Wednesday, September 20th, 2017
Stephan: Republicans do not like facts, they make this point over and over, by their statements and policies. And when the facts contradict their ideology what do they do? Why they ignore them, and try to bury or hide them. Here is a clear example of what I mean.
The Republican party has become an identitarian Christofascist cult with little or no interest in the greater wellbeing of a united America.
Credit: Daily Mail
The Trump administration rejected a study conducted by its own Department of Health and Human Services finding that refugees had a net positive value in the United States over the past decade, according to a recent report by the New York Times. (emphasis added)
The study found that between 2005 and 2014, refugees “contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government” through the payment of federal, state, and local taxes — which far outweighed their cost to the country. “Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion.” When the study was completed in July, however, it was never publicly released, and the Trump administration dismissed the findings. From the New York Times:
White House officials said those conclusions were illegitimate and politically motivated, and were disproved by the final report issued by the agency, which asserts that the per-capita cost of a refugee is higher than that of an American.
The rejected report contradicts the common refrain […]
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Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
IAN MILLHISER, - Think Progress
Stephan: I had a full lineup of stories for today's edition and, then, this afternoon stories began to come out on the smaller media outlets about yet another Republican attempt to screw millions of people out of their healthcare.
With Irma, the Russians, and the North Koreans, the media has overloaded. They can only do two stories a day, and they are swamped out. So this seems to be happening with very little public discussion. I haven't heard a single story on the new reality examining what Senator Lindsey Graham and his spiteful band of trolls are up to, and very close to achieving.
If you want to protect your healthcare you better get on the phone to your representative and Senators and let them know you feelings.
From left, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., hold a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017, to unveil legislation to reform health care.
Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik
Senate Republicans are on the cusp of passing a bill that will eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of health funding, destabilize insurance markets, and eventually phase out Medicaid in its entirety. Less than two months after three Republican senators stopped an earlier effort to strip away much of America’s health care safety net, millions of Americans’ health care is now in very serious peril.
The new Trumpcare legislation — often referred to as “Graham-Cassidy” after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidey (R-LA), its leading proponents — contains several provisions undercutting the Affordable Care Act. It eliminates subsidies helping many millions of Americans purchase health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges and Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, replacing this funding with a less generous block grant to states.
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Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate and Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: Lawrence O'Donnell has just done a two-minute segment on healthcare, and here is Paul Krugman, with whom I am in strong agreement. So others agree with me concerning how bad this new Republican effort to cut healthcare is.
This new Republican bill will be voted on before the Congressional Budget Office even has a chance to score it, but it is already clear that it is even worse than the one defeated a few weeks ago. It is about as disgusting a legislative power play as one is ever likely to see.
This is an emergency. You need to call your congressional delegation, and let them know you oppose the Graham-Cassidy bill
The sponsors of the Graham Cassidy Bill to gut American healthcare.
Credit: The Atlantic
I haven’t yet read Hillary Clinton’s “What Happened,” but it seems pretty clear to me what did, in fact, happen in 2016.
These days, America starts from a baseline of extreme tribalism: 47 or 48 percent of the electorate will vote for any Republican, no matter how terrible, and against any Democrat, no matter how good. This means, in turn, that small things — journalists acting like mean kids in high school, ganging up on candidates they consider uncool, events that suggest fresh scandal even when there’s nothing there — can tip the balance in favor of even the worst candidate imaginable.
And, crucially, last year far too many people were complacent; they assumed that Trump couldn’t possibly become president, so they felt free to engage in trivial pursuits. Then they woke up to find that the inconceivable had happened.
Is something similar about to […]
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Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
JENNY HOPKINSON, - Politico
Stephan: Biodynamic gardeners and farmers have known for decades that the American industrial chemical monoculture agriculture model was a growing disaster. In the late 70s my friends Christopher Bird and Peter Tompkins following up on their international best seller The Secret Life of Plants by writing a second book Secrets of the Soil. Ag schools and scientists at the Department of Agriculture pooh-poohed its central premise: the key to a healthful agriculture model was healthy soil.
Almost four decades later the accuracy of Chris' and Peter's premise is being proved correct, and the smug complacency and the bankruptcy of the ag establishment is being unmasked. Here's a just published story that lays out the central issues.
Illustration by Mike Byers/Politico
Four generations of Jonathan Cobb’s family tended the same farm in Rogers, Texas, growing row upon row of corn and cotton on 3,000 acres. But by 2011, Cobb wasn’t feeling nostalgic. Farming was becoming rote and joyless; the main change from one year to the next was intensively planting more and more acres of corn and soy, churning up the soil and using ever more chemical fertilizers and herbicides to try and turn a profit.
“I’d already had the difficult conversation with my dad that he would be the last generation on the farm,” Cobb said.
While looking for a new job, Cobb stopped into a local office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pick up some paperwork. That day, the staff was doing a training session on soil health. He stayed to watch and was struck by a demonstration showing a side-by-side comparison of healthy and unhealthy soils.
A clump of soil from a heavily tilled and cropped field was dropped into a wire mesh basket at […]
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Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
Stephan: One of the most fascinating trends I follow is the neuroscience research that is explaining human behavior. What was previously thought to be just psychological and volitional is being shown through this work to actually be largely psychophysical. Here's the latest.
Credit: Uplift
Unlocking the Magic of Compassion
A recent flood near where I live put many people’s homes and businesses under three metres of water. The natural disaster left the community devastated, and left me scratching my head at the judgement that came from some people towards the victims of the flood. Instead of feeling compassion, people pointed fingers, saying they should have been better prepared, moved their belongings to higher ground and not been so reckless. Even the volunteer emergency rescuers were criticised for either not doing enough or not getting to people quickly enough.
This is not the first time intense negative judgements have been launched at people who are suffering, instead of offering support, understanding and love. So, why do we humans often instantly jump to blaming and shaming people, even the victims of shattering trauma, instead of being compassionate?
Dr. James R. Doty, clinical professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University, and the Director of […]
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