NPR | Morning News Brief: Russia Protests, GOP Health Care Bill NPR Rachel Martin 2016 square · Rachel Martin · Facebook Twitter. For the second time this year, a leading Russian dissident is calling for mass demonstrations against President Putin's government. And, the U.S. Senate continues work on health care overhaul. |
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Morning News Brief: Russia Protests, GOP Health Care Bill - NPR
Despite the daily drip about Russia and the Trump administration, national Democrats who hope to exploit Republicans vulnerabilities in 2018 are focusing theirmessaging squarely on health care before theJuly 4 recess.
Just minutes after former FBIDirector James B. Comey concluded his testimony Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee in which he said the president lied to the America people the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee blasted out a release.
The subject? Nevada Sen. Dean Hellers reported support for phasing out Medicaid expansion.
The Senate Democrats campaign arm issued no public statements about the Comey hearing.
Democrats are careful to say that just because Russia isnt a major campaign issue todaydoesnt mean it couldnt be a year from now. The 2018 cycle is still young, as is the unraveling of detailsabout Russias involvement in last years election.
But for now, many Democratic strategists and lawmakers say, the ins and outs of Russias meddling in U.S. politics is not the most pressing issue for voters.
Literally, I have gotten zero questions about Russia. Zero, Rep. Cheri Bustos said Thursday as she was leaving the Capitol after the last votes of the week.
The Illinois Democrat was describingthe interactions she has had so far this year at her Supermarket Saturday events, where she swings through grocery stores to chat with constituents in the aisles.
One of three co-chairs of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, Bustos is the only Midwestern member in House Democratic leadership.Trump narrowly carriedher district last fall.
Things that Washington, D.C., is obsessed about, in some cases, are barely even a blip in a rural area like mine, shesaid.
Health care is the issue her constituents have raised the most, Bustossaid. People with pre-existing conditions are freaking out, she said.
The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA released a messaging guidance memolate last month with a similar conclusion. Nearly half of the presidential-year voters surveyed expressed concern about Republicans supporting the GOP health care bill; only 35 percent had concerns about Republicans opposing an independent investigation into the Kremlin and Trump.
Its not to say Russia is not relevant, its just not as pertinent to peoples lives, a longtime Democratic strategist said.
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who conducted an internal review of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees 2016 election efforts, said he doesnt like to veer too far from the bread-and-butter issues that worry families in his district.
Its hard to compete with somebodys mortgage, or their retirement or the cost of their kids college, Maloney said as he exited the Capitol ahead of the weekend break.
We should not assume that ordinary Americans understand this and care about this as much as people in Washington, he said of Russia. Maloney said that while his constituents take the Russian election interference seriously, theyre also wary of Washington.
They are understandably suspicious about how politics can get played in this town. And they see that as being at odds with whats important at their own families kitchen tables, Maloney said.
A distraction is how Bustos characterizes the Washington frenzy over Russia.Part of her job as DPCC co-chairwoman is helping the party craft its message, especially in rural and swing areas of the country like hers.
I just say, This is distracting members of Congress from what we need to be focusing on, Bustos said, rattling off a list of other priorities such asa farm and infrastructure bill that she wants Congress to get done.
Maloney cautioned that its too soon to tell whether Russia will emerge as a more salient campaign issue. The facts may be so serious that they cannot be ignored, he said.
That uncertainty over whats going on with Russia is one reason some Democrats are finding it more helpful to talk abouthealth care.
Right now, the story is that something very troubling is happening in Washington, D.C. The middle and end of this story we just dont know yet, said a Democratic strategist who works on Senate campaigns.
The troubling aspects of the GOP health care plan, at least from the Democrats perspective, are much more clear-cut. And for a party largely ondefense in Senate races next year in states that Trump won (and where he remains popular), Democrats see health care as a strong offensive message, especially against their top two targets, Heller and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake.
Earlier this year, the DSCC released non-skippable YouTube ads attacking the GOP health care plan for hurting older Americans and those with pre-existing conditions. Majority Forward, a nonprofit allied with Senate Majority PAC, also made health care the subject of its ads in Arizona and Nevada released earlier this year.
But Russia continues to dominate the news cycle.
At some level this is all a gift to Republicans because it takes focus off of this disastrous health care bill, Connecticut Sen. Christopher S. Murphy said Thursday.
So itll be up to Democratic groups to find ways to communicate their health care message to voters this summer.
Its important to let people know that as these investigations are going on, Trump and the Republicans are trying to pull the health care rug out from under the Americans, said Maryland Sen.Chris Van Hollen, the DSCC chairman.We need at least bifocals here.
The party can and should keep its eye on both things, said Jesse Ferguson, a veteran of the DCCC and Hillary Clintons campaign.
Its a false choice between talking about health care and talking about Russia, Ferguson said. In fact, he said, the two messages even amplify each other.
Democratic campaigns arent ignoring Russia completely, and with the liberal base motivated on the issue Indivisible and MoveOn.org both called for impeachment proceedings immediately after the Comey hearing they cant afford to.
The DCCC called on Republicans to support a bipartisan, independent committee to investigate Russias interference in our democracy after the Comey testimony. A smattering of Democratic House challengers released similar statements.
Russia is more salient in some districts than others. In its Thursday statement, the DCCCtook a shot at California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, whose conduct in the Russian investigation has earned him a spot on the committees target list in 2018. Increased attention on Russia has also helped put the district of another California Republican, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,on the map.
American Bridge, a liberal super PAC, is the rare Democratic outside group that has invested in paid communications on Russiathis year.
But its also beenvocal about health care. Its partnering with House Majority PAC on its Congressional Accountability Projectthis summer.
Make no mistake, pocketbook issues like health care ought to be front and center in Democratic messaging, American Bridge President Jessica Mackler said in an emailed statement. But Democrats can also walk and chew gum at the same time.
The Trump administrations Russia scandal must be investigated and Republicans who refuse to do their job and demand an independent investigation should be held accountable. We can do both, Mackler added.
Democrats see the Russia developments taking a toll on the presidents popularity and boosting their party inthe generic congressional ballot (with a longtime Democratic strategist pointing to the nearly 8-point edge his party has in FiveThirtyEights generic ballot tracker as a good sign for 2018).
In the end, the Trump administration, and their contortions and their lying about what happened, is feeding the perception they cant be trusted, Ferguson said. That perception makes it impossible for them to sell their health care agenda to the American people, he added.
Bridget Bowman contributed to this report.
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Democrats Stick to Health Care Message Amid Russian Intrigue - Roll Call
Crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe and YouCaring have turned sympathy for Americans drowning inmedical expenses into a cottageindustry. NowRepublican efforts in Congress torepeal and replace Obamacarecould swellthe ranks of the uninsured and spurthe business ofhelping peopleraise donations online to pay for health care.
But medical crowdfunding doesn't have to wait for Congress to act. Business is already booming,and its leadersexpect therapid growth to continue no matter what happens on the Hill.
"Whether it's Obamacare or Trumpcare, the weight of health-care costs on consumers will only increase," said Dan Saper, chief executive officer of YouCaring. "It will drive more people to try and figure out how to pay health-care needs, and crowdfunding is in its early days as a way to help those people."
The GOPplan could hurt older and sicker Americans and those with preexisting conditions.Above, Speaker of the House Paul Ryanand House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Photographer: Tom Williams
At industry leaderGoFundMe, medical isone of the biggest fundraising categories.CEO Rob Solomon hassaid it'swhat "helped define andput GoFundMe on the mapand has called the company, founded in 2010,"a digital safety net."
Thatnetgrew wider this year withGoFundMe'sacquisition ofCrowdRise, which wasco-founded by the actor Edward Norton. Itadds to the company's business helping people fundraisefor charitiesandsends those who needfundsfor "medical bills, a friends tuition, a group volunteer trip, or any personal cause"to GoFundMe.
