New York Hosp. Assoc. “bigly” upset

Posted on May 9, 2017 by David Posnett
My friend Mike Anthony who was a Hospital Administrator submitted this:
I’m sharing with you the Greater New York Hospital Association‘s response to the House passed AHCA. Ken Raske has been in charge of GNYHA for many years and knows his stuff:
House Passes AHCA
On May 4, the House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA) in a mostly party line vote of 217-213. In response, GNYHA President Kenneth E. Raske issued this statement:
“217 House members voted for the AHCA today with the full knowledge that they were voting to strip health insurance from tens of millions of Americans and wreck many state budgets. The Congressional Budget Office previously estimated that the AHCA would cut Federal Medicaid spending by nearly $840 billion. With health care representing one-fifth of the US economy, do they think this cut won’t harm the overall economy?”
“Hospitals and health systems are the largest employers in community after community across the United States. What will those who voted for the AHCA say to their constituents when the AHCA causes health care jobs in their districts to disappear?”
“The worst health care bill in American history now goes to the Senate. The hospital community will continue to aggressively oppose it for the sake of our patients and employees.”
GNYHA will continue its vigilant opposition as the bill goes to the Senate for consideration.
Mike Anthony
Message to Rep. Lee Zeldin: this is not good for the hospitals in CD-1, not good for jobs, not good for your elderly constituents or for those that are ill and have chronic diseases.  This vote should come back to bite you and you will have only yourself to blame.
David Posnett MD
Posted in AHCA, American Health Care Act, Employment, Health Care, Uncategorized, Zeldin | Comments Off on New York Hosp. Assoc. “bigly” upset

Despite their twisted fantasies, Republicans are nothing like Rocky or George Patton — they are political terrorists

Posted on May 9, 2017 by David Posnett

MONDAY, MAY 8, 2017 12:30 PM EDT

Posted on Salon.com

Drawing inspiration from real and fictional American heroes, Republicans went out and fought a war — against us

Despite their twisted fantasies, Republicans are nothing like Rocky or George Patton — they are political terroristsPresident Trump congratulates House Republicans (Credit: Getty/Mark Wilson)

 

Last Thursday was “Star Wars” Day and the 40th anniversary of George Lucas’ groundbreaking film. It was also the day that the empire struck back when Republicans in Congress voted to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and by doing so, further imperiling the health and safety of 100 million Americans.

As the Republicans voted to steal away health insurance from the sick, children, pregnant women, the poor, elderly, babies and people with pre-existing medical conditions in order to give millionaires and billionaires like themselves more money, they reportedly played the theme song to the movie “Rocky” and found inspirationfrom George C. Scott’s Oscar-winning performance as Gen. George S. Patton. On one hand, these are just curious details that help to paint a picture of what happened that day in Congress. But they also tell us a great deal about how the Republicans who voted to overturn the Affordable Care Act see themselves in history.

“Rocky” is the fictional story of a pugnacious Italian-American club boxer from Philadelphia who in “the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring,” according to the movie, battles to a draw the heavyweight champion of the world, an African-American named Apollo Creed, on Independence Day in 1976.

Perhaps the Republican millionaires in Congress believe that they are underdogs? Or maybe they have fantasies of running up the stairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as Rocky does in that movie’s most iconic scene — although, based on their ages and physical appearance it is doubtful that most of the House Republicans could accomplish that feat without collapsing from exhaustion or a heart attack.

 It seems much more likely that the Republicans and President Donald Trump think they are the Great White Hope who knocks out the “arrogant” and “uppity” black interloper, President Barack Obama — to the cheers of their racist public.

If their evocation of “Rocky” is pathetic and humorous, then Republicans’ need to draw inspiration from “Patton” is malicious and frightening.

Of course, the comparison is absurd. The real-life Patton commanded the American Third and Seventh Armies in World War II against the Nazis in Europe and North Africa. The Republicans are leading an Ayn Rand, gangster-capitalist, plutocratic-authoritarian crusade against the American people.

Nevertheless, what inspiring quotes did the Republican in Congress look to as they voted to take insurance away from the American people in the name of some perverse and twisted and backward Orwellian Newspeak version of “freedom”? Here are some possibilities.

In the 1970 movie, George C. Scott’s version of Patton says:

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

Maybe the Republicans believe that they are fighting a war? If so, who is their enemy?

There’s also this contender:

Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that “we are holding our position.” We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold onto him by the nose and we’re going to kick him in the ass. We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we’re going to go through him like crap through a goose!

Are the Democrats the enemy? Are Americans who are sick the enemy? If you have a pre-existing condition and need affordable medical care, are the Republicans going to “kick the hell” out of you?

Any mention of Scott’s role as Patton would have to include this oft-referenced speech from the beginning of the film:

Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ballplayers, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war . . . because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.

Are Republicans “winners,” while Americans who need health insurance are “losers”? It would seem that “winning” is apparently all that matters for Republicans and Donald Trump: As shown by last week’s health care vote, the last five decades of Republican policies  and Vladimir Putin’s apparent interference with the 2016 election, their party is more important to GOPers than loyalty to their country, the general welfare or the common good.

 It is estimated that the Republican Party’s destruction of the Affordable Care Act would kill at least 43,000 Americans a year. That does not include the millions of Americans who will die prematurely from the emotional and physical stress related to the financial ruin that can be caused by a major or chronic illness.

