#Texas is killing public education to benefit for profit schools

[comrade-meow]

Big Banks With Big Investments in the Gender Identity Industry

Last week I did a deep dive into the bankers behind the leadership of the LGBT agenda. Let’s now take a look at the banks themselves, twisting themselves five ways from Sunday to support the tiny part of the population calling themselves “transgender.”

Again, before we begin this exploration, lets contemplate for a moment, the enormous and rapid, global changes underway in institutions, corporations, stores, governments, schools, medical facilities, women’s organizations, etc. for people avoiding the biological reality of their sexed bodies and how expensive these changes are. Dictionaries are being overhauled, laws are being fought to allow men into women’s sports and safe spaces, young women who’ve elected to have their breasts amputated and who believe they are now and have always been male, are being used in corporate advertising, signaling progress. Corporations, stores, bars, restaurants and institutions are overhauling their bathrooms and their health insurance policies. Pronouns are being added to everything and a gargantuan global, political infrastructure has been built to drive the normalization of body dissociation. AND, supposedly, this is all happening because governments, politicians, Amnesty International, the ACLU, the UN and other myriad organizations, care so much about these people with identity issues. Dang, I have a bridge to sell anyone who is buying this nonsense.

But, let’s move on. Banks. Who are the giants making way for .03% of the population?

Last year, Mastercard created the very first credit card for people calling themselves “transgender” and “non-binary,” as if they were some subset of humans and not the males and females they were born as. “True Name” Pride credit card, was the name given to this roll out, which basically allows people to use whatever the hell name they want on their credit cards. I doubt they’re allowing for a change of social security number along with it.

According to Business Statement for “Transgender “ equality, Bank of America, Citi Bank, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Deutsche bank, Ernst & Young, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase and Co., Morgan Stanley, US Bank, and Visa are just a handful of banks, credit card companies, and investment houses that are all-in for trans, under a banner of “inclusivity and diversity (I&D).” This I&D corporate-speak is being rolled out everywhere and looks a helluva lot like uniformity of thought and behavior that people are being punished for not abiding by.  Citi Bank, Bank of America and Capital One Banks are all-in supporters of PLFLAG. Rolddy Leyva, Vice President of Global Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (DIB is a variation on I&D) for Capital One is particularly concerned with black “trans women," who he believes, become targets of hate and violence with appalling regularity, when of course there is no proof of any such thing. According to several reports, the number of men of color pretending to be women killed in the US in 2019 was 20. Twenty men who like to wear dresses and perform femininity, many working as prostitutes, a dangerous experience to begin with, were killed by other men over the course of one year. Let’s put this into perspective. In 2018, there were 238 women killed by male single-offenders in the state of Texas alone, not to mention the other 49 states. Somehow, none of these corporations, stores, restaurants, bars, medical institutions, or banks care about the vulnerability of females. There have been no special workshops to create a safe environment for women at work. No encouragement for employees to be an ally to women, no lacquered placards denoting allyship and no education to enlighten employees to the fact that women are basically under siege in the US, let alone elsewhere in the world.  

Wells Fargo, funding GLAAD, is making it very comfortable for their male employees to pretend to be female.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs added health-insurance coverage for unnecessary genital surgeries on people rearranging their sex markers, as part of a push to attract top talent and recruit and retain a more “diverse” workforce. The surgery alone could cost an individual anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000 if they paid out of pocket, depending on their particular situation. That figure doesn't include hormone and other drug treatments. Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500)' plan covers the actual surgery, as well as “transgender”-related prescription drugs, such as wrong-sex hormone injections. Goldman is not the only financial firm that offers such “benefits.” Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), Deutsche Bank (DB) and Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500) also offer some level of coverage for brutal, dangerous and unhealthy sex characteristic rearrangements.

Maeve DuVally, a male managing director at Goldman Sachs with a penchant for black, high-heeled pumps, finds it easy to pretend to be female at work. Sachs has made it not only effortless, but surely provided part of the impetus for DuVally to discover his “transness” after attending a meeting last year at the bank.  Prior to the meeting in March, DuVally was only comfortable dressing in “women’s clothes” at home. Then, “an invitation went out to the bank’s employees: Goldman’s L.G.B.T. network was hosting a panel on “how to be stronger allies to the transgender and gender non-conforming community.” DuVally showed up to the event, in Goldman’s auditorium, in a wig and makeup, and afterward he introduced himself to some bank employees. At the November 22nd meeting employees were instructed to stop using pronouns which recognize the average biological, physiological, and psychological distinctions between men and women, and included a video and complex instructions on the new order of business.

“DuVally found the event encouraging. One co-worker, who watched it remotely from London, took copious notes and emailed them to the communications group afterward. Everyone who attended received laminated cards explaining correct pronoun usage. DuVally realized, he said, that it was time to come out as “transgender” at Goldman.” He went on to “come out” on various international talk-shows and news platforms as well.

Goldman has also begun an initiative to update its banks internal directory to allow employees to designate their preferred pronouns.

Barclays has long been leading the charge on LGBT+ rights in the workplace. The bank was headline sponsor at Pride 2018 around the world. Head of Region for Home Solutions West at Barclays, Amy Stanning, another male pretending to be a female, has been made quite comfortable at work too.

Aside from the obvious cognitive dissonance of these corporate D&I programs which in part seek to balance out sex-based inequality on their staff, but then hire men that can then be counted as women, there is the curious massive corporate interest for .03% of population pretending to be the opposite sex, or to not have a sex. At least, this should make people curious, and yet if they are, they aren’t talking.  It almost seems as if these corporations are expecting a lot more people identifying as something they are not.

Let us not lose sight of the powerful lunatic behind this façade of inclusivity and his agenda. Martine Rothblatt, the founding father of the transgender empire, headed a luncheon with Beth Brooke-Marciniak in 2016 to celebrate LGBT OutWOMEN Business Leadership. Brooke-Marciniak, head of public policy at Ernst & Young and Co-Chair for Partnership for Global LGBTIQ+ Equality, was voted one of the most powerful women in the world ten times. Rothblatt is a transhumanist that supports corporate I&D events while simultaneously promoting the idea that transgender is an onramp to transhumanism at other events, events funded by Arcus Foundation, the most powerful LGBT NGO in the world. “The re-creation of the human body has already begun,” Rothblatt tells us.

It would make far more sense that these D&I policies purportedly for .03% of the population, are in actuality for the generation of biologically augmented humans bound to follow the corporate normalization of body dissociation for profit.

[michiganprelawland]

Class Action Lawsuits On The Rise Due To Pandemic

By Brooke Wilke, Michigan State University Class of 2022

May 5, 2021

In the past year, there has been a spike in class action lawsuits due to COVID 19. A class action lawsuit allows a group with similar interest/injury to sue or be sued. For example, in Mardig Taslakian V. Target, et al. (2020), Taslakian, individually and on behalf of others, sued Target corporation and Target Brands, Inc., over an alleged misrepresentation of hand sanitizer marketing. Target’s brand of hand sanitizer, “up and up” claims to kill 99.99% of germs and bacteria but has run into some controversy on whether scientific evidence will back it up. The lawsuit aims to benefit consumers who purchased this hand sanitizer expecting it to work as well as it claims, preventing illnesses like COVID 19. Attached below is a copy of the complaint:

https://www.classaction.org/media/taslakian-v-target-corporation-et-al.pdf

In another case regarding class action lawsuits, namely, Nelcy Alexa Rivera De-Leon, et al. V. Frontier Airlines Inc., passengers were requesting full refunds due to cancellations from the pandemic. They claim that the airline has not refunded them. Many plaintiffs found that the same thing was happening to others. Allegedly, Frontier Airlines was to give out credits for future trips rather than a full refund. Suits against airlines have escalated both in Canada and the U.S. recently.

