The Evening Blues - 3-24-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist and singer Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson. Enjoy!
Luther 'Guitar Jr.' Johnson and the Magic Rockers - Mannish Boy
"The United States is a one party state. But with typical American extravagence, they have two of them."
-- Julius Nyerere
News and Opinion
Final update before EB gets put to bed:
BREAKING: GOP health care bill has been pulled from House floor, CBS News confirms; Pres. Trump asked Speaker Ryan to pull the bill.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 24, 2017
House Republican leaders abruptly pull their rewrite of the nation’s health-care law
House Republican leaders abruptly pulled a Republican rewrite of the nation’s health-care system from consideration on Friday, a dramatic acknowledgment that they are so far unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
“We just pulled it,” President Trump told the Washington Post in a telephone interview.
The decision came a day after President Trump delivered an ultimatum to lawmakers — and represented multiple failures for the new president and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).
The decision means the Affordable Care Act remains in place, at least for now, and a major GOP campaign promise goes unfulfilled. It also casts doubt on the GOP’s ability to govern and to advance other high-stakes agenda items, including tax reform and infrastructure spending. Ryan is still without a signature achievement as speaker — and the defeat undermines Trump’s image as a skilled dealmaker willing to strike compromises to push his agenda forward.
Earlier stories about Ryancare's progress:
Will House Republicans "Jump Off the Cliff" and Cut Healthcare for 24 Million Americans?
Paul Ryan Rushes to White House to Tell Trump Votes Are Lacking to Repeal Obamacare
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, facing a revolt among conservative and moderate Republicans, told President Trump on Friday that he did not have the votes to pass legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to decide whether to pull the bill from consideration. But the president insisted that lawmakers cast their public votes Friday afternoon.
GOP rushes to vote without knowing full impact of healthcare plan
House Republicans are moving forward with a vote Friday on their ObamaCare replacement bill even after making significant changes the night before, and without a Congressional Budget Office analysis of those changes.
“We haven't seen the final bill and won't have a @USCBO score on the latest version before a vote,” Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) tweeted Thursday night. “This is not regular order, @SpeakerRyan.” ...
Republicans on Thursday night announced that they would make some significant changes to the bill, known as the American Health Care Act, with the intention of winning over conservatives.
The most prominent of those changes is to repeal ObamaCare’s essential health benefits, which mandate which health services an insurance plan must cover, including areas like mental health, prescription drugs, and maternity care. The GOP will also add $15 billion to a “stability fund” to the bill in order to provide mental health and maternity coverage, which will be paid for by keeping ObamaCare's 0.9 percent Medicare tax on high earners for six years.
Repealing the essential health benefits could have far-reaching consequences for the legislation and for the U.S. healthcare system, but the CBO will not have time to release an analysis of the change before the vote on Friday.
Trump issues Friday vote ultimatum on his health care bill
Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Republicans Thursday night — vote for my health care bill or else. The “or else” in this case would mean being “stuck with Obamacare,” but as many GOP representatives still struggle to come around to voting for a bill which has had very little public support, the president could be in for the most embarrassing defeat of his administration to date.
Tomorrow's front page: Trump issues ultimatum to pass health care bill or Obamacare stays https://t.co/KVRDajnnp8 pic.twitter.com/jW1cuIYasf
— New York Post (@nypost) March 24, 2017
Late Thursday night Trump sent top administration officials to the Capitol to deliver his ultimatum, and a vote is now scheduled to take place Friday morning. Should it fail to pass, reports suggest the president will leave Obamacare in place and move on to other areas of legislation, including tax reform and infrastructure spending.
Make-or-break day for Donald Trump's healthcare gamble
... [A]s with so much else in the Trump presidency, his critics and supporters are likely to view the debacle through different prisms. Should he prevail in Friday’s vote, it will be portrayed as a famous victory snatched from the jaws of defeat with all the suspense of his reality TV show. The very troubles and tribulations of the week will be cited as evidence of how his heroic deal-making abilities can overcome any hurdle, even the rightwing House Freedom Caucus – though another battle will loom in the Senate. And if he fails, Trump will have an alternative narrative ready. His do-or-die threat to House members nicely sets up a scenario where he can blame everything on them. “Look! I tried everything! I was reasonable! These guys have let you down.” Then, he presumably believes, Obamacare will self-destruct and he will be able to declare: “I told you so.”
Importantly this is against the backdrop of Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican party last year. He vanquished 16 senators, governors and other rivals in the primaries, running as an anti-establishment insurgent. His supporters often said they were sick of Republicans in Washington making promises that they failed to keep. Rejecting the healthcare bill will be taken as evidence of more of the same. ...
The president won’t have to clean up the political mess either. The White House has wisely ducked journalists’ attempts to brand the legislation “Trumpcare”. Instead it is House Speaker Paul Ryan who has given the Powerpoint presentations and become the potential fall guy for “Ryancare”. With few major legislative achievements to his name, Ryan has invested huge political capital in this legislation. Some conservatives have expressed disappointment that, despite his wonk credentials and so much time, this was the best he could come up with. Should it go down in flames, Trump is unlikely to come riding to his rescue.
US Air strikes on Isis-held Mosul 'leave 230 civilians dead', reports local media
Approximately 230 people are reported to have been killed in what is thought to have been a US-led coalition air strike on an Isis-held neighbourhood in Mosul.
