REPUBLICAN AGENDA - Kill the Sick to Save Money

"Tennessee woman dies after losing government benefits and medicine" by Walter Einenkel, Daily KOS 3/15/2017

My first question is how in hell does the Social Security Administration get the right to decide that you sick or not?!  That's for doctors to decide.

Amy Schnelle died a little less than a month ago due to an epileptic seizure she suffered at her home in Knoxville, Tennessee.  The 31-year-old former factory worker had suffered from severe seizures and was on disability.  Her government subsidized disability paid for her very strong anti-seizure medication.  That was until September.

On disability for several years, Amy Schnelle was receiving powerful anti-seizure drugs and had been seizure free since 2015.  Then the United States Social Security Administration threw her a curve ball in September 2016 when they informed her she was no longer sick.

Schnelle appealed this decision and in January of this year, the Social Security Administration put her back on disability.  However, according to her mother, the time spent off of the drugs had a terrible effect on Amy Schnelle's health.

“She had a whole lot of seizures because one of the medicines didn't come through,” said Sylvia Schnelle.  “Once you stop your medicine so abruptly you go into a tailspin of seizures and you don't come out of it.”

Writing to Congressman Jimmy Duncan, Amy Schnelle was able to convince the government to resume her benefits.  That happened in January 2017, but in February 2017, from her apartment, she texted her mother she had a “bad” seizure and asked her to “please” come.  Her mother rushed to Knoxville from her home in Dandridge.

Part of the Republican concept of healthcare is that you die or to go to the emergency room, and hopefully get lucky and don't die.  What happened to Amy Schnelle can and will continue to happen to many more people now that tax breaks for the rich are the main focus of our government's healthcare plan.

TRUMP AGENDA - U.S. Intel Community's Lack of Trust

"Trump reportedly screamed at CIA Director Pompeo over Intel being withheld" by Frank Vyan Walton, Daily KOS 2/18/2017

Well he may call the media “Fake” and an “Enemy of the American people” but he apparently can't stop himself from watching and reading it incessantly, particularly when he's the subject.

“Our Intelligence Community is so worried by the unprecedented problems of the Trump administration — not only do senior officials possess troubling ties to the Kremlin, there are nagging questions about basic competence regarding Team Trump — that it is beginning to withhold intelligence from a White House which our spies do not trust,” wrote former analyst for the National Security Agency Jack R. Schindler.

The Director of National Intelligence flatly denied this was happening and Pompeo released a strongly worded statement saying the same.

“It is CIA's mission to provide the President with the best intelligence possible and to explain the basis for that intelligence,” the statement read.  “The CIA does not, has not, and will never hide intelligence from the President, period.”

So the DNI and the CIA Director have both denied this is the case, but then both of them are Trump appointees and the reports of potentially damaging information being withheld from the White House because of concerns that it could be leaked to Russia goes back all the way to the transition, before either the Pompeo or the DNI were put before the Senate for confirmation, so how would they know what it is that they don't know and aren't being told?

Apparently all of this has Trump incensed.

As reported by CBS.

CBS News has learned that on Thursday, an angry President Trump called CIA Director Mike Pompeo and yelled at him for not pushing back hard enough against reports that the intelligence community was withholding information from the commander-in-chief.

True to form though the Trump White House denied not only they were being locked out of the loop, but also that Trump and Pompeo had a conversation about and that Trump “yelled.”

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd denied Friday that there was a conversation between Pompeo and Mr. Trump about the article.

“There was no conversation between the CIA Director and the President about the Wall Street Journal article either before or after CIA issued its statement about the article,” Boyd said.  “The CIA issued its statement on its own accord because the story was inaccurate and we felt the need to defend the integrity of our officers and institution.”

Yeah, I can believe that just as much as I can believe there were 3-5 Million phantom voters in the November election and that Trump's inauguration had the “largest crowd ever”.

There's a bit of bait and switch here because the most vocal proponent of this idea, former NSA analyst Jack Schindler who is a columnist with Jared Kushner's New York Observer has said that his sources are within the NSA not the CIA in addition to the fact we have 16 different intel agencies beyond the CIA who could be part of this deliberate freeze-out.

How things are heating up between the White House and the spooks is evidenced by a new report that the CIA has denied a security clearance to one of Flynn's acolytes.  Rob Townley, a former Marine intelligence officer selected to head up the NSC's Africa desk, was denied a clearance to see Sensitive Compartmented Information (which is required to have access to SIGINT in particular).  Why Townley's SCI was turned down isn't clear—it could be over personal problems or foreign ties—but the CIA's stand has been privately denounced by the White House, which views this as a vendetta against Flynn.  That the Townley SCI denial was reportedly endorsed by Mike Pompeo, the new CIA director selected by Trump himself, only adds to the pain.

There is more consequential IC pushback happening, too.  Our spies have never liked Trump's lackadaisical attitude toward the President's Daily Brief, the most sensitive of all IC documents, which the new commander-in-chief has received haphazardly.  The President has frequently blown off the PDB altogether, tasking Flynn with condensing it into a one-page summary with no more than nine bullet-points.  Some in the IC are relieved by this, but there are pervasive concerns that the President simply isn't paying attention to intelligence.