More class action lawsuits have been filed due to cancelations, this time for school trips. The EF Institute for Cultural Exchange, Inc. and other school trip providers, such as, Education First Class are being sued for allegedly not providing a full refund for cancelations resulting from COVID 19. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants used unfair cancelation policy in their contracts. See, Grabovsky V. EF Institute for Cultural Exchange, Inc., et al, for case details, or attached is the complaint.

https://www.classaction.org/media/grabovsky-v-ef-institute-for-cultural-exchange-inc-et-al.pdf

Adding to that, event cancelations are also becoming an issue, especially festivals and sports games. Namely festivals such as: South by Southwest, Austin Texas Festival, and Lightening In A Bottle festivals. Allegedly, the terms and conditions require no refund for tickets unless otherwise required by law. Plaintiffs are claiming that is void due to unforeseen events, such as the pandemic. Online ticket purchasing websites, such as StubHub, and Major League Baseball are also allegedly facing similar issues. (See Tessa Nesis V. Do Lab, Inc., et al. for reference)

Another big class action lawsuit stemmed from the ongoing pandemic deals with university closing and refunds. Many universities are being challenged for profiting off the pandemic by allegedly refusing refunds for things like room and board, fees, etc. The Arizona Board of Regents, who are in charge of Arizona’s public university system, specifically, is among those being challenged. (See RosenKrantz et al V. Arizona Board of Regents). Along with Arizona universities, many others are facing the same issues for allegedly refusing tuition/fee costs from COVID closures such as: University of Miami, Purdue University, Pennsylvania State, University of Colorado Boulder, and still many others. Attached below is the complaint filed for Penn State University:

https://www.classaction.org/media/thomson-v-the-pennsylvania-state-university-et-al.pdf

In New York, gym members of Town Sports International’s (TSI) allege that while the gyms were closed due to COVID 19, TSI “outrageously” charging members their monthly fee. In Danforth et al V. Town Sports International, LLC, et al, plaintiffs also allege that TSI misrepresented their cancelation policy because they are allegedly not honoring their policy which states a member can cancel at anytime. Other gyms are also facing similar issues such as, 24 hour fitness, and Planet Fitness. Attached below is the complaint filed against Planet Fitness.

https://www.classaction.org/media/holloway-v-planet-fitness-franchising-llc-et-al.pdf

More issues arise in cases involving Zoom Video Communications Inc., and drops in the stock market. Zoom, became popular amid the novel coronavirus. Investors claim Zoom Inc misrepresented their encryption effectiveness. Allegedly, COVID 19 exposed concerns of privacy in Zoom Inc. This supposedly cased a drop in the stock. (Cullen V. Zoom Video Communication, Inc.)

Suits are even being filed for negligence. Cruise lines are being challenged due to alleged negligence during COVID 19. Plaintiffs claim the ships did not follow proper COVID 19 guidelines, and failed to warn passengers of a previous outbreak. One case in particular, Jacob Gleason et al V. Princess Cruise Lines, Ltd. it is alleged that the cruise ship also would not provide refunding if passengers chose to cancel due to negligence regarding COVID 19 safety. Many other plaintiffs filed suits against Carnival’s Princess line. Attached below is a complaint made against Carnival Corporation and Princess Cruise Lines, Ltd.

https://www.classaction.org/media/archer-et-al-v-carnival-corporation-and-plc-et-al.pdf

Along with the said examples, there are still many other class action lawsuits being filed, i.e. workplace concerns, due to the pandemic. To note, these cases are ongoing and have not yet been determined. COVID 19 has definitely affected the system in terms of civil law.

______________________________________________________________

“COVID-19 Class Actions Forecast.” American Bar Association, www.americanbar.org/groups/tort_trial_insurance_practice/publications/committee-newsletters/covid-19_class_actions_forecast/.

“Join Class Action Lawsuits: Know Your Rights.” ClassAction.org, www.classaction.org/.

“Class Action Lawsuits: Consumer Rights: Legal News.” Top Class Actions, 19 Jan. 2021, topclassactions.com/.

[torturedwarrior]

Immigrants:

Why dont immigrants come to the United States legally? Are illegal immigrants taking American jobs? The illegal immigrants are like termites. They are eating at the grain that should go to the poor; they are taking our jobs. By Amit Shah. What should the United States do with the illegal immigrants already in the country? And Should they be allowed citizenship? The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here. By Chuck Palahniuk. Even though immigrants help to boost the economy., My opinion is it has a negative impact on the United States because the undocumented immigrants add to the population and the threat of terrorism and crimes. Immigrants help to boost the economy; they still have to purchase goods in order to survive, and on all of these goods they are required to pay taxs which benefits the whole entire country. Some illegal immigrants who have succeeded in getting jobs in home care, restaurants and car shops pay the agency revenue. But doing so, having them somehow stay illegally allows them to compensate the government, one way or the other. Also, they have to open back accounts for their income and buy necessities like automobiles and houses to live in and to get around. The money and taxes they pay help the U.S. economy. Immigrants work for cheap pay and are a very hardworking people so they can bring in the income to bring back their families. Businesses can increase the population and also be able to reach their targeted goal because there was more than enough labor force. Another example that shows immigrants help to boost the economy is they bring in new perspectives, experiences, and ideas to their community and with the added diversification, there was more strength to be found with the community. They also start their new businesses, earn income, and even support others on the local level. This creates more profits which helps the economy. Every aspect of the American economy has profited from the contributions of immigrants. By JFK. Illegal immigrants can never be completely stopped, no matter how high the wall or how many patrol agents you have watching it. By Gail Collins. The population in the United States is always constantly and rapidly increasing; schools, governments systems, and many more public services are in a great burden and the more people that enter our country, the worse that the quality of those systems become. 3.5 percent of the entire population is made of illegal immigrants. Back in 2016, there was reports that 10.7 million undocumented immigrants and the numbers have tripled since 1990, when there were only 3.5 million in the United States. Another example that shows that undocumented immigrants add to the population is that there is one reason that so many undocumented immigrants are in the United states is some travel to a new country to become migrant or foreign workers while others wish to settle in as a permanent resident, with the goal that eventually they become a citizen. Also, it is difficult to immigrate with authorization; there are about 4 million immigrants on a waiting list to become citizens. Immigration is one of the leading contributors to population growth. By Paul Watson. People who are not thrilled with the illegal immigrants tend to complain with the increasing numbers of illegal immigrants and those with children as well adds to overcrowding buses and trains; as well as the students granted with scholarships which should have been given to the legal immigrants. It will help if immigrants who refuse to learn English that they need to go back to their own country. Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. By Theodore Roosevelt. The most important reason my opinion is it has a negative impact on the United States is because of the threats of terrorism and crimes. Illegal immigration is crisis for our country. It is an open door for drugs, criminals, and potential terrorists to enter out country. It is straining our economy, adding costs to our judicial system, healthcare, and education systems. By Timothy Murphy. Every crime committed by an illegal alien is crime that should never have occurred and would never have occurred if the illegal alien were not in our country. By the Kansas Secretary, Bringing drugstheyre bringing crime, theyre rapists. By Donald Trump. Although not all immigrants are terrorists or bad people, there is some that come to the United States to havoc fear and to commit crimes such as drug-trafficking and illegal activities; also, there reports that more than a thousand cases of crimes are related to illegal immigrants. Another example that shows the threat of terrorism and crime is that there was a good amount of bombing and terrorist attacks in the early 20th century, most of them were committed by immigrants, socialists, and their followers. The deaths from terrorism thats committed by illegal or legal immigrants are greater that they were a century ago but is still low compared to the benefits of immigration. The criminal justice system should have the authority to determine the immigration status of all criminals, regardless of race or ethnicity, and report illegal immigrants who commit crimes to the federal authorities. By Susana Martinez, The gun control act of 1968 was an attempt to impose order. It set up the Federal Firearms License (FFL) system; gun stores would have to become licensed, and they would have to follow certain rules. Felons, illegal immigrants, and crazy people would be prohibited from buying guns. By Jeanne Marie Laskas. Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered out country and thousands more lives will be lost if we dont act right now. By Trump. There were 105,140 immigrants that ICE arrested back in 2018 who were convicted criminals, and 719 immigrants that were convicted was in Texas. So, it is clear that although immigrants help to boost the economy, my opinion is it has a negative impact in the United States. For two main reasons; first, undocumented immigrants add to the population, but most importantly the threat of terrorism and the crime rates. Why dont immigrants come to the United States legally? Well the United States doesnt allow people from many countries a legal pathway unless they have an immediate family or employer to sponsor them. Should Immigrants be allowed citizenship? Its said that the founders had a clear answer which was that immigrants who spent years building lives in this country deserved citizenship; they were also aware that by making new immigrants wait a long time for citizenship denied them the very rights that Americans just fought to claim for themselves. Are we rewarding them for breaking the rules, and encouraging more of the same? By granting immigrants who are here illegally a path to citizenship, we are essentially rewarding bad behavior and encouraging more of the same. If illegal immigrants want citizenship, theyd have to do three things: pay taxes, hold meaningful jobs, and learn English. By President Bush. So How did a nation if immigrants become a nation that hates immigrants? To that question we really never know. So, what if immigrants help create global markets, they also bring diseases from their country to ours and they cost the government money by being in the United States. we get uncontrolled immigration, which puts unsustainable pressure in our vital public services. By Boris Johnson, Illegal immigration costs the United States more than 200 billion dollars a year. By Trump. Work Cited: "9 Biggest Illegal Immigration Pros and Cons | FutureofWorking.com." FutureofWorking.com | Career Advice for the Future. Web. 17 Sep 2019. . "15 Common Arguments against Immigration, Addressed - Foundation for Economic Education." Home - Foundation for Economic Education. 11 Aug 2016. Web. 17 Sep 2019. . Regoli, Natalie. "21 Big Pros and Cons of Immigration – Vittana.org." Vittana.org. Web. 17 Sep 2019. . Regoli, Natalie. "10 Critical Pros and Cons of Illegal Immigration – Green Garage." Green Garage – The ECO Friendly Blog. 31 Aug 2015. Web. 17 Sep 2019. . "Search Results." Famous Quotes at BrainyQuote. Web. 17 Sep 2019. . Shoichet, Catherine E.. "What 7 statistics tell us about immigration and crime - CNN." CNN - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos. 8 Jan 2019. Web. 17 Sep 2019. . Haglund, Noah. "10 big questions on immigration | News | postandcourier.com." Postandcourier.com | Post and Courier | Charleston, SC. Local News, Sports and Weather . 14 Mar 2008. Web. 17 Sep 2019. .