A correspondent for Rudaw, a Kurdish news agency operating in northern Iraq, said that 137 people – most believed to be civilians – died when a bomb hit a single building in al-Jadida, in the western side of the city on Thursday. Another 100 were killed nearby.
“Some of the dead were taking shelter inside the homes,” Hevidar Ahmed said from the scene.
A spokesperson for Central Command, which coordinates US military action in Iraq, told The Independent they were aware of the loss of civilian life as reported by Rudaw and the information had been passed on to the civilian casualty team for “further investigation”. ...
No other fighting force in the country has the capability to launch an aerial attack of the scale reported.
‘The worst is yet to come in Mosul exodus’ – UNHCR representative in Iraq
'Worst is yet to come' with 400,000 trapped in west Mosul: U.N.
About 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in the Islamic State-held Old City of western Mosul, short of food and basic needs as the battle between the militants and government forces rages around them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.
Many fear fleeing because of Islamic State snipers and landmines. But 157,000 have reached a reception and transit center outside Mosul since the government offensive on the city's west side began a month ago, said Bruno Geddo, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Iraq.
"The worst is yet to come. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork-popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions," he said.
U.S. Senate to vote on Montenegro's NATO membership
The U.S. Senate will vote next week on the ratification of Montenegro as the newest member of the NATO alliance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday, after the Trump administration urged lawmakers to take up the long-delayed matter. ...
The Senate's Republican leadership had not scheduled a more time-consuming roll call vote until Thursday. McConnell announced in the Senate that there would be a procedural vote on Monday evening, which should clear the way for a final ratification vote later in the week.
Senate aides said they expected the Senate would approve of Montenegro's NATO membership when the vote takes place.
House intelligence chair defends talking with Trump during Russia investigation
The House intelligence committee chairman privately apologized to his Democratic colleagues on Thursday, yet publicly defended his decision to openly discuss and brief Donald Trump on typically secret intercepts that he says swept up communications of the president’s transition team. ...
“It was a judgment call on my part,” Nunes told reporters Thursday morning. “Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make wrong decision.” A congressional aide familiar with Nunes’s meeting said the chairman apologized to Democrats and pledged to work with them and share information related to the investigation. ...
Democratic representative Jackie Speier said Nunes apologized to the minority members of the committee. She told reporters on Capitol Hill that she did not know where the information came from, but recalled a comment Trump made in a Fox News interview earlier this month where he said the White House “will be submitting things before the committee very soon that hasn’t been submitted as of yet”.
There are a couple of interesting factoids buried deep in this article:
Meet the Russian oligarch who paid Trump’s former campaign manager $10 million
Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch whose name this week was thrown into the Trump administration’s ongoing Russia saga, is no stranger to allegations of shady business dealings. He is also known as one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most loyal and valued allies. On Wednesday, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort confirmed that he worked for Deripaska, but denied that his services included a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin Government,” as documents obtained by the Associated Press reportedly reveal. ...
On multiple occasions in the 2000s, Deripaska, whose visa was revoked by the U.S. government due to his alleged links to organized crime, hired former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole and his lobbying firm Alston & Bird to improve his standing in America and win him approval by the State Department. Despite Dole succeeding temporarily on a few occasions, Deripaska’s visa woes persisted, and he reportedly enlisted Manafort to help.
Around the same time, Deripaska entangled Sen. John McCain in controversy. While running for president in 2008, McCain faced criticism when it was reported that his campaign manager, Rick Davis, had once helped arrange a dinner meeting between the oligarch and a small group of U.S. senators — including McCain — at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Davis was also a long-time business partner of Manafort’s.
Manafort volunteers for interviews with Intelligence committees
President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has volunteered to interview with the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of Russian interference in last year’s election, committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) announced Friday.
Manafort has also offered to be interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to a Senate source.
Both Intelligence committees are investigating Russian interference in the US election.
Adam Schiff Is A Lying Corporatist Scumbag
In January of this year California Representative Adam Schiff, who receives a large percentage of his campaign funds from the military industrial complex and whose top donor last year is a major force in the war profiteering lobby, told the LA Times that he fears progressives have become “radicalized” and speculated that Clinton’s loss may have been due to the party moving “too far to the left”.
“The radical nature of this government is radicalizing Democrats, and that’s going to pose a real challenge to the Democratic Party, which is to draw on the energy and the activism and the passion that is out there, but not let it turn us into what we despised about the tea party," Schiff said, without clarifying whether he was referring to a fear that progressives will suddenly start hating gay marriage and universal healthcare or a fear that they’ll launch an aggressive takeover of the Democratic party the way the tea party has been taking over the GOP. Somehow I suspect that it is the latter, which explains why Schiff has been leading the charge to ensure that the party base forgets about the way the DNC violated its own Charter by deliberately sabotaging the Sanders campaign and keeping them focused on Russia instead of demanding the same basic standards of living that are accorded to everyone else in every other major country in the world.
Pretending Israel Is Innocent of Apartheid
On March 15, the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) published a report on Israeli practices and policies toward the Palestinians. Using international law as its comparative criterion, the report came to a “definitive conclusion” that “Israel is guilty of Apartheid practices.” The term Apartheid was not used in the report merely in a “pejorative” way. It was used as a descriptor of fact based on the evidence and the accepted legal meaning of the term. Such was the immediate uproar from the United States and Israel that U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, in a moment of moral failure, ordered the report’s withdrawal. ...
