Police: Texting While Driving Led To Violent Liberty Bridge Crash – CBS Pittsburgh / KDKA

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June 30, 2017 6:21 PM By Julie Grant

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) A Brownsville man is facing charges for allegedly texting while driving and causing a violent crash on the Liberty Bridge on April 4.

There is a warrant out for the arrest of the man police say caused that crash because of texting while driving.

Thirty-two-year-old Richard Hauschel II, of Brownsville in Fayette county, is facing felony charges of aggravated assault by vehicle for allegedly texting while driving and causing a violent crash on the Liberty Bridge that left a family critically injured.

According to Pittsburgh Police detectives, Hauschel was driving a Dodge Journey when he accelerated coming out of the tunnels into the wrong lane.

Police accident reconstruction experts said Hauschel was going 44 mph in what was a 30 mph active work zone.

According to detectives, Hauschels cell phone records show several text messages were received and sent in the minutes leading up to the crash.

Police said Brandon and Maureen Ciampaglia and their 4-day-old son were heading outbound in a Nissan when they were struck by Hauschel head-on. Police said the force caused their car to spin out and hit Robert Hvizdak, who was driving a Lexus.

Police said Hvizdak did not want to be taken to a hospital, but the Ciampaglia family and Hauschel were transported for treatment.

Police report interviewing Hauschel in the hospital after the crash. They said he told them he came through the Liberty Tunnel onto the bridge, but cannot recall anything after that until he woke up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

KDKA went to the Ciampaglias home and tried to speak with them to get an update on their conditions and the reaction to the charges being filed, but nobody answered the door.

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Julie Grant is a reporter, anchor and legal editor at KDKA. Shes thrilled to be working for the station she grew up watching. VITALS Joined KDKA: September of 2016 Hometown: Steubenville, Ohio (my parents are...

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Police: Texting While Driving Led To Violent Liberty Bridge Crash - CBS Pittsburgh / KDKA

Burns: Remembering the price of our liberty – Longview News-Journal

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Peggy Garner had a deeper and different understanding of liberty than Patrick Henry he who famously shouted "Give me liberty or give me death." Peggy Garner had no liberty. She was a slave. Henry detested taxation without representation by a distant British Parliament.

Peggy Garner paid no taxes and had no liberty. A black female imprisoned on a plantation, she had perhaps the least liberty of all.

But when she escaped across a frozen river to Ohio with her four children perhaps she faintly heard Henry when hunted down by slave catchers. "Give me liberty or give me death?" Peggy chose death, wanting to kill her children and herself rather than be returned to slavery. She had killed just one child, slitting her throat, before being restrained.

Opposites help define each other, much as the meaning of light resides in total darkness. Peggy Garner's act of desperation tells us what liberty means in a deeper and different way than even Thomas Jefferson's majestic claim that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We get a deeper sense of the gradual, grinding progression of actualizing Jefferson's bold claim for all Americans when two centuries elapsed between a colonial editor's shutting down his paper rather than pay the Stamp Act tax of 1764 and Martin Luther King Jr.'s soaring words on the national mall in 1963. "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

And while black females were perhaps last in line for liberty and white males, particularly wealthy ones, first in line our liberty largely started with wealthy white males claiming those rights and then, with commoner whites and free blacks and some courageous women, fighting with guns, guts, and French help to secure freedom from British rule.

Two people illustrate the gradual "trickle down" progression of liberty over the next several centuries. David Acheson immigrated to America from northern Ireland in 1788 with the clothes on his back and a letter of introduction from his minister. Nine years later he was a successful banker, businessman and politician who was invited to dine with President George Washington. The vast expanse of our new country soon from sea to shining sea opened up opportunities for those with ambition and talent to pursue their dreams, the "American dream."

No one really wanted war. But Abraham Lincoln knew it was coming, perhaps unavoidable due to historical circumstance and economic pressures. Julia Ward Howe awakened about dawn at her Washington hotel and peered out the window. Having watched Union troops parade the day before, new words came to her for the rhythmic music of "John Brown's Body."

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on."

David Acheson's grandson of like name marched to those stirring words on his way to Gettysburg. He fell in battle a few hours later, giving his life that others might be free to live theirs more fully. His blood sacrifice and that of thousands more fulfilled the last verse of The Battle Hymn of the Republic "As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free."

Julia Ward Howe fought for women's rights and emancipation from a paternalistic culture her own husband was something of a tyrant for the next 50 years, being a fighting feminist before the phrase existed. Deep in her heart, she knew one eternal truth that was marching on was that none of us are truly free until we all are free free to fully develop our God-given talents as both an act of self-fulfillment and a contribution to our national welfare.

For, as Peggy Garner, David Acheson, Julia Ward Howe and many others knew, the freedom we celebrate on the Fourth of July must be for all people and for as long as we are willing to sacrifice blood and treasure to preserve it. God bless America and let us not let our liberty slip away. Many paid a high price for us to have it.

James F. Burns, a retired professor at the University of Florida, is an occasional contributor to the Saturday Forum.

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Burns: Remembering the price of our liberty - Longview News-Journal

Nancy MacLean’s Ideologically Motivated Shortcuts – National Review

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In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid theres that great bit about the super-posse that chases the outlaws. Theyre led by a legendary law man, Joe Lefors, and an Indian Scout (Lord Baltimore), who can follow horse tracks over rock and water.

I mention this because if I were Nancy MacLean, Id much rather have Lefors and Lord Baltimore coming after me than to have Don Boudreaux, Steve Horwitz, Jonathan Adler, Russ Roberts, and the rest of the libertarian super-posse on my ass.

You may have missed the story. The short version is that historian Nancy MacLean has written a book, apparently with some government funding, in which she argues that Nobel Prizewinning economist James Buchanan was part of a Kochtopussian Kabal of Konfederates who were direct intellectual descendants of the Southern Agrarians and the champion of slavery, John C. Calhoun.

I first heard about the book almost two weeks ago, and my immediate response was to roll my eyes (figuratively speaking). I figured the book would vanish from the radar because it all sounded so silly. David Bernstein had a similar reaction:

When I first came across this book and interviews with its author, I was immediately skeptical. For one thing, Ive been traveling in libertarian intellectual circles for about three decades, and my strong impression is that Buchanan, while a giant in economics, is something of a marginal figure in the broader libertarian and free-market movements.

Now, I am at best a fellow traveler in those circles, but Ive been writing about and, on occasion, arguing with, libertarians for a couple decades. And while Buchanans name came up every now and then, I had never once heard even the suggestion that he was a kind of intellectual lodestar for political libertarianism never mind that he was part of some reactionary Confederate tradition. He was that brilliant public-choice-theory guy. (As Bernstein notes, Buchanan gets a few respectful cameos in Brian Dohertys exhaustive history of libertarianism and thats about it).

MacLean has gotten herself into hot water because its already clear she cut a lot of corners, quoting people out of context, asserting intellectual lineages that do not exist, and other misdeeds. Russ Roberts, who is a kind of libertarian Gandhi strictly adhering to a policy of rhetorical non-violence started things off with his defense of Tyler Cowen, who MacLean essentially defamed. Worse, Don Boudreaux, the brilliant and tenacious libertarian scholar and cheeky letter writer, is now coming after her and her enablers like a spider monkey.

As my friend Steve Horwitz writes:

Finding examples of misleading, incorrect, and outright butcheredquotes and citations in Nancy MacLeans new book about James Buchanan, Democracy in Chains, has become the academic version of Pokemon Go this week.

Im all for fact checking her footnotes and outrageously misleading quotations. Every time I see a new one, I link to it on Twitter with the prediction, There will be more. And there will be. There will be for the simple reason that MacLean takes Buchanans life and libertarianism, generally out of context in order to argue that libertarianism is against democracy and that sinister libertarians have been scheming to tear it all down. In other words, you have to take quotes and facts out of context if you start with a premise that takes Buchanan out of context.

To be sure, theres an anti-democratic element in some corners of libertarianism, but as far as I can tell, that is true of every single political philosophy save pure majoritarianism. And, unlike pure majoritarians, libertarians are far more concerned with freedom and equality because they understand unrestrained majorities tend to treat minorities very poorly, particularly the minority of the individual.

Indeed, this is all downstream of the century-old effort to turn Herbert Spencer into some kind of monster because he opposed governmental social engineering. The idea seems to be that because the statists are good, anyone who opposes them must be evil.

The contemporary liberal obsession with claiming that their ideological opponents must be somehow in league with, or modern-day reincarnations of, Klansmen and slavers is just another manifestation of this old, self-indulgent smear. Its a bit like MacLean set out to reach that destination. When she realized she couldnt get there by conventional navigation, she put a magnet marked Calhoun! or Slavery! next to her compass, and that did the trick.

Conservatives are bit more accustomed to this sort of thing. Ramesh and I beat back a similar attempt to claim that modern conservatism is a Calhoun cult a few years ago.

But I think the assumption behind both efforts is very much the same: Anyone who disagrees with us must not simply be wrong, they must be evil. And taking shortcuts to expose evil is no vice.

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Nancy MacLean's Ideologically Motivated Shortcuts - National Review

Manifesto 2017 | Libertarian Party UK

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The full Libertarian Party UK 2017 Manifesto content can be read below, or download the PDF version (975kb) by clicking the front cover.

INTRODUCTION

This General Election is allegedly being fought on the interests of giving a clear majority to carry through Brexit. We believe that it is in fact a panic measure with the Conservatives facing a damaging rerun of up to 21 seats following Police Investigations into alleged electoral fraud in the 2015 General Election leading to a loss of the Conservative majority in Westminster.

From 1945 to 2006 there have been only been six petitions to overturn elections, in 2017 alone there could be five times that amount. This is not in the interests of the people of the United Kingdom. It shows a broken system that does not deliver Representative Parliamentary Democracy.

Labour is fighting on the basis of public sector privilege in the NHS and Trade Union power over our lives. It has very little else it can credibly fight a campaign on, especially having Jeremy Corbyn as its Leader.

The Liberal Democrats have cynically painted themselves as the only pro EU, Anti-Brexit Party. Thus showing they are neither Liberal nor Democratic in relation to the result of the Brexit referendum.

The Libertarian Party believes that the main issue that is not being addressed is that of the Constitution, we still need to have a Constitutional Convention and accept that the United Kingdom is rapidly heading for a de facto Federal Kingdom. People are grown up, they want more of a say, and referenda Swiss style should be the norm on both national and local issues, not the exception.