Republicans love to wrap themselves in the American flag like a cheap suit. Here the flag is a prop to win over conservative, authoritarian and low-information voters who are swayed by such empty gestures. But such a ploy cannot hide a basic and unpleasant fact. On Sept. 11, 2001, almost 3,000 Americans were killed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Yet the Republicans in Congress, at the behest of Donald Trump, voted last Thursday to kill almost 15 times that many Americans every year.

Their decision to take away affordable health care from some of the most vulnerable Americans is an act of political violence and a form of terrorism. Once again the Republicans are showing their contempt for the “useless eaters.” While the leaders of the ruling political party have convinced themselves that they are heroes, in reality they are villains and enemies of the American people.

 

Chauncey DeVega

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon.
Posted in AHCA, American Health Care Act, Health Care, Medicaid, Politics, Pre-existing Conditions, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Despite their twisted fantasies, Republicans are nothing like Rocky or George Patton — they are political terrorists

Tillerson says goodbye to human rights diplomacy

Posted on May 9, 2017 by David Posnett

The Brookings Institute

Ted Piccone  Friday, May 5, 2017

With some nice words about values as an enduring guide to U.S. foreign policy, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week made crystal clear that when it comes to actual policies, national security and economic interests come first. Well-meaning principles like freedom and human rights sit on our shoulder like some guardian angel whispering in one ear to do the right thing…but only if it’s convenient to more important security and economic interests. He instructed his team of diplomats that

“we really have to understand, in each country or each region of the world that we’re dealing with, what are our national security interests, what are our economic prosperity interests, and then as we can advocate and advance our values, we should…”

But too often, he asserted, promoting our values is “an obstacle” to advancing our other interests, with government leaders begging Washington to back off on our unfair demands for reform. He then went on a tour d’horizon of all the compelling issues on the U.S. foreign policy agenda and did not once mention the words values, democracy, or human rights.

In one speech, Tillerson tossed out over four decades of bipartisan consensus that human rights and democracy are: 1) essential components of U.S. national security and economic prosperity, and 2) not just American values but universal values that the United States, through its long and troubled history, has adopted as the north star of national prestige and international legitimacy.
The America First posture he articulated has immediate and sweeping dire effects for U.S. standing in the world, removing any pretense that our leadership means anything more than brute military force, higher walls, and tougher trade deals. The message seems clear: The United States is, once one strips away all the high-minded rhetoric about human dignity and democracy, just like any other powerful nation intent on maximizing its own interests at the expense of others. Asking other countries to respect the international human rights obligations that they themselves have adopted apparently is just too hard to do, too inconvenient to the give and take of protecting our narrow self-interests. Putin, and his band of brothers ranging from Erdoğan of Turkey to el-Sissi of Egypt and Duterte of the Philippines, are popping the champagne as we speak.

[I]f you care about defending U.S. national security, it’s your job to support the spread of democracy.

How long will it take for this administration to climb the steep learning curve of mastering 21st century diplomacy in an era of growing global demands for more, not less, democracy and human rights? Even if one is prepared to pay a price in the loss of soft power that has long benefited U.S. leadership in the world, the Trump team will soon learn that supporting democratic institutions, rule of law, justice, accountability, and transparency are critical to protecting core U.S. national security interests. Strong democracies, after all, do not go to war with each other, do not spawn refugees, experience less civil conflict and terrorism, have more open and prosperous economies, and have a higher respect for international law and borders. In other words, if you care about defending U.S. national security, it’s your job to support the spread of democracy, particularly in countries emerging from conflict and repression where it can take years of engagement before more stable conditions emerge.

One bright spot in this otherwise dire picture is the Congress, which has long taken the lead in pushing for a greater integration of human rights and democracy in U.S. foreign policy. A bipartisan letter released by 15 Senators just this week is only the latest example of congressional demands for retaining U.S. leadership as a champion of freedom and rights. “A world that is more democratic, respects human rights, and abides by the rule of law strengthens the security, stability and prosperity of America,” they wrote. They asked this administration to “put the promotion of democracy and human rights front-and-center as a primary pillar of America’s approach abroad.” We now know this request has fallen not just on deaf ears, but with a clear no thank you. It will be up to Congress to push back harder by protecting resources for democracy and human rights programs, advocating for U.S. human rights leadership at the United Nations and other international organizations, vetting all incoming nominees for senior diplomatic positions for their commitment to human rights, and giving civil society and human rights defenders a safe home in Washington.

Yet the world does not stand still while the United States tries to get its own house in order. As Washington willfully yields ground to authoritarian states like China, Russia, Iran, and Egypt, who will step up to the plate to protect the international human rights and democracy order so painstakingly constructed from the ashes of World War II? Swing state democracies like India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Brazil to date have preferred to keep a low profile and, with no U.S. pressure to engage, are likely to continue to go their own way. That leaves the traditional Western democracies of Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan as the bulwark against a collapse of the international system as we know it. Yes, democracies do have the equipment to self-correct, so perhaps, with public and congressional pressure, systemic failure can be avoided. But how much damage will be done in the meantime, not only to our own values, but to the fundamental values of a civilized world?

Posted in foreign policy, GOP, Trump | Comments Off on Tillerson says goodbye to human rights diplomacy

Americans Now View Health Care as a Right. Republicans Can’t Change That.

