#any other new head of state will require a massive overhaul of legislation

[groenendaelfic]

There are two unpopular Young Royals hills I’m willing to die on.

One is that Wilhelm is a prince and a minor, he can’t abdicate from shit. Not formally and not legally. Not yet and not for a while.

The other is that Wille will never be able to live in a normal apartment building, be it as Crown Prince or after having given up his titles.

[patriotsnet]

What Do Republicans Think About Healthcare

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-think-about-healthcare/

What Do Republicans Think About Healthcare

Republicans On The Affordable Care Act

Warren Buffett says GOP health reform bills are relief for the rich

In the 2012 Republican Part Platform, Republicans spoke out against the Affordable Care Act, stating that the Democrats used it more as an assertion of power than they used it to improve health care conditions in this country, and in doing so they detrimentally damaged the health of this nation. The Republican Party views the requirement for United States citizens to purchase health insurance as an attack on the Constitution. They believe that the financial burden it would bring upon the country, and specifically on individual states, through the expansion of Medicaid is unsustainable, and will harm the nation as a whole. The act was so firmly opposed by the Republican Party that not a single Republican voted for the final version that Obama signed into law.

Obamacare Repeal Requires Replacement After 2016 Election

Republicans had spent eight years trashing the Democratic health care overhaul, but now that they were in power, they ran up against the same political winds that forced ObamaCare tolook like such a political Frankenstein’s monster to begin with. Conservatives wanted a complete and total repeal of the law; moderative Republicans wanted to protect certain pieces of it.

Do Americans Like Socialism

In a list of ten ideologies;YouGov;put to Americans, socialism ranked fifth in terms of favorability. Three in ten Americans have a favorable view of socialism, while 47% do not. Another 13% arent sure, and 10% dont know what the term means in the first place.;

Least;favorable;are totalitarianism , fascism and authoritarianism .;

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the popularity;of self-proclaimed;democratic socialist Bernie Sanders,;Democrats take a more;favorable;view of socialism, and Republicans less so. Half of Democrats have a;favorable;view, while just over a quarter;;have an;unfavorable;one. Among Republicans,;11% have a;favorable;view and 75% an;unfavorable;one.;

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Nbc News/commonwealth Fund Health Care Poll

Three in 10 likely voters are worried about being able to afford health insurance and costs for prescription drugs and other health care over the next year; among most worried are Democrats, blacks, Hispanics, and people earning under $50,000

Nearly 80 percent of likely voters believe reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president

Three in 10 likely voters are worried about being able to afford health insurance and costs for prescription drugs and other health care over the next year; among most worried are Democrats, blacks, Hispanics, and people earning under $50,000

Nearly 80 percent of likely voters believe reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president

Press Release

In next weeks Super Tuesday primaries, voters in 14 states and American Samoa will cast their ballots for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. Health care has emerged as one of the top issues in the 2020 election, at times dominating the Democratic presidential debates.

Controlling Drug Prices Top Issue For Republicans

Controlling drug prices is a top health care priority of the Trump administration, says James C.

Capretta, a resident fellow and the Milton Friedman Chair at the right-leaning think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. In the healthcare sphere, drug pricing would be number one, he said. Then other issues, such as price transparency and health reimbursement accounts, would follow behind that.

If Trump wins re-election and the Republicans control at least the U.S. Senate, then its safe to say that past will be prologue for 2021 if not longer, Capretta observes.

The agenda for Republicans is almost certainly going to remain as it has been since 2017, he notes. By that I mean there will be a focus on administrative action related to loosening regulations.

If there is a second Trump administration, executive orders and administrative changes are likely to be the main tools of its healthcare policies because Democrats are expected to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives regardless of how the presidential vote turns out and whether the Republicans keep their current 53-47 hold on the Senate.

The idea of any kind of Trump legislative initiatives making it through the Congress seems quite remote, Capretta continues. Moreover, I don’t think they have a legislative health agenda that they would be ready and wanting to push as a priority.

Recommended Reading: Who Won More Democrats Or Republicans

Republicans And Democrats Think With Different Parts Of Their Brains

American liberals and conservatives use different parts of their brains when assessing risks, a new study finds.

A new study says that the brains of American Democrats and Republicans are wired differently, and that they use entirely different sections when making risky decisions.

Let the debates commence.

Liberals show a higher level of activity in the left insula, a portion of the brain associated with self-awareness, social cues, addiction, emotional processing, empathy, and even orgasms .

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to weigh risk in the right amygdala, an area of the brain that aids in survival, including reacting to violations of personal space and controlling social interaction, fear, and aggression .

These conclusions were drawn from a study of 82 people performed by political scientists and neuroscientists at the University of Exeter and the University of California, San Diego. The study was published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

George W Bush On Health Care

During his time in office, George W. Bush advocated for HIV/AIDS relief, HIV prevention, and abstinence-only education. He implemented the ABC method of HIV prevention . He also worked towards HIV relief and prevention through efforts that emphasized regular testing, early diagnosis, ongoing monitoring, and the elimination of HIV/AIDS in newborns. He also increased the amount spent on abstinence-only education. Bush also restricted federal funding for stem cell research and created a ban on human cloning and the creation of human embryos that were solely for experimental purposes. During his time in office, he also restored a policy that banned the use of controlled substances for assisted suicide.

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Trump And Republican Health Care Reform: The Republicans’ Irrational Opposition To Medicaid

President Trump and almost all Congressional Republicans have consistently opposed Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.

Their opposition is irrational.

It is also unpopular with voters. In dark red states like Nebraska, Idaho and Utah voters recently went over the heads of their Republican legislators and governors by approving referendums to expand the program. And, Kansas is about to become the 37th state to expand Medicaid under Obamacare after a bipartisan agreement between the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the legislature.

While Obamacare’s individual health insurance reforms and subsidies have been a disaster for the middle class , the Medicaid expansion in the states that have approved it has covered millions of people that would never have been covered otherwiseat a cost that could never have been less.

Republican opposition has centered around a number of arguments. Let’s take a look at each of them.

We can’t afford such a massive expansion of the welfare state and the impact that would have on deficit spending.

Our rapidly exploding deficits are a big issue we seem to have recently forgotten about.

But blowing up the deficit over health care didn’t bother Congressional Republicans in 2003 when they created the Medicare Part D drug benefit and didn’t pay for it adding $700 billion to the deficit over the following ten years . But that unpaid-for entitlement expansion helped a big Republican constituencyseniors.

Why Do Republicans Oppose Obamacare

Why Do Republicans Think Socialists Are Anti-Gun?

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

11:10 ET, Nov 11 2020

Patrizia Rizzo, SEO Reporter

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REPUBLICANS have campaigned against Obamacare ever since it was signed into law in 2010.;

But with a change in presidency ahead, the Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including;key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Also Check: Who Raises Taxes More Democrats Or Republicans

Challenges Under The Affordable Care Act

Also known as Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act became law in March 2010. The measure was an attempt by former President Obama to give every American access to affordable health insurance. At the time, 39 Democrats and 178 House Republicans voted against the ACA. The remaining 218 Democrats in the House voted for the ACA. The Senate passed the ACA with a 68-30 vote, with 68 Democrats and two Independents voting yea and 39 Republicans voting nay. The party-line vote exposed the ideological differences between the two sides on healthcare.

Despite widespread support among Democrats for the ACA, Obamacare has not lived up to some of its hype, and even those on the left agree that the law hasnt accomplished its full potential over the last seven years.

Here are some of the challenges that Obamacare faced:

Many Americans found it difficult to understand why the law required them to acquire insurance or face a fine. To further compound the problem, most people did not understand how the law imposed the fine. Plenty of taxpayers were surprised when they got charged an additional fee during tax time.

Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare

The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.

The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.

Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.

A decision is expected by late spring.

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Obama And Trump Healthcare Policies Compared

There could not be a more radical divide between administrations than there is between these two. The Obama administration worked against almost insurmountable opposition from the GOP in order to pass the ACA. The Trump Administrations quest is to dismantle everything the Obama Administration has done. They even have court cases pending in order to do so.

Republicans Have A Health Plan Finally

The House Republican Study Committee has come out with a viable plan.

Getty

For the past ten years Republicans in Congress have been largely AWOL on health care.