An objective consideration of Israel’s behavior makes it hard to escape the brutal reality of its officially condoned practices. On March 17, at the same time as the forced withdrawal of the ESCWA report, the U.S. State Department released a report on “grave violations against Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation.” This was part of the department’s annual “country reports on human rights practices.” Among the problems cited were Israel’s practice of unlawful detention, coerced confessions and excessive use of force, including torture and killings. ...
Earlier, on Feb. 8, it was reported that “Israel has banned anesthesia gas from entering the Gaza Strip.” There is a current backlog of some 200 patients in Gaza requiring surgical care, and some will die due to Israel’s ban. A week later, on Feb. 14, it was reported that Israeli officials were blackmailing Palestinian patients seeking permission to enter Israel for necessary medical treatment. A 17-year-old Gazan boy who suffered from congenital heart disease and needed a heart valve replacement “was explicitly told that in order to [leave the Gaza Strip and] have his operation, he would have to cooperate with the security forces and spy for Israel.” He refused and subsequently died. This is not a new or unusual tactic for the Israelis.
The moral failure at the U.N., represented by the withdrawal of the ESCWA report, is the result of Secretary General Guterres’s decision to acquiesce in a denial of reality – the reality of Israel’s practice of Apartheid. On the other hand, it probably also stems from Guterres’s acceptance of the reality of U.S. financial leverage along with the apparent threat to bankrupt the United Nations. This is, of course, a form of blackmail.
Activists Worry That Social Media Vetting of Visa Applicants Could Quietly Expand Trump’s Muslim Ban
Human rights activists are expressing concern that a new State Department directive requiring consular officials to look through social media accounts of some visa applicants will effectively expand President Trump’s Muslim ban — and be used to exclude people with certain political viewpoints.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that even as some key parts of Trump’s Muslim ban executive order are being held up by legal challenges, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered “mandatory social media checks” on visa applicants who have ever spent time in territory controlled by ISIS. He also directed embassies and diplomatic missions to identify other “populations warranting increased scrutiny,” whose visas would receive increased scrutiny.
Amnesty International sent a letter to the State Department, requesting that the memoranda and instructions related to the new measures be made public. “These implementation memos should be disclosed because they are a matter of public concern,” the letter reads. “Thousands of people apply for visas to travel to the United States—for urgently needed medical care, to escape persecution, to reunite with their families.”
Naureen Shah, a director at Amnesty International, told The Intercept that if the directive is applied with limited oversight, it could even further broaden Trump’s Muslim ban.
Senate Democrats pledge to block Neil Gorsuch's supreme court nomination
Democrats have vowed to block the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court, raising the prospect of a bitter showdown in the Senate.
The minority leader, Chuck Schumer, the former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania joined colleagues in declaring their opposition to Gorsuch on Thursday. ...
No Democrat has yet pledged to vote for Gorsuch and some have expressed disappointment about his Senate confirmation hearing, now in its fourth and final day. Schumer said: “Judge Gorsuch was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check on a president who has shown almost no restraint from executive overreach.” ...
But conservatives remain hopeful that eight Democrats can be peeled off, enough to avoid a filibuster, despite ongoing rancour over the failure to grant Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland a hearing. The conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said at a Washington Post Live event on Wednesday: “I want to get a working court, OK? What they did to Merrick Garland was wrong. I don’t want to do the same. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Senate Republicans Just Sold You Out to Advertisers
In a 50-to-48 vote along party lines, the U.S. Senate decided to kill FCC rules blocking your ISP from selling your browsing history to the advertising industry without permission. Should the change pass the House, as is expected, the likes of Comcast and Verizon will be able to make money disclosing what you buy, where you browse, and what you search from your own home, all without asking permission.
These are the 50 Senators who just voted to gut #BroadbandPrivacy rules & let ISPs sell your private data to marketers without permission. pic.twitter.com/n0UCEhQ5Sh
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) March 23, 2017
In an immediate signal that the vote will only benefit monied corporate interests and not the roughly 70 percent of Americans with a home broadband connection, the Internet & Television Association trade group gloated over their congressional victory:
“We appreciate today’s Senate action to repeal unwarranted FCC rules that deny consumers consistent privacy protection online and violate competitive neutrality. … Our industry remains committed to offering services that protect the privacy and security of the personal information of our customers. We support this step towards reversing the FCC’s misguided approach and look forward to restoring a consistent approach to online privacy protection that consumers want and deserve.”
It’s unclear how the broadband industry could be “committed” to user privacy while backing regulatory changes that would permit the sale of users’ private data.
Should Sanders Continue the Fight Outside the Democratic Party?
An interesting article by Michael Hudson. Here's a small taste:
Trump is Obama’s Legacy: Will this Break up the Democratic Party?
Identity politics used to be about three major categories: workers and unionization, anti-war protests and civil rights marches against racist Jim Crow laws. These were the three objectives of the many nationwide demonstrations. That ended when these movements got co-opted into the Democratic Party. Their reappearance in Bernie Sanders’ campaign in fact threatens to tear the Democratic coalition apart. As soon as the primaries were over (duly stacked against Sanders), his followers were made to feel unwelcome. Hillary sought Republican support by denouncing Sanders as being as radical as Putin’s Republican leadership.