In light of this, and out of worries about the White House's ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office.  Why risk your most sensitive information if the President may ignore it anyway?  A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, in an unprecedented move.  For decades, NSA has prepared special reports for the "President's Eyes Only," containing enormously sensitive intelligence.  In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets.

If the PDB was being boiled down by Flynn — before he was asked to resign as National Security Advisor for lying to the Vice President — to a single page with no more than 9 bullet points, the President really isn't getting all the information anyway and the CIA Directory denying the “withhold” is practically meaningless when it's the NSA holding sensitive information back, not necessarily CIA.  But then again all of that is a perfect example of Trump lack of comprehension and understanding.

So despite including the denials, CBS still finished with….

The reality is, insiders say, that there has been a “chill” in the information flow.  Intelligence sources say the agency is intent on protecting information, and if there are concerns it could be compromised, it will be withheld.

The ongoing investigation into whether Trump associates coordinated with the Russians remains a concern for some who handle sensitive data.  It can be inferred that there is a lack of trust, and because the CIA has had a role in uncovering signs of Russian cyber intrusions, there are also concerns that sensitive information could be shared with adversaries.

Yeah, considering the fact that both NSA SIGINT and the Intel services of our allies have confirmed the multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence described by the Steele dossier as being accurate, you bet there are “concerns.”

TRUE DETECTIVE - Where is Melania Trump?

"Is Melania Trump boycotting her husband?" by Hunter, Daily KOS 2/7/2017

Back in the waning days of the election, Melania Trump vowed that as first lady she would dedicate herself to combating cyberbullying.  You know, of the sort popularized by her husband.  Whatever happened to that?

Three months later, Melania Trump is indeed first lady.  But what of her pledge to take up cyberbullying?  Mother Jones contacted a wide range of organizations and individuals who work on cyberbullying, and not a single one of them reported being contacted by Trump or anyone in the Donald Trump administration.

Wow, go figure.  But wait: in fairness to Melania Trump, she also hasn't moved into the White House.  Or done anything else as first lady.  Or made any substantive statements about anything.  Or, apparently, appeared with her husband in public since the inauguration.  (No, Mar-a-Lago does not count.)

And you know what?  That's to be respected, right there.  No joke—there's a lot of powerful people in this country who wish they didn't have to appear with Donald Trump in public, so we should probably be giving Melania a big thumbs-up for being one of the few who has had the courage to pull it off.

In the meantime, Donald Trump continues to cyberbully American companies, individual media figures, specific American judges, and just to mix things up, an American university.  Nobody else in America has been able to figure out how to get him to shut up.  There's no reason for anyone to think Melania could, so let's cut her some slack on this one.

THE RESISTANCE - Politics in Pics

"The PICTURES are in. Terrifically small crowd for Donny's Inauguration" by IMissPhilly, Daily KOS 1/20/2017

One of these is a presidential inauguration in 2017 for a man named Donald Trump and the other is from 2009 for a man named Barack Obama.  Can you tell which?

Satire:

THE RESISTANCE - Nationwide Anti-LGBT Federal Law!

An attempt to make America a theocracy.

"Government-protected religious belief" is EXACTLY what the First Amendment prohibits.  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." which what this proposed law would do.  Establish a Christian belief as law.

"Ted Cruz to introduce bill allowing discrimination against LGBT Americans nationwide" by Hunter, Daily KOS 12/21/2016

Led by Sen. Ted Cruz, Republicans will be wasting no time in their efforts to roll back civil rights for LGBT Americans.

[The First Amendment Defense Act] would prohibit the federal government from taking "discriminatory action" against any business or person that discriminates against LGBTQ people.  The act distinctly aims to protect the right of all entities to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on two sets of beliefs: "(1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage."

The intentionally broadly-written law would, in other words, enshrine the "right" of any private business to deny service to gay Americans outright if they are personally opposed to marriage equality.  It would not merely allow businesses to deny their services in same-sex marriage ceremonies themselves: it would allow any business to discriminate against any customer, gay or straight, for any service, whether it be selling them gasoline or a hamburger, if a pseudo-religious reason can be attached to it.

The customer likely doesn't even have to be gay.  The business can simply declare that they believe that customer might be an unmarried fornicator or a single parent, or perhaps declare that serving a particular customer might nebulously benefit some gay American later on.  The law makes no mention of religious beliefs that are not hostile to LGBT Americans or equality; the religious belief declaring LGBT equality to be sinful is elevated as the only government-protected religious belief on the subject that will be tolerated.

It is an un-American and deeply anti-First-Amendment bill, which is of course why Sen. Ted Cruz and team are quite certain they will be able to gain the support of their Republican colleagues and their new anti-civil rights President.

It is roughly equivalent to efforts sponsored in Republican-led states like North Carolina and Mike Pence's Indiana, all of which have been tied up in courts or resulted in gargantuan corporate and private boycotts of those states.

It's stupid as hell, and a reminder that Ted Freaking Cruz is a rancid little un-American grub of a man who was foisted onto the nation by a Republican base so riddled with paranoia that they are willing to support any malevolent act or actor if they think doing so will cause harm to Americans they don't like.

As usual.

NORTH CAROLINA - GOP Coup d'état Attempt

They can't win honestly, so rig the game, how typical.