Growth hasbeen rapid.In a September2015LinkedIn post, Solomon wrote that the onemillion campaigns set up over the previous yearhad raised $1 billion from nearly 12 million donors. By February2016, the total was $2 billion. In October2016, it was$3 billion, from 25 million donors. A NerdWallet study of medical crowdfunding said GoFundMehad indicated that $930 million of the $2 billion raised intheperiod the study analyzed was from medical campaigns.
YouCaring,meanwhile, acquired GiveForwardthis year; medicalfundraisersmadeup 70 percent of GiveForward'scampaigns. The combined companies have8million donors who have contributed $800 million to a wide range of campaigns. A big part of that totalwas donatedto medical campaigns, according to the company.It wasapproaching 50 percent of all fundraisers at YouCaringbefore the acquisition,and thegrowth rate is setto triple this year,Sapersaid.
With enough volume, the business of helpingpeople raise moneyfor medical carehas a lot of profit potential. GoFundMetakes 5 percent of each donation, 2.9 percentgoes to payment processing, and there'sa 30transaction fee. Smaller sites, such asFundlyand FundRazr,chargemuch the same.YouCaringdonors pay just a 2.9 percent processing feeplus the 30.
"We rely on voluntary contributions from donors [to run the business], so our big thrust now ishow do we get the word out about it," said Saper. The company is scaling up its team and operationsandhiredthe former global head of engagement and growth of EventBrite, Maly Ly,asits chief marketing officer in March.
Indiegogo, which started outfunding filmmakers, createda separate platform in 2015 called Generosity. Medical is a top category, and users pay a 3 percent paymentprocessing fee and the 30.NowFacebook has jumped into thefray.On May 24, it began allowingusers to launch fundraisers for personal causes or nonprofits on their pages. Medical is one of eight available categories.For personal cause campaigns, Facebook takes6.9 percent of each donation plus 30.
For more and more Americans, vying in a popularity contest for a limited supply of funds and sympathy may be the only way to pay the doctors and stay afloat. House Republicans passed a bill last month to replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. As is, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, it would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured in 2026 than under the ACA. Even a law just resembling the bill is likely to raise the cost of health care for older and sicker Americans and for those with preexisting conditions, bolstering the medical crowdfunding business.
The industry still represents just a fraction of the hundreds ofbillions of dollarsAmericans pay annuallyout of pocket for health care, said Saper. Medical crowdfundingis "highly, highly scalableand has a ton of runway," he said. "The growth rate of the industry is showing that this can absolutely be an impactful safety net for a lot of individuals and communitiesto help each other."
Siblings Luke and Dana Nowakowski(above in Milwaukee in2015)started a campaign on GoFundMe to raise $25,000 to help their father pay for the care of their mother, who has dementia and mobility challenges.
Photographer: Darren Hauck/New York Times via Redux
The remarkably named Producing a Worthy Illness: Personal CrowdfundingAmidst Financial Crisis, astudy published this yearbythe University of Washington/Bothell,offers a striking perspective on some of those communities. Personal medical campaigns on GoFundMewere likelierto come from people living in states that chose not to expand Medicaid under the ACA, preliminary results of the study showed.Fifty-four percent of 200 randomly sampled campaigns last year came from those states, though theyare home to just 39 percent of the U.S. population.Trumpcarewould sharply curtail Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid.
"We had a huge number of campaigns from Texas, which is often recognized as thestate where it's most difficult to qualify for Medicaid and other public insurance," Professor Nora Kenworthy, co-author of the study, said. "A lot of the campaigns are really using GoFundMe as a safety net,"asking for "help with lost wages, help getting basic health-care services and support."
Mostmedical crowdfunding campaigns are a far cry from Taylor Swift's $50,000 gifton GoFundMe to a young girl with aggressive leukemia,or $1 million in donations for a mother whose cancer returned whenshe was pregnant with quadruplets."Often,funds people are raising are for a huge range of costs that go along with care, like travel to the place where you will get care, because insurance doesn't really cover that,"said Indiegogo'ssenior director of social innovation, BreannaDiGiammarino. In the future, more fundraisers will likely seektocover premiums and deductibles rather than the cost of care itself, she said.
"Crowdfunding is being treated a little like crowd-insurance now," said Daryl Hatton, CEO of Canada-based crowdfunding platformFundRazr.
Yet crowdfunding's business model is a poorfit for the gargantuan, mundane, never-endinghealth-care costs of many online campaigners. Some get just 10 to 20 percent of whattheyaskfor, said Jeremy Snyder, a health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, where the need remains even with a national health-care system.Snyder'sresearch, whichincludesanalysis of ethicalissues raised by medical crowdfunding,has focusedon people seeking funding for cancer treatments on Canadian crowdfunding sites.
And, of course, in the U.S. as in Canada, somecampaigners get less than that, or nothing at all.Slightly more than onein 10 health-related online campaigns reached their goal in the NerdWalletreport. The Bothell studyfound that 90 percent of the 200 GoFundMe campaigns didn't reach their goal, and that, on average, fundraisers got 40 percent of what they asked for. That doesn't sound like much of a fixtoSnyder.
"Is this something that is going to be a solution to a lack of health insurance?" he said."Absolutely not."
One reason for the discouraging statistics is that while most of the campaigns are ordinaryand no less urgent for itit is often the extraordinary ones that do best.
The more dramatic the need, the more successful" the fundraiser,said Adrienne Gonzalez, who follows the industry asthe creator ofGoFraudMe.com, a site that exposes fraudulent campaignson GoFundMe.
Among the "most active" campaigns featured on generosity.com on May 30 were one to help pay for treatments for a man diagnosed with acute promyelocyticleukemiaand one fora womanstruggling to cover"co-pays, travel expenses, food, lodging, essentials" as she tends to her 19-year-old daughter, who is scheduled for akidney transplant.A third solicited fundsfor a woman without insurance who had been struck by lightning.
Those appeals are very different from that of anice hockey player who had broken her collarbone in a game and started a campaignongenerosity.com. Sheasked for $1,500 to help cover her $1,000 deductible and other costs, includingbeing sidelined from her landscaping job for at least six weeks. Over a month, she raised $252 from seven people, or 17 percent of her goal. It was something.
I need help with my deductiblethey are not going to be very successful, said Gonzalez, who believes crowdfunding has done a lot of good but presents"this whole socioeconomic problem"because "you almost have to be a marketing guru" to create a successful campaign.
The Bothellresearchers noticed a bias among donors toward funding solvable problems. "Injections that cost $10,000 every six months are a more solvable problem thana campaign for a family citing a litany of challenges, like utility bills that aren't being paid because the family is paying for health care," said Professor Lauren Berliner, Kenworthy's co-author on the study.Media and digital savvy play a big part in attracting donations.The campaigns withhashtags, images, and flashyelements got the most financial support, the study found.
"Most campaigns are paid for by friends, and friends of friends," said Hatton of FundRazr."A lot of it has to do with the strength of your social network," as people you helped now dip into a "karma bank" and help you. People with fewer financial resources may not have been able to build up that goodwilland may not have that wide and deep a social network to call on, he said.
Then there was thewoman in her 30swhowalked into afree clinic where Dr. Edward Weisbart, who chairs the Missouri chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program,volunteers. She was with her mother, appearedunable to speak,and hada "peculiar affect, like a crazed wild animal," he said. It turned out she had lived for years with seizures every two to three days until she founda medication that hadcut the frequency toonce every two months. When she visited Weisbart, she had lost her insuranceand had 10 days of medication left.
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"Her inarticulate state was not a consequenceof the seizures," Weisbart said. "It was terror over what her life would be like if she couldn't get the medication."Once he explainedthat the clinic could mail her the drugand that it would cost $40 instead of $1,500, "she transformed into this normal, lucid, almost friendly person," he said. "But she could never have usedcrowdfunding, because she was literally beside herself."
Hatton isseeing more"fatigue" around crowdfunding efforts. Weisbart observed that"when you get your first request, you probably give a high amount. But as you get besieged and realize how common these requests are, donations will go down. We can't keep on giving to everyone who asks."