This included membership of the European Union, the final vote showing the political classes were completely out of touch with public sentiment. The Libertarian Party supported and campaigned for Brexit. As a Party we are confident that a new European settlement will be reached for Free Trade without the need for ever closer union.

It is time we moved from a Representative Democracy to a Direct Democracy where every vote matters. First past the post (FPTP) is no longer just or sane. All schools of political thought should be heard in Parliament.

Finally the D word has to be addressed our national debt of 1.4 Trillion has to be paid down, either through a specific Tax the Gordon Brown Tax or by a much reduced State.

Switzerland and other countries have in their Constitutions a prohibition on the State borrowing above a certain limit. We need to enshrine this into our Constitution and have it codified.

Adam Brown LPUK Party Leader

+++++

BALANCING THE STATE

The Libertarian Party is aware that for many people the State is an unfeeling, unresponsive animal. When things go wrong, its first instinct is to cover up. The NHS, HMRC and others are state institutions where state employees enjoy a virtually entrenched immunity from prosecution other than by the very rich. This has led to declining standards of civic behaviour.

The Libertarian Party is committed to:

Making Misconduct in Public Office a statutory criminal offence.

Compensation for those injured by the State.

Ensuring the State makes compensation to the individual by implementing the Law Commission Report 322 on Administrative Redress: Public Bodies and the Citizen.

Restoring the impeachment process for public servants that abuse their position including Ministers of State.

A recall system for MPs whose standard of behaviour brings Parliament into disrepute, by local referendum.

The Libertarian Party will establish local tribunals or Ombudsmen made up of lay citizens elected to the position, with a legal advisor to assist to ensure that complaints about public servants and public bodies are heard quickly. Each complaint is to be heard within six weeks before referring to a Judge to decide whether the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will be directed to prosecute on the citizens behalf.

The Libertarian Party is committed to a written Constitution that protects the individual against the State and to have the Magna Carta and other documents codified into a single Constitution. The rights sought from Magna Carta down to the 1951 European Declaration of Human Rights have been continually usurped.

The party takes as its model the Swiss Constitution of 1999.

A Constitutional Court would be established.

The Monarch under law would be the head of State, but subject to the Constitution.

Switzerland is a stable country with a devolution of power to its diverse cantons with different languages, religions and Cantonal Tax rates as our preferred model. England, alone out of the United Kingdom is disenfranchised amongst the home Nations, not having a Parliament of its own. The Libertarian Party is committed to an English Parliament not based in London.

There would be a Federal Parliament for the United Kingdom in that we would adopt either the traditional counties with multi seat constituencies with proportional voting as being the only rational way for the country to have representative government. Alternatively, the return of the 1,000 year old seven English Saxon kingdoms as the basis of public administration together with Ulster, Wales, Scotland and Kernow, emulating the German Lander or Swiss Cantons. Each would determine and have its own tax raising powers that will be devolved from Whitehall.

The House of Commons would be by popular election. The Libertarian Party would terminate the House of Lords as an anachronism that allows hereditary and unelected members along with the Clergy to influence public policy.

The Libertarian Party would immediately abolish the requirement for paying any deposit to the State to stand for any elected office. Democracy should be on the basis of ideas not cash.

Westminster would only deal with Defence and Foreign affairs. The House of Commons would be reduced to two hundred members and shall only sit from September to December each year, on the basis that the less time Parliament is sitting, the less interference in the life of the individual citizen. Exceptions would be made in a time of national emergency.

The Military and Police would swear allegiance to the Constitution.

No clergyman from whatever faith shall have the right to a seat unless elected. There will be a complete separation of Church and State.

All public honours and decorations other than proven military service shall be set aside. No public servant shall receive an honour as a matter of course for doing a job that they are already paid to do. The honours system has become a degraded and corrosive form of patronage.

The Libertarian Party would establish Commercial Tribunals with experienced business people sitting alongside specialist Commercial Judges to hear commercial disputes in the interest of speed of resolution and competence.

Disbarment from holding commercial Directorships will be removed from the Civil Service to such Tribunals.

DEFENCE THE ONLY LEGITIMATE ROLE OF THE STATE

The Libertarian Party follows the Jeffersonian line of Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

Following the Crimean War disaster in 1856, the British Army was overhauled by Edward Cardwell Secretary of State for War in 1868, determined on a programme of reform to overcome the incompetence and maladministration of our armed forces.

At a time when we have more admirals than ships and aircraft carriers with no supply of aircraft to land on them, together with there being more civil servants working in the MOD than full time soldiers there is a requirement for a Cardwell 2.

Our aim is to ensure a strong, independent, sovereign nation. This requires a well funded, trained and equipped professional Armed Forces (both full time and Reservist), geared for the defence of our nation and shipping, a policy to be called Armed Neutrality.

National Defence is one of the few legitimate reasons for the State to exist. This is different to mounting wars in support of other nations and invading other sovereign nations on the command of the Prime Minster exercising the Royal Prerogative.

Our Armed Forces need to be able to make an enemy think twice, so must have the ability to project force rapidly, globally and flexibly in focused ways, e.g. submarines, amphibious assault, Marines and Special Forces.

To protect supply lines and commercial shipping and fisheries from piracy and other interference will require a suitably sized fleet of corvettes, frigates and associated support craft.

Reformation of Volunteer Yeomanry on a county basis for 18 to 25 year olds wishing to enlist as part time soldiers with no requirement to serve overseas and to be paid. This based on the Swiss Militia system.

Maintain membership of NATO while in the National Interest.

Maintain strong ties with non-aggressive Commonwealth countries.

Any nuclear deterrent to be made truly independent, retained, maintained and eventually replaced in the foreseeable future.

The establishment of a separate military pension over and above the State pension for those that have served in the armed forces.

The establishment of separate military hospitals for those servicemen and ex-servicemen and their families.

The establishment of a living wage for the armed forces.

A programme of demolition of old housing and building of modern accommodation using the disposal of MOD assets.

This is to establish real substance to the Military Covenant which should be on the Statute Book.

Military Pensions by the State should be seen not as entitlements but as rewards for actual service, and to benefit dependants of those killed on active service.

IMMIGRATION

Our immigration policy will be points based whilst the State provided Welfare System exists. The core tenet is that there should be free movement of peoples. Anybody arriving in the country should have no expectation of being supported by the State, subsidised housing or any benefits of any kind.

The state will not issue any National Insurance (NI) numbers to anybody not born in this country, or has made not less than five years contribution in payments to an NI approved scheme.

Anybody granted a residency permit will be obliged to demonstrate that they have adequate medical insurance.

In parallel, we will establish bilateral agreements with countries to enable free flows of people.

Longer term, and in conjunction with the shrinking of our unsustainable current Welfare System, we are committed to pursuing an open borders policy towards those who would wish to come to the United Kingdom in order to contribute to our economy and share our values.

Totally free movement of people into the UK is not practical whilst we have a large welfare state and other countries are themselves not broadly Libertarian in nature.

A free flow notwithstanding, any Libertarian government will reserve the right to eject or refuse entry to foreign nationals convicted in a court of law as part of the Governments prime role in protecting the population and maintaining Rule of Law.

The UK shall have full control over its immigration policy, with any right of final appeal remaining within the UK jurisdiction.

Asylum Seekers must present at a UK border or at the British Embassy of a neighbouring country to their own, otherwise their claim shall not be accepted.

Those refusing to declare originating country and accept that the failure of their application will result in their return shall be denied entry, and any right to seek asylum will be refused outright without appeal.

Asylum seekers to be held air side while their case is heard as swiftly as possible, meaning weeks, not months or years. This shall not apply to children under the age of 15.

End automatic access to education and resources for any child who presents itself to the authorities, i.e. vouchers will not be available.

We believe any concept of a mass amnesty, actual or de facto forgiveness for illegal immigration undermines the Rule of Law and as such will not be entertained.

The policies above are strict but are drawn up in regard to those who approach the process lawfully and follow the rules, not those who try and bend the rules or bootstrap their way in.

Acceptance into the armed forces will be dealt with by the Ministry of Defence.

The Libertarian Party fully supports the CANZUK proposal, for a free trade zone including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom having shared legal and cultural heritage.

THE RULE OF LAW

Freedoms won for us by the blood of our ancestors have been seriously eroded over the decades, and this erosion is gaining speed and must be halted and reversed. It is a core responsibility of the State to enable the citizens to go safely about their lawful business without let or hindrance.

A central tenet of Libertarianism is that we are all equal before the Law from the mightiest to the poorest. This is the Rule of Law. The failure to hold former Prime Minister Tony Blair to account before a Court of Law undermines Law and accountability.

We have car insurance, we have life assurance, yet so few of us carry Legal insurance. Going to Law to protect an interest or to defend yourself is frustrating and seriously injurious to your wealth.

The Libertarian Party will advocate an insurance scheme to balance out the individual against the State or the wealthy abusing the legal system.

County prosecutors elected at the same time as MPs will defend the individual or prosecute the powerful and the State on behalf of the individual, paid for by this insurance scheme.

Unenforceable Law is bad Law, the Libertarian Party will advocate that after thirty years each Law on the statute book is reviewed and has a sunset on its provisions.

Law that is clearly not understood by the Layman is bad law. It should not need a thousand pages of Civil Procedure Rules to enable any citizen to obtain both Justice and redress.

The Libertarian Party wants less Law and regulation, replacing it with enforceable Laws. This is on the basis that which is not proscribed is free to do, rather than the State giving freedom or licence to carry out an activity.

The Libertarian Party will reaffirm the Nine Peelian Principles:

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.

3. Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observation of the Law.

4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force.

5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.

7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

Police Chief Constables to be locally elected, and given a greater amount of autonomy.

Drastically simplify and reform Police/CPS targets, now the remit of the Chief Constable, and to remove the desire to prosecute innocent parties.

A reduction in paperwork to enable more beat officers to remain on patrol for as long as possible.

We will undertake a review of the Police Community Support Officers (PCSO) concept, with the potential to recruit those capable in to the main police force, and to disband the remainder.

Limit retention of DNA only in the event of a conviction, and to discard after that conviction is spent.

Futhermore:

Disorder to be handled via the courts, not on-the-spot fines, which we believe are unconstitutional as laid out in the 1689 Bill of Rights.