If memory serves, there has never been a hearing to showcase the victims of Obamacare. Nor has there been a hearing to show how sensible reforms could make the lives of those victims better.

When it came to legislation, the GOP only had two ideas: either abolish Obamacare entirely or toss it to the states. Neither approach actually solved a health care problem. They just allowed Republicans in Washington to wash their hands of the issue and pass the problems along to someone else.

Until now.

The House Republican Study Committee has accepted the challenge and delivered. In a 68-page document, it identifies the worse problems in our health care system and shows how they can be solved.

The proposals are bold, impactful and easy to understand. Here is a quick summary.

Personal and portable health insurance. In an ideal world, if people like the insurance they get from an employer, they would be able to take it with them from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Under the Obama administration, this practice was not only illegal, employers who bought individually owned insurance for their employees faced huge fines.

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Religion And The Belief In God Is Vital To A Strong Nation

Republicans are generally accepting only of the Judeo-Christian belief system. For most Republicans, religion is absolutely vital in their political beliefs and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, separation of church and state is not that important to them. In fact, they believe that much of what is wrong has been caused by too much secularism.

Those are the four basic Republican tenets: small government, local control, the power of free markets, and Christian authority. Below are other things they believe that derive from those four ideas.

Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor

Despite what they say on television about protecting the most vulnerable, one by one the Republican senators are all getting in line behind Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. We don’t yet know who that is, but we can assume how he or she will vote on Obamacare.

People with pre-existing conditions like me are again terrified of losing our insurance, this time in the midst of a pandemic. We’ve lived through years of scary uncertainty and now months of sheltering in place. Enough is enough. We are all health care voters now. We’ll see whether our wavering senators are health care voters, too.

Laura Packard is a Denver-based health care advocate and cancer survivor. She is the founder of Health Care Voices, a non-profit grassroots organization for adults with serious medical conditions, co-chair of Health Care Voter, and runs the pharma accountability campaign for Hero Action Fund. Follow her on Twitter:

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Groups Opposing The American Health Care Act

Over 50 organizations oppose the proposed healthcare plan that will make Americans will pay more for less.;The list includes nurses, doctors, hospitals, teachers, churches, and more. You can see a few here:;

AARP: AARP opposes this legislation, as introduced, that would weaken Medicare, leaving the door open to a voucher program that shifts costs and risks to seniors.

Before people even reach retirement age, big insurance companies could be allowed to charge them an age tax that adds up to thousands of dollars more per year. Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions. This plan goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs.

On top of the hefty premium increase for consumers, big drug companies and other special interests get a sweetheart deal.

Finally, Medicaid cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health and safety of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much-needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities. Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable.

AARP stands ready to work with both parties on legislation that puts Americans first, not the special interests.

That just wont do.

That is, above all, why physicians must be involved in this debate.

Universal Coverage Vs Market

What Virginia’s poorest citizens want from health care reform

Democrats generally continue to support the Affordable Care Act , but would like to fix its flaws and generally improve the law. Democrats want to empower states to use innovation waivers to create their own approaches to healthcare reform that are as good asor better thanthe current system. Many Democrats also support fixing the ACA’s “family glitch” by basing affordability calculations for employer-sponsored coverage on family premiums rather than employee-only premiums, and most also support expanding premium subsidies to higher income ranges in order to soften the subsidy cliff.

But increasingly, Democrats are also getting behind the idea of a transition to some sort of universal coverage system. All of the Democrats who ran for the 2020 presidential nomination were in favor of universal coverage, although they had differing opinions on whether we should transition entirely to a single-payer system or use a combination of government-run and private health coverage .

Biden’s healthcare proposal also calls for an end to surprise balance billing, premium-free coverage under the public option for people who are caught in the Medicaid coverage gap , and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.

The Republican Party has not rolled out a new healthcare platform for 2020, and is instead utilizing the same platform they had in 2016. So in general, their approach can be expected to be the same as it has been for the past several years.

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Paging Cooler Heads Can We Meet Somewhere In The Middle Please

The solution to healthcare reform isnt easy, but it lies somewhere in the middle of these extreme ideologies. GOP leadership has been working on swaying members of its own party, but perhaps a different approach one that includes leftwing support would fare better in the long run. The ACA was passed without conservative support, and now, seven years later, the country is on the brink of a healthcare overhaul once more. Unless politicians work toward reaching middle ground, its unlikely that reform will be effective regardless of whos in charge.

Premium Subsidies And Affordability

The ACA’s premium subsidies were designed to keep health insurance affordable for people who buy their own coverage in the individual market. Premiums for individual market plans increased alarmingly in 2017 and 2018, although they were much more stable in 2019 and 2020, and rate changes for 2021 appear to be mostly modest. But premiums for people who aren’t eligible for premium subsidies can still amount to a substantial portion of their income.

The individual market is a very small segment of the population, however, and rate increases have been much more muted across the full population .

Democrats have proposed various strategies for making coverage and care affordable. Joe Biden’s healthcare proposal includes larger premium subsidies that would be based on the cost of a benchmark gold plan and based on having people pay only 8.5% of their income for that plan . Biden’s proposal would also eliminate the ACA’s income cap for premium subsidy eligibility and provide subsidies to anyone who would otherwise have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for a benchmark gold plan. This would eliminate the “subsidy cliff” that currently exists for some enrollees.

The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for a “public option” health plan that would compete with private health insurance carriers in an effort to bring down prices, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60.

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[dailynewswebsite]

Biden’s climate change plans can quickly raise the bar, but can they be transformative?

The following administration might want to fastidiously weigh the financial, social and environmental impacts of each local weather change and the coverage responses. Jim Watson/Getty Photos

The day Joe Biden turns into president, he can begin taking actions that may assist gradual local weather change. The query is whether or not he can match the magnitude of the problem.

If his administration focuses solely on what’s politically potential and fails to construct a coordinated response that additionally addresses the social and financial ramifications of each local weather change and the U.S. coverage response, it’s unlikely to succeed.

I’ve spent a lot of my profession engaged on responses to local weather change internationally and in Washington. I’ve seen the quiet efforts throughout political events, even when the rhetoric was heated. There’s room for efficient local weather actions, significantly as warmth waves, wildfires and excessive climate make the dangers of worldwide warming tangible and the prices of renewable vitality fall. A coordinated technique can be essential to transcend symbolic actions and convey about transformative change.

Beginning on day one

Let’s first check out what Biden can do rapidly, with out having to depend on what’s prone to be a divided Congress.

Biden has already pledged to rejoin the Paris local weather settlement. With an govt order and a few wrangling with the United Nations, that may occur pretty rapidly. However the settlement is just a promise by nations worldwide to cut back the greenhouse gasoline emissions driving local weather change.

To start out shifting the nation again towards its obligations below the Paris Settlement, Biden can recertify the waiver that permits California to implement its gasoline financial system and zero-emissions automobile requirements. The Trump administration had revoked it. California is a giant state, and its actions are adopted by others, which places stress on the auto business to satisfy greater requirements nationwide.

In an analogous means, Biden can direct authorities businesses to energy their buildings and autos with renewable vitality.

The administration may restrict climate-warming greenhouse emissions by regulating actions just like the flaring of methane on public lands. The Trump administration rolled again numerous local weather and environmental laws over the previous 4 years.

There are even legislative actions that might get by way of a divided Congress, comparable to funding for clear vitality expertise.

The large job: Transformational change

That’s the straightforward half. The onerous half is catalyzing the transformational adjustments wanted to gradual world warming and defend the local weather our financial system was constructed on.

The final 5 years have been the most popular on document, and 2020 is on tempo to affix them. Assembly the Paris Settlement’s targets for preserving world warming in verify would require transforming how we generate and transmit vitality and overhauling how we develop meals in ways in which scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions. Biden has pledged to put the groundwork for 100% clear vitality by 2050, together with investing a whole lot of billions of {dollars} in applied sciences and industries that may decrease emissions and create jobs. His concepts for reworking meals techniques have been much less concrete.

The brand new administration must stroll a tightrope. It could actually’t danger spending down its political capital on actions which are potential however don’t quantity to a lot. It additionally has to acknowledge the chance of public backlash to something that may increase prices, be labeled “socialism” by opponents or depart a part of the nation harmed.