"All hell breaks loose: North Carolina GOP's coup d'état starts tomorrow" By DocDawg, Daily KOS 12/14/2016

Excerpt

Friends of representative democracy have been waiting with bated breath through the past two days of the North Carolina General Assembly’s special session, called by outgoing Gov. Pat McPotty ostensibly to fund hurricane and forest fire recovery efforts.  But the session, which ended today, produced more or less only that.

And then, late this afternoon, the other shoe dropped.

According to the state constitution, the state House Speaker and Senate President can themselves call a super-extra-special session of the legislature, upon the petition of two thirds of legislators.  Which petition (dated last Monday!) the GOP super-majority produced immediately after gaveling the Governor’s session to a close.

Tomorrow’s extra-special-super-dooper session of the General Assembly begins at 9 AM.  Preceding it at 8:30 AM will be several committee meetings (all controlled by Republicans), including the committees on Election Law, Appointments, and Redistricting.  During those half-hour sessions the committees will ‘consider’ bills submitted by members, and refer them to the House and Senate for votes.

Word on the street is that the bills to be brought up for a vote will strip incoming governor Roy Cooper (D) of many of his executive powers, importantly including the power to appoint members of the Board of Elections and directors of executive branch departments.

A source in the Democratic caucus tells me “we are debating several strategies” for tomorrow.  Personally, I’m rooting for them to lock arms and stage loud sit-ins on the House and Senate floors, to be dragged away by the State Capitol Police in front of news cameras.  The Republican super-majority really isn’t allowing them any other avenues to fulfill their duty to the state’s citizens.  Longer-term, Republicans’ actions tomorrow are likely to raise some interesting state constitutional questions...which may ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court’s new 4D-to-3R majority (unless #HurricaneSupremes is also on the agenda).

Never a dull moment here in North Carolina, the Heart of the Beast.  Stay tuned.  Pray for us, please; democracy is now under full siege and aerial bombardment in the Tar Heel State.

POLITICS - First Anti-Trump Ad

"GRACE - FIRST widely aired anti-Trump ad out (FL,OH,VA,NV) and it is devastating for Donald Trump" by floridageorge, Daily Kos 6/7/2015

This is the first Trump ad released by Priorities USA that gets very wide release nationally, it is being aired in Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire.  The ad goes at Trump for mocking disabled people, and it is a stunning ad.

Mother Jones:  A Pro-Hillary Clinton Super-PAC Just Launched a Devastating Ad Against Donald Trump

With the Democratic primary almost finished, pro-Hillary Clinton super-PAC Priorities USA released its first ad, set to start airing Wednesday in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire.  Featuring an Ohio couple discussing their daughter with spina bifida, the ad highlights the time Donald Trump mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski for having a disability after the journalist debunked Trump's claim of seeing Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on 9/11.

TAXES - Understand Tax Brackets

"Do YOU understand how tax brackets work???" by Brainwrap, Daily KOS 11/19/2012

Note: This is a repost of a diary of mine from about a year and a half ago; I was inspired to repost it by Jed's current diary, Prospect of earning more than $250,000 terrifies business owner, because Obama.

Basically, a HUGE part of the problem with trying to have any rational discussion about tax policy is that there's a huge number of people who don't have a basic understanding of what "marginal tax rates" are.

To put it simply, there's a whole lot of people out there, including some who are very intelligent and/or successful professional types, who believe that if their income nudges them over into the next-higher tax bracket by even $1.00, that this somehow means that the entire amount they owe in taxes goes up to that percentage.

This problem is disturbingly widespread.  It's not just Republicans/right-wingers/Tea Party people; there's a lot of Democrats/progressives/other left-leaning folks who apparently don't "grok" the concept either.

With that in mind--and at the risk of sounding patronizing--here's a very basic demonstration of the problem and the reality:

Here's a modified version of the current Federal Income Tax Brackets (I've rounded off the numbers to make it easier to follow):

Taxable	Income Tax Rate
$0 - $10,000	10%
$10,000 - $30,000	15%
$30,000 - $80,000	25%
$80,000 - $200,000	28%
$200,000 - $400,000	33%
More than $400,000	35%

So, let's suppose that someone made $80,000 (taxable) last year, but makes $80,001 (taxable) this year.

(Note: I'm not even getting into deductions and all the other stuff; I'm just talking about the end-of-the-line taxable income for simplicity's sake)

The folks I'm talking about THINK that they paid 25% in taxes last year ($20,000), and they THINK that this year, because they made $1 more (pushing them into the 28% tax bracket) that they're going to owe 28% on everything ($22,400).

That is, they think that they owe an extra $2,400 in taxes even though they only made $1 more in income, and therefore are going to lose $2,399.

However, they're wrong about both what they owed last year AND what they'll owe this year.

Last year, they owed:

• 10% on the first $10,000 = $1,000
• 15% on the next $20,000 = $3,000
• 25% on the next $50,000 = $12,500
• = a grand total of $16,500

...as opposed to the $20,000 that they thought they owed.