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Manifesto 2017 | Libertarian Party UK

The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise – POLITICO Magazine

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Colorado Springs has always leaned hard on its reputation for natural beauty. An hours drive south of Denver, it sits at the base of the Rocky Mountains southern range and features two of the states top tourist destinations: the ancient sandstone rock formations known as Garden of the Gods, and Pikes Peak, the 14,000-foot summit visible from nearly every street corner. Its also a staunchly Republican cityheadquarters of the politically active Christian group Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs is nicknamed the Evangelical Vatican) and the fourth most conservative city in America, according to a recent study. Its a right-wing counterweight to liberal Boulder, just a couple of hours north, along the Front Range.

It was its jut-jawed conservatism that not that long ago made the citys local government a brief national fixation. During the recession, like nearly every other city in America, Colorado Springs revenueheavily dependent on sales taxplunged. Faced with massive shortfalls, the citys leaders began slashing. Gone were weekend bus service and nine buses.

Story Continued Below

Out went some police officers along with three of the departments helicopters, which were auctioned online. Trash cans vanished from city parks, because when you cut 75 percent of the parks budget, one of the things you lose is someone to empty the garbage. For a city that was founded when a wealthy industrialist planted 10,000 trees on a shadeless prairie, the suddenly sparse watering of the citys grassy lawns was a profound and dire statement of retreat.

To fill a $28 million budget hole, Colorado Springs political leaderswho until that point might have been described by most voters as fiscal conservativesproposed tripling property taxes. Nearly two-thirds of voters said no. In response, city officials (some would say almost petulantly) turned off one out of every three street lights. Thats when people started paying attention to a city that seemed to be conducting a real-time experiment in fiscal self-starvation. But that was just the prelude. The city wasnt content simply to reject a tax increase. Voters wanted something genuinely different, so a little more than a year later, they elected a real estate entrepreneur as mayor who promised a radical break from politics as usual.

For a city, like the country at large, that was hurting economically, Steve Bach seemed like a man with an answer. What he promised sounded radically simple: Wasteful government is the root of the pain, and if you just run government like the best businesses, the pain will go away. Easy. Because he had never held office and because he actually had been a successful entrepreneur, people were inclined to believe he really could reinvent the way a city was governed.

The citys experiment was fascinating because it offered a chance to observe some of the most extreme conservative principles in action in a real-world laboratory. Producers from 60 Minutes flew out to talk with the towns leaders. The New York Times found a woman in a dark trailer park pawning her flat screen TV to buy a shotgun for protection. This American Life did a segment portraying Springs citizens as the ultimate anti-tax zealots, willing to pay $125 in a new Adopt a Streetlight program to illuminate their own neighborhoods, but not willing to spend the same to do so for the entire city. Ill take care of mine was the gist of what one council member heard from a resident when she confronted him with this fact.

Rocky Mountain Town Colorado Springs has a reputation as a GOP stronghold, though its downtown features art studios, a kombucha shop and a book seller that gives prominent shelf space to Noam Chomsky. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

Thats where Colorado Springs was frozen in the consciousness of the countrya city determined to redefine the role of government, led by a sharp-elbowed businessman who didnt care whom he offended along the way (not unlike a certain president). But it has been five years since This American Life packed up its mics. A lot has changed in that time, not least of which is that the local economy, which nearly drowned the city like a concrete block tied around its balance sheet, is buoyant once again. Sales tax revenue has made the books plump with surplus. Enough to turn those famous streetlights back on. Seven years after the experiment began, the verdict is inand its not at all what its architects planned.

One of the lessons: Theres a real cost to saving money.

Take the streetlights. Turning them off had saved the city about $1.25 million. What had not made the national news stories was what had happened while those lights were off. Copper thieves, emboldened by the opportunity to work without fear of electrocution, had worked overtime scavenging wire. Some, the City Council learned, had even dressed up as utility workers and pried open the boxes at the base of streetlights in broad daylight. Keeping the lights off might have saved some money in the short term, but the cost to fix what had been stolen ran to some $5 million.

Sometimes the best-laid plans dont work out the way youd hope, says Merv Bennett, who served on the City Council at the time and asked officials at the utilities about whether the savings were real.

There has been a lot of this kind of reckoning over the past half-decade. From crisis came a desire for disruption. From disruption came, well, too much disruption. And from that came a full-circle return to professional politicians. Including onea beloved mayor and respected bureaucrat who was short-listed to replace James Comey as FBI directorwho is so persuasive he has gotten Colorado Springs residents to do something the outside world assumed they were not capable of: Five years after its moment in the spotlight, revenue is so high that the same voters who refused to keep the lights on have overwhelmingly approved ballot measures allowing the city to not only keep some of its extra tax money, but impose new taxes as well.

In the process, many residents of Colorado Springs, but especially the men and women most committed to making the city thrive, have learned a few other lessons. That perpetual chaos can be exhausting. That the value of the status quo rises with the budgets bottom line. And that it helps when the people responsible for running the city are actually talking with one another. All it took was a few years running an experiment that everyone involved seems happy is over.

***

Like many revolutions, the one in Colorado Springs began with a manifesto.

It was an email that was intended to be private, sent from Steve Bartolin, then CEO of luxury hotel The Broadmoor, to the mayor and City Council. The Broadmoor is a city unto itselfa century-old resort whose three golf courses, 779 rooms and skating rink sprawl over 3,000 acres around a lake in the foothills on the citys western boundary. In a tourist-dependent region with an unusually large reliance on sales taxes, The Broadmoor is an economic powerhouse. In 2009, at the height of the impasse over the worsening budget, Bartolin had made a comparison between Colorado Springs budget and the budget of his resort. Observations like the fact that the city had a computer department with 81 people, while The Broadmoor employed only nine. The email didnt stay private for long. It quickly went viral, was published in full in the newspaper, and so energized the business community that it inspired a dozen locals to start their own shadow council, which they called the City Committee. One of the members of the committee was Bach, a private real-estate broker who had gotten his first corporate job by the audacious move of cold-callingcollectthe CEO of Procter & Gamble. Soon, the committee members prevailed upon Bach to run for mayor, to bring their principles to City Hall.

Merv Bennett Sometimes the best-laid plans dont work out the way youd hope. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

Bachs mantra on the campaign trail was one that voters nationwide would recognize from last years presidential cycle: Run the government more like a business. He said he was intent on transforming city government so it works for everyoneand without tax increases. In fact, he wanted to do away with the personal property tax for businesses and expedite how long it takes developers to get permits, all in service of promoting job growth, which he later vowed would hit 6,000 a year. Bach considered himself an outsider fighting the citys regulatory agency mind-set.

The only difference I can see between me and Donald Trump, he told Politico Magazine recently, is that I dont tweet.

In 2011, Bach was swept into City Hall with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Not only did he win, but he arrived in office with powers no mayor of Colorado Springs had ever wielded. A ballot amendment approved by voters a year earlier had taken power away from the City Council and given it to the mayor. Now that mayor happened to be someone who felt that political compromise was a dirty word. Shortly after the election, two top council members asked Bach to give them a detailed weekly report just as the previous city manager had done. He said no. The mayor wouldnt answer to anyone. The council, he indicated, would answer to him. And he showed that by taking on a major deal, the council was negotiating to rid itself of the local hospital.

Leaders at Memorial Health claimed the hospital was hemorrhaging money in the recession. But to Bach, the hospital was an incredible asset that was just being mismanagedan argument he buttressed by pointing out that it was sitting on some $300 million in free cash. The council wanted to lease the hospital to a team of local leaders led by Memorial Healths CEO for about $15 million over 20 years. Bach called it a giveaway. He demanded that the council open up the process to other bidders. Eventually, that process led to a very different financial arrangement with the massive University of Colorado Health System: a 40-year lease that, counting capital improvements, came out to nearly $2 billion. You dont have to have an MBA to appreciate the benefits of Bachs deal.

Steve Bach The only difference I can see between me and Donald Trump is that I dont tweet. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

I was really angry when I got on council and found out they just wanted to hand over the hospital, Merv Bennett says. Steve kept us from going down a terrible path.

Bach also turned out to be right on another deal he said City Council had mismanaged before he was elected. The council had approved a generous contract to a physicist from the nearby U.S. Air Force Academy to develop and implement what he said would be a $20 million, coal-scrubbing technology on the citys downtown power plant. Just a terrible deal, Bach says.

The city had pitched it as a way of making a profitwhen the technology was licensed to other plants, Colorado Springs would share in the rewards. But the city was also on the hook to pay for the research and development it required, and costs quickly spiraled. Just last month, the business shut down without having made a single additional sale. The cost: some $150 million over budget. As with the hospital deal, in which the council chose to go with a local rather than open the bidding to all comers, Bach raked officials for their shortsighted provincialism that he and others felt wasnt befitting Americas 40th-most populous city.

This town is so easily scammed, says John Hazlehurst, himself a former council member and now a columnist with the Colorado Springs Business Journal. Why? Because were hicks. Its really that simple.

John Suthers Some personalities in the business world dont suffer fools very much. Youve got to suffer a lot of fools in politics. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

But there was a cost for all that head-butting in City Hall. Although the economy continued to improve, and although Bachs outsourcing of jobs had done enough to repair the parks budget so that trees were being watered and the lights were back on, some business leaders were skittish about moving to town or expanding.

For those who opposed Bach, the political newcomer was doing damage by firing longstanding department heads without consulting anyone beforehand. Jan Martin, then the councils pro-tem president, said she heard of Bachs firing of the citys police chief by word of mouth, rather than from Bach himself. He was draining the city of all of this accumulated knowledge, she says. Hazlehurst, watching from the sidelines, is more succinct. Bachs dysfunction and [the] councils dysfunction were intimately related, he says. It was just a rookie government.

There was a price to pay for Bachs imperiousness and lack of diplomacy, and this is something about which he and his critics agree to some extent. Job creation, which had been a pillar of Bachs campaign, never got up the steam that he had promised and, by his own admission, lagged other similarly sized cities in the region like Albuquerque, Omaha and Oklahoma City. He never managed to get the business tax repealed. And his signature plan to boost tourism with a multipronged project of museums and an outdoor stadium ran into headwinds from a council that said it wasnt sufficiently involved in the planning.

By 2015, the final year of his term, Bach was no longer talking to any member of City Council, save for Bennett. Both sides were fighting proxy battles in the middle of council meetings, quibbling over the sorts of thingsmoving money from one government account to another to pay billsthat would normally be routine. People outside the council chambers were paying attention, and they didnt care for what they were seeingthe city that was supposed to run like a business was actually scaring companies. The business leaders who had once supported him had even started their own, newer version of the City Committeecalled Colorado Springs Forwardand were looking for a different candidate to back.