Transformative options must tackle each the advantages and the prices, and supply a path to a wholesome future for these dealing with the best losses. Meaning, for instance, not simply ending coal burning, a big contributor to local weather change, but in addition serving to communities and employees transition from coal mining to new jobs and financial drivers which are more healthy for the atmosphere.

What must occur first

One of many massive challenges – and the place the place Biden wants to start out – is the lack of awareness of systemic dangers, alternatives and prices of each local weather actions and inaction.

Proper now, there isn’t a federal company tasked with growing a systemic understanding of local weather change impacts throughout society.

An current govt department entity, such because the Council on Environmental High quality or the U.S. World Change Analysis Program, may convene a process drive of political employees, teachers and civil society to evaluate local weather coverage proposals, determine the advantages and prices after which advise the administration. Working throughout businesses, the duty drive could be positioned to take a look at your entire system and determine the broader results of proposed insurance policies or actions and the way they could work together. Comparable entities, such because the nonpartisan Congressional Funds Workplace and Congressional Analysis Service, are already central to policymaking.

Their work must transfer quick. The very nature of advanced techniques means the duty drive will present recommendation on local weather actions below uncertainty.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Aligning the potential and the transformational is the difficult work of politics, and that is the place Biden’s 47 years in Washington and status for working throughout the aisle are invaluable.

It is going to be terribly difficult work to match a rare problem. Additionally it is vital if the Biden administration, headed by a person who known as himself a transition candidate, needs to go away his nation and the world higher than they discovered it.

Edward R Carr is the Adviser on Local weather Change Adaptation on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the World Atmosphere Facility and a Lead Creator for Working Group II of the IPCC's upcoming sixth Evaluation Report. He has acquired funding from the Nationwide Science Basis and the US Company for Worldwide Growth. This piece displays his private views, not these of any group with which he’s affiliated.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/bidens-climate-change-plans-can-quickly-raise-the-bar-but-can-they-be-transformative/ via https://growthnews.in

[theconservativebrief]

Two years ago, the odd quirks of the Electoral College allowed Donald Trump to become president with a scant 46 percent of the vote. Today, the rest of America struck back.

Republicans picked off Senate seats deep in red America, but in the more responsive House of Representatives Democrats won seat after seat in urban and suburban America, swept to a majority, and brought an end to the Republican monopoly on power. The lesson is clear: Resistance works.

Since the day after Trump’s inauguration, ordinary people refused to sell out immigrants, refugees, trans people, or other scapegoats of the moment.

The protests that followed Trump’s inauguration were the largest mass demonstrations in American history. Crowds rushed to America’s airports to halt the first, and cruelest, version of Trump’s notorious travel ban. Thousands who called and protested played a crucial role in blocking the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, saving health coverage for millions of mostly low-income families.

The Women’s March in Washington D.C., on January 21, 2017. The Washington Post/Getty Images

The resistance fought hard to combat Trump’s policy initiatives in Congress. By no means did they win at every turn. Trump scored a meaningful policy legacy, but all of it is unpopular. His image on health care is in tatters, the polling on his tax bill is miserable, and Brett Kavanaugh is the least popular newly confirmed Supreme Court justice on record.

Women, as Lara Putnam and Theda Skocpol detailed, took the lead in rebuilding Democratic Party and para-party organizations all around the country. Even as the media endlessly rehashed “Trump voters still like Trump” content, in suburbs and small towns all across the country, newly energized grassroots groups marched and phone-banked and organized, and tonight they won.

Projection: today is the first day in history Americans have elected more than 100 women to the U.S. House of representatives.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 7, 2018

The congressional Republican Party stood by Trump through it all. They abandoned their 2016-vintage promises to be independent of Trump and hold him accountable, and Trump betrayed his 2016-vintage promises to be independent and check the GOP’s plutocratic instincts. They decided they would rather hang together than risk hanging separately, and for their sins, paid at the polls.

Initially, some in the media and some Democrats interpreted Trump’s razor-thin Electoral College victory, in which he earned fewer votes than his opponent, as a sign that he was a repository of deep and important truths about the state of the country. Some Democrats had the initial instinct in that fateful winter to try to collaborate with Trump — perhaps on an infrastructure bill — a misguided instinct that, unfortunately, will likely rear its head again.

What happened instead was the most extraordinary sustained popular mobilization of my lifetime. And from the beginning, the electoral warning signs were there for Republicans to heed.

Protestors demonstrate against the appointment of Steve Bannon as chief strategist of the White House, in Los Angeles, California, on November 16, 2016. David McNew/AFP/Getty Images

In special elections across the country, Democrats overperformed. Democrat Jon Ossoff lost the most expensive congressional election of all time in the Atlanta suburb — but he drastically outperformed any previous Democratic candidate in that district, and did essentially all of it with money raised from small donors. Rob Quist then repeated essentially the same feat in Montana a couple of weeks later.

Republicans saw these costly victories in red terrain as signs of strength, but they were in fact early warnings of weakness — weakness that broke through when a national outpouring of donors and volunteers helped power Doug Jones to an unlikely Senate win in Alabama that deprived Republicans of the numbers they needed to advance a 2019 legislative agenda.

These early signs of unpopularity would have been a good time for either Trump or congressional Republicans to turn back from the brink — with either the White House moving away from the deeply unpopular plutocratic policy agenda it inherited from House Republicans or Congress moving away from its complicity in Trump’s corruption and racial demagoguery — but they decided to press ahead undaunted with their partnership, and progressives continued to resist.

Almost nine years ago, Nancy Pelosi famously said that Democrats had to pass the Affordable Care Act so people could see what was in it. The conservative noise machine paired with superficial reporting glossed this as a gaffe — the then-speaker didn’t even know what her bill said — but her point, which was prescient, was that if the law actually took effect and people began to focus on its provisions rather than the hazy term “Obamacare,” they would like it.

Protestors against the Trump administration’s policies threatening the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid in Los Angeles, California, on January 25, 2017. David McNew/AFP/Getty Images

The 2018 midterms were an enormous vindication of that insight. It turned out that one of the things in it was a massive expansion of Medicaid that people liked quite a lot and that Senate Republicans were nervous about repealing. Another thing in it was the protections for patients with preexisting conditions that proved to be the centerpiece of many winning Democratic Party campaigns. As much as Trump tried to make the election be about a few thousand Central Americans hundreds of miles away, to many voters, it was about a few hundred congressional Republicans in Congress trying to deregulate the insurance industry.

It should be acknowledged, of course, that there was a price to resistance.

Incumbent Senate Democrats Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, Bill Nelso, and Claire McCaskill would have had better odds of hanging on to their seats had the party given a bipartisan imprimatur to more of Trump’s initiatives. And doubtless, some Republican optimists will offer themselves the spin that gains in the Senate offset losses in the House.

The truth, however, is that the Senate map was almost comically tilted toward the Republican Party.

Even in the House, gerrymandering created a situation in which Democrats needed to win the popular vote by 5 or more percentage points to secure a majority. In the end, it looks like they won by at least eight (we won’t know the real number until all the votes are counted in California) and will secure a solid majority.

Protestors against then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower, in New York City, on October 26, 2016. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

That’s an impressive victory in the face of gerrymandering and incumbency advantages. And, fortunately, victory itself can help assure a fairer playing field next time. With governor’s mansions in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Kansas now in Democratic hands and newly empowered Democratic trifectas in New Mexico and New York (adding to the ones already established in Washington and New Jersey as a result of the 2017 midterms) set the stage for progressive legislation on guns, the minimum wage, clean energy, and other topics.

And, of course, House Democrats, led by Pelosi, are now poised to take the resistance back to Capitol Hill and begin exerting a meaningful check on Trump. But as fundamentally toxic and unpopular as Trump and Trumpism have proven to be, they’ll have to be smart about it.

The first pitfall Democrats will need to avoid is the return of the infrastructure temptation.

Two years ago, the idea of cooperating with Trump on his notional desire for a massive infrastructure bill was the leading alternative concept to resistance. Massive grassroots outrage plus Trump’s evident lack of engagement with serious talks put an end to that, but this past August, Democrats started talking about infrastructure again. In September, former top Trump administration economic policy adviser Gary Cohn talked up bipartisan cooperation on infrastructure for after the midterms. And by October, lobbyists were salivating at the possibility.

