#President Trump has time-and-again contended that his call to Ukraine's President Zelensky was "perfect." What this means is that in order for every call to a foreign leader to be "perfect" it must include a "favor" that is politically beneficial to Trump.
#When Mick Mulvaney described a quid pro quo between Ukraine's role in meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election and the freeze on military aid, he said this sort of thing happens all the time, and everyone should just "get over it." It is deeply troubling that Mulvaney is forecasting that every time Trump calls or meets with a foreign leader, it will involve a quid pro quo personally beneficial to Trump.
#Sen. Lindsey Graham is proving to be the master of the inane: He has said that: 1.) It is sad that Trump is going to be impeached due to one phone call, when Trump's entire tenure in office has been chuck-a-block with instances of abuse of power; 2.) He has said that he is not going to read any transcripts related to the impeachment; and 3.) He has vowed to shut down the impeachment proceedings in the Senate before they begin.
#Trump contends that he was interested in rooting out corruption in Ukraine; however there is no public record of him taking any action to root out corruption in that country. There is abundant evidence that he has been trying to corrupt a very inexperienced Ukraine leader.
#The GOP is trying to make a point that Trump did not mention freezing military aid in the July 25 call. The White House initially announced that the aid would be released on February 28, and then reasserted the release on May 23. In mid-July, President Trump directed acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to attribute the freeze to an "interagency process." Mulvaney then passed the word to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). High OMB officials have confirmed that the directive came from Trump, but no reason was given for the freeze. Once more, a deputy Defense Department official centrally involved in the dispersal of appropriated funds, has testified that Ukraine officials she was in contact with, were flummoxed by the withholding of the military aid.
#The GOP has made a big case that the first whistleblower (WB) did not have first-hand knowledge of the July 25 phone call, not only does the lawyer for the first WB have as a client a second WB with first-hand knowledge, but two major witnesses -- Lt. Col. Alexander Vineland, a National Security Council official, and Tim Morrison, another National Security Council official -- listened to the July 25 call.
#Rep. Jim Jordan wanted to have Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, testify in public because he had said in a December 9 text message that there was no quid pro quo. Later, Sondland admitted that he did not have independent knowledge, but was merely repeating what Trump had instructed him to say. Then, Sondland said his memory had been "refreshed" and he said that "everything" was conditioned on the Ukraine government publicly announcing the opening of the two demanded investigations.
#A big talking point for the GOP is that impeachment would nullify the 2016 election of Trump. Any impeachment of a president would nullify the prior election of a president. The impeachment clause in the Constitution would become a dead letter. Since a Justice Department memo says that a sitting president can't be tried in a court of law, and an elected president can't be impeached, this nation that rebelled against the rule of a British king, would have established a U.S. king totally above the law.
#The "three amigos," Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker and Rick Perry, head of the Department of Energy, tried to dissuade Trump from his position on Ukraine, but were unsuccessful.
#A member of the GOP House leadership, Rep. Steve Scalise, has compared the House investigative committee hearings as Soviet-style in nature. Scalise doesn't seem to understand the Soviet "show" trials of the 1930s usually resulted in the execution of those convicted, or being sent away to hard labor in the Siberian Gulag.
#When the GOP got the public hearings they had been demanding, they unanimously voted against them. The GOP lawmakers said in effect, that it was "too little, too late." The GOP claim that the Democrats were being unfair to Trump should have been washed away by the fact that the rules voted into being on October 31 essentially adopted the GOP rules adopted in 2015. The charge of unfairness to Trump is ludicrous when one considers the law-breaking he has allowed to get away with; the democratic norms he has trampled; and the severe damage he has done to the checks and balances structure of the U.S. government by stonewalling on documents and witnesses.
#In June, President Trump ordered John Bolton and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to conduct a policy review; however, John C. Rood, the undersecretary for defense, had already sent a letter to congressional committees in May -- including the committee chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley -- to give assurance that the "Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance."
#May 7 may become an important day in the Ukraine scandal, as The New York Times has cited three sources in describing a meeting largely devoted to discussing an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company, on whose board Hunter Biden served. How and why did Burisma come up when it had been investigated long before?