[maxihealth]

Health Care and the Democratic Debates – Part 1 – Medicare For All, Rx Prices, Guns and Mental Health

Twenty Democratic President candidates each have a handful of minutes to make their case for scoring the 2020 nomination, “debating” last night and tonight on major issues facing the United States. I watched every minute, iPad at the ready, taking detailed notes during the 120 minutes of political discourse conducted at breakneck speed.

Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, and Jose Diaz-Balart asked the ten candidates questions covering guns, butter (the economy), immigration, climate change, and of course, health care — what I’m focusing on in this post, the first of two-debate-days-in-a-row.

The first ten of twenty candidates in this debate were, from left to right:

Bill DeBlasio, NYC Mayor

Rep. Tim Ryan, Ohio

Julian Castro, Former Housing Secretary under President Obama

Sen. Corey Booker, New Jersey

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts

Beto O’Rourke, Former Texas Congressman

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii

Governor Jay Inslee, Washington

John Delaney, Former Maryland Congressman

Health care, and issues related to it, featured prominently throughout the two hours. The first part of the discussion focused on the economy and income distribution.

Income and the growing wealth-poverty gap is a relevant place to start a debate with a strong health care theme because health and social problems are worse in more unequal countries as the line/dot graph illustrates — the greater the income inequality, the higher the index of health and social problems. See the U.S. up and to the right on the high-high axes. [This, the impact of social determinants of health beyond health care, is the underlying theme of my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen].

Elizabeth Warren assertively and transparently backed Bernie Sander’s Medicare for All proposal. She spoke in a larger context about the national economy, asking for whom is the economy working? She believes the economy is, “doing great for giant drug companies, just not for people trying to get a prescription filled.”

Beto O’Rourke shared his view that, “we have an economy that works for people who can pay for access and outcomes.”

Julian Castro called out the pay gap between men and women, growing up with a Mom who raised his brother Joaquin (a Congressman serving Texas’s 20th District) and him, and was paid less simply because she was a woman, he recollected. He called for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and to pursue equal pay for equal work across the nation.

Tulsi Gabbard spoke about American people deserving “a president who puts your interest ahead of rich and powerful,” and would invest tax dollars serving “your needs (including) health care.”

Bill DeBlasio called out the “greatest gap between wealthy and poor” and addressing income inequality. As Mayor of New York City, DeBlasio said he is raising wages, benefits, putting dollars back into the hands of people, and funding Pre-K education for all New Yorkers.

Governor Inslee spoke from his Washington State experience, looking to “reinvigorate collective bargaining.” As the candidate running first and foremost on addressing climate change, he asserted, “Trump is wrong – wind turbines don’t cause cancer, they cause jobs.” Inslee is working to pivot Washington state toward the green economy.

Tim Ryan of Ohio spoke about the post-industrial economy there, noting that the state lost 4,000 jobs in a GM facility which, in his words, “rippled through the community, then got a bailout, and now moving car production to Mexico.” He observed that this is not new-news: the trend has been going on for 40 years in Ohio, where the “bottom 60% haven’t seen a raise since 1980.”

Moving from the macro economy, Lester Holt segued the debate into health care, recognizing that “many at home have coverage with employers.” He asked the ten debaters to raise their hands to answer the question: “Who would abolish and do a government-run plan?” Only two raised their hands: DeBlasio and Warren.

Every one of the ten debaters supports universal health care coverage, with the eight who didn’t raise hands arguing for different flavors of a mixed public/private system. Klobuchar argued for a public option which was baked into the original Affordable Care Act. She is concerned about “kicking half of America off of health insurance in 4 years,” pivoting to the “much bigger issue” of pharmaceuticals pricing. She recalled that President Trump “went on Fox and said peoples’ heads would spin when they saw dropping prices” for medicines. She went into the data citing that 2,500 drug prices have gone up since President Trump took office, and that there have been in her words, “$100bn in giveaways to pharmaceutical companies.” Later in the debate, Klobuchar raised the issue of health disparities and in particular, how African-American women get less effective maternal health care.” [This sad truth about U.S. health care outcomes was recently described by the CDC].

“That’s what we call at home all foam and no beer,” she quipped. Let’s take on pharma, allow negotiations of prices under Medicare. “Pharma thinks they own Washington, but they don’t own me,” she added.

Warren said she has signed on to “Bernie care,” saying, “I’m with Bernie on Medicare for all. I spent time in my life studying why families go broke…this happens to people who have insurance…the business model of an (health) insurance company is to bring in as many dollars in premiums and pay out as few dollars as possible,” Warren described. “I understand a lot of politicians say it’s not possible – what they are telling you is they won’t fight for health care as a basic human right and I will fight for it,” Warren promised. [Here’s a link to her published research into the relationship between health care costs and personal bankruptcy in America written when she was at Harvard].