Richard Skorman They spent $200,000 to portray me as a tax-and-spend liberal, and thats why I lost. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

Mike Juran, CEO of a midsized company that puts displays in anything thats not a laptop or a phone, had a choice to make in the last year of Bachs administration. He believed his company, Altia, was poised for big growththanks to an automobile industry that wanted to put more gadgets in their cars. Juran wanted to stay put, but he wondered whether he would have trouble attracting young software engineers to Colorado Springs. The city was in a weird funk and getting a bad national reputation, he says. Juran knew that if any of his potential recruits googled the city, they would see that it had gone dark, a wildfire had recently destroyed 300 homes, and the city was home to disgraced pastor Ted Haggard. Much of this had nothing to do with Bachs administration, but Juran also knew that Bachs belt-tightening had hidden effects that were going to erode the citys quality of life. Colorado Springs had spent years putting off enormous infrastructure problems that would one day come dueone, an issue with stormwater, was so bad it would soon be the focus of a lawsuit from the Environmental Protection Agency. Juran began looking into offices in Denver or Silicon Valley.

Bach had made a campaign promise to serve only one term. But the promise wasnt necessaryby 2015, he, along with everyone else, knew the then-71-year-olds chances for reelection were close to zero. Even the business leaders who had helped get him elected knew Bach wasnt the man for the job anymore. What was needed was a steady hand, and Colorado Springs ended up getting exactly what it needed.

Finally, Juran says, we had grown up and decided we wanted to be a real city.

***

If every election is a referendum on the politician who came before, John Suthers was as clear a renunciation of Steve Bach as could be found. Far from a political outsider, Suthers had spent his life working inside government, from student body president of his high school (No others than Suthers), to local district attorney, to head of the Department of Corrections, to state attorney and all the way up to attorney general of Colorado, where he served for 10 years.

John Hazlehurst This town is so easily scammed. Why? Because were hicks. Its really that simple. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

When Suthers came in it was as if Michael Jordan had joined your pickup basketball team, says columnist Hazlehurst. Hes a consummate politician. He knows what hes doing.

Suthers was a Republican like Bach, and he shared Bachs belief in keeping government budgets on a leash. But unlike Bach, he wasnt going to try to strangle the city with it. Suthers believed there was a fundamental difference between business and governmentno matter how strong the mayors office is, there are still a bunch of other elected officials who need a say. So Suthers first goal after getting elected was, he says, to improve his relationship with the City Council. He did that by scheduling two monthly catered lunch meetings, acquiescing to many of their requests for staff and resources and, in the minds of many, treating them like partners rather than combatants. My predecessor sent over a budget on the day it was due and said, Take it or leave it, Suthers says. Ive been doing this for a long time. I didnt wait until [the last minute] to tell [the council] what I was thinking.

Suthers collaborative approach also led to something that might have been unthinkable in the dark, budget-strapped days of 2010.

Colorado Springs reputation as a Republican stronghold might seem overblown to a visitor walking downtown. Just minutes from the pricey liberal arts school Colorado College is a kombucha shop, a store that sells hour-and-a-half stays in sensory deprivation tanks, and a book seller that gives prominent shelf space to the latest Noam Chomsky and is owned by Richard Skorman, the current City Council president. Yet despite those superficial signs of changing demographics, Donald Trump still beat Hillary Clinton by more than 22 points in Colorado Springs El Paso County. Even with that small-government mind-set still relatively intact, three times in his first two years as mayor, Suthers has gone to voters either proposing a new tax or asking to keep extra tax revenue. By overwhelming margins, he has now persuaded the supposedly anti-tax zealots of Colorado Springs to commit $250 million to new roads, $2 million to new park trails and as much as $12 million for new stormwater projects. The ballot items were enormous statements of confidence, says Chamber of Commerce Director Dirk Draper. They showed that while the community is fiscally conservative, its not radically so. If you can find someone to explain it to where it makes sense, voters will allow it.

Seeing the Light In some cases, the citys budget-cutting backfired: Turning off the streetlights saved about $1.25 million, but after thieves stole the copper wiring inside, the cost to fix the lights ran to some $5 million. | Erika Larsen for Politico Magazine

Today, Suthers can point to a whole host of data points that suggest Colorado Springs has more than recovered. Were on a roll, big-time, he says. The citys unemployment is a vanishingly low 2.7 percent. Some 16,000 jobs have been created in the past 24 monthsa pace that exceeds Bachs lofty goals. Flights at the airport have increased nearly 50 percent from a year ago. And large projects have either opened recentlysuch as a National Cybersecurity Center that takes advantage of the defense ecosystem built up around the Air Force Academyor will soon, like the U.S. Olympic Museum slated for 2018, a natural offshoot of the fact that Colorado Springs has been home to the U.S. Olympic Training Center for nearly 40 years.

The citys experience as a political petri dish might not have produced any easy answers. But at least for Suthers, it has produced a verdict on the run-the-government-as-a-business mantra. Some personalities in the business world dont suffer fools very much, he says. Youve got to suffer a lot of fools in politics.

This is the larger lesson of Colorado Springs experiment: Ideas matter, but so do relationships. Colorado Springs remains fiscally conservative; on this score, theres more agreement than not between elected officials and their constituents. But ideological consensus isnt enough to overcome a lack of surrogates willing to advocate your policies when, even with the strongest mayor system, its not entirely up to you.

At a recent charity roast, the 180-degree change in attitude among the citys political class was on full display. The emcee joked that while Suthers had agreed to come and endure good-natured jokes about his comb-over, the previous year Bach had been invited and offered a different response. It was two words, he said, and the second one was you.

Despite Bachs sandpapery reputation, many who used to spar with him are willing to give the former mayor credit today. Suthers says Bachs extreme focus on the budget helped right the city financially, and his efforts helped set the stage for a revival of the airport. But most of all, what the leaders of Colorado Springs seem most thankful for is that one mans turmoil begat another mans harmony.

Steve was the ultimate change agent, and they usually have a short shelf life, Bennett says. If it werent for the lights going out, we might not have had Steve. And if it werent for Steve, we might not have John.

Caleb Hannan is a writer in Denver.

Link:

The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise - POLITICO Magazine

Libertarians Still Arguing About Gary Johnson’s 2016 Campaign … – Reason (blog)

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ReasonGary Johnson's back! (To the political advocacy game, anyway.) So, are libertarians greeting the two-time former Libertarian Party nominee for president with open arms? Not unanimously, no.

Over at Rare, the always-interesting Jack Hunter, who is close to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), has a scathing piece headlined "Please, Gary Johnson, stay the hell away from politics." Excerpt:

[W]hen Reason reported on Thursday that Johnson was returning to politics, I did not rejoiceI recoiled.

Johnson had his chance, the biggest chance the Libertarian Party will likely ever have in our lifetimes, and his campaign did more to diminish liberty than promote it. Johnson's simple 2016 task was two-fold: First, present libertarianism coherently, and hopefully, attractively. Second, don't look like an idiot.

He failed on both.

Hunter mostly leans on the "Aleppo moment" and related flubs, and while those errors were almost all self-inflicted, highlighting the candidate's self-acknowledged limitations as a public speaker (a real hindrance when public speaking is about your only campaign weapon), I am convinced that even the most smooth-tongued of L.P. candidates (Larry Sharpe, anyone?) would have been excoriated as a gaffe-making weirdo or dunce in September 2016. Why? Because the presidential race was tightening (boy was it ever), debate season was imminent, Johnson's poll numbers at that point had failed to experience the usual third-party summertime fade, newspapers were starting the make their general election endorsements (including for the Libertarian), and the journalistic Left was throwing everything it could think of at a guy they feared was wooing too many impressionable young'uns.

Tom Steyer would have spilled tens of millions in swing states that autumn against any Libertarian candidate polling at 9 percent, and that money would have been converted into attack pieces on any John, Austin, or Darryl. (Speaking of which, do we really think that the L.P. alternatives would have polled or media-accessed anywhere near TeamGov?) Donald Trump had several more egregious foreign policy brainfarts than "Aleppo," and Hillary Clinton's actual (and unapologetic) policy record helped produce the very chaos that Johnson was being criticized for not understanding, but the media didn't care about any of that: September 2016 was Libertarian-killing season, and unfortunately Johnson offered the world a loaded gun.

That's not to say that Hunter's wrong about Johnson squandering the election overall; I still don't know how best to assess that question. (Check out the Brian Doherty/Matt Welch post-election co-production "Did the Libertarian Party Blow it in 2016?" for our most educated guesses.) As that piece states in the opening, and as the intervening months have only underlined, "Objectively speaking, 2016 was the Libertarian Party's best year ever. It was also a savage disappointment." Libertarians will be arguing about this stuff for years.

Austin PetersenSpeaking of intra-Libertarian arguments, Charles Peralo over at Being Libertarian has a long defense of the Johnson campaign against criticism that has been leveled against it from the John McAfee/Judd Weiss ticket. In the Orlando Sentinel, State L.P. Chair Marcos Miralles gives an interesting interview, mostly about local party-building stuff, that ends on a spectacularly optimistic note: "But what I can guarantee you is that whoever the Libertarian delegates pick in 2020, that candidate will have a better result than Gary Johnson had in 2016 and will have a real chance at unseating the current president." Meanwhile, 2016 L.P. presidential runner-up Austin Petersen has formed an exploratory committee to run for U.S. Senate from Missouri, and is promising a "special announcement" on July 4.

And in one of my favorite recent pieces of local journalism, The Free Press of Fernie, British Columbia, caught up with Gary Johnson in the middle of his epic Tour Divide bike race, spent several paragraphs detailing how he "may well be the fittest U.S. presidential candidate of all time," before plunging the knife in paragraph nine:

The man can clearly take care of himself. He is a self-made millionaire and ultra-fit, so of course he would run for a party that endorses the survival of the fittest. If you're wealthy and fit, Libertarianism works but if you are not, it doesn't.

Then follows a Guernica-style hellscape of local horrors that would be unleashed should Libertarians ever come close to smelling power ("Their plan to cut regulations in transportation, accommodation and other sectors to cause the sharing economyto destroy traditional businesses. Hotels and taxi companies would go bust, thousands would be left unemployed," etc.). It's a reminder, one that Jack Hunter's old boss Rand Paul knows all too well, that for wide swaths of the public, libertarians will suffer from the Weird Man's Burden, probed relentlessly for every policy taboo, and held to a standard of conduct that standard Democrats and Republicans rarely have to answer for.