Onesite keeping its distanceis Kickstarter, where donors fund creative projects.
"If we had personal health-care campaigns, it could create a strange moral equivalency," saidJustin Kazmark, the company's vice president of communications. "If you see documentary filmmakers trying to get $10,000 for a film alongside a project for someone whose dog needs dental surgery, or for disaster relief,it changes the mindsetand frames the whole thing differently."
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America's Health-Care Crisis Is a Gold Mine for Crowdfunding - Bloomberg
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Health care is high on the minds of voters in Georgias 6th congressional district, but most disapprove of the House GOPs current proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare.
More than 80 percent of the 745 likely voters surveyed last week in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll listed health care as an extremely important or very important issue for them as theyve determined whether to vote for Republican Karen Handel or Democrat Jon Ossoff in the upcoming special election.
The issue ranked high in the eyes of more voters than any other surveyed, including taxes, abortion and transportation. Government spending was second.
Specifically, the cost of health care was seen a top issue across every political party, race and age group polled: 94 percent of likely voters surveyed said they were extremely concerned or very concerned about the issue.
Sixth District voters held particularly negative opinions about theGOP proposal to overhaul Obamacare that narrowly passed the House last month. Only one in four of the likely voters surveyed, and one-half of Republicans, said they approved of the American Health Care Act. The disapproval rating is 7 percentage points higher than the national Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released late last month.
I find it to be way too invasive, said Charles Neal, a 65-year-old Handel supporter from Cobb County of the House health care bill. It puts peoples privacy in the hands of bureaucrats.
The totals show the challenges in store for Senate Republicans as they continue to hash out their own Obamacare replacement proposal behind closed doors. Not only must they sell such a plan to each other, but a skeptical public.
Obamacare makes sense for a lot of reasons, according to James Vaughn, a 52-year-old from DeKalb County who is backing Ossoff. I realize its not perfect, but repealing it and replacing it with this atrocity the GOP came up with is not right.
Somewhat surprisingly, the House GOP proposal polled highest among likely Georgia voters of retirement age: 29 percent of the folks surveyed who were 65 and older supported the bill. While that voting bloc tends to lean toward the right, the American Health Care Act has been slammed by senior advocacy groups such as the AARP since it would allow insurers to charge older people higher monthly premiums.
As for Handel and Ossoff, the two are split on the House GOP proposal along predictably partisan lines. Handel said shes committed to working toward a full repeal and replacement of Obamacare that works for all Americans, while Ossoff said the House plan puts Georgians lives at risk.
Marlene Weingart is a 62-year-old Handel supporter from Fulton County. She said she hopes Senate Republican leaders will be able to find enough support to pass the proposal.
Healthcare is not a right or the job of the government, she said. Obamacare should be repealed and they need to simplify the healthcare system.
The survey was conducted June 5-8 by ABT Associates and involved 1,000 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.
Check out the crosstabs here,and checkout the MyAJC politics sitefor more coverage.
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American families, businesses, and the economy will all be negatively impacted should the Trump Administration succeed in weakening the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandate that requires companies to provide free contraception to employees. Our perspective as investors leads us to strongly urge companies to continue to provide no-cost contraception in addition to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare benefits to all employees.
As institutional investors, we see compelling evidence that widespread access to sexual and reproductive healthcare benefits, such as maternity care, paid parental leave, contraception, and family planning services promotes two positive and interrelated outcomes (1) it provides women greater control over their own lives and (2) it facilitates economic growth.
The economic argument is equally compelling. The additional productive power of women entering the workforce from 1970 (when birth control became more widely available) until today accounts for roughly one quarter of current GDP. Janet Yellen, Chair of the Federal Reserve, recently cited a PwC study that found increasing womens participation in the workforce to the same level as mens would increase the nations GDP by five percent. And women are projected to account for 51 percent of the growth in total labor force from 2008 to 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
This should not be a partisan debate. Our government should continue its tradition of establishing policies that will unlock these social and economic benefits. The Title X Family Planning Program, signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, has a long record of helping low-income and underserved individuals obtain high-quality family planning and related preventive healthcare while also providing economic benefit. In fact, the Title X Program has been shown to save taxpayers seven dollars for every dollar invested. The Guttmacher Institute, a sexual health research and policy organization, reports: In 2014, the contraceptive care delivered by Title Xfunded providers helped women avoid 904,000 unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in 439,000 unplanned births and 326,000 abortions. Without the contraceptive care provided by these health centers, the U.S. rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion would have been 33 percent higher, and the teen pregnancy rate would have been 30 percent higher.
Roughly 49 percent of Americans receive health insurance through their employer. Fortunately, many companies see sexual and reproductive healthcare benefits as a no-brainer. Notably, Bank of America, Deloitte, and Ernst & Young now provide 16 weeks of paid parental leave, despite the U.S. being the only one of the OECDs 35 member nations not to require paid maternity leave. Proactive companies stand to attract and retain talent and have a healthier and more productive workforce.
The ACA includes contraceptive coverage, pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care among its 10 Essential Health Benefits. Before the ACA however, these benefits were rare. For example, 88 percent of private plans did not provide for maternity care.
Yellen succinctly summarized the imperative to eliminate obstacles to womens full participation in the economy in a speech given at Brown University: Further advancement [of women] has been hampered by barriers to equal opportunity and workplace rules and norms that fail to support a reasonable work life balance. If these obstacles persist, we will squander the potential of many of our citizens and incur a substantial loss to the productive capacity of our economy
Institutional investors have a vested interest in seeing our economy achieve its full potential. We believe it is essential that legislators and business leaders work to ensure common sense sexual and reproductive health care benefits and family planning services remain firmly embedded in public and corporate policy as it will unlock numerous benefits to companies and society.
Allan Pearce is a Shareholder Advocate at Trillium Asset Management, an employee-owned investment advisor devoted exclusively to sustainable and responsible investing.
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Keep ObamaCare's commonsense sexual health care benefits, investors say - The Hill (blog)
Too often, real policy improvements get drowned out by political talking points. That is the case right now as nearly all of the health care discussion in Montana is about one flawed health care bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the 2017 legislative session, we saw unprecedented bipartisan action to improve health care. Representative Rob Cook (R-Conrad) carried an important bill to allow my team at the State Auditors office to pursue a waiver from the federal government and create a reinsurance system that would have stabilized our insurance market and lowered costs. It passed the Montana House unanimously before politics got involved.
Representative Amanda Curtis (D-Butte) sponsored a great bill to require transparency in health care prices and let patients share in the savings by finding procedures for lower costs from different hospitals. Senator Ed Buttrey (R-Great Falls) carried another bill that would have empowered Montanans with the ability to know the cost of health care procedures.
Another bill, by Senator Cary Smith (R-Billings), would have allowed Montanans to contract directly with their doctors for services. Representative Nancy Balance (R-Hamilton) carried a bill to include Montana in a compact with other states to protect citizens control over health care decisions. Two more bills would have helped small businesses provide health insurance to their employees and allowed Montanans to shop out-of-state for affordable health insurance.
Tragically, Governor Bullock vetoed all six bills that landed on his desk. These bills would have made health care more accessible and affordable, but Bullock chose to obstruct the Legislature and hurt Montanans struggling to make ends meet.
Governor Bullocks refusal to allow Montana to improve its own system makes it all the more important that Congress repeal Obamacare, and do so responsibly. Ive told key congressional leaders that they need to fully fund cost-sharing reduction payments to stabilize the 2018 insurance market and that Obamacare repeal needs to lower costs, give states more flexibility, and give consumers more options to meet their individual health care needs.
Health insurance costs in the United States are on an unsustainable path. Ive heard from hundreds of Montanans who are paying thousands of dollars every year for their health insurance coverage, and thousands more for deductibles before their insurance provides any benefit. Ive spoken at length with Senator Steve Daines about these issues, and hes working hard to address these problems. Even Senator Jon Tester is now admitting that things are wrong with Obamacare and that we didnt make the modifications to fix the problem.
