Common Dreams | How to Reverse Incarceration in Louisiana: Thirteen Steps to Stop Being First in Being Last Common Dreams Here are a dozen plus ways for Louisiana to stop jailing many more of its citizens than Iran or China. One. Decriminalize victimless crimes - don't arrest people for stupid non-violent crimes in the first place. Two. Stop racial profiling. African ... |
The rest is here:
By George F. Will
WASHINGTON Although Americas political system seems unable to stimulate robust, sustained economic growth, it at least is stimulating consumption of a small but important segment of literature. Dystopian novels are selling briskly Aldous Huxleys Brave New World (1932), Sinclair Lewis It Cant Happen Here (1935), George Orwells Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949), Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale (1985), all warning about nasty regimes displacing democracy.
There is, however, a more recent and pertinent presentation of a grim future. In her 13th novel, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047, published last spring,Lionel Shriver imagined America slouching into dystopia merely by continuing current practices.
Ms. Shriver, who is fascinated by the susceptibility of complex systems to catastrophic collapses, begins her story after the 2029 economic crash and the Great Renunciation, whereby the nation, like a dissolute Atlas, shrugged off its national debt, saying to creditors: Its nothing personal. The world is not amused, and Americans subsequent downward social mobility is not pretty.
Florence Darkly, a millennial, is a single mother, but such mothers now outnumber married ones. Newspapers have almost disappeared, so print journalism had given way to a rabble of amateurs hawking unverified stories and always to an ideological purpose. Mexico has paid for an electronic border fence to keep out American refugees. Her Americans are living, on average, to 92, the economy is powered by the whims of the retired, and, desperate to qualify for entitlements, these days everyone couldnt wait to be old. People who have never been told no are apoplectic if they cant retire at 52. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are ubiquitous, so shaking hands is imprudent.
Soldiers in combat fatigues, wielding metal detectors, search houses for gold illegally still in private hands. The government monitors every movement, and the IRS, renamed the Bureau for Social Contribution Assistance, siphons up everything, on the you-didnt-build-that principle: Morally, your money does belong to everybody. The creation of capital requires the whole apparatus of the state to protect property rights, including intellectual property.
Social order collapses when hyperinflation follows the promiscuous printing of money after the Renunciation. This punishes those who had a conscientious, caretaking relationship to the future. Government salaries and Medicare reimbursements are linked to an inflation algorithm that didnt require further action from Congress. Even if a Snickers bar eventually cost $5 billion, they were safe.
In a Reason magazine interview, Ms. Shriver says, I think it is in the nature of government to infinitely expand until it eats its young. In her novel, she writes:
The state starts moving money around. A little fairnesshere, little more fairness there. ... Eventually social democracies all arrive at the same tipping point: where half the country depends on the other half. ... Government becomes a pricey, clumsy, inefficient mechanism for transferring wealth from people who do something to people who dont, and from the young to the old which is the wrong direction. All that effort, and youve only managed a new unfairness.
Florence learns to appreciate the miracle of civilization. It is miraculous because failure and decay were the worlds natural state. What was astonishing was anything that worked as intended, for any duration whatsoever. Laughing mordantly as the apocalypse approaches, Ms. Shriver has a gimlet eye for the foibles of todays secure (or so it thinks) upper middle class, from Washingtons Cleveland Park to Brooklyn. About the gentrification of the latter, she observes:
Oh, you could get a facelift nearby, put your dog in therapy, or spend $500 at Ottawa on a bafflingly trendy dinner of Canadian cuisine (the citys elite was running out of new ethnicities whose food could become fashionable). But you couldnt buy a screwdriver, pick up a gallon of paint, take in your dry cleaning, get new tips on your high heels, copy a key, or buy a slice of pizza. Wealthy residents might own bicycles worth $5K, but no shop within miles would repair the brakes. ... High rents had priced out the very service sector whose presence at ready hand once helped to justify urban living.
The (only) good news from Ms. Shrivers squint into the future is that when Americans are put through a wringer, they emerge tougher, with less talk about ADHD, gluten intolerance and emotional support animals.
Speaking to Reason, Ms. Shriver said: I think that the bullet we dodged in 2008 is still whizzing around the planet and is going to hit us in the head. If so, this story has already been written.
George F. Will is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post (georgewill@washpost.com).
See the original post here:
George F. Will: Slouching into dystopia - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
'); //-->
By JENNIFER BURNS
Special to the Washington Post
STANFORD, Calif. Ayn Rand is dead. Its been 35 years since hundreds of mourners filed by her coffin (fittingly accompanied by a dollar-sign-shaped flower arrangement), but it has been only four months since she truly died as a force in American politics.
Yes, there was a flurry of articles identifying Rand lovers in the Trump administration, including Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo; yes, Ivanka Trump tweeted an inaccurate Rand quote in mid-February. But the effort to fix a recognizable right-wing ideology on President Donald Trump only obscures the more significant long-term trends that the election of 2016 laid bare. However much Trump seems like the Rand hero par excellence a wealthy man with a fiery belief in, well, himself his victory signals the exhaustion of the Republican Partys romance with Rand.
In electing Trump, the Republican base rejected laissez-faire economics in favor of economic nationalism. Full-fledged objectivism, the philosophy Rand invented, is an atheistic creed that calls for pure capitalism and a bare-bones government with no social spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security or Medicare. Its never appeared on the national political scene without significant dilution. But there was plenty of diluted Rand on offer throughout the primary season: Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz all espoused traditional Republican nostrums about reducing the role of government to unleash American prosperity.
Yet none of this could match Trumps full-throated roar to build a wall or his protectionist plans for American trade. In the general election, Trump sought out new voters and independents using arguments traditionally associated with Democrats: deploying the power of the state to protect workers and guarantee their livelihoods, even at the cost of trade agreements and long-standing international alliances. Trumps economic promises electrified rural working-class voters the same way Bernie Sanders excited urban socialists.
Where Rands influence has stood for years on the right for a hands-off approach to the economy, Trumps America first platform contradicts this premise by assuming that government policies can and should deliberately shape economic growth, up to and including punishing specific corporations. Likewise, his promise to craft trade policy in support of the American worker is the exact opposite of Rands proclamation that the essence of capitalisms foreign policy is free trade.
And theres little hope that Trumps closest confidants will reverse his decidedly anti-Randian course. The conservative Republicans who came to power with Trump in an almost accidental process may find they have to exchange certain ideals to stay close to him.
True, Paul Ryan and Mike Pence have been able to breathe new life into Republican economic and social orthodoxies. For instance, in a nod to Pences religious conservatism, Trump shows signs of reversing his earlier friendliness to gay rights. And his opposition to Obamacare dovetails with Ryans long-held ambitions to shrink federal spending.
Even so, there is little evidence that either Pence or Ryan would have survived a Republican primary battle against Trump or fared well in a national election; their fortunes are dependent on Trumps. And the president won by showing that the Republican base and swing voters have moved on from the traditional conservatism of Reagan and Rand.
What is rising on the right is not Randian fear of government but something far darker. It used to be that bright young things like Stephen Miller, the controversial White House aide, came up on Rand. In the 1960s, she inspired a Trump movement of young conservatives determined to subvert the GOP establishment, drawing in future bigwigs such as Alan Greenspan.
Her admirers were powerfully attracted to the insurgent presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, whom Rand publicly supported. They swooned when she talked about the ethics of capitalism, delegitimizing programs like Medicare and Medicaid as immoral. They thrilled to her attack on the draft and other conservative pieties. At national conferences, they asked each other, Who is John Galt? (a reference to her novel Atlas Shrugged) and waved the black flag of anarchism, modified with a gold dollar sign.
Over time, most conservatives who stayed in politics outgrew these juvenile provocations or disavowed them. For example, Ryan moved swiftly to replace Rand with Thomas Aquinas when he was nominated in 2012 for vice president, claiming that the Catholic thinker was his primary inspiration (although it was copies of Atlas Shrugged, not Summa Theologiae, that he handed out to staffers).
But former Randites retained her fiery hatred of government and planted it within the mainstream GOP. And it was Rand who had kindled their passions in the first place, making her the starting point for a generation of conservatives.
Now Rand is on the shelf, gathering dust with F.A. Hayek, Edmund Burke and other once-prominent conservative luminaries. Its no longer possible to provoke the elders by going on about John Galt. Indeed, many of the elders have by now used Randian references to name their yachts, investment companies and foundations.