Below re-live my shaky-cam video of Johnson flipping out at a reporter asking about Aleppo, moments before the first presidential debate last September:

Continued here:

Libertarians Still Arguing About Gary Johnson's 2016 Campaign ... - Reason (blog)

How Are Islands Formed? New Land Mass Appears in Mysterious Bermuda Triangle – Newsweek

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A new land mass has appeared off the coast of North Carolina within the mysterious Bermuda Triangle. Theisland was observed to be a small spot of sand in April but has since expanded to at least a mile long and as wide as a football field, according to a Wednesday CNN report.

Nicknamed Shelly Islandbecause of the wide variety of seashells dotting the sandbanks, the land mass has already become a popular attraction to folks visiting the Outer Banks Cape Hatteras National Seashore,after a man vacationing in the area posted a birds'-eye-view photo of the island on social media.

But beware, tourists: The journey from Cape Hatteras to Shelly Island is a said to be dangerous, and for good reason.

Daily Emails and Alerts- Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox

For starters, the waters surrounding the new island are deep and the current is intense, capable of pulling under even the strongest of swimmers, Dave Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, told CNN Wednesday.

"Travel to the sandbar is best accomplished by experienced kayakers or paddleboarders that are using appropriate floatation and mindful of the strong currents in the area, Hallac said.

The crescent-shaped island is surrounded by the Labrador Current and warm Gulf Stream waters that typically wash over sandbanks that appear in the area. In most cases, isles that emerge in the region end up disappearing nearly as quickly as they surface.

Also worrisome: Shelly Island is in an area of the Bermuda Triangle referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, due to the number of shipwrecks.

Some 300 wrecks have been identified in the area waters, including the205-foot Sunk, an English ship that was sailing North Carolina waters in 1877 when it was mysteriously pulled to the bottom of the ocean. The ancient ship is still easily visible, and it has attracted tourists to North Carolina over the years.

Albeit sprinkled with beautiful seashells, the islands shoreline is riddled with whale bones wreckage from ships. The waters surrounding Shelly Island are known for tiger sharks and oceanic manta rays, which locals described to National Geographic as being the size of car hoods.

Despite Shelly Island's allure, Hallacwarned it most likely won't be around for long.

"It's unusually large compared to what we've been seeing in recent decades," he said in a separate interview with National Geographic,"But if you put this in geological perspective, it's nothing really."

Excerpt from:

How Are Islands Formed? New Land Mass Appears in Mysterious Bermuda Triangle - Newsweek

Gruesome pic shows mass slaughter of whales in Faroe Islands … – Fox News

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FaroeIslanders have turned the sea red after slaughtering hundreds ofwhalesas part of a centuries-old hunt, which has been harshly criticized by animal rights groups.

The hunts, or drives date back to the late 16th century. Authorities on the islands allow islanders to drive herds of pilot whales into shallow waters, where they are killed using a spinal lance that is inserted through the animals neck to break its spinal cord.

The grisly image shows a hunt on June 16.

'UNPRECEDENTED' ORCA HUNTING FRENZY CAPTURED ON FILM

The first hunt of this year was on May 21, according to ocean conservation group Sea Shepherd, which claims that 84 pilot whales were killed in the hunt. Hundreds more whales have died in subsequent hunts according to Sea Shepherd, which describes the drives as incredibly cruel.

File photo - a Faroe Islands whale hunt on July 2015. (Photo: Sea Shepherd/Mayk Wendt)

The Faroe Islands are located in the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Norway.

According to the Faroese Government, approximately 450 pilot whales have been killed in the Faroe Islands so far this year. Some 295 pilot whales were killed during hunts, which are known as Grindadrap in the local language, last year, according to official statistics. Some 501 were killed in 2015, according to official statistics.

A spokesman for the Faroe Islands government told Fox News that whaling in the islands is sustainable and conducted in accordance with international law. There is no doubt that whale hunts in the Faroe Islands are dramatic and result in a lot of blood in the water, he explained, via email. They are, nevertheless, well organised and fully regulated.

HUGE SEAL BATTLES OCTOPUS IN INCREDIBLE FIGHT TO THE DEATH

The Little Mermaid statue is seen painted in red in what local authorities say is an act of vandalism, in Copenhagen, Denmark May 30, 2017. (Ida Marie Odgaard/Scanpix Denmark/via REUTERS)

The spinal lance used to kill the whales was designed by a Faroese veterinarian and ensures that the mammals lose consciousness and die within a few seconds. Normally, the entire pod of whales is killed in less than fifteen minutes, the spokesman said. Arounded blowhole hook is used to haul the whales further up onto the shore.

The government says that the pilot whale population in the eastern North Atlantic is approximately 778,000, of which around 100,000 are around the Faroes. The Faroese catch around 800 whales a year on average, it says. The long-term annual average catch of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands represents less than 1 percent of the total eastern North Atlantic whale population, according to the spokesman for the Faroe Islands government. It has long since been internationally recognised that pilot whale catches in the Faroe Islands are fully sustainable, he said.

The hunts can happen at any time of the year and are noncommercial - meat and blubber from each drive is shared among the local community. The whales are not an endangered species.

KILLER WHALES ARE TORMENTING ALASKAN FISHERMEN

The islands are a self-governing group of islands that is part of Denmark, but are not part of the European Union, where whaling is banned.

Last month officials in the Danish capital Copenhagen had to hose down the citys famous Little Mermaid statue after it was found doused with red paint in an apparent protest at the Faroe Islands whale hunts. On the ground in front of the statue was written in red, in English, "Denmark defend the whales of the Faroe Islands."

Activists recently urged the European Union to take action against Denmark over the Faroe Islands whale hunt.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

Excerpt from:

Gruesome pic shows mass slaughter of whales in Faroe Islands ... - Fox News

China builds new military facilities on South China Sea islands: think tank – CNBC

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Trump has sought China's help in reining in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, and tension between Washington and Beijing over military installations in the South China Sea could complicate those efforts.

China has built four new missile shelters on Fiery Cross Reef to go with the eight already on the artificial island, AMTI said. Mischief and Subi each have eight shelters, the think tank said in a previous report.

In February, Reuters reported that China had nearly finished building structures to house long-range surface-to-air missiles on the three islands.

On Mischief Reef, a very large antennae array is being installed that presumably boosts Beijing's ability to monitor the surroundings, the think tank said, adding that the installation should be of concern to the Philippines due to its proximity to an area claimed by Manila.

A large dome recently was installed on Fiery Cross and another is under construction, indicating a sizeable communications or radar system, AMTI said.

Two more domes are being built at Mischief Reef, it said.

A smaller dome has been installed near the missile shelters on Mischief, "indicating that it could be connected to radars for any missile systems that might be housed there," AMTI said.

"Beijing can now deploy military assets, including combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers, to the Spratly Islands at any time," it said.

See the rest here:

China builds new military facilities on South China Sea islands: think tank - CNBC

Businesses on flooded Toronto Islands see big dent in customer traffic – The Globe and Mail

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When the waters of Lake Ontario began to rise around Toronto Islands in May, Julian Ganton wasnt worried.

At first, I was very hopeful, because every season the water does go up and down. Its the natural cycle, he said.

But once it started flooding almost close to the road, the hope starts to fade a little bit.

Mr. Ganton, a lifelong islander who owns a paddle-boarding business there, has never seen the water this high.

He isnt the only one who has begun to worry. When the islands were closed to visitors at the beginning of May, businesses such as Mr. Gantons were left without the thousands of tourists who would normally begin visiting the islands. The ferries are providing passage to anyone who has a reservation with an island business, but not many people knew this, he said.

When I realized that it was more serious, near the end of May, I upped my marketing like crazy because I somehow had to get the word out there that people were allowed to come over, he said. And it worked, to an extent.

During June of any other year, Mr. Ganton said he would have up to 100 groups of people coming to his business every week, whether for a paddle-boarding tour or to rent equipment. This season, he said, that number is closer to 10.

Ive been sort of shifting my tours to talking about the flood and its natural cycles and bringing people to some of the flooded areas, Mr. Ganton said. Its not a good thing, but its quite a unique thing that is interesting, especially if youre not familiar with the island or the Great Lakes.

Shawnda Walker, director of marketing for Centreville Amusement Park, said the numbers arent clear yet on how much the park has lost.

Weve definitely lost a lot of money. Its already been one third of our season, and were only open for a very short time, Ms. Walker said. In June, the park might see up to 10,000 people on a weekday.

Centreville found out about the closing of the islands three days before its opening date, which was the first Saturday in May.

While the water is nowhere near as high as it was in May, sandbags still line the roads and shores of Wards Island, and at the amusement park, a portion of the train tracks, as well as several benches and a bridge, are still underwater.

Ms. Walker said they had hoped to be able to announce the reopening on June 20, but the water was still too high.

Wed like to be able to announce something soon but until it hits that level, we cant, she said. Once the city says go, we can open it within 48 hours.

Ralph McQuinn, the owner and operator of Toronto Harbour Water Taxi, would be ready to go even sooner than that. He has two brand-new boats sitting in the docks that have yet to see the traffic June normally brings for his business.

Ive got everything in place. Im ready, Mr. McQuinn said. He has four people working for him now, when normally he would have 10. But the other six would come back to work at a moments notice.

Mr. McQuinn said that, although his business has lost a lot from the islands closing, he remains optimistic about the rest of the season. He knows his isnt the only business that is waiting for good news once the water is low enough.

Were all gonna get together and get things going, he said. That island will open up, then were going to get back to work, and I still think this summer is going to be a great summer.

Luc Cote of Tiki Taxi, another water-taxi company, said he is cautiously optimistic that the islands could be open soon.

Weve noticed a lot of activity, Mr. Cote said of Centre Island, where the amusement park is. Hes seen washrooms being cleaned, grass being cut, and other signs that, just like the taxi companies, the park is getting ready for business. You dont clean a bathroom now for July 31st, he said.

Mr. Cotes business normally picks up around the May long weekend, when it got a notice from the city about the closing. They cashed our cheque for the permits, and then told us the next day that permits were suspended, he said.

His first thought was of his staff. He told his employees he would do his best to keep them busy part-time. Mr. Cote wanted to keep as many of them on as possible so that if the islands are opened up, Tiki Taxi would be ready.

