"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Thursday, August 22, 2019
It Makes Sense To Replace Trump With Bernie-- And More Democrats Are Realizing That
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G. Elliott Morris, a data journalist for The Economist who covers their polls, wrote that the new national polling of the Democrats' primary elections in 2020 from YouGov shows some significant movement in the last month-- primarily away from Biden and towards Bernie. In parentheses are the changes among Democratic primary voters from last month:
• Status Quo Joe: 22% (-3) • Bernie: 19 (+6) • Elizabeth Warren: 17 (-1) • Kamala: 8 (-1) • Mayo Pete: 7 (+1) • Beto: 3 (+1)
Wednesday morning, Chuck Todd and team wrote something for NBC News that we have mostly all figured out already. "It’s Year 3 of Donald Trump’s presidency, and his behavior in office isn’t getting better.
Instead, it’s getting worse... This is no way to run a country... Everyone who works in Washington knows this. Staff members at the White House know this. Top officials inside the Republican Party know this. Yet here we are." One reason he's getting worse? He's been told a recession is inevitable and he fears what that will do to his already cratered and cratering electability. James Hohmann wrote for the Washington Post yesterday that Trump's constant flow of "erratic, contradictory pronouncements induce whiplash. They’re also de rigueur in this administration. This is a feature, not a bug, of Trumpism. During his first 928 days in office, Trump made more than 12,000 demonstrably false or misleading claims. Our Fact Checker has documented them in a database… There are dozens of separate examples of the president’s spokespeople-- predating Gidley and Grisham-- saying something adamantly, only to have the president cut their legs out from under them later in the day. Why would you take anything they or the president say at face value? This behavior is riskier in challenging economic times. When the business cycle turns, the wherewithal of our system depends on people having as much confidence and certainty as possible. Trump and his White House flacks inspire neither feelings of confidence nor certainty. Trump’s penchant for contradicting himself and his aides, as well as changing his mind hastily, which together fuel the credibility gap, would be problematic in a financial crisis. Investors want a steady hand on the ship of state’s tiller. That’s how you prevent runs on the banks, freefalls in the stock market and freezes in business investment."
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal Kate Davidson had more economic news for Trump that would further unhinge him, that his reckless, irresponsible policies are causing deficits to rise faster and deeper than anyone expected. "The agency increased its forecasts for deficits over the next decade by $809 billion, to $12.2 trillion, in updated budget projections released Wednesday. The increase primarily reflects higher federal spending under the new budget deal, partly offset by lower projected interest rates. CBO said the new agreement, which increased spending roughly $320 billion over the next two years above previously enacted spending caps, will add roughly $1.7 trillion to deficits between 2020 and 2029. That reflects CBO’s assumption that federal spending will continue to grow at the rate of inflation after 2021... Overall, CBO said government debt as a share of the economy is expected to rise from 79% this year to 95% in 2029-- up from 92% when the agency released its 10-year forecasts in May." Trump was looking for the Greenland purchase to be his legacy, not this.
“The nation’s fiscal outlook is challenging,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said. “To put it on a sustainable course, lawmakers will have to make significant changes to tax and spending policies-- making revenues larger than they would be under current law, reducing spending below projected accounts, or adopting some combination of those approaches.” Lawmakers have shown little appetite, however, for reining in federal spending or raising taxes, and investors are unfazed by the government red ink. The latest projections come as White House officials are considering potential stimulus measures that would help cushion the U.S. economy from a potential downturn but would likely add billions more to government debt. Risks of a deepening economic downturn appear to be rising abroad and could be spreading to the U.S. economy. ...[D]eficits as a share of the economy have been rising in recent years despite an uptick in economic output, and annual deficits are on track to eclipse $1 trillion in fiscal 2019, which ends Sept. 30. Although government receipts have begun to pick up 18 months after the 2017 tax cuts took effect, they haven’t kept pace with rising federal spending or broader economic growth. The Treasury Department said last month it expects to borrow more than $1 trillion for the second year in a row.
