Here are excerpts from a September 24, 2020 Email written by Sen. Dick Durbin, in which he eloquently expresses today’s most serious healthcare problem:
On November 10, just one week after Election Day, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case in which the Trump Administration and Republicans are arguing that the Affordable Care Act should be struck down in its entirety.
If the Supreme Court does what the Trump Administration and Republicans are asking it to do, an estimated 20 million Americans would lose their health care coverage.
Millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions would lose protections that the Affordable Care Act grants them against discrimination by insurance companies.
Young adults up to age 26 would no longer be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance.
Medicare would face insolvency sooner, and seniors could be charged more for prescription drugs.
And hospitals, especially in rural areas, would see significant revenue and job losses.
At this moment, in the middle of a global health pandemic, it is almost unimaginable that Republicans are trying to wipe out the critical health care protections in the ACA. But that’s what they are fighting for in this case.
You can’t afford my treatment because you voted Republican?
President Trump and Senator McConnell are ignoring the voice of the American people and are trying to rush a nominee onto the Supreme Court before this critical case that will decide the future of Americans’ healthcare.
Considering all that is at stake, the American people’s voices should be heard and Justice Ginsburg’s last wish should be honored – no confirmation before inauguration.
In short, the healthcare problem is that a conservative Supreme Court, a Republican Congress, and a Republican President want to damage America’s already-shaky, expensive healthcare system.
The GOP’s purpose — their sole purpose — is to satisfy Trump’s maniacal urge to erase anything associated with Barack Obama.
Although Trump repeatedly has promised you a “better” program that will insure all Americans, in almost four years of his administration, no such plan even has been formulated or proposed, much less enacted. It’s all a Trump lie.
This is yet another example of how the GOP, the “party-of-the-rich,” attempts to make the rich richer by widening the wealth Gap between the rich and you.
The rich easily can afford to pay for their known and their unexpected healthcare costs, even without federal support.
Can you?
These are costs for the “average” person. If you have an impossible-to-predict health catastrophe, your healthcare spending may be far higher. Second, the above figures assume that healthcare costs in the future increase at the same rate as inflation. But in the last two decades, healthcare costs have increased twice as fast as inflation.
No longer will you have to worry about the potentially disastrous costs of healthcare. No longer will you have to worry about whether you will receive care at all.
Your doctor will be paid. Your hospital will be paid. And you will receive the same care as the rich receive.
The cost can be borne entirely by the U.S. federal government, which being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited financial ability to pay for anything, without levying taxes.
If you have logical concerns about your ability to qualify for, and fund, affordable healthcare, today and in the future, you now can do something about it: Vote the GOP out.
There was a time when the GOP cared about the poor and middle-income people. Today’s GOP is different. It has been taken over by the uncaring rich.
Even if your family and your friends always have voted Republican, even if, for whatever reason you hate Biden and the Democrats, there is a simple, smart financial choice available to you.
Make the wrong choice and you’ll be slapping your forehead for the rest of your life. You never will forgive yourself, and your kids never will forgive you.
Make the smart choice and you’ll be able to relax in confidence, knowing that all your, and your family’s known or unexpected healthcare costs will be paid for.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
Affordable housing laws are not a solution. They are not even a partial solution. They are, at best, tokenism. They are a symptom.
Some people want the federal government to treat symptoms rather than problems. So:
Local governments try to reduce street crime by hiring more police
Some economists want the government to reduce unemployment by creating make-work, WPA-style jobs
Some politicians try to increase affordable housing by passing Affordable Housing laws.
But street crime, unemployment, and lack of affordable housing are symptoms of a more fundamental problem. It is a problem that easily is cured, not with complex, convoluted laws and more government agencies.
The problem is: Lack of money.
We have discussed why street crime is merely a symptom of poverty. Areas with low, or non-existent poverty rates also have low or non-existent incidents of street crime. We have discussed why unemployment is not in itself a problem., Rather, unemployment is the face of a more fundamental problem: Lack of money.
Similarly, lack of affordable housing is a symptom of lack of money. (Those who have money never lack for affordable housing.)
On August 10, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Housing and Urban Development Act. The Act expanded funding for existing federal housing programs, provided rent subsidies for the elderly and disabled, assisted in the construction of more low-income housing, and provided funds for public works projects.