Like Mr. McQuinn, Mr. Cote has two brand-new boats for the summer. He estimates that, so far, his business has lost around $70,000. But he thinks this years flooding may have a positive effect on islands businesses after all the media attention the flooding has received.

Its incredible how many people dont even know that theres an island, he said. So now that peoples curiosity is piqued I think it may end up having a good effect in the long term.

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeToronto

Excerpt from:

Businesses on flooded Toronto Islands see big dent in customer traffic - The Globe and Mail

Islands YMCA brings home over 50 medals at nationals – Savannah Morning News

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Kari Thompson started her floor routine expecting to hear the music.

At first, no one was sure if Thompson had started before the music cued her, but as the surrounding noise died down, the tune could be heard playing softly. Technical difficulties resulted in the volume being turned down, and Thompson looked a little distracted as she leaped out into the middle of the floor.

Then she started playing the tune in her head, and it all came back to her. The rest of her routine was nearly flawless.

It kind of bothered me because it was kind of like a different music to it, and there were spots where I couldnt hear it, Kari said. I just kept my tempo going and kept my feet. My routine, I just said it in my head.

When it was over, she gracefully bowed and pranced off the floor to look at the scoreboard. She scored a 9.3 and placed second all-around for the Level 1 Juniors on Friday at the 2017 YMCA Gymnastics National Championship & Festival at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center on Hutchinson Island.

Kari took home five of the 40 medals given to the Islands Family YMCA Levels 1 and 2 girls, taking first place in the vault with a score of 9.55 and on the balance beam with a score of 9.475, giving her a total score of 37.3.

The Islands girls won eight first-place event medals, and three gymnasts came away with top overall honors in their age divisions. Carson Mosley took first place in the Level 1 senior age division, totaling a 37.2, which included a 9.5 on the floor. Charlotte Boatright won the Level 2 seniors with a total of 37.525, winning first in the bars (9.5) and beam (9.6), and Kylee Jiran posted the top overall score for all girls across Levels 1, 2 and 3 with a stunning 38.15. She placed first on the bars with a 9.6 and put an exclamation point on her day with a personal-best 9.8 on the beam.

I just put my mind to it, and I said I could do it, and I did it, said Kylee, who also scored a 9.25 on the vault and a 9.5 on the floor. (The vault) is not really my best event, and I hadnt had lots of practice. I didnt know how I was going to do.

Islands head coach Jill Conway wasnt really sure how her gymnasts were going to do on Friday, either. Islands had 12 girls between the ages of 6-11 compete at levels 1 and 2, which were limited to one day of competition for the three-day event. Levels 3 and above will compete today and Sunday.

I was not expecting that, Conway said about her girls winning 40 medals. and to tell you the truth, it brought me to tears when I saw how the girls did and how they stuck all their routines.

Conway added that her gymnasts practiced nine hours a week for the competition, which is in Savannah for the fifth time and has about 2,000 gymnasts from 21 states competing.

This is their hometown, Conway said. This is the host team, and as the host team, youre expected to perform well.

It took nearly three hours for the Islands girls to work their way through four events, the last of which was the beam. Conway said she was proud of the way her girls kept their composure throughout and gave their best performances on the beam, which as a team isnt their best event.

Last event, they were doing so well, and all they had to do was hit beam, she said. Beam is probably the hardest event because theres the pressure of sticking your skills. I tell the girls every day that if you dont hit beam, then you dont hit your all-around.

Islands also had girls who competed at Level 3 earlier in the day and boys who competed in levels 4, 5 and 6. Lily Schainholtz finished second overall in the Level 3 senior division with a total of 37.1.

For the boys, Myles Townsend took first overall with a 56.5 total in Level 4 seniors, including a first-place medal for the floor, where he scored a 10. Jacob Madeiros scored a 52 and took first-place overall for Level 6, Toby Madeiros placed second overall for Level 5 (51.0), and Barrett Whitehurst finished third overall at the All Level (49.2).

I was very pleased with everything they had, said Islands boys coach Adrian Sims, who also spent Friday helping to organize the event. This was a meet I couldnt personally coach them in, but they showed up and performed well.

The boys wont compete over the weekend, either. Competition will continue today with sessions beginning a 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m., and a 9 a.m. session will be held Sunday.

The Liberty County/Armed Services YMCA also had two girls competing at Level 1. Sophia Hool took third place in the child division with a 35.15 total.

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Islands YMCA brings home over 50 medals at nationals - Savannah Morning News

Wake-up Call for Imperiled Species! – Island Conservation News

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How early would you get up to prevent extinctions?

Whether were filming the dramatic recovery of Desecheo National Wildlife Refuge, or participating in an international online press conference, a 04:30 wakeup call is par for the course at Island Conservation.

Island Conservation joined the South Georgia Heritage Trust and the University of Dundee, hosts of the Island Invasives Conference 2017, and others in an online webinar for journalists previewing key presentations and issues to be discussed at the forthcoming event. The conference is the third-ever gathering of its kind, the first to take place in the Northern Hemisphere, and will be held between July 10th and 14th at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

The press briefing was held at 14:00 UK time, so Island Conservation Director of Science Dr. Nick Holmes and I had to get up before the sun to be ready to participate from California at 06:00. But we cant complain; our friend and colleague Dr. James Russell participated from Auckland New Zealand at 01:00 local time!

In the webinar, five expert speakers provided updates on their current projects, providing exclusive access to journalists ahead of the conference, providing the global context and how sharing information can help conservationists and scientists scale up what is being done to meet the escalating challenges.

Professor Tony Martin, University of Dundee, Professor of Animal Conservation, spoke about the South Georgia Heritage TrustHabitat Restoration Project, the worlds largest rodent eradication operation to date. He reported Wilsons Storm Petrels are beginning to come back, quite literally, from the brink of extinction. It is just a joy to traverse the island and see the wildlife starting to come back not that invasive rats and mice are gone. It still brings a lump to my throat when I hear the delicate song of the South Georgia Pippetts, the worlds southern-most songbird, found nowhere else in the world (endemic).

Dr. Piero Genovesi reported on the Honolulu Challenge, first conceived and endorsed by Island Conservation and others at the IUCNs World Conservation Congress in Honolulu late in 2016. Its objectives include increasing island invasive species eradications, and expanding biosecurity [invasive invasion prevention] efforts for countries and islands.

Predator Free New Zealand 2050 is New Zealands commitment to the Honolulu Challenge, explained Dr. James Russell, University of Auckland. This is the most ambitious invasives eradication goal ever set, eliminating invasive rats, possums, and stoats from the entirety of mainland New Zealand (NZ). So ambitious is this endeavour that the tools and methods needed to achieve it arent yet developed or tested. Russell explained, Were very much looking forward to coming to Dundee in a few days. Predator Free New Zealand depends on this kind of collaboration and exchange of information.

Clare Stringer, RSPB, Head of International Spices Recovery Unit spoke about the Gough Island Restoration Programme, which has been in the works for many years. Stringer explained, Gough Island could lose its World Heritage status if we dont intervene soon, or worse, the world could lose the island-endemic Tristan Albatross. Funding is the only thing holding us back.

Island Conservations own Dr. Nick Holmes, Director of Science, wrapped up the formal presentation, explaining why all these speakers, and many more organizations are flocking to Dundee to explore ways to scaling up invasive species eradications:

Thank you all kindly for joining today. I wanted to talk about the global scale of the challenge and opportunity for island restoration, and going to scale.

The previous speakers have all illustrated the challenges and opportunities in eradicating invasive species from islands, and that this valuable tool in the island restoration toolbox can be taken to scale.

We are seeing demonstration of going to scale in New Zealand, where the practice of completely removing invasive species from islands is a mainstream activity, and they have now set a new bar with their 2050 predator free challenge for the nation itself

Were seeing demonstration of going to scale amongst the global island restoration community, coming together to make important commitments around the Honolulu Challenge. The strength of these partnerships has never been greater.

And were seeing this demonstrated through increased scope and scale of individual projects, including remarkable and globally important efforts like South Georgia & Gough. These projects require sophisticated partnerships leveraging new approaches to tackle such challenges.

Before going any further I wanted to touch onwhy islands? Islands have a disproportionately higher rate of extinction and endangerment when compared to mainland areas. Islands occupy less than 6 percent of Earths land area. But when we look at what we have lost in the last half millennia, 61 percent of recorded extinctions have taken place on islands. And when digging into the reasons why, invasive species are implicated as a key cause in extinctions on islands.

When we look at what we have left today, approximately thirty-seven percent of all Critically Endangered Species on the IUCN Red List are found on islands, and approximately 20% of bird, reptile, and plant species.

So, if our goal is to conserve biodiversity, and prevent threatened species from going extinct, working on islands to remove invasive species offers some of the greatest return on investment. And this is the basis for the work that we do.

All around the globe, we are seeing these projects grow in scope and scale. This is a database of efforts to eradicate islands around the world. We are aware of more than 1200 efforts, and a success rate of around 85%.

Here is another example. With a partnership including BirdLife International, Polynesian Ornithological Society, and Island Conservation, we are excited to add to this global impact, and announce the success of a project in the Acteon-Gambier Island Groups, in French Polynesia where there are now 5 new predator-free islands.

This is an example of going to scale because it is a new global partnership conducting the biggest operation of its kind in one of the most remote island archipelagoes in the Pacific.

This is globally significant outcome because this project more than doubles the safe habitat for theCritically Endangered Polynesian Ground-dove, locally known as the Tutururu, one of our worlds rarest birds with an estimated less than 200 left in the world. There is now hope for this rare species.

The Tutururu, a ground-dwelling island bird, is Critically Endangered due to invasive species impacts. A recent project to clear invasive species from its habitat offers hope for its recovery. Photo credit: Island Conservation/Maddy Pott

These biodiversity conservation outcomes are the true driver of our collective efforts of going to scale.

Recently we published a first-of-its-kind study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled Invasive-mammal eradication on islands results in substantial conservation gains. You can find a link in the press pack. The authorship included a 30-member team of scientists, and we examined how native species responded to projects that eradicated invasive mammals from islands. From our limited search, we found 596 populations of 236 native species on 181 islands benefited.

Islands with native fauna populations with demonstrated and/or predicted benefits from invasive mammal eradications. Dot size indicates numbers of populations. PNAS

For every one of the 1200 efforts to date, there are hundreds more islands infested with invasive mammals like rats. There is so much more we need to do to bring this, one of the most successful conservation interventions, to the islands on which our worlds most imperiled species rely.