Posted on May 9, 2017 by David Posnett
Posted on Slate.com
By Mark Joseph Stern and Perry Grossman
678665956-president-donald-trump-congratulates-house-republicans
President Donald Trump congratulates House Republicans for passing the AHCA.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 

One day after House Republicans passed the American Health Care Act, Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy outlined his vision of Obamacare repeal. Any bill the Senate passes, Cassidy explained, must pass “the Jimmy Kimmel test,” meaning that everyone, including newborns, can “get the care they need.” These remarks align with Cassidy’s comments in March, when he told the New York Times that “there’s a widespread recognition that the federal government, Congress, has created the right for every American to have health care.”

There is, of course, a chance that Cassidy could simply ignore this “widespread recognition” and vote for a monstrous bill anyway. But that will not change the underlying truth of his initial observation. Although the United States lacks a constitutional right to health care—unlike more than half of the world’s countries—seven years of Obamacare have established, in most Americans’ minds, a basic right to affordable medical treatment. Republicans might be able to repeal Obamacare, but they can’t reverse that sea change. And any attempt to do so will likely wreak political devastation.

To understand how health care came to be seen as a right, it’s useful to examine a surprisingly close analogue: marriage equality. For many years in the United States, marriage was viewed as a kind of privilege—a biblical sacrament that states choose to honor through legal recognition. But marriage isn’t a sacrament for everyone, and not everyone who wanted to get married could do it: Many states restricted marital privileges on the basis of irrational classifications like race.

Civil rights attorneys successfully challenged this vision of marriage as a benefit, rooted in religion, that states can revoke for some individuals. The target was Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law. A trial judge upheld the law, explaining, “Almighty God created the races” and “placed them on separate continents” because “he did not intend for the races to mix.” But in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that marriage is a constitutionally protected fundamental right that “cannot be infringed by the state.”

Thanks to Loving and its progeny, Americans now tend to discuss marriage as a right guaranteed to all, not a privilege available to some. Our discussion of marriage as a “right” has transformed the biblical notion of marriage into a legal one. That’s why, by 2015, marriage equality seemed so inevitable. If the government cannot limit marriage rights on the basis of race, why should it be able to limit them on the basis of sex?

Over the past seven years, we have witnessed a similar (if subtler) transformation in discussions around health care. Republicans have long characterized access to quality health care in terms of an economic good, available to those who can afford it, with those unable to afford it at the mercy of private charitable organizations—frequently, religious organizations. This is consistent with the vision of a party that has worked hard to devolve core portions of the social safety net to faith-based groups for decades. For Republicans, the inability to afford health insurance isn’t merely a matter of economic misfortunate; it’s a moral failing. Alabama Republican and Freedom Caucus member Rep. Mo Brooks captured this sentiment precisely when he said in an interview with Jake Tapper that “people who live good lives” don’t develop pre-existing conditions and are thus entitled to pay less for health care, while others might find themselves priced out of the health insurance market altogether.

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro acknowledged that Brooks’ statement was “expressed in the dumbest way possible,” but he agreed that failing to purchase health insurance was irresponsible and immoral and wrote: “None of this means we shouldn’t have social support for those who fall through the cracks—who lose their jobs during a pregnancy, for example. That’s what communities and churches and hospital charities are for.” Republican attitudes on this topic were perhaps best summarized by Mark Green, Republican Tennessee state senator and Trump’s former nominee for secretary of the Army, who in 2015 called government involvement in making health care broadly available to poor people an “injustice” because “[t]he person who’s in need … they look to the government for the answer, not God.” In these terms, health care is a privilege for those blessed enough to pay for it—or blessed enough to accept religious charity.

Democrats have been pushing for universal health care since the New Deal. In 1978, Sen. Ted Kennedy captured his party’s sentiment by declaring that health care is “a basic right for all, not just an expensive privilege for the few.” But the massive expansion of health insurance coverage brought about by Obamacare gave that language popular traction on an unprecedented scale. Most Americans now expect the government to establish some minimum standard of care. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that “60% of Americans say the government should be responsible for ensuring health care coverage for all” and, most strikingly, that Republicans with family incomes of less than $75,000 per year are increasingly a part of that group. Those numbers may continue to grow as tens of millions of people find their health care coverage jeopardized by Trumpcare.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Perry Grossman is a civil rights attorney in New York City.

Posted in AHCA, American Health Care Act, GOP, Health Care, Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Pre-existing Conditions | Comments Off on Americans Now View Health Care as a Right. Republicans Can’t Change That.

If Stephen Hawking is right about Earth’s end, keep an eye on the deer

Posted on May 9, 2017 by David Posnett

It seems we’re all going to die fairly soon, but before that happens, we need to kill all the deer.

I’ll get to the deer killing in a moment, but first let me expand on our impending and unfortunate demise.

Stephen Hawking, the famed theoretical physicist, predicts that humankind has about 100 years to find a new planet. A promotion for a BBC documentary he appears in notes: “With climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth, our own planet is increasingly precarious.”

Nothing worse for a planet than being overdue for an asteroid strike.

While Hawking is undoubtedly more intelligent than I am — I’m more of a theoretical journalist — other recent news has led me to believe that 100 years is too generous. I’m thinking we’ll be lucky to make it through next week.

First off, in case you haven’t noticed, we have an uncomfortably large number of world leaders who are: a) erratic narcissists; and b) armed with nuclear weapons.