In contrast to Sanders’ attempt to convince diverse groups that they had a common denominator in needing jobs with decent pay – and, to achieve that, in opposing Wall Street’s replacing the government as central planner – the Democrats depict every identity constituency as being victimized by every other, setting themselves at each other’s heels. Clinton strategist John Podesta, for instance, encouraged Blacks to accuse Sanders supporters of distracting attention from racism. Pushing a common economic interest between whites, Blacks, Hispanics and LGBTQ always has been the neoliberals’ nightmare. No wonder they tried so hard to stop Bernie Sanders, and are maneuvering to keep his supporters from gaining influence in their party.
When Trump was inaugurated on Friday, January 20, there was no pro-jobs or anti-war demonstration. That presumably would have attracted pro-Trump supporters in an ecumenical show of force. Instead, the Women’s March on Saturday led even the pro-Democrat New York Times to write a front-page article reporting that white women were complaining that they did not feel welcome in the demonstration. The message to anti-war advocates, students and Bernie supporters was that their economic cause was a distraction.
The march was typically Democratic in that its ideology did not threaten the Donor Class. As Yves Smith wrote on Naked Capitalism: “the track record of non-issue-oriented marches, no matter how large scale, is poor, and the status of this march as officially sanctioned (blanket media coverage when other marches of hundreds of thousands of people have been minimized, police not tricked out in their usual riot gear) also indicates that the officialdom does not see it as a threat to the status quo.”
Boris and Natasha Visit Fantasy Island
Wall Street and America’s corporate ‘leadership’ are among the class that decides how the rest of us live. This is the same class that supports both national political parties. What then is the likely motive for national Democrats who point to foreign others (Russia) as the source of domestic political dislocations? And to whom might this misdirection seem plausible? Probably not those who were lied to by the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction. And probably not those who lost their jobs, homes, families and communities in the Great Recession. While certainly not determinant, lived experience serves as an occasional check on self-serving bullshit.
To the extent that ‘resisting Trump’ accepts the ruling class premise that ‘resisting Clinton’ was any less of an imperative, there is nowhere to go politically. Well over half of the country has the well-earned right to ask where this resistance was over the last eight years when it was tossed onto the economic garbage heap? ... Grant for the moment that the all of the worst that can be said about Mr. Trump is true. (1) Personalizing the attack gives the political economy that produced him a pass, (2) the strategy is reactionary— where is the principled alternative? And (3) without a program, where do you take it once Mr. Trump is out of office?
The question of the missing principled alternative is crucial. The Democrats’ mantra of ‘we suck less’ depends on a base level of suck— a residual of the New Deal, that spiraled lower on their watch until political inflection became the result. Without building a floor based in human needs, e.g. food and housing security, meaningful work, quality health care and quality public education, cynical rhetoric from demagogues will carry the day.
Trump issues permit to begin construction of Keystone XL pipeline
The Trump administration has issued a presidential permit to pipeline builder TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline. ...
The state department says that it is confident that building the pipeline serves the US national interest. That is the opposite conclusion to the one the state department reached during the Obama administration.
“In making his determination that issuance of this permit would serve the national interest, the under secretary considered a range of factors, including but not limited to foreign policy; energy security; environmental, cultural and economic impacts; and compliance with applicable law and policy,” the department said, according to the Hill website. ...
The pipeline is to run over the Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground reservoir in the Great Plains that provides water access to millions, including several Native American tribes. ...
The permit was signed by Tom Shannon, a career diplomat serving as undersecretary of state for political affairs. That is because secretary of state Rex Tillerson recused himself due to his previous work running Exxon Mobil.
Ecuador: The rush for oil in Yasuni National Park
US scientists launch world's biggest solar geoengineering study
US scientists are set to send aerosol injections 20km up into the earth’s stratosphere in the world’s biggest solar geoengineering programme to date, to study the potential of a future tech-fix for global warming. The $20m (£16m) Harvard University project will launch within weeks and aims to establish whether the technology can safely simulate the atmospheric cooling effects of a volcanic eruption, if a last ditch bid to halt climate change is one day needed. ...
Janos Pasztor, Ban Ki-moon’s assistant climate chief at the UN who now leads a geoengineering governance initiative, said that the Harvard scientists would only disperse minimal amounts of compounds in their tests, under strict university controls. “The real issue here is something much more challenging,” he said “What does moving experimentation from the lab into the atmosphere mean for the overall path towards eventual deployment?” ...
Some senior UN climate scientists view such developments with alarm, fearing a cash drain from proven mitigation technologies such as wind and solar energy, to ones carrying the potential for unintended disasters.
Kevin Trenberth, a lead author for the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change, said that despair at sluggish climate action, and the rise of Donald Trump were feeding the current tech trend. “But solar geoengineering is not the answer,” he said. “Cutting incoming solar radiation affects the weather and hydrological cycle. It promotes drought. It destabilizes things and could cause wars. The side effects are many and our models are just not good enough to predict the outcomes”
Trump wants to kill the popular Energy Star program that has saved consumers $362 billion
The voluntary Energy Star program certifies appliances, lighting, electronics, and buildings that meet certain efficiency baselines that then help consumers save money on utility bills, and is one of 50 administered by the EPA set for elimination under the budget proposal.