And that ain't all-- on every foreign policy front he's been equally undependable and... well... deplorable. Yesterday, reported Nikolaj Skydsgaard for Reuters, "Danes voiced shock and disbelief" when Trump cancelled his state visit to their country after his absurd proposal to take over Greenland was turned down flat. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, a center-left Social Democrat was defended across the entire Danish political spectrum, even by the Trumpest neo-fascist People's Party. Another opposition party leader, Morten Ostergaard, of the conservative Social Liberal Party said Trump's behavior "shows why we now more than ever should consider (fellow) European Union countries as our closest allies. The man is unpredictable. Reality surpasses imagination." Democratic voters who are looking for a real antidote to Trumpism are increasingly turning to Bernie. He's running on a platform that would require the wealthy to start paying their fair share-- which is extremely popular-- and to stop wasting money on ineffective policies and expensive vanity projects that defines Trump's 3 years in office. Bernie's plans are the real pro-growth kinds of investments-- in education, health, infrastructure, housing, etc-- that build a strong and more equitable country. That 6 point uptick is not just some kind of quirk.
Still Looking For A Legacy Beyond "The Worst President In History," Trump Wants To Buy Greenland
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With the glaciers melting, maybe Fatty envisions opening a golf resort
Trump seems to be catching on that a Great Wall of China along the southern border, viewable from space, is not going to be his legacy, so... reported the Wall Street Journal's Vivian Salama Thursday, he decided to try for an Alaska-type acquisition for his shaky legacy-- or a modern day Louisiana Purchase. "Trump," she wrote, "made his name on the world’s most famous island. Now he wants to buy the world’s biggest. The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer’s imagination, according to people familiar with the deliberations, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea." The U.S. tried, unsuccessfully, to buy Greenland in 1867 and then again in 1946, when Truman offered the Danes 100 million for it.
Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it was a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination that will never come to fruition. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort were serious. With a population of about 56,000, Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen. Mr. Trump is scheduled to make his first visit to Denmark early next month, although the visit is unrelated, these people said. U.S. officials view Greenland as important to American national-security interests. A decades-old defense treaty between Denmark and the U.S. gives the U.S. military virtually unlimited rights in Greenland at America’s northernmost base, Thule Air Base. Located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it includes a radar station that is part of a U.S. ballistic missile early-warning system. The base is also used by the U.S. Air Force Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The U.S. has sought to derail Chinese efforts to gain an economic foothold in Greenland. The Pentagon worked successfully in 2018 to block China from financing three airports on the island. ...Though it has vast natural resources across its 811,000 square miles, Greenland relies on $591 million of subsidies from Denmark annually, which make up about 60% of its annual budget, according to U.S. and Danish government statistics.
On Thursday, when the news broke in the U.S., everyone in Denmark was fast asleep. When they woke up this morning, Danish politicians heaped scorn on the idea. Even the right-wing People's Party, which is aligned with Trump's brand of fascism, was openly disdainful. Their foreign affairs spokesman, Soren Espersen, said in a radio interview earlier today that "If it is true that he has those thoughts, then it is definitive proof that he has gone crazy. I must say it as it is: The idea that Denmark should sell 50,000 citizens to the United States is completely insane." According to Reuters, Danish politicians poured scorn on the idea. Former prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen: "It must be an April Fool’s joke... but totally out of season." Politicians in Greenland were equally contemptuous of the idea. Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a member of the Danish Parliament from Greenland: "I am sure a majority in Greenland believes it is better to have a relation to Denmark than the United States, in the long term. My immediate thought is 'No, thank you.'" Rufus Gifford was the U.S. ambassador to Denmark while Obama was president. (Trump has replaced him with Carla Sands, big-time GOP campaign contributor and Trump bundler, a prominent California real estate agent, former actress (The Bold And The Beautiful and The Deathstalkers and the Warriors From Hell) and chiropractor, who holds a degree from Life Chiropractic College in a Hayward, California.) Ambassador Gifford-- though not Carla-- was active on Twitter yesterday:
Congress Should Not Be Self-Regulatory-- Especially Not When It Comes To Determining What Is And What Is Not A Bribe
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The Subcommittee on Health-- the members