Instead, young insurgent conservatives talk about race realism, argue that manipulated crime statistics mask growing social disorder and cast feminism as a plot against men. Instead of reading Rand, they take the red pill, indulging in an emergent internet counter-culture that reveals the principles of liberalism rights, equality, tolerance to be dangerous myths. Beyond Breitbart.com, ideological energy on the right now courses through tiny blogs and websites of the Dark Enlightenment, the latter-day equivalent of Rands Objectivist Newsletter and the many libertarian zines she inspired.
Once upon a time, professors tut-tutted when Rand spoke to overflow crowds on college campuses, where she lambasted left and right alike and claimed, improbably, that big business was Americas persecuted minority. She delighted in skewering liberal audience members and occasionally turned her scorn on questioners. But this was soft stuff compared with the insults handed out by Milo Yiannopoulos and the uproar that has greeted his appearances. Rand may have accused liberals of having a lust for power, but she never would have called Holocaust humor a harmless search for lulz, as Yiannopoulos gleefully does.
Indeed, the new ideas on the right have moved away from classical liberalism altogether. American conservatives have always had a mixed reaction to the Western philosophical tradition that emphasizes the sanctity of the individual.
Religious conservatives, in particular, often struggle with Rand because her extreme embrace of individualism leaves little room for God, country, duty or faith. But Trump represents a victory for a form of conservatism that is openly illiberal and willing to junk entirely the traditional rhetoric of individualism and free markets for nationalism inflected with racism, misogyny and xenophobia.
Mixed in with Rands vituperative attacks on government was a defense of the individuals rights in the face of a powerful state. This single-minded focus could yield surprising alignments, such as Rands opposition to drug laws and her support of legal abortion. And although liberals have always loved to hate her, over the next four years, they may come to miss her defense of individual autonomy and liberty.
Ayn Rand is dead. Long live Ayn Rand!
Jennifer Burns is an associate professor of history at Stanford University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. 2017 Washington Post.
See more here:
Jennifer Burns: Ayn Rand is dead liberals are going to miss her - WatertownDailyTimes.com
Though she died in 1982, huge numbers of people still come to Ayn Rand through her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and their lives are changed as a result. No wonder. These novels assert the nobility of using your mind to reach your full potential. They make self-belief cool.
Rands heroes are individualists who live by their own creative talentsexisting for no one else, nor asking others to exist for them. They are rebels against the establishment and its ways. They do not conform to social norms, but stand by their own vision and truth: a vision built on their own values and a truth built on fact and reason, not on the false authority of others. They are the creative minds who discover new knowledge, who innovate, drive progress and consequently benefit all humanity.
But minds cannot be forced to think. Creativity, and therefore human progress, depends on people being free to think and act in pursuit of their own values. That is a powerful case for liberty, values, mind, reason, creativity, entrepreneurship, capitalism, achievement, heroism, happiness, self-esteem and pride. And against the life-destroying consequences of coercion, extortion, regulation, self-sacrifice, altruism, wishful thinking and refusing to use ones mind.
Nowhere do Rands ideas change more lives than in her adopted United States, where her novels tap into the American ideals of self-reliance and individualism. In the early 1990s, a decade after her death, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club rated Atlas Shrugged as the most influential book after the Bible. Today, Rands ideas are taught in colleges across America and discussed in academic and popular journals. Institutes and groups have been set up to promote her ideas.
Her ideas are accelerating in other English-speaking countries too, such as the UK (where 20,000 Rand books are sold each year), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, where English is widely spoken. Even Indian footballers and Bollywood stars acknowledge her influence on their lives.
Beyond the English-speaking countries, Sweden, a country of just 9.5m people, leads the world in Google searches for Ayn Rand. About 25,000 copies are bought each year in Rands native Russia, another 13,000 a year in Brazil, 6,000 in Spain and 1,000 each in Japan and Bulgaria. Even in China, some 15,000 Rand books are bought each yeara number which, given that countrys economic and intellectual awakening, can only increase.
All this gives Rand a significant impact on the political debate. In the United States, many of those she inspired rose into public office. Former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (1926-) was an early member of Rands inner circle. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (1948-) shows his new clerks The Fountainhead movie. Politicians such as former Congressman Ron Paul (1935-), his son, Senator Rand Paul (1965-) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (1970-) cite Rand as an influence. Even President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) described himself as an admirer of Ayn Rand.
Nor is this only a US phenomenon. Annie Lf (1983-), leader of Swedens Center Party and former Enterprise Minister, helped launch the Swedish translation of The Fountainhead, calling Rand one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century. Rands ideas were praised by the reformist Prime Minister of Estonia, Mart Laar (1960-), and influenced Australias Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015), along with many other past or current political leaders.
What other novels have had such an impact on events, more than half a century after their publication? And what other novelist?
See the article here:
Is Ayn Rand still relevant 35 years on from her death? - The Adam Smith Institute (blog)
GEORGE F. WILL Washington Post Writers Group Published: March 5, 2017 12:00 AM CDT
WASHINGTON Although America's political system seems unable to stimulate robust, sustained economic growth, it at least is stimulating consumption of a small but important segment of literature. Dystopian novels are selling briskly Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932), Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" (1935), George Orwell's "Animal Farm" (1945) and "1984" (1949), Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" (1953) and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" (1985), all warning about nasty regimes displacing democracy.
There is, however, a more recent and pertinent presentation of a grim future. Last year, in her 13th novel, "The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047," Lionel Shriver imagined America slouching into dystopia merely by continuing current practices.
Shriver, who is fascinated by the susceptibility of complex systems to catastrophic collapses, begins her story after the 2029 economic crash and the Great Renunciation, whereby the nation, like a dissolute Atlas, shrugged off its national debt, saying to creditors: It's nothing personal. The world is not amused, and Americans' subsequent downward social mobility is not pretty.
Florence Darkly, a millennial, is a "single mother" but such mothers now outnumber married ones. Newspapers have almost disappeared, so "print journalism had given way to a rabble of amateurs hawking unverified stories and always to an ideological purpose." Mexico has paid for an electronic border fence to keep out American refugees. Her Americans are living, on average, to 92, the economy is "powered by the whims of the retired," and, "desperate to qualify for entitlements, these days everyone couldn't wait to be old." People who have never been told "no" are apoplectic if they can't retire at 52. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are ubiquitous, so shaking hands is imprudent.
Soldiers in combat fatigues, wielding metal detectors, search houses for gold illegally still in private hands. The government monitors every movement and the IRS, renamed the Bureau for Social Contribution Assistance, siphons up everything, on the you-didn't-build-that principle: "Morally, your money does belong to everybody. The creation of capital requires the whole apparatus of the state to protect property rights, including intellectual property."
Social order collapses when hyperinflation follows the promiscuous printing of money after the Renunciation. This punishes those "who had a conscientious, caretaking relationship to the future." Government salaries and Medicare reimbursements are "linked to an inflation algorithm that didn't require further action from Congress. Even if a Snickers bar eventually cost $5 billion, they were safe."
In a Reason magazine interview, Shriver says, "I think it is in the nature of government to infinitely expand until it eats its young." In her novel, she writes:
"The state starts moving money around. A little fairness here, little more fairness there. ... Eventually social democracies all arrive at the same tipping point: where half the country depends on the other half. ... Government becomes a pricey, clumsy, inefficient mechanism for transferring wealth from people who do something to people who don't, and from the young to the old which is the wrong direction. All that effort, and you've only managed a new unfairness."
Florence learns to appreciate "the miracle of civilization." It is miraculous because "failure and decay were the world's natural state. What was astonishing was anything that worked as intended, for any duration whatsoever." Laughing mordantly as the apocalypse approaches, Shriver has a gimlet eye for the foibles of today's secure (or so it thinks) upper middle class, from Washington's Cleveland Park to Brooklyn. About the gentrification of the latter, she observes:
"Oh, you could get a facelift nearby, put your dog in therapy, or spend $500 at Ottawa on a bafflingly trendy dinner of Canadian cuisine (the city's elite was running out of new ethnicities whose food could become fashionable). But you couldn't buy a screwdriver, pick up a gallon of paint, take in your dry cleaning, get new tips on your high heels, copy a key, or buy a slice of pizza. Wealthy residents might own bicycles worth $5K, but no shop within miles would repair the brakes. ... High rents had priced out the very service sector whose presence at ready hand once helped to justify urban living."