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
History of Impeachment
I. History of Impeachment
"Impeachment is an ancient relic, a rusty legal instrument and political weapon first specified by the English Parliament, in 1376, to wrest power from the King by charging his ministers with abuses of power, convicting them, removing them from office,and throwing them in prison." "After conducting at least ten impeachments between 1376 and 1450, Parliament didn't impeach anyone for more than a hundred and seventy years, partly because Parliament met only when the King summoned it, and, if Parliament was going to impeach his ministers, he'd show them by never summoning it, unless he really had to, as when he needed to levy taxes." [1]
"Steeped in the lore of Parliament's seventeenth-century battles with the Stuarts, men like Adams considered the right of impeachment to be one of the fundamental rights of Enlightenment." "All four of the original plans for a new constitution allowed for Presidential impeachment." "Some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the men chosen, the Virginia delegate George Mason said: "An impeachment offense is an abuse of the power of the office that violates the public trust, and runs counter to the national interest, and undermines the Republic."
"Nothing in American history, from the founding of the earliest colonies, suggests that an impeachable offense has to be an indictable crime." Johnson's acquittal also elevated the Presidency by making impeachment seem doomed."
"The impeachment of an American President is certain to lead to no end of political mischief and almost certain to fail. Still, worse could happen. Heaven forbid this Republic should become one man's kingdom."
II. Family Court, and Police Domestic Violence
"In the ninety-nineties, researchers found that forty-one per cent of male [police] officers admitted that in the previous year, they'd been physically aggressive toward their spouses, and nearly ten per cent acknowledged choking strangling, or using -- or threatening to use -- a knife or a gun." "The Citizens Police Data Project, in Chicago, analyzed the records of Chicago cops between 2000 and 2016 and found that officers accused of domestic abuse received fifty per cent more complaints than their colleagues for using excessive force." [2]
III. Merit Badges
"Research shows that the more selective a college admissions process, the greater the economic value of the degree. The narrower the entryway, the broader the range of opportunities on the other side." "Taxpayers spend a hundred and forty-eight billion dollars a year to support higher education through subsidies and grants." [3]
"Today, fifty-six per cent of students are classified as non-Hispanic and forty-two per cent of students are male." "In a survey conducted in 2014, fifty-five per cent of Americans identified as lower class or working class." "Since 1998, the average score of students whose parents are well-educated has increased by five points, while the average score of students whose parents have only an associates' (two-year college) college degree has dropped by twenty-seven points. It turns out that the SAT is, in fact, the friend of privilege." "According to the Harvard economist Raj Chetty, children whose parents are in the top one per cent of the income distribution --roughly 1.6 million households -- are seventy-seven times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than children who are in the bottom income quintile (about twenty-five million households.)"
"The educated elite has become a self-perpetuating caste, drilling its children in the rituals of meritocratic advancement and walling itself off from the world of the average American." Steven Brint, in 'Two Cheers for Higher Education,' says that the average appropriation per student in public institutions declined by twenty per cent between 1990 and 2015." "There are sixty thousand undergraduates in Ivy League colleges."
"As a polity, we are in a bizarre place were workers whose lives and prospects have been damaged by the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth and income have helped bring to power a government whose most significant legislative accomplishment is the passage of a tax law that effectively redistributes wealth upwards."
ADDENDUM:
*About three billion people around the world cook on open fires. "Billions of people live in these parts of the world, and many of them are considered 'last mile' -- beyond the last mile of road..." "There are at least fourteen thousand solar cookers already in Haiti." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jill Lepore, "You're Fired," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Rachel Oniv, "Show of Force," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[3] Louis Menard, "Merit Badges," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[4] Ian Frajir, "Brave New World," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
"Impeachment is an ancient relic, a rusty legal instrument and political weapon first specified by the English Parliament, in 1376, to wrest power from the King by charging his ministers with abuses of power, convicting them, removing them from office,and throwing them in prison." "After conducting at least ten impeachments between 1376 and 1450, Parliament didn't impeach anyone for more than a hundred and seventy years, partly because Parliament met only when the King summoned it, and, if Parliament was going to impeach his ministers, he'd show them by never summoning it, unless he really had to, as when he needed to levy taxes." [1]
"Steeped in the lore of Parliament's seventeenth-century battles with the Stuarts, men like Adams considered the right of impeachment to be one of the fundamental rights of Enlightenment." "All four of the original plans for a new constitution allowed for Presidential impeachment." "Some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the men chosen, the Virginia delegate George Mason said: "An impeachment offense is an abuse of the power of the office that violates the public trust, and runs counter to the national interest, and undermines the Republic."
