There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Linkee-poo Tuesday

"China has reported a declining daily number of new cases, and a study by the country's own Center for Disease Control said that represented an apparent trend of a declining infection rate, but the global tally was more than 73,000 confirmed infections on Tuesday." Uh, sure, Bob.

Why does single-payer make sense? Per the Lancet, "Although health care expenditure per capita is higher in the USA than in any other country, more than 37 million Americans do not have health insurance, and 41 million more have inadequate access to care. Efforts are ongoing to repeal the Affordable Care Act which would exacerbate health-care inequities. By contrast, a universal system, such as that proposed in the Medicare for All Act, has the potential to transform the availability and efficiency of American health-care services. Taking into account both the costs of coverage expansion and the savings that would be achieved through the Medicare for All Act, we calculate that a single-payer, universal health-care system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national health-care expenditure, equivalent to more than US$450 billion annually (based on the value of the US$ in 2017). The entire system could be funded with less financial outlay than is incurred by employers and households paying for health-care premiums combined with existing government allocations. This shift to single-payer health care would provide the greatest relief to lower-income households. Furthermore, we estimate that ensuring health-care access for all Americans would save more than 68 000 lives and 1·73 million life-years every year compared with the status quo." It would cost us less, cover more, save more lives, and reduce our burden as individual citizens to an untold degree. But it would cost us less while giving us more. (Grokked from Jim Wright)

"Some states call them assisted living facilities; others, residential or personal care homes. These state-licensed facilities promise peace of mind for families whose elders require long-term care. In Vermont and elsewhere, investigations into these homes have revealed lax oversight, injuries and deaths."

"Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Monday he is committing $10 billion to fight climate change, which he calls 'the biggest threat to our planet.'" That sounds fantastic, until you realize that's all he's going to spend, and his liability is much larger than that. Also that it's less than 10% his net worth. Tax the rich people who profit off of killing the planet and use that money to make actual change in the world.

"Once this and other major mistakes are fixed, all of SAFE’s safety benefits vanish, according to a recent peer-reviewed analysis in Science. If SAFE is adopted into law, American traffic deaths could actually increase, carbon pollution would soar, and global warming would speed up… In other words, SAFE isn’t actually safe—and the Trump administration based its rollback on flawed math." So, you're saying it's the bog standard conservative ploy that will cost us more money and kill more people. Got it.

"The Boy Scouts of America has filed for bankruptcy, according to a court document filed in Delaware bankruptcy court early Tuesday… The bankruptcy filing comes at a time when the organization faces hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits, thousands of alleged abuse victims and dwindling membership numbers. As a result of the filing, all civil litigation against the organization is suspended." Just so when you hear right-wingers talk about this is what happens when you allow "everybody" in (girls, trans, gays, etc). That's bullshit, mostly it's because states have changed the statute of limitations on sex crimes, lengthening them and that has increased the Boy Scout's liability by several times.

"Growing a beard, wearing a veil or accidentally visiting a foreign website were among the justifications for sending Uighurs to China’s notorious detention camps, according to a leaked database, casting doubt on Beijing’s claim to be conducting a re-education campaign to root out extremism." Note these are just justifications, the real reason is that they're muslims.

"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving ahead with a plan to send Border Patrol 'SWAT' teams out to sanctuary cities in an effort to track down undocumented immigrants that benefit from policies barring local law enforcement from assisting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency." End ICE. The agency is un reformable. Build something new and better from the ashes.

He has waged Cruel War… "But, when you read the whole Declaration of Independence and you look beyond those opening paragraphs and you read that very specific list of grievances, twenty-seven in total, well, then you can see pretty damned quick which part actually mattered to our Founders and which part was just flowery window-dressing." Jim Wright with another kick-ass post about the Constitution or Declaration or whatever the fuck these conservatives think are the founding documents. And that line I started with, that's the clause the South walked out over.

"President Donald Trump responded to President Barack Obama's tweet on Presidents Day by calling it a 'con job' and attacking his predecessor's record on the economy… 'Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history,' Obama had written on Twitter." Trump is a liar, a thief and a scoundrel.

"John Bolton celebrated Presidents’ Day by breaking his silence for the first time since Donald Trump’s impeachment trial – speaking of his frustrations and teasing the content of his forthcoming book… But when it came to his former boss, the president’s former national security adviser was scant on details, hinting that he is restricted in what he can say." Actually he said, "buy my book." And then there was this, "'I’m not asking for martyrdom,” he added. 'I knew, I think I knew, what I was getting into.'" This is the GOP in a nutshell, they know what a dumpster fire Trump is, be he's a useful dumpster fire and so they're willing to compromise everything to get a little more power. Fuck Bolton. He's an asshole.

"A national association of federal judges has called an emergency meeting Tuesday to address growing concerns about the intervention of Justice Department officials and President Donald Trump in politically sensitive cases, the group’s president said Monday."

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