The (only) good news from Shriver's squint into the future is that when Americans are put through a wringer, they emerge tougher, with less talk about "ADHD, gluten intolerance and emotional support animals."
Speaking to Reason, Shriver said: "I think that the bullet we dodged in 2008 is still whizzing around the planet and is going to hit us in the head." If so, this story has already been written.
George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.
WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP
Continued here:
By R. Jay Allain
In an age that almost seems allergic to simple solutions, here's one -- a plausible idea for slashing mistrust towards our main institutions: Make practicing the Golden Rule a core value at every one.
Specifically, if each institution and its representatives began to treat all those who rely on it -- regardless of the person's race, gender, age or socioeconomic class -- as they themselves would like to be treated, a brave gust of cleansing wind would refresh every hallowed hall. Hope would surface. But to really happen, key obstacles to such mutual caring, like entrenched moneyed interests, would have to be reduced with all deliberate speed.
Take government. Is democracy itself not a lofty experiment which insists the rights and well-being of the humblest American matters as much as that of the richest among us? Yet today, powerful forces hound elected officials to insure their own economic interests are met -- regardless of its impact on the average American or the environment. These forces need to be skillfully removed. Until then, countless suffer from under-representation -- even as schools and bridges erode, good jobs depart, child-care costs soar and drinking water becomes unhealthy.
Consider medicine. Would any physician -- or health insurance CEO -- let his or her own mother or child be denied affordable, quality medical care because they couldn't afford it? No! Yet today, despite increased coverage through the Affordable Care Act, millions of fellow Americans face uncertainty under President Trump -- and a lack of care due to unfairness and costs in the current system. The rush to repeal Obamacare with no viable alternative is itself a scandal -- and a clear trashing of the Golden Rule. As the saying goes: "Without hope, the people perish" -- and shrinking life expectancy rates attest to it. We must demand better.
Finally, in the vital realm of science, let's examine an aspect of this institution with particular relevance for residents of Southeastern Massachusetts, namely, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Would any of its esteemed members live -- or ask their relatives to live -- near an obviously failing nuclear plant? Hardly. To be fully credible, such authorities would have to insist such a facility be completely overhauled -- or quickly closed down. Yet the NRC seems prone to vacillate and hedge its defense of public health when the financial interests of nuclear power companies are involved. This subverts their mission to protect the public -- something only we, the people, can remedy. Let us do so, even as we insist the once revered Golden Rule be rescued from the endangered list.
R. Jay Allain lives in South Yarmouth.
Continue reading here:
Russian hackers are targeting U.S. progressive groups in a new wave of attacks, scouring the organizations emails for embarrassing details and attempting to extract hush money, according to two people familiar with probes being conducted by the FBI and private security firms.
At least a dozen groups have faced extortion attempts since the U.S. presidential election, said the people, who provided broad outlines of the campaign. The ransom demands are accompanied by samples of sensitive data in the hackers possession.
In one case, a non-profit group and a prominent liberal donor discussed how to use grant money to cover some costs for anti-Trump protesters. The identities were not disclosed, and its unclear if the protesters were paid.
At least some groups have paid the ransoms even though there is little guarantee the documents wont be made public anyway. Demands have ranged from about $30,000 to $150,000, payable in untraceable bitcoins, according to one of the people familiar with the probe.
Attribution is notoriously difficult in a computer attack. The hackers have used some of the techniques that security experts consider hallmarks of Cozy Bear, one of the Russian government groups identified as behind last years attack on the Democratic National Committee during the presidential election and which is under continuing investigation. Cozy Bear has not been accused of using extortion in the past, though separating government and criminal actors in Russia can be murky as security experts say some people have a foot in both worlds.
Here's What We Know About Russian Hackers
The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with strong links to both the Clinton and Obama administrations, and Arabella Advisors, which guides liberal donors who want to invest in progressive causes, have been asked to pay ransoms, according to people familiar with the probes.
The Center for American Progress declined a pre-publication request for comment. "CAP has no evidence we have been hacked, no knowledge of it and no reason to believe it to be true. CAP has never been subject to ransom, Allison Preiss, a spokeswoman for the center, said in a statement Monday morning.
Its unclear whether Arabella is part of the same campaign as the other dozen groups, according to one of the people familiar with the probes, but the tactics and approach are similar.
If the Arabella attack came from a different group, multiple criminals could be lifting a page from Russias hacking of the 2016 campaign, attempting to leverage the reputational damage that could be inflicted on political organizations by exposing their secrets.
Arabella Advisors was affected by cyber crime, said Steve Sampson, a spokesman for the firm, which lists 150 employees operating in four offices. "All facts indicate this was financially motivated.
QuickTake U.S. Probe of Russia Hacking
During the election Russian hackers heavily targeted the personal email accounts of staffers associated with the Clinton campaign. One of the people who described the current campaign said that in some cases, web-based email accounts are also being targeted because of their heavy use among non-profits.
Along with emails, the hackers are stealing documents frompopular web-based applications like SharePoint, which lets people in different locations work on Microsoft Office files, one of the people said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment when asked about the latest hacks. It is continuing to investigate Russias attempts to influence the election and any possible connections to Trump campaign aides. Russian officials have repeatedly denied any attempt to influence the election or any role in related computer break-ins.
I would be cautious concluding that this has any sort of Russian government backing, said John Hultquist, director of cyber espionage analysis at FireEye Inc., after the outline of the attacks was described to him. Russian government hackers have aggressively targeted think tanks, and even masqueraded as ransomware operations, but its always possible it is just another shakedown.
NSA Has Moderate Confidence in Russia Hacking Report
The hackers targeting of left-leaning groups -- and the sifting of emails for sensitive or discrediting information -- has set off alarms that the attacks could constitute a fresh wave of Russian government meddling in the U.S. political system. The attacks could be designed to look like a criminal caper or they could have the tacit support of Russian intelligence agencies, the people said.
Russias intelligence agencies maintain close relationships with criminal hackers in the country, according to several U.S. government investigations.
None of the possible explanations for the attacks are particularly comforting to the victimized groups, few of which are household names but are part of the foundation of liberal politics in the U.S.
Some of the groups are associated with causes now under attack by the Trump administration. Arabellas founder, Eric Kessler, and its senior managing director, Bruce Boyd, worked for national environmental groups early in their careers. Arabella declined to make Kessler or Boyd available for comment.
The Center for American Progress is a fierce critic of the Trump administration and its policies, and has called for a deeper investigation into contacts by Trumps inner circle with Russian officials.
Its unclear if Trump or his top aides have been briefed on the investigation.
The President has accused liberal groups of sending protesters to congressional town halls, mocking his opponents in a tweet on Feb. 21. The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!, Trump tweeted from his personal account.
Regardless of who is behind the latest round of hacks and ransom requests, there is also indication that state-sponsored hackers continue a broader targeting of liberal groups in the U.S.
The most important business stories of the day.
Get Bloomberg's daily newsletter.
The day after the election, the FSB, Russias main intelligence agency, targeted the personal emails of hundreds of people, including national security experts, military officers and former White House officials, according to data provided by cyber security researchers who are tracking the spying and who asked not to be identified because of the risks of retaliation. The list was weighted toward people who have worked in Democratic administrations or who are linked with liberal causes.
Among those targets was Kate Albright-Hanna. She worked for Barack Obama in his first presidential campaign in 2008 and then briefly in the White House Office of Health Care Reform.
That was eight years ago. Since then she has worked on a documentary about corruption in New York and developed a network of investigative journalists and activists, not the most obvious target for Russian espionage.
I have no idea why I would be targeted, said Albright-Hanna, who now lives in New York. Its super weird.
Excerpt from:
Russian Hackers Said to Seek Hush Money From Liberal Groups ... - Bloomberg
MEDFORD One hundred years ago this month, US President Woodrow Wilson was agonizing over whether to enter World War I. Just a few months earlier, Wilson had won re-election partly by campaigning on a policy of neutrality, which he was now preparing to abandon, along with the slogan America first. But now, for the first time in more than 80 years, a US president has taken it up again, to promote a foreign-policy stance that directly controverts the doctrine Wilson embraced.