O’Rourke ran for Senate praising a bill that would replace private insurance. His stance has moved to the center away from single payer, to a private/public mix. He believes in “getting to guaranteed universal health care, featuring primary care, the ability to see a mental health provider,” noting that in Texas, the single largest provider of mental health care is the county jail system.” He went on to say that women should be “in control of their own body,” getting applause. When Holt asked O’Rourke if he would replace private insurance, O’Rourke said that, no, “if you are uninsured you can enroll in Medicare, if you are in a union plan and it works you can keep it.”

DeBlasio chimed in saying that private insurance isn’t working well for anyone, which drives his believe in a single payer government run system.

Delaney recognized that 100 million Americans like their current insurance and said, “we should keep what works and fix what’s broken – give everyone free care as a basic human right,” but with an option to buy more or “up” from a basic plan. He critiqued that Medicare for All bills would pay hospitals at current Medicare rates which, Delaney warned, “would kill the hospitals” financially.

Gabbard’s take was that, “We are talking about this in wrong way,” saying that she would give every sick American the quality health care they need. Look at other countries, she recommended, noting that every one with universal health care has a role for private insurance.

For Booker, “it’s not just a health care issue — it’s an education issue,” he believes. “If you don’t have care, you can’t succeed at school.” This is also a retirement issue, he asserted, where people have lower life expectancy due to poorer health care. This is “not just a human right but an American right,” calling out that, “too many people are profiteering off of the pain of people” in the U.S., pointing to pharma and health insurance.

Warren added that, “insurance companies $23 bn of profits out of the health care system,” detailing the pay to executives, lobbyists, and, “a giant industry that wants the system to stay the way it is — not working for families, but working for them.” But families must come first, Warren believes.

Inslee said that insurance companies should not have an option to deny women choice. In Washington State, he passed legislation protecting the right of women for health insurance and a law for a public option, promoting health insurance access for everyone, he said.

“Three women up here have fought for women’s right to choose,” Klobuchar noted, prompting applause.

Castro discussed women’s right to abortion and emphasized the concept of “reproductive justice” versus “reproductive rights.” It’s “justice” because women of lower incomes don’t have health equity or access — nor do trans people, which also got applause from the audience. “Just because someone is poor doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the right to choose,” Castro believes, identifying eroding women’s health rights in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri.

Jose Diaz-Ballard moved to the topic of opioids, asking Booker if companies manufacturing opioids should be help criminally liable. Booker said, yes, they are liable and responsible. Booker noted he would not take contributions from a pharma company. “In Newark, we’ve tried to arrest our way out of addiction for too long…we need national urgency to deal with this problem and make pharma companies responsible to pay for this.”

Chuck Todd ushered in the second hour of the debate with the public health issue of guns, describing that this meet-up was being held less than 50 miles from the Parkland shooting. Todd described that gun activism is now a part of high school life in Broward County, Florida. “What do you do about all the guns out there?” Todd asked Warren.

She recalled that while running for President, she has already conducted over 100 town halls. The hardest questions have been from kids asking, “when you are president, how are you going to keep us safe?” She responded, “That is our responsibility as adults,” adding that seven young people die from gun violence each day in the U.S. “Gun violence is a national health emergency in the U.S.” Warren would double-down on research to find out what really works in stemming gun violence to find “where can we make a difference at the margin that will keep our kids safe.” She said we should treat gun violence like a virus killing our children and treat this like a serious research problem. It’s a public health emergency, as she called it, and as such we should, “bring data to bear whether politically popular or not.”

Booker added that he has a Federal government buy-back program in his plan, adding that he hears gunshots in his neighborhood on a regular basis. Seven people were shot in his neighborhood last week. “People are tired of living in a country learning reading, writing, arithmetic, and shooting in school,” Booker passionately argued. “We let the corporate gun lobby frame the debate. This is not policy — it’s personal” to him.

Ryan said we need trauma-based care in every school, featuring social and emotional learning. He cited the statistic that 90% of shooters who wreak gun violence in their own school feel traumatized and bullied. We need a mental health counselor in every school because, he has observed, “kids are traumatized.”

For more details on other aspects of the debate beyond health care and financial wellness, here’s a link to NBC’s live blogging from the event.

Here is Kaiser Health News’ coverage of the event through their health policy lens.

Health Populi’s Hot Points: You’ve just read Part 1 of my listening to the first Democrats’ debate for 2020 President. Tonight, I will listen to the second half of this discussion, leading to tomorrow’s follow-up for Part 2 and synthesis of the major themes and implications for U.S. health care.

In the meantime, I’ll sign off from Part 1 of the Dems Candidates Debate coverage with a riff from Paul Simon on candidates’ debates…from his song, Mrs. Robinson…skip to 3:15 seconds to get to this stanza…a wonderful live version of this song which seems well timed for this moment…

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon

Going to the candidates’ debate

Laugh about it, shout about it

When you’ve got to choose

Every way you look at this you lose

at

The post Health Care and the Democratic Debates – Part 1 – Medicare For All, Rx Prices, Guns and Mental Health appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Health Care and the Democratic Debates – Part 1 – Medicare For All, Rx Prices, Guns and Mental Health posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[mindthump]

How Texas killed welfare: 'We spend our dollars on anything but poor families' http://ift.tt/2AnrAPx

Vakesa Townson didn’t plan to fall into poverty.

Married and the mother of two kids, she had lived a comfortable life in north Texas. But after her 17-year marriage ended and she became her family’s main provider, she struggled to make ends meet.

“I needed support,” Townson said. “I felt like I was starting over with nothing.”

A support group and the folks at Catholic Charities of Fort Worth encouraged her to apply for government assistance, including food stamps for groceries and Medicaid for her kids. But she didn’t check the box in her application that would have allowed her to apply for cash assistance. Working a part-time job that brought home $200 to $230 a month, she might not have qualified anyway.

Townson’s predicament is not unusual for Texans in need. Poor Texans will often find jobs and work to advance out of poverty, but then be disqualified from receiving public benefits well before leaving poverty behind, said Heather Reynolds, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of Fort Worth.

“I don’t think that’s what anybody intends to do,” said Reynolds, whose clients are mostly classified as working poor. “It’s just the reality of what we face sometimes.”

Though Texas’s poverty rates have remained mostly consistent, it has significantly curtailed the amount of traditional welfare it provides to poor Texans through cash assistance over the last two decades, instead putting more of its federal anti-poverty dollars toward funding core state services, plugging budget holes or funding other programs that provide services to residents with higher incomes than those who qualify for cash welfare.

Federal law allows such disbursements, and state officials say those spending choices are spurred in part by a drop in the number of Texans qualifying for cash assistance. But social workers and service providers who help poor Texas families say those decisions result in a porous safety net that complicates the struggles of residents like Townson, who are too poor to make ends meet but make too much to qualify for temporary cash aid from the government.

“There’s this myth that welfare exists,” said Rachel Cooper, a senior policy analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a left-leaning thinktank. “In Texas, it doesn’t.”

To qualify for $290 a month, you can’t make more than $188

Texas’s reduction in traditional welfare rolls dates to 1996, when Congress reformed welfare and created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Tanf) program, which gives Texas hundreds of millions of dollars a year to combat poverty.

At the program’s inception, hundreds of thousands of poor single-parent families and children – a monthly average of 479,000 in 1998 – received cash aid through federal Tanf dollars. But the number of poor residents who receive help has plummeted. As of July 2017, the latest available count, fewer than 60,000 Texans – most of them children – remained on the welfare rolls, usually receiving at most a few hundred dollars a month.

tx

Welfare reform was designed to reduce the number of people on welfare by emphasizing temporary assistance and getting people into work. But the drop in the state’s welfare rolls isn’t necessarily the result of a concerted effort to pull Texans out of poverty. The state’s poverty rate has hovered between 16% and 18% for the last decade. It wasn’t until recent years that Texas saw a larger drop in its poverty rate – currently at 15.6% – mostly due to rising incomes and not because of more welfare recipients moving out of poverty.