Four weeks later on September 9, 1965, President Johnson would go on to sign legislation that would establish the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a cabinet-level agency, to oversee the newly funded housing programs.
“Improving quality of life.” Public housing projects: Crime, drugs, gangs, misery.
President Johnson thought he was solving a problem — unaffordable housing — but since that wasn’t the real problem, his “solutions” accomplished very little, for very few, and had strong, negative implications.
Although Johnson didn’t create the first public housing projects, that basic philosophy has led to drugs, crime, gangs, and misery.
In essence, Johnson had prescribed aspirin for a brain tumor.
Public housingis a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local.
Social housing is any rental housing that may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Social housing is generally rationed through some form of means-testing or through administrative measures of housing need.
One can regard social housing as a potential remedy for housing inequality.
That is the common, though false, belief, that public or social housing is a potential remedy for housing inequality.
Here is the brief mission statement of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development:
“HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.
“HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination, and transform the way HUD does business.”
Sec. 1. This Act may be cited as the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act. Sec. 5. Findings. The legislature finds and declares that: (1) there exists a shortage of affordable, accessible, safe, and sanitary housing in the State; (2) it is imperative that action be taken to assure the availability of workforce and retirement housing; and (3) local governments in the State that do not have sufficient affordable housing are encouraged to assist in providing affordable housing opportunities to assure the health, safety, and welfare of all citizens of the State. Sec. 10. Purpose. The purpose of this Act is to encourage counties and municipalities to incorporate affordable housing within their housing stock sufficient to meet the needs of their county or community. Sec. 15. Definitions. As used in this Act: “Affordable housing” means housing that has a value or cost or rental amount that is within the means of a household that may occupy moderate-income or low-income housing. In the case of owner-occupied dwelling units, housing that is affordable means housing in which mortgage, amortization, taxes, insurance, and condominium or association fees, if any, constitute no more than 30% of the gross annual household income for a household of the size that may occupy the unit. In the case of dwelling units for rent, housing that is affordable means housing for which the rent and utilities constitute no more than 30% of the gross annual household income for a household of the size that may occupy the unit.
As laws are wont to do, this one goes on and on, in excruciating detail, about who, what, why, when, and how, all invented by politicians who are clueless about the needs of poor people
Worse yet, all laws are generalities, that do not take into consideration the massively different needs of massively different families. It is the ultimate expression of paternalism by uninformed leaders.
My village of Wilmette, IL provides one of many examples of how difficult (impossible?) it is to provide affordable housing through legislation.
Wilmette, IL. Population: 27,087 people, 9,742 households.
Median household income in Wilmette, IL is $148,678 (compared to about $62,000 for the U.S.)
The median home price in Wilmette is $702,660, Zillow)
(There are 2 Low-Income Apartment Communities In all of Wilmette) Gates Manor Apartments, 51 bedroom units. (Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance) Shore Line Place, 44 bedroom units. (Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly)
Out of 27 thousand people and nearly 10 thousand households, Wilmette has created 95 “affordable” apartments, of which half are for the elderly. Would anyone consider this a “solution to unaffordable housing”? A better description would be “tokenism.”
Wilmette primarily is composed of upscale, single-family housing. Yet, the political leaders of Wilmette felt a moral (legal?) obligation to provide affordable housing for poor people.
Clearly, the Wilmette government would not pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a decent Wilmette home to shelter a poor family.
Additionally, merely residing in Wilmette is costly. The school system is costly. Taxes are costly. Upkeep is costly. Even water is costly. So if poor families even were given free houses, they couldn’t support the ongoing costs.
The solution to housing unaffordability, indeed the solution to all unaffordability by the poor, is for the federal government to give people money. The Ten Steps to Prosperity (below) provides one set of solutions.
Rather than having politicians decide what universal percentage of household income counts as “affordable housing,” let each individual and each family make that decision. A 35-year-old man, with three children, surely will have different needs and make a different decision than a 55-year-old widow living alone.
Laws are expensive. At the local level, money spent to create and enforce laws does not benefit the populace. By contrast, federal spending costs people nothing, and it can solve the real problems facing the poor.