It was not until 1919, after the war was over, that Wilson defined his foreign-policy vision of liberal internationalism: support for collective security and promotion of open markets among democracies, regulated by a system of multinational institutions ultimately dependent on the United States. Though the US Senate initially rejected Wilsons vision, particularly his support for joining the League of Nations, Franklin D. Roosevelt revived liberal internationalism after 1933. It has helped to shape the foreign policies of most US presidents ever since until Trump.
The America first approach that Trump advocates comprises disdain for NATO, contempt for the European Union, and mockery of Germanys leadership role in Europe. It also includes rejection of economic openness, reflected in Trumps withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and call to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump has also pledged to back out of the Paris climate agreement.
Unlike Wilson, Trump seems to see no value in maintaining and deepening ties with other democracies. Instead, he seems drawn to authoritarian leaders in particular, Russian President Vladimir Putin and often leaves democratic leaders watching from the wings.
To be sure, if Wilson were alive today, he might agree with Trump on some issues, though his proposed solutions would be very different. For example, Wilson would probably concur with Trump that the level of openness in global markets today is excessive. It is indeed problematic that US banks and businesses can export capital, technology, and jobs as they please, with little or no regard for the domestic costs.
But Wilsons solution would likely focus on developing and implementing improved regulations through a multilateral process dominated by democracies. Likewise, he would probably advocate a fiscal policy aimed at advancing the common good, with higher taxes on the wealthiest companies and households funding, say, infrastructure development, quality education, and universal health care.
In short, Wilson would endorse a program more like that of Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren or Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, featuring an advanced social-welfare system that enables broad-based prosperity. By contrast, Trump advocates lower taxes for the wealthy, and seems willing to embrace some form of state capitalism if not crony capitalism via protectionist policies and special incentives for companies to manufacture in the US.
Wilson might agree with Trump on another point: we cannot assume that democracy is a universal value with universal appeal. Like Trump, Wilson would probably eschew the idealistic nation- and state-building formulas that animated US foreign policy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
But here, too, the differences overwhelm the similarities. Trump has decided that the US simply shouldnt bother with the rest of the world, unless it gets something concrete in return. Wilson, by contrast, wanted to spread democracy for the sake of world peace, but in an indirect manner, working through the League of Nations. He believed that international institutions, the rule of law, common values, and an elite possessed of a democratic vision could ensure collective security and peaceful conflict resolution. What would begin as Pax Americana, he believed, would ultimately become a Pax Democratica.
This vision lies at the root of American exceptionalism. The claim is not simply that the US is, as Bill Clinton put it, the indispensable nation, whose global power makes it a party to all major international issues. It is also that the US can expect deference from other states, because it looks beyond its narrow self-interest to sustain an international order that supports peace, cooperation, and prosperity, particularly among the worlds democracies.
Not every US president has followed Wilsons lead. The promise of liberal internationalism was snuffed out for three presidential administrations, from the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920 until FDR took office in 1933. With Trump, it is being snuffed out again. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land, Trump declared at his inauguration. From this day forward, its going to be only America first.
But Wilsons vision may not prove so easy to quash. Back in the twentieth century, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War impelled US policymakers to embrace liberal internationalism. Today, too, a tumultuous world is likely to vindicate its deep and enduring appeal.
Original post:
Is Liberal Internationalism Dead? by Tony Smith - Project Syndicate - Project Syndicate
Its doubtful that many of those jumping on the hood of his car and chasing him off the campus had, you know, read the book they were so angry about.
When a mob of left-wing students Thursday prevented author Charles Murray from speaking at Middlebury College in Vermont, forcing him into a closed room where he live-streamed his presentation, it was a familiar moment for those of us who were politically active in the late 60s and 70s. We experienced the rising view on the left that those they labeled and opposed as reactionary or fascist had no right to free speech, the thesis propagated by the late and then popular Marxist philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, in his once famous 1965 essay, Repressive Tolerance, first published in The Critique of Pure Tolerance.
As Murray and Allison Stanger, a professor who had engaged in a dialogue with him, made their way to a car after the event, masked students and protestorssome from outside the college and few of whom Id wager had read Marcuse even as they brought his argument to lifeattacked them. Stangers hair was pulled, and she had to go to the hospital for a neck brace. Once they were in the car, protesters banged on its doors and windows and jumped on its hood, with the pair only able to leave after the Middlebury Police Department arrived and cleared a path for them.What transpired instead felt like a scene from Homeland, Prof. Stanger later wrote on Facebook, rather than an evening at an institution of higher learning,
Murray, most recently the author of Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, had been invited to speak at the college on the book. The students who invited him felt, accurately, that his views on the topic might provide them with insight into the current political situation as many of the people Murray had written about had supported and voted for Donald Trump.
The protesters, though, turned their ire on his highly controversial 1994 best seller, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, in which Murray and co-author Richard Herrnstein argued that there is a significant correlation between an individuals IQ, and their success or failure in life. Using current research and statistics, and many charts, they went even further in the nature vs. nurture debate, by claiming that IQ itself was mainly, though not wholly, based on genetics. In their bell curve, Asians scored slightly higher than whites and blacks were significantly lower than whites. As Malcolm W. Browne wrote in a very critical review, according to the authors, if this divide is not addressed America may soon be permanently split between an isolated caste of ruling meritocrats on one hand and a vast, powerless Lumpenproletariat on the other.
The book was not, as some of the student protestors argued, a Nazi-like defense of eugenics. As Browne noted, Nowhere do they [Murray and other authors discussed] advocate the measures championed by the eugenicists of the 1920s and 1930s, whose ideas were appropriated and perverted by the Nazis as the rationale for the Holocaust. Indeed, the authors of The Bell Curve say that the granting to any government or social institution of the power to decide who may breed and who may not is fraught with such obvious dangers as to be unacceptable. Browne ended his essay by agreeing with the authors that the time has come to rehabilitate rational discourse on the subject [of intelligence.] It is hard to imagine a democratic society doing otherwise.
Certainly, Murrays book came under fire and elicited numerous critiques. The way it should be handled was exemplified by the New Republic, when it was still a serious journal of opinion. The magazine excerpted the book, and many readers, including a good number of the magazines own editors, objected strenuously to its thesis. The editors did what any respectable journal would have done: They followed the excerpt with dissenting responses. The dissents were specific and scathing. Intelligent readers could assess the Murray-Herrnstein case for themselves, and after reading the responses, decide whether their argument had any merit.
It is doubtful that many of Middleburys student protesters had read the book. I was genuinely surprised and troubled to learn that some of my faculty colleagues had rendered judgement on Dr. Murrays work and character, Prof. Stanger wrote in an open letter to the Middlebury community, while openly admitting that they had not read anything he had written.
Nevertheless, they were certain that Murray was a racist, a eugenicist, and a conservativein other words, the right-wing enemy. While Middleburys president, Laurie Patton, said that she was deeply disappointed by the protest, and apologized to those who came and wanted in good faith to participate in a serious discussion, and to Murray and Stanger for the way they were treated during the event, the faculty was conspicuously silent.
Some of those professors have surely read Marcuse, who argued now that capitalism had exhausted itself, the old paradigm of tolerance was no longer relevant. Instead, being tolerant serves the need of the oppressors who use it to hold onto and protect their power. It was thus the duty of the left to deny the free speech of the right, since the only truth lay with those who were oppressed. The masses, he said, had to be freed from the indoctrination imposed on them by the unjust established society by preventing those propagating the values of the capitalist system from speaking and having influence.
Consequently, he calls for the withdrawal of toleration or speech and assembly from groups or movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race or religion. In the end, Marcuse called for intolerance to be directed at the self-styled conservatives, [and] to the political Right.
Todays protesting students at Middlebury probably never heard of Marcuse, but many of their professors and older alumni certainly did, or if not they were influenced by his thinking. That is why it is hardly a surprise to find that 450 Middlebury alumni wrote an open letter titled Charles Murray at Middlebury: Unacceptable and Unethical. Their letter is a model example of how Marcuses tortured ideology is now being expressed on college campuses. First, they establish that Murray is a white nationalist by quoting the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center, a sometimes admirable but not always reliable authority thats been the subject of debunking on both the left and the right.