Instead, the number of low-income Texans who can get help has been reduced by caps on how long a family can obtain benefits, which are based on a person’s education or recent work experience, and strict income eligibility rules that make qualifying for cash aid a tall order for even the poorest families, advocates say.

To qualify for a maximum of $290 in monthly cash aid today, a family of three – with one parent and two children – cannot make more than $188 a month, barring a few exceptions. That income eligibility – several hundred dollars less than what a family of three can make and still be considered to be living in poverty – has hardly been adjusted since welfare reform.

“It’s been frozen, and 20 years of inflation has meant fewer and fewer people can qualify because it’s so low you really have to be destitute,” Cooper said.

By 2015, only four out of every 100 poor families with children in Texas received cash assistance – down from 47 in 1996, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research institute.

Texas has a long history of regarding welfare as a last resort for needy Texans. Even before federal welfare reform, state lawmakers were working to tighten limits for assistance in Texas. And modest increases to benefits enacted soon after welfare reform were passed because they were approved with little fanfare, appropriations officials said at the time.

Food stamps: a lifeline for America's poor that Trump wants to cut

Texas’s approach to welfare benefits has pushed it toward the bottom of state rankings for the percentage of households receiving public cash assistance, according to US Census Bureau data dating back a decade. In 2016, Texas ranked last.

That’s despite Texas being home to almost one out of every 10 poor Americans.

‘We spend our dollars on anything but poor families’

A food bank coordinator, Eddie Sanchez, meets with a client in Austin, Texas. Photograph: Marjorie Kamys Cotera

While the drop in cash assistance has left Texans in need with a less secure safety net, it has freed up hundreds of millions of federal dollars for legislative budget writers.

Welfare reform set Texas up to receive federal anti-poverty funds in the form of block grants meant to give state governments more flexibility in how they spent those dollars. That spending had to fit within four broad categories: to assist needy families so children can be cared for in their homes or homes of relatives; to reduce dependency on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; to prevent or reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and to encourage two-parent families.

With declining welfare rolls, lawmakers have used federal Tanf dollars to cover a range of expenses, including core state functions like Child Protective Services (CPS).

Of the more than $520m in federal Tanf funds that state legislators appropriated for each of the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years, more than $358m was earmarked for the department of family and protective services, which includes CPS. Tanf dollars will make up approximately 17.5% of the agency’s entire budget for the 2018-19 budget years.

The current state budget also uses Tanf funding to prop up the budgets for early childhood intervention services and mental health state hospitals. Another $3m a year will go toward the Alternatives to Abortion program. The Texas Education Agency will also receive almost $4m a year in Tanf dollars for “school improvement and support programs”.

“We spend our Tanf dollars on anything but poor families,” said Will Francis, government relations director for the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Those spending decisions will probably perpetuate a negative trend in the share of total Tanf dollars Texas spends on basic assistance to poor families, which dropped from 59% in 1997 to about 7% in 2014, according to spending data collected by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

State budget writers push back against the notion that the legislature chose to spend less on cash assistance for poor Texans.

Texas’s spending on cash aid depends completely on the number of people who qualify and sign up for benefits, they argued. And that drop has freed up more money to spend on other state needs, said the state senator Jane Nelson, a Republican of the town of Flower Mound and the senate’s chief budget writer.

“The good thing about block grants is that we are able to provide benefits to everyone who qualifies and allocate the remaining funds to address important needs such as Child Protective Services,” Nelson said in a statement. “These are appropriate uses of Tanf funds, and they are an essential part of our effort to better protect endangered children.”

Advocates for low-income Texans don’t argue that these aren’t worthy causes. But they say they’re just not the best use for dollars meant to combat poverty in the state.

“It’s this $500m-a-year piggy bank,” said Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, a not-for-profit organization that oversees a statewide network of food banks. “It’s totally taken away from meaningful services … It leaves very little to cash assistance or employment and training that could help people get out of poverty.”

Where should the money go?

Once Tanf dollars are used to fund critical services like CPS, it’s tough to advocate for a change that will create a hole in the budget and put the delivery of other human services in a bind, Cole added.

In 2016, Tanf ranked as the state’s ninth-biggest federal funding source.

Others have gone farther in their characterizations of the state’s Tanf spending priorities. During a 2013 US House ways and means subcommittee hearing, representative Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat, referred to Tanf as a “slush fund” that states use to fund services they were or should have been funding themselves and questioned whether states had been given “too much flexibility” under welfare reform.

Not all those who are helping low-income Texans make ends meet oppose the state’s Tanf spending priorities. Some not-for-profit providers underlined the importance of flexibility and allowing states to be nimble with federal resources in ways that can best serve local communities. Others pointed out that some of the services funded through Tanf dollars back up a “holistic approach” to addressing the needs of poor Texans.

“I do think that there are some great strategies that are funded with Tanf dollars that impact vulnerable populations,” said Eric Cooper, president and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank, which helps low-income Texans sign up for public benefits.

But Cooper added he sees the “temptation” the state’s spending flexibility presents at a time when poor Texans “could use more dollars to gap-fill” their needs. He echoed other providers who expressed reservations about the state’s wide discretion with disbursements.

“What we need to make sure is that that money actually gets to nonprofit and government providers who will actually use it to improve outcomes for those living in poverty,” said Reynolds of Catholic Charities of Fort Worth. “And I do think there has been the temptation to use it to help with other budget crunches and we need to make sure to stay away from that.”

Jim Malewitz contributed to this report

Disclosure: The Center for Public Policy Priorities and Feeding Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here

This piece was co-produced with the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs and engages Texans about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues

[newstfionline]

On London’s Streets, Black Cabs and Uber Fight for a Future

By Katrin Bennhold, NY Times, July 4, 2017

LONDON--Shortly before 6 a.m., Zahra Bakkali tiptoed out of her bedroom for morning prayers. She prepared breakfast (black tea and toast with olive oil), saw her children off to school, then rode the elevator to the garage below her southeast London housing project. She unlocked her white Toyota Prius, switched on the Uber app and awaited the day’s first job.

In a modest bungalow on the opposite side of the city, Paul Walsh had coffee and toast with butter. He studied the sports pages (his soccer team, Queens Park Rangers, had been struggling) and waved goodbye to his wife and son. Then he fired up his black cab, which is actually half-pink with an Elvis ad from the Memphis tourism board, and set off for Heathrow Airport.

They travel the same streets every day, strangers but also adversaries in what has become a familiar 21st-century conflict: the sharp-elbowed ride-hailing company Uber, versus entrenched taxi companies.

And yet the clash in London is different, less about the disruptive power of an app, or a new business model, than about the disruption of Britain. London’s cabby wars echo the culture wars that fueled Britain’s vote last summer to leave the European Union--and that have brutally flared up again in recent weeks: immigrant versus native, old versus new, global versus national.

London’s black cabs trace their lineage to 1634. To earn a badge, cabbies spend years memorizing some 25,000 streets and 100,000 landmarks for “the Knowledge,” the world’s toughest taxi exam. Most cabbies are white and British.

Uber arrived in 2012, just before the London Olympics, but its 40,000 drivers already far outnumber the city’s 21,000 traditional cabbies. They use satellite navigation to find their way around. Most of them are nonwhite, and many, like Mrs. Bakkali, are immigrants.

Uber fares are about 30 percent lower than those of black cabs--a discrepancy that cabbies say signals a deliberate attempt to kill off their trade. “London without black cabs,” Mr. Walsh said, “would be like London without Big Ben.”

The vote to leave the European Union, known here as Brexit, exposed a deep rift between those who have profited from globalization, sometimes spectacularly, and those who feel threatened by immigration and automation. Six out of 10 Londoners, including Mrs. Bakkali, voted against Brexit. But Mr. Walsh and most black-cab drivers interviewed for this article voted in favor.