They are poor. They are short of money. The federal government has infinite money. The solution is clear. Help people improve their own lives by simply giving them money.
We should replace “affordable housing” laws with the Ten Steps to Prosperity.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
“Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”
It is said in many languages and by many cultures.
In answer to the question, “Who is Donald Trump”?, here are a few of Trump’s friends and associates:
Alexander Acosta: Resigned as U.S. Attorney amid scandal of non-prosecution deal for Jeffrey Epstein.
Steve Bannon: Charged with fraud against Republican donors
Rod Blagojevich: Found guilty of soliciting bribes to occupy a U.S. Senate seat
Michael Cohen:Pleaded guilty to making “hush money” payments to women Trump cheated with. Also, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.
Chris Collins: Pleaded guilty to securities fraud
Jeffrey Epstein: Accused of sex trafficking of underage girls
Michael Flynn: Pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI.
Rick Gates: Pleaded guilty of lying to Congress and conspiracy against the United States.
Duncan Hunter: Pleaded guilty to using campaign funds to pay personal expenses.
Bob Kraft: Soliciting for prostitution
Paul Manafort:Found guilty by a jury for bank and tax fraud. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering, witness tampering, and illegal lobbying.
George Nader: Found guilty of money laundering, lobbying violations and witness tampering. Found guilty of child pornography and transporting a minor for sex.
Timothy Nolan: Pleaded guilty to 19 counts of child sex trafficking and human trafficking;
George Papadopoulos:Pleaded guilty to lying to Congress
Sam Patten: Pleaded guilty to paying foreign money Trump’s inaugural committee
Tom Price:Resigned as head of HHS amid scandals over personal use of military planes
Scott Pruitt: Resigned as administrator of EPA amid scandals regarding excessive spending and conflicts of interest
Tony Salerno:Mobster frontman
Ralph Shortey: Convicted of solicitation of prostitution with a minor male.
Felix Slater: Russian American mobster, convicted of assault, fraud
Roger Stone:Convicted by jury trial of seven criminal counts of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of lying to Congress, plus witness tampering.
Salvatore Testa: Mobster hitman murdered by the mob
Alex van der Zwaan: Pleaded guilty of lying to investigators, violating foreign lobbying laws and evading taxes
In addition, there was:
Trump Foundation: Trump paid $2 million to settle charges of misusing foundation funds for his business/political purposes.
Trump University: Trump paid $25 million to settle two class actions alleging fraud.
Finally, there is ongoing nepotism and too many violations of the Hatch Act (outlaws political activity by civil service employees) to list.
Question: Which is the greater danger to America and your freedoms: Protesters against bigotry and police brutality, or a dictator aided by a brutal military?
Lest you believe that for some unknown reason, America is immune to the horrors of a dictatorship, that also is what Chileans believed.
Here is what happened in Chile
Themilitary dictatorship of Chilewas a right-wing authoritarian military regime that ruled Chile for seventeen years, between September 11, 1973 and March 11, 1990.
The coup was the result of multiple forces, including pressure from conservative and women’s groups, certain political parties, union strikes and other domestic unrest.
The dictatorship was established after the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a US-backed coup d’état on 11 September 1973.
During this time, the country was ruled by a military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. The military used the alleged breakdown of democracy and the economic crisis that took place during Allende’s presidency to justify its seizure of power.
The regime was characterized by the systematic suppression of political parties and the persecution of dissidents to an extent unprecedented in the history of Chile.
Overall, the regime left over 3,000 dead or missing, tortured tens of thousands of prisoners, and drove an estimated 200,000 Chileans into exile.
The Chilean dictatorship was at first supported by many Chileans — conservative groups, women’s groups, political parties, and domestic unrest. Only when they were trapped did they come to rue their support.
Keep all of the above in mind as you consider the situation in the U.S.:
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the conference call. Some of the people on the call reportedly were alarmed by the unusual suggestion of charging rioters with insurrection.
Barr also reportedly asked the Justice Department’s civil rights division whether Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan could be criminally charged for letting people establish a police-free protest zone in the city this summer. Durkan, a Democrat President Trump has criticized, called the suggestion of criminal charges “chilling” and an abuse of power.
Trump and Barr are avid defenders of the Constitution, so long as their support is limited to the current translation of the 2nd Amendment.