We’re all one poorly timed joke about Kim Jong Un’s haircut away from becoming charred meatloaf.

In addition to that, there’s a 2,000-square-mile hunk of ice about to break off the Antarctic Peninsula. The Larsen C ice shelf already had a 110-mile crack in it, but last week, scientists announced the crack now has a second branch.

Before long, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island will be adrift and sea levels might rise because the ice shelf was keeping ice from nearby glaciers from sliding into the water.

The nukes and the asteroids and the giant icebergs and the epidemics and the oceans enveloping us all sound bad enough. But the universe is also trying to kill us on a more up-close and personal level.

We know that if we don’t exercise we’re either going to die or not be ready for bathing suit season, two equally terrifying fates.

But now we learn that the gym where we get our exercise might also be deadly, thanks to the unspeakable filth left behind by grotesque fellow gym goers.

The fitness equipment rating website FitRated.com — it’s where I go to research workout equipment I buy and never use — had a laboratory evaluate swabs from treadmills, exercise bikes and free weights at three different chain gyms.

Here’s what was found: “The average exercise bike harbors 39 times more bacteria than a cafeteria tray. Typical free weights have 362 times more germs than a toilet seat. And the treadmill you’re running on averages 74 times more bacteria than a typical public bathroom faucet.”

Cool.

Knowing that most of us bring our phones to the gym, it’s a good bet we’re hauling all those germs home with us and our fingers should be quarantined in infectious disease tents.

A safer workout would be to just do pushups in a bus station restroom and then jog off a cliff.

Anyhoo, death is all but certain, so let me get to the part about murdering the deer.

For starters, I have never trusted deer. Their innocent, wide-eyed adorableness shtick always struck me as a cover for something sinister.

When I saw “Bambi,” I hoped for a sequel — one where the hunter comes back to finish the job.

Turns out my gut was right. A recent article in Popular Science revealed that forensic scientists recorded the “first known evidence of a deer scavenging human bones.”

The researchers were doing a study where they leave a human corpse in the woods to monitor how it decays and gets picked away at by various woodland creatures.

Let’s pause a moment and consider the conversation that led to that corpse being volunteered:

“Hey Grandpa, what should we do with your body after you die?”

“Scatter my ashes in the ocean.”

“Sure thing, Gramps! I definitely won’t sell your corpse to scientists who want to plunk it in the forest and watch it get eaten!”

What a legacy.

A camera was trained on the corpse and what the researchers saw will forever change how you view deer. From the Popular Science report: “On Jan. 5, 2015, the camera caught a glimpse of a young white-tailed deer standing near the skeleton with a human rib bone in its mouth. Then it happened again on Jan. 13 — the camera caught a deer with another rib sticking out of its mouth like a cigar.”

Like a cigar?!?!

These allegedly skittish mammals are just biding their time, waiting for us to kick the bucket so they can munch on our delicious ribs.

If death is around the corner — and it most certainly is — I’m ready to meet my maker, but I’ll be darned if I’m going to let some bloodthirsty buck feast on my remains like a four-legged slob at a rib buffet.

No, we need to strike first and preserve the sanctity of our soon-to-be irradiated or gym-disease-ridden corpses. I want every deer dead as soon as possible.

Every human should be eating venison around the clock. You too, vegans. You’re going to have to suck this one up for the team.

There can be no deer left when we are wiped out by giant slabs of ice or space rocks or whatever. Because if there are, those furry forest monsters will be licking their smug chops, prancing around with our rib bones in their mouths, knowing they pulled off a con for the ages.

Bambi, indeed.

Posted in climate change, Deer, Environment, EPA, Paris Climate Accord, science | Comments Off on If Stephen Hawking is right about Earth’s end, keep an eye on the deer

The Trump administration just dismissed a dozen of the EPA’s top science advisers

Posted on May 9, 2017 by David Posnett

The move may open the door for greater industry influence over science at the EPA.

Posted on Vox.com

Updated by Brian Resnickbrian@vox.com May 8, 2017, 12:51pm EDT
Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has effectively fired more than half of an advisory board tasked with making sure the science conducted and evaluated at the agency meets rigorous standards.

Greenwire is reporting that the 12 dismissed advisers — academic experts in various fields of environmental science and policy — were nearing the end of a three-year term, and were told Friday their positions would not be renewed for a second term.

Which came as big surprise.

“Today I was Trumped,” Robert Richardson, an environmental economist at Michigan State University, tweeted, after learning of his dismissal.

Richardson says he and the other board members were expecting to serve another term — as their predecessors had. “I’ve never heard of any circumstance where someone didn’t serve two consecutive terms,” he told the Washington Post. It “just came out of nowhere,” he told Science.

The Board of Scientific Counselors is an 18-member board whose mission is to “evaluate science and engineering research, programs and plans, laboratories, and research-management practices of ORD [EPA’s office of research and development] and recommend actions to improve their quality and or strengthen their relevance to EPA’s mission.” (It’s not clear why six members of the board were allowed to stay.)

When asked by reporters to explain the dismissal, EPA spokesperson J.P. Freire said the EPA wanted to make “a clean break with the last administration’s approach” and “expand the pool of applicants.” These advisers “were appointed for three-year terms,” he toldGreenwire. “They’re not guaranteed a second three-year term.”

By expanding the applicant pool, Freire likely means opening up the advisory board to more members of industry (it’s mostly been filled with people from academia).