There’s more to life than partisan politics, and obviously if Trump is sincerely prepared to deliver Republican votes for a transformative overhaul of American infrastructure that massively speeds the transition to electrification of transportation and the greening of the energy mix, then Democrats can’t just refuse to cooperate.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and fellow House Democrats announce their new infrastructure plan during a news conference at the on February 8, 2018. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

But if, as seems more likely, we are really just talking about a routine reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Act that’s set to expire in 2020 with some more money thrown around to all the relevant stakeholders, then Democrats can’t afford to be the sucker party. It would make a lot more sense to stick to just kick the can with a quiet extension of the existing law rather than allow Trump to take credit for a major bipartisan deal that doesn’t accomplish much that’s meaningful.

After all, there will be plenty for Democrats to do on the investigative front even if very little legislating happens.

Here, the party’s problem is an embarrassment of riches. With Trump awash in scandal, it’s possible that ever subcommittee chair will be running her own investigation and the whole thing will turn into background noise.

A smart strategy will require strong leadership to insist on focus and message discipline. Investigations that can plausibly claim a scalp (the way Scott Pruitt went down last year after his scandals became too numerous and too funny) are always worth pursuing when they come up. But in terms of Trump himself, who pretty obviously isn’t going anywhere unless he’s beaten at the polls in 2020, Democrats will need to be ruthless editors and pick one or two lines of inquiry that advance their most electorally potent angles.

Most of all, they need to stay nervous. Every party that sweeps into midterm victory thinks history’s winds are at its back. But Republican wins in 1994 and 2010 were followed by successful Democratic reelection bids in 1996 and 2012. Trump’s existence in office is a real and ongoing threat to the rule of law and the stability of American institutions. But the very fact of a Democratic House will prevent him from a repeat of 2017’s hideously unpopular bills. For now, though, he not only lacks majority support — he’s never had it.

Trump entered office not only having lost the popular vote but — uniquely among presidents — with an underwater favorability rating. George W. Bush got fewer votes than Al Gore, and Bill Clinton prevailed in a three-way field with just 42 percent of the vote, but both were popular on their inauguration days and enjoyed a honeymoon period with the mass public.

The Trump administration, by contrast, has consistently tried to run plays out of the authoritarian populist playbook — casting criticism and opposition as unpatriotic betrayals of the will of the people — without ever actually achieving popularity. Brazil’s new President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, repugnant as he may be, won an actual election in which he got most Brazilian voters to back him. Trump’s entire viability, by contrast, has been due to the geographic happenstance of the Electoral College, backed up by the Senate’s structural underrepresentation of people of color and boosted by a House GOP majority that gerrymandered itself into softness and complacency.

Belief that only a profoundly enormous landslide could cost them control of Congress, Republicans treated Trump as if one of the least popular presidents on record was a genius. And much of the press went along, treating recklessness as a form of political savvy.

It was not. The state of semipermanent emergency that the country has been in since Trump’s election (just one week ago, he casually floated the idea of issuing an executive order to somehow unilaterally alter the constitutional status of US-born children of unauthorized immigrants) continues, and the risks of a high-stakes institutional showdown are in some ways now elevated. But the myth of a Teflon Trump is dead, along with the bizarre notion that 45 percent or so of the public constitutes a “silent majority” that craves incompetence and white nationalism.

The resistance won because resistance works.

Suzanne Damas protests President Trump at the Women’s March in Washington D.C., on January 21, 2017. Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Original Source -> The lesson of the midterms: resistance works

via The Conservative Brief

[newstfionline]

Trump’s ambitious agenda: 7 things to watch in 2018

David Jackson and Deirdre Shesgreen, USA Today, Jan. 2, 2018

Washington: US President Donald Trump may have big policy plans for 2018, but political distractions are likely to shadow prospects of big legislative achievements.

White House officials say Trump wants to rein in the threat from North Korea and list four top domestic priorities on his 2018 agenda: Repealing and replacing President Obama’s 2010 health care law, welfare reform, immigration, and a new infrastructure plan.

Yet the Republican-controlled Congress has been struggling to pass some of Trump’s major priorities since his election--and their challenges will only increase in 2018. The GOP’s Senate bare majority will shrink when Alabama’s newly elected senator, Democrat Doug Jones, is sworn in.

In January, lawmakers will have to confront a thicket of unfinished business. In their rush to get home for the holidays, the GOP-led Congress passed a short-term spending bill that expires on January 19.

Trump and GOP leaders will have to negotiate a longer-term spending deal before then to avert a government shutdown, and they will likely need Democratic support for that to pass. Other sticky issues on the January agenda include legislation aimed at stabilising the Obamacare individual insurance markets and reauthorising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a contentious anti-terrorism law that gives law enforcement sweeping spy powers.

What’s more, lawmakers will be consumed with their own 2018 mid-term elections--and the increasingly contentious Russia investigations.

“As everybody in Washington knows, a midterm election year is a year when most legislation comes to a standstill,” said David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.

“Members of Congress are going to be obsessed with winning re-election,” Cohen said, and will be more eager to campaign at home than be in Washington casting tough votes.

Here are seven key issues that Trump and Congress will confront:

North Korea: Trump will lobby China--and other countries--to twist the economic screws on North Korea, in the hopes of forcing that rogue nation to give up their nuclear weapons program.

Trump travelled to Asia to press that issue in November and declared North Korea a state sponsor of terror. Yet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has more or less thumbed his nose at the effort, recently setting off another ballistic missile test, and continued threatening the US and its allies.

As 2018 approaches, Trump and his advisers hope to settle the dispute diplomatically, but they have not ruled out the possibility of a military strike.

Infrastructure: In his 2018 budget proposal, Trump sought $US200 billion over 10 years to spend on infrastructure, leveraging private-sector spending to focus federal dollars on “transformative” projects seen as priorities at both the federal and regional level.

That went nowhere in 2017, as Trump and the GOP-led Congress focused instead on trying to repeal Obamacare and enacting tax cuts. But the President plans to rev up that push early next year, with the hope that Democrats will cooperate.

Infrastructure spending is generally a bipartisan issue, and few dispute the need to improve the nation’s highway and bridges. But Trump and Democrats have already outlined competing plans, and conservatives are likely to oppose any legislation that calls for massive new spending.

So the fate of that will likely depend on Trump’s willingness to cut a deal with Democrats--and vice versa--heading into a heated election year.

Healthcare: Trump insists he has not given up on his goal of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, former president Obama’s health reform law, even though Republicans in Congress could not muster enough votes to deliver on that long-promised goal this year.

After Congress passed a massive tax bill in December that included measures to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, Trump declared the law was “essentially” repealed and lawmakers would work together to find a replacement. (However, the law is barely touched, though the requirement that nearly everyone have insurance or pay a penalty at tax time was repealed effective in 2019.)

Overhauling Obamacare will only get more complicated in 2018, as Republicans will have just 51 seats in the Senate. And the GOP’s previous efforts to nix it sparked intense anger among voters who wanted to keep the coverage--something lawmakers may not want to reignite when many of them will be on the ballot.

Immigration: Congress has a March deadline to decide the fate of the so-called Dreamers, the approximately 700,000 immigrants brought to the US illegally when they were children. Trump nixed an Obama-era program that shielded the Dreamers from deportation, but he also said Congress should figure out a legislative fix so the young people aren’t sent back to countries they did not grow up in.

Critics have called the Obama protections--known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals--a form of “amnesty” and suggested those young immigrants have taken jobs from Americans. But there’s bipartisan support in Congress and in the public to grant the Dreamers legal status and even a path to citizenship.

Whether Trump--who campaigned on a hardline anti-immigrant platform--will sign such a bill is unclear. He has sent mixed signals on the issue, and he’s also called for new restrictions on refugees and others seeking entry into the United States.

After the December 12 arrest of a man who tried to set off a bomb in a New York commuter tunnel, Trump called for the end of “chain migration” and the diversity visa lottery programs. Those issues may again come up this year.

Welfare reform: In announcing a new major legislative priority following the tax cut bill, Trump said welfare reform was “desperately needed in our country”.

A Trump budget proposal last year called for adding work requirements to some government programs and tightening eligibility requirements for low-income tax credits.

“We want to get our people off of welfare and back to work,” Trump said. “So important. It’s out of control. It’s out of control.”