This morning I was on David Feldman's radio show and people were happy I had shown the connection between committee chairman and immense bribery flows from special interests the day before. OK, let me follow up on that a bit then. Let me go back to the crucially important House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired, starting in a couple of weeks, by corrupt New Jersey machine hack Frank Pallone. Energy and Commerce has its fingers in a lot of pies-- as does the incoming chairman, Frank Pallone. This cycle his 5 biggest contributing sectors were sectors his committee writes legislation for:
• Health- $724,700 • Communications/Electronics- $333,451 • Finance- $214,450 • Labor- $187,525 • Energy and Natural Resources- $178,199
His biggest industries this cycle were health professionals, Pharmaceuticals and Telecom services, industries he will be writing legislation for in the next Congress. but career-long, this is what he's gotten from the sectors that are most eagle to influence him:
• Health- $6,067,900, the most of any member of the House, past or present! • Communications/Electronics- $1,536,862 • Finance- $2,179,885 • Labor- $2,891,945 • Energy and Natural Resources- $862,516
I think I moved away from that $6,067,900 number too fast. Int deserves more attention-- and not just because of Pallone. According to its own website, "the Energy and Commerce Committee has the broadest jurisdiction of any authorizing committee in Congress. It legislates on a wide variety of issues, including:
• health care, including mental health and substance abuse • health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid • biomedical research and development • food, drug, device and cosmetic safety • environmental protection • clean air and climate change • safe drinking water • toxic chemicals and hazardous waste • national energy policy • renewable energy and conservation • nuclear facilities • electronic communications and the internet • broadcast and cable television • privacy, cybersecurity and data security • consumer protection and product safety • motor vehicle safety • travel, tourism and sports • interstate and foreign commerce
Since I have the PhRMA contributions broken down by member, courtesy of the Kaiser Health News-- and because pharmaceutical policy is so important for the committee and for tens of millions of Americans-- let's take a look at what kind of money from PhRMA comes flowing into the accounts of the members of the committee that write the legislation that impacts it. First the Republicans, who still run the committee for another couple of weeks. They are listed in order of seniority, starting with (outgoing) chairman Greg Walden and outgoing vice-chairman Joe Barton (followed by former chairman Fred Upton). The bolden names indicate members of the committee who are also members of the subcommittee on health. It's hard to miss this eye-popping bribes that have been showered on these ladies and gentlemen.
I suspect that when Alexandria Ocasio made that statement above, she had incoming chairman Pallone in mind, perhaps because he has been working furiously to sabotage the creation of a GreenNewDeal Select Committee, or-- at the very least-- working to make sure it has no real power. It's his turf and keeping that turf brings him immense amounts of money and the power that attends money. So... here are the Democrats on the committee, again, in order of seniority. And, again, the members of the subcommittee on health are bolded. I do want to especially call 3 members to your attention who agree with Ocasio that when you're working on legislation for a particular industry, you do not take contributions from that industry: Jan Schakowsky, Kathy Castor and John Sarbanes.
•Frank Pallone (D-NJ)- $840,700 • Bobby Rush (D-IL)- $14,000 •Anna Eshoo (D-CA)- $686,100 •Eliot Engel (D-NY)- $184,500 • [Gene Green (D-TX)]- $293,565] •Diana DeGette (D-CO)- $455,659 • Mike Doyle (D-PA)- $65,000 •Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)- $4,500 •GK Butterfield (D-NC)- $346,985 •Doris Matsui (D-CA)- $211,700 •Kathy Castor (D-FL)- $15,000 •John Sarbanes (D-MD)- 0 • Jerry McNerney (D-CA)- $31,604 • Peter Welch (D-VT)- $55,000 •Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM)- $269,178 • Paul Tonko (D-NY)- $74,098 • Yvette Clarke (D-NY)- $70,000 • Dave Loebsack (D-IA)- $24,500 •Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)- $432,678 •Joe Kennedy (D-MA)- $216,494 •Tony Cárdenas (New Dem-CA)- $180,000 • Raul Ruiz (D-CA)- $138,262 • Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $311,500 • Debbie Dingell (D-MI)- $31,000
A little tangent will take us to the Senate for a minute and then we'll be back to the House. On Monday, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to Republican leaders of three Senate committees with jurisdiction over drug pricing issues, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Finance Committee Chairman-designate Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Judiciary Committee Chairman-designate Lindsey Graham (R-SC), calling for them to open investigations and hold hearings on allegations of price fixing behavior by generic drug manufacturers. She was reacting to a Washington Post report about allegations of price-fixing activities by generic drug manufacturers that one expert described as "most likely the largest cartel in the history of the United States." According to these reports, "What started as an antitrust lawsuit brought by states over just two drugs in 2016 has exploded into an investigation of alleged price-fixing involving at least 16 companies and 300 drugs."