"Nothing in American history, from the founding of the earliest colonies, suggests that an impeachable offense has to be an indictable crime." Johnson's acquittal also elevated the Presidency by making impeachment seem doomed."
"The impeachment of an American President is certain to lead to no end of political mischief and almost certain to fail. Still, worse could happen. Heaven forbid this Republic should become one man's kingdom."
II. Family Court, and Police Domestic Violence
"In the ninety-nineties, researchers found that forty-one per cent of male [police] officers admitted that in the previous year, they'd been physically aggressive toward their spouses, and nearly ten per cent acknowledged choking strangling, or using -- or threatening to use -- a knife or a gun." "The Citizens Police Data Project, in Chicago, analyzed the records of Chicago cops between 2000 and 2016 and found that officers accused of domestic abuse received fifty per cent more complaints than their colleagues for using excessive force." [2]
III. Merit Badges
"Research shows that the more selective a college admissions process, the greater the economic value of the degree. The narrower the entryway, the broader the range of opportunities on the other side." "Taxpayers spend a hundred and forty-eight billion dollars a year to support higher education through subsidies and grants." [3]
"Today, fifty-six per cent of students are classified as non-Hispanic and forty-two per cent of students are male." "In a survey conducted in 2014, fifty-five per cent of Americans identified as lower class or working class." "Since 1998, the average score of students whose parents are well-educated has increased by five points, while the average score of students whose parents have only an associates' (two-year college) college degree has dropped by twenty-seven points. It turns out that the SAT is, in fact, the friend of privilege." "According to the Harvard economist Raj Chetty, children whose parents are in the top one per cent of the income distribution --roughly 1.6 million households -- are seventy-seven times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than children who are in the bottom income quintile (about twenty-five million households.)"
"The educated elite has become a self-perpetuating caste, drilling its children in the rituals of meritocratic advancement and walling itself off from the world of the average American." Steven Brint, in 'Two Cheers for Higher Education,' says that the average appropriation per student in public institutions declined by twenty per cent between 1990 and 2015." "There are sixty thousand undergraduates in Ivy League colleges."
"As a polity, we are in a bizarre place were workers whose lives and prospects have been damaged by the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth and income have helped bring to power a government whose most significant legislative accomplishment is the passage of a tax law that effectively redistributes wealth upwards."
ADDENDUM:
*About three billion people around the world cook on open fires. "Billions of people live in these parts of the world, and many of them are considered 'last mile' -- beyond the last mile of road..." "There are at least fourteen thousand solar cookers already in Haiti." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jill Lepore, "You're Fired," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Rachel Oniv, "Show of Force," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[3] Louis Menard, "Merit Badges," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
[4] Ian Frajir, "Brave New World," The New Yorker, September 30, 2019.
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Marshals' Law, and Trump's Abuse of Power
I. Marshals' Law
In fiscal year 2018, the U.S. Marshals "held nearly 240,000 people facing federal criminal charges." "The Marshals run the vast pretrial detention system without owning or operating any jails. Instead, the agency houses its detainees in about 1,100 jails and private facilities around the country." "About two-thirds of all prosecutions between October 2018 and April 2019, were related to immigration crimes, including many of the people swept up in Trump's 'zero tolerance' border policy." [1]
Between June 2016 and June 2019, data shows that 158 people died while in Marshals' detention, and hundreds more died in the preceding five years. "Suicide took the lives of at least 47 of the 158 detainees who died in the three-year period for which we have records. But the Marshals appear to have done little to ensure that the county jails they contract with implementing stringent suicide prevention measures" [are followed]. Of the 250 annual audits that Seth Freed Wessler's team analyzed, at least 10 (some at the same facilities), indicate potential medical [problems] ; 45 show extraordinary numbers of prisoner assaults -- in one case, 869 in a single facility. In California's Fresno County Jail, in a single year, at least 11 cases show noncompliance with mandated rape-prevention policies; and also show attempted suicide rates of nearly 1 in every 20 detainees. But there appear to be no consequences. "In one facility, a Marshals' inspector noted there had not been a single suicide attempt in 2018, while a separate federal report noted there had been dozens of attempts."