Im glad to see Senator Tester admits that when he cast the deciding vote to pass Obamacare, the law that no one had read was critically flawed from the outset. Im also glad to see hes admitting that he and the rest of the national Democrats did nothing to address these problems and that reforms are way overdue. But Senator Tester needs to do more than just speak, he needs to take action, especially after Governor Bullock thwarted bipartisan health care improvements here in Montana. We can work together to solve these problems and make health care better for all Montanans, but for that to happen, the political obstruction must end.
-- Matt Rosendale of Glendive is Montanas State Auditor, also known as Commissioner of Securities and Insurance.
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Health care improvements thwarted by politics - Montana Standard
While genetic testing has been used for years to diagnose cancer, it is now finding new application in the identification of cancerous mutations that will respond to targeted therapies. NuView Life Sciences is developing a new technology platform, NV-VPAC1, that could be used in tandem with genetic testing to deliver precise treatment to an individuals unique cancer cells.
Park City, UT (PRWEB) June 07, 2017
In 2017, an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the United States(1). Up to 10% of these cases will be caused by inherited genetic mutations(2), while almost two thirds of these cases will result from random mutations that occur as cells copy themselves in a process called DNA replication(3). While genetic testing is already being used to explore triggers for cancer development, researchers are now investigating the use of genetic testing to choose specific cancer treatments based on an individuals unique genetic makeup. As this field of genetics grows, companies like NuView Life Sciences are developing innovative technologies that can be used to target cancerous cells.
In recent years, genetic testing for certain mutations, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, has become a mainstay in cancer diagnostic tests, specifically those that are more likely to occur as a result of genetic abnormalities. However, researchers are now better understanding the role that genetic mutations play in a patients response to treatment. Since certain mutations can make a patient less likely to respond to treatment(4), efforts involving the use of genetic testing to determine patient-specific treatment plans have grown.
Paul Crowe, CEO of NuView Life Sciences, says, Were finding out now that the mutations that lead to cancer can also be used to identify certain treatments that give the patient the best shot at success. At NuView, were already in the process of developing advanced technology, specifically our NV-VPAC1 platform, that will be able to use identified mutations to target cancerous cells and deliver treatment based on the patients unique genetic makeup.
For years, cancer treatment has involved the application of one-size-fits-all treatment methods like chemotherapy and radiation. Instead of delivering treatment directly to cancer cells, these treatments affect all cells that grow and divide, including normal, healthy cells(4). While the patient may benefit from such treatments, there is no guarantee that they will be effective against specific types of cancer(4). These broad-spectrum therapies can also cause many serious side effects that negatively impact the patient and reduces their quality of life through treatment(4).
As the field of precision medicine evolves, genetic testing is proving useful in the identification of cellular targets containing mutations that drive cancer progression(5). It is now possible to identify cancer cells based on abnormal protein levels, or by specific mutations that can easily be identified in a persons chromosomes(5). As cancerous cells are isolated, individual treatments can be determined based on the cells unique mutations. Instead of relying on standard therapies, precision medicine technologies, like NuViews NV-VPAC1, can be used to administer targeted cancer therapies to specific cellular destinations that have been identified as cancerous.
Crowe says, We want patients to be able to receive treatment thats based on their unique circumstances instead of standard therapies that are given with no real regard for a persons individual genetics. We are working toward using our technology to deliver treatment directly to cancer cells, administering precisely determined doses of medications that, based on a persons individual genetic composition, could prove to have the most success in stopping the spread of cancer.
About NuView Life Sciences: Founded in 2005, NuView Life Sciences is a biotechnology company located in Park City, Utah, working to improve the way cancer is diagnosed and treated in our modern healthcare system. NuView is focused on creating precision cancer diagnostics and therapeutics to improve patient outcomes while reducing healthcare costs through the development and clinical application of its exclusive peptide analog technology, NV-VPAC1.
Led by a team of industry experts with decades of combined experience in healthcare and medical imaging technologies, NuView is poised to change how we look for and respond to cancer. To learn more about NuView Life Sciences, please visit http://nuviewinfo.com/site/3/.
Sources: 1.Cancer Facts & Figures 2017. American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/all-cancer-facts-figures/cancer-facts-figures-2017.html 2.The Genetics of Cancer. National Cancer Institute. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics 3.Random mutations blamed for big role cancer. CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cancer-random-genetic-dna-mutations-two-thirds-of-cases/ 4.Genetic Tests for Targeted Cancer Therapy. Lab Tests Online. https://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/cancer-therapy/ 5.Targeted Cancer Therapies. National Cancer Institute. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/targeted-therapies/targeted-therapies-fact-sheet
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Genetic Testing Paving the Way for Precision Medicine-Based Cancer Treatment - SNJ Today
Cohen found a receptive audience in Fleck, who was working with UCs former Center for Imaging Research. After all, who better to tackle one of medical sciences hardest problems than a rocket scientist? Cohen, an aerospace engineer, felt up to the task.
Ernest said people should not conflate the technology with its applications. The algorithm he developed is not a sentient being like the villains in the Terminator movie franchise but merely a tool, he said, albeit a powerful one with seemingly endless applications.
I get emails and comments every week from would-be John Connors out there who think this will lead to the end of the world, Ernest said.
Ernests company created EVE, a genetic fuzzy AI that specializes in the creation of other genetic fuzzy AIs. EVE came up with a predictive model for patient data called the LITHium Intelligent Agent or LITHIA for the bipolar study.
This predictive model taps into the power of fuzzy logic to allow you to make a more informed decision, Ernest said.
And unlike other types of AI, fuzzy logic can describe in simple language why it made its choices, he said.
The researchers teamed up with Dr. Caleb Adler, the UC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience vice chairman of clinical research, to examine bipolar disorder, a common, recurrent and often lifelong illness. Despite the prevalence of mood disorders, their causes are poorly understood, Adler said.
Really, its a black box, Adler said. We diagnose someone with bipolar disorder. Thats a description of their symptoms. But that doesnt mean everyone has the same underlying causes.
Selecting the appropriate treatment can be equally tricky.
Over the past 15 years there has been an explosion of treatments for mania. We have more options. But we dont know who is going to respond to what, Adler said. If we could predict who would respond better to treatment, you would save time and consequences.
With appropriate care, bipolar disorder is a manageable chronic illness for patients whose lives can return to normal, he said.
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Glucocorticoid steroids, such as prednisone, may improve effectiveness of AAV-based gene therapy by reducing immune response, according to a recent research.
The study of gene transfer using adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene delivery into skeletal muscle of rhesus macaques showed that oral prednisone reduced immune responses to AAV that can weaken expression of the therapeutic transgene over time.
Animals given prednisone before the gene therapy had a 60% decrease in immune cell infiltrates, mainly comprised of cytotoxic T cells, according to the study.
Megan Cramer, The Ohio State University, Paul Martin, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, and coauthors also reported that AAV-treated muscles had higher levels of a biomarker called PD-L2, which can induce programmed T-cell death.
"Prednisone is frequently used in conjunction with AAV gene therapy in the hope of blunting harmful immune responses to the AAV capsid. However, very little is known about the precise immune mechanisms involved in its use, or even if it is beneficial with various different routes of AAV administration," said Editor-in-Chief Terence R. Flotte.
The research appears in Human Gene Therapy.
(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
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Steroids may up effectiveness of AAV-based gene therapy | Latest ... - Daily News & Analysis
House Republicanleaders are negotiating a tax overhaul with their counterparts in the Senate and the White House, but another group of GOP lawmakersis signaling ittoo must be included in any deal.
House Freedom Caucus leaders are layingout their ideas for overhauling the tax code that, together witha related proposal for getting a budget deal,is likely to set them up for a fight with GOP leaders and tax writers.
Most of the four principles for a tax overhaul that Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows and three other caucus members unveiled at a Heritage Foundation event Friday are not major deviations from the House GOP leaders framework though there are some notable differences.