One year after that vote, Britain is on edge. More divided than ever after an inconclusive election, the country has lived through four terrorist attacks in recent months--three by British Muslims and one against them. A charred housing project where a fire killed at least 80 mostly disadvantaged tenants in one of London’s richest boroughs has turned into a somber monument to inequality.

Uber, meanwhile, has become its own symbol of excess. Revelations of an aggressive corporate culture that saw employees harassed, drivers mistreated and regulators dodged forced the company’s founder, Travis Kalanick, to resign as chief executive last month.

Mrs. Bakkali, the daughter of Moroccan farmers, and Mr. Walsh, the son of a north London construction worker, are small players in these much bigger dramas. They want the same thing: to claw their way into the middle class and give their children a shot at a better life. Yet they are on opposite sides of a kind of low-level guerrilla warfare on London’s streets.

“They drive up to you so close, you find yourself going through a red light,” Mrs. Bakkali said of black cabs she had encountered. The drivers give the middle finger, she said, and shout abuse. And they certainly “never give way.” Some black cabs have offensive cartoons on display. One even had a custom license plate: “H8 UBER.”

For Mrs. Bakkali, black cabs have become a byword for populism and racism. For Mr. Walsh, Uber is shorthand for everything he believes is wrong with globalization--and proof that successive governments have failed hard-working citizens like him.

Grant Davis, chairman of the London Cab Drivers Club, recounted a meeting with a minister in the Conservative government about a year ago. “I said to him, ‘I’m from a working-class family, I grew up in social housing,’” said Mr. Davis, who has driven a black cab in London for 29 years. “I said, ‘I believed in the conservative ethos: Work hard, better myself. I don’t want no benefits. But what you have done is you’re killing us for an American company that is paying taxes in the Netherlands.’”

“Look at all those cabdrivers, we are all from poor families,” he recalled telling the minister, Sajid Javid, then the business secretary. “I wanted to be my own boss. I’ve done everything you said I should do. And you’ve pulled the rug from under my feet.”

“In London, driving a cab is a vocation,” Mr. Walsh said one morning in April. “It’s a way of life.”

He drove past the Union Jack pub, then right, then left and into a hidden courtyard with everything a cabby could want: gas, parking, spare parts and a canteen that serves an all-day fried English breakfast.

In other cities, the latest immigrant group to arrive takes up the taxi trade, Mr. Walsh said. Not here. “First you invest several years studying,” he explained. “Then you invest 45,000 pounds in your cab,” or about $58,000.

Uber, he said, is not just killing a business model: “It’s killing a culture.”

Mr. Walsh proudly conforms to most stereotypes about London cabbies. Opinionated, witty and full of trivia about his city, he claims to be able to “speak for two minutes on any subject.”

Inside the canteen, Chelsea was playing Sunderland on two flat-screen televisions. There was vinegar on the table and spotted dick on the menu. The place could not be more British. Except that the entire staff seemed to be Eastern European.

A lot of Poles now live where Mr. Walsh grew up, in Harlesden, northwest London. When he was a boy in the 1960s and ‘70s, most children in the neighborhood were either black or had Irish roots, as he did: “Plastic Dreads or plastic Paddies,” said Mr. Walsh, now 53.

His father worked in construction and his mother in a cookie factory, but they saved up and moved the family to Wembley, a more middle-class area. “My parents were aspirational and brought me up that way,” he said.

Earning a taxi badge was a ticket to upward mobility, but it required mastering the Knowledge. The dropout rate is 70 percent. Six days a week, Mr. Walsh would crisscross London on a scooter memorizing roughly 2,000 miles of road. He had regular 20-minute “appearances”--oral tests with examiners “who put the fear of the devil” into him, he said. One of them had a wooden parrot on the windowsill and a stuffed Persian cat on his desk, “like a James Bond villain,” he recalled.

“He would sit against the window--you’d only see his silhouette, and it looked like the parrot was on his shoulder,” Mr. Walsh said. “Then he would grill you on the most obscure routes.”

At night, Mr. Walsh dreamed of London and woke up sweating. Texas Legation to Union Chapel. Cumberland Market to Redhill Street. Policeman’s Hook to Trinity Church. “You live and breathe the Knowledge,” he said. “It takes over your brain.”

He got his badge on Nov. 10, 1994, a Thursday. It had taken him nearly three years, one year less than the average, and he was as proud as he had ever been.

“Three years,” he said. “And then Uber turned the Knowledge into an app.”

On a sunny Thursday morning last June, one week before Britain voted to leave the European Union, Mrs. Bakkali dropped off her youngest child at school and then sat in her car, staring at the Uber app. She hesitated and finally turned it on. It was her first day on the job.

She had come to London in 1997, at age 18, unable to read or write or drive, with a new husband she barely knew. Her husband, the son of Moroccan immigrants who had arrived in London in the 1960s, had escorted her from a village without electricity in the mountains behind Marrakesh to a new, unimaginable life. To mark the occasion, her mother-in-law had paid for a black cab from Heathrow Airport back to East Street Market in southeast London, her new home.

Mrs. Bakkali had never left her country before, never taken an airplane, never even owned a passport. Asked for her signature, she could make only a clumsy doodle.

Now 38, Mrs. Bakkali is hungry for education. She takes a weekly mathematics class at a community college in Westminster, her “Wednesday treat.” She began taking English classes after giving birth to her first daughter, who is now 18 and plans to study math at university next year.

“Girls in my village were not allowed,” she said of schooling.

In 2010, Mrs. Bakkali was eight months pregnant with her fifth child, with her twins in a stroller and a child on each arm, when the bus driver, a black man, hissed at her, “You bloody foreigners, you come to this country and just keep having babies.”

It was not the first time. “I just started crying,” Mrs. Bakkali recalled.

That night, she told her husband they needed to buy a car, and he needed to learn to drive, because she never wanted to take public transportation again. Afraid of driving, he refused. So she got her own license.

Mrs. Bakkali loved driving. About a year ago, over breakfast, she confessed her dream: to become a bus driver.

“What about Uber?” her husband asked.

They went online and booked an appointment for the next morning, a Sunday. By lunchtime she had registered with Uber, heard a presentation, taken an online topography test, received a certificate from the company and applied for the obligatory government background check. It took a few weeks to get a “private hire license” from Transport for London, the city’s transportation regulator.

Then she was, in Uber speak, “onboarded.”

Sometimes when a customer cancels, Mrs. Bakkali worries that it is because she is Muslim. In her photograph on the Uber app, she wears a head scarf discreetly tied at the back of her neck.

There are several Muslim women on Mrs. Bakkali’s WhatsApp group Uber Super Ladies (women make up a small minority of Uber drivers and cabdrivers). Some of them met at a party Uber held for them on International Women’s Day. They shared pastries and stories about the relentless hostility coming from cabbies.

“They have all these advantages,” Mrs. Bakkali said: Black cabs can use bus lanes and taxi stands, and be hailed on the street, “but they are angry with us.”

One friend, also a Muslim woman, was so shaken by a recent encounter that she almost quit. A cabdriver had gotten out of his taxi and come toward her car, waving a fist and shouting: “You Muslim, you can’t even drive! Take off that scarf!”

Mrs. Bakkali recently had a polite exchange with a cabby, a man from Somalia, who rolled down his window at a red light.

“Salaam aleikum, sister,” he told her, smiling. “You’re taking our business.”

“It’s my business, too,” she replied.

“How is it, sister? Small money?”

“Sometimes big, sometimes small.”

Mrs. Bakkali once earned £340 in a single shift, working 20 hours straight. She dropped off her last customer in Weybridge, west of London, at 6:30 a.m., then found a parking lot, locked her car doors and napped before turning the app back on and making her way home.