II. From Russia to Ukraine
"Trump compounded Barr's distortions by publicly and endlessly repeating that the [Mueller] report found 'no collusion, no obstructions' " "It's appropriate to note, as well, that in the Ukrainian chapter, Trump has done Putin's bidding, to the extent that he can, going so far as to embrace a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign.' " "Trump wants no part of conflict with Putin, but the aid package tied his hands." [2]
"Trump is currently surrounded by people like Barr and Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who are willing to debase their offices to indulge Trump's abuse of power." "One way of looking at Trump's evolution from candidate to President, from Mueller's time to Schiff''s, is that his abuses are accelerating, with each unpunished act serving as a license for more."
ADDENDUM: * The Washington "Post" editorial board as accused Trump of trying to extort the Ukrainian government.
Footnotes:
[1] Seth Freed Wessler, "Marshals' Law," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.
[2] Jeffrey Toobin, "From Russia to Ukraine," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
In fiscal year 2018, the U.S. Marshals "held nearly 240,000 people facing federal criminal charges." "The Marshals run the vast pretrial detention system without owning or operating any jails. Instead, the agency houses its detainees in about 1,100 jails and private facilities around the country." "About two-thirds of all prosecutions between October 2018 and April 2019, were related to immigration crimes, including many of the people swept up in Trump's 'zero tolerance' border policy." [1]
Between June 2016 and June 2019, data shows that 158 people died while in Marshals' detention, and hundreds more died in the preceding five years. "Suicide took the lives of at least 47 of the 158 detainees who died in the three-year period for which we have records. But the Marshals appear to have done little to ensure that the county jails they contract with implementing stringent suicide prevention measures" [are followed]. Of the 250 annual audits that Seth Freed Wessler's team analyzed, at least 10 (some at the same facilities), indicate potential medical [problems] ; 45 show extraordinary numbers of prisoner assaults -- in one case, 869 in a single facility. In California's Fresno County Jail, in a single year, at least 11 cases show noncompliance with mandated rape-prevention policies; and also show attempted suicide rates of nearly 1 in every 20 detainees. But there appear to be no consequences. "In one facility, a Marshals' inspector noted there had not been a single suicide attempt in 2018, while a separate federal report noted there had been dozens of attempts."
II. From Russia to Ukraine
"Trump compounded Barr's distortions by publicly and endlessly repeating that the [Mueller] report found 'no collusion, no obstructions' " "It's appropriate to note, as well, that in the Ukrainian chapter, Trump has done Putin's bidding, to the extent that he can, going so far as to embrace a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign.' " "Trump wants no part of conflict with Putin, but the aid package tied his hands." [2]
"Trump is currently surrounded by people like Barr and Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who are willing to debase their offices to indulge Trump's abuse of power." "One way of looking at Trump's evolution from candidate to President, from Mueller's time to Schiff''s, is that his abuses are accelerating, with each unpunished act serving as a license for more."
ADDENDUM: * The Washington "Post" editorial board as accused Trump of trying to extort the Ukrainian government.
Footnotes:
[1] Seth Freed Wessler, "Marshals' Law," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.
[2] Jeffrey Toobin, "From Russia to Ukraine," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
Monday, November 4, 2019
Diet Recommendations, Abortion "Undue Burden", Diversity Failures
#Diet Recommendations - Conscious "knowledge is not in itself enough to change behavior, and why public health initiatives that educate people about healthy choice tend to fail. In 1991, the National Cancer Institute determined that only eight per cent of Americans were aware of the recommendations to eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables daily." "In 2007, government officials tried again, launching a program called Fruits & Veggies. Even so, by 2018 only twelve per cent of Americans ate the recommended two servings of fruit daily, and only nine per cent ate three servings of vegetables." [1]
"The path to breaking bad habits lies not in resolve, but in restructering our environment in ways that sustain good behaviors."