Having accepted the SPLCs verdict on Murray, the alumni write that their call to keep him off the campus is not an issue of free speech. Of course, they claim that Middlebury students must hear a diverse range of perspectives, including those in which our beliefs were questioned and our assumptions challenged but in Murrays case, the principle does not apply. That is because they believe that Murray argues for the biological and intellectual superiority of white men and does so pretending to have academic authority. Then they falsely accuse him of promoting eugenics, and of genocidal white supremacist ideologies. Somehow, I dont think any of these alumni signers would have protested an appearance by noted eugenicist and birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, if she was still with us.
Thank You!
You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason
They assert that Murray shows in all his books the same disregard for basic standards of research and peer review. In fact, many academics thought The Bell Curve raised substantive issues that needed discussing. Wouldnt students have learned a better lesson had they been allowed to hear Murrays talk, and then heard the discussion when he was challenged during the Q and A? Using the phrase recently uttered by Kellyanne Conway, they proclaim his books are composed of alternative facts. So rather than have academic debate, they call the invitation to hear Murray a threat.
As events showed, it was a threatone that did not come from Charles Murray, but from the student mob of self-righteous uninformed leftists who prevented him from speaking, and who threatened Murrays First Amendment rights. (In a tweet, Murray quipped that I dont think physical assault is covered by lst amendment either. But Im not a constitutional scholar.)
Echoing the old Marcuse argument, whoever wrote the alumni letter said there was no other side to debate, only deceptive statistics masking unfounded bigotry. In other words, only those who take the right (as in left)position have the right to be heard, and those who dont have to be stopped from speaking.
The late professor Marcuse must be looking down at Middlebury College with great pleasure.
Read this article:
Liberal Intolerance Revives as Charles Murray Is Chased From Middlebury College - Daily Beast
By Fernando Ramirez, Chron.com / Houston Chronicle
Photo: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
Click through to see the most conservative and liberal colleges in Texas.
Click through to see the most conservative and liberal colleges in
Dallas Baptist University
Dallas Baptist University
8. Texas Christian University- Most conservative colleges
8. Texas Christian University- Most conservative colleges
7. Abilene Christian University - Most conservative colleges
7. Abilene Christian University - Most conservative colleges
6. University of Mary Hardin-Baylor- Most conservative colleges
6. University of Mary Hardin-Baylor- Most conservative colleges
5. University of Dallas - Most conservative colleges
5. University of Dallas - Most conservative colleges
4. Southern Methodist University- Most conservative colleges
4. Southern Methodist University- Most conservative colleges
3.
3.
2.
2.
1.
1.
Southwestern University
Southwestern University
Saint Edward's University
- Most liberal colleges
Saint Edward's University
- Most liberal colleges
The most liberal, conservative colleges in Texas
Colleges campuses are often thought of as intensely liberal institutions, but in reality, they come in all shapes and sizes.
To get some idea, college data site Niche recently ranked the most liberal and conservative colleges throughout the nation.
FOOTBALL FANATICS:Texas universities that profit the most, least off sports
The rankings were acquired by surveying students on their political leanings, as well as surveying how liberal or conservative they viewed other students on campus.
Three Texas colleges made the list of the top 100 most liberal colleges in America:Southwestern University, Saint Edward's University and Rice University.
On the other hand, 13 Texas colleges made the national list for being conservative.
BLAST FROM THE PAST: The story behind who Texas' most famous colleges are named after
Click through above to see the most liberal and conservative colleges of Texas.
Read more from the original source:
The most liberal, conservative colleges in Texas - Chron.com
It is clear that today what passes for news is essentially opinion. The left-leaning media (so called liberal) have shown more intolerance than what is essentially called right-wing by them. They hate to lose. And when they do, the savage attacks on the non-liberals show their intolerance.
Take the case of Shazia Ilmi not being allowed to speak at her Alma MaterJamia Millia Islamia on a seminar on Women empowerment. Though she was invited, the invite was withdrawn at the last minute without explanation. General Bakshi and Tarek Fatah were invited to a prestigious club in Kolkata for a seminar and Mamata Banerjee made the institution cancel the event.
None of the liberals had massive rallies against such acts against Freedom of Speech. In fact, most news channels did not even carry this.
Be it the Indian, American or British media all seem to have a markedly liberal point of view that does not allow any dissent. Talk about freedoms. Only the Left it seems has the freedom to speak and rally.
The word intolerance is used all the time when there is a blowback on whatever the liberals say or do. No matter how innocuous the subject, such as spreading yoga worldwide, the liberal left will have something unpleasant to say about it.
The people have pretty much told the liberal media that they dont rule the dialogue and the social media is, thus, thriving. Whether it is the New York Times or the New Yorker, very few read them and many think they are biased towards the extreme left.
Change in spite of the media has happened in India, Britain and USA and will follow in most European countries. One has stopped watching Indian TV news as once again there is little news but a great deal of debate. What passes for news is the opinion of the anchor or the owners of the channels who have their own agendas.
Yesterday, I watched the news briefly and saw an event, that made me think:Arun Purie congratulating his daughter for India Today TV getting the award for best English and Hindi news. To me an award is a self-perpetuating exercise by an organisation where they form a club of sorts and give each other awards. Whether it is the Oscars, Grammys, etc. They form a small cabal who decide who gets an award. Is this the peoples choice? No! The people are not consulted and mostly unaware of how and who chooses these awards.
Newspapers, magazines and such organisations pump up their reader/viewership to garner more advertising revenue, so their own statistics are always suspect. So, are these awards really relevant? Are the best reporters getting awards? Is there even such a thing as investigative reporting left in India?
I saw a portion of The big fight where the issue being debated was Is free speech being curtailed now. Well, in fact no. When the Congress realised that Modi was a potential threat way back in 2004 a sustained campaign was launched to discredit him this is a long story and much has been written on this. The US media did the same for Trump. The people lost trust and switched to social media. And voted Trump as president, in spite the hundreds of negative articles that appeared on him by CNN, New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post and many others. They switched off.
So, I looked up once again at media viewership and came up with this revealing data on TV news viewership.
Top 5 English news channels viewership (BARC data week Feb 2017):
Times Now 798,000 India Today 498,000 CNN-IBN 404,000 NDTV 376,000 BBC 184,000
Hindi News Channels (Feb 2017)
Simply put two million people watch the top five English channels put together. And 485 million people watch the top five Hindi news channels.
The conclusion is most of what we see in the English news channels is really not relevant in the context of forming public opinion. A viewership of just two million in a country of 1.3 billion is too small to be of any significance. Wake up reporters and anchors. Your air- conditioned environment plus huge salaries and popularity are at stake. Beat the streets and start feeling the pulse of all Indians not just the Liberals and their cronies.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
Read this article:
The liberals and their false angst on intolerance - Times of India (blog)
[Ed. Note: To see exactly what this former Reagan insider has to say about Trump and the fiscal threats of the debt ceiling, David Stockman is sending out a copy of his book Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Backto any American willing to listen before it is too late. To learn how to get your free copy CLICK HERE.]
David Stockman joined CNBCto offer a stark warning for investors that continue to follow Wall Street on a path of misreading Trumps policies while Washington is headed toward a fiscal bloodbath.
Stockman started out his fiscal warning saying, I think that Wall Street is totally misreading Washington. It is pricing in a fantasy about a Trump stimulus that simply is not going to happen. There will be no big tax cut, there will be no $15 or $20 a share reduction in the corporate rate. Infrastructure stimulus [isnt going to happen].
The host then prompted how Stockman knew this to which he pushed, we are heading into a debt ceiling trap that will grind the whole system to a halt by June or July. People are forgetting that weve been on a debt ceiling holiday. That holiday ends on March 15.
David Stockman is the former Budget Director under President Ronald Reagan. He also served in Congress where he was a two-term Congressman representing Michigan. Following his service in the U.S government, Stockman went on to work on Wall Street. Currently he is the bestselling author of Trumped! A Nation on the Brink And How to Bring It Back learn how to get your FREE copy CLICK HERE.
The CNBC host then posed that this was not a new scenario to Donald Trump. David Stockman then took the point to task noting that, This is totally new to Donald Trump. He tweeted last weekend that he had reduced the national debt by $12 billion. It is actually up $187 billion in the first 35 days that he has been in office. The cash on the Treasurys balance sheet, and this is the key point, was $382 billion the day he was sworn in as of last Friday it hit $178 billion and has bled $200 billion in cash.