On average, though, she takes home closer to £300 a week after paying for insurance, gas and twice-weekly carwashes. Earning and controlling her own money for the first time is liberating, she says, but even with her husband’s income from a part-time supermarket job, the family relies on benefits like subsidized housing.

“It’s hard,” she admitted.

Last year, Uber raised its commission on every ride to 25 percent, from 20, for new drivers. Mrs. Bakkali recently went to a drivers’ meeting at Uber’s biggest “Greenlight Hub,” or drivers’ center, in London. The room was packed. Everybody had the same urgent plea: Could Uber cut its commission back to 20 percent?

The answer was no.

Mr. Walsh says that the cabbies’ fight is with Uber--not with its drivers. “We see them sleep in their cars,” he said. “Uber is turning the time back to the Victorian era.”

He was having a cup of tea with fellow cabdrivers outside a small green wooden hut near Buckingham Palace, one of 13 remaining “cabmen’s shelters” dating from the days when cabs were still horse-drawn coaches.

One cabby recently sold his taxi because there was not enough work. He is leasing one now but may quit altogether, he said. “Most weeks you’re just trying to cover your costs.”

Before Uber, Mr. Walsh would have 20 fares a day. Now the number is closer to five. “They want to price us out of the market,” he said, “and then they’ll raise prices--you watch.”

And when cars go driverless, he added bitterly, “cabbies and Uber drivers will both be history.”

Mrs. Bakkali shrugs at the idea. She grew up without running water or a phone. To visit her grandparents, she had to walk--for a day.

“So much has changed in my life,” she said. If someday driving is no longer an option, she may start her own business, she said. Embroidery, perhaps, or sewing.

Mr. Walsh accepts that black cabs have been slow to adapt to change. Credit-card machines were made mandatory only last fall. Ride-hailing apps for black cabs remain fragmented. But he believes that his brain can beat a navigation system any day. Years ago, he took part in a research project at University College London that found that memorizing a map of the city resulted in an enlarged hippocampus.

“Cabdrivers’ brains are bigger,” Mr. Walsh said proudly.

Navigation systems do not know nicknames like the Policeman’s Hook. They cannot deal with incomplete addresses and do not know the best shortcuts when traffic is bad. And they cannot tell you where to buy the best salt beef bagels.

“We’re still better than the machines,” he said. “But who will come and protect us?”

[johnark]