#"Undue Burden" Shift - "In 2016, the court reversed the Texas case involving admitting privileges in a 5-3 decision, saying reducing the pool of doctors permitted to conduct the procedures exerted an 'undue burden' on a woman's right to have an abortion." A Georgetown law professor believes that if the Supreme Court upholds the lower-court ruling, it will send the message that states are free to expand abortion restrictions beyond what was previously considered constitutional, and that "if you change the political composition of the court, you can change constitutional rights." "To uphold Louisiana's restrictions on abortion, they would have to highlight how the facts of each case are unique, or else find that they got something wrong in the previous verdict. Otherwise they would risk creating the impression that the rule of law shifts with different Presidents." [2]
#Diversity Developments - "A 2019 survey of 234 companies in the S&P 500 found that 63% of the diversity professionals had been appointed or promoted to their roles during the past three years." "From 1985 to 2016, the promotion of black law partners inched up from 1.7% to 1.8%. The proportion of black men in management at U.S. companies with 100 or more employees barely budged -- from 3% to 3.2%." [3]
"A 2018 survey of the 15 largest public fashion and apparel companies found that nonwhites held only 11% of board seats and that nearly three quarters of company CEOs were white men. And in the top 200 film releases of 2017, minorities accounted for 7.8% of writers, 12.6% of directors, and 19.8% of lead roles." In higher education, in the fall of 2017, 81% of full-time professors at degree-granting postsecondary schools were white. just 3% were Hispanics, and 4% were black.
#Methane Regulation Gone - "On August 29, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler proposed to eliminate direct regulation of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas." "In New Mexico, this would mean that 4,700 new and existing oil and gas wells would no longer have to reduce their methane emissions, endangering our climate and our families' health. Methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, but it disappears from the atmosphere much faster when emissions are reduced." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jerome Grooesman, "The Resistance," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Sanya Mansoor, "How could Louisiana's SCOTUS..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[3] Pamela Newkirk, "Diversity has become..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[4] Camilla Feibelman, "US moves back..." Grande Sierra, October/November/December 2019.
"The path to breaking bad habits lies not in resolve, but in restructering our environment in ways that sustain good behaviors."
#"Undue Burden" Shift - "In 2016, the court reversed the Texas case involving admitting privileges in a 5-3 decision, saying reducing the pool of doctors permitted to conduct the procedures exerted an 'undue burden' on a woman's right to have an abortion." A Georgetown law professor believes that if the Supreme Court upholds the lower-court ruling, it will send the message that states are free to expand abortion restrictions beyond what was previously considered constitutional, and that "if you change the political composition of the court, you can change constitutional rights." "To uphold Louisiana's restrictions on abortion, they would have to highlight how the facts of each case are unique, or else find that they got something wrong in the previous verdict. Otherwise they would risk creating the impression that the rule of law shifts with different Presidents." [2]
#Diversity Developments - "A 2019 survey of 234 companies in the S&P 500 found that 63% of the diversity professionals had been appointed or promoted to their roles during the past three years." "From 1985 to 2016, the promotion of black law partners inched up from 1.7% to 1.8%. The proportion of black men in management at U.S. companies with 100 or more employees barely budged -- from 3% to 3.2%." [3]
"A 2018 survey of the 15 largest public fashion and apparel companies found that nonwhites held only 11% of board seats and that nearly three quarters of company CEOs were white men. And in the top 200 film releases of 2017, minorities accounted for 7.8% of writers, 12.6% of directors, and 19.8% of lead roles." In higher education, in the fall of 2017, 81% of full-time professors at degree-granting postsecondary schools were white. just 3% were Hispanics, and 4% were black.
#Methane Regulation Gone - "On August 29, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler proposed to eliminate direct regulation of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas." "In New Mexico, this would mean that 4,700 new and existing oil and gas wells would no longer have to reduce their methane emissions, endangering our climate and our families' health. Methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, but it disappears from the atmosphere much faster when emissions are reduced." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] Jerome Grooesman, "The Resistance," The New Yorker, October 28, 2019.
[2] Sanya Mansoor, "How could Louisiana's SCOTUS..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[3] Pamela Newkirk, "Diversity has become..." TIME, October 21-28, 2019.
[4] Camilla Feibelman, "US moves back..." Grande Sierra, October/November/December 2019.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Drug Treatment Facilities and Abortion Restrictions
I. Drug Treatment Facilities
"South Florida -- the densely populated area comprising Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties -- has four hundred and seventy-eight licensed facilities for drug treatment." "In 1986, there were approximately seven thousand treatment facilities for substance abuse in the U.S.; today, there are at least fifteen thousand, a figure that doesn't include most sober homes. In the same period, the addiction treatment industry's revenue rose from nine billion dollars to more than fifty billion dollars." [1]
"In 1999, seventeen-thousand Americans died from drug overdoses. In 2017, more than seventy- thousand Americans did: a death count exceeding that at the height of the AIDS crisis." "A patient tested three times a week could generate twenty thousand dollars a month." "The competition for well-insured patients veers into what's known as patient-brokering. The Florida Patient Brokering Act prohibits people and health care facilities from offering any kind of 'commission, bonus, rebate, kickback, or bribe, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind,' in exchange for patient referrals.' "
"Many patient-brokers pick up young drug users from the street." "Federal authorities charged a hundred and twenty-four people in South Florida alone, and dozens of sober homes were shut down." "Most young addicts I knew didn't get funerals with a viewing; they were burned to bits in furnaces, and, as others thrown into the ocean or tossed to the wind from a mountaintop."