But perhaps more striking were the ideas the Freedom Caucus members made clear they were not pushing a revenue neutral bill and the inclusion of the border adjustment tax, both linchpins of leaderships plan.
The caucus members also offered a wildcard idea of adding a welfare overhaul to the yet-unwritten reconciliation instructions for a tax rewrite, something they argue would perhaps convince them to accept a larger topline spending figure in the fiscal 2018 budget resolution.
Amid all of those ideas is an urgency to move quickly. We should have a real proposal that we start debating before we leave at the end of July, Meadows said. But if not, weve already taken a formal position: We believe that we need to stay in through August until we get it done.
The North Carolina Republican suggested that lawmakers move the ball closer to that goal post by agreeing to four principles within the next four weeks.
The Freedom Caucuss four principles for a tax overhaul are:
House Republican leaders A Better Way plan does call for lowering the current 35 percent corporate tax rate to 20 percent but proposes a 25 percent rate for small business organized as passthrough companies, whichare taxedat individual rates that currently top out at 39.6 percent.
Leaderships plan would also allow businesses to write off the full cost of certain investments in the tax year that theyre incurred something the Freedom Caucus is open to with modifications to account for businesses that borrow money for investing rather than use cash and nearly double the standard deduction for individuals.
The biggest gapbetween the two proposalsis on repatriation of offshore earnings.
GOP leaders plan would institute a mandatory tax on existing offshore earnings of 8.75 percent for cash assets and 3.5 percent for nonliquid assets. Unlike the Freedom Caucus proposal, which seeks to incentivize companies to bring offshore earnings back to the U.S. in exchange for a lower tax rate, leaderships plan would require U.S.-based companies to pay the repatriationtax regardless of whether they bring their offshore money home.
While the differences between the Freedom Caucuss four principles and leaderships framework are not minor, they could be worked through. But the red line the caucus has drawnagainst the border adjustment tax is more problematic for House leadership.
There is not consensus for the border adjustment tax, Meadows said. The sooner we acknowledge that and get on with a plan that actually works and actually can build consensus, the better off well be.
The border adjustment tax, or BAT, is a proposal to tax imports instead of exports, reversing the way the United States taxes goods crossing its borders. House GOP leaders, namely Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady of Texas, have pushed for the tax as a way to discourage U.S. companies from moving operations overseas and to raise roughly $1 trillion in revenue to partially offset an ambitious corporate tax rate cut. But the idea has faced steep opposition from within their own party Meadows and others have argued, that its politically unfeasible to pass.
I think its lost a lot of momentum, said Rep.Warren Davidson, a Freedom Caucusmember. The Ohio Republicansaid he could actually live with the BAT as part of a larger tax overhaul but the problem is that leadership still has not offered a proposal on how to implement it.
Ryan and Brady have shown no interest in letting go of the BAT but say theyre open to better ideas for raising revenue and preventing tax base erosion, which could be triggered by a flood of U.S. taxpayers, primarily businesses, moving to lower tax jurisdictions.
Even if Congress could cut the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, as House GOP leaders have proposed, or 15 percent, as President Donald Trump has called for, the United States would still have a higher tax rate than some other developed nations.
The Freedom Caucus members did not specify an alternative to the BAT for preventing tax base erosion, but they saidthe revenue is not needed because they dont adhere to the principle that an overhaul needs to be revenue neutral, which would requirethe same amount of tax money tocontinue flowing into the Treasury as under current law.
What is not in those principles is this concept of revenue neutrality, said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a caucus member and former chairman of the group. Letting families keep more of their money is not a cost to government. It is a freedom.
Since Republicans are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to advance their tax bill, the measure must be deficit neutral for the tax overhaul to be considered permanent. GOP leaders saytemporary tax cuts that would expire at the end of the 10-year budget window like the George W. Bush tax cuts whose expiration led to the 2012-2013 fiscal cliff is not an option, but the Freedom Caucus isntruling that out.
Some of the tax cuts could be temporary so you dont need to get full deficit neutral, but were hoping to get close to that, Jordan said.
An idea that Jordan proposed that could help achieve the needed savings is adding a welfare overhaul to the reconciliation instructions for the tax bill. The Freedom Caucus is looking at taking an official position, suggesting that as a possible trade-off to them supporting a budget deal with larger topline spending number for fiscal 2018, Jordan said.
Right now a budget cannot pass in the House of Representatives, he said.
Absent a budget deal along those lines, House Republicans will struggle like they did last year to pass a budget resolution, Jordan said. House Republicans need to pass and reconcile a budget resolution with the Senate to execute the GOPs procedural strategy for advancing a tax overhaul. An agreement on the topline spending number is also needed for appropriators to begin moving fiscal 2018 spending bills.
If someone can come up with a better idea than the one were putting forward were all ears, Jordan said. But no one can. So we think thats the key in the short term to do all the things we promised the American people.
Meadows said Jordans welfare overhaul plan would result in roughly $400 billion in savings, and with that and the tax ideas the Freedom Caucus is discussing, a deficit neutral reconciliation bill is possible. It should get us there, he said, noting, though,that temporary tax cuts represent afallback plan.
The divisions among House Republicans about how to approach a tax overhaul are complicated by the fact that GOP leaders are striving to come up with a single, unified plan that also has the support of the Senate and White House. The gaps amongthe Republican power structures are fairly wide.
Right now on tax reform theres disagreement in the House, theres disagreement in the Senate, theres disagreement between the House and the Senate and theres disagreement with the administration, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington on Thursday. Other than that, we are all on the same page.
Joe Williams contributed to this report.
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Freedom Caucus Sets Up Battle With Leadership Over Taxes - Roll Call
BHUBANESWAR: The NDA government believes in freedom of press as it wants a vibrant media for betterment of democracy, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said today.
"We will never compromise on press freedom. The government will never interfere except when the issue relates to national security, unity and integrity of the country and the established social order comes under threat," he said.
The Modi government has come under fire over the recent CBI raids on the homes and head offices of Delhi-based NDTV. Many journalists have termed the incident as muzzling the press freedom.
"You can see how much criticism the government faces from the media. Even the prime minister is criticised, but the government never meddles with it," Naidu said.
He said a Delhi-based national daily "never hesitates to write 'worst' on Narendra Modi."
"But we have not reacted," he said, adding giving a political colour to the NDTV case is "unfortunate".
Rejecting allegations of attack on freedom of press in the NDTV case, the BJP leader said, "The ongoing investigation against NDTV is in no way an attack on press freedom. It will be better if they (NDTV) cooperate with the ongoing probe."
The Union minister was here to attend a 'Sabka Saath Sabka Bikas' programme.
"Is it wrong if there is a probe on an allegation against management or owner of a media company? Shouldn't an allegation be probed?" he asked.
He said the allegations against the NDTV were made way back in 2011-12 when Narendra Modi was in Gujarat.
"The allegation was made when Manmohanji was the Prime Minister, Chidambaram a minister and Rahul Gandhi was managing the government," he said.
Meanwhile, a group of journalists here staged a demonstration during Naidu's visit.
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No attack on freedom of press: Venkaiah Naidu - Economic Times
The Handmaids Tales season ender comes out this week, and it couldnt be timelier. Because as fictional as the Republic of Gilead is, the terror it presents feel realtoo real, in fact, that it got me reflecting on what independence truly means, today of all days.
I remember a passage from chapter five of the Margaret Atwood novel from which the Hulu TV series is based on: Theres more than one kind of freedom, the handmaid Offred reflected. Freedom to, and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now, you are being given freedom from. Dont underrate it. This is what she was told at Gileads re-education center, where the reformer Aunts try to convince Handmaids that their status as sex slaves/breeders who dont have their own money but are physically looked after by the state is a good one.