Thats one fifth of a trillion while he didnt even have his economic team in place. When they get to March 15 and the debt ceiling freezes at $20 trillion, theyll have maybe $200 billion of cash. That is being run out at a rate of $3-5 billion a day. By June it will be gone. There is no pathway to a majority in the House or Senate to pass a debt ceiling increase in the trillions in order to make any of this stuff possible.
When asked about whether Trumps negotiation tactic, The Art of the Deal, is presenting a different way of running the system than before Stockman did not hold back. He pushed, [Trump might be doing that] But that makes it even more dangerous and reckless. This isnt an Atlantic City Casino and the junk bond markets of 1991. This is the big time this is $20 trillion of debt. This is an environment with a House, Republican majority that doesnt exist. Thats a delusion. This is an environment of a gang of factions. Theyre already beginning to splinter and fracture as a result of the Obamacare plan of repeal and replace.
They wont even get to tax reform before the debt crisis hits. We will have a government shutdown. It is totally unexpected, unpriced in, as they say by Wall Street. It will spook everybody. Trump is so reckless that this could go on for days, weeks or months in a way that weve never seen before. The 2011 with Obama will be a Sunday school picnic compared to what is likely coming down the pike.
Following the Presidents speech to Congress the Dow Jones along with the S&P 500 jumped in a bullish tone following the Trump policy agenda. Stockman took the speech through an entirely different approach. He noted, The Joint Session of Congress speech from last Tuesday night was irrelevant. It was the most fiscally irresponsible speech given by a President since LBJ talked about guns and butter. How can he possibly raise defense by $50 billion, more for Veterans, a trillion dollar or more for infrastructure, medical credits and all of the rest while cutting taxes by $3-5 trillion? This is complete madness.
When asked by the CNBC host about whether it was good policy for Donald Trump to continue to take credit for the rise in the stock market Stockman took the Presidents mistake to task. I think hell rue the day he took credit. You should never predicate what youre trying to do for the long-run, as well as intended as he might be, for what the robo-machines are doing on Wall Street. The robo-machines can read words and when Trump speaks, they hit the buy key. They cant read the tea leaves in Washington because it is far more complex and opaque than the stimulus the machines are used to.
He was then asked about the 2012-2013 and the fiscal cliff worries and how they managed to raise the debt ceiling but why a now Republican lead Congress and White House will not be able to be solve the debt dilemma? Stockman doubled down on his claim noting, We now have a Republican president and a Republican Congress that is not about to start a bipartisan negotiation, like Obama did with former Speaker of the House Boehner. The reason that the Freedom Caucus exists today, and that the Tea Party is still half of the back bench, is because they believe they were sold out time after time. That is how they passed the debt ceiling.
Now Trump has declared war on the Democrats, the border, immigrants. The Democrats are not going to deliver any votes, in my view, for a debt ceiling increase unless he throws in the towel on Obamacare and border control. The politics today are three times more fragile than they were in any of the years mentioned with the fiscal cliff.
When asked on his belief that the markets would much lower and to what extent he responded, There is a massive fantasy built in that an economy 92 months into an expansion, almost the longest in history, can suddenly get up on its hind-legs and start growing again. Profits are still down. In the last 12 months theyre still about 10-12% below the peak in September 2014. I see nothing to reaccelerate the economy or profits and I see a huge bloodbath or a fiscal stalemate that will remove any of the stimulus that traders are expecting.
To listen in on the full interview with David Stockman on the fiscal bloodbath he believes is headed to Washington featured on CNBC, CLICK HERE. If you want to explore David Stockmans prescription for exactly what Trump and Washington most do to bring America back from the fiscal brink get your FREE copy of his bestselling book TRUMPED! CLICK HERE.
Regards,
Craig Wilson, @craig_wilson7 for the Daily Reckoning
Read this article:
Stockman: Wall St is Misreading Trump - Fiscal Crisis Ahead - The ... - Daily Reckoning
As Republicans struggle to repeal and replace Obamacare, they can find useful ideas in unexpected places: countries that have adopted socialized medicine. While the U.K.s National Health Service and other health bureaucracies may seem to be the wrong place to seek guidance for a private-market plan, they offer approaches to cost-effectiveness that Republicans will need to embrace if they hope to implement a new health care reform without getting hammered in 2018.
The core problem for Republicans is that progressives have won the philosophical debate by persuading the public that health care is a right. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe the government should ensure universal access to health care. Although conservatives and libertarians make the point that so-called positive rights, like a right to health care, can only be provided through some form of compulsion, this argument no longer resonates. A system that fails to guarantee access to essential care regardless of ability to pay is no longer politically feasible.
Related: Why Trump Wont Touch Entitlement ReformYet
Once we recognize that Americans have bought into a fundamentally socialistic idea, the fiscally responsible approach is to fund universal service in the most cost-effective way. Relative to other advanced nations, the United Kingdom offers an especially inexpensive model for providing health care. In 2015, health care spending in the U.K. was only $4,003 per person, less than half the $9,451 per person we spend in the U.S. Despite its sharply lower spending, the U.K. enjoys higher life expectancy at birth than the U.S. 81.4 years versus 78.8 years here. While violent crime, accidents, poor nutrition and lack of exercise contribute to relatively low life expectancy in the U.S., it is hard to believe that we would significantly outperform the U.K. even if these factors were somehow equalized.
To understand why the U.K. gets better results (at least in terms of longevity), we need to take a brief detour into budgeting theory. Governments use two methods to spend money: appropriations and entitlements. In the U.S., most federal agencies are funded through appropriations, meaning Congress assigns them a fixed budget each fiscal year. Agency leaders must then manage within their budgets, implementing cost-saving measures during the year if they are at risk of running out of money. But most medical care is funded through entitlements. Under Medicare and Medicaid, health providers can be reimbursed for whatever services they provide, with no predetermined limit (although there are some exceptions). Because entitlements are unmanaged, they are more subject to escalating costs. As reimbursement rules change, providers find ways to maximize their revenue, while program administrators have no incentive to push back.
Related: New Report Warns Millions Could Lose Health Care Under GOP Plan
In the U.K., most medical care is provided by the National Health Service through appropriations. Due to budgetary pressure, health authorities make trade-offs that are now unthinkable in America, but that dont greatly impact broadly measured health outcomes. Mammograms are generally not available to women under 50 because the benefits of earlier testing usually do not justify the risks of undergoing the procedure. The NHS also does not offer routine colonoscopies, and provides far fewer circumcisions for newborn boys.
The NHS and other large health care bureaucracies engage in a practice economists call non-price rationing: doling out a scarce resource through government mandate rather than by a market process. While this approach is normally maligned by free-market economists, it is preferable to the alternative we have here in the U.S., which is basically no rationing whatsoever.
Perhaps the worst manifestation of U.K. rationing is the long waits for surgical procedures. Although the NHS officially limits waiting times for elective surgery to 18 weeks, patients often must wait far longer. That said, the U.K. does provide a couple of mechanisms that limit this problem. First, the media and opposition political figures have the freedom and the incentive to embarrass the government into improving patient outcomes. Patients suffering or dying due to long waits can become the focus of news stories and at Prime Ministers Questions in Parliament.
Related: How 3 GOP Senators Could Stop Obamacare Repeal in its Tracks
Also, Britain has a robust private health care system that can take some of the weight off of the NHS. About 10 percent of U.K. residents have private health insurance paid directly or through an employer that provides access to consultations and procedures over and above what they can get through the NHS. Although progressives might complain that allowing a private market results in a two-tier system, they should realize that total health care equality is a pipe dream.
Non-price rationing produces some bad outcomes, but it has little impact on the U.K.s overall results because a lot of the medical procedures are unnecessary. Research shows that, beyond a certain basic level, additional care provides little or no benefit. Indeed, research on doctor strikes show that death rates either remain the same or fall when physicians deny access to their services.
Tight NHS budgeting is also associated with lower drug prices, more modest salaries for doctors and more deliveries of babies at home by midwives. By contrast, the combination of pervasive third-party payment arrangements and limited cost controls in the U.S. enriches health providers and encourages waste. TV commercials encourage patients to demand brand-name prescription drugs for conditions that could be treated by generic or over-the-counter medications if they require pharmaceutical intervention at all.