But data suggests the Energy Star program is popular with consumers and businesses and good for the environment. In a recent survey by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, the label had an 87 percent public awareness as a symbol of energy efficiency. It has 16,000 partners that include manufacturers, retailers, schools and builders, and 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies have partnered with Energy Star to improve their energy performance. In all, the EPA reports, the standards have saved consumers $362 billion in utility bills and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 billion metric tons since its creation in 1992.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Surveillance State Goes After Trump
Five Creepy Things Your ISP Could Do if Congress Repeals the FCC’s Privacy Protections
Reporters Uncritically Repeat Trump Administration Claims on Laptop Ban
Roaming Charges: Nothing Was Delivered
The Life and Death Issue Ignored at Judge Gorsuch’s Confirmation Hearings
'The blues still stands for authenticity': my Mississippi road trip
A Little Night Music
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - If The Blues Was Whiskey
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - I Need Some Air, Time To Make My Getaway
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - Call Me Guitar Junior, I'm From Mississippi
Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Called Me On The Phone Last Night
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - Walkin' the Dog
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - Meet Me with Your Black Drawers On
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - Got To Have Money
Luther Guitar Junior Johnson - Get On the Floor
Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson & The Magic Rockers 1993 Tiel, The Netherlands
Comments
Political Centrism: The Road to Nowhere
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
evening jnh...
that cartoon seems uncomfortably accurate. i remember obama mumbling something to the effect that if your actions make all sides upset, then you've found the center - as if that was some sort of virtue.
Hola, Joe & Bluesters! Listening to Ryan's 'spiel'
right now--curious to hear his excuse for pulling the bill. I recall seeing Ryan when he appeared in Wisconsin with DT right after the November election, on the so-called Victory Tour. DT went to his defense as Ryan was booed as he came on stage. Frankly, I think that he'll be driven out of Leadership, and maybe primaried after this fiasco.
My biggests concern is that corporatist Dems will now try to negotiated a Copper Plan, which some conservative Senators (Warner, Manchin, Heidekamf, etc.) were pushing in 2014. I especially worry due to a remark made by one of the Dem lawmakers yesterday, on CNN--paraphrased, "we only need to improve a small sliver of the ACA--those in the private individual plans, about 5% of the population." Are these people nuts? Group health insurance premiums have skyrocketed, as well as deductibles and co-pays.
Apparently, this is exactly what Ryan announced. They're dropping revamping the ACA. Wonder what the Dems' response will be to this turn of event. In 2018, 16 counties in Tennessee won't have a single carrier, when Humana pulls out. So, it is true that in some areas, the Exchanges are definitely in a death spiral.
Thanks for tonight's EB, Joe. See you Guys after I run to the bank.
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
[my boldface and re-paragraphing]
Taro
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Situation is critical, Mollie. Docs plan to get in their faces..
Evening, mollie, joe, all !
All in with their idea of a National Day of Action during upcoming recess....
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2017/march/after-speaker-ryan-pulls-gop-%E2%80%...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Thanks, DO--you nailed it! Take a gander at
this piece about TN's ACA Exchange. Here's a few excerpts, but I hope folks will read the entire article,
The situation is dire in some states and locales, and only getting worse. I'll try to spread the word on Twitter.
Fingers crossed that PNHP will be successful!
[Edited: To remove redundancy in title of article.]
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Yep, the Ins bad actors are trying to blow up ACA in
hope the Repugs can get them something even more favorable. Thanks for the link.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
evening mollie...
i think that ryan is going to come out somewhat the worse for wear from this. his best hope is that he and the donald can play to the base and spin the propaganda machine to dump the blame onto the freedumb caucus.
i'm not sure that this makes single payer more likely in the short term, but the inability of the washington set to produce an acceptable replacement compromise that gives corporations what they want while at the same time not obviously setting millions of people out on ice floes to die is sort of oddly encouraging.
Be sure to put all sharp objects away before you read this
article from counterpunch. It is our fault for not destroying the Democratic Party before the price was as high.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
evening dk...
i thought that hudson did a great job with that piece. i think that he's right that a new party is probably the best option. the one thing that i'm not hearing from a lot of people with that opinion is that in order to make space for that new party we have to turn the corporate democratic into mulch. as long as the democrats are taking up space in the media and on the ballots and considered a viable entity, there will be no space for the new party.
The Disinfectant Party
There is not that many Dinos left. Vote out anyone with "incumbent " behind their name.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Re: Geoengineering
I always thought that eventually some scientists would try something like this as a last ditch tool to fight global warming. Not that I think it would turn out particularly well as it could have very large unanticipated side effects.
There is a sort of novel
by Naomi Orestes and someone else, fictional account of what happens with tech approaches to global warming. Not pretty. Kind of worked like pesticides, where at first it works, then immunity builds up, and the problem multiplies exponentially. I need to go back and read Naomi Klein on that too, but that's the part that makes me nervous - the unintended consequences humans seem so very good at creating.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
evening dhyerwolf...
perhaps i'm overly cautious, but i'm not too thrilled with the idea of people experimenting on such a large scale, or implementing fixes that have the potential to create irreversible changes to large earth systems.
i suppose that there is merit to their presumption that it is quite possible that capitalist-humans will push the planet's systems beyond the point where any simple solution based on stopping a significant amount of carbon pollution can work.
i just wish there was some sort of experiment that we could do on the trumpian knuckle-dragging capitalists to find out what might cause them to change their behaviors rather than experimenting on the planet's systems.