“We want to ensure fair consideration of all the nominees,” he told Vox, noting that people who have previously served on the panel are not outright excluded from the process.

Even so, members of the scientific community are likely to see the dismissals as yet another attack on scientific expertise from the Trump Administration (which has called for sweeping cuts to biomedical research and other sources of research and development in the federal government).

“Academic scientists play a critical role in informing policy with scientific research results at every level, including the federal government,” Rush Holt CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s largest science advocacy group, said in a statement.

Pruitt and the GOP are targeting two science advisory committees

If this sounds familiar, it’s because in March, Republicans in Congress were calling to “reform” another EPA scientific board — the EPA Science Advisory Board.

That board is a larger, 47-person committee that provides analysis on EPA research programs and plans. The Board of Scientific Counselors, whose members were dismissed over the weekend, evaluates the rigors of the research conducted at the EPA. (Yes, there is overlap in the missions.)

In March, the House of Representatives passed a bill that seeks to make permanent changes to the larger Science Advisory Board. The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act — which has yet to be taken up by the Senate — would prohibit anyone who has an ongoing research grant from the EPA to serve on the board, and prohibits board members from applying for grants for three years after they step down from the panel.

The stated intent of the bill: to make sure the panel members aren’t weighing in on grants or decisions that impact their own research.

What would actually happen: The bill would further exclude subject-area expert scientists from serving on the panel. Why would environmental science experts join the panel if they knew it would potentially mean losing out on funding three years after they quit the panel? (And panelists currently have to recuse themselves from weighing in on their own research anyway.)

Currently, the panel is mostly made up of scientists who work at universities. The law could have the impact of disincentivizing academic scientists from joining the panel, and encouraging those who work in industry.

Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Science Committee, has been critical of both these advisory boards. At a February House hearing, he said the Science Advisory Board members are “rubber stamps who approve all the EPA’s regulation.” (Additionally the Trump administration is seeking an 84 percent budget cut to this advisory board.)

And it’s no secret that Pruitt wants to shake up the EPA to be friendlier to industry interests. Though, as Brad Plumer noted for Vox, Pruitt is limited in his ability to completelyreshape environmental regulation. Sure, he can appoint new science advisors. But “EPA regulatory changes have to go through a laborious rulemaking process and can be challenged in court by green groups,” Plumer writes.

Both boards are designed to provide independent scientific advice and expertise to the EPA administrator. It’s clear that Pruitt, and like-minded lawmakers in Congress, doesn’t want to hear it.

Posted in Environment, EPA, Politics, Trump | Comments Off on The Trump administration just dismissed a dozen of the EPA’s top science advisers

From Geoff to Zeldin

Posted on May 8, 2017 by David Posnett
From our friend Geoff (as notified be email) who says,
I emailed the following to our esteemed Representative today:
Dear Lee.  I wanted to personally thank you for casting your vote in favor of the AHCA. By my calculation, I will save roughly $200,000-$300,000 in annual taxes which is around 6 times what I pay to insure my family of 7 with no co-pay and no deductible. I’m not sure how I would have survived otherwise.  I want you to know that these savings will not go wasted. I plan to relocate from Florida to my home in Amagansett and spend every penny I save in taxes, working to make sure you do not spend a single day in congress after the 2018 election.
Best Regards and Thanks again, Geoff.
Posted in AHCA, Uncategorized, Zeldin | 5 Comments

The Republican Party is sociopathic: If you didn’t know that already, the health care bill should make it clear

Posted on May 7, 2017 by David Posnett

Posted on Salon.com

SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017 01:00 PM EDT

Republicans have long since left normal politics behind and veered into irresponsible, sadistic misbehavior

GA

The Republican Party is sociopathic: If you didn't know that already, the health care bill should make it clearPaul Ryan; Donald Trump; Kevin McCarthy (Credit: AP/Getty/Salon)

On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act in order to give the richest Americans and corporations billions of dollars. To accomplish this, Republicans will deny tens of millions of Americans who have chronic and preexisting health problems access to affordable medical care. The Republican Party’s plan to punish the sick and to kill the “useless eaters” has expanded its targets to include women who have been victims of sexual assault or domestic violence or suffered from post-partum depression. The Republican plan will also hurt disabled people, senior citizens, new mothers, pregnant women, children in special education programs and babies. It is estimated that at least 43,000 Americans a year will die if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

This is quite literally the politics of life and death. Republicans in Congress have chosen to place their fingers on the scale in favor of the latter.

After finding “courage” prior to their vote from watching the movie “Rocky” and supposedly drawing inspiration from Gen. George Patton, these Republicans — a group largely comprised of rich, old white men — basked in the glow of their “success” while they drank beer and took photos with President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden. In all, it was a macabre and perverse bacchanal of plutocratic greed and civic irresponsibility.

The Republican Party is sociopathic: If you didn’t know that already, the health care bill should make it clear.

The vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act was also a reminder of two very frightening and disturbing truths that most of the mainstream corporate news media will ignore.

Conservatives lack empathy for their fellow human beings. The Republican Party’s hostility to the poor, the working class, the elderly, immigrants, Muslims, refugees, the homeless, the vulnerable, gays and lesbians, children, people of color — and yes, the sick — is not an aberration or deviation from their voters’ basic desires. For those not of the right-wing tribe, a decision to strip away health care from millions of people does not make rational political sense. But for those inside the right-wing echo chamber, such a decision speaks to basic psychological and social impulses: It reinforces the demarcations separating “us” and “them,” the deserving and the undeserving, the righteous and the sinful.