This year, they'll owe:

• 10% on the first $10,000 = $1,000
• 15% on the next $20,000 = $3,000
• 25% on the next $50,000 = $12,500
• 28% on the next $1 = $0.28

= a grand total of $16,500.28

...or just $0.28 more than last year, not $2,400 more, and certainly not the $22,400 they thought they owed.

The same holds true at every level:  You're only paying the higher rate on any income ABOVE the threshold in question, not on EVERYTHING.

Hope this helps some folks when talking to others, and hope I didn't come off as a dick in doing so...

Addition:  Thanks to Addison in the comments for making this additional, very important point:

For those people who don't understand this, but aren't really affected by the marginal tax rate, you're not stupid, not dumb.  Not anymore than I'm dumb for not knowing how to fix an automatic transmission.  We all have our knowledge base, borne of experience.

But people who presume to speak as experts about business, who fail to understand something as relatively simple as marginal tax rates? That's like a farmer screaming at the president about dairy policy by talking about how the milk from the chickens he raises is taxed too much...

SWEDEN - The Nature House

"Couple wraps home in greenhouse to grow food and stay warm during cold Swedish winters" by By Susan Gardner, Daily KOS 1/2/2016

Talk about thinking outside the proverbial box!  When the going gets cold, the smart sustainability devotees experiment with …. greenhousing a whole structure.  Via Ecowatch, meet Marie Granmar and Charles Sacilotto:

The couple recently gave Fair Companies a tour of their “Naturhus” (or Nature House) that’s surrounded by a 4-millimeter pane of glass that cost roughly $84,000 to install.

The Naturhus was built on the site of an old summer house on a Stockholm archipelago and was inspired by Swedish eco-architect Bengt Warne, who was also Sacilotto's mentor.

There are many advantages of living in a greenhouse for this family.  Sunlight helps warm the home during the day and residual heat is stored in the bedrock below the house.  The roof deck can be used for year-round activities such as sunbathing, reading or playing with their son.

Of course, a couple this dedicated doesn’t only go for the non-obvious extreme—they’ve tackled other sustainability challenges along the way.  They collect rainwater for plants and household use, they compost, they grow their own food within the greenhouse.  And Sacilotto even designed a sewage system that “begins with a urine-separating toilet and uses centrifuges, cisterns, grow beds and garden ponds to filter the water and compost the remains,” according to Ecowatch.

Check out the Fair Companies video that explores this “Naturhus” in more detail.

AMERICAN MUSLIM - Ask A Muslim

"Muslim woman sets up 'Ask A Muslim' stand in Massachusetts & what happens may surprise you" by Leslie Salzillo, Daily Kos 12/28/2015

In a beautiful act of courage and hope, Mona Haydar, a Muslim, set up an “Ask a Muslim” stand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hoping to bring more understanding of the Muslim community.  She also offered people who passed by the stand in front of a local library a free cup of coffee and doughnut to further beckon a Q&A chat.

The idea came to Haydar during dinner with her husband.  In efforts to create positive change, they decided to do something “kind of crazy.”

"He had seen this segment on This American Life, where a young Iraqi man had done 'Ask an Iraqi,' " Haydar tells NPR's Carrie Kahn.  "And so [Sebastian] was like, 'Why haven't we thought of this before?  Why don't we get out and talk to people?'

"So, we did it," Haydar says.

NPR staff reports:

After the day was done, she posted a summary to Facebook — a post which has now garnered more than 11,000 likes and the attention of several different media organizations.

"We weren't out there that long today but the take away was clear: Keep your heads held high, dear Muslim family," she wrote in that post.  "There is an overwhelming amount of love and so remember this post when you are faced with bigotry and hatred towards you or your faith.

Mona Haydar says she initially thought the experience would be negative.  As it turns out, the experience and interaction with many folks was very positive—so much, in fact, that she and her husband look forward to doing it again soon.  Haydar mentioned that rather than asking questions, most people approached her to say they liked what she was doing.  Some passersby even felt compelled to apologize for the worldwide discrimination against Muslims.  Pretty cool.

You can read more of the Carrie Kahn/NPR interview with Mona Haydar via NPR.org.  There is so much good in this world, and many of us want to believe that the good ultimately, and always, out-trumps the bad.  (And yes, that pun was intended—for goodness sake.)

Thank you Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins.  You can visit Mona Haydar on her Facebook Page.

SCANDAL - Missing Pentagon Money

"The Biggest Scandal in US History That We're Still Not Talking About" by Mtosner, Daily KOS 8/18/2015

Excerpt

The above is roughly what 8.5 Trillion dollars would look like... and those are $100 bills.  Take another look and let that sink in for a bit...   I find it absolutely astonishing that the pentagon could lose track of this much money and for there to be no MSM coverage of this scandalous amount of mismanagement and fraud.  Where is the demand for accountability?  Why is the first question to ANY candidate for president not "What would you do about the massive fraud and waste at the Pentagon?"  Where are the hearings, nay indictments, that are warranted when a sum equal to 1/2 of our national debt can be sent to the pentagon to never be accounted for.

We progressives need to work this scandal into every political conversation we engage in, especially when we talk to conservatives.  Cutting government spending and accountability are supposed to be core GOP values.

Combine "Known" Pentagon waste (like the 1.5 Trillion dollar F35) with missing pentagon money and you have a good chunk of our entire national debt represented.

