Stephan: If you look at the polls Trump's standing is dropping like a rock. The USA Today poll published yesterday afternoon showed Trump 37%, and Obama 55%, and I will bet they fall further still as people really begin to get a look at the man a little less than half of us elected President.
The Financial Times has done considerable research published in several installments concerning Trump's Russian business relationships. This is a summary of them. After you read this, and click back to source material, if you voted for Trump ask yourself: Am I o.k. with a man like this as my President?
In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. attended a real estate conference, where he stated that
Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.
As it turns out, that may have been an understatement. Human rights lawyer Scott Horton, whose work in the region goes back to defending Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet dissidents, has gone through a series of studies by the Financial Timesto show how funds from Russian crime lords bailed Trump out after yet anther bankruptcy. The conclusions are stark.
Among the powerful facts that DNI missed were a series of very deep studies published in the [Financial Times] that examined the structure and history of several major Trump real estate projects from the last decade—the period after his seventh bankruptcy and the cancellation of all his bank lines of credit. …
The money to build these projects flowed almost entirely from Russian sources. In other words, after his business crashed, Trump was floated and made to appear to operate a successful business enterprise through the infusion of hundreds in millions of cash from dark Russian sources.
Stephan: The story of toddlers killing people with guns stayed with me, and it got me interested in looking for a non-authoritarian country that had very strict gun control. What would that look like?
The data is clear: Japan is the antipode to the United States on firearm policy. Let me be clear: I am not recommending this. I don't think it is in American political reality. I support the 2nd Amendment. I do, however, say Japan has policy elements we should incorporate.
I'm sorry I don't want another Florida airport massacre. I'm tired of massacres and the BS solution of "good guns with guns."
It does not work; it has been condemned by its social outcome data. It just creates more death.
How countries compare on gun deaths
(Number of deaths per 100,000 people acc. to latest available data)
Source: GunPolicy.org
Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun crime in the world. In 2014 there were just six gun deaths, compared to 33,599 in the US. What is the secret?
If you want to buy a gun in Japan you need patience and determination. You have to attend an all-day class, take a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95%.
There are also mental health and drugs tests. Your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups. Then they check your relatives too – and even your work colleagues. And as well as having the power to deny gun licences, police also have sweeping powers to search and seize weapons.
That’s not all. Handguns are banned outright. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed.
The law restricts the number of gun shops. In most of Japan’s 40 or so prefectures there can be no more than three, and you can only buy fresh cartridges by returning the spent cartridges you bought on your last visit.
Stephan: I think the attempt to repeal Obamacare is fraught with pitfalls leading to disaster. Every person I know over 60, whether a person of means or with only a limited income, is deeply alarmed at what is being contemplated. I had dinner tonight with friends I have known for years, who both have expensive health issues and who are considering selling their lovely home and leaving the country to someplace where they can get better healthcare at a much reduced cost. They may do it but they are not seeking it.
What we should be doing is amending Obmacare to single-payer healthcare, which would be vastly cheaper, and deliver improved quality. Healthcare is one of the most explicit proofs of the Theorem of Wellbeing. We must surrender the illness profit system model.
Rand Paul and Paul Ryan
After eight years of bashing Obamacare, congressional Republicans still haven’t come up with a plan to replace it. They are, however, essentially unified in wanting to stop the Congressional Budget Office from estimating how much a repeal might cost.
While the media and most Democrats were focusing on the House of Representatives voting to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics (a measure that was subsequently retracted), the larger document that the initiative was part of also prohibited the office from analyzing proposals to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Almost no one seems to have noticed this.
Responding to the provision on the floor of the House on Jan. 3, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., condemned it and the Republicans:
“They’re admitting in their own rules that their proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act will be devastating to the federal deficit and the national debt,” he said.
Two representatives for House Speaker Paul Ryan did not respond when contacted by Salon asking about the Congressional Budget Office restriction.
Stephan: As you read this, think in terms of older people who have assumed debt for their children and grandchildren, and now face a Republican administration committed to trying to destroy the meager safety net we have in this country, thus rendering these elders even more vulnerable to unanticipated emergencies, increases in the costs of their pharmaceuticals, etc.
Now think about much of Europe where they not only have universal healthcare, decent elder care, and those children and grandchildren can go to college at no tuition cost and ask yourself: Why are we so inferior? Why can't America seem to do this?
It’s no secret that Americans carry an enormous amount of student debt: $1.3 trillion in total, owed by 44 million borrowers.
Less well known is that many debtors aren’t borrowing for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren, and the number of Americans over 60 with student debt is soaring.
According to a new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, borrowers over 60 have $66.7 billion in student loan debt. The number of debtors over 60 has quadrupled in a decade—to 2.8 million in 2015 from 700,000 in 2005—making them the fastest growing age segment with student debt. While some of it was borrowed for their own education, more than two-thirds of the debt is owed for children or grandchildren.
The rising levels of debt for borrowers of all ages matches the soaring increases in tuition. The average annual tuition at four-year institutions nearly doubled from 2000 to 2014, to $24,706, and while tuition at private universities is much higher ($36,589), the biggest increases have come at public universities, as state legislatures have withheld tax dollars from higher education. Those sums don’t include room, board, books or activity fees.
Joe Romm, Editor - Climate Progress - Think Progress
Stephan: If you read me regularly you know I have predicted that China, by making the commitment to really get into non carbon energy thus becoming the world leader would end up creating millions of jobs generating trillions of dollars, while the U.S. with an incoming climate change denier administration committed to doing everything it can to preserve carbon energy seems poised to miss this wellness oriented trend.
As this report spells out, the transition from carbon to noncarbon is going to be one of the great job producing activities of the 21st century. Right now we are poised to be followers not leaders, and the economic implications of that are tragic.
China is preparing to go big on the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades.
Beijing’s newest 5-year energy development plan invests a stunning 2.5 trillion yuan ($360 billion) in renewable generation by 2020. Of that, $144 billion will go to solar, about $100 billion to wind, $70 billion to hydropower, and the rest to sources like tidal and geothermal power.
The Chinese National Energy Administration said in a statement Thursday the resulting “employment will be more than 13 million people.”
China is already doing way better than the U.S. in this regard, and President-elect Trump’s commitment to opposing clean energy will not make things any better. As the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported last year, China already has over 40 percent of all jobs in renewables, globally, while the U.S. has under 10 percent (see chart above).
We know clean energy jobs are the only major new source of sustainable high-wage […]
In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. attended a real estate conference, where he stated that
China is preparing to go big on the only major new source of sustainable high-wage employment in the coming decades.
