vail, Colorado. The majestic brown animals, a symbol of the American west, dotted hundreds of square miles of slopes and valleys. But when researchers flew the same area in February for an annual elk count, they saw only 53."
Christine Peterson, Guardian UK
Peterson writes: "Biologists used to count over 1,000 head of elk from the air near Vail, Colorado. The majestic brown animals, a symbol of the American west, dotted hundreds of square miles of slopes and valleys. But when researchers flew the same area in February for an annual elk count, they saw only 53."
EXCERPT:
Recreation continues nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, said Bill Andree, who retired as Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Vail district wildlife manager in 2018. Night trail use in some areas has also gone up 30% in the past decade. People are traveling even deeper into woods and higher up peaks in part because of improved technology, and in part to escape crowds.
The elk in unit 45, as it’s called, live between 7,000 and 11,000 feet on the pine, spruce and aspen-covered hillsides and peaks of the Colorado Rockies, about 100 miles from Denver. Their numbers have been dropping precipitously since the early 2010s.
Blaming hiking, biking and skiing is controversial in a state where outdoor recreation is expected to pump $62.5bn into the state’s economy in 2019, an 81% increase from 2014.