@Dhyerwolf
Gee, the public paying polluting industry and various interests to pump pollutants into the upper atmosphere so that polluting industry can continue to profit from polluting a little longer, while life lasts, sounds great!
Of course, there will be continuous fall-out of the additional pollutants literally everywhere, the ozone layer will suffer perpetual damage, the oceans will acidify even faster, as will the soil, and the reduced sunlight and increased drought and pollutants will further weaken that pesky life on the planet, increasing susceptibility to disease, just to touch on a few of the more obvious effects - but the guys working on that first trillion figure they won't need it much longer because Super-Tech will will replace life with machines which do things better, anyway.
This covers some of the issues better than I can, although it does understate/miss many others, probably because industry can produce more and better publicized studies than can whatever remains of independent science or of recorded observations:
http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2016/04/sulphur-sunshade-is-a-stupi...
What it really boils down to is that doing away with the natural, self-sustaining, complex and interdependent life support system in which we evolved enables all of these things which we take for granted - like 'free air' - to become expensive and corporate/billionaire controlled commodities for which the dwindling survivors could pay through the nose or just die once they ran out of money. (Dunno what the Greeds would do with their money, at that point, but it seems to be the fact of simply 'having it all' and leaving nothing for others that turns their cranks.)
Filling the upper (as well as the lower) atmosphere with a steadily-dropping rain of pollutants in order to reduce sunlight also neatly disposes of solar power, now making great progress in all areas and threatening polluting industry profits, and the prospect of a set-up which, once installed, produces non-toxic, non-polluting 'free' energy for those able to manage it, since solar, like our in-body Vitamin D production - and virtually all life on the planet - depends upon adequate sunlight. Not to mention an undamaged protective layer around the Earth preventing excessive radiation of the sorts fatal to life. And if anyone thinks that sulfites and various other toxic materials suggested for the purpose of further blocking the already pollution-reduced sunlight which Earth life needs for survival will not damage the ozone layer and the remaining life it showers down upon, I can sell you the bridge a lot of us may shortly be huddled under, with increased fossil fuel/industrial pollution*.
The accelerating die-off of life on the planet is due to polluting industry in the first place and there's very little time left in which to salvage enough of it for anyone's survival. Adding to the pollution-for-profit will simply polish it off faster and quite possibly more painfully. And the Green-house heat-trapping effect of such pollution won't help, either.
This has been in the works for quite some time, while the public was to be prepared to accept and pay for additional and irrevocably disastrous global pollution from which some greed-blinded ignoramuses expect to gain even more money and power than they have already often stolen from the rest of us ...
Please note that in the above article it was mentioned that
while below, it's explained that:
Trickle-down this time is to involve massive initiation of global acid rain, because, I suppose, we're not all dying off quickly enough to suit them. And almost nobody seems to mention that without sufficient oxygen-producing plant life, including those from the vast source of rapidly-dying oceans with slowing currents, there will not be sufficient to support life and nothing to breathe but pollution; this seems a fairly recent realization, something too huge to occur to many - until recently, with better computer models and concerns over prospective effects of nuclear or volcanic global dimming and the already accelerating global die-off of plant and other life.
* https://sites.google.com/site/acidrain1project/
Rather than further enriching polluters at the cost of the last chance of survival for life on the planet, we should be divesting, boycotting and fighting them tooth and nail for our very lives, which are otherwise doomed in the very near future.
(Boy, I thought my searches were scrambled and showing generally only older info before, but this... plus seeing tons of struck-off/inaccessible sites - many unrelated - with almost nothing showing so far, barring a couple of articles on forest die-off also drastically accelerating. Does anyone seriously think that the heavily and increasingly industrially polluted oceans and forests are acidifying and dying exclusively because of, up until now, slightly warmer overall temperatures, and not in large part because of such pollutants, most being produced by corporations - including the MIC - getting away with planetary murder? Others may do better in their searching than can I, at least, I'll hope so.)
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/lpr_2016/
(Mention on page 6 of the document at the URL given below)
https://www.wnf.nl/custom/LPR_2016_fullreport/
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Good evening Joe and Bluesters
I'm temporarily relived. Medicaid and essential healthcare needs remain...until?
Even Medicare struggles to carry the load. The wait for specialists can be life threatening as I write. Boggles the heart and mind that we share the same planet, country and political system which ignores what is is to be human.
"Miles to go, before we sleep."
Thanks for the news and blues.
My mother depends on Medicaid and Medicare for
her technical nursing center care. With you, smiley 7.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
do and all...
This came to my attention today. Is it good? I don't know; but, worth more investigation?
https://www.ourrevolutionmn.org/bots-better-world-text-resist-50409/
evening smiley...
i am relieved for you (and millions of others) who have been granted a temporary reprieve.
our culture is sick and needs help.
Amen.
This one will lift you up.
They're absolutely gushing about Bernie.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Budowsky now back on Bernie bandwagon, huh? Podesta emails...
says to him he was in great position, having set up Bernie's supporters with consistent praise, to bring them back into the fold for Hillary. Some progressive, Brent.