Democrats say welfare reforms instituted two decades ago are working and that Trump wants to punch major holes in the social safety net.

Iran: Trump announced in October he would no longer certify that Iran is in compliance with an Obama-era deal, in which Tehran pledged to give up the means to make nuclear weapons while the US and allies ease economic sanctions. Instead, Trump called on Congress to improve the agreement, and the fate of the Iran nuclear deal is likely to come to a head in 2018.

Supporters of the agreement fear Iran will walk away from the deal and pursue nuclear weapons anyway, triggering a dangerous arms race in the Middle East. Trump is up against his own side on this issue, with Republican Senator Bob Corker, the current chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations, keen to preserve the deal.

The debt limit: The US Treasury will run out of money to pay its bills sometime in the northern spring--unless Congress and the President agree on legislation to raise the nation’s debt limit. The Treasury Department lost its authority to borrow any new money to pay the government’s obligations on December 9.

Officials are currently taking “extraordinary measures” to keep from defaulting on the government’s current obligations, including Medicare benefits and the interest on the national debt. But the agency will run out of those accounting gimmicks in late March or early April, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

That could lead to a round of partisan fiscal brinksmanship--with threats of defaulting on the government’s debts. Conservatives have generally opposed increasing the nation’s borrowing authority, so Trump will likely have to negotiate with Democrats to come to an agreement. Three Senate Democrats propose scrapping debt ceiling.

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/wins-loses-donald-trumps-christmas-gift-aka-republican-tax-plan/

Who wins and loses with Donald Trump's Christmas gift aka Republican tax plan

Senator Mitch McConnell has been stating over the past 24 hours that the Senate has the votes to pass the Republicans' sweeping tax overhaul, but as more Senators like Sen. Susan Collins signs on, it is looking more than likely. This will give Donald Trump a much-needed victory after former National Security advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty today about lying to the FBI and will now be working with Bob Mueller on the Russia investigation. At this point, Americans will be tested on their support for Trump if the plan does pass with the expected results. With several important changes still expected Friday evening, here's a rundown of the winners and losers so far:

Winners

President Trump. He promised a "big, beautiful" tax cut by Christmas. It's the centerpiece of his "MAGA-nomics" agenda, and he looks likely to get it (at least by early 2018) as both the House and Senate have passed the major hurdles of passing bills. In fact, it might even end up being a tax cut AND a repeal of the individual health care mandate, one of the least popular Affordable Care Act provisions. Most economists also expect the bill will juice economic growth, at least for the next year or two. The economy has been growing around 3 percent for the past two quarters. If it jumps to 4 percent (or more) in coming quarters, Trump can claim an even bigger victory heading into the 2018 mid-term elections and the 2020 presidential election. Big corporations. America's largest companies are about to get the biggest tax cut ever. Both the House and Senate bills slash the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. While few corporations actually pay 35 percent, the average is around 25 percent; most still get a break. Profitable companies like Apple and Microsoft also get the bring back the piles of cash they have sitting in offshore accounts to the United States at a very low tax rate (currently just 10 percent in the Senate bill). There are other goodies in the bill for them as well such as the ability to fully deduct the cost of new investments for the next five years. But perhaps the biggest win of all for big business is a change from a worldwide tax system where businesses have to report income earned all over the world to the IRS to a territorial system where they mainly pay taxes only on what was generated in the United States. People with money in the stock market. The Dow surged above 24,000 for the first time ever this week. The stock market is up about 600 points (2.6 percent) just this week as investors cheer the the tax cuts getting closer to reality. If Trump is able to sign the bill, investors are likely to get a very good deal. Many companies plan to bring cash home from abroad and give a lot of that extra money to investors in the form of higher dividends and stock buybacks (which increase stock prices). Overall, tax cuts mean more larger profits for businesses, which means more money in the pockets of investors. Many in the middle class (at least for awhile). Republicans have sold the tax plan as a boost to middle-class paychecks. According to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, 80 percent of Americans earning $50,000 to $75,000 would get a sizable reduction in their taxes by 2019 (the average cut would be about $850, according to the Tax Policy Center). Overall, about 62 percent of Americans would pay at least $100 less in taxes in 2019. But the tax cuts for families don't last forever. The Senate bill has the lower rates for individuals going away after 2025. Republicans argue a future Congress is likely to extend the cuts, but there is no guarantee that will happen. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.). He did it on taxes. The Senate Majority Leader took a huge blow over the summer when the Affordable Care Act repeal failed. Trump appeared to give him the cold shoulder for awhile, but McConnell is the man of the hour now. He managed to rally GOP senators to deliver the biggest priority of all: tax cuts. It turned out to be a surprisingly difficult task with many senators demanding last-minute changes, but McConnell got the 50 votes he needed. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.). The Pennsylvania senator was one of the main authors of the Senate tax bill, and he defended it vigorously on the floor of the U.S. Senate. As Democrat after Democrat slammed the bill, Toomey calmly stood up and sold the bill as a way to make American companies more competitive and profitable so they will invest more in the United States and hire more workers, hopefully raising wages as well. Toomey played an especially large role in crafting the tax changes for small and large businesses, a very complex tax. Rich kids. The GOP tax bills make it a lot easier for wealthy parents to pass property and money to their kids. Under current law, up to $5.5 million can be passed down tax-free. After that, there's a 40 percent tax, known as the "estate tax" (or the "death tax" by critics). The House bill eliminates the estate tax entirely. The Senate bill allows rich parents to pass up to $11 million onto their heirs tax-free. Maybe Dreamers? Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) says he is voting for the tax bill despite his concerns about what it would do to the national debt because GOP leaders promised him they would pass legislation soon to allow "Dreamers" (young people in the country without documentation who have gone to school in the United States and followed the law) to stay.

Losers

Senate Democrats/Filibustering. Democrats panned the bill as a "tax scam" that gives away a ton to the wealthy and corporations, but they were not able to stop the bill. Republicans were able to pass this massive legislation with just 50 votes in the Senate. Normally it would take 60 votes, but Republicans side-stepped any trouble from Democrats by using a clever tactic known as reconciliation where they are allowed to tack one major bill a year onto the budget and pass it with a simple majority vote (the tie is then broken by Vice President Mike Pence -- we know how he will vote). Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) He made a brave last stand Thursday night to try to force Republicans to change the bill so it wouldn't add so much to the deficit. He was upset to learn that even after accounting for economic growth, the bill is still expected to cost $1 trillion. That was too much, Corker said, but in the end, his Republican colleagues passed the bill without him. Corker has already said he's retiring from the Senate after his term expires after the 2018 election. It could be lonely for him in the Senate lunch room for awhile. People who care about the debt. For years, many Republicans have railed against America's growing debt that ballooned under President George W. Bush and then President Barack Obama because of wars, tax cuts and the Great Recession. The total debt is now $20 trillion (about $15 trillion is actually held by the public). The tax bill is likely to add at least $1 trillion more, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeepers in Congress. In other words, all signs indicate the debt will continue to get worse in the coming years. The 13 million Americans who won't have health insurance. The Senate bill isn't just a tax bill; it also includes the repeal of the individual mandate that requires all Americans to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty. This provision is not in the House bill, so it might not make it to the president's desk, but if it does, it's expected to cause a spike in health insurance premiums in the United States and 13 million Americans to drop insurance coverage in the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The poor. The Senate bill cuts tax rates across all income levels, but 44 percent of Americans don't pay any federal income tax, so it doesn't help them. Some senators -- notably Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) -- pushed to give more money back to lower-income families in the form of refundable tax credits. Rubio and Lee wanted to make a lot of the Child Tax Credit refundable. But that didn't happen, meaning the poor won't get much benefit from the bill. If anything, they might lose a lot -- some won't be able to afford health insurance anymore, and some are likely to lose other government benefits as Republicans look for ways to trim the federal budget in the coming months. Puerto Rico. The island that was devastated by Hurricane Maria this fall now might lose some of the few big businesses that remain on the island if the GOP tax bill gets enacted. The reason is that Puerto Rico would no longer look so advantageous as a place to do business compared to the rest of the United States. Puerto Rico's governor is trying to push for the island to be deemed a "free trade zone," but that doesn't look likely. Harvard. The House and Senate bills create a new 1.4 percent tax on private college endowments worth over $250,000 per student. Only a handful of universities have such large endowments. Most are Ivy League schools like Harvard.