II. Restricting Abortion
"Abortion had been decriminalized in 1972, with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, but, with the passage in 1977 of the Hyde Amendment which banned federal funding for almost all abortions, the procedure had become too expensive for many women." "In Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington state, court judges reduced prior sentences if they [the patients] agreed to get birth-control shots or implants." "That year, ARG Southwest gave funding and assistance to about fifty women each month; it now serves more than three hundred a month. The average cost of an abortion is around five hundred dollars." [2]
"Abortion in Georgia is legal up to the twentieth week of pregnancy, and fourteen of the state's clinics are in the Atlanta area." "In South Carolina, there are just three abortion clinics." More than half of the South Carolina women who had abortions in 2017 traveled outside the state for their procedures."
ADDENDUMS:
*President Barshar al-Assad gained more territory in one day than he had in years of fighting Syria's civil war.
*In addition to freezing military aid, the White House froze a separate $141 million aid package for Ukraine, which would have come from the State Department.
Footnotes:
[1] Colton Wootern, "The Florida Shuffle," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
[2] Alexia Okebcuo, "Radical Care," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
"South Florida -- the densely populated area comprising Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties -- has four hundred and seventy-eight licensed facilities for drug treatment." "In 1986, there were approximately seven thousand treatment facilities for substance abuse in the U.S.; today, there are at least fifteen thousand, a figure that doesn't include most sober homes. In the same period, the addiction treatment industry's revenue rose from nine billion dollars to more than fifty billion dollars." [1]
"In 1999, seventeen-thousand Americans died from drug overdoses. In 2017, more than seventy- thousand Americans did: a death count exceeding that at the height of the AIDS crisis." "A patient tested three times a week could generate twenty thousand dollars a month." "The competition for well-insured patients veers into what's known as patient-brokering. The Florida Patient Brokering Act prohibits people and health care facilities from offering any kind of 'commission, bonus, rebate, kickback, or bribe, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind,' in exchange for patient referrals.' "
"Many patient-brokers pick up young drug users from the street." "Federal authorities charged a hundred and twenty-four people in South Florida alone, and dozens of sober homes were shut down." "Most young addicts I knew didn't get funerals with a viewing; they were burned to bits in furnaces, and, as others thrown into the ocean or tossed to the wind from a mountaintop."
II. Restricting Abortion
"Abortion had been decriminalized in 1972, with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, but, with the passage in 1977 of the Hyde Amendment which banned federal funding for almost all abortions, the procedure had become too expensive for many women." "In Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington state, court judges reduced prior sentences if they [the patients] agreed to get birth-control shots or implants." "That year, ARG Southwest gave funding and assistance to about fifty women each month; it now serves more than three hundred a month. The average cost of an abortion is around five hundred dollars." [2]
"Abortion in Georgia is legal up to the twentieth week of pregnancy, and fourteen of the state's clinics are in the Atlanta area." "In South Carolina, there are just three abortion clinics." More than half of the South Carolina women who had abortions in 2017 traveled outside the state for their procedures."
ADDENDUMS:
*President Barshar al-Assad gained more territory in one day than he had in years of fighting Syria's civil war.
*In addition to freezing military aid, the White House froze a separate $141 million aid package for Ukraine, which would have come from the State Department.
Footnotes:
[1] Colton Wootern, "The Florida Shuffle," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
[2] Alexia Okebcuo, "Radical Care," The New Yorker, October 14, 2019.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Dirt Digger for President
Steve Coll, "Reason to Impeach," The New Yorker, October 7, 2019.
"Many features of Trumpism -- the cynical populism, the brazen readiness to profit from high office, the racist and nativist taunts -- have antecedents in American politics. But Donald Trump's open willingness to ask foreign governments to dig up dirt on political opponents has been an idiosyneratic aspect of his rise to power."