In 2010, Ravi Iyer examined data that demonstrated the divergent role of empathy for conservatives and liberals. He observed:

The more interested in politics a conservative is, the lower his (or her) level of empathy. Liberals move in the opposite direction: the more interested in politics they are, the more empathetic. … In the 2010 election, 42 percent of voters identified themselves as conservative; 38 percent said they were moderate; and 20 percent said they were liberal. If that division obtains in 2012 and beyond, the proportion of conservative to liberal voters in the electorate should give liberals pause, especially insofar as they expect elected officials to propose and pass legislation the underlying purpose of which is to help those most in need.

Iyer’s observations would prove prophetic. In the 2016 presidential election, the empathy divide motivated millions of white conservatives and right-leaning independents to support Donald Trump: The opportunity to punish the Other paid a psychological wage, even if Trump’s actual policies would economically hurt the “white working class” voters who installed him in the White House — with the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Republican Party is sociopathic. As detailed by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, exhibiting three or more of the following traits is sufficient for the diagnosis of sociopathy:

  • Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
  • Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms and obligations
  • Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them
  • Very low tolerance to frustration, a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence
  • Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment
  • Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalization for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders adds these two qualifiers:

  • Deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
  • Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead

The Republican Party’s policies on health care, the economy, the social safety net, law enforcement and racial issues, and its attitudes toward women, gays and lesbians, and other vulnerable and marginalized groups fit many of these criteria. In their reactionary, revanchist and destructive approach to political community and the commons, modern American conservatives in general also exhibit many sociopathic traits.

Organizations and communities elevate to positions of power those individuals who best embody their values. So it is no coincidence that the Republican Party’s current leader, Donald Trump, exemplifies many of the traits common to sociopaths.

A lack of empathy and an embrace of sociopathy has helped to make the Republican Party in its current form largely exempt from the rules governing “normal politics.” The Republican Party now represents a form of right-wing politics that has more in common with extreme religious fundamentalism than it does with post-Enlightenment rationality. In combination with a compliant American news media, gerrymandering, voter suppression, a highly effective propaganda machine, manipulation of the rules governing procedures in the House and the Senate, and a large conservative base that has been conditioned toward compliance, lies and authoritarianism, the Republican Party will likely maintain control of the United States on a local and state level for the foreseeable future.

The pundit and chattering classes want to believe that the “adults” in the U.S. Senate will stop Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s latest effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act. They also think that Trump’s voters will turn on him once his policies begin to negatively impact them in material and tangible ways.

These so-called experts have little to no credibility: They are the same people who believed that Trump would never be elected president. These supposedly astute observers of the American scene misunderstand this cultural moment because they presume reason and human decency where there is only madness, greed, bigotry, rage, racism, sexism and nihilism. To acknowledge these matters is not to surrender to them. It is necessary, if good and decent human beings who believe in the best of America are to equip themselves to fight back and win.

 

Chauncey DeVega

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Posted in American Health Care Act, Congress, Ethics, GOP, Health Care, Medicaid, Trump | Comments Off on The Republican Party is sociopathic: If you didn’t know that already, the health care bill should make it clear

What Ivanka Trump doesn’t know will hurt us all

Posted on May 6, 2017 by David Posnett

Posted on Salon.com

SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017 05:00 PM EDT

I read “Women Who Work” so you don’t have to. Ivanka’s “successful businesswoman” reputation is kind of a sham

What Ivanka Trump doesn't know will hurt us allIvanka Trump (Credit: Salon/Flora Thevoux)

Ivanka Trump’s new book “Women Who Work” is not, as you may have already guessed or read, particularly useful, even compared to other bland corporate tactical manuals. If you are a woman who works — or know one with a graduation or a promotion or a birthday coming up — save your money. The Trump family’s rapacious worldview is in its full glory in this clip job of a so-called monograph; Ivanka (or whoever “architected” this sugar-, fat- and gluten-free life manual) takes the subhead, “Rewriting the Rules for Success,” to an absurdly literal level. The book is not written so much as it is aggregated, borrowed so heavily from certain individual sources that she ought to owe royalties to Sheryl Sandberg and the estate of Stephen Covey, not that they’re any more likely to collect now that her office is in the West Wing instead of Trump Tower. What else is the intellectual work of others but “content” for “Ivanka” to “curate” (“wordsmith,” even!) for her own profit?

Ivanka is not an original thinker; this is not news. So it comes as little surprise that she is not a gifted — or even passably average for her genre — writer, either. In her NPR review, Annalisa Quinn aptly likens reading the book to “eating scented cotton balls,” and I would thank the American culture to immediately stop placing any automatic, unqualified premium value on prestigious prep school and Ivy League educations, as every podunk public school graduate I know has a better grasp of Toni Morrison and Charlotte Perkins Gilman than Ivanka Trump does, despite her expensive degrees.

A more fitting label for this perfect-bound Pinterest board would be “Women Who Work for Me, Ivanka Trump,” as they appear to be the only relevant audience. The focus is mainly on what has worked for her in her career, which is as idiosyncratic as her personal life has been, and what kinds of people she is drawn to when she builds a team. So if you work for Ivanka Trump but still don’t understand her alien ways, or some day want to sell some harmless clutches to whichever mid-range department store will still do business with you, this book is likely quite useful. Spout back all of the platitudes about building a “one-life corporate culture,” show up with “DREAM and DO” doodled on your file folder, and you’re in.