Offred then recalls her life before Gilead, when she was still recognized as June Osbornemother, wife, friend, daughterand was free to practice her civil rights: the right to find employment, to own property, to have a family, and to have agency over her body and her life. That freedom came at a price, though: Women were not protected then. I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Dont open your door to a stranger, even if he says hes the police; make him slide his ID under the door. Dont stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble; keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, dont turn to look. Dont go into a Laundromat by yourself at night. I think about Laundromats [and] what I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money. Money I had earned myself. I think about having such control.
Now, as she walks to and from her Commanders home and the marketplace, she notes the kind of quietness that the new world order has created: We walk along the same street and no man on the street shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles.
Freedom to, freedom from. Expressed in these terms, the concept of independence takes on more gravitas and becomes more binding even as it is freeing. Theres always a trade-off, a responsibility attached to every liberty, which is something that people conveniently forget. Like when it comes to freedom of speech: Were free to express incendiary opinions in public, but that doesnt mean were free from other people making use of the same freedom to criticize and counter what we say. Freedom to exercise ones civil rights doesnt mean freedom from consequences, especially when we overstep boundaries and impinge on the rights of others. And when we support ideologies and policies that propose doing away with certain rights in the name of pursuing peace and order, like suspending the writ of habeas corpus and other forms of freedom from following due process, we shouldnt be delusional and believe that wed be exempt from this erasure.
This is what Serena Joy, one of the Wives in The Republic of Gilead, got to learn the hard way: As one of the early and vocal proponents of Gileads policies to subjugate women and take away their rights, she had thought that her role in the establishment of the new order would make her the exemption rather than the rule. Sooner rather than later, though, she finds herself limited by the oppressive theocracy she had helped put in place. In the end, shes still just a Wife bearing the indignity of supporting a Handmaid in her home, a few rungs above the rest when it comes to power, but ultimately bound by the rules that keep all women down.
Serena Joy is a lot like Martial Law deniers and Marcos apologists, those who believe that an iron fist could run a country better. Freedom from is all they can focus on, even at the cost of freedom to, cherry-picking whatever fits their narrative from the stories of those who had lived under the Marcos dictatorship.
Among the younger deniers and apologists, the irony is real: their golden ideas about what Martial Law was like and what it did to the country skip over the fact that the avenues that allow them to spread their navet now wouldnt have been possible under a dictatorship. They dont seem to get that their freedom to log online and shut down anyone with an opinion contrary to theirs was made possible by those who had fought the governments insistence on enforcing freedom from any dissenting thought.
Freedom to, freedom fromdeciding which is better is not a matter of listing each columns pros and cons and tallying their sums. The latter operates by limitation disguised as protection, and its danger lies in determining who decides what and how much to limit because it hands over power to only a very few.
Freedom to, on the other hand, is an expansion, but must also be tempered with the responsibility of ensuring that everyone else receives sufficient elbow room to move and grow. Its responsible, self-actualizing liberty, not a free-for-all anarchy. We can all benefit from remembering this.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
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Have We Ever Thought About the Cost of Today's Freedom? - Inquirer.net
KINGSLEY, Iowa | Artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen II has begun work on the Plymouth County Freedom Rock in Kingsley.
Sorensen's artwork on the nine-ton boulder, set near the Kingsley Community Center, will pay tribute to all Plymouth County veterans. Its four faces will include depictions of the American flag, an eagle with the words "Plymouth County" and tributes to local veterans and men who died in service.
On the east face, Sorensen is creating likenesses to Pvt. Isaac Gripp and Spc. Chad Groepper, the first and last Plymouth County servicemen who have died.
"I'm not just paying tribute to these two, but rather I'm using them kind of as bookends in which we can include everyone else between these two men," Sorensen said.
The west face will include patches from the National Guard in Le Mars from the Civil War through the War on Terror.
The north face will pay tribute to Jim and John Nicholson, two highly decorated veterans from Struble, Iowa.
Preparation for the painting included acquiring a large rock and transporting it to its spot near the Community Center. In May, new concrete was poured around the rock and will include plaques for each branch of service, as well as benches, flag poles and the Nash Post Veterans Memorial.
The dedication for the Plymouth County Freedom Rock will take place at 5 p.m. June 24 at the community center. The city, which is currently accepting donations, will hold a freewill offering during a street dance that evening. On July 31, proceeds from performances of the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus will go toward the Freedom Rock. The circus will perform at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sorensen, of Greenfield, Iowa, has been painting the original Freedom Rock near Greenfield for 19 years. This is his fifth year traveling across Iowa on his Freedom Rock Tour.This is the 60th Freedom Rock Sorensen has painted in an Iowa county. He has commitments for 95 of the state's 99 counties.
Upon completion of the Freedom Rock in Kingsley, Sorensen will commence work on the Woodbury County Freedom Rock in Anthon, located at the Anthon Community Center, where officials set the boulder on Thursday. Sorensen's work in Anthon will likely begin at the end of next week and will last seven to 10 days while he stays in Anthon. He will then move on to the Ida County Freedom Rock at Holstein, Iowa.
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Work begins on Plymouth County Freedom Rock - Sioux City Journal
Starter Zach Wendorf battled command issues in his 2017 debut as the Florence Freedom, presented by Titan Mechanical Solutions, came up short of a series sweep in a 9-4 loss to the Washington Wild Thingson Sundayat UC Health Stadium.
The Wild Things (14-13) got the scoring started in the second inning against Wendorf (0-1) when a ground-rule double by John Fidanza plated Mike Hill, who had walked. Hill later put Washington ahead 2-0in the third inning when his single off Wendorf scratched across an unearned run, as Alexander Fernandez benefited from an error by Freedom (18-9) third baseman Conner Tekyl.
The game proved became a back-and-forth affair early, as Florence tied the score at 2-2 in the bottom of the third on a two-run bloop single to left field by Collins Cuthrell off Wild Things starter Chase Cunningham (3-0). The Freedom would take their only lead of the game two batters later, when Tekyl legged out an infield single, scoring Jose Brizuela from third with two out.
Alexander Fernandez delivered the decisive blow in the fourth inning, however, taking Wendorf deep for a three-run homer that gave Washington a 5-3 lead. Following Wendorfs departure after three and two-thirds innings, a total of seven relievers would pitch the rest of the way for Florence, with Eli Garcia yielding an additional three runs in the seventh inning and Kyle Doerr allowing one final Wild Things run in the eighth.
Cunningham earned the win, tossing six innings and holding the Freedom to three runs on five hits. Relievers Davis Adkins and Zach Strecker pitched two and one inning, respectively, with the latter allowing a Cuthrell RBI-single in the ninth.
The Freedom will travel to Crestwood, Ill. on Tuesday to open a three-game series against the Windy City ThunderBolts. Tony Vocca (3-2) will pitch for Florence against Windy Citys Kyle Von Ruden (1-2), with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. Central Time at Standard Bank Stadium.
The Florence Freedom are members of the independent Frontier League and play all home games at UC Health Stadium located at 7950 Freedom Way in Florence, KY.The Freedom can be found online at FlorenceFreedom.com, or by phone at 859-594-4487.Freedom
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COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. -- More than 150 people attended the first Equality March in Naples on Sunday. The event was organized by Collier Freedom, the same group that held the Women's March and Tax March earlier this year.
"I never thought that so many people in the community were living in the closest. We have heard that not just LGBT community, but democrats and progressives you know they didn't think they had a supportive community," said Collier Freedom organizer Karynn Cavero.
Cavero is one of the founders of Collier Freedom. The nonprofit was created after President Trump was elected into officer earlier this year.
"You know things have to happen in order for action to happen so here it is. I don't want say anything negative unfortunately, but it's brought a lot of positively to the county," said Cavero.
On Sunday, the organization held its first equality march in Naples.
"We think those who want to use the bible to hit people upside the head should focus on the verse in Matthew that says love one another, period, no exceptions," said Ft. Myers resident Wes Wright.