Related: The Medical Technology That Could Save the US Billions Each Year
Twenty years ago, a case of heartburn might have been handled by rest or a few Tums; now, its diagnosed as Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease and treated with prescription Nexium. While a one-month supply of Nexium retails for $250, a similar quantity of generic Omeprazole can be had for $17 and over-the-counter Prilosec costs only $18. The main reason doctors prescribe and patients demand the branded prescription drug is that third-party payers cover most of the bill often with government subsidies.
Hospitals also benefit from generous third-party payments. Sutter Health, a not-for-profit hospital chain in Northern California, paid its CEO $7.5 million in 2015. Eighteen other executives received compensation in excess of $1 million each, yet Sutter still reported net income of $81 million. About 60 percent of the organizations revenue came from state and federal sources. In other words, California and U.S. taxpayers helped the hospital chain and its executives make millions.
Congress can fund universal care without breaking the federal budget by squeezing drug companies, hospitals and other health care providers. House Speaker Paul Ryans plan to introduce block grants for Medicaid, which will effectively oblige states to implement non-price rationing, may be the first step in this direction.
Related: Trumps Lofty Vision of Renewal Comes with a Huge Price Tag
The block grant approach could be extended to individuals now receiving large subsidies on Obamacare exchanges and those with costly-to-insure pre-existing conditions. States could respond by giving hospitals fixed annual grants for attending to patients not carrying private insurance, thereby compelling these providers to economize. States could also negotiate lower prices with drug providers and/or migrate patients to generic and over-the-counter remedies. While lobbyists make it difficult for legislators to implement such policies, transitioning away from the entitlement model to one based on appropriations is the way forward.
More:
Obamacare Replacement: What Republicans Can Learn From Socialized Medicine - The Fiscal Times
Photo by Will Price, W.Va. Legislature West Virginia Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, stands to speak during Mondays floor session.
CHARLESTON West Virginia senators have approved a bill to dismantle the wage bonding requirement for certain industries in the state.
Members voted 21-12 Monday morning after some debate on the chamber floor.
Senate Bill 224 would get rid of the requirement for employers in certain industries including mineral extraction and construction to bond the wages and benefits of their employees for the first five years of operation.
The bond is money paid to the state that would cover a month of wages and benefits for employees if the business closes. Under current law, only construction companies, or businesses that extract or transport minerals like coal or natural gas, have to create a wage bond.
Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, previously called the bond an impediment to business in the state, and pointed to surrounding states that dont have the same requirement, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Sen. Glen Jeffries, a Putnam County Democrat, said the bill actually puts the state out of line with a majority of states in the country.
Other Democrats argued over the vulnerability of the industries required to implement the bond and said the bill removes protections for workers in those industries.
The bill now goes to the House of Delegates for further consideration.
Marra is a reporter for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
West Virginias tax collections for February exceeded estimates by $10.3 million but still left the governments projected budget shortfall at $123 million for the current fiscal year, according to revenue data released Monday.
The Associated Press reports sales, personal income and severance taxes the three biggest collection categories all exceeded February estimates, Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow said. He called the increase in payroll tax withholding by almost 1 percent over February last year, a slight positive trend.
Severance taxes for extracting coal, oil, natural gas and timber totaled $262.5 million through eight months of the fiscal year that ends June 30. After a very rough start, which was attributed to a downturn in coal, Muchow said he now expects continuing gains above budget estimates.
Coal prices have also rebounded from last years lows and some West Virginia mines have been hiring back workers.
West Virginia personal income taxes have brought in $1.91 billion over eight months with sales taxes adding $1.285 billion.
Corporation income and business franchise taxes have added $137.4 million so far this year. However, with refunds, the state actually paid out $1.845 million to corporations and businesses in that category in February.
West Virginia lawmakers eliminated the business franchise tax effective in 2015 with only residual collections now, according to the Department of Revenue.
West Virginias Senate has passed a bill to deny parental rights to rapists whose victims consequently have babies, The Associated Press reports.
The amendment approved 33-0 Monday would define a child conceived in a sexual assault as an abused child under the state law intended to protect them from abusive parents.
It says the assault victims wont be considered abusive parents under the law.
Sponsors say its meant to protect rape survivors and their children.
A bill that would exempt the mass release of West Virginia hunters contact information to the public is making its way through the state Legislature, according to The Associated Press.
With little debate, the Senate Natural Resources Committee forwarded the bill Monday to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The bill would let the Division of Natural Resources withhold names, addresses and other information in a mass request under the Freedom of Information Act of hunters who killed a particular animal.
Such records would be made available to law enforcement and other government entities.
WESTON A Lewis County grand jury on Monday indicted Lena Marie Lunsford in connection with her 3-year-old ...
See original here:
West Virginia Senators Vote to Remove Wage Protections - Wheeling Intelligencer
Brit + Co | Father John Misty Explained The Taylor Swift Sex Line In 'Total Entertainment Forever' UPROXX ... where like, the internet was supposed to be this new democracy, a utopia of information where everyone had a voice and we were all interconnected, and we would experience true democracy and it turned into pornography, followed only by outrage. Taylor Swift Got a NSFW Shout-Out on SNL But You Probably Missed It Father John Misty Explains Taylor Swift Line From Total Entertainment Forever |
Excerpt from:
Father John Misty Explained The Taylor Swift Sex Line In 'Total Entertainment Forever' - UPROXX
TIME AFTER TIME Pilot Using the 1979 novel and movie as a launching point, Time After Time chronicles the adventures of a young H.G. Wells, as he travels through centuries, decades and days in the time machine he created. In the pursuit of the charismatic (yet secretly psychopathic) Dr. John Stevenson, better known as Jack the Ripper, Wells arrives in modern day New York City, searching for Stevenson after the doctor escapes authorities in Wells London home. But instead of the Utopia he imagined, Wells finds a world more aligned with Stevensons temperament in a series charged with danger and adventure, and centered in thrills, satire, humor and most of all, an epic love story, SUNDAY, MARCH 5 (9:00-10:00 p.m. EST), on the ABC Television Network. (ABC/Sarah Shatz) FREDDIE STROMA, JOSH BOWMAN
What: Premiere of series based on 1979 film about the novelist H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper into the future to stop him from killing, starring Freddie Stroma and Josh Bowman.
When: 9 p.m. Sunday. Two episodes air back to back.
Where: ABC.
After Once Upon a Time, ABC is airing back-to-back episodes of its new series Time After Time.
Its the sixth time travel series this season, although to be fair the new show is a reboot of the 1979 movie from Nicholas Meyer, which starred Malcolm McDowell as the novelist H.G. Wells, who wrote The Time Machine. The premise is that the writer had really invented a time machine, but that his friend Dr. John Stevens (David Warner) steals it to go to the future when it is discovered he is the real Jack the Ripper. The movie worked as a charming escapist romantic thriller as Wells meets a bank teller (Mary Steenburgen) looking for an old-fashioned guy.
The reboot from Kevin Williams (Scream) isnt quite so charming. It begins very much the same with Wells (Freddie Stroma) in pursuit of Stevens (Josh Bowman) in present-day New York City.
The Ripper takes off into the city, where he finds after watching the news, including President Trumps dark vision of America hes in a world where he belongs, even calling himself an amateur when it comes violence.
Wells, however, meets Jane Walker (Genesis Rodriguez), an assistant museum curator, who eventually helps him after he is hit by a car. The first episode is much like the movie, but by the second episode the new show stakes out new territory.
Wells, we find, travels to other points in history. We meet his descendant Vanessa Anders. Shes an heiress who owns the museum housing the time machine and has a number of security men to aid Wells. The plan of the series is to explore other of Wells creations, including The Invisible Man and The Island of Dr. Moreau.
The original movie worked because Wells was played as a man out of time and Steenburgens character longed for a gentleman while still wanting to be a modern woman.
The new series doesnt let that relationship ripen enough; so it ends up diving too quickly into violence and sci-fi fantasy to get its grounding. There is little chemistry between the principals, though that is not really their fault. They need a little more time together in less frantic moments for that. There is a hint at the end of episode two all that was available to review that would happen. Otherwise, Time After Time is too much repeat and rinse.