I believe this is RW site, but again, he's more evidence of how much things are upside down from this last election. The host and conservative guest take down "progressive" Brent Budowsky (who used to be great on the Randy Rhodes Show), for the endemic collusion of the media with the Clinton campaign
"WOW! Lib Journalist Budowsky Called Out on Live TV Over His Podesta Emails"
Of course he was just a one of many levers in the massive propaganda machine. But I don't want to forget any of these guys, who when the chips were down completely sold out Bernie by doing the bidding for the Clinton criminal corporate cabal. Here's just one roundup from RT, "Best of the worst: Here are the most shocking WikiLeaks Podesta emails so far." More here.
Looks like he's eager to get on the surging-Bernie-in-the-polls train. All these consultants and pundits are so transparent; they blow with the wind, and sometimes even literally get in bed together (see: James Carville and Mary Matalin. DC is gross, and increasingly Americans know it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
That said and the messenger killed, the message of Bernie's amazing stand alone favorable numbers over every single subject in DC, is, to me, a canary in a calamine.
Both parties are teetering on dead legs. Bernie could run away with it and rupture both parties for good, if he were to announce he become the leader of a 3rd party and build that from Capitol Hill and out at town halls around the country where he is beloved by many. His gravitas with the American people in that regard only stands to get bigger and bigger relative to the clownish and cowardly antics of both parties.
Good to see you all, and thanks for the EB as ever Joe.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
That explains a few things; thanks
I read the linked article and a few things jumped out at me. First, he calls the poll strongly favoring Bernie "stunning" -- but why would anyone be stunned by it? Then he calls the lack of popularity of Trump's bill "shocking" and "astounding":
Eyeroll. Then there's this gem:
Gee, has anyone told the democrats this? Apparently not. Who is he trying to kid?
He also argues that these "stunning" and "astounding" and "shocking" polls tell us that people now love Obamacare. Did he ever notice that Bernie promoted single payer - not Obamacare? Apparently not. But he's just sure this all means that electoral victory is coming for the democrats: the party that soundly rejected Bernie Sanders and his progressive vision.
It's a great poll for sure, that part is great news, and a Fox News poll no less. I wish so very much that Bernie would heed the call! Fuck the stupid democrats who backstabbed him, and beat both parties into oblivion! Come on Bernie! The country needs you.
evening mark...
it's all about money. there are large numbers of party hangers-on that all want a significant piece of pie. these are not activists that live on a shoestring in order to promote their social and political goals. these are people accustomed to living off the fat of the land, courtesy of that sweet, sweet, big-donor cash.
if budowski thinks that the party apparatus is going to go for somebody like bernie just because he has good positions on many issues that resonate powerfully with "the little people," he's dreaming.
the democratic party machine runs on cash. big cash. $27 dollar donations are not going to get it for them.
Thanks for the Budowsky quote, Mark--
I musta missed it, but, I'm not at all surprised. May use it occasionally in my signature line. IMO, it likely applies to any number of Dem Party shills.
Have a good one!
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Russiagate and TOP
just from the rec'd list
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) has seen 'Damning Evidence' of Trump-Russia Collusion in Classified Reports
"Hillary Clinton’s Stunning Campaign Statement About Trump’s Ties To Russia"
UPDATED: RussiaGate blows WIDE OPEN in Abramson report
I'm roaring with laughter at Ryan's spanking by the grassroots
Eating some of jakkalbessie's fine culinary delights while taking a break from packing for this year's Africa expedition.
Huge lion with beautiful main stalks through the savana.
Kruger National Park, 2016.
Edited: Sorry this was not meant to be a REPLY to you but instead a general comment to the EB.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
evening do...
i am also finding ryan's failure to be quite amusing. it almost seems like he never expected to be in the position of being able to repeal obamacare and now has to confront the shortcomings of his ideology. on the other hand, the democrats are in the same boat as ryan as they are flacking a less-than-adequate healthcare solution.
plenty of fail to go around, step right up.
nice shot of the lion! glad to hear there's another trip to africa in the offing for you guys.
Thanks joe. We are chancing yet another foray
onto a troubled world because of our love for observing wildlife.
Will this be the last year ? Hope not.
Perhaps Bluesters would be interested in this/
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
it seems worth taking the chance...
it almost seems like something of a duty to get out and see/document these things given the chance that the delicate balance that supports them is endangered.
safe travels!
Namaste.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Devil's advocate here...
I appreciate the good thinking that energies may be displaced in grandstanding the Russian-gate narrative, but it exists and is proving to be a very hot political potato for the the big house.
Most interesting to me is all the machinations of this past week attempting to deflect; covering up has, in past, proved to be the downfall.
I could be wrong.
Russophobia
Russophobia
....
please elaborate, as I'm not familiar with Russo-phobia...birth control?
Russophobia is political birth control
it prevents Democrats from winning elections, or learning from mistakes.
evening gj...
it seems a lot of democrats are seeing evidence, shocking evidence, evidence that is not just circumstantial these days - yet none of it is available to the public.
kinda reminds me of this:
@Joe, I don't understand this ...