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Collier Freedom hosts first Equality March in Cambier Park - Fox 4
Interracial marriage is at a historic high. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, couples with different racial backgrounds made up one in six new marriages in 2015a stark change from previous eras when even looking at someone across the color line with a hint of romance could be a matter of life or death. This radical shift is largely attributed to the Supreme Courts decision in Loving v. Virginia, which marks its 50th anniversary on June 12. In Loving, the Court struck down state laws banning interracial marriage, holding that such restrictions are unconstitutional.
Loving is widely praised as a case about law ceding to the power of love in the face of astonishing harassment and bigotry endured by interracial couples. The redemptive trope coming out of the Loving decision that love conquers all has also influenced other social movements, such as those leading to Obergefell v. Hodgesthe 2015 Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex marriage.
The 1967 Loving decision therefore is often celebrated as an affirmation of love that made America a better and more progressive society. Theres just one problem.
Love is not what the case was really about.
At issue in the Loving decision was Virginias Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited interracial marriage and paved the way for a series of state laws designed to prevent racial mixing. Anti-miscegenation laws had been common in Virginia for centuries. But what often becomes lost in discussions about Loving is that this particular act was signed into law on the very same day the Virginia legislature passed another act that allowed the state to forcibly sterilize people with disabilities, including people labeled with derogatory medical terms such as feebleminded. Questions concerning the lawfulness of Virginias forced sterilization law led to another landmark Supreme Court decision in 1927, Buck v. Bell, in which the Court upheld its legality with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes infamously declaring three generations of imbeciles are enough.
'Yall Sent Me to Washington at an Interesting Time'
Virginias dual passage of racial integrity and sterilization acts in 1924 highlighted another concern held by lawmakers beyond that of interracial love: the perception that the white race was in danger of being weakened by inferior traits and that laws were needed to promote good racial hygiene and public health.
As legal historian Paul Lombardo notes, these acts showed how marriage restrictions and forced sterilization were deeply connected strategies for promoting a broader agenda of eugenicsa popular social and political standpoint in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that used science, law, and medicine to weed out groups with what were taken to be hereditary defects (disability, poverty, criminality, etc.). Eugenics had been practiced in many nations across the globe and took various forms, including immigration restrictions, incarceration, and the genocides seen during the Holocaust. Supporters worked to encourage the demographic growth of so-called superior people of a predictable class, race, and ethnicity.
Eugenics was a failed political attempt at giving intellectual and scientific cover to what was nothing more than the gross racism and stigmatization of disadvantaged groups. The Supreme Court, in Loving, euphemistically referred to the time when these laws were passed as a period of extreme nativism which followed the end of the First World War. Tied closely to this nativism was the eugenic rearticulation of old entrenched biases that were not only skeptical of foreigners, but deeply invested in controlling reproduction as a means of preserving power for a particular slice of White America.
Within this context, it becomes clear that the issues involved in Loving extended beyond its current popular understanding as a tribute to romance. Indeed, for a case heralded for being about the boundless nature of love, there is surprisingly little discussion about this in the Loving decision apart from the appellants surname and rather dry assertions that marriage is a civil right. By contrast, consider this passage from the Courts opinion in Obergefell, which reflects Justice Anthony Kennedys tone throughout a decision that waxes poetically on loves virtues:
Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other.
The Loving decision instead responded to the eugenic aspect of Virginias Racial Integrity Act and how it was designed to prevent the perceived dilution of white racial purity. Rather than celebrating love, the Courts opinion states that laws against interracial marriage are unconstitutional because they are measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.
Understanding Loving v. Virginia from this perspective highlights exactly why it is important, 50 years later, to recognize the Courts decision in ways that go beyond affirming that love knows no racial boundaries. Loving v. Virginia continues to be relevant to modern discussions on racial intimacy, and speaks to contemporary social and political initiatives whose true purpose is often masked by distracting and disingenuous rhetoric. This can be seen in current government proposals aimed at banning travel from certain Muslim-majority countries, building a physical barrier on the southern border, revoking health care from millions of people, and decimating civil rights programs and social services that provide support for the most vulnerable. A robust understanding of Loving instructs us to peel back the superficial economic and political justifications for these contemporary proposals. This allows us to appreciate how they are often motivated by an eerily reminiscent Holmesian logic regarding who is weak and who is strong, who belongs and who doesnt, and who deserves to live and who should perish.
At its half-century mark, Loving v. Virginia should be celebrated for fostering multi-racial relationships that have brought joy to many families and made communities stronger. Yet, its also important to understand and appreciate its relevance to not only intimate relationships, but also relationships between government and those who are governed. Loving is a decision that implores us to reject the eugenic and supremacist remnants of a distant past and to pursue a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive society. That, in a nutshell, is what love is truly about.
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Following an overwhelming response in the first week of its Pre ICO, XinFin XDC reaffirms its mission to provide real world connectivity to the bitcoin ecosystem.
(For Immediate Release) XinFin XDC, a distributed and decentralised permissioned blockchain platform meant for global trade and financing ecosystem meant to bridge the $5 trillion infrastructure deficit has moved into its second week of Pre ICO.
Xinfin.org Head of Marketing, Alex Mathbeck says : We have received amazing response by the community and early investors and our mission to bridge the global infrastructure deficit has been highly appreciated.
Market capitalisation of Bitcoin and blockchain built alt coins has reached over $110 billion as of today. It is growing too fast. There is no wonder that we all as a community believe in the blockchain technology and its potential. However, the question that needs to be answered today is what problem are we really solving? Peer to peer digital cash and global payments are the primary use cases of the bitcoin ecosystem but as the market capitalisation of the economy grows many fold, the world will start questioning real use of the bitcoin ecosystem. XinFin XDC has an answer for that.
XinFin XDC network is built to connect the bitcoin ecosystem to a very common real world person who is looking for simplicity.
XinFin XDC network :does not use proof of work mining that is highly computing resource intensive. It uses a combination of Proof of Importance/proof of Reputation that has reduced the latency time to few secondsChecks a wallet address for its existence. Does not initiate a transfer to a non-existent XinFin XDC address Provides greater security due to its permissioned distributed network.Provides instant global payments and settlements XinFin is currently building an application layer over its blockchain layer that :
Locks XDC rate to a Fiat Currency rate for 2 days. This feature is especially required for real world instant global remittancesIncentivizes financiers to finance public infrastructure projects of critical importance and voted by the community backed by the regulators/institution Allows Trade & financing between buyers and sellers with non-existent ratings.Allows Institutions to trade rapidly depreciating and idle inventories
Commenting on its Pre ICO Model
We have received tremendous response even before our Pre ICO round. Our upcoming marketplace is the most anticipated by the community and will demonstrate first real world trades and peer to peer financing between global institutions. XinFin does not want to raise too much capital before its real world trade transactions and framework is launched. Hence it is applying a phase wise ICO model and listing on some of the Crypto-coin exchanges. Some ICOs have raised millions of dollars even before demonstrating a real product. XinFin wants to stick to business basics of delivering value and real product as it raises more capital and lists across exchanges.
Speculation may be the short term way of appreciation but delivering real product is a long term model and XinFin will stick to it.
XinFin Pre ICO is open to its early backers on.
http://www.xinfin.org/get_xdc/
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WISE, Va. (WYMT/UVA Wise) - The University of Virginias College at Wise will receive $3.5 million from the University of Virginia to increase enrollment in targeted programs at the College and to create a robust culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the region.
The Wise Innovation Ecosystem received the funding from the University of Virginias Strategic Investment Fund.
The Strategic Investment Fund is an extraordinary opportunity for the University of Virginia community to dream big and exercise creative license to design and implement high-impact, high-value initiatives, UVa-Wise Chancellor Donna P. Henry said. The University of Virginias College at Wise is grateful for this award. This is truly a transformative opportunity which will strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship in our curriculum while reinforcing student outcomes and economic development.
Approval was announced Friday by the Board of Visitors.
One goal of the Wise Innovation Ecosystem is to diversify the regions economy by boosting enrollment in the software engineering, computer science and management of information systems programs, said Shannon Blevins, assistant vice chancellor for economic development and engagement. Another goal is to give students the skills needed to be relevant and competitive in the emerging economy by creating a center for innovation for students to collaborate and develop entrepreneurial skills through hands-on learning experiences.