As for other parts of the Constitution, not so much. They want to prosecute protesters as traitors to America. The purpose: To chill all protests.
This makes Attorney General Barr, the purported defender of the Constitution, America’s biggest legal threat to our Constitutional rights.
The Provost Marshal of Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region looked for two things: a long-range acoustic device, a kind of sound cannon and a heat ray weapon).
There have been questions about whether the heat ray weapon worked, or should be deployed in the first place. It uses millimeter wave technology to essentially heat the skin of people targeted by its invisible ray.
The lead military police officer in the National Capital Region wrote the ADS device “can provide our troops a capacity they currently do not have, the ability to reach out and engage potential adversaries.”
Pentagon officials were reluctant to use the heat ray device in Iraq.
In late 2018, the Trump administration had weighed using the device on migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border — an idea shot down by Kirstjen Nielsen, then the Homeland Security secretary, citing humanitarian concerns.
Humanitarian concerns (i.e. political concerns) prevented Trump from using a cruel device on migrants, but then Trump’s administration considered using the same, inhumane device on American protesters.
“From my observation, those demonstrators — our fellow American citizens — were engaged in the peaceful expression of their First Amendment rights,” DeMarco said in his statement. “Yet they were subjected to an unprovoked escalation and excessive use of force.”
DeMarco’s account runs counter to the way Attorney General William Barr described the protesters in a June 7 CBS News interview.
“The Park Police was facing what they considered to be a very rowdy and non-compliant crowd,” he said during the interview. “And there were projectiles being hurled at the police.”
DeMarco: “I asked my Park Police liaison if tear gas would be used because I had observed tear gas canisters affixed to Park Police officers’ vests, and I knew that tear gas had been used against demonstrators the previous evening,” he said in the statement. “The Park Police liaison told me that tear gas would not be employed.”
“General Milley told me to ensure that National Guard personnel remained calm, adding that we were there to respect the demonstrators’ First Amendment rights.”
Peaceful protesters were violently cleared so Trump could have his picture taken holding a bible.
At approximately 6:30 p.m., Park Police, led by Civil Disturbance Units and horse-mounted officers, were joined by Secret Service and other law enforcement personnel as they began the clearing operation, DeMarco said.
“I heard explosions and saw smoke being used to disperse the protesters,” he said in his statement. “I could feel irritation in my eyes and nose and, based on my previous exposure to tear gas in my training at West Point and later in my Army training, I recognized that irritation as effects consistent with CS or ‘tear gas.’ Later that evening, I found spent tear gas canisters on the street nearby.”
“From my vantage point, I saw demonstrators scattering and fleeing as the Civil Disturbance Unit charged toward them; I observed people fall to the ground as some Civil Disturbance Unit membersused their shields offensively as weapons.“
“As I walked behind the Civil Disturbance Units pushing westward on H Street, I also observed unidentified law enforcement personnel behind our National Guardsmen using ‘paintball-like’ weapons to discharge what I later learned to be ‘pepper balls’ into the crowd, as demonstrators continued to retreat.”
At around 7:05 p.m, DeMarco said he saw Trump walking onto H Street from Lafayette Square, near St. John’s Church, accompanied by his security detail.
“Having served in a combat zone, and understanding how to assess threat environments, at no time did I feel threatened by the protesters or assess them to be violent,” DeMarco said in the statement.
“In addition, considering the principles of proportionality of force and the fundamental strategy of graduated responses specific to civil disturbance operations, it was my observation that the use of force against demonstrators in the clearing operation was an unnecessary escalation of the use of force.”
And all this — the tear gas, the use of shields offensively, the consideration of a heat ray weapon and a deafening-sounds weapon — all this were used against peaceful demonstrators, just so Donald Trump could have a photo-op holding a bible.
Now imagine what horrors might have been committed had the demonstrators really been a threat to anyone or had Trump’s mission been more vital to American security than a photo-op.
In Barr, Trump has quasi-legal support for the notion that the President of the United States is a supreme, king-like figure whose power cannot be questioned, and whose crimes cannot be punished.
Attorney General William Barr’s November 15 speech before the Federalist Society, delivered at its annualNational Lawyers Convention,received considerable attention.Barr attackedwhat he views as progressives’ unscrupulous and relentless attacks on President Trump and Senate Democrats’ “abuse of the advice-and-consent process.”