From Michael Hudson's article Trump is Obama’s Legacy: Will this Break up the Democratic Party?:
Who believes that Germany wants a confrontation with Russia? I can't speak for the Baltics, but I don't understand, who seeks that confrontation. Other than the US I don't believe anyone wants it. I don't understand this paragraph and wonder if I have misunderstood its meaning
All the populist nationalistic right-wingers in Europe may want to break away from the EU, but what has that to do with Russia? Is Putin a right-winger? This article is so creepy, I can't believe it A glamorous young Russian nationalist is leading her country’s love affair with Trump and Le Pen It sounds as if not only Trump, but also Putin would love to break Europe apart supporting Europe's right-wing nationalist movements. That would be a horror.
What kind of website is qz.com?
Is Russia Funding ‘Fance's Trump, MARINE LE PEN’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN?
I am getting confused whose propaganda is that? Who wants sanctions against Russia, the US, NATO and the EU? All three? Equally?
I think there is a huge difference between Le Pen and Trump. She is a horrible, but very intelligent right-winger nationalistic populist and Trump is a narcisitic compulsive joker of a man, not crossing over as very intelligent or politically experienced or inclined, unable to reflect on himself and his lust for power. As if he had any ideological convictions at all. I don't understand anything anymore.
Again from the Hudson article:
Why would Sanders want to remake the Democratic Party as a democratic socialist party? There is a Socialist Party in the US. There is also a Green Party in the US. Apparenty none of those get along with each other and with Bernie, or what is that all about?
Thanks for the EB, I feel I get more confused from day to day. I will continue to read tomorrow morning. Too tired to think straight right now.
Good Night EB folks.
https://www.euronews.com/live
evening mimi...
well, the baltics and poland do seem to be hot to confront russia. germany was heavily involved in the coup and its aftermath in ukraine, so perhaps that is why hudson includes germany in that grouping. it's just a guess on my part, though.
i think that both the us and russia have reasons to want to see the european union break up, though i think that the us wants it far more than russia. i have read quite a number of articles over the past few years suggesting that putin is supporting far-right movements in european countries. i don't know how much to credit them, frankly. i can think of a couple of reasons why it would make strategic sense for putin to do so, however. authoritarian regimes tend to be stable, long-lasting and reliable (that's why the us supports so many right-wing dictatorships around the world). if these european right-wing movements need some assistance to rise to power, providing that assistance would obligate them to putin.
quartz is a digital-only business-oriented news outlet owned by the same publisher that publishes the atlantic (formerly the atlantic monthly). i've occasionally read stories by them and they seem fairly moderate in their bias.
the us wants sanctions against russia more than european countries do. russian sanctions hurt european economies which had significant trade relations with russia. france's agriculture sector was particularly hard-hit by sanctions. nato is an organization whose primary focus has always been to degrade russia and prepare for war with it - so nato probably wants the sanctions.
sanders would like to remake the democratic party because he can't remake the republican party and the us is a two-party system.
anyway, that's a quick answer to your questions. i hope it helps.
@Joe - thanks - I guess I have to
research better about the German involvement in the Ukraine coup. I haven't realized it and always had difficulties to understand what has happened there, even to understand how the US had been involved. It all makes my head spin and my mind losing it.
I also was not aware that Putin had supported European right-wing movements. I believed that Poland and the Baltics had major anxieties vis a vis Russia, and was willing to accept that as a given considering their history. I don't believe Germany had those same anti-Putin or anti-Russia anxieties and thought they didn't feel threatened. But there it is a saying here in Germany that we do all the things the US does with a little bit of delay. That's true even for cultural and musical trends.
ok, this is a very belated response. I have other things in my head richt now. Thanks for giving me some helpful explanations.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi
Lol, Russia has suddenly become ubiquitous - it's behind everything and controls all.
That long-targeted and desperately needed bogyman and universal scapegoat pops up just as it's needed for the warmongers - much as did certain 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' and 'harbouring of criminals within their country' for previous targets. Funny how the same-old, same-old keeps reappearing, from the same mysterious sort of evidence-free and explodable sources, but spreads and worsens every time it works out for the suicidally murderous Psychopaths That Be...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
The video about the oil drilling
in Ecuador made me tear up.
I am at a complete loss for ideas to help.
All I have managed to do is go, see, spend tourist dollars, bear witness.
Same for Africa.
I am nothing but an ageing storyteller, talking to kids about what once existed.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
it appears that oil is just too valuable and ecuador's needs are too great. that's of course not a fact of nature, it is the way that global capitalism works.
have a good evening.
Evening joe and bluesters.
Great music! And quote from Nyerere.
Both were so entertaining, I'm no longer sure I want to read the news.
Thanks for the you tube link to the full album An Evening With The Blues
I think I'll now always connect the EBs with Luther "Guitar Jr" Johnson ; ).
evening janis...
glad that you enjoyed guitar jr, he's a fine blues musician. his music is just about always better than the news.
Hello janis b. Hope all is well.
Did a twitter search just to see what 350.org was doing in NZ and found this. Amazing.... 2014 Divested! Are they still holding strong?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Outstanding essay from Michael Hudson.
He's got it right about Identity Politics.
Why can't people understand that the only color that matters is green ?
Identity Politics, especially as practiced by the Dermocrats, is just a cynical ploy to divide the working class against itself.
I'm still listening to Chuck Berry and various covers. Truly, without Chuck there is no rock n' roll. Especially, there is no Rolling Stones. They started out with Chuck Berry covers and played 'em for years and years.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgDY_Bbb0sE width:500 height:300]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.