But for all of her nonsense about the “quiet, deliberate, and essential” so-called “workplace revolution” she claims to be launching, Ivanka is not up-ending what she calls “the old-fashioned ‘work warrior’ mentality” that demands long hours at the office as the only proof that employees are sufficiently dedicated to making money for their corporate overlords. What she’s advocating — Millennial Pinkified, self-actualized personal contentment wrapped around a tireless pitbull level of commitment to achieving corporate goals — is even more sinister. In her world, #WomenWhoWork and depart the office at 6 p.m. are still “leaving early” — the so-called Trump administration advocate for working parents obviously has no idea what time many daycares close — and they’re also expected to be back on at night and on the weekends, grinding away after they fulfill their Ivanka-modeled 20 scheduled minutes of quality time with their children or partners at home.

Ivanka’s obliviousness at her own privilege, despite lip service to acknowledging her many blessings, continues to dazzle. She holds up her Shabbat time with her family — sundown Friday to sundown Saturday — as an example of aspirational restorative time, and no doubt it is. Show me a couple that works the kinds of hours Ivanka and Jared do — even those without kids — that doesn’t have to use some of their non-working hours to run necessary errands or tidy up or get caught up on something other than leisure time, and I’ll show you a family wealthy enough to pay a full-time domestic staff to handle everything for them that isn’t personal exercise, family fun time and mandatory biweekly date nights. (Bullet journal note to self: An app to disrupt mandatory biweekly date nights? Siri but for sex?)

In Ivanka’s world, you can either “[turn] on ‘Real Housewives’ and [sit] in front of the TV eating a giant bowl of pasta with a glass of wine” — counterproductive! — or “meditate, soak in the tub, exercise, or take a long walk” at the end of a day to unwind. There’s a third option, too: “I simply turn off my devices, go into my kids’ room, and just watch them sleep.” Only a person who has never wondered if she could get her clean laundry put away before it cycled through to dirty again could offer only these options with a straight face.

Despite her heavy focus on working mothers in this book (though she is careful to always include those who are not parents yet and those who have chosen not to be, because you never leave a potential customer out!), it’s not until page 154 that the words “my nanny” appear, despite the many passages devoted to balancing motherhood with a demanding job. I don’t believe I saw it again until the acknowledgments, in which she thanks not only the nannies, Bridget and Dorothy, who helped raise her and her brothers as her own mother Ivana worked, but also “Liza and Xixi, who are helping me raise my own children, thank you for being a part of our extended family and enabling me to do what I do.” Employing two nannies has to be a cornerstone of the Ivanka Method; burying the full acknowledgment of that literally in the acknowledgments section is beyond disingenuous.

 So Ivanka Trump is wealthy and privileged and shameless about pretending her hard work has been the key secret to her success; this is not news. But what this book does highlight is that her “successful businesswoman” image is also a hollow sham.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 2004, she worked briefly for another real estate development company, Forest City Enterprises. She nods to this in an anecdote about turning down a job at Vogue, which Anna Wintour offered her personally, because she just loves real estate so much. In 2005, she went to work for her father at the Trump Organization. She stayed with the family business even as she founded her own fashion and lifestyle company, and now she has followed the family business right into the White House. Ivanka glosses over quite deftly in her book that she has spent all of one year, tops, working for someone who is not herself or her father, and it shows.

Take these nuggets of advice about how to “bond with your boss”:

Take a cue from those around you. When your boss shares something that was pivotal early in her career, that’s an opportunity for you to respond in kind.

* * *

Ask questions. Inquire about her previous career history; ask her how she got to where she is today.

* * *

Think you deserve a promotion? Hoping for more than a cost-of-living raise? Broaching these topics in a setting that’s warmer and more casual than her office will take the pressure off you both; continuing the dialogue in a more formal way at review time will alleviate the need to try to cover everything in one sitting.

In Ivanka’s experience, the boss is either her — this is how to get on her good side — or Donald Trump, her own father, in which case flattering him with questions about his early successes and finding opportunities to remind him of how good she is at her job are the pathways to impressing him.

“Broaching these topics in a setting that’s warmer and more casual than her office will take the pressure off you both” is great advice if your boss is a woman with whom you are also chummy but it is potentially fraught and even lousy advice if a Woman Who Work’s boss is a man, as statistics tell us he is quite likely to be.

Ivanka has clearly never personally weighed the pros and cons of the optics of asking for a promotion or a raise from a man she is not related to “in a setting that’s warmer and more casual” than the office. She certainly didn’t “curate” any wisdom from Ellen Pao, who might have something to say about how corporate bonding can put women at a professional disadvantage. The clear advantage of working for daddy is that nobody is going to accuse you of sleeping with the boss, or trying to, in order to land a promotion or a raise — and you would have no reason to suspect that the boss has any sketchy motives for wanting to hang out “in a setting that’s warmer and more casual than the office” when you’re related to him.