"Two bombshell documents made public [late in September] -- a record of a phone conversation between Trump and Voldymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's President, and a whistle-blower's complaint about that call -- fully justify House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision, announced [early this month], to open an official impeachment inquiry. The documents describe a breach of Trump's constitutional duties that is exceptional even in light of his record to date."
"The whistle-blower's complaint is one of the great artifacts to enter Washington's sizable archive of political malfeasance. In the second paragraph, its author distills Trump's offense with bracing clarity" "I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election."
"Since 2014, the Kiev government has been a ward of America and Europe, the potential for real or perceived conflicts of interest should have been apparent to both Bidens. Still, according to Ukrainian officials, no evidence of wrongdoing by either Hunter Biden or Zlochevsky has been found." (Mykola Zlochevsky is a Ukrainian oligarch, who controls Burisma Holdings, on whose board Hunter Biden sat.)
"In May, [Rudy] Giuliani announced that he would go to Kiev to urge the new government to investigate, among other subjects, the Bidens and alleged links between Ukraine and the Democrats. He would do so, he told the "Times," "because that information will be very, very helpful to my client."
"Around mid-July, according to the Washington "Post," Trump ordered his chief of staff to hold back four hundred million dollars in military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. Then, on July 25th,Trump had the phone call with Zelensky that all the world can now review."
ADDENDUMS:
*John Eisenberg, the White House's legal adviser on national security issues, moved the transcript of Trump's call to President Zelensky, to a classified server after the adviser on Ukraine for the National Security Council, Army Lt Co. Alexander Vineman, expressed concerns about what was said on the July 25th call.
*U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, pushed two Ukrainian officials to investigate Trump's political rivals. This was in a July 10th meeting.
Steve Coll, "Reason to Impeach," The New Yorker, October 7, 2019.
"Many features of Trumpism -- the cynical populism, the brazen readiness to profit from high office, the racist and nativist taunts -- have antecedents in American politics. But Donald Trump's open willingness to ask foreign governments to dig up dirt on political opponents has been an idiosyneratic aspect of his rise to power."
"Two bombshell documents made public [late in September] -- a record of a phone conversation between Trump and Voldymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's President, and a whistle-blower's complaint about that call -- fully justify House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision, announced [early this month], to open an official impeachment inquiry. The documents describe a breach of Trump's constitutional duties that is exceptional even in light of his record to date."
"The whistle-blower's complaint is one of the great artifacts to enter Washington's sizable archive of political malfeasance. In the second paragraph, its author distills Trump's offense with bracing clarity" "I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election."
"Since 2014, the Kiev government has been a ward of America and Europe, the potential for real or perceived conflicts of interest should have been apparent to both Bidens. Still, according to Ukrainian officials, no evidence of wrongdoing by either Hunter Biden or Zlochevsky has been found." (Mykola Zlochevsky is a Ukrainian oligarch, who controls Burisma Holdings, on whose board Hunter Biden sat.)
"In May, [Rudy] Giuliani announced that he would go to Kiev to urge the new government to investigate, among other subjects, the Bidens and alleged links between Ukraine and the Democrats. He would do so, he told the "Times," "because that information will be very, very helpful to my client."
"Around mid-July, according to the Washington "Post," Trump ordered his chief of staff to hold back four hundred million dollars in military aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress. Then, on July 25th,Trump had the phone call with Zelensky that all the world can now review."
ADDENDUMS:
*John Eisenberg, the White House's legal adviser on national security issues, moved the transcript of Trump's call to President Zelensky, to a classified server after the adviser on Ukraine for the National Security Council, Army Lt Co. Alexander Vineman, expressed concerns about what was said on the July 25th call.
*U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, pushed two Ukrainian officials to investigate Trump's political rivals. This was in a July 10th meeting.
Friday, November 1, 2019
Ivanka Trump Speaking Softly and Carrying a Big Schtick
One of the recurring story lines of the Trump era: Things are going off the rails, but never fear -- first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump is quietly working behind the scenes to be the least-awful member of the administration, details of which are conveniently leaked to the press:
February 2017: The New York Times reports that Ivanka and sidekick Jared Kushner "helped kill" an executive order rolling back LGBTQ protections.
April 2017: Politico reports that Ivanka has "quietly reached out to" Planned Parenthood as part of her "listening tour."
April 2017: Eric Trump tells the Telegraph that a "heart-broken and outraged " Ivanka pushed her father to launch missile strikes on Syria after a chemical attack.