Maybe losers (depends on conference committee)

College students. The House bill scraps many popular deductions for college students and college grads with student loans. The House bill eliminates the popular student loan debt write off, and it forces graduate students who receive tuition waivers (sometimes as much as $20,000 or more) to count that money as income for tax purposes, even though they don't actually receive money in their pockets. It would be a big hit, and many universities are saying it could heavily dissuade graduate study. The Senate bill does not make these changes. Elderly with high medical expenses. The House bill gets rid of the deduction for huge medical expenses, which 8.8 million Americans (mostly elderly) currently use. The Senate keeps this deduction in place, setting up a major conflict to be worked out.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

[wavenetinfo]

Posted June 02, 2017 16:56:13

Photo: A child’s arm being measured with a band that is used to detect child malnutrition. (Supplied: Francis Muana, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

Aid agencies estimate around 20 million people are on the verge of famine as conflict and natural disasters wreak havoc on parts of the Middle East and north Africa.

But the battle against global food security isn’t just restricted to this region.

Welfare organisations believe more than 100 million people in 48 countries lack reliable access to food each day.

From inter-clan disputes in South Sudan, to civil wars between the Syrian government and rebels to an immigration crackdown in the United States, the factors contributing to food insecurity are complex.

However, one things all aid agencies agree on is that enhancing agriculture is at the heart of the solution.

Photo: Cattle at the White Nile river in Terekeka, South Sudan. (Supplied: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

Farmers killed as clans raid cattle

Audio: Brett Worthington reports on the role of agriculture in addressing global food security and combatting hunger

(ABC News)

Like fluffy dark clouds sitting on the ground, smoke billows from the Marial Vek cattle camp in central South Sudan.

But it’s not wood that’s burning, it’s cattle dung.

“So you see people are in the dust,” said Peter Dengmalou, a 25-year-old farmer, or ‘cattle keeper’ as he calls himself.

“It is because of other diseases [and] flies. They want to [send] these things away.”

Mr Dengmalou wishes his biggest nuisance was keeping flies and diseases away from his cattle.

Instead, he’s among the many farmers in a battle just to keep their livestock.

“Some people come and raid your cattle – they steal,” he said.

In recent weeks, aid agencies have reported dozens of people being killed in a gun battle near the edge of Rumbek, a town that Mr Dengmalou grazes his cattle near.

In this region, inter-clan fighting and violent cattle raiding is among the biggest issues cattle keepers face.

It’s a battle fellow cattle keeper, 20-year-old Martha Abel Maker, knows all too well.

“If they know you are from that clan, or from that tribe, they come and shoot you,” she said.

“People fear to cultivate [crops] because they want to protect their lives.

“They will kill you. Even if they find you and you’re not in the field and they find you outside, they will kill you later.”

Photo: A cattle keeper in South Sudan stands with his animals at a cattle camp. (Supplied: Tanya Birkbeck)

Aid agencies report tens of thousands of people have been killed, and about 3.5 million people displaced amid the South Sudanese civil war that has raged for four years.

Famine was first declared in parts of the country in February this year, with crop production hitting its lowest levels since the conflict started.

Countries most at risk of famine

Yemen

Somalia

South Sudan

Nigeria

Source: United Nations FAO

The UN estimates almost 5 million people, or about 40 per cent of the country’s population, face unprecedented levels of food insecurity.

Dominique Burgeon, the director of emergencies for the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO), said there were 48 countries with 108 million people who they classify as being in ‘severe-acute food insecurity’.

“So it means that these people do not only have to cut on the quantity and the quality of the meals they take but they have to deplete their source of livelihood to have access to this meagre food,” he said.

“This is a situation of very serious concern globally but within that global picture I would say that we are especially concerned by the situation in Yemen, in Somalia, South Sudan and north eastern Nigeria.

“Basically we have about 20 million plus people on the verge of famine in these countries.”

Photo: Farmers participating in a United Nations FAO program harvest peanuts at a community garden in Dolnoon, Aweil South, South Sudan. (Supplied: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

The UN FAO works alongside other aid agencies throughout the hardest-hit countries.

They supply aid and emergency relief for people in-need. The organisation also works with farmers to help them access crop seeds, and the technology and resources needed to make them grow.

Mr Burgeon has recently returned from a trip to South Sudan and Ethiopia.

A La Nina weather pattern has led to a severe drought that has lingered since late last year, devastating the livestock sector.

Very little to no rain since last October has slashed crop production, leaving livestock without food.

“I was shocked when I was there by a lady I met with,” Mr Burgeon said.

“She had 200 heads of sheep and goats and due to the drought and lack of pasture and lack of access to feed, 190 of [her] sheep and goat had died.

“In despair she therefore decided to move with her 10 kids to a place where she could get a chance to have access to humanitarian assistance.”

Lives and livelihoods lost amid six years of civil war in Syria

World Vision estimates almost 400,000 people have died since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011.

A further 11 million have been displaced, including about 5 million that have fled to other countries as refugees.

Counting the cost of war in Syria

All agriculture US$16 billion Crops US$7.2 billion Livestock US$5.5 billion Fisheries US$80 million

Source: United Nations FAO

The United Nations, in its Counting the Cost report, assessed six years of crisis in Syria.

It found the cost to the agriculture sector through damage and lost production was more than $21 billion (US$16 billion), with crop and livestock sectors the hardest hit.

It estimated it would cost more than $23 billion (US$17 billion) to rebuild the agricultural sector within three years.

Video: Syrian crisis and the impact of climate change

(The World)

The UN FAO expects 7 million Syrians will face food insecurity, with another 2 million at risk this year.

“It’s not like we can say Syria has always been a cot case, it hasn’t,” Dr Denis Blight said.

Dr Blight has more than 30 years of experience working with aid projects and is the chief executive of the Crawford Fund, an Australian non government organisation that seeks to raise awareness about food security and the role research can play in combatting it.

“That conflict has had terrible consequences on the ability of the Syrians to feed themselves,” Dr Blight said.

Even if people don’t have an emotional response, aid agencies say there’s a pragmatic reason why people in developed nations should care.

“We all should care because these crisis’ are of human dimensions of great proportions impacting on our fellow humankind,” Dr Blight said.

“But we should also care because of the consequences of those crisis’, as is evident by conflict and insecurity and [the] massive immigration impact [it has] on all of us to greater or lesser extents.”

Immigration crackdown threatening US farm workforces

Amid accusations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons on his citizens, United States President Donald Trump announced missile attacks on the country’s air bases.

Back home, Mr Trump was pursuing an immigration crackdown, that would limit new arrivals of people fleeing their countries.

The crackdown included a spike in arrests of illegal immigrants.

In May, official figures from US Immigration and Custom Enforcement showed there had been an almost 40 per cent jump in arrests compared to the same time a year ago.

Mr Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue have reportedly told farm lobby groups behind closed doors that the immigration raids wouldn’t target their sector.

However, Kristi Boswell from the American Farm Bureau said that had done little to ease farmers’ concerns.

“There’s a lot of anxiety all across the country within our workforce,” she said.

“[They are] unsure about where they will sit, if they’re going to be part of a detainment action or enforcement action. They are concerned.

“Our farmers in turn are concerned because they rely on these workers.

“We have never shied away from the conversation that over half of our workforce is gaining employment by using fraudulent documents.”

Last year, Californian farmers reported up to a quarter of some crops were dying in fields unharvested because farmers couldn’t recruit enough workers.

Famers say US needs an overhaul of its visa programs to allow them access to a stable workforce.

Californian Democratic senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein last month proposed legislative reforms to shield farmworkers illegally in the country from deportation and create a path to citizenship.

Democratic senators from Colorado, Vermont and Hawaii have backed the measures but it appears unlikely to gain any traction with Republicans.

It’s this stalemate that infuriates the American Farm Bureau – it wants immediate action so farmers can secure a stable workforce.

“The time is now. It really is a crisis situation for our farmers and ranchers,” Ms Boswell said.

Photo: A cattle keeper in South Sudan stands with his animals at a cattle camp. (Supplied: Tanya Birkbeck)

For US farmers, their issues require a political fix. For farmers in northern Africa and the Middle East, it’ll need a more complicated solution.