This is not to say male bosses and female subordinates can’t break Mike Pence’s retrograde rules with no fear of harassment or gossip — of course they can and do. I personally have been friends with male bosses with no weirdness, innuendo, or actionable offenses, and surely many readers have as well. But to not even connect her advice to the realities of sexism and harassment women continue to face in the workplace and how to deal with them if or when they arise in a book aimed at working women, especially when your father has Fox News blaring in the background 24-7 as a reminder, is laughably naïve. In Ivanka’s world, you just “prove your worth,” and automatically you are paid as much as your male counterparts, or actually you deserve to make more than Eric because you’re two years older, Daddy, and it’s only fair.

“While I believe every woman should thoughtfully architect a life she’ll love and actively work toward achieving her goals,” the book states, “we must also be flexible, adaptable, and realistic about the fact that our passions, interests, priorities, and relationships shift.” Nowhere in the book does Ivanka address, for example, what happens when access to affordable health coverage for self-employed female entrepreneurs with pre-existing conditions “shifts” after it proves “flexible” in the eyes of Republican leaders, or how to negotiate a raise or higher project rates to off-set the costs if your insurer decides your pregnancy is a pre-existing condition. (Yes, this book was wordsmithed before the House voted last week to replace the Affordable Care Act, but Ivanka was a key strategist of her father’s campaign, which ran on the promise of doing just that.) Of course, forget about advice on how to discreetly schedule several days out of the office for an out-of-town abortion when the only appointment you can get within the legal timeframe is in another state that mandates a counseling appointment and a waiting period, and it’s November and you’ve already used up your vacation days for the year.

I am tired of writing about Ivanka Trump. You may well be tired of reading about her, too. If her father had not won the election with her help, and if Ivanka had then not taken a federal job as an adviser to the president, “Women Who Work” would be just another forgettable remainder table staple a month after graduation season ends. But she is supposed to be the advocate for workplace issues facing women in an administration that has already proven itself to be friendly to forces hostile to us. What Ivanka doesn’t know could hurt us all — and this book reveals just how extensive her lack of knowledge and context truly is.

Erin Keane

Erin Keane is Salon’s managing editor.

Posted in Employment, Ethics, Family Issues, Family Planning, Ivanka Trump, Trump | Comments Off on What Ivanka Trump doesn’t know will hurt us all

No, I didn’t choose to have a pre-existing condition

Posted on May 6, 2017 by David Posnett
Posted on Daily Kos
By Chris Reeves
An injured person is taken to an ambulance at the scene of a crash between a tour bus and a tourist duck boat on the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, Washington on September 24, 2015. At least four people were killed and several were critically injured when a bus collided with a tour vehicle on a bridge in the US West Coast city of Seattle, officials said. AFP PHOTO/ MARK RALSTON (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

As Republicans and allies take to twitter and Facebook today to argue for the disaster that is TrumpCare, a common thread has popped up. In comment forum after comment forum, Republican posters argue that this is a non-issue because people had a choice. A choice, that is, to have a pre-existing condition.

So, to the Reagan Battalion, I have to ask: what about me? Was it my fault? Was I careless to get mugged and stabbed? Is it my fault that for the rest of my life I will get frequent scans when I have migraines and be in a high-risk group for problems?

If you believe that adults had a choice, can you tell me at what point my son, born with a disability will “grow out of it” or make a bad choice to continue being disabled? Maybe I can stop it. I’ll let you know if he has a choice to stop being disabled ibefore he becomes an adult.

Maybe, in fact, we should talk about the recent claim by Republicans that “oh, our bill makes sure they can’t deny you..” while doing absolutely nothing to prevent insurance companies from pricing you out of coverage.

“It only hurts people who miss consecutive coverage” .. so, younger people who age off of parent’s policies, the unemployed, many women post divorce, those kinds of people? It only hurts those kinds of people. Got it.

Maybe it’s fun to say they should be insured at all for their pre-existing conditions. Maybe, in fact, it is their fault.

Born into a poor family?  Have a seizure disorder or diabetes or any other birth condition? Well, screw you, you are pretty well worthless. It’s your fault. We as a society have decided you deserve to be poor in exchange for staying alive.

Listening to Republicans discuss healthcare today, I realized several things:

Adults can choose pre-existing conditions or not.  So, I should have hope my son will grow out of his disabilities from birth, and I hope at that point he will choose to not be disabled.

I learned maybe I was at fault for getting mugged with a ball bat.  I apparently had a choice in inheriting that pre-existing condition.

Women who divorce their spouses and have a lapse in coverage? Well, that’s all their fault too.

While Republicans have taken to the internet with idiotic clap trap, too often our fellow Progressives have decided now is the moment to go on the attack, against ACA. Do we all want better? Sure. But the round fire attack with statements implying we should score political points by pushing Universal Care at this moment before we have fought this all the way through the senate comes across to many Americans like kicking us when we are down.

There are millions of Americans right now terrified about what happens next — I’m one of them. I don’t want to hear rants about Obama not getting the right thing on ACA, how this is the time for Universal Care, whatever.

In the long term, I may want those things … but for people like me, using us as political pawns to score points right now?  Please don’t.  Please, please don’t.

We fight now. We fight with everything we have to stop any version of this monstrosity. And if our party starts pushing the idea that “well, we should start over with something else…”  I’d remind those members: you promised us you’d fight for us every step of the way. We are at risk now. Trapped in a sinking car.

Rescue us first before you move on to anything else. That’s all we ask.

Posted in AHCA, American Health Care Act, Health Care, Pre-existing Conditions, trumpcare | Comments Off on No, I didn’t choose to have a pre-existing condition