"What's that?  Body cameras for all cops will be too expensive?  How bout we find 1/10,000th of the money we sent to the pentagon."

"Oh really?  There's 500 million in provable food stamp fraud going to poor people how bout the 8.5 TRILLION the pentagon can't account for?"

"Oh really?  You think Obama care is going to cost us almost a trillion dollars over 15 years?  How about the 8.5 Trillion that just disappeared into the ether at the pentagon?  What's you're take on that?"

"Oh really, you're concerned about deficit spending and the debt?  Fully 1/3 of the national debt it is money we sent the Pentagon and they can't tell us where it went.  It's just gone."

"College for everyone will cost too much?  You must be really pissed at the 8.5 Trillion, with a 't', dollars the pentagon's spent and can't tell us where it went."

Bringing up this "open secret" exposes their hypocrisy, and draws attention to the lack of corporate media attention to this HUGE SCANDALOUS level of waste by the Military/Industrial/Media complex ownership of government.  It seems for few hundred million in "be all you can be" ad buys the MSM will keep it's mouth shut.  We need to press so called journalists to bring this issue front and center.  No candidate should be allowed to talk about government waste or big government with out being asked the follow up "What would you do about the massive 8.5 Trillion dollars the pentagon can't account for?"

In short; nothing reinforces our position that the money for valuable social and infrastructure programs (that have provable returns on investment) is actually there than this scandal.  We need to harp on this until we get some answers and we need to leverage it more to shut down debate about desperately needed social program spending.

ETHICS - Pro-Birth vs Pro-Life

"Catholic Nun Explains Pro-Life In A Way That Will Stun Many (Especially Republican Lawmakers)" by Leslie Salzillo, Daily KOS 7/30/2015

Excerpt

In one simple quote, Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B. sums up the hypocrisy in the 'pro-life' movement:

I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that makes you pro-life.  In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed.  And why would I think that you don't?  Because you don't want any tax money to go there.  That's not pro-life.  That's pro-birth.  We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.

This quote applies well to many Republican lawmakers and anti-choice extremists who continue to introduce/pass misogynist laws restricting a woman's reproductive rights.  At the same time, the GOP works to shut down women's health clinics, with a special vengeance towards Planned Parenthood (#StandWithPP).  You don't hear of these Right Wing anti-choice extremists adopting children from unplanned pregnancies.  But you do hear of them cutting government programs like school lunches for children, cutting government financial and heath care aid to families who are homeless and/or in need, and blocking free college education.  No, the goals of these hypocrites seem to be more about controlling women's bodies and women's futures.  It's good to hear Sister Chittister, a Benedictine nun, define the GOP double talk so well.

An outspoken advocate for women, Sister Joan Chittister is an author of 50 books and a lecturer.  Holding a Ph.D. from Penn State University, she is also a research associate in a division of Cambridge University.  Other subjects of her writing includes women in the church and society, human rights, peace and justice, religious life and spirituality.  She has appeared in the media on numerous shows including Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, Bill Moyers, BBC, NPR, and Oprah Winfrey.  You can visit Joan Chittister's website (here).

OPINION - Conservatives Are Killing Us

"NYTimes:  Conservative Economics and Income Inequality Are Literally Killing Us" by Dartagnan, Daily KOS 4/29/2015

Thirty-five years ago, babies born in the U.S. had an infant mortality rate equal to Germany.  Today, American babies die at twice (PDF download) the rate of those in Germany.

Thirty-five years ago, the U.S. ranked 13th in life expectancy for girls among the 34 recognized industrial societies.  Today we are ranked 29th out of those same 34 countries.

We have the highest teenage birth rate among the industrialized world.

One out of every four children in this country lives with a single parent, the highest rate by far in the industrialized world.

Our incarceration rate is triple what it was four decades ago, with an incarceration rate five times that of other wealthy democracies.

Economists from the University of Chicago, MIT and the University of Southern California conducted research to find out why our children die at a rate exponentially higher than European kids.  Their conclusion?  Staggering rates of income disparity, all stemming directly from the 1980's, the Era of Ronald Reagan and the beginning of the resurgence of the conservative movement.

"On nearly all indicators of mortality, survival and life expectancy, the United States ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries,” says a report on the nation’s health by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

What’s most shocking about these statistics is not how unhealthy they show Americans to be, compared with citizens of countries that spend much less on health care and have much less sophisticated medical technology.  What is most perplexing is how stunningly fast the United States has lost ground.

The statistics above are taken from this article by Eduardo Porter in today's New York Times.  As Porter states, "Pick almost any measure of social health and cohesion over the last four decades or so, and you will find that the United States took a wrong turn along the way."  But as his analysis shows, it wasn't just lower wages caused by globalization and technological advancement that led to this dismal state of affairs (although those certainly played a part), but the unique failure of our U.S. government to respond to these developments:

[B]laming globalization and technological progress for the stagnation of the middle class and the precipitous decline in our collective health is too easy.  Jobs were lost and wages got stuck in many developed countries.

What set the United States apart — what made the damage inflicted upon American society so intense — was the nature of its response.  Government support for Americans in the bottom half turned out to be too meager to hold society together.

