Saturday, August 19th, 2017
Marshall Allen, Reporter - ProPublica
Stephan: If there was ever any doubt that what passes for healthcare in the Unite States is not about wellbeing at all but is explicitly about maximizing profit this story should settle the issue. We spend more per capita than any other nation in the world, and what do we get? We get the system described in this story.
discarded hospital supply warehouse
Credit: Tristan Spinski
Just outside of Portland, Maine, there’s a 15,000-square-foot warehouse that’s packed with reasons the U.S. health care system costs so much: Shelves climb floor to ceiling, stacked with tubs overflowing with unopened packages of syringes, diabetes supplies and shiny surgical instruments that run hundreds of dollars apiece. There are boxes of IV fluids and bags of ostomy supplies and kits with everything you’d need to perform an obstetrics surgery.
Help Us Investigate Wasted Health Care Dollars
Experts say the United States might be squandering a quarter of the money spent on health care. That’s an estimated $765 billion a year. Do you believe you’ve encountered this waste? Tell us here.
This, however, isn’t a story of about the crippling price of medical supplies. This is about the high cost of medical supplies that hospitals throw away.
On a recent snowy day the warehouse’s 65-year-old proprietor, Elizabeth McLellan, gave an indignant accounting: She yanked a urinary catheter out […]
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Saturday, August 19th, 2017
Dahr Jamail, Reporter - truthout
Stephan: You thought Fukushima was yesterday's news because you didn't see or read anything about it recently? Surprise, it's not close to being over.
Thousands of bags of radiation-contaminated soil and debris wait to be processed inside the exclusion zone, close to the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant on February 26, 2016, in Okuma, Japan.
Credit: Christopher Furlong
When Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered a triple-core meltdown in March 2011 as the result of devastating earthquake, most people had no idea this was only the beginning of a nuclear disaster that has arguably become the single worst industrial accident in human history.
Keeping the three core meltdowns cool has been an ongoing challenge that has yet to be met. As fresh water is pumped over the cores, it is then stored on site in massive tanks. The Tokyo Electric Power company (TEPCO), the operator of the plant, then has to figure out what to do with that water.
Recently, TEPCO announced that it would dump 770,000 tons of radioactive tritium water into the Pacific Ocean.
The announcement infuriated local fishermen and environmental groups across Japan. According to Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist and winner of the 2015 Rachel Carson […]
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Saturday, August 19th, 2017
MOISES VELASQUEZ-MANOFF, Contributing Opinion Writer - The New York Times
Stephan: Here is a lovely story showing how to use humor and a sense of satire to disarm the Neo-nazis right.
For decades, Wunsiedel, a German town near the Czech border, has struggled with a parade of unwanted visitors. It was the original burial place of one of Adolf Hitler’s deputies, a man named Rudolf Hess. And every year, to residents’ chagrin, neo-Nazis marched to his grave site. The town had staged counterdemonstrations to dissuade these pilgrims. In 2011 it had exhumed Hess’s body and even removed his grave stone. But undeterred, the neo-Nazis returned. So in 2014, the town tried a different tactic: humorous subversion.
The campaign, called Rechts Gegen Rechts — the Right Against the Right — turned the march into Germany’s “most involuntary walkathon.” For every meter the neo-Nazis marched, local residents and businesses pledged to donate 10 euros (then equivalent to about $12.50) to a program that helps people leave right-wing extremist groups, called EXIT Deutschland.
They turned the march into a mock sporting event. Someone stenciled onto the street “start,” a halfway mark and a finish line, as if it were a race. Colorful signs with silly slogans festooned the route. “If only the […]
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Friday, August 18th, 2017
STEVEN HARPER, Attorney - Bill Moyers
Stephan: Attorney Steven Harper and Bill Moyers have done the country a real service. The complex and interlocking matrix of deceit and corruption in the Trump operation that has brought us to this point is very hard to sort out and arrange in a comprehensible way; it covers years and dozens of people.
Harper has done that for us and, in making it comprehensible, he has revealed the true depth and breadth of the problem we face as a country, and I am speaking here only about the Trump Russian connection. One can only wonder what else there is? Moreover, why didn't any of the news organizations dig this out during the campaign? Why didn't the Republican Party?
I urge you to click through and scroll down this sordid tale. I suspect you will be as dismayed as I was.
From the outset, Donald Trump has called the search for the truth about connections between his 2016 campaign and Russia a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” Along the way, he has taken unprecedented steps to stop it. As President Trump foments chaos and confusion about what actually happened — and what continues to happen — this Trump/Russia timeline seeks to offer order and clarity.
Since we first launched it in February, the timeline has grown from 24 entries to more than 400 — and the saga is far from over. Reading it from start to finish is a daunting task, so we’ve added tools that enable users to narrow its content by individual. And, of course, we’ll continue updating it.
Are several congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller wasting their time on a “hoax” and a “witch hunt”? Review the timeline, follow updates as they appear and decide for yourself.
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Friday, August 18th, 2017
MARK HAND, - Think Progress
Stephan: The utility companies are wetting themselves fearing the end of centralized power and the national grid, as a result of the transition out of the carbon era. So of course they found pliable corrupt politicians, mostly Republicans, and they are going to try and buy laws that will slow the process down as much as possible, or that assure they will stay involved.
Given the level of corruption in the U.S. unless something changes we may be the last nation in the developed world to remain centered on carbon.
Republican Maine Governor Paul LePage
Credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The nation’s leading electric utility and their affiliated companies, along with top utility executives, contributed more than four times as much money to the Republican Governors Association in the first six months of 2017 than to the Democratic Governors Association, according to a new report.
Governors can have a significant impact on the activities of utility companies in their states, whether it is appointing members to state regulators commissions or developing energy policy. Most recently, Republican governors in Maine and Indiana played important roles in impeding the growth of clean energy in their states, UtilitySecrets.org, a joint project of the Energy and Policy Institute and the Center for Media and Democracy, stated in the report.
In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed a bill that shreds incentives for rooftop solar, delivering a blow to solar installers and their customers. In Maine, lawmakers failed to override Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) veto of a solar bill aimed at boosting rooftop solar growth. The actions by the Republican governors were […]
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