Ironies notwithstanding, the core analysis of his speech is a full-throated defense of the Unitary theory of executive power, which purports to be an Originalist view of the Founders’ intent.
This defense, however, reveals the two fundamental flaws of the Unitary view: first, that it is built on a fictional reading of constitutional design; and second, that its precepts attack the fundamental tenets of the checks and balances system that the Founders did create.
Barr’s speech begins with his complaint that presidential power has been weakened in recent decades by the “steady encroachment” of executive powers by the other branches.
No sane analysis of the Reagan era forward could buttress Barr’s ahistorical claim.
Barr claims that the Founders’ chief antagonist during the Revolutionary period was not the British monarchy but an overbearing Parliament. Had Barr bothered to consult the Declaration of Independence, he would have found the document to direct virtually all of its ire against “the present King of Great Britain.”
Barr dismisses the idea of inter-branch power-sharing as “mushy thinking.” Yet the essence of checks and balances is power-sharing.
Americans fought and died in the Revolutionary War to free us from the overbearing power of a king, which Barr now wishes to re-install. A “King Trump” would be just fine in Barr’s “unitary President” world.
Since Donald Trump took office as President of the United State he has consistently portrayed the media as a force for evil against him.
It began in his first press conference and has continued throughout. “Bashing media organizations may be Donald Trump’s most consistent hobby,” wrote The Economist.
President Trump has defined “fake news” as any report he deems unfavorable, political- and media-watchers say, and he has intensified the attacks throughout his term.
“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”
Much to the surprise, the regret, and the agony of their citizens, many democratic nations have become dictatorships. The reasons always are the same”
Dictators fear, then disparage, then discredit, then destroy the independent media. When the public sees and hears only the dictator’s side, public support is assured.
All dictatorships use the same excuses: National security and law-and-order. Any protest or disagreement with the dictator is considered treason and sedition (as Barr has proposed), to be punished in the most brutal way. They are arrested and even tortured and murdered
The dictator turns the military against the citizens. A military always does as ordered, even when the orders are immoral, unlawful and/or inhumane. Those few in the military who object are punished (See: Colonel Vindman)
Dictators demand absolute power. Attorney General Barr procured his job by writing a paper supporting the Unitary vision of the Presidency — complete and exclusive control over the Executive branch, foreign policy preeminence, and no sharing of powers among the branches.
“Would you like a Trump Tower, Moscow?”
Now, American elections approach — elections that Russia is attempting to turn toward Trump (just as the U.S. supported dictator Pinochet against Chile’s democratically elected Allende).
Trump and his minions continue their attempts to disenfranchise Democratic voters all over the country by gerrymandering, interfering with postal operations, the closing of polling places in Democratic areas, and other methods.
Trump already has said that if he loses, as President he will consider the election illegally “rigged,” and he has considered not abiding by the results.
Trump has installed Barr, to give a legal veneer to a dictatorship (i.e. the unitary President), but to “legally” punish all who oppose Trump.
Trump does not even attempt to hide his admiration for dictators Putin, Kim, Duterte, et al.
The vast majority of protests against bigotry and police brutality are peaceful. You wouldn’t know that if you listen to Trump.
He already is playing the “law-and-order” card with regard to protests. Violent Trump supporters — QAnon and white supremacists — have begun to infiltrate the otherwise peaceful protests to give Trump an excuse for a military response to Constitutionally protected demonstrations.
The citizens of formerly democratic nations — Germany, Cuba, Chile for example — believed “it couldn’t happen here.” Yet, much to their dismay, it happened with the support of those who valued the siren song of harsh rule by a strongman over democratic rule and justice for all.
In a democracy, the injustice done to you is an injustice done to me. Sadly, the bigots among us don’t subscribe to that decency. They fear and despise the elements of our society who are in various ways “different,” and welcome Trumpian harshness.
That polls that show Trump with more than 45% support indicates the tenuous grip we Americans have on our democracy. Nearly half of America supports the dictatorship of a psychopath.
In summary:
We have arrived at a tipping point in which one small event could turn America into a horrifying dictatorship, that could inflame the entire world for decades.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 