The funding will be received over a five-year period. The majority of the funds will support a Center for Innovation, including the hiring of a professor of entrepreneurship, a professor of cyber-MIS, a center manager and operation costs, including start-up scholarships, student internships, an entrepreneurship boot camp, a cyber-security symposium, an entrepreneurial certificate program and the student innovation center.
The College at Wise already has top-notch academic programs, including ABET accredited Computer Science and Software Engineering, said Jacob Somervell, chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. These degrees are underutilized resources for the Commonwealth. The programs need more students and this SIF grant will support bringing more students to these degree programs.
Somervell explained that efforts to increase awareness of the programs and to attract more students would strengthen the mission of the College and provide much needed technology talent to the various technology companies across the Commonwealth and beyond. Increasing enrollment and the number of graduates can have the ripple effect of attracting more technology companies to the region; potentially helping to shift the local economy from the struggling coal industry towards a more sustainable technology sector, he explained.
I thank the Board of Visitors and the review panel for their foresight and clarity of vision in recognizing the importance these degrees can have for the region and the Commonwealth, he said. My hope is that the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science can graduate significantly more majors with technology degrees and help Southwest Virginia become a competitive destination for myriad technology companies.
The funds would also support a retention program for students in various programs, including a mandatory summer program for entering students, highly monitored turbo classes in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, early intervention for at-risk students and shared courses with the University of Virginia.
This represents a level of outreach that our department has never engaged in before, said Frank Frey, chair of the UVa-Wise Business Department. It is a great opportunity for us to provide more scholarship opportunities and additional educational opportunities for our students. It will also help us grow as a school and help attract more students.
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UVa-Wise gets $3.5 million for Wise Innovation Ecosystem - WYMT - WYMT News (press release)
As summer comes to Northeast Ohio, rising water temperatures are bringing an infestation of midges along the shores of Lake Erie.
Residents complain of swarms covering buildings and cars. The fly-like insects do not bite and only live for a few days.
Experts say theyll likely die down during a heat wave this week.
But John Pogacnik, a biologist with Lake Metroparks, says the midges show Ohio has a healthy ecosystem.
If it was heavily polluted, you wouldnt see the huge numbers of them hatching. And when they do hatch, its a huge thing for breeding birds who right now are raising young, so its an easy food supply. They know youre getting a lot of insects hatched this time of year and its free food.
He says Ohio could get more midges later this summer, but their numbers will be much smaller.
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What the Re-emerging Midge Swarms Mean for Ohio's Ecosystem - WKSU News
Conservation photographer Paul Nicklen has spent more than two decades documenting the ice and wildlife in some of the most inhospitable places on Earth the Arctic and the Antarctic.
Its a risky business: Nicklen often finds himself immersed in frigid waters, just a cameras length away from deadly predators. Once, in Antarctica, he came face-to-face with a 1,000-pound leopard seal: She opened up her mouth and her head is twice as big as a grizzly bear, and I am starring down her throat, he says.
Nicklen adds that his utmost concern is for the well-being of the animals he encounters. I want to get close, but I also never want to harass an animal, he says. What you learn about these animals is how communicative they are, how intelligent they are, how social they are, how forgiving they are.
A humpback whale flings its tail high in the air as it dives down on a ball of herring near Lofoten, Norway. The winter months in Norway are a critical time of year for these whales to gorge and gain weight. (Photos: Paul Nicklen/Paul Nicklen Gallery via NPR)
Emperor Penguins shot from the Mario Zuchelli Base, Ross Sea, Antarctica. Penguins at Floe Edge at Terra Nova.
An adult emperor penguin hovers high above her chick near Antarctica's Ross Sea. Adults will go to sea for days or even weeks at a time to bring back food for their rapidly growing chicks.
Offshore the coast of BC lives a plethora of marine life.
The Nordaustlandet ice cap gushes high volumes of meltwater. Even though this photograph was taken just 600 miles from the North Pole, the temperature was in the high 60s Fahrenheit.
On how hes come to ignore his gut in dangerous situations
When it comes to working with these big predators your, sort of, innate fear mechanisms are telling you not to do it. So youre always ignoring your gut. And when you ignore your gut all the time, at some point you dont know where that benchmark is anymore. Youre always stepping into this gray area and youre stepping over the line, and so now Ive learned when my guts really screaming at me, to slow down and be smart. I start to back up a little bit and just spend more quality time analyzing, thinking, watching and then moving on with it if it seems like the right decision.
I think I get so caught up in how important these stories are and how my images have to have that three-dimensional feel to them, to really bring people into the issues I care about, and I think I just get so focused sometimes on getting those images.
On not being afraid of dying doing his work
Im not really scared of death, I just want my death to be cool, and I guess being speared by a narwhal would be a pretty cool way to go. I think if Im out there pushing and trying to push the limits to come back with something amazing to connect the world to what I love, then sure.
On a memorable interaction with a leopard seal
This leopard seal stayed with me for four days straight. And every time I would show up on the water, shed be there to greet me. She would follow me back to the sailboat at night. Once she established her dominance, she completely relaxed, and then she disappeared and I thought the encounter was over.
Then she showed up a few minutes later with a penguin in her mouth. She had just caught a penguin chick she was holding it by the feet and the penguin is flapping, trying to get away from her. And she would sort of line it up with me, and when it was lined up perfectly with me she would let it go, and it would swim off, she caught it, she did this over and over.
And I realized at that moment that she was trying to feed me a live penguin. And I think she realized quickly in this encounter that I was not capable of catching a live, moving, swimming penguin, and so she brought me another penguin. She did all these different attempts to feed me live penguins. And at one point theres a photo of her looking dejected, sort of disappointed in me that Im so useless that Im unable to catch or accept one of her gifts, so then she started to bring me dead penguins, and at one point I had five penguins floating around my head.
Further on in the encounter she got so tired of me being unable to accept one of her penguins that she grabbed it and she flipped it on top of my head.
On falling in love with the leopard seal
I definitely fell in love with this seal. Its embarrassing to admit this to you. Id fall asleep at night with tears coming down my cheeks. I was just so grateful, just to spend your life out with animals and to be fighting to get yourself into a situation where you can try and get close, where you can try and even get within 100 meters of something.
And all of a sudden heres a top predator, and not only are you getting to see it, its interacting with you; its trying to force-feed you penguins, its trying to take care of you. Its a very very humbling thing. Just to flop yourself into its world and for it to spend that much time and energy trying to figure out who you are and to interact with you. I think thats why I get emotional, because we had such a connection.
On what happens to the polar bears when the sea ice melts
In the last 20 years, to have the scientists talking about how were reaching the lowest extent of ice weve ever had, a place like Svalbard, Norway historically has been covered by sea ice year-round. In the last 20 to 30 years that ice has been just in a few fjords, and then now in the last few years theres been no ice at all around Svalbard. Theres been a little strip down on the east side.
And when theres no ice that means bears basically do not have that platform to catch seals, and thats their main food source. They might eat a little bit of seaweed they might get the odd bird egg or the odd bird, but thats not giving them any nutritional value.
Essentially, bears are designed to go on land for long periods of time. They can be on land for two months and not eat a meal. But theyre not designed to go four or five or six months on land without eating any food, and thats where were starting to find emaciated bears, dead bears.
Ive never had a scary moment with a polar bear, and people come to me like, Isnt that the only animal that actively pursues humans for food? And I just see this powerful, but very fragile, vulnerable species that is so at the mercy of its ecosystem. And its sort of the one species that I really use to drive home that connection to how important this icy ecosystem is. I want people to realize that ice is like the soil in the garden without ice the polar regions cannot exist.
Radio producers Amy Salit and Thea Chaloner and Web producers Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey contributed to this story.
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Polar Photographer Shares His View Of A Ferocious But Fragile Ecosystem - Flatland (blog)