Aid agencies hope supporting farmers who remain within conflict zones will offer a solution.

Despite the civil war, agriculture remains one of the major drivers of the Syrian economy, producing around a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product.

Keeping farmers on their land despite turmoil and conflict lies at the heart of a global bid to eliminate global hunger by 2030.

While it’s ambitious, Mr Burgeon of the UN FAO remains hopeful it can be achieved.

He holds onto the fact that while Syria used to produce up to 5 million tonnes of cereal crops, it still produces around 1.5 million tonnes.

“You can see the glass as half full or half empty,” he said.

“If you see it half full you say ‘well after more than five years of conflict it is still producing 1.5 million tonnes of cereals’.

“It is clear that the agricultural sector, within a country that is devastated with conflict, the agricultural sector is therefore still there.

“People still farm, people still depend on agriculture.”

Photo: Young boys head home after fishing for a day in the swamps of Nyal, South Sudan. (Supplied: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

Helping small-scale farmers prepare for natural disasters

There’s only so much aid agencies can do to support farmers in war-torn countries.

Video: Ensuring regional food security

(The World)

The target of the global effort to eradicate hunger is on the 2.5 billion small-scale farmers, who regularly battle crippling natural disasters like droughts and floods.

The UN says it’s these farmers who need a greater capacity to absorb climate and conflict shocks because without that, it concedes eliminating global hunger by 2030 is unlikely.

In Australia, grain growers continue to overcome droughts.

The skills they have developed to maintain their yields is what Dr Blight says they can teach the world.

“We want to encourage economic growth,” Dr Blight said.

“Economic growth is one of the factors that, overall, has a negative impact on numbers of refugees flowing.

“The countries with strong economic growth tend to have fewer refugees out migrating.

“What is true is that economic growth enhances the prospects of countries importing goods and services from abroad.

“Australia, because we have high-quality products and services to offer, will be able to take advantage of that.”

With a growing population, Dr Blight says maintaining current levels of agricultural production won’t be enough to feed everyone.

He remains adamant that agricultural research is the crucial element to prevent conditions deteriorating.

“Unless we maintain this never-ending increase in agricultural productivity of 1 or 2 or 3 per cent a year, we’re going to face serious consequences globally.”

Photo: A boy with a baby goat stands among a herd of cattle at a cattle camp in South Sudan. (Supplied: Tanya Birkbeck)

Young farmers shaping South Sudan’s future

Martha Abel Maker and Peter Dengmalou have travelled from their homes to be in Juba.

They’ve come to South Sudan’s capital for training with the UN FAO, learning skills to take back to their villages.

They both agree their future relies on education and an end to conflict.

“If the fighting is not stopped, there [will be] no change,” Ms Abel Maker said.

“If fighting is stopped, in this rainy season, we will cultivate crops because [what] stops us from cultivating is the fighting.”

“The gunmen should make disarmament,” Mr Dengmalou adds.

“Just collect the guns and tell the people to go to school [and] to farm in the field.”

Topics:

grain,

agricultural-crops,

livestock,

beef-cattle,

poverty,

famine,

south-sudan,

melbourne-3000,

canberra-2600,

united-states,

syrian-arab-republic

2 June 2017 | 6:56 am

Brett Worthington

Source : ABC News

>>>Click Here To View Original Press Release>>>

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); June 02, 2017 at 01:26PM

[patriotsnet]

What Do Republicans Think About Healthcare

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-think-about-healthcare/

What Do Republicans Think About Healthcare

Republicans On The Affordable Care Act

Warren Buffett says GOP health reform bills are relief for the rich

In the 2012 Republican Part Platform, Republicans spoke out against the Affordable Care Act, stating that the Democrats used it more as an assertion of power than they used it to improve health care conditions in this country, and in doing so they detrimentally damaged the health of this nation. The Republican Party views the requirement for United States citizens to purchase health insurance as an attack on the Constitution. They believe that the financial burden it would bring upon the country, and specifically on individual states, through the expansion of Medicaid is unsustainable, and will harm the nation as a whole. The act was so firmly opposed by the Republican Party that not a single Republican voted for the final version that Obama signed into law.

Obamacare Repeal Requires Replacement After 2016 Election

Republicans had spent eight years trashing the Democratic health care overhaul, but now that they were in power, they ran up against the same political winds that forced ObamaCare tolook like such a political Frankenstein’s monster to begin with. Conservatives wanted a complete and total repeal of the law; moderative Republicans wanted to protect certain pieces of it.

Do Americans Like Socialism

In a list of ten ideologies;YouGov;put to Americans, socialism ranked fifth in terms of favorability. Three in ten Americans have a favorable view of socialism, while 47% do not. Another 13% arent sure, and 10% dont know what the term means in the first place.;

Least;favorable;are totalitarianism , fascism and authoritarianism .;

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the popularity;of self-proclaimed;democratic socialist Bernie Sanders,;Democrats take a more;favorable;view of socialism, and Republicans less so. Half of Democrats have a;favorable;view, while just over a quarter;;have an;unfavorable;one. Among Republicans,;11% have a;favorable;view and 75% an;unfavorable;one.;

Don’t Miss: Why Is There Republicans And Democrats

Nbc News/commonwealth Fund Health Care Poll

Three in 10 likely voters are worried about being able to afford health insurance and costs for prescription drugs and other health care over the next year; among most worried are Democrats, blacks, Hispanics, and people earning under $50,000

Nearly 80 percent of likely voters believe reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president

Three in 10 likely voters are worried about being able to afford health insurance and costs for prescription drugs and other health care over the next year; among most worried are Democrats, blacks, Hispanics, and people earning under $50,000

Nearly 80 percent of likely voters believe reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president

Press Release

In next weeks Super Tuesday primaries, voters in 14 states and American Samoa will cast their ballots for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. Health care has emerged as one of the top issues in the 2020 election, at times dominating the Democratic presidential debates.

Controlling Drug Prices Top Issue For Republicans

Controlling drug prices is a top health care priority of the Trump administration, says James C.

Capretta, a resident fellow and the Milton Friedman Chair at the right-leaning think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. In the healthcare sphere, drug pricing would be number one, he said. Then other issues, such as price transparency and health reimbursement accounts, would follow behind that.

If Trump wins re-election and the Republicans control at least the U.S. Senate, then its safe to say that past will be prologue for 2021 if not longer, Capretta observes.

The agenda for Republicans is almost certainly going to remain as it has been since 2017, he notes. By that I mean there will be a focus on administrative action related to loosening regulations.

If there is a second Trump administration, executive orders and administrative changes are likely to be the main tools of its healthcare policies because Democrats are expected to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives regardless of how the presidential vote turns out and whether the Republicans keep their current 53-47 hold on the Senate.

The idea of any kind of Trump legislative initiatives making it through the Congress seems quite remote, Capretta continues. Moreover, I don’t think they have a legislative health agenda that they would be ready and wanting to push as a priority.

Recommended Reading: Who Won More Democrats Or Republicans

Republicans And Democrats Think With Different Parts Of Their Brains

American liberals and conservatives use different parts of their brains when assessing risks, a new study finds.

A new study says that the brains of American Democrats and Republicans are wired differently, and that they use entirely different sections when making risky decisions.

Let the debates commence.

Liberals show a higher level of activity in the left insula, a portion of the brain associated with self-awareness, social cues, addiction, emotional processing, empathy, and even orgasms .

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to weigh risk in the right amygdala, an area of the brain that aids in survival, including reacting to violations of personal space and controlling social interaction, fear, and aggression .

These conclusions were drawn from a study of 82 people performed by political scientists and neuroscientists at the University of Exeter and the University of California, San Diego. The study was published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

George W Bush On Health Care

During his time in office, George W. Bush advocated for HIV/AIDS relief, HIV prevention, and abstinence-only education. He implemented the ABC method of HIV prevention . He also worked towards HIV relief and prevention through efforts that emphasized regular testing, early diagnosis, ongoing monitoring, and the elimination of HIV/AIDS in newborns. He also increased the amount spent on abstinence-only education. Bush also restricted federal funding for stem cell research and created a ban on human cloning and the creation of human embryos that were solely for experimental purposes. During his time in office, he also restored a policy that banned the use of controlled substances for assisted suicide.