This is the message of hope and the reason you will find us all at next weeks Island Invasives Conference in Dundee. The successes, challenges, and opportunities like those weve highlighted today, are the message of hope and the reason you will find us all at next weeks Island and Invasives conference in Dundee.

The magnitude of the problem we face is a call to action for all of us attending the conference and many others to collaborate on further mainstreaming this conservation intervention; we need to continue to push the envelope by tackling more islands, bigger islands, and to find transformational ways for us to match the scale and scope of the problem and opportunity.

We are looking forward to learning from each other and being inspired, creating new partnerships and rising to the challenge of taking island restoration to scale.

Thus far, the Island Invasives Conference has more than 300 registered participants coming from 43 different countries. There will be about 90 speakers and poster presentations; Nine of these will be provided by Island Conservation Staff, and dozens more will be provided by our esteemed partners and colleagues.

Look out for further updates from us throughout the conference!

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Featured photo: Island Invasives Conference Website

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Wake-up Call for Imperiled Species! - Island Conservation News

Antarctica’s ice-free islands set to grow – The Hindu

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The Hindu
Antarctica's ice-free islands set to grow
The Hindu
As ice-free islands expand and coalesce, biodiversity could homogenise, less competitive species could go extinct and ecosystems destabilise from the spread of invasive species, which already pose a threat to native species, says the paper.Much life ...

and more »

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Antarctica's ice-free islands set to grow - The Hindu

The most Instagrammable spots in Fiji – NEWS.com.au

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Scuba instructor Ashley Roberts had a incredible encounter with a swarm of sharks while on a diving trip to Fijis Beqa Lagoon. Local dive guides counted at least 40 bull, 12 grey reef, 15 white tip and 20 black tip sharks during Roberts dive in the crystal clear waters of the lagoon. Roberts video captures the swirling swarm of sharks. Credit: Ashley Roberts via Storyful

THIS place is heaven on earth and only a few flying hours from Australia.

As an extreme cold front settles over much of Australia this week, we cant help but think of places where we can escape winter.

And here are seven reasons why the always friendly nation of Fiji has our vote.

These are Fijis most Instagrammable spots, according to fiji.travel.

CLOUD NINE

Cloud Nine. Picture: blissfulkcteam/InstagramSource:Instagram

Fijis only two-level floating platform, this slice of paradise has an internationally stocked bar and Italian wood-fired pizzeria surrounded by picturesque turquoise waters.

MONURIKI ISLAND

Look familiar? Monuriki Island. Picture: tropicalfijian/InstagramSource:Instagram

This island in the Mamanuca Archipelago is most famous for providing the setting for 2000s blockbuster movie Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks and a volleyball named Wilson.

SOUTH SEA ISLAND

South Sea Island. Picture: andreajane photography/InstagramSource:Instagram

The best way to see this picturesque island is with a cruise there are plenty of day cruises to choose from, and theyll all take you to see the worlds clearest waters, most colourful coral reefs and whitest sands.

BEACHCOMBER ISLAND

Beachcomber Island. Picture: @mamanuca_islands_fiji/Blair Monk/InstagramSource:Instagram

This pretty island is situated on a scenic marine sanctuary in the heart of the Mamanuca Islands, just 19km from Nadi International airport.

CLOUDBREAK

The famous Cloudbreak. Picture: joliphotos/InstagramSource:Instagram

Cloudbreak is a world-class wave consistently ranked among the ten most challenging waves in the world. It also makes a really pretty picture.

LAUCALA ISLAND RESORT

Laucala Island Resort. Picture: laucalaisland/InstagramSource:Instagram

This spot is a favourite among the rich and famous Miranda Kerr and Evan Spiegal spent their recent honeymoon there. The best part about it has to be that pool.

LIKULIKU LAGOON RESORT

Likuliku Lagoon Resort. Picture: tourismfiji/InstagramSource:Instagram

This is one of the few resorts in Fiji with overwater bures, and its the perfect place to stay for an idyllic Fiji holiday.

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The most Instagrammable spots in Fiji - NEWS.com.au

Toddler’s Hair Stands Up Like Troll Doll Thanks To Rare Genetic Condition – HuffPost

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A 21-month-old girl in North Carolina is turning heads thanks to her unusual hair.

Phoebe Brasswell, of Smithfield, was born with a rare genetic condition that makes her locks always look as if theyve just been hit with static electricity.

The condition, uncombable hair syndrome, causes her hair follicles to be kidney-shaped instead of round. It also affects the hairs protein, which gives it shape, according to Inside Edition.

As a result, Phoebes hair is fine, coarse, constantly tangled and constantly staticky, according to SWNS.com.

SWNScom

Phoebe is one of only around 100 children worldwide with the condition, according toProfessor Regina Betz, who researches UHS at the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of Bonn, Germany.

Betz told SWNS, There may be many more which have not been reported.

Phoebes mom, Jamie, said no haircare products seem to work on her daughters hair, but she loves it anyway.

Every morning it is sticking straight up and throughout the day, she told SWNS.com. I try and spray stuff in it to keep it down, but within 30 minutes its spiky again.

Jamie Brasswell has nicknamed her little girl, Poppy, after a character in the movie Trolls, according to Inside Edition.

SWNS

Still, people unfamiliar with the condition arent shy about making suggestions to Phoebes mom when they are in public.

We were in the grocery store once and a lady said, She is going to hate you when she looks at her baby photos because you let her go out in public like that, Jamie told SWNS.com.People say, You should brush it better. Why dont you put it in a ponytail? But that hurts her.

Jamie has tried to minimize those comments by having Phoebe wear a headband when out in public.

SWNS

Although Phoebes hair sticks out in a crowd and pretty much everywhere else doctors expect it will become more manageable when she reaches puberty.

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The biggest winner in the current health-care debate: Single-payer – Washington Post

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We still don't know who will ultimately prevail in the debate over the future of American health care: the Republicans who want to overhaul Obamacare, or the Democrats who want to keep it in place.

But after weeks of debate, there is one clear winner so far: single-payer health care.

No, single-payer isn't going to happen at the end of this debate or even the end of this year or this decade, necessarily. But the logical foundations for it are being laid in our political debate just about every single day. And when you pair that with the rising public support for government-run health care, it's clear in which direction this wholedebate is trending.

The most surprising aspect of the current health-care debate, for me, has been how Republicans have essentially given up on making the conservative case for their bills. They aren't even arguing that the free market would lead to higher-quality care, efficiency and medical advancements, as the GOP of old might have. Instead, they are trying to obscure the reality that their bills would cut Medicaid by hundreds of millions of dollars (versus where funding is currently set) and would increase the number of uninsured Americans by potential 20 million or more.

Part of this is because that's a losing argument. The reality of entitlement programs and government benefits is that, once they are instituted, it's very, very difficult to get rid of them or even scale them back. Just look at what happened to the GOP when it suggested privatizing Social Security last decade.

That political reality has also basically forced Republicans to concede this point: that people being uninsured is a very bad thing, and that cutting funding to Medicaid is a bad thing. They have basically conceded that government involvement in health care is a good thing or, at least, a necessary thing. That wasn't the argument they were making against Obamacare eight years ago.

Democrats, meanwhile, are gradually talking themselves into supporting single-payer, it would seem. Their laser-like focus on the number who are uninsured and the Medicaid cuts has a logical conclusion. There is only one way to make sure nobody is uninsured, after all.

And there are signs that both parties' bases are indeed moving toward government health care. APew studyin January showed 60 percent of Americans felt it was the government's job to guarantee health-care coverage for all Americans up from 51 percent in early 2016.About 8 in 10 Democratic-leaning voters and 3 in 10 Republican-leaning voters agreed with this statement.

That's not quite single-payer, of course, so Pew broke it out a little bit more in its most recent study. It asked those who supported a government guarantee whether they backed single-payer or a mix of government and private programs. In this case, support for single-payer was 33 percent overall 52 percent on the Democratic side and 12 percent on the GOP side.

One of the realities of polling, though, is that when you give people more than two options, they will tend toward the middle-ground response. A "mix of government and private programs" is a pretty safe middle ground, it would seem, and may actually undersell single-payer support.

And sure enough, a Gallup poll from mid-2016 actually showed a 58 percent majority of Americans wanteda "federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans." A CBS News poll in February 2016 asked more directly about single-payer and found 44 percent support. NORC pegged it at 38 percent but only 24 percent if people were told that it would greatly increase government spending. (Philip Bump summarized all of these data here.)

What we can say with certainty, though, is that the debate over this topic has taken on a new flavor as Republicans have been working to finally undo Obamacare. And it's a flavor that reflects a growing move toward government health care.

The GOP may yet move the needle away from government health care by the time all is said and done, but the center of this political debate has moved noticeably to the left.

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The biggest winner in the current health-care debate: Single-payer - Washington Post

Here’s How the Wealthy Gain From GOP Health Care Bill – NBCNews.com

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Some Republicans are interested in easing the bill's Medicaid cuts and making subsidies for private insurance more generous at low incomes, but the math doesn't add up as long as the bill gives them $700 billion less in revenue to work with than Obamacare.

And some Republican senators have

The point is, you cannot increase the burden on lower-income citizens and lessen the burden on wealthy citizens, Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told NBC News on Thursday. Thats not an equation that works.

Keeping Obamacare's tax on investment income adds $172 billion over 10 years, which is significant. But there's little talk of keeping the taxes on medical companies, which critics say are passed on in higher prices for consumers. Nor is there any indication yet that Republicans are willing to raise taxes elsewhere to make up the income.

That could leave them with the same fundamental problem: Less spending that provides fewer benefits than Obamacare can deliver.

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Here's How the Wealthy Gain From GOP Health Care Bill - NBCNews.com

Finally Everyone Agrees: Health Care Is a Human Right – RollingStone.com

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Many years ago, while researching a book chapter on health care reform, I visited a hospital in Bayonne, New Jersey that was having problems. Upon arrival, administrators told me a story that summed up everything that is terrible and stupid about American health care.

A patient of theirs suffering from a chronic illness took a bad turn and had to come in for a minor surgical procedure. The only problem was, the patient had been taking Coumadin, a common blood thinner, as part of his outpatient care.

So they brought him in to the hospital, weaned him off the Coumadin, did the surgery successfully, then sent him home. All was well until they billed the insurer. The answer came back: coverage denied, because the operation had not been conducted in "timely fashion."