Go here to see the original:
'Time After Time' delivers Jack the Ripper to modern-day New York - The San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Royal Caribbean Blog (blog) | Royal Caribbean to put Symphony of the Seas sailings on sale beginning Wednesday Royal Caribbean Blog (blog) Flyers posted in the NextCruise office of Freedom of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas advertise the name of Royal Caribbean's fourth Oasis class ship, as well as the fact sailings will go on sale on Wednesday, March 8. Indications from crew onboard are ... 12 Things to Know Before Sailing Royal Caribbean Royal Caribbean Considers Future for Brisbane and Gold Coast Cruises Royal Caribbean, Changi Airport, STB in new fly-cruise partnership |
Read the original here:
British holidaymakers have been warned not to travel on one of the Caribbeans biggest airlines.
The Foreign Office (FCO) has issued guidance not to fly on InselAir, the national carrier of Dutch Caribbean island Curacao, due to safety concerns.
Safety concerns have been raised about Insel Air, the FCO said. The US and Netherlands authorities have prohibited their staff from using the airline while safety checks are being carried out. UK government officials have been told to the same as a precaution.
Boasting a fleet of 18 aircraft, and serving 26 destinations across the Caribbean and South America, as well as Miami in the US, Insel Air carried 1.4 million passengers in 2016. Its SkyTrax rating is just 3/10, however,with its page on the airline rating website garnering some less-than-positive reviews.
InselAir said it was aware that the Dutch Civil Aviation Inspectorate had recently visited Curacao as well as its sister airline Insel Air Aruba and performed spontaneous audits. It said the inspectors left pleasantly surprised.
In a statement the airline said: Contrary to the information being circulated by the media, both local and abroad, both airlines remain until now unaware of any findings from the Dutch Civil Aviation Inspectorate that would have an effect on the airworthiness of their operations.
Currently neither of the airlines have major pending technical and operational findings with their respective Aviation Authority.
The FCO does not normally pass judgement on airlines as standards are governed by national aviation authorities. It points travellers towards the International Air Transport Association for records on airline safety.
There are currently more than 100 airlines banned from EU airspace, or facing operational restrictions, as they dont come up to scratch. Insel Air is not banned from the EU. The list does include every airlines from Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Sudan, as well as dozens from Indonesia.
Earlier this year, it was announced by AirlineRatings.com that Qantas is the worlds safest airline. Other carriers to make the top 20 include British Airways, Swiss, Air New Zealand and Virgin Atlantic.
Read the original:
Foreign Office warns travellers not to fly on major Caribbean airline - Telegraph.co.uk
TAIPEI, Taiwan (CMC) President Tsai Ing-wen is to visit the Caribbean later this year amid concerns that its relations with some Caribbean allies have become unstable, Foreign Minister David Lee said Monday.
Taiwan has relations with St Kitts-Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, Belize, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and Lee acknowledged that relations with one or more of the Caribbean are kind of unstable.
That is why a visit by President Tsai Ing-wen to allies in that region in the second half of this year is being planned as part of the governments efforts to cement ties with diplomatic partners there, Lee said when answering questions from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lo Chih-cheng at the Legislative Yuans Foreign and National Defence Committee.
Lee said that his ministry has taken measures to improve bilateral ties with these countries in question and that the situation is under control.
The Foreign Ministry has been keeping close tabs on ties with Taiwans diplomatic allies and will address issues immediately if it notices something wrong, he said, without elaborating on which country or countries in the Caribbean are in question.
Last August, the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) in St Vincent and the Grenadines said it would switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China if it is elected to office in the next general election.
The announcement represented a change in one of the last common policies that the NDP shared with the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP).
St Vincent and the Grenadines has maintained unbroken diplomatic ties with Taiwan since 1981, even as several other Caribbean nations, including Dominica and Grenada, have switched ties over the last decade.
Beijing says Taiwan is a renegade province to be reunited with the mainland, by force, if necessary.
The NDP said that as a modern political organisation, it continues to discuss and formulate a range of appropriate measures and responses to ongoing geo-political realities.
In this regard, fully cognisant of the ever-evolving symmetry of international affairs, and the principal responsibility and obligation of our party in or out of Government to diligently pursue and protect the best strategic interests of our country, I hereby formally announce that the New Democratic Party of St Vincent and the Grenadines, as of todays date, August 23, 2016, has taken the decision to recognise the United Nations accepted norm of a One China Policy, the NDP leader Arnhim Eustace said in a statement last August.
Last year, St Vincent and the Grenadines Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sir Louis Straker, said Kingstown was hoping to establish diplomatic presence in Taiwan.
St Vincent and the Grenadines has benefitted significantly from its relationship with Taiwan both in terms of infrastructural and human resource development.
Taiwan financed the terminal building at the Argyle International Airport, 15 learning resource centres across the country, bridges and other pieces of infrastructure projects.
Originally posted here:
Intrigue turned to astonishment for John Buckingham when an exotic letter which dropped on his doormat turned out to contain a rare 200-year-old Padstow Bank note stolen from a museum more than 30 years ago.
The simple white envelope, dotted with colourful Caribbean stamps, had no return address and was addressed in handwriting to the care of the Padstow Museum.
As chairman, Mr Buckingham had carefully opened the correspondence, wondering who was reaching out to their little collection of antiquities from across the ocean.
Read more: Britain's sweariest man David Bellman jailed for trying to buy knickers
"I was very surprised," he said. "When I saw the envelope and the postmark I first thought, 'who is writing to me from St Lucia?' I just opened it and there was no covering letter or anything. There was a plastic sleeve, like the type a collector might use, and inside was this 1 note."
It doesn't look much, but this note would have been a few months' wages for most people in 1819.
However the mystery was about to deepen when Mr Buckingham inspected the note further.
Read more: Fire investigation launched into major house fire near Redruth
"The note was issued by the Padstow Bank of Thomas Rawlings in 1819 and I knew we had a note like that in the collection. So I got out my book and my magnifying glass and checked the note I had been sent with the one in he book about the museum which was published in the 1970s. It was the same note."
Watch: John Buckingham tell how Padstow Museum was reunited with a rare 1 note.
Mr Buckingham was aware the note had been reported as stolen from the museum in June 1984.
Read next: Minor injury units to be shut under 264million cost-cutting plan - but A&E will stay
"I have no idea who sent us the note back," he said. "There was return address. I did wonder if the person who stole it sent it back and because there was no covering letter you can't help but think it, but that would be just speculation.
The envelope containing the rare 1 note.
"I'm just very pleased that the note is back at the museum. I don't think it is worth very much, but it's important that it is back at the museum at last."
The note is a fascinating relic of Regency era Padstow and at the time would have been a sizeable sum of money when housemaids earned around 7 a year and unskilled labourers and fishermen in the harbour earned far less.
Read next: Cornwall's Hubbox has been given 3million investment to conquer the culinary world
But the note also charts the rise and fall of what was then one of the most powerful families in north Cornwall.
Thomas Rawlings had moved to Padstow from St Columb with his father the previous century and became a wealthy merchant, setting up his own bank and selling everything from hemp, to iron and timber.
John Buckingham with the Padstow Bank 1 note, now back at the Padstow Museum
As he moved up the social ladder, so his family demanded homes to reflect their standing in the community. One Rawlings home is now St Petroc's Hotel and Bistro, which is part of Rick Stein's empire in Padstow.
Read next: Watch the crazy moment a lorry overtakes four cars and tractor on a hill
By the time the bank note was printed in 1819, Rawlings had built a magnificent mansion, Saunders Hill, which was said to be second only in scale and importance to Prideaux Place, the Elizabethan manor house which still stands today.
A year later, Rawlings died and without his leadership the carefully nurtured business began to unravel and soon collapsed.
The opulent residence built by Thomas Rawlings. A car park now stands on the site.
Stylish Saunders Hill was said to have been bought by the owners of Prideaux Place, who demolished it and the site is now occupied by The Lawns car park.
However a potential glimpse into the past has recently appeared at tennis courts nearby where a hole in the ground is thought to have been caused by a ground subsiding into what where the old cellars of Saunders Hill.
The note will be available to view when Padstow Museum reopens at Easter.
Read next: all the news from around Cornwall
More here:
Mysterious return from the Caribbean of stolen rare 200 year-old ... - Cornwall Live