From the time most of us have even had a political memory we have had to listen to conservative ideology spewed at us, telling us that the U.S. was living in a "welfare state," that "handouts" to the poor were sapping our productivity and harming the "spirit" of the country.  That if we only unleashed the power of Big Business through fostering "entrepreneurship" while cutting programs designed to support the rest of us, the nation would "regain" its stature and create vast sums of wealth for all of our citizens, with corporate profits leading us back to a mythical promised land.  That shrinking government programs while cutting taxes for the richest would put wealth back into all our pockets and improve the quality of our lives.  This was the dominant narrative in the 1980's, it was swallowed nearly whole and regurgitated by Bill Clinton in the 1990's, and reached its apotheosis in the 2000's prior to the Economic Crash presided over by George W. Bush and the same tax-cutting, supply-side ilk who sold it to us from the start, often in the guise of "deficit reduction."  It is the same narrative that continues to paralyze our government's ability to respond to our citizens needs, now mutated into what we know as the "Tea Party."

Now this narrative has borne itself out to be nothing but a staggering lie.  The reality is that beyond a meager Social Security and Medicare for the aged, both creations of Democratic Administrations, and with the constant demonization and derogation of Labor and Unions, there was not much at all to break the fall of ordinary Americans when trends like globalization appeared over the horizon:

A more compelling explanation is that when globalization struck at the jobs on which 20th-century America had built its middle class, the United States discovered that it did not, in fact, have much of a welfare state to speak of. The threadbare safety net tore under the strain.

Call it a failure of solidarity.  American institutions, built from hostility toward collective solutions, couldn’t hold society together when the economic underpinning of full employment at a decent wage gave in.

"Hostility toward collective solutions" is polite terminology for "greed."

In searching for solutions, Porter weighs the benefits of education, but rightly concludes that the way education is structured in this country today it actually exacerbates inequality.  One need only to examine the income levels of those victimized by the latest collapse of for-profit colleges, left clutching their near-worthless degrees, to understand why.  He also points to attempts by Senator Elizabeth Warren and others to generate enthusiasm for lifting the payroll cap on Social Security to expand benefits for the elderly.  But caring for the elderly is ultimately not our biggest problem.  Ultimately the changes necessary to reverse the criminal damage already wreaked on us by the American Right and its malignant, self-serving ideology must be solved at the ballot box.

The challenge America faces is not simply a matter of equity.  The bloated incarceration rates and rock-bottom life expectancy, the unraveling families and the stagnant college graduation rates amount to an existential threat to the nation’s future.

That is, perhaps, the best reason for hope.  The silver lining in these dismal, if abstract, statistics, is that they portend such a dysfunctional future that our broken political system might finally be forced to come together to prevent it.

So this election is not just "our time."  It may be the only time.

EARTH DAY - An Apology to the Future

"Fox News & Sarah Palin Denounced In Stunning Earth Day Video" by Leslie Salzillo, Daily KOS 4/22/2015

In this visually beautiful and mesmerizing piece, 27 year-old Prince Ea apologies to future generations for what we are doing, and not doing, to the planet today.  The six-minute video contains so many great thought-provoking quotes, it's bound to be shared for many years.  So far, in less than 48 hours, his video has garnered over 35 million views on Facebook.

Here are some excerpts:

"Dear Future Generations, I think I speak for the rest of us when I say, 'Sorry.'  Sorry that we left you with a mess of a planet.  Sorry that we were so caught up in our own doings - to do something."

"Let me tell you, trees are amazing.  We literally breathe the air they are creating.  They clean up our pollution, our carbon, store and purify our water, give us medicine that cures our disease, food that feeds us…"

"I'm sorry that we put profits above people, greed above need, the rule of gold above the Golden Rule.  I'm sorry we used nature as a credit card with no spending limit…"

The majority of the video focuses on what we as a people are doing to hurt the environment and what we as a people can do differently.  Interestingly, Prince Ea chooses to zero in on the 'environmentally-challenged' Fox News and Sarah Palin, and he basically shames them.

"Hey Fox News, If you don't think climate change is a threat, I dare you to interview the thousands of homeless people in Bangladesh.  See while you were in your penthouse nestled, their homes were literally washed away beneath their feet due to the rising sea levels."

"And Sarah Palin.  You said you loved the smell of fossil fuels.  Well, I urge you to talk to the kids of Beijing who are forced to wear pollution masks just to go to school."

He goes on for a minute or two more apologizing to the future, stops the music, and then makes a incredibly proactive quote.

"Cut the beat."

"I'm not sorry.  This future, I do not accept it.  Because an error does not become a mistake, until you refuse to correct it."

Here is the video:

ALZHEIMER'S - Another Breakthrough

"Researchers at Duke have made breakthrough on Alzheimer's treatment" Daily KOS 4/16/2015

Duke University scientists have potentially discovered new avenues for Alzheimer's and dementia treatments.

They observed that in Alzheimer’s, immune cells that normally protect the brain instead begin to consume a vital nutrient called arginine.

By blocking this process with a drug, they were able to prevent the formation of ‘plaques’ in the brain that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, and also halted memory loss in the mice.

What's more is that they were researching with a drug that has already begun human trials for cancer treatments—possibly paving the way for clinical trials in the near future.