TRUMP - PUTIN - TILLERSON

On the campaign trail I heard Donald Trump say “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were friends with Russia?” At the time, I thought “ this is a weird statement.” Especially when Putin and Russia are involved in so much illegal and unlawful mischief. Then he began to occasionally praise Putin as a great world leader. And Putin reciprocated! Then Donald began to disparage China. Claiming that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by China. Then he accused China of currency manipulation. Whoa. What is going on here? China is our second largest trading partner after Canada and just ahead of Mexico. Russia is not in the top 15. China is the largest holder of our debt. Both China and Japan hold over $1 trillion with little Ireland third at $266 billion. Russia is 17th at $87 billion. Why is Trump cozying up to Russia and disparaging China? Something is going on here. Then I recalled that Paul Manafort had resigned as Trump campaign manager after it was revealed that he had worked to elect pro Russian Viktor Yanukovych as President of Ukraine, apparently being paid $12.7 million. Viktor spurned an offer of financial help from the EU and turned to Putin and Russia for a $15 billion bailout. This infuriated Ukrainians and Viktor fled to Moscow from a citizen’s revolt. He was completely discredited when his Versailles-like palace and life style was revealed. Putin used the unstable situation to seize Crimea and launce a covert military invasion of Eastern Ukraine. His forces shot down a Malaysian air liner during the operation, killing all on board. The European Union and the US (Obama) placed severe sanctions on Russia for this outrage against international law and civilized conduct. In Ukraine Manafort had many personal links to figures close to Putin. They formed a company in the Cayman Islands with Manafort as one of the directors, an offshore activity often used by the affluent to conceal and distribute untaxed and often illegal assets. In the 1990s Trump had some colossal bankruptcies, losing nearly a billion dollars. Surely, using the tax code involving Net Operating Loss (NOL), this has allowed him to avoid paying taxes for 20 years or so. When the NOL is taken there is a carry back for 2 years and then there is a carry forward for up to 20 years. My guess is this is one of the reasons Donald doesn’t want to disclose his tax returns. Anyway, with these bankruptcies, Donald was not able to raise capitol in the US for his worldwide projects. He went to Russia seeking funding and investment. After Donald broke the ice, his children were frequent visitors. Rosneft Oil Company, a state-owned monopoly, has its headquarters very close to the Kremlin in Moscow. It is reported that Putin and other high ranking government officials receive undisclosed income from Rosneft. So, it is widely believed that Trump and company received the funding and investment they needed for their world-wide luxury real estate projects from these people. Putin and associates want Rosneft to expand and produce more income. The petroleum industry in Russia is one of the largest in the world. Russia has the largest reserves and is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. It has the second largest coal reserves. This is where Exxon Mobile Energy and its CEO Rex Tillerson enter the story. Rosneft and Exxon enter into contracts to explore the Black Sea, develop shale in Siberia, and drill for oil in the Arctic where the profits there alone are estimated at $15 billion. They formed a US-Russian Bahamas-based oil firm, Exxon – Neftegas with Tillerson as one of the directors. Another offshore operation in the mix. However, all this US-Russia oil activity, worth many billions of dollars, is on hold due to the sanctions put on Putin and Russia by the Obama administration and the European Union. Sanctions put in place because of Putin’s involvement in Ukraine. Of course his annexation of part of Georgia and meddling in Moldova and threatening the Baltic States are matters of concern, too. But the point is: I think I now understand why Trump said “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were friends with Russia?” Is that paving the way for the relaxing or removing the sanctions against Putin and Russia after Trump gets into office and installs Tillerson as Secretary of State? Then Exxon – Rosneft can proceed, generating enormous profits that will greatly benefit Exxon, Putin and the contacts already established by the Trump organization. After the sanctions are removed, will Putin award Tillerson another medal? Maybe there is one for the Trump organization as well. Is it any surprise that Trump states that all US intelligence agencies are wrong in identifying Russia/Putin as the source of the political hacking during the presidential campaign? We can’t have anything interfere with the plan to remove the sanctions, can we? OK, Trump intends to put Rex Tillerson into the top cabinet position, Secretary of State. Let’s look at some of the other Trump appointments. Its Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. She is an advocate of “school choice.” This means developing a voucher system, diverting public education money to pay for private schools and home schooling. She is also an advocate of abolishing the Department of Education. For Environmental Protection Agency Administrator its Scott Pruitt. He is a ‘global warming’ denier. He wants to relax or eliminate many EPA restrictions and regulations and eventually eliminate the EPA itself. He advocates expanding the use of fossil energy. He also advocates dropping out of the Paris Environmental Accords. The department recently unsuccessfully tried to identify employees who believe in global warming. Secretary of Energy is going to be Rick Perry, former Texas governor. He is another ‘global warming’ denier and of course he wants less regulation and restriction on the oil and gas industry. He stated in the campaign debates that he wants to eliminate the Department of Energy. Secretary of the Treasury is going to be Steven Mnuchin. Steve is a former wall street banker, hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs partner. He wants to eliminate all these silly restrictions on the banks and Wall Street and return to the wild west financial sector that we had during the Bush administration. Senator Jeff Sessions is tagged for the post of Attorney General, the nation’s top law enforcement official. He is a big NRA supporter, opposed to any restrictions on our law abiding gun owners. His views on civil rights are well documented and prevented his being named a federal judge. Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants will be Secretary of Labor. Andy opposes any increase in the minimum wage and has said that eliminating the minimum wage would be helpful. No expansion for overtime pay either. Wilber Ross, a billionaire distressed debt investor, will be Secretary of Commerce. He and Carl Icahn were bondholders in the Trump Taj Mahal as it stood on the brink of bankruptcy. He said that he and Carl could have foreclosed and ended the Trump organization, but instead they negotiated a restructuring with Trump that allowed him to save his brand. Ryan Zinke, Montana GOP congressman, will be Secretary of the Interior. He advocates for US energy independence. I hope this doesn’t mean more offshore drilling, drilling on public lands and an expansion of fracking. He has shown a commitment to public lands and conservation. Scientists are undertaking a frantic effort to copy decades of climate data that they fear could vanish under a hostile Trump administration. Trump has nominated Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina to be UN Ambassador. She was a prominent and frequent critic of Trump during the primary. They sparred bitterly. Could Trump have named her so that she would step down as governor and thereby elevate Lieutenant Governor Henry McMaster, who was an early and vocal supporter of Trump? David M. Friedman, an Orthodox Jewish bankruptcy lawyer from Long Island, and very close Trump friend, has been nominated as Ambassador to Israel. He is hostile to a two state solution for the Israeli – Palestinian situation. He advocates annexing the West Bank, relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem, and expanding settlements, especially in Jerusalem. He has compared liberal US Jews to WWII “Kapos.” He has called Obama an anti-Semite. Friedman has handled many Trump bankruptcies, including the debacle in New Jersey from 2004 – 2014 that nearly sank the Trump ship. You can be assured that Jared Kushner, another Orthodox Jew will continue to be a Trump confidant with some White House position. He’s married to Ivanka and is another Israeli hawk. Elaine Chao is nominated for Secretary of Transportation. Chao was Labor Secretary under Bush 43 and was assistant Transportation secretary under Bush 41. The four top national security position nominees by Trump are indeed interesting. Three of the nominees are retired military people. This is the first time in US history that this has occurred. Our society is based on civilian control of the military. Trump stated “I know more than the generals about ISIS.” A reporter asked him what his plan was for ISIS. He said “On day one I will ask my generals for a plan to defeat ISIS as soon as possible.” The reporter said “Is that your plan – to ask someone else for their plan?” Former Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis is nominated for Secretary of Defense. He is well known for being abrasive and difficult to get along with. Obama forced him into retirement for his ‘shoot first and sort out the consequences later’ attitude. Retired Marine General John Kelly for Secretary of Homeland Security. Immigration advocates accepted the nomination with measured approval. They wanted Kris Kobach of Kansas who has extreme hard-line views on immigration. General Kelly is blunt spoken and was US Southern Command leader which put him in charge of Guantanamo Bay and exposed him to immigration problems, drug trafficking, arms trafficking and other cross-border problems. National Security Advisor will be retired Army General Michael Flynn. He has been criticized for dabbling in debunked conspiracy theories and Islamophobia. He pushed the fake news story about the Washington DC pizzeria which resulted in shots fired at the establishment. He has financial ties to Russia and wants to improve Russian relations. Over 50 non profit groups advocated for his removal as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama resulting in his retirement from the post. He takes a very hard line approach to US security. He and Mattis should get along well. CIA Director will be Mike Pompeo, Kansas GOP congressman. He relentlessly attacked Hillary Clinton, accusing her of “criminality” regarding her emails and private server. He favors restoring torture as a CIA tool, opposes closing Guantanamo Bay, is a climate change denier, opposes the Iran deal and calls for an Iranian regime change. Does that mean invading Iran? He wants to continue and expand US government domestic surveillance even though it has been declared illegal by the courts. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon, GOP presidential candidate and early Trump supporter has been nominated for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He knows nothing about this, but he is a clever, intelligent, well educated person. This is most probably a political payback for early support when it was needed most. Mike Mulvaney, South Carolina GOP congressman, has been nominated for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is one of the GOP’s most outspoken fiscal hawks. He often breaks with the GOP on fiscal matters. He is an advocate for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. He and House Speaker Paul Ryan should work well together. Hopefully. Who is going to be Secretary of Health and Human Services? Its going to be Georgia GOP congressman Tom Price. Price, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all strongly stated their desire to repeal the ACA, privatize Social Security, privatize Medicare, eliminate Medicaid and privatize VA health care. The puzzling aspect of this is that they want to repeal the ACA before they have a replacement. It seems to me that that approach will create health care chaos. These people are not stupid. Surely there is a plan in mind somewhere regarding this process and they are just not disclosing it. I hope that is the case. I suppose they also were surprised by the election result and were caught off guard and without a plan other than “repeal and replace with something else.” A GOP Senator voiced the same concern on a Sunday talk show on 8 January 2017. Defunding Planned Parenthood is another priority of Price, Ryan and McConnell. The abortion issue, I suppose. Unfortunate, because PP does a lot of good in women’s health care. It’s already unlawful for them to use federal money for abortions. And they do give counseling and adoption advice when a women inquires about it. Federal funding is about 40% of their budget. Another action the GOP has put on the calendar that appears to have poor planning is the confirmation of the Trump nominees. Senate Majority Leader McConnell says nine of the nominees will be reported to committee this week, with the first being Attorney General, Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, 10 January 2017 at 9:30 AM. The Democrats are complaining that the documentation required for a committee hearing have not been submitted. According to the rules, a nominee must pass through a series of investigations by the FBI, the IRS, and OGE (Office of Government Ethics). Maybe this is why the GOP tried to strip the OGE of any power. The nominee must also complete and submit the Public Financial Disclosure Report and certain questionnaires related to the background check. McConnell says the process will start on Tuesday with or without the documentation. For Obama’s nominees he was quite adamant that all documentation be properly in place before hearings began. Does this mean that in the congress if you have the votes the rules don’t apply? Will Sessions be allowed to vote for himself? The schedule for the week is as follows: Attorney General, Jeff Sessions – 10 Jan, 9:30 AM; CIA Director, Mike Pompeo – 11 Jan, 10 AM; DHS, John Kelly – 11 Jan, 2 PM; Education, Betsy DeVos – 11 Jan, 10 AM; Labor, Andy Puzder – 17 Jan; Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson – 11, 12 Jan; Transportation, Elaine Chao – 11 Jan, 10:15 AM; UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley – 18 Jan; Housing, Ben Carson – 12 Jan, 10 AM. According to the rules the process is supposed to proceed like this: the documentation is submitted to the relevant committee, the committee reviews the documents, interviews the nominee, and votes to report the nominee favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation. After the nomination clears the committee, it moves to the Senate floor for a simple majority vote. Well, it appears that the GOP congress is not to be outdone by The Donald in the category of surprises and irregularities. I am concerned about global warming. George Bush was a denier, also. The longer we wait to take action, the more difficult it will be to recover if it is still possible. I’ll be watching The Donald and the sanctions on Russia with great interest. He cozies up to Russia with “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were friends with Russia?” Praising Putin as a great leader several times. Agrees with Putin and Julian Assange on hacking. Strongly disparages and ridicules US intelligence organizations for stating that Russia under Putin’s direction hacked the GOP and Democratic parties and only disclosed Democratic data. What’s his objective? Laying the groundwork for removing the sanctions is the only reasonable thing I can think of. Trump seems to pay more attention to social media than to his 17 intelligence agencies. He did say “The daily briefing is a ‘mind-numbing’ repetition of the obvious that I’ll often skip.” On the national security side, I wonder if we are preparing for an invasion of Iran. There are hawks in key government positions and a real hawk as Israeli Ambassador. Netanyahu would be pleased with an invasion or with destruction, as in Iraq. It is really humorous to hear Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus on the Sunday news talk shows spinning the weeks Trumpisms and tweets. Well, Bernie and Hillary can stop thinking about getting the “1% to pay their fair share.” The 1% is now in charge of the government. And do we have a new Troika? Trump – Putin – Tillerson.