These allegations, if true, may help explain the numerous and increasingly troubling reports in recent years of rapid and unexplained price increases for generic drugs. While generic drugs have helped dramatically curbed healthcare expenditures, and are generally significantly less expensive than their branded counterparts, reported price spikes of 600%, 1000%, or more are profoundly troubling, and cause immense harm to patients in need. The GAO in 2016 reported that over 300 generic drugs sold under the Medicare Part D program had at least one "extraordinary" price spike of over 100% in the five-year period from 2010-2015. But evidence also suggests that generic drug markets are plagued by anti-consumer behavior and anti-competitive features that go far beyond high-profile price hikes of individual products. The industry is characterized by substantial consolidation: forty percent of generic drugs are now made by only one company, and the majority are made by one or two companies. "If the allegations of price-fixing are true, they affect millions of Americans who purchase prescription drugs. The investigation should include the impact of such behavior on the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the Affordable Care Act, and the private health insurance market, as well as potential shortcomings in antitrust law and antitrust enforcement, and in the laws governing generic and biosimilar drug competition," wrote Senator Warren. "All of these issues are within your Committees jurisdiction, and Congress has a responsibility to investigate these concerns and legislate if necessary.
The bicameral bill to address this was written by Warren and House Energy and Commerce Committee member (one of the clean ones), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Remember, we mentioned above she's on the health subcommittee and does not take contributions from the Industrial Medical Complex. Their legislation, the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, would:
• Lower prices, increase competition, and address shortages in the market for prescription drugs through a newly established Office of Drug Manufacturing within HHS; • Authorize the Office to manufacture generic drugs under these key conditions, where competition is lacking:
◦ No company is manufacturing the drug; ◦ Only one or two companies produce the drug, and the price has spiked or the drug is in shortage; ◦ Only one or two companies produce the drug, the price is a barrier to patient access, and the drug is listed as an “essential medicine” by the World Health Organization;
• Further authorize the Office to manufacture any drug that has been compulsorily licensed by the federal government; • Require the Office to begin production of generic insulin within one year of enactment; • Allow the Office to sell publicly-produced drugs at a fair price that covers manufacturing costs while taking into account the impact of price on patient access; • Improve the ability of new companies to enter the generic drug market by authorizing the public manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients; • Jump-start competition by directing the Office to offer to sell its manufacturing rights to any company that commits to keeping the product on the market at a fair price; • Reserve any revenue generated from the sale of publicly-manufactured drugs for the use of the Office, making the office self-sustaining.
Looks like stuff that would be popular, right? Don't count it becoming law-- certainly not with the current Senate or the current occupant of the White House. And with this House... we're talking about a lot of money here. Let's see what Chairman Pallone does with this bill. We have already seen how he's trying to destroy the GreenNewDeal-- basically a plan that would would generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within the next 10 years; upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings, and transportation infrastructure; increase energy efficiency; invest in green technology research and development; and provide training for jobs in the new green economy-- despite polling that shows 92% of Democratic voters and 64% of Republican voters want to see it move forward. That translates to 81% of registered voters saying they either support the plan.
Even a majority of self-described "conservative" Republicans back what the plan is attempting to accomplish. Yet, not a single Republican has signed on yet. So it isn't just Pallone, other turf-conscious chairmen and the Blue Dogs who oppose establishment of the select committee, but the GOP as well. The GOP doesn't get a vote. The Democrats decide this one on their own.
Back in the direction of health. Remember way back on Friday evening when a crackpot right-wing judge in Texas declared ObamaCare unconstitutional? And by morning, Señor Trumpanzee was celebrating. Republicans in Congress? Not so much... the dog had caught up with the car. So what happens next? I haven't herald many Republicans joining Trumpanzee in the celebration, despite the fact they had voted to repeal it literally dozens of times. They're very away that around 50 of their colleagues will not be back in Congress in January largely because of that opposition. Pelosi: "Republicans are fully responsible for this cruel decision and for the fear they have struck into millions of families across America who are now in danger of losing their health coverage." Hopefully this will finally lead Democrats towards what they should have done instead of ObamaCare: Medicare-For-All. 124 Democrats in the House have signed onto H.R. 676, the Medicare-For-All bill, including almost all the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee-- but not Pallone.