While no technique that is tested in an animal can be guaranteed to work the same way in humans, the findings are particularly encouraging because, until now, the exact role of the immune system and arginine in Alzheimer’s was completely unknown.

The drug that was used to block the body’s immune response to arginine – known as difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) – is already being investigated in drug trials for certain types of cancer and may be suitable for testing as a potential Alzheimer’s therapy.

This follows on the heels of other recent breakthroughs in possible "plaque fighting" techniques for Alzheimer's patients.

SATIRE - Dear Patrons

"I am a Christian business owner in Indiana" by stophurtingamericaFollow, Daily KOS 3/29/2015

Not really.  But If I were, this is the sign I would put in my door.

"Dear Valued Patrons.

Due to my sincerely held religious beliefs, and in light of the RFRA, recently signed by our Dear Leader Pence, I will no longer be doing business with the following persons; nor permitting them in my establishment:

1.  Divorcees.  Matthew 19:9: “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery.”

2.  Anyone who has ever read their horoscope or called a psychic hotline.  Leviticus 20:6: "As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people."

3.   Anyone with a tattoo.   Leviticus 19:28 "You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord."

4.  Anyone born illegitimately.  Also, anyone who, back to ten generations, is descended from someone born illegitimately.   If you can not PROVE, using appropriate church sources, that ten generations of your family were born in wedlock, I will have to err on the side of caution and not serve you.  Deuteronomy 23:2 "No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the LORD."

5.  Anyone who makes a practice of praying aloud, or in public.  Matthew 6:5-6 "When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men.  Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.  But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

6.  Any woman with braided hair or gold jewelry.  Just to be on the safe side, NO jewelry at all.  Timothy 2:9 "Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments."

7.  Any man who has ever, by accident or not, had his genitals damaged.  (Current interpretation of this scripture is under debate, so just to be safe, if you've had a vasectomy, or testicular cancer, I can't serve you.  I apologize for the inconvenience but I am worried for my soul.)   Deuteronomy 23:1 "A man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off may never join the assembly of the Lord."

8.  Please don't bring your kids in if they have a bowl cut.   Leviticus 19:27 reads "You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard."

For those of you complaining that some of these scriptures are from the Old Testament, and that Jesus came to redeem us from these laws, I refer you to Matthew 5:17-19, where Our Savior himself says:  "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.  18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.  19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven"

Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.  It's nothing personal, "love the sinner but hate the sin," and all, but I simply can't serve anyone who would blatantly disregard God's sacred law in such a fashion.

Of course this would never happen.  People don't not serve gays because they find it against God's Law.   They do it, by and large, because "the gays are icky."   Jesus had dinner with prostitutes and tax collectors.  Get over yourselves.

MISSISSIPPI - 'Jesus Take the Wheel Act'

"Mississippi House passes 'Jesus Take the Wheel Act'" by Jen Hayden, Daily KOS

Mississippi lawmakers are once again tackling the big issues in the state.  The highest poverty rate of any state in the country?  Hahahaha ... no.  The second-highest high school dropout rate in the country?  No, no.  The second-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country?  Awww, hell no.

What is more pressing than extreme poverty?  Well, the Mississippi House did pass a bill (HB 132), nicknamed the "Jesus Take the Wheel Act", that would exempt churches from commercial driver's license requirements:

"This just allows small churches, some don't have people with commercial licenses at all, and they can pick a person to drive the bus," said state Rep. Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez, who chairs the Transportation Committee which had passed the bill earlier in the session.

Current law requires CDL-certified drivers for any vehicle transporting more than 16 passengers, including the driver.  The bill would amend that law to exempt church buses designed to carry 30 passengers or less.

To be clear, we aren't talking about extended passenger vans.  Thirty-passenger buses, like the one pictured below, are much larger than vans and all other business and schools would still have to have a CDL license to operate such a vehicle.

Since the exemption would also include buses and large transport vehicles carry children to and from events, not everyone is happy about the exemption:

When contacted by The Clarion-Ledger, longtime CDL-certified driver Troy Coll of Hattiesburg called the measure potentially dangerous.

"I think this bill is trading the safety of everyone on the road for the convenience of those operating church vehicles," Coll said.  "Since the bill covers vehicles up to 30 passengers, we're not just talking vans with extra rows of seats – these are buses, with long frames and much larger blind spots than passenger vehicles."

POLITICS - NYT Ad Skewers Boehner

"Hilarious Full-Page Ad in NYT Skewers Boehner" by Flyswatterbanjo, Daily KOS 2/19/2015

Excerpt

It was paid for by the NIAC, the outfit run by prominent Iranian-American author and pundit Trita Parsi.  From their press release:

“The U.S. and its closest allies are on the brink of a historic deal that will both prevent an Iranian bomb and war with Iran, and Congressional hawks are orchestrating political stunts with foreign leaders to try to kill it,” said NIAC President Trita Parsi.  “The American people do not want another senseless military adventure and certainly don’t consider Benjamin Netanyahu to be their commander in chief.”

The statement also reminds us of this episode:

...in one of the most critical national security debates of our time – the decision of whether to invade Iraq – Netanyahu was brought to testify before Congress.  In his remarks he advocated strongly for the war, telling lawmakers ‘if you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.’