Of course, had they operated in a more "timely fashion," the patient would have bled to death on the operating table. But such is the logic of the American health care system, a Frankenstein's monster of monopolistic insurance zones peppered with over a thousand different carriers, each with their own (often cruel) procedures and billing systems.

The hospitals I visited all told me they devoted enormous resources as much as half of all administrative staff, in one case to chasing claims. Patient care in American is in this way consistently reduced to a ludicrous and irrational negotiation of two competing professional disciplines: medicine, and extracting money from insurance companies.

Patients get trapped between hospitals that overcharge for simple procedures and insurers who deny coverage for serious ones. Administrative costs and profit are two of the bigger factors explaining why Americans spend about twice as much per person or more on health care compared with other industrialized countries, but get consistently worse results.

Ideas like a single-payer system, or ending the antitrust exemption for insurance companies, would be obvious fixes. But when they came up during the Obamacare debate, they were dismissed as politically unfeasible and/or too costly. Because the United States will not do what other countries do as a matter of course declare health care to be a universal human right and work backward from that premise we are continually stuck with patchwork political solutions that protect insurance and pharmaceutical company profits while leaving masses of people uninsured.

This is why it's so interesting to see so many of the opponents of universal health coverage attacking the idiotic Trumpcare bill on moral, rather than financial, grounds. Trumpcare is, like most Republican health care concepts, a depraved and transparent effort at slashing coverage and converting the benefits into tax breaks for rich people. This has resulted in howls of outrage from people who seem to have only just discovered that denying people health care might be bad for their health.

Take Paul Krugman's piece in the New York Times today, "Understanding Republican Cruelty":

"More than 40 percent of the Senate bill's tax cuts would go to people with annual incomes over $1 million but even these lucky few would see their after-tax income rise only by a barely noticeable 2 percent.

"So it's vast suffering including, according to the best estimates, around 200,000 preventable deaths imposed on many of our fellow citizens in order to give a handful of wealthy people what amounts to some extra pocket change."

This is interesting, because only last year Krugman was telling us we should abandon efforts to seek universal health care and focus "on other issues." As he put it:

"If we could start from scratch, many, perhaps most, health economists would recommend single-payer, a Medicare-type program covering everyone. But single-payer wasn't a politically feasible goal in America."

Krugman then went on to explain that the "incumbent political players" private insurers, among others simply had too much power, so it was better to give them something and get some health care than to take something away from them and get nothing.

He also said that additional tax revenue would make a more universal program politically untenable; he said this even as he admitted that such a program would probably reduce costs overall, but countered that "it would be difficult to make that case to the broad public, especially given the chorus of misinformation you know would dominate the airwaves."

Krugman's concession to what he called "Realities" meant that it was OK to leave an expected 31 million people uninsured. This was the argument last January, when most pundits and Vegas bookmakers were sure we were looking at four more years of a Democratic White House.

Instead, the monster Trump is in power, and trying to further roll back coverage in a field he surely doesn't understand through legislation he apparently doesn't even like. Reports say he has "shown little interest in what's in the bill," but that he thought the House version was "mean, mean, mean."

That doesn't mean Trump or the Republican Party plans on doing anything substantive to fix their idiotic health care bill. In a scene straight out of Swift or Gogol, Republican Senators were apparently stunned to their cores to discover via the Congressional Budget Office that their steal-from-the-poor, give-to-the-rich mutant of a bill would push 23 million people off the health care rolls.

"It knocked the wind out of all their sails," a GOP aide told reporters.

While the Republicans scramble to figure out the next step, Democrats continue to hammer the theme that Republicans want to kill their voters. I'm not a big fan of this kind of rhetoric, but I'll take it if it means the party is having an epiphany about the moral aspects of the health care debate. Surely if pushing some people off health care is killing them, then leaving tens of millions more without care is no better.

Health care is an absolute human right. On a policy level we already recognized this decades ago, during the height of the Reagan era, when the Emergency Medical and Treatment Labor Act made it illegal for public and private hospitals alike to turn patients away in an emergency. There is simply no moral justification for denying aid to a sick or dying person. Any country that does so systematically is not a country at all.

Let's hope the awful Trump era awakens us to the broader issue. The sad thing is that doing the right thing is also the smart thing. As other countries have already discovered, universal coverage systems that put the right incentives back into health care greatly reduce costs and waste. Getting there isn't "unrealistic." It's necessary, morally and otherwise.

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Finally Everyone Agrees: Health Care Is a Human Right - RollingStone.com

Trump Backers ‘Furious’ That Senator Stood Against Health Care Bill – New York Times

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The political fallout from Mr. Hellers high-profile news conference a week ago offers a vivid illustration of the new fault lines on the right in the Trump era. After years of fierce clashing between Republican hard-liners and mainstream conservatives, the purity-versus-pragmatist wars have given way to a new, Trump-centered debate that highlights how fully the president has taken over the party.

On the other hand, Mr. Heller faces enormous grass-roots pressure to stand his ground against the bill. He has clung tightly to his states popular Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, a staunch opponent of the repeal who accepted the Medicaid expansion dollars in the Affordable Care Act. More than 200,000 Nevadans have gained insurance through Medicaid since the passage of the health law.

What angered the Republican rank and file about Mr. Hellers critique was not so much his unease with the compromise Senate legislation a measure that many on the far right are also displeased with but that he would so purposefully undermine the presidents agenda.

And it is not just party activists who are displeased with the senator.

Mr. Adelson and Mr. Wynn, two of Las Vegass leading gambling titans, each contacted Mr. Heller at the request of the White House last week to complain about his opposition to the Republican-written health overhaul, according to multiple Republican officials.

One ally of Mr. Hellers acknowledged that Mr. Adelson and Mr. Wynn were unhappy with the senator at the moment and that their relationship needed some repair work.

Both billionaire donors are close to Mr. Trump, a fellow tycoon. Mr. Adelson played a pivotal role in Mr. Trumps election, showering Republican groups last year with tens of millions of dollars. Mr. Wynn is the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee and oversaw a fund-raiser on Wednesday at the presidents Washington hotel that Mr. Trump said had raised about $7 million for the party committee and his re-election campaign.

Earlier that day, America First Policies held a donor meeting for those who were in the capital for that evenings fund-raiser. Every contributor who raised the issue of the anti-Heller campaign an extraordinary offensive against a vulnerable senator in ones own party expressed approval of the attacks, according to an attendee.

Ronald M. Cameron, a major Republican donor who gave the maximum $5,400 donation to Mr. Hellers re-election campaign this year, said he would consider investing in primary race challenges to Republican lawmakers who oppose the health care bill or other White House legislative priorities.

I might support a challenger, and would certainly withhold support from someone that I thought was against Trumps agenda, said Mr. Cameron, an Arkansas poultry magnate who donated more than $2 million to committees supporting Mr. Trumps 2016 campaign and attended the Wednesday fund-raiser for his re-election.

Mr. Cameron who was solicited by America First but said he had not donated to the group said that he was not familiar with the groups ads against Mr. Heller, but that he did not object to the idea of publicly calling out lawmakers who oppose the health care bill.

They should shape up or get out of the way, he said.

Mr. Trump himself, while acknowledging the complaints of the Republican senators at the White House meeting, has in other private sessions with his aides and allies made clear that he very much approved of the onslaught against Mr. Heller. At the wedding of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last Saturday and then again in the White House this week, he told advisers that he supported the ad blitz, according to multiple Republican officials who have spoken to the president.

Officials with America First insist that Mr. Trump and the White House staff all supported their decision to target Mr. Heller. But there has been some unease in the administration over the strategy, which created a significant rift with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and other Republican senators at the very moment they were trying to forge consensus around the repeal bill.

At least one White House official sought to halt the attacks out of fear that alienating Mr. Heller would carry adverse ramifications well beyond the health debate. The Nevada senator is a crucial vote not only in the chamber where Republicans have a bare two-seat majority but also on the finance and banking committees. The two panels have jurisdiction over legislative priorities like tax cuts and presidential appointments.

Close advisers to Mr. Heller say he is open to eventually supporting the legislation, if significant changes are made.

Megan Taylor, a spokeswoman for Mr. Heller, did not respond to questions about his call with the casino magnates or the prospect of a primary race next year.

In a statement, she said Mr. Heller continues to engage with his colleagues, leadership and the administration to discuss what Nevada needs to see in this bill. But, she said, its not about Senator Heller getting to a yes; its about improving the legislation so that it achieves his goals of lowering costs and protecting Nevadas most vulnerable.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Heller have little in the way of a relationship. The senator never supported the presidents campaign, and Mr. Trump identifies him with a larger group of Nevada Republicans, including Mr. Sandoval, who either remained on the sidelines throughout 2016 or spurned him in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape disclosure last October.

The day after Mr. Trump was revealed to have boasted on that tape about sexually assaulting women, a pair of Republican lawmakers in Nevada made a show of abandoning their party nominee at a rally outside Las Vegas. In doing so, Representative Joe Heck, who was running for the Senate, and Representative Cresent Hardy, who was seeking re-election, enraged Mr. Trumps supporters.

Both lost their campaigns, making Nevada a rare bright spot in an otherwise lackluster year for Democrats.

To Nevada conservatives, it was an instructive moment and one they said Mr. Heller appears not to have learned a lesson from.

Hes making a tragic mistake that I thought had already been learned by the G.O.P. delegation in Nevada, said Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative talk show host and columnist in Las Vegas. When you abandon Trump, you dont get one Democrat, but you lose Republicans.

Both Mr. Root and Chuck Muth, another Nevada-based conservative activist, said they had been inundated with emails and calls from grass-roots Republicans who are angry about Mr. Heller. But whether that fury translates into a viable primary race challenge is far from certain. The senator will have significant financial support from his allies in Washington, and there is no obvious Republican opponent on the horizon. Mr. Tarkanian said he was also eyeing another run for the House seat he narrowly lost last year.

Another potential challenger, the state treasurer, Dan Schwartz, said he was likely to run for governor and has signaled to Mr. Heller through intermediaries that he will not take on the senator.

He will pay some price, but I just dont think its realistic, Mr. Schwartz said, citing the money needed to challenge Mr. Heller. Hes in a tight spot, but I dont think its dire.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.

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A version of this article appears in print on July 1, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fury in Nevada for Senator Who Defied President on Health Bill.

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Trump Backers 'Furious' That Senator Stood Against Health Care Bill - New York Times