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Trump And Republican Health Care Reform: The Republicans’ Irrational Opposition To Medicaid

President Trump and almost all Congressional Republicans have consistently opposed Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.

Their opposition is irrational.

It is also unpopular with voters. In dark red states like Nebraska, Idaho and Utah voters recently went over the heads of their Republican legislators and governors by approving referendums to expand the program. And, Kansas is about to become the 37th state to expand Medicaid under Obamacare after a bipartisan agreement between the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the legislature.

While Obamacare’s individual health insurance reforms and subsidies have been a disaster for the middle class , the Medicaid expansion in the states that have approved it has covered millions of people that would never have been covered otherwiseat a cost that could never have been less.

Republican opposition has centered around a number of arguments. Let’s take a look at each of them.

We can’t afford such a massive expansion of the welfare state and the impact that would have on deficit spending.

Our rapidly exploding deficits are a big issue we seem to have recently forgotten about.

But blowing up the deficit over health care didn’t bother Congressional Republicans in 2003 when they created the Medicare Part D drug benefit and didn’t pay for it adding $700 billion to the deficit over the following ten years . But that unpaid-for entitlement expansion helped a big Republican constituencyseniors.

Why Do Republicans Oppose Obamacare

Why Do Republicans Think Socialists Are Anti-Gun?

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REPUBLICANS have campaigned against Obamacare ever since it was signed into law in 2010.;

But with a change in presidency ahead, the Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including;key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

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Challenges Under The Affordable Care Act

Also known as Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act became law in March 2010. The measure was an attempt by former President Obama to give every American access to affordable health insurance. At the time, 39 Democrats and 178 House Republicans voted against the ACA. The remaining 218 Democrats in the House voted for the ACA. The Senate passed the ACA with a 68-30 vote, with 68 Democrats and two Independents voting yea and 39 Republicans voting nay. The party-line vote exposed the ideological differences between the two sides on healthcare.

Despite widespread support among Democrats for the ACA, Obamacare has not lived up to some of its hype, and even those on the left agree that the law hasnt accomplished its full potential over the last seven years.

Here are some of the challenges that Obamacare faced:

Many Americans found it difficult to understand why the law required them to acquire insurance or face a fine. To further compound the problem, most people did not understand how the law imposed the fine. Plenty of taxpayers were surprised when they got charged an additional fee during tax time.

Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare

The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.

The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.

Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.

A decision is expected by late spring.

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Obama And Trump Healthcare Policies Compared

There could not be a more radical divide between administrations than there is between these two. The Obama administration worked against almost insurmountable opposition from the GOP in order to pass the ACA. The Trump Administrations quest is to dismantle everything the Obama Administration has done. They even have court cases pending in order to do so.

Republicans Have A Health Plan Finally

The House Republican Study Committee has come out with a viable plan.

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For the past ten years Republicans in Congress have been largely AWOL on health care.

If memory serves, there has never been a hearing to showcase the victims of Obamacare. Nor has there been a hearing to show how sensible reforms could make the lives of those victims better.

When it came to legislation, the GOP only had two ideas: either abolish Obamacare entirely or toss it to the states. Neither approach actually solved a health care problem. They just allowed Republicans in Washington to wash their hands of the issue and pass the problems along to someone else.

Until now.

The House Republican Study Committee has accepted the challenge and delivered. In a 68-page document, it identifies the worse problems in our health care system and shows how they can be solved.

The proposals are bold, impactful and easy to understand. Here is a quick summary.

Personal and portable health insurance. In an ideal world, if people like the insurance they get from an employer, they would be able to take it with them from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Under the Obama administration, this practice was not only illegal, employers who bought individually owned insurance for their employees faced huge fines.

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Religion And The Belief In God Is Vital To A Strong Nation

Republicans are generally accepting only of the Judeo-Christian belief system. For most Republicans, religion is absolutely vital in their political beliefs and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, separation of church and state is not that important to them. In fact, they believe that much of what is wrong has been caused by too much secularism.

Those are the four basic Republican tenets: small government, local control, the power of free markets, and Christian authority. Below are other things they believe that derive from those four ideas.

Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor

Despite what they say on television about protecting the most vulnerable, one by one the Republican senators are all getting in line behind Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. We don’t yet know who that is, but we can assume how he or she will vote on Obamacare.

People with pre-existing conditions like me are again terrified of losing our insurance, this time in the midst of a pandemic. We’ve lived through years of scary uncertainty and now months of sheltering in place. Enough is enough. We are all health care voters now. We’ll see whether our wavering senators are health care voters, too.

Laura Packard is a Denver-based health care advocate and cancer survivor. She is the founder of Health Care Voices, a non-profit grassroots organization for adults with serious medical conditions, co-chair of Health Care Voter, and runs the pharma accountability campaign for Hero Action Fund. Follow her on Twitter:

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Groups Opposing The American Health Care Act

Over 50 organizations oppose the proposed healthcare plan that will make Americans will pay more for less.;The list includes nurses, doctors, hospitals, teachers, churches, and more. You can see a few here:;

AARP: AARP opposes this legislation, as introduced, that would weaken Medicare, leaving the door open to a voucher program that shifts costs and risks to seniors.

Before people even reach retirement age, big insurance companies could be allowed to charge them an age tax that adds up to thousands of dollars more per year. Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions. This plan goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs.

On top of the hefty premium increase for consumers, big drug companies and other special interests get a sweetheart deal.

Finally, Medicaid cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health and safety of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much-needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities. Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable.

AARP stands ready to work with both parties on legislation that puts Americans first, not the special interests.

That just wont do.

That is, above all, why physicians must be involved in this debate.

Universal Coverage Vs Market

What Virginia’s poorest citizens want from health care reform

Democrats generally continue to support the Affordable Care Act , but would like to fix its flaws and generally improve the law. Democrats want to empower states to use innovation waivers to create their own approaches to healthcare reform that are as good asor better thanthe current system. Many Democrats also support fixing the ACA’s “family glitch” by basing affordability calculations for employer-sponsored coverage on family premiums rather than employee-only premiums, and most also support expanding premium subsidies to higher income ranges in order to soften the subsidy cliff.

But increasingly, Democrats are also getting behind the idea of a transition to some sort of universal coverage system. All of the Democrats who ran for the 2020 presidential nomination were in favor of universal coverage, although they had differing opinions on whether we should transition entirely to a single-payer system or use a combination of government-run and private health coverage .

Biden’s healthcare proposal also calls for an end to surprise balance billing, premium-free coverage under the public option for people who are caught in the Medicaid coverage gap , and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.

The Republican Party has not rolled out a new healthcare platform for 2020, and is instead utilizing the same platform they had in 2016. So in general, their approach can be expected to be the same as it has been for the past several years.

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Paging Cooler Heads Can We Meet Somewhere In The Middle Please

The solution to healthcare reform isnt easy, but it lies somewhere in the middle of these extreme ideologies. GOP leadership has been working on swaying members of its own party, but perhaps a different approach one that includes leftwing support would fare better in the long run. The ACA was passed without conservative support, and now, seven years later, the country is on the brink of a healthcare overhaul once more. Unless politicians work toward reaching middle ground, its unlikely that reform will be effective regardless of whos in charge.

Premium Subsidies And Affordability

The ACA’s premium subsidies were designed to keep health insurance affordable for people who buy their own coverage in the individual market. Premiums for individual market plans increased alarmingly in 2017 and 2018, although they were much more stable in 2019 and 2020, and rate changes for 2021 appear to be mostly modest. But premiums for people who aren’t eligible for premium subsidies can still amount to a substantial portion of their income.

The individual market is a very small segment of the population, however, and rate increases have been much more muted across the full population .

Democrats have proposed various strategies for making coverage and care affordable. Joe Biden’s healthcare proposal includes larger premium subsidies that would be based on the cost of a benchmark gold plan and based on having people pay only 8.5% of their income for that plan . Biden’s proposal would also eliminate the ACA’s income cap for premium subsidy eligibility and provide subsidies to anyone who would otherwise have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for a benchmark gold plan. This would eliminate the “subsidy cliff” that currently exists for some enrollees.

The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for a “public option” health plan that would compete with private health insurance carriers in an effort to bring down prices, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60.

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