According to Jewish Voice for Peace, as of today, 29 members of Congress will skip Netanyahu's speech.  You can sign their petition here.

Or, you can contact your members of Congress directly and tell them to #SkipTheSpeech:

• Senate
• House of Representatives

UPDATE:  Here's the Hill's 10-day-old list of those who have stated publicly they will skip the speech.

POLITICS - Scott Walker Loses Attempted Education Dictatorship

"Scott Walker Loses Education Control Fight in Court" by Puddytat, Daily KOS 2/19/2015

A unanimous state appeals court on Thursday deemed unconstitutional a portion of a 2011 law that gave Gov. Scott Walker the ability to halt administrative rules by Schools Superintendent Tony Evers, who is independently elected.

The ruling by the Madison-based District 4 Court of Appeals upholds a 2012 decision by Dane County Circuit Judge Amy Smith.

Walker signed the law in May 2011, which gave his administration a greater say in writing administrative rules, which are used to implement state laws.  Administrative rules include more specifics than state statutes and carry the force of law.

Looks like Scott Walker got caught ignoring the State Constitution:

The state constitution says that "the supervision of public instruction shall be vested in a state superintendent and such other officers as the Legislature shall direct."  In a 1996 case that the appeals court repeatedly cited, the state Supreme Court held that lawmakers and the governor cannot give "equal or superior authority" over public education to any other official.

The Supreme Court's ruling found that the state constitution prevented then-Gov. Tommy Thompson from transferring powers from the Department of Public Instruction to a new Department of Education overseen by the governor's administration.

"In sum, the Legislature has the authority to give, to not give, or to take away (the school superintendent's) supervisory powers, including rule-making power.  What the Legislature may not do is give the (superintendent) a supervisory power relating to education and then fail to maintain the (superintendent's) supremacy with respect to that power," Appeals Judge Gary Sherman wrote for the court in Thursday's decision.

No, Scott Walker, you can't control state education.  You've defunded K-12 education by $2 billion and you're stripping $300 million from our previously wonderful State University system.  You've made taxpayers fund the private education of rich kids, too.

You have already done more than enough damage.

Since his 2011 inauguration, he's taken complete control of virtually ALL state agencies and has been hard at work on legislation giving him complete control over everything.
 The last 3 remaining agencies or departments he doesn't completely control (the DNR with it's soon to be legislatively abolished Citizen Advisory Board oversight, the Secretary of States' Office - run by a Democrat - soon to be stripped of staff and moved to an inaccessible basement by Walker's new budget, and the Government Accountability Board which oversees elections) have now been joined by a 4th, the Department of Public Instruction.

Walker's 2011 law gave him the final say in administrative rules for public schools despite the fact that the Superintendent is independently elected.  Not any more.

Aside from national fundraising and speechifying for his long anticipated Presidential run, Walker has spent every hour of every day since his election giving himself control of nearly all aspects of State Government in order to reward donors and punish real or imagined enemies or opponents.

Apparently the GOP isn't concerned that a Democrat could ever be elected as Governor in the future and wield all of that power to set things on the right path again.  Maybe they're right since Republicans have friendly media in Wisconsin and mega bucks to propagandize (or suppress) the voters.

It's nice to see Walker lose a big one like this and lose a bit of the power he's grabbed.  Well, that and seeing him trip on all the rakes he's been running into as a now top-tier Presidential candidate.

OPINION - Congrats GOP

"Congrats, GOP:  You just won control of Congress with a Democratic President" from The Jed Report, Daily Kos 11/5/2014

An open letter to Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and their crew, from yours truly:

Dear Republicans:

Congratulations.  You just took control of Congress for the next two years.  It must feel great.  You should celebrate now, because pretty soon you're going to realize it's going to be an agonizingly long two years—as long as Democrats follow these three simple pieces of advice:

1. Now that Republicans control the Senate and the House, they need to supply the votes for everything—no more bailouts from the Democratic caucus, bailouts that made sense when Democrats controlled one of the chambers.
2. The President should wield the veto liberally, vetoing every measure to come from Congress that would undermine things like Obamacare or damage the government's ability to deliver the services the country expects from it—and congressional Democrats should support his vetoes.
3. The President should take executive action wherever he can, within the constraints of the law, to accomplish goals like creating a humane immigration policy and dealing with climate change. If the Republicans don't like it, they can impeach him.

Again, congratulations guys.  You've achieved the goal that Mitch McConnell set out for you, and you did it by systematically trying to prevent Democrats from implementing progressive policies.  Just keep in mind that turnabout is fair play, and if Democrats are smart, that's exactly what's going to happen.

Best regards,
Jed

I'm not trying to sugarcoat the GOP's win.  It does suck, especially for nominations.  And it sucks that we're not going to get any new progressive laws passed, though it's not like we would have gotten any with a Republican House.  But—at the risk of repeating myself—the President is still the President is still the President is still the President.  Obamacare isn't going anywhere.  He can still take executive action to get a limited amount of things done.  And just about the only two things Republicans can do without the President's signature is shutting down the government and impeaching him.  And unless the GOP magically reinvents itself into a rational governing party, that's exactly what Democrats should let them do.  2016 will be here soon enough.