May 2017: Ivanka, who Axios states is "passionate" about climate change, is said to be working behind the scenes to influence her father's decision to ditch the Paris climate deal.
June 2017: A US Weekly cover story trumpets that Ivanka "will always fight for what she believes in."
June 2018: CNN asserts that Ivanka "agrees with her father's sentiments that he hates the family separation issue and doesn't want it to occur" -- though she won't say anything about it publicly.
September 2018: An unnamed source tells Vanity Fair that Ivanka told her dad to pull his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
October 2018: The New York Times reports that only after "importuning" by Ivanka and Jared did the president speak out against anti-Semitism following a mass shooting at a synagogue.
April 2019: As Trump threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border, Jared pushes for immigration policies in line with his and Ivanka's "more moderate positions," Politico reports.
July 2019: An anonymous source tells CBS News that the president "took heat" from Ivanka after he let his supporters chant "send her back" at a rally.
August 2019: As Trump dithers, Ivanka reportedly has been "quietly calling" lawmakers to gauge their support for new gun laws.
September 2019: Yahoo News reports "rumors" that Ivanka and Jared have suggested replacing Vice President Mike Pence with a woman on the 2020 ticket. (Source: Inae Oh, "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Schtick," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*The State Department probe of Hillary Clinton's emails finds no deliberate mishandling of classified information.
*Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls pulling troops out of northern Syria a "grave strategic mistake."
*Trump calls acting ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor a Never Trumper.
*Randall Eliason, a professor of white-collar crime at George Washington University, says a likely charge for the quid pro quo in Ukraine could be bribery: demanding something in exchange for military aid.
*Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was fined $100,000 by a magistrate judge for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former Corinthian College students.
* U.S. Judge Christopher R. 'Casey' Cooper of the D.C. judicial circuit said he will order the State Department to begin releasing Ukraine-related documents in 30 days. The lawsuit was filed by the watchdog group, American Oversight.
February 2017: The New York Times reports that Ivanka and sidekick Jared Kushner "helped kill" an executive order rolling back LGBTQ protections.
April 2017: Politico reports that Ivanka has "quietly reached out to" Planned Parenthood as part of her "listening tour."
April 2017: Eric Trump tells the Telegraph that a "heart-broken and outraged " Ivanka pushed her father to launch missile strikes on Syria after a chemical attack.
May 2017: Ivanka, who Axios states is "passionate" about climate change, is said to be working behind the scenes to influence her father's decision to ditch the Paris climate deal.
June 2017: A US Weekly cover story trumpets that Ivanka "will always fight for what she believes in."
June 2018: CNN asserts that Ivanka "agrees with her father's sentiments that he hates the family separation issue and doesn't want it to occur" -- though she won't say anything about it publicly.
September 2018: An unnamed source tells Vanity Fair that Ivanka told her dad to pull his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
October 2018: The New York Times reports that only after "importuning" by Ivanka and Jared did the president speak out against anti-Semitism following a mass shooting at a synagogue.
April 2019: As Trump threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border, Jared pushes for immigration policies in line with his and Ivanka's "more moderate positions," Politico reports.
July 2019: An anonymous source tells CBS News that the president "took heat" from Ivanka after he let his supporters chant "send her back" at a rally.
August 2019: As Trump dithers, Ivanka reportedly has been "quietly calling" lawmakers to gauge their support for new gun laws.
September 2019: Yahoo News reports "rumors" that Ivanka and Jared have suggested replacing Vice President Mike Pence with a woman on the 2020 ticket. (Source: Inae Oh, "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Schtick," Mother Jones, November/December 2019.)
ADDENDUMS:
*The State Department probe of Hillary Clinton's emails finds no deliberate mishandling of classified information.
*Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls pulling troops out of northern Syria a "grave strategic mistake."
*Trump calls acting ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor a Never Trumper.
*Randall Eliason, a professor of white-collar crime at George Washington University, says a likely charge for the quid pro quo in Ukraine could be bribery: demanding something in exchange for military aid.
*Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was fined $100,000 by a magistrate judge for violating an order to stop collecting loan payments from former Corinthian College students.
* U.S. Judge Christopher R. 'Casey' Cooper of the D.C. judicial circuit said he will order the State Department to begin releasing Ukraine-related documents in 30 days. The lawsuit was filed by the watchdog group, American Oversight.
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