Stephan: This report describes a classic example proving the Republican Party has no interest in your wellbeing. I know that sounds partisan, but it is not. It is just a statement of fact, and it describes why the American government is not working to foster wellbeing. In a few weeks, when the Republicans take over the House, I expect we are going to see attacks on Social Security, on Medicare, and Medicaid and the people who voted for Republicans are going to face the possibility that their wellbeing is going to be degraded because the people they voted for don't give a damn about the quality of the lives of their constituents. I wonder what effect that will have on the fear, resentment, racism, and hate of the Republican voters.
Margalie Williams, a cancer survivor, is hugged after speaking during a rally near Jackson Memorial Hospital to show support for the Affordable Care Act on March 2, 2017 in Miami, Florida. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty
As Congress prepares to boot millions of people off of Medicaid, landmark research published this week revealed that expansion of the government healthcare program—which some GOP decision-makers have blocked in their states—is tied to higher cancer survival for adults under 40.
“Our study shows a survival benefit of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act for young adult patients with cancer.”
“Cancer is a leading cause of death in young adults diagnosed between ages 18-39 years—and it is increasing. Approximately 83,700 young adults were newly diagnosed in 2020,” Emory University noted in a statement about the new study, which was led by researchers at the school’s Winship Cancer Institute as well as the American Cancer Society.
Published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the first-of-its-kind research relied on a sample of 345,413 adults ages 18-39 from across the United States.
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: Paul Krugman raises what I think is a major problem in the United States. America's wealth inequality is seriously distorting our social wellbeing, yet our Congress cannot seem to muster the ethical strength and integrity to do anything about it, like restructuring our absurd tax structure which has billionaires paying lower taxes than middle-class people.
Oligarch Elon Musk
Some years ago — I think it was 2015 — I got a quick lesson in how easy it is to become a horrible person. I was a featured speaker at a conference in São Paulo, Brazil, and my arrival flight was badly delayed. The organizers, worried that I would miss my slot thanks to the city’s notorious traffic, arranged to have me met at the airport and flown directly to the hotel’s roof by helicopter.
Then, when the conference was over, there was a car waiting to take me back to the airport. And just for a minute I found myself thinking, “What? I have to take a car?”
By the way, in real life I mostly get around on the subway.
Anyway, the lesson I took from my moment of pettiness was that privilege corrupts, that it very easily breeds a sense of entitlement. And surely, to paraphrase Lord Acton, enormous privilege corrupts enormously, in part because the very privileged are normally surrounded by people who would never dare tell them that […]
Stephan: I am sure you all saw those weird, perhaps pathetically psychotic would be the correct description, bubble gum cards portraying Trump in a variety of superhero roles. It tells you a lot about Trump's sense of his own manhood that he would do such a thing for money, but what stood out for me was not that he did this embarrassing grift but that the cards sold out at $99 a pack in 24 hours. That told me that there are still millions of overwhelmingly White Americans who, in spite of the endless unraveling of Trump's endless criminality, still live in the MAGAt fantasy world. As this article describes Trump is a symptom, like a plague pustule, not the actual disease that afflicts American society.
Supporters wait for the arrival of former U.S. President Donald Trump during an event at his Mar-a-Lago home on November 15, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
The American people — or a great many of them, at least — believe they can finally see the end of the fascist fever dream they have been lost in for these last seven years. It’s a cruel illusion; escape from the waking dream-nightmare is much farther away than it appears.
It is true that large numbers of Americans tried to reorient and steady themselves by voting in favor of “democracy” in the midterm elections. But most people in this country remain punch-drunk, confused by the trauma and abuse they’ve been bombarded with during the Age of Trump.
As for Trump himself and the neofascist movement and larger white right, they are largely undeterred by that electoral setback. Their existential threat to American democracy and society has by no means ended, and if anything they are amplifying their attacks. We cannot return to “normal” through a state of denial […]
Shannon Osaka, Climate Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: This is a sad report. What it is telling me is that the American government has degenerated from actually creating a government that fosters wellbeing to one that is basically a culture war. A group of angry Whites has created MAGAt world, funded by fascist oligarchs. This minority cohort is resentful, hate-filled, angry, and feels they are somehow victims. As a result, they elect retaliatory grotesque cartoon characters. You know the names. As this report makes clear what we need are ethical competent men and women who create social policies that prepare us for climate change and get us successfully out of the carbon era, and foster wellbeing for all the beings of the earth.
Vapor rises from a geothermal power station along the coast of the Salton Sea near Calipatria, Calif., in December 2021. Credit: Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty
To achieve America’s goal of shifting 80 percent of the country’s electricity away from fossil fuels by the end of the decade, there will have to be a massive transformation. That means solar farms peppering the landscape from California to New York; offshore wind turbines standing high above the waves off the coast of New Jersey; nuclear power plants emitting steam in rural areas. Together, these projects would have to add around 950 gigawatts of new clean energy and 225 gigawatts of energy storage to the grid.
And right now, projects accounting for at least 930 gigawatts of clean energy capacity and 420 gigawatts of storage are waiting to be built across the country.
They just can’t get connected to the grid.
These roadblocks — known as“interconnection queues” — are slowing America’s energy transition and the country’s ability to respond to climate change.
Stephan: One of the things that has altered the Congress since oligarchs, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, could buy the candidates they want is that both bodies of Congress on the Republican side have become filled with incompetent cartoon characters interested only in personal power. These members have no policies to make America a nation of wellbeing, they just argue about culture wars, and serve the interests of their masters. Eliminating or radically changing Social Security, as this report describes, is one example of what I mean. The only thing that is going to rectify our sad state as a country is those of us who do care about making America a nation committed to wellbeing must vote and get involved in the political process.
Republican MAGAt Representative Chip Roy Credit: Tom Williams / CQ-Rollcall / Getty
As Republicans prepare to wage a war on crucial anti-poverty programs when they take control of the House, using the debt limit and major risks to the economy as a weapon, some members of the GOP are threatening to vote against raising the debt limit no matter what.
According to CNN, several Republicans are saying that they will still vote against a bill raising the debt limit even if Republicans get all of their fringe demands – namely, cuts to social programs, among other things — put into the legislation. “I’m not sure I’ve seen anything that’s going to be able to convince me to raise the debt ceiling,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona).
Failing to raise the debt limit before the expected deadline of the first quarter of 2023 would have disastrous consequences for the economy. The U.S. would be at risk of defaulting on its payments, which would ruin the nation’s credit worthiness and could trigger a